Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Trachiniae

εἶπε μὲν … εἶπε δ̓: epanaphora: O. C.610 n. The “δέλτος” (157) contained the oracle only. Heracles first expounded this (hence the aor. part. προτάξας in 164): then he gave his testamentary directions,—not in writing, but merely by word of mouth.

εἶπε … ὅ τι χρείη μ᾽ ἑλέσθαι λέχους κτῆσιν, ‘he said what I was to take for myself as marriage-property,’ i.e., ‘as my property in right of our marriage.’ This means, in accordance with the Attic usage of the poet's age, that she was to take as her own the dowry (“προῖξ”) which she had brought to her husband, together with any gifts that he might have made to her. Thus a widow is described as “ἀπολιποῦσα τὸν οἶκον καὶ κομιο αμένη τὴν προῖκα”, [Dem. ] or. 40 § 7. The bride's father (or other representative before the law, “κύριος”) kept a record of the “προῖξ”, with a view to its recovery at the husband's death, or in the event of a divorce: Isaeus or. 3 § 35 “ἐὰν ἀπολίπῃ ἡ γυνὴ τὸν ἄνδρα, ἢ ἐὰν ὁ ἀνὴρ ἐκπέμψῃ τὴν γυναῖκα, οὐκ ἔξεστι πράξασθαι τῷ δόντι” [i.e. the father, or “κύριος”] “ὃ μὴ ἐν προικὶ τιμήσας ἔδωκεν”: ‘which, when he gave it, he did not record at a certain value, as part of the dower.’ Thus in [Dem. ] or. 47 § 57 a widow claims some pieces of property on the ground “ὅτι αὑτῆς εἴη ἐν τῇ προικὶ τετιμημένα”.

ἣν τέκνοις … νέμοι: ‘what share of their father's land he assigned by division to his sons,’ i.e., ‘assigned to them severally.’

διαιρετὸν: for the verbal adj. of two terminations, cp. O. T.384 n.