Antigone. Sophocles. Robert Potter (Translator). London. 1820.
English (Robert Potter, 1788) (OCR draft) (English) (English (Robert Potter, 1788))
Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.
mvp-comment-777-1 κακάγγελτα 1
mvp-comment-777-2 προπέμψας 2
mvp-comment-778-1 ἐπεξειργάσω 3
mvp-comment-779-1 ὦ παῖ 4
mvp-comment-779-2
αὖ (instead of
ὦ παῖ τίνα), has not much palaeographical probability. It gives, indeed, a closer correspondence with 1266. But the form of dochmiac which the MS. reading gives here is equally correct. (See Analysis. Met.) Seidler was certainly right in omitting
λόγον (see cr. n.): and that remedy suffices.
mvp-comment-779-3 Construe: τίνα νέον σφάγιον γυναικεῖον μόρον λέγεις ἀμφικεῖσθαί μοι ἐπ’ ὀλέθρῳ 5
mvp-comment-779-4
But another version is possible, if
μοι is taken with
ἀμφικεῖσθαι: ‘besetting me,’
ἐπ’ ὀλέθρῳ, for (my) ruin.
Cp. 1285
τί μ’ ὀλέκεις; For
ἐπί, cp.
Thuc. 4.86
οὐκ ἐπὶ κακῷ, ἐπ’ ἐλευθερώσει δέ. The difficulty is that
ἀμφικεῖσθαι cannot well be said of
one sorrow (Eurydicè's death), and that, therefore, we have to evolve from the epithet
νέον the notion of a
circle of woes of which this
μόρος is one. Thus the image would be much more obscurely expressed than that in
Ai. 351
,
ἴδεσθέ μ’ οἷον ἄρτι κῦμα φοινίας ὑπὸ ζάλης | ἀμφίδρομον κυκλεῖται, (‘behold what a surge hath but now burst around me and hemmed me in, under stress of a deadly storm,’) where Ajax is sitting in the midst of the carnage which he has wrought. It is altogether improbable that
ἀμφικεῖσθαι alludes to Eurydicè's corpse having been brought (by the
ἐκκύκλημα) into such a position that Creon stood between it and Haemon's. See 1298, where Creon speaks of her as being
ἔναντα.
mvp-comment-780-1 ὁρᾶν πάρεστιν 6
mvp-comment-780-2
three or four persons; and was low enough to admit of an actor stepping off it with ease. It was pushed on through the central stage entrance, and was usually brought sufficiently far forward to allow of actors entering or making their exit behind it. Here, the corpse of Eurydicè is evidently in full view of the house (
cp. 1299
). Soph. has used the
ἐκκύκλημα in two other plays:
El. 1458
(the corpse of Clytaemnestra, with Orestes and Pylades beside it); and in
Ai. 344
(Ajax in his tent among his victims). See Albert Müller,
Gr. Bühnenalterthümer, pp. 142 ff. (1886).
mvp-comment-780-3
Recent explorations in the Dionysiac theatre at Athens have given rise to a theory that there was no permanent raised stage or proscenium before the Roman age. Even if this could be proved, it would still, however, remain certain that some such expedient as the
ἐκκύκλημα was used in the fifth century. This is proved by the texts of Aesch. , Soph. , and Eur. , as well as by the two scenes of Ar. where the tragic
ἐκκύκλημα is parodied (
Ar.
Ach. 408
—479;
Thesm. 95—238). Ar. has the words
ἐκκυκλεῖν and
ἐσκυκλεῖν. Wecklein thinks that the
ἐκκύκλημα was employed when a part of the interior of the house was to be disclosed, but the
ἐξώστρα when merely a single object was to be shown; and that the
ἐξώστρα was used here (
N. Jahrb. 1870, vol. 101, p. 572:
Philol. 31. 451). The meaning of
ἐξώστρα is, however, doubtful.
mvp-comment-781-1 χείρεσσιν 7
mvp-comment-782-1 ἔναντα 8
1289-1292. mvp-comment-720-1 What new thing dost thou tell me? that the slaughter of a wife is heaped upon the previous ruin?' ὦ παῖ is probably a corruption of alaî, suggested by the general thought that Creon is lamenting for his son.
1293. mvp-comment-721-1 The dead body of Eurydice is disclosed by an ἐκκύκλημα. This line is what ancient commentators called παρεπιγραφή, i. e. an implicit stagedirection.
1296. mvp-comment-722-1 τίς ἄρα .. περιμένει; The same fearful looking for of further woe is still more finely given in the OО. Т. 1456, 7, οὐ γὰρ ἂν | θνήσκων ἐσώθην, μὴ πί τῳ δείνῳ κακ.