Aristophanes Lysistrata 980

ed. F. W. Hall, ed. William M. Geldart

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Lysistrata. Aristophanes. ed. F. W. Hall, ed. William M. Geldart. Oxford. 1907.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The Annenberg CPB/Project.

Current edition Perseus

Λυσιστράτη (Greek) (Aristophanes. Aristophanis Comoediae, Vol. 2. Hall, F. W. and Geldart, William M., editors. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907.)

Translations (2)
Lysistrata (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Jack Lindsay). Migrated from Perseus legacy XML; source wording and notes retained. See TEI header and migration inventory.) — 980 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.) — 980 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 980

πᾷ τᾶν Ἀσανᾶν ἐστιν ἁ γερωχία
The form Ἀσανᾶν is the distinctive Doric dialectal genitive plural of Ἀσάνα (Aegina), replacing the Attic Ἀγινῶν. Aristophanes frequently employs Doric forms in the speech of characters representing non-Attic or rustic populations to signal their geographical origin and social identity; here, the speaker's use of Doric morphology immediately identifies the subject as an Aeginetan woman, a detail crucial for understanding the specific local rivalries and the 'chorus of women' dynamic in the play.

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Line 987

τί δὴ προβάλλει τὴν χλαμύδʼ; ἢ βουβωνιᾷς
The verb προβάλλει is used here in a specific theatrical sense, meaning 'to hold out' or 'to display' (the cloak), rather than the more common 'to project' or 'to advance.' This action is the physical setup for the comic punchline, where the character Lysistrata (or the Chorus) interprets the gesture of holding out the cloak as a sign of a bubonic plague infection (βουβωνιᾷς). The term βουβωνιᾷς is a medical reference to buboes (swollen lymph nodes), the hallmark symptom of the Plague of Athens; its use here is a grotesque hyperbole, suggesting the character's cloak is so tattered or held in such a specific way that it mimics the appearance of a bubo, or that the gesture itself is an absurd attempt to hide a swelling.

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Line 990

οὐ τὸν Δίʼ οὐκ ἐγών γα· μηδʼ αὖ πλαδδίη.
The phrase 'μηδʼ αὖ πλαδδίη' presents a rare and difficult textual crux. While 'πλαδδίη' is not attested in other contexts, the context of the oath suggests a reference to a specific, perhaps dialectal, term for a 'platter' or 'dish' used in the ritual of the oath, or it may be a corruption of a more standard form. The variation in the manuscripts regarding this word, and its lack of clear parallels, makes it a significant point of scholarly debate.

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Line 996

ἅπαντες ἐστύκαντι· Πελλάνας δὲ δεῖ.
The verb ἐστύκαντι is a hapax legomenon in Aristophanes and rare in Attic comedy generally, appearing here as a perfect active indicative (or perhaps a contracted perfect from a stem *τυκ-*) meaning 'they are in a state of having been struck' or, more likely in this context of sexual frustration, 'they are in a state of having been satisfied' (i.e., 'they are sated'). The form is highly irregular; most editors conjecture a corruption of *ἐστυγάντι* (from *ἐστυγάζω*, 'to be angry') or *ἐστυγάντι* (from *ἐστυγνύω*, 'to be struck'), but the context of the Lysistrata's argument regarding the cessation of the strike suggests a sexual connotation. The phrase 'they are sated' (or 'they have had their fill') creates a pun with the previous lines about the physical exhaustion of the men, linking their physiological state to the political stalemate. The syntax relies on the perfect tense to denote a present state resulting from a past action, a usage common in comedy but the specific lexical choice is unique to this passage.

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Line 1004

ταὶ γὰρ γυναῖκες οὐδὲ τῶ μύρτω σιγεῖν
The phrase 'οὐδὲ τῶ μύρτω σιγεῖν' (not even silent as to the myrtle) relies on a specific Attic idiom where 'σιγεῖν' (to be silent) is construed with the dative of the thing about which one is silent. Here, the comparison to 'myrtle' (μύρτω) is not merely botanical; it alludes to the myrtle's traditional association with Aphrodite and the *sacra* of the women, particularly in the context of the Thesmophoria or general female religious observance. The construction implies a proverbial or hyperbolic state of silence: even the goddess's sacred plant, or perhaps the women's own ritual silence regarding it, is exceeded by their current silence (or lack thereof, depending on the ironic context of the play's climax). The use of the dative 'τῶ μύρτω' with 'σιγεῖν' is a rare syntactic feature in Aristophanes, where the dative often marks the sphere of the silence rather than the object of the verb, creating a compressed metaphor that requires knowledge of the ritual significance of myrtle in Athenian female cults to fully grasp the irony of the women's current inability to remain silent.

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Line 1012

πρέσβεις ἑλέσθαι τὸ πέος ἐπιδείξας τοδί.
The verb ἐπιδείξας (aorist active participle, masculine nominative singular of ἐπιδείκνυμι) here functions as a deictic gesture accompanying the noun phrase τὸ πέος. In the context of the play's parody of diplomatic protocol, the participle is not merely descriptive but performs a metatheatrical action: the character (the Athenian herald) is physically displaying the phallus as the 'treaty' or 'proof' of his authority, subverting the solemnity of the embassy's purpose. This usage of the participle to denote a simultaneous, performative act of 'showing' rather than a prior completed action is characteristic of Aristophanic farce, where physical comedy overrides syntactic expectation.