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Further Studies in Sophocles
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
‘ “I desire”’ Jebb, whose note I now take as read. In this and my ensuing discussion I seek to show that never has that meaning. The scholiast's note is a sophism, and Jebb's is another. Jebb says that the primary sense is to love; he prudently leaves unstated the next step in the fallacy, that to love might mean to have just fallen in love with; and he concludes that poetry ‘could easily draw’ the sense to desire. Actually applies as between parents and children, rulers and their subjects, and to other not necessarily amenable persons or not prima facie acceptable things with whom or which one has to associate continually (or, by extension, for a limited time); its general sense is to ‘do with’, to brook; it ranges from like to either extreme, be fond of or tolerate. In its various nuances it resembles which never means to ‘desire’.
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page 1 note 1 Continued from C.Q. xxxvii (1943), 33–36, xlii (1948), 102–4, and other publications. I now find that my O.T. 117 had been anticipated by Dindorf; and he followed it with , which perfects expression as well as sense.Google Scholar
page 1 note 2 At O.T. 1338, again, Jebb renders ‘what can I love?’ That sense will not suit; O. still loves his daughters, 1472–4; and see O.C. 1617–19. The meaning is (with text as in Pearson) ‘what sight was still tolerable (or agreeable)?’; cf. 1334–5.
page 1 note 3 See Trach. 486—in context—for a significant example.
page 1 note 4 L.S. J., who do not take it so here, illustrate this sense, s.v., B. 1. b; cf. A. 1. 3.
page 2 note 1 For ‘PI. Phaedo 59 a’ is not a true parallel; . is not the equivalent of , and even so, the pcpls. there are more remotely attached, was a nearer paraphrase, but is not cited carrying pcpls.
page 2 note 2 A. J. Phil, iv (1883), 291–308; his classification is confined to prose.Google Scholar
page 2 note 3 In prose I know only of Hdt. 1. 10. 3, Thuc. 1. 138. 3, PI. Soph. 217 c. These three anomalies are variously accounted for in grammars or editions. Alexander (who mentions only the third) rightly describes (e.g.) as unnatural.
page 2 note 4 The more so, as the deputation appears from 15–21 to consist only of the very old and the young, the middle-aged being suppliants at four other places.
page 3 note 1 e.g. even Eur. Suppl. 149, a variation on 147 is still a far cry from this.
page 3 note 2 For further testimony to the obscurity see Ellendt, Lex. Soph. s.v. init.
page 4 note 1 Kühner–Gerth, ii, p. 587, anm. 2.
page 4 note 2 Ai. 1317, O.T. 795 (Nauck), Track. 83, Phil. 1190–1, O.C. 366, 576, 735–6; Goodwin, M.T. § 840 (excluding Xen. An. 2. 4. 5); Jebb on Phil. I.c.
page 4 note 3 Eur. Hec. 631–4.
page 5 note 1 must go logically with that prevents it from being other wise; Jebb's translation is right in this.
page 6 note 1 The rapid alternation of pi. and sing, in those three couplets is very marked, and seems deliberate, the sings, adding force to the appeal.
page 6 note 2 Except by Oppian at Hal. 3. 571, quoted by Pearson on Fr. 781; but Headlam thought that O. was there echoing our passage, and I am very ready to believe that it was well before O.'s time that had prompted .
page 7 note 1 How much more apposite would be there and here!
page 7 note 2 So Jebb (n. on 190, fin.), L. Campbell, others; and necessarily; but in battle is the war-cry of attack; another complication.
page 8 note 1 Jebb's ‘yet’ is in his note and translation; with my text it is in the Greek.
page 8 note 2 Otherwise it would have been easy to read .
page 8 note 3 i.e. without his two main characteristics as war-god, see O.C. 1046, where Jebb's note is right—and inconsistent with his view of .
page 9 note 1 at 87 is far away; and if that conception has been revived at 166, it has meantime been cancelled by 176 where the metaphor is otherwise applied and purely decorative.
page 9 note 2 e.g. Eur. Or. 211 , PI. Laws 919 . But at Eur. Fr. 282, 7 the variant (rec. Nauck, and cf. L.S.J, s.v.) makes better sense; perhaps then it should be read also at Alex. Fr. 150.
page 10 note 1 Cf. my final paragraph on the sentence 220–1.
page 11 note 1 Observe that is not purely spatial; cf. Tr. 317.
page 11 note 2 Platt, C.Q.iv (1910), 157 denies this, but Jebb and Earle are with Kennedy.
page 11 note 3 The precise sense of A must be ‘This proclamation I shall make as one who was a foreigner in respect of your account of the matter and a foreigner in respect of die deed that was done.’ ‘Was’ (or ‘has been’, as Jebb), not ‘is’; O. is no longer a foreigner to their (defective as that is), and the tense of colours this whole expression.
page 11 note 4 Platt';s ‘connexion of thought’ is not in the Greek at all, it is effected only by indispensable insertions in his own English paraphrase. And everybody plays that game here; but I am not playing.
page 12 note 1 ‘Heretical’, for most others get this right; in particular, Kennedy, Blaydes in ed. 1904 (not in ed. 1859), Sheppard (in note).
page 12 note 2 It is futile for both Platt and Pearson to declare that this passage is quite lucid when (a) so many excellent scholars have found it very difficult and (b) these two who find it so straightforward understand it quite differently from one another.
page 12 note 3 The truth is that Jebb's B has two protases (both puzzling) whereas by all valid analogy it ought not to have any.
page 12 note 4 Platt, for instance, thought that it represented a touch of O.'s traditional self-conceit.
page 12 note 5 Not , I think, for although in Homer it means just like this and implies on and on, in vain, Tragedy presents it (four times S., twice E.) only as meaning in the same way (as somebody else).
page 12 note 6 I was convinced by A. C. Pearson's in 598, for I noticed that Creon him self repeats the association in 1518 , 1519 And observe now how dramatic is that repetition.
page 13 note 1 Pearson's note in C.Q. xi (1917), 63–64Google Scholar gets some devastating but deserved criticisms from Harry, J. E., Gk. Trag. vol. i (1933), p. 154.Google Scholar
page 13 note 2 Here is surely a perfect illustration of the truth of my remark at Eur. Hel. 378: ‘It is a precarious matter to emend single items in corrupt contexts.’
page 14 note 1 Of Earle's two miserable half-lines inserted between and the former is unmetrical.
page 14 note 2 i.e. the apodosis is elliptical, ‘then <let me tell you that> I will’; a well-authenticated type.
page 14 note 3 For O. was suspicious of the story about the brigands, and expects to throw new light on the whole matter, 124–32; cf. too 277.
page 14 note 4 Jebb, under the necessity of explaining what this Attic master meant by writes ‘i.e. other than one of yourselves’; but of course after would mean some one other than the , therefore, so far. another Theban. The line should make a Grecian wince; and it has already offended nine; the other six are Purgold Elmsley, Wecklein, Herwerden A. Fraenkel, Sheppard (who prints , but ‘with some reluctance’). The absence of , however, though a rarity with is not fatal, even for S.; Pearson clearly made the best choice at O.C. 1209; cf. Dem. Phil. 1. 18, de Cor. 10, Jul. Or. 7. 226 a.
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