(
Greek characters) could hardly stand with (Greek characters), and (Greek characters) would be better
without the addition of (Greek characters). Should not we read (Greek characters) ?
John Conington.
(To be continued.)
V.
On Schneidewin' s Edition of the Œdipus Rex. Leipzig, 1849.
The Tragedies of Sophocles edited by Professor Schneidewin (the Trachiniae alone is yet unpublished), belong to the Leipsic Collection of Greek and Latin Classics superintended by Doctors Haupt and Sauppe. Prof. Schneidewin is a good scholar and an able interpreter of Sophocles. His edition is a step in advance. But he has left gleanings in the field ; and I cannot always side with him.
I propose to notice the places in which Schneidewin differs from former editors, as well as those in which I am at variance with him. And I begin with the dramas of the Theban cycle. But first there are two features in the diction of Sophocles, which an interpreter of that poet must carefully note and constantly bear in mind. For convenient reference, I shall call them Observations I. II. and III.
Obs. I. In his collocation of words, or (as old grammarians would say) in his use of the figure Hyperbaton, Sophocles is more audacious than any other poet, especially where such freedom is in some degree licensed by the mysterious or impassioned tone of the speaker. Schneidewin has correctly pointed out the prophetic obscurity of the language of Tiresias. But I shall have frequent occasion to notice the free collocations of Sophocles in passages marked by no ethical peculiarity. For instance. In the Classical Museum (Vol. vi. p. 6), appeared a new interpretation of Soph. Antig. 31, 32.
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"Such is the proclamation which they say has been published by your good Creon, aye and mine, for I own I too thought him so.")
