Two ‘Fragmenta Dubia Incertae Sedis’, Possibly Comic

Extract

Eustathios, in his commentary to Homer's Iliad 768.20–2 preserves two elements of Attic speech which could derive originally from comedy. Although neither of them appears as so much as a conjecture in standard collections, a possibility that they are quotations from a lost comedy merits testing. They may, as it turns out, even be fragments of a comedy by Kratinos. The argument for this possibility rests on a manner Eustathios (and other Greek writers) has of presenting evidence to support his general observations. The pattern is as follows: He will say that such-and-such a usage can be observed among the ancients, and then he will cite an ancient author in whose work he has observed such a phenomenon. A good, simple, short example of this presentation can be found at Eustathios' Commentary to Homer's Odyssey 1419.50–4; λλ κα πλλαξ ξ οὗ κα παλλακή κα παλλκια δ κατ Aἴλιν Διονσιον οὑ παλλήκια οἱ παδες, στιν εὑρεν παρ τος παλαιος οἲ δικαστήριον ἱστοροσιν πώνυµον τς Παλλδος. 'Aριστοφνης ἄκων κτεν σε τκνον. δ'ὑπεκρνατο π Παλλαδωι κτλ (Aristophanes, frag. 602 PCG).