SIR, 3. ON SOPHOCLES' Antigone, 31, 32. Τοιαῦτά φασι τὸν ἀγαθὸν Κρέοντα σοὶ καμοὶ, λέγω γὰρ καμέ, κηρύξαντ' ἔχειν. To the Editor of the Classical Museum. HAVING followed the remarks on this passage in your last numbers, may I be permitted to offer a very brief one of my own? I cannot think that the datives can be governed by the participle, but by the adjective, as suggested in the first article on the subject: because it is not probable that Antigone would select herself and her sister as the especial objects of a proclamation common to all; and because the position of σol, which only is to be considered, («åμoi appearing to come in as an after thought,) is much more favourable to this regimen than the other. Is not the Tov ȧya@òv highly ironical? if so, all the words connected with it in regimen must be so too: and the easy sense will be evolved: "Such they say is the proclamation of your good Creon; aye, and of my good Creon, for by all means I I would call him so too." 63 To hold for. 63 Too hallow; A.S. halig; halien is an accusative. 64 Against. 65 Ne is, not is. 66 From A.S. forgeldan, partic. forgolden, to requite; cf. Germ. unvergolten. 67 A mistake of the scribe, as the wrong rhyme clearly shows, instead of unbout; A.S. unboht, i. e. gratis. 68 Pure A.S.; G. R. Engl. mould, ef. the poem the Grace in Thorpe's Anal. p. 153, the wes molde imynt. 69 A.S. raedan, Germ. rathen ; I advise thee. 70 A.S. misdead; Germ. missethat. 71 The same like abowte. 72 Old genit. femin. in which gender the A.S. heofon occurred sometimes. 73 Lat. fallere, French, faillir. Τοιαῦτά φασι τὸν ἀγαθὸν Κρέοντα σοὶ καμοὶ, λέγω γὰρ καμέ, κηρύξαντ' ἔχειν. Soph. Antig. 31, 32. DR. Kennedy, in replying to my remarks on his interpretation of the above passage, observes that "Sophocles, because he could not write, τόν σοι καὶ ἐμοί, λέγω γὰρ καὶ ἔμε, ἀγαθὸν Κρέοντα, throws the words into the order of the text." But with great deference to Dr. Kennedy, I would ask whether, if that was the sense which Sophocles wished to express, he might not have expressed it easily by placing Κρέοντα before τὸν ἀγαθόν σοι καὶ ἐμοί, This collocation, I conceive, would have been the most proper and natural, and would have made the meaning as clear as in Trachin. 540, τοιάδ ̓ Ἡρακλῆς, ὁ πιστὸς ἡμῖν κἀγαθὸς καλούμενος, οἰκούρι ἀντέπεμψε. Indeed, comparing such passages as Αj. 780–2, ὁ δ' εὐθὺς ἐξ ἕδρας πέμπει με σοὶ φέροντα τάσδ' ἐπιστολὰς Τεύκρος φυλάσσειν : Εl. 601, 2, ὁ δ' ἄλλος ἔξω, χεῖρα σὴν μόλις φυγών, τλήμων Ορέστης δυστυχῆ τρίβει βίον : had not Dr. Kennedy affirmed that "the parenthetic clause, Aéyw yàp kapé, which must immediately follow èpoi, cannot interpose between the epithet d'yaOov and its substantive Kpéovra," I should have been ready to think that, rather than place his words so ambiguously, Sophocles might (metrical hindrances apart) have even written after this manner: Tòv ἀγαθόν σοι καμοί, λέγω γὰρ καμοί, Κρέοντα κηρύξαντ' ἔχειν : although it would have been more natural to place the proper name before its epithet, than at such a long interval after it. I acknowledge, on reconsideration, that there is little if any force in the objection I made, that, according to Dr. Kennedy's construction, the sense would more naturally be, "Creon, whom you and I think good," than "whom you and I thought good." But my other objections remain in my own mind. Dr. Kennedy says that “ words such as τοιαῦτά φασι Κρέοντά σοι κàμοi keкŋpvɣévai, can mean nothing else but, Such is the edict which they say Creon has proclaimed to you and me :" but I do not see, considering the wide and indefinite use of the dativus relationis, that those datives cannot denote the special application of the edict, in and by the mind of Antigone, to herself and her sister; as well as, if not instead of, an intention on Creon's part of directing that edict expressly against them and that the meaning may not be,-Creon has proclaimed to your hurt and to mine, or so as to affect you and me, or with which you and I above all are concerned. In such words as τοιαῦτα Κρέων σοι κηρύξας ἔχει, the dative σοὶ might, I conceive, have been used, as it is in the 37th line, outws exei σoi taûra, as a dative of reference. Might not then such words as Κρέων σοι καμοὶ κηρύξας ἔχει be used in a like manner; although the addition of kauoi imparts to oo much more force and meaning than that dative might otherwise : seem to have? In the 448th line we find uoi alone used by Antigone in connection with pugas, for the purpose of denoting the particular reference or application which the general edict (τà kŋpvx0év¬α) had, in her own mind, to herself: οὐ γάρ τί μοι Ζεὺς ἦν ὁ κηρύξας τάδε. Dr. Kennedy objects to the obscurity of the hint contained, according to my interpretation, in the parenthetic clause, Xéyw yàp kàμé; but this appears to me less objectionable than the greater obscurity which, if Dr. Kennedy interprets rightly, was cast over the meaning of the whole passage by an unusual and ambiguous collocation of words, that has hid the interpretation from all commentators till now. Nor does it seem necessary that Ismene should have instantly understood what was implied in that parenthesis; since, according to my view, Antigone was preparing her sister for such an explicit statement of her solemn meaning as would soon clearly shew why she spoke of herself as especially concerned with Creon's edict; and which commences with the 41st line. I confess myself unable to see why "such an emphasis and such a hint seems to destroy the beauty and propriety of Antigone's character." Lastly, it seems to me improbable that Sophocles, who, in his Edipus Coloneus, has represented Creon as the very opposite of good in the estimation of Ismene and Antigone, for his treatment of their father and of themselves, should, in another play, have represented them as having been accustomed, up to the time of their brothers' death, to call the same Creon, kaτ' ¿çoxýv, the Good. Sophocles could not have been so inconsistent, had he written the Edipus Coloneus before the Antigone. Will the fact of the latter having been composed first, sufficiently account for such an inconsistency? Or must we suppose that, by his goodness during the interval between their father's death and their brothers', Creon had not only obliterated from the minds of Antigone and Ismene the remembrance of his former cruelty and violence, but had made himself admired and beloved by them both? 66 But it cannot appear to any one more presumptuous than it does to myself, that I should dispute on any classical point with Dr. Kennedy, whose opinion, even if it were not presented as shared by one of the best Greek scholars in England," would be entitled to full fifty times more weight than mine. It is perhaps because my own mind was preoccupied by another interpretation of the passage in question, that I was not satisfied, and still am not, with that which Dr. Ken 1 "Non enim eas (leges) mihi Jupiter statuerat,” Brunck. “Non enim Juppiter fuit, qui hoc mihi edixerit," Wunder. I am aware, however, that i may be taken otherwise, as independent of angú as, and as having reference to Zip nedy has no doubt is the true one. I leave then to others the further discussion of this passage, should any seem necessary. HENRY SYLVESTER RICHMOND. τοιαῦτά φασι τὸν ἀγαθὸν Κρέοντα σοὶ καμοὶ, λέγω γὰρ καμέ, κηρύξαντ' ἔχειν. Soph. Antig. 31, 32. This passage seems to me capable of yielding a satisfactory sense without the need of having recourse to the construction proposed by Dr. Kennedy, which is, to say the least, an unusual one. Let it be supposed that Antigone had said τοιαῦτά φασι τὸν ἀγαθὸν Κρέοντα σοὶ κηρύξαντ' ἔχειν. Every one would have seen then that the use of co was perfectly obvious, indicating that faint notion of the concern of the party addressed, in the statement made so common in similar cases; why should we not go a step further, and conceive that having used, inadvertently as it were, a pronoun which, though not necessarily implying more than this faint notion of her sister's concern with Creon's doings, might yet, as it stood, be taken to mark Ismene as the party chiefly interested. The speaker corrects the probable misapprehension by immediately adding an emphatic mention of herself, euoi, not μo, to which he further calls attention in the following parenthesis, λéyw yàp kåμé? I, at least, see nothing far-fetched in such an explanation; and if there should appear to be any thing of the kind, I believe it will be found to arise from the mere fact of an analysis having been attempted at all; an experiment which, if tried on any of the simpler forms of ordinary conversation, would produce a similar effect of apparent subtilty and refinement. There is another passage in Sophocles, which might, I think, be advantageously discussed by the readers of the Classical Museum. It is from the dipus Tyrannus, 44, 45. ὡς, τοῖσιν ἐμπείροισι καὶ τὰς ξυμφορὰς ζώσας ὁρῶ μάλιστα τῶν βουλευμάτων. Most of the commentators, I believe, agree with Wunder in making the general sense to be consilia hominum pendentium prosperum eventum habent, τὰς ξυμφοράς being taken with τῶν βουλευμάτων, as in Thuc. I. 140, τὰς ξυμφορὰς τῶν πραγμάτων, where the Schol. renders ξυμφοράς by αποβάσεις. Not to mention that one would wish to see ξυμφοράς placed nearer to βουλευμάτων, an objection doubtless capable of being obviated, but still not wholly without force in a doubtful passage, the sentiment which the words are made to convey, appears to be a very flat one. The chorus had been exhorting Edipus to suggest some remedy if he should have chanced to derive any from gods or men; and surely it is not very forcible immediately to back this appeal by the remark, that experienced men are generally found to have the issues of their counsels more prosperous; the power of kai being, I suppose, that not only are their plans well formed, but their success signal. My own suggestion, which I make with considerable hesitation, is to separate ζυμφοράς from βουλευμάτων, and understand the latter as formed by μάλιστα in the sense of μᾶλλον : "Since I see that, with men of experience, even casual knowledge is (often) more effective than counsels of reason;" a position at any rate sufficiently to the purpose, and agreeing well with the doubtful language held just before εἴτε του θεῶν φήμην ἀκούσας εἴτ' ἀπ' ἀνδρὸς οἶσθά που. Some may wish to take ξυμφοράς with βουλευμάτων 28 the carnal part of counsel, but the other explanation seems less forced. It might also be proposed to understand the passage, "since I see that, even with the experienced, our calamities are more vigorous than what counsel can do," were it not that kai ought then rather to have come before τοῖσιν ἐμπείροισι, And now, as this paper has already begun to assume a miscellaneous character, I wish to be allowed to correct two or three oversights, a specimen, I fear, of a much larger number in my recently published edition of the Agamemnon. However few, assuming your readers may be acquainted with the work, I should be sorry to stand accountable for any of the errors contained in it in the eyes even of a single individual, longer than I can possibly help. On 10, 11, I have raised the question, whether the accusative absolute is not merely a figment of the grammarians. I ought at least to have marked off the cases where the accusative occurs after ws in an apparently absolute sense, though here writers seem agreed that the words depend on some implied verb. The passage from Plat. Gorg. p. 495, c. quoted from Jelf (who treats it especially from the instances with ὡς, though he supposes ὡς ἔτεον to be put for ὡς ἕτερον ovoav,) probably belongs to this class, and so does not require the explanation I have given. In the note on v. 308, I inadvertently included va among the illative particles which are found before the optative with or without av evidently with only a small modification of the sense. I certainly did not mean to prejudge the question against the commentators, who contend that "va, as a conjunction, is never found with äv. I retract also the qualified assent given in the note on v. 601, to the doctrine, that av diminishes the contingency of the optative. Another position adopted by Haupt on v. 902, about a with the participle, appears to me now to be questionable in itself, and not required in this particular passage. The account given of où and uǹ in a note on v. 491, is not strictly accurate, asserting, as it does, too broadly, that où never denies with |