Posted by eli on July 01, 19102 at 22:55:24:

In Reply to: Re: Aeschylus' satyr play posted by diana on April 04, 19102 at 15:06:59:

i actually doubt that aeschylus would take the obvious parody route with the 'proteus'; if you study the sum of his surviving work, you find that this is a writer that is fascinated with internal psychological and emotional human suffering, much like, in the american idiom, people like tennessee williams or sam shepard. the thought of him producing a frivilous parody to lighten the weight of his drama is as ridiculous as either of them doing so. rather i'd guess that he uses the story of menelaus as a somber example of tragic irony, the brother (of agamemnon) who is unable to help, being waylayed in egypt. his existential wandering alone is emblematic of loss in general, and the more specific loss and lonliness he will experience in returning and finding his brother murdered, a pre-leitmotif of what his nephew, agamemnon's son orestes, will experience when he learns what has happened. the standard satyr form would thus be being used by the poet, consistent with his other work, to further his overall literary purpose in the piece, of contrasting the desperate loneliness and loss of characters like candra with the corrupt meaning of community which is seen throughout, most blatantly evinced in the eumenides' corruption of their own rules, in the last act of the trilogy, which seems for the best but is corruption nonetheless. along the way he shows us a few examples of the seeds and fruit of that corruption.
proteus's own ever changinging form can be seen as the symbol of corruption itself, arbitrary, disloyal, unable to be relied upon; the corruption of the eumenides rule later can be seen as the final stage of the sickness taking its toll in the highest court of justice. the only parody is that people have been told throughout the years that this was a happy ending because a few sympathetic characters are spared, yet another contrast to the greater loss of justice lying on the killing floor.
of course this was all probably a little too complicated for the third rate middle ages translaters and commentators who believed that this trilogy followed aristotle's purgative form when in fact the indictment only deepens to the end.

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