This article addresses the topic of excerpts by focusing on modern excerpting practices used in the analysis of Greek myth. It examines the mythological exemplum about Melanion and Timon from Aristophanes’ Lysistrata within the context of Greek myth’s flexibility and potential for innovation. After discussing the innovative details of the exempla, I turn to the use of the Melanion excerpt by two prominent classicists, P. Vidal-Naquet and M. Detienne. This leads to some general remarks on the transmission of knowledge regarding (...) mythological lore, as well as on our modern scholarly practices of excerpting passages out of their original context. (shrink)

Novelties introduced into traditional myths are an essential characteristic of Greek tragedy. Each and every play demonstrates, in different ways, how tragedians were versatile and innovative in handling mythic material. Modern prefaces to individual tragedies often discuss the possible innovations in the dramatization of a myth compared to previous or subsequent versions. Innovations advanced in a play sometimes became so familiar that they came to be regarded as ‘standard’. Such examples include the condemnation and death of the protagonist in Sophocles’ (...) Antigone and, in all likelihood, Medea's filicide in Euripides’ Medea. (shrink)