... ubi expositus fuit Ventis ipse, gradum firmum haud habens, Nec quenquam indigenam, nec vel malum Vicinum, ploraret apud quem Vehementer edacem atque cruentum Morbum mutuo. If these translations are correct, the chorus pronounces the strongest possible eulogy on human society. The wretch has no human being near him; he knows of no friendly neighbor; even a bad one would have been happiness. Thomson, then, might have had this passage in mind when he puts these words into the mouth of his Melisander, who was likewise abandoned by ruffians on a desert island:— Cast on the wildest of the Cyclad isles Where never human foot had marked the shore, These ruffians left me; yet believe me, Arcas, Such is the rooted love we bear mankind, All ruffians as they were, I never heard A sound so dismal as their parting oars. To him, also, the society of ruffians was better than none. A great and admirable idea! If we could but be sure that Sophocles, too, had meant to express it! But I must reluctantly confess to finding nothing of the sort in him, unless, indeed, I were to use, instead of my own eyes, those of the old scholiast, who thus transposes the words:—Οὐ μόνον ὅπου καλὸν οὐκ εἶχέ τινα τῶν ἐγχωρίων γείτονα, ἀλλὰ οὐδὲ κακόν, παρ’ οὗ ἀμοιβαῖον λόγον στενάζων ἀκούσειε. Brumoy, as well as our modern German translator, has held to this reading, like the translators quoted above. Brumoy says, “Sans société, même importune;” and the German, “jeder Gesellschaft, auch der beschwerlichsten, beraubt.” My reasons for differing from all of these are the following. First, it is evident that if κακογείτονα was meant to be separated from τιν’ ἐγχώρων and constitute a distinct clause, the particle οὐδέ would necessarily have been repeated before it. Since this is not the case, it is equally evident that κακογείτονα belongs to τίνα, and there should be no comma after ἐγχώρων. This comma crept in from the translation. Accordingly, I find that some Greek editions (as that published at Wittenberg of 1585 in 8vo, which was wholly unknown to Fabricius) are without it, but put a comma only after κακογείτονα, as is proper. Secondly, is that a bad neighbor from whom we may expect, as the scholiast has it, στόνον ἀντίτυπον, ἀμοιβαῖον? To mingle his sighs with ours is the office of a friend, not an enemy. In short, the word κακογείτονα has not been rightly understood. It has been thought to be derived from the adjective κακός, when it is really derived from the substantive τὸ κακόν. It has been translated an evil neighbor, instead of a neighbor in ill. Just as κακόμαντις means not an evil, in the sense of a false, untrue prophet, but a prophet of evil, and κακότεχνος means not a bad, unskilful painter, but a painter of bad things. In this passage the poet means by