Delphi Complete Works of Aeschylus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) (40 page)

FRAGMENTS OF
UNCERTAIN PLAY
S

Under each Fragment
are added ancient or modern conjectures as to its source.

FRAGMENT 155

Aristophanes,
Frogs
1291. Ascribed to Aeschylus because ll. 1264-1288 contain quotations from him.

Giving him (?) as
booty to the eager hounds that range the air.

Agamemnôn
Scholiast,
Memnôn
Bergk,
Sphinx
Fritzche,
Argeioi
Hartung,
Myrmidones
or
Phryges
Rogers.
The “eager hounds” are eagles or vultures. Who or what is their booty is
unknown.

FRAGMENT 156

Aelian,
On
Animals
xii. 8, Zenobius,
Proverbs
v. 79, Suidas,
Lexicon
s.v.
pyraustou moron
.

Verily I do fear
the stupid death of the moth.

Promêtheus purkaeus Bothe,
Semelê ê
Hydrophoroi
Hartung.
pyraustou moros
was a proverbial expression for the brevity of life
(Eustathius on
Iliad
1304. 8, etc.).

FRAGMENT 157

Ammonius,
On
Words of like Form but different Meaning
59 (Valckenaer).

Thou criest aloud,
thou who art but a spectator of such a deed as this.

Hypsipylê
Valckenaer,
Salaminiai
Hartung.

FRAGMENT 157A

Bekker,
Anecdota
Graeca
349. 7.

She waileth the
nightingale’s lament.

Compare
Agam.
1146.

FRAGMENT 158

Cramer,
Anecdota
Graeca Oxoniensia
i. 119. 12.

For all Troy hath
beheld by reason of Hector’s fate

Nêreides
, or
a connected play, Welcker,
Phryges
Hermann.

FRAGMENT 159

Cramer,
Anecdota
Graeca Oxoniensia
ii. 414. 13.

He bellowed like a
bull whose throat has just been cut.

Thrêssai
Hartung.

FRAGMENT 160

Cramer,
Anecdota
Graeca Oxoniensia
iv. 315. 28.

Neither am I
without experience of this manner of address.

FRAGMENT 161

Anonymous,
On
the Swelling of the Nile
, quoted from cod. Laurentianus lvi. 1 (F) by H.
Stephanus in
Appendix ad Aristotelis et Theophrasti scripta quadam
, and
inserted in Parisinus C in the Epitome of the second book of Athenaeus,
Deipnosophists
(Dindorf i. 165); cp. Aristeides,
Or.
48, On Egypt (vol. ii. 443, 460).

Knowing full well,
I can laud the race of the Aethiopian land, where seven-channelled Nile rolleth
its refreshing tide, fed by abundant, wind-born rain, and therein the fire-eyed
sun, beaming forth upon the earth, melteth the snow amid the rocks; and all
luxuriant Egypt, filled with the sacred flood, maketh to spring up Demeter’s
life-giving grain.

Memnôn
Butler,
Psychostasia
Welcker.

FRAGMENT 162

Anonymous in
Orelli,
Opuscula Graecorum veterum sententiosa et moralia
ii. 222,
Stobaeus,
Anthology
iii. 3. 13 (Hense iii. 195), Scholiast on
Iliad
B 114, Eustathius on
Iliad
188. 43, 480. 43.

From righteous
deception God standeth not aloof.

Danaïdes
Hermann,
Aigyptioi
Hartung,
Thalamopoioi
Oberdick.

FRAGMENT 163

Anonymous in Orelli
(as under Frag. 162).

But times there are
when God honoureth the season for untruth.

Danaïdes
Hermann,
Philoktêtês
Hartung,
Thalamopoioi
Wecklein.

FRAGMENT 164

Aristeides,
In
Defence of the Four Statesmen
46 (vol. ii. 379).

Nor companion in
arms, nor neighbour, let him be to me!

Argô
Wagner,
Oidipous
Hartung,
Kabeiroi
Bergk.

FRAGMENT 165

Aristotle,
Natural
History
ix. 49. p. 633 a20; cp. Pliny,
Natural History
x. 86 (44).

This hoopoe,
spectator of his own distress, hath Zeus bedecked in various hue and showed him
forth a bird courageous in his full armour, tenanting the rocks. With the
new-come spring he will ply the pinion of the white-feathered hawk – for he
will display two forms from a single egg, his offspring’s and his own –; but
when the grain is threshed in early harvest0time, parti-coloured wing will
direct his course to this side or that. But ever quitting these haunts in
loathing he will seek a new home amid the solitary woods and hills.

Now generally referred, with Welcker,
to the
Têreus
of Sophocles (Frag. 581 Jebb-Pearson);
Krêssai
Hartung.
When Procne had served to Tereus the flesh of their son Itys in revenge for his
violation of her sister Philomela, Tereus pursued them with an axe; and when
the sisters were overtaken, the gods in pity turned Procne into a nightingale
and Philomela into a swallow. Tereus became a hoopoe, or a hawk, according to a
variant version of the legend. The poet seems to have assimilated the two
legends by making the young hoopoe resemble a hawk.
Before speaking of the hoopoe’s change in colour and appearance, Aristotle remarks
that the cuckoo changes its colour. “On the zoological side,” says D’Arcy
Thompson, “the myth is based on the similarity of note in the hoopoe and
cuckoo, and on the hawk-like appearance of the latter bird.” In l. 1 the epops
is called
epoptês
“spectator” by word-play; and similarly Tereus was “the
watcher” (
têreô
).

FRAGMENT 166

Aristotle,
Rhetoric
ii. 10. p. 1388 a7 with Scholiast.

For kinsfolk know
well to envy too.

FRAGMENTS 167

Athenaeus,
Deipnosophists
vii. 66. p. 303c, Plutarch,
On the Craftiness of Animals
29. 979E,
Aelian,
On Animals
ix. 42, Scholiast on Oppian,
On Fishing
iv.
504, Eustathius on
Iliad
994. 52.

Squinting his left
eye, like a tunny-fish

Kêrykes
Droysen.

FRAGMENT 169

Athenaeus,
Deipnosophists
ix. 17. p. 375E.

But this pig – and
a well-fatted pig it is – I will place within the crackling oven. For what
daintier dish could a man get than this?

Kirkê
E. A.
J. Ahrens,
Promêtheus saturikos
Hartung.

FRAGMENT 170

Athenaeus,
Deipnosophists
ix. 17. p. 375E; cp. Eustathius on
Iliad
, 1286. 21.

White, of course,
and rarely singed, the pig. Boil him and don’t be troubled by the sire.

Kêrykes
E.
A. J. Ahrens,
Promêtheus satyrikos
Hartung.

FRAGMENT 171

Athenaeus,
Deipnosophists
ix. 17. p. 375E.

But having killed
yon pig from the same sow, the sow that had worked me much havoc in the house,
pushing and turning everything upside down pell-mell

Kêrykes
E.
A. J. Ahrens,
Promêtheus satyrikos
Hartung.

FRAGMENT 172

Athenaeus,
Deipnosophists
xi. 80. p. 491A; cp. Scholiast A on
Iliad
S 486, Eustathius on
Odyssey
1713. 4.

And they who bear
the name of Atlas’ daughters seven oft bewailed their sire’s supremest labour
of sustaining heaven, where as wingless Peleiades they have the form of
phantoms of the night.

Hêliades
Butler,
Promêtheus
satyrikos
Hartung.
The daughters of Atlas and Pleione, transformed by Zeus into the constellation
of the Pleiades, were often regarded as doves (
peleiades
) by poetic
fancy and popular mythology. The epithet “wingless” is corrective, because the
maidens are not real birds.

FRAGMENT 173

Athenaeus,
Deipnosophists
xii. 37. p. 528C;
cp. Eustathius on
Iliad
1292. 53.

And luxurious
locks, like those of delicate maidens; wherefore they approved the name Curetes
for the folk.

The
Kourêtes
in question were
the earliest inhabitants of Pleuron in Aetolia (cp.
Iliad
I 529;
kourêtes
in T 193 are “youths,”
kouroi
). That the Greeks were hopelessly confused
as to the meaning of the name is clear from the lengthy discussion in Strabo,
Geography
x. 3. 6-8, p. 466-467. Apart from other explanations, the word was derived now
from
koura
, properly “clipping” of the hair; now from
kouros
“boy”
or
kourê
“girl” (the Homeric forms of
koros
and
korê
), and
with reference either to hair or to dress. The historian Phylarchus (third
century B.C.) declares that Aeschylus here says that the
Kourêtes
got
their name from their luxury; and the Fragment certainly implies that, like
girls, they wore their hair long (cp. Scholiast on I 529
para to mê
keirethai tas komas
, Scholiast L
ê epei komas koran eichon
). But in
Agathon’s
Thyestes
certain suitors say that they wore their hair long (
komôntes
)
until they had been rejected by their lady-love, when they cut off their locks,
“the witnesses of their luxury,” and by reason of their shorn hair (
kourimos
thrix
) gained the glory of being
Kourêtes
. Archemachus of Euboea
(see Strabo) had the notion that the
Kourêtes
, before they removed to
Aetolia, wore their hair long behind, but cut it short in front in order that
their enemies might not seize them there. Strabo himself attaches no little
probability to the opinion of those who sought to reconcile the different
accounts of the name; for he says that the application of art to the hair
consists in attending to its growth and
koura
, and that both are the
peculiar care of
korai
and
koroi
. To render
koura
by “hair-dressing,”
“coiffure,” with the implication that the reference is to long hair, is opposed
to the etymology (from
keirô
“cut”). Relationship between
koura
and
kourê
,
korê,
accepted by Curtius, is altogether improbable.
Krêssai
Butler,
Êdônoi
Hartung.

FRAGMENT 174

Athenaeus,
Deipnosophists
xiv. 32. p. 632C.

Or the master of
his craft was present, deftly striking the lyre.

Athenaeus says that
sophists was anciently used of musicians.

FRAGMENT 175

Clement of
Alexandria,
Miscellanies
iv. 7. p. 586.

To him that toileth
God oweth glory, child of his toil.

Kares ê Eurôpê
Hartung.

FRAGMENT 176

Clement of
Alexandria,
Miscellanies
v. 5. p. 661.

But I too have a
seal, as a guard, upon my lips.

“My lips were lock’d upon me,”
Beaumont and Fletcher.
Epigonoi
Hartung.

FRAGMENT 177

Clement of
Alexandria,
Miscellanies
vi. 2. p. 739; l. 1 Pseudo-Diogenianus
Proverbs
vii. 35 (without naming the poet); with
dei
for
chrê
, attributed
to Sophocles (Frag. 934 Jebb-Pearson) by Stobaeus,
Anthology
iii. 39. 14
(Hense iii. 724).

He who is truly
happy should bide at home [and he who fares ill, he too should bide at home]

L1. 1-2
Danaïdes
Hermann, l. 1
Hêliades
Hartung.
Nauck regards l. 2 as a tag by a comic poet: “And he who fares ill? He too
should bide at home.” The comic poets were fond of describing “the truly happy
man.”

FRAGMENT 178

Etymologicum
Magnum
149. 57.

So much, Herald, do
thou set forth from me point by point.

Hiketides
l.
953A Burges,
Eleusinioi
Hartung,
Kêrykes
Droysen,
Thalamopoioi
Wecklein.

FRAGMENT 179

Etymologicum
Genuinum
s.v.
asalês
(
Etymologicum Magnum
151. 49 s.v.
asalês
mania
).

Or reckless madness
from the gods.

Neaniskoi
Hartung.

FRAGMENT 180

Etymologicum
Magnum
490. 12,
Etymologicum Gudianum
298. 9, Cramer,
Anecdota
Graeca Oxoniensia
ii. 456. 6, Suidas,
Lexicon
s.v.
kapêlos
.

Applying huckster
tricks

Phryges
Welcker,
Philoktêtês
Hartung.

FRAGMENT 181

Eustathius on
Iliad
1157. 36; cp. Pollux,
Vocabulary
10. 56, Hesychius,
Lexicon
i.
323.

Who had four
fillies under yoke, their nostrils bound with fluted muzzles.

Psychostasia
Butler,
Glaukos
Potnieus
Hermann,
Memnôn
Kausche.
To produce a terrifying effect by a horse’s breathing or trumpeting, its bronze
muzzle was pierced with holes, through which the sound issued, as though the
pipes of a flute. Cp.
Seven against Thebes
461 ff.

FRAGMENT 182

Eustathius on
Iliad
1183. 18.

Until Zeus, letting
fall the drops from his hands, himself shall purify thee with sprinklings of
the blood of a slain swine.

Ixiôn
Pauw,
Perrhaibides
Hermann.

FRAGMENT 183

Eustathius on
Odyssey
1484. 48.

Is it some
Aethiopian dame that shall appear?

Memnôn
Hermann.

FRAGMENT 184