EURIPIDES, HECUBA 1045

Abstract

οὐ γάρ ποτ᾽ ὄμμα λαμπρὸν ἐνθήσεις κόραις. Hecuba taunts the blinded Polymestor: ‘You will never put sight in your eyes.’ There is a similar expression in Pl. Rep. 518c τυφλοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς ὄψιν ἐντιθέντες. But there the agent puts sight in another person’s eyes. More natural, for putting sight in one’s own eyes, would be the middle ἐνθήσηι. Compare the middle in Ar. Eq. 51 ἐνθοῦ, ‘put (something) in one’s mouth’, as opposed to the active in 717, τῶι μὲν ὀλίγον ἐντίθης, ‘you put a little in his mouth’, the middle in Dem. 47.58 ἐνθεμένης (sc. τὸ κυμβίον) εἰς τὸν κόλπον, ‘having put the cup in the fold of her dress’, as opposed to the active, of putting an object in another’s hands (Hes. Theog. 174–5, Eur. Alc. 854, Hcld. 727, fr. 857 Kannicht [= IA fr. dub. i Diggle]), and the middle in the epic expressions χόλον (κότον, μῦθον) ἔνθε(τ)ο θυμῶι (Il. 6. 326, Od. 1.361, 11.102, 13.342, 21.355, 24.248). For this use of the middle, to bring the object of the verb into closer personal association with the subject, see Kühner–Gerth 1.103–7, E. Schwyzer, Griechische Grammatik 2.229–32, A.C. Moorhouse, The Syntax of Sophocles (Leiden, 1992), 177–8.