The problems of this passage were concisely stated by M. Platnauer more than thirty years ago and his suggestions for their solution have been adopted and developed in A. S. F. Gow's magnum opus. Its authority—so the present writer suspects—is liable at this point to eclipse the meaning of the text.

Fabvla misere mutila: this notice in the Oxford edition, reinforced in the critical apparatus, warns the reader against the transmitted text of the Heradidae. It tends to perpetuate the view which Wilamowitz, following up the hints of G. Hermann and A. Kirchhoff, propounded in 1882. The sweeping assurance of his famous article gave it a publicity which makes a detailed rehearsal superfluous. Wilamowitz throughout his life stuck to the opinion that ‘wir lesen die Herakliden in der Bearbeitung eines Regisseurs’. Dissentient (...) voices have been raised from time to time. M. Pohlenz in 1930 even proposed an interpretation of the Heradidae which quietly discarded the thesis of Wilamowitz. Nevertheless the latter appears still to hold the field at least in the English-speaking countries. If it is correct, the Heradidae of Euripides is beyond our reach. This conclusion has indeed, quite recently, been drawn by H. D. F. Kitto. (shrink)

A lyrical variation on vv. 27–30, the present passage is, at the same time, a new version of Hec. 631–7. A comparison is instructive in various respects, but Hel. 27 f. will not be quoted in justification of what L gives in vv. 236 f. This wording raises the following objections: the last word, , is outside the metre and not easily attached to the following colon, the beginning of which naturally coincides with the new sentence and new idea If, (...) then, is obelized—and this seems unavoidable—the words. (shrink)

In Epictetus‘ chapter on Providence, the eighteenth section contains an evident corruption: ταντα επ’ εκαοτον επνειν εδει και και νον μεγιστον υμνονεπνμνειν… The duplication of cannot be genuine. It is not an iteration of the kind which heightens the effect of a passage: it just falls flat. Wilamowitz, in his Lesebuch, printed in the first place. This is an improvement, but I doubt whether this conjecture really settles the point. The duplication is stressed, and not eased, by the noun and (...) Epictetus is hardly likely to have followed the verb by the homophonous synonym At one of the two places, then, the scribe missed the original verb by duplicating the other. I believe that consideration of the context can show what the original was and from which place it was ousted. (shrink)