Commento critico-esegetico al Fetonte di Euripide

This work, a new critical and exegetical commentary to Euripides’ Phaethon, is divided in three different sections: 1) introduction, 2) commentary on the eighteen surviving fragments of the play, 3) four chapters, with a final appendix, dedicated to examination of some main aspects of the tragic plot. The comment on each fragment – preceded by a complete summary with all bibliographical references – is articulated in a) tradition, dedicated to the analysis of direct and indirect sources of the text, b) metrics, only for lyrical fragments, c) critical-textual issues and, finally, d) exegesis and interpretation, in which all the exegetical proposals advanced by the editors on the collocation and the persona loquens of the text are discussed. In the four chapters following the commentary some interpretations of the tragedy have been revised: in particular, 1) some elements of the plot such as the revealed secret of Clymene, the fatal promise of Helios and the search for true paternity by Phaethon, only studied as family-motifs of Euripidean innovation, have an original fairy-tale derivation. 2) The examination focused on the plurality of reasons for discerning reluctance of Phaethon to the marriage with a goddess, probably connected to the rejection of power left to him by Merops, to the identity crisis and to the search of confirmation of divine birth. 3) The analysis has shown that the hypothesis of the possible presence of ‘comic’ in Euripides’ Phaethon, in particular in the love triangle between Clymene, Helios and Merops, in the unveiling of the real divine fatherhood and in the deception hatched by Clymene against the barbarian husband, must be rejected. 4) The four section and the appendix focused on the fortune of paradigmatic myth of the charioteer and his sisters, the Heliades, transformed into poplars dripping tears of amber.