It is said on Wiki that the Cucurbita maxima originated in South America. Is there a more accurate rendering of κολοκύνθη?
I had thought maybe kolokythakia, as below, but it turns out they come from the Americas too:
Unfortunately I’m in transit soon and so don’t have time to check, but here is my advice. Do you take hold of a commentary on Seneca’s “Ludus de morte Divi Claudii” which more commonly has the title “Ἀποκολοκύνθωσις”. I’m sure any commentary will have a brief note on the title and what type of gourd it would have been.
I could be okra, it could be the Egyptian gourd, I don’t know, but now I want fried kolokythakia. Good luck.
Some sort of watermelon? They are related to the colocynth, which is κολοκύνθη ἀγρία in your LSJ link.
The LSJ says that σικύα Ἰνδική = κολοκύντη (maybe a Tinda?). And σικύα πικρά = κολοκυνθίς, which sounds a lot like the wild colocynth above.
If my grandmother had heard your wish she would have dashed to the kitchen to oblige.
Even the wiki article about the play explains that a little. “Gourdification” or “pumpkinification” are meant as humour rather than a scientific description.
That would be great. The okra I ate yesterday was the left-overs from the day before and I’d be happy enough to have it today and tomorrow too.
Besides what wiki says, my own thinking is that it is obviously a play on ἀποθέωσις, “deification”, meant to be funny, because it uses a vegetable that sounds the closest to the κόλαξ / κολακεύειν / κολακεία “flatterer, fawner” / “to flatter; to be a flatterer” / “flattery” family of words.