Sophocles Oedipus Tyrannus 1415

ed. Lewis Campbell

οὐδεὶς οἷός τε πλὴν ἐμοῦ φέρειν βροτῶν.
1415

Oedipus Tyrannus. Sophocles. ed. Lewis Campbell. Oxford. 1879.

Current edition Experimental

Greek (Lewis Campbell, 1879) (OCR draft) (Greek) (Greek (Lewis Campbell, 1879))

Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.

Translations (1)
German (J. J. C. Donner, 1875; OCR review) (OCR draft) Experimental (German (J. J. C. Donner, 1875; OCR review)) — 1416 focus
Gelegen deiner Bitte kommt schon Kreon hier,
Zu Rath und That gewärtig; denn er bleibt allein
Als Schuz des Landes übrig noch an deiner Statt.
1380

Commentary

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

mvp-comment-860-1 No one can share the burden of his ills. Other men need not fear to be polluted by contact with him, as with one guilty of blood. His unwitting crimes and his awful sufferings—alike the work of Apollo—place him apart. In illustration of the fear which he seeks to allay, compare the plea of Orestes that, since he has been duly purified from bloodshed, contact with him has ceased to be dangerous ( Aesch. Eum. 285

ὅσοις προσῆλθον ἀβλαβεῖ ξυνουσίᾀ.
—Contrast Soph. OC 1132 ff. , where Oed. will not allow his benefactor Theseus to touch him. There, he feels that he is still formally ἄναγνος, and that gratitude forbids him to impart a possible taint. Here, he thinks only of his unique doom and his incommunicable anguish.

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

1369-1415. mvp-comment-762-1 In this wonderful speech the passion of Oedipus is heard rising in varied tones from 1369 to 1390 (the steps are 1369-1374, 1375,6, 1377-1383, 1384-1390); culminating in the prolonged outburst 1391-1408, where the four stages of horror in his life are recounted, and gradually subsiding into a gentler pathos in 1409-1413, 1414-1415.

1415. mvp-comment-788-1 Fear not; my woes are such as none but I can bear;' i. e. I bear an incommunicable sorrow, which you therefore need not fear to share by contact with me. It is too heavy, and also too peculiar, for others to partake. Cp. Phil. 536-537, οἶμαι γὰρ οὐδ᾽ ἂν ὄμμασιν μόνην θέαν | ἄλλον λαβόντα πλὴν ἐμοῦ τλῆναι τάδε: Shak. King John, 3. 1, 'My grief's so great | That no supporter but the huge firm earth | Can hold it up.'