Ajax behind the skēnē

What is it about?

The paper discusses a scene of Sophocles' Ajax in which the protagonist speaks from behind the skene door. The paper argues that Ajax's cry ἰὼ παῖ παῖ "Oh boy boy" at line 339 refers to his half-brother Teucer, and not to his child Eurysaces, as supposed by his concubine Tecmessa at lines 340-341 and as often maintained by scholars; the paper also argues that Ajax hears and corrects Tecmessa's wrong guess by his later utterance, Τεῦκρον καλῶ (line 342), which should mean "It's Teucer I call" and not simply "I am calling on Teucer". The paper supports this conclusion by analyzing the use of the address-term παῖ ("boy"), the word-order of the Object-Verb sentence Τεῦκρον καλῶ, and the staging convention by which characters stationed in the back-stage could occasionally interact with those positioned outdoors: in particular, a passage from Euripides' Medea provides a clear parallel for the situation staged in Sophocles' play.

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