Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Trachiniae

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ὦ Ζεῦ τροπαῖε. Zeus who turns foemen to flight: see on Ant.143.He is fitly invoked by her, since it was he who had brought the captives to this plight. Not, ‘Averter of evil,’ for “τροπαῖος” is not a classical equiv. for “ἀποτρόπαιος”. Plutarch indeed, supplies an in stance in later Greek, Mor.p. 149 D “τὸν καθαρμὸν...κινεῖν διανοεῖ καὶ παρέχειν πράγματα τοῖς τροπαίοις” (alluding to the exclamation “Ἀλεξίκακε” just before); unless “ἀποτροπαίοις” should be read there.

τοὐμὸν σπέρμα, though it is the mother who speaks (so Aesch. Suppl.275“σπέρματ᾽ εὐτέκνου βοός”, and oft.).

χωρήσαντα. The notion of hostile advance was associated with this verb in such phrases as “ὁμόσε χωρεῖν”. But when it is followed by “εἰς, ἐπί”, or “πρός τινα”, the poetical usage varies somewhat from that of good prose. (1) The sense of “χωρεῖν εἴς τινα” is usu. friendly in prose, as Thuc.5. 40; more rarely hostile, as id. 4. 95, and Soph. Ph.396.(2) “χωρεῖν ἐπί τινα” is hostile in prose, as Thuc.1. 62, but friendly in Pind. N.10. 73.(3) “χωρεῖν πρός τινα” is friendly in prose, as Thuc.5. 43, and aboveThuc., v. 285; but hostile here. Sophocles would possibly have preferred εἰς to πρὸς here, if v. 303 had not ended with σε.—The aor. part., not the pres., because she thinks of the onset in its ruinous result: cp. Soph. Ph.1113“ἰδοίμαν δέ νιν”... | “ἐμὰς λαχόντ᾽ ἀνίας.—ποι”, in any direction,—i.e., in any of their homes, or in any point of their fortunes. The conject. που seems unnecessary.