Laudator Temporis Acti

I have a few minor quibbles about the translation of Aristophanes' Acharnians by Jeffery Henderson in the Loeb Classical Library series (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998).

Henderson didn't translate ὁ βασιλέως Ὀφθαλμός at the beginning of line 94 (spoken by the herald announcing Pseudo-Artabas), so on p. 69 add:

HERALD.
The King's Eye.

801 (p. 157, second speech of First Girl on this page):

Oink. Oink.

Add another oink, to match the number of Greek pig sounds in the line (κοῒ κοῒ κοΐ).

1151 (p. 207, on Antimachus):

the composer of bad songs

Antimachus' songs may well have been bad, but the Greek as printed (τὸν μελέων ποιητήν) means simply "the composer of songs," so remove "bad."

At line 575 in Henderson's text (p. 126), the Greek should be punctuated

ὦ Λάμαχ᾽ ἥρως,

not

ὦ Λάμαχ᾽, ἥρως

Henderson punctuates correctly a few lines down, where the phrase is repeated.

There is also a misprint in the discussion of this play by Douglas M. MacDowell, Aristophanes and Athens (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 57:

Therefore dressing in rags makes Dikaiopolis look like a Euripidean hero, and a Mysian cup and other accessories make him look like Telephos specifically.

For "Mysian cup" read "Mysian cap" (line 439: τὸ πιλίδιον περὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν τὸ Μύσιον).

Examples of nominative participle with verb of perception in Acharnians (all with imperative ἴσθι, tr. Henderson):

325:

Count on being an instant goner.

ὡς τεθνήξων ἴσθι νυνί

456:

Know that you are irksome.

λυπηρὸς ἴσθ᾽ ὢν ...

490-491:

You must realize
that you are a shameless and steely man.

εὖ ἴσθι νυν
ἀναίσχυντος ὢν σιδηροῦς τ᾽ ἀνήρ

Guy L. Cooper, III (after K.W. Krüger), Attic Greek Prose Syntax, Vol. I (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998), pp. 825-826, has a long list of examples of this construction, including several from Greek drama, but not the passages just cited. See further:

• A Participial Construction in Greek
  
• Verbs of Perception With Nominative Participle: Thucydides 2.4.1

585-586 (tr. Henderson):

Now take hold of my head, so I can puke.

τῆς κεφαλῆς νύν μου λαβοῦ,
ἵν᾽ ἐξεμέσω

S. Douglas Olson, commentary on Acharnians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), ad loc. (p. 225), mentions a vase painting by the Brygos painter:

See further:

• Affection
  
• Tying One On

Line 1199 is an appreciative exclamation in praise of a feature of the female anatomy. If you memorize the Greek, perhaps you will find a suitable occasion on which to quote it:

What bubbies, how firm and quince-like!

τῶν τιτθίων, ὡς σκληρὰ καὶ κυδώνια.

Labels: typographical and other errors