Note 84 — Women in Greek Poetry

This feature is of course by no means peculiar to Sophocles; it is prominent both in Aeschylus and Euripides (e.g. the pathetic passage in Orest. 1041 seqq.), and doubtless for the same reason. In Sophocles, however, perhaps owing merely to the chance which has preserved certain plays while others have been lost, it plays a particularly important part. Not only are the Antigone and the Electra almost entirely devoted to it, but the one ray of light in the 1800 lines of the Oedipus Coloneus is the farewell of Polynices to his sister. (l. 1414 seqq.)