Aristophanes Lysistrata 387

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.) — 387 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.) — 387 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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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.

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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.

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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.