Some years ago, Sir Kenneth Dover suggested a new interpretation of καρξαι. Prima facie, the chorus ask the sun to proclaim where Heracles is, and this sense is supported by such passages as Il. 3.277 Ήλιóς θ', ς πντ' ορς, Od. 9.109 Ήελου, ς πντ' ορ , Od. 8.270–1 αρ δ ο γγελος λθεν | Ήλιος, and especially h. Cer. 69ff., where ‘Demeter visits the Sun and implores him, “you who look down on all earth and sea…tell me truly of (...) my dear child, if you have seen her anywhere, who has gone off with her…”.’ This is the way καρξαι in Trach. 97 has always been taken. Dover points out, however, that κηρττειν also has a special, technical sense: to make proclamation inquiring about a missing person's whereabouts, as the town-crier used to do a century ago England and elsewhere, and the media do now. The model is not that of h. Cer. 69ff., but rather S. Aj. 845ff.: ‘Sun, when you see my native land, draw near and tell my aged father…of my fate.’ The examples he cites are enough to demonstrate the ‘interrogative’ use of κηρττω, though his first example, Ar. Ach. 748 γν δ καρυξ Δικαιóπολιν π, will not do: if sound, it means not ‘I will find out by κρυξ where Dicaeopolis is’ , but ‘I will summon Dicaeopolis to where ’. The normal ‘interrogative’ use is to enquire by herald the whereabouts of a Crminal or a runaway slave. (shrink)

It would be generally accepted that G. E. Moore’s celebrated “Refutation of Idealism,” set forth at the turn of the century, constitutes the classic statement of modern realism. The seeming strengths of this position have been elaborated more recently by a notable realist proponent, Don Locke, who, following Moore, takes for granted what is, in effect, the basic assumption of the “Refutation”—the assumption, namely, that each and every variant of the idealist standpoint is embraced under the central Berkeleian contention that (...) “esse is percipi.” It will be my object to argue that the plausibility of Locke’s realism stems from a basic confusion of terms, and that, in its implications, the position becomes vacuous when set in opposition to idealism. (shrink)

It is now generally agreed that in Aristotle's Poetics, ch. 13 means ‘mistake of fact’. The moralizing interpretation favoured by our Victorian forebears and their continental counterparts was one of the many misunderstandings fostered by their moralistic society, and in our own enlightened erais revealed as an aberration. In challenging this orthodoxy I am not moved by any particular enthusiasm for Victoriana, nor do I want to revive the view that means simply ‘moral flaw’ or ‘morally wrong action’. I shall (...) try to show that the word has a range of applications, from ‘ignorance of fact’ at one end to ‘moral defect’, ‘moral error’, at the other, and that the modern orthodoxy, though not as clearly wrong as the moralizing interpretation it displaced, restricts Aristotle's meaning in a way he did not intend, and does lessthan justice to his analysis of classical drama. (shrink)

Are experience and stimulus necessarily alike? Wertheimer spoke of this as an “insidious and insistent belief”. By contrast, Watson devotes an entire book to the defense of the thesis that representation necessarily requires resemblance. I argue that this bold and important thesis is ambiguous between a historical and a systematic reading, and that in either one of these readings the thesis, for different reasons, will be found wanting. Second, a proper evaluation of it in either one of its possible interpretations (...) requires a careful analysis of the notion of resemblance. I proceed to supply some necessary distinctions and argue that, given such an analysis, Watson's thesis may be historically applicable only to ancient and medieval philosophy, while its systematic import is untenable. (shrink)

So Pearson. The strange series of hypodochmiacs here and atO.T.1207 ff., with brevis in longo without pause atAj.421 andO.T.1208, seems metrically self-contained, despite their syntactical interdependence (esp.Aj.421–2οὐκέτ' ἄνδρα μὴ | τόνδ' ἴδητ', so that the word-overlap ofοἷονinto iambics in Pearson's text is unlikely.ἑξερῶ μέγαshould therefore be writtenplena scriptura. Thenοἷον οὔτιν' ἁ Τροί|α στρατοῦ…is possible, but the ithyphallic with word-overlap, sometimes found in the syncopated iambics of Aeschylus, is foreign to Sophocles. Divideἐξερῶ μέγα, | οἷον οὔτινα | Τροία…Thenϕίλοι τοῖσδ' ὁμοῦ = (...) οἷον οὔτινα, i.e.δ= hyp., which is not certainly found, and the antistrophe has two syllables extra. (shrink)

7 πῖαρ Plut.: πυαρ pap.Ath. Pol.ἀνταράξας … ἐξεῖλε pap., coniecerat Gildersleeve: ἂν ταράξας ἐξέλη Plut.Solon is answering his critics. Thedemoshas never had it so good. The ‘bigger and stronger men’, μείζους καὶ βίαν ἀμείνονες, also have cause to thank him. For if anyone else had had this office, ‘he would not have restrained thedemos, nor would he have stopped, before’, etc. Plutarch introduces the lines in almost the same words.V. 7 is difficult. Bergk and others construe: ‘until, having stirred up (...) the milk, he had taken the cream’. There are two objections to this. Firstly, the word order would involve an interlacing of main and participial clauses which Greek normally eschews. Bergk claims that Solon is peculiar in the freedom of his hyperbaton, but the examples he quotes are not of this type and are very much easier. Secondly, the sense: ‘it is not usual to stir up milk when it is wanted to skim off cream’. Linforth recognised the force of this argument, and concluded, in the truth of the ancient evidence, that πῑαρ refers to butter. (shrink)

Orestes has revealed himself to Electra and sworn with her to avenge Agamemnon. He outlines his plan and leaves the stage with a prayer to his father, after warning the chorus against indiscretion . They begin: Earth nurtures many dread hurts and fears; the sea's embrace is full of monsters hostile to man; lights in mid-air between earth and heaven also harm winged things and things that tread the earth; and one might also tell of the stormy wrath of tempests. (...) But who could tell of a man's unruly will, and of ruthless woman's unbridled passions, that share her heart with evil powers ruinous to mankind?3 But surpassing all is the wicked female passion whereby wedded union is worsted, among beasts and men alike. (shrink)