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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Menelaus' question in 1050 has puzzled interpreters. Why would Euripides put a joke at the end of this scene? It is true that of all the scenes in this play, the Helen scene is the only one that could admit a joke without terrible discomfort. And there is already humour in it. Hecuba employs scornful laughter (983) and an amusing reductio ad absurdum (976–81) in her arguments against Helen. So a joke here is not as utterly ruinous as it would be, for example, in the scene where Astyanax is buried.
1 For a good summary of the ways in which the Greeks expressed the difference between human and divine bodies (but with no discussion of divine density), see Vernant J.-P, ‘Corps obscur, corps eclatant’, in Malamoud C.and Vernant J.-P.(edd.),Corps des dieux(Paris, 1986), pp. 19–45
2 My thanks to Jasper Griffin for drawing my attention to both ancient evidence and modern bibliography.