τίνων … κλύων; of whom hearing the august name might I make a prayer? i.e. “"who may they be, whose name I am to hear, and to invoke?"” The optat. with ἄν gives a reverential tone to the question: εὐξαίμην ἄν refers to such propitiatory words of invocation as were uttered on approaching a shrine. The description has left the Theban stranger in doubt as to the particular deities meant. He might think of other "Daughters of Darkness," — as of the Κῆρες (Hes. Theog. 217), or of the Μοῖραι,—whom the Eumenides of Aeschylus address as ματροκασιγνῆται, children of the same mother, Νύξ (Eum. 961).
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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