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Headword: *doqih=ni
Adler number: delta,1320
Translated headword: boil
Vetting Status: high
Translation:
He resembled "[a boil] dressed with garlic."
Greek Original:
*doqih=ni skoro/dw| h)mfiesme/nw| e)/oiken.
Notes:
The headword is the dative singular -- determined by e)/oiken -- of the noun doqih/n (LSJ at web address 1).
cf. delta 1321; Hesychius alpha3429, delta2139, omicron639.
The quotation stems from Aristophanes, Wasps 1171-72 (web address 2) and represents the answer of Bdelycleon to his father Philocleon, who has just asked "Look at my gait, and see which rich man I resemble the most in my way of walking!". One would expect some proper name, but Bdelycleon unexpectedly answers: "Whom? a boil dressed with garlic!”. The scholion Ravennas ad loc. only remarks that Bdelycleon a)proslo/gws pai/zei, "is fooling beside the point". The scholia recentiora refer the joke to the expression diasalakwni/sai of line 1169, then give an alternative interpretation of the whole comparison: "[Bdelycleon speaks in this way] to his father, for he is wearing the cloak in an ugly and slouching way, just as the garlic is not proper for the therapy of a boil". However, it is known that among the ointments used in antiquity to heal abscesses, boils and other inflammations, garlic poultices were commonly used: cf. Pliny the Elder, Natural History 20.54-55; Aristophanes, Ecclesiazusae 404ff. Thus the meaning is probably that Philocleon’s get-up is similar to the walk of someone who is hobbling with a sore foot, or that he is completely enveloped in his cloak as a boil in its poultice.
The original text reads indeed sko/rodon instead of the skoro/dw| here: an accusative of relation, commonly occurring with the participle h)mfiesme/nos in the sense of "dressed/clothed in something"; see Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae 92, Ecclesiazusae 879 , etc. (LSJ at web address 1). An easy assimilation of the ending determined by the frequency of datives in the sentence has brought about the Suda’s variant.
References:
W.G.Rutherford, Scholia Aristophanica, London, New York : Macmillan 1896-1905
Aristophanes, Wasps, edited with introduction and commentary by D.M. MacDowell, Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1971
Aristophanes, Wasps, ed. with translation and notes by A.H. Sommerstein, Warminster, Wilts, England : Aris & Phillips, 1983
W.J.W. Koster, Scholia in Aristophanem, Pars II. Fasc. I. Scholia vetera et recentiora in Aristophanis Vespas, Groningen 1978
Associated internet addresses:
Web address 1,
Web address 2
Keywords: clothing; comedy; daily life; dialects, grammar, and etymology; food; imagery; medicine; poetry
Translated by: Antonella Ippolito on 24 March 2005@14:19:33.
Vetted by:
Catharine Roth (cosmetics) on 25 March 2005@01:06:45.
Catharine Roth on 25 March 2005@01:07:32.
David Whitehead (modified headword; some expansion in notes; more keywords; cosmetics) on 25 March 2005@02:51:31.
David Whitehead (another keyword; minor cosmetics) on 16 July 2012@04:21:08.
Catharine Roth (betacode cosmeticule) on 10 September 2016@23:35:13.

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