Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus

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μειόνως ἔχειν=“μείων εἶναι”. This euphemistic mode of expression with the comparative adverb is often found where censure or disparagement is to be conveyed less bluntly. Plat. Phaedo 75A “ὀρέγεται μὲν πάντα ταῦτα εἶναι οἷον τὸ ἴσον, ἔχει δὲ ἐνδεεστέρως” (repeated just afterwards thus, “αὐτοῦ ἐνδεέστερά ἐστιν”): Apol. 34 C “τάχ᾽ ἂν οὖν τις ταῦτα ἐννοήσας αὐθαδέστερον ἂν πρός με σχοίη”, = αὐθαδέστερος ἂν εἴη: Legg. 932 A “ἐάν τις ἐν τῇδε τῇ πόλει γονέων ἀμελέστερον ἔχῃ τοῦ δέοντος” = ἀμελέστερος ᾖ. Oedipus says to the Furies: "Grant me rest, unless haply (τι, adv., as O. T. 969, here with bitter irony) I seem to be beneath such grace,—I, who have suffered so much and so long." μειόνως ἔχειν means here to be μείων in the sense of "too insignificant," "of too little account," in respect of suffering: i.e., one who has not yet suffered enough. Thus we arrive at the same sense which the scholiast extorts by a method which seems impossible. He explains μειόνως ἔχειν as = ἐλαττόνως ἔχειν τὰ κακά, "to have ills in too small a degree." But (1) as Herm. said, this would be μεῖον or μείω ἔχειν, and (2) it is impossible to understand τὰ κακά. Campbell thinks that μειόνως ἔχειν λατρεύων = μειόνως ἔχειν λατρευμάτων: which is open to objection (1), and also to this, that the partic. λατρεύων could not do duty for a partitive gen. after ἔχειν. Wecklein (who follows the schol.) suggests μειόνως ἔχειν κακῶν, and ἀεί for βροτῶν in 105.