234 JOHANNES J.L. SMOLENAARS
With these words, as we have seen above, Oedipus reminds the Fury
of how he blinded himself and “left my eyes upon my hapless
mother”. As stated above, SB in his footnote explains in matre as re-
ferring to her dead body, like all scholars did before him.^22 Following
this interpretation, Jocasta is dead in 1.72, very much alive during her
attempt at mediation in the Argive camp in 7.470ff., and finally dies—
again—in 11.634. If this were indeed the case, we would have to as-
sume that Statius did not at all care about the order of events of his
story, or that he changed it deliberately for some reason we do not
understand, or that he had forgotten his own precise chronology in
book 1 by the time he had arrived at book 7. Some scholars eager to
evade these unpleasant assumptions changed the transmitted text:
mente (Bentley); in morte (Peyraredus), which is accepted by Caviglia
(1973, ad loc.): “a miserabile morte abbandonai i miei occhi” (refer-
ring to Phoin. 60f. ἐς ὄμμαθ’ αὑτοῦ δεινὸν ἐμβάλλει φόνον); mise-
rosque (Garrod). Damsté (1908, 354) takes matre as ‘humi’, which
would ascribe to Statius a most unfortunate ambiguity. Heuvel (1932,
ad loc.) interprets in matre as ‘supra matrem’, with reference to OT
1265ff.
As an alternative, I suggest that Jocasta is alive at this point and
will die only in 11.634–47. If this interpretation holds true, Statius in
1.72 has selected and combined elements from every version of his
predecessors into an original dramatic setting, to be reconstructed only
from this phrase—miseraque oculos in matre reliqui—and the earlier
traditions it recalls:
- from Soph. OT (A) Statius took the motif of Jocasta lying down (in
matre reliqui); in OT she lies dead on the ground (ἐπεὶ δὲ γῇ/ ἔκειτο
τλήμων, 1266f.), here probably on her bed; - from Eur. Phoin. 59–62 (B) he took Oedipus blinding himself (but
not the pins) while Jocasta was still alive; - from Eur. Phoin. (B) and Sen. Phoen. (B) he took Jocasta’s attempt
at mediation, thus postponing her suicide until—in Thebaid book 7—
the outbreak of war;
22 Also Hill 1996a in his app. crit.: “recte explicat Barth: ‘quia suspensam eam
inveniens dirupit restim, seque cadaveri iniectum exoculavit’”. I cannot find this
quotation in my edition of Barth (1664). I cannot find Caviglia’s reference to Lactan-
tius’ explanation ‘proieci ante matrem’ either, which according to Garrod is from
schol. Cod. Magd.