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Euripides, Phoenissae 1567–1578

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Martin Cropp
Martin Cropp
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
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Extract

I give the text as printed by James Diggle in his new Oxford Classical Text. His deletion of 1570–6 is rejected by Donald Mastronarde in his recent commentary. Apart from this, Mastronarde's text differs from Diggle's on only a couple of minor points which are immaterial to the main problems.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , December 1997 , pp. 570 - 574
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1997

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References

1 Euripides: Phoenissae(Cambridge, 1994). Mastronarde retains the text printed in his Teubner edition (1988). I follow both editors in treating 1485–1581 as substantially authentic though rich in textual difficulties (cf. Diggle's apparatus ad loc.) of the kind expected in an astrophic monody and amoibaion. I have commented briefly on the severe doubts that surround what follows (1582–1766) in BMCR 6 (1995), 431–2.

2 with IT; with the main tradition but allowing the plausibility of Eldik's ( Markland). Diggle and Mastronarde provide further textual information which need not be repeated here.

3 SIFC1 (1989), 205–6 = Euripidea (Oxford, 1994), 351–2.Google Scholar

4 The seeds of the misinterpretation lie in the Scholia, which begin from a false reading ‘lifting’, explain this as meaning that Jocasta lifted and displayed her breast to her duelling sons, and then offer the (correct) variant with an equivalent (false) explanation (.

5 E.g. Paley (‘she set out to carry her suppliant breast to her sons’), Meridier (‘elle s’elancait, suppliante, pour presenter a ses fils un sein suppliant’), Buschor (‘Eilte sie, eilte sie hin, flehend den Sohnen zu zeigen flehende Brust ihrer Mutter’). Cf. Pho. 1530–2 (, , ‘Leave your house, bearing your sightless eye(s), old father…’) and such phrases as Tro. 334 , Tro. 1332 , Soph. Trach. 967 .

6 ‘What were you feeling when your mother was holding out her breast to supplicate you?’ ().

7 See Stockert ad loc. and cf. e.g. Horn.//. 5.590, Soph. O r 176.

8 Diggle 205–6 (= Euripidea 352): ‘The tenor of Jocasta's supplication (1568–9) may be inferred from the apostrophe at 1436 ’, implying “Do not abandon your mother to a childless old age”.)’ Diggle's apparatus to lines 1429 and 1433 in the Oxford Text perhaps allows for a reading which does not involve supplication.

9 ‘Lotus-rearing meadow’ means no more than ‘flowery meadow’, like (or ), Horn.//. 12.283. CQ's referee compares LA. 1544 , also the setting for a scene of death.

10 The jarring rhythm given by (self-contained contracted dactyl following blunt ending in the previous line) compounds the difficulty, though it is not, I think, indefensible in itself. (828 has a rather similar effect, though the punctuation makes a difference.)

11 Wilamowitz, KS VI.359 = SPAW (1903), 600; rejected by e.g. Diggle 352 n. 31 and Mastronarde, Comm. on 1574. For the present participle as ‘imperfect’ participle cf. Kiihner-Gerth 1.200 n. 9 with such examples as Thuc. 2.58 , ‘so that the original troops also fell sick, though having previously been enjoying good health’. The phrasing in our passage gives no encouragement to such an interpretation.Google Scholar

12 Similarly e.g. Wecklein: ‘ steht appositionell zum Inhalt des Satzes und bezeichnet den Erfolg des Kampfes.’

13 Cf. LSJ , B.I.i; also e.g. Pho. 786,1499, El. 163, Or. 1491, Bacch. 1369.Google Scholar

14 CQ's referee notes that similarity between a participle such as and 1573 might have led to some textual disruption.

15 could be shifted, e.g. by placing it before and putting where now is; but such a displacement would be hard to explain. Mastronarde (on 1570–6) thinks the placement between and is intended for pathetic effect.

16 This was Paley's suggestion: ‘Either some participle seems wanting… like (cf. Ion 147), or we should read , “a chilled (or congealed) outpouring of blood on their wounds”.‘ His second suggestion (anticipated by the reading in ms. O) gives an unhappy zeugma: ‘She found her sons fighting… and a chilled outpouring of blood on their wounds.‘ The Scholia also attempt to make the -phrase a second object to , but asyndetically: … Musgrave proposed .

17 For suggestions to insert a connective (though to different effect) see previous note.

18 Cf. 933 where Menoeceus must ‘give gory blood as a libation to the ground’, of offering libations (xoai) cf. also/. T. 61, Or. 125, Soph. Ant. 902.