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Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus 1403–8

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

C. W. Macleod†
Affiliation:
Christ Church, Oxford

Extract

After consulting the commentaries and the fine remarks of ‘Longinus’ (23. 3) on this passage, a reader may still reasonably feel dissatisfied. Lines 1405–7 are normally taken to mean ‘you have shown fathers, brothers, sons and brides, wives, mothers to be kindred blood’; for the position of Schneidewin-Nauck compare Od. 4.229–30

Type
Shorter Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1982

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References

1 I am very grateful to Professor Hugh Lloyd-Jones and Dr R. C. T. Parker for valuable discussion of this problem. The most helpful exposition of the problems is in Kamerbeek's commentary.

2 So Mazon and Longo; but their treatment of line 1406 founders on the meaning of αἶμ' ⋯μφ⋯λιoν. Campbell's own translation, however, will not do either (‘…direconfusion | Of father, brother, son, bride, mother, wife,| Murder of parents and all shames that are’), because the words ‘dire confusion’ correspond to nothing in the Greek.

3 ‘Since he was foredoomed to the acts which the following clauses express’ (Jebb).

4 cf. ν⋯μφας γυνα***κας τε and ϕατ⋯ρας ⋯δελφo⋯ς.

5 cf. ϕα***δας αἶμ' ⋯μφo⋯λιoν.