The transmitted text presents a crux involving the participle ἐφέποντας. While the manuscript tradition generally reads ἐφέποντας (accusative plural masculine of the present participle of ἐφίημι, 'following' or 'pursuing'), the syntax of the phrase ὅσια καὶ νόμιμα (holy and lawful things) as the object of 'following' creates a semantic tension. The verb ἐφέπομαι typically governs a dative of the thing pursued or a genitive of the thing followed, but here it appears with an accusative object that functions as the content of the pursuit. Some scholars have conjectured that the participle should be ἐφέποντες (nominative) to agree with an implied subject, or that the accusative ὅσια καὶ νόμιμα is a direct object of a different verbal force, though the most plausible interpretation is that the accusative represents the 'things' to which the 'following' is directed, a usage attested in later Greek but rare in Aristophanes. This construction challenges the standard syntactic expectations of the verb and has led to textual emendations suggesting the participle might be a corruption of a different form or that the accusative is a later gloss.

The reading †μανίαισ† is a conjecture by Dindorf (or later editors) to replace the manuscript reading †μανίαισ† (or a similar corruption), attempting to make sense of the dative plural adjective modifying the implied subject or as an adverbial dative of means. However, the manuscript tradition actually preserves a difficult reading (often cited as †μανίαισ† or similar corruption in the scholia) where the text likely reads †μανίαισ† (dative plural of μανία) or requires a different syntactic construction. The specific crux here is the lack of a clear antecedent for the dative plural and the semantic force of φλέγων λύσσῃ (burning with madness/frenzy) alongside παράκοπος (mad, frantic). The emendation or interpretation hinges on whether μανίαισ is a dative of instrument (with madnesses) or a corruption of another form, a point debated in the apparatus criticus of the play.