Sophocles Electra 180

ed. Lewis Campbell

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Current edition Experimental

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

Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.

Editions (1)
Greek (F. Storr, 1912) (OCR draft) Experimental (Greek (F. Storr, 1912)) — 121-250 focus
Translations (5)
English (Lewis Campbell, 1906) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Lewis Campbell, 1906)) — 180 focus
EL
Take heart. That never will be thine from me.
1030
German (J. J. C. Donner, 1875; OCR review) (OCR draft) Experimental (German (J. J. C. Donner, 1875; OCR review)) — 174 focus
Nur muthig, o Kind, nur muthig!
Noch lebt im Himmel Zeus,
Der große, der Alles sieht und ordnet:
170
Dem Gott befiehl deines Grolles Schmerzen,
Nicht der Gehaßten vergessend und nicht zu sehr sie befeindend.
Allwaltend herrscht der Zeitgott,
Und weder auf Krisa's 1
Stierweiden säumt ewig,
175
Nimmer zu kehren, der Sohn Agamemnons,
Noch Hades, der am Acheron gebietet.
English (Thomas Francklin, 1758–1759) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Thomas Francklin, 1758–1759)) — 180 focus
Orestes
1098cont2
Go then, and say from Phocis are arrived
Who beg admittance to the king.
Eleo. Alas !
And com'st thou then to prove the dreadful tale
Already told ?
English (Robert Potter, 1788) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Robert Potter, 1788)) — 180 focus
Orestes
Whoe'er she be, entrust it to her hands;
For not in hatred makes she this request,
But as a friend, or one by blood allied.
1125
English (Sir Richard Jebb, 1904) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Sir Richard Jebb, 1904)) — 121-250 focus

Commentary

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

mvp-comment-105-1 οὔτε γὰρ 1

mvp-comment-105-2 Κρῖσαν 2

mvp-comment-105-3 Crisa stood about two miles W.S.W. of Delphi, on a spur of Parnassus, at the lower outlet of the gorge through which the river Pleistus issues into the plain. The Iliad mentions ‘sacred Crisa’ (

ζαθέην
, 2. 520). But the Homeric Hymn to the Pythian Apollo is the best witness to its ancient power. There, just as here, the name
Κρῖσα
includes the land which stretches southward from the town to its harbour on the ‘wide gulf’ (vv. 253— 261). We need not, then, read
Κρίσᾳ
or
Κρίσας
. Crisa was the earliest seat of trade on the western sea; Delphi, when first founded, was merely a sanctuary in its territory. Pindar recalls the old prominence of its name when he describes a Pythian victory as won
Κρισαίαις ἐνὶ πτυχαῖς
( P. 6. 18).

mvp-comment-105-4 Cirrha, a town of much later date, was the port of Crisa on the gulf. About 585 B.C., the Delphians, aided by Cleisthenes of Sicyon and his allies, succeeded, after a long struggle, in humbling Crisa and destroying Cirrha. The Crisaean plain was then devoted to Apollo, whose domain was thus extended from his temple to the coast. When Sophocles wrote, that ground was still a

βούνομος ἀκτή
, inviolable by plough or spade. It was not till the middle of the next century that the alleged encroachments of Amphissa on the
ἱερὰ χώρα
gave a pretext for war to the Amphictyons (355 B.C.).

mvp-comment-105-5 Ulrichs ( Reisen in Griechenland) was the first to place the relations of Crisa and Cirrha in a clear light. Strabo correctly describes the site of Cirrha, but erroneously places Crisa to the east of it (9. p. 418).

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

86-250. mvp-comment-59-1 In this long lament there are two principal movements, each of which admits of subdivision. First, the monody of Electra, consisting of two anapaestic systems, of which one (ll. 86-102) is retrospective, and the other (ll. 103-120) is prospective. Secondly, there is the commatic parodos :-the chorus on their entrance address Electra with lyric strains, to which she responds also in lyric measures. This movement consists of three strophes and antistrophes. In στρ. and ἀντ. α' (ll. 121-152), the chorus gently, but gloomily, expostulate with Electra, who is inconsolable. In στρ. and ἀντ. β΄ (ll. 153-192), they vainly try to cheer her. In στρ. and ἀντ. γ΄ (ll. 193- 232), they remind her of her past and present troubles, and exhort her not to add to them. All this is followed by a ῥῆσις of Electra (ll. 254-309) in reply to the coryphaeus, who, at l. 324, again speaks to call attention to Chrysothemis' approach.

86-250. mvp-comment-59-2 Metres. The anapaests in 86-120, although for the most part regular are in so far of the freer kind which belong to laments as to admit the spondaic paroemiacs near the commencement of each system in ll. 88, 9, 105, 6, which, with the opening half line, have a strange effect of heaviness and of struggle and pain. The two systems so nearly correspond, both in this respect and in the number of the lines, that one is tempted to believe that the half line that would complete the antistrophic effect has been lost somewhere between 113 and 117. But anapaestic systems are seldom exactly antistrophic, and the pause after the (dactylic) invocation in l. 115 may be intentional.

180-181. mvp-comment-107-1 τὰν Κρῖσαν.. ἀκτάν] · Who dwells in Crisa, that pastoral shore-ward land. So Hermann. Others would read Κρίσας, οι Κρίσᾳ. 'Who dwells amid the shoreward-pastures of Crisa.'