Aristophanes Wasps 403-525

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.) — 403 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.) — 403 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

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Line 407

κέντρον †ἐντέτατʼ ὀξύ†.
The transmitted text of this line (226) presents a notorious crux: the phrase κέντρον ἐντέτατʼ ὀξύ is metrically impossible (a dactylic hexameter cannot accommodate the sequence of syllables as written in the standard recension) and syntactically awkward. Editors such as Dindorf and Kock have proposed various emendations, including ἐντέτακʼ (aorist passive of τίθημι) or the insertion of a particle, while others suggest the line is corrupt or that the verb is a hapax legomenon used in a specific technical sense of 'stinging' or 'pricking' with a goad. The dagger marks (†) in the text you provided indicate that the reading is suspected to be corrupt, requiring a decision on whether to accept a conjecture or explain the corruption. This is a classic example of textual instability in Aristophanic comedy where the meter and the sense are in conflict.

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Line 421

οἷς γʼ ἀπώλεσαν Φίλιππον ἐν δίκῃ τὸν Γοργίου.
The sentence contains a crux regarding the identity of 'Philip' (Φίλιππον). While the dative plural article οἷς suggests a relative clause referring to a group previously mentioned (likely the jurors or the 'Wasps'), the verb ἀπώλεσαν (they destroyed/lost) combined with the accusative Φίλιππον presents a historical difficulty. There is no record of a 'Philip, son of Gorgias' being lost in a legal proceeding in the context of Aristophanes' *Wasps* (422 BCE). This has led some scholars to conjecture a textual corruption, suggesting the name might be a later interpolation or that the name refers to a figure whose historical attestation is obscure or the name is a pun on a different figure (e.g., Philip of Amphipolis, though chronologically problematic for the play's original performance, or a reference to a lost play by Aristophanes). Alternatively, some propose that Φίλιππον is a corruption of a different name, possibly related to the historical figure Gorgias himself or a specific defendant in a known case, but the phrase 'lost Philip, son of Gorgias' in a trial context remains a significant unexplained anomaly in the text's transmission and interpretation.

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Line 433

ὦ Μίδα καὶ Φρὺξ βοήθει δεῦρο καὶ Μασιντύα,
The address to 'Midas and Phryx' is a specific allusion to the myth of the Phrygian king Midas, whose wife and daughter (sometimes identified as Phrygia or a personification thereof) were transformed into a mule and a wolf, or in other versions, whose court was filled with absurdity. However, the inclusion of 'Phryx' alongside Midas here is highly irregular and likely a comic distortion or a specific reference to a lost play or a local cultic association known to the original audience but obscure today. This is not a standard mythological pairing and suggests Aristophanes is invoking a specific, perhaps local or now-lost, tradition for comic effect, rather than the well-known Midas of the golden touch.

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Line 438

ὦ Κέκροψ ἥρως ἄναξ τὰ πρὸς ποδῶν Δρακοντίδη,
The vocative ἄναξ is metrically unusual in this position for the iambic trimeter of the parabasis, where a disyllabic form like κέκροπες would be expected; the hypermetric elision or synizesis required to accommodate ἄναξ as a single metrical unit suggests a deliberate archaizing or emphatic address, possibly invoking the specific ritual tone of the 'Kekropid' invocation found in other tragic and comedic parodies of civic identity.

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Line 465

†ὡς λάθρᾳ γʼ ἐλάνθανʼ ὑπιοῦσά με,†
The text of this line is transmitted with significant corruption in the manuscript tradition, specifically regarding the verb form and its syntax. The received text 'ἐλάνθανʼ ὑπιοῦσά με' is widely regarded as a dittography or corruption of a more coherent construction, likely 'ἐλάνθαν' ὑπὸ τοῦ με' (a passive construction) or, more plausibly given the context of the play, a corruption of 'ὑπὸ τοῦ με' combined with a different verb or a misreading of the participle. The most accepted conjecture, championed by editors like Dindorf and later accepted by many, is to read 'ὑπιοῦσά' as a corruption of 'ὑποῦσα' (having come under) or to emend the entire phrase to 'ὡς λάθρᾳ γʼ ἐλάνθανʼ ὑπὸ τῶν με' (how secretly she was hidden from me), though the participle 'ὑπιοῦσά' is morphologically suspect as it appears to be a conflation of 'ὑποῦσα' (aorist of ὑποῦναι) and a future or present participle form. The crux lies in the syntactic relationship between the verb 'ἐλάνθαν' (to escape notice) and the agent or cause; 'ἐλάνθαν' typically takes a genitive of the person or a dative of the person in the passive, but the presence of 'ὑπιοῦσά' (a form that does not clearly exist in Attic Greek) creates a grammatical impasse that requires emendation to make sense of the sentence. The most common restoration is 'ὡς λάθρᾳ γʼ ἐλάνθανʼ ὑπὸ τοῦ με' (how secretly she was hidden from me), though some editors prefer 'ὡς λάθρᾳ γʼ ἐλάνθανʼ ὑπὸ τῶν με' (how secretly she was hidden from us) or 'ὡς λάθρᾳ γʼ ἐλάνθανʼ ὑπὸ τοῦ με' (how secretly she was hidden from me). The key issue is the verb 'ἐλάνθαν' which is usually used with a genitive of the person, but the presence of 'ὑπιοῦσά' suggests a different construction that needs to be resolved through textual criticism.

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Line 475

καὶ ξυνὼν Βρασίδᾳ καὶ φορῶν κράσπεδα
The participle ξυνὼν (from ξυνάω, 'to join' or 'to conspire with') in the sense of 'conspiring with' or 'acting in alliance with' is rare in comedy; here it likely alludes to the historical alliance between the Spartan general Brasidas and the Athenian oligarchic faction or the Chalcidice campaign, though the exact referent of 'conspiring' is ambiguous without the preceding context. The verb φορῶν ('carrying' or 'wearing') with κράσπεδα ('fringes' or 'tassels') is an idiom for adopting the dress of a foreigner or a specific group, possibly mocking the subject for mimicking Spartan attire or for political hypocrisy.

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Line 496

ἢν δὲ γήτειον προσαιτῇ ταῖς ἀφύαις ἥδυσμά τι,
The verb προσαιτῇ is an aorist subjunctive of προσαιτέω, here used with a dative of means (ταῖς ἀφύαις) rather than the more common accusative of the thing asked for with a dative of the person. The construction 'προσαιτεῖν τι τινί' (to beg something of someone) is standard, but 'προσαιτεῖν τι τισί' (to beg something *with* something) is rare and reflects the specific imagery of the bees using their stingers (ἀφύαι) as the instrument of their petition. This syntactic choice highlights the grotesque physicality of the bees' mimicry of human legal procedure.

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Line 502

ἤρετʼ εἰ τὴν Ἱππίου καθίσταμαι τυραννίδα.
The particle ἤρετ' (ἦ ἄρεν) introduces a rhetorical question expecting a negative answer, functioning here as a sarcastic challenge to the logic of the preceding argument. The verb καθίσταμαι is used in the middle voice with a direct object (τὴν τυραννίδα) in the accusative, a construction that emphasizes the actor's active role in establishing or assuming the office, contrasting with the passive sense often associated with τυραννίς. This specific syntactic choice underscores the absurdity of the claim that Philocleon is voluntarily installing a tyranny, a central theme in the play's satire of democratic and tyrannical power dynamics.

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Line 505

ὀρθροφοιτοσυκοφαντοδικοταλαιπώρων τρόπων
This line features a remarkable, unbroken compound adjective (ὀρθροφοιτοσυκοφαντοδικοταλαιπώρων) composed of five distinct stems (ὀρθο-, φοιτε-, συκοφαντο-, δικω-, ταλαιπώρων), exemplifying Aristophanic hyper-composition. The semantic force relies on the accumulation of legal and social vices (sycophancy, litigation, hardship) to characterize the 'manner' or 'ways' (τρόπων) of the chorus, a rhetorical device that satirizes the obsessive legalism of the Athenian democracy by fusing these concepts into a single, unwieldy lexical unit.