Aristophanes Thesmophoriazusae 648

Thesmophoriazusae. Aristophanes. . 2026-09-08.

Current edition Experimental

Commentary (Sanjaya, generated; selected passages) (OCR draft) (English) (Source: pnadelofficial/aristophanes-sanjaya, commit c319590c139e5603e71f0699caa0663d823af8ad. Machine-generated source annotations retained; see Sanjaya import audit for coverage and limitations.)

Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.

Editions (1)
Θεσμοφοριάζουσαι Perseus (Aristophanes. Aristophanis Comoediae, Vol. 2. Hall, F. W. and Geldart, William M., editors. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907.) — 655 focus
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.) — 655 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.) — 655 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

648. mvp-tlg0019-tlg008-sanjaya-com-eng1-15

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]').