Note 97 (p. 90). ". . . in a separate dish concealed Were legs and arms, and the fingers' pointed tips." Editors have a great difficulty in settling the text here; but there is enough of the meaning visible--especially when the passage is compared with Herod. I. 119, referred to by SCHÜTZ--to enable the translator to proceed on the assumption of a text substantially the same as that given by FR., where the second line is supplied-- Τὰ μὲν ποδήρη και χ(ε)ρων ἄκρους κτένας [Ἔθετο κάτωθεν πὰντα συγκρύψας τὰ δ ἀυ] Ἔθρυπτ ἄνωθεν ὰνδρακὰς καθημένοις Ἄσήμ᾽· ὁ δ ἄυτῶν ἀυτικ᾽ αγνόιᾳ λαβὼν. The reader will observe that in these and such like passages, where, after all the labours of the learned, an uncertainty hangs over the text, I think myself safer in giving only the general undoubted meaning that shines through the passage, without venturing on the slippery ground of translating words of which the proper connection may be lost, or which, perhaps, were not written at all by the poet. Note 98 (p. 90). ". . . while with his heel he spurned The supper." I quite agree with CON. that there is not the slightest reason for rejecting the natural meaning of λακτίσμα δείπνου in this passage. Such expressions are quite Æschylean in their character, and the analogy of the feast of Tereus in Ovid, Met. VI. 661, "Thracius ingenti mensas clamore repellit," adduced by CON. is very happy. To push the table away, whether with hand or heel, or with both, in such a case, is the most natural action in the world. Note 99 (p. 90). "And no diviner vends more potent balms To drug a doting wit." I have here expanded the text a little, to express the whole force of the Greek word Ἱατρομάντεις, concerning which see Note to the Eumen. v. 62, below. Note 100 (p. 91). "Ho! my gallant co-mates, rouse ye!" These two lines in the mouth of the Chorus make a good consecutive sense; but the symmetrical response of line to line, so characteristic of Greek tragedy, has led HERM., WELL., and the other editors of note, to suppose that a line from Ægisthus has fallen out between these lines of the Chorus. Blanks of this kind, however, the translator will wisely overlook, so long as they do not seriously disturb the sense. NOTES TO THE CHOEPHORÆ {358} Note 1 (p. 99). "What power thy father lent." Jove was regarded as the grand source of the power exercised by all the other gods, even Apollo receiving the gift of prophecy from him. There is a peculiar propriety in the allusion to the father Zeus, as Mercury is requested to perform the same office of σωτήρ or Saviour to Orestes that Jove in a peculiar manner performs to all mankind.--See MÜLLER on _Zeus Soter_. (Eumenides, § 94), whose observations, however, on this particular passage, seem to force an artificial accent on the epithet σώτηρ. The opening lines of this piece are wanting in the MSS. and were supplied by STAN. from the Frogs of Aristophanes.