Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Antigone

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ἐμοὶ γάρ. A ground for the preceding statement is introduced by γάρ, though the compression of the thought slightly obscures the connection. ‘A man cannot be known until he has been tested in power. For (“γὰρ”) a man in power may easily be deterred, by fear of unpopularity, from pursuing the counsels best for the State: and if he is so deterred, I think him worthless.’ πᾶσαν … πόλιν, the whole city, as 656 “πόλεως ... ἐκ πάσης”, 776 “πᾶσα...πόλις”, Ai. 851 “ἐν πάσῃ πόλει” (in the hearing of all the city). In prose the art. would have been added (cp. Thuc. 7.29 “τῇ πόλει πάσῃ”, 4. 87 “ξυμπάσῃ τῇ πόλει”, 2. 65 “ἡ ξύμπασα πόλις”); but its omission in poetry being so common, it is strange that “πᾶσαν” should have been suspected here.

μὴ … ἅπτεται, not “οὐ”, since the relative clause is general (‘such an one as does not...,’ Lat. qui with subjunct.): cp. O. C. 1175 “ἃ μὴ ι χρῄζεις”. Instead of ὅστις μὴ ἅπτεται we should more often find “ὅστις ἃν μὴ ἅπτηται”: yet the instances of the indic. after “ὅστις” in general statement are not rare even in prose; cp. Thuc. 2.64 “οἵτινες...ἥκιστα λυποῦνται, ἔργῳ δὲ μάλιστα ἀντέχουσιν”: ib. “ὅστις λαμβάνει.”

ἐκ φ. του: cp. 111 “νεικέων ἐξ ἀμφιλόγων.”

ἐγκλῄσας ἔχει (cp. 22),=a perf., in the sense ‘has shut once for all,’ ‘keeps shut.’ Distinguish the prose idiom, Dem. or. 9 § 12 “Φερὰς...ἔχει καταλαβών”, has seized, and keeps.

νῦν τε καὶ πάλαι, an emphatic formula (‘seems, and has always seemed’), El. 676, Ph. 966: cp. El. 1049 “πάλαι δέδοκται ταῦτα κοὐ νεωστί μοι”: Il. 9.105 “οἷον ἐγὼ νοέω, ἠμὲν πάλαι ἠδ᾽ ἔτι καὶ νῦν”.