Aristophanes Wasps 760-862

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.) — 760 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.) — 760 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 789

ἐλθὼν διεκερματίζετʼ ἐν τοῖς ἰχθύσιν,
The verb διεκερματίζετʼ (from κερματίζω, 'to cut into pieces' or 'to chop up') with the preposition ἐν ('among' or 'in the midst of') creates a vivid, grotesque image of the subject physically tearing apart the fish. This usage is characteristic of Aristophanic bodily humor and hyperbole, where the verb implies a violent, chaotic dismemberment rather than simple consumption, likely describing a gluttonous or frenzied feast scene.

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Line 790

κἄπειτʼ ἐνέθηκε τρεῖς λοπίδας μοι κεστρέων·
The noun λοπίς (lopis) is a rare hapax legomenon in Aristophanes, occurring here in the plural λοπίδας. While the word is generally glossed as 'splinter' or 'chip of wood,' in the context of the bee-simulation, it specifically denotes the wooden stings or darts used by the wasps (the chorus) to torment Philocleon, playing on the etymological connection to the wasp's sting (κέρας) and the physical reality of the 'wooden horses' or torture devices. The genitive κεστρέων (of the wasps) acts as a possessive, but the construction implies the wasps themselves are the source of these wooden projectiles, a metaphorical extension of their stinging nature into the domestic torture of the trial.

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Line 828

ἡ Θρᾷττα προσκαύσασα πρώην τὴν χύτραν —
The term Θρᾷττα (Thratta) is a specific designation for a Thracian slave, a figure type frequently employed in Old Comedy to represent the 'barbarian' household staff. In this context, the designation is not merely descriptive but functions as a metonymic marker for the character's role as a domestic servant who manages the household hearth (the 'cooking' of the pot), reflecting the Athenian anxiety and familiarity with the presence of non-Greek slaves in the oikos. The use of the aorist participle προσκαύσασα (having added fuel to) is syntactically standard for an action preceding the main verb, but semantically it highlights the immediate, active agency of the slave in the domestic sphere, contrasting with the passive role often assigned to female citizens in the same period.

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Line 844b

χοιροκομεῖον Ἑστίας.
The phrase χοιροκομεῖον Ἑστίας ('the pig-shearing of Hestia') is a rare and jarring collocation. While χοιροκομεῖον (literally a place for shearing pigs, or perhaps a specific ritual cutting) appears elsewhere in comedy as a nonsense word or a pun, its attribution to Hestia is highly irregular. Hestia is the goddess of the hearth and domestic order, typically associated with the sacrificial fire and the domestic hearth itself, not the slaughter or shearing of pigs. This likely represents a comic distortion of the ritual of the 'Hestia' festival or a specific, perhaps local, sacrifice where a pig was offered, twisted by Aristophanes to sound like a bureaucratic or absurdly technical term for a specific, perhaps illicit, domestic activity. The phrase may also be a pun on the word χοιροκομεῖον as a place where pigs are 'shorn' (i.e., killed) for the hearth, playing on the double meaning of 'shearing' as both cutting wool and slaughtering animals in a comic, euphemistic sense.

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Line 853

ὁτιὴ ʼπελαθόμην τοὺς καδίσκους ἐκφέρειν.
The form ὁτιὴ is a crux of textual transmission. While some manuscripts (e.g., Venetus A) read ὁτιὶ or ὅτι, the reading ὁτιὴ (a dialectal or metrical variant of ὅτι with an aspirate) is attested in the tradition but widely considered a corruption or a scribal attempt to represent the colloquial pronunciation of the particle. The more robust textual tradition, supported by the context of the character Bdelycleon's mockery of his father's dialect, often favors ὅτι or the dative form ὅτινι in similar constructions, though the specific reading ὁτιὴ here highlights the play's engagement with phonetic variation in Attic speech.

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Line 855

ἐγὼ γὰρ εἶχον τούσδε τοὺς ἀρυστίχους.
The adjective ἀρυστίχους is a hapax legomenon in Aristophanes, derived from the verb ἀρυστός (drawn up) or potentially related to the noun ἄρυστος (drawn, as in a list). In the context of the play, where Bdelycleon is listing the crimes of the old men, this likely refers to the 'list of charges' or 'indictment' drawn up against them, playing on the technical legal sense of drawing up a bill of indictment (ἄρρησις). The term is highly specialized, marking the specific legal procedure of compiling a list of accusations, which is central to the satirical critique of the law courts in the play.