ξένῳν “κ.τ.λ.” It should be observed how the poet has marked successive stages in the approach of the litter. When it first comes into view, the Chorus note the foreign aspect of the bearers. In another moment, they are listening for a sound (“πᾷ δ᾽ αὖ φορεῖ νιν”); and the silence dismays them. ξένων … βάσις=“ξένοι βαδίζοντες”: cp. Ph.868“οἰκούρημα...ξένων” (n.). The conject. στάσις (‘company’), though specious, seems less fitting here. It would be unsafe to argue against βάσις from the fact that “βάσιν” closes v. 967. Cp. Ant.76, where “κείσομαι” stands at the end of a clause, though it occurs also in 73. ἐξόμιλος, living out of our “ὅμιλος”, i.e., ‘foreign.’ Cp. I. A. 735 “οὐ καλὸν ἐν ὄχλῳ σ᾽ ἐξομιλεῖσθαι” (midd.) “στρατοῦ” (said by Agam. to his wife), ‘to live abroad’ (out of thy proper “ὁμιλία”).
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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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