ἀνεψύχην, ἀνέψυξα
(Antiatt. α 89, Philemo [Laur.] 356, Thom.Mag. 9.12–3)

D. General commentary

An entry in the Antiatticist (A.1), one from Philemon (A.2), and one from Thomas Magister (A.3) allow us to reconstruct an ancient debate concerning the correct use of the active and (middle-)passive forms of the verb ἀναψύχω in relation to its transitive meaning ‘to refresh, to revive’ (but also ‘to dry’) and its intransitive one ‘to recover, to rest’ (arguably derived metaphorically from the literal passive meaning ‘to be refreshed’). A somewhat similar discussion among Atticist scholars concerned the verb ἀνοίγω ‘to open’ (see entry ἀνέῳγεν, ἀνέῳκται). The Atticists’ interest in this topic is easily understandable in view of the post-classical decline in the use of the (middle-)passive voice – in favour of the active voice – for several verbs (cf. below). As far as ἀναψύχω is concerned, following the usage of classical authors, the Atticists (A.2, A.3) prescribed the (middle-)passive forms when the intended meaning was the intransitive ‘to rest’, and accepted only the transitive meaning for the active diathesis. Traces of this prescription can also be found in the Synagoge (both in Σ´´ and in Σ^b; cf. B.1, B.2, and B.3), although each entry seems to address the issue from a different perspective (cf. below). A more general interest in the semantics of ἀναψύχω (and related verbs such as ἀποψύχω and ψυχάζω) is further attested by several other lexicographic entries, a selection of which is presented here (see B.4, B.5, and B.6).

The verb ἀναψύχω is attested as early as the Homeric poems (4x), Hesiod (1x), and Theognis (1x) (on the base verb ψύχω – quite rare in both Classical and Post-classical Greek – and its long-debated relationship to ψῦχος ‘cold, coolness’, on the one hand, and ψυχή ‘soul’, on the other, see Benveniste 1932; DELG s.vv. ψυχή and ψυχρός; GEW s.v. ψυχή; Jouanna 1987; Mumm, Richter 2008; EDG s.vv. ψυχή and ψυχρός). ἀναψύχω is relatively common in 5th-century Attic literature (cf. Sophocles C.1, Euripides C.2 and IA 421; Ameipsias C.3, Xenophon 2x; Plato 4x). Judging from these attestations, the intransitive meaning ‘to recover, to rest’ appears to be consistently expressed by the (middle-)passive diathesis (lit. ‘to be refreshed’), whereas post-classical attestations reveal a tendency for this meaning to be conveyed by the active voice. This is particularly evident in the seven occurrences in the Septuagint (see e.g. C.5), where the verb, regardless of mood or tense, is always active and always used intransitively. The same shift is also observable in documentary texts (six in total, all dating from the 1st century CE onwards), cf. e.g. SB 26.16579.4–6 (= TM 97154) [provenance unknown, first half of the 1st century CE]: ἐρωτῶ σὲ | καὶ παρακαλῶι ἐπιστολίδιόν μοι ἀπόστει|λον ἵνα ἀναψ̣ύ̣ξωι (‘I ask and beg you, send me a letter so that I may find relief (i.e. from worrying)’) and P.Oxy. 10.1296.7 (= TM 31731) [3rd century CE]: φιλοπονοῦμεν καὶ ἀναψύχομεν (‘We are industrious and we rest’). The very same development can be observed in the case of ἀναπαύω/ἀναπαύομαι, with Classical Greek clearly distinguishing between the transitive (causative) meaning of the active voice (‘to stop [something/someone], to make [someone] rest’) and the intransitive meaning of the middle-passive (‘to rest’), whereas in Post-classical Greek the active voice takes over the intransitive meaning (cf. Méndez Dosuna 2004, with further bibliography). These changes belong to a broader post-classical trend towards the use of transitive verbs with intransitive meaning (cf. Mayser, Gramm. vol. 2,1, 82–7; Blass, Debrunner 1976, 257), a development which could hardly have escaped the Atticists’ attention. More specifically, in the case of ἀναψύχω, this shift occurs at the interface between syntax and semanticsSemantic shift, since the intransitive meaning ‘to rest’ (originally conveyed by the (middle-)passive diathesis and later by the active) derives from the literal passive meaning ‘to be refreshed’. Indeed, this development could be interpreted as a phenomenon of ‘subjectification’ (Traugott 2003; Traugott 2010), in that the original objective meaning ‘to be refreshed’ expressed by the passive diathesis ends up expressing the subjective state ‘to cool off, to rest’, which then in Post-classical Greek increasingly comes to be encoded by the active diathesis (I thank the anonymous reviewer for this suggestion). One should note, at any rate, that alongside its intransitive (‘subjective’) usage ‘to rest’, the active ἀναψύχω continues to be employed also as a regular transitive verb with the accusative, cf. e.g. the only occurrence of the verb in the New Testament (2 Ep.Ti. 2.16: δῴη ἔλεος ὁ κύριος τῷ Ὀνησιφόρου οἴκῳ, ὅτι πολλάκις με ἀνέψυξεν, ‘may the Lord grant mercy to Onesiphorus’ family, because he has often comforted me’).

Philemon’s short entry (A.2) – along with Thomas Magister’s one (A.3), which in all likelihood depends on Philemon (on this relationship, see entry Thomas Magister, ’Ονομάτων Ἀττικῶν ἐκλογή) – should be interpreted as prescribing the passive voice (and rejecting the active) specifically for the intransitive sense ‘to rest, to recover’. Conversely, the entry in the Antiatticist (A.1) – in which the active aorist ἀνέψυξα is glossed with ἀνεπαυσάμην (‘I rested’) – is easily explained as a defence of the intransitive use of the active diathesis, based on a lost occurrence from the New Comedy poet Diphilus (on the play The Loving Sibling(s), see most recently Karamanou 2024, 192–4). Authors of the imperial period apparently disregard the Atticist prescription and tend to employ ἀναψύχω in the active voice even when the intended meaning is intransitive, cf. e.g. Arr. An. 5.18.8: ὡς δὲ ἔπιέ (i.e. ὁ Πῶρος) τε καὶ ἀνέψυξεν, ἄγειν αὑτὸν σπουδῇ ἐκέλευσεν παρὰ Ἀλέξανδρον (‘When he (i.e. Porus) drank and cooled off, he ordered [Meroes] to conduct him at once to Alexander’); App. BC 4.4.29: ἔτυχε δὲ ἀναψύχων κατὰ τὸ ἄντρον (‘[The man] happened to be resting in the grotto’). This trend in post-classical literature may, in fact, explain why the Antiatticist was likely concerned with defending the intransitive use of the active voice. The same can be said of Antiatt. δ 64Antiatt. δ 64 (διενεγκεῖν· ἀντὶ τοῦ προσπαλαίειν. Τηλεκλείδης Ἡσιόδῳ, ‘διενεγκεῖν (inf. aor. from διαφέρω): In the sense of ‘to wrestle’. Teleclides in Hesiod (fr. 22)’), where the lexicographer defends a specific intransitive meaning for the active voice of διαφέρω, while Phrynichus allows only the transitive sense ‘to separate, to distinguish’ (cf. Phryn. Ecl. 353Phryn. Ecl. 353: τίνι διαφέρει τόδε καὶ τόδε· οὐ χρὴ οὕτω λέγειν κατὰ δοτικὴν πτῶσιν, ἀλλὰ ‘τί διαφέρει’, καθὰ καὶ Δημοσθένης φησὶν ‘τί δοῦλον ἢ ἐλεύθερον εἶναι διαφέρει’. λέγε οὖν ‘τί διαφέρει’, ‘‘In what do this and this differ?’: one must not say it thus with the dative case, but ‘what distinguishes [this from that]?’, according to [what] Demosthenes (22.55) also says: ‘what distinguishes being a slave from being free?’. Therefore say ‘what distinguishes [this from that]?’’).

The distinction between the intransitive and transitive meanings of ἀναψύχω in relation to the diathesis is also discussed in later erudition, specifically in the Synagoge tradition – in two entries from Σ´´ (B.1, B.2) and one from Σ^b (B.3). The three entries appear to address the issue from different perspectives. On the one hand, B.1 (which surely relies on a more ancient source, as evidenced by the quotation from Ameipsias, C.3) adopts a rather descriptive tone: its purpose is to highlight that ancient authors use the passive instead of the active voice (i.e. when the meaning is intransitive), but it contains no explicit proscription of the latter in favour of the former. B.2, by contrast, clearly distinguishes between the correct use of the active and passive forms, comparing and explaining two Platonic lemmas, i.e. ἀναψῦχον (active with transitive meaning) and ἀναψυχομένη (middle-passive with intransitive meaning); cf. Pl. Cra. 399d.12–e.1: ὅταν παρῇ τῷ σώματι (i.e. ἡ ψυχή), αἴτιόν ἐστι τοῦ ζῆν αὐτῷ, τὴν τοῦ ἀναπνεῖν δύναμιν παρέχον καὶ ἀναψῦχον (‘When it (i.e. the soul) is in the body, it is the cause of its living, giving it the power to breathe and reviving it’); Pl. Ti. 70d.2–6: καὶ περὶ τὴν καρδίαν αὐτὸν περιέστησαν οἷον μάλαγμα, ἵν’ ὁ θυμὸς ἡνίκα ἐν αὐτῇ ἀκμάζοι, πηδῶσα εἰς ὑπεῖκον καὶ ἀναψυχομένη, πονοῦσα ἧττον, μᾶλλον τῷ λόγῳ μετὰ θυμοῦ δύναιτο ὑπηρετεῖν (‘And they placed the lungs as a kind of padding round the heart, in order that, when the passion therein should be at its height, by leaping upon a yielding substance and becoming cool, the heart might suffer less and thereby be enabled the more to be subservient to the reason in time of passion’, transl. Bury 1929, 183). Finally, B.3 presents some interpretive problems. In the form preserved by Σ^b, the Suda, and Pseudo-Zonaras, the lemma appears as an otherwise unattested 3rd-person aorist indicative ἀνεψύχησεν, which the interpretamentum equates to the regular aorist ἀνέψυξεν, assigning the latter form to ‘common usage’ (ἐν τῇ συνηθείᾳ). Other instances of this -ησ- aorist (which presupposes the present ἀναψυχέω, cf. LBG s.v. and E.) are sporadically found in Byzantine texts (e.g. once in Theodorus Studites, as well as in medieval works such as the 14th-century Tale of Livistros and Rodamne); yet the standard form throughout the Greek literary corpus is no doubt ἀνέψυξα. In view of this, B.3 may be understood as the explanation of a lost occurrence of the -ησ- aorist through the comparison with the regular form ἀνέψυξεν. Alternatively, one might speculate that the transmitted ἀνεψύχησεν is in fact a corruption of the 3rd-person passive aorist indicative ἀνεψύχη and that this entry too, like B.1 and B.2, concerns the differing usage of the passive and active voices of ἀναψύχω.

Thomas Magister (A.3) discusses two forms seemingly overlooked by other erudite sources, i.e. ἀναψυχθῆναι (which he recommends, along with ἀναψυχῆναι) and ἀναψυγῆναι (which he proscribes, along with ἀναψῦξαι). Both ἀναψυχθῆναι and ἀναψυγῆναι appear to be minor variants of the passive aorist: ἀναψυχθῆναι occurs once in Homer (an attestation discussed in the Homeric Epimerismi, 1x, the scholia, 1x, and Eustathius, 3x), once in Xenophon, twice in Hippocrates (then quoted twice by Galen), once in the Vita Salomonis, once in Hesychius, and twice in the Geoponica. The occurrences of ἀναψυγῆναι are even rarer (Hippocrates 1x, Galen 2x, Strabo 1x, Geoponica 2x), although for the simple ψύχω the late aorist ψυγῆναι is comparatively much more common than ψυχθῆναι and ψυχῆναι (on these forms see Moer. ψ 9Moer. ψ 9 and AGP vol. 2, Phonology, forthcoming). Whether Thomas Magister found the two forms already in his source (i.e. likely Philemon, cf. above) or introduced them himself during the redaction of the lexicon cannot be ascertained.

E. Byzantine and Modern Greek commentary

Despite the reception by Byzantine lexica of the Atticist teaching concerning the active and passive voices of ἀναψύχω, the intransitive (‘subjective’) use of active ἀναψύχω persists in Byzantine literature, surely under the influence of the Scriptures (cf. e.g. Theodorus Studites Μεγάλη κατήχησις 61.431: ἀδελφοὶ καὶ πατέρες, ἀναψύχομεν, ὁσάκις κτλ, ‘brothers and fathers, we revive whenever etc.’; Arethas Scripta Minora 69.92.27: καὶ ἄνες ἡμῖν ἵνα ἀναψύξωμεν πρὸ τοῦ ἀπελθεῖν, ‘and let us go, so that we may rest before leaving’). The Byzantine development ἀναψύχω > ἀναψυχέω (cf. above) eventually gave rise to ἀναψυχώνω (‘to revive, to encourage [someone]’; see Kriaras, LME s.v.) through the addition of -ν- (cf. CGMEMG vol. 3, 1290–1). The form is retained in Modern Greek solely in the transitive sense ‘to give courage, to embolden [someone]’ (cf. LKN s.v. αναψυχώνω).

F. Commentary on individual texts and occurrences

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