An Interpolation in the Prologue of Euripides' "Troades" Wilson, John R Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Fall 1967; 8, 3; ProQuest pg. 205 An Interpolation in the Prologue of Euripides' Troades John R. Wilson I N ITSELF, the encounter between Poseidon and Athena in the pro­ logue of Troades (48-97) makes an unobj ectionable, some would even say a brilliant scene. And yet, as I will attempt to show, it cannot belong in this position in the play and may not be by Euripides at all. My demonstration depends on the following main points. First, and most conspicuously, the scene is not properly introduced by Posei­ don's opening rhesis, which ends in a manner that precludes Athena's entry. Secondly, the whole rhetorical structure of his rhesis focuses attention on Hekabe, who would be the next speaker were it not for Athena. Thirdly, the scene itself introduces a reference to the future beyond the limits of the play which has long been recognized as uni­ que in the Euripidean prologues. Finally, it detracts from rather than enhances the subsequent monody of Hekabe, otherwise so well intro­ duced by the opening rhesis. The coincidence of all these points strongly suggests that the Poseidon-Athena scene is interpolated. I The formulaic quality of the opening rhesis in Euripides' plays has been treated in a number of studies, of which the most thorough is that by Louis Meridier.l What is significant for our study of the linkage of the 1 Louis Meridier, Le Prologue dans la tragedie d'Euripide (Bordeaux 1911); cf. also Hans von Arnim, De Euripideorum prologorum arte et interpolatione (Greifswald 1882). The follow­ ing studies are more concerned with the relation of the opening rhesis to the rest of the prologue, or with the supposed symmetrical structure of the rhesis: Walter Nestle, Die Struktur des Eingangs in der attischen Tragodie, Tiibinger Beitrage zur Altertumswissenschaft X (Stuttgart 1930); Ingeborg Gollwitzer, Die Prolog und Expositionstechnik der griechischen Tragodie (Diss. MUnchen 1937); Walther Ludwig, Sapheneia, ein Beitrag Zur Formkunst in Spatwerk des Euripides (Diss. Tiibingen 1954) 30-40; Max Imhof, Bemerkungen zu den Pro­ logen der sophokleischen und euripideischen Tragodien (Winterthur 1957) 57-112; Franz Stoessl, RE 23.1 (1957) 632-41 s.v. PROLOGOS, and 23.2 (1959) 2312-2440; Dietmar Korzeniewski, "Zum Prolog der Stheneboia des Euripides," Philologus 108 (1964) 45--65. 205 206 INTERPOLATION IN PROLOGUE OF EURIPIDES' TROADES opening rhesis to the following scene is the way the speaker ends his rhesis. In most cases, when the exposition is finished the speaker abruptly breaks off with a particle such as &A>.a. He does this either to indicate his departure, to introduce a new character (invariably with the epideictic OSE) or to do both at once.2 The break-off marks a transition from one stage of the action to the next and clearly separates the expository opening rhesis from what follows. Such a break-off is the rule when the prologizon leaves the stage, whether or not he intro­ duces a new character. So in Hippolytus (51ff) Aphrodite breaks off to leave and at the same time introduces the hero (cf Hec. 51ff,3 Ion 76ff, Ba.55ff): &,\,\' ElGopw yap 'T6v8E 7Ta'i8a Br}GEws , (j' '(j '\\ , G'TEtXov'Ta, 1Jpas fl-0X ov EKI\EI\OL1TO'Ta, <1 '\ "c ~ '" f3' , 1T1TOI\V'TOV, E~ W 'TWJlOE 1JGOfl-aL 'T01TWV. Sometimes the prologizon breaks off to leave without introducing a new arrival, as Iphigeneia does at Iphigenia Taurica 64ff (when Orestes enters at 67 she has already left the stage): , \ \' 'c " a 1\1\ E~ aL'TLas J/ I I ... ,,,~, OV1TW 'TLJlOS 1TapELGLJI; ELfl- EGW 00fl-WJI '.. , ~ "'" , (j ~ EV OLGL vaLW 'TWVO aVaK'T0pWJI Eas. So, too, at Phoenissae 84ff Iokaste breaks off with a prayer to Zeus with­ out introducing the Paidagogos and Antigone: '\ \' "',J. , , ~, , al\/\ , W 'f'aEwas ovpavov vaLWV 1T'TVxas Z ~ ~ < ~ ~\ ~"f3 ' EV, GWGOJl 1Jfl-as, oOS OE GV/-L aGLJI 'TEKVOLS. Similar is Bellerophon's exit at Stheneboea 27ff. In the plays in which the prologizon remains on stage, however, he breaks off his rhesis only if he introduces a new entry. So at Medea 46ff the Nurse introduces the Paidagogos and the children: 1I Erling B. Holtsmark, in his unpublished dissertation "Some Aspects of Style and Theme in the Persae of Aeschylus" (Berkeley 1963) 185 n.4, notes the frequent reference to the motion of a new entry (UT~{XOV'Ta, JK{Jal"oV'Ta, 7T€Pa.", KTA). Usually, too, the prologizon refers to his own departure with a future verb of motion (fJ~C10ILaL, Xwp~C1olLa" €tlL') and always does so if in departing he refers to a new entry. Furthermore, the new entry is typically mentioned in a clause introduced by yap, for it is the new entry which motivates the speaker's exit. a For 8' at v.51 as a dismissive when preceded by IL~" 00", see J. D. Denniston, The Greek Particles I (Oxford 1954) 472. JOHN R. WILSON 207 , , \' " ~ ~~ " I a 1\ 1\ 0 ~ 0 10 TTaw€') 10K TpOXWV TT€TTaVjL€VDt I \ ,~\, I UTHXOVUL, jL'1]TpO,> OUO€V €VVOOUfL€VOL ~ I 'A. ' , '\ ~ A. \ ~ KaKWV· v€a yap 'f'POVTL,> OUK a;\YHV 'f'LI\H. At Heraclidae 48 Iolaos breaks off not with &Ma but with an exclama­ tion as he notices the threatening approach of the Argive herald: 'I' I I ~ ~ \ Q I e" ~ W T€KVa TEKva, OEUpO, l\ajL/"aVEU EfLWV I \ < ~ I I ~'E' (] I TTETTI\WV· opw K'1]pVKa TOVO vpVU EW,> But, when the new arrival is expected, the break-off is not &M fL'1]TTO OUTLS KaL jLEUW,> €UVOV,> €fLOt TJXDt, \ \ ' 1"" - \ 'A ' W\I\ H 07TW~ y€wata Kat yafL€fLJloJlO~ ~ , D' D" C ' OpaaaJlT€ KaTUaJlOVfL€u as tWTaTa. This is followed by a farewell to Pylades and a statement that he is actually going (1068): \ .... ",,, ~,~ t,.. / Kat xatp • €7T €pyoJl 0 • w~ opat~. 7Top€vofLat. But this clear intention of departure is resisted by Pylades (1069 E7Tlax€<;) , which leads to yet another break-off and another farewell (1082-3 &,u' c1J 7TOO€tJlOJl ofLfLa •.• xa'Lp€). With extraordinary insistence Pylades continues to protest and begins a discussion that involves plans leading to revenge and, ultimately, salvation. The pivotal function of the false departure and the resistance it meets are obvious here as in the other two examples. But in Troades, when Poseidon is about to leave, there is no one on stage to prevent him: there is no agon on the result of which hangs the outcome of the whole play. All that happens is that Athena walks on as Poseidon is about to walk off. She appears completely unaware of his stated intention to depart, so that the reversal of expectation set up by his false departure is completely pointless. An apparently closer parallel to Poseidon's false departure only confirms its oddity. In Hercules Furens, Amphitryon says farewell to JOHN R. WILSON 211 the chorus as, together with Megara and his grandchildren, he waits for Lykos to drag him off. As in Troades, a break-off is made (HF 503 aAAa followed by Xa'ipE at 512) which is interrupted not by the protest of a character on stage but by the entry of a new character. However, as the situation makes clear, the break-off to say farewell is not a break-off to depart, for as a prisoner Amphitryon is merely waiting for Lykos to reappear and lead him off to his death. But even though Amphitryon's break-off is not quite a false departure, it nevertheless (unlike Troades) shares two characteristics of a regular false departure. The unexpected entry of the savior Herakles instead of the executioner Lykos marks a turning point in the play which is even more striking than those which we have hitherto examined. In contrast, the sur­ prise of Athena's entry in Troades is devoid of dramatic meaning. Another element that Amphitryon's farewell in Hercules Furens shares with other false departures is that it occurs when the play is already far advanced. This is almost a corollary of the fact that a false departure marks a turning point in the play, for it takes time to develop the original trend which the false departure then reverses. The reversal of the break-off formula into a false departure marks a reversal in the plot as well. But in Troades the play has hardly begun, so that when Athena appears she "reverses" a trend which has not yet been established. And far from being a pivotal point, the reversal, as we shall see later, has no effect whatsoever on the action of the play, which after Athena's departure continues to establish the mood of Poseidon's opening rhesis. But even without Poseidon's false departure, the unprepared arrival of Athena is itself somewhat problematical. Everywhere else the un­ prepared arrival of a god is strikingly epiphanic and invariably occurs towards the end of the play. In such sudden epiphanies the god gives a happy ending to the story either by stopping an act of violence with a curt €1TLaXES (Ion 1320, Hel. 1642) or 1Tavaa£ (IT 1437, Or. 1625),5 or by insisting on a guarantee for the future (Suppl. 1183). Athena's entry in 5 Fraenkel, op.cit. (supra n.4) 74-76, quotes these last two passages as examples of what he terms (p.76) a "pausai-Motiv" which has as its characteristic that (p.74) "eine neu auftretende Person, urn die Handlung voranzutreiben, zu den auf der Biihne Anwesenden sagt: tiPVal) 3L8ovs Atp.ov~ K6PTJs Tt: AfK'TPOV ' AJlTLy6V7]1) 0'(00. OUK oJv a' E&.aw -rrJv8t: yijv olKt:Lv in' l1awl) yap t:l7Tt: Tt:LPtil1lul) OU p..q 7TOTt: 110V -rrJv3t: yfjv OlKOVVTOI) t:J 7Tp&.'t:LV 7T6'\Lv. If he does make a new entry (as Fraenkel's manifold arguments persuade me), then this is his first appearance since the Menoikeus scene. A difficulty with such a reading of the play, as Fraenkel points out, is that no room is given for Kreon to express his grief at Menoikeus' death. I suggest that this difficulty is partially removed by the hieratic force of the pausai-formula, which here gives Kreon a loftiness that dissociates him from the anxious father that he is shown to be in the Menoikeus scene. JOHN R. WILSON 213 a suitably hymnal style, he states the grounds for his sympathy to­ wards Troy: he and Apollo had themselves built its well-laid stone wall. Against this image of a divinely protected city is set in sharp con­ trast the present ruined condition of these same walls, a destruction caused immediately by Epeios, the builder of the Trojan Horse, but ultimately by Pallas Athena. Poseidon then depicts the results of this destruction. As is natural, he is most concerned with the effects on the gods' shrines. Their groves and temples are deserted and defiled with blood, as is more particularly the altar of Zeus Herkeios in Priam's palace. The Achaeans are ready to depart and return home with their booty. He then describes how he has been worsted by Hera and Athena. He has to leave the city, for both it and the altars of the gods have been abandoned. This reason for departure picks up the theme of desertion: desertion of the city involves desertion of the city's shrines. So far we have a statement of arrival, an evocation of the distant and happy past, a brief mention of the present, the causes for it, then a more extended description of the present situation, with the deserted city and the defeated god Poseidon on one side and the Greeks and Athena on the other. Poseidon next describes the captive women, who are the only survivors from the city. Some of them are being distributed by lot among the Greeks. But there is another group, those who are not subject to lot, but who have been preselected for the leaders of the Greek army. To this group belongs Helen. Their quarters are within view of the speaker, who points to them with the phrase V7TO aT'yaL~ Tatao' (32f). From the wide category of Trojans vs Greeks and the general region of Troy, we have moved to the narrow category of 'women subject to lot' vs 'women picked out as prizes' and to the specific vicinity of the women's tent. There is now a further concentration on the figure of Hekabe herself, who is in view of the audience and who is pointed out for our inspection as the visible symbol of all that has gone before. She is a woman of many sorrows, about some of which she is still in ignorance. For she does not yet know of Polyxena's death, and the sacrilegious marriage ofKassandra to Agamemnon is still in the future. This central position of Hekabe in Poseidon's speech is attained not only through increaSingly specific references, but also through the staging itself. She has been on stage from the start, prostrate before 214 INTERPOLATION IN PROLOGUE OF EURIPIDES' TROADES the entrance way, so that whatever Poseidon says about Troy's mis­ fortunes is from the start connected with her. At the end of the speech she becomes not only the focus of attention but also the summation of all Troy's misery. She is the quintessence of that misery, a misery which we have heard Poseidon talk about, but which we are now invited to see concretely in a person (Tr. 36-7): , ~. '8" ,~'" , ~ 8 '\ 77JV 0 a I\tav 'TTJYO Et 'Tt!) UCTopav EI\Et , fE 'f1 ' \ ~ , 7TapECT'TtY Ka TJ KEtf-LEVT] 7TVI\WV 7Tapos • • • This goes beyond the usual epideictic style of the opening rhesis, where the pointing out of objects merely implies the presence of the audi­ ence, to whom the visible objects and people are pointed out and to whom the plot is explained. In the two lines quoted the audience is more than implied: it is actually addressed, however obliquely, in the phrase Et 'TtS ••• 8'''E', which combined with 'T~ySE means, Hlf anyone wants to see this woman here ... " This boldness drew the attention of the ancient critics, as we can learn from the scholiast's remark on the passage: t/lvxpws 7TpOS 'TO 8'a'Tpov StaMYE'TaL. It verges on the practice of comedy and is all the more striking in that up to this point the prologue is exceptionally free from the usual expository style of the opening rhesis, at least up to the mention of those women who have not been selected by lot (32) and the introduction of Helen. However, the appeal to the audience in the introduction of Hekabe is not "frigid," as the scholiast would have it. It is in fact more emotional than the immediately preceding lines, which gave information that was factually important but not fitting the mood of the speaker. The proximity of the women's tent and the presence of Helen are both important for the audience but, unlike the general picture that went before, are of no special concern to Poseidon. Hence Friedrich Leo, who admires the first part of the rhesis 6 and who rightly judges that the little information Poseidon has to offer is naturally arranged according to the emotions of the speaker, considers that the informa­ tion about the Trojan women and the introduction of Hekabe is «standardized." Such a judgement is true about the Trojan women but not about Hekabe. She is deliberately pointed out as an object of pity, and her sorrows are then summarily listed. This re-establishes the elegiac mood of Poseidon's speech, which had been temporarily 8 Der Monolog in Drama, AbhGottingen N.P. Bd. 10 or. 5 (1908) 24. JOHN R. WILSON 215 broken by the need to explain about the other captive women (i.e. the chorus) and Helen. That he points her out so frankly to the audi­ ence heightens rather than lowers the emotional level. The catalogue of her woes that follows the introduction of her name supports the boldness of this procedure and at the same time re-estab­ lishes the tone of unforced sympathy which distinguished the first part of the rhesis. As part of the exposition, moreover, it prepares for future events: for the reception of the news of Polyxena's death by Hekabe and for the entry of Kassandra, who breaks upon the stage in the course of the first episode. Kassandra is reserved for last, because this gives Poseidon a chance to insist once more on the impiety of the Greeks, especially of Agamemnon. Rhetorically, however, the men­ tion of Polyxena and Kassandra and of Priam (which recalls an earlier mention at 16f) accentuates the suffering of Hekabe, who is herself a symbol of Troy's suffering.7 The spotlight is now fully on Hekabe as the central figure, and all that remains is to break off with a farewell to the city as a whole, which she now represents. The break-off to depart which immediately follows further concentrates our attention on the heroine, who will be left alone on the stage, and on whom all of Poseidon's speech has focused. He ends his rhesis on a note of finality: Troy is destroyed, a dty which was The only special contribution of the Athena-Poseidon scene that is perhaps not sup­ plied from the other two plays is the element of divine irresponsibility, well brought out by Max Pohlenz, Die griechische Tragodie 2 (Gottingen 1954) 1.370-1 and II.151-2. He draws JOHN R. WILSON 221 But though the play goes out of its way not to stress the hybris of the Greeks, their impending doom should still be in the audience's mind if they are to feel that war profits no one. At this point it is important to remember that Troades is, after all, the third play in a trilogy, per­ haps the only real trilogy that Euripides wrote. Bruno Snell, in his monograph on Alexander,16 shows that there is more than a com­ munity of subject in the sequence Alexander, Palamedes, Troades. Events in the first play only find their full meaning in the light of the third. The opening of Alexander, where Kassandra recalls Hekabe's dream that in Paris she gave birth to a fire brand, is only fulfilled in the concluding lines of Troades, which ends in flame. Kassandra's visionary prophecies in the first part of Alexander, which are not believed by Hekabe, are recalled by the audience when the same Kassandra reappears in Troades with further prophecies.17 The change in Troy's fortunes from the first play to the third are epitomized in the person of Hekabe, whom we know in Alexander as a proud and pas­ sionate queen, a queen who cannot bear to see her sons humiliated by an unknown shepherd at the funeral games, but who in Troades is only a slave (Snell p.66). Other information relevant to Troades is a prophecy on Hekabe's end (Snell pp.29-30, 67). That we know this from Alexander explains how we can do without the information in Troades. For it is cus­ tomary for Euripides to inform us of the fate of his hero or heroine if he or she is still living at the end of the play. More Significantly, attention to the parallel language in which the vagaries of fortune are described by Hekabe (1203ff) and in which the fickleness of Athena is brought out by Poseidon (67f). For Pohlenz the implication is that the gods in their self-seeking are below the philosophic-religious level of Hekabe (especially at 884ff), whose search for justice is doomed to failure. This contrast, however, is adequately brought out in Troades by the chorus (82lff, l060ff, 1288ff), and always in reference to Zeus. Athena is not really relevant here: she was never favorable to Troy (she changes her heart only in relation to the Greeks who, as we have remarked, have already been doomed in Palamedes and who are treated as kindly as pos­ sible in this play). Athena as the self-appOinted champion of Troy (57, 65) is an oddity in view of her consistent vilification throughout the drama (10, 24, 47, 535ff, 55 Iff, 561, 598ft"). Of course, in the ode about the Trojan Horse a grim effect is obtained by depicting the worship of Athena by the very Trojans she is about to destroy (535ff, 55lff), but this has nothing to do with her fickleness (with Homer's characteristic economy this scene is pre­ figured at II. 6.305ff). 16 Euripides Alexandros und andere Strassburger Papyri mit Fragmenten griechischer Dichter [Hermes Einzelschr. 5] (Berlin 1937). 17 For the significance of the first episode of Alexander as an introduction to the whole trilogy, see Snell, op.cit. (supra n.16) 34. 222 INTERPOLATION IN PROLOGUE OF EURIPIDES' TROADES Helen, in her defense against Hekabe (914ft), relies partly on the events enacted in Alexander to prove her point. In particular she refers at 921 to the man who saved the baby Alexandros from death as simply J 7Tp'(1f3v~.18 She is equally allusive about Hekabe's dream (922), Sa,{ov 7TLKPOV p.lp.'YJp.'. She doesn't need to be more explicit, since both facts are known from Alexander. Just as Kassandra's prophecies in Alexander look forward to Troades, so the prophecies in the next play, Palamedes, look beyond Troades to the homecoming of the Greeks. For there is little doubt that Palamedes ends in a prophecy of coming disaster.19 Palamedes had been treach­ erously removed by Odysseus, but the dead hero's brother ingeniously floated a message of what had happened to their father Nauplios in Euboia, who duly prepared his revenge by setting up false signal beacons on the rocks of the Euboean coast. The imminent doom of the Greeks is in this way present, but not too overwhelmingly present, in the minds of the audience as they watch Troades. Ironically, in Palamedes it is the Greeks themselves, notably Odysseus (who is also the main villain, next to Helen, in Troades), who cause their own doom just as, in Alexander, it is the Trojans who, through Paris, determine the destruction of their city (the key role of Paris is referred to in Troades by the chorus at 597ff as well as by Helen in her defence). Throughout the trilogy there seems to be remarkably little interre­ lationship between the two sides, which explains the almost complete self-involvement of the Trojan women.20 Imperceptibly our discussion of the wider implications of removing the Athena-Poseidon scene has led us to a motive for its insertion 18 The reference is equally allusive whether the old man is a servant, comparable to the Old Man in Ion, or, as T. C. W. Stinton suggests (Euripides and the Judgement of Paris [SocPromHellSt Suppl. 11, London 1965] 67 n.3), is Priam himself. 19 The lament (588 N2) " t, \ ~KaV~T~ ~KaVff~ Tav 7TavCTocf>ov, w ..::I avaol, 'T~V oo8/v' aAyovovCTav ~'I'/Mva MOVCTUV was probably spoken by Palamedes' brother Oiax (see L. Parmentier, Euripide IV, Bude ed. [paris 1948] p.8). The thrf1Ws would then be broken off by the appearance of a god (probably Aphrodite), who would offer some kind of consolation. One may compare the lament of Peleus (Andr. 1173ff), which is stopped by the appearance of Thetis at 1226. So, too, in Electra horrified recollections of the murder are interrupted by the appearance of the Dioskouroi (1233) and in Bacchae, at the lacuna after line 1300 (see Dodds ad /oc.), Agaue's lament is interrupted by the appearance of Dionysos. 20 Cf the fine interpretation by Gilbert Murray in his Greek Studies (Oxford 1946) 127-48. JOHN R. WILSON 223 into Troades. For if we take away the trilogic context and imagine21 a performance of Troades in isolation, some information about the doom of the Greeks would be desirable. The lack of Palamedes is made up for by the scene between Poseidon and Athena, except that now the villain who brings on destruction is not Odysseus (the man who ruined Palamedes) but the Lokrian Aias. Since we lack Palamedes, we should perhaps be grateful for an interpolation that attempts to make up the deficiency. But this does not render any the less objec­ tionable the double dislocation it causes.22 INDIANA UNIVERSITY February, 1967 111 We do not have to imagine it. We have Plutarch's testimony (Pe/op. 29) that the play was revived under Alexander of Pherai, whose tyranny lasted from 369-358 B.C. (W. Schmid, Geschichte der griechischen Literatur LIll.1 [Mlinchen 1940] 486, mistakenly says that this performance took place at the court of Alexander II of Macedon). Inscriptional evi­ dence shows that in such revivals even of Aeschylus, only one play of a given trilogy would be performed on anyone occasion. 22 Eugene O'Neill Jr, op.cit. (supra n.7) defends the quality of the Athena-Poseidon scene largely for its function of providing a "Known End" (the destruction of the Greeks), but docs not consider that this function has already been performed by the last part of Palamedes. This also weakens his comment (pp.289f) on the uniqueness of the "exotragic prediction" in Troades. Euripides' "wide departure from his usual prac­ tice" is better explained as the work of an interpolator than as the poet's own repetition in a jarring context of what has been said at the end of the preceding play. This paper contains material that was originally presented as a dissertation for the University of California at Berkeley, and I wish to thank Professors Joseph Fontenrose and W. G. Rabinowitz for reading and commenting on that earlier version.