Where is this Greek extract from?

Question

Eἰς τὸν λειμῶνα καθίσας,

ἔδρεπεν ἕτερον ἐφ' ἑτέρῳ

αἰρόμενος ἄγρευμ' ἀνθέων

ἁδομένᾳ ψυχᾷ

[Eurip. frag. 754.] [sic]

['He sat in the meadow and plucked with glad heart the spoil of the flowers, gathering them one by one.']

This is the page before the preface of Palgrave's Golden Treasury: Palgrave, Francis Turner.

What is this Eurip. mentioned in the text? I found the Greek text here.

Answer 1

Hypsipyle is a lost or fragmentary play written around 410 BC by the Greek playwright Euripedes. This particular fragment might have survived from its inclusion in Book IV of Symposiacs by the Greek/Roman biographer and essayist Plutarch, who lived between AD 46 – AD 120. So this is likely a fragment of Hypsipyle that we only know about because Plutarch quoted it in his book ~500 years after the play was written.