Page:The Plays of Euripides Vol. 1- Edward P. Coleridge (1910).djvu/13



N preparing the following translation of the plays of Euripides I have followed the text of Paley as it stands in the "Cambridge Greek and Latin Texts' series" 1869. Similarly, too, the order of the plays conforms to his arrangement.

Without going into lengthy details for my choice of this text, I may briefly mention a few reasons for having selected it. First, there is the accessibility of this edition; secondly, its very general use to-day by the mass of English readers, in preference to the once popular "Poetæ Scenici" of W. Dindorf; and thirdly, its superiority in many respects to all previous editions of the complete body of plays, due partly to its greater fidelity to the MSS. readings, partly to the more metrical arrangements of choral passages.

In some ways, perhaps, the adoption of a particular text saves the translator much trouble by precluding him from straying far afield into the region of textual emendation; but, at the same time, it not unfrequently forces him into direct opposition to his own opinion, if he consents to follow it without any deviation and to yield implicit obedience to its authority.

At the risk of incurring the chance of inconsistency, I have, though as a rule adhering rigidly to Paley's text, occasionally allowed myself the liberty of following the emendations of other scholars, where for the sake of clearness or on grounds of probability, there seemed fair reasons for so doing; but in every such case attention is