Over my head with Ibycus frag. 5

Greek Learning Greek
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I’m sure I’m trying something way beyond my ability here, but hey…

I’ve been having fun lately reading through Pausanius in English translation (Penguin Classics) and when I found something he said about Ibycus, I looked the guy up in my Oxford Classical Dictionary (2nd ed.) and the article said a couple of the fragments of his’ poetry were about love and nature and were supposed to be quite beautiful. So I thought I’d give one of them a try at translating. I dug up the folllowing in Page’s Poetae Melici Graeci:

ἦρι μὲν αἵ τε Κυδώνιαι
μηλίδες ἀρδόμεναι ῥοᾶν
ἐκ μοταμῶν, ἵνα Παρθένων
κῆπος ἀκήρατος, αἵ τ’ οἰνανθίδες
αὐχόμεναι σκιεροῖσιν ὑφ’ ἕρνεσιν
οἰναρέοις θαλέθοισιν· ἐμοί δ’ ἔρος
οὐδεμίαν κατάκοιτος ὥραν.
τε ὐπὸ στερομᾶς φλέγων
Θρηίκιος Βορέας
ἀίσσων παρὰ Κύπριδος ἀζαλέαις
μανίαισιν ἐρεμνὸς ἀθαμβὴς
ἐγκρατέως πεδόθεν φυλάσσει
ἡμετέρας φρένας

Below is my rough (and trying to be poetic not literal ) translation, relying mostly on looking up unfamiliar words in the Cambridge Greek Lexicon and occasionally LSJ:

Springtime,
when the Cydonian apple trees
and the bushy groves of young maidens
are watered by streams from rivers,
And growing vine-clusters bloom
under the shady shoots of young vine leaves.
Not for me, though;
Passion visits my bed no more.
It’s now a season of nothingness,
beneath those flashes of lightning
from the North Wind coming from Thrace,
flashing forth from Aphrodite,
scorching madness,
shameless darkness,
blasting our hearts.

I’m sure some of this is wrong – but it was fun trying!

I’m open to feedback :slight_smile:

Cheers,
Mitch

2 Likes
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You certainly succeeded there!

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A season of nothingness? It’s all rather too Poundian for me, and ἐμοἰ δ᾿ ἔρος οὐδεμίαν κατάκοιτος ὥραν must mean almost the opposite of “Passion visits my bed no more.”

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How would you translate ἐμοἰ δ᾿ ἔρος οὐδεμίαν κατάκοιτος ὥραν?

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OK how about this:

“In no season is passion at rest for me”

i.e. “My passion is never at rest. It’s like the North Wind etc.”

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(taking οὐδεμίαν ὥραν as accusative of time in apposition to ἐμοἰ ἔρος κατάκοιτος)

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Yes Mitch that’s it. οὐδεμίαν ὥραν with κατάκοιτος.

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Well that certainly changes the tenor of the poem!

Thanks, Michael :wink:

– Mitch

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Yours seems like a very good modern rendering of the poem. Here is a literal version, although I hear that this text is referred to as “corrupted in transmission” and so different versions of it occur :

In spring, indeed, the Cydonian quince-trees,
watered by streams
from rivers, where the untouched
garden of the Maidens is,
and the grape-blossoms,
growing beneath shady shoots
upon vine-bearing tendrils, flourish.

But for me, Eros
at no season lies asleep;

rather, beneath the lightning-bolt,
burning,
the Thracian North Wind,
rushing from beside Cypris
with parching madnesses,
dark and unflinching,
powerfully from the ground up keeps watch over
my mind.

Slap-bang between Sappho and Pindar I would say this is a Dionysian, orphic style poem and the imagery reads like some telling of spring but it is packed with cult-style sexual symbology. It seems to describe that the author has stayed his mind to the point where he has let go of lusting desires for what is suggested to be very young, budding girls, in my opinion, probably oracular. Just about every line in the first verse is jam packed with euphemistic language. (I find it hard to cite off the bat but there are discussions about the underlying meaning of ‘the waters of lethe’ and other cult derived poetry/imagery which allude to this and provide clarity).

The quince carries strong erotic associations in Greek culture. It was connected with marriage, fertility, and Aphrodite. The poem begins with imagery already charged with sexuality and generation.

ἀκήρατος means “unmixed,” “pure,” “undefiled.”

The grape blossom appears before the grape itself. This is a subtle image of potentiality rather than fulfillment and is certainly a marker of the age of the subjects in the poem.

Ibycus choice use of a violent, cold north wind is telling of his view of this love or desire as a destructive force; one which is detrimental.

Lightning and burning are two words used frequently in Dionysian/Bacchic texts and one can only derive their meaning through context.

ἀζαλέαις μανίαισιν - “with parching madnesses” is a tough one to track down but mania is frequently invoked by or used in association with pharmaka and such pharmaka frequently involves the use of and has textual association with the venom of the dipsas (and the burning purple of the murex). Used in poisons and medicines alike the dipsas venom creates a deep unrelenting thirst.

I would say my take on this, although difficult to attest, is typical of Ibycus but is definitely not a mainstream view.

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ἀκήρατος: this image of virginal purity is famously picked up by Eurip. Hipp. 73ff.

Incidentally, why does the previous post read as if it’s largely generated by AI?

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Ha, no. This is University Essay Writing Language; one’s attempt to sound more intelligent, informed and well read than one actually is. My previous failure to get AI to engage with anything other than the mainstream is what brought me to this site in the first place; try getting AI to explain Orphic Vox! I’ll take it as a compliment.

That said you have brought me to mindfulness of AI’s integration with many search tools that are used, today. It’s becoming difficult to separate the words of man to the words of machine to the untrained. I’ll go forward with greater discernment. Also, I do make extensive use of English Thesaurae in an attempt to avoid flat sounding language. My usual ‘gutter-talk’ parlance would not go down well here. I give credit to my old English teacher in Comprehensive school, Mike Staddon. He taught me well.

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It is translating φυλάσσει as given above, though contextually impossible. Which conjecture is Mitch translating?

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The LSJ shows φυλάττω as the attic form of φῠλάσσω and then φυλάσσει is the 3rd person Singular Pres. Ind. Act. It seems to have a rather wide semantic range.

https://lsj.gr/wiki/φυλάσσω

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Yes, that is the dictionary entry. It’s also impossible here, with various conjectures given, ie. West’s λαφύσσει

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Ah ok, thanks for that. I shall study it more. Looking at the LSJ, all definitions of the word φυλάττω fit the base semantic “to hold in place”. Guarding etc seems to be an english gloss or derived meaning. But you mention λαφύσσει, you didn’t mention this word before.

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Isn’t this the opposite of what the poem alludes to?

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Guarding is the base meaning. A φύλαξ is a guard. φυλάσσειν is to guard something. The meaning “to hold in place” is the derived, rare usage.

Yes, I mentioned λαφύσσει for the first time in the above post. It is a conjectured emendation to the text by M. L. West, fixing φυλάσσει. Others have proposed other fixes. Mitch is working from one of these, not his pasted text, as he does not translate φυλάσσει ἡμετέρας φρένας, but instead has “blasting our hearts.”

“Isn’t this the opposite of what the poem alludes to?”

You are now disagreeing with your own (surely LLM, despite protestations) translation.

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Gentili refused to accept it, but any textual critic would recognize λαφύσσει as definitive. A simple metathesis.

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No, there is a subtle difference. In Mitches version framed as simply his own passion it contradicts the staying of his mind. The literal rendering frames it as some form of attack from a God. Eros never sleeps. This creates that opposition I speak of.

I said base semantic, not meaning. In english to guard ones thoughts and to stay ones mind are two different concepts. The former is to not speak of or allude to what one is thinking, the latter is to hold firm in your thoughts and put other unwanted thoughts out of one’s mind. Looking again at the LSJ definition, the semantic I mentioned does seem to exclude the contained notion of observation, however. Perhaps “Observe that something is held in place” would be closer. ‘Watching over’ and ‘keeping in place’ are used as often or more often than the more specific rendering of ‘Guard’. And even to guard fits within the base semantic I mention. A guard is someone who watches over, keeps custody, keeps control and the word describes a wide variety of roles. “Guard” as a word is a flattened english rendering. To explain my point further; I live in english but have never formally studied the language yet I still garner ‘the feeling’ of the word usage. I find that when taking meanings from lexica in greek it is important to identify the underlying concept of a word.

Ok this makes sense now. I wasn’t sure what you were alluding to. I see you were speaking of one of the ‘transmission errors’ I mentioned. I didn’t know the proper term. For those reading on, this was a text from a fragment. Gaps were filled.

There are many discussions on this poem, I’ve simply reiterated existing translations to be as literal as I can.

Anyway, my posting here was to point out that there are certain terms (seemingly Orphic) which are borrowed/reused/common prose and cannot be skipped; The significance of quince vs apples, the imagery of Grape Blossom, the mass of euphemisms and the hidden phallic which all paint specific imagery, becoming translated out with some renderings. I’m attempting to critique rather than criticise; Mitch is far more accomplished than myself.

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Consensus does not establish fact. If so, such discussions and conjecture would not ensue. Apologies, I’m primarily a scientist, not a linguist.