470 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



Euripides — Ion : 1437-1261 = 176 



Iphigenia in Tauris : 773-472 = 301 



Helen : 622-541 = 81 



Electra : 577-487 = 90, or 577-501 = 76 



By eliminating 518-544 : 63 49 



From these statistics I am not disposed to draw any dogmatic con- 

 clusions. To my mind they only show in a general way (a) a tendency 

 toward a lengthening of the ' secondary ' delay (and, even this state- 

 ment must be taken with some reservation, for I find it impossible, in 

 view of the uncertain date of some of the plays, to reduce this matter 

 to a chronological basis), particularly on the part of Euripides ; ^^ 

 (b) ' secondary ' delays of about equal length (accepting the full text 

 of the Electra) in the Helen and the Electra, which appear to be plays 

 of about the same date ; (c) a ' secondary ' delay in the Electra (reject- 

 ing the disputed passage) shorter than appears in any extant tragedy, 

 and it seems to me unlikely that this should be the case. It appears 

 that the very nature of the case is such in this ' secondary ' delay of the 

 Electra as to warrant the assumption that the audience would expect 

 the loquacious old man to give a pretty full report ^^ of his side trip to 

 the tomb of Agamemnon, in spite of the fact t^at the poet apparently 

 made use of it to criticise one of his predecessors.*^ 



38 This is especially true in the case of his better tragedies, to which distinc- 

 tion the Helen and the Electra can lay no claim. 



39 Otherwise I fail to see any motive for mentioning his visit to the tomb. 



*" In addition to the foregoing consideration of the bearing of delays before 

 recognitions on our passage, I wish to add gratuitously at this point some observa- 

 tions made while pursuing my investigation, which may lend further weight to 

 my final conclusion. In the first place, I believe that the locks of hair deposited 

 on the tomb of Agamemnon, though primarily deposited as a religious act of 

 filial duty, had become fixed in the Orestean legend as one of the recognized 

 means of bringing about the recognition. Aeschylus skilfully followed the 

 legend ; Sophocles delicately acknowledged the legend with negative results in 

 the case of Chrysotherais ; Euripides acknowledged and expressed his disapproval 

 of the legend. This assumption, if justified, makes it necessary to retain the 

 disputed passage. 



In the second place, why does Euripides use arvfxfioXoKxi (577) instead of (rv/x- 

 P6\cfi 1 May it not be that Electra, perhaps unconsciously, includes the proofs or 

 tokens in tlie disputed passage with the scar in 57-3 1 In other cases (cf . Or. 1 130 ; 

 Ion 1386) wlien Euripides uses (tv/x^oXop, the singular and plural seem to be 

 properly differentiated. 



Finally, in FA. 568, after the irpta^vs has said to her in the preceding verse, 

 $\f}pov vvv els t6vS\ Si t^kvov, rhv (pi\raTov, Electra says iraA.oi SeSoiKa /xij av y' 

 ovKfr' e6 (ppovfis. Now, what is the force of iraAat here (cf. its use in El. 357, 

 where tlie reference is certain), and, in fact, the justification of the statement, if 



