Aristophanes Clouds 1382

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Clouds. Aristophanes. . 2026-09-08.

Current edition Experimental

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

Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.

Editions (1)
Νεφέλαι Perseus (Aristophanes. Aristophanis Comoediae, Vol. 1. Hall, F. W. and Geldart, William M., editors. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.) — 1345-1451 focus
Translations (2)
Clouds Perseus (Aristophanes. The Comedies of Aristophanes, Vol. I. Hickie, William James, translator. Bohn: London, 1853.) — 1386 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.) — 1386 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

1382. mvp-tlg0019-tlg003-sanjaya-com-eng1-94

Line 1382

εἰ μέν γε βρῦν εἴποις, ἐγὼ γνοὺς ἂν πιεῖν ἐπέσχον·
The clause presents a striking example of the optative of potentiality in a protasis (εἰ μέν γε βρῦν εἴποις) followed by a periphrastic future perfect construction in the apodosis (ἐγὼ γνοὺς ἂν πιεῖν ἐπέσχον). The verb ἐπέσχον (aorist indicative) here functions as a gnomic aorist or a specific historical aorist of the narrator's past action, yet it is governed by the conditional particle ἄν attached to the participle γνοὺς, creating a hybrid construction where the apodosis describes a completed action (holding back) that was contingent upon a hypothetical condition. This syntactic blending of the aorist indicative with the optative conditional framework is rare in Attic prose and distinctively characteristic of Aristophanic comedy, where the speaker (Strepsiades) mimics the convoluted, hyper-logical rhetoric of the Sophists while simultaneously admitting to a literal, physical reaction to the absurdity of the word 'cloud' (βρῦν) being spoken.