οἴμοι τάλας, ‘woe is me’ (not, ‘alas, poor Ajax’): as O. T. 744 n.— ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ: the negative is repeated, for greater emphasis, in 418: cp. Ant. 5“ὁποῖον οὐ” | “τῶν σῶν τε κἀμῶν οὐκ ὄπωπ᾽ ἐγὼ κακῶν”, n.—“ὁ Τυδέως γόνος”, Diomedes. Philoctetes had no personal grievance against him, but dislikes him as being a man of the same stamp as Odysseus, with whom the tenth book of the Iliad associates him in stealing the horses of Rhesus. In Il. 6. 230 it is Diomedes who proposes to Glaucus that the latter should exchange ‘golden armour for armour of bronze.’ Lesches, in the Little Iliad, and Euripides, in his Philoctetes, made Diomedes come to Lemnos to fetch Philoctetes: see Introd. Cp. 592.
This text is part of:
Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part IV: The Philoctetes. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1932.
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