Hello Friends,
This one seems simple enough. I hope I got it correct!
JOHANNES TZETZES, 11th century AD
Ἀχ 312. Tzetzes recounts that Leukosia, Ligeia, and Parthenope are the Sirens and daughters of Acheloios and Terpsichore.
Chiliades 1.14.339-341 (ed. Leone)
Λέγουσι ταύτας εἶναι δε κόρας ὀρνιθομόρφους,
τὴν Λευκωσίαν, Λίγειαν μετὰ τῆς Παρθενόπης
τοῦ Ἀχελῴου ποταμοῦ καὶ Τερψιχόρης παῖδας.
Molinari:
They say these are girls in the form of birds,
Leukōsia, Ligeia, along with Parthenopē,
children of the river Achelōos and Tersiphōrē.
Themata: Consorts; Lineage; Parthenope; Sirens
Looks good to me, though your name transcriptions have some typos: Ἀχελῴος is spelled with the ῳ, so you can consider regularizing here to Achelōios. Should be Terpsichorē.
I don’t know much about the political verse, beyond that it’s 15 syllables, but judging by these three lines, the stress accent must be the reason that the δε is enclitic, and I expect that it just means the same thing as δέ. The stress accent seems very regular throughout the line, and seems to be providing the rhythm. But I’d have to read more to figure it out.
Oh, that is great news! And thank you for the note about the names. I haven’t been employing much care with the names currenty, mostly because I really need to sit down and get the best transliterations for all the many variants out there. I anticipate doing that after I have the basic translations but it might make sense to do them as I go.
John (another member) and I are on Chapter 5 of GCSE and it is really helping, I think. Today we are translating stories about Odysseus and Polyphemos!
I was in the library yesterday and out of curiosity looked this up.
I think you should include the next line in the text as it refers to an alternative mother, Melpomene. Perhaps more if you are also interested in the sirens themselves as daughters of Acheloos. (Btw in terms of transliteration your index is going to get unwieldy and less user friendly if you adopt different spellings.)
I wonder what Tzetzes’ sources were?
There is this in Apollonius’ Argonautica Book 4 891-896
νῆα δ᾿ ἐυκραὴς ἄνεμος φέρεν· αἶψα δὲ νῆσον
καλὴν Ἀνθεμόεσσαν ἐσέδρακον, ἔνθα λίγειαι
Σειρῆνες σίνοντ᾿ Ἀχελωίδες ἡδείῃσιν
θέλγουσαι μολπῇσιν, ὅ τις παρὰ πεῖσμα βάλοιτο.
τὰς μὲν ἄρ᾿ εὐειδὴς Ἀχελωίῳ εὐνηθεῖσα
γείνατο Τερψιχόρη, Μουσέων μία· …
(The brisk wind propelled the ship, and soon they spotted the beautiful island of Anthemoessa, where the clear-voiced Sirens, the daughters of Achelous, enchanted anyone who moored there with their sweet songs and destroyed him. Beautiful Terpsichore, one of the Muses, had slept with Achelous and bore them… Loeb text and trans).
In Apollodorus 1.3.4 we have
“Μελπομένης δὲ καὶ Ἀχελῴου Σειρῆνες, περὶ ὧν ἐν τοῖς περὶ Ὀδυσσέως ἐροῦμεν”
(and Melpomene had by Achelous the Sirens, of whom we shall speak in treating of Ulysses.)
Perhaps he just combined these or had other sources?
This could be his major source, though you’ll also want to include the following line, to justify the ὀρνιθομόρφους:
τότε δ’ ἄλλο μὲν οἰωνοῖσιν / ἄλλο δὲ παρθενικῇς ἐναλίγκιαι ἔσκον ἰδέσθαι
However, Tzetzes (along with his brother Isaac) published a commentary on Lycophron that seems to have all of this information and quite a bit more, indicating a few sources beyond Apollodorus
https://archive.org/details/lycophronisalexa02lycouoft/page/216/mode/2up
See page 217 here in Scheer’s Lycophronis Alexandra, all of 653. Notice especially the story of the muses (except Terpsichore) being portrayed crowned with the Sirens’ feathers. That contest is referred to by Pausanias (though not with the Terpsichore tidbit) and in many depictions, including this sarcophagus at the MET that I was lucky enough to get to see a little while back:
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/248205
The scholium a few pages later makes a note that multiple authors “τινές φασι”, describe the Sirens as descended from the Muse and the River. I notice there that Acheloios is called ὁ γλυκύτατος τῶν ἁπάντων ποταμῶν. Also ὅτι τὸ ὕδωρ αὐτοῦ ἐν τοῖς τραύμασι καὶ ταῖς ὀδύναις ὠφέλιμόν ἐστιν. Ἀχελῷος οὖν ὁ τὰ ἄχη λύων καὶ θεραπεύων καλῶς. [@njmolinari may wish to note this, though I expect that it’s already in his list.]
Terpsichore is indeed first mentioned by Apollonius. Melpomene is first mentioned by Hyginus, Fabulae Th. 30=pr.30.1 (ed. Rose). I will certainly include the next line–thank you for pointing it out.
Here is line 342:
Ἄλλοι τῆς Μελπομένης δε καὶ κλήσεις τούτων ἄλλας.
I will attempt to translate this soon, though I certainly welcome assistance.
Joel, I do have it: My no. 444. Scholia in Lycophronem (scholia vetera et recentiora partim Isaac et Joannis Tzetzae) 671.1bis-
13 (ed. Sheer).
I will try this one as my next translation in a new thread. It may be a bit. I’m having a lot of trouble with third declension–not reading, but English to Greek composition, where I invariably screw up the articles. I plan to focus on that this weekend, then personal pronouns and adjectives, which appear to be very straightfoward.