"Ekphrasis", Hesiodic hypotext and foretelling in the first "Stasimon" of Euripides' "Electra"

Resumen

It has been highlighted the ekphrastic character of the description of Achiles' shield carried out in the second strophic pair of the first "stasimon" of Euripides' "Electra", in the line of the famous "ekphrasis" of Book XVIII of the "LLiad", with some influence from Hesiod's "Scutum", as well as the premonitory value of the decoration with respect to the punishment awaiting Clytemnestra. For out part we have attempted to demonstrate that these three components apart from the Homeric one -"ekphrasis", Hesiodic hypotext in general and the portents _are present already from the very beginning in the "stasimon". Far from constituting an anachronism, in applying to Euripides a category pertaining to school rhetoric, we believe that Euripides' handling of this "progymnasma", "ekphrasis", should be viewed in relation to others we have observed in some of his work, which, as here, pose the dilemma of whether to continue to see them only as models for the future theory or if, on the contrary, the author had already been trained in how to handle it like the attentive disciple of sophistic rhetoric that he was.