Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T12:57:44.684Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Nurse's Tale: Other Worlds and Parallel Worlds in the Exposition of Euripides’ Hypsipyle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 December 2019

James H. K. O. Chong-Gossard
James H. K. O. Chong-Gossard*
Affiliation:
The University of [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article analyses Euripides’ mythopoetics in what survives of the first quarter of his fragmentary Hypsipyle: prologue, parodos, and first episode. It examines Euripides’ innovation in joining two myths (the Seven Against Thebes and the story of Hypsipyle and the Argonauts) into one, and the representation of Hypsipyle herself. In her private moments, the thoughts that preoccupy her mind are focused on other-places and other-times, in vivid contrast to the naturalistically presented world of the present where, as a slave, she must interact with men. Euripides uses the language of serving (θɛραπɛύɛιν) and doing a ‘favour’ (χάρις), as well as the word ἐρῆμος (‘lonely,’ ‘deserted’) and homoeophonic language (e.g. Argo and Argos) to indicate that, in helping the Argives, Hypsipyle repeats typologically her hospitality to the Argonauts. There is a circularity in Hypsipyle's story that creates suspense, since by doing a favour for the Argive leader, she is reunited with the sons she bore to Argonauts’ leader, who themselves are sent to find her by their grandfather whom she saved; and by losing the infant in her care (Opheltes, later named Archemorus), she is reunited with her former infants. By the end of Hypsipyle's first conversation with Amphiaraus, Euripides has invented a theme of ‘parallel worlds’ that he will resolve at the play's end.

Keywords

EuripidesHypsipylefragmentarymythopoeticsArgonautsreciprocity
Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 53 , 2019 , pp. 56 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © The Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Battezzato, L. (2000), ‘Dorian Dress in Greek Tragedy’, ICS 24–25, 343–62.Google Scholar
Battezzato, L. (2005), ‘La parodo dell’Ipsipile’, in Bastianini, G. and Casanova, A. (eds.), Euripide e i Papiri: atti del convegno internazionale (Firenze, 10–11 giugno 2004). Florence, 169–203.Google Scholar
Bond, G. W. (ed.) (1969), Euripides: Hypsipyle. Reprint with corrections. Oxford.Google Scholar
Bravo III, J. J. (2018), Excavations at Nemea IV: The Shrine of Opheltes. Oakland.Google Scholar
Chandler, H. W. (1881), Greek Accentuation. 2nd edition. Oxford.Google Scholar
Chong-Gossard, J. H. K. O. (2008), Gender and Communication in Euripides’ Plays: Between Song and Silence. Mnemosyne Supplements 296. Leiden.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chong-Gossard, J. H. K. O. (2009), ‘Consolation in Euripides’ Hypsipyle’, in Cousland, J. R. C. and Hume, J. R. (eds.), The Play of Texts and Fragments: Essays in Honour of Martin Cropp. Mnemosyne Supplements 314. Leiden, 11–22.Google Scholar
Chong-Gossard, J. H. K. O. (2013), ‘Mourning and Consolation in Greek Tragedy: The rejection of comfort’, in Baltussen, H. (ed.), Greek and Roman Consolations: Eight Studies of a Tradition and its Afterlife. Swansea, 37–66.Google Scholar
Cockle, W. E. H. (ed.) (1987), Euripides Hypsipyle: Text and Annotation based on a Re-examination of the Papyri. Rome.Google Scholar
Collard, C. (ed.) (1975), Euripides Supplices. Groningen.Google Scholar
Collard, C. and Cropp, M. (ed. and trans.) (2008), Euripides VIII: Fragments: Oedipus—Chrysippus, Other Fragments. LCL 506. Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Cropp, M. J. (ed. and trans.) (2004), ‘Euripides’ Hypsipyle’, in Collard, C., Cropp, M. J., and Gibert, J. (eds.), Euripides: Selected Fragmentary Plays, Vol. II. Warminster, 169–258.Google Scholar
Diggle, J. (ed.) (1998), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta Selecta. Oxford.Google Scholar
Grenfell, B. and Hunt, A. (eds.) (1908), Oxyrhynchus Papyri VI. London.Google Scholar
Hose, M. (1990), Studien zum Chor bei Euripides, Part 1. Stuttgart.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kannicht, R. (ed.) (2004), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (TrGF), Vol. 5.2. Göttingen.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lomiento, L. (2005), ‘Lettura dell'Ipsipile di Euripide’, in Raffaelli, R., Danese, R. M., Falivene, M. R., and Lomiento, L. (eds.) Vicende di Ipsipile: da Erodoto a Metastasio (colloquio di Urbino, 5–6 maggio 2003). Urbino, 55–71.Google Scholar
Scodel, R. (1997), ‘Teichoscopia, catalogue, and the female spectator in Euripides’, CoblyQ 32.1, 76–93.Google Scholar
Stengel, P. (1909), ‘ΧΕΡΝΙΨ’, Hermes 44.3, 370–75.Google Scholar
Taplin, O. (1977), The Stagecraft of Aeschylus. Oxford.Google Scholar
Wright, M. (2018), The Lost Plays of Greek Tragedy (Volume 2): Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. London.Google Scholar