ὥστε μήτιν᾽ εἰσιδὼν στέρξει. After “ὥστε”, the negative of the infin. is “μή”, but of the indic., “οὐ”. Here the “μή” must be due to the final sense: i.e., the notion of result is merged in that of aim; as if it were “ὅπως μή”. I have not found any real parallel. Dem. or. 19 § 218 writes, “τοσαύτης ἀνανδρίας...ὁμολογεῖτε εἶναι μεστοί, ὥστε μήτ᾽ ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ πολεμίων ὄντων μήτ᾽ ἐκ θαλάττης πολιουρκούμενοι...ε<*>τα τὴν εἰρήνην ἐποιήσασθε”. But there the “μή” seems clearly ‘generic’: i.e., the sense is: ‘you are so weak as to have made peace at a time when there was no enemy in the country,’ etc. [Prof. Goodwin, Moods and Tenses, new ed., § 606, suggests that “ἐποιήσασθε” virtually depends on an “εἰ” further back, and that the force of “ὥστε” is lost. This would be conceivable if the “μή” came after “ἐποιήσασθε”: but it immediately follows “ὥστε”.] —The opposite anomaly occurs in El.780 f. “ωστ᾽ οὔτε”... | ...“στεγάζειν”. ἀντὶ σοῦ, instead of the gen. after the comparat.: Ant.182 n.
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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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