Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 2).djvu/170

 And in another place he says—

Sometimes we find that hens ([Greek: alektryones]) when driven about, And frighten'd, lay wind eggs.

And in the Clouds, where he is explaining to the old man the difference between the names, he says—

A. Tell me then, now, what name I ought to give them. B. Call this, the hen, [Greek: alektryainan], thus, And call her mate, the cock, [Greek: alektora].

And we find the cock called [Greek: alektoris] and [Greek: alektôr]. And Simonides writes—

O tuneful voiced [Greek: alektôr].

And Cratinus, in his Seasons, says—

Like the Persian loud-voiced cock ([Greek: alektôr]), Who every hour sings his song.

And he has this name from rousing us from our beds ([Greek: lektron]). But the Dorians, who write [Greek: ornis] with a [Greek: x], [Greek: ornix], make the genitive with a [Greek: ch], [Greek: ornichos]. But Alcman writes the nominative with a [Greek: s], saying—

The purple bird ([Greek: ornis]) of spring.

Though I am aware that he too makes the genitive with a [Greek: ch], saying—

But yet by all the birds ([Greek: ornichôn]).

17. The next thing to be mentioned is the pig, under the name of [Greek: delphax]. Epicharmus calls the male pig [Greek: delphax] in his Ulysses the Deserter, saying—

I lost by an unhappy chance A pig ([Greek: delphaka]) belonging to the neighbours, Which I was keeping for Eleusis And Ceres's mysterious feast. Much was I grieved; and now he says That I did give it to th' Achæans, Some kind of pledge; and swears that I Betray'd the pig ([Greek: ton delphaka]) designedly.

And Anaxilus also, in his Circe, has used the word [Greek: delphax] in the masculine gender; and moreover has used it of a full-grown pig, saying—

Some of you that dread goddess will transform To pigs ([Greek: delphakas]), who range the mountains and the woods. Some she will panthers make; some savage wolves, And terrible lions.

But Aristophanes, in his Fryers, applies the word to female pigs, and says—

The paunch, too, of a sow in autumn born ([Greek: delphakos opôrinês]).