193-196
Hitherto the Chorus have offered consolation or counsel. At v.
213 they return to that strain. But here, moved by Electra's
misery, they join with her in bewailing its cause.
οἰκτρὰ μὲν …
πλαγά. At v. 95 it was noticed that verses
95—99 clearly show a reminiscence of
Od. 11. 406—411,—
the earlier part of the passage in which the departed Agamemnon
relates his death to Odysseus. I believe that an instructive
light on these verses is gained by observing that a later
portion of the same passage was here present to the poet's
mind,—viz.,
Od. vv.
418—424, where Agamemnon goes on to describe
the scene at the murderous banquet:—“
ἀλλά κε κεῖνα μάλιστα ἰδὼν ὀλοφύραο
θυμῷ”, | “
ὡς ἀμφὶ
κρητῆρα τραπέζας τε πληθούσας” | “
κείμεθ᾽ ἐνὶ μεγάρῳ” [cp.
κοίταις here], “
δάπεδον δ᾽ ἅπαν αἵματι θῦεν”.
| “
οἰκτροτάτην δ᾽ ἤκουσα
ὄπα” [cp.
οἰκτρὰ
… αὐδὰ] “
Πριάμοιο
θυγατρός”, | “
Κασσάνδρης, τὴν κτεῖνε Κλυταιμνήστρη
δολόμητις” | “
ἀμφ᾽
ἐμοί: αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ ποτὶ γαίῃ χεῖρας ἀείρων”
| “
βάλλον, ἀποθνῄσκων περὶ
φασγάνῳ”.
Sophocles, who follows the Homeric story as to the banquet, could
not but remember the “
οἰκτροτάτην
ὄπα” of the dying Cassandra. And this might naturally
suggest to him that other “
οἰκτρὰ
αὐδή” which she had uttered at an earlier moment,
immediately after Agamemnon's return,—her presage of
his fate, and her own:
Aesch.
Ag. 1072—1314.
The sense then is:—‘There was a voice of
lamentation at the return from Troy’; alluding
especially to Cassandra's laments, but also, perhaps, to
forebodings in the mouth of the people at Mycenae.
‘And there was a voice of lamentation “
ἐν κοίταις πατρῴαις”, when thy
father lay on the couch at the fatal banquet.’ The
‘voice’ at the banquet is, first, that of
the dying Agamemnon; but Sophocles may have thought also of
Cassandra's death-cry, which was sounding in the king's ears as
he fell.—For other interpretations, see Appendix.
νόστοις might be
governed by
ἐν (cp.
O. T. 734 n.), but is more simply
taken as a temporal dat., denoting the occasion, like “
τοῖς ἐπινικίοις” (
Plat. Symp. 174
A), etc.: cp. n. on
Ant. 691.For the poet. plur., cp.
Ai. 900“
ὤμοι
ἐμῶν νόστων”. The plural was familiar in relation
to the return from Troy; thus the poem ascribed to Agias
(
c. 750 B.C.) was entitled “
Νόστοι.”
κοίταις,
‘couch,’ here of feasting, as “
δείπνων” (203) shows. This may be the
sense, as Neue suggests, in
Eur.
Hipp. 748 f. “
κρῆναί τ᾽ ἀμβρόσιαι χέονται” |
“
Ζηνὸς μελάθρων παρὰ
κοίταις”. The word “
κοίτη”
(from stem “
κει”) implies merely
reclining, and does not necessarily involve the notion of
sleeping.
ὅτε οἱ: for the
hiatus cp.
Tr. 650“
ἁ δέ
οἱ” (n.). The MS.
σοι is certainly wrong (see Appendix).—
ἀνταία, striking
full:
cp. 89
“
ἀντήρεις” (n.).
γενύων, the blades of
the two-edged “
πέλεκυς” (99 n.):
cp. 485. Hence a pickaxe is
“
γενῄς” (
Ant. 249 n.).
