Note 898 — Chapter XVI · GRECIAN MYTHES, AS UNDERSTOOD, FELT AND INTERPRETED BY THE GREEKS THEMSELVES.
Reading edition
Aristoph. Ran. 849, 1041, 1080; Thesmophor. 547; Nubes, 1354. Grauert, De Mediâ Græcorum Comœdiâ in Rheinisch. Museum, 2nd Jahrs. 1 Heft, p. 51. It suited the plan of the drama of Æolus, as composed by Euripidês, to place in the mouth of Macareus a formal recommendation of incestuous marriages: probably this contributed much to offend the Athenian public. See Dionys. Hal. Rhetor. ix. p. 355.
About the liberty of intermarriage among relatives, indicated in Homer, parents and children being alone excepted, see Terpstra, Antiquitas Homerica, cap. xiii. p. 104.
Ovid, whose poetical tendencies led him chiefly to copy Euripidês, observes (Trist. ii. 1, 380)—
“Omne genus scripti gravitate Tragœdia vincit, Hæc quoque materiam semper amoris habet. Nam quid in Hippolyto nisi cæcæ flamma novercæ? Nobilis est Canace fratris amore sui.”
This is the reverse of the truth in regard to Æschylus and Sophoklês, and only very partially true in respect to Euripidês.