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[1081] Whatever may have been his human parentage, Oed. is the “son of Fortune ” (said in a very different tone from “Fortunae filius” in Hor. Sat. 2.6.49): Fortune brings forth the months with their varying events; these months, then, are his brothers, who ere now have known him depressed as well as exalted. He has faith in this Mother, and will not shrink from the path on which she seems to beckon him; he will not be false to his sonship. We might recall Schiller's epigram on the Wolfians; whatever may be the human paternity of the Iliad, “hat es doch Eine Mutter nur, Und die Züge der Mutter, Deine unsterblichen Züge, Natur.”

τῆς εὖ διδούσης the beneficent: here absol., usu. with dat., as “σφῷν δ᾽ εὖ διδοίη Ζεύς,Soph. OC 1435. Not gen. abs., “while she prospers me, ” since the poet. τῆς for αὐτῆς could stand only at the beginning of a sentence or clause, as 1082.

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