What’s in a drop? Making sense of ΨΑΚΑΣ in Aristophanes, Acharnians 1150–1151

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2019

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Périmètre
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HAL-SHS : histoire de l'art

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info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1515/9783110622744-009

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Centre pour la communication scientifique directe

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Mots-clés En

Ancient Greek Lexicography Ancient Greek Onomastics Aristophanes

Sujets proches En

Marginalia Plays Conation Volition Cetanā Lieder Solo songs Arias Art songs Ariettas Songs with various acc Solo vocal music, Secular Papers Onomatology Names--Etymology Columnists Commentators Noun Stage Drama, Modern Plays Drama--Philosophy Talking

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Alcorac Alonso Déniz, « What’s in a drop? Making sense of ΨΑΚΑΣ in Aristophanes, Acharnians 1150–1151 », HAL-SHS : histoire de l'art, ID : 10.1515/9783110622744-009

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According to the scholia, Antimachus’ patronymic Ψακάδος (Aristophanes, Acharnians 1150) denotes an idiosyncratic habit of this otherwise unknown Athenian poet and draftsman: as he talked, Antimachus used to shower with saliva those who were in conversation with him. Although accepted by most modern scholars, this interpretation is nothing but the characteristic guesswork of late commentators and linguistically faces unsurmountable difficulties. In this paper, I propose that Ψακάς is a nickname based on the attested meaning of the noun ψακάς/ψεκάς ‘drop’, which metaphorically can refer to a ‘very small thing’. I will argue that Ψακάς echoes the pun at 1151, where Aristophanes plays on the different meanings of μελέων, ‘lyric songs’ (μέλος) and ‘useless things’ (μέλεος).

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