[Meaning] out of the way; like having departed, out of town.
Apollodorus says that while
frou=dos ["remote"] is that which is out of the way or [sic]
frou=ros ["lookout"] is that which looks out or is already outside.[1]
And elsewhere: "while singing lookouts I almost became remote."[2] Meaning staying awake during the lookout. The reading is taken in two ways: "singing lookouts" and "watching lookouts",[3] and while "singing lookouts" [would be] equivalent to continuously singing lookouts, "watching lookouts" [would be] equivalent to standing guard, since they were guards of the doors of the thinkery. And "singing lookouts" meaning being wakeful. For those who kept lookout used to sing to fend off sleep and [to console] their wakefulness.
*frou=dos: pro\ o(dou=: oi(onei\ a)pelhluqw/s, e)/kdhmos. *)apollo/dwros frou=dos me\n o( pro\ o(dou= fhsin h)\ frou=ros o( proorw=n, h)\ h)/dh e)/cw w)/n. kai\ au)=qis: *froura\s a)/|dwn o)li/gou frou=dos gege/nhmai. a)nti\ tou= diagrupnw=n peri\ th\n froura/n. dixw=s de\ le/getai h( grafh/: froura\s a)/|dwn kai\ froura\s i)dw/n. kai\ to\ me\n froura\s a)/|dwn a)nti\ tou= sunexw=s a)/|dwn froura/s, to\ de\ froura\s i)dw\n a)nti\ tou= fula/ttwn: e)peidh\ fu/lakes h)=san tw=n tou= frontisthri/ou qurw=n. froura\s de\ a)/|dwn, a)nti\ tou= a)grupnw=n: oi( ga\r frourou=ntes pro\s to\ a)posobei=n to\n u(/pnon kai\ th\n a)grupni/an au)tw=n h)=|don.
The primary headword (for which see also
phi 737) is a nominative singular masculine form of the adjective.
[1] =
Photius,
Lexicon phi310 Theodoridis (which however does not have the hanging 'or', on which see below). This material also approximates, in somewhat garbled fashion, material found in other lexica where the lemma is the nominative plural masculine form of the adjective, e.g.
Etymologicum Gudianum 558.16-18,
Etymologicum Magnum 800.57 - 801.3. Adler also cites Orus in
Etymologicum Genuinum. In other lexica the gloss "already outside", here garbled into "or", is applied more comprehensibly to
frou=dos. This is a rare instance in which the etymologies offered in the Suda are probably correct:
frou=dos from
pro-o(d- [more literally 'on down the way'] and the similar-sounding word
frou=ros from
pro-o(ra- [more literally 'looking ahead']. '
Apollodorus' = FGrH 244 F278.
[2]
Aristophanes,
Clouds 721 (web address 1), with comments closely (but somewhat erroneously) approximating those found in the
scholia. The line plays on the similarity of the words
frou=dos ("remote") and
froura/s ("lookouts") -- here not the masculine noun referring to a person but a related feminine noun referring to the post or the duty of a 'lookout' (see
phi 739). Here "remote" has the connotation of lost or destroyed. The speaker Strepsiades has in the previous lines just enumerated a number of other things that are now 'remote' (i.e. lost or no longer available) to him.
[3] The variation offered here is between the participle
a)/|dwn ("singing") and the somewhat similar-looking and -sounding participle
i)dw/n ("watching"). One scholion reports the variant differently, and somewhat more plausibly, as being between the accusative
froura/s ("lookout (stations)") and nominative
frou=ros ("lookout (man)"), with the participle in either case remaining
a)/|dwn ("singing"). The translation of this variant would be "while singing as a lookout ...".
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