interests, for a state that is in prosperity honours the divinities.

Exit ETEOCLES.

CHORUS.

I wail over our fearful, mighty woes; the army hath been sent forth, having quitted its camp, a mighty mounted host careering in the van is flowing hitherward: the dust appearing high in heaven convinces me, a voiceless, clear, veracious messenger; the noise of the prancing of their hoofs upon the plain, which betokens bodily captivity, approaches my ears, is wafted on, and is rumbling like a resistless torrent lashing the mountain-side. Alas! alas! Oh gods and goddesses, avert the rising horror; the white-bucklered well-appointed host is rushing on

e

b Evvà “communiter utilia, sc. et vobis Diis et nobis civibus." Stanley after the scholiast.

There are strong traces of the same feeling in Psalm vi. 4, 5. xxx. 9. cxv. 17. Isaiah xxxviii. 18. Compare Aristotle's Rhetoric, ii. 19.

e The lofty situation occupied by the Chorus in the Acropolis commanded a view of what was passing without the walls.

The virgins clasping the images of the gods, as has been often remarked, must have exhibited a scene of plastic beauty, scarcely equalled even in the Greek theatre, where so much was done by sculpture and by scenic display. The size of the stage admitted temples and palaces almost in their real and gigantic proportions.

d I have endeavoured to give English for Xédeuaç, the conjectural reading of Hermann, which Wellauer has admitted into his text. Medeμvàs, which startles us from our couch, is the common reading. Hermann pronounces this not Greek; Blomfield designates it as "vox corrupta," and denies the possibility of the etymology usually assigned it. Seidler is its great defender among modern critics, but truly his defence, viz. that it is put instead of ¿Xédeμas for the accommodation of the metre, is in itself rather curious; and Hermann, moreover, distinctly proves in his El. Metr. that λédepus suits the metre best.

e Cf. Soph. Antig. 106. and Eurip. Phoen. Schutz quotes Plautus to prove that the common soldiers carried white bucklers, having no bearings emblazoned like their leaders.-With all deference to that most copious commentator, the use of the epithet λɛúкaσπiç, by the two poets just quoted, looks very much as if they meant it for a national distinction. That Eustathius so understood it is plain from the quotation on Il. x. given in the new Oxford Sophocles.

with a shout on the other side our walls, speeding its way to the city. Who then will rescue us, who then of gods and goddesses will aid us? Shall I in very truth prostrate myself before the statues of the divinities? Oh ye blessed beings, firmly based, 'tis high time for us to be clasping your statues-why do we deeply sighing delay to do so? Hear ye, or hear ye not, the clash of bucklers? When, if not now, shall we set about the orison that is offered with vestments and with chaplets"? I perceive a din', a crash of no single spear. What wilt thou do? wilt thou, O Mars, ancient guardian of our soil, abandon thine own land? God of the golden casque, look upon, look upon the city which once thou didst rank as wellbeloved. Tutelary gods of my country behold, behold this train of virgins suppliant on account of slavery, for around our city a surge of men with waving crests is roaring, stirred by the blasts of Mars. But, O Jove, sire allperfect! avert from us altogether capture by the foemen, for Argives are encircling the fortress of Cadmus, and I feel a dread of martial arms, and the bits which are

f So the scholiast explains the passage; and there is much spirit in the question and the reply immediately made at drμáže. Schutz, however, contends that Torepa must be construed with ẞpérn, quænam deorum simulacra venerabor? making it a repetition, in other words, of the question which they had asked immediately before.

This is perhaps rather a paraphrase than a translation of evɛdpou; but I wished to express the feeling which the Chorus: seems to have had so strongly of the contrast presented by the well-fixed statues of the gods with their countenances full of dignity and tranquillity, to the din and tumult of every thing else in the city.

η Xenophon, Cyrop. v. ὁ μὲν Κυαξάρης ἀμφὶ δεῖπνον εἶχεν, is an instance of the phrase; Virgil, Æn. i. 483. presents a parallel of the custom.

i Compare Prometheus, v. 21. Theocritus, Idyl. i. 149. Oãoaɩ, píλos, ws καλὸν ὄσδει.

k Harmonia, wife of Cadmus, was daughter of Mars by Venus. The epithet Xovσownλng is given to the god of war in the Homeric hymn.

I The frequent repetitions of words in the course of this parode are highly characteristic of the impassioned alarm and terror of the women.

m Schwenk, in perfect accordance with Dr. Blomfield's Glossary, says, non ὁ πάντα πελῶν, sed ὁ κατὰ πάντα τέλειος.

fastened through the jaws of their horses are mournfully creaking slaughter. And seven stately chieftains of their army, in their spear-repelling harness, are taking their stand at our seventh gate", assigning their posts by lot. Do thou too, O Jove-born power that delightest in battle, Pallas, become a saviour to our city; and thou, equestrian monarch, sovereign of the main, with thy fish-smiting mace, O Neptune, grant a deliverance, a deliverance from our terrors. Do thou too, O Mars, (alas! alas!) P guard the city which is named after Cadmus, and make thy care of it full plain;—and thou, Venus, the original mother of our race, avert [these horrors]-for from thy blood are we sprung; calling on thee with orisons worthy of the ear divine do we approach thee.-And thou Lycæan king—be thou a wolf-destroyer to the hostile army, moved by the voice of our sighs'. Thou too, virgindaughter of Latona, deftly don thy bow, O beloved Diana -ah! ah! ah! I hear the rumbling of cars around the city, O revered Juno, the naves of the heavy-laden axles creak, the air is maddened with the wizzing of javelinswhat is our city undergoing? What will become of it?

q

" So Dr. Blomfield explains it after Valckenaer, whom he quotes in his note. Schutz, Hermann, and Wellauer follow the interpretation of Thomas Magister. Schwenk seems to have been in a state of edifying suspense between the two. "Nihil impedit," says he, " quo minus accipiatur de septima porta, licet altera explicatio aptior videatur."

• Neptune was originally a Libyan divinity. See Herodotus, Euterpe, 50."horses came originally from Libya; and thence Neptune was called Equestris." Sir I. Newton, Chronology, p. 16.

Schutz constructs ίχθυβ. μηχ. after ποντομέδων ;—Schwenk after δίδου.

P Probably some increase of the uproar without the walls just at this moment occasioned this parenthetical exclamation.

9 i. e. drive away the host of the enemy as thou art held to drive away wolves. The paronomasia here of course evaporates in translation.

r Wellauer in his text has duraç; but in his note says that he would prefer duras, as the accusative absolute. Schwenk, like Dr. Blomfield, explains the common reading by understanding veka.

• This variation of tense is understood by Schutz to express the intensity of their horror at the dangers to which Thebes was exposed, of which they had so vivid an impression that they looked on future evils as already present.

t

To what point is the deity conducting the issue? ah! ah! A shower of stones too from their slingers is coming over our battlements. O beloved Apollo-[that is the clash of brazen-rimmed shields at the gates "] and thou holy power appointed by Jove to bring wars to a conclusion, queen Oncæan*, successful in battle, that dwellest in front of our city, rescue thy seven-gated seat. O gods, all-potent to save, O ye perfect protectors and protectresses of the strong-holds of this land, abandon not our war-wasted city to an army of aliens ". Lend an ear, lend an ear, as is most right, to the orisons of virgins which are offered with out-stretched hands: O beloved divinities, hovering around our city as its deliverers, show how ye love it;

Pauw chooses to understand this of a discharge from the Theban walls against the besiegers, and is as usual very eager to have his readers on his side. -But surely it ill agrees with the feeling of affright expressed throughout, to make the Chorus notice a circumstance which, if their interest in all which passed beyond the walls allowed them to observe it at all, must have had a tendency to encourage them. Had Eschylus intended such a sense he would doubtless have used, as Schutz observes, some such word as apieraι instead of ἔρχεται.

" I conceive that some new noise just at this point startles the Chorus, and the invocation is interrupted, while they advert to this fresh source of alarm, or explain its origin to any of their number who are more bewildered than the rest. In translating Toλεμокρаvтоç I have followed Maltby, who gives bellum finiens. With Blomfield's explanation I do not understand the passage.

"Vox réλoc magistratum, vel qui cum imperio est, significat." Schutz. Prof. Scholefield continues the parenthesis down to réλog, and translates, Strepitus est ad portas, et Jove arbitro justus exitus armis decernendus.

* This name of the goddess is by the scholiast on Pindar derived from a village of Boeotia. It is more probable that "Oyra is the Phoenician title under which Cadmus reared a temple to Minerva, in gratitude for the assistance which she had vouchsafed him in slaying the dragon.

The panic of the Chorus makes them aggravate the difference between their own dialect and that spoken by the besiegers. "Metum diversitatem dialectus apud Chor. auxisse bene monet Heath." Schwenk. Pauw has an explanation of his own: he understands by repopúve the different ideas entertained by Thebes and its besiegers of the conflicting claims of Eteocles and Polynices.

Seidler, Schwenk, and Wellauer read ravdíxovç. The Edinburgh reviewer prefers avdicws, the reading of three manuscripts.

F

give heed to our public rituals, and when ye give heed to them succour us, and be ye in very deed mindful at my prayer of the celebrations of our city which are made with multitudes of sacrifices.

a

Reenter ETeocles.

Intolerable creatures! is this, I ask you, best and salutary for our city, and an encouragement to this force pent within the works, for you to fall before the statues of our tutelary gods, to shriek, to yell-O ye abominations of the wise. Neither in woes nor in welcome prosperity may I be associated with woman-kind; for when they prevail, their effrontery is more than one can live with; and when they have been terrified, still greater mischief befals their home and their city. Even now, having brought upon your countrymen this straggling flight, ye have, by your outcries, given birth to dastard cowardice, and ye are serving, as best ye may, the interests of those without the gates, and we within our walls endure the horrors of capture at our own hands ;—such blessings will you have if you live along with women. Wherefore if any one give not ear to my authority, be it man or woman, or aught that classes with neither, the fatal pebble shall pass sentence against him, and by no

a Schutz understands specifically the rites in honour of Bacchus, which were originally instituted at Thebes by Cadmus.

b Stanley and Schutz take owopóvwv μionμara as the vocative: the latter expresses a sovereign contempt for any who suppose that this is an accusative, and meant to apply to avεiv, λaкálav. It is only fair, however, to say that Blomfield prefers this latter idea.

c Schutz understands кparovσa and dɛíoaoa to be nominatives absolute.

d Schutz seems to have regarded this phrase as little more than the rhodomontade of passion ;—Stanley, Butler, and Blomfield explain it as intended to include boys and girls. "Inter viros et feminas nihil exstat, neque ullo modo de senibus aut infantibus intelligi potest. Hic autem loquendi modus optime convenit orationi concitatiori, quo cavemur, ne quid relictum sit." Schwenk, who bids his readers compare Prometheus, 116. ed. Blomf. and Eurip. Helen. 1137. ed. Matthiæ.

e Blomfield, in his note, has followed Schutz in preferring an active sense for