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Three Passages in Tragedy2
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2013
Extract
- 10. τί δ' ὅντιν' εἴπε; μηδὲν ἐντραπῆς. τὰ δὲ
- ῥηθέντα βούλου μηδὲ μεμνῆσθαι μάτην.
She knows that the true answer to 1055 will be ‘yes’, and that it must lead to the discovery of the parricide and incest. ‘Waste not a thought on what he said…' twere idle’; so Jebb, like everybody else construing μάτην with μεμνῆσθαι. But at that rate this final word of the couplet is superfluous and falls flat. Manifestly μάτην must go with ῥηθέντα. As a hyperbaton this would be far too harsh and pointless; here, surely, is a clear case of accidental transposition in the ends of consecutive lines. For Jocasta will have spoken with feeling, here as everywhere else, and said τί… ἐντραπῇς· μάτην | ῥηθέντα βούλου μηδὲ μεμνῆσθαι τάδε.
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- Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1955
References
page 11 note 3 It can also, of course, with similar force come last, e.g. Ai. 852, Phil. 1280; but hardly after ‘not even’!
page 12 note 1 Published later in C.Q. n.s. IV, pp. 91–3Google Scholar, and it is from this that I now quote.
page 12 note 2 As it does in five passages, Aesch., Suppl. 544–6Google Scholar, P.V. 790, Soph. fr. 548 (=two passages, one in Aesch., see Pearson), Moschus, 2, 8–9. For Gibraltar Mr Lloyd-Jones cites Diodorus, 4, 18, but that context precludes all ambiguity.
page 12 note 3 Except Paley: see above.
page 13 note 1 ναίει, intransitive in 99, has to be supplied transitively with ποντ. αὐλ., but intransitively again with δισσ. ἀπ. κλ.; and ‘inhabit sea’ is a construction without parallel except, naturally, for marine deities (Eur., Hel. 1584Google Scholar).
page 13 note 2 As indeed also does κατασκοπήν.
page 14 note 1 That this was the proper verb may be seen from 1116; also from Apsines as cited by Murray (after end of his app. crit.). I take this opportunity to point out that Weil's ἀλλ’ εἰ μαθήσει συμβαλεῑν β. μάχην finds no true parallel in any extant example of μανθάνειν with infin. That construction means only learn to (not also how to, as L.S.J.), and is used in a peculiarly restricted sense, of some salutary spiritual experience. To the exx. in L.S.J. add Aesch., Pers. 100–3Google Scholar, Eur., Hipp. 731Google Scholar, Hclid. 272, I.A. 927, Rh. 473, fr. 282, 3; and similarly with the articular infin. the sense is psychological, Aesch., Eum. 86, 301Google Scholar, Soph., Ai. 555Google Scholar.
page 14 note 2 There is nowhere any question of an armed attack by P. alone; obviously he calls for ὅπλα simply in order to lead his army.
page 14 note 3 There is an independent reason for thinking that stichomythia may not have extended beyond 836; cf. Dodds's note on that line.