TY - JOUR AU - Kostyleva, Tatiana PY - 2019/06/25 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Thoughts Shot Forth in Vain (Eur. Hecuba 599–602) JF - Philologia Classica JA - Philologia Classica VL - 14 IS - 1 SE - Miscellanea DO - 10.21638/11701/spbu20.2019.111 UR - https://philclass.spbu.ru/article/view/6463 SP - 144-148 AB - <p>In this piece, attention is once again drawn to the <em>locus classicus </em>of Euripidean sententious&nbsp; outbursts, lines 599–602 put in the mouth of Hecuba mourning her daughter Polyxena. Suggested&nbsp; for bracketing by W. M. Sakorraphos in 1893 and athetised by J. Diggle (1984) and&nbsp; D. Kovacs (1995) in their respective editions (although not in the editions of J. Gregory (1999)&nbsp; and K. Matthiessen (2010), the lines (and the whole passage 592–602) have also shouldered a&nbsp; weight of Euripidean <em>Weltanschauung </em>doctrines built on their slender frame. A brief overview&nbsp; of scholarly judgment, often overexacting, prompts one to occupy the middling ground allowing&nbsp; both for the possibility of the genuine character of the lines 599–602 and their relevance&nbsp; in context (and not only expressing the ideas current in Euripides’ times) with both birth and&nbsp; upbringing contributing to virtuous character. The metaphor in line 603 should not be considered&nbsp; a brave mannerism, or a marginal remark of some critic, but a marker of a change of&nbsp; topic, its archery imagery well on the side of trite.</p> ER -