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Protée en trompe-l'œil

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Anne Rolet

Deuxième partie. La revanche de l’histoire et l’enrôlement politique du mythe

Chapitre V. The last metamorphosis of Proteus in Euripides’Helen

Claudia Zatta

Texte intégral

  • 1 Eur. Hel. 1137-8. All the translations of Helen are by David Kovacs from the Loeb edition.
  • 2 Eur. Hel. 1140-3.

1« What mortal can search out and tell what is god, what is not, and what lies between1 ? » With this question the chorus of Euripides’Helen (412BC) voices a fundamental distrust of the human capacity to understand divinity. Not only pertaining to the recognition of gods, this incapacity also extends to other categories of beings, humans and any semi-divine creature. To mortal eyes identities, whether human or divine, are ungraspable. Yet, not everything is lost. Unable to recognize divinity, mortals can at least bring with them a piece of certitude : « what the gods send », ta theôn, is involved in a change that defeats expectation and reasoning2. Reality is shifting and there is no way to foresee the direction of events. Not a simple, linear flux – which would enable predictions – change follows an alternate, whimsical movement. This, at least, for mortals is certain.

  • 3 On the theme of the limits of human knowledge and the tradition of philosophical thought in Helen (...)
  • 4 For Euripides’unconventional approach to the tradition see for instance Michelini A., Euripides an (...)
  • 5 Stesich. 193 Page ; Hdt. 2, 112-7. On Euripides’« harmonization » of these two versions with the t (...)
  • 6 This version of the myth of Helen is summarized by Castor in Euripides’Electra (1280-1).

2The above reflections represent an incisive commentary on Helen, which at different levels explores the problem of human knowledge in respect to gods and their interference in human affairs on the one hand, and the development of human vicissitudes, on the other3. In this play the first act of Euripides in exposing the limits of human knowledge is to shake the validity of traditional myths4. So against the more conventional version of the myth of Helen, as found in the Homeric poems, he follows that launched by Stesichorus in his palinode and then echoed by Herodotus in his Histories5. For these authors, as in Helen, contrary to common beliefs, Helen never went to Troy. In fact, in Euripides’play as in Stesichorus, she even remained loyal to Menelaus. In this case, knowing gods’interference into human affairs provides the key to understanding how, against all evidence, this unexpected turn of events could have been possible. Hera had sent to Troy an eidôlon, a breathing image of Menelaus’bride, made of air, while Hermes brought the woman in flesh and blood to Proteus in Egypt. In Troy the Greeks, blind to reality, continued fighting and died for a woman who was not a woman, whereas the true Helen was kept « safe from marriage » at the palace of king Proteus. For the truth to come out it would take some years until the arrival of Menelaus and the abrupt disappearance of Helen’s eidôlon from the cave in which it was guarded6.

  • 7 The metamorphoses of Proteus in the Odyssey manifest the god’s doliê technê and are mere illusory (...)
  • 8 Hdt. 2, 115-4-5. See infra.
  • 9 Eur. Hel. 5 and Od. 4, 355-9. In fact, it should be remarked that in the Odyssey Pharos is the pla (...)

3In Helen Proteus plays the role of protector, the same role he occupies in Stesichorus and then Herodotus. Ironically, in a play about deceitful appearances, that god who by virtue of his multiple metamorphoses was in Homer a master of illusions7 is now only a mortal king, the most virtuous man, sôphronestatos, to whom Hermes consigned Helen for protection. Thus the old master of illusions has been stripped of his tricks and divine nature. The choice between contrasting traditions – to follow Stesichorus and Herodotus instead of Homer – allowed Euripides to thematize the elusiveness of identities and the consequent frailty of human knowledge also in his « new » version of Proteus who is now a mortal rather than a god. Euripides, however, does not completely ignore Homer, and his portrait of Proteus still evokes specific traits of the Homeric version, but corrects it. The Herodotean influence can be detected not only in the royal status of Proteus, not mentioned in Stesichorus’fragments, but also in his fair treatment of foreigners8. At the same time, Euripides looks back at Homer and makes Proteus reside on Pharos9, from where his rule embraces all of Egypt. The mention of Pharos could be a mere reminiscence of Proteus’treatment in book IV of the Odyssey and thereby, as Kannicht observes, an attempt to reconcile different traditions, but in light of the strong emphasis on the elusiveness of identities and the shifting nature of reality that dominates the play, Pharos is rather supposed to evoke in the mind of the audience a striking contrast with the Homeric Proteus. In other words, we are still dealing with the same Proteus of Pharos in Homer, but, in tune with the chorus’reflections discussed above, what appeared once a god was in fact a human being. The story must be revised.

  • 10 Od.. 4, 365-6.
  • 11 Cf. Perpillou J.-L., Les Substantifs grecs en- eus, Paris, 1973, p. 180-3.
  • 12 Chaos and Gaia are primordial divinities who generate offspring by themselves, but in turn also so (...)
  • 13 Hdt. 2, 112, 1.
  • 14 Hdt. 2, 121, 1.

4To ground him in reality and mortality, Euripides assigns Proteus a more precise genealogy than in previous versions, a genealogy that keeps distinct mortal and divine lines of descent with relative inherited skills. Homer gave Proteus a daughter, Eidothea10, but did not mention other members of his family, leaving the doubt that the closeness of his name to the word prôto- was in fact emblematic of his origins. Proteus could in fact have been « first » and, therefore, ingenerate11 and as such even able to give birth without sexual generation as do the primordial gods in Hesiod’s Theogony12. Likewise, Herodotus does not shed light on Proteus’family. He presents him vaguely as a man from Memphis who ascended to the throne13. It is not clear either whether his successor Rampsinito was his son14, but very likely he was not. In Euripides’play, after locating Proteus on Pharos in Egypt, Helen presents his genealogy.

  • 15 Eur. Hel. 6-15.

He married Psamathe, one of the maids of the water, when she had left the bed of Aeacus. In this house she bore two children, a boy named Theoclymenus [because he honored he gods throughout his life] and a fine maiden called Eido. When she was a babe she was her mother’s glory, but when she came to womanhood and was old enough to marry they called her Theonoe : for she knew all that divination can tell, both present and future, receiving this office from her ancestor Nereus15.

  • 16 Hes. Th. 260.
  • 17 Od.. 4, 384-6.
  • 18 Od.. 4, 404-13, 450-1.
  • 19 Apollod. 3, 12, 6 ; schol. Eur. Andr. 687. Cf. Hes. Th. 1003-5.

5While there is no mention of Proteus’parents, his wife Psamathe is one of the fifty daughters of Nereus and Doris16. She is a handpicked spouse for him in that she provides resonances with the Homeric Proteus, but in a way which, as noted before, elicits an implicit contrast with that traditional version. Being one of the Nereids, Psamathe connects Proteus with the realm of the sea, to which he belonged in the Odyssey where he is a sea-god, alios, attendant of Poseidon, and knows all the abysses17. In Homer Proteus has also a herd of seals that every day at noon follow him into the cave on the island of Pharos18. Psamathe herself has been a seal for some time taking advantage of her metamorphic power. Apollodorus records that Aeacus had intercourse with her, and she turned herself into a seal to avoid his embraces. From that union, on a beach of sand, Phocus was born19. Thus, in Euripides’version, the aquatic nature, metamorphic power, and the contact with seals that belonged to Proteus in Homer are now transferred to Psamathe, leaving Proteus a common mortal being, although one lucky enough to marry an immortal creature.

  • 20 Od. 15, 529-34.
  • 21 Kannicht remarks that Eido is an abbreviation of Eidothea (op. cit., p. 20).
  • 22 Dale A. M., Euripides Helen, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1967, p. 70.

6From Psamathe, Proteus had two children : Theoclymenus, a son, and Eido, a daughter, later called Theonoe. The names of Proteus’children are highly emblematic. Theoclymenus recalls the seer of the Odyssey20. His daughter’s childhood name, Eido, echoes that of Eidothea in the Odyssey, while her new name Theonoe signifies « the one who knows the things from gods, ta theia21 ». Rightly Dale remarks that « there is a kind of prophetic aura about the family of Proteus, though only Theonoe has the mystical powers of the Homeric gerôn alios nêmertês22 ». But once again displacements and switches are not casual. With the attribution of divine prophetic skills to another member of the family, his daughter – and not him – and the clarification that prophecy Is a genetic trait transmitted to Theonoe by Nereus, in Helen, Proteus’identity as different from the Homeric figure is more and more defined.

7That Proteus was in the past a man and not a god is clear from the striking way in which he « appears » in the play. Euripides subjects him to the fatal transformation of mortals, namely death. From the beginning of the tragedy Proteus is present indirectly, as a dead king. Thus Helen introduces him :

  • 23 Eur. Hel. 60-5.

While Proteus still looked on the light of the sun, no marriage threatened me. But now that he lies buried in earth’s darkness, the late king’s son wants to marry me. Hence honoring the husband I once had I have flung myself as a suppliant upon this tomb of Proteus so that it may keep me inviolate for him23.

  • 24 Eur. Hel. 64 ; cf. 466, 547, 801, 1165-8. For discussion of tomb settings in Greek tragedies see A (...)
  • 25 Wolff C., « On Euripides’Helen », Hscp 73, 1973, p. 81.
  • 26 For empyra see line 557 ; for the tomb of Proteus like a temple 801. Cf. Survinou-Inwood C., « Rea (...)
  • 27 Pind. Isthm. 4, 61-8.
  • 28 Aesch. Supp. 190-225, 465 ; Eu. 240-3, 258-60 ; see Allen (op. cit., p. 30, n. 140) who also gives (...)
  • 29 Dale A. M., op. cit., p. 143, on line 1165ff. For a discussion of the tomb’s location see also All (...)

8Proteus’tomb, a tangible sign of his past existence, is represented on the stage throughout the play24. The flow of reality, however, continues with switching identities under false appearances. Death did not imply for Proteus a complete disappearance from this world, but with a last metamorphosis allowed him to join « those in between » gods and the non-gods and, by virtue of this new identity, to keep affecting the world. In Helen the old king has become a hero. His tomb stands not only as his mnêma, a mark of fame and a memorial25, but also as a place from where he radiates his influence. The grave receives a cult in the form of burnt offerings (empyra) and is a sanctuary for Helen26. An interesting literary parallel to this cult of Proteus is that of Heracles and the eight sons he had by Megara. At Thebes, outside the Electran gate, according to Pindar, father and sons were, like Proteus, also receiving empyra27. As for the asylum it offers, Proteus’tomb is the « functional equivalent » of other religious settings that belong to divine beings such as the altar and the statues of the twelve gods at Argos in Aeschylus’Suppliants or Athena’s statue in Athens in his Eumenides28. In addition, the position of the funerary monument in front of the royal palace clearly indicates Proteus’supernatural status. Dale notices that on the stage it stands where, according to dramaturgical conventions, the statues of the theoi patrôoi are usually located29.

  • 30 Eur. Hel. 60-8.
  • 31 Eur. Hel. 460.
  • 32 Eur. Hel. 1028-9.

9Thus, despite the disappearance of his body, Proteus continues to « live » and to exercise an impact upon reality. Apart from the burnt offerings and his monumental tomb, another form of Proteus’presence in this world is the constant and diffused memory of the living. Almost all the characters of the play recall Proteus, or even have a direct « interaction » with him. Helen at the beginning of the play attributes to Proteus her safety while he was alive. But now he is still able to protect her ; the beautiful woman has become a suppliant at his tomb, which is now her place of dwelling30. The old servant tells Menelaus that he has arrived at the palace of Proteus in the land of Egypt31. Theonoe addresses her dead father32. So will Theoclymenus returning from his hunt in the wilderness. Theoclymenus admits that he has buried his dead father at the gates of his palace in order to be able to greet him anytime he leaves from or returns to his dwelling.

  • 33 Eur. Hel. 1165-8.

Tomb of my father, greetings, chaire ! I have buried you near my gates, father Proteus, so that I may greet you : I, Theoclymenus, always have a word for you as I go in and out of my house33 !

  • 34 For the grave epigrams with the form of greetings chaire/chairete see Peek W., Griechische Vers- I (...)
  • 35 Eur. Hip. 1437, 1423-30.
  • 36 Eur. Erech. Fr. 53.33, Eu. Eracl. 600 ; cf. Sourvinou-Inwood C., op. cit., p. 197-9.

10The location of the tomb in such proximity to the dwelling of the living allows a continuous evocation of the dead king, an evocation which is not connected to any specific ritual like the offering of empyra or the extraordinary situation of Helen’s supplication. Marking his movements in and out of the house, Theoclymenus’greeting becomes a simple, every day gesture that acknowledges the presence of Proteus. The word of salutation, chaire, which he uses, is, along with the location of the tomb and Helen’s asylum, another sign that in the play Proteus has metamorphosed into a hero. Reviewing both literary and epigraphic evidence34, Survinou-Inwood concludes that until the fourth century chaire was not a suitable greeting for ordinary dead, but only for exceptional ones, gods or heroes. In tragedy it is used to greet dead or dying people who will achieve a higher status after death. So for instance, in Euripides’Hippolytus Artemis greets the dying Hippolytus after she has announced that he will receive cults after death35. Likewise, in a fragment of Euripides’Erechtheus and his Heraclidae, « kai chaire » is a form of salutation for a girl who will be sacrificed to Persephone and then deified36.

11The solemn encounter of Helen and Menelaus with Theonoe coming out of the royal palace happens right next to the tomb of Proteus. As she pleads Theonoe to keep silent on Menelaus’arrival in Pharos, Helen reminds the prophetess of her dead father and his justice. Menelaus addresses Proteus directly, at his tomb.

  • 37 Eur. Hel. 962-8. The use of geron is also an allusion to the Homeric Proteus (Od. 4, 384).

Old sir, geron, who dwell in this monument of stone, I ask you for the return of my wife, whom Zeus sent to you to keep safe for me. Give her back ! Since you are dead, you cannot give her back to me, I know. But this woman will not deem it right that her father, whom I invoke from the dead, should have a bad name when before it was good37.

  • 38 Eur. Hel. 961-7.
  • 39 Kannicht remarks that with this type of ritual the dead king of Egypt is treated more like a god t (...)
  • 40 For epic see, for instance, the preliminary sacrifice of animals with bloodletting around Patroklo (...)
  • 41 Subversions like this are dear to Euripides whose poetic imagination, in Foley’s words, « is forme (...)
  • 42 Some decades later Aristotle will insist on the vulnerability of the dead to the actions of the li (...)

12Menelaus soon after threatens Theonoe that, if he is unsuccessful in fighting her brother off, he will kill Helen and then himself at the tomb of Proteus, letting the blood seep down into the grave. Their two corpses – he continues – will lie upon the monument, « an immortal grief » to Theonoe, and « a reproach » to Proteus38. Menelaus’threat represents a ritual perversion ; instead of the « traditional » burnt offerings, Proteus’grave will receive the polluting blood from a double death, a murder and a suicide39. Echoing the blood rituals in the cult of dead heroes in Homer and tragedy40, Menelaus in fact turns what in the literary realm was customarily a form of glory and recognition into perennial stigma and sorrow41. At any rate, with his threat Menelaus again shows, in a different form than Theoclymenus, that against all evidence, death does not mean disappearance from the relational interplay of the living. Proteus still exists : he can be called into question and criticized concerning events for which he is not responsible42. Such a vision that finds in the actions of the living a link with the world of the dead has an advocate in Theonoe. Consequently, Proteus’daughter adheres to the same standard as of her father had he been alive, and grants Menelaus, and Helen’s request to be silent about Menelaus’arrival, thereby allowing them to escape.

  • 43 Eur. Hel. 1009-16. On the obscurity of these lines see Sansone D., « Theonoe and Theoclymenus », S (...)

As for the reproaches you uttered around the tomb of my father, I take the same view : I would be doing wrong, adikoiêmen an, if I did not return, apodôsô, your wife. If my father were alive, he would have given, apedôken an, her to you and to her. In fact punishment for these deeds comes to those below and to all men above. For though the mind of dead men does not live, it has eternal sensation once it has been hurled into the eternal upper air43.

  • 44 Eur. Hel. 920, 941 ; cf. also lines 47, 967, although it should be remarked that Menelaus stresses (...)
  • 45 Ronnet G. « Le cas de conscience de Théonoé ou Euripide et la sophistique face à l’idée de justice (...)
  • 46 Eur. Hel. 913, 915-6, 1010. Cf. Ronnet G., op. cit., p. 156 and n. 13.
  • 47 Cf. Hdt. 2, 115, 6.
  • 48 Hdt. 2, 10, 4. Cf. Zatta C., op. cit, p. 133-4.
  • 49 Hes. Op. 320-32. On the restitution of deposits as a form of justice see Leotichidas’reply to the (...)

13Here too, as Helen and Menelaus have both acknowledged, Proteus appears as a figure of justice, endowed with a temperate and fair nature. In her address to Theonoe, Helen spoke of Proteus’justice, to dikaion, and later called him « just », dikaios44. The referral to Proteus’justice makes a strong statement and should be grasped in its full importance since, as Ronnet notes, in Greek poetry, from Hesiod to the tragedians, the adjective dikaios is exceptionally referred to specific individuals45. In Helen Proteus’justice is expressed by the semantic field of apodidonai46 and in terms analogous to those found in the account of Herodotus where he decides to deprive Paris of Helen and the treasures he stole from Menelaus and guard them until the arrival of the legitimate owner47. Proteus keeps deposits safe, « gives back » what is due and is against any manifestation of violence, bia, that would interrupt the fairness of such transactions. At the same time though, Proteus seems to echo another aspect that explicitly forms the portrayal of his justice in Herodotus, the respect for foreigners48. For unlike his son Theoclymenus, who would kill any Greek landing on the Egyptian soil, Proteus protected Helen, a Greek woman. In fact, as Hesiod reveals in the Works and Days, respect for the host, the suppliant and the property of others are all equivalent forms of dikê whose transgression calls upon the unjust the ineluctable ruin of his house and his fortune49.

  • 50 Detienne M., Les maîtres de vérité dans la Grèce archaique, Paris, Editions La Découverte, 1990, p (...)

14In the justice that characterizes Proteus in Helen we can see the trait d’union which, apart from the Egyptian provenance, connects Euripides’version of Proteus to those preceding it. Detienne shows how in mythical thought Alethêia, Truth, of which gods such as Nereus, Proteus and Glaucus were masters, covered in fact two domains : prophetic power and justice. The Old Men of the Sea were not only prophetic figures, but also « purveyors of justice50 ». The association between these two domains is clearly present in Hesiod’s description of Nereus, a mythical equivalent of Proteus.

  • 51 Hes. Th. 233-6 transl. by Richmond Lattimore

But Pontus, the great Sea, was father of truthful, apseudês, Nereus, who tells no lies, alêthês eldest of his sons. He called him the old Gentleman because he is trustwor thy, nêmertês, and gentle, êpios, and never forgetful of what is right, oude themisteôn lêthetai, but the thoughts of his mind are mild and righteous, dikaia kai êpia51

  • 52 Eur. Hel. 1002. Cf. also lines 919-23 where Helen expects the coexistence of prophetic art and jus (...)
  • 53 The servant’s speech is particularly eloquent in this regard : « But now I know about prophets : h (...)
  • 54 On Theonoe’s choice to lie see Newton Pippin A., « Euripides’Helen : A Comedy of Ideas », CP 55, 1 (...)

15It does not come as a surprise then, that the coexistence of prophetic power and justice characterizes Nereus’granddaughter, the omniscient Theonoe, who in Helen declares that she is « a living sanctuary, an august temple of Dikè, Justice, » an aspect that she admits to have inherited from Nereus52. In this play, however, we have seen that Proteus is introduced with a novel, « corrected » genealogy that strips him of divinity, prophetic power and also shape shifting. With respect to the mythical tradition, Euripides’version of Proteus sanctions a divorce between prophetic power and justice. And this divorce should likely be considered in light of the play’s ultimate distrust of divination53, which culminates with the very fact that Theonoe, the infallible prophetess, deliberately does indeed give a false prophecy54. Freed from the controversial mantic art, Proteus is a mortal king whose sense of justice survives among the living and whose death enables him to cross boundaries among beings, defeating the appearances of previous myths as well as of death. In Euripides, Proteus’last metamorphosis is that of a man into a hero.

Notes

1 Eur. Hel. 1137-8. All the translations of Helen are by David Kovacs from the Loeb edition.

2 Eur. Hel. 1140-3.

3 On the theme of the limits of human knowledge and the tradition of philosophical thought in Helen see Allen W., Euripides Helen, Cambridge, CUP, 2008, p. 7-9. In this play, the theme of the limits of human knowledge finds many variations : from the disbelief of prophecies and Menelaus’disguise in order to escape from Theoclymenus to his alleged death by the sea.

4 For Euripides’unconventional approach to the tradition see for instance Michelini A., Euripides and the Tragic Tradition, Madison, Wisconsin University Press, 1987 ; Mcdermott E., Euripides’Medea : the Incarnation of Disorder, University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989.

5 Stesich. 193 Page ; Hdt. 2, 112-7. On Euripides’« harmonization » of these two versions with the tradition see Kannicht R., Euripides Helena, Heidelberg, Universitätsverlag, 1969, vol. II, 17. It should be noticed that there are important, internal differences between Stesichorus and Herodotus. Unlike Stesichorus, for instance, Herodotus makes Helen travel to Egypt with Paris, thereby shedding doubts on her faithfulness to Menelaus, nor does Herodotus mention the eidôlon. Cf. Allen W., op. cit., p. 22.

6 This version of the myth of Helen is summarized by Castor in Euripides’Electra (1280-1).

7 The metamorphoses of Proteus in the Odyssey manifest the god’s doliê technê and are mere illusory shapes that do not have an impact on reality. That is why Menelaus is able to keep holding the god despite his terrible transformations. Cf. Zatta C., Incontri con proteo, Venice, Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere e Arti, 1997, p. 84.

8 Hdt. 2, 115-4-5. See infra.

9 Eur. Hel. 5 and Od. 4, 355-9. In fact, it should be remarked that in the Odyssey Pharos is the place for Proteus’afternoon rest, and not his permanent dwelling. Eidothea says to Menelaus that her father comes frequently to Pharos, pôleisthai (Od. 4, 384).

10 Od.. 4, 365-6.

11 Cf. Perpillou J.-L., Les Substantifs grecs en- eus, Paris, 1973, p. 180-3.

12 Chaos and Gaia are primordial divinities who generate offspring by themselves, but in turn also some of their children will be able to do the same. For instance, Pontus, the sea-god, to whom « Gaia gave birth without the help of tender love » also begot Nereus alone (Hes. Th. 131-3).

13 Hdt. 2, 112, 1.

14 Hdt. 2, 121, 1.

15 Eur. Hel. 6-15.

16 Hes. Th. 260.

17 Od.. 4, 384-6.

18 Od.. 4, 404-13, 450-1.

19 Apollod. 3, 12, 6 ; schol. Eur. Andr. 687. Cf. Hes. Th. 1003-5.

20 Od. 15, 529-34.

21 Kannicht remarks that Eido is an abbreviation of Eidothea (op. cit., p. 20).

22 Dale A. M., Euripides Helen, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1967, p. 70.

23 Eur. Hel. 60-5.

24 Eur. Hel. 64 ; cf. 466, 547, 801, 1165-8. For discussion of tomb settings in Greek tragedies see Arnott who considers the tomb of Proteus a « permanent fixture » of Helen’s stage (Arnott P., Greek Scenic Conventions in the Fifth Century B.C., Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1962, p. 60-1).

25 Wolff C., « On Euripides’Helen », Hscp 73, 1973, p. 81.

26 For empyra see line 557 ; for the tomb of Proteus like a temple 801. Cf. Survinou-Inwood C., « Reading » Greek Death To the End of the Classical Period, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995, p. 188-9.

27 Pind. Isthm. 4, 61-8.

28 Aesch. Supp. 190-225, 465 ; Eu. 240-3, 258-60 ; see Allen (op. cit., p. 30, n. 140) who also gives other examples.

29 Dale A. M., op. cit., p. 143, on line 1165ff. For a discussion of the tomb’s location see also Allen (op. cit., p. 30). The fact that the tomb of Proteus is at the gate of the royal palace is another clue that Proteus is considered a hero. For while according to Greek custom tombs of ordinary dead were located outside the city walls because the burial was polluting, those of the heroes could lie in sanctuaries inside the city. Cf. Ekroth G., The sacrificial rituals of Greek hero-cults in the Archaic to the early Hellenistic periods, Kernos suppl. 12, Liège, 2002, p. 263 ; cf. Visser M., « Worshiping the Enemy : Aspects of the Cult of Heroes in Ancient Greece », HThR 75, 1982, p. 403-28 ; on burial and pollution see Parker R., Miasma. pollution and purification in Ancient Greece, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1983, p. 37-9.

30 Eur. Hel. 60-8.

31 Eur. Hel. 460.

32 Eur. Hel. 1028-9.

33 Eur. Hel. 1165-8.

34 For the grave epigrams with the form of greetings chaire/chairete see Peek W., Griechische Vers- Inschriften, 1955, Berlin, Akademie -Verlag, 1209-1563 ; cf. Kannicht R., op. cit., p. 308.

35 Eur. Hip. 1437, 1423-30.

36 Eur. Erech. Fr. 53.33, Eu. Eracl. 600 ; cf. Sourvinou-Inwood C., op. cit., p. 197-9.

37 Eur. Hel. 962-8. The use of geron is also an allusion to the Homeric Proteus (Od. 4, 384).

38 Eur. Hel. 961-7.

39 Kannicht remarks that with this type of ritual the dead king of Egypt is treated more like a god than a hero, to whom enagismata, rituals with bloodletting, were offered (op. cit., p. 157 on line 54). But see Ekroth who fully acknowledges the thuysia with burnt offerings as a ritual devoted to heroes (op. cit., p. 16).

40 For epic see, for instance, the preliminary sacrifice of animals with bloodletting around Patroklos’bier, and the successive sacrifice of other animals and twelve Trojans at the actual internment, Il. 23, 30-4. For tragedy, in Euripides’Orestes, Orestes visits his father’s grave at night and offers him the blood of a black sheep, Eur. El. 91-2 ; Polyxena is doomed to be the sacrificial victim at the tomb of Achilles with consequent bloodletting, Eur. Hec. 124-6, 260-1, 391-3, 528-37. For the comment on these ritual practices and further examples see Ekroth (op. cit., p. 254-68 and n. 193).

41 Subversions like this are dear to Euripides whose poetic imagination, in Foley’s words, « is formed by his experience of and response to a ritual culture » (Poetry and Sacrifice in Euripides, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 1985, p. 64).

42 Some decades later Aristotle will insist on the vulnerability of the dead to the actions of the living, denying in this way Solon’s statement that death allows the ultimate assessment on people’s eudaimonia. For even after death the deceased can be affected by the misfortunes afflicting their dear ones who are still alive (Aristot. NE 1, 11, 1-4).

43 Eur. Hel. 1009-16. On the obscurity of these lines see Sansone D., « Theonoe and Theoclymenus », SO 60, 1985, p. 29. For the consequences of the actions of the living on the dead see also Eur. Hel. 1029.

44 Eur. Hel. 920, 941 ; cf. also lines 47, 967, although it should be remarked that Menelaus stresses the « good name » that Proteus derived from his just behavior rather than his very actions.

45 Ronnet G. « Le cas de conscience de Théonoé ou Euripide et la sophistique face à l’idée de justice », RP 53, 1979, p. 253.

46 Eur. Hel. 913, 915-6, 1010. Cf. Ronnet G., op. cit., p. 156 and n. 13.

47 Cf. Hdt. 2, 115, 6.

48 Hdt. 2, 10, 4. Cf. Zatta C., op. cit, p. 133-4.

49 Hes. Op. 320-32. On the restitution of deposits as a form of justice see Leotichidas’reply to the Athenians and his account of Glaucus in Herodotus (6, 86).

50 Detienne M., Les maîtres de vérité dans la Grèce archaique, Paris, Editions La Découverte, 1990, p. 29-39. Among the forms of justice over which these gods presided were procedures of ritual by water ordeal.

51 Hes. Th. 233-6 transl. by Richmond Lattimore

52 Eur. Hel. 1002. Cf. also lines 919-23 where Helen expects the coexistence of prophetic art and justice, and claims that it would be a disgrace to know from the gods the present and the future, but not what is just.

53 The servant’s speech is particularly eloquent in this regard : « But now I know about prophets : how worthless they are, what liars ! There is no truth in the flame of sacrifice or in the cries of birds. How foolish even to imagine that birds’are mortal benefactors ! Calchas said not a word to the army, nor did Helenus, though they saw that their comrades were dying for a mere cloud... well, then, why do we consult prophets ? No, one should sacrifice to the gods and ask for blessings, but leave prophecy alone. That invention is one of life’s foolish trap. » (Eur.Hel. 744-55).

54 On Theonoe’s choice to lie see Newton Pippin A., « Euripides’Helen : A Comedy of Ideas », CP 55, 1960, p. 158, who claims that « what Theonoe chooses, at the risk of her life, is human moral responsibility. She renounces the safety of old mantic amorality and agrees to suppress a truth because to tell it would be to aid the forces of violence and injustice. »

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