Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Ajax

221-232

ἀνέρος … ἀγγελίαν: for the objective gen., cp. 998: Ant. 11“μῦθος.. φίλων” (n.).

αἴθονος, ‘fiery’; cp. 1088: Aesch. Theb. 448“αἴθων..λῆμα”: in v. 147 the word is applied to a bright sword. This inflexion (instead of “αἴθωνος”) occurs elsewhere only in Hes. Op. 361“αἴθονα λιμόν” (Bergk's correction of the MS. “αἴθοπα”), a reading which is made certain by Aeschin. or. 3 § 184 “λιμόν τ᾽ αἴθωνα κρατερόν τ᾽ ἐπάγοντες Ἄρηα”, and Callim. Hymn. Cer. 68 “ἔμβαλε λιμόν, ι αἴθωνα, κρατερόν”: where the fig. sense of the epithet is ‘fierce.’

The v.l. αἴθοπος is impossible here, as in the verse of Hesiod; it could refer only to complexion. Cp. Eustathius p. 862. 10 “φέρεται αἴθων βοῦς καὶ σίδηρος καὶ ἄνθρωπος καὶ λέων: αἴθοψ δὲ οὐδεὶς αὐτῶν λέγοιτ᾽ ἄν, ἀλλὰ τοὔνομα οἴνῳ μέλανι ἐπιτίθεται”. The variant was doubtless due, in both passages, to the rarity, for “αἴθων”, of the inflexion with ο: which is illustrated by the dat. pl. “νήφοσι” in Theognis 481, and by such alternative forms of the gen. as “Αἴσονος, Ἀκταίονος”, etc.

ἄτλατον οὐδὲ φευκτάν, unendurable, and yet one from which there is no escape: for “οὐδέ” as=“ἀλλ᾽ οὐ”, cp. El. 132, El. 1034.