Incertarum fabularum fragmenta (fr. 417)

183

fr. 417 K.-A. (387 K.)
Poll. 2.233
(αί σάρκες)· άφ’ ών ονομάζεται εύσαρκος εύσαρκία, πολύσαρκος πολυσαρκία.
Αριστοφάνης (fr. 728) δ’ εϊρηκεν· {ώς ούχ έτερον} άνδρα σάρκινον, Εϋπολις δέ· σάρ-
κινη γυνή, Ηρόδοτος (4.64.2) δέ σαρκίσαι τό τού δέρματος τήν σάρκα άφελεϊν
ώς ούχ έτερον om. Poll.A, del. Dindorf
sarkes: from which come the terms eusarkos (“full-fleshed”) and eusarkia (“fullness of
flesh”), polysarkos (“rich in flesh”) and polysarkia (“richness of flesh”). Aristophanes (fr.
728) says “a sarkinos man”; Eupolis (says) “a s ar kin e woman”; and Herodotus
(4.64.2) uses the term sarkisai (“to flesh”) to mean “to strip the flesh from the hide”
Discussion Blaydes 1896. 50
Meter Probably iambic trimeter, e. g.
<x— x—>|- o-o-
Citation context An item in an extended collection of words having to do
with body-parts (preceded by bones, followed by fat and sinews), εύσαρκος,
εύσαρκία, πολύσαρκος and πολυσαρκία, for which no authorities are cited,
are all prosaic and first attested in the 4th c. For the exclusion of ώς ούχ έτερον
from the text of Pollux, see K.-A. ad loc.·, if the words are included, Ar. fr. 728
is to be translated “fleshy like no other man”, i. e. “more fleshy than anyone,
fleshy to the highest degree”.
Interpretation σάρκινος normally means “made of flesh” (LSJ s.v. I), in-
cluding at Pl. Lg. 906c, which LSJ s.v. II wrongly treats as a third exception
to the rule, along with the fragments of Aristophanes and Eupolis cited by
Pollux. The comic poets may have used the adjective exceptionally to mean
“corpulent”, i. e. “fat” (thus LSJ, followed by Storey 2011. 265). It is simpler
in both cases to take the meaning to be “corporal, made of flesh (and there-
fore doomed to die)”, as in Hipparch. ap. Stob. 4.44.81 άνθρωποι θνατοι και
σάρκινοι, making Aristophanes’ άνδρα σάρκινον a low-style equivalent of
the elevated poetic θνητός άνήρ (e. g. II. 20.266; S. fr. 845.1; E. Ale. 7), which is
then capped by Eupolis’ σάρκινη γυνή.
σάρκινος is first attested at Emped. 31 B 99 D.-K. (the ear is “a fleshy knot”;
the passage is partially corrupt), but is absent from lyric and tragic poetry;
first in prose in Plato. See in general Renehan 1982. 124-5.