τίς ἂν with the optat. (“ἀπύοι”, 887) expresses a wish, cp. El. 1103 n.— ἁλιαδᾶν, sons of “ἅλιοι” (sea-faring men, fishermen); poetical for “ἁλιέων”, like “παῖδες Ἑλλήνων” ( Aesch. Pers. 402). The use of the patronymic in Greek poetry was a free one; thus Pindar can say “ἀφθίτου Ἐννοσίδα” (Poseidon, P. 4. 33), forming the word from “ἔνοσις”. We might compare “τεκτονίδης”, which occurs as a proper name in Od. 8. 114. ἔχων … ἄγρας: cp. 564 “θήραν ἔχων” (n.). ἀΰπνους: the “υ” is long here, as in O. C. 685(where “ἄϋπνοι”=“ἀηδών” in 672), though short in Ph. 848: as in Ph. 827 the first “Υπνε” has “υ_”, and the second “υ^”. Hermann unnecessarily inserted ἀμφ̓ before “ἀΰπνους” (taking the “υ” as short). The metre is dochmiac: cp. 926 n.
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.