Sunday, December 09, 2007
Epipompē in Euripides
Epipompē is the sending away of evil to another place. I recently found a good example in Euripides, Children of Heracles 770-775 (prayer to Athena or perhaps Gē, tr. E.P. Coleridge):
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O dread goddess, thine the soil whereon we stand, thine this city, for thou art its mother, queen, and saviour; wherefore turn some other way the impious king, who leadeth a host from Argos with brandished lance against this land.I tried to see if John Wilkins discussed this in his commentary on the Heraclidae (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), but only the beginning of the note on these lines is visible through Google Books.
ἀλλ', ὦ πότνια, σὸν γὰρ οὖ-
δας γᾶς, καὶ πόλις, ἇς σὺ μά-
τηρ δέσποινά τε καὶ φύλαξ
πόρευσον ἄλλᾳ τὸν οὐ δικαίως
τᾷδ' ἐπάγοντα δορυσσοῦν
στρατὸν Ἀργόθεν.
