Ar. Eccl. 889 ὅμως ἔχει τερπνόν τι καὶ κωμῳδικόν. A Comedy's Self-Consideration on Its Lyrical Forms at the Dawn of "Middle Comedy"?

This paper deals with the metatheatrical passage of Ar. Eccl. 887-889, where the character of the Old Woman, being on the point of singing alone to catch men’s attention, is interrupted by the Girl, who exclaims towards her that she is ready to ἀντᾴδειν. In the words of the Girl, which promises directly to the audience that this ἀντᾴδειν will have something τερπνόν and κωμῳδικόν, is to be recognised a ‘justification’ of the author, worried about a possible annoying effect on his spectators. After the discussion and the confutation of the interpretations provided until now by some scholars, this paper aims to put forward two new alternative proposals, by taking into closer consideration the dramaturgy of the scene of Ecclesiazusae and the possible connections with the choral interlude immediately preceding it, and by analyzing in depth each of the technical words contained in the text of Aristophanes involved in this metatheatrical section.