περιπτυχεῖ φάρει, a cloak or mantle wrapped round him: for the adj., cp. 899. The “φάρος”, we may suppose, has been brought by a “πρόσπολος” from the tent hard by. The shrouded corpse, which remains partly visible (cp. 1172), is an effigy, like that of Haemon in the Antigone (1258, cp. p. xvii. n.), and of Clytaemnestra in the Electra (1466). The actor who played Ajax has now to play Teucer. παμπήδην is a poet. equiv. (used by Theognis and Aeschylus) for “πάμπαν”, formed from it with the adverbial suffix “-δην”: “παμπή-δην”, instead of “παμπάν-δην”, by compensatory lengthening of “α”.
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Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part VII: The Ajax. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1907.
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