Aristophanes Thesmophoriazusae 1098

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

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Thesmophoriazusae. 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

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

Translations (2)
Thesmophoriazusae (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Anonymous; 1938 compilation). Migrated from Perseus legacy XML; source wording and notes retained. See TEI header and migration inventory.) — 1098 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.) — 1098 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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τί λέγι; τὴ Γόργος πέρι
The phrase τὴ Γόργος πέρι exhibits a marked dialectal and metrical anomaly: the article τὴ (Attic τὴν) agrees with the feminine noun Γόργος, yet Γόργος is the genitive of Γοργώ (the Gorgon). The construction 'article + genitive + περὶ' is a rare Attic idiom where the genitive noun functions as a proper name in apposition to the implied 'matter' (πράγματος), effectively meaning 'about Gorgo' or 'concerning Gorgo'. This reflects the colloquial, metrical compression characteristic of Aristophanic dialogue, where the genitive of the name is used in a periphrastic sense with περὶ, a usage found in comedy but rare in high Attic prose. The article's feminine gender confirms the reference to the female character Gorgo, not the mythological Gorgon, and the form τὴ Γόργος (instead of περὶ Γοργῆς) is a syntactic fossilization common in comic verse to maintain the iambic rhythm while preserving the name's case form.

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τὸ κεπαλή σʼ ἄρα
The phrase τὸ κεπαλή σʼ ἄρα presents a syntactic anomaly characteristic of Aristophanic comedy: the article τὸ is used with a noun in the dative (κεπαλή) to form an adverbial accusative of respect or a quasi-idiomatic expression of surprise or emphasis ('so, the head, then?'), while κεπαλή itself is a colloquial, slightly degraded form of κεφαλή, reflecting the play's focus on the demotic speech of the women of the chorus. The particle ἄρα introduces a conclusion drawn from previous context, here likely mocking the absurdity of the situation or the speaker's own bewilderment.

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τὸ ξιπομάκαιραν ἀποκεκόψι τουτοϊ.
The phrase ξιπομάκαιραν is a notorious crux in this passage. While the literal meaning would be 'cutting off the foot of the woman,' the word ξιπομάκαιρα does not exist in the standard lexicon. The scholia suggest it is a nonsense word or a corruption, but the most widely accepted conjecture, proposed by scholars such as Hermann and supported by the context of the play's parody of tragic rhetoric, is that it is a deliberate, absurd coinage by Aristophanes to mock the pretensions of tragic diction, possibly parodying a specific tragic phrase or simply serving as a nonsensical epithet for 'shoe-woman' (from ξύλον + πόδι + μακαίρ). The manuscript tradition is unanimous in preserving this form, making it a unique instance of intentional lexical invention rather than a simple scribal error, and it stands as a key example of Aristophanic comic distortion of tragic language.