The belly-frames, the timbers that rise from the keel, are called [its] inner-timbering; but some [say they are] the foundation of ships, and some the belly-frames. But better to say the wood of the belly-framing. Herodian[1] makes it[2] short and proparoxytone. Hence
Aristophanes says 'the
e)nteriw/nh',[3] which is the very middle of the ship, that which most holds it together, that which is the keel. It is also called 'heartwood'. The comic poet says that "the goddess sent the inner-timbering for the triremes."
*)entero/neia: ta\ e)gkoi/lia, ta\ a)po\ th=s tro/pidos a)nerxo/mena cu/la, e)ntero/neia kalei=tai: oi( de\ to\ tw=n new=n e)/dafos: oi( de\ ta\ e)gkoi/lia. be/ltion de\ th\n tw=n e)gkoili/wn u(/lhn le/gein. *(hrwdiano\s suste/llei kai\ proparocu/nei. ou(= de\ th\n e)nteriw/nhn *)aristofa/nhs fhsi/n, o(/per e)sti\ to\ mesai/taton th=s new/s: o(/ e)sti sunektikw/taton, h(/tis e)sti\ tro/pis. kalei=tai de\ kai\ mh/tra. fhsi\ de\ o( kwmiko/s, o(/ti ei)s ta\s trih/reis h( qeo\s e)ntero/neian e)/pemyen.
Derived ultimately from the
scholia to
Aristophanes,
Knights 1184-5, where the headword -- a single feminine noun in the Greek -- appears (web address 1); it is paraphrased in the oblique quotation at the end of the entry.
The headword, a pun on the word
e)/nterois ('intestines') which occurs earlier in line 1184, is unattested outside this passage and commentary and lexicography inspired by it. P. Chantraine (
REG 75 (1962) 381-3) argues that
Aristophanes coined the word for this purpose, but Sommerstein 1981: 206 doubts this. Casson 1995: 89 with n.59 does not discuss the present word (or passage) but does mention a very similar one,
e)ntornei/a, possibly the parapet around a trireme's foredeck.
[1] Herodian,
De prosod. cathol. 3.1 273.29.
[2] That is, the final alpha of the word.
[3] Somehow this word, a more common word for "marrow" or "pith" gets mixed up in the commentary on the
Aristophanes passage (Herodian,
On Orthography 3.2 507.28,
Pollux 2.212,
Hesychius epsilon3349; cf.
epsilon 1460,
tau 282), perhaps as a result of someone's speculation about whether this word should be read in place of the obscure
e)ntero/neia. But
e)nteriw/nh is not otherwise used of ships (except in a comical sense by Lucian,
True Stories 2.37).
A.H. Sommerstein 1981. Knights (The Comedies of Aristophanes, vol. 2). Warminster
L. Casson 1995. Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World. Baltimore
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