μέχρις οὗ. This verse is doubtless due to an interpolator who wished to limit “εἰσαεί”. It has three marks of spuriousness. (1) “μέχρι”, not “μέχρις”, is the Attic form. (2) The anapaest in the first foot is a needless harshness, when either “ἕως” or “ἔστ᾽ ἂν” was available. (3) The division of an anapaest (in the first foot) between two words has no Sophoclean parallel except in Phil. 795 “τὸν ἴσον χρόνον τρέφοιτε τήνδε τὴν νόσον”: and the Philoctetes was one of the latest plays (409 B.C.).—It might be added that “μυχοὺς κίχωσι” is a somewhat strange phrase; though we may compare Il. 21. 128“ἄστυ κιχείομεν”. The use of “κίχω” in 657 is slightly different.
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Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part VII: The Ajax. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1907.
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