390

Eupolis

Comparison of lemma and commentary allowed Lobel to restore much of the
text of both.
Anapaests in the middle of a series of iambic trimeters come as a surprise.
Lobel took [ήμ]άς to refer to the chorus, which would help explain the shift.
Whether water was for some reason nominally being thrown around
onstage, poured down from the roof, or the like is impossible to know. But
the commentary seems to treat this remark as a proverb, which must in that
case mean something like “If you’re nominally in charge of the situation, pay
attention to what you’re doing!”
[οϋ] παύσει; For ού + second-person future indicative in a question as
equivalent to an imperative, cf. frr. 268o; 273.1-2 n.
ραίνων The verb can be used of sprinkling with anything (e.g. with
dust at II. 11.282; with praise at Pi. I. 6.21). But this can scarcely be a reference
to splashing other rowers with sea-water, sc. when the oar is handled badly,
since one does not row from the bow (πρώρα),214 and ό (έ)κ πρώρας215—
nominative for vocative (e.g. fr. 60; Ar. Ach. 155; Ra. 521; Ec. 734; Svennung
1958. 216), hence the comma at the end of the first line—ought instead to be
equivalent to ό πρωράτης (~ ό πρωρεύς), “the bow-officer”, whose job was
to keep an eye out forward (i. e. to supervise a group of individuals charged
with that duty; see Morrison 1984, esp. 55-6) and to offer advice and guid-
ance to the helmsman in the stern. Cf. Ar. Eq. 543 πρωρατεΰσαι και τούς
άνεμους διαθρήσαι (“to serve as bow-officer and keep an eye on the winds”,
the penultimate step on the ladder of dramatic/nautical responsibilities, in
order: rower, rudderman, prdreus and finally helmsman); [X.j Ath. 1.2 (in a
list of important, mostly skilled positions having to do with the fleet); X. Oec.
8.14 τον δε τού κυβερνήτου διάκονον, δς πρωρεύς τής νεώς καλείται (“the
servant of the helmsman, who is called the prdreus of the ship”); An. 5.8.20 ούχ
όράτε ότι και νεύματος μόνον ενεκα χαλεπαίνει μέν πρωρεύς τοΐς έν πρώρα,

214 Despite Wilson 1974. 251 (“The spraying is presumably the result of incompetent
use of the oar, and the people being splashed by the water are behind the inept
rower in the boat”), who ignores the implications of ό (έ)κ πρώρας. For the dis-
tinction, cf. Hsch. π 834 πα<ρ>εξειρεσίαν· τό κατά τήν πρώραν πρό τών κωπών·
ώσει λέγοι τις, πάρεξ τής είρεσίας (“pa{r)exeiresian: the area in the prow in front
of the oars; as if one were to say ‘outside the oarage’”).
215 For this use of έκ + genitive (“the one from the bow”, i. e. “the bow-man, bow-offi-
cer”), see Poultney 1936. 162, 168. έκ + genitive is occasionally used in expressions
equivalent to English “to the right” (e. g. Ar. Eq. 639), “at the end” (Ar. Nu. 539) or
“to the rear, behind” (Ar. Ec. 482). But it does not appear to be used to indicate the
direction in which something lies but where he/it is not actually located (thus here
supposedly “toward the bow”).