Lexical Blends in Greek and Latin Comedic Idiom

Lexical Blends in Greek and Latin Comedic Idiom A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Ryan Seaberg IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Advisor: George Sheets December 2019 © Ryan Seaberg 2019 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe my heartiest thanks to many people, without whom I could never have written this dissertation: first and foremost, to my advisor Dr. Sheets for all of his encouragements, criticisms, and other comments throughout this process, for his patience in letting this dissertation develop as it did, and for his accommodating my interests in the years leading up to this dissertation by offering the courses and independent studies I asked for; to Dr. Olson, under whose tutelage in courses on Aristophanes and commentary writing and during the years when we worked together on Cratinus I learned how to do the work of classical philology; to Dr. Liberman for letting me “sit among the barbarians” and learn “oodles of Germanic philology”; and last but not least to Elizabeth, to my parents and brothers, and to Paul and Brenda Torresson for their unfailing support and generosity throughout this process but especially during these last few years. I also owe my thanks generally to everyone in the department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies—professors, fellow graduate students, and administrators alike—for their years of support and camaraderie. I could not have enjoyed my time there as I did without them. i For Holly, τῇ φιλτάτῃ κυνὶ, ἣν ὡς ἄνθρωπον ἐθάψαμεν καὶ ἐδακρύσαμεν ii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.......................................................................................................................ix CHAPTER 1. PLAUTINE MADULSA AND THE STUDY OF BLENDING.....................................1 1.1 Assumptions and Methodology....................................................................................12 CHAPTER 2. COMPOUNDING AND BLENDING............................................................................14 2.1 Introduction.........................................................................................................................14 2.2 Compounds and Compounding....................................................................................15 2.3 Ancient Greek and Latin Compounding as Stem Compounding......................16 2.4 The Linking Vowel.............................................................................................................18 2.5 The Spelling of Compounds............................................................................................20 2.6 Basic Criteria for the Classification of Compounds...............................................21 2.7 Bauer’s System of Classifying Compounds...............................................................24 2.7.1 Coordinative and Subordinative Compounds......................................27 2.7.2 Attributive and Relational Compounds..................................................28 2.7.3 Heads.....................................................................................................................30 2.7.4 Endocentricity and Exocentricity..............................................................30 2.7.5 Orientation.........................................................................................................32 2.8 The Use of Compounds.....................................................................................................37 2.9 How Blends Differ from Compounds and How They Are Analogous............40 CHAPTER 3. ONOMASTIC BLENDS...................................................................................................45 3.1 Introduction.........................................................................................................................45 3.2 Βδεῦ.........................................................................................................................................51 iii 3.2.1 Textual Notes.....................................................................................................51 3.2.2 Formation............................................................................................................52 3.2.3 Interpretation....................................................................................................53 3.3 σκαταιβάτης.........................................................................................................................59 3.3.1 Textual Notes.....................................................................................................60 3.3.2 Formation............................................................................................................61 3.3.3 Interpretation....................................................................................................62 3.4 Ἀττικωνικοί..........................................................................................................................66 3.4.1 Textual Notes.....................................................................................................68 3.4.2 Formation............................................................................................................68 3.4.3 Interpretation....................................................................................................68 3.5 ὠτοτύξιοι...............................................................................................................................73 3.5.1 Textual Notes.....................................................................................................73 3.5.2 Formation............................................................................................................74 3.5.3 Interpretation....................................................................................................75 3.6 Κλωπίδαι................................................................................................................................80 3.6.1 Textual Notes.....................................................................................................81 3.6.1 Formation............................................................................................................81 3.6.3 Interpretation....................................................................................................81 3.7 οἰκιτιεύς.................................................................................................................................83 3.7.1 Textual Notes.....................................................................................................84 3.7.1 Formation............................................................................................................86 3.7.3 Interpretation....................................................................................................86 iv 3.8 Λακιδαίμονος.......................................................................................................................91 3.8.1 Textual Notes.....................................................................................................92 3.8.2 Formation............................................................................................................92 3.8.3 Interpretation....................................................................................................94 3.9 Δορίαλλος or Δορύαλλος.................................................................................................96 3.9.1 Textual Notes.....................................................................................................98 3.9.2 Formation............................................................................................................99 3.9.3 Interpretation....................................................................................................99 3.10 Φαλλήνιος........................................................................................................................104 3.10.1 Textual Notes................................................................................................105 3.10.2 Formation......................................................................................................105 3.10.3 Interpretation..............................................................................................109 3.11 Rabienus............................................................................................................................112 3.11.1 Textual Notes................................................................................................113 3.11.2 Formation......................................................................................................113 3.11.3 Interpretation..............................................................................................115 3.12 Biberius..............................................................................................................................118 3.12.1 Textual Notes................................................................................................118 3.12.2 Formation......................................................................................................118 3.12.3 Interpretation..............................................................................................119 3.13 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................120 CHAPTER 4. NON-ONOMASTIC BLENDS IN GREEK AND LATIN.......................................122 4.1 βομβαύλιοι.........................................................................................................................122 v 4.1.1 Textual Notes..................................................................................................123 4.1.2 Formation.........................................................................................................123 4.1.3 Interpretation.................................................................................................123 4.2 μεσοπέρδην........................................................................................................................128 4.2.1 Textual Notes..................................................................................................129 4.2.2 Formation.........................................................................................................130 4.2.3 Interpretation.................................................................................................131 4.3 τρυγῳδία, τρυγῳδός, τρυγῳδικός, τρυγῳδοποιομουσική............................132 4.3.1 Textual Notes..................................................................................................135 4.3.2 Formation.........................................................................................................135 4.3.3 Interpretation.................................................................................................137 4.4 tragicomoedia...................................................................................................................148 4.4.1 Textual Notes..................................................................................................150 4.4.2 Formation.........................................................................................................151 4.4.3 Interpretation.................................................................................................152 4.5 tuburcinari..........................................................................................................................157 4.5.1 Textual Notes..................................................................................................158 4.5.2 Formation.........................................................................................................159 4.5.3 Interpretation.................................................................................................160 4.6 virgindemia.........................................................................................................................175 4.6.1 Textual Notes..................................................................................................177 4.6.2 Formation.........................................................................................................178 4.6.3 Interpretation.................................................................................................179 vi 4.7 perenticida..........................................................................................................................182 4.7.1 Textual Notes..................................................................................................183 4.7.2 Formation.........................................................................................................184 4.7.3 Interpretation.................................................................................................184 4.8 Conclusion..........................................................................................................................191 CHAPTER 5. BILINGUAL BLENDS IN LATIN...............................................................................193 5.1 Introduction: Excursus on Bilingualism in Latin Literature..........................193 5.2 Bilingual Blends................................................................................................................214 5.2.1 mantiscinari.....................................................................................................215 5.2.1.1 Textual Notes................................................................................216 5.2.1.2 Formation......................................................................................217 5.2.1.3 Interpretation...............................................................................220 5.2.2 merdaleus..........................................................................................................231 5.2.2.1 Textual Notes................................................................................232 5.2.2.2 Formation......................................................................................233 5.2.2.3 Interpretation...............................................................................234 5.2.3 imbubinare and imbulbitare......................................................................251 5.2.3.1 Textual Notes................................................................................251 5.2.3.2 Formation......................................................................................252 5.2.3.3 Interpretation...............................................................................253 5.2.4 Crucisalus..........................................................................................................255 3.2.4.1 Textual Notes................................................................................256 3.2.4.2 Formation......................................................................................257 vii 3.2.4.3 Interpretation...............................................................................259 5.3 Conclusion..........................................................................................................................260 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................262 BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................................................................................................................268 APPENDIX I. ANCIENT RHETORICAL THEORY AND BLEND FORMATION...................297 APPENDIX II. ADDITIONAL LEXICAL BLENDS IN GREEK AND LATIN............................303 ΙΙ.1 Paschienus or Pathienus................................................................................................303 II.2 Pacisculus and Tollius.....................................................................................................304 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS I abbreviate the names of ancient Greek authors and their works as in LSJ, except that I omit an author’s name in the case of the Iliad and Odyssey, and the names of ancient Latin authors and their works as in the OLD. In cases where an ancient author or work is omitted from either LSJ or the OLD, I have tried to give as clear an abbreviation as possible. Except when otherwise indicated, my numbering of Greek fragments follows PCG for the comic poets; TrGF for the tragic poets; Voigt for Sappho and Alcaeus; PMG’s continuous numbering for the lyric poets; Degani for Hipponax; Maehler for Pindar; SH for Hellenistic poets; SVF for the Stoic philosophers. And except when otherwise indicated, my numbering of Latin fragments follows Ribbeck3 for Republican dramatists except Ennius, for whom I cite Goldberg–Manuwald, and Plautus, for whom I cite Lindsay; Blänsdorf for epic and lyric poets; and Malcovati for Cato’s orations. I cite Erotian from Nachmanson; the Etymologicum Magnum from Gaisford; the Etymologicum Gudianum α–ζ from Stefani; the Etymologicum Gudianum ζ–ω from Sturz; the Etymologicum Genuinum from Lasserre–Livadaras; Eustathius from Majoranus, but with cross references to the editions of van der Valk and Stallbaum; the Greek grammarians from Grammatici Graeci; Harpocration from Keaney; Hippocrates from Littré; Hesychius α–ο from Latte; Hesychius π–σ from Hansen; Hesychius τ–ω from Hansen–Cunningham; Moeris from Hansen; the paroemiographers from Leutsch–Schneidewin; Orion from Sturz; Pausanias Grammaticus from Erbse; Photius from Theodoridis; Phrynichus’ Ecloge from Fisher; ix Phrynichus’ Praeparatio Sophistica from de Borries; Pollux from Bethe; the scholia to Aristophanes from Holwerda et al.; the scholia to the Iliad from Erbse; the scholia to the Odyssey from Dindorf; the Suda from Adler; and the Synagoge from Cunningham. I cite the Latin grammarians from Grammatici Latini; and Nonius and Festus from Lindsay. The following authors and/or works are cited throughout as follows: Beekes Robert Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden IndoEuropean Dictionary Series 10/1–2: Leiden and Boston, 2010) Buck–Petersen Carl Darling Buck and Walter Petersen, A Reverse Index of Greek Nouns and Adjectives2 (Chicago, 1945) Chantraine Pierre Chantraine, Dictionnarie étymologique de la langue Grecque (supp. by Alain Blanc, Charles de Lamberterie, and Jean-Louis Perpillou: Paris, 1998) CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum de Vaan Michiel de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the Other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Dictionary Series 7: Leiden and Boston, 2008) EAGLL Georgios K. Giannakis (ed.), Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics (3 vols.: Leiden, 2014) Ernout–Meillet Alfred Ernout and Alfred Meillet, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue Latine (Paris, 1968) IACP Mogens H. Hansen and Thomas H. Nielson (eds.), An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis (Oxford, 2004) x IG Inscriptiones Graecae Kassel–Austin see PCG Kock Theodor Kock (ed.), Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta (3 vols.: 1880–1888, Leipzig) LIV Helmut Rix and Martin Kümmel (eds.), Lexicon der Indogermanischen Verben2 (Wiesebaden, 2001) Lewis–Short Charleton T. Lewis and Charles Short (eds.), A Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1879) LGPN P. M. Fraser and E. Matthews (eds., vols. i, iiiA–B, iv) and M. J. Osborne and S. G. Byrne (eds., vol. ii), A Lexicon of Greek Personal Names (Oxford, 1994–) LSJ Henry G. Liddell and Robert Scott (eds.), A Greek–English Lexicon9 (rev. H. S. Jones and R. McKenzie, rev. supp. by P. G. W. Glare: Oxford, 1996) Montanari Franco Montanari et al. (eds.), The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek (Leiden and Boston, 2015) OLD Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1968) PA J. Kirchner (ed.), Prosopographia Attica (2 vols.: Berlin, 1901, 1903; repr. Chicago, 1981) PAA J. Traill (ed.), Persons of Ancient Athens (21 vols.: Toronto, 1994– 2012) xi PCG Rudolf Kassel and Colin Austin (eds.), Poetae Comici Graeci (8 vols.: Berlin and New York, 1983–2001) PMG D. L. Page (ed.), Poetae Melici Graeci (Oxford, 1962) Pokorny Julius Pokorny, Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch5 (2 vols.: Tübingen, 2005) SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum SH Hugh Lloyd-Jones and Peter Parsons (eds.), Supplementum Hellenisticum (Texte und Commentare 11: Berlin and New York, 1983) TLL I. E. Stephanis, Διονυσιακοὶ Τεχνῖται (Heracleon, 1988) TrGF Bruno Snell et al. (eds.), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (6 vols.: Stephanis Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (11 vols.: Munich, 1900–) Göttingen, 1971–2004) Walde–Hofmann A. Walde and J. B. Hofmann, Lateinisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (2 vols.: Heidelberg, 1938) xii CHAPTER 1. PLAUTINE MADULSA AND THE STUDY OF BLENDING Plaut. Ps. 1246-52 quid hoc? sicine hoc fit, pedes? statin an non? an id voltis, ut me hinc iacentem aliquis tollat? nam hercle si cecidero, vestrum erit flagitium. pergitin pergere? ah, serviendum mihi hodie est; magnum hoc vitium vino est: pedes captat primum, luctator dolosust. profecto edepol ego nunc probe habeo madulsam.1 How’s this? Is this okay, feet? Are you standing up or not? Or do you want this: that someone pick me up as I lie here? For, by god, if I do fall, then it’ll be your fault. Are you going to go? Ah! I must do the serving today. This is the great fault of wine: First it lays hold of the feet; it’s a tricky wrestler. Surely, by god, I’m truly plasted. The context of the passage makes it clear that the word madulsam ought to mean something like “drunkenness”, depending on the text read,2 and this is the gloss given by Lewis–Short s. v., who then cite the testimony of Festus for its meaning and etymology: ebrius, a Graeco μαδᾶν deductum vel quia madidus satis a vino (“drunken, Translations are my own, unless otherwise noted. The Ambrosian Palimpsest, the oldest known manuscript of Plautus, reads abeo madulsa, in which case madulsa ought to be mean something like “a drunken man”. But this reading is not generally adopted. 1 1 2 drawn from Greek madân (‘be drunk’) or because it means thoroughly besotted (madidus) with wine”). Festus is, it will turn out, not entirely off the mark in positing a connection between madulsa and madidus. Ernout–Meillet s. v. suggest that madulsa is an “abstrait formé plaisamment sur rupulsa, ou avec un suffixe vulgaire (étrusque?) analogue à celui de gemursa. N’est pas, comme le dit faussement l’abrégé de Festus, 113, 9, l’equivalent de madidus.”3 The OLD s. v., on the other hand, says of madulsa: “[from madeo, perh. influenced by mulsa] (app.) The state of drunkenness.” And de Vaan s. v. merely reports an opinion like that of the OLD: “The Plautine invention madulsa is said to have been formed [to] invoke mulsus ‘honeyed’, f. mulsa (potio)” (358). Thus, while Ernout–Meillet suggest that madulsa is an analogical creation, both the OLD and de Vaan posit that madulsa is a blend of two different words, a kind of lexical neologism that is sometimes called a “portmanteau” or, more commonly now, simply a “lexical blend”,4 the term I will use in this dissertation, along with (lexical) Ernout–Meillet translate ego nunc probe habeo madulsam as “J’ai maintenant une belle cuite”. 4 The terminology in English (as in German and French, which are with respect to blends the languages most studied after English) for blends and blending is inconsistent, a fact that has been much lamented (Hansen 1963; Rodríguez González 1989; Cannon 2000; Bauer 2013). Within these languages individually, there is virtually no terminological consensus, a fact which owes in part to the lack of definitional consensus on blends; however, among the languages collectively, there are sometimes terminological parallels. Wentworth 1933 was the first to point out the peculiarity of there being such a multitude of terms for a single phenomenon and summarized the causes thus: “The diversity among these terms arises partly from the invention of new ones, in ignorance of those in existence, and partly through a desire to differentiate among types or to include all types in one term” (78). Yet while there may exist no terminological consensus among scholars, within a particular work or a single scholar’s body of work the terms used of lexical blending tend to be well differentiated and defined. Nor has the situation much remedied itself since Wentworth’s time. Cannon 2000. 953 remarked that “[o]ver the last century, the extensive scholarship on blends has 2 3 blending to refer to the process of word formation whereby a blend is created. Additionally, I will use the terms source words to refer to the two or more words that go into the making of a blend; and splinters to refer to a blend’s constitutive elements. For example, the source words of the blend brunch are breakfast and lunch; the splinters of brunch are br- and -unch. The term portmanteau, a loan from French that originally denoted a leather suitcase that opens into two halves, was first used as a term for blended words by Lewis Carroll. In his children’s book Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871), Humpty Dumpty acts as an exegete for the titular Alice, explaining the meaning and etymology of some of the curious, nonce words in one of the several contributed about thirty names for this phenomenon, most of which were one-time uses. They have differing names in various languages: e.g., Span. el cruce léxico, Fr. le mélange, and Germ. Kontamination, with earlier competing forms like Vermischung and Mischform now faded. The English borrowing of Kontamination added a grotesque, illogical, ungrammatical sense to its adapted form, contamination, which helped lead to its general replacement by blend. But dated synonyms still occasionally appear, such as Lewis Carroll’s portmanteau (word), as well as haplologic word and lapse,” while Renner–Maniez–Arnaud 2013, in an introduction to a collection of papers on lexical blending, devotes a section to the terminological dissonance that yet obtains, noting however that “the term lexical blend has mostly displaced [Lewis] Carroll’s portmanteau as the preferred term in English scholarship” (2). In English, the following are, in addition to those already mentioned, some of the terms that have been used at one time or another to refer to lexical blends: amalgam, fusion, merger, conflation, coalesced word, hybrid, brunch-word, pivot-word, counter-word, crossform, telescoped word, overlapping word, sandwich word, and cannibal word. In German: Portmanteau-Wort, Amalgamierungsform, Kreuzungswort, Wortverschmelzung, Zusammenziehung, haplologische Wortzusammenziehung, Kontraktion, Mischwort, KombiWort, Wortverschränkung, Klappwort, Kapselwort, Koppelwort, Schachtelwort, Tandemwort, Teleskopwort. In French: contamination, portmanteau, mot-valise, amalgam, mot-tandem, télescopage, mot-croisé, compromot. 3 poems within the story, Jabberwocky: “Well, ‘slithy’ means ‘lithe and slimy.’ ‘Lithe’ is the same as ‘active.’ You see, it’s like a portmanteau – there are two meanings packed up into one word,” (215) Humpty Dumpy says to Alice after she confesses that the poem “seems very pretty … but it’s rather hard to understand! … Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas—only I don’t exactly know what they are!” (150). Carroll further pondered the process of lexical blending in the preface to the The Hunting of the Snark (1876. 10): For instance, take the two words “fuming” and “furious.” Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts incline ever so little towards “fuming,” you will say “fuming-furious;” if they turn, by even a hair’s breadth, towards “furious,” you will say “furious-fuming;” but if you have the rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say “frumious”. Carroll was one of the first, if not the first, to put a name to blends, thereby helping to popularize them and the process whereby they are formed, and he added numerous intentional blends to the lexical stock of English, some of which like “chortle” (< snort and chuckle) remain in use. As noted below, however, blends certainly occur in many languages. They are attested in English long before Carroll’s insight.5 Three early examples of lexical blends according to the OED are ribible “a kind of stringed instrument,” from rebibe and rebelle (both kinds of stringed instruments), dating from ca. 1330; drubly “turbid, troubled,” a blend of trobly “troubly” and drof “turbid”, dating from ca. 1340; and foolosopher, a blend of fool and philosopher, dating from 1549. And in Shakespeare is found bubukle, a blend of bubo “an inflamed abscess” and carbuncle (Henry V, III, VI, 108). 4 5 Since the early 20th century, blends and blending in English especially have been studied extensively and the literature thereon is voluminous. Already at the beginning of the 20th century, speakers of English had seized upon blending with alacrity and this process of word formation quickly became something of an acceptable trend that seemed worthy of investigation. An early monograph (Pound 1914) said of blends: “[t]here seems to be no doubt that, as word creation becomes a more conscious process, factitious amalgam forms [i.e. blends] are growing in favor” (12). Early scholarly works on blends were predominantly descriptive, attempting to give a taxonomy of blends according to their “manner of origin, or predominant motive in coalescence” (Pound 1914. 19).6 Although it was early agreed that functionally blending was a form of wit (Pound 1914; Withington 1931, 1933; Berrey 1939), what formal constraints, if any, govern their formation remains unclear. Cannon 1986 broadly claims that “the process of blending seems to occur in all languages, to be very common in them, and to occur in every stage of the individual language’s development” (725).7 Cannon’s claim has since been, it seems, vindicated by the attestation and study of lexical blends in numerous typologically diverse 6 Pound 1914. 20–1, for example, distinguished the following general classes of blends: clever literary coinages (sneakret); political terms (Prohiblican); nonce blends (sweedle); children’s coinages (tremense); conscious folk formations (solemncholy); unconscious folk formations (insinuendo); coined place-names and personal names (Ohiowa; Romiette); scientific terms (dextrose); and, commercial terms (Nabisco). 7 Bertinetto 2004. 4 however, disputes the notion that lexical blending occurs in all languages, claiming that “Spanish, for instance, exhibits virtually no examples”—this on the dubious evidence that he has “not been able to find a single one, despite consulting a few Spanish colleagues.” However, Piñeros 2000, 2004 offers multiple examples of lexical blends from Spanish such as pechonalidad (< pecho and personalidad), meaning “the personality of a woman with the implication that her chest is an important part of it.” 5 languages such as French (Bertinetto 2004; Fradin–Montermini–Plénat 2009), Hebrew (Bat-El 1996), and Mandarin Chinese and Farsi (Ronneberger-Sibold 2013). Corollary to Cannon’s assertion that blending seems to occur at each stage of a language’s development is his claim that “[b]lends are a very old kind of word formation, occurring in many of the world’s languages as early as Vedic Sanskrit, Attic Greek, Latin, and Old High German” (956). Frustratingly, he cites no sources for blends in these old languages and offers only one unsatisfactory example from Latin: te decora (Plaut. Mil. 619), a syntactic rather than lexical blend of, he claims, the syntagms te decet and tibi decus. It bears pointing out here that lexical blending differs from syntactic blending and from what might be called morphological blending. The latter two respectively involve the blending of syntagms or morphemes rather than lexemes, and both are conventionally and more traditionally described as the products of “analogy” rather than blending. Plautus’ te decora (instead of either te decet or tibi decus) involves blending two different syntactic constructions. Likewise Latin nec … quidem “nor … even” can be described as the syntactic blending of nec “nor” with ne … quidem “not … even”.8 Greek indirect statements using φημί with ὅτι likely result from the syntactic blending of φημί with an infinitive and λέγω with ὅτι.9 Morphological blending involves blending together two different morphemes: for example, the rare Greek first person dual middle ending -μεθον results from E.g. Plaut. As. 190 nec meum quidem edepol (“nor even mine, by Pollux”), against which compare Bac. 1027 ne unum quidem hercle (“not even one, by Hercules”); and see Leumann 1972 II.448–50. 9 E.g. X. An. 7.1.5; and see Smyth 1956 § 2017a. 6 8 morphologically blending the first person plural middle ending -μεθα and the second person dual middle ending -σθον.10 Morphological blends often appear as analogical innovations that have become fully integrated into the grammar of a language and therefore constitute diachronic rather than synchronic phenomena. An example in Greek is the extension of the verb ending -ίζω, derived prehistorically by palatalization from roots ending in -ιδ or -ιγ, to stems ending in other consonants or vowels.11 To be sure, lexical blends too can sometimes be accepted as “normal” words whose blended origin is no longer salient (motel, smog, and brunch are perhaps examples), but if so, that is a diachronic phenomenon that is separate from the factors involved in their coinage. Despite the occurrence of bona fide lexical blends in Greek and Latin, as will be shown below, their existence has not been generally acknowledged or even recognized. The brief statement of de Vaan quoted above is, it seems, as much as he has to say on blends. Similarly, Beekes neglects blends in Greek, citing, it seems, just two examples of what purport to be blends: δοάσσαι, an aorist optative of δοιάζω “be Cf. Il. 23.485 περιδώμεθον “we two put around”; S. El. 950 λελείμμεθον “we two have been left”; Ph. 1079 ὁρμώμεθον “we two set out”; Ath. 3.98a συντριβησόμεθον “we two will be crushed” and ἀπολούμεθον “we two will be destroyed”, both attributed to Pompeianus of Philadelphia, whose other quotations in the same passage contain many solecisms and who, Olson 2007. 533 n. 12 suggests, may have been a model for the eponymous arch-Atticist of Lucian’s Lexiphanes. However, Wackernagel 1916. 55 (followed by West, who prints περιδώμεθα in his edition of the Iliad) dismisses the Homeric form as an Atticism, while the manuscripts of Sophocles are divided between the forms in -μεθον and -μεθα. Other extant forms in -μεθον are given only as examples in ancient grammatical works: for example, in a full conjugation of the verb τύπτω “hit” at in the Supplementa Artis Dionysianae Vetusta (Grammatici Graeci I.1 pp. 126–31); and in a full conjugation of the verb τίθημι “put” at Theodos. Grammatici Graeci IV.1 pp. 87–97. 11 Horrocks 2014. 308 7 10 of two minds; hesitate; have in mind” in lieu of the expected aorist optative δοιάξαι that allegedly results from blending with δοάσσατο “it seemed”;12 and ἔνδιον (“in the afternoon”) in the phrase ἔνδιον ὕδωρ (“heavenly water”), where it seems to mean “heavenly” by, according to Beekes s. v., blending with δῖος “divine, godlike.” However, each of these examples would be better classified as a folk-etymology than as a blend.13 Nor do there seem to be discussions of blends or blending in other, standard etymological lexica of Greek or Latin (Chantraine; Walde–Hofmann; Ernout–Meillet), standard historical grammars of Greek or Latin (Chantraine 1933; Schwyzer 1953; Leumann 1977), or recenter outlines of Greek or Latin grammar (e.g. Weiss 2010). Leaving aside for now the question of formation of madulsa and looking rather at its pragmatics, what does Plautus achieve by using such a word in the passage above? That is, what is the function of this blend in this passage? Provisionally, the coinage adds to the linguistic exuberance of the passage which additionally is marked by alliteration (ita magnis munditiis et dis dignis), etymological jingles (agere ambages), the personification of feet, and the humorous metaphor of drink as a wily wrestler. That is, the blend here is yet another device in Plautus’ stock of verbal s. v. δοιοί: “δοιάζω, -ομαι, aor. δοιάξαι, also δοάσσαι (through blending with δοάσσατο) ‘linger, deliberate’, also (after δοάσσατο) ‘imagine, believe’.” What Beekes seems to have in mind here is that Apollonius Rhodius has evidently conflated δοιάζω “be of two minds; hesitate; have in mind” and Homeric δοάσσατο “seemed” at 3.770 ἑζομένη δἤπειτα δοάσσατο φώνησέν τε (“then she sat there deliberating and said”); 954–5 ὁππότε δοῦπον / ἢ ποδὸς ἢ ἀνέμοιο παραθρέξαντα δοάσσαι (“whenever she doubted whether a noise passing by was that of a footstep or the wind”); and 4.575–6 τὰ δ’ ἠεροειδέα λεύσσειν / οὔρεα δοιάζοντο Κεραύνια (“and they imagined they could see the misty Ceraunian mountains”). 13 There may be some overlap between blending and folk-etymology (cf. Friedrich 2008. 18– 20), but ἔνδιον is at best a compound, not a blend. See Chapter 2 below. Neither of the word’s constitutents is a splinter on the model of br-unch or pecho-nalidad. 8 12 fireworks. More subtly, the blend madulsa “performs” just how drunk Pseudolus is: not only does he stumble over his own feet, but he trips over his own tongue, entangling both his feet and his words. It offers a brief meta-commentary on the mental state of its speaker: not only is Pseudolus besotted, but he is foolishly and tastelessly (insulsus) or perhaps extravagantly (mulsum, an expensive drink) so. There is, additionally, an element of wit (what Humpty Dumpty called a “balanced mind”) in madulsa that humorously conveys an imprecise yet vivid impression. This imprecision is itself a part of the wit: drunken (madidus), on expensive wine (mulsum), witty (salsus), boorish (insuslus)—perhaps all at once. This shows that blends are interesting for at least three reasons: 1) their formal constituents; 2) their semantics; and 3) their pragmatic functions. The last of these three, in turn, entails both socio-linguistic and literary perspectives such as how the use of blends reflects on the social context and how it helps to construct an artistic or literary dynamic. All these perspectives are considered in the discussion of individuals examples in the chapters to follow. Just as there is terminological inconsistency when it comes to blends, so too is there a lack of agreement as to what constitutes a blend and what does not.14 Much Bauer 2013. 11. Cannon 2010, for example, broadly suggests that “[b]lending can be defined as a process of word formation in which two (or, rarely, three) separate source items are telescoped into a new form, which usually exhibits overlapping and retains some of the meaning of at least one of the source items” (952). On the other hand, Ralli–Xydopoulos 2013 limits blends to only those complex words where no source word remains fully intact. By this more restrictive definition, sexploitation, along with slanguage and alcoholiday, would not be blends. If not blends, however, they are surely something very similar regardless of what they are called. Certainly, they are not compounds, unless the conventional definition of the latter is to be broadened to include such formations. Following a similar tack, Gré sillon 1984a, 1984b; Kemmer 2000; and Fradin 2000 consider a complex word a blend only in cases where 9 14 scholarship has been devoted to distinguishing blends from the products of other processes of word formation, to distinguishing among different kinds of blends, to explaining why blends have the structure that they do, and to eliciting the rules which govern blends’ formation. Generally, the results of this work are neither entirely satisfactory nor universally accepted. Such definitional hair-splitting also tends to beg other questions (if not blends, then what?) and obscures blends’ most salient characteristic: their relative freedom from structural constraint. It is that freedom that makes blends witty and vivid. For this reason, madulsa works even better if it evokes both insulsus and mulsum as well as madidus and salsus. In this dissertation I will consider as a blend any word in which two or more separate source-words are “telescoped” into a new, complex word whose formal and semantic properties cannot be well explained by appeal to compounding or grammatical derivation. Chapter 2 (Compounding and Blending) will survey the history of the study of compounding in Greek and Latin historical grammar and review the types of compounds that are traditionally recognized as such. This discussion will provide a backdrop against which to situate the distinctive formal and semantic characteristics of lexical blends as a kind of word formation that is different from compounds. the left source word has been back-clipped and the right source word has been fore-clipped. For example, in brunch the left source word breakfast has been clipped to br-, while the right source word lunch has been clipped to -unch. Also, by this definition sexploitation, since both source words are not unambiguously clipped (either sex or exploitation could be fully intact). Conversely, Arcodia–Montermini 2013 consider the overlapping of source words as an essential feature of blends and would consider sexploitation a blend. This large area of disagreement is beyond the scope of the present investigation, however. 10 Chapter 3 (Onomastic Blends in Greek and Latin) identifies blends in which one of the source words is a proper noun or adjective and situates such blends within the broader context of onomastic humor in Greek and Latin. Chapter 4 extends the analysis to non-onomastic blends, while Chapter 5 considers the special category of bilingual blends in Latin, including an excursus on Roman bilingualism. The discussion of individual examples in each of Chapters 3–5 begins with the textual evidence and context for the item at issue, then turns to the formal and semantic characteristics that establish its blended identity, and finally considers pragmatic issues relevant to how the blend “works” as a communicational and/or artistic device in its context. The attention to be devoted to pragmatic issues perhaps requires further explanation. The functional aspects of word formation in Greek and Latin are understudied. About word formation in ancient Greek, Wouters et al. 2014 suggest that, while the enlargement and differentiation of the lexicon is the primary function of word formation, it can have a “stylistic use”, but they do not elaborate what such a stylistic use may be. “Stylistic” to what end and with what effect? Tribulato 2015, in turn, devotes but a few pages amid a 400-plus page discussion of ancient Greek verbinitial compounds and their diachronic development to stylistic considerations. In discussing the stylistics of verb-initial compounds in ancient Greek comedy, she concludes little more than that such compounds often evoke religious and elevated poetic language and are thus “parodic”.15 “Parodic” of what? In order to avoid the The functional side of word formation is in general understudied, with naming often presented as the sole rationale for forming new words (e.g. Downing 1977). Although it 11 15 questions begged by such vague characterizations, I attempt in my discussion of blends to address explicitly how each coinage functions in whatever can be recovered of its context. 1.1 ASSUMPTIONS AND METHODOLOGY Positing the existence of any significant number of lexical blends in classical languages is already a controversial hypothesis. Since this category of word formation has not, to my knowledge, been generally recognized either by ancient grammarians and rhetoricians or by the more modern tradition of classical scholarship, there is no convenient reference tool or data-set to assist one in the search for blend candidates. In this dissertation I do not claim to have identified all the lexical blends that may be attested in Greek and Latin literature. I do, however, believe I have identified enough clear examples to prove that this category of word formation did exist and was exploited for humorous purposes in both languages. In order to locate blend candidates I began my search with two assumptions. First, as formally unique nonce formations, blends would tend to be largely avoided cannot be denied that naming is a central function of words, especially from the point of view of building a lexicon, some scholarship on the functional aspects of word formation has considered functions that are not easily subsumed under “naming” (e.g. Dederding 1983; Kastovsky 1978; Lipka 2000. 171–3; Wladowa 1975). Moreover, other functions are connected to naming but clearly go beyond that function: for example, in the world of drama where ad-hoc speaking names are not uncommon, naming itself falls short as an explanation for these instances of word formation. Thus, without denying the saliency of this simple, monolithic function of word formation, what else does word formation do? And what are some of the fundamentally pragmatic, communicative aspects of nonce formations such as blends, apart from naming? 12 in the higher genres of classical literature. More likely they would be found, if anywhere, in the stylistically more fluid and exuberant genres, such as Old Comedy, Plautine Comedy, iambography, mime, epigram, satire, and perhaps epistolography. Even in these more fluid generes, however, blends would still be relatively rare because of their novelty. It hardly needs to be said that classical literature was generally not a demotic art-form, while blends generally are a form of demotic speech. As we shall see, at least two non-literary blends (Latin Rabienus and Biberius) arose in a demotic context. Second, as neologisms, blends would likely be hapax legomena, unless perhaps the word is repeated in the same context as its first attestation. Working from these assumptions I went about finding blend candidates in Greek and Latin two ways: by perusing LSJ and the OLD for hapax and bis legomena (an onerous task, indeed); and by reading through comedic texts (not just Greek and Latin comedy proper, but also, for example, mime, iambic poetry, and satire), singling out prima facie curious words. Considerations of time precluded extending the search to epistolography and epigram. Once I had compiled a list of candidates, I analyzed the etymology and derivational structure of each. Those that plausibly combined two or more lexemes but could not be explained as compounds or morpohological derivatives of either source were considered serious candidates for blends. Thereafter, I sought to clarify the formal structure of each putative blend, to consider and control for the possibility of textual inaccuracy, to define the word’s semantic reference(s), and to assess its pragmatic function(s) in context. 13 CHAPTER 2. COMPOUNDING AND BLENDING 2.1 INTRODUCTION Traditional analyses of word formation in Greek and Latin focus on two processes: derivation and compounding, both of which are regular, systematic, and widely productive in both languages.16 Yet there are words in Greek and Latin whose formations cannot be well explained through derivation or compounding because they contain non-morphemic constituents: derivation and compounding operate on morphemic constituents such as lexical roots, stem-formants, prefixes, and affixes. Blends, however, combine source-words at points of phonetic overlap rather than at morphemic boundaries: for example, English chortle, as a blend of “ch-ck-le” and “sn-ort”, is comprised of elements that have no grammatical function or semantic content in themselves.17 This chapter has two aims. The first is to introduce concepts that are used for the analysis of compounds in Greek and Latin to make clear what compounds are. The second is to demonstrate how blends differ from compounds. Compounds and blends are formed, it will be seen, through different yet not wholly dissimilar On compounding in Latin, e.g. Bader 1962; Benedetti 1988; Lindner 1996, 2002; Balles 2008; Brucale 2012. In Greek, e.g. Sommer 1948; Schwyzer 1953 I.425–55; Balles 2008; Tribulato 2015, esp. 13–132. 17 While it is possible that the word chortle, once formed, could subsequently be re-analyzed into a lexical root (chort-) and a derivational suffix (-le), thereby giving rise to a back-formed verb to chort, that would be a separate and further development in the evolution of the lexeme. Currently, a putative word chort is not listed in dictionaries of standard English usage, such as the OED and AHD. 14 16 processes. Since blends have been unstudied in Greek and Latin, a conceptual framework for investigating their structure, meaning, and function is lacking, but the framework used in reference to compounding will be a useful starting point. Grammatical derivation is different from both compounding and blending, but it is relevant to accounting for the form of lexemic constituents and thereby distinguishing stems from splinters. 2.2 COMPOUNDS AND COMPOUNDING A compound is a word in which “zwei (oder mehr) erkennbarre Wortstämme oder Wörter als sog. Kompositionsglieder unter einem einzigen Akzent zu einer Worteinheit zusammengefasst sind” (Leumann 1977. 383).18 Compounding is a wellattested and widely-exploited process of word formation cross-linguistically,19 which has been studied from a wide range of methodological perspectives.20 Even so, a No definition of a compound is entirely unproblematic, and this one is no exception: for example, the definition of a word is not a simple matter; and some compounds are no longer recognizable as such to speakers. On definitional problems generally, see e.g. Olsen 2000. 897–903. 19 Although it has been suggested that compounding is a linguistic universal (e.g. Libben 2006. 2), there is no consensus as to whether it is or not (cf. Bauer 2017. 1). It is, however, attested in very many typologically-diverse languages around the world: for example, in Chinese (cf. Sun 2006. 49–55; Ceccagno–Basciano 2007), Maori (cf. Harlow 2007. 130), and Lango (cf. Noonan 1992. 115). See in general Bauer 2001, 2017 (each with numerous examples from dozens of typologically diverse languages). 20 As is the case with blends, the study of compounds and their classification has seen English attain a prominence in recent decades. This is the consequence of two facts: (1) the high productivity of compounds in English, which has prompted in-depth studies of their characteristics; and (2) the development of new linguistic approaches in English-speaking countries. As a result, the bulk of recent bibliography on compounding has engaged with 15 18 definitive definition of a compound remains elusive, primarily because the boundary between compounding and other syntactic and morphological constructions, such as derivation and prefixed verbs, is not always clear.21 2.3 ANCIENT GREEK AND LATIN COMPOUNDING AS STEM22 COMPOUNDING Modern English, as opposed to older bibliography that engaged with the older Indo-European languages. There is sometimes tension between current approaches and the approaches traditional to Indo-European studies. For a general overview of the different perspectives from which compounding has been studied, see Olsen 2000. For overviews of various perspectives, see Lieber–S̆ tekauer 2009a. 21 Although both derivation and compounding often involve bound elements such as root or stem allomorphs, in those cases where unbound elements are involved there is no formal criterion to make a distinction between a derivational and a compounding process (e.g. is “comfort-able” a derivative or a compound?). Even if a distinction is made between derivation as involving one lexical morpheme and a grammatical morpheme, and compounding as involving at least two lexical morphemes, the status of prepositional elements in combination with lexical morphemes is still ambiguous: are they to be considered prefixes (i.e. grammatical affixes), giving rise to a derivational result, or are they to be regarded as prepositions with some lexical content, forming a compound with the lexical morpheme (e.g. “with-stand”)? I see little to be gained by making a further distinction between compounds and “parasynthetic compounds,” defined by Melloni–Bisetto 2010. 199 as “a word-formation … consisting of the merger of two lexical stems (forming a non-existent compound) with a derivational suffix.” There is also the related issue that many derivational suffixes originate historically as the second constituent of compounds: e.g. Eng. -ly and Ger. -lich < PGmc. *-līkaz “having the body or form of” < PGmc. *līka “body” (cf. Eng. lich and Ger. Leiche); or perhaps Grk. -ποιος (e.g. δολοποιός “treacherous”; τυφλοποιός “blinding”). On affixoids, see e.g. Booij–Hüning 2014. 77–106. 22 In its basic definition, a stem is: “a word-class-specific lexeme representation stripped of any inflectional endings, which has to combine with additional derivational and/or inflectional morphemes in order to function as a word” (Kastovsky 2009. 324). According to Ralli 2009. 457, the use of stems rather than full words is connected to the fact that certain languages, Greek and Latin included, have stem-based inflectional morphology: the exclusion of inflectional markers from the first constituent is a defining characteristic of compounding in these languages. 16 A characteristic that distinguishes compounds in Greek and Latin from those in many other languages is that Greek and Latin compounds typically involve a first constituent that does not correspond to a full word but rather to a stem and a second constituent that may consist of either another stem (plus inflectional morpheme) or an independently attested word, which often shows special derivational suffixes when used in compounding. So, while the English compounds bookbag, baseball, and tablecloth can each be described as composed of two otherwise free-standing words (book, bag, etc.), the same is not true of typical Greek compounds, such as νεβρο-φόνο-ς “fawn-killing” and θηρ-ο-δίωξ (< -δίωκ-ς) “hunter” (lit. “animal- chaser”), and Latin compounds, such as bi-form-is “two-shaped” and arti-fex (< -fec-s) “artisan”. In νεβροφόνος the first constituent νεβρo- corresponds to a stem, not to a full word, which in its nominative singular is νεβρός; the second constituent -φόνος corresponds to the autonomous word φονός “killer”, but it should be noted that the compound does not retain the accent of the simplex. In biformis, the first constituent bi- corresponds to a stem, rather than a full word (cf. the adverb bis “twice”); the second constituent -formis is not attested as an independent word but corresponds to the stem form- (cf. forma “shape”), to which third declension endings have been added. In θηροδίωξ, the first constituent θηρο- is a stem (cf. θήρ “wild animal”) plus a “linking-vowel” (on which, see below); the second constituent consists of the verbal root διωκ- (cf. διώκω “chase"), to which the nominative singular ending -ς has been added, but the form *δίωξ is not attested independently as a word, only as the second 17 constituent of this compound.23 Similarly, in artifex, the first constituent is a stem rather than an autonomous word; the second constituent -fex, a bound form found only in compounds, consists of the verbal root fec-/fac- to which the nominative singular ending -s has been added.24 The general principle to be derived from these examples is that Greek and Latin compounding is typically stem compounding and that the first constituent is typically a stem (possibly with linking vowel).25 And as for the second constituents of compounds, it is possible to distinguish between bound and unbound forms. The former do not appear as independent words, whereas the latter can do so, although sometimes with a difference of accent. 2.4 THE LINKING VOWEL26 But this may be due to the limited extents of the Greek and Latin corpora. Therefore, if one chooses to make the distinction, this would be an example of a “parasynthetic” compound; cf. n. 21 above. 25 Some compounds in Latin show syncopation of a stem-final vowel in the first constituent, especially compounds of manu- “hand”, such as mancipium “taking in hand”, mantēlum “towel”, and malluviae “hand-washing water”. 26 Ralli 2009. 455–7 argues that the -o- of Modern Greek is a marker whose “primary function … is to indicate the process of compound formation.” Furthermore, she argues that the presence of such marking is explained by the inflectional richness of Greek and the fact that its compounds are stem-based: thus, in languages with no inflection (e.g. English) or in languages where compounding is based on autonomous words (e.g. German), this marking is not needed. But the absence of such marking in English, however, cannot seemingly be explained merely by appeal to English’s lack of inflection, since although Old English was richly inflected, it still lacked such marking (e.g. dōmhūs “court” < dōm “judgement” and hūs “house”). 18 23 24 In Greek, the first constituent of many compounds is a noun-stem, which is to say that the nominative marker, if one exists in the free-standing noun, has been removed: for example, ξενοφόνος “guest-killing” < ξενο- “guest”; βουληφόρος “advice-bearing” < βουλη- “advice”; συφορβός “swine-feeder” < συ- “swine”; πολίαρχος “city-ruling” < πoλι- “city”. If the noun-stem forming the first constituent ended in a consonant, a linking vowel was commonly introduced between the two constituents of the compound: for example, παιδοφόνος “child-killing” < παιδ- “child”; πατρόφονος “father-slaying” < πατρ- “father”. The linking vowel is normally -ο-, which has been extended by analogy from the o-stem declension. In Latin, historically, the pattern is the same but has been obscured by vowel weakening in non-initial syllables.27 Thus, o and a have been weakened to i, thereby obscuring the original distinction between o-stems, a-stems, and i-stems, as well as consonant stems employing the -o- linking vowel that was extended analogically from the o-stem declension. For example, compare equiferus “wild horse” < equo- “horse”; terrigena “earth-born” < terra “earth”; anguigena “snake-born” < angui- “snake”; paludigena “marsh-born” < palud- “marsh”; patricida “father-killer” < patr-.28 On vowel weakening in non-initial syllables, see Weiss 2010. 116. Occasionally one finds compounds in Latin whose linking vowel is -u- (e.g. quadrupes “quadruped”) or -e- (e.g. legerupus “law-breaking”), but both of these are morphophonemic variants of /i/ that appear in certain environments (cf. Chase 1900; Weiss 2010. 264). Further exceptions may be due to “sporadic” (i.e. non-rule-governed) alteration of a constituent: e.g. homi-cida (vs. *homini-). Descriptively homicida could be considered a blend since its first constituent (homi-) is not a morphological stem. If the word did indeed originate as a blend, it was perhaps modeled after parricida (the first constituent of which is itself formally obscure); but if instead homicida is ultimately derived from a now unattested *homini-cida, then the word will have originated as a compound. This and a handful of other 19 27 28 2.5 THE SPELLING OF COMPOUNDS In the Greek and Latin texts printed in modern editions, all the forms identifiable as compounds are written as one word and, in Greek, show only one accent which, in keeping with the rules of accentuation, falls on one of the last three syllables. However, there is no certainty that these texts faithfully represent the situation in spoken Greek and Latin. The way in which compounds were written, namely in capitals and continuous script, leaves room for ambiguity and allows for error on the part of ancient scribes and modern editors in the transmission and editing of texts. A surer criterion than spelling for determining compoundhood in Greek and Latin is that the inflectional nature of the languages often allows for a distinction between compounds and syntactic phrases. In syntactic phrases, the relationship between the constituents can be made clear by inflectional markers, as in bello potens “powerful in war” (Apul. Soc. 17). On the other hand, in compounds, the inflectional element indicating the relationship between the constituents is lost, as in bellipotens “powerful-in-war” (e.g. Verg. A. 11.8). Thus, the difference between bello potens and bellipotens is morphological rather than purely graphic. However, Greek and Latin still contain ambiguous cases. Consider the Plautine adjective turpilucricupidus “ill-gotten-gain-desirous” (Trin. 100). Its second constituent corresponds to the autonomously attested adjective cupidus “desirous”, which requires a genitive complement. However, in many cases, the ending of the “Besonderheiten” noted by Leumann 1977. 390 are rare exceptions to the general transparency of compound-formation. 20 genitive is orthographicaly the same as the linking vowel of Latin compounds, although the difference in quantity between the long genitive ending -ī and the short linking vowel -i- can differentiate them and thus provides a formal criterion with which to classify this adjective as a compound or not. Yet, it is still possible to doubt that turpilucricupidus is a compound, since -cri- occupies an anceps syllable and its quantity cannot be determined.29 Thus, the sequence <TURPILUCRICUPIDUS> can be rendered as a compound turpilucricupidus or as a phrase turpilucri cupidus, in which turpilucri30 is a genitive dependent on the adjective cupidus. Compare, for example, the Plautine phrase auri cupidus “desirous of gold” (Poen. 179), which is written and regarded as a phrase rather than as a compound *auricupidus, since the meter guarantees that auri has a long -ī. As we shall see, there exists the possibility that the vicissitudes of transmission, the conventions of writing and scribal and/or editorial judgements may have produced or effaced possible blends in the textual record. 2.6 BASIC CRITERIA FOR CLASSIFICATION OF COMPOUNDS Ancient Greek grammarians did not provide their own classification of compounds, being content with a simple distinction between compounds and derivatives.31 The In iambic senarius in Roman comedy, the anceps in the 3rd position is long only about 60% of the time (cf. Gratwick 1993. 44). 30 turpilucri itself is unambiguously a compound. Otherwise the text would read *turpis lucri cupidus. 31 Vaahtera 1998 21 29 result of this is that most traditional accounts of Greek and Latin compounding have relied on the classification used in the grammars of Classical Sanskrit, which follow Pāṇ ini, a 4th-century BCE Sanskrit grammarian. The Sanskrit tradition classified compounds according to semantic criteria, distinguishing between: (1) compounds in which both constituents carry the meaning (so-called dvandvas, from Sanskrit dvaṃdva- “two-two; pair”); (2) compounds in which the second constituent carries the meaning (so-called tatpurushas, from Sanskrit tatpuruṣa- “that (person’s) man; servant”); and (3) compounds in which an external referent carries the meaning (socalled bahuvrihis, from Sanskrit bahuvrīhi-, literally “much-rice” but denoting a rich man). The Sanskrit tradition further subdivided tatpurushas into three subtypes: (1) karmadharaya compounds (from Sanskrit karmadhāraya- “work-bearing”), in which the first constituent is an adjective modifying the second; (2) tatpurushas proper, in which the first constituent is a noun modifying the second; and (3) dvigu (“two-cow”) compounds, in which the first constituent is a numeral.32 As Bauer 2017. 110 notes, Cf. Whitney 1896. 481–515; Burrow 1973. 208–19; Lowe 2015. Franz Bopp 1827. 311–24 introduced the terms “copulative Composita” for dvandvas; “possessive Composita” for bahuvrihis; “determinative Composita” for karmadharayas; “abhängigkeits-Composita” for tatpurushas; and “collective Composita” for dvigu. His “abhängigkeits-Composita” was, however, short-lived, being already abandoned in Müller 1866. 326–31 and yoked together with his “determinative Composita” under the umbrella term “Determinativkomposita”. Alexandrow 1880. 110 had suggested the term “exocentrische Composita” for Bopp’s “possessive Composita”, which later Wackernagel 1905. 273 criticized as too restrictive, arguing that such compounds were not possessive but rather metonymic; he returned to calling them bahuvrihis. Wackernagel 1905. 308–21 also discussed a class of compounds not singled out in the Sanskrit tradition, namely those with a governing first constituent, under the heading “Komposita mit regierendem Vorderglied”; Brugmann 1906. 61 called these “Rektionskomposita”. Monier Williams 1846. 159 coined the terms “descriptive compound” for karmadharaya and “dependent compound” for tatpurusha. Despite the existence of various other, competing terms, the essential distinctions of the Sanskrit system continue to 22 32 the Sanskrit system is descriptively inadequate since it is based on a single language and therefore provides no name for certain kinds of compounds attested in other languages but not in Sanskrit (e.g. compounds like English killjoy and Italian lavapiatti “wash-plates”, i.e. “dishwasher”). More recent scholarship has aimed to produce a set of universally applicable descriptors that take account of how a compound’s meaning is a function of semantic, syntactic, and formal characteristics.33 The meaning of a compound is usually compositional but can be unpredictable.34 The unpredictability arises mainly from two characteristics of compounds. First, there are many possible syntactic relations between the constituents of a compound, but those relations are often not overtly marked by formal criteria.35 So, for example, in English headstone the first contituent is a locative modifier of the second; in headlock it is accusative; in headphone it is dative; in headstand it is perhaps instrumental; etc.36 Second, compounds and their individual constituents are, like all words, subject to processes of semantic drift. As a metaphor, be found in standard reference works on Greek and Latin. Thus, for example, in Schwyzer 1953 I.427–55 we find discussed Kopulative-, Determinative-, Rektions-, and exozentrischen Komposita; in Smyth 1952. 252–3, determinative, descriptive, dependent, and possessive compounds; in Leumann 1977. 393–403, Rektions-, Determinativ-, Possessiv-, and Kopulativkomposita. 33 Cf. Tribulato 2015; Bauer 2017. 34 On the (un)predictability of novel compounds, e.g. Renouf–Bauer 2000; Š tekauer 2009; Bauer 2017. 71–9. 35 As Smyth 1956 § 895 notes, “the logical relation between the parts of compounds varies so greatly that the boundary-lines between the different classes are difficult to set up, and a complete formal division is impossible. The poets show a much wider range of usage than the prose-writers”. 36 Lexicalized phrases are relatively rare exceptions to this formal ambiguity: e.g. Eng. deathshead; Grk. Διόσκουροι; Lat. aquaeductus. 23 for example, English headstart does not denote a start at the head or with the head or of the head, but an early start, especially one that will expedite further progress. Metonymy accounts for another wildcard in the semantics of compounds. For example, English redbreast is a kind of bird and English blockhead a kind of person.37 A further factor contributing to the unpredictability of a compound’s meaning is loss of compositional saliency.38 This is especially prone to happen in cases where diachronic changes in phonology, morphology, or the lexicon render one or more of the of the compound’s constituents opaque. Thus, for example, English lady has long been unrecognizable as originating in the compound hlæfdige “bread-kneader” (lit. “loaf-dey”). Likewise obscured are the compound origins of Greek δεσπότης “master” (< *dems-pot-eh2-s “house-master”) and Latin hospes “host” (< *hosti-pet-s “guest- master”). In any event, a descriptively adequate system of classifying compounds must take account of not only their lexical semantics but also syntactic and formal criteria. 2.7 BAUER’S SYSTEM OF CLASSIFYING COMPOUNDS Bauer 2017. 112–5 classifies compounds within a matrix of four parameters: (1) according to the syntactic-semantic relationship between their constituents, which divides compounds into coordinative and subordinative compounds; (2) according to a morphosyntactic analysis of their constituents, which divides compounds into 37 38 On semantic drift in compounds, see Spencer 1991. 312. Cf. Olsen 2000. 901 24 attributive and relational compounds; (3) according to the presence or absence of a semantic head, which divides compounds into endocentric and exocentric compounds; and (4) according to the relative orientation of their heads, which divides compounds into right-oriented, left-oriented, or right-and-left-oriented compounds. The application of these four categories can be seen by considering the following set of compounds. The Greek examples will be especially illuminating, since each conveniently has as its second constituent the noun πόλις “city”: English Greek39 Latin40 1. hunter-gatherer 2. chalkboard κωμόπολις “town” suovetaurilia “sacrifice” 3. blackboard 4. starboard ἀκρόπολις “acropolis” angiportus “alley” 5. braveheart 6. killjoy νεκρόπολις “necropolis” κοσμόπολις “a magistrate” μεγιστόπολις “who makes the city greatest” ἀρχέπολις “who rules a city” domuitio “journey home” nocticolor “night-colored” siccoculus “dry-eyed” versipellis “werewolf” (1) and (2) are formally identical, each having a noun as its first constituent, but the relationship between their constituents differs and their overall semantics differ: (1) describes something that is equally both of its constituents, whereas (2) merely describes a subset of its second constituent. This pair shows the need for a division between coordinative compounds akin to (1) and subordinative compounds akin to (2). In descending order, lit. “village-city”; “corpse-city”; “high-city”; “order-city”; “greatestcity”; “rule-city”. 40 In descending order, lit. “pig-sheep-bull-sacrifice”; “home-journey”; “narrow-passageway”; “night-color”; dry-eye”; “change-skin”. 25 39 (2) and (3) are similar in that each describes a subset of its second constituent, but because they differ formally ((2) has a noun as its first constituent, whereas (3) has an adjective), they differ in the grammatical relationship between their constituents. This pair shows the need for a division between attributive compounds akin to (3) and relational compounds akin to (2).41 (2) and (4), on the one hand, and (3) and (5), on the other, are formally identical and similar relationships obtain between their constituents, but (2) and (3) each describe a subset of their second constituent, whereas (4) and (5) each describe something outside of themselves that is entirely different from either of their constituents. This pair shows the need for a division between endocentric compounds akin to (2) and exocentric compounds akin to (4). (6) differs formally from (1)–(5) since it has a verbal first constituent, but yet like (2)–(5) it is subordinative, like (2) and (4) it is relational, and like (4) and (5) it is exocentric. While no examples are shown above, compounds with verbal second constituents are well attested in each language (see below), so what is noteworthy about (6) is not that it contains a verbal constituent itself, but that it is left-oriented— that is, the second constituent is subordinate to the first. In the following sections we consider more general patterns of how Greek and Latin compounds are distributed according to Bauer’s four parameters. This distinction is essentially the same as that between the traditional “descriptive” vs. “dependent” subsets of “determinatives”. Tribulato 2015, for example, abandoned this distinction, although I think it is useful. 26 41 2.7.1 COORDINATIVE AND SUBORDINATIVE COMPOUNDS A principal syntactic-semantic criterion for classifying compounds is either subordination, which identifies compounds in which one of the constituents is semantically subordinated to the other as if functioning syntactically as either a modifer or complement, or the lack of subordination, namely coordination. Coordinative compounds are those in which the two constituents are syntactically coordinate; in an uncompounded form, the constituents could just as well be conjoined by the conjunction “and”.42 Both constituents of a coordinative compound typically belong to the same lexical category, and virtually any category is permissible. For example, English hunter-gatherer, blue-green, and drop-kick; Greek κωμόπολις “town”, a settlement that in ways is simultaneously akin to a κώμη “village” and a πόλις “city”; Latin suovetaurilia (lit. “pig-sheep-bull-sacrifice”) is equally a sacrifice of each of those three animals. Coordinative compounds are relatively underrepresented in classical Greek43 and Latin44, a state of affairs opposite that of, for example, Celtic, Germanic, and IndoIranian.45 However, in Latin the existence of an unattested coordinative compound 42 For a more precise definition of coordinative compound, see Renner 2008. Such a definition is, however, entirely adequate for the present purpose. For Indo-European coordinative compounds generally, see Richter 1898. 23-47; Wackernagel 1905. 149–73. 43 Although they become frequent in Medieval Greek (cf. Browning 1983. 67). 44 Coordinative compounds exist in all the major, modern Romance languages and in e.g. Spanish those consisting of two adjectives (e.g. blanco-amarillento “white-yellow”) are among the most productive kind (cf. Forza–Scalise 2016). A study of their development from Latin into Romance, however, seems lacking. 45 Burrow 1973. 217–9 seems to suggest that dvandva compounds, at least of the noun-noun kind, were a development unique to the historical period of each individual Indo-European 27 can sometimes be inferred from a derivative thereof, as with strufertarius “an official who carries the strues and the fertum (both kinds of sacrificial cake)”. While such compounds were the least common of the two types in both languages, a monstrous example from Aristophanes (Ec. 1169–74) contains no fewer than 26 constituents: λοπαδο-τεμαχο-σελαχο-γαλεο-κρανιο-λειψανο-δριμυπο-τριμματο-σιλφιο-λιπαρομελιτο-κατακεχυμενο-κιχλεπι-κοσσυφο-φαττο-περιστερ-αλεκτρυον-οπτο- πιφαλλιδο-κιγκλο-πελειο-λαγῳο-σιραιο-βαφη-τραγαλο-πτερυγών, a dish consisting of all kinds of foodstuffs. Some Greek personal names are likewise coordinate compounds: for example, Ἀρκόλυκος “Bear-Wolf” (e.g. IG II2 2097, from 169/70 CE). Subordinative compounds, on the other hand, are those compounds in which, as the name suggests, one constituent is syntactically subordinate to the other. In an uncompounded form, the relationship between the constituents of such compounds could be expressed through either the use of prepositional phrases or oblique case forms or with modifying adjectives: for example, chalkboard is more-or-less equivalent to “a board for chalk”; νεκρόπολις to ἡ πόλις τῶν νεκρῶν (“a city of corpses”); and domuitio “homeward journey” to itio domum “a journey homeward”. 2.7.2 ATTRIBUTIVE AND RELATIONAL COMPOUNDS Another criterion for classifying compounds is attribution, which separates compounds in which one constituent is an adjectival modifier of the other from those language, but that dvandva compounds of the adjective-adjective kind may have be inherited from PIE. An early example in Greek is γλυκύπικρος “bittersweet” (Sapph. fr. 130.2). 28 in which one constituent is a noun standing in some grammatically dependent relationship to the other. This amounts to a formal analysis of constituents, but it would be equally possible to think of this division syntactically, as well, and to separate compounds in which one constituent is an adjunct of the other from those in which one constituent is a complement of the other. Attributive compounds are those in which one constituent is an adjectival modifier of the other. In an uncompounded form, the relationship between the constituents of such compounds as blackboard, ἀκρόπολις, and angiportus could be expressed in the noun-phrases black bird, ἄκρη πόλις (“high city”), and angustus portus (“narrow passageway”).46 Relational compounds, on the other hand, are those in which one constituent is a noun standing in some grammatically dependent relationship to the other. In an uncompounded form, the relationship between the constituents of such compounds as killjoy, ἀρχέπολις, and versipellis could be expressed using verb phrases with the second constituents as direct objects47 of the first: for example, killjoy is roughly equivalent to someone who kills joy; ἀρχέπολις to ὁ τῆς πόλεως ἄρχων (“someone who rules the city”) and versipellis to qui pellem vertat (“someone who changes skins”). The positive adjective *angus “narrow” is unattested. In terms of grammatical relationships at least. It would be equally possible to think about these in terms of thematic relationships, on which see Carnie 2006. 221, 232–3, and consider -joy, -πολις and -pellis patients. 29 46 47 2.7.3 HEADS48 The head of a compound is the constituent that determines the semantic category of that compound: for example, the head of the compound noun chalkboard is its second constituent board, since a chalkboard is a kind of board, not a kind of chalk. This is the case with all the compounds in (2) and (3) above, which are therefore “headed”. The compounds in (4)–(6) above are “headless”, since in none does either constituent determine the semantic category of the compound: for example, a starboard is neither a plank of wood nor something with which one steers, but instead refers metonymically to the side of the ship from which one steers;49 a κοσμόπολις is neither a kind of orderliness nor a kind of city, but rather a magistrate who maintains orderliness for the city in some way; and nocticolor is neither a kind of night nor a color, but instead refers to the dark-skinned Memnon.50 Semantically headed compounds are “endocentric”, whereas semantically headless compounds are “exocentric”. 2.7.4 ENDOCENTRICITY AND EXOCENTRICITY51 See in general Tribulato 2015. 43–4, 117–8; Bauer 2017. 29–41 (each discussing some problems with the notion of a “head” as applied to compounds). 49 starboard < ME sterbord < OE stēor “rudder” and bord “board used on the side of a hull; side of a hull” 50 Laev. fr. 12 51 See in general, Tribulato 2015: 44–5; Bauer 2017. 64–71 30 48 Endocentric compounds have a semantic focus that lies within themselves: for example, blackboard refers to a kind of board, just as ἀκρόπολις refers to a kind of πόλις and angiportus refers to a kind of portus. In other words, endocentric compounds are merely hyponyms of their heads. Exocentric compounds, on the other hand, have a semantic focus that lies outsides of themselves: for example, braveheart refers semantically not to a kind of heart, but to a person characterized by a brave heart, an idea not contained in the compound itself, just as μεγιστόπολις in Pindar refers not to a kind of city, but to a person who makes a city a very great, and siccoculus refers not to a kind of eye, but to a person characterized by dry eyes. In both braveheart and the endocentric blackboard, heart and board are affected by the same kind of modification through brave and black, but with the difference that blackboard does not manifest the same semantic shift as braveheart: blackboard has a semantic head, while braveheart does not and is thus exocentric. The exocentricity acquired, however, by braveheart is neither intrinsic to the words brave or heart nor, of course, to the formal makeup of the compound itself; rather, it emerges as a matter of convention after braveheart is used to refer to a person with a brave heart, an entity that lies outside of what either of its constituents denote. The same is true of μεγιστόπολις and siccoculus, which are formally identical to the endocentric ἀκρόπολις and angiportus, but conventionally exocentric nevertheless.52 The endocentricity and exocentricity of ἀκρόπολις and μεγιστόπολις do not arise from anything intrinsic to the constituent -πολις, as is obvious now, nor, it is perhaps worth pointing out, do they arise from anything intrinsic to ἀκρο- or μεγιστο-, since endocentric compounds in μεγιστο- (e.g. μεγιστοάνασσα “greatest mistress”, an epithet of Hera) and 31 52 By contrast, nocticolor (discussed in the previous section) is endocentric because, although it describes Memnon, it does not itself refer to him. A class of compounds, however, that is seemingly always exocentric is those with a verbal first constituent:53 for example, killjoy refers to a person who prevents others from having fun, ἀρχέπολις to a kind of ruler, and versipellis to a kind of shapeshifter, ideas which are semantically contained neither in the compounds themselves nor in either of their constituents individually. Nevertheless, the relationship between the two constituents in each is like that found in chalkboard, νεκρόπολις, and domuitio. 2.7.5 ORIENTATION A final criterion useful for classifying and understanding Greek and Latin compounds is the orientation of their constituents. The compound systems of Greek and Latin are predominantly right-oriented:54 in subordinative compounds, the semantic head is typically the second constituent, but there are some left-oriented compounds that are exceptions to this tendency, such as verb-initial compounds and, in Greek, compounds in for example ἀξιο- and ἰσο-.55 exocentric compounds in ἀκρο- (e.g. ἀκροθώραξ “drunken” but lit. “high-thorax”) are also attested. 53 On which in general, see Tribulato 2015. 54 Using Bauer’s terminology, although “right” and “left” obviously presume a left-to-right system of writing. A less culturally and historically bound terminology would be “postpositioned” and “ante-positioned” vel sim. 55 Cf. Tribulato 2015. 112–3. 32 In summary, the model adopted here classifies compounds using a set of nonhierarchical features, according to which compounds may be (1) subordinative or coordinative, depending on the syntactic-semantic relationship between their constituents; (2) attributive or relational, depending on their formal makeup; (3) endocentric or exocentric, depending on their semantic focus; and (4), right-oriented or left-oriented, depending on the relative position of their heads. The following table shows the primary combinations in Greek and Latin with English given for the sake of comparison:56 Coordinative Compounds [A A]A57 bittersweet [N N]N γλυκύπικρος “bittersweet” hunter-gatherer κωμόπολις “town” dulcacidus “bittersweet” suovetaurilia “sacrifice” Subordinative Compounds Relational Right-oriented Left-oriented Endocentric Endocentric [N N]N [N N]N chalkboard endgame Not shown, however, are compounds with prepositional or numerical constituents, which of course exist, but since they bear less resemblance to blends, I have chosen not to take up space with them. Otherwise, the list for Greek and Latin is as comprehensive as I could make it, even though there are occasional gaps, especially among left-oriented categories. This is not to say that there are no compounds attested that could fill these gaps, but I have not been able to find any. 57 The formalism [A A] means that the resulting compound is an adective ( ) whose A A constituents are an adjective and another adjective ([A A]). 33 56 νεκρόπολις “necropolis” [N A]A domuitio “journey home” money-hungry ἵππαγρος “wild horse”58 [A N]A ὑλακόμωρος“always barking”61 [N V]N damnigerulus “pernicious”63 taxi-driver πολίοχος “city-protecter” bustirapus “grave-robber” sacciperium “purse”59 worthwhile60 δικαιόπολις “faithful to the city”62 [V N]N/A — shakedown μισόπολις “hating the city”64 poscinummius “money-seeking”65 Lit. “horse-field” Lit. “bag-wallet” 60 This compound is perhaps only possible because of the argument-structure of the adjective worth, which requires an object (e.g. Paying that much is worth it; It is worth paying that much), just as do Grk. ἄξιος and Lat. dignus (of which there are no compounds), and Maling 1983. 268 has gone so far as to argue that worth is in fact a preposition. 61 Lit. “barking-foolish” 62 Lit. “just-city”. Whether the adjective is endocentric or exocentric at Pi. P. 8.22–4 (its first attestation, where it describes Aegina) is unclear: ἁ δικαιόπολις…νᾶσος. Is it “the fair-to-cities island”, in which case it is endocentric and left-oriented, or is it “the island having just cities”, in which case it is exocentric and right-oriented? The latter seems more plausible. But as the personal name of the hero of Aristophanes’ Acharnians, it is seemingly endocentric and leftoriented: “he who is just to the city” vel sim. Highlighting the unpredictability of the meaning of compounds is the fact that there were two cities in antiquity called Δικαιόπολις “The Fair City”, in which case the word is unambiguously endocentric and right-oriented (Harp. δ 65). 63 Lit. “(financial) loss-carrying” Oniga 2014. 170 notes that in Latin “combinations of a noun and an adjective and verb-initial combinations are rarely attested [because], in Archaic Latin, adjectives typically precede nouns, and verbs are placed in final position. This implies that verb-initial compounds and adjective+noun (sic) compounds are structurally incoherent to the parameters of early Latin syntax.” Nevertheless, both kinds of compounds are attested, so how incoherent could they have been? 64 Lit. “hate-city. Tribulato 2015 evidently misses the word in her corpus. 65 Lit. “seek-money” 34 58 59 Exocentric Exocentric [N N]N/A starboard [N N]N κοσμόπολις “magistrate" [N V]N/A nocticolor “night-colored” buzzkill θυμολέων “lion-heart”66 [V N]N οἰκοφόρος “house-carrying” Attributive — killjoy φερέοικος “house-carrying”67 domiporta “house-carrier”68 Right-oriented center stage versipellis “shapeshifter” Left-oriented Endocentric Endocentric [A N]N [N A]N/A blackboard ἀκρόπολις “acropolis” attorney general69 — I.e. one who has the heart of a lion. However, Tribulato 2015. 108–9 argues for a rightoriented interpretation of this and similarly-formed compounds. 67 The word means “nomads” vel sim. at Hdt. 4.46.3 (of the Scythians), but “snail” at Hes. Op. 571. 68 I.e. a snail 69 Bauer 2017. 120 disputes its status as a compound. That English may actively avoid such compounds may be suggested by the following anecdote: in an episode of the PBS Kids show Odd Squad (season 2, episode 13), a villain named “Backwards Bob” has caused people to walk and talk backwards. When the show’s protagonists first confront him, as he is seated backwards at his desk and wearing his clothes—shirt, hat, glasses, and all—backwards, and address him as “Backwards Bob”, he swivels in his chair to face them and says, “I prefer ‘Bob Backwards’”. One of the protagonists retorts, “Yeeeeah, we’re not going to call you that,” since it, like walking and talking backwards, is presumably anomalous. 35 66 [A A]A angiportus "alleyway” blue-green [A A]A ὀξύμωρος “pointedly foolish”71 [A V]A equiferus “horse-wild” —70 ἀξιόπιστος “worth trusting”72 multiloquax “much-talkative” — sweet-talking κακόλογος “evil-speaking” multiiloquus “much-speaking” Exocentric Exocentric [A N]N [NA]A braveheart armstrong μεγιστόπολις “making the — siccoculus “dry-eyed” — city greatest” Two further observations: (1) nearly all the compounds here consist of only two constituents, as do most compounds in Greek and Latin. However, both languages can form more elaborate compounds with more than two constituents: for example, Greek λαλοβαρύοψ “chattering-deep-voiced” and παραμελορυθμοβάτας “out-of- time-with-the-music-going” (both, Pratin. PMG 708.13); συλλαβοπευσιλαλητής “a philosopher who examines each syllable before pronouncing it” (Ath. 4.162a); and It is possible that such compounds do not exist in English (or Latin?), since being formally identical to their right-oriented counterparts, they would be especially ambiguous. 71 Lit. “sharp-foolish” 72 Lit. “worth-credible” 36 70 Latin subductisupercilicarptor “someone who criticizes and furrows his brows” (Gel. 19.7.16), but compounds consisting of more than two constituents tend to be marked, often comic, formations.73 (2) Despite the variety of lexical classes permitted as the constituents of the above compounds, all the compounds themselves are either nouns or adjectives. This tendency for compounds to be nominal is observed crosslinguistically,74 although there are certainly examples of denominative compound verbs in English (e.g. strongarm, sidestep). Both Greek and Latin also have compound verbs such as ἀγαθοποιέω “make good” and benedico “praise”, but such formations in Greek are generally thought to derive from pre-existing nominal compounds, in this case ἀγαθοποιός “beneficent”, while many in Latin are explainable as having arisen from juxtapositions. For example, benedico is originally two words: bene dico “I speak well”.75 2.8 THE USE OF COMPOUNDS Compounding, along with derivation, was a principal means of enlarging the lexicon of both Greek and Latin beyond the stock of inherited Indo-European words and borrowings from other languages. In Greek especially, compounding has a long history as a productive and vital process for building the lexicon, with compounds Compounds consisting of more than two constituents are said to be “recursive” (cf. Bauer 2017. 43–6.) Mukai 2008. 193 alleges that Latin has no recursive compounds but is mistaken. 74 Guevara–Scalise 2009. 75 Buck 1966. 363; Oniga 2007. 166–7; Brucale 2012. 111 37 73 already attested in Mycenaean: for example, qo-u-qo-ta “ox-herd”.76 The Mycenaean examples suggest, in addition to hinting at the longevity, productivity, and vitality of compounding, that compounding was a ubiquitous feature of everyday language. 77 Latin, too, from its earliest attestations yields examples of compounds: for example, meridies “mid-day” in the Twelve Tables. However, from these earliest attestations, it is apparent that compounding in Latin is relatively constrained vis-à-vis other IndoEuropean languages.78 In the histories of the Greek and Latin languages, compounding, although it extended and differentiated the general lexicon of each language, and even though some Roman grammarians groused about neologisms,79 played an important role in 76 On compounds in Mycenaean, see Chadwick 1976. 43; Meissner–Tribulato 2002; Waanders 2008. 77 pace Meillet–Vendryes 1960. 421: “La langue populaire n’emploie guère la composition. Les textes littéraires présentent en général d’autant plus de composes qu’ils s’éloignent avantage de l’usage courant. Le compose a le plus souvent quelque chose d´artificiel; il convient aux langues spéciales et techniques de la philosophie, de la science … auxquelles il confère à la fois précision et gravité. C’est surtout la langue poétique qui en fait usage. Les poètes qui se piquent d’un langage noble et veulent atteindre un ton élevé, obtiennent l’effet cherché en employant des composes.” 78 Cf. Fruyt 2003; Brucale 2012. 79 Cf. Quint. Inst. 1.70.5 sed res tota magis Graecos decet, nobis minus succedit: nec id fieri natura puto, sed alienis favemus, ideoque cum κυρταύχενα mirati simus, incurvicervicum vix a risu defendimus (“but the whole thing [sc. compounding] suits the Greeks better. It is less successful with us. Nor do I think it happens because of the nature of our language, but we favor foreign words, so although we admire kurtauchena (‘with a curved neck’; adesp. trag. fr. 438a) we can hardly defend incurvicervicum (‘with a curved neck’; Pac. trag. 408) from ridicule”); Gel. 1.10.4 vive ergo moribus praeteritis, loquere verbis praesentibus atque id, quod a C. Caesare, excellentis ingenii ac prudentiae viro, in primo de analogia libro scriptum est, habe semper in memoria atque in pectore: ut tamquam scopulum, sic fugias inauditum atque insolens verbum (“Live therefore according to the manners of the past, but speak in the language of the present, and always remember and take to heart what Gaius Caesar, a man of surpassing talent and wisdom, wrote in the first book of On Analogy: avoid, as you would a rock, a strange and unfamiliar word”). For ancient attitudes toward novel words, see Vaahtera 1998. 28-46. 38 creating the specialized vocabularies of religion and poetry, where compounding was amenable to a condensed style of expression (a compound could be used in place of a phrase or vice versa in order to suit the needs to poetic meter: for example, the use of πόδας ὠκύς “(in respect to his) feet swift” versus ποδώκης “swift-footed”), as well as, for example, the vocabularies of science (for example, the learned plenilunium “full moon” used in place of the conventional phrase luna plena), rhetoric, grammar, and philosophy.80 In addition, compounding was a productive, inherited mechanism for creating proper names.81 The lexicon-building function of compounding correlates with its stylistic uses. Alongside highly productive patterns, there are less common, even idiosyncratic patterns of compounding: the more productive kinds are most frequently used with no stylistic intentions, whereas certain stylistic effects can be achieved with less productive kinds. Thus, for example, compounding can be a means of marking a text or passage as belonging to a certain genre (e.g. tragedy) or stylistic register (e.g. 80 On the specialized vocabularies of individual Greek genres, see e.g. Willi 2003. 81 Many personal names in the older Indo-European traditions are compounds: e.g. Eng. Roger “whose spear is famous” is < PGmc. *hrôþigaizaz (a compound of *hrôþiz “fame” and *gaizaz “spear”); Greek Ἀριστοκλῆς “whose fame is best” (a compound of ἄριστος “best” and κλέος “fame”). Italic seems to have broken with this tradition and developed a unique system of personal names. In Roman comedy Greek-style names are found, such as Virginesvendonides “Girlsellerson” (Plaut. Pers. 702), but these obviously parody the patronymic formations so common in its new comedy sources. Greek comedy itself exploited personal names for humorous ends, and some blends are also names and play on this tradition, as discussed in Chapter 3. On the Indo-European names generally, e.g. Pulgram 1947. 39 paratragedy). In the presence of less productive processes then, one enters the field of literary idiolects: for example, the language of epic82 or the language of comedy.83 2.9 HOW BLENDS DIFFER FROM COMPOUNDS AND HOW THEY ARE ANALOGOUS Having now reviewed the characteristics of compounds in Greek and Latin we are able to note how lexical blends are a different kind of formation. Let us return to the example with which we began Chapter 1: madulsa. The context of this Plautine hapax makes clear that the basic meaning of the word is something like a “state of drunkeness”, as glossed by the OLD s. v. whose editors suggest the word is “from MADEO, perh. influenced by mulsa.” This suggestion, however, is not intended to claim that the formation corresponds to any known kind of derivational process. It merely recognizes the saliency of the root that underlies the verb madere and acknowledges the hint of the word mulsa that also fits the textual context. If madulsa evokes two lexical constituents, the root of madere and the word mulsa, it is natural to think it may be a compound. Yet the word’s structure cannot be paralleled by any known compound formation. Compounds in Greek and Latin, it will be remembered, are derived initially or, in rare cases, secondarily from lexical roots and stems. The sequence -uls- is neither a root nor a stem. If Plautus had wished to coin an adjective meaning, say, “drunk on mulsa,” it was perfectly possible to do so with a “normal” compound such as *mulsa-madidus or *mulso-madidus. Had he 82 83 On the language of Greek epic, see Risch 1974. See e.g. Costa Ramalho 1952. 40 wished to coin a noun meaning “mulsa drunkeness,” a compound like *mulsa-mador or *mulsa-ebrietas would have served—or, even more Plautine in its linguistic innovation, something like *mulsa-maditio. Had he wished to create a noun meaning something like “drunkenness-inducing mulsa,” admittedly unlikely, a compound like *made-mulsa or *madido-mulsa was possible. But the word is not a compound. It is a lexical blend and, as such, has been formed utterly free of any stem constraints based upon its constituents. Its sources are splinters, not stems; and as splinters they open the door to other possible lexical associatons including, as suggested earlier, (in)sulsus.84 Although blends are formally distinguishable from compounds, let us consider next whether there are syntactic and/or semantic similarities between blends and compounds. Focussing again on madulsa, whether we utilize the traditional typology of compounds or Bauer’s, we are immediately confronted with an analytical problem. In this, as in most blends, where does the first constituent end and the second begin? In a pinch we might consider that the word should be divided as follows: mad-ulsa. Yet such a division leaves us with no meaningful second constituent. If indeed this word is a blend of the root in madere and the noun mulsa, then the initial /m/ of madere presumably plays some role in making m…ulsa recognizable as a constituent. On the other hand, if we take the /m/ to belong to the mulsa constituent, then the root of madere becomes opaque. In fact, however, the /m/ plays a role in communicating A corollary to the absence of stem-constraints in blends is the absence of any need for a linking vowel. 41 84 both constituents, forcing us at most to limit our analysis to analogies in applying either the traditional typology or Bauer’s. Is madulsa analogous to a coordinative or a subordinative compound under Bauer’s first parameter? Taking the word’s primary meaning to be “drunkenness from drinking mulsa,” the relationship between the putative constituents is subordinative. Under Bauer’s second parameter, is madulsa a kind of drunkenness (attributive relationship) or a statement of the particular circumstances that surround this drunkenness (relational)? Either would be possible, but the formal blending of the constituents makes it difficult to decide. Applying Bauer’s last two parameters is also problematic. The notional head of “drunkenness from drinking mulsa” is the concept of drunkenness, despite the absence of a nominal source word meaning drunkenness. Formally, because the hapax ends in -ulsa, we might have expected m…ulsa to be the head, in which case the meaning would be “mulsa that makes one drunk.”85 Regardless of which consituent we take to be the head, this blend is analogous to an endocentric compound. The lack of formal clarity also frustrates application of Bauer’s fourth and last parameter: orientation. Even if we decide that the notional head of the composition is unambiguously either “drunkenness” or mulsa, it is impossible to situate that head definitively in the sequence of the word’s constituents. We might consider madulsa to be left oriented, since it begins with the syllable mad-, which evokes the root of the lexeme madere. On the other hand, the 85 Perhaps a less likely meaning for the object of habeo in the context, but not impossible. 42 constituent m…ulsa actually begins at the same point as mad-. This fact would make a bidirectional orientation the better analogy. In conclusion, while blending and compounding in Greek and Latin both inolve the combination of two or more lexical items, formally they are entirely distinct. Whereas the constituents of compounds are morphemic, being either root or stem morphemes, typically at least one and often all the constituents of a blend are nonmorphemic. Whereas the constituents of compounds are typically joined by a conventional linking vowel, the constituents of blends overlap with one another at points of phonetic overlap. Blending, although relying on the same stock of lexical items for input as compounding, outputs neologisms whose lexical category and formal makeup are not typical of compounding. Finally, the syntactic-semantic criteria used for classifying compounds fail in many cases to capture the relationship between a blend’s constituents. In fact, the syntactic relationship between the constituents is sometimes of little significance to the meaning(s) of the blend. As we shall see in the following chapters, blends typically originate as nonceforms for the sake of a quick verbal joke. As such they rarely have an afterlife beyond the specific context of the coinage. This gets at one of the functional differences between compounds and blends: the latter are “short-lived, nonce formations—a property that would set them apart from the true process of compounding, which is an abundant source of regular input to the permanent lexicon. Thus, even though some blends do indeed enter the vocabulary as usualized words, cf. e.g., motel, smog, brunch and chunnel, the true distinction between blending and composition must be 43 in the conscious creative process associated with blending vs. automatic, unobtrusive and purely concatentative nature of productive composition” (Olsen 2000. 901).86 In Greek and Latin comedic idiom, compounding can also be a source of short-lived, nonce formations that were surely never intended to enter the permanent lexicon. 44 86 CHAPTER 3. ONOMASTIC BLENDS 3.1 INTRODUCTION The playful use of proper names of various sorts—personal names, theonyms, patronymics, ethnonyms, demotics, toponyms—is one of the most salient and entertaining aspects of Greek and Roman comedic literature.87 As Barton 1990 states in her study of proper names in Greek comedy: “[a]lmost every page is crowded not only with the names of gods and heroes … but with those of contemporary Athenian politicians, demagogues, and generals, together with the names of their fathers and sons, names of notorious Athenian eccentrics, scoundrels, fops, pederasts and drunks, of philosophers, rival dramatists, and poets, and also names recorded as those of ordinary, contemporary Athenians, Attic farmers and slaves” (19). Since many personal names in Greek and Roman literature, both those borne by real persons and those coined as speaking names, are etymologically meaningful and transparent, their meaning can be exploited in comedic and satiric contexts to characterize their bearers. Thus, for example, in Acharnians Aristophanes riffs on Λαμαχος,88 painting him as the vigorous proponent of continued war between Athens Apart from Kanavou 2011 (on personal names in Aristophanes), 2015 (on personal names in Homer), there are no large-scale systematic studies of personal names in Greek. On names and naming in general see e.g. Marzullo 1953; Olson 1992; Willi 2010. 487–8. Likewise, apart from Austin 1922 (on personal names in Terence), there are no large-scale systematic studies of personal names in Latin, although see various remarks in Duckworth 1952. 345–56 (on Plautus); Ferris-Hill 2015. 240 (on Persius); Cucchiarelli 2001. 23–5 (on Lucilius). 88 PA 8981; PAA 601230 45 87 and Sparta that he apparently was:89 at 269–70 the chorus of Acharnians sings of the joy of returning home after being released from bothers and battles (machốn) and Lamachuses (Lamáchôn), the wordplay facilitated by contriving that both “battles” and “Lamachuses” end up as genitive plurals, where the endings are similar among the grammatical genders, although they differ in accent. Similar wordplay is repeated at 1071: “alas, hardships and battles (máchai) and Lamachuses (Lámachoi).” At Plaut. Ps. 665, the parasite Harpax “Snatchy” (= Ἅρπαξ, attested at IG XII,8 276 < ἁρπάζω “snatch”) calls attention to the meaning of his own name: hostis vivos rapere soleo ex acie: eo hoc nomen mihi est (“I normally snatch enemies alive from battle: that’s why I have this name”). Even names that are etymologically ambiguous or opaque can be fodder for puns. At AP 12.11 (Strato), for example, for the sake of a joke about his own sexual inadequacy, the poet reanalyzes the name Astyanax “lord of the city” (< ἄστυ “city” and ἄναξ “lord”) as “lord of impotence”, as though it were < ἀ- “not” and στύω “make erect” and ἄναξ “lord”.90 The name of Aeneas’ helmsman Palinurus is punned on at Mart. 3.78 minxisti currente semel, Pauline, carina. / meiere vis iterum? iam Palinuris eris (“You peed once, Paulinus, as the ship sailed. Do you want to pee again? Then you’ll be Palinurus”), as though the name were < πάλιν “again” and οὐρέω “pee”. See Olson 2002 on Ar. Ach. 266–70. ἐχθὲς ἔχων ἀνὰ νύκτα Φιλόστρατον οὐκ ἐδυνήθην / κείνου—πῶς εἴπω;—πάντα παρασχομένου. / ἀλλ’ ἐμὲ μηκέτ’ ἔχοιτε, φίλοι, φίλον, ἀλλ’ ἀπὸ πύργου / ῥίψατ’, ἐπεὶ λίην Ἀστυάναξ γέγονα (“Yesterday I had Philostratus for the night, but was incapable, though he— how should I say it?—made every possible offer. No longer, my friends, count me your friend, but throw me off a tower, since I have become too much of an Astyanax”) 46 89 90 Names borne by historical or literary characters can also be modified, through either the substitution or addition of various types of elements, for the sake of a joke. Thus, for example, at Ar. Ach. 1080 Λάμαχος serves as the basis of the elaborate adjective πολεμολαμαχαϊκόν “war-Lamachus-like”,91 which further underscores his hawkishness, and at 1206 his name becomes Λαμαχίππιον, which with the element -ιππ- (“horse”), typical of aristocratic names, and the diminutive -ιον belittles him and his humble family origins.92 At Ar. V. 592 Κλεώνυμος “Famously-named” becomes Κολακόνυμος “Flatterer-named”, which pokes fun at Cleonymus,93 another 5thcentury politician, who was notorious for his pandering to the public.94 At Cratin. fr. 281 Ἀνδροκλῆς “Famed-man” becomes Ἀνδροκολωνοκλῆς “Famed-Colonus-man”, thereby ridiculing Androcles,95 yet another 5th-century Athenian politician, for earning his wealth instead of inheriting it.96 Akin to this kind of onomastic modification is the riddling AP 11.231 (Ammianus) θηρίον εἶ παρὰ γράμμα, καὶ ἄνθρωπος διὰ γράμμα· / ἄξιος εἶ πολλῶν, ὧν παρὰ γράμμα γράφῃ (“you are a beast but for a letter, and a man by one: you deserve many of those which your name spells but for that letter”). The wordplay is apparently between the personal name Markos and arkos, the late spelling of arktos “bear”. Adjectives in -αϊκός are typically formed by adding the suffix -ικὀς to a noun in -αιος or -αια (e.g. ἀρχαϊκός “archaic” < ἀρχαῖος “old-fashioned”; and see Chantraine 1933. 393). The word πολεμολαμαχαϊκόν is thus perhaps meant to echo the lofty Ἀχαϊκός “Achaean” (e.g. A. Ag. 624; E. Hec. 287, 521; Tr. 236, 657, 863; all either of στρατός “army” or στράτευμα “host”) < Ἀχαΐα “Achaea”, making the compound mockingly pretentious and high style. 92 See Olson 2002 ad loc.; Kanavou 2011. 29. 93 PA 8880; PAA 579410 94 See Biles–Olson 2015 ad loc. 95 PA 870 96 For the connection between Colonus and earned wealth, see Bakola 2010. 227 n. 105. 47 91 In Latin, Quintilian (Inst. 6.3.53), disapproving of the practice, gives several examples (from sources unknonwn): haec tam frigida quam est nominum fictio adiectis detractis mutatis litteris, ut Acisculum, quia esset pactus, Pacisculum, et Placidum nomine, quod is acerbus natura esset, Acidum, et Tullium cum fur esset, Tollium dictos invenio. sed haec eadem genera commodius in rebus quam in nominibus respondent.97 Note that the first and third of these examples are also blends: Pacisculus of Acisculus and the stem of pacisci “make a pact”; Tollius of Tullius and tollere “take”. I have refrained from including them in my main discussion of individual examples because they are without context, but discuss them briefly in Appendix II. However, they do illustrate a disapproval of blending as a “frigid” rhetorical device and how the formal characteristics of lexical blends were described by the ancients. Ancient analysis of blends is discussed more fully in Appendix I. Seneca (Con. 10 pr. 11), likewise disapproving of the practice, offers another especially rich example: [Pacatus] ipse ab eloquentia multum aberat; natus ad contumelias omnium ingeniis inurendas, nulli non inpressit aliquid quod effugere non posset. ille Passieno prima eius syllaba in Graecum mutata obscenum nomen inposuit.”98 Although Seneca (perhaps for decency’s sake) declines to say what punning nickname “Equally frigid is inventing names by adding, removing, or changing letters: I have found, for example, Pacisculus for Acisculus because he made a pact, Acidus for Placidus because of his acidic nature, and Tollius for Tullius because he was a thief. This kind of joke works better with things than with names.” 98 “[Pacatus] himself was far from eloquent; born to brand insults on the talents of all, he saddled everyone with something that could not be escaped. He gave Passienus an obscene name by changing the first syllable of his name into Greek.” 48 97 Pacatus gave to Passienus, it was perhaps “Paschienus” from Greek πάσχω,99 typically “suffer” but often used of pathic homosexuality.100 And Cicero (Ver. 2.4.148), again not claiming credit for the witticism but attributing it to the Sicilians, offers one more: retinere incipit tabulas Theomnastus quidam, homo ridicule insanus, quem Syracusani Theoractum vocant.101 That is, instead of the man being “remembered by the gods”102 he is the man “stricken mad by the gods”.103 More frequently entire names are invented, usually as speaking names. Many speaking names include hints about the character, gender, ethnicity, family and social status, and the literary role of the bearer. Thus, for example, the titular Λυσιστράτη of Aristophanes Lysistrata is she who releases (λύω) the army (στρατός), and Πεισέταιρος of Birds is the sophistic orator who persuades (πείθω) his companions (ἑταῖροι).104 And in Plautus there are the names of his braggart soldiers (e.g. Pyrgopolynices “Son of Many-towers-taker”; Polymachaeroplagides “Son of Manysword-strokes”); the name of the tricky slave Pseudolus (“tricky”) of the self-same If this is right, then the word is a bilingual onomastic blend, but because this blend would be reconstructed based on Quintilian’s comment rather than attested, it is not discussed in detail in this chapter but rather briefly in Appendix II. 100 Henderson 1991 § 242. 101 “A certain man called Theomnastus took the tablets and held onto them, an amusingly crazy man whom the Syracusans call Theoractus.” Although this alleged witticism is a play on the man’s name, the coinage is a compound and not a blend. 102 Θεόμναστος < θεός “god” and μιμνήσκω “remember”. The name is attested 34 times in the LGPN. 103 Θεόρακτος < θεός “god” and ῥάσσω “strike”. Neither this name itself nor any in -ρακτος is attested in the LGPN. 104 For other more elaborate invented personal names, e.g. Eup. frr. 190; 424 with Olson 2014 ad loc.; Ar. Eq. 247; V. 220. 505, 1357; Av. 491; Lys. 457–8; Ec. 1169–75; Ephipp. fr. 14.3; Plaut. Per. 702–5. For more examples, see van Leeuwen 1902 on Ar. Av. 491. 49 99 play; or the name of the adulescens amator Argyrippides (“Silver-horse-son”) of Asinaria. None of these is a genuine Greek name, each seemingly having been coined by Plautus. Since full Greek names also often included patronymics and/or demotics, comedic writers had free range to coin these as well: for example, Διάγόρος ὁ Τερθρεύς “Diagoras from Quibblec” (Hermipp. fr. 43); Πείσανδρος ὁ Ὀνοκίνδιος “Peisander, the son of Mule-driver” (Eup. fr. 195); Κλωπίδαι “Crimeans” (Ar. Eq. 79); ἀνὴρ Κόπρειος “a man from Excremento” (899); Προξενίδης ὁ Κομπασεύς “Proxenides from Boaston” (Av. 1126).105 While many of these nonce forms are wholesale creations that bear little similarity to any real demotics or the like, Κλωπίδαι (discussed more below) is only a letter away from the real Κρωπίδαι, inhabitants of the real Attic deme Κρωπία (between Mt. Aegeleus and Mt. Parnes).106 Invented toponyms are also found in both languages (e.g. Ar. Ra. 185-7; Luc. VH 2.4 Φελλώ (“Cork-land”); Plaut. Mil. 43 Scytholatronia (“Scythia-bandit-land”); Cur. 444 Peredia (“Eats-a-lot-land) and Perbibesia (“Booze-ton”)). Non-personal names also take aim at gods and prayer. Real theonyms, together with divine epithets and invocations, become the source of jokes: for example, at Ar. Av. 873 the theological Φρύγιος Σαβάζιος (“Phrygian Sabazius”) becomes the ornitheological φρύγιλος Σαβάζιος (“the bird Sabazius”) in the new pantheon of Cloud-Cuckooland.107 But equally theonyms are entirely invented. Some For more examples, see van Leeuwen 1896 on Ra. 427; 1902 on Ar. Eq. 79. Th. 2.19.2 107 See Dunbar 1995 ad loc. Not discussed by Kanavou 2011. 50 105 106 wholly fictitious divine personal names include the divinities prayed to at Ar. Eq. 634– 5 ἄγε δὴ Σκίταλοι καὶ Φένακες, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, / Βερέσχεθοί τε καὶ Κόβαλοι καὶ Μόθω (“Come on, you demons of Puffery, Quackery, Foolery, Chicanery, and Debauchery (trans. Henderson)”) or Cratinus’ Δεξώ “Receiver” (fr. 435) and Δωρώ “Giver” (fr. 70), gods respectively of taking and offering bribes. Most of the examples of proper names discussed so far are analyzable as conventionally formed derivatives or compounds. Given the wealth of comedic potential offered by plays on proper names, it is no wonder that onomastic coinages also include blends. 3.2 βδεῦ Anon. de. Com. 8 p. 16 Koster πέμπτον (sic Janko : ἕκτον codd.) κατὰ παρῳδίαν (sic Janko : ἐξαλλαγήν codd.) ὡς τὸ ὦ βδεῦ δέσποτα (adesp. com. fr. 83) ἀντὶ τοῦ ὦ Ζεῦ Βδεῦ] ζεὺς Θ : ζεῦ (scr. m2 βεῦ) U : δεῦ V57 : βδῆ Chis fifth (thus Janko : sixth codd.) is from parody (thus Janko : alteration codd.) as in O Lord Bdeus (adesp. com. fr. 83) instead of O Zeus 3.2.1 TEXTUAL NOTES 51 The various paradoseis of ΘUV57Chis are all likely misspellings introduced by copyists dealing with a difficult nonce word. They highlight that the novelty and formal peculiarity of blends could easily lead to their erasure as copyists sought to “correct” and regularize ancient texts. 3.2.2 FORMATION Βδεῦ, as though the vocative of *Βδεύς, is a blend of βδέω “fart” and Ζεῦ “Zeus (voc.)”, a source that is guaranteed by the context of the word, which mimics an invocation to Zeus. βδεῦ is not a compound nor is it likely a derivative. Nouns ending in -ευς are typically denominative nomina agentis (e.g. φθορεύς “destroyer” < φθορά “destruction”; σφαγεύς “slayer” < σφαγή “slaughter”).108 There is no noun *βδός “fart”, although as LIV s. v. *pesd- n. 3 notes, “the aorist βδέσαι (unless secondary) speaks for a (nominal?) base *βδέσ- (trans.)”, that is an s-stem noun anomalously in zero-grade.109 There is thus the possibility that an unattested noun *βδός underlies the formation Βδεῦ. Yet if the unattested *Βδεύς were truly a derivative of the unattested *βδός, it would be the only monosyllabic nomen agentis in -ευς. It thus On nouns in -ευς, see in general Chantraine 1933. 125–31; Perpillou 1973; Santiago Álvarez 1987. 109 LIV reconstructs βδέω as a zero-grade present with the suffix -éye/o-. Although the same suffix on the o-grade makes causative-iterative verbs (e.g. compare φέρω “carry” and φορέω “habitually carry; wear”; φέβομαι “be scared” and φοβέω “make someone scared”), the semantics of it on the zero-grade are unclear; Kölligan 2002 and Willi 2018. 273–9 argue that zero-grade presents with the suffix -éye/o- are iterative. Pokorny derives βδέω from *βzδἐω, positing an allomorph of the same root as LIV but in e-grade (“umgestellt von *pezdō”). 52 108 seems easier to assume that a comic poet created a funny blend than that Βδεῦ has anything otherwise to do with Zeus. The theonym Ζεύς is a root noun derived from the root *dyew- “bright” rather than a nomen agentis in -ευς. The only other etymologically-transparent monosyllable in -ευς is likewise a theonym: Φλεύς, an epithet of Dionysus at Chios (EM p. 796.43– 4), from φλέϝω “teem with abundance”.110 *Βδεύς cannot be a root noun after the manner of Ζεύς and Φλεύς, since this would require that βδέω were in fact *βδέϝω from a root *bdew-, for which there is otherwise no evidence111 and which in any case would be unlikely.112 3.2.3 INTERPRETATION Bentley 1816. 145 and Studemund 1882. 10 both tentatively suggested that the fragment referred to Ar. Lys. 940 ὦ Ζεῦ δέσποτα, with Bentley going so far as to suggest emending the passage in Lysistrata to ὦ βδεῦ δέσποτα. Kock 1888 III.403, however, dismisses the reference without explanation (but presumably because ὦ Ζεῦ δέσποτα is so banal as to preclude reference to any specific passage of literature). Herodian (Grammatici Graeci III.1 p. 400.27–32) also notes as examples of monosyllables in -ευς: Νεύς, a river; Δνεύς, an ethnic, citing μὴ Δνεὺς χίμαιραν, ἄγριον ὀφλήσεις “lest Dneus [deserve] the chimaera, you will deserve something wild” (obscure but perhaps proverbial?), though according to Choeroboscus (p. 213.8–9) it is a city in Lycia where the Chimaera lived. Neither of these, however, has a clear etymology, and both are likely substrate vocabulary. 111 This assumes that the late aorist βδεῦσαι (e.g. Facet. 233 ἐβδεύσας (printed by Boissonade 1848 and Eberhard 1869, while Dawe 2000 prints ἔβδεσας without comment in his apparatus) is in fact analogical, cf. πλέω “sail” and πλεῦσαι; ῥέω “flow” and ῥεῦσαι. 112 A PIE root beginning in *bd- would be unlikely since the co-occurrence of two plain voiced stops in a root is not otherwise attested (cf. Fortson 2010. 72). 53 110 Beyond that, the blend βδεῦ has chiefly been treated as incidental evidence for the pronunciation of zeta as [zd] in the classical period,113 but the arguments that follow are not particularly strong and so the purported evidence here for the pronunciation of zeta is best disregarded. Blass 1882. 97 was seemingly the first use the word as evidence for the pronunciation of zeta, arguing that “the distortion of ô zeu despota into ô bdeu despota by an Athenian comic poet would be very harsh if the pronunciation were dseu, but quite easy if it were sdeu (trans.).”114 Allen 1968. 56 followed suit, claiming that “the [zd] value also incidentally adds point to the comic ὦ Βδεῦ δέσποτα cited by Tzetzes, possibly referring to Aristophanes, Lysistrata, 940, where the MSS have Ζεῦ.” Janko 1987. 183 likewise took the fragment to “presuppose a pronunciation of ζ as [zd],” and on this ground assigned the fragment to Old or Middle comedy. However, the use of βδέω already assigns the fragment to Old or Middle comedy.115 The communis opinio is that zeta was pronounced as [zd] in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, becoming [z] sometime in the 4th century BCE. For discussions of the pronunciation of zeta, e.g. Sturtevant 1940. 92; Rohlfs 1962. 3–8; Allen 1968. 53–6; Lejeune 1972. 112–6; Threatte 1980 I.546; Méndez Dosuna 1993. 82–114; Hinge 2001. 212–34. For an argument in favor of a pronunciation [dz], e.g. Teodorsson 1993. 305–21. 114 According to Papademetrakopoulos 1889. 590, the pronunciation of zeta was the cause of something of feud between Blass and his mentor Curtius. 115 βδέω is a crude vox propria for farting, confined in the classical period to comedy (Ar. Ach. 256; Eq. 898, 900; Pax 151, 1077; Pl. 693, 703; Timocl. fr. 18.2). It is attested later in satiric epigram (AP 11.242.2; 415.3 (both jokes about bad breath)); the Philogelos, a 4th-century CE collection of jokes (233; 237; 24; (all jokes about bad breath); 241 μωρὸς κωφῷ συγκαθεύδων ἔβδεσε. τοῦ δὲ τὴν δυσωδίαν αἰσθομένου καὶ κατακράξαντος ἔφη· Ἴδε, πῶς ἀκούεις· ἀλλ’ ἐμπαίζεις μοι (“An idiot, sharing a bed with a deaf man, farted. When the deaf man noticed the odor and shouted, the idiot said, ‘Hey, how did you hear that? You’re playing a trick on me’”)); and in a proverb at Apostol. 12.4 νεκρὸς κεῖται βδέων· ἐπὶ τῶν ἀπόρων, εὐπορεῖν δὲ προσποιουμένων (“The corpse lies there farting: used of those who have no idea what they’re doing but pretend they’re experts”). This means not that the word was rare or 54 113 Allen seems to assume that, were the substitution [bd] for [dz] rather than for [zd], the fragment’s dysphemism would have somehow fallen on deaf ears, as though the fragment were not patently a scatological parody of an oath to Zeus regardless of the precise pronunciation of zeta. No point is thus added by supposing a pronunciation of [zd]. And Blass, on the other hand, casts his argument in impossibly vague, subjective terms: what does it mean precisely that one substitution is harsh, the other easy? Certainly, the swapping of [bd] for [zd]—or, rather, simply [b] for [z], since the second element of the cluster [d] remains unchanged—is more economical, since it requires, as it were, only one step, whereas swapping [bd] for [zd] is a twostep process requiring both the substitution of [b] for [z], as well as metathesis of the resulting cluster [db]. But how economical does paronomasia need to be? As discussed below in Appendix I, there is some “wiggle room” allowed for how similar a pun and its target needed to be, and so in each case the argument is heavy-handed and exacting to an extent that the Greeks themselves do not seem to have been. Moreover, as Jaech–Koncel-Kedziorski–Ostendorf 2016 show, while “lower phonetic edit costs in puns correlate with pun goodness” (that is, the less the difference between a pun and its target, the more people like it), a pun with especially unfamiliar, but only that authors working in other genres judged it too ugly for their purposes. According to Moeris β 4, the word was general Greek vocabulary, as opposed to the specifically Attic βδύλλω (Ar. Eq. 224; Lys. 354; adesp. com. fr. 1040). βδέω exists alongside πέρδομαι “fart” (< *perd-), another crude vox propria for farting, likewise attested before the Roman period only in comedy (e.g. Eup. fr. 99.10; Pherecr. fr. 93; Ar. Ach. 30; V. 1177; Crates Com. fr. 20; Timocl. fr. 18.8) and at Sophr. fr. *136; fr. mimorum papyr. 6.22 Cunningham. However, there is seemingly no semantic distinction between them, and the use of one or the other may simply have been a matter of metrical convenience. (Although, the two words are maintained in Slavic but with narrowed meanings, e.g. Ru. bzdet’ “fart silently” (< *pesd-) versus perdet’ (< *perd-) “fart noisily”)). 55 interesting semantics can succeed despite its “high phonetic edit cost”. Thus, in their study, the pun “They say a Freudian slip is when you say one thing but really mean your mother” was well-rated even though “your mother” is not especially close to its target “another”. Perhaps then βδεῦ owed its success, in part, to its interesting semantics, although this begs the question of its success.116 At any rate, farting in comedy can indicate a wide range of character traits or emotions, including rusticity, fear, arrogance, or happiness, although it can also be counted on to get a laugh regardless.117 There is also frequent comparison between farting and thundering, as at E. Cyc. 327; Ar. N. 293, 389–94. Thundering is, of course, the domain of Zeus. The blend βδεῦ is thus doubly pointed, taking and perverting not This same heavy-handedness when it comes to Greek and Latin puns persists, however. For example, Fontaine 2010. 41 n. 7 (discussing a pun between Sosia, the name of a character, and socius “ally”) follows Alinei 1980. 274, Rosén 1991. 27, and Petersmann 1996–7. 204 in assuming that, for the sake of the pun, the speaker momentarily adopts a “pseudo-Umbrian ‘accent’”, pronouncing socium as sochium. Fontaine says that if the speaker does not do this, “we must conclude that Romans tolerated equivocations on words as different as /sŏ kium/ and /sōsiam/, a conclusion which would entail other interesting implications.” Although Fontaine is perhaps right to ignore the difference of vowels between the two words, since puns, at least in English, more often entail changes to vowels than to consonants, since, according to Sobkowiak 1991, vowels’ contribution to “target recoverability” (i.e. the ability of the audience to figure out the pun) is lighter. But in this case the target of the pun is explicitly stated, thereby aiding its “recovery”, and there is really no reason to assume a fudged pronunciation of any consonants. It is also not clear what “interesting implications” arise from acknowledging that ancient puns also worked on spectrum of heterophony. Moreover, Fontaine assumes that this pun was successful. Did Plautus never write a bad pun? Surely there were terrible, poorly received puns also in antiquity. Similarly, Dover 1968 on Ar. N. 394 (discussing Strepsiades’ comment that πορδή “fart” and βροντή “thunder” are similar) suggests that the latter may have been pronounced βορ[ν]τή to help the joke land, but as Henderson 1991. 195 n. 14 notes, this suggestion surely misses the point that the words are not in fact that similar and that Strepsiades is just a terrible etymologist. 117 See in general Henderson 1991 §§ 422–34. 56 116 only the name of Zeus but also one of his principal functions as the chief Greek deity. No longer do the heavens resound with the thundering of Zeus, but rather with the farting of Bdeus. The fragment plays on the formulaic language of prayer and religious ritual. Zeus himself is first called δεσπότης in Pindar (N. 1.13–4), and thereafter referred to as such at Ar. Lys. 940; adesp. com. fr. 258.25 Kock; AP 11.258.3; Themist. Ep 8.22; Longus 4.21.2 (regarding the phrase as an Atticism?); Lamelles Oraculaires 23.2 δέσποτα ἄναξ Ζεῦ Ναῖε (ca. 350–200 BCE); Ephesos 2062.2 δέσποτα Ζεῦ Κτήσιε (1st century CE). Although “Despot Zeus” is apparently used as an invocation in these epigraphic examples, in the literary examples the phrase is merely used, as it were, in vain; and although Willi 2003. 20 tallies in Aristophanes seven instances of δεσπότης as an epithet for six different gods in either prayers or hymns, it is never used of Zeus.118 This is also true outside of Aristophanic comedy, the epithet being used of Hermes at Telecl. fr. 35 and of Apollo at Pherecr. fr. 87.1. Likewise, in comedy, ὦ Ζεῦ either without or with some other epithet is typically a (mildly blasphemous?) expression of excitement, frustration, surprise, or the like119, and is often accompanied by an additional exclamation120 or a deliberative question.121 It is He cites Ach. 247 (Dionysus); Nu. 264 (Air); V. 389 (Lycus), 875 (Apollo); Pax 385, 399 (both Hermes); Th. 989 (Dionysus). However, his catalog is idiosyncratic. For example, Pax 385 (ὦ δέσποθ’ Ἑρμῆ, “o master Hermes”) and 398–9 (ὦ / δέσποτ’, “o master”; Hermes) count, but 390 (ὦναξ δέσποτα, “o lord master”; Hermes) does not. 119 E.g. Ar. Ach. 223–4, 435; Eq. 1188, 1390; Nu. 153; V. 624 with Biles–Olson 2015 ad loc.; Av. 223, 667–8; Lys. 967; Ra. 1278; Pl. 1, 1095; fr. 336.1; Men. Mis. 284; Sam. 487 120 E.g. Ar. Nu. 2; Pl. 1095; fr. 73; Philet. fr. 5.1; Men. Sam. 487; fr. 249 121 E.g. Ar. Pax 58, 62; Lys. 476–7; Th. 71; Antiph. fr. 26.6; Eub. fr. 116–7.6; Men. Asp. 420; Mis. 210; Prk. 779; Euphro fr. 5.1 57 118 seldom used in invocations of Zeus himself and followed by prayers or requests.122 It would seem then that the fragment is not to be taken as an address of Zeus himself, but that it is simply a sacrilegious and scatological apostrophe—whatever the opposite of a minced oath is. The epithet δεσπότης often emphasizes the superiority of the deity addressed,123 which here would lend the fragment an ironic tone. Plausibly therefore the addressee is either recognized as a superior farter (a dubious distinction!) or the addressee is being taken down a peg. Instead of being heralded as the lord of gods and men, as they perhaps think themselves to be, they are mocked as some inferior being, smelly and, given the range of emotions capable of being conveyed by farting, either crude or cowardly or lazy. A similar joke is attested at Facet. 232 ὀζόστομος συνεχῶς τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ καταφιλῶν ἔλεγεν· ἡ κυρία μου, ἡ Ἥρα μου, ἡ Ἀφροδίτη μου. κἀκείνη ἀποστρεφομένη ἔλεγεν· ὀζεύς μου, ὀζεύς μου (“a man with bad breath used to say, while constantly trying to kiss his wife, ‘My mistress, my Hera, my Aphrodite.’ And she, turning away, used to say, ‘My stinker, my stinker’), where ὀζεύς μου [ozeusmou] is para prosdokian for ὁ Ζεύς μου [hozeusmou]. Instead of heralding her husband as the god-like lover with a fabulous back-catalog of sexual conquests that he evidently thinks he is, the wife rebuffs his advances and takes her husband But cf. Cratin. fr. 118 μόλ' ὦ Ζεῦ ξένιε καὶ καραιέ (“Come, O Zeus, protector of strangers and head of state”) with Bakola 2010. 172–3. 123 Cf. Barrett 1984 on E. Hipp. 88–9. 58 122 down a peg, answering his blandishments with a pun calling out his delusions and his bad breath.124 On the other hand, the fragment may be merely a sacrilegious and scatological apostrophe, neither directed at any particular character nor tethered to the action of the comedy in any significant way, but nonetheless calling attention to the background world of the drama and, in particular, the deficiencies of Zeus, as the next example does: βδεῦ is not the only facetious nonce form in Greek comedic literature to blend together two words in the service of scatological humor and religious criticism. 3.3 ΣΚΑΤΑΙΒAΤΗΣ Ar. Pax 38–42 Οἰ. α’ μιαρὸν τὸ χρῆμα καὶ κάκοσμον καὶ βορόν, χὤτου ποτ’ ἐστὶ δαιμόνων ἡ προσβολὴ οὐκ οἶδ’. Ἀφροδίτης μὲν γὰρ οὔ μοι φαίνεται, Οἰ. β’ Οἰ. α' οὐ μὴν Χαρίτων γε. τοῦ γάρ ἐστ’; οὐκ ἔσθ’ ὅπως τοῦτ’ ἐστὶ τὸ τέρας τοῦ Διὸς σκαταιβάτου. Similar wordplay has been seen at Plaut. Cas. 731–2 ὦ Ζεῦ, potin a med abeas, nisi me vis vomere hodie? (“O Zeus! Can’t you get away from me, unless you want me to vomit today?”) by Hough 1940. 190 n. 8, who takes ὦ Ζεῦ to be a pun on ὀζεύς and suggests that this wordplay must have come from Plautus’ Greek model. 59 124 42 σκαταιβάτου ΣR et fort. Rac : καταιβάτου Rpc, cett. {A} That thing is filthy, smelly and voracious, a visitation from I don’t know which divinity. Apparently not from Aphrodite, or the Graces either. {B} Then who’s it from? {A} There’s no way it’s not from Zeus of the Thunder Crap (trans. Henderson) 3.3.1 TEXTUAL NOTES σκαταιβάτου is transmitted by ΣR 42c125 and perhaps by Rac and adopted by, for example, Meineke 1860 and Wilson 2008. Olson 1998 ad loc., however, notes that it “seems more likely that σ was added to R by the copyist (perhaps from a superlinear note) and then erased than that it fell out everywhere else” and prints καταιβάτου. Yet it seems at least plausible that the difficult σκαταιβάτου was simply “corrected” in other manuscripts, as also eventually in R, and scholia to produce a known word. However, as Olson also notes, it is “in one sense irrelevant” whether one form or the other is read, “since the joke depends on the latter being heard in either case (cf. Threatte [1980 I.]529 for the gemination of σ before κ).” But if σκαταιβάτου is in fact correct, then this is another example of the attempted erasure of a blend. In Rutherford’s edition of the R scholia, at least: Διὸς σκαταιβάτου (sic R : κ- VLhC)· παίζει σκαταιβάτην (sic R : κ- VLhC) αὐτὸν καλῶν, ἐπεὶ σκάτοις τρέφεται ὁ κἀνθαρος, “Zeus Skataibatês (thus R: Kataibatês VLhC): he jests by calling him Skataibatês (thus R : Kataibatês VLhC), since the beetle is fed shit”). 60 125 3.3.2 FORMATION σκαταιβάτης is a blend of the stem of σκῶρ (gen. σκατός) “shit” and καταιβάτης “descender”, itself a compound of κατά “down” and βαίνω “come” and a cult title of Zeus referencing his descent to earth as the personification of lightning.126 σκαταιβάτης is not a derivative and it can be ruled out as a compound on formal and semantic grounds. As discussed in Chapter 2, Greek compounds typically involve a first constituent that does not correspond to a full word but rather to a stem and a second constituent that consists of either another stem or an independently attested word; these two constituents are typically linked together by the linking vowel -ο-, which has been extended by analogy from the o-stems. Thus, we would expect *σκατ-ο-βάτης here.127 Moreover, in compounds in -βάτης, the first constituent typically describes the location128 or manner129 of one’s going. Yet σκαταιβάτης describes not one who goes into or upon shit or in a shitty manner. Rather, σκαταιβάτης describes “one who descends [to earth] as shit”, just as a καταιβάτης is “one who descends [to earth as In fact, the word is first attested describing his thunderbolt: [A]. PV 358–9 ἀλλ’ ἦλθεν αὐτῶι Ζηνὸς ἄγρυπνον βέλος, / καταιβάτης κεραυνὸς ἐκπνέων φλόγα (“but the wakeful missile of Zeus came to him, the descending lightning breathing out fire”). 127 Cf. σκατόφαγος “shit-eating” (Epichr. fr. 56.2; Ar. Pl. 706; Crob. fr. 7.2; Men. Dysc. 488; Prk. 394; Sam. 550; fr. 571); σκατοφαγέω “eat shit” (Antiph. fr. 124.4); σκατοφόροι “shit-carriers” (Poll. 7.134). 128 E.g. ἑλειοβάτης “marsh-going” (A. Pers. 39); ἀεροβάτης “air-going” (Plu. Mor. 952f) 129 E.g. ταχυβάτης “swift-going” (E. Rh. 134); κιγκλοβάτης “moving like a dabchick” (Ar. fr. 140K); λοξοβάτης “crookedly-going” (Batr. 295) 61 126 lightning]”. The word therefore blends not just the two source words at a point of phonetic overlap σ(κατ-) + (κατ)αιβάτης, but also crucially blends the semantics of the two source words. 3.3.3 INTERPRETATION σκαταιβάτης, just like βδεῦ, blends together the sacred and the profane. σκῶρ is a crude vox propria for “shit” attested only in 5th- and 4th-century comedy and mime,130 whereas καταιβάτης is an elevated poetic epithet attested in literature only at [A]. PV 358–9; E. Bacch. 1361 (Acheron); Lyc. 382, 1370 (both Zeus) and in inscriptions (e.g. IG II² 4965 Διὸς Κα[τ]- / αιβάτο[υ] / ἄβατον (“sacred precinct of Zeus Kataibatês”), found on the Athenian Acropolis, from perhaps the 4th century BCE).131 Aristophanes’ Peace132 opens (1–49) with an unnamed slave on stage kneading cakes in a mixing bowl. Another slave enters from indoors and, speaking the Epich. fr. 54.3; Stratt. fr. 8; Sophr. fr. 12; Ar. Ra 146, 305. 131 Inscriptions mentioning Zeus Kataibatês sometimes marked a site as having been stricken by lightning, but sometimes marked a site as hoping not to be stricken by lightning, i.e. the inscription served an apotropaic function (cf. Nilsson 1908). Thus, Zeus Kataibatês both descended to the earth as lightning to sanctify it and protected the earth from lightning strikes. On Zeus Kataibatês in general, see Cook 1925 I.13–35. 132 The comedy was produced at the Dionysia in 421, only weeks before the Athenians and Spartans ratified the Peace of Nicias, thereby ending ten years of war. Negotiations for peace had begun the previous summer, after Cleon and Brasidas (the Athenian and Spartan commanders) were both killed in battle of Amphipolis, which removed two of the greatest obstacles to peace. But even at the time of Peace’s production, peace was hardly guaranteed, since the negotiations had been dragging on for months, with opposition from Sparta’s two most powerful allies, Corinth and Thebes, and Athenian politicians like Hyperbolus, so that eventually Sparta asked its allies to prepare for an invasion of Attica, “so that the Athenians 62 130 first line, calls out (innocuously, it seems) αἶρ’ αἶρε μᾶζαν ὡς τάχιστα κανθάρῳ (“Give me, give me a barley cake as quickly as possible for Cantharus”), but three lines later he asks for another cake made from donkeys’ dung, at which point it becomes clear that the slaves are working frantically, not at making a simple, basic foodstuff for a man named Cantharus,133 but at making dung-cakes for a dung-beetle. Amid the first slave’s subsequent and repeated calls for more cakes made from different kinds of dung, the second slave, complaining of the smell and general foulness of the work, remarks that no one would accuse him of eating the food that he makes (14) and that there is no work more wretched than kneading cakes for a dung-beetle to eat (22–3). Eventually the first slave takes the tub of dung inside, at which point the second slave addresses the audience, explaining that his master is mad at Zeus for letting Greece get swept away in war and that he plans to fly the dung-beetle to Olympus to speak to Zeus directly (50–81). Suddenly confirming this revelation, the master and protagonist of the comedy Trygaeus, appears onstage atop the giant dung-beetle, steadying it and reassuring his slaves, children, and neighbors of his plan (82–148), before asking the audience not to fart or shit for three days so as not to distract the dung-beetle (150–4) and flying off to Olympus. It is amid this sustained scatological riff that the dung-beetle is said to be an omen from Zeus Skataibatês and the blend is thus a throwaway joke, tossed in amid a long series of scatological remarks. The blend also perhaps sets us up to think of the would take their proposals more seriously” (Th. 5.17.2). On the Peloponnesian War generally, see Kagan 2004. On the Peace of Nicias, see Kagan 2004. 187–94. 133 Cantharus is attested 11 times in the LGPN. 63 comedy’s protagonist as getting dumped on both literally and metaphorically, as getting a mouthful when giving Zeus a mouthful, when at 56–8, the second slave tells us that his master Trygaeus, “δι’ ἡμέρας γὰρ εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν βλέπων / ὡδὶ κεχηνὼς λοιδορεῖται τῷ Διὶ / καί φησιν, “ὦ Ζεῦ, τί ποτε βουλεύει ποιεῖν; (“All day long he looks at the heavens and, with his mouth agape like this, he upbraids Zeus and says, “O Zeus, what in the world are you trying to do?”). However, the blend Σκαταιβάτης is more pointed than this, and the epithet Kataibatês was not chosen simply because it sets up the wordplay. The blend is part and parcel of the comedy’s gradual reveal of a world in which civic and religious life has been perverted by a period of prolonged war: a world in which humans themselves no longer make and eat simple foodstuffs, in which some giant dung-beetle eats shit rather than excretes it, and in which Zeus has seemingly failed in his duties as the arbiter of justice and, instead of consecrating the earth with his thunderbolts, defiles it with his shit. Σκαταιβάτης distorts both the name and a function of Zeus to call attention to his alleged deficiencies. Henderson 1991 § 418 suggests that Σκαταιβάτης may pun on the sexual meaning of βαίνω134 and that the word may thus refer to Zeus as a pederast, especially since references to excrement and anal intercourse often co-occur, but notes that “the insult need not have a specific sexual reference” and compares ὦ βδεῦ δέσποτα.135 For other compounds in -βάτης with an explicitly sexual sense, cf. αἰγιβάτης “goatmounting” (e.g. Pi. fr. 201.2; Theoc. Ep. 5.6; AP 6.31.1, 99.3); ἀρσενοβάτης “male-mounting” (Hsch. π 77); ἀνδροβάτης “men-mounting” (Hsch. π 77); κτηνοβάτης “animal-mounting” (ΣthTrVatLvMt Ar. Ra. 429c). 135 Walin 2012 42 n. 129 follows Henderson in suggesting that there may or may not be a sexual reference here, but is mistaken on several accounts when he says: “The choice of the epithet ‘Zeus the Descender’ (καταιβάτης), normally used to refer to lightning strikes, is probably meant to evoke καταβαίνειν in a sexual sense (penetration; see the many κατα64 134 He is probably right, however, to see in it a reference to pederasty, since this would not be the only such reference in the world-building first scene of the comedy. At 11– 2, the one slave returns from indoors, saying ἑτέραν ἑτέραν δός παιδὸς ἡταιρηκότος· / τετριμμένης γάρ φησιν ἐπιθυμεῖν (“another one, give me another one from a boy prostitute, since it says it wants a well-pounded one”). These two references perhaps point to another disruption of civic and religious life at the beginning of the comedy: pederasty is seemingly the only sexual activity taking place. A sexual reference in Σκαταιβάτης would moreover foreshadow references to Zeus, his lightning, and pederasty later at the turning point of the comedy, where the beetle seems to have gotten its wish at 720–4: Τρ. Ερ. Τρ. Ερ. ὦ κάνθαρ’, οἴκαδ’ οἴκαδ’ ἀποπετώμεθα. οὐκ ἐνθάδ’, ὦ τᾶν, ἐστι. ποῖ γὰρ οἴχεται; “ὑφ’ ἅρματ’ ἐλθὼν Ζηνὸς ἀστραπηφορεῖ.” verbs with this meaning in Henderson 1991) as well as sound like σκαταιβάτης ("ShitWalker") when pronounced closely with the final sigma of Zeus' name (Διὸς καταιβάτου)”. First, the verb καταβαίνω seemingly nowhere means “penetrate” vel sim., and accordingly neither does LSJ s. v. attest such a sense nor does Henderson 1991 discuss the word. Even in comedy (Ar. Ach. 409; Nu. 237, 508; V. 347, 397, 979, 980, 981; Pax 725; Lys. 864, 873–4, 880; Th. 482–3; Ra. 35; Ec. 1152; fr. 504.8; Aristopho fr. 12.1; Mnesim. fr. 4.7; Timocl. fr. 14.2; Diph. fr. 89.1; Men. Dys. 598, 627, 633; Sam. 232), the word simply means “come down; descend”, even in the sexually suggestive context of Ar. Av. 556–8 καὶ τοῖσι θεοῖσιν ἀπειπεῖν / διὰ τῆς χώρας τῆς ὑμετέρας ἐστυκόσι μὴ διαφοιτᾶν, / ὥσπερ πρότερον μοιχεύσοντες τὰς Ἀλκμήνας κατέβαινον (“Don’t let the gods travel through your land with erections, just as they used to descend (katebainon) to commit adultery with Alcmene”. Second, the fact that Henderson 1991 catalogs several verbs with the prefix κατα- is irrelevant. The prefix κατα- does not confer a sexual sense upon a verb which otherwise has none. 65 Τρ. Ερ. πόθεν οὖν ὁ τλήμων ἐνθάδ’ ἕξει σιτία; τὴν τοῦ Γανυμήδους ἀμβροσίαν σιτήσεται.136 Thus, at the turning point in the comedy, where Trygaeus, having freed Peace from prison, is ready to go back to start setting things right and to celebrate his marriage to Theoria, all the shitty perversion of the comedy’s opening is recalled and bundled up in Ganymede’s “ambrosia.” Mention above was made of the “alleged deficiencies” of Zeus conjured up by the blend Σκαταιβάτης in the opening scene of Peace, but once Trygaeus successfully flies to Olympus and finds only Hermes left there, Hermes tells him that it is the Athenians and the Spartans themselves who are in fact responsible for prolonged war. It is here in Hermes’ speech that we find another blend discussed next. 3.4 ἈΤΤΙΚΩΝΙΚOΊ Ar. Pax 211–9 Ερ. ὁτιὴ πολεμεῖν ᾑρεῖσθ’, ἐκείνων πολλάκις σπονδὰς ποιούντων· κεἰ μὲν οἱ Λακωνικοὶ ὑπερβάλοιντο μικρόν, ἔλεγον ἂν ταδί· “ναὶ τὼ σιὼ νῦν Ὡττικίων δωσεῖ δίκαν.” εἰ δ’ αὖ τι πράξαιτ’ ἀγαθόν, Ἀττικωνικοί, 215 “{Tr.} O beetle, let’s fly home, home. {Her.} It’s not here, buddy. {Tr.} Well, where’s it gone to? {Her.} ‘After coming under the yoke of Zeus, he bears the lightning.’ {Tr.} But where’s the poor thing going to get food here? {Her.} He’ll feed on Ganymede’s ambrosia.” That ambrosia here means “shit”, see Henderson 1991 § 418; Olson 1998 ad loc. 66 136 κἄλθοιεν οἱ Λάκωνες εἰρήνης πέρι, ἐλέγετ’ ἂν ὑμεῖς εὐθύς· “ἐξαπατώμεθα νὴ τὴν Ἀθηνᾶν.”—“νὴ Δί’, οὐχὶ πειστέον. ἥξουσι καὖθις, ἢν ἔχωμεν τὴν Πύλον.” 215 Ἀττικωνικοί] Ἁττικωνικοί ΣV {Her.} Since you kept choosing war, though they often tried to arrange a truce. If those Laconics achieved a small advantage, they’d say this: “by the twin gods, that puny Attic will pay.” And if you Atticonics ever did something good, you’d immediately say, “We’re being duped, by Athena.”—"Yes, by Zeus, it’s not to be believed. They’ll be back, if we hold onto Pylos.” Phot. α 3138 ἀττικωνικός· ἡ τοιαύτη παραγωγὴ τῶν ὀνομάτων παρὰ τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις ἱκανῶς λέγεται. Ἀριστοφάνης Ὁλκάσι (fr. 437) ἁττικώνικος Phot.z Ὁλκάσι in marg. Phot.z attikônikos: this formation from the nouns is aptly said about the Athenians. Aristophanes in Holkades (fr. 437) 67 3.4.1 TEXTUAL NOTES The paradosis of ΣV is easily taken as a simple error: because the form is vocative, there is no reason to suppose a contraction between the article οἱ (not needed here with the vocative) and ἀττικωνικοί, which would result in ἁττικωνικοί. The same error likely lies behind the ἁττικώνικος (also with incorrect accent) of Phot.z. However, neither error affects understanding the word as a blend. 3.4.2 FORMATION Ἀττικωνικοί is a blend of Ἀττικός “Attic, Athenian” and Λακωνικός “Laconic, Spartan”. Although the word looks prima facie to be a derivative formed just as λακωνικός “Laconic” is from Λάκων “Laconian” and ‘’Iωνικός “Ionic” is from Ἴων “Ionian,” there is no attested base *Ἀττίκων- “Athenian” to which -ικός could be added. Nor is there any derivational suffix -ωνικός that could be added to Ἀττικός. At any rate, the context of the passage makes it clear that the word is to be understood as combing the senses of Ἀττικός and Λακωνικός. As a compound of Ἀττικός and Λακωνικός, however, we would have expected the word to be *ἀττικ-o-λακωνικός. The word is thus formally only explainable as a blend. 3.4.3 INTERPRETATION 68 The word attracted little attention in antiquity, being commented upon only at ΣV Ar. Pax 214 οὕτως ἔλεγον ἐνυβρίζοντες καὶ εὐτελίζοντες καὶ εἰς ἧττον φέροντες ὑποκοριστικῶς τοὺς Ἀθηναίους ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι, ἐν ᾧ καὶ Ἴωνες ἔγκεινται. παίζει δέ, ἐπειδὴ εἶπεν ἄνω Λακωνικοί ὑποκοριστικῶς· διὰ τοῦτο καὶ Ἁττικωνικοί (“so they said, ridiculing and disparaging and belittling the Athenians with a diminutive name that also involves the Ionians.137 But it is a joke, since he said Lakônikoi as a diminutive: in this way also Attikônikoi”). The word Λακωνικός as a substantive in the sense “a Laconic man”—and thus used in place of the usual Λάκων “a Laconian man” (cf. LSJ s. v.)—is attested first in Aristophanes (Ar. Nu. 186; Lys. 1115, 1226; Ec. 356, 405) and thereafter before the Roman period only at X. HG 4.8.35, 37; An. 7.3.8; Arist. Oec. 1344b31. The word is typically an adjective or, when used as a substantive elsewhere, refers to Laconia or a kind of Laconian shoes (cf. LSJ s. v.), hence the scholiast’s comments here. Although the word Λακωνικός is not formally a diminutive, the scholiast explains Aristophanes’ use of it by assuming that it is a diminutive parallel to Ἀττικίων (214). This is likewise how he explains Ἁττικωνικοί, an explanation that misses both what makes it unusual and that the blend pokes fun at both the Athenians and the Spartans. More recent commentators, if they comment on the word at all, have generally limited themselves to noting that Ἀττικωνικοί is unusually formed and likely meant as funny. Thus, for example, writes Bergler 1760 ad loc. “correctly, however, and That is, the scholiast takes the diminutive ending -ίων of Ἀττικίων (214) to evoke ἴων “Ionian” and thus the stereotype of Ionians as cowardly and feminine. For the suffix, cf. Ar. Ec. 1058 μαλακίων “lil’ softie (a term of endearment)”; and see Chantraine 1933. 165. For the stereotype, see Olson–Seaberg 2018 on Cratin. fr. 460. 69 137 analogically said is Λακωνικός, since it is from Λακών … But Ἀττικωνικός is not likewise, for there is no ὁ Ἀττίκων (trans.);” Bothe 1828 ad loc. that “it is surely funny, since from Λάκων rightly is derived Λακωνικός, but not so Ἀττικωνικός from Ἀττικός (trans.”); Green 1873 ad loc. that “Ἀττικωνικός does not come naturally from Ἀττικός, as does Λακωνικός from Λάκων. Hence it was meant to be a curious word, which probably the rhyme and the convenience of metre led Aristophanes to coin for the nonce;” Olson 1998 ad loc. that “Ἀττικωνικοί is a comic coinage that echoes Λακωνικοί.” That the blend pokes fun at both the Athenians and the Spartans has been noted more recently by Henderson 1998 453 n. 12, who says that the word is “coined to emphasize that the Athenians were just as culpable as the Spartans.” Most recently, Willi 2010. 497 (commenting on the form as attested in fr. 437, as well as on frr. 100; 270) notes that the word is “combined from Ἀττικός and Λακωνικός”, but dismisses it and other “comic neologisms in Aristophanes [as] not spectacular” and “colorless”. After Trygaeus has asked the audience not to fart or shit for three days lest they attract the attention of the giant dung-beetle, upon which he is currently flying (151–2), he manages to steer the buggy steed successfully to Zeus’ house on Olympus so that he can have his hearing with Zeus (154–78). After Trygaeus knocks on the door to Zeus’ house (179), an irascible Hermes answers and demands to know who Trygaeus is and why he has come to Olympus (180–93). Eventually, Trygaeus asks that Hermes fetch Zeus (195), to which Hermes responds that, since the gods were angry with the Greeks, they have moved to a new home where they will neither see humans fighting nor hear them praying (204–9). In the next line, Trygaeus asks τοῦ 70 δ’ οὕνεχ’ ἡμᾶς ταῦτ’ ἔδρασαν; εἰπὲ μοι (“Why have they done this to us? Tell me.”), still clearly thinking that the gods are at fault. Hermes’ matter-of-fact response (quoted above) states that the gods have forsaken men because men keep choosing to fight, even though they keep agreeing to truces. It is thus not the case, as Trygaeus has thought, that men continue to fight because they gods have forsaken them (211–2). Hermes continues, further showing how Trygaeus has reversed cause and effect, by pointing out that the Laconians (οἱ Λακωνικοὶ), if ever they achieved anything, were emboldened to keep fighting (212– 4), but likewise that the “Atticonians” (Ἀττικωνικοί), if ever the Spartans petitioned for peace, were convinced that it was a trap and remained on the defensive (215–9). There are several takeaways from Hermes’ response: (1) Hermes’ use of the word Λακωνικοὶ, which a scholiast had taken to be a joke itself, is shown rather to be the part of the setup for the joke. The form Λακωνικοὶ is there chiefly to prime the audience for the blend. That this is so is suggested by the fact that, after the blend has been introduced, Hermes refers to the Laconians as οἱ Λάκωνες, the usual word for the Laconians, as mentioned above.138 (2) Ἀττικίων is likewise part of the setup for the joke, but is also itself a joke. Hermes, by using Ἀττικίων shortly after the word Λακωνικόι and by using both before the blend, gives the audience the pieces needed to solve the puzzle: Λακωνικόι + Αττικίων = Ἀττικωνικοί. In addition, the word Metrical considerations also perhaps played a role. Hermes could conceivably have used οἱ Λάκωνες ahead of the blend and then coined the blend *Ἀττικώνες instead. 71 138 Ἀττικίων is a diminutive, and diminutives are often pejorative in sense. Hermes thus, by putting the word in the mouths of his hypothetical Laconians, has them engaging in a bit of name calling. (3) The facetious blend Ἀττικωνικοί calls attention to the serious suggestion that the Athenians are also guilty of prolonging the war, but not of course as guilty as the Spartans. Given the rarity of the coordinative compounds in Greek, it would perhaps be advisable not to take the blend as coordinative, that is, as putting the Athenians and Spartans on equal footing, but as making the Athenians somewhat Spartan-like in their behavior. If the marginal note at Phot.z α 3138 is right in attributing ἀττικωνικός to Holkades, then we are probably to imagine a similar joke there as well, namely that the Athens and Sparta are two poleis, both alike in malignity. A testimonium (test. i) to Holkades suggests that the comedy attacked Cleon and Lamachus (both hawkish politicians in favor of the Peloponnesian War; see above), which points to a production date in 420s, that is around the time that Peace was produced, while two other fragments from the comedy suggest an acknowledgement that Sparta might only share blame for the Peloponnesian War and that Sparta might also be pitiable: frr. 415 βαβαί, Λάκων· ὡς ἀμφοτέρων ἡμῶν ἄρ’ἦν / τὰ πράγματ’ οἰσυπηρὰ καὶ βαρύσταθμα (“Dang, Spartan, how greasy and burdensome our mutual troubles have been!”); 420 ἰὼ Λακεδαῖμων, τί ἄρα πείσῃ τήμερον; (“Oh Sparta, what then shall you suffer today?”). At any rate, the attribution of fr. 437 to Holkades, if right, means that 72 Aristophanes was not above recycling a facetious nonce formation that he thought was especially good. This would not be the only time that he does so. 3.5 ὩΤΟΤΥΞΙΟΙ Ar. Av. 1040–2 Ψη. Πε. χρῆσθαι Νεφελοκοκκυγιᾶς τοῖς αὐτοῖς μέτροισι καὶ σταθμοῖσι καὶ ψηφίσμασι καθάπερ Ὀλοφύξιοι. σὺ δέ γ’ οἷσίπερ ὡτοτύξιοι χρήσει τάχα. 1042 ὡτο- Dindorf : ωτο- R : ω τὸ τύξιοι V : ὠτο- AtH : ὀτο- EMΓUp Ps. The Cloudcuckoolanders are to use the same measures, weights, and decrees as the Olophyxians. Pe. And you’ll soon be used to same ones as the Ototyxians. 3.5.1 TEXTUAL NOTES The paradoseis of REMΓUp are best regarded as crude copyists’ errors reflecting an uncertainty about the result of contraction between the definite article οἱ and a following word beginning with ὀ-. The paradosis of V, however, is nonsense but again points to the difficulty that blends faced in the hands of copyists. 73 3.5.2 FORMATION The word Ὀτοτύξιοι blends together ὀτοτύξομαι, the future of ὀτοτύζω “cry ὀτοτοῖ”139 and Ὀλοφύξιοι “Olophyxians.” The word is not a compound and is unlikely as a derivative. Ὀλοφύξιοι is derived regularly from Ὀλὀφυξος (a city in Thrace) with the suffix -ιος,140 which was used inter alia to form nouns and adjectives indicating origin from place-names.141 However, there is no known place Ὀτότυξος from which Ὀτοτύξιοι could be derived with this suffix. It is also unlikely that Ὀτοτύξιοι is derived from the verb ὀτοτύξομαι with the suffix -ιος: although -ιος once played a role in forming primary deverbal adjectives, such formations were based on verbal roots, not verbal tense-stems; as a productive formant the suffix is used to form secondary denominative adjectives. Thus, we must conclude that formally the word is only explainable as a blend. One further matter here requires comment: although it may perhaps be objected that Ὀτοτύξιοι could just as well blend together the present-tense ὀτοτύζω and Ὀλοφύξιοι, there is good reason to claim that the future-tense ὀτοτύξομαι specifically is one of the blend’s source words. The verb ὀτοτύζω is first attested at A. Ch. 327 ὀτοτύζεται δ’ ὁ θνήισκων (“the dead man is lamented with cries of ὀτοτοῖ”) with much the sense we would expect the interjection ὀτοτοῖ verbalized with the ὀτοτοῖ “alas!” is an exclamation of grief confined to tragedy (e.g. A. Ag. 1072; S. El. 1245; E. Ph. 1530). 140 On which, see Chantraine 1933. 33–8; Schwyzer 1953 I.466 141 Cf. Τάφιοι “Men from Taphos”; Ἐπικνημίδιοι, a Locrian tribe living on the slopes of Mount Knemis. 74 139 suffix -ὐζω to have,142 and thereafter it seems to mean much the same thing at Ar. Pax 109–11 κᾆτα Μελάνθιον / ἥκειν ὕστερον εἰς τὴν ἀγοράν, / τὰς δὲ πεπρᾶσθαι, τὸν δ’ ὀτοτύζει (“and may Malanthius come late to the Agora, when everything’s been sold, and lament with cries of ὀτοτοῖ”) and fr. 234 καὶ τὴν Ἑκάβην ὀτοτύζουσαν καὶ καιόμενον τὸν ἀχυρμόν (“and Hekabe wailing and the straw on fire” or perhaps “[the woman] bewailing Hekabe and the straw on fire”); at Th. 1081, where the speaker is yelling at Echo for repeating what he says, ὀτότυζ(ε) (“go to hell” or the like) seems really only to be a vague, general curse. However, at Ar. Lys. 520–1 ὁ δέ μ’ εὐθὺς ὑποβλέψας <ἂν> ἔφασκ’, εἰ μὴ τὸν στήμονα νήσω, / ὀτοτύξεσθαι μακρὰ τὴν κεφαλήν (“And right away he’d glare at me and tell me that, unless I got back to my sewing, I’d very much lament my head”), the only attested future form of the verb, 143 it has a sense over and above what it typically does: it does not simply mean “will lament with cries of ὀτοτοῖ” but rather “will lament with cries of ὀτοτοῖ (because of physical violence done to one).”144 Whether this use of the future was an established idiom not otherwise attested or a one-time thing is uncertain, but at any rate it is certain that the blend Ὀτοτύξιοι relies on this sense. The Ὀτοτύξιοι are not those who do say “ὀτοτοῖ” but those who will say “ὀτοτοῖ” because they have been stricken. 3.5.3 INTERPRETATION For the suffix, e.g. βαύζω “say bow-bow”; γρύζω “make a peep”; λύζω “hiccough”; μύζω “whine”; and see in general Perpillou 1982. 239–41, 260–3; Tichy 1983. 256–63. 143 But cf. the augmentless aorist at E. Hel. 371 ἀνοτότυξεν “raised up a lament” vel sim. 144 Cf. the English idiom “I’ll give you something to cry about!” 75 142 The word featured in several scholarly comments or discussions already in antiquity: - ΣEΓ Ar. Av. 1043 Ὀτοτύξιοι· ἀπὸ τοῦ ὀτοτύζειν ἐσχημάτισεν145 Eust.1 p. 318.3–6 = I.494.17–20 ἰστέον δὲ ὅτι συντελεῖ καὶ τοῦτο εἰς γνῶσιν συγγενείας τοῦ ζ καὶ τοῦ δ. ἀπὸ γὰρ τοῦ ἀλαπάζω γίνεται ἀλαπαδνός, ὡς παίζω παιδνός, ὀλοφύζω ὀλοφυδνός· ἔστι γὰρ καὶ ὀλοφύζειν ὡς ὀτοτύζειν, - καθὰ ὁ κωμικὸς ἐμφαίνει ἐν τῷ Ὀτοτύξιοι, οὗ πρόκειται τὸ Ὀλοφύξιοι146 Eust.2 p. 594.24–9 = II.171.7–13 ἰστέον δὲ ὅτι τοῦ ὀλοφυδνόν προϋπόκειται θέμα τὸ ὀλοφύζω … εἰ δὲ καὶ τὸ ἔθνος οἱ Ὀλοφύξιοι ἐκ τοῦ τοιούτου παράγεται ῥήματος, ἀφ’ ὧν παίζει τοὺς Ὀτοτυξίους ὁ Κωμικός, οὐκ ἔστι στερεῶς εἰπεῖν147 The scholiast straightforwardly derives the blend Ὀτοτύξιοι from the verb ὀτοτύζω, but whether Eustathius does so too is unclear. The argument of Eustathius1 that ὀλολύζω has the same meaning as ὀτοτύζω based on the parallelism between Ὀλοφύξιοι and Ὀτοτύξιοι in Aristophanes suggests an analogy ὀλοφύζω : Ὀλοφύξιοι :: ὀτοτύζω : Ὀτοτύξιοι. This analogy seemingly suggests that Ὀτοτύξιοι was thought of as deriving from ὀτοτύζω; it also seems to suggest that Ὀλοφύξιοι and Ὀτοτύξιοι were understood here as more-or-less synonymous, which is to miss the joke. More “Ototyxioi: is formed from ototyzein (‘wail’)” “Let it be known that this also constitutes an investigation into the kinship between zeta and delta, since alapadnos (‘worn out’) comes from alapazô (‘wear out’), just as paizô (‘play’) and paidnos (‘childish’), olophyzô and olophydnos (‘lamenting’). Moreover, olophyzein also means ototyzein (‘wail’), as the comic poet shows in the word Ototyxioi, before which comes the word Olophyxioi (‘Olophyxians’)” 147 “Let it be known that the word olophydnon (‘lamenting’) is derived from the primary form olophyzô … but if the ethnonym Olophyxioi, on which the comic poet puns when he says Ototyxioi, is also derived from a such a verb, it is not possible to say for sure” 76 145 146 noteworthy here, however, is that Eustathius1 is using the blend as evidence that the verb ὀλοφύζω means “lament”. This is quite remarkable, since it means that a facetious nonce formation in Aristophanes was used to explain the meaning of the putative verb ὀλοφύζω, which is otherwise attested only in ancient scholarly sources148 and is in fact merely an ad-hoc back-formation from the adjective ὀλοφυδνός149 on the model of, for example, παίζω and παιδνός! Eustathius2, however, is skeptical of his own proposition that the ethnonym Ὀλοφύξιοι derives from the verb ὀλοφύζω. He only mentions the blend Ὀτοτύξιοι when he again comments on the wordplay between it and Ὀλοφύξιοι, but his apparent lack of similar skepticism that Ὀτοτύξιοι likewise derives from the verb ὀτοτύζω is probably to be taken as evidence that he assumed the derivation. More recent commentators have not much advanced beyond the ideas of the scholiast and Eustathius. Thus, Bergler 1760 ad loc. notes that Aristophanes “coined a similar word from ὀτοτύζειν … which is from ὀτοτοῖ (trans.)”; Beck 1782 ad loc. that “Ὀλοφύξιοι and Ὀτοτύξιοι are made-up names. The former alludes to ὀλοφύρομαι or ὀλόφυς, while the latter is drawn from ὀτοτύζω, which the poet often uses (trans.),” although why he thinks that Ὀλοφύξιοι is made-up is unclear; Bekker 1829 ad loc. that “in similarity to Ὀλοφύξιος, the comic poet facetiously coined the gentilic Ὀτοτύξιος, as though from the city Ὀτότυξος, alluding to ὀτοτύζειν (trans.);” Dunbar 1995 ad loc. that the “pun is well translated by Sommerstein’s ‘the Asphyxians.’” E.g. Hdn. Grammatici Graeci III.1 p. 444.16; Theognost. Can. p. 860.4 Beekes s. v. ὀλοφύρομαι relates the adjective to ὀλοφύρομαι (“lament”) and suggests that it has been innovated on the model of other adjectives in -δνός. 77 148 149 Kanavou 2011. 123 likewise mentions the punning between it and Ὀλοφύξιοι, but has nothing to say about its formation. In Aristophanes’ Birds (produced in 414 at the tail end of the Peace of Nicias), two Athenians, Peithetaerus and Euelpides, have fled Athens to avoid politics and law-courts, and are seeking Tereus, a mythical human, who was transformed into a hoopoe and who they hope will help find them a new place to live. Upon meeting with the hoopoe, Peithetaerus has the idea to found a city in the clouds and intercept the worship and sacrifices of humanity to the gods to starve them into submission (as the Athenians had done to Melos), and he eventually persuades the chorus of birds that birds once ruled the universe and can do so again. Thereafter, after some deliberation, they decide to call their new city Cloud-Cuckooland. Immediately after the founding of Cloud-Cuckooland, the first visitors to the new city arrive: an oracle-monger (958–91), an astronomer (992–1020), an inspector (1021–34), a decree–seller (1035–57), a poet (1372–1409), and a sycophant (1410– 69). As Dunbar 1995. 4 notes, these visitors represent undesirable types familiar in Athenian political and intellectual life. The inspector and the decree-seller represent “Athenian imperialist officialdom”. The decree-seller, like the inspector, seeks to impose Athenian patronage on the city, and mentions the Olophyxians (located near Mount Athos in northern Greece150) as another town under such patronage and using Athenian weights, measures and—para prosdokian—decrees. It is at this point that 150 IACP # 587 78 Peithetaerus threatens the decree-seller with the blend Ὀτοτύξιοι (text quoted above). On the one hand, the decree-seller’s provision, which, as Dunbar 1995 ad loc. notes, “would have been familiar to many of the audience from their service on the Boule, [since] all bouletai had to swear to uphold a measure upholding a decree imposing the use of Athenian coinage, weights, and measures on all allied states,” is meant as a parody of the recent “Athenian Coinage Decree” (IG I3 1453 = ML 45). The decree, dated variously to the period between 440 and 420 BCE,151 orders in clause 12 that a member of the Boule punish an allied city, ἐάν … μὴ χρῆται νομ[ίσμασιν τοῖς Ἀθηνα]ίων ἢ σταθμοῖς ἢ μέτ[ροις (“if any should not use the same laws, measures, and weights as the Athenians”). The humor depends in part on the reminder of Athens’ polypragmonsynê, of how meddlesome and overbearing Athens had been. However, this reminder cannot be the sole purpose of the reference because the decree-seller does not say the same weights, measures, and decrees as the Athenians but rather the same ones as the Olophyxians. Olophyxus had been an onagain-off-again ally of Athens,152 but was otherwise an economically and politically insignificant city on the Acte Peninsula mentioned elsewhere only incidentally in lists of cities (Th. 4.109.3; Hdt. 7.22.3; Scyl. 66; Str. 7 frr. 33, 35) and tributes.153 That an inconsequential Thracian city should seek to impose its laws, measures, and weights 151 See Lewis 1997. 116–30 for a history attempts to date the decree. 152 The Olophyxians are mentioned in Athenian tribute lists. However, they defected to Sparta between Brasidas’ Thracian campaign (423 BCE) and the Peace of Nicias (421 BCE). 153 Olophyxus is recorded as giving 33 drachmas and 2 obols at e.g. IG I3 262.I.26 (451/0 BCE); 280.II.55 (432/1 BCE). 79 on the new Cloud-Cuckooland is certainly part of the humor here as well, but there was no shortage of inconsequential cities that the decree-seller could claimed to have represented. Thus, it seems that the chief motive in having the decree-seller mention the Olophyxians is to set up the blend Ὀτοτύξιοι and its threat of physical violence against the decree-seller, who shortly runs off stage.154 That the threat of physical violence must have been accompanied by actual violence is suggested by the decreeseller’s οὗτος, τί πάσχεις; (“Hey! What are you doing?”) in the next line. 3.6 ΚΛΩΠἸΔΑΙ Ar. Eq. 74–9 ἀλλ᾿ οὐχ οἷόν τε τὸν Παφλαγόν᾿ οὐδὲν λαθεῖν· ἐφορᾷ γὰρ οὗτος πάντ᾿. ἔχει γὰρ τὸ σκέλος 75 τὸ μὲν ἐν Πύλῳ, τὸ δ᾿ ἕτερον ἐν τἠκκλησίᾳ. τοσόνδε δ᾿ αὐτοῦ βῆμα διαβεβηκότος ὁ πρωκτός ἐστιν αὐτόχρημ᾿ ἐν Χάοσιν, τὼ χεῖρ᾿ ἐν Αἰτωλοῖς, ὁ νοῦς δ᾿ ἐν Κλωπιδῶν. But nothing can get past Paphlagon; he keeps an eye on everything. He has one foot in Pylos, and the other in the Assembly. He’s spread his legs so far apart Other possible blends here include the metrically identical Ὀλοφεύξιοι (< Ὀλοφύξιοι and φεύξω, the future of φεύζω “cry φεῦ (another primarily tragic exclamation of grief)) and Ὀλολύξιοι (< Ὀλοφύξιοι and ὀλολύξομαι, the future of ὀλολύζω “ululate”). But neither of these carry with them the threat of violence necessary for the joke here. 80 154 that his asshole’s in Gapetown, his hands’re in Askville, and his mind’s in Stealattle. 3.6.1 TEXTUAL NOTES There are no textual problems affecting this blend. 3.6.2 FORMATION Κλωπιδαί is a blend of the stem of κλῶψ (gen. κλωπ-)155 and Κρωπίδαι, inhabitants of the real Attic deme Κρωπία (between Mt. Aegeleus and Mt. Parnes). The word is not a compound and, although it could perhaps be formally analyzed as a derivative of a stem κλωπ-, the context strongly suggests that pragmatically it functions here as a blend and serves as the punchline of a joke: that Cleon is a grasping, begging, thievish busybody. 3.6.3 INTERPRETATION Whence the long ô is uncertain. Chantraine s. v. κλέπτω suggests that the ô of the nominative might result from lengthening in a monosyllable, in which case the ô of the monosyllabic nominative singular would then have been generalized throughout the paradigm. At any rate, although many other derivatives of the root *klep- “steal” with ô are easily explained as errors influenced by κλῶψ (e.g. at X. An. 6.1.1 manuscripts are divided between κλωπεύω and κλοπεύω, which is probably right (cf. σκοπεύω < *skep-), the existence of κλωπικός (E. Rh. 205, 512), with ô guaranteed by the meter, seemingly points to a productive stem κλωπ-. But cf. AP. 9.348.1 (Leon.) σταφυλοκλοπίδας “grape-stealer-son”. 81 155 Verse 79 is oft-quoted in antiquity, especially among ancient dicsussions of παραγραμματισμός (on which, see Appendix I below) and much of what needs to be explained here has already been explained by, for example, ΣVEΓΘMVatLh ad loc.: ἀπὸ τοῦ πράγματος τὸ ὄνομα λέγει· οὐκ ἐν Αἰτωλίᾳ, ἀλλ’ ἐν τῷ αἰτεῖν. τὸ δ’ ἐν Κλωπιδῶν ἐναλλαγὴ πάλιν στοιχείου, τοῦ ρ εἰς τὸ λ. Κρωπίδαι γὰρ δῆμος τῆς Λεοντίδος φυλῆς. ἔπαιξεν οὖν παρὰ τὸ κλέπτειν;156 and Eustathius (p. 1764.32–40 = ii.78.20–4): κἀντεῦθεν καὶ ὁ κωμικὸς εἴτε καὶ ἄλλως ἡ παροιμία ὠφέληται εἰπεῖν (Ar. Eq. 79)· — —. εἶτα κατὰ παραγραμματισμὸν Κλωπιδῶν, ἵνα σκωπτικῶς δηλώσῃ τὸν ταῖς χερσὶ μὲν αἰτοῦντα καὶ οἱονεὶ καὶ αὐτὸν λαλοῦντα ἔμβαλε κυλλῇ, τῷ δὲ νῷ κλέπτοντα. ὅτι δὲ οἱ παλαιοὶ καὶ κατὰ παραγραμματισμὸν τραυλισμοῦ ἐκωμῴδουν δηλοῖ μὲν καὶ τὸ Κλωπιδῶν. Κρωπιδῶν γὰρ ὤφειλεν εἶναι ὡς ἀπὸ γένους ἢ τόπου.157 However, Eustathius is mistaken that the kômôidoumenos here is Alcibiades, whose lisp is made fun of elsewhere in comedy, and that the play between Krôpidai and Klôpidai here results from the same kind of paragrammatismatic lipsing as does the play between korakos (“crow”) and kolakos (“flatterer”) at Ar. V. 42–5.158 In fact, the kômôidoumenos here is Cleon. “He says the name from the matter: not in Aetolia but in aitein (‘begging’). The phrase en Klôpidôn involves the change of a letter, of rho into lambda, since Krô pidae is a deme in the phyle Leontis. Thus he jokes that it comes from kleptein (‘steal’).” 157 “Thus, both the comic playwright and the proverb elsewhere ought to say (Ar. Eq. 79): — —. And by paragrammatismos Klôpidôn, to show mockingly that he begs with this hands and takes alms with crooked fingers and lisps and intends to steal. The word klopidai shows that the ancients made fun of speech impediments by using paragrammatismos, since it should be Krôpidai after the people or place”. 158 On which, see Appendix II. 82 156 As Rosen 1988. 66 notes amid a lengthy discussion of the conventionally iambic nature of Aristophanes’ invective against Cleon in Knights, the latter three toponyms here exist soley for the sake of wordplay between Χάονες and χανεῖν (“Chaonians” and “gape”), Αἰτωλοί and αἰτεῖν (“Aetolians” and “beg”), and Κρωπίδαι and κλωπ-. In fact, Rosen suggests that this passage exists soley for the sake of delivering this wordplay, since Cleon had no special relationship with either Chaonia, Aetolia, or Cropia, and Aristophanes could equally have used the same joke to imply that anyone was gasping, begging, and thievish. This Rosen takes as evidence of the generically iambic nature of the humor here and notes that there are similar puns on toponyms in Hipponax.159 However, while Hipponax certainly puns on toponyms, nothing in what remains of him seemingly compares to Aristophanes’ toponymic blend here. 3.7 ὈIΚΙΤΙEYΣ Ath. 4.162d … ὡς ὁ σοφὸς πάντως ἂν εἴη καὶ στρατηγὸς ἀγαθός, μόνον τοῦτο διὰ τῶν ἔργων διαβεβαιωσάμενος ὁ καλὸς τοῦ Ζήνωνος ὁ κιτιεύς. χαριέντως γὰρ ἔφη Βίων ὁ Βορυσθενίτης (fr. 73 Kindstrand) θεασάμενος αὐτοῦ χαλκῆν εἰκόνα, ἐφ᾿ ἧς ἐπεγέγραπτο “Περσαῖον Ζήνωνος Κιτιέα,” πεπλανῆσθαι τὸν E.g. 95.15 Πυγέλησι (“Pygelians (dat.)”) seemingly puns on the name of the inhabitants of Pygela, a city in Ionia near Ephesus, and the word πυγή “buttocks”; there are several other πυγ- words attested in what remains of the poem. 83 159 ἐπιγράψαντα· δεῖν γὰρ οὕτως ἔχειν, Περσαῖον Ζήνωνος οἰκιτιέα. ἦν γὰρ ὄντως οἰκέτης γεγονὼς τοῦ Ζήνωνος, ὡς Νικίας ὁ Νικαεὺς ἱστορεῖ ἐν τῇ Περὶ τῶν Φιλοσόφων Ἱστορίᾳ καὶ Σωτίων ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεὺς ἐν ταῖς Διαδοχαῖς (fr. 21 Wehrli) 2 ὁ κιτιεύς ABP : οἰκιτιεύς edd. Meineke, Kaibel) 3 Κιτιέα P, edd. : Κιτία B (-ιᾶ 4 οἰκιτιἐα P, edd. (-αία AB) : οἰκετιᾶ Kaibel … that the wise man would necessarily be a good general as well, which is the only point the actions of Zeno’s noble Citian established. When Bion of Borysthenes (fr. 73 Kindstrand) saw a bronze statue of him on which the words “Persaeus (the student) of Zeno of Citium” (Zênônos Kitiea) had been inscribed, he wittily remarked that the stonecutter had made a mistake, since it should have been as follows: Persaeus the Citian house-slave of Zeno (Zênônos oikitiea), since he was in fact Zeno’s slave, according to Nicias of Nicaea in his Inquiry Concerning the Philosophers and Sotion of Alexandria in his Successions (fr. 21 Wehrli) 3.7.1 TEXTUAL NOTES In 2, editors since Musurus 1514 (the editio princeps) have printed οἰκιτιεύς in lieu of the paradosis, presumably on the assumption that copyists, who missed the joke, had attempted to “correct” the difficult and unusual word here. But the text is grammatical 84 as-is and needs no emendation. Moreover, the emendation is all the more unlikely, since there is no good reason for the facetious nonce formation, which is in fact the punchline of the joke that the speaker is about to tell, to show up before, or otherwise outside of, the joke here. In 3, manuscripts and editors are divided as to whether the ending of the word should be contracted (-ιᾶ) or uncontracted (-ιέα). However, since the uncontracted ending is normal after 300 BCE (cf. Threatte 1996 ΙΙ.254) and since the word is elsewhere attested with the uncontracted ending (e.g. IG II³,1 980.12 ap. D.L. 7.11 Ζήνωνα Μνασέου Κιτιέα), Κιτιέα is probably to be preferred here. In 4, manuscripts and editors are likewise divided as to whether the ending of the word should be contracted or not, but the uncontracted ending is likewise probably to be preferred here; the paradosis of AB shows the confusion of αι and ε common in the Roman period, after αι monophthongized and merged with ε (cf. Threatte 1980 I.294). But whether -ιέα or -ιᾶ is printed is to an extent irrelevant here in that it has no bearing on understanding the word as a blend. Somewhat more relevant, however, is the fact that the manuscripts (followed by Kaibel)160 read οἰκετ-, whereas other editors since Musurus, as well as LSJ s. v., print the οἰκιτ-. But οἰκιτ- seems considerably more clever, especially in light of ancient discussions about comedic word formation, in which the change of a single letter in a word for the sake of a joke is well recognized, discussed, and documented:161 descriptively at least οἰκιτιεύς entails adding only a single sound (the 160 161 How Kaibel reconciles printing οἰκιτιεύς in 2 but οἰκετιᾶ in 4 is unclear. See Appendix I. 85 diphthong oi to the beginning), whereas οἰκετιεύς would involve both adding oi- and changing the first iota to epsilon. It is also easy to imagine that οἰκιτ- could have been “corrected” in light of the following οἰκέτης. For these reasons, I follow earlier editors in printing οἰκιτ- here, although the word is still understandable as a blend in either case. 3.7.2 FORMATION οἰκιτιεύς blends together οἰκέτης “house-slave” and Κιτιεύς “Citian, from Citium (a city on Cyprus)”. The form of οἰκιτιεύς cannot be accounted for as a conventional compound or grammatical derivative, since there is no base *οἰκιτι- to which -εύς could be added; nor is there a prefix *οἰ- which could be added to Κιτιεύς, and it is not a compound. As a blend, however, its form and meaning are clear. The phonetic overlap between the two words (-κετ- and κιτ-) is exploited to meld the two source- words into a blended word with a combined meaning that again serves as the punchline of a joke: that Persaius is not a Kitian student of Zeno (Ζήνωνος Κιτιέα) but a Kitian house-slave of Zeno (Ζήνωνος οἰκιτιέα). 3.7.3 INTERPRETATION LSJ s. v. write that οἰκιτιεύς is a “com(ic) word for οἰκέτης, with play on Κιτιεύς, Bion ap.Ath.4.162d (ὁ κιτιεύς cod. A, οἰκετιεύς Kaibel)”, which seems to give the misleading impression that the word is formally unremarkable if punny. Montanari s. v. οἰκετιεύς 86 gives a similar impression with the gloss “Bion1 (Ath. 4.162d: acc. -ετιᾶ or -ιτιᾶ corr.), see οἰκέτης”. On the other hand, Kindstrand 1976 ad loc. notes that the word is “created by Bion ad hoc”, which is to say that it is a facetious nonce formation, and cites it as example of what Aristotle (Rhet. 1412a29) calls σκῶμμα περὶ γράμμα (“a joke depending on (the change of) a letter; a pun”).162 Kindstrand also suggests that the quip may have been retaliation for similar insults made about himself by Persaeus, which is possible but not necessary. Whether Persaeus was really Zeno’s slave is unclear, since all that is known for sure about his life is that he was a pupil of Zeno; that, after Zeno was invited to Pella by Antigonus II Gonatus of Macedon (a philosophy buff), he and Philonides of Thebes were sent there in his stead in ca. 274 BCE; and that, after Antigonus recaptured Corinth in ca. 244 BCE, he was made archon of Corinth and died a year or so later defending the city from Aratus of Sicyon (a former pupil of his); sources calling him a slave of Zeno are generally hostile to the Cynics.163 Remarks here and there, however, suggest that he may have been engaged in personal and professional rivalries with As an example of this kind of humor, Aristotle (a30–1) cites adesp. parod. fr. 5 ἔστειχε δ’ ἔχων ὑπὸ ποσσὶ χίμεθλα (“and he strode on having beneath his feet—chilblains”) with χίμεθλα allegedly para prosdokian for πέδιλα “sandals”. The anonymous commentator on a29 says: οἱ γὰρ κωμικοὶ χρῶνται τοῖς τοιούτοις ἤτοι τοῖς σκώμμασι τοῖς παραπεποιημένοις παρὰ γράμμα ἓν καὶ παρεφθαρμένοις· τὸ γὰρ (Ar. V. 45) —— οὐχὶ νοεῖται οὕτως, ὡς ὑπέλαβε καὶ ἐνόησεν αὐτὸ κατὰ τὸ φαινόμενον ὁ ἀκροατής, ἀλλ’ ὀνειδισμόν τινα παρεμφαίνει πρὸς τραυλόν (“The comic poets use such devices as jokes in which a single letter is altered and corrupted. (Ar. V. 45) —— is not understood as is, since the hearer understands it a certain way and takes it at face value, but it suggests some criticism of someone with a lisp). This same line of Aristophanes is cited variously by ancient sources as an example of either παρῳδία or παραγραμματισμός, and discussed more fully in my Appendix I. 163 Cf. D.L. 7.36 (amid the biography of Zeno; Persaeus did not evidently warrant his own biography); and see Erskine 2011. 177–94. 87 162 other philosophers invited to the court of Antigonus, since Menedemus of Eretria allegedly “waged a harsh war with Persaeus alone” (μόνῳ Περσαίῳ διαπρύσιον εἶχε πόλεμον; D.L. 2. 143) and, after Perseaus allegedly thwarted his effots to get Antigonus to restore the Eretrians to democracy, remarked about Persaeus: “Sure, he’s a philosopher, but he’s also the worst of those men who currently do or ever will exist” (φίλόσοφος μέντοι οὗτος, ἀνὴρ δὲ καὶ τῶν ὄντων καὶ τῶν γενησομένων κάκιστος; D.L. 2.144). Bion, evidently at Pella in the court of Antigonus around the same time as Persaeus and Philonides, seems likewise to have quarelled with Persaeus, since Diogenes Laertius (4.46–7) quotes Bion as saying ταῦτά ἐστι τὰ κατ’ ἐμέ. ὥστε παυσάσθωσαν Περσαῖός τε καὶ Φιλωνίδης ἱστοροῦντες αὐτά· σκόπει δέ με ἐξ ἐμαυτοῦ (“That’s my story. It’s time that Persaeus and Philonides stop telling it. Judge me by myself”), after telling Antigonus that he was was born in Olbia to a fishmonger and a prostitute, sold into slavery with his whole family; and that thereafter having been bought by a rhetorician, who upon his death freed Bion and left him his estate, he went to study philosophy, jumping around from school to school: according to Diogenes Laertius (4.51–2), he first studied under Crates the Academic, whose views he criticized while still his pupil, before converting to Cynicism and thereafter to Theodorean Atheism, before ending up at the lectures of Theophrastus the Peripatetic. Whether there was in fact a feud between Persaeus and Bion is in one sense irrelevant, however, since Bion seemingly turned his wit against many 88 conventional targets regardless: for example, marriage,164 Alcibiades,165 and other philosophers.166 This fragment of Bion is quoted in Book 4 of Athenaeus by Magnus, one of the deipnosophists, amid a lengthy discussion of philosophers. Magnus begins his speech by quoting a fragment of Sopater (fr. 6), in which the speaker jests that he will sell someone Ζηνωνικῷ κυρίῳ (“to a Zenonian master”; 4.160f), a likely reference to the meager subsistence and harsh lives deliberately led by some philosophers and allegedly imposed on their pupils. Diogenes Laertius also comments on this lifestyle, saying that Zeno was καρτερικώτατος καὶ λιτότατος, ἀπύρῳ τροφῇ χρώμενος καὶ τρίβωνι λεπτῷ (“capable of the greatest endurance and very frugal, making due with uncooked food and a thin, thread-bare cloak”; 7.27) and quoting Philemo.167 Thus, Bion seems to be picking up this same thread, namely poking fun at Cynic philosophers for their frugal lifestyle,168 but to be doing so in an especially novel and verbally dextrous way. fr. 61b ἐρωτηθεὶς ὑπό τινος, εἰ γήμαι, ἔφη, ἐὰν μὲν γήμῃς αἰσχράν, ἕξεις ποινήν· ἂν δὲ καλήν, ἕξεις κοινήν (“Aftering being asked by someone, ‘Should I get married?’ he said, ‘if you marry an ugly woman, she’ll be a pain (poinên), but if you marry a pretty woman, she’ll be shared (koinên)’”). 165 fr. 60 τὸν Ἀλκιβιάδην μεμφόμενος ἔλεγεν ὡς νέος μὲν ὢν τοὺς ἄνδρας ἀπάγοι τῶν γυναικῶν, νεανίσκος δὲ γενόμενος τὰς γυναῖκας τῶν ἀνδρῶν (“He said that Alcibiades as a young child loved wives’ men, but as a youth loved mens’ wives”). 166 E.g. fr. 59 (mocking Socrates) 167 fr. 88 εἷς ἄρτος, ὄψον ἰσχάς, ἐπιπιεῖν ὕδωρ. / φιλοσοφίαν καινὴν γὰρ οὗτος φιλοσοφεῖ, / πεινῆν διδάσκει καὶ μαθητὰς λαμβάνει (“one loaf of bread, figs as dessert, water to drink. He preaches a new kind of philosophy, teaches hunger and still attracts students”). 168 Although sometimes considered a Cynic himself, Bion was at best an unorthodox Cynic (cf. Navia 1996. 151–6). 89 164 As far as we can tell from the scant remains of Bion, he does not seem otherwise to have been lexically inventive;169 rather, his vocabulary is mostly prosaic.170 He makes up for his lexical spareness, however, with frequent rhetorical flourishes and a fondness for paronomasia,171 as did the Cynics generally, it seems.172 Wordplay is attested in many of Bion’s fragments: for example, in one fragment (fr. 39), he quips that fate has not given (δεδώρηκεν) the rich money, only lent (δεδάνεικεν) it to them; in another (fr. 20), he quips that opinion is the hindrance of progress (προκοπῆς ἐγκοπήν); and in yet another (fr. 5), that scholars investigating Odysseus’ wandering (πλάνης) fail to notice their own, since they wander (πλανῶνται) in the same way when they toil over something of no use whatsoever.173 The set-up for the joke is provided by the Greek onomastic convention of identifying an individual by their given name, the genitive of their father’s (and sometimes also, mother’s) name, and their ethnonym: for example, Anon. de Com. pr. Ἀριστοφάνης Φιλίππου Ἀθηναῖος (“Aristophanes, of Philipp, from Athens”). This is already how characters in Homer ask others to identify themselves,174 and this is how Kindstrand 1976. 25–39 Kindstrand 1976. 29 171 Cf. D.L. 4.54; Hor. Ep. 2.2.60; and see Dudley 1937. 64–6. 172 For example, Diogenes Laertius (4.47) records that Diogenes of Sinope, when asked where a child engaged in prostitution had come from, remarked that he was “from Tegea” (Tegeatês): Tegea is a both a city in the Peloponnesus as well as the plural of tegos “brothel”. See in general Kindstrand 1976. 33. 173 The remark cuts close to the Classicist’s home. Cf. Priapus’ ridicule of Homeric scholarship in Chapter 5 s. v. merdaleus. 174 Il. 21.150 τίς πόθεν εἰς ἀνδρῶν ὅ μευ ἔτλης ἀντίος ἐλθεῖν (“Who among men and from where are you who dared to come against me?”); Od. 10.325 = 14.187 = 15.264 = 19.105 = 24.298 τίς πόθεν εἰς ἀνδρῶν; πόθι τοι πόλις ἠδὲ τοκῆες (“Who among men and from where? Where your city and parents?”). 90 169 170 Diogenes Laertius introduces nearly all the philosophers about whom he writes, when he has that information.175 However, when he introduces these philosophers as pupils of other philosophers, he does so explicitly with the terms μαθητής (“student”)176 and ἀκροατής (“listener”)177 or says that they listened to another philosopher,178 presumably because the ellipsis of such a word could lead to ambiguity whether the individual described was the son or the pupil of another.179 What this perhaps means is that the set-up to this particular joke deviates deliberately from the conventions of identifying someone as the pupil of a certain philosopher to create the ambiguity needed for the punchline of the joke. Thus, the blend is the result of a (quasi-)Cynic’s typically punning disposition and reliance on an established rhetorical scheme (σκῶμμα περὶ γράμμα), facilitated by the (deliberate?) ambiguity of Ζήνωνος in the original inscription and put to work in ridiculing another philosopher in otherwise conventional ways—calling them a slave and riffing on their name. 3.8 Λακιδαίμονος E.g. 3.1; 5.1; 6.1; 7.10; 7.36. 2.16; 6.82; 6.102; cf. D. 35.15; Pl. La. 180d; D.S. 12.20; Paus. 1.26.4. 177 4.21; cf. Philostr. VS 1.567; 569; and in Latin, Suet. Pers. 1 Annaeum Lucanum aequaevum auditorem Cornuti (“Annaeus Lucanus, an agemate and pupil of Cornutus”). 178 2.3; 4.6; 5.75; 8.78; 9.21; 9.24. 179 Likewise, slaves were typically introduced explicitly as slaves, in the event that they were introduced at all (cf. D.L. 6.99 Μένιππος, καὶ οὗτος κυνικός, τὸ ἀνέκαθεν ἦν Φοῖνιξ, δοῦλος “Menippus was also a Cynic and by descent a Phoenician, a slave”), but cf. And. 1.17 Λυδὸς ὁ Φερεκλέους (“Lydus, (a slave) of Pherecles”). 91 175 176 Hsch. λ 199 λακιδαίμονος (adesp. com. fr. 381)· ψοφοῦντος, ἠχοῦντος laikidaimonos (gen.) (adesp. com. fr. 381): making noise (gen.), ringing (gen.) 3.7.1 TEXTUAL NOTES There are no textual issues with this reading, which is preserved in Hesychius, a late antique lexicographer whose work is devoted to the definition of difficult poetic words. 3.8.2 FORMATION λακιδαίμονος, as though the genitive of *λακιδαίμων, is a blend of the stem of λακίς (gen. λακίδος) “tear; tatters”180 and Λακεδαίμων “Lacedaemon; Lacedaemonian”. That the blend is an adjective rather than a noun, as might be expected since the source word Λακεδαίμων is usually a feminine noun referring to the geographical λακίς is poetic vocabulary, first attested at Alc. fr. 208a.8 and thereafter in Aeschylus (e.g. Pers. 125; Supp. 120 = 131, 904; Ch. 29; all of tears in clothing as a result of violent grief) and at Ar. Ach. 423 ποίας ποθ’ ἁνὴρ λακίδας αἰτεῖται πέπλων; (“what sort of tears of robes is the man seeking?”; Euripides asks what kind of stage costumes Dicaeopolis wants). λακίδες in the sense “tatters; torn clothing” is attested only in lexicographic sources and the like (e.g. Hsch. λ 198; ΣRLh Ar. Ach. 423; Suda λ 53). However, it is less likely that the sense “tatters” was ever really current than that it developed in lexicographers either from a misapprehension of Ar. Ach. 423 (i.e. they understood λακίδας … πέπλων as “tatters of robes” instead of as a poetic periphrasis “tears of robes”) or from an over-abbreviation of a note. 92 180 region of Lacedaemon, is suggested by the glosses (both masculine/neuter singular genitive participles), but the glosses are likely no more than shots in the dark at a difficult word. Thus, λακιδαίμονος could be either an adjective (“Tatterdemonian”) or a noun (“Ragchester”; “Tatterhasssee”). λακιδαίμονος is not a derivative and it can be ruled out as a compound on formal grounds. Were the word a compound, it could seemingly only be a compound of λακίς181 and δαίμων “spirit”,182 in which case, however, we would expect *λακιδοδαίμων. On the other hand, Hesychius—again, likely guessing183—takes λακιδαίμονος to be a compound of either λάκος “noise”184 or λακεῖν “ring (when λακίς and its derivatives are the only words in Greek beginning with λακι-. Such compounds, already attested in Homer (cf. Il. 3.181 ὀλβιοδαίμων “blessed”), are abundant in comedy, e.g. Eup. fr. 187 κοιλιοδαίμων (“someone who makes his belly a deity”); Ar. Nu. 296 τρυγοδαίμων (“wretched comic poet”); Ec. 1102 βαρυδαίμων (“luckless”); adesp. com. frr. 433 τυραννοδαίμων (“a slightly godlike tyrant”); 610 κρονοδαίμων (“someone old and foolish”); 660 σοροδαίμων (“someone so old that they ought to be in a grave”); 749 βλεπεδαίμων (“someone who looks like a ghost”); and cf. Ath. 8.352b νακοδαίμων (“currier”). Although -δαίμων retains its literal sense “deity; luck” in many of these compounds, in others it is seemingly reduced to the status of an (intensifying?) affixoid: compare σοροδαίμων and σορός, lit. “coffin” but as a nickname of an old person at Ar. V. 1365; κρονοδαίμων and Κρόνος, the father of Zeus but as a nickname of an old and foolish person at e.g. Ar. Nu. 929; V. 1480. On the development of intensifying affixoids from oft-used constituents of compounds generally, cf. n. 21. 183 It is possible, however, that the entry in Hesychius has been much abbreviated. It is also possible that it drew on earlier material on Hes. Th. 694 λάκε δ’ ἀμφὶ περὶ μεγάλ’ ἄσπετος ὕλη (“and the unspeakably large woods crackled thereabout”), whence also Orion λ p. 96 λακίδες. ἐπὶ σχίσματος ἱματίου. παρὰ τὸ λακεῖν καὶ ψοφεῖν· ἡρέμα ἐνσχίζεσθαι. οὕτως Ἀρίσταρχος ἐν τοῖς Σημείοις Ἡσιόδου (“lakides: used of a tear in a cloak. From lakein and psophein: it is torn softly. Thus Aristarchus in his Critical Signs on Hesiod”). At any rate, the connetion between λακίς and λακεῖν here is probably folk-etymology; the etymology of both words is uncertain (cf. Beekes s. vv. λακίς, λάσκω). 184 Attested only at Hsch. λ 215 λάκος· ἦχος, ψόφος (“lakos: ringing sound, noise”). 93 181 182 struck); shriek”185 and δαίμων, although his brief note is not explicit about the formation. We would expect such a compound, however, to be *λακοδαίμων and to mean, if -δαίμων were treated as an affixoid, something like “noisy”, which is in fact how he glosses it. 3.8.3 INTERPRETATION Beyond Hescyhius, the word was not otherwise commented on in antiquity. Schmidt 1860. 8 n. had suggested that the λακιδαίμονος might be a comic adespoton, while Kock 1888 III.585 (following Schmidt and taking the word as a comic adespoton) suggested that it was “no doubt like Λακεδαίμονος from the word λακίς (trans.)” and doubted whether Hesychius’ gloss was right. Since Hesychius cites the word with no context and with an (almost certainly) incorrect gloss, much about the word and its referent must remain obscure. However, it perhaps refers to stereotypes about Sparta as a land of shabby dressers. Several anecdotes bespeak the Spartans’ sartorial spareness: for example, Plutarch (Lyc. 50; Mor. 237b) and Xenophon (Lac. 2.4) report that Lycurgus introduced some policy whereby young men were given only one garment per year, whereas parents in other Greek poleis pampered their children with changes of clothing (X. Lac. 2.1). Plutarch (Mor. 229a) also tells how Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, sent Lysander, an Hsch. λ 187 λακεῖν· ψοφῆσαι (“lakein: to make noise”), cf. λ 184 λάκε· ἰδίωμα ἤχου. ἐθλάσθη, συνετρίβη. ἤχησεν (“lake: a unique property of an echo. He/she/it is crushed, is worn down. He/she/it made a noise”), which however seems garbled. 94 185 admiral of Sparta, two costly garments, but that Lysander would not accept them for fear lest they make his daughers appear ugly. And so great was the Spartans insistence on simple clothing that, according to Plutarch (Mor. 239c), they once arrested a man for sewing a hem on his course garment. In addition, Pausanias (7.14.2), although he does not mention how the Spartans dressed, speaks to the fact that Spartans dressed distinctly when he tells how the Corinthians once arrested anyone dwelling in Corinth known to be a Spartan or even suspected to be a Spartan because of their haircut, shoes, clothes, or name (κουρᾶς ἢ ὑποδημάτων ἕνεκα ἢ ἐπὶ τῇ ἐσθῆτι ἢ κατ᾽ ὄνομα προσγένοιτο ὑπόνοια). There may also be here a reference to “Lacedaemonizing” or “Laconizing”, that is the practice of adopting Spartan dress and manners, which men in Athens did as a show of contempt for Athens and its customs and institutions. Both Plato and Demosthenes specifically mention that Laconizing entailed inter alia wearing short, threadbare cloaks.186 Thus, the blend here may have called someone out for wearing shabby Spartan clothes as part of their “Laconizing”. Alternatively, the blend λακιδαίμονος may have little or nothing to do with Lacedaemon itself or any Lacedaemonian. That is, the source word Λακεδαίμων may have been merely a convenient source with which to blend λακίς and thus have been incidental to the joke that somewhere or someone is raggedy and thus perhaps poor. That such “punching down”at the poor was common in Attic comedy is suggested at Ar. Pax 739–40 when the chorus says in the parabasis πρῶτον μὲν γὰρ τοὺς ἀντιπάλους μόνος ἀνθρώπων κατέπαυσεν / εἰς τὰ ῥάκια σκώπτοντας ἀεὶ καὶ τοῖς Pl. Prt. 342b–c; D. 54.34. For “Laconizing” generally, see Dunbar 1995 on Ar. Av. 1281–3; Olson 2014 on Eup. fr. 385. 95 186 φθειρσὶν πολεμοῦντας (“In the first place, he was the only man on earth to stop his rivals from making jokes about rags and battling lice”), thereby criticizing Aristophanes’ rivals for their tired, trite humor and their attacks on innappropriate targets. However, the target of the joke need not necessarily have been raggedy and poor; they may have been raggedy and paratragically lamenting. Since λακίς typically refers to a tear in clothing made as a result of grief or mourning in tragedy and is picked up in Aristophanes as a bit of paratragedy amid a long conversation with Euripides, where he enumerates all the of the bathetic, shabbily-dressed characters from mythology that he has put on stage, perhaps the blend is a remark calling attention to the fact that someone’s grief and mourning would be better suited to a more tragic context. Or, since λακίς in Aeschylus can refer to a tear in clothes because of violence done to one,187 perhaps we are to imagine here a quippy threat of violence like Aristophanes’ Ὀτοτύξιοι, something along the lines of “I’ll do such violence to you that you turn from a Lacedaemonian into a Lakidaemonian”. 3.9 ΔΟΡIΑΛΛΟΣ OR ΔΟΡΥΑΛΛΟΣ Et.Gen. AB (EM p. 283.45 = Et.Gud. p. 375.8–9) ≈ Suda δ 1383 At A. Supp. 904 a messenger from Egypt threatens the Danaids that, unless they get on the boat back to Egypt, λακὶς χιτῶνος ἔργον οὐ κατοικτιεῖ (“a tear will not pity the work of your robe”). 96 187 δορίαλλος· λέγεται καὶ δόριλλος. Ἀριστοφάνης (fr. 382)· αἱ <δε> γυναῖκες τὸν δορίαλλον φράγνυνται. ἔστι δὲ τὸ γυναικεῖον αἰδοῖον, ἐφ’ ὕβρει τραγῳδιοποιοῦ Δορίλλου δορίαλλος] δορίαλος Β, Et.Gud. : δόριλλος Suda doriallos: dorillos is also said. Aristophanes (fr. 382): <and> the women guard their doriallon. It is the female pudenda, said in mockery of the tragic poet Dorillus Hsch. δ 2230 δορύαλλος· τὸ τῶν γυναικῶν μόριον, ἀπὸ τοῦ δέρειν, ἐφ’ ὕβρει τοῦ τραγῳδοποιοῦ Δορύλλου, οὗ μέμνηται ἐν Λημνίαις (Ar. fr. 382) doryallos: the part of women, from the verb derein, said in mockery of the tragic poet Doryllus, whom he mentions in Lemnian Women (Ar. fr. 382) ΣV Ar. Ra. 516 καὶ δορία<λ>λος τὸ γυναικεῖον αἰδοῖον, ὡς παρὰ τῷ αὐτῷ ποιητῇ (fr. 382)· αἱ <δὲ> γυναῖκες τὸν δορία<λ>λον φράγνυνται And doria<l>los is the female pudenda, as in the same poet (fr. 382): <and> the women guard their doria<l>on 97 3.9.1 TEXTUAL NOTES The meter of the fragment (anapests) demands that the blend be spelled δορίαλλος or δορύαλλος with two lambdas. The Suda’s δόριλλος is unmetrical and is most likely an attempt to “correct” a supposed misspelling of the personal name, thus missing the joke, whereas the δορίαλος of the Et.Gen. B, Et.Gud., and the Aristophanic scholion likely just shows the simplification of the geminate -λλ- frequent in inscriptions and papyri from the 4th century BCE on.188 Whether the name of the tragic playwright is in fact Δόριλλος (as in the Et.Gen.),189 Δόρυλλος (as in Hesychius),190 Δορίλαος (as at Satyr. Vit.Eur. fr. 39.15.32, likely referring to the same tragic playwright), or Δορύλαος191 is unclear, although in one sense it is irrelevant here, since it does not affect understanding the word as a blend. The witticism perhaps works best, however, if the name is Δορίλλος, since in this case the blend entails—descriptively, at least—a change of only a single letter. Threatte 1980 I.511–2, 517–8 Elsewhere (not referring to the tragic playright) at e.g. Ét. Thas. 3 p. 266 no. 29.7 (5th/4th century BCE, from Thasos). 190 Nowhere else attested evidently. 191 Elsewhere (not referring to the tragic playwright) at e.g. ID 1572.1 (1st century BCE, from Delos); St.Pont. III.160.1–4 Δορύλαος / Δορυλλάο- / -υ ἐνθάδ- / -ε κῖτε (“Dorylaos son of Doryllaos lies here”; 130 CE, from Chiliokomon), where the name has one lambda in one line but two in the next! For variation between -λλ- and -λ- in other personal names, cf. Βάθυλλος (34 times in LGPN) and Βαθύλος (5 times); ῎Αστυλλος (twice) and ᾿Αστύλος (13 times); Βράχυλλος (18 times) and perhaps Βραχύλ̣ α̣ (not in LGPN but at I. Akrai 19 (late 6th century BCE; from Sicily). 98 188 189 3.9.2 FORMATION δορίαλλος blends Δόριλλος, the name of a tragic poet, and περίαλλος “groin”. 192 The word is not a compound nor is it likely a derivative, since there is no suffix *-ιαλλοor *-υαλλο- that could be added to a base δορ- nor is there any suffix *-αλλο-193 that could be added to either δορυ- or δορι-.194 As a blend, however, the form and meaning of the word are clear. The phonetic overlap between nearly the whole of the two words is exploited to meld the two source-words into a blended word with a combined meaning that serves as the punchline of a joke: that Dorillus is kind of a cunt. 3.9.3 INTERPRETATION Maas 1973. 200 (followed by Henderson 2007 ad loc.) had, without clarifying the form of the word, already suggested that δορίαλλος was a pun on περίαλλος intended to make fun of the tragic poet Dorillus. Kanavou 2011. 196 n. 9, however, contends Attested only at Arc. p. 61.2 = Hsch. π 1572 = Synag. π 320 = Phot. π 635 = Suda π 1063 περίαλλος· τὸ ἰσχίον (“periallos: the hips”) and perhaps Alciphr. 4.14.6 ἐγένοντο δὲ καὶ περιάλλων συγκρίσεις καὶ περὶ μασταρίων ἀγῶνες (“And there were also comparisons of hips (περιάλλων) and competitions of boobies”; courtesans compare physiques at a party), where the word is presumably an Atticism. 193 pace Chantraine 1933. 247 who alleges that -αλλο- is a variant of -αλο- with “expressive gemination” attested in only four words: κορυδαλλός “crested lark”; κρύσταλλος “crystal”; νεκύδαλλος “silkworm cocoon”; and ὄκταλλος, a Boeotian form of ὀφθαλμός. To these four examples Schwyzer 1953 I.484 adds several others (all words for flora and fauna). However, these are all most likely substrate vocabulary (cf. Beekes s. vv.). 194 At any rate, δόρι, the dative of δόρυ “spear”, would not serve as a base for derivatives. 99 192 that περίαλλος “does not seem to be close enough in sound” for the pun to work, but this misses the fact that the word is not just a pun but a blend and raises the question, “How close is close enough?” discussed above (n. 117). At any rate, the blend δορίαλλος is also attested in a late list of terms for female genitalia at ΣTz Ar. Ra. 516b κἄρτι παρατετιλμέναι· νεοξυρεῖς τὸν δορίαλον, τὸν μύρτον, τὸν χοῖρον, τὸν κύσθον, καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα ὁ Σώφρων (fr. novum) καὶ ὁ Ἱππῶναξ (fr. 183) καὶ ἕτεροι λέγουσι (“and recently having been depilated: having recently shaved their dorialos, myrtle, piggy, cunt, and all the sorts of things that Sophron (fr. novum) and Hipponax (fr. 183) and others say”), which suggests that the joke had been lost on Tzetzes in the 12th century and that a facetious nonce formation may have been enshrined in scholarship as yet another coarse, colloquial word for “cunt”. That the gradual misunderstanding of abbreviated scholarly notes could lead to the blend being taken as “just another word” can already be seen to an extent at ΣV Ar. Ra. 516, which, having stripped away the etymology and the exegetical remark that the word made fun of Dorillus given by the Et.Gen. AB and Hesychius, misleadingly suggests that the word is just another euphemism. At the risk of pressing this little evidence farther than it can be pressed: Tzetzes’ inclusion of δορίαλλος in a list of obscene terms without comment hints at the possibility that blends and other facetious nonce formations could enter ancient lexica and other scholarly discussions as regularized words either because of (a series of) ancient scholary misunderstandings and/or abbreviations of notes.195 This fact combined with the On this point, we might briefly compare: Hsch. κ 3584 Κοραξοί· Σκυθῶν γένος. καὶ τὸ γυναικεῖον αἰδοῖον (“Coraxians: a tribe of Scythians. And the female pudenda”), which is 100 195 vagaries of textual transmission already discussed above underscores the fact that ancient Greek blends would have faced numerous hurdles in reaching us. The fact that nothing more is known about Dorillus196 than that he was mocked by Aristophanes here in this fragment means that it is hard to know why exactly Aristophanes mocked him and what the precise joke behind the blend was. It may, however, go no deeper than that calling someone a “cunt” could be expected to get a laugh, and on this point we can compare Ar. Ec. 95–7 οὐκοῦν καλά γ᾿ ἂν πάθοιμεν, εἰ πλήρης τύχοι / ὁ δῆμος ὢν κἄπειθ᾿ ὑπερβαίνουσά τις / ἀναβαλλομένη δείξειε τὸν Φορμίσιον (“Wouldn’t we be in a fine fix if the citizenry’s all there and then some woman has to climb over them, hitching up her clothes and flashing her— Phormisius (trans. Henderson)”; the protagonist Praxagora is explaining that if the women are going to sneak successfully into the Assembly dressed as men to vote that control of the city be handed over to women, they must arrive early and get seats lest they arrive late and suffer some wardrobe malfunction while climbing over other, already-seated members of the Assembly). Phormisius was an Athenian politician, active around the end of the 5th century and mocked elsewhere in comedy as longbearded (Ar. Ra. 966) and for accepting bribes from the Persian king Artaxerxes (Pl. Com. fr. 127) and is said to have died “while fucking” (βινοῦντα; Philet. Com. fr. 6.2). His named is used here unchanged at the end of the line instead of a word for “cunt” likely a garbled reference to Hippon. fr. 4a Κοραξικόν μέν ήμφιεσμένη λώπος (“having put on a Coraxian robe”; for the sexual sense of which, see Henderson 1991. 20); Hsch. π 2487 πλατίστακος· γυναικεῖον αἰδοῖον. καὶ ἰχθὺς ποιός (platistakos: female pudenda. And a fish of some kind”; ≈ Phot. π 922), which is not discussed by Henderson 1991 and is perhaps to be taken as a comic adespoton. 196 TrGF 41; PAA 372870 101 para prosdokian perhaps for no other reason than that he was well-known and known to be hairy. A similar joke likely lies behind Hsch. ι 835 Ἱπποκλείδης· οὕτω κακοσχόλως τὸ τῆς γυναικὸς μόριον Ἀριστοφάνης (fr. 721) εἶπεν (“Hippocleides: thus Aristophanes (fr. 721) mischievously called a woman’s part”) and Phot. ι 179 Ἱπποκλείδην· τὸ γυναικεῖον αἰδοῖον· παρὰ τὸ ἱππεύειν (“Hippocleides: the female pudenda, from hippeuein (‘to ride a horse’)”). Although the joke itself is no longer preserved, there was likely a pun, as Photius suggests, on the name Hippocleides197 that had recourse to sexual sense of various ἱππ- words.198 On the other hand, Dorillus may be the same person as the tragic poet Dorilaus,199 about whom however nothing more is known than that he was a contemporary of Euripides whose popularity—along with that of the tragic poets Acestor,200 Morsimus201 and Melanthius202—was allegedly part of the reason that Euripides left Athens resentful in 410 BCE. Dorillus may thus have belonged to a Perhaps Hippocleides (PA 7617; PAA 538230), the 6th-century Athenian nobleman who, according to Herodotus (6.129), had been engaged to the tyrant Cleisthenes’ daughter, but who, after acting in such a drunken and disgraceful way at a dinner party that Cleisthenes called off the marriage, proclaimed, οὐ φροντὶς Ἱπποκλείδῃ (~ “Hippocleides doesn’t give a shit”). For other possibilities, see Bagordo 2017 on Ar. fr. 721. 198 Cf. Henderson 1991§§ 274–8. 199 In which case, “Dorillus” would simply be a hypocorism for Dorilaos; cf. Ἀρχύλος for Ἀρχέλαος; and see Buck–Petersen 1945. 355. 200 Acestor (TrGF 25; PA 4474; PAA 116685) is mocked in comedy as a foreigner and a slave (Cratin. fr. 92; Eup. fr. 172.14–6 with Olson 2016 ad loc.; Ar. Av. 31; V. 1221; Call. Com. fr. 17; Metag. fr. 14; Theopomp. Com. fr. 61). 201 Morsimus (TrGF 29; PA 10416; PAA 658815) is mocked by Aristophanes as not very good (Eq. 401; Pax 802; Ra. 151). 202 Melanthius (TrGF 23; PA 9767; PAA 638275), perhaps the brother of Morsimus, is mocked in comedy as a glutton (Ar. Pax 803–5) and as an effeminate glutton as well as a pervert and a flatterer (Eup. fr. 178, on which see Olson 2016). 102 197 younger generation of tragic poets associated with the “New Music” movement203 and much maligned in comedy. The joke here may therefore have been in one way or another a lament about the alleged decline in musical tastes.204 In addition and more specifically, however, the joke may have been that Dorillus’ poetry and, by extension, Dorillus himself were obscene and perverted and feminine, and on this point we might compare the attacks made in comedy on the poets Ariphrades,205 Gnesippus,206 and Agathon.207 Ariphrades is mocked by Aristophanes in an ongoing personal and professional quarrel for his supposed fondness for performing cunnilingus in brothels (Eq. 1280–9; Pax 883–5; V. 1280–3). Gnesippus, whose music is attacked as being not very good (Chion. fr. 4), as being intended for obscene purposes (seducing married women; Eup. fr. 148), and as being both not very good and intended for obscene purposes (celebrating the Adonia; Cratin. fr. 17), is himself mocked for allegedly devoting his time to adultery (Telecl. fr. 36) and as being an effete composer of effete music (Cratin. fr. 276). And Agathon is mocked in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae as being a cross-dressing composer of obscene verses. Agathon is rolled out on stage in drag (97–8) and sings an aria (101– On “New Music” in general, see West 1992. 356–72. For the theme, cf. Eup. frr. 148 with Olson 2016 ad loc,; 398; Pl.Com. fr. 138 (decline in taste in dancing); Antiph. fr. 207; and see in general Dover 1993. 10–36. 205 Ariphrades (PA 2201; PAA 202305) was perhaps a comic poet. He is not given a place in Kassel–Austin, but is by Storey 2011 who notes that “Ariphrades may claim a place here on the basis of Aristotle’s discussion of the critics of tragedy at Poetics 1458b31” (121). 206 This Gnesippus (Stefanis #556; PAA 279690), who according to Athenaeus 14.638d wrote “little witty pieces of humorous poetry” is likely the same as the tragic poet Gnesippus (TrGF 27; PAA 279690), cf. Welcker 1841. 1024–9. 207 Agathon (TrGF 39; PA 83; PAA 10185) was a musically innovative tragic poet associated with the “New Music” movement. 103 203 204 29), to which Euripides’ Kinsman responds critically by saying (130–3) ὡς ἡδὺ τὸ μέλος … καὶ θηλυδριῶδες καὶ κατεγλωττισμένον καὶ μανδαλωτόν, ὥστ’ ἐμοῦ γ’ ἀκροωμένου ὑπὸ τὴν ἕδραν αὐτὴν ὑπῆλθε γάργαλος (“How sweet the song … and effeminate and lascivious and wanton. Hearing it brought a tingle to my butt”) and mocking his effeminate clothing. Agathon responds defensively that a poet must behave like a woman if he is going to write about women. In each of these three cases there is an intertwining of the personal and the poetical and the idea that “Ye shall know them by their flutes” and vice versa. It is no great leap from the idea that a poet allegedly lusts after women’s genitals in an inappropriate way and that his poetry is therefore no good or from the idea that a poet allegedly depilates himself as though he were a woman or a woman’s genitals and that his poetry is therefore no good or from the idea that a poet allegedly presents physically as having a woman’s genitals and that his poetry is therefore no good to the idea that a poet is a woman’s genitals and that his poetry is therefore no good. 3.10 ΦΑΛΛΗΝΙΟΣ Phot. ε 1785 ἐπὶ Φαλληνίου· Ἀριστοφάνης Δαιταλεῦσιν (fr. 244) πέπλακεν ὡς ἄρχοντά τινα ἀπὸ τοῦ φαλλοῦ κακοήθως ἐπὶ Φαλληνίου] ἐπιφαλληνίου Phot.z 104 φαλλοῦ] φαλοῦ Phot.z during the archonship of Dicklander: Aristophanes in Banqueters (fr. 244) coined it as the name of some archon, meanspiritedly from phallus Hsch. ε 5373 ἐπὶ Φαληνίου· τὸν Ἀλκιβιάδην φησὶ ὁ Ἀριστοφάνης (fr. 244) ἐπὶ Φαληνίου γεγενῆσθαι, σκώπτων παρὰ τὸν Φάλητα ἐπὶ Φαληνίου] ἐπιφαλινίου ἐπὶ Φαληνίου] ἐπὶ Φαλινίου during the archonship of Dicklander: Aristophanes (fr. 244) says that Alcibiades was born during the archonship of Dicklander, joking that it came from Phalês 3.10.1 TEXTUAL NOTES The variant readings of Phot.z and the parodoseis of Hesychius are all probably best regarded as crude copyist’s errors. For the simplification of -λλ- and -λ-, see above (s. v. Doriallos). For the confusion of eta and iota (as in Hesychius’ ἐπιφαλινίου and Φαλινίου), cf. Threatte 1980 I.165–6. 3.10.2 FORMATION 105 Φαλλήνιος is a blend of φαλλός208 and Παλλήνιος “Pallenian, from Pallene,” a source that is explained in my “Interpretation” section below. Φαλλήνιος cannot be accounted for as grammatical derivative, since there is there no suffix *-ήνιος209 which could be added to φαλλ- nor is there any way to derive the word regularly from the stem of φαλῆς (gen. φαλῆτoς), as Hesychius suggests.210 However, Kassel–Austin ad loc. (following Lobeck 1829 Epim. 15 p. 1086–7) derive Φαλλήνιος from φαλλήν (gen. φαλλῆνος), evidence for the existence of which, however, is uncertain and late. It is conjectured as an epithet of Dionysus at Paus. 10.19.3211 and Eus. PE 5.36.1 (quoting Oenom. fr. 13.25–6 amid criticism of pagans The word φαλλός (“phallus”) is attested in literature before the Roman period only in Herodotus (2.48.1; 49.1) and Aristophanes (Ach. 243, 260), where it describes a phallus borne in a procession for Dionysus. 209 Many words ending in -ήνιος are ethnics or personal names formed from nouns in -ήν (cf. Εὐμήνιος “guy born in a good month?”; Λιμήνιος “guy from the harbor?”) or toponyms in -ήνη (e.g. ᾿Αθήνιος “guy from Athens”; Κυρήνιος “guy from Cyrene”) with the ubiquitous adjectiveforming suffix -ιος. 210 Hesychius nevertheless presumably attempts to connect his Φαλήνιος with Φαλῆς since each has only one lambda. 211 ἁλιεῦσιν ἐν Μηθύμνῃ τὰ δίκτυα ἀνείλκυσεν ἐκ θαλάσσης πρόσωπον ἐλαίας ξύλου πεποιημένον· τοῦτο ἰδέαν παρείχετο φέρουσαν μὲν τοι ἐς τὸ θεῖον, ξένην δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ θεοῖς Ἑλληνικοῖς οὐ καθεστῶσαν. εἴροντο οὖν οἱ Μηθυμναῖοι τὴν Πυθίαν ὅτου θεῶν ἢ καὶ ἡρώων ἐστὶν ἡ εἰκών· ἡ δὲ αὐτοὺς σέβεσθαι Διόνυσον Κεφαλῆνα (sic VFP : Φαλλῆνα Lobeck) ἐκέλευσεν (“The nets of fisherman from Methymna drew from the sea a mask made of olive wood. This looked a smidge divine but was strange and unlike the Greek gods. The Methymnians therefore asked the Pythia of which god or hero it was a likeness. And she told them to worship Cephallenian Dionysus (thus VFP : Phallen Lobeck)”). 106 208 for worshipping inanimate objects)212 by Lobeck;213 and in a fanciful etymology at Orion o p. 116.24–27 ὀμφαλός· οἱ μὲν παρὰ τὸ φαλλὴν, ὡς ἐοικέναι, ὅ ἐστι τὸ μόριον “ἀλλά κε Μηθύμνης ναέταις πολὺ λώϊον ἔσται, / φαλληνὸν τιμῶσι Διωνύσοιο κάρηνον.” διὰ τί; θύουσι γὰρ αἱ πόλεις καὶ τελετὰς ἄγουσιν οὐ μόνον φαλληνοῖς Διωνύσοιο καρήνοις, ἀλλὰ καὶ λιθίνοις καὶ χαλκέοις καὶ χρυσέοις, καὶ οὐ μόνον φαλληνοῖς, ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτοῖς τοῖς Διονύσοις καὶ ἄλλοις παμπόλλοις Ἡσιοδείοις θεοῖς (“’But it will be far better for the inhabitants of Methymnê , [if] they honor the phallênos head of Dionysus.’ But why? For the cities make sacrifices and carry out rites not only with the phallênois heads of Dionysus, but also with stone and brazen and golden ones, and not only with phallênois but with actual Dionysuses and all the very many other Hesiodic gods”). 213 Lobeck emends the text of text of Pausanias as indicated above in n. 211, claiming that a story about the Methymnians pulling an olive-wood mask of Dionysus from the sea has nothing to do with Cephallenia and that no one could believe that an adjective κεφαλήν (gen. κεφαλῆνος; “head-shaped?”) could be derived from κεφαλή (“head”). First, however, there is nothing formally objectionable about deriving κεφαλήν from κεφαλή (cf. Chantraine 1933. 167), and as Frontisi-Ducroux–Casevitz 1989. 117 note, this is “a plausible denomination, all things considered, for the mask of a god (trans.)”. Second, although nothing is known of a “Cephallenian Dionysus”, nothing is known of a Phallen Dionysus either. Thus, his emendation runs the risk of attempting to explain obscurum per obscurius. As for the text of Eus. PE 5.36.1, Lobeck, claiming that “since it is impossible that the adjective φαλληνός is derived from φαλλός, I substitute the genitive Φαλλῆνος, as though an epithet of Dionysus, an example of which form is not attested but a similarity appears in ἕρπης, ἕρπητος and ἑρπήν, ἑρπῆνος, whence also the name Φαλλήνιος facetiously coined by Aristophanes (trans.)”. He rewrites the whole of Eusebius’ sentence as: … τελετὰς ἄγουσιν οὐ μόνον Φαλλήνος Διωνύσοιο καρήνοις ἀλλὰ καὶ ἄλλοις παμπόλλοις Ἡσιοδείοις θεοῖς, οὐδὲ μόνον ἐλαίνοις ἀλλὰ καὶ λιθίνοις καὶ χαλκέοις καὶ χρυσέοις (“they carry out rites not only with heads of Dionysus Phallen but also all the very many other Hesiodic gods, not only those of olive-wood but also those of stone, bronze and gold”). First, however, there seemingly is a suffix -ηνο- with which an adjective φαλληνός (“phallic” vel sim.) could be derived from φαλλός (cf. σκαληνὀς “uneven” < σκάλλω “dig” (e.g. Pl. Euthphr. 12d); ὑηνός “swine-ish” < ὑ“swine” (Pl. Lg. 819); ἀμενηνός “feeble” < μένος “might, although this is an s-stem noun, which might account for the lengthened stem-vowel of ἁμενηνός (often in Homer in the line-final formula νεκύων ἀμενηνὰ κάρηνα “the feeble heads of corpses”; and see Schwyzer 1953 I.490), so this objection of Lobeck’s is perhaps moot. If we accept Lobeck’s conjecture of φαλληνός, however, what does it mean? The parallelism of οὐ μόνον φαλληνοῖς Διωνύσοιο καρήνοις, ἀλλὰ καὶ λιθίνοις καὶ χαλκέοις καὶ χρυσέοις suggests that φαλληνός is an adjective of material, not an adjective meaning “phallic” vel sim., and that, given its contrast with λιθίνοις καὶ χαλκέοις καὶ χρυσέοις, a reasonable assumption is that φαλληνός means something like “wooden”. Eusebius corroborates this idea with subsequent remarks that such objects as the heads of Dionysus 107 212 (“omphalos (‘navel’): some authorities say that it comes from the phallên, as seems likely, which is the private parts”). However, Sturz 1890 ad loc. dubs φαλλὴν, ὡς ἐοικέναι a “monster of a reading (trans.)” and compares a fuller version of the same note preserved at Et.Gud. o p. 482.15–29 that has ὀμφαλὸς, οἱ μὲν παρὰ τὸ φάλλῳ ἐοικέναι (“omphalos (‘navel’), some authorities say that it derives from its looking like a phallos”), which he takes to be the correct reading. Thus, since it is unlikely that there was in fact a word φαλλήν from which Aristophanes could have derived Φαλλήνιος, the word cannot be formally explained as a derivative. As a blend, however, its form and meaning are clear, and the phonetic overlap between the two words (φαλλ- and παλλ-) is exploited to meld the two are “not immortals, but stone and wooden masters of mankind” (οὐκ ἀθάνατοι, ἀλλὰ λίθινοι καὶ ξύλινοι δεσπόται ἀνθρώπων; 5.36.2); that “no one of the Olympian gods would come to such a point of madness as to deify an olive-wood stump” (οὐδ’ ἂν εἷς τις τῶν Ὀλυμπίων εἰς τοῦτο ἦλθε παρανοίας, ὥστε ἐλάϊνον κορμὸν θεῶσαι; 5.36.3); and that the object fished up by the Methymnians was a “stump shaped like a head at the top“ (ἐξ ἄκρου κεφαλοειδὴς ὁ κορμὸς; 5.36.4). Recall too that Pausanias said the object pulled from the sea was an olivewood mask. But there is no obvious word meaning “wood” generally or “olive-wood” specifically whence the adjective φαλληνός could be derived. The likeliest solution is that the adjective just means “phallic” and that the Methymnians are parading around a phallusshaped stump with what resembles the head of Dionysus at the tip, but that Eusebius has misunderstood it, guessing that it means “wooden” from what he knows about pagan statues. Alternatively, Frontisi-Ducroux–Casevitz 1989. 120 have suggested a derivation from the same root as φάλλη “whale” (perhaps < *bhel- “swell up”) and suggest that the mask of Dionysus, after being pulled from the sea, was called “a swollen thing” vel sim. Lobeck’s desire to find a way to unite both the texts of Pausanias and Eusebius, each recounting a version of the same story, is understandable, but his solution—to emend and rewrite—seems dubious, and it would be better simply to accept Pausanias’ Κεφαλῆνα (either emphasizing the head-shaped-ness of the xoanon or referring to an otherwise unknown Cephallenian Dionysus) and Oenomaus’ φαλληνός (emphasizing instead the phallus-shaped-ness of the xoanon). 108 source-words into a blended word with a combined meaning that serves as the punchline of an elaborate joke. 3.10.3 INTERPRETATION The blend Φαλλήνιος takes aim not only at the alleged sexual behavior of Alcibiades,214 as Kassel–Austin ad loc. note, by associating him with the phallus, but also his associations with Socrates and thus his sophistry by recalling the only experience hitherto on his resume: his participation in the late 330s BCE in the seige of Potidaea on Pallene, where he was rescued by, and thus began his lifelong association with, Socrates. This reminder of his relationship with Socrates— whatever it really was—underscores both Alcibiades’ alleged pathic tendencies and Socrates’ corrupting influence as a teacher (which Aristophanes would go on to ridicule several years later in Clouds). In addition, by riffing on Pallene, Aristophanes undercuts the honor that Alcibiades was awarded for his conduct there. If, as Hesychius says, Aristophanes specified that Alcibiades was born “in the archonship of Phallenius”, then the joke is perhaps in part that this eponymous archon, whose name bears no likeness to that of any known eponymous archon,215 is somehow like an astrological sign allegedly determining the disposition of those born thereunder and that therefore Alcibiades was doomed from birth to become a On Alcibiades (PA 600; PAA 121630) in general, see Davies 1971. 9–22, esp. 18; Gribble 1999. 215 The eponymous archon of 451/0 BCE, when Alcibiades was likely born, was Antidotus. 109 214 phallus-obsessed, Dionysian devotee, which is to say that he was probably doomed from birth to become both pathic and adulterous. He is ridiculed elsewhere in comedy as pathic (Ar. Ach. 716; fr. 338) and as otherwise libidinous and perhaps adulterous (Pherecr. fr. 164; Eup. fr. 171). The fact that we are probably meant to understand Alcibiades’ archonological sign as indicating his pathic tendencies is underscored by its allusion to his first encounter with Socrates at Potidaea in Pallene. Pallene was the small, westernmost peninsula extending from the south of Chalcidic peninusla in the northern Aegean. According to Herodotus (7.123.1), there were eight poleis on the peninsula, each of which had supplied Xerxes with ships or troops in 480 BCE: Aige, Aphytis, Mende, Neapolis, Potidaea, Sane, Scione, and Therambos.216 All were small, relatively insignificant poleis with the exception of Potidaea. Potidaea was an early member of the Delian League and appears in Athenian tributes lists from 446/5 BCE until 433/2 BCE, when Athens asked that Potidaea destroy part of its city walls, give hostages and refuse to accept the epidemiourgoi (Corinthian magistrates sent to Potidaea each year). Potidaea instead allied itself with the Bottiaeans and the Chalcidians and revolted against Athens (Th. 1.56–8). Potidaea was then besieged by Athens from 432 until 430 (Th. 1.59–67; 2.58; Pl. Chrm. 153a–b), when it finally capitulated (Th. 2.70.1–3).217 When Banqueters was produced in 427 BCE, Alcibiades was in his early In order, IACP nos. 556, 563, 584, 586, 598, 601, 609, 616. Pallene was also a deme in Attica, where there was a well-established cult of Athena Pallenis and where Megacles III, the great-grandfather of Alcibiades, had fought against Pisistratus. This battle gave rise to two idioms: Paus.Gr. τ 35* τὸ ἀπὸ τῆς Παλληνίδος· τὸ φοβερόν· ἀπὸ τῆς ἐν Παλληνίδι μάχης, ἐν ᾗ ἡττήθησαν Ἀθηναῖοι (“the thing from Pallê nis: what is scary, from the battle at Pallê nis, in which the Athenians were defeated”); βλέπειν 110 216 217 20s and had done nothing much military-wise except participate in this Athenian siege of Potidaea in Pallene. It was there that, according to Plutarch (Alc. 7.2–3) and Plato (Sym. 221a), he met Socrates and, after falling wounded in battle, was saved by him. Plutarch (Alc. 7.3) tells how Socrates, although he deserved the honor for this, nevertheless convinced everyone to give Alcibiades the honor instead, because he wanted to increase Alcibiades’ ambitions.218 By blending together references to Alcibiades’ military service in Pallene and his sexual proclivities, Aristophanes underscores the dubiousness of Alcibiades’ honor: instead of fighting bravely on the battlefield with Socrates, he was phallus-ing in his tent with Socrates. Elsewhere in Banqueters (fr. 205.6), Alcibiades is mentioned by a disapproving father as one of the sources of the neologisms used by his son, who has dropped out of school to study with the sophists. That Alcibiades is mentioned here alongside the sophists Lysistratus and Thrasymachus, whom Plato in the Republic makes an intellectual opponent of Socrates, is, as Moorton 1988. 345 notes, “evidence that he had already acquired a reputation for that rhetorical facility and avant-garde intellectualism which characterized him throughout his life. The precocity implied in this mild slight (to give it its worst construction) is therefore in itself a backhanded compliment.” This and other fragments (e.g. 206; 226) suggest an overriding concern throughout the comedy with a similar kind of education as Pheidippides receives at Παλληνικόν (“to give a Pallenic look”), which meant γενναῖος (“noble”), according to ΣREΓ2 Ar. Ach. 234. 218 That Alcibiades won honor in the battle is also noted by Isocrates (16.29), who however fails to mention Socrates at all. 111 Socrates’ phrontistery in Clouds, although Socrates is not mentioned by name in the remaining fragments of Banqueters.219 Many references to Alcibiades in comedy refer either to his sexual behavior or to his rhetorical abilities. The blend Φαλλήνιος refers directly and obliquely to both by alluding to phalloi and the place where he first fell under Socrates’ influence. The protagonist of Aristophanes’ Ecclessiazusae links pathic sexuality and a skill for public at Ar. Ec. 112–33 λέγουσι γὰρ καὶ τῶν νεανίσκων ὅσοι / πλεῖστα σποδοῦνται, δεινοτάτους εἶναι λέγειν (“They say that those youths who’ve been reamed the most, are the cleverest at speaking”). With Φαλλήνιος in this fragment of Banqueters, Aristophanes suggests that the Alcibiades whom Athens knew had in a sense been born at Pallene when he became Socrates’ ἐρώμενος.220 3.11 RABIENUS Sen. Con. 10 pr. 5 color orationis antiquae, vigor novae, cultus inter nostrum ac prius saeculum medius, ut illum posset utraque pars sibi vindicare. libertas tanta ut libertatis nomen excederet, et quia passim ordines hominesque laniabat Rabienus vocaretur. animus inter vitia ingens et ad similitudinem ingeni sui violentus et qui Pompeianos spiritus nondum in tanta pace posuisset. For Socrates’ education of Alcibiades, see in general Helfer 2017. Φαλλήνιος seems to be the only facetiously coined name of an archon, but Kassel–Austin ad loc. compare in Latin the fictitious consuls Clibanatus and Piperatus (“Potted and Peppered”) in the testamentum porcelli (Bücheler 1912. 268). 112 219 220 Rabienus] Rabies CDP His tone was that of the old oratory, his vigour that of the new, his ornament midway between our age and the preceding one: so that he could be claimed by both sides. His freedom of speech was so great that it passed the bounds of freedom: and because he savaged all ranks and men alike, he was known as Rabienus. Amid all his faults, he had a great spirit—one that was, like his genius, violent; despite the depth of the prevailing peace, it had not yet laid down its Pompeian passions. 3.11.1 TEXTUAL NOTES CDP have dealt with the difficult nonce word by replacing it with a common one. 3.11.2 FORMATION Rabienus blends together rabies “madness” and Labienus, the name of a Roman orator discussed in my “Interpretation” section below. The word is not a compound nor can its form be accounted for as a grammatical derivative. Words ending in -ienus are, except for alienus “belonging another” < alius “other”221 and lanienus “of a butcher < The suffix in aliēnus is disputed. Leumann 1977. 323 suggests that it is arises from dissimilation of -i-īno- (as also he suggests in laniēnus, on which see n. 222 below, and in 113 221 lanius “butcher”,222 cognomina derived either from praenomina (e.g. Catienus < Catius; Lucienus < Lucius; Publienus < Publius) or gentilics (e.g. Nasidienus < Nasidius; Tullienus < Tullius).223 These cognomina are secondarily derived from praenomina and gentilics in -ius, which were all, however, seemingly reanalyzed as stems ending gentilics such as Labiēnus), which suggestion is rejected by Walde-Hofmann s. v. without comment and by de Vaan s. v. alius because “nouns in -ium normally take -īnus: compare Samnium > Sabīnus. One would expect a Latin outcome *alīnus or (*alio-no- >) *alienus (cf. pius ~ pietās).” First, however, alius is neither a noun in -ium nor a toponym, so the equivalence between it and Samnium is false. And while it is true that some adjectives in -īnus are formed to nouns in -ium and/or toponyms, some are not (e.g. Plautīnus, dīvīnus, bovīnus). Second, that the productive stem of alius is *ali- rather than al- or alio- is suggested by alibi “elsewhere”, aliquis “anyone”, aliter “otherwise”, etc. Thus, his putative *alienus < *alio-no(presumably meant to show the expected development of -io- > -ie- rather than -iē- in an open, medial syllable?) and the comparandum pius ~ pietas (presumably adduced as another example of the development of io- > -ie- in an open, medial syllable?) are strawmen. However, the pair pius (< *pū-i-o-, but synchronically analyzable as pi-o-) and pietas (< *pi-o-tas) may show much the same dissimilation (-ie- < *-ii- instead of the -iē- < *-iī- that Leumann posits for aliēnus) that he is trying to disprove here, if, since short vowels in open, medial syllables typically become i, -io- first develops as expected to -ii- and then dissimilates to -ie-. Thus, pietas would develop from *pi-o-tas via an intermediary *pi-i-tas. Third, although hiatus at morpheme boundaries may be eliminated via contraction (as he seems to suggest with his *alīnus), hiatus often remains when the second syllable is heavy and bears penultimate stress, as would be the case in *ali-īń o- (cf. Weiss 2010. 132). de Vaan also cites the suggestion of Nussbaum ap. Livingston 2004. 53 that aliēnus might reflect *aliai-no- and thus be an alleged “decasuative” (i.e. a noun or adjective derived directly from an inflected nominal case form) adjective from an (unattested) locative singular *aliai “at somewhere else”. However, the existence of “decasuative” formations is controversial (cf. Lundquist–Yates 2018. 22). 222 The suffix in laniēnus is also disputed. Leumann 1977. 323 suggests that it is arises from dissimilation of -i-īno- just as in aliēnus, whereas Walde–Hofmann s. v. take the suffix to be Etruscan and, since lanista (“trainer of gladiators”) is explained as Etruscan by the Romans, regard the whole family words in lani- as Etruscan. This same last-ditch appeal to an Etruscan origin for difficult words or suffixes was mentioned in Chapter One on the blend madulsa. 223 Examples culled from Schulze 1904. 114 in -i-. Thus, the suffix in all of them is in fact *-ēno-.224 We would therefore expect Rabienus likewise to be secondarily derived from rab- through *rabius, but there is no *rabius from which this rabienus could be comparably formed. But as a blend its form and meaning are clear. The phonetic overlap between the two words (Rabie- and Labie-) is exploited to meld the two source-words into a blended word with a combined meaning that serves as the punchline of a joke: that Labienus is rabid. 3.11.3 INTERPRETATION Titus Labienus was an orator and historian active in the time of Augustus, whose work survives only in a few meager fragments and about whom nothing much is known beyond what little Seneca the Elder, a rough contemporary of Labienus and our primary source for his life, relates in Con. 10. Seneca (Con. 10 pr. 4) brings up Labienus, imagining his interlocutor asking about him: de T. Labieno interrogatis? declamavit non quidem populo, sed egregie. non admittebat populum et quia nondum haec consuetudo erat inducta et quia putabat turpe ac frivolae iactationis. adfectabat enim censorium supercilium, cum alius animo esset: magnus orator, qui multa impedimenta eluctatus ad famam ingeni confitentibus magis hominibus pervenerat quam volentibus. summa egestas erat, summa infamia, summum odium. magna autem debet esse eloquentia quae invitis placeat, et cum 224 Presumably dissimilated from *-īno-, as also in aliēnus and laniēnus, as Leumann 1977. 323 suggested. The suffix -īno- is well attested in cognomina (e.g. Calvīnus < Calvus; Crispīnus < Crispus), which parallel those in -āno- (e.g. Clodianus < Clodius; Decianus < Decius). 115 ingenia favor hominum ostendat, favor alat, quantam vim esse oportet quae inter obstantia erumpat! nemo erat qui non, cum homini omnia obiceret, ingenio multum tribueret.225 In addition, Seneca relates that Labienus, whose works were first burned as a punishment by a decree of the senate (Con. 10 pr. 6, 8), thereafter walled himself up in the tomb of his ancestors and committed suicide (Con. 10 pr. 7). Labienus also seems to have been engaged in a professional (and personal?) feud with Asinius Pollio: according to Seneca (Con. 4 pr. 2), Asinius Pollio numquam admissa multitudine declamavit, nec illi ambitio in studiis defuit; primus enim omnium Romanorum advocatis hominibus scripta sua recitavit. et inde est quod Labienus, homo mentis quam linguae amarioris, dixit “ille triumphalis senex ἀκροάσεις suas numquam populo commisit.226 According to Quintilian (Inst. 9.3.13), Asinius Pollio made petty criticisms of Labienus’ work: nam in receptis etiam vulgo auctore contenti sumus, ut iam evaluit “rebus agentibus”, quod Pollio in Labieno damnat.227 He also seems to have engaged in “Do you ask about Titus Labienus? He declaimed exceptionally but not in public. He didn’t let the public in, both because this custom had not yet been introduced and because he thought it shameful and indicative of a frivolous boasting. For he feigned the severity of a censor, although he was otherwise at heart. He was a great orator who fought his way through many obstacles to arrive at a reputation for genius, which men begrudgingly acknowledged. He was very poor, very notorious, very hated. Yet great indeed must be the eloquence that pleases even the unwilling, and since the favor of men marks out genius, their favor nourishes it, how great must be the force that breaks through whatever stands in its way! There was no one who did not grant much to his talent, while accusing the man of every crime.” 226 “Asinius Pollio never admitted an audience when he declaimed, but he was not without ambition in his studies. Indeed, he was the first of all the Romans to recite what he had written before an invited audience. Hence Labienus, who had a sharper mind than tongue, said, ‘That old man, hero of triumphs, never put his akroaseis (‘recitations’) into battle against the people.’” 227 “Once a usage has been accepted, we are content with the people being the authority, just as now rebus agentibus (‘with matters underway’) is fine, but which Pollio condemned in Labienus”, which is remarkable for its descriptivist attitude. The phrase rebus agentibus is 116 225 a feud by proxy with Maecenas (Sen. Con. 10 pr. 8): monstrabo bellum vobis libellum quem a Gallione vestro petatis. recitavit rescriptum Labieno pro Bathyllo Maecenatis, in quo suspicietis adulescentis animum illos dentes ad mordendum provocantis.228 All this taken together—that he was from a poor, undistinguished family; that his reputation for talent was therefore hard-won; that he unwisely feuded with Asinius Pollio and Maecenas, both tastemakers of the day and allied to some extent with the Augustan regime; that he was still a supporter of Pompey decades after his death— suggests that his nickname may have owed as much to his political discontent as to his propensity for harsh invective. The nickname is also perhaps an indication that whatever criticisms Labienus lobbed could be reasonably ignored, since he himself was unreasonable: although rabies could be a positive motivator of corrective invective,229 it could be taken too far230 and was often described as a vicious motivation for various acts of violence;231 at Sen. Dial. 4.12.6 it is mentioned alongside other abject moral failings: maximum malum, iram, et cum illa rabiem saeuitiam crudelitatem furorem (“the greatest ill—anger—and therewith madness, savageness, cruelty, and fury”). At any rate, what is perhaps most interesting about the blend Rabienus is that Seneca credits its creation to no one in particular: it is simply what Labienus “is called”. This fact puts nowhere else attested, although rebus actis (“with matters having been done”) is attested in Cicero (Ver. 5.120; Att. 4.15.5; 9.19.4) and Livy (4.37.3; 10.46.13). 228 “I’ll recommend a fine little book to you, which you should ask our Gallio for. He once read aloud a reply to Labienus on behalf of Bathyllus, Maecenas’ freedman, in which you will admire the spirit of a youth provoking those teeth to bite.” 229 Cf. Hor. Ars 79; S. 2.3.323 230 Cf. Hor. Ep. 2.1.148–50 231 E.g. Liv. 6.33.6 (murder); 21.48.3 (armed revolt?); [Quint.] Decl. 312.7 (murder); 372.1 (assault). 117 a blend in the mouths of everyday Latin speakers of the earliest days of imperial period and is thus a small piece of evidence that blends could be a colloquial, witty feature of everyday Latin. 3.12 BIBERIUS Suet. Tib. 42 in castris tiro etiam tum propter nimiam vini aviditatem pro Tiberio Biberius, pro Claudio Caldius, pro Nerone Mero vocabatur At the outset of his military career, because of his excessive lust for wine, he was called Biberius instead of Tiberius, Caldius instead of Claudius, and Mero instead Nero 3.12.1 TEXTUAL NOTES There are no textual issues affecting this blend. 3.12.2 FORMATION Biberius blends the stem of bibere “drink” and Tiberius, the nomen of emperor Tiberius. The form of Biberius cannot be accounted for as a grammatical derivative, since there is no base *biber- to which the suffix -ius could be added; nor is there a 118 suffix *-erius232 which could be added to *bib-, and it is not a compound. As a blend, however, its form and meaning are also clear. The phonetic overlap between the two words (bib- and tib-) is exploited to meld the two source-words into a blended word with a combined meaning that serves as the punchline of a joke: that Tiberius is a drunkard. The other two nicknames given to Tiberius here—Caldius and Mero—can, on the other hand, be accounted for as grammatical derivatives, although they are of course also facetious nonce formations: caldius is derived from caldum “a hot mixture of water and wine” (Plaut. Cur. 293; Var. L. 5.127; Mart. 14.113.1) with -ius, while Mero is derived from merum (vinum) “unmixed (wine)” with the suffix -ōn-, used regularly to form nicknames.233 3.12.3 INTERPRETATION Suetonius reports that Tiberius, whose full name at the relevant time was Tiberius Claudius Nero, had been dubbed Biberius Caldius Mero (approximately, “Drinker of hot, unmixed wine”) in the first days of his military service because of his fondness for drink. This is the first in a series of anecdotes meant to show that all the many and vicious proclivities that Tiberius allegedly indulged after he returned from Campania Latin words ending in -erius are typically traditional names: Faberius, Galerius, Laberius, Numerius, Staberius, Valerius, and Tiberius itself. Many if not most are old s-stems augmented by the -ius formant: e.g. archaic Numisios, Valesios. Thus, Biberius is fashioned after Tiberius, not a morphological derivative of the stem bib-. 233 E.g. Varro from varus “bent; bow-legged”; Cato from catus “sharp”; and cf. below s. v. mantiscinari. 119 232 (whither he had withdrawn after the death of his sons) had always been present in his character. Suetonius straightaway thereafter tells how Tiberius, when he was emperor and hypocritically engaged in correcting public morals, spent a day and a night and another day drinking with friends. What is most interesting about the blend Biberius, however, is that Suetonius credits its creation to no one in particular: it is simply what Tiberius “was called”. This anecdote therefore puts another blend in the mouths of everyday Latin speakers of the early imperial period and is thus another small piece of evidence that blends were a colloquial, witty feature of everyday Latin. Also interesting is the fact that the full nickname Biberius Caldius Mero suggests that the blend, while certainly a selfconsciously facetious formation, was not self-consciously a blend. That is, that the same process of παραγραμματισμός could give rise to both Biberius (swap a b for the t of Tiberius) and Mero (swap an m for the n of Nero) but with different formal results. One further take-away from the full nickname Biberius Caldius Mero, as well as the blend Rabienus discussed above, is how they show that a degree of heterophony was allowed between a punny word and its target in Latin: b and t are, for example, apart from both being stops, not alike, and there is seemingly no amount of fudged pronunciation that could reasonably make them closer. But despite the difference, we probably do not need to imagine that when someone jested, “Well, looks like ol’ Biberius Mero’s at it again,” anyone was confused as to the target and point of the joke. 3.13 CONCLUSION 120 We have discussed in this chapter several onomastic blends: Βδεῦ, Σκαταιβάτης, Ἀττικωνικοί, ότοτύξιοι, οἰκετιεύς, Λακιδαίμονος, Δορίαλλος, Φαλλήνιος, Rabienus, and Biberius. All together these comprise many of the categories of onomastic humor discussed above: personal names, theonyms, ethnics, and demotics. They all assume the significance of a name and rework that name to reveal the “true” character of the person or group or god and thereby expose the divine, moral, political, and artistic failings of the renamed. Beyond continuing to demonstrate the existence of blends in Greek and Latin, several other significant observations have been made. First, as noted in the section on Βδεῦ and as will be discussed more fully in Appendix I, the ancient scholarly tradition apparently did not think of blends as a distinct kind of word formation separate from grammatical derivatives or compounds. To the extent that one can generalize, blend formations were seen as forms of parody created by adding, deleting, and/or exchanging letters in a word. Second, two of the Latin blends discussed above—Rabienus and Biberius—are simply reported by Seneca and Suetonius as being said by people, which is to say that they do not occur in a literary context as credited to a particular author’s wit. Although it is hard to draw many firm conclusions about the existence or prevalance of blends outside of comedic literature from only two examples, these two are at least an indication that blends could find their way into the vernacular. These may be taken as a suggestion that blending might have been a source of “colloquial compounding” in the face of Latin’s general tendency to avoid classical compounds. 121 CHAPTER 4. NON-ONOMASTIC BLENDS IN GREEK AND LATIN The previous chapter collected and discussed onomastic blends in Greek and Latin comedic literature. This chapter extends the collection to non-onomastic blends. It will be recalled that we have already examined an archetypal example of such a blend in the Plautine coinage madulsa.234 As the examples below will demonstrate, madulsa is hardly unique. 4.1 ΒΟΜΒΑΥΛΙΟΣ Ar. Ach. 862–6 Βο. ὑμὲς δ’, ὅσοι Θείβαθεν αὐλειταὶ πάρα, Δι. παῦ’, ἐς κόρακας. οἱ σφῆκες οὐκ ἀπὸ τῶν θυρῶν; τοῖς ὀστίνοις φυσεῖτε τὸν πρωκτὸν κυνός. πόθεν προσέπτανθ’ οἱ κακῶς ἀπολούμενοι 865 ἐπὶ τὴν θύραν μοι Χαιριδῆς βομβαύλιοι; {Bo.} And all you flute-players here from Thebes, play “The Dog’s Asshole” on those bone-flutes. {Di.} Knock it off, dammit! Won’t these wasps get away from my door? Whence have these unkempt followers of Chaeris flown to my door, these bug-pipers? 234 Discussed above at pp. 1–2, 8–10, and 40–2. 122 4.1.1 TEXTUAL NOTES There are no texual issues affecting this blend. 4.1.2 FORMATION βομβαύλιοι is a blend of βομβυλιὀς “buzzing insect” and αὐλός “flute”. The word is unlikely a derivative, since there is no suffix *-αυλιος which could be added be the base βομβ-. Although the word could be formally analyzed as a compound of βὀμβος “hum” and αὐλός and could thus mean “having a buzzing flute” or the like, since βὀμβος can denote the low, buzzing sound of inter alia musical instruments,235 this would seemingly amount to a compound meaning “having a flute with the sound of a flute”. At any rate, that the word is a blend is strongly suggested by the context of the passage in which both flautists and wasps are mentioned. Moreover, the form and meaning of the word are thus clear, with the phonetic overlap (-βυλ- and αυλ-) exploited to meld the two source-words into a blended word with a combined meaning that serves as the punchline of a joke: that the Theban flute-players are noxious, buzzing pests. 4.1.3 INTERPRETATION 235 E.g. Arist. Resp. 475a15–7; Ach.Tat. 1.8.3; Ath. 8.361e; 14.433e. 123 The blend βομβαύλιος piqued lexicographic interest in antiquity. The best ancient discussion of the word is ΣREΓ Ar. Ach. 866b βομβαύλιοι· αὐληταί. τὸ δὲ βομβύλιος ἐν προσθέσει τοῦ α ἔφη βομβαύλιος, παίζων παρὰ τὸν αὐλόν. βομβύλιος δὲ εἶδος μελίσσης, καὶ εἴρηται παρὰ τὸ βομβεῖν (“bombaulioi: flute-players. He said bombaulios by adding an alpha to bombulios, punning on aulos. bombulios is a kind of honey-bee and it comes from bombein (‘buzz’)”).236 The scholiast understood that the word plays on βομβυλιός and αὐλός respectively and accordingly suggested that Aristophanes simply added an extra alpha to βομβυλιός to facilitate the wordplay. Although it is not in fact the case that Aristophanes has simply added an extra alpha to a word here, descriptively at least it seems to be so, and this kind of ad-hoc appeal to an epenthetic alpha to explain otherwise unexplainable forms is seen elsewhere in ancient lexicographic discussions.237 This is to say that this scholiast, while ultimately offering the wrong explanation of the word’s formation, understands that for the sake of a joke, Aristophanes has had recourse to a kind of poetic license with which he can alter or form words in ways that ordinary language perhaps cannot, namely παραγραμματισμός. An alternative definition and etymology are proposed by Hesychius β 788 βομβαύλιος· ὁ αὐλητής. ἀπὸ τοῦ βομβεῖν (“bombaulios: a fluteplayer. From bombein (‘buzz’)”), which seemingly gives the impression that he Abbreviated versions of this note are preserved at Zonar. p. 396.6 and Suda β 371. E.g. Phryn. PS p. 2.8–10; Sophronius Grammatici Graeci IV.2 p. 419.13–44. Essentially the same ad-hoc method is how lexical blends in general were analyzed and explained in antiquity. See Appendix I. 124 236 237 regarded the word as an unremarkable derivative of βομβέω and term for a fluteplayer. Some modern lexical authorities and commentators have likewise understood the word to be punny nonce formation in need of comment, but have been more on the mark with their comments about its formation than the Aristophanic scholiast or Hesychius: for example, LSJ s. v. gloss the word as “(βομβέω, αὐλός) comic comp(oun)d for ἀσκαύλης, bagpiper, with play on βομβυλιός,” although they recant their assertion that the word is a compound in the Supplement, noting that it is instead a “comic conflation of βομβύλιος and αὐλός”.238 Similarly, Merry 1887 ad loc. notes that “in βομβαύλιοι, ‘bumble-bee pipers,’ we have a fancy word fashioned from βομβυλιός, ‘the bumble-bee’”, while Van Leeuwen 1901 ad loc. notes that “βομβυλιοί, a word from everyday life, is comically changed (trans.)”. Despite their terminology (“conflation,” “comically changed”, and “fashioned from”), it is clear that all three have recognized βομβαύλιοι as the kind of non-canonical formation that it is but that they simply lacked the terminological wherewithal to call it a blend. The five lines quoted above are a riff on the alleged mediocrity of Boeotian and Theban musicians generally and specifically of Chaeris,239 a singer and musician disparaged elsewhere in comedy.240 These lines harken back to an earlier remark (15–6), where the protagonist of the comedy Dicaeopolis, at the time a passive citizen waiting for the assembly to convene, complains that he died on the rack when he saw The correction in the Supplement has evidently been overlooked by Montanari s. v. Stephanis #2593 240 Ar. Pax 950–5; Av. 858; Pherecr. fr. 6; and most likely Cratin. fr. 126. 125 238 239 Chaeris slink on stage to play an Orthian tune. The blend is reserved here for the end of the line as a surprising and thus amusing alteration of the expected βομβυλιός, thereby serving as a paraprosdokian joke about worthlessness of these noisy Boeotian pests. The blend is therefore but one of Aristophanes’ manifold lampoons of contemporary musicians. At the point in the comedy when the anonymous speaker comes on stage at 860, Dicaeopolis, previously frustrated that the on-going Peloponnesian War had hindered his ability to get his hands on luxury goods, has secured a private treaty with Sparta, has established a kind of black market, and has already been visited by a Megarian merchant attempting to sell his daughters, whom he had disguised as piglets (to facilitate a pun on the word χοῖρος: “piglet” and “cunt”). Everything about this anonymous newcomer at 860 and following screams, “Theban”: for example, the dialect he speaks (e.g. Boeotian ἴττω for Attic ἴστω), the pennyroyal (γλἀχων) he brings,241 and the annoying flute-players said explicitly to have come from Thebes, a city evidently home to many famous 5th- and 4th-century flute-players.242 These two flute-players seemingly serve no other purpose in the comedy than to help characterize the anonymous entrant as a Boeotian merchant and to set up a quick gag about Boeotian musicians, since after Dicaeopolis mocks them and the Boeotian complains that they have been ruining his wares, they are never mentioned again. Acccording to Phrynichus (PS p. 53.16–7), γλἀχων is the Doric form of the word; γλἠχων, the Ionic form; and βλἠχων, the Attic form. In addition, at Ar. Lys. 87–9, pennyroyal is associated with Boeotia. 242 Cf. West 1992. 366–7. 126 241 Rhetorically, the blend is first set up when the Theban merchant complains at 862 that flute-players have followed him from Thebes. The second step in setting up the joke is when Dicaeopolis pops back on stage at 864 and demands that the “wasps” knock it off and get away from his door. Calling these Theban flute-players “wasps” not only establishes them as worthless and harmful insects whose “attempts to transfer their nests to a new place … require vigorous resistance,”243 that is as pests whose attempt to come from Thebes to Athens should be violently thwarted, but also adduces the sonic connection between flute-players and insects on which the humor of the blend in part depends,244 priming the audience to expect the regular βομβυλιοί at 866. With the Boeotian flute-players already so-called and the sonic connection between some insects and some instruments already adduced, the stage is set, as it were, for Dicaeopolis to double down on the insect/instrumentalist imagery and hammer home the joke with an unexpected, elaborate coinage emphasizing that the wasp-like flute-players are in fact lousy, worthless, annoying Chaeridean drones needing to be driven off-stage by whatever means necessary. In setting up an Olson 2002 on Ar. Ach. 864 The likeness of wasps’ and flute-players’ buzzing is elsewhere noted at Hsch. σ 2886. In addition, although βομβυλιός is used of buzzing insects of one kind or another (cf. Hsch. β 802), it could according to Erot. p. 59.2–3 also be used metaphorically of flute-players: βομβυλιοῦ· ἔστι μὲν τὸ βομβυλιὸν εἶδος μελίσσης. σημαίνει δὲ καὶ τὸν αὐλητήν, παρὰ τὸ τοῖς αὐλοῖς βομβεῖν. ἔστι δὲ καὶ βικίου εἶδος στενοστόμου (“bombyliou (gen.): it is the buzzing kind of honeybee, but it also denotes a flute-player because they buzz (bombein) with their flutes. It’s also a kind of narrow-mouthed vessel”). Another sense of βομβύλιος is attested at Zenob. 2.80: βομβύλιος ἄνθρωπος· ἐπὶ τοῦ ἀκάρπου· παρόσον ὁ βομβύλιος καρπὸν οὐ φέρει. ἔστι δὲ μελίττης εἶδος ἐκ πηλοῦ τὰ κηρία πλαττούσης (“a bombylios man: used of someone fruitless, since someone who is bombylios does not bear fruit. It is also a kind of honeybee that makes keria from clay”). 127 243 244 elaborate joke that equates Theban flute-players with noxious wasps and chasing them off-stage, Dicaeopolis gets to do what he perhaps wishes he could have done at 15–6. The joke thus also highlights Dicaeopolis’ transition from passive audience member and citizen at the beginning of comedy to the active stage-director and peace-broker that he is at this point in the comedy. 4.2 ΜΕΣΟΠΈΡΔΗΝ Poll. 3.155 καὶ πλαγιάζειν δὲ καὶ κλιμακίζειν παλαισμάτων ὀνόματα· μοχθηρὸν γὰρ τὸ μεσοπέρδην (adesp. com. fr. 775) ἐν τῇ κωμῳδίᾳ σχῆμα παλαίσματος τὸ μεσοπέρδην Dobree : τὸ μέσον ἔρδειν Poll.A : τὸ πέρδην Poll.FC : τὸ πέρδειν Poll.SB And both plagiazein (“throw sideways”) and klimakizein (“hold one’s ground”) are names of wrestling moves. But unsuitable is the word mesoperdên, a kind of wrestling move in comedy Hsch. μ 928 μεσοπέρδην· μεσοφέρδην τὸν μέσον φερόμενον· τὸ γὰρ παλαιὸν τῷ π ἀντὶ τοῦ φ ἐχρῶντο προστιθέντες τὸ τῆς δασύτητος σημεῖον 128 μεσοπέρδην· μεσοφέρδην] μεσόπερα ἦν· μέφερα ἦν mss. mesoperdên: (they say that) mesopherdên (is) one who is being carried in the middle. In antiquity they used pi instead of phi, adding the mark of roughbreathing Phot. μ 302 μεσοπέρδην· ἐκ τῶν μέσων· ἀντὶ τοῦ μεσοφέρδην μεμενηκότων τῶν ἀρχαίων χαρακτήρων μεσοπέρδην] μεσομερδην Phot.g : μεσoμέρδην Phot.z mesoperdên: from the middle; instead of mesopherdên, recalling the ancient characters 4.2.1 TEXTUAL NOTES Dobree 1874. 44 (comparing the text of Photius) corrected the text of Pollux, the manuscripts of which offer nonsense here, the copyists having misunderstood the word. The manuscripts of Hesychius likewise offer nonsense presumably for the same reason. The paradosis of Phot.gz likely shows minuscule confusion between mu and pi. 129 4.2.2 FORMATION μεσοπέρδην is a blend of μεσοφέρδην “(borne) by the middle”245 and πέρδομαι “fart”. The word is unlikely as an adverb in -δην. Although a sequence of two dental stops typically simplifies to /s + dental/246 and we might therefore perhaps have expected a putative *-πέρδ-δην to have become *-περzδην and, with the loss of z between two consonants,247 *-πἐρδην, there are evidently no examples of -δδ- etymologically.248 As such, the outcome of an otherwise unparalleled -δδ- is uncertain and positing such a derivation for -πέρδην seems imprudent.249 At any rate, the context of wrestling would seem to suggest that the word functions as a blend. And as a blend, the form and meaning of the word are clear, with the phonetic overlap (-φερδ- and περδ-) Not otherwise attested. Αdverbs in -δην are typically of two kinds: those formed directly from the root in zero-grade (e.g. μίγδην “mixedly”; φύγδην “in flight”; βάδην “step by step”) and those formed from the root in o-grade with -α- added before the suffix (e.g. λογάδην “picked”), with the two kinds sometimes coexisting (e.g. ἀμβλήδην and ἀμβολάδην “bursting”). This -άδην allomorph presumably originates in reanalysis of o-grade roots ending in *-h2 (e.g. *bolh2-dēn). However, some such adverbs are nonetheless seemingly formed from roots in e-grade (e.g. κλέβδην “stealthily” < κλέπτω “steal”; ὀρέγδην “by reaching” < ὀρέγω “reach”; περιπλέγδην “closely entwined” < πλέκω “entwine”; no zerograde forms of which are attested) and can likewise coexist with the latter of the other two kinds (e.g. περιπλοκάδην “closely entwined”), although it is possible that these could be analogical reformations of the zero-grade with an anaptyctic vowel. At any rate, there thus seems no reason that there could not have been alongside φοράδην “borne alone” a *φέρδην of the same meaning (likewise analogically reformed from the zero-grade with an anaptyctic vowel), whence μεσοφέρδην. On adverbs in -δην generally, see Frohwein 1868. 39–60; Haas 1959; Rau 2006. 246 E.g. ἰστός “seen” < *wid-to-; and cf. Sihler 1995. 202 with further examples. 247 Cf. Sihler 1995. 218–9 248 Rix 1992. 96: “für Dental vor /d/ fehlen Beispiele”. 249 This would also be the only such adverb formed from a dental-final stem (pace Frohwein 1869. 44–5, none of whose few examples are in fact from dental-final stems). 130 245 exploited to meld the two source-words into a blended word with a combined meaning that serves as the punchline of a joke: that one may cause an opponent to fart (πέρδομαι) while carrying (φέρω) him by the middle (μέσος). 4.2.3 INTERPRETATION The blend μεσοπέρδην is attested only in the three lexicographers cited above, all of whom either lived in or drew on sources from the 2nd century CE,250 which is thus the earliest date at which we have evidence of scholarly interest in this word. Pollux cites the word amid a large discussion of terms for wrestling moves, censuring it as improper Greek and attributing it to comedy without commenting otherwise on its meaning or etymology. Both Hesychius and Photius, on the other hand, although the brevity of their notes renders each difficult, seemingly regard μεσοπέρδην as the older spelling of μεσοφέρδην.251 At any rate, Hesychius’ gloss of μεσοφέρδην as “one who is borne by the middle (acc.)” seems like an attempt to etymologize the word rather than its actual meaning and, moreover, suggests that he takes μεσοφέρδην to be the accusative singular of masculine first-declension noun *μεσοφέρδης. Yet, a Pollux lived in the 2nd century CE. The material in Hesychius has been traced back to 2ndcentury CE grammarian Herodian by Lentz (Grammatici Graeci III.2 p. 550.12–3), while the material in Hesychius and Photius has been traced back to the 2nd-century CE grammarian Diogenianus by Theodoridis. 251 Photius’ μεμενηκότων τῶν ἀρχαίων χαρακτήρων in particular suggests he may have had in the mind the spelling conventions of the Old Attic Script used before 403 BCE, where φς was used to render the sequence /ps/, although φ was used for /ph/ and π was used for /p/. However, confusion between the two was rare and mostly limited to cases of aspirate dissimilation and assimilation in inscriptions from after 403 BCE (cf. Threatte 1980 I.449– 69). 131 250 putative compound *μεσοφέρδης is unlikely, since there is no base φερδ- whence it might be formed. Photius’ gloss of the word as “from the middle” suggests he took μεσοφέρδην as an adverb. That μεσοφέρδην is an adverb was also the opinion more recently of Dobree 1874. 44: “the adverb μεσοφέρδην is from φέρω, like ἄρδην, φύρδην, σύρδην, etc., which a comic poet has distorted into a dirty joke (trans.)”. This is certainly right, and Poliakoff 1981. 48–9 thought that the dirty joke here was specifically about squeezing a fart out of someone while wrestling. 4.3 τρυγῳδία / τρυγῳδός / τρυγῳδικός / τρυγῳδοποιομουσική Ar. Ach. 497–501 μή μοι φθονήσητ’, ἄνδρες οἱ θεώμενοι, εἰ πτωχὸς ὢν ἔπειτ’ ἐν Ἀθηναίοις λέγειν μέλλω περὶ τῆς πόλεως, τρυγῳδίαν ποιῶν. τὸ γὰρ δίκαιον οἶδε καὶ τρυγῳδία. ἐγὼ δὲ λέξω δεινὰ μέν, δίκαια δέ. Don’t get mad at me, gentleman spectators, if I, though a beggar, am about to speak to the Athenians about the city, while making a trugedy. For trugedy also knows what’s right. What I’ll say will be terrible but right. Ar. Ach. 628–9 ἐξ οὗ γε χοροῖσιν ἐφέστηκεν τρυγικοῖς ὁ διδάσκαλος ἡμῶν, 132 οὔπω παρέβη πρὸς τὸ θέατρον λέξων ὡς δεξιός ἐστιν Never, since our producer first directed trugic choruses, has he stepped forward to tell the audience that he’s clever. Ar. Ach. 885–7 ὦ φιλτάτη σὺ καὶ πάλαι ποθουμένη, ἦλθες ποθεινὴ μὲν τρυγῳδικοῖς χοροῖς, φίλη δὲ Μορύχῳ O you dearest and long desired, you have come, longed-for by trugedic choruses, and dear to Morychus” Ar. V. 650–2 Βδ. Φι. χαλεπὸν μὲν καὶ δεινῆς γνώμης καὶ μείζονος ἢ ’πὶ τρυγῳδοῖς ἰάσασθαι νόσον ἀρχαίαν ἐν τῇ πόλει ἐντετακυῖαν. ἀτάρ, ὦ πάτερ ἡμέτερε Κρονίδη— παῦσαι καὶ μὴ πατέριζε. {Bd.} It’s difficult and requires more and greater intelligence than trugedians must heal an old sickness inveterate to the city. But, o father of ours, son of Cronus—{Ph.} Knock it off and stop “o father”-ing. 133 Ar. V. 1535–7 ἀλλ’ ἐξάγετ’, εἴ τι φιλεῖτ’, ὀρχούμενοι, θύραζε ἡμᾶς ταχύ· τοῦτο γὰρ οὐδείς πω πάρος δέδρακεν, ὀρχούμενον ὅστις ἀπήλλαξεν χορὸν τρυγῳδῶν. But lead us out of here dancing, if you please, quickly. For no one has ever done this before, who led off a dancing chorus of trugedians. Ar. fr. 156.8–10 (from Gerytades) Α. Β. καὶ τίνες ἂν εἶεν; πρῶτα μὲν Σαννυρίων ἀπὸ τῶν τρυγῳδῶν, ἀπὸ δὲ τῶν τραγικῶν χορῶν Μέλητος, ἀπὸ δὲ τῶν κυκλίων Κινησίας 10 {A} And who might they be? {B} First, Sannyrio represents the trugedians; and the tragic choruses, Meletus; and the dithyrambic ones, Cinesias. Ar. fr. 347 (from Thesmophoriazusae II) ἦ μέγα τι βρῶμ’ † ἐστὶ ἡ † τρυγῳδοποιομουσική, ἡνίκα Κράτης τὀ τε τάριχος ἐλεφάντινον λαμπρὸν ἐνόμιζεν ἀπόνως παρακεκλημένον, ἄλλα τε τοιαῦθ’ ἕτερα μυρί’ ἐκιχλίζετο. 134 Indeed, the trugic poet’s art † is † some great feast, when Crates considered his smoked fish “ivoried”, “splendid” and “summoned without effort”, and a thousand other such things got a laugh. Eup. fr. 99.28–9 (from Demoi) τῆς ἑταιρείας δὲ τούτων τοὺς φίλους ἐσκ[ ταῖς στρατηγίαις δ’ ὑφέρπει καὶ τρυγῳδο̣ [ But their friends from their club … and he sneaks up on the generalships, and the trugedian … 4.3.1 TEXTUAL NOTES In each of the passages quoted above, the paradoseis in τρυγ- have been “corrected” to τραγ- in at least one manuscript. However, because of the relative rarity of issues here and because of the obvious source of the issues (attempting to “correct” a nonce word), I have chosen not to clutter the text above with apparatus. 4.3.2 FORMATION τρυγῳδός is a blend of the stem of τρύξ (gen. τρυγός) “new wine; lees” and τραγῳδός “tragedian”. Although it is formally analyzable as a compound, that is a consequence of the fact that one of its source words is itself a compound. When one of the source 135 words of a blend is already a compound, it can be clipped at the morphological boundary between its constituents and be reduced to a splinter that is formally identical to a constituent of the source-word. Yet although the resultant blend may be formally analyzable as a compound, it will not be semantically analyzable as such, since the new coinage draws on the blended semantics of its sources rather than the unblended semantics of the source-word(s)’s constituents.252 At any rate, the contexts suggest blending, especially in fr. 156 where the blend is explicitly contrasted with a τραγ- word, and as a blend its form and meaning are clear. The phonetic overlap (τρυγ- and τραγ-) is exploited to meld the two source-words into a blended word with a combined meaning that serves as the punchline of a joke: that comedy qua trugedy is a wine-soaked, poor man’s genre that parodies and otherwise engages with tragedy in an agonistic relationship and claims the same right as tragedy to dispense advice. For example, English chicksand exists as the name of a village in Bedfordshire, England, which Skeat 1906. 42 takes to be a compound of Old English Cic or Cicc, a personal name otherwise unknown, and sand in the sense “sandy region”. Thus, as a compound, chicksand means “Cic’s Place”. But the word chicksand has been more recently coined (Happy Endings, “The Quicksand Girlfriend”. Directed by Jeff Melman. Written by Josh Bycel. 13 April 2011) as a blend of chick (in the sense “girl, woman”) and quicksand to describe a situation in which a young man unwittingly finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a romantic relationship with a young woman instead of, as he had previously thought and hoped, merely having a one-night stand with her. That is, the quicksand-like chick has sucked him down into a relationship. Although this second chicksand looks like a compound, the context of the coinage, where the witticism is even called out as “Not a word”, suggests blending, and its intended meaning requires the blended semantics of both source words. Two other such blends in English are the relatively recent vaguebook “elicit attention by posting intentionally vague statements on Facebook or other social media”, which blends vague and facebook “use Facebook” and the relatively old dumbfound, a blend of dumb and confound. 136 252 4.3.3 INTERPRETATION Ancient grammarians and commentators took the word τρυγῳδία as a straightforward synonym for “comedy”, or at least what later came to be called “comedy”,253 with some having accordingly concocted various reasons for dubbing comedy “trugedy”. According to most ancient grammarians and commentators, comedy was also called “trugedy” either because wine lees were offered as a prize or because they were smeared on the comic actors’ faces in place of masks,254 but there is no evidence otherwise that either supposition is true, and this line of thinking is perhaps best regarded as a humorless attempt to tease out the meaning of difficult word by etymologizing it. Yet underpinning the guesswork of these ancient commentators is the tacit recognition that τρυγῳδία would be semantically peculiar as a compound and that it does not have the same sense as most other compounds in -ῳδία.255 Alternatively, according to Athenaeus (2.40a), comedy was also called “trugedy” because comedy was performed at the time of the vintage (τρύγη). However, this seems implausible, since dramatic festivals took place in the winter and Theognost. Can. 134 E.g. ΣREΓ Ar. Ach. 499a; ΣEΓ Ar. Ach. 398a 255 Apart from the much-discussed τραγῳδός, the precise meaning and etymology of which remains unclear (the first constituent is traditionally taken to be from τράγος “goat” but what “goat-singer” really means is disputed; cf. Pickard–Cambridge 1966. 112–24) and the verbinitial ῥαψῳδός “rhapsode” (< ῥάπτω “sew” and ᾠδή “song”) compounds in -ῳδός typically denote a subtype of ᾠδός “singer”, with the first constituent specifying either which kind of song the singer sings (e.g. θρηνῳδός “dirge-singer”; ὑμνῳδός “hymn-singer”) or which musical instrument accompanies the singer (e.g. αὐλῳδός “singing to the flute”; κιθαρῳδός “singing to the cithara”). 137 253 254 spring,256 whereas the harvest took place in the fall,257 and his suggestion is best regarded as another shot in the dark. The culmination of this same kind of etymologizing guesswork is on full display in a long note at EM p. 793.58–794.24, which reads like something of an overview of previous research into the names of the dramatic genres: τραγωιδία· ἔστι βίων τε καὶ λόγων ἡρωϊκῶν μίμησις. κέκληται δὲ τραγῳδία, ὅτι τράγος τῇ ᾠδῇ ἆθλον ἐτίθετο· ᾠδὴ γὰρ ἡ τραγῳδία. ἤ ὅτι τρύγα ἆθλον ἐλάμβανον οἱ νικῶντες· τρύγα γὰρ ἐκάλουν οἱ παλαιοὶ τὸν νέον οἶνον. ἤ ὅτι τετράγωνον εἶχον οἱ χοροὶ σχῆμα· ἢ ὅτι τὰ πολλὰ οἱ χοροὶ ἐκ σατύρων συνίσταντο· οὓς ἐκάλουν τράγους σκώπτοντες, ἢ διὰ τὴν τοῦ σώματος δασύτητα, ἢ διὰ τὴν περὶ τὰ ἀφροδίσια σπουδήν· τοιοῦτον γὰρ τὸ ζῷον. ἤ ὅτι οἱ χορευταὶ τὰς κόμας ἀνέπλεκον, σχῆμα τράγων μιμούμενοι. ἤ ἀπὸ τῆς τρυγὸς τρυγῳδία. ἦν δὲ τὸ ὄνομα τοῦτο κοινὸν καὶ πρὸς τὴν κωμῳδίαν· ἐπεὶ οὔπω διεκέκριτο τὰ τῆς ποιήσεως ἑκατέρας· ἀλλ’ εἰς αὐτὴν ἓν ἦν τὸ ἆθλον, ἡ τρύξ· ὕστερον δὲ τὸ μὲν κοινὸν ὄνομα ἔσχεν ἡ τραγῳδία· ἡ δὲ κωμῳδία ὠνόμασται, ἐπειδὴ πρότερον κατὰ κώμας ἔλεγον αὐτὰ ἐν ταῖς ἑορταῖς τοῦ Διονύσου καὶ τῆς Δήμητρος· ἢ παρὰ τὸ κωμάζειν, ἡ ἐπὶ τῷ κώματι ᾠδή· ἐπειδὴ The Rural Dionysia was held in December/January, while the City Dionysia was held in March/April (cf. Mikalson 1975. 97, 128). 257 The vintage took place in the fall (cf. Var. R. 1.1.63 vindemiam fieri oportere inter aequinoctium autumnale V kal. Octobres et vergiliarum occasum VI idus Novembres, “the vintage should happen between the autumnal equinox on 27 September and the setting of the Pleiades on 8 November”; and see Sacks 2005. 132), and accordingly the Oscophoria was celebreated in Dionysus’ honor, after the vintage, in October/November (cf. Mikalson 1975. 67–9; Isager–Skydsgaard 2001. 164). 138 256 ἐπὶ τὸν καιρὸν τοῦ ὕπνου τὴν ἀρχὴν ἐφευρέθη· ἢ ἡ τῶν κωμητῶν ᾠδή· κῶμαι γὰρ λέγονται οἱ μείζονες ἀγροί258 The variety and number of hypotheses, each seizing on a different facet of the genre to explain its name, show a deep and abiding interest in figuring out why these important dramatic genres were called what they were. Noteworthy here however is that “trugedy” is simultaneously invoked as both the original name of tragedy (with an unexplained change of upsilon to alpha)259 and as the original name of comedy, which perhaps indicates that the scholarly tradition, of which the EM is an inheritor, had no idea what to make of a facetious coinage that looked like the word “tragedy” but was used of comedy and that the precise Aristophanic joke had been lost. However, the fact that trugedy is thought to have been both a name for tragedy and for comedy may perhaps suggest that the scholarly tradition had some vague sense that Aristophanes had used the term “trugedy” as a generic term for something “Tragedy: it is the imitation of heroic lives and words. It is called tragedy because a goat (tragos) was awarded as a prize for the song, since the song is tragedy. Or because the victors got as a prize wine lees (truga), which the ancients used to call new wine. Or because the choruses used to have a tetragonal arrangement. Or because very often the choruses were comprised of satyrs, which they used to call goats (tragous) in jest either because of the hairiness of their body or because of their lust for sex, since they were creatures this kind. Or because the members of the chorus plaited their hair in imitation of the manner of goats. Or (the term) trugedy (derives) from wine-lees (trugos). This name was also commonly applied to comedy. When each production was judged, there was but one prize for it, wine lees. Later, tragedy had its common name. Comedy was so-called since they formerly said these things in villages (kômas) at festivals for Dionysus and Demeter. Or it is from the verb ‘to revel’ (kômazein), or it is the song at deep sleep (kôma): since it found its beginning at the time of sleep. Or it is the song of villagers (kômêtai), since larger fields were called villages (kômai).” 259 Also postulated at Comm. on Dion. Thrax. p. 475.4 and Diomedes Grammatici Latini I p. 487, whose source here Meuli 1955. 228–9 took to be Varro; implied at Porph. Hor. Ars. 277. 139 258 halfway between tragedy and comedy (i.e. semantically, if not also formally, a blend) as modern scholars have thought. This relatively tin-eared etymologizing of the word persisted well into 19th and the 20th centuries, with for example Reisch 1902. 467 averring: “Unklar ist leider Geschichte und Bedeutung des Wortes τρυγῳδοί. Die Vermutung, dass das Wort erst von den Komikern gewissermass parodisch als Gegenstück zu τραγῳδοί gebildet worden sei, findet an den aristophanischen Stellen, in denen das Wort ohne scherzhafte Spitze gebraucht ist, keine Stütze. Man müsste also annehmen, dass ein ursprünglich scherzhaft gebildetes Wort späterhin auch ohne parodischen Beigeschmack geläufig geworden sei. Dem gegenüber muss die andere Möglichkeit betont werden, dass τρυγῳδοί eine alte volkstümlich Bezeichnung eines Komödenchors sei, der ursprünglich einem anderen Feste als der Chor der κωμῳδοί zukam. Als für die Kuntsform der Komödie die κωμῳδοί massgebend geworden waren, könnten die τρυγῳδοί in diesen aufgegangen sein, so dass späterhin die alte Bezeichnung eine Zeitlang als gleichbedeutung mit κωμῳδοί sich erhielt, dann aber ganz verschwand. Im Alterum wurde das Wort in der Regel von τρύξ abgeleitet, indem man entweder τρύξ als jungen Wein verstand, der also Preis gegeben wurde—das ist die häufigste Erklärung—oder an die Hefe dachte, mit der das Gesicht der Komöden beschmiert war; daneben findet sich auch die Ableitung von τρύγη. Wie immer man sich entscheiden möge für “Wein-Lied”, “HefeSpiel”, “Weinlese-Lied” für volksthümlichen oder für scherzhaften Ursprung 140 des Wortes, sicher ist, dass die Bildung von τρυγῳδία keine Analogie zu der postulirten Etymologie von τραγῳδία bilden kann.“ Reisch‘s comment is worth singling out and quoting because not only does he uncritically parrot the etymologies given by ancient grammarians and commentators, which we have already disputed above, but he also seemingly glosses over the fact that the word is all but confined to Aristophanes and works hard to find no humor in the passages of Aristophanes in which the words occur. While Reisch is right in one sense that the word, originally humorous, eventually lost its humor, it was not however in Aristophanes that it did so but among later grammarians and commentators like the EM and himself. And Reisch, rather than taking the word’s reccurence as evidence of Aristophanes recycling a joke, takes it as evidence that the word is some folksy old term harkening back to an otherwise unknown dramatic festival. That is, a facetious coinage has been so misconstrued as a serious generic term over the millenia that we have gone from actors smearing their faces with lees to the ex nihilo creation of a now-lost dramatic festival to explain it. Despite the obvious problems with his take, Reisch was nonetheless followed in the main by Pickard-Cambridge 1966, who mentioned the word τρυγῳδός briefly amid a lengthy discussion of the term τραγῳδός and its origins, suggesting that if τρυγῳδός “is not a parody word (and therefore not to be too minutely scrutinized), it may mean the ‘singer at the vintage’, just as well as ‘singer stained with wine lees’” (123) and that “there may have been an autumn festival including both tragic and comic elements, but, as has been said, trygoidia was probably in origin simply a comic parody of tragoidia, giving to comedy a name which was both ludicrous and 141 suggestive of wine …” (186). Although he is at least skeptical of Reisch’ putative autumn festival, he does not outright dimiss the idea, and his declaration that the word is “simply parodic” along with his evident unwillingness to say more about it than that it is funny and evocative gives short shrift to what is ultimately a rich joke delivered in a novel coinage. Fortunately, understanding and appreciation of the word has improved significantly in the decades since Pickard-Cambridge wrote. Taplin 1983, picking up on Pickard-Cambridge’s suggestion that τρυγῳδία may be parodic but ignoring his dictum that the word not be too minutely scrutinized, entered the word as evidence into the long-standing debate whether (Aristophanic) comedy was meant to be didactic. After briefly examining the other attestations of the various τρυγ- words and reasoning that “it seems clear beyond dispute that in three of them [Ar. Ach. 886; Nu. 296;260 fr. 156] the τρυγ- word is chosen primarily in order to make some wordplay with τραγῳδία. It seems to me likely that this verbal association is also intended in three of the others [Ar. Ach. 628; V. 650, 1537]. There does not seem to be any such homeophonic point in the other two fragments [Ar. fr. 349; Eup. fr. 99.29], though we cannot be sure” (333), Taplin concludes that at Ar. Ach. 500 Aristophanes has coined261 and used the word τρυγῳδία instead of κωμῳδία “to οὐ μὴ σκώψει, μηδὲ ποιήσεις ἅπερ οἱ τρυγοδαίμονες οὗτοι (“Don’t make fun or do what those trygodaimones do”). However, τρυγοδαίμονες is not a blend, even if the humor of the word is similar. 261 Sommerstein 2007 rejects Taplin’s suggestion that the word τρυγῳδία was coined by Aristophanes and first used at Ach. 500, claiming that “if that had been the first time it was used, no one would have understood it; rather, at its first appearance, the word must have stood in explicit contrast with τραγῳδία.” But the logical conclusion of this line of thinking is seemingly that any punny nonce formation will necessarily be misunderstood unless it is used near the target of its punning. This is, however, an absurd conclusion. τρυγῳδία and τραγῳδία are, despite the similarity that is the natural and intended result of blending, 142 260 allude to tragedy” (333)—the audience, he thinks, will have found the pun obvious and taken “the comic 'etymology' to be from either τρυγάω 'to gather a crop', or τρύξ 'unfermented wine'” (333)—and thus to assert for comedy an equal acquaintance with what is right and a didactic or curative function on par with that of tragedy.262 By suggesting that Aristophanes coined the word to “allude” to tragedy and that the audience will have understood its “comic ‘etymology’”, Taplin seems rightly to imply that the word is formally and semantically peculiar, and accordingly he does not suggest, as others do, that the word means “harvesting-song” or “wine-song” or the like. As for why Aristophanes coined τρυγῳδία as a pun on “tragedy” at Ach. 500 (where we should recall that the the protagonist of the comedy is dressed as a beggar different words, and there seems no obvious reason to assume that the first τρυγῳδία, even used apart from τραγῳδία, would have dumbfounded an ancient audience any more than modern scholars. And as discussed in Chapter 3 s. v. Βδεῦ, modern commentators and scholars have at times been overly demanding as to the phonetic similarity between a pun and its target, arguing implicitly that some pun violated some unspecified and perhaps unspecifiable maximal phonetic difference and therefore supposing a fudged pronunciation to aid in the recovery of the pun’s target. Here, however, Sommerstein seems to be arguing that they are too similar, that the minimal phonetic difference is too minimal. 262 Taplin has been followed by e.g. Edwards 1991, who notes that “through this comic expression [τρυγῳδία] Aristophanes claims for his genre the same prerogative to high themes of civic importance as that conceded to tragedy. The conflicting implications built into the word epitomize the general tension in Aristophanes' plays between comedy as low and vulgar, rustic buffoonery, and comedy as a sophisticated dramatic form utilizing publicspirited themes and offering timely political advice” (157), but he explicitly calls the word a compound (157); Panagiotarakou 2009, who argues that trugedy is “a new type of drama that is neither tragedy nor comedy … [which aims] to delve into the civic sphere with the intention of engaging matters that, up to that point, were beyond the intellectual and philosophical jurisdiction of comedy” (251), but she does not take into consideration any of the τρυγ- words attested outside of Acharnians; Biles–Olson 2015 on Ar. V. 650, who claim that the word “pleads for comedy’s right to attempt something unexpectedly ambitious by referring to its putatively more august sister genre”, but leave aside the issue of the word’s formation; Sells 2018. 41–7. 143 in rags borrowed from Euripides!), Taplin seeks an answer by briefly comparing Pax 1337–40, where the verb τρυγάω is used in a ribald metaphor about “harvesting” Oporia (“bounty”), the wife of Trygaeus (“harvester”), the protagonist of the comedy. Taplin’s unspoken assumption here seems to be that just as Trygaeus harvests and shares his bounty in Peace, so too does Aristophanes harvest and share with the Athenian audience his knowledge of what is right in his comedies.263 The idea that trugedy is Aristophanes’ term for his curative, politically engaged comedy seems to apply equally well at Ach. 628–9, the beginning of the parabasis wherein the chorus goes onto explain how the poet deserves rich rewards for preventing the city from being fleeced by foreigners and flatterers (633–5) and how he will keep ridiculing in pursuit of the right (κωμῳδήσει τὰ δίκαια; 655) to teach the audience what is good so that they might flourish (656). This, however, is one of the passages where Taplin for some reason thinks that a “verbal association” with tragedy is only likely, even though the language of 628 riffs on the language of producing tragic choruses264 and the rest of the parabasis makes the exact point, which Taplin alleges Aristophanes is making at Ach. 500, quite explicitly: here comes comedy to save the day. Yet at Ach. 885–7, a passage where Taplin thinks wordplay between τρυγῳδικός and τραγῳδικός is certain, this larger point about the curative function of Aristophanic comedy or its acquaintance with justice seems entirely to be missing. Rather than (or in addition to?) the fact that comedy qua trugedy is tragedy with dirty jokes. Taplin is not explicit here. 264 Cf. Hdt. 5.67.5; D. 21.58. 144 263 Here, Dicaeopolis rapturously addresses some Copaic eels sold by the Theban merchant visiting his black market; he uses elevated language paratragically and parodies tragic recognition scenes.265 Moreover, his address ends at 893–4 with a comically distorted quotation of Euripides and had been preceded at 883 by the Theban merchant’s comically distorted quotation of Aeschylus. In each case, the ends of the lines from the venerable tragedians are altered to make a paraprosdokian reference to the eels. Although the word τρυγῳδικός has some “homeophonic point”, as Taplin observes, the joke must be something other than that this drama or this chorus will teach the audience anything. Instead, the humor here seems to be that the trugedic choruses are in the business not only of misapplying and distorting the desires and language of tragedy, but also of misapplying and distorting the name of tragedy itself. As Aristophanes changes the trappings of tragedy into paratragedy so too does he change the name of tragedy itself into something parodic. Likewise, there is no trace of this curative function or bold ambition at Ar. fr. 347, one of the two passages where Taplin admits that he sees no indication of wordplay between trugedy and tragedy. Rather, the trugic poet’s art here seems to be, as it was at Ach. 886, paratragedy, namely the use of elevated vocabulary266 to describe something prosaic in comedy: seafood. The idea that τρυγῳδία is a term rather for comedy engaged in some way with tragedy seems to hold as well at Ar. fr. Cf. Olson 2002 ad loc. The adjective ἐλεφάντινος is attested only lyric poetry (e.g. Alc. fr. 350.1–2 (of a sword handle); Anacr. PMG 388.11 (of an umbrella)) and comedy (Ar. Eq. 1169 (lyric; of a hand); Pl. 815 (of a lantern)), before being picked up by prose authors from Plato onwards, while the adverb ἀπόνως is all but confined to speeches in 5th-cenury historians (e.g. Thuc. 1.122.2; Hdt. 9.2.3). 145 265 266 156, where Sannyrio is chosen as the trugic ambassador for a trip to the Underworld. If trugedy were Aristophanes’ term for his own unique brand of didactic, ambitious, politically-engaged comedy, then surely it would be high praise for him to single out Sannyrio as its representative here. Of Sannyrio, we know little more than that he was an Athenian comic playwright with at least four comedies to his name (test. i), that he was active probably toward the end of the 5th century (test. ii), and that he was mocked for being thin (test. iii). Nothing in the testimonia or in the scant remains of his comedies suggest anything of the high-minded engagement with justice and civic affairs or bold ambition or generic novelty other scholars have attached to the word trugedy. There are, however, indications that he parodied tragedy.267 On this fragment, see Hall 2006. 179–80; Farmer 2017. 197–212. Farmer also discusses the two relevant passages from Wasps amid his discussion of that comedy generally (117– 53). He argues that Wasps can be read as a story about comedy overcoming tragedy, wherein Philocleon—who quotes and acts out scenes from tragedy throughout—is ultimately won over by his son “Bdelycleon, a character markedly associated, like Dicaeopolis in Acharnians, with comedy, repeatedly wards off the influence of tragedy on his father with the unique resources of comic dramaturgy, staging a series of metatheatrical events to avert tragedy’s intrusions into the play. Finally successful in winning his father over to comedy, Bdelycleon unwittingly releases an unstoppable comic force, and Philocleon, inspired by wine and comic madness, takes over the stage, transforming the confrontation between tragedy and comedy from metaphor to reality by staging a dancing competition with a family of tragic performers” at the close of the comedy (118). At 650–1 (the first passage from Wasps quoted above), as Bdelycleon begins to explain to his father how populist politicians have hoodwinked him and others like him, he styles himself a trugedian, saying that although healing the city of an old disease is a task beyond the power of trugedians, he has to try anyway by telling his father terrible truths about the political life of Athens. The sentiment here is similar to that at Ach. 497–501, where Dicaeopolis steps forth to offer Athens advice, claiming that comedy qua trugedy is acquainted with what is terrible but just. And Farmer suggests that Aristophanes, by ending the comedy with the word τρυγῳδῶν, since 1536–7 are in fact the final two lines of the comedy, “encapsulates this narrative of generic competition between comedy and tragedy” and “emphasizes for the audience at the very end of the play that Wasps has been a drama not 146 267 But why does Aristophanes coin the specific term trugedy to refer jocularly to comedy as engaged variously with tragedy? Equally, he might have coined instead *τρωγῳδία “nibble-song” (< τρώγω “gnaw, nibble”), since comedy is obsessed with food and one aspect of its engagement with tragedy is, as we have seen, misapplying the language of tragedy to foodstuffs, or *κραγῳδία, “shout-song” (< κραγός “bawling”), since certainly comedy is a more raucus dramatic form than tragedy; τρώγω and κράζω, both words well-attested in, if not confined to comedy, provide the needed phonetic overlap and render tragedy somehow comic. However, that comedy has the same utility as tragedy and that it is therefore engaged in an agonistic relationship with tragedy that often takes the form of paratragedy and parody is only evidently part of the point; the other part of the point is that comedy is humbly rustic and productively drunken. At Ar. Pax 572–81, Trygaeus sings, enumerating the delights of the countryside, among which is τρὺξ γλυκεῖα (“sweet tryx”) and at Theopomp. Com. fr. 63.4 an unknown speaker advises a young man: ἡ τρὺξ ἄριστόν ἐστιν εἰς εὐβουλίαν (“trux is the best thing for clear thinking”). These two points are equally well expressed in the blend τρυγῳδία. Although τρυγῳδία is not alone among Greek blends in enjoying a life beyond its initial context (recall that Aristophanes had twice used his Ἀττικωνικοί), it does however seem alone in being picked up by another author. While most of the reoccurences of the word come from elsewhere in Aristophanes himself, one comes from Eupolis’ Demoi. Although much remains unclear about Eup. fr. 99, given the merely of the court system, of education, of generational conflict, but also and especially of literature, of the confrontation between Athens’ two theatrical genres” (153). 147 fragmentary and mutilated state of the text, the fact that the passage likely comes from a parabasis paired with the passage’s abuse of some contemporary politician points at least to the possibility that the term τρυγῳδός still retained something of the sense “comic poet with the same utility as a tragic poet” or the like. What has perhaps made the word’s afterlife possible is that it by chance looks like a wellformed compound and that it moreover fulfills some denotational need. In addition, although τρυγῳδία and τρυγῳδός are both plausibly coined independently by blending, τρυγῳδοποιομουσική seems to be a secondary formation: a compound of a blend rather than a blend itself, since there is no attested word *τραγῳδοποιομουσική (~ “tragic poet’s art”); in fact, there are no attested compounds of μουσική otherwise. There is, however, a τραγῳδοποιός (“tragic poet”), first attested at Ar. Th. 30,268 whence a putative blend *τρυγῳδοποιός (“trugic poet”) could have been fashioned and thereafter compounded with μουσική. At any rate, τρυγῳδός is then also alone among Greek blends in establishing itself well enough to be used as the basis for secondary formations. 4.4 TRAGICOMOEDIA Plaut. Am. 50–63 nunc quam rem oratum huc veni primum proloquar; 50 That the blend τρυγῳδοποιομουσική (from Thesmoporiazusae II) seemingly presupposes the existence of τραγῳδοποιός (from Thesmophoriazusae I) lends some credence, slight though it may be, to Austin–Olson 2004b’s argument that Thesmophoriazusae I was the first written of the two comedies. 148 268 post argumentum huius eloquar tragoediae. quid? contraxistis frontem quia tragoediam dixi futuram hanc? deus sum, commutavero. eandem hanc, si voltis, faciam <iam> ex tragoedia comoedia ut sit omnibus isdem vorsibus. 55 utrum sit an non voltis? sed ego stultior, quasi nesciam vos velle, qui divos siem. teneo quid animi vostri super hac re siet: faciam ut commixta sit; <sit> tragicomoedia. nam me perpetuo facere ut sit comoedia, 60 reges quo veniant et di, non par arbitror. quid igitur? quoniam hic servos quoque partis habet, faciam sit, proinde ut dixi, tragicomoedia 59 ut c. sit; sit tragicomoedia Leo : c. ut haec sit tragicomoedia Pareus 1641 : ut c. sit tragicocomoedia P 63 tragicomoedia Pareus 1610 : tragicocomoedia P Now I’ll tell you first what I’ve come here to ask, after I tell you the plot of this tragedy. What? Are you frowning because I said that this would be a tragedy? I’m a god, I’ll change it. If you want, I’ll make this tragedy a comedy with all the same verses. Do you want this or not? But I’m being foolish, as if I didn’t know you want this; I am a god. I know what your thoughts are on this matter: I’ll 149 make it mixed; let it be a tragicomedy. Well, I don’t think it’d be right to make it totally a comedy, since regal persons and gods come on stage. What then? Since a slave has a role here as well, I’ll make it, as I said, a tragicomedy. Lactant. Plac. Stat. Theb. 4.147 (Tirynthia deus) Iuppiter mutatus in Amphitryonem concubuisse cum Alcmena Eletryonis filia dicitur in urbe Tirynthia. unde natus est Hercules, unde et Tirynthius dicitur. de qua Plautus tragicocomoediam dixit (the Tirynthian goddess) Jupiter, after changing himself into Amphitryon, is said to have lain with Alcmena, the daughter of Electryon, in the city of Tirynthia. Whence was born Hercules, so he is also called Tirynthius. Plautus wrote a tragicocomedy about it. 4.4.1 TEXTUAL NOTES 63 is hypermetric, hence the emendation of Pareus 1610. However, 59 is metrical as transmitted, so if its tragicocomoedia is changed to tragicomoedia, as presumably it should be, the line is a syllable short, hence the additions of Pareus 1641, whose transposition of commixta and ut however seems unnecessary, and Leo 1895. Leo’s addition seems the more plausible, since it is easy to imagine that the second sit might easily have dropped out of the text via a simple saut du même au même; there are several other such errors in the prologue of this comedy. Moreover, 150 such a loss provides a likely path for the ultimate corruption of tragicomoedia, since it is also easy to imagine that after this loss resulted in a metrically deficient line, an attempt was made to restore the meter by “correcting” tragicomoedia, making it look more like a proper Greek compound, and that finally the tragicomoedia of 63 was “corrected” in light of the new tragicocomoedia of 59, which made that line hypermetric. The paradosis of Lactantius Placidus (identity uncertain, but variously dated to the 4th to 6th centuries CE) is perhaps best taken not as evidence that Plautus in fact wrote tragicocomoedia, but rather as a terminus ante quem for that corruption in Plautus’ text here. 4.4.2 FORMATION tragicomoedia is a blend of tragicus “tragic” and comoedia “comedy”. The word is not a derivative nor is it likely a compound, since a putative compound of the two words should have yielded either tragicicomoedia (with -i-, the linking vowel characteristic of Latin) or tragicocomoedia (with -o-, the linking vowel characteristic of Greek). Moreover, that the word is a blend is strongly suggested by the context, where both its source words are used repeatedly, and as a blend its form and meaning are clear. The phonetic overlap (-co- and co-) is exploited to meld the two source-words into a blended word with a combined meaning that serves as the punchline of a joke on the audience: that the drama about to be enacted really is a comedy, but with elements of 151 tragedy. Unfortunately, the freshness of this clever blend has long since faded due to its ubiquitous adoption by European vernaculars. 4.4.3 INTERPRETATION From the Renaissance until relatively recently, the word was of interest chiefly to Plautus’ many editors, whose arguments for and against accepting neither, only one, or both of Pareus’ emendations are hardly worth rehashing in detail here. Suffice it to say that the first editor to follow Pareus in printing tragicomoedia in both lines was Lindemann 1834.269 Nevertheless, the matter does not seem to have been entirely put to rest, since Lindsay 1904 prints in both lines “tragico[co]media” with nary a comment in the apparatus270 and the OLD s. v. hedges its bets by adding “N.B. in codd. tragicocomoedia", but there seems no good reason that it should not have been. In 1916/7, Schwering took up again the argument that only one of Pareus’ emendations should be accepted,271 writing that “[e]s is klar, daß im zweiten Verse aus metrischen Gründen nur tragicomoedia gelesen werden kann; aber die Gelehrten, die diese haplologische Form nun auch im ersten eingeführt haben, sind von einer falschen Voraussetzung ausgegangen … Die Form tragicomoedia wird erst hier neu eingeführt und zugleich als haplologische Verkürzung aus tragico comoedia erläutert. Soon confidently following suit were Fleckeisen 1850, Ritschl 1882, and Leo 1895. A brief survey of this textual debate up until 1876 is offered by Goetz 1876. 270 de Melo 2011 likewise prints “tragico[co]moedia” in both lines, but credits Pareus and other editors in his apparatus. 271 As had, for example, Bothe 1810 ad loc., Ussing 1875 ad loc., and Grenier 1912. 184 earlier, albeit unconvincingly. 152 269 Daß im ersten Vers dies die richtige Lesung ist, geht auch daraus hervor, daß commiscere selten absolut gebraucht wird …” (140). This is, however, the flimsiest of arguments in favor of retaining the paradosis in 59, since Plautus—as also, for example, Vergil and Suetonius—uses commiscere both absolutely and with an ablative.272 At any rate, the point here is not to lend any credence to his argument nor necessarily to chastise him for taking up again an issue that Plautus’ editors had more-or-less settled decades earlier, but to point out that Schwering calls the word tragicomoedia a “haplogistic form”, as had also Grenier 1912. 184. Goetz 1876. 358 had earlier referred to it as the result of “Zusammenziehung”. Perhaps independently, Algeo 1977 (a seminal, early article on blends and blending mostly in English) adduced tragicomoedia as an example of what he called “haplologistic” blends, contending that “[s]ome blends … may have been semiconscious in origin. Thus, later Latin tragicomoedia from earlier tragicocomoedia is clearly the result of haplology. We may suppose that the syllable repetition was eliminated by a kind of reverse stuttering effect that was neither wholly conscious and deliberate, nor purely the result of automatically applied phonological rules” (56). However, while Algeo may have in mind here the fact that the tragicocomoedia of earlier Latin—that is, of Plautus, after his text was “corrected,” and of Lactantius Placidus?—became evidently in the hands of 15th- and 16th-century humanists the generic term tragicomoedia, this assessment hardly applies to Plautus himself, since centuries of editorial work have confirmed that tragicomoedia is the best reading in 272 Cf. OLD s. v. 153 both lines. Moreoever, the context of the two tragicomoediae—namely, the prologue of a comedy, where speakers often try inter alia to capture the audience’s attention and goodwill and identify the author, sources, setting, and important background information of the comedy, all the while weaving thoughout “familiar colloquy with the audience, jokes and elaborate word-play, overt recommendations of the play and playwright, and direct appeals for attentiveness” (Christenson 2000. 131)—points fairly clearly to their being occasional witticisms with which Plautus may have primed the audience for the unorthodox drama that they were about to behold.273 Thus, to assert that Plautus’ tragicomoedia is a haplologistic form produced by either conscious haplology or unconscious stuttering from an earlier tragicocomoedia would be to ignore the obviously humorous context of the word and to deny Plautus his gambit in captivating the audience with his lexical inventiveness with which he alerts the audience to his inventiveness in other realms.274 It also overlooks the narrative context, which lays out both the motivation and the steps through which the blend is created. However, in what precisely this comedy’s inventiveness, to which Plautus calls attention here with the extended, jocular digression whose highlight is the blend Christenson 2000. 24. This would be neither the first nor the last time that scholars have denied Plautus this. Returning briefly to Schwering 1916/7, he began his conclusion, “Damit gewinnen wir das Resultat, daß die griechische Vorlage des Amphitruo die erst unter diesem Name auf die Bühne gekommene τραγικωμῳδία war” (140). With this he seems to allege both that Plautus’ word tragicomoedia is merely a borrowing of an otherwise unattested Greek word and that Plautus’ tragicomedy is merely adapted from an otherwise unknown Greek comedy. That Plautus adapted his Amphitruo from a now lost Greek text that was already tragicomic was more recently also the opinion of Blänsdorf 1979. 154 273 274 tragicomoedia, lies is much debated. Plautus himself seems to suggest that it lies in his admitting both high- and low-status characters to the comedy. However, in the 16th century, the term tragicomedy was adopted as the moniker of a new dramatic genre that blended together the happy and the sad,275 whereas in this and the last century it has been variously suggested that the Amphitruo may be admitted as evidence that Roman comedy was a mixed genre, its conventions as-yet still fluid;276 that it is paratragic;277 that it is an adaptation of a tragedy;278 or even that it was an instantiation of a new, hybrid genre—that is, of tragicomedy—for which Plautus needed the new, hybrid term tragicomoedia.279 Although I am neither inclined to dip into debates of genre nor to deny either the contributions of scholars who have done so or the term tragicomedy’s “heuristic value,”280 I should like to say that I find the prospect of fabricating a whole, new genre from what is a joke, which moreover Plautus drops once it has been made, a dubious overcorrection from the ideas of scholars like Schwering and to quibble briefly with Manuwald 2014. 583–4: “The term tragicomoedia in this passage was apparently coined as a generic term for the occasion … An expression describing a mixture of “tragedy” and Cf. Pareus 1614 s. v. Tragico-comoedia: “in which the dignity of persons and the magnitude of comedy are humbly admitted or in which the sad is mixed with the happy. Am. 63 where it is changed into the by-form tragi-comoedia. Such is human life as well as marriage (trans.)”. On renaissance tragicomedy and Plautus’ influence thereon, e.g. Foster 2004, esp. 9–34; Hardin 2018, esp. 31–52. 276 E.g. Chiarini 1980. 94–9, 123–4; Sheets 1983. 204–9; Oniga 1985. 206–8. 277 E.g. Sedgwick 1927; Thierfelder 1939; Cèbe 1966. 103–115. 278 E.g. Stewart 1958; Lefèvre 1982, 1999; Slater 1990; contra Braun 1991. 279 E.g. Lefèvre 1982, 1999; Blänsdorf 1993; Flores 1998; Bond 1999; Manuwald 1999, 2014. 580–98; Schmidt 2003. 280 Mastronarde 1999/2000. 36. 155 275 “comedy” has possible Greek forerunners such as hilarotragoedia; yet the inversion of the order of the two parts of the determinative compound presents Plautus’s play as a special type of “comedy,” including “tragic” elements. This weighting is confirmed by the fact that the play is referred to as comoedia (Amphitruo 88; 96; 868) or (without specification) as fabula (Amphitruo 94) elsewhere in the script.”281 But tragicomoedia is not a determinative compound; it is a blend. As such, the sequence of its constituents is constrained by the point of phonetic overlap between tragico- and comoedia. The relative ordering of the source-words in the blend thus implies nothing certain about the syntactic-semantic relationship between them. Likewise, it seems tendentious to infer a gloss on the word from the fact that Plautus afterwards refers to the Amphitruo as a comoedia or a fabula rather than repeating the blend. However, given the rarity of coordinative compounds in Latin, Manuwald is probably right to think that the word is, in Bauer’s terminology, subordinative and right-oriented. And just as in the blend the word tragicus is subordinate to the word comoedia, so too throughout the Amphitruo are tragic language and scenes secondary to the comedy.282 Other aspects of this passage complement the ordering of the blend’s constituents. First, the prologue speaker mentions tragoedia before comoedia, which Although Manuwald (who argues the same point also at Manuwald 2011. 314) is not the only one to have called the word a compound (e.g. Hatcher 1951. 78–9; Christenson 2000 ad loc.), she is as far as I can tell the only one to have argued anything from the relative ordering of its “constituents”. 282 Moore 1995. 156 281 doubtless would have confused the audience, creating a way to set up the culminating blend. Second, the prologue speaker, when he doubles down and explains his rationale for making it a tragicomedy rather than simply a comedy, mentions tragic characters (reges … et di) before comic characters (servos). All this hemming and hawing about generic propriety gives the appearance of extemporaneousness, while being in fact quite calculated, since the drama about to be performed has of course already been written and rehearsed. Plautus thus has this captatio benevolentiae seem like a negotiation, resulting in a resolution that is mutually agreeable: this is a new kind of play, one that requires a new kind of word to describe it! 4.5 TUBURCINARI Plaut. Pers. 120–2 nihili parasitus est, cui argentum domi est: lubido extemplo coepere est convivium, tuburcinari de suo, si quid domi est. tuburcinari FZ : turbucinari BC : turbicianari D A parasite who has money at home is worthless: suddenly there’s a desire to start a feast, to gourdge himself at his own expense, if there’s anything at home. 157 Titin. com. 83 ap. Non. p. 179 M. tuburcinari sine me vultis reliquias You want to gourdge yourself on the leftovers without me Turpil. com. 1 ap. Non. p. 179 M. Melesia, intus cessas? credo hercle helluo / tuburcinatur cessas H1, Müller, Ribbeck : cessat cett., Rychlewska 1971 Melesia, are you dawdling inside? I think, by Hercules, that the glutton is gourdging himself Cato or. 253.1 ap. Quint. Inst. 1.6.42 tuburchinabundum, lurchinabundum “gourdging, gorging” Apul. Met. 6.25 prandioque raptim tuburcinato after lunch was greedily gourdged 4.5.1 TEXTUAL NOTES 158 Plaut.FZ, as well as the texts of Nonius and Apuleius, agree that the word begins with tubur-, which editors have unanimously accepted. The paradoseis of Plaut.BCD are perhaps best regarded as either crude errors or attempts to “correct” a word assumed to be formed somehow from turba “crowd”. In Turpilius, manuscripts and editors are divided over whether to read cessas (“you are dawdling”), in which case the sentence is most likely a question directed at Melesia, or cessat (“is dawdling”), in which case the sentence is directed at an unknown interlocutor about Melesia. Although this affects the interepretation of the fragment somewhat, it has no bearing on the blend. 4.5.2 FORMATION tuburcinari is a blend of tuber “tuber; growth”283 and lurcinari “eat greedily”.284 The word is neither a derivative nor a compound, since we would expect a putative compound whose first constituent is the word tuber to begin with either *tuberi- or more likely *tubi-.285 As a blend, however, its form and meaning are clear. The phonetic overlap (-ber- and lur-) is exploited to meld the two source-words into a The stock of tub- words in Latin is limited to tuba and tuber and their derivatives Although lurcinari is not itself attested, it can be inferred from Cato’s lurcinabundus and Apuleius’ conlurcinationes “extreme gluttony” (Apol. 75). Also attested, however, are a related verb lurcare “eat greedily” (Var. Men. 136; Lucil. 2.79; Pompon. com. 169) and a noun lurco “glutton”, always used amid strings of insults and alongside another word for “glutton” (Plaut. Per. 421; Lucil. 2.75; adesp. sat. fr. 1 Blänsdorf; Apul. Apol. 57). 285 Cf. astrificus “star-making” from aster (gen. asteris) “star”. For the clipping of 3rddeclension nouns in compounds, see Chapter 5 s. v. mantiscinari. 159 283 284 blended word with a combined meaning that serves as the punchline of a joke: that a parasite eating at another’s expense eats until he resembles a diseased growth. 4.5.3 INTERPRETATION Apart from the inclusion of tuburcinari in a dictionary of Republican Latin compiled by the 4th-century CE grammarian Nonius, who glosses the word raptim manducare (“eat greedily”) and quotes the above fragments of Tintinius and Turpilius, as well as the passage of Plautus, there is no direct evidence of the fact that the word tuburcinari otherwise attracted the attention of Latin grammarians. However, there is indirect evidence of earlier interest in the word, since Lindsay 1901. 57 traces Nonius’ quotation of Titinius here to an earlier, now-lost glossary: either his “Gloss. i”, a glossary of words taken mainly from Titinius and other dramatists, or his “Gloss iv”, a glossary of words taken mainly from Varro. Nonius evidently had access to the comedies of Plautus and Turpilius and could therefore have supplied the quotations of these two authors himself. A millennium later, Perotti 1506. 972 interested himself in the word and suggested that it derived from tumere “swell”, explaining that “a glutton eats greedily. This makes it so that his stomach swells (trans.)”; Lewis–Short s. v. adopt this derivation as well. According to Vossius 1662 s. v., Scaliger had suggested that the word derived from “tu, voce nutricularum pro cibo”,286 whereas unspecified other I have been unable to trace the reference to Scaliger, a shame, since I am unsure what Vossius means: does he suggest that Scaliger took tu to be a word meaning “food” which 160 286 scholars reportedly suggested that the word was either a compound of tu and bucca “mouth”287 or a derivative of tuber.288 It is this latter suggestion that has been followed more recently by, for example, Walde–Hoffmann s. v., who compare the formation of the word to that of sermocinari and lenocinari,289 and de Vaan s. v., who notes however that the word is “of uncertain appurtenance”. In the 20th century, a handful of other etymologies were put forth, each formally or semantically unsatisfactory and evidently winning no support. Fay 1904. 462–3, although he noted that the word may just as well have been formed from tuber as mantiscinor was allegedly from mantis, had three further tentative suggestions. First, he suggested that the word may be a coordinative compound of tu- (the root allegedly of tumere “swell”, obturare “stuff”, and tomentum “stuffing”)290 and -burcinari, allegedly a by-form of farcinare “stuff”,291 showing the development of PIE *bh to Latin b medially, and that it may thus mean “cram-stuff oneself”. However, the rarity of coordinative compounds in Latin and the fact that the [V V]V structure posited here is otherwise unattested for compounds in Latin count against this nurses used and for which there is seemingly otherwise no evidence? If so, what do we make of -burcinari? 287 Formed from Scaliger’s tu “food” and thus having the sense “put food in one’s mouth”? 288 Martinius 1655 s. v. seems to have been to first to connect the word with tuber. 289 As discussed below in Chapter 5 (s. v. mantiscinari), although sermocinari and lenocinari appear to be anomalously formed from the nominatives sermo and leno, they are better regarded as coming from the regularly formed *sermonicinari and *lenonicinari with clipping of their first constituents. Accordingly, if *tuburcinari were similarly formed, we would have expected a putative *tubericinari to become *tubicinari. 290 All three of which may or may not be related (cf. de Vaan s. vv.). 291 Attested only in the compound suffarcinare (e.g. Plaut. Cur. 289; Ter. An. 770; Apul. Met. 9.29). 161 suggestion. Presumably for this reason, Fay tried to hedge his bets, concluding this suggestion by further suggesting that “tu- might be regarded as nominal” (462). Second, Fay suggested that the word may be a compound of trua “ladle” and either bucinare “play the trumpet”, the compound thus meaning “slurp from a ladle so loudly that it sounds like someone is playing the trumpet“, or bucca “cheek”. However, this suggestion presupposes that trubucinari, found in just two manuscripts of the Plautus, is the correct form, which counts against it. And third, he suggested that the word may be dissimilated from an earlier *trubur-cinari, a compound formed from an otherwise unattested instrument noun *tru-dhro-, to which he compares τρύω “rubs, wears down”, τρῦμα “hole”, τρύπανον “augur”, and τρυηλίς “spoon”. However, *tru- dhro- should have yielded a compound in *t(r)ubri-.292 Other suggestions include that of Wood 1919. 249, who derived the word via a noun *tubur(i)co- “voluptuary, glutton” from a stem *tubero- “fat, rich, pinguis” ultimately from τύβαρις, a Doric word for pickled celery, which he however regarded as a by-form of Σύβαρις, the name of a Greek colony in Southern Italy that also served as shorthand for “luxury”. However, the connection between τύβαρις and Σύβαρις is doubtful.293 Most recently, Steinbauer 1989. 254 hesitantly suggested that tuburcinari could be formed from an earlier verb *tuburcare, itself formed from an even earlier noun *tubVrco-, “fat person”, and thus perhaps means “to become a fat pace Fay, *tru-dhro- should have meant “an instrument for piercing or rubbing” vel sim. rather than “spoon, ladle”, since the root in question means “rub”. τρυηλίς, “spoon”, which he cites as evidence that words from this root could unexpectedly mean “spoon” vel sim. is borrowed from Latin truella, a diminutive of trua (etymology uncertain), and is thus not comparable for the allegedly unexpected sense of trua. 293 Cf. Beekes s. v. τύβαρις. 162 292 person”, although this is not at any rate what the contexts in which we find the word suggest it means. The central conceit of Plautus’ Persa is that Toxilus, atypically both the clever slave and the young lover of the comedy, wishes to buy the freedom of his beloved courtesan. Yet, because he lacks the money to do so outright, he hatches a complicated scheme to get the money and the girl, after evidently having asked Saturio (~ “Mr. Stuffed”), his ironically named parasite, for a loan. His scheme ultimately involves selling to a pimp Saturio’s daughter, whom Saturio does in the end convince to go along with the ploy in a lengthy scene (329–99), dressed up as an Arabian slave-girl, taking the pimp’s money, and then having Saturio sue the pimp for his daughter’s freedom, since she is afterall a free-born citizen (711–52). But Toxilus must first get Saturio on board. At the beginning of the scene (81–167), whence the quotation from the Persa above, Toxilus, deliberately within earshot of Saturio, is ordering his staff to prepare for Saturio a feast, with which he will persuade him to let his daughter be part of the scheme. As Toxilus does so, Saturio comments to himself about the foods mentioned, before finally announcing himself to Toxilus at 99–100: o mi Iuppiter, / terrestris te coepulonus compellat tuos (“O my Jupiter, your earthly fellow feaster hails you”) with a hapax (coepulonus) and a “[j]ocular reference to the feast where Jupiter, together with his divine table companions Juno and Minerva, was presented with a meal” (de Melo 2011. 465 n. 15). Toxilus responds (101), o Saturio, opportune advenisti mihi (“Hey, Saturio, you’ve arrived just in time”), whereupon Saturio quips, punning on his name (102–3): mendacium edepol dicis, atque haud te decet: / nam essurio venio, non 163 advenio saturio (“By Pollux, you’re telling a lie and it’s not right of you: I’m coming starved, not arriving stuffed”).294 After some light banter, Toxilus asks Saturio whether he remembers his earlier request for a loan (116–8). Saturio responds that he does and that he still has no money to lend, before pontificating about the nature of being a parasite, as parasites are wont to do. Saturio says paradoxically that a parasite with money is “worthless”, elaborating in the next two lines that a parasite with money will readily spend it all hosting dinner and gorging himself at his own expense. That is, tuburcinari de suo is anathema to a parasite, and a parasite who not only eats but also feeds others at his own expense is worthless because he is no longer a parasite at all. As Tylawsky 1999 notes, a parasite “was preoccupied exclusively with food, other imperatives such as sex, money, and social status were of absolutely no interest. He had no wish or ability to provide his own food, but sought ever for a host to feed him and to whom he might permanently attach himself. By his nature the parasite must have somebody else's food, he must find a way to somebody else's dinner table”. This is not the only time that Plautus raises the question: Is a well-fed parasite still a parasite? In order to secure the opportunity to eat as much as possible at someone else’s expense, however, it became, as Olson–Sens 1999 on Matro 1.8 note, a parasite’s job to flatter his host, to tell jokes, to endure abuse, and to be as physically presentable as possible; Plautus’ parasites often say as much.295 Hence, Saturio further pontificates Poen. 6 et qui essurientes et qui saturi venerint (“both those who’ve come starving and those who’ve come stuffed”). 295 Cf. Duckworth 1952. 266. 164 294 Plautus has similar wordplay at that (123–5) cynicum esse egentem oportet parasitum probe: / ampullam, strigilem, scaphium, soccos, pallium, / marsuppium habeat, inibi paullum praesidia / qui familiarem suam vitam oblectet modo (“A parasite should be a needy Cynic: he should have a little oil-jar, a strigil, a little cup, slippers, a cloak, and a purse with a little in it, just in case, to take care of himself alone”).296 A parasite needs only enough to clean himself up, dress his part, and save up for emergencies. 297 Thus, in these seven lines Saturio offers a brief manifesto, laying out the end and the means to that end for a parasite. Although Conlon 2016 ad loc. rightly notes that the mention socci and a pallium, both part of a Roman comic actors costume, is likely a metatheatrical joke, he remarks on 124–6 that “the Cynics were known for neglecting hygiene and money, rendering the bathing paraphernalia and the wallet which Saturio mentions unnecessary”, before concluding that “[t]he most notable thing about the list is that almost all the items are Greek words. Maybe part of the joke is Saturio’s lack of understanding of Cynic philosophy, thinking instead that anything named with a Greek name is fitting for a philosopher.” However, why even a cynical parasite should own an ampulla and a strigilis is easily explained: a parasite has to be able to wash himself to be as physically presentable as possible for dinner. In addition, Conlon, although he notes on 124 that Plautus twice elsewhere uses the word ampulla (without however giving specific references), fails to note that one of those two passages is St. 230, where the parasite Gelasimus mentions an ampulla, a strigilis, and himself as his three salable possessions. The only other reference to Cynicism in Plautus is at St. 703–4 (potius quam in subsellio / cynice hic accipimur quam in lectis, “We’re being entertained here like Cynics on benches rather than couches”), where cynice seems to be little more than a by-word for “meagerly, poorly”. Neither of Plautus’ references to Cynicism, seemingly the earliest thereto in Roman literature, give any real indiciation that he knew much about it other than that its practitioners were notoriously poor. Cynicism was foundering in the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE, with little evidence of its practice then either at Rome or elsewhere (cf. Dudley 1937. 117–24). At any rate, compare Bion’s criticism of Cynics above in Chapter 3 s. v. οἰκιτιεύς. 297 Evidently, however, a parasite also needed jokebooks: at 391–6, Saturio tells his daughter that he has hamper full of books to give her as a dowry with “600 jokes, all of them Attic”. Gelasimus also mentions his jokebooks (St. 221). 165 296 However, Toxilus, ignoring Saturio’s little disquisition on parasite-hood, simply responds (127), iam nolo argentum (“I don’t want the money anymore”), before trying to explain his scheme to the distracted parasite. Although Saturio, unlike most Plautine parasites,298 is integral to the plot of this comedy, his remarks at 120– 26 are seemingly not. Had this scene been written without them, the plot of the comedy might have been unchanged. But Saturio’s remarks at 120–6 are a repository of jokes of the kind often put in the mouths of parasites, and fittingly we find amid this repository the word tuburcinari, a colorful coinage for characteristically parasitic chowing down as part and parcel of the exuberant language of a low-status character. But is this repository of jokes “pointless” or, to put it another way, is Saturio’s little disquisition just an attempt to delight the audience with his, as Tylawksy 1999 put it, “absurd embodiment of the exaggerated, the grotesque and the funny”. Of course, part of the humor of the scene lies in the fact that Saturio, parasite that he is, cannot refrain from talking about being a parasite. Asked simply whether he remembers a previous request for a loan, he says, “Yes,” and uses the question to segue into his manifesto, where he declares tuburcinari de suo loathsome. It is a funny reminder of what kind of character Saturio is, but it also lays bare his enthusiastically parasitic disposition that Toxilus is coyly exploiting to get him and his daughter involved in his scheme and thus in the plot of the comedy. The essential nature of Duckworth 1952. 266 says that “most parasites have an important part in the action”, but apart from Plautus’ Curculio, the titular parasite of the Curculio who orchestrates the goingson of that comedy, his parasites in the Asinaria, Bacchides, Captivi, Menaechmi, Miles Gloriosus, and Stichus do little more than express a desire for free food, crack jokes, and relay information that motivates other characters. 166 298 Saturio as a parasite and his loathing of tuburcinari de suo, as expressed in this character-establishing speech, are the hook on which Toxilus can stick his bait. It allows Saturio to be brought into the plot of the comedy in a way that is natural and coherent with his character-type. As Toxilus goes on to explain his plan, he asks whether the pimp, whom he hopes to defraud, knows (novit) Saturio (131), to which Saturio responds (132), me ut quisquam norit nisi ille qui praebet cibum? (“Would anyone know me, unless he gives me food?”). There is an equivocation here on noscere in the sense “to know (a person or thing) to be the same as one seen or known about previously, recognize” (OLD s. v. 13) and “to know the character of” (OLD s. v. 10b). Toxilus is asking whether the pimp will recognize him and Saturio is impying that the pimp will not, since only those who feed him and thus see him often can recognize him. However, the corollary to Saturio’s assertion that the pimp will not recognize him, because he does not feed him, is the fact that Toxilus, because he does feed Saturio, not only recognizes him but also knows his character. This is why Toxilus had no reason to respond to Saturio’s disquisition before: he already knows Saturio’s character well and is, in fact, already attempting to capitalize on it with the lure of the feast. Toxilus continues trying to explain his plan, before Saturio interrupts, thinking as always about food (138–9): pereunt reliquiae. / posterius istuc tamen potest (“The leftovers are going to waste. This plan of yours can wait till later”). Toxilus claps back (139–44), finally threatening to cut Saturio off and kick him out of the gang, unless he brings his daughter over, before Saturio, compelled by the loathesome prospect of having to feed himself, agrees (145–6): quaeso hercle me quoque etiam uende, si lubet, 167 /dum saturum uendas (“By god, please sell me too, if you want, so long as you sell me stuffed (saturum)”). Anything for a meal, apparently. The fragmentary remains of Titinius’ Prilia, to which comedy Nonius attributes the fragment, give no precise indication who the speaker of this fragment might be nor who the addressee might be. However, given the fact that tuburcinari is used unequivocally of parasitic pigging out in the passage of Plautus, the fact that reliquiae in the sense “leftovers” in comedy is nearly always spoken—naturally enough—either by parasites (Plaut. Cur. 388; Men. 142, 462; Per. 77, 138; St. 231, 496) or to them (Plaut. Cur. 321; Per. 105) and the fact that Titinius does mention parasites by name in other fragments (com. 45; 47), it is at least plausible that the speaker here is likewise a parasite concerned about missing out on a meal at someone else’s expense. With such limited and fragmentary evidence for the word tuburcinari as this, it remains difficult to draw many firm conclusions about its history and usage. However, given the likelihood that Tininius overlapped with Plautus in time,299 as well as in dramatic plots and language,300 a reasonable, if unprovable, conclusion is that Plautus coined the word and that Titinius picked it up from him, thereby establishing what was in origin an ephemeral witticism as a fixture of the Roman comedic lexicon. Nor do the fragmentary remains of Turpilius’ Boethuntes, to which comedy Nonius attributes the fragment, give any precise indication who either the speaker of Titinius is conventionally thought to have been active shortly after the end of the Second Punic War (218–201 BCE), whereas Plautus lived ca. 254–184 (cf. Manuwald 2011. 261). 300 On Titinius’ language and style compared to that of Plautus, e.g. Daviault 1979; Guardì 1981; Minarini 1997. 168 299 this fragment is, who Melesia is, or who the helluo is. We know from the speaker of the fragment’s use of hercle (“by Hercules!”), elsewhere an exclusively male exclamation, that he is likely male. The speaker is perhaps also a low-status character, although this presupposes that Turpilius followed Plautus and perhaps Titinius in giving the word to a low-status character and is therefore speculative. The speaker’s addressee is likely male as well, since the personal name Melesia, not otherwise attested in Latin, is likely a rendering of the Greek male personal name Μελησίας (~ “Mr. Caring”). The fact that there are few, if any, Roman allusions of any kind in the remains of Turpilius and that nothing in the Latin language readily suggests itself as a possible source of such a name supports this supposition. In addition, Μελησίας was the name of inter alios an athletic trainer in Pindar (e.g. Ol. 8.54), an interlocutor in Plato’s Laches, and an otherwise unknown man called out for being unmanly in Aristophanes (Nu. 686),301 which suggests the name is respectable. Unlike in the passages of Plautus and Titinius discussed above, the verb tuburcinari is not spoken here by a parasite nor even necessarily of a parasite,302 since helluo means “glutton, wastrel” rather than specifically “parasite”:303 in its first attestation, for example, in Terence’s Self-Tormenter, which comedy in fact has no parasite, it is hurled at the feckless adulescens amator of the comedy. If the speaker of According to the LGPN, the name is attested 31 times between the 6th and 1st centuries BCE. 302 Arnott 1968. 34, however, claims that “[t]he person described is clearly a parasite”. 303 The word (etymology uncertain) is otherwise attested only in Terence in a string of insults (Hau. 1033–4 gerro iners fraus helluo / ganeo's damnosu(s), “You’re a useless, lazy, lying, gluttonous, debauched reprobate”)) and in Cicero (e.g. Pis. 22, 41; Sest. 26, 55), before it is picked up as an affectation by Apuleius (Apol. 59) and Aulus Gellius (6.16.2). helluo is thus insulting but perhaps somewhat politer than other terms for “glutton”? 169 301 this fragment is a low-status character (as his use of tuburcinari may suggest) and if Melesia is a respectable character (as his name may suggest) and helluo is used of a feckless adulescens (as it is in Terence), then perhaps we have here a slave addressing his senex master about about his gluttonous son.304 This is of course very speculative. At any rate, tuburcinari here still means “eat” and moreover, because of the speaker of this fragment’s apparent concern that Melesia is dawdling indoors while a helluo of all people eats, probably still has the sense “eat greedily (at someone else’s expense)”. Quintilian (Inst. 1.6.42) attributes the two words (tuburcinabundus and lurcinabundus), stripped of their context, wherefore it is impossible to say inter alia whether the words belong together, to Cato in a short discussion of lexical authority amid a much larger discussion of the principles of correct speech (reason, antiquity, authority, and usage): nam etiamsi potest videri nihil peccare qui utitur iis verbis quae summi auctores tradiderunt, multum tamen refert non solum quid dixerint, sed etiam quid persuaserint. neque enim tuburchinabundum et lurchinabundum iam in nobis quisquam ferat, licet Cato sit auctor, nec hos lodices, quamquam id Pollioni placet, nec gladiola, atqui Messala dixit, nec parricidatum, quod in Caelio vix tolerabile videtur, nec collos mihi Calvus persuaserit.305 In part anticipated by Rychlewska 1971 ad loc., who speculated likewise that Melesia may be the name of an adulescens, that the speaker of the fragment may be a friend or slave “wanting to summon from the house a very young man”, and that Melesia may be one of the titular “Helpers”. 305 “Although anyone who uses the words recommended by the best authors is sure not to go astray, it matters a great deal not only what they said but what they made acceptable. No one 170 304 Quintilian’s basic point here is that sometimes even the usage of “good” authors is not to be followed. Thus, Quintilian condemns the use of hos lodices, gladiola, and collos because lodices is typically feminine rather than masculine, gladiolus typically masculine rather than neuter, and collum typically neuter rather than masculine (at least in post- and classical authors), despite their allegedly aberrant use by Gaius Asinius Pollio, Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, and Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus, all illustrious 1st-century BCE politicians and/or men of letters. Quintilian, however, does not make clear why he condemns Cato’s use of tuburcinabundus and lurchinabundus, but he perhaps does so because “good” authors such as Terence, Caesar, Tibullus, Seneca the Elder, and Perseus avoid adjectives in -bundus altogether. Yet, why they should do so? According to Aulus Gellius (11.15), there was much disagreement about the sense and suitability of such forms among grammarians in the 2nd century CE: Casellius Vindex argued that adjectives in -bundus had the same sense as present participles, thus ridibundus and ridens both meant “laughing”, and were therefore redundant; Terentius Scaurus disagreed, arguing that adjectives in -bundus had the sense “imitating one who performs the action of the a verb”, thus ridibundus meant “imitating one who laughs”;306 and Sulpicius Apollinaris argued that such forms connoted a largam et fluentem vim et copiam (“a great and overflowing force and abundance”; 11.15.8), which is to say that -bundus was a kind nowadays would put up with tuburchinabundus and lurchinabundus, although Cato is the authority for these words, or with hos lodices (‘these blankets’), although Pollio approves, or gladiola (‘small swords’), although Messala used it, or parricidatus (‘parricide’), which seems scarcely tolerable in Caelius, nor will Calvus persuade me to use collos (‘necks’).” 306 What this is supposed to mean was as lost on Aulus Gellius as it is on me. 171 of intensifying suffix, thus ridibunda meant “laughing excessively or for a long time” or the like.307 Perhaps such forms are therefore absent from some authors—and decried by others—because the force and abundance thereof were felt to be too emotional or intensive for their needs. That such forms were, in fact, felt to be intensive seems borne out by Cicero’s usage. Although Cicero does use adjectives in -bundus, he nevertheless limits himself to fewer than ten instances of five words in his surviving speeches: furibundus, “raging” (Sest. 15, 117);308 ludibundus, “playful” (Ver. 2.3.156, thrice); moribundus, “dying” (Sest. 85); queribundus, “wailing” (Sul. 31); tremibundus, “trembling” (Dom. 134.10). These are moreover often reserved for moments of heightened drama or diatribe: for example, moribundus, which is first attested in Plautus (Bac. 192), features in a dramatic description of the attempted assassination of Sestius; and furibundus at Sest. 15, where the word is first attested, features in a nasty description of Clodius Pulcher. It is thus plausible that Cato’s tuburcinabundus and lurchinabundus likewise belong to moments of heightened pathos or diatribe, and that moreover they are vocabulary imported from comedy. Only one other adjective in -bundus is attested in the fragmentary remains of Cato’s speeches (or. 43): ridibundum magistratum gerere, pauculos homines mediocriculum exercitum obvium duci (“that a ridiculous man performs the duties of this magistracy, that a scanty few men are led into the open as a rather middling army”). The fragment is cited without context by Festus (p. 154.33– 307 308 Compare, for example, the suffix -ola in English crapola and payola? Dickey 2002. 328 considers this a high-register, literary insult. 172 6 M.) for its use of the word mediocriculus, although Festus says that Cato was speaking of the consulship. While this lack of context renders the fragment somewhat obscure, it is nevertheless clear that Cato the Censor is censuring someone. In addition, it perhaps bears pointing out that the adjective ridibundus is first and only otherwise attested in Plautus (Epid. 413), where a fidicina (“lyre-playing slave girl”) is described as ridibunda atque hilara (“heartily laughing and cheerful”). This is not necessarily to claim that Cato has lifted the adjective ridibundus from comedy, although it is certainly possible that he did so. However, the fact that tuburcinari and lurchinari, whence Cato’s adjectives, are also otherwise confined to comedic authors and pertain moreover to particularly comedic imagery suggests at least that Cato was not averse to dipping his pen into comedy’s well, especially if he had wanted to ridicule someone as greedy like a comic parasite.309 The idea that Cato’s rhetoric may have been influenced by Roman comedy is briefly discussed by Barsby 2007, who notes that “[i]t is clearly possible, since the writing of Roman comedy and the development of Latin oratory were going on at the same time, that each influenced each other, and it may even be that the Roman orators learned more from the comic poets than the comic poets learned from Roman oratory. It has been argued, for example, that the rhythms of Cato’s prose clausulae were influenced by those of Plautus’ cantica” (39), although he concludes, “It is tempting to suggest that Cato was more influenced by [the rhetorical practices] of contemporary Roman comedy [ed. than by Greek rhetorical schools], but a moment’s reflection suggests that any such influence would have been informal and unsystematic. Later writers, like Cicero and Quintlian, do indeed recommend certain features of comedy as models for orators (e.g., Cic. Inv. Rhet. 1.27, De Or. 2.326–7; Quint. Inst. 9.2.58, 10.1.71), but they belong to an age when texts where readily available. If Cato learned from Plautus and Terence, we would have to envisage him sitting in the theatre in the seats reserved for senators listening to the plays … Rather than postulating direct influence in one direction or the other, it seems better to think in terms of the development of a native Latin tradition of rhetoric in which the comic poets and the orators both shared” (52). But while chalking up Roman comedy and early Roman oratory’s use of rhetorical devices such as chiasmus, alliteration, and homoeteleuton to a shared, native tradition seems 173 309 Apuleius uses the adjective tuburcinatus in an ablative absolute as though it were from an active verb *tuburcinare and uses of it of bandits (latrones), who have just returned with some of the spoils of a fresh robbery and are eager to go fetch the rest, rather than of parasites, as Plautus had. Nevertheless, it would be unwise to think that Apuleius, unaware of the original context and sense of the word, had picked it out of Plautus merely as an archaic and colorful word for “eat greedily” or that he was merely mistaken when he used the word as though it were from an active verb. 310 None of the other words in the passage, with the exception of the diminutive breviculus (“rather small”) are genuine rarities, so it is not as though Apuleius is just piling up Plautus-isms. What he does do here is borrow a specific word from Plautus which he uses to underscore the bandits’ parasitic natures subtlely: they eat greedily at another’s expense but without upholding the parasite’s end of the deal. In addition, the rapidity of the absolute phrase prandioque raptim tuburcinato seems intentionally to reflect the rapidity with which the bandits, eager to rush out and haul back the remaining loot, eat their meal. Apuleius thus makes the Plautine verb active to reasonable enough, it nevertheless seems unreasonable to attribute what otherwise seems like exclusively comic vocabulary to this shared tradition. 310 Butler–Owen 1917 on Apul. Apol. 57.6–7 suggest that the nouns gumia and lurcho (both “glutton”), attested otherwise only in Republican authors, come “into the vocabulary of Apuleius, probably not as literary reminiscenes, but as surviving in the common speech”. However, while it is certainly possible that some words attested only in Plautus and Apuleius survived this way, others like tuburcinari and examussim “precisely” (e.g. Plaut. Men. 50; Apul. Met. 2.30.20) are probably better thought of as deliberately culled from Plautus. One of the hallmarks of 2nd- and 3rd-century CE authors of African origin like Fronto, Apuleius, Tertullian, and Cyprian was an archaizing style that looked back to the likes of Plautus, Ennius, and Cato the Elder (cf. Furguson 1961. 67). On aspects of Apuleius’ studied use of Plautine vocabulary, see Pasetti 2007. 174 accommodate the needs of his own passage, although this is hardly a radical accommodation, since the perfect participles of other deponent verbs could be treated as passive.311 Apuleius is not just mindlessly stealing from the comedies of Plautus, but actively adopting and adapting what he finds there to suit his own artistic purposes. To reiterate, with such limited and fragmentary evidence as we have for the word tuburcinari, it remains difficult to draw many firm conclusions about its history and usage. However, from what evidence we do have it seems that Plautus coined the word as a kind of facetious vox propria for parasitic chowing down for use in a specific context (a brief parasite’s soliloquy that provided the dramatic motivation for a parasite unusally to get involved in the plot of a comedy) and that Titinius thereafter used the word unchanged in the same metrical position also of a parasite, thereby confirming it as a ”real” word and giving license ultimately to Turpilius, Cato, and Apuleius to adopt and adapt the word as suited their purposes. 4.6 VIRGINDEMIA Plaut. Rud. 635–8 at ego te per crura et talos tergumque optestor tuom, ut tibi ulmeam uberem esse speres uirgindemiam et tibi eventuram hoc anno uberem messem mali, 311 Allen–Greenough 1903 § 190b. 175 ut mi istuc dicas negoti quid sit quod tumultues virgindemiam scripsi : virgidemiam FZ, edd. : virgidem iam B : virgi demiam CD But I entreat you by your shins and your ankles and your back to expect to have a rich, elmy whine vintage and a rich harvest of ills this year, and to tell me what reason you have for making this disturbance. Var. Men. 8 ap. Non. p. 187 M. virgindemiam1 ut vindemiam, hoc est virgarum adparatum vel demtionem vel decerptionem ob verbera. Varro Agathone (Men. 8): quid tristiorem video te esse quam antidhac, Lampadio? numquid familiaris filius amat, nec spes est auxili argentaria, ideoque scapulae metuunt virgindemiam?2 virgindemiam1 Non. : virgidemiam Scaliger ap. Müller virgindemiam2 Jensen 1476 ap. Müller : virgarumdemiam Non. virgindemiam like vindemiam, this is an application of elm rods (virgarum) or a removal or a harvesting on account of beatings. Varro in his Agathon (Men. 8): Why do I see that you’re sadder than before, Lampadio? Is the family’s son 176 in love with no financial hope of assistance? And are your shoulders for that reason afraid of the whine vintage? 4.6.1 TEXTUAL NOTES In the passage of Plautus, BCD have evidently tried to deal with the difficult nonce word by dividing it into two, separating out at least one recognizable word. However, while B’s iam “now” is an actual word, its remaining virgidem is nonsense, as is CD’s virgi, as though the genitive of *virgus. At any rate, the manuscripts of Plautus altogether point to virgidemiam, either as one word or two, as the inherited reading there. On the other hand, in the text of Nonius, Scaliger ap. Müller emended the paradosis virgindemiam1 based on the passage of Plautus. Müller also notes that the paradosis virgarumdemiam, most likely an error introduced by a copyist under the influence of the word virgarum earlier in the text, was corrected “ed. a. 1476”, that is by Nicolas Jenson in his 1476 edition of Nonius. The evidence of Plautus and Nonius is split between virgidemiam and virgindemiam. However, on the principle of the lectio difficilior the more difficult virgindemiam is preferable. It is easier to assume that the word in Plautus had been early “corrected” rather than that an n had crept into Nonius’s lemma under the influence of the comparandum vindemiam. In addition, Nonius’s comparison of virgindemia and vindemia seems apter, if both forms under consideration are irregular—virgindemia because it is a blend, vindemia because it is syncopated— 177 rather than if both forms under consideration are compounds in -demia. For these reasons, I retain Nonius’ virgindemiam and write the same also in the passage of Plautus. However, the word is understandable as a blend, whichever reading is adopted. 4.6.2 FORMATION virgindemiam is a blend of virga “a branch (used for beatings)” and vindemia “grapegathering”.312 If virgindemia is the right form, the word could conceivably have originated as a compound: although virga and vindemia should have yielded a putative compound *virgivindemia, which we might suppose to have undergone haplology and thus to be what Algeo 1977 called a “haplologisic blend.”313 However, in the case of a nonce formation such as this, there is really no meaningful difference between a “haplologisic blend” and just a blend. On the other hand, if virgidemia is the right form, although the word could perhaps be formally analyzed as a compound of virga and -demia,314 the contrast between virgindemiam and messem mali here strongly suggests that pragmatically it The word, abundantly attested, is < vin-o-de-em-ia (“wine-away-take-ing”). This should have yielded *vinidemia; however, the linking vowel of *vinidemia has been syncopated (cf. Weiss. 2010. 123). 313 See above s. v. tragicomoedia. 314 Assuming -demia could be extracted from the formally anomalous vindemia. It is unlikely that virgidemia could be coined afresh from virga and demere, since deverbative abstracts in -ia, nearly all of which are compounds like vindemia, are “offenkundig alte Bildungen” (Wackernagel 1924 II.287) and since the only productive class of abstracts in -ia in Latin are deadjectival (e.g. audacia “boldness” < audac- “bold”; cf. Leumann 1977. 291–2; Weiss 2010. 301). 178 312 functions as a blend: vindemia, one of the source words of the blend, and messis are frequently constrasted elsewhere as the agricultural year’s harvests of respectively grapes and grain,315 and Plautus clearly has this contrast in mind. 4.6.3 INTERPRETATION Apart from Nonius’ inclusion of the word in his dictionary of Republican Latin, the word evidently garnered no other attestation of scholarly interest in antiquity. More recently, interest in the word has seemingly been limited to editorial conjectures about the texts quoted above. Lewis–Short s. v. contend that the word was “formed from virga, after the analogy of vindemia”, while the OLD s. v. notes that the word is “a comic formation from VIRGA, w(ith) term(ination) as in vindemia”, which is at least descriptively right. At the beginning of the scene of Plautus’ Rudens, whence the passage quoted above, Trachalio, the slave of the Athenian adulescens Plesidippus, exits a temple of Venus at Cyrene, shouting about injustice (615–26). Daemones, a Cyrenaean senex who happens to be standing near, asks, quid istuc est negoti? (“What’s the matter”; 627), whereupon Trachalio prostrates himself and says, per ego haec genua te E.g. Lucil. 707 non magno messe, non proba uindemia (“with a not big harvest and a not good vintage”); Var. R. 1.27.3 aestate fieri messes oportere, autumno siccis tempestatibus vindemias (“harvests should happen in the summer, vintages during dry weather in the fall”); Plin. Nat. 10.157.1 inter messis ac vindemiae tempus (“between the time of the harvest and the vintage”); Fest. p. 202 M. olivetam antiqui dicebant, cum olea cogebatur, ut messem cum frumenta aut vindemiam cum uvae (“The ancients used to call it the oliveta, when olives were gathered; the messis, when grain was gathered; the vindemia, when grapes were gathered”). 179 315 optestor (“by your knees, I beg you this”; 627). Daemones asks that Trachalio let go of his knees and quickly explain why he is making such a tumult (quod tumultues; 628– 9). Trachalio responds by rambling incoherently about silphium and Capua (629–34), with Daemones interrupting once to ask, sanun es? (“Are you sane?”; 633), before threating him with the four lines quoted above. This finally prompts Trachalio to explain that two shipwrecked courtesans have sought refuge from their pimp in the temple of Venus, which ultimately leads Daemones to protect the two girls from the pimp and discover that one is his long-lost daughter. Daemones’ four lines here are tightly constructed malediction. Structurally, each line begins with a two-letter conjunction ending in -t (at, ut, et, ut) followed by a form of a personal pronoun (ego, tibi, tibi, mi). The first and last line parallel each other in having a form of the first-person pronoun (ego, mi), while the midle two parallel each other in having the pronoun tibi. In fact, the two middle lines each effectively express the same idea: the discontinuous phrase ulmeam uberem … virgindemiam (“a rich, elmy … whine vintage”) in the second line is glossed in the next line by the phrase uberem messem mali (“a rich crop of ills”) lest anyone miss the joke. Here, as noted above, Plautus plays on the agricultural language and turns the words “vintage” (vindemia) and “harvest” (messis) into colorful threats of violence. Rhetorically, the quatrain starts with an entreaty recalling Trachalio’s from a few lines prior, seemingly earnest at first with its per crura et talos (“by your legs and ankles”), but after the caesura it seems to be changing tack with its tergumque (“and your back”), since any mention of a back in connection with a slave can probably be safely assumed to refer to torture. This supposition is confirmed by the next line, 180 although we are made to wait till the end of the line for absolute confirmation, since Plautus draws out the phrase ulmeam uberem … virgindemiam, reserving the blend for the end of the line as a humorous and unexpected conclusion; the adjective ulmeus, however, does also hint at this conclusion, since Plautus often uses the adjective ulmeus in connection with virgae and beatings (e.g. As. 341, 363; fr. 45). In the fourth line, after having parodied Trachalio’s entreaty, threatened him with one image of agricultural violence, and then threatened him again with another image of agricultural violence, Daemones returns to the two questions that he has already asked: what’s the matter and why are you making a tumult? Daemones has thus elaborately threatened a slave into plainly answering his questions, while Plautus has thus elaborated one of his go-to sources of humor: jocular references to servitude and torture expressed with the words virga and ulmeus. Nor is this the only time that he has coined a blend in service of a joke about beating slaves: see his blend Crucisalus below. The fragmentary remains of Varro’s Agatho give no precise indication who the speaker of this fragment is, although he is perhaps a slave: one of the slaves of Plautus’ Asinaria twice refers to his young master as familiaris filius (267, 309). This is of course speculative. His interlocutor Lampadio, however, is undoubtedly a slave, as his name—Lampadio is the name of a slave in Menander’s Synaristosia, Plautus’ Cistellaria, and at adesp. pall. fr. 98, which is perhaps from the Naevius’ comedy Lampadio—and the question posed to him make clear: do you fear a crop of beatings? While the overall plot of the satire is unclear, the sitatuation described in this fragment is not. It seems one familiar from Plautine drama: a young master in love 181 with a courtesan and a slave who has failed to keep him on the straight and narrow; a lack of financial means, which is sure to lead to hijinx; taunts of torture. All of this, however, seems from what remains bereft of the wit and craft of Plautus’ passage. While the word virgindemia has been likewise reserved for the end of the line here (and accommodated into iambic senarii), there is no suspense, no set up. Varro has simply picked it up, it seems, as a word that means “a heap of beatings”. 4.7 PERENTICIDA Plaut. Epid. 346–51 Str. quantum hic inest? Ep. quantum sat est et plus satis: superfit. decem minis plus attuli quam tu danistae debes. dum tibi ego placeam atque obsequar, meum tergum flocci facio. Str. Ep. Str. Ep. nam quid ita? quia ego tuom patrem faciam perenticidam. quid istuc est verbi? nil moror vetera et volgata verba; 350 peratum ductarent: ego follitum ductitabo. 349 perenticidam Camerarius : parenticidam mss. : parieticidam Ussing : peraticidam Grenier 182 {Str.} How much’s in here? {Ep.} As much as is enough and more than enough: there’s an excess. I brought ten minas more than you owe the moneylender. So long as I please and obey you, I care not a bit about my back. {Str}. How so? {Ep.} Because I’ll make your father a purse-icide. {Str.} What’s that mean? {Ep.} I don’t care for common, proverbial expressions. People might lead him off pursed, but I’ll lead him off sacked.” 4.7.1 TEXTUAL NOTES Camerarius 1552. 376 emended the paradosis parenticida to perenticida, a change of only a sinlge letter, proposing that Plautus “a pera fecit iocas, ut a parente fit parenticida”. It is easy to imagine that the facetious nonce formation perenticida could early have been replaced with the more regular looking parenticida. Ussing 1887. 270, displeased with the paradosis because “in no way can it be brought about that Epidicus becomes Periphanes’ father (trans.)”316 and with Camerarius’ emendation because “it is badly formed after the word peratim” (trans.), suggested emending to parieticida (“wall-killer”) on the ground that Epidicus, “when the senex beats him, believes that a wall rather than a man kills him (trans.)”. However, what precisely this emendation is supposed to mean is unclear. Grenier 1912. 163 proposed instead peraticida on the grounds that Stratippocles’ followup question “is hardly explainable after a compound as easy to That is, since the senex Periphanes is going to beat the slave Epidicus to death after discovering the ruse, he will be some kind of -cida but certainly not a parenticida. 183 316 understand as parenticida (trans.)” and that a copyist could easily have changed an original peraticida to parenticida under the influence of the word pater. However, Grenier’s suggestion makes more or less the same joke as Camerarius’ emendation but is farther from the paradosis. 4.9.2 FORMATION perenticida is a blend of pera “wallet, purse” and parenticida “parricide”. The word is not a derivative nor is it likely a compound, since there is no base perent- to serve as the first constituent of the compound, and a putative compound of pera and -cida should be *pericida. 4.7.3 INTERPRETATION Although the paradosis parenticida seems a formally and semantically unobjectionable compound,317 it is unclear how Epidicus, the titular servus callidus of the comedy, could make his young master Stratippocles’ father a parent-killer and unclear why such a seemingly unobjectionable compound as this should warrant the question, “What kind of word is that?” Hence the various emendations discussed above. Overall, the passage is difficult and has therefore been much emended For compounds formed from a noun in -ens, e.g. tridentifer “trident-bearing”. For compounds in -cida, e.g. parricida “parricide” and homicida “man-slayer”, on the anomalous forms of which, see n. 28 above; matricida “matricide”, which is formally regular. 184 317 elsewhere and discussed.318 Camerarius’ perenticidam, which was generally accepted by editors until Leo 1887/8 argued on behalf of the paradosis and which has had some supporters since,319 seems to make the best sense here and receives confirmation from Plautine practice. Supporters of Camerarius’ emendation generally argue that, despite the textual difficulties of the passage, what Epicidus means here is, “I’ll make your father cut open his purse. And while some would cheat him by the purse-ful, I’ll cheat him by the sack-ful” and that this plays on the word parenticida, which is uattested if not read here but easily understandable, and the language of punishing parricides at Rome. That Epidicus would boast of cheating Stratippocles’ father of an even greater amount makes sense, since a central conceit of the comedy is that Epidicus’ young master Stratippocles had fallen in love with one courtesan, the money for whose freedom Epidicus had already scammed from his young master’s father Periphanes, but that thereafter Stratippolces fell in love with another courtesan, the money for whose freedom he borrowed and then demanded that Epidicus find a way to pay back. At the point in the comedy whence the passage above, Epidicus has just returned with the second sum of money from Periphanes: Epidicus, although he had needed and gotten 30 minas for the first courtesan, and needed only 40 minas for this second courtesan, has gotten 50 minas from Periphanes this time. On the other hand, Leo 1887/8 suggested that Plautus, playing here off of the Roman custom of punishing parricides by sewing them into a sack and tossing them 318 319 See Duckworth 1940 ad loc. with discussion and earlier bibliography. Gray 1893 ad loc.; Mendelsohn 1907. 117; Brinkhoff 1935. 83–4. 185 into a river, coined the word parenticida as a calque of Greek πατροκτόνος before Latin had developed its own stock of legal terminology320 and that “the matter itself moves laughter, an old man as a patricide (trans.)”. As for the other two Plautine coinages in the passage (peratus and follitus), he proposed that the former “manifestly concerns the punishment of parricides (trans.),” whereas the latter is the joke (5). In support of this proposition, he marshalled a handful of passages from Greek and Roman authors that refer to punishing parricides by either leading them to prison with their heads covered or tossing them into the river in a sack, as well as another handful of passages showing that follis could refer to a purse. Thus, he argued that in the word follitus, “we hear the subtext that all the money put in the follis will be carried off (trans.)” (5). Ultimately, he interpreted Epidicus as saying here, ego patrem tuum faciam parenticidam; scilicet si esset parenticida, pera obvolutus ductaretur, ego folle indutum ductitabo (“I shall make your father a parent-killer. Certainly, if he were a parent-killer, he would be led away wrapped in a pera; I shall lead him away wearing a follis (‘leather purse’)”). Several things, however, seem problematic with this take. First, although Leo collected several passages that refer to either leading parricides to prison with their heads covered or tossing parricides into the river in a sack, none of them use the word pera (pera is seemingly nowhere attestested in a sense other than “wallet”), although they do mention using a folliculus (a diminutive of follis) in such punishments.321 Second, that the joke of parenticida, is apparently nothing more This point seems dubious, since Latin already had parricida (e.g. Plaut. As. 362; Rud. 651). Duckworth 1940 ad loc. argued that it is the reverse, saying that “[f]ollis, not pera, would suggest the punishment of the sack, and the phrase peratum ductare is an instance of a vetera et volgata verba, and therefore cannot refer to parenticida, the newly coined word.” 186 320 321 than the impossibility of an aged parricide feels flat and out of line with Plautine practice. Were this the extent of the joke, parricida could seemingly have done the job just as well. At any rate, beyond this subjective feeling, however, there is some confirmation from the practices of Plautus and Terence that the word in question should be either a riddle or a pun or a punny nonce formation. Thus, Leo’s explanation of parenticida seems a bit tin-eared, while his explanation of peratus as a forthright reference to the punishment of parricides and of follitus as the joke does not really hold up. In both Plautus and Terence, the question, “What kind of word is that?” often queries an unexpected joke and turns out to be a feed for further jokes: a character says something riddling or punny or uses a peculiar coinage, and when asked about the word, goes on to explain or elaborate on the original joke. This can result in confusion on the part of the quipster’s interlocutor and some confused back and forth before the matter is resolved and the joke left behind. Thus, at Plaut. Cist. 602–6, the slave Lampadio talks with the pimp Melaenis: Mel. eho tu, quam vos igitur filiam nunc quaeritatis alteram? Lam. ego dicam tibi: non ex uxore natam uxoris filiam. Mel. Lam. quid istuc est verbi? 605 ex priore muliere 187 nata, inquam, meo ero est filia322 Here the question, “What do you mean?” is not a response to a curious nonce formation, but to Lampadio’s deliberately riddling statement that sets up the rest of the scene’s humor: the pimp does not know that the master in question has another daughter with another woman, but after some humorous back and forth here figures it out. While this passage is not exactly parallel in that it does not involve a nonce formation, the set up is the same as in the passage from the Epidicus. There are, however, some more closely parallel passages. At. Cur. 30–2, the servus calidus Palinurus has the following exchange with his young master Phaedromus: Pal. semper curato ne sis intestabilis. Ph. quid istuc est verbi? Pal. caute ut incedas via: quod amas amato testibus praesentibus323 Palinurus, encouraging his master to make sure that his dalliances are always on the up and up, warns against his being intestabilis, which typically means “unable to bear witness”. Phaedromus, puzzled as to why Palinurus is suddenly talking about his ability to bear witness in court, asks what he means and says, apparently still puzzled after the answer, quin leno hic habitat (“Well, a pimp lives here”; 33). Palinurus then “{Mel.} Hey there, what other daughter are you looking for now? {Lam.} I’ll tell you: his wife’s daughter who wasn’t born from his wife. {Mel.} What’s that mean? {Lam.} I mean, my master’s daughter was born from an earlier woman.” 323 “{Pal.} Always be careful that you aren’t unable to bear witness. {Ph.} What’s that mean? {Pal.} That you proceed carefully along the way: love what you love in the presence of witnesses.” 188 322 explains in plainer language that Phaedromus should never sleep with married women but that all other women are fair game. The joke all along has evidently been about castrating adulterers as punishment, with puns on testes (“witnesses” and “testicles”) and on intestabilis (“unable to bear witness” but here “without testicles”). Likewise, at Plaut. Ps. 607–8, the slave Pseudolus, pretending to work for the pimp Ballio, and the slave Harpax, whom Pseudolus hopes to defraud, have the following exchange: Harp. tune es Ballio? Ps. immo vero ego eius sum Subballio. Harp. quid istuc verbist? Ps. condus promus sum, procurator peni324 Pseudolus plays off the question, “Are you Ballio?” by saying that he is “Under-Ballio” and explaining, after being asked what he means, that he is a Ballio’s undersecretary. After trading some insults, Psedulous explains that he takes care of Ballio’s finances (628) and, after much arguing, convinces Harpax to give him money. In addition, Fontaine 2010. 219–20 argues that there is a series of jokes about pederasty here. Having previously argued that the name Ballio is a rendering of Greek Φαλλίων,325 he “{Harp.} Are you Ballio? {Ps.} Actually, I’m his Subballio. {Harp.} What’s that mean? {Ps.} I’m a put-awayer and a take-outer, a superintendant of supplies.” 325 79 n. 84, where he takes the pimp’s name to be rather Phallio = Φαλλίων (“big whale”), a “fish name, like Labrax ‘Bass,’ pimp in Rudens, and at the same time it suggests φαλλός”. He proposes that Ballio is not a “MS corruption, but merely a misanalyzed transliteration: Since Latin b occasionally transliterates Greek phi”, but also suggests that the “pun on exballistabo at Ps. 585 does arouse some suspicion that an ancient editor has adjusted the MSS to suit that ‘etymology’”. However, this argument is unnecessary, since the name βαλλίων is attested in comedy (Axonic. fr. 1.2) and inscriptions (e.g. SEG 49.1305.26; a 4th/3rd-century BCE epitaph from Sicily); the name moreover derives from βαλλίον = φαλλός (cf. Dubois 2005. 219–20; 189 324 thus takes the name Subballio to be a joke that Ballio pedicates his slave. condus and promus he likewise thinks may have a sexual sense (“he who puts it in” and “he who takes it out”), as may the phrase procurator pĕni (“caretaker of the pantry”), if it were pronounced against the meter procurator pēni (“caretaker of the penis”), although the pun seems obvious enough here without having to assumed a fudged pronunciation. And at Ter. Ph. 342–3, the parasite Phormio talks with the slave Geta about— what else—dinner at a rich man’s table: Ph. Ge. Ph. cena dubia apponitur. quid istuc verbist? ubi tu dubites quid sumas potissimum326 Phormio then rhapsodizes briefly that a rich man provides such a sumptuous feast that his clients must surely think him a god. There is of course no curious nonce form here, only a riddlingly misapplied adjective, the confusion it causes feeding Phormio’s hyperbolic encomium of his rich host. One more thing worth considering is that a verbum vetus (lit. “old word”) is typically a proverbial expression rather than simply an old-fashioned or common word in Plautus and elsewhere,327 and characters in comedy humorously comment on their present circumstances with proverbial expressions. Beekes s. v.). Assuming that Ballio = Βαλλίων makes all the same jokes here and obviates the need to postulate an otherwise unattested name (Φαλλίων) and appeal to an ad-hoc transliteration of phi with b (on the manifest strangeness of which, cf. de Vaan s. v. ballaena) or scribal error. 326 “{Ph.} A doubtful dinner will be laid out. {Ge.} What’s that mean? {Ph.} It’s when you doubt what in particular you should take.” 327 Plaut. Cas. 969–73; Cist. 505–6; Merc. 771–2; Poen. 135–7; Ter. Ad. 803–4; Gel. 12.5.6. 190 All this has been to show that perenticida should itself be a joke of some sort— either a riddle or a pun or a punny nonce formation—used as a feed for further jokes, after Epicidus’ interlocutor asks, “What kind of a word is that?”, and that presumably, when Epidicus says, nil moror vetera et volgata verba, there is presumably also a play on a proverbial expression in what follows. Our not knowing exactly what that proverbial expression is, as well as the fact that there are textual problems, renders the passage more difficult. At any rate, despite being a nonce formation, the transmitted parenticida hardly seems sufficiently riddling or punny, for which reason I think that editors and scholars have been right to emend and that Camerarius’ emendation, which restores a blend, remains the most satisfactory.328 4.8 CONCLUSION One of the interpretive cruxes of this passage are the futures faciam and ductitabo. Since at this point in the comedy Epidicus has already gotten the money, it is unclear how he will do anything further to Periphanes. Perhaps 348–51 belong earlier in the play after 150. This transposition of lines deals with the troubling futures (faciam, ductitabo) by inserting them into a scene where many of Epidicus’ verbs are also futures (patiar, reperibitur, exsolvar, extricabor) as he starts promising that he will take care of things. In addition, the transposition reads nicely in the context: the scene thus moves smoothly from Epidicus refusing to undertake anything that will bring him a beating, relenting in the face of Stratippocles’ melodrama, to his promising to get the money by cheating Stratippocles’ father, after he was just told to get the money from wherever, and promising that he will figure out how to deal with the flute-girl. This is then paralleled, when Epidicus returns in the later scene and announces that he has the money and that he has figured out how to deal with the flute-girl. In their original context, these four lines seemed somewhat out of place: why should Epidicus interrupt saying that he has brought 50 minas, ten more than is needed, and explaining what he intends to do with those extra minas with a line about not caring whether he is beaten and jokes about fleecing Periphanes, which he has already done? With the four lines transposed, at 346–7 Epidicus announces that he has returned with 50 minas and goes straight into explaining to Stratippocles what he plans to do with the money. 191 328 Unlike the blends discussed in the previous chapter that fell into a well-defined categeory and those to be discussed in the following chapter that also fall into a welldefined category, the blends discussed in this chapter are for the most part heterogeneous. Despite their heterogeneity, the blends of Plautus at least are in many cases the happy results of typical jokes. The exceptions to this heterogeneity are Aristophanes’ τρυγῳδία and Plautus’ tragicomedy. With both terms, their respective coiners jokingly commented on some innovative aspect of their work and its relationship with tragedy. For better or for worse, these two terms have been amply discussed in scholarship in the last century or two. That both an Aristophanic blend (τρυγῳδία) should be both reused by its coiner and picked up by Eupolis and that three Plautine blends (tuburcinari; virgindemia; tragicomoedia) should be picked up by several subsequent authors, both comedic and otherwise, are testaments to, on the one hand, how much Aristophanes evidently admired his own witticism, and, on the other hand, the influence that the two comic poets wielded over the development of the genre and its lexicon in their respective cultures. 192 CHAPTER 5. BILINGUAL BLENDS IN LATIN 5.1 INTRODUCTION: EXCURSUS ON BILINGUALISM IN LATIN LITERATURE The use of Greek in Latin literature is especially characteristic of low genres, whether that use consists of single words, phrases or—more inventively—bilingual derivatives and compounds. So too bilingual blends (as generally all Greek and Latin blends) are apparently confined to low genres. Greek words and phrases and bilingual derivatives and compounds are often found alongside their purely Latin equivalents, demonstrating that their use is not motivated by purely denotational needs. Plautus, for example, does not coin a bilingual compound such as ferritribax (“jailbird” < ferrum “iron” and τρίβω “rub, wear-out”) for the sake of creating an epithet for which there is no Latin equivalent. He coins it as a jocular term of abuse that implies threats of violence and servitude in its imagery and presumably amuses the audience with its linguistic novelty. Beyond jocular references to torture and servitude, bilingual formations appear in scatological contexts, as sexual innuendoes, and in mockery of personal names. The functional restriction of bilingual blends in Latin to humorous contexts is perhaps due more to the relationship of Rome to Hellenic culture than to the social dynamics of real-world speech contexts. Bilingualism329 in ancient Rome has been studied at length by Adams 2004, with smaller-scaled studies by, for example, Wenskus 1995, 1996, 1998; Jocelyn 329 On the problems of definition, e.g. Adams 2004. 3–8; Edwards 2004, esp. 7–11. 193 1999; and Dunkel 2000.330 Studies of “code-switching” between languages among modern bilingual speakers reveal various kinds of the phonemonon,331 all of which can be documented in Roman writers too. These are: 1. intersentential switching, which occurs at sentence or clause boundaries: for example, Cic. Att. 173.2 is an entire paragraph in Greek of questions that Cicero says he has been pondering as a distraction amid a personal letter otherwise in Latin; 242 τὴν κρήνην, ut scribis, hauriret in tantis suis praesertim angustiis. ποῖ ταῦτα ἄρα ἀποσκήψει; sed ipse viderit (“He would drain the fount, as you say, especially when he needs money so badly himself. Where will it all end? However, it’s his affair”);332 2. intrasentential switching, which occurs within a sentence or a clause: for example, Olympio the slave’s “enim vero πράγματά μοι παρέχεις” (“Truly, you give me trouble”; Plaut. Cas. 728), to which his master Lysidamus responds, “dabo tibi μέγα κακόν (“I’ll give you a big bad”; 729); 3. tag-switching is the insertion of a set phrase or a word from one language into an utterance in another: for example, Olympio’ exclamation “ὦ Ζεῦ” (“O Zeus!”; Plaut. Cas. 731); or Phaniscus the slave’s “μὰ τὸν Ἀπόλλω” (“by Apollo!”; Plaut. Most. 973); 4. intra-word switching occurs within a word itself, such as at a morpheme boundary. Intra-word switching typically involves a root or stem from one Also note Rochette 1997, 2010; Lorenzetti 2014. McArthur 1998a. 332 Trans. Shackleton Bailey. 194 330 331 language and an affix from another: for example, hamiota “fisherman” (< hamus “hook” and -ιώτης, a suffix used to form nomina agentis; Plaut. Rud. 310; Var. Men. 55). Intra-word switching gives rise to what I have been calling bilingual derivatives and compounds. It also includes bilingual blends, which are attested in modern spoken languages but typically as speech errors involving synonyms in a speaker’s native and second language.333 The bilingual blends that we will be examining in this chapter are not speech errors but studied coinages for humorous effect. Generally speaking, the motivation for code switching is manifold and may vary from speaker to speaker and from context to context. However, common motivations include showing deference, anger, solidarity, distance, or eloquence.334 Another common motivation is either softening or intensifying abusive or obscene language.335 Pavlenko 2009. 112 Adams 2004. 297–305 335 Thus Pavlenko 2012. 461: “Codeswitching is also affected by perceived emotionality of the languages in question. L1 [ed. a speaker’s native language], for instance, is a common choice for expressions of positive affect and the use of endearments among parents who are raising their children in L2 [ed. a speaker’s second language] (Pavlenko 2004). Individuals who remain dominant in their L1 and perceive it as most emotional may also spontaneously revert to L1 to argue with spouses and partners, to scold and discipline their children, and to use taboo and swearwords to maximum effect and satisfaction (Dewaele 2004a, 2004b, 2006; Pavlenko 2004, 2005, 2008a). These switches are particularly interesting because some speakers choose L1 even though their partners have little or no proficiency in the language (Pavlenko 2005). In doing so, they go against the grain of linguistic theories such as the Gricean maxims and the Cooperation Principle (Grice 1975) that frame argument as cooperative activity (e.g. Walton 1998) and language choice as determined by the interlocutor’s competence. Their behavior suggests that internal satisfaction may be an additional factor in codeswitching. 195 333 334 Among elite Romans, Greek was something to be recommended to Roman children336 and something to boast of knowing well,337 but sometimes the use of Greek was regarded as something to avoid or use sparingly. Thus, an unknown speaker in a fragment of Afranius could fear being mocked for speaking Greek. 338 Cicero was once maligned for having spoken Greek even before the Greek-speaking senate at Syracuse.339 The Augustan rhetorician Lucius Cestius, although Greek, never “Code-switching may also take place in the direction of the language perceived as less emotional. Some multilinguals prefer to use taboo and swear words in later learned languages, because this choice allows them to avoid the guilt and discomfort associated with L1 words (Dewaele 2010; Ferenczi 1916; Koven 2006; Krapf 1955; Movahedi 1996; Pavlenko 2005).” 336 Cf. Quint. 1.1.12-14 a sermone Graeco puerum incipere malo, quia Latinum, qui pluribus in usu est, vel nobis nolentibus perbibet, simul quia disciplinis quoque Graecis prius instituendus est, unde et nostrae fluxerunt. non tamen hoc adeo superstitiose fieri velim ut diu tantum Graece loquatur aut discat, sicut plerisque moris est. hoc enim accidunt et oris plurima vitia in peregrinum sonum corrupti et sermonis, cui cum Graecae figurae adsidua consuetudine haeserunt, in diversa quoque loquendi ratione pertinacissime durant. non longe itaque Latina subsequi debent et cito pariter ire. ita fiet ut, cum aequali cura linguam utramque tueri coeperimus, neutra alteri official (“I prefer a boy to begin by speaking Greek, because he will imbibe Latin, which more people speak, whether we will or no; and because he will need to be taught Greek learning first, it being the source of ours too. However, I do not want a fetish to be made of this, so that he spends a long time speaking and learning nothing but Greek, as is commonly done. This gives rise to many faults both of pronunciation (owing to the distortion of the mouth produced by forming foreign sounds) and of language, because the Greek idioms stick in the mind through continual usage and persist obstinately even in speaking the other tongue. So Latin ought to follow not far behind, and soon proceed side by side with Greek. The result will be that, once we begin to pay equal attention to both languages, neither will get in the way of the other”). 337 Cf. Nep. Att. 4.1; Apul. Apol. 39 338 Afran. com. 273 nam me pudet, ubi mecum loquitur Numerius, / aliquid sufferre Graece: irridet me ilico (“I’m embarrassed, when Numerius talks to me, to undertake anything in Greek: he makes fun of me immediately”). However, it is equally possible that the speaker here is mocked not for speaking Greek at all, but for speaking Greek badly. 339 Cic. Ver. 2.4.147 ait indignum facinus esse quod ego in senatu Graeco verba fecissem; quod quidem apud Graecos Graece locutus essem, id ferri nullo modo posse (“He says that it was an indecorous crime that I had given a speech in the Greek senate. Moreover, the fact that I had 196 declaimed in Greek, and Sabinus Clodius (otherwise unknown) was ridiculed for declaiming in both Greek and Latin.340 Roman magistrates were required to reply in Latin to the Greeks who addressed them not only at Rome but also in Greece and the eastern provinces.341 The emperor Tiberius, who knew Greek well,342 once apologized to the Roman senate before uttering the word monopolium, and on another occasion ordered that the word ἔμβλημα, which he had used in drafting a decree, be replaced with a native word or, in the event that no suitable native word could be found, a periphrasis.343 This was, it seems, not done out of general disdain for Greek, but out of a sense of linguistic decorum that disapproved of mixing languages in official or elevated contexts. This taboo, however, was ignored by Claudius, who often delivered speeches in Greek.344 A tendency to minimize the use of Greek is also characteristic of much of Latin literature. As Sheets 2007. 197 notes, “[d]espite a few bold experiments by Ennius, elevated poetry in Latin was traditionally averse to admitting Greek words and spoken Greek to a Greek audience was utterly unbearable”). In the same speech, however, Cicero pillories his opponent for not knowing Greek. 340 Sen. Con. 9.3.12–3 341 Val. Max. 2.2.2; Suet. Tib. 71. However, cf. Just. Dig. 45.1.1 pr. 6 (on verbal contracts; drawn from Ulpian) proinde si quis Latine interrogauerit, respondeatur ei Graece, dummodo congruenter respondeatur, obligatio constituta est: idem per contrarium. sed utrum hoc usque ad Graecum sermonem tantum protrahimus an uero et ad alium, Poenum forte uel Assyrium uel cuius alterius linguae, dubitari potest (“Accordingly, if anyone interrogates in Latin and is answered in Greek, provided the reply is suitable, the obligation is satisfied. It is likewise in the opposite case. But it is doubtful whether we shall apply this only to the Greek language or also to others, for example, Punic, Assyrian, or any other language”). 342 Suet. Tib. 70 343 Suet. Tib. 71; cf. D.C. 57.15 344 Suet. Claud. 42.1 197 morphology.” One of the faults that Horace therefore finds in other authors is the mixture of the two languages,345 and while Cicero himself is at times an outspoken proponent of pure Latin,346 when it comes to philosophical terminology, he nevertheless claims the right to supplement the poverty of his mother-tongue by borrowing a Greek word or phrase, as Lucretius likewise does, 347 although not without apology.348 Writers on technical subjects are less hesitant to import Greek words and phrases as needed. Thus, for example, in the relatively small amount of Varro’s extant writings, Greek words and phrases outnumber all those used by Cicero in his vast corpus. They chiefly consist of grammatical, philosophical, and botanical terms.349 Hor. Sat. 1.10.20 quod verbis Graeca Latinis miscuit (“because he mixed Greek with Latin words”); 29-30 Corvinus, patriis intermiscere petita / verba foris malis, Canusini more bilinguis? (“Corvinus, you prefer to intermix the words of your fatherland with those from abroad, in the manner of a bilingual Canusian [ed. Greek and Oscan were spoken at Canusium, in Apulia]”). 346 Cic. Off. 1.111 sermone eo debemus uti, qui innatus est nobis, ne, ut quidam, Graeca verba inculcantes iure optimo rideamur (“We should use our mother-tongue, so that we, like certain people who are continually dragging in Greek words, do not draw well-deserved ridicule upon ourselves”); Tusc. 1.15; and see Kaimio 1979. 295–315. 347 ND 1.830-832 nunc et Anaxagorae scrutemur homoeomerian / quam Grai memorant nec nostra dicere lingua / concedit nobis patria sermonis egestas (“Now let us also consider the homoeomerian (‘the homogeneity of the elements’) of Anaxagoras, which the Greeks mention and which the poverty of our mother-tongue does not allow us to say in our own language”). On Lucretius’ use and avoidance of Greek, see Sedley 1999. 348 Cic. Acad. Post. 1.25-26 “quin etiam Graecis licebit utare cum voles, si te Latina forte deficient.” “Bene sane facis; sed enitar ut Latine loquar, nisi in huiusce modi verbis, ut philosophiam aut rhetoricam aut physicam aut dialecticam appellem, quibus ut aliis multis consuetudo iam utitur pro Latinis” (“’Indeed you shall be permitted to use even Greek words if Latin ones happen to fail you.’ ‘That is certainly kind of you, but I will do my best to speak Latin, except in the case of words of the sort now in question, to employ the term ‘philosophy’ or ‘rhetoric’ or ‘physics’ or ‘dialectic’, which like many others are now habitually used as Latin words”). 349 Gäbel–Weise 1893. 340. 198 345 Likewise, the technical vocabulary of the other sciences such as architecture and medicine—fields in which the Romans were especially indebted to the Greeks—is largely borrowed.350 Punctilious Latin authors do often provide translations,351 and in the disciplines of rhetoric and grammar the Latin terms are mostly calques of their Greek sources. The relative avoidance of Greek in the elevated genres of Latin literature stands in stark contrast to its acceptance in the sermo plebeius,352 especially in southern Italy, a region pervaded by Greek culture.353 Even in the early Republican period, according to Livy (27.11.4), Greek compounds were a common feature of everyday speech. And in a famous passage Livy (7.2) also traces the origin of Latin drama in the Greek style to Livius Andronicus, a Greek freedman from Tarentum, whose works included the first comedies, a genre that is not only Greek in name but, prior to Terence, vernacular in language. Inscriptions from southern Italy, the comedies of Plautus, the satires of Lucilius and Varro, and the picaresque novel of Petronius, all chock full of morsels of On the Greek words in Latin scientific discourse generally, see e.g. de Meo 1983; Coleman 1989. On Greek words attested only in Apicius’ cookbook, see Georgescu 2017. 351 E.g. Cic. Top. 93; Hyg. Astr. 2.4.6; Gel. 2.25 pr. 1; Plin. Nat. 21.111. 352 I.e. the Latin of the uneducated and lower social classes by as opposed to the Latinity of e.g. Cicero and Caesar. 353 According to Strabo (6.253), Greek manners and speech were still fashionable in Rhegium, Naples, and Tarentum even under the Roman Empire. The heavy Greek influence on the Latin of southern Italy is still felt in the presence of Greek words in the Italian dialects of the south: for example, Central-Southern Calabrian has batràci “frog” (cf. βάτρακος “frog”) instead of ranocchio; tuppitiàri “hit” (cf. τύπτω “hit”) instead of battere. See Dorsa 1876; Marzano 1928. xv–xxii; Rohlfs 1964. 199 350 Greek,354 afford good evidence of the extent of Greek’s direct influence upon the popular speech of Latin speakers.355 Thus, for example, the parasite of Plautus’ Persa uses collyrae = κολλύραι “vermicelli” (92) and colyphia = κωλύφια “choice morsels of meat” (92), and asks, πόθεν ornamenta? ”Where will the costume come from?” (159); This Greek reveals itself as derived from the spoken Greek of southern Italy, rather than from the Greek of the Attic plays which Plautus is adapting. Thus, for example, Ergasilus, the parasite of Captivi, exclaims ναὶ τὰν Κόραν, “yes by Kora!” (881), where are evident the long alphas of West Greek rather than the etas of Attic Greek, in which one would have said *ναὶ τὴν Κόρην! 355 The fragmentary remains of early Republican authors likewise attest numerous Greek words and phrases (e.g. Afran. com. 218 panus = πῆνος (Dor. πᾶνος) “thread”; Caecil. com. 222 asticus = ἀστικός “urban”; Naev. com. 103 exbolus = ἔκβολος “what is thrown out”; and see Tuchhaendler 1876. 34–60 for an extensive catalogue) and the letters of Cicero abound therewith (cf. Steele 1900; Baldwin 1992; Boldrer 2003), despite his claim (quoted above) that he avoids using Greek while using Latin. Horace, despite condemning Lucilius for using Greek words and phrases, also does so not only in his Sermones (e.g. 1.2.133 puga = πυγἠ “buttocks”; 1.10.91 cathedra = καθέδρα “seat”) but also occasionally in his Carmina (1.36.14 amystis = ἄμυστις “a deep drink”). Even later under the Republic, Greek words and phrases evidently had such prestige in everyday speech, just as later French words and phrases had in other languages of Europeans, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries (cf. Blumenthal–Kahane 1979. 188–9; Kahane 1986. 495), that Martial (10.68) could chastise a well-born Roman woman for saying, allegedly like a Greek prostitute, “κύριέ μου, μέλι μου, ψυχή μου” (“’my lord, my honey, my soul’”). However, μέλι μου (nowhere attested in Greek) and ψυχή μου (nowhere attested as a direct address in Greek) seem to be hyper-Grecisms translating Latin mel meum (e.g. Plaut. Bac. 18; Poen. 367; Afran. com. 311) and cor meum (Plaut. Bac. 17; Poen. 367). And Juvenal, whose own use of Greek words and phrases is mostly confined to complaints about the use of Greek words and phrases (e.g. 3.76–7), could complain (6.185–7): nam quid rancidius, quam quod se non putat ulla / formosam, nisi quae de Tusca Graecula facta est, / de Sulmonensi mera Cecropis? omnia Graece (“After all, what’s more nauseating than the fact that no woman thinks she’s beautiful unless she’s turned herself from a Tuscan into a Greeklette, from a woman of Sulmo into a pure Cecropian woman? Everything’s in Greek”). Although the reference to beauty here may be to Greek-style adornment, the rest of the passage (188–99) clearly complains about Roman women’s use of Greek, especially as an erotic language, and also cites ψυχή as a term of endearment (195). For an extensive catalogue of Greek loanwords in Latin literature from the time of the Republic to late antiquity, see Weise 1882. 326–544. 200 354 the chorus of fishermen of Plautus’ Rudens use, for example, gymnasticus = γυμναστικός “pertaining to exercise” (296) and palaestricus = παλαιστρικός “pertaining to wrestling” (296); and lopades = λόπαδες “limpets” (297). Among the fragments of Lucilius we find, for example, eugium = εὔγειος “female genitals” (fr. 940);356 a Greek comparative rhetericoterus = ῥητορικότερος “more rhetorical” (fr. 86); and even the Greek genitive singulars Ixionies alochoeo = Ἰξιονίης ἀλόχοιο “of the wife of Ixion” (25).357 And among the fragments of Varro’s Menippean Satires we find, for example, phago = φάγων “glutton” (529); spatula = σπατάλη “wantonness” (275); strabus = στραβός “squinty-eyed” (344); and tricinus = τρίχινος “meager” (159).358 And Petronius, the speech of whose freedman in the Cena Trimalchionis has been well studied,359 offers up such Greek words and phrases as alogia = ἀλογία “lack of reason” (58.7);360 spatalocinaedus “lascivious pervert” (< σπάταλος “wanton” and κίναιδος “pervert”; 23.3); and topanta = τὰ πάντα “everything” (37.4).361 Petronius Also at Laber. com. 24, 139, another “low” author. The phrase Ἰξιονίης ἀλόχοιο is attested at Il. 14.317. 358 The fragment of Varro (quod tunc quaestus tricinus erat, nunc est uber, “Because then the profit was meager, but now it’s abundant”) demands that tricinus (a hapax) mean “meager” vel sim. However, the Greek adjective τρίχινος typically means “of hair” (cf. LSJ s. v.) and is used of clothing at e.g. X. An. 4.8.3 (the Macronians are described as confronting the Greeks pathetically with wicker shields, lances, and hair shirts and throwing rocks); Pl. Plt. 279e (unstitched clothes made from plant fibers or hair and stuck together with water and mud). The word seems clearly pejorative at Hsch. θ 975 θύστινον· τρίχινον. οἱ δὲ μεσοτριβῆ (“thystinon: trixinon, and those that are worn out in the middle”); σ 2810x <σύστ…· τρίχινος χιτών, ἢ ῥυπαρός. Ἀντίμαχος (fr. 125 West) (“syst…: a cloak made of hair, or filthy. Antimachus (fr. 125 West)”); Thom. Laud.Greg. col. 284.37 τρἰχινα ῥἀκια (“raggedy clothes made of hair”). Presumably, the sense of the word developed from e.g. “(meager) hair shirt” to “meager (hair) shirt”. 359 Boyce 1997 360 Also at Sen. Apoc. 7, another “low” text. 361 For a catalogue of Greek words in Petronius, see Segebade–Lommatzsch 1898. iv–v. 201 356 357 also yields some bilingual forms such as apoculare “make haste” or the like (62.3);362 percolapare “to beat thoroughly” (< per- “thoroughly” and colaphus = κόλαφος “blow of the fist”); and lupatria (< lupa “she-wolf; whore” and -τρια, a suffix used to form (pejorative) feminine nomina agentis). Such bilingual forms as these are interesting because they show how naturalized certain Greek words may have become in popular speech and because they show the willingness and flexibility of Latin authors to accommodate and adapt foreign words and phrases as suits their needs.363 Also interesting is that, unlike the few Greek words from Plautus, Lucilius, and Varro cited above, which for the most part serve a denotational need and add to the Greek ambience of their works (for example, Latin appears to have no other adjective 362 Etymology uncertain, but perhaps < ἀπό “away” and oculus “eye”. 363 In “classical” and “elevated” Latin there is a tendency to preserve Greek words, when used, as-is, even to the point of preserving Greek inflectional endings. Accius adopted this habit, according to Varro (L. 10.70), as did at times also Varro himself (e.g. Men 60.1 Odyssian; 198 hectomben; 399 ethesin = ἤθεσιν, dat. pl. of ἦθος) and Lucretius (cf. n. 345). Even in the time of Quintilian, the habit was still in vogue, although Quintilian makes it known that he favors forms with Latin inflections (1.5.63). Bilingual forms nevertheless found their way into even good, classical authors: for example, Cicero, in his letters, uses the form facteon “it must be done” (Att. 1.16.13), from facere “do” but modeled after ποιητέον “it must be done”, and in his speeches uses the adverbs tyrannice “tyrannically” (Ver. 3.2.115) and palaestrice “in the manner of a wrestling school” (Opt. Gen. 3; against this hybrid form, however, cf. (per)palaestricos = παλαιστρικῶς “in the manner of a wrestling school” at Afran. com. 154)), just like the Plautine basilice “utterly” (e.g. Pers. 29); dulice “slavishly”; comoedice “comically”, and euscheme “becomingly” (all three, Mil. 213); pugilice “like a boxer” (e.g. Epid. 20); and graphice “nicely” (e.g. Pers. 306). It should be noted, however, that basilice has diverged in meaning from that of the Greek word from which it is borrowed, βασιλικός “kingly”. At Plaut. Epid. 56, for example, interii basilice means “I have utterly perished” rather than “I have died in the manner of a king” vel sim.; the adverb is just an intensifier. graphice too has diverged in meaning from that of the Greek word from which it is borrowed, γραφικός “pertaining to the graphic arts”. At Plaut. Per. 306 graphice facetus fiam means “I’ll become nicely witty” rather than “I’ll become witty in the manner of the plastic arts”; again the adverb is just an intensifier. 202 meaning “pertaining to wrestling” or the like, although presumably it could have coined one from, for example, luctare “wrestle”), none of these bilingual forms serve a strictly denotational purpose: Latin has, for example, plenty of words meaning “beat” (for example, battuare, converberare, percidere). What the words do is add to the characterization of the guests at Trimalchio’s dinner party—which, it should be noted, takes place in a “Greek city” (81.3), likely Puteoli in Magna Graecia 364—as parvenu freedmen. But notably, some of them are threatening or abusive words. The aim of using such words is probably not to achieve linguistic realism but “to bring this low stratum [of language] into the spotlight” (Conte 1994. 456) for comic effect.365 These bilingual forms from Petronius are all bilingual derivatives, either forms derived from a Greek lexical base by means of a Latin derivational suffix (e.g. percolapare) or, vice versa, forms derived from a Latin lexical base by means of a Greek derivational suffix (e.g. lupatria). percolapare represents a typical category of bilingual derivative in Latin: a first-conjugation verb formed from a Greek nominal. Of this latter category, early authors366 furnish the following examples: exenterare “disembowel” (Plaut. Epid. 185, 320, 511, 672; Lucil. 470; cf. ἔντερον “entrails”);367 Rose 1962; Courtney 2001. 40. Boyce 1991; Clackson 2015. 114–8. 366 Many bilingual forms such as this are chronologically confined to ante-classical comedic authors, especially Plautus, and to post-classical technical authors. 367 Cf. Caper Grammatici Latini VII p. 109.13 exenteravit ἀπὸ τῶν ἐντέρων a visceribus (“exenteravit is from apo tôn enterôn, i.e. from the viscera”); Serv. A. 11.723 ne vulgari verbo ex Graeco uteretur dicens “exenterat”, ait “pedibusque eviscerat” (“Lest he use a vulgar word from Greek by saying ‘disembowels’, he says ‘eviscerates with his feet’”). The OLD s. v. suggests as an alternative that the verb is drawn direct from Greek *ἐξεντερίζω, which however is unattested (but cf. the middle ἐξεντερίζομαι “have the innards removed” (e.g. Dsc. 2.62.1, 4.162.4)) and would presumably have been rendered as *exinterissare in early Latin. 203 364 365 parasitari “be a parasite” (Plaut. Pers. 56; St. 634; cf. παράσιτος “parasite”); sycophantari “be a trickster” (Plaut. Trin. 787, 958; cf. συκοφάντης “sycophant”); thermopotare “supply with hot drinks” (Plaut. Trin. 1014; cf. θερμοπότης “hot drinkseller”); rhetoricare “speak rhetorically” (Nov. com. 5; cf. ῥητορική “rhetoric”); eunuchare “make a eunuch” (Var. Men. 235; cf. εὐνοῦχος “eunuch”); paedagogare “educate” (Pac. trag. 192; cf. παιδαγωγός, a slave who accompanied a boy to school); elutriare “put in a vat” (Lab. com. 151; cf. ἔλυτρον “vat”);368 moechari “commit adultery” (Catul. 94.1; cf. μοιχός “adulterer”). The fragmentary state of the texts of Novius, Varro, and Pacuvius does not permit us to know who uses rhetoricare, eunuchare, or paedagogare, but in Plautus parasitari is, in both instances, spoken by parasites (Saturio in Persa; Gelasimus in Stichus); thermopotare is spoken by Stasimus, a drunken slave; sycophantari, however, is spoken first by Callicles and then by Charmides, two otherwise respectable old men, but there is, in both instances, the indication that playing the role of a sycophant is unusual and beneath them.369 Thus, the distribution of this sort of bilingual formation in Plautus does not appear to be rooted entirely in socio-linguistic reality: no one kind of person says such a word. But their attestation is mostly in ante-classical (mostly comedic) and postclassical (mostly technical) authors.370 In comedy, bilingual verbs also can serve as Thus the OLD. However, de Vaan s. v. lavo lists it as a derivative of lavare. 369 E.g. Plaut. Trin. 787 quamquam hoc me aetatis sycophantari pudet (“although I’m ashamed to play a trickster at this point in my life”). 370 To be sure, nearly all of them denote the performance of actions germane to stock dramatic characters, and as such have no place, for example, in epic. The absence of others in elevated literature can be explained by their usage as technical terms, like virtually all post-classical denominatives formed from Greek words (e.g. monodiaria female solo singer” (CIL 6.10120.2, 204 368 metatheatrical jokes, a fact to which their novel formation draws attention. For example, the unnamed sycophant of Trinummus makes his entrance (843) disguised as an Illyrian messenger tasked with delivering some fraudulent letters (851-2). He comments metatheatrically on his own costume, saying that the man who hired him for the task had borrowed the costume from a stage-master (858). Thus, the sycophant calls attention to the fact that he is not playing the role of sycophant at that moment. He and Charmides begin to chat. Charmides, after learning that he has entrusted a great sum of money to the sycophant, says to himself, enim vero ego nunc sycophantae huic sycophantari volo (“I really want to play the role of trickster for this trickster”), but when he declares himself to be Charmides in order to get the money, the sycophant denies that he is Charmides, for in fact he is no longer playing the role of Charmides but of a sycophant. lupatria, on the other hand, is unique among words formed from Latin bases and Greek suffixes in its application of -tria to a Latin base (likely modeled on borrowings from Greek in -τρια).371 There are, however, a few Greek suffixes which became much used in Latin such as the patronymic suffixes -ades or -ides. Bilingual patronymics are mostly limited to Plautus, Lucretius, and Vergil: in the latter two authors such forms are presumably in imitation of Homeric phraseology, whereas in Plautus such formations are often preposterous and undoubtedly for comic effect. a 1st-century BCE tombstone from Rome)); pyxidatus “box-like” (Plin. Nat. 31.57); diphtongare “pronounce with a diphthong” (Apul. de diphth. 21 Osann). 371 E.g. citharistria = κιθαρίστρια “female cithara-player” (Ter. Ph. 82, 144); cymbalistria = κυμβαλίστρια “female cymbal-player” (Petr. 22.6, 23.1); psaltria = ψάλτρια “female citharaplayer (e.g. Ter. Ad. 388, 405; Titin. com. 85t; Liv. 39.6.8). 205 Thus, Plautus has, for example, loculiripida “Purse-snatcher” and cruricrepida “Rattleshins” (Trin. 1021), both spoken by the slave Stasimus alongside other facetious names of (Greek?) criminals (e.g. Struthus “lascivious”; Cercobulus “who thinks about penises”); plagipatida “Beating-bearer” (Most. 356), spoken by the slave Tranio alongside the bilingual compound ferritribax; glandionida “Porkson” and pernonides “Hamson” (Men. 210), both spoken by one of the Menaechmi; rapacida “Robberson” (Aul. 370), spoken by the slave Strobilus. There is a literary precedent for the way that Plautus uses his invented patronymics: Aristophanes before him had invented jocular speaking names for male characters in -δης (for example, Μαριλάδης “son of coaldust”, the name of an Acharnian collier (Ach. 609); Ἀποδρασιππίδης “son of escapides” (V. 185)). Such also are the Plautine loculiripida and cruricrepida; they are funny names that let us know that their bearers are crooks. On the other hand, plagipatida is not coined as a speaking name for any character but as a term of abuse that alludes to torture and servitude, and so the motives for its use are the same as those for the use of some of the other words discussed so far. In addition to bilingual derivatives in Latin, there are also bilingual compounds. However, as with bilingual derivatives, such compounds are also all but limited to comedic and post-classical technical authors. Thus, in Plautus we find antelogium “prologue” (< ante “before” and λόγος “speech”; Men. 13); biclinium “love seat” (Bac. 720, 754);372 dismaritus “husband of two wives” (< δίς “twice” and maritus Quintilian (Inst. 1.5.68) cites the word as an example of a compound of a native and a foreign word alongside the Greek-Latin compounds epitogium “~ overcoat” (< ἐπί “upon” + toga; nowhere else attested) and Anticato (< ἀντί “against” and Cato; the title of a polemic by Caesar) and the Greek-Gallic compound epiraedium, a thong by which horses were attached 206 372 “husband”; Cas. 974); ferritribax “wearing out fetters” (< ferrum “iron” and τρίβω “wear out”; Mos. 356); flagritriba “who wears out whips” (< flagrum “whip” and τρίβω; Ps. 137); inanilogista “idle talker” (< inanis “inane” and λογιστής “talker”; Ps. 256); ineuscheme “unbecomingly” (< in- “not” and εὔσχημος “seemly”; Trin. 625); pultifagus “porridge-eating” (< puls “porridge” and φαγεῖν “eat”; Mos. 828); Scytholatronia “land of Scythian pirates” (Mil. 43); ulmitriba “who wears out elm switches” (< ulmus “elm” and τρίβω; Pers. 278b). Outside of Plautus, we find depugis “without buttocks” (< de- “without” and πυγή “buttocks”; Hor. S. 1.2.93); perpalaestricos “thoroughly in the manner of a wrestling school” (< per- “thoroughly” and παλαιστρικῶς “in the manner of a wrestling school”; Afran. com. 154); Scytalosagittipelliger “club-arrow-and-skin- bearer” (< σκυτάλη “club”, sagitta “arrow”, pellis “skin”, and gerere “carry”; adesp. pall. fr. 74); bilychnis “with two lights” (< bis “twice” and λύχνος “lantern”; Petron. 30.3); as well as the uncertain salaputtium (Cat. 53.5)373 and praeputtium “foreskin” (< prae- “before” and πόσθιον “penis”; Sen. Apoc. 8.3); and biurus “two-tailed?” (perhaps < bis “twice” and οὐρά “tail”; Cic. ap. Plin. Nat. 30.146).374 And in to a carriage (< ἐπί “upon” and raeda “four-wheel carriage”; Juv. 8.66), which he notes no Greek or Gaul uses but which Romans have made their own. 373 The precise meaning and etymology of the word is unclear. Adams 1990. 65 rejects the suggestion of Bickel 1953. 94-5 that the word is a compound of salax “lascivious” and πόσθιον “penis”, although presumably the suggestion is much older since Riese 1884 ad loc. had already declared that “the first half of the word, which has nothing to do with salax, is still unclear (trans.)”. At any rate, as Liberman 2008. 148 (with further discussion of the word) notes, the suggestion is at least plausible. 374 Cicero tradit animalia biuros uocari, qui uites in Campania erodent (“Cicero reports that there are animals called biuri, who gnaw on vines in Campania”). Noteworthy is that the animals inhabit Campania in Magna Graecia and that Cicero is only said to have said the word, 207 inscriptions, we find larophorum, a stand for images of the Lares (< Lares “household deities” and -φορος “holding”; CIL 3.1952, a 1st-century CE dedicatory inscription from Dalmatia); lupinopolus “lupin-seller” (< lupinum “lupin” and πωλεῖν “sell”; CIL 4.3483.3; 1st-century CE, from Pompeii); and conphretor “fellow member of a phratry” (< con- “with” and φράτωρ (Ion. φρήτωρ) “member of a phratry”; A. Epig. 1913 no. 134.60 = I. Napoli I 43 col. iii.16, a late 2nd-century CE dedicatory inscription from Naples, where optimi viri et conphratores translates the Greek ἄνδρες ἀγαθοὶ καὶ φράτορες (“men noble and members-of-the-phratry”; col. ii.18)). Notable is the fact that many of these bilingual compounds have a Latin word as their first constituent, and that they accordingly take the form required of first constituents in Latin, namely, a stem ending in -i-.375 On the other hand, the examples, whose first constituent is a Greek word, take the form proper to Greek compounds, namely with a stem in -o-.376 Thus, despite the novelty of bilingual compounds, they are nonetheless typically formed well according to the morphological rules of one language or the other. Another interesting detail is that the Greek constituent heads not to have coined it. Cicero himself otherwise furnishes only two meager examples in his letters: Pseudocato “false Cato” (Att. 1.14.6) and Pseudodamasippus “false Damasippus” (Fam. 7.23.3), but these are deliberate Grecisms. 375 larophorum is presumably formed according to the same model as the many other Greek compounds imported into Latin ending in -phorus (e.g. cistophorus “box-bearing”; machaerophorus “sword-bearing”) or -phorum (e.g. acratophorum “vessel for unmixed wine”; oenophorum “wine-holder”; trapezophorum “table-leg”). lupinopolus is likewise presumably formed according to the same model as borrowed compounds in -pola (e.g. pharmacopola “drug-seller”; myropola “ointment-seller”) or -poles (oenopoles “wine-seller”). 376 Although Scytholatronia may be so formed according to the same Greek model as Scythopolis = Σκυθόπολις, a city in Palestine (Plin. Nat. 5.18.16), there is no obvious model in either Latin or Greek for Scytalosagittipelliger. 208 most of these compounds. This suggests not so much that their respective speakers’ dominant language is Greek (their so-called Matrix language), while Latin is their non-dominant language (their so-called Embedded Language), but that Greek is more likely the Matrix Language of their creation.377 de Melo 2011. lxxvi notes that Plautus’ use of Greek was often for the sake of servile and frivolous connotations.378 Presumably, this applies to Petronius as well and to other authors who depict characters speaking Greek, although this itself amounts to little more than a claim that authors document in a way the fact that Greek speakers sometimes speak Greek. But the fact that they can use Greek to characterize Cf. Muysken 2004. 150, who cites several English-German compounds (e.g. Beachhäuser, “beach houses”; Countryplatz, “country place”) and notes that “[t]he predominance of German headed compounds reflects the fact that German is the matrix language in this bilingual corpus. Several cases of English headed compounds are based on very specific English compounds”. 378 While it has long been noted that most of the Greek in Plautus and Terence comes from the mouths of slaves and other low-status characters such as pimps and parasites (e.g. Tuchhaendler 1876. 70; Leo 1912. 106; Hough 1933, 1947; Shipp 1953. 112), recenter work has attempted to prove that this is not simply because most of the lines and words of all kinds in Plautus are voiced by such characters (e.g. Gilleland 1979. 84–178 on Plautus and Terence; Maltby 1985 on Terence). These recenter studies compare the number of Greek words and phrases of all kinds spoken by different character types against the total number of lines spoken relatively by these character types and find that low-status characters use proportionally more Greek words. However, their statistics seemingly do little more than quantify the old observation that low-status characters use more Greek than high-status characters, without really considering, e.g., whether the use of Greek words does anything more than simply contribute to the characterization of a character as low-status; whether all Greek words contribute equally to this kind of characterization; how the use of Greek words depends, not on the character speaking per se, but on the context and content of their speech and the kind of scene in which they speaking. Thus, although it is shown that low-status characters use relatively more Greek, because high-status characters also use Greek, a satisfactory analysis needs, it seems, to go beyond using simple statistical analysis to support claims about socio-economic characterization. This is, however, not to deny outright that the use of Greek words can contribute to the characterization of a character as low-status, but to point out that it is insufficient to account for the use of Greek words. 209 377 their characters thus is rooted in the realities of sociolinguistic variation at the time or at least in prejudices about variation at the time. And if we assume that the codeswitching present in, for example, Plautus is not totally arbitrary (he is not picking words at random and using their Greek equivalents), then we can probe his use of Greek further, asking under which circumstances and to which effect his characters code switch. Thus, although most of Plautus’ bilingual compounds are in fact spoken by low-status characters (biclinium each time by the slave Pseudolus; ferritribax and pultiphagus each by the slave Tranio; flagritriba and inanilogista each by the pimp Ballio; ineuscheme by the slave Stasimus; Scytholatronia by the parasite Artotrogus; and ulmitriba by the slave boy Paegnium), since some are not (dismaritus is spoken by the matrona Myrrhina and antelogium is spoken by an anonymous prologuespeaker), it will not suffice to say that the sole point of such forms is to characterize their speakers at low-status. In the final scene of the Casina, Myrrhina, with her quid agis, dismarite? (“What’s up, you zwei-timer?”), snappily greets Cleostrata’s husband Lysidamus. They have just succeeded in outwitting him and have caught him without his clothes on trying to philander with Casina, the girl whom his son wants to—and ultimately will—marry but whom he himself wants to marry off to his slave so that he can essentially have her as his second wife. The word literally encapsulates the theme of these double marriages. In addition, the whole final scene, playing for laughs Cleostrata’s vituperation of her disgraced husband before their final reconciliation, also trots out several other Greek words: for example, when Cleostrata asks her 210 husband where his clothes are, Myrrhina retorts that he lost them dum moechissat Casinam (“while adulterously having sex with Casina”), before he fecklessly tries to pin the blame on Bacchae (“bacchants”). dismaritus and the other Greek words here, redound to the humor of the scene, in which Greek is trotted out in part as insults, rather than to their speakers’ status. antelogium is likewise coined for the sake of a joke. The word, although it could have been so formed simply as a technical term for a prologue or preamble (Plautus never uses, for example, the word prologus of his prologues, as does Terence) on the model of other borrowed Greek words such as prologium “prologue” (Pac. trag. 383) and elogium “maxim; epitaph” (e.g. Plaut. Mer. 409), is better regarded as self- consciously facetious nonce formation coined in service of a metatheatrical joke. Although the prologue-speaker promises at 5–6 to summarize the plot of the play in paucissima verba (“in very few words”), he quickly veers off into metatheatrics, saying (8–12, with 72–6 transposed by de Melo 2011): omnis res gestas esse Athenis autumant, quo illud uobis graecum uideatur magis; ego nusquam dicam nisi ubi factum dicitur. 10 haec urbs Epidamnus est dum haec agitur fabula: 72 quando alia agetur aliud fiet oppidum; sicut familiae quoque solent mutarier: modo hic habitat leno, modo adulescens, modo senex, pauper, mendicus, rex, parasitus, hariolus. 76 atque adeo hoc argumentum graecissat, tamen 11 211 non atticissat, uerum sicilicissitat.379 He corrects course at 13–5: huic argumento antelogium hoc fuit interim. nunc argumentum uobis demensum dabo, non modio nec trimodio, uerum ipso horreo380 It bears pointing out here that one of the senses attested in Latin for the Greek word logos is “joke, rubbish”.381 Thus, Plautus’ antelogium describes not just material spoken prior to the plot summary but jokes delivered prior to the plot summary; it is not just a preamble but an amuse-oreille. In delivering jokes in a prologue, Plautus is seemingly doing something novel: the sole surviving prologue from a Greek new comedy (Menander’s Dyscolus) is rather staid and straightforward in relating the plot of the comedy, while those of Terence dwell on defending his work from criticism. Plautus thus perhaps coins a hybrid term to call attention to his hybrid prologue. As we saw in Chapter 4, this is not the only time that Plautus coins an elaborate and facetious metatheatrical term to refer to a novel aspect of his comedy. “Poets claim that everything took place at Athens, so that it seems more Greek to you. I’ll say what happened nowhere except where it’s s said to have happened. This city is Epidamnus while this play is being staged. When another‘s staged, it’ll become another town, just as households also always change. At one time a pimp lives here, at another a young man, at yet another an old one, a pauper, a beggar, a king, a parasite, a soothsayer. And besides, this plot summary has a Greek air; nevertheless, it doesn’t have an Attic air, but a Sicilian one.” 380 “This was meanwhile the preamble to the plot summary. Now I’ll give you the plot summary rationed-out, not by the peck or the triple-peck, but by the granary itself” 381 OLD s. v. 212 379 More commonly, however, bilingual compounds attested in Plautus are like his monolingual coinages in that most of them are insults.382 Lucilius too, among whose extant work we unfortunately find no bilingual compounds to compare, nonetheless puts creative, entirely Latin, ad-hoc compounds to work in service of his diatribe: for example, cibicida “food-killer” (718); vinibua “wine-bibber” (302).383 A brief recap: bilingual compounds and derivatives in Latin literature are all but exclusively found 1) in post-classical technical authors, where such forms fill a gap in the technical lexicon; and 2) in comedic authors of all eras, where such forms are on the one hand “real” in that they are formed and used in ways in which such forms are used in modern languages, but on the other hand they are literary creations used to suggest the low status of their speakers and to call attention to jokes and insults: despite the elements of linguistic verisimilitude in the speech of Plautus’ characters, his aim is not that of a field researcher faithfully recording the speech of speakers, but that of playwright who intends to entertain.384 In both classes of authors, the use of bilingual forms is symptomatic of the “low” status of the genres. E.g. from one scene alone in his Pseudolus come bustirapus “tomb robber” (361), sociofraudus “cheater” (362), legerupa “law-breaker” (364), furcifer “yoke-bearer” (361). 383 Cf. Plaut. Cur. 77 multibiba atque merobiba “(an old woman) who drinks much and unmixed wine” 384 Hough 1934, in an article on Plautus’ use of Greek words, discounts the simplistic idea that there is Greek in the plays of Plautus simply for the sake of metrical necessity or because the Greek nature of the plays demands the inclusion of Greek, for as has already been mentioned the plays are of an Attic nature yet do not contain Attic Greek; nor is Plautus so poor a poet that he can only make the meter work by tossing in the occasional Greek word. Thus, Hough argues, that Greek in Plautus is due to necessity (for denoting Greek Realien) and for the sake of jokes (347). 213 382 5.2 BILINGUAL BLENDS This at last brings us to bilingual blends. Low-status characters in low genres, as we will see, speak all of these blends, and so in that respect their use is appropriate and contributes to their characterization. Like other bilingual forms, bilingual blends are chiefly instantiations of humor rooted in onomastics, foul-mouthedness, metatheatrics, or some combination thereof. However, unlike the bilingual compounds and derivatives discussed above, which have parallels in terms of formation and use in modern spoken languages, the bilingual blends of Latin literature seem a unique phenomenon, one for which I have found no exact parallel in modern languages, but this is not to say categorically that such forms do not exist. Although bilingual blends are attested in the literature on bilingualism in modern languages, they are of a different kind than the few we find in Latin. In modern languages, bilingual blends are typically the results of speech errors by bilingual speakers, often children, who conflate a word in one language and its synonym in another. Thus, for example, a French-English bilingual is recorded as producing pinichon, a blend of pickle and cornichon (Grosjean 1982. 184); a Dutch-English bilingual is recorded as producing elchother, a blend of Dutch elkaar and English each other (Poulisse 2000. 143); and a Swedish-English bilingual is recorded as producing clothers, a blend of clothes and kläder (Ringbom 1987. 153). Thus, with bilingual blends Latin authors move away from echoing sociolinguistic reality to what seems to be a purely literary phenomenon. They are linguistic opportunism at its best, and what makes such bilingual blends as we find in 214 Latin literature possible, in part at least, is the uniquely profound influence of the Greek language on Latin literary culture. Thus, they are emblematic of Latin literature’s inheritance, adoption, adaptation, etc. of Greek literature and of Latin authors’ willingness to resort to whatever linguistic tool. The bilingual blends discussed here (just as the other bilingual forms discussed above) are all forms which blend together Latin and Greek words, but it is possible that blends of Latin and other languages (e.g. of the Oscan–Sabellic group) exist(ed). In Greek, however, I have noted no such bilingual forms; nor have I expected to find any: Greek literature, for the most part belying the polyglot world which the Greeks inhabited, manifests a general indifference to languages other than Greek. 5.2.1 MANTISCINARI Plaut. Capt. 891–7 Heg. di immortales, iterum gnatus videor, si vera autumas. Erg. ain tu? dubium habebis etiam, sancte quom ego iurem tibi? postremo, Hegio, si parva iuri iurandost fides, vise ad portum. Heg. facere certumst. tu intus cura quod opus est. sume, posce, prome quid vis. te facio cellarium. Erg. nam hercle, nisi mantiscinatus probe ero, fusti pectito. Heg. aeternum tibi dapinabo victum, si vera autumas. 215 mantiscinatus] manticinatus Merula : manticulatus Angelius : panticinatus Guyet {Heg.} Immortal gods, I seem born reborn, if you’re speaking the truth. {Erg}. Do you say so? You’ll still doubt it when I’d solemnly swear to you? Well then, Hegio, if you have little faith in my oath, go and look in the harbor. {Heg.} I’ll certainly do so. You take care of what’s necessary inside. Take, demand, have whatever you want. I’m making you my butler. {Erg.} By god, unless I’m a proper saucerer, beat me with a club. {Heg.} I’ll serve you food forever, if you’re telling the truth. Don. Ter. Eu. 258 (quibus et re salva et perdita profueram et prosum saepe) quibus et re salva: cum de meo impenderem; et perdita: cum de alieno mantiscinor atque impendo mantiscinor B (cor. in ras. m. 2) : mantissinor T (men who had been served by me in good times and in bad and often still are) quibus et re salva: when I relied on my own affairs; et perdita: when I mantiscinor and depend on another’s affairs 5.2.1.1 TEXTUAL NOTES 216 In his editio princeps of 1472, Merula printed manticinatus for the paradosis mantiscinatus presumably on the ground that mantiscinatus is seemingly not a wellformed compound or derivative (see “Formation” below).385 But the manuscripts of Plautus are unanimous, and the existence of the word seems confirmed by its use in Donatus, who has presumably picked the word up from Plautus. In Donatus, the paradosis of T (on which the correction of a second hand in B is presumably based) probably ought to be regarded as a simple error.386 This seems easier than if one manuscript of Donatus alone has preserved the correct reading and that the other, as well as all the manuscripts of Plautus, have handed down a corrupt form. Angelius 1514’s manticulatus (from manticulor “act cunningly”) and Guyet 1658’s panticinatus (from pantex “innards”) are farther from the paradosis, while doing little to improve the sense of the line, and should thus not be taken seriously. 5.2.1.2 FORMATION mantiscinari, of which Plautus’ mantiscinatus is a participle, blends together Greek μάντις “prophet, seer” and Latin vaticinari “prophesy, foretell; sing as poet; rave”. The word is not a derivative nor is it likely as a compound. Verbs in -cinari are typically Cf. Ussing 1878 ad loc.: “even if the formation of the verb is credible, which it is not, it is nevertheless averse to the sense of the passage (trans.)”. 386 For confusion between -isc- and -iss-, e.g. Tib. 1.5.1 discidium] dissidium A. 217 385 denominatives formed from nouns in -cinium;387 however, we would expect the putative compound of μάντις and -cinium to have been *manticinium, since—as discussed in Chapter 2—Greek and Latin compounding is stem compounding, and the stem of μάντις is manti-. Compare the Greek compounds μαντιπολέω “prophesy” and μαντιπόλος “inspired”, as well as Latin gallicinium “cock’s crow” (< gallus “rooster”) and vaticinium “prophecy” (< vates “prophet”). There are, however, a handful of nouns in Latin ending in -cinium which appear to have been formed by compounding the nominative form of the first constituent rather its stem: 1) ratiōcinium “a reckoning” < ratiō “reckoning” 2) *sermōcinium “a talking” < sermō “conversation” 3) lātrōcinium “robbery” < lātrō “bandit” 4) lenōcinium “brothel keeping” < lēnō “pimp” 5) tirōcinium “military inexperience” < tirō “new recruit” According to Fay 1904. 461–3, these nouns—or, more properly, the verbs derived therefrom—provide a direct model for mantiscinari, a form in which allegedly the nominative μάντις has been compounded with -cinari. This is, however, unlikely. Despite the superficial appearance these five nouns, they have not in fact been formed from nominatives. The nouns behind these Cf. patrocinari “be a patron” < patrocinium “patronage”; ratiocinari “reckon” < ratiōcinium “reckoning”; sermocinari “converse” < *sermocinium “conversation”; latrocinari “plunder” < latrocinium “robbery”; and lenocinari “flatter” < lenocinium “brothel keeping”. The etymology of alucinari “wander in thought” is uncertain; perhaps from Greek ἀλύω “wander”. 218 387 compounds—namely ratiō, sermō, latrō, lenō, and tirō—are all n-stem nouns, which in Latin were of several types:388 a) cognomina in -ō derived from thematic adjectives, such as Catō, Catōnis < catus “sharp” b) names for disreputable characters in -ō derived from nouns, such as latrō, latrōnis, “mercenary, bandit” < λάτρον “payment” c) feminine abstract nouns in -iō and -tiō, such as dupliō “doubling” < duplus “double” and ratiō “reckoning” < the root of reor “reckon” d) masculine abstract nouns in -mō, -mōnis such as sermō, sermōnis, “conversation” < serō “link together” e) and the word homō, hominis “man(kind)” In many cases, Latin has leveled the declension of such nouns, generalizing the -ō of the nominative throughout the paradigm, although there is sometimes evidence in diminutives of the original -ŏn-, which would have weakened in open medial syllables to -in-389 but to -un- in closed medial syllables: for example, lenunculus “young gobetween” (e.g. Plaut. Poen. 1286) < *lenŏnculus < lenō; curculiunculus “little weevil” (Plaut. Rud. 1325) < *curculiŏnculus < curculiō “weevil”. From these five n-stem nouns, we would at any rate have expected such forms as *ratiōnicinium, *sermōnicinium, *latrōnicinium, *lenōnicinium, and *tirōnicinum. However, often in compounds, the first constituent, when it was a noun of the third 388 For a comprehensive overview of n-stem nouns in Latin see Leumann 1977. 358–64; Sihler 1995. 295–6; Weiss 2010. 309–14. 389 As in e.g. homō, hominis. 219 declension (particularly an n- or s-stem noun) was shortened: for example, foedifragus “oath-breaking” < foedus (gen. foederis) rather than *foederifragus; and homicida “man-slayer” < homō (gen. hominis) rather than *hominicida.390 Thus, these forms are best regarded as compounds whose first constituent has been shortened in this way, but which have nevertheless retained the long -ō- generalized throughout their paradigms rather than as anomalous compounds formed from a nominative. Such forms are, therefore, not models for mantiscinari. mantiscinari is thus better regarded as a blend of μάντις and vaticinari, which provides a convenient point of phonetic overlap between manti- and vati-. 5.2.1.3 INTERPRETATION Lewis–Short aver without explanation that mantiscinari is a “a false read(ing)” for manticinari, which they follow countless others in taking to be from μάντις and canere “sing” (s. v. mantiscinor) and to be “comically formed, in imitation of vaticinor” (s. v. manticinor). Implied in their comment is the notion that the word is a conventionally formed compound. Others, however, are less certain about the word’s formation. For example, Ritschl 1887, although he prints mantiscinatus, expresses some doubt, saying, “I was unwilling to obscure mantiscinatus since it might be antiquated or foreign rather than corrupt (trans.)” (131).391 And Ernout–Meillet s. v. mantiscinor say On the anomalous form of this compound, see n. 28 above. He also adds tentatively, “or derived from tesco- on the model of verbs in -ino-r, so that manu tesca sibi facere (‘to make waste with his own hand’) might mean ‘to wreak havoc’ (trans.)”, but this is a rather fanciful suggestion. 220 390 391 only that the word is a “hybride plaisamment tiré de gr. μάντις, par Plaute, Cap. 896, sur le modèle de vā ticinor” and compare the passage of Donatus quoted above, while the TLL s. v. mantiscinor says that the word is “comically formed from μάντις on the model of vaticinor by Plautus, who alludes to mantissa (trans.)”. Plasberg 1899 (tentatively followed by de Melo 2011. 599 n. 41), taking the the -s- of the mantiscinari seriously, was the first to suggest that it derives rather from mantissa,392 which he argues means “sauce”, and that it thus means für die Saucen sorgen (“take care of the sauces”). To clarify what “take care of the sauces” might mean, he compares the French proverb donner ordre aux sauces (“give order to the sauces”), which evidently means aller dans la cuisine prendre soin que tout soit bien apprêté (“go into the kitchen to take care that everything is well prepared”). The idea is that after Hegio makes Ergasilus his cellarius, Ergasilus invites a beating unless he should tend the larder as well as possible. But this, it seems to me, renders Hegio’s next line somewhat nonsensical: why should Hegio reward Ergasilus for telling the truth about tending the larder well, when he is in fact rewarding him for telling the truth about the return of his son by giving him free access to his larder? Plasberg argued in addition that his understanding of the word is supported by the fact that Ergasilus cares about food before all else, that there is no discussion of prophecy otherwise in the passage, and that Donatus did not seem to understand Attested only at Fest. p. 132.11 M. mantisa additamentum dicitur lingua Tusca, quod ponderi adicitur, sed deterius et quod sine ullo usu est. Lucilius (1208): mantisa obsonia vincit (“mantisa is what an addition is called in Etruscan, but it is something worse and without any use. Lucilius (1208): mantisa overcomes the delicacies”); and Petron. 65.10 cum vicensimariis magnam mantissam habet (“he has a great mantissam with the tax collectors). 221 392 the word as having anything to do with prophecy. However, while it is true that Donatus seems to use the word in the sense “get food” or the like, there is no reason to assume that he, writing in the mid-4th century CE, some 400 to 500 years after the death of Plautus, had correctly understood this Plautine hapax. And while there may be little to do properly with prophesying in the passage, Hegio’s response to Ergasilus (si vera autumas) does suggest a connection with prophecy in the loose sense of “telling the truth”, as Fay 1904. 461 argued. Moreover, elsewhere in Plautus, the verb autumare is used of speaking vera (Capt. 891; Epid. 644) or falsum (Capt. 955), and of prophetic activity at Pac. trag. 308 flexa non falsa autumare dictio Delfis solet (“the oracular response at Delphi usually speaks obliquely, not falsely”); and verbs meaning “prophesy” and the like in Latin are often used loosely or facetiously in the sense “speak nonsense”.393 This is, however, not to deny outright that mantiscinari does not at least allude to mantissa, as the TLL suggests, since mantiscinari works even better as a blend if it evokes both μάντις and mantissa, but to say that Plasberg goes too far in denying that the word has anything to do with μάντις. That verbs meaning “prophesy” should be used colloquially in this sense is understandable given the frequent depiction of seers as venal charlatans looking to trade “cosmic secrets” for meals or money.394 This stereotype about seers as prophesying whatever nonsense by whatever dubious means will bring them profit partially informs the creation and use of the blend mantiscinari here, as will be discussed more below. The immediate takeaway, however, is that there would be 393 394 Cf. OLD s. vv. auguror; hariolor; vaticinor. E.g. Plaut. Cur. 481–4; Mil. 692–4; Cic. Div. 1.132 = Enn. fr. 117b. 222 nothing especially odd in Latin about saying, for example, “Unless I’ve correctly prophesied” outside of the context of actual prophesying. At any rate, while there may be little in the way of actual prophesying in the passage of Plautus quoted above or in the scene whence it comes, there is however a good deal of religious language in the scene into which mantiscinari fits. According to Cicero (Div. 1.95), what the Romans called a sacerdos, the Greeks called a μάντις, both of which typically mean “priest” or the like in their respective languages. Likewise, according to Cicero (Leg. 2.32.1; ND 1.55), what the Romans called divinatio, the Greeks called μαντική, both of which typically mean “divination” or the like in their respective languages. In the Roman world, a sacerdos was often responsible for, or connected in some way with, divination,395 and occasionally the noun vaticinium or the verb vaticinari was used in connection with sacerdotal divination.396 Despite the chronological spread of these examples, it is possible to take from them the suggestion that in the mind of an ancient Greek–Latin bilingual speaker the Greek word μάντις and its derivates and the Latin word vates and its derivatives might have occupied the same semantic field and therefore have been liable to the kinds of speech errors made by bilingual speakers conflating a word in one language and its synonym in another discussed above. Thus, on the one hand, it is perhaps possible to regard the blend mantiscinari as such an error, Ergasilus wanting to say, “prophesied”, but starting with Greek and Cf. Cic. Part. 6 divinum [sc. testamentum], ut oracula, ut auspicia, ut vaticinationes, ut responsa sacerdotum, haruspicum, coniectorum (“divine [sc. evidence] like oracles, auspices, prophecies, and the responses of priests, haruspices, and conjecters”). 396 Eg. Tib. 1.6.43–4; Plin. Nat. 28.147; Gel. 15.8 pr. 2; Serv. G. 4.399 223 395 slipping partway through into Latin. There is precedent for this kind of slippage on his part in his series of oaths at 881–4: μὰ τὸν Ἀπόλλω … / … ναὶ τὰν Κόραν … / … ναὶ τὰν Πραινέστην … ναὶ τὰν Σιγνέαν … / … ναὶ τὰν Φρουσινῶνα … ναὶ τὸν Ἀλάτριον (“Yes, by Apollo … Yes, by Cora … Yes, by Praenesta … Yes, by Signea … Yes, by Frusino … Yes, by Alatrium”), where he bilingually equivocates on the meaning of Cora—both the goddess Proserpina and a town in Italy—and goes from swearing by gods to swearing by cities. But this, of course, is all a deliberate joke to which Plautus calls attention (884–5): {Heg.} quid tu per barbaricas urbis iuras? {Erg.} quia enim item asperae / sunt ut tuom uictum autumabas esse ({Heg.} “Why are you swearing by foreign cities? {Erg.} Because they’re as rough as you said your food is”). Ergasilus’ mantisincari is presumably also a deliberate joke, but what precisely is the joke? The action of Plautus’ Captivi centers on a youth named Philocrates and his slave Tyndarus, both natives of Elis who have been captured in a war with Aetolia. Both are bought as slaves by Hegio, a wealthy Aetolian hoping to trade them for Philopolemus, his own son who had been captured at Elis. Philocrates (pretending to be Tyndarus) is sent to make the trade, while Tyndarus (pretending to be Philocrates) remains. Meanwhile, however, an old friend of Philocrates is also captured and ends up exposing Tyndarus’ efforts to conceal his identity from Hegio. When Hegio learns that he has been tricked, he sends Tyndarus to the quarries. Philocrates eventually returns with Philopolemus and Stalagmus, a former slave of Hegio who had previously stolen another son of Hegio. Stalagmus confesses, explaining that he had sold Hegio’s son to Philocrates’ family. Eventually everybody discovers that Tyndarus is that stolen son, which causes Hegio to regret treating him so poorly when he was 224 his captive. Hegio and his two sons, Philopolemus and Tyndarus, are reunited, and the plays ends happily. Largely irrelevant to the action of the comedy is the parasite Ergasilus, who exists solely to provide comic relief. Moore 1998. 192 notes that “the antics of the parasite Ergasilus provide a welcome relief from the disconcerting actions of the main plot. He embodies the spirit of escapist comedy”. As parasites are wont to do, he spends his time trying to find free meals, even offering to sell himself to Hegio in exchange for dinner (179–81); and when he learns that Hegio's son Philopolemus has returned to Aetolia, he trades this knowledge for a meal from Hegio. Ergasilus, who had departed to the harbor (497) in search of opportunities for dinner, returns (768), with his tune changed. Whereas in previous scenes, he had spent much of his time on stage lamenting his pitiful lot in life, he marks his return with an exuberant and highly rhetorical speech, which he begins thus (768–72): Iuppiter supreme, servas me measque auges opes, maxumas opimitates opiparasque offers mihi, laudem lucrum, ludum iocum, festivitatem ferias, pompam penum, potationes saturitatem, gaudium397 He even has a brief metatheatrical moment when he declares that he will throw his cloak (pallium) about his neck “in the same way that slaves in comedies do” (eodem pacto ut comici servi solent; 788–9). Here he is doing, as Moore 1998. 192 notes, the “O highest Jupiter, you save me, augment my resources, offer me maximum, outstanding opulence praise, profit, play, pleasantries, festivities, festivals a parade, provisions, potables a plenty, joy” 225 397 “running slave” bit. In addition to calling attention to what he does on stage on that moment, Ergaslius’ comment here, Moore argues, “has a special significance, for it continues in a humorous vein the confusion over what makes a comic slave. It is as if Ergasilus is saying, ‘No one is doing the slave parts right, so I will have to’” (192). Ergasilus concludes his entrance monologue by saying that he is throwing on a pallium so that Hegio will hear the news of his sons return from him first and hoping that he will get food forever for the news (ob hunc nuntium aeternum … cibum; 780), at which point Hegio comes on stage (781) and wonders what Ergasilus is up to wearing a pallium (789). The metatheatrics carry on as Hegio overhears Ergasilus announcing—in playful lines full of alliteration and the like—that he will beat up anyone who stands in the way of his delivering the news first. Ergasilus’ hypothetical victims are bakers (807–10), fishmongers (813–7), and butchers (818–22): such is his obsession with food that he can think of no professionals other than those in the food-service industry. As he threatens them, Hegio comments that Ergasilus “has royal and imperious proclamations. The man is full; yes, he has confidence in his stomach” (basilicas edictiones atque imperiosas habet. / satur homo est; habet profecto in uentre confidentiam; 811–2) and “has an aedile’s edicts, and it would be a surprise indeed if the Aetolians haven’t made him their market inspector” (edictiones aedilicias … habet, / mirumque adeo est ni hunc fecere sibi Aetoli agoranomum; 823–4). As Ergasilus finally arrives at Hegio’s house, whither he has evidently been heading since his return to the stage, he declares, “I am no longer a parasite but a rather royal king of kings, if the great supply of food in the harbor is for my stomach” (non ego nunc 226 parasitus sum sed regum rex regalior, / tantus uentri commeatus meo adest in portu cibus; 825–6). Hegio’s comments and Ergasilus’ final boasts raise the question: is a well-fed parasite still a parasite? The playfulness and exuberance of Ergasilus’ language continues as he strings Hegio along with the promise of good news until he finally manages to secure the promise of a free meal. Ergasilus, before he delivers the news of Hegio’s son’s return, preemptively tells him to have a fire readied (840), cookware washed (846), a pig, lamb, chickens, seafood, and cheese brought (849–51), but Hegio shoots this down: this is all too much for a messenger and his news. Thus, switching tacks, Ergasilus tells Hegio to “order your clean vessels to be prepared quickly for sacrifice and a suitable fat lamb to be brought here” (iube / vasa tibi pura apparari ad rem divinam cito / atque agnum afferri proprium pinguem; 860–2) so that Hegio can sacrifice to none other than Ergasilus, who declares, “I’m highest Jupiter, Salvation, Luck, Light, Happiness, Joy” (sum summus Iuppiter, / idem ego sum Salus, Fortuna, Lux, Laetitia, Gaudium; 863–4), before eventually swearing that he has seen his son in the harbor. At this, Hegio promises in the passage quoted above (891–7) to give Ergasilus the food forever that he had set out to get (780). matiscinari is therefore a part of the exuberant literary language of a low-status character obsessed with food finally about to cash in on his good fortune, the unusual formation capping off more than a hundred lines of buffoonery in which the parasite Ergasilus metatheatrically plays the role of a servus currens, delivering news for which he hoped to be rewarded, and, when that 227 gambit fails, the role of a seer for whom prophecy is merely a commodity and sacrifice merely a barbeque.398 One last thing question to be considered is why Plautus resorts to a bilingual blend, since the metatheatrics and the stereotypes about prophets as parasites and sacrifice as lunch could all have come across just as well, it seems, in Latin. That is, since μάντις seemingly fulfills no denotational need here, what comic need does it fulfill? The word μάντις—already in Homer and thereafter attested abundantly in all genres—typically means “seer” or the like, and it seems generally a positive—or at least neutral—term. Yet that a μάντις, just like his Roman equivalents, could be a professional who traded “prophecies” for payment is hinted at here and there,399 as Cf. Pers. 6.74 illi tremat omento popa venter (“his priest belly jiggles with fat”); Plaut. Rud. 341–7, where the slave Trachalio asks the captive girl Ampelisca, who is of course not preparing a meal, when lunch will be ready: {Tr.} non venit? {Amp.} vera praedicas. {Tr.} non est meum, Ampelisca. sed quam mox coctum est prandium? {Amp.} quod prandium, obsecro te? {Tr.} nempe rem divinam facitis hic. {Amp.} quid somnias, amabo? {Tr.} certe huc Labrax ad prandium vocavit Plesidippum erum meum erus vester. {Amp.} Pol haud miranda facta dicis: 345 si deos decepit et homines, lenonum more fecit. {Tr.} non rem divinam facitis hic vos neque erus? {Amp.} hariolare. 398 {Tr.} Hasn’t he come? {Amp.} You foretell the truth. {Tr.} That’s not my habit, Ampelisca, but how long till lunch’s cooked? {Amp.} What lunch? {Tr.} Presumably you’re sacrificing here. {Amp.} What’re you dreaming about? {Tr.} Certainly your master Labrax called my master Plesidippus here to lunch. {Amp.} By god, you aren’t saying anything strange: He’s acting in the manner of a pimp, if he deceived gods and men. {Tr.} Are neither you nor my master sacrificing here? {Amp.} No duh. Noteworthy here is that, as far as Trachalio is concerned, res divina (“sacrifice”) and prandium (“lunch”) are one and the same. This comparandum sheds additional light on Ergasilus’ motives, when he tells Hegio to order vessels to be prepared ad rem divinam (Capt. 861). 399 Cf. D.T. fr. 51 Linke (πέλανος) καὶ ὁ τῷ μάντει διδόμενος μισθὸς ὀβολός (“(pelanos) it is also the obol given as payment to a mantis”); Luc. JTr. 30 φὴς γὰρ καὶ μάντις εἶναι καὶ μισθοὺς 228 is the idea that a μάντις could be downright deceitful.400 At any rate, at Il. 1.62–3 (the first attestation of the word) Achilles, after calling the Greeks together on the ninth day of the plague, suggests that the Greeks ask τινα μάντιν … ἢ ἱερῆα / ἢ καὶ ὀνειροπόλον (“some seer or priest or even an interpreter of dreams”) how they should appease Apollo and thereby end the plague. Although this suggests that a μάντις, a ἱερεύς, and an ὀνειροπόλος were in fact three different religious functionaries, they were at least from Achilles’ perspective here functionally synonymous: they all had by means of their unique skillsets access to the same otherwise unknown information. μάντις and ἱέρευς are also used side-by-side elsewhere in Greek as apparently rough equivalents.401 The upshot of this is that in Greece and Rome priests prophesied from the entrails of sacrificial victims, which were thereafter readied for a feast. That a feast habitually followed priestly activity in Greece lent the verb ἱερεύω, ordinarily “sacrifice”, the meaning “slaughter for a feast”.402 Accordingly, if μάντις and ἱέρευς are roughly synonymous, then so too should μαντεύω “perform the actions of a mantis” and ἱερεύω “perform the actions of a hiereus” be roughly synonymous. This means therefore that a μάντις not only delivered the news from the gods, but also prepared a feast for human consumption, and this is exactly what Ergasilus does in the passage οὐκ ὀλίγους ἐπὶ τῷ τοιούτῳ ἐξέλεξας (“you say that you’re a mantis and have collected large fees for such work”). 400 Epich. fr. 9.1–3 ὡσπεραὶ πονηραὶ μάντιες, / αἵ θ’ ὑπονέμονται γυναῖκας μωρὰς ἂμ πεντόγκιον / ἀργύριον (“Just like wicked manteis, who cheat stupid women for five coins at a time”). 401 Cf. Pl. Plt. 290d; Leg. 828b; 885d; Hsch. τ 1105; υ 788; EM p. 468.15. Recall also Cicero’s translation of μάντις mentioned above. 402 Cf. LSJ s. v. 2 229 from Plautus with which we began: he delivers to Hegio news otherwise unknown and in so doing prepares for himself a monumental feast. Thus, Ergasilus turns himself into a kind of ἐγγαστρίμαντις “one who prophesies from the stomach”.403 Another possible motivation for the use of μάντις in the blend is that the word may have been a synonym for “actor”, although the evidence for this depends entirely on Hsch. υ 669 ὑποκριτής· μάντις. καὶ ὁ ἐν τῇ σκηνῇ ἀποκρινόμενος (“hypokritês: mantis. And one who responds on stage”). However, if in Plautus’ time μάντις was an acceptable synonym for ὑποκριτής, then there may be in Ergasilus’ line the suggestion that unless he will have delivered his lines properly, he will be beaten. There are other passages in Plautus that suggest that the actors, many of whom were of servile status, were beaten for poor performances.404 At any rate, the joke behind the blend mantiscinari is ultimately an elaborately metatheatrical one. The parasite Ergasilus, who had spent his first scene on stage trying unsucessfully to get a meal as a parasite and part of his second scene on stage trying unsucessfully to get a meal as a servus currens, ultimately succeeds in getting a meal by becoming a gastromancer. The The word is attested only in lexicographic sources: e.g. Ael. Dion. ε 2 ἐγγαστρίμυθος· ὁ ἐν γαστρὶ μαντευόμενος· τοῦτον καὶ ἐγγαστρίμαντιν <καλοῦσιν>, ὃν νῦν τινες Πύθωνά φασιν· ὁ Σοφοκλῆς (fr. 59) δὲ στερνόμαντιν. Πλάτων ὁ φιλόσοφος (Soph. 252c) Εὐρυκλέα ἀπὸ Εὐρυκλέους τοιούτου μάντεως. Ἀριστοφάνης Σφηξί (1019)· μιμησάμενος τὴν Εὐρυκλέους μαντείαν καὶ διάνοιαν. Φιλόχορος δὲ ἐν γʹ Περὶ μαντικῆς (FGrH 328 F 78) καὶ γυναῖκας ἐγγαστριμύθους ἔφη (“engastrimythos: one who prophesies in their stomach. They also call this an engastrimantis, which some authorities now call Pythô. Sophocles (fr. 59) calls it a sternomantis. Plato the philosopher (Soph. 252c) calls it Eurycles because Eurycles was such a mantis. Aristophanes in Wasps (1019): after imitating the oracle and advice of Eurycles. Philochorus in his Concerning Divination (FrGH 328 F 78) said that women were also engastrimythoi”); Poll. 2.168; Hsch. ε 123; π 4314. 404 Moore 1998. 10-2; Christenson 2000. 141. 230 403 blend, which additionally conjures up stereotypes about seers as money-grubbing charlatans and priests as pitmasters, draws attention to this fact. 5.2.2 MERDALEUS Priap. 68.1–8, 21–2 rusticus indocte si quid dixisse videbor, da veniam: libros non lego, poma lego. sed rudis hic dominum totiens audire legentem cogor Homereas edidicique notas. ille vocat, quod nos psolem, ψολόεντα κεραυνόν, 5 et quod nos culum, κουλεόν ille vocat. σμερδαλέον certe si res non munda vocatur, et pediconum mentula merdalea est. … hic legitur radix, de qua flos aureus exit, 21 quam cum μῶλυ vocat, mentula μῶλυ fuit. 7 σμερδαλέον scripsi : μερδαλέον edd. : σμερδἀλεον B : mendaleon A : merdaleon cett. 8 merdalea] mendalea AHV : medalea Y If I, being from the countryside, seem to have said anything in ignorance, pardon me: I collect apples, not books. But, although uncultured, I’ve often had 231 to hear my master reading here and I’ve learned by heart the Homeric notes. What we call a penis, he calls “sooty lightning”, and what we call an ass, he calls a “sheath”. Certainly, if an unclean thing’s called “frightful”, then the dick of a pederast’s shiteful. … Here is picked the root from which a golden flower sprouts, which though he calls it môly, môly means “dick” 5.2.2.1 TEXTUAL NOTES In 7, I print σμερδαλέον with initial sigma and accent on the penult, as the adjective is always written in Homer and elsewhere.405 Since manuscripts have no authority in the case of accents, this is thus a correction rather than an emendation of the paradosis of B, which on the whole seems the most reliable witness for the Greek and Greek names throughout the poem.406 The Greek and Greek names confounded copyists, and the transliterated, sigma-less forms of the adjective in other manuscripts most likely represent attempts by copyists who had limited or no familiarity with Greek to “correct” an unknown word in light of merdalea in 8. Why modern editors partly follow them by printing μερδαλέον in Greek but without the sigma that the adjective always has elsewhere is unclear. In the apparatus, for example, of West’s edition of the Iliad or Fränkel’s edition of the Argonautica, there is nary a sigma-less variant to be noted. 406 B also preserves the Greek in 5 and 22 (but with κεραύνον and μώλυ wrongly accented thus), which other manuscripts transliterate and otherwise mutilate, and typically transmits the Greek personal names elsewhere in the poem accurately, as other manuscripts often do not. For a fuller report of manuscript readings, see the editions of Pascal 1918 and Cazzaniga 1959 (who both however print μερδαλέον in 7). The edition of Büchler 1904 is inadequate. 232 405 In 8, the paradoseis of AHV and Y are best regarded as either crude errors or attempts to “correct” the word under the assumption that it was somehow a derivative of menda “blemish”. 5.2.2.2 FORMATION merdaleus blends Greek σμερδαλέος “terrible, frightful”, a word all but confined to epic poetry,407 and Latin merda “shit”. The word is not a compound nor is it likely as a derivative, since Latin has neither a base *merdal- to which the suffix -eus could be added nor a suffix *-aleus which could be added to merda; the only other words attested in Latin ending in -aleus are either Greek names408 or derivatives in -eo- from Greek words in -αλo-.409 On the other hand, the suffix -αλέος is modestly productive in Greek410 and adjectives formed therewith, as Chantraine 1939. 254 notes, “se A rare exception is Ar. Av. 553 ὡς σμερδαλέον τὸ πόλισμα (“how terrible the buildings of the town!”). 408 E.g. Aegialeus = Αἰγιαλεύς (e.g. Pac. trag. 243) 409 E.g. tantaleus “pertaining to Tantalus (e.g. Prop. 2.17.5; 4.11.24). 410 Cf. Buck–Petersen 1945. 35: “of the origin of this peculiarly Greek conglutinate it can only be said that it must have arisen in prehistoric times by the addition of -εο- to -αλο-, but everything else is obscure. Its want of tangible meaning does not show any semantic connection with -εο- [ed. which typically forms adjectives of material: e.g. χρύσεος “golden” < χρυσός “gold”], and there is in existence no possible early pattern in the case of which -αλέος is found beside -αλος. The suffix was fully developed in Homer, but it spread out more and more in later poets, the total number of words formed by it being about 112. It was totally absent from the Attic vernacular, but to a slight extent made its way into the κοινή through the influence of the Ionic dialect, where it originated. Most examples are found in the dactylic poets, who, of course, were under Homeric influence. In this connection it is important that all words in αλέος have a choriambic rhythm, which shows that on the whole they were created 233 407 répartissent un certain nombre de groups sémantiques”, including those with the sense “audacious, terrible, frightening” (e.g. δειμαλέος “frightening”; φρικαλέος “dreadful”) and those denoting possession of a physical need or defect (e.g. διψαλέος “thirsty”; κυφαλέος “blind”; λιμαλέος “hungry”; πειναλέος “hungry”). It is into the former group that Homeric σμερδαλέος falls, whereas Priapus’ unique coinage seemingly fits into both. Although the rare use of Greek suffixes on Latin bases was mentioned above, it seems certainly wrong in this case to assume that merdaleus is thus formed, since the context of the word here, where the Greek source word is in fact quoted, would seem to certify that the author has in mind the Homeric adjective and since as a blend the form and meaning of the word are clear. The phonetic overlap between the two words (smerda- and merda) is exploited to meld the two sourcewords into a blended word with a combined meaning that serves as the punch line of a joke: that the penis of one who engages in anal sex manifests a certain frightful defect. 5.2.2.3 INTERPRETATION Lewis–Short s. v. simply state that merdaleus is equivalent in meaning to merdaceus, “defiled with excrement”, evidently giving no thought to its formation, while Ernout– Meillet s. v. merda cite the word as a by-form of a merdaceus that is perhaps formed after the model of σμερδαλέος. However, merdaceus is only attested once in a intentionally to meet the exigencies of the dactylic metre.” Although, as Aristophanes’ use of it shows, such forms were also suitable in iambic trimeter. 234 medieval poem (Anth. 902.6) referencing Charles the Bald (9th century CE), for which reason merdaceus is irrelevant in a discussion of merdaleus. The TLL s. v. asserts that merdaleus is simply “(σ)μερδαλέος, “falsely connected with merda (trans.)”. The OLD, however, evidently the only one to realize that the word is in fact a joke, notes that it is formed after σμερδαλέος and is “punningly associated with” merda; this is surely the right interpretation. The Carmina Priapea is a collection of eighty Latin epigrams, dated to the early imperial period, that focus on the ithyphallic god Priapus. Priapus himself speaks many of the poems. One such poem is Priapea 68. It is, as Conte 2013. 89 remarks, “no more or less than a light-hearted parody of Homer: the Iliad and the Odyssey are reinterpreted in a carnivalesque spirit, as a continuous series of events all of which are alike conditioned by low sexual motivation. From the rape of Helen to the wrath of Achilles, from the slyness of Ulysses to the faithfulness of Penelope, it is always Priapus who celebrates his obscene triumph”. After the proem of the poem quoted above, the statue of Priapus goes on to explain how, in his understanding, all the events of the Iliad were motivated by the uncontrollable sexual urges of Helen, Agamemnon, and Achilles, while the events of the Odyssey were likewise motivated by the fact that no one else in all the world was as good in bed as either Odysseus or Penelope. Priapus thus resolves many of the interpretive cruxes of the Homeric epics. The poem—a pastiche of elevated and coarse language, wherein the Greek patronymic Atlantiades “child of Atlantis” (23) exists alongside fututor “fucker” (30)—features puns aplenty: for example, after Agamemnon takes Briseis from Achilles, ille Pelethroniam cecinit miserabile carmen / ad citharam, cithara tensior ipse 235 sua (“he sings a sad, Pelethronian song on his lyre, himself being tenser than his lyre”; 15–6), punning on two senses of tensus: “taut” and “turgid”. And Penelope tells the excited suitors (arrectos … procos; 32) that nemo meo melius nervum tendebat Ulixe (“no one used to handle the bowstring better than my Ulysses”; 33), punning on two senses of nervum: “bowstring” and “penis”. While this Priapic poem cleverly parodies the Homeric epics, it also parodies the philological activities of ancient grammarians and lexicographers, who set for themselves in part the task of cataloguing, glossing, etymologizing, and otherwise explaining Homeric vocabulary, and therefore belongs to the wider category of epigrams against grammarians. Accordingly, each of the four Greek words and phrases explained here by Priapus is also glossed, etymologized, and otherwise explained in ancient grammatical, lexicographic, and/or scholarly sources. The first three Greek words and phrases explained in Priapus’ short philological excursus, however, also happen to bear a chance resemblance to obscene words in Latin, for which reason their selection here for ridicule is also part and parcel of Priapus’ sexobsessed interpretation of the Iliad and the Odyssey. In addition, the poem can perhaps be read as a microcosm of the Romans’ historic engagement with Greek language, literature, and culture: the first Homeric phrase is glossed with what is in fact a crude Greek word; the second with a crude Latin word; the third with a crude Greco-Latin hybrid. This progression encapsulates how the Romans were in the first instance inheritors of Greek; in the second instance, rivals of Greek; and in the third instance, adapters and synthesizers of Greek. Thus, the blend merdaleus—reserved for the end of his excursus to shock and amuse— 236 stands in for the happy synthesis of the Greek and the Roman: a literal intermixture of the two languages and a figurative intermixture of the two cultures, the grandeur of Greek epic and the coarseness of Roman satire. The poem is, however, also an expression of the Roman ambivalence about Greek language, literature, and culture— all simultaneously something both risible and enviable. That Priapea 68 and its Homeric parody belong to the category of satiric epigrams against grammarians can be seen in the first place in its discussion of μῶλυ, the fabulous herb that Hermes gives to Odysseus along with the following advice on how to deal with the sorceress Circe (Od. 10.293–301): ὁππότε κεν Κίρκη σ᾽ ἐλάσῃ περιμήκεϊ ῥάβδῳ, δὴ τότε σὺ ξίφος ὀξὺ ἐρυσσάμενος παρὰ μηροῦ Κίρκῃ ἐπαῖξαι, ὥς τε κτάμεναι μενεαίνων. 295 ἡ δέ σ᾽ ὑποδείσασα κελήσεται εὐνηθῆναι· ἔνθα σὺ μηκέτ᾽ ἔπειτ᾽ ἀπανήνασθαι θεοῦ εὐνήν, ὄφρα κέ τοι λύσῃ θ᾽ ἑτάρους αὐτόν τε κομίσσῃ· ἀλλὰ κέλεσθαί μιν μακάρων μέγαν ὅρκον ὀμόσσαι, μή τί τοι αὐτῷ πῆμα κακὸν βουλευσέμεν ἄλλο, 300 μή σ᾽ ἀπογυμνωθέντα κακὸν καὶ ἀνήνορα θήῃ411 before describing the herb itself (303–6): “Whenever Circe strikes you with her long wand, then indeed, drawing your sharp sword from beside your thigh, rush at Circe, as if you wanted to kill her. She will be afraid and invite you to go to bed: do not refuse the goddess’ bed then so that she will free your comrades and entertain you. But tell her to swear a great oath by the blessed gods, that she will not plot anything else bad against you, so that she will not make you weak and unmanly after she has stripped you” 237 411 ῥίζῃ μὲν μέλαν ἔσκε, γάλακτι δὲ εἴκελον ἄνθος· μῶλυ δέ μιν καλέουσι θεοί· χαλεπὸν δέ τ᾽ ὀρύσσειν ἀνδράσι γε θνητοῖσι, θεοὶ δέ τε πάντα δύνανται412 Authors both ancient and modern have attempted to identify the herb.413 Particularly noteworthy among such attempts, however, are two Stoic philosophers’ allegorical identification of μῶλυ as “reason” at Apollon. p. 114.23–6 μῶλυ φυτὸν ἀλεξιφάρμακον. οἱ μὲν γὰρ γλωσσογράφοι τὸ ἄκεσμα καὶ οἷον τὸ ἕλκυσμα τῶν φαρμάκων· Κλεάνθης (fr. 526) δὲ ὁ φιλόσοφος ἀλληγορικῶς φησὶ δηλοῦσθαι τὸν λόγον, δι’ οὗ μωλύονται αἱ ὁρμαὶ καὶ τὰ πάθη (“môly is a pharmaceutical plant. However, some glossographers say that it is a remedy and drawn from drugs, whereas the philosopher Cleanthes (fr. 526) says that it allegorically denotes logos (‘speech; reason’), which alleviates appetitions and sufferings”); and at Heraclit. All. 73.10 τὴν δὲ φρόνησιν οὐκ ἀπιθάνως μῶλυ, μόνους <εἰς> ἀνθρώπους ἢ μόλις εἰς ὀλίγους ἐρχομένην (“Homer plausibly calls wisdom môly because it comes to humans alone or because it comes to few with difficulty”), which additionally offers a fanciful etymology of the word. That is, according to Cleanthes and Heraclitus, μῶλυ is shorthand for the well-reasoned forethought that Odysseus, often exalted elsewhere as a kind of Stoic sapiens,414 takes before his encounter with Circe. Priapus, however, takes μῶλυ to be Odysseus’ penis, seizing generally on Odysseus’ sexual conduct throughout the Odyssey and on the sexual content of “At the root it was black, but its flower was like milk. Moly the gods call it, and it is hard for mortal men to dig; but the gods are capable of everything” 413 See Stannard 1962 for a summary of identifications. 414 Montiglio 2011. 66–94 238 412 Hermes’ advice to Odysseus regarding Circe—in short, threaten her with your sword and sleep with her—and specifically on the description of the magical, salvific plant as black at the base and with a white efflorescence. Such a description readily lends itself to innuendo. Moreover, μέλαν (“black”) is used elsewhere of pubic hair (e.g. Ar. V. 1374), while ἄνθος (“flower”) is used elsewhere in an extended sense of frothy, white discharges, both bodily and otherwise,415 even if it is not however used elsewhere of semen. μῶλυ is therefore neither a magical herb nor hard-won Stoic reason that alleviates sufferings but a penis, and it is not to hard-won Stoic reason that men turn in their suffering but to sex. As to Priapus’ philological excursus proper, the adjective ψολὀεις—attested in Archaic epic and lyric only of Zeus’ thunderbolt and picked up later as a term needing explanation by Aristotle,416 but in Hellenistic epic used of Mount Aetna, smoke, and twice, in an extended sense, of snakes417—is said to have three senses at Σ Nic. Th. 288c ἔστι γὰρ ψολόεν τὸ μέλαν, τὸ σποδοειδές, τὸ λαμπρόν (“It is either melan (‘black’), spodoeides (‘ash-colored’), or lampron (‘bright’)”). Since the scholia on Nicander often cite by name the grammarians Theon, Antigonus, and Demetrius Chlorus (all 1st century BCE),418 it is at least possible that this note also goes back to some 1st-century BCE commentator. At any rate, what this scholion suggests is that there was uncertainty about what precisely the adjective meant. Hence, Apollonius Cf. LSJ s. v. A.2, where note also Alcm. PMG 26.3 ἐπὶ κύματος ἄνθος (“upon the flower of the waves”), evidently the first attestation of the word in this sense. 416 Mete. 371a17–21; Mu. 395a25–8 417 Respectively, Euph. frr. 51.11; 139; Nic. Th. 129, 288. 418 Gow–Scholfield 1953. 16 n. 2 239 415 resorted to explaining the word by fancifully etymologizing it at p. 169.21–4 ψολόεντα κεραυνόν· ἤτοι τὸν τεφρώδη, ψόλος γὰρ ἡ αἰθάλη, ἢ ὡς ἔνιοι, συνθέτως πεσολόεντα, τὸν διὰ τοῦ πεσεῖν ὀλοὸν γινόμενον, τουτέστιν ὀλοθρευτικόν, τούτοις οἷς ἂν ἐμπέσῃ. ἢ τὸν κατὰ ψαῦσιν ὀλλύντα. ἢ τὸν μελαίνοντα (“psoloenta keraunon: either one that is ash-like, since psolos is soot, or according to some authorities as a compound pesoloenta, something that through falling (pesein) becomes deadly (oloon), which is to say destructive, to those on whom it falls, or something that destroys via contact (psausin ollunta), or something that blackens”).419 Although Homeric ψολόεις in fact derives from ψόλος (“soot”),420 Priapus imagines that it derives rather from ψωλή (“erection”), whence the Latinized psolem,421 seizing on Zeus’ amorous conduct throughout the Homeric epics rather Repeated at e.g. Suda κ 1379; ψ 123; EM p. 819.6–7; Zonar. ψ p. 1875.2–3. As Apollonius Dyscolus (Grammatici Graeci I.1 p. 189.11–2) had already clarified. 421 The word is attested elsewhere in Latin at CIL 4.1363; 4142, both 1st-century CE graffiti from Pompeii (neither noted by the TLL), and cf. Lucil. 304 ψωλοκοπέω “affect with Priapism”. In Greek, it is attested in antiquity in literature (Ar. Av. 560; Lys. 143, 979; SH 975.3) and inscriptions (e.g. SEG 3.596, a 5th century BCE graffito from Panticapaeum; SEG 49.1385a, an early 3rd-century CE graffito from a Roman latrine); in Byzantine literature (Spanos 165, 207, 230, 499; a 14th-century parodist); and survives as a colloquial word in Modern Greek. There are also several compounds and derivatives thereof in Greek: Hsch. κ 313 ψωλήκυσθος· οὐδενὸς ἄξιος (“psôlêkysthos: worth nothing”); π 3097 πόσθων· πόσθην τὸ ἀνδρεῖον αἰσχρὸν λέγουσι. πόσθωνας δὲ παρὰ τοῦτο τοὺς παῖδας, τινὲς δὲ τοὺς ψώλωνας, ἄλλοι μωροὺς ἢ παιδαριώδεις (“posthôn: authories say that posthên denotes the male pudenda, but that posthônes also denotes children. Some authorities say that the word denotes psôlônes, others that it denotes those who are stupid or childish”); Suda ψ 131 ψωλός· ὁ λειπόδερμος, ὀξυτόνως. καὶ ἀκρόψωλος, ὁ ἐπὶ βραχὺ τοιοῦτος. ἢ ὁ ἀσχήμων, κατὰ παρέκτασιν τοῦ μορίου (“psôlos: the penis without the foreskin. It is oxytone. And akropsôlos, such a one that is tiny. Or one that is unsightly because of the exposure of part of it”; = Phot. p. 657.13–4); Orion ψ p. 167.12-4 ψωλίς. παρὰ τὸ ἐμφυσᾶσθαι κατὰ τὴν ὄρεξιν τῶν ἀφροδισίων, καὶ φύσει φυσῶδες ἐστί. οὕτω Σωρανός (psôlis: from inflating (emphysasthai) the desire for intercourse, and by nature it is windy (physôdes). Thus Soranus”); Ael.Prom. 240 419 420 than on his role as the arbiter of justice in the world. Noteworthy here is that Zeus’ thunderbolt, even if not modified by the adjective ψολόεις, was also in Stoic thought the beneficent instrument with which Zeus directed logos in the world: Cleanthes fr. 537 10–2 ἀμφήκη πυρόεντ’ αἰειζώοντα κεραυνόν· / … / ᾧ σὺ κατευθύνεις κοινὸν λόγον (“the pointed-at-both-ends, flaming, ever-living lightning … with which you direct common reason”).422 Zeus’ ψολόεις κεραυνὀς is, according to Priapus’ understanding, neither the thunderbolt with which he struck down Odysseus’ ship after his companions had eaten the cattle of the Sun (Od. 23.329–30) nor that one which he threw down to prompt Athena to inspire reason in Odysseus that he no longer fight with the Ithacans (Od. 24.538–44), but his penis. Nor is Priapus alone in having noticed and exploited the phonetic similarity between ψολόεις and ψωλή to turn Homer into something lewd. At AP 11.328, 26.1 ὁ τὴν σπορὰν φέρων· τοῦτο καλεῖται ἡ ψωλοτύχη (“the one carrying the seed: this is called the psôlotukhê”); FMP 6.129 Ψωλιχόν, the name of a fictional river. ψωλίς, ψωλοτύχη, and Ψωλιχόν are all omitted from LSJ and Montanari. ψωλήκυσθος (omitted by Montanari) and ψώλων probably should be considered comic adespota, as the obscene sense of the former compound, as well as the fact that its constituents ψωλή and κυσθός “cunt” (Eup. fr. 247.4; Ar. Ach. 782, 789; Lys. 1158; Ra. 430; FMP 7.15; cf. adesp. com. fr. 377 κυσθοκορώνη “clitoris” (lit. “cunt’s prow”)) are mostly confined to 5th-century Attic comedy, suggest. Henderson 1991. 110 n. 15 remarks that these two words, as well as perhaps ἀκρόψωλος (also omitted by Montanari), indicate “men of great profligacy”, but this is not quite right. ψωλήκυσθος is said by Hesychius to denote a man worth nothing, the idea perhaps being that someone who is at once both the male and female genitalia cannot successfully perform the sexual functions of either. ψώλων is, as Hesychius’ note suggests, rather a hypocoristic diminutive for a male child, as also πόσθων “little dick” (Ar. Pax 1300; Men. fr. 371), σάθων (Telecl. fr. 71), and σμόρδων (Hsch. σ 1274). And ἀκρόψωλος seems rather to be a term for a circumcised penis. 422 On which see Bremer 2006/7; Asmis 2007. 241 Nicharchus (1st century CE) relates how he and two acquaintances slept with the same woman at the same time, writing (3–10): ἧς ἔλαχον μὲν ἐγὼ “πολιὴν ἅλα ναιέμεν” αὐτός·423 εἷς γὰρ ἕν, οὐ πάντες πάντα, διειλόμεθα. Ἑρμογένης δ᾿ ἔλαχε στυγερὸν “δόμον εὐρώεντα,”424 ὕστατον, εἰς ἀφανῆ χῶρον ὑπερχόμενος, ἔνθ᾿ ἀκταὶ νεκύων, καὶ “ἐρινεοὶ ἠνεμόεντες”425 δινεῦνται πνοιῇ δυσκελάδων ἀνέμων. Ζῆνα δὲ θὲς Κλεόβουλον, ὃς οὐρανὸν εἰσαναβαίνειν, τὸ ψολόεν κατέχων ἐν χερὶ πῦρ, ἔλαχεν426 The phrase τὸ ψολόεν πῦρ (lit. “his sooty flame”), nowhere else attested, while perhaps understandable on its own as mere innuendo, seemingly gains some comic weight as the shocking conclusion to the epigram, if the adjective puns on ψολός and ψωλός and suggests rather that Cleobulus ascends to heaven with τὸ ψωλόεν πῦρ Cf. Il. 15.190 ἤτοι ἐγὼν ἔλαχον πολιὴν ἅλα ναιέμεν αἰεὶ (“I myself got to inhabit the grey sea forever”). ἅλς is however also used in the sense “cunt” at Ar. Ach. 835. 424 The phrase is attested at Od. 10.512; 23.322; Hes. Op. 153. 425 Cf. Il. 22.145 ἐρινεὸν ἠνεμόεντα (“windswept fig (acc.)”), past which Hector and Achilles run away from the walls of Troy. Although words for “fig” are often used of genitalia (cf. Henderson 1991. 20), ἐρινεόν itself is not. At any rate, since the location of the figs here is not the girl’s genitals, the point is presumably that the remote, windswept figs stand in for an anatomical hinterland. 426 “I myself got her ‘hoary sea to inhabit’. For we divided it one-to-one, nobody getting everything. Hermogenes got a hateful ‘dank lodging’ last, and sneaked into an obscure spot, where the shores of the dead lie and ‘windswept figs’ swirl around in the blast of shrieking winds. Now imagine Cheobulus to be Zeus, who got to ascend to heaven, holding his glowing fire in his hand.” 242 423 (“his penile flame”)427 in hand. This pun would have been all the easier to make at a time when there was no longer a contrastive distinction between omicron and omega. Nicarchus’ epigram, which broadly parodies Poseidon’s account of how he and his two brothers, Zeus and Hades, divvied up the world among themselves (Il. 15.18993) and which repurposes words and phrases from elsewhere in the Homeric epics to produce “something of a throwback to Old Comedy”,428 does not, it has recently been argued,429 merely parody “the tripartite division of the cosmos recounted at Iliad 15.189–93” but “also exploits ancient lexicographical research … as well as scholarly discussions on Homeric interpretation” to produce a pointed critique of grammarians, especially Stoic grammarians prone to allegorical readings of Homer (Vergados 2010. 406).430 The adjective ψωλὀεις (given an entry by Montanari) is attested at ΣΘ Ar. Ra. 490 καὶ ψῶ τὸ καίω, ἐξ οὗ καὶ ψωλὸς δαλὸς ὁ κεκαυμένος καὶ ψωλόεις εἶδος κεραυνοῦ (“and psô means ‘kindle’, whence also psôlos, a kindled torch [ed. otherwise unattested], and psôloeis, a kind of lightning”). However, it is likely that ψωλὀεις has simply arisen by folk etymology with ψῶ and that this was facilitated by the loss of a contrastive distinction between omicron and omega after the 2nd century BCE (cf. Browning 1969. 33; Horrocks 2014. 167). Thus, ψωλὀεις should probably be stricken from Montanari. 428 Nisbet 2003. 88 429 Magnelli 2005; Vergados 2010 430 As another epigram obscenely parodying epic shows, however, such obscene parody of epic did not necessarily entail parody of grammarians: at AP 11.21, Strato (perhaps early 2nd century CE) conscripts the adjectives ῥοδοδάκτυλος “rosy-fingered” and ῥοδόπηχυς “rosyarmed” into a dick joke: πρῴην τὴν σαύραν Ἀγάθων ῥοδοδάκτυλον εἶχεν· / νῦν δ᾿ αὐτὴν ἤδη καὶ ῥοδόπηχυν ἔχει (“Agathon had a rosy-fingered lizard the other day. Now he already has a rosy-armed one”). Although δάκτυλος itself is used elsewhere generally of penises and πήχυς of erections (cf. Henderson 1991. 114–6), the noun σαύρα carries the innuendo here, with the adjectives used, in the first place, for comparisons of size and, in the second place, perhaps for their suggestive pigmentation (ῥόδος “rose” is used elsewhere of the female genitalia but not evidently of male genitalia; cf. Henderson 1991. 135). Although these two compound adjectives were confined to elevated poetry, the sense of each was relatively transparent and their constituents were well attested as autonomous words. Accordingly, neither invited 243 427 Of the four Homeric words explained by Priapus, the noun κουλεόν— according to Hesychius (κ 3827), the Ionic form of κολεόν, attested only in epic and Hippocrates431—evidently attracted the least scholarly attention in antiquity, presumably because it endured beyond Homer, where it typically meant precisely what it also meant in Homer: “sheath”. However, although the word does not seem to have been the subject of much scholarly discussion, Pollux, for example, nevertheless glosses the word amid a long and richly informed note on weaponry (10.144), while Hesychius twice elsewhere glosses not just the word itself but verbatim phrases from Homer (ε 1446; 6251). It is also fancifully etymologized at ΣA Il. 1.220 κουλεόν παρὰ <τὸ> κοῖλον εἶναι (“kouleon is from koilon einiai (‘be hollow’)”); Orion κ p. 83.11 κολεόν· παρὰ τὸ κεκοιλάνθαι, ἤτοι κοιλανθῆναι (“koleon: from the verb kekoilanthai (‘have been emptied’) or koilanthênai (‘be emptied’)”); and Epim. Il. 1.194a κουλεοῖο· εἴρηται κουλεός παρὰ τὸ κῆλα, τουτέστι τὰ βέλη (“kouleoio (gen.): kouleos is derived from kêla (‘arrows’), i.e. projectile weapons”). In addition, the word also made the rounds in lines of Homer adduced in discussions of reasonable behavior: Heraclitus much scholarly interest in antiquity, with Apollonius (p. 139.8–9), for example, explaining the former succinctly: ῥοδοδάκτυλος· ἡ ῥοδόχρους, ἀπὸ μέρους καλή. εἴρηται δὲ διὰ τὰς κατὰ τὴν ἀνατολὴν φαινομένας ἀκτῖνας ἡλίου (“rhododaktylos: she who has rosy skin, is beautiful in part. It is said from the rays of the sun appearing at sunrise”). However, note the defense against overly literal interpretations of poetic phraseology at Ath. 13.604b, where Sophocles taunts the Eritrean guest, who had criticized Phrynichus’ λάμπει δ᾿ ἐπὶ πορφυρέαις παρῇσι φῶς ἔρωτος (“the light of love glows on his rosy cheeks (porphyreais parêisi)”; TrGF 3 F 13) on the ground that porphyreais parêisi ought to mean literally “cheeks painted purple”, with the following: οὐδὲ ὁ φὰς “ῥοδοδάκτυλον”· εἰ γάρ τις εἰς ῥόδεον χρῶμα βάψειε τοὺς δακτύλους, πορφυροβάφου χεῖρας καὶ οὐ γυναικὸς καλῆς ποιήσειεν <ἄν> (“Nor would the poet saying ‘rhododaktylos’ please you, since if someone dipped the goddess’ fingers into dye, he would make the hands of a dyer rather than of a pretty woman”). 431 At Il. 1.220; 3.272; 11.20; 19.253; Od. 11.98; Q.S. 1.146; 5.116; Hp. Cord. 3 = 9.82.9 Littré . 244 (All. 17.1) quotes Il. 1.194–7 (ἕλκετο δ’ ἐκ κολεοῖο μέγα ξίφος … , “[Achilles] drew his great sword from its sheath …”), which he argues is an allegory for the bipartite division of the soul into the rational part, which resides in the head, and the irrational part—itself consisting of two parts: the spirit (ὁ θυμὸς) and the urges of desires (αἱ τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν ὀρέξεις)—that resides lower in the body. Likewise, Plutarch (Mor. 26d) approves of Achilles’ conduct at Il. 1.220–1 (ἂψ δ’ ἐς κουλεὸν ὦσε μέγα ξίφος, οὐδ’ ἀπίθησε / μύθῳ Ἀθηναίης, “He thrust his great sword into his sheath, nor did he disobey the command of Athena”), saying that he behaves rightly and honorably, because even though he is still angry, he nevertheless subordinates his spirit to reason (τὸν θυμὸν … κατέσχεν εὐπειθῆ τῷ λογισμῷ γενόμενον) and thus refrains from doing anything ill-advised like attacking Agamemnon. While the word is attested in an obscene sense in the 5th/6th-century CE epistolographer Aristaenetus (2.6), and it survives in Modern Greek as a neutral term for “vagina”, although Greek comic authors had seemingly already recognized the comic potential of the metaphor readily suggested by swords and sheaths and used it as the base of several (possibly) obscene nonce formations,432 it is unclear whether Priapus knew the obscene sense of κουλεόν and was therefore rather learnedly glossing the word with its suitably obscene Latin synonym or whether he was simply taking advantage of the obvious resemblance between Greek κουλεόν and Latin culus. At any rate, it is therefore not, according to Priapus’ understanding, a sheath from which Achilles draws his sword in anger, when Agamemnon announces that he will adesp. com. fr. 370 κολεάζοντες, κολεάζειν, κολεασμός, Κολέαρχος (“sheathing, to sheath, a sheathing, Sheath-Lord”). 245 432 take away Briseis for himself, or a sheath into which Achilles thrusts his sword, when Athena persuades him not to attack Agamemnon, thereby demonstrating his reason and control of his emotions, but rather an orifice into which he thrusts his “sword” as a sign of reasoned restraint. And finally, the adjective σμερδαλέος—mostly confined to epic but picked up by the Stoic philosopher Cornutus433 and by Lucian434—is typically glossed as φοβερός and/or καταπληκτικός (“frightening; striking”).435 It is fancifully etymologized at Epim. σ 15: σμερδαλέος· γίνεται παρὰ τὸ σμερδνόν· τοῦτο ἐκ τοῦ μερίζω μεριδνός καὶ συγκοπῇ καὶ πλεονασμῷ τοῦ σ σμερδνός καὶ ἐξ αὐτοῦ σμερδναλέος καὶ ἀποβολῇ τοῦ ν <σμερδαλέος>· μερίζεται γὰρ ἡ ψυχὴ τῶν ὁρώντων τῷ φόβῳ, καὶ οὐκ ἐᾷ ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ μένειν (“smerdaleos: it comes from smerdnon (‘terrible’). smerdnos comes from merizô (‘allot’) and meridnos with both syncope and a pleonastic sigma; from this comes smerdnaleos and with the loss of nu <smerdaleos>, because the soul of those who see it are allotted (merizetai) with fear, and it does not let them stay in the same spot”). While this word itself does not likewise seem to have been the subject of much scholarly discussion, it was widely circulated in lines of Homer adduced for various points. For example, it is attested at Il. 20.64–5 οἰκία δὲ θνητοῖσι καὶ ἀθανάτοισι φανείη / σμερδαλέ’ εὐρώεντα, τά τε στυγέουσι θεοί περ (“the halls appear frightening and dank to both mortals and immortals, and even the gods hate them”), which is quoted by Plato (Res. 386d) as an immoral and ND 37 Icar. 33; Tim. 1 435 E.g. ΣTil Il. 2.309a; Hsch. σ 1231; Suda σ 730 246 433 434 inappropriate depiction of the Underworld; by Pseudo-Longinus as part of an immoral and inappropriate depiction of warring between the gods, which although sublime, εἰ μὴ κατ᾿ ἀλληγορίαν λαμβάνοιτο, παντάπασιν ἄθεα καὶ οὐ σῴζοντα τὸ πρέπον (“unless one interprets them allegorically, are utterly irreligious and do not preserve propriety”; 9.6); by Plutarch (Mor. 940e) as what men from the moon would think earth to be like; and by Sextus Empiricus in his speech against grammarians (291) as part of an odd argument that grammar is useless because it cannot determine truth from myth. And it is attested at Od. 6.137, quoted by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Comp. 6) in a discussion of Homeric poetics: ὅταν δ’ οἰκτρὰν ἢ φοβερὰν ἢ ἀγέρωχον ὄψιν εἰσάγῃ, τῶν τε φωνηέντων οὐ τὰ κράτιστα θήσει ἀλλὰ <τὰ δυσηχέστατα, καὶ> τῶν ψοφοειδῶν ἢ ἀφώνων τὰ δυσεκφορώτατα λήψεται καὶ καταπυκνώσει τούτοις τὰς συλλαβάς, οἷά ἐστι ταυτί (Il. 6.137; 11.36–7)· —— (“But whenever he introduces a scene that is pitiable, frightening, or august, he will not use the mightiest of the vowels, but will take <the most unpleasant-sounding and> those of the fricatives and the voiceless consonants that are the most difficult to pronounce and crowd his syllables with these, as in these lines (Il. 6.136; 11.36–7): ——“). At any rate, the word is nowhere attested in Greek in an obscene sense, although it is used to describe how Odysseus first appears to Nausicaä and her handmaidens (Od. 6.137), when he emerges from the brush on the beach, covering himself with a branch (Od. 127–9). Priapus seizes on this context to turn an eminently epic word into a dirty joke, and even remarks later in the poem that, although Odysseus conceals himself, “the daughter of Alcinous marveled that his member was barely able to be covered by a leafy branch” (25–6). In addition, Priapus takes advantage of the obvious 247 resemblance between Greek σμερδαλέος and Latin merda to further the joke, because Priapus is not just sex-obsessed, he is also fixated on anal sex. While Priapus’ own Homeric notes fit with the general tenor of his poem and his perversion of the Homeric epics, they may seem somewhat abstracted from the rest of his exegesis, since there is little to do otherwise in the poem, for example, with pedicones. Yet, with his philological excursus he endeavors to show off his own learning in this sphere and to mock the work of other scholars by glossing obscure terms and dwelling on trivial issues, and in the service of both these endeavors are his bilingual puns and especially his bilingual blend merdaleus, a playful coincidence and lexical opportunism at its best. Unlike, for example, Plautus and Varro who above had used Greek to avoid primary obscenities and unlike even Nicarchus who, although he had turned Homer into something pornographic, nevertheless also avoided primary obscenities, Priapus plunges headlong into the obscene with his blend: of the three words regularly used in Latin for “shit”, fimus and stercus are the polite terms used by respectable authors (e.g. Vergil uses fimus; Plautus and Cicero use stercus) and even official and religious inscriptions (e.g. stercus in CIL I2.401), often in the context of discussions of agriculture. merda, however, is the lowest. While it does appear neutrally as a technical term amid discussions of agriculture, its uses in Horace (S. 1.8.37) and Martial (3.17.6) point to its obscene status. Thus, Priapus concludes his proem with a shockingly obscene neologism that sets the tone for his rendition of the epics that follow. 248 Moreover, at the heart of Priapus’ quip is the acknowledgement that regardless of the gender of one’s sexual partner, intercourse of any kind can be a messy affair. There is evidence elsewhere that this was something of a going concern, sometimes discussed in frank terms: for example, Mart. 13.26 sorba sumus, molles nimium tendentia ventres: / aptius haec puero quam tibi poma dabis (“We are sorb apples, tending to your excessively loose bowels: you will better give us to your slaveboy than to yourself”). The same concern underlying this little epigram is voiced elsewhere in Latin literature and graffiti, although sometimes in franker terms: for example, CIL 10.4483 caca, ut possimus bene dormire et pedicare natis candidas ‡ceiasinos tuos … (“Take a shit, so that we can sleep well and penetrate your white buttocks …”); Mart. 9.69 cum futuis, Polycharme, soles in fine cacare. / cum pedicaris, quid, Polycharme, facis? (“When you fuck, Polycharmus, you usually take a shit afterwards. When you are fucked, Polycharmus, what do you do?”). What Polycharmus might have done, however, is suggested by Mart. 11.88 multis iam, Lupe, posse se diebus / pedicare negat Carisianus. / causam cum modo quaererent sodales, / ventrem dixit habere se solutum (“For several days now, Lupus, Carisianus says that he hasn’t been able to have sex. But when his acquaintances asked why, he said that he had an upset stomach”). The same concern is voiced at Juv. 9.43-4 an facile et pronum est agere intra viscera penem / legitimum atque illic hesternae occurrere cenae? / servus erit minus ille miser qui foderit agrum / quam dominum.” (“Or is it easy and straightforward to put a worthy penis and encounter there yesterday’s dinner? The slave who ploughs a field will be less miserable than one who ploughs his master”). These quotations all together point to a “significant characteristic of Latin 249 literature from the earliest times on: a readiness to indulge in an unabashed description of the physical realities of sexual practices, including those between males” (Williams 1999. 29). Despite Priapus’ initial apology that he is a rusticus who may therefore speak indocte, in the end he is revealed to be an urbane scholar whose own poem takes part not only generally in the long-standing tradition of Homeric exegesis in epigrams436 and in the long-standing reception of literary epigrams at Rome,437 but specifically in the “humorous use of early epic” that “becomes especially prominent in epigrams of the Imperial period” (Sens 2011. 179), as well as in the humorous use of Homeric exegesis perhaps in vogue at the time. However, the central conceit of the poem— namely, that Priapus addresses us as though we are listening to him lecture—yields not a static poem inheriting older poetic practices, wherein there may however be some novelty, but rather a dynamic, metapoetic performance in which the Roman Priapus qua poet is actively and in real time adopting and adapting and parodying Greek literature and culture. As we listen to Priapus lecture on matters of Homeric interpretation, we hear him bringing down a peg the cultural, literary, and linguistic pinnacle of Greece with his frankly obscene bilingual glosses in way that only a Roman well-steeped in Greek literature could, turning it into something especially Roman, and in so doing perhaps demonstrating something of the Roman standoffishness toward Greek culture, literature, and language discussed above. All of this is encapsulated in the blend merdaleus. 436 437 Cf. Sistakou 2007. Cf. Morelli 2007; Nisbet 2007. 250 5.2.3 IMBUBINARE AND IMBULBITARE Lucil. 1186 ap. Paul. ex Fest. p. 32 M. bubinare est menstruo mulierum sanguine inquinare. Lucilius: haec imbubinat, at contra te imbulbitat <ille>. imbulbitare est puerile stercore inquinare, dictum ex fimo, quod Graeci appellant βόλβιτον imbubinat] in- L. Μüller imbulbitat] in- L. Müller ille add. Dousa bubinare is to defile with women’s menstrual blood. Lucilius: she drenches you with menstrual blood, but on the other hand <he> bemerdes you. imbulbitare is to defile with boy’s shit (stercore), called thus from manure (fimus), which the Greeks called βόλβιτον (“manure”) 5.2.3.1 TEXTUAL NOTES Although L. Müller 1872 (followed by e.g. Marx 1904, Lindsay 1913, Krenkel 1970) printed the words under consideration with in-, the forms with im- are evidently the readings of at least some manuscripts438 and accordingly have been printed before As L. Müller ad loc. notes in his apparatus: “imbubinat — imbulbitat scripti praeter L 116”. Frustratingly, other editions of Festus and Lucilius print either the forms with in- or imwithout comment. The only manuscript that I have been able to see myself (Walters 343, from 251 438 and since both in other editions of Festus and Lucilius and in lexica (e.g. Perotti 1506. 610;439 Dousa 1597. 7; Vossius 1662 s. v.; K. Müller 1839; Lachmann 1876; Lewis– Short; the OLD). I thus write the forms with im- here, which moreover make the blends with imbuere more salient (see Formation below), and tentatively take the forms with in- to be hyperarchaisms introduced by L. Müller. 5.2.3.2 FORMATION bubinare,440 imbubinare, and imbulbitare are all hapax legomena. If, as Festus claims, the simplex bubinare already means inquinare (“befoul”), what is the force of the added preverb? Arguably none, unless to effect a blend of bubinare and imbuere (“drench”) that means “drench with menstrual blood.” I take it as such, because it creates a vivid and humorous image where otherwise none exists. And if imbubinare is a blend, so too is imbulbitare, that is a blend of imbuere and βόλβιτον “manure”441 ca. 1450) reads: “inbubinat … imbulbinat. Impulbitare …”, which tilts toward the forms in imdespite its errors. 439 This is an edition of a work first printed in 1489 but completed in 1478, only a few years after the editio princeps of Paul’s epitome of Festus appeared. I have not seen the 1489 edition. 440 The etymology of the word, which is otherwise attested in a handful of glosses (collected at Loewe 1886. 313–4) either drawn direct from Festus or his source, is uncertain. However, it is plausibly a Sabellic loanword derived ultimately from *gwou- “cow” and thus related to e.g. PSl. govьnò “cow-shit” (cf. Walde–Hofmann s. v.); Placidus, another of the glossographers, also cites and glosses the related bubinarium as “blood that comes from women each month” (sanguis qui mulieribus menstruus venit). At any rate, how bubinare should come to mean “befoul with menstrual blood” is unclear, which at least raises the possibility that Festus (writing 200 or so years after Lucilius) or his source has gotten the word wrong. 441 According to Phot. β 200 = Et.Gen. AB β 176 = Phryn. Ecl. 334 and Moeris β 14, the general Greek form of the word, as opposed to specifically Attic βόλιτον (e.g. Cratin. fr. 43; Ar. Eq. 658; 252 that means “drench with manure”. The context suggests that while both imbubinare and imbulbitare could be formally analyzed as compounds, pragmatically they function here as blends that together serve as jingly witticism: that whether you (te) chose her (haec) or him (ille), you will be drenched with something unpleasant. 5.2.3.3 INTERPRETATION Lewis–Short s. v. imbubino merely quote the text of Festus, while the OLD s. v. imbubino claims that the word is a compound of bubino. And Lewis–Short s. v. imbulbito again merely quote the text of Festus, while Ernout–Meillet and the OLD (both s. v. imbulbito) each quote the text of Festus and suggest that the word is a bilingual derivative. On the other hand, Walde–Hofmann s. v. imbulbito claim that the word is “von *bulbitum, L(ehn)w(wort) aus gr. βόλβιτον “Kuhmist” (bolbiton Plin.)”, that is that the word is a derivative of a loanword, although the passage of Pliny (writing 150 or so years after Lucilius) that they cite suggests rather that the word had not been loaned into Latin.442 The text of Lucilius is fragmentary, and imbubinare and imbulbitare are cited with only a line of context in an epitome of an epitome of a lexicon. For this reason, it is difficult to guess at the precise joke behind these neologisms, although the Arist. HA 552a16). βόλβιτον is first attested in Hipponax (frr. 95.9; 138), whence perhaps Lucilius picked it up. 442 Plin. Nat. 28.232 fimi taurini maxime, sed et bubuli … quod bolbiton vocant (“especially bull’s dung, but also that of an ox … which they call bolbiton”; a discussion of remedies for dropsy). 253 formations do call attention to themselves as facetious in a way like English bemerded “bemired with merde”.443 Yet, why does Lucilius resort to coining these fanciful formations, and why especially does he resort to coining a fanciful bilingual formation instead of relying on words already extant in Latin or coining a new word entirely in Latin? Latin certainly has no lack of words for “shit” and the like: for example, caca, from which there is later a derivative concacare “defile with shit”;444 merda; fimus; and stercus, from which there is already a derivative stercorare “fertilize”.445 Nor does Greek lack verbs meaning ‘‘befoul with shit” or the like that he could have borrowed: for example, κοπρόω; μινθόω; προστιλάω. None of these, however, lend themselves to paranomasia and antithesis as do imbubinare and imbulbitare. Thus, Lucilius does not resort to coining these blends because Latin or Greek lacked words of suitable meaning for the quip, but because they lacked words of suitable meaning and sound similarity. However much Lucilius may have been party to unabashed conversations about the physical realities of sexual intercourse in his satires, this fragment is not quite one of those instances when Latin so indulges, for imbulbitat at any rate is not an unabashed word but rather innuendo.446 Lucilius avoids straying into the vulgar E.g. “… having soundly and legitimately bemerded that face in imagination …” (Anthony Burgess, Enderby Outside). Bemerded, however, might just be an Anglo-Gallic hybrid derivative, but this is a bit beside the point. 444 E.g. Sen. Apoc. 4.33; Petr. 66.7. 445 First attested at Cato Agr. 36.1. 446 pace Chahoud 2011. 380, who argues that while Roman satirists refrain from using course slang, “the surviving fragments [of Lucilius] exhibit only a handful of examples. We find three instances of possibly vulgar terms for the male and female sexual organ respectively (307 and 1067M mutto; 940M eugium) and an obscene description of intercourse polluted by 254 443 or obscene by relying on a curious nonce formation at the heart of which is a relatively neutral term for “manure”. That Lucilius sidesteps obscenity here is typical: “in Lucilius, as in the later tradition, obscene subject matter is handled by suggestive innuendo, metaphorical or metonymic association” (Chahoud 2011. 380). 5.2.4 CRUCISALUS Plaut. Bac. 358–67 sed quid futurumst, cum hoc senex resciverit, cum se excucurrisse illuc frustra sciverit nosque aurum abusos? quid mihi fiet postea? 360 credo hercle adveniens nomen mutabit mihi facietque extemplo Crucisalum me ex Chrysalo. aufugero hercle, si magis usus venerit. si ero reprehensus, macto ego illum infortunio: si illi sunt virgae ruri, at mihi tergum domist. 365 nunc ibo, erili filio hanc fabricam dabo super auro amicaque eius inventa Bacchide. 362 Crucisalum me] cruci salumme C Chrysalo] Crisalo PBCD, Questa bodily fluids (1186M).” However, without other attestations of either imbubinare or imbulbitare, it seems impossible to aver that either word is “course slang”. 255 But how’s it going to be, when the old man figures this out, when he learns that he’s hustled here for nothing and that we’ve used up the gold. What’ll happen to me then? By god, I think that when he comes he’ll change my name and immediately turn me from Chrysalus to Crossalus. By god, I’ll run away, if it’ll be more useful. If I’m caught, I’ll make some trouble for him. If he’s got a switch in the country, well, I’ve got a back at home. Now I’ll go; I’ll present this lil’ story to the master’s son about the gold and about his girlfriend Bacchides having been found. 5.2.4.1 TEXTUAL NOTES C’s cruci salumme is nonsense, but perhaps represents an attempt by a copyist to turn a difficult nonce word into something recognizable, thus pulling cruci (“cross”; dat.) out of Crucisalum me and leaving salumme (“safe me”?) at the expense of the joke. Chrysalo (printed by virtually all modern editors except Questa 2008 since the editio princeps, Merula 1472) is certainly a late restoration of Greek spelling to an ostensibly Greek personal name.447 Before ca. 145 BCE, Latin transcribed the Greek aspirated stops <φ θ χ> as <p t c> (cf. Kent. 1945. 40), and Latin regularly transcribed Greek υ with <u> or, especially in unaccented syllables, with <i> (cf. Kent 1945. 46– The name is otherwise attested only at CIL 4.10604 (a 1st-century (B)CE graffito from Herculaneum), where is has been Latinized (CRVSALI); however, the feminine Χρυσαλλίς (e.g. IG II² 5649.1) and Χρύσιλλα (e.g. IG II² 1524.213) are both attested already in the 4th century BCE. A by-form Χρύσιλλος is attested at IG XII9 916.24 (25 BCE; from Euboia). 256 447 8). Thus, either PBCD’s crisalo or perhaps crusalo is probably to be preferred. Although the manuscripts agree in spelling the name crisalo here, elsewhere they are all over the place: for example, at 182 (the first instance of the name) B2 reads chrisale; C chrysale; D1 crisale; D2 chrisale. Ritschl 1848. cccxxv thought likewise that the name would be better written with a <c> and a <u> than with <ch> and <y>, that is as Crusalo, but for a different reason, arguing that “it is permissible to seek by far the most illuminating evidence that for y Plautus wrote u from Bacch. 362, where unless you think that it was pronounced Crucisalum me ex Crusalo, the charm and wit perish (trans.).” However, this runs afoul of an issue discussed above, namely the overly-exacting demand of phonetic similarity placed on puns in Greek and Latin (cf. n. 21). However, whether the text reads Crucisalum me ex Chrysalo (thus Ritschl himself, followed for example by Lindsay 1904, who notes in the apparatus that it “ought to be pronounced Crusalo (trans.)” and de Melo 2011) or Crucisalum me ex Crisalo (thus Questa 2008), the punny wordplay is lost on no one. 5.2.4.2 FORMATION The communis opinio among lexical authorities since at least Scheller 1783 s. v. is that Crucisalus is a conventionally formed compound of crux “cross” and salere “leap”, although Scheller only implies as much when he glosses the word “leaping onto the cross, a fictitious name (trans.)”. Scheller is followed, for example, by Freund 1882 s. v. “[cross – leap] a humorous name formed like Chrysalus, as though it were Cross257 dancer (trans.)” and the OLD s. v. “[crux + salio + us] A facetious name for a slave, ‘Cross-dancer’”. Doubts about the word’s status as a compound, however, had been raised by Coulter 1916. 58, who, although she classified Crucisalus as a compound whose nominal first constituent stands in an ablatival relationship to its second verbal constituent, noted that the word is “a pun on the name Chrysalus, in which the relation of the two elements probably should not be too carefully analyzed”. That is, she found Crucisalus formally unobjectionable but semantically suspect. Barsby 1991 ad loc. noted that Plautus “has replaced the Greek root chrys- (‘gold’) by the Latin root cruc- (‘cross’), neatly implying that Chrysalus will be crucified for his misdeeds”, not outright calling the word a blend but seemingly understanding it as one. And Fontaine 2010. 5, although he calls the word a “portmanteau”,448 has nothing much otherwise to say about it. Gallutius 1621. 571 thought that the line was an example of allitteratio vero lepidissima (“really the most charming alliteration”). In Bacchides, the slave Chrysalus (“Goldie”) is tasked by his young master Mnsesilochus with getting enough gold from his father Nicobulus so that he can buy the freedom of a courtesan whom he loves. Chrysalus succeeds in doing so (and it is after a long scene in which he swindles Nicobulus out of the money that the passage However, his understanding of “the sort of verbal monstrosities that literary critics sometimes call ‘portmanteau’ coinages” (5) is shaky. For example, he includes in his brief discussion lumbifragium “dick-wreck” (Plaut. Am. 454), a blend, he claims of lumbus “groin” and either naufragium “ship-wreck” or an unattested *lembifragium “skiff-wreck”. But lumbifragium is explainable as a conventionally formed compound. In the end, it seems that by “portmanteau” he means, on the one hand, humorous and, especially, punny compounds and, on the other hand, just puns (e.g. he also cites Plaut. Cur. 30 intestabilis, normally “intestate” but here in the sense “without testes”). 258 448 containing the blend quoted above occurs), but when Mnesilochus later overhears that his best friend has allegedly slept with the courtesan, he confesses the ploy to his father, gives the gold back and begs that he not punish Chrysalus. When he then learns that what he overheard was incorrect, he asks Chrysalus to extort the same sum of money again from his father. He does so, but Nicobulus eventually finds out. Since Chrysalus’ primary task in the comedy is extorting and transporting gold, he is thus appropriately named, and naturally enough his name is punned on with the Greek word chrysos “gold” and the Latin word aurum. For example, when Nicobulus first comes on stage, Chrysalus gives himself a little pep talk (239–40): extexam ego illum pulchre iam, si di volunt. / hau dormitandum est: opus est chryso Chrysalo (“I’ll fleece him nicely now, if the gods are willing. No being sleepy: Chrysalus needs chrysos.”). Later in the play when Mnesilochus asks Chrysalus to swindle his father out of some money again, Chrysalus effectively glosses his name, saying (703– 5): ceterum quantum lubet me poscitote aurum: ego dabo. / quid mihi refert Chrysalo esse nomen, nisi factis probo? / sed nunc quantillum usust auri tibi, Mnesiloche? dic mihi (“But however much gold from me as you want, I’ll give it to you. What’s the point of me being called Chrysalus, unless I prove it through my actions? But how much gold do you need now, Mnesilochus? Tell me”). Thus both the theme of the drama and the specific textual context of this coinage makes it clear that while Crucisalus can be formally analyzed as a Latin compound, pragmatically it functions as a bilingual blend. 5.2.4.4 INTERPRETATION 259 Paronomasia and references to crucifixion come together with the name Chrysalus three times in Bacchides. The first time is in the passage containing the bilingual blend discussed above. The second is at 687, just after Mnesilochus has told Chrysalus that he confessed their plot to his father and gave back the gold: istoc dicto dedisti hodie in cruciatum Chrysalum (“with those words you’ve handed Chrysalus over to crucifixion today”).449 Near the end of the comedy, Nicobulus, when learns that he has been swindled of gold for a second time, calls out (1182–4): satis, satis iam vostrist convivi: me nil paenitet ut sim acceptus: quadringentis Philippis filius me et Chrysalus circumduxerunt. quem quidem ego ut non excruciem, alterum tantum auri non meream.450 Repeatedly, then, the name “Chrysalus” will be thematically linked to crucifixion in this play, and that theme is explicitly announced with the bilingual blend that first creates the linkage. 5.3 CONCLUSION In this chapter, I have given a brief account of the Romans’ use of Greek to situate bilingual blends within the linguistic practices of Roman literature. Greek in some Here Fontaine 2010. 41 n. 7 assumes Chrysalus “temporarily adopts a ‘Pseudo-Umbrian’ accent for the sake of the pun”, pronouncing cruciatum as cruchiatum, but there is simply no need for such heavy-handedness (cf. n. 116 above). 450 “I’ve already had enough of your dinner party: I don’t care how I’ve been received. My son and Chrysalus have duped me out of four hundred bucks. I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to crucify him, not for the same amount of gold again.” 260 449 form or another is present in virtually every variety and level of Latin literature, despite Romans’ occasional resistance to that influence. Bilingual formations— whether derivatives like hamiota, compounds like ferritribax, or blends—are all but confined “low” genres” like technical literature and comedic texts, where such formations are an aspect of the stylistically marked—that is, humorous—use of Greek and the kind of bilingual games which Romans—especially Plautus, perhaps the most inventive coiner of words ever to have written in Latin, whose creation and use of bilingual formations is unparalleled in its variety and creativity—were evidently keen to play with Greek and Latin. And although in comedic texts, as we have seen, lowstatus characters speak the most bilingual formations, and so in that respect their use thereof is appropriate and contributes to their characterization, bilingual forms of all kinds, blends included, are chiefly instantiations of humor rooted in onomastics, foulmouthedness, and metatheatrics. 261 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION This dissertation set out to demonstrate that lexical blending, while not explicitly recognized as such in antiquity nor even for the most part in modern classical scholarship, is a kind of word formation that is well attested in ancient Greek and Latin. From one point of view, given what appears to be the linguistic universality of lexical blending, it would be perplexing if lexical blends could not be found in the surviving corpus of classical literature. Yet the phenomenon of lexical blending is not generally acknowledged as a kind of word formation in any of the standard historical grammars and lexica of ancient Greek or Latin. I hope to have demonstrated that the foregoing discussion of two-dozen lexical blends in Greek and Latin comedic literature proves that it should be. First, the identification and analysis of these hitherto troublesome words as lexical blends has supplemented the traditional analysis of word formation in Greek and Latin that focus on two processes—derivation and compounding, both of which were regular, systematic, and widely productive in both languages, operating on morphemic constituents such as lexical roots, stems, prefixes, and affixes—by adding a third process: blending, which was irregular and unsystematic, operating on nonmorphemic constituents and typically combining them at points of phonetic overlap rather than at morphological boundaries on an as-needs basis. Second, the identification and analysis of these hitherto troublesome words, whose formations and semantics were not well explained through derivation or compounding because they contain non-morphemic constituents, as lexical blends 262 has provided clear and economical explanations of their formations and semantics, thereby forestalling the need for such ad-hoc solutions as positing Etruscan suffixes, as in the case of madulsa, or fabricating lost dramatic festivals, as in the case of τρυγῳδία, or for emending away perceived textual issues, as in the case of mantiscinari. In some cases, on the other hand, the identification and analysis of these lexical blends as such has vindicated the intuition and conjectures of earlier scholars, as in the case of Camerarius with perenticida, Pareus with tragicomoedia, Dobree with μεσοπέρδην, and both ancient and modern scholars with βομβαυλιοί. These scholars clearly understood the joke behind each word but lacked the formal or terminological wherewithal necessary for a full explanation. In addition, the identification and analysis of lexical blends in Greek and Latin contribute more broadly to our understanding of the history and use of lexical blends generally. On the one hand, the foregoing work vindicates the assertion of Cannon 1986 that “[b]lends are a very old kind of word formation, occurring in many of the world’s languages as early as Vedic Sanskrit, Attic Greek, Latin, and Old High German” (956) by furnishing bona fide examples of lexical blends in at least two of these old languages.451 Although putative examples of blends in Greek and Latin were adduced as such as early as the early 20th century,452 these examples are often better regarded Whether there are bona fide lexical blends in Sanskrit or Old High German remains to be seen, although the vast corpus of Sanskrit texts, some of them comedic, does strike me as a possible source of lexical blends. 452 Wood 1911. 117 had cited as examples of “haplologic blends” in Greek and Latin the following: ἀμφορεύς (< ἀμφιφορεύς) “amphora”; κατάδε (< κατὰ τάδε) “after this”; ὀλέκρανον (< *ὀλενοκρανον) “point of the elbow”; medialis (< *medidialis) “middle”; lapicida (< lapidicida) “stone-cutter”. 263 451 as conventionally formed compounds and derivatives that have undergone haplology, and even Cannon himself provided only one unsatisfactory example from Latin.453 The Greek and Latin lexical blends discussed above in this dissertation are thus some of the earliest attested examples of lexical blends generally and are—perhaps more significantly and interestingly—some of the earliest attested examples of lexical blends as self-conciously facetious nonce formations both in literary and evidently demotic contexts. The identification and analysis of these lexical blends in Greek and Latin, in addition to suggesting that blends were a feature of everyday language, hint at the longevity and vitality, if not the productivity, of blends as a form of wit. Moreover, the foregoing discussion of lexical blends in Greek and Latin further vindicates in part Cannon’s claim that “the process of blending seems to occur in all languages, to be very common in them, and to occur in every stage of the individual language’s development” (725). While it would be a stretch to say that blends are very common in either Greek or Latin, it is certainly the case that they occur in Greek and Latin and perhaps also that they occur at different stages of each language’s development. Although most of the Greek blends in my corpus come from 5th- and/or 4th-century Attic comedy, and those mostly from Aristophanes, which fact I had expected, one does nonetheless come from the 3rd-century BCE philosopher Bion. On the other hand, although the majority of Latin blends in my corpus come from Plautus in the 2nd century BCE, which fact again I had expected, a handful of others are nonetheless either coined or recorded elsewhere later: by Seneca, Suetonius, and 453 See Chapter 1 above. 264 Quintilian in the 1st century CE and by “Priapus” in the 2nd century CE. Thus, lexical blends in Latin are attested across the roughly 300-year span of Latin literature to which I initially restricted my search. Third, the identification and analysis of lexical blends as such has provided solutions to several troubling textual issues. Only some of the two dozen lexical blends discussed above have been transmitted to us without textual issues (Κλωπιδαί; λακιδαίμονος; Biberius; inbulbitare; mantiscinari), whereas others have been transmitted sometimes with considerable textual issues and, in the case of Latin tragicomoedia, for example, precipitated hundreds of years of scholarly debate and emendation. In addressing the textual issues affecting many of these blends, I have noted the evident difficulty with which these blends have reached us and suggested that it is a reasonable if unprovable hypothesis that other blends in Greek and Latin may have been emended out of existence already in antiquity. This is not to enourage looking for lexical blends where there is no contextual evidence of one or to say that any time a lexical blend may be possible in a given Greek or Latin text it should be restored, but to point out that blending needs to be kept in mind as a possibility in the work of textual criticism. One of the difficulties, in addition to the usual sorts of scribal errors affecting Greek and Latin texts, is, as I have hinted at throughout and as I discuss more fully in Appendix I, that the ancient and even relatively modern grammatical, lexicographic, and otherwise scholarly traditions that have dealt with these lexical blends have not always recognized them as such. Thus, at best, such superficially anomalous forms have been noted as curious and, at worst, have been “corrected”. 265 Fourth, the identification and analysis of lexical blends as such has illuminated what is going on in several passages, especially those of Aristophanes and Plautus, in whom the attested blends often come with considerable context. I noted above in Chapter 1 that the functional side of word formation was in general understudied and that other studies of particular kinds of word formation in Greek and Latin have devoted little space to the polyvalency of blends. I have in my analysis dwelt at length on the pragmatic functions of each blend both in the immediate passage in which it occurs and in the work from which the passage is taken. Thus, for example, I have explained how Plautus with his virgindemia riffs on agricultural language in delivering a tightly constructed threat of violence or how Priapus’ merdaleus is not an opportunistic, throwaway joke about pederasty, but in fact one of several learnedly crass Homeric glosses in a poem that functions as a clever sendup of both Homer himself and Homeric scholarship and reflects the Romans’ ambivalence toward Hellenic culture; and how Aristophanes with, for example, his Ἀττικωνικοί has Hermes meld together the names of the Athenians and the Spartans as he assigns blame to both of them for ongoing war and prompts the protagonist of the comedy to stop blaming the gods and look for a solution himself. Even in the case of lexical blends such as the comic adespota Βδεῦ and λακιδαίμονος and tuburcinari in the fragments of Titinius and Turpilius, which were all transmitted by ancient lexicographic or scholarly sources without context, and in the case of λακιδαίμονος, which was transmitted with an almost certainly incorrect gloss, I have tried to consider the pragmatic function of each and ground my interpretation of each in considerations of dramatic context, however speculative. 266 In general, I have noted throughout that lexical blends in Greek and Latin— whether they are onomastic, bilingual, both, or neither—are functionally instantiations of humor rooted in onomastics, foul-mouthedness, metatheatrics, or some combination thereof and that these lexical blends are often witticisms tethered to particular dramatic contexts in meaningful ways: for example, Aristophanes’ σκαταιβάτης, with its scatological distortion of an epithet of Zeus’, reflects a world that is shitty and distorted by war and Zeus’ negligence; and Plautus’ Crucisalus reflects the referent Chrysalus’ function throughout the comedy as a getter of gold and as slave about to be tortured for his misdeeds. 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Wood, “Iteratives, Blends, and ‘Streckformen’”, Modern Philology 9: 157–94 Wood 1919: Francis A. Wood, “Greek and Latin Etymologies”, Classical Philology 14: 245–72 Wouters et al. 2014: Alfons Wouters, Pierre Swiggers, Toon van Hal, and Lambert Isebaert, “Word Formation (Derivation, Compounding)”, in EAGLL 296 APPENDIX I. ANCIENT RHETORICAL THEORY AND BLEND FORMATION In Chapter 3 s. v. Βδεῦ we saw that this word was cited in the Anon. de Com. as follows: Anon. de. Com. 8 p. 16 Koster πέμπτον (sic Janko : ἕκτον codd.) κατὰ παρῳδίαν (sic Janko : ἐξαλλαγήν codd.) ὡς τὸ ὦ βδεῦ δέσποτα (adesp. com. fr. 83) ἀντὶ τοῦ ὦ Ζεῦ Βδεῦ] ζεὺς Θ : ζεῦ (sscr. m2 βεῦ) U : δεῦ V57 : βδῆ Chis fifth (thus Janko : sixth codd.) is from parody (thus Janko : alteration codd.) as in O Lord Bdeus (adesp. com. fr. 83) instead of O Zeus Since this is one of the few blends transmitted by and singled-out as worthy of comment in an ancient scholarly source, it affords the chance to see how the ancient tradition analyzed blends. This Appendix attempts to answer that question. In the Anon. de Com. Βδεῦ is cited under the heading κατὰ ἐξαλλαγήν (“from exallagē”) amid a discussion of the manifold ways in which laughter arises from speech. Janko 1984. 32–3 (comparing Tzetzes 79, 81) moves the fragment under the heading κατὰ παρῳδίαν (“from parody”), arguing that the ordinals were misplaced after the categories κατὰ παρῳδιαν and κατὰ μετάφοραν (preserved without examples in Tzetzes) were lost from the text and diminutives and alteration, formerly subtypes of paronymy, were promoted. This is most likely correct, since the wordplay here better fits the definition of παρῳδία than it does of ἐξαλλαγή. 297 LSJ s. v. ἐξαλλαγή 2 offers “ἐξαλλαγαὶ τῶν ὀνομάτων variations in the forms of nouns, Arist. Po. 1458b2”, adding in the Supplement that ἐξαλλαγή 2 is also a “departure from common idiom, D.H. Dem. 13”,454 by which they seemingly mean “unusualness of diction” or the like.455 LSJ seems to understand the two passages— with Aristotle allegedly talking about changing the forms of nouns (in the context of what characterizes the elevated language of tragedy) and Dionysius talking about exchanging one word for another (as a form of rhetorical embellishment)—as two different senses of the term. Eventually ἐξαλλαγή could also refer more broadly still to the use of more dignified diction to elevate the entire tenor of a passage, as in the following passage from Pseudo-Herodian (Fig. 12): … ὁπόταν ὁ Αἰσχίνης λέγῃ ἐν τῷ κατὰ Τιμάρχου (69)· οὐδὲν γοῦν θαυμαστόν· ἀναβήσεται γὰρ ἀνὴρ καλός τε κἀγαθός, καὶ μισοπόνηρος καὶ πιστεύων τῷ ἑαυτοῦ βίῳ, καὶ τὸν Λεωδάμαντα ὅστις ἐστὶν ἀγνοῶν. ταῦτα γὰρ τῇ ἐξαλλαγῇ ἔχει τινὰ δείνωσιν, καὶ ἔστι δυνατώτερος ὁ λόγος τοῦ κατὰ φύσιν· ἀγοραῖος γὰρ ἂν καὶ ἀπρεπὴς ἐγίνετο ἡ λοιδορία, εἰ οὕτως ἔλεγεν· οὐδὲν οὖν θαυμαστόν· ἀναβήσεται γάρ, ὡς οἶμαι, ἄνθρωπος ἀσελγὴς τὸν βίον καὶ οὗτος αὐτὸς πόρνος καὶ παρὰ Λεωδάμαντι ἡταιρηκὼς καταφανῶς.456 ἐξαλλαγῆς δὲ ἢ σεμνολογίας ἢ δεινότητος ἢ τῶν ἄλλων τινός, ἃ τῇ Δημοσθένους δυνάμει παρακολουθεῖν πέφυκεν, ὀλίγην ἐπίδειξιν ἔχει (“There is little demonstration of exallagê or dignified language or rhetorical brilliance or of any of the other qualities associated with the art of Demosthenes”; said of Demosthenes’ political speeches). 455 The addition in the Supplement has evidently been overlooked by Montanari s. v. 456 “… whenever Aeschines says in his speech Against Timarchus (69): ‘No wonder at all, since a nobleman will come forth, a hater of wickedness and confident in his life, ignorant as to who Leodamas is.’ For this has gravitas because of the exallagê, and the speech is more powerful than it would be, were it said naturally. The invective would be fit for the marketplace and unseemly, if it were to say this: ‘thus, no wonder, since a man will come forth, as I think, lewd 298 454 None of these senses appears to have any relevance to the word βδεῦ. The term παραγραμματισμός (“putting one letter for another”) gets us closer to what is going on with the word βδεῦ. It is defined at Suda π 317 as follows: παραγραμματισμός· ὅταν γράμμα ἀντὶ γράμματος τεθῇ· οἷον ἀντὶ τοῦ μυρσίνη βυρσίνη, β ἀντὶ τοῦ μ· ὡς Ἀριστοφάνης ἀντὶ τοῦ μ τῷ β ἐχρήσατο. δέον γὰρ εἰπεῖν μυρσίνη, βυρσίνη εἴρηκε· ταῖς γὰρ μυρσίναις ἀποσοβοῦσι τὰς μυίας. ὁ δὲ ἔπαιξε διὰ τὸν βυρσοδέψην. καὶ μυρσίνῃ ἐστεφανοῦντο οἱ στρατηγοί. ἢ ὡς ὅταν λέγῃ (Eq. 79) ἐγ Κλωπιδῶν ἀντὶ τοῦ Kρωπιδῶν, λ ἀντὶ τοῦ ρ457 Another Aristophanic passage featuring the same sort of verbal humor is also cited as an example of παραγραμματισμός at ΣTz Ar. Ra. 428a: καὶ Καλλίαν γέ φασι τοῦτον τὸν Ἱπποβίνου· τὸ σχῆμα παραγραμματισμός. ὁ Καλλίας γὰρ Ἱππονίκου υἱὸς ἦν· οὗτος δὲ Ἱπποβίνου τοῦτον in life and a prostitute and obviously keeping company with Leodamas.’” Neither version here matches the text of Aeschines, at least as it has come down to us. Either Pseudo-Herodian is quoting the passage from memory and has simply misremembered it, or he is intentionally offering two different revisions of the same passage, one elevated by its unusualness of diction, the other dragged down by its banal, colloquial language. 457 “paragrammatismos: whenever a letter is substituted for another letter, e.g. byrsinê instead of myrsinê with beta instead of mu, as when Aristophanes used beta instead of mu. Although he ought to have said myrsinê, he says byrsinê: for they scare away flies with myrtle branches. Generals used to be crowned with myrtle branches. Or just as when he says (Eq. 79) among the Klôpidae instead of among the Krôpidae with lambda instead of rho.” The same two examples (βυρσίνη for μυρσίνη and Κλωπίδαι for Κρωπίδαι) are each described at ΣVEGΘ Ar. Eq. 59a (ἀλλὰ βυρσίνην ἔχων) and ΣVEΓΘMVatLh Ar. Eq. 79a (ὁ νοῦς δ’ ἐν Κλωπιδῶν) respectively as an ἐναλλαγὴ στοιχείου (substitution of a letter). On Κλωπίδαι, see Chapter 3 s. v. 299 παραγραμματίζων φησὶν ἱπποβίνου ἤτοι μεγάλως πορνεύοντος· ἵππος γὰρ ἐπὶ μεγάλου λαμβάνεται. τὸ δὲ βινεῖν συνουσιάζειν458 Although not every example of παραγραμματισμός is necessarily meant to be funny,459 it is nonetheless considered as a subtype of παρῳδία at Anon. Rhetores Graeci III p. 661.17–8: ὁ μὲν παραγραμματισμὸς καλεῖται παρῳδία, ὣς ὅταν ἀντὶ κόρακος κόλακος εἴπῃς παίζων (“paragrammatismos is called parody, just as whenever you jokingly say kolakos (‘flatterer’) instead of korakos (‘crow’)”). The latter example is a reference to the parody of Alcibiades’ speech impediment at Ar. V. 42–5.460 Moreover, the more general term παρῳδία could evidently be used in place of the more specific term παραγραμματισμός, with Ar. V. 45 offered instead as an example of the former at [Hermog.] Meth. p. 34.6–10 τὸ μὲν κατὰ παρῳδίαν οὕτως ἔχει (Ar. V. 45)· ὁλᾷς; Θέωλος τὴν κεφαλὴν κόλακος ἔχει. θέλων γὰρ εἰπεῖν ‘τὴν κεφαλὴν κόρακος ἔχει’ διὰ τὸ τραυλὸς εἶναι δῆθεν ἁμαρτὼν τῇ φωνῇ διεκωμῴδησε τὸν τρόπον (“An example of parody is this (Ar. V. 45): Do you shee? Theolus has the head of a kolakos (‘flatterer’). Although wanting to say, ‘he has the head of a korakos (‘crow’), because he has a lisp, he misspoke and satirized in this way”). Another example of what could properly be considered παραγραμματισμός cited under the 458 “And they say ‘this Callias, son of Hippobinus’: the scheme is paragrammatismos, for Callias is the son of Hipponicus (‘Horse-victorious’), but Aristophanes, changing it to the son of Hippobinus (‘Horse-fucker’), says that he is the son of a horse-fucker or someone who greatly prostitutes himself, since hippos (‘horse’) is used of a large amount, and the verb binein (‘fuck’) means synousiazein (‘have sex’).” 459 E.g. Hdn. Grammatici Graeci III.1 p. 383.10–1 ἐκαλεῖτο δὲ Θόανα καὶ κατὰ παραγραμματισμὸν Τύανα, ὡς Ἀρριανός (“And Tyana is also called Thoana with a change of letter, according to Arrian”) 460 Cf. Tzetzes Chil. 8.169; 10.319 300 more general term παρῳδία is given at Eust. p. 894.45–6 = III.361.1–4 Στρατόνικος ὁ κιθαρῳδὸς πρὸς Ἄριον τὸν ψάλτην, ὀχλοῦντά τι αὐτῷ, ἔφη τὸ ψάλλ’ ἐς κόρακας, ὅπερ ἐστὶ παρῳδία τοῦ βάλλ’ ἐς κόρακας (“The citharode Stratonicus said the following to Areius, the harp-player, who was annoying him somewhat: psall’ es korakas (‘play harp to the crows’), which is a parody of ball’ es korakas (‘throw yourself to the crows’, i.e. go to hell)”).461 However, not every instance of παρῳδία is necessarily an example of παραγραμματισμός.462 For example, Ar. Pax 528 ἀπέπτυσ’ ἐχθροῦ φωτὸς ἔχθιστον πλέκος (“I spurn an odious man’s most odious bag”), identified by ΣV as a play on E. fr. 727 ἀπέπτυσ’ ἐχθροῦ φωτὸς ἔχθιστον τέκος (“I spurn an odious man’s most odious child”), is an example of paragrammatismatic parody, since the substitution is of of letters, while Cratin. fr. 299.4 τῷ Κορινθίῳ πέει (“to the Corinthian penis”), which is said to play on E. fr. 664 τῷ Κορινθίῳ ξένῳ (“to the Corinthian stranger”) is not, since the substitution is of entire words. Although ἐς κόρακας (“to the crows”) is first and occasionally attested with a verb other than βάλλω (e.g. Archil. fr. S 478a.31; Pherecr. fr. 76.5; Ar. Nu. 123; Amips. fr. 23) or without a verb at all (e.g. Ar. Ach. 864; Hipparch.Com. fr. 1.5), Stratonicus’ witticism plays on, as Eustathius says, the variant βάλλ’ ἐς κόρακας, which is however attested only in Aristophanes (Nu. 133; V. 835; Th. 1079 (twice); Pl. 782; fr. 477.2) but taken as proverbial at e.g. ΣΕΝ Αr. Nu. 133 and Diogenian. 2.4 βάλλ’ ἐς ὕδωρ· ἐπὶ τῶν ὀλέθρου ἀξίων· οἷον καταπόντισον· τοιοῦτον καὶ τό· βάλλ’ ἐς κόρακας, βάλλ’ ἐς φθόρον· τὸ δὲ βάλλ’ ἐς μακαρίαν ἐπὶ καλῷ (“throw yourself into water: used of those who deserve ruin, i.e. katapontison (‘throw yourself into the sea’). Of a similar sort is ball’ es korakas (‘throw yourself to the crows’) and ball’ es phthonon (‘throw yourself to perdition’), but ball’ es makarian (‘throw yourself to blessedness’) is said of something good”). 462 For additional subtypes of parody, see Tsitsiridis 2010. 259–382. 301 461 From this review it emerges that lexical blends, as such, were not recognized as a category of word-formaton in the Greek grammatical tradition. Since Roman rhetorical theory is largely derived from the Greek tradition, it is unsurprising that here too blends were not perceived as such. We have already seen, for example, that Quintilian (Inst. 6.3.53) refers to two onomastic blends as the products of nominum fictio adiectis detractis mutatis litteris (“creation of names by means of adding, removing, or changing lettes”). For the ancients, evidently, a blended word might count as an instance of parody. Formally, however, it was explained as a modification of one word in order to parody another, rather than a mix of two words to form a third. 302 APPENDIX II. ADDITIONAL BLENDS The following are blends that, although mentioned above, are not discussed above because the first is reconstructed based on a comment in Seneca the Elder, whereas the second two are offered as examples of “frigid” word formation in Quintilian without context or attribution; in fact, it is at least possible that he has coined them himself as examples. ΙΙ.1 PASCHIENUS OR PATHIENUS Sen. Con. 10 pr. 11 [Pacatus] ipse ab eloquentia multum aberat; natus ad contumelias omnium ingeniis inurendas, nulli non inpressit aliquid quod effugere non posset. Ille Passieno prima eius syllaba in Graecum mutata obscenum nomen inposuit. [Pacatus] himself was far from eloquent; born to brand insults on the talents of all, he saddled everyone with something that could not be escaped. It was he who gave Passienus an obscene name by changing the first syllable of his name into Greek. Although Seneca (perhaps for decency’s sake) declines to say what punning nickname the rhetorician Pacatus gave to Passienus, is was perhaps “Paschienus” from πάσχω, 303 typically “suffer” but often used of pathic homosexuality,463 or “Pathienus” from παθ-, the aorist stem of πάσχω. If so, then this would be a bilingual, onomastic blend. This would also perhaps be a blend arising a non-literary context: although Seneca only says that Pacatus saddled everyone with insulting nicknames, he does not say whether Pacatus did so in writing or in conversation. However, he gives an example just before the passage quoted above of Pacatus reportedly being witty in conversation. II.2 PACISCULUS AND TOLLIUS Quint. Inst. 6.3.53 haec tam frigida quam est nominum fictio adiectis detractis mutatis litteris, ut Acisculum, quia esset pactus, Pacisculum, et Placidum nomine, quod is acerbus natura esset, Acidum, et Tullium cum fur esset, Tollium dictos invenio. Sed haec eadem genera commodius in rebus quam in nominibus respondent. Equally feeble is inventing names by adding, removing or changing letters: for example, Pacisculus for Acisculus because he made a pact, Acidus for Placidus because of his acidic nature, and Tollius for Tullius because he was a thief. This kind of joke works better with things than with names. 463 Cf. Henderson 1991 § 242. 304 Pacisculus is a blend of the stem of pacisci “make a pact” and the cognomen Acisculus,464 while Tollius is a blend of the nomen Tullius and the stem of the verb tollere. Neither word is a compound, and there is respectively neither a suffix -sculus that could be added to paci- nor a base pacis- to which the suffix -culus could be added, while the suffix -ius typically forms denominative adjectives.465 At any rate, the context suggests that pragmatically they function as blends. Although Quintilian broadly explains the jokes behind these blended names, he leaves unsaid who coined them and about whom.466 What is perhaps most interesting about them, however, is the fact that the three nicknames (Pacisculus, Acidus, Tollius), whether coined by Quintilian himself or culled from elsewhere, further suggest that the blends, while certainly self-consciously facetious formations, were not self-consciously blends. That is, that the same process of παραγραμματισμός here could give rise to Pacisculus (add a p to Acisculus), Tollius (swap an o for the u of Tullius), and Acidus (delete the pl of Placidus) but with different formal results, as also in the case of Biberius (discussed above). From an earlier *asciculus “little axe”. Cf. Leumann 1977. 288–90; Weiss 2010. 274–5. 466 The only Acisculi of record are seemingly Lucius Verius Acisculus, a triumvir monetalis in 45 BCE and, according to Porph. Hor. S. 1.2.95, Verius Acisculus, a plebeian tribune with whom the otherwise unknown matron Catia had a liaison in the temple of Venus in Pompey’s theater. 305 464 465