πεισθήσομαι. No entreaties can recall the dead to the upper world; and no entreaties will recall him to Troy. We need not object to “πεισθήσομαι” that a Greek would think of the departed as glad to revisit the sunlight. The point is that the dead are deaf to the voice that would bring them back. γὰρ implies the suppressed thought, “οὔτοι στελεῖ.” ὧδε=‘at this rate’ (=‘if I go to Troy’): so oft. “οὕτω.” πρὸς φῶς ἀνελθεῖν. Nauck writes “ἂν ἐλθεῖν”, taking the sense to be: ‘I shall be made to believe that I could return,’=“ὅτι ἔλθοιμι ἄν”. But (a) “ἀνελθεῖν” is confirmed by the context: cp. Ar. Pax 445“εἰς φῶς ἀνελθεῖν”, etc.: and (b) it gives a more direct and forcible sense. οὑκείνου πατήρ, Sisyphus. The scholiast gives the story as it was told (probably) by the logographer Pherecydes (flor. 470 B.C.?), who is quoted in ref. to Sisyphus by the schol. on Il. 6. 153.Sisyphus had directed his wife to leave him unburied. On reaching the shades, he denounced her impiety to Pluto, and obtained leave to go back and punish her. Having thus returned to earth, he stayed there,—“ἕως” (adds the scholiast) “μετ᾽ ἀνάγκης κατῆλθεν”. Theognis (v. 702) is the earliest witness:—“Σισύφου Αἰολίδεω”, | “ὅς τε καὶ ἐξ Ἀΐδεω πολυϊδρίῃσιν ἀνῆλθεν”, | “πείσας Περσεφόνην αἱμυλίοισι λόγοις”.
This text is part of:
Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part IV: The Philoctetes. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1932.
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