LYCOPHRON, ALEXANDRA 1011 - 1474

ALEXANDRA LINES 1011 - 1474, TRANSLATED WITH FOOTNOTES BY A. W. MAIR

[1011] And him,¹ again, who won the second prize for beauty, and the boar leader² from the streams of Lycormas,³ the mighty son of Gorge,⁴ on the one hand the Thracian blasts, falling on taut sails, shall carry to the sands of Libya; on the other hand from Libya again the blast of the South wind shall carry them to the Argyrini⁵ and the glades of Ceraunia,⁶ shepherding the sea with grievous hurricane. And there they shall see a sorry wandering life, drinking the waters of Aias⁷ which springs from Lacmon.⁸ And neighbouring Crathis⁹ and the land of the Mylaces¹⁰ shall receive them in their bounds to dwell at Polae, the town of the Colchians whom the angry ruler¹¹ of Aea and of Corinth, the husband of Eiduia,¹² sent to seek his daughter,¹³ tracking the keel¹⁴ that carried off the bride; they settled by the deep stream of Dizerus.¹⁵

1. Nireus (Hom. Il. ii. 671 ff.).
2. Thoas.
3. = Evenus in Aetolia (Strabo 451).
4. Daughter of Oeneus.
5. In Epirus (Steph. B.).
6. Mountain in Epirus.
7. i.e. the Auas or Aoüs (Strabo 271, 316).
8. = Lacmus; cf. Herod. ix. 23.
9. Unknown river in Illyria.
10. Illyrians (illos = mullos, i.e. "squinting")
11. Aeëtes.
12. Hes. Th. 958, where Aeëtes, son of Helios, is husband of Idyia, daughter of Oceanus.
13. Medeia.
14. Argo.
15. In Illyria (Steph. B.).

[1027] Others wanderers shall dwell in the isle of Melita,¹ near Othronus,² round which Sicanian wave laps beside Pachynus,³ grazing the steep promontory that in after time shall bear the name of the son⁴ of Sisyphus and the famous shrine of the maiden Longatis,⁵ where Helorus⁶ empties his chilly stream.

1. Malta.
2. Hesychius, s.v. Othrônos says “island off Corcyra”; so Pliny, N.H. iv. 52 . Hence Scheer supposed that Lycophron confused Melita = Malta with the Illyrian Melita = Meleda. But Steph. Byz. s.v. Othrônos says “according to some an island to the south of Sicily.”
3. Cape in south-east Sicily, of which the western point was called Odysseia akra (Ptolem. iii. 4. 7).
4. Odysseus, according to one legend son of Anticleia and Sisyphus.
5. Athena, cf. 520.
6. River near Pachynus.

[1033] And in Othronus¹ shall dwell the wolf² that slew his own grandfather, yearning afar for his ancestral stream of Coscynthus.³ Standing in the sea upon the rocks he shall declare to his countrymen the compact of the sailing army. For never will the ally of Justice, the Telphusian hound⁴ that dwells by the streams of Ladon, allow the murderer to touch with his feet his fatherland, if he has not spent a great year in exile. Thence, fleeing from the terrible warfare of the serpent-shaped vermin,⁵ he shall sail to the city of Amantia,⁶ and coming nigh to the land of the Atintanians,⁷ right beside Practis⁸ shall he dwell upon a steep hill, drinking the waters of Chaonian Polyanthes.

1. Island near Corcyra.
2. Elephenor of Euboea (Il. ii. 540) having unwittingly slain his grandfather Abas had to go into exile for a year. Meanwhile the Trojan war breaks out, in which as a suitor of Helen (Apollod. ii. 130) he has to take part. When he comes to summon the Abantes to the war he may not land, but must speak from a rock in the sea; cf. Arist. Ath. Pol. 57.
3. In Euboea (schol.).
4. Demeter-Erinys, cult at Telphusa or Thelpusa in Arcadia.
5. Reference unknown.
6. = Abantia in Illyricum.
7. In Epeirus (Strabo 326).
8. Unknown.

[1047] And near the Ausonian false-tomb of Calchas¹ one² of the two brothers³ shall have an alien soil over his bones and to men sleeping in sheepskins on his tomb he shall declare in dreams his unerring message for all. And healer of diseases shall he be called by the Daunians, when they wash the sick with the waters of Althaenus⁴ and invoke the son of Epius⁵ to their aid, that he may come gracious unto men and flocks. There some time for the ambassadors⁶ of the Aetolians shall dawn a sad and hateful day, when, coming to the land of the Salangi⁷ and the seats of the Angaesi,⁸ they shall ask the fields of their lord,⁹ the rich inheritance of goodly soil. Alive in a dark tomb within the recesses of a hollow cleft shall the savages hide them; and for them the Daunites shall set up a memorial of the dead without funeral rites, roofed with piled stones, giving them the land which they desired to get, – the land of the son of the dauntless boar¹⁰ who devoured the brains of his enemy.

1. Calchas was buried near Colophon (cf. 424 f.), but “there are shown in Daunia on a hill called Drion two heroa (hero-shrines), one of Calchas on the top of the hill, where those who consult him sacrifice to him a black ram and sleep upon the skin; the other of Podaleirius at the foot of the hill . . . From it flows a small stream which is sovereign remedy (panakes) for the diseases of cattle” (Strabo 284).
2. Podaleirius.
3. Podaleirius and Machaon, sons of Asclepius, from Thessaly (Il. ii. 730 f.).
4. Stream flowing from Mount Drion.
5. Asclepius.
6. Justin xii. 2 says Brundusium was founded by the Aetolians under Diomede. When the Aetolians were expelled by the Apulians they consulted the oracles and got the answer “locum quem repetissent perpetuo possessuros.” Accordingly they sent ambassadors to demand restitution of the city. The Apulians, having learnt of the oracle, killed the ambassadors and buried them in the city, “perpetuam ibi sedem habituros.”
7. Unknown.
8. Diomedes.
9. Tydeus fought with Polyneices in Argos. Adrastus had received an oracle that he should marry his daughters to a lion and a boar, and a seer now recognized in Polyneices the lion, in Tydeus the boar (Eur. Suppl. 140 ff.).
10. In the war of the Seven against Thebes (Aesch. Sept. 415) Melanippos was opposed to Tydeus (ibid. 377). Tydeus was wounded by Melanippos whom he then slew. As Tydeus lay dying, Athena brought him a drug which was to make him immortal. But Amphiaraus, who hated Tydeus, cut off the head of Melanippos and gave it to Tydeus who opened it and supped the brains (Apollod. iii. 76).

[1067] And the mariners of the descendants¹ of Naubolus shall come to Tecmessa,² where the hard horn of the Hipponian³ hill inclines to the sea of Lampeta.⁴ And in place of the bounds of Crisa⁵ they shall till with ox-drawn trailing ploughshare the Crotonian fields across the straits, longing for their native Lilaea⁵ and the plain of Anemoreia⁵ and Amphissa⁵ and famous Abae.⁵ Poor Setaea!⁶ for the waits an unhappy fate upon the rocks, where, most pitifully outstretched with brazen fetters on thy limbs, thou shalt die, because thou didst burn the fleet of thy masters: bewailing near Crathis thy body cast out and hung up for gory vultures to devour. And that cliff, looking on the sea, shall be called by thy name in memory of thy fate.

1. Schedius and Epistrophus, sons of Iphitus, son of Naubolus, from Phocis (Il. ii. 517).
2. Tempsa in Bruttium (Strabo 255).
3. Vibo Valentia (Strabo 256), in Bruttium.
4. Clampetia, in Bruttium.
5. Phocian towns (Il. l.c.).
6. Setaea, a Trojan captive, set fire to the Greek ships. Hence Setaeum, cliff near Sybaris.

[1083] And others again beside the Pelasgian streams of Membles and the Cerneatid isle shall sail forth and beyond the Tyrrhenian strait occupy Lametian waters Leucanian plains.

[1086] And griefs and varied sufferings shall be the lot of these – bewailing their fate which allows them not to return home, on account of my haling to unhappy marriage.

[1090] Nor shall they who after many days come gladly home kindle the flame of votive offering in gratitude to Cerdylas Larynthius.¹ With such craft shall the hedgehog² ruin their homes and mislead the housekeeping hens embittered against the cocks. Nor shall the ship-devouring hostile beacons abate their sorrow for his shattered scion,³ whom a new-dug habitation in the territory of Methymna shall hide.

1. Zeus. The meaning of these cult-names is quite obscure: Cerdylas possibly = Ktêsios, Zeus as god of property.
2. Nauplius (“hedgehog,” from proverbial craftiness of that animal, Ael. N.A. vi. 54), in revenge for his son Palamedes, lures the Greeks by false beacons on to the rocks and by lies induces their wives to be faithless.
3. Palamedes, stones to death by the Greeks, was buried by Achilles and Aias near Methymna (in Lesbos).

[1099] One¹ at the bath while he seeks for the difficult exits of the mesh about his neck, entangled in a net, shall search with blind hands the fringed stitching. And diving under the hot covering of the bath he shall sprinkle with his brains tripod and basin, when he is smitten in the midst of the skull with the well-sharpened axe. His piteous ghost shall wing its way to Taenarus,² having looked on the bitter housekeeping of the lioness.³ And I beside the bath shall lie on the ground, shattered by the Chalybdic⁴ sword. For she shall cleave me – broad tendon and back – even as a woodcutter workman on the mountains cleaves trunk of pine or stem of oak – and, sand-viper as she is, will rend all my cold body in blood and set her foot on my neck and glut her laden soul of bitter bile, taking relentless vengeance on me in evil jealousy, as if I were a stolen bride and not a spear-won prize. And calling on my master and husband,⁵ who hears no more, I shall follow his track on wings of the wind. But a whelp,⁶ seeking vengeance for his father’s blood, shall with his own hand plunge his sword in the entrails of the viper, with evil healing the evil pollution of his race.

1. Agamemnon is killed in the bath by Clytemnestra.
2. In Laconia, where there was a descent to Hades.
3. Clytaemnestra.
4. The Chalybes in Pontus were famous workers in metal.
5. Agamemnon.
6. Orestes, son of Agamemnon, slays his mother Clytaemnestra.

[1122] And my husband, lord of a slave bride, shall be called Zeus¹ by the crafty Spartiates, obtaining highest honours from the children of Oebalus.² Nor shall my worship be nameless among men, nor fade hereafter in the darkness of oblivion. But the chiefs of the Daunians shall build for me a shrine on the banks of the Salpe,³ and those also who inhabit the city of Dardanus,⁴ beside the waters of the lake. And when girls wish to escape the yoke of maidens, refusing for bridegrooms men adorned with locks such as Hector wore,⁵ but with defect of form or reproach of birth, they will embrace my image with their arms, winning of mighty shield against marriage, having clothed them in the garb of the Erinyes⁶ and dyed their faces with magic simples. By those staff-carrying women I shall long be called an immortal goddess.

1. Zeus-Agamemnon, worshipped in Sparta.
2. Father of Tyndareus.
3. “A lake in Italy” (schol.) ; possibly the reference is to Salapia.
4. Unknown.
5. The schol. says this means that the hair is worn long behind and shorn in front. Cf. Hesych. s.v. Hektoreioi komêtai. Daunioi kai Peuketioi echontes tên ap' Iliou tois ônois perikechumenên tricha (Plut. Thes. 5).
6. Aristot. Mirab. 109 refers to the black clothes worn by all Daunians, male and female. The schol. quotes Timaeus for the statement that the Daunian women wore a dark dress, were girt with broad ribands, wore ta koila tôn hypodênatôn, i.e. reaching to the calves of the leg (es mesên tên knêmên anêkonta, Poll. v. 19, cf. vii. 84, Ael. N.A. vi. 23) carried a wand in their hands, and painted their faces with a reddish colour – suggesting the Furies of tragedy.

[1141] And to many women robbed of their maiden daughters I shall bring sorrow hereafter. Long shall they bewail the leader¹ who sinned against the laws of marriage, the pirate of the Cyprian goddess,² when they shall send to the unkindly shrine³ their daughters reft of marriage. O Larymna⁴ and Spercheius and Boagrius and Cynus and Scarpheia and Phalorias and city of Naryx and Locrian streets of Thronium and Pyrnoean glades and all the house of Ileus son of Hodoedocus – ye for the sake of my impious wedlock shall pay penance to the goddess Gygaea Agrisa,⁵ for the space of a thousand years fostering to old age your unwed daughters by the arbitrament of the lot. And they, aliens in an alien land, shall have without funeral rites a tomb, a sorry tomb in wave-washed sands, when Hephaestus burns with unfruitful plants the limbs of her⁶ that perishes from Traron’s peaks, and tosses her ashes into the sea. And, to fill the place of those that shall die, others shall come by night to the fields⁷ of Sithon’s daughter by secret paths and glancing fearfully, until they rush into the shrine of Ampheira⁸ as suppliants beseeching with their prayers Stheneia.⁸ And they shall sweep and array the floor of the goddess and cleanse it with dew, having escaped the loveless anger of the citizens. For every man of Ilios shall keep watch for the maidens, with a stone in his hands, or a dark sword or hard bull-slaying axe, or shaft from Phalacra⁹, eager to sate his hand athirst for blood. And the people shall not harm him who slays that race of reproach, but shall praise him and grave his name by ordinance.

1. Aias the Locrian, son of Oileus (Ileus), who assaulted Cassandra in the temple of Athena.
2. Aphrodite.
3. Shrine of Athena in Troy. The reference is to the Locrian maiden-tribute. See Callim. Aet. i. 8 n. and cf. Strabo 601 ad Plut. De ser vindict. 557.
4. This and other places named are in Locris.
5. Athena Gygaea either, in spite of the quantity, from Gygaiê limnê in Lydia (Strabo 626) or cf. Gyga Athêna enchôrios (Boeotian?). Hesych. Agrisca as goddess of agriculture.
6. Holzinger takes this to mean that the first Locrian maiden escaped her pursuers by jumping into the sea from Cape Traron in the Troad. It seems better to suppose that the ashes of every maiden who died were cast into the sea from Cape Traron.
7. Rhoeteum cf. 583.
8. Athena Ampheira as a name of Athena is unknown; Athênê Sthenias was worshipped in Troezen (Paus. ii. 30. 6 ff.).
9. Cf. 24.

[1174] O mother,¹ O unhappy mother! thy fame, too, shall not be unknown, but the maiden daughter² of Perseus, Triform Brimo, shall make thee her attendant, terrifying with thy baying in the night all mortals who worship not with torches the images of the Zerynthian queen of Strymon,³ appeasing the goddess of Pherae⁴ with sacrifice. And the island spur of Pachynus shall hold thine awful cenotaph,⁵ piled by the hands of thy master, prompted by dreams when thou hast gotten the rites of death in front of the streams of Helorus. He shall pour on the shore offerings for thee, unhappy one, fearing the anger of the three-necked goddess,⁶ for that he shall hurl the first stone at thy stoning and begin the dark sacrifice to Hades.

1. Hecuba, who was turned into a dog and stoned to death.
2. Hecate, daughter of Asteria and Perses (Perseus) son of Crius and Eurybia.
3. Hecate.
4. In Thessaly. Hecate with torch appears on coins of Pherae (Head, H.N. 307 f.).
5. Cenotaph of Hecuba built in Sicily by Odysseus.
6. Hecate.

[1189] And thou, O brother,¹ most beloved of my heart, stay of our halls and of our whole fatherland, not in vain shalt thou redden the altar pedestal with blood of bulls, giving full many a sacrificial offering to him² who is lord of Ophion’s³ throne. But he shall bring thee to the plain of his nativity,⁴ that land celebrated above others by the Greeks, where his mother,⁵ skilled in wrestling, having cast into Tartarus the former queen, delivered her of him in travail of secret birth, escaping the child-devouring unholy feast of her spouse⁶; and the fattened not his belly with food, but swallowed instead the stone, wrapped in limb-fitting swaddling-clothes: savage Centaur, tomb of his own offspring. And in the Islands of the Blest⁷ thou shalt dwell, a mighty hero, defender of the arrows of pestilence, where the sown⁸ folk of Ogygus,⁹ persuaded by the oracles of the Physician¹⁰ Lepsius Termintheus, shall lift thee from thy cairn in Ophryneion¹¹ and bring thee to the tower of Calydnus¹² and the land of the Aonians¹³ to be their saviour, when they are harassed by an armed host which seeks to sack their land and the shrine of Tenerus.¹⁴ An the chiefs o the Ectenes¹⁵ shall with libations celebrate thy glory in the highest, even as the immortals.

1. Hector.
2. Zeus.
3. A Titan, who preceded Zeus as king of the gods.
4. Thebes, where was a place called Dios Gonai (schol. Il. xiii. 1). The Thebans were told by an oracle to bring Hector’s bones to Thebes (Paus. ix. 18).
5. Rhea overcame Eurynome, wife of Ophion.
6. Cronus, called Centaur as father of Cheiron.
7. In Thebes was a place called Makarôn nêsoi. Hesych. s.v. M. nêsos says it is the acropolis of Thebes.
8. The Thebans sprang from the dragon’s teeth sown by Cadmus.
9. Early king of Thebes.
10. Apollo.
11. In the Troad.
12. Early king of Thebes.
13. Boeotians.
14. Son and priest of Ptoian Apollo in Boeotia.
15. Boeotians.

[1214] And unto Cnossus¹ and the halls of Gortyn¹ shall come the woe of me unhappy, and all the house of the rulers shall be overthrown. For not quietly shall the fisherman² voyage, rowing his two-oared boat, to stir up Leucus, guardian of the kingdom, and weaving hate with lying wiles. He shall spare neither the children of Meda the wedded wife, in the rage of his mind, nor the daughter Cleisithera, whom her father shall betroth unhappily to the serpent³ whom he himself has reared. All will he slay with impious hands in the temple, maltreated and abused in the Trench of Oncaea.⁴

1. In Crete.
2. Nauplius (cf. 1093) goes to Crete, where he incites Leucus, to whom Idomeneus during his absence in Troy has entrusted his kingdom, to seize the throne and to murder Meda, wife of Idomeneus, and her children, Iphiclus and Lycus, as well as his own bride, Cleisithera, daughter of Idomeneus.
3. Leucus, exposed in infancy, had been adopted by Idomeneus.
4. Demeter Erinys.

[1226] And the fame of the race of my ancestors shall hereafter be exalted to the highest by their descendants,¹ who shall with their spears win the foremost crown of glory, obtaining the sceptre and monarchy of earth and sea.² Nor in the darkness of oblivion, my unhappy fatherland, shalt thou hide thy glory faded. Such a pair of lion whelps³ shall a certain kinsman⁴ of mine leave, a breed eminent in strength⁵: the son of Castnia⁶ called also Cheiras, – in counsel best and not to be despised in battle. He shall first come to occupy Rhaecelus⁷ beside the steep crag of Cissus⁷ and the horned women⁸ of Laphystius. And from Almopia in his wandering Tyrsenia⁹ shall receive him and Lingeus¹⁰ bubbling forth its stream of hot waters, and Pisa¹¹ and the glades of Agylla,¹¹ rich in sheep. And with him shall an erstwhile foe¹² join a friendly army, winning him by oaths and prayers and clasped knees: even the Dwarf¹³ who in his roaming searched out every recess of sea and earth; and therewithal the two sons of the King¹⁴ of the Mysians, whose spear one day shall be bent by the Housekeeping God of Wine, who shall fetter his limbs with twisted tendrils; even Tarchon and Tyrsenus, tawny wolves, sprung from the blood of Heracles.¹⁵ There he shall find full of eatable a table¹⁶ which is afterwards devoured by his attendants and shall be reminded of an ancient prophecy. And he shall found in places of the Boreigonoi¹⁷ a settled land beyond the Latins and Daunians – even thirty towers, when he has numbered the offspring of the dark sow,¹⁸ which he shall carry in his ship from the hills of Ida and places of Dardanus, which shall rear such number of young at birth. And in one city¹⁹ he shall set up an image of that sow and her suckling young, figuring them in bronze. And he shall build a shrine to Myndia Pallenis²⁰ and establish therein the images of his fathers’ gods.²¹ He shall put aside his wife and children and all his rich possessions and honour these first, together with his aged sire,²² wrapping them in his robes, what time the spearmen hounds, having devoured all the goods of his country together by casting of lots, to him alone shall give the choice to take and carry away what gift from his house he will. Wherefore being adjudged even by his foes to be most pious, he shall found a fatherland of highest renown in battle, a tower blest in the children of after days, by the tall glades of Circaeon²³ and the great Aeëtes haven,²⁴ famous anchorage of the Argo, and the waters of the Marsionid lake of Phorce²⁵ and the Titonian²⁶ stream of the cleft that sinks to unseen depths beneath the earth and the hill of Zosterius,²⁷ where is the grim dwelling²⁸ of the maiden Sibylla, roofed by the cavernous pit that shelters her.

1. The Romans.
2. Romulus and Remus.
3. Aeneas.
4. Roma: rhômê.
5. Aphrodite, mother of Aeneas.
6. On the Thermaic Gulf.
7. Worshippers of Dionysus (Laphystius) in Macedonia.
8. In Macedonia (Thuc. ii. 9).
9. Etruria.
10. Unknown: Arnus?
11. In Etruria.
12. Odysseus, who is said to have met Aeneas in Italy. Hellanicus ap. Dion. Hal. A.R. 72.
13. Odysseus is here identified with the Nanus or Nanas of Etruscan legend.
14. Telephus, cf. 207 ff.
15. Heracles, father of Telephus.
16. Verg. A. iii. 251 ff. Aeneas in the Strophades south of Zacynthus receives from the harpy Celaeno an oracle of Apollo declaring that Aeneas should not found a city in Italy till hunger should compel the Trojan exiles to “eat their tables.” The prophecy is fulfilled Verg. A. vii. 109 ff. Aeneas and his company reach the Tiber. They take their meal on the banks of the river, using wheaten cakes on which to lay their other eatables. When these are consumed, hunger causes them to eat the wheaten cakes as well. Thereupon Iulus exclaims: “Heus! etiam mensas consumimus!” Vergil in the latter passage attributes the prophecy to Anchises. Varro, in Serv. on Aen. iii. 256, says Aeneas got it at Dodona, Dion. Hal. A.R. i. 55 says from the Erythraean Sibyl in the Troad.
17. The Aborigines (Strabo 228 ff.).
18. Aeneas received from Helenus in Epirus a prophecy that he would be guided in founding a city by a sow. When he was sacrificing on the banks of the Tiber, a sow, one of the intended victims, escaped and fled inland, finally resting on a hill where it gave birth to thirty young. The number thirty is variously interpreted in legend; here with reference to the thirty Latin towns of which Lavinium was the metropolis. According to the usual version the sow was white, e.g. Verg. A. iii. 392 “Alba, solo recubans.” Hence some suppose Lycophron in his riddling manner to mean here horrid, terrible, “black” metaphorically.
19. Lavinium, founded where the sow came to rest.
20. Athena: Myndia, cult-name of Athena from Myndus in Caria. A temple of Athena Pallensis lay between Athens and Marathon.
21. Penates.
22. Anchises. Xenoph. Cyn. 1. 15 says: “Aeneias, by saving his paternal and maternal gods and saving his father, won such renown for piety that to him alone of all whom they conquered in Troy the enemy granted that he should not be robbed of his possessions.” Cf. Aelian, V.H. ii. 22, Serv on Aen. ii. 636.
23. Circeji.
24. Cajeta.
25. Lacus Fucinus.
26. The schol. says “Titon, a river of Italy near the river Circaeus, which does not flow into the sea but is swallowed up by the earth.”
27. Apollo.
28. Cumae.

[1281] So many are the woes, hard to bear, which they shall suffer who are to lay waste my fatherland.

[1282] For what has the unhappy mother¹ of Prometheus in common with the nurse² of Sarpedon? Whom the sea³ of Helle and the Clashing Rocks and Salmydessus and the inhospitable⁴ wave, neighbour to the Scythians, sunder with strong cliffs and Tanais⁵ divides with his streams – Tanais who, undefiled,⁶ cleaves the middle of the lake⁷ which is most dear to Maeotian men who mourn their chilblained feet.

1. Asia, mother of Prometheus by Iapetus (Apollod. i. 8).
2. Europa, mother of the Cretan Sarpedon by Zeus.
3. Hellespont.
4. The Euxine, i.e. Hospitable, previously called Axine, i.e. Inhospitable.
5. The river Don
6. The idea is that the water of the Don does not mingle with the water of the sea. So Arrian,Periptus Eux. Pont. 8 says of the Phasis that epiplei tê thalassê, ouchi de summignutai.
7. Lake Maeotis or Sea of Azov.

[1291] My curse, first upon the Carnite¹ sailor hounds! the merchant wolves who carried off from Lerne the ox-eyed girl, the bull-maiden, to bring to the lord of Memphis a fatal bride, and raised the beacon of hatred for the two continents. For afterward the Curetes,² Idaean boars, seeking to avenge the rape by their heavy deed of violence, carried off captive in a bull-formed vessel the Saraptian heifer to the Dictaean palace to be the bride of Asteros, the lord of Crete. Nor were they contended when they had taken like for like; but sent Teucer³ and his Draucian father Scamandrus a raping army to the dwelling-place of the Bebryces⁴ to war with mice; of the seed of those men Dardanus begat the authors of my race, when he married the noble Cretan maiden Arisba.

1. The quarrel between Asia and Europe (Herod. i. 1 ff.) began with the carrying off of Io, daughter of Inachus king of Argos (Lerne), by the Phoenicians (Carna or Carnos is the port of Arados, Strabo 753). Io was turned into a cow by Zeus, hence “bull-maiden.” She became wife of Telegonus, king of Egypt (Apollod. ii. 9), who is here “lord of Memphis”; or, if Io is here equated with Isis, the lord of Memphis will be Osiris.
2. The Cretans (Curetes) carried off Europa, daughter of Phoenix, from Phoenicia (Sarapta or Sarepta, town on coast of Phoenicia) to become wife of Asterus, king of Crete. The “bull-formed vessel” rationalizes the myth that Zeus in form of a bull carried Europa to Crete to become his bride.
3. The Cretans sent an army to the Troad under Teucer and Scamandrus, who received an oracle bidding them settle “wherever the earth-born (gêgeneis) should attack them.” This happened at Hamaxitos, where the “earth-born” proved to be a plague of field-mice which devoured the leathern parts of their armour. So they abode there (Strabo 604). Arisba, daughter of Teucer, became wife of Dardanus, and thus ancestress of Cassandra.
4. Trojans.

[1309] And second¹ they sent the Atracian² wolves to steal for their leader of the single sandal³ the fleece⁴ that was protected by the watching dragon’s ward. He came to Libyan Cytaea⁵ and put to sleep with simples that four-nostrilled snake, and handled the curved plough of the fire-breathing bulls,⁶ and had his own body cut to pieces in a caldron⁷ and, not joyfully, seized the hide of the ram. But the self-invited crow⁸ he carried off – her who slew her brother⁹ and destroyed her children¹⁰ – and set her as ballast in the chattering jay¹¹ which uttered a mortal voice derived from Chaonian abode and well knew how to speed.

1. The voyage of the Argonauts.
2. Thessalian, from Atrax in Thessaly by Hestiaeotis.
3. Jason (Pind. P. iv.).
4. The Golden Fleece.
5. In Colchis.
6. Pind. P. 224 ff.; Apoll. Rh. iii. 1284 ff.
7. Medea renewed the youth of Jason by boiling him in a magic caldron.
8. Medeia.
9. Apsyrtus.
10. When Jason married the daughter of Creon, king of Corinth, Medea in revenge slew her own children by Jason.
11. The ship Argo, in which, while it was being built, Athena inserted a piece of the oak of Dodona (hence Chaonian), which gave it the gift of human speech and of prophecy.

[1322] And again he¹ that took up from the rock his father’s² shoes and sword-belt and sword, the son of Phemius,³ on whose sad grave⁴ – whereto he was hurled without funeral rites – steep Scyrus long keeps watch beneath its hissing precipices – he went with the wild beast, the Initiate,⁵ who drew the milky breast of the hostile goddess Tropaea,⁶ and stole the belt⁷ and roused a double feud, taking away the girdle and from Themiscyra carrying off the archer Orthosia⁸; and her sisters, the maidens of Neptunis⁹, left Eris, Lagmus and Telamus and the stream of Thermodon and the hill of Actaeum to seek vengeance and relentless rape. Across the dark Ister¹⁰ they drove their Scythian mares, shouting their battle-cry against the Greeks and the descendants of Erechtheus. And they sacked all Acte¹¹ with the spear and laid waste with fire the fields of Mopsopia.¹¹

1. Theseus.
2. Aegeus.
3. Poseidon, who was said to be the real father of Theseus (Bacchylid. 16).
4. Theseus either threw himself from a cliff in Scyrus or was pushed over by Lycomedes, king of the island. His bones were brought to Athens in 473 B.C. by Cimon (Plut. Thes. 35-36).
5. Heracles, who was initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries before he went to bring Cerberus from Hades.
6. Hera, who by a trick was induced to give the breast to Heracles (Diod. iv. 9, Paus. ix. 25).
7. Hippolyte’s girdle.
8. The Amazon Antiope, here called Orthosia, a cult-title of Artemis (Pind. O. iii. 30).
9. The scholiast says this was a name of Hippolyte. Holzinger takes it as a cult-name of Artemis from Nepete in Etruria. The Amazons in revenge for the expedition against them of Heracles and Theseus, invade Attica.
10. Danube.
11. Attica.

[1341] And my ancestor¹ laid waste the plain of Thrace and the country of the Eordi and the land of the Galadraei, and fixed his bounds beside the waters of Peneius, fettering them with a stern yoke laid upon their necks, in battle a young warrior, most eminent of his race. And she² in return for these things sent her champion, the driver of the oxen,³ him of the six ships,⁴ robed in a hide,⁵ and laid in ruins with the spade their steep hill; and him shall Gorgas,⁶ changing her mind, consecrate in the estate of the gods, even she that was the prime mover in his woes.

1. Ilus, great-grandfather of Cassandra, invaded Thrace and Macedonia; cf. Herod. vii. 20 and 75.
2. Europe sends Heracles to sack Troy.
3. Reference to the oxen of Geryon.
4. Hom. Il. v. 640 ff. (Heracles) hos pote deur' elthôn henech' hippôn Laomedontos | ez oiês sun nêusi . . . | Iliou ezalapaze polin.
5. The skin of the Nemean lion.
6. Hera.

[1351] And in turn the falcons¹ set forth from Tmolus and Cimpsus and the gold-producing streams of Pactolus and the waters of the lake where the spouse² of Typhon couches in the hidden recess of her dread bed, and rioted into Ausonian Agylla and in battles of the spear joined terrible wrestling with the Ligurians and them³ who drew the root of their race from the blood of the Sithonian⁴ giants. And they took Pisa and subdued all the spear-won land that stands near the Umbrians and the high cliffs of the Salpians.⁵

1. Tyrhenians from Lydia come to Etruria.
2. Echidna.
3. The Pelasgians.
4. Sithonia and Pallene, the middle and southern spurs of Chalcidice, are the home of the giants; cf. 1046 f.
5. Unknown. Some suppose the reference is to the Alps. Holzinger takes it as = the Salues or Valvii in N.W. Etruria.

[1362] And, last, the fire-brand¹ wakens the ancient strife, kindling anew with flame the ancient fire that already slept since she² saw the Pelasgians³ dipping alien pitchers in the waters of Rhyndacus.⁴ But the other⁵ in turn in a frenzy of revenge shall repay the injury threefold and fourfold, laying waste the shore of the land across the sea.

1. Paris.
2. Asia.
3. Argonauts.
4. River in Mysia.
5. Europe sends the Greeks against Troy.

[1369] First there shall come a Zeus¹ who bears the name of Zeus Lapersios; who shall come with swooping thunderbolt to burn all the habitations of the foe. With him shall I die, and when I flit among the dead I shall hear these further things which I am about to utter.

1. Agamemnon, in reference to cult of Zeus-Agamemnon in Sparta. Lapersios consequently is here transferred from the Dioscuri (see 511) to Zeus. The real meaning of this word is of course very obscure.

[1374] And, second,¹ the son of him that was slain in a net, like a dumb fish, shall lay waste with fire the alien land, coming, at the bidding of the oracles of the Physician,² with a host of many tongues.³

1. Orestes, son of Agamemnon, occupies Acolis.
2. Apollo.
3. Reference to popular derivation of Aioleis from aiolos, “varied.”

[1378] And third, the son¹ of the woodcutter king,² beguiling the potter maiden³ of Branchidae to give him in his need earth mixed with water, wherewith to set on a tablet his finger-seal, shall found the mountain monarchy of the Phtheires,⁴ when he has destroyed the host of the Carians – the first to fight for hire⁵ – what time his wanton daughter⁶ shall abuse her nakedness and say in mockery of marriage that she will conclude her nuptials in the brothels of barbarians.⁷

1. Neleus founds Miletus in Ionia.
2. Codrus, the last king of Athens. The Peloponnesians, invading Attica, were told by the Delphic oracle that they would be successful if they did not kill the Athenian king. This becoming known to the Athenians, Codrus disguised himself and went out of the city gates to gather firewood. Picking a quarrel with two enemy scouts, he slew one and was himself slain by the other, thus saving his country. Lycurgus, Contra Leocrat. 84 ff.
3. Neleus was told by an oracle to found his city where he should first receive “earth and water.” At Branchidae near Miletus he asked a potter maid for some clay (the so-called terra sigillate or gê Lêmnia) for a seal. She gave him the moist clay, thus giving him “earth and water.”
4. Phtheirôn oros (Homer, Il. ii. 868), near Miletus.
5. Cf. Archiloch. fr 30 (Hiller) kai dê pikouros ôste Kar keklêsomai.
6. Neleus received at Delphi an oracle which bade him “go to the golden men” (i.e. the Carians, cf. Il. ii. 872) and that “his daughter would show him." Returning to Athens ekouse tês thugatros gumnês tuptousês to epeision kai legousês Dizeo seu mala es thaleron posin ê es Athênas ê es Milêton katazô pêmata Karsi. Cf. E.M. s.v. aselgainein.
7. Carians.

[1388] And then, again, the fourth,¹ of the seed of Dymas,² the Codrus-ancients³ of Lacmon⁴ and Cyrita⁵ – who shall dwell in Thigros⁶ and the hill of Satnion⁶ and the extremity of the peninsula⁷ of him⁸ who of old was utterly hated by the goddess Cyrita⁹: the father of the crafty vixen¹⁰ who by daily traffic assuaged the raging hunger of her sire – even Aethon,¹¹ plougher of alien shires.

1. Lycorphon now passes to Dorian settlements in Asia, founded by Dorians from N. Greece.
2. Dymas, Pamphylus, and Hyllus were the eponyms of the three Dorian tribes – Dymanes, Pamphyli, and Hylleis.
3. Codrus (cf. 1378 n.) here merely = “ancient.”
4. In N.W. Thessaly.
5. In Doris.
6. Unknown places in Caria.
7. The Cnidian Chersonese.
8. Erysichthon, see Callim. H. vi.; Ovid, M. viii. 738 n.
9. Demeter.
10. Mestra, daughter of Erysichthon, got from Poseidon the gift of assuming whatever form she pleased. When her father, in order to get the means of satisfying his hunger, sold her in one form, she returned in another to be sold again (Ovid, M. l.c.).
11. Erysichthon.

[1397] And the Phrygian,¹ avenging the blood of his brothers,² will sack again the land³ that nursed the ruler⁴ of the dead, who in loveless wise pronounces relentless judgement on the departed. He⁵ shall spoil the ears of the ass, lobes and all, and deck his temples, fashioning a terror for the ravenous blood-suckers.⁶ By him all the land of Phlegra shall be enslaved and the ridge of Thrambus and spur of Titon by the sea and the plains of the Sithonians and the fields of Pallene, which the ox-horned Brychon,⁷ who served the giants, fattens with his waters.

1. Midas, who, according to Lycophron, invades Thrace and Macedonia.
2. Trojans.
3. Europa.
4. Minos.
5. Midas, in a musical contest between Pan and Apollo, gave unasked his verdict against Apollo, who, in revenge, gave him the ears of an ass, to hide which Midas invested the tiara (Ovid, M. xi. 180 f. "Ille quidem celat turpique onerata pudore Tempora purpureis tentat velare tiaris").
6. i.e. flies.
7. River in Pallene (Hesych.).

[1409] And many woes, on this side and that alternately, shall be taken as an offering by Candaeus¹ or Mamertus¹ – or what name should be given to him who banquets in gory battles?

1. Ares.

[1412] Yet the mother¹ of Epimetheus shall not yield but in return for all shall send a single giant² of the seed of Perseus, who shall walk over the sea on foot and sail over the earth³, smiting the dry land with the oar. And the shrines of Laphria Mamerse⁴ shall be consumed with fire together with their defence of wooden walls,⁵ and shall blame for their hurt the prater of oracles, the false prophesying lackey⁶ of Pluto. By his unapproachable host every fruit-bearing oak and wild tree flourishing on the mountain shall be devoured, stripping off its double covering of bark,⁷ and every flowing torrent shall be dried up,⁸ as they slake with open mouth their black thirst. And they shall raise overhead clouds of arrows hurtling from afar, whose shadow shall obscure the sun, like a Cimmerian darkness⁹ dimming the sun. And blooming for a brief space, as a Locrian rose,¹⁰ and burning all things like withered ear of corn, he shall in his turn taste of homeward flight, glancing fearfully towards the oaken bulwark hard at hand, even as a girl in the dusky twilight frightened by a brazen sword.

1. Asia.
2. Xerxes.
3. Reference to the bridging of the Hellespont and the canal through Athos.
4. Athena on the acropolis of Athens.
5. Herod. viii. 51.
6. Apollo is here the servant of Pluto because his oracle causes death to the defenders of the Acropolis.
7. Herod. viii. 115.
8. Herod. vii. 21.
9. Od. xi. 14-19.
10. Pollux v. 102 rhodon pareiais phuteuei, authôron anthoun kai thatton apanthoun kata to Lokron. It is the type of that which is fleeting.

[1434] And many contests and slaughters in between shall solve the struggles of men, contending for dread empire, now on land, now on the plough-turned backs of earth, until a tawny lion – sprung from Aeacus and from Dardanus, Thesprotian at once and Chalastraean – shall lull to rest the grievous tumult, and, overturning on its face all the house of his kindred, shall compel the chiefs of the Argives to cower and fawn upon the wolf-leader of Galadra, and to hand over the sceptre of the ancient monarchy. With him, after six generations, my kinsman, an unique wrestler, shall join battle by sea and land and come to terms, and shall be celebrated among his friends as most excellent, when he has received the first fruits of the spear-won spoils.

[1451] Why, unhappy, do I call to the unheeding rocks, to the deaf wave, and to the awful glades, twanging the idle noise of my lips? For Lepsieus¹ has taken credit from me, daubing with rumour of falsity my words and the true prophetic wisdom of my oracles, for that he was robbed of the bridal which he sought to win.² Yet will he make my oracles true. And in sorrow shall many a one know it, when there is no means any more to help my fatherland and shall praise the frenzied swallow.³

1. Apollo, who gave to Cassandra the gift of prophecy, but so that no one believed her prophecies.
2. Aesch. Ag. 1208 f.
3. Cassandra. The swallow is the type of unintelligible speec (Aesch. Ag. 1050, Aristoph. Ran. 93)h.

[1461] So¹ much she spake, and then sped back and went within her prison. But in her heart she wailed her latest Siren song – like some Mimallon of Claros² or babbler of Melancraera,³ Neso’s daughter, or Phician monster,⁴ mouthing darkly her perplexed words. And I came, O King, to announce to thee this the crooked speech of the maiden prophetess, since thou didst appoint me to be the warder of her stony dwelling and didst charge me to come as a messenger to report all to thee and truly recount her words. But may God turn her prophecies to fairer issue – even he that cares for thy throne, preserving the ancient inheritance of the Bebryces.⁵

1. Here begins the Epilogue, spoken by the slave who watched Cassandra.
2. Mimallôn is properly a Bacchant; here “Mimallon of Claros” (famous for cult of Apollo) means merely frenzies prophetess; cf. Eustath., Dion. Per. 445 kai para tô Lukophroni hê Kassandra Klarou Mimalôn legetai, toutesti bakchê kai matis Klaria.
3. Sibyl (of Cumae), daughter of Dardanus and Neso.
4. Sphinx; cf. Phik' oloên, Hes. Th. 326.
5. Trojans.

THE END