著者

田中 咲子

出版者

日本西洋古典学会

雑誌

西洋古典学研究 (ISSN:04479114)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.53, pp.34-46, 2005

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It has been already noticed almost for one century that the figure of the dead as well as of the bereaved are often depicted together on white ground lekythoi of the Classical period It has, however, hardly been tried to define the status of the dead, namely whether the figure represents him in his life time or after his death Rather the definition seems to have been avoided This prevaling attitude is influenced by Buschor's view He regards the subject of the scenes as the "Verbundenheit" between two people, and he saids the idea that the bereaved and the dead should be distinguished clearly in the scenes is irrelevant The painters did not intend that Life and death are overlapped in the scenes and they are inseparable However, after I found a remarkable representation on some white ground lekythoi by the Achilles-Painter, his interpretation began to seem questionable to me It is the hand pointing to the earth with forefinger that I have found The painter depicted it three times on his lekythoi in New York , two on the lekythoi with grave stele (1989 281 72, 08 258 16) and one without suggestion of the location (08 258 18) Since the painter left us various exquisite representations of the hands, for example, that very soft hand playing the lyre in Munich, and also, by comparing some hands of the same form but in different contexts by some other vase painters from the time, we can conclude that he painted consciously these three hands to point to the earth Subsequently, what do these hands mean? Do they not mean that the figures belong to the world of Hades? We know from literary sources, for example, the tragedies from the same period, that the Greeks generally had a common idea that the dead lived in the underworld or in the tomb Therefore we can regard the figure of the dead as someone who has already crossed the river Acheron That means that the Achilles-painter intended to distinguish the dead and the bereaved Why therefore can the dead and the bereaved share the same sphere, even though each belongs to the different worlds? I regard the scene that the dead appears in front of the bereaved, especially in the scene with a grave stele, at the tomb It is of course a fantasy But this conception is sometimes seen also in the tragedies Aeschylus depicted the dead Dareios appearing at his tomb(Persai, 681ff), and Sophokles made Elektra speak to the tomb of her father asking him to appear in front of her (Elektra) These examples enable us to consider the scenes on the lekythoi as a representation of the wish of the family of the deceased to see him again In this interpretation the scene and the status of the dead is defined more precisely, but it is not always incompatible with the view of Buschor, because in this interpretation as well the essence of the scene is the "Verbundenheit"