495-498
πρὸ τῶνδέ τοι …
συνδρῶσιν: ‘therefore I am confident that
we shall never see (“
ἡμῖν”, ethic
dat.) the portent draw near to the murderess and her accomplice
without giving them cause to complain of
it’;—
i.e.,
‘we shall assuredly find that the dream has been an
omen of their ruin.’
Verses 495—497 (“
πρὸ τῶνδέ
τοι...τέρας”) answer metrically to vv.
479—481 “
ὕπεστί
μοι...ὀνειράτων”, where the text is certain, save
for the doubt whether “
θράσος” or
“
θάρσος” should stand in 479.
Here we must first decide two points.
(1) Are the words
πρὸ
τῶνδε sound? I think so. The sense is,
‘
for (=on account of) these
things,’ “
πρό” being used
as “
ὑπέρ” is in
O. T. 165“
ἄτας
ὕπερ”,
Ant. 932“
βραδυτῆτος ὕπερ”. This is a rare, but not
unexampled, sense of “
πρό”, in which
the notions ‘before’ and ‘by
reason of it’ were associated, just as in Lat.
prae and our own ‘for.’ See
Il. 17. 666“
μή μιν
Ἀχαιοὶ” | “
ἀργαλέου πρὸ φόβοιο ἕλωρ δηίοισι
λίποιεν”,=
prae timore,
‘
for fear’ (not, as
Düntzer explains, ‘forward on the path of
flight’: cp. Leaf
ad loc.).
Tr. 505“
κατέβαν
πρὸ γάμων”, ‘entered the contest
for the marriage’ (not
‘before’ it, which would there be
pointless).
(2) Could “
ἔχει με, μήποτε
τέρας πελᾶν” (etc.) mean, ‘
the
belief possesses me, that’ etc.? Surely
not. No real parallel for so strange a phrase has been produced.
It is irrelevant to quote those impersonal verbs which directly
express the
occurrence of a thought to the mind; as
Xen. An. 6. 1.
17“
εἰσῄει αὐτοὺς ὅπως ἂν
καὶ ἔχοντές τι οἴκαδε ἀφίκοιντο”
(‘the thought came to them, how they might,’
etc.):
Thuc. 6. 78.§ 1
“
εἰ δέ τῳ ἄρα παρέστηκε, τὸν μὲν
Συρακόσιον...πολέμιον εἶναι κ.τ.λ.” Either,
then, the subject to “
ἔχει” has
dropped out, or the words “
μ᾽ ἔχει”
conceal a corruption.
The following remedies are possible: I incline to the first, as
involving least change. (1) Reading in 479 “
ὕπεστί μοι θράσος”, we may read here “
πρὸ τῶνδέ τοί μ᾽ ἔχει”
| “
<θάρσος τι>,
μήποθ᾽ ἡμῖν” etc. (It may be remarked that “
τι” is in harmony with the tone of
“
ὕπεστί μοι” in 479.) Another
available word is “
ξύννοια” (cp.
Ant. 279). (2) Or, reading in 479
“
ὕπεστί μοι θάρσος”, we could
read here “
πρὸ τῶνδέ τοι θάρσος ἴσχει
με”. On either view, the “
υ” of “
ἁδυπνόων” in 480 is
long (as several critics have assumed). It should be noted that
(1) involves a different constitution of the verses: see p.
lxxxii.
In those MSS. which have
μή
ποτε μή ποθ᾽ ἡμῖν, the first “
μήποτε” (absent from L) was probably an attempt to
fill the gap: unless, indeed, “
μ᾽
ἔχει” should be “
θράσος” (as
Wunder thought).—For other conjectures, see Appendix.
