488

Eupolis

fr. 309 K.-A. (294 K.)
τίς ό φώνος, ώ ραψωδέ;
τίς ό φώνος Nauck : τισοφώνος ΣνΓ : τι σοφωνος (όνή ΣΕ
What’s/Who’s the phonos, rhapsode?
Σ™1-2 Ar. Αν. 42
τόνδε τον βάδον: έν παιδιά παρεσχημάτισται... οί κωμικοί παίζειν εΐώθασι τά τοιαϋτα,
ώς Εϋπολις Χρυσω γένει·-
this walking: (The word) has been falsely derived for a joke ... The comic poets have a
tendency to make such jokes, for example Eupolis in Chrysoun genos:-
Meter lambic trimeter.
—- —1<- X—>
Discussion Meineke 1839 11.543—4; Nauck 1847. 151; Nauck 1848a. 207 n. 36;
Fritzsche ap. Toeppel 1851. 7-8; Storey 2003. 274
Citation context A note on the hapax legomenon βάδον (where βάδισις
might be expected).
Text The VE-scribes were baffled by the letters in their exemplar, which
were correctly articulated by Nauck, comparing Theognostus (cited under
Interpretation).
Interpretation The analysis offered in the scholion suggests that just as
βάδος stands in for βάδισις in Aristophanes, so φώνος ought to stand in for
φώνησις (“speaking”) in Eupolis, in which case the rhapsode is being asked
to explain (i. e. to justify) the style in which he or someone else is speaking,
or perhaps for φωνή (cf. the similarly unexpected hapax κράγος for κραυγή
at Ar. Eq. 487; thus Schmidt), in which case he is being asked to explain what
he or someone else has said. The Byzantine grammarian Theognostus, in a
discussion of disyllabic words in -ωνος (An.Ox. II p. 66.17), on the other hand,
says in passing φώνος ό μεγαλόφωνος (“phonos: someone with a loud voice”),
almost certainly in reference to this fragment, in which case the rhapsode is
being asked to identify a third party. Given that φώνος is attested nowhere
else, it is impossible to know which explanation (if any of them) is correct.
Fritzsche compared the Scythian’s πωνη for φωνή at Ar. Th. 1085-6 and took
the speaker for a barbarian with a weak control of Greek; cf. fr. 310 n.
For rhapsodes, see fr. 483 n.