Prophecy and Tragedy *)

Abstract

In order to avoid any misunderstanding arising from the somewhat misleading title of this paper I may as well state at once that it is not my purpose to consider tragedy as a kind of prophecy or to represent the tragedians as a sort of prophets of their age. It is the much humbler subject of the function (or better functions) of prophetic utterances, oracles, prophetic dreams, premonitions and warnings in Greek tragedy I have in view. That is not to say that I am writing under the delusion that it would be possible to deal exhaustively?in a brief survey?with the many aspects and problems of this subject*). What I want to make clear is the eminent relevancy of these phenomena both to dramatic structure and to tragic meaning. When we are studying them in the body of Greek Tragedy it will be well to bear in mind the following general considerations, which may serve as preliminary remarks: i. It would be an understatement to claim that prophecy and its concomitants were important in Greek life of the classical period. In point of fact the latter was inextricably bound up with them. So their occurrence in drama, strange as it may sometimes seem to us, was taken as a matter of course by the audience and presumably not, in the first place, as a dramaturgic convention or means. 2. If it is right (as must be the case) that these phenomena are instrumental to the dramatic interpretation of myth or saga (which is tragedy), neither should it be forgotten that in a great number of