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.
167.
mvp-comment-115-1
γάρ Either (1) connects the sentence with the preceding, ὦ πόποι being merely interposed (cp. 1. 1198, ὦ Ζεῦ, κατὰ μὲν φίσας, κ.τ.λ.); or (2) is explanatory of the interjection. The former is more likely, because less abrupt.
170.
mvp-comment-116-1
νοσεῖ .. στόλος
My people is a disordered host. The state of the city is compared to that of a
war-worn and beggared host, and the figure is continued into the next clause. There is not found amongst us a thought wherewith to defend ourselves as with a sword.' Cp. Od. 22. 25, οὐδέ πῃ ἀσπὶς ἔην οὐδ᾽ ἄλκιμον ἔγχος ἑλέσθαι.
171.
mvp-comment-117-1
ἀλέξεται is future. Cp. 1. 539, ἢ οὐκ ἀλεξοίμην μαθών.
173.
mvp-comment-118-1
κλυτᾶς χθονός
Of our glorious land. Cp. 1. 25. κλυτᾶς is an Homeric epithet, but is here used by Sophocles with special reference to Thebes, the fatherland: i. e. κλυτᾶς χθονός is not
glorious Earth, but the expression, although vague, is immediately applied to the Theban territory, which to the chorus is
all the world.
173.
mvp-comment-118-2
οὔτε τόκοισιν
Nor in the hour of birth. Dative of the occasion. Essay on Language § 11. p. 17. Cp. 1. 26, and note.
174.
mvp-comment-119-1
ἰηίων καμάτων ἀνέχουσι γυναῖκες
Lift their heads again from the pangs and cries of their travail. For the use of ἀνέχω in this sense, cp. Hom. Od. 5. 320, οὐδ' ἐδυνάσθη | αἶψα μάλ᾿ ἀνσχεθέειν μεγάλου ὑπὸ κύματος ὑρμῆς.
175.
mvp-comment-120-1
ἄλλον .. ἄλλῳ
One close upon another. The omission of the preposition is assisted by προς in προσίλοις. Cp. Phil. 144-145, τόπον ἐσχατιαῖς προσιδεῖν : Τr. 842, μεγάλαν προσορῶσα δό- μοις βλαβάν. Ιn Εl. 235. μὴ τίκτειν σ' ἄταν ἄταις, the dative after the active verb has a similar notion of addition. Cp. Αj. 866, πόνος πόνῳ πόνον φέρει. In Eur. Phoen. 1496, φύνῳ φόνος Οἰδιπόδα δόμον ἄλεσε, the same idiom is carried to a further stage. The conception of death as the departure of the person, and not of the shade merely, is to be contrasted with the Homeric mode of thought, which however still lingers in the form of expression. Cp. ἅπερ εὔπτερον ὄρνιν with ψυχὴ δ᾽ ἐκ ῥεθέων πταμένη Ἀϊδόσδε βεβήκει (Il. 22. 362). See also Eur. Suppl. 1142, ποτανοὶ δ᾽ ἤνυσαν τὸν Ἅιδαν.
176.
mvp-comment-121-1
κρεῖσσον.. πυρός
With more than lightning speed. The words imply that the fury of the disease was not to be stayed.
177.
mvp-comment-122-1
ἀκτάν Cp. Ant. 812-813, Ἀχέροντος ἀκτάν: Il. 23. 73, οὐδέ μέ πω μίσγεσθαι ὑπὲρ ποταμοῖο ἐῶσιν.
177.
mvp-comment-122-2
ἑσπέρου θεοῦ] The language still reflects the Homeric imagery, in which the west is the approach to Hades, πρὸς ζόφον εἰς ἔρεβος τετραμμένον (Od. 12. 81). There is a natural association between the setting of life and the setting of the sun in the west. Cp Aesch. Ag. 1074, βίου δύντος αὐγαῖς: Plato, Legg. 6.770, ἡμεῖς δ᾽ ἐν δυσμαῖς τοῦ βίου.
177.
mvp-comment-122-3
θεοῦ θεου. ZZZ
178.
mvp-comment-123-1
ὧν .. ἀνάριθμος
In countless numbers of whom my city is perishing. For the use of the adjective, see Essay on Language § 2.3, 8, 2. p. 38; and for the gen. cp. Αj. 603. *μηνῶν ἀνήριθμος: Εl. 232, ἀνάριθμος ὧδε θρήνων. There is no ellipse of οὖσα; the adjective is a supplementary predicate, or in other words ἀνάριθμος closely follows ὄλλυται. The antecedent to ὧν, sc. τῶν θνησκόντων, must be supplied from the sense of the preceding words, as in Thuc. 6. 12, μὴ οἷον νεωτέρῳ μεταχειρίσαι· οὓς ἐγὼ νῦν ἐνθάδε ὁρῶν.
