Euripides, Andromache 1014–15

Extract

ᾦ Φοῖβε πυργώσας τὸν ὲν Ἰλίωι εὐτειχῆ πάγον
καὶ πόντιε κυανέαις ὶ´πποις δωρρεύ- 1010
ων ἅλιον πέλαγος,
τώος οὕνεκ᾿ ἄτιμον ὀργάν-
αν χέρα τεκτοσύνας Ἐ- 1015
νυαλίωι δοριμήστορι προσϑέν-
τες τάλαωαν τάλαι-
ναν μεϑεῖτε Τροίαν;

In his commentary on the play (Euripides' Andromache, Oxford 1971, 215) P. T. Stevens gives a clear and concise account of the difficulties of the manuscript reading, ὀργάναν χέρα τεκτοσύνας J. Jackson (Marginalia Scaenica, Oxford 1955, 242) suggested ἄτιμον ὁρκανᾶν χέρα τεκτοσύνας (‘the hand that was cheated of its reward for building the towers of Troy’), but as Stevens points out the sentence is then meaningless, for the question τίνος οὕνεκα is answered by ἄτιμον κτλ.