14

Eupolis

diathesis of the words”) and is otherwise almost entirely restricted to prose
(in 3rd-century comedy at Nicom. Com. fr. 1.11). It appears to be a learned
technical term of a sort typical of the late 5th century (Handley 1953, esp.
129-33; Willi 2003. 134-6): the speaker has intellectual pretensions, creating
the suspicion that his sympathies are with the new music rather than the old.
2 ώδή/ώδά (attested nowhere else in Eupolis), a contracted form of
άοιδή, is treated as a poeticism by both Aristophanes (Av. 750, 858, 1729,
1743; Th. 986; Ra. 245 (all lyric)) and the 5th-century tragic poets (e. g. S. Ai. 631
(lyric; pl.); El. 88 (anapaests; pl.); E. Med. 197 (anapaests; pl.)). This may thus
be another mark of (A.)’s intellectual (over-)refinement.
τρόπον LSJ s. v. IV treats this as a special use of the word (“in Music ... a
particular mode”). It is better categorized under the more general s. v. II (“way
manner, fashion’)·, cf. Epich. fr. 77.1 τούς ιάμβους και τον j" άριστον τρόπον
(“the iambs and the j" best tropos”)·, Metag. fr. 7 όρχοΰνται τον βαρβαρικόν
τρόπον (“they dance the barbarian tropos”)·, Ar. Ra. 1330 τον των μονωδιών ...
τρόπον (“the tropos of the monodies”).
3 έρεΐς For the future with imperatival force, Goodwin 1889 § 69.
άμφότερ(α) is to be supplied from the first half of the verse as the object
of άκούσας, and τοΐν τρόποιν is dependent on 4 δν αν δοκή μοι.
άκούσας picks up 2 ακούεiv, while τοΐν τρόποιν picks up 2 τον ... τρόπον.
For the dual (conjectural; the plural would do just as well) as typical of collo-
quial Attic, Bers 1984. 59.
4 Cf. Ar. Ra. 1468 (Dionysus prepares to choose between Aeschylus and
Euripides) αίρήσομαι... δνπερ ή ψυχή θέλει (“Γ11 pick the one my soul wants”).
βαστάζω is literally “hold, balance, weigh [in one’s hand]” (e. g. Hermipp.
fr. 47.2 δόρυ βαστάζειν; Men. Epit. 324 όπλα βαστάζειν; Od. 11.594; Pi. P.
4.296) and thus, by a natural extension of meaning, “weigh [in one’s mind],
consider” (e.g. fr. 76 προβούλευμα βαστάζουσι τής πόλεως μέγα; Ar. Th. 438
πάντα δ’ έβάστασε φρενί; [A.] PV888). Cf. Fraenkel 1950 on A. Ag. 35; Dale
1954 on E. Ale. 19; and note fr. 259.143 ]βαστασε[, which may or may not
be from the text of Eupolis. Poetic vocabulary, first attested in Attic prose in
Aristotle (e.g. Mu. 400b2; Rh. 1413b12).