MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS. I. On a passage of the Philoctetes of Sophocles. FROM THE GERMAN OF WELCKER. XTTv oovva^ aoar}^^ irve o aAyecov, €vaf]<s rj/uilv eXOoL^ oiJLlxacfL o avre^^oi^ Tavo aiyAav a TeTUTUL Tavvv. The very different and very forced interpretations which the last but one of these lines has occasioned, without having been ever rightly explained, have arisen solely from an over- sight as to a meaning of the word alyXa^ which is wanting in the modern lexicons except the new edition of Stephanus, though the Greek lexicons give it, and which nobody knew or guessed. The only meaning hitherto thought of has been that of splendour. So the Scholiast conceives that the sleep into which Philoctetes has dropt, is splendour and light to him : perhaps as something salutary : though this would con- tradict what he had said before; for that it is the same grammarian who is proceeding with his explanation, is clear from the transition nroiavTYiv ^e aiyXrji/. It is scarcely possible for an interpretation to be more obscure, puzzled, and faulty, than the one he gives ; and it is annexed to another which is likewise erroneous. '^H /caTe;)^e to opaTiKov (rdv^' a'iyXav) oirep vvv f^irXwTai Koi om^elra^ (reraTa*) rij tov VTTvov a^Xi/i. ToiavTTiv ce aiyXrjv f]Tis vvv TeraTai avre'^ois Tol^ o/xjuaai. Xeyec ce tov vttvov tov yevojuevov avTM irapa^ ^prj/ma, 09 ecTiv avrw diyXr] kol (pm. Musgrave too has explained alyXy] by levamen^ solatium:^ which is sometimes the
