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Notes on Sophocles' Antigone

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Andrew Brown
Andrew Brown
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London
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Extract

My recent edition of Antigone (Warminster, 1987) was not intended primarily as a contribution to textual criticism. I did no work on the manuscripts, and little work on tracing the sources of old conjectures. Nevertheless, some of my thoughts on the text may merit fuller discussion than I was able to give them in a beginners' edition. And there have been more recent developments: in particular we now have a new Oxford Text of Sophocles with a companion volume of Sophoclea, and I have benefited from stimulating discussion with Dr David Kovacs, who has kindly allowed me to see a draft of some forthcoming notes of his own.

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Articles
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , December 1991 , pp. 325 - 339
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1991

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References

1 Lloyd-Jones, H. and Wilson, N. G. (eds.), Sophoclis Fabulae (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar; eidem, Sophoclea (Oxford, 1990).Google Scholar

2 Sophoclea (n. 1), p. 115.

3 Dawe, R. D., Studies on the Text of Sophocles, iii (Leiden, 1978), p. 99.Google Scholar

4 It would be clearer on one of the interpretations which Jebb rejects, ‘Do you know what Zeus will fulfil, which he will not fulfil while we live?’ But this would be a most contorted way of expressing oneself.

5 Sophoclea (n. 1), p. 119.

6 CQ 1 (1957), 15.Google Scholar

7 See Davidson, J. F., BICS 30 (1983), 41–51.Google Scholar

8 These translations reflect the usual senses of αἴρω in military contexts (though a more literal sense is to be felt with the metaphor of the eagle). Lloyd-Jones, and Wilson, , Sophoclea (n. 1), p. 119Google Scholar, prefer ‘roused’, ‘sent aloft’. My point that the passive suits the army rather than Polynices remains valid in any case.

9 Studies on the Text of Sophocles, i (Leiden, 1973), pp. 173–5.Google Scholar

10 This entails taking the question τóδε πc…ντιλογcω as indirect, dependent on μϕινο. But this is in itself slightly preferable to a direct question with asyndeton.

11 Dawe (n. 3), pp. 102f. The emendation should be credited to Blaydes, not to Dawe or Hermann.

12 Thanks to Denniston, GP 2 pp. 517f., and Fraenkel on Aesch. Ag. 229f.

13 In the aeolic base of the glyconic Itsumi, K., CQ 34 (1984), 67CrossRefGoogle Scholar, counts 69 instances of - corresponding with - -, and only 32 of - corresponding with - . We are dealing with a hipponactean, but these have no reason to behave differently (cf. Ant. 605/616). As it happens, Itsumi (p. 76) favours a different colometry here: But, if this is right, the missing syllable remains anceps.

14 No such objection emerges from T. C. W. Stinton's exhaustive discussion of pause and period-end, CQ 27 (1977), 27–72Google Scholar = Collected Papers on Greek Tragedy (Oxford, 1990), pp. 310–61Google Scholar. He shows, however, that period-end without pause is unusual, and he evidently rejected τ μν here.

15 The Chorus of Greek Drama (Helsinki, 1970), pp. 121–43.Google Scholar

16 The idea of taking κ … θcθαɩ ηλcμοcναν together to mean κλαcθαι (Kamerbeek and others) is indeed desperate. It is curious that there is another redundant κ at 1056, τó δ κ τυρννων αἰcχροκρδειαν ϕιλεῖ; but I cannot believe that Sophocles had fallen into an unfortunate but temporary habit of inserting κ metri gratia before genitives. Hartung's δ' αὖ seems too strongly adversative for a tu quoque retort, but the variously attributed δ γε, which Pearson accepts, is suitable (cf. Aj. 1150) and perhaps right.

17 Müller was not justified, however, in objecting to the hiatus before κ on the ground that there is no pause at the corresponding position in the strophe (135). Period-end without pause, by Stinton's definition (n. 14), does occur; but Stinton does not, in fact, regard Ant. 135 as an instance, since he considers pause to be admissible there (p. 35 = 320).

18 Or possibly κμ μν for κ μν δ. Anyone objecting to τν νν (and I can see some reason for doing so) would then be free to consider substituting νν δ.

19 Gnomon 54 (1982), 236Google Scholar, alluding to the conjectures cτοχιζηι, cτοιχζηι and cτιχζηι, and the recurrent but unfortunate idea that cτοχζηι itself could bear the same sense. Etymologically, no doubt, it could, but it would be most surprising to find such a complete change of meaning in so familiar a word.

20 West, M. L., BICS 26 (1979), 107fGoogle Scholar., suggests that the Guard is blocking off escape routes to guide the discussion in the direction he wants. But this takes us even further from the text, which, on this view, does not refer explicitly even to nets, merely to rows of poles.

21 So Vollgraff, C. W., Mnem. 46 (1918), 182Google Scholar – though at least he realised the merits of this reading.

22 Rabe, H. (ed.), Comm. in Arist. graeca xxi. 2 (Berlin, 1896), pp. 328fGoogle Scholar. (= pp. 161f. Spengel).

23 Jebb's theory that the words τ ϕροιμιζηι were omitted by scribes of Aristotle because they could not be found in the text of Sophocles is almost as strange as Müller's theory that the words ν τιc τν ντιγρϕων οὐ κεῖται actually refer to copies of Sophocles, not of Aristotle. Such interest in the text of a tragedy would not be characteristic of ancient Aristotelian scholars.

24 The paraphrase does not seem to attest any interesting variants. At first sight the words οὐδν cοι μλλω εἰπεῖν ἤτοι οὐχ ποδεκτν cοι μλλω εἰπεῖν might seem to point to κεἴ cοι (an attractive conjecture attributed to Erfurdt and Wunder) at 234. But this impression is dispelled by the words τλοc δ νκηc με λογιcμc τ λθεῖν εἰc c.

25 Cf. Vollgraff(n. 21), 358f.

26 The Collected Papers of A. E. Housman (Cambridge, 1972), i.210f.Google Scholar

27 Dawe (n. 3), p. 48.

28 Dawe (n. 3), p. 111.

29 Dawe (n. 3), p. 119.

30 Postgate, J. P., Mnem. 52 (1924), 16Google Scholar. Lloyd-Jones and Wilson misreport the conjecture as τνδ.

31 Dawe (n. 3), p. 41.

32 So Lloyd-Jones (n. 6), 19.

33 Thinking along the same lines, Rohdich, H., Antigone (Heidelberg, 1980), p. 114 n. 209Google Scholar, proposes οὐδ' νρπει, which I have also seen attributed to Lachmann. But μβανω, μβλλω etc. are presumably survivals from a time before ν and εἰc were differentiated, and give no more warrant for *νρπω than for *νρχομαι. Griffith, M., JHS 110 (1990), 217CrossRefGoogle Scholar, feels that my text makes ‘an improbably pessimistic general statement’, but it would be hard to imagine anything more pessimistic, for the families concerned, than the opening of this ode; and my interpretation of 613–14 does not exclude the possibility that there are others on whom the power of Zeus impinges less.

34 For the former objection see Lloyd-Jones (n. 6), 20. For the latter see Easterling, P. E. in Dionysiaca…Presented to Sir Denys Page (Cambridge, 1978), p. 152.Google Scholar

35 After κπαπειλεῖc; there might be a temptation to improve the rest of the line with ὧδ' ἄρ' ξρχηι θραcὐc; (but πεξρχηι is in itself a suitable word) or τιδ' πεξρχηι θρcουc; (but εc τδε would be the normal idiom).

36 Lloyd-Jones and Wilson, Sophoclea (n. 1), p. 136, seek to defend ἔγκληρα, but cγκληρα, even if not certain, is a clear improvement at little cost.

37 If there were no lacuna the question would not arise, since the infinitive κοcαι would be needed to prevent contradiction between ϕθιμνηι and ζcαν.

38 Euripides: Hippolytus (Oxford, 1964), pp. 432fGoogle Scholar. Page on Eur. Med. 131ff. is less accurate.

39 All the Aeschylean instances are in Persae (60, 542, 629), as are two out of four instances of avoidable correption (39, 52). Since Persae stands apart from the later plays in many respects, there is a case for eliminating avoidable instances elsewhere by reading κμηντωι at Supp. 975 and χὐπερβορου at Cho. 373.

40 Metrical Analyses of Tragic Choruses, ii (BICS Suppl. 21.2, 1981), p. 29.

41 Dale, , The Lyric Metres of Greek Drama2 (Cambridge, 1968), p. 75Google Scholar; West, M. L., Greek Metre (Oxford, 1982), p. 103Google Scholar. The analysis in Dawe's Conspectus Metrorum (tr. dim. | ia. dim. cat.) involves anceps next to anceps and is inadmissible (cf. Dale, loc. cit).

42 The Ideology of the Athenian Metic (PCPS Suppl. 4, 1977), pp. 6f.

43 While prepositional μετ with dat. is essentially epic, compounds such as μετχειν in Attic commonly take dat. of the person shared with (and gen. of the thing shared in).

44 Aesch. fr. 246d (= 53 N), πεδοκου χελιδνοc, is rightly glossed cυνοκου by Hesychius. Similarly at Aesch. Ag. 57 I take the vultures to be merely ‘coresidents’ with the gods. (Fraenkel's note, for all its eloquence, never addresses the simple question: if the lofty eyries are not the vultures' proper home, in which they have citizen rights, where is that home, and when did they migrate from it?) Barrett, on Eur. Hipp. 836–7Google Scholar judiciously allows that the μετα- element can be felt either as ‘among’ or as ‘the μετα- of change’.

45 First reported by Wilamowitz, , Griechische Verskunst (Berlin, 1921), p. 351 n. 3.Google Scholar

46 Sophoclea (n. 1), p. 139.

47 I should probably reconsider my judgement that the same anomaly at 797 is not serious; and Lloyd-Jones and Wilson should reconsider their acceptance of the anomaly at 1124.

48 ὑπερ- in compounds can mean ‘beyond’ in space (e.g. ὑπερπντιοc, Ὑπερβρεοι), but prepositional ὑπρ hardly ever does so. The only reference in LSJ s.v. A.I.3 is Od. 13.257, τηλο ὑπρ πντου (which looks like a valid example, though even this is taken differently by Ebeling, Lex. Hom. s.v. B.2.1.e). At Od. 14.300, ὑπρ Kρτηc, ‘beyond Crete’ is only one of several suggested interpretations. At Aesch. Sept. 90 ὑπρ τειχων does not mean ‘beyond the walls’ (see Hutchinson ad loc.). At Eur. fr. 578.4, πονταc ὑπρ πλακc, there may be a suggestion of news coming over the sea.

49 Lloyd-Jones (n. 6), 24–6.

50 Winnington-Ingram, R. P., Sophocles: an Interpretation (Cambridge, 1980), p. 106 n. 46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51 Cf. Sourvinou-Inwood, C., BICS 36 (1989), 155Google Scholar – though I cannot accept many of her conclusions. The logic of the passage is not made any easier if we see Cleopatra as a possible criminal rather than an unambiguous victim.

52 In epic this is familiar: the construction at e.g. Il. 2.38, νπιον οὐδ τ ἤιδη, is a paratactic equivalent of that at e.g. Il. 8.177, νπιοι οἳ … A comparable licence which is common in tragedy is that of substituting a finite verb for a participial construction: e.g. Ant. 252, 256, 814–16, 920.

53 Broadhead, H. D., Tragica (Christchurch, 1968), pp. 75–7.Google Scholar

54 So Broadhead, though in the context of a much more radical emendation, κπ μαντικc ἂϕακτος ὑμν εἰμι, τν ὑϕ' ἦι γμοc.

55 Moorhouse, A. C., The Syntax of Sophocles (Mnem. Suppl. 75, 1982), p. 57.Google Scholar

56 Cf. Dawe (n. 3), pp. 113f.; West (n. 20), pp. 108f.

57 So Lloyd-Jones, and Wilson, , Sophoclea (n. 1), p. 142.Google Scholar

58 Lloyd-Jones and Wilson, loc. cit., misreport this conjecture as cχθων, which they regard, apparently, as a genitive, and describe as ‘unspeakably flat’. Griffith (n. 33) objects to ‘a clumsy repetition after ἔχειc’ but it is not clear that ἔχειc and cχεθών would have been felt as parts of the same verb, or that, if they were, the effect would have been any worse than ‘you have had’ in English.

59 Dawe (n. 3), pp. 117–19.

60 Beare, J. I., Hermathena 13 (1905), 82–6.Google Scholar

61 Lloyd-Jones (n. 6), 26f.

62 West (n. 20), 109.