The Text
The text of the play is very poor, and scholars have detected several interpolations in the text. Over the centuries large and small interpolations have been inserted into this tragedy. Some scholars even believe that the whole play is post-Euripidean, written in the style of the late Euripides. For more about interpolations in the text, see Donald J. Mastronarde, Phoenissae.
Read more about this topic: The Phoenician Women
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“Great speeches have always had great soundbites. The problem now is that the young technicians who put together speeches are paying attention only to the soundbite, not to the text as a whole, not realizing that all great soundbites happen by accident, which is to say, all great soundbites are yielded up inevitably, as part of the natural expression of the text. They are part of the tapestry, they aren’t a little flower somebody sewed on.”
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“Don Pedro. But when shall we set the savage bull’s horns on the sensible Benedick’s head?
Claudio. Yes, and text underneath, “Here dwells Benedick, the married man?””
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)