ἀπεικάσαι: cp. Eur. Or.1298“Ἑλένης τὸ κώκυμ᾽ ἐστίν, ὡς ἀπεικάσαι”. These are isolated examples of “ἀπεικάζω” so used: for in Soph. O. C.16(where see n.) we must read “ὡς σάφ᾽ εἰκάσαι”. Elsewhere “ἀπεικάζειν τι” is ‘to express the likeness of a thing,’ either in art, or (as in Soph. fr. 154. 2) by a comparison. Hence Herm. wished to read here the usual word “ἐπεικάσαι” (cp. 1220). He dismissed the example in the Orestes by saying that there “ὡς ἀπεικάσαι” means, ‘to compare the voice heard with Helen's voice’: but that is obviously a forced explanation. “ἐπεικάζω” is <*> to ‘enter upon’ conjecture, “ἐπί” giving the notion of advance, as in “ἐπινοῶ”: <*> “ἀπεικάζω”, when used as here, is rath<*> throw off,’ or ‘hazard,’ a guess,—“ἀπ<*>” <*>ing used as in “ἀποκινδυνεύω”.
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.