Twofold in nature — διφυής

Use in the book

Protogonos is twofold in the opening of VI.1, but that line does not specify the aspects. Dionysos receives the word beside first-born and thrice-born in XXX.2, a sequence whose different compounds should retain their separate force. Korybas is twofold among shifting-form and many-form descriptions (XXXIX.5); change of appearance is prominent, but the line still does not define the two. Eros is twofold beside dexterity and possession of all keys (LVIII.4), again without an explicit pair.

XLII.4 supplies the clearest local specification: Iakchos is male and female, twofold, and a loosener. Here a sex-related reading is supported by adjacent Greek words, not merely by an interpretive tradition. This is the passage to use when explaining that possibility. Extending it automatically to every other occurrence would replace the poems’ varied surroundings with one fixed gloss. The repeated adjective creates a useful comparison; the surrounding phrases determine how far the comparison can go.

Places to read

1. Hymn VI · Line 1Protogonos is twofold without an expressed pair.
2. Hymn XXX · Line 2Dionysos’s different birth and nature compounds remain distinct.
3. Hymn XXXIX · Line 5Korybas’s twofold nature stands among varied-form descriptions.
4. Hymn XLII · Line 4Male and female explicitly supply a local contrast.
5. Hymn LVIII · Line 4Eros provides another occurrence without a defined pair.

Translation

The edition varies twofold in nature, twofold and double nature. None of these renderings should silently become always androgynous. At XLII.4 the apparatus reports ἄρρενα against adopted ἄρσενα, an alternative spelling of male that leaves the explicit male-and-female coordination intact.

Attested forms

διφυῆ

Occurrence inventory

5 in total. VI.1; XXX.2; XXXIX.5; XLII.4; LVIII.4

Lexical references

LSJ διφυής (n27625)