This paper investigates the two prologues that prefaced the Rhesus according to an ancient Hypoth... more This paper investigates the two prologues that prefaced the Rhesus according to an ancient Hypothesis to the play (both are missing in our manuscripts). In particular, it highlights the literary ambitions of these prologues as texts probably composed to serve fourth-or early third-century reperformances of the play, and explores the disparaging opinion of the author of the Hypothesis , who considered one of the prologues bad enough to have been 'composed by actors'. Hypothesis b¹ transmitted by some manuscripts of the tragedy Rhesus informs us that there was a time when two prologoi existed for the play, which have however been lost from the text of all our extant manuscripts: πρόλογοι δὲ διττοὶ ϕέρονται. ὁ γοῦν Δικαίαρχος ἐκτιθεὶς τὴν ὑπόθεσιν τοῦ Ῥήσου γράϕει κατὰ λέξιν οὕτως· νῦν εὐσέληνον ϕέγγος ἡ διϕρήλατος, καὶ ἐν ἐνίοις δὲ τῶν ἀντιγράϕων ἕτερός τις ϕέρεται πρόλογος, πεζὸς πάνυ καὶ οὐ πρέπων Εὐριπίδηι· καὶ τάχα ἄν τινες τῶν ὑποκριτῶν διεσκευακότες εἶεν αὐτόν. ἔχει δὲ οὕτως· ὦ τοῦ μεγίστου Ζηνὸς ἄλκιμον τέκος Παλλάς, τί δρῶμεν; οὐκ ἐχρῆν ἡμᾶς ἔτι μέλλειν Ἀχαιῶν ὠϕελεῖν στρατεύματα. νῦν γὰρ κακῶς πράσσουσιν ἐν μάχηι δορὸς λόγχηι βιαίως ῞Εκτορος στροβούμενοι. ἐμοὶ γὰρ οὐδὲν ἔστιν ἀλγέων ἄκος, 1 Diggle's edition of Euripides lists four hypotheses to the Rhesus. These four prefatory texts are presented by the manuscripts in different sequences into two blocks, that in some manuscripts are entitled 'Hypothesis of the Rhesus' and in some others 'Hypothesis of Aristophanes of Byz-antium'.
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