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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
The phrase ληκύθιον ⋯πώλεсεν, which Aeschylus in the contest of Aristophanes' Frogs mockingly introduces into six of the prologues of his rival Euripides (twice into one of them), has recently attracted a great deal of attention. With a couple of exceptions those scholars who have discussed it during the last fifteen years agree that it contains a sexual innuendo. Where they differ is on the exact nature of its meaning. What vase shape does ληκύθιον or λήκυθοс denote and hence what part of the male genitalia is envisaged? Or is it mistaken to press for anatomical detail? May not the phrase simply suggest ‘become detumescent’? These are the questions that have been posed regarding Ar. Ran. 1200–47. In what follows I shall try to show that the context, far from demanding that we give an underlying sexual meaning as well as its surface meaning to the phrase, could almost be said positively to exclude such a meaning. In an attempt to be as brief as possible I shall not deal with all of the suggestions made by the scholars mentioned in my second footnote and rarely indicate points of agreement, disagreement or indebtedness. When I confront the arguments of these scholars they are mostly those of two of the most recent contributors to the debate, Snell and Anderson.
At first sight there is some plausibility in the suggestion that lekythion might denote a penis or a pair of testicles or both things. Several vase shapes have a suggestive appearance. If the object denoted is actually the vase we are accustomed to call the aryballos, the reference would be to an object whose name possibly derived (in part) from a word which had a genital reference. It has also been suggested that this object was once manufactured from animals' testicles.
1 How far Aristophanes (as distinct from Aeschylus) is criticising Euripides' technique and what exactly is being faulted (stylistic or metrical monotony?) are much disputed questions. See Bond, G. W., Euripides, , Hypsipyle, p. 54Google Scholar.
2 See Whitman, C. H., HSCPh 73 (1969), 109–12Google Scholar (= Aristophanes und die alte Komödie, Wege der Forschung 255 ed. Newiger, H.-J., Darmstadt, , 1975, 376–9)Google Scholar; J. G. Griffith, ib. 74 (1970), 43–4 ( = Newiger, 380–2); Hooker, J. T., RhM 113 (1970), 163 f.Google Scholar; Henderson, J., HSCPh 76 (1972), 133–43Google Scholar; Penella, R. J., Mnemosyne 4 26 (1973), 337–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar (Penella points out that the commentator T. G. Tucker had already suspected an innuendo in the scene); id.Mnemosyne 4 27 (1974), 295–7; J. Henderson, ib. 293–5; Snell, B., Hermes 107 (1979), 129–33Google Scholar; Anderson, G., JHS 101 (1981), 130–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Beck, W., JHS 102 (1982), 234CrossRefGoogle Scholar; M. Robertson, ib.; van der Valk, M., ACTVS: Studies in Honour of H. L. W. Nelson (Utrecht, 1982), 412 ffGoogle Scholar. With the exception of Henderson and van der Valk all these scholars, while differing over matters of detail, find a sexual content in ληκύθιον ⋯πώλεсεν.
3 One would like to see some sort of parallel in Greek for such an expression.
4 Compare the illustration in Anderson's article.
5 See Hommel, H., SHAW ph.-hist. k1.1978.2,30 ffGoogle Scholar. It is misleading to say (Anderson n. 5) that ‘an arybailos of sheep's testicles has been reported’. Rather one has been manufactured experimentally.
6 Recently Robin Seager has argued that ληκ⋯ν means irrumo rather than futuo (Seager, R., ‘Aristophanes, Thes. 493–6 and the comic possibilities of garlic’, Philol. 127, 1983, 139–42Google Scholar). I am not convinced and shall be arguing the case against elsewhere. On ληκ⋯ν, ληκώ see DELG.
7 Dem. 54.14. For discussion of the meaning of αὐτολήκυθοс see, in addition to the works mentioned in note two, most of which mention the word in connection with ληκύθιον ⋯πώλεсεν, Sandys, J. E. and Paley, F. A., Select Private Speeches of Demosthenes II, Excursus D, pp. 239 ff.Google Scholar, Ziebarth, E., Das griechische Vereinwesen, 123Google Scholar and Denniston, J. D. on Eur. El. 239Google Scholar.
8 A good example in English of the kind of suggestive phrase that does not bear analysis is Marie Lloyd's line about the innocent country girl coming to town by train for the very first time: ‘O! she'd never had her ticket punched before!’ (adduced by Jocelyn, H. D., AJPh 101 (1980), 428Google Scholar in support of a point similar to the one I am making here): the unwary foreigner might infer that ‘ticket’ was a slang expression for the female pudendum. Sometimes a term that on no reasonable interpretation applies to an object which could be called phallic can be employed in a suggestive manner. Barry Humphries (in the persona of Dame Edna Everage) said of the owner of the victorious America's Cup yacht ‘what a spinnaker that man Bond's got if you know him!’ (I owe this reference to my colleague J. N. Adams). Here of course the speaker could rely on the fact that most of his audience would have only a vague idea of what a spinnaker was and perhaps very little notion of what one looked like. This would not apply to the suggestive use of a word like lekythion.
9 We should follow the Venetus and give 1209 to Dionysus. αὖθιс in 1214 strongly supports this. Dionysus is still at this point in the play a supporter of Euripides (note πεπλήγμεθ' in 1214 and προλόγονс ⋯μ⋯ν in 1228).
10 Theoretically πλήττειν, like many verbs of hitting and striking (cf. Adams, J. N., The Latin Sexual Vocabulary, London, 1982, 145 ff.Google Scholar: some of the glosses on ληκ⋯ν suggest it may have started life as such a verb), might have a transferred, sexual use and we would be at liberty to assume that Dionysus was saying ‘I've been buggered by the lekythos’. There is no lexical evidence to support such an interpretation.
11 See Blaydes, van Leeuwen and Radermacher ad loc. ⋯πόδοс has sometimes been taken to mean ‘sell’, which is in theory possible (see Dover on Thuc. 6.64.6), but that is not the best way of dealing with the passage.
12 For ⋯πολλύναι used with reference to stolen property see Lys. 29.11 and the discussion of its legal use in Cohen, D., Theft in Athenian Law (Munich, 1983), 64 ffGoogle Scholar.
13 Snell draws attention to the fact that ληκύθιον ⋯πώλεсεν here replaces παρθένοιссὺν Δελɸίсι. How many people in the audience would remember this? Anderson sees a phallic reference in θύρсοιсι.
14 Snell describes Dionysus' reaction (for which see above) as ‘empöre’. I see no justification for this in the text.
15 Anderson simply ignores this expression when he suggests that πολύμετρον сτάχυν means Oineus' penis.
16 I would not deny that occasionally Aristophanes does make jokes whose elucidation appears to call for something far-fetched (cf. Dover, K. J., Greek Homosexuality, London, 1978, 125 n. 1)Google Scholar. Such cases, however, may be reflections of cultural differences between ‘us’ and Athenians of the fifth century b.c. I would not, therefore, regard ‘far-fetchedness’ as in itself a sufficient reason for rejecting a sexual interpretation of any given passage.
17 On the techniques of Aristophanes' sexual humour see Dover, K. J., Aristophanic Comedy, 38 ffGoogle Scholar. and RCCM 18 (1976) = Miscellanea di studi in memoria di Marino Barchiesi, 361, 364 f.
18 Cf. van der Valk (cited in note 2) 412.
19 See, for example, Beazley, J. D., BSA 29 (1927–1928), 187 ffGoogle Scholar.
20 See the excellent discussion in Haspels, C. H. E., Attic Black Figured Lekythoi, 127Google Scholar.
21 Dem. 24.114.
22 Compare the oft-repeated ὥсπερ κα⋯ πρ⋯ το⋯ in Ar. Eccl. 221 ff. Blaydes draws attention to the proverbial phrase τ⋯ Πέπδικοс сκέλοс which Hegemon of Thasus is supposed to have used when at a loss for words (see Brandt, P., Parodorum epicorum Graecorum et Archestrati reliquiae, Corpusculum poesis epicae Graecae ludibundae, Leipzig, 1888, i. 39.39 n. 1Google Scholar — Pamphilus, , SH 597Google Scholar also uses it). Repetition of banal expressions to the point of meaninglessness was not alien to Greek humour. Recently W. Bühler has speculatively suggested that the proverbial τ⋯ Πάρνου сκάɸιον might derive from a scene in comedy similar to our one. Parnos, the comic character, will have kept repeating that he has lost his сκάɸιον (Zenobii Athoi Proverbia vulgari ceteraque e memoria aucta, ed. Bühler, W., Göttingen, 1982, iv. 106 f.Google Scholar).
23 For example, at appropriate points in the action, Aeschylus may have produced a real lekythos from about his person. For other (sometimes extravagant) suggestions along these lines see Henderson (1972), 139 ff.
