The Reunion Duo In Euripides' Helen

Abstract

In this chapter, the author elaborates the techniques used in musical scenes in Euripides' Helen and details every paragraph from the same. The Messengers narrative of the Phantom Helens disappearance had proved to Menelaus that the Helen standing before him is the real Helen, altogether innocent of elopement to Troy, from whom he had been sundered for seventeen laborious years. A favorite technique in such amoibaia gives all the singing to one performer, while the others utterances are either trimeters or such fragments of divided lyric verses. Punctuated monody is defined as follows: the musical passage, as a short or extended unit of composition, begins and ends with the opening and concluding lyrics of the monodist, whose utterances in it are entirely sung framed between the spoken utterances of another actor or the chorus-leader. At several phases, the author incorporates his reconstruction to make the meaning clearer. Keywords: Euripides; Helen ; Menelaus; musical scene; punctuated monody; Reunion Duo