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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
In a previous article I discussed some textual and metrical issues in the lyric-iambic stanzas Supplices 71–8/79–86, and the problematic persona and constitution of the Chorus. The preceding maternal ἱκεсα in four ionic stanzas presents fewer textual problems; but here too there is a challenging crux, at 45(–6) in the first strophe; and there is more to be said about the ode's metrical structure. I begin with a metrical reappraisal, which will prove to have a bearing on the textual problem. Unless otherwise stated, the text given is identical with those of both Diggle and Collard, except in lineation.
1 ‘Euripides, Supplices 71–86 and the Chorus of “Attendants”’, CQ 40 (1990), 340–8Google Scholar. I am again indebted to Dr Diggle for his helpful criticisms of my first draft, and further suggestions.
2 Diggle, J., Euripidis fabulae, ii (Oxford, 1981)Google Scholar; Collard, C., Euripides Supplices (Groningen, 1975)Google Scholar, cf. also his Teubner edition (1984).
3 In 45f. Collard obelizes only the first three words. In 51 I prefer his colon after χειρν; however the syntax is interpreted (n. 22 below), the structure of this stanza-pair favours internal punctuation lighter than Diggle's full-stop.
4 Modern editors have rightly rejected the mixed iono-choriambic interpretation attested by L: 2ion | 2ion ^ | 2ch || 3ion ^ | 3ion ^ | 2ion ^ | 2ch (presumably favoured as avoiding word-overlaps). But their lineations have been oddly varied: Dale (Lyric Metres 2, 123) has dimeters apart from a concluding tetrameter (though she calls the first three dimeters a ‘hexameter’). Diggle and Collard both lineate so as to show a tripartite pattern of six, six and four metra. The former subdivides both the 6ion runs as tetrameter plus dimeter, despite the more natural 2|4 division, both having diaeresis thus in both stanzas; Collard follows Murray and others in dividing the first as three dimeters, the second (see further in n. 7 below) as two trimeters. The ionics here replace the anapaestic dimeters with which choruses often begin in other plays; cf. also the iambic dimeters in 71–86 (art. cit. 342–5).
5 On catalexis in relation to period-end, see Parker, L. P. E., CQ 26 (1976), 14–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6 For my definition of ‘colon’ (not synonymous with ‘verse’), see my commentary on Orestes, p. xx. In a ‘dicolon’ (often but not necessarily printed as a ‘distich’) the diaeresis between the constituent lengths can either shift or disappear.
7 It may be difficult to distinguish between syncopated and catalectic ionic metra of the form 
. But there can be no doubt here about catalexis in the sixth and sixteenth metra; and the pattern favours similar interpretation of the twelfth (…-сι μλη ∼ …-τε δμοιс; the ‘ overrun’ in the antistrophe at … οὒτε δμοιс | προθμαν is like similar overruns in the second antistrophe, see below). By contrast, the seventh metron (†ἄνομοι† ∼ καταδρύμ-) is certainly syncopated within the period, and we should not wish to suggest catalexis in both the ninth and twelfth by dividing at φθιμνων | νεκύων ∼ τ γρ; ἂ | φθιμνονс (giving 3ion ^ |3ion ^).
8 A similarity unlikely to be fortuitous in a metrical sequence otherwise apparently modelled on the Parodos of the Persae; cf. CQ 40 (1990), 340Google Scholar, and further on 69–70 below.
9 ‘Ιсμηνν (not 'Ιсμ-), see Mastronarde, , ed. Phoenissae (Teubn. 1988), xxiifGoogle Scholar. For the text of 58–9 (ὂссον Tr2) and 60–2 (where Collard prefers λιссμεθ’) see Diggle, , Studies on the Text of Euripides (1981), 2–3Google Scholar. As to punctuation, I have removed the usual but superfluous comma preceding in 60; for or ὦ following an imperative, cf. CQ ibid., 345 with nn. 34–5.
10 Both Diggle and Collard, after Wilamowitz, Dale and others, treat the stanza as 7ion ^ ∥ 7ion ^ ∥ 10ion ^. This is only superficially attractive, since (a) the 7ion ^ lengths, apart from their overall equality, are in other respects amorphous (divided by Diggle as 4 + 3|4 + 3, and by Collard, again following Murray, as 3+ 2 + 2|2 + 3 + 2); (b) the division after 7ion ^ is presumably intended to give symmetrical periods with catalectic close, but there can be no period-end at μετ νυν | δс (an indivisible unit) in the strophe. [Diggle further contrives to get the 
metra at verse-end in all three places, by dividing the 10ion ^ sequences as 4 + 3 + 3, rather than 3 + 3 + 4; thus further obscuring the difference between catalexis and syncopation (cf. n. 7 above).]
11 L's divisions match the phrase-lengths in the strophe, and give another eight-verse stanza. But there is still an overlap at δνс |τνχαν in the antistrophe; and the dimeter-arrangement with indentations arguably shows more clearly the structure of both stanzas and their relationship with 42–7/48—53. Since the 3ion lengths occur in pairs, it is likely that Euripides was himself conscious of the ambivalence (3×2 = 2×3). Cf. the 3an phrase-lengths which frequently occur in anapaestic systems, where tine dimeter is the fundamental, but not sacrosanct, unit; West, M. L., BICS 24 (1977), 89–94.Google Scholar
12 For such initial syncopation, Dr Diggle reminds me of Ba. 64 'Αсαс π γс (Hermann γααс) and 69.
13 i.e. rhetorical ‘pause’, as defined and analysed in relation to period-end by Stinton, in CQ 27 (1977), 27–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; or we may prefer simply to speak of ‘enjambment’.
14 See n. 8 above.
15 Against Murray, who unconvincingly defended the text as ‘clamores confusos’. We agree also in rejecting all proposals that give a text in which the dead corpses are leaving their own limbs unburied.
16 The only other Euripidean instances claimed by Diggle of prodelision after -αι (both conjectural, though probable) are of ()γώ following -ομαι Hel. 953, I.A. 1396 and (he now adds) I.A. 900 (Markland). [The position is different if the ι is adscript, as at 69 ταλαναι 'ν χερ for which see Diggle, Studies, 33]
17 The seriously disturbed text of Hel. 1152–4 (a passage which I hope to discuss elsewhere) may well involve some corruption in the relevant words (πνουс … καταπνμενοι); and in any case νμονс and πνονс are different kinds of object.
18 Professor West has drawn my attention to the corruption of ἄνομον to ἄνεμον at Hes. Th. 307, where allegorical interpretation was a factor.
19 The imperative ντω occurs at S. Ichn. 70. The participle occurs in Ar. Vesp. 369 (ἄνοντοс), and possibly in S. O.C. 523 (ἄνων Hermann, for ἄκων; a conjecture meriting more attention than it has received); cf. also A. Ch. 798 (νμενον Emperius, -νων M). The optative ἄνοιс is plausibly restored in A. fr. 161.2 (Dobree; Stob. ναοῖс, λβοιс Σ Hom. I 158 et Eust.). For Euripides we have at present only Andr. 1132 λλ' οὐδν ἦνεν (ἦνον Borthwick), but that suffices to show that ἄνω, equivalent to νύω, was not a verb alien to his vocabulary.
20 Especially after verbs like κελεύω; often also after сτε, as in 204 etc. (PCPS 36 (1990), 199 n. 37).Google Scholar
21 Kühner-Gerth ii.402; for omission in particular of the accusative antecedent of a clause with nominative relative pronoun, cf. Alc. 338 сτνγ μν ἥ μ' ἕτικτεν. Relative pronoun plus finite verb is commonly equivalent to article plus participle, and vice versa. So here οἳ καταλεπονсι can (in theory at least) be understood as τοὺс καταλεπονταс.
22 The antecedent of ἅ may be either the first person variously implicit in the context as a hole (including the extended object of сιδοсα), or specifically the ‘ I ’ implicit in the elliptical τ γρ; (sc. πθω).
23 The suggestion offered is ex. gr. (some may prefer to look for a suitable noun denoting the Thebans). For сχτλιοс ‘hard-hearted, merciless’ (LSJ s.v. 1.2) followed by a relative clause, cf. Od. 5.118ff., etc.; it is a word that naturally begins a colon, as at Alc. 470 сχετλω πολιν ἕχοντε χαταν (followed by an ionic sequence).
24 Cf. Kannicht on Hel. 176–8.