Euripides Hippolytus 1389-90 reattributed

Specific Text Questions
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(Hipp.) … εἴθε με κοιμάσειε … μέλαι-
να νύκτερός τ’ ἀνάγκα. |
— ὦ τλῆμον, οἵᾳ συμφορᾷ συνεζύγης· 1389
τὸ δ’ εὐγενές σε τῶν φρενῶν ἀπώλεσεν. 1390
(Hipp.) ἔα·
ὦ θεῖον ὀσμῆς πνεῦμα· καὶ γὰρ ἐν κακοῖς
ὢν ᾐσθόμην σου κἀνεκουφίσθην δέμας.
ἔστ’ ἐν τόποισι τοισίδ’ Ἄρτεμις θεά.
(Art.) ὦ τλῆμον, ἔστι, σοί γε φιλτάτη θεῶν.
(Hipp.) ὁρᾷς με, δέσποιν’, ὡς ἔχω, τὸν ἄθλιον;
(Art) ὁρῶ· κατ’ ὄσσων δ’ οὐ θέμις βαλεῖν δάκρυ.

According to the traditional attribution, accepted unquestioningly by all previous editors of the play, the first two lines here (1389-90), are spoken by Artemis. I cannot believe that is right. They belong to the chorus.

The lines come directly after Hippolytus’ intense song of agony at 1370-88. That his moaning and groaning should elicit such an utterance from the chorus is in full accord with tragic norms. Just as they announced his entry (1342-46), initiating the anapests which Hippolytus continued, so here at the conclusion of his lyrics they accord him a conventional sympathy distich, book-ending his agony (ὦ τλῆμον ~ ὁ τάλας 1342) and effecting the transition back to iambic dialogue. The pair of lines fulfills a familiar and necessary role not only by demarcating the action but also by serving as something of a buffer between the different kinds of emotional intensity on either side of it. That Hippolytus responds in turn not to the chorus’ expression of sympathy but to the actual presence of Artemis is perfectly in keeping. He suddenly (ἔα!) senses she is in the vicinity, and reacts accordingly.

The attribution of the lines to Artemis, on the other hand, is hardly tenable. If the goddess had just spoken, it would be very odd for Hippolytus to hail only her scent. Contrast Ajax’ response to Athena’s utterance at the beginning of the Ajax, ὦ φθέγμ’ Ἀθάνας κτλ. Ajax had recognized his special goddess by her voice, without needing to see her (κἃν ἄποπτος ᾖς ὅμως 15, cf. Hipp. 86). Hippolytus does not need even to hear his, recognizing her by her scent alone (1391f.). According to Barrett, “he is certain of her presence from the familiar voice and fragrance”—but it is exclusively the fragrance to which he responds: she has yet to speak. “Oh-ho, there’s a whiff of Artemis hereabouts” (I paraphrase) is not the sort of thing you say if you have just heard her deliver 1389f. She confirms his olfactory identification (1394, ἔστι); whereupon he addresses her in turn, and the stichomythic exchange is under way.

Other considerations, while more subjective, point the same way. It seems more appropriate that Artemis should echo the chorus’ ὦ τλῆμον than that she should so address the man twice in a row, and to my mind the ensuing conversation between them is appreciably weakened by giving her this pair of lines up front. Moreover, the exclamatory mode (οἵᾳ συμφορᾷ συνεζύγης), even in so mild a form, is too emotive for the goddess’ austerity (Barrett at 1437-9 rightly notes her “aloofness and restraint” throughout the scene). Her initial ὦ τλῆμον (1394) is as far as she allows herself to go.

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I think you must be right, the lines really seem more appropriate for the chorus than Artemis. It seems very awkward for a goddess to blame his misfortune on being well born, but it is a typical statement for a chorus, especially in Euripides. (I have written a thesis where I argue that we are supposed to understand who the speaker is in dramatic dialogue, without any indications other than the text itself. To be able to do this, we must look at which distribution of text the poet could have expected us to understand. If this is correct, attributing these lines to Artemis instead of the chorus is almost impossible, and the repetition of ὦ τλῆμον, as you say, makes it very clear, in addition to the main point, that he only mentions her scent.)

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I’m very pleased you agree. And yes, as you say, speaker identifications have to be decided by our understanding of the indications of the text itself, regardless of any extratextual attributions, which have little or no authority.

1 Like
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I’m convinced, too. Why don’t you run this by David Kovacs?

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Thanks Bill. That’s very gratifying. I did in fact propose it to James Diggle a number of years ago (not in time for his OCT, unfortunately) and he too was convinced—also very gratifying of course, but I’m glad to have your independent approval.

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A very minor secondary point: the symmetry in the four lines 1393-96. First Hipp. recognizes Artemis’ presence on the scene (ἔστ’ ἐν τόποισι τοισίδ’ Ἄρτεμις θεά), which Artemis confirms (ὦ τλῆμον, ἔστι, σοί γε φιλτάτη θεῶν). Then a very similarly structured pair (1395f.): Hipp. ὁρᾷς με, δέσποιν’, ὡς ἔχω, τὸν ἄθλιον; Art. ὁρῶ· κατ’ὄσσων δ’ οὐ θέμις βαλεῖν δάκρυ. Artemis’ ἔστι echoes Hipp’s ἔστ’, her ὁρῶ echoes his ὁρᾷς.
Barrett, rightly or not, insists that 1393 is a statement, not a question; but he punctuates 1395 as a question—thereby effacing the parallelism between the two pairs. My own inclination would probably be to take both 1393 and 1395 as questions, but the text itself gives no sufficient indication, and I’m not sure that it much matters. I only wanted to note the matching call-and-response nature of the two couplets.