Πανσελήνῳ
full moon
Translated by Alex Gottesman17 Jan 2003Vetting: high5 revisions
Translation
Aristophanes is speaking about Kleonymos: "how long [a time] did he take to close up his arse?" And the reply, "until the full moon".1 Because the Hellenes did everything with reference to the moon. At any rate when Datis and Antiphernes,2 generals of the Persians' king, had invaded Marathon, they waited for the full moon as the occasion on which to begin the war. And before the Lakedaimonians could get there, the Athenians had already engaged the enemy.3 So Aristophanes is joking, as usual.
Greek original · Adler’s text
Πανσελήνῳ· Ἀριστοφάνης φησὶ περὶ Κλεωνύμου· πόσου τὸν πρωκτὸν συνήγαγε; καί φησι, τῇ πανσελήνῳ. διότι οἱ Ἕλληνες πάντα πρὸς τὴν σελήνην ἔπραττον ἀποβλέποντες. Δάτιδος γοῦν καὶ Ἀντιφέρνους στρατηγῶν τοῦ Περσῶν βασιλέως ἐς Μαραθῶνα ἐμβεβληκότων, περιέμενον τὴν πανσέληνον ἐπὶ τῷ τότε ἐξελθεῖν ἐπὶ τὸν πόλεμον. καὶ πρὶν τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους παραγενέσθαι, κατώρθωσαν Ἀθηναῖοι τὸν πόλεμον. παίζει οὖν Ἀριστοφάνης διὰ τὸ ἔθος.
Betacode
*panselh/nw|: *)aristofa/nhs fhsi\ peri\ *klewnu/mou: po/sou to\n prwkto\n sunh/gage; kai/ fhsi, th=| panselh/nw|. dio/ti oi( *(/ellhnes pa/nta pro\s th\n selh/nhn e)/pratton a)poble/pontes. *da/tidos gou=n kai\ *)antife/rnous strathgw=n tou= *persw=n basile/ws e)s *maraqw=na e)mbeblhko/twn, perie/menon th\n panse/lhnon e)pi\ tw=| to/te e)celqei=n e)pi\ to\n po/lemon. kai\ pri\n tou\s *lakedaimoni/ous paragene/sqai, katw/rqwsan *)aqhnai=oi to\n po/lemon. pai/zei ou)=n *)aristofa/nhs dia\ to\ e)/qos.
Notes (3)
- 1Aristophanes, Acharnians 83-4 (slightly modified: web address 1), with comment from the scholia there. The arse in question does not belong to Kleonymos, but to the constipated king of Persia; cf. xi 137. Kleonymos (kappa 1736), an associate of Aristophanes' nemesis Kleon (kappa 1731), is mentioned a few lines later as the butt of a different joke. ↩
- 2The second name should be Artaphernes/Artaphrenes, the Great King's nephew (Herodotus 6.94 and elsewhere), alpha 4022. The slip is the Suda's, not the scholiast's. ↩
- 3See Herodotus 6.106 (web address 2): the Athenians had asked for help from Sparta, but the Spartans had replied that they were not allowed to travel before the full moon; cf. phi 347. ↩
External resources
- Web address 1 perseus.tufts.edu
- Web address 2 perseus.tufts.edu
Linked from1 entry
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Revision history5 revisions · last 1 May 2021
- added links — Catharine Roth
- another keyword — Catharine Roth
- expanded notes — David Whitehead
- more keywords; tweaking — David Whitehead
- modified translation; added x-refs and keyword; cosmetics — David Whitehead
- Translated — Alex Gottesman