<*>λγιστον. The positive would be more usual, since εἴ τις follows; but the superl. is not redundant, if taken as absolute (‘very grievous’), and not relative (‘the most grievous’). Cp. O. C.1006“εἴ τις γῆ θεοὺς ἐπίσταται” | “τιμαῖς σεβίζειν, ἥδε τῷδ᾽ ὑπερφέρει”: and Eur. Andr.6“νῦν δ̓, εἴ τις ἄλλη, δυστυχεστάτη γυνή”. Soph. has “εἴπερ τις ἄλλος” in Soph. O. T.1118, but more often “εἰ” or “εἴπερ τις” simply (as Soph. O. C.1664, Soph. Ai.488); and so Aesch. Ag.934. ἔσχον, not εἶχον, because she thinks of the ordeal, not as a process, but as a past moment of life; cp. Ant.225“πολλὰς γὰρ ἔσχον φροντίδων ἐπιστάσεις”. This is better than to give “ἔσχον” its commoner sense, ‘came to have’ ( Ant.1229, Ph.1420).
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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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