Euripides’ Electra 1351–1352: A New Interpretation

Abstract

Eur. El. 1351–1352 has always been problematic for editors and translators. Usually, they supply the article τό with ὅσιον in order to translate ὅσιον (“piety”) and τὸ δίκαιον (“justice) as coordinated nouns. At the same time, editors never add the article to their texts because it gives a metrically incorrect line. Another issue is that there are no examples in Greek where the article governing two coordinated nouns is given with the second noun but has to be supplied for the first (where it is strictly necessary). This paper proposes that ὅσιον is in fact an adjective (i.e., “pious”), which is not connected to the noun τὸ δίκαιον but to the adjective ϕίλον (“loved”). This interpretation can be justified through the work itself and also by exploring the use of the adjective ὅσιος in different tragedies by Euripides and in other authors.