Tragic Laughter

Tragic Laughter Author(s): Matthew Dillon Source: The Classical World, Vol. 84, No. 5 (May - Jun., 1991), pp. 345-355 Published by: Classical Association of the Atlantic States Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4350851 Accessed: 01/10/2009 13:53 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=classaas. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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TRAGIC LAUGHTER There is nothing funny about laughterin Greek tragedy, as a study of gelos and its derivatives'in drama clearly shows. The bitter nature of this phenomenonhas not been misunderstood,for the evidence is decisive, but neither has it been studied in the detail accorded to its specific manifestationsin other authors.2In this article I shall attempt a more comprehensivesurvey of those passages where words for laughter occur in the texts of the three tragedians. Here, the data support even more strongly the conclusion that laughter has the "sinister, dark connotations" which Colakis found in Homer3: in approximately70 of the 80 extant examples from tragedy, laughter may be characterizedas malevolent in the extreme, and is equally prevalentas such in Aeschylus, Sophoclesand Euripides.4 "Is not the sweetest laughter to laugh at enemies?" Athena's chilling question, as she tries to elicit a laugh from a horrified Odysseus at the gruesome sight of a crazed Ajax (S. Aj. 79), is affirmatively answered in by far the largest category of examples (approx. 50), where the laughter involves outright mockery, and the relationshipbetween the mocker and the mocked is strictly hostile. Often the presenceof some form of the word echthros(enemy)in the immediatecontext explicitlysignals enmity, as at Ag. 1271, wherethe captive Cassandra sees herself ridiculed by enemies in the family 1 1 would like to thank the UCLA Classics Department for access to the TLG data bank, which greatly facilitated my research, and David Konstan and Gary Meltzer for their helpful comments. I am grateful as always for the generous assistance of my anonymous readers. The remaining flaws are of course my own responsibility. This paper was delivered in a different form at the 1987 Annual Meeting of the APA in New York. 2 T. G. Rosenmeyer offers brief remarks on divine laughter in tragedy in The Masks of Tragedy (New York 1971) 105-7; Bernard Knox examines laughter in Sophocles in The Heroic Temper (Berkeley 1964) 30f., 66, 69, 170, 175, and specifically in the Ajax in "The Ajax of Sophocles," HSCP 65 (1961) 1-37, reprinted in Word and Action: Essays on the Ancient Theater (Baltimore 1979) 125-60; cf. esp. 131f. Also, see W. B. Stanford, Sophocles' Ajax (New York 1963), esp. on vv. 79, 124, and 367. Greater attention has been paid to laughter in Homer and Herodotus: cf. L. Golden, "to gelolen in the Iliad," HSCP 93 (1990) 47-57; M. Colakis, "The Laughter of the Suitors in Odyssey 20," CW 79 (1986) 137-41; D. Levine, "Penelope's Laugh: Odyssey 18.163," AJP 104 (1983) 172-78; S. Flory, "Laughter, Tears and Wisdom in Herodotus," AJP 99 (1978) 145-53; and D. Lateiner, "No Laughing Matter: A Literary Tactic in Herodotus," TAPA 107 (1977) 173-82, who also comments on the derisive use of laughter in tragedy, 173f. Colakis (note 2, above) 139. i Interpretations of individual passages might differ, but the trend is not in doubt. For the record, I count 12 instances in Aeschylus, 29 in Sophocles, and 39 in Euripides. In order to take context adequately into account, I have excluded the fragments from this study. The consistency of the data is reinforced by another fact: despite the numerous compounds of the gel-root, tragic usage seems to make no essential distinction in meaning between geldn, katageldn, epengeldn, etc. For the sake of clarity, in the following translations, which are my own, I will use some variation of "laugh" to indicate the presence of a gel-word in Greek.

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circle; or Sophocles' El. 1153, when Electra, devastatedby the false report of Orestes' death, imagines "my enemies gloating with laughter, my mother crazed with delight"; and three times in Euripides' Med. (382, 797, 1049), when Medea's calculationsare influencedby the potential mockeryof her enemies. Of course the word echthrosis not needed when the hostility is patent: both Sophocles'Ajax and his Philoctetes fear nothing more than the laughterof Odysseusand the Atreidae(cf. Aj. 303, 382, 454; Phil. 258, 1023, 1125);Medea, again, dreadsthe laughterof Jason and his bride in three additionalpassages (404, 1355, 1362). The list could easily be multiplied. The source of this laughter lies in the other's afflictions; equally common in such contexts are various forms of the word kakos (evil, trouble, misfortune):e.g., Aeschylus' nurse representsClytemnestra suppressingher gleeful laugh at their utterly ruined household (Ch. 738), while Euripides' Cassandra takes a masochistic delight in laughing at her own misfortunes, according to the chorus in Tr. (406).5 Injury is also combined with insult: hybris words are associated with laughterin at least seven passagesof Sophocles, four times in the Ajax alone.6 Not surprisingly, revenge is often involved, explicitlyin Euripides'Ba. 1081, when Dionysusrousesthe Bacchaeto take revenge on Pentheus for laughing at them, and Aj. 303, where Ajax, still crazed, laughs loudly in triumphat how he has paid back Odysseusand the Atreidaefor their insult. Again, the exact words for revengeneed not be presentwhen the implicationsare clear enough;as in Aeschylus' Ag. 1264, when Cassandra sees that her hopeless situation is due to Apollo's mockeryof her for having rejectedhim as a lover. The association of laughter with violence culminatesin the Furies' grisly utteranceat Eum. 253: "The smell of humanbloodshed makes me laugh."7 Ridicule is not exclusively a function of hostility. One must also fear the laughter of family, friends and fellow citizens, if one has failed in some significantway. At the end of Sophocles' Oedipusthe King, Creon reassuresOedipus that he has not come to laugh at or rebukehim (1422), while Theseusin the Oedipusat Colonusregardsit as a point of honor to save Oedipus' kidnappeddaughters, lest he s Cf. also the contextsof Aesch. Cho. 222; Soph. Aj. 961, 1043, OT 1422, El. 880, Phil. 1023; Eur. Heracl. 507, HF 285. This phenomenon of Schadenfreude need not

involve laughter,to which I have limited the presentinquiry.But words derivedfrom roots denotingpleasure(e.g., h&eone,chair6, gethe6, etc.) also quite frequentlyexpress similar emotions concerningmisfortunes(especiallyof enemies) in tragedy, either in combinationwith gel-words(e.g., Soph. El. 1153, 1299f.;Ph. 1020ff.)or by themselves: cf. esp. Aesch. Pers. 1034, Supp. 1006ff., Pr. 156ff., 758; Eur. Med. 136f., Heracl.

939f. 6 Some form of hybriscan be found within two lines of Aj. 303, 367, 957, 969; El. 880; Ant. 483, 839; to which perhapscould be addedEl. 277 (hybrin271). 7 The phraseme prosgelaiis so construedalso by H. WeirSmythin the Loeb edition; otherwise"smilesat me." Just as horrible,thoughwith a differentforce, is the laughter of 3ur. Tr. 1176, as Hecubadescribesthe maimedbody of Astyanax:"Murderlaughs from his brokenbones."

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become a laughingstock in the eyes of Oedipus, his guest-friend(902); similarly,at the end of the Oresteia,the Furiestwice expresstheir fear of losing power and so appearingridiculousto the Athenian citizens, to whom they feel responsible (Eum. 789, 819). In the Bacchae, Dionysus savors the spectacleof a transvestitePentheuslaughedat by his fellow Thebans(Ba. 854). Clearly what is at stake here is loss of face, fear of which is operative on every level of society, but is obviously felt more keenly vis-a-vis a close friend or family member, whose respect must be maintained, or else an enemy, to whom one must demonstrateone's superiority.In this latter case, the intenselycompetitivenature of the Greeks, their obsession with victory,8 magnifies the consequencesof defeat to the point of utter humiliation, and the ultimate weapon is laughter.The resultingdishonor is to be feared as a greaterevil than death itself, according to Megara in Euripides' Heracles (285); one could compareOrestes'desireto die anonymously(surelya disgracein itself) among the Taurians,ratherthan reveal his name and become a target of everlasting scorn (IT 502), or Ajax's decision to commit suicide ratherthan face humiliation.And I believe it is no coincidence that the Ajax, whose hero embodies the most uncompromising standardsof the heroic honor code, has by far the most referencesto laughter in all of Sophocles' plays (11 out of 29 instances), for laughter representsthe greatest threat to that honor. On the other hand, within one's own group of philoi (family, friends and fellow citizens), laughterprovides a negative stimulus to live up to expectations created, for example, by birth (both Medea [4041and Macaria, Heracles'daughter[Heracl. 5071,contrasttheir proud lineage with the derisivelaughterto which they will now be subjected;conversely,Ion cringes at the thought of being scorned by the nobles for his humble birth, Ion 600), or by status, a concernof Creon in the Antigone, who is outragedat being mocked by a woman (483), or, in a widercontext, by a sense of duty (so Theseusabove in the Oedipusat Colonus;also, Menelaus argues for Iphigeneia'ssacrifice by appealingto Agamemnon's sense of patriotism, lest barbarianslaugh at Greeks, IA 372). 8 This aspect of Greek character(cf., for example, Thucydides'comments on the Athenians'philonikia: 7. 28. 3) seems pervasiveenough to justify A. W. Gouldner's interpretationof Greeksociety as a "contest system," which "approximatesa zero-sum game in that someone can win only if someone else loses": Enter Plato: Classical Greeceand the Originsof Social Theory(New York 1965)41ff.; quotation,p. 49. That victory must come at another's expense deserves special emphasis in this context. Anthropologistsoffer some interestingparallels:Ruth Benedict,for example,describes the indigenous tribes of the Northwest Coast of America, whose behavior "was dominatedat everypoint by the need to demonstratethe greatnessof the individualand the inferiorityof his rivals. It was carriedout with uncensoredself-gloriflcationand with gibes and insultspouredupon the opponents.. . . [They]stressedequallythe fear of ridicule, and the interpretationof experiencein terms of insults. They recognized only one gamutof emotion, that whichswingsbetweenvictoryand shame":Patternsof Culture (Boston 1934) 214f. Harsh and primitive as this sounds, it seems to me remarkablyclose to the moralityexpressedin Greektragedy.

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The phrase "shame culture" has been used by E. R. Dodds9 to describe the externallyoriented society of archaic Greece, where the sense of one's own worth was largely dependent on how one was perceivedby others, to which he contrasts the more internal "guilt culture" of the ClassicalAge. More recentauthorshave found Dodds' schematoo simplistic;they recognizethat shame, no less than guilt, is an internalizedresponse to a departurefrom ethical standards,and that both may be operativesimultaneouslyin the same cultureand in the same person.'0Yet some distinctionshould be maintained,and the external/internalantithesis does have some validity: shame depends upon the awarenessof others; for guilt, self-awarenesssuffices." Since laughter necessarilyinvolves at least one other, it follows that acute sensitivity to laughter can indeed be seen as characteristicof a "shame-ethic,"and it is certainlyclear that this shame ethic remains powerfulin tragedythroughoutthe course of the fifth century. Another factor which coincides with the malevolence of tragic laughteris the relative infrequencywith which it actually occurs, for another remarkablyconsistent feature of laughter in tragedy is the extent to which it is not real, but anticipated,or rather,dreaded.This again emphasizesits role as an ethical sanction controllingbehavior. Its power is such that while many fear its use hypothetically,few truly employ it, and then often in contexts of hybris or madness. Such usage is typical in Homer and Herodotus, as scholarshave shown, but with a significantdifference: in both these authors, the subjectsdo in fact laugh.'2 By contrast, in tragedy, the active laughteris a rarity;it 9 The Greeks and the Irrational(Berkeley 1951) Ch. 2: "From Shame Culture to Guilt Culture." 10 BennettSimon, in Mind and Madnessin Ancient Greece: The ClassicalRoots of ModernPsychiatry(Cornell1978),goes farthestin rejectingthe guilt/shameschema;cf. esp. 86 and 298 n. 36. Gouldner(note 8) 82ff. is more balanced;see also next note. H. Lloyd-Jones, The Justice of Zeus (Berkeley 1971) 2Sf., stresses the interrelationof shame and guilt, and rightly insists that "in generalGreek culturecontinuedto be a shame-cultureuntil well after the fifth century"(26). See also A. W. H. Adkins,Merit and Responsibility: A Study in Greek Values (Oxford 1960), esp. 154ff.; and K. J. Dover, Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle (Berkeley 1974), esp. 226-42. " This is best articulated by Gouldner (note 8) 83f.: "The basic difference between

shame and guilt culturesis the agent or the locus of reproach.In shame culturesthe reproachfulparty is some person other than the reproached;in guilt culturesreproach comes essentiallyfrom the self, so that the reproacherand the reproachedare one and In a guilt culture, persons are committed to the norms regardless the same person.... of the public visibility of their own behavior and the sanctions of others-regardless, in

short, of the personalconsequencesof conformityor nonconformitywith groupnorms. In a shame culture, a person's commitments to group norms are affected by the visibility of their behavior, by the presence or absence of others, and by the expected

responseof others to conformityor nonconformitywith these norms." I disagreeonly, again, with the apparentlyrigid separationinto two differentcultures;for this reasonI preferthe terms"shameethic" and "guilt ethic" whichmay coexistin the samesociety. 12 Cf. Colakis, Lateinerand Flory (note 2, above). The suitors, for example,laugh maniacally for no apparent reason in Book 20 of the Odyssey. Similarly, in Herodotus

3, the frequentlaughterof Cambysesis "clearlypart of the megalomaniacsyndrome"

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is rather the potential victim's perspectivethat is portrayed.Significantly, in approximately30 instances in tragedy (nearly 40%oof the total), the laughter is perceived as being directed at the speaker. Clearlythis representsa defensiveresponseconditionedby the cultural values we have seen, but then a further question of character interpretationarises; if no one actually is laughing, is this fear of mockery justified, or does it indicate some sort of delusion? It is interestingthat Electrais depictedas quick to suspectderisionin both Aeschylus and Sophocles, but she is incorrectat least twice. In Cho. 222, she cannot bring herself to believe that the stranger is really Orestes, and fears that he is laughing at her in her misfortune; interestingly,this phraseis repeatedalmost verbatimin Soph. El. 880, where Electra now accuses her sister Chrysothemisof mocking her in misfortune,and for the identicalreason: Chrysothemishas announced that Oresteshas returned,and Electradoes not yet dare to believe it." No such question arises in Sophocles' Philoctetes, when the hero cringesat the potentialjeering of the Atreidaeand Odysseus,to whom he cries (1021ff.): "I'm tortured by the thought of living in misery, laughed at by you and those sons of Atreus you serve." In this case, we can hardly blame him, since the Greek leaders, particularly Odysseus, remain hostile to Philoctetes. But surely in the Ajax, Ajax fails to make a crucial distinctionwhen, as he does more than once, he imagines the Greeks mocking him in unison, even as he had mocked them in his madness (303). Now he expects no less from them, and especiallyfrom Odysseus: "Son of Laertes,contriverof all evils, foulest rogue of the army, you must be laughing loud with pleasure now!" (379ff.). But of course he is wrong: Menelaus does indeed gloat once Ajax is safely dead, but this Odysseus, a very different character from the glib sophist of the Philoctetes, shows himself from the very start to be above such a reaction: in justly famous lines (120ff.) he resistsAthena's malicioustemptationto laugh at the hero's disgrace: "But I pity this poor man now, for all he was my enemy, since he's been broken by this evil fit. As I look upon him now, I see no more than my own lot; I see that we are nothing but phantomsin this life, or insubstantialshadow." This sensitivityto the (Lateiner, 178f.). Tragic laughter is associated with madness at Eur. HF 935 and Soph. Aj. 956; in fact, "the laughter of Ajax" became proverbial for insane laughter: cf. Gustav Grossman, "Das Lachen des Aias," MH 25 (1968), 65-85. 13 A more difficult question arises in a puzzling passage from the Antigone. When Antigone, now doomed to die, compares herself to the grieving Niobe, the chorus offers words of seeming consolation (834ff.): "Yet she a goddess was and born of god, but we are mortals and are born to die. Still, as you waste away, there is great fame to share a common lot with gods in life and then in death." To this rather conventional bit of choral wisdom, Antigone reacts violently: "Ah! I'm laughed at? By the god of our fathers, why do you insult me so, to my face, and not waiting till I'm gone?" (839ff.). Surely the chorus intended no ridicule. Antigone's outburst might be meant to show her intense isolation, since she now apparently considers the whole world her enemy; or else her hypersensitivity to even the slightest implication of criticism: we recall her hasty and extreme rejection of the well-meaning Ismene earlier in the play (69ff.).

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common bond of humanitythat transcendsthe conventionaldivision between enemies sets a higher ethical standard even than the gods do: Athena's vindictiveness("Is not the sweetestlaughterto laugh at enemies?")seems excessiveand brutalin comparison,'4and Menelaus' jibes petty and pusillanimous,as the chorus remarkson his entrance (1042f.): "I see the enemy; perhaps he's coming to laugh at our misfortunes,as a villain would." Powerful as it is, this compassionate message remainsisolated; in no other play is the right to mock one's enemy so radicallyquestioned.'5At most, such harshnessis mitigated only by occasional hints of disapprovalof Schadenfreude(cf. Eur. Hipp. 1000, Hec. 1236f., Ba. 1033ff.). In a wider context, one could also cite Odysseus' reproach of Eurycleia's exulting over the dead suitors (Od. 22, 411ff.), and the dictum of Democritus, frg. 107a: "Humansshould not laugh, but grieve, at humanmisfortunes." But even Plato fell short of condemning such behavior (see n. 24 below). Of course, tragedydoes not endorse Schadenfreude,it merely exploits it ruthlesslyas a bitter fact of life. Besides Ajax and perhapsElectra, only two other tragic figuresare so highly characterizedby their attitudestoward laughter:Medea and Pentheus. With a ferocity unmatchedeven by Ajax, Medea dreadsthe mockeryof her enemies,especiallyJason and his bride;this concernis expressedno fewer than six times,'6 an unprecedentednumberfor a single character. Whether Jason actually would so gloat is again a matter of interpretation,but Medea's obsession with the possibility providesan importantmotivationfor killing her children,just when it seemed she could not go through with it (1049ff.): "But if I harm these boys to spite their father, why must I suffer twice as much? I won't. Plans, farewell!- But what's happeningto me? Do I want to be a laughing stock and let my enemies go unpunished?I must dare it!" The hold this has on her is driven home in her stichomythywith Jason after the murder: "After dishonoring my bed, you weren't going to spend a pleasantlife, laughingat me!" (1354f.). To Jason's protest: "But you suffer too, you share in this disaster", Medea speaks what Albin Lesky calls "her most dreadful line"'7: "You're right. But the pain is profit, so long as you can't laugh" (1361f.). The fear of ridicule, it seems, is directlyproportionalto one's capacityfor hatred. 14 Here I would disagree with Knox ("Ajax", note 2, above) 132, who asserts that "this does not constitute. . .a criticism of Athena." Surely Odysseus is the nobler for resisting the temptation to mock Ajax. Cf. also the excellent remarks of W. B. Stanford (note 2, above). " Rather, such behavior simply reinforces the traditional precept to "harm one's enemies." For a full treatment of this ethic in Sophocles, see M. Blundell's Helping

Friends and HarmingEnemies:A Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics (Cambridge 1989) passim, esp. 62ff. on mockery in the Ajax. 16 383, 404, 797, 1049, 1355, 1362. '" Greek Tragic Poetry, transl. M. Dillon (New Haven 1983) 225.

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Pentheus, on the other hand, is unique in that, while the typical tragic characterfears scorn, he dispensesitI8; not only at Teiresiasand Cadmus (250, 322), the aged Thebans who might indeed appear ridiculousdressedas maenads,but also at the story of Dionysus' birth (286), at his divine rites and celebrants(1081), and even at the god himself (272, 1081). His readiness to use laughter offensively (five instances is an unparalleledfrequency),to assume a superior stance, sets him up for a fall, which comes appropriatelyat the hands of a god who himself is described as "smiling" during his sacrilegious arrest (439) and is urged on to the human hunt, ironically, with a "smilingvisage" (1021).29 Different sorts of irony underliewhat might appear on the surface to be examplesof perfectlyinnocent laughter,but which are undercut by the context, or our superiorknowledge.Not surprisingly,Euripides seems to specialize in this type. Thus in the Bacchae, the chorus' description of the joys of Dionysus' cult (dancing, laughter and flute-playing,the freedom from cares, 378ff.) contrasts sharply with the grimmerconnotationsof laughterin that play. So too in the Ion. Creusaenlists an elderly agent to eliminateIon. The old man raises a great laugh at a banquet (ostensibly a merry occasion), the better to cover the poison he drops in Ion's cup (1171ff.). And in the Medea, Medea's children smile uncomprehendingly(1041) as she deliberates whetherto kill them; their laughteris innocent, but the effect, as we in the audience perceive, is jarring. A similar contrast is achieved as Cassandra calls for her mother's laughter to accompany her "wedding" (Tr. 331; the text is problematichere), and when Jason's bride laughsgaily at her image in the mirror,just before the fatal robe burns her to death (1162). Are there no examples, then, of purely innocent laughter?A case could be made for about a half-dozen scattered references,20not nearly enough to counteract the mirthless impression of the vast majority. Aeschylus' Prometheus invokes the laughing waves to witness his suffering (Pr. 90), but even here the contrast in mood is stark, and of course the laughteris non-human.The same is true of two instances in late Euripideanchoral odes: Zeus laughs at baby Apollo's request for help in IT (1274), and Demeter laughed at the gift of music to allay her grief at the loss of her daughterPersephone (Hel. 1349). This last passage reminds us that in Greek society at large, laughter was indeed multivalent. Scornful and negative to be sure, but it could also be therapeutic,as in Demeter'scult: we recall 18 That is, he appearsas the subjectof an active verb of laughing;here and elsewhere it is impossibleto say whetherthe laughingactuallyoccurredon stage, and this would also undoubtedlyvary with each production. '9 On this last passage(which, along with 439, may providea clue to the appearance of the god's mask), see esp. Rosenmeyer(note 2, above) 105f. Thereare in all 10 gelos wordsin the Bacchae,the most in any Euripideanplay. 20 Besidesthose cited immediatelybelow, Soph. Aj. 1011;Eur. Aic. 804 also seem to me referencesto benignor comic laughter.

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the more traditionalstory of how lambe's jokes finally broke through the goddess' gloom (Hymn to Demeter, 200ff.). Laughter'slighterside is abundantlyevident in comedy: Aristophanesnaturallyhas a great numberof gelos words, but despite his reputationfor devastatingwit, derisive referencesare much more evenly balancedby a nearly equal number of contexts where the laughter results from positive sources like festivals, banquets, drinking-bouts, love-making and all the blessingsof peace.21 Of course, these are the proper subjectsof comedy, and one could not reasonablyexpect their presencein tragedy. Yet tragedy is large enough to encompass a wide range of moods. Comic relief is a recognizedfeature of Shakespeareantragedy,and BerndSeidensticker has studied numerousscenes in Greektragedy,especiallyEuripides,in which he claims to find comic elements.22After all, a number of Euripides'later plays seem to us to be tragediesin name only, and might as well be described as Romantic comedies. However, it is significant that the so-called "comic" passages discussed by Seidensticker are almost totally exclusive of those I have been studying, in which the actual words for laughterappear.23The audiencemay find these scenes amusing, but the characters apparently do not. To repeat: there is nothing funny about laughterin Greek tragedy;there is no play, wit or humor involved, for the stimuli are not words or actions amusing in themselves, but only the pain and humiliationof someone who is, or feels him- or herself to be, despised. Thus even the word "comic" seems totally out of place in this context, hence the title of this study: I am arguing that this sort of laughter, tragic

laughter, is genericallydifferent from the laughterof comedy, if for no other reason than that it is devoid of humor, at least as we commonly understandthe term. Can we account for this peculiarly negative insistence? Ancient theorists on laughter did not really come to grips with the problem: Plato's Philebus contains a very interestingdiscussion of malicious laughter, but from a limited viewpoint that specificallyexcludes our type24,while Aristotle'sdefinition of "the laughable"in his Poetics is 21 Cf. e.g, Pax 335f., 339ff., 600; Av. 730ff., 977ff. for instances of joyous laughter. I count roughly 26 examples of positive, 29 of derisive laughter in Aristophanes' eleven extant plays. 22

Palintonos Harmonia:Studien zu komischenElementenin der griechischenTra-

godie, Hypomnemata 72 (Gottingen 1982). Ann Michelini also has a useful discussion of

this aspect of Euripideantragedy in Euripidesand the Tragic Tradition(Wisconsin 1987); cf. esp. 66f., 183f. Related issues in epic have recently been studied by Gary Meltzer, "The Role of Comic Perspectives in Shaping Homer's Tragic Vision," CW 83 (1990) 265-80. 23 The major exception to this is the scene where Teiresias and Cadmus are dressed as maenads (Ba. 170ff.), inviting Pentheus' scorn. Cf. Seidensticker (note 22, above) 116ff. 24 Phlb. 48a-50e. True, Socrates is interested in situations when one feels spiteful pleasure (phthonos) at another's misfortunes. This seems very promising, but he is referring specifically to comedy, and the larger issue is an examination of "mixed emotions", involving the simultaneous but contradictory feelings of pleasure and pain.

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tailored to fit his particularconception of comedy, and so likewise proves irrelevantto the natureof tragic laughter.25In the modernera, philosophers, literary critics, psychologistsand behavioristshave, of course, made numerous attempts to analyze the manifold nature of laughter.26To summarizetheir findings would far surpassthe bounds of this paper, but an eclectic samplingof two or three theories which seem relevant to our specific problem will, I hope, pique further interestin this fascinatingand complex area of study. The "superiority"theory is one of the best known and most easily grasped. It probably derives ultimately from Plato,27but its essence has never been more succinctlycapturedthan in an oft-quotedpassage from Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan(Part 1, ch. 6): "Sudden Glory, is the passion which maketh those Grimacescalled LAUGHTER;and is caused either by some sudden act of their own, that pleaseththem; or by the apprehensionof some deformedthing in another, by compariHe proceedsto narrowthe relevantsituationsonly to those cases where one feels this maliceat the misfortunesof neighborsor friends (t6n pelas, 48b; t6n philon, 49d). The dialogue makes this absoluteexplicit: "Then," says Socrates, "it is neitherunjust nor malicious to delight (chairein) in the misfortunes of one's enemies, I presume?" "Certainlynot," answersProtarchuswithouthesitation(49d), and the discussionwastes no more time on this obvious point. Furthermore,what we are supposed to find laughablein our friends is some sort of deficiencyof self-knowledge-an interesting theory in itself, but not very relevant to situations of tragic Schadenfreude,except perhapsfor Eur. Hipp. 1000, whereHippolytusproudlyclaims not to be the sort who "laughsat his companions."For an exhaustivediscussionof this and relatedtopics, see M. Mader,Das Problemdes Lachensund der Komodiebei Platon, TubingerBeitrage zur Altertumswissenschaft 47 (Stuttgart1977),esp. 13-28. 1449a34ff.:"Comedy is, as we have said, the imitation of inferiors, not 2S po. howeverwith respectto all badness, but the laughable(to geloion) is a species of the ugly and base. For the laughableis some error and disgracewithout pain, and not destructive,such as, for example, the laughablemask [used in comedy] is ugly and distortedwithoutpain." The focus on inferioritycould be useful, but by proceedingto limit laughter'slegitimatetargets to faults which are neither painful nor destructive, Aristotle was clearly rejecting the abusive nature of Old Comedy, and presumably preferreda more refined sort that steers the middle course of true wit (eutrapelia) betweenboorishnessand buffoonery(cf. EN 2.7). But by arbitrarilylesseninglaughter's sting, he rejects the type we are investigating.Hence almost none of the instancesof gelos wordsin tragedywould come underhis rubricof to geloion. Of courseAristotle's full discussionof comedyis lost, but if his theoriesare at all reflectedin the Tractatus Coislinianus of perhapsa thousandyears later, we are still no closer to the crux of the matter, since the subject is still exclusivelycomic poetry. Hence its discussionof the sources of laughter in words and actions (V-VI) deals with situations that are not analogousto those under review in tragedy.The fullest discussionof the Tractatusis now Richard Janko's Aristotle on Comedy: Towards a Reconstruction of Poetics II

(Berkeley1984). 26 The flood really begins in the twentiethcentury, with Henri Bergson'sLe Rire (1900), though this treatise does not explore the darker side of laughter. The bibliographyis now enormous, but extensivelistings, along with useful overviewsof comic theories,are providedby Mader(note 24, above) 82ff.; N. Holland, Laughing:A Psychologyof Humor(Ithaca 1982);M. L. Apte, Humorand Laughter:An AnthropologicalApproach(Ithaca 1985);cf. also J. E. Evans, Comedy:An AnnotatedBibliography of Theory and Criticism (New Jersey 1987), esp. 335-51 on laughter. 27

See note 24, above.

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son whereof they suddenly applaud themselves." This describesthe limited range of our data very well, albeit from the perspectiveof the actual scoffer, the Pentheus type, whereas we have seen that the majority of our passages portrayedrather the potential fears of the victim. More recently, Sigmund Freud further developed the thesis of superiorityby claiming that laughter was based on the assertion of primal instincts, specifically sexuality and aggression.28Although concernedprimarilywith joking laughter, his theory providesinsight into our questionmostly by way of contrast.Jokes, in his view, served as a mechanism for overcoming the inhibitions restraining these elementaldrives: "[Jokes] make possiblethe satisfactionof an instinct (whetherlustful or hostile) in the face of an obstacle that stands in its way. They circumventthis obstacle and in that way draw pleasure from a source which the obstacle had made inaccessible."29The joke, in other words, deflects and releases the tension in a socially acceptablemanner;it serves, one might say, as a civilizinginfluence, at least compared to the direct expression of such instincts. By contrast, tragic laughterhas no such outlet; it is aimed directlyat its victim, with no joke to serve as a mitigating factor. If, in Freud's view, jokes represent a secondary level of dealing with primal instincts, then tragic laughterremainsdistinctlyon the primarylevel. Perhapswe can go even deeper. Ethologistshave called attentionto behavioralpatternsin certain animals which have been recognizedas analogous to laughter in humans. Konrad Lorenz saw the origins of laughter in "the ritualizationof a redirectedthreateningmovement" which was intended simultaneouslyto discourageoutsidersand bond with the group.30A family tree of laughteramong primateshas been reconstructedin an influentialarticle by J. van Hoof.3' He begins by citing some other interestingtheories on the evolution of laughterin primitivehumans "as a vocal signal to other membersof the group that they might relax with safety after some danger has passed. . .It might stem. . .from the savage shout of triumph and the cruel mockery over a conquered enemy."32 His own research posits a developmentbetween two separate primate displays, the bared-teeth expression ("grin-face", supposedly the source of smiling) and the relaxedopen-mouthexpression("play-face", supposedlythe sourceof laughter). The former is manifestedwhen the animals are subject to some strong threat, and, he claims, is one of the oldest facial 28 Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, trans. J. Strachey (New York 1960); cf. esp. 102f., 133, 145ff., 189, 195ff. 29 Freud (see previous note) 101. 30 On Aggression, trans. M. Wilson (New York 1963) 293. 31 "A Comparative Approach to the Phylogeny of Laughter and Smiling", in Non- Verbal Communication, ed. R. A. Hinde (Cambridge 1972) 209-41. For a review of physiological theories on the evolution of laughter, including van Hoof's, see Apte (note 26, above) 240-50. 32 van Hoof (note 31, above) 211.

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expressions.The latter often accompaniesmock fighting. Accordingto van Hoof, both displays, particularlythe grin face, have evolved into signals of submission and non-hostility,33and, though originally separate, have become intermingled in the development of homo sapiens.

I have cited this ethological material to call attention to scholarly work outside our field which may have a bearing on the overwhelmingly hostile and primitivenature of tragic laughter, which strikes us as so uncivilized.That some sort of primal aggressionlies at its root can scarcely be denied. But few would also deny that true laughter, whateverits origins, is an exclusivelyhuman phenomenon,and must ultimatelybe accountedfor in human terms. Just what those human terms are which account for tragic laughter must be sought furtherin the context of Greekart and morality,and I can do no more now than emphasizeonce again the two points which seem to me most in need of explanation.First, given the varietiesof laughter known to the Greeks, given the differences among the tragediansthemselves, and the considerabledevelopmentin the form and outlook of tragedy from 472 to 405 B.C., is it not curious that tragedy insists from beginning to end on purely negative laughter? After all, it is not often that Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides presenta united front on any issue. And secondly, why is this terrible laughter so often feared and so rarely vented? As to the first point, perhaps, as a genre, tragedyhad a deeply conservativerespect for the traditional honor code. It is certainly suggestive that Homer and Herodotus, whose outlooks may be termed archaic, also seem to regardlaughteras somehow uncanny. In any case, laughterseems to have remainedan unquestionedsanctionagainstshamefulbehaviorfar into the fifth century, when the efficacy of other traditional curbs, like religionand the laws, was more open to doubt. As for the second question, perhapstragedyis simply more concernedto portrayhuman vulnerabilitythan human power, and so is naturallymore interestedin the victim than the victor. Certainlythe fragility of the soul is never more painfullyevident than when it is subjectedto mocking laughter, as even any child knows. This combination of a particularcultural ethos with a universalpathos is typical of Athenian tragedy, which is at once so intenselyGreek and so fundamentallyhuman. Loyola Marymount University CW 84.5 (1991)

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33 Van Hoof does not, to my mind, sufficiently explain the ambivalence of laughter as both an offensive and a defensive weapon. For my purposes I would emphasize only that laughter is a primal mode of expression that may have originated in situations of conflict and aggression.