Tuesday, March 08, 2022
Like a Grotesquely-Shaped Balloon
Martin L. West, Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1974), p. 30 (on Hipponax):
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An admixture of the high-flown adds another dimension to the style. Compounds such as ὀμφαλητόμος (19), κατωμόχανος (28.1), πασπαληφάγος (103.11), μεσσηγυδορποχέστης (114c) and others, like the burglar's prayer, are amusing in the same way as a balloon that turns out to inflate into a grotesque shape.Definitions from Franco Montanari, The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek (Leiden: Brill, 1995):
- ὀμφαλητόμος (p. 1460): who cuts the umbilical cord [a medical term, not that unusual, the only word in West's list that's not a hapax legomenon]
- πασπαληφάγος (p. 1593): grain-eater [cf. pultiphagus and Pultiphagonides in Plautus]
- μεσσηγυδορποχέστης or μεσηγυδορποχέστης (p. 1315): one who defecates halfway through dinner
