[Meaning] I sound out.[1]
"But when[2] by the plectrum the Locrian lyre[3] sounded out...[sc. the lyre's string began to resonate with a particularly false note]."[4]
And
Aristophanes [writes]: "such things the swans were shrieking, while striking up one and the same loud noise [sc. with their wings] all at once."[5]
*kre/kw: to\ h)xw=. a)ll' o(/ka dh\ pla/ktrw| *lokri\s e)/krece xe/lus. kai\ *)aristofa/nhs: toia/de ku/knoi summigh= boh\n o(mou= kre/kontes i)/axon.
The headword verb is the paradigmatic first person singular, present indicative active. It appears in the quotations given first in the aorist indicative active, third person singular, and then as the present active participle, masculine nominative plural.
For other forms see already at
kappa 2366 and
kappa 2367.
[1] cf. the
scholia to
Aristophanes,
Birds 772, quoted below, and
epsilon 603.
[2]
o(/ka is a Doric form of
o(/te,
when, at which time; cf. LSJ s.v.
[3] A
xe/lus is literally a
tortoise. But since the shell of
testudo marginata was used to make one type of lyre, the
bowl lyre (West, p. 56), this instrument was often referred to as a
xe/lus, especially in poetry; cf. LSJ s.v., and
chi 195.
[4]
Greek Anthology 6.54.4, attributed to Paul the Silentiary (d. ca. 580 CE); OCD(4) s.v. and PLRE, s.v. Paulus (21). The epigram describes how, during a music contest, a Locrian lyre (cf.
lambda 850) player strikes a compromised string with his plectrum; but before the sound fully reaches the audience, a chirping cicada lands on the kithara (cf.
kappa 1590), concealing the faulty note. Locris (present-day Lokrida, Greece) is a region in the central part of ancient Greece; Barrington Atlas map 55 grids C4 and D3, and
lambda 667.
[5] From the chorus' song at
Aristophanes,
Birds 769-72 (web address 1).
M.L. West, Ancient Greek Music, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992
J.R. Martindale, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, vol. IIIb, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992
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