ἁρμὸν χώματος λιθοσπ., an opening in the stones heaped up at the entrance, made by dragging some of them away. Cp. 848 “ἕργμα τυμβόχωστον”. Haemon, in his frenzy of despair, had broken into the tomb by wrenching away part of this rude wall-work. The gap remained as he had made it. He had reached the spot only a short time before Creon (cp. on 1223). ἁρμόν. The word “ἁρμός” means, (1) a fastening: Eur. Med. 1315 “ἐκλύεθ᾽ ἁρμούς”, undo the fastenings of the doors: (2) the chink between two things which are jointed together: so in Plut. Alex. 3 a furtive listener is described as “τῷ τῆς θύρας ἁρμῷ προσβαλὼν” (“τὴν ὄψιν”), ‘having put his eye to the chink in the door.’ So here “ἁρμός” is an aperture, just wide enough to admit of a man going through (cp. δύντες).— “ἁρμός” (with its derivatives “ἁρμοῖ, ἁρμόζω, ἁρμονία”), and “ἁρπεδόνη” (or “ἁρπεδών”), ‘rope,’ are connected with the causative form of the root ar, ar-pajā-mi, ‘to fasten’: see Curt. Etym. § 488.
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.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
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.