object may discover, in the ancient sepulchres and mummy-pits, fragments of cloth, now trodden under foot and unheeded by the traveller, which would throw much light on the interesting subject of ancient manufactures. The question debated amongst the learned, of the nature of the BYSSUS of the ancients, I may in conclusion be permitted to observe, appears to me to be finally settled by the present communication. Herodotus states that the Egyptians wrapped their dead in cloth of the byssus. It has been shown that without exception every specimen of mummy cloth yet examined has proved to be linen. We owe, therefore, the satisfactory establishment of the fact, that the byssus of the ancients was FLAX, to the microscope of Mr. Bauer. JAMES THOMSON. (To be completed in the following Number.) XIII. REMARKS ON SOPHOCLES' ANTIGONE. Τοιαῦτά φασι τὸν ἀγαθὸν Κρέοντα σοὶ Before the remarks of Y. appeared in No. XIX. of the Classical Museum, the above passage had seemed to me to be generally misunderstood. But I cannot agree with Y. to "connect the pronouns col and uoi (as Dativos Ethicos sive Relationis) with ayavov, and paraphrase thus:—this proclamation, they tell me, has been issued by that Creon whom you and I—for I own I too thought him so— -called the GOOD: or, by your and my GOOD Creon-yes, mine, for I own I thought him so." To this construction, the objection which Y. thinks unimportant, seems to me decisive," the trajection of the datives to the place they occupy after the substantive Kpéovta." And if such could be the construction, would not the sense-a sense of course inadmissible here—more naturally be, Creon whom you and I THINK good; than, "whom you and I THOUGHT good"? There is nothing in the sentence to denote an opinion past. As regards the perhaps unsatisfactory explanation, received from the Scholiast, of τὸν ἀγαθὸν, as spoken ἐν εἰρωνείᾳ, we may avoid it by understanding :-Creon whom THEY think good; they say THEIR worthy Creon, i. e. whose conduct in this matter they approve as patriotic. And this, I think, is the sense which best suits the context: Antigone meaning, that this was a bitter part of the consummation, for her and Ismene, tv an' Oidinov xaxov, (vv. 2, 3,)—that their fellow-citizens were uniting with Creon in his refusal of burial to their fallen brother. 44, 79, 894. See vv. The datives σοὶ and ἐμοί, in connection with κηρύξαντ ̓ ἔχειν, denote, not, certainly, that Creon had made mention of Antigone and Ismene in his edict; nor, perhaps, that he had issued it with a special view to them above all others: but, that the general order issued by him navoμq nóka, v. 7, naturally and necessarily (so at least Antigone felt) concerned them, the two sisters, in particular. Further, as regards λéyw yàp xàμé, I conceive that Y.'s sense, no less than the interpretations of other commentators, would demand zauoí here, instead of xàué. Wex has, I think, given rightly the general meaning of the passage in the following part of the note which Y. quotes:-"Immo hoc dicit Antigona: Illud cum edixit Creon, ad te quoque pertinet hoc edictum et ad me, ad me inquam, quod cum repetit, significat, quam novum sibi quidem et inauditum videatur tale edictum, in quam talis obedientia cadere non possit." But that Wex did not discern the precise meaning and construction of this parenthetic clause, λéyw yàp xàué, I infer from his remarking: "Ceterum exspecλέγω καμέ, taveris xapoi, at sæpe illud λéyw, ubi aliquid materialiter repetendum erat, aut ubi explicationi illud inservit, accusativum assumit." For I believe that xapé, and not xapoi, was essential to the sense intended by Sophocles: nor is éyo used here in either of the ways which Wex speaks of. That verb is here not inquam, nor dico; not I say (parathentic), or I repeat, or I mean, nor I tell (thee); but mentionem facio de, I name, I specify, as in Ed. C. 128, ac τpéμquev λéyev, a sense which of course requires the accusative. Any other sense of λéyw is excluded by ráp, an important and expressive word in the clause. |