Page:The travels of Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch - Volume I.djvu/15

Rh To no class of Literati is mankind more indebted, at the present time, than to the persevering Writers of the German Nation. Their unwearied and indefatigable diligence has obtained for them the highest reputation in the World of Letters; so extraordinary are the efforts which they make, up the arduous road of Science! How lamentable, that the pains of so many of them should be wasted upon the vain attempt, to fix some unimportant writing upon the thousands-of-times printed Manuscript of Writers some thousands of years dead. Of this vain labour, such as Homer describes of Sisyphus—

"Καὶ μὴν Σίσυϕον εἰσεῖδον, ϰρατέρ᾽ ἄλγε᾽ ἔχοντα, Λᾶαν βαστάζοντα πελώριον ἀμϕοτέρῃσιν. Ἦτοι ὁ μὲν, σϰηριπτόμενος χερσίν τε ποσίν τε, Λᾶαν ἄνω ὤθεσϰε ποτὶ λόϕον· ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε μέλλοι Ἄϰρον ὑπερβαλέειν, τότ᾽ ἀποστρέψασϰε ϰραταιίς· Αὖτις ἔπειτα πέδονδε ϰυλίνδετο λᾶας ἀναιδής. Αὐτὰρ ὅγ᾽ ἂψ ϰε τιταινόμενος· ϰατὰ δ᾽ ἱδρὼς Ἔρρεεν ἐϰ μελέων, ϰονίη δ᾽ ἐϰ ϰρατὸς ὀρώρει."

I will quote an instance, from the —"In a late Number of the Rheinisches Museum, (Vol. II. p. 125.) Professor Welcker has suggested a new and ingenious solution of a difficulty in a very beautiful passage of Sophocles. In the Philoctetes, v. 816, the Chorus sings thus:

"Ὕπν᾽ ὀδύνας ἀδαής, Ὕπνε δ᾽ ἀλγέων εὐαὲς ἡμῖν ἔλθοις εὐαίων, εὐαίων, ὦναξ· ὄμμασι δ᾽ ἀντίσχοις τάνδ᾽ αἴγλαν, ἃ τέταται τὰ νῦν."

"The best, or rather the least bad, of the interpretations proposed, is that of Hermann: ' quæ quoniam nulla est, sed caligo potius, hæc est intelligenda.' Mr. Welcker, however, has collected several passages from the Grammarians, in which αἴγλη is explained to be a, or properly a ligature, round the feet or arms (Bekker, Anecd. p. 354, Pollux, v. 100). The most important authority is Hesychius, whose article should (it appears) be read thus: Αἴγλη, χλιδών Σοφοκλῆς Τηρεῖ καὶ πέδη παρὰ Ἐπιχάρμῳ ἐν Βάϰχαις. It seems, therefore, that Sophocles had, in a lost tragedy, used the word αἴγλη in nearly the sense required; and accordingly, Mr. Welcker supposes the Chorus to invoke the God of Sleep 'To hold over Philoctetes eyes the veil which then covers them.'"