Maatstaf. Jaargang 24

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Boekhouding
Over Jeffrey Henderson: The Maculate Muse
Door William M. Calder III (Columbia University)

Jeffrey Henderson, The Maculate Muse: Obscene Language in Attic Comedy. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1975. Pp. xiv + 252.

‘A hard man is good to find’ declares cheerfully and Aristophanically a New York subway graffito. Precisely such simple sentiments have never been dealt with honestly by the frightened English and American agelasts who comment upon Aristophanes. Germans, especially Wilamowitz, have done better. The Dutch philologist, van Leeuwen, dared in Latin what he would not have in Dutch. But Rev. Merry excised naughty lines and sent schoolboys like myself hurrying to unexpurgated Oxford texts. W.J.M. Starkie, an Anglo-Irishman who published three massive Aristophanic commentaries and whipped his son for sketching a nude statue of Hermes, paraphrased away the offcolor into extinct English dialects that no one could understand. The jolly lawyer, Benjamin Bickley Rogers, did better and transformed Aristophanes into Gilbert and Sullivan librettoes. Gilbert Murray was embarrassed and preferred Euripides.

The lexicographers were no help. Dean Liddell (Alice in Wonderland's father) appended Latin synonyms that the eager schoolboy could nowhere find explained in Lewis and Short. The Loeb Library translated obscene passages into Italian rather than English, a more fit vehicle presumably for smut. Recent American translators, taking courage from recent American poets, have improved. In a four letter word they call a cunt a cunt and a cock a cock. The rock musical Hair, through and through an Old Comedy, enabled people to see Aristophanes on his own terms. We need no longer peek through keyholes. Obscenity can be public, healthy, cheerful and funny.

What we desperately needed was a book for obscenities on the order of J. Taillardat's Les images d'Aristophane (Paris 1962), in short a lexicon of obscene words in Aristophanes with honest demotic renderings. This Dr Henderson, who clearly enjoys his work, has provided us. We are grateful.

But an honest lexicon of obscenities is only a part of this splendid book. There are intelligent opening chapters on ‘Obscene Language and the Development of Attic Comedy’, ‘Varieties of Obscene Expression: an Overview’, ‘The Dramatic Function of Obscenity in the Plays of Aristophanes’, and introductions to categories of obscene expression. There is something for almost everyone here from secreta muliebria to homosexual fellatio, from ‘bedpans and potties’ to dildoes. Only bestiality fans and sadomasochists will be disappointed. The Athenians had little interest in these. There are amusing surprises on every page: doorbolt means tonguekiss, to be a Lesbian means to fellate - Dr Henderson compares (183) ‘the gay French’ - to eat breakfast does not imply coffee and a boiled egg. I am interested in the affectionate use of posthe (prick) which may elucidate Augustus' calling Horace purissimus penis (Suetonius, Horace). Isthmus means the perineum;

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choiros, piggie (American pussy) ‘indicates the pink, hairless cunt of young girls’ (131), a fact which makes the scene in Acharnians hilarious. That strouthos, sparrow, can mean phallos (129) encourages me to think that Catullus' passer does too. The honesty of the book is refreshing. Sex of whatever sort holds no fear for Dr Henderson. He even goes to zoos (51) and watches animals engage in oral sex. Oddly he does not approve group defecation. ‘Defecation is indeed one aspect of our lives that must always be hidden (unlike sex), and must always be thought inappropriate in any social context whatsoever’ (187). Only here do we find the last trace of prudery. I assume he has not lived long abroad.

The book is a dissertation with the chronic drawbacks of the genre. It compiles more than discovers. The discussion of Athenian homosexuality is almost entirely derivative from a controversial article of George Devereux. His director is cited too often and treated too leniently. Like most young Americans, he does not read German gladly. He regularly prints translations of the German he does cite! Kock's commentaries are not even listed in the bibliography. He has missed numerous titillating obiter dicta of Wilamowitz (e.g., on cock at Heimkehr 179 n. 1; on sucking cock at Sappho und Simonides 73 n. 1). He does not know the Kleine Schriften of Wilamowitz or Housman. He has not learned to use archaeological evidence and consequently there are errors. Cunnilingus as part of group sex is found on the red-figured cup of the Thalia Painter in Berlin (ARV² 113): correct p. 51. I miss especially Otto J. Brendel, ‘The Scope and Temperament of Erotic Art in the Greco-Roman World’, Studies in Erotic Art (New York 1970) and Werner Krenkel's delicious articles in the Kleine Pauly not to speak of the bizarre study of the kiss by Professor Dr W. Kroll in Pauly-Wissowa. But enough! This book is welcome, will long be consulted, and may be warmly recommended for bedtime reading.