528 ARS SOPHOCLIS INTERPRETANDI. 



in which she had secretly anointed the robe, she had carelessly 

 thrown the tuft of wool down upon this stone. Such is the only 

 sense which the words will bear. They are perhaps corrupt. 

 Sophokles has the dat. plur. (TTrtAdSco-o-j, in the ordinary sense, 

 " sea-rocks," in fr. 341 ; but the sense of the sing, here is peculiar 

 . . . . Possibly the true reading is kut' iiKpui^ o-TroStor, 

 " utterly pulverised," and (tttiXu^O'^ arose when the letters after 

 (T- had been partly effaced, through the wish to lind a subst. 

 which could agree wdth uKpa^. Cp. Sind. kut aKpa^' Si oXou, 

 TTdi'-fAw^ : and O.C. 1242 (^w>^ kcu rovce kut a/c/xt^ I ouvai 

 i-cviiiKToayeiQ arat KAovioixri}' an t,i>}>ov(TU(j. 



And he translates : " That with which I was lately anointing the 

 festal robe, — a white tuft of fleecy sheep's wool, — hath disappeared, 

 not consumed by anything in the house, but self-devoured and 

 self -destroyed, as it crumbled down from the surface of a stone." 



He accordingly takes ipy as intransitive and (nriXaSo'^ as agreeing 

 with «</v7)((s. (T-(A«c is an Homeric word. It is found only in the 

 Odyssey, t 405 we have trn-jAaSe^ : t 401 (nriXaSecrai and y 298 

 fT-«An§f (ro-n-, according to the Index Homericus of Gehring and 

 Ebeling's Lexicon Homericum. 



Ancient Homeric critics and lexicographers were not quite sure 

 whether the rocks were to be placed along the coast or in shallow 

 water. Ap. 144, 7, says : o /iih> Arriivv at iv vSan KoiXat 



TTtrpai^ o 0£ HAjOOWpO^- «l TTapaOaXiKTCflUl TThrpal ICal /T67r»A>J/t£vaC 

 ll-O T(i)V KVfJ.UTl01'. 



Hesychios says : «i -f/Hf^o^uv«f ry HuXtiaaij -n-trpai. 



In Apollonios Rhodios F 1293 sqq- we have : 



uvrap o Tovaye^ 

 IV ^to/3as", t7r<oi'r«s, " t£ (jTrtXit^ nv aXi Titrpi] 

 /KJ^ii'ft a~ttf)i(ny(Ti oovejytfi'ff KVfiar atXXai^. 



As a rule we talk of sea-rocks in the plural, but it is clear that 

 we can have the singular when one sea-rock is meant. 



J ebb's objection to the singular in our passage is therefore 

 groundless. 



Dindorf-Alekler, the editors of the Teubner-text of Sophokles, 

 say : Nondum expeditus : requiritur quale quid Froehlichius 



temptat kui ^/'/^^erot kut idarjux;. 



But I hold that our text is sound here. ;//y is not used intransi- 

 tively ; its object is (t-iAuSo^, which is the genitive of the part. 

 It is strange that no French critic has detected the use of the 

 genitive of the part here, as the French language shows the same 

 affinity. (T7r(A«? is perhaps a flat stone with which the courtyard 



