πατροφόντου, fem., as the poets use “σωτήρ” ( O. T.81 n.), “φονεύς” ( I. T. 586), “χιλιοναύτης” (ib. 141), “Ἕλλην” ( Heracl.130), etc. The word ought to mean, ‘slayer of her own father’; but here its reference is decided by the subject of the principal verb, as in Od.1. 299（“ἔκτανε πατροφονῆα”). Cp. El.558“πατέρα φὴς κτεῖναι” (‘my father’). A still bolder use occurs in Eur. Or.193, where the sense of “πατροφόνου ματρός” is relative to “ἡμᾶς” in 191, while the subject of the principal verb is “ὁ Φοῖβος”. ὡς κλύειν ἐμέ, the last person who ought to hear it. The emphasis on the pron. is, however, very slight; cp. 1220: O. T.1045“ὥστ᾽ ἰδεῖν έμέ”: Ph.299(n.).
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Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part V: The Trachiniae. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1902.
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