From goya@racine.vjf.cnrs.fr Sun Aug 18 14:50:04 2002 Received: from mailscan5.cac.washington.edu (mailscan5.cac.washington.edu [140.142.32.14]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.01) with SMTP id g7ILo2eY011238 for ; Sun, 18 Aug 2002 14:50:02 -0700 Received: FROM mxu1.u.washington.edu BY mailscan5.cac.washington.edu ; Sun Aug 18 14:50:02 2002 -0700 Received: from pd3mo2so.prod.shaw.ca (h24-71-223-10.cg.shawcable.net [24.71.223.10]) by mxu1.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.06) with ESMTP id g7ILo1R8002767 for ; Sun, 18 Aug 2002 14:50:02 -0700 Received: from pd3mr1so.prod.shaw.ca (pd3mr1so-ser.prod.shaw.ca [10.0.141.177]) by l-daemon (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.1 HotFix 0.8 (built May 12 2002)) with ESMTP id <0H1200MIO6ZC4G@l-daemon> for classics@u.washington.edu; Sun, 18 Aug 2002 15:42:48 -0600 (MDT) Received: from pn2ml2so.prod.shaw.ca (pn2ml2so-qfe0.prod.shaw.ca [10.0.121.146]) by l-daemon (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.1 HotFix 0.8 (built May 12 2002)) with ESMTP id <0H12006276ZCEB@l-daemon> for classics@u.washington.edu; Sun, 18 Aug 2002 15:42:48 -0600 (MDT) Received: from [24.69.61.126] (h24-69-61-126.gv.shawcable.net [24.69.61.126]) by l-daemon (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.1 HotFix 0.8 (built May 12 2002)) with ESMTP id <0H1200MRS6ZAYJ@l-daemon> for classics@u.washington.edu; Sun, 18 Aug 2002 15:42:48 -0600 (MDT) Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2002 14:42:14 +0200 From: Michael Chase Subject: Re: Explication sought In-reply-to: To: classics@u.washington.edu Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT References: <3D5D4162.C1760997@erols.com> <3D5E4D9E.C8AF70D@erols.com> >_halia_ can mean "crowd, assembly" and the passive of _trupan_ is >used to describe the pebble of condemnation (which was pierced; see >_trupao:_ in LSJ). So could the line mean, in context, "may it be >for me to condemn the crowd in the House of Themis..." ? The House >of Themis might be an oracle (rather than a court, or something); >see Apollodorus 1.4.1, Ovid _Metamorphoses_ 1.375ff. > >JMP("Pyrrhus") M.C.: this strikes me as a bit far-fetched, both grammatically and semanticallly. Here's another possible direction : The adjective *halios* means "pertaining to the sea*, and it can be an epithet of *nEus* (Orph. Arg. 236). LSJ does not say so, but I wonder if *hE haliE* might not simply mean "ship". I suspect this is the case at Callimachus, Epigram 47 Pfeiffer = Anth. Graec. 6, 301, in which a certain Eudemos dedicates a *haliEn* to the Samothracian gods for saving him from a storm at sea. Cahen in the Bude edition of Callimachus translates this *haliEn* as "a salt-cellar", but I suspect what Eudemus dedicated was much more likely to be a ship or part of a ship. If this is so, then our Ps-Apollonius text may be referring to "drilling a hole in a ship". The "House of Themis" doesn't seem apposite here, so I'd be tempted to adopt David Meadow's conjecture and read *en oikOi Thetidos*, where "house of Thetis" might be understood as meaning the sea. Our saying might thus mean "I'd just as soon bore a hole in a ship at sea" ; more the less the equivalent of the modern phrase "I'd rather stick red-hot needles in my eyes". Best, Mike. -- Michael Chase (goya@vjf.cnrs.fr) CNRS UPR 76/L'Annee Philologique Viellejuif-Paris, France. .