Sophocles Oedipus Tyrannus 1525

mvp-comment-936-1 Here, as elsewhere, the MSS. fluctuate between ᾔδει and ᾔδη. The Attic ᾔδη, as first pers. sing., is contracted from ᾔδεα: in the third, the classical form was not ᾔδη but ᾔδει, or, before a vowel, ᾔδειν (as it must be in Eur. Ion 1187 , Aristoph. Peace 1182 etc.). No 3rd sing. in εα, from which η could come, is said, or can be supposed, to have existed. Aristarchus, indeed, is quoted by the schol. on Hom. Il. 5.64 in favour of the η. But the Doric 3rd sing. ἀπολώλη in Tab. Heracl. 1.39 is the only such form which is beyond question. Curtius ( Curt. Verb 11.237 , Eng. tr. 431 ff.) therefore agrees with those textual critics who, like La Roche, Cobet, and Kontos (Λόγιος Ἑρμῆς p. 61) would always write the 3rd sing. ᾔδει (or ᾔδειν). ᾔδει αἰνίγματα ¹