LAUSR

WHEN WE HEAR GREEK TRAGEDY and comedy mentioned in the same breath, we tend to have certain expectations about the discussion that will follow. We assume that it will focus on Euripides and Aristophanes, for that is where the vast bulk of our surviving evidence lies. We also assume that there is little to be said about comedy’s interest in other tragic poets, either because so little survives of their work or because they are not Euripides: that is, they are not as bold and provocative, so they do not expose themselves to mockery as readily as he does. Finally, we expect comedy to engage with tragedy primarily through parody. This article challenges all of these assumptions through a close study of Sophocles’ presence in Old and Middle Comedy. My main purpose is to show that his work stood in a meaningful and complex relationship with the comic genre, one fundamentally comparable to the relationship between Euripides and Aristophanes. Thus, this article explores one facet of the early reception of Sophoclean drama in order to deepen our understanding of comedy’s use of tragedy in general. An extensive examination of Sophocles’ presence in comedy has not been undertaken before for two basic reasons. First, Aristophanes’most conspicuous parodies offer sufficient material for those interested in comic treatments of Euripides while also providing a useful body of evidence for scholars working on theories of parody, Aristophanes’ attitude toward comedy versus tragedy, or Aeschylus’ reception in comedy. In other words, we already have enough material to discuss most of the major questions about paratragedy on the scholarly agenda. Second, the conceptual opposition between Sophocles and Euripides identifies a sustained relationship with comedy as one of the things that most distinguishes these poets from each other. So Euripides is considered an easy and appropriate target for parody, while Sophocles is traditional and conservative, the very paragon of “serious” tragedy; surely comedy could have no interest in him. As a result, comic