Cambridge A Level Classical Studies 9274 — 2017 Oct/Nov Paper 4 · Variant 1

This document consists of 3 printed pages, 1 blank page and 1 Insert. DC (JP) 152601 © UCLES 2017 [Turn over Cambridge International Examinations Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level * 3 1 5 0 3 3 1 4 8 7 * CLASSICAL STUDIES 9274/41 Paper 4 Classical Literature – Sources and Evidence October/November 2017 1 hour 30 minutes No Additional Materials are required. READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST An answer booklet is provided inside this question paper. You should follow the instructions on the front cover of the answer booklet. If you need additional answer paper ask the invigilator for a continuation booklet. This paper contains two questions. Answer one question. Each question is marked out of 50. You are advised to spend 20 minutes reading and thinking about the three passages in the question you have chosen to answer, and then 10 minutes planning your answer. Answers need to make use of all three passages given for the question you are answering. You are reminded of the need for good English and clear presentation in your answer.

2 9274/41/O/N/17 © UCLES 2017 1 Drama: the idea of tragedy Read the following passage and answer the question that follows: [Seneca] does not delay or complicate [his plays] by any moral dilemma …; his tragedy is simply a disastrous event foretold and anticipated from the start, and pursued ruthlessly to its end. But nothing can be more horrifyingly final than the Senecan tragic climax. E F Watling, Seneca: Four Tragedies and Octavia Explore critically how accurate it is to claim that tragedy covers ‘a disastrous event foretold and anticipated from the start’. In your answer you should consider the passage above and your wider reading of tragedy, as well as the two passages below: OEDIPUS: The night is at an end; but dimly yet The Lord Sun shows his face – a dull glow rising Out of a dusky cloud. It is a torch Of evil omen, this pale fire he brings With which to scan our plague-polluted homes. Day will reveal the havoc of the night. What king is happy on his throne? False joy, How many ills thy smiling face conceals! … How happy was the day On which I came, escaped from the domain Of Polybus my father, free in exile, A fearless vagabond – so help me, gods! – To stumble upon a kingdom. Now I fear A fate unspeakable: to kill my father. Seneca, Oedipus, 1–18 (with omissions) MEDEA: A bad predicament all round – yes, true enough; But don’t imagine things will end as they are now. Trials are yet to come for this new-wedded pair; Nor shall those nearest to them get off easily. Do you think I would ever have fawned so on this man, Except to gain my purpose, carry out my schemes? Not one touch, not one word: yet he – oh, what a fool! By banishing me at once he could have thwarted me Utterly; instead, he allows me to remain one day. Today three of my enemies I shall strike dead: Father and daughter; and my husband. Euripides, Medea, 366–376

3 9274/41/O/N/17 © UCLES 2017 2 Gods and Heroes: the importance of epic Read the following passage and answer the question that follows: If we … reduce the storylines of the Iliad and the Odyssey to bare essentials, the gods would not have to feature at all. Zeus’s co-operation is not necessary, given the hero’s larger-than-life status, to explain the disastrous effects of Achilles’ withdrawal from battle, and neither do Poseidon or the Sun need to be invoked to account for misadventures at sea and the effect of twenty years’ absence on a man’s home. E Kearns, The Gods in the Homeric epics Explore critically what, if anything, the gods contribute to ancient epic. In your answer you should consider the passage above and your wider reading of epic, as well as the two passages below: Athene is disguised as Mentor These threats infuriated Athene, who rounded on Odysseus and rebuked him scathingly: ‘Where is your spirit, Odysseus? Where has your prowess gone? You are not the man you were when for nine relentless years you fought the Trojans for royal Helen of the white arms, killed your man in the bitter struggle time and time again, and planned the stratagem that captured Priam’s town with its broad streets. So how can it be that now, when you are in your very own home, and amongst your own possessions, you whine about your lack of courage in face of the Suitors?’ … In spite of these words Athene did not yet grant him decisive victory, but continued to put the strength and courage of both Odysseus and his noble son to the test. Homer, Odyssey, 22.224–239 (with omissions) Jupiter is speaking to Juno ‘You are the true sister of Jupiter and the second child of Saturn, such waves of anger do you set rolling from deep in your heart. But come now, lay aside this fury that arose in vain. I grant what you wish. I yield. I relent of my own free will. The people of Ausonia will keep the tongue of their fathers and their ancient ways. As their name is, so shall it remain. The Trojans will join them in body only and will then be submerged. Ritual I will give and the modes of worship, and I will make them all Latins, speaking one tongue. You will see that the people who arise from this admixture of Ausonian blood will be above all men, above the gods, in devotion and no other race will be their equals in paying you honour.’ Virgil, Aeneid, 12.830–41

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® IGCSE is a registered trademark. This document consists of 6 printed pages. © UCLES 2017 [Turn over Cambridge Assessment International Education Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level CLASSICAL STUDIES 9274/41 Paper 4 Classical Literature – Sources and Evidence October/November 2017 MARK SCHEME Maximum Mark: 50 Published This mark scheme is published as an aid to teachers and candidates, to indicate the requirements of the examination. It shows the basis on which Examiners were instructed to award marks. It does not indicate the details of the discussions that took place at an Examiners’ meeting before marking began, which would have considered the acceptability of alternative answers. Mark schemes should be read in conjunction with the question paper and the Principal Examiner Report for Teachers. Cambridge International will not enter into discussions about these mark schemes. Cambridge International is publishing the mark schemes for the October/November 2017 series for most Cambridge IGCSE®, Cambridge International A and AS Level components and some Cambridge O Level components.

9274/41 Cambridge International AS/A Level – Mark Scheme PUBLISHED October/November 2017 © UCLES 2017 Page 2 of 6 General Any critical exploration as an answer to a Paper 4 question will necessarily encompass differing views, knowledge and argument. Thus the mark scheme for these questions cannot and should not be prescriptive. Candidates are being encouraged to explore, in the exam room, a theme that they will have studied. Engagement with the question as set (in the exam room) may make for limitations in answers but this is preferable to an approach that endeavours to mould pre-worked materials of a not too dissimilar nature from the demands of the actual question. Examiners are encouraged to constantly refresh their awareness of the question so as not to be carried away by the flow of an argument which may not be absolutely to the point. Candidates must address the question set and reach an overall judgement, but no set answer is expected. The question can be approached in various ways and what matters are not the conclusions reached but the quality and breadth of the interpretation and evaluation of the texts offered by an answer. Successful answers will need to make use of all three passages, draw conclusions and arrive at summative decisions.

9274/41 Cambridge International AS/A Level – Mark Scheme PUBLISHED October/November 2017 © UCLES 2017 Page 3 of 6 Question Answer Marks 1 Explore critically how accurate it is to claim that tragedy covers ‘a disastrous event foretold and anticipated from the start’. In your answer you should consider the passage above and your wider reading of tragedy, as well as the two passages below: Specific Candidates are expected to be familiar with Aristotle’s idea of a ‘single’ plot, e.g. one event focusing on one character, the resolution of which flows with tragic inevitability from its beginning point or whatever seeds have been sown prior to the action of the play itself. The Oedipus myth is itself a very good example, with the circumstances of Oedipus’ birth and each significant moment in his life from then on all bringing him towards first the killing of Laius and marriage with Jocasta, then his reversal in the plays themselves upon his recognition of this. Candidates may be able to set out without too much trouble the way this story, and its treatment in both plays about Oedipus, is ‘a disastrous event foretold and anticipated form the start’; weaker candidates may confuse the event with the murder of Laius, stronger ones may recognise that the recognition of his fate is the crucial moment. The two plays do, nonetheless, treat the story differently. The first extract, with the opening lines of Seneca’s play, supports the opening passage nicely, neatly setting out Oedipus’ coming recognition of what he has done. Candidates may wish to contrast the way Seneca and Sophocles handle this; in Sophocles, Oedipus also has the opening lines, but is still utterly unaware of his true nature. Both plays to a degree conform to the idea of the prompt passage, and so in each the idea may be argued to be effective, but stronger candidates are likely to differentiate degrees of effectiveness, most likely that Sophocles has a more sophisticated and nuanced development of the single disastrous event. This does not mean that candidates may not argue for other merits of Seneca’s play, e.g. its vivid evocation of horror and its piteous scenes. The second extract allows, even encourages, a contrasting view. The Medea opens with a premonition of some harm to the children, but Medea’s initial plan, as stated here, is in fact quite different from what she finally does. Her original idea to kill Jason is replaced, following the Aegeus episode, with one to kill the children instead. Since it is the killing of the children that is really the disastrous event, Euripides departs from the idea in the prompt passage, misdirecting the audience after his opening anticipation of harm to the children, only to return to it later. Candidates may also observe a significant moral dilemma, in the scene where Medea deliberates with herself over whether to kill the children or not. Candidates may argue that the shock of Medea’s change of plan, reinforced by the Chorus’ withdrawal of support for her when they realise this, and her own deliberations, are in fact highly effective ingredients of the play. 50

9274/41 Cambridge International AS/A Level – Mark Scheme PUBLISHED October/November 2017 © UCLES 2017 Page 4 of 6 Question Answer Marks 1 Candidates may also observe that this is an unusual pattern; certainly the Agamemnon conforms strictly to the idea of the single, inevitable, event, and indeed much of the play is devoted to prophecy and foreshadowing of Agamemnon’s (and Cassandra’s) murder. Candidates may interpret the question in two slightly different ways, either exploring whether having one single disastrous event is effective, or exploring whether it is true that tragedies cover only one disastrous event. As long as candidates approach the question in an evaluative way with appropriate responses to the texts, a breadth of possible answers is to be welcomed; all responses will be assessed on their individual merits alongside the marking grids.

9274/41 Cambridge International AS/A Level – Mark Scheme PUBLISHED October/November 2017 © UCLES 2017 Page 5 of 6 Question Answer Marks 2 Explore critically what, if anything, gods contribute to ancient epic. In your answer you should consider the passage above and your wider reading of epic, as well as the two passages below: Specific The prompt passage invites the candidates to consider what it is that the gods bring to epic, considering that the stories could be constructed without them. Candidates might start from various points in considering where the gods do seem to have significant roles – perhaps Poseidon’s pursuit of Odysseus or Athene’s aid in the Odyssey; Aeneas’ divine mission sponsored by Jupiter and opposed by Juno in the Aeneid; or the wrath of Apollo that begins the chain of events in the Iliad. In these areas they may argue that divine causation is so apparent that they disagree with the opening statement. It is possible to take the view that, even if the action of the poems is essentially mortal (and that this is where its interest derives), the gods provide a framework and causation that is certainly helpful for the framing of the story and plot, if not essential. (Very good candidates might take a formalist/narratological approach to story and plot but this is certainly not essential even to a top band answer.) The first extract on the question paper should directly prompt consideration of how far Odysseus has to act independently versus how much he benefits from divine assistance, and candidates may well consider how divine assistance contributes to heroism, arguing this in various ways. All arguments based on textual evidence and showing awareness of contemporary attitudes should gain credit, but those that are highly speculative or lack evidence, or those that lack awareness of ancient ideas of heroism, may do less well. The second passage should prompt consideration of divine purpose or orchestration. Divine mission is highly relevant to the Aeneid, but less so in Homer and candidates may profitably explore the difference here. Homer of course considers issues of fate, such as the inevitability of the deaths of Sarpedon and Hector, or Odysseus’ return home, and there are clear illustrations of how far the gods may or may not intervene. But overall Homer lacks the sense of a divine mission that Virgil incorporates into the Aeneid, and candidates may consider what this adds to the Aeneid, or whether Homer seems poorer in comparison. Candidates may also consider the extent to which the gods can influence fate. Candidates may well like to consider particular incidents in which the interventions of gods figure prominently, for example Juno sending Allecto to stir up Turnus, Athene assisting in the killing of the Suitors, or Athene and Apollo deceiving Hector in his duel with Achilles. As such they may argue again that the gods are an important ingredient of the epic world, whether for the functioning of the story or for adding interest to the narrative. The light hearted nature of some of the scenes with the gods could be argued to bring relief from the tension and drama within the Iliad for example Aphrodite crying over her wounded hand. 50

9274/41 Cambridge International AS/A Level – Mark Scheme PUBLISHED October/November 2017 © UCLES 2017 Page 6 of 6 Question Answer Marks 2 But candidates might be expected to develop such an argument to evaluate what it is that the gods bring, and in particular how it adds to our understanding of human characters and the struggles they face against forces of fate, destiny, or other difficulties. There may be discussion of double determination; there may also be an awareness that in every divine intervention it is the human response that gives a poem its emotional content, for example we are moved by Aeneas’ difficulties with his mission, not the mission itself, or by Turnus’ ultimate sacrifice as a pawn in a divine game, and not really by Juno’s struggles against fate.