Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/56

liv And dost thou ask what law constrained me thus?

I answer, Had I lost a husband dear,

I might have had another; other sons

By other spouse, if one were lost to me;

But when my father and my mother sleep

In Hades, then no brother more can come."

It is clear that such a coincidence could not have been accidental.

(2.) Not less striking is the reference to one aspect of Egyptian life noticed by Herodotos, (ii. 35.) "The Egyptians have manners and customs altogether different from those of other nations. Among them women buy and sell, and the men stay at home and spin." Compare Œd. Col., 337.

Oh, like in all things, whether nature 's bent

Or form of life, to Egypt's evil ways,

Where men indoors sit weaving at the loom,

And wives outdoors must earn their daily bread."

(3.) The allusion to the more remote rivers, the Phasis and the Istros, which the historian had visited, (Herod., iv. 37, 38, 47, et al.,) in Œd. King, 1227, points in the same direction.

For sure I think that neither Istros' stream

Nor Phasis' floods could purify this house,

Such horrors does it hold."

(4.) Still more striking does the harmony of the two writers appear when we compare their language