συμπόνει and σύγκαμνε are here synonymous, though the idea of effort is more prominent in the former, and that of distress in the latter. Instead of repeating a word, the poet often thus uses a synonym; cp. 1308 f. “στέγας ..οἴκοις”: O. T. 54“ἄρξεις...κρατεῖς”: Ant. 669“καλῶς...εὖ”: Tr. 457“δέδοικας...ταρβεῖς”. Electra has already declared her faith that Agamemnon, in the nether world, is the ally of his children (454 “ἀρωγόν”: cp. 459). Orestes also, as she believes, is now there, working in the same cause. She asks her sister to aid their efforts. Nauck miserably defaces this passage by adopting the corrupt v. l. ἀδελφῇ (i.e. Electra herself), which not only eliminates all thought of Orestes, but also destroys the antithesis marked by ἐμέ. παῦσον ἐκ κακῶν: cp. 231 “ἐκ καμάτων ἀποπαύσομαι”. For the aor. imper. combined with the pres., cp. Ai. 507“αἴδεσαι”, Ai. 510“οἴκτιρε”. 989 In τοῖς καλῶς πεφυκόσιν both senses of ‘noble’ are involved, just as in Tr. 721“ζῆν γὰρ κακῶς κλύουσαν οὐκ ἀνασχετόν”, | “ἥτις προτιμᾷ μὴ κακὴ πεφυκέναι”. Cp. Ai. 479“ἀλλ᾽ ἢ καλῶς ζῆν ἢ καλῶς τεθνηκέναι” | “τὸν εὐγενῆ χρή”.
This text is part of:
Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part VI: The Electra. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1894.
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.