τὸν οὐκ ὄντα μᾶλλον ἢ μηδένα, one who exists no more than a nonentity. In “μηδένα, μή” has its generic force: one who is such as to be a mere cipher. Cp. Ai. 1114 “οὐ γὰρ ἠξίου τοὺς μηδένας”. O. T. 1019 “καὶ πῶς ὁ φύσας ἐξ ἴσου τῷ μηδενί”; (dat. of “ὁ μηδείς”,—he who is “μηδείς” in respect to consanguinity). Here “τὸν μηδέν” would have been equally fitting: cp. Ai. 1231 “ὅτ᾽ οὐδὲν ὢν τοῦ μηδὲν” (the dead) “ἀντέστης ὔπερ”.—Postgate suggests (Trans. Cambridge Phil. Soc., 1886, p. 58) that this use of the oblique cases of “μηδείς” in sing., and of “οὐδείς” and “μηδείς” in plur., may have come from an attraction of the neuter by the masc. article: e.g., “τοὺς μηδένας” from “τοὺς μηδέν”. We do not find “ὁ μηδείς”. When it became declinable, the phrase could dispense with the article; e.g., “τὸν μηδέν” could be simply “μηδένα”.
This text is part of:
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.
The Annenberg CPB/Project 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.