ἄστρων | “ῥιπάς. ῥιπή” (“ῥίπτω”), ‘swing,’ ‘vibration,’ is here applied to the quivering rays of starlight; as in Ant. 137, Ant. 930 to the gusts of fierce winds. (In O. C. 1248, “ἐννυχιᾶν ἀπὸ Ῥιπᾶν”, the ref. is to the mountains called “Ῥῖπαι”: see n.) —Instead of “λεύσσω μὲν...λεύσσω δὲ”, we have the verb in the second clause only: cp. Ant. 1105“μόλις μέν, καρδίας δ᾽ ἐξίσταμαι”. For the omission of “μέν” in the first of two such clauses, see on Ant. 806 f. Others read, “ἔστ᾽ ἂν λεύσσω παμφεγγεῖς” | “ῥιπάς, λεύσσω δὲ τόδ᾽ ἦμαρ”, omitting “ἄστρων”. But “παμφεγγεῖς ῥιπάς”, without “ἄστρων”, would not suffice to denote starlight. If, again, the phrase is taken to denote the sun's rays (as Monk proposes, Mus. Crit. I. p. 67), then “λεύσσω δὲ τόδ᾽ ἦμαρ” becomes weak. Further, the preceding context, in which she has spoken of her laments at night (92) and at morning, clearly suggests that the sense here is, ‘so long as I look on the stars or on the sun.’
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Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part VI: The Electra. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1894.
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