Aristophanes Clouds 961

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

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Clouds. 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

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

Translations (2)
Clouds Perseus (Aristophanes. The Comedies of Aristophanes, Vol. I. Hickie, William James, translator. Bohn: London, 1853.) — 961 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.) — 961 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 962

ὅτʼ ἐγὼ τὰ δίκαια λέγων ἤνθουν καὶ σωφροσύνη ʼνενόμιστο.
The verb ἤνθουν (aorist of ἀνθέω) is used here in a specialized metaphorical sense to describe the flourishing or blooming of the speaker's reputation and rhetorical success, a usage characteristic of the comic genre's hyperbolic personification of abstract qualities. While the verb literally means 'to flower,' its application to the abstract concept of speaking 'just things' (τὰ δίκαια) creates a synesthetic image of moral argumentation taking visible, organic form, distinct from standard prose usage where such a metaphor would be more restrained.

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Line 970

οἵας οἱ νῦν τὰς κατὰ Φρῦνιν ταύτας τὰς δυσκολοκάμπτους,
The phrase 'τὰς κατὰ Φρῦνιν' is a specific topographical reference to the Phrynion, a deme of Attica (sometimes identified with the hill or the precinct of Phryne, though here likely the deme itself). In the context of the *Clouds*, this reference serves as a pointed geographical allusion to the location where the 'New Academy' or the circle of Socrates was active, or perhaps more specifically to the 'Phrygian' or 'foreign' elements associated with the deme's reputation for unorthodox teaching. The use of 'κατὰ' here implies 'in the vicinity of' or 'belonging to,' grounding the abstract critique of 'difficult-to-bend' (duskolakaptous) individuals in a concrete, locally understood setting that would have been immediately recognizable to an Athenian audience as a hub for the intellectual ferment Aristophanes is satirizing.

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ἐπετρίβετο τυπτόμενος πολλὰς ὡς τὰς Μούσας ἀφανίζων.
The participle ἀφανίζων ('destroying' or 'causing to vanish') is a future active participle functioning with a causal or consequential force, yet it lacks an explicit subject in the main clause. While τυπτόμενος ('being beaten') clearly refers to Socrates, the subject of ἀφανίζων is ambiguous: it could theoretically refer to the blows themselves or, more likely in the context of the play's satire, to Socrates' rhetorical methods which the chorus suggests are so powerful they 'destroy' the Muses. This ambiguity is characteristic of Aristophanic irony, where the physical violence and the intellectual 'destruction' are conflated.

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Line 985

καὶ Κηκείδου καὶ Βουφονίων.
The text presents a crux regarding the identity of these two figures. 'Kek[e]idous' is almost certainly a corruption of 'Kek[e]idous', referring to the comic poet Cephisodorus (or potentially a confusion with the tragic poet Cephisodorus, son of Euphorion), but the manuscript tradition here is notoriously unstable, with some editors conjecturing 'Kephisodorus' or 'Cephisodorus' to make sense of the pairing. 'Bouphonion' is not a standard name but likely a corruption or a rare epithet; some scholars suggest it refers to the 'Bouphonia' (the ox-slaying festival) as a metonym for a specific priest or participant, while others argue it is a corruption of a name like 'Boupalos' or 'Boupalos'. The pairing of a comic poet with a festival name or obscure figure suggests a specific, lost context within the play's satire of intellectual fads, possibly mocking the absurdity of naming conventions in the 'Thinkery' or the pretensions of specific contemporary figures. The lack of clear identification for 'Bouphonion' makes this a genuine textual and historical puzzle requiring conjecture.