Hesychius, Cypriot, and Lesbian?

According to LSJ s.v. ἀπο-λούω, Hesychius glossed ἀπολουσέμεναι· κολ[λ]οβώσειν (Cypr.). That would involve a (1) Lesbian infinitive in -(ε)μεναι for (2) a thematic verb (3) in Cypriot. Therein are three surprises (see Buck, Greek Dialects, sections 154.2 and 155.2-3). Cf. the glossing of athematic σπελλάμεναι by Hesychius as στειλάμεναι. 

[The latter is otherwise only in the grammatical tradition, as in Herodian:
παρ’ Αἰολεῦσι δὲ τῶν ἀμεταβόλων γίνεται, ἀγείρω ἀγέρρω, ἐγείνατο ἐγέννατο, στειλάμεναι στελλάμεναι, εἷμα ἕμμα καὶ τοῦ σ τοσοῦτον τοσσοῦτον.]

The entry in Hesychius simply reads (as per TLG): (6466) ἀπολουσέμεν· κολοβώσειν Φ 455 v. l. Il.21.455 reads, στεῦτο δ’ ὅ γ’ ἀμφοτέρων ἀπολεψέμεν οὔατα χαλκῷ, preceded by a diple. There may well be less sense in 'to wash off ears with a sword' than in ἀπολεψέμεν 'to lop off...' or to 'peel off...'. There is no -αι after -μεν and no reference to Cypriots.

That said, Schmidt ed.min. tells me that the codex has -μεναι· κολλοβῶσιν. His entry ends '(Κύπριοι)'.

Here, though, is an example of a -σεμεν infinitive as a future, not as a sigmatic aorist (thematic aorists are different again in this regard).

Triphiodorus

The Loeb blurb comments, "and Tryphiodorus (papyri reveal the correct spelling to be “Triphiodorus”) deals with The Taking of Troy in 691 lines, beginning with the Wooden Horse and ending with the sacrifice of Polyxena.".

These papyri cannot be the one from Oxyrhynchus, P.Oxy. XLI 2946. The evidence of the documentary papyri can be assembled through Trismegistos People.

If the first member is τριφι-ο-, the Graeco-Egyptian deity Triphis is involved in a name with a geographically restricted distribution.

Lexical studies (Italian).

M.L. West wrote in Gnomon 42.7 (1970), 657-661 at 661, of Livrea's edition of Colluthus: 'I hope that Livrea will persevere with his edition of Triphiodorus ; that he will give it a more comprehensive introduction, a less constipated apparatus, and a better-balanced commentary; and that he will stop spelling the poet's name with a y.'.

LGPN knows no bearers of this name at this date of either spelling.

Why we should be grateful for Hesychius...

In addition to ἐλύμνιαι, Hesychius contains the following gloss:
λυκίσκος· ἡ μὴ ἔχουσα ἀξονίσκον τροχιλία, τρῆμα δὲ μόνον h ἢ ἄνοδος δώματος (LSJ δόματος) gn.

(Sketch to follow)

The noun in question occurs only in one manuscript of Mark the Deacon's Life of Porphyrius 98 (so Jerusalem Ms. H: others οἰκίσκος and D.A. Russell's extract, no. 100, in An Anthology of Greek Prose, pp. 279-281):

Κατελθοῦσα δὲ διά τινος λυκίσκου εἰς τὸν αὐτῆς οἶκον, ἤγαγεν τὸν ψίαθον καὶ τύλην ἀχύρων· καθαπλώσασα τὸν ψίαθον ὑπέβαλεν τὴν τύλην, καὶ προσπεσοῦσα τοῖς ποσὶ
τοῦ μακαρίου, παρεκάλει αὐτὸν γεύσασθαι τῶν μετρίων αὐτῆς βρωμάτων καὶ μὴ ἀναξιοπαθῆσαι ἐπὶ τῇ πτωχείᾳ αὐτῆς· ἦν γὰρ καὶ πρὸς ἑσπέραν.

More compounds and dialectal comparanda

ὑ-φορβός (Hom.), συ- (Od.) and thematised συ-ο- (prose); Εὔ-φορβος in Il.16.808, 850, 17.59, and 81.

ξεν- and -απάτης E.Tr.866, fr.667 but -απάτᾱς Pi.O.10.34.
ξειν- and -απάτᾱς Ibyc., but -απάτης E.Med.1392 (-ου).

ξενο-δᾰίκτᾱς Pi.Parth.Fr.13.30, but ξεινο-δαΐκτᾱς Ε.Hrcl.391.

Contrast -ᾱγόρᾱς (e.g. Cypriot Ἑλλ-, Ἐσθλ-, and Ἐσλ-) and -ά̄γορος (on a late archaic Cypriot gem Ἐσλᾱγόρο ἐμι). For the pair, see Masson-Heubeck, Kadmos 1 (1962): 151-152. In all, A.A. Thompson, 'Personal names from Ancient Cyprus with the element Ἑλλ(ο-)', Studies in Greek Linguistics 8. Thessalonica, 1987: 123-131.

Contrast Βου-κεφάλας [κεφαλή] and *-κέφαλος, seen in Latin (Gaius Plinius Secundus, Naturalis Historia 4.18.8); cf. -a and -an in 6.77.8 and 8.154.2) and, perh., in the gen.sg. Βουκεφάλου (contrast Βουκεφάλᾱ, and, perhaps, Βουκεφαλᾶ): Arethas, the Alexander Romance: Recensio γ (lib. 3) 33R line 106, Recensio Byzantina poetica (cod. Marcianus 408) 891, 3616, 6108), and headings in Recensio E (cod. Eton College 163) 18 and Recensio φ 21; (cf. 'Macedonian' κεβλή).

Hyphenation in LSJ

John Chadwick wrote in the 'Case for Replacing LSJ' (BICS 11 (1994): 2):
"One of the worst features of the 9th edition was certainly not the decision of the editors at all, but of the publisher. Every user must curse many times a day the idea of saving a little space by grouping words in long paragraphs. It would matter less that each lemma does not appear at the same point in the column, if at least it were given in full in bold type. Alas, the lemma is often reduced to three letters, two or even one letter, which not even bold type can render easily visible to the searching eye. In a lecture given in Oxford in 1948 R. W. Chapman, the Secretary to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, under whom the project was launched, had the effrontery to claim credit for this astonishing lack of perceptivity. But this passage of his lecture was wisely omitted from the published text. What other damage he may have inflicted, I do not know."

This Chapman can also be found in the app.crit. to the OCT of Plato's Laws...


The run of words ὑπάλ-ειμμα, -ει-πτος, -ειπτρον, -ειπτρίς, -είφω, -ειψις (p. 1851) frames the problem neatly. Such hyphenation follows the formation of the words (ὑπ-, ἀλειπ-) nor their syllabification (ὑ-πα-λειμ-μα, etc.).

Such printing also obscures the accentuation in the ὑπάλ-, when followed by -ειπτρίς and -είφω, gives inexplicable, unnecessary, and impossible doubling of the accent on a single word (no enclitics are involved).

If that is possible, why should ὑπαλγέω, ὑπαλεαίνω, and ὑπαλεύομαι (all hyphenless) not be grouped under ὑπαλ- also, except on the criterion of a shared root and thus meaning? Cf. the ὑο- words which share a root, but have a range of meanings depending on the second element. Better still would be to divide at ὑπ-αλγέω, -αλεαίνω, -αλειμμα, etc.

The syllabification is a puzzling facet, since no less/other than H. Stuart Jones wrote 'Appendix V: Division of Greek Words', p. 75 in Horace Hart (M.A. Printer to the University of Oxford), Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, 19th edn. (5th for publication): London and Oxford, 1905.

Based on papyri of Bacchylides, Thucydides, and Hypereides, he gives three exceptions to the rule that a syllable ends in a vowel:
(1) the consonant is doubled: Συρακούσ-σας, πολ-λῷ,  'and so' Βάκ-χος, Σαπ-φώ, Ἀτ-θίς;
(2) the first consonant is a liquid or nasal (or, according to some, a <σ>): ἄμ-φακες, ἐγ-χέσπαλον, τέρ-πον, πάν-τες, ἄλ-σος; ἄν-θρωπος, ἐρ-χθέντος, ἀν-δρῶν; but βά-κτρον, κάτο-πτρον, ἐχ-θρός; θέλ-κτρον, Λαμ-πτραί.
(3) Compounds. 'For modern printing the preference must be to divide the compounds παρ-όντος, ἐφ-ῃρημένος, but ἀπέ-βη may stand as well as ἀπ-έβη.'

A different issue surfaces in αἰνό-δακρυς, ὁ, = foreg., IG12(7).115 (Amorgos) [2nd/1st c. BCE]. Note the absence of an indication of inflection (-υος cf. πολύ-δακρυς) and a date for the inscription. The foreg(oing) is αἰνο-γόνος child of praise, which is a very different meaning. Was there ever an entry for *αἰνο-δάκρυος with which 'foreg.' would have been appropriate? Cf., e.g., πολυ-δάκρυος, but note that there '= sq.' directs the reader to πολύ-δακρυς for the meaning.

Derivation in the wild, or 'because that's the name of the place!'

Sometimes, authors explain after whom or what a place or people was named and thus illustrate derivation to form an adjective, with various suffixes, from an noun. More examples to follow... ?

Herodotus, I 7.3
Οἱ δὲ πρότερον Ἄγρωνος βασιλεύσαντες ταύτης τῆς χώρης ἦσαν ἀπόγονοι Λυδοῦ τοῦ Ἄτυος, ἀπ’ ὅτεο ὁ δῆμος Λύδιος ἐκλήθη ὁ πᾶς οὗτος, πρότερον Μηίων καλεόμενος.
 
Mark the Deacon, Life of Porphyrius, 64:
Ἦσαν δὲ ἐν τῇ πόλει ναοὶ εἰδώλων δημόσιοι ὀκτώ, τοῦ τε Ἡλίου καὶ τῆς Ἀφροδίτης καὶ τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος καὶ τῆς Κόρης καὶ τῆς Ἑκάτης καὶ τὸ λεγόμενον Ἡρωεῖον καὶ τῆς Τύχης τῆς πόλεως, ὃ ἐκάλουν Τυχαῖον, καὶ τὸ Μαρνεῖον, ὃ ἔλεγον εἶναι τοῦ Κρηταγενοῦς Διός, ὃ ἐνόμιζον εἶναι ἐνδοξότερον πάντων τῶν ἱερῶν τῶν ἁπανταχοῦ.

ibid., 91:
Ὁ δὲ μακάριος ἐποίησεν πάντας ἀναθεματίσαι τὸν Μάνην τὸν ἀρχηγὸν τῆς αὐτῶν αἱρέσεως, ἐξ οὗ καὶ Μανιχαῖοι ἐκλήθησαν, καὶ κατηχήσας αὐτοὺς δεόντως ἐπὶ πλείστας ἡμέρας προσήγαγεν τῇ ἁγίᾳ καθολικῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ.

ibid., 92:
Μετὰ δὲ πενταετῆ χρόνον ἐτελειώθη τὸ ἔργον τῆς ἁγίας ἐκκλησίας τῆς μεγάλης, ἐκλήθη δὲ Εὐδοξιανὴ ἐκ τοῦ ὀνόματος τῆς θεοφιλεστάτης Εὐδοξίας τῆς βασιλίδος.

L. Palmer on the impact of Linear B and the need for further research therein

"Its [that is, The Greek Language's] completion was put off for over twenty years by the decipherment of the Linear B script, which gave us direct knowledge of Greek some five centuries earlier than Homer. Michael Ventris's brilliant discovery provided for two decades the material for a new and highly productive academic industry. Now that there are signs that the seam has been worked out and that, in default of new and rich finds, Linear B studies have virtually reached the end of the road, the time is ripe to incorporate the results into a general work on the Greek language [that is, the 1980 volume of that title]."
The Greek Language. Faber and Faber. London and Boston, 1980: Preface, xi

Discuss.

'That's all, folks!'

One lecturer used to end each instalment of his lectures on Modern Greek with a simple ἀυτά!

There follow some comparanda with a different pronoun-adjective:
P.Oxy. I 119. 14-15 (2nd-3rd century CE):
ἂμ μὴ πέμψῃς οὐ μὴ φά|γω, οὐ μὴ πείνω· ταῦτα.
'If you do not send it, I won't eat, I won't drink! So there!

GVI 1959: (Rome: late 2nd-mid 3rd century CE) 
οὐκ ἤμην, γενόμην·| ἤμην, οὐκ εἰμί· τοσαῦτα·
'I was not; I was born; I was. I am not. That's yet lot!' (Or, 'That's all, folks!').

Mark the Deacon, Life of Porphyrius, 84 (at the end of the account of the construction of a church on the site of a recently destroyed temple):
καὶ ταῦτα μὲν περὶ τούτων.
'That's enough about that.'.

Cremation in Homer and elsewhere

The hymn 15 in Rigveda X (one of the youngest parts of the collection) refers, in verse or stanza 14 to the emerging rite of cremation: ancestors "both cremated (agnidagdhá-) and uncremated (án-agnidagdha-) sic".

Here is the verse or stanza in question from MacDonell's Vedic Reader for Students, p. 185:

agni- is the stem of agn-i-s 'fire', as in igni-s, -dagdha- is the p(ast) p(articiple) of the root dah (Vedic Grammar for Students, p. 488 and perh. p. 163 143.6, p. 181 156.α, and p. 184 160.2 [62, 69 c] with pp. 182-183 158.a.a). án- is the alpha-privative familiar from Greek (Latin in-, English un-).Cf. agní-ṣvāttá in X.15.11.


Cremation is the only post-mortem rite in Homer, for fools and kings, in contrast to Mycenaean shaft graves, tholos tombs, and (in part) the Dipylon cemetery.

Privies at Pergamon

The noun ἀφεδρών 'privy' was only known from a passage shared by the Mark and Matthew until a long inscription (OGIS 483: a crude index of 'some' 'relevant' entries in LSJ) from Pergamon was published at the start of the twentieth century.

Some dual and non-dual anchors

Pindar, Olympian 6.100-102, counsels ἀγαθαὶ δὲ πέλοντ’ ἐν χειμερίᾳ | νυκτὶ θοᾶς ἐκ ναὸς ἀπεσκίμ|φθαι δύ’ ἄγκυραι, without using the dual, unlike Demosthenes (56.44), who instructs μηδ’ ἐπὶ δυοῖν ἀγκύραιν ὁρμεῖν αὐτοὺς ἐᾶτε. Plutarch, Life of Solon 19.2, takes a different course: οἰόμενος ἐπὶ δυσὶ βουλαῖς ὥσπερ ἀγκύραις ὁρμοῦσαν (sc. πόλιν).

See an earlier post for the dual in Sappho and Alcaeus.

Lessons from short fragments of Corinna

660.1-2 PMG illustrates the digamma in Boeotian, but also both <η> for <αι> (4x) and <ω> for Attic-Ionic's secondary <ου>:
πῆδα ϝὸν θέλωσα φίλης | ἀγκάλησ’ ἑλέσθη (De-Boeotianised: παῖδα ὃν θέλουσα φίλαις ἀγκάλαις ἑλέσθαι)
'... while she was wishing to take her son with her loving arms...'.

The fragment was quoted for ὅς with a digamma.


661 PMG: τού τε νῶε (De-Boeotianised: σύ τε νῶε).
Note <ου> for Attic-Ionic <υ> and the by-form of νῶ 'we or us two, the pair of us' (cf. Lat. nō-s)

I have since found that Palmer (1980: 118) quotes 654.iii.12-21 PMG as an illustrative passage. 654.i.12-37 PMG would serve as another slightly longer extract to illustrate Corinna's Boeotian.

τανηλεγέος θανότοιο#

In defence of τανηλεγής (as < tanw-, not a reanalysis of τ᾽ ἀνηλεγής), Ο. Szemerényi, Syncope in Greek and Indo-European and the Nature of the Indo-European Accent (Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli, 1964), 159, cited τανήλοφος 'long-necked' (Hesychius) whose age is unfortunately unknown. The latter adjective is in LSJ, but is not found by the TLG and is not a lemma in any edition of Hesychius to which I have access.

UPDATE (09/08/2016): LSJ also has an entry for δανήλοφα: '= μακροτράχηλα or ὑψηλοτράχηλα, Id. (i.e. ταν-).', in which 'Id.' refers to H(e)s(y)ch(ius) in the preceding entry.

The full entry in Hesychius reads as follows:
δανήλοφα· μακροτράχηλα, ἐκτεταμένους ἔχοντα τοὺς λόφους.
ἢ ὑψηλοτράχηλα, μετεώρους ἔχοντα τοὺς λόφους. ἢ πίονας<.>

On the subject of Homer and Hesychius, note the following entry in the latter:
ναύποδα· μακρόποδα <ι 464, etc.>. Od.9.464 has τὰ μῆλα ταναύποδα and LSJ comments '(false division of ταναύποδα)'.

Note also Hesychius' entry for σπελλάμεναι· στειλάμεναι. LSJ, reasonably, indicates that the former is Aeolic (σπ-, -ελλ-, -μεναι).

Hyginus et al.

A.N. Jannaris in section 148b and note 1 of his Historical Greek Grammar lists 'ὑγίεια, ὑγία or ὑγεῖα' and cites as evidence 'in inscriptions the proper names are invariably spelt Ὑγεῖα Ὑγεῖνος (twenty-four different names; never Ὑγιει- ; cp. the Index to CIA iii p. 746). Moeris cites the first as Attic, the second as Hellenic.

We can go a stage further (without the precision possible at this point), with thanks to the LGPN, but its presentation has its limitations.

All spellings of the feminine personal name are lemmatized s.v. Ὑγίεια (60x) and all of the masculine personal name, by contrast, s.v. Ὑγῖνος (154x). Of the reported spellings of the latter, there are many -γεῖ-, some -γιεῖ-, a few -γῖ-, and many Latin spellings Hyginus. Few are Hellenistic, many are Imperial Roman, and a few are Byzantine.

Of the former, -γεία- and -γία- (often as Latin Hygia) prevail. The majority are Roman Imperial, with one each for Hellenistic and Byzantine individuals.

GVI 646.4 (Sparta, II Jh. n. Chr., but BC in IG V, 1, 726) gives a metrically guaranteed example of Ὑγίεια. Ionic in dialect, but note Ἀλεξά̄νωρ.

Very early Boeotian inscriptions

Buck, no. 38.2 (= Schwyzer 440.12 = Wachter, R., Non-Attic Greek Vase Inscriptions, Oxford 2001: n. 45 on BOI 10f + n. 74) is cited from Arch.Eph. 1900.107. The materials behind LSAG (94, no. 2, pl. 7, no. 2) seem to be all that is available online.

For ϝισϝ-, see IPArk 15 and IG V, 2, 321A21.

The LSAG materials for Buck, no. 38.1 (cited from the same periodical) are also available. Δε̄μοθέρε̄ς is described as a 'Euboic name on a bronze lebes from Thebes' at 88.23. Schwyzer notes simply: 'Δε̄μο.: ε̄ alienam originem prodit.'.

Plautus in LSJ

On the continuing thread of Greek words and meanings cited from Latin texts, all instances of 'Plaut.' in LSJ can be gathered automatically.

A dvandva compound: ~ brunch ?

Hesychius has ἀριστόδειπνον· ὅταν τὸ ἄριστον τῷ δείπνῳ συνάψωσιν.

The word is known from a fragment of Alexis (via Athenaeus) and, from Pollux VI 102, we know that it was used by Menander.  

Bleeting

Cratinus, fr. 43 (Dionysalexandros): ὁ δ’ ἠλίθιος ὥσπερ πρόβατον βῆ βῆ λέγων βαδίζει.

Aristophanes, fr. 648 KA. ~ 642 Kock (West after Dindorf): θύ<σ>ειν <με> μέλλει καὶ κελεύει βῆ λέγειν. 

Kretschmer on Greek vase inscriptions.

P. Kretschmer's work on inscriptions on vases is cited a handful of times in LSJ, as for the variant forms Ὀλυσεύς, Ὀλυσσεύς, Ὀλυτεύς, Ὀλυττεύς, Ὀλισεύς, and Ὠλυσσεύς, all s.v. Ὀδυσσεύς. A PDF of the book is available courtesy of the Digitale Sammlungen of the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Münster.

Arabic in Greek

The title amīr al-muʾminīn is found as a single noun in -ης in various forms in Byzantine texts (ἀμερμουμνῆς), including one that appears to reflect the article in the middle of the Arabic noun phrase: ἀμεραμνουνῆς.

Alchemy (or Chemistry after the removal of the article) provides an example of a Greek word (χυμ(ε)ία/χημεία, perhaps itself from Coptic) making its way into Arabic and thenceforth.