 | 184
new threat . . . old doom
It is an old doom that the Voice of Zeus will invoke against the murderer of Laius. The Chorus distinguishes between a curse that has been known for some years and one that has newly emerged.
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| 189
91
Athena, Artemis, Apollo
The three divinities are here invoked in a military prayer to focus their powers on rescuing Thebes. The Chorus does not know which god may be the truly relevant one.
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| 211
sunset god
Hades
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| 227
Ares
The war god. The Chorus does not believe
Ares sent
the plague; he
is
the plague or destruction itself, and was so conceived also by Aeschylus in
Suppliants
, ll. 659 ff. and 678 ff.
|
| 232
33
great searoom / of Amphitrité
Lit. ''great hall of Amphitrite." Amphitrité was a sea nymph whose home was the Atlantic Ocean, hence her name became synonymous with that ocean.
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| 235
jagged harbors
Lit. "welcomeless anchorage."
|
| 236
off Thrace
The Black Sea, where the Thracians lived, who being warlike, took Ares as their primary god.
|
| 237
38
If night . . . finish it
. Meaning obscure. Gould suggests that the phrase means something like, "if the night lets anything survive, the day moves in to finish it."
|
| 242
god killing us
Ares.
|
| 244
lord . . . morning light
Lit. "Lycean Lord."
Lycean
was one of Apollo's epithets, and could suggest either "light" or "wolf." The Chorus here is surely calling on him in his protective, light-bringing aspect.
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| 250
morning hills
Lit. "Lycian hills." In southwestern Asia Minor, where Artemis was worshipped, with her brother Apollo, as a fire deity. Sophocles puns on the similar words to stress the light-bearing character of the sibling gods.
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| 253
name . . . country's own
Bakkhos was a native Theban, the son of Zeus and Semele, Kadmos' daughter.
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