Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus

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καὶ μὴ ᾿ξατιμάζητον, sc. “τοὺς φυτεύσαντας”: “"and that ye may not utterly scorn your parents, because the father (εἰ =“ὅτι"”) is blind from whom ye, such evil sons, have sprung—for your sisters did not thus.” τυφλοῦ has the chief emphasis: the father's blindness emboldened the impiety of the base sons, while it only stimulated the devotion of the daughters. For the gen. cp. 1322.—Others understand: “"do not think it a light matter that ye have been such sons of a blind sire"” (εἰ as after “θαυμάζω, ἐλεῶ”, etc.): but this sense for ἐξατιμάζητον seems much less natural.

ἔφυτον is the MS. reading, as 1696 “ἔβητον”, 1746 “ἐλάχετον”: and there are about 10 other places in Attic writers where the MSS. give “-τον” for the 2nd pers. dual of secondary tenses. Against this group is to be set a smaller group (of some 9 passages) in which “-την” is established, “εἰχέτην ἤδη”, O.T. 1511, being the only one proved by metre. Curtius (Verb 1. 80, Eng. tr. 53) would leave the normal “-τον” where, as here, the MSS. support it. Though Attic usage, misled by the analogy of “-την” in the 3rd pers., sometimes admitted it in the 2nd, it also (he thinks) retained “-τον”. The tendency of recent editors has been to write “-την” everywhere. But, in the absence of better proof that “-τον” had been wholly discarded, a consensus of MSS. seems entitled to the benefit of the doubt. I cannot find any evidence on this point from the best source,—inscriptions.