The Complete Works of

LYCOPHRON

(fl. 4th century BC-

Contents

The Translation

Alexandra

The Greek Text

Contents of the Greek Text

The Dual Text

Dual Greek and English Text

The Biography

Lycophron (1921) by A. W. Mair

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The Complete Works of

LYCOPHRON OF CHALCIS

By Delphi Classics, 2022

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The Alexandra of Lycophron

First published in the United Kingdom in 2022 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2022.

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ISBN: 978 1 80170 076 4

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The Translation

Chalcis, the chief town of the island of Euboea, Greece — Lycophron’s birthplace

Ancient ruins at Chalcis

Alexandra

Translated by A. W. Mair, Loeb Classical Library, 1921

Lycophron (born c. 330–325 BC) was a Hellenistic Greek tragic poet, grammarian, sophist and commentator on comedy. He was born in Chalcis in Euboea and flourished at Alexandria in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 BC). According to the Suda, Lycophron was the son of Socles and was later adopted by Lycus of Rhegium. He was entrusted by Ptolemy with the task of arranging the comedies in the Library of Alexandria; as the result of his labours he composed a treatise On Comedy. He is also said to have been an adept writer of anagrams.

The poetic compositions of Lycophron chiefly consisted of tragedies, which helped secure him a place in the Pleiad of Alexandrian tragedians. The Suda provides the titles of twenty tragedies, of which only a few fragments have been preserved: Aeolus, Allies (Symmakhoi), Andromeda, Chrysippus, Daughters of Aeolus, Daughters of Pelops, Elephenor, Herakles, Hippolytus, Kassandreis, Laius, Marathonians, Menedemus, Nauplius, Oedipus (two versions), Orphan (Orphanos), Pentheus, Suppliants (Hiketai), Telegonus, and the Wanderer (Aletes). Among these, a few well-turned lines demonstrate a much more accomplished style than the Alexandra. Lycophron’s tragedies are said to have been much admired by Menedemus of Eretria, although Lycophron had ridiculed him in a satyr play.

His sole extant complete work is the Alexandra, containing 1474 iambic trimeters. The poem largely consists of a prophecy uttered by Cassandra, as she relates the later fortunes of Troy and of the Greek and Trojan heroes. References to events of mythical and later times are introduced and the poem culminates with a reference to Alexander the Great, who was to unite Asia and Europe in his Empire.

The abstruse style of Alexandra obtained for the author, even among the ancients, the title of obscure. It is an especially challenging text to read, as it was likely intended to display the writer’s knowledge of obscure names and uncommon myths. It features numerous unusual words of doubtful meaning gathered from the older poets, and complex compounds, uniquely coined by Lycophron. The poem was probably written as a show-piece for the Alexandrian school, rather than as straightforward piece of poetry. Alexandra was extremely popular in the Byzantine period and was read and commented on frequently.

Some modern critics have concluded that the poem cannot be the work of the third-century BC Lycophron. This is particularly upheld as certain passages in the poem (1226–1280; cf. 1446-1450) describe Roman dominance in terms that only suit the situation after the Second Macedonian War (200–197 BC). Cassandra prophesies that her Trojan ancestors’ descendants shall with their spears win the foremost crown of glory, obtaining the sceptre and monarchy of earth and sea and elaborates with allusions to the course of historical events. Other scholars regard these passages as interpolations and defend the attribution of the bulk of the poem to Lycophron the tragic poet.

Cassandra and Ajax depicted on a terracotta amphora, c. 450 BC

CONTENTS

TEXT WITHOUT FOOTNOTES.

TEXT WITH MAIR’S COMPREHENSIVE FOOTNOTES.

Bust of Ptolemy II, National Archaeological Museum, Naples

TEXT WITHOUT FOOTNOTES.

The speaker is a slave appointed to watch Cassandra and report her prophecies. He addresses Priam.

[1] ALL WILL I TELL TRULY that thou askest from the utter beginning, and if the tale be prolonged, forgive me, master. For not quietly as of old did the maiden loose the varied voice of her oracles, but poured forth a weird confused cry, and uttered wild words from her bay-chewing mouth, imitating the speech of the dark Sphinx. Thereof what in heart and memory I hold, hear thou, O King, and, pondering with wise mind, wind and pursue the obscure paths of her riddles, whereso a clear track guides by a straight way through things wrapped in darkness. And I, cutting the utter bounding thread, will trace her paths of devious speech, striking the starting-point like winged runner.

[16] Dawn was just soaring over the steep crag of Phegion on swift wings of Pegasus ,leaving his bed by Cerne. Tithonus, brother of thine by another mother, and the sailors loosed in calm weather the cables from the grooved rock and cut the landward ropes. And the centipede fair-faced stork-hued daughters of Phalacra smote maiden-slaying Thetis with their blades, over Calydnae showing their white wings, their stern-ornaments, their sails outspread by the northern blasts of flaming stormwind: then Alexandra opened her inspired Bacchis lips on the high Hill of Doom that was founded by the wandering cow and thus began to speak:

[31] Alas! hapless nurse of mine burnt even aforetime by the warlike pineships of the lion that was begotten in three evenings, whom of old Triton’s hound of jagged teeth devoured with his jaws. But he, a living carver of the monster’s liver, seething in steam of cauldron on a flameless hearth, shed to ground the bristles of his head; he the slayer of his children, the destroyer of my fatherland; who smote his second mother invulnerable with grievous shaft upon the breast; who, too, in the midst of the race-course seized in his arms the body of his wrestler sire beside the steep hill of Cronus, where is the horse-affighting tomb of earth-born Ischenus; who also slew the fierce hound that watched the narrow straits of the Ausonian sea, fishing over her cave, the bull-slaying lioness whom her father restored again to life, burning her flesh with brands: she who feared not Leptynis, goddess of the underworld. But one day with swordless guile a dead corse slew him: yea, even him who of old overcame Hades; I see thee, hapless city, fired a second time by Aeaceian hands and by such remains as the funeral fire spared to abide in Letrina of the son of Tantalus when his body was devoured by the flames, with the winged shafts of the neat-herd Teutarus; all which things the jealous spouse shall bring to light, sending her son to indicate the land, angered by her father’s taunts, for her bed’s sake and because of the alien bride. And herself, the skilled in drugs, seeing the baleful wound incurable of her husband wounded by the giant-slaying arrows of his adversary, shall endure to share his doom, from the topmost towers to the new slain corpse hurtling herself head foremost, and pierced by sorrow for the dead shall breathe forth her soul on the quivering body.

[69] I mourn, twice and three times for thee who lookest again to the battle of the spear and the harrying of thy halls and the destroying fire. I mourn for thee, my country, and for the grave of Atlas’ daughter’s diver son, who of old in a stitched vessel, like an Istrian fish-creel with four legs, sheathed his body in a leathern sack and, all alone, swam like a petrel of Rheithymnia, leaving Zerynthos, cave of the goddess to whom dogs are slain, even Saos, the strong foundation of the Cyrbantes, what time the plashing rain of Zeus laid waste with deluge all the earth. And their towers were hurled to the ground, and the people set themselves to swim, seeing their final doom before their eyes. And on oat and acorn and the sweet grape browsed the whales and the dolphins and the seals that are fain of the beds of mortal men.

[86] I see the winged firebrand rushing to seize the dove, the hound of Pephnos, whom the water-roaming vulture brought to birth, husked in a rounded shell.

[90] And thee, cuckold sailor, the downward path of Acheron shall receive, walking no more the byres of they father’s rugged steadings, as one when thou wert arbiter of beauty for the three goddesses. But in place of stables thou shalt pass the Jaws of the Ass and Las, and instead of well-foddered crib and sheepfold and landsman’s blade a ship and oars of Phereclus shall carry thee to the two thoroughfares and the levels of Gytheion, where, on the rocks dropping the bent teeth of the pine-ship’s anchors to guard against the flood, thou shalt rest from gambols they nine-sailed fleet.

[102] And when thou, the wolf, shalt have seized the unwed heifer, robbed of her two dove daughters and fallen into a second net of alien snares and caught by the decoy of the fowler, even while upon the beach she burns the firstlings of the flocks to the Thysad nymphs and the goddess Byne, then shalt thou speed past Scandeia and past the cape of Aegilon, a fierce hunter exulting in thy capture.

[109] And in the Dragon’s Isle of Acte, dominion of the twyformed son of earth, thou shalt put from thee thy desire; but thou shalt see no morrow’s aftermath of love, fondling in empty arms a chill embrace and a dreamland bed. For the sullen husband, whose spouse is Torone of Phlegra, even he to whom laughter and tears are alike abhorred and who is ignorant and reft of both; who once on a time crossed from Thrace unto the coastland which is furrowed by the outflow of Triton; crossed not by sailing ship but by an untrodden path, like some moldwarp, boring a secret passage in the cloven earth, made his ways beneath the sea, avoiding the stranger-slaying wrestling of his sons and sending to his sire prayers which were heard, even that he should set him with returning feet in his fatherland, whence he had come as a wanderer to Pallenia, nurse of the earth-born – he, like Guneus, a doer of justice and arbiter of the Sun’s daughter of Ichnae, shall assail thee with evil words and rob thee of they bridal, casting thee forth in thy desire from thy wanton dove: thee who, regarding not the tombs of Lycus and Chimaereus, glorious in oracles, nor thy love of Antheus nor the pure salt of Aigaeon eaten by host and guest together, didst dare to sin against the gods and to overstep justice, kicking the table and overturning Themis, modeled in the ways of the she-bear that suckled thee.

[139] Therefore in vain shalt thou twang the noisy bowstring, making melodies that bring nor food nor fee; and in sorrow shalt thou come to thy fatherland that was burnt of old, embracing in thine arms the wraith of the five-times-married frenzied descendant of Pleuron. For the lame daughters of the ancient Sea with triple thread have decreed that her bedfellows shall share their marriage-feast among five bridegrooms.

[147] Two shall she see as ravening wolves, winged wanton eagles of sharp eyes; the third sprung from root of Plynos and Carian waters, a half-Cretan barbarian, a Epeian, no genuine Argive by birth: whose grandfather of old Ennaia Hercynna Erinys Thuria, the Sword-Bearer, cut fleshless with her jaws and buried in her throat, devouring the gristle of his shoulder: his who came to youth again and escaped the grievous raping desire of the Lord of Ships and was sent by Erechtheus to Letrina’s fields to grind the smooth rock of Molpis – whose body was served as sacrifice to Rainy Zeus – that he might overcome the wooer-slayer by the unholy device for slaying his father-in-law which the son of Cadmilus devised; who drinking his last cup dived into his tomb in Nereus – the tomb which bears his name – crying a blighting curse upon the race; even he who held the reins of swift-footed Psylla and Harpinna hoofed even as the Harpies.

[168] The fourth again shall she see own brother of the swooping falcon; him whom they shall proclaim to have won the second prize among his brothers in the wrestling of war. And the fifth she shall cause to pine upon his bed, distracted by her phantom face in his dreams; the husband to be of the stranger-frenzies lady of Cyta; even him whom one day the exile from Oenone fathered, turning into men the six-footed host of ants, – the Pelasgian Typhon, out of seven sons consumed in the flame alone escaping the fiery ashes.

[180] And he shall come upon his homeward path, raising the tawny wasps from their holds, even as a child disturbs their nest with smoke. And they in their turn shall come, sacrificing cruelty to the blustering winds the heifer that bare the war-named son, the mother that was brought to bed of the dragon of Scyrus; for whom her husband shall search within the Salmydesian Sea, where she cuts the throats of Greeks, and shall dwell for a long space in the white-crested rock by the outflowing of the marshy waters of the Celtic stream; yearning for his wife whom at her slaying a hind shall rescue from the knife, offering her own throat instead. And the deep waste within the wash of the waves upon the beach shall be called the Chase of the bridegroom, mourning his ruin and his empty seafaring and her that vanished and was changed to an old witch, beside the sacrificial vessels and the lustral water and the bowl of Hades bubbling from the depths with flame, whereon the dark lady will blow, potting the flesh of the dead as might a cook.

[200] And he lamenting shall pace the Scythian land for some five years yearning for his bride. And they, beside the altar of the primal prophet, Cronus, who devours the callow young with their mother, binding themselves by the yoke of a second oath, shall take in their arms the strong oar, invoking him who saved them in their former woes, even Bacchus, the Overthrower, to whom the bull-god, one day in the shrine beside the cavern of Delphinius the Gainful god, the lord of a thousand ships, a city-sacking host, shall make secret sacrifice. And in unlooked-for requital of his offerings the god of Phigaleia, the lusty Torch-god, shall stay the lion from his banquet, entangling his foot in withes, so that he destroy not utterly the cornfield of men, nor lay it waste with tooth and devouring jaws.

[216] Long since I see the coil of trailing woes dragging in the brine and hissing against my fatherland dread threats and fiery ruin.

[219] Would that in sea-girt Issa Cadmus had never begotten thee to be the guide of the foemen, fourth in descent from unhappy Atlas, even thee, Prylis, who didst help to overthrow thine own kindred, prophet most sure of best fortune! And would that my father had not spurned the nightly terrors of the oracle of Aesacus and that for the sake of my fatherland he had made away with the two in one doom, ashing their bodies with Lemnian fire. So had not such a flood of woes overwhelmed the land.

[229] And now Palaemon, to whom babes are slain, beholds the hoary Titanid bride of Ogenus seething with the corded gulls.

[232] And now two children are slain together with their father who is smitten on the collar-bone with the hard mill-stone, an omen of good beginning; those children which before escaped when cast out to death in an ark through the lying speech of the piper, to whom hearkened the sullen butcher of his children – he the gull-reared, captive of the nets of fishermen, friend of winkle and bandy sea-snail – and imprisoned his two children in a chest. And therewithal the wretch, who was not mindful to tell the bidding of the goddess mother but erred in forgetfulness, shall die upon his face, his breast pierced by the sword.

[243] And now Myrina groans the sea-shores awaiting the snorting of horses, when the fierce wolf shall leap the swift leap of his Pelasgian foot upon the last beach and cause the clear spring to gush from the sand, opening fountains that hitherto were hidden.

[249] And now Ares, the dancer, fires the land, with his conch leading the chant of blood. And all the land lies ravaged before my eyes and, as it were fields of corn, bristle the fields of the gleaming spears. And in my ears seems a voice of lamentation from the tower tops reaching to the windless seats of air, with groaning women and rending of robes, awaiting sorrow upon sorrow.

[258] That woe, O my poor heart, that woe shall wound thee as a crowning sorrow, when the dusky, sworded, bright-eyed eagle shall rage, with his wings marking out the land – the track traced by bandied crooked steps – and, crying with his mouth his dissonant and chilly cry, shall carry aloft the dearest nursling of all thy brothers, dearest to thee and to his sire the Lord of Ptoön, and, bloodying his body with talon and beak, shall stain with gore the land, both swamp and plain, a ploughman cleaving a smooth furrow in the earth. And having slain the bull he takes the price thereof, weighed in the strict balance of the scales. But one day he shall for recompense pour in the scales an equal weight of the far-shining metal of Pactolus, and shall enter the cup of Bacchus, wept by the nymphs who love the clear water of Bephyras and the high seat of Leibethron above Pimpleia; even he, the trafficker in corpses, who, fearing beforehand his doom, shall endure to do upon his body a female robe, handling the noisy shuttle at the loom, and shall be the last to set his foot in the land of the foe, cowering, O brother, even in his sleep before thy spear.

[281] O Fate, what a pillar of our house shalt thou destroy, withdrawing her mainstay from my unhappy fatherland! But not with impunity, not without bitter toil and sorrow shall the pirate Dorian host laugh exulting in the doom of the fallen; but by the sterns running life’s last lap shall they be burnt along with the ships of pine, calling full often to Zeus the Lord of Flight to ward off bitter fate from them who perish. In that day nor trench nor defence of naval station nor stake-terraced palisade nor cornice shall avail nor battlements. But, like bees, confused with smoke and rush of flame and hurling of brands, many a diver shall leap from deck to sternpeak and prowneck and benched seats and stain with blood the alien dust.

[297] And many chieftains, and many that bore away the choicest of the spoils won by Hellas and glories in their birth, shall thy mighty hands destroy, filled full with blood and eager for battle. But not the less sorrow shall I bear, bewailing, yea, all my life long, thy burial. For pitiful, pitiful shall that day be for mine eyes and crown of all my woes that Time, wheeling the moon’s orb, shall be said to bring to pass.

[307] Ay! me, for they fair-fostered flower, too, I groan, O lion whelp, sweet darling of thy kindred, who didst smite with fiery charm of shafts the fierce dragon and seize for a little