Part Eight: "And the Old Woman speaks" Aristophanes, Frogs 950

Another aspect of diversity in the play is that of young and old and middle-aged. Thomas Falkner³³ in his recent gerontological study of Greek poetry speaks of "Euripides' fascination with old age" and comments briefly on two supporting characters in the Medea who can be counted as elderly, Creon and Aigeus.

Their age is given a certain prominence because as characters they both exist in relation to children, real or prospective. But in truth I find nothing in the play to indicate that Aigeus is what we or the Greeks would call old. And very little to indicate that Creon is old in the only scene in which he appears. Both appear to be in the prime of life. Aigeus--as every Athenian is aware--will live until his soon-to-be-begotten son reaches the prime of his life and comes to Athens to claim his patrimony.

Are there other elderly people in the play? Yes, the two old servants. Why were they omitted from Falkner's account: condition of servitude, anonymity? Slaves can be invisible even to a fine and sensitive literary critic. Why does Euripides open his play with two forgettable old slaves, a man and a woman? With a woman, especially, who shares a history with Medea and whose future is annihilated in the dramatic catastrophe?

Another, more interesting, question is how does Creon become old? In the first episode is there anything to indicate that Creon is elderly, rather than middle-aged? Only in his death scene does he suddenly age. Grief makes him see himself as old. Can this be an example of the pathetic subjectivity of self-referential gerontological terms? He sees himself as old (1209) because this is a set scene:

The single most frequent scene in Euripides is that of the elderly in mourning over bodies of their loved ones... (Falkner, 178).

And he is seen as old (1212) by the messenger who has heard him call himself old and has seen him dead. Like Oedipus he has gone from a king in his prime, brisk and forceful, to an aged wraith, his flesh dripping from his bones. But his senectitude may be a function of self-pity and suffering rather than strict chronology.

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