Sophocles Ajax 84

Thomas Francklin (Translator)

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Ajax
430
Ye well-known floods that roll into the main.
430
Ye caves and forests by the rocky shore !
430
Years heaped on years fast by the walls of Troy
430
Have ye detained me, but no longer now
430
Amongst the living shall ye ever see
430
Nor shall thy neighbouring waves, Scamander, still
430
To Greece beneficent, behold me more :
430
Troy never saw, forgive the boastful word,
430
Though now dishonoured thus, and thus oppressed.
430

Ajax. Sophocles. Thomas Francklin (Translator). London. 1758–1759.

Current edition Experimental

English (Thomas Francklin, 1758–1759) (OCR draft) (English) (English (Thomas Francklin, 1758–1759))

Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.

Editions (4)
Αἴας μαστιγοφόρος First1KGreek (Sophocles. Sophoclis Aiax. Lobeck Christian, editor. Berlin: Weidmann, 1866.) — 1-171 focus
Αἴας First1KGreek (Sophocles. Sophoclis Fabulae. Pearson, Alfred Chilton, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924.) — 1-171 focus
Greek (Lewis Campbell, 1879) (OCR draft) Experimental (Greek (Lewis Campbell, 1879)) — 84 focus
πῶς, εἴπερ ὀφθαλμοῖς γε τοῖς αὐτοῖς ὁρᾷ;
Greek (F. Storr, 1912) (OCR draft) Experimental (Greek (F. Storr, 1912)) — 1-171 focus
Translations (4)
English (Lewis Campbell, 1906) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Lewis Campbell, 1906)) — 84 focus
TEC
364
Aias, my lord! I entreat thee, speak not so!
German (J. J. C. Donner, 1875; OCR review) (OCR draft) Experimental (German (J. J. C. Donner, 1875; OCR review)) — 74 focus
Was thust du, Pallas? Nimmermehr ruf' ihn heraus -
English (Robert Potter, 1788) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Robert Potter, 1788)) — 84 focus
Tecmessa
Not thus, my lord, loved Ajax, speak not thus.
English (Sir Richard Jebb, 1904) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Sir Richard Jebb, 1904)) — 1-170 focus

Commentary

Commentary (R. C. Jebb) (OCR draft) (Commentary (R. C. Jebb))

mvp-comment-263-1 ἂν … ᾤεθ’ 1

mvp-comment-263-2 ἐπώνυμον 2 ξυνοίσειν 3

mvp-comment-263-3 Pindar adopts the derivation of

Αἴας
from
αἰετός
: I. 5. 53
καί νιν ὄρνιχος φανέντος κέκλετ’ ἐπώνυμον εὐρυβίαν Αἴαντα
. This was the popular etymology (schol. Apoll. Rh. 1. 1289 ; schol. Theocr. 13. 37 : Apollod. 3. 12 § 7 ). But the association of
Αἴας
with
αἶ αἶ
appears in the legend that a hyacinth (on whose petals the letters AI were supposed to be legible, Moschus 3. 6) sprang from the blood of Ajax, as it had sprung from that of Hyacinthus: Ov. Met. 13. 397:
Littera communis mediis pueroque viroque | Inscripta est foliis; haec nominis (Ajax), illa querelae
 (the wail of Hyacinthus).

mvp-comment-263-4 So Odysseus was associated with

ὀδύσσομαι
( Od. 1. 62
τί νύ οἱ τόσον ὠδύσαο, Ζεῦ
; imitated by Soph. , fr. 880): Pentheus, with
πένθος
( Eur. Bacch. 507 ): Polyneices, with
νεῖκος
( Aesch. Th. 577 , etc., Soph. Ant. 110 f.): Meleager, with
μελέα ἄγρα
( Eur. fr. 517): Sidêro with
σίδηρος
( Soph. fr. 597): and Helen is
ἐλέναυς
, etc. ( Aesch. Ag. 689 ).

mvp-comment-263-5 Such play on names did not seem to the Greeks unworthy of grave poetry, because to them the omens conveyed by words (

ὀμφαί, κληδόνες
) were so serious. In modern poetry, too, it has sometimes been used with tragic pathos. Thus Dante Purg. XIII. 109
Savia non fui, avvegna che Sapía Fossi chiamata:
and Shakesp. Rich. II. act 2 sc. 1. 73 (Gaunt)
O how that name befits my composition! | Old Gaunt indeed; and gaunt in being old
etc. The king asks,
Can sick men play so nicely with their names? No
, is the reply,
misery makes sport to mock itself.

mvp-comment-263-6 The real etymology of

Αἴας
is uncertain. Vase-inscriptions show that the original form was
Αἴvας
, and Sonne (in Kuhn's Zeitschr. 10 p. 126) compares Indog. aiva, Skr. eva (‘course’)—a derivation which Brugmann approves ( Stud. z. griech. u. lat. Gramm. 4. 180). The sense, ‘swift runner,’ would suit
Οἰλῆος ταχὺς Αἴας
better than the son of Telamon: and it is not improbable (as Fleischer suggests in Roscher's Lex.p. 139) that the names of the two heroes, though identical in form, were of distinct origin.

Commentary (Lewis Campbell, 1879) (OCR draft) (Commentary (Lewis Campbell, 1879)) focus

430. mvp-comment-293-1 For a ῥῆσις similarly following μέλη ἀπὸ σκηνῆς, cp. El. 254 foll.; Trach. 1046 foll.; O. T. 1369 foll.; O. C. 258 foll. Ajax, in his solitude (for he hardly feels the presence of Tecmessa) in passing to a more collected mood, first utters the note of sadness, and then is struck by the correspondence of the repeated syllable with his own name. Many poets have observed how the mind in moments of intense feeling becomes engaged with trifles:- 'Strange, that the mind, when fraught With a passion so intense One would think that it well Might drown all life in the eye That it should, by being so overwrought, Suddenly strike on a sharper sense For a shell, or a flower, little things, Which else would have been past by.' TENNYSON's Maud. The cry of woe, alaî, sounds to Ajax like the reverberation of his name, and with the superstitious feeling which attached to words casually spoken, he dwells on the resemblance. 'Ay me! -Who ever could have thought that my name would thus be the appropriate expression for my woes?' Cp. esp. Fr. 877, ὀρθῶς δ' Ὀδυσσεύς εἰμ', ἐπώνυμος κακοῖς· | πολλοὶ γὰρ ὠδύσαντο δυσμενεῖς ἐμοί. And see Essay on L. § 44. p. 83, Lersch, Sprach-philosophie, vol. 3. pp. 3 foll. ἐπώνυμον supplements the predication of ξυνοίσειν, 'Agree in the way of naming.' (The conj. ξυνάσειν, although ingenious, is quite unnecessary.)