50-54.
mvp-comment-37-1
τῷ σώματι follows γενναῖος εἶναι, κατὰ σύνεσιν, as if it were ὑπουργεῖν, for which it has been substituted as more pleasing. ἤν is equivalent to κἄν (see Essay on L. § 28. p. 47). Nauck thinks that ὑπηρέτης is too low a word for the position of Neoptolemus, who only acknowledges himself to have been sent as ξυνεργάτης to Odysseus (l.93). But ὑπηρέτης is applied by Xenophon to officers in attendance on a general as aides-de-camp, and Odysseus may think it necessary at the end of his speech to assert his authority in its full strength, adding fortiter to suaviter. Neoptolemus shows his sense of this in the brief question τί δῆτ᾽ ἄνωγας?
55.
mvp-comment-38-1
λόγοισιν . . λέγων] The pleonasm helps to emphasize the unwelcome lesson that words and not deeds are required of Neoptolemus. Cp. infr. 90, 1. 'You must wrest to your purpose, by deceitful words, the mind of Philoctetes.' Neoptolemus is to wind himself into the very soul of Philoctetes and deceive him there.
56.
mvp-comment-39-1
ὅταν . . παῖς] These words are in apposition to ὅπως . . λέγων.
57.
mvp-comment-40-1
τόδ᾽ οὐχὶ κλεπτέον] ‘This is not to be dissembled.' κλέπτειν is repeated in a slightly different sense. The change to κρυπτέον, proposed by some edd., is unnecessary.
58.
mvp-comment-41-1
πλεῖς] Sc. ὡς φήσεις λέγων. Odysseus puts before Neoptolemus the situation which he is to assume. This is more vivid than πλεῖν, which in some edd. has been substituted for πλεῖς as more grammatical. But cp. Trach. 1137, δρᾷ, and note. The whole speech is purposely cast in an easy conversational style. Cp. λέγων, infr. 64. Hence also the frequent asyndeta, 56, 72, 79. πλεῖς ὡς πρὸς οἶκον] ‘Your voyage is homeward-bound.' For ὡs, cp. Thuc. 5.3, περιέπλει τὸν᾿ Αθων ὡς ἐπὶ τὴν ᾿Αμφίπολιν : Trach. 532, ὡς ἐπ᾿ ἐξόδῳ.
