Classic Greek Drama_ 10 Plays by Euripides in a Single File [NOOK Book] - Euripides [69]
OED. Alas! alas! for my most wretched flight!--To drive me, old as I am, from my country--Alas! alas! the dreadful, dreadful things that I have suffered!
ANT. What suffered! what suffered![51] Vengeance sees not the wicked, nor repays the foolishness of mortals.
OED. That man am I, who mounted aloft to the victorious heavenly song, having solved the dark enigma of the virgin Sphinx.
ANT. Dost thou bring up again the glory of the Sphinx? Forbear from speaking of thy former successes. These wretched sufferings awaited thee, O father, being an exile from thy country to die any where. Leaving with my dear virgins tears for my loss, I depart far from my country, wandering in state not like a virgin's.
OED. Oh! the excellency of thy mind!
ANT. In the calamities of a father at least it will make me glorious. Wretched am I, on account of the insults offered to thee and to my brother, who has perished from the family, a corse denied sepulture, unhappy, whom, even if I must die, my father, I will cover with secret earth.
OED. Go, show thyself to thy companions.
ANT. They have enough of my lamentations.
OED. But make thy supplications at the altars.
ANT. They have a satiety of my woes.
OED. Go then, where stands the fane of Bacchus unapproached, on the mountains of the Maenades.
ANT. To whom I formerly, clad in the skin of the Theban fawn, danced the sacred step of Semele on the mountains, conferring a thankless favor on the Gods?
OED. O ye inhabitants of my illustrious country, behold, I, this Oedipus, who alone stayed the violence of the bloodthirsty Sphinx, now, dishonored, forsaken, miserable, am banished from the land. Yet why do I bewail these things, and lament in vain? For the necessity of fate proceeding from the Gods a mortal must endure.
CRE. [O greatly glorious Victory, mayest thou uphold my life, and cease not from crowning me!] (See note [H].)
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NOTES ON THE PHOENICIAN VIRGINS
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[1] That is, through the signs of the zodiac: [Greek: aster] differs from [Greek: astron], the former signifying a single star, the latter many.
[2] The preposition [Greek: syn] is omitted, as in Homer,
[Greek: Autei ken gaiei erysaimi.]
The same omission occurs in the Bacchae, [Greek: auteisin elatais], and again in the Hippolytus. It is an Atticism.
[3] See note on Hecuba, 478.
[4] The word [Greek: tounoma] must be supplied after [Greek: touto], which is implied in the verb [Greek: kalousin].
[5] The [Greek: zaros] is a bird of prey of the vulture species. The sphinx was represented as having the face of a woman, the breast and feet of a lion, and the wings of a bird.
[5a] Dindorf would omit this verse.
[6] [Greek: arai] and [Greek: arasthai] are often used by the poets in a good sense for prayers, [Greek: euchai] and [Greek: euchesthai] for curses and imprecations.
[7] [Greek: dieres hyperoon, e klimax]. HESYCHIUS.
[8] Milton, Par. Regained, b. iii. l. 326.
The field, all iron, cast a gleaming brown.
[9] Lerna, a country of Argolis celebrated for a grove and a lake where the Danaides threw the heads of their murdered husbands. It was there also that Hercules killed the famous Hydra.
[10] This alludes to the figure of Argus engraved on his shield. See verse 1130.
[11] Tydeus married Deipyle, Polynices Argia, both daughters of Adrastus, king of Argos.
[12] Some suppose [Greek: hysteroi podi] to mean with their last steps, that is, with steps which are doomed never to return again to their own country.
[13] Triaena was a place in Argolis, where Neptune stuck his trident in the ground, and immediately water sprung up. SCHOL.
[14] Amymone was daughter of Danaus and Europa; she was employed, by order of her father, in supplying the city of Argos with water, in a great drought. Neptune saw her in this employment, and was enamored of her. He carried her away, and in the place where she stood he raised a fountain, which has been called Amymone. See Propert. ii. El. 20. v. 47.
[15] [Greek: allelas legousin] is, _they say one of another_;