This note concerns the meaning of the phrase μελήσει ταῦτα and the anomalous use of the singular demonstrative pronoun in Aristophanes, Wealth 229. Although the manuscripts are unanimous in their readings, I argue that the paradosis should be emended to μελήσει ταῦτα.
In Aristophanes, the phrase μελήσει ταῦτα (γ') is used when a character wishes to affirm that he will do what has just been ordered of him.Footnote 1 As the following passages illustrate, the neuter plural ταῦτα can look back in the discourse to a single imperative (Ach. 932; Pax 149; Thesm. 1064, 1207), a single imperative + participle (Pax 1041) and to a double imperative (Pax 1311).
The number of the demonstrative is plural not because the referent is in some sense plural – indeed, the majority of the examples run counter to this notion – but because the phrase ‘that will be a concern’ is itself a fixed expression which employs the plural ταῦτα and the future μελήσει.
S. Douglas Olson sees μελήσει ταῦτα as a ‘response to an unsolicited or unnecessary order or suggestion’Footnote 2 and as ‘a regular way of rejecting advice’.Footnote 3 But while it is true that the commands given are not solicited, and perhaps not always necessary, I do not find that the one who replies with μελήσει ταῦτα is in any way rejecting the advice just offered. Instead, μελήσει ταῦτα signals that the speaker will strive to accomplish to the best of his ability whatever was asked for with the preceding imperative(s). The translation ‘Don't you worry, I'll take care of that’ captures the nuance of the expression.
Outside of Aristophanes the phrase is relatively uncommon, but does occur in both proseFootnote 4 and poetry,Footnote 5 most often in a quotation of the proverb ἐμοὶ μελήσει ταῦτα καὶ λευκαῖς κόραις, reportedly Apollo's reply to news of a barbarian attack.Footnote 6 Proverbs by nature are fixed expressions and it is not surprising that all but one of the extant examples of it are identical. The lone exception, Tzetzes' Epistulae 14.27.21, records the line as ἐμοὶ μελήσει τοῦτο καὶ λευκαῖς κόραις, but this should be changed to read ἐμοὶ μελήσει ταῦτα καὶ λευκαῖς κόραις, the wording Tzetzes himself preserves at Chiliades 11.372.387.
Examples of the singular τοῦτο in place of the plural ταῦτα do not occur before the fourth century c.e.Footnote 7 The singular in this phrase is thus without parallel in Classical and Hellenistic Greek and I suggest emending the text of Wealth 229 to read ἐμοὶ μελήσει ταῦτά γ'· Confusion between ταῦτα and τοῦτο (and ταυτί and τουτί) is, of course, frequent in the Aristophanic manuscript tradition,Footnote 8 but in this case the scribe's eye perhaps caught sight of the singular τουτοδὶ (or one of the MSS readings τουτοδή R, τοῦτο δή V, τοῦτο δὲ AKL) in line 227 leading him to write a singular for what was originally a plural.Footnote 9
