P. 15, ll. 225-263, Chorus.]--Apollo is appealed to as a God of Thymbra
in the Troad, of Delos the Ionian island, and of Lycia in the South of
Asia Minor; the god of Asiatics and _barbaroi_, the enemy of the
Achaeans. This is also to a great extent the conception of Apollo in the
Iliad, where he fights for Troy and is Hector's special patron. The
sudden ferocity towards Helen in the last strophe is quite in the manner
of Euripides; cf. _Trojan Women_, 1107 ff. (p. 65), 766 ff. (p. 49), and
often; also _Iph. Taur._ 438 ff. (p. 21), where her name comes somewhat
as a surprise.
The stage directions here are of course conjectural: it does not seem
likely that the playwright, having made Dolon describe his wolf's
disguise in detail, would waste the opportunity of making him crawl off
in it. Cf. on l. 594, p. 63, and at the end of the play.
P. 16, l. 267. Hector is as bluff and hasty here as he is impulsively
obstinate in l. 319 ff., p. 19, impulsively frank to Rhesus in l. 393
ff., p. 23, and splendidly courteous under the gibes of the wounded
charioteer, l. 856 ff., p. 47. A fine stage character, if not a very
subtle study.
P. 17, l. 284 ff. The description of the march of the mountaineers, the
vast crowd, the noise, the mixture of all arms, suggests personal
observation. A great many fifth-century Athenians had probably served
some time or other in Thrace.
P. 20, l. 342, Adrasteia.]--She-from-whom-there-is-no-Running, is a
goddess identified with Nemesis, a requiter of sin, especially the sin
of pride or overconfidence. In spite of the opening apology this whole
chorus, with its boundless exultation, is an offence against her.--It is
interesting to notice that a town and a whole district in the north of
the Troad was called by her name; the poet is using local colour in
making his Trojans here, and Rhesus in l. 468, speak of her. There seems
also to be something characteristically Thracian in the story of the
Muse and the River, in the title "Zeus of the Dawn" given to Rhesus, in
the revelry to be held when Ilion is free, and in the conception of the
king in his dazzling chariot, Sun-god-like.
P. 23, ll. 394-453, Speeches of Hector and Rhesus.]--The scene reads to
me like a rather crude and early form of the celebrated psychological
controversies of Euripides. It is simple, but spirited and in character.
The description of Thracian fighting again suggests personal knowledge,
and so does the boasting. The Thracians apparently bound themselves with
heroic boasts before battle much as Irish and Highland chieftains
sometimes did, or as the Franks did with their _gabs_. (See, _e.g., Le
Pèlerinage de Charlemagne_, as described in Gaston Paris, _Litt. du
Moyen Age_, I. p. 122 ff.) It was a disgrace if you did not fulfil your
_gab_ afterwards.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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