RHESUS

THE ATHENIAN DRAMA

FOR ENGLISH READERS

A Series of Verse Translations of the Greek
Dramatic Poets, with Commentaries and
Explanatory Notes.

Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt top, 7s. 6d. each net.
Each Volume Illustrated from ancient
Sculptures and Vase-Painting.

AESCHYLUS: The Orestean Trilogy. By Prof. G. C. Warr. With an Introduction on The Rise of Greek Tragedy, and 13 Illustrations.

SOPHOCLES: Œdipus Tyrannus and Coloneus, and Antigone. By Prof. J. S. Phillimore. With an Introduction on Sophocles and his Treatment of Tragedy, and 16 Illustrations.

EURIPIDES: Hippolytus; Bacchae; Aristophanes' 'Frogs.' By Prof. Gilbert Murray. With an Appendix on The Lost Tragedies of Euripides, and an Introduction on The Significance of the Bacchae in Athenian History, and 12 Illustrations. [Fifth Edition.

ALSO UNIFORM WITH THE ABOVE

THE HOMERIC HYMNS. A New Prose Rendering by Andrew Lang, with Essays Critical and Explanatory, and 14 Illustrations.

THE PLAYS OF EURIPIDES

Translated into English Rhyming Verse, with Explanatory Notes, by Prof. Gilbert Murray.

THE

RHESUS

OF

EURIPIDES

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYMING VERSE

WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY

GILBERT MURRAY

LL.D., D. Litt., F.B.A.

REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN & COMPANY, LTD.

44 & 45 RATHBONE PLACE

1913

[All rights reserved]

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh

INTRODUCTION

This short play needs rather a long introduction. It has had the bad fortune to become a literary problem, and almost all its few readers are so much occupied with the question whether it can be the work of Euripides—and if not his, whose?—that they