οὐκ ἔσθ᾽ ὅ γ᾽ εἶπον, ‘It is not quite what I meant’;—said with a gentle and mournful irony, which the next words, “οὐ γὰρ ὧδ᾽ ἄφρων ἔφυν”, further mark. Electra is very gradually leading up to a proposal which, as she well knows, will dismay her sister; whose question—“ἦ τοὺς θανόντας κ.τ.λ.”—shows how far she is from conceiving that the present situation leaves any possibilities of action. To reject this verse as being (in Nauck's phrase) ‘undoubtedly a later addition,’ would be indeed to destroy a fine dramatic touch.— The form of the first clause recalls Ph. 442, “ο<*> τοῦτον εῖπον”: though here “οὐ τοῦτό γ᾽ εἶπον” would be a crude substitute for the reading in the text.
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Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part VI: The Electra. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1894.
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