POLYDORUS' GHOST delivers the opening monologue of the Hecuba. At line 52 the ghost sees Hecuba approaching and prepares to withdraw:[1]
* geraiai^ d' e'kpodw\n xwrh/somai*
*.`Eka/bhi: perai^ ga\r h`/d' u`po\ skhnh^s po/da*
*.'Agame/mnonos, fa/ntasma deimai/nous' e'mo/n.*
52 *geraia^s* GLPa (~ G{c}L{c}Pa{c} et Thom. Mag. 107. I) 53 *e`ka/bhs* GL et Pa{s} (~ G{c}L{c} et Thom. Mag.) *skhnh^s V.cT*{t} et P{c} et *S*{mv}: *-h\n* FLP*z* et *S*{rec.} ad 762Line 54 was condemned by Klinkenberg and Usener and suspected by Murray.[2] Kovacs has recently reopened the issue of its authenticity.[3] In what follows I shall try to show that 54 is compatible with the rest of the play, and consistent with Euripidean prologue practice.
The first difficulty concerns Hecuba's location. The scholiast (17.30-18.9 Schwartz) draws attention to the problem: if the captive women are lodged separately from their masters, as Hecuba assures Polymestor at 1016, what is Hecuba doing in Agamemnon's tent? What, the scholiast wonders further, is Cassandra doing out of it? He notes that at 87-89 Hecuba requires her daughter as a dream-interpreter, but she is not to be found.
Seeking to mend matters, the scholiast suggests that Hecuba has left her own tent and entered Agamemnon's in search of Cassandra. He speculates that Cassandra may have gone to the seashore to wash. Alternatively (taking *po/da* with *u`po/* in 53, or reading *skhnh/n*), Hecuba has not yet entered Agamemnon's tent, but is on the point of doing so.
As Kovacs observes, the first of these scenarios is inordinately complicated. It is also fanciful, since the text gives no hint of Cassandra's whereabouts. Hecuba's request for dream-interpreters focuses attention not on Cassandra or Helenus, but on Hecuba's own agitation and bewilderment in the wake of her terrifying dream.
Kovacs disposes of the second possibility suggested in the scholia by adducing line 59, where Hecuba asks her fellow-slaves to conduct her *pro\ do/mwn*. He notes that Euripides typically uses this prepositional phrase with a verb of motion to indicate exit from a structure. Kovacs thus establishes that Hecuba comes out of Agamemnon's tent, but he cannot account for her presence within it. He mentions the possibility that she has her lodging there only to reject it. Yet such, I believe, is the arrangement implied by other passages in the play.[4]
When the action begins the captive women have already been assigned to their Greek masters.[5] The chorus of Trojan women arrives on stage (98) *ta\s desposu/nous skhna\s prolipou^s'* / *i`/n' e'klhrw/qhn kai\ proseta/xqhn*. Their phraseology suggests that they are being quartered in their masters' tents. Polymestor assumes (1015) that such is the case; when Hecuba informs him otherwise (1016), he remains doubtful (1017). The same arrangement seems to underlie Agamemnon's directive to the women *despotw^n ... skhnai^s pela/zein* (1288-89) because a favorable wind has at last begun to blow. Presumably they must return to their lodgings to pack for departure.
Line 1016 gives a different account, for Hecuba assures Polymestor: *i'/diai gunaikw^n ai'xmalwti/dwn ste/gai*. However, the context strongly suggests that she is not telling the truth. The dialogue of Hecuba and Polymestor is marked by mendacity on both sides.[6] Hecuba's contribution consists of doubles entendres (968-972, 1018-22), sarcastic truisms (1000), and outright inventions (1008, 1010). Since 1016 is at odds with the arrangement envisaged elsewhere, it seems reasonable to class it among Hecuba's inventions. Hecuba's motive for the deception is made clear from the context: to induce her enemy to enter the tent, she must convince him that there are no armed men lurking within.
If the captives are lodged with their masters, we should like to be clear as to the identity of Hecuba's. No explicit information is forthcoming, but there are some indications that the Trojan queen is the property of Agamemnon.[7] That she refers to him as *despo/ths* (841, 1237) is not significant, for Agamemnon merits that title as leader of the expedition.[8] More suggestive is the fact that Hecuba describes herself with some emphasis as Agamemnon's slave.[9] Agamemnon assures her, moreover, that she can readily obtain her freedom (754-755) -- a remark that would issue most naturally from her master, implying as it does an offer of manumission.
The second difficulty of line 54 is Polydorus' description of Hecuba as *fa/ntasma deimai/nousa e'mo/n*. "Hecuba comes out seeking oneirocritical advice," notes Kovacs, "not in flight from an apparition."[10] Polydorus can term himself a *fa/ntasma* because he is at that very moment appearing to the audience. But the line does not say that Polydorus has appeared to Hecuba either as a ghost or as a dream. Hecuba makes no mention of having seen him during her waking hours, and the form of the ghost's self-description militates against the notion that he has appeared to her in her sleep. When the dramatists use *fa/ntasma* (or its more common synonym, *fa/sma*) in reference to a vision seen in a dream, they are careful to specify that sense by means of a qualifier.[11]
Polydorus describes his mother as "frightened by [his] phantom," and Hecuba herself will allude to her pervasive sense of fear in her upcoming monody (69-70, 85-86). When she does so, the audience will be in a position to understand its source. The play opens on the third day after the Greeks' arrival in Thrace; throughout that time, as Polydorus explains, he has been hovering over his mother.[12] Polydorus must possess the power to influence her by his proximity alone, arousing an uneasiness that eventually finds expression in her dream of a fawn savaged by a wolf.[13] It is this ominous dream that startles her from sleep and drives her forth in search of dream-interpreters.
Such indirect influence exerted on sleepers by a restless ghost is not without parallel. In the opening scene of Eumenides the phantom of Clytemnestra appears on stage and reviles the sleeping Furies for allowing Orestes to escape. Although the ghost provides the impetus for the sleepers' collective dream, it becomes clear as the Furies begin to stir and mutter that they are dreaming not about Clytemnestra but "about something else, namely, their pursuit of Orestes."[14] At the same time as Clytemnestra's ghost appears to the audience, it stimulates the sleeping Furies and creates a climate for their dream. Polydorus' ghost can be understood as fulfilling a similar function .
Euripides generally specifies in his prologue what structure the skene is supposed to represent.[15] L. 54 provides that information here. He is also generally careful to motivate, and in some cases connect, the entrances and exits that follow the initial rhesis.[16] Like the Hecuba, the Hippolytus and Ion open with a supernatural speaker who withdraws from the stage as a mortal approaches. In both cases Euripides offers an explanation for the mortal's entrance: Hippolytus is returning from the hunt (52), Ion is about to sweep the temple steps (79-80). That line 54 conforms to this pattern, supplying a plausible motive for Hecuba's appearance at this juncture, is a final consideration in favor of its authenticity.[17]
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