IV. SIGMATISM IN GREEK DRAMATIC POETRY. Euripides' excessive use of the letter sigma attracted the attention of the comic poets of Athens and has continued to be the subject of comment in nearly all annotated editions of his plays. Plato, the comic poet, Heortae, frag. 7, Meineke: εὐ γέ σοι γένοιθ, ἡμᾶς ὅτι ἔσωσας ἐκ τῶν σῖγμα τῶν Εὐριπίδου, Eubulus, Dionysius, fragmenta 2 and 3: Εὐριπίδου δ' ἔσωσας ὡς ἰσασί σοι, Παρθενεύσεις ἕξεις μοι χάριν, καὶ τοῖς ἐμοῖσιν ἐγγελῶσι πήμασιν Eustathius to the Iliad 896, 56: καὶ ἡ κωμῳδία μετὰ τὴν εὕρεσιν τῆς χρήσεως τοῦ ἢ ἀντὶ τοῦ ὁ ἐπισημαίνεται χαίρειν ὡς ἀπαλλαγεῖσα τῶν σιγμάτων Εὐριπίδου. To the Iliad 1170, 54: ὁ φιλοσίγματος Εὐριπίδης κόσσαβον ἐν δυσὶ σσ γράφει, ὅτι δὲ τῳ σ έχαιρεν Ευριπίδης. and to the Odyssey 1379, 58: ὁ τοῦ σῖγμα ἦχος λυπεῖ ὡς ἐν τῷ ἔσωσά σ' ὡς ἴσασι καὶ ἑξῆς τὸ τοῦ Εὐριπίδου. The verse especially ridiculed is Medea 476: ἔσωσά σ', ὡς ἴσασιν Ελλήνων ὅσοι. Barnes, in his note to this verse, says, "Versum vero hunc Euripidis ob frequentiam τοῦ σίγμα a Poetis Comicis irrisum, mirisque aliquando in Athenis Theatro cachinnis exceptum aiunt”. A similar note could be quoted from Porson, Schaefer, and Elmsley, and from nearly all the various editions down to the edition of Professor Allen revised by Professor Moore, which has this note to the same verse: "A noteworthy example of Euripidean sigmatism”. 1 Schaefer's comment is in a note to Dion. Halicar., De Comp. Verb. 100-7. 'Nemini opinor ignotum esse, quantum antiquis Atticis displicuerint Euripidis σίγματα; quem et Plato et Εubulus ob hanc causam deriserunt”. Schaefer quotes this note from the previous edition of Jacob Upton. The consensus of opinion of commentators is that Euripides was peculiar in his fondness for the letter sigma and that ὁ φιλοσίγματος Εὐριπίδης and “Euripidean sigmatism” are proper designations of a fact; also that Greek Comedy ridiculed and avoided this sigmatism. The purpose of this paper is to study the use of sigmatism in the complete plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, and to see whether the phrase "Euripidean sigmatism" is a correct or a misleading one. The particular verse most quoted is Medea, 476: ἔσωσά σ', ὡς ἴσασιν 'Ελλήνων ὅσοι, Here we have seven sigmas, six in the first seven syllables and one in the last. As this is the most famous example, I shall for purposes of comparison make this the standard of sigmatism. AESCHYLUS. Aeschylus has thirty-six verses with seven sigmas, and seven verses with more than seven. Noteworthy examples are: Ρ. V. 679: 840-2: όσσοις δεδορκὼς τοὺς ἐμοὺς κατὰ στίβους. τῆς σῆς πορείας μνῆμα τοῖς πᾶσιν βροτοῖς. Seventeen sigmas are thus crowded into three verses. Sep. 125: δορυσσοῖς σαγαῖς πύλαις ἑβδόμαις. This lyric verse of ten syllables has as many sigmas as the trimeter in Med. Per. 144: πῶς ἄρα πράσσει Ξέρξης βασιλεύς. Ag. 338: εἰ δ ̓ εὐσεβοῦσι τοὺς πολισσούχους θεούς. 1399: θαυμάζομέν σου γλῶσσαν, ὡς θρασύστομος. Here seven sigmas are crowded into four feet, while there are but six in the same number of feet in the ridiculed verse of Euripides. Eumen. 754: ὦ Παλλὰς, ὦ σώσασα τοὺς ἐμοὺς δόμους. This verse so closely resembles in its sigmatism the verse in the Medea that we can hardly think that a comic poet was in good faith when he ridiculed this verse in Euripides, since he must have been familiar with the similar sigmatism of Aeschylus. This verse in Eumenides denotes the extreme of gratitude and devotion felt by the rescued Orestes, so that if sigma by its hissing could have denoted anger or contempt the poet would not have used it; thus the tone read into the sigmas of Medea 476 is false. Earle, in his edition of the Medea, says of verse 476, "The hissing in this and the following verse caused by the frequent sigmas is quite probably meant to be expressive of the speaker's contempt." SOPHOCLES. Sophocles has forty-two verses with seven sigmas, eight with eight, and four with nine. Striking examples of sigmatism are: Ai. 390: τούς τε δισσάρχας ὀλέσσας βασιλῆς. Here in eleven syllables are found nine sigmas. Εl. 775: προσῆλθες, ὅστις τῆς ἐμῆς ψυχῆς γεγώς. This verse has more sigmas than the one in'the Medea, and has seven in seven consecutive syllables, while the Medea has but six in the same number. It is inconceivable that Sophocles would have written this verse for production before an audience that had already voiced its displeasure at a less pronounced sigmatism. Evidently the tradition that the verse in Euripides was received with mockery must have originated long after the production of the Medea. No poet so popular as Sophocles would have adopted the mannerism of another, a mannerism already offensive to the public. The tradition is accordingly false. EURIPIDES. Euripides has one-hundred-fifty-eight verses with seven sigmas, thirty-nine with eight, five with nine, and two with ten. The two verses with ten are tetrameters and are Or. 1553, Phoen. 594. In neither of these verses is there a marked sigmatism, as the extra syllables more than compensate for the extra sigmas. Good examples of sigmatism are: Alc. 241: λεύσσων βασιλέως, ὅστις ἀρίστης —. Had the verse in the Medea been derided for its sigmatism, Euripides could never have dared to employ for the same theatre the sigmatism of this verse in the Helena. Heracl. 25 : Η. F. 524: I. A. 12: 909: Ion, 386: τοὺς κρείσσονας σέβοντες ἐξείργουσι γῆς. ὡς ἄσμενός σ' ἐσεῖδον ἐς φάος μολών. τί δὲ σὺ σκηνῆς ἐκτὸς ἀίσσεις; πρὸς γενειάδος δέ, πρὸς σῆς δεξιᾶς, πρὸς μητέρος. This verse just quoted must antedate the ridicule of Medea 476. 1553: πρὸς κακῶς πράσσοντας, ὡς σὺ νῦν. Ὀρέστα, δυστυχεῖς. This verse has ten sigmas, but its length makes the sigmatism very mild. Phoen. 1o89: ἐλθοῦσα τέρψω, τῆσδε γῆς σεσωσμένης. It seems to me that the most strongly marked sigmatism in Euripides is found in I. T. 765: τὸ σῶμα σώσας τοὺς λόγους σώσεις ἐμοί. Here are nine sigmas in nine consecutive syllables, and in none of these syllables is the hissing of sigma stopped by its being pronounced in conjunction with another consonant. This verse has all this hissing, yet there can be no notion of “anger” or contempt" thought of. To anticipate now a point to be discussed later, there are no double sigmas here and none of the signatism is of the sort that could be modified by the substitution of double tau. As the Rhesus evidently belongs to a later age than the other plays in the editions of Euripides, we might expect the criticism of Plato and Eubulus to be evident in a restricted use of sigma, but the sigmatism of the Rhesus does not differ from that of the genuine plays. Cf. Rhesus 866 : οὐκ οἶδα τοὺς σοὺς οὓς λέγεις Οδυσσέας. ARISTOPHANES. The one definite thing in comments on sigmatism is that Attic Comedy would have none of it, so it is natural to expect a marked falling off in the sigmatism of Aristophanes, but instead of that there is a decided increase. Aristophanes has one-hundred-twenty-five verses with seven sigmas, twenty-three with eight, six with nine, and two with ten. If we compare this with Euripides, we shall see that he has more verses with nine sigmas in eleven plays than Euripides has in nineteen, and that he has an average of eleven verses with seven sigmas in each play, while the average of Euripides is but eight. Although the plays of Aristophanes abound with parodies of Euripides, and he is often introduced speaking, not a single sigmatic verse is used in a parody of his plays or put in his mouth. Thus we are certain that Euripides lived and died and the Frogs was produced before anyone had seriously raised the issue of his use of sigma, else Aristophanes, ever on the alert for anything to fling at Euripides, would have introduced him hissing with sigmas. The following examples will illustrate Aristophanes' use of sigma: Nub. 554: ἐκστρέψας τοὺς ἡμετέρους Ἱππέας κακὸς κακῶς. 926: ΑΔ. ἧς ἐμνήσθης. ΔΙΚ. τῆς σῆς, πόλεως θ' ήτις σε κτλ. Vesp. 557: 1033: Μουσαίος δ' ἐξακέσεις τε νόσων καὶ χρησμούς, Ἡσίοδος δὲ γῆς ἐργασίας. This especially striking example of sigmatism, ten sigmas in one verse and three in the next two words, is found in the scene in Hades, where the speakers are Dionysus, Aeschylus and Euripides. These sigmas are spoken not by Euripides but by Aeschylus. Aristophanes must have used them in entire ignorance of the fact that repeated sigmas were to be carefully avoided, and that their free use was a decided defect in the style of Euripides. No better proof could be found for the belief that the aversion to |