Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Oedipus Tyrannus

[708] μάθ᾽ κ.τ.λ.: learn that thou canst find no mortal creature sharing in the art of divination.

σοι ethic dat.: ἐστὶν ἔχον = ἔχει （ Eur. Supp. 427 “τί τούτων ἐστὶν οὐ καλῶς ἔχον;）”: τέχνης. partitive gen. The gods have prescience （498）; but they impart it to no man, —not even to such ministers as the Delphian priests. Iocasta reveres the gods （647）: it is to them, and first to Apollo, that she turns in trouble （911）. But the shock which had befallen her own life, —when at the bidding of Delphi her first-born was sacrificed without saving her husband Laius—has left a deep and bitter conviction that no mortal, be he priest or seer, shares the divine foreknowledge. In the Greek view the μάντις might be （1） first, the god himself, speaking through a divinely frenzied being in whom the human reason was temporarily superseded （hence the popular derivation of μαντική from μανία）: Plat. Tim. 71e “μαντικὴν ἀφροσύνῃ θεὸς ἀνθρωπίνῃ δέδωκεν: οὐδεὶς γὰρ ἔννους ἐφάπτεται μαντικῆς ἐνθέου καὶ ἀληθοῦς”: this was much the same as the Egyptian belief, Hdt. 2.83 “μαντικὴ δὲ αὐτοῖσι ὦδε διακέεται. ἀνθρώπων μὲν οὐδενὶ προσκέεται ἡ τέχνη, τῶν δὲ θεῶν μετεξετέροισι.” （2） Secondly, the μάντις might be a man who reads signs from birds, fire, etc., by rule of mystic science: it was against this τέχνη that scepticism most readily turned: Eur. El. 399 “Λοξίου γὰρ ἔμπεδοι ι χρησμοί, βροτῶν δὲ μαντικὴν χαίρειν λέγω.” Iocasta means: “I will not say that the message came through the lips of a truly god-possessed interpreter; but at any rate it came from the priests; it was an effort of human μαντική.” So in 946, 953 θεῶν μαντεύματα are oracles which professed to come from the gods. Others render: — “Nothing in mortal affairs is connected with the mantic art”: i.e. is affected by it, comes within its ken. Then ἐστὶν ἔχον will not stand for ἔχεται （which it could not do）, but for ἔχει, as meaning “is of,” “belongs to.” Hdt. has ἔχειν as = εἶναι with expressions equivalent to an adverb, as Hdt. 2.91 “ἀγῶνα γυμνικὸν διὰ πάσης ἀγωνίης ἔχοντα,” “consisting in every sort of contest,” as he might have said πολυτρόπως ἔχοντα: so Hdt. 3.128 “περὶ πολλῶν ἔχοντα πρηγμάτων （”= πολλαχῶς）: Hdt. 6.42 “κατὰ χώρην （”= ἐμπέδως） ἔχοντες: Hdt. 7.220 “ἐν ἔπεσιἑξαμέτροισι ἔχοντα.” But such instances are wholly different from the supposed use of ἔχειν alone as = εἶναι with a partitive genitive.