Poets should mean at least as much as they say. When Lucan wrote sola futuri Crassus erat belli medius mora. qualiter undas qui secat et geminum gracilis mare separat Isthmos,1 he ought to have been aware (perhaps he was) of the inept juxtaposition of slender and Thick. Did Sophocles mean all that he has implied ? I think so, because , if it has not this implication, is strange, and a feeble excuse for it has to be sought two hundred and fifty lines away.