Baby talk on stage: performing Aristophanes <i>Clouds</i> 1382

Abstract In a scene of father-son conflict in Aristophanes’ Clouds , father Strepsiades supports his right to be treated well by his son Pheidippides by reminding the boy of how well he was taken care of as a baby. Even before Pheidippides could talk properly, his father catered to his every wish. If he said ‘ brū ’, his father would get him something to drink, ‘mammā’ would make him get food, and ‘ kakkā ’ would lead to his being taken outside to relieve himself. These baby-words have always been taken for what Strepsiades claims they were: meaningful and intentional baby requests. Starting with brū , we discuss ancient and modern interpretations of the passage and contextualize it within the history of ancient and later Western thought about child language. We then propose a new interpretation of brū as the conventional rendition of a universal baby vocalization, what is known as a ‘raspberry’. In performance, this would lead to a mimetic ‘depiction’ in the middle of Strepsiades’ sentence. Finally, we return to the utterances mammā and kakkā to show that there, too, Strepsiades may be demonstrating parental devotion by interpreting the virtually unintelligible and by acting out baby activities that lend plausibility to his mantic performance.