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the contrary, xal must be referred to aid in the following sense: fortasse etiam moderatior, or verecundior erit me conspecto. See my note to Antig. 280." WUNDER. We dissent from both Wunder and Hermann, and think that the collocation of these words satisfactorily indicates the connection intended by the poet. The Chorus, about to be introduced into the immediate presence of Aias, under the influence of reverence for its leader, heightened by the emotions inspired by the narrative it had just heard from Tekmessa to an unusual degree of intensity, says this: Perhaps he will assume (or evince) some moderation (or respect) by looking even upon me. Οι αἰδῶ λάβοι ἄν = aidiaTo, see Markland to Eur. Suppl. 1050.

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333. Ἰδοὺ, διοίγω. προσβλέπειν . . . . κυρεῖ. SCHOL. : ἐνταῦθα ἐκκύκλημά τι γίνεται, ἵνα φανῇ ἐν μέσοις ὁ Αἴας ποιμνίοις· εἰς ἔκπληξιν γὰρ φέρει καὶ ταῦτα τὸν θεατήν, τὰ ἐν τῇ ὄψει περιπαθέστερα· δείκνυται δὲ ξιφή ρης, ἡματωμένος, μεταξὺ τῶν ποιμνίων καθήμενος. "In the same way, Ottfried Müller observes to Esch. Eum. p. 103, Aias wird durch ein Ekkyklema herausgeschoben, blut-besprützt, ein blosses Schwerdt in der Hand, von erwürgten Thieren umgeben.' This is incorrect. Aias is not pushed forward, but advances, according to the customary mode of tragic representation, through the opening doors, by which a view of the slaughtered cattle is afforded to the friends who stand immediately around him. It is quite unnecessary to suppose that the carnage he had made was exhibited to the spectators generally, unless we can arrive at the conclusion that the Choragos (Ar. Pac. 1021) had brought upon the stage some sheep and oxen which had been recently killed. Nor can we believe that the appearance of the hero with a drawn sword would have possessed any significance, whilst, on the other hand, the supposition that any sane man would carry such a weapon when about to converse with his friends seems wholly incredible." LOBECK. In this last remark we fully coincide, as also in the opinion that Aias was not thrust forward upon the stage in company with the cattle which he had slaughtered in his tent; and it is really surprising that such a scholar as Müller should have imputed so preposterous a proceeding to the Greeks. His opinion is probably derived from the mistaken notions he had formed respecting the ixxúzλnua. Upon this point consult Hermann's review of Müller's Eumenides, in Diar. Vienn. LXIV. p. 127 sqq.; Soph. Elektr. 1458 sqq.; Antig. 1293; Ed. Tyr. 1294 sqq. We believe, however, that Lobeck errs in assuming that Aias, after the opening of the doors of his tent, stepped forth upon the stage, and that the exhibition of the slaughter perpetrated among the cattle was not permitted to the spectators generally, but only to the few who

immediately surrounded the hero. In relation to the first point, nothing which follows can be understood to intimate such a coming forth on the part of Aias. That, on the contrary, he did not leave his tent during this whole conversation (which is extended to v. 571), is shown, first, by the injunctions he subsequently gives Tekmessa to close the doors of the tent. See v. 554 sq. : ἀλλ' ὡς τάχος τὸν παῖδα τόνδ' ἤδη δέχου, Καὶ δῶμα πάκτου, μηδ ̓ ἐπισκήνους γόους Δάκρυε ; ν. 557, Πύκαζε θάσσον. From these instructions it is clear that Aias wished the doors of his tent to be closed, in order that the conversation with Tekmessa and the Chorus might be brought to a termination, and that he might be alone. Had he been upon the Logeion, such directions would have been absurd; for in that case their execution would have deprived him of the power to enter his tent, and he must have remained upon the stage. Now this we know was not the case. Accordingly, we have no other alternative than to suppose that he himself was in the tent, and Tekmessa upon the Logeion, when these commands were given to the latter; a supposition, we may remark, which is diametrically opposed to the views of Müller. Again, if Aias had come forth upon the stage, he then, as in all other similar instances in Greek tragedy, would have thrown open the doors with his own hands, and his approach would have been declared by the by-standers. That the poet has made no such representation, that he rather represents Tekmessa as opening the folding-doors in the words now under consideration, arises indisputably from the circumstance that Aias was to be exhibited to the audience in all the horrors of the situation in which he was then involved, sprinkled with blood and surrounded by the cattle he had slain. The same fact is forcibly set forth in the language of Aias himself at v. 337 sq. and the reply which follows immediately from the Chorus. So, also, the words of Tekmessa, rà roïde ægáyn, navròs ŵs xwv xugs, and the observation wrung from the Chorus in v. 339 sq., can only refer to the butchery of the cattle and the blood-besprinkled figure of the hero. Compare v. 520 sq., ταρβήσει γὰρ οὐ νεοσφαγῆ που τόνδε προσAcúσowy póvov. Thirdly, whatever the Chorus, from the place it occupied, could see in the tent of Aias after the opening of the doors, situated as that tent was in the middle of the stage, must have been visible also to the spectators. It is surprising that any commentator should have failed to observe the admirable art, by which the poet, in affording such an exhibition, creates the profoundest horror, and at the same time the most intense compassion for Aias, in the breasts of the audience. Tekmessa had just described the miserable deed of the hero, and his appalling grief when,

upon the recovery of his reason, he had come to a full consciousness of the deed he had committed. She portrays his sitting in all the abandon of despair amid the cattle he had slain, speechless, and refusing to partake of either food or drink. Fearing the worst consequences, she implores the Chorus with tears, and by every term of endearment, to enter the tent, and by their well-known presence to kindle other emotions in the mind of her beloved Aias. And at the very instant in which she has succeeded in exciting a vehement yearning in their breasts to behold with their own eyes their mighty leader in his deep misery, a sudden outcry of distress, ringing forth upon the stage from the interior of the tent, heightens their desire to perform those offices of consolation which the humblest friend may hope will not be altogether useless or unacceptable. Now Eurysakes, now Teukros, is invoked. Thereupon, at the express injunction of the Chorus, Tekmessa throws open the doors, and the bloody appearance of the hero, and the other proofs of his unhappy deed, are forthwith revealed. We submit that the poet would have left the very natural emotion of his audience unsatisfied, if he had not permitted them to behold the interior of that most wretched tent. Lastly, the advance of Aias upon the stage would have been wholly inconsistent with the poet's delineation of his character. It is the sense of shame and degradation which has plunged him into the extreme despair depicted by Tekmessa. In such a state of mind, a hero like Aias seeks concealment and solitude, not publicity and the rude gaze of men. These considerations induce us, therefore, to receive the observations of Lobeck with considerable limitation.

336. Μόνοι τ' Hermann long since, in a note to Erfurdt, corrected povos r. Lobeck adheres to the writing of the manuscripts, which Wunder declares to be opposed to all grammatical rules. The necessity for alteration is, however, superseded, by regarding the second clause as epexegetical of the antecedent words μivos ¿μãv píλwv. Cf. Eur. Phon. 550, τῷ πλείονι δ ̓ ἀεὶ πολέμιον καθίσταται τοὔλασσον, ἐχθρᾶς θ ̓ ἡμέρας και τάρχεται ; Ibid. 571, ἂν δὲ νικήσῃ σ ̓ ὅδε, Αργεῖά τ ̓ ἔγχη δόρυ τὸ Καδμείων ἔλῃ. il vouw, in uprightness, in fidelity of duty, i. e. whose attachment has not wavered in consequence of the unhappy circumstances in which your leader is involved. Similarly Antig. 169, μívovτas ἐμπέδοις φρονήμασιν. The word ὀρθός is introduced with especial propriety, on account of the comparison which Aias institutes in the following verses between the present state of his fortunes and the condition of a tempesttossed vessel. See Donaldson to Antig. 162 sq.

337. Ιδεσθέ μ', XUXAT. Matthiä, Gr. Gr. 422, directs us to

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construct us with ảμpidgoμov, i. e. to regard the whole expression as said poetically for "δεσθε, οἷον ἀμφ ̓ ἐμὲ κῦμα κυκλεῖται. From a comparison of the following passages, Æsch. Prom. 92, ἴδεσθέ μ' οἷα πρὸς θεῶν πάσχω θεός ; Ibid. 1129, ἐσορᾷς μ ̓ ὡς ἔκδικα πάσχω ; Soph. Trach. 218, Ιδού μ' ἀναταράσσει εὐοῖ μὲ ὁ κισσὸς ἄρτι Βακχείαν ὑποστρέφων ἅμιλλαν ; Antig. 940, λεύσσετε . . . . τὴν βασίλειαν μούνην λοιπήν, οἷα πρὸς οίων ἀνδρῶν πάς σχω, it seems preferable to refer the accusative of the personal pronoun directly to the verb. Wunder draws attention to the surpassing beauty both of the illustration and of the diction employed by Aias in these verses. In the word xuμa he detects an allusion to the gore of the slaughtered beasts, and in the introduction of the comparatively rare and expressive word ans, a reference to the insane impulse which led Aias to perpetrate the butchery. As, therefore, mental alienation was the cause of the slaughter, it is very poetically termed povía, in the same way as we read at Elektr. 96, "Agns Coívios, and Antig. 602, povía novís.

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339. Οἴμ ̓ ὡς ἔοικας, κ.τ.λ. SCHOL. : πρὸς τὴν Τέκμησσαν ὁ λόγος· νομίζω σε ἀληθῆ μοι μεμαρτυρηκέναι περὶ τῆς μανίας τοῦ Αἴαντος· οὕτως γὰρ τὸ πρᾶγμα δείκνυσιν ἡμῖν, ὅτι μανικῶς διετέθη. "On the expression s xas, cf. Buttmann to Philokt. 1082; Antig. 1270, 1278." NEue. On the word ἀφροντίστως, Neue objects to the interpretation μανικῶς, which is given by the Scholiast, observing, · Potius τὸ ἔργον ἔχει ἀφροντίστως, i. e. àμnxávws." The correctness of this criticism may be doubted, and it seems better to regard ἀφροντίστως ἔχει as simply meaning ἀφροντιστεῖ, 3. ἀφροντιστός ἐστι, mente captus est. In the same way Lobeck has shown that, by the expression apgóvTiotos gws, Theokr. 10. 20, a frantic, insane love is denoted, and not, as the Scholiast there interprets, i äyav QgovrilWv. Musgrave observes correctly, that the employment of this word must be regarded as in some degree euphemistic.

341. Ἰὼ γένος . . . . πλάταν. All the manuscripts read ἁλίαν. The true reading was first restored by Hermann, who interprets the whole passage in the following way: O qui motu nautica expeditionis adjutor navem conscendisti, remisque promovisti. Compare, however, the observation of Porson to Eur. Hek. 293, that "when the Greeks express a person by a circumlocution, they return as soon as possible to the person itself." Lobeck observes correctly, that Hermann's rendering leaves us in doubt whether we are to understand that he intends to convey the same sense as that yielded by Brunck's translation qui conscensa nave (☛λáτn) marinum agitastis remum (λárn), or has connected λάrn with both verb and participle in the same signification, ὃς ἐπέβης τὴν ναῦν ἑλίσσων αὐτήν.

Erfurdt follows the suggestion of the last-named scholar, that drugo or "Iλov must be supplied, O! qui nave vectus in Troadem venisti, and this is probably the simplest explanation that can be given. It is, however, by no means free from objection. Whether any other writer than Sophokles has made use of the expression ἑλίσσειν πλάτην οι κώπην is doubtful. The Homeric word iλixwres has been referred by some to this etymon, and would therefore signify οἱ τὰς κώπας ἑλίσσοντες. The verb ἑλίσσειν, which is used in its own strict signification in Elektr. 736, oùy d'sλíoostas TunTas iμão, is here applied to the rapid turning of the oars in rowing, and seems to differ from soos in this respect, that it denotes that rotatory movement imparted to the oar which we express by a somewhat different figure, in the common phrase feathering the oar. On ἀρωγός with the genitive, cf. supra, 200; Elektr. 1381.

343. σέ τοι μόνον δέδορκα ποιμένων ἐπαρκέσοντ ̓. Such, without any diversity, is the reading of all the manuscripts. The commentators have proposed many methods of explanation and emendation. The difficulty consists in the introduction of the word μvy, which the Scholast explains by τῶν κηδομένων, τῶν βοηθῶν· ὡς καὶ ποιμαίνειν τὸ φροντί ζειν. [Εἰς τὸ αὐτό.] ποιμένων· τῶν ἐμὲ ποιμαινόντων καὶ θαλπόντων. So, too, Hermann, who remarks that the genitive rasvav depends upon μóvov, as in v. 335 supra, and that the friends of Aias, and not the hero himself, are denoted by this word. On the other hand, Lobeck accurately observes, that, if "the Chorus had called Aias its μv, no difficulty would have arisen, since this substantive is used for undiμwv, in the same way as Topalvey for fovere; but that subjects should be denominated the roues of their king, whatever amount of sympathy and assistance they may give him when in sorrow, seems highly inconsistent." To this consideration may be added the difficulty of understanding who are the remaining protectors or oμives of Aias, to whom this unwillingness to render him support is imputed. In addition to the personal relatives of Aias, whose continued attachment the poet can have no intention to impugn, the Chorus, representing, as it notoriously does, the whole body of Salaminians who accompanied him to Troy, must be supposed to comprise the entire number of his dependants and friends. That the self-reliant and haughty Aias, who regarded with contempt the proffered aid of the gods themselves, and who is recognized in express terms by the Chorus, vv. 1150 sqq. as its diparos #goßoλà nui ßeλéwv, should invoke by the title of his protectors the men of whom he was himself the bulwark and defender, is entirely inconsistent with the Sophoklean concep

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