τίνι γάρ … τίνι φρονοῦντι καίρια, ‘for in the judgment of what person who thinks aright,’ ἀκούσαιμ᾽ ἂν πρόσφορον ἔπος, ‘could I possibly hear a word of comfort suited to my case?’ That is: What reason for desisting from these lamentations could possibly be suggested to me, which a right-minded person would think satisfactory? For the ethic dat. τίνι κ.τ.λ., cp. O.C. 1446 “ἀνάξιαι γὰρ πᾶσίν ἐστε δυστυχεῖν”, and ib. 810 (n.). For πρόσφορον, ‘suitable,’ and hence ‘suited to one's needs,’ ‘profitable,’ cp. O.C. 1774 “πρόσφορά θ᾽ ὑμῖν” | “καὶ τῷ κατὰ γῆς”. Other explanations are:—(1) Taking the dative with “πρόσφορον”:—‘To what person who feels aright would that word be suitable which I should hear (=which would be said of me)?’ That is: Should I not deserve to incur a censure from which every right-minded person would shrink? Should I not deserve to be called “δυσσεβής”? This seems forced; and it does not well suit “ἔπος”. (2) Taking the dative with “ἀκούσαιμι”:—‘At whose mouth (=from whom), that thinks aright, could I hear a suitable word of comfort?’ But such a dative seems impossible. In Il. 16. 515“δύνασαι δὲ σὺ πάντοσ᾽ ἀκούειν” | “ἀνέρι κηδομένῳ”, the dat. is one of interest, denoting the person whose prayer is heard (‘for him’); cp. Il. 5. 115“κλῦθί μοι”: 24. 335 “ἔκλυες ᾧ κ᾽ ἐθέλῃσθα”.
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.