Soon We’ll Be Eating

October 5, 2024

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Nothings

The longest word in the Greek language is λοπαδο­τεμαχο­σελαχο­γαλεο­κρανιο­λειψανο­δριμυπο­τριμματο­σιλφιο­καραβομελιτο­κατα­κεχυμενο­κιχλεπικοσσυφοφαττο­περιστεραλεκτρυονοπτο­κεφαλλιο­κιγκλοπελειο­λαγῳοσιραιο­βαφητραγανο­πτερύγων.

Appearing in Aristophanes’ 391 BC scatological comedy Assemblywomen, the word refers to a stew which Jeffrey Henderson translates as “limpets and saltfish and sharksteak and dogfish and mullets and oddfish with savory pickle sauce and thrushes with blackbirds and various pigeons and roosters and pan-roasted wagtails and larks and nice chunks of hare marinated in mulled wine and all of it drizzled with honey and silphium and vinegar, oil and spices galore.” In the play’s final chorus (translated below by Eugene O’Neill), the audience is invited to the first feast initiated by the new government established by the titular assemblywomen:

And you others, let your light steps too keep time.
Very soon we’ll be eating
lopado­temacho­selacho­galeo­kranio­leipsano­drim­hypo­trimmato­silphio­karabo­melito­katakechy­meno­kichl­epi­kossypho­phatto­perister­alektryon­opte­kephallio­kigklo­peleio­lagoio­siraio­baphe­tragano­pterygon.
Come, quickly, seize hold of a plate, snatch up a cup, and let’s run to secure a place at table. The rest will have their jaws at work by this time.

Rev. Rowland Smith’s 1833 verse translation breaks up the dish:

Limpets, oysters, salt fish,
And a skate too a dish,
Lampreys, with the remains
Of sharp sauce and birds’ brains,
With honey so luscious,
Plump blackbirds and thrushes,
Cocks’ combs and ring doves,
Which each epicure loves,
Also wood-pigeons blue,
With juicy snipes too,
And to close all, O rare!
The wings of jugged hare!

At 171 letters in Greek and 183 transliterated to Latin (Lopado­temacho­selacho­galeo­kranio­leipsano­drim­hypo­trimmato­silphio­karabo­melito­katakechy­meno­kichl­epi­kossypho­phatto­perister­alektryon­opte­kephallio­kigklo­peleio­lagoio­siraio­baphe­tragano­pterygon), Aristophanes’ dish is the longest word to ever appear in literature.

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One response to “Soon We’ll Be Eating”

  1. The Torment of Another’s Grief – Christian Molenaar
    April 28, 2025

    […] detailing a feast at which each of the guests —among them Phædrus, Pausanias and our old friend Aristophanes, offering up his infamous doppelganger theory of love — is asked to discourse upon the subject of […]

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“For there is a real magic in the action and reaction of minds on one another. The casual deliration of a few becomes, by this mysterious reverberation, the frenzy of many; men lose the use, not only of their understandings, but of their bodily senses; while the most obstinate unbelieving hearts melt, like the rest, in the furnace where all are cast as victims and as fuel.”

Thomas Carlyle | Signs of the Times

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