1432.
mvp-comment-762-1
Polynices contrasts the bitter business before him with what he hopes will be the lot of Antigone and Ismene.
1433-1434.
mvp-comment-763-1
Rendered ill-starred and disastrous by this my father and his avenging spirit. For πρός, cp. Ant. 51, πρὸς αὐτοφώρων ἀμπλακημάτων. Polynices here, and supra 1299, speaks in the Homeric manner of his father's Erinyes, without any reference to the Erinyes at whose sacred place he is standing. Cp. supr. 1391 and note.
1435.
mvp-comment-764-1
σφῷν δ᾽ εὐοδοίη Ζεύς ‘But for you may Zeus prepare a prosperous way.' Cp. Hdt. 6. 73, ὡς τῷ Κλεομένεϊ εὐωδώθη τὸ ἐς τὸν Δημάρητον πρήγμα, which shows that εὐοδόω is properly followed by the dative of the person as well as the accusative of the thing. In the present case an accusative (e.g. τὸν βίον, τὰ πράγματα) is easily supplied. Hence the correction σφώ is unnecessary, and the conjecture εὖ διδοίη, besides being unnecessary, destroys a beautiful image, and the connection with 1432.
1436.
mvp-comment-765-1
θανόντ' To avoid the unusual elision of of the dative, this has been explained as an accusative, by a change of construction; cp. El. 479, ὕπεστί μοι θράσος ἁδυπνόων κλύουσαν ἀρτίως ὀνειράτων: Aesch. Pers. 913-914, λέλυται γὰρ ἐμοὶ γυίων ῥώμη | τήνδ᾽ ἡλικίαν ἐσιδόντ᾽ ἀστῶν: Choeph. 410, πέπαλται δ᾽ αὐτέ μοι φίλον κέαρ τόνδε κλύουσαν οἶκτον. But it should probably be admitted that here and in Trach. 677, ἀργῆτ' οἰὸς εὐείρῳ πόκῳ, there is an elision of the 1, as well as in Eur. Alc. 1118. Γοργόν᾽ ὡς καρατόμῳ, where however the conj. карато- μῶν in not improbable, and in any case the licence is taken with a proper name. After θανόντι some general word like ὑπουργεῖν is to be supplied from τάδ' εἰ τελεῖτε.
1436.
mvp-comment-765-2
ἐπεὶ οὔ μοι ζῶντί γ'] Not τάδε τελεῖν, but some more general notion of paying the tribute of affection, is to be supplied. The inexactness of this is similar to that noticed in 1410. Elmsley's conjecture, οὐ μὴ ζῶντά γ᾽ αὖθις ἕξετον is therefore unnecessary, as 1440. Cp. Pind. Nem. 9. 21, speaking of the same expedition, φαινομέναν δ' ἄρ᾽ ἐς ἄταν σπεῦδεν ὅμιλος ἱκέσθαι (because of the adverse omens at their setting forth): Aesch. Prom. 1073-1074, 5, μηδέποτ' εἴπηθ᾽ | ὡς Ζεὺς ὑμᾶς εἰς ἀπρόοπτον | πῆμ᾽ εἰσέβαλεν.
