Euripides: Bacchae

290 Pages·1996·6.038 MB·English

by  Richard Seaford

EURIPIDES
BACCHAE
with an Introduction, Translation and Commentary by
Rjchard Seaford

THE PLAYS OF EURIPIDES
BACCHAE
General Editor
Professor Christopher Collard

EURIPIDES
Bacchae
with an Introduction, Translation and Commentary by
Richard Seaford
Aris & Phillips Ltd- Warminster- England
© Richard Seaford 1996. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any manner or in any form
without the prior permission of the publishers in writing.
Greek Text © Oxford University Press. Reproduced from the Oxford Classical Texts
Edition of Euripides Fabulae by James Diggle by permission of Oxford University Press.
cloth 0 85668 608 5
limp 0 85668 609 3
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Printed and published in England by Aris & Phillips Ltd, Teddington
House, Warminster, Wiltshire BA12 8PQ
CONTENTS
General Editor's Foreword vi
Preface vii
Abbreviations viii
GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO TIIE SERIES by Shirley Barlow 1
I: The Ancient Theatre 1
II: Greek Tragedy 3
III: Euripides 17
INTRODUCTION TO BACCHAE
I: Tradition and Structure 25
II: The Bacchae and the Dionysiac 30
III: The Bacchae and Cult 35
IV: The Bacchae and the Polis 44
V: The Transmission of the Bacchae 52
MANUSCRIPTS 55
APPARATUS CRITICUS 57
TEXT AND TRANSLATION OF BACCHAE 65
SELECTED TEXT FROM CHRISTUS PATIENS 144
COMMENTARY 147
General BibliograJ?hy 259
Selected Bibliogaphy for Bacchae 265
Index 267
vi
GENERAL EDITOR'S FOREWORD
Euripides's remarkable variety of subject, ideas and methods challenges
each generation of readers - and audiences - to fresh appraisal and closer
definition. This Series of his plays is in the general style of Aris and Phillips'
Classical Texts: it offers university students and, we hope, sixth-fonners, as well
as teachers of Classics and Classical Civilization at all levels, new editions which
emphasise analytical and literary appreciation. In each volume there is an
editor's introduction which sets the play in its original context, discusses its
dramatic and poetic resources, and assesses its meaning. The Greek text is
faced on the opposite page by a new English translation which attempts to be
both accurate and idiomatic. The Commentary, which is keyed wherever
possible to the translation rather than to the Greek, pursues the aims of the
Introduction in analyzing structure and development, in annotating and
appreciating poetic style, and in explaining the ideas; since the translation itself
reveals the editor's detailed understanding of the Greek, philological comment
is confined to special phenomena or problems which affect interpretation.
Those are the guidelines within which individual contributors to the Series have
been asked to work, but they are free to handle or emphasise whatever they
judge important in their particular play, and to choose their own manner of
doing so. It is natural that commentaries and commentators on Euripides
should reflect his variety as a poet.
These last points are being borne out by the volumes as they appear, all of
them different in emphasis and style. Reviewers in a very wide range of
journals have been generally sympathetic to the purpose of the Series and
appreciative of what it offers. Some of the warmest welcomes have come from
countries where English is not the first language. The publisher and I are
strongly encouraged and intend if we can to include eventually all the complete
plays and a selection of the fragmentary ones.
Bacchae is the ninth complete play in the Series. The General
Introduction, by Shirley Barlow, is once again reprinted (pp. 1-23), as is the
General Bibliography (pp. 259-64). The Greek text is based (with several
changes) on the Oxford Classical Text of Dr. James Diggle, to whom, and to the
Clarendon Press, the publisher and I once more express our thanks.
Christopher Collard
University of Wales Swansea
vii
PREFACE
Any commentator on a Greek play will be indebted to previous
commentaries. I have shamelessly pillaged what is best in the excellent
commentaries of Dodds (second edition 1960) and Roux (1970), while differing
from them frequently in interpretation, as well as being able to take account of
subsequent scholarship and archaeological discovery. I am in particular
concerned with two aspects of the play that have hitherto been almost entirely
ignored - its close relation to the mysteries of Dionysos, and its political
dimension. This concern reflects my general belief that understanding the
Athenians' society and religion is a precondition for understanding their
tragedy. This is especially true of Bacchae, given the centrality to it of Dionysiac
cult. Such an approach does not exclude, but in my view greatly enhances,
appreciation of the extraordinary aesthetic and emotional impact of the play.
The translation aims at closeness to the Greek rather than elegance or
actability. For those who require the latter kind of translation, in which the
specificity of the Greek is lost, there are several already in existence. Because
there are choices to be made in every line, an accurate translation is in a sense
part of the Commentary. I have no doubt that a book of this kind may be useful
to everybody from advanced scholars to those who know little or no Greek.
My text and apparatus criticus are based on the excellent recent Oxford
Classical Text by James Diggle. But I print a substantially different text from his
in the following places: 32, 94-5, 211, 289, 479, 506, 630, 631, 647, 651-2, 738,
860, 877-9 ( =897-9), 894a, 1067, 1103, 1133, 1163-4, 1167. These and other (but
not all) textual problems are discussed in the Commentary (the discussion is
introduced by T:).
My thanks go to Kerensa Pearson for help with typing, to Mike Dobson
for his expertise with the word-processor, and to my publisher Aris and Phillips
for courteous efficiency. I am grateful also for the stimulation provided by the
members of my Tragedy class, Grant Bayliss, John-Paul Bernbach, and Vanessa
Callard, to Pauline Meredith-Yates for her reaction to the Introduction, and to
Fiona Mchardy for checking the references. My greatest debts are to James
Diggle, who read the Commentary and changed my mind in several places, and
to Christopher Collard for his careful and helpful comments on the whole book.
The University of Exeter
January 1996
VIII
ABBREVIATIONS
Ancient authors are for abbreviated for the most part according to the
conventions of Liddell-Scott-Jones, Greek English Lexicon. The three tragedians
appear as Aesch., Soph. and Eur., but 'Eur' is generally omitted before the titles
of his plays and fragments. The Prometheus Vinctus, of disputed authorship, is
cited simply as PV. Tragic fragments are cited from T(ragicorum G(raecorum
F(ragmenta), except for Eur.: Nauck2 for him, and various editions of the
fragmentary plays.
Titles of periodicals are generally cited according to the conventions of
L 'Annee Philologique.
Commentators on Greek Tragedy, and on some other easily identifiable
works, are cited in the form e.g. 'Barrett on Hipp.331-2'; see General
Bibliography II.
ABBREVIATIONS OF WORKSO F REFERENCE
ABV = J.D.Beazley, Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painting. Oxford 1956.
ARVZ = J.D.Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painting. 2nd edition, Oxford 1963.
FGH = F.Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker Berlin and Leiden,
1923-58.
K-G = R.Kiihner, B.Gerth, Ausfilhrliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache
2 vols., Hanover 18983.
L/MC = Lexicon /conographicum Mythologiae Classicae. Zurich and Munich,
1981-.
LSAM = F.Sokolowski, Lois sacrees des cites grecques. Paris 1969.
LSCG = F.Sokolowski, Lois sacres de l'Asie Mineure. Paris 1955.
LSS = F.Sokolowski, Lois sacrees des cites grecques: Supplement. Paris 1962.
PCG = R.Kassel and C.Austin, Poetae Comici Graeci. New York and Berlin
1984-.
PMG = D.L.Page, Poetae Melici Graeci. Oxford 1962.
RE = Pauly's Real-Encyc/opiidie der k/assischen A/tertumswissenschaft.
Stuttgart 1894-1919.
SEG = Supp/ementum epigraphicum graecum.
SIG = W.Dittenberger, Sy/loge Inscriptionum Graecarum. 3rd edition, Leipzig
1915-24.