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Two Unnoticed Euripides Fragments?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

E. K. Borthwick
E. K. Borthwick
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Extract

In my article ‘Two Textual Problems in Euripides’ Antiope, Fr. 188' (C.Q. N.S. xvii [1967], 41 ff.), in which I compared the debate of Amphion the unpractical musician and his industrious brother Zethus to the fable of the cicada and the ant, I drew attention to a passage of Olympiodorus' commentary on the Gorgias (p. 161, Norvin) which had been overlooked in the testimonia to Euripides' play, and which begins

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , December 1968 , pp. 198 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1968

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References

page 198 note 1 Cf. Aesch, . P.V. 342–3Google Scholar with ib. 44 = Men, . Mon. 756 (Jaekel)Google Scholar As there seems no good reason for the negative as it stands in Olympiodorus' sentence, this too suggests that the words are quoted out of context. The line in question may have been something like but may have occurred in a context such as (‘How will it benefit you, if) you twang the lyre, etc.', as in Olympiodorus’ paraphrase Zethus went on to extol the material benefits of the practical life— (?) Reference might be made to Lycophron's allusion (139–40 to a proverb about kitharists who secure no benefit for themselves by their futile playing—Mantiss. Prov. 1. 47

page 198 note 2 Kock includes his words, rearranged in trimeter form, as Com. ft. adesp. 408.Google Scholar

page 198 note 3 Sextus' familiarity with the play is further exemplified by his quotation (adv. math. 10. 315Google Scholar) of fr. 182 a (in Snell's Supplement to Nauck T.G.F. 2, where it appeared as 1023).

page 198 note 4 Music's is also a talking-point passim in Phld. Mus., and is once actually contrasted with (p. 103K). Cf. Plut, . Mor. 1146 b.Google Scholar

page 199 note 1 Note how Aristophanes' semi-proverbial (Av. 1432), and (Vesp. 989, cf. 959), are related to the traditionally opposed pursuits of Amphion and Zethus (for whose recommendation to dig see Eur. fr. 188. 4); and in Ar. fr. 221 the contrast is again made: The lines come from the Daitaleis and were presumably spoken by the (Nub. 529 and schol.) who had been luxuriating in the city, to his brother labouring in the country—a situation which closely resembles the quarrel of Amphion and Zethus, but with the moral superiority reversed, as one would expect in Aristophanic comedy.