[Meaning] the tail[1] of reptiles, and of any animal. [Derived] from the [verb] to skip (
skairein) and to crawl (
herpein).[2]
Aristophanes [writes]: "look, take this hare's tail."[3] [Meaning] the tail of the hare.[4] For the fur of the hare is soft and tender, so as to be used instead of a sponge,[5] so as "to wipe clean the eye crust";[6] that is, to wipe off, to sponge away.
Kerkos: hê tôn herpetôn oura, kai pantos zôiou. para to skairein kai herpein. Aristophanês: idou, dechou kerkon lagô. tên ouran tou lagôiou. esti de hapalon kai trupheron to erion tou lagôiou, hôste anti spongou chrêsasthai, hôste tas lêmas peripsein: toutesti katamassein, apospongizein.
[1] The Attic word
ke/rkos is glossed with
ou)ra/, which survived into the Modern vernacular. So also in
kappa 1403.
[2]
skai/rein is used in a number of folk etymologies by both Ancient and Byzantine authorities (
ska/ros, skardamu/ttein, skirtoi/, skalmo/s, skirtw=) -- as well as the accurate
skarqmo/s, eu)/skarqmos. The Suda cites the derivation of
skardamu/ttein in
sigma 538. This particular derivation, though, is unique to the Suda, and is stretched even by Byzantine standards.
[3]
Aristophanes,
Knights 909 ("[...] to wipe clean your eyes"); cf.
pi 1354.
[4] Again,
ke/rkos is glossed with
ou)ra/.
[5] Cited from the
scholia vetera on the passage.
[6] The Suda conflates the
scholia vetera here.
Aristophanes has "to wipe clean the eyes",
tw)fqalmidi/w, and does not mention sleep crust. The
scholia vetera introduce sleep crust in explaining the passage, continuing from their previous sentence with: "because [the fur] is soft enough to wipe clean eye crusts.
wipe clean: to wipe off, to sponge away". The Suda conflates the last word of one scholion ("wipe clean") with the word being glossed in the next scholion.
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