94-140.
mvp-comment-81-1
Parodos. Where in the wide world is Heracles, reposing in what continent, or by what narrow sea? Tell us, bright, all-beholding Sun! For our Deianira, for whose hand he fought, wears out her soul in thinking of him on her lonely couch; so ceaseless are the toils that crowd upon him like stormy billows. But God hath hitherto protected him; wherefore let not hope weary, O my queen. No life is without pain, but, by Divine ordinance, grief succeeds to joy and joy to grief. Remember this and hope the best. Zeus cannot leave his offspring to destruction.' The metre beginning with an iambic rhythm passes quickly into dactylo-trochaic, changing again in the epode to iambo-trochaic (with occasional syncope), then to pure iambics, ending with a bacchius followed by three trochees.
110.
mvp-comment-92-1
ἐνθυμίοις . . ἀνανδρώτοισι] 'On a bed of care, to which no husband comes.' ἐνθυμίοις, Haunted by care or thought' (see Scholia), rather than 'Weighing on the mind' (although some good critics are satisfied with this). The dative is one of place or circumstance (= ἐν), not of cause or reason. Deianira is not worn out with thinking that she wants her husband, but pines with anxiety on her widowed bed. The Scholiast explains ἐνθυμίοις, ταῖς μεριμνητικαῖς, ταῖς πολυφροντίστοις. This meaning of ἐνθύμιος = ἐνθυμίας πλήρης, although singular, is not impossible. Cp. O. C. 240, and see
Essay on L. § 50. p. 94, § 42. p. 80.
ἀνανδρώτοισι, 'Not visited by a husband.' The verbal notion is hard to render, but adds vividness to the idea of bereavement.
111.
mvp-comment-93-1
κακὰν . . αἶσαν] 'Unhappy one (δύστανον), forecasting an evil fortune.' For ἐλπίζουσαν, cp. Αj. 606, κακὰν ἐλπίδ᾽ ἔχων, and note.
112.
mvp-comment-94-1
πολλά, expressing the primary notion of the sentences, belongs in the first instance to the apodosis, in which βιότου πολύπονον is substituted for πάθη or whatever word was at first intended, whereupon πολλά falls into a secondary agreement with κύματα. 'As many as are the waves,' not, 'Like the many waves.'
114.
mvp-comment-95-1
ἀκάμαντος νότου, βορέα, are not simply genitives in regimen, like κύματα παντοίων ἀνέμων, Il. 2. 396, but either (1) genitives of the cause, or (2) genitives absolute = νότου συνεχῶς πνέοντος. For the former (1), cp. Eur. Or. 497, πληγεὶς θυγατρὸς τῆς ἐμῆς ὑπὲρ κάρα. And, for the latter (2), O. С. 1588, ὑφηγητῆρος οὐδενὸς φίλων. ἐν is required by the metre. 'For many as are the waves one sees passing and coming on anew over the wide sea, from the south or else the north wind blowing unweariedly, even so manifold in troubles is the life which, like a Cretan sea, sustains,-ay, and glorifies, our hero of Cadmus' race.'
115.
mvp-comment-96-1
βάντ᾽ ἐπιόντα τε] Not, 'Coming and going,' or, 'Falling and rising, but, '(One) having gone and (another) coming on.' Cp. II. 4. 422, 3, ὡς δ᾽ ὅτ᾽ ἐν αἰγιαλῷ πολυηχέϊ κῦμα θαλάσσης | ὄρνυτ' ἐπασσύτερον Ζεφύρου ὕπο κινήσαντος : 13. 798, (κύματα) πρὸ μέν τ᾽ ἄλλ᾽ αὐτὰρ ἔπ᾿ ἄλλα. For the meaning given to βάντα, cp. Ant. 120, ἔβα, and note. ἴδοι] The change to the subjunctive, in accordance with Homeric idiom, is unnecessary. Ср. О. С. 1172, ὅν γ' ἐγὼ ψέξαιμί τι: Hdt. 2. 93, ἵνα δὴ μὴ ἁμάρτοιεν τῆς ὁδοῦ. And see
Essay on L. § 36. p. 61.
Several editions read ἴδοις, with του in 114. But for the ellipse of tis, see
Essay on L. § 39. p. 72, 3.
οὕτω δέ] δέ ' in apodosi,' as in El. 27, ὡσαύτως δὲ σύ, κ.τ.λ.
116.
mvp-comment-97-1
Καδμογενῆ] Heracles, having been born at Thebes, was claimed as a Theban hero, and therefore of the stock of Cadmus by adoption. τρέφει τὸ δ᾽ αὔξει] (1) ‘Surrounds and also magnifies.' For a similar idiomatic use of τὸ δέ, cp. Thuc. 1. 107, τὸ δέ τι καὶ ἄνδρες τῶν ᾿Αθηναίων ἐπῆγον αὐτούς, ib. 7. 48, τὸ δέ τι καὶ τὰ τῶν πολεμίων ἐλπίδος τι ἔτι παρείχε. The words τὸ δ᾽ αὔξει are διὰ μέσου. It has been thought that τρέφειν and αὔξεις are too near one another in meaning to point an antithesis, and στρέφει for τρέφει has been proposed. For this, more recently, Hense has substituted στερεῖ. But the words are not an application of the simile, as though Heracles was now engulphed and now uplifted by the billow, but express a new thought: and both words have a different meaning in tragic poetry from that which belongs to them in prose. For τρέφειν of the circumstances or surroundings of a life, ср. О. Т. 374, μιᾶς τρέφει πρὸς νυκτός. And, for αὔξειν, Το magnify,' ib. 1090, 1, μὴ οὐ σέ γε καὶ πατριώταν Οἰδίπου καὶ τροφὸν καὶ ματέρ᾽ αὔξειν. The words τὸ δ' αὔξει are added by the Chorus (though logically inconsistent with ἀλλά in what follows), because of their strong wish to suggest cheerful thoughts to Deianira. In this case, the remaining words may be taken in one of two ways, either (α) supposing a slight inversion and alternation of clauses, the order may be πολύπονον πέλαγος βιότου, ὥσπερ Κοήσιον (πέλαγος), 'A troubled sea of life, as it were a Cretan sea.' Or (b) As it were a Cretan sea of troubles that constitutes his life.' (2) Hermann joins τὸ δ' αὔξει βιότου πολύπονον, 'As it were a Cretan sea surrounds Heracles and increases this toilsomeness of his life.' The Cretan sea was wider than the Aegean and no less subject to storms. Cp. Hor. Od. 1. 26. 1, ‘tristitiam et metus | tradam protervis in mare Creticum portare ventis.' For the concrete imagery, cp. Ο. Τ. 194, εἴτ᾿ ἐς μέγαν θάλαμον ᾿Αμφιτρίτας | εἴτ᾿ ἐς τὸν ἀπόξενον ὅρμον | Θρήκιον κλύδωνα.
