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Three notes on Menander

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

T. B. L. Webster
T. B. L. Webster
Affiliation:
Stanford
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Extract

These notes are offered to E. R. Dodds in gratitude for much kindness and for much instruction on Greek drama and religion.

I. Heros

The main lines of the story are clear from the summary, the list of characters, the two papyrus passages and the fragments. But the second papyrus passage can, I think, be made a little clearer and something can be said about the Heros. For understanding these the beginning and the end of the summary are useful: ‘An unmarried girl (Myrrhine) bore twins (Plangon and Gorgias) and gave them to a guardian (Tibeios) to bring up. Then later she married her raper (Laches)…. When things became clear, the Old man (Laches) discovered his children (Plangon and Gorgias), and the violator (Pheidias) took the girl (Plangon) willingly.’

The second of the two papyrus pages begins with the last two lines of an Act; then the new Act (the fourth because it has the main recognition scene) starts with a short agitated soliloquy of Laches (55–63). He has returned home and found that the girl Plangon whom he had promised to his slave Daos has borne a child to an unknown father (I assume that Daos' claim has been rejected): this, I think, is what he comments on in his fragmentary soliloquy. Then Myrrhine comes out.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 93 , November 1973 , pp. 196 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1973

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References

1 CR 61, 1947, 72.

2 Hellenika, 180, 1964, 3 f.

3 Menander 3, 10.

4 γλυκύς is Habrotonon's word in the Epitrepontes (17, 542). Probably used by an old nurse in fr. 396, cf. Williams, T., Hermes 91, 1963, 305Google Scholar. I suspect that the shepherd who is pitied and is called γλυκύτατος is received by the women slaves of the household (fr. 676).

5 Dodds, E. R., Greeks and the Irrational, 77Google Scholar. For a recently discovered instance in Old Comedy, cf. Merkelbach, R., ZPE, 1, 1967, 97Google Scholar.

6 In P. Oxy. 862 a slave tells Pheidias of the birth of a child (cf. Georgos fr. 4; Samia 63 f.). This may well come from this play. (In the Synaristosai both mother and daughter were seduced at the Dionysia: fr. 382 = Cist. 89; fr. 763 = Cist. 157).

7 P. Oxy. 2825, cf. GRBS, 10, 1959, 307 ff.

8 Possibly P. Oxy. 2329 belongs between fr. B and fr. A. The single paragraphos in 1. 4 marks the end of a section (scene, act, or extract?). 11. 1–4, a young man in great distress is told to keep quiet while someone does something elsewhere (youth A and Syros?). 11. 5–28. A young man comes out of the house with his mother, having made a confession. He has had some unexpected news about his sister. He wants to marry the daughter of Kle(oboule). He is then left alone, praising his mother and saying that he needs the help of Dromon. This may be youth B confessing his love of the Apparition to wife B. She agrees to talk to the stepmother. He sees the need of Dromon (the slave of the trochaic part of fragment B) to keep watch for him. This needs detailed commentary for which there is no place here. Note (1) that the names seem to rule out Barigazzi's ascription to the Georgos (Athenaeum, 34, 1956, 350), (2) The mother's name is given, not the father's. The father is either dead or unknown (as at present in Phasma). The girl is, therefore, more likely to be the youth's choice than a girl proposed by the mother (cf. Heautont. 1061, 1065). Kle(oboule) then is the name of the stepmother, (3) φυλακὴ, does not mean ‘watch’, in the sense of police, but ‘watching’ by Dromon, as a spying slave.

9 BICS, 16, 1969, 88; Kahil, L., Antike Kunst, Beiheft 6, 46 ff., pl. 6Google Scholar.

10 On the connection between Kybele, , Korybantes, , Dionysos, see Greeks and the Irrational, 77 fGoogle Scholar. Here in 1. 7 Bartoletti saw that σϵισικάρηνοι suggested Maenads but rejected them for Kouretes. I should like The connection of satyrs with Kybele is at least as old as the sixth century in Sardis, cf. G. M. A. Richter, Korai, fig. 524.

11 Cf. e.g. Apuleius, , Met. 8, 27Google Scholar.

12 SIFC, 34, 1962, 21.