Turns out that besides ἁρπάζω, rapio, snatch/rape there are of course more verbs of movement that include/express copulation, namely θρῴσκω, jump (also, ἐπιβαίνω, ‘get on, mount’) . These both somehow seem more appropriate to TFG’s behavior. It did bring on another LSJ peeve. βουθόρος, cow-jumping, is translated as ‘vaccas iniens’ (Latin for entering into cows- enough already with the Latin!) rather than jumping (elsewhere they use ‘cover‘ for impregnation attempts in animal husbandry: “of the male, covering“). All this to protect the youths reading Aeschylus, or the sensibilities of the typesetters, who knows.

[Boy I would love to see a prose comp contest at some point where you have to use as many literal mistranslations as possible, such as ‘cover one’s ass’]

Now, should it be βουθόρος or βούθορος, and ἱππόθορος or ἱπποθόρος? The Aeschylus passage can’t tell us, and so we are left to consider whether the female is a direct object of a transitive action, or a mere landmark.. After all, transitive meanings get paroxytone accents as a rule, adverbial ones get proparoxytone. The texts, including the Plutarch I’m working on, have mostly ἱππόθορος and Chandler (accent bible for the obsessed) figures he’ll go with proparoxy for θορος compounds as well. A passing landmark? A grimace on my part, and an “accent varies” as a note in the database, which is true if you count a late lexicon entry.