Sophocles: Second thoughts 3525252005, 9783525252000

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HYPOMNEMATA Untersuchungen zur Antike und zu ihrem Nachleben

H. Lloyd-Jones / N. G. Wilson .

Sophocles: Second Thoughts

DENHOECK & RUPRECHT GOTTINGEN

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/sophoclessecondtOOOOIIoy

HYPOMNEMATA 100

V&R

HYPOMNEMATA UNTERSUCHUNGEN ZUR ANTIKE UND ZU IHREM NACHLEBEN

Herausgegeben von Albrecht Dihle/Siegmar Dopp/ Christian Habicht Hugh Lloyd-Jones/ Gunther Patzig

HEFT 100

VANDENHOECK & RUPRECHT IN GOTTINGEN

Sophocles: Second Thoughts

By HUGH LLOYD-JONES and NIGEL G. WILSON

VANDENHOECK & RUPRECHT IN GOTTINGEN

Gedruckt mit Unterstiitzung des Forderungs- und Beihilfefonds Wissenschaft der VG WOR I

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufhahme Lloyd-Jones, Hugh: Sophocles : second thoughts / by Hugh Lloyd-Jones and Nigel G. Wilson Gottingen : Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1997 (Hypomnemata; H. 100) ISBN 3-525-25200-5

© Vandenhoeck &c Ruprecht, Gottingen 1997 Printed in Germany. - Das Werk einschliefilich aller seinerTeile ist urheberrechtlich gesch iitzt. Jede Verwertung aufierhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulassig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere fur Vervielfaltigungen, Obersetzungen, Mikroverfilmung und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Druck: Hubert & Co., Gottingen

RVDOLPHO KASSEL SEPTVAGENARIO

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction.

9

Ajax.

11

Electra

.

30

Oedipus Tyrannus.

48

Antigone.

66

Trachiniae.87 Philoctetes.103 Oedipus at Colonus.114 Corrigenda in Sophoclea

.139

Appendix.143 Index.147

INTRODUCTION

The Nurse in Euripides’ Hippolytus remarks that second thoughts are somehow best for human beings, and those who like us have published an edition of Sophocles are likely to agree with her. The manuscripts contain a great deal of corruption, as even conservative critics can hardly refuse to admit, and the difficulties of the language are such that even if we possessed a text corrected by the author no living scholar could be confident that he could translate it without error. Although for cen¬ turies the text has been studied intensively by many scholars, including some of very great ability, there are still many problems of which more than one solution is possible. Our Oxford Classical Text of Sophocles and its companion volume, Sophoclea, were published in 1990, and have been reviewed in a number of learned periodicals. The study of these reviews has prompted new reflexion, and has aroused a desire to correct errors and to communicate some new suggestions. Some of our reviewers have complained of our occasional sharp criti¬ cisms of other scholars. It would be pleasant if scholars were always nice about one another, but such a state of affairs would have its bad as well as its good side. One is often told that Housman and other scholars noted for severe criticism of their colleagues have been neurotics working off their personal repressions, but even if true this would not mean that all severe criticism was discredited. Classical scholarship is closely linked with education, and anyone concerned with education must aim at the elimination of certain common faults. An editor or commentator who buries his head in the sand and ignores the well-established fact that the manuscripts in which classical texts are preserved are often corrupt is failing in his professional duty, even if he can be credited with having collected some useful information. So too, though less culpably, is an editor or commentator who is handicapped by bad taste and defective appreciation of literature, as may be the case even with scholars of ad¬ mirable energy and ingenuity that entitle them to respect. Against these failings a teacher has a duty to warn his pupils, and a scholar has a duty to warn his readers. We hope that these pages show that we are not unaware of our own shortcomings and are capable of trying to correct them. In general we are grateful to our reviewers, including even those who are least in sympathy with our aims and methods. Among them we

10

Introduction

particularly thank Professor Robert Renehan, whose review article in Classical Philology has greatly helped us. We owe a special debt of grati¬ tude to Professor Rudolf Kassel, unus instar milium, whose masterly comments on our draft has done much to improve the work.

Reviews of OCT of Sophocles and Sophoclea MTS:

STP:

B.-K.: Mrs. Easterling: Gunther, ES: Kirkwood: Kopff: Renehan: West: Zimmermann:

Luigi Battezzato, Daniela Colombo, Matteo Curti, Franco Ferrari, Salvatore Lavecchia, Leone Porciani, Sonia Stelluto, Rivista Italiana di Filologia Classica CXX (1992), ‘In Margine al Testo di Sofocle’, 386-410. Sophocle: le texte, les personnages, ed. Albert Machin and Lucien Pemee (Actes du Colloque International d’Aix-en-Provence, Jan¬ vier 1992 (1993). Jan Maarten Bremer and A. Maria van Erp Talman Kip, Mne¬ mosyne vol.XLVII, Fasc. 2 (1994), 236-244. P. E. Easterling, Journal of Hellenic Studies CXIV (1994), 186-188. H.-C. Gunther, Exercitationes Sophocleae (Hypomnemata 109, 1996). G. M. Kirkwood, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2.1 (1993), 22-31. E. Christian Kopff, American Journal of Philology Spring 1993, vol. 114, no. 1, 155-163. R. Renehan, Classical Philology vol. 87, No. 4, October 1992, 335375. M.L.West, Classical Review 41 (1991), 299-301. Bernhard Zimmermann, Gnomon, Band 65, 1993, 100-109.

Sophoclea p. 4; Johannes Vahlen should have been mentioned not in the second para¬ graph on this page, but in the paragraph dealing with ‘the reaction against excessive emendation’. As Rudolf Kassel has reminded us, the notes on the Electra and the Antigone originally prefaced to the Indices Lectionum of the University of Berlin and later printed in the two volumes of his Opuscula Academica (1907-8, reprinted 1967) are an important contribution to Sophoclean criticism, with a decidedly conservative orientation. P. 6, paragraph 1: the seventh printing of the Bude edition, with revisions and corrections by J.Irigoin, has begun to appear (vol.i, 1994). Paragraph 3: other commentaries on individual plays have been produced by O.Longo, O.T. (1972), R.G.Ussher, Philoctetes (1990) and M. Davies, Trachiniae (1992); there is also L.Lanza and L.Fort, Sofocle: prohlemi di tradizione indiretta (1991). Together with the contributions of Reeve, Stinton and West we should have mentioned Franco Ferrari’s Ricerche sul Testo di Sofocle (Pisa, 1983). Paragraph 4: the notes on Fraenkel’s seminars on the Ajax have now been repub¬ lished in Pindaro Sofocle Terenzio Catullo Petronio: corsi seminariali di E.duard Fraenkel, Bari 1965/69 (Sussidi Eruditi 43, Rome, 1994, ed. Renata Roncali).

AJAX

1. Ajax 25-7: ecpBagpevag yag agricog eugiaxopev Xeiac, anaaou; xai xarr|vagt.a|ieva