Abstract

This note argues that two passages are worthier of the dramatist if the audience has seen the furies than if it has not. Orestes sees the furies ; the chorus does not see them. Does the audience see them? K. O. Müller, on philosophical and antiquarian grounds, thought so. Nearly all scholars today believe not. I agree with Miiller from what Orestes now says to the chorus: μες μν οφ ρτε τσδ', γ δ' ρ. If the chorus does not see the furies and the audience does not see them either, the μες μν οχ ρτε τά7sigma;δ' lacks moment; the chorus cannot find those words of any use and the audience cannot find them of interest. There is value in the words only if the audience, seeing what Orestes sees, is being reassured that the chorus does not. Line 1058, κξ μμτων στζουσιν αμα δυσφιλς, may be regarded as saying something the audience did not know from its own senses, and the same is true for με μν οχ ρτε τσδ' in 1061 if it says once more that the furies, though real to Orestes, and to the audience as well, are not real to everyone. The opposite reasoning—that if the audience has seen the furies the γὼ δ' ρ is unneeded after Orestes has already said three times that he sees them—is not countervailing. For those words are in the less emphatic position, are fewer, and are of less doubtful usefulness, since they lead to λανομαι δ κοκτ' ν μεναιμ' γ.