Note 141 — Chapter XII · THE LAY AUTHORS

fr. 484 (Μελαν. ἡ σοφή)—ὡς οὐρανός τε γαῖά τ’ ἦν μορφὴ μία κτλ. Here, too, the poet is speaking of a mere initial association of the elements afterwards to be parted, but thought of as always from the beginning independent—there is no derivation of both from a single common original element, or of one out of the other. Eurip. may really have been thinking here of the ὅμου πάντα χρήματα ἦν of Anaxagoras (as the ancient authorities supposed), esp. as, with Anax. also, out of the general conglomeration two masses, ἀήρ and αἰθήρ, first emerge (though in this case νοῦς is not included in the αἰθήρ as it is with Eurip.). Here, too, then the usual dualism of the Euripidean cosmogony is preserved. For the rest this fr. 484 allows us to perceive that in spite of all his physiological tendencies Eurip. can never quite get rid of the mythical element in his cosmogonical events. The reason why Ouranos and Gaia in particular recommend themselves to him as elemental forces (and κοινοὶ ἁπάντων γονεῖς, fr. 1004) was that these figures had long been set at the beginning of the world and of the gods by cosmogonical poetry (αἰθήρ is simply the more physiological term for what is half-personified as Οὐρανός). This probably explains why matter (or at least the more solid forms of matter as distinguished from the αἰθήρ the λεπτότατον πάντων χρημάτων) is for him included in the description “earth”. In this he is not following the old physiologists, none of whom had called “earth” the original matter—at least not earth alone (see Ilberg, Quaest. Pseudohippocrat., p. 16 ff., 1883). “Earth” as describing the merely material, matter deserted by spirit, may have come to him from popular usage. As early as Ω 54 the body deserted by soul and life is called κωφὴ γαῖα (cf. Eur. frr. 532; 757, 5). Thus for the poet the contrast between γῆ and αἰθήρ almost amounts to that between “matter” and “mind”, except that he either could not or would not think of a “mind” without any material substratum and that for this reason his αἰθήρ still preserves a remnant of matter.