Abstract

Clytaemnestra describes her anxious presentiment of coming evil, but ό π ροστατν Χρθνος bears no obvious meaning. The schol.'s πιενόμεος —corrected to πιινπιγ by Papageorgios from Suidas—is meant to interpret the phrase as merely a periphrasis for the future. So the schol. on Pind. ol. X. 9 glosses πιγν πιγ with ιγενόμε&ngr;ος. Jebb practically agrees, but thinks that strictly ό πρ. Χρόνος is ‘the time which stands in front .’ Kaibel, rightly in my opinion, regards έμο as the necessary complement of προστάτης, but understands the latter as Time personified leading the queen by the hand continuously forward. She does not know her goal, but fears it is death. None of these views is convincing; and if we would seize the metaphor which the words are intended to convey, we shall do better to follow the indication afforded by Aesch. Ag. 976 τιπτε μο τς μπςως |δείμαπ ροατατατηριον| καρδιας τερασκόπον ποτται where the speaker is labouring under the burden of apprehension, whose image hovers over his heart. The future casts its shadow beforehand as a danger to be encountered. So here Clytaemnestra cannot rest for the persistent image which ever obtrudes itself upon her mental vision . Meineke preferred προσ-στατν just as Blaydes conjectured προσ-στατ ριον in the Agamemnon