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Cook, Arthur B.
Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes — Cambridge, 1940

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14698#0126

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The Clouds personified in Cult and Myth 79

at the command of Zeus1. Menelaos, escorting the phantom home
from Troy, arrives in Egypt and is there confronted with the true
Helene. He is desperately puzzled. But, just as he begins to
think himself either a bedlamite or a bigamist, the misty Helene
evaporates2—a sufficiently whimsical situation.

If Euripides' Hera outwitted Paris by making a phantom
Helene of aither, Euripides' Zeus outwitted Hera by means of a
similar trick-—witness a curious passage of the Bacc/iae3 in which
Teiresias attempts to explain the story of Dionysos being sewn up
in the thigh of Zeus as due to a verbal confusion of hdmeros,
'hostage,' with meros, 'thigh':

And dost deride the tale that he was sewn

I' the thigh of Zeus? I'll tell it all aright.

When Zeus had caught him from the lightning-fire

And borne him, babe divine, to Olympos' height,

Hera was fain to cast him forth from heaven.

But Zeus, a very god, met plot with plot:

Breaking a portion of the aither off,

Which rings the earth, he made that same a hostage

Against the strifes of Hera and sent out

Dionysos elsewhere4. Thus in course of time

Man said that he was sewn i' the thigh of Zeus —

Changing the word, since once he served as hostage

To Hera, god to goddess,—such their tale.

Kanbv; | EA. ve(pi\-qs Aeyeis dya\p ; is aiffip' oix^ai. Cp. Eur. El. 1282 f. Zfiys 5', us Ipts
yivono ko.1 (pbvos flpoT&v, I ei'5w\ov'E\^n;r i$iirep.\f/' is (so A. Nauck for e<s codd.) TXiov.

On the plot see further A. von Premerstein ' Ueber den Mythos in Euripides' Helene'
in Philologus J896IV.634—653, A. C. Pearson in his edition of the play (Cambridge 1903)
p. x ff., A. W. Verrall Essays on four Plays of Euripides Cambridge 1905 pp. 43—133
('Euripides' Apology. (Helen.)'), H. Steiger ' Wie entstand die Helena des Euripides?' in
Philologus 1908 lxvii. 202—237, V. Pisani 'Elena e I1 d&wXov' in the Rivista di Filologia
1928 vi. 476—499 (summarised in Class. Quart. 1929 xxiii. 215).

1 Eur. Hel. 44 ff. Xapicv be p.' 'Epprjs iv irrvxaiffiv aWipos \ ve<piXri naXvipas, ov yap
yipiXriffi piov | Zeis, rbvd' is oikov Upwrius Wpvaaro, | k.t.X.

2 Eur. Hel. 557 ff. The wraith's disappearance is reported Hi. 605 f. AT. fHfjriKev aXoxos
<77) irpbs aWipos irrvxas [ ap8d<r' dcpavros- ovpavip be KpvtTTeTai, | k.t.X., 612 ff. (the wraith
speaking) eyii 5' iireibr] xpbvov ipav bffov p.' ixPVv, I 70 P-bpfftpov ffdiffaffa, -jrdXiv (so A. Nauck
for irarip codd.) els ovpavbv | direip.1. Cp. Lyk. Al. 822 cpdcrpta TTT-qvbv, els alOpav tpvybv.
Hence later Helene appears ev aldipos irrvxais (Eur. Or. 1631, 1636).

3 Eur. Bacch. 286 ff. Aral KarayeXfs viv, ws iveppdcprj Aids \ P-vpf; 5i6a£w ff us (taXws
exei rbSe. | iirel viv ripvaff it: wvpbs Kepavvlov | Zevs, ell 5' "OXvpirov fipicpos dv-qyayev Oebv,
"Hpa viv rjdeX' iKpaXeiv dir ovpavov' | Zei>s 5' avTep-qxavr/ffad' ola di) Beds. \ pi?fas ptipos Tl
toO x^0"' iyKVKKovpivov I aldipos, fffijxe rbvb' onvpov, eKbibods \ Aidvvffov, Upas vewiuv
Xpbvip Si viv I fipoTol pacpijvai (so J. Pierson, followed by F. A. Paley, for Tpa(pvval codd.)
(paaiv iv PVPV Aids, I bvop.a perauT-fiffavTes, on dta debs \ "Hpa Trod' upiipeuffe, avvBivres
\byov with the notes of Sir J. E. Sandys ad loc.

4 Cp. supra'x. 707 n. 2 fig. 524 a vase now attributed to 'the Syleus Painter' (e. 480 B.C.)
(Hoppin Red-fig. Vases ii. 438 no. 9, J. D. Beazley Attische Vasenmaler des rotfigurigen
Stils Tubingen 1925 p. 162 no. 23).
 
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