[79] ἔνδικοι σφαγαί, 37. Orestes is to his father’s house δίκῃ καθαρτὴς πρὸς θεῶν ὡρμημένος 70.
[80] One reason why no Erinys pursues Orestes after he has murdered his mother is, indeed, the fact that Sophokles is treating the “Elektra” in isolation as an independent drama and could not therefore introduce a fresh thread of interest at the end, if he was to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. But the mere fact that he could so arrange matters shows that for him, in contrast with Aeschylus, the belief in the veritable reality of the Erinys and the necessary perpetuation of the idea of vengeance in the family was already obscured and almost obsolete. The ancient family blood-feud is less important to him than the rights of the separate and independent individual.
[81] Casual allusions, El. 504 ff.; OC. 965; Ant. 856; and cf. 584 ff., 594 ff. [453]
[82] οὐ γὰρ ἴδοις ἂν ἀθρῶν βροτὸν ὅστις ἂν, εἰ θεὸς ἄγοι, ἐκφυγεῖν δύναιτο, O.C. 252. ὅταν δέ τις θεῶν βλάπτῃ, δύναιτ’ ἂν οὐδ’ ἂν ὁ σθένων φυγεῖν, El. 696 f. αἴσχη μέν, ὦ γυναῖκες, οὐδ’ ἂν εἷς φύγοι βροτῶν ποθ’ ᾧ καὶ Ζεὺς (as the one who rules and ordains everything, cf. El. 175; O.C. 1085) ἐφορμήσῃ κακά· νόσους δ’ ἀνάγκη τὰς θεηλάτους φέρειν, fr. 619 N.
[83] Phil. 191–200.
[84] It is fixed long before by an oracle: 821 ff.; 1159 ff. It is not exactly overpowering violence or heaven-sent madness that drives Deianeira to carry out the prophecy; it is rather an obscure force that transforms her purest intentions to an evil result. She herself is completely innocent: ἥμαρτε χρηστὰ μωμένη.
[85] The reason for this will of the gods is not revealed to us, either in OT. or in the subsequent treatment given in OC. The only thing that is made quite clear there is the complete innocence of Oedipus; as to the meaning of the divine purpose that has plunged him into such deeds of horror the sufferer can only say θεοῖς γὰρ ἦν οὕτω φίλον, τάχ’ ἄν τι μηνίουσιν εἰς γένος πάλαι (964 f.). This is a passage in which modern interpretation of the ancients finds the “upholding of the moral order in the world” clearly expressed as a motive of divine will.
[86] καὶ γὰρ ἦν τῶν θεοσεβεστάτων, Sch., El. 831.
[87] fr. 226 N., σοφὸς γὰρ οὐδεὶς πλὴν ὃν ἂν τιμᾷ θεός. ἀλλ’ εἰς θεόν σ’ ὁρῶτα, κἂν ἔξω δίκης χωρεῖν κελεύῃ, κεῖσ’ ὁδοιπορεῖν χρεών. αἰσχρὸν γὰρ οὐδὲν ὧν ὑφηγοῦνται θεοί.
[88] Aias has angered the goddess because he has boasted that he could do without her help. Thus he has drawn upon himself ἀστεργῆ θεᾶς ὀργήν, 776. The goddess makes him insane that he may recognize τὴν θεῶν ἰσχὺν ὅση, 118. Thus, her superior power is shown and the folly of men who despise that power. But as for showing that the revengeful act of the goddess has any sort of moral purpose or meaning behind it, the pious poet makes no such attempt.—The interpolation of ideas more familiar in modern times does not make it any easier to understand the peculiar character of such antique εὐσέβεια and δεισιδαιμονία. The same kind of fearful awe of the gods which we find here, runs through the whole of Herodotos’ historical writing (Hdt. was not without reason a friend of Sophokles) and meets us again in the character of Nikias and to a large extent in Xenophon, too. Thuc. and, on the whole, Eurip. (for he varies) calmly ignore it or else violently reject it. Its nature is shown (better than in the more usual εὐσέβεια) by the phrase ἡ πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς εὐλάβεια which also occurs: [D.] 59 (Neaer.) 74.