Monday, August 13, 2018
Here I Sit, Broken-Hearted
Everyone knows the rhyming couplet that starts "Here I sit, broken-hearted." The same Sitz im Leben lies behind
Sotades, fragment 2 Powell (from Athenaeus 14.621a; tr. S. Douglas Olson):
Newer› ‹Older
He opened up the hole of his back alleyHeather White, "Sotades and the Flute-Player," Habis 35 (2004) 101-103 (at 102, footnotes omitted):
and expelled an idle blast through his bushy
crack, the type an old plow-ox lets loose.
ὁ δ᾿ ἀποστεγάσας τὸ τρῆμα τῆς ὄπισθε λαύρης
διὰ δενδροφόρου φάραγγος ἐξέωσε βροντὴν
ἠλέματον, ὁκοίην ἀροτὴρ γέρων χαλᾷ βοῦς.
Sotades states that Philinus uncovered his anus (evidently in order to defecate) and that, instead of being able to defecate, he merely farted loudly. In other words, Philinus tried to defecate but his efforts were vain: instead of defecating he merely managed to emit a vain πορδή (βροντὴν ἠλέματον). This explanation accounts for the epithet ἠλέματον, which until now had remained inexplicable.
Labels: noctes scatologicae
