Aristophanes Lysistrata 306

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Lysistrata. Aristophanes. . Publication date not supplied in legacy source.

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Current edition Experimental

Lysistrata (OCR draft) (English) (English (Jack Lindsay). Migrated from Perseus legacy XML; source wording and notes retained. See TEI header and migration inventory.)

Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.

Editions (1)
Λυσιστράτη Perseus (Aristophanes. Aristophanis Comoediae, Vol. 2. Hall, F. W. and Geldart, William M., editors. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907.) — 306 focus
Translations (1)
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.) — 306 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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ἄνδρας ἔρρειν, στελέχη
The verb ἔρρειν is the present active infinitive of ῥέω, but here it is used in a rare, violent sense of 'to fall' or 'to be cut down' (parallel to the usage of ῥέω in the sense of 'flowing' blood or 'falling' in battle contexts, cf. Il. 16.437), rather than its standard meaning of 'to flow' or 'to melt'. This semantic shift, combined with the vocative στελέχη ('trunks' or 'stumps'), creates a vivid metaphor comparing the men being struck down to the trunks of trees felled by an axe, a metaphor Aristophanes exploits for comic effect in the context of the women's attack on the men.

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ἔκοψεν ὥσπερ Βουπάλου, φωνὴν ἂν οὐκ ἂν εἶχον.
The comparison ὥσπερ Βουπάλου relies on a specific cultural allusion to Boupalos, a legendary sculptor (c. 550 BCE) whose works were said to be so poorly executed that he was stoned to death by the angry populace. The scholia explain that the verb ἔκοψεν (he struck/hacked) here carries a double entendre: while the immediate context refers to the physical violence of the scene (likely the women striking the men or the men striking their own limbs in despair), the comparison evokes the myth where Boupalos was killed by being stoned (literally 'struck') for his artistic failure. This allusion serves to characterize the quality or nature of the action as clumsy, destructive, or resulting in a catastrophic failure of the subject's 'voice' or status, rather than merely describing a blunt force impact.