The Poetry of Greek Tragedy

probably corresponded to a syllable in the text; and that the line is presumably not iambic, and therefore probably came from a description of the metamorphosis elsewhere in the play. (Pfeiffer points out that the line could be hypodochmius+iambic dimeter or ithyphallicus+lecythion; it is also conceivable that xeAajvTjs and Kepxyos should be transposed, and that it is part of a trochaic tetrameter). /cap/Savoy al06s (col. ii, 26) remains a mystery. Pfeiffer, like Lobel, is inclined to think that Zeus begot the black Epaphus in the form of a black. But even this is not certain. Pfeiffer takes 8* in col. ii, 6 as an instance of the kind of Se that occurs at the beginning of a narration (see Denniston, Greek Particles, p. 171). But as Professor P. Maas has pointed out to me, 6 8' here could very well indicate a change of subject; and this possibility is strengthened when one considers 6 [(iev(?) and 6 8', in 11. 27 and 28. Were there perhaps two strangers ? and were they Zeus and Hermes ? If so, the 'sooty barbarian' may not have been Zeus after all. The odd story of Hermes scaring naughty children by blacking his face with soot that is told by Callimachus, Hymns 3,66 f., may have some basis in earlier mythology ? Did Hermes make a habit of blacking his face?