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.
Wasps. Aristophanes. . 2026-09-08.