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λιπαρεούσης: c. 45 supra. ὑπὸ τοῦ νόμου ἐξεργόμενος: cp. άναγκαίῃ ἐξέργομαι 7. 96, 139 supra. As to the νόμος, Xerxes was not equal to the occasion, or his sages and councillors would have come to the rescue; cp. the Response of the Royal Justices 3. 31, τῷ βασιλεύοντι Περσἐων ἐξεῖναι ποιέειν τὸ ἂν βούληται. The two cases are not, indeed, precisely the same; but the moral is that the king was not bound by any law. Besides, τὸν χρηίζοντα (masc.) might have given them a loophole! ἀτυχῆσαι, ‘to fail’; the opposite of τυχεῖν, cp. c. 108 supra.
σφι: sc. τοῖσι Πέρσῃσι. δυνατόν: fas, 7. 149 supra. ‘O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings’ (Henry V. v. ii. 293). But Custom still was king o'the king of kings! Cp. 3. 38.
κατανεύει, frequent in Homer, but rare in prose (Plato, Rep. 350 E, seems to use the word literally. Here it may be used metaphorically, ‘assents’). ποιέει ὧδε ... ὃ δέ: the curtain rises upon the last act of the tragedy; the desperate effort of Xerxes to make things right with his brother, the barbarities of Amestris in her revenge, the splendid crime of Masistes, and the doom that just anticipates his treasonable success. ὃ δέ, cp. c. 108. 13 supra.
ποιέειν after ποιέει is rather thin.
Δαρείου: i.e. the son of Hystaspes. (Atossa is not mentioned, but cp. 7. 82.)
εἶς ἀνὴρ ἀγαθός: more, perhaps, than he could say for all his brothers. Masistes could scarcely have returned the compliment with truth.
δίδωμι θυγατέρα τὴν ἐμήν, ‘I offer you my daughter,’ in marriage; she is, therefore, niece to Masistes. Such near marriages were not illegal even in Sparta (cp. 7. 239 supra), much less in polygamous Persia.
ἔχεις: ἔχε, ‘have to wife’; cp. 7. 61. 13. δοκέει, ‘seems good.’
ἀποθωμάσας, ‘when he had recovered from his astonishment’; cp. 8. 65 supra.
ἄχρηστον: a meiosis, ‘injurious,’ inexpedient.
αὐτή τέ μοι κατὰ νόον ... ἐοῦσα: cp. the story of Anaxandridas 5. 39, who was allowed to retain his first wife. Masistes might be puzzled in Peisia to know why marrying the king's daughter should involve putting away his first wife (and might have suspeeted Xerxes of too personal an interest in the matter); but even in the Harem there is a chief wife or sultana, and this fact is perhaps taken for granted in the story.
γῆμαι, of the bridegroom （γημασθαι, of the bride; e.g. 4. 117). μεγάλα μὲν ποιεῦμαι, ‘account it greatness,’ ‘am highly lionoured’; the plural is observable, cp. 1. 119 μεγάλα ποιησάμενος.
μηδαμῶς βιῶ ... δεόμενος, ‘do not press (insist on) thy request.’
πέπρηκται: ita sane (οὕτω) actum est de te (Baehr); igitur hoc profecisti (Schweighaeuser); deine Sache steht jetzt so (Stein, taking οὕτω to refer to what follows).
ὡς μάθῃς τὰ διδόμενα δέκεσθαι, ‘that you may learn to accept what is offered to you.’ This must be almost a proverbial expression; cp. 8. 26, 137 supra.
εἴπας τοσόνδε ἐχώρεε ἔξω, ‘all he said before going out was . .’ οὐ δή κού με ἀπώλεσας; ‘can it be thou hast undone me?’ The v.l. κω gives a good sense: nondum sane me perdidisti (Baehr); ‘thou hast not yet taken my life’ (Rawlinson), i.e. there is still fight left in me; I am not at the end of my resources (of course with a period, not an interrogative); this well accords with the sequel.
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