Summary
The prologue (1–59)
The Euripidean nature of the prologue is evident and reflects a broad acquaintance on Ezekiel's part with Euripides' plays. That the prologue is cast in the form of a monologue which is, for all intents and purposes, addressed to the audience is itself Euripidean. Sophocles tends to begin his plays with the appearance of two characters who speak to each other, though sometimes in lengthy speeches. Aeschylus is much closer to Euripides, for he sometimes presents a character on stage alone reciting an opening monologue (as in Agamemnon and Eumenides). But it is particularly Euripidean to have a speaker open the play with a sweeping historical account directed to the audience. The geographical element is typically (though not exclusively; compare Aeschylus' Eumenides and Supplices) Euripidean. In his prologues we often read that someone left one place and travelled to another (Troades, Phoenissae, Bacchae, Heracles, Hecuba, Archelaus, Phrixus B). Often the account is characterized by a participle of λείπω followed by a finite form of ἣκω or ἔρχομαι. Sometimes the speaker is talking of his own journey, sometimes of another's (e.g. Heracles, Phoenissae; Aeschylus' Eumenides). Again, completely (if not exclusively) Euripidean is the delay in identifying the prologuespeaker (Electra, Phoenissae, Helen, Orestes; Sophocles' Philoctetes). Recounting one's own birth, as Moses does, may be strictly Euripidean (Ion, Bacchae, Orestes, Helen). Ezekiel has exploited another prologue element that may be exclusively Euripidean by capitalizing on its coincidental occurrence in the Biblical narrative, namely the use of etymology.
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- The Exagoge of Ezekiel , pp. 69 - 166Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1982
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