Euripides
P. Köln 1, ed. B. Krämer (1976) after L. Koenen, ZPE 4 (1969), 7–18; cf. W. Luppe, APF 29 (1983), 19–23, van Rossum-Steenbeek 188, W. S. Barrett, Greek Lyric, Tragedy, and Textual Criticism (Oxford, 2007), 454–65.
2 See on F 264a below 4–7 Luppe (e.g.), adapting Koenen 7–11 See note on the translation opposite. For plausible supplements see Luppe (adapting Koenen), Kannicht ., and Barrett.Auge
Auge
test. iia (Hypothesis)(Auge), which begins, ‘This (is the house of Athena Alea, rich in gold’ [F 264a]; the) plot is as follows: (Aleus, ruler) of Arcadia, (had a daughter Auge who excelled) all women in beauty (and virtue; and he made her priestess of Athena) Alea. But she, when the (all-night festival) . . . chorus(es?) . . . fell (into disgrace?)1 . . . wash(ing . . . clothing) . . . (the) nearby spring (or near the spring)2 . . . by (or according to) the . . . (he) being
- 1The same Greek verb is used in the narrative hypothesis to Hippolytus, where Phaedra ‘fell into desire’ for Hippolytus. Barrett however supplements here so that Auge simply slipped and fell on muddy ground while dancing, and so hurried to the spring to wash her own dress, not the goddess’s (see note 2).
- 2The damaged text suggests that Auge was raped by a drunken Heracles at a spring near the temple as she washed some clothing during a festival which included maidens’ dances and an all-night revel. Pausanias 8.47.4 mentions the spring, and the wall-paintings at Pompeii (see Introduction above) depict the rape in these terms. Koenen connected the festival with the widely known ‘Plynteria’ type in which maidens purified the goddess’s sanctuary, image and robe. Barrett’s supplement (see note 1) provides a different interpretation. The revel involved a degree of licensed sexual freedom which is reflected in the ultimately ‘justified’ rapes in both Auge and Menander’s Men at Arbitration. On the ritual see also Brulé, and on the location of the rape in Euripides, O. Musso in Bastianini–Casanova, Euripide e i papiri 123–6.
DOI: 10.4159/DLCL.euripides-dramatic_fragments.2008