The Supernatural in the Tragedies of Euripides 23 



" Nor oath, nor pledge, nor prophet's utterance 

 Wilt test, but cast me forth the land untried?" 



and Theseus replies with no respect for the art of ornithomancy : 



Hipp. 1057-59: 



77 deXros r}5e KKrjpov ov dedeypLevr) 

 Karriyopel aov TrtoTo,- tovs d' virep Kapa 

 4>0LTWVTas opveLs iroXK' eyu x^^ip^i-v Xe7a). 



" This tablet, though it bear no prophet's sign, 

 Acuseth thee, not lieth : but the birds 

 That roam o'erhead — I wave them long farewell." 



NB. In vv. 616 fif. Hippolytus expostulates with Zeus and lays 

 the blame on him that woman is man's scourge : 



" Why hast thou given a home beneath the sun, 

 Zeus, unto woman, specious curse to man? etc." 



The whole passage is a sally of doubtful sincerity, and since it is 

 not so much an invective against Zeus as an invective — and per- 

 haps the most bitter piece of an invective — against women, it is 

 of little importance in regard to the poet's handling of the super- 

 natural element. 



4. The Hecuba 



The "Hecuba" (about 425 B.C.) treats of the revenge of 

 Hecuba, the widowed queen of Priam, of Polymestor, king of 

 Thrace, who had murdered her youngest son Polydorus, after 

 her daughter Polyxena had already been sacrificed by the Greeks 

 to the shade of Achilles. 



Hecuba appears on the stage and declares that she has been 

 driven from within her tent in alarm at a vision. The vision was 

 the ghost of her murdered son, Polydorus, whom she believes to 

 be safe and well in Thrace. She adds that she also has been 

 warned by an ominous dream about her daughter Polyxena. 

 From these apparitions she infers that some misfortune is im- 

 pending over both her children and . is anxious to consult her 

 prophetic children, Cassandra and Helenus, as to the purport of 

 these supernatural manifestations. Besides this vision and this 



77 



