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Bacchae 773–4 And Mimnermus Fr. 1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Michael R. Halleran
Affiliation:
University of Washington

Extract

The messenger who reports the miracles from the mountains in Euripides' Bacchae (677–774) concludes with an injunction to Pentheus that he accept this god into the city (769–74):

τóν δαíμον' ούν τóνδ' ἂστισ ἔστ', ῶ δἑσποτα,

δἐχον πóλει τἦδ'-ὰσ τὰ τ' άλλ' ἐστíν μὰγασ,

κάκεíνó φασιν αύτóν, ἑγὡ κλύω.

Type
Shorter Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1988

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References

1 The text cited is that of Roux, J., ed., Euripide: Les Bacchantes i (Paris, 1970)Google Scholar.

2 Cf. the testimonia collected by West, M. L., ed., Iambi et Elegi Graeci, ii (Oxford, 1972), pp. 81–2Google Scholar.

3 The poem, or at least ten lines of it, is preserved in Stob. 4.20.16.

4 Ep. 1.6.65f.

5 De virt. mor. 445F.

6 Corpus Paroemiagraphorum Graecorum, edd. Leutsch, E. v. and Schneidewin, F. G. ii (Göttingen, 1851), 678.17Google Scholar.

7 It should be noted that the collocation of Κύπρις or Ἀϕροδίτη and τερπνός is very rare indeed. A survey (employing the Ibycus program on the TLG database) of the major writers of the archaic and classical periods reveals a few examples of τέρπω/τέρπομαι in conjunction with Ἀϕροδίτη or Κύπρις but virtually none of the adjective τερπνός and either Κύπρις or Ἀϕροδίτη and only one, it seems, in a remotely comparable context, Euripides, Heracl. 893ff. Perhaps also the choice of μηκέτι, admittedly a common word, in 773 of the messenger's speech was influenced by its appearance in the second line of Mimnermus' poem.

8 See, e.g., the end of the second messenger's speech in this very play (1150–2).