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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
The ‘Helena’ remains a strangely misunderstood play. Although it has attracted rather less than its fair share of editorial attention in recent years, it has come in for some incidental judgements of marked asperity; otherwise it generally escapes with nothing better than qualified praise, and indeed one may suspect that it is remembered by many more for the exegetical extravaganza which Verrall built round it than for its own content. In antiquity, however, the play does not seem to have given such offence; though in later times overshadowed by the notoriety of the Andromeda, produced in the same year, we know that the Helena made a sufficiently striking impression on its first appearance in 412 B.C., for in the following year Aristophanes drew freely on both these plays in his Thesmophoriazusae for material for as sustained and lively a passage of parody as any to be found in his extant works.
There may be little hope at this interval of time of discovering what the ancients may have seen in the piece that apparently escapes us, but a sympathetic attempt to see what Euripides was trying to do may lead to some modification of the prevalent opinion, and a juster estimate of the play.
1 Leaving aside J. T. Sheppard's elegant verse translation (1932), the last English edition is that by A. C. Pearson (1903), unpretentious but useful. Wecklein produced a German one on a similarscale in 1907, and this is the most recent apart from three in Italian (Terzagli, 1912, Taccone, 1931, and Camelli, 1935).
2 As, for example, that of Wilamowitz: ‘vereor enim ut ipse in tragoedia cuius ipsi numeri bilem mihi movent commoraturus sim’ (Analecta Euripidea, p. 241) and later ‘sed mittamus Helenam, in cuius ulceroso corpore desultoria opera parum proficit’ (ibid., p. 244).
3 Four Plays of Euripides, pp. 43 ff.
4 Ar. Ran. 52 and scholiast on Ar. Ran. 53; see also the story in Lucian, Conscr. Hist. 1.Google Scholar
5 Ar. Thesmo. 857 ff.
6 Ar. Thesmo. 850.
7 This may be, as Pisani sought to show (Riv. Fil. Class. 56, 1928, pp. 491 ff.) good Indo-Hellenic folk-lore with a close counterpart in the Tenth Rig Veda, and so not an invention of Stesichorus at all. The story was in Euripides' mind when he wrote his Electra (lines 1280–3) and may have been more familiar to a fifth-century Athenian audience than the comparatively few references to it in ancient literature might lead us to suppose.
8 See works cited by Schmid-Stählin, , Gesch. d. griech. Litt. I 3, P. 519Google Scholar, note 11.
9 It would materially assist our enquiry if we could determine which of these two plays was written first. Opinion is still divided (see references in Schmid-Stählin, op. cit., p. 520, notes 3 and 4.
10 Classical Review 48 (1934), pp. 119 ff.
11 We find it in Eur. I.T. 504 and Or. 390 (both cited by Solmsen).
12 1151 ff.
13 865 ff, 1258 ff., etc.
14 1665 ff. I hope to show in a separate paper that the ‘Mountain Mother’ chorus (1301–68) has in fact an aetiological significance that explains its relevance to the play.
15 Greek Tragedy, p. 319.
16 In lines 775–6 Menelaus gives it as seventeen.
17 The reference to Salamis in line 150 may have a veiled political point, but if it has, I cannot see that it is more than an incidental reference.
18 fr. 249.
19 Cf. Solmsen, op. cit., p. 121.
20 325 ff.
21 On Soph. Aj. 1046. Cf. too Eur. Androm. 445 ff. (quoted by Jebb).
22 174B ff.
23 V, 178B.
24 Thesmo. 934.
25 Mem. IV. 6, 12.
26 E.g. II. 37, 2.
27 402.
28 Perhaps it is an improvement to read line 500 as a question.
29 fr. 484 (Nauck2).
30 1203.
31 584.
32 590.
33 A. Ag. 511.
34 622.
35 711–21. It is worth noting that the metaphor in lines 712–13 is generally misinterpreted. 
here refers to the moving of pieces on a draughts-board, as is shown by the use of φέρωσιν in Plato, Rep. 487B.
36 1137 ff.
37 
(730–1).
38 Thuc. VIII, 1 and Plut. Nicias 13.
39 Schmid-Stählin, , Gesch. d. griech. Litt. I 3 p. 22Google Scholar note 3, quoting Plato, Protag. 318EGoogle Scholar, etc.
40 Schmid. Stählin, , Gesch. d. griech. Litt. I 3 p. 512Google Scholar note 2 and p. 66 note 7. This method of argumentation recurs later in lines 1032 ff. of the play.
41 865–872. Cf. Plutarch, , Is. et Os. 4Google Scholar (Mor. 383B ff.).
42 Greek Tragedy, pp. 326–7.
43 Cf. Antiphon Second Tetralogy 7 (init.) 
Lys. XIV 3, et al.
44 894.
45 939.
46 See Frazer, J. G. in Journal of Philology XIV 145 ff.Google Scholar and especially 161 ff.
47 Antiphon I. 30 (fin.).
48 Cf. in Io's speech: the idea of falsehood in P.V. 685 echoes 
in 640. The content of P.V. 786–7 has an echo in 816–7.
49 E.g. by Paley, , Euripides II pp. XV ff.Google Scholar See also Haigh, , Tragic Drama of the Greeks 3, p. 382Google Scholar note 2 (no reference to our passage). See too Page, D. L. on E. Med. 465 ff.Google Scholar
50 E. Hec. 1132–1237.
51 E.g. Dindorf, who removed 903–8.
52 Plato Crito. 49B.
53 Arist. N.E. IX. 8, 3.
54 Cf. Solon, fr. 3, 14 (D.) Aesch. S.c. T. 409, Ag. 383, Eum. 539. Pind. fr. 65 (Bowra) S. Ant. 854, Eur. fr. 170, 250, Dem. XXV. 35, etc.
55 E.g. E. Suppl. 531, fr. 839.
56 IG I2, 945, lines 5–8. The restorations of the inscription only affect the right-hand ends of the lines, and the general sense is certain.
57 See e.g. A. Gell. XV. 20, 4, etc.
58 Schmid-Stählin, , Gesch. d. griech. Litt. I 3 p. 316Google Scholar note 2 (no mention of this passage).
59 If the protagonist did Helen only (which seems likely, for hers is a long part of over 550 lines), then the deuteragonist must have taken the parts of both Second Messenger and the speaking Dioscurus. Hence the anonymous παραχορήγημα ‘holds the fort’ for 15 lines (1627–41) while the deuteragonist is being prepared to do the deus and ascends the machina.
60 As in Alcestis Andromache and Bacchae.
61 As in Medea.
62 I should like to thank Professor Webster and Professor Kitto for kindly reading an earlier draft of this paper and for many helpful suggestions. They are in no way responsible for the remaining imperfections. A summary of this paper appeared in Proc. Class. Ass. XLIV (1947) 7–8.
