[Meaning] most/very sweet, most/very dry.
Aristophanes made a joke from the idea of the vegetable; for
Crates was an improviser in his plays.[1] Or [meaning] air-dried; or very useful.[2]
*krambota/tou: h(duta/tou, chrota/tou. e)/paice de\ *)aristofa/nhs a)po\ th=s tou= laxa/nou e)pinoi/as: au)tosxe/dios ga\r h)=n peri\ ta\ dra/mata *kra/ths. h)\ to\ kapuro/n: h)\ to\ xrhsto/taton.
[1] From the
scholia to
Aristophanes,
Knights 539; see already under
kappa 2318.
Crates (
kappa 2339) is the subject of the verse involved: "kneading most ingenious notions from a
krambotaton mouth". See further, next note.
[2] "Air-dried" is from
Hesychius; "useful" is from the
scholia, which still explain this as a pun from "cabbage", and is unlikely to display deep understanding of the text.
The headword
krambota/tou is obscure, evidently. As stated, it is glossed in
Hesychius as
kapuro/s "air-dried" in this passage (note its secondary meaning "blight in grapes" in
Theophrastus);
krambale/os in
Athenaeus means the same. This accounts for the gloss
chrota/tou "driest". LSJ suggests "loud", based on
Hesychius' gloss of
krambo/s as "dried and parched" laughter; they add
xarambaliastu/s "loud laughter" in
Hesychius (which they emend as
krambaliastu/s). The passages in
Hesychius alone do not seem to warrant this extension, but
kapuro/s is also used to mean "loud" or "clear-sounding" (LSJ s.v. II), via "crisp" or "crackling", and
Theocritus,
Idylls 7.37 refers to the
kapuro/s (clear-sounding) mouth of the Muses. Bekker suggests instead that the allusion may be to
Crates as a drunkard, given how cabbage was eaten to prevent inebriation (
kappa 2318).
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