The Cypria: Reconstructing the Lost Prequel to Homer's Iliad
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“Hast thou fallen from thy car on the levels of the dusty ground, and left thy body in the lonely thickets? But I have scanned the trees of the many-trunked copses in the shady wood, yea, even to the very leaves, yet thy form have I not seen; and the wood I do not blame. Have the smooth waters covered thee in the depths, swimming in the wet streams of murmuring Eurotas? But even in the rivers and in the depths of the sea the Naiads live and do not slay women.”
Thus she wailed, and leaning back her neck breathed Sleep who walks with Death; for verily it was ordained that both should have all things in common and pursue the works of the elder brother: hence women, weighed down with sorrowing eyes, oft-times, while they weep, fall asleep. And wandering amid the deceits of dreams she fancied that she saw her mother; and, amazed, the maiden, in her grief cried out: “Yesterday to my sorrow thou didst fly from me out of the house and left me sleeping on my father’s bed. What mountain have I left alone? What hill have I neglected? Followest thou thus the love of fair-tressed Aphrodite?”
Then the daughter of Tyndareus spake to her and said: “My sorrowful child, blame me not, who have suffered terrible things. The deceitful man who came yesterday hath carried me away!”
So she spake, And the maiden leapt up, and seeing not her mother, uttered a yet more piercing cry and wailed: “Birds, winged children of the brood of air, go ye to Crete, and say to Menelaus: ‘Yesterday a lawless man came to Sparta and hath laid waste all the glory of thy halls!’” So spake she with many tears to the air, and seeking for her mother wandered in vain.[26]
—Colluthus, The Rape of Helen
Helen in Egypt
But some say that Hermes, in obedience to the will of Zeus, stole Helen and carried her to Egypt, and gave her to Proteus, King of the Egyptians, to guard, and that Paris repaired to Troy with a phantom of Helen fashioned out of clouds.[27]
—Apollodorus, Epitome
The Sack of Sidon
Paris departed Lacedaemon in reckless haste, and a strong wind blew him to Cyprus, forcing him to anchor there. After procuring a number of ships he sailed on to Phoenicia, and was received warmly by the king of the Sidonians. But in the night Paris set an ambush for the king, and taking him by surprise he slew him and ransacked his house, exhibiting once again that same treachery that had possessed him in Sparta. In this way every article of royal wealth was carried off to the ships.
But those who had fled the sack of the palace now raised a revolt, lamenting the death of their king. Taking up arms they marched on the palace, but by this time Paris had already carried off everything he wanted, and was now hastening to return to his homeland. The mob pursued him even to the ships, and there battle was done. Many fell on both sides; the Sidonians fighting to avenge their dead king, and the Trojans fiercely defending the wealth they had seized. During the struggle two of the Trojan ships were set aflame, but the rest managed to break free. The Sidonians meanwhile, their strength utterly spent, could do naught but watch helplessly as their enemy escaped.
—Dictys Cretensis, Ephemeris belli Trojani, I
The Return to Troy
And to the towns of the Cicones and the straits of Aeolian Helle, into the havens of Dardania the bridegroom brought his bride. And Cassandra on the acropolis, when she beheld the new-comer, tore her hair amain and flung away her golden veil. But Troy unbarred the bolts of her high-built gates and received on his return her citizen that was the source of her woe.
—Colluthus, The Rape of Helen
The Dioscuri
Of the sons born to Leda Castor practised the art of war, and Pollux the art of boxing; and on account of their manliness they were both called Dioscuri.[28] And wishing to marry the daughters of Leucippus, they carried them off from Messene and wedded them; and Pollux had Mnesileus by Phoebe, and Castor had Anogon by Hilaira. And having driven booty of cattle from Arcadia, in company with Idas and Lynceus, sons of Aphareus, they allowed Idas to divide the spoil. He cut a cow in four and said that one half of the booty should be his who ate his share first, and that the rest should be his who ate his share second. And before they knew where they were, Idas had swallowed his own share first and likewise his brother’s, and with him had driven off the captured cattle to Messene.
But the Dioscuri marched against Messene, and drove away that cattle and much else besides. And they lay in wait for Idas and Lynceus.
—Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, III
The Death of Castor
Gazing keenly after them from Taygetus, Lynceus beheld them sitting in ambush in the trunk of an oak. For his, of all earthly men, was the most piercing eye.[29] With nimble feet forthwith [Lynceus and Idas] arrived and quickly wrought a bold deed; the death of Castor. And grievous retribution the sons of Aphareus suffered at the hands of Zeus; for immediately the son of Leda came in hot pursuit, and they over against him took their post hard by their fathers’ tomb. Thence snatching a decoration of Death, a polished [tomb]stone, they hurled it at the breast of Pollux; but they crushed him not, nor drove him back; but rushing on straightway with spear swift in motion, he drove the brass into the sides of Lynceus. And Zeus hurled upon Idas his smouldering thunderbolt, and they both were burnt together bereft of mourners; for a contest with powerful ones is hard for men to deal with.[30]
Speedily to his mighty brother the son of Tyndareus returned back, and him he found not as yet dead, but with short-drawn gasp rucking forth his breath. Then shedding warm tears with groans he cried loud and clear:
“Oh Father, son of Cronus, what end shall there be of my sorrows! For me also together with him ordain death, oh monarch. Honour is departed from the man that is deprived of his friends; and in distress few are there of mortals faithful enough to go shares in toil.” Thus he spoke, and Zeus before him came and uttered this reply:
“Thou art my son; but him engendered after thee of mortal seed did her hero husband in approach to thy mother beget.[31] But come, of these things in sooth I yet give thee choice: if on the one hand thou art willing to escape death and hateful old age, and to inhabit Olympus in company with Athena and with Ares of the spear black with blood, there is to thee indeed a rightful share of this; but if in thy brother’s behalf thou contendest, and art minded to share out to him an equal lot of all thou hast, then half thy life thou must breathe beneath the earth, and half in the golden abodes of heaven.”
Thus then when he spoke, no wavering resolution did Pollux adopt in his mind. And Zeus unclosed the eyes and let loose the voice of the brazen-belted Castor.
—Pindar, Nemean Ode X
III.
Iris next informs Menelaus of what has happened at his home. Menelaus returns and plans an expedition against Ilium with his brother, and then goes on to Nestor. Nestor in a digression tells him how Epopeus was utterly destroyed after seducing the daughter of Lycus, and the story of Oedipus, the madness of Heracles, and the story of Theseus and Ariadne.
—Proclus, Chrestomathy
Menelaus in Crete
All those kings who were the great-grandchildren of Minos, the son of Zeus, gathered in Crete to divide the wealth of Atreus. In his last will, Atreus the son of Minos[32] had left all of his gold, his silver, and his cattle to his grandsons; the sons of his daughters. All was to be apportioned equally, with the exception of his realm and its cities: these he bequeathed to Idomeneus and Meriones. Idomeneus was the son of Deucalion, and Meriones the son of Molus; unto them he commanded the rule of his kingdom.[33]
With them came the sons of Clymene and Nauplius, Palamedes and Oeax.[34] Also Menelaus and his elder brother Agamemnon, begotten of Aerope and Pleisthenes (by them they also had a sister, Anaxibia, who was then the wife of Nestor)[35] came to accept their share. Many believed them to be the sons of Atreus, for when Pleisthenes died young and in obscurity, his deeds being held in small account, Atreus took pity on the youths and raised them as his own.[36] And when all was divided, each man received a magnificent inheritance.
Agamemnon and Menelaus received a warm welcom
e, with the many scions of Europa, who was worshipped as a goddess on the island,[37] coming to escort them to the temple. Many days of celebration followed, with sacrifices to the gods as befitting the customs of that land, and lavish banquets. The kings of Greece delighted in this entertainment, but still more impressive was the temple itself; so magnificent and beautiful a structure. Admiring all of its embellishments, they recalled how Phoenix, father of Europa, had carried these riches across from Sidon.
At the same time Phrygian Paris, the son of Priam, along with Aeneas[38] and a number of other relatives, was welcomed into the home of Menelaus of Sparta. There, seeing that the king was absent, he perpetrated a monstrous crime. Overcome by lust for Helen, the most beautiful woman in all of Greece, he made off with her, also taking many riches, as well as Aethra and Clymene; Menelaus’ relatives who attended on Helen.
A messenger came to Crete bearing news of the crime Paris had committed in the halls of Menelaus, but also—as often occurs in such situations—rumours spread throughout the island that wildly exaggerated what had occurred. Some even said that the very kingdom had been destroyed by war.
Upon being informed of this news, Menelaus was deeply disturbed by the actions of his wife, but even more so at having been betrayed by his aforementioned relatives.[39] Palamedes, seeing the king stupefied by wrath and indignation, ordered that the ships be prepared to sail. He briefly consoled the king, as seemed fitting, and after having the ships loaded with as much of Menelaus’ inheritance as the time permitted, they set sail. Blessed with a fair wind, in only a few days they returned to Sparta, where Agamemnon, Nestor, and all of those rulers who were the descendants of Pelops, having heard the news, were already assembled.
—Dictys Cretensis, Ephemeris belli Trojani, I
In the account given above, Menelaus finds Nestor awaiting him at Sparta. According to Proclus, the Cypria had Menelaus travel to Pylos, where Nestor, in one of his famous digressions, related the following cautionary tales of love and jealousy. Here Apollodorus shall speak for the son of Neleus:
Epopeus and Oedipus
Antiope was a daughter of Nycteus,[40] and Zeus had intercourse with her. When she was with child, and her father threatened her, she ran away to Epopeus at Sicyon and was married to him. In a fit of despondency Nycteus killed himself, after charging [his brother] Lycus to punish Epopeus and Antiope. Lycus marched against Sicyon, subdued it, slew Epopeus, and led Antiope away captive. On the way she gave birth to two sons at Eleurethae in Boeotia. The infants were exposed, but a neatherd[41] found and reared them, and he called the one Zethus and the other Amphion.
Now Zethus paid attention to cattle-breeding, but Amphion practised minstrelsy, for Hermes had given him a lyre. But Lycus and his wife Dirce imprisoned Antiope and treated her despitefully. Howbeit, one day her bonds were loosed of themselves, and unknown to her keepers she came to her sons cottage, begging that they would take her in. They recognized their mother and slew Lycus, but Dirce they tied to a bull, and flung her dead body into the spring that is called Dirce after her. And having succeeded to the sovereignty they fortified the city, the stones following Amphion’s lyre; and they expelled Laius. He resided in Peloponnese, being hospitably received by Pelops; and while he taught Chrysippus, the son of Pelops, to drive a chariot, he conceived a passion for the lad and carried him off.
After Amphion’s death Laius succeeded to the kingdom. And he married a daughter of Menoeceus; some say that she was Jocasta, and some that she was Epicasta. The oracle had warned him not to beget a son, for the son that should be begotten would kill his father; nevertheless, flushed with wine, he had intercourse with his wife. And when the babe was born he pierced the child’s ankles with brooches and gave it to a herdsman to expose. But the herdsman exposed it on Cithaeron; and the neatherds of Polybus, king of Corinth, found the infant and brought it to his wife Periboea. She adopted him and passed him off as her own, and after she had healed his ankles she called him Oedipus, giving him that name on account of his swollen feet.[42]
When the boy grew up and excelled his fellows in strength, they spitefully twitted him with being supposititious. He inquired of Periboea, but could learn nothing; so he went to Delphi and inquired about his true parents. The god told him not to go to his native land, because he would murder his father and lie with his mother. On hearing that, and believing himself to be the son of his nominal parents, he left Corinth, and riding in a chariot through Phocis he fell in with Laius driving in a chariot in a certain narrow road. And when Polyphontes, the herald of Laius, ordered him to make way and killed one of his horses because he disobeyed and delayed, Oedipus in a rage killed both Polyphontes and Laius, and arrived in Thebes.
Laius was buried by Damasistratus, king of Plataea, and Creon, son of Menoeceus, succeeded to the kingdom. In his reign a heavy calamity befell Thebes. For Hera sent the Sphinx, whose mother was Echidna and her father Typhon; and she had the face of a woman, the breast and feet and tail of a lion, and the wings of a bird. And having learned a riddle from the Muses, she sat on Mount Phicium, and propounded it to the Thebans. And the riddle was this: What is that which has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed? Now the Thebans were in possession of an oracle which declared that they should be rid of the Sphinx whenever they had read her riddle; so they often met and discussed the answer, and when they could not find it the Sphinx used to snatch away one of them and gobble him up.
When many had perished, and last of all Creon’s son Haemon, Creon made proclamation that to him who should read the riddle he would give both the kingdom and the wife of Laius. On hearing that, Oedipus found the solution, declaring that the riddle of the Sphinx referred to man; for as a babe he is four-footed, going on four limbs, as an adult he is two-footed, and as an old man he gets besides a third support in a staff. So the Sphinx threw herself from the citadel, and Oedipus both succeeded to the kingdom and unwittingly married his mother, and begat sons by her, Polynices and Eteocles, and daughters, Ismene and Antigone. But some say the children were born to him by Eurygania, daughter of Hyperphas.
When the secret afterwards came to light, Jocasta hanged herself in a noose, and Oedipus was driven from Thebes, after he had put out his eyes and cursed his sons, who saw him cast out of the city without lifting a hand to help him. And having come with Antigone to Colonus in Attica, where is the precinct of the Eumenides, he sat down there as a suppliant, was kindly received by Theseus, and died not long afterwards.
—Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, III
The Madness of Heracles
Erginus marched against Thebes, and after slaughtering not a few of the Thebans he concluded a treaty with them, confirmed by oaths, that they should send him tribute for twenty years, a hundred kine every year. Falling in with the heralds on their way to Thebes to demand this tribute, Heracles outraged them; for he cut off their ears and noses and hands, and having fastened them by ropes from their necks, he told them to carry that tribute to Erginus and the Minyans. Indignant at this outrage, Erginus marched against Thebes. But Heracles, having received weapons from Athena and taken the command, killed Erginus, put the Minyans to flight, and compelled them to pay double the tribute to the Thebans. And Heracles received from Creon his eldest daughter Megara as a prize of valour, and by her he had three sons, Therimachus, Creontiades, and Deicoon.
Now it came to pass that after the battle with the Minyans Heracles was driven mad through the jealousy of Hera and flung his own children, whom he had by Megara, and two children of [his brother] Iphicles into the fire; wherefore he condemned himself to exile, and was purified by Thespius, and repairing to Delphi he inquired of the god where he should dwell.
The Pythian priestess then first called him Heracles, for hitherto he was called Alcides. And she told him to dwell in Tiryns, serving Eurystheus for twelve years and to perform the ten labours imposed on him, and so, she said, when the tasks were accomplished, he would be immortal.[43]
—Apollodorus, B
ibliotheca, II
Theseus and Ariadne
When [Theseus] came to Crete, Ariadne, daughter of Minos, being amorously disposed to him, offered to help him if he would agree to carry her away to Athens and have her to wife. Theseus having agreed on oath to do so, she besought Daedalus to disclose the way out of the labyrinth.
And at his suggestion she gave Theseus a clue when he went in; Theseus fastened it to the door, and, drawing it after him, entered in.[44] And having found the Minotaur in the last part of the labyrinth, he killed him by smiting him with his fists; and drawing the clue after him made his way out again. And by night he arrived with Ariadne and the children at Naxos. There Dionysus fell in love with Ariadne and carried her off; and having brought her to Lemnos he enjoyed her, and begat Thoas, Staphylus, Oenopion, and Peparethus.
In his grief on account of Ariadne, Theseus forgot to spread white sails on his ship when he stood for port; and [his father] Aegeus, seeing from the acropolis the ship with a black sail, supposed that Theseus had perished; so he cast himself down and died.
—Apollodorus, Epitome
IV.
Then they travel over Hellas and gather the leaders, detecting Odysseus when he pretends to be mad, not wishing to join the expedition, by seizing his son Telemachus for punishment at the suggestion of Palamedes.
—Proclus, Chrestomathy
The Mustering of the Greeks