Читать книгу The Greek Romances of Heliodorus, Longus and Achilles Tatius - Longus - Страница 9

[1] Piracy was not in those times considered dishonorable; but the contrary.—Thucyd. B. i. 4.

[2] Called by Herodotus, B. ii. 17, the Bucolic mouth. "It seems clear that the phrase was derived from the inhabitants of the region, a horde of piratical herdsmen, apparently of different race from the agricultural Egyptians. They haunted the most marshy part of the Delta, where the papyrus reeds effectually masked their retreats."—Blakesley's Herodotus.

[3] ἐπὶ τρίτον ζωστῆρα—to the third wale. The wales are strong planks extending along a ship's side through the whole length at different heights, serving to strengthen the decks and form the curves. A passage in the Cyclops of Euripides may illustrate the above—

γάνυμας δὲ δαιτὸς ἤβης,

σκάφος ὁλκὰς ὥς γεμισθεὶς

ποτὶ σέλμα γαστρὸς ἂκρας.—Cyclops. 503.

[4]

Indum sanguineo veluti violaverat ostro

Si quis ebur.—Æn. xii. 67.

[5] ἤ γέγoνας πολέμου πάρεργον. The expression πολέμου πάρεργον means a by-work; something done by the by.—Thucyd. B. i. 112.

[6] Iliad, B. i. 45.

[7] A full description of the personal appearance of the buccaneers will be found in Achilles Tatius.—B. iii. c. 9.

[8] Ή μὲν ταῦτα ἐπετραγῴδει.

[9] For a further description of the buccaneer stronghold, see Achilles Tatius, B. iv. c. 14.

Perhaps Heliodorus (afterwards a bishop) had derived the materials for his graphic description of their haunts and manners from personal residence among them, as was the case (so Horace Walpole informs us) with Archbishop Blackburne (temp. Geo. II,) who in his younger days is said to have been a buccaneer. In Herod. v. 16, is a curious account of a fishing-town built in the lake Prasias, exactly corresponding with the description of The Pasturage in Heliodorus.

[10] Ἔμπνουν ἄγαλμα.

"And there she stood, so calm and pale

That, but her breathing did not fail,

And motion slight of eye and head,

And of her bosom, warranted

That neither sense nor pulse she lacks,

You might have thought a form of wax,

Wrought to the very life, was there;

But still she was, so pale, so fair."—Marmion, c. xxi

[11] Βουλῆς δὲ τῆς ἅνω. The Council of the 500, who were a kind of Committee of the Ἐκκλησία to prepare measures for that assembly.

[12] Cnemon and his stepmother will recall to the reader's memory Phædra and Hippolytus.

[13] In the Ceramicus, without the city, was an engine, built in the form of a ship, upon which the πέπλος, or robe of Minerva, was hung, in the manner of a sail, and which was put in motion by concealed machinery. It was conveyed to the temple of Ceres Eleusinia, and from thence to the citadel, where it was put upon Minerva's statue, which was laid upon a bed strewed with flowers, and called πλακὶς.

[14] The public hall at Athens, in which the Prytanes for the time being, and some other magistrates, had their meals, and entertained foreign ambassadors.

[15] Literally, "I had him enrolled in his proper ward (φρατρία), in his proper house (γένος), and among those arrived at puberty (ἕφηβοι)," the successive steps to Athenian citizenship.

[16] The Barathrum was a yawning cleft behind the Acropolis, into which criminals were cast.

[17] Hesiod, "Works and Days," 221.

"Justice....

When mortals violate her sacred laws,

When judges hear the bribe and not the cause,

Close by her parent god behold her stand,

And urge the punishment their sins demand."—Lee.

Ammianus Marcellinus says, B. xxix., "Inconnivens justitiæ oculus; arbiter et vindex perpetuus rerum."

Rarò antecedentem scelestum

Descruit pede Pœna claudo.—Hor. Od. iii. II. 31.

[18] Ὄν θυμόν κατέδων. Il. vi. 202.

[19] Δεύτερος ἔσται πλοῦς, we will go on a fresh tack.

[20] Κακή κακῶς.

[21] The succession to the Egyptian priesthood was hereditary.—Vide Herod., ii. 37.

[22] θεωρίαν ἤγομεν. The Athenians made a solemn voyage to Delos every year; the deputation was called θεωρία; the persons employed in it, θεωροὶ; the ship, θεωρὶς. See Robinson's Antiquities of Greece.

[23] This description is very obscure in the original; the meaning seems to be, that the descent to the cavern was effected by lifting up an oblong stone, bearing the appearance of a threshold, but serving as a door. The following is the version of the Italian translator: "L'entrata era stretta e oscura, sottoposta all' entrata d'uno occulto edificio, in guisa che la soglia della prima entrata faceva un' altra porta ad uso di scendere," &c. The poet, Walter Lisle, gives the passage thus:—

"A cave there was, it opened well and shut

With narrow door of stone, that threshold was

T'an upper room. Within, a maze it has

Of sundrie wayes, entangled (like the roots

Of thicke-set trees, amids and all abouts),

That meet in plaine."

And wishing to embellish the picture, he adds—

"With scales of crocodile

The roofe is pav'd, brought hither from the Nile."

[24] See a passage, already referred to, in Achilles Tatius (B. iv. c. 14), containing a spirited picture of pirate warfare.

[25] There is a curious example of this disposition of the barbarians in the conduct of Mithridates, after his defeat by Lucullus. See Ferguson's Rom. Hist. vol. ii. p. 24. He ordered his wives and sisters to destroy themselves, fearful of their falling into the enemy's hands.