ἔκ τε may have been preferred by the poet to ἐκ δὲ on account of “τανῦν δ̓.”
βρύοντα, luxuriant (with foliage): cp. Il. 17. 56（“ἔρνος”) “βρύει ἄνθεϊ”: O. C. 16 n.
ᾧ … γενέσθαι: for the inf. in a relative clause of oratio obliqua, cp. Her. 6. 117“ἄνδρα οἱ δοκέειν ὁπλίτην ἀντιστῆναι μέγαν, τοῦ τὸ γένειον τὴν ἀσπίδα πᾶσαν σκιάζειν”. Thuc. 2. 102“λέγεται δὲ καὶ Ἀλκμαίωνι..., ὅτε δὴ ἀλᾶσθαι αὐτὸν..., τὸν Ἀπόλλω...χρῆσαι κ.τ.λ.”
The vision resembles that of Astyages, who dreamed that a vine sprang from his daughter Mandanè, the wife of Cambyses, “τὴν δὲ ἄμπελον ἐπισχεῖν τὴν Ἀσίην πᾶσαν”. The “ὀνειροπόλοι” explained this to mean that her son (Cyrus) should reign in his grandfather's stead. ( Her. 1. 108.) The spreading branches figure also in the dream of Xerxes (7. 19): “ἐδόκεε...ἐστεφανῶσθαι ἐλαίης θαλλῷ, ἀπὸ δὲ τῆς ἐλαίης τοὺς κλάδους γῆν πᾶσαν ἐπισχεῖν”.
In choosing the sceptre of Agamemnon as the stock from which the wondrous growth is put forth, Sophocles may have had in mind the words of Achilles ( Il. 1. 234 ff.); “ναὶ μὰ τόδε σκῆπτρον: τὸ μὲν οὔποτε φύλλα καὶ ὄζους” | “φύσει, ἐπεὶ δὴ πρῶτα τομὴν ἐν ὄρεσσι λέλοιπεν”, | “οὐδ᾽ ἀναθηλήσει”.
