Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Trachiniae

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τὸν πατρῷον … στόλον, ‘by my father's sending,’ cogn. acc. to ἑσπόμην: cp. 159 “ἀγῶνας ἐξιών” (n.). The peculiarity is that “στόλος” here=“πέμψις”, corresponding to the sense of the act. “στέλλω”: whereas it usu. means ‘expedition,’ ‘journey,’ from midd. “στέλλομαι”. It may be noted, however, that the boldness is softened by the fact that “στόλος” sometimes meant a journey with ref. to its purpose, ‘a mission’: O. C.358 n. Certainly “πατρῷος στόλος” would ordinarily mean, ‘a journey of my father<*>s,’ or, ‘an expedition despatched by’ him; yet the sense required here seems possible for poetry. The phrase cannot well mean, (1) ‘the journey prescribed for me by my father’; nor (2) ‘under my father's escort,’—as if Oeneus had accompanied them for some distance.

The soundness of the words is confirmed by their dramatic fitness. There is a tacit contrast in her thoughts between herself and the new paramour; she thinks of the long-past day when her father gave her to her husband, and sent her forth with him. The words also accord with that tone of passivity in which she has already spoken of her marriage (6—27). She welcomed Heracles as a deliverer, and has learned to love him; but she had no voice in the bestowal of her hand.— Cp. fr. 521 (the young girl is happy at home, but the bride is sent forth by her parents to a doubtful fate): “αἳ νέαι μὲν ἐν πατρὸς” | “ἥδιστον, οἶμαι, ζῶμεν ἀνθρώπων βίον:” | ... | “ὅταν δ᾽ ἐς ἥβην ἐξικώμεθ᾽ ἔμφρονες”, | “ὠθούμεθ᾽ ἔξω”.—See Appendix.

εὖνις=“εὐνέτις”, as in Eur. Or.929 etc.