Greece & Rome, Vol. 47, No.

2, October 2000
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF STAGE PROPERTIES
IN EURIPIDES' ELE CTRA!
By DAVID RAEBURN
Stage properties in Greek tragedy are used economically, a fact which
enhances te signifcance of teir dramatic function. Oliver Taplin has
amply demonstrated how teir appearance on stage is not an adventi
tious means of lending life to a character or situation but rater a device
by which te dramatist underlines some essential aspect of te scene in
which tey occur or teme in te play as a whole.2 Economy of props in
tragedy is in marked contrast wit teir multiplicity in Aristophanic
comedy.3 When it comes, terefore, to interpreting te poet's artistic
intention in a particular tragedy, te props list may prove a useful critical
instrument, as I hope will be evident from tis study of teir use in
Euripides' Electra.
Electra has provoked and continues to provoke, a great deal of
scholarly controversy.4 Few, however, would deny tat where Aeschylus
presents te murder of Clytemnestra as exemplifying te tragic dilem
mas of retaliatory justice,5 in Euripides te matricidal act is more
unequivocally condemned. For Orestes and Electra, whatever teir
previous attitudes, te aftermat is one not of vindictive triumph but
of devastating remorse; and te justifcation of Apollo's command is
clearly, if discreetly, denied by anoter god (1245-6) .
It is also clear tat Euripides was adopting an innovative approach to
te details of te myth and its dramatic realization. This is evidenced at
te outset of te play by te information given in te prologue of
Electra's enforced marriage to an impoverished farmer (34 f.) and te
play's consequent setting not outside or near te palace of Argos but
before a rough shack in te mountains. The essential point of diference
among scholars turns on how Euripides' peculiarly innovative approach
should be interpreted. Was his aim simply to divert and excite his
audience, or is this a play which is more profound in its intentions? Are
te drama's turns and surprises to be largely explained in terms of
ancient social or teatrical convention, or do they also represent a subtle
exploration of human nature and reality?
The general view of Elctra which prevailed over te middle ffty years
150 STAGE PROPERTIES IN EURIPIDES' ELECTRA
of te twentiet century emphasized Euripides' critical attitude to
received myth, as expressed in what has been seen as a realistic, non
heroic approach to te killing of Clytemnestra. On tis view, not only is
te matricidal act portrayed as unambivalently reprehensible, but tere
are also discreditable and disturbing aspects to be observed in the
murder of Aegistus. Agamemnon's two assassins are even invested
wit the odd redeeming feature. Most striking of all, tough, is te
characterization of Orestes and Electra. Scholars have seen Orestes as a
reluctant hero, driven to matricide by a forcefully vindictive sister; while
Electra herself has been interpreted as morbidly embittered by te
circumstances in which te poet places her6 and as presented unsym
patetically until te closing scenes when she is shown reeling under te
horror of te crime she has driven and aided Orestes to commit. Such,
according to Euripides, are te people who would kill teir moter in te
actual ofstage world and this is how tey would feel afterwards.
In confrmation of tis realistic interpretation, Bemard Knox drew
attention to te domestic atmosphere which pervades the earlier
episodes and observed tat te play's milieu belongs more to te
world of comedy or satyr play tan tragedy. 7 A humorous, satirical
tone can be traced at several points in te frst half of te drama, which
serves to trow te horrors of te denouement into grim relief. This also
accords wit Euripides' use of surprise and paradox, noted by W. G.
Amott, in his games wit familiar dramatic conventions and deliberate
laying of false trails.8
This overall approach to Electra, which I shall from now on refer to as
te traditional one, has been radically challenged at a number of points
by scholars unwilling to accept an interpretation which is felt to savour
too much of modem psychology. Thus M. Lloyd, for example, rejecting
te unsympatetic view of Electra as embittered and self-pitying, has
argued tat 'her behaviour can be best explained in terms of Greek
conventions of lament and in terms of te dramatic context of what she
says and does.'9 Orestes, he believes, is cautious rather than indecisive
and only hesitates to kill his mother when he sights her imminent arrival.
His surprisingly long delay in revealing himself to Electra earlier in te
play is a contrivance to increase dramatic tension and allow Electra to
complete te full description of her woes. Anoter important feature of
Lloyd's argument is tat te Atenian audience would have seen
nothing shockng in Orestes killing Aegisthus at a sacrifce; on the
contrary, te Messenger's vivid account of his murder is there to give
te audience full and bloodthirsty satisfaction in te well-deserved
STAGE PROPERTIES IN EURIPIDES' ELECTRA 151
demise of a villain. Tyrannicide is thus to be seen as a foil rather than a
complement to te subsequent matricide.lo
On one point, however, al scholars tese days would seize wit
unanimity: te strong, intertextual relationship between Euripides'
Elctra and the Oresteia of Aeschylus. Though te purpose and tone
of te many detailed Aeschylean echoes may be disputed,11 tey suggest
cumulatively tat Euripides was assuming an acquaintance wit te
Oresteia in at least part of his audience.12 One aim of tis was doubtess
to bring his own treatment of Clytemnestra's murder into even sharper
focus. If tere were only some frm external evidence for establishing a
prior date for te Sophoclean Elctra, te similarites and diferences
between the two Elctras would point to a similarly conscious relation
ship wit Sophocles and so contribute an extra element to te interpreta
tion of Euripides' play.13
I now examine te props list in Elctra wit a view to identifying te
signifcance of each item and te temes tat te props serve to
emphasize. I believe tat tis study will lend support to te traditonal
approach to te play's interpretation rater tan tat advocated by
Lloyd and some oter more recent scholarship. This discussion does not
attempt a detailed critique of te latter's arguments, tough some crucial
points are necessarily enlarged upon, if only in te notes. I should prefer
te reader to consider wheter te props make better sense witn te
traditional or moder interpretative framework. In any event, te
discussion may also throw light on some interesting points of detail.
Each prop is taken in te order of its appearance or possible appearance.
Dummies of corpses are not included in the list, since teir display is
part of te normal convention.
1. Electra's Water-Pitcher
Electra's frst entrance at 54 is a very striking one. There she is,
apostrophizing te night, bearing a pitcher on her head. The image
must recall te Aeschylean Electra's entrance wit te chorus of
libation-bearers in te second play of his trilogy. Here, however, she is
not bearing libations to pour on Agamemnon's grave, but going to fetch
water from the stream, 'not that I have come to such a point of need, but
so tat I may show the hybrs of Aegisthus to the gods' (57-8). When her
Farmer husband remonstrates, she makes a virtue of her non
compliance by claiming she must do her bit to help h (64-76). It is
152 STAGE PROPERTIES IN EURIPIDES' ELECTRA
evident that this servile task, unnecessary as it is, is something she is still
determined to go on doing - a situation which the Farmer appears to
accept with a certain dry humour. The stream is not a long way of!
(77-8) .
So far, Electra's diferent stated reasons for fetching water herself
need not, perhaps, arouse too much suspicion. She now goes ofstage, to
return at 112 stll carrying the water-pitcher as she chants the frst part of
her lyric monody. Here she starts a formal lament for her own and her
father's suferings and prays for the return of her brother to rescue
herself and avenge his father's murder. The short mesode which comes
between her frst strophe and antistrophe (125-6) is interesting and calls
for careful interpretation:
ro. 'OV av'OV ynp yoov,
avay 1oAvoaKpvv doovav.
(Come, awaken the same lament; lift up the joy of many tears.)
If strings of short syllables suggest a paroxysm of grief (Cropp, comm.
ad loc.) , this must be a stgly emotional moment. Does 'the same
lament' simply refer to the repetition of 112-13 at 127-8? Those lines
read more like a choreographic instruction rather than an actual lament.
Much more probably, the implication in 125 is that Electra's lament is
being constantly renewed. Similarly, is her 'joy of many tears' a
conventional oxymoron, like the Homeric TTapTWjH](a yoow, used to
denote the idea that tears are a relief in sorrow? The expression certainly
recalls xaLpovaa ToAv8aKpvv yoov at Gho. 449. Or could it be cutting
deeper, to suggest that Electra positively enjoys her tears? For that, one
might compare Andromache 93-5, which speaks of a natural propensity
in women to take delight in continually harping on their present
troubles. The possibility must be considered tat, while 126 is an
obvious echo of Gho. 449, Euripides is subverting the commonplace
oxymoron about joy in tears to describe a psychological reality. What
follows certainly supports such an interpretation.
Electra's refusal to accept the Farmer's remonstratons over her
fetching water has an obvious parallel in her response to the invitation
to the Argive country-women to join in the festival at the Heraeum
(167-74). I paraphrase:
E. 'No fneries or necklaces are for me, no participation in dances (xopot). Tears are
my care, night and day. Look at my flthy hair and these rags I am wearing. Do
they beft Agamemnon's daughter?
STAGE PROPERTIES IN EURIPIDES' ELECTRA 153
Cho. Great is the goddess. Borrow a fne dress from me and golden jewellery to set it
of. Tears will not overcome your enemies or improve your lot. Honour the gods
and pray to them.
E. None of the gods listens to my voice, etc. etc.
Here again we see Electra unwilling to accept a solution to a hardship or
deprivation, conjoined with the theme that tears are the centre of her life.
Euripides leaves us in no doubt that the water-pitcher and dress/
jewellery motifs are indications of te same propensity. When Electra
catalogues her troubles in her long rhesis addressed to Orestes'
supposed emissary, her frst long period ends (307-10):
aVT /V K/ox8ovaa KpK{a!V 7bAovs
YV/VOV EW aW/a Kat aTpaO/a!,
aVT IE 77yds 7OTa/{ovs q0POV/EV7,
aVEopToS lEPWV Kat XopWV T7TW/lV7.14
(Mysel toiling at the loom to make my clothes (or else my body wlbe naked and I shall
go without), mysel bearing my water from the river, sharing no festval rites and
deprived of dances.)
Here, in sharp juxtapoSITOn, Electra is instancing as items for
complaint two specifc deprivations to which remedies have been
presented, only to be rejected. She may pray and entreat for Orestes'
return, but she is evidently deriving too much personal satisfaction
from her tears and complaints to be willing or able easily to give up te
status quo.
In te light of all this, what does the water-pitcher prop signify? By
contrast wit Electra's libation-urn in Choephor, it points at a perfectly
obvious level to te heroine's humble life-style and reduction to slave
status. So Orestes interprets it when he frst catches sight of his sister
before her second entrance (107-10). The pitcher may tus be seen as
characteristic of te non-heroic trappings which belong to Electra's
home in te wilds and help to signify Euripides' versmo approach to the
myth. It may also be regarded, more profoundly, as te symbol of
Electra's self-martyrdom and joy in weeping. At 140 te vessel is
removed from Electra's head to leave her free to mime te ritual motions
of tearing her cheeks and beating her head (146-50). Wheter she puts
the pitcher down on the ground herself or a servant emerges from te
house to do it for her,15 te imperative ( suggests that the prop remains
onstage in te audience's view, perhaps in a prominent position close to
the skene doors. From then on, trough the following lyric dialogue with
154 STAGE PROPERTIES IN EURIPIDES' ELECTRA
the Chorus and the long episode with Orestes, it is there to remind the
audience of what it represents.16
The signifcance of the water-pitcher can now be applied to a further
point of complaint which featres strongly in the important passage of
stichomythia (220-89) during which the disguised Orestes carries out
his intention (98-101) of exploring Electra's circumstances and making
her his accomplice. The issue is, in fact, the continued absence of
Orestes. Electra has already voiced her sense of abandonment by him in
her monody at 130 f.: he left his sister in his father's halls to a life of
miser and pain. The same theme is stressed at three crucial points in
the stucture of Electra's dialogue with her brother's supposed messen
ger (245, 263, 275). Each time Electra gives sharp expression to her
resentment that Orestes is still absent in caustic, almost savage comments
which her brother responds to not by ofering any justifcation but by
prompty changing the subject.17 As the episode progresses, it becomes
increasingly clear that Orestes' failure to retrn is a running sore which is
reaching the point of obsession. This is confrmed at the climax of
Electra's woe-reciting rhesis (326 f.) when she describes Aegisthus'
drunken behaviour - WS AEYOV CHV, 'as they say' (327), and therefore
suspiciously like an invention of her own? - at Agamemnon's tomb with
his jeers of:
7OV 7aLS 'Op(TTS; dpa (O! TVPf< KaAws
1apwv a,VVEL; 'aUT' a1WV vp{'erar.
('Where is your son Orestes? Doing splendidly in being present and defending your tomb
for you?' These are the insults he receives in his absence!)
Here, then, we have Electra's supreme grievance - and the solution is
standing before her. At that point Orestes does not reveal himself, but
the possibility of recognition by a third party, Agamemnon's old
pedagogue, has been mentioned (285-7). The water-pitcher, that
emblem (among other things) of self-indulgent sorrow and resentment,
is stll on stage to raise the interesting question of how Electra's tortred
soul might react if confronted with a serious and immediate prospect of
her brother's retrn.
2. Orestes' and Pylades' luggage
Orestes enters at 82 accompanied, evidently, not only by Pylades but
also by at least two servants or atendants.18 At 360 these are ordered by
STAGE PROPERTIES IN EURIPIDES' ELECTRA 155
the Farmer to take some luggage indoors and we must infer that they
have brought this on with them.19 They would doubtless withdraw with
Orestes and Pylades before Electra's second entrance at 112 and
re emerge from hiding with their masters at 215.
If the baggage-props are not to be thought of as entirely adventitious,
we might attribute some slight signifcance to them as a vensmo
counterpart to Electra's water-pitcher,20 serving to link Orestes on his
frst entrance no less with the domestic atmosphere. In A. Cho. Orestes
and Pylades make their second entrance unattended, carrying baggage as
a feature of the disguise which, together with their assumed Phocian
speech, is to gain them access to the palace (560, 675); but there is no
such suggestion here. Yet Euripides chooses to introduce the baggage
props and provides mutes as servants to make this possible. Why? Is it
possible to go deeper and discover a psychological signifcance corres
ponding to that of Electra's water-pitcher?
Baggage signifes an encumbrance and Orestes is unhappily encum
bered by the oracular command to kill his mother. The frst hint of his
reluctance is the strange syntax of 56-7 which refers to Aegisthus as his
father's murderer, adding 'and my accursed mother' as a kind of
detached afterthought.21 It soon emerges that, so far from returning as
a conquering hero inside the city walls, Orestes has come with no fxed
plan to the boundaries of the country (96). He has already paid a secret
visit to his father's tomb (90-3) and wants to see his sister to involve her
in his murderous task (98-10 1). The frst reason, however, that he gives
for staying near the frontier is to be able to slip away quickly if he is
spotted and identifed (95-7) - though it is a fair inference from what
Electra says later (283, 285) that such identifcation is only a very
remote possibility. It is therefore hard to resist the impression of a
hesitant, frightened man, burdened with the task of killing his mother,
which he would greatly prefer not to be contemplating.22 I suggest that
the baggage is there to signify this and that the visual image, transferred
once again from A. Cho., is peculiarly appropriate in its new context.
This early impression of Orestes is amply confrmed by his long delay
in revealing himself to Electra. He has no need at all to withhold his
identity from his sister, once the complicity of the Chorus has been
established (271-2) and Electra herself has declared her willingness to
die once she has cut her mother's throat (281). Instead, Euripides makes
him maintain his incognito until 579 afer he has been recognized by the
third party mentioned in 285-7. This surprising fact surely has to have a
motive attributable to Orestes' personal situation and attitude.23
156 STAGE PROPERTIES IN EURIPIDES' ELECTRA
To take this idea one detail further, the Farmer's instruction to the
servants to take the baggage indoors (360) comes by way of parenthesis
between two imperatives of invitation to Orestes and Pylades. But
nothing happens. Why? Perhaps 'Don't contradict me' (361) is a
response to a gesture by Orestes telling the servants to wait. Be that as
it may, it is clear from 393-4 that the baggage and servants stay out of
doors while Orestes holds forth in his philosophical discourse on the
difculty of judging 'the good man'. This long rhesis has the dramatic
efect of reinforcing our impression of Orestes' dilatoriness, but it is far
from irrelevant in that it refects ironically on Orestes' own vavlp{a. The
baggage only passes out of sight, as it must eventually do, with Orestes
and his retinue at 400 on the words 'The oracles of Loxias are frm-set'.
Although Orestes now appears to be in rather more confdent mood, the
reference to Apollo's commands carries the ironical implication that
Orestes cannot shake them of as he might a mortal prophecy and that,
like his baggage, they accompany him into the house.
3. Orestes' Sword
Orestes certainly wears a sword throughout the play. It is not absolutely
certain that he has it actually drawn when he emerges from hiding at 215
to confront Electra for the frst time,24 but it is highly probable. The
action far better motivates Electra's agitated reaction to what she
perceives as the appearance of brigands (216-19) and her fear of
being murdered (221); and it would be a further indication of Orestes'
general apprehensiveness and lack of confdence. The entrance is
certainly intended to make a strong impact as it also enables Euripides
to tease his audience by suggesting an unconventional exit for the
Chorus,25 only for the expectation to be immediately cheated. An
audience which remembers the Choephor might also expect Orestes'
emergence to be followed immediately or very shortly by his self
identifcation.26 Instead they have to wait another 360 lines for this to
happen, 20-25 minutes of playing time. Another Aeschylean resonance
is the natural association of Orestes' sword with the impending
matricide. Here it is apparently drawn on his sister, seen in attempted
fight and heard appealing to Apollo (!) 27 not to let her be killed. No
doubt Orestes sheaths his sword after Electra's theatrical submission
at 227.
28
It is also probable that Orestes once again carries the sword prop
STAGE PROPERTIES IN EURIPIDES' ELECTRA 157
unsheathed when he and Electra reenter from the house at 1177 in
shattered horror after murdering Clytemnestra. If he does, he would use
his blood-stained weapon to point to the dead bodies on the ekkyklema
behind him during 1178-81. It would be used again mimetic ally to
powerful efect at 1221-5 as brother and sister together relive the
moment when they drove it through their mother's throat, he like
Perseus holding his cloak over his eyes, she guiding the sword with
her own hand as she urged him on. At this point, the prop would be used
to show brother and sister united in intimate contact by their common
guilt, where earlier in the play it had resulted in her attempted fight.
4. The Hospitaity Items
At 486 the Old Man who was Agamemnon's pedagogue makes his
remarkable entrance. His arrival has been anticipated at 409 f. and the
audience has been prepared at 283 f. to expect that it will lead to the
recognition of Orestes. He appears carrying four props for the entertain
ment of Electra's guests: a suckling lamb, garlands, cheeses and some
vintage wine of strong bouquet (496-99). These props do not merely
reinforce the domestic atmosphere. The point is that they are Aristo
phanic in number and character. They add to the comic efect of the
wrinkled old shepherd stumbling up the mountain-side to Electra's
hovel with doubled back and tottering knee (489-92) . Their prime
function is to indicate to the audience that the whole episode which
follows is to be in humorous, paradoxical vein. They set the tone for the
long-awaited anagnorsis.
The scene falls into three sections:
(a) the Old Man enters and Electra shortly comes out to meet him
(487-506)
(b) the Old Man suggests that Orestes may have returned and Electra
rejects his three 'tokens' (507-46)
(c) Orestes, with Pylades, enters from the house to be identifed by
the Old Man and, ver slowl indeed, acknowledged by Electra
(547-84).
The three sections demand to be interpreted as a whole. Unfortunately,
scholarship has tended to focus on the second because of the striking but
puzzling intertextual relationship with the same three tokens in
Aeschylus' Choephori. It has, in general, failed to link it up either with
158 STAGE PROPERTIES IN EURIPIDES' ELECTRA
the frst and third sections or with the themes established earlier in the
play.
On the frst section, the main point that needs to be added is that,
although the Old Man's entrance has its comic resonances, it is not
unmixed with pathos. He wipes away his tears on his characteristically
Euripidean rags (501-2), and Electra's remark on the 'uselessness' of his
rearing of Agamemnon recalls the Nurse in the Choephor.29 The tone,
then, is one to invite smiles rather than out-and-out hilarity.
The second section is certainly the most puzzling. There must, of
course, be good entertainment value in the Old Man's being right in his
speculations about Orestes' return, where Electra is wrong. But why
should Euripides make his Electra greet the Old Man's suggestions
regarding the lock of hair, a footprint and a woven garment with such
unpleasant contempt rather than with hopeful enthusiasm? Why too
does he put into her mouth such a strange mixture of sound, irrational
and sophistic arguments? If we believe that the sole purpose of this
section is to parody the use of the three tokens in Aeschylus, we are
forced to fnd Euripides guilty of gratuitous pedantry, if not wilful
misrepresentation, and of interrupting the fow of his drama for a piece
of sophistic literary criticism. Hence, of course, the rejection by some
scholars of 518-44, in whole or in part, as unauthentic. A more
satisfactory approach, surely, is to look for a valid dramatic motive for
Electra to fght the Old Man's suggestions and evidence with such
mordant vigour. 30
That motive is not far to seek, if we remember the signifcance of the
water-pitcher together with Electra's bitter and repeated complaints
about Orestes' absence. On that premiss we can see that her brother's
return could, paradoxically, present as much of a threat as a solution. It
will undermine the basis of her life as she has come to live it. This view
of the matter accords more convincingly with the Electra we have
already seen and heard than the one favoured by some scholars, that
Orestes' return in secret would belie her romantic conception of him as a
conquering hero.31 It accords better with the main thrust of her
argument; she is really resisting the suggestion that her brother has
returned at al. Finally, it accords with and prepares us for her
extraordinary behaviour in the third section of the scene.
At 547-8 the Old Man cuts the discussion short: 'Where are the
strangers? I want to see and question them about your brother'. He has
obviously put two and two together and linked the oferings he has
found on Agamemnon's tomb (513-15) with the arrival of Electra's
STAGE PROPERTIES IN EURIPIDES' ELECTRA 159
guests. What follows during the long exchange after the strangers do
emerge at 549? Orestes is patently embarrassed by the Old Man's
peculiar antics by way of close scrutiny (558-9) and circumambula
tion (561) and never says anything afterwards to assist recognition,
when a brief word from h would cut the whole wretched business
short. This is plainly in character: he has preserved his incognito up
tl the last possible moment as he knows that, once recognized by his
bloodthirstly forceful sister, he will be irrevocably committed to the
abhorrent task with which he is encumbered. Electra similarly pro
tracts the dialogue to a ludicrous extent, postponing acknowledgment
of her brother for as long as possible, while the Old Man tries
frantically to persuade her to see the obvious. She remains ofensively
obtuse and sceptical to the last/2 until she is forced to concede on the
evidence of an Odyssean scar33 that her brother is standing before her.
The reunion is sealed in a designedly fat and perfunctory passage of
antilbe in which Electra's exclamations of surprise are feebly echoed
by Orestes.34
Here, then, is the entertaining, though disconcerting, climax to the
frst, expository part of the play: an 'anti-recognition' scene in which the
reluctant hero Orestes does not want to be recognized and the perverse,
embittered Electra refuses to recognize her long-absent brother, with a
decrepit old rustic struggling in a patetically humorous way to bring the
two together. This brilliantly novel recognition situation has been built
up to by an ingeniously paradoxical use of the Aeschylean tokens,35 after
the tone of the whole episode has been set by the entrance of the Old
Man with his multiplicity of props.
One fnal detail. Is there a hint at 596-7 that Orestes' and Electra's
embraces at this point are a shade limp and unenthusiastic? Perhaps.36 If
so, we may contrast this strongly with their later embrace in the exods at
1321 f. In any case, the 'mirror' efect of the two embraces invites a
comparison.37 The frst follows on an enforced reunion, the second
precedes an enforced parting. In the latter the gestures of brother and
sister undoubtedly are heartfelt. Where Euripides has previously em
phasized their apartness,38 he now shows them genuinely united by their
common remorse in a sincere bond of sympathy and mutual appreci
ation (1308-10, 1331 f.). The moment of parting is the moment of tre
recognition in fully tragic mode, as distinct from the paracomic mode of
the 'anti-recognition'. Euripides has similarly manipulated his audi
ence's identifcation with the protagonist. Electra's early posturings
with the water-pot serve to distance us from her tears; the tears she
16 0 STAGE PROPERTIES IN EURIPIDES' ELECTRA
sheds on her fnal exit with Pylades (1337) inspire the proper emotion of
tragic pity.
5. A Lock of Orestes' Hair (?)
Does the Old Man produce a lock when he asks Electra to compare the
one he has observed at Agamemnon's grave for colour (520-3)? Almost
certainly not. It would be quite inappropriate for the Old Man to remove
a ritual dedication from the grave and there is no deictic pronoun as at
A. Cho. 168. A visual prop here could not carry the signifcance which
belongs to the lock in the Cho., where it is the seed of Orestes' and
Electra's reunion.39 Rather, it is the absence of the prop that is signifcant,
since Orestes and Electra are not to be truly united until the end of the
play. Euripides is using the lock, like the other two tokens as suggested
evidence for Orestes' return, which his Electra, paradoxically, though
for characteristic reasons, is determined to rebut.
6. Victory Wreaths for Orestes and Plades
Shortly after the end of the Messenger speech which reports Orestes'
murder of Aegisthus, Electra enters the house to fetch garlands to adorn
her victorious brother's head (872), despite the curious fact that Orestes
has already been crowned ofstage by the palace slaves (854). Arnott40
points to the ironizing accumulation of games imagery throughout this
section of the play (859-89), particularly to the Chorus' pseudo
glamorized representation - in epinician dactylo-epitrites, of course -
of Aegisthus' annihilation as a victory surpassing any achieved at the
Olympic Games. The irony depends, of course, on the traditional
premiss (which I accept) that Orestes' deed is far from the splendid
exploit suggested by the Messenger, Chorus, and Electra. While justice
has undoubtedly been done, the act of revenge has its profoundly
disquieting aspects and overtones.41 Euripides makes his Messenger
give a graphic description of the tyrant's being stuck down from
behind, while sacrifcing, by a formally welcomed guest who has care
fully refrained from purifying his hands and so binding himself as a
participant. There is a dear parallel, rather than a contrast, to be seen
with the undeniably repugnant murder of Clytemnestra which involves a
STAGE PROPERTIES IN EURIPIDES' ELECTRA 161
similar perversion of ritual associated wit te birt or rearing of
children (626, 1125-6).
On tis understanding, Orestes' actual crowning by Electra points up
the irony efectively in visual terms, though it means that he cannot
reenter wearing the garland he is said to have received from the slaves.
He must be assumed, if the thought crosses one's mind, to have
disposed of it on his return journey. The point of the 'cancelled' ofstage
garlanding in 854 must be to anticipate the epinician imagery of the
Chorus at 860-5, which is then carried forward in the visual stephano
phoria on stage. It may also be linked with the next possible item on
the list.
7. Aegistus' Severed Head (?)
This prop, or possible prop, brings us into a further area of scholarly
dispute.42 Does Orestes (or one of his servants) bring on a separate
dummy prop of Aegisthus' severed head which Electra takes into her
hands after 898, like Agave holding Pentheus' head? Or does she address
her speech of abuse at 907 f. to a dummy of Aegisthus' whole corpse?
The reason for believing the former is the conclusion of the
Messenger speech (855-7); 'He is coming to show you a head, not
bearing a Gorgon's, but the person you hate, Aegisthus.'43 This, taken
with the Chorus' image of Per se us holding the Gorgon's severed head in
the frst stasimon (459-60), creates a strong and somewhat ghoulish
expectation that Orestes on his next entrance is going to present Electra
with Aegisthus' head.
On the other hand, the language of Orestes' speech at 895-8, referring
simply to 'the dead man himself ' whom Electra can cast forth as a prey
for the wild beasts, if she wishes, or impale to be a spoil for the birds,
more naturally fts a whole body. This is confrmed by Electra's declared
hesitation to 'insult a corpse' (900, 902). Moreover, a body, headless or
not, is certainly brought on as it has to be taken indoors by the slaves
after 961, to be displayed later on in the kommos tableau at 1177. If we
reject the head as a separate prop, then, we have another case of falsifed
expectation, analogous to but much more obvious than the failure of
Orestes to appear in the wreath he has received from the household
slaves. This is atractive as both wreath and head have been mentioned
by the Messenger virtually in the same breath (854-6).
Either way, there must be an implied comparison between Orestes
162 STAGE PROPERTIES IN EURIPIDES' ELECTRA
and Perseus at 856, as there is at A. Gho. 831-7. 'Not the Gorgon's
head' may be a proverbial expression for a sight not to be feared, but it
must also carry the ironical nuance that Orestes is not the Perseus he is
compared to in Aeschylus. The irony of this is in line with the irony
underlining te epinician imagery noted in the discussion of prop 6.
Similarly, the image at 1221 f. of Orestes holding his cloak before his
eyes as he klls his mother is in ironical contast to Perseus' heroic exploit
when he looked away into the mirror of his shield to kll the Gorgon.
If Orestes presents Electra with the head of Aegisthus separately from
the rest of the body, the irony is visually reinforced. Moreover, the efect
of Electra taking it into her hands for the purpose of reviling the dead
Aegisthus to his face (910) is peculiarly grisly and compelling theat
rically. But is that the efect Euripides really wanted?
It can, I believe, be more appropriately argued that the anti-climax of
not seeing the expected head accords better with the character of
Electra's address. Her cacology of Aegisthus is in itself someting of a
puzzle: how did Euripides expect his audience to respond to it? As
Electa herself has implied (900, 902), to insult a dead man's corpse is
morally questionable in itself.44 Wen it comes to te rhesis, te initial
etv, followed by the frigid formality of the rhetorical opening (907-8),
and te impression of pent-up vitriol in te rest of te proem (909-13)
appear to promise much. But are Electa's innuendoes about Aegisthus'
relationship with Clytemnesta and their mutual infdelities to be
accepted at their face value? Or should they be regarded as the
slanderous fruits of Electa's malice or imaginaton? The point is, I
t, that te audience is intended to wonder. Eyebrows are raised as
they wl have been earlier on by Electra's account of the drunken
Aegisthus, 'as they say', jumping on Agamemnon's gave and peltng it
with stones as he taunts the absent Orestes (326-31). That picture is
certainly at odds with the positive impression of Aegisthus as a genial
host and with the whole atmosphere of his welcome to the strangers as
described by the Messenger (776f.). Similarly, te teme of Aegisthus'
subservience to Clytemnestra is belied by other indications in the text. 45
Athis inclines us to take Electa's abuse with a good pinch of salt, and
we are unlikely to be much impressed by her sententous gnomai.46 The
probability, then, is that the cacology, for al its promised vitiol and
superfcial theatical power, is to be seen by the more discerning as a
piece of empty rhetoric, something of an ant-climax. If so, there is a real
signifcance to be seen in the absence of the promised head. Audience
expectatons are falsifed alike in the prop's non-appearance and in the
STAGE PROPERTIES IN EURIPIDES' ELECTRA 16 3
insubstantial nature of Electra's rhesis. The former provides a clue to the
puzzle of the latter.
8. Clytemesta's Charots
Clytemnestra's entrance in a chariot at 998 is inescapably a visual
reminiscence of Agamemnon's entry at A. Agam. 782. The association
is reinforced by a second chariot containing Clytemnestra's beautiful
women attendants,47 which may serve likewise to remind us of Cassan
dra who is to feature as a topic in the ensuing agon (1030f.).48 The
spectacle of the two chariots and the fnely-dressed women confrms
Clytemnestra's luxurious life-style by contrast with the ragged Electra's
slavish poverty (1004f.) . The queen describes the Trojan handmaidens
as her yepa< in compensation for Iphigenia, also to fgure in the coming
agon (1020f.). Her verbal instruction to them K{T' d1V1< (998)
recalls K{aLv' d1V1< Ta(E addressed both to Agamemnon and later to
Cassandra (A. Agam. 906, 1039).
We may also note an interesting, and doubtless deliberate, contrast
between the Chorus's anapaestic greeting on the chariot-entry in the two
plays. In Agamemnon the Elders issue the king with a waring against
those who 'fawn with watery friendship' (A. Agam. 798). Euripides has
his chorus of Argive Women on Electra's side and their fulsome praise
of the queen echoes the fawning which Agamemnon is warned against in
the earlier play - though the irony of 996-7 should not be missed either.
The signifcance of the props (and extras) here is easily seen: they
serve ironically to identify Clytemnestra and Electra with their Aeschy
lean counterparts in the 'purple carpet' scene when Clytemnestra lures
Agamemnon inside the palace to his death. First, however, there follows
the formal agon between mother and daughter which compares so
interestingly with the corresponding debate in Sophocles' Electra. We
may note particularly the prominence which Euripides gives to the
theme of marital infdelity (1030-40, 1062-85) as distnct from the
issues of retaliatory killing, as though he were suggesting the real motives
which normally impel women to murder their husbands.49 Once this
debate is concluded, Euripides returns to 'temptaton scene' mode, as is
indicated by the still present chariots.5o At this point Electra almost
seems metatheatrically to have cast herself in the role of her mother. The
verbal ambivalences, especially the malevolent irony of 1120, parallel
Aeschylus' dramatc technique. At the end of the scene, there is a
164 STAGE PROPERTIES IN EURIPIDES' ELECTRA
powerful intertextual resonance in Electra's gloating lines behind
Clytemnestra's back after her mother has entered the house (1142-6,
cf. A. Agam. 973-4).
The imagery of the excitng dochmiac and iambic stasimon which
follows also recalls the murder of Agamemnon, after which we may
expect the murderers to ride out exultantly behind their victims on the
ekkyklma. The trolley surely rolls out with the bodies, but Orestes and
Electa come frst as they reemerge from the skene in horrifed revulsion
at their appalling crime.
9. Clyemesta's Shroud
The garments which Electa and Orestes use to cover their mother's
dead body at 1227 recall and contrast with the prop appearing in the
corresponding scene in Choephori. In Aeschylus the material used by
Clytemnestra to entrap Agamemnon is displayed by Orestes in tiumph
over his mother's corpse. Here the robes are employed by the now
dutiful daughter to compose the body for laying-out/1 and the plural
verb in 1231 suggests that the son also is involved in the ritual action. As
Aeschylean props echoed Agamemnon in the immediate run-up to
Clytemnestra's murder, so another prop points up the contast between
its immediate aftermath in Choephori and Elctra. For Euripides mati
cide calls not for tiumphalism, only for remorsefl contition.
This study of the props list in Euripides' Electra frst of all reinforces
the validity of Taplin's principle about the signifcance of properties in
Greek tagedy. Secondly, it tends to confrm the taditional interpreta
ton of the play which regards Euripides' approach to the myth as
essentially realistic and non-heroic. If this approach is rejected, several at
least of the props lose much of their potency as visual images of
dramatic realites and would appear to be intoduced more or less
adventtiously.
This approach is partcularly seen in the characterizaton of Electa
and Orestes, she with her water-pot and he, I suggest, with his associated
baggage. Electa is a stong personalit but a sick creature, torn
confusedly between contadictory desires, her energy perverted by her
STAGE PROPERTIES IN EURIPIDES' ELECTRA 165
circumstances and lack of self-kowledge into untinkng hatred and
vindictiveness. Orestes, by contast, is encumbered and tormented by
conscious scruple from the outset. He ties to delay the performance of
his dreadful task and is even prepared to question the authority of the
Delphic oracle with some passion (971, 973, 979, 981) ; but in the end
he lacks the moral strength to resist his sister's superior will and taunts of
cowardice (982 i. and the Chorus' comment 1204-5). Tis, Euripides
is saying, is what Orestes and Electra might have been like in everyday
human experience as opposed to the mythology of revenge. 52
Props also play an important part in the drama's domestic atmosphere
and exploitation of tragic conventons. Orestes' sword, apart from its
visual associatons with the actual murder of Clytemnestra, is used early
on to precipitate what could be a premature Chorus exit. More import
ant, though, is the appearance of multiple props to set the tone for the
quasi-comic anagnorisis, in which Orestes' manifest hesitations and
Electra's established contrariness are humorously blended to produce
a novel version of a familiar dramatic situation.
In his treatment of the death of Aegisthus, the use of wreaths to
compare Orestes to an Olympic victor is an appealing stroke of irony, as
is the falsifed expectation that the tyrant's severed head will be
introduced for Electra's cacology over his corpse. Euripides' contnual
adoption of the Oresteia as a reference point for his treatment of the
myth is reinforced by the visual resonances of the chariots and shroud
before and after the actual matricide; while the Aeschylean lock of hair,
like Aegisthus' head, is conspicuous by its absence in the 'tokens' scene.
Finally, we may conclude that props can provide some clues when it
comes to interpretng problematc scenes or passages. In partcular, the
controversial Recognton episode in Elctra can be found to cohere and
make dramatic sense when explored in terms of the tone and complex
motivation signfed by stage properties.
NOTES
1. The ideas developed in this article were frst explored in a study of the Recognition Scene
during the 1950's and subsequently tested practically in a production of the Elctra in the original
for the Cambridge Greek Play Committee in 1980. I am particulary gratefl for the comments and
encouragement given me at various times by Sir Denys Page, Professor R. P. Winnington-Ingram
and Professor P. E. Easterling. The commentaries of J. D. Denniston (Oxford, 1939) and M. J.
Cropp (Warminster, 1985) have been indispensable on countess points of detail. James Morwood
and Judith Mossman read the frst draft of the article and made some invaluable suggestions.
2 . Greek Tragedy in Action (London, 1978), 77 f. Stg examples are the purple tapesties in
Agamemnon, the bow of Heracles in Philoctetes, and the head of Pentheus in Bacchae.
16 6 STAGE PROPERTIES IN EURIPIDES' ELECTRA
3. One of many possible examples is the costmes and props which Dicaeopolis begs otf
Euripides himself in Acharians 4 0 7 -7 9 .
4 . For an excellent bibliography of the various approaches to the play see J. R. Porter 'Tiptoeing
through the Corpses', GRBS 3 1 (19 9 0 ), 2 55-8 1.
5. Sophocles can be added to Aeschylus, if one accepts the line of interpretation to S. El.
advanced by R. P. Winnington-Ingram, Sophocles (Cambridge, 19 8 0 ), 2 17 -4 7 .
6 . 'Loss of royal status, a humiliating marriage, prolonged virginity and childlessness, a life of
laborious poverty and physical deprivation' (Cropp, n. 1 above, xxxvi).
7 . 'Euripidean Comedy' in Word and Action (Baltimore, 19 7 9 ), 2 50 -7 4 .
8 . 'Euripides and the Unexpected' in Greek Tragedy, ed. I. McAuslan and P. Walcot (Oxford,
199 3 ), 13 8 -52 (reprinted from G&R n. s. 2 0 (19 7 3 .
9 . 'Realism and Character in Euripides' Elctr', Phoenix 4 0 (19 8 6 ), 1-19 .
10 . For the most recent discussion of Aegisthus' murder, see A. P. Bumett, Revenge in Attic &
Lter Trgedy (Berkeley, 19 9 8 ), 2 3 3 -5.
11. We need not go as far as N. G. C. Hammond, 'Spectacle and Parody in Euripides' Elctra',
GRBS 2 5 (19 8 4 ), 3 7 3 -8 7 , who sees Euripides indulging in open, quite unsubtle, mockery of
Aeschylus.
12 . There is no certain evidence for a revival of the Orestei in the 4 2 0 's or 4 10 's, but A. Ach.
9 f., Nub. 53 4 -6 and Ran. 8 6 8 f., 112 6 f. taken with Vita Aesch. 12 f. make one highly probable.
See C. W. Marshall, 'Literary Awareness in Euripides and his Audience' in Voice into Text, ed.
I. Worthington (Linden, 19 9 6 ).
13 . See Cropp's admirably balanced discussion in his commentary (n. 1 above, xlviii-I).
14 . The juxtaposition of the two motifs in 3 0 9 -10 is a stong argument in favour of this
punctuation, as in Murray's rather than Diggle's OCT. 3 0 8 is linguistically problematic, but the
exaggeration, taken parenthetically, would be typical of Electa.
15. I am inclined to agree with Denniston and Cropp that the pitcher is put down by a servant.
The brief entance of an exta here (as at 50 0 ) reinforces the point that Electa does not need to
fetch water.
16 . Electa can easily take it of on her next exit during 4 2 2 -5.
17 . In a stage performance these breaks in the dialogue require pauses which have the efect of
underlining Electa's protests stll more heavily.
18 . Cf. 3 6 0 , 3 9 4 and also 7 6 6 .
19 . 3 6 0 is athetized on rather slender grounds by both Diggle (O.C. T. ) and Donzelli (Teubner).
See Cropp, comm. ad loc., 12 3 , also quotng Mastonarde's defence of the line. Attendants recur in
the undisputed 3 9 4 and it is hard to see why Euripides should have intoduced them if not as
baggage-carriers.
2 0 . TEVX7 3 6 0 must refer to baggage, but it is a curious word to use for the more prosaic UKV7. In
tagedy TEVXO, is normally used to mean 'vessel' in the singular and 'arms' in the plural. Perhaps the
baggage is called TEVX7 to lin it with TEVXO, as used of the water-pitcher at 140 . Cf. also the use of
TEVXEWV in 4 9 6 in association with yet another prop.
2 1.
7paaaovB' a 1paaaw o{v' t Aly{aBov 7a(wv,
05 foV KaTKTa 7UTpa X 1uvwA8poc
(8 5-7 )
The dots afer 7UTEPU in Murray's O.C. T. usefully suggested a momentary aposiopesis betraying
Orestes' reluctance. See also G. M. A. Grube, The Drma of Euripides (London, 19 4 1), 2 9 9 -3 0 0 .
The efect is reinforced by the enjambement and heavy stop afer fT7P.
2 2 . Lloyd (n. 9 above), 11 regards Orestes' behaviour as 'sensible' and Cropp, comm. on 9 6 ,
10 6 compares his caution with that of Odysseus on his return t o Ithaca. But this is not how
Euripides' audience would have expected Orestes to behave. Aeschylus' (and Sophocles') Orestes
also uses guile, but is nothing like so tentative. Burnett (n. 10 above), 2 3 0 n. 18 , teats this timidity
as the behaviour of a youth in the process of becoming a young man, but Euripides lays no special
emphasis on Orestes' immaturity elsewhere.
2 3 . Attempts to explain Orestes' delay purely in terms of dramatic suspense seem to me entirely
unconvincing. Even if, as Lloyd, op. cit. 11, argues, he needs to hear the rest of Electa's story, this
only takes him to 3 3 7 . Similarly, it is unnecessary to fnd Euripides guilty of lax economy for the
STAGE PROPERTIES IN EURIPIDES' ELECTRA 167
sake of the digression on ',av8p{a (367-90), ifOrestes' delay can be shown to make good sense in its
own right.
24. Uoyd, op. cit. 8, n. 20, points out that g,, p.s in 225 simply means 'anedwt a sword', not
necessarily 'sword in hand'.
25. Arnott (n. 8 above), 141-2.
26. Cropp, comm. on 215-27, 114 calls this contast 'pathetc and humorous'.
27. The statue and altar of Apollo Aguieus before the house-entance is not teated as a 'prop',
though it might well have been. At this point, the irony of Electa appealing to the god who has
ordered Orestes to kl his mother cannot have been missed; and later on, Orestes' reproaches of
Apollo (971, 1190 f.) and Castor's judicious critcism of the oracle (1245-6) have added point in
the light of the god's symbolic presence as part of the 'set'.
28. The ticolon has an amusingly melodramatc ring.
29. With 507 cf. Cho. 752-3; with 508 cf. Cho. 747 (both passages spoken by the Nurse).
30. The vexed issue of the authentcity of 518-44 cannot be discussed frther here. The latest
contibuton to the debate by M. Davies, 'Euripides' Electra: the Recogniton Scene again', CQ 48
(1998), 389-403, establishes usefl analogies for Euripides' 'critcism' of Aeschylus in the tokens
scene and sees the intertextuality as a means whereby the poet draws attenton to his own novel
teatent. Davies adds in a footote (402, n. 58) that 'Electa's critcisms of the three tokens make
dramatc sense in their own right (as an expression of character, vehicle for irony etc.)', but he does
not enlarge frther on this essental point.
31. T interpretaton, based on 525-6, goes back to S. M. Adams, CR 49 (1935), 120-2. But
525-6 is only one argument of Electa's among many (cf. 7!Ta 527) and i is not echoed
elsewhere. By sk irony Euripides is puttng into Electa's mouth the normal, but already
falsifed, audience expectation of how Orestes should behave (see n. 22).
32. Note especially the uncomprehending tone of 564, 566, 568; the ironical avA.oTOV in 570;
and the use of
"
V solitarium in 575, implying that for Electa to see the scar is not necessarily to
believe.
33. The intertextual point is surely that Eurycleia in Odyssey X immediately recognies the
scar on Odysseus' thigh for herself, although the hero has tured away from the light to avoid her
doing so (388-91). Electa is similarly confronted with a scar on Orestes' brow which she is bound
to recognie, but even then hesitates (n. 32) to draw the inevitable conclusion. The detail is one of
several Odyssean features in the scene. There may be a deliberate bathos in its intoducton to
clinch the recogniton afer the failure of the other tokens, but this does not seem to me the essental
point.
34. Compare and contast 580-4 with Soph. El. 1220 f. or IT 827 f.
35. That is, if all the tokens ar Aeschylean. The authentcity of A. Cho. 205-11, 228, 231-2
seems to me more problematc than that of El. 518-44. See especially A. Bowen, Aeschylus,
Choehor (Bristol, 1986), Appendix A, 77-81. A positon which would excise the footprint and
woven garment in Cho. but accepts their authentcity in El. raises difcult questons; but it is not
untenable if Electa's captous resistance to the three tokens is interpreted in its own right, as I have
suggested.
36. See Denniston, comm. 124 and Cropp 142-3 ad loco
37. For the signifcance of gestures and 'mirror' scenes, see Taplin (n. 2 above), chapters 5 and 8.
38. Note especially the adversarial quality of the long passage of stchomythia (220-89), during
which Orestes and Electa express their egocentic preoccupatons, and their almost complete lack
of direct communicaton, very obvious in performance, when it comes to planning the to murders
(596-667). These both antcipate the grand confrontaton beteen brother and sister after Orestes
sights his mother on the way (962-87).
39. See Taplin (n. 2 above), 83-4.
40. W. G. Amott, 'Double the Vision: a Reading of Euripides' Electra (n. 2 above), in Greek
Tragedy, ed. I. McAuslan and P. Walcot (Oxford, 1993), 212-14 (reprinted from GR n.s. 28
(1981), 179-91).
41. Though this interpretaton has been challenged in some recent discussion (above, pp. 150-1,
with nn. 9 and 10), I need hardly do more than refer to the excellent and exhaustve exploraton of
Aegisthus' k g by P. E. Easterling, 'Tragedy and Ritual', Metis 3. 1-2 (1988), 101-9. Also
helpfl and interestng are Porter, op. cit. (n. 4), 260f. and]. M. W. Morwood, 'The Patter of the
Euripides Elctra', AP 102 (1981), 362-70. R. Parker, Miasma (Oxford, 1983), 159-60 has been
168 STAGE PROPERTIES IN EURIPIDES' ELECTRA
quoted (e. g. by Cropp, comm. 1 54) as evidence tat historical murders at s acrifces or fes tivals were
not necessaril y condemned by those who approved of the kill ing for politcal or other reasons. But in
such cases the impiety was stl there; and the point is irrelevant to the horrifc character of the
Messenger's narratve. No less horrifc is Orestes' suggested teatent of Aegisthus' corpse
(896-5).
42. See Cropp's fll bibliography, comm. on 855-7, 157.
43. Kovacs, CP 82 (1987), 139-41, followed by Cropp, removes the comma afer J1todtwv and
constues the negatve with Kupa: 'He comes bringing to display to you not the head of the Gorgon
[a sight to fl you with horror] but instead Aegisthus, the object of your hated [a sight to make you
glad] '. Surely, though, the positon of Kupa and ov in relaton to the to partciples in 856 requires
the tanslaton I have given. Violaton of word-order seems more objectonable than the easy
substtuton of ,,,' OV aTvy.L, Aryta80v for the more grammatcally precise, but non-metical, a''' oJ
a'UY[ Aly{uBou.
44. Cropp. comm. ad loc. , 159, useflly cites Od. 22. 412 and A. Agam. 1393-1406 against
boastng over the dead.
45. Cropp, comm. on 907-56, 160 draws attenton to 22-35, 1109-17, 1138.
46. Denniston, comm. on 907-56, 159 comments on the dramatc fatess of 921-4, 932-7,
940-4, 948-51.
47. A second vehicle is apparentl y implied by the language of 998-9 and is confrmed by the
plural TovaO' 0xov, in 1135, though this could be plural for singul ar on metical grounds. The plural
oX0t in 966, where OX' would ft metically, seems to clinch the matter. See Hammond (n. 11
above), 375.
48. Pace Taplin, The Stagecraf ofAeschylus (Oxford, 1977), 304, I believe the second chariot for
Cassandra, mentoned in the hypothesis of Agam. , to be necessary for staging reasons.
49. If tis interpretaton is correct, it seems to me a peculiarly stong pointer to the priority of the
Sophoclean Electra. See Cropp, comm. on 998-1096, 167-8.
50. Bumett (n. 10, above), 241-2, comments on the uneasy mixture beteen the agon and the
scene which frames it.
51. See Cropp, comm. on 1227, 181. For the language of 1227 and 1231 cf. A. Cho. 1000 and
1011.
52. The complex characterizaton of Orestes and Electa is not so much there for its own sake, as
it would be in a modem play, but rather to reinforce a point, viz: the total unacceptability of
maticide. Resistance to the ' psychological' line of interpretaton springs, I suspect, from an
unwarranted sense that subtl e and elaborate human portayal is fundamentally alien to the style
and conventons of masked theate in 5th-century Athens when drama was in its infancy.
Characters in Greek plays are not supposed to behave like that. But there can be no disputng
that Euripides was a very sophistcated playwright, well capable (like Sophocles and indeed Homer)
of profound human insights. Ingenious characterizaton was as much open to him as ingenious
rhetoric. We do his originality an injustce if our interpretatons restict him to conventonal forms
and modes of expression when a text stongly suggests otherwise.