lives like birds take wing, like sparks that fly when a fire soars, to the shore of the god of evening. The plague burns on, it is pitiless, though pallid children laden with death lie unwept in the stony ways, and old gray women by every path flock to the strand about the altars there to strike their breasts and cry worship of Phoibos in wailing prayers: be kind, God’s golden child! (Sophocles 11-12) In Thebes, both life-giving land and mothers suffer as crops and children alike wilt before their time. Men succumb to illness, numerous children lie dead in the streets, and old women resort to lamentation. The plague is described as “pitiless,” suggesting the arbitrariness with which it strikes: the illness does not afford anyone mercy. The choral passage does more than simply convey information or vividly describe suffering. It also functions as a traditional Greek lament, which was a tool utilized by groups lacking power, usually ancient women, in order to express not only grief, but also a need for change or action. The comparison between birds and lives is a common rhetorical feature of lamentation in Greek tragedies and epics. It is used recurringly to invoke a picture of doomed youth and beauty that recurs. Life is beautiful and limitless in freedom, yet fragile and easily struck down. While the lament conveyed the desperation and sorrow of Thebes’ fictitious citizenry, it also spoke to the desperation of Athenians during their plague. Oedipus Tyrannos expressed the collective suffering Athenians when they, if Thucydides bewilderment is to be taken as evidence, struggled: “Words indeed fail one when one tries to give a general picture of this disease; and as for the suffering of individuals, they seemed almost beyond the capacity of human nature to endure” (95). Where words fail, the theater stepped in. The plays of fifth-century Athens, performed at festivals that were central to the culture of the city, reflected the social and political challenges of their time. They provided a mechanism to confront sentiments and truths that might otherwise be too difficult to address. The performances ritually connected Athenian audiences to the dynamics on the stage, most explicitly through the device of the chorus. In Greek tragedy, the chorus served as an intermediary, bridging the gap between the action on stage and the audience. The chorus interacted with the characters on behalf of the audience within scenes. In fact, theater was so central to Athenian culture that many of its men would have participated in a chorus at some point in their lives. In other words, Athenian audiences readily identified themselves with the chorus. It was not a background ensemble but a focal point of any Greek tragedy. Therefore, audiences would have heard the first choral piece – performed by young Athenian men in military training – as an Athenian lamentation, as much a Theban one. Those Theban men dying of illness were also dying in Athens. The Theban streets filled with unmourned children also ran through Athens. 45
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