In Python's comic satyr play Agen (perhaps actually written by Alexander of Macedon) Harpalus, Alexander's errant treasurer, is mocked for erecting costly buildings left and right to honour his dead lover, the notorious prostitute Pythionice:
1–2 πέϕυκε· ὁ δ’ εϕετωμα ορνον Athenaei cod. A: ὅδε scr. Dindorf, ἄορνον Fiorillo †ϕέτωμ’ vox desperata: ϕάτνωμ’ Fiorillo, ἕλωμ’ Meineke, πέτρωμ’ Pezopulus, ϕλέωμ’ A. von Blumenthal, στόμωμ’ Erbse, ϕηγὼν Friebel
The unavian ϕέτωμα has nothing to do with a sinister tree, a swamp, the entrance to Hades at Lake Avernus or the necromancy that also appeared in this play.Footnote 1 Rather, it conceals a familiar pun: read ἀέτωμ’ ἄορνον, ‘birdless roof’. ἀέτωμα and ἀετός are standard terms for a temple pediment, gable or even roof in general,Footnote 2 so named from its likeness to the spread of an eagle's wings.Footnote 3 Python adds ‘birdless’ to play on this resemblance. Aristophanes makes a similar pun on ἀετός.Footnote 4 Phrases with a negative adjective defining the sense of the noun, a nightmare for translators, are discussed by Aristotle, as when a poet calls a shield a ‘wineless cup’, ϕιάλην ἄοινον.Footnote 5 Since the initial α is long, as ἀέτωμα is formed from αἰετός which then became ᾱετός,Footnote 6 the poet has apparently perpetrated a correption or synecphonesis to fit it in;Footnote 7 the licence is unparalleled,Footnote 8 but comedy enjoys licence. I translate:
