euripides and the cypria

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Euripides and the Cypria Euripide et les légendes des chants cypriens by François Jouan Review by: A. D. Fitton Brown The Classical Review, New Series, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Jun., 1968), pp. 151-153 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/708969 . Accessed: 20/12/2014 05:56 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Cambridge University Press and The Classical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Classical Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sat, 20 Dec 2014 05:56:35 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Page 1: Euripides and the Cypria

Euripides and the CypriaEuripide et les légendes des chants cypriens by François JouanReview by: A. D. Fitton BrownThe Classical Review, New Series, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Jun., 1968), pp. 151-153Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/708969 .

Accessed: 20/12/2014 05:56

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Cambridge University Press and The Classical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserveand extend access to The Classical Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sat, 20 Dec 2014 05:56:35 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: Euripides and the Cypria

THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 151

Similarly in the Oresteia, which sees the establishment of a new world order based on the rule of law, and with man made fully responsible for his actions, Golden holds that the only reason for Agamemnon's murder is Clytaemestra's unnatural lust for power. Her appeals to the daemon are, like Eteocles', mere

hypocrisy, an attempt to evade personal responsibility for her actions. In the

Choephori Aeschylus describes the effects of the Furies at 269 ff., but shows that he has no naive belief in them by adding (297 ff.) a series of realistic motiva- tions for Orestes' murder of his mother.

It is difficult to see why we must choose between one kind of motive and another. Indeed in seeking to reduce everything to rationalistic terms Golden is in danger of presenting us with an Aeschylus who is rather less profound than the one he is trying to replace. Lesky has shown that much of the tragedy of the

Septem and Oresteia arises from the very combination of personal responsibility and external force which Golden finds illogical. The curse leads Clytaemestra to murder her husband, but she is none the less guilty; Orestes obeys Apollo's command, but he makes it part of his own will. It is here that the profundity lies, and not in a simple belief in the triumphs of human progress.

Perhaps we should find that the problem of the primitive Aeschylus who

happened to write great poetry is not a real one at all, if we could resist the

temptation to equate 'primitive' with 'shallow' or 'childish'. The truths that

Aeschylus expresses are expressed not in terms of abstract logic or modern

symbolism, but in terms of myth. They are none the less profound for that.

University of Glasgow A. F. GARVIE

EURIPIDES AND THE CYPRIA

FRAN9OIS JOUAN: Euripide et les lIgendes des chants cypriens. Pp. 512. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1966. Cloth. THIS is an assessment of Euripides' debt to the Cypria. M. Jouan attempts to reconstruct those portions of the epic poem which dealt with matters later handled by Euripides, to consider what innovations were made in the tradition in between, and to answer the questions: how far did Euripides follow the account of the Cypria when available ? How often did he prefer to draw on sources earlier or later than the Cypria ? How often did he provide a new version of his own ? And what governed his decision? M. Jouan follows the

presumed narrative of the Cypria right through from the original plan of Zeus to relieve the earth by bloodshed and from the marriage of Peleus and Thetis and the youth of Paris to the point in the Trojan War where the Iliad takes over. In addition he treats of certain events of the Posthomerica which may have been prophesied in the Cypria and a number of legends from outside the

Trojan Cycle which seem to have lived again in the remorseless reminiscences of Nestor. Then, having compared the versions of the intervening ages and the

plots of Euripides in sequence of legendary chronology, he reviews Euripides' sources one by one and reconsiders the plays in order of composition. It is a huge enterprise but in my opinion tremendously worthwhile. The most valuable-certainly the most objective-literary criticism stems from a con- sideration of the material available to an artist and the way he handles it; and the positive results of Jouan's investigation are such that we may forgive him

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Page 3: Euripides and the Cypria

152 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW

for patches of unsound reasoning and gross error which would have made us lose interest in a lesser work.

Jouan is conscious of the vast uncertainties of his task. The ancients tell us little enough of the Cypria and some of what they do tell us is unreliable. Our chief source is the Chrestomathy of Proclus, and where this agrees with Apol- lodorus' Epitome it is likely that we have the Cypria's version of events. But it is not certain, and Jouan himself is forced to admit that the diversion to Sidon of Paris and Helen was not in the original version of the Cypria. Where the framework is unsound, the incorporation by conjecture of further events is particularly risky. It is a risk, to be sure, that Jouan is justified in taking, for any rational literary criticism of Euripides must allow for the possibilities, as well as the certainties, of earlier influence; but it is important that we should be made aware of the speculative nature of the inquiry. Jouan could have learnt a lot more than he has from the rigorous approach of T. W. Allen. Allen argued in this journal (C.R. xv [1901], 346 ff.) and repeated in The Homeric Catalogue of Ships that the differences between the lists in the Iliad and in Iphigeneia Aulidensis are due to Attic interpolation. Jouan, who is trying to establish a catalogue of Greek ships for the Cypria, is content to call the C.R. article, for which he supplies a wildly false reference, 'peu vraisemblable' (p. 296)-partly because he read The Homeric Catalogue so carelessly as to suppose that Allen had abandoned his earlier hypothesis. Failing to profit from the wisdom of Allen, Jouan is led astray by the folly of Aristarchus. The great Alexandrian examined the passage in Iliad v which describes the death of Phereclus and recalls the building of the ships of Paris, and decided that for Homer the builder was Phereclus' father, Harmonides; he added that for certain of the Cyclic poets the builder was Phereclus himself. This shows, says Jouan (p. 179), that Stasinus (as he very sensibly decides to call the author of the Cypria) took a lively interest in the identity and personality of the builder of the ships. If, therefore, Euripides suggests that the builder may have been a Greek (Hel. 230), we may surmise that Stasinus was his source. This reason- ing is futile, for an examination of the Homeric passage shows that Aristarchus was talking nonsense-Phereclus, whose killing is described, had built the ships for his own ruin. Therefore, the later Cyclic poets simply adopted Homer's name for the builder, and the suggestion that he was a Greek may well be

Euripides' own way out of the difficulty that the Trojans knew nothing of

ships. Another case where Jouan has allowed himself to be imposed on is his discussion of the death of Astyanax (p. 372). He is aware that there were accounts of it in the Iliou Persis and the Little Iliad for Euripides to draw upon; but Odysseus' reported advice at Tro. 723: dplkrov rra'&8a ['p 7PEELV rWarpo's is reminiscent of v4rvos &O srar-pa KiTvEtEVv irat8aS KaraTAEIrEL, and Clement at- tributes this aphorism to Stasinus. So perhaps Euripides was drawing upon a discussion recorded in the Cypria of the fate reserved for the conquered when Troy should fall. But apart from the fact that neither the speaker nor the

person referred to in v4orros 0... is known, we ought to look carefully at the context in Clement before accepting that he alone has truly given the author of a passage so often quoted anonymously. What we find is that Clement is quoting vast numbers of passages to prove that the Greek authors were given to plagiarism. In no single case does he betray the slightest uncertainty as to authorship or priority-not wanting, I presume, to get involved in irrelevant discussion or periphrasis-and the temptation to guess must have been acute.

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Page 4: Euripides and the Cypria

THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 153

There are other cases where Jouan's attribution of material to the Cypria is not founded on any particular misapprehension, but is excessively speculative. There is no evidence that the exposure and recovery of Paris formed part of the epic poem, and they may rather have been invented at a time when king's sons were no longer expected to serve as shepherds (p. I36). Jouan is again adventurous in referring the suitors' oath to the Cypria (p. 159), in suggesting that Stasinus made Odysseus the deviser of it, and above all in arguing that the reason why Euripides does not credit Odysseus with it in Iph. Aul. is that he is concerned to show him in the worst possible light (p. 163)-

In explaining Euripides' adaptation of his material, Jouan suffers from the prevalent view that a Greek tragedian would be anxious for 'un pretexte a donner son avis sur les 6venements contemporains' (p. Io). The Trojan War is an analogue of the Peloponnesian War, except at the end of Iph. Aul. where it stands for a possible crusade against Persia and accordingly rises in his estima- tion. In spite of Zuntz's convincing refutation, Jouan assumes without question that El. 1347-8 refers to the Athenian expedition of 413-it was patriotic of Euripides to show the divine Twins solicitous of the lives of Athenian sailors (p. 198). Socially, Jouan exaggerates Euripides' radicalism-the poet's doubts about the importance of

EV•yvELa are tempered by the fact that the shepherd

Paris was in fact a prince, and that Electra's peasant husband came of a good family. Psychologically, he suggests that Helen was lying when she claimed Achilles as a suitor (p. I61) but later regards this as a truthful statement of an altered tradition (pp. 406, 422).

But in spite of these and many other failings, Jouan has made a signal con- tribution to Euripidean studies. Besides enlarging our acquaintance with the tradition, and writing judiciously on the lost plays, he shows how the poet's treatment of roughly the same material altered with the passage of time. The earlier 'Cyprian' plays tend to show more interest in the fortunes of individuals, more faith in human effort, and yet at the same time more patience with the miraculous than the later ones. The divine will fades from view, and Chance reigns. Human motivation is more and more subject to what Lesky calls 'Labilituit', and sudden changes are attributable to 'der Punktuelle in der Psychologie'-an over-ready response to changing circumstances. From 415 onwards the poet shows an increasing interest in the innovations of Stesichorus. The myth, which was once history glorified, is now retailed and adapted for controversial purposes; its treatment through the centuries and at different stages of Euripides' career reflects the history of Greek attitudes and morale.

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge A. D. FITTON BROWN

EURIPIDES ORESTES

I. WERNER BIEHL: Euripides, Orestes (Akad. der Wiss. zu Berlin, Sekt. fuir Altertumswiss., 42). Pp. xi+2 6. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, I965. Paper, DM. 44.50. THIs is a work of sound scholarship, and anyone studying the Orestes will certainly need to consult it; but in comparison with other editions and com- mentaries it has certain limitations. There is no text. The commentary is on Murray's text, but the author does not always approve of this, and at the end

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