The part around the anus.
Aristophanes [writes]: "as for me, I exercise, and I leap up to my butt."[1] For in their exercizes they used to leap, and the feet of the person leaping would make contact with their butt. And [there is] a proverb: "to look into a dog's butt".[2] In reference to those suffering from bleary eyes, or indeed in reference to those suffering from pinkeye,[3], they used to say "look into the butt of a dog and of three foxes."
*pugh/: to\ peri\ to\n prwkto\n me/ros. *)aristofa/nhs: gumna/zomai/ ge kai\ poti\ pugh\n a(/llomai. e)n ga\r tw=| gumna/zesqai phda=n ei)w/qasi kai\ oi( po/des tou= phdw=ntos a(/ptesqai th=s pugh=s. kai\ paroimi/a: e)s kuno\s pugh\n o(ra=|n. e)pi\ tw=n lhmw/ntwn tou\s o)fqalmou/s, h)/toi o)fqalmiw/ntwn e)pe/legon, e)s kuno\s pugh\n o(ra=n kai\ triw=n a)lwpe/kwn.
[1]
Aristophanes,
Lysistrata 82 (web address 1), with material from the
scholia thereto. The quotation is spoken by the Spartan character Lampito in
Aristophanes' version of the Lakonian dialect (Henderson 1987: xlv-l; Colvin 1999). The Suda uses the standard Attic and Koine form for the words translated here as "exercise", and "butt" (
gumna/zomai and
pugh/n respectively), whereas the mss of
Aristophanes have the Lakonian forms
gumna/ddomai and
puga/n. The word used here (and in the mss of
Aristophanes) for 'toward',
poti/ is consistent with Lakonian, and inconsistent with Attic/Koine, which would use
pro/s. Unlike the other Lakonian forms, however,
poti/ would have been quite familiar from literary Doric texts (tragic choruses, for instance) and from
Homer. This may explain why it is the only non-standard form preserved.
[2]
Aristophanes,
Ecclesiazusae [
Assemblywomen] 255 (web address 2); cf.
tau 844. For more on looking into a dog's nether regions, see
pi 2950.
[3] Or perhaps, "those who cast an envious eye".
S. Colvin, 1999. Dialect in Aristophanes and the Politics of Language in Ancient Greek Literature. Oxford.
J. Henderson, ed. 1987. Aristophanes Lysistrata. Oxford.
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