Aristophanes Clouds 133

William James Hickie (Translator)

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Clouds. Aristophanes. William James Hickie (Translator). London. 1853.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The Annenberg CPB/Project.

Current edition Perseus

Clouds (English) (Aristophanes. The Comedies of Aristophanes, Vol. I. Hickie, William James, translator. Bohn: London, 1853.)

Editions (1)
Νεφέλαι Perseus (Aristophanes. Aristophanis Comoediae, Vol. 1. Hall, F. W. and Geldart, William M., editors. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.) — 133 focus
Translations (1)
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.) — 133 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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ἀνήρετʼ αὐτὸν Χαιρεφῶν ὁ Σφήττιος
The aorist indicative ἀνήρετ' (from ἀναίρω, 'to lift up' or 'to slay') is metrically contracted here to fit the iambic trimeter; the form ἀνήρεν would be expected in the uncontracted sequence, but the elision of the final nu before the vowel of the following name Χαιρεφῶν is standard in the comic tradition. The verb's usage here, implying 'to kill' or 'to murder' rather than the more common 'to lift up,' is a specific semantic development in Aristophanic comedy, often associated with the chaotic violence of the trial scenes in the Clouds.

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κατὰ τὸ στόμʼ ᾄδειν ἢ κατὰ τοὐρροπύγιον.
The phrase κατὰ τοὐρροπύγιον ('in the rump-hole') presents a striking example of Aristophanic bathos, juxtaposing the elevated act of singing (ᾄδειν) with the most vulgar anatomical location. The construction κατὰ + accusative here denotes the manner or locus of the action with aggressive physicality, a hallmark of the comic genre's subversion of the 'mouth' (στόμʼ) as the proper organ for vocal performance. This specific collocation appears in the Clouds (line 1338) during the contest between the Just and Unjust Logos, where the Unjust Logos argues that one should sing from the anus to avoid the 'moral' constraints of the mouth, a grotesque inversion of the philosophical ideal of the 'speaking head' versus the 'thinking body'.

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ἔφασκεν εἶναι τοὔντερον τῆς ἐμπίδος
The phrase τοὔντερον is a crasis of τὸ ἔντερον, literally 'the inside part' or 'the innards.' In this context, where Strepsiades is mocking Socrates' astronomical theories, the term is used ironically to refer to the Earth (or perhaps the celestial sphere) as a physical object located 'inside' or 'at the bottom' of the cosmos, contrasting with the traditional view of the Earth as the central, stable ground. The specific choice of ἔντερον (often associated with entrails) rather than a more standard geographical term like μέση or γῆ adds a layer of grotesque physicality to the comic description of the cosmos, suggesting the Earth is merely a bloated organ within the larger body of the universe, a metaphor consistent with the play's satirical treatment of natural philosophy.

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ὅστις δίοιδε τοὔντερον τῆς ἐμπίδος.
The form δίοιδε is a Doric aorist indicative active of διόιδω (to go through), contrasting with the Attic δίοισεν. In Aristophanes' comic dialect, this Doricism is a deliberate marker of the rustic character Strepsiades, who is being mocked for his lack of sophistication, while the verb itself is rare in Attic prose, appearing primarily in dialectal or comic contexts to denote a vigorous, often clumsy, passage through a space.

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ζητοῦντος αὐτοῦ τῆς σελήνης τὰς ὁδοὺς
The construction employs the genitive absolute (ζητοῦντος αὐτοῦ τῆς σελήνης τὰς ὁδοὺς) with a transitive verb (ζητεῖν) governing a direct object (τὰς ὁδοὺς) while the subject of the participle is the same as the implied subject of the main clause. This is syntactically irregular because the genitive absolute typically requires the subject of the participle to be distinct from the subject of the main clause; here, it functions almost as a nominative absolute or a causal clause with a shared subject, a feature rare in Aristophanes and potentially reflecting a specific stylistic license or a corruption in the transmitted text.

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ἥσθην γαλεώτῃ καταχέσαντι Σωκράτους.
The phrase καταχέσαντι is an aorist active participle of καταχέω, 'to pour down' or 'to drench,' used here in a comic, hyperbolic sense to describe the act of dousing Socrates with water as part of the punishment for his 'theological' inquiries. The construction employs a dative of agent with the aorist participle, a rare syntactic choice in Attic prose but characteristic of Aristophanic comic exaggeration, where the participle functions almost as a verbal noun of action. The use of γαλεώτῃ, 'with a water-skin,' further underscores the absurdity of the scene, as it implies a crude, almost animalistic method of punishment.
The verb ἥσθην, the aorist passive of ἄρχω, is here used in a non-standard sense, meaning 'to be drenched' or 'to be soaked,' rather than its usual meaning of 'to begin' or 'to rule.' This usage is a rare and deliberate comic distortion of the verb, typical of Aristophanes' linguistic playfulness, and serves to emphasize the physical and metaphorical 'drowning' of Socrates in the context of the Clouds' judgment.