Dochmiac

Dochmiacs are the tragic metre above all. Every surviving tragedy has them, and their tone is always urgent or emotional.^[1] The dochmiac is the characteristic metre of tragic lyric, usually tied to fear, agitation or despair.^[2]

D’Angour goes further. Virtually all other metres can carry a range of feelings, but the dochmiac, for him, is tied always to agitation and distress. This suggests that it was sung at a lively tempo.^[3] Battezzato and Lourenço qualify this. In late Euripides dochmiacs can also express joy, as in the recognition scenes of Iphigenia among the Taurians 827–99, Ion 1439–1509 and Helen 627–97, where joy is mixed with fear or sorrow.^[2] There are examples in satyric drama and in Aristophanes, though at least some of them parody tragedy. Outside drama there are hardly any.^[4]

With iambics. Dochmiacs are closely associated with iambics. They often appear with trimeters, dimeters, lekythia and other iambic units, especially cretics and bacchei.^[1] West’s example is Cassandra’s exchange with the chorus in the Agamemnon, 1136–45. He analyses it as δ cr cr | δ δ ‖ 3ia ‖ 3ia ‖ (chorus) δ δ δ | cr cr ∧ia∧ ‖ δ 2cr ‖ δ δ δ |||.^[5] Two of Cassandra’s lines are trimeters. Here are a sung line and a spoken one, each divided into its metra:

West notes the Attic vocalisation of the trimeters (ἤγαγες, -μένην). He takes it as a hint that Cassandra drops for a moment into speech. One cretic is totally resolved (νόμον ἄνομον), which proves these to be genuine cretics rather than syncopated iambics.^[5]

Short sequences of cretics or bacchei occur here and there. So do dragged cretics, — ⏒ —, with the short replaced by a long: the cretic — ⏑ — then runs — — —. The combinations cr δ and δ cr (cr), and also ia δ and δ ia, are common. So are dimeters of the form ⏑ ⏖ ⏑ ⏖ ⏑ — ⏑ —.^[5] The rule in one line: a dochmiac passage borrows from the iambic family (cretics, bacchei, trimeters), and the cretics in it are often resolved. In Aeschylus’ iambic strophes a dochmiac colon is one of the variations of rhythm he often introduces in the penultimate verse.^[6] The only wholly cretic strophe in tragedy, Supp. 418–22 ~ 423–7, is followed by a strophe that starts in cretics and moves into dochmiacs.^[7]

With other cola. Less often anapaestic, dactylic or aeolic cola appear in dochmiac contexts. So does — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏒ —, which West takes to be the dochmiac form — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏒ — expanded by a dactyl. So does (⏑ ⏑ —) ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏒ —. In Euripides there is also an anapaestic metron or dimeter + an iambic colon (ia∧, ia, pe, lk, 2cr) (⏒ is West’s sign for a short that may be dragged).^[5] Lyric anapaests, for their part, admit non-anapaestic cola, dochmiacs above all.^[8]

Euripides. After the Andromache Euripides’ dochmiacs become predominantly astrophic. They appear in long arias and dialogues that are full of problems.^[5] Many of Euripides’ lyric dialogues, mostly astrophic, use dochmiacs for a character’s reaction to news, usually one of despair.^[9]

Two kinds of Euripidean song are built on dochmiacs. The first is the lyric duet between two actors, without the chorus. In eight such duets one character, usually a woman, sings, while the other, usually a man in a smaller part, answers in spoken trimeters. Examples are Hermione and the Nurse in the Andromache (825–865) and the recognition duets of the Ion (1439–1509), Iphigenia among the Taurians (827–899) and Helen (625–697).^[10] The second kind is a choral song made almost wholly of dochmiacs and iambics, sung at a moment of tension. Often a character is being killed offstage while it is sung. In Medea 1251–1292 the children are killed, and in Electra 1147–1171 Clytemnestra.^[11]

In these songs the aeolic metres never appear. A survey of all Euripides’ lyric finds that his aeolics and his dochmiacs exclude each other. Such a clean division is unusual in Greek song.^[12]

West’s example, chosen as a manageable one, is Orestes 140–52. Chorus and Electra are in hushed exchange beside the sleeping Orestes. There is a hypodochmius, then dochmii throughout, broken by one baccheus ⏒ — — at 145.^[5] His notes^[13] make three points. ἆ ἆ σῦ- in 145 responds with ὀλεῖς εἰ in 157 (158 in the Perseus text), which settles that it is a baccheus (ἆ ἆ could be ⏑ —, but the first position may be dragged). There is hiatus after the interjection ναί in 148. And the long runs of shorts in 149–51 are resolved dochmiacs, to be tested by counting off in eights. The same play supplies the papyrus of Orestes 338–45 with musical notation. Its points (stigmai) apparently mark a rising beat on the first and third of the five elements of the dochmius.^[14]

Dithyramb. In Timotheus’ Persae the predominantly iambic sections (ll. 1–126, 139–77) have cretic, dochmiac, dactylic, anapaestic and aeolic sequences here and there.^[15] The dochmiac is a metre typical of tragedy, but it was also used in lyric, as here by Timotheus.^[16]

Afterwards. Later, some forms of metre harden into set patterns. Others, dactylic lyric and dochmiacs among them, drop out of use. Outside drama dochmiacs recur only in the Grenfell Erotic Fragment, which West describes as a melodramatic Hellenistic aria.^[17] Lourenço sees in it a degenerate offshoot of the monodies of late Euripides.^[18] The text (P.Dryton 50) is full of dochmiacs, and it is the last place where they appear.^[19]

The first worked example, from the Seven against Thebes, was dochmiacs on their own. This one shows them in the company they usually keep. West uses the passage to make two points. Dochmiacs are closely tied to iambic units, above all cretics and bacchei. And they often stand beside spoken trimeters.^[1] The metre’s temper is agreed on all sides. It is the quintessential metre of dramatic lyric, expressing agitation and despair, and unknown outside drama. Its movement is rapid and slightly stuttering, for scenes of high excitement.^[2]

Cassandra, brought to Argos as Agamemnon’s captive, is in a lyric dialogue with the chorus. In each stanza she sings two lines and then speaks two trimeters, and the chorus answers in song. Such a mixture of song and spoken verse is called an epirrhematic dialogue. In Aeschylus no actor sings a monody on their own: Cassandra’s long lyric part belongs to an exchange with the chorus.^[3] The full passage is scanned syllable by syllable on the Aeschylus page.

The strophe (1136–1145)

Below each line are its quantities, with ¦ between the units, and in brackets West’s analysis.^[4] ⏖ is a long resolved into two shorts. West prints the chorus’s lines 1140–1141 and 1144–1145 as two rows each; they are joined here.

Reading it

The dochmii. The stanza has ten dochmii. Seven take the form ⏑ ⏖ — ⏑ —, one — ⏖ — ⏑ — (the second of 1144–1145, ἀμφιθαλῆ κακοῖς), and two the basic ⏑ — — ⏑ — (the last of 1140–1141 and of 1144–1145). These are exactly the forms West names as the commonest.^[5] In 1144–1145 the opening short of the second dochmius is filled by a long, σ’ ἀμ-. This is a drag. Metron-end and word-end coincide everywhere except in 1140–1141, where the second dochmius ends inside ἀμ|φί. In general they coincide more often than not.^[5]

The iambic units. There are three kinds of syncopated iambic metron: the cretic — ⏑ — (∧ia), the baccheus ⏑ — — (ia∧) and the spondee — — (∧ia∧).^[6] Here there are cretics after a dochmius in 1136 and in 1143, and the spondee ξουθά closes the period in 1142. Cretic and dochmius next to each other, in either order, are a common pairing.^[4]

Dale reads 1140–1141 a little differently. She takes them as three dochmii, the first two with their first long resolved. Then νόμον ἄνομον is a cretic with both longs resolved, an example of the resolved cretics she finds inserted in dochmiac passages.^[7] Lourenço, after Diggle, warns that in Euripides a lone cretic in the middle of a dochmiac run has no secure parallel. Iambic elements stand rather at the head of a sequence.^[8]

A cretic that proves itself. In 1142, νόμον ἄνομον, “a strain that is no strain”, scans ⏖ ⏑ ⏖: a cretic with both its longs resolved. West takes this total resolution as the sign that the cretics in this passage are genuine cretics and not syncopated iambics.^[4]

Trimeters and speech. Cassandra’s lines 1138–1139 are ordinary iambic trimeters with Attic vowels, ἤγαγες and ξυνθανουμένην. The sung lines have the long α of tragic lyric (ταλαίνας in 1136, αὑτᾶς in 1140). West reads this as a sign that she drops for a moment into speech.^[4] Tragic lyric has a Doric colouring, and Doric alpha is one of the features used to tell sung lines from spoken ones.^[9]

The opening cry. ἰὼ ἰώ fits the first dochmius only if the first ὼ is shortened before the second ἰ- (correption).^[10] Then ὼ ἰ- fill the resolved long. Hiatus around exclamations of this kind is admitted in tragedy.^[11]

The antistrophe (1146–1155)

West’s analysis is of the strophe only. But the antistrophe has the same form in every dochmius and every cretic. That is the usual exact responsion.^[5]

The only differences are in the anceps positions of Cassandra’s trimeters, where an iambic metron allows either quantity. In 1138 ~ 1148 the first and fifth positions differ (ποῖ, -ρο against θε-, τ’ αἰ-), and in 1139 ~ 1149 the first and ninth (οὐ-, -μέ- against ἐ-, -φή-).

Speakers and period-end. Cassandra has the first four lines and the chorus the last four in both stanzas. In drama period-end shows itself only now and then, through hiatus or brevis in longo.^[6] Here both appear. There is hiatus between ξουθὰ and ἀκόρετος (1142–1143). And 1149 ends with δορί, whose final ι is short, in the long last position of a trimeter. This is brevis in longo: a short syllable in a place where the rhythm expects a long.^[12] In the antistrophe, too, a sentence passes from song into speech. Cassandra’s sung lines on the nightingale run on into her spoken trimeter 1148.^[3]

Why dochmiacs here. The Greek name can be glossed “running askew”, and the metre is linked to fear and extreme emotion.^[13] The chorus answers Cassandra’s frenzy in it. The cretics and trimeters set the dochmii off. Every dochmius returns in the same form in the antistrophe, so the agitation is not formless but sung to a repeated tune.