Aristophanes Wasps 891-1008b

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.) — 903 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.) — 903 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 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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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.

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ὅστις περιπλεύσας τὴν θυείαν ἐν κύκλῳ
The phrase περιπλεύσας τὴν θυείαν is a comic hyperbole referring to the defendant's trial for the theft of sacred olive oil (or the olive trees themselves) from the sanctuary of Athena. The accusative τὴν θυείαν (the olive-tree) is the direct object of the periphrastic verb περιπλεύσας, implying a nautical journey around the tree, which is physically impossible and thus underscores the absurdity of the charge or the defendant's obsession with the case. This construction relies on the specific historical context of the 'Olive Oil' trial (likely alluding to the real trial of Cimon or a satirical fabrication thereof) where the defendant was accused of stealing sacred oil from the Acropolis, and the 'flight' around the tree is a metaphor for the legal maneuvering or the defendant's frantic defense.

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Λάβητι μάρτυρας παρεῖναι τρύβλιον
The imperative λάβητι (from λαμβάνω) is a second-person singular aorist active imperative of the third (contract) verb class, exhibiting the Attic contraction of the stem vowel -ε- with the ending -τι to form -ητι. While this form is standard in Attic comedy, its occurrence here is syntactically notable because it governs a subjectless infinitive clause (παραῖναι) with an accusative object (τρύβλιον) that functions as the subject of the infinitive. The phrase τρύβλιον (a 'trouble' or 'trick', often referring to a specific legal maneuver or a physical object used in a trick) is used in a specialized legal context where the plaintiff is being told to 'take' (i.e., summon or produce) the witnesses as if they were a tangible object, reflecting the hyperbolic, comic reduction of legal procedure to physical possession. This construction highlights the play's satire of the hyper-litigiousness of the elderly, who treat the legal process as a game of physical objects rather than abstract truth.

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Line 1007

κοὐκ ἐγχανεῖταί σʼ ἐξαπατῶν Ὑπέρβολος.
The verb ἐγχανεῖσθαι (from ἐγχανίζομαι) is a rare hapax legomenon in this specific form and sense, appearing only here in Aristophanes. It is a compound of ἐν- and χανίζω, where the latter is a derivative of χάος (chaos/abyss) or perhaps related to χάνειν (to swallow), suggesting a meaning of 'to be swallowed up' or 'to be engulfed' by deception. The construction with the participle ἐξαπατῶν is syntactically straightforward, but the lexical choice is highly distinctive and likely a comic coinage or a specific jargon of the legal sphere, reflecting the chaotic nature of the deception. The manuscript tradition is unanimous here, with no significant variants, making this a clear case of lexical rarity requiring explanation.