Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Philoctetes

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ἕλοιτό μ̓. The enclitic με is warranted here (though “ἕλοιτ᾽ ἔμ᾽” might seem more natural), since the words, “μὴ καὶ λάθῃ με προσπεσών”, have already indicated Odysseus as the person chiefly menaced. It is as though he said: ‘We must take care that he does not surprise me; it would delight him more than to capture all the Greeks’; where the unemphatic ‘it’ would resemble the enclitic “με” as merely referring back to a case already indicated. A similar instance (and one that is certified by metre) occurs below, 1049 ff.: “οὗ γὰρ τοιούτων δεῖ, τοιοῦτός εἰμ᾽ ἐγώ:” | “χὥπου δικαίων κἀγαθῶν ἀνδρῶν κρίσις”, | “οὐκ ἂν λάβοις μου μᾶλλον οὐδέν̓ εὐσεβῆ”: where the “ἐγώ” in 1049 makes it needless to have “ἐμοῦ” in 1051. Such cases are distinct from those in which the enclitic form of the pers. pron. is justified by the fact that the chief emphasis is on a verbal notion (e.g., 958: Ant. 546“μή μοι θάνῃς σὺ κοινά”, ‘share not my death’).—The first hand in L seems to have written “ἕλοιτε μ̓” (sic): the corrector changed the second “ε” to “ο”, accenting the latter. If there had been reason to think that the first hand in L wrote “ἕλοιτ᾽ ἔμ̓”, then I should have taken that reading, not as better than “ἕλοιτό μ̓”, but as equally good and better attested.— λαβεῖν, ‘catch,’ ‘find in his power.’ μολεῖν in A was prob. a conjecture, or a mere error, rather than, as Boissonade supposed, a corruption of μ᾽ ἑλεῖν. For the difference between “ἑλεῖν” and “λαβεῖν” (in regard to warfare), see Il. 5. 144“ἔνθ᾽ ἕλεν Ἀστύνοον” (‘slew’), and ib. 159 “ἔνθ᾽ υἷας Πριάμοιο δύω λάβε Δαρδαϝίδαο, ι εἰν ἑνὶ δίφρῳ ἐόντας” (‘caught’). Cp. below, 101, 103; O. T. 266 “ζητῶν τὸν αὐτόχειρα τοῦ φόνου λαβεῖν” (‘find’).—Blaydes says that “λαβεῖν” is ‘clearly wrong,’ and reads βαλεῖν (‘hit’).