[632] v. 73: ἐξ αἱμάτων γοῦν ξάνθ’ ἔχει τριχώματα, a grotesque thought which we have just heard (as Murray points out in his apparatus) from Iphigenia as part of her dream.

[633] vv. 281 sqq.

[634] vv. 961 sqq.

[635] θεᾶς βρέτας is now the prescription, as we may call it. Cp. vv. 980, 985-6, and 1038-40.

[636] vv. 939 sqq.

[637] ψῆφος (v. 945). He means “assembly (which votes),” but he has ψῆφος on the brain, as well he might have (vv. 965 sq.).

[638] vv. 739 sq. and 1046: Πυλάδης δ’ ὅδ’ ἡμῖν ποῦ τετάξεται φόνου—if this is a task set by Apollo there must be murder in it.

[639] v. 933.

[640] Arrangement: protagonist, Electra; deuteragonist, Orestes, Clytæmnestra; tritagonist, farmer, old man, messenger, Castor. Pylades and Polydeuces were represented by a mute actor.

[641] From vv. 1347-56 it is clear that the Sicilian expedition had already sailed, but that news of the disaster had not yet reached Athens.

[642] Bernhardy, Geschichte der griechischen Poesie II, ii. p. 490.

[643] vv. 1041-3.

[644] vv. 9-10.

[645] 1142-6.

[646] vv. 652-60.

[647] v. 54.

[648] The peasant tells us that Electra’s banishment to the country is due to her mother’s efforts when Ægisthus wished to kill her (vv. 25 sqq.). Electra puts the matter very differently (vv. 60 sq.). The horrible story in vv. 326 sqq. is probably untrue; cp. ὡς λέγουσιν.

[649] vv. 77-8, 354 sq.

[650] vv. 367 sqq.

[651] vv. 255 sqq.

[652] vv. 1294, 1296 sq., 1302.

[653] vv. 737-45.

[654] Expedit esse deos.

[655] “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.”

[656] vv. 1245 sq.

[657] vv. 1327 sqq.

[658] vv. 1301-7. The first line, μοῖρά τ’ ἀνάγκης ἦγ’ ᾗ τὸ χρεών, is an exceptionally fine instance of misty verbiage.

[659] See Verrall’s discussion in his edition of the Choephorœ (Introd. pp. xxxiii-lxx).

[660] Probable Arrangement: protagonist, Helen, the god (whether Castor or Pollux); deuteragonist, Teucer, Menelaus, Egyptian messenger; tritagonist, old woman, Greek messenger, Theonoe, Theoclymenus.

[661] v. 616: ὦ χαῖρε, Λήδας θύγατερ, ἐνθάδ’ ἦσθ’ ἄρα;

[662] v. 151.

[663] vv. 832, 1048, 491, 1050-2.

[664] vv. 183 sqq.

[665] vv. 1107 sqq.

[666] vv. 878 sqq.

[667] vv. 1013-6:—

The precision of the wording is remarkable.

[668] Troades, 884 sqq.

[669] See Four Plays of Euripides, pp. 43-133 (Euripides’ Apology).

[670] vv. 1301 sqq.

[671] The idea is taken from the famous recantation of Stesichorus, which asserted that Helen never went to Troy.

[672] In the inflated affectation of such things as vv. 355-6 and 629 parody of some contemporary lyrist is quite possible.

[673] vv. 20-1, 256-9 (rejected by Murray, after Badham).

[674] vv. 138 sqq., 205 sqq., 284-5.

[675] vv. 744-60.

[676] Arrangement (according to Croiset): protagonist, Jocasta, Creon; deuteragonist, Antigone, Polynices, Menœceus; tritagonist, pædagogus, Eteocles, Tiresias, messengers, Œdipus.

[677] Perhaps one reason was the great sweep of story which it covers.

[678] See Mr. J. U. Powell’s careful and lucid account in his edition (pp. 7-32).

[679] Verrall, Eur. the Rationalist, pp. 236 sq.

[680] Mr. J. U. Powell, whose edition should be consulted.

[681] vv. 1233 sq.:—

are out of the question as work of Euripides. There are several other faults.

[682] vv. 1259 sqq.

[683] Mr. Powell, however, rightly remarks that vv. 1265-6 are “strained”.

[684] vv. 1758 sq.

[685] vv. 1524 sq.

[686] So the scholiast: ὅ τε ἐπὶ πᾶσι μετ’ ᾠδῆς ἀδολέσχου φυγαδευόμενος Οἰδίπους προσέρραπται διὰ κενῆς.

[687] vv. 1090-1199 (the ῥῆσις containing the description of the Seven).

[688] vv. 1182 sqq.

[689] Verrall (Eur. the Rationalist, pp. 231-60) believed that those parts which introduce Antigone are un-Euripidean. The terrace-scene has already been discussed. In the body of the play, as he argues with much point, wherever mention of Antigone occurs, it is obtrusive and embarrassing. Her lament with Œdipus at the close contains many inappropriate features. He concludes that Œdipus is an allegory of Euripides himself, leaving Athens in sorrow at the end of his life, and that Antigone represents his literary offspring, the plays. The Sphinx is “the spirit of mystery and darkness,” which the poet has fought and quelled. All this was composed by a poet of the Euripidean circle to commemorate the master; it includes a compliment—the quotation from the Œdipus Tyrannus—to Sophocles, who had shown public respect to his rival when the news of his death reached Athens.

[690] One notices the criticism (vv. 751 sq.) of Æschylus, Septem (vv. 375 sqq.) when Eteocles declares that to give a list of his champions would be waste of time.

[691] The “popular” character of the Phœnissæ is brought out by the relish with which the Argument enumerates its murderous happenings.

[692] In this passage an allusion has by some been supposed to Alcibiades’ return to Athens (411 B.C.).

[693] Cp. vv. 302 sq. (γηραιὸν πόδ’ ἕλκω) with v. 316 (περιχορεύουσα).

[694] vv. 528 sqq.

[695] Croiset gives the probable arrangement: protagonist, Orestes, messenger; deuteragonist, Electra, Menelaus, Phrygian; tritagonist, Helen, Tyndareus, Pylades, Hermione, Apollo.

[696] See Murray’s text.

[697] vv. 1167 sqq.

[698] vv. 491-525.

[699] vv. 28 sqq.

[700] vv. 285 sqq. Menelaus (v. 417) casually calls Apollo “stupid”.

[701] vv. 380 sqq.

[702] v. 386.

[703] v. 388.

[704] v. 390.

[705] vv. 544 sqq. The flatness of the translation given above is not, I think, inappropriate, νῦν δὲ σὴν ταρβῶ τρίχα (v. 550), is merely hideous. μαστοῖς τὸν ἔλεον θηρώμεναι (v. 568), is even worse.

[706] v. 551.

[707] v. 634.

[708] v. 397.

[709] vv. 640 sq.

[710] vv. 658-61.

[711] vv. 932 sqq.

[712] v. 1576: ποτέρον ἐρωτᾶν ἢ κλύειν ἐμοῦ θέλεις;

[713] v. 396.

[714] His “progression, upward in strength and downward in reason, is visible throughout,” says Dr. Verrall (Four Plays, p. 245), whose eloquent and vivid essay on this drama should be carefully studied.

[715] vv. 1204 sqq.: ὦ τὰς φρένας μὲν ἄρσενας κεκτημένη....

[716] vv. 615 sqq.

[717] vv. 72-92. Compare the amusing little passage-of-arms, vv. 107-11 (see Verrall, Four Plays, pp. 219 sq.).

[718] vv. 126 sqq.

[719] vv. 1-3.

[720] vv. 78 sq.

[721] v. 121.

[722] vv. 960 sqq.

[723] At v. 1539 (very late in the day) they discuss whether it is their duty to inform the State of the murderous plot against Helen and Hermione. Even then they decide to do nothing.

[724] vv. 1547 sqq.

[725] Note vv. 743, 745, 747, 749, and the excitement in the last two verses.

[726] vv. 481 sqq.

[727] vv. 371 sqq.

[728] v. 1323.

[729] vv. 37 sqq.

[730] vv. 395 sqq.

[731] Contrast v. 420: μέλλει· τὸ θεῖον δ’ ἐστὶ τοιοῦτον φύσει; with v. 423: ὡς ταχὺ μετῆλθόν σ’ αἷμα μητέρος θεαί.

[732] vv. 360 sqq.

[733] v. 373.

[734] First Menelaus says that Glaucus spoke to him “from the waves” (v. 362), but from v. 365 (ἐμφανῶς κατασταθείς) it seems that the person is standing on the shore. Such inconsistencies are significant, and in Euripides common. They indicate how much accuracy the narrator commands.

[735] vv. 1493 sqq.

[736] vv. 1662-3.

[737] Professor Gilbert Murray (Euripides and his Age, pp. 160 sqq.) has some beautiful and striking observations on the epiphany of Apollo and its effect on the raving mortals below: a trance falls upon them from which they awake purged of hate and anger. But could Euripides, can we, attribute this to a god who has commanded matricide? And the effect is largely spoiled by Orestes (vv. 1666 sqq.): “Prophetic Loxias, what oracles are thine! Thou art not, then, a lying prophet, but a true. Yet had I begun to dread lest, when I heard thy voice as I thought, it was that of a fiend.” ... These are not the tones of blissful faith.

[738] Paley says that this play is more frequently quoted by ancient writers than all the works of Æschylus and Sophocles together.

[739] vv. 174 sqq.

[740] Arrangement: Protagonist, Pentheus, Agave; deuteragonist, Dionysus, Tiresias; tritagonist, Cadmus, guard, messengers.

[741] Before Cadmus’ speech, a passage has been lost in which the mourners adjusted the torn fragments.

[742] There is another gap at this point. A considerable number of Dionysus’ lines are missing, and no doubt also further conversation between Cadmus and Agave.

[743] See Professor Murray (Euripides and his Age, pp. 183 sq.). I now think that what I wrote about the psychology of Dionysus and Pentheus (The Riddle of the Bacchæ, pp. 66 sq., 87-101) is over-elaborated.

[744] vv. 824-45.

[745] vv. 732-51.

[746] Professor Murray’s beautiful translation of these lyrics will be familiar to most readers.

[747] Murray, Euripides and his Age, p. 196. My quotation, of course, does not imply that Professor Murray is guilty of the confusion of thought in question.

[748] The view mentioned in this paragraph will be found worked out in the present writer’s Riddle of the Bacchæ. This theory has met with much scepticism, but received the honour of almost entire acceptance by the late Dr. Verrall in The Bacchantes of Euripides. Dr. Verrall improved the statement of the theory, in particular by rejecting the supposition of a plot between Tiresias and the Stranger. Mr. W. H. Salter, in his delightful Essays on Two Moderns, also accepts this view of the play in the main (pp. 50-68). Dr. R. Nihard, in Le Problème des Bacchantes d’Euripide (Louvain, 1912), a useful study, rejects it.

[749] vv. 632 sq.:—

συντεθράνωται, however, is elsewhere only known to us by the explanation of Hesychius, συμπέπτωκε, and Verrall points out that it ought to mean “it has all been put together again”.

[750] To this view no complete answer has yet been made. All that can possibly be said is what Professor Gilbert Murray (Euripides and his Age, pp. 186 sq.) and (in a letter to the present writer) Professor U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff suggest, that the palace is in the main destroyed, but the façade is more or less undamaged. This does away with the testimony to Dionysus’ imposture which the audience receive from their own eyes, but it leaves untouched the incredible silence of Pentheus. Moreover, Dionysus’ words as they stand mean that the building is utterly destroyed. That they do not mean this is only suggested in despair, because, if they do mean this, they are absurdly and patently false.

[751] v. 233 sq.: ξένος, γόης ἐπῳδός.

[752] The attachment between Artemis and Hippolytus is a remarkable exception. The stories concerning the “loves” of gods and goddesses for mortals are evidently beside the question.

[753] vv. 1325 sq.

[754] Bellerophon, fr. 294, 7: εἰ θεοί τι δρῶσιν αἰσχρόν, οὐκ εἰσὶν θεοί.

[755] Arrangement: Croiset gives: protagonist, Agamemnon, Achilles; deuteragonist, Old Man, Iphigenia, messenger; tritagonist, Menelaus, Clytæmnestra.

[756] For these see Professor Murray’s text, especially his preface.

[757] It contains, for instance, unmetrical verses.

[758] vv. 1366 sq.

[759] vv. 919-74.

[760] For what follows cp. Professor Murray, Euripides and his Age, pp. 173-5.

[761] v. 414.

[762] The elision of αι in v. 407.

[763] Poetic, 1454a.

[764] Arrangement: protagonist, Odysseus; deuteragonist, Silenus; tritagonist, Polyphemus.

[765] The Detectives (Ἰχνευταί) of Sophocles is now known to us by extensive fragments, see pp. 175 sq.

[766] Murray puts it “perhaps even before 438”.

[767] It attracted little attention from ancient scholars. There are no scholia, and the hypothesis is incomplete.

[768] Odyssey IX. 105-566.

[769] Cp. vv. 549, 672-5, with Od. IX. vv. 366, 408-12.

[770] Cp. vv. 460-3 with Od. IX. 384-8.

[771] See p. 2.

[772] Anapæsts in other feet than the first, and occasional violations of the rule of the final cretic (see Chapter VI).

[773] vv. 316-41.

[774] The arrangement of the cast is not clear; perhaps: protagonist, Hector, Odysseus; deuteragonist, Æneas, Rhesus, Diomedes, charioteer; tritagonist, Dolon, herdsman, Athena, Muse. The brief part of Paris may have been taken by Diomedes or Odysseus, possibly by a fourth actor.

[775] ἀνθρωποδαίμων (v. 971).

[776] vv. 474-84.

[777] vv. 546-56.

[778] An excellent summary of the evidence (to which I am indebted) is to be found in the Introduction to Professor Murray’s verse-translation.

[779] Its author, however, is by no means convinced by them. He gives also interesting information on other points.

[780] That is, the two prologues mentioned in the Argument were added for later performances.

[781] Another argument on this side, which is perhaps new, lies in the fact that almost all the action takes place at night—an unique feature. The ancient theatre, of course, could not be darkened. It might be urged that the drama was meant for readers only, and so comes from one of the ἀναγνωστικοί of the fourth century (see p. 32).

[782] vv. 319-23.

[783] vv. 422-53.

[784] It suffices to mention Scaliger, Böckh, Hermann, Valckenaer, and Wilamowitz-Moellendorff.

[785] Upheld, e.g. by Christ and Murray.

[786] Schol. on v. 528.

[787] vv. 962-73.

[788] On the whole question see Mr. W. H. Porter’s excellent paper, “The Euripidean Rhesus in the Light of Recent Criticism” (Hermathena, xvii. pp. 348-80), and his useful edition of the play.

[789] Cp. pp. 119 sq., 165 sq.

[790] Euripides revises even the diction of his predecessor. Æschylus wrote φαγέδαινα δ’ ἥ μου σάρκας ἐσθίει ποδός; Euripides repeats the line with the verb altered to θοινᾶται (Aristotle, Poetic, 1458b).

[791] vv. 1520-7.

[792] Quomodo historia conscribenda, § 1.