previous next

[294] The subject to ἔχει is the murderer, who is foremost in the thoughts of the Chorus, —not the eye-witness( ἰδών, 293). The reversion from plural(ὁδοιπόρων, 292) to singular is unconscious, just as in 124 we have λῃστής, after λῃστάς in 122.

δείματός γ᾽ δεῖμα, prop. “an object of fear,” is used by Herodotus and the poets as = δέος: Hdt. 6.74Κλεομένεα ... δεῖμα ἔλαβε Σπαρτιητέων”: Aesch. Supp. 566χλωρῷ δείματι θυμὸν πάλλοντ᾽”: Eur. Supp. 599ὥς μοι ὑφ᾽ ἥπατι δεῖμα χλοερὸν ταράσσει”: id. Soph. El. 767ἐκ δείματος,” from fear. Cp. above, 153. The γε gives emphasis: the ἀραί of Oed. were enough to scare the boldest. Hartung conjectures δειμάτων ἔχει μέρος. The plur. δείματα means either (a) objects of fear, or (b) much more rarely, fears, with reference to some particular objects already specified: as in Soph. El. 636δειμάτων νῦν ἔχω,” “the terrors which I now suffer,” alluding to the dreams. Here we seem to need the sing., “fear.”

Creative Commons License
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.

hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: