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SOPHOCLES, SEDUCTION AND SHRIVELLING: ICHNEUTAI FR. 316 RADT*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2015

Oliver Thomas*
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham

Extract

Sophocles, fr. 316 comprises matching entries in Photius, Lex. p. 489 Porson and the Suda ρ166, which are thought to derive from Pausanias the Atticist's dictionary. Erbse presents the following text (ρ5):

ῥικνοῦσθαι: τὸ διέλκεσθαι καὶ παντοδαπῶς διαστρέφεσθαι κατ' εἶδος. λέγεται δὲ καὶ τὸ καμπύλον γίγνεσθαι ἀσχημόνως καὶ κατὰ συνουσίαν καὶ ὄρχησιν, κάμπτοντα τὴν ὀσφῦν. Σοφοκλῆς Ἰχνευταῖς.

Type
Shorter Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2015 

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Footnotes

*

My thanks to Lyndsay Coo and CQ's reader for advice, and to Georgios Kazantzidis for interesting me in the uses of ῥικνός.

References

1 Pausanias' entry had earlier been paraphrased by Moeris ρ2 (ῥικνοῦσθαι: τὸ ἀσχημόνως κινεῖσθαι. Ἀττικοί) and abbreviated by Hesychius ρ319. A similar sense is attributed by Pausanias (δ13) to διαρρικνοῦσθαι: τὸ τὴν ὀσφὺν φορτικῶς περιάγειν. Κρατῖνος Τροφωνίωι (= PCG fr. 234). Both Cratinus' fragment and the similar phrasing at Pollux 4.99 refer to dance. The only other non-lexicographical use of infinitive ῥικνοῦσθαι is Oppian, Hal. 5.593, of the apparent shrivelling-up of marine molluscs with the waning moon.

2 Erbse, H., Untersuchungen zu den Attizistischen Lexika (Berlin, 1950)Google Scholar, 206.

3 Similarly e.g. Pearson, A.C., The Fragments of Sophocles, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1917)Google Scholar, 269; Maltese, E.V., Sofocle: Ichneutai (Florence, 1982)Google Scholar, 65.

4 Taking Gregory of Nyssa, who uses both verbs, as a cut-off, and excluding lexicographers, TLG finds seven uses of ῥικνόομαι and only Sophocles' use of καταρρικνόομαι.

5 The relationship of Hom. Hymn Herm. and Ichn. is argued for by Koettgen, L., Quae ratio intercedat inter Indagatores fabulam Sophocleam et Hymnum in Mercurium qui fertur Homericus (Bonn, 1914)Google Scholar; Pearson (n. 3), 225–8; Delgado, J.A. Fernández, ‘La lucha entre Hermes y Apolo del Epos al teatro: el Himno a Hermes como hipotexto de los Sabuesos de Sófocles’, in Bañuls, J.V., de Martino, F. and Morenilla, C. (edd.), El teatro clásico en el marco de la cultura griega y su pervivencia en la cultura occidental (Bari, 2007), 113–56Google Scholar, at 121–55; Vergados, A., The Homeric Hymn to Hermes (Berlin, 2013), 7986.Google Scholar

6 Sophocles' only use of φυή, in the discussion of the tortoise's form at Ichn. 307, may owe something to this very line.

7 See my forthcoming Sparring partners: fraternal relations in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes’, in Canevaro, L.-G., Bassino, P. and Graziosi, B. (edd.), Conflict and Consensus in Early Greek Hexameter Poetry.Google Scholar

8 In 93–128 they imitate hunting-dogs. It could be that at 118–22, while describing the impossible prints of the cows, they try to clarify their report by enacting what they infer to have been the cows' stance. In any case, Silenus is astonished by their all-fours posture at 124.

9 See recently O'Sullivan, P. and Collard, C., Euripides' Cyclops and Major Fragments of Greek Satyric Drama (Oxford, 2013)Google Scholar; Lämmle, R., Poetik des Satyrspiels (Heidelberg, 2013), 327–50.Google Scholar