E. M. Cope, Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle

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‘The period must also be completed (or brought to a conclusion) by the sense (καί, as well as by the structure and rhythm) and not broken off abruptly (without completing the sense: διακόπτειν ‘to cut in two’), like Sophocles' iambics, “Calydon is this land of the Pelopian soil—”: for the contrary supposition (to this real fact) arises from (lit. is caused by; dativus instrumenti) this (wrong) division (in general), as also in the instance given, that Calydon belongs to the Peloponnesus’.

We learn from the Anonymous Scholiast on this passage (see Brandis' tract [Philologus IV i] pp. 46, 7,) and more precisely from the Schol. on Ar. Ran. 1269, that this verse comes not from Sophocles, but from Eur. Meleager, of which it is the commencement. See Wagner, Fragm. Eur. Mel. I (Fr. Tr. Gr. II 270). The second verse, which completes the author's meaning, is supplied by Lucian, Conv. c. 25 (Hemsterh. III. 436), and Demetr. περὶ ἑρμηνείας § 58 (Rhet. Gr. Spengel III 275), ἐν ἀντιπόρθμοις πέδἰ ἔχουσ᾽ εὐδαίμονα: and the three following by Wagner, u. s. This makes it clear that this misstatement was not due to Euripides. As to the substitution of Sophocles for Euripides as the author, I have no doubt, from the abundant evidence we have already had, that it is due solely to a lapse of memory on Ar.'s part, and that no alteration of the text, as suggested by Vater and Buhle, is required.

The stop, or pause, which the speaker or reader makes, when introduced in the wrong place, may make a complete alteration in the meaning: as here, if the verse be read as an entire sentence with the pause at χθονός, it conveys the meaning that Calydon is situated in the Peloponnesus, which is contrary to the fact: but if it be read continuously without a pause with the ensuing line, the true sense becomes clear. διαιρεῖσθαι here is equivalent to διαστίξαι III 5. 6, comp. Anon. ap. Brandis, p. 47, οἷά εἰσι κατὰ σύνθεσιν καὶ διαίρεσιν, καὶ ἐνταῦθα μὲν διαστίξαντες ἄλλην διάνοιαν ἀπαρτίσομεν, ἐνταῦθα δὲ διαστίξαντες ἄλλην. This is in fact the ‘fallacy of division’, de Soph. El. 4, 166 a 33, παρὰ τὴν διαίρεσιν, where two verses are quoted in illustration.

Demetrius u.s. quotes the two verses in illustration of a different kind of fault; the interpolation of a σύνδεσμος—in which he includes interjections—by actors, as an expletive. Οἱ δὲ πρὸς οὐδὲν ἀναπληροῦντες, φησί, τὸν σύνδεσμον ἐοίκασι τοῖς ὑποκριταῖς τοῖς τὸ καὶ τὸ πρὸς οὐδὲν ἔπος λέγουσιν, οἷον εἴ τις ὧδε λέγοι, Καλυδὼν μὲν ἥδε γαῖα Πελοπείας χθονός, φεῦ, ἐν ἀντιπόρθμοις πέδἰ ἔχουσ᾽ εὐδαίμονα, αἴ αἴ. ὡς γὰρ παρέλκει τὸ αἴ αἴ καὶ τὸ φεῦ ἐνθάδε, οὕτω καὶ ὁ πανταχοῦ μάτην ἐμβαλλόμενος σύνδεσμος.

The MSS, with the exception of A^{c}, have Πελοπείας, which is found also in Demetrius and retained by Bekker and Spengel; MS A^{c}, Lucian, the Schol. on Aristophanes, Dindorf (Eur. Fragm. Mel. 2), and Wagner, read the more usual form Πελοπίας. The text of Euripides, who alone of the three Tragedians uses the word, has Πελόπιος in five places, including the line of the Meleager (Beck's Index).