Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, Volume 6: With Critical Notes, Commentary and Translation in English Prose [Reprint ed.] 9780511695995, 9781108008433 [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 Electra.

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Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments With Critical Notes, Commentary and Translation in English Prose Volume 6: The E lectra 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/9781108008433 © in this compilation Cambridge University Press 2010 This edition first published 1894 This digitally printed version 2010 iSbN 978-1-108-00843-3 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 VI. THE ELECTRA.

C. J. CLAY AND SONS, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,. AVE MARIA LANE, ffilaspfo: 263, ARGYLE STREET.

e: DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO. F. A. BROCKHAUS. $cfn Hot*: MACMILLAN AND CO.

SOPHOCLES THE PLAYS AND FRAGMENTS

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

R. C. JEBB, LITT.D., REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK AND FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND M.P. FOR THE UNIVERSITY : HON. D.C.L. OXON.: HON. LL.D. EDINBURGH, HARVARD, DUBLIN, AND GLASGOW: HON. DOCT. PHILOS., BOLOGNA.

PART VI. THE

ELECTRA.

EDITED FOR THE SYNDICS OF THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

CAMBRIDGE: AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 1894 [All Rights reserved.]

dambtt&ge: PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A; AND SONS, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

PREFATORY NOTE. A commentary on this play, intended chiefly for young students, was contributed by me in 1867 to the series entitled Catena Classicorum. After a second edition of it had appeared in 1870, it was stereotyped, and since that date I have had no opportunity of further revision. The present work is not an enlargement of that book, but, as the different plan and scope required, a new one throughout.

R. C. J. CAMBRIDGE,

March, 1894.

CORRIGENDA. In the Greek text. Page 96, verse 681. For KOIVOV read KKCIVOV. „ 142, v. 1045. F o r jroiTjo-o) read

In the translation. 159, line 5. For 'wert' read 'wast.' In the notes. 25, critical n. on v. 128, line 3. For 1813 read 1814. 79, commentary, column 1, last line. For 530 read 537. 98 „ col. 2,1. 6 from bottom. For 833 D read 833 A. in „ col. 1,1. 5 from bottom. For'Sparta'read'Tegea.'

CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . page ix § i. The legend in Homer. § 2. Cyclic epics. § 3. Influence of Delphi. Purification from blood-guilt. § 4. The Oresteia of Stesichorus. Its probable outline. § 5. Evidence from art. § 6. Literary evidence. First mention of Electra. Xanthus. § 7. Summary. Influence of Stesichorus on the dramatists. § 8. Pindar. § 9. Aeschylus. Analysis of the Choephori. § 10. The supernatural agency. Clytaemnestra. Orestes. Electra. Minor persons. The Chorus. The title ' Choephori.' §11. The Electra of Sophocles. Analysis of the play. §12. General comparison with the Choephori. § 13. The stain of matricide is ignored. Question thus raised. § 14. Character of Electra. § 15. Clytaemnestra. The Chorus. § 16. Supernatural agency. § 17. The Electra of Euripides. Analysis. § 18. Drift of Euripides—adverse to Apollo. His Orestes and Electra. General estimate of the play. § 19. Did it precede and influence the Electra of Sophocles ? The openings of the two plays compared. Relation of Electra to Clytaemnestra. Argument from general probability. Conclusion. § 20. The Electra of Sophocles is one of his later plays. Internal evidence. Conclusion. § 21. Ancient repute of the play. Translation by Atilius. § 22. The Oreste of Voltaire. § 23. The Oreste of Alfieri. § 24. Traces in art of the Aeschylean and Sophoclean plays. MANUSCRIPTS, EDITIONS, ETC

lxvii

§§ 1, 2. MSS. § 3. Scholia. § 4. The state of the text. Lacunae. Proposed transpositions. Interpolations. § 5. Editions. METRICAL ANALYSIS ANCIENT

lxxii

ARGUMENTS

TO T H E PLAY ;

DRAMATIS

PERSONAE ;

STRUCTURE

3

TEXT

6

APPENDIX .

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205

INDICES

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227

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INTRODUCTION. § I. THE story of Orestes the avenger was complete in every essential particular before it came to the earliest of those three Attic dramatists, each of whom has stamped it so strongly with the impress of his own mind. In the Iliad there is no hint that the house of Pelops lay The under a curse which entailed a series of crimes. The sceptre made by Hephaestus for Zeus, and brought by Hermes to Pelops, is peacefully inherited by Atreus, Thyestes and Agamemnon1. Yet the Iliad makes at least one contribution to the material which Aeschylus found ready to his hand. It is the figure of Agamemnon himself, with eyes and head like those of Zeus, in girth like Ares, in breast like Poseidon2; 'clad in flashing bronze, all glorious, and pre-eminent amid all3.' As Helen stands with Priam on the walls of Troy, and watches the Achaean warriors moving on the battle-field, she asks who this one may be:—'There are others even taller by a head, but never did I behold a man so comely or so majestic (yepapov); he is like unto one that is a king4.' This is the royal Agamemnon, 6 •n-avToa-efj.vo^, who lives in the Aeschylean drama, and whose image reappears in later poetry. For the rest, the Iliad gives us just one far-off glimpse of the king's home beyond the Aegaean, where Orestes is a child in the fortress-palace at Mycenae, with three sisters, Chrysothemis, Laodice, and Iphianassa6; children of that Clytaemnestra to whom, in the opinion of her lord at Troy, the damsel Chrysei's was ' in no wise inferior, in beauty or in stature, in wit or in skill7.' 1

2 3 //. i. ioo ff. ib. 478 f. ib. 578 f. * 11. 3. 168 ff. 5 6 7 Aesch. Eum. 637. //. 9. 142 ff. 11. 1. 113 ff.

x

INTRODUCTION.

The Odyssey tells the story as follows. Agamemnon, before going to Troy, charged a certain minstrel (aoiZoi) to watch over1 Clytaemnestra at Mycenae. The precaution implies a sense of possible danger, but not necessarily distrust of Clytaemnestra. Presently a tempter came to the lonely wife in the person of her husband's first-cousin, Aegisthus, son of Thyestes, who, while his kinsmen were fighting at Troy, dwelt ' at peace, in the heart of ArgosV For some time Clytaemnestra ' refused the shameful deed; for she had a good understanding8.' Meanwhile the gods themselves, by their messenger Hermes, warned Aegisthus against the course of crime upon which he was entering. But Hermes spoke in vain4. Aegisthus removed the minstrel to a desert island, and there left him, a prey to dogs and birds. He then took the 'willing' Clytaemnestra to his home; while he sought to propitiate the gods by burnt-offerings on their altars, and by hanging up in their temples ' many gifts of embroidery and gold5.' Agamemnon, after a stormy voyage from Troy, landed on the coast of Argolis at a point not far from the dwelling of Aegisthus; who, apprised by a watcher, came in his chariot, and invited the king to a banquet; after which he slew him, ' as a man slays an ox at the manger6.' In this narrative (given by Menelaiis to Telemachus) Clytaemnestra is not even named; though Menelaiis had previously spoken of her ' guile' as aiding the crime'. It is only in a part of the Odyssey which is of later origin than the ' Telemachy' in books I—IV,—viz., the Ne/cvia in the eleventh book,—that Clytaem&KOITO>, Od. 3. 268. Nothing could better illustrate the social consideration enjoyed by the Homeric doi5vaef9|(ov

All

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In 844 the coryphaeus says o'Xoa y&p, and Electra interrupts the sentence with i). The pause seems sufficiently to explain how ydp might stand for a long syllable here. J. H . H. Schmidt prefers the alternative of supposing that in the strophe the final of avaris is ' irrational,' a long for a short.

lxxxiv II.

I.

« ' : Tel, ofiovfj.£vr) fiy Kal avrov yds d VTTOK€I/X£VOS xat TOV >Opc(TTiji' ets Tiji' c&w/a'Sa Trpos %Tp6iov KOX VTTOSUKVVS 5 Ta ev "Apyct. ^.tKpdv yap airdv KXei/^as €K TOV "Apyovs d 7rat8ayo>yds l^vyev Kai 81a eiKotriv 6T " 7 r ° Kparepav K&K S6\ovrpo(p6s S.ve\e Svmrev64os. E u r . El. 16 rbv phv Trarpbs yepaibs €KK\^ITT€L rpotpeiis j ^ X XOPT' 'OpidTi)v xepds Sir' Myiadov Baveiv. 12 6|j.a£(j.ov, 'kinswoman,' is here

HAEKTPA

9

deem that thou seest Mycenae rich in gold, with the house of the Pelopidae there, so often stained with bloodshed ; whence I carried thee of yore, from the slaying of thy father, as thy kinswoman, thy sister, charged me; and saved thee, and reared thee up to manhood, to be the avenger of thy murdered sire. Now, therefore, Orestes, and thou, best of friends, Pylades, our plans must be laid quickly; for lo, already the sun's bright ray is waking the songs of the birds into clearness, and the dark night of stars is spent. Before, then, anyone comes forth from the house, take counsel; seeing that the time allows not of (Cp. 1373.) 16 /3ovXeur^oK] Blaydes reads fiovkeieTov, as Porson had conjectured (Tracts, p. 221). 2O itioSonropeiv'] Tournier conj. t%odov Tepav. F. W. Schmidt, i% odov irepav.—or£y>/s] aTtyt\ut L. — Nauck brackets this v. and the next. 2 1 £vvdirTeToi>] %vva.irTioi> E, and Toup Emend. I. p. 116. Brunck, Erfurdt and Hartung adopt this, because Pylades does not speak.—ijiiv L, A, with most MSS.:

defined by KOUTIYVTJTTJS : though Sophosorrow are turned to joy, and the god of cles never uses o/uu/ios or 6fial/j.oiv except light prevails.—Kive!...r} (proleptic): of the fraternal tie (O. C. 330 n.). The cp. 1366 TavTa...deli;ovtTiv (yatpij: Ant. emphasis is like that of Kowbv aiTa.6e\TO06' spurious? That is the crucial question. If it is spurious, then ifiiv may be a vestige of a longer 1st pers. plur., such as iaraixev: but, if ivra.vB'' is genuine, all such conjectures are barred. Now, when the usage of Sophocles is scrutinised, two points favour the genuineness of ivravB'. (a) It stands as antecedent to Xva in Ph. 429: to £v6a below, 380: and to Sirov in Tr. 800. {d) Sophocles is peculiarly fond of using it in that figurative sense which it would have here, a s = ' u n d e r these circumstances,' 'in that situation': see, e.g., 0. T. 582, 598, 720: 0. C. 585: Ph. 429> 433 : Tr. 37, 772, 936. (3) Supposing that ivravS' is genuine —as seems most likely—no account of the passage is more probable than that the poet wrote us hravB' tva \ oi< £ preferred by Reisig on O. C. 7, p. 164. 4 3 {nroTTeivovtriv L, with most MSS. A few (including V) have iiroirTeiavini>, and so the Aldine. Turnebus read inrowTzii),

Ph.

154

(T6).

The art. 6, i], when it stands as demonstr. pron., is sometimes written 8, %: a practice which is recognised by Eustathius (p. 23. 3, on / / . 1. 9), but which seems to rest on no good ground.

46 (U^io-Tos, as in (ptkos /x^yurros (Ph. 586, Ai. 1331) simply, 'greatest' friend; not,'most powerful.'—TUYX without iiv: cp. 313, 1457: Ai. 9 tvSov... rvyxdvei. Ast collects some ten examples from Plato; a few are subject to the doubt whether 8v or uv has not dropped out after a like termination; but that does not apply to (e.g.) Hipp. Ma. 300 A i] 8L aKoijs ridovi].. .Tvyx&vei KaAiJ, or Tim. 61 D Tuyx^vei...Sward, i/cavus \exBrjvai. —Sopvgt'vtov: a word applied by the tragedians to a prince or chief who is in armed alliance with the head of another state: see on 0. C. 632. 4 7 opKov, Reiske's correction of iSpxtp, seems right. With Spxtp, the choice is between two explanations. (1) #Y7eXXe &pK 8' e^Lfiev /catpos y a p , ocrirep dvhpdcrLv i epyov iravros ear V

^5

7°

75

HAEKTPA. of metre passed unnoticed.—aiv KipSei\ made in L from avytcipdei.. 6 3 86/iovs A, with most MSS. and Aid.: B6fwi.(T L, F. 6 5 us] L has oSir, corrected, in somewhat paler ink, from wo-, either by the ist hand or by S. The Aldine has iis, with a colon after wXeov in v. 64. (This is also L's punctuation, but the point has almost vanished.) Brunck wrote ws, which Nauck, Hartung, and Blaydes prefer. Hermann, Dindorf, and most of the recent edd., give us. Matthiae on Eur. Hipp. 1051 noted that, with

of preliminary advertisement, it would iKTer^-qiiha. as = ' things on which a high seem, to his poem the Arimaspeia (Her. price is set,' opp. to tiiwva., 'cheap.' 4. 14). It is vain to ask what par6 5 f. (is, 'as,'seems better here than ticular story or stories Sophocles was «s,'thus.' It gives a smoother transition; thinking of; very possibly he knew those and it is also more in accord with usage, in Herodotus (cp. O. C. 337 n.); but it Except in the phrases oi58' uis (Ant. 1042), was enough for him that his hearers would Kal us, etc., Attic writers seldom use uis, recognise the allusion to stories of that 'thus.' Among the rare instances are type. Hartung thinks that the reference Aesch. Ag. 930 ei 7n£ira 8' us TrpaaooiiLtv : is to Odysseus; but, as Odysseus did Plat. Prot. 326D wcnrepol Ypa/UjuaTioraJ..., not contrive the rumour of his own death, us 81 Kal ri TTOXIS: ib. p . 338 A us (v.l. us) the case is not in point. ovv irorfatre: Thuc. 3. 37 us ovv xpv nal Xo-yu) (idi-nv Ovflo-Kovros: for fi.6.rr\v as rj/ids iroiovvras. = 'falsely,' cp. 1298, Ph. 345. Ko|i 4irei | viKi}v T' e' ii/un] Tournier, Blaydes and Niese conj. cpepeiv \ VIKT)V re OIKAKSS /cctXAriras, | deiirvttraas, anvil {dxp-ovi v. 86), and renders (piperou ws TIS re Kar^Kravefiovviiri r^drvr}. So- 'rushes.' Here the alternative version phocles follows the Homeric version in would be, 'is brought as a tribute,' but conceiving Agamemnon as slain at a that is too weak.

22

I04-0KAE0Y2 7) '/JLOV (jyeperai,

crov, Trasrep,

otKT/Dcus re Oavovros. ajmcruor.

aAA ou jU-ev 077

Xyj^o) Oprjvoiv crrvyepcov re y ecrr' az' Trafx,s r i s dr)8a>v i-rrl KCOKVTO) rwvSe iraTpcocov irpo 0vpS eiVas Elmsley.] For ddUas Blaydes reads aU&s. Dobree (Ada. II. p. 49) corrected opare to dpa.8', | at Schneidewin conj. at rois adi/cus \ 8vijras, opart Si rois etivas \ vTroK\eTrTo/j.&>ovs. Hamacher, at TOI)S civas iiroic\eirTOft&ov$ | xal rods dU 8vQ irepl KTjpi cplXei Zeu's T ' alytoxos ical 'ATTOXXWI' | iravTolyv 0iXori;ra. Literally: ' reciprocating the graciousness (kindliness) of friendship in every form,' —bound to me by a mutual friendship, which is sympathetic with ever)' mood. (Not: ' replacing' kindliness in every re-

HAEKTPA I know and feel it, it escapes me not; but I cannot leave this task undone, or cease from mourning for my hapless sire. Ah, friends whose love responds to mine in every mood, leave me to rave thus,—oh leave me, I entreat you ! CH. But never by laments or prayers shalt thou recall thy 'st antisire from that lake of Hades to which all must pass. Nay, str0Phethine is a fatal course of grief, passing ever from due bounds into a cureless sorrow; wherein there is no deliverance from evils. Say, wherefore art thou enamoured of misery ? EL. Foolish is the child who forgets a parent's piteous death. evxcus'. Reisig [Comm. crit. Oed. Col. 1564) otire XITCU&IV ov Oprfvois. Campbell writes irayKolvov Xl/ivas traripa \ * 0p^vou oSre Xiraiaiv avaruseis. 1 4 1 GTevaxovaa] Wakefield conj. piv' Sr/ovaa : Blaydes, irpol'ovaa or irpoirlrvovaa. 142 L divides the v. after 01), placing beixla KO.KWV in a separate line. For dvdXvais, Badham conj. dvdSvais: O. Hense, dXv^is. Nauck would write, lv olaiv £poi>L 9 firjfiaTL fiokovTa rdvSe yav 'Opdcvrav. HA. 10 ov y iyat dxdjxaTa irpoa^ivovcr', d 11 TaKaiv dvvfji