1211.
mvp-comment-649-1
How foolish to desire long life, which but increases sorrow; while joys depart before the joyless hour of death. Far best for a man is never to be born; but after birth to go with all speed whence he came is next best by far. For when once thoughtless youth is come, [who escapes from grief?] what grief is not there? Blood, faction, strife, war, envy, and, last of ills, hateful, cold, helpless, friendless age, wherein all the greatest evils make their dwelling. So I have found, and so too this unfortunate is buffeted with a sea of troubles, some fresh calamity ever breaking over him, some borne on the sunset breeze, some at the rising of the sun, some coming through the noontide blaze, and some from the winds of night.
1211.
mvp-comment-649-2
The iambic and trochaic metres which are here mingled with the glyconic and logaoedic, are lighter and more resolved than in the previous ode. Strophe and Antistrophe.
The equivalence of the long and short syllables in the 2nd foot of l. 9 is remarkable, and indicates a retardation of the rhythm. Epode. * See note on 1248. The third line, both of strophe and antistrophe, introduces the reasons of the two lines which form the prelude.
1211.
mvp-comment-649-3
The coming of Polynices again mars the peacefulness of the scene. The old age of Oedipus appears to have sorrow upon sorrow. The theme of the chorus is not, as some have thought, the unprofitableness of riches, but the misery of old age and the folly of desiring long life.
1211-1212.
mvp-comment-650-1
He whose desire of life keeps not the mean, but craves the larger share, will be convicted in my judgment of cherishing folly.' ζώειν must be closely connected with the genitives, and is rather to be explained as an accusative of respect than as epexegetic infinitive.
1211-1212.
mvp-comment-650-2
τοῦ μετρίου παρείς (1)
Neglecting the moderate portion, a poetical construction for παρεὶς τὸ μέτριον. Cp. Plat. Legg. 3, 691 C, ἐάν τις μείζονα διδῷ τοῖς ἐλάττοσι δύναμιν παρεὶς τὸ μέτριον. The same construction occurs in Plat. Phaedr. 235 Ε, παρέντα τοῦ . . ἐγκωμιάζειν. Οι (2), supposing an ellipse of the inf., παρέντα τοῦ μετρίου χρήζειν,
Omitting to desire the mean. Thuc 8.41, ἀφεὶς τὸ ἐς τὴν Χίον ἔπλει ἐς τὴν Καῦνον. The article, as elsewhere with words of number and measurement, opposing what is more to what is less. The expression d πλέον μέρος occurs in Cleobulus quoted by Suidas; ἀβουλία τὸ πλέον μέρος ἐν βροτοίσιν. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Gr. Mel. xi.
1212.
mvp-comment-651-1
φυλάσσων An Homeric expression. Il. 16. 30, χόλος ὃν σὺ φυλάσσεις.
1212.
mvp-comment-651-2
ἐν ἐμοί i. e.
So far as the decision rests with me. Cp. O. T. 677, ἐν δὲ τοῖσδ᾽ ἴσος: supr. 422-423, ἐν δ᾽ ἐμοὶ τέλος | αὐτοῖν γένοιτο, κ.τ.λ.
1215-1216.
mvp-comment-652-1
ἐπεὶ ἐγγυτέρω These words have been explained in two ways: (1)
Since length of days brings many things (in life) nearer to grief. (Herm.) (2) Since length of days has in store much that is akin to sorrow.' (Elms.) A third way of taking κατέθεντο seems preferable. (3)
Since length of days contributes much that is akin to sorrow; i.e. κατέθεντο is a subjective middle, like παρέχομαι. Not =
Has laid up in store, which requires the perfect tense, but brings in,' sc. εἰς τὸν βίον. Cp Hesiod. Op. et D. 361. For the use of the adverb, cp. Ant. 933.4, θανάτου τοῦτ᾽ ἐγγυτάτω | τοῦπος ἀφῖκται, And see Essay on Language § 24. p. 40, 2.
1217.
mvp-comment-653-1
οὐκ ἂν ἴδοις ὅπου Cp. Aj. 103, ἢ τοὐπίτρικτον κίναδος ἐξήρου μ' ὅπου; and esp. Aesch. Eum. 301, τὸ χαίρειν μὴ μαθόνθ᾽ ὅπου φρενῶν.
1219-1220.
mvp-comment-654-1
ὅταν . . θέλοντος (1)
τὸ θέλον voluntatem significat... Genitivus vero non regitur a comparativo..sed ut τὸ πολὺ τοῦ θέλοντος, ita etiam τὸ πλέον dictum. Sensus est, si quis in id, quod in cupiendo nimium est, incidit: i. e. Si quis modum in cupiendo excedit.
(Herm.) See Essay on Language § 30. p. 51. But the absence of joys comes not from desiring too much, but from having too much of life. Hence (2) it is better to explain τὸ θέλον, sc. τοῦ βίου, as that portion (of life) which is accompanied with desire to live.
When one outlives the will to live. Musgr. conj.
1219-1220.
mvp-comment-654-2
σθένοντος. For εἰς.. πίπτειν in this connexion, cp. Eur. Ion, 700, πολιὸν ἐσπεσοῦσα γῆρας. It may be worth suggesting that, in Eur. L. Α. 657, τὸ θέλον should be read for τὸ θέλειν.
1220.
mvp-comment-655-1
*ὁ δ᾽ ἐπίκουρος The correction turns simply on the substitution of o for ou and vice versa. The old spelling of either reading would be οδεπικορος. When ὁ 8' had been changed to οὐδ' the other change was natural, as we see from the Schol. The order is ὁ δὲ θάνατός (ἐστιν) ἐπίκουρος ἰσοτέλεστος ἐς τελεύταν,
But death is an impartial ally to finish all at last. Cp. H. h. Merc. 97, ὀρφναίη δ᾽ ἐπίκουρος ἐπαύετο δαιμονίη νύξ. For the use of the article, see Essay on Language § 21. p. 33,5. A slighter change from the MS. reading, οὐδ᾽ ἐπίκουρος, which obtained in edd. before Brunck, may be explained to mean,
and they find no helper, when death, etc., etc., comes. But the clauses are not well balanced, the metre is improbable, and a change, such as το τ' αὖ κατάμεμπτον is required in 1235. The reading οὐδ᾽ ἔπι κόρος is ingeniously adapted to ὅταν . . θέλοντος, in the sense, When one has fallen into an excess of wishing,' viz.
and cannot have enough: but cannot be turned so as to give a satisfactory and consistent meaning to the whole sentence; besides which μηδέ and not οὐδέ would be required. And the reading of Hermann, adopted in the text, metrically corresponds to the antistrophe.
1220.
mvp-comment-655-2
ἰσοτέλεστος seems to be a verbal with an active meaning. For instances of this. see Essay on Language p. 98. 1221-1222. Ἄϊδος ὅτε μοῖρα .. ἀναπέφηνε] 'When Hades hath his hour, attended not by marriage song, nor dance, nor lyre.' For ἀναφαίνεσθαι, of an unlooked for coming, cp. Aesch. Cho. 328, ἀναφαίνεται δ᾽ ὁ βλάπτων. Ἄΐδος μοῖρα, like θανάτου μοῖρα, Aesch. Pers. 917: Eur. Med. 987. "Αΐδος μοῖρα is either (1) the right of Hades in men, or (2) man's share of death, like μοῖρα βιότοιο. Death is imagined as lurking near until the appointed time.
1220.
mvp-comment-655-3
ἄλυρος ἄχορος Cp. Aesch. Suppl.681, ἄχορον ἀκίθαριν δακρυογόνον Ἄρη.
1225.
mvp-comment-656-1
τὸν ἅπαντα νικᾷ λόγον
Stands first on the whole calculation; i. e. Is best of all. The construction is analogous to νικᾶν ἀγῶνα, μάχην, etc. Cp. Fr. 737, τἀληθὲς ἀεὶ πλεῖστον ἰσχύει λόγου. A similar expression of the early Ionic pessimism occurs in Theognis, 425, πάντων μὲν μὴ φῦναι ἐπιχθονίοισιν ἄριστον | μηδ᾽ ἐσιδεῖν αὐγὰς ὀξέος ἠελίου· | φῦντα δ᾽ ὅπως ἄκιστα πύλας Αίδαο περῆσαι. Cp. Hdt. 7. 46, ὁ μὲν θάνατος, μοχθηρῆς ἐούσης τῆς ζύης, καταφυγὴ αἱρετωτάτη τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ γέγονε. The words βῆναι κεῖθεν ὅθεν περ ἥκει come near to the language of Job 10. 19,
I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.
1225.
mvp-comment-656-2
ἐπεὶ φανῇ] · When one hath seen the light. For the subjunctive without av, see Essay on Language § 27. p. 44; and for a similar omission of ἄν τις, cp. Ant. 1025, ἐπεὶ δ᾽ ἁμάρτῃ.
1226.
mvp-comment-657-1
βῆναι κεῖθεν ὅθεν περ ἥκει
To go from whence he came. A curious attraction of the antecedent for κεῖσε ὅθεν περ. Essay on Language § 35. p. 60.
