FOOTNOTES TO THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
Eurip. Phœnissae. Prolog., and Argument to the same from the Cod. Guelpherbyt. in Matthiae.
πρῶτος ᾿εν ᾿ανθρώποις τὴν ἀῤῥενοφθορίαν ἑυρων.—Compare Romans i, 27.
Μὴ σπ(ε)ίρε τέκνων ἄλοκα δαιμόνων βίᾳ, κ.τ.λ.—Eurip. Phœnis. 19.
ὀιδέω to swell, and ποῦς a foot; literally swell-foot. Welcker remarks that there is a peculiar significancy in the appellations connected with this legend; even Λάϊος being connected with λαικάζω, λαισκαπρος, and other similar words—(Trilog. p. 355)—but this is dangerous ground.
The σχιστή ὁδος.—See Wordsworth’s Greece, p. 21.
It is particularly mentioned in the oldest form of the legend, that he considered his sons had not sent him his due share of the flesh offered in the family sacrifice.—Scholiast Soph. O. C. 1375. This is alluded to in the fifth antistrophe of the third great choral chaunt of this play, v. 768. Well. See my [Note].
The subject of “The Eleusinians” was the burial of the dead bodies of the chiefs who had fallen before Thebes, through the mediation of Theseus.—See Plutarch, Life of that hero, c. 29.
See Welcker’s Trilogie, p. 359, etc.
Classical Museum, No. XXV. p. 312.
See Paley’s Note.
See [Note 35] to the Suppliants, [p. 235] above.
Chance (Τύχη), it must be recollected, was a divine power among the ancients.
See [Note 60] to the Choephoræ.
The name Parthenopaus, from παρθένος, a virgin, and ὤψ the countenance.
See [Note 60] to Agamemnon.
See [Note 73] to the Choephoræ.
See Pape. in voce αλφηστής.
Maritime similes are very common in Æschylus, and specially this.—Compare Agamemnon, [p. 70], Strophe II.
Another pun on Polynices, see above, [p. 278].
i.e. Raging flood, Thyad, from θύω, to rage.
See [Note 67] to Agamemnon.