ὀδός. Somewhere near the grove of the Eumenides, but not within the stagescene, was a spot called "the threshold" of Hades,—a steeply-descending rift or cavern in the rock, at the mouth of which some brazen steps had been made (see on 1590 f.),—in accordance with the epic notion that Hades had a χάλκεος οὐδός (Il. 8.15). From this spot, the immediately adjacent region (including the grove) was known as "the brazen threshold," — χαλκόπους, borrowed from the literal χαλκᾶ βάθρα (1591), taking the general sense of "adamantine." As “"rooted on the nether rock"” (γῆθεν ἐρριζωμένον 1591), and also as linked by mystic sanctities with the Powers of the Under-world, this region of the "brazen threshold" is called ἔρεισμ᾽ Ἀθηνῶν, the stay of Athens: a phrase in which the idea of physical basis is joined to that of religious safeguard. χαλκόπους, with feet of brass ( El. 491 “χ. Ἐρινύς”, untiring), i.e. furnished with brazen steps: not, putting brass under the foot, as some have taken it: so ἀργυρόπους, χρυσόπους etc.
This text is part of:
Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part II: The Oedipus Coloneus. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1899.
Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education provided support for entering this text.
This text was converted to electronic form by professional data entry and has been proofread to a high level of accuracy.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.