Page:Frogs (Murray 1912).djvu/137

Rh P. 80, l. 1082, Life is not Life.]—See the Polyîdus. The same sentiment occurs in the Phrixus.

P. 82, l. 1109, If you fear from former cases, &c.]—The meaning may also be that they have a book in their hands at the time, viz. a copy of the play. So Van Leeuwen: "These verses were added in the second performance of The Frogs. At the first performance this part of the play had been over the heads of some, perhaps many, of the audience. But now, says the Chorus, this objection is removed; copies of the play are in every citizen's hand."

P. 82, l. 1124, Oresteia.]—The prologue quoted is that of the Choephori; Oresteia ("The Orestes-poetry"), seems to have been another name for that play. We apply the word to the whole trilogy—Agamemnon, Choephori, Eumentdes. The growth of formal titles for books was a very slow thing. Probably Aeschylus scarcely "named" his plays much more definitely than Herodotus and Thucydides "named" their histories. Even Euripides' plays sometimes bear in the MSS. varying names: Bacchae or Pentheus, Hippolytus or Phaedra. By the time of Plato regular names for plays must have been established, as he named his dialogues in evident analogy from plays.

P. 83, l. 1126, Warding a father's way.]—A phrase really obscure. Commentators differ about the interpretation.

P. 84, l. 1150, Dionysus, dull of fragrance, &c.]—Apparently a tragic line.

P. 87, l. 1182, At first was Oedipus, &c.]—Prologue to Euripides' Antigone.