Laudator Temporis Acti

Euripides, Children of Heracles 770-783 (tr. David Kovacs):

But, lady Athena, since yours is the land and the city, and you are its mother, its mistress, and its guardian, divert to some other land the man who is unjustly bringing here from Argos the spear-hurling army! For by our valor we do not deserve to be cast from our homes.

For the honor of rich sacrifice is always offered to you, nor is the last day of the month forgotten nor the songs of young men or the choral chants. On a windy hill loud shouts of gladness resound to the beat of maiden dance-steps the whole night long.

ἀλλ᾽, ὦ πότνια, σὸν γὰρ οὖ-        770
δας γᾶς, καὶ πόλις, ἇς σὺ μά-
τηρ δέσποινά τε καὶ φύλαξ
πόρευσον ἄλλᾳ τὸν οὐ δικαίως
τᾷδ᾽ ἐπάγοντα δορυσσοῦν
στρατὸν Ἀργόθεν· οὐ γὰρ ἐμᾷ γ᾽ ἀρετᾷ        775
δίκαιός εἰμ᾽ ἐκπεσεῖν μελάθρων.

ἐπεί σοι πολύθυτος ἀεὶ
τιμὰ κραίνεται, οὐδὲ λά-
θει μηνῶν φθινὰς ἁμέρα,
νέων τ᾽ ἀοιδαὶ χορῶν τε μολπαί.        780
ἀνεμόεντι δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ὄχθῳ
ὀλολύγματα παννυχίοις ὑπὸ παρ-
θένων ἰαχεῖ ποδῶν κρότοισιν.

The name Athena doesn't occur in the Greek (as Kovacs was well aware). Wilamowitz, "Excurse zu Euripides Herakliden," Hermes 17.3 (1882) 337-364, 496 (at 356-359), argued that the goddess here isn't the virgin Athena, but Ge, Mother Earth. I owe the Wilamowitz reference to John Wilkins, Euripides, Heraclidae. Edited with Introduction and Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993; rpt. 1995), p. 150. Kovacs in his bibliography also mentions the article by Wilamowitz.

Wilkins in his commentary doesn't mention that lines 773-775 ("divert ... army") are an example of epipompē. "[T]he man who is unjustly bringing here from Argos the spear-hurling army" is of course Eurystheus, persecutor of the children of Heracles.