Page:The Odyssey of Homer, with the Hymns, Epigrams, and Battle of the Frogs and Mice (Buckley 1853).djvu/373

BATTLE OF THE FROGS AND MICE.

 

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NAMES OF THE

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ EXPLAINED.

Mice.

Psicharphax, crumb-filcher.
Troxartes, bread-muncher.
Lichomyle, lick-meal.
Pternotroctas, chaw-bacon.
Lichopinax, lick-dish.
Embasichytros, pot-stalker.
Lichenor, lick-man.
Troglodytes, one who runs into
holes.
Artophagus, bread-eater.
Tyroglyphus, cheese-scooper.
Pternophagus, bacon-eater.
Cnissodioctes, one who follows the
steam of the kitchen.
Sitophagus, wheat-eater.
Meridaprax, one who plunders his
share.

Frogs.

Physignathus, puff-cheeks.
Peleus, the muddy.
Hydromeduse, water-queen.
Hypsiboas, loud-bawler.
Pelion, the muddy.
Teutlæus, beet-man.
Polyphonus, great-talker.
Limnocharis, lake-rejoicing.
Crambophagus, cabbage eater.
Limnisius, of the lake.
Calaminthius, of the reed.
Hydrocharis, water-rejoicing.
Borborocoetes, lying in the mud.
Prassophagus, garlic-eater.
Pelusius, the muddy.
Pelobates, mud-walking.
Prassæus, garlic.
Craugasides, croaking.

On commencing,^[1] I first implore the quire of the muses to descend from Helicon into mine heart, for the sake of the song which I now commit to tablets [placed] upon my knees,^[2] a

1. Chapman renders this, "entering the fields," where there seems to be a typographical error for "field." Ἁρχόμενος is generally joined with some other word, as in Apoll. Rhod. i. 1, ἀρχ. σέο Φοῑβε. So ἐκ Διὸς ἀρχώμεσθα, Aratus, Phæn. i. The old paraphrase runs thus, ἀρχὴν ποιούμενος καταρχὰς ἐκ τοῦ ὄρους τοῦ Ἑλικῶνος ἐλεύσεσθαι εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ψυχὴν εὐχὴν ποιοῦμαι τῆς ποιήσεως ἥντινα ἀοιδὴν βιβλίος ἔθηκα.
2. Join ἐμοῖς γόυνασι, and compare Hippocrat. Ep. ad Damag. p. 12, ὁ Δημόκριτος εἶχεν ἐπὶ τοῖν γουνάτοιν βιβλίον ὃ ἔγραφεν ἐγκείμενος. Maittaire.