Les mysteres de l’onomastique dans l’<i>Helene</i> d’Euripide

Abstract

In the Helena, Euripides theorizes the difficulties of onomastic: names cover the identities of multiple homonyms or a single name refers to several essences of the same person, as the real queen of Sparta and her eidolon. These remarks take a dramatic significance: a character like Teucer poorly integrated into the action in the case of the Homeric famous bowman, fits in fact into it in a relevant role if one recognizes him as the meteque who denounced the parody of the Eleusinian mysteries by Alcibiades. Anyway a critical tradition distinguished the young strategist in the staging of the protagonist. Euripides' play suggests, in fact, in an esoteric way, the scenic process of rehabilitation and initiation not only of Helena in the context of the mythological representation, but also of Alcibiades politically. For, on an other hand, the name and the dramatic function of Theonoe are really close too much to those of Theano, the priestess of Eleusis quoted by Plutarch as the only one who refused to curse Alcibiades, for being an adventitious onomastic coincidence