Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Ajax

πικρὸν πρόσφθεγμα … ἐρεῖ describes what will be said, not to her, but of her; cp. Polit. p. 287 E “ἀγγεῖον ὃ δὴ μιᾷ κλήσει προσφθεγγόμεθα” (call by that name). Cp. El. 1213“οὔ σοι προσήκει τήνδε προσφωνεῖν φάτιν” (sc. “αὐτόν”), i.e., to speak of him as dead. The reference of πικρὸν is not only to the scornful word “ὁμευνέτιν”, but also to “οἵας λατρείας κ.τ.λ.”

λόγοις ἰάπτων, lit. ‘shooting with words,’—launching taunts like missiles. The instrum. dat. λόγοις marks the figurative sense of ἰάπτων, just as “τόξοις” defines its literal sense in Aesch. Ag. 510（“τόξοις ἰάπτων μηκέτ᾽ εἰς ἡμᾶς βέλη”): the object answering to the literal “βέλη” (such as “ὀνείδη”) is left to be understood. Cp. Rhianus (3rd cent. B.C.) ap. Stobaeus Flor. 4. 34. 9 “μακάρεσσιν ἐπὶ ψόγον αἰνὸν ἰάπτει” (by tmesis for “ἐπιάπτει”). This seems truer than to suppose that the constr. is “λόγοις ἰάπτων” (“με”), ‘assailing me with taunts,’ though the latter view might be supported by the rare use of “ἰάλλω” in Od. 13. 142“πρεσβύτατον καὶ ἄριστον ἀτι-” “μίῃσιν ἰάλλειν”. As to the root of “ἰάπτω”, Curtius holds that “ἰα-π” is expanded from “ἰα” (=Skt. jA, ‘go’), in a causative sense, by the determinative “π”, just as the Lat. <*>a-c is by k. (Greek Verb, p. 167 Eng. ed.) Cp. 700.