παιδοτρόφου, nourishing the young lives in the land. The epithet is especially fitting here, after the recent allusion to Demeter and Cora, because at the Thesmophoria the prayer to those goddesses associated Earth with them as “ἡ κουροτρόφος”: see Ar. Thesm. 295. Cp. Juv. Sat. 3. 84 “quod nostra infantia caelum Hausit Aventini, baca nutrita Sabina” (the olive). Hesych. (s.v. “στέφανον ἐκφέρειν”) says that it was the Attic custom “στέφανον ἐλαίας τιθέναι πρὸ τῶν θυρῶν”, when a male child was born; as wool, when a female (cp. foribus suspende coronas: Iam pater es). But there is no such allusion here. Nor could “παιδοτρ”. mean “"propagated from the parent olive"” on the acropolis, as Schneidewin thought.
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.
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