6. Narrative

Extract

The mangled second-century papyrus which preserves this passage from Sophocles’ Eurypylus is powerful testimony to an extraordinarily passionate scene. Before the passage above comes the opening of a messenger speech, little of which is preserved. It seems to describe the death of Eurypylus, who brought his soldiers to Troy to support Priam, but was slain by Achilles’ son Neoptolemus. Eurypylus’ father was Telephus (mentioned, by a virtually certain restoration, at line 26), king of the Mysians, who was wounded by Achilles’ spear when the Greeks mistakenly landed in his country on the way to Troy, and was later cured by the same weapon; his mother was Astyoche, Priam's sister. After the account of Eurypylus’ death follows an emotional exchange in song between two speakers; their names are not preserved, but paragraphoi indicate speaker change. One speaker suffers a particularly intense reaction to Eurypylus’ death, such as would suit only his mother, Astyoche. The other speaker comments on the character's grief, fulfilling the chorus's role. After this lyric exchange or kommos, Astyoche, now speaking, asks the Messenger about the treatment of her son's body and (another likely restoration) of a companion of his, perhaps Antenor's son Helicaon. The ‘impassioned rhetoric’ of the Messenger's reply is clear; in particular, his account of the lamentation over Eurypylus’ corpse, especially Priam's, rises to the fraught occasion.