ποίας δ᾽ ἐμοὶ δεῖ. The Chorus having said that Electra takes no “φροντὶς” as to whether she is in the right, Clytaemnestra rejoins, ‘And what manner of “φροντὶς” do I need in regard to her?’— i.e., ‘Must I not indeed be on my guard against her, seeing that she is capable of anything?’ (614 f.). Cp. Ar. Nub. 1032 “δεινῶν δέ σοι βουλευμάτων ἔοικε δεῖν πρὸς αὐτόν” . The sense recommends ἐμοὶ in preference to μοι. The order of words also favours it, since “μοι” would have been better placed after “δεῖ”.—As to δεῖ, remark that “δεῖ μοί τινος” is normal: see, e.g., fr. 852: Aesch. Ag. 848: Eur. Med. 565: Thuc. 1. 71§ 3: Plat. Rep. 370D, Plat. Rep. 389D, Plat. Soph. 253A, Plat. Men. 79C, Critias 108 B, Legg. 674 C, 881 A: while “δεῖ μέ τινος” is much rarer (Aesch. P.V. 86, Eur. Hipp. 23, etc.). On the other hand, with the inf., “δεῖ με λέγειν” is normal, and “δεῖ μοι λέγειν” extremely rare ( Xen. An. 3. 4. 35). Others understand: (1) ‘If Electra has no consideration for justice, why should I have any consideration for her,—i.e., show her any tenderness?’ Or: (2) ‘If she heeds not justice, why should I heed her?’ Neither view seems well suited to the context.
This text is part of:
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.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.