Cratinus in
Seriphians [sc. uses the phrase].[1] They also call them
morgoi, taking away the alpha, as in other cases: for they call
amauron mauron and
asphodelon sphodelon.[2]
Amorgoi poleôs olethros: Kratinos Seriphiois. kalousi de kai morgous, to a aphairountes, hôsper kai ep' allôn: mauron gar to amauron kai sphodelon ton asphodelon kalousin.
LSJ entry at web address 1; cf.
mu 1247.
[1]
Cratinus fr. 214 Kock, now 221 Kassel-Austin. On
Cratinus see generally OCD(4) s.v. (p.391), and
kappa 2344. His
Seriphians dealt with the arrival of Perseus and Danae in their chest onto the shore of the island of Seriphos;
Strabo 10.5.10 (C487) conveniently summarizes the myth as a whole. (A lost satyr play of
Aeschylus,
Dictyulci or
Net-Draggers, apparently had much the same plot.) "Squeezers" or "drainers" are explained by
Photius (
Lexicon alpha1233) and
Eustathius on the
Iliad, p. 838.54, as men who inflict outrages on the common weal.
[2] The lexicographer is clearly correct about the occurrence of
apheresis in the last two examples, but the principal case is more ambiguous:
morgo/s has no literary attestations but occurs only in commentators or scholiasts. Both
Photius,
Lexicon alpha1235 Theodoridis, and
Eustathius on the
Odyssey p. 1608, 57 agree with the Suda, perhaps drawing on some lost scholiast. For asphodel, see
alpha 4298,
alpha 4299,
sigma 1751; for
a)mauro/s see
alpha 1511,
mu 295.
R. Kassel and C. Austin, Poetae comici graeci, Berlin and New York, vol.IV
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