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Some Problems of Text and Interpreation in the Hippolytus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

C. W. Willink
Affiliation:
Eton College

Extract

Phaedra's long speech is one of the most important elements in Euripides’ most intricate play; we may confidently assume that with his surpassing interest in women and in rhetoric the dramatist will have lavished more than usual pains upon it. Interpretation of it has suffered in the past from false preconceptions and lexicological imprecision; the nature of the speech is such that we can be led far astray by a small misjudgement of the connotation (whether for Phaedra or the audience) of such words as at the same time there are some profoundly significant variants in the manuscripts, and it will be argued that the text of 405–12 has suffered from ancient garbling and interpolation. In the following discussion I am everywhere indebted to W. S. Barrett's commentary, whose detailed approach at least draws attention to numerous difficulties that have been hitherto neglected, but the conclusions reached differ radically from his.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1968

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References

page 11 note 1 Oxford, 1964.

page 11 note 2 My thanks are due also to Professor Dover, K. J., whose patient criticisms have saved me from many errors and premature conclusions.Google Scholar

page 12 note 1 could mean nearly the same, but Phaedra will certainly have pre- ferred KCLKIOV, as it is less suggestive of wrong-doing; to insist that is right (Barrett) and to insist further that only ‘do wrong’ makes sense, is merely perverse, as it leads to the absurd conclusion that is the cause of Phaedra's ‘wrongdoing’. may sometimes mean ‘make sinful’, but there is no reason why should be given such a specialized meaning; is ambivalent in 389 below.

page 13 note 1 Some, perhaps, did so, interpreting 380 as ‘good things which we know, we really do apprehend’. Such an unreal disjunction must be wrong in the light of IT 491

page 16 note 1 Hes. Op. 318 .

page 16 note 2 e.g. Thgn. 401 .

page 16 note 3 Cf. IT 418–20 (where many editors have gone badly astray): … ‘… all with the same expectation; but for some their is untimely / excessive in respect of wealth, for others it attains the golden mean/bull's-eye’. Both and have at least two meanings, yet the sententia as a whole is clear enough without any necessity to choose between them. Many have emended the lines, and Platnauer actually accepts (Elmsley), though it is evidently inconsistent with the subdivision that follows (‘unsuccessful/successful’; ‘immoderate/proper’).

page 21 note 1 It has been pointed out to me that is often nothing like as strong as English ‘hate’, and that Phaedra's point may be ‘everyone’ (i.e. every male) ‘blames a woman’. I cannot believe that this is here an appropriate use of either is it likely that Phaedra is here using a variable word at the mild end of its range of meaning, immediately before a curse (and cf. certainly ‘hate’, in 413) ?

page 21 note 2 With the corrected text the situation is different: is acc. sing, and in apposition to alone, the first re being equivalent to ‘not only’. The syntax of An. 672–4 is similar: The argument here is ‘You may argue that a woman, as much as a man, has a strong case when wronged by a man: but so, equally, has a man a strong case when he has an immoral woman in the house … (677)have I not there-fore a right to help my own kin?’ This comes in a stigmatized passage (668–77 del. Hirzel, Murray), which I believe to be mostly genuine, but obscured by the intrusion of 675–6; the latter couplet was quoted from some other play as a well-meant but ruinous ‘clarification’ of what was wrongly taken to be a discussion of the relative. ‘strengths’ of husband and wife (Menelaus, of course, is thinking of ‘father’ and ‘son-in-law's con-cubine’, but uses ‘man’ and ‘woman’ because the argument is generalized). The destructive intrusion of a borrowed sententious distich must be more probable than the ad hoc composition and insertion of a tenline passage which is virtually unintelligible as things stand.

page 22 note 1 The reversal of 405/6 could indeed have been accidental in origin. We can seldom securely diagnose a deliberate transposition. Accidental certainly (if my reconstruction is correct) was the reversal of 407/407a by Flor. Such reversal of adjacent lines is not uncommon, and there may well be hitherto-undetected cases, where the alteration has left a translatable text. One such, I think, is An. 195 ff., where I should read 195–7–6–8 with in 197 for Andromache's first point is that she is a helpless slave, her second that she cannot be accused of using the physical assets of youth to supplant Hermione (the rhetorical obverse of Hp. 1009 ff.). As things stand the alternatives are confused and she appears to say the same thing twice. Another case, perhaps, is A. Ag. 6–7 where some notorious difficulties disappear if we read … .

page 22 note 2 P. 9772, discussed by Barrett on p. 83, where too low a view is taken of its value. We can allow for the scribe's semi-literacy (which in itself saves him from a charge of wilful alteration), while his early date is of immense significance. See also on (407) and (422).

page 22 note 3 I am aware that this suggestion is some- what bold, but I know of no other attempt to explain the strange text of Flor., which is simply dismissed by Barrett as ‘impossible’. 407a is so obviously incoherent and incompatible with its surroundings that it can hardly be written off as an interpolation without further consideration. I think it long odds that was written to precede .

page 22 note 4 Not (Page); Medea, like Phaedra, is explaining her desire for death (227, followed by ), and the gibe against Jason is thus slightly out of place, and the subject, perhaps, a little obscure. Better is Canter's , but I prefer the imperfect after especially in the light of Hp. 406.

page 22 note 5 Page, D. L., Actors’ Interpolations in Greek Tragedy (Oxford, 1934), pp. 6162.Google Scholar

page 23 note 1 is preferred to (SO Barrett). Cf. also Ar. Nu. 6 for the asyndeton.

page 23 note 2 I have narrowly preferred to on the authority of Flor., supported by one medieval MS. (G, for whose independent value see Barrett, p. 72). The difference in meaning is slight, often negligible, but in favour of with the restored text, whereas the generalizing plural more naturally suits the later false text, with its ancestral sinner who first brought marriage(s) into disrepute. If we reject we presumably do so in the belief that Flor. and C made the same accidental slip; this seems slightly less likely than that were both widespread variants in antiquity, in which case the choice is open. For the singular, cf. 835, 1003, in both of which the original connotation ‘marriage-bed’ is still felt (cf. also Med. 380).

page 24 note 1 This passage is discussed below, on pp. 34–36, where it is argued that 1047–50 are all spurious, 1046 (a new sentence) having originally been interrupted by 1051. Cf. also 635–8 (Barrett) for a probable example of interpolation from (? contamina- tion with) a superficially similar this also will be discussed in conjunction with 625–6.

page 25 note 1 So pretty certainly (Cadell, but not Barrett) has ousted (II) in 101 (the identical gloss in 1403). We do not need to be told the goddess's name here, especially after the caution in 100, and so soon after Aphrodite's departure is an effective stroke of irony, intensified by 102.

page 27 note 1 may be right, but I doubt whether the reading of D (a fortiori B2) against all the rest can be more than a lucky guess. If is wrong (see further in n. 3, below), it is likely to owe something to 281, and the corrupt word could alternatively be the second, having ousted something like at the end of the line. Cf. 1052 below.

page 27 note 2 Barrett rightly takes the view that 659 is answered by 661, not by 660 (which would be a feeble antithesis and ruinous to the period as a whole): if so, it seems better to write This incorrect is associable with a false interpretation which made Hippolytus drop his voice at the end of 660: unsubtle critics, such as those who inveighed against 612, will have assumed without thought that Hippolytus was explicitly promising to keep his oath; misquotation would thus be easy and soon universal.

page 27 note 3 There is a curious ambiguity in 659–60, which may be merely accidental, but I think needs taking into account: Theseus is (37 and 281), so that when one hears 659–60 for the first time, without hindsight, Hippolytus’ expressed intention is so far consistent with a long absence until Theseus finally leaves Trozen (i.e. ‘while Theseus is away from his land’)—an intelligible course if the keeping of the oath is to be all-important; note also that iary dv means (in the abstract) either ‘while’ or ‘until’, the distinction depending on the tense of the subjunctive, which is here conspicuous by its absence. It may be that is a deliberate syntactical ambiguity; but the ambiguity is still there if we read . The effect, I think, is to raise a false hope that Hippolytus proposes to avoid his father completely (also perhaps to alert the audience to the ambiguity of the sequel): when Hippolytus continues to announce his intention of returning with his father after all, the shock of disappointment makes the ladies all the more certain that his word is not to be relied on. But this may be fanciful, and is not integral to the interpretation here put forward.

page 28 note 1 The expected duration of Theseus’ Trozenian visit is only lightly sketched in. His absence from Athens is to be a year (37), and he seems to have come direct to Trozen (34–6) not many days before the play begins ( 38, and cf. 135 ff., 275). His subsequent plans have not been made public, and his temporary absence was unknown to the Chorus (278–81). The natural inference is that Theseus’ household will be established at Trozen for the full year, though he himself may fit in some unannounced trips elsewhere.

page 28 note 2 We are never told the terms of his oath (cf. 609–11), but the audience will infer that the Nurse simply made him swear not to reveal what she was about to say (the usual procedure: cf. Barrett on 710–12).

page 28 note 3 Barrett goes a little far, perhaps, in declaring that there is no conceivable motive for straightforward interpolation: the theme of ‘knowing after tasting ’ is prima facie relevant, and if an actor (?) knew such a line in another play he could have thought it worth adding (interpolation by quotation, as distinct from ad hoc composition, may be relatively motiveless and even destructive). Instead Barrett judges that 663 was composed as a substitute for 661 in a revised version, somehow being preserved out of place. Dittography is a fashionable justification for deleting awkward lines, but a true dittograph (e.g. IA 635–7, A. ScT 804–5 = 820–1) is a more or less synonymous variant making no attempt to alter the dramatist's meaning; and some at least of the repetitive intrusions in our texts will have derived from quotations of parallel loci, whether written first in the margin or deliberately (or unconsciously, by actors’ bad memory ?) added to the text (so, for example, I should explain 871–3). One may doubt whether deliberate rewriting (or total replacement) of lines known to be genuine can have been at all common in the evergreen masterpieces of the Greek theatre; it can be put forward as a legitimate hypothesis only if one can show clearly how a text which satisfied the poet was later found intolerable in circles which seem to have had less, not more, exacting standards of tolerance. To suppose that a mere ‘stickler for accuracy’ would have re- placed so straightforward a line as 661 seems most improbable. If someone intended 663 to replace 661, he can have had only one motiveto alter Hippolytus’ intention radically in order to make the oath-keeping absolute: Hippolytus will stay away until his father leaves the country, but ‘will know …’ in absentia. We might visualize a variant (e.g.) ear’ Butsuch a hypothesis seems both complicated and unnecessary, since transposition of 662/3 suffices

page 29 note 1 Note also that one expects (the actions being exactly contemporaneous); ought to mean ‘how you propose to look’ (indepen-dently future with reference to the present moment).

page 29 note 2 A possible alternative is (‘the way you propose to look [at me, but also at the world in general] from now on’); cf. IA 1122, for such an absolute use. with the future in this sense is neglected by LSJ but authentic, e.g. El. 975: the future is equivalent to inf. would be impossible after but makes sense after , since the ‘looking’ (absolute, in the general sense of ‘attitude’) begins here and now and is independent of Hippolytus’ presence (cf. last note).

page 29 note 3 The ambiguity of was exploited in 277, 382, 386. in parenthesi: cf. IA 66.

page 29 note 4 I do not believe that a Greek would hear this as the only, or even as the primary, meaning: after will naturally be heard (by symmetry) as ‘I shall know, having tasted.

page 29 note 5 Barrett considers the effect of 663 preceding 662, but objects that then prematurely indicates that Phaedra is already in Hippolytus’ mind. I do not understand this: she certainly is in his mind, and it is appropriate enough for Phaedra to understand him so; but in fact the emphasis lies rather in the forceful sibilants, and any mental antithesis of persons need only be between ‘you’ and ‘me’.

page 31 note 1 For the corruption of Or. 45, also Ax. Ec. 15 (, otherwise only in Th. 425). A similarly ingenious locution is to be found in HF 1118 where the verb appears to be used in a double sense: (a) ‘outline’ (cf. 1120); (b) ‘make underhand accusation against’ (LSJ); the latter meaning suits the dialogue well and accounts for the dative .

page 31 note 2 early misquotation might easily have dropped such a metrically optional word (cf. on 866). For the rhythm cf. coheres with and Euripides was liberal in his interpretation of Porson’s Law where monosyllables were concerned (cf. Dodds on Ba. 246).

page 31 note 3 Barrett tries, unlike most, to explain i he supposes it to refer to the triumphant scoffing of the seducer at the cuckolded husband. But this will not do (apart from its total inapplicability to any feature of Phaedra's misconduct): (a) no one has suggested that Hippolytus is a scoffer; (b) if Hippolytus meant ‘scoffer at those I have injured’, why did he use the colour-less expression ran (c) ‘I'm no scoffer at a cuckolded husband’ admits the cuckolding; (d) iooi is an impossible sequel to any such sentiment: on any interpretation 1000 must describe some treatment of ‘associates’ that can only be performed in their absence.

page 31 note 4 Cf. S. Ph. 417 (‘bartered’ in a pejorative sense), and Rh. 296 cf. als537. Such a corruption for at IA (Kirchhoff) could be transcriptional (EMIIOOA/EIIEA), but is more likely to derive from histrionic misquotation, comparable with the variants in Shakespearean texts.

page 32 note 1 Not ‘suppose that my is the wrong plea to persuade you (so that I must try something else)’; you are not persuaded that I am never mind’ The Greek is unambiguous, the stress being on .

page 32 note 2 I have moved the colon forward, meeting Barrett's argument that (Denniston, p. 253) and (‘perhaps’) are incompatible (note also that is a weak sentence-opening after ). It now seems right to accent as for my to prove that I was not’.

page 32 note 3 (not merely = pace LSJ): the is (a) intensive, (b) suggests a ridiculous hope (cf. 1012); perhaps also ‘in addition (to Phaedra's egregious charms)’. Compound verbs nearly always have their full value in Euripides, even to the point of strain (so too , and cf. on 998, 1046).

page 32 note 4 note that Phaedra was rich in her own right as a Cretan princess (755 etc.).

page 32 note 5 (both ‘vain’ and ‘foolish’): not because the hope was unjustified on obscure legal grounds, but because (a) Phaedra is no Helen; (b) Hippolytus has all the money he needs; (c) his father is still alive. The is self-evident, and only needs further consideration of the special case where the father is a king, (Denniston, pp. 44 ff.): .

page 33 note 1 Σ (evidently a paraphrase of ioi4 only). He has mistaken the sense badly, but he evidently did not take as the subject of , and may well have had (passive, with a personal subject); at the same time his 3rd pers. sing, active verb may have later inspired mistaken correction.

page 33 note 2 Almost all editors try to extract the following sense: ‘But ‹will you say› that king-ship is sweet to Of course ‹it is› not, ‹since› monarchy corrupts the wits of all who enjoy it’. This is certainly wrong: (a) it is both untrue and illogical; (b) where does the come from in 1013? (c) why should Hippolytus go out of his way to insult Theseus? (d) the emendations of are all arbitrary.

page 33 note 3 Barrett: ‘a witness to say how I have behaved’. He is forced into this by his refusal to allow Hippolytus to base arguments on his after 1007. can, no doubt, take an indirect question, but hardly one introduced by olos; moreover must refer primarily to character or current situation, and only through that, if at all, to deeds in the past.

page 33 note 4 Too often the Chorus is dismissed from consideration with an unthinking murmur of ‘dramatic convention’. Their oath may be enough to account for their silence (see, however, on 715); but Hippolytus knows nothing of this, and must conclude that his fellow citizens are corruptly leagued against him. He cannot challenge them openly, but it is natural that he should invite voluntary testimony in some such way, making the point clear by moving or looking towards them. Euripides’ incorporation of the Chorus in this play as fully human dramatis personae has in general been underestimated; see also on 141–7, 172, 274–9, 373–42 584ff., 790–3 866–70, 1103–20.

page 34 note 1 Lloyd–Jones, H. (J.H.S. lxxxv [1965], 170) makes some of the above points, but defends the line with evident reluctance.Google Scholar

page 35 note 1 (L et ?alii), not Barrett admits the logical superiority of the former (note also = ‘if indeed’), which is also palaeographically likely, but doubts acc./inf. ‘think that’. S. OC 579 and E. HF 1343 provide sufficient support, and is here not quite = . ‘thought-fit- to-say-that’ suggests, appropriately enough, mistaken opinion.

page 35 note 2 Unless perhaps has ousted /ih at the end of the line, in an elliptical sentence, ‘but not like that’. A long pause, justifying the asyndeton, is appropriate enough, but the two consecutive asyndeta are perhaps unwelcome. Also in favour of is that one then more naturally supplies (cf. 1043), which is subtler and more in keeping with the numerous ambiguities in the play.

page 35 note 3 Asyndeton, marking a further pause (with stage-movement?) before Theseus makes his formal pronouncement.

page 35 note 4 Note that now look forward, back, as we may expect.

page 36 note 1 P. Sorbonne 2252 codd.): the early date of the papyrus (c. 250 B.C.) and exactly contemporary epigraphic evidence (429/8 B.C.: Barrett, p. 5) justify restoration of the less obvious genitive. Aphrodite is evidently quoting a cult-title, and it is dangerous to assert that ‘only the dative makes sense in Euripides’ (and v. LSJ A.). The genitive is especially common in cult-names, often apparently involving an ellipse (e.g. inl Barrett takes an unnecessarily pessimistic view of the value of this very early papyrus. Its variants deserve close attention, and one ( in 101, considered in a note on 422) is probably right. Those in 40 and 42—? —are interesting, and suggest histrionic ‘improvement’ (cf. Barrett on the complex implications of which may well have puzzled actors). In 7 and 41 we have casual variants, admittedly inferior. In 57 elooptuv could be right (codd. are divided between with the former reading hitherto unexplained): cf. Alc. 18, where also occurs six lines away. In 80 is wrong, but supports (v. Dodds on Ba. 316, of whose arguments Barrett takes no account).

page 37 note 1 Corruption of to would be easy; may derive from an intermediate (intrusive μ, as in and ojoi confusion).

page 37 note 2 Nauck ( codd.): certainly better than (so Barrett). This can be associated with the false in 143, 141 having been mistaken for a complete sentence (sc. An alternative might be (apprehensive) as more liable to corruption; cf. IT 804 (Herwerden) and (I think) codd.) in An. 229–30-an error which inspired the erroneous in the sequel.

page 38 note 1 seems defensible: we do not need a strong ‘or’ here (even ‘and’ makes sense if we allow that ‘Pan’ etc. may be mere colourful personifications of ). But the sense is probably ‘but (perhaps) …?’ with which is comparable (so Denniston, rebuked by Barrett); there may be a touch of ‘in your case’ to justify the pronoun, though the repeated subject need have no great significance.

page 39 note 1 Lloyd-Jones defends ‘I know not how to find out.’

page 39 note 2 Ll.-J. also defends the text, though with reluctance.

page 39 note 3 Ll.-J. suggests certainly an improvement on but we still have and a negative use of seems more to the point.

page 40 note 1 LI.-J. prefers (Pierson), making an explicit mention (if we want one) of the wedding-feast. This could be right, but does little to save the lines in situ: the repetition of is more than suspicious.

page 40 note 2 LI.-J. mentions (Wecklein).

page 40 note 3 Her own and her children's is at stake, and fear of will overcome (see on 373–430 passim; also 998).

page 40 note 4 I have been told of an anonymous marginal in 792. This is certainly an improvement on but with asyndeton in 790/1 we now need a clear connective. seems worth considering also in S. OT 220.

page 40 note 5 LI.-J. suggests unnecessary, and it spoils, to my mind, the vividness and elegance of the Greek.

page 41 note 1 A different defence by Ll.-J., but the meaning he extracts is unconvincing, and Barrett is surely right to take as pejorative, in conjunction with .

page 42 note 1 Further discussion of the gender problem by LI.-J., who likewise favours Barrett's tentative solution.

page 42 note 2 LI.-J. suggests (certainly the only plausible line of defence) that may be an unrecorded cult-title at Trozen. But this remains a very surprising goddess for Hippolytus to be called the lsquo;star’ of, rather than Artemis.

page 42 note 3 May be a plain accusative of respect with (Ll.-J.)? Not unimaginable, perhaps, but one would welcome a clear parallel.