Ch. Alas! alas! O ye fatal Furies, proudly triumphant, and destructive to this race, ye that have ruined the family of Œdipus from its root. What will become of me? What shall I do? What can I devise? How shall I have the heart neither to bewail thee nor to escort thee to the tomb? But I dread and shrink from the terror of the citizens. Thou, at all events, shalt in sooth have many mourners; but he, wretched one, departs unsighed for, having the solitary-wailing dirge of his sister. Who will agree to this?
Sem. Let the state do or not do aught to those who bewail Polynices. We, on this side will go and join to escort his funeral procession; for both this sorrow is common to the race, and the state at different times sanctions different maxims of justice.
Sem. But we will go with this corpse, as both the city and justice join to sanction. For next to the Immortals and the might of Jove, this man prevented the city of the Cadmæans from being destroyed, and thoroughly overwhelmed by the surge of foreign enemies.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Lucian, in his dialogue entitled "Prometheus," or "Caucasus," has given occasional imitations of passages in this play, not, however, sufficient to amount to a paraphrase, as Dr. Blomfield asserted. Besides, as Lucian lays the scene at Caucasus, he would rather seem to have had the "Prometheus solutus" in mind. (See Schutz, Argum.) But the ancients commonly made Caucasus the seat of the punishment of Prometheus, and, as Æschylus is not over particular in his geography, it is possible that he may be not altogether consistent with himself. Lucian makes no mention of Strength and Force, but brings in Mercury at the beginning of the dialogue. Moreover, Mercury is represented in an excellent humor, and rallies Prometheus good-naturedly upon his tortures. Thus, §6, he says, εὖ ἔχει. καταπτήσεται δὲ ἤδη καὶ ὁ ἀετὸς ἀποκερῶν τὸ ἧπαρ, ὡς πάντα ἔχοις ἀντὶ τῆς καλῆς καὶ εὐμηχάνου πλαστικῆς. In regard to the place where Prometheus was bound, the scene doubtless represented a ravine between two precipices rent from each other, with a distant prospect of some of the places mentioned in the wanderings of Io. (See Schutz, ibid.) But as the whole mention of Scythia is an anachronism, the less said on this point the better. Compare, however, the following remarks of Humboldt, Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 140, "The legend of Prometheus, and the unbinding of the chains of the fire-bringing Titan on the Caucasus by Hercules in journeying eastward—the ascent of Io from the valley of the Hybrites—[See Griffiths' note on v. 717, on ὑβριστὴς ποταμὸς, which must be a proper name]—toward the Caucasus; and the myth of Phryxus and Helle—all point to the same path on which Phœnician navigators had earlier adventured."
[2] Dindorf, in his note, rightly approves the elegant reading ἄβροτον (=ἀπάνθρωπον) in lieu of the frigid ἄβατον. See Blomf. and Burges. As far as this play is concerned, the tract was not actually impassable, but it was so to mortals.
[3] λεωργός=ῥᾳδιουργός, πανοῦργος, κακοῦργος. Cf. Liddell and Linwood, s. v. The interpretation and derivation of the etym. magn. ὁ τῶν ἀνθρώπων πλαστής, is justly rejected by Dindorf, who remarks that Æschylus paid no attention to the fable respecting Prometheus being the maker of mankind.
[4] The epithet παντέχνου, which might perhaps be rendered "art-full," is explained by v. 110 and 254.
[5] See Jelf. Gk. Gr. §720, 2d.