MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS.
I.
On a passage of the Philoctetes of Sophocles.
from the German of Welcker.
῾Ὺπν´ ὀδύνας ἀδαής, Ὕπνε δ´ ἀλγέων,
εὐαὴς ἡμῖν ἔλθοις
εὐαίων, εὐαίων, ὦναξ·
ὂμμασι δ´ ἀντέχοις τὰνδ´ αἴγλαν
ἂ τέταται τανῶν.
The very different and very forced interpretations which the last but one of these lines has occasioned, without having been ever rightly explained, have arisen solely from an oversight as to a meaning of the word αἴγλα, which is wanting in the modern lexicons except the new edition of Stephanus, though the Greek lexicons give it, and which nobody knew or guessed. The only meaning hitherto thought of has been that of splendour. So the Scholiast conceives that the sleep into which Philoctetes has dropt, is splendour and light to him: perhaps as something salutary: though this would contradict what he had said before; for that it is the same grammarian who is proceeding with his explanation, is clear from the transition τοιαύτην δὲ αἴγλην. It is scarcely possible for an interpretation to be more obscure, puzzled, and faulty, than the one he gives; and it is annexed to another which is likewise erroneous. Ἣ κάτεχε τὸ ὁρατικον (τάνδ´ αἴγλαν) ὅπερ νῦν ἥπλωται καὶ διαχεῖται (τέταται) τῇ τοῦ ὕπνου ἄγλυϊ. τοιαύτην δὲ αἴγλην ἥτις νῦν τέταται ἀντέχοις τοῖς ὄμμασι. λέγει δὲ τὸν ὕπνον τὸν γενόνεμον αὐτῷ παραχρῆμα, ος ἐστιν αὔτῷ αἴγλην καὶ φῶς. Musgrave too has explained αἴγλη by levamen, solatium, which is sometimes the
