Το τέρας με τα τέσσερα πόδια και τις δύο πλάτες

[Theseus]

Slang.gr defines it thus:- το τέρας με τα τέσσερα πόδια και τις δύο πλάτες. Μυθολογικό Βακχικό πλάσμα.. The example supplied seems to be describing sex!

Μπαίνω μέσα στο σαλόνι και τι βλέπω; Το τέρας με τα τέσσερα πόδια και τις δύο πλάτες, ο συγκάτοικος και η Στέλλα, η από κάτω... τρόμαξα φίλε, αγριεμένο ήτανε...
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But this describes culinary chaos:

Ούτε καν στο τραπέζι δεν προλάβαμε να κάτσουμε, πήγα εγώ να φέρω το κρασί, πήγε αυτή για χαρτοπετσέπετες, ε, είναι και στενή η κουζίνα, με τα σουρταφέρτα το ξυπνήσαμε το τέρας με τα τέσσερα πόδια και τις δύο πλάτες.
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Is it possible to be more specific or does the context determine the meaning?:wub::devil:

 

[Earion]

If you approach the Four-Legged Monster from a certain view point, Theseus, you will see this:

... and in a cramped space (like the kitchen described) the Monster may be aroused in force.

 

[Theseus]

Thank you for pointing out my naivety in the second example. Slang.gr threw me off the scent by saying that the idiom describes a 'mythological Bacchic creation'. I thought of Centaurs & then tried to guess the meaning. The phrase 'making the beast with two backs' is at least as early as Shakespeare & he probably was using a common idiom. Here is the reference from Othello, 1604:

[Iago]:"I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs."

Shakespeare may have been the first to use it in English, although a version of it appears in Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, circa 1532. This was translated into English by Thomas Urquhart and published posthumously around 1693:

In the vigour of his age he married Gargamelle, daughter to the King of the Parpaillons, a jolly pug, and well-mouthed wench. These two did oftentimes do the two-backed beast together, joyfully rubbing and frotting their bacon 'gainst one another. :huh:

 

[Marinos]

I would have mentioned Shakespeare but you were faster :) Here is a Greek classic equivalent, Karyotakis:

Ένα διάστημα παίζετε το τέρας
με τα τέσσερα πόδια κολλητά.
Τρέχετε και διαβάζετε μετά
τον οδηγό σας «διά τας μητέρας».
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[Theseus]

I've read the whole poem, Marinos, about Japanese 'beauties/dolls' (young attractive women) and their conforming facelessness but these two I couldn't understand apart from the lines you use to illustrate the phrase I asked the question about:

Ένα διάστημα παίζετε το τέρας
με τα τέσσερα πόδια κολλητά.
Τρέχετε και διαβάζετε μετά
τον οδηγό σας «διά τας μητέρας».

Ω, να μπορούσε έτσι κανείς να θάλλει,
μέγα ρόδο κάποιας ώρας χρυσής,
ή να βυθομετρούσατε και σεις
με μία φουρκέτα τ’ άδειο σας κεφάλι!
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What exactly does Karyotakis mean here?

You run & read with your guide 'for your mother's sake' .

O would that anyone could flourish thus--
a great rose of some golden hour
or would that you could plumb the depths
of your empty head with a hairpin'?
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[Marinos]

After "playing the beast with two backs", you (have to) run to read "mother's guide" (because you get pregnant and begin your bourgeois family life).
The rest of your translation (O would that anyone could flourish thus--a great rose of some golden hour or would that you could plumb the depths of your empty head with a hairpin) is exquisite, I think. By the way, Yiorgos Seferis somewhere cites this verse as a parallel to T. S. Elliot's early verse, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.

 

[Marinos]

I've read the whole poem, Marinos, about Japanese 'beauties/dolls' (young attractive women) and their conforming facelessness

Another detail: the poem is not about Japanese 'dolls' but about 'Japanese dolls' (young attractive women, as you say, which look fragile and celestial like Japanese porcelaine dolls).

Thanks to the Moderator Anonymous for all the editing - I also wish I hadn't written Elliot instead of Eliot!

 

[Theseus]

It appeared to be a strange idiom 'you run & read' &, in fact, the idiom 'he who runs may read' is biblical Habbakuk 2:2. 'The LORD answered me: Write down this vision; clearly inscribe it on tablets so that he who runs may read it' & means 'so that its meaning is perfectly clear.' But this idiom led me astray!

 

[SBE]

Τρέχω να [κάνω κάτι]= πηγαίνω χωρίς καθυστέρηση να [κάνω κάτι], σπεύδω
Τρέχω here does not mean to run, it means to rush.

So according to Kariotakis, the women he describes rush to read the New Mother's Guide.

 

[Theseus]

Thanks, SBE, for the useful note. Is διά της μητέρας more formal, as befits such a guide, rather than για την μητέρα?

 

[Marinos]

It is δια τας μητέρας (plural), which is the καθαρεύουσα form for για τις μητέρες as befits any (non-fictional) book published in the 1920s (Karyotakis published this poem in 1927).

 

[SBE]

Thanks, SBE, for the useful note. Is διά της μητέρας more formal, as befits such a guide, rather than για την μητέρα?

Note that the article here is τας is not της.
Δια τας μητέρας= "for mothers", is the plural accusative of the noun η μήτηρ which is, as you may have guessed, katharevousa. Nowadays it would be "για τις μητέρες".
Guidebooks and manuals were written in katharevousa in the 1920s.

 

[Theseus]

An understandable but silly mistake on my part. Thanks.

 

[Marinos]

By the way, Yiorgos Seferis somewhere cites this verse as a parallel to T. S. Elliot's early verse, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.

Για την ιστορία:

Κάτι γνωρίσαμε κι εμείς από τη διάθεση αυτή με τον Καρυωτάκη. Ο στίχος του "κ. Προύφροκ" που θαυμάστηκε τόσο γύρω στα 1915:

Μέτρησα τη ζωή μου με το κουταλάκι του καφέ​

δεν είναι πολύ διαφορετικός από το στίχο των Ελεγείων:

ή να βυθομετρούσατε και σεις
με μια φουρκέτα τ' άδειο σας κεφάλι!​

Αρχίζει κανείς όπως μπορεί.

(Γ. Σεφέρης, Δοκιμές, Α΄, 21)