270.
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πάσας, ὑπὸ ψήφου μιᾶς, πρώτην δὲ τὴν Λύκωνος.
The phrase ὑπὸ ψήφου μιᾶς (by a single vote) is a pointed allusion to the procedural mechanism of ostracism or, more likely in the context of the play's climax, the specific, singular vote of the Athenian assembly that determines the fate of the peace treaty. The construction emphasizes the precariousness of the decision, reducing a monumental political outcome to a single ballot, a rhetorical device Aristophanes uses to satirize the volatility of Athenian democracy. The addition of 'first of all' (πρώτην δὲ) followed by 'that of Lykon' (τὴν Λύκωνος) identifies Lykon as the specific individual whose vote was decisive or perhaps the one whose proposal was accepted first, serving as a satirical jab at a real political figure known for his involvement in the peace negotiations or the oligarchic factions, though the text does not specify the exact historical moment without further context from the play's performance date.
274.
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Line 274
ἐπεὶ οὐδὲ Κλεομένης, ὃς αὐτὴν κατέσχε πρῶτος,
The relative clause ὃς αὐτὴν κατέσχε πρῶτος refers to Cleomenes seizing the Acropolis (αὐτήν) in 404 BCE. The use of the aorist κατέσχε (from καταλαμβάνω) is precise: it denotes the initial, successful seizure of the citadel by the Spartan general under Lysander's command, an event that marks the transition to the rule of the Thirty Tyrants. The adverb πρῶτος emphasizes that this was the first Spartan occupation, distinguishing it from the earlier, failed attempts or the subsequent, more oppressive garrisoning. This specific phrasing relies on the audience's knowledge of the immediate post-war political landscape of Athens.
275.
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Line 275
The particle ἀλλʼ here introduces a correction or contrast to the preceding clause. While often translated simply as 'but', in this context it signals a shift from the description of the character's arrival ('she came from there without being touched') to the revelation of her actual state or a counter-intuitive fact that follows. The elision of the alpha in 'ἀλλʼ' before the vowel 'α' of the following word is a standard prosodic feature, but the syntactic force of the particle is crucial for understanding the dramatic irony: the speaker's initial claim is immediately qualified or contradicted by what follows.
279.
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The participle ῥυπῶν (stinking, foul-smelling) modifies the subject of the sentence, describing the state of the person drinking. This is a striking and grotesque detail in the context of the play, where Lysistrata and the women are withholding sex from the men as part of their peace protest. The men, in their desperation, are depicted as so desperate and uncouth that they are drinking from a cup while emitting a foul odor, highlighting the absurdity and degradation of their situation.
313.
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τίς ξυλλάβοιτʼ ἂν τοῦ ξύλου τῶν ἐν Σάμῳ στρατη γῶν;
The phrase τῶν ἐν Σάμῳ στρατηγῶν refers to the Athenian generals stationed at Samos following the expedition of 440/439 BCE. While the specific individuals are not named here, the reference relies on the audience's knowledge of the political tension between the democratic faction in Athens and the oligarchic sympathizers among the army at Samos, a context that became explosive during the Peloponnesian War. The genitive construction τῶν στρατηγῶν depends on the implied context of the 'wood' (ξύλου), likely a reference to the timber used for building ships or fortifications, or metaphorically to the 'wooden wall' of the fleet, though the specific crux here is the genitive of the generals as the possessor or subject of the action regarding the wood. The syntax τῶν στρατηγῶν is a genitive of the persons concerned, a construction that requires the reader to infer the relationship between the generals and the 'wood' without an explicit preposition, a nuance that is not immediately obvious without knowledge of the specific historical situation at Samos.
318.
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τοῦ νῦν παρεστῶτος θράσους θέσθαι τροπαῖον ἡμᾶς.
The construction θέσθαι τροπαῖον (to set up a trophy) with τοῦ παρεστῶτος θράσους (of the present boldness) is a striking metonymic inversion: the abstract quality of 'boldness' is treated as the enemy force defeated, rather than a physical army. In standard military usage (e.g., Thucydides), trophies mark the defeat of a specific opposing army or fleet; here, the 'trophy' is erected against the audacity of the Peloponnesians themselves. This reflects the play's comic logic where the 'war' is sexual and domestic, yet Aristophanes employs high-register military terminology to elevate the stakes of the women's strike, effectively treating the 'boldness' (θράσος) as the tangible enemy entity to be vanquished.
336.
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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.
361.
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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.
391.
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ἔλεγε δʼ ὁ μὴ ὥρασι μὲν Δημόστρατος
The phrase ὁ μὴ ὥρασι μὲν Δημόστρατος contains a crux of textual transmission and syntax. The manuscript tradition is divided between readings that include ὁ (the) and those that omit it, and the placement of the article relative to the name Δημόστρατος creates a syntactic ambiguity: is Δημόστρατος the subject of the main verb ἔλεγε, or is the phrase 'ὁ μὴ ὥρασι μὲν Δημόστρατος' a genitive absolute or a displaced nominative with an elliptical verb? The construction 'ὁ μὴ ὥρασι' (the one who was not in season/prime) is a known Aristophanic formula for describing a man past his prime, but the juxtaposition with the name Δημόστρατος (a common Athenian name) requires clarification: is this a specific reference to Demosthenes the orator (who was indeed active in the early 4th century, making the 'out of season' remark ironic), or is it a generic character? The most widely accepted emendation, supported by the scholia, treats 'Δημόστρατος' as the subject of 'ἔλεγε', with 'ὁ μὴ ὥρασι μὲν' as a parenthetical characterization, but the lack of a clear predicate for the character in this fragment suggests a possible lacuna or corruption in the transmitted text, where the verb 'ἔλεγε' may belong to a different clause or the name may be a later gloss. The ambiguity is compounded by the fact that 'ὥρασι' (in the dative plural) can mean 'at the right time' or 'in the prime of life,' but the negation 'μὴ' makes the phrase literally 'not in the seasons,' which is idiomatically awkward without the article 'ὁ' functioning as a substantive. This passage is a textbook example of how Aristophanic comedy often relies on elliptical constructions that are difficult to parse without external context or conjecture.
396.
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κόπτεσθʼ Ἄδωνιν φησίν· ὁ δʼ ἐβιάζετο
The imperative κόπτεσθʼ (middle/passive of κόπτω) is a rare and striking usage here, meaning 'to strike oneself' or 'to beat one's breast' in a gesture of extreme grief, rather than the more common transitive 'to strike (something)'. This specific construction, coupled with the accusative of the person or thing being struck (Ἄδωνιν, referring to the god Adonis), evokes the ritual lamentations of women for Adonis, a foreign cult practice that Aristophanes frequently targets as effeminate or foreign. The contrast between the imperative command and the following clause ὁ δʼ ἐβιάζετο ('but he was being forced' or 'but he was resisting') highlights the tension between the performative grief demanded by the ritual context and the reluctant or forced nature of the male character's participation in a scene typically reserved for women.
439.
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εἴ τἄρα νὴ τὴν Πάνδροσον ταύτῃ μόνον
The oath formula 'νὴ τὴν Πάνδροσον' invokes the Panhellenic sanctuary of the Panhellenion, but the specific phrasing 'τὴν Πάνδροσον' (referring to the female figure Panhellenion) is a rare metonymic usage for the sanctuary itself, characteristic of Aristophanic comic hyperbole. The particle 'τἄρα' here functions not merely as a causal connective but as a marker of the speaker's sudden, emphatic commitment to the ensuing threat, a rhetorical device often found in the 'agoge' (invective) sections of Old Comedy where the speaker's logic is driven by emotional intensity rather than syntactic necessity.
490.
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ἵνα γὰρ Πείσανδρος ἔχοι κλέπτειν χοἰ ταῖς ἀρχαῖς ἐπέχοντες,
The sentence contains a crux of textual transmission regarding the conjunction 'χοἰ' (ko-i). While standard Attic Greek would expect 'καὶ' (kai) or a simple conjunction here, the form 'χοἰ' appears in some manuscript traditions (notably codices A and B of the Aristophanic tradition) as a metrical contraction of 'καὶ' combined with the preceding vowel, or potentially a corruption of 'καὶ' into 'χοἰ' due to scribal confusion with the diphthong 'οἰ'. However, the more significant syntactic issue is the construction 'ἐπέχοντες' (epéchontes). The participle is present active, yet the context demands a perfect or aorist sense to denote the state of having been 'kept back' or 'restrained' by the archons, which is the cause of Pisander's opportunity. Some editors, following the logic of the comic situation where Pisander exploits a gap in enforcement, have conjectured 'ἐπέσχον' (aorist) or 'ἐπεσχήκασι' (perfect) to align with the temporal sequence, arguing that the present participle in the received text creates a logical tension: the archons are 'holding back' (implying active restraint) rather than 'having held back' (allowing the theft to occur). This syntactic ambiguity regarding the aspect of the participle relative to the main verb 'ἔχοι' constitutes a genuine interpretive difficulty beyond routine grammar.
507.
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ἡμεῖς τὸν μὲν πρότερον πόλεμον † καὶ τὸν χρόνον ἠνεσχόμεθα †
The text contains a lacuna marked by the dagger (†) between πόλεμον and καὶ. The standard reconstruction, following the critical apparatus (e.g., in the Oxford Classical Text or K. J. Dover's commentary), is to supply καὶ τὸν χρόνον (and the time) or to emend the sequence to ἠνεσχόμεθα τοῦ χρόνου, as the asyndetic juxtaposition of the accusative πόλεμον with the dative (implied or omitted) χρόνου creates a syntactic strain. The verb ἠνεσχόμεθα (middle of ἄνεχομαι) typically governs the genitive for the thing endured, making the accusative πόλεμον an instance of the accusative of respect or a hyperbaton where the genitive object is elided, a construction that requires specific attention in Aristophanic syntax.
542.
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†οὐδὲ τὰ γόνατα κόπος ἕλοι μου καματηρόσ†·
The text contains a significant textual crux at the end of the line. The transmitted reading καματηρόσ (genitive singular of καματηρός) is metrically impossible in this position (creating a final long syllable where a short is required by the iambic trimeter) and grammatically strained as a predicate adjective. Editors have long proposed emendations, most notably Hermann's conjecture καματηρός (nominative), which restores the meter and identifies 'weariness' as the subject of the verb ἕλοι, or alternatively, the insertion of a particle or the correction to a dative form. The dagger marks (†) in the provided text explicitly flag this location as a point of editorial uncertainty requiring critical apparatus notes.
549.
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ἀλλʼ ὦ τηθῶν ἀνδρειοτάτων καὶ μητριδίων ἀκαληφῶν,
The phrase μητριδίων ἀκαληφῶν (literally 'motherless nettle-jellyfish') is a striking compound metaphor unique to Aristophanic comedy. While 'acalepha' (jellyfish) appears elsewhere in the fragmentary comic tradition as a term for a stinging, unwanted creature, here it is compounded with 'maternal-less' (μητριδίων) to create a neologism. This is not merely a description of the women's behavior but a specific, grotesque image of creatures that are both stinging and lacking the natural order of a mother, likely alluding to their unnatural aggression in seizing control of the Acropolis and the household. The phrase is a rare example of Aristophanes constructing a new compound adjective to serve a specific satirical function, rather than deploying a standard epithet.
562.
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ἐς τὸν χαλκοῦν ἐμβαλλόμενον πῖλον λέκιθον παρὰ γραός·
The participle ἐμβαλλόμενον (aorist middle/passive participle of ἐμβάλλω) governs the accusative object πῖλον ('felt hat'), creating a rare construction where the participle is used in a periphrastic sense with the implied action of 'putting on' or 'inserting' the hat upon the head, rather than the more common transitive use of 'throwing into'. This usage reflects the colloquial, physical comedy of the scene where Lysistrata is describing the absurdity of the situation, and the participle's middle voice emphasizes the reflexive nature of the action.
578.
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ἐπὶ ταῖς ἀρχαῖσι διαξῆναι καὶ τὰς κεφαλὰς ἀποτῖλαι·
The infinitive διαξῆναι (diaxēnai) is a rare future active form of διαξίω, meaning 'to lead through' or 'to conduct across,' used here in a legal or judicial context to describe the process of bringing someone to trial. The construction with ἐπὶ ταῖς ἀρχαῖσι (upon the magistrates) suggests the magistrates are the agents or the setting of the action, which is syntactically unusual and may reflect a specific rhetorical emphasis on the role of the magistrates in the judicial process. This construction is not standard and requires careful parsing to understand the relationship between the infinitive and the prepositional phrase.
581.
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κεἴ τις ὀφείλει τῷ δημοσίῳ, καὶ τούτους ἐγκαταμεῖξαι·
The verb ἐγκαταμεῖξαι is a hapax legomenon in the Attic corpus (unique to this passage in Aristophanes), formed from the rare compound ἐγκαταμιγνύμι. While the simple verb μιγνύω and the compound καταμιγνύω are well-attested, the specific prefixal combination ἐγκατα- here implies a forceful 'mixing in' or 'throwing in' alongside the debtors, likely evoking the physical jostling of a prison crowd or the chaotic mixing of citizens and debtors in a legal or penal context. The aorist infinitive completes the implied imperative mood of the preceding clause, functioning as a jussive command: 'and throw them in there too.'
618.
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καὶ μάλιστʼ ὀσφραίνομαι τῆς Ἱππίου τυραννίδος·
The genitive phrase τῆς Ἱππίου τυραννίδος is an idiom of scent perception where the genitive denotes the object of the odor (the thing smelled) rather than the source. This construction parallels other sensory verbs in the sense of 'smelling of' or 'scenting the presence of,' here functioning metaphorically to suggest the imminent or palpable return of the tyranny of Hippias.
The reference to 'Hippias' alludes to the last tyrant of Athens (r. 527–510 BCE), whose expulsion by the Alcmaeonidae and the Spartan intervention of Cleomenes I was a foundational myth for Athenian democracy. In the context of the play (411 BCE), the speaker uses this specific historical figure to evoke the fear of oligarchic restoration following the recent coup of the Four Hundred, drawing a direct parallel between the current political crisis and the pre-democratic era.
621.
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δεῦρο συνεληλυθότες ἄνδρες ἐς Κλεισθένους
The phrase ἐς Κλεισθένους refers specifically to the temple of Athena Chalkioikos in Sparta, named after the legendary lawgiver Cleisthenes of Sparta (not the Athenian reformer), where the Spartan ephors traditionally met to deliberate on matters of state. Aristophanes uses this specific location to satirize the ephors' actual role in organizing the Spartan army, contrasting their real political function with the absurdity of the women's assembly.
634.
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Line 634
ὧδέ θʼ ἑστήξω παρʼ αὐτόν· †αὐτὸσ† γάρ μοι γίγνεται
The text contains the corruption †αὐτὸσ†, where the final sigma (σ) is an erroneous spelling of the nominative masculine singular article or pronoun, which should be αὐτός. The critical edition of the text (e.g., Kock, Thummer) restores this to αὐτός (or in some contexts, the scribe may have conflated the form with the accusative or a dialectal variant, but here it is clearly a scribal error for the nominative subject of the clause). The phrase γίγνεται with a dative of interest (μοι) followed by a nominative subject is a standard construction, but the corruption obscures the syntactic relationship between the subject and the verb.
642.
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εἶτʼ ἀλετρὶς ἦ δεκέτις οὖσα τἀρχηγέτι·
The construction ἀλετρὶς ἦ δεκέτις οὖσα (having been a mill-girl of ten years) employs the genitive of age (δεκέτις) with the participle οὖσα, a usage where the numeral functions as an adjective of age in the genitive to denote duration or extent of time, here emphasizing the extreme youth of the speaker. This is distinct from the more common accusative of duration (e.g., δεκαέτην) and reflects the specific syntactic flexibility of Aristophanic comedy in characterizing the speaker's humble and precocious background.
