Δεν ξέρω πόσο ενδιαφέρον μπορεί να έχει το κείμενο, αλλά δίνω κάποια αποσπάσματα για να γίνει λίγο σαφέστερο το ερώτημα. Ζητώ συγγνώμη για την έκταση - υποψιάζομαι ότι θα είναι κάπως μεγάλη η απάντηση.
Όπως το αντιλαμβάνομαι εγώ, δεν είναι τόσο η εξακρίβωση ή διαπίστωση, που προϋποθέτει κάποια έρευνα, εξέταση, διασταύρωση ή ό,τι άλλο, αλλά απλώς η "εύρεση" - βρίσκομαι στο σκοτάδι, και ψάχνω πληροφορίες από τις οποίες θα πιαστώ για να αποφασίσω τι θα κάνω, χωρίς να αναρωτιέμαι αν οι πληροφορίες είναι σωστές ή όχι, και χωρίς να αναζητώ πληροφορίες και αλλού για να επιβεβαιωθώ. Στα αποσπάσματα που παραθέτω, η Δηιάνειρα συγκρίνεται με την Πηνελόπη, για να φανεί καλύτερα η έλλειψή της. Να θυμίσω πως η Δ. μαθαίνει πως ο Ηρακλής επιστρέφει στην Τραχίνα με την Ιόλη και βασισμένη σε αυτή τη μία πληροφορία (κάτι σαν το ανέκδοτο με τον γρύλο), χρησιμοποιεί κάποιο ερωτικό φίλτρο για να κερδίσει τον Ηρακλή, αλλά το μόνο που καταφέρνει είναι να τον σκοτώσει. Σύμφωνα με τον συγγραφέα, το λάθος ή η τραγικότητα δεν έγκειται στο γεγονός που μόλις περιέγραψα, αλλά στην ελαττωματική θεωρία της Δ. πως η κατοχή της πληροφορίας (η επιστροφή του Η) ισοδυναμεί με γνώση.
1. Sophocles staged the familiar story of Heracles’ death in such a way that the tragic actions does not ultimately turn on Deianeira’s mistake. The errors made by the characters of Trachiniae are indeterminable: …. Inasmuch as the characters make consequential decisions in the conviction that they possess certain knowledge when they do not, they are constantly in the grip of illusion and exposed to error at every turn.
2. Audiences who saw Trachiniae in the Theatre of Dionysus watched a drama whose characters were wives, heroes, and heralds, but besides that and even above it, gatherers and reporters of information – like the citizen-spectators themselves, as one can see from passages in the historians such as this: “…a certain group of individuals in the city itself … informed the Athenians that the … various activities on which [the Mytilenians] were so busy were planned … for the purpose of making a revolt … At this time, however, the Athenians were suffering from the plague … Thus, rather through a process of wishful thinking, they at first believed that the accusations were untrue. Later however…”
Sophocles’ drama projecte into the mythic past the fact-finding ambitions and persuasive techniques of the Athenian state in its Periclean moment, staging the scene of a heroic wife’s anxious domestic seclusion as if it were the busy public headquarters where a city’s leaders received reports from their far-flung interests – or vice versa, as if the Athenian βουλή or assembly were as remote and out-of-touch as inmates of the notional γυναικείον.
… The fabric of reports from which Sophocles wove the dramatic surface of Trachiniae was virtually transparent to his characters. When Deianeira hears conflicting reports about her husband she simply decides which is true; from there her concern is entirely with the (putative) facts. All the reports in Trachiniae assume that information is easy to acquire in principle, since the world consists of material things accessible to the senses and above all to vision. Sophocles’ characters are empiricists.
3. The fact-finding theme in Trachiniae recalled the efforts of Penelope and Telemachus to obtain news of Odysseus. …Homer’s main characters sought news eagerly, but never succumbed to certainty that they had all the facts. In the Odyssey the test of a good report was surprisingly not its factual informativeness or plausibility, but the personal trustworthiness (i.e. friendship-worthiness) of its teller. When Penelope tested the vagrant beggar (Odysseus incognito), she sought not news of her husband’s whereabouts, but confirmation of his identity by a shared memory; when the stranger correctly described Odysseus’ clothing, he thereby convinced Penelope that he was once her husband’s personal friend (which of course was not factually true). Penelope then accepted this personal friend of her husband as her own personal friend. But when he offered information about Odysseus’ current whereabouts and a prediction of his imminent return, Penelope expressed a wish that her guest might be right, but declined to believe it. Penelope longed for news of her husband as much as Deianeira, but with far more circumspection, and – at first glance paradoxically – far more hope.
Προφανώς, με εξαίρεση ίσως τον τίτλο που έδωσα στο νήμα, μπορεί κανείς να κινηθεί περιφραστικά. Απλώς αναρωτιέμαι αν υπάρχει κάτι πιο συμπαγές.
[με την ευκαιρία, υπάρχει κάποιος λόγος που η Λεξιλογία με πετάει διαρκώς έξω;]
