‘And now invoking as our helper overseas Zeus' calf and the son of the flower-browsing ancestress cow by conception from the on-breathing of Zeus—’: so begins the appeal of Danaos' daughters to their forefather Epaphos; the opening sentence is interrupted by a digression and never completed. In 43 M reads is almost universally adopted. However, is printed in the current Oxford text . Porson's emendation was attacked by Tucker on various grounds: it was palaeographically unsatisfactory, it added an otiose epithet (...) to but left unqualified, it involved a ‘scarcely Greek’ use of the participle, and it coined a form in having the unique sense ‘graze’ instead of ‘handle’. My purpose is to defend as the true reading and to explore its contextual significance. I begin by taking Tucker's objections in order. (shrink)

This is the reading of M. presumably arose from a dittography . has been generally accepted. The adverbial use of an adjective qualifying the subject of an imperative appears to be at least unusual; no examples are quoted by Kühner–Gerth, i. 274–6. Robortello, followed by Tucker, preferred : but the earliest certain appearance of the adverb seems to be in Aristotle. I would propose : cf. Supp. 1015, Th. 34. This is no less satisfactory palaeographically, and the participle is demonstrably (...) idiomatic Greek. (shrink)