Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Philoctetes

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τί δῆτ᾽ ἂν δρῷμ̓. Schaefer's insertion of “ἄν” is not indispensable. The simple optat. is grammatically possible. But “ἄν” is clearly right, because the question here is a practical one (not the less so, because no answer is expected); i.e., the speaker is really deliberating what he shall do next: it does not refer merely to abstract possibility, like “τεάν, Ζεῦ, δύνασιν τίς...κατάσχοι”; ( Ant. 605). Cp. O. C., Appendix on v. 170. The case is precisely similar to that in 1393 (where “ἄν” is certain), “τί δῆτ᾽ ἂν ἡμεῖς δρῷμεν”;

δρῷμ̓. Contracted verbs had two ways of forming the act. optat. pres.: (1) with “ι”, as “δρά-ο-ι-μι”, contr. “δρῷμι”, the mode proper to verbs with a thematic vowel: (2) with “ιη”, as “δρα-ο-ίη-ν”, contr. “δρῴην”, where, though the thematic vowel o is kept, the endings follow the analogy of the verbs which have no such vowel (‘verbs in “μι”’). The only Homeric examples of (2) are Od. 4. 692“φιλοίη”, and ib. 9. 320 “φοροίη”. But in the 5th cent. B.C. this second formation was already predominant in For Attic. the sing. number the first formation had become rare, though Attic poets could still use it whenever it was metrically convenient: e.g. 1044 (and Soph. O. T. 1470) “δοκοῖμ̓”: Soph. Tr. 1235“νοσοῖ”: Aesch Aesch. P. V. 978“νοσοῖμ᾽ ἄν”. Some instances of the 3rd sing. occur also in Attic prose: as Thuc. 2. 79(and 100) “δοκοῖ”: Legg. 664 E “πηδῷ”, etc. (Cp. Curtius, Greek Verb, ch. XIV., p. 335 Eng. tr.) In dual and plur. the prevalence of the second formation appears to have been less decisive; and the 3rd pers. plur. always retained the first formation (e.g. “δρῷεν”, not “δρῴησαν”).

τοὐνθένδε γε, adverbial: cp. 834: O. C. 476“τὸ δ᾽ ἔνθεν” (n.). γε at the end of the v., as 438, O. C. 265, etc. The emphasis is fitting here. He has reached the furthest point to which the deception can be carried, since it must be revealed by the presence of Odysseus at the ship.