ὁ φιτύσας πατήρ: the same phrase in Ai.1296: cp. O. T.793 O. T., 1482. ᾤκτισα: for the aor., referring to the recent moment at which the feeling began, cp. 464, 1044, Ant.1307 n. ὅσῳπερ is used as if “πλεῖστον”, instead of μόνη, followed: see O. C.743 n. φρονεῖν οἶδεν, like “σωφρονεῖν ἐπίσταται” ( O. T.589). Iolè (whose actual relation to Heracles appears from 1225 f.) is feeling not only bitter grief (326), but the new shame and embarrassment caused by the presence in which she stands. While the other captives are comparatively callous, she appears to Deianeira as one whose sense of the calamity is such as might be looked for in a maiden of noble birth and spirit. φρονεῖν here denotes that fine intelligence which is formed by gentle breeding, and which contributes to delicate propriety of behaviour. So, in Ant.1250, it is conjectured of Eurydicè that, in her grief, she has sought privacy: “γνώμης γὰρ οὐκ ἄπειρος, ὥσθ᾽ ἁμαρτάνειν”: and cp. the account of Panthea's “ἀρετὴ καὶ εὐσχημοσύνη” in Xen. Cyr.5. 1§ 5. 314 f. For καὶ emphasising the verb, cp. 490, 600, Ant.772 n.: for κρίνοις, above Ant., 195. γέννημα τῶν ἐκεῖθεν, an offspring of the folk there (at Oechalia). Others make the gen. partitive (supplying “γεννημάτων”); but this seems less natural here. For “τῶν ἐκεῖθεν” as = “τῶν ἐκεῖ”, cp. 601 “ταῖς ἔσωθεν”: Ant.1070“τῶν κάτωθεν”. (In 632 “τἀκεῖθεν” in not quite similar.)— οὐκ ἐν ὑστάτοις goes with “γέννημα”, not with “τῶν ἐκ”., as the schol. saw: “οὐκ ἐν ταῖς ἀπερριμμέναις καὶ εὐτελέσι τεταγμένη ἀλλὰ δῆλον ὅτι προὔχουσα ἐν εὐγενείᾳ”. For the litotes cp. Il.15. 11“ἐπεὶ οὔ νιν ἀφαυρότατος βάλ᾽ Ἀχαιῶν”.
This text is part of:
Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part V: The Trachiniae. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1902.
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.