Aristophanes Thesmophoriazusae 626

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

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

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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.) — 626 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.) — 626 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 633

σκάφιον Ξένυλλʼ ᾔτησεν· οὐ γὰρ ἦν ἀμίς.
The phrase οὐ γὰρ ἦν ἀμίς ('for there was no contest') functions as a proverbial justification for Xenyllus's action, relying on the specific semantic field of ἀμίς. In the context of the Thesmophoria, where the women are disguised and the plot hinges on the absence of male competitors or rivals, ἀμίς likely alludes to the specific lack of a rival for the 'prize' of the disguise or the success of their scheme, rather than a generic lack of competition. The term is relatively rare in this idiomatic construction in Aristophanic comedy, where the humor often derives from the hyperbolic application of serious terminology (like athletic or legal competition) to trivial domestic deceptions.

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Line 648

τὸ πέος διέλκεις πυκνότερον Κορινθίων.
The phrase πυκνότερον Κορινθίων is a well-known Athenian comic trope relying on the reputation of Corinthian women for sexual availability and their use of the 'Corinthian belt' (though the belt itself is a later Roman literary invention, the sexual reputation is the joke). The genitive plural Κορινθίων here functions as a partitive genitive of comparison, but the specific construction of the adjective πυκνότερον (comparative of 'dense' or 'thick') modifying the implied 'manner' of the action, combined with the genitive, relies on the audience understanding the stereotype that Corinthian prostitutes were 'dense' with suitors or that their genitalia were metaphorically 'thick' with hair (a reference to the 'Corinthian lock' or simply the general vulgarity of the stereotype). However, the most critical syntactic and semantic point is the use of πυκνότερον with the genitive Κορινθίων: it is an elliptical comparative construction where the implied noun (e.g., 'in the manner of' or 'more than') is understood from the context of the sexual act. The joke hinges on the double entendre of πυκνός: it can mean 'thick' (in density, as of hair) or 'dense' (in the sense of 'crowded' or 'frequent'). In this context, it likely refers to the frequency of the sexual encounters or the density of the pubic hair, playing on the Corinthian stereotype of promiscuity. The genitive Κορινθίων is not a standard partitive but a genitive of comparison in a colloquial, comic construction, where the adjective is used predicatively with an implied 'than' (i.e., 'you drag it more densely than the Corinthians [do]').