Aristophanes Wasps 885

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.) — 885 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.) — 885 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

895. mvp-tlg0019-tlg004-sanjaya-com-eng1-45

Line 895

κύων Κυδαθηναιεὺς Λάβητʼ Αἰξωνέα
The name Κυδαθηναιεὺς (Kudathenaieus) is a patronymic derived from the deme Kuda (or Kydathenaion), a common practice in Old Comedy to identify dogs by their owners' deme names rather than personal names. Here, it specifically refers to the dog Labes (Λάβητʼ, accusative of Λάβης), whose owner was the Athenian citizen of the Kuda-deme. The accusative form Λάβητʼ is a crasis of Λάβην, and Αἰξωνέα (Aixonea) is the accusative of Αἰξωνεύς, another deme name, indicating that the dog Labes is being associated with or perhaps having been taken to the deme of Aixone. This usage reflects the comedic trope of assigning human civic identities to animals, a device used to satirize Athenian social and political life.

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Line 897

τὸν Σικελικόν. τίμημα κλῳὸς σύκινος.
The phrase κλῳὸς σύκινος (a fig-tree's fleece) is a strikingly rare and ironic metaphor. The adjective σύκινος (from σύκον, 'fig') modifies κλῶν (fleece/wool) to denote a garment woven from the fibers of the fig tree, which was a known, albeit archaic or rustic, material in Greek tradition, often associated with the earliest, pre-wool clothing of heroes or a rustic simplicity. Here, it serves as a hyperbolic, mock-serious valuation of the Sicilian war's cost, reducing a massive military expenditure to the value of a humble, perhaps mythical, garment, highlighting the absurdity of the Chorus's (and the play's) obsession with petty financial details in the face of imperial overreach.