Dr. G. S. Kirk suggested that the last line here referred to ‘a fantastically ithyphallic bridegroom’. Professor Lloyd-Jones , while professing uncertainty as to the rightness of this suggestion, thought it ‘quite likely’, and adduced in support of it a story from Tzetzes on Lycophron 1378 , a story told also, but in different words, in the Etymologicum Magnum s.v. , and containing in this second version the words ‘used in just the sense which Dr. Kirk ascribed to it in (...) Sappho’. (shrink)

As to the wearing of a leather phallus by fifth-century comic actors, Pickard- Cambridge wrote: ‘Aristophanes’ resolution to avoid such indecencies does not seem to have lasted long.’ One year would not have beenlong; and Beare, who resumed Thiele's position, and Webster, who supported that of Körte, carried on a controversy on the matter without reference to what I believe is a relevant, if misunderstood, text.