Thus Aeschylus, Choephoroe 928–30 in West’s edition, with a simplified apparatus.Footnote ¹

The text is sound except for an orthographic issue at 930.Footnote ² Our main concern here will be the distribution of 928–30. M marks speaker-changes for each line from 908 onwards, with paragraphi replacing notae personarum at 916–30.Footnote ³ Sixteenth-century editors—Asulanus, Robortellus, Turnebus, Victorius, Canter—mechanically reproduce the alternation of speakers throughout the stichomythia, giving 928 and 930 to Clytemnestra and 929 to Orestes. Yet while 928 must be spoken by Clytemnestra, 930 doubtlessly belongs to Orestes. If so, 929 must either conclude a couplet spoken by Clytemnestra or initiate Orestes’ two-line reply. Both hypotheses imply incorrect addition of a paragraphus. This is not surprising, since M marks notae personarum and paragraphi sporadically and inconsistently.Footnote ⁴ In this case the replacement of notae personarum with paragraphi coincides with transition from folium 145v to 146r: noting that a regular 1:1 sequence was in place from 908, the scribe carelessly added paragraphi up to the beginning of the choral ode in 931, failing to notice the two-line utterance at either 928–9 or 929–30.

Recent editors—Page, Garvie, West, Sommerstein and Brown—give 929 to Clytemnestra. Realizing that she reared a snake (928), Clytemnestra would end her part with a desolate observation: ‘A prophet indeed is the fear that comes from dreams.’Footnote ⁵ The proposal was first advocated by Joseph Justus Scaliger in a marginal note to his copy of Petrus Victorius’s 1557 edition,Footnote ⁶ and it was subsequently endorsed by many scholars, including Stanley, Pauw, Schütz, Porson, Schwenck, Lafontaine, Blomfield, Bothe, and Dindorf (though he later changed his mind).

An influential defence of Scaliger’s arrangement is offered by Garvie: ‘It is much more likely and effective that Clytemnestra herself should dwell upon the meaning of her dream.’ Garvie compares the Queen’s words at Pers. 517–19 οἲ ’γὼ τάλαινα διαπεπραγμένου στρατοῦ, | ὦ νυκτὸς ὄψις ἐμφανὴς ἐνυπνίων, | ὡς κάρτα μοι σαφῶς ἐδήλωσας κακά and Eteocles’ utterance at Sept. 709–11 ἐξέζεσεν γὰρ Οἰδίπου κατεύγματα· | ἄγαν δ’ ἀληθεῖς ἐνυπνίων φαντασμάτων | ὄψεις, πατρῴων χρημάτων δατήριοι. In both passages, the speakers eventually realize the truthfulness of their dreams while being in the company of sympathetic (though not directly involved) choruses. Prima facie, Pers. 517–19 comes close to Cho. 928–9: both dreamers are women, and κάρτα features in both passages.Footnote ⁷ Yet the situations could not be more different. The Queen of Persians freely shares her dream with the Chorus (176–211), but the elders initially remain non-committal about its implications (οὔ σε βουλόμεσθα, μῆτερ, οὔτ’ ἄγαν φοβεῖν λόγοις | οὔτε θαρσύνειν, 215–16). Having urged prayers and libations (216–23), however, they tell the Queen that they are offering advice ‘as one who prophesies from the heart’ and ‘benevolently’ (ταῦτα θυμόμαντις ὤν σοι πρευμενῶς παρῄνεσα, 224), in the belief that everything will turn out well (εὖ δὲ πανταχῇ τελεῖν σοι τῶνδε κρίνομεν πέρι, 225).Footnote ⁸ Once the Messenger’s report is complete, and the Persian defeat fully disclosed, the Queen addresses her dream as a clear vision (ὄψις ἐμφανής, 518), emphasizing how clearly it foreshadowed disaster (ὡς κάρτα … σαφῶς, 519; cf. 179), but this is only meant to rebuke the elders for their light-heartedness (ὑμεῖς δὲ φαύλως αὔτ’ ἄγαν ἐκρίνατε, 520). In the Choephoroe passage, 928 already sufficiently conveys Clytemnestra’s awareness and disappointment about her dream, as she calls Orestes ‘this snake’ (τόνδ’ ὄφιν). If Clytemnestra also utters 929, Garvie adds, she repeats roughly the same move she makes at 887, οἲ ’γώ, ξυνῆκα τοὖπος ἐξ αἰνιγμάτων, reacting to the Servant’s ominous announcement τὸν ζῶντα καίνειν τοὺς τεθνηκότας λέγω (886). Yet a character who makes a certain move at one point need not repeat it in the same way at a later stage. At 886, Clytemnestra’s reply is prompted by the Servant’s warning, and her indirect answer marks her circumspection in talking to a subordinate. After 928, however, no further comment is necessary: Clytemnestra has already expressed full awareness of the situation. Nenci and Arata compare four epic monologues in which the hero realizes something he already thought, but none approaches Cho. 928–30, despite the similarity between ἦ κάρτα and Homeric ἦ μάλα.Footnote ⁹

Realizing the truth may not be the actual import of 929. That the dream portends revenge against Agamemnon’s killers is clear to everyone.Footnote ¹⁰ In the parodos, the Chorus describe the dream as a prophecy that caused terror within women’s quarters (τορὸς γὰρ ὀρθόθριξ φόβος | δόμων ὀνειρόμαντις, ἐξ ὕπνου κότον | πνέων, ἀωρόνυκτον ἀμβόαμα | μυχόθεν ἔλακε περὶ φόβῳ, | γυναικείοισιν ἐν δώμασιν βαρὺς πίτνων, 32–6),Footnote ¹¹ the meaning of which had already been decoded by shrewd interpreters (κριταὶ <δέ> τῶνδ’ ὀνειράτων | θεόθεν ἔλακον ὑπέγγυοι | μέμφεσθαι τοὺς γᾶς νέρθεν περιθύμως | τοῖς κτανοῦσί τ’ ἐγκοτεῖν, 38–41). Since fear, recalled at 929, is what leads Clytemnestra to send offerings to Agamemnon’s tomb (φοβεῖται δέ τις, 58–9; cf. 32), she must regard her dream as a bad omen from the outset. Though she remains silent about it until 928, her attitude in the rapid dialogue at 885–930 makes clear she fully understood its purport: she says deception will kill her (888), bares her breast as a last resort (896–8; cf. Hecuba at Hom. Il. 22.79–80, Callirhoe at Stesichorus, Geryoneis fr. 17 Finglass)Footnote ¹² and speaks of her death as imminent (922), seeking ways to avoid slaughter (908, 910, 912). Late learning, if expressed at 929, would be otiose and anti-climactic.Footnote ¹³ Nor would the self-exposing vulnerability implied by 929 sit well with Clytemnestra’s embittered tone in 928.

The attribution of both 929 and 930 to Orestes was current before Page’s OCT, yet the proposal has never been assigned to a specific scholar. The first editor known to print it is Rudolf Heinrich Klausen, who in his 1835 commentary so reacted to Scaliger’s reassignment and Wellauer’s proposed lacuna after 929 (see below).Footnote ¹⁴ Wellauer himself had already considered and quickly rejected the hypothesis. Explicit defenders include Bamberger, Franz, Hermann, Conington, Paley, Wilamowitz,Footnote ¹⁵ Tucker and Blass, whereas many others—Murray, Groeneboom, Untersteiner, Mazon, Headlam and Thomson, G. and M. Morani—endorse it tacitly.Footnote ¹⁶ All these scholars were anticipated by Franciscus Portus (1511–81) in his Commentaria in Aeschyli tragoedias, preserved in MS Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek BPL 180.Footnote ¹⁷ Portus’s Commentaria, drafted between 1568 and 1573,Footnote ¹⁸ have remained, together with his marginalia to Victorius’s edition (MS Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek 756 D 22), largely unknown until their rediscovery by Monique Mund-Dopchie.Footnote ¹⁹ West, the first scholar to collate Portus’s material, is silent on this specific attribution.Footnote ²⁰ Portus and Scaliger were colleagues in Geneva between 1572 and 1574: it would be attractive to regard their different solutions for Cho. 928–30 as part of their continuing intellectual exchanges.Footnote ²¹

Portus offered no supporting argument to his proposal. Later scholars, all ignorant of his work, partly filled the gap, but their arguments can be refined and complemented by the following considerations.

The first reason for giving 929–30 to Orestes relates to the form of the stichomythia. As Garvie (citing Seidensticker’s work) admits,Footnote ²² ‘while a single-line stichomythia often begins or ends with two or three lines …, there is no certain parallel in Aeschylus for a two-line utterance at other points’.Footnote ²³ To this, Garvie forcefully objects that ‘such purely formal considerations should yield to the obvious advantages of Page’s arrangement’. And yet, although M marks speaker-changes inaccurately, the erroneous addition of a paragraphus is more likely to have occurred at the end than at the penultimate turn of the sequence. In Garvie’s view, Clytemnestra ‘is given two lines because this is the climax of the stichomythia, and they are the last lines which she speaks in the play’. But the climax is as powerful as ever—and the formal arrangement better paralleled—if Orestes ends the stichomythia by which he kills his mother with a couplet of his own.Footnote ²⁴ Moreover, if Clytemnestra’s last words are indeed τόνδ’ ὄφιν ἐθρεψάμην (928), she echoes her first words in the exchange, ἐγώ σ’ ἔθρεψα (908). ‘That Orestes should finish with a single line’, Garvie adds, ‘is fully in keeping with the brisk tone which he adopts throughout the stichomythia’. Briskness, however, does not prevent Orestes from speaking two lines at 894–5 and five more at 903–7 (Clytemnestra speaks three at 896–8). 929, a lapidary nominal sentence redolent of ancient wisdom, is brisk indeed, and so is 930, recalling the harsh lesson that ‘the doer must suffer’: cf. 312–14 ἀντὶ δὲ πληγῆς φονίας φονίαν | πληγὴν τινέτω. δράσαντι παθεῖν, | τριγέρων μῦθος τάδε φωνεῖ, Ag. 1563–4 μίμνει δὲ μίμνοντος ἐν θρόνῳ Διὸς | παθεῖν τὸν ἔρξαντα, fr. 456 TrGF δράσαντι γάρ τοι καὶ παθεῖν ὀφείλεται, Soph. El. 582–3, Eur. Or. 195, 413, and also Hes. fr. 286 M–W.

The second argument favouring the assignment of 929 to Orestes concerns the pragmatic function of ἦ κάρτα. If occurring in dialogue, ἦ (or καί) κάρτα regularly features at turn-beginning, marking a speaker’s immediate reaction: see Aesch. Ag. 1252, Eum. 213, Theoroi fr. 78a.3 TrGF (satyric), Soph. Aj. 527, 1359, El. 312, 1278, OC 65, 301, fr. 341.2 TrGF, Eur. Alc. 811, Hipp. 90 and also Aesch. Sept. 886–7 (lyric, bare κάρτα). Three further passages from rhêseis obey the same generalization:Footnote ²⁵

1. (1) Aesch. Pers. 519 (cited above). Here κάρτα occurs earliest in the Queen’s speech, immediately after the vocative addressed to the dream (518).

2. (2) Aesch. Ag. 590–2 καί τίς μ’ ἐνίπτων εἶπε “φρυκτωρῶν διαὶ | πεισθεῖσα Τροίαν νῦν πεπορθῆσθαι δοκεῖς; | ἦ κάρτα πρὸς γυναικὸς αἴρεσθαι κέαρ.” Reacting to the Chorus’ criticism (268–80) and misbelief (475–87), Clytemnestra quotes a question-and-answer τις-speech, in which ἦ κάρτα aptly introduces the answer.

3. (3) Aesch. Supp. 450–4 δεῖ κάρτα θύειν καὶ πεσεῖν χρηστήρια | θεοῖσι πολλοῖς πολλά, πημονῆς ἄκη. | ἦ κάρτα νείκους τοῦδ’ ἐγὼ παροίχομαι· | θέλω δ’ ἄιδρις μᾶλλον ἢ σοφὸς κακῶν | εἶναι· γένοιτο δ’ εὖ παρὰ γνώμην ἐμήν. The passage comes from Pelasgus’ dilemmatic speech (438–54): although war against Egypt is inevitable (438–40) and sacrifices are needed to avoid the shedding of kindred blood (450–1), Pelasgus temporarily shrinks from his responsibility (‘I am indeed aside from this dispute’ [452]), wishing to be ‘ignorant rather than expert of evils’ (453) and hoping that all may end well (454). Within his internalized dialogue, ἦ κάρτα … παροίχομαι (452) answers and corrects 450–1, whereas κάρτα in 450 modifies δεῖ (or perhaps the subject clause θύειν καὶ πεσεῖν … ἄκη), not θύειν alone.Footnote ²⁶

Assuming 928–9 to be spoken by one and the same character, ἦ κάρτα at 929 provides no meaningful reaction to 928, since Clytemnestra’s thought is already complete at 928. Hermann rightly noted the lack of connection between 928 and 929. Although the asyndeton might be acceptable, 928 and 929 are better suited as reactive moves to a previous speaker’s assessment than as two parts of the same utterance. Borrowing terminology from Conversation Analysis,Footnote ²⁷ 928 resembles the Oh!-comments typically occurring in responses to previous speakers’ reports (note οἴ ᾽γώ),Footnote ²⁸ whereas ἦ κάρτα makes 929 akin to the upgrade responses conveying full agreement with the prior speaker’s assessment.Footnote ²⁹ With no such framework in mind, Macleod astutely suggested that 929 might be an explanatory gloss on 928 and that 930 continues on 927 πατρὸς γὰρ αἶσα τόνδε σοὐρίζει μόρον rather than responding to 928.Footnote ³⁰ But the hypothesis is superfluous, and 929 is unassailable: cf. Aesch. Sept. 808 οἲ ’γὼ τάλαινα, μάντις εἰμὶ τῶν κακῶν, Cho. 777, Soph. Ant. 1059, OT 747, Eur. Heracl. 65, Hipp. 346, Hec. 743, all occurring turn-initially.

If Orestes utters 929–30, ἦ κάρτα (which would now occur turn-initially as in most parallels) aptly introduces a sarcastic retort: while 928 recalls Clytemnestra’s dream, 929–30 reveal Orestes’ clairvoyance as shown in the earlier exchange with the Chorus (514–52).Footnote ³¹ The connection between 514–52 and 928–30 has been largely ignored, perhaps not accidentally, by scholars who assign 928–9 to Clytemnestra,Footnote ³² but it is also surprisingly underexplored by scholars who give 929–30 to Orestes.Footnote ³³ In this earlier scene, Orestes takes the initiative, asking information about Clytemnestra’s offerings (514–16, 522). The Chorus of enslaved women, based on their autopsy (οἶδ’, ὦ τέκνον, παρῆ γάρ, 523), connect Clytemnestra’s surprising decision with her fearful nocturnal dream (ἔκ τ’ ὀνειράτων | καὶ νυκτιπλάγκτων δειμάτων πεπαλμένη | χοὰς ἔπεμψε, 523–5). The snake is then introduced (526–34, a stichomythia), first its birth (τεκεῖν δράκοντ’ ἔδοξεν, ὡς αὐτὴ λέγει, 527; ἐν σπαργάνοισι παιδὸς ὁρμίσαι δίκην, 529), then Clytemnestra’s blood-stained breastfeeding (αὐτὴ προσέσχε μαστὸν ἐν τὠνείρατι, 531; ὥστ’ ἐν γάλακτι θρόμβον αἵματος σπάσαι, 533). Both the birth and the rearing of the snake are precisely recapitulated by Clytemnestra at 928, where note τεκοῦσα and ἐθρεψάμην.

On hearing the Chorus’ piecemeal report, Orestes immediately expresses the wish that the dream might come true (οὔτοι μάταιον ἂν τόδ’ ὄψανον πέλοι, 534). The Chorus’ insistence on Clytemnestra’s fear (535–9, especially 535 ἡ δ’ ἐξ ὕπνου κέκλαγεν ἐπτοημένη) spurs his extended interpretation of the dream (540–50):Footnote ³⁴

Orestes meticulously picks up words from the Chorus’ previous utterances. Yet despite his cautious rhetoric (note the three if-clauses at 543–7), he eagerly accepts the fulfilment of the dream: having been turned into a snake (549), he will become his mother’s killer (550). Critical to the fulfilment of the dream is Clytemnestra’s fearful reaction to the event (547), and Orestes is the only one to forge a direct link between his mother’s dream, fear and death. The Chorus gladly appoint him as the lawful interpreter and fulfiller of the omen: τερασκόπον δὴ τῶνδέ σ᾿ αἱροῦμαι πέρι, | γένοιτο δ᾿ οὕτως (551–2). If Orestes speaks 929, as here suggested, he lays claim to this role even before Clytemnestra.

Wellauer (followed by Dindorf, Weil, Wecklein and Taplin) complains about the lack of connection between 929 and 930, assuming the omission of one line originally spoken by Clytemnestra.Footnote ³⁶ But 930 provides an explanation to 929, and 929–30, taken together, reproduce the line of reasoning presented by Orestes to the Chorus. Clytemnestra’s recognition of her son as the snake of the dream (928: cf. 543–6), Orestes suggests, indicates that her fear was indeed prophetic (929: cf. 547) and that, as a result, she must die to pay for the murder of Agamemnon (930: cf. 548–50). The proposed line distribution ensures an effective division of labour between the speakers and a compelling conclusion for the scene: Clytemnestra scornfully blames Orestes’ snaky nature (928), whereas Orestes violently imposes his interpretation of the dream (929–30), clarifying the allusive explanation supplied by the seers (38–41). He both acts as mantis and carries out the corresponding manteia.

By sealing the stichomythia with a couplet, Orestes establishes rhetorical and physical dominance over Clytemnestra. The confrontation ends on a note of sheer hostility: 919 μὴ ἔλεγχε τὸν πονοῦντ’ ἔσω καθημένη, 923 σύ τοι σεαυτήν, οὐκ ἐγώ, κατακτενεῖς, 927 πατρὸς γὰρ αἶσα τόνδε σοὐρίζει μόρον. By a last-minute coup de théâtre, Clytemnestra is informed that Orestes has been plotting her death long since, and with the assistance of the Chorus, the sole eyewitness to Clytemnestra’s dreadful nightmare. Clytemnestra’s insult, ‘This is the snake I bore and bred’ (928),Footnote ³⁷ is thus effectively rebutted, in accordance with the cry of Dike: 309–11 ἀντὶ μὲν ἐχθρᾶς γλώσσης ἐχθρὰ γλῶσσα τελείσθω· | τοὐφειλόμενον πράσσουσα Δίκη μέγ’ ἀϋτεῖ.

Orestes’ ‘mantic skills’ resonate in Sophocles’ Electra as part of the play’s multiple allusions to Aeschylus’ Choephoroe. The encounter between Orestes and Aegisthus (Soph. El. 1466–507) variously recalls the mother-son confrontation at Aesch. Cho. 885–930. Aegisthus and Orestes stand at the doorway, with Clytemnestra’s corpse lying nearby. As soon as Aegisthus unveils the corpse (1475, 1476–7), Orestes asks him biting questions about his fear and imperfect knowledge (1475 τίνα φοβῇ; τίν’ ἀγνοεῖς;), describing Aegisthus as one who has long been conversing with the dead: οὐ γὰρ αἰσθάνῃ πάλαι | ζῶν τοῖς θανοῦσιν οὕνεκ’ ἀνταυδᾷς ἴσα; (1477–8). Orestes’ jeer alludes to the Servant’s ominous prediction τὸν ζῶντα καίνειν τοὺς τεθνηκότας λέγω (Cho. 886). But it also subtly refers to Clytemnestra’s ἔοικα θρηνεῖν ζῶσα πρὸς τύμβον μάτην (Cho. 926). While in Choephoroe Orestes is the deaf tomb to which Clytemnestra futilely addresses her dirges, in Electra he is the unresponsive dead whom Aegisthus has been talking to all along, and from whom he will vainly beg for mercy. Moreover, like Clytemnestra, who, while still alive (ζῶσα, Aesch. Cho. 926), laments her death in advance, Aegisthus, though still alive (ζῶν, Soph. El. 1478), speaks as if he were dead.

Aegisthus’ reply, οἴμοι, ξυνῆκα τοὔπος (Soph. El. 1479), followed by a begrudging identification of Orestes (1479–80), mirrors in turn Clytemnestra’s answer at Cho. 887 οἲ ’γώ, ξυνῆκα τοὖπος ἐξ αἰνιγμάτων.Footnote ³⁸ Aegisthus’ wording, like Clytemnestra’s, implies that Orestes spoke allusively, in the very manner of a mantis: his language both pointed to Aegisthus’ doom and to Aeschylus’ different version. As a knowledgeable seer, Orestes readily mocks Aegisthus’ poor prophetic skills: καὶ μάντις ὢν ἄριστος ἐσφάλλου πάλαι; (Soph. El. 1481). This leads to Aegisthus’ attempt to postpone his death (1482–3), but his efforts are thwarted by both Electra (1483–90) and Orestes, who finally urges him to go inside (1491–2 χωροῖς ἂν εἴσω, etc.), echoing the order given to Clytemnestra at Cho. 904 (ἕπου). Faced with a further objection (1493–4), Orestes repeats his command, foretelling that Aegisthus will die in the very place where he killed Agamemnon (1495–6; at Cho. 894–5 and 904–7, Orestes threatens to murder Clytemnestra beside Aegisthus).

Aegisthus now desperately appeals to ‘the woes of the Pelopids’ (1497–500):

Scholars endlessly debate whether an allusion to the Erinyes’ pursuit of Orestes is to be found here.Footnote ⁴⁰ Although Aegisthus’ threat is undermined by self-interest, the scope of 1497–8 cannot be restricted to his or Clytemnestra’s death, and τά τ’ ὄντα καὶ μέλλοντα transparently evokes prophetic language.Footnote ⁴¹ If anything, Aegisthus’ words will have activated, rather than displaced, collective memory of the Oresteia: compare Clytemnestra’s warning at Cho. 924, ὄρα, φύλαξαι μητρὸς ἐγκότους κύνας, which, unlike Aegisthus’ threat, foreshadows the end of the play and the trajectory of Eumenides. As this and other allusions demonstrate, it was Sophocles’ intention to engage in a full-scale competition with Aeschylus’ Oresteia, and the removal of the Erinyes from the storyline will have been part of this strategy.Footnote ⁴²

For present purposes, however, what matters most is Orestes’ harsh reply, τὰ γοῦν σ’ (1499), which drastically restricts the scope of 1497–8 to Aegisthus’ own κακά. As a death warrant, Soph. El. 1499 closely parallels Cho. 930, despite the difference in wording. In the Electra passage, Orestes claims to be ‘a first-rate prophet’ of Aegisthus’ fate: ἐγώ σοι μάντις εἰμὶ τῶνδ’ ἄκρος. On the one hand, this statement plainly recalls the mantic skills of the Aeschylean Orestes (Cho. 540–2). On the other hand, it assimilates Aegisthus’ forebodings to Clytemnestra’s oneiric premonitions: in both cases, Orestes is there to turn fear into reality.Footnote ⁴³ Aegisthus replies bitterly, voicing a caustic comment about Agamemnon’s flawed prophetic skills (1500), which only confirms Orestes’ mantic control over the future. As in the Oresteia, Orestes fulfils the revenge fantasies and optimistic predictions expressed by the Chorus, most notably in the first stasimon: see Soph. El. 472–6 εἰ μὴ ᾿γὼ παράφρων μάντις ἔφυν καὶ | γνώμας λειπομένα σοφᾶς, | εἶσιν ἁ πρόμαντις | Δίκα, δίκαια φερομένα χεροῖν κράτη and 498–501 ἤ|τοι μαντεῖαι βροτῶν | οὐκ εἰσὶν ἐν δεινοῖς ὀνεί|ροις οὐδ᾿ ἐν θεσφάτοις, | εἰ μὴ τόδε φάσμα νυκτὸς | εὖ κατασχήσει, for which cf. Aesch. Cho. 61–5, 340–4, 386–93, 464–5, 471–5, 646–52, 819–37. Assigning Cho. 929 (along with 930) to Orestes not only strengthens his role as mantis and master of Clytemnestra’s fate but also reinforces the intertextual relations between Aeschylus’ Choephoroe and Sophocles’ Electra.

Below is a revised text with apparatus of Aesch. Cho. 928–30 as it should appear in future editions:

The asyndeton between 929, a gnomic statement, and 930, a directive preceded by a second-person assertion, is no more problematic than the one that scholars who assign 928–9 to Clytemnestra must posit between 928, an exclamatory first-person complaint, and 929. To limit the search to the Oresteia,Footnote ⁴⁴ cf. Ag. 636–7 + 637 (gnômê + assessment; mid-line asyndeton), 857–8 + 858–60 (gnômê + first-person declaration of intent; mid-line asyndeton), Cho. 61–5 + 66–7 (gnômê + assessment; asyndeton occurs in the transition from antistrophe 2 to strophe 3), 104–5 + 106 (gnômê + request), 505–7 + 508–9 (gnômê + directive, addressed by Orestes to the dead Agamemnon), 663–6 + 666–7 (directive with gnômê + third-person assessment; mid-line asyndeton), Eum. 261–2 + 263 (gnômê + assessment), 448–50 + 451–2 (gnômê + first-person assessment).