πρὸς ποῖον αὖ τόνδ᾽ … ἔπλει; ‘who was this other person in quest of whom Odysseus himself was sailing?’ αὖ is oft. thus used after interrogatives: cp. Ant. 7“τί τοῦτ᾽ αὖ φασὶ πανδήμῳ πόλει” | “κήρυγμα θεῖναι”...; (For “πρὸς ποῖον...τόνδε” as=“ποῖος ἦν ὅδε, πρὸς ὅν”, cp. 441.) Not ‘was sailing again’ (with ref. to his former voyage to Scyros, 343). If αὖ is a true correction here (as it has been deemed by almost all recent edd.), the corruption ἂν in the MSS. is the reverse of that which has probably occurred in O. C. 1418(n.). If ἂν is kept, it must be explained in one of two ways. (1) Taking “ἄν” with “ἔπλει”: ‘who is this, for whom he would have been sailing?’ (=‘presumably sailed’). Cp. Od. 4. 546“ἤ κεν Ὀρέστης” | “κτεῖνεν”, ‘or Orestes would have slain him,’=‘or, it may be, O. slew him.’ (2) Taking “ἄν” with “ποῖον τόνδε”, as if “ὄντα” were understood: ‘Who might this man be, for whom he sailed?’ On this view, “ἄν” does not affect “ἔπλει”, and “πρὸς ποῖον ἂν τόνδε”=“ποῖος ὅδε ἂν εἴη, πρὸς ὃν ἔπλει”. This is possible: though here “πρὸς ποῖον ἂν τόνδε” would more naturally suggest “ποῖος ὅδε ἂν ἦν”.
This text is part of:
Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part IV: The Philoctetes. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1932.
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