Sophocles Trachiniae 1021–22

Abstract

Lines 1021–22 of Sophocles’ Trachiniae, which come right after a notorious and probably insoluble textual crux, have received much less attention but are in fact extremely problematic as well. Though these lines can be construed, they cannot be understood adequately. The scholia propose two implausible ancient interpretations; modern scholars have suggested either no less implausible interpretations of the transmitted text or unsatisfactory emendations for it. The coauthors of the present note suggest a different strategy for emending the text, which results in two different and alternative suggested conjectures.