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.
151-152.
mvp-comment-93-1
Cp. Ant. 823-32. The prehistoric colossal figure cut out of the rock on a northward crag of Mount Sipylus, so as to be visible from the plain below Sardes, is supposed by Prof. Sayce, who has examined it, to have originally represented some elemental deity, possibly Cybele, but uncertain whether male or female. It was from an early period identified by the Greek settlers with the Niobe of Theban and Argive legend. The limestone drippings from the over-hanging rock have produced an incrustation about face, chest, and lap (the image is in a sitting posture)-that, quite apart from poetical description, is wonderfully suggestive of a flood of tears. This πετραία βλάστα (Ant. 827) must have been apparent before the time of Sophocles. It is less distinctly suggested by the words in Homer, Il. 24. 617, θεῶν ἐκ κήδεα πέσσει. Prof. Sayce adds that the θεάων · εὐναὶ νυμφάων of Il. 1. c. (in reality prehistoric tombs) are still distinctly recognisable in the crags on either side: also that just below the Niobe was a large lake, which was drained some forty years ago, when the columns of a Greek temple were found at the bottom. This, Mr. Sayce thinks, must have been the site of the city of Sipylus, which was overthrown by an earthquake in the time of Tiberius, and the ruins covered by the waters of a lake. All that now remains of the lake is a small pool at the foot of the crag on which the figure of Niobe is carved, along with a stream. Both stream and pool are fed by a number of springs, some of which are warm and saline; and the pool is called by the modern Greeks the tears of Niobe.'
153-157.
mvp-comment-94-1
Thou art not all alone unhappy that thou shouldest thus grieve more than those within, who are of the same lineage and of kindred blood with thee, and shouldst not live the same bright life which they, Chrysothemis and Iphianassa, live.' The indefinite pronoun ὅ, τι is occasioned by the negative preceding. In πρὸς ὅ τι, πρός corresponds to a long syllable, Ζεύς, in the antistrophe. Perhaps, πρός γ᾽ ὅ, τι? εἰ περισσά] Sc. ἐν τῷ λυπεῖσθαι. In distinguishing between Iphigeneia and Iphianassa, Sophocles is said to have followed the Cypria. 'Sophocles here seems to recognize the digamma in Fιφιάνασσα.' Paley.
159-160.
mvp-comment-95-1
κρυπτᾷ τ᾿ ἀχέων ἐν ἤβα ὄλβιος] And he whose fortunate youth is hidden out of the way of sorrow.' For the genitive, see Essay on L. § 8. p. 11, 2. Hermann says, Audacior quidem haec structura, sed amat talia Sophocles. Ejusdem modi est, quod statim dicit, Διὸς βήματι pro πομπῇ Διός.' Orestes is 'fortunate,' because his tranquil youth gives promise of final good fortune. Cp. Aesch. Cho. 695, 6, Ορέστης, ἦν γὰρ εὐβόλως ἔχων, | ἔξω κομίζων ὀλεθρίου πηλοῦ πόδα. Others take ἀχέων as a participle. But κρυπτᾷ without the genitive is poor, and the notion of Orestes sorrowing is out of place. The Chorus could not know of it, and if they did they would have suppressed the mention of it as inauspicious.
160-163.
mvp-comment-96-1
'Orestes, whom the land of this people, with her glory unimpaired, shall receive as the successor of his father's fame, sped hither by the kind will of Zeus.'
162.
mvp-comment-97-1
Διὸς εὔφρονι βήματι] ί.ε. Διὸς εὐφρόνως βήσαντος αὐτόν. The verbal has a causative meaning. See Essay on L. § 53 b. p. 98; or else a causal meaning is contained in the genitive. Ibid. § 9. p. 12 a. There is a correlation between κλεινά and εὐπατρίδαν, both being proleptic and denoting the consequence of the return of Orestes.
164-165.
mvp-comment-98-1
The mention of her brother gives a new direction to Electra's complaint. Cp.
supr. 119, 20.
165.
mvp-comment-99-1
Cp. Ant. 815, 917-8.
166-167.
mvp-comment-100-1
τὸν . . πόνων] Oppressed with my troublous destiny that has no good issue.' The article as in O. T. 1153, τὸν γέροντά μ' αἰκίσῃ, -equivalent to a relative clause, ὅς ἐστιν ἀνήνυτος, ἀνήνυτον, Accomplishing nothing,' i. e. Suffered in vain. Cp. O. C. 1565, 6, πολλῶν γὰρ ἂν καὶ μάταν | πημάτων ἱκνουμένων, κ.τ.λ., and note.
169.
mvp-comment-101-1
ὧν τ᾽ ἔπαθ', ὧν τ᾽ ἐδάη] 'His wrongs, and the lesson he has been taught,' viz. by the Paedagogus (
supr. 3. 13. 14) and by the messages from Electra.
169-170.
mvp-comment-102-1
(1) For what missive that I send doth not return (ἔρχεται) discomfited? Others take the words to mean, (2) What message' (from Orestes) 'comes to me, whose promise does not fail?'
171-172.
mvp-comment-103-1
i e. in reply to my messages I always hear of his longing to come but never of his coming.
174.
mvp-comment-104-1
This line (see v. rr.) seems to have been interpolated so as to supplement the locative dative and the ellipse of ἐστίν. μέγας is the predicate. 'Zeus is still great in heaven.'
176-177.
mvp-comment-105-1
'Committing unto him thine exceeding indignation, be neither overburdened with enmity against thy foes, nor yet forget them;' i.e. Let the thought that Zeus will some day avenge thee serve to calm and moderate thy rage. The structure is paratactic (Essay on L. § 36. p. 68), for Without forgetting your enemies. be moderate in assailing them, and trust in the Divine vengeance.'
179.
mvp-comment-106-1
For Time is a god of easiness,' i.e. a god who makes things easy or possible. The meaning is, not that Time assuages sorrow, but that what at one time seems impossible may prove easily possible in the course of years. Cp. Plat. Rep. 6. 502 B, ὡς μὲν γὰρ χαλεπὸν σωθῆναι, καὶ ἡμεῖς ξυγχωροῦμεν, ὡς δὲ ἐν παντὶ τῷ χρόνῳ . . οὐδ᾽ ἂν εἶς σωθείη, ἔσθ' ὅστις ἀμφισβητήσει; Shak. Cor. 5. 3.61, Murdering impossibility, to make What cannot be slight work. For the personification, cp. Phil. 837, καιρὸς.. πάντων γνώμαν ἴσχων:
supr. 76: and esp. Eur. Ion, 337, ἀργὸς ἡ θεός, sc. αἰδώς.
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.'
182.
mvp-comment-108-1
He, Agamemnon's heir.. will yet turn unto his own, and so will he that reigns, a God, by Acheron.' ἀπερίτροπος is to be taken in a different sense with παῖς ᾿Αγαμεμνονίδας and with what follows. Or, what comes to the same thing, another verb must be supplied in thought with the second clause. Orestes shall return: Agamemnon shall regard his house and offspring. The derivation from περιτρέπω suggests the idea of a coming revolution, (1) in the action of Orestes, (2) in the awakening from apparent slumber and forgetfulness of the gods below, or of the spirit of Agamemnon.
184.
mvp-comment-109-1
Nor he who ruleth as a god beside the ghostly river.' Cp.
supr. 110. (1) The subject of this line has commonly been supposed to be Hades. Another interpretation has occurred independently to Mr. Blaydes, Prof. Paley, and the present editor, viz. (2) that θεὸς may refer to Agamemnon as a δαίμων. In support of this, cp.
supr. 150 Νιόβα, σὲ δ' ἔγωγε νέμω θεόν,
infr. 839-41 (of Amphiaraus), νῦν ὑπὸ γαίας . . ἀνάσσει, and note; and the following places of the Choephori:-157, σέβας, ὦ δέσποτ᾽: 356, 7, κατὰ χθονὸς ἐμπρέπων | σεμνότιμος ἀνάκτωρ : 475-8, θεῶν τῶν κατὰ γᾶς ὅδ᾽ ὕμνος. ΧΟ. ἀλλὰ κλύοντες, μάκαρες χθόνιοι, | τήσδε κατευχῆς πέμπετ᾿ ἀρωγὴν | παισὶν προφρόνως ἐπὶ νίκῃ : also Persae, 157, θεοῦ μὲν εὐνάτειρα Περσῶν, θεοῦ δὲ καὶ μήτηρ ἔφυς: 644, Περσᾶν Σουσιγενή θεόν, -although the analogy in these two instances is weakened by the words being put into the mouths of Persians; but see also Ag. 1548, ἐπ᾿ ἀνδρὶ θείῳ. Agamemnon, in Aesch. Ag. 925, says to Clytemnestra, λέγω κατ᾿ ἄνδρα, μὴ θεόν, σέβειν ἐμέ. But that is in his lifetime. And considering the honours that are paid at his tomb, and the tone in which he is spoken of by Electra throughout, the chorus may speak of him to her as θεός by an allowable hyperbole, especially if the word is taken, not with the article as subject of the sentence, but as supplementary predicate with ἀνάσσων. If this hypothesis is not admissible, the god intended is probably not Pluto, but (3) Hermes. Cp.
supr. 111.
185-186.
mvp-comment-110-1
But my life hath in great part already passed from me and left me hopeless and forlorn.' The life is separable from the person, cp. О. Т. 612, τὸν παρ᾽ αὑτῷ βίοτον. ἀνέλπιστος is proleptic, and in idea belongs, by hypallage, to ἐμέ, -' is passed without bringing me any hope.' The exact sense of ὁ πολύς is not to be pressed. The article is deictic, as in Aj. 1149, τὴν πολλὴν βοήν:
infr. 931.
186.
mvp-comment-111-1
οὐδ᾽ ἔτ᾿ ἀρκῶ] 'And I am no longer of any avail. Cp. Thuc. 2. 47. § 5, οὔτε γὰρ ἰατροὶ ἤρκουν.
187.
mvp-comment-112-1
ἄνευ τοκέων] Her father is dead, and her mother is worse than lost to her.
187.
mvp-comment-112-2
τοκέων occurs in one MS. (Vind. 281) and is adopted by Nauck. Cp.
supr. 164, ἄτεκνος. It may be thought more suited to Electra's age to feel the want of children than of parents. But her filial piety is the chief motive of the play.
189-190.
mvp-comment-113-1
ἁπερεί τις .. πατρός] ‘Like some despised sojourner, I tend the chambers of my father's house." Cp. Aesch. Cho. 84, δμωαὶ γυναῖκες, δωμάτων εὐθήμονες. For the absolute use of ἀνάξιος, cp. Phil. 439, ἀναξίου.. φωτός, 'A fellow of no esteem.' Hermann joined this word with what follows it ('I am undeservedly made to do menial service'), on the ground that an ἔποικος was ἀναξία as a matter of course. But, on the other hand, the addition of ἀναξία to the bare statement οἰκονομῶ θαλάμους πατρός, certainly weakens the expression, while the pleonasm in ἔποικος ἀναξία is rather emphatic, and is supported, as Ellendt pointed out, by the Homeric expression, ὡσεί τιν᾿ ἀτίμητον μετανάστην, ΙΙ. 9. 648, 16. 59.
190-191.
mvp-comment-114-1
ὧδε . . ἀεικεῖ . . στολᾷ] Electra is a woman speaking to women. Cp. Aesch. Pers. 846-8, (῎Ατοσσα.) μάλιστα δ᾽ ἥδε συμφορὰ δάκνει, | ἀτιμίαν γε παιδὸς ἀμφὶ σώματι | ἐσθημάτων κλύουσαν, ἥ νιν ἀμπέχει.
192.
mvp-comment-115-1
κεναῖς δ᾽ ἀμφίσταμαι τραπέζαις] And the table at which I stand is bare.' Hermann had conjectured ἀμφίσταμαι, which restores the metre, before he observed that it was quoted by Eustathius. Cp. Pind. Ol. 1. 80, τραπέζαισι .. ἀμφί, and, for the thought, Od. 20. 259, δίφρον ἀεικέλιον καταθεὶς ὀλίγην τε τράπεζαν :
infr. 361, 2, σοὶ δὲ πλουσία | τράπεζα κείσθω καὶ περιρρείτω βίος : Pind. Ο1. 2. 116, κεινὰν παρὰ δίαιταν.
194.
mvp-comment-116-1
οἰκτρὰ μὲν νόστοις αὐδά] 'Piteous were thy tones at the time of thy father's return.' In the Agamemnon of Aeschylus, the Watchman and the Chorus, i. e. the household and the people, express a vague misgiving, which is not sufficiently definite to enable them to warn Agamemnon. Sophocles here, as elsewhere, concentrates in an individual what in Aeschylus was general. It is quite consistent with his conception of the character of Electra, that, young as she then was, and totally unable, both from her inexperience (
infr. 1024) and her dependent position, of averting the harm which she may have vaguely foreseen, she had a sufficiently clear perception of the situation to be sad instead of joyful on the occasion of her father's coming home, and her sadness would be aggravated by her helplessness :-ἐπεὶ ἐχθίστη ὀδύνη πολλὰ φρονέοντα μηδενὸς κρατέειν. Her friends, of the same age with her, observed this, and in recollecting it, now understand the cause. ooi is easily supplied, both because the whole of Electra's last speech refers to herself, and because σοί occurs immediately afterwards as an ethical' dative. πατρός is no less easily supplied with νόστοις for a similar reason, both because the word occurs three lines above, and because it is implied in πατρώαις in the following line. νόστοις is dative of the occasion, E. on L. § 11. p. 18. For the sense, cp. Aesch. Pers. 935, 6, πρόσφθογγόν σοι νόστου τὰν | κακοφάτιδα βοάν, κακομέλετον ἰὰν | Μαριανδυνοῦ θρηνητῆρος | πέμψω πολύδακρυν ἰακχάν.
195-197.
mvp-comment-117-1
οἰκτρὰ δ'.. πλαγά] 'And piteous was thy crying where thy father lay, when thou hadst seen launched the death-stroke of the solid brazen axe.' If Sophocles (see Introduction) follows the form of the legend known to us from Homer, according to which Agamemnon was slain at a feast given in honour of his return, ἐν κοίταις probably means, (1) 'Where he lay in death.' And this is supported by 203. The poet might, no doubt, have so far modified the legend as to suppose Agamemnon after the feast to have been lured by Clytemnestra to his chamber and there slain. ἐν κοίταις might then belong to the relative clause (ὅτε ἐν κ.), and mean 'in his chamber. But this is inconsistent with 203 and 270. For (1) cp. Aesch. Ag. 1494, 1518, Eur. Med. 437, O. C. 1707. The bath, and the entangling garment, which are so prominent in the Agamemnon and Choephori, are in any case not thought of here. Some (including Wecklein) understand aὐδά in both clauses of the death-shriek of the king. σοι (Ε. on L. § 13. p. 19 f.) marks that Electra was the chief sufferer from all that happened. This explanation is rightly defended by Triclinius. Cp. Tennyson's Elaine, -Through her own side she felt the sharp lance go.' Hermann, understanding aὐδά of the people's voice, rejects σοι and reads οἱ instead. The hiatus, which he defends from Trach. 650, ὁ δὲ οἱ φίλα δάμαρ (cp.
supr. 157), is still exceptional, but a stronger objection to the removal of σοί is that the connection between this speech and Electra's is thus destroyed.
197-200.
mvp-comment-118-1
Sophocles seems here to have in his mind the passage of the Agamemnon where Clytemnestra impersonates the Alastor of Atreus, Aesch. Agam. 1500-1504: Craft pointed out the way, lust murdered him. Between them they produced a monstrous birth, whether he who did this thing were a god or one of mortal mould.' μορφάν the immediate agent and the act itself, as an embodied horror, seem to be confused. See E. on L. § 48. p. 92.
201-212.
mvp-comment-119-1
In
supr. 185-92, Electra refused consolation and drew attention to her hopeless misery. The women then call to mind how they had pitied her at the time of her father's death. This opens anew the flood-gates of her sorrow. Cp. Ant. 857 foll., ἔψαυσας ἀλγεινοτάτας ἐμοὶ μερίμνας, κ.τ.λ.
203.
mvp-comment-120-1
δείπνων] The feast which preceded the murder, according to Od. 4. 535. Agamemnon (see next note) is supposed to have been murdered at table : ὡσεί τε κατέκτανε βοῦν ἐπὶ φάτνῃ (Od. 1. c.).
205.
mvp-comment-121-1
For ἄχθη, the grammatical antecedent, the more definite θάνατοι is substituted and taken into the relative clause. The horror of that feast-I mean the death which followed it.'
206.
mvp-comment-122-1
διδύμαιν χειροῖν] ‘Effected by joint violence' of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra.
207-208.
mvp-comment-123-1
αΐ.. πρόδοτον] 'That wrought treason on my life and ruined me.'
209.
mvp-comment-124-1
ois refers to the antecedent implied in χειροῖν, viz. Aegisthus and Clytemnestra.
211.
mvp-comment-125-1
'And never may they have any good of their magnificence.' Cp.
infr. 267-281: Od. 17. 244, 5, τῷ κέ τοι ἀγλαΐας γε διασκεδάσειεν ἁπάσας, | τὰς νῦν ὑβρίζων φορέεις.
