Euripides Rhesus 565-691c

Gilbert Murray (Translator)

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Rhesus. Euripides. Gilbert Murray (Translator). London. 1913.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Current edition Perseus

Rhesus (English) (Euripides. The Rhesus of Euripides. Murray, Gilbert, translator. London: George Allen and Company, Ltd., 1913.)

Editions (1)
Ῥῆσος Perseus (Euripides. Euripidis Fabulae, Vol. III. Murray, Gilbert, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913. (Reprinted 1920-1978)) — 565-691 focus
Translations (2)
Rhesus Perseus (Euripides. The Plays of Euripides, Vol. I. Coleridge, Edward P., translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1906. (Modernized by Perseus.)) — 565-691 focus
Rhesus (OCR draft) Experimental (Rhesus. Robert Potter's English verse translation, first published in 1781–1783; text from the 1808 Oxford printing.)

No corresponding passage available

Notes on the current edition

Rhesus

1.
P. 31, 1. 567 ff., Odysseus and Diomedes.]—Observe how we are left gradually to discover that they have met and killed Dolon. They enter carrying, as far as we can make out, a wolf-skin that looks like his: they had evidently spoken to him, 11. 572, 575: it is his and they have killed him—l. 592 f.
All the Odysseus-Diomedes scenes have something unusual about them, something daring, turbulent, and perhaps lacking in dramatic tact. The silent rush on Hector’s empty tent is hard to parallel. The cruel Athena is Euripidean; but her appearance in the midst of the action is startling, though it may be paralleled from Sophocles’ Ajax. In Euripides Gods are generally kept for the prologue or epilogue, away from the ordinary action. (The vision of Iris and Lyssa in the middle of the Heracles has at least the stage clear of mortals and the Chorus apparently in a kind of dream.) Again the conception of Athena pretending to be Cypris is curious. The disguised Athena is common in the Odyssey, but she does not disguise herself as another goddess. (It is sometimes held that this scene requires four actors, which would be a decisive mark of lateness; but this is not really so. The actor who took Odysseus could easily get round in time to take Paris also—especially if he made his exit at 1. 626, before Athena sees Paris. And the Greek stage had no objection to such doubling.) Lastly, the scene of turmoil between the spies and the Guards is extraordinary in a tragedy, though it would suit well in a pro-satyric play. See Introduction.
2. P. 33, l. 594, Stage direction.]—They bear Dolon’s spoils or tokens: probably his wolf-skin. If they bring it with them they must probably do something with it, and to hang it where it may give Hector a violent start seems the natural proceeding. Also, they can hardly be carrying it in the scene with the Guards, 1. 675 ff., p. 38 f. That would be madness. They must have got rid of it before then, and this seems the obvious place for doing so.
3. numeration out of sync: 612 omitted
4.
P. 36, 11. 637 ff., Athena as Cypris.]—It is not clear how this would be represented on the Greek stage, though there is no reason to think there would be any special difficulty. On a modern stage it could be worked as follows:—The Goddess will be behind a gauze, so that she is invisible when only the lights in front of the gauze are lit, but visible when a light goes up behind it. She will first appear with helmet and spear in some hard light; then disappear and be rediscovered in the same place in a softer light, the helmet and spear gone and some emblems of Cypris—say a flower and a dove—in their place. Of course the voice will change too.
The next scene, where the two spies are caught and let go, is clear enough in its general structure; the details must remain conjectural.