ENDNOTES
1101 (return)
[ sc. in Boeotia, Locris and
Thessaly: elsewhere the movement was forced and unfruitful.]
1102 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Der Dialekt des
Hesiodes, p. 464: examples are AENEMI (W. and D. 683) and AROMENAI
(ib. 22).]
1104 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ She is said to have given
birth to the lyrist Stesichorus.]
1106 (return)
[ See Kinkel Epic. Graec.
Frag. i. 158 ff.]
1107 (return)
[ See Great Works,
frag. 2.]
1108 (return)
[ Hesiodi Fragmenta,
pp. 119 f.]
1109 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Goettling’s
explanation.]
1111 (return)
[ x. 1. 52.]
1112 (return)
[ Odysseus appears to have
been mentioned once only—and that casually—in the
Returns.]
1113 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ No date is assigned to
him, but it seems likely that he was either contemporary or slightly earlier
than Lesches.]
1115 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Greek Melic Poets,
p. 165.]
1117 (return)
[ This monument was returned
to Greece in the 1980’s.— DBK.]
1118 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ See Schubert, Berl.
Klassikertexte v. 1.22 ff.; the other papyri may be found in the
publications whose name they bear.]
1202 (return)
[ Unless otherwise noted,
all MSS. are of the 15th century.]
1203 (return)
[ To this list I would also
add the following: Hesiod and Theognis, translated by Dorothea Wender
(Penguin Classics, London, 1973).—DBK.]
1301 (return)
[ That is, the poor
man’s fare, like ‘bread and cheese’.]
1302 (return)
[ The All-endowed.]
1303 (return)
[ The jar or casket
contained the gifts of the gods mentioned in l.82.]
1304 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ i.e. the race will
so degenerate that at the last even a new-born child will show the marks of old
age.]
1307 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ The alternative version
is: ‘and, working, you will be much better loved both by gods and men;
for they greatly dislike the idle.’]
1309 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Early in May.]
1311 (return)
[ In November.]
1312 (return)
[ In October.]
1313 (return)
[ For pounding corn.]
1314 (return)
[ A mallet for breaking
clods after ploughing.]
1315 (return)
[ The loaf is a flattish
cake with two intersecting lines scored on its upper surface which divide it
into four equal parts.]
1316 (return)
[ The meaning is obscure. A
scholiast renders ‘giving eight mouthfulls’; but the elder
Philostratus uses the word in contrast to ‘leavened’.]
1317 (return)
[ About the middle of
November.]
1318 (return)
[ Spring is so described
because the buds have not yet cast their iron-grey husks.]
1319 (return)
[ In December.]
1320 (return)
[ In March.]
1321 (return)
[ The latter part of January
and earlier part of February.]
1322 (return)
[ i.e. the octopus or
cuttle.]
1323 (return)
[ i.e. the
darker-skinned people of Africa, the Egyptians or Aethiopians.]
1324 (return)
[ i.e. an old man
walking with a staff (the ‘third leg’— as in the riddle of
the Sphinx).]
1325 (return)
[ February to March.]
1326 (return)
[ i.e. the snail. The
season is the middle of May.]
1327 (return)
[ In June.]
1328 (return)
[ July.]
1329 (return)
[ i.e. a robber.]
1330 (return)
[ September.]
1331 (return)
[ The end of October.]
1332 (return)
[ That is, the succession of
stars which make up the full year.]
1333 (return)
[ The end of October or
beginning of November.]
1334 (return)
[ July-August.]
1335 (return)
[ i.e. untimely,
premature. Juvenal similarly speaks of ‘cruda senectus’ (caused by
gluttony).]
1336 (return)
[ The thought is parallel to
that of ‘O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath.’]
1337 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ i.e. ‘do not
cut your finger-nails’.]
1339 (return)
[ i.e. things which
it would be sacrilege to disturb, such as tombs.]
1340 (return)
[ H.G. Evelyn-White prefers
to switch ll. 768 and 769, reading l. 769 first then l. 768.—DBK]
1341 (return)
[ The month is divided into
three periods, the waxing, the mid-month, and the waning, which answer to the
phases of the moon.]
1342 (return)
[ i.e. the ant.]
1343 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ This halt verse is added
by the Scholiast on Aratus, 172.]
1402 (return)
[ The
“Catasterismi” (“Placings among the Stars”) is a
collection of legends relating to the various constellations.]
1403 (return)
[ The Straits of Messina.]
1501 (return)
[ Or perhaps ‘a
Scythian’.]
1601 (return)
[ The epithet probably
indicates coquettishness.]
1602 (return)
[ A proverbial saying
meaning, ‘why enlarge on irrelevant topics?’]
1603 (return)
[ ‘She of the noble
voice’: Calliope is queen of Epic poetry.]
1604 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Aether is the bright,
untainted upper atmosphere, as distinguished from Aer, the lower atmosphere of
the earth.]
1606 (return)
[ Brontes is the Thunderer;
Steropes, the Lightener; and Arges, the Vivid One.]
1607 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Nymphs of the ash-trees,
as Dryads are nymphs of the oak-trees. Cp. note on Works and Days, l.
145.]
1609 (return)
[
‘Member-loving’: the title is perhaps only a perversion of the
regular PHILOMEIDES (laughter-loving).]
1610 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ The
‘Wave-receiver’ and the ‘Wave-stiller’.]
1613 (return)
[ ‘The Unerring’
or ‘Truthful’; cp. l. 235.]
1614 (return)
[ i.e. Poseidon.]
1615 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ i.e. Eos, the
‘Early-born’.]
1617 (return)
[ Van Lennep explains that
Hecate, having no brothers to support her claim, might have been slighted.]
1618 (return)
[ The goddess of the
hearth (the Roman Vesta), and so of the house. Cp. Homeric
Hymns v.22 ff.; xxxix.1 ff.]
1619 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ sc. Atlas, the Shu
of Egyptian mythology: cp. note on line 177.]
1623 (return)
[ Oceanus is here regarded
as a continuous stream enclosing the earth and the seas, and so as flowing back
upon himself.]
1624 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ i.e. the threshold
is of ‘native’ metal, and not artificial.]
1626 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ The epithet (which means
literally well-bored) seems to refer to the spout of the
crucible.]
1628 (return)
[ The fire god. There is no
reference to volcanic action: iron was smelted on Mount Ida; cp.
Epigrams of Homer, ix. 2-4.]
1629 (return)
[ i.e. Athena, who
was born ‘on the banks of the river Trito’ (cp. l. 929l)]
1630 (return)
[ Restored by Peppmuller.
The nineteen following lines from another recension of lines 889-900, 924-9 are
quoted by Chrysippus (in Galen).]
1631 (return)
[ sc. the aegis. Line
929s is probably spurious, since it disagrees with l. 929q and contains a
suspicious reference to Athens.]
1701 (return)
[ A catalogue of heroines
each of whom was introduced with the words E OIE, ‘Or like her’.]
1702 (return)
[ An antiquarian writer of
Byzantium, c. 490-570 A.D.]
1703 (return)
[ Constantine VII.
‘Born in the Porphyry Chamber’, 905-959 A.D.]
1704 (return)
[ “Berlin
Papyri”, 7497 (left-hand fragment) and “Oxyrhynchus Papyri”,
421 (right-hand fragment). For the restoration see “Class. Quart.”
vii. 217-8.]
1705 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ i.e. Glaucus should father
the children of others. The curse of Aphrodite on the daughters of Tyndareus
(fr. 67) may be compared.]
1707 (return)
[ Porphyry, scholar,
mathematician, philosopher and historian, lived 233-305 (?) A.D. He was a pupil
of the neo-Platonist Plotinus.]
1708 (return)
[ Author of a geographical
lexicon, produced after 400 A.D., and abridged under Justinian.]
1709 (return)
[ Archbishop of Thessalonica
1175-1192 (?) A.D., author of commentaries on Pindar and on the
Iliad and Odyssey.]
1710 (return)
[ In the earliest times a
loin-cloth was worn by athletes, but was discarded after the 14th Olympiad.]
1711 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ The end of
Schoeneus’ speech, the preparations and the beginning of the race are
lost.]
1713 (return)
[ Of the three which
Aphrodite gave him to enable him to overcome Atalanta.]
1714 (return)
[ The geographer; fl. c.24
B.C.]
1715 (return)
[ Of Miletus, flourished
about 520 B.C. His work, a mixture of history and geography, was used by
Herodotus.]
1716 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Fl. 56-88 A.D.: he is best
known for his work on Vergil.]
1718 (return)
[ This and the following
fragment segment are meant to be read together.—DBK.]
1719 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ The crocus was to attract
Europa, as in the very similar story of Persephone: cp. Homeric
Hymns ii. lines 8 ff.]
1722 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Priest at Praeneste. He
lived c. 170-230 A.D.]
1724 (return)
[ Son of Apollonius
Dyscolus, lived in Rome under Marcus Aurelius. His chief work was on
accentuation.]
1725 (return)
[ This and the next two
fragment segments are meant to be read together.—DBK.]
1726 (return)
[ Sacred to Poseidon. For
the custom observed there, cp. Homeric Hymns iii. 231 ff.]
1727 (return)
[ The allusion is obscure.]
1728 (return)
[ Apollonius ‘the
Crabbed’ was a grammarian of Alexandria under Hadrian. He wrote largely
on Grammar and Syntax.]
1729 (return)
[ 275-195 (?) B.C.,
mathematician, astronomer, scholar, and head of the Library of Alexandria.]
1730 (return)
[ Of Cyme. He wrote a
universal history covering the period between the Dorian Migration and 340
B.C.]
1731 (return)
[ i.e. the nomad
Scythians, who are described by Herodotus as feeding on mares’ milk and
living in caravans.]
1732 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ An Epicurean philosopher,
fl. 50 B.C.]
1736 (return)
[
‘Charming-with-her-voice’ (or ‘Charming-the-mind’),
‘Song’, and ‘Lovely-sounding’.]
1737 (return)
[ Diodorus Siculus, fl. 8
B.C., author of an universal history ending with Caesar’s Gallic Wars.]
1738 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ This fragment is placed by
Spohn after Works and Days l. 120.]
1740 (return)
[ A Greek of Asia Minor,
author of the “Description of Greece” (on which he was still
engaged in 173 A.D.).]
1741 (return)
[ Wilamowitz thinks one or
other of these citations belongs to the Catalogue.]
1742 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ sc. the Suitor whose name
is lost.]
1744 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ i.e. the snake; as
in Works and Days l. 524, the “Boneless One” is the
cuttle-fish.]
1747 (return)
[ c. 1110-1180 A.D. His
chief work was a poem, “Chiliades”, in accentual verse of nearly
13,000 lines.]
1748 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Of Alexandria. He lived in
the 5th century, and compiled a Greek Lexicon.]
1750 (return)
[ For his murder Minos
exacted a yearly tribute of boys and girls, to be devoured by the Minotaur,
from the Athenians.]
1751 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Eustathius identifies
Ileus with Oileus, father of Aias. Here again is fanciful etymology, ILEUS
being similar to ILEOS (complaisant, gracious).]
1754 (return)
[ Imitated by Vergil,
“Aeneid” vii. 808, describing Camilla.]
1755 (return)
[ c. 600 A.D., a lecturer
and grammarian of Constantinople.]
1756 (return)
[ Priest of Apollo, and,
according to Homer, discoverer of wine. Maronea in Thrace is said to have been
called after him.]
1757 (return)
[ The crow was originally
white, but was turned black by Apollo in his anger at the news brought by the
bird.]
1758 (return)
[ A philosopher of Athens
under Hadrian and Antonius. He became a Christian and wrote a defence of the
Christians addressed to Antoninus Pius.]
1759 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ For Cyrene and Aristaeus,
cp. Vergil, Georgics, iv. 315 ff.]
1761 (return)
[ A writer on mythology of
uncertain date.]
1762 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ The fragment is part of a
leaf from a papyrus book of the 4th century A.D.]
1764 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ A mountain peak near
Thebes which took its name from the Sphinx (called in Theogony l.
326 PHIX).]
1802 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ ‘She who drives
herds,’ i.e. ‘The Victorious’, since herds were the
chief spoil gained by the victor in ancient warfare.]
1804 (return)
[ The cap of darkness which
made its wearer invisible.]
1805 (return)
[ The existing text of the
vineyard scene is a compound of two different versions, clumsily adapted, and
eked out with some makeshift additions.]
1806 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ sc. to Scythia.]
2004 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Euboea properly means the
‘Island of fine Cattle (or Cows)’.]
2301 (return)
[ This and the following
fragment are meant to be read together.—DBK]
2302 (return)
[ cp. Hesiod
Theogony 81 ff. But Theognis 169, ‘Whomso the god honour,
even a man inclined to blame praiseth him’, is much nearer.]
2401 (return)
[ Cf. Scholion on Clement,
“Protrept.” i. p. 302.]
2402 (return)
[ This line may once have
been read in the text of Works and Days after l. 771.]
2501 (return)
[ ll. 1-9 are preserved by
Diodorus Siculus iii. 66. 3; ll. 10-21 are extant only in M.]
2502 (return)
[ Dionysus, after his
untimely birth from Semele, was sewn into the thigh of Zeus.]
2503 (return)
[ sc. Semele. Zeus is
here speaking.]
2504 (return)
[ The reference is
apparently to something in the body of the hymn, now lost.]
2505 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ The list of names is
taken—with five additions—from Hesiod, Theogony 349
ff.: for their general significance see note on that passage.]
2510 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ sc. that the dolphin was
really Apollo.]
2512 (return)
[ The epithets are
transferred from the god to his altar ‘Overlooking’ is especially
an epithet of Zeus, as in Apollonius Rhodius ii. 1124.]
2513 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ The cows being on their
sides on the ground, Hermes bends their heads back towards their flanks and so
can reach their backbones.]
2518 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Lit.
“thorn-plucker”.]
2521 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Literally, ‘you have
made him sit on the floor’, i.e. ‘you have stolen everything
down to his last chair.’]
2523 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[
‘Cattle-earning’, because an accepted suitor paid for his bride in
cattle.]
2527 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ So Christ connecting the
word with OMOS. L. and S. give = OMOIOS, ‘common to all’.]
2530 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ This line appears to be an
alternative to ll. 10-11.]
2532 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ Mr. Evelyn-White prefers
to switch l. 10 and 11, reading 11 first then 10.—DBK.]
2534 (return)
[ An extra line is inserted
in some MSS. after l. 15.— DBK.]
2535 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ sc. from Smyrna,
Homer’s reputed birth-place.]
2603 (return)
[ The councillors at Cyme
who refused to support Homer at the public expense.]
2604 (return)
[ The ‘better
fruit’ is apparently the iron smelted out in fires of pine-wood.]
2605 (return)
[ Hecate: cp. Hesiod,
Theogony, l. 450.]
2606 (return)
[ i.e. in
protection.]
2607 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ The lice which they caught
in their clothes they left behind, but carried home in their clothes those
which they could not catch.]
2701 (return)
[ See the cylix reproduced
by Gerhard, Abhandlungen, taf. 5,4. Cp. Stesichorus, Frag. 3 (Smyth).]
2801 (return)
[ The haunch was regarded as
a dishonourable portion.]
2802 (return)
[ The horse of Adrastus,
offspring of Poseidon and Demeter, who had changed herself into a mare to
escape Poseidon.]
2803 (return)
[ Restored from Pindar Ol.
vi. 15 who, according to Asclepiades, derives the passage from the
Thebais.]
2901 (return)
[ So called from Teumessus,
a hill in Boeotia. For the derivation of Teumessus cp. Antimachus
Thebais fr. 3 (Kinkel).]
3001 (return)
[ The preceding part of the
Epic Cycle (?).]
3002 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ i.e. Stasinus (or
Hegesias: cp. fr. 6): the phrase ‘Cyprian histories’ is equivalent
to “The Cypria”.]
3004 (return)
[ Cp. Allen
“C.R.” xxvii. 190.]
3005 (return)
[ These two lines possibly
belong to the account of the feast given by Agamemnon at Lemnos.]
3006 (return)
[ sc. the Asiatic Thebes at
the foot of Mt. Placius.]
3101 (return)
[ sc. after cremation.]
3102 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ i.e. in the
paintings by Polygnotus at Delphi.]
3104 (return)
[ i.e. the dead
bodies in the picture.]
3105 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ sc. knowledge of both
surgery and of drugs.]
3301 (return)
[ Clement attributes this
line to Augias: probably Agias is intended.]
3302 (return)
[ Identical with the
Returns, in which the Sons of Atreus occupy the most prominent
parts.]
3401 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ i.e. the fox knows
many ways to baffle its foes, while the hedge-hog knows one only which is far
more effectual.]
3403 (return)
[ Attributed to Homer by
Zenobius, and by Bergk to the Margites.]
3501 (return)
[ i.e.
‘monkey-men’.]
3601 (return)
[ 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 (return)
[ lit. ‘those unable
to swim’.]
3603 (return)
[ This may be a parody of
Orion’s threat in Hesiod, “Astronomy”, frag. 4.]
3701 (return)
[ sc. the riddle of the
fisher-boys which comes at the end of this work.]
3702 (return)
[ The verses of Hesiod are
called doubtful in meaning because they are, if taken alone, either incomplete
or absurd.]
3703 (return)
[ Works and
Days, ll. 383-392.]
3704 (return)
[ Iliad xiii,
ll. 126-133, 339-344.]
3705 (return)
[ The accepted text of the
Iliad contains 15,693 verses; that of the Odyssey,
12,110.]
3706 (return)
[ Iliad ii,
ll. 559-568 (with two additional verses).]
3707 (return)
[ Homeric
Hymns, iii.]