[sc. A proverbial phrase] in reference to those making similar exchanges with each other. The [name] Nauson [is] onomatopoeia, just like 'skeins of good things' and 'men more leukos than Leukon'.[1]
The style [is] epistolary; just as if one were to say 'Pompaios [sc. writes] to Pompilos'; or 'Pompaios addresses Pompilos'. And the form is alliterative.[2]
*nau/swn *naukra/th: e)pi\ tw=n o(moi/ws a)podido/ntwn a)llh/lois. o)nomatopoi/hsis de\ to\ *nau/swn, w(s to/, a)gaqw=n a)gaqi/des kai\ leuko/teroi *leu/kwnos. e)pistolimai=os o( xarakth/r: w(s kai\ ei)/ tis ei)/poi *pompai=os *pompi/lw|: h)\ *pompai=os *pompi=lon prosfwnei=. kai\ e)/sti to\ sxh=ma parhxhtiko/n.
Very similar entry (to the first paragraph here) in
Appendix Proverbiorum 4.1, where the phrase itself takes the same form: two personal names, the second in the accusative, and thus an implicit verb linking them. But
Hesychius nu52 s.v. Nauson introduces complications, not only by crediting the onomatopoeia to
Cratinus (fr. 349 Kock, now 512 K.-A.) but also and especially by raising doubt as to whether a second personal name is involved. Latte's edition proffers instead (and without comment) a verbal supplement,
naukratei= ('Sea-man rules the sea').
For the name Nauson, used of a fictional person, see also
Aristophanes,
Knights 1309 (web address 1: a passage also attributed, by some, to
Eupolis).
[1] cf.
alpha 123 for the first of these; the second is otherwise unattested.
[2] From the margin of ms M.
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