Aristophanes, Peace 637 (web address 1, quoted in full later in the entry), with comment from the scholia there. The word picked out from it for the present headword is the dative plural, masculine or (as here) neuter, of the adjective δικρόος (also written δίκροος or δίκρος , whose meaning is “bifurcated” (Plato, Timaeus 78b7; Xenophon, Cynegeticus 9.19 and 10.7 τὰ δικρόα τῆς ὕλης , “forked branches”). The image of forked woods occurs also in a comic fragment, where a disgraceful situation is presumably described (Timocles fr.9.6 Kock). See also the scholia to Pindar, Nemean 6, 50b (3,112,7 Drachmann): δίκρουν γὰρ, ὥστε δύο ἀκμὰς ἔχειν καὶ μιᾷ βολῇ δισσὰ τὰ τραύματα ἀπεργάζεσθαι ."(Achilles’ sword is) forked, so as it has two points and may cause double wounds with one strike".
[1] δικράνιον , (indeed attested as δίκρανον ; if the textus receptus is genuine, that could be the only one extant instance of a diminutive), “pitchfork”. For a connection with the action of thrusting away see Lucian, Tim. 12 -οις ἐξωθεῖν (cf. in Latin, Catullus 105, 2 furcillis eicere, Cicero, ad Att. 16.2.4 furcilla extrudere, Horace, Epist. 1.10.24 furca expellere). A different meaning is attested by Hesychius (δικρόους: τὰς τριόδους ).
[2] Aristophanes, Peace 637. As the scholion remarks, here the word κεκράγμασι comes unexpectedly instead of ξύλοις , so that the usage of δικροῖς implies a metaphorical image: the loud, noisy voice of politicians addressing the public (cf. Wasps 36-37; 197-198), elsewhere mentioned with reference to Kleon (Wasps 314 κεκραγώς , 596 κεκραξιδάμας , Knights 137 κεκράκτης ) is pricking enough to talk the Athenians into the crucial decision of not negotiating the peace with their enemies. However, there is the possibility of recognizing in the image a minatory reference in the orators’ speeches to the wooden device used to bind a malefactor’s head (Sommerstein).
[3] The word κέκραγμα is an hapax legomenon: more occurrences for κεκραγμός (Euripides, IA 1357; Plutarch, Quaest.Conv. 3.6.4). The coinage of the word might have been determined by metrical reasons.