Difference between revisions of "Commentary on the Three Charms of Ikkulu"

Latest revision as of 08:28, 6 April 2007

From a Greek tract on the history of poetry, author unknown. Found by Nicephorous in the Library of Constantinople. At the top right margin he has written: "Eorl - you went to Aigai, right? Thought you might want to see this. -N"

    In Alexandria there flourished a kind of allusive poetry that is most akin to a riddle. 
    The apotheosis of this style is the Alexandra by Lycophron of Chlacis. The 
    Alexandra may say:
    
    The centipede lovely-faced
    Stork-colored daughters of
    The bald lady struck
    Maiden-slaying Thetis
    With their blades.
    
    This means, when decoded, that the hundred-oared ships, whose black and white (stork-
    colored) hulls were made from timber from Phalakra ("Bald Mountain," feminine), and given 
    figureheads of women, dipped their oars in the Hellespont, which is the part of the sea 
    (Thetis) where the maiden Helle drowned. In this way, for several thousand lines, the 
    reader must unravel a host of erudite allusions and abstruse terminology to understand 
    even the most banal of stories.
    
    Some say that the Hyperboreans wrote habitually in this fashion, and that Alexander the 
    Great had an anonymous advisor who hailed from these frigid lands, and who brought the 
    style to Greece. Certainly an early example of the style can be found on a monument in 
    Aigai, now lost, containing three riddling epitaphs for great Macedonians, only one of 
    which has been satisfactorily explained. The first is for Heracles, bastard son of 
    Alexander:
    
    In memory of
    Heracles
    The temple-attendant of Alexandrian Suchos
    Far sailing never again our olive,
    For he dwells forever, far from his pillars,
    With the father of Enneadecaeteris.
    
    Here the poet calls Heracles the temple-attendant of Suchos, because the temple 
    attendants of Egyptian gods were known in their native tongue as nothoi [Gk: 
    bastards], and Alexandrian because Heracles was the bastard of Alexander. He is never 
    again our olive because in Latin "our olive" is nos hostos, which the poets elide 
    to nostos [Gk: homecoming], and Heracles will never have a homecoming. He is far 
    from his pillars because divine Heracles set his pillars at the western edge of the 
    world, whereas Dionysus set his up at the eastern, and his namesake lives in the East, 
    the poetic word for which is "Meton"-and Meton of Athens created the 19-year cycle for 
    the calendar known as the Enneadecaeteris.
    
    Similarly runs the epitaph for someone named Kukuth:
    
    In memory of
    Kukuth:
    Born amid the dead,
    Lived among the lost,
    Kin to your killer, your victim, your avenger,
    And me.
    
    Clearly this Kukuth lived in the city of Dyrrachion, known to the ancients as 
    Epidamnus, or epi-damnus, epi- being the prefix for "among" and damnos meaning, in 
    Latin, "the lost." The rest of the poem makes no sense.
    
    The final poem is even more difficult, being not even addressed to any person by name:
    
    In memory of
    The hairless altar:
    Floated in the lake rushes, far past the wilderness,
    Beautiful as the sunshine.
    Killed by Iasa, killed by Tlepolema,
    As Iason killed Pelias, as Tlepolemus killed Licyrnnius.
    Avenged by her sister, risking the wrath of the Furies,
    Fratricide avenged by fratricide.
    Beloved beyond all reason,
    Lovely hairless altar.
    
    The anonymous poet has, in the epitaph of Heracles, proved himself fond of puns in other 
    languages, so some have concluded that any analysis of his other work must be understood 
    through similar methods and so have tried to make sense of the poem by looking at the 
    words in Latin-"hairless altar" is ara mina, "lake rushes" are scirpi 
    lacus, "the wilderness" is rus--but the poem nevertheless is indecipherable, 
    although its references to Iason and Tlepolemus, who both killed kinsmen, as well as the 
    Furies and fratricide, hints at the scandal surrounding the anonymous death.
    
    Now Callimachus wrote in a style ...( etc.).