δεινὰν δεινῶς: cp. 989: Ph. 166 n.—The phrase δεινὰν … μορφάν must be viewed in the light of the following words, “εἴτ᾽ οὖν θεὸς εἴτε βροτῶν” | “ἦν ὁ ταῦτα πράσσων”. The Chorus doubt whether the agency in the terrible crime was merely human. Perchance an evil “δαίμων” was there, wor<*>ng out the curse upon the line of Pelops (504—515). The “δεινὴ μορφή”, offspring of “δόλος” and “ἔρος”, is the act of murder, embodied in the image of a supernatural “ἀλάστωρ”. Sophocles may have had in mind the words of the Aeschylean Clytaemnestra ( Ag. 1500 f.); the slayer of Agamemnon, she says, was in truth the Avenger of the house, who took her form:—“φανταζόμενος δὲ γυναικὶ νεκροῦ” | “τοῦδ᾽ ὁ παλαιὸς δριμὺς ἀλάστωρ” | “Ἀτρέως, χαλεποῦ θοινατῆρος”, | “τόνδ᾽ ἀπέτεισεν”, | “τέλεον νεαροῖς ἐπιθύσας”. εἴτ᾽ οὖν … εἴτε: cp. 560: O.T. 1049 n.— βροτῶν, partitive gen.: M. 1. 3. 9 “ε<*>ναι τῶν σωφρονικῶν ἀνθρώπων”.—Cp. O. T. 1258“λυσσῶντι δ᾽ αὐτῷ δαιμόνων δείκνυσί τις:” | “οὐδεὶς γὰρ ἀνδρῶν”. Ai. 243“κακὰ δεννάζων ῥήμαθ̓, ἃ δαίμων” | “κοὐδεὶς ἀνδρῶν ἐδίδαξεν”.
This text is part of:
Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part VI: The Electra. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1894.
The National Endowment for the Humanities 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.