Aristophanes Wasps 631

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.) — 631 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.) — 631 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

645. mvp-tlg0019-tlg004-sanjaya-com-eng1-29

Line 645

εἰς ἀπόφυξιν παλάμας.
The phrase εἰς ἀπόφυξιν παλάμας is an elliptical construction where the verb is supplied from the immediate context (likely a verb of 'stretching' or 'raising', such as ἐπιτείνω or ἀνέχω). The noun ἀπόφυξιν here functions not merely as 'escape' in the abstract, but specifically as a technical reference to the 'palm' (palma) gesture used in the context of the law courts or theatrical performance, where the raising of palms signifies a specific stance of defense or appeal. The use of the accusative of respect (or perhaps a peculiar accusative of the end with εἰς) to denote the specific physical action of the hands is a marked syntactic feature of Aristophanic comedy, compressing a complex physical description into a brief idiom that relies on the audience's familiarity with the physical gestures of the dikasteria.