βούλει λάβωμαι ..; El. 80“θέλεις” | “μείνωμεν”...; This idiom is a parataxis of two questions originally distinct: “βούλει; λάβωμαι”; Where the subjunctive stands first, as in Dem. or. 14 § 27 “θῶ βούλεσθε”...; the verb of wishing might seem to be parenthetic. But such an example as Plat. Rep. 372C, “εἰ...βούλεσθε... θεωρήσωμεν, οὐδὲν ἀποκωλύει”, shows that the subjunctive had come to be felt as depending on the verb of wishing. In classical Greek no conjunction could be used to link the verbs, since “βούλομαι” and “θέλω” took only the inf. In later Greek we still have “θέλεις ποιήσω”; (St Luke xviii. 41:) but also “θέλω ἵνα δῷς” (St Mark vi. 25). δῆτα has been suspected here, because it occurs in 757, Plat. Rep. 760, Plat. Rep. 763.Nauck would remove it by rewriting the passage thus:—“βούλει λάβωμαι καὶ θίγω; ΦΙΛ. μὴ τοῦτό γε”, | “ἀλλ᾽ ὥσπερ ᾔτου μ᾽ ἀρτίως, τὰ τόξ᾽ ἑλών”, | “ἕως ἀνῇ τὸ πῆμα τοῦτο τῆς νόσου”, | “σῷζ̓ αὐτὰ καὶ φύλασσε”. But here, as in 757, it is interrogative, while in 760 and 763 it is otherwise used; and this difference of usage palliates the iteration. Cp. the threefold “ἀλλὰ” in 645, Plat. Rep. 647, Plat. Rep. 651: also Soph. O. T. 517“φέρον”, Soph. O. T. 519“φέροντι”, Soph. O. T. 520“φέρει”, where the excuse is the same as here, viz. that, in the 1st and 3rd places the word means ‘tend,’ but in the 2nd, ‘bear.’ No weight attaches to the fact that the 1st hand in L accidentally omitted “δῆτα”, which the reviser added. In 772 L lacks “ταῦτα” altogether; and yet that word is certainly sound.
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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