Endnotes
1101 sc. in Boeotia, Locris and Thessaly: elsewhere the movement was forced and unfruitful.
1102 The extant collection of three poems, Works and Days, Theogony, and Shield of Heracles, which alone have come down to us complete, dates at least from the 4th century A.D.: the title of the Paris Papyrus (Bibl. Nat. Suppl. Gr. 1099) names only these three works.
1103 Der Dialekt des Hesiodes, p. 464: examples are AENEMI (W. and D. 683) and AROMENAI (ib. 22).
1104 T.W. Allen suggests that the conjured Delian and Pythian hymns to Apollo (Homeric Hymns III) may have suggested this version of the story, the Pythian hymn showing strong continental influence.
1105 She is said to have given birth to the lyrist Stesichorus.
1106 See Kinkel Epic. Graec. Frag. i. 158 ff.
1107 See Great Works, frag. 2.
1108 Hesiodi Fragmenta, pp. 119 f.
1109 Possibly the division of this poem into two books is a division belonging solely to this ‘developed poem’, which may have included in its second part a summary of the Tale of Troy.
1110 Goettling’s explanation.
1111 x. 1. 52.
1112 Odysseus appears to have been mentioned once only—and that casually—in the Returns.
1113 M.M. Croiset note that the Aethiopis and the Sack were originally merely parts of one work containing lays (the Amazoneia, Aethiopis, Persis, etc.), just as the Iliad contained various lays such as the Diomedeia.
1114 No date is assigned to him, but it seems likely that he was either contemporary or slightly earlier than Lesches.
1115 Cp. Allen and Sikes, Homeric Hymns p. xv. In the text I have followed the arrangement of these scholars, numbering the Hymns to Dionysus and to Demeter, I and II respectively: to place Demeter after Hermes, and the Hymn to Dionysus at the end of the collection seems to be merely perverse.
1116 Greek Melic Poets, p. 165.
1117 This monument was returned to Greece in the 1980’s.— DBK.
1118 Cp. Marckscheffel, Hesiodi fragmenta, p. 35. The papyrus fragment recovered by Petrie (Petrie Papyri, ed. Mahaffy, p. 70, No. xxv.) agrees essentially with the extant document, but differs in numerous minor textual points.
1201 See Schubert, Berl. Klassikertexte v. 1.22 ff.; the other papyri may be found in the publications whose name they bear.
1202 Unless otherwise noted, all MSS. are of the 15th century.
1203 To this list I would also add the following: Hesiod and Theognis, translated by Dorothea Wender (Penguin Classics, London, 1973).—DBK.
1301 That is, the poor man’s fare, like ‘bread and cheese’.
1302 The All-endowed.
1303 The jar or casket contained the gifts of the gods mentioned in l.82.
1304 Eustathius refers to Hesiod as stating that men sprung “from oaks and stones and ashtrees”. Proclus believed that the Nymphs called Meliae (Theogony, 187) are intended. Goettling would render: “A race terrible because of their (ashen) spears.”
1305 Preserved only by Proclus, from whom some inferior MSS. have copied the verse. The four following lines occur only in Geneva Papyri No. 94. For the restoration of ll. 169b-c see “Class. Quart.” vii. 219-220. (NOTE: Mr. Evelyn-White means that the version quoted by Proclus stops at this point, then picks up at l. 170.—DBK).
1306 i.e. the race will so degenerate that at the last even a new-born child will show the marks of old age.
1307 Aidos, as a quality, is that feeling of reverence or shame which restrains men from wrong: Nemesis is the feeling of righteous indignation aroused especially by the sight of the wicked in undeserved prosperity (cf. Psalms, lxxii. 1-19).
1308 The alternative version is: ‘and, working, you will be much better loved both by gods and men; for they greatly dislike the idle.’
1309 i.e. neighbours come at once and without making preparations, but kinsmen by marriage (who live at a distance) have to prepare, and so are long in coming.
1310 Early in May.
1311 In November.
1312 In October.
1313 For pounding corn.
1314 A mallet for breaking clods after ploughing.
1315 The loaf is a flattish cake with two intersecting lines scored on its upper surface which divide it into four equal parts.
1316 The meaning is obscure. A scholiast renders ‘giving eight mouthfulls’; but the elder Philostratus uses the word in contrast to ‘leavened’.
1317 About the middle of November.
1318 Spring is so described because the buds have not yet cast their iron-grey husks.
1319 In December.
1320 In March.
1321 The latter part of January and earlier part of February.
1322 i.e. the octopus or cuttle.
1323 i.e. the darker-skinned people of Africa, the Egyptians or Aethiopians.
1324 i.e. an old man walking with a staff (the ‘third leg’— as in the riddle of the Sphinx).
1325 February to March.
1326 i.e. the snail. The season is the middle of May.
1327 In June.
1328 July.
1329 i.e. a robber.
1330 September.
1331 The end of October.
1332 That is, the succession of stars which make up the full year.
1333 The end of October or beginning of November.
1334 July-August.
1335 i.e. untimely, premature. Juvenal similarly speaks of ‘cruda senectus’ (caused by gluttony).
1336 The thought is parallel to that of ‘O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath.’
1337 The ‘common feast’ is one to which all present subscribe. Theognis (line 495) says that one of the chief pleasures of a banquet is the general conversation. Hence the present passage means that such a feast naturally costs little, while the many present will make pleasurable conversation.
1338 i.e. ‘do not cut your finger-nails’.
1339 i.e. things which it would be sacrilege to disturb, such as tombs.
1340 H.G. Evelyn-White prefers to switch ll. 768 and 769, reading l. 769 first then l. 768.—DBK
1341 The month is divided into three periods, the waxing, the mid-month, and the waning, which answer to the phases of the moon.
1342 i.e. the ant.
1343 Such seems to be the meaning here, though the epithet is otherwise rendered ‘well-rounded’. Corn was threshed by means of a sleigh with two runners having three or four rollers between them, like the modern Egyptian nurag.
1401 This halt verse is added by the Scholiast on Aratus, 172.
1402 The “Catasterismi” (“Placings among the Stars”) is a collection of legends relating to the various constellations.
1403 The Straits of Messina.
1501 Or perhaps ‘a Scythian’.
1601 The epithet probably indicates coquettishness.
1602 A proverbial saying meaning, ‘why enlarge on irrelevant topics?’
1603 ‘She of the noble voice’: Calliope is queen of Epic poetry.
1604 Earth, in the cosmology of Hesiod, is a disk surrounded by the river Oceanus and floating upon a waste of waters. It is called the foundation of all (the qualification ‘the deathless ones...’ etc. is an interpolation), because not only trees, men, and animals, but even the hills and seas (ll. 129, 131) are supported by it.
1605 Aether is the bright, untainted upper atmosphere, as distinguished from Aer, the lower atmosphere of the earth.
1606 Brontes is the Thunderer; Steropes, the Lightener; and Arges, the Vivid One.
1607 The myth accounts for the separation of Heaven and Earth. In Egyptian cosmology Nut (the Sky) is thrust and held apart from her brother Geb (the Earth) by their father Shu, who corresponds to the Greek Atlas.
1608 Nymphs of the ash-trees, as Dryads are nymphs of the oak-trees. Cp. note on Works and Days, l. 145.
1609 ‘Member-loving’: the title is perhaps only a perversion of the regular PHILOMEIDES (laughter-loving).
1610 Cletho (the Spinner) is she who spins the thread of man’s life; Lachesis (the Disposer of Lots) assigns to each man his destiny; Atropos (She who cannot be turned) is the ‘Fury with the abhorred shears.’
1611 Many of the names which follow express various qualities or aspects of the sea: thus Galene is ‘Calm’, Cymothoe is the ‘Wave-swift’, Pherusa and Dynamene are ‘She who speeds (ships)’ and ‘She who has power’.
1612 The ‘Wave-receiver’ and the ‘Wave-stiller’.
1613 ‘The Unerring’ or ‘Truthful’; cp. l. 235.
1614 i.e. Poseidon.
1615 Goettling notes that some of these nymphs derive their names from lands over which they preside, as Europa, Asia, Doris, Ianeira (‘Lady of the Ionians’), but that most are called after some quality which their streams possessed: thus Xanthe is the ‘Brown’ or ‘Turbid’, Amphirho is the ‘Surrounding’ river, Ianthe is ‘She who delights’, and Ocyrrhoe is the ‘Swift-flowing’.
1616 i.e. Eos, the ‘Early-born’.
1617 Van Lennep explains that Hecate, having no brothers to support her claim, might have been slighted.
1618 The goddess of the hearth (the Roman Vesta), and so of the house. Cp. Homeric Hymns v.22 ff.; xxxix.1 ff.
1619 The variant reading ‘of his father’ (sc. Heaven) rests on inferior MS. authority and is probably an alteration due to the difficulty stated by a Scholiast: ‘How could Zeus, being not yet begotten, plot against his father?’ The phrase is, however, part of the prophecy. The whole line may well be spurious, and is rejected by Heyne, Wolf, Gaisford and Guyet.
1620 Pausanias (x. 24.6) saw near the tomb of Neoptolemus ‘a stone of no great size’, which the Delphians anointed every day with oil, and which he says was supposed to be the stone given to Cronos.
1621 A Scholiast explains: ‘Either because they (men) sprang from the Melian nymphs (cp. l. 187); or because, when they were born (?), they cast themselves under the ash-trees, that is, the trees.’ The reference may be to the origin of men from ash-trees: cp. Works and Days, l. 145 and note.
1622 sc. Atlas, the Shu of Egyptian mythology: cp. note on line 177.
1623 Oceanus is here regarded as a continuous stream enclosing the earth and the seas, and so as flowing back upon himself.
1624 The conception of Oceanus is here different: he has nine streams which encircle the earth and then flow out into the ‘main’ which appears to be the waste of waters on which, according to early Greek and Hebrew cosmology, the disk-like earth floated.
1625 i.e. the threshold is of ‘native’ metal, and not artificial.
1626 According to Homer Typhoeus was overwhelmed by Zeus amongst the Arimi in Cilicia. Pindar represents him as buried under Aetna, and Tzetzes reads Aetna in this passage.
1627 The epithet (which means literally well-bored) seems to refer to the spout of the crucible.
1628 The fire god. There is no reference to volcanic action: iron was smelted on Mount Ida; cp. Epigrams of Homer, ix. 2-4.
1629 i.e. Athena, who was born ‘on the banks of the river Trito’ (cp. l. 929l)
1630 Restored by Peppmuller. The nineteen following lines from another recension of lines 889-900, 924-9 are quoted by Chrysippus (in Galen).
1631 sc. the aegis. Line 929s is probably spurious, since it disagrees with l. 929q and contains a suspicious reference to Athens.
1701 A catalogue of heroines each of whom was introduced with the words E OIE, ‘Or like her’.
1702 An antiquarian writer of Byzantium, c. 490-570 A.D.
1703 Constantine VII. ‘Born in the Porphyry Chamber’, 905-959 A.D.
1704 “Berlin Papyri”, 7497 (left-hand fragment) and “Oxyrhynchus Papyri”, 421 (right-hand fragment). For the restoration see “Class. Quart.” vii. 217-8.
1705 As the price to be given to her father for her: so in Iliad xviii. 593 maidens are called ‘earners of oxen’. Possibly Glaucus, like Aias (fr. 68, ll. 55 ff.), raided the cattle of others.
1706 i.e. Glaucus should father the children of others. The curse of Aphrodite on the daughters of Tyndareus (fr. 67) may be compared.
1707 Porphyry, scholar, mathematician, philosopher and historian, lived 233-305 (?) A.D. He was a pupil of the neo-Platonist Plotinus.
1708 Author of a geographical lexicon, produced after 400 A.D., and abridged under Justinian.
1709 Archbishop of Thessalonica 1175-1192 (?) A.D., author of commentaries on Pindar and on the Iliad and Odyssey.
1710 In the earliest times a loin-cloth was worn by athletes, but was discarded after the 14th Olympiad.
1711 Slight remains of five lines precede line 1 in the original: after line 20 an unknown number of lines have been lost, and traces of a verse preceding line 21 are here omitted. Between lines 29 and 30 are fragments of six verses which do not suggest any definite restoration. (NOTE: Line enumeration is that according to Evelyn-White; a slightly different line numbering system is adopted in the original publication of this fragment.—DBK)
1712 The end of Schoeneus’ speech, the preparations and the beginning of the race are lost.
1713 Of the three which Aphrodite gave him to enable him to overcome Atalanta.
1714 The geographer; fl. c.24 B.C.
1715 Of Miletus, flourished about 520 B.C. His work, a mixture of history and geography, was used by Herodotus.
1716 The Hesiodic story of the daughters of Proetus can be reconstructed from these sources. They were sought in marriage by all the Greeks (Pauhellenes), but having offended Dionysus (or, according to Servius, Juno), were afflicted with a disease which destroyed their beauty (or were turned into cows). They were finally healed by Melampus.
1717 Fl. 56-88 A.D.: he is best known for his work on Vergil.
1718 This and the following fragment segment are meant to be read together.—DBK.
1719 This fragment as well as fragments #40A, #101, and #102 were added by Mr. Evelyn-White in an appendix to the second edition (1919). They are here moved to the Catalogues proper for easier use by the reader.—DBK.
1720 For the restoration of ll. 1-16 see “Ox. Pap.” pt. xi. pp. 46-7: the supplements of ll. 17-31 are by the Translator (cp. “Class. Quart.” x. (1916), pp. 65-67).
1721 The crocus was to attract Europa, as in the very similar story of Persephone: cp. Homeric Hymns ii. lines 8 ff.
1722 Apollodorus of Athens (fl. 144 B.C.) was a pupil of Aristarchus. He wrote a Handbook of Mythology, from which the extant work bearing his name is derived.
1723 Priest at Praeneste. He lived c. 170-230 A.D.
1724 Son of Apollonius Dyscolus, lived in Rome under Marcus Aurelius. His chief work was on accentuation.
1725 This and the next two fragment segments are meant to be read together.—DBK.
1726 Sacred to Poseidon. For the custom observed there, cp. Homeric Hymns iii. 231 ff.
1727 The allusion is obscure.
1728 Apollonius ‘the Crabbed’ was a grammarian of Alexandria under Hadrian. He wrote largely on Grammar and Syntax.
1729 275-195 (?) B.C., mathematician, astronomer, scholar, and head of the Library of Alexandria.
1730 Of Cyme. He wrote a universal history covering the period between the Dorian Migration and 340 B.C.
1731 i.e. the nomad Scythians, who are described by Herodotus as feeding on mares’ milk and living in caravans.
1732 The restorations are mainly those adopted or suggested in “Ox. Pap.” pt. xi. pp. 48 ff.: for those of ll. 8-14 see “Class. Quart.” x. (1916) pp. 67-69.
1733 i.e. those who seek to outwit the oracle, or to ask of it more than they ought, will be deceived by it and be led to ruin: cp. Hymn to Hermes, 541 ff.
1734 Zetes and Calais, sons of Boreas, who were amongst the Argonauts, delivered Phineus from the Harpies. The Strophades (‘Islands of Turning’) are here supposed to have been so called because the sons of Boreas were there turned back by Iris from pursuing the Harpies.
1735 An Epicurean philosopher, fl. 50 B.C.
1736 ‘Charming-with-her-voice’ (or ‘Charming-the-mind’), ‘Song’, and ‘Lovely-sounding’.
1737 Diodorus Siculus, fl. 8 B.C., author of an universal history ending with Caesar’s Gallic Wars.
1738 The first epic in the “Trojan Cycle”; like all ancient epics it was ascribed to Homer, but also, with more probability, to Stasinus of Cyprus.
1739 This fragment is placed by Spohn after Works and Days l. 120.
1740 A Greek of Asia Minor, author of the “Description of Greece” (on which he was still engaged in 173 A.D.).
1741 Wilamowitz thinks one or other of these citations belongs to the Catalogue.
1742 Lines 1-51 are from Berlin Papyri, 9739; lines 52-106 with B. 1-50 (and following fragments) are from Berlin Papyri, 10560. A reference by Pausanias (iii. 24. 10) to ll. 100 ff. proves that the two fragments together come from the Catalogue of Women. The second book (the beginning of which is indicated after l. 106) can hardly be the second book of the Catalogues proper: possibly it should be assigned to the EOIAI, which were sometimes treated as part of the Catalogues, and sometimes separated from it. The remains of thirty-seven lines following B. 50 in the Papyrus are too slight to admit of restoration.
1743 sc. the Suitor whose name is lost.
1744 Wooing was by proxy; so Agamemnon wooed Helen for his brother Menelaus (ll. 14-15), and Idomeneus, who came in person and sent no deputy, is specially mentioned as an exception, and the reasons for this—if the restoration printed in the text be right—is stated (ll. 69 ff.).
1745 The Papyrus here marks the beginning of a second book possibly of the Eoiae. The passage (ll. 2-50) probably led up to an account of the Trojan (and Theban?) war, in which, according to Works and Days ll. 161-166, the Race of Heroes perished. The opening of the Cypria is somewhat similar. Somewhere in the fragmentary lines 13-19 a son of Zeus—almost certainly Apollo—was introduced, though for what purpose is not clear. With l. 31 the destruction of man (cp. ll. 4-5) by storms which spoil his crops begins: the remaining verses are parenthetical, describing the snake “which bears its young in the spring season”.
1746 i.e. the snake; as in Works and Days l. 524, the “Boneless One” is the cuttle-fish.
1747 c. 1110-1180 A.D. His chief work was a poem, “Chiliades”, in accentual verse of nearly 13,000 lines.
1748 According to this account Iphigeneia was carried by Artemis to the Taurie Chersonnese (the Crimea). The Tauri (Herodotus iv. 103) identified their maiden-goddess with Iphigeneia; but Euripides (Iphigeneia in Tauris) makes her merely priestess of the goddess.
1749 Of Alexandria. He lived in the 5th century, and compiled a Greek Lexicon.
1750 For his murder Minos exacted a yearly tribute of boys and girls, to be devoured by the Minotaur, from the Athenians.
1751 Of Naucratis. His “Deipnosophistae” (“Dons at Dinner”) is an encyclopaedia of miscellaneous topics in the form of a dialogue. His date is c. 230 A.D.
1752 There is a fancied connection between LAAS (‘stone’) and LAOS (‘people’). The reference is to the stones which Deucalion and Pyrrha transformed into men and women after the Flood.
1753 Eustathius identifies Ileus with Oileus, father of Aias. Here again is fanciful etymology, ILEUS being similar to ILEOS (complaisant, gracious).
1754 Imitated by Vergil, “Aeneid” vii. 808, describing Camilla.
1755 c. 600 A.D., a lecturer and grammarian of Constantinople.
1756 Priest of Apollo, and, according to Homer, discoverer of wine. Maronea in Thrace is said to have been called after him.
1757 The crow was originally white, but was turned black by Apollo in his anger at the news brought by the bird.
1758 A philosopher of Athens under Hadrian and Antonius. He became a Christian and wrote a defence of the Christians addressed to Antoninus Pius.
1759 Zeus slew Asclepus (fr. 90) because of his success as a healer, and Apollo in revenge killed the Cyclopes (fr. 64). In punishment Apollo was forced to serve Admetus as herdsman. (Cp. Euripides, Alcestis, 1-8)
1760 For Cyrene and Aristaeus, cp. Vergil, Georgics, iv. 315 ff.
1761 A writer on mythology of uncertain date.
1762 In Epirus. The oracle was first consulted by Deucalion and Pyrrha after the Flood. Later writers say that the god responded in the rustling of leaves in the oaks for which the place was famous.
1763 The fragment is part of a leaf from a papyrus book of the 4th century A.D.
1764 According to Homer and later writers Meleager wasted away when his mother Althea burned the brand on which his life depended, because he had slain her brothers in the dispute for the hide of the Calydonian boar. (Cp. Bacchylides, “Ode” v. 136 ff.)
1765 The fragment probably belongs to the Catalogues proper rather than to the Eoiae; but, as its position is uncertain, it may conveniently be associated with Frags. 99A and the Shield of Heracles.
1766 Most of the smaller restorations appear in the original publication, but the larger are new: these last are highly conjectual, there being no definite clue to the general sense.
1767 Alcmaon (who took part in the second of the two heroic Theban expeditions) is perhaps mentioned only incidentally as the son of Amphiaraus, who seems to be clearly indicated in ll. 7-8, and whose story occupies ll. 5-10. At l. 11 the subject changes and Electryon is introduced as father of Alcmena.
1768 The association of ll. 1-16 with ll. 17-24 is presumed from the apparent mention of Erichthonius in l. 19. A new section must then begin at l. 21. See “Ox. Pap.” pt. xi. p. 55 (and for restoration of ll. 5-16, ib. p. 53). ll. 19-20 are restored by the Translator.
1801 A mountain peak near Thebes which took its name from the Sphinx (called in Theogony l. 326 PHIX).
1802 Cyanus was a glass-paste of deep blue colour: the ‘zones’ were concentric bands in which were the scenes described by the poet. The figure of Fear (l. 44) occupied the centre of the shield, and Oceanus (l. 314) enclosed the whole.
1803 ‘She who drives herds,’ i.e. ‘The Victorious’, since herds were the chief spoil gained by the victor in ancient warfare.
1804 The cap of darkness which made its wearer invisible.
1805 The existing text of the vineyard scene is a compound of two different versions, clumsily adapted, and eked out with some makeshift additions.
1806 The conception is similar to that of the sculptured group at Athens of Two Lions devouring a Bull (Dickens, Cat. of the Acropolis Museum, No. 3).
1901 A Greek sophist who taught rhetoric at Rome in the time of Hadrian. He is the author of a collection of proverbs in three books.
2001 When Heracles prayed that a son might be born to Telamon and Eriboea, Zeus sent forth an eagle in token that the prayer would be granted. Heracles then bade the parents call their son Aias after the eagle (aietos).
2002 Oenomaus, king of Pisa in Elis, warned by an oracle that he should be killed by his son-in-law, offered his daughter Hippodamia to the man who could defeat him in a chariot race, on condition that the defeated suitors should be slain by him. Ultimately Pelops, through the treachery of the charioteer of Oenomaus, became victorious.
2003 sc. to Scythia.
2004 In the Homeric Hymn to Hermes Battus almost disappears from the story, and a somewhat different account of the stealing of the cattle is given.
2101 sc. Colophon. Proclus in his abstract of the Returns (sc. of the heroes from Troy) says Calchas and his party were present at the death of Teiresias at Colophon, perhaps indicating another version of this story.
2102 ll. 1-2 are quoted by Athenaeus, ii. p. 40; ll. 3-4 by Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis vi. 2. 26. Buttman saw that the two fragments should be joined. (NOTE: These two fragments should be read together.—DBK)
2201 sc. the golden fleece of the ram which carried Phrixus and Helle away from Athamas and Ino. When he reached Colchis Phrixus sacrificed the ram to Zeus.
2202 Euboea properly means the ‘Island of fine Cattle (or Cows)’.
2301 This and the following fragment are meant to be read together.—DBK
2302 cp. Hesiod Theogony 81 ff. But Theognis 169, ‘Whomso the god honour, even a man inclined to blame praiseth him’, is much nearer.
2401 Cf. Scholion on Clement, “Protrept.” i. p. 302.
2402 This line may once have been read in the text of Works and Days after l. 771.
2501 ll. 1-9 are preserved by Diodorus Siculus iii. 66. 3; ll. 10-21 are extant only in M.
2502 Dionysus, after his untimely birth from Semele, was sewn into the thigh of Zeus.
2503 sc. Semele. Zeus is here speaking.
2504 The reference is apparently to something in the body of the hymn, now lost.
2505 The Greeks feared to name Pluto directly and mentioned him by one of many descriptive titles, such as ‘Host of Many’: compare the Christian use of O DIABOLOS or our ‘Evil One’.
2506 Demeter chooses the lowlier seat, supposedly as being more suitable to her assumed condition, but really because in her sorrow she refuses all comforts.
2507 An act of communion—the drinking of the potion here described—was one of the most important pieces of ritual in the Eleusinian mysteries, as commemorating the sorrows of the goddess.
2508 Undercutter and Woodcutter are probably popular names (after the style of Hesiod’s ‘Boneless One’) for the worm thought to be the cause of teething and toothache.
2509 The list of names is taken—with five additions—from Hesiod, Theogony 349 ff.: for their general significance see note on that passage.
2510 Inscriptions show that there was a temple of Apollo Delphinius (cp. ii. 495-6) at Cnossus and a Cretan month bearing the same name.
2511 sc. that the dolphin was really Apollo.
2512 The epithets are transferred from the god to his altar ‘Overlooking’ is especially an epithet of Zeus, as in Apollonius Rhodius ii. 1124.
2513 Pliny notices the efficacy of the flesh of a tortoise against withcraft. In Geoponica i. 14. 8 the living tortoise is prescribed as a charm to preserve vineyards from hail.
2514 Hermes makes the cattle walk backwards way, so that they seem to be going towards the meadow instead of leaving it (cp. l. 345); he himself walks in the normal manner, relying on his sandals as a disguise.
2515 Such seems to be the meaning indicated by the context, though the verb is taken by Allen and Sikes to mean, ‘to be like oneself’, and so ‘to be original’.
2516 Kuhn points out that there is a lacuna here. In l. 109 the borer is described, but the friction of this upon the fireblock (to which the phrase ‘held firmly’ clearly belongs) must also have been mentioned.
2517 The cows being on their sides on the ground, Hermes bends their heads back towards their flanks and so can reach their backbones.
2518 O. Muller thinks the ‘hides’ were a stalactite formation in the ‘Cave of Nestor’ near Messenian Pylos,—though the cave of Hermes is near the Alpheus (l. 139). Others suggest that actual skins were shown as relics before some cave near Triphylian Pylos.
2519 Gemoll explains that Hermes, having offered all the meat as sacrifice to the Twelve Gods, remembers that he himself as one of them must be content with the savour instead of the substance of the sacrifice. Can it be that by eating he would have forfeited the position he claimed as one of the Twelve Gods?
2520 Lit. “thorn-plucker”.
2521 Hermes is ambitious (l. 175), but if he is cast into Hades he will have to be content with the leadership of mere babies like himself, since those in Hades retain the state of growth—whether childhood or manhood—in which they are at the moment of leaving the upper world.
2522 Literally, ‘you have made him sit on the floor’, i.e. ‘you have stolen everything down to his last chair.’
2523 The Thriae, who practised divination by means of pebbles (also called THRIAE). In this hymn they are represented as aged maidens (ll. 553-4), but are closely associated with bees (ll. 559-563) and possibly are here conceived as having human heads and breasts with the bodies and wings of bees. See the edition of Allen and Sikes, Appendix III.
2524 Cronos swallowed each of his children the moment that they were born, but ultimately was forced to disgorge them. Hestia, being the first to be swallowed, was the last to be disgorged, and so was at once the first and latest born of the children of Cronos. Cp. Hesiod Theogony, ll. 495-7.
2525 Mr. Evelyn-White prefers a different order for lines #87-90 than that preserved in the MSS. This translation is based upon the following sequence: ll. 89,90,87,88.—DBK.
2526 ‘Cattle-earning’, because an accepted suitor paid for his bride in cattle.
2527 The name Aeneas is here connected with the epithet AIEOS (awful): similarly the name Odysseus is derived (in Odyssey i.62) from ODYSSMAI (I grieve).
2528 Aphrodite extenuates her disgrace by claiming that the race of Anchises is almost divine, as is shown in the persons of Ganymedes and Tithonus.
2529 So Christ connecting the word with OMOS. L. and S. give = OMOIOS, ‘common to all’.
2530 Probably not Etruscans, but the non-Hellenic peoples of Thrace and (according to Thucydides) of Lemnos and Athens. Cp. Herodotus i. 57; Thucydides iv. 109.
2531 This line appears to be an alternative to ll. 10-11.
2532 The name Pan is here derived from PANTES, ‘all’. Cp. Hesiod, Works and Days ll. 80-82, Hymn to Aphrodite (v) l. 198. for the significance of personal names.
2533 Mr. Evelyn-White prefers to switch l. 10 and 11, reading 11 first then 10.—DBK.
2534 An extra line is inserted in some MSS. after l. 15.— DBK.
2535 The epithet is a usual one for birds, cp. Hesiod, Works and Days, l. 210; as applied to Selene it may merely indicate her passage, like a bird, through the air, or mean ‘far flying’.
2601 The Epigrams are preserved in the pseudo-Herodotean Life of Homer. Nos. III, XIII, and XVII are also found in the Contest of Homer and Hesiod, and No. I is also extant at the end of some MSS. of the Homeric Hymns.
2602 sc. from Smyrna, Homer’s reputed birth-place.
2603 The councillors at Cyme who refused to support Homer at the public expense.
2604 The ‘better fruit’ is apparently the iron smelted out in fires of pine-wood.
2605 Hecate: cp. Hesiod, Theogony, l. 450.
2606 i.e. in protection.
2607 This song is called by pseudo-Herodotus EIRESIONE. The word properly indicates a garland wound with wool which was worn at harvest-festivals, but came to be applied first to the harvest song and then to any begging song. The present is akin the Swallow-Song (XELIDONISMA), sung at the beginning of spring, and answered to the still surviving English May-Day songs. Cp. Athenaeus, viii. 360 B.
2608 The lice which they caught in their clothes they left behind, but carried home in their clothes those which they could not catch.
2701 See the cylix reproduced by Gerhard, Abhandlungen, taf. 5,4. Cp. Stesichorus, Frag. 3 (Smyth).
2801 The haunch was regarded as a dishonourable portion.
2802 The horse of Adrastus, offspring of Poseidon and Demeter, who had changed herself into a mare to escape Poseidon.
2803 Restored from Pindar Ol. vi. 15 who, according to Asclepiades, derives the passage from the Thebais.
2901 So called from Teumessus, a hill in Boeotia. For the derivation of Teumessus cp. Antimachus Thebais fr. 3 (Kinkel).
3001 The preceding part of the Epic Cycle (?).
3002 While the Greeks were sacrificing at Aulis, a serpent appeared and devoured eight young birds from their nest and lastly the mother of the brood. This was interpreted by Calchas to mean that the war would swallow up nine full years. Cp. Iliad ii, 299 ff.
3003 i.e. Stasinus (or Hegesias: cp. fr. 6): the phrase ‘Cyprian histories’ is equivalent to “The Cypria”.
3004 Cp. Allen “C.R.” xxvii. 190.
3005 These two lines possibly belong to the account of the feast given by Agamemnon at Lemnos.
3006 sc. the Asiatic Thebes at the foot of Mt. Placius.
3101 sc. after cremation.
3102 This fragment comes from a version of the Contest of Homer and Hesiod widely different from that now extant. The words ’as Lesches gives them (says)’ seem to indicate that the verse and a half assigned to Homer came from the Little Iliad. It is possible they may have introduced some unusually striking incident, such as the actual Fall of Troy.
3103 i.e. in the paintings by Polygnotus at Delphi.
3104 i.e. the dead bodies in the picture.
3105 According to this version Aeneas was taken to Pharsalia. Better known are the Homeric account (according to which Aeneas founded a new dynasty at Troy), and the legends which make him seek a new home in Italy.
3201 sc. knowledge of both surgery and of drugs.
3301 Clement attributes this line to Augias: probably Agias is intended.
3302 Identical with the Returns, in which the Sons of Atreus occupy the most prominent parts.
3401 This Artemisia, who distinguished herself at the battle of Salamis (Herodotus, vii. 99) is here confused with the later Artemisia, the wife of Mausolus, who died 350 B.C.
3402 i.e. the fox knows many ways to baffle its foes, while the hedge-hog knows one only which is far more effectual.
3403 Attributed to Homer by Zenobius, and by Bergk to the Margites.
3501 i.e. ‘monkey-men’.
3601 Lines 42-52 are intrusive; the list of vegetables which the Mouse cannot eat must follow immediately after the various dishes of which he does eat.
3602 lit. ‘those unable to swim’.
3603 This may be a parody of Orion’s threat in Hesiod, “Astronomy”, frag. 4.
3701 sc. the riddle of the fisher-boys which comes at the end of this work.
3702 The verses of Hesiod are called doubtful in meaning because they are, if taken alone, either incomplete or absurd.
3703 Works and Days, ll. 383-392.
3704 Iliad xiii, ll. 126-133, 339-344.
3705 The accepted text of the Iliad contains 15,693 verses; that of the Odyssey, 12,110.
3706 Iliad ii, ll. 559-568 (with two additional verses).
3707 Homeric Hymns, iii.