Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Electra

ὁ γεννήσας πατήρ: cp. 261: Tr. 311“ὁ φιτύσας πατήρ”: O. T. 793“τοῦ φυτεύσαντος πατρός”.

1413 f. The traditional reading φθίνει φθίνει is vindicated, and all difficulty is removed, by the slight change of σε to σοι. The μοῖρα καθαμερία is the fate which has afflicted the house day by day. In the only other place where “καθαμέριος” occurs ( Soph. Ph. 229), it has this sense, ‘daily’; nor is any other, indeed, tenable. (Cp. 259 “κατ᾽ ἦμαρ”.) This fate is now being extinguished (φθίνει） by the righteous act of vengeance, which, according to the poet's view in this play, closes the misfortunes of the race (cp. 1510 “τῇ νῦν ὁρμῇ τελεωθέν”). For “φθίνειν” said of an evil which wanes or dies out, cp. fr. 718 (“ὕβρις”)..“ἀνθεῖ τε καὶ φθίνει πάλιν”.

Others explain as follows. (1) Keeping both σε and φθίνει φθίνει: ‘fate is destroying thee this day.’ But the alleged evidence for a transitive use of “φθίνειν” is very small and doubtful: see Appendix. (2) Keeping σε, but reading φθίνειν φθίνειν: ‘now it is the doom of this day that thou shouldst fade.’ Both these versions force an impossible sense on “καθαμερία”. That explanation of it was a mere makeshift of the scholiast; “ὦ γενεὰ τοῦ οἴκου τούτου, κατὰ ταύτην σε τὴν ἡμέραν ἡ Μοῖρα εἰς φθορὰν καὶ ἐλάττωσιν τοῦ γένους ἄγει”.

Nor is the objection to these interpretations merely verbal. They represent the Chorus as deploring that doom of the race which entails yet another deed of bloodshed. But, as Whitelaw well observes, this commits Sophocles to the Aeschylean view of the vengeance ‘as a new crime in the series of crimes’ (Translation, p. 437). The Chorus are in the fullest sympathy with the avengers. They regard the slaying of Clytaemnestra not as a new calamity, but as a welcome retribution: cp. 1434 “τὰ πρὶν εὖ θέμενοι”, and 1508 ff. The words “ὦ πόλις, ὦ γενεὰ” express the feeling of these “πολίτιδες” (1227) that the cause of the house is that of the city. They hail the approaching deliverance of Mycenae from the tyrants. The change of “ὦ πόλις, ὦ γενεὰ” into “ὦ Πέλοπος γενεὰ” (cr. n.) is equally rash and infelicitous.

1415 f. Cp. Aesch. Ag. 1343“ΑΓ. ὤμοι, πέπληγμαι καιρίαν πληγὴν ἔσω”... 1345 “ὤμοι μάλ᾽ αὖθις, δευτέραν πεπληγμένος.”

διπλῆν: cp. O. C. 544“δευτέραν ἔπαισας”: Ant. 1307“τί μ᾽ οὐκ ἀνταίαν” | “ἔπαισέν τις”..;

εἰ γὰρ Αἰγίσθῳ γ᾽ ὁμοῦ (adv.). The dat., suggested by “ὤμοι”, depends on the notion which that exclamation implies; as if (e.g.) “κακὸν ἥκει μοι” were followed by “εἰ γὰρ Αἰγίσθῳ γ᾽ ὁμοῦ ἧκεν”. This is simpler than to supply (a) “ἐπλήγης” or (b) “ἐβόας”, taking “ὁμοῦ” as a prep.—The reading “Αἰγίσθῳ θ᾽ ὁμοῦ”, though not impossible, is very awkward. The sense would be: ‘Oh that thou wert crying,— ‘and woe to Aegisthus also’!’