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ὌΡΧΙΣ: TESTICLE, TESTICULATE AND GLANS PENIS*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 March 2017

Joseph Cotter
Joseph Cotter*
Affiliation:
Penn State University
*
jpc4@psu.edu
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Extract

Goffredo Coppola, the Italian editor of this papyrus, supposed that τὸν ὄρχιν (the testicle) = τοὺς ὄρχεις; but he was puzzled when no likely erotic word seemed available to finish the line. He suggested φαλ[ῆς, from φαλός = λευκός (‘white’) to be followed by some metaphorical word for penis such as κέρκου. Romagnoli noted that it made no sense to have the testicle(s) dependent on the penis, and argued that Hipponax here intended ὄρχις to refer metaphorically to the glans penis; therefore, he emended to καί μοι τὸν ὄρχιν τῆς φαλ[ῆς ἐκλέψασα (= peeling back the penis’ foreskin); but his feminine form τῆς φαλ[ῆς is unlikely given the masculine form τοῦ φάλεω in Hipponax fr. 21 W. Medeiros suggested ὄρχις, sing. = ὄσχη ‘scrotum’; West actually exalted the role of the testicle by emending to τῆς φαλ[άκρης ἕλκουσα ‘pulling my testicle by the bald spot’; but it is not obvious why hitting the testicles merits such attention in a narrative fixed on the failure to attain an erection.

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Shorter Notes
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 67 , Issue 1 , May 2017 , pp. 285 - 286
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2017 

This note offers a revised version of LSJ's definition and a supplement for Hipponax fr. 92 W. (95 Degani) line 3:

ὄρχις, ιος and εως, ὁ, testicle. 2. in females, ovaries, Gal. 2.810, al.

II. from similarity of shape, 1. glans penis, Hippon. 92 (95 Degani),Footnote 1

2. from the form of its root, salep, Orchis papilionacea, and O.

longicruris, Thphr. HP 9.18.3, Dsc. 3.126. III. ὄρχις, ἡ, after the shape of

the fruit, a kind of olive, Colum. 5.8.

92 (95 Degani) P. S. I. 1089, P.Oxy. 2174

ηὔδα δὲ λυδίζουσα· ‘βασ̣κ̣…κρολεα.’         She spoke in Lydian: ‘Bask…krolea,’

πυγιστί· ‘τὸν πυγεῶνα παρ[      ·’        in Assian, ‘your asshole …’

καί μοι τὸν ὄρχιν τῆς φαλ[ηρίδος          and for me the coot's/cock's knob did

κ]ρͅάδηι συνηλοίησεν ὥσπ̣[ερ φαρμακῶι       she thrash with a fig branch as for a

scapegoat […]

3 φαλ[ηρίδος scripsi

Goffredo Coppola, the Italian editor of this papyrus, supposed that τὸν ὄρχιν (the testicle) = τοὺς ὄρχεις;Footnote 2 but he was puzzled when no likely erotic word seemed available to finish the line.Footnote 3 He suggested φαλ[ῆς, from φαλός = λευκός (‘white’) to be followed by some metaphorical word for penis such as κέρκου. RomagnoliFootnote 4 noted that it made no sense to have the testicle(s) dependent on the penis, and argued that Hipponax here intended ὄρχις to refer metaphorically to the glans penis; therefore, he emended to καί μοι τὸν ὄρχιν τῆς φαλ[ῆς ἐκλέψασα (= peeling back the penis’ foreskin); but his feminine form τῆς φαλ[ῆς is unlikely given the masculine form τοῦ φάλεω in Hipponax fr. 21 W. Medeiros suggested ὄρχις, sing. = ὄσχη ‘scrotum’;Footnote 5 West actually exalted the role of the testicle by emending to τῆς φαλ[άκρης ἕλκουσα ‘pulling my testicle by the bald spot’;Footnote 6 but it is not obvious why hitting the testicles merits such attention in a narrative fixed on the failure to attain an erection.Footnote 7

Gutiérrez noted that ὄρχιν here would represent a dual (ὄρχεις, «testículo(s)», colloq. «bola(s), huevo(s)») and accepted West's emendation but translated: ‘Y las bolas, tironeándome abruptamente de la cabeza de la pija, con unas ramas de higuera me machucó’ (i.e. ‘she struck my balls with some fig branches, sharply tugging at the dick's head’). Before settling on this complicated scenario, Gutiérrez added that what was wanted was a phallic word, of feminine gender, that would be common, erotic and preferably obscene.Footnote 8

The fifteenth-century manuscript of Hesychius’ Lexicon (Marcianus Graecus 622) provides the following gloss: Φαληρίς· ὄρνις λιμναῖος καὶ τὸ φάλης δερμάτινον καὶ ἀνδρεῖον. (‘Phalêris: swamp bird and the “‘phales’ leather and human”’). Marcus Musurus, a native speaker of Greek and the editor of the Aldine edition (1514), saw no problem with the textFootnote 9 and may have been aware of a similar use of the bird's name in contemporary spoken Greek—as in the English ‘cock’ or the Italian ‘uccello’. I have arguedFootnote 10 that via a folk etymology this noun had indeed become synonymous with φάλης—as, for example, witness Ar. Av. 565 with its scholium,Footnote 11 Ath. 7.325a-b, the joke on Φαληρεύς at Pl. Symp. 172a-c and a red-figure vase (BA 50404) in the Villa Giulia—and that Φαληρίς is likely to be the Greek name for the phallus-bird. We might then read: καί μοι τὸν ὄρχιν τῆς φαλ[ηρίδος (‘and the coot's/cock's glans’).

Beekes notes how ὄρχις can serve as the name of plants after the oval shapes of roots or fruit.Footnote 12 An Ionic vase from Delos,Footnote 13 contemporary with Hipponax, shows a phallus-bird with a βάλανος (acorn/glans penis) and a single ὄρχις (testicle)—both organs visually quite similar. There is also a scholium that equates τὸ πέος and τὸν ὄρχιν.Footnote 14 That by synecdoche the glans penis might stand for the penis itself is not surprising when, ‘in the Greek cultural constellation of symbols, the image of the exposed glans was remarkable for the intensity and sheer abundance of negative imagery associated with it’.Footnote 15

Footnotes

*

I am grateful to the anonymous reader for helpful comments.

References

1 Pace LSJ Greek-English Lexicon Supplement ὄρχις 1, line 1, after ‘testicle’, add ‘τὸν ὄρχιν’ Hipponax 14A3D3.

2 Kühner, R. and Blass, F., Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache (Hanover, 1890–1892)Google Scholar, T. 2, 1:13 list nouns in the singular used to represent parts of the body which naturally exist as duals.

3 Coppola, G., ‘Un nuovo frammento dei Giambi di Ipponatte’, RFIC 6 (1928), 500–6Google Scholar, at 504 confesses: ‘non conosco parola cominciante per φαλ che esprima il concetto richiesto dal precedente ὄρχιν e sia feminile’.

4 Romagnoli, E., I poeti lirici (Bologna, 1931), 231 Google Scholar.

5 Medeiros, W. de S., Hipónax de Éfeso. Fragmentos dos Iambos (Coimbra, 1961), 105 Google Scholar.

6 West, M.L., Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus (New York, 1974), 145 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Sommerstein, A.H., Aeschylus Fragments (Cambridge, MA, 2008)Google Scholar, 51 n. 4 notes that ‘φαλακρὸν could mean either “bald head” or “glans penis” (= φαλλὸν ἄκρον); the former interpretation is supported by Sophocles fr. 171 (the smiling baby Dionysus caressing Silenus’ nose and then moving his hand up towards Silenus’ φαλακρόν), the latter by Aristophanes, Clouds 538–9 (a stage phallus ἐρυθρὸν ἐξ ἄκρου) and the ambiguity was probably designed.’

7 The connection with the story of Oenothea and Encolpius, the scapegoat, in Petronius (137–8) is discussed by Latte, K., ‘Hipponacteum’, Hermes 64 (1929), 385–8Google Scholar, Masson, O., Les Fragments du Poète Hipponax (Paris, 1962), 150–1Google Scholar, and Miralles, C. and Pòrtulas, J., The Poetry of Hipponax (Rome, 1988), 71–119 Google Scholar.

8 Gutiérrez, D., ‘Comentario y traducción de un fragmento de Hiponacte’, Anales de Filología Clásica 25 (2012), 61–78 Google Scholar, at 65.

9 Pace Hansen, P.A. and Cunningham, I.C., Hesychii Alexandrini lexicon, vol. 4 (Göttingen, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, glosses φ 103 and φ 104, and Allen, A., ‘Cootish semantics’, Glotta 92 (2016), 16–17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Cotter, J., ‘Φαληρίς: Coot, plant, phallus’, Glotta 90 (2014), 105–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Holwerda, J., Scholia in Aristophanem, vol. 2.3 in Aves (Groningen, 1991), 94 Google Scholar.

12 Beekes, R., Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden, 2010)Google Scholar, 1.1116.

13 Boardman, J., ‘The phallos-bird in archaic and classical Greek art’, Revue Archéologique 2 (1992), 227–42Google Scholar, at 228 fig. 1.

14 Holwerda, J., Scholia in Aristophanem, vol. 4.2 (Groningen, 1960), 553 Google Scholar.

15 Hodges, F.M., ‘The ideal prepuce in ancient Greece and Rome’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 75 (2001), 375–405 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, at 394.