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Search results for beta,236 in Adler number:
Headword:
*be/mbhc
Adler number: beta,236
Translated headword: top
Vetting Status: high
Translation: [Meaning] a wooden spinner.[1]
"In the wide street the children turned their swift tops by hitting them."[2]
Aristophanes [writes]: "[I] must not differ from a top." Meaning [I] must be swift-moving and swift-turning. The top is a device, which children turn with a whip. Or a children's toy, like a wheel, which is turned by striking with a whip.[3]
Also [sc. attested is the related verb]
bembhkia=n ["to spin like a top"], [meaning] to whirl around.[4]
Also [sc. attested is the form]
bembhki/zwsin ["they may cause to spin"].
Aristophanes [writes]: "so that they may make themselves spin at leisure in front of us."[5]
[The dative plural is]
be/mbhcin.[6]
*be/mbhc: o( cu/linos stro/mbos. oi( d' a)/r' u(po\ plhgh=|si qoa\s be/mbhkas e)/xontes e)/strefon eu)rei/h| pai=des e)ni\ trio/dw|. *)aristofa/nhs: be/mbhkos ou)de\n diafe/rein dei=. a)nti\ tou= eu)ki/nhton kai\ eu)/strofon ei)=nai dei=. e)/sti de\ be/mbhc e)rgalei=on, o(\ ma/stigi stre/fousin oi( pai=des. h)\ pai/gnion tw=n pai/dwn, w(s troxo\s, o(\s ma/stigi dako/menos stre/fetai. kai\ *bembhkia=n, to\ peristre/fesqai. kai\ *bembhki/zwsin. *)aristofa/nhs: i(/n' e)f' h(suxi/as h(mw=n pro/sqen bembhki/zwsin e(autou/s. *be/mbhcin.
Notes:
The headword
be/mbhc can also be spelled
be/mbic (thus in LSJ); and likewise for the derived verbs. The word is onomatopoetic, from the humming sound of the spinning top; it can also designate a buzzing insect. A 'spinner' (
stro/mbos) is mentioned as early as
Homer, in a simile at
Iliad 14.413 (see
sigma 1211).
[1] Comparable gloss, according to Adler, in the
Ambrosian Lexicon.
[2]
Greek Anthology 7.89.9-10 (in
Diogenes Laertius 1.80), a man seeks advice from the sage
Pittacus; cf. Gow and Page (vol. I, 70-71), (vol. II, 205-207), and another excerpt from this epigram at
alpha 4305. On the attribution of the epigram, see
alpha 4305 note. The spinning tops were taken as an oracular sign; cf.
tau 522,
chi 478. On
Pittacus of
Mytilene, one of the Seven Sages, see
pi 1659.
[3]
Aristophanes,
Birds 1461 (web address 1) with explanation from a scholion on this verse.
[4]
Aristophanes,
Birds 1465; cf.
sigma 1211.
[5]
Aristophanes,
Wasps 1517 (web address 2).
[6] Presumably quoted from somewhere but attested only here.
A.S.F. Gow and D.L. Page, eds., The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams, vol. I, (Cambridge, 1965)
A.S.F. Gow and D.L. Page, eds., The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams, vol. II, (Cambridge, 1965)
Associated internet addresses:
Web address 1,
Web address 2
Keywords: botany; children; comedy; daily life; definition; dialects, grammar, and etymology; epic; imagery; poetry; religion; trade and manufacture; zoology
Translated by: Catharine Roth on 31 December 2003@12:49:26.
Vetted by:
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