Prayer and Curse in Aeschylus’Seven Against Thebes

Abstract

peaking is dangerously performative in the world of Aeschylus. The prime example is Oresteia: Kassandra’s prophecies and visions of the curse in Agamemnon, the raising of the dead in Choephoroi, the Furies’ “Binding Song” in Eumenides . 1 Aeschylus’ earlier Seven against Thebes also pivots on performative speech. As Helen Bacon has pointed out, Eteokles reinterprets the Argive shield emblems in the central scene so as to turn their omens against the bearers of the shields. 2 But performative speech calls for attention from the beginning of the play, in ways that have not been recognized, in prayer and violation of prayer, in kl e d o n (speech as omen) and apotropaic prayer. Not only do Eteokles and the chorus both utter prayers, but Eteokles makes the efficacy of speech an issue by passing harsh judgment on the chorus’ language in the presence of the gods, while the chorus tries more meekly to correct or cancel his. Critics have not devoted enough effort to investigating what is at stake here. Most accept Eteokles’ view that the chorus is destroying the morale of Theban citizens with its hysterics—overreact though he may—and sympathize with his effort to silence it. 3 It is more fruitful, I think, to examine the performative speech of both parties, Eteokles and the chorus, in light of Greek rules and norms for well-omened speech. I argue that performative speech early in the play reveals the working of the curse and offers new insight into the central conundrum of the play, Eteokles’ sudden change of attitude when he hears that Polyneikes is at the seventh gate. First, a brief description of the first part of Seven and interpretive approaches to it. The scene on stage represents the acropolis of Thebes, on which stand statues of the Theban gods. Probably they included the full complement mentioned by the chorus in lines 109–52, namely, Zeus, Athena,