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Zeus Hypsistos Megistos: An Argument for Enclitic που in Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1821

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

N. B. Booth
N. B. Booth
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, Polytechnic of North London
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Extract

In pages 101–3 of his article Pope lists the numbers of occurrences of interrogative and enclitic in Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and mentions occurrences in other authors. He shows that, although there is a dead heat between the numbers of instances of the two words in Aeschylus, nevertheless enclitic is very rarely indeed, and perhaps never, found in sentences which do not have a main verb (or, failing that, at least subject and predicate). There are, however, occurrences of interrogative in sentences which lack a main verb and have no predicate either. It must surely be rare to find statement sentences which do not contain at least subject and predicate at the best of times, let alone when happens to occur in the sentence. There are strong reasons, then, for rejecting the version of F and Triclinius, quite apart from the occurrence of in the sentence. One can defend by saying that either is understood from the preceding sentence, or else is vaguely understood: The favour of the gods comes to men (comes about) perforce.’ But it is not very plausible. I am inclined to agree with Pope on this point, if not for quite the same reason.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , December 1976 , pp. 220 - 228
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1976

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References

2 Possibly in these cases is a kind of predicate.

3 I apologize for the archaic English, but modern English ‘I think’ conveys the wrong impression.

4 ‘Where is there any?’ is at P. V. 456. ‘What joy is there?’ is at E. Helen 1402.

5 It may be worth noting that the seated god of Suppl. 101 exerted no (Suppl. 99). Nevertheless I have no doubt that what he did to men came to them against their will and, in this sense, they suffered it .

6 Booth, N.B., ‘Aeschylus Suppl. 86–95’ CP 50 (1955), 21–5, particularly the concluding remarks.Google Scholar

7 As an addendum to all the foregoing, we may note a point in cbo.59–65. In 59–65 the Chorus say that is ‘a god and more than a god among men’ ( certainly means ‘among men’, and not ‘in the eyes of men’, as it was wrongly interpreted by a number of commentators who did not wishto allow that Aeschylus could contemplate a world not ruled by justice). They go on to say in 61–5 that justice tends not to get done unless there is some powerful living person present to see that it is done (according to the interpretation suggested in my articles in CQ 51 (1957), 143–5 and CP 54 (1959), 111–13). Yet there was dramatic irony about this: Orestes was already standing there in the background. This may help to confirm Pope's general view that the Chorus in Aeschylus does not always utter pious platitudes.