πημονὰν ἐπαρκέσοντ̓: cp. Il. 2. 873“οὐδέ τί οἱ τό γ᾽ ἐπήρκεσε λυγρὸν ὄλεθρον”: Od. 17. 568“οὔτε τι Τηλέμαχος τό γ᾽ ἐπήρκεσεν οὔτε τις ἄλλος”. Thus, though “ἐπαρκεῖν” could not mean literally ‘to ward off,’ epic precedent warranted its use in an equivalent sense, which was strictly that of bringing one help against a danger. In lyrics, at least, where epic associations have a large scope, it seems needless to write ἀπαρκέσοντ̓. The traditional reading ποιμένων is explained by the schol. in L, “τῶν ἐμὲ ποιμαινόντων καὶ θαλπόντων”: i.e., the sense was taken to be, ‘I see that thou, alone of my shepherds (=of those who care for me), canst help.’ But “ποιμένων”, in such a context, would suggest rather the idea of chieftainship (cp. “ποιμένα λαῶν, ναῶν ποιμένες” in Suppl. 767): and there can be little doubt that πημονὰν is right.
This text is part of:
Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part VII: The Ajax. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1907.
The National Endowment for the Humanities 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.