The Battle of Frogs and Mice

A digital edition by George Grimbilas and Phillip Mitsis,
illustrations by David Beck and readings by David Starr.
Text under construction - send comments and observations to
phillip.mitsis@nyu.edu

Preparation for War: Nibble-Bread Speaks

ὡς δ’ ἔμαθον τὴν μοῖραν ἔδυ χόλος αἰνὸς ἅπαντας·

καὶ τότε κηρύκεσσιν ἑοῖς ἐκέλευον ὑπ’ ὄρθρον

κηρύσσειν ἀγορήν ἐς δώματα Τρωξάρταο,

πατρὸς δυστήνου Ψιχάρπαγος, ὃς κατὰ λίμνην

ὕπτιος ἐξήπλωτο νεκρὸν δέμας, οὐδε παρ’ ὄχθαις

ἦν ἤδη, τλήμων, μέσσῳ δ’ ἐπενήχετο πόντῳ.

ὡς δ’ ἦλθον σπεύδοντες ἅμ’ ἠοῖ, πρῶτος ἀνέστη

Τρωξάρτης ἐπὶ παιδὶ χολούμενος, εἶπέ τε μῦθον·

“ὦ φίλοι, εἰ καὶ μοῦνος ἐγὼ κακὰ πολλὰ πέπονθα

ἐκ βατράχων, ἡ πεῖρα κακὴ πάντεσσι τέτυκται.

εἰμὶ δ’ ἐγὼ δύστηνος ἐπεὶ τρεῖς παῖδας ὄλεσσα.

καὶ τὸν μὲν πρῶτόν γε κατέκτανεν ἁρπάξασα

ἔχθιστη γαλέη, τρώγλης ἔκτοσθεν ἑλοῦσα.

τὸν δ’ ἄλλον πάλιν ἄνδρες ἀπηνέες ἐς μόρον ἦξαν

καινοτέραις τέχναις ξύλινον δόλον ἐξευρόντες.

ἣν παγίδα καλέουσι, μυῶν ὀλέτειραν ἐοῦσαν.*

ὃ τρίτος ἦν ἀγαπητὸς ἐμοὶ καὶ μητέρι κεδνῇ,

τοῦτον ἀπέπνιξεν βάτραχος κακὸς ἐς βυθὸν ἄξας.

ἀλλ’ ἄγεθ’ ὁπλίζεσθε καὶ ἐξέλθωμεν ἐπ’ αὐτοὺς.”*

102. ὡς δ’ ἔμαθον

‘when, as soon as, since.’ With past tenses of the indicative, ὡς denotes time prior to that of the principal verb.

μοῖραν

μοῖρα -ας, ἡ, [μείρομαι], ‘allotted portion of life, destiny, fatal destiny, death, fate.’ Cf. μόρος note 90.

ἔδυ

3 sg. aor. ind. act., δύω, ‘to plunge, penetrate, enter, descend,’ fig. of pain and passion, ‘to possess.’

χόλος

χόλος -ου, ὁ, ‘bile,’ usu. fig., ‘anger.’ This is the first appearance of anger in this poem about war, unlike the Iliad in which μῆνις (anger, wrath) is the first word. It seems to be associated exclusively with mice (cf. 109, 239), the more appetitive and less contemplative of the two animals, as the poet describes them. This is perhaps another sign of their particular moral and cultural attainment (cf. note 53-4). Anger is, at least for Aristotle, an appropriate emotion for those who view themselves as being wronged (cf. 110, 142, with 97).

αἰνὸς

αἰνος -ή -όν, ‘terrible, fearful, horrendous;’ cf. note 248.

103. κηρύκεσσιν...κηρύκεσσιν

figura etymologica. The mice having heralds and using them associates them, perhaps, with Hermes - god of thieves.

ἐκέλευον

The imperfect of verbs of sending, going, saying, exhorting, etc., which imply continuous action, is often used where we might expect the aorist of concluded action.

ὄρθρον

ὄρθρος -ου, ὁ, ‘sunrise, dawn, first signs of daylight, dawning.’ This is the first precise temporal indication in the poem. One assumes the drowning happened on the day before and the mice are meeting on the morning of the next day.

104. δώματα

pl. = sg., cf. note 61. It is unclear where the heralds are calling the assembly, but it appears to be to the καλύβη where Crumb-Snatcher was born and where his two brothers were presumably killed (113-16) and where Nibble-Bread and Lick-Mill still reside. The setting and subsequent action are difficult to visualize.

105. δυστήνου

δύστηνος -ον [δυσ-, ἵστημι?], ‘unfortunate, unhappy, wretched,’ here probably modifying πατρὸς.

106. ὕπτιος

ὕπτιος -α -ον, ‘supine, stretched out on one’s back.’

ἐξήπλωτο

3 sg. ppf. ind. pass., ἐξαπλόω, ‘to be unfolded or spread out.’

νεκρὸν δέμας

‘dead body.’ Cf. note 81. An un-Homeric combination, since δέμας is restricted to live bodies; in this case, accusative of respect with ὕπτιος. The narrator suggests that the fact that Crumb-Snatcher’s body is floating away from the banks is lamentable. Interestingly, this would be the case in a human context where the retrieval and proper burial of bodies is uppermost in people’s minds. The mice, however, seem utterly unconcerned about the burial of bodies. Proper burial is a central preoccupation in Greek literature and a marker distinguishing men from animals. That the mice are unconcerned with burial undercuts Crumb- Snatcher’s pretentions about his cultured life among humans which seems to be limited mostly to snatching food.

107. ἐπενήχετο

3 sg. impf. ind. mid., ἐπινήχομαι, with dat. ‘to float upon.’

πόντῳ

πόντος -ου, ὁ, ‘sea, open sea;’ here, ‘open expanse,’ a common Homeric word for the open sea which seems grand, or perhaps too grand, to describe a pond.

108. ἅμ’ ἠοῖ

ἠώς, ἠοῦς, ἡ, ‘dawn, daybreak;’ ἅμ’ ἠοῖ, ‘at daybreak.’ After the action of the previous day, they meet in the morning to plan, cf. note 103.

109. χολούμενος

masc. sg. nom. pres. mid. part., ‘be angry, enraged,’ resonates with line 102 and focuses the theme of anger on the father and his loss.

μῦθον

The sense of the word is colored by context.·

110. μοῦνος

ep. Ion., μόνος, -η -ον, ‘alone, isolated.’ The word has a marked use in Homeric epic to describe one who is alone and in danger (Goldhill 2010), and appropriate to one who has lost three sons.

111. πεῖρα

πεῖρα -ας, ἡ, ‘attempt, trial, conflict, struggle.’

τέτυκται

3 sg. pf. ind. pass., τεύχω, ‘to produce, to bring to pass; in pass. to be made, done, wrought.’

112. δύστηνος

δύστηνος -ον [δυσ-, ἵστημι?], ‘unfortunate, unhappy, wretched.’ The father refers to himself with the same word that the narrator had used to describe him. Cf. line 105 above.

ὄλεσσα

ep. 1 sg. aor. ind. act., ὄλλυμι, ‘to lose, suffer the loss of,’ with acc. Cf. line 88 for the use of the mid./pass.

113. κατέκτανεν

3 sg. aor. ind. act., κατακτείνω [κατά, κτείνω], ‘to kill,’ used rarely in prose.

ἁρπάξασα

Cf. note 24, 260. The mice both snatch and are snatched.

114. γαλέη

Weasels were known as fierce and skillful predators. They were a common house pet in ancient Greece, but later supplanted by the domestic cat in the 2nd to 5th centuries C.E., even though they are better mousers and less likely to eat pet birds. There is some irony in Crumb-Snatcher at the outset escaping a weasel, unlike one of his brothers, but being done in by a frog. Given that the mice, according to Crumb-Snatcher, live in a human hut (καλύβη), presumably a weasel snatched Crumb-Snatcher’s brother by a hole in the hut. In general, we now get a very different, and more realistic picture, of the mice’s place in the human household. Crumb-Snatcher’s rather benign and upwardly mobile account of his life as a foodie is given the lie here and suggests that his descriptive name is more to the point. Cf. note 9.

τρώγλης

τρώγλη -ης, ἡ, [τρώγω], ‘hole,’ for a mouse cf. line 28.

115. ἀπηνέες

uncontr. pl. ἀπηνής -ές, ‘rough, hard, rude, cruel, ferocious,’ of pers. and things.

μόρον

μόρος -ου, ὁ, ‘destiny of death;’ [μείρομαι] ‘to divide, split up, have one’s allotted share,’ hence destiny.

ἦξαν

3 pl. aor. (sigmatic) ind. act., ἂγω, ‘to lead, carry off,’ with acc.

116. καινοτέραις

καινός -ή -όν, ‘newly invented, strange, surprising.’ Some argue that this refers to the first invention of the mousetrap, thus placing the action of the poem in a mythic past. However, a mouse is speaking, and from his perspective, presumably, this is a new and previously unknown invention, or else his son would not have put his head in it.

δόλον

δόλος -ου, ὁ, ‘deception, ambush, stratagem, plot, trap.’ Cf. note 93. Both father and son speak of deception.

117. παγίδα

παγίς -ίδος, ἡ [πάγη], ‘trap.’

ὀλέτειραν

ὀλέτειρα -ας, ἡ [ὄλλυμι], ‘female destroyer, assassin.’

118. κεδνῇ

κεδνός -ή -όν, ‘devoted, respectful.’

119. ἀπέπνιξεν

3 sg. aor. ind. act., ἀποπνίγω [ἀπό, πνίγω], ‘to choke, suffocate,’ cf. line 233, notes 148, 158. In the poem, it clearly means to drown with the transitive sense of one drowning another. This is not accurate because Crumb-Snatcher is left to drown, not actively drowned by Puff-Jaw as the narrator points out in line 99 (ἀπέπνευσεν).

βυθὸν

βυθός -οῦ, ὁ, ‘depth, depths, bottom of the sea, abyss.’ Crumb-Snatcher’s body is left floating in the pond (107), and his father makes no mention of burial contrary to Homeric preoccupations.

120. ἀλλ’ ἄγεθ’

(ἄγε, ἄγετε), ἄγω, 2 sg. and pl. pres. imper. act., as an exhortation, ‘Come on! Let’s go!’, often strenthd. ἀλλ´ἄγε. Also, can be joined with another imper. 2 sg. or pl. as here, ἀλλ’ ἄγεθ’ ὁπλίζεσθε, ‘come now, prepare to arm yourselves!’

ὁπλίζεσθε

2 pl. pres. imper. mid, ὁπλίζω, trans. ‘to prepare to arm, equip.’ Has the sense of preparation as opposed to καθοπλίζω which means actually ‘donning the armor,’ cf. note 122.

ἐξέλθωμεν

1 pl. aor. subj. act., ἐξέρχομαι [ἐξ, ἔρχομαι], ‘to go out, march,’ ἐπί τινα against s.o.

As soon as they learned of his fate terrible anger possessed them all;

thereupon they bade their heralds at first sign of daylight

to summon assembly to the dwelling of Nibble-Bread,

the unfortunate father of Crumb-Snatcher, who on the pond [105]

was spread out on his back a dead body, nor near the banks

was the poor wretch now, but he was floating in the middle of the open expanse.

As they came hurriedly at dawn, first rose

Nibble-Bread enraged over his son, and he spoke his counsel:

“Friends, even if I alone have suffered great harms [110]

from frogs, evil is the attempt wrought against all of us.

I am unfortunate seeing that I lost three sons.

And the first, indeed, a most detestable weasel snatched and killed,

having seized him from outside his hole.

Another one in turn cruel men carried off to his destiny [115]

with stranger contrivances having invented a wooden deception,

which they call ‘trap’, an exterminatrix of mice.

The third one was beloved to me and his devoted mother,

this one an evil frog drowned having carried him to the depths.”

Come now prepare to arm yourselves, and let us march out against them.” [120]

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102-107

108-120