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Sophoclean Logic (Antigone 175–81)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Neil O'Sullivan
Neil O'Sullivan
Affiliation:
The University of Western Australia
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Extract

Creon addresses the citizens of Thebes with a τόπος familiar in Greek poetry: it is impossible to tell what someone is really like from initial appearance, and therefore we cannot know anyone's quality until it is too late. Here the idea is expressed in a more specific form, a variant on the ἀρχὴ ἄνδρα δείκνυσι attributed to one or other of the Seven Sages. The only real difficulty editors have found in Antigone 175–181 is the use of γάρ in 178. How do 178–181 (‘I think the timid ruler worthless’) explain 175–177 (‘You cannot know anyone until he has ruled’)? This problem led some to reject the text given above, but the majority of editors, including the most recent, seem to have accepted it.

Information

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 110 , November 1990, pp. 191 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1990

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References

1 Thgn. 119–128, Carm. Conv. 6 Page, E. Hipp. 925 931, Med. 516–519, H.F. 655–672.

2 Sophocles himself (fr. eleg. 2 West) referred the saying to Solon, alii aliis (v. the rest of the passage from Harpocration and the references cited by West ad loc.).

3 See the views reported in Earle, M. L., CR ix (1895) 439 f.Google Scholar where, incidentally, γἀρ is given an inferential force (illegitimately–see Denniston The Greek particles 57), and ib. xvii (1903) 5 f. where Semitelos is followed in placing 191 after 177. Both conclusions arise from a failure to understand Sophocles' logic here.

4 O'Brien, J. V.Guide to Sophocles' ‘Antigone’ (Carbondale and Edwardsville 1978) 38Google Scholar; cf. Campbell ad loc. in his second edition and Podlecki, A. J.TAPA xcvii (1966), 360 f.Google Scholar who, citing the offending γἀρ writes of ‘the frequent obscurity, even confusion, of [Creon's] train of thought’.

5 Denniston 60.

6 61 f.

7 The explanation of Friis Johansen, H.General reflection in tragic rhesis (Copenhagen 1959) 114 n. 39Google Scholar comes closest to this, but abstracts γἀρ from its immediate context to make it introduce the general message of the next thirteen lines. A more obvious solution, demanding much less of the audience, is to hand.

8 The passages Jebb cites show the usual importance of such statements: El. 676 (the παιδαγωὸς repeats the ‘news’ of Orestes' death), 1049 (Electra re-affirms her implacable resolve), Ph. 966 (Neoptolemus admits to feeling pity for Philoctetcs) and Il. ix 105 (Nestor advises Agamemnon on Achilles).

9 This generalized meaning of νῦν seems to find a parallel in the identical combination at Arist. Xen. 980b16, a paraphrase of Gorgias: a man experiences perceptions νῦν τε καὶ πὰλαι διαφὸρως ‘different at the moment and long ago’ (Hett “Loeb”), while E. Ba. 824 ὢς τις εῑ πὰλαι σοφὸς is similar in its use of πὰλαι with the present tense to indicate something that has been the case and is only now realized: ‘What a clever fellow you have been all along (πὰλαι) translates Dodds.