The Suda gives the following entry for ἀηδών (α 651 Adler):

The proverb comparing insomniacs to the nightingale at the end of this excerpt reappears: a) in another Suda entry (ο 828 Adler) with additional exegesis: παρ’ ὅσον ἡ ἀηδὼν ἀγρυπνεῖ διὰ τὸν Ἴτυν· μᾶλλον δὲ διὰ δειλίαν (‘[understand] as much as the nightingale keeps herself awake thanks to Itys; or, rather, because of her weakness/cowardice’); and b) in the Greek paroemiographic tradition: οὔδ’ ὅσον ἀηδόνες ὑπνοῖ (‘sleeps not even as much as nightingales’).

There is reason to suspect that the phrase in question is more than a simple proverbial saying. In addition to the importance granted to the nightingale in poetry of all periods, a fact which the longer Suda entry amply demonstrates,Footnote ¹ the presence of the exclusively epic verb ὑπνώω (LSJ s.v. ὑ. ‘to be drowsy’) suggests the proverb may have poetic origins. Although in its current form the proverb does not correspond to any known metrical length, by substituting transmitted ὅσον with the widely attested epic variant with sigmatic gemination ὅσσον—foreign to prose and thus susceptible to scribal normalization—one obtains (hexa)metrical coherence, namely a near-complete line beginning at the trithemimeral cesura:

Regarding the fragment’s content:

1. 1) οὔδ’ ὅσσον. The nexus with sigmatic gemination does not occur in this position before the Hellenistic period (Callim. Hymn 2.37; Ap. Rhod. Argon. 2.181; 4.1700), and then with increasing frequency in the Imperial poets, where it serves as a convenient formula for bridging the trithemimeral and trochaic caesurae (for example Opp. Hal. 2.5; [Maneth.] Apotel. 2.303, 3.22, 371). This and the presence of several refinements characteristic of post-Callimachean versification—the line’s clear structuring in neat cola demarcated by word-end coinciding with the trithemimeral position, the trochaic break in the third foot and the position before the fifth princeps—imply late composition.Footnote ²

2. 2) ἀηδόνες. The nightingale stands as one of nature’s many virtuoso singers, from whom human beings first learnt to compose poetry mimetically.Footnote ³ Her musical supremacy was regularly explained with the mythological aition of Procne, who, having murdered her own son Itys, set on mourning him without end. Following her metamorphosis into avian form, her plangent but melodic cries came to represent the funeral lament.Footnote ⁴ The Suda’s compiler was obviously aware of the tale but disregards it in the omicron-entry, opting instead for ‘cowardice’ as the reason behind the bird’s insomnia. In any case, Aristotle already noted how the bird spent the first two weeks of spring singing day and night (ἡμέρας καὶ νύκτας δεκαπέντε, Hist. an. 632b 20–3), and one finds her musical lament early in the poetic canon.Footnote ⁵ In the Suda entry, the plural ἀηδόνες implies an observation taken from nature rather than myth concerning a specific individual, which seems to discount the story of Procne and Itys and thus account for the Suda’s note about cowardice—though this seems more in keeping with literary presentations of, say, doves (cf. Aesch. Supp. 223–4).

3. 3) ὑπνώουσιν. Finite forms of ὑπνώω—of uncertain etymologyFootnote ⁶ —are rare in all periods though more prevalent in Hellenistic and Imperial texts, where they gravitate towards line-end and provide a convenient spondeiazon close.Footnote ⁷ In Homer, only the participle occurs in the formula καὶ ὑπνώοντας ἐγείρει (Il. 24.344; Od. 5.28, 24.4).

The present contribution has identified and commented on a hitherto unobserved hexameter fragment transmitted in the Suda under the entry for ἀηδών and οὔδ’ ὅσον, α 651 and ο 828 Adler respectively. Linguistic considerations suggest this short piece, which fills the remainder of a hexameter line from the trithemimeral position onwards, originated in an Imperial composition. It involves a simile or comparison, and seems to have run its own separate career as a proverb in the Byzantine period: hence its transmission in the Suda. Whether the Suda compiler was able to cite or recognize his source is unclear. Whatever the case, we add yet another specimen, however tiny, to our corpus of hexameter adespota.