ἄγειν is said of a weight, in one scale of a balance, which ‘draws up’ the weight in the opposite scale: Dem. or. 22 § 76 (“χρυσίδες”, gold vessels) “ἄγουσα ἑκάστη μνᾶν”, ‘weighing.’ So “ἕλκειν”, Plat. Minos p. 316 A “τὰ πλεῖον ἕλκοντα βαρύτερα, τὰ δὲ ἔλαττον κουφότερα” . Here, Electra herself—i.e., the power of endurance which she represents—is the weight in one scale, and the load of grief is the weight in the other (“ἀντίρροπον”). She can no longer ‘outweigh’ it,—i.e., bear up against it. The image is more forcible than the ordinary one of a burden, since it expresses the strain of the effort to maintain an equipoise between patience and suffering. σωκῶ occurs only here and in Aesch. Eum. 36: “σῶκος”, ‘strong,’ only in Il. 20. 72(as epithet of Hermes). The rt., acc. to Curtius (Etym. § 570, 5th ed.), is sa, whence “σάο-ς” (“σῶς”), “σῴζω”, sa-nu-s.
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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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