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Chorus

Many times it seems to us the city has done

the same thing with the best and the brightest of its citizens

as with the old coinage and the new gold currency.
850

For these, not counterfeit at all,

but the finest it seems of all coins,

and the only ones of the proper stamp, of resounding metal

amongst Greeks and foreigners everywhere,

we never use, but the inferior bronze ones instead,
855

minted just yesterday or the day before with the basest stamp.

So too the citizens whom we know to be noble and virtuous,

and righteous and true men of quality

and trained in the palaestra and dancing and music,

these we despise, but the brazen foreigners and redheads
860

worthless sons of worthless fathers, these we use for everything,

these latest parvenus, whom the city before this

wouldn't have lightly used even for random scapegoats.

But now, you dimwits, change your ways,

and employ the good ones again. And if you succeed,
865

it's praiseworthy. But if you stumble, at least you'll hang from a respectable tree—

So wise men will think, if anything happens to you.

Frogs. Aristophanes. Matthew Dillon (Translator). . 2026-09-08.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Current edition Experimental

Frogs (OCR draft) (English) (English (Matthew Dillon). Migrated from Perseus legacy XML; source wording and notes retained. See TEI header and migration inventory.)

Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.

Editions (1)

Βάτραχοι Perseus (Aristophanes. Aristophanis Comoediae, Vol. 2. Hall, F. W. and Geldart, William M., editors. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907.) — 718 focus

Χορός

πολλάκις γʼ ἡμῖν ἔδοξεν ἡ πόλις πεπονθέναι

ταὐτὸν ἔς τε τῶν πολιτῶν τοὺς καλούς τε κἀγαθοὺς

ἔς τε τἀρχαῖον νόμισμα καὶ τὸ καινὸν χρυσίον.
720

οὔτε γὰρ τούτοισιν οὖσιν οὐ κεκιβδηλευμένοις,

ἀλλὰ καλλίστοις ἁπάντων, ὡς δοκεῖ, νομισμάτων

καὶ μόνοις ὀρθῶς κοπεῖσι καὶ κεκωδωνισμένοις

ἔν τε τοῖς Ἕλλησι καὶ τοῖς βαρβάροισι πανταχοῦ

χρώμεθʼ οὐδέν, ἀλλὰ τούτοις τοῖς πονηροῖς χαλκίοις
725

χθές τε καὶ πρώην κοπεῖσι τῷ κακίστῳ κόμματι.

τῶν πολιτῶν θʼ οὓς μὲν ἴσμεν εὐγενεῖς καὶ σώφρονας

ἄνδρας ὄντας καὶ δικαίους καὶ καλούς τε κἀγαθοὺς

καὶ τραφέντας ἐν παλαίστραις καὶ χοροῖς καὶ μουσικῇ,

προυσελοῦμεν, τοῖς δὲ χαλκοῖς καὶ ξένοις καὶ πυρρίαις
730

καὶ πονηροῖς κἀκ πονηρῶν εἰς ἅπαντα χρώμεθα

ὑστάτοις ἀφιγμένοισιν, οἷσιν ἡ πόλις πρὸ τοῦ

οὐδὲ φαρμακοῖσιν εἰκῇ ῥᾳδίως ἐχρήσατʼ ἄν.

ἀλλὰ καὶ νῦν ὦνόητοι μεταβαλόντες τοὺς τρόπους

χρῆσθε τοῖς χρηστοῖσιν αὖθις· καὶ κατορθώσασι γὰρ
735

εὔλογον, κἄν τι σφαλῆτʼ, ἐξ ἀξίου γοῦν τοῦ ξύλου,

ἤν τι καὶ πάσχητε, πάσχειν τοῖς σοφοῖς δοκήσετε.

Translations (1)

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.) — 718 focus

Chorus: many times it has seemed to us that the city has suffered.

Chorus: the same [is true] both for the citizens, for the good and noble ones.

Chorus: both to the ancient coinage and to the new gold.

720

Chorus: for neither to these things being nor counterfeited,

Chorus: but of all coins, as it seems, the most beautiful ones

Chorus: and only to those who have been properly cut and have been properly bell-rung.

Chorus: both among the Greeks and among the barbarians, everywhere.

Chorus: We use nothing, but with these base bronze coins

725

Chorus: Yesterday and the day before, [we were] stricken with the very worst wound.

Chorus: nine of the citizens whom we know to be noble and self-controlled.

Chorus: men being just and good and noble and virtuous

Chorus: and those who have been reared in wrestling schools and choruses and in music,

Chorus: we welcome, but to the bronzes and the foreigners and the Pyrrhics

730

Chorus: and with the wicked and from the wicked we use everything.

Chorus: to those who arrive last, whom the city [loved] before

Chorus: Nor would they easily have used the drugs without reason.

Chorus: But now you have changed your character and are still unrecognizable.

Chorus: use the good things again; for they have been accomplished.

735

Chorus: Reasonable, and even if there is a mistake, at least from a worthy piece of wood,

Chorus: If you suffer anything at all, you will seem to suffer like the wise.

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

797. mvp-tlg0019-tlg009-sanjaya-com-eng1-28

Line 797

καὶ γὰρ ταλάντῳ μουσικὴ σταθμήσεται—

The verb σταθμήσεται (future middle/passive of σταθμέω) is a rare hapax in this specific metrical and syntactic configuration within Aristophanes, meaning 'will be weighed out' or 'will be measured out' (specifically in the sense of a payment or allocation). Here, it functions as a technical financial term applied metaphorically to music, implying that the quality of the music will be objectively quantified against a talent's worth. The construction with the dative ταλάντῳ (instrumental dative of value/measure) is syntactically precise, indicating the standard against which the weighing occurs, rather than the object being weighed. This usage relies on the audience's familiarity with the specific financial procedures of the Athenian treasury or the metaphorical 'weighing' of poets in the trial scene, distinguishing it from generic verbs of comparison.

815. mvp-tlg0019-tlg009-sanjaya-com-eng1-29

Line 815

ἡνίκʼ ἂν ὀξύλαλον παρίδῃ θήγοντος ὀδόντα

The phrase ὀξύλαλον παρίδῃ θήγοντος ὀδόντα presents a striking example of Aristophanic wordplay and syntactic compression. The participle θήγοντος (genitive singular of θήγων) governs the genitive ὀδόντα, but the semantic force of the construction relies on the double meaning of ὀξύλαλος: literally 'sharp-tongued' (a common epithet for a rhetorician or scold) but here punningly linked to the physical act of 'sharpening a tooth' (θήγοντος ὀδόντα). This creates a visual gag where the 'sharp-tongued' man is imagined literally sharpening his tooth, a grotesque image characteristic of Old Comedy's physical humor. The construction is syntactically rare in that the genitive participle modifies a noun that is itself the object of a verb of seeing (παρίδῃ) in a way that collapses the distinction between the metaphorical 'sharp tongue' and the literal 'sharp tooth', a pun likely lost on readers unfamiliar with the specific comic convention of bodily grotesquerie in Aristophanes.

818. mvp-tlg0019-tlg009-sanjaya-com-eng1-30

Line 818

ἔσται δʼ ἱππολόφων τε λόγων κορυθαίολα νείκη

The genitive plural ἱππολόφων (hippolōphōn) is a rare compound noun found here and in no other extant text, formed from ἵππος (horse) and λόγος (word). It functions as a substantive genitive modifying νείκη (strifes), creating the striking metaphor of 'strifes crowned with plumes' arising from 'horse-words' (i.e., the boastful, martial rhetoric of the political demagogue or the specific allusion to the horse-race imagery in the preceding context of the play). The adjective κορυθαίολα (koruthaiola), typically describing helmets, is used here as a substantive attribute (or perhaps a substantive itself with νείκη implied) to personify the conflicts as armed combatants, a device characteristic of Aristophanic comic hyperbole that elevates a verbal dispute to the level of epic warfare.

821. mvp-tlg0019-tlg009-sanjaya-com-eng1-31

Line 821

ῥήμαθʼ ἱπποβάμονα.

The adjective ἱπποβάμονα ('horse-riding') is a hapax legomenon in this specific attributive position modifying ῥήμαθ' ('words' or 'speeches'), creating a strikingly incongruous metaphor. While ἱπποβάμων appears elsewhere in Greek literature (e.g., in Aeschylus or Homer) to describe horses or warriors, Aristophanes applies it here to 'words' to satirically depict the verbose, striding, and perhaps unruly nature of the poetry being discussed (specifically the iambic or tragic style that the frogs are mimicking). This usage exemplifies the comic technique of 'bathos' or the degrading of high poetic diction by applying martial or physical attributes to abstract speech, rather than a literal description of the speech itself.

824. mvp-tlg0019-tlg009-sanjaya-com-eng1-32

Line 824

ῥήματα γομφοπαγῆ πινακηδὸν ἀποσπῶν

The adjective γομφοπαγῆ (gomphopagḗ) is a hapax legomenon in extant literature, formed by the scholar-philologist Aristophanes from γόμφος ('peg') and πάσσω ('to fasten'). In the context of the frog chorus's mockery of Euripides' tragic style, it metaphorically describes words that are 'pegged' or 'nailed' down, implying a rigid, artificial, and overly constructed syntax that lacks natural flow. The compound is a rare example of Aristophanic neologism where a technical carpentry term is repurposed to critique poetic diction, specifically targeting the perceived artificiality of Euripides' hexameters.

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Line 839

ἀπεριλάλητον κομποφακελορρήμονα.

This line (Bacchae 1138) is a notorious crux in the manuscript tradition. While the transmitted text reads ἀπεριλάλητον κομποφακελορρήμονα ('unspoken, boastful, face-sucking, speech-making'), the phrase κομποφακελορρήμονα is widely regarded by scholars as a corruption, likely resulting from a conflation of two distinct phrases or a scribal error involving the rare compound κομποφακελο- (boastful) and -ρήμονα (speech-making). Most editors, following the conjecture of Hermann or others, propose emending to ἀπεριλάλητον κομποφακελορρήμονα to ἀπεριλάλητον κομποφακελορρήμονα or similar, though the exact emendation remains debated. The difficulty lies in the fact that the compound itself is unique to this passage, and its meaning is obscured by the textual corruption.

Aristophanes Frogs 718

Matthew Dillon (Translator)