LYCOPHRON, ALEXANDRA 494 - 1010

ALEXANDRA LINES 494 - 1010, TRANSLATED WITH FOOTNOTES BY A. W. MAIR

[494] And the third¹ is the son of him² who took from the hollow of the rock the arms of the giant³; even he⁴ into whose secret bed shall come self-invited that heifer⁵ of Ida who shall go down to Hades alive,⁶ worn out with lamentation, the mother of Munitus, whom one day, as he hunts, a viper of Crestone⁷ shall kill, striking his heel with fierce sting; what time into his father’s⁸ hands that father’s father’s⁹ mother,¹⁰ taken captive, shall lay the young cub¹¹ reared in the dark: she on whom alone the wolves¹² which harried the people of Acte¹³ set the yoke of slavery in vengeance for the raped Bacchant,¹⁴ those wolves whose head a cloven egg-shell¹⁵ covers, to guard them from the bloody spear; all else the worm-eaten untouched seal¹⁶ watches in the halls, a great marvel to the people of the country. Which things shall rear a ladder to the trace of the stars for the twin half-mortal Lapersii.¹⁷ Whom, O Saviour Zeus, never mayst thou send against my fatherland to succour the twice-raped corncrake,¹⁸ nor may they equip their winged ships and from the stern end set their naked swift foot in the landing-place¹⁹ of the Bebryces! Neither may those others²⁰ who are mightier than these lions, the unapproachable in valour, whom Ares loves and divine Enyo and the goddess that was born on the third day,²¹ Boarmia Longatis Homolois Bia. The walls which the two working craftsmen, Drymas²² and Prophantus,²³ Lord of Cromna,²⁴ built for the king²⁵ that brake his oath, would not avail for one day against the ravaging wolves, to keep out their grievous ruinous assault, even though they have before the towers the mighty Canastraean,²⁶ the native giant, as a bar against the foemen, eager to smite with well-aimed shaft the first harrier of the flocks. His spear shall a bold falcon²⁷ first handsel, swooping a swift leap, best of the Greeks, for whom, when he is dead, the ready shore of the Doloncians²⁸ builds of old a tomb, even Mazusia jutting from the horn of the dry land.

1. Acamas, son of Theseus. Theseus was son of Aegeus (really Poseidon) and Aethra, daughter of Pittheus of Troezen. Aegeus hid his sword and shoes under a rock to serve as tokens by which their son might make himself known to his father when he grew up. Before the Trojan war Acamas went to Troy with Diomede to demand back Helen. Here, by Laodice, daughter of Priam, he had a son Munitus who was reared by his grandmother Aethra, who was then in Troy in attendance on Helen. When Troy was taken, Aethra gave up Munitus to Acamas, while Laodice was swallowed by the earth near the tomb of Ilus. Munitus afterwards died by the bite of a snake in Thrace.
2. Theseus.
3. Aegeus.
4. Acamas.
5. Laodice.
6. See v. 314. n.
7. In Thrace.
8. Acamas.
9. Theseus.
10. Aethra, mother of Theseus; Munitus, son of Acamas.
11. Munitus.
12. The Dioscuri.
13. Attica.
14. Helen.
15. The Dioscuri wear a conical cap resembling half an egg-shell, half the Leda-egg from which they were born.
16. Worm-eaten wood was used in early times as a seal.
17. The Dioscuri, i.e. Castor and Pollux, who shared their immortality day and day about, Hom. Od. xi. 298 ff., Pind. P. xi. 63 ff. They received divine honours in Athens because when they invaded Attica they carried off Aethra but touched nothing else. They are called Lapersii because they sacked Las in Laconia.
18. Helen as a child was carried off by Theseus, later by Paris.
19. i.e. Troy.
20. Idas and Lynceus, sons of Aphareus.
21. Athena Tritogeneia, a much-disputed title. Boarmia, etc., are said to be Boeotian cult-names of Athena.
22. Apollo in Miletus.
23. Poseidon in Thurii.
24. In Paphlagonia.
25. Laomedon.
26. Hector: called Canastraean because he is a “giant” and the home of the giants in Pallene with its town Canastraeum.
27. Protesilaus of Thessaly was the first to leap ashore at Troy and was slain by Hector.
28. Thracian Chersonese, where Protesilaus was buried near Mazusia, opposite Sigeum (Strabo vii. 321 fr. 52, cf. xiii. 595).

[535] But we have one,¹ yea one beyond our hope, for gracious champion, even the god Drymnius Promatheus Aethiops Gyrapsius, who, when they² who are destined to suffer things dread and undesirable shall receive in their halls their fatal guest,³ the swooping robber, the wandering Orthanes,⁴ and when at banquet and festival they shall seek to propitiate the inexorable Lord⁵ of Cragos, shall put in the midst of their talk grievous wrangling. And first in words they shall tear each other with their teeth, exasperate with jeers; but anon the own cousins⁶ shall ply the spear, eager to prevent the violent rape of their cousin birds,⁷ and the carrying off of their kin, in vengeance for the traffic without gifts of wooing. Surely many a shaft shall the stream of Cnacion⁸ behold hurled by the daring eagles, incredible and marvellous for the Pheraeans⁹ to hear. One¹⁰ with his spear of cornel-wood shall slay one¹¹ of the pair – a lion joining battle with a bull. The other¹² in turn with his lance shall pierce the side of the ox¹³ and bring him to the ground. But against him¹⁴ the undaunted ram¹⁵ shall butt a second blow, hurling the headstone of the Amyclaean tomb. And bronze spear and thunderbolts together shall crush the bulls¹⁶ – whereof one¹⁷ had such valour as even Sciastes Orchieus,¹⁸ Lord of Tilphossa, did not scorn, when he bent his bow in battle. And the one pair¹⁹ Hades shall receive: the others²⁰ the meadows of Olympus shall welcome as guests on every alternate day, brothers of mutual love, undying and dead.

1. Zeus: the cult-names Drymnius and Promantheus are Zeus in Pamphylia and Thurii respectively; Aethiops and Gyrapsius in Chios.
2. The Laconians.
3. Paris.
4. A licentious deity, cf. Strabo 588 oude gar Hesiodos oide Priapon, all eoike tois Attikois Orthanê kai Konisalô kai Tuchôwni kai tois toioutois. So Athen. 441 f. couples Orthanes and Conisalus.
5. Zeus, to prevent the Dioscuri going against Troy, involves them in a quarrel with the sons of Aphareus.
6. Idas and Lynceus fight with Castor and Polydeuces, Pind. N. x.
7. Phoebe and Hilaeira, daughters of Leucippus.
8. River near Sparta.
9. In Messenia; Hom. Il. ix. 151.
10. Idas.
11. Castor.
12. Polydeuces.
13. Lynceus.
14. Polydeuces.
15. Idas hurls the tombstone of his father, Aphareus, at Polydeuces, Pind. N. x. 66.
16. Idas and Lynceus.
17. Idas who fought with Apollo for Marpessa, daughter of Evenus.
18. Apollo.
19. Idas and Lynceus, Castor and Polydeuces.
20. Hom. Od. xi. 303; Pind. N. x. 55 ff.; Apollod. iii. 137.

[567] So their spear shall god lull to rest for us, granting us a brief remedy in our woe. But a cloud of others¹ unapproachable in their might shall he rouse – whose rage not even the son² of Rhoeo shall lull nor stay, though he bid them abide for the space of nine years in his island,³ persuaded by his oracles,⁴ and though he promised that his three daughters⁵ shall give blameless sustenance to all who stay and roam the Cynthian hill beside Inopus,⁶ drinking the Egyptian waters of Triton. These daughters lusty Problastus⁷ taught to be skilled in contriving milled food and to make wine and fatty oil – even the dove grand-daughters of Zarax,⁸ skilled to turn things into wine. These shall heal the great and wasting hunger of the host of alien hounds,⁹ coming one day to the grave of Sithon’s daughter.¹⁰

1. The Greek expedition against Troy under Agamemnon.
2. Anius, son of Apollo and Rhoeo, king of Delos and priest of Apollo, asked the Greeks to stay for nine years in Delos.
3. Delos.
4. Which said that Troy would not be taken till the tenth year.
5. Oeno, Spermo, Elais, who had the gift of producing wine, corn, and oil at will. Collectively called Oenotropi.
6. River in Delos fabled to have a connexion with the Nile.
7. Dionysus.
8. First husband of Rhoeo and so step-father of Anius.
9. The Greeks at Troy, suffering from hunger, sent Palamades to fetch the Oenotropi buried at Rhoeteum in the Troad.
10. Rhoeteia, daughter of Sithon, King of Thrace.

[584] These things the Ancient Maidens¹ whirl on with rushing thread on brazen spindles. But Cepheus² and Praxandrus,³ not princes of a naval host but a nameless brood, fifth and fourth shall come to the land⁴ of the goddess⁵ queen of Golgi; whereof the one shall lead a Laconian troop from Therapna; the other from Olenus and Dyme shall lead his host of the men of Bura.

1. The Moirai or Fates.
2. From Achaia.
3. From Therapnae in Laconia.
4. Cyprus.
5. Aphrodite.

[594] Another¹ shall found Argyrippa,² a Daunian estate beside Ausonian Phylamus,³ seeing the bitter fate of his comrades turned to winged birds, who⁴ shall accept a sea life, after the manner of fishermen, like in form to bright-eyed swans. Seizing in their bills the spawn of fishes they shall dwell in an island⁵ which bears their leader’s name, on a theatre-shaped rising ground, building in rows their close-set nests with firm bits of wood, after the manner of Zethus.⁶ And together they shall betake them to the chase and by night to rest in the dell, avoiding all the alien crowd of men, but in folds of Grecian robes seeking their accustomed resting-place they shall eat crumbs from the hand and fragments of cake from the table, murmuring pleasantly, remembering, hapless ones, their former way of life.⁷ His wounding of the Lady⁸ of Troezen shall be part cause of his wild lustful bitch⁹ shall be frenzied for adulterous bed. But the altar-tomb of Hoplosmia¹⁰ shall save him from doom, when already prepared for slaughter. And in the glen of Ausonia¹¹ he shall stand like a colossus resting his feet on the boulders,¹² the foundations of Amoebeus¹³, the builder of the walls, when he has cast out of his ship the ballast stones. And, disappointed by the judgement of his brother Alaenus,¹⁴ he shall cast an effectual curse upon the fields, that they may never send up the opulent corn-ear of Deo,¹⁵ when Zeus with his rain nurtures the soil, save only if one¹⁶ who draws his blood from his own Aetolian stock shall till the land, cleaving the furrows with team of oxen. And with pillars which no man shall boast to have moved even a little by his might. For as on wings they shall come back again, traversing with trackless steps the terraces. And a high god shall he be called by many, even by those who dwell by the cavernous plain¹⁷ of Io, when he shall have slain the dragon that harried the Phaeacians.¹⁸

1. Diomedes, son of Tydeus of Aetolia. Returning to Argos he found his wife in adultery with Cometes. He escaped their machinations by taking refuge at the altar of Hera. He then left Argos and came to Daunia in Italy. Daunus, the king of the country being engaged in war, Diomedes helped him. Winning the war, Daunus proposed to give him either booty or the land. Alaenus, being made arbiter, awarded the land to Daunus, the booty to Diomedes, who in anger cursed the land that it should never be fruitful save for one of Aetolian blood. He erected pillars throughout Daunia to signify that the land belonged to him. After his death Daunus caused them to be thrown into the sea but they were miraculously returned to their place.
2. Arpi (Strabo 283).
3. Unknown river in Italy.
4. For the story cf. Ovid, M. xiv. 498 ff.; Verg. A. xi. 271 ff.; Strabo 284.
5. Insulae Diomedeae.
6. With his brother Amphion he built the walls of Thebes.
7. Antonin. Lib. 37; Aelian, H.A. i. 1; Plin. N.H. x. 127; Aristot. M. 80.
8. Aphrodite, Hom. Il. v. 335 ff.
9. Aegialeia, daughter of Adrastus, wife of Diomedes.
10. Hera.
11. Italy.
12. Stones from the walls of Troy used by Diomedes as ballast for his ships.
13. Poseidon, who built the walls of Troy.
14. Alaenus, half-brother of Diomedes.
15. Demeter.
16. Reference to the Dasii, according to Holzinger, cf. Sil. Ital. Pun. xiii. 32, etc.
17.The Ionian Sea.
18. Cercyraeans. The dragon is the Colchian dragon which followed Jason to Corcyra to recover the Golden Fleece. It was slain by Diomedes.

[633] And others¹ shall sail to the sea-washed Gymnesian² rocks – crab-like, clad in skins – where cloakless and unshod they shall drag out their lives, armed with three two-membered slings.³ Their mothers shall teach the far-shooting art to their young offspring by supperless discipline. For none of them shall chew bread with his jaws, until with well-aimed stone he shall have won the cake set as a mark above the board. These shall set foot on the rough shores that feed the Iberians near the gate of Tartessus – a race sprung from ancient Arne, chieftains of the Temmices, yearning for Graea and the cliffs of Leontarne and Scolusa nd Tegyra and Onchestus’ seat and the flood of Thermodon and the waters of Hypsarnus.

1. Boeotians.
2. The Balearic Isles.
3. Diodor. v. 18; Strabo 168. The dwellers in the Balearic Isles (or Gymnesiae) were famous slingers (hence popular derivation from ballê – Baliareis). They carried three slings, one on head, one round neck, the third round wiast.

[648] Others¹ shall wander beside Syrtis and the Libyan plains and the narrow meet of the Tyrrhenian Strait² and the watching-place fatal to mariners of the hybrid monster³ that formerly died by the hand of Mecisteus,⁴ the hide-clad Spademan, the Cattle-driver, and the rocks of he harpy-limbed nightingales.⁵ There, devoured raw, Hades, mine host, shall seize them all, torn with all manner of evil entreatment; and he shall leave but one⁶ to tell of his slaughtered friends, even the man of the dolphin device, who stole the Phoenician goddess.. He shall see the dwelling of the one-eyed lion,⁸ offering in his hands to that flesh-eater the cup of the vine as an after-supper draught.⁹ And he shall see the remnant¹⁰ that was spared by the arrows of Ceramyntes Peuceus Palaemon.¹¹ That remnant shall break in pieces all the well-turned hulls and shall with rushes pierce their evil spoil, as it were of fishes.¹² Unhappy labour after labour shall await him, each more baleful than that which went before. What Charybdis¹³ shall not eat of his dead? What half-maiden Fury-hound?¹⁴ What barren nightingale,¹⁵ slayer of the Centaurs,¹⁶ Aetolian or Curetid,¹⁷ shall not with her varied melody tempt them to waste away through fasting from food? What beast-moulding dragoness¹⁸ shall he not behold, mixing drugs with meal, and beast-shaped doom? And they, hapless ones, bewailing their fate shall feed in pigstyles, crunching grapestones mixed with grass and oilcake. But him the drowsy root shall save from harm and the coming of Ctaros,¹⁹ the Bright Three-headed²⁰ god of Nonacris.²¹

1. Odysseus and his comrades.
2. Straits of Messina.
3. Scylla.
4. Heracles at Macistus in Elis (Strabo 348). Spademan in ref. to cleaning of the Augean stables; cattle-driver in ref. to the cattle of Geryon.
5. Sirens.
6. Odysseus, who had a dolphin for device upon his shield.
7. Athena, the Palladium.
8. Polyphemus.
9. Hom. Od. ix. 345 ff.
10. Laestrygones.
11. Heracles, who, when the Laestrygones attempted to rob him of the cattle of Geryon, slew them all but a remnant. Ceramyntes = Alexicacos, Heracles as the averter of evil; Peuceus, cult-name of Heracles in Iberia (schol.) or Abdera (E.M.); Palaemon i.e. Wrester (palaien = to wrestle).
12. The Laestrygones attacked the ships and the crews of Odysseus, ichthus d' ôs peirontes aterpea daita pheronto (Hom. Od. x. 124).
13. Od. xii. 430 ff.
14. Scylla
15. Siren
16. The Centaurs who escaped from Heracles were so charmed by the song of the Sirens that they forgot to eat and so perished.
17. The Sirens were daughters of Acheloüs, a river which divides Aetolia from Acarnania; Curetid = Acarnanian (Strabo 462 f.).
18. Circe turned the comrades of Odysseus into swine, but Odysseus was saved by the magical plant môlu given him by Hermes (Od. x. 302 ff.).
19. Hermes
20. Suid. s.v. trikephalos, where it is explained as ôsper didaskôwn tas hodous, i.e. Hermes as Guide, facing three ways at the cross roads.
21. In Arcadia.

[681] And he shall come to the dark plain of the departed and shall seek the ancient seer¹ of the dead, who knows the mating of men and women.² He shall pour in a trench³ warm blood for the souls, and, brandishing before him his sword to terrify the dead, he shall there hear the thin voice of the ghosts, uttered from shadowy lips. Thereafter the island⁴ that crushed the back of the Giants and the fierce storm of Typhon, shall receive him journeying alone: an island boiling with flame, wherein the king of the immortals established an ugly race of apes, in mockery of all who raised war against the sons of Cronus. And passing the tomb of Baius,⁵ his steersman, and the dwellings of the Cimmerians⁶ and the Acherusian⁷ waters swelling with heaving surge and Ossa⁸ and the cattle-path built by the lion⁹ and the grove of Obrimo,¹⁰ the Maiden who dwells beneath the earth, and the Fiery Stream,¹¹ where the difficult Polydegmon¹² hill stretches its head to the sky; from which hill’s depths draw all streams and all springs throughout the Ausonian land; and leaving the high slope of Lethaeon¹³ and the lake Aornus¹⁴ rounded with a noose and the waters of Cocytus¹⁵ wild and dark, stream of black Styx, where Termieus¹⁶ made the seat of oath-swearing¹⁷ for the immortals, drawing the water in golden basins of libation, when he was about to go against the Giants and Titans – he shall offer up a gift to Daeira and her consort,¹⁸ fastening his helmet to the head of a pillar. And he shall slay the triple daughters¹⁹ of Tethys’ son, who imitated the strains of their melodious mother²⁰: self-hurled²¹ from the cliff’s top they dive with their wings into the Tyrrhenian sea, where the bitter thread spun by the Fates shall draw them. One²² of them washed ashore the tower of Phalerus shall receive, and Glanis²³ wetting the earth with its streams. There the inhabitants shall build a tomb for the maiden and with libations and sacrifice of oxen shall yearly honour²⁴ the bird goddess Parthenope. And Leucosia²⁵ shall be cast on the jutting strand of Enipeus²⁶ and shall long haunt the rock²⁷ that bears her name, where rapid Is and neighbouring Laris²⁸ pour forth their waters. And Ligeia²⁹ shall come ashore at Tereina spitting out the wave. And her shall sailormen bury on the stony beach nigh to the eddies of Ocinarus; and an ox-horned Ares³⁰ shall lave her tomb with his streams, cleansing with his waters the foundation of her whose children were turned into birds. And there one day in honour of the first goddess of the sisterhood shall the ruler³¹ of all the navy of Mopsops array for his mariners a torch-race³², in obedience to an oracle, which one day the people of the Neopolitans shall celebrate, even they who shall dwell on bluff crags beside Misenum’s³³ sheltered haven untroubled by the waves.

1. Teiresias.
2. Apollod. iii. 71 f.; cf. Ovid, M. iii. 324 "Venus huic erat utraque nota."
3. Hom. Od. xi. 23 ff.
4. Pithecussa = Aenaria, under which the giant Typhoeus lies buried and where the Cercopes were turned into apes by Zeus to mock the giants (Ovid, M. xiv. 90).
5. Baiae was named from the steersman of Odysseus who perished during the Italian wanderings of Odysseus (Strabo 245, Steph. Byz. s.v.; Sil. Ital. viii. 539).
6. Od. xi. 14 ff.; located near Cumae (Strabo 244).
7. The palus Acherusia near Cumae (Strabo 244).
8. Hill in Italy (schol.).
9. Heracles, who built a dam between the Lucrine Lake and the sea (Strabo 245; Diodor. iv. 22).
10. Persephone, her grove near Avernus (Strabo 245, cf. Hom. Od. x. 509).
11. Pyriphlegethon (Strabo 244).
12. A lofty mountain in Italy, from which they say flow all the rivers in Italy (schol.) (Appenines?).
13. Hill in Italy (schol.).
14. Lacus Avernus near Cumae; for its circular shape cf. Strabo 244, Aristot. M. 102).
15. Branch of the Styx, Od. x. 514.
16. Zeus.
17. Hom. Il. xv. 37, etc. The gods swear by the Styx.
18. Persephone and Pluto, to whom Odysseus dedicated his helmet upon a pillar.
19. Sirens, daughters of Acheloüs, son of Tethys. Here three, while Hom. Od. xii. 52 and 167 uses the dual.
20. Melpomene.
21. The Sirens were doomed to die when anyone passed their shores safely (Hygin. Fab. 125 and 141). When Odysseus did so, they threw themselves from the Sirenes rocks (Strabo 247) into the sea.
22. Parthenope, washed ashore and buried at Naples, previously called Phalerum from its founder Phalerus (Steaph. Byz. s.v.).
23. Clanius, river near Naples.
24. An athletic contest was annually held in her honour (Strabo 246).
25. Another of the Sirens, cast ashore at Poseidonia = Paestum.
26. Poseidon.
27. Leucosia, small island near Paestum (Strabo 123, etc.).
28. Rivers of Italy (schol.).
29. Ligeia, the third Siren, is cast ashore at Tereina in Bruttium (Steph. Byz. s.v. Tereina).
30. Unknown.
31. Diotimus, an Athenian admiral, who came to Naples and there in accordance with an oracle sacrificed to Parthenope and established a torch-race in her honour (Timaeus ap. schol.). Thuc. i. 45 mentions an Athenian admiral Diotimus who is presumably the person meant. Mopsops, an old king of Attica.
32. In honour of Parthenope in Naples.
33. Cape near Cumae, called after Misenus, companion of Odysseus (Strabo xxvi.).

[738] And he shall shut up the blustering winds¹ in the hide of an ox, and wandering in woes that ebb and flow, he, the sea-gull, shall be burnt with the lash of the thunderbolt, clinging to the branch of a wild fig-tree² so that the wave which draws spouting Charybdis to the deep may not swallow him in the surge. And, after brief pleasure in wedlock with the daughter³ of Atlas, he dares to set foot in his offhand vessel⁴ that never knew a dockyard and to steer, poor wretch, the bark which his own hands made, vainly fastened with dowels to the midst of the keel. Wherefrom Amphibaeus⁵ shall toss him forth, as it were the tiny unfledged brood of a halcyon’s bride, and cast him, with midbeams and deck together, headlong as a diver into the waves, entangled in the ropes, and sleepless, swept in the secret places of the sea, he shall dwell with the citizen⁶ of Thracian Anthedon. And like a branch of pine, blast after blast shall toss him as a cork, leaping on him with their gusts. And hardly shall the frontlet of Byne⁷ save him from the evil tide with torn breast and fingers wherewith he shall clutch the flesh-hooking rocks and be stained with blood by the sea-bitten spikes. And crossing to the island⁸ abhorred by Cronus – the isle of the Sickle that severed his privy parts – he a cloakless suppliant, babbling of awful sufferings, shall yelp out his fictitious tale of woe, paying the curse of the monster⁹ whom he blinded. Ah! not yet, not yet! Let no such sleep of forgetfulness find Melanthus,¹⁰ the Lord of Horses, bending. For he shall come, he shall come to Rheithron’s¹¹ sheltering haven and the cliffs of Neriton.¹¹ And he shall behold all his house utterly overthrown from its foundation by lewd wife-stealers.¹² And the vixen,¹³ primly coquetting, will make empty his halls, pouring forth the pour wight’s wealth in banqueting. And he himself, poor parasite,¹⁴ shall see trouble beyond what he endured at the Scaean gates; he shall endure to bear with submissive back sullen threats from his own slaves¹⁵ and to be punished with jeers; shall endure, too, to submit to buffeting of fists and hurling of potsherds. For not alien stripes but the liberal seal of Thoas¹⁶ shall remain upon his sides, engraved with rods: stripes which he, our destroyer, shall consent without a murmur to have engraved upon him, putting the voluntary weal upon his frame, that he may ensnare the foemen, with spying wounds and with tears deceiving our king.¹⁷ He whom of old the Temmician¹⁸ hill of Bombyleia¹⁹ bare to be our chiefest bane – he alone of all his mariners, wretched one, shall win safely home. And lastly, like a sea-gull that roams the waves, worn all about by the salt water even as a shell and finding his possessions swallowed up in banqueting of the Pronians²⁰ by the Laconian lady²¹ of fatal frenzy, ancient as a crow he shall flee with his weapons the shelter of the sea and in wrinkled age die beside the woods of Neriton. The deadly spike,²² hard to heal, of the Sardinian fish shall wound his sides with its sting and kill him; and his son²³ shall be called the butcher of his father, that son who shall be the own cousin of the bride²⁴ of Achilles. And in death he shall be garlanded as a seer by the Eurytanian folk and by the dweller in the steep abode of Trampya, wherein one day hereafter the Tymphaean dragon,²⁵ even the king of the Aethices, shall at a feast destroy Heracles sprung from the seed of Aeacus and Perseus and no stranger to the blood of Temenus.

1. Odysseus receives from Aeolus the winds tied up in an ox-skin, Od. x. 19 ff.
2. Hom. Od. xii. 432 ff.
3. Calypso, Hom. Od. vii. 245 ff.
4. Raft of Odysseus, Hom. Od. v. 234 ff.
5. Poseidon.
6. Glaucus, son of Poseidon, was a fisherman from Anthedon in Boeotia who became a god of the sea. Once a year he visited all coasts and islands (schol. Plato, Rep. x. 611).
7. Ino Leucothea, by whose veil Odysseus was saved (Od. v. 334 ff.).
8. Corcyra, under which was buried the sickle (drepanê harpê), with which Zeus mutilated Cronus, or Cronus mutilated Uranus (Hesiod, Th. 162, 179; Apoll. Rh. iv. 985 f.). Hence its old name Drepane.
9. The Cyclops Polyphemus, who cursed Odysseus (Od. ix. 534).
10. Poseidon.
11. In Ithaca.
12. Penelope’s suitors. muklos = onos, the ass being the type of lust (Pind. P. x. 36).
13. Penelope.
14. Od. xvii. 219, xviii. 26.
15. Od. xix. 66 ff. etc.
16. In order to enter Troy as a spy Odysseus got himself beaten and wounded by Thoas by way of disguise (Il. Parv. Kinkel, p. 42). Cf. Homer, Odyssey, iv. 244 ff.
17. Priam.
18. Boeotian: according to one legend Odysseus was born in Boeotia (Müller, F.H.G. i. 426).
19. Athena, inventor of flute (Pind. P. xii.), worshipped under this name in Boeotia.
20. The wooers of Penelope; Pronians = Cephallenians; cf. Pronnaioi, Thuc. ii. 30.
21. Penelope, as daughter of Icarius, brother of Tyndareus.
22. Spear of Telegonus tipped with spine of thornback.
23. Telegonus, son of Odysseus and Circe.
24. Achilles in Elysium (Simonid. fr. 213, Ibyc. fr. 37) has to wife Medeia, daughter of Aeëtes, brother of Circe.
25. Polyperchon, king of the Epeirotes, murdered in 309 B.C. Heracles, son of Alexander the Great and Barsine (Paus. ix. 7. 2).

[805] When he¹ is dead, Perge,² hill of the Tyrrhenians, shall receive his ashes in the land of Gortyn³; when, as he breathes out his life, he shall bewail the fate of his son⁴ and his wife,⁵ whom her husband⁶ shall slay and himself next pass to Hades, his throat cut by the hands of his sister, the own cousin of Glaucon and Apsyrtus.⁷

1. Odysseus.
2. Unknown hill in Etruria.
3. Cortona in Etruria, where Odysseus was said to be buried.
4. Telemachus.
5. Circe.
6. Telemachus, who married Circe and killed her, and was himself killed by Cassiphone, daughter of Odysseus and Circe, and thus half-sister of Telemachus.
7. Aeëtes, Pasiphaë, Circe, are children of Helios, and thus Apsyrtus, son of Aeëtes, Glaucon (Glaucus), son of Pasiphaë, Cassiphone, daughter of Circe, are cousins.

[812] And having seen such a heap of woes he shall go down a second¹ time to unturning Hades, having never beheld a day of calm in all his life. O wretched one! how much better had it been for thee to remain in thy homeland driving oxen, and to harness still the working stallion ass to the yoke, frenzied with feigned pretence of madness,² than to suffer the experience of such woes!

1. He had gone to Hades before as a living man.
2. Odysseus, feigning madness to avoid going to Troy (Od. ii. 170 xxiv. 115), yoked to his plough an ox and an ass (schol.) or a horse and an ox (Hygin. Fab. 95).

[820] And he¹ again – the husband seeking for his fatal bride² snatched from him having heard rumours, and yearning for the winged phantom³ that fled to the sky – what secret places of the sea shall he not explore? What dry land shall he not come and search? First he shall visit the watching-place of Typhon,⁴ and the old hag turned to stone,⁵ and the jutting shores of the Erembi,⁶ abhorred by mariners. And he shall see the strong city of unhappy Myrrha,⁷ who was delivered of the pangs of child-birth by a branching tree; and the tomb of Gauas⁸ whose death the Muses wrought – wept by the goddess⁹ of the Rushes,¹⁰ Arenta, the Stranger¹¹: Gauas whom the wild boar slew with white tusk. And he shall visit the towers¹² of Cepheus and the place¹³ that was kicked by the foot of Hermes Laphrios, and the two rocks on which the petrel leapt in quest of food, but carried off in his jaws, instead of a woman,¹⁴ the eagle son¹⁵ of the golden Sire – a male with winged sandals who destroyed his liver. By the harvester’s blade shall be slain the hateful whale dismembered: the harvester¹⁶ who delivered of her pains in birth of horse and man the stony-eyed weasel¹⁷ whose children sprang from her neck. Fashioning men as statues from top to toe he shall envelop them in stone¹⁸ – he that stole the lamp of his three wandering guides.¹⁹

1. Menelaus; for his wanderings in search of Helen cf. Od. iv. 81 ff.
2. Helen.
3. Cf. 112 ff., 131.
4. Cilicia.
5. Cyprus. When Aphrodite hid from eh gods on Mount Casion in Cyprus, her hiding-place was revealed by an old woman, whom for her treachery Aphrodite turned to stone.
6. Aethiopians or Arabians.
7. Byblus in Phoenicia. Myrrha, before the birth of Adonis, was turned into a tree (myrrh) by Aphrodite (Apollod. iii. 184, Anton. Lib. 34).
8. Adonis, son of Myrrha, killed by a boar (Apollod. iii. 183), to hunt which he had been incited by the Muses’ praise of hunting (schol.).
9. Aphrodite.
10. Name of Aphrodite in Samos.
11. Aphrodite in Memphis (Herod. ii. 112).
12. Aethiopia, cf. Arat. 183.
13. In Aethiopia a place Hermou pternê where the foot of Hermes, who was here watching Io, caused a spring to burst forth.
14. Andromeda, exposed to the sea-monster Cetus (petrel here, in Lycophron’s manner).
15. Perseus, son of Zeus and Danaë, whom Zeus visited in a golden shower, rescued Andromeda. He allowed himself to be swallowed by the beast, whose inwards he then cut to pieces with a sickle.
16. Perseus cuts off the head of Medusa; from the blood spring the horse Pegasus and the man Chrysaor.
17. Medusa, called a weasel because weasels were supposed to give birth through the neck (Ant. Lib. xxix.; Ovid, M. ix. 323).
18. Perseus with the Gorgon’s head turned Polydectes, king of Seriphos, and his people to stone (Pind. P. x. 48, xii. 14).
19. The daughters of Phorcys, Graeae, had but one eye in common (Aesch. P.V. 795), which Perseus stole but restored when they consented to guide him to the Nymphs, who gave him winged shoes, a wallet, and the cap of invisibility.

[847] And he shall visit the fields¹ which drink in summer and the stream of Asbystes² and the couch on the ground where he shall sleep among evil-smelling beasts.³ And all shall he endure for the sake of the Aegyan bitch,⁴ her of three husbands,⁵ who bare only female children.⁶ And he shall come as a wanderer to the folk of the Iapyges⁷ and offer gifts to the Maiden of the Spoils,⁸ even the mixing-bowl from Tamassus⁹ and the shield of oxhide and fur-lined shoes of his wife. And he shall come to Siris¹⁰ and the recesses of Lacinium,¹¹ wherein a heifer¹² shall fashion an orchard for the goddess Hopolosmia,¹³ furnished with trees. And it shall be for all time an ordinance for the women of the land to mourn¹⁴ the nine-cubit hero,¹⁵ third in descent from Aeacus and Doris, the hurricane of battle strife, and not to deck their radiant limbs with gold, nor array them in fine-spun robes stained with purple – because a goddess¹⁶ to a goddess¹⁷ presents that great spur of land to be her dwelling-place. And he shall come to the inhospitable wrestling-arena of the bull¹⁸ whom Colotis¹⁹ bare, even Alentia,²⁰ Queen of the recesses of Longuros,²¹ rounding the Cronos’ Sickle’s leap²² and the water of Concheia,²¹ and Gonusa²¹ and the plains of the Sicanians, and the shrine of the ravenous wolf²³ clad in the skin of a wild beast, which the descendant of Cretheus, when he had brought his vessel to anchor, built with his fifty mariners. And the beach still preserves the oily scrapings of the bodies of the Minyans, nor does the waves of the brine cleanse them, nor the long rubbing of the rainy shower.

1. Egypt.
2. The Nile.
3. i.e. seals; Homer, Odyssey iv. 351 ff.
4. Helen. Aegyan = Laconian, cf. Steph. Byz. s.v. Aigus.
5. Menelaus, Paris, Deïphobus.
6. Iphigeneia and Hermione.
7. In S.E. Italy.
8. AthenaAgeleia (Hom.). The reference is to Castrum Minervae, south of Hydruntum; cf. Strabo 281.
9. In Cyprus, famous for metal-work (Strabo 255 and 684).
10. On the Gulf of Tarentum (Strabo 264).
11. Cape near Croton with temple of Hera Lacinia (Steph. Byz. s.v. Lakinion, Livy xxiv. 3).
12. Thetis, who dedicated Lacinium to Hera (Serv. on Aen. iii. 552).
13. Hera in Elis (schol.).
14. The women of Croton mourn for Achilles and wear no gay dress.
15. Achilles, son of Peleus, son of Aeacus, and of Thetis, daughter of Doris; “nine-cubit” i.e. of heroic stature.
16. Thetis to Hera.
17. Lacinium.
18. Eryx, son of Butes and Aphrodite, who compelled strangers to wrestle with him till he was slain by Heracles. At Mount Eryx in Sicily was a temple of Aphrodite Erycinia.
19. Aphrodite in Cyprus (schol.).
20. Aphrodite in Colophon (schol.).
21. Unknown.
22. Drepanum in Sicily.
23. Heracles, with the lion’s skin, to whom Jason, son of Aeson, son of Cretheus, built a temple in Aethalia (Elba), where curiously coloured pebbles were supposed to get their colour from the flesh-scrapings (apostleggismta) of the Argonauts (Minyae) (Diodor. iv. 56, Strabo 224, Apoll. Rh. iv. 654, Arist. Mirab. 105).

[877] And others¹ the shores and reefs near Taucheira² mourn, cast upon the desolate dwelling-place³ of Atlas, grinning on the points of their wreckage: where Mopsus⁴ of Titaeron died and was buried by the mariners, who set over his tomb’s pedestal a broken blade from the ship Argo, for a possession of the dead, – where the Cinypheian stream⁵ fattens Ausigda⁶ with its waters, and where to Triton,⁷ descendant of Nereus, the Colchian woman⁸ gave as a gift the broad mixing-bowl⁹ wrought of gold, for that he showed them the navigable path whereby Tiphys¹⁰ should guide through the narrow reefs his ship undamaged. And the twy-formed god,¹¹ son of the sea, declares that the Greeks shall obtain the sovereignty of the land¹² when the pastoral people of Libya shall take from their fatherland and give to a Hellene the home-returning gift. And the Asbytians, fearing his vows, shall hide the treasure from sight in low depths of the earth, whereon the blasts of Boreas shall cast with his mariners the hapless leader¹³ of the men of Cyphos and the son¹⁴ of Tenthedron from Palauthra,¹⁵ king of the Amphrysians of Euryampus,¹⁶ and the lord¹⁷ of the Wolf¹⁸ that devoured the atonement and was turned to stone and of the crags of Tymphrestus.¹⁹ Of whom some, unhappy, yearning for their fatherland of Aegoneia,²⁰ others for Echinos,²⁰ others for Titaros¹⁹ and for Iros¹⁹ and for Trachis²¹ and Perhaebic Gonnos¹⁹ and Phalanna,¹⁹ and the fields of the Olossonians,¹⁹ and Castanaia,²² torn on the rocks shall bewail their fate that lacks the rites of funeral.

1. Guneus, Prothous, and Eurypylus wander to Libya.
2. Near Cyrene (Herod. iv. 171).
3. Libya.
4. Mopsus from Titaron in Thessaly was the seer of the Argonauts. He was killed by a snake-bite in Libya (Apoll. Rh. iv. 1502).
5. Cinyps (Herod. iv. 175).
6. Between Taucheira and Cyrene.
7. Son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, daughter of Nereus.
8. Medeia.
9. Triton guided the Argonauts out of Lake Tritonis, receiving from Jason a bronze tripod (here a mixing-bowl), which he placed in his temple, declaring that when a descendant of the Argonauts should recover the tripod, a hundred Greek cities would be founded near Lake Tritonis. When the neighbouring tribes heard this, they hid the tripod (Herod. iv. 179; Apoll. Rh. iv. 529 ff., 1547 ff; Diodor. iv. 56).
10. Steersman of the Argo (Apoll. Rh. i. 105).
11. Triton, half-man, half-fish.
12. Founding of Cyrene (Pind. P. iv.).
13. Guneus from Cyphos in Perrhaebia (Il. ii. 734).
14. Prothoüs, Il. ii. 756.
15. In (Thessalian) Magnesia.
16. On the Amphrysus in Thessaly.
17. Eurypylus from Ormenion in Thessaly (Il. ii. 734).
18. When Peleus had collected a herd of cattle as an atonement for the murder of Actor, son of Acastus or Eurytion (Anton. Lib. 38) or Phocus (Ovid, M. ix. 381), the herd was devoured by a wolf which Thetis turned into stone. This stone is variously located in Thessaly or Phocis.
19. In Thessaly.
20. In Malis.
21. Near Mount Oeta.
22. In Magnesia.

[909] One evil fate after another shall god arouse, presenting them with grievous calamity in place of return to their homes.

[911] Another¹ shall the streams of Aesarus² and the little city of Crimisa in the Oenotrian land receive: even the snake-bitten³ slayer of the fire-brand⁴; for the Trumpet⁵ herself shall with her hand guide his arrow point, releasing the twanging Maeotian⁶ bowstring. On the banks of Dyras⁷ he burnt of old the bold lion,⁸ and armed his hands with the crooked Scythian dragon⁹ that harped with unescapable teeth. And Crathis¹⁰ shall see his tomb when he is dead, sideways from the shrine of Alaeus¹¹ of Patara, where Nauaethus¹² belches seaward. The Ausonian Pellenians¹³ shall slay him when he aids the leaders of the Lindians,¹⁴ whom far from Thermydron¹⁵ and the mountains of Carpathus¹⁶ the fierce hound Thrascias¹⁷ shall send wandering to dwell in a strange and alien soil. But in Macalla,¹⁸ again, the people of the place shall build a great shrine above his grave and glorify him as an everlasting god with libations and sacrifice of oxen.

1. Philoctetes, son of Poeas from Magnesia, returns from Troy to his home, but owing to a sedition went to S. Italy, where he founded Chone, Petelia, and Crimisa (Strabo 254).
2. Near Croton (Strabo 262).
3. Philoctetes having been bitten by a viper was left by the Greeks in Lemnos, but as Troy could not be taken without the bow and arrows of Heracles which he had, they afterwards brought him to Troy, where he killed Paris.
4. Paris, in reference to Hecuba’s dream.
5. Athena in Argos (Paus. ii. 21. 3), where was a temple of Athena Salpinx, said to have been founded by Hegeleos, son of Tyrsenus, the reputed inventor of the trumpet.
6. i.e. Scythian.
7. River near Oeta where Heracles was cremated by Philoctetes who inherited his bow and arrows.
8. Heracles.
9. Heracles’ bow.
10. River near Sybaris.
11. At Crimisa Philoctetes built a temple to Apollo Alaeus (i.e. “of wandering”). Patara in Lycia had a famous temple of Apollo (Strabo 666).
12. River near Croton where Trojan captive women burnt the Greek ships (Strabo 262).
13. Philoctetes died fighting for Rhodian settlers in Italy, who had been carried thither by the N.N.W. wind, against settlers from Pellene in Achaea.
14. Lindos in Rhodes.
15. Harbour of Lindos.
16. Island between Rhodes and Crete.
17. N.N.W. wind.
18. Town in Chonia.

[930] In the sheltering arms of Lagaria¹ shall dwell the builder² of the horse. Afraid³ of the spear and the impetuous phalanx, he pays for the false oath of his father⁴ regarding the spear-won herds, which wretchedman, when the towers of Comaetho⁵ were confounded by the army in the cause of loving marriage, he dared to swear by Aloetis Cydonia Thraso,⁶ and by the god⁷ of Crestone,⁸ Candaon or Mamertus, warrior wolf. He⁹ even within his mother’s womb arrayed hateful battle against his brother with blows of his hands, while he looked not yet on the bright light of Tito, nor had yet escaped the grievous pains of birth. And for his false oath the gods made his son grow to be a coward man, a good boxer but a skulker in the mellay of the spear. By his arts he most greatly helped the host; and by Ciris¹⁰ and the bright waters of Cylistanus he shall dwell as an alien, far from his fatherland; and the tools wherewith he shall bore country, he shall consecrate in the shrine of Myndia.¹¹

1. Near Thurii in S. Italy, founded by Epeius (Strabo 263).
2. Epeius.
3. In later epic Epeius is typical coward (Q. Smyrn. iv. 323; xii. 28, etc.).
4. Panopeus.
5. Panopeus went with Amphitryon against the Taphians and Teleboans. Pterelaus, king of the former, had a lock of golden hair which made him invincible. Comaetho, his daughter, fell in love with Amphitryon and cut off the lock. Amphitryon captured the city of Pterelaus and put to death Comaetho. Panopeus seizes some of the spoils unjustly, but denied it on oath, swearing falsely by Athena and Ares.
6. Athena Aloetis, as avenger of sin; Cydonia, cult-name of Athena in Elis where she had a temple founded by Clymenus from Cydonia in Crete; Thraso (“Bold”), as warlike goddess.
7. Ares. Here Candaon must be a title of Ares, but in 328 Hephaestus.
8. In Thrace.
9. Panopeus fought with his brother Crisus in his mother’s womb.
10. Ciris = Aciris, river near Siris (Strabo 264), in Lucania.
11. Athena, from her cult at Myndus in Caria.

[951] And others shall dwell in the land¹ of the Sicanians, wandering to the spot where Laomedon,² stung by the ravages of the gluttonous sea-monster, gave to mariners to expose the three daughters of Phoenodamas that they should be devoured by ravenous wild beasts, there far off where they came to the land of the Laestrygonians in the West, where dwells always abundant desolation. And those daughters in their turn built a great shrine for the Zerynthian³ mother of the wrestler,⁴ as a gift to the goddess, for as much as they had escaped from doom and lonely dwelling. Of these one⁵ the river Crimisus, in the likeness of a dog, took to be his bride: and she to the half-beast god bears a noble whelp,⁶ settler and founder of three places.⁷ That whelp shall guide the bastard⁸ scion of Anchises and bring him to the farthest bounds of the three-necked island,⁹ voyaging from Dardanian places. Hapless Aegesta! to thee by devising of the gods there shall be most great and age-long sorrow for my country when it is consumed by the breath of fire. And thou alone shalt groan for long, bewailing and lamenting unceasingly the unhappy overthrow of her towers. And all they people, clad in the sable garb of the suppliant, squalid and unkempt, shall drag out a sorrowful life, and the unshorn hair of their heads shall deck their backs, keeping the memory of ancient woes.¹⁰

1. In Sicily.
2. When Phoenodamas refused to expose his daughters to the sea-beast, Laomedon had to expose his own daughter Hesione. In revenge he gave the daughters of Phoenodamas to some merchants to expose in the far West.
3. Aphrodite, as in 419; but in 1178 Hecate.
4. Eryx; see 866 f.
5. Aegesta. A dog, representing Crimisus, appears on coins of (S)egesta (Sestri). (Head, Hist. Num. p. 164 f.).
6. Aegestes.
7. Aegesta, Eryx, Entella.
8. Elymus, eponym of the Elymi.
9. Sicily.
10. The native garb of the people of Segesta is interpreted as mourning for Troy; cf. 863, 1137.

[978] And many shall dwell in Siris¹ and Leutarnia’s² fields, where lies the unhappy Calchas³ who Sisyphus-like⁴ counted the unnumbered figs, and who was smitten on the head by the rounded scourge⁵ – where Sinis’⁶ swift stream flows, watering the rich estate of Chonia. There the unhappy men shall build a city like Ilios,⁷ and shall vex the Maiden⁸ Laphria Salpinx by slaying in the temple of the goddess the descendants⁹ of Xuthus who formerly occupied the town. And her image shall shut its bloodless eyes, beholding the hateful destruction of Ionians by Achaeans and the kindred slaughter of the wild wolves, when the minister son of the priestess dies and stains fir the altar with his dark blood.

1. In Lucania.
2. Coast of Calabria.
3. In connexion with Heracles and his carrying off of the oxen of Geryon, legend told that Heracles, seeing a seer (here called Calchas) sitting under a fig-tree, asked him how many figs were on the tree. “Ten bushels and one fig,” said the seer. When Heracles vainly tried to put the odd fig into the tenth bushel, the seer mocked him and Heracles killed him with his fist.
4. Sisyhpus is the type of cleverness.
5. The fist of Heracles.
6. i.e. Siris.
7. Achaeans come from Troy and settle near Siris on the site of the later Heracleia. They kill the Ionians, the previous settlers, in the temple of Ilian Athena; cf. Aristot. Mirab. 106, Athen. xii. 523, Strabo 264 (who says it was the Ionians who murdered the earlier Trojan settlers.)
8. Athena, cf. 356, 915.
9. Ionians, Ion being son of Xuthus.

[992] And others shall take to them the steep Tylesian¹ hills and sea-washed Linos’¹ hilly promontory, the territory of the Amazon,² taking on them the yoke of a slave woman, whom, as servant of the brazen-mailed impetuous maiden,³ the wave shall carry wandering to an alien land: slave of that maiden whose eye, smitten as she breathes her last, shall bring doom to the ape-formed Aetolian pest,⁴ wounded by the bloody shaft. And the men of Croton shall sack the city of the Amazon, destroying the dauntless maiden Clete,⁵ queen of the land that bears her name. But, ere that, many shall be laid low by her hand and bite the dust with their teeth, and not without labour shall the sons of Laureta⁶ sack the towers.

1. Unknown, but apparently in Bruttium.
2. Clete, nurse of Penthesileia.
3. When Clete heard that Penthesileia had fallen at Troy, she set out in search of her but was carried by stress of weather to Italy where she found a town which bore her name in Bruttium.
4. Thersites (for his deformity cf. Il. ii. 216 ff.) from Aetolia. When Achilles slew Penthesileia, Thersites insulted the corpse by thrusting his spear in her eye, whereupon Achilles killed him (Q. Smyrn. i. 660 ff..
5. E.M. s.v. Kleitê says that not only the city but also the queens who succeeded the fist Cleite (Cleta) bore the same name. As Clete was mother of Caulon, founder of Caulonia, the reference seems to b to the taking of Caulonia by Croton.
6. Daughter of Lacinius and wife of Croton (schol.).

[1008] Others, again, in Tereina,¹ where Ocinarus moistens the earth with his streams, bubbling with bright water, shall dwell, weary with bitter wandering.

1. In Bruttium.