Sophocles 495-406

The parodos of the chorus is followed by the first scene or epeisodion, with which the action may be said to begin. For in the course of this the spectator's interest is strongly roused by some new circumstance involving an unforeseen complication— the awakening of Ajax (Aj.), the burial of Polynices (Ant.), the dream of Clytaemnestra (El.), the dark utterance of Teiresias (Oed. Tyr.), the arrival of Lichas with Iole (Track.), the report of Ismene announcing Creon's coming (Oed. Col.), the sudden entreaty of Philoctetes crossed by the entrance of the pretended mariner (Phil.). The action from this point onwards is like a steadily flowing stream into which a swift and turbulent tribu tary has suddenly fallen, and the interest advances with rapid and continuous climax until the culmination is reached and the catastrophe is certain. The manner in which this is done, through the interweaving of dialogue and narration with the various lyrical portions, is very different in different dramas, one of the principal charms of Sophocles being his power of ingenious varia tion in the employment of his resources. Not less admirable is the strength with which he sustains the interest after the peripeteia, whether, as in the Antigone, by heaping sorrow upon sorrow, or, as in the first Oedipus, by passing from horror to tenderness and unlocking the fountain of tears. (A tragic action has five stages, whence the five acts of the modern drama: the start, the rise, the height, the change, the close.) The extreme point of boldness in arrangement is reached in the Ajax, where the chorus of Tecmessa, having been warned of the impending danger, depart severally in quest of the vanished hero, and thus leave not only the stage but the orchestra vacant for the soliloquy that precedes his suicide.

The proportion of the lyrics to the level dialogue is considerably less on the average in Sophocles than in Aeschylus, as might be expected from the development of the purely dramatic element, and the consequent subordination of the chorus to the protagonist. In the seven extant plays the lyrical portion ranges from one fifth to nearly one-third, being highest in the Antigone and lowest in the Oedipus Tyrannus.

The union of strict symmetry with freedom and variety, which is throughout characteristic of the work of Sophocles, is especially noticeable in his handling of the tragic metres. In the iambics of his dialogue, as compared with those of Aeschylus, there is an advance which may be compared with the transition from "Mar lowe's mighty line" to the subtler harmonies of Shakespeare. Felicitous pauses, the linking on of line to line, trisyllabic feet in troduced for special effects, alliteration both hard and soft, length of speeches artfully suited to character and situation, adaptation of the caesura to the feeling expressed, are some of the points which occur most readily in thinking of his senarii. A minute speciality may be noted as illustrative of his manner in this re spect. Where a line is broken by a pause towards the end and the latter phrase runs on into the following lines, elision some times takes place between the lines, e.g. (Oed. Tyr., 'El/6 OUT' (ATE 11.X7vvCo. TI Tai}r' i1XXon AiyxeLs This is called synaphea, and is peculiar to Sophocles.

He differentiates more than Aeschylus does between the metres to be employed in the Kop,,uot (including the Ko,upartKa) and in the choral odes. The dochmius, cretic, and free anapaest are employed chiefly in the Kop,,uot. In the stasima he has greatly developed the use of logaedic and particularly of glyconic rhythms, and far less frequently than his predecessor indulges in long continuous runs of dactyls or trochees. The light trochaic %.,_ so frequent, in Aeschylus, is comparatively rare in Sophocles. If, from the very severity with which the

choral element is subordinated to the purely dramatic, his lyrics have neither the magnificent sweep of Aeschylus nor the "linked sweetness" of Euripides, they have a concinnity and point, a directness of aim, and a truth of dramatic keeping, more perfect than is to be found in either. And even in grandeur it would be hard to find many passages to bear comparison with the second stasimon, or central ode, either of the Antigone (thOcap.ovEs KaKC)v) or the first Oedipus (fi. µoc vvein Opovrt). Nor does anything in Euripides equal in grace and sweetness the famous eulogy on Coloneus (the poet's birthplace) in the Oedipus Colon eus.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Sophocles was edited (probably from the Venetian mss.) by Aldus Manutius, with the help of Musurus, in 1502. The Juntine editions, in which the text of Aldus was slightly modified with the help of Florentine mss., were published in 5522, respectively. An edition of the Scholia, very nearly corresponding to those on the margin of the Medicean or chief Laurentian ms. (La or L), previ ously appeared at Rome in 1518. The first great modification of the text was due to Turnebus, who had access to the Parisian mss. ; but he was not fortunate in his selection. The earliest editors had been aware that the traditional arrangement of the metres was faulty, but little way had been made towards a readjustment. Now it so happens that the Parisian ms. T, which is a copy of the recension of Triclinius, an early 14th century scholar, contains also the metrical views of the same editor; and, having found (as he erroneously supposed) a sound authority, Turnebus (1552) blindly adopted it, and was followed in this by H. Stephanus (1568), and by Canter in Holland (1579), who was the first to recognize the arrangement of the odes in strophe and antistrophe. The error was to a large extent corrected by Brunck (1786), who rightly preferred Par. A (2712), a 13th century ms., belonging, as it happened, to the same family with Ven. 467, which Aldus had mainly followed'. Thus after nearly three centuries the text returned (though with conjectural variations) into the former channel. Musgrave's edition was published posthumously in 1800, and Gilbert Wakefield had published a selection shortly before. Erfurdt in Ger many then took up the succession, and his edition formed the basis of Hermann's, whose psychological method set the example of a new style of commentary which was adopted by Wunder. A new era commenced with Peter Elmsley's collation of the Laurentian ms. (made in 1818, but only published in full after his death). His transcription of the Scholia still exists in the Bodleian library. The most important German commentaries since Hermann's have been those of L. Campbell (1871-81) ; N. Wecklein, (1875-8o) ; F. W. Schneidewin (7 vols., 188o-86) ; R. C. Jebb (7 vols., with Eng. trans., 1885-96). See also Sophocles (Greek and English trans. F. Star, Loeb ed., 2 VO1S., 1912-13) ; Sophocles (Greek and French, P. Masqueray, 1922, etc.). Editions of one or more dramas worth consulting are: P. Elmsley, Oedipus Tyrannus (1821) and Oedipus Colonel- (1823) C. A. Lobeck, Ajax (1835) A. Bockl, Antigone (1843) ; J. W. Donald son, Antigone (1848) 0. Jahn, Electra (1872) ; J. William White, Oedipus Tyrannus (1889) ; J. E. Sheppard, Oedipus Tyrannus (Greek and English, 192o). See G. Kaibel, De Sophoclis Antigona. (1897). There are many translations into modern languages. See R. C. Jebb, The Tragedies of Sophocles (prose, reprinted in 1 vol., 1905). See also L. Campbell, Tragic Drama in Aeschylus, Sophocles and Shakespeare (1904) ; T. W. MacKail, Lectures on Greek Poetry (1911) ; and A. E. Haigh, The Attic Theatre (rev. A. W. Pickard, Cambridge, 1907).