Aristophanes Wasps 1127

Wasps. Aristophanes. . 2026-09-08.

Current edition Experimental

Commentary (Sanjaya, generated; selected passages) (OCR draft) (English) (Source: pnadelofficial/aristophanes-sanjaya, commit c319590c139e5603e71f0699caa0663d823af8ad. Machine-generated source annotations retained; see Sanjaya import audit for coverage and limitations.)

Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.

Editions (1)
Σφῆκες Perseus (Aristophanes. Aristophanis Comoediae, Vol. 1. Hall, F. W. and Geldart, William M., editors. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.) — 1122-1264 focus
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.) — 1122 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.) — 1122 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

1127. mvp-tlg0019-tlg004-sanjaya-com-eng1-60

Line 1127

καὶ γὰρ πρότερον ἐπανθρακίδων ἐμπλήμενος
The genitive plural ἐπανθρακίδων is a hapax legomenon in the Aristophanic corpus (and rare in general Attic), deriving from the adjective ἐπανθρακίτης (a 'soot-seller' or one who deals in charcoal). Here it functions as a substantive in the genitive of content (or measure), paralleling constructions like πλήρης ὕδατος. The term is significant for the comedic context of Philocleon's delirious transformation into a wasp, where he imagines himself as a creature of the earth or perhaps alludes to the soot-stained, subterranean conditions of the wasps' nest or the underworld, contrasting with the 'bright' civic life of the jury courts. The form is morphologically regular but semantically opaque without the specific lexical knowledge of the compound.