Euripides Helen 375-85 and Sophocles Electra 150-2 as ‘Mythological Hyperboles’

Abstract

The late Netta Zagagi's interpretation of this passage as constituting a "mythological hyperbole" is bolstered on stylistic grounds (as is Diggle's confirmatory but independently advanced emendation of v. 377), and the interpretation is shown to exclude a more recent reading of the stanza which distracts from the mythological hyperbole's effect.