Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, Volume 4: With Critical Notes, Commentary and Translation in English Prose [Reprint ed.] 9780511695971, 9781108008419 [PDF]

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Classics From the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, Latin and Greek were compulsory subjects in almost all European universities, and most early modern scholars published their research and conducted international correspondence in Latin. Latin had continued in use in Western Europe long after the fall of the Roman empire as the lingua franca of the educated classes and of law, diplomacy, religion and university teaching. The flight of Greek scholars to the West after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 gave impetus to the study of ancient Greek literature and the Greek New Testament. Eventually, just as nineteenth-century reforms of university curricula were beginning to erode this ascendancy, developments in textual criticism and linguistic analysis, and new ways of studying ancient societies, especially archaeology, led to renewed enthusiasm for the Classics. This collection offers works of criticism, interpretation and synthesis by the outstanding scholars of the nineteenth century.

Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments Sir Richard Jebb’s seven-volume edition of the works of Sophocles, published between 1883 and 1896, remains a landmark in Greek scholarship. Jebb (1841–1905) was the most distinguished classicist of his generation, a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and University Orator, subsequently Professor of Greek at Glasgow University and finally Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge, and a Member of Parliament for the University. Each volume of the edition contains an introductory essay, a metrical analysis, an indication of the sources used to establish the text, and the ancient summaries (‘arguments’) of the play. The text itself is given with a parallel English translation, textual collation and explanatory notes, and an appendix consisting of expanded notes on some of the textual issues. The quality of Jebb’s work means that his editions are still widely consulted today. This volume contains Philoctetes.

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Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments With Critical Notes, Commentary and Translation in English Prose Volume 4: The P hil o ctetes E di t e d by R ichard C l averhouse Jebb

C a M b R i D G E U N i V E R Si T y P R E S S Cambridge, New york, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paolo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo Published in the United States of america by Cambridge University Press, New york www.cambridge.org information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108008419 © in this compilation Cambridge University Press 2010 This edition first published 1890 This digitally printed version 2010 iSbN 978-1-108-00841-9 Paperback This book reproduces the text of the original edition. The content and language reflect the beliefs, practices and terminology of their time, and have not been updated. Cambridge University Press wishes to make clear that the book, unless originally published by Cambridge, is not being republished by, in association or collaboration with, or with the endorsement or approval of, the original publisher or its successors in title.

SOPHOCLES THE PLAYS AND FRAGMENTS.

PART IV. THE PHILOCTETES.

ILonSnn: C. J. CLAY & S O N S , CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, AVE MARIA LANE.

DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO. Eei»is: F. A. BROCKHAUS.

SOPHOCLES THE

PLAYS

AND

FRAGMENTS

WITH CRITICAL NOTES, COMMENTARY, AND TRANSLATION IN ENGLISH PROSE,

R.

C. J E B B ,

LITT.D.,

REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK AND FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE IN T H E UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE : HON. LL.D. EDINBURGH, HARVARD AND DUBLIN; HON. DOCT. PHILOS., BOLOGNA.

PART IV. THE PHILOCTETES.

EDITED FOR THE SYNDICS OF THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

CAMBRIDGE: AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 1890 [All Rights reserved]

ffiambtftigt: PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AND SONS, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . page ix § i. The home of Philoctetes. §§ 2, 3. The legend in epic poetry. § 4. Characteristics of the epic version. § 5. The story as a theme for drama. § 6. The three great dramatists. § 7. The Philoctetes of Aeschylus. § 8. The Philoctetes of Euripides. § 9. Sophocles—his originality. § 10. Analysis of the play. § 11. General scope of the treatment. § 12. The oracle. § 13. Episode of the merchant. § 14. The Chorus. § 15. Odysseus. § 16. Topography. §17. Other literature of the subject. Greek plays. §18. Attius. Euphorion. § 19. Fenelon's Telemaque.—Lessing.— French dramas. § 20. The legend in Art. § 21. The scene of the sacrifice. § 22. Chryse. § 23. Date of the play. Supposed political reference. § 24. Diction. § 25. Versification. MANUSCRIPTS, EDITIONS, ETC

xlv

§§ 1, 2. The Laurentian and other MSS. § 3. Scholia. § 4. Interpolations. § 5. Emendations. § 6. Editions, etc. METRICAL ANALYSIS ANCIENT

.

ARGUMENTS

STRUCTURE

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TO

. THE

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.

.

.

PLAY ;

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.

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DRAMATIS

.

.

.

.

.

PERSONAE ;

.

.

TEXT

APPENDIX INDICES

xlviii

3 6

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229 255

INTRODUCTION. § i. ON the eastern coast of Greece, just north of Thermo- The home pylae, lies a region which in ancient times was called Malis,' the sheep-land.' This was the country of Philoctetes,—the home to which, in the play of Sophocles, his thoughts are constantly turning1. It will be well to form some idea of its chief features and associations. Pindus, the spine of northern Greece, terminates at the south in Typhrestus, a great pyramidal height from which two mountain-ranges branch out towards the eastern sea. One of these is Othrys, which skirts the southern border of Thessaly; the other, south of it, is Oeta, which, like Malis, takes its name from its pastures. The deep and broad depression between them is the fertile valley of the Spercheius (the 'hurrying' or'vehement') —which rises at the foot of Typhrestus, and flows into the Malia'n Gulf. A few miles from the sea, the valley opens. While Othrys continues its eastward direction, Oeta recedes southward, and then, with a sudden bend to the south-east, 1 The Homeric Catalogue includes this district in Phthia, the realm of Achilles (//. 2. 682). It assigns Philoctetes to a more northerly part of Thessaly,—viz., the narrow and mountainous strip of coast, N. and E. of the Pagasaean Gulf, which was known in historical times as Magnesia. His four towns were Methone, Thaumacia, Meliboea and Olizon. (//. 2. 716 f.) This agrees with the fact that Poeas, the father of Philoctetes, was called the son of Thaumacus, and was numbered among the Argonauts who sailed from Iolcus (Apollod. 1. 9. 16). In its original form, the story of Poeas and his son must have belonged, like that of Jason, to the legends of the Minyae who dwelt on the eastern coasts of Thessaly. Cp. Anthol. append. 61 (vol. II. p. 754 ed. Jacobs):

To^itiv 'UpaKKiovs rayXip, Hoidrriov vidv, ijde ^iXoKTrirffv yij M.twas Karfyet.

It was when the myth became interwoven with the apotheosis of Heracles that the home of Poeas was transferred to the country around Trachis.

x

INTRODUCTION.

sweeps down upon Thermopylae, where the fir-clad and snowy

summit of Callidromus rises above the pass. Precipitous cliffs are thrown forward from this part of the Oetaean range, forming an irregular crescent round the southern and western sides of the plain. These cliffs were called of old ' the Trachinian Rocks.' Trachis, the ' city of the crags,' stood on a rocky spur beneath them, a little north of the point where they are cleft by the magnificent gorge of the Asopus,—that steep ravine by which Hydarnes led his Persians up through the mountain oak-woods, on the night before he surprised Leonidas. Between the Asopus and the Spercheius are the narrow channels of two lesser streams, •anciently known as the Melas and the Dyras1. The name Malis denoted this whole seaboard plain, with the heights around it, from the lower spurs of Othrys on the north to those of Oeta on the south and west. Just opposite the entrance of the Gulf, the bold north-west promontory of Euboea, once called Cape Cenaeum, runs out towards the mainland. There was a peculiar fitness in the phrase of Sophocles, when he described this district, with its varied scenery, as 'the haunt of Malian Nymphs2,' 1

The Dyras was said to have first started from the ground in order to relieve the fiery pangs of Heracles (Her. 7. 198). In a vase-painting noticed below (n. on v. 728, p. 121, 1st col.), the Nymph who seeks to quench the pyre probably symbolises this stream. The ancient mouth of the Spercheius was some miles N.W. of Thermopylae; the present mouths are a little E. N. E. of it, and the line of the coast has been considerably advanced, so that there is no longer a narrow pass. The Asopus, Melas and Dyras formerly had separate courses to the sea. They are now mere affluents of the Spercheius,—the Melas and Dyras uniting before they reach it. 2 v. 725 auX&i' MaXiaSui' cu/i^ac.

INTRODUCTION.

xi

those beings of the forest and the river, of the hills and the sea. It was in this region that legend placed the last deeds of Heracles, and his death, or rather his passage from earth to Olympus. After taking Oechalia in Euboea, he was sacrificing on Cape Cenaeum when the fatal robe did its work. He was carried to his home at Trachis ; and then he commanded that he should be borne to the top of Mount Oeta, sacred to Zeus, and burnt alive. He was obeyed ; as the flames arose on the mountain, they were answered from heaven by the blaze of lightning and the roll of thunder; and by that sign his companions knew that the spirit of the great warrior had been welcomed to the home of his immortal father. Somewhere in the wilds of those lonely summits tradition showed the sacred spot known as 'the Pyre'; and once, at least, in later days a Roman Consul, turning aside from a victorious progress, went up to visit the solemn place where the most Roman of Greek heroes had received the supreme reward of fortitude1. § 2. Heracles had constrained his son Hyllus to aid in pre- Thelegend paring the funeral-pile, but could not prevail upon him to kindle it. That office was performed, at his urgent prayer, by the youthful Philoctetes, son of Poeas, king of Malis2. In token of gratitude, Heracles bequeathed to Philoctetes the bow and arrows which he himself had received from Apollo. In the myths relating to the Trojan war a most important part belonged to the man who had thus inherited the invincible weapons. Homer, indeed, does not say much about him; but the Iliad contains only an episode in the tenth year of the war : the part played by Philoctetes came before and after that moment. The allusion in the Second Book of the Iliad is, 1 Manius Acilius Glabrio, after taking Heracleia near Trachis, in the war with Antiochus (191 B.C.). Livy 36. 30: ipse Oetam ascendit, Herculique sacrificium fecit in eo loco quern Pyram, quod ibi mortale corpus eius dei sit crematum, appellant. Cp. Silius Italicus 6. 452: Vixdum clara dies summa lustrabat in Oeta | Herculei monimenta rogi.—The name Pyra seems to have been usually associated with a height about eight miles w.N.w. of Trachis. 2 With regard to the other version, according to which Poeas was the kindler, see on v. 802.

xii

INTRODUCTION.

however, significant; it glances backwards and forwards. He is there mentioned as a skilful archer, who had sailed from Greece in command of seven ships, but had been left behind in Lemnos, wounded by the bite of a deadly water-snake. And then the poet adds that the Greeks at Troy will soon have cause to bethink them of Philoctetes1. In the Odyssey he is named only twice; in one place, as having been the best bowman at Troy; in another, as one of those heroes who came safely home2. But his adventures were fully told in other epics. The events preceding the action of the Iliad were contained in the Cypria, an epic whose reputed author, Stasinus of Cyprus, lived early in the eighth century B.C. That poem described how Philoctetes was bitten by the snake,—while the Greeks, on their way to Troy, were at Tenedos,—and was abandoned in Lemnos. His later fortunes were narrated in the Little Iliad, ascribed to Lesches of Mitylene {circa 700 B.C.), and in the Iliupersis, or ' Sack of Troy,' by Arctfnus of Miletus {c. 776 B.C.). The contents of these lost works are known chiefly from the prose summaries of the grammarian Proclus (140 A.D.), as partly preserved by Photius in his Bibliotheca. The following is an outline of the story in its epic form. § 3. When the Greeks under Agamemnon were about to sail against Troy, it became known that an oracle had commanded them to offer sacrifice, in the course of their voyage across the Aegean, at the altar of a deity named Chryse. All the accounts placed this altar somewhere in the north-east of the Archipelago. The prevalent version assigned it to a small island which, like the deity herself, was called Chryse, and lay close to the eastern shore of Lemnos. Jason, it was said, had sacrificed at this altar when he was leading the Argonauts in quest of the golden fleece. Heracles had paid it a like homage when he was levying war against Laomedon. 1

2

77. 2. 721 ff.: aXX' 6 /J.& kv vi] ipTifiov TCIV v ovd' a.Teppt.ii.p.evov TOV 'EWTJPIKOV' woWois re yap TCJV JteXi/Soiax oUoivTiar %vyKaTa/j.eiiiai (s Si Toirav r/i>), rots r' 'Axaiois daupva eireXdetv, or' aweXnre r. 52 § 8 6 EiJ/HTrid'Tjs TOV "AnTopa [MSS. "EKTopa] eltr&yu iva Aij/Wwx ws yV&pilAOV Tip ^iKoKT^Trj TTpo Xiyeiv).

T h a t the original word was papfldpovs

appears from Cic. de orat. 3. 35. 141; where, as in Quintil. 3. 1. 14, it is called 'a verse from the Philoctetes? That this was the play of Euripides, is a certain inference from the fact of the Trojan embassy.

INTRODUCTION.

xxi

1

of these qualities . With regard to the plot, no student of Euripides will be at a loss to name the trait which is most distinctive of his hand. It is the invention of the Trojan embassy,—a really brilliant contrivance for the purpose which he had in view. We cannot wonder if, in the period of classical antiquity during which controversial rhetoric chiefly flourished, the Philoctetes of Euripides was more generally popular than either of its rivals. § 9. The originality of Sophocles can now be estimated. Sophocles. Hitherto, one broad characteristic had been common to epic and dramatic treatments of the subject. The fate of Philoctetes had been considered solely as it affected the Greeks at Troy. The oracle promised victory to them, if they could regain him : to him it offered health and glory. This was an excellent prospect for him : if he would not embrace it voluntarily, he must, if possible, be compelled to submission. But there had been no hint that, outside of this prospect, he had any claim on human pity. Suppose him to say,—' I refuse health and glory, at the price of rejoining the men who cast me forth to worse than death; but I pray to be delivered from this misery, and restored to my home in Greece.' Would not that be a warrantable choice, a reasonable prayer ? Not a choice or a prayer, perhaps, that could win much sympathy from a Diomedes or an Odysseus, men who had consented to the act of desertion, and who now had their own objects to gain. But imagine some one in whom a generous nature, or even an ordinary sense of justice and humanity, could work without hindrance from self-interest;— 1 Or. 52 § 11 uairep avrlarpoipos eon rrj TOV Alax^ov, iroXtTiKUTaTr] Kal pi/ro/HKwa.Tr] oSffa K.T.X. So, again, he speaks of the ivdv/iri/iara iroXtTiicd used by Odysseus: of the la^fieia tratp&s Kal /caret (pijtrtv Kal TO\ITIK&$ ^xovTa- a n d of the whole play as marked by TO i/3es Kal Spi/iti Kal WOXITIKOV. The word TTOXITIKOS is here used in the special sense which Greek writers on rhetoric had given to it. By TTOXITIKOS Xifyos they meant public speaking as distinguished from scholastic exercises,—especially speaking in a deliberative assembly or a law-court. See Attic Orators, vol. I. p. 90. Dion's reiteration of the word marks his feeling that the rhetorical dialectic of Euripides in this play would have been telling in the contests of real life. And hence the play is described by him as rois evrvyxavovffi IT\CI