“Full hardly, and the close and crowded decks.”
Footnote 314:
So stress is laid upon this form of hardship, as rising from the
climate of Troïa, by Sophocles, _Aias_, 1206.
Footnote 315:
One may conjecture that here also, as with the passage describing the
succession of beacon fires (vv. 281-314), the description would have
for an Athenian audience the interest of recalling personal
reminiscences of some recent campaign in Thrakè, or on the coasts of
Asia.
Footnote 316:
We may, perhaps, think of the herald, as he speaks, placing some
representative trophy upon the pegs on the pedestals of the statues of
the great Gods of Hellas, whom he had invoked on his entrance.
Footnote 317:
Or,
“So that to this bright morn our sons may boast,
As they o'er land and ocean take their flight,
'The Argive host of old, who captured Troïa,
These spoils of battle to the Gods of Hellas,
Hung on their pegs, a trophy of old days.'”
Footnote 318:
The husband, on his departure, sealed up his special treasures. It was
the glory of the faithful wife or the trusty steward to keep these
seals unbroken.
Footnote 319:
There is an ambiguity, possibly an intentional one, in the comparison
which Clytæmnestra uses. If there was no such art as that of “staining
bronze” (or copper) known at the time, the words would be a natural
phrase enough to describe what was represented as an impossibility.
Later on in the history of art, however, as in the time of Plutarch, a
process so described (perhaps analogous to enamelling) is mentioned
(_De Pyth. Orac_. § 2) as common. If we suppose the art to have been a
mystery known to the few, but not to the many, in the time of
Æschylos, then the words would have for the hearers the point of a
_double entendre_. She seems to the mass to disclaim what yet, to
those in the secret she acknowledges.
Another rendering refers “bronze” to the “sword,” and makes the stains
those of blood; as though she said, “I am as guiltless of adultery as
of murder,” while yet she knew that she had committed the one, and
meant to commit the other. The possibility of such a meaning is
certainly in the words, and with a sharp-witted audience catching at
ænigmas and dark sayings may have added to their suggestiveness. The
ambiguous comment of the Chorus shows that they read, as between the
lines, the shameful secret which they knew, but of which the Herald
was ignorant.
Footnote 320:
The last two lines are by some editors assigned to the Herald.
Footnote 321:
It need hardly be said that it is as difficult to render a
_paronomasia_ of this kind as it is to reproduce those, more or less
analogous, which we find in the prophets of the Old Testament (comp.
especially Micah i.); but it seems better to substitute something
which approaches, however imperfectly, to an equivalent than to
obscure the reference to the _nomen et omen_ by abandoning the attempt
to translate it. “Hell of men, and hell of ships, and hell of towers,”
has been the rendering adopted by many previous translators. The Greek
fondness for this play on names is seen in Sophocles, _Aias_, v. 401.
Footnote 322:
Zephyros, Boreas, and the other great winds were represented in the
_Theogony_ of Hesiod (v. 134) as the offspring of Astræos and Eôs, and
Astræos was a Titan. The west wind was, of course, favourable to Paris
as he went with Helen from Greece to Troïa.
Footnote 323:
Here again the translator has to meet the difficulty of a pun. As an
alternative we might take—
“To Ilion brought, well-named,
A marriage marring all.”
Footnote 324:
The sons of Priam are thought of as taking part in the celebration of
Helen's marriage with Paris, and as, therefore, involving themselves
in the guilt and the penalty of his crime.
Footnote 325: