Wednesday, March 15, 2023
Counting Ballots
Aeschylus, Eumenides 748-751 (tr. Walter Headlam):
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Sirs, count up well the cast-out ballots,Against intransitive βαλοῦσά in line 751 see Eduard Fraenkel on Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1172 (ἐν πέδῳ βαλῶ, vol. 3, pp. 534-535, footnotes omitted):
observing honesty in the division of them.
If judgment be absent, there is great harm done,
and the cast of a single vote ere now hath lifted up a house.
πεμπάζετ᾽ ὀρθῶς ἐκβολὰς ψήφων, ξένοι,
τὸ μὴ ἀδικεῖν σέβοντες ἐν διαιρέσει.
γνώμης δ᾽ ἀπούσης πῆμα γίγνεται μέγα, 750
βαλοῦσά τ᾽ οἶκον ψῆφος ὤρθωσεν μία.
751 βαλοῦσά codd.: μολοῦσα Blass: παροῦσά H. Voss: πολλοῖσι Headlam: πεσόντα Blaydes: καμόντα Sommerstein
