Sophocles Philoctetes 1252

mvp-comment-665-1 Hermann's earlier view (see cr. n.) seems clearly the true one. Verse 1252, ἀλλ’ οὐδέ τοι ¹

mvp-comment-665-2 (1) To transpose vv. 1252 and 1253. This was Hermann's later theory. The objection to it is that N. then says,

. | ,—when the last three words lose the force which they now possess as a short and direct reply to a threat. Further, the verbal echoes in this dialogue ( in 1246, in 1247, in 1251) make it probable that σῇ χειρὶ ² μαχούμεθα ³

mvp-comment-665-3 (2) To remove v. 1252. Wunder proposes to delete it: Todt, to place it after v. 1290. Neither course is warrantable.

mvp-comment-665-4 (3) To assume that vv. 1251, 1252 were spoken consecutively by N., and that v. 1252 alludes to a menacing gesture of Odysseus. This is Wecklein's view. But it appears scarcely consonant with the character and practice of Greek Tragedy that words spoken by one person should require the dumb action of another to make them clear.

mvp-comment-665-5 If, then—as seems hardly doubtful—a verse has dropped out, its loss may have been due to the fact that it began with the same words as one of its next neighbours. In dialogue of this kind, anger is sometimes marked by derisive repetition: cp. O. T. 547

. | etc. (with n. there). Odysseus—who asserts a of his own (1247)—may have replied to N.'s words, ξὺν τῷ δικαίῳ τὸν σὸν οὐ ταρβῶ φόβον ⁴ ἀλλ’ ⁵ οὐδέ τοι ⁶

mvp-comment-665-6 The textual history of this passage is parallel with that of O. T. 622 —626, where the loss of one verse led to a similar confusion of persons in the MSS.

mvp-comment-665-7 ἀλλ’ οὐδέ τοι ⁷ οὐδέ ⁸ σῇ χειρὶ ⁹ τὸ δρᾶν ¹⁰ πείθομαι ¹¹

1251. mvp-comment-832-1 τὸν.. φόβον] ‘I fear not the intimidation with which you threaten me.' The possessive pronoun of the second person has a sarcastic force. Cp. Eur. Heracl. 284, τὸ σὸν γὰρ ᾿Αργος οὐ δέδοικ᾽ ἐγώ. For φόβον, Hermann conjectures στρατόν, Fröhlich, ψόφον.