A kind of small boat.
Aristophanes [writes]: "but those women, I know, came across on dinghies standing up."[1] But also [sc. attested is] a
ke/lhs horse, [i.e. ridden] bareback.[2] [
Aristophanes] is saying, therefore, that they are coming in a boat.[3]
And not a simple one.[4]
In the
Epigrams: "the frame of the already carved-out dinghy no longer keeps [you] afloat, Timarion, the rowing of Cypris."[5]
It is a kind of boat.[6]
[Note] that [the verb]
kelhti/zw [is attested] before
Homer.[7]
*ke/lhs: ei)=dos ploiari/ou mikrou=. *)aristofa/nhs: a)ll' e)kei=nai/ g' oi)=d' o(/ti e)pi\ tw=n kelh/twn diabebh/kasin o)rqai/. kai\ i(/ppos de\ ke/lhs, o( gumno/s. le/gei ou)=n, o(/ti e)n ploi/w| ei)si\n e)rxo/menai. kai\ ou)x a(plou=n. e)n *)epigra/mmasi: ou)ke/ti *tima/rion to\ pri\n glafuroi=o ke/lhtos ph=gma fe/rei plwto/n, *ku/pridos ei)resi/hn. e)/sti de\ ei)=dos ploi/ou. o(/ti to\ kelhti/zein pro\ tou= *(omh/rou.
[1]
Aristophanes,
Lysistrata 60 (but read
o)/rqriai, "at dawn", for the Suda's "standing up").
[2] Of the two senses of
ke/lhs, the "horse" meaning is prior, and
kappa 1303, discussing the diminutive
kelh/tion, admits as much. Nothing supports the notion that
ke/lhs means the horse is bareback. See also
kappa 1300.
[3] Up to this point, from a scholion on
Aristophanes,
Lysistrata 59-60 (see above).
[4] From a scholion on
Sophocles,
Ajax 954. Presumably, "not a normal boat" (but a dinghy), since a dinghy is hardly elaborate. The explanation has nothing to do with the digression on the other meaning of
ke/lhs; Adler notes with approval Bernhardy's view that this material belongs with
kappa 1288.
[5]
Greek Anthology 5.204.1-2 (Meleager [
Author,
Myth]). Because the Suda's text is mangled, it does not quite make grammatical sense. In the accepted version "rowing" is in the nominative not the accusative, and "Timarion" is in the genitive. The epigram is an extended metaphor comparing Timarion's body to a ship: "The rowing of Cypris [i.e. Aphrodite] no longer keeps afloat the frame of Timarion, the already carved-out dinghy." Find another extract from this epigram at
sigma 896.
[6] cf.
Hesychius kappa2167, the
Synagoge, and
Photius kappa555 Theodoridis (with other references there).
[7] The verb is attested in
Homer,
Iliad 15.679, but it means "jump from horse to horse", and is derived from the primary meaning of
ke/lhs, "riding horse"; it has nothing to do with sense "boat". See
kappa 1302.
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