Sophocles Electra 1

mvp-comment-1-1 ὧν ¹ πρόθυμος ἦσθ’ ²

mvp-comment-2-1 Coming from Phocis, the travellers have reached Mycenae by the road from Corinth, and are now standing on the high ground of the Mycenaean citadel, in front of the palace.

mvp-comment-2-2 The old man, looking southward, points out the chief features of the landscape. (1) The Argive plain, which lies spread out before them to the south and west. (2) The agora and temple of Apollo Lyceios in the city of Argos, distant about six miles to the south. This temple was the most conspicuous object in the town ( Paus. 2. 19. 3 ); and it may be supposed that a person standing at Mycenae could see the building, or part of it. (3) The Heraeum, correctly described as being on the speaker's left hand. Its site was S. E. of Mycenae, at a distance of somewhat less than two miles.

mvp-comment-2-3 The poet's aim was merely to group these famous places in one view. Neither he nor his Athenian hearers would care whether the topography was minutely accurate. W. G. Clark, in his Peloponnesus (p. 72), illustrates this presumable indifference by a stage direction in Victor Hugo's Marie Tudor:—‘Palais de Richmond: dans le fond à gauche l'Église de Westminster, à droite la Tour de Londres.’ But, in fact, there is only one error of detail. The Heraeum was not visible from Mycenae (v. 8, n.).

mvp-comment-2-4 Ἄργος ³

mvp-comment-2-5 παλαιὸν ⁴

mvp-comment-3-1 τῆς οἰστροπλ … Ἰνάχου κόρης ⁵

mvp-comment-3-2 His daughter Io, the first priestess of Hera, was loved by Zeus, and changed by the jealous goddess into a cow. The hundred-eyed Argus, charged by Hera to watch her, bound her to an olive-tree in the temenos of the Heraeum ( Apollod. 2. 1. 3 ). Hermes slew Argus; and Hera then sent the gad-fly which drove Io forth from Argolis on her wanderings. Cp. Aesch. P. V. 681

| . Io, the horned wanderer, was originally, like Hera herself, a moon-goddess.

mvp-comment-3-3 ἄλσος ⁶

mvp-comment-4-1 The ἀγορὰ Λύκειος ⁷

mvp-comment-4-2 Λύκειος ⁸ λυκοκτόνος ⁹

mvp-comment-5-1 Ἥρας … ναός ¹⁰

mvp-comment-5-2 This oldest and greatest of Argive shrines is fitly mentioned here; for within its walls Agamemnon was said to have taken the oaths of the chiefs whom he led to Troy (Dictys Cretensis, 1. 15. 6). Here, too, the Spartan Cleomenes received the omen which caused him to retire from Argolis ( c. 496 B.C.: Her. 6. 81 ).

mvp-comment-5-3 The ancient temple was burnt down in 423 B.C. ( Thuc. 4. 133 ). A new Heraeum was built on a lower terrace of the same hill; and could boast among its treasures a chryselephantine statue of Hera by Polycleitus ( Paus. 2. 17. 4 ). The site of this later Heraeum has recently been excavated by members of the American School at Athens (1892).

mvp-comment-6-1 φάσκειν ¹¹

mvp-comment-6-2 Μυκήνας ¹²

mvp-comment-6-3 The site of Mycenae is in a deep recess of the Argive plain, at its northern end,—

( Od. 3. 263 ). Between two peaks of Mount Euboea, a narrow glen runs out towards the plain, terminating in a rocky platform. This acropolis, naturally impregnable on three sides, was surrounded by Cyclopean walls, from 13 to 35 feet high, with an average thickness of 16 feet. Mycenae was to the plain of Argos much what Deceleia was to the plain of Athens,—a stronghold withdrawn from observation, but commanding the country below it.

mvp-comment-6-4 τὰς πολυχρύσους ¹³

mvp-comment-6-5 Thucydides (1. 9) notices the old tradition that Pelops had gained his power by means of the wealth (

) which he had brought from Asia to a poor country. Helbig ( Das hom. Epos aus den Denkm. erläutert, p. 50) thinks it certain that the precious metals became scarcer in the Peloponnesus after the Dorian conquest. When the Spartans, in the first half of the sixth century, required gold for a statue of Apollo, they had to procure it from Sardis ( Her. 1. 69 ).

mvp-comment-7-1 πολύφθορον ¹⁴

mvp-comment-8-1 πατρὸς ἐκ φόνων ¹⁵

mvp-comment-8-2 ἐκ ¹⁶

mvp-comment-9-1 ὁμαίμου ¹⁷ κασιγνήτης ¹⁸

mvp-comment-10-1 ἤνεγκα ¹⁹

mvp-comment-10-2 κἀξεθρεψάμην ²⁰

mvp-comment-10-3 τοσόνδ’ ἐς ἥβης ²¹

mvp-comment-11-1 The vocative σὺ ²² βουλεύετον ²³

mvp-comment-12-1 ἡμὶν ²⁴

mvp-comment-12-2 ἑῷα ²⁵

mvp-comment-12-3 κινεῖ … σαφῆ ²⁶

mvp-comment-13-1 ἄστρων εὐφρόνη ²⁷

mvp-comment-13-2 ἐκλέλοιπεν ²⁸

mvp-comment-14-1 ἐξοδοιπορεῖν ²⁹

mvp-comment-15-1 ξυνάπτετον ³⁰ λόγοισιν ³¹

mvp-comment-15-2 ὡς ἐνταῦθ’ ³²

mvp-comment-15-3 (1) ἐμὲν ³³

mvp-comment-15-4 (2) Is, then, ἐνταῦθ’ ³⁴

mvp-comment-15-5 (3) Supposing that

is genuine —as seems most likely—no account of the passage is more probable than that the poet wrote | , and that dropped out before precisely as in Ph. 23 the words have shrunk to in L. Then, Ph. v. 22 being defective, was shifted to it from the end of v. 21 (cp. O. T. 1264 f., cr. n.); and the gap after was filled with ,—a form which the later grammarians, at least, accepted, as will be seen in the Appendix.

mvp-comment-15-6 ἔργων ἀκμή ³⁵

1. mvp-comment-1-1 στρατήγησαντος] γρ. τυραννήσαντος C2.

3. mvp-comment-2-1 λεύσσειν] λεύσειν ΑΓΕΙ, λεύσσειν Ας.

3. mvp-comment-2-2 ὧν πρόθυμος ἦσθ᾽ ἀεί] Cp. Od. 1. 40, 1, ἐκ γὰρ᾿ Ορέσταο τίσις ἔσσεται... ὁππότ᾽ ἂν ἡβήσῃ τε καὶ ἧς ἱμείρεται αἴης.

4. mvp-comment-3-1 οὑπόθεις] οὗ retouched L. οὗ ἐπόθεις Α.

7. mvp-comment-4-1 οὐξ] δύξ Α.

7. mvp-comment-4-2 ἀγορὰ Λύκειος] The temple of Apollo in the agora seems to have been the most sacred place in Argos. See Thuc. 5. 47, where it is enacted that the terms of the treaty shall be inscribed by the Argives ἐν στήλῃ λιθίνῃ . . ἐν ἀγορᾷ ἐν τοῦ ᾿Απόλλωνος τῷ ἱερῷ.

1-2. mvp-comment-5-1 The old man who has taken charge of Orestes since the time of his father's murder ( infr. 11 foll., cp. 1348 foll.) now does for him what Achilles hoped that Patroclus would have done for Neoptolemus, Il. 19. 328-333, πρὶν μὲν γάρ μοι θυμὸς ἐνὶ στήθεσσιν ἐώλπειν | οἷον ἐμὲ φθίσεσθαι ἀπ᾿ ᾿Αργεος ἱπποβότοιο | αὐτοῦ ἐνὶ Τροίῃ, σὲ δε τε Φθίηνδε νέεσθαι, | ὡς ἄν μοι τὸν παῖδα θοῇ ἐνὶ νηὶ μελαίνῃ | Σκυρόθεν ἐξαγάγοις, καί οἱ δείξειας ἕκαστα, | κτῆσιν ἐμὴν δμῶάς τε καὶ ὑψερεφὲς μέγα δῶμα. Cp. also Od. 13. 344 foll. where Athena points out the features of Ithaca to Odysseus. ὦ τοῦ.. παῖ] The heroic achievements of his father afford the chief incentive to the mind of Orestes. Cp. infr. 694, 5, ὄνομα δ᾽ Ορέστης, τοῦ τὸ κλεινὸν Ἑλλάδος | ᾿Αγαμέμνονος στράτευμ᾽ ἀγείραντός ποτε.

4-7. mvp-comment-6-1 The description passes from what is general and remote to what is nearest to the eye. 'Argos' here includes the plain of Argos (as even in Thuc. 6. 105, ἐς τὸ ᾿Αργος ἐσέβαλον). Mycenae is the seat of government, and the site of the future city of Argos, supposed at this time to be still inhabited village-wise,' is marked by the ἀγορὰ Λύκειος. It is not necessary to suppose that all the objects mentioned here could really be taken into one view. But the site of Mycenae commands the whole plain. The Heraeum, according to Pausanias, would really be on the left hand of those approaching Mycenae by way of Corinth. See Mr. Paley's note. Apollo Lyceius is here the wolf-slayer, i. e. the protector of the flock, perhaps with reference to Aegisthus, who is called a wolf in Aesch. Ag. 1259. Aeschylus (S. c. T. 145) connects Λύκειος with λύκος in a different way (Λύκει' ἄναξ, Λύκειος γενοῦ στρατῷ δαΐῳ).

5. mvp-comment-7-1 ἄλσος] 'The sacred ground,' i. e. the place consecrated by her first wanderings when her father sent her ἄφετον ἀλᾶσθαι (Aesch. Prom. 666). Cp. Aesch. Suppl. 50, ἐν ποιονόμοις ματρὸς ἀρχαίας τόποις, Ant. 845, Θήβας εὐαρμάτου ἄλσος.

8. mvp-comment-8-1 οἱ δ' ἱκάνομεν] The antecedent to the relative of is lost in the expansion of the sentence in l. 9.

10. mvp-comment-9-1 δῶμα.. τόδε] These words are coordinate with Μυκήνας and governed by ὁρᾶν, as is shown by the conjunction τε.

11. mvp-comment-10-1 πατρὸς ἐκ φόνων] Either (1) 'Immediately after thy father's murder,' cp. Thuc. 5. 20, ἐκ Διονυσίων, or (2) Out of the way of thy father's murder,' i.e. Away from the dangers consequent on it. For the latter (2), cp. Pind. Pyth. 11. 25 foll., τὸν δὴ φονευομένου πατρὸς ᾿Αρσινόα Κλυταιμνήστρας | χειρῶν ὕπο κρατερᾶν | ἐκ δόλου τροφὸς ἄνελε δυσπενθέος. In either case the plural, for which cp. O. C. 962, ὅστις φόνους μοι, κ.τ.λ., includes the attendant circumstances. φόνων is better than φονῶν (gen. plur. of φονή), which would suggest only the scene of blood.

12. mvp-comment-11-1 σῆς ὁμαίμου καὶ κασιγνήτης] ‘Thine own sister.' Cp. infr. 325, 6, τὴν σὴν ὅμαιμον, ἐκ πατρὸς ταὐτοῦ φύσιν, | Χρυσόθεμιν, ἔκ τε μητρός. The Electra, like the Antigone, lays great stress on the force of fraternal affection; and a peculiar tenderness seems to have been attached to the word κασίγνητος. Cp. infr. 1164, Ant. 915, ὦ κασίγνητον κάρα.

14. mvp-comment-12-1 τοσόνδ᾽ ἐς ήβης] 'To this strength of youthful manhood that thou showest.' So Phoenix says to Achilles, ΙΙ. 9. 485, καί σε τοσοῦτον ἔθηκα, θεοῖς ἐπιείκελ᾽ ᾿Αχιλλεῦ. For the position of ἐς, cp. O. C. 126, 7, ἀστιβὲς ἄλσος ἐς | τᾶνδ᾽ ἀμαιμακετᾶν κορᾶν. πατρί] For the dative, see E. on L. § 13. р. 19 с.

16. mvp-comment-13-1 Pylades, who is a silent person in the Electra, is only mentioned once again, infr. 1373. Orestes has no scruples, as in the Choephori, and therefore needs not the advice but only the active assistance of his friend. Pylades is present in every scene in which Orestes appears.

17-18. mvp-comment-14-1 ὡς ἡμὶν.. σαφῆ] 'Since we have already the sunshine in full brilliance awakening there unmistakably into song the early voice of birds.' λαμπρόν and σαφή both form part of the predication. σαφή, i. e. not a doubtful twitter here and there, but the unanimous warbling which tells that the morning is really come: - Milton's 'charm of earliest birds,' not Tennyson's 'earliest pipe of half-awakened birds.'

19. mvp-comment-15-1 (1) And dark Night is vanished with her stars,' ἄστρων εὐφρόνη = νὺξ ἀστερόεσσα. E. on L. § 9. p. 12, 1 a. Or (2), 'And dark Night, the region of the stars, has disappeared - Night being regarded as a world possessed by the stars. Others join άστρων ἐκλέλοιπε, 'Night has lost her stars':-i.e. The night is yet dark but the stars are waning in the coming light.' (Paley.) But this can hardly be reconciled with ll. 16, 17, and rather presupposes a Northern twilight.

20. mvp-comment-16-1 ἐξοδοιπορεῖν στέγης] Come out of doors.' ἐξοδοιπορεῖν, although a special word, has here only the general meaning of ἐξέρχεσθαι. See E. on L. § 52. p. 97.

21. mvp-comment-17-1 ξυνάπτετον λόγοισιν] ‘Join ye in counsel.' For this use of the dative with a transitive verb, cp. infr. 710, κλήροις ἔπηλαν, and note; and see Riddell's Digest of Idioms, in his edition of the Apology of Plato. For a similar idiom in English, cp. Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1. 2. 112: 'And with no less nobility of love Than that which dearest father bears his son, Do I impart toward you.' ὡς ἐνταῦθ᾽ *ἴμεν] 'Since we are thereabouts,' lit. 'moving there,'-i. е. ἐνταῦθά ἐσμεν τῆς ὁδοῦ: we are arrived at such a point in our enterprise. ἐμέν, for ἐσμέν, which occurs only once in Callimachus, can hardly be retained, and no valid objection has been made to Dawes' emendation, as above explained.