Incertarum fabularum fragmenta (fr. 328)

19

fr. 328 K.-A. (305 K.)
τις ούξεγείρας μ’ έστίν; οιμώξει μακρά,
ότιή μ’ άνέστησ’ ώμόυπνον
2 άνέστησ’ Zonar.: άνίστης Meineke
Who is it that roused me out of sleep? You’ll really be sorry
that he got me out of bed too early!
Zonaras pp. 605.23-606.2
έγερθήναι έξ ϋπνου· άναστήναι τω σώματι. Εϋπολις·-. λέγουσι δέ καί έπεγεϊραι
καί έπεγερθήναι· ή θεράπαινα έπεγείρασά με (Lys. 1.23)
To be roused from sleep: to physically get up. Eupolis:-. They say both “to rouse
up” and “to be roused up”; “the servant-girl, after rousing me up” (Lys. 1.23)

Meter lambic trimeter

Discussion Meineke 1839 11.551; Kock 1880. 340; Kaibel ap. K.-A.; Storey
2003. 350; Telo 2007. 638

Assignment to known plays Tentatively assigned to Demoi by Edmonds,
followed by Storey 2003, who suggests that “Pyronides may have had to arouse
someone to effect his necromancy (Hermes?)”.
Citation Context Traced to Orus (A 35) by Alpers. The point of the note is
that εξεγείρω means not simply to wake someone up but to cause him or her
to get physically out of bed; see 1 n.
Interpretation The speaker—not necessarily a man, despite ώμόυπνον, since
as a compound the adjective likely has only two terminations—is angry be-
cause he/she has been woken up earlier than he/she wanted. If οιμώξει is taken
to be second-person singular middle, as regularly, the speaker is threatening
another character (Kock suggests a wife or a slave) for allowing a third party
to have him/her hauled out of bed: someone is going to pay for this mistake.
(Meineke emended this complication away by printing άνίστης for the para-
dosis άνέστησ’.) Cf. Ar. Av. 80-4 (the Hoopoe is asleep, and the slave-bird
knows his master will be upset if he is roused on account of unexpected
visitors), 203-9 (the Nightingale too must be awakened to meet Peisetairus and
Euelpides); adesp. com. fr. 1088 (a slave worries about what will happen if he