i.e. “"You ask for the last offices which piety can render: you do not ask me for protection during your lifetime."” Through the oracle (389), of which Theseus knows nothing, a grave in Attica had become the supreme concern of Oedipus. τὰ δ᾽ ἐν μέσῳ is governed by λῆστιν ἴσχεις as=“ἐπιλανθάνει” (see on 223), no less than by “ποεῖ”. To make “τὰ δ᾽ ἐν μ”. an accus. of respect would suit the first verb, but not the second. δι᾽ οὐδενὸς ποεῖ, a solitary instance of this phrase (instead of “οὐδενὸς” or “παρ᾽ οὐδὲν ποεῖσθαι”), perh. suggested by the use of the prep. in such phrases as “διὰ φυλακῆς ἔχω τι”, etc.
This text is part of:
Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part II: The Oedipus Coloneus. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1899.
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