The syntax here is difficult for me in several respects. The general idea is comparing the relative merits of being the king with having authority and benefits of royalty without the hassles of being the actual monarch. Creon poses the question with Πῶς δῆτ’ a note of irony or perhaps indignation. The comparative ἡδίων with the infinitive ἔχειν and that which it is compared to in genitive ἀρχῆς ἀλύπου καὶ δυναστείας.
But the manner in which the comparison is expressed seems difficult to me.
According to Cooper, ἔφυ here is functioning something like ἐστί with aorist functioning like a present. But Creon is being accused of a plot to take the throne which is a future event, so perhaps the aorist is actually pointing to a potential future situation where Creon would be king.
I now see why this would not be a future aorist since the state of having authority and benefits of royalty is presented by the speaker as a current scenario which would not be improved by taking over the throne.
εφυ (intrans. aor.), functioning as present rather than aorist, is quite often used in tragic iambics at verse end as a metrically convenient equivalent of εστιν. In other positions it more often retains something of its proper meaning (“is by nature”).
Thank you, that helps. I see it at line end in all three Tragic authors, plenty of examples. The comparative syntax is probably also something more or less standard but in my present befuddled state of mind it seem somewhat difficult.
Yes the comparative syntax is standard. X(any case) sweeter than Y(gen.) How is tyranny sweeter than …? How is tyranny sweeter to have than …? How is tyranny sweeter for me to have than …? - But perhaps this doesn’t touch your point of difficulty.
For one I would expect some sort of particle with the element compared against and I don’t understand why we need the verb εφυ or what it does here. I could understand the syntax with no particle with a genitive case for the the element compared against but the verb εφυ creates another clause. Again, I am confused.
To quote a classics prof at Wake Forest U "On a good day I can pretend that Sophocles makes sense … " or something along those lines it was a number of years ago.
Stirling, ἔφυ does not start a new clause. It simply functions as the main verb of the clause (as noted, the functional equivalent of ἐστί). ἔχειν is a complementary infinitive with ὴδίων which also sets up the comparative with the genitives. This is one of those sentences where it’s easier intuitively to grasp what is said than to explain it…
Stirling, Has Barry cleared up the problem, or would you have the same difficulty if the text gave not εφυ but (unmetrical) εστιν? The syntax is the same.
Paul, Not gnomic, I think. Not only is εφυ used in non-gnomic circumstances, it’s not used with the same meaning as the corresponding present φυεται, nor it is used as an aorist.
— except as meaning “grew,” of course. So is it rather “(grew and hence) is”? It’s always seems a bit odd to me, but I’ve never thought about it. I guess I should. The the usage has become stereotyped in tragedy, and audiences and readers will have just have registered it as meaning estin (note I’m presumptuously identifying them with myself).
πεφυκεν is more your “is become = is.”
Thanks Barry, Yes, Geoffrey Steadman parses the sentence that way and I have staring at it for two days so I should have known that. Cooper reorders the words to explain it which is rare for Cooper. He generally doesn’t do that. I just became fixated on the notion that something strange was going on here.
curious that the following line shows a different word (from ἔφυ) κυρῶ at line end functioning as εἰμι or τυγχάνω. The next line is also a comparative this time supplied with the particle ἢ. Creon’s speech seems to be more difficult than dialogue, kind of halfway between dialogue and chorus.
Cooper in one place[1] says that κυρῶ = εἰμι and in another place[2] suggests it functions like τυγχάνω with a participle. He suggests that “periphrasis” is the wrong idea with constructions like ἠπατημένος κυρῶ where the participle is a predication. Not sure what to make of that.
[1] Cooper vol3 56.1.0.b p2547
[3] vol3 56.4.1.A p.2051
The pdf of Geoffrey Steadman’s commentary on S.OT is proving very useful, much more so than Dawe or Jebb. Geoffrey Steadman knows his audience and what they need. Dawe is readable but he overlooks numerous issues assuming the reader has a PhD candidate level of competence in the literature.
Postscript
If anybody wonders why I quote Cooper all the time. I purchased the books from a guy in Pennsylvania who picked up two sets at good price. We were reading Sophocles Electra together. I have a 30+ year interest in syntax which predates my work in Koine greek and Hebrew. I use the massive index in Cooper to find his comments on the passage I am reading. This is a slow way to read but the objective is to mine out of Cooper his particular understanding of the texts. It is tedious at times but it’s a way to focus on minute detailed analysis of Greek texts which are not Koine.
curious that the following line shows a different word (from ἔφυ) κυρῶ at line end functioning as εἰμι.
Wouldn’t it be even more curious if he had used the same word? This is poetry, and the diction is deliberately elevated and removed from everyday speech. Using the same word would be flat and out of character with the artistic quality of tragic speech.
And I wonder whether Sophocles even thought about both of these words as synonyms for εἰμι. Probably they were words that simply came naturally to him in verse in these expressions.
No disagreement with any of the above. The point of curiosity wasn’t that the word was different rather that we had two line ends in a row with words functioning like εἰμι or τυγχάνω.
The relevant forms of eimi – eimi and esti – wouldn’t fit the meter at the end of a verse, which requires that the first syllable be short (the second could be either long or short). But I wouldn’t assume that these are necessarily both interchangeable synonyms of eimi without looking closely at how they’re used elsewhere in Sophocles and other poetry. I’m not sure ephu could be used with a participle, or kurw with an abstract subject.
I don’t think interchangeable synonym is exactly what Cooper means. In old school linguistics terminology a syntactical slot sometimes filled by eimi is other times filled by ephu. A different slot sometimes filled by eimi is other times filled by kurw. The ability to occupy the same slot in functional terms means it serves a similar purpose in that particular construction and would show up in same location in a parsing tree.
Nothing was implied in that regard. I realize my original wording was ambiguous. I have cleaned it up somewhat.
κυρεῖ always retains some sense of “happens to be”, I think, as if it were a short and weaker form of τυγχάνει ων/ουσα/ον, and εφυ often and perhaps always retains some sense of “is by nature.” κυρεῖ would make sense in the first verse in place of εφυ, but not quite the same sense. εφυ would be very odd in the second in place of κυρεῖ.
What Creon says in 593 is the same point he made a few lines earlier at 587: εγω μεν ουν ουτ’ αυτος ἱμειρων εφυν | τυραννος ειναι …, “Well I’m not someone-who-desires to be tyrant, neither myself (nor anyone else with an ounce of sense)." An illuminating comparison I think. κυρῶ would make sense here too, but again not quite the same sense. With εφυν it means it’s not in his nature to desire tyranny, with κυρῶ it would mean he just doesn’t happen to desire it. The syntax is identical: they’d each occupy the same position in a parsing tree, as would ειμι/εστιν. They each occupy the same slot in the metrical scheme too (unlike ειμι/εστιν—that was our starting point). Neither of them is precisely synonymous with ειμι/εστι, though the semantic overlap is sometimes almost total, in tragic iambics at least.
Really? How much Ancient Poetry have you read? Ancient Poetry uses repetition all the time. The repetition of one word within a parallel syntactic structure is common as dirt in ancient poetry. However, the structure doesn’t need to be parallel. Got friends who are experts on Ancient poetry, mostly Hebrew and LXX which is NOT attic tragedy. I have edited some papers on this for english language journals.
Greek and Latin don’t avoid repeating a relatively important word (both poetry and prose), where English would typically find a way to avoid the repetition, but it struck me that in the above passage ending two adjacent lines with the same word would be flat and colorless, especially with a relatively unimportant word.
It might be different if there were some rhetorical or stylistic reason for the repetition, as in this:
The repetition of νῦν, which is an important word here, articulates a tricolon crescens. And the other repeated words, πᾶσι/πᾶς and με, are important words.
φθίνει μὲν ἰσχὺς γῆς, φθίνει δὲ σώματος.
Again, in this line, the repetition of φθίνει is rhetorically effective more effective than φθίνει ἰσχὺς γῆς καὶ σώματος.
but it struck me that in the above passage ending two adjacent lines with the same word would be flat and colorless, especially with a relatively unimportant word.
Another thing about repetition in Greek poetry: it varies with the genre. Tragedy is a very literary, artificial style, which, in my experience, generally avoids repetition unless it is for some special effect. On the other hand, Homer is almost completely indifferent to it, but this is because of its oral origin. You could almost say that in this respect, Aeschylus is actually closer to the literary poetry of our time than to Homer.
