Antigone. Sophocles. Berlin. 1806.
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Latin (F. H. Bothe, 1806) (OCR draft) (Latin) (Latin (F. H. Bothe, 1806))
Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.
mvp-comment-261-1 φέρει 1
mvp-comment-262-1
Kvičala and Wecklein reject these four verses, despairing of the difficulties found in vv. 466, 467, which have been variously amended; see Appendix. The alleged difficulties are, (1)
παρ’ οὐδὲν ἄλγος: (2) the mention of the mother only: (3) the position of
θανόντ’, which might suggest the sense, ‘slain by my mother’: (4)
ηἰσχόμην (as L has it). Before dealing with these points, I would call attention to a trait which the impugners of these verses have overlooked, and which speaks strongly for the genuineness of the passage as a whole, corrupt though it be in certain words. That trait is the clause
τοῖσδε δ’ οὐκ ἀλγύνομαι
2
mvp-comment-263-1 ἄλγος 3 παρ’ οὐδέν 4
mvp-comment-263-2
adv.: ‘is a pain in no appreciable degree,’ is a pain not worth a thought: as he might have said,
οὐδαμοῦ ἄλγος ἐστί. The normal use of
παρ’ οὐδέν, ‘of no account,’ is either (
a) with the verb
εἶναι, as
O. T. 982
ταῦθ’ ὅτῳ | παρ’ οὐδέν ἐστι, or (
b) with a verb meaning ‘to esteem,’ as above, v. 34,
τὸ πρᾶγμ’ ἄγειν | οὐχ ὡς παρ’ οὐδέν. The only peculiarity here is that, instead of a word in the general sense, ‘
is esteemed’ (
ἄγεται), we have a virtual equivalent, tinged with the special thought of the moment, viz., ‘
is a pain.’ Exactly so in
El. 1327
we have
πότερα παρ’ οὐδὲν τοῦ βίου κήδεσθ’ ἔτι, instead of
πότερα παρ’ οὐδὲν τὸν βίον ἄγετε. Thus the suspicions as to the genuineness of
παρ’ οὐδὲν ἄλγος are illusory.
mvp-comment-263-3 ἀλλ’ ἄν 5
mvp-comment-264-1 ἄθαπτον ἠνσχόμην νέκυν 6 ηἰσχόμην 7 ἠνσχόμην 8
mvp-comment-264-2 In my first edition I placed in the text the emendation of Semitelos (1887) ᾔσχυναν κύνες 9
mvp-comment-264-3
Other emendations will be found in the Appendix. Most of them assume that we must have
ἠνεσχόμην (or
ἀνεσχόμην), and therefore alter the words
θανόντ’ ἄθαπτον and
νέκυν in various ways, —usu. omitting
νέκυν. The verses produced by these processes are wretched, while, from a palaeographical point of view, they are pure conjectures, which do not attempt to account for the tradition in L.—Two points remain. (1)
τὸν ἐξ ἐμῆς | μητρός
10
mvp-comment-264-4
or
μιᾶς (Meineke). (2)
τὸν ἐξ ἐμ. | μητρος θανόντ’
11
466. mvp-comment-269-1 παρ᾿ οὐδὲν ἄλγος Is a grief of no account. Cp. supr. 35.
466. mvp-comment-269-2 ἐμῆς Meineke conj. ἐκ μιᾶs, Seyffert ὁμῆς, unnecessarily. The emphatic use of ἐμós is frequent in Sophocles.
467. mvp-comment-270-1 ἄθαπτον *ἠνσχόμην ἠνσχόμην (1) may be defended by the analogy of the syncopated ἀνσχήσεσθαι, ἄνσχεο, in Epic Greek. Otherwise (2) νέκυν may be cancelled as a gloss, and ἄθαπτον *ὄντ᾿ ἠνεσχόμην read, according to the conj. of Prof. E. L. Lushington. Or (3) ἐσχόμην may be read in the sense of ἠνεσχόμην. Ε. on L. § 55, 4. p. 101. But this is doubtful.