as we utter words when making signs to people far out of hearing.

1275. μάντιν ἐκπράξας ἐμὲ. The preceding μάντις seems to shew that it is one of those jingles of words, or associations of cognate ideas with which the dramatists abound. I would compare

1329. "A sponge's sprinkling blots the picture out." I would not be understood as rejecting Peile's interpretation still there is something to be urged on the other side. In the first place, a moist sponge seems an unusual, inappropriate, and very unmeaning image for death. A man may be said to wipe out a debt, or stain from his character, or a thought from his remembrance; but why should death, like a sponge, (in an unfavourable sense) wipe out afflictions and life together? Again, Mr. Conington says "a thought about the forgetting of misfortunes would be apropos to nothing." I suppose one might reply, it is apropos to forgetting the lessons of calamity. The previous misfortunes of the house of Atreus might have been a lesson to its descendants; but all have been obliterated, wiped away from remembrance as by a sponge; and then ταῦτ ̓ ἐκείνων μᾶλλον οικείτρω πολύ- "the last state of that man is worse than the first."

1358. "I can't tell on what resolve I speak,

"Yet 'tis the doer's part to have resolved." The above version embodies the opinion of Mr. Conington upon this much disputed passage. His conclusion is open to some exception. In the first place, it seems silly for a man to say that he does not know on what resolve he speaks, when he knows very well that he is not speaking on any resolve at all. Secondly, the opinion of Mr. Conington, Peile,

and others, that Bovλevoa means, "having first taken counsel," I cannot but regard as contrary to the true doctrine of the Aorist: το βεβουλευκέναι would be required for this sense. On the other hand, rò Bovλevrai I believe to mean the act of taking counsel, unrestricted by any conditions of time or place: the abstract and general principle of deliberating-" Deliberation." [Vide Sheppard's Theophrastus, Appendix on the Aorist.] Thirdly, TUX Aéyo has, as Mr. Conington says, an especial emphasis; but is this emphasis correctly given in his version, I know not what opinion having struck out?" Should we not rather compare such phrases as

τί νιν καλοῦσα τύχοιμ' ἂν.—Agam. v. 1206.

and τί δ ̓ ἂν φάντες τύχοιμεν.—Choeph. v. 412? I would differ from former Editors in taking TOû Sporos as the ordinary genitive expressing function, "the part of the doer;" and then the speech harmonizes very well with those which precede and follow it. They are all of one type-urging immediate action. Certainly the chorus, true to the character of age "timidé gélidéque ministrat ;" but they are far from personally proclaiming or admitting the fact. The whole will then run thus-"I know not on what possible plan, I having successfully hit upon, I should speak, (λéyw subjunctive,) [but never mind that] it is in the doer's power to deliberate [kaì] as well about what he does." In other words, if you stop to deliberate before acting, the probability is you will never have any opportunity of acting at all; but if you proceed at once to action you may have a chance of deliberating. Deliberation will prevent action, but action may give a chance of deliberation; and therefore it is better to proceed to action at once. I suggest this interpretation with extreme diffidence, as it seems to differ from those of all preceding Editors. Otherwise I do not see anything against it, either in the words themselves or the context.

J. G. S.

CURE SECUNDE ON SOME PASSAGES

IN THE AGAMEMNON.

15. ὕπνου ἀντίμολπον ἄκος is commonly understood to mean "song, sleep's substitute," as Liddell and Scott give it, which may be explained either by combining avτíμоλпоv ǎкos into one substantive notion on which voυ depends, or by constructing avrípoλTOV with ὕπνου like ἀντίμολπος ὀλολυγής in Eur. Med. 1176, where the force exerted by arrì is the same, though its sense is different. But it may be questioned whether the meaning of avτíμoλños here is modified in any way directly or indirectly by the presence of ὕπνου in the sentence. If we compare ἀντιπέτρου βήμαTOS, Soph. Ed. C. 192, we may perhaps doubt whether avriμomov means any thing more than vocal, standing in the place of song as good as song; and hence identical with song. avrínevons, Eum. 782, is another word which may be explained in this way; possibly also avrínowos in such passages as Eum. 268, on the analogy of anоwa, which seems to come from ἅμα and ποινή.

170. οὐδὲν ἂν λέξαι is a mere corruption of the old corrupt text ovdèv λégaɩ, yielding a possible though not a certain sense, and unsuitable to the metre. If a new conjecture were wanted, ouk åλé§eraι might be suggested, in the hope of satisfying both metre and sense, without any greater violence to the MSS. reading than is attempted by most of the other emendations proposed. The word is apparently a future from ảλékw, as is remarked by Linwood on Soph. Ed. T. 171, after Buttmann, Lex. 21, 23.

175. τὸ πᾶν is of course adverbial here and in v. 992 below.

194. The interpretation of dúoopμot as an antithesis to ẞporov aλai, the winds being said to detain men physically while making them wander mentally, is strongly confirmed by a passage in Pind. Ol. I. 58, where Tantalus is described as fixed under an everthreatening rock, τὸν αἰεὶ μενοινῶν κεφαλᾶς βαλεῖν ευφροσύνας ἀλᾶται.

225. apwyàv is rightly explained by Jelf, Gr. Gr. §. 580. 3. as a cognate accusative, which is really the same thing as an acc. in apposition to the sentence. KaтaσxЄiv ovλaкàv just below, v. 236, is another instance of the same kind, pvλakav being the cognate acc. pooyyou the acc. of the object, a truth accidentally touched on, though not recognized, by Blomfield, when he says that κατασχεῖν is used in one sense with φυλακὰν, in another with p0oyyóv. The fact is that every verb, whether transitive or intransitive, is susceptible of an accusative expressing its action, or, as the grammarians call it, a cognate; though as this accusative is essentially pleonastic, and altogether savours of antique simplicity, it is comparatively seldom used, and when found at all, generally appears as here, not as an actual cognate, such as Ovoíav or κálegw would be, but as an equivalent. In some instances it appears as if the addition of the cognate gave an intransitive verb a transitive power: e. g. in Soph. El. 123, the insertion of oiμwyàv after Takeis enables the poet to introduce 'Ayaμéμvova as an acc. of the object. Perhaps, however it is safer to acknowledge no essential distinction between intransitive and transitive verbs, regarding the acc. of the object, in common with other cases, not as governed by a verb or any other word, but simply as expressing of itself a certain relation and so as capable of standing wherever that relation is wanted, even though no technical grammatical regimen may be traceable.

250. On the whole it seems best to omit тò dè πρоKλúew with the Neap. MS. and connect rò μéλλov with what follows, as Blomfield does. A strong opposition

seems intended between the lights of experience, which, as Coleridge says, are stern-lights, only affecting the past, and any supposed knowledge of the future and this would be greatly weakened, if not destroyed, by referring δίκα ἐπιῤῥέπει μαθεῖν τὸ μέλλον to the prophetic power which Milton attributes to experience. We need not, however, follow Blomfield in inserting οὐ after ἐπεὶ, as ἐπεὶ γένοιτ' ἂν λύσις may very well mean since the riddle must be solved sooner or later.'

315. It may be worth while to support a little more in detail the explanation of this line given in our last number. That explanation rests on a theory of the λaumaonopía first suggested by Liddell (Dict. Antiqq. sub voce), who, after remarking that there are two distinct sets of allusions to the λaμñadηpopía in the classical writers, those which speak of it as a race between competitors, like other races, and those which dwell on the transmission of the torch from hand to hand, proposes to reconcile them by the hypothesis of a race between several lines of runners, along each of which a torch was passed. The only passage which appears at first sight not to agree with this view is from Pausanias, i. 30: there however the sole difficulty is that nothing is said about transmission, and this may be got over by supposing either that Pausanias does not expressly mention a feature which, characteristic as it might be, was not essential to the race, or that he is describing a simpler form of the game where no transmission took place, man running against man, not line against line. Some have supposed that the transmission in some way or other actually formed part of the struggle: but this is contradicted by the whole tenor of the allusions made by the ancient writers, who, in making use of it as an illustration, speak of it as a regular relay system, of which the essence was its unbroken continuity, and its object mutual relief and economy of exertion. Herodotus (viii. 98.) compares it to the Persian courier regulations-a re

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