Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/243

 On Schneidewin' s Edition of the (Edipus Rex, 23& This (I will venture to say) certain interpretation would not have been gainsaid by Mr Conington and others on the ground of objection to the hyperbaton of the word o-oi, if they had noted the many and far bolder trajections of this kind which occur in Sophocles. The same explanation has been given by Schnei- dewin independently, I presume, or he would have thought it right to acknowledge the obligation. [It seems, however, that Schneidewin seldom does notice the labours of any predecessors, either for praise or blame : a prac- tice hardly to be considered fair or wise.] Obs. II. Sophocles especially delights in that a-xrjpa irpbs t6 arjfiaivofjievov, which consists in adapting the tenour of his thoughts and language to suppressed clauses, which the mind must supply from the context. All poets claim this license more or less : but none, I believe, has used it so largely and boldly as Sophocles. A striking instance is found in the following passage of the (Edipus Coloneus, which, like that of the Antigone, Scholiasts and Editors have hitherto failed to understand. (Ed. Col. 308, 9 : aXX' vtvxt}5 Ikoito rfj ff avrov noXet ipoi re. rts yap ecr6s ov% avrtp (pikos ; Hermann, Wunder, Schneidewin and others have committed the aesthetical sin of referring the latter clause ris yap k.t.X. to epoi, and thus placing in the mouth of the Sophoclean (Edipus a maxim more fit for the Bagstocks and Bounderbys of Mr C. Dickens, that " every good man studies his own interest." By referring the latter words to a suppressed clause, which the context suggests, we obtain the just and beautiful sentiment embodied in the following interpretation : " May he (i. e. Theseus, for whom a messenger has been dispatched) come fraught with blessing to his own city and to me : to himself I need not say : for what good man is not a blessing to himself?" Obs. III. The student of the (Edipus Rex must particularly observe, that the condition, character, conduct and language of (Edipus have been adapted by the poet with the most studious nicety to heighten the tragic effect of the peripeteia and cata- strophe of that wonderful drama. The petty pedantry of Vol- taire (Preface to (Edipe) has raked together a heap of objections against this play such as the self-glorification of (Edipus, the improbability of his being unacquainted with the details of the fate of Laius, &c. Without replying to these cavils individually, as