Homeric Echoes in Rhesus

Abstract

When we think of Rhesus?if we do at all?we think of a play so structurally awkward, so dramatically unsatisfying, so inferior that it could not possibly be from the hand of Euripides.1 Our knowledge of the story's source?a self-contained Iliadic episode (attractive for dramatic adaptation)?causes us to question the author's reasons for introducing new elements, such as Hector's contentious exchanges with the charac? ters around him and his apparent weakness as a leader. Our greatest difficulties with the play probably result from its episodic nature: first Dolon, then Rhesus, then Odysseus and Diomedes claim their time on the stage. So many seemingly discrete encounters detract from, or may even draw attention to the lack of, any sustained dramatic tension and most likely account for a second problematic feature?the absence of a clearly central hero. While Hector comes closest to filling this role, he fails to meet our expectations for a tragic hero of Athenian drama. His unchanging view of the circumstances around him and complete ignorance of what has happened, even at the end, leave us simply puzzled as to the author's interest or intent in putting these events on the stage. Albin Lesky has remarked on the play's lifeless quality: no problems loom concerning the meaning of [the characters'] fate, nor are they convincing as human beings, 201. Other plays vaguely similar in structure or subject matter illuminate specific problems. Ajax, another drama in which a hero's death is the climax of the action, requires its characters to explore their predicament, to look forward to and then to confront the ramifications of a single deed. Oedipus Tyrannus, which