Προσπάλτιοι (fr. 260)

347

πά[ση τέχνη] (literally “by every means”, i. e. “no matter what, at all
events, at all costs”) is used “to add urgency or insistence to an imperative”
(Dover on Ar. Ra. 1235, quoted above) or a similar request (e. g. Ar. Eq. 592-3;
Th. 65 with Austin-Olson ad loc.·, Lys. 19.11; X. An. 4.5.16).
23-6 Adapted from S. Ant. 712-17 (Haemon offers advice to his father
Creon) όρας παρά ρείθροισι χειμάρροις όσα / δένδρων ύπείκει, κλώνας ώς
έκσώζεται, / τα δ’ άντιτείνοντ’ αύτόπρεμν’ άπόλλυται. / αϋτως δέ ναός δστις
έν κράτει πόδα / τείνας ύπείκει μηδέν, ύπτίοις κάτω / στρέψας τό λοιπόν
σέλμασιν ναυτίλλεται (“You see that any trees beside torrent streams that
yield181 preserve their branches, whereas those that resist perish root and
branch. Likewise in the case of a ship, whoever stretches his sheet tight and
yields not at all sails thereafter turned over, with his rowing benches the
wrong way around”), although (A.) cuts (B.) off in 26 before he can get more
than a few words into the second image in 26. After the first three words in 23,
which cue the quotation, (B.) strips out many of the most important elements
of the vehicle, replacing them with words and images appropriate to the tenor
(“non felicemente”: Norsa and Vitelli 1935. 112). In particular, the Sophoclean
trees are gone, their place having been taken by two men, one of whom yields
to arguments—as (A.) refuses to do—and thus saves not just his branches but
himself, while the other resists and is destroyed—which is what (A) can expect,
if he will not begin to behave more reasonably. 23 παρά ρείθροισιν is thus
left stranded; did one not know the lines from Antigone, the words would make
no sense. 25-6 αύτόπρεμνος ο’ίχε[ται.] / αϋτως δέ ναός then returns to a
faithful version of the Sophoclean exemplar before (A.) interrupts. The same
passage of Antigone is reworked into praise of drinking at Antiph. fr. 228.3-7,
where the words after δένδρων in Ant. 713 are replaced by άε'ι τήν νύκτα και
την ήμέραν / βρέχεται, μέγεθος καί κάλλος οία γίγνεται (“that stay moist
all day and all night long, how large and beautiful they grow”), while Ant.
714 is split at the caesura and additional material spliced in,182 yielding τά δ’
άντιτείνονθ’ οίονεί δίψαν τινά / ή ξηρασίαν έχοντ’ αύτόπρεμν’ άπόλλυται
(“whereas those that resist, having some sort of thirst or dryness, as it were,
perish root and branch”). See in general Sarati 1996. 125-6.
25 Austin 1973. 113 compares E. fr. 654.2 ό μη άντιτείνων τοΐς λόγοις
σοφότερος.

181 Scarcely “yield to the wind” (Rusten 2011. 263 n. 48): the point is that the water
has risen rapidly and covered the trees, and its force is such that they will either
have their branches torn away or be ripped out of the ground completely.
182 Naber deleted these words, which are in any case transmitted by Athenaeus.