151-215.
mvp-comment-104-1
Outstretched in fear we listen awfully for thy propitious voice, oh sweet-tongued utterance of Heaven. Paean, be our speed! What thing new or old in season due dost thou disclose? Tell us, thou voice, child of bright Hope divine. Athena, Goddess, daughter of the Highest, first hear our cry; thou, Artemis, on thine encircled throne, and archer Phoebus, come in threefold might to save! if ever heretofore ye banished sorrow from our state, now too appear! For, oh! I am overwhelmed; all my host is in disarray; and there is no thought to save; Earth's buds are nipped, and human births prevented by the pains of death: soul after soul takes flight with fearful speed, and poor uncared-for corpses choke with pestilence our unpeopled clime. Wives, mothers, sadly suppliant, at various altars groan; the voice of lamentation mingles with the thrilling hymn. Athena, send us help. and cause yon flaming author of destruction, who with dire noise advances, quickly to reverse his speed and fly our land, whether to Ocean or the restless Pontic sea. Day ruins what night spares. O Father, blast the plague-god with thy lightning. Let thine arrows, O Apollo, be showered to protect us, and Artemis' bright torches from the Lycian hills; and thou, O ruddy crowned Bacchus of the joyous rout, with trooping Maenads, patron of Thebes, draw near. and flash thy brand against the god whom gods disown.' The opening of this parodos is of the nature of a paean (1. 186), or hymn to Apollo as the god of victory or salvation. The stately dactylic measures, corresponding in strophe and antistrophe even to the division of the words (cp. 153, 162, 158, 166), are only once interrupted, as the chorus march towards the altar, by the more meditative iambic rhythm (11. 152, 160), and by the anacrusis in ll. 154, 163. The increasing excitement of the chorus is shown in the second strophe and antistrophe, by iambic and trochaic rhythms with resolution of the arsis, by the union of dactyls and trochees in logaoedic lines, and by the more frequent anacruses. The bright Paean notes give way to tones of sadness, echoing the στονόεσσα γήρυς (11. 186-187). The scheme of στρ. and ἀντ. β'. is the following (ll. 167-178=11. 179-189) :- LÚC CCC CICI lúc Ca CICICCICCICCIK ICC ICC ICC ICC 기 100 100 100 CUCCICCIC CICCICCIC LUCCICCICC ICICII In the concluding strophe and antistrophe (γ'.) there is only one dactylic line, just as there was one iambic in the first. The other rhythms are iambic and trochaic, with occasional syncope of the thesis (or change to the cretic rhythm). The movement, though still full of excitement, becomes more energetic and determined towards the close. The scansion is as follows:- C CCICICICIC- 기 つ つ 기 00 ト KCICICI トー 1くらいCICICII The rhythm of the whole ode, which is unusually wild and full of transitions, shows a progress from flowing dactylic numbers to iambics and trochaics, which are interrupted here and there by syncope of the thesis, or in other words, by an antispastic effect, corresponding to the distraction of the thought.
151.
mvp-comment-105-1
Διὸς ἁδυεπές The voice is personified and addressed in propitiatory language. Cp. 1. 157. τίς is predicate.
In what shape comest thou? i.e. what is thine utterance now?
153.
mvp-comment-106-1
ἐκτέταμαι, φοβερὰν φρένα δείματι πάλλων
I lie outstretched, my timorous heart quaking with dread. For τείνω, of mental tension, cp. Pind. Pyth. 11, 54, Isthm. 1, 49, γαστρὶ δὲ πᾶς τις ἀμύνων λιμὸν αἰανῆ τέταται. For φρένα .. πάλλων, cp. Il. 22.461, παλλομένη κραδίην. And for the form of expression here, in which φρένα is accusative in regimen, cp. infr. 914, where αἴρει θυμόν is equivalent to a passive verb. Essay on Language § 30, d. p. 52.
154.
mvp-comment-107-1
ἰήιε Δάλιε Παιάν ἰήϊος, from the cry in, has here a false etymological association with ἰάομαι. Ε. on L. p. 100.
155.
mvp-comment-108-1
σοί Addressed to the Delian Apollo; who has just been apostrophized as Paean, the healer. This suits the context better than if ἰήτε Δάλιε Παιάν were treated as merely interjectional, and σοί were referred to φάτι supr., though there are several instances of similar parentheses. The transition from φάτι το παιάν, and again to φάμα, is in keeping with the excited tone of the chorus. See below, note on 215.
155.
mvp-comment-108-2
ἁζόμενος
In holy fear, not merely = φοβούμενος. Cp. Il. 14. 261, ἅζετο γὰρ μὴ Νυκτὶ θοῇ ἀποθύμια ἔρδοι.
155.
mvp-comment-108-3
νέον, ἢ .. πάλιν
What either till now unheard of, or again appearing in the fulness of time. νέον is either (1) adjectival, or (2) adverbial as in Od. 1. 175, ἠὲ νέον μεθέπεις. The former (1) is preferable. For the coordination of adjective and adverb, cp. Ant. 808-810, νέατον δὲ φέγγος λεύσσουσαν ἀελίου κοὔποτ᾽ αὖθις: Τr. 835, ἀέλιον ἕτερον ἢ τανῦν. And, for περιτελλομέναις ώραις, Od. 2. 107. ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε τέτρατον ἦλθεν ἔτος καὶ ἐπήλυθον ὧραι: Ar. Av. 697, ἐξ οὐ περιτελλομέναις ώραις ἔβλαστεν ἔρως ὁ ποθεινός. For the dative, cp. Phil. 721, πλήθει πολλῶν μηνῶν. Essay on Language § 11. p. 18.
