PHOENICIAN WOMEN
1. JOCASTA: The prologue, as so often in Euripides, begins with a fairly detailed account of past action by an individual alone on stage: often, as in Hippolytus, Bacchae and others, the speaker is a god. This résumé may form the whole of the prologue, as in Bacchae, or a second part, more lively and varied, may intervene before the entrance of the chorus (as here and e.g. in Electra or Orestes). It became a Euripidean convention to have this first speaker trace his or her ancestry (and often outline the remote origins of the present crisis): the tendency is mocked in Aristophanes’ Frogs. Sophocles, who normally opens his plays with dialogue, seems to have been more alert to the dangers of monotony.
Jocasta mentions a number of earlier episodes in the mythical history of Thebes, and many more are referred to later in the play. It may therefore be convenient to summarize this history, so that readers may consult this note in order to see how a particular allusion fits into the mythical chronology. Of course, the stories were variable in detail, and poets treated them freely and allusively: it was prose writers such as the mythographers who tried to systematize them in this fashion.
Io, daughter of the River Inachus, was beloved by Zeus, but in order to conceal her from Hera he turned her into cow-form with a touch of his hand; undeceived, Hera persecuted Io, driving her across the world tormented by a gadfly. Eventually she reached Egypt, was changed back into human form, and bore a son Epaphus (676–82). His descendant, Agenor, went to settle in Phoenicia. He was the father of a daughter, Europa, and a son, Cadmus. Europa, playing on the seashore with her friends, was abducted by Zeus in the form of a bull and carried overseas. Cadmus set out in quest of her, but was told by an oracle to abandon this search and instead to found a city at the spot where a cow with particular markings finally sat down (638–48). This animal led him to the site of the future Thebes.
Cadmus prepared to offer the cow as a sacrifice (662), but was barred from a spring of water by a great serpent (657ff.), which some authors called the offspring of Ares. Cadmus killed this serpent with Athena’s aid, and on her advice sowed its teeth in the earth: from this spot grew up armed warriors, the so-called ‘Sown Men’, who immediately began fighting each other: the survivors became the original Thebans (the myth obviously implies that the Thebans are born warriors) (657–75, 818–21). Cadmus became king of Thebes and married Harmonia, daughter of Ares (822–3). Later, however, he was driven into exile. In the Phoenician Women the continuing anger of Ares at the slaying of his serpent is an important motif that helps explain the catastrophes afflicting Thebes: at one point (1065–6) it is suggested that Ares sent the Sphinx in retribution.
The next ruler of Thebes referred to in this play was Laius, son of Labdacus and father of Oedipus. Jocasta summarizes his story in the prologue: warned that if he fathered a son that son would kill him, he first tried to refrain from intercourse, but when a son did appear exposed him. But the child survived and eventually killed his father without recognizing him (13–45, 801–5). When Thebes was being attacked by the monstrous Sphinx, it became clear that no one could kill the beast except by solving its riddle. Oedipus did so (46–50, 806–11, 1018–50). Tragedy often refers to the riddle but never quotes it: various versions are found in prose accounts and commentators. Essentially it was ‘what creature has four legs, two legs and three legs?’ and the answer was ‘man’ (crawling on all fours as a child, walking on two legs as an adult, walking with a stick when old).
Oedipus, still unrecognized, was rewarded with the throne and Jocasta’s hand in marriage. This incestuous relationship was as horrific in Greek eyes as in ours; still worse was the fact that Jocasta bore her son children: two sons, Eteocles and Polyneices, and two daughters, Ismene (mentioned but ignored in Euripides’ play) and Antigone (51–8, 1047–50). The process by which his true identity was exposed after many years is dramatized in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King. In that play Jocasta commits suicide and Oedipus seems likely to be sent into exile. Euripides allows both of them to live on in war-torn Thebes. At some point before the action of this play begins Oedipus has cursed his sons: this was a traditional part of the legend, though explanations of his motives varied. Whether their bitter enmity is a result of his curses is questionable, but it is obvious that their mutual fratricide, the climax of this play, is the final upshot of their father’s anger. (Euripides, however, makes Oedipus now regret having uttered these curses.)
On the question of how and where Oedipus eventually dies, see note 83.
2. O Sun, whirling: The textual uncertainties of the play are well illustrated by the fact that the first two lines in the manuscripts are almost certainly spurious. The full manuscript version begins: ‘O you who cut your path amid the stars of heaven, mounted in a chariot of beaten gold, o Sun, whirling …’ The evidence that lines 1–2 are a later expansion is unusually clear-cut. Two ancient papyri of the opening of the play begin with line 3; an ancient collection of summaries of Euripidean plays quotes the same line as the ‘beginning’; and various later writers, e.g. on metrical matters, quote it in contexts that suggest it was well known, probably because it was the opening line. The issue is fully discussed by M. Haslam, ‘The Authenticity of Euripides, Phoenissae 1–2 and Sophocles, Electra 1’, Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies 16 (1975), pp. 149–74.
3. wade through blood: The stress here on the bloody fate of the whole house, absent from the Sophoclean version of the oracle, is obviously better suited to the themes of this play, which focuses on the generation after Oedipus and culminates in the deaths of Laius’ widow and grandsons.
4. golden brooch-pins: The detail recalls Sophocles’ version, where Oedipus blinds himself with the brooches he finds on Jocasta herself after her suicide. Here, of course, Jocasta is not dead; but Euripides does not feel obliged to think of an alternative instrument.
5. with whetted sword: The prophecy of Apollo might be thought to have already guaranteed this; Oedipus’ fury with his sons adds a further level of supernatural causation. This form of ‘overdetermination’ is common in tragedy. Oedipus seems to be angry because his sons have virtually imprisoned him in the palace. In the early epic tradition it was said that he was outraged at being served an inferior cut of meat: later authors probably found this motive too trivial.
6. behind the stage-building: The scene which follows, while not integral to the action, enlarges our sense of the drama of the war, and introduces us to Antigone, here an attractive character in her youthful enthusiasm. The episode is modelled on the scene on the walls of Troy in Iliad 3 known as the ‘Teichoskopia’ (The Viewing from the Walls) in which Priam questions Helen about the identity of the Greek warriors whom he sees moving to and fro on the battlefield below. Here the situation is reversed: a young woman questions an old man.
7. you are royal: In contemporary Athens well-born women, especially if unmarried, were not expected to roam freely outside the home. These values are transferred to the heroic age.
8. from the men of Argos: Euripides is more concerned than the earlier tragedians with realistic detail of this kind; this contrasts with Aeschylus’ relative indifference to such matters. In the Seven against Thebes the older poet includes a lengthy scene in which a scout reports to Eteocles every detail of the accoutrements of the attacking champions, including much that he could hardly have witnessed.
9. Amphiaraus: The only one of the Seven who traditionally came on the expedition unwillingly. As a prophet, he foresaw the outcome without being able to avert it. See also lines 1111ff. and Aeschylus, Seven against Thebes 568ff.
10. to say nothing good of each other: The servant’s comments anticipate the entry of the chorus. As at the beginning of the scene, he is anxious to protect Antigone’s reputation. The disparaging remarks on women are the kind of thing that encouraged audiences to regard Euripides as a misogynist; but the opinions of a character should not be automatically ascribed to the author.
11. from the Phoenician isle: The reference is to Tyre, an island until it was joined to the mainland by a mole during Alexander’s siege of 332 BC.
12. serve as a slave to Phoebus: The chorus are being sent from Phoenicia to Delphi to serve in Apollo’s shrine as temple servants. En route for Delphi they have reached Thebes, and are now confined there by the siege which has just begun. Because of their Phoenician ancestry they are distantly related to the Thebans (see note 1), but their dress and probably their style of singing and dancing would mark them as foreigners. Euripides no doubt wished to use a different kind of chorus from Aeschylus in the Seven against Thebes (whose chorus consists of Theban women); he also often prefers to characterize the chorus as marginal (foreigners in a strange land, old men, maidens), able to comment on events from a different perspective although caught up in them. See J. Gould, ‘Tragedy and Collective Experience’, in Tragedy and the Tragic, ed. M. S. Silk (Oxford 1996), pp. 217–43 (= J. Gould, Myth, Ritual, Memory and Exchange (Oxford 2001), pp. 378–404); also D. J. Mastronarde, ‘Knowledge and Authority in the Choral Voice of Euripidean Tragedy’, Syllecta Classica 10 (1999), pp. 87–104.
13. Zephyrus’ chariot … unharvested plains: Zephyrus is the favourable west wind, blowing across the Mediterranean from Sicily (the geography is colourful rather than precise). ‘Unharvested plains’ is modelled on a Homeric phrase referring to the sea.
14. glorious sons of Agenor: See note 1 above; Cadmus, founder of Thebes, was son of Agenor and set out on his travels from Phoenicia.
15. O rock … navel: This stanza paints a picture of the neighbourhood of Thebes, the city where Dionysus was born and where his rites continue to be celebrated on Mount Cithaeron. For the serpent of Ares see note 1 above. But the chorus would prefer to leave this city, for all its wonders, and find refuge in worship at Delphi.
16. near by I see the altar-hearth: This phrase hints at the possibility of taking refuge as a suppliant on sacred ground. Euripides often uses the supplication-ritual elsewhere (e.g. the openings of Children of Heracles, Heracles and Helen find the sympathetic characters seeking sanctuary in this way). Here Polyneices’ words may lead the audience to expect a development which does not come about.
17. sings a monody of welcome: It is typical of Greek tragedy that emotional moments involve lyric song, particularly from female characters. Jocasta’s monody may be compared with other set-piece arias in Euripides’ work: Evadne in Suppliant Women 99off., Cassandra in Trojan Women 308ff. A common pattern in the genre is for matters to be treated first in lyric, then recapitulated in calmer vein through spoken verse. So here Jocasta’s song anticipates various topics subsequently handled in the dialogue.
18. Offspring exert … all womankind love their children: The choral comment is obvious and banal, as these two-line remarks after long speeches or songs often are (cf. 526–7, 586–7). They offer an opportunity for both performers and audience to draw breath; it has even been suggested that they may have been drowned by applause at the end of a virtuoso passage.
19. what is my old father doing … in his eyes: Jocasta had described Oedipus’ condition in her monody, but the recapitulation is conventional (see note 17).
20. Adrastus’ daughters should wed a boar and a lion: It is fairly obvious that Apollo meant that their husbands would be violent warriors, and the point is understood a few lines later, when Polyneices describes how he and Tydeus fought for a bed. In tragedy oracles are conventionally enigmatic and are rarely understood by the characters at first hearing, though their meaning will usually be plain to the audience.
21. It is an old, old saying … counts for nothing: Many editors have cut the comments on wealth, ending the speech at 437. It has been thought that Polyneices should not be dwelling so much on his own self-interest. But even if we accept that Euripides is treating Polyneices sympathetically, that need not exclude a desire to recover his rightful share of his inheritance. Odysseus in Homer and Orestes in Aeschylus’ Libation-Bearers also show a natural concern for their property.
22. Mother, here I am: The arrival of Eteocles initiates the agon-scene, the rhetorical contest which is a regular part of Euripides’ repertoire (see M. Lloyd, The Agon in Euripides (Oxford 1992)). Speeches in an agon are usually long, rhetorically sophisticated and highly self-conscious (the openings of both Polyneices’ and Eteocles’ speeches contain self-referential comments on truth and argumentation). This is also a part of the play in which ‘modern’ issues, topics important in Euripides’ own time, regularly make their appearance – in this case, the opposition between absolute power and equality. The three-cornered debate in this scene is unusual; most agon-scenes involve a confrontation between two opponents, but here Jocasta tries in vain to act as peacemaker. In tragedy the agon illuminates the matters at stake, but does not settle anything; normally, as here, it only intensifies conflict. The long speeches are followed by quickfire dialogue between the brothers which again heightens their antagonism: towards the end of the scene Jocasta tries to intervene in this exchange, with equal lack of success.
23. If all men agreed … is not reality: These lines are difficult and no doubt deliberately challenging for the audience. Two ideas seem to be combined: first, that no consensus can be reached among men concerning moral judgements (and therefore Eteocles cannot be expected to take the same view as Polyneices regarding the rights in this case); second, that morality is only a matter of words, without underlying reality. The two points are distinct, since it would be possible to believe that good and bad do exist even if one could not identify them to universal agreement. These ideas have the flavour of contemporary sophistic thought: Gorgias and Protagoras taught various kinds of relativism, and some of their pupils carried these arguments into the political arena.
24. In all else should a man fear the gods: These lines are shocking to orthodox opinion, and became notorious for their ruthless frankness. Julius Caesar is reported to have quoted them regularly (Cicero, On Duties 3.82, Suetonius, Life of Caesar 30.5).
25. Equality: The language is reminiscent of political debate: isotes (‘equality’) recalls isonomia (‘equality before the law’), one of the catch-words of Athenian democracy. Here equality is personified and seen as a ruling principle of the universe. Traditional imagery of the changing cycle of nature (compare Sophocles, Ajax 669ff.) is combined with more modern ideological polemic.
26. trophies of victory to Zeus: It was standard practice for the Greeks to dedicate spoils to Zeus and other gods after success in battle, sometimes adding a commemorative inscription: for many examples see W. K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War ii (Berkeley and London 1974), pp. 246–75. Jocasta’s point is that for Polyneices to boast in this way of sacking his own city would be disgraceful, not glorious.
27. the contest is no longer one of words: The futility of the debate is clearly marked, and Jocasta’s intervention proves futile: neither of the brothers attempts to answer her arguments. Failure of persuasion is a common theme in Greek tragedy: see e.g. Orestes’ failure to convince Tyndareus and Menelaus in the agon-scene of the Orestes. At this point the metre changes, and the remainder of this scene is in trochaic tetrameters, a longer line which seems regularly to be used by Euripides for agitated or excited dialogue. This effect is heightened from 603 onwards (‘With more than your share?’) as the lines are repeatedly split between the two brothers. The argument becomes more rapid and heated.
28. riders of the white horses: The two brothers Amphion and Zethus, in a Theban context almost equivalent to Castor and Polydeuces.
29. Where will you take your stance before the gates?: This exchange marks an important modification of Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes. In that play, Eteocles appoints a series of Theban champions to confront the leaders of the attacking forces at each of the seven gates of Thebes. Only when the scout identifies the assailant at the last gate as Polyneices does Eteocles realize that it is now inevitable that he himself must face his brother, fulfilling his undesired destiny (653ff). In Euripides the hatred each brother feels for the other is such that both of them actually desire to have the opportunity for fratricide.
30. your father’s curses: Again the themes of the Seven against Thebes are evoked. See especially lines 655 and 709, where Eteocles recognizes the fulfilment of the curses, and 677ff., where the chorus make repeated efforts to dissuade him.
31. named you Polyneices, ‘man of much strife’: The etymology is explicit here, and alluded to later at 1494 (see also Aeschylus, Seven against Thebes 405, 829ff.). The name suggests that it was traditionally Polyneices who was seen as the aggressor (and Jocasta’s speech still emphasizes this aspect). Euripides has modified the characterization, making Eteocles a much less sympathetic figure than his brother. Significant names (as ‘expressions of destiny’) are common in Greek literature, especially in epic and tragedy: compare Bacchae 367, 506–8, Aeschylus, Agamemnon 681–98, and many other cases.
32. From Tyre to this land came Cadmus: On the mythology of Cadmus see note 1 above. The choral ode exemplifies in an extreme form Euripides’ late lyric manner, often referred to as ‘dithyrambic’ because the dithyramb, a type of song in honour of Dionysus, was generally regarded as wilder and less disciplined in structure and thought than other hymnic forms. D.J. Mastronarde’s summary of the characteristics of Euripides’ style in the odes of this play is as follows: ‘short cola, an abundance of compound epithets (several unique in extant Greek or used in a uniquely eccentric sense), run-on appositions, accumulation of relative clauses and imbalance between main clauses and subordinate clauses, verbal repetitions, and the paradoxical wedding of beautiful language and sensuous description to violent content’ (D. J. Mastronarde (ed.), Phoenician Women (Cambridge 1994), p. 331.)
33. the Roaring One: This translates Bromios, one of the names of Dionysus, son of Zeus and Semele, who was born at Thebes. For more detail on his birth see Bacchae iff., 88ff., 242–5, 519–29 and notes.
34. Epaphus: He was the son of Zeus by Io, brought to birth when she reached Egypt. See Aeschylus, Suppliants 291–315, Prometheus Bound 846–52. His grandson Agenor settled in Phoenicia; hence Io is the chorus’s ‘first mother’. See also note 1 above.
35. Creon, son of Menoeceus: Creon is a regular figure in the Theban dramas, appearing in all of Sophocles’ plays on these legends (though very differently characterized in each). He is both son and father of Menoeceus: in historical Greek genealogies, names often recur every other generation. This scene contrasts Eteocles, the hot-tempered and impulsive ruler, with Creon, an older and more prudent figure. We have already seen that Eteocles is a proud and power-hungry monarch; we now see that he is no great strategist.
36. a company to lead against our seven gates: The traditional picture, immortalized by Aeschylus’ play, was for seven champions on each side to confront one another. Euripides introduces a more realistic note (as Eteocles’ preceding remark may imply) by making each of these men leader of a company of soldiers.
37. It would be a costly waste of time … our very walls: These lines are clearly a mischievous critique of the central scene of Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes, in which nearly 300 lines are occupied by just such a description. The allusive reference to his great predecessor can be paralleled most clearly in the Electra (Electra’s sceptical comments on the tokens which had convinced her prototype in Aeschylus’ Libation-Bearers), and other cases of allusive reminiscence have been plausibly detected.
38. But if I meet with any misfortune …: The remainder of Eteocles’ speech is subject to considerable critical doubt. In particular, lines 757–62 and 774–7, the passages which confirm Antigone’s betrothal to Haemon and forbid the burial of Polyneices, seem clearly to be composed in order to connect this play with the plot of Sophocles’ Antigone, in which Antigone buries her brother in defiance of Creon’s edict and perishes together with her fiancé Haemon. It is undramatic for Eteocles to be so explicitly expecting to die, and these sections, with their over-precise predictions of the future (especially 777 ‘even if related by blood’) are probably later additions to Euripides’ text. If this is right, so too will be the later developments of this theme, above all the confrontation of Creon and Antigone at the end of the play (1625–82: see notes there). The interest of these sections for the subsequent reception of Euripides’ play is such as to justify their inclusion here.
39. the prophet Teiresias: This blind seer regularly figures in tragedies set at Thebes: he appears also in the Bacchae and in Sophocles’ Antigone and Oedipus the King. It is common for him to advise rulers and for his warnings to be rejected angrily, but in the end they are always justified. That Eteocles has alienated this authoritative prophet is another indication of his inadequacy as a ruler.
40. Precaution: Not a regular deity of cult. Also, calling a god ‘serviceable’ is virtually unparalleled, and suits Eteocles’ pragmatic piety.
41. so out of tune with the festivals of the Roaring One: The chorus devote the first strophe of this ode to an elaborate contrast between the joyous dances and festivity of peace (presided over by Thebes’ patron Dionysus) and the ‘savage dance graced by no music’, the warfare inspired by and welcome to Ares. Warfare is seen as a kind of caricature of festivity. This type of image, involving the hideous distortion of something normal or pleasant, is frequent in tragedy.
42. Cithaeron: This was the mountain on which the infant Oedipus was exposed. The chorus, having begun with the present, moves back in time, wishing Oedipus had never survived, or that the Sphinx had never threatened Thebes (for in that case Oedipus would not have had to solve her riddle and thus become king, and none of the subsequent disasters would have happened). For the sequence of events see Jocasta’s account in 1–80, and note 1; for more on Oedipus and the Sphinx see the next choral ode, 1019ff., and note. The sequence of thought is loose; the connections of cause and effect, which would be familiar to the audience, are not spelt out in full.
43. You brought to birth …: The final part of the ode moves still further back in time, to describe the foundation of Thebes and the birth of the Sown Men (see note 1 above). The relevance of this will become apparent in the next scene, when Teiresias declares that one of the direct descendants of the Sown Men must die.
44. Harmonia’s nuptials: This refers to the marriage of Cadmus to Harmonia, daughter of Ares. That the gods attended their wedding feast as a sign of special favour is mentioned in Pindar, Pythian 3.87ff. The prosperity and divine goodwill enjoyed by Thebes in the past is contrasted with her present misfortunes (compare the treatment of Troy’s past in Trojan Women 820–59).
45. Amphion’s lyre-strings: Amphion and his brother Zethus, sons of Zeus and Antiope, are figures from the early history of Thebes; their mythological relation to Cadmus and his family is somewhat ill defined. Amphion was a gifted musician, and his greatest achievement, referred to here, was to play so enchantingly that the stones moved of their own accord to form the defensive walls of Thebes. Euripides’ lost play Antiope included a famous agon between the practical brother Zethus and the artistic Amphion; in the final scene Hermes predicted the building of these walls and so vindicated Amphion.
46. where Ares’ finest garlands may be gained: I.e., where victory in war can bring glory – but for which side?
47. from the land of Erechtheus’ sons: The ancient commentators on this passage remark that this is an anachronistic reference included to glorify Athens (Erechtheus and Cecrops are both mythical kings of Athens). The war referred to was dramatically treated by Euripides in his earlier Erechtheus, another lost play, but there is no particular reason to suppose that Teiresias was a character. Apart from intertextual ingenuity, the playwright presumably means us to recall that this legend involved human sacrifice in order to save Athens; Teiresias is about to recommend the same drastic measure to aid Thebes.
48. There is no alternative: Teiresias turns to leave, without having divulged his secret. Creon indignantly restrains him and demands the truth. The scene is modelled on the exchange between Oedipus and Teiresias in Sophocles, Oedipus the King 297ff.; at line 320 there the prophet asks to be taken home, and Oedipus protests.
49. You must sacrifice Menoeceus here …: The sacrifice of a pure or virginal young man or woman is a recurrent motif in tragedy (Iphigenia is the most famous), and Euripides is particularly fond of this type of situation, in which a divine command requires that one should die so that many can be saved. The same sequence is found in his Children of Heracles and was evidently prominent in the lost Erechtheus. Such plots permit a powerful clash between the individual’s desires and the public good, normally solved by the victim nobly accepting his or her death as a duty. In this play the initial reluctance of Menoeceus turns out to be feigned, a clever variation on the regular pattern. More problematic are the cases where the victim is to die in order to allow an expedition to sail (as in Iphigenia at Aulis), or to satisfy a dead ghost (as Polyxena is sacrificed to appease the dead Achilles in Hecabe). For discussions see J. Schmitt, Freiwilliger Opfertod bei Euripides (Giessen 1921); E. O’Connor-Visser, Aspects of Human Sacrifice in the Tragedies of Euripides (Amsterdam 1987); J. Wilkins, ‘The State and the Individual: Euripides’ Plays of Voluntary Self-sacrifice’, in A. Powell (ed.), Euripides, Women and Sexuality (London 1990), pp. 177–94; ironic readings in H. Foley, Ritual Irony: Poetry and Sacrifice in Euripides (Ithaca and London 1985).
The demand for Menoeceus to die is probably a Euripidean invention. Sophocles, Antigone 1303 refers to the earlier death of a son of Creon, Megareus, but no circumstances are specified.
50. I beg you by your knees: This is a gesture of supplication, the procedure by which one person throws himself on another’s mercy: physical contact establishes a bond. Creon kneels and reaches out to touch Teiresias. The appeal is ritualistic, and Zeus in his capacity as god of suppliants is thought to be concerned for their interests. Supplication thus imposes an obligation, but it can still be resisted or rejected. See further J. Gould’s detailed treatment in ‘Hiketeia’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 93 (1973), pp. 74–103 (= J. Gould, Myth, Ritual, Memory and Exchange, pp. 22–77).
51. Haemon’s coming marriage … he is still betrothed: This rather fussy explanation is probably a later addition, made at the same time as the interpolations introducing the theme of Antigone’s betrothal to Haemon in the previous scene (see note 38 above). Diggle follows Willink in bracketing these lines as non-Euripidean.
52. am ready to die to save my country: If 944–6 are genuine (unlikely: see last note), Creon’s desperate resolve would be futile, for he is himself a married man. This is a further argument for their exclusion.
53. If only every man would take … bless them: These high-minded lines (perhaps not authentic) paint an ideal vision of politics. The Athenian audience would no doubt think of ways in which their own society fell short of this ideal. This type of moralizing generality is much more common in tragedy than precise political allusion to current events.
54. You came, you came, winged creature: The chorus address the Sphinx, now long dead, using the rhetorical device called apostrophe. For mythical details see note 1 above. The strophe describes how Thebes suffered from the Sphinx’s flying raids, the antistrophe refers to the coming of Oedipus, apparently a saviour-figure, but one who brought further misfortunes through the pollution of his crime and the curses he laid on his sons. The false saviour Oedipus is then contrasted with the true saviour Menoeceus.
55. A MESSENGER enters: Large-scale events such as battles and slaughter were not easy to present on the Greek stage: hence the frequent use of the messenger, anonymous but clearly identified as a servant or loyal supporter of the royal house. The speech developed a rhetoric of its own: vivid, detailed, often using language reminiscent of epic, frequently including quotation of direct speech, usually ending with a moralizing tag. It is conventional for the speaker to be able to tell the listeners much more than one individual could in fact have seen, though there are occasional gestures towards realism. For many aspects of the Euripidean messenger speech see I. de Jong, Narrative in Drama: the Art of the Euripidean Messenger-speech (Mnemosyne Suppl. 116, Leiden 1991). Most Greek tragedies include a messenger-speech and many have more than one. In this play there are two messengers and four speeches! Another convention is that time seems effectively to stand still while the messenger is narrating events: although in some plays there is urgent need for action, this is ignored until the narration is complete (e.g. Iphigenia among the Taurians 1322ff., Helen 1526ff., cf. 1622–3). So too here: in real life, the messenger would explain the new plan of single combat at once, but here the narrative is expounded in chronological sequence, and the need for action by Jocasta only emerges at 1259ff.
56. When Creon’s son … to save the land: It is surprising that more is not made of Menoeceus’ self-sacrifice; instead it is disposed of in three lines, so that the narrative of the battle can follow. Perhaps the drama of decision-making appealed more to the poet than the suicidal moment itself.
57. And first to lead his troops …: The catalogue of warriors’ names and description of their shields’ symbols again recalls Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes. The passage also adds the details of which gate most of the warriors are attacking: some of these repeat the Aeschylean version, others diverge. The inclusion of Adrastus, Polyneices’ father-in-law, as one of the Seven is unusual. He replaces a hero called Eteoclus (mentioned in Aeschylus and in Euripides’ own Suppliant Women; also in a similar list in Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus 1313–25). Possibly the name was thought confusing in a play that says so much about Eteocles. Some scholars see the list of warriors as a later elaboration (Diggle brackets 1104–40). But tragic poetry often includes catalogues of this kind.
58. the monster that sees all: This refers to Argus, the mythical figure set to guard Io: he was suited to the task by having countless eyes, so that he was never wholly asleep. Nevertheless, Hermes lulled him to sleep and killed him.
59. Titan Prometheus: A difficult passage. It appears that Tydeus is being compared with Prometheus, though some editors take this to be a further symbol on his shield. Whereas Prometheus brought fire to men and helped them with this gift, Tydeus is bringing fire against Thebes in order to burn and destroy it.
60. All this I was able to see … carrying the password: The messenger gives his credentials, so to speak. Similarly the servant in the prologue explained to Antigone how he knew all the names of the warriors on the opposing side (95ff., 141ff.). The intermittent concern for realistic justification is characteristic of Euripides.
61. the fury of Capaneus’ attack: See already 179–92. Capaneus was traditionally characterized by arrogance amounting to blasphemy: he boasted that he would burn Thebes whether Zeus willed it or not, and was punished with a thunderbolt. Cf. Aeschylus Seven against Thebes 423ff., Sophocles Antigone 127–40 (unnamed; the audience is expected to know who is meant).
62. why would you not let me give my good news … tale of woe: An almost metatextual allusion to the normal conventions, whereby the messenger gives his account and leaves at once. Here, however, a second speech follows. For good news in one speech followed by bad in another compare Aeschylus Agamemnon 503ff., 636ff.
63. Priests began sacrificing sheep: In historical times it was standard practice to test the gods’ will by divination before battle, and seers (the Greek manteis suggests ‘prophets’ rather than simply ‘priests’) accompanied armies on their expeditions. Bad omens could sometimes be disposed of by a second attempt, or even several. See further R. Parker, ‘Sacrifice and Battle’ in War and Violence in Ancient Greece, ed. H. Van Wees (London and Swansea 2000), pp. 299–313.
64. go, prevent your sons … fearful contest: Once again Jocasta must attempt to play the peacemaker, this time with deeds as well as words; and once again she will fail.
65. Which of her two sons shall pierce: Typical tragic irony. The chorus assume that one of the battling brothers will die, but the audience know that both are doomed. Teiresias in fact predicts this at 880 (in a passage deleted by some editors), but an audience would not be likely to recall this; in any case, warnings of this kind are often forgotten until too late.
66. Yet here I see Creon: Some scholars (including Diggle in the Oxford text) believe that in Euripides’ original play Creon’s role was confined to the scenes with Eteocles and Teiresias, and that all parts of the text from this point on involving him are spurious. If this is right, the passage which follows must have replaced or expanded a scene in which a messenger conversed simply with the chorus. My own preference is to regard the present scene and most of the text down to 1583 as substantially authentic: see further note 75 below, and for more detailed debate Mastronarde’s commentary.
67. O house of Oedipus: Creon addresses the palace, represented by the stage-building. The house is seen as almost a living entity, experiencing the burden of guilt and crime in Oedipus’ family and sharing the pain of its inhabitants. This kind of personification of the house was brilliantly exploited by Aeschylus in the Oresteia; he may well have invented the concept, if as is likely the stage-building was then a recent addition to the tragic performance. See further J.Jones, On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy (London 1962), pp. 82–111, O. Taplin, The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford 1977), pp. 319–20, 458–9.
68. Etruscan trumpet: In the sixth and fifth centuries BC ‘Tyrrhenian’ (Etruscan) was used by Greek writers to refer to the non-Greek peoples of Italy, with whom Greek colonists had been acquainted since the extensive settlements in the west in the eighth century BC. The notion of metalwork being imported from Italy to Greece in the heroic age is anachronistic, but not glaringly so: Hesiod in the last section of the Theogony already mentions the Tyrrhenians in a heroic context.
69. traitors to my marriage: The meaning is that Antigone’s brothers would have been expected to play a role in managing her marriage ceremony, as was normal when a father was dead or incapacitated. Some take these lines differently, dividing the speech so that part (rendered as ‘supporters of your mother …’) is spoken by Jocasta, part by Antigone.
70. thrusting the blade straight through her neck: The weapon is of course readily available on the battlefield. This is however an unconventional death for a woman: most tragic heroines committing suicide hang themselves (Antigone, Phaedra), and Jocasta did so in Sophocles. It is perhaps significant that Jocasta directs the blow at her neck. See further N. Loraux, Tragic Ways of Killing a Woman (Eng. tr. Cambridge, Mass., and London 1987), p. 51 on this point.
71. the troops rushed to arms: The madness continues; Eteocles’ proposal to avoid bloodshed by single combat, belated as it was, proves ineffective. For a parallel in the historical period see Herodotus 1.82 (Sparta versus Argos).
72. Polyneices, your name proved true: The name means ‘much strife’, as already stated in 636 (see note 31 above).
73. O house, o house: The repetition is emotional, typical of tragic lyric at moments of intensity, not least passages of lamentation. Tragedy goes even further along this road than earlier lyric verse (see G. O. Hutchinson, Greek Lyric Poetry (Oxford 2001), pp. 429–32), and Euripides is notorious for repetitions of this kind (extensively parodied in Aristophanes, Frogs: e.g. 1137, 1352–5).
74. No one was unaware … woe upon our house: The song of Antigone concludes with a vivid picture of pathetic appeal (Jocasta bares her breast as Hecabe did in an effort to arouse pity in Hector in the Iliad, or as Clytemnestra does in an effort to move her son in Aeschylus, Libation-Bearers). Her feminine distress is juxtaposed with their male violence; the setting ‘in a meadow of lotus flowers’ provides a further contrast with the bloodshed. The lines, however effective, reach a level of mannerism that is extreme even for late Euripides (especially the lines on the ‘libation of blood’). Diggle may well be right to doubt the authenticity of 1570–76.
75. be blessed with happier fortune!: Most scholars agree that the remainder of the play is not authentic, but the work of a later hand. It is not certain how the play originally ended – most probably with lamentation and perhaps with preparations for burial. The present ending is clearly composed (together, probably, with some shorter passages earlier in the play) in order to link the plot up with the stories dramatized in Sophocles’ Antigone (Antigone buries Polyneices despite Creon’s edict) and Oedipus at Colonus (Oedipus ends his exile and his life in Attica, accompanied by Antigone). The awkwardness of the ending as it stands is obvious. How can Antigone remain and bury Polyneices (and die for it, as the Antigone-plot demands) and also accompany her father into exile, especially if (as in Sophocles) he may have to journey for many years? Also, Antigone’s challenge to Creon before she buries her brother is sure to make it difficult if not impossible to execute her intention; while Creon’s failure to place her under some form of restraint is inexplicable. The desire for dramatic confrontation has resulted in a striking but highly implausible sequence. It appears that at the time this ending was composed (probably in the fourth century BC) the fame of the Antigone was such that the temptation to anticipate that plot was irresistible. A similar procedure has produced a hybrid text at the end of the Seven against Thebes (1005–53 are plainly intrusive, and most probably the daughters of Oedipus played no part at all in Aeschylus’ original text).
The play was evidently known in its present form to the Roman poets of the first century AD: Statius in the last books of his Thebaid quarries the last scenes extensively. For this reason and for the general interest of the conclusion, it is rendered here in full, although it seems clear that at least large portions of it are not Euripidean.
76. Come, take your leave: The exchange here inverts the finale of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King. There, Oedipus demands to be sent into exile, and Creon is hesitant, deferring decision until he has consulted Delphi.
77. should serve Polybus as my master: A very odd description in any version of the story. Polybus, king of Corinth, is normally said to have adopted Oedipus as his son (see Jocasta’s narrative at 28ff. for a variant on this).
78. wind my arms around your knees: A gesture of supplication: compare 923 and note 50 above.
79. It is to be left alone …: The allusion to the plot of Antigone comes close to direct quotation here: compare lines 29–30 and 205 of Sophocles’ play.
80. one of the daughters of Danaus! The fifty Danaids, forced into marriage with their cousins, killed their husbands on their wedding night (all except Hypermestra, who helped hers escape). Hence they became a proverbial example of female atrocity.
81. Creon leaves: The staging here is very uncertain. Now that Creon is aware of Antigone’s intention, it hardly makes sense for him to leave the stage simply assuming she will depart from Thebes; but he makes no further contribution to the play. An alternative is to have him withdraw from the main acting area but remain visible with his guards as a menacing presence. The problem is bound up with the general patchwork quality of this ending.
82. Where is Oedipus, the glorious master of riddles?: As so often, tragedy highlights present disaster by recalling the happier or more successful times now long past (in this case, Oedipus’ triumph over the Sphinx, see note 1 above). A close parallel is Theseus’ effort to put heart into the despairing Heracles (Euripides, Heracles 1250), ‘Are these the words of Heracles, the all-enduring?’ Heracles replies ‘Never did I know sorrow such as this.’ But in the lyrics which follow the present passage the actors change their tone: Oedipus recalls his success with the riddle, Antigone warns him to accept his lot (1728ff.).
83. Now Loxias’ oracle is being fulfilled, my child …: The six lines which end this dialogue allude to the events dramatized in Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, in which the aged king, after years of wandering, finds refuge in Theseus’ Athens and dies in mysterious and supernatural circumstances at the rural district of Colonus: in that play it seems to be assumed that he has joined the number of the heroes, former mortals who receive cult and worship (see esp. E. Kearns, The Heroes of Attica (London 1989), pp. 50–52, 208–9). Sophocles’ play was produced posthumously, some years after the Phoenician Women. It is possible that the tradition of Oedipus’ death at Athens was older than Sophocles (though we have no other evidence besides this passage; according to the Iliad he was buried at Thebes); but if it is right to see the end of this play as a later composition, these lines would obviously be inspired by Sophocles’ classic treatment.
84. the god of horses: Poseidon, who is said to have offered a horse as his gift to Athens in competition with Athena to become the city’s patron (she offered the olive-tree).
85. I shall shroud him in dark earth: After a long passage in which Antigone has assured her father of her company in his exile, we revert to her intention to bury her brother. Again we see the incompatibility of motifs. Greek tragedy often admits calculated inconsistency, but in minor matters or else scattered across widely dispersed passages (see R. Scodel, Credible Impossibilities (Stuttgart-Leipzig 1999)): this kind of blatant and persistent confusion is quite abnormal and betrays the hand of an inferior poet.
86. Go to where … mountain slopes: Oedipus seems to mean ‘lead me to Cithaeron’, where Bacchic rites were celebrated.
87. O you citizens of a land renowned: Unless Creon and his men are still there, no citizens are on stage (the chorus are foreign). Is Oedipus to be seen as addressing the Athenian audience? If so, this would be a further indication of late composition: explicit audience address is alien to fifth-century BC tragedy (D. Bain, ‘Audience Address in Greek Tragedy’, Classical Quarterly 25 (1975), pp. 13–25, O. Taplin, Stagecraft of Aeschylus, pp. 129–34 (though Taplin has since modified his position considerably, especially as regards pp. 132–4: cf. General Introduction, note 16)). The lines resemble, and are probably an imitation of, the conclusion of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King (1524–30), where it is disputed whether they belong to Oedipus or the chorus.
88. O Victory … your crown: This short conclusion also appears in the manuscripts at the end of several other plays by Euripides, including Orestes (in Hippolytus and Iphigenia among the Taurians it follows an authentic tailpiece). It is obviously spurious: the invocation of victory by the dramatist through his spokesman on stage is a further breach of dramatic illusion and belongs to a later age.
ORESTES
1. ELECTRA: On the prologue-technique, see notes on the opening of Phoenician Women. As there, it will be convenient to give here a summary of the relevant myths concerning the family history of Orestes, and to refer back to this note when individual episodes are mentioned later in the play.
The founder of the house was Tantalus, a son of Zeus. Although favoured by the gods and permitted to share their feasts, he committed some crime which earned him eternal punishment. The poets differ on what his offence was: Euripides speaks of his ungovernable tongue, which may mean he passed on secrets of the gods to men. Others refer to his attempting to steal the divine food ambrosia, or testing the gods’ wisdom by feeding them human flesh. His punishment is placed in Hades by Homer; on the novel idea that he is suspended in mid-air, see 982 ff. and note 55. In the Odyssey he is constantly tormented by having food and drink forever out of his reach; the notion that he has a rock suspended over him threatening to fall is perhaps a later development, found first in Archilochus.
Tantalus’ son was Pelops, who gave his name to the Peloponnese. He courted Hippodameia, daughter of King Oenomaus of Sicyon. This king, being opposed to his daughter’s marriage, habitually challenged her suitors to a chariot race and slew them when they were defeated. Pelops bribed his charioteer Myrtilus to sabotage the king’s chariot, and thus won the race and caused Oenomaus’ death. Pelops later also killed Myrtilus (988), hurling him into the sea near Geraestus in south Euboea; according to some this was because Myrtilus attempted to seduce Hippodameia. With his dying words Myrtilus cursed Pelops and his descendants.
Pelops’ sons were Atreus and Thyestes, who both claimed the kingship of Mycenae-Argos. Their dispute focused on possession of a golden lamb which seems to have guaranteed right to the kingship: Atreus had it, but Thyestes stole it by seducing Atreus’ wife Aerope (996 ff., 1008–10). Atreus, however, was confirmed in power by a celestial portent, the reversal of the sun in its course (1001iff.). Feigning friendship to his brother, Atreus invited him to a dinner at which he served him with the chopped-up flesh of Thyestes’ own sons, whom he had just killed, mixed with other meat (1007–8). Thyestes, horror-stricken, withdrew into exile; his surviving son Aegisthus vowed revenge. (In later versions, especially in Latin writers, the reversal of the sun or other heavenly bodies takes place at the time of the Thyestean feast, marking the enormity of Atreus’ crime).
As Electra explains, Agamemnon and Menelaus were the sons of Atreus: they ruled in Mycenae-Argos and Sparta respectively, and married the two daughters of Tyndareus, Clytemnestra and Helen. Helen’s abduction (or seduction) by Paris caused the Trojan War; in Agamemnon’s absence Aegisthus seduced Clytemnestra, and the two of them plotted to kill him on his return. (On the sacrifice of Iphigenia as one motive for Clytemnestra’s antagonism to her husband see Preface to Iphigenia at Aulis.) Orestes was sent away for safety (in some versions despatched by Electra or his nurse) and was brought up in Phocis, near Delphi, with his close friend Pylades, son of the local king Strophius. On coming of age he consulted the oracle of Apollo and was commanded to avenge his father by killing his mother (and of course Aegisthus, but that is treated as uncontroversial). He was successful, but the present play deals with the psychological and political consequences.
2. Chrysothemis: She is mentioned in the Iliad and in other sources, but rarely plays a part in the legend: in extant tragedy she appears only in Sophocles’ Electra, as a more timid foil to Electra herself. She is ignored in the rest of this play.
3. her motives: Electra refers to Clytemnestra’s adulterous affair with Aegisthus while Agamemnon was absent at Troy.
4. There is no point in accusing Phoebus …: Despite this remark, many characters, including Electra, do question or find fault with Apollo’s command in the course of the play: see 76, 163–5, 191–4, 285–7, 416–17, 591–6, 956. Already in his Electra Euripides had allowed the god’s wisdom to be challenged, even by his fellow deities (1244–7, 1302). Moral criticism of the myths, with their often bloody and barbarous deeds, was common in Euripides’ time. In the end Apollo does resolve the problems of the survivors, but this does not mean that every spectator will be confident that the matricide was a good deed. Tragedy characteristically highlights deeds and choices which are morally difficult, sometimes insoluble.
5. shared in the murder: As also in Euripides’ own Electra; in the versions by the other tragedians Electra only lent moral support.
6. the Kindly Ones: (In Greek Eumenides.) She means the Furies, who had been given this euphemistic title in Aeschylus’ Eumenides. The reference to terrors that plague Orestes prepares for the madness-scene, but so far we can still assume that the Furies are real rather than the hallucinatory fears which afflict Orestes later. Even in Aeschylus, there is ambiguity: at the end of the Libation-Bearers the Furies are invisible to all but Orestes, whereas in the Eumenides they are present on stage and form the chorus.
7. It is the decree of this city of Argos: These lines introduce an important new element in the story. In Aeschylus’ Libation-Bearers, the people of Argos had been oppressed by the tyrannical rule of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, and Orestes after their deaths is hailed as a liberator. In this play the matricidal act revolts the Argive people: besides the persecution by the Furies (even if they exist only in his mind), Orestes must cope with the political consequences of his action. Electra’s comments here also make clear that events have reached a crisis (‘This is the appointed day …’ : cf. Aristotle, Poetics 5 on the tendency for tragedy to restrict its time frame to a single day).
8. entrusted to my mother’s fostering: This explains the presence of Hermione, who is needed for later developments. It is almost certainly an ad hoc invention by Euripides, who frequently adds explanatory ‘footnotes’ of this type.
9. Maiden for all too long a day: This line plays on the etymology of the name Electra, which is often treated as equivalent to a-lektr-. This means ‘deprived of marriage bed’, and alludes to the refusal of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus to let Electra marry. Cf. Sophocles, Electra 963–6. In the end Electra will marry Pylades.
10. contaminated: Those who have committed bloodshed are thought to be ‘polluted’ in the religious sense, and may bring bad luck on those they touch or even speak to. For this range of ideas see W. Burkert, Greek Religion (Eng. tr. Oxford 1985), pp. 75–82 and especially R. Parker, Miasma. Pollution and Purification in Greek Religion (Oxford 1983).
11. HERMIONE exits offstage: Hermione is completely silent in her brief appearance. This is a consequence of the three-actor rule: Electra and Orestes, playing major speaking parts, will both be continuously on stage for some time to come, and the third actor plays Helen. Hermione here (but not when she reappears) is played by a mute player.
12. who will sing with my lament: The explicit anticipation of a lyric exchange is one of many self-consciously ‘theatrical’ or metatextual touches in this play.
13. tread softly: For an actor to admonish the others on stage and entreat them not to awaken a sleeping figure seems to be a ‘typical scene’ of tragedy. Scenes like this appear in Euripides’ Heracles, Sophocles’ Women at Trachis and Philoctetes (produced in the previous year).
14. Oh no – your eyes are rolling, Brother: These lines make a swift introduction to the madness-scene, one of the most famous parts of the play (alluded to by Virgil in the Aeneid and quoted by Longinus in On the Sublime). Euripides’ presentation of madness is analysed in more detail by G. W. Bond in his commentary on the Heracles (Oxford 1981) (general note to 930–1009).
15. Give me my horn-tipped bow …: In the lyric poem entitled Oresteia by Stesichorus (fragment 217), Apollo had given a real bow to Orestes in order to fend off real Furies. In this scene the Furies are hallucinations, and probably no bow is physically present either. Orestes faces psychological, not supernatural, terrors.
16. calm descending on the stormy waves: Ancient tradition records the entertaining story that an actor called Hegelochus mispronounced the word ‘calm’ in this line, so that he appeared to be replacing it with the similar Greek word for ‘weasel’. This seems to be an authentic anecdote deriving from the earliest production, as it is alluded to by Aristophanes (Frogs 303–4) only a few years later (other comedians also make fun of the occasion).
17. would have begged me earnestly, clasping my chin: This is a gesture of supplication. The notion of Agamemnon wanting Clytemnestra to be spared is a novel one, running completely contrary to tradition. In Homer’s Odyssey his ghost speaks of her with bitter resentment in the underworld, and in Aeschylus Electra and Orestes try to summon their father’s wrathful spirit to lend them support in the matricide.
18. O you terrible goddesses …: One cannot pray to a hallucination; in this song the chorus are assuming that the Furies are real and that Orestes’ madness is the result of their persecution. Thus after the more ‘psychological’ presentation in the previous scene we return to a more mythological perspective. Either we can see this as preserving a significant ambiguity (cf. note 6 above) or it may be that the explanation lies in the different register: dialogue and lyric song permit different perspectives.
19. derives from wedlock with gods: Tantalus (note 1 above) was a son of Zeus, but sources are vague about his mother. According to the scholia he also married Dione, a daughter of Atlas.
20. in grand luxury: There is some similarity to the fulsome address by the chorus to Agamemnon when he appears on stage in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon. The reference to luxury may imply that Menelaus has been corrupted by his time in the East (though the allusion to his family background, if the text is sound, would suggest that he was a ready victim to such corruption).
21. Glaucus, son of Nereus: In the Odyssey Menelaus was informed of his brother’s fate by the sea-god Proteus in Egypt. Rather than simply repeating the Homeric version, Euripides plays a variation.
22. so I wouldn’t recognize him if I saw him: We note Euripides’ concern for realism and chronology. The Trojan war lasted ten years and Menelaus has been absent for a further seven (the figures go back to Homer); Orestes must therefore be at least seventeen or eighteen years old. Euripides may be consciously improving on a rather implausible passage in Homer, where Helen recognizes Telemachus, whom she has not seen for a similar length of time (Odyssey 4.141ff.).
23. leafless prayers: ‘Leafless’ because suppliants normally carried sacred boughs (Iliad 1.14, Sophocles, Oedipus the King 3, etc.); Orestes does not.
24. Awareness: The line is enigmatic, the expression abstract: Menelaus is naturally puzzled. The usual reading of this line takes it as referring to ‘conscience’; for discussion of alternatives see D. H. Porter, Studies in Euripides’ Orestes (Mnemosyne Suppl. 128, Leiden 1993), Appendix 1 (pp. 298–313).
25. Pylades: The tradition is consistent that Pylades came to Argos with Orestes and supported him at the crisis. His absence in the first part of this play is nowhere explained: in part it results from Euripides’ need to use all three actors for other roles.
26. A man does not show … loved ones: The sequence of thought is unclear and the text probably corrupt.
27. Oeax … what happened at Troy: This is a typical example of Euripides’ delight in connecting stories with one another or exploring the implications of relationships. Oeax was the son of Palamedes, who was one of the cleverest of the Greeks at Troy. This aroused Odysseus’ jealousy, and he plotted either to murder Palamedes or to frame him and get him condemned to death by the Greeks. His treacherous behaviour became known, and Palamedes’ father Nauplius in revenge lit beacons at night which lured some of the returning Greek ships on to the rocks. Euripides suggests that Oeax would have inherited the family feud.
28. Here comes Tyndareus: The appearance of a new character forestalls Menelaus’ reply. Tyndareus, the father of Clytemnestra and Helen, is not a familiar figure in the legend, although the fifth-century BC historian Hellanicus appears to have written of the relations of Clytemnestra, presumably including her father, bringing charges against Orestes (fragment 169 in R. Fowler, Early Greek Mythography I (Oxford 2000)). The extreme awkwardness for Orestes of coming face to face with a grandfather whose daughter he has murdered gives spice to the scene; the audience will already be anticipating fierce exchanges of words. Tyndareus’ cloak of mourning contrasts visually with Menelaus’ finery (and Orestes’ filthy condition).
29. fellow husband with Zeus: This bizarre formulation alludes to the uncertainty as to whether Helen was the daughter of Leda by her husband Tyndareus or by Zeus himself (the latter is normally assumed, and is confirmed by Apollo at the end of the play): cf. Helen 18–21, Iphigenia at Aulis 794 ff. Clytemnestra by contrast is of purely human parentage.
30. Ah, there he stands before the palace …: Tyndareus sees Orestes but for some time avoids even speaking to him, confining himself to discussion with Menelaus. This expresses his revulsion at coming into any contact with the criminal. Only at 526 does he finally address Orestes.
31. Everything that is caused … wise men’s eyes: An obscure reply, probably alluding to sophistic ideas. In context it probably means that the compulsion imposed by the laws should not be slavishly accepted, i.e. that there is room for debate as to whether the laws are always right. But Menelaus may be deliberately avoiding putting his cards on the table.
32. Now is the time to debate wisdom with this man: The text is uncertain, but something like this seems likely to be the sense. The term agon (‘debate’ or ‘contest’) is used in this line, introducing the standard rhetorical conflict which we find in most Euripidean plays. (Cf. note 22 to Phoenician Women, and for discussion of the present debate M. Lloyd, The Agon in Euripides (Oxford 1992), ch. 7). This is a curious example, as the natural opponents are Tyndareus and Orestes, but Tyndareus for much of his speech speaks through Menelaus (at 526–33 he directs his attack at Orestes, but then turns back to Menelaus for the close of his speech). The response of Orestes is made directly to Tyndareus. After a further brief speech Tyndareus departs; Orestes then addresses Menelaus in an appeal which has some of the agonistic qualities (especially artificiality of argument), but also carries intense emotional appeal. Menelaus’ reply does not partake of the agon conventions and fails to engage with any of Orestes’ points.
33. He neither showed regard for justice … law of the Greeks: Tyndareus’ account of what Orestes should have done has often been criticized as anachronistic: was it possible in the heroic age to oust Aegisthus and Clytemnestra by any means other than force? Did the legal system Tyndareus presupposes even exist? Was the court founded at Athens in Aeschylus’ trilogy conceived as the first human court for homicide cases? Even if Tyndareus’ alternative is not as far-fetched as some critics maintain, it is significant that no character in the other versions of the story ever suggests this course of action.
34. when your mother held out her breast to you in supplication: This was a famous climactic moment. See especially Aeschylus, Libation-Bearers 896ff., Euripides, Electra 1206ff., and in this play itself 825ff. with 841 below.
35. My father sowed the seed of my life … seed from another: The idea that the father’s role is primary and the mother is merely the receptacle for his seed is used in defence of Orestes by Apollo in Aeschylus, Eumenides 658–9, and can be paralleled elsewhere. It was not, however, a universal view, and even in Aeschylus it hardly mitigates the horror of matricide; still less here, where Orestes is snatching at any argument he can find in his own defence.
36. let me tell you how I have benefited all Greece by my action: This is a paradoxical argument reminiscent of the rhetorical schools of the day. The sophist Gorgias argued that Helen was equally innocent of crime whether it was passion, persuasion, the gods or compulsion that made her go to Troy. Plato in the Phaedrus has Lysias argue that one should yield to the courtship of a non-lover rather than a lover. Euripides’ work includes many such speeches maintaining bizarre or counter-intuitive propositions. In Medea Jason undertakes to prove that his abandoning Medea for another woman is wise, virtuous and beneficial for Medea; in the lost Cretans, Pasiphae undertook to prove that it was Minos’ fault, not hers, that she had slept with a bull (F 427e).
Talk of the benefit of Orestes’ deed recurs in the Argive assembly, where it forms the basis for some obviously dubious arguments. It is interesting that Iphigenia in the Iphigenia at Aulis declares her intention to die for the good of Greece, although others question her decision. We may suspect that Euripides had heard many high-sounding claims from orators that their policies were for the greater national good.
37. what would the dead man have done to me?: The question is raised also, though not answered, in the Aeschylean trilogy. Orestes lists the perils which are threatened if he disobeys Apollo’s command (Libation-Bearers 275ff.), but these seem to be plagues sent by the god, not by Agamemnon. At the crisis Clytemnestra warns him to beware the hounds (i.e. the Furies) of his mother, but Orestes replies, ‘but if I shirk this task, how can I escape the hounds of my father?’ (924–5).
38. And what of Apollo?: This concluding passage is the most forceful passage questioning Apollo’s role that we have heard so far. Orestes’ almost hysterical demand that Apollo should be executed is not to be taken seriously, but a real point is being made: where is Apollo, and why is he not present to defend his agent, as in the Eumenides? His appearance at the end of the play does not answer all questions. See Preface.
39. She deserves death more than you … : The hostile characterization of Electra here seems quite different from the woman we have so far seen, who tends her brother with tearful sympathy. She is more like the heroine of Euripides’ earlier Electra. Is this intertextual allusion, or Tyndareus’ angry distortion of the facts? In any case, it paves the way for the later scenes in which Electra becomes more aggressive: note especially the imagery of fire, anticipating the threat to burn down the whole palace in the closing scene.
40. I do not ask that you kill Hermione: The sacrifice of Iphigenia is not referred to elsewhere in the play, and for Orestes to drag it in here is strangely irrelevant. The idea of a matching sacrifice by Menelaus is grotesque – nor would such an act make any difference to Orestes’ own dilemma. His weak position is reinforced by weak arguments.
41. imagine that it is he who hears this …: The rhetoric continues to be extravagant. Agamemnon is imagined as performing a dual role, both speaking and listening!
42. I will go and try to persuade … moderation: Although we may sympathize with Menelaus’ dilemma, he does not cut a very impressive figure here. He fails to answer any of Orestes’ points or to refer to his debt to Agamemnon; his efforts to persuade Tyndareus will obviously fail; and Orestes will have no way of telling whether Menelaus has tried at all. His prevarications suggest that he has been intimidated by Tyndareus’ stern warning. Although we may allow that Menelaus is not positively portrayed, Aristotle’s complaint that Euripides has made him unnecessarily wicked seems misguided (Poetics 1451a, 1461b).
43. Enter PYLADES: At this point the metre changes to trochaic tetrameters, a metre increasingly used by Euripides in later plays and very prominent in the Orestes. The metre is used for all of the rest of this scene. It here conveys excitement and a sense of urgency; this is increased when at 774–98 each line is divided between the two friends. Compare the same techniques in Phoenician Women 588–624.
44. rather she brought him: The idea is that Menelaus is under Helen’s thumb. Cf. Electra 930–31, on Aegisthus as submissive to Clytemnestra. For the idea that Menelaus is not a serious fighter cf. the jibe in Iliad 17.588, and lines 717ff., 1201–2 here.
45. the ancient misfortune of that house …: The events referred to are explained in note 1 above. ‘Tantalus’ sons’ is loosely used: Atreus and Thyestes were actually his grandsons. As often in tragedy, present disaster is set against past prosperity.
46. Not noble was that noble act …: Deliberately expressed in contradictory terms. Orestes’ action is both honourable dealing-out of justice and horrific crime: the latter perception of his deed is highlighted here through the vivid recollection of the moment of killing, including even direct speech. In contrast with their earlier adherence to Electra’s cause, the chorus now explicitly condemn Orestes’ deed (though in the concluding lines they allow that he is ‘wretched’).
47. A MESSENGER …: On the messenger speech in tragedy see note 55 on Phoenician Women. As usual, the characterization is light. This man is a countryman, loyal to the family of Agamemnon, sympathetic to Orestes, honest but naive in his reactions to the rhetoric of the assembly.
The description of the assembly is one of the passages which comes closest to the fifth-century BC politics of Euripides’ own day. Many lines would have evoked amused or sour recognition of the rhetorical tactics and dubious motives familiar to the Athenians from their own democratic debates. The opening formula in line 885 ‘Who wishes to say …’ echoes the initial question opening a debate in Athens (cf. Suppliant Women 438–9). The complaints about demagogues and slick speakers recall contemporary discussions of the weaknesses of the assembly (see especially Thucydides’ Mytilene debate, 3.38ff.). Possibly the speech has been supplemented to enhance these ‘modern’ notes (Diggle follows earlier scholars in deleting 895–7 (on heralds) and 904–13 (on demagogues), but if so the interpolator was following Euripides’ clear lead.
On the contrast between the Athenian court of the Areopagus in Aeschylus’ Eumenides, which finally acquits Orestes, and the Argive court here, which condemns him to death, see C. B. R. Pelling, Literary Texts and the Greek Historian (London 1999), pp. 164–88.
48. where men say Danaus … Aegyptus: This refers to the legend of Danaus and his daughters, but seemingly not the version dramatized by Aeschylus. After the Danaids had slain their husbands, the father of the dead men, Aegyptus, came to Argos demanding reparation. Danaus at first thought of giving battle, but was persuaded to summon (or go before) an Argive court for arbitration. This version is summarized by the ancient scholia on this passage.
49. Talthybius: He was the herald of Agamemnon in the Iliad, where he is mentioned at various points but has no significant part to play. He figures in Euripides’ Hecabe and Trojan Women, in both of which he is a relatively sympathetic figure, compassionate towards Hecabe although forced to carry out his own orders. Here the characterization is negative, reinforcing Orestes’ isolation. For Euripides’ tendency to present heralds in a bad light compare Suppliant Women 399ff., 426ff.
50. an Argive and yet no true Argive: This line is reminiscent of the various attacks on politicians accusing them of foreign birth (thus Aeschines calls Demosthenes ‘son of the Scythian’). Ancient scholars detected a sneer at the contemporary politician Cleophon, who suffered from similar slanders; but it is unlikely that the poet intended a specific allegory. The man is an archetypal demagogue (the next line reminds us of descriptions in Aristophanes and Thucydides of the more famous Cleon, by now dead).
51. it is ruin they have brought: In conjunction with the name Phoebus, it is clear that this is a play on the resemblance between his other name, Apollo, and the Greek verb used here, apôlesen, ‘brought ruin, destroyed’. Again the questioning of Apollo’s role and reliability is given prominence (in Aeschylus he appears and speaks for Orestes at his trial).
52. share the lament that follows: Who sings what in the following passage has been much discussed (the manuscripts have no authority in such matters). The arrangement here follows Diggle. Others have given the whole sung interlude to Electra or (less plausibly) to the chorus. For discussion and bibliography see M. Damen, ‘Electra’s Monody and the Role of the Chorus in Euripides’ Orestes’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 120 (1990), pp. 133–45. Cf. note 55.
53. Cyclopean land: Mycenae, whose massive walls were thought to have been constructed by Cyclopes.
54. setting shearing steel to the head: The reference is to cutting one’s hair in mourning. The ‘land’, personified, is urged to do what its womenfolk will do.
55. O that I might come to the rock … necessity of this house: After two stanzas of lamentation from the chorus, the singing role passes to Electra, who sings of the sorrows of her family in more detail. Whereas the chorus’s contribution formed a strophic pair, Electra’s lament is ‘astrophic’, a single aria without stanzaic structure. This seems to reflect her greater involvement and deeper distress.
On the myths referred to here (the punishment of Tantalus; Pelops, Oenomaus and Myrtilus; the golden lamb; the Thyestean feast and Aerope’s adultery), see note 1 above.
The punishment of Tantalus is here described in a novel way (developing the hint of an unusual version in 7: ‘hovers in the air’). Traditionally the stone hangs or hovers over his head in Hades; here it is hung between heaven and earth and he in some way whirls or orbits with it. The ‘golden chains’ allude to passages spoken by Zeus in Homer, in which he threatens to suspend Hera or the other gods by them: these were interpreted allegorically by some later readers (Iliad 8.19ff, 15.19–20). Astronomical theories such as those of Anaxagoras are also clearly in the poet’s mind (especially ‘the rock … a lump from Olympus’ mass’, an expression which suggests that the heavenly bodies are solid objects, not divine powers).
For Euripides’ fondness for ‘escape-lyric’ see Bacchae 402ff. and note 39.
56. Why should I any longer feel shame at this …: The true hero does not weep or indulge in sentimental protestations. Having first contrasted Electra’s distress with Orestes’ sternness, Euripides now allows a moment of tenderness and shared emotion.
57. You have a city: This neglects Pylades’ explanation at 765 that he has been exiled. The inconsistency is trivial, and easily explained: Pylades’ devotion will be greater if he has something to sacrifice by dying with his friends.
58. let us consider together how Menelaus should share our misery: This line and Orestes’ enthusiastic response marks the transition from one plot-line (means of escape sought but not found) to another (plotting and revenge). Euripides in his later plays makes a habit of combining story-patterns which could be used separately, creating more complex plots and enhancing the emotional range. See F. Solmsen, Kleine Schriften (Hildesheim 1968), pp. 141ff.; P. Burian, ‘Myth into Muthos: the Shaping of the Tragic Plot’ in P. E. Easterling (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (Cambridge 1997), pp. 186–90. The effect of this transition on the audience’s moral assessment of the characters is disorienting: from being helpless and distressed victims Orestes and (shortly) Electra are swiftly transformed into merciless conspirators. The desire to hurt Menelaus is understandable; to kill Helen is extreme, despite the regular hostility toward her in tragedy; to contemplate killing Hermione too is shocking. See further Preface.
59. they are here as our friends: The presence of the chorus is often awkward for intrigues, but the convention that they keep secrets is so well established that the matter is disposed of in two lines (earlier in the century they would no doubt have been asked to swear an oath, as e.g. in Medea and Ion).
60. I understand the sign: An obscure line, but seemingly spelling out what Pylades evasively implied in ‘the deed’. ‘I understand the clue you are giving me.’ Others render ‘watchword’ rather than ‘sign’.
61. But as it is …: Pylades’ stirring summons to take proper revenge for all the dead at Troy echoes some features of the anti-Helen tradition (in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon the people of Argos are said to be resentful of the many deaths ‘for the sake of another man’s wife’; cf. in this play 57ff., 98ff.). But Pylades exaggerates this hatred of Helen to fantastic heights, imagining that their deed will make them into national heroes. There are hints of delusion, even of fanaticism, in the latter part of this scene.
62. Brother, I think I see a way to achieve this very thing …: The increasingly negative presentation of the trio extends now to Electra. Her hatred of Menelaus and Helen makes her indifferent to the innocent Hermione.
63. O Father, who dwell … helper: The invocation of Agamemnon’s ghost recalls the scene at his tomb in Aeschylus’ Libation-Bearers, where Orestes, Electra and the chorus call on him for aid in the task of revenge. There the scene extends through nearly 200 lines of lyrics and concludes with a shorter sequence of trimeters (306ff., 479ff.). Here the invocation is confined to spoken verse and is a perfunctory effort. The task for which they seek his aid is also strongly contrasted.
64. Have their swords lost their edge in the face of beauty?: This recalls the story in the Epic Cycle (echoed also in Aristophanes, Lysistrata 155–6), that during the sack of Troy Menelaus was ready to kill Helen, but she bared her breasts and he, spellbound, lowered his sword. The same episode underlies the scene involving Menelaus and Helen in Trojan Women 860ff.
65. [screaming from inside]: The cry of the victim from within is a typical feature of the intrigue-plot: the audience would have been waiting as eagerly as Electra. The archetypal example is the crying out of Agamemnon as he is murdered (Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1343ff.)
66. Stab her, kill her, strike her, destroy her: This is a chilling moment, even if the audience still believes that Euripides cannot allow the conspirators’ plot to succeed. The vicious note of lust for revenge makes it hard to continue sympathizing with Electra. (Whether she or the chorus or both chant these lines is disputed, but it seems unlikely that she is excluded.)
67. here comes Hermione …: The scene which follows is a typical ‘entrapment’ sequence, another recurrent feature of the intrigue-plot. The ambiguities in Electra’s replies are characteristic of such scenes.
68. But there is a rumbling … Lines 1366–8 are deleted by some editors, on the basis of a comment in the scholia ascribing them to actors in a post-Euripidean production. This issue is connected with the question of how the Phrygian’s entry was staged. It would be simpler if he simply ran out the door (through which Orestes certainly emerges later), but more spectacular if he climbed out of the roof of the stage-building and jumped or let himself down on a rope from that high point. (For use of the stage roof by actors compare Phoenician Women 88ff.) The latter staging may be implied by his opening words (‘climbing over the cedar rafters … down the Dorian triglyphs’). If the chorus’s lines are authentic, they could be misdirection, encouraging the audience to expect an entry from the doorway – but they would only be deceived for a moment. The matter will remain controversial: for a recent discussion see T. Falkner, ‘Scholars Versus Actors: Text and Performance in the Greek Tragic Scholia’, in P. E. Easterling and E. Hall (eds.), Greek and Roman Actors: Aspects of an Ancient Profession (Cambridge 2002), pp. 342–61.
The Phrygian himself is one of the boldest surprises Euripides has for his audience. In effect he is a messenger, but of a unique type: a singing messenger, and one who gives his account of events in a highly colourful, exotic and often opaque style far removed from the customary clear exposition of such figures. Also, those messengers are normally given full knowledge of events: but the Phrygian leaves it quite unclear what has happened to Helen, an important ambiguity. He is also the only anonymous singing slave in tragedy (apart from choruses). That he is represented as a eunuch is likely (see 1528); that he is dressed in Eastern style is certain. He sings throughout (up to the point where Orestes enters); the chorus responds in spoken verse. The metres are astrophic and bewilderingly diverse. Although there is some difficulty in understanding exactly what has happened in the house, this is more because of the Phrygian’s own agitation and uncertainties, not from any incoherence on his part: despite the impression given by some translations (notably that of W. Arrowsmith in the Complete Greek Tragedies series), he is not speaking pidgin-Greek but uses highly sophisticated diction and imagery. We see the influence of the ‘new music’ fashionable in Athens at this time (though Euripides’ closeness to the work of Timotheus, of whose work most survives, has perhaps been exaggerated).
69. beauty bird-born, Leda’s swan-winged chick: Zeus came to Leda, Helen’s mother, in the form of a swan (as in Yeats’s magnificent poem): hence it was sometimes illogically supposed that she was born of an egg, an idea treated with reserve by Helen herself (Helen 18ff., 256ff.). If the text can be credited, swan-form is figuratively ascribed here even to Helen.
70. Ganymede: A beautiful boy of the Trojan royal family, abducted by Zeus to act as his wine-waiter by day and to share his bed by night. Cf. Trojan Women 820ff.
71. a cunning net … that serpent who killed his mother: The imagery is strongly reminiscent of Aeschylus’ Oresteia, and the associations of treachery, trapping and snake-like poison cannot but have a negative effect on our view of Orestes.
72. In the Phrygian fashion … the Phrygian … stirring the air, the air: The lyric repetitiousness of style is parodied by Aristophanes, Frogs 1352ff.
73. how much we Phrygians are inferior … martial process: The national chauvinism of Greek thinking about East and West was given added impetus by their success in resisting the Persian invasions earlier in the fifth century BC. See esp. E. Hall, Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-definition through Tragedy (Oxford 1989). Needless to say, this crudity of outlook need not be Euripides’ own opinion, but he is prepared to use the ‘stock’ assumptions where it suits him. A far more complex spectrum of attitudes is visible in Herodotus’ great History.
74. ORESTES enters from the palace doorway: The scene between Orestes and the Phrygian (1506–31) is in trochaic tetrameters (cf. note 43); this seems to suit the lively and fast-moving exchange. The tone of the scene is hard to catch. The scholia already complain (on 1512) ‘what is said here is unworthy both of tragedy and of Orestes’ unhappy situation’. Orestes is in a position of superior power and enjoys it; the Phrygian is a comical and untragic figure (still more so to many Athenians, no doubt; see last note), and in the end he does get safely away. But Orestes’ taunts and threats leave an unpleasant taste in the mouth. They also make clear that Hermione can expect no mercy.
75. Tyndareus’ daughter perished: Orestes here and in 1533, 1536, assumes Helen is in fact dead; the audience, having heard the Phrygian’s account, is not so sure. At 1580 and subsequent lines Orestes has changed his tune (we can assume, if we like, that he has found no corpse indoors; but such filling-in of detail is hardly necessary in such a fast-moving play).
76. fallen, fallen … because Myrtilus fell: The use of the same verb is also present in the Greek and clearly deliberate. On Pelops’ killing of Myrtilus see note 1 above; also 992.
77. His silence proclaims he does: This is an in-joke alluding to theatrical convention: Orestes and Menelaus are already onstage, Apollo is about to appear (the audience do not know this, but they may have guessed a deus ex machina is imminent); hence three actors are already needed for this scene, and Pylades must be played by a mute extra. Moroever, there is an ingenious reversal of the climactic scene in Aeschylus’ Libation-Bearers. There, Orestes along with a so-far silent Pylades confronts his mother: she appeals to him for pity, and he falters, asking Pylades what he should do; and Pylades responds by reminding him of the command of Apollo. There an apparently mute actor suddenly spoke; here a previously vocal actor is silent. Orestes needs no encouragement on his destructive course.
78. Oh, take your sword away from my daughter: The following section of dialogue (down to 1617 ‘You have trapped yourself…’) involves division of each line between speakers, and in each line Orestes caps Menelaus: he has the upper hand. (There has been some reordering of the lines in order to produce a more plausible sequence: C. W. Willink (Orestes, Oxford 1986), followed by Diggle, places 1608–12 after 1599. Hence the odd appearance of the marginal line-numbers.)
79. Apollo appears on high: Orestes, Pylades and Hermione certainly, and Electra very probably, are already on the roof of the stage-building. Apollo must appear on a still higher level, probably on the ‘crane’ (Greek mechane, Latin machina; hence ‘deus ex machina’) which was regularly used to bring flying figures into view. This device was certainly used in some famous scenes, e.g. for Medea’s departure in the chariot of the sun at the end of Medea, or for Bellerophon flying on Pegasus in the lost play Bellerophon (parodied in the first scene of Aristophanes’ Peace). It is not certain that Helen appears with Apollo, but it seems desirable that Menelaus and Orestes should both be shown her true state (if 1631–2, deleted by Murray and Diggle and omitted in our version, were genuine that would make her presence certain, but they are probably spurious). Some doubt that the crane could support both characters’ weight. Others hold that there may have been a still higher platform above the stage-building, reserved for the gods. For discussion see D. J. Mastronarde, ‘Actors on High: the Skene-Roof, the Crane and the Gods in Attic Drama’, Classical Antiquity 9 (1990), pp. 247–94.
On the role of Apollo see Preface to this play.
80. bringing safety to mariners: The role of Castor and Polydeuces, Helen’s brothers, as protectors of seafarers is well known. Helen was worshipped as a deity at Sparta and shared cult with her brothers, but her role as a sea-goddess seems to be Euripides’ invention. Indeed, this whole section of the play involves innovation on his part. In Homer Helen returns to Sparta with Menelaus and they live in harmony together, but it is foretold that when they die they will both dwell in Elysium, the home of a few privileged heroes in the afterlife. This future is also predicted for them at the end of Euripides’ Helen. For her life to be cut short and her divinity established almost immediately after her return to Greece is unprecedented; but it provides a way to end the conflict and gives clearer justification for her miraculous disappearance from the palace.
81. to rid the earth of its complement of mortals: This explanation for the Trojan war, absent from Homer, was found in the early epic poem called the Cypria, and is also mentioned in the prologue to the Helen. It reinforces our sense of the gods as remote from mankind and little concerned with their interests.
82. You, Orestes … destined to prevail: Orestes will spend a year in exile, in line with Athenian law on an involuntary homicide. He will give his name to a town in Arcadia (aetiology): cf. Electra 1272–3, where the Dioscuri make a similar prediction, but apparently predicting lifelong exile. After that he will undergo trial at Athens, but this is to be a very different trial from that in Aeschylus (and still more from the assembly-scene in this play, whose decision it overturns). In the Eumenides he was tried by men, but Apollo predicts a trial by gods, and assures him of the favourable verdict. Any potential tragic tension is dissipated.
83. Neoptolemus: Son of Achilles. This alludes to a different strand of legend, dramatized in rather different terms by Euripides in Andromache. There Hermione is discontented with her marriage; here she will not have to endure it. The death of Neoptolemus at Delphi further suggests the power of the gods to help and harm. Apollo raises up the son of Agamemnon, but will strike down the son of Achilles.
84. some spirit of vengeance: Orestes uses the word alastor, denoting a supernatural power that afflicts a family or household with punishment for past crimes, often by misleading or tricking individuals. Cf. Aeschylus, Persians 354, Agamemnon 1501, 1508, Euripides, Hippolytus 820, etc.
85. O Victory … giving me your crown: These lines also appear at the end of the Phoenician Women: see note there. They are certainly spurious in both places. Probably they replaced an authentic choral tailpiece in some later production.