σοῦ τύχοιμι is a certain correction. With “ἐναισίῳ” (or “-ου”)...συντύχοιμι we must still understand “σοί” (or “σοῦ”); for the version, “"may I meet with a righteous man,"” gives a sense which is intolerably weak here. ἄλαστον ἄνδρ᾽, Oedipus. With Homer, this adj. is always the epithet of “πένθος” or “ἄχος”, except in Il. 22.261 (Achilles), “Ἕκτορ, μή μοι, ἄλαστε, συνημοσύνας ἀγόρευε”, “"Wretch, prate not to me of covenants,"”—usu. taken as=“"thou whom I cannot forget (or forgive),"” though others render “"madman"” (as if connecting the word with the rt of “ἀλύω”). It is simplest to suppose that the epithet of the act (537, 1672) is transferred to the agent,— the doer of “ἄλαστα” being called “ἄλαστος” in the general sense of “"wretch,"” “"accursed one."” ἰδὼν, since, in the old Greek belief, even casual association with a polluted man was perilous: Antiph. or. 5 § 82 “πολλοὶ ἤδη ἄνθρωποι μὴ καθαροὶ χεῖρας ἢ ἄλλο τι μίασμα ἔχοντες συνεισβάντες εἰς τὸ πλοῖον συναπώλεσαν μετὰ τῆς αὑτῶν ψυχῆς τοὺς ὁσίως διακειμένους τὰ πρὸς τοὺς θεούς”. Cp. Aesch. Th. 597 ff., Eur. El. 1354, Xen. Cyr. 8.1.25, Hor. Carm. 3. 2. 26.
This text is part of:
Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part II: The Oedipus Coloneus. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1899.
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