ἐξημπόλημαι. Creon means: ‘The Thebans have bribed Teiresias to frighten me. He has taken their money. In return, he is to deliver me into their hands. I am like a piece of merchandise which has been sold for export, and put on board the buyer's ship.’ Cp. 1063. Her. 1.1 “ἐξεμπολημένων” (Ion.) “σφι σχεδὸν πάντων”, when they had sold off almost everything.—Neither “ἐμφορτίζομαι” nor “ἐκφορτίζομαι” occurs elsewhere, except that an old glossary (cited by Dind.) gives “ἐξεφορτίσατο”, exoneravit (‘unladed’). In later Greek we find “ἐμφορτοῦσθαι ναῦν, ἔμφορτος”, and “ἐκφορτοῦν” (both act. and midd.). Here, ἐμπεφόρτισμαι, the reading of the first hand in L, marks the completion of the sale by the delivery of the goods. The Schol. quotes Callimachus (fr. 529), “ἐποιήσαντό με φόρτον”.—The correction in L, ἐκπεφόρτισμαι, is far inferior. It would mean, ‘unladed (as a cargo) from a ship’: not, ‘made into a cargo,’ nor, ‘exported as a cargo.’—In Tr. 537 there is a like association of “ἐμπόλημα” and “φόρτος” (though the passage is not otherwise similar). Cp. Shaks. Com. Err. 3. 1. 72 “‘It would make a man mad as a buck, to be so bought and sold.’”
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Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part III: The Antigone. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1900.
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