For she is young (νέα), but when she is a sow (δελφακουμένα),
You'll see she'll have a large, fat, ruddy tail;
And if you keep her she'll be a noble pig (χοῖρος καλά).
And Eupolis, in his Golden Age, uses it as feminine; and Hipponax wrote—
Ώς Έφεσίη δέλφαξ.
And, indeed, it is the female pig which is more correctly called by this name, as having δελφύας, for that word δελφὺς means a womb. And it is the word from which ἀδελφὸς is derived. But respecting the age of these animals, Cratinus speaks in his Archilochi, saying—
These men have δέλφακες, the others χοῖροι.
And Aristophanes the grammarian, in his treatise on Ages, says—"Those pigs which are now come to a compact form, are called δέλφακες; but those which are tender, and are full of juice, are called χοῖροι;" and this makes that line of Homer intelligible—
The servants all have little pigs (χοίρεα) to eat,
But on fat hogs (σύες) the dainty suitors feast.[26]
And Plato the comic poet, in his Poet, uses the word in the masculine gender, and says—
He led away the pig (τόν δέλφακα) in silence.
But there was ancient custom, as Androtion tells us, for the sake of the produce of the herds, never to slay a sheep which had not been shorn, or which had never had young, on which account they always ate full-grown animals: