Kovacs, 'Euripides: Heraclidae', Bryn Mawr Classical Review 9508
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmcr/bmcr-9508-kovacs-euripides
@@@@95.8.9, Wilkins, ed., Euripides: Heraclidae
John Wilkins (ed.), Euripides: Heraclidae with Introduction and
Commentary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. Pp. xxxviii, 198. $49.95.
ISBN 0-19-814758-9.
Reviewed by David Kovacs -- University of Virginia
pdk7g@faraday.clas.virginia.edu
Hcld. is, to put it mildly, not everyone's favorite play
(Wilamowitz at one point said it was not worth reading), and it has not
been often edited or studied. Wilkins' commentary will give scholars the
basis for making their own assessment of its worth.
The Introduction is a thorough and workmanlike treatment of the
background necessary for interpretation. First comes a discussion of
what is known of the earlier history of the separate story elements of
the play, the flight of the Heraclids to Athens, the self-sacrifice of
Heracles' virgin daughter (possibly an invention of Euripides), the
rejuvenation of Iolaus, and the death of Eurystheus. Next come sections
on the action and characters of the play, its religious and social
context (subsections on human sacrifice, Eurystheus as "enemy hero,"
Heracles, and the play's setting), the integrity of the play (arguing
against the idea that a scene has been lost after line 629), and
representations of the play or its myths in ancient art. There are two
final sections on the date of the play and its textual tradition.
The text of the play follows, reproduced from Diggle's OCT but
slightly larger and easier to read and with more generous margins.
Typographical errors noticed by reviewers and others have been
corrected. The text also includes Diggle's "Fragmenta Heraclidis Falso
Adscripta." As he makes clear in his commentary, W. is not so sure that
the penultimate word in this title is accurate.
The commentary, 150 pages in length, is learned and bears witness
to years of hard work. It will deserve the gratitude of future students
of Euripides. In what follows I draw attention to its chief
contributions and note a few points of disagreement.
2-5: Zuntz makes the case for Reiske's suggestion that a line has
dropped out after 2, a case that once convinced me. W. argues
convincingly for the integrity of the text. 5: AU(TO/S is not the
nominative of AU(TOU= (which has none), but only crasis for O( AU)TO/S.
6: W. translates AI)DOI= KAI\ TO\ SUGGENE\S SE/BWN as "through respect
and reverence for my kinsmen," but the kinsmen belong only to the second
half, and it is possible that AI)DOI= means "from a sense of decency"
(i.e. respect for what others approve of) or even "out of pity," a
frequent sense of AI)DW/S where the helpless, such as suppliants, are
concerned. 72: discussion with full bibliography of the so-called
"accusative in apposition with the sentence." 73-110: W.'s discussion
was unable to profit from C. W. Willink, CQ 41 (1991), 525-9, who
shows that we need not on metrical grounds posit a lacuna after 110.
97-8: W. defends the repetition of these at 221-2, citing among others
Page, Actors' Interpolations 103-5, but Page is actually skeptical
that 221-2 are genuine. 147-50: to construe TIN' E)S SE\ MWRI/AN
E)SKEMME/NOI / DEU=R' H)=LQON as MWRI/AN TINA E)SKEMME/NOI [E)N SOI\]
DEU=R' H)=LQON E)S SE/ (Elmsley) is a desperate attempt to avoid an
obvious correction, E)N SOI\ (Hartung) for E)S SE/. 169: The discussion
of this justly daggered line does not go far enough. W. points to the
overabundance of qualifiers (TO\ LW=ISTON and MO/NON). He gives one
possible and one impossible translation (his second version presupposes
the subaudition of E)=NAI, which does not happen). Like Diggle, he is
attracted by a lacuna after 169 in which the substance of the hope in
question would be stated, but he does not give an exempli gratia
supplement, which anyone who proposes a lacuna is in duty bound to do,
and either the position of MO/NON or its gender or both would seem to
frustrate the attempt to write one. 198: As parallels for OU)K OI)=D'
here W. cites Hec. 397 and Su. 518, but the irony that
works so well in those passages is missing here. Kirchhoff's OU)/ FHM'
is attractive, and the corruption (influence of OI)=DA in 199)
plausible. 307-8: note on the significance of shaking hands in tragedy
and Greek art. 321: discusses the usage and tone of W)= TA=N. 358-60:
on MH/PW as a strong "never" with no suggestion of "yet." 374: note
needed on OU(/TWS, "without further ado, simply": see LSJ s.v. IV. 376:
on shields as wooden frames covered with bronze. 379: "Since metre does
not demand E)RASTA/S we should probably read E)RASTA/ (Musgrave)." But
J. A. J. M. Buijs, Mnemosyne 38 (1985), 74-92, has shown that
anaclasis in the aeolic base of a glyconic or wilamowitzianus is very
rare where there is word overlap from the preceding line. 381-607:
discussion of entrance conventions, according to which the new arrival
usually speaks first. 396: W. discusses numerous suggestions for the
daggered TA\ NU=N DORO\S, but most of them fail an important test,
ability to account for the construction of TH=SDE ... XQONO/S. We need
consider only suggestions like Diggle's TOU)NQE/ND' O(/ROIS. 399-409 and
400: good discussions of sacrifices, including human, taking place before
battle. 529: the suggestion of both a lacuna and the alteration of
KATA/RXESQ' EI) DOKEI= to KATA/RXESQAI DO/TE is too expensive to be
plausible. 646ff.: on the convention by which off-stage characters hear
or fail to hear on-stage shouting to suit the convenience of the
dramatist. 665: a reference to Dawe's discussion of OU)KE/TI as "not the
further expected point" at OT 115 would have been welcome here.
751: references on infinitive for imperative. 788: W. attractively
suggests following DIH/LASEN by a lacuna. 836 discussion of partitive
apposition. 863-6 discussion of sententious reflection at the end of
messenger speeches. 868: W. cites Iliad 6.455 and 463 on the
meaning of E)LEU/QERON H)=MAR, but these (and others like them) show that
this phrase means "freedom." The Chorus cannot mean that they can now
look on a life of freedom, for they have never been slaves. We must
construe E)LEU/QERON with DEINOU= FO/BOU, a day set free from dreadful
fear, and there is something to be said for Dobree's E)LEUQE/RWI. 968:
"A connective particle is not required with OI)=MAI: cf. 511, 670." What
all three of these passages show is that asyndeton is normal at the
beginning of a speech or in answer to one's own question. Parenthetic
OI)=MAI in tragedy does not cause asyndeton by itself. 1023: I do not
see how TOI=S METELQOU=SIN FI/LWN can refer to Athenians rather than to
Eurystheus' own Argive kin.
The treatment of the end of the play is the least satisfactory.
W., like Diggle, assumes a lacuna after 1052. Credit for this is given
in the app. crit. to Hermann, whose auctoritas rates high with all
students of Greek tragedy. But Hermann never published this suggestion,
and we owe our knowledge of it to a report in Matthiae's 1824 edition
(Volume VIII, p. 257) of a note in Hermann's hand at the play's end. It
reads "Fabulae extrema pars videtur intercidisse, in qua fieri non
poterat, quin de Macaria referretur, eaque res solitis celebraretur
lamentis. Potuerunt in ea fabulae parte locum habere duo isti trimetri,
quos Stobaeus . . . ex Heraclidis affert." In others words, Hermann does
not say where he proposes to put the lacuna, and the only grounds he
gives are ones that led to the conclusion, rejected by recent scholars,
that there was originally another scene following 629. With
auctoritas now removed, what says ratio? "It is
unbelievable that the chorus should acquiesce so readily in the death,
let alone the non-burial of a prospective hero (cf. 1050-1 n.: PURI\
(Elmsley) or KO/NEI (Housman) only partially meet this problem)." I
agree that the idea of throwing Eurystheus' body to the dogs could not
have gone unchallenged. But Eurystheus himself has acquiesced in his own
death, claiming that he will not think any the worse of the Athenians for
it, and unless he dies and is buried in Attica, as the oracle says he
must be, the Athenians will not get the benefit of his talismanic
presence. The Athenians have everything to gain from his death and
nothing to lose. If we dagger KUSI\N, the text makes perfect sense, with
1053 echoing 1050 and 1054-5 spelling out what Eurystheus has made clear,
that the Athenians will not be held to blame for his death. I hope to
discuss this passage at greater length elsewhere.
The index is fine as far as it goes, but an index locorum would
have made the work more useful to scholars working on other plays than
Hcld or on completely different topics. The book was carefully
proofread. I noticed only the following corrections: p. 50, l. 15fb
EI)/POIM'; p. 55, l. 13fb, font changes in middle of MI=SOS; p. 58, l.
9fb "c. 150 B. C."; p. 63, l. 13fb PATRW=IOS; p. 140, l. 17 O(/PLA
and E)XRH=TO; p. 157, l. 3 STERH/SAS; p. 165, l. 14 DE/; p. 188, 1. 20fb
BOULO/MESQA and l. 2fb TH/NDE.