Delitiron

Delitiron grece venenum farmacon thanasia.

Apparatus:

Delitiron (-rõ B) ABC j | Deliciron f {‘t’ misread as ‘c’} | Delecteron ms. e | Deleteⁱron p
farmacon (-cõ A) AC | fo^Armacõ j {‘fo-‘ superscript A} | farmacuʒ (-cũ B) B e | farmachon p | farma f
thanasia AC fp | thãasia B | tanasia ms. e | t^hanasia j {‘h’ added later}

Translation:

Delitiron is Greek for venom, poison, ??.

Commentary:

Delitiron:
Greek δηλητήριον /dēlētḗrion/ (sc. / φάρμακον /phármakon/) means "poison".

The expected itacist Greek pronunciation would be *dilitirion. The letter "i" in endings like –ion is often superscript – ⁱon or marked by some other diacritic and can easily be overlooked in the transmission. Something similar must have happened here. The use of the vowel 'e' in the first syllable of Simon's delitiron is perhaps due to association with Latin delirium or some similar word. The writing of 'ct' for 't' in some witnesses may simply be a hypercorrect spelling.

thanasia:
here most likely meaning "(deadly) poison", is obviously ultimately related to Greek θάνατος /thánatos/ "death, whether natural or violent". The word in this form seems to be nowhere else documented. One possibility is that it is an early misreading of thanasima < θανάνσιμα /thanásima/ "deadly matters, items", i.e. the pl. neuter of θανάνσιμος /thanásimos/ "deadly, fatal". The chain of misreadings could have been: *t(h)anasima > *t(h)anasĩa > t(h)anasia.

WilfGunther (talk) 15:35, 16 December 2015 (GMT)

See also: Deleterion

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