The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I.. Euripides

1

The reader will obtain some notion of the difficulties alluded to, and the best mode of grappling with them, by consulting the recent Cambridge edition, published with English notes (Iph. in Aulide, 1840, in Tauris, 1846), performances of great critical acumen, attributed to the present Bishop of Gloucester.

2

See Theatre of the Greeks, p. 92. sqq.

3

Bacch. 200. This play was written during his sojourn with Archelaus.

4

τοιουτονι τι παρακεκινδευμενον. Aristoph. Ran. 99.

5

Poet. § xviii.

6

Hec. 905 sqq.

7

Homer makes Dymas, not Cisseus, the father of Hecuba. Virgil however follows Euripides, the rest of the Latin poets Virgil.

8

In the martial time of antiquity the spear was reverenced as something divine, and signified the chief command in arms, it was also the insigne of the highest civil authority: in this sense Euripides in other places uses the word δορυ. See Hippol. 988.

9

τριταιος properly signifies triduanus; here it is used for τριτος, the cardinal number for the ordinal. So also Hippol. 275.

10

Most interpreters render this, leaning on the crooked staff with my hand. Nor has Beck altered it in his Latin version, though he transcribed Musgrave's note. "σκολιω, σκιμπωνι (for which Porson directs σκιπωνι,) Scipiones in universum recti sunt, non curvi. Loquitur igitur non de vero scipione, sed metaphorice de brachio, quod ancillis innitens, scipionis usum præstabat; quodque, ob cubiti flexuram, σκολιον σκιμπωμα vocat."

11

that babbling knave.] Tzetzes on Lycophron, line 763. κοπις, ‛ο ‛ρητωρ, και εμπειρος, ‛ο ‛υπο πολλων πραγματων κεκομμενος. In the Index to Lycophron κοπις is translated scurra.

12

Among the ancients it was the custom for virgins to have a great quantity of golden ornaments about them, to which Homer alludes, Il. Β. 872.

13

This is the only sense that can be made of ενθανειν, and this sense seems strained: Brunck proposes εντακηναι for ενθανειν γε. See Note687.

14

We must, I think, read τολμαιν.

15

λιμνη is used for the sea in Troades 444; as also in Iliad Ν. 21, and Odyssey Γ. 1. and in many other passages of Homer.

16

The construction is η πορευσεις με ενθα νασων; for εις εκεινην των νασων, ενθα.

17

κεκλημαι for ειμι, not an unusual signification. Hippol. 2, θεα κεκλημαι Κυπρις.

18

When she perceived it, εφρασθη, συνηκεν, εγνω, ενοησεν. Hesych.

19

Dindorf disposes these lines differently, but I prefer Porson's arrangement, as follows:

20

The Gods beneath he despised, by casting him out without a tomb; the Gods above, as the guardians of the rites of hospitality.

21

Whatever was due, either on the score of friendship, or as an equivalent for his care and protection.

22

Musgrave proposes to read προμισθιαν for προμηθιαν: the version above is in accordance with the scholiast and the paraphrast.

23

See note on Medea 338.

24

The story of the daughters of Danaus is well known.

25

Of this there are two accounts given in the Scholia. The one is, that the women of Lemnos being punished by Venus with an ill savor, and therefore neglected by their husbands, conspired against them and slew them. The other is found in Herodotus, Erato, chap. 138. see also Æsch. Choephoræ, line 627, ed. Schutz.

26

Polymestor was guilty of two crimes, αδικιας and ασεβειας, for he had both violated the laws of men, and profaned the deity of Jupiter Hospitalis. Whence Agamemnon, v. 840, hints that he is to suffer on both accounts.

The Chorus therefore says, Ubi contingit eundem et Justitiæ et Diis esse addictum, exitiale semper malum esse; or, as the learned Hemsterheuyse has more fully and more elegantly expressed, it, Ubi, id est, in quo, vel in quem cadit et concurrit, ut ob crimen commissum simul et humanæ justitiæ et Deorum vindictæ sit obnoxius, ac velut oppignoratus; illi certissimum exitium imminet. This sense the words give, if for ου, we read ‛ου, i.e. in the sense of ‛οπου. MUSGRAVE. Correct Dindorf's text to ‛ου.

27

συμπεσεειν in unum coire, coincidere. In this sense it is used also, Herod. Euterpe, chap. 49.

28

The verbal adjective in τος is almost universally used in a passive sense; ‛υποπτος, however, in this place is an exception to the rule, as are also, καλυπτης, Soph. Antig. 1011, μεμπτος, Trachin. 446.

29

Perhaps the preferable way is to make κακοισιν agree with ανθρωποις understood; that the sense may be, You are a bad man to talk of your advantage as a plea for having acted thus.

30

Θανουσα δ' η ζωσ' ενθαδ' εκπλησω βιον; a similar expression occurs in the Anthologia.