GREEK LYRIC I FRAGMENTS 2

LYRA GRAECA I ALCMAN FRAGMENTS, TRANSLATED BY J. M. EDMONDS

ALCMAN, LIFE

Suidas Lexicon :
Alcman :– A Laconian of Messoa, wrongly called by Crates a Lydian of Sardis. A lyric poet, the son of Damas or, according to some authorities, of Titarus. He flourished in the 37th Olympiad (B.C. 631-625), when Ardys father of Alyattes was king of Lydia. He was of an extremely amorous disposition and the inventor of love-poems, but by birth a slave. He wrote six Books of lyric poems, and was the first to adopt the practice of not accompanying the hexameter with music.¹ Being a Spartan, he uses the Doric dialect.

Aelian Historical Miscellanies 12. 50 :
The Spartans, who bent was for bodily exercises and feats of arms, had no skill in music. Yet if ever they required the aid o the Muses on occasion of general sickness of body or mind or any like public affliction, their custom was to send for foreigners, at the bidding of the Delphic oracle, to act as healers and purifiers. For instance they summoned Terpander, Thales, Tyrtaeus, Nymphaeus of Cydonia, and Alcman.

Velleius Paterculus Roman History 1. 18. 2 :
The Spartan claim to Alcman is false.

Palatine Anthology 7. 709 :
Alexander of Aetolia : Ancient Sardis, abode of my fathers, had I been reared in you I should have been a maund-bearer unto Cybelè or beaten pretty tambours as one of her gilded eunuchs; but instead my name is Alcman and my home Sparta, town of prize-tripods, and the lore I know is of the Muses of Helicon, who have made me a greater king even than Gyges son of Dasyclus.

Ibid. 7. 18:
Antipater of Thessalonica on Alcman : Judge not the man by the gravestone. The tomb you see is small, but it holds the bones of a great man. You shall know this for Alcman, striker pre-eminent of the Laconian lyre, one possessed of the nine Muses.² And twin continents dispute whether he is of Lydia or Laconia; for the mothers of a minstrel are many.

Heracleides of Pontus Constitutions 2 :
Alcman was the salve of Agesidas, but received his freedom because he was a man of parts.³

Eusebius Chronicle 403 :
Olympiad 42. 2 (B.C. 611) : Flourished Alcman, according to some authorities.

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 15. 678b :
[on garlands] : “Thyreateic" :– This, according to Sosibius in his tract on Sacrifices, is the name of a kind of garland at Sparta, made of palm-leaves, and known nowadays as psilinos. These garlands, he says, are worn in memory of the victory at Thyrea by the leaders of the choruses which dance on the festival of that victory, which coincides with the Gymnopaidiae or Feast of Naked Youths. These choruses are three in number, the youths in front, the old men on the right, and the men on the left; and they dance naked, singing songs by Thaletas and Alcman and the paeans of the Spartan Dionysodotus.

Aristotle History of Animals 557 a1 :
[on the morbus pedicularis] : Mankind is liable to this disease when the body contains too much moisture, and several victims of it are recorded, notably the poet Alcman and Pherecydes the Syrian.

Pausanias Description of Greece 3. 15. 1 :
[on Sparta] : Behind the colonnade which runs beside the Grove of Planes there are shrines of Alcimus and Enarsphorus and, close by, one of Dorceus, and adjoining this again one of Sebrus, all of whom are said to have been sons of Hippocoön. The spring near one of them is called Dorceian after Dorceus, and the plot near another, Sebrian after Sebrus. On the right of this plot is a monument to Alcman “whose poems were not made the less sweet because he used the tongue of Sparta,” a dialect not too euphonious. The temples of Helen and Heracles lie the one near the tomb of Alcman, the other close to the wall. In the latter there is a statue of Heracles armed, this form being due, it is said, to the fight he had with Hippocoön and his sons.

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 14. 638e :
The author of the comedy called The Helots says : “It is old-fashioned to sing Stesichorus, or Alcman, or Simonides. We can listen to Gnesippus . . . “

Suidas Lexicon :
Philochorus . . . wrote . . . a treatise on Alcman.

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 14. 646a :
Similarly Sosibius in the 3rd Book of his Treatise on Alcman.

Stephanus of Byzantium Lexicon :
. . . as Alexander Cornelius says in his tract On the Topical Allusions of Alcman.

Hephaestion 138 On Graphical Signs :
The outward-looking diplè ( > ) is frequent in the works of the comic and tragic writers, but unusual in those of the lyrists. It occurs in Alcman, who in writing a poem of fourteen stanzas made the first seven alike of one metre, and the rest alike of another; in these the diplè is placed where the second part begins, to indicate that the poem is written in two different metres.

See also A.P. 7. 19, Plin. N.H. 11. 112, Plut. Sulla 36, Christod. Ecphr. 395.

ALCMAN, FRAGMENTS

BOOKS I AND II MAIDEN SONGS

FRAGMENT 1

Scholiast on Clement of Alexandria 4. 107 Klotz :
There was a Spartan called Hippocoön whose sons, called after him the Hippocoöntids, killed in anger Oeonus son of Licymnius, a companion of Heracles, because he had killed a dog of theirs. Heracles’ revenge was to levy war upon them, and he killed many of them and was wounded in the hand himself. The story is told by Alcman in his first Book.

From a First-Century Papyrus, the Mariette Papyrus :

[1] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Polydeuces.⁴ Among the slain ‘tis true I cannot reckon Lycaeus, but both Enarsphorus I can and the swift Sebrus, Alcimus the mighty and Hippothoüs the helmeted, Euteiches and chieftain Areïus, and [Acmon] noblest of demigods. And shall we pass Scaeus by, that was so great a captain of the host, and Eurytus and Alcon that were supremest of heroes in the tumult of the battle-mellay? Not so; vanquished were they all by the eldest of Gods, to wit by Destiny (Aisa) and Device (Poros), and their strength had not so much as a shoe to her foot. Nay, mortal man may not go soaring to the heavens, nor seek to wed the Queen of Paphos or to wive any silver-shining daughter of Porcus⁵ of the sea; inviolate also is that chamber of Zeus where dwell the Graces whose eyes look love⁶ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . went; and they perished one of them by an arrow and another by a millstone of hard rock, till one and all were had to Hell. These by their own folly did seek them their dooms, and their evil imaginations brought them into suffering never to be forgot.

[36] Verily there is a vengeance from on high, and happy he that weaveth merrily one day’s weft without a tear. And so, as for me, I⁷ sing now of the light that is Agido’s. Bright I see it as the very sun’s which the same Agido now invoketh to shine upon us.⁸ And yet neither praise nor blame can I give at all to such as she without offence to our splendid leader, who herself appeareth as pre-eminent as would a well-knit steed of ringing hoof that overcometh in the race, if he were set to graze among the unsubstantial cattle⁹ of our dreams that fly.

[50] See you not first that the courser is of Enetic blood, and secondly that the tresses that bloom upon my cousin Hagesichora¹⁰ are like the purest gold? and as for her silvern face, how shall I put it you in express words? Such is Hagesichora; and yet she whose beauty shall run second not unto hers but unto Agido’s, shall run as courser Colaxaean to pure Ibenian-bred; for as we bear along her robe to Orthia, these our Doves¹¹ rise to fight for us¹² amid the ambrosial night not as those heavenly Doves but brighter, aye even as Sirius himself.

[64] For neither is abundance of purple defence enough,¹³ nor speckled snake of pure gold, nor the Lydian wimple that adorns the sweet and soft-eyed maid, nor yet the tresses of our Nanno, nay nor Areta the goddess-like, nor Thylacis and Cleësithera, nor again shalt thou go to Aenesimbrota’s and say “Give me Astaphis and let me see Philylla, and Damareta and the lovely Ianthemis;” there is no need of that, for I am safe¹⁴ with Hagesichora.

[74] For it is not the fair-ankled Hagesichora here present and abideth hard by Agido to commend our Thosteria?¹⁵ Then O receive their prayers, ye Gods; for to the Gods belongeth the accomplishment. And for the end of my song I will tell you a passing strange thing. My own singing hath been nought; I that am a girl have yet shrieked like a very owl from the housetop – albeit ‘tis the same girl’s desire to please Aotis¹⁶ as far as in her lies, seeing the Goddess is the healer of our woe¹⁷ – ; ‘tis Hagesichora’s doing, hers alone, that the maidens have attained the longed-for peace.¹⁸

[92] For ‘tis true the others have run well beside her even as horses beside the trace-horse; but here as on shipboard the steersman must needs have a good loud voice, and Hagesichora – she may not outsing the Sirens, for they are Gods, but I would set her higher than any child of human breed. Aye, she sings like a very swan beside the yellow streams of Xanthus, and she that cometh next to that knot of yellow hair . . . ¹⁹

FRAGMENT 2A – 2C TO THE DIOSCURI

Stephanus of Byzantium Lexicon :
Erysichè: A city of Acarnania . . . its adjective is Erusichaios “Erysichaean,” about which there is much discussion in the old writers. For Herodian says that Erusichaios is marked in our texts because it is accented proparaxytone though an ethnic adjective; and perhaps therefore it really contains chaios “a cowherd’s staff”and the future of eruô “to draw.” It will be ambiguous then, as is clear, in Alcman near the beginning of the second of his Maiden-Songs, where he says:

No boor art thou nor a lubber, nor yet a tender of sties, nay nor Thessalian born, nor Erysichaean (or drag-staff), nor a keeper of sheep, but a man of highest Sardis.

“For if it is to be joined with ‘Thessalian-born’ it is an ethnic adjective and should be accented circumflex on the penultimate” – thus Herodian, in his Universal Prosody, and Ptolemaeus: “but if it is connected with a ‘keeper of sheep,’ it is obvious that the accent should be acute on the last but two, and that it means ‘cowherd’ or ‘goatherd,’ an appellation which is properly followed by ‘keeper of sheep.’” ²⁰

FRAGMENT 2B

Herodian on Grammatical Figures 61 :
The Alcmanic “figure” is that whereby plural or dual nouns²¹ or verbs are placed between singular nouns which go together. It occurs four times in Homer . . . ; but it is more frequent in the lyric poet Alcman; whence its name. One has only to go as far as his second ode to find:

O Castor – yet tamers of swift steeds, ye skilful horsemen – and noble Polydeuces²²

FRAGMENT 2C

Hephaestion 3 Handbook of Metre :
[on syllables long by position] : For either the word will end in two consonants, for instance . . . and makars “blessed,” in this :

And reclining yonder in manifold content among the Blest . . . ²³

FRAGMENT 3 – 7 TO THE DIOSCURI or TO LYCAEAN ZEUS

Scholiast Bern. on Vergil Georgics 3. 89 :
[Such was Cyllarus when he bent to the rein of Pollux] : . . . According to the lyric poet Alcman, the horses given by Neptune to Juno were named Cyllarus (or Bowlegs) and Xanthus (or Bayard), Cyllarus being given to Pollux and Xanthus to his brother.

FRAGMENT 4

Aelian On Animals 12. 3 :
Homer, being a poet, deserves our pardon for giving the horse Xanthus speech; and Alcman should not be blamed for imitating Homer in such matters.

FRAGMENT 5

Pausanias Description of Greece 1. 41. 5 :
[on Alcathous] : Alcman in a song to the Dioscuri tells us how they seized Aphidnae and took prisoner the mother of Theseus, but says that Theseus himself was not there.²⁴

FRAGMENT 6

Hesychius Glossary :

City of the Athenians :

That is Aphidnae.

FRAGMENT 7

Pausanias Description of Greece 3. 25. 2 :
[on Pephnus] : Twenty furlongs from Thalamae there is a place on the sea called Pephnus, off which there stands a pile of rock of some considerable size, known by the same name. This according to the people of Thalamae was the birthplace of the Dioscuri, and their testimony, I know, agrees with that of a song of Alcman’s; but they say that though born they were not bred there, and that it was Hermes who carried them to Pellana.

FRAGMENTS 8 – 15 TO LYCAEAN ZEUS

Maximus Planudes On Hermogenes Rh. Gr. Walz 5. 510 :
The metrical systems of lyric poetry consist of strophe, antistrophe and epode. Of these the strophe comes first, and consists of two or more similar or dissimilar lines, as in this of Alcman (43), where it is composed of three dactylic lines of the same metre, and in this, where it is made up of unlike lines:

Hither, Muse, sweet clear Muse of the many tunes and everlasting song, and being a new lay for maids to sing.²⁵

FRAGMENT 9

Life of Aratus Buhle 2. 437 :
They are unaware that Pindar, too, made use of this line, saying “Where the children of Homer also do being, to wit the proem unto Zeus,” ²⁶ and Alcman:

But of this song of mine the beginning shall be Zeus.²⁷

FRAGMENT 10

Apollonius The Pronouns 109. 23 :
This is often found among other writers; for instance, spheteron patera instead of humeteron patera, “your father” . . . and again in the same author [Hesiod] spheteron is used for sphôiteron; Alcman says:

Ye²⁸ and your horses

FRAGMENT 11

Scholiast on Euripides Trojan Women 210 :
They call Therapnae the dwelling of the Dioscuri because they are said to be beneath the land of Therapnè when they are dead, as Alcman says.

FRAGMENTS 12, 13

Priscian Metres of Terence 3. 428 Keil :
Moreover Alcman in his first book has a catalectic trimester sometimes with and sometimes without an iambus in the fourth foot thus [ – frag. 9. l. 3; then – ]

. . . And the temple pure of towered Therapnae;²⁹

here he has a spondee in the fourth book. Similarly:

. . . Falleth dumb upon the shore among the tangle;³⁰

here, too, he has give the fourth foot a spondee, for the first syllable of phukessi is long.

FRAGMENT 14

Aristides 2. 508 On the Extemporised Addition³¹ :
You hear the Laconian, too, saying to himself and the chorus: “The Muse”etc.; note also that having at the onset asked the Muse herself to inspire him, he then seems to change about and says that the chorus who is singing the song has itself done this instead of the Muse. E.g.

The Muse crieth aloud, that Siren clear and sweet. But I had no need, it seems, to invoke her aid, seeing that you yourselves, you maidens, have inspired me with so loud a voice.

FRAGMENT 15

Scholiast on Apollonius of Rhodes Argonautica 1. 146 :
[Aetolian Leda] : It is true that Pherecydes says in his second Book that Leda and Althaea were daughters of Thestius by Laophontè daughter of Pleuron; but that Leda was daughter of Glaucus is implied by Alcman thus:

. . . his sons by the blessed daughter of Glaucus.

FRAGMENT 16 TO HERA

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 15. 680f :
[on the helichryse or cassidony] : Alcman speaks of it thus:

To thee also I pray with this garland of cassidony and lovely bedstraw³² for an offering.

FRAGMENTS 17 – 23 TO ARTEMIS ³³

Old Etymological Magnum Miller Misc. 263 :
Drawer :

O Artemis, drawer of bowstrings

FRAGMENT 18

Apollonius The Pronouns 75. 12 :
The pronoun seo changes s to t in Doris; compare Alcman:

Me who am choirmaster as well to thee as to the Son of Leto

FRAGMENT 19

Scholiast on the Iliad 21. 485 :
For Artemis is clad in fawnskins ; compare Alcman:

clad in the skins of the beasts of the field

FRAGMENT 20

Etymologicum Magnum 486. 39 :
kala, “pretty”: the word appears as kalla in Alcman:

sung of so prettily³⁴

FRAGMENT 21

Apollonius Pronouns 50. 28 :
The same Dorians say egônga and egônê “I”; compare from Alcman:

Never [did] I, O queen born of Zeus

FRAGMENT 22

Choeroboscus on Hephaestion 13 Handbook of Metre :
[on the paeonic] : Heliodorus says that the foot-by-foot caesure is regular in paeonics, as for instance:

nor yet from Cnacalus nor yet from Nyrsylas³⁵

FRAGMENT 23

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 14. 646a :
[on “pan-baked” loaves] : According to Apollodorus this is the name of a kind of cake in Alcman ; and similarly Sosibius in the third Book of his treatise On Alcman, declaring that they are shaped like a woman’s breast and are used at Sparta for women’s feasts, being carried round just before the attendants in the chorus sing the eulogy they have prepared in honour of the Maid.

Ibid. 3. 114f :
[on loaves] : The thridakiskai of Alcman arethe same as the Attic thridakinai or lettuces; the passage of Alcman runs thus:

making a pile of lettuces and pan-baked loaves

FRAGMENT 24 TO APHRODITE

Strabo 8. 340 :
[on Elis] : They say that Homer, by a poetic figure, puts the part side by side with the whole, as “throughout Greece and midmost Argos” . . . and Alcman, too, says:

From the lovely Cyprus and the sea-girt Paphos³⁶

FRAGMENT 25

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 9. 390a :
Partridges are called by some writers kakkabai, notably by Alcman, who says:

Aye, and Alcman did put together the tongued utterance of the caccabis, to make his twin of words and music,

clearly indicating that he learnt to sing from the partridges.³⁷

FRAGMENT 26

Antigonus of Carystus Marvels 27 (23) :
The cock halcyons are called ceryls, and when they grow old and weak and unable to fly, their mates carry them upon their wings; and with this is connected the passage in Alcman where he says that age has made him weak and unable to whirl round with the choirs and with the dancing of the maidens:

O maidens of honey voice so loud and clear, my limbs can carry me no more. Would O would God I were but a ceryl, such as flies fearless of heart with the halcyons over the bloom of the wave, the Spring’s own bird that is purple as the sea!³⁸

FRAGMENT 27

Aristides 2. 40 On Rhetoric :
And what saith the praiser and counsellor of the maidens, the poet of Sparta?

Be the man’s name Say-much, the woman’s Glad-of-all,

By which he means “let the man speak and the woman be content with whatsoever she shall hear.”

FRAGMENTS 28–35 ³⁹

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 9. 373e :
[on poultry] : That they say orneis for ornithes “birds” in the plural is obvious from the above testimony of Menander; but Alcman also says somewhere:

Down sank the damsels helpless, like birds beneath a hovering hawk.

FRAGMENT 29 ⁴⁰

Apollonius The Pronouns 58. 13 :
But Alcman, too, says in his first Book:

Blest is he

FRAGMENT 30 ⁴¹

Ibid. 366c :
The pronoun se, “thee” . . . The Dorians use the form in t; compare Alcman (132), and that in i (52), and also the ordinary form in s:

For of thee stand I in awe.⁴²

FRAGMENT 31 ⁴³

Scholiast on the Odyssey 6. 244 :
[Would that such a man might be my husband here dwelling, and would be pleased to abide with me!] : Aristarchus athetises both these lines, but is doubtful about the first because Alcman has adopted it, making some maidens say:

O Father Zeus! that he were but my husband!

FRAGMENT 32 ⁴⁴

Apollonius The Pronouns 109. 23 :
This is often found among other writers; for instance spheteron patera instead of humeteron patera “your father” . . . Alcman (– fragment 10 ; then –)

Before your knees I fall.

FRAGMENT 33 ⁴⁵

Cyrillus in Cramer’s Inedita (Paris) A.P. 4. 181. 27 :
eikô “to withdraw” . . . as Alcman :

And the housewife gave up her place to him.⁴⁶

FRAGMENT 34

Cramer Inedita (Oxford) A.O. 1. 343. 11 :
And plêtron “rudder,” and in the diminutive form Alcman said plêtrion "tiller" ⁴⁷

FRAGMENT 35

Eustathius on Homer Il. 110. 25 :
cheir “hand” is peculiar among feminines in being declined in two ways, both with e and with ei, and, according to Herodian, with the change to ê, for which he quotes Alcman:

having upon his⁴⁸ left hand

FRAGMENT 36

Apollonius Homeric Lexicon :
Some writers give the name of beast to lions, leopards, wolves, and all similar animals, that of creeping-thing generically to the various kinds of snakes, that of monster to cetaceans such as whales; which is the distinction made by Alcman in the lines:

Alseep lie mountain-top and mountain-gully, shoulder also and ravine; the creeping-things that come from the dark earth, the beasts whose lying is upon the hillside, the generation of the bees, the monsters in the depths of the purple brine, all lie asleep, and with them, the tribes of the winged birds.

FRAGMENT 37

Apollonius Pronouns 95. 9 :
The pronoun hamôn is Doric, and shows an articular genitive corresponding to hamos. But the primitive ameôn, “us,” is distinguished from the possessive, amôn “our,” by diaeresis . . . Alcman:

All of us that are girls do praise our lyre-player.⁴⁹

FRAGMENT 38

Eustathius on the Iliad 1147. 1 :
lêdos “muslin gown” . . . which the Dorians call lados, as Alcman:

and she is clad in a fair muslin gown,

that is, clothed in a handsome summer dress.

FRAGMENT 39

Eustathius on the Odyssey 1618. 23 :
And also, according to the instance quoted by Herodian from Alcman, Artamitos for Artemidos “of Artemis,” as:

minister of Artemis;

So themis, themitos.

FRAGMENT 40

Achilles Tatius Introduction to Artatus’ Phaenomena 2. 166 (Patavius Uranologium) :
There are four spheres and these are called by the ancients stoicheia because each of them lies in a row or rank, just as Alcman somewhere called girls dancing in a line

maidens all a-row

FRAGMENT 41

Suidas Glossary :
psileus, “winger”: one who stands on the edge of a band of singers; whence Alcman’s

lover of the wings,

“she who loves to stand on the edge of the choir.” ⁵⁰

FRAGMENT 42

Bekker Inedita 2. 855 :
The diminutive or pet-name is a name expressive of smallness and suitable to girls. It is used for this reason, for instance, by Alcman: . . . ; for the speakers are girls.⁵¹

BOOKS III ⁵²

FRAGMENT 43

Hephaestion 43 Handbook of Metre :
[on the dactylic] : Alcman who has whole stanzas of this metre:

Come, Muse Calliopè, daughter of Zeus, begin thy lovely lines, and make a hymn to our liking and a dance that shall please.⁵³

FRAGMENT 44

Scholiast on the Odyssey 3. 171 :
Psyria, a little islet with anchorage for twenty ships . . . compare Alcman:

to the sacred rock, to Psyra

FRAGMENT 45

Aristides 2. 509 On the Extemporised Addition :
In another place Alcman becomes so God-inspired that you may say he is not only entheos in the ordinary sense of the word but speaks the God’s actual words like ea God from the machine, deus ex machina:

Tell me this, ye mortal breeds.

FRAGMENT 46

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 10. 416c :
[on voracity] : And in his third Book the poet Alcman records that he was a glutton, thus:

And then I’ll give you a fine great caldron wherein you may gather a plentiful dinner. But unfired is it yet, though soon to be full of that good pottage the all-devouring Alcman loves piping hot when the days are past their shortest. He’ll none of your fine confections, not he; for, like the people, he seeketh unto the common fare.⁵⁴

FRAGMENT 47

Ibid. 11. 498 :
[on the scyphus] : Asclepiades of Myrlea, in his treatise on the Cup of Nestor, says that the scyphus or “can,” and the cissybium or “mazer” were never used by town-dwellers and people of means, but only by swineherds and shepherds and country-folk . . . And Alcman says:

Time and again ‘mid the mountain-tops, when the Gods take their pleasure in the torch-lit festival, you have carried a great can of the sort that shepherds carry, but all of gold and filled by your fair hand with the milk of a lioness, and therefore have made a great cheese, whole and unbroken and shining white.⁵⁵

FRAGMENT 48

Plutarch Dinner-Table Problems 3. 10. 3 :
For the melting air drops the most dew at full moon, as the lyric poet Alcman implies when he says that the dew is daughter of the Air and Moon:

such as are nursed by the dew that is the daughter of Zeus and the divine Moon⁵⁶

FRAGMENT 49

Natalis Comes Mythology 3. 255 : ⁵⁷
Some authorities have held that the Moon was the wife of the Air, and by him the mother of the Dew; compare the lyric poet Alcman in the well-known poem:

The dew that is son of moon and air makes the deergrass to grow.

FRAGMENT 50

Scholiast on the Iliad 13. 588 :
The termination -phi is used by Homer in three cases, genitative, dative, and accusative . . . And Alcman the lyric poet uses it in the vocative, thus:

Muse, daughter of Zeus, heavenly Muse, sweet and clear will I sing;

For ôraniaphi stands for ourania “heavenly.” ⁵⁸

FRAGMENT 51

Scholiast on the Iliad 22. 305 :
[“but having done some great thing that shall be known even to them that are yet to be”]: there is an omission of the word “good,” as in Alcman:

Neighbour is a great thing unto neighbour.

FRAGMENT 52

Apollonius Pronouns 83. 3 :
The prounoun se, “thee,” occurs in all dialects – in the Dorian in the form te . . . (132), as Alcman says, and in the form tei:

Thy overcoming shall fall to the lot of Paris.⁵⁹

FRAGMENT 53

Scholiast on the Iliad 3. 39 :
Duspari : that is, “called Paris for ill, evil Paris”; compare Alcman:

Paris-of-ill, Paris-of-dread, an evil unto Greece, the nurse of heroes.⁶⁰

FRAGMENT 54

Ibid. 16. 236 :
[even as once thou heardst my voice in prayer] : He reckons his mother’s prayer (Il. 1. 503) as his own. For it was Achilles who sent Thetis up to Zeus and the prayer is transferred to him. Similarly Alcman says:

And Circè once, having anointed the ears of the comrades of strong-hearted Odysseus . . .,

Though she did not anoint them herself but charged Odysseus to anoint them.

FRAGMENT 55

Apollonius Adverbs 2. 566. 11 (Bek.) :
Next we must treat of the adverb rha; compare Alcman:

And prithee who may read with ease the mind of another?⁶¹

FRAGMENT 56

Ammonius Words Alike but Different :
ipes . . . But ikes are the creatures that eat through the buds of vines; compare Alcman:

and the wily worm that destroyeth the buds

FRAGMENT 57

Herodian On Peculiarities 44. 10 :
In Alcman the word peizô, “to press,” takes the form piazô; compare:

And the Goddess took, and pressed in her hand the crown-lock of his head.

FRAGMENT 58

Apollonius Pronouns 365A :
[on the pronoun soi] : toi “to thee” is accented by Alcman, in accordance with Doric idiom:

I pray my dance may both please the heart of Zeus and be acceptable, O Lord, to thee.

FRAGMENT 59

Ibid. 112. 20 :
Again, Alcman has used spheas “them” in place of the singular (possessive), and also the adjective sphois “their,” for “his”:

the death and death-spirit of his brother’s children⁶²

FRAGMENT 60

Old Etymologicum Magnum (cf. Zon. 1338) :
megas, “great,” is for mêgas, “that which is not in the earth (mê gê) but extends above it”; Alcman uses the form me:

Lo! the illustrious Ajax bragged (talked great).⁶³

FRAGMENT 61

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 15. 682a :
[on the flower calcha] : This flower is mentioned by Alcman, thus:

wearing a golden chain of dainty-petalled calcha-flowers.

FRAGMENT 62

Plutarch Life of Lycurgus 21 :
These quotations show that the Spartans were at once more musical and very warlike:

For to play well upon the lyre weigheth even-poise with the steel,

as the Spartan poet has said.⁶⁴

FRAGMENT 63

MS. In Gaisford’s Etymologicum Magnum p. 327 :
For the Laconian form is aeidên or aeiden, “to sing”:

Nor yet stay me from singing.⁶⁵

FRAGMENT 64

Scholiast on Sophocles O.C. 1248 :
[from the night-wrapt Rhipae] : . . . and he calls them night-wrapt because they lie towards the west; and Alcman also mentions them thus:

The wood-beflowered mount of Rhipè that is the breast of murky night

FRAGMENT 65

Bekker Inedita 2. 490 :
In Alcman:

Then have I dreamt of Phoebus?

FRAGMENT 66

Plutarch Fortune of Rome 4 :
For Fortune is not intractable as Pindar says . . ., but rather

Sister of Orderliness and Persuasion, and daughter of Foresight,

which is her pedigree in Alcman.

FRAGMENT 67

Scholiast on Pindar I. 1. 56 :
[For he who has suffered, beareth for it forethought in his mind] : A man’s mind wins forethought or prudence by his experience; compare Alcman:

Trial surely is the beginning of wisdom.

FRAGMENT 68

Eustathius on the Odyssey 1787. 43 :
The Aeolians use as participle of philô, “I love,” phileis . . . It may be therefore that the optative ein, “would be,” is an Aeolic word derived from the participle eis, “being,” the declension of which, Heracleides says, is observed by the poets, and he gives the following instance of it from Alcman:

Remembrance belongs to them that were there.

FRAGMENT 69

Apollonius Pronouns 93. 5 :
ames “we” is Doric; compare Alcman:

as we the pretty roundelay . . .

and the accentuation hames is not to be censured.

FRAGMENT 70

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 9. 374d :
[on poultry] : The Dorians, who say ornix for ornis, “bird,” use the genitive ornichos with a ch, though Alcman uses the s-form in the nominative . . . (26.4) and the ch-form in the genitive; compare:

I know the tunes of all birds.

FRAGMENT 71

Choeroboscus in Bekker’s Inedita 3. 1182 :
Moreover Aias, “Ajax,” we find marked in the texts of Alcman with the a short . . .

With polished spear raves Ajax, and Memnon is athirst for blood.

. . . For it occurs in the fifth place, in which spondees are not found in the trochaic metre.⁶⁶

FRAGMENT 72

Scholiast on the Iliad 1. 222 :
He calls the gods daimones either because . . . or else because they are the arbitrators of dispensers of men, as the lyric poet Alcman says:

who hath allotted them with his own lots and divided unto them his own portions;

that is, divisions.⁶⁷

FRAGMENT 73, 74

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 4. 140c :
Moreover Polemo (in his tract on the Word Kanathron in Xenophon) says that for deipnon “supper” the Spartans use aiklon . . . Alcman at any rate says:

He is mourned at the mill, he is mourned at the mess;⁶⁸

meaning by sunaikliai the public suppers; and again:

Alcman hath prepared himself a supper,

aiklon.

FRAGMENT 75

Cramer Inedita A.O. 1. 159. 30 :
And Homer shortens the vowel of the first syllable in the word esken “was,” but Alcman keeps it long:

There was once a ditcher was king.

FRAGMENT 76

Apollonius Adverbs (Bek. An. 2. 563) :
prosthe, “before,” appears as prostha, and the elision is to be taken in Alcman:

before Lycean Apollo

FRAGMENT 77

Old Etymologicum Magnum :
aphthonestaton “most plentiful”: . . . and the superlative aidoiestaton “most reverend” as in Alcman, for instance:

most reverend unto Gods and men

FRAGMENTS 78, 79

Apollonius Pronouns 96. 23:
The pronoun hamin “to us,” as declined in Doric, shortens the i when it is circumflexed upon the last syllable but one:

Would this were business of ours!

and an acute accent also is put upon the last:

He will accompany our song with music of the flute,

as Alcman says.

FRAGMENT 80

Strabo Geography 12. 580 :
There is mention of some Phrygian tribes which cannot be traced, as the Berecyntians; and Alcman says:

He piped a Phrygian tune Cerbesian.⁶⁹

FRAGMENT 81 ⁷⁰

Hephaestion 71 Handbook of Metre :
[on the Ionieum a minore] : And indeed whole poems have been written in this metre, as in Alcman:

The saffron-robèd Muses this to the far-flinging Son of Zeus.

FRAGMENT 82

Old Etymologicum Magnum :
Sound anew the clear-twanging [lyre].
in Alcman; ligukorton “clear-twanging,” instead of ligukroton by metathesis of r.

FRAGMENT 83

Plutarch On Music 14 :
Not only the lyre belongs to Apollo, but he is the inventor of flute-playing as well as lyre-playing . . Others say that he played the flute himself, for instance the great lyric poet Alcman.

FRAGMENT 84

Scholiast on Theocritus 5. 83 :
[the Carneian Festival] : Praxilla says that this festival is so called from Carnus son of Zeus and Europa . . . but Alcman from a Trojan named Carneüs.

FRAGMENTS 85, 86

Hephaestion 86 Handbook of Metre :
The epionic trimester a minore acatalectic occurs in Alcman; its first part comprises an iambic of six or seven beats, and the rest two six-beat ionics pure, as:

too much; for if Apollo Lycean

and

The sea-queen Ino, who from her breast⁷¹

FRAGMENT 87

Strabo Geography 10. 482 :
[on Crete] : Ephorus says that the public mess is called andreia or “the men’s mess” in Crete, but that at Sparta that name is obsolete, though it occurs in Alcman as follows:

At feasts and in the companies of men’s mess ‘tis well beside them that sit at meat to strike up and sing the Paean.⁷²

FRAGMENT 88

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 2. 39a :
[on nectar] : I know that Alexandrides says that nectar is not the Gods’ drink but their food; . . . and Alcman says:

to do nothing but eat of the nectar.⁷³

FRAGMENT 89

Scholiast on Pindar O. 1. 91 :
[woe . . . which his father hung over him, that mighty stone] : Alcaeus and Alcman say that a stone hung over Tantalus; Alcaeus thus (fr. 57), and Alcman thus:

He sat, a wicked man, among pleasant things, upon a seat rock-o’erhung, thinking he saw and seeing not.⁷⁴

FRAGMENT 90

Cramer Inedita (Oxfordd) A.O. 1. 418 :
[on hupaitha] : This word is also used without the syllable tha in Alcman, and it means proteron “formerly”:

‘Twas long ago that Hippolochus did fall, but he hath received a fame that even now hath not deserted him;

instead of proteron; it is accented on the first syllable.

FRAGMENT 91

Apollonius Syntax 212 :
The optative, as it is in Alcman:

And may the better win!

FRAGMENT 92

Etymologicum Magnum 506. 20 :
Kerkun, “Corcyraean”: . . . compare Alcman:

And leads a Corcyraean;

from the nominative Kerkur, which however does not occur.

FRAGMENT 93

Ibid. 620. 35 :
Compare Alcman:

[Would that,] when I am a woman grown

The dialect uses hoka for hote “when,” and then doubles the k (On Inflexions).⁷⁵

FRAGMENT 94

Eustathius on the Odyssey 1547. 60 :
And Alcman says:

Thou’lt shout down the Muse;

instead of “consume.” ⁷⁶

FRAGMENT 95

Scholiast on the Iliad 12. 66 :
steinos “a narrow place”: so too the adjective kletios, “famous,” when it becomes a neuter noun, is accented on the first syllable, as in Alcman:

by whose fame in Thessaly

FRAGMENT 96

Old Etymologicum Magnum :
hulakonôroi (an epithet of dog Od. 14. 29): given to barking busy with barking; or, according to another view, sharp-voiced, like egchesimôros, because of the sharpness of the spears (egchê), for moros in the Cyprian dialect means sharp. But it is better to take it as toiling (moreô) over their barking, because of their keeping awake. Or perhaps raising their bark, that is giving a shrill bark; compare Alcman:

raises for me his insatiable little tune⁷⁷

FRAGMENT 97

Scholiast on Aristophanes Pac. 457 :
[Not to Ares? No. Nor yet to Enyalius? No] : This refers to those of the younger generation who identified Ares with Enyalius . . . Alcman is said sometimes to identify and sometimes to distinguish them.

FRAGMENT 98

Pausanias Description of Greece 3. 18. 6 :
[on Amyclae] : On the way thither from Sparta is the river Tiasa . . . and near by there is a shrine of the Graces Phaënna and Cleta, as Alcman calls them in a poem.

FRAGMENT 99

Athenagoras Mission on behalf of the Christians 14 :
Alcman and Hesiod make a Goddess of Medea.

FRAGMENT 100

Aelian Historical Miscellanies 12. 36 :
The ancients appear to disagree the number of Niobe’s children . . . Alcman says it was ten.

FRAGMENT 101

Plutarch Malignity of Herodotus 14 :
And yet among the ancient men of letter neither Homer, nor Hesiod, nor Archilochus, nor Peisander, nor Stesichorus, nor Alcman, nor Pindar, knew anything of an Egyptian or Phoenician Heracles, but all know this one Heracles who was both of Boeotia and of Argos.

FRAGMENT 102

Tzetzes on the Iliad 65 Herm. :
Thales, Pythagoras, Plato, and the Stoics, know of a distinction between daemons or “spirits” and heroes or “demigods” . . . but Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod, Alcman the lyrist, and the other poets sometimes distinguish them and sometimes not.

FRAGMENT 103

Eustathius on the Iliad 1154. 25 :
The ancients explain that he sons of Heaven were Acmonidae or “sons of Alcmon,” and Alcman is said to tell us that Acmon is Heaven.⁷⁸

FRAGMENT 104

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 14. 624b :
[on the Phrygian “mode”] : This mode was first invented and practised by Phrygians, and that is why flute-players in Greece have Phrygian names like those of slaves, for instance Sambas, and Adon, and Telus, in Alcman.

FRAGMENT 105

Scholiast on the Iliad 3. 250 :
[Son of Laomedon] : Priam’s mother as we are told by Porphyrius in his book On the Names omitted by Homer, was according to the lyric poet Alcman Zeuxippè, but according to Hellanicus Strymo.

FRAGMENT 106

Plutarch On Music 5 :
Polymnastus is mentioned by the lyric poets Pindar and Alcman.

FRAGMENT 107

Aristides 2. 272 The Four Great Athenians⁷⁹ :
But I will admit this in Plato’s favour; granted the “brackish [or bitter] neighbour,” as he calls it (Laws 475a).

Scholiast ad loc. :
Brackish neighbour: from Alcman the lyrist, meaning “it is a bad thing to have the sea for a neighbour.” . . . So the orator means “let us admit that Athens was situate near the sea.”

Arsenius Violet-Bed 43 :

Look thou from afar upon a brackish neighbour.

FRAGMENT 108

Aristides 2. 508 On the Extemporised Addition :
In another passage, by way of displaying the greatness of his own fame, Alcman makes so preposterous an enumeration of peoples, that the hapless scholar to this day is trying to find out where in the world they can be, and it would pay him better, I think, to retrace his steps for many miles than to spend his time over the Sciapods or Shadow-feet.

FRAGMENT 109

Strabo Geography 1. 43 :
One can hardly charge Hesiod with ignorance for speaking of the Demi-dogs . . . nor yet Alcman for mentioning the Steganopods or Shelter-feed.⁸⁰

FRAGMENT 110

Diodorus of Sicily Historical Library 4. 7 :
For most of the mythologists, and these the most approved, say that the Muses are the daughters of Zeus and Memory, but a few of the poets, and among these Alcman, represent them as daughters of Heaven and Earth.⁸¹

FRAGMENT 111

Hesychius Glossary :
aantha, a kind of earring in Alcman, according to Aristophanes.⁸²

FRAGMENT 112

Cramer Inedita A.O. 1. 55. 7 :
agazô . . . “to wonder,” from agô, which occurs in Alcman; compare:

Marvels at him;

From this comes agêmi and agamai.

FRAGMENT 113

Eustathius on the Iliad 314. 41 :
They say that the word agerôchoi thus used means “the proud,” as Alcman intends it.

FRAGMENT 114

Stephanus of Byzantium :
Aigialos . . . the ethnic adjective is Aigialeus, with feminine Aigialeia and in Alcman Aigialis, woman of Aegialus

FRAGMENT 115

Argument to Theocritus 12 :
And Alcman calls beloved maidens aitiai "darlings." ⁸³

FRAGMENT 116

Hesychius Glossary :
Dipt-in-the-Sea: a purple bird, Alcaeus and Alcman.

FRAGMENT 117

Stephanus of Byzantium Lexicon :
Annichorum : mentioned by Alcman; the inhabitants are Annichori or Annichores and are situate near Persia.

FRAGMENT 118

Ibid. :
Araxae or Araxi: a race of Illyria, according to Alexander Cornelius in his tract on the Place-Allusions of Alcman.

FRAGMENT 119

Ibid. :
Arrhyba: the adjective is Arrubas, Arrhyban, for it is so in Alcman.

FRAGMENT 120

Ibid. :
Assus . . . But Alexander Cornelius in his tract on the Place-Allusions of Alcman says that it is a Mytilenaean colony in Mysia, where they find the sarcophagus or flesh-consuming stone.

FRAGMENT 121

Ibid. :
Gargara: a city of the Troad . . . Alcman makes it Gargarus of the feminine gender.

FRAGMENT 122

Ibid. :
Graikos, “Graecus”: Hellen – accented oxytone – the son of Thessalus, whence the Hellenes came to be called Greeks. And Graeca in Alcman is the mother of Hellen.

FRAGMENT 123

Ibid. :
Issedones: a tribe of Scythia . . . Alcman is peculiar in calling them Essedones; the second syllable is found with the e short in other writers.

FRAGMENT 124

Etymologicum Gudianum :
mnêmê, “Memory”: Alcman calls her

she that looks with the mind;

for we view the past with the eye of the intellect.

FRAGMENT 125

Cramer Inedita A.O. 1. 55. 21 :
The word karcharos “sharp” has been marked in our texts . . . and it is found in the feminine in Alcman; compare

with sharp voices

FRAGMENT 126

Zonarus Lexicon 1190 :
kerkolura: Alcman used this form instead of krekolura . . . it means "sounding lyre," krekè-krekè being the sound of the cithara.⁸⁴

FRAGMENT 127

Stephanus of Byzantium :
Pityussae: various islands, called Pityodes by Alcman.⁸⁵

FRAGMENT 128

Etymologicum Magnum 663. 54 :
Periers, from Periêrês, “Perieres,” with loss of ê; if it is set you to decline in this form in Alcman, refuse to do so; for the termination, if it becomes Periêrous in the genitive, does not correspond to the nominative Periêrs.⁸⁶ (On Inflexions.)⁸⁷

FRAGMENT 129

Suidas Lexicon :
chthonia “earthy, infernal”: . . . and in Alcman, when he says of Strife

infernal monster,

some commentators take it in the sense of “abhorrent,” others in the sense of “great” because he is addressing her.

BOOK IV LOVES SONGS

FRAGMENT 130

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 13. 600f :
[on love] : Archytas the writer on musical theory maintains according to Chamaeleon that the originator of love-songs was Alcman, and that he was the first to give out to the schools⁸⁸ song that was licentious in matters concerning women, and other poetry of that kind, and that hence he says in one of his songs:

Lo, at the Cyprian’s hest, sweet Love distils upon me and melts my heart

And he says too that he fell wildly in love with Megalostrata, who was both a poetess and had the power of attracting lovers by her conversation. He speaks of her thus:

. . . to whom hath been shown the gift of the sweet Muses at the hands of one that is right happy among maidens, to wit the flaxen-haired Megalostrata.

FRAGMENT 131

Hephaestion 82 Handbook of Metre :
[the cretic] : And it will be catalectic hexameter – namely that called Alcman’s – composed entirely of cretics, as:

It is not Aphroditè; but wild Love, like a child, plays me touch-me-not-with-your-little-reed, treading softly on tiptoe.⁸⁹

FRAGMENT 132

Apollonius Pronouns 83. 3 :
The pronous se, “thee,” occurs in all dialects – in the Dorian in the form te; compare Alcman:

By our fiends I adjure thee

FRAGMENT 133

Etymologicum Magnum 622. 44 :
The vocative of oloos, “destructive,” is oleo or by syncope ole, or if alos be taken for the nominative then there is no syncope, as:

I am in pain, thou destroying spirit.⁹⁰

This comes from Herodian On Inflexions.

FRAGMENT 134

Priscian Principles of Grammar 2. 17. 11 Keil :
To avoid hiatus, too, they inserted digamma, as the poets who use Aeolic show, for instance Alcman:

And storm and destroying fire⁹¹

FRAGMENT 135

Crame Inedita (Oxford) A.O. 1. 287. 4 :
And eika, which means “to be like,” as in Alcman:

Thou’rt like to ripe flax

FRAGMENT 136

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 3. 81f :
[on apples] : Alcman means the struthian apple when he says:

As small as a codymalon,⁹³

though Apollodorus and Sosibius take it as a quince.

BOOK V DRINKING-SONGS

FRAGMENT 137

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 10. 416d :
[on the voracity of Alcman] : And in his fifth Book he shows his gluttony thus:

And seasons made he three, summer and winter and the third the autumn, and a fourth also, to with the spring, when things do flourish and grow but one cannot eat his fill.

FRAGMENT 138

Ibid. 3. 110f :
Poppy-cakes are mentioned by Alcman in his fifth Book thus:

Seven couches and as many tables crowned with poppy-cakes and linseed and sesame,⁹⁴ and set among the flagons cups of damaskt gold;

It is a sweetmeat made with honey and linseed.⁹⁵

FRAGMENT 139

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 1. 31c :
[on wines] : Alcman says, I think: “That wine unfired and of finest scent which comes from the Five Hills,“ which is about a mile from Sparta, and that of Denthiades, a frontier-post, and that of Carystus, which is nearly in Arcadia, and that of Oenus, Onogli, and Stathmus, which are all in the neighbourhood of Pitanè – in his own words:

That wine unfired and of the finest scent, either that which comes from the Five Hills, or that which is the wine of Oenus, or else the Denthian or the Carystian, or the wine of Onogli or of Stathmi . . .

where by “unfired” he means “not boiled.” ⁹⁶

FRAGMENT 140

Hesychius Glossary :
klepsiamboi, “hidden iambics” : according to Aristoxenus these are certain lyric poems in the works of Alcman.⁹⁷

FRAGMENT 141

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 14. 648b :
Porridge is mentioned by Alcman, thus:

Forthwith shall you have raisin-wine porridge, white frumenty, and the waxen fruits of the bee;

and this kind of porridge, according to Sosibius, is all-seeds boiled in wine of raisins, frumenty is boiled wheat-corns, and the waxen fruits are honey.⁹⁸

FRAGMENT 142

Cramer Inedita A.O. 1. 60. 24 :
But if they begin with e the change from ê to long a does not take place, for instance elatos hippêlatos; compare Alcman:

Thin is the threat and pitiless the necessity;⁹⁹

for nêleês, “pitiless,” is derived from eleeinê, “pitiable.”

FRAGMENT 143

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 14. 636f :
[on the musical instrument called magadis] : And Alcman, too, says:

to lay aside the lute

FRAGMENT 144

Etymologicum Magnum 171. 7 :
ausion, “idle, useless” : Ibycus uses this form . . . but Alcman tausios; compare:

I will lie an idle ball.¹⁰⁰

BOOK VI ¹⁰¹

FRAGMENT 145

Apollonius Pronouns 107. 11 :
The Aeolians use the digamma-forms in every case and gender . . . and Alcman is regularly Aeolic in:
his own troubles

FRAGMENT 146

Scholiast on Aristides On behalf of the Four Great Athenians 3. 490 :
The Cretan and the sea: Proverbial of those who know but pretend they do not; it means “the islander does not know the sea” . . The proverb also has this form: “The Sicilian and the sea” . . It is mentioned by the lyric poet Alcman.¹⁰²

FRAGMENT 147

Etymologicum Magnum 22. 23 :
azô . . . Herodian in his treatise On Inflexions declares that it is derived from agos, “guilt or expiation,” – agizô by syncope azô . . . and why he says so, is clear from Alcman’s use of agisdeo for azeo

stand thou in awe

FRAGMENT 148

Hesychius Glossary :
blêr bait; and another word for it is aithma; the word occurs in Alcman.

FRAGMENT 149

Etymologicum Magnum 228. 25 :
gergura: underground; properly that which carries of rainwater; see the note on gorgura; but Alcman uses the e-form, gergura.¹⁰³

FRAGMENT 150

Bekker Inedita 2. 949 :
The word doan,

for a long while,

in Alcman has an acute accent on the last syllable, arriving at this form thus: dên, dan, doan.¹⁰⁴

FRAGMENT 151

Old Etymologicum Magnum 126 :
The form zatrapha¹⁰⁵ “well-fed” in Alcman is to be classed as a metaplasm of zatrophon.

FRAGMENT 152

Etymologicum Magnum 420. 28 :
hêdumos, “pleasant”; . . . Alcman uses the superlative hadumestaton, “pleasantest”

FRAGMENT 153

Eustathius on the Odyssey 1892. 44 :
It should be understood, too that the third person singular ên takes the form ês, “he was,” in Alcman, by the Doric change of n to s.¹⁰⁶

FRAGMENT 154

Cramer Inedita A.O. 1. 190. 20 :
Alcman uses the form êti, “saith,” instead of êsi.

FRAGMENT 155

Eustathius on the Iliad 11. 756. 30 :
. . . by the change of n to l, a substitution which the Dorians make by saying phintatos for philtatos “deartest”; . . . kento for keleto, “he prayed,” in Alcman.

FRAGMENT 156

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner 3. 81d :
Cydonian apples or quinces are mentioned by Stesichorus . . . and Alcman.

FRAGMENT 157

Scholiast on the Odyssey 23. 76 :
Alcman calls the “jaws” mastakes, from masaomai “to chew.”

FRAGMENT 158

Scholiast on the Iliad 17. 40 :
Feminine dissyllables ending in -tis, which are not epithets and of which the penultimate syllable contains o either simple or in a diphthong, have the acute accent on the last syllable, for instance koitis, . . . and outis, the animal, in Alcman.¹⁰⁷

FRAGMENT 159

Old Etymologicum Magnum :
peirata: “ends,” and in Alcman in the form perasa. (On Inflexions).

FRAGMENT 160

Scholiast on the Iliad 12. 137 :
auas: perhaps it has been circumflexed on the first like nauos for naos “temple,” . . . and phauos for phaos, “light,” in Alcman.

FRAGMENT 161

Scholiast on Lucian Anach. 32 :
gerron . . . Alcman uses the word of “arrows”

FRAGMENT 162

Old Etymologicum Magnum :
bale “would that”: . . . Alcman uses the form abale, “O would that,” for instance

O would that both discreet . . .

FRAGMENT 163

Herodian Words without Parallel 9. 31 (2. 915 Lentz) :
eurupôn “splay-footed”; compare Alcman

But they to whom splay-footed . . .

FRAGMENT 164

Scholiast on Theocritus 5. 92 :
[windflower, anemone] : . . . according to Sosibius the anemone or windflower is called by the Spartans “shine-bright.”

FRAGMENT 165

From a manuscript quoted by Reitzenstein. Ind. Lect. (Rostock cod. Coislin. 394) :
holkas : A ship; a merchant-ship; and in Alcman “alluring” of the nightingale and the Siren.¹⁰⁸

1. or: “of singing to the lyre of flute songs whose (chief) metre was not hexameter?”?
2. or “who hath in him the disposition of the nine Muses”?
3. the names of both his “fathers,” however, are Greek
4. Heracles was aided by Tyndareüs and the Dioscuri
5. Nereus
6. the mutilated strophe probably described the war of the Giants against Heaven.
7. each of the performers
8. the invocation was probably part of the ritual and took place in dumb-show as these words were sung
9. i.e. horses
10. she takes her nickname from her position as Choir-leader, Agido being second in command; it was probably part of the ritual that the dancers should be cousins (cf. Pind, Parth., Procl. ap Phot. Bibl. 239

11. the leader and her second were apparently called, and perhaps dressed as, doves; this was also the name of the constellation of the Pleiades; Orthia (later Artemis Orthia) was a bird-goddess
12. against the competing choruses
13. this strophe names the chorus and their teacher, and describes their dress
14. from defeat in the competition
15. the festival of Orthia, of which this song and dance was part of the ritual
16. (the a is long) epithet of Orthia probably meaning “dawn-goddess,” cf. the invocation of the sun mentioned l. 41 ; the procession seems to have taken place at daybreak.
17. the ritual was apparently apotropaic
18. either a modest way of describing their expected victory, or reference to the object of the ritual
19. the yellow streams of Xanthus are her own hair which is called golden above (l. 53); the papyrus breaks off as we begin a final reference to Agido with an explanation of the jest ; Alcman follows H. in the processional dance
20. cf. Sch. Ap. Rh. 4. 972, Str. 10. 460 ( Erus. Glossed Kaludônios)

21. includes adjectives
22. cf. Sch. Pind. P. 4. 318, Sch. Od. 10. 513, Eust. Od. 1667. 34
23. reference to Heracles? Cf. Apoll. Pron. 335b (Alkman)
24. cf. Sch. Il. 3. 242
25. cf. E.M. 589. 47, Apoll. Synt. 1. 4, Erotian 99. 2 (Alkman en a melôn), Prisc. Metr. Ter. 2. 428 Keil (Alcman in primo), Him. Or. 5. 3
26. Nem. 2.1
27. the feminine shows the song was sung by girls (cf. fr. 8)
28. probably the Dioscuri, mention of whom seems to have been added to this hymn at the request of the Spartans when Alcman passed through Sparta on his way with the poem to the temple of Lycaean Zeus in Arcadia; cf. Him. l.c.
29. cf. Harp. 151. 14 (Alkman en a), Phot. and Suid. Therapnai, Paus. 3. 20. 1, Sch. Pind. I. 4. 3, Steph. Byz. Therapnai
30. the calm sea

31. to a written speech of his own
32. I thus translate because it was used for lying on (at meals), though it is not our bedstraw; sometimes translated as “galingale”
33. all these fragments are not necessarily from the same hymn
34. cf. Cram. A.P. 4. 63, Apoll. Adv. 155. 9
35. haunts of Artemis, cf. Paus. 8. 23. 4
36. cf. Men Rh. Gr. Walz 9. 135 (on hymns of invocation: “calls Aphrodite from Cyprus, Cnidus,” etc.)
37. the poet is jestingly praising his choir at his own expense
38. cf. Bek. An. 2. 522, 568, 946, Cram. A.O. 1. 265, 1, E.M. 186. 43, Sch. Ar. Av. 250, 2999, Suid. kêrulos, Phot. s. ornis, Ath. 9. 347d, Zon. 121 (Goettl.)
39. probably from a poem dealing with Nausicaa and Odysseus’ entertainment by Alcinous, Od. 6 and 7: with 28 cf. Od. 6. 138 (Nausicaa’s companions on seeing Odysseus)
40. cf. Od. 6. 158 Odysseus to Nausicaa

41. cf. Od. 6. 168 Odysseus to Nausicaa
42. cf. Apoll. Synt. 139
43. cf. Od. 6. 244 Nausicaa on seeing Odysseus dressed
44. cf. Od. 7. 146 Odysseus supplicates Arete
45. cf. Od. 7. 175 Alcinous entertains Odysseus
46. cf. Apoll. Pron. 112. 2
47. cf. Ammon. 109
48. or “my”: cf. Od. 5. 276; perhaps Odysseus is telling Arete how he came to Scheria “keeping the Bear upon his left hand”
49. the poet’s choir to the poet
50. cf. Phot. s. psileus

51. the quotation is lost : cf. Cram. A.O. 4. 273. 12
52. in this book I have placed all other fragments of choral or otherwise general type
53. cf. Max. Plan. 5. 510 Walz, Ars. 360, Paroem. 2. 540, Heph. 44 and Sch.
54. i.e. when you, the chorus-leader, have won the singing-contest for Alcman, I, the judge (Alcman makes him say) will give you – and him – the prize
55. reference to a Maenad at a midnight festival of Dionysus: cf. a Grammarian quoted Philologus 10. 350
56. cf. Plut Fac. Orb. 25, Qu. Nat. 24, Macr. Sat. 7. 16
57. the bona fides of this author is open to doubt.
58. cf. Sch. Il. 2. 233, Apoll. Adv. 165. 7, Cram. A.O. 1. 293. 23 (ouraniaphi g’aeisomai), E.M. 800. 10, E.G. 411. 16, but metre and grammar alike point to some early corruption, perhaps of ourania lig’aiesomai
59. probably addressed to Achilles, cf. Arist. Rh. 1359a. 3
60. cf. Eust. Il. 379. 38

61. cf. Theocr. 25. 67
62. cf. 33
63. cf. The death of Ajax son of Oïleus (called “illustrious” Il. 23. 779) Od. 4. 499 ff., E.M. 574. 38, Eust. Od. 1447. 10
64. cf. Plut. Fort. Alex. 2. 2, Terp. 6
65. cf. Fav. 115
66. cf. Zon. 564, Cram. A.O. 3. 283. 14, E.M. Vet. 92, Draco Strat. 12 and 64
67. cf. Cram. A.O. 4. 490. 16, Matr. An. 409, Sch. Cod. Vinc. 49, Cod. Vind. 61
68. i.e. by slave and freeman, cf. Carm. Pop. 43 Bergk
69. see Lewis and Short Berecyntus
70. cf. Gram. Ap. Herm. Elem. Doctr. Metr. 472, Gram. Harl. 332 (as a tetrameter), Tricha 8 fin.

71. Pors. Suggests for next line rhipten phatis galasênon Melikrtan, “cast, ‘tis said, the suckling Melicertes”
72. cf. Eust. Il. 305. 34, Men. Rh. Gr. Walz 9. 135
73. cf. Eust. 1633. 1
74. the feast was a phantom: cf. Eust. Od. 1701. 23
75. cf. Bek. An. 606. 31
76. he wrongly connects it with auô, “to burn”
77. perhaps of a bird’s song, or of a rival poet’s chorus (the God speaking)?
78. Some make Acmon father of Heaven
79. Miltiades, Themistocles, Pericles, Cimon
80. cf. Strab. 7. 299, Cram. A.O. 3. 370. 8

81. see however 43 and 50; cf. Sch. Pind. N. 3. 16
82. cf. Cram. A.P. 4. 84. 18 (aantha)
83. cf. E.G. 25. 3 and 12
84. cf. E.M. 506. 17, Suid. kerkolura
85. cf. Eust. Il. 355. 45
86. cf. makars (29): Perieres was father of Tyndareus
87. cf. fr. 133
88. i.e. set choruses to learn in the song-schools: cf. Theophr. Char. 30. 18 himation ekdounai pleunai, “send his cloak to be cleaned”
89. reference to some game like our “touch” or “tig”; he means he is not really in love, it is “only a flutter”
90. cf. Cram. A.O. 2. 461. 32 (Alkmanikon), 1. 442, Sch. Il. 10. 134

91. cf. Ibid. 21
92. cf. Ibid. 4. 368. 19, 415. 22, Bek. An. 3. 1294. 5, 1404, Choer. Epim. Gais 2. 587, 874, Hdn. mon. lex. 24. 9
93. perhaps = medlar
94. i.e. cakes flavoured with them, or “poppy-cakes both of linseed and of sesame”; this is a drinking-bout not a feast
95. i.e. these and poppy
96. cf. Strab. 10. 446, Eust. Il. 281. 10, 1449. 12, 1633. 51, Steph. Byz. Karustos
97. these iambic fragments may be of this sort; they were recited to music, cf. Ath. 14, 636b, where for klepsiambous we should read klepsiambukas, the instrument used
98. cf. Eust. Od. 1563. 1, 1735. 50
99. thread B; “one of the Fates was Atarpô Sch. Od. 7. 197”
100. i.e. thrown down and not played with

101. the contents of this Book being unknown, I have put into it all the remaining fragments of a personal type
102. cf. Strab. 10. 481, Paroem. 1. 131 (where, however, Alcaeus is quoted as mentioning the proverb)
103. cf. Bek. An. 1. 233. 27
104. cf. Jo. Alex. 42, Bek. An. 2. 570
105. apparently acc. sing.
106. cf. Fav. 234
107. cf. Arc. 35. 3
108. the word means “that which draws” cf. Hesych. s.v.