πολλὰς μὲν … ᾔσθου. Each of these two verses is an anapaestic dimeter lacking one long syllable (‘catalectic’), i.e., a ‘paroemiac.’ Two successive paroemiacs were admissible only in anapaests of this ‘free’ or lyric character (n. on 86—120). These paroemiacs are purely spondaic; as ‘free’ anapaests also admitted the converse license, of resolving the long syllables, except the last, of the paroemiac ( I. T. 130 “πόδα παρθένιον ὅσιον ὁσίας”). Synesius, the bishop of Ptolemais, composed his fifth hymn wholly in these spondaic paroemiacs, a weighty and solemn measure; “Ὑμνώμεν κοῦρον κούρας”, | “νύμφας οὐ νυμφευθείσας, κ.τ.λ.” See W. Christ, Metrik § 293 (2nd ed.). ἀντήρεις, lit. ‘set opposite’ (hence of an ‘adversary,’ Soph. Ph. 754), here, ‘dealt from opposite,’ striking full on the breast, like “ἀνταία...πλαγά” (195 f.). “θρῆνος” and “κοπετός” are similarly combined in Soph. Ai. 631 ff. “θρηνήσει, χερόπλακτοι δ̓” | “ἐν στέρνοισι πεσοῦνται” | “δοῦποι”.
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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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