223-330.
mvp-comment-136-1
The half-comic or rustic character of the watchman in this play is an extension of the common character of the
messenger, whose natural rudeness of speech and thought brings into greater prominence the horror or pathos of the events he describes. The grotesqueness disappears when he speaks of the action of Antigone in 407-440. The employment of this artifice by Sophocles arises from the same motive to which Shakespeare gave a far wider range in such creations as the
gravediggers in Hamlet, and the
rural fellow in Antony and Cleopatra. The Messenger in the Trachiniae, the Corinthian in the Oedipus Tyrannus, Menelaus in the Ajax, the pretended Shipmaster in the Philoctetes, afford the same sort of contrast to the more tragic personages: and the superstition of the Coloniatae may be compared with the cowardice of the Phrygian slave in the Orestes of Euripides.
223-330.
mvp-comment-136-2
The vulgarity of the common-place Athenian of the fifth century в.с. takes the form of misplaced subtlety of wit. Cp.
Shak. Hamlet, 5. 1
,
We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. The age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe.
332-383.
mvp-comment-190-1
Most wonderful of wondrous things is man, Who traverses the surging brine, And wearies mighty earth with yearly furrow. His craft ensnares the finny produce of the seas And taketh captive beast and bird. He compasseth a way to master the monster of the wilds, And brings under his yoke the horse with flowing mane And the never-wearied mountain bull. Selftaught in speech and thought and civil ways, And in providing shelter from the cold and rain, There is no end to his devices. Nothing but death ever finds him unprepared. Even diseases, not to be avoided, are escaped by him. Inventive beyond hope, he moveth now to evil, and again to good. When weaving with his wit the law of justice and piety He is exalted in the city, but outcast when he harbours wickedness for deeds of crime. May I never live with such an one, and may he never share my counsels. 332. Aesch. Cho. 585, πολλὰ μὲν γὰ τρέφει δεινὰ δειμάτων ἄχη,.. ἀλλ᾽ ὑπέρτολμον ἀνδρὸς φρόνημα τίς λέγοι; Troch. Iamb. Troch.
332-383.
mvp-comment-190-2
δεινά = ' wonderful,' or
mighty, is in transition from the earlier sense of
fearful to the later sense of
clever. Cp.
332-383.
mvp-comment-190-3
ὀλοόφρων.
334.
mvp-comment-191-1
τοῦτο
This creature, man. The neuter continues the abstract notion from οὐδὲν .. δεινότερον, and is thus more impressive than the masculine would have been.
334.
mvp-comment-191-2
πέραν Το the other side of.'
Quite over. For the alliteration, which assists the emphasis, cp. El. 210.
335.
mvp-comment-192-1
χειμερίῳ νότῳ
Impelled by the stormy south-wind. Dative of cause. Essay on Language § 14. p. 21. 335-336.
Traversing half-buried in the seething surge. For ὑπό with the dative in this sense, cp. О. С. 673, χλωραῖς ὑπὸ βάσσαις. Essay on Language § 19. p. 27.
336.
mvp-comment-193-1
περιβρύχιος is probably active =
Surging round, and contains an allusion to βρύχω, for which, cp. Aesch. Prom. 1082, βρυχία δ᾽ ἠχὼ παραμυκᾶται βροντής.
338.
mvp-comment-194-1
ὑπερτάταν
Supreme, as eldest and mother ofall. Solon, Fr. 36. 3, μεγίστη δαιμόνων Ὀλυμπίων | Γῆ. Cр. О. Т. 660, where the primacy for the occasion is similarly given to the sun. Schneidewin remarks that the assonance ἄφθιτον, ἀκαμάταν ἀποτρύεται, .. ἀρότρων helps to express the persistent industry of man. This ode is full of assonance and alliteration, and of correspondences such as ἀνεμόεν, μαχανόεν-παντόπορος, ἄπορος -ὑψίπολις, ἄπολις.
339.
mvp-comment-195-1
ἀποτρύεται
Wears out for his use (mid.) the still-unwearied Earth. The present implies that the process is never-ending. Even in the common operations of husbandry the old religion finds a ground for awe. The dactyls suit the thought of the continuous round of human labour, as those of the antistrophe express the movement of the steed. The two long syllables, ἱππει-, οὐρει-, at once check the flow of rhythm (as with a renewed feeling of wonder), and by their weight give impetus to the concluding trochees. Cp. Eur. Phoen. 1039-1040, 1063.4.
340.
mvp-comment-196-1
ἰλλομένων ἀρότρων
As the ploughs keep turning year after year. The force of ἴλλω is limited motion. Thus the shuttle might be said ἴλλεσθαι, because when it reaches either end of the loom it is driven back again. Precisely in the same way the ploughs are said ἴλλεσθαι, “To keep moving to and fro within certain bounds.' ἔτος εἰς ἔτος] i. e. δι' ἔτους εἰς ἔτος, "Through one year into the next,' the first ἔτος being the accusative of duration.
340.
mvp-comment-196-2
ἱππείῳ γένει πολεύων
Breaking the glebe by the strength of mules. πολεύειν = πολεῖν in Hes. Op. 460, ἔαρι πολεῖν· θέρεος δὲ νεωμένη οὔ σ᾽ ἀπατή- The masc. is more probable than the neuter, both because τοῦτο is re- σει. mote, and because ἀνήρ follows in the antistrophe.
340.
mvp-comment-196-3
ἱππείῳ γένει i. e.
Prole equarum. Schol. ταῖς ἡμιόνοις.
αἱ γάρ τε βοῶν προφερέστεραί εἰσιν ἐλκέμεναι νείοιο βαθείης πηκτὸν ἄροτρον.
Hom. Il. 10.352. Donaldson also compares Simon. Fr. 13 (Bergk.), χαίρετ' ἀελλοπόδων θύγατρες ἵππων.
343.
mvp-comment-197-1
*κουφονόων
Light-thoughted. This is Brunck's certain emendation, anticipated by the corrector of R. (Cp. v. rr. on l. 617.) Donaldson well says that as wings express the light-mindedness of light-mindedness is here made an epithet of the winged birds. But the word may further suggest the unsuspicious nature ('Despising the earth where cares abound') which makes them an easy prey. Cp. Plat. Tim. 91 D, τὸ δὲ τῶν ὀρνέων φῦλον . . ἐκ τῶν ἀκάκων ἀνδρῶν, κούφων δέ, κ.τ.λ.
345.
mvp-comment-198-1
πόντου τ᾽ εἰναλίαν φύσιν
The brood of ocean teeming in the seas. For φύσιν, see Essay on Language § 51. p. 96.
346.
mvp-comment-199-1
σπείραισι δικτυοκλώστοις With meshy toils,' is to be joined with ἀμφιβαλὼν ἄγει. Nets (δίκτυα) were used in hunting and fowling, as well as in fishing. For ἄγειν in the sense of
making captive, cp. Il. 9. 594, τέκνα δέ τ᾽ ἄλλοι ἄγουσι βαθυζώνους τε γυναῖκας.
346.
mvp-comment-199-2
ἄγει suits well with the image of a captive enemy, which is kept up in the words φύλον and ἔθνη.
348.
mvp-comment-200-1
περιφραδής
By his excellent wit. The 1st strophe exhibits the boldness, the Ist antistrophe the cunning, of primitive man. The 2nd strophe and antistrophe describe the higher functions of civilized life. 349 ff. He not only subdues the animals, but makes them his servants.' In correcting this line, the dactylic metre is to be retained, which is hardly done in the conjj. ἀμφιλόφῳ ζυγῷ or ἀμφὶ λόφον ζυγοῖ. The words ἀμφίλοφον ζυγόν are sound both in meaning and rhythm. Brunck's conj. ὑπάξεται, supplying the preposition required by the Scholia, would be unexceptionable, if such a potential use of the future in an affirmative sentence could be defended. Blaydes' ὑπήγαγεν would be convincing if closer to the MSS. In favour of ἐπάξεται it may be urged that the repetition of the same word is in the manner of the ode, and that the figurative expression, he shall bring to his aid,' agrees with ἄγει, supr. 343. But besides the questionable future, the construction of the 2nd accus., sc. ἐπ᾿ ἀμφ. ζυγόν, is in this case dubious. ὑφέλκεται. . ζυγόν,
compels to serve him in the yoke, may be suggested, although the verb ὑφέλκειν is not used elsewhere precisely in the sense required. Else qy. ἐφέλκεται?
