Overview
Title: The Queen’s Speech: Callimachus’s Pieria, Aphrodite, and the Political Power of Hellenistic Queens
Author: Brett Evans (Georgetown University) — bce3@georgetown.edu
Date: November 26th, 2021
What this page contains: A concise overview and summary with links to the original files, followed by verbatim transcriptions of both the lecture script and the session handout; where translation and original Greek appear together, the translation comes first and the Greek follows in italics, item-by-item.
Summary:
This session examines Callimachus’s fragment about Pieria in the Aetia as a crafted “shadow” for Berenice II’s political agency. By staging Aphrodite-enabled persuasion within a royal bedroom scene, the poem translates erotic charis into civic power—specifically, a durable peace between Miletus and Myus. Through dense allusions to archaic epic and hymnic passages (Aphrodite’s kestos, Odysseus’s oratory, Nestor’s counsel, Hesiodic kingship), Callimachus positions Pieria as more efficacious than the canonical male speakers and oath rituals. The lecture argues that this literary shadow would have mapped onto contemporary Ptolemaic queenly ideology, making Berenice’s influence legible and legitimate to court audiences.
Lecture (verbatim transcription from the session)
The Queen’s Speech: Callimachus’s Pieria, Aphrodite, and the Political Power of Hellenistic Queens
I’d like to start with a definition of power Sheila Ager offered us from the consummate courtier of Game of Thrones, Lord Varys:
“Power resides where men believe it resides. It’s a trick, a shadow on the wall. And a very small man can cast a very large shadow.”
This is a useful definition for our study of Hellenistic royal women for two reasons: these women’s power, whatever it was, was neither formally stipulated nor unchangeable; moreover, these women were highly inaccessible to the vast majority of people. In a very real sense these women were who people believed them to be, and that could be anything. But what is the value of a shadow to the woman who casts it? How could a shadow be converted into more tangible forms of political and social capital?
In this paper I will examine a fascinating shadow of a woman’s extraordinary sexual and political power fashioned by the Ptolemaic court poet Callimachus for queen Berenice the Second. This shadow is the portrait of a lady from the Archaic past, named Pieria, who unified two cities in Ionia long at war by sleeping with the king. Only a fragment of Callimachus’s poem remains, but we can reconstruct the story in broad outline thanks to three later sources. The most valuable is a letter by the little-known Byzantine writer, Aristaenetus. Where Callimachus is extant, Aristaenetus follows it extremely closely in diction and style, making him our most valuable source for reconstructing Callimachus’s story. We cannot, however, trust Aristaenetus too much where Callimachus is absent, for he does have a demonstrated tendency to expand on some details. The other two witnesses to the story, Plutarch and Polyaenus, are considered less valuable for discerning what Callimachus wrote: for instance, both authors give Pieria a noble parentage and omit sex from the narrative. These divergences from Aristaenetus’s version seem owed more to the moralizing purpose of a Plutarch than to Callimachus.
Now the story goes as follows: the kindred cities of Miletus and Myus in Ionia had long been in conflict, with only temporary truces for festivals. One year Aphrodite granted special beauty to Pieria of Myus, who then went to celebrate the festival of Artemis in Miletus. There the king of Miletus, named Phrygius, saw Pieria, desired her, and the two immediately went to bed. After making love, Phrygius promised to give Pieria whatever she wanted. Here the fragment begins. Instead of asking for fancy gifts, Pieria blushed with shame, looked away, and asked that she be allowed to return with more people of Myus. Phrygius understood her request as one for peace. Callimachus then tells us that Pieria forged a peace more trustworthy than one accompanied by sacrifices, proving that Aphrodite makes speakers more powerful than Nestor.
Now, the Pieria elegy belongs to the Aetia’s second half, which begins and ends with poems addressed to Berenice the Second. Recently Dee Clayman has observed that Pieria’s unification of Myus and Miletus strikingly resembles Berenice’s life. Berenice, who was princess of Cyrene, married her cousin Ptolemy the Third in 246 B.C., following, according to Justin, her dead father Magas’s wishes. By marring Ptolemy Berenice brought the decades-long political estrangement of Cyrene from Alexandria to a close, adding the Cyrenaica to the Ptolemaic empire as if her dowry. Pieria’s story within the Aetia effects a mise-en-abyme, making Pieria legible as an analogy for Berenice, or in Lord Varys’s terms a shadow. The question follows, then: what kinds of power does Pieria possess, and how does Callimachus make her power legible to his audiences? I argue that Callimachus consistently alludes to purple passages about kingship in Archaic epic in order to present Pieria as a queen more powerful in the king’s bedroom than those men ever were.
Archaic though it was, Callimachus’s story about a woman made persuasive by Aphrodite and getting what she wanted by sleeping with a king would have felt remarkably contemporary to his audiences. Starting in the late fourth century, both kings’ wives and courtesans received cult as Aphrodite. Elizabeth Carney has argued that these women’s identification with Aphrodite expressed their shared power of “erotic persuasion” over divine kings. In Archaic poetry Aphrodite is proverbially deceptive: Homer describes her famous girdle, the kestos himas, in Iliad 14 – handout 2 – as having in it “love, desire, sweet talk, and persuasion which cheats the minds even of clever men.” Hellenistic kings’ courtesans were regularly associated with such deception: in September, for instance, Alex McAuley drew our attention to Polybius’s portrait of Apollonis, wife of Attalus the First (handout 3); he praises her “not exhibiting a hetaera’s persuasiveness, although she was a commoner”. Persuasion is the courtesan’s art; yet many queens themselves were accused of this very same use of influence.
What we witness, then, at the Hellenistic courts is a taming of Aphrodite when associated with the queen. Kathryn Gutzwiller has examined this phenomenon well in Ptolemaic court poetry, in which the queenly Aphrodite is not the goddess of destructive desire, but of harmonious marriage and the production of legitimate children. Last month Sheila Ager mentioned a key text in royal Aphrodite’s domestication, Theocritus’s praise of Berenice the First, handout 4: in lines 51-2 you see that the loves she gives are gentle, and her cares or longing are easy to bear. But what happened to Aphrodite’s cheating words? Most poetry about queens as Aphrodite ignores the goddess’s faculties of speech. Callimachus, however, recuperates this most dangerous power. As we shall see, his Pieria seems to be as deceptive as Aphrodite ever was, but in the service of her country, peace, and the public good.
When the fragment begins, Phrygius and Pieria have already slept together. In the first tattered lines Phrygius asks Pieria to tell him what she wants from him in return. This moment is crucial for understanding Pieria’s power. Their sexual relationship is figured as a gift-exchange, in which Pieria has given the king divine pleasure, charis; her gift obliges Phrygius to offer her a counter-gift of commensurate value; and so great is Aphrodite’s charm that he can only offer whatever she wants: a blank checks. Pieria’s power is thus bargaining power. What is more, she knows how to use it. After listing in lines 5-8 the gifts she could have asked for, Callimachus says in line 9: “these things did not cast you from your clever plan (πυκινοῦ γνώματος).” Shrewd Pieria is an expert in working the royal economy of favors in her favor.
Pieria’s sexual exchange raises a crucial question about her status: are we to regard her as Phrygius’s bride, or as a courtesan on a one night stand? Scholars have noted that the gifts Pieria rejects in lines 5-8 – a headband, earrings, cloths, and slave women, are especially appropriate for a bride; yet I would add that all of them are attested as gifts for hetaerae as well. What kind of woman is Pieria? I would suggest that Callimachus may be fostering an intentional ambiguity here. In fact, such uncertainty about the woman’s status is central to Aphrodite’s canonical seduction of the mortal Anchises in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, handout 5. There Aphrodite disguises herself as a marriageable virgin so that the mortal Anchises will not fear sleeping with her; she tells him she has been taken away to him from a festival of Artemis. So too Phrygius took Pieria, blessed by Aphrodite, from a festival of Artemis. Is Pieria a bride or a courtesan?
Pieria’s rejection of these gifts, I argue, serves to clarify her status. In Callimachus’s day, anecdotes about pillow talk between kings and courtesans circulated widely. Many revolved around a courtesan’s witty extraction of gifts. Consider for example in handout 6 a poem by Callimachus’s contemporary Machon which narrates a conversation between Demetrius Poliorcetes and the hetaera Mania, who agrees to give him her ass in exchange for a royal estate. Callimachus’s catalogue of the gifts that Pieria implicitly rejects serves, I argue, to differentiate herself from a selfish hetaera looking to enrich herself.
As it turns out, Pieria already possesses an adornment far more precious. In line 9 Pieria blushes with aidos, “shame,” and Callimachus compares her aidos to purple dye. Peter Bing has recently observed that Pieria’s purple blush, following as it does the catalogue of fineries, is figured as a luxury itself, one indicating her noble character. More specifically I would argue that it represents her royal character. Purple, like gold, was a status symbol prized by the Hellenistic royalty; and the . Callimachus thus identifies Pieria’s shame as a royal virtue. Shame, moreover, was expected of brides, and lacking in courtesans. Pieria’s blush seems further to distinguish her from a hetaera and paint her a royal bride.
Next, in lines 11 Pieria looks away, then utters a brief request in lines 12-13 that she be able to return with more people. In line 14, we learn that Phrygius (quote) understood your intention”. Lacunose though the text is, it seems that Pieria has veiled her request for peace so that it seem something small; Phrygius, though, understands it for what it is. A key detail from Pieria’s speech seems to support this inference: Pieria averts her gaze. Pieria’s demurring speech recalls the famous oratorical performance of Odysseus described by Helen in the third book of the Iliad 3, handout 8. Odysseus was sent on an embassy to Troy to seek Helen’s return and secure peace. He fixed his eyes on the ground and didn’t move his staff so that you’d think he was rancorous and ignorant; but when he spoke, it was like a winter storm. Pieria similarly seems to trick Phrygius into thinking her inexperienced. Yet she is; and where Odysseus failed to secure Helen’s return and peace, Pieria has given herself and succeeds in ending war.
The agency and authority Callimachus ascribes to Pieria is astounding. In line 19, Callimachus writes, “But you at that time made a peace treaty more trustworthy than sacrifices of bulls”. The pronoun su most likely refers to Pieria, since Callimachus has hitherto addressed her in the second person. Pieria, then, not the king, makes the peace; and it is a peace more binding than one accompanied by sacrifice. Callimachus here alludes to the most solemn oath formula in Homeric epic, ὅρκια πιστὰ τέμνειν, which literally means “to cut oaths that are trustworthy”, an extremely formal and binding procedure. Needless to say no women swear such oaths in Homer, and, what is more, no literary or epigraphic evidence attests to women swearing oaths with blood sacrifice at all. Through her sexual gift of self, Pieria effected a treaty more formal and binding than any Homeric king ever did.
In lines 20-21 Callimachus offers Pieria’s peace as evidence that Aphrodite makes speakers far better than the famous Pylian, i.e. Nestor. The irony here is thick: Nestor was famed for his long speeches and prudent advice; but for all that he failed in Iliad 1 to reconcile Achilles and Agamemnon. Pieria, by contrast, makes peace between two cities in few words. The joke, of course, is that Aphrodite barely needs words to get her way. The irony thickens when we consider the word Callimachus uses in line 20 “speaker”, ῥητήρ. This is not an inert synonym for ῥήτωρ. The occurs once in Homer in one of the Iliad’s most famous passages, the Embassy to Achilles, handout 9. Here Achilles’ old teacher Phoenix reminds him of the education he gave him, to be a “speaker of words and a doer of deeds.” Callimachus’s use of this Homeric hapax legomenon underscores the translation of power from the all-male, outdoor agora to the royal bedroom where women can be speakers more powerful than Odysseus, Nestor, and even Achilles.
Having reached the fragment’s conclusion we can appreciate the full significance of Pieria’s name. It alludes, of course, to the Pierian mountains where the Muses lived, and Peter Bing and Regina Höschele have noted the name’s suitability to such a persuasive woman. Yet the reference is still more specific, I would argueHesiod’s praise of the Muses’ patronage of kings. At the beginning of the Theogony, handout 10, we learn that the kings the Muses look upon at birth enjoy their gift of sweet word, and with these they are able to calm the people and assuage even a great feud (mega neikos) wisely. Pieria is Phrygius’s Muse of peace, but with a crucial change of means. Pieria’s honeyed words have been facilitated by Aphrodite’s charms. For Callimachus’s audience, Pieria’s conflation of Aphrodite and the Muses would have recalled no woman more than the Ptolemaic queen herself. The deceased Arsinoe the Second was worshipped as Aphrodite and also the tenth Muse; and now Berenice the Second, her dynastic daughter, was identified by Callimachus as the fourth of the Charites, the Graces. Thus Pieria’s sexual power over the king becomes the means by which her sweet speech effects political change.
Berenice’s marriage to Ptolemy the Third brought about a major political realignment by bringing Cyrene into the Ptolemaic fold. I hope to have shown how Callimachus imbues Pieria with royal powers through allusions to famous passages about kingship. How, in conclusion, might this elegy, as a shadow, generated more embodied forms of power for Berenice? It is tricky business moving from fictional to historical women, of course; but I might suggest that Callimachus himself helps us to bridge the gap through a striking narrative device which I have not yet discussed. This is his direct address to Pieria. By speaking to Pieria as if she is immediately present, Callimachus suggests her divinity, Aphrodite’s avatar as she is. But his address to her also suggests that she is a woman one can speak to: she is in this way fashioned as a divine and royal patron. Indeed, Callimachus hints at Pieria’s patronage in her request for peace. She asks to be able to return to Miletus with more people of Myus. Does this not allude to a future entourage of her own philoi, much like a Hellenistic queen? Callimachus makes Pieria a most enviable patroness to have: Through her gift of Aphrodite’s grace to the king, she gets whatever she wants; if only one were her philos, one could, it seems, have the world. And so Berenice might have cashed in on Pieria’s shadow: where belief in power goes, there new philoi follow. Thank you.
Handout (verbatim transcription from the linked PDF)
The Queen’s Speech: Callimachus’s Pieria, Aphrodite, and the Political Power of Hellenistic Queens
Sources for Pieria’s unification of Miletus and Myus
- Callimachus, fr. 80–83 Harder (III B.C.E.)
- Aristaenetus, Epistulae 1.15 (VI C.E.)
Summary of Aristaenetus
Miletus and Myus long hostile (lit. “unmixed”) except for brief truces. Aphrodite takes pity; she and Graces adorn the already-beautiful Pieria of Myus. Pieria attends Artemis festival in Miletus; Phrygius, the king of Miletus sees her, desires her, takes her to bed. After making love Phrygius asks her to tell him what she wishes from him in return. Aristaenetus, like Callimachus, now addresses Pieria directly: Pieria rejects thought of jewelry, clothes, slaves – gifts women want. Pieria blushes purple with shame, looks at ground. Pieria asks to be able to return with her kinsmen without fear. Phrygius understands her intention to ask for peace. The peace they make is stronger than one sworn with sacrifices; Pieria offers proof that Aphrodite makes orators who are more powerful than Nestor. Story is aetion for popular saying of Milesian women: “I wish that my husband would honor me, his wife, as much as Phrygius honored beautiful Pieria.”
- Plutarch, Mulierum Virtutes 16 = Mor. 253f–254b (I/II C.E.)
- Polyaenus, Strategems 8.35 (II C.E.)
(Both Plutarch and Polyaenus add noble parentage for Pieria, omit sex.)
1. Callimachus fr. 80 Harder (= 80+82 Pf.), “Phrygius and Pieria”
Translation
…cloud… For whether … to say this … from me…
(5) So he spoke. But neither a pyleon (headband) nor kalykes (earrings?), nor Lydian cloth … [nor] Carian slave-women — the things in which you women especially delight — these did not cast you from your clever plan.
(10) But having blushed in the cheeks with shame — as if with purple dye — you spoke, with eyes turned away: “I would long to return … [with] more ….” He perceived your intention …
(15) … desiring [peace?] for your fatherland … Myus and those living in Miletus … to [go] to the [temple] only of Neleid Artemis … but at that time you made a peace treaty more trustworthy than sacrifices of oxen,
(20) having shown that even Cypris makes speakers far more powerful than the famous Pylian (i.e., Nestor). For many embassies went from each town [and returned] without accomplishment. …
Original (Greek)
ἂν νέφος αν[
εἴτε γὰρ οὐκατ[
τοῦτ' εἰπεῖν[ ] [
ἐ]ξ̣ ἐμέθεν τε[ ]ντα.’
5 ἦ] ῥα· σὲ δ' οὐ πυλ̣⸤εών οὐ κά]λ̣υ̣κες,
Λ]ύδιον οὐ κα[ίρωμα ]ι̣ Κάειρ[α]ι
λάτριες, οὐκαγ̣[. .].ι̣κο̣[ ]ς,
τ]οῖς ἔπι θηλύτ̣[ερ]αι.[ ] ἰαίνεσθε
ἔξαιτον, πυκι[νοῦ γ]νώματος ἐξ[έ]βαλ[ο]ν̣·
10 αἰδοῖ δ' ὡς φοί̣[νικι] τ̣εὰς ἐρύθουσα παρειάς
ἔνν]επες ὀ̣φ̣[θαλμο]ῖ̣ς ἔμπαλι . [. . .]ομέν[.]ι[
]. .[ ]ε̣ χρήζοιμι [νέ]εσθαι
]. .[. μετὰ πλ]εόνων.’
].ε, νόον δ' ἐφ[ρ]ά̣σ̣σατο σ̣εῖο
15 ]πατρίδι μαιομένης
]Μ̣υ[όε]ντα̣ καὶ οἳ Μίλητον ἔναι[ον
]η̣· μούν[ης νηὸν ἐς] Ἀρτέμιδος
π]ωλε̣[ῖσθαι Νη]λ̣ηΐδο[ς, ἀλ]λὰ σὺ τῆμος
βουκτ]α̣σ̣[ι]ῶ̣ν ἀρ[τὺν πιστο]τ̣έρην ἔταμες,
20 ἔνδει]ξας̣ καὶ Κύπ[ρι]ν ὅτι ῥη̣[τ]ῆρα̣ς ἐκείνου
τ]ε̣ύχει τοῦ Πυλί[ου κρ]έσσονας ο̣ὐ̣κ ὀλίγον.
ἐ]ξ̣εσίαι πολέε̣[ς γὰρ ἀπ' ἀμφοτέροιο μο]λ̣οῦσαι
ἄστ]ε̣ος ἀπ̣ρήκτ̣[ους οἴκαδ' ἀνῆλθον ὁδούς.
].σθ[.]θε.[
2. Iliad 14.214–221 — Aphrodite’s famous kestos himas
Translation
So she (Aphrodite) spoke, and she loosed her embroidered, dappled girdle, and there all her charms were fashioned: in it was love, desire, sweet talk, persuasion which cheats the mind even of clever men. She put it in her (Hera’s) hands, and spoke and addressed her: “Place this dappled girdle on your breast, in which everything is fashioned; and I declare that you will not go without accomplishment, in whatever you desire in your mind.”
Original (Greek)
ἦ, καὶ ἀπὸ στήθεσφιν ἐλύσατο κεστὸν ἱμάντα
ποικίλον, ἔνθα δέ οἱ θελκτήρια πάντα τέτυκτο:
ἔνθ᾽ ἔνι μὲν φιλότης, ἐν δ᾽ ἵμερος, ἐν δ᾽ ὀαριστὺς
πάρφασις, ἥ τ᾽ ἔκλεψε νόον πύκα περ φρονεόντων.
τόν ῥά οἱ ἔμβαλε χερσὶν ἔπος τ᾽ ἔφατ᾽ ἔκ τ᾽ ὀνόμαζε:
τῆ νῦν τοῦτον ἱμάντα τεῷ ἐγκάτθεο κόλπῳ
ποικίλον, ᾧ ἔνι πάντα τετεύχαται: οὐδέ σέ φημι
ἄπρηκτόν γε νέεσθαι, ὅ τι φρεσὶ σῇσι μενοινᾷς.
3. Polybius 22.20 — Apollonis (wife of Attalus I)
Translation
That Apollonis, the wife of Attalus, the father of Eumenes the king, was a Cyzican, and a woman worthy of memory and commendation for many reasons. For since she had become a basilissa although she was a commoner, and she preserved this supremacy until her death, not exhibiting a courtesan’s persuasiveness, but a prudent and ordinary dignity and goodness, it is right that she obtain a favorable memory, and because after she had given birth to four sons she preserved her goodwill and affection towards them all until the end of her life, although she outlived her husband by far.
Original (Greek)
ὅτι Ἀπολλωνίς, ἡ Ἀττάλου τοῦ πατρὸς Εὐμένους τοῦ βασιλέως γαμετή, Κυζικηνὴ ἦν, γυνὴ διὰ πλείους αἰτίας ἀξία μνήμης καὶ παρασημασίας. [2] καὶ γὰρ ὅτι δημότις ὑπάρχουσα βασίλισσα ἐγεγόνει καὶ ταύτην διεφύλαξε τὴν ὑπεροχὴν μέχρι τῆς τελευταίας, οὐχ ἑταιρικὴν προσφερομένη πιθανότητα, σωφρονικὴν δὲ καὶ πολιτικὴν σεμνότητα καὶ καλοκαγαθίαν, δικαία τυγχάνειν τῆς ἐπ᾽ ἀγαθῷ μνήμης ἐστίν, [3] καὶ καθότι τέτταρας υἱοὺς γεννήσασα πρὸς πάντας τούτους ἀνυπέρβλητον διεφύλαξε τὴν εὔνοιαν καὶ φιλοστοργίαν μέχρι τῆς τοῦ βίου καταστροφῆς, καίτοι χρόνον οὐκ ὀλίγον ὑπερβιώσασα τἀνδρός.
4. Theocritus, Idyll 17.34–52 — Berenice I (wife of Ptolemy I)
Translation
And such a great woman, the well-renowned Berenice, was superior among prudent women and was a great boon to the children she bore. The divine queen who holds Cyprus, daughter of Dione, impressed her slender hands upon Berenice’s perfumed breast. For this reason they say that no woman ever pleased a man so much as Ptolemy took pleasure in his wife. He was loved much more in return! For having rejoiced so in their children he bequeathed his house entire to them, whenever enamored he would step into the bed of a loving wife. But the mind of a heartless woman is always upon another man, childbirths come easily, and the children are not like the father. Queen Aphrodite, best among the goddesses in beauty, you cared for that woman (Berenice); it is owed to you that the beautiful Berenice did not cross the much-lamented Acheron, but you seized her before she went down to the black ship and ever hateful ferryman of the dead, and you set her up in your temple and gave her a share of your honors. She (Berenice-Aphrodite) breathes gentle loves upon all mortals, and she gives light cares to the one who is yearning.
Original (Greek)
οἵα δ᾽ ἐν πινυταῖσι περικλειτὰ Βερενίκα
ἔπρεπε θηλυτέραις, ὄφελος μέγα γειναμένοισι. 35
τᾷ μὲν Κύπρον ἔχοισα Διώνας πότνια κούρα
κόλπον ἐς εὐώδη ῥαδινὰς ἐσεμάξατο χεῖρας.
τῷ οὔπω τινὰ φαντὶ ἁδεῖν τόσον ἀνδρὶ γυναικῶν,
ὅσσόν περ Πτολεμαῖος ἑὴν ἐφίλησεν ἄκοιτιν.
ἦ μὰν ἀντεφιλεῖτο πολὺ πλέον: ὧδέ κε παισὶ 40
θαρσήσας σφετέροισιν ἐπιτρέποι οἶκον ἅπαντα,
ὁππότε κεν φιλέων βαίνῃ λέχος ἐς φιλεούσης.
ἀστόργου δὲ γυναικὸς ἐπ᾽ ἀλλοτρίῳ νόος αἰεί,
ῥηίδιοι δὲ γοναί, τέκνα δ᾽ οὐ ποτεοικότα πατρί.
κάλλει ἀριστεύουσα θεάων πότν᾽ ᾿Αφροδίτα, 45
σοὶ τήνα μεμέλητο: σέθεν δ᾽ ἕνεκεν Βερενίκα
εὐειδὴς ᾿Αχέροντα πολύστονον οὐκ ἐπέρασεν,
ἀλλά μιν ἁρπάξασα, πάροιθ᾽ ἐπὶ νῆα κατελθεῖν
κυανέαν καὶ στυγνὸν ἀεὶ πορθμῆα καμόντων,
ἐς ναὸν κατέθηκας, ἑᾶς δ᾽ ἀπεδάσσαο τιμᾶς. 50
πᾶσιν δ᾽ ἤπιος ἥδε βροτοῖς μαλακοὺς μὲν ἔρωτας
προσπνείει, κούφας δὲ διδοῖ ποθέοντι μερίμνας.
5. Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 80–82, 108–110, 117–120 — “Like a virgin”: Aphrodite’s deception of Anchises
Translation
And Aphrodite, the daughter of Zeus, stood before him, similar in size and appearance to an unwed virgin, so that he (Anchises) would not recognize her with his eyes and grow afraid. … “Anchises, most glorious of earth-born men, I am no goddess, I tell you. Why do you liken me to the immortals? I am mortal, and a mother gave me birth. … Just now the slayer of Argus of the golden wand (Hermes) seized me up from the chorus of loud-voiced Artemis of golden arrows. And we many nymphs and virgins who bring in oxen were playing, and a boundless company encircled us.”
Original (Greek)
στῆ δ᾽ αὐτοῦ προπάροιθε Διὸς θυγάτηρ Ἀφροδίτη
παρθένῳ ἀδμήτῃ μέγεθος καὶ εἶδος ὁμοίη,
μή μιν ταρβήσειεν ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖσι νοήσας.
…
Ἀγχίση, κύδιστε χαμαιγενέων ἀνθρώπων,
οὔ τίς τοι θεός εἰμι: τί μ᾽ ἀθανάτῃσιν ἐίσκεις;
ἀλλὰ καταθνητή τε, γυνὴ δέ με γείνατο μήτηρ.
…
νῦν δέ μ᾽ ἀνήρπαξε χρυσόρραπις Ἀργειφόντης
ἐκ χοροῦ Ἀρτέμιδος χρυσηλακάτου, κελαδεινῆς.
πολλαὶ δὲ νύμφαι καὶ παρθένοι ἀλφεσίβοιαι
παίζομεν, ἀμφὶ δ᾽ ὅμιλος ἀπείριτος ἐστεφάνωτο.
6. Machon, Chreiai 226–30 Gow = Athen. 13.579a — Demetrius Poliorcetes and Mania
Translation
They say that once, when Mania was asked for her ass by king Demetrius, she demanded from him, too, a royal estate in return; and when he gave it, she turned around right away and said, “Son of Agamemnon, now those things are possible for you.” (Mania quotes Orestes’ paidagogos): “Son of Agamemnon, who long ago warred in Troy, now those things are possible for you to see that you are here, those which you were long eager. For you desired this ancient land of Argos …”
Original (Greek)
αἰτουμένην λέγουσι τὴν πυγήν ποτέ
ὑπό τοῦ βασιλέως Μανίαν Δημητρίου
ἀνταξιώσαι δωρεὰν καὐτόν τινα,
δόντος δ’ ἐπιστρέψασα μετὰ μικρὸν λέγει,
“Ἀγαμέμνονος παῖ, νῦν ἐκεῖν᾽ ἔξεστί σοι.”
(cf. Sophocles Electra 1–4)
ὦ τοῦ στρατηγήσαντος ἐν Τροίᾳ ποτὲ
Ἀγαμέμνονος παῖ, νῦν ἐκεῖν᾽ ἔξεστί σοι
παρόντι λεύσσειν, ὧν πρόθυμος ἤσθ᾽ ἀεί.
τὸ γὰρ παλαιὸν Ἄργος οὑποθεὶς τόδε…
7. Iliad 4.141–147 — Menelaus’s purple wound
Translation
As when a Maeonian or Carian woman dyes ivory with purple to be a cheekpiece for horses, and it is laid up in the inner room, and many horsemen pray to bear it, but it is laid up as a splendid object for a king, both an adornment for the horse and glory for the rider: such, Menelaus, were your muscular thighs stained with blood, and your legs, and your fine ankles below.
Original (Greek)
ὡς δ᾽ ὅτε τίς τ᾽ ἐλέφαντα γυνὴ φοίνικι μιήνῃ
Μῃονὶς ἠὲ Κάειρα παρήϊον ἔμμεναι ἵππων:
κεῖται δ᾽ ἐν θαλάμῳ, πολέες τέ μιν ἠρήσαντο
ἱππῆες φορέειν: βασιλῆϊ δὲ κεῖται ἄγαλμα,
ἀμφότερον κόσμός θ᾽ ἵππῳ ἐλατῆρί τε κῦδος:
τοῖοί τοι Μενέλαε μιάνθην αἵματι μηροὶ
εὐφυέες κνῆμαί τε ἰδὲ σφυρὰ κάλ᾽ ὑπένερθε.
8. Iliad 3.216–224 — Odysseus’s embassy speech before the Trojans
Translation
But whenever cunning Odysseus rose, he would stand and look down with his eyes fixed on the ground, and would move his staff neither backwards nor forwards, but would hold it motionless, very like a fool: you would claim that he was rancorous and merely senseless. But when he would cast his great voice and words alike to wintry snow from his chest, then no other man could vie with Odysseus; not so did we marvel then, having seen Odysseus’s aspect.
Original (Greek)
ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δὴ πολύμητις ἀναΐξειεν Ὀδυσσεὺς
στάσκεν, ὑπαὶ δὲ ἴδεσκε κατὰ χθονὸς ὄμματα πήξας,
σκῆπτρον δ᾽ οὔτ᾽ ὀπίσω οὔτε προπρηνὲς ἐνώμα,
ἀλλ᾽ ἀστεμφὲς ἔχεσκεν ἀΐδρεϊ φωτὶ ἐοικώς:
φαίης κε ζάκοτόν τέ τιν᾽ ἔμμεναι ἄφρονά τ᾽ αὔτως.
ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δὴ ὄπα τε μεγάλην ἐκ στήθεος εἵη
καὶ ἔπεα νιφάδεσσιν ἐοικότα χειμερίῃσιν,
οὐκ ἂν ἔπειτ᾽ Ὀδυσῆΐ γ᾽ ἐρίσσειε βροτὸς ἄλλος:
οὐ τότε γ᾽ ὧδ᾽ Ὀδυσῆος ἀγασσάμεθ᾽ εἶδος ἰδόντες.
9. Iliad 9.437–443 — Phoenix’s educational ideal
Translation
How then, dear child, could I be left apart from you, alone? The old man Peleus, driver of horses, sent me to you on that day when he was sending you from Phthia to Agamemnon, a little boy ignorant of grievous war and assemblies, too, where men earn distinction. For this reason he sent me to teach you all these things, to be a speaker (rhētēr) of words and a doer of deeds.
Original (Greek)
πῶς ἂν ἔπειτ᾽ ἀπὸ σεῖο φίλον τέκος αὖθι λιποίμην
οἶος; σοὶ δέ μ᾽ ἔπεμπε γέρων ἱππηλάτα Πηλεὺς
ἤματι τῷ ὅτε σ᾽ ἐκ Φθίης Ἀγαμέμνονι πέμπε
νήπιον οὔ πω εἰδόθ᾽ ὁμοιΐου πολέμοιο.
οὐδ᾽ ἀγορέων, ἵνα τ᾽ ἄνδρες ἀριπρεπέες τελέθουσι.
τοὔνεκά με προέηκε διδασκέμεναι τάδε πάντα,
μύθων τε ῥητῆρ᾽ ἔμεναι πρηκτῆρά τε ἔργων.
10. Hesiod, Theogony 81–90 — Muses’ patronage of kings
Translation
Whomever of the Zeus-nourished kings the daughters of great Zeus (i.e., the Muses) honor and look upon as he is born, upon his tongue they pour sweet dew, and from his mouth flow gentle words; and all the peoples watch him judge lawsuits with straight verdicts. For this reason he would, by speaking unerringly, swiftly put an end to even a great feud (neikos) wisely. And that’s why kings possess wisdom: because they easily put a stop to deeds that are doing people harm when they are being misled in the assembly, by persuading them with gentle words.
Original (Greek)
ὅν τινα τιμήσωσι Διὸς κοῦραι μεγάλοιο
γεινόμενόν τε ἴδωσι διοτρεφέων βασιλήων,
τῷ μὲν ἐπὶ γλώσσῃ γλυκερὴν χείουσιν ἐέρσην,
τοῦ δ᾽ ἔπε᾽ ἐκ στόματος ῥεῖ μείλιχα: οἱ δέ τε λαοὶ
πάντες ἐς αὐτὸν ὁρῶσι διακρίνοντα θέμιστας
ἰθείῃσι δίκῃσιν: ὃ δ᾽ ἀσφαλέως ἀγορεύων
αἶψά κε καὶ μέγα νεῖκος ἐπισταμένως κατέπαυσεν:
τοὔνεκα γὰρ βασιλῆες ἐχέφρονες, οὕνεκα λαοῖς
βλαπτομένοις ἀγορῆφι μετάτροπα ἔργα τελεῦσι
ῥηιδίως, μαλακοῖσι παραιφάμενοι ἐπέεσσιν.
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