πομπόν τε καὐτὸν ἄγγελον, at once escort and, in thine own person, messenger: i.e., Neopt., when he brings Ph. home on board his ship, will at the same time bring the earliest tidings of Ph. 's fate. Ph. had asked his former visitors to act merely as “ἄγγελοι”: and they had failed to do so. Now he has found a man who will be his “πομπός”, and, thereby, also his first “ἄγγελος”. Cp. Her. 1. 79(Cyrus) “ἐλάσας...τὸν στρατὸν ἐς τὴν Λυδίην αὐτὸς ἄγγελος Κροίσῳ ἐληλύθεε”, ‘had himself brought the first news,’ i.e., no “ἀγγελία” had preceded him. See n. on Soph. O. C. 1511（“αὐτοὶ θεοὶ κήρυκες”). ἥκω: after vainly appealing to others. The word is tinged with the fig. sense, ‘I have been brought by my fortune to thee,’ etc.: cp. 377 “ὁ δ᾽ ἐνθάδ᾽ ἥκων”. [Dem. ] or. 45 § 85 “τούτῳ μὲν χαίρειν λέγω, οὓς δ᾽ ὁ πατήρ μοι παρέδωκε βοηθούς, εἰς τούτους ἥκω”.
This text is part of:
Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part IV: The Philoctetes. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1932.
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