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ἐπὶ τοσοῦτο, ‘no further’: 5. 50. εὐφρόνη: a poetical word for ‘night,’ but whether as the period of kindly sleep (εὔφρων) or e contrario (cp. εὐμενίδες, εὔξεινος) is not quite clear. Hdt. uses it frequently in these three books (cc. 56, 188 infra; 8. 6, 12, 14; 9. 37, 39), but not (so far as I have observed) elsewhere, i.e. afterwards; cp. Introduction, § 8. τε ... καί: a parataxis not uncommon in Hdt.
ἔκνιζε: c. 10 l. 45 supra; perhaps an unconscious reminiscence.
πρῆγμα. as in 1. 79, ‘worth while,’ ‘advisable,’ ‘advantageous.’ Contr. cc. 130, 150 infra.
δεδογμένων: a rather strong form to express the king's change of mind. It marks, perhaps, the autocratic power, not the constancy, of the king; cp. c. 13 l. 11 and δεδόκηται c. 16 infra. κατύπνωσε, ‘fell fast asleep’: the verb is repeated cc. 14, 15, 16, 17, infra.
ὡς λέγεται ὑπὸ Περσέων with the preceding κου seems to disclaim responsibility for the story which follows; yet the vision is ‘Homeric’ (Stein), and the formula for its appearance Herodotean (cp. 6. 117). The analogy with the dream of Agamemnon, Il. 2 ad init., has been often pointed out; Stein cites the figure of AIIATH on the Dareios vase (cp. c. 8 supra) as a parallel. It would have been a dangerous device to have identified the figure with Dareios, for example, as the shade of Dareios had already done duty otherwise in the Persai (cp. c. 11 supra); but the dream of Xerxes lacks concrete personality (contr. dream of Kyros, 1. 209). For the story, if authentic, only a Persian ‘provemence’ was possible; but Hdt.'s formula may be no more than a literary device, and the dream his own invention.
οὔτε ὁ συγγνωσόμενός τοι πάρα: the argument seems to demand rather οὔτε ὁ παρεὼν συγγνώσεταί τοι, a sense which may be got out of the words by taking πάρα=πάρειμι (with Stein) rather than = πάρεστι (neque adest qui consilium quod nunc iniisti sit probaturus, Schweigh.).
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