[86] This is not, I think, saying too much. A story like that of Canace, however powerfully it might affect its audience, was, after all, even in later times, looked upon as something quite exceptional in Greece. (Cp. the later Athenian view on the subject as illustrated by Plaut. Epid. v. i. 45, seqq.)
[87] It is worth while, however, to notice that even the women themselves in Aristophanes are made to confess that this so-called misogyny is, in truth, merely realism. Cp. e.g. Aristoph. Thesm. 389 seqq., Eccl. 214 seqq.
[88] e.g. Fr. 822, etc.
[89] Fr. 321.
[90] Hipp. 373 seqq. Tempting as it is to take this passage as ironical, it would almost certainly be wrong to do so.
[91] Hec. 342 seqq.
[92] See [Excursus C]. It is true that in the intrigue of Macareus and Canace there is some reason to believe that the former was, contrary to the usual habit of these legends, the leading spirit; but in the Aeolus of Euripides this beginning of the story seems to have only been alluded to in the prologue, and not to have formed part of the action.—Cp. Antiphanes, Aeol. Fr. 1.
[93] The most striking example is perhaps the Iphigeneia in Aulis, but there are plenty of others.
Instances in which women are represented as in love with men are somewhat commoner, as they were commoner in the legends; but the part they play in Euripides, as a whole, has been greatly exaggerated. Cp. [p. 38].
[94] ἤρων· τὸ μαίνεσθαι δ’ ἄρ’ ἦν ἔρως βροτοῖς.—Fr. 161 (Antigone). Cp. Hipp. 443 seqq.