Note 750 — Chapter V · THE WORKS OF EURIPIDES (continued 2)

To this view no complete answer has yet been made. All that can possibly be said is what Professor Gilbert Murray (Euripides and his Age, pp. 186 sq.) and (in a letter to the present writer) Professor U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff suggest, that the palace is in the main destroyed, but the façade is more or less undamaged. This does away with the testimony to Dionysus’ imposture which the audience receive from their own eyes, but it leaves untouched the incredible silence of Pentheus. Moreover, Dionysus’ words as they stand mean that the building is utterly destroyed. That they do not mean this is only suggested in despair, because, if they do mean this, they are absurdly and patently false.