The “ἄγγελος” (180), who has listened in silence, now places himself between Deianeira and the door through which she is about to follow Lichas and the captives. αὐτοῦ γε πρῶτον βαιὸν ἀμμείνας᾿, sc. “χώρει” (from “χωρῶμεν” in 333). Where γε is thus used in reply, without an expressed verb, the verb can usu. be supplied directly from what immediately precedes (as in 399 “νεμῶ” from “νεμεῖς”). Here we may compare O. T.678“ΧΟ....τί μέλλεις κομίζειν δόμων τόνδ᾽ ἔσω”; | “ΙΟ. μαθοῦσά γ᾽ ἥτις ἡ τύχη” (sc. “κομιῶ”). ἀμμείνας᾿: Sophocles has the form “ἀμμένειν” in four lyric passages (527, 648, El.1389 El., 1397); but there is no other instance of it in tragic iambics. The apocopè of “ἀνά”, so frequent in tragic lyrics, is comparatively rare in dialogue; the examples in iambics are chiefly nouns, as “ἀμβάτης, προσάμβασις, ἀμβολή, ἀμπνοή, ἀμπτυχή”: more rarely verbs; though cp. 396 (n.); Eur. Hec.1263“ἀμβήσει”. In Eur. Tro.1277“ἀμπνέους᾿” is only a v. l. for “ἐμπνέους᾿”, as in Eur. Phoen.1410“ἀμφέρει” for “ἀναφέρει”. An example in Attic prose is Xen. Cyr.7. 5. 12“ἀμβολάδος γῆς”.
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Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part V: The Trachiniae. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1902.
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