APPENDIX. Verses 2 f. ἆρ ̓ οἶσθ ̓ ὅ τι Ζεὺς τῶν ἀπ ̓ Οἰδίπου κακῶν The view taken in the commentary—that % Tɩ is subject to ẻσTí understood-seems to have been first proposed by W. Schneider, then by Neue; it was advocated by Bonitz (Beiträge II. 17); and it is now received by Bellermann. What is new in my note, so far as I know, is the attempt to show how associations of colloquial idiom may have helped to soften the apparent harshness, and, more especially, to excuse the hyperbaton of Zeus. Here, at any rate, we approach the root of the difficulty which these verses present. The ultimate question is, how much irregularity would the spoken language of the day have tolerated in such a sentence? We do not know: we can but study the evidence of contemporary analogies. At one time I inclined to the only theory which dispenses with the assumption of irregularity. This consists in taking reλe with both clauses: ἆρ ̓ οἶσθ ̓ ὅ τι Ζεὺς τῶν κακῶν (τελεῖ), ὁποῖον οὐχὶ τῶν ἔτι ζώσαιν Teλeî; Then,—reλeî being, in this case, better regarded as fut.,—the sense would be, 'what will Zeus fulfil, which he will not fulfil while we live?'-that condition being emphasised by the form of the sentence. Grammatically, this is blameless. Cp. Plat. Legg. p. 710 D Távτa oxeδὸν ἀπείργασται τῷ θεῷ, ἅπερ (Sc. ἀπεργάζεται) ὅταν βουληθῇ διαφερόντως ev πρâέαí тiva Tów: where the relative clause, expressing the condition, ὅταν βουληθῇ...πόλιν, is parallel with our gen. absol., νῷν ἔτι ζώσαιν. If the Teλe after woaw stood after κakov, the parallelism of form would be complete: except, indeed, that the Platonic sentence is a little bolder, since it is natural to supply ἀπεργάζεται (or ἀπειργάσατο) rather than ἀπείργασται. Yet, admissible as this construction is, it is undoubtedly harsh. And that harshness-especially at the outset of the play-is a strong argument against it. Two other interpretations have been suggested by those who take ὅ τι as a pronoun. (α) ὁποῖον is resumptive of ὅ τι. 'Knowest thou what evil,-what sort of evil, he does not fulfil?'-an emphatic pleonasm. The Scholiast seems to have acquiesced in this :—eiπev dè διττῶς· πρῶτον μὲν ὅ τι, ἔπειτα δὲ ὁποῖον, ἀρκοῦντος θατέρου. But this T. S. III.2 16 seems weak; and it is certainly jerky. Others modify this view by taking ouxi with onоîov only: 'Knowest thou what of the ills-nay, what not-is being fulfilled by Zeus,' etc. But, 'knowest thou what of the ills...' (ŏ Tɩ without ovxí) would have implied, not less than her meaning, but the reverse of it. (b) Two questions are combined in % Tɩ OTTOîov (as in rís Tóbev el;)-what, (and) of what kind?' This view, proposed by Zehlicke (Greifsw. 1826), has been rightly rejected by A. Boeckh (Ueber die Ant. p. 175).-Wecklein's comment is, ‘ŏ Tɩ oπoîov, quid quale, welches Leid, wie es immer heissen mag': i.e., ‘what woe, of whatever sort it may be.' I do not see how the words could yield this sense. If we read or, the conjunction, then oroîov is substituted for the direct Toĉov. 'Knowest thou that Zeus fulfils-what not?' In favour of this, we might, perhaps, suggest two points. (1) The double question. being somewhat awkward, may have made it easier to slide into the irregu lar relative construction with oroîov. (2) The familiarity of the combina tion old or strongly illustrated by its use as an adverbial parenthesis (275 n.)—may have made it easier to treat olo' or, after some intervening words, as if or did not exist. On the other hand, the harshness of the construction is aggravated by the shortness of the sentence. We cannot compare O. T. 1401, where the Mss. give åpá pov péμvyoľ ὅτι | οἳ ̓ ἔργα δράσας ὑμὶν εἶτα δεῦρ ̓ ἰων ¦ ὁποῖ ̓ ἔπρασσον αὖθις; For there —even if or is kept-it is obviously impossible that μéμvno oτi oia δράσας, etc., should be a fusion of μέμνησθ' ὅτι τοιαῦτα δράσας with μέμνησθ' ola Spáσas: the alternative-to treat ola and oroîa as exclamatorythough not (to my mind) tolerable, would be a less evil: but clearly or should there be TL. It has been suggested, indeed, that omoîov is not substituted for Tolov, but is itself a direct interrogative. This has been supported by the analogy of omórepos in direct question. Plat. Lysis 212 C ναί· ὁπότερος οὖν αὐτῶν ποτέρου φίλος ἐστίν ; Heindorf there cites Euthyd. 271 A ὁπότερον καὶ ἐρωτᾷς, ὦ Κρίτων ; Rep. 348 Β ὁποτέρως οὖν σol...άpéσkel; Let it be assumed that the readings are sound in those places. Still, there is at least no similar instance of oπotos: nor is OTоîov here the first word of a direct question. The proposed emendations are all unsatisfactory. They are of three classes. (1) Those which alter v. 2, leaving v. 3 untouched.-Bothe: ap' οἶσθά τι Ζεύς. —Meineke: ἆρ ̓ οἶσθα δὴ Ζεύς. (2) Those which alter v. 3, leaving v. 2 untouched.-Dindorf: ἐλλεῖπον for ὁποῖον.—Paley: οὐκ ἔσθ ̓ ὁποῖον οὐχὶ νῷν ζώσαιν τελεῖ (Journ. Phil. x. p. 16). He thinks that er was a gloss (due to the frequency of its combination elsewhere with (v), and that, when rɩ had crept into the text, ouk o' was erroneously omitted.-Blaydes: Tоîov, or τὸ λοιπόν, for ὁποῖον. (3) Those which change, or transpose, words in both verses.Heimsoeth (Krit. Stud. 1. 211): ap' ololά TOÚ Tɩ TŵV ảπ' Oidíπov κακῶν | ὁποῖον οὐ Ζεὺς νῶν ἔτι ζώσαιν τελεῖ;—Nauck: ἆρ ̓ οἶσθ' ὅ τι Ζεὺς could the an νῶν ἔτι ζώσαιν τελεῖ ὁποῖον οὐχὶ τῶν ἀπ ̓ Οἰδίπου κακῶν; As Moriz 4 οὔτ ̓ ἄτης ἄτερ. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that we have of to choose between two views. One is that the words arms areρ are sound, but that there has been some confusion of negatives. I shall return presently to this theory, which has lately been gaining ground in Germany. The other view is that the words aτns arep conceal a corruption, but that the process which led to it can no longer be traced. It must never be forgotten it is indeed the capital condition of sound criticism here—that out' άτηs aтep was already the traditional reading in the time of Didymus, c. 30 B.C.' The practice of writing explanations, 'glosses,' in the margin of MSS. was common in the later age to which our мss. belong; but we are not entitled to suppose that it existed in the earlier Alexandrian age, from which the MSS. of 30 B.C. had come down. Therefore we cannot assume, as Porson did, that arep arose from a marginal gloss arηp", i.e. árηpóv, representing the sense of some other word or phrase which originally stood in the text. Again: it is possible that ἄτης ἄτερ arose from a dittographia, της άτης, and that the word which originally followed arms bore no likeness to άtep. But this also would be a bold assumption. And, apart from such hypotheses, we can only be guided by the letters of οὔτ ̓ ἄτης ἄτερ. Νο reading can claim to be more than a guess, unless it is such that a miswriting of it might have generated those words. This distinction between the clue of sense and the clue of writing at once sets aside a large number of conjectures. Among the rest, which suit the letters, not one, I think, suits the context. If, then, the words ouk άтηs атep are corrupt, they probably arose by some accident, or series of accidents, of another kind than mere mis-writing. And if this is so, we may chance, indeed, to hit the truth by a conjecture; but we can no longer prove it. The attempts to explain our arms arep without supposing a confusion of negatives have only a historical interest, and can be briefly dismissed. (1) Triclinius suggested two versions, both of which make aтep an adverb, = xwpís. (a) There is nothing painful, there is no excepted form of arm (lit., nothing of arm, apart),...that I have not seen'; i.e., arep =άTEρ ŏv. (b) 'Nothing painful, no sort of ǎrn, äтep (éσTí), is a part,' i.e. 1 Schol. in L: Δίδυμος φησὶν ὅτι ἐν τούτοις τὸ ἄτης ἄτερ ἐναντίως συντέτακται τοῖς συμφραζομένοις· λέγει γὰρ οὕτως· οὐδὲν γάρ ἐστιν οὔτε ἀλγεινόν, οὔτε ἀτηρόν, οὔτε αἰσχρὸν ὃ οὐκ ἔχομεν ἡμεῖς. ἄτης ἄτερ δέ ἐστι τὸ ἀγαθόν. 'is absent.'-(2) Seidler: 'There is nothing painful, there is no shame or dishonour (such as can come) without guilt' (ärns åtep), i.e., 'no unmerited shame or dishonour.'-(3) Boeckh: There is nothing painful, nor-leaving aside the curse upon our race (arns arep)—is there any shame or dishonour that I have not seen.' Thus the parenthesis, ἄτης ǎrep, refers to the fatal deeds and woes of the Labdacidae, while aiσxpóv and arov refer to the dishonouring of Polyneices by Creon.-(4) A modification of the last view would give the parenthesis a more general sense; 'nor-leaving aside the ruin of our fortunes-is there any disgrace or dishonour.' The theory that the poet himself was betrayed into an error by the accumulation of negatives deserves to be very carefully weighed. As a general rule, mistakes of the kind which people easily make in hurried or involved speaking have a somewhat larger scope in the ancient classical texts than in days when a writer's proof-sheets are revised for press, with close criticism in prospect. Yet modern literature is by no means free from them; and, in particular, the multiplication of negatives has always been apt to cause irregularities,—even in short sentences. Abbott (Shaksp. Grammar § 405) quotes Ascham's Scholemaster, 37, 'No sonne, were he never so olde of yeares, might not marry': Shaks. C. of E. 4. 2. 7, 'First he denied you had in him no right'; etc. Bellermann brings two German instances (both from good writers, and in short sentences): Lessing's Emilia Galotti 11. 6: Wie wild er schon war, als er nur hörte, dass der Prinz dich nicht ohne Missfallen gesehen!' And in a letter from Schiller to Goethe (Nov. 23, 1795): 'Da man sich nie bedacht hat, die Meinung über meine Fehler zu unterdrücken.' It is true that, in these examples, the irregularity consists in having a negative too much, while in Sophocles we should have to suppose a negative too little. Still, since two negatives precede the first our, the origin of the error would be similar1. that The simplest form of the confusion-theory is to suppose Sophocles wrote οὐδὲν γὰρ οὔτ ̓ ἀλγεινὸν οὔτ ̓ ἄτης ἄτερ | οὔτ ̓ αἰσχρὸν OUT' åτiμóv ẻσľ, K.T.A., meaning, there is nothing either painful or not without ἄτη, etc.,—instead of οὔτ ̓ οὐκ ἄτης ἄτερ. Another form of it is that advocated by Hermann Schütz (Sophokleische Studien, 1886), pp. 6 f., who would point thus: οὐδὲν γὰρ οὔτ ̓ ἀλγεινὸν οὔτ ̓ ἄτης ἄτερ· | οὔτ ̓ αἰσχρὸν οὔτ ̓ ἄτιμόν ἐσθ', etc. He understands: 'Nothing is not-painful or free from arn.' Setting out, like Hermann, from the fact that οὐδὲν οὐκ ἀλγεινόν ἐστι means πάντα ἀλγεινά ἐστι, he supposes that the poet meant to say, οὐδὲν γὰρ οὐκ ἀλγεινὸν οὐδ ̓ ἄτης ἄτερ ẻorí, but, wishing to co-ordinate the clauses, slid into the incorrect our' ...οὔτ ̓. That is, we have to suppose that οὔτ ̓ ἀλγεινόν = οὔτ ̓ οὐκ ἀλγεινόν. But I much prefer the simpler view first stated, for these reasons. (a) It is much easier to suppose that the influence of a preceding oute should 1 In Thuc. 7. 75 § 4 οὐκ ἄνευ ὀλίγων (ἐπιθειασμών) used to be explained as a like error, for οὐκ ἄνευ οὐκ ὀλίγων. But this seems impossible. Nor can ὀλίγων be explained (with Classen) as='in a faint voice.' Either avev or ỏywv (probably the latter) is corrupt. have caused a second ovre to be used instead of our' ouk, than it is to suppose that the first oure should have been so used. (b) It seems clear that the words from ovdèv to åriμóv éσľ formed a single sentence. The sense is greatly weakened by having a point after arep. (c) In v. 5 we should then require ovd...oud, unless we assumed a further inaccuracy in the use of OUT'...OUT. The negatives will supply a solution of a different kind if, instead of supposing they were originally confused, we suppose that the second oûte has been corrupted, from ouk or from ous'. With ouk arηs arep the sense would be, Nothing either painful-not without arn-or shameful,' etc. The aλyos, or mental anguish, was not unattended by arn, external calamity. With ous' arms, the only difference would be that the clause would then be linked to aλyevóv: Nothing either painful (and not harmless), or shameful, etc. Cp. Ο. Τ. 1282 στεναγμός, ἄτη, θάνατος, αἰσχύνη, κακῶν ὅσ ̓ ἐστὶ πάντων ὀνόματ', οὐδέν ἐστ ̓ ἀπόν. The great attraction of this remedy is that it changes only one letter; the drawback is the somewhat forced sense. We may now consider the conjectural emendations of arms drep. Apart from the hypothesis of a marginal gloss or of a dittographia, the letters of arms arep are our only safe guides. Mr E. Maunde Thompson has kindly given me the aid of his palaeographical learning and skill in an attempt to find some approximate limits for the corruption. We have to start from the fact that no variant seems to have been known in 30 B.C. About 230 B.C. Ptolemy Euergetes had acquired for Alexandria 1 a standard text of the dramatists which had been written at Athens about 330 B.C. If the words ouк aтηs areρ stood in the text of 330 B.C., inscriptions supply the only form of writing by which the possibilities of change can certainly be measured. But it is otherwise if the text of 330 B.C. had a different reading, and if ovк ärys aтep arose after that text had been brought to Alexandria. The papyri of the Ptolemaic age give Greek writing of the 2nd century B.C. It is a beautiful linked handwriting, firm and yet easy,-quite unlike the formally carved letters on contemporary stone. Such a handwriting presupposes at least a century of development. We may therefore believe that the forms of letters in the papyri of 250 B.C. were essentially the same as in those of 150 B.C. Now, one trait of the Ptolemaic writing is the well-marked distinction between letters which rest on the line, and letters which go below it. Thus the tails of and p are long, so that there was small chance of any confusion between such letters and, for instance, and o. Hence, if we suppose ärηs άtep to have been a Ptolemaic corruption from a Ptolemaic archetype, we must, at any rate, be reluctant to part with p: while, on the other, we must hesitate to introduce . The letter T could have come from a (written somewhat awry), or, more easily, from ỵ, or π. The form of the Ptolemaic s was such that, if arη had been written with a mere linking-stroke (−) after it, a careless scribe might have evolved ärns. 1 See the Introduction to the Laurentian MS. of Sophocles, part II., pp. 13 f., where I have collected and examined the authorities. |