τρόπος
Word
Validation
No
Word-form
τροπαῖον
Word-lemma
Etymon-lemma
Transliteration (Word)
tropaion
English translation (word)
trophy
Transliteration (Etymon)
tropos
English translation (etymon)
turn, way
Century
5-4 B.C.
Source
Idem
Ref.
Plutus, 452-453
Ed.
N.G. Wilson, Aristophanis Fabulae, Tomus II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007: 273-326.
Quotation
Χρ· Θάρρει· μόνος γὰρ ὁ θεὸς οὗτος οἶδ’ὅτι / τροπαῖον ἂν στήσαιτο τῶν ταύτης τρόπων
Translation (En)
Chremylos. Don't worry. I'm confident this god alone / Can vanquish all this woman evil's ways. (trans. Stephen Halliwell)
Modern etymology
From τρέπω, "to chase off".
Persistence in Modern Greek
MG τρόπαιο has the same meaning.
Entry By
Margelidon
Comment
The etymology is not explicit here, but rather evident: τροπαῖον and τρόπων are placed at the beginning and at the end of the same verse. Aristophanes is here playing on a semantic confusion between the military register of τροπαῖον and the moral one of τρόπος. A similar etymological wordplay, but even more implicit, is found in Aeschylum, Sept., 953–956: τελευτᾷ δ’αἵδ’ἐπηλάλαξαν /Άραὶ τὸν ὀξὺν νόμον,/τετραμμένου παντρόπῳ φυγᾷ γένους·/ἕστακεν Ἄτας τροπαῖον ἐν πύλαις, where the poet makes a link between τετραμμένος, παντρόπῳ and τροπαῖον. However, explicit commentaries on τροπαῖον rightly derive the word from τροπή, "flight".