470 PBOCEHDraOfl 01 Tin: AMERICAS ACADEMY. 



Euripides— Eon : l lit 1261 = 176 



[phigenia in Tauris : 77:5 172 = ■'•01 



Helen : •;•_'•_'-.". 1 1 = 81 



Hlectra : r>7 7— LS7 = 90, or 577-501 = 76 



By eliminating 518-544 : 49 



Prom 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 ; 38 

 i >■) 'secondary' delays of about equal length (accepting the /nil text 

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

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

 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 39 of his Bide trip to 

 the tomb of Agamemnon, in spite of the fact that the poet apparently 

 made use of it to criticise one of his predecessors. 40 



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

 tion tlu- Helen anil the Electra can lay no claim. 



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



40 In addition to the foregoing consideration of the bearing of delays before 

 recognitions on our passage, I wish to add gratuitously at this poinl some observa* 

 turns made while pursuing my investigation, which max 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 ait 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 Chrysothemis ; Euripides acknowledged and expressed his disapproval 



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

 dispute d passage. 



In the second place, why does Euripides use (tvu$6\outi (577) instead of crv/ji- 

 fSiKtp ' May it not be that Electra, perhaps unconsciously, includes the proofs or 

 tokens in the disputed pas8agewith the scar in ">7-". ' In other cases (cf. Or. 1 130; 

 Ion L386) when Euripides uses ovufioXov, the singular and plural seem to be 

 properly differentiated. 



Finally, in EL 668, after the irpurfivs has said to her in the preceding verse, 

 $kt\\iuv vvv tls r6vh\ S> tikvov, rhv <pi\rarov, Electra says irctAoi StSoixa /x)) ai> y 

 ovKtr' d (ppovrjs. Now, what is the force of TaAai here (cf. its use in Ml. o57, 



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



