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Neophron and Euripides' Medea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

E. A. Thompson
E. A. Thompson
Affiliation:
University College, Swansea
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Extract

Since it is only natural that lovers of a great poet's work should seek to defend their favourite from the charge of plagiarism, most of the scholars who have discussed the problem of the relationship between the Medeas of Neophron and Euripides have, whether consciously or unconsciously, approached their task in no very impartial spirit. Yet the prejudice against acknowledging Euripides' indebtedness to his predecessor is an unreasonable one, for a great tragedy or a great work of art of any kind must be aesthetically judged without regard to its forerunners. For instance, we do not think any the worse of Antony and Cleopatra or of its author when we notice that ‘The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne’, etc., and many other fine passages in that play are taken almost verbatim from Sir Thomas North. If we bear in mind then that whatever the result of our inquiry it will not affect adversely the reputation of Euripides' great work, we cannot fail to be impressed by the tenuous nature of the arguments by which scholars have convinced themselves of the chronological priority of Euripides' Medea as against Neophron's.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 38 , Issue 1-2 , April 1944 , pp. 10 - 14
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1944

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References

page 10 note 1 Norwood, , Greek Tragedy, p. 22Google Scholar, reminds us that Aeschylus probably drew heavily on Phrynichus. Herodotus was deeply indebted to Hecataeus, and in this case, as in Neophron's great efforts used to be made to prove the fragments of Hecataeus forgeries so as to save the originality of Herodotus!

page 10 note 2 For bibliography see Sécham, Louis, Études sur la tragédie grecque dans ses rapports avec la céramique, Paris, 1926, Appendix VII, pp. 592 ff.Google Scholar Neophron's priority has been maintained by Weil, Bergk, Decharme, Haigh, Croiset, Norwood, etc.; Euripides' by Paley, Wilamowitz, Nauck, Christ-Schmid, Séchan, Méridier, and many others. The latter have predominated in numbers in recent times.

page 10 note 3 From Antigonus of Carystus, according to Wilamowitz, , Hermes, XV, 1880, 487Google Scholar.

page 10 note 4 Dicaearchus probably, but not certainly, had it from Aristotle. I do not press the point that the may be an independent authority.

page 11 note 1 Somewhat fewer lines of his have survived—twelve as against twenty-four of Neophron's Yet his reputation was long maintained: Ennius translated his Achilles and Plautus refers to it in the first line of the Poenulus.

page 11 note 2 See his Arguments to Aeschylus, P.V., Eum., Sophocles, Ant., Phil., Euripides, Alc., Med., Phoen., Orest., Bacch.

page 11 note 3 Verrall, , ed. Medea, London, 1881, p. xxii n.Google Scholar, says that the author of the story ‘did not know, or did not choose to notice, any predecessor, and presumed a similar ignorance in his public’.

page 11 note 4 Scholiast, on Medea 1387Google Scholar. Euripides disliked it, 1386 ff.

page 12 note 1 Frag. 3. See also p. 14.

page 12 note 2 Medea 850, 1323 f., 1328,1383. He may have had Neophron's adjective in mind when writing vv. 1372–4.

page 12 note 3 Page, p. xxxiv.

page 12 note 4 The word is used without excessive sound or fury in Euripides, Troades 1213, where Hecuba applies it to Helen who had caused the death of Hector, cf. Aeschylus, , Cho. 635Google Scholar θεοστὑγητος.

page 12 note 5 Hermes, xi, 1876, 302Google Scholar. Note that Theon admitted κατ⋯λυθεν in Sophocles, , Ichneutae 177Google Scholar.

page 12 note 6 See Jebb's, note, and Nauck, , Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, p. 730Google Scholar.

page 12 note 7 Greek Literary Papyri, Loeb, edition, p. 14Google Scholar.

page 12 note 8 Page, p. xxxv.

page 12 note 9 But see next footnote. Ceadel, E. B., C.Q. xxxv, 1941, 87, n. 4Google Scholar, finds that the ratio of resolved feet in Neophron's trimeters (I resolved foot to 24 trimeters) seems to indicate ‘a fairly early date’. But so little of Neophron has survived that the point cannot be pressed.

page 13 note 1 In frag. 1 Herwerden suggested ἤθελοιν λὑσινμαθεῖν. In frag. 2. 13 Meineke proposed ⋯οοπλις⋯μεσθα δ⋯ with φε⋯ extra versum.

page 13 note 2 Aristotle, , Poetics, 1461b20, and the evidence of the vases in Page, pp. lvii ffGoogle Scholar.

page 13 note 3 The dramatic fragment discussed by Pickard Cambridge in Powell, J. U., New Chapters in Greek Literature, 3rd Series, p. 152Google Scholar, provides no parallel, being from a comedy or satyric drama. Comedies called Medea were also written by Cantharus, Antiphanes, Eubulus, and Strattis.

page 14 note 1 See Schol. Eur.Med. 167; Aristotle, Rhet. ii. 1400b9; Nauck, op.cit., p. 825 (Biotus), id., p. 838.

page 14 note 2 Aristotle, Poetics, l.c. The criticisms have by no means been refuted in recent times; for instance, the great dramatic power of the scene and its integral relation to what follows in the play are irrelevant to the fact that the king's arrival is a ‘blatant coincidence’, as Grube, , The Drama of Euripides, p. 187, calls itGoogle Scholar; contrast Grube, l.c., Page, p. xxix, Murray, , Translation of the Medea, p. 89, etcGoogle Scholar.

page 14 note 3 Hermes, 1880, xv, 482Google Scholar.

page 14 note 4 p. xxix; cf. Murray, l.c.

page 14 note 5 There was, of course, an older version according to which Medea killed her children unintentionally, Page, pp. xxii ff.; Séchan, op. cit., pp. 589 ff. Séchan's argument, p. 593, that Neophron gave some reasons for Aegeus' appearance in Corinth because Euripides had already been criticized for not doing so, is unusually desperate.

page 14 note 6 To the fact that he is adapting an earlier play I am inclined to attribute the confusion which exists about the children's exits and entrances during Medea's great soliloquy at vv. 1021 ff. See Neophron, frag. ii. 10 f., and e.g. Page, n. on 1053; Grube, op. cit., p. 160 f.

page 14 note 7 Op. cit., p. 589 f.

page 14 note 8 I cannot believe with Professor Murray, Translation, p. x, and elsewhere, that the play's failure was due to its ‘extreme originality’.