Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-5g6vh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T12:18:12.177Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Critical Notes on Apollonius Rhodius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2009

M. L. West
Affiliation:
St John's College, Oxford

Abstract

Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Review Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1963

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See L.S.J. who quote only this instance as eccentric in meaning. Stephanus glosses ‘extrudo, expello (repello, exigo, expulso, add. Gl.)’.

2 L.S.J. translate ‘put forth painful words, break forth into cruel words’. Jebb explains ‘⋯ξ⋯σαι, like a sting: cp. Ar. Vesp. 423 κ⋯ξε⋯ρας τ⋯ κ⋯ντρον εἶτ' ⋯π' αττ⋯ ⋯εσο’ But the word will not (apparently) bear these meanings.

3 We must put aside, I think, our modern associations with thrusting out the tongue in ridicule. The Chorus are concerned with a much more material use by Philoctetes of his tongue, i.e. to put a curse upon the person against whom it is directed (cf. 1119–20 στυγερ⋯ν ἔχε / δ⋯σποτμον ⋯ρ⋯ν ⋯π' ἄλλοις). They regard Philoctetes as darting his tongue out as a weapon against Odysseus, i.e. in cursing him. I would therefore take ⋯δ⋯ναν as pro-leptic, and φθονερ⋯ as adverbial: ‘darting out his tongue maliciously so as to cause pain i.e. material injury) to another’. Cf. also Aj. 584 οὐ γ⋯ρ μ' ⋯ρ⋯σκει γλ⋯σσ⋯ σου τεθηγμ⋯νε (with its back-reference to τομ⋯ντι π⋯ματι in 582).