In real life these words would furnish an excellent motive for withdrawing; how artificial they are in tragedy appears from the fact that, though a strange-looking man is now seen approaching, Hermione remains upon the scene! In the same author’s Electra (vss. 341 ff.) that heroine’s peasant-husband finds her conversing with her brother and Pylades (though she recognizes neither) and exclaims:
How now? What strangers these about my doors?
... Beseemeth not
That with young men a wife should stand in talk.
[Way’s translation]
The man’s lowly birth and usually deferential attitude toward his wife make these words seem especially incongruous, and Electra promptly apologizes for them. Sometimes these anachronisms are intentional and fulfill a deliberate purpose. In Euripides’ Phoenician Maids (vss. 88 ff.), Antigone and a servant are about to appear on the flat roof of the palace in order to catch a glimpse of the invading army; but for technical reasons (see [pp. 171 f.], above) it is necessary that Antigone’s entrance be slightly delayed. Accordingly, the slave comes into view first and is made to afford an excuse for her tardy appearance which would have been legitimate for a fifth-century princess but which to a Homeric woman or one at the period of the dramatic time of the play would have seemed to spring from false modesty.
Fair flower of thy sire’s house, Antigone,
Albeit thy mother suffered thee to leave
Thy maiden-bower at thine entreaty, and mount
The palace-roof to view the Argive host,