Aristophanes Wasps 367

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.) — 367 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.) — 367 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

368. mvp-tlg0019-tlg004-sanjaya-com-eng1-7

Line 368

ἡ δέ μοι Δίκτυννα συγγνώμην ἔχοι τοῦ δικτύου.
The word Δίκτυννα is a rare poetic epithet for the goddess Dike (Justice), here functioning as a pun on the noun δίκτυον (net). This wordplay relies on the mythological association of Dike with justice and the metaphorical use of 'net' to describe the legal traps or entanglements of the law, a theme central to the play's satire of the legal system.

369. mvp-tlg0019-tlg004-sanjaya-com-eng1-8

Line 369

ταῦτα μὲν πρὸς ἀνδρός ἐστʼ ἄνοντος ἐς σωτηρίαν.
The participle ἄνοντος (genitive singular present active of ἀνέω) here functions adverbially with the sense of 'pulling' or 'drawing' (specifically of a rope or sail), a usage distinct from the more common 'loosing' or 'opening' of the verb in other contexts. The phrase πρὸς ἀνδρός ἐστʼ ἄνοντος ἐς σωτηρίαν constitutes a rare syntactic construction where the preposition πρὸς governs the dative of the agent (ἀνδρός) in a periphrastic sense of 'in the presence of/under the direction of' a man who is actively hauling towards safety, rather than the more standard accusative of respect or simple dative of advantage. This specific nautical metaphor, likely alluding to the 'pulling of the ship' to safety, is contextually vital for understanding the chorus's description of the jurors' precarious position.