391-402;507-518.
mvp-comment-280-1
The Chorus show their interest and support Neoptolemus by these strains, which are interwoven with the action, like those in O. T. 660 foll., 689 foll., О. С. 1447-1456, 1477-1485. They wish to assist their master by simulating hatred of the Atreidae and sympathy with Philoctetes. That both feelings are merely assumed, and that the Chorus really understand the situation, is obvious from the exaggerated strength of expression in 510, εἰ δὲ πικρούς, ἄναξ, ἔχθεις ᾿Ατρείδας. Their feigned excitement, to which the mixture of dochmiac and iambo-bacchic metre is well suited, was no doubt expressed with gestures accompanying the recitation, by the two half-choruses, of strophe and antistrophe severally.
422-423.
mvp-comment-299-1
Here the question is raised, whether Philoctetes had been at all at Troy. But this point also is ἔξω τοῦ μυθεύματος, and is not necessarily determined by the poet. Philoctetes had been long enough with the host, at Tenedos or elsewhere, to know the characteristics of the chief men.
424.
mvp-comment-300-1
κεῖνός γε ‘Ay, he.' γε gives a modified assent to the meaning of the question.
