Aristophanes Knights 911

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.) — 911 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.) — 911 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

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Line 935

ἐμπλήμενος φθαίης ἔτʼ εἰς
The form φθαίης is a second aorist subjunctive active of φθίνω (to perish, waste away), not the more common present φθείης. This aorist form, while attested in comedy (e.g., Aristoph. Eq. 1096, Thesm. 658), creates a semantic tension with the imperative ἐμπλήμενος (having been filled) in the same clause, suggesting a periphrastic or idiomatic construction where the 'filling' is immediately followed by the 'perishing' or 'wasting away' of the subject, likely in a context of overindulgence or gluttony. The syntax is rare for the aorist subjunctive following a perfect participle in this specific semantic configuration.

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ἐναποπνιγείης.
The verb ἐναποπνιγείης is a first aorist optative middle of ἐναποπνίγω, a compound formed with the prefix ἐν- ('in') and the root of πνίγω ('to choke'). In this context (Knights 1074), the character Demos uses it as a wish against the Paphlagonian (Cleon): 'may you be smothered in the mud.' The prefix ἐν- here intensifies the action to the point of total submersion, a usage that distinguishes it from the simple πνίγω. The optative form ἐναποπνιγείης, rather than the imperative, marks this as a third-person optative of wish (often used in curses), a construction that Aristophanes deploys for dramatic effect to convey the speaker's intense desire for the enemy's destruction.