Dr. Blaydes's Edition of the Agamemnon. W. J. M. STARKIE, Considerations on the Cause and Regulating Principle of HERMATHENA. THIS BLAYDES' CHOEPHOROI. HIS is the second instalment of Dr. Blaydes' edition of the Aeschylean Trilogy. It has been since completed by the Eumenides (1899), so that we now possess the editor's entire views on this very difficult series of tragedies. If the present play is compared with the Agamemnon, Dr. Blaydes' work upon it is somewhat slighter than in the former volume. The critical notes are not so profuse, and the commentary is kept more within compass. Wecklein's editions have been largely utilized, and much of value is drawn from them, especially from the volume containing what Wecklein calls the less probable emendations. To the two Oxford editors, Conington and A. Sidgwick, an equal, if not greater, debt is owing. Even more than in the Agamemnon, there is a wide divergence, in respect of difficulty, between the iambic and the lyric portions of the Choephoroi. There is rarely much in the former which cannot be satisfactorily explained, and the corruptions of the MSS. admit of facile alteration. The choric parts, on the other hand, are so excessively corrupt, as to have baffled not merely the present race of critics, but the sagacity of a Porson, an Elmsley, a Dobree, a Hermann. To mention a well-known case, 969-972, which MSS. give thus: : τύχα δ' εὐπροσώπῳ κοίτᾳ τὸ πᾶν ἰδεῖν ἀκοῦσαι θρεομένοις μετοικοδόμων πεσοῦνται πάλιν, the metre (dochmiac) makes it tolerably certain that μετοικοδόμων is a corruption either of μετοίκοις δόμων (Schütz), or μETоíky Sóμwv. It is almost as certain that εὐπροσωποκοίτα (Hermann), or εὐπροσωποκοῖται (Scholefeld), was the lengthy Aeschylean compound which the copyists did not understand, just as they misunderstood μETWTоowopóvwv in Suppl. 198, and changed it to μɛrúnшv σwoρóvшv. But can anyone vouch for τὸ πᾶν ἰδεῖν ἀκοῦσαι θρεομένοις ? The words can hardly be fitted even to any Aeschylean mode of thought. At any rate, they have not yet been satisfactorily explained; for of all Paley's rash guesses, perhaps none is less convincing than his substitution of πρευμενεῖς for θρεομένοις. Nor can I find any real satisfaction in W. Headlam's pauévoie, which Blaydes accepts, writing the passage thus: δόμους | ἰδεῖν ἐνοικεῖν τ ̓ ἐραμένοις. There are cases of this insoluble kind in the play where, in my opinion, the present editor has omitted some conjectures which, even if not carrying absolute conviction, open up a new line of possibility. Every reader of Aeschylus will recall, from the Kommos, the fine passage, 381-4 Ζεῦ, Ζεῦ κάτωθεν ἀμπέμπων βροτῶν τλήμονι καὶ πανούργῳ χειρί, τοκεῦσι δ ̓ ὅμως τελεῖται. Here the usual view is, that after xepí there is an aposiopesis, and that the expected imperative is replaced by a confident statement of the forthcoming execution of vengeance. If this is so, the line does not correspond metri cally to the antistrophe κλυτε δὲ γᾶ χθονίων τε τετιμέναι. This difficulty is generally removed by substituting, after Bothe, TE TIμaí. Lachmann felt the weakness of this, and changed τελεῖται to τέλει, τέλει. Combining this powerful repetition with δόμοισι' for δ ̓ ὅμως, we obtain a construction which satisfies the natural craving for an imperative, and by the double asyndeton, τοκεύσι, δόμοισι, τέλει τέλει, conveys an emphatic and dramatically highly effective prayer, "Zeus, to the parent, to the house fulfil, yea fulfil." I can see no objection to Teruévat, as applied to the Erinnyes, the powers in a special sense held in honour in the subterranean realm. Our new editor omits all notice of Lachmann's réλt, TEEL (adopted by Peile), yet, feeling the want of an imperative, writes the verse thus χειρί, τοκεῦσι δίκαν τέλεσσον. But, on the other hand, Dr. Blaydes has reopened the question on a passage generally thought to be settled, 342 sqq. ἀντὶ δὲ θρήνων ἐπιτυμβιδίων So MSS. Porson corrected кoμíσELEV. This has dissatisfied modern critics, who have proposed various alterations, νεοκρᾶτα φίλοισι κομίζοι, or φιλίαν ν. κομίζοι, Paley; φιάλην v., Wecklein, after Scaliger; Kλeto, van Herwerden. It is difficult to see what is right, but (and this is the particular value of Dr. Blaydes' edition) the accumulation of passages in which pilíav is found in combination with avaΟι συγ- κεράννυσθαι makes it probable that φίλον oι φιλίαν should not give place to φιάλην. 1 δόμοισι is my own suggestion. As examples of accumulation of parallels in the Commentary which are useful not only for settling the reading of the Choephoroi, but as illustrating Aeschylus and the Tragedies generally, I may be permitted to call attention to 101, on νομίζειν ἔχθος; 167, ὀρχεῖται καρδία; 190, ἐπώνυμος; 217, ἐκπαγλεῖσθαι ; 266, γλώσσης χάριν (in the quotation from Theocritus μαψιδίου is wrongly printed for μαψιδίοιο); 313, δράσαντι παθεῖν; 315, πάτερ αἰνόπατερ ; 354, φίλος φίλοισι, where Petronius' amicus amico might have been added: (cf. Heraeus, Die Sprache des Petronius und die Glossen,' Teubner, 1899, indispensable to all lovers of Petronius); 394, ἀμφιθαλής; 471, ἔμμοτον; 506, φελλός, the use of corks in nets. In the convolute' of quotations (I use a neo-Germanism) on 569, múλaioi—àжεíруeтɛ, I do not think either ianua prohibiti or exclusus fore really parallel, as both ianua and fore mean "from the door," and are not, in any sense, instrumental ablatives. Again, on 600, àπéρwτus ows, one might have wished for a detailed discussion, such as few could have given more learnedly than Dr. Blaydes, of the remarkable variant ȧπεрwπóg, which the scholiast read here and explained as σTuуvós, the more that this is confirmed by the Etymologicon Magnum, p. 120, and by Phrynichus (Bekk. p. 8). Where, indeed, can we look for really exhaustive discussion on points like this if it is not to scholars of life-long research, such as is the venerated editor before us? In 630 I observe that Conington's view of yvvaikeíav aixuàr, a woman's sceptre,' is not mentioned. Surely the sense of temper' ought to have been proved; there is something very improbable in such a use, and it cannot be settled without a full discussion in the manner, still not surpassed, of Buttmann's Lexilogus, or the similar works of Lobeck. I must not forbear to regret a marked incongruity 1 P. 36 Nearly collection, assortment. = |