Aristophanes Knights 1231

ed. F. W. Hall, ed. William M. Geldart

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Knights. Aristophanes. ed. F. W. Hall, ed. William M. Geldart. Oxford. 1906.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The Annenberg CPB/Project.

Current edition Perseus

Ἱππῆς (Greek) (Aristophanes. Aristophanis Comoediae, Vol. 1. Hall, F. W. and Geldart, William M., editors. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.)

Translations (2)
Knights (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Anonymous; 1938 compilation). Migrated from Perseus legacy XML; source wording and notes retained. See TEI header and migration inventory.) — 1231 focus
English (Sanjaya, generated; selected passages) (OCR draft) Experimental (Source: pnadelofficial/aristophanes-sanjaya, commit c319590c139e5603e71f0699caa0663d823af8ad. Machine-generated source annotations retained; see Sanjaya import audit for coverage and limitations.) — 1231 focus

Commentary

Commentary (Sanjaya, generated; selected passages) (OCR draft) (Source: pnadelofficial/aristophanes-sanjaya, commit c319590c139e5603e71f0699caa0663d823af8ad. Machine-generated source annotations retained; see Sanjaya import audit for coverage and limitations.) focus

1263. mvp-tlg0019-tlg002-sanjaya-com-eng1-100

Line 1263

ἰδεῖν ἀμείνω τῇ Κεχηναίων πόλει.
The phrase τῇ Κεχηναίων πόλει presents a syntactic anomaly: the dative singular article τῇ is used with a genitive plural noun (Κεχηναίων, 'of the Kechenians') in apposition to the implied 'city' (πόλει). While the genitive plural is standard for the city's name (the Kechenians being the inhabitants), the dative singular article agrees with πόλει, creating a 'mixed' construction where the attribute is in the genitive while the head noun is in the dative. This is not a standard genitive of definition or partitive, but rather an idiomatic usage where the people's name functions as a genitive attribute to the city, with the case of the whole phrase determined by the syntactic role of 'city' (here, dative of advantage or comparison). This construction is rare in Attic prose and poetry, where the genitive of the city name (Κεχηναίων) would typically be used without the article, or the dative of the city name itself would be used if it were a proper noun in the dative. The presence of the article τῇ before the genitive plural is a marked feature that may reflect a specific dialectal or metrical adaptation, or it may be a scribal error for τῶν Κεχηναίων πόλει (dative plural) or τῇ Κεχηνίᾳ πόλει (dative singular proper noun). The ambiguity lies in whether the author intended a genitive of definition (the city of the Kechenians) with a dative article, or if the article is a misreading of a different form. This construction warrants scrutiny in textual criticism, as it does not align with standard Attic usage and may indicate a corruption or a rare dialectal feature.