Plot and Myth in Euripides' "Heracles" and "Troades"
1984; Classical Association of Canada; Volume: 38; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/1088273
ISSN1929-4883
Autores Tópico(s)Crime, Deviance, and Social Control
ResumoEURIPIDES' FREQUENT INTRODUCTION of divine appearances, prophecies, and oracles at the end of his plays is well known.' No less well known is his use of them, whatever their other functions,2 tie loose ends and adjust the outcome of the drama to established legend3 when the version he chose or invented diverged from the mainstream of traditional myth. It may, therefore, be of interest examine the way in which the poet achieves these objectives in the only three plays that end without supernatural predictions,4 Alcestis, Heracles, and Troades, and discuss the consequences for their interpretation. In the Alcestis, the earliest of Euripides' surviving plays (438 B. c.) and, as the fourth in its group, perhaps not tragedy proper, the miraculous rescue of the queen from death (or Death) at the end of the play, prophesied already by the divine prologist (Alc. 65-69), leaves the royal couple, at least insofar as the facts are concerned, to live happily ever after. As this is where myth too seems have left them,s no need arose for an adjustment in an epilogue. Loose ends remain, e.g., the result of Heracles' forthcoming
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