Aristophanes Wasps 1060

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

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Wasps. 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

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

Translations (2)
Wasps (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Anonymous; 1938 compilation). Migrated from Perseus legacy XML; source wording and notes retained. See TEI header and migration inventory.) — 1060 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.) — 1060 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

1070. mvp-tlg0019-tlg004-sanjaya-com-eng1-55

Line 1070

σχῆμα κεὐρυπρωκτίαν.
The phrase σχῆμα κεὐρυπρωκτίαν presents a crux of textual transmission and comic morphology. The first word σχῆμα (form/appearance) is standard, but κεὐρυπρωκτίαν is a hapax legomenon (or near-hapax) in this specific orthography. The form is a compound of εὐρύς (wide) and πρῶκτος (rump/anus), a grotesque physical description typical of Aristophanic caricature. However, the prefix κε- is highly irregular; it likely represents a corruption of the particle καί (and) due to the following vowel, or a dialectal/colloquial intensifier, though some editors have conjectured the text should read simply εὐρυπρωκτίαν or a related form like εὐρυπρωκτῆς. The syntactic construction functions as an accusative of exclamation or description directed at a character (likely Philocleon), where the adjective is nominalized. The combination of the abstract noun σχῆμα with the obscene, compound adjective creates a jarring comic effect, highlighting the absurdity of the character's physical transformation or behavior.