Aeschylus Agamemnon 694-698

Greek Specific Text Questions
1

Hello,

I found myself in trouble of understanding completely a passage from Aeschylus. It goes:

πολύανδροί τε φεράσπιδες κυναγοὶ
κατ᾽ ἴχνος πλατᾶν ἄφαντον
κελσάντων Σιμόεντος ἀ-
κτὰς ἐπ᾽ ἀεξιφύλλους
δι᾽ ἔριν αἱματόεσσαν.

First of all, I don’t see any verb which would correspond to the subject πολύανδροί τε φεράσπιδες κυναγοὶ. The only verbal form here is the participle κελσάντων. I can read it as referring to πολύανδροί τε φεράσπιδες κυναγοὶ but then why the nominatives are not in genetive to form regular genitive absolute? Even if all the endings had genitive plural in πολύανδροί τε φεράσπιδες κυναγοὶ it wouldn’t change a lot for the meter of the verse? Also the other way around, κελσάντων could be 3rd person plural aorist activ. But this would have impact on meter.

Is there maybe other interpretation for this fragment?

Thanks!

2

Well, this is high Aeschylean lyric: understanding it completely is perhaps too much to expect. But note the τε (“and”) in πολύανδροί τε φεράσπιδες κυναγοὶ, connecting this to what precedes, where the verb is ἕπλευσε “she sailed.” So ἕπλευσαν could be understood as the verb in this continuation—the huntsmen sailed in pursuit of Helen. Alternatively, we could take the verb as κέλσαν = ἔκελσαν (“they landed”), hiding in κελσάντων, as a brilliant 16th-century French scholar proposed: the huntsmen beached on the banks of the Simois. It’s a fine little puzzle, as so much in Aeschylus is.

Either way, δι᾽ ἔριν αἱματόεσσαν brings the stanza to a very strong conclusion—echoed at the end of the antistrophe, αἷμ’ ἀνατλᾶσα. If you want blood, Aeschylus is your man.