κἀλιτηρίου. The MS. reading, κἀξ ἀλĭτηροῦ, is against metre, and gives a form of the adj. which occurs nowhere else; though, had it existed, it would have been most convenient for epic verse. ἀλιτήριος, and the poet. ἀλĭτρός, alone are found. The preceding ἐκ may have led the scribe into an erroneous repetition, as in Ai. 205 L has “ὁ δεινὸς ὁ μέγας” instead of “ὁ δεινὸς μέγας” (cp. Wecklein, Ars Soph. emend. XVI. pp. 69 ff.). This seems, on the whole, more likely than that the Homeric “ἀλείτης” ("sinner," “ἀλοιτός” in Lycophr. 579) should have suggested a form ἀλειτηρός or ἀλοιτηρός, of which there is no other trace. Hesychius (I. 236), s.v. “ἀλιτροσύνη”, says that in the Αἰχμαλωτίδες Soph. used the subst. ἀλιτρία ( Aristoph. Ach. 907 “ὥσπερ πίθακον ἀλιτρίας πολλᾶς πλέων”), whence Dindorf “κἀξ ἀλιτρίας φρενός”, “"from a sin of the mind."” The objection to this is the unexampled lengthening of the second syllable.
This text is part of:
Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part II: The Oedipus Coloneus. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1899.
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