¹ This article is developed from a paper read to the Edinburgh Classical Association in January 1959. I am very grateful to Professor H. D. F. Kitto and Professor R. P. Winnington-Ingram for their helpful comments.

² Müller, K. O., History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (London, 1840) 372.Google Scholar

³ von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, U., Euripides Herakles ² (Berlin, 1895) 128Google Scholar: Verrall, A. W., Four Plays of Euripides (1905) 140 ff.Google ScholarGreenwood, L. H. G., Aspects of Euripidean Tragedy (1953) 59 ff.Google Scholar, offers a more sophisticated presentation of Verrall's views.

⁴ Murray's O.C.T. line 575 with app. crit. See below, n. 25. Dodds, E. R., CR xliii (1929) 99Google Scholar; Grube, G. M. A., The Drama of Euripides (London, 1941) 57, 252–6.Google Scholar

⁵ Parmentier, L., Euripide iii (Budé, 1923)Google Scholar Introduction to Herakles, 5. Kitto, H. D. F., Greek Tragedy (London, 1939; Second Edition, 1950) 241–3.CrossRefGoogle ScholarEhrenberg, V., Aspects of the Ancient World (Oxford, 1946)Google Scholar X Tragic Herakles (144–66) 159.

⁶ Murray, G., Euripides and his Age (London, 1914) ch. ivGoogle Scholar; Greek Studies (Oxford, 1946) 112.

⁷ Parmentier, as Kitto complains (237), makes of the play a portrait rather than a drama. Ehrenberg follows Kitto's verdict on part i (158) and sees part iii as ‘a weak and flat anticlimax’.

⁸ Norwood, G., Essays on Euripidean Drama (1954) 47 n. i.Google Scholar Norwood sees the action of this play as ‘falling into halves’ and calls all such plays ‘ramshackle’ (46). He is correct when he goes on to deplore attempts to ‘force unity of action on recalcitrant material’ since unity of action in his sense (unbroken sequence of cause and effect) is no more essential to dramatic unity than strict unity of time. But for that same reason ‘falls into halves’ and ‘ramshackle’ are misguided and misleading expressions.

⁹ Sheppard, J. T., The Formal Beauty of the Hercules Furens CQ x (1916) 72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁰ E.g. Kitto, 240; Ehrenberg, 158; Norwood, 46. Murray leaves part i undiscussed. Cf. Greenwood, 82 ff.

¹¹ Wilamowitz, 108–9.

¹² It has been traditional to regard this ode as extra-dramatic: Paley, F. A., Euripides iii (1860) 4Google Scholar; Wilamowitz, 132–3; Kitto, 265. Grube, 253 n. 1, is an exception, but only notices the allusions to youth and age as appropriate to the characters.

¹³ Cf. also 297 and 735–6

¹⁴ I cannot agree with Wilamowitz' translation. σύνεσις καὶ αοφία go together, κατ' ἄνδρας with both ‘If the gods had sense and wisdom as men’.

¹⁵ 17–25, 152–61, 175–87, 219–26, 348–435 (Stas. i), 575–82, 610–21, 700 refer to the Labours alone.

¹⁶ The objection to Kitto's explanation (238–44).

¹⁷ 188, 202: the reference is to the bow, Herakles' chosen instrument. See n. 33.

¹⁸ Cf. the objections to Lykos as an outsider at 32, 256–7, 810 (where cf. δυσγένεια with 663).

¹⁹ Typically (239).

²⁰ Cf. the correspondence in detail between her description (239) of the three children and the Messenger's of their three deaths (977–1000). Elsewhere Megara is rarely purely maternal without any concern for ἀρετή, and then because only through her could Euripides draw adequate attention to the children (cf. 71–9). Typical is her brief (280), dismissed by 291–2.

²¹ Sheppard is wrong to allow no more to the Chorus than aged weakness (74); just as there is more in Amphitryon than φιλία and in Megara than fallen greatness.

²² Chorus: 107–29, 268–71, 312–14, 436–41. Amphitryon: 230–5; cf. 60, 508–10, 1077–80.

²³ Cf., e.g., Pl. Rep. i 334b For φιλία and ἀρετή in part i note 55–9, 84, 217–29, 266, 275–6, 280, 301, 341–6, 514. 531–2, 551, 558–61, 585, 628, 634–8, 762. In part ii note Lussa's ἐξ εὐγενοῦς … πέφυκα … φίλονς (843–6). For φιλία in part iii see: Theseus 1154, 1156, 1169–71, 1202, 1215, 1220–1, 1223–5, 1234–6, 1336–9, 1398, 1403–4. Amphitryon, n. 28. Herakles' φιλία towards the Chorus (last line of play) links with theirs in part i; 1252 associates φιλία/ἀρετή in his Labours. Other uses of φίλος/φιλία significant in the circumstances are 1106, 1147 (cf. 988, 1112), 1200, 1281, 1283, 1409. Note especially 1223: χάριν δὲ γηράσκουσαν ἐχθαίρω is a conventional Greek sentiment. The unexpected last word—φίλων—goes farther: the only proper cause for loathing is failure of φιλία. Cf. the handling of Time and ἀρετή in Stas. ii.

²⁴ This is emphasised ironically in the ‘Triumph Song’ (Stas. iii) where the Chorus suppose that χρόνος is on the side of justice (740, 777, 805). At 506–7 Amphitryon blames χρόνος because he must renounce his ‘hope’ in the triumph of justice: contrast his faith in χρόνος at 87.

²⁵ Ar. Pol. 1260a20; Po. 1454a21. It is this consciousness of difference in status which prompts the form of expression at 574–5– Murray took the words as evidence of the onset of madness, and punctuated accordingly: but they mean simply ‘Whom should I protect more than helpless dependants?’ Amphitryon raises the question of ‘status’ at 41–2.

²⁶ See also Greenwood, 69 ff.

²⁷ Wilamowitz quotes μισεῖ γὰρ ὁ θεὸς τὴν βίαν (Hel. 903).

²⁸ For their φιλία see note 23. Amphitryon's function in part iii is to support Theseus' role by his paternal φιλία (1111–13, 1206, 1220, 1409). Here he also implies a judgment on Zeus whose fatherhood Herakles accordingly rejects (1265). Note the contrast of Amphitryon's feelings with Zeus' implied in 1065–8 as against 1086–7. Amphitryon also introduces the idea of μίασμα by his fear not of death but that Herakles may kill his own father (1072–6, cf. 1056).

²⁹ 1294–8 describe nature's rejection of the polluted killer (μίασμα); 1281–90 its counterpart, δύσκλεια, the social ostracism which followed from belief in μίασμα. See also (δύσκλεια) 1152; (μίασμα) 1159–62, 1199–1201, 1233, 1399–1400.

³⁰ (1227–8)—another ‘definition’ of ἀρετή, cf. Amphitryon's (105). Suicide is ἐπιτυχόντος ἀνθρώπου (1248), ἀμαθίᾳ θανεῖν (1254). Cf. n. 37.

³¹ 1351. Wilamowitz' correction βίοτον makes perfect sense: LP θάνατον makes none but is an understandable error if a scribe had not comprehended the nature of Herakles' resolve.

³² I interpret these difficult lines as follows: 1406–12 Herakles wishes to demonstrate his love to Amphitryon and his dead family. Theseus thinks this cowardice. Herakles (1411) shows it not to be. Theseus (1412) still misunderstands. 1413 (H.) ‘Is my living a low act? You didn't think so just now.’ 1414 (Th.) ‘You are brought all too low’ (he thinks only of ταπεινός: ζῶ = εἰμι) ‘you are not that noble Herakles you were’ (Wilamowitz' reading is better Greek, but MSS. would mean the same). 1415–17 (H.) ‘Yet I still do possess λῆμα (i.e. my misfortunes have not deprived me of ἀρετή). Particular difficulties are the ambiguities of ζῶ (‘Am I?’ or ‘In that I live am I?’): πρόσθεν (‘just now’—when you were persuading me to live: or ‘before the disaster’).

³³ (a) The bow is used throughout the play with tragic effect as the symbol of Herakles' (1098–1100 cf. 1135); (i) associated with deeds of prowess, especially the Labours (hence the length of 188–203 of which Kitto (239) complains): 179–80, 188–203, 366–7, 392, 422, 472, 570; (ii) associated with child-killing: 942, 970, 977–1000, 1064, 1098–1100, 1135, 1377–85. (b) The consequent tragic dilemma of 1381—εἷτ' οἴσω;—is paralleled by the use of the traditional καλλίνικος (e.g. 570) in the context both of traditional prowess (49, 570, 582, 681, 789) and of child-killing (961, 1046). (c) Parallel to the bow's function of associating the Labours and the child-killing is Euripides' alteration of the traditional chronology. He places the killing after the Labours and so makes them a continuous series ( Reiske at 1279; cf. λοίσθιον at 23). All involve βία ( 1369) but all in the bow are accepted.

³⁴ Hence too Herakles finds the ‘new’, complex ἀρετή harder than the simple ‘old’, 1353–7, 1411.

³⁵ Thus Ehrenberg, accepting Wilamowitz' assessment of Herakles' later ἀρετή (‘his future life will be without heroic deeds, even without any real content’—163) but affirming his early greatness (159) sees the whole as melodrama ending in anticlimax (161, 163) not tragedy.

³⁶ Wilamowitz (133) likens Herakles to Troades. But Troades complains of gratuitous and unnecessary βία: Herakles accepts, though sorrowfully, the inevitability of some βία in all action.

³⁷ Wilamowitz (130) sees Herakles' rejection of suicide as part of a total rejection of βία. But it is rejection of βία only in these circumstances.

³⁸ 1253. Cf. 1303–7, 1311–12, 1393 (where the ambiguity of recalls 20–1 cf. 1357 ). Τύχη and χρέων also at 307–11, 509, 1314–15, 1396.

³⁹ Herakles' so-called Platonic speech (1341–6) is no exception. As Kitto shows (246) Herakles is subsequently ‘a very imperfect Platonist’. But even within the speech four of the six lines are only a statement of what we have already learnt, that gods are not human: if they have not human virtues nor have they human vices. The remaining couplet is not as Verrall and Greenwood see it, the cornerstone of the play. It is merely an allusion to contemporary speculation, insufficient to cancel optimistically the tragic resignation of the play as a whole.

⁴⁰ Cf. 212 The same is implied in Stas. iii: the Chorus, mistakenly attributing δίκη to Zeus, associates with it his Fatherhood (800–5). For the typically Euripidean ἀμαθής, of Zeus, at 347, cf. Amphitryon's ironical θεὸς … εἰ μάθοι (1115). At 172 Lykos is ἀμαθής.

⁴¹ Magn. Mor. 1208b30 suggests itself—ἄτοπον εἴ τις φαίη φιλεῖν τὸν Δία. The position is nicely illustrated in a quotation kindly sent me by Professor Kitto: ‘The sea does not assume its royal blue to please you. Its brute and dark desolation is not raised to overwhelm you; you disappear because you happen to be there.’ (H. M. Tomlinson, The Sea and the Jungle.)

⁴² Megalomania has been discussed. Ὕβρις is misleadingly suggested in phrases like ‘sin of greatness’ (Grube, 256); ‘More than Nature can long endure’ (Kitto, 247); even Ehrenberg's (160) ‘No fault, no crime, his greatness alone is the reason for Hera's envy and hatred’, suggests φθόνος, discussed below.

⁴³ Grube (255–6) notes the externality of the madness, but combining it (surely illogically?) with a theory of ὕβρις and megalomania turns it into a criticism of the man not of the gods.

⁴⁴ Euripides accepted the myth as a convenient vehicle. It is not his aim (as Wilamowitz argues, 134) to rationalise and reject it, making Herakles ‘bring his sins down on his own head’.

⁴⁵ His success in doing this enables him to represent and yet evoke ‘pity and fear’ not ‘disgust’; (Ar. Po. 1452b35).

⁴⁶ Perhaps the allusions to the past violence of Amphitryon's career (16, 60, 1077, 1258) support this theme.

⁴⁷ Cf. 727–8 Ehrenberg (160) notes that δοῦναι δίκην, applied to Herakles by Iris (841), is applied four times elsewhere to Lykos. His explanation of the relationship of Lykos to Herakles is, however, die opposite of mine.

⁴⁸ For βακχεύω in connexion with madness see 899, Λύσσα βακχεύσει, 1085, 1142, 1119, 1122; cf. 894.

⁴⁹ Cf. Ehrenberg, 158.