The Philological Museum/Volume 2/On a Passage of the Philoctetes of Sophocles from the German of Welcker

by Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker

 

MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS.

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I.

 

On a passage of the Philoctetes of Sophocles.

from the German of Welcker.

῾Ὺπν´ ὀδύνας ἀδαής, Ὕπνε δ´ ἀλγέων,
εὐαὴς ἡμῖν ἔλθοις
εὐαίων, εὐαίων, ὦναξ·
ὂμμασι δ´ ἀντέχοις τὰνδ´ αἴγλαν
ἂ τέταται τανῶν.

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 oversight as to a meaning of the word αἴγλα, 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 contradict what he had said before; for that it is the same grammarian who is proceeding with his explanation, is clear from the transition τοιαύτην δὲ αἴγλην. 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. Ἣ κάτεχε τὸ ὁρατικον (τάνδ´ αἴγλαν) ὅπερ νῦν ἥπλωται καὶ διαχεῖται (τέταται) τῇ τοῦ ὕπνου ἄγλυϊ. τοιαύτην δὲ αἴγλην ἥτις νῦν τέταται ἀντέχοις τοῖς ὄμμασι. λέγει δὲ τὸν ὕπνον τὸν γενόνεμον αὐτῷ παραχρῆμα, ος ἐστιν αὔτῷ αἴγλην καὶ φῶς. Musgrave too has explained αἴγλη by levamen, solatium, which is sometimes the meaning of φῶς. Solger gives a good sense, but one which is not contained in the words: Turn aside from the sleeper's eyes this light which is now poured out over them. Buttman also understands the light of day, comparing Homer's ἄλλ´ ἐπὶ νὺξ ὀλοὴ τέταται δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσι. According to him the chorus desires the Genius of sleep, as dwelling in the eye, to withstand the light and ward off its glare. To this it has already been objected that τανῦν added to a word expressing day-light would he superfluous, and that ὄμμασι would require a præposition. It may be added that the image is not sufficiently natural. For if Sleep is dwelling in the eye, it is already closed against the light: and it is not from within that the light is kept back: Sleep repels it from without with his outspread wings, or in some other like manner. So in the Iliad xiv. 359: ἐπεὶ αὐτῷ ἐγὼ μαλακὸν περὶ κῶμ´ ἐκάλυψα: and νήδυμος ἀμφιχυθείς, v. 253. Hermann retracts his original conjecture, which may be seen in Erfurdt's edition, and translates: keep before his eyes the glare which is now spread over them: that is, no glare, but darkness: and this explanation has satisfied Seidler, Wunder, and Schneider. The conception, which is the same that Wakefield and Erfurdt sought to express by writing ἀχλύν, is certainly the right one: but the sense given to the words would not suit the present case, if for no other reason, because the sight of Philoctetes overpowered by sleep could not give the chorus occasion either for jest or bitter irony: and one of these is always coupled with such a mode of expression. As to its being playful, Hermann himself (in v. 1429) in objecting to a signification defended as per acumen, observes: acumen illud non esse seriæ orationis. Beside which, the language of the chorus, instead of being witty, like the words in the Phineus of Sophocles: βλέφαρον κέκλεισταὶ γ´ ὡς καπηλείου θύραι: or those in the Philoctetes 849, ἀλλ´ ὥς τις Ἀϊδᾳ παρακείμενος ὁρᾷ, would be only affected, and in fact tame. Expressions like μελαμφαὲς ἔρεβος, ἀνήλιος λάμπα, τυφλὸν φέγγος, have a different character. It is more correct to compare them with ἐν σκότῳ ὀψοίατο, Œd. R. 1274, of a blind man. Whereas they evidently ought to be distinguished from εὔφημος βοή, Electr. 620. by which it is impossible to understand silentium: unless we are to give the same sense to the passage in the Choeph. 573: ὑμῖν δ´ ἐπαινῶ γλῶσσαν εὔφημον φέρειν, σιγᾶν δ´ ὅπου δεῖ καὶ λέγειν τὰ καίρια. What can be clearer than the meaning of Clytemnestra, who wishing to offer her sacrifice, breaks off the dispute and will not listen any longer to the words of Electra (οὐκ εὔφημα), but only to εὔφημον γλῶσσαν, and reproaches her with not suffering this to be heard.

All the obscurity of our passage disappears as soon as we observe that αἴγλη signifies a band, which is supposed to be drawn over the eyes of the sleeper; for this is an image naturally suggested by the common and literal phrase of shutting the eyes, tegere lumina somno. Αἴγλη does not signify a band in general: but primarily an ornamental band, one glittering with gold and pearls (Plin. xxxiii. 12) or other precious materials, especially for the arm or the foot, just as χλιδὼν derived its name from the luxurious affluence indicated by it, though in common speech the derivation was forgotten. The lexicographers give the following explanations of αἴγλη. Lex. Sangermann. (Bekk. Anecdot. Gr. p. 354): αἴγλη—καὶ τοῦ ζυγοῦ τὸ περἰμεσον—καὶ χλιδὼν δέ τις οὕτως ἐκαλεῖτο ἔνιοι δέ φασι σημαίνει καὶ τὸν περιπόδιον κόσμον ἢ τὸν ἀμφιδέα ἢ ἁπλῶς ψέλλιον. σημαίνει δὲ καὶ τὴν πέδην ἡ αἴγλη ὡς παρ´ Ἐπιχάρμῳ. Pollux v. 100, of articles of female dress: ἰδίως δὲ καὶ περὶ τοῖς ποσὶ, περισφύρια, περιπέζια, πέζας, καὶ αἴγλην καὶ πέδην καὶ περισκελίδας. Hesych. Αἰγληχίδων. Σοφοκλῆς Τηρεῖ χιτών, καὶ τέδη παρὰ Ἐπιχάρμῳ ἐν Βάκχαις. From what has been already said it is clear that this has been rightly altered into αἴγλη, χλιδών, and that the reading χιτών arose through mistake out of χίδων, and ought therefore to be corrected χλιδών, though it has been very lately repeated after Brunck in three different reprints of the fragments of Sophocles, none of which is worthy of the present state of literature. Pollux observes that there were several expressions in use signifying at once a band for the arm, and a band for the foot; and he specifies ἀμφιδεύς and χλιδών; which is natural enough, since the meaning of these terms is general, not confined like that of βραχιόνιον, πέδη, &c. Αἴγλη belongs to the same class, and this is the reason why Sophocles was able to transfer it to a band for the eyes. At the same time usage is always capricious in things of this sort: and the gloss in Hesychius, unless χλιδὼν has been repeated by accident, seems to imply that αἴγλη was used in the Tereus of Sophocles for a bracelet, while Epicharmus gave the same name to a band for the leg. It is enough to know that the general meaning of αἴγλη is established by express testimony on the authority of Sophocles.

The explanation we have given of αἴγλη affects that of the epithet εὐαής. For when we have Sleep set before us in a personal shape and attitude, laying his band over the eyes of the sufferer, and according to the wish of the chorus keeping it fixed there, we cannot let the epithet εὐαής retain the general signification of εὐμενής, benevolent, which is given to it in the Scholia, and has only been adopted for want of a better. Its proper sense, εὔπνους, εὐήνεμος, leniter spirans, will now involuntarily remind us of winged Sleep, Virgil's volucris Somnus. In representations of Sleep which exhibit him as he is here conceived, as the dispenser of slumber, we find wings, of the butterfly or the eagle^[1] on his shoulders, and his temples are sometimes fledged as well as his shoulders, and sometimes they alone. Zoega, who in his Bassirilievi Tav. 93 has treated the various conceptions of sleep with a diligence that nothing escapes, and at the same time with the most luminous discrimination, and in the most pleasing order, adduces the works of this class at p. 207—210. He is inclined to consider what have been taken for butterfly's wings as those of the bat, and hence to refer them to night: I should rather believe that they contain an allusion to the ordinary conception of Psyche, and intimate that the soul continues to stir even in sleep. Elsewhere, in a dissertation not yet printed on the winged deities (in answer to Winkelman), Zoega explains the wings of Sleep generally, like those of Night, from the property of covering and concealing. Goethe, in his Iphigenia, attributes shadowing wings to the dim state of uncertainty:

Speak plainer, that my thoughts be task'd no longer.
Uncertainty in ever-thickening folds
Waves her dark pinions round my beating head^[2].

I am not sure that different ideas may not have been associated with the wings of Sleep. I do not however make this remark on account of the passage in the Philoctetes, since Sophocles as a poet was not confined to the sphere of plastic art. Or may we expect to find winged Muses in sculpture or painting, because in Pindar the Victor is born aloft on the wing-s of the Pierides? or shall we believe that Dice and Themis or Ædos were painted with wings, because various poets designated the rapidity of their operation by a like image. It is possible that Sophocles, in speaking of the gentle breath with which Sleep is invoked to approach and bless Philoctetes (εὐαίων), may only have been thinking of the burning pangs which Sleep, as he floated over the sufferer, was to fan away with the cooling motion of his wings. This is very delicately intimated. But it is a peculiarity of Sophocles, that he not unfrequently half conceals his images in this manner under the conciseness of his diction, and compels the imagination to supply them, as other writers make a like demand on the logical or grammatical understanding. In many passages of this difficult poet, which might serve to shew how far we are from having brought the interpretation of his works to its full maturity, this peculiarity constitutes the knot which still awaits a satisfactory solution.

C. T.

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1. Those of the eagle probably refer to the universal dominion of Sleep, who is πανδαμάτωρ, and therefore has Πασιθέα for his consort.
2. Act III. Sc. 1. Sprich deutlicher, dass ich nicht laenger sinne.
   Die Ungewissheit schlaegt mir tausendfaeltig
   Die dunkeln Schwingen um das bange Haupt.