Sophocles Oedipus at Colonus 1431

Richard Jebb (Translator)

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Oedipus at Colonus. Sophocles. Richard Jebb (Translator). Cambridge. 1889.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The Annenberg CPB/Project.

Current edition Experimental

Oedipus at Colonus (English) (Sophocles the plays and fragments, Part 2: The Oedipus at Colonus. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, Sir, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1889. (Modernized by Perseus.))

Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.

Editions (2)
Greek (Lewis Campbell, 1879) (OCR draft) Experimental (Greek (Lewis Campbell, 1879)) — 1431 focus
οὕτως ἄρʼ, ὦ παῖ, ταῦτά σοι δεδογμένα;
Greek (F. Storr, 1912) (OCR draft) Experimental (Greek (F. Storr, 1912)) — 1431 focus
Translations (4)
English (Lewis Campbell, 1906) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Lewis Campbell, 1906)) — 1431 focus
Art thou then so resolved, O brother mine?
German (J. J. C. Donner, 1875; OCR review) (OCR draft) Experimental (German (J. J. C. Donner, 1875; OCR review)) — 1431 focus
So steht, o Jüngling, dein Entschluß unwandelbar?
English (Thomas Francklin, 1758–1759) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Thomas Francklin, 1758–1759)) — 1431 focus
Art thou determined then, and wilt thou go ?
English (Robert Potter, 1788) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Robert Potter, 1788)) — 1431 focus
hearing his prophetic voice?

Commentary

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

mvp-comment-994-1 ἔσται μέλουσα 1

mvp-comment-995-1 κακὴ 2

mvp-comment-996-1 εὐοδοίη 3

mvp-comment-996-2 τάδ’ εἰ θανόντι μοι | τελεῖτ’ 4

mvp-comment-996-3 ἐπεὶ οὐ 5

mvp-comment-996-4 ἕξετον 6

mvp-comment-997-1 μέθεσθε 7

mvp-comment-998-1 The change of persons within the verse (

ἀντιλαβή
) marks excitement: cp. 652, 820, 1169.

mvp-comment-998-2 καὶ τίς 8

mvp-comment-998-3 προῦπτον 9

mvp-comment-999-1 μὴ σύ γ’ 10

mvp-comment-999-2 ἃ μὴ δεῖ 13

mvp-comment-1000-1 εἰ … στερηθῶ 14

mvp-comment-1000-2 ταῦτα δ’ 15

mvp-comment-1000-3 ταῦτα 16 φῦναι 17

mvp-comment-1000-4 ἐν τῷ δ. 18

mvp-comment-1000-5 φῦναι 19

mvp-comment-1000-6 The MS. σφῷν is better than σφὼ , to which some edd., following Elmsley, have needlessly changed it.

" For you two my prayer is—that ye ne'er meet with ills."
The contrast between his own case and theirs is thus more impressively marked than it would be by the acc. (
"my prayer is that you two ne'er meet with ills"
). For the dat. of the person in whose interest the prayer is made, cp. O. T. 269 , Ph. 1019 , Ai. 392 . For

mvp-comment-1000-7 ἀρῶμαι 20

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

1432. mvp-comment-762-1 Polynices contrasts the bitter business before him with what he hopes will be the lot of Antigone and Ismene.

1433-1434. mvp-comment-763-1 Rendered ill-starred and disastrous by this my father and his avenging spirit. For πρός, cp. Ant. 51, πρὸς αὐτοφώρων ἀμπλακημάτων. Polynices here, and supra 1299, speaks in the Homeric manner of his father's Erinyes, without any reference to the Erinyes at whose sacred place he is standing. Cp. supr. 1391 and note.

1435. mvp-comment-764-1 σφῷν δ᾽ εὐοδοίη Ζεύς ‘But for you may Zeus prepare a prosperous way.' Cp. Hdt. 6. 73, ὡς τῷ Κλεομένεϊ εὐωδώθη τὸ ἐς τὸν Δημάρητον πρήγμα, which shows that εὐοδόω is properly followed by the dative of the person as well as the accusative of the thing. In the present case an accusative (e.g. τὸν βίον, τὰ πράγματα) is easily supplied. Hence the correction σφώ is unnecessary, and the conjecture εὖ διδοίη, besides being unnecessary, destroys a beautiful image, and the connection with 1432.

1436. mvp-comment-765-1 θανόντ' To avoid the unusual elision of of the dative, this has been explained as an accusative, by a change of construction; cp. El. 479, ὕπεστί μοι θράσος ἁδυπνόων κλύουσαν ἀρτίως ὀνειράτων: Aesch. Pers. 913-914, λέλυται γὰρ ἐμοὶ γυίων ῥώμη | τήνδ᾽ ἡλικίαν ἐσιδόντ᾽ ἀστῶν: Choeph. 410, πέπαλται δ᾽ αὐτέ μοι φίλον κέαρ τόνδε κλύουσαν οἶκτον. But it should probably be admitted that here and in Trach. 677, ἀργῆτ' οἰὸς εὐείρῳ πόκῳ, there is an elision of the 1, as well as in Eur. Alc. 1118. Γοργόν᾽ ὡς καρατόμῳ, where however the conj. карато- μῶν in not improbable, and in any case the licence is taken with a proper name. After θανόντι some general word like ὑπουργεῖν is to be supplied from τάδ' εἰ τελεῖτε.

1436. mvp-comment-765-2 ἐπεὶ οὔ μοι ζῶντί γ'] Not τάδε τελεῖν, but some more general notion of paying the tribute of affection, is to be supplied. The inexactness of this is similar to that noticed in 1410. Elmsley's conjecture, οὐ μὴ ζῶντά γ᾽ αὖθις ἕξετον is therefore unnecessary, as 1440. Cp. Pind. Nem. 9. 21, speaking of the same expedition, φαινομέναν δ' ἄρ᾽ ἐς ἄταν σπεῦδεν ὅμιλος ἱκέσθαι (because of the adverse omens at their setting forth): Aesch. Prom. 1073-1074, 5, μηδέποτ' εἴπηθ᾽ | ὡς Ζεὺς ὑμᾶς εἰς ἀπρόοπτον | πῆμ᾽ εἰσέβαλεν.

1443. mvp-comment-766-1 εἴ σου στερηθῶ For the subjunctive with el, see Essay on L § 27. p. 44. Here the supposition is more definite than with ei and the optative, and more general than with ἐάν and the subjunctive, and the form of expression is therefore more suited to the expression of intense feeling.

1443. mvp-comment-766-2 ταῦτα .. χἀτέρᾳ But this is in the power of God, and may come to pass either in this way, or in some other. It rests with the Divinity that shapes our ends.Cp. Shak. Hamlet, 5. 2, Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a special providence in the falling of a sparrow:' Hom. Il. 12. 235-243.

1444. mvp-comment-767-1 For φῦναι, cp. Αj. 646-647, ἅπανθ' ὁ .. χρόνος | φύει τ' ἄδηλα καὶ φανέντα κρύπτεται.

1444-1445. mvp-comment-768-1 For you I pray to heaven that ye may never encounter woe.' The conjectures κακόν (Triclinius), and σφώ (Scaliger and Elmsley), are both unnecessary. Of the two, that of Triclinius is the more probable, = ' I pray that evil may never cross your path.' For κακόν, cp. Phil. 446.