μάντις … τῶν καθεστώτων, a prophet about them,—i.e. one who can say how long they will last. The conjecture ἐφεστώτων (‘imminent’), which Nauck receives, is decidedly wrong for two reasons. (1) Though we find “Κῆρες ἐφεστᾶσιν”, etc., the perf. part. was regularly used as it is in Ai. 1072 “τῶν ἐφεστώτων” (masc.) “κλύειν” ‘to obey the rulers’, and here a Greek would rather have supposed the sense to be, ‘no one in authority is a prophet.’ (2) The point is that things may seem established, and yet be unstable.
This text is part of:
Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part III: The Antigone. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1900.
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