This verb is translated as plunged the dagger into her heart in 7, 3, 14, but I would normally think that she cut her throat. Further in the same place, the verb in the impf περιεκἀλυπτεν is probably an example of how indifferent sometimes Greek is in its use of impf/ ao.
I think the aorist ἀνωλοφύρατό is ingressive (i.e. it refers to her beginning to wail) and the imperfect περιεκάλυπτεν immediative (as the CGCG calls it in 33.52 with note 1, instead of inceptive/inchoative) - the point being that the division between the two actions wasn’t clear (I don’t imagine she wailed, stopped wailing, and then covered them, which I suppose would have been expressed by two aorists)?
i have to think about that
I think it’s a good point that the division between the two actions wasn’t clear, and matching tense would have made it look so. But I think that works more on the περιεκάλυπτεν, driving it into imperfect, rather than ἀνωλοφύρατο to aorist. It’s not impossible that it’s ingressive, but I don’t think that it is.
The thing is, I think that ἀνολοφύρομαι functions differently than ὀλοφύρομαι, normally present. Although the LSJ just fluffs the word, I think that the ἀνά is actually doing something here. It’s not, as the LSJ has it “bewail aloud”. But “wail after” something. The verb has a target, and is driven to the aorist. Look at the other uses:
Thuc: γενομένης δὲ ἐκκλησίας τήν τε ἰδίαν ξυμφορὰν τῆς φυγῆς ἐπῃτιάσατο καὶ ἀνωλοφύρατο ὁ Ἀλκιβιάδης…
Plat: …ἀγαπήσαις ἂν εἰ ἐντύχοις Εὐρυβάτῳ καὶ Φρυνώνδᾳ, καὶ ἀνολοφύραι’ ἂν ποθῶν τὴν τῶν ἐνθάδε ἀνθρώπων πονηρίαν.
A similar word would be our word “holler” in English. “She is hollering” and “she hollers” have temporal extent, to my ear. The simple action is possible, but the extended act is the more usual. However, when the songstress adds the equivalent to ἀνά preposition here, she sings of “hollaback”, not “hollering back” maidens. The simple act, or aorist in Greek.