Ἔρωτι μέν νυν, like O. T.31“θεοῖσι μέν νυν”: so in Ionic prose, as Her.4. 145“οὗτος μέν νυν ταῦτα ἔπρησσε.— ἀντανίσταται”: like the athlete who rises, when called by the herald, and presents himself for the contest: Her.8. 59“ἐν τοῖσι ἀγῶσι οἱ προεξανιστάμενοι” (i.e., before they are thus summoned) “ῥαπίζονται”. So Plut. Sull.7(with ref. to a contest for the consulship) “ἀντανίστατο δ᾽ αὐτῷ Μάριος.—ἐς χεῖρας”, with “ἀντανίσταται”: a terse way of saying, ‘so as to come to close quarters’: Soph. O. C.835“τάχ᾽ εἰς βάσανον εἶ χερῶν” (n.); ib. 975 “ἐς χεῖρας ἦλθον”. Plut. Thes.5“ἀγχέμαχοι καὶ μάλιστα δὴ πάντων εἰς χεῖρας ὠθεῖσθαι” (to push forward to close quarters) “τοῖς ἐναντίοις μεμαθηκότες”. πύκτης ὅπως. No one can parry the adroit and rapid blows of Erôs. His antagonist fares like the barbarian opposed to the skilled pugilist (Dem. or. 4 § 40),—“ὁ πληγεὶς ἀεὶ τῆς πληγῆς ἔχεται, κἂν ἑτέρωσε πατάξῃς, ἐκεῖσέ εἰσιν αἱ χεῖρες: προβάλλεσθαι δ᾽ η_ βλέπειν ἐναντίον οὔτ οἶδεν οὔτ᾽ ἐθέλει”. Schneidewin cp. Anacreon fr. 63. 3 “στεφάνους ἔνεικον, ὡς δὴ” | “πρὸς Ἔρωτα πυκταλίζω”: but the resemblance is only verbal; the reveller does not wish to resist Love, but to make trial of his might. οὐ καλῶς φρονεῖ: cp. Eur. fr. 271 “Ἔρωτα δ᾽ ὅστις μὴ θεὸν κρίνει μέγαν” | “καὶ τῶν ἁπάντων δαιμόνων ὑπέρτατον”, | “ἢ σκαιός ἐστιν, ἢ καλῶν ἄπειρος ὢν” | “οὐκ οἶδε τὸν μέγιστον ἀνθρώποις θεόν”.
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.