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ἐν δὲ τούτῳ κτλ.: the second pitiless scene in this act of the tragedy: non tamen intus | digna geri promes in scaenam, multaque tolles | ex oculis, quae mox narret facundia praesens (Hor. de A. p. 182 ff.). What a meeting between the faithful wife and her fond husband! What vows of vengeance by the stalwart sons, what tears and lamentation of the daughters, over the mother's dying bed! What self-reproaches of the guilty one before her self-inflicted end! It is in a way strange that no Greek playwright ever utilized the material lying to his hand in the pages of Hdt.
διαλυμαίνεται: the simple verb λυμαίνεσθαι is common, cp. 8. 28 supra; the prep., of course, strengthens it. The perfect part. infra is passive.
τούς τε μαζούς: cp. 4. 202. If the ἀποταμοῦσα is taken to extend down as far as χείλεα, and the ἐκταμοῦσα as applying only to γλῶσσαν, there is grammatically an asyndeton; probably the καί after προέβαλε connects that verb with ἀποπέμπει and ἐκταμοῦσα ‘governs’ ῥῖνα, ὦτα, χείλεα as well as γλῶσσαν. But the sentence is unsightly from every point of view. It sounds barbarous, savage, unhellenic enough; but it curiously resembles the threat of Antinoos to Iros, Od. 18. 84 ff. πέμψω σ᾽ ἤπειρόνδε, βαλὼν ἐν νηὶ μελαίνῃ, | εἰς Ἔχετον βασιλῆα, βροτῶν δηλήμονα πάντων, ὅς κ̓ ἀπὸ ῥῖνα τάμῃσι καὶ οὕατα νηλέι χαλκῷ, | μήδεά τ᾽ ἐξερύσας δώῃ κυσὶν ὠμὰ δάσασθαι.
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