ὁ μὲν χρόνος δὴ διὰ χρόνου “κ.τ.λ.” The text has been boldly altered by some editors (see cr. n.), in order to get rid of “διὰ χρόνου”: but the iteration is itself a proof of soundness. Such iteration is constantly employed in expressing a succession of seasons or periods; ‘day by day,’ “ἔτος εἰς ἔτος” ( Ant. 340), “παρ᾽ <*>μαρ ἡμέρα” ( Ai. 475), Mod. Gr. “χρόνο σὲ χρόνο” (‘year after year’), “truditur dies die” (Hor. Carm. 2. 18. 15), etc. The phrase διὰ χρόνου regularly means, ‘after an interval of time’: cp. 758: Lys. or. 1 § 12 “ἀσμένη με ἑωρακυῖα ἥκοντα διὰ χρόνου”: Xen. Cyr. 1. 4. 28 “ἤκω διὰ χρόνου”. So here, ὁ χρόνος προὔβαινέ μοι, time was ever moving on for me, διὰ χρόνου, as (each) space of time was left behind. (The ‘each’ is implied in the imperfect “προὔβαινε”, which denotes not a single advance, but a series of advances.) Suppose that the interval denoted by “διὰ χρόνου” is a month. ‘One month having elapsed’ (“διὰ χρόνου”—as each month came to an end), ‘time kept moving on’ (i.e. a new month began). Render, then, ‘Time went on for me, season by season.’ Cp. Tennyson, Enoch Arden: ‘Thus over Enoch's early-silvering head | The sunny and rainy seasons came and went | Year after year.’—Ellendt, rightly starting from the sense of “διὰ χρόνου” as ‘after an interval,’ wrongly explains it here as simply tarde, ‘pausenweise’: i.e. ‘time went on with many a pause’: as if, to Philoctetes, time seemed, at moments, to stand still. The error here consists in excepting the intervals denoted by “διὰ χρόνου” from the whole progress described by “προὔβαινε”.—Not: ‘time kept moving on through time’: as if “ὁ χρόνος” were the moving point, while “διὰ χρόνου” denoted its course.—For προὔβαινε, cp. Her. 3. 53“τοῦ χρόνου προβαίνοντος”: Lys. or. 1 § 11 “προϊόντος δὲ τοῦ χρόνου”.
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.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
