“Turoknêstis: a cheesegrater. A type of knife. There is also a proverb: “I will not position myself like a lioness on a cheese-grater”* This means “in the way a lioness would”, and it is a shameful and whorish sexual position.
A cheese-grater is a knife. On the hilts of some kitchen knives lionesses used to be carved out of ivory, in a squatting position, so that their feet might not be broken off as they might be if they were made standing up. So, the speaker is saying I will not position myself like a prostitute awaiting a man, the way a lioness is positioned on a cheese-grater.”
Etymologicum Magnum [= Etymologicum Gudianum, 461.13]
“Emeia. This is a place near Mycenae. Emeia comes from emo [“to vomit”] just as Thaleia comes from thallô [“to bloom, flourish”]. It is so named either because Kerberos puked there after he came up from Hades or because Thyestes puked there after he ate his own children.”
Interestingly, there is a bit of a slip the next time Eustathius tells the story.
Eustathius, Comm. Ad Homeri Il. 3.691.20
“[Note also] that the city Emeia comes from emein [to vomit] because it is where Aigisthos [sic] vomited after eating his own children thanks to the plan of Atreus, as the story goes.”
John Tzetzes, Chiliades 11.520-533
“Encyclical learnings, the lyrics put properly,
Are properly also the first lessons to have that title,
And it comes from that circle the lyric chorus stood in,
When it was composed of fifty men, to chant the melodies.
The encyclical learnings, the lyrics put properly.
The second reason the encyclical learnings are called
A cycle is [they are] the full circle of all learning:
Grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy itself
And then subordinate to this the four arts are placed:
Arithmetic, music, and geometry
And crossing heaven itself: astronomy.
This encyclical learning, all of these things, for a second reason
As Porphyry wrote in his Lives of the Philosophers
And thousands of other eloquent men [have written too].”
In his comments dismissing Tzetzes, Sir Sandys uses this passage to give an example of what his poetry his like (“The following lines are a very faovurable example of his style…” 408). (Also, why’d he have to drag poor Porphyry into this?)
“I also know specialized pearls beyond the pearls.
They shatter and release small pearls in their craft
As they roll out other pearls. These things are about pearls.
I now call books oysters full of words.
You note, I suspect, that words are the pearls that come from them.”
If for some, inexplicable, reason, you would like to read the whole poem, it is available online.
The following are apophthegmata [“sayings”] preserved in a Byzantine manuscript and attributed to ancient authorities. Many might actually come from prose composition exercises in Byzantine and late antique schools. Most of the collection are attributed to famous male sages. The collection ends with a selection of
“After an Attic woman saw a sign over the door of someone about to get married which said “Herakles lives here, may nothing bad happen” she said “Now may no woman enter!”
“When an old Attic woman was asked at a symposium whether Dionysus is mortal after she saw wine being stolen, she said “yes, he’s mortal, for I saw him carried out…”
571: “When a Syracusan woman was summoned by Dionysus the tyrant because he was claiming that he wanted her and would give her whatever she wanted, she said “Let me go—since you believe that women are the same, whenever the lamp goes out.”
“One should flee, not seek a trial.” Alkibiades, when he was called into judgment by the Athenians from Sicily, hid himself after saying this. When someone else was saying “You will not trust your country about your trial?” he Said “Not even my mother, since she wouldn’t ignorantly throw the black stone instead of the white one.”
“The turn of an ostracon. [this proverb is applied] to those who rush to flight easily. Also, Plato has “when the shell falls upside down, he changes and rushes to flight” (Phaedrus 241b). But others claim that he proverb is applied to those who fall from strong positions to the opposite. It is a metaphor from dicing. For the ancients once used shells to throw, and often they lost or won based on their fall.”
From the annals of WTF, Ancient scholars? Also, if you want to know more words for puking in Greek and Latin, we’ve got you covered.
Etymologicum Magnum [= Etymologicum Gudianum, 461.13]
“Emeia. This is a place near Mycenae. Emeia comes from emo [“to vomit”] just as Thaleia comes from thallô [“to bloom, flourish”]. It is so named either because Kerberos puked there after he came up from Hades or because Thyestes puked there after he ate his own children.”
Interestingly, there is a bit of a slip the next time Eustathius tells the story.
Eustathius, Comm. Ad Homeri Il. 3.691.20
“[Note also] that the city Emeia comes from emein [to vomit] because it is where Aigisthos [sic] vomited after eating his own children thanks to the plan of Atreus, as the story goes.”
“Peleus’ knife”: this is a proverb. Aristophanes also records this: “he thinks more of himself than Peleus did with the knife”. It seems that this thing which Peleus took was a Hephaistos-made gift of prudence.”
“Peleus’ knife. Aristophanes also records this: “he thinks more of himself than Peleus did with the knife”. It seems that this thing which Peleus took was a Hephaistos-made gift of prudence.
This proverb is used for rare and extremely honored possessions. For they say that Peleus received a sword from the gods because of his surplus of prudence. It was made by Hephaistos.”
“You ate some lotus”: [this proverb is applied to those] who are forgetful of things in the household and are slow in matters of hospitality. It is based on the lotus which imbues one who eats it with forgetfulness.”
“Agamemnon’s sacrifice”: [a proverb] applied to the difficult to persuade and the stubborn. For when Agamemnon was making a sacrifice, the bull was scarcely caught after it fled.” Or, it is because Agamemnon wanted to sacrifice his daughter. And she fled.”
Solon: They [the Amphiktyones] selected this man to be their adviser for war against the Kirrhaians. When they were consulting the oracle about victory, the Pythia said: “you will not capture and raze the tower of this city before the wave of dark-eyed Amphitritê washes onto my precinct as it echoes over the wine-faced sea.”
Solon persuaded them to make Kirrhaia sacred to the god so that the sea would become a neighbor to Apollo’s precinct. And another strategy was devised by Solon against the Kirrhaians. For he turned a river’s water which used to flow in its channel into the city elsewhere.
The Kirrhaians withstood the besiegers by drinking water from wells and from rain. But [Solon] filled the river with hellebore roots and when he believed the water had enough of the drug, he returned it to its course. Then the Kirrhaians took a full portion of this water. And when they went AWOL because of diarrhea, the Amphiktyones who were stationed near the wall took it and then the city.”
“In his work On Plants, in the last part of the material, Theophrastos says that Eunomos, the Khian and purveyor of drugs, did not [cleanse himself/die] while drinking many draughts of hellebore. Once, even, when together with his fellow craftsmen he took over 22 drinks in one day as he sat in the agora and he did not return from his implements. Then he left to wash and eat, as he was accustomed, and did not vomit. He accomplished this after being in this custom for a long time, because he started from small amounts until he got to so many large ones. The powers of all drugs are less severe for those used to them and for some they are even useless.”
