κὰι μὴν ἀμεμφῆ τον δ ἐτείνατον λόγον.
and with him give the four lines to the Chorus. A very obvious and
natural sense is thus brought out, besides that καὶ μὴν naturally
indicates a change of person.
Note 40 (p. 115).
". . . try what speed the gods may give thee."
δαίμονος πειρῶμενος. Literally _trying your god_--the dependence of
fortune upon God being a truth so vividly before the Greek mind that
the term δαίμων came to be used for both in a manner quite foreign to
the use of the English language, and which can only be fully expressed
by giving both the elements of the word in a sort of paraphrase.
Note 41 (p. 116).
". . . this whole house with ills
Is sheer possessed."
δαὶμονᾷ δόμος κακοῖς. Literally, "the house is _godded_ with ills,"
that is, so beset with evil that we can attribute it only to a special
superhuman power--to a god, as the Greeks expressed it, to the devil,
as we say.
Note 42 (p. 116).
". . . Sirs, why dare ye shut
Inhospitable doors against the stranger?"
To shut the door upon a stranger or a beggar, seems, in Homer's days,
to have been accounted as great a sin, as it is now, from change of
circumstances, necessarily looked on as almost a virtue. Every book of
the Odyssey has some testimony to this; suffice it to quote the maxim--
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"προς γαρ Διος ἐισιν ἂπαντες
ξεινοί τε πτωχοί τε."
"ALL STRANGERS AND BEGGARS COME FROM JOVE."
Note 43 (p. 116).
"The third and crowning cup."
"Alluding first to the slaughter of the children of Thyestes by Atreus,
then to the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, and thirdly, that of
Clytemnestra and Ægisthus presently to take place."--KL.
Note 44 (p. 116).
". . . his present aid I ask.
Who laid on my poor wits this bloody task."
I am inclined with SCHÜTZ, KL., and PEILE, to think that there is
more propriety in referring this to Apollo than to Pylades. It is true,
also, as SCHÜTZ remarks, that Æschylus generally, if not invariably,
applies the word ἐποπτεύω to the notice taken of anything by a god.
Note 45 (p. 117).
"Earth breeds a fearful progeny."
The sentiment of this chorus was familiar to the ancients, and was
suggested with peculiar force to the minds of the tragedians, from the
contemplation of those terrible deeds of old traditionary crime, which
so often formed the subject of their most popular and most powerful
efforts. Sophocles had a famous chorus in the Antigone, beginning in
the same strain, though ranging over a wider and a more ennobling
field--"πολλὰ τα δεινὰ κ᾽ ουδὲν ανθρώπου δεινότερον πέλει."
"Things of might hath Nature many
In her various plan,
But of daring powers who dareth
Most on Earth is man."