Editing Euripides (section)

===Transmission===
The textual transmission of the plays, from the 5th century BC, when they were first written, until the era of the printing press, was a largely haphazard process. Much of Euripides' work was lost or corrupted; but the period also included triumphs by scholars and copyists, thanks to whom much was recovered and preserved. Summaries of the transmission are often found in modern editions of the plays, three of which are used as sources for this summary.<ref group="nb">This summary of the transmission is adapted from a) Denys L. Page, ''Euripides: Medea'', Oxford University Press (1976), Introduction pp. xxxvii–xliv; b) L.P.E. Parker, ''Euripides: Alcestis'', Oxford University Press (2007), Introduction pp. lvii–lxv; c) E.R. Dodds, ''Euripides: Bacchae'', Oxford University Press (1960), Introduction pp. li–lvi</ref>

The plays of Euripides, like those of Aeschylus and Sophocles, circulated in written form. But literary conventions that we take for granted today had not been invented{{emdash}}there was no spacing between words; no consistency in punctuation, nor elisions; no marks for breathings and accents (guides to pronunciation, and word recognition); no convention to denote change of speaker; no stage directions; and verse was written straight across the page, like prose. Possibly, those who bought texts supplied their own interpretative markings. Papyri discoveries have indicated, for example, that a change in speakers was loosely denoted with a variety of signs, such as equivalents of the modern dash, colon, and full-stop. The absence of modern literary conventions (which aid comprehension), was an early and persistent source of errors, affecting transmission. Errors were also introduced when Athens replaced its old Attic alphabet with the Ionian alphabet, a change sanctioned by law in 403–402 BC, adding a new complication to the task of copying. Many more errors came from the tendency of actors to interpolate words and sentences, producing so many corruptions and variations that a law was proposed by [[Lycurgus of Athens]] in 330 BC "that the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides should be written down and preserved in a public office; and that the town clerk should read the text over with the actors; and that all performances which did not comply with this regulation should be illegal."<ref>Plutarch ''Vit.Dec.Orat.'' 851e, cited by Denys L. Page, ''Euripides: Medea'', Oxford University Press (1976), Introduction pp. xxxix–xl</ref> The law was soon disregarded, and actors continued to make changes until about 200 BC, after which the habit ceased. It was about then that [[Aristophanes of Byzantium]] compiled an edition of all the extant plays of Euripides, collated from pre-Alexandrian texts, furnished with introductions and accompanied by a commentary that was "published" separately. This became the "standard edition" for the future, and it featured some of the literary conventions that modern readers expect: there was still no spacing between words; little or no punctuation; and no stage directions; but abbreviated names denoted changes of speaker; lyrics were broken into "cola" and "strophai", or lines and stanzas; and a system of accentuation was introduced.
[[File:Medea-fragment-4th-5th-CE.gif|thumb|right|Fragment of a [[vellum]] [[codex]] from the fourth or fifth centuries AD, showing choral anapaests from ''[[Medea (play)|Medea]]'', lines 1087–91; tiny though it is, the fragment influences modern editions of the play<ref group="nb">
{{lang|grc|παῦρον ⌊δὲ δὴγένος ἐν πολλαῖς }}
:{{lang|grc|εὕροις ⌊ἂν ἴσως}}
:{{lang|grc|οὐκ ἀπό⌊μουσον τὸ γυναικῶν.}}
:{{lang|grc|καί φημι ⌊βροτῶν οἵτινές εἰσιν}}
:{{lang|grc|πάμπαν ⌊ἄπειροι μηδ΄ ἐφύτευσαν}}
:{{lang|grc|παῖ⌋δας͵ ⌊προφέρειν εἰς εὐτυχίαν}}
:{{lang|grc|⌊τῶν γειναμένων.⌋}}
:"Among many women, you might find a small class who are not uneducated. And I tell you that those who have no experience of children and parenthood are better off than those who do."{{emdash}}Medea lines 1087–91. (Half brackets enclose words not transmitted by the fragment but supplied by the greater tradition (see [[Leiden Conventions]]). The word {{lang|grc|οὐκ}} supports a reading preferred by modern scholars (it is represented as {{lang|grc|κοὐκ}} in other sources){{emdash}}Denys L.Page, ''Euripides: Medea'', O.U.P. (reprint 1978), note 1087–89, p. 151)</ref>]]
After this creation of a standard edition, the text was fairly safe from errors, besides slight and gradual corruption introduced with tedious copying. Many of these trivial errors occurred in the Byzantine period, following a change in script (from [[uncial]] to [[Minuscule Greek|minuscule]]), and many were "homophonic" errors{{emdash}}equivalent, in English, to substituting "right" for "write"; except that there were more opportunities for Byzantine scribes to make these errors, because η, ι, οι and ει, were pronounced similarly in the Byzantine period.

Around 200 AD, ten of the plays of Euripides began to be circulated in a select edition, possibly for use in schools, with some commentaries or [[scholia]] recorded in the margins. Similar editions had appeared for Aeschylus and Sophocles{{emdash}}the only plays of theirs that survive today.<ref>Denys L. Page, ''Euripides: Medea'', Oxford University Press (1976), Introduction p. xlii</ref> Euripides, however, was more fortunate than the other tragedians,{{clarify|date=August 2020}} with a second edition of his work surviving, compiled in alphabetical order as if from a set of his collect works; but without scholia attached. This "Alphabetical" edition was combined with the "Select" edition by some unknown Byzantine scholar, bringing together all the nineteen plays that survive today. The "Select" plays are found in many medieval manuscripts, but only two manuscripts preserve the "Alphabetical" plays{{emdash}}often denoted L and P, after the [[Laurentian Library]] at Florence, and the [[Bibliotheca Palatina]] in the Vatican, where they are stored. It is believed that P derived its Alphabet plays and some Select plays from copies of an ancestor of L, but the remainder is derived from elsewhere. P contains all the extant plays of Euripides, L is missing ''The Trojan Women'' and latter part of ''The Bacchae''.

[[File:Euripides, Orestes, Oxford, MS. Barocci 120.jpg|thumb|Euripides, Orestes, Oxford, [[Codex Baroccianus|MS. Barocci 120]], fol. 32r (early 14th century)]]

In addition to L, P, and many other medieval manuscripts, there are fragments of plays on papyrus. These papyrus fragments are often recovered only with modern technology. In June 2005, for example, classicists at the [[University of Oxford]] worked on a joint project with [[Brigham Young University]], using multi-spectral imaging technology to retrieve previously illegible writing (see References). Some of this work employed [[infrared]] technology—previously used for [[satellite]] imaging—to detect previously unknown material by Euripides, in fragments of the [[Oxyrhynchus papyri]], a collection of ancient manuscripts held by the university.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/POxy/news/independent.html |title=POxy Oxyrhynchus Online |publisher=Papyrology.ox.ac.uk |date=17 April 2005 |access-date=30 August 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/ |title=Papyrology Websites |publisher=Papyrology.ox.ac.uk |access-date=30 August 2013}}</ref>

It is from such materials that modern scholars try to piece together copies of the original plays. Sometimes the picture is almost lost. Thus, for example, two extant plays, ''The Phoenician Women'' and ''Iphigenia in Aulis'', are significantly corrupted by interpolations<ref>Justina Gregory, 'Euripidean Tragedy', in ''A Companion to Greek Tragedy'', Justina Gregory (ed.), Blackwell Publishing Ltd (2005), p. 259</ref> (the latter possibly being completed post mortem by the poet's son); and the very authorship of ''Rhesus'' is a matter of dispute.<ref>William Ritchie, ''The Authenticity of the Rhesus of Euripides'', Cambridge University Press (1964)</ref> In fact, the very existence of the Alphabet plays, or rather the absence of an equivalent edition for Sophocles and Aeschylus, could distort our notions of distinctive Euripidean qualities{{emdash}}most of his least "tragic" plays are in the Alphabet edition; and, possibly, the other two tragedians would appear just as genre-bending as this "restless experimenter", if we possessed more than their "select" editions.<ref name="Justina Gregory 2005 page 254">Justina Gregory, 'Euripidean Tragedy', in ''A Companion to Greek Tragedy'', Justina Gregory (ed.), Blackwell Publishing Ltd (2005), p. 254</ref>

''See [[Euripides#Extant plays|Extant plays]] below for listing of "Select" and "Alphabetical" plays.''