10
Forthwith I hit upon the Torch-bearer and the Hierophant, with the other participants in unutterable rites,Those of the Eleusinian Mysteries. haling Deinias neck and crop to the office, bringing the charge that he had named them, albeit he knew right well that from the time when they were hallowed they were nameless and thenceforth ineffable, as being now all Hieronymuses.”The adjective “of hallowed name” was itself used as a name. Unintentionally, Lexiphanes suggests that they have changed their names.
10
“I do not know,” said I, “the Deinias that you mention, but the name intrigues me.”No doubt because the name deinias was given to a variety of drinking pot (Athenaeus, XI, 467 D—E). “A clove- engulfing haunter of gaming-houses,” quoth he; “one of those bezonians, those joculators, a curlilocks, wearing lace boots or pantoffles, with manches to his shirt.”The word here used for boots (€vSpoyéSas) had another meaning—a kind of woman’s cloak. “Well,’ said I, ‘did he in some wise pay the piper; or did he take himself off after setting his heel upon them?” “Verily,” said he, “that fellow, the whilom swaggerer, is now ensconced; for, notwithstanding his reluctation, the magistrate decked him out with wristlets and a necklace and lodged him in the bilboes and the stocks. Wherefore, being impounded, the sorry wretch fusted for fear, and trumped, and was fain to give weregelt.”In my opinion ypjpuara dvrifvya is misused here, for it means “blood-money,” or weregelt, rather than “ransom.”
