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[1] Homer makes Dymas, not Cisseus, the father of Hecuba. Virgil however
follows Euripides, the rest of the Latin poets Virgil.
[2] In the martial time of antiquity the spear was reverenced as something
divine, and signified the chief command in arms, it was also the insigne of
the highest civil authority: in this sense Euripides in other places uses
the word δορυ. See Hippol. 988.
[3] τριταιος properly signifies _triduanus_; here it is used for τριτος,
the cardinal number for the ordinal. So also Hippol. 275.
Πως δ' ου, τριταιαν γ' ουσ' ασιτος ‛ημεραν:
[4] Most interpreters render this, _leaning on the crooked staff with my
hand_. Nor has Beck altered it in his Latin version, though he transcribed
Musgrave's note. "σκολιω, σκιμπωνι (_for which Porson directs_ σκιπωνι,)
Scipiones in universum recti sunt, non curvi. Loquitur igitur non de vero
scipione, sed metaphorice de brachio, quod ancillis innitens, scipionis
usum præstabat; quodque, ob cubiti flexuram, σκολιον σκιμπωμα vocat."
[5] _that babbling knave_.] Tzetzes on Lycophron, line 763. κοπις, ‛ο
‛ρητωρ, και εμπειρος, ‛ο ‛υπο πολλων πραγματων κεκομμενος. In the Index to
Lycophron κοπις is translated _scurra_.
[6] Among the ancients it was the custom for virgins to have a great
quantity of golden ornaments about them, to which Homer alludes, Il. Β.
872.
‛Ος και χρυσον εχων πολεμον δ' ιεν ηϋτε κουρη. PORSON.
[7] This is the only sense that can be made of ενθανειν, and this sense
seems strained: Brunck proposes εντακηναι for ενθανειν γε. See Note [A].
[8] λιμνη is used for the _sea_ in Troades 444; as also in Iliad Ν. 21, and
Odyssey Γ. 1. and in many other passages of Homer.
[9] The construction is η πορευσεις με ενθα νασων; for εις εκεινην των
νασων, ενθα.
[10] κεκλημαι for ειμι, not an unusual signification. Hippol. 2, θεα
κεκλημαι Κυπρις.
[11] _When she perceived it,_ εφρασθη, συνηκεν, εγνω, ενοησεν. _Hesych_.
[12] The Gods beneath he despised, by casting him out without a tomb; the
Gods above, as the guardians of the rites of hospitality.
[13] _Whatever was due_, either on the score of friendship, or as an
equivalent for his care and protection.
[14] Musgrave proposes to read προμισθιαν for προμηθιαν: the version above
is in accordance with the scholiast and the paraphrast.
[15] See note on Medea 338.
[16] The story of the daughters of Danaus is well known.
[17] Of this there are two accounts given in the Scholia. The one is, that
the women of Lemnos being punished by Venus with an ill savor, and
therefore neglected by their husbands, conspired against them and slew
them. The other is found in Herodotus, Erato, chap. 138. see also Æsch.
Choephoræ, line 627, ed. Schutz.
[18] Polymestor was guilty of two crimes, αδικιας and ασεβειας, for he had
both violated the laws of men, and profaned the deity of Jupiter
Hospitalis. Whence Agamemnon, v. 840, hints that he is to suffer on both
accounts.
και βουλομαι θεων θ' ‛ουνεκ ανοσιον ξενον,
και του δικαιον, τηνδε σοι δουναι δικην.
The Chorus therefore says, _Ubi contingit eundem et Justitiæ et Diis esse
addictum, exitiale semper malum esse_; or, as the learned Hemsterheuyse has
more fully and more elegantly expressed, it, _Ubi_, id est, _in quo_, vel
_in quem cadit et concurrit, ut ob crimen commissum simul et humanæ
justitiæ et Deorum vindictæ sit obnoxius, ac velut oppignoratus; illi
certissimum exitium imminet_. This sense the words give, if for ου, we read
‛ου, i.e. in the sense of ‛οπου. MUSGRAVE. Correct Dindorf's text to ‛ου.
[19] συμπεσεειν _in unum coire, coincidere_. In this sense it is used also,
Herod. Euterpe, chap. 49.
[20] The verbal adjective in τος is almost universally used in a passive
sense; ‛υποπτος, however, in this place is an exception to the rule, as are
also, καλυπτης, Soph. Antig. 1011, μεμπτος, Trachin. 446.
[21] Perhaps the preferable way is to make κακοισιν agree with ανθρωποις
understood; that the sense may be, _You are a bad man to talk of your
advantage as a plea for having acted thus_.
[22] Θανουσα δ' η ζωσ' ενθαδ' εκπλησω βιον; a similar expression occurs in
the Anthologia.
σιγων παρερχου τον ταλαιπωρον βιον,
αυτος σιωπηι τον χρονον μιμουμενος,
λαθων δε και βιωσον. ει δε μη, θανων.
[23] The place of her burial was called Cynosema, a promontory of the
Thracian Chersonese. It was here that the Athenians gained a naval victory
over the Peloponnesians and Syracusans, in the twenty-first year of the
Peloponnesian war. Thucydides, book viii.
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