δεῖ: for the pause, cp. 555.— ἐκπεσεῖν: here absol., to be displaced, thrust out: oft. of dethronement (“ἐκπ. τυραννίδος, ἀρχῆς, κράτους”, Aesch. ), or of exile (“χθονός”, O. C. 766). κοὐκ ἂν...καλοίμεθ᾽ ἄν: the doubled “ἄν”, as oft. in emphatic or excited utterances (O. T. 339 n.). —These two verses (like so many others) have been suspected merely because they are not indispensable. A defence is perhaps hardly needed. It is enough to remark that Creon's irritation under a woman's defiance (484, 525, 579) naturally prompts this further comment on the word “γυναικός” in 678. And the phrase “γυναικῶν ἥσσονες” (680) has a peculiar force as spoken to Haemon,— whom Creon afterwards taunts as “γυναικὸς ὕστερον” (746).
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.