[ back ] 1. Other words for anger occur in this play, but this formula is consistent only with κότος. Cf., for contrast, μῆνις μάστειρ’ (163), μηνιταῖ’ ἄχη (206); ὠμῇ ξὺν ὀργῇ (187), ὀργάς (763); and μένει (dative of μένος, 756). On the word μῆνις, see Muellner 1996. I note in passing that, metrically, χόλος is the exact equivalent of κότος and so could be used in any of these passages. As I argued in Walsh 2005, chapter 1, a consistent use of one word instead of the other in distinctive verbal contexts indicates that these words are not synonymous in Aeschylus any more than they are in Homer. In this light, it is understandable that the scholiast at 385–386, perhaps long separated from the linguistic context that kept the formally identical words κότος and χόλος functionally distinct, silently refers us to the χόλος of Zeus as he explicates Aeschylus’ Ζηνὸς … κότος (Friis Johansen 1970:160). So too Harris collapses κότος with the other anger words in his brief discussion of this play (Harris 2001:161n10). This confusion reflects the history of the word, for which Dindorf long ago noted “nusquam hoc vocabulo usus est Sophocles, semel legitur apud Euripidem Rhes. 827 … saepissime apud Aeschylum” (Dindorf 1876:186). The Homeric context of the passage from the Rhesus should be flagged. In a fuller study of the post-Homeric uses of κότος, I will suggest that in later literature it is one indicator of an archaizing style.

[ back ] 2. On stylistic variation in Homeric style, see Muellner 1976:25.

[ back ] 3. I have borrowed the term “refracted” from Gregory Nagy, who uses it to accommodate the complexities of the relationships between genres as they utilize the store of culture in differing but intrinsically related ways. For an exemplary use of the concept of refraction to track the differing ways in which traditional material is handled across epic, drama, and lyric, see Nagy 2000.

[ back ] 4. I regret that I was not able to use Konstan’s important 2006 book on Greek emotions for this article.

[ back ] 5. Harris assigns this kind of anger to an “old Greek tradition” (Harris 2001:161; see 137).

[ back ] 6. For a brief review of the data, see Sidaras 1971:32, where Aeschylus’ special use of the term is noted; I think more is involved than whether one word or another is a “favorite word” of Aeschylus. For Homeric usage, see Garson 1985. Cairns in Braund and Most 2003:31 thoughtfully refers to my work; I regret that my argument was not available for his use in this important article.

[ back ] 7. See Walsh 2005:97–104. On feuding in a Greek context see Cohen 1995:87–118. Miller (1990:178–220) presents insights into the way a society (here Old Norse) constructs itself around its institutions of feuding, vengeance, and the law. It is common to suggest that feuding is not relevant to the early Greeks: e.g. Harris 2001:135. Yet, it is possible for feuding structures to be “refracted” into a state-based legal system; see Cohen 1995:87–118. We in classics are still far from a thorough analysis of the way feuding-structures survive into archaic and classical cultural contexts, despite the fact that weighty historical issues such as the relationship between gender and violence are implicated in such relationships. Once again, Old Norse studies present an exemplary model; cf., besides Miller, Anderson 2002, Clover 1993, Byock 1982. The institution of the feud and the concept of vengeance need to be distinguished; see on vengeance de Romilly 1970 for Aeschylus, and Saïd 1984 for the tragedy of vengeance, along with Svenbro 1984, both in Verdier 1980–1984, a four-volume collection of articles on vengeance. I distinguish vengeance from “the feud,” since the feud is an institution that emerges under specific social circumstances (such as warfare), whereas vengeance emerges as a response to human conditions in varying social circumstances.

[ back ] 8. Again, see Walsh 2005 for a full discussion of these two terms, and see the introduction to that book for further argumentation. On key-words as a useful tool for cultural analysis, see Wierzbicka 1997, and see the discussion of the “folk-definition” in Walsh 2005:14.

[ back ] 9. Already noticed in Dindorf 1876, s.v. κότος. See also Franklin 1895:49.

[ back ] 10. The Iliad, in contrast, tends not to focus on feuding vengeance, as it sees issues of violence and aggression through a warrior’s eyes; the Odyssey associates the vengeance of Odysseus with the feud whenever possible in order to justify Odysseus’ revenge on the suitors. On the issue of Odysseus, anger, and vengeance, see Walsh 2005:85 and Svenbro 1984.

[ back ] 11. It may be significant that οἱ ἀγώνιοι θεοί include Apollo, beside Zeus, Hermes, and Poseidon; see LSJ s.v. ἀγώνιος.

[ back ] 12. Including παλίγκοτος at 376; κότον occurs at 427, with κότῳ at 744; the remaining instances are at 347 and 385 (nominative); 67 (genitive); 478 and 616 (accusative).

[ back ] 13. Winnington-Ingram strikingly links the wrath of violated suppliancy and that of violated guest-friendship: “‘Heavy is the wrath of Zeus Hikesios’, said the chorus leader in Supplices [347]. No less heavy is the wrath of Zeus Xenios; and it is this wrath, together with an intolerable pollution, which Danaus will have brought upon himself and upon his daughters. But he will also have brought it upon the city of which he is now king” (Winnington-Ingram 1983:64). Moreover, the wrath that links suppliancy, guest-friendship, and the political consequences of their violation continues to have the same name for Aeschylus as it had for Homer, and that name is κότος. On the dilemma posed by violence and the wrath of Zeus see also Lloyd-Jones 1990:274: “Pelasgus is simply a good and conscientious king, confronted with a grim dilemma: either he must receive the suppliants, thus risking war with all its horrors, or he must bring down on himself and his people the wrath of Zeus, protector of suppliants.”

[ back ] 14. For a discussion of this derivative and its use in lyric and drama, as well as its remarkable survival in the Greek medical terminology of Hippocrates and Galen, see Aly 1906:48–49.

[ back ] 15. On κότος and its relation to the concept of the enemy see Aly 1906:48–49, where it is clear that the notion of a longstanding wrath and enmity are continued in this compound long after κότος the noun falls away from use as a typical word for anger. The lemma meaning “enemy” also resonates with the Sanskrit cognate of Greek κότος, śatru, ‘enemy’ (Walsh 2005:90; cf. 91; for the (Cuneiform) Luwian cognate kattawatnalli as an “attribute of the word for enemy,” see Walsh 2005:92).

[ back ] 16. δυσπαράθελκτος is Schütz’s conjecture, for M’s ὦ δυσπαραθέλκτοις. Page prints the conjecture, which is consistent with the meaning developed here, as does West 1990. On μένει in 385, see line 435, discussed below.

[ back ] 17. On force as integral to Zeus’s justice, see Cohen 1993.

[ back ] 18. The textual problems in this ode do not affect the argument.

[ back ] 19. And note that the terms are reversed. Homer presents the violation of Helen leading to a κότος that sends armies against Troy. Here Pelasgus’ position seems more like Priam’s, in that his acceptance of the fleeing women, as he avoids the κότος of Zeus, leads to the attack of an invasion force. For a good examination of the way the idea of the “feud” can explicate Athenian practice, see Cohen 1995, especially chapter 5; and Walsh 2005, chapters 3–6. It is exactly the reciprocal nature of feuding that makes κότος so potent as an argument on either side of the feuding relationship. For comparative and cross-cultural overviews of vengeance see Verdier 1980 and 1984.

[ back ] 20. See Lloyd-Jones 1990:264–265 for a discussion of the supposed political anachronisms in the play.

[ back ] 21. For a probing of the issues involved in these kinds of tensions in Aeschylean artistry, see Griffith 1995.

[ back ] 22. On reciprocity and anger see Watkins 1977[1994] and Muellner 1996.

[ back ] 23. See n3 above.

[ back ] 24. I am translating here in accordance with a conjecture that itself “hits the mark,” so far as κότος is concerned. I follow Turnebus’ ἐπιτυχεῖ at 744 instead of M.’s ἐπεὶ τάχει, the text leading to Page’s reading, which I reject. Turnebus’ reading is strikingly consistent with the meaning of κότος that I have been arguing for, namely, that κότος lasts until it reaches its τέλος. On the importance of τέλος in this play see Zeitlin 1992:222.

[ back ] 25. Note here that the κότος is that of the suitors. Just as Paris and Menelaus, in the depths of their κότος, are said to be engaged κοτέοντε (Iliad III 345), so too here κότος is reciprocal. These questions reach deeply into the issues of the play. For our immediate purposes it need only be acknowledged that κότος here involves fundamental questions of the narrative, and that those questions include issues of δίκη, etc. See Walsh 2005:24–25.

[ back ] 26. After Fraenkel’s translation: “Dangerous is the people’s talk, with anger in it; it pays the debt arising out of a curse pronounced by the people.” For the meaning of δημοκράντου see Fraenkel 1950 ad 369, with Page 1957:110–111. I thank Timothy Pepper for encouraging me to clarify the difficulties presented by this passage.

[ back ] 27. The translation follows Fraenkel’s note to 635, though Fraenkel’s point about the “addition” of τελευτῆσαι needs to be modified now that we know that forms of τέλος are thematically linked to κότος. The chorus is asking about the “whole story” from beginning to end, a good pro-öimial gesture. Moreover, as Fraenkel stresses in his note to 634, γάρ is “a reference to a point farther back” in time. Note that the herald picks up the wrath theme with μῆνις at 649.

[ back ] 28. See Walsh 2005, chapter 5. And note the expected association with díkē in the Homeric passage.

[ back ] 29. Both remaining instances of κότος in the Agamemnon (1261, 1641) engage textual problems that do not affect the present argument.

[ back ] 30. Though others maintain it is ambiguous, see Garvie ad loc. Here the reference is to the same cry of Clytemnestra as mentioned at 535 (see Lloyd-Jones 1979:12).

[ back ] 31. Such as the ὀνειρόμαντις and τοὺς γᾶς νέρθεν. See Walsh 2005, chapter 5.

[ back ] 32. LSJ gives ‘punish’ for ἐποπτεύειν here, citing only this passage in that meaning (I 2). The sense of κότῳ is perfectly consistent with the usual meaning of ‘oversee’ or ‘watch over’ (I 1), where the dative shows the means by which the Furies guard their prey. This sense is also in play below at line 224, δίκας δὲ Παλλὰς τῶνδ’ ἐποπτεύσει θεά, where the contrast in manner of overseeing could not be more stark. It is precisely κότος that will mark the difference between the watchfulness of Athena and Apollo and that of the Furies.

[ back ] 33. I cite here the title of the classic study of the feud by J. Black-Michaud, Cohesive Force (1975). The point is that in a feuding culture the acts surrounding feuding violence provide a social cohesion that is otherwise lacking. In other words, such violence is not seen as a negative but a positive thing. See my discussion in Walsh 2005, chapter 5.

[ back ] 34. Note the parallel to this formulation at Eumenides 314, where the Furies claim that to someone with clean hands, their μῆνις will not approach (ἐφέρπει); see μηδ’. . . ἐφερπέτω νόσος, at 942.

[ back ] 35. A few passages have been left out of this discussion. I have omitted Prometheus, given the current consensus as to its authorship, though the relevant passages are consistent with my findings: Prometheus 163 (100–167 choral—Zeus’ anger keeping the οὐρανίαν γένναν [165–66] in subjugation), and 602, referring to Hera’s κότος. The other instances of Aeschylean κότος—Eumenides 800 (Athena warning the Eumenides not to let their κότος free upon Athens) and (similarly) 889—are all also in keeping with Calchas’ definition. Moreover, the Eumenides’ threat to end κότος mirrors Achilles’ wish that χόλος die (Iliad XVIII 107–110). Here κότος is linked only to its own destruction, while in Achilles’ wish, the end of a different kind of anger (χόλος, Iliad XVIII 108, linked to ἔρις, Iliad XVIII 107) is tied, powerfully, to Achilles’ wish for his own death (Iliad XVIII 98). See Walsh 2005:217–219.

[ back ] 36. For a parody of Aeschylean usage see Frogs 844 and Stanford’s note. Note the pun in Frogs 846.

[ back ] 37. Yes, I am resisting, somewhat reluctantly, Nietzsche’s evaluation of cultural permanence as “hypocrisy and lying.”