Ἐσχάραι

Notes

1. Aristophanes, Knights 1286, with the gloss from the scholia there.
   The precise connotations of the headword are not self-evident: J. Henderson, The Maculate Muse (New Haven 1975) 143 #164 sees an allusion to cunnilingus but mentions an alternative: 'to derive the comparison from e)sxa/ra in its meaning of "scab" or "eschar" (as at Pl[ato] Com[icus] 184.4); this would thus be either simply a disgusting image or an actual reference to venereal disease, both not inappropriate for this description of the unspeakable Ariphrades [alpha 3940]. Whichever derivation we choose, e)sxa/ra as labia seems to have been a common term'.
   For other senses of e)sxa/ra see epsilon 3242, epsilon 3243, epsilon 3245, and cf. epsilon 3246.