“Ho! my gallant co-mates, rouse ye!”
These two lines in the mouth of the Chorus make a good consecutive sense; but the symmetrical response of line to line, so characteristic of Greek tragedy, has led Herm., Well., and the other editors of note, to suppose that a line from Ægisthus has fallen out between these lines of the Chorus. Blanks of this kind, however, the translator will wisely overlook, so long as they do not seriously disturb the sense.
NOTES TO THE CHOEPHORÆ
“What power thy father lent.”
Jove was regarded as the grand source of the power exercised by all the other gods, even Apollo receiving the gift of prophecy from him. There is a peculiar propriety in the allusion to the father Zeus, as Mercury is requested to perform the same office of σωτήρ or Saviour to Orestes that Jove in a peculiar manner performs to all mankind.—See Müller on Zeus Soter. (Eumenides, § 94), whose observations, however, on this particular passage, seem to force an artificial accent on the epithet σώτηρ. The opening lines of this piece are wanting in the MSS. and were supplied by Stan. from the Frogs of Aristophanes.
“* * My early growth of hair
To Inachus I vowed.”