Euripides: Iphigenia in Tauris

267 Pages·2000·4.274 MB·English

by  Euripides, Martin J. Cropp

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ARIS & PHILLIPS CLASSICAL TEXTS
EURIPIDES
Iphigenia in Tauris
EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION, TRANSLATION & COMMENTARY BY
M. J. Cropp

Arıs AND ΡΗΠ11Ρ5 CLASSICAL TEXTS
EURIPIDES
Iphigenia in Tauris
M. J. Cropp
Aris & Phillips is an imprint of Oxbow Books
First published in the United Kingdom in 2000. Reprinted 2015 by
OXBOW BOOKS
10 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford OX1 2EW
and in the United States by
OXBOW BOOKS
1950 Lawrence Road, Havertown, PA 19083
© M. J. Cropp 2000
Paperback Edition: ISBN 978-0-85668-653-5
eISBN 978-1-80034-620-8
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
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For a complete list of Aris & Phillips titles, please contact:
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Oxbow Books is part of the Casemate Group
CONTENTS
Preface 7
Map 8
General Editor’s Foreword 9
Abbreviations and Bibliography for /phigenia 11
General Bibliography for Euripides 17
Introduction to Iphigenia in Tauris
Plot and Themes 31
Mythical and Cultic Background
Iphigenia and Orestes 43
The Taurians 47
Brauron and Halai 50
The Play in the Theatre 56
The Chorus in the Drama 59
Date and Contemporary Plays 60
The Play’s Reception in Antiquity 62
Greek Text and Critical Apparatus 65
IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS 67
Hypothesis 68
Text and Translation 70
Commentary 171
Indexes 267

EDITOR’S PREFACE
Iphigenia in Tauris is a complex play treating mythical, poetic and dramatic
traditions in sophisticated ways. It has been less studied in recent times than almost
any other extant Attic tragedy (although it was much admired in the 18th century),
and it has been less well served than most by commentaries. I am all too aware that
this edition will not supply every need, but I hope it will at least supply a sound
basis for study and further exploration. Since the text is still often uncertain I have
printed my own text and apparatus, though these owe much to the Teubner edition
of David Sansone and the Oxford edition of James Diggle. Some of my textual
decisions and interpretations are discussed in Illinois Classical Studies 22 (1997) 25-
41. Ihave also provided rather more philological comment than is usual in this
series. The translation is intended to be readable but is meant mainly as a guide to
the sense and (so far as possible) the style and tone of the original.
This book was commissioned in 1990 and has been delayed by other
commitments including my contributions to Euripides: Selected Fragmentary Plays
and the organization and publication of the 1999 Banff conference on Euripides and
Late Fifth-Century Tragic Theatre. I owe apologies and thanks for their patience to
those who deserved an earlier completion, especially Adrian Phillips and his
colleagues at Aris & Phillips, and Christopher Collard the General Editor of this
series. A Killam Resident Fellowship at the University of Calgary allowed me to do
much of the initial drafting in Fall 1995, and a 1999 summer scholarship at the
Center For Hellenic Studies gave me an opportunity to tie up some loose ends. I
have received valuable comments and suggestions from James Diggle, David
Kovacs, Kevin Lee, Glenn Most, David Sansone, William Slater and Walter
Stockert. Froma Zeitlin kindly allowed me to read two unpublished papers on the
play. Drafts of the Commentary were aired in seminars by Walter Stockert and
Herbert Bannert at the University of Vienna (Fall 1997) and Glenn Most at the
University of Heidelberg (Fall 1998). I have also had helpful discussions with many
others at several conferences. Students at the University of Calgary read the play
with me in Fall 1994 and Fall 1999, and Sean Devlin gave much help with proof-
reading and reference-checking. Iam undoubtedly responsible for all remaining
errors.
My gratitude goes once again to Christopher Collard for his editorial advice and
encouragement, and above all to my wife Elizabeth and our son Robert for their
unfailing patience and support.
Martin Cropp, Calgary May 2000
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GENERAL EDITOR’S FOREWORD
Euripides’ 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-formers, as well as
teachers of Classics and Classical Civilisation at all levels, new editions
which will 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 prose translation
which attempts to be both accurate and idiomatic. The Commentary, keyed
wherever possible to the translation rather than the Greek, pursues the aims
of the Introduction in analysing structure and development, annotating and
appreciating poetic style, and 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.
These 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.
Nineteen volumes have now been published in the Series, including two of
Selected Fragmentary Plays. The last will be Iphigenia in Aulis (Christopher
Collard with James Morwood). It is still hoped to publish the almost certainly
spurious Rhesus, but outside the Euripidean series.
Christopher Collard, Oxford
March 2015