Phaistos Shocker!

[Ed.: Breaking News: Fragmentary Poets present this exclusive first-run world edition of the first, ever correct translation of the Phaistos Disk. Keep checking this site for updates and coverage of the world’s reactions.]

The Phaistos Disk is not
written in Modern Greek!

Dr. Bruno Fabrizio has returned from Crete with this shocking news. According to Fabrizio’s groundbreaking paper, which was leaked to the press by Nikos the Blade, the most reputable source for news from the underworld of east Iraklio, the well-known Disk of Phaistos is not a cipher of modern Greek. Greece refuses to accept this.

‘This is most certainly not Greek, this disk,’ says Fabrizio. ‘I am tell you what is, this disk, but it is no modern Greek. It is no proto-Byblic either. Very stupid. No Batavian either’.

Authorities have barricaded all access to the Archaeological Museum of Iraklio, the current location of the famous disk, ready to protect the disk and the museum from the ensuing riots.

‘This is the worst riots in the Crete, and in the Greece, since it happens the victory of the Greece in the Euro Cup,’ states Iraklio police chief Nikos Aigofori. ‘There are many peoples, many goats and donkeys in the plataia. It is now hard for me to enjoy my bougatsa. But it is ready for us; we will protect the disk at all costs, until five this evening'.

When asked what he thought the reaction would be among the Greek diaspora, Aigofori replied, ‘Why? You know my cousin? What he says about me? Don’t listen to him'.

Fabrizio was unmoved by the riots all over Greece in protest to his controversial finding, though he did ackowledge the death threats. He asserted that the truth is the truth. He is currently being protected by Swiss authorities in Ticino. In Locarno, actually. He is often found at the Caffè Poggio, between 2 and 4pm.



[Ed.: Below is Fabrizio’s translation. He has rendered the translation of the original Mesaran, as Fabrizio calls it, into English.]




The Disk of Phaistos, translation and explication by Dr. Bruno Fabrizio, currently visiting scholar at Università di Baiae (editorial assistance provided by Fragmentary Poets)

Each of the forty-five imprimati may be read as either a phonetic sign or as a logogram or as a determiner. So they may have sound value, word value, or only semantic value. This depends entirely on context. Mesaran is a complex language.

Side 1: It is impossible to discern which side is the first, so my choice is arbitrary, but it will be clear that it does not matter. The side begins from the center and spirals outward.


The text (in English): 'Not redeemable for cash; property of Mesara Casino and Spa; destruction is punishable with impressment into the Rhadamanthys Legion’s Foreign Brigade; while in Mesara enjoy these services from our partner businesses: Agia Triada Escorts; Matala Massage Parlor; Adult Tablet and Mime of Gortyn'.

Side 2, text: Lotus Line Personals: 'Potniai seeking boys: Lotus-lover seeks athletic, unconventional boy; kernos major in college seeks leather- and yoking-partner in business-minded boy, send your horn or carrier-pigeon; Do you like long walks on the hot, Mesara plain? Tired of jumping bulls? If so, and you are a stylish boy, meet me in the Kamares cave for a good time. [new passage] Do the Mycenaeans get you down? Come east for peace. Caves of Diktē is a closed, resort community now accepting reservations'.

These texts are the missing link that scholars have been seeking. Phaistos was clearly the economic center of the region, with ample storage and accommodation and catering services. Agia Triada now seems to be the detached high-roller suites. Kommos, the seaport for the Mesara, has puzzled with its foreign artifacts. It now clearly seems to be the 'party spot' of the island, the probable destination for Cypriot, Egyptian, Ugaritic and even counter-cultural Mycenaean revelers.

By analogy, the role and function of Knossos, Amnisos, Malia, Gournia, Mokhlos, Palaikastro, and Kato Zakros must now be reconsidered. [Graduate students in classical archaeology are expected to join the riots.]

The Epistle of Amber, a translation submitted

[Ed.: E. W. Ruddybottom-Jones, a graduate working no doubt assiduously towards completion of his DPhil dissertaion at the University of Blackpool, has offerred the following translation of the section of Amber's Epistle as released by The Secret Priory. The numerical referencing and commentary, such as it is, is also Mr Ruddybottom-Jones's.]


Amber's Letter to Mary Magdalene, trans. E. W. Ruddybottom-Jones, MStud, MA, ABD DPhil (Atrum.)


1 Amber, the first wife of the Jesus Christ through wishingness of god to those being with Magdalene Maria, but not to Magdalene Maria herself; 2 favor to the lot of you, but not to Magdalene Maria herself, and a peace away from god of father of us and of lord Jesus Christ. 3 Within before years in which we were walking against/towards the same road in Ierysalēm. 4 ¿Indeed now those things escaped your notice, o holy things? I am mindful of them and of you. 5 Many men were walking away with you, but you were walking backwards alone, and I. 6 We were non-hetairai prostitutes as most beautiful as possible in Ierysalēm. 7 On that day whenever Jesus saw me having stood towards the entrance of city and said, 8 'O blossom of land of Iuda, follow to me into desert for the duration of forty nights'. 9 But you threw with your tiara me having marched with him. 10 I was ululating thoroughly, 'O Magdalene Maria, you too, bitch!'. 11 Many tears for me; and a womanly woman to tears. 12 Within two years in with I learned that you to bear two daughters calling Sara and Trixi. 13 Whenever you were following to the Jesus towards Golgotha, I took them in exchange for others. 14 In every way for them there is necessity to die since there is need, I shall kill those she bore. 15 In every way these things have been done and will not be fleeing out. 16 Since I [etc.


Commentary
1 This opening is not unlike indroductory passages to other epistles by holy people. Amber identifies herself as the woman of Jesus. How could we have all been so wrong for so long?

2 NB: the second exclusion of Magdalene Maria. Could there be hostility between Amber and Magdalene Maria?

3 The toponym 'Ierysalēm' is elsewhere unattested. The hapax legomenon gives this letter an air of mystery.

4 The direct address to 'holy things' is awkward. Perhaps it is derisive, evidence of Amber's deep hatred.

5 These women had the supernatural ability to walk backwards. This is evidence of the prevalence of witchcraft.

6 How could non-hetairai prostitutes know how to write Greek?

8 'Iuda' also is unattested. Perhaps the speaker is Welsh, indicating in the Queen's English 'You, there'. 'Forty nights' is just a literary device meaning 'infinity nights'.

9 Magdalene Maria had a tiara, indicating how sucessful and prosperous she was as a non-hetaira prostitute.

10 Ululation is a common expression of mourning or outcry in the Levant and and much of the Near East, according to the BBC World Service. The use of 'bitch' here may be better understood as 'stupid cow'.

11 Amber was a womanly woman. This is important to understand. She is not what she is, but simply she is. This is her voice.

12 Sara is the alleged daughter of Mary Magdalene born in France. (If Sara were a clever girl, she would move to Switzerland for better taxes.) If Amber kidnapped Sara andd swapped her for another girl, then this renders the whole assumption, the whole secret of the Priory of Scion utter rubbish. Trixi is not mentioned in any other text. She may have reached Picadilly, where many there are hundreds of non-hetairai women so named.

13 There is a problem with the Greek that is best ignored.

14 There is another problem with the Greek here that also is best ignored.

15 Our English cannot render this any better.

The Secret Priory (il segretissimo Codice del Saliano)

[Ed.: Fragmentary Poets have been uncommonly fortunate to receive this text. We were instructed to go to the Gard du Nord in Paris and try to buy a TGV ticket to Biarritz from the fourth window. (No TGV goes to Biarritz nor does any train from the Gard du Nord--this was to be the sign.) At that point, two men in fancy dress (one as a WWI-era pilot, the other as a veruca) approached me and told me what is written below. Upon leaving, they gave me a roll of serviettes, in which the following fragment was found. Before turning it in to the proper libraries, Fragmentary Poets hope to break this story first to the scholarly community. We will receive queries for submissions of translation and commentary. ]


The Secret Priory
The Secret Priory is a more secret organization of men devoted to keeping a really big secret about another secret. These men were the greatest thinkers and artists of their respective time, or at least very close to those who were, but chose to relegate themselves to lesser positions that they might keep safe the greatest secret: the “Other Secret” kept by another allegedly secret society is secretly known to The Secret Priory to be false. The Secret Priory has a better secret, one that, according to a member who did not win the Nobel Prize for physics in 2003, would expose the 'Other Secret' as false. Why not expose it?

'We like to think of ourselves as the keepers of the disorder. We do our best to make sure that the Church’s more obsessed legionnaires and the Priory of Sion will always stay in business. Their conflict is important to the stability of things'.

He added that many of their past High Overseers were either nearly famous or dubiously famous men such as il Saliano and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. The current High Overseer of The Secret Priory was not elected to high office in a G8 country recently.

Despite these views on maintaining the stability of Church conflict, another member of The Secret Priory, who was not selected for the Armenian Winter Olympic Team in 1998 and 2002, has chosen to release a papyrus fragment that will not reveal the secret but should have people guessing.

'This is our way of keeping the Secret but saying to the world "You’re getting warmer,"' said non-Olympian.

'Precisely. We’ll never tell, but, wow. It’s pretty cool. You should know if you’ve figured it out,' added non-Nobel laureate.

When asked why release this 'clue' now, both men added that they fear that pieces of their secret will get out sooner or later.

'This proactive near-release of our Secret will help put us in a stronger position for negotiating rights. We want to maintain world rights on publication but are willing to negotiate on screen and stage rights', said non-Olympian.




An excerpt of the text of the lost Epistle of Amber to Mary Magdalene


ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΗ ΤΗΣ ΕΛΕΚΤΡΙΔΟΣ ΠΡΟΣ ΤΗΝ ΜΑΓΔΑΛΗΝΗΝ ΜΑΡΙΑΝ

Ἐλέκτρις ἡ πρώτη γυνὴ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ διὰ θελήματος θεοῦ τοῖς οὖσιν σὺν Μαγδαλήνῃ Μαρίᾳ, ἀλλὰ οὐ Μαγδαλήνῃ Μαρίᾳ αὐτῇ· χάρις ὑμῖν, ἀλλὰ οὐ Μαγδαλήνῃ Μαρίᾳ αὐτῇ, καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ θεοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν καὶ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. τῶν προτέρων ἐτέων ἔβημεν κατὰ τὴν αὐτὴν ὅδον ἐν Ἰερουσαλήμ. ἆρα αὐτὰ νῦν ἔλαθέ σε, ὦ ἁγία; αὐτῶν μεμνήμαι καὶ ἐσοῦ. πολλοὶ ἀπείρχοντο σὺν ἐσῷ, ἀλλὰ παλινείρχου μόνη, κἔγω. πόρναι ἦμεν ὡς καλλίσται ἐν Ἰερυσαλήμ. αὐτῇ ἡμέρᾳ ὁτὰν Ἰησοῦς ἔβλεψε ἐμὲ στᾶσαν πρὸς τὴν εἴσοδον πόλεως καὶ εἶπε ‘ὦ ἄνθος γῆς Ἰούδας, ἕπου ἐμοὶ εἰς ἐρημίαν τεσσαράκπντας νυκτός.’ ἀλλὰ σὺ ἔβαλες μίτρᾳ ἐμὲ σὺν αὐτῷ μολοῦσαν καὶ εἴρχετο σὺν αὐτῷ. κατηλαλάζον ‘ὦ Μαγδαλήνη Μαρία, καὶ σὺ, κύων!’ πολλὰ δάκρυα ἐμοί· γυνὴ δὲ θῆλυ κἀπὶ δακρύοις. δύων ἐτέων ἐπυθόμην ἐσὲ τεκνοῦσθαι δύας θυγατέρας Σαρὰν καὶ Τριξίν καλοῦσας. ὁτὰν σὺ εἵπετο τῷ Ἰησοῦ πρὸς Γολγοθάν, ἔλαβον αὐτὰς καὶ ἤμειψα αὐτὰς ἀντὶ ἀλλὰς. πάντως σφ’ ἀνάγκη κατθανεῖν· ἐπεὶ δὲ χρὴ, ἐγὼ κτενῶ αἵπερ ἐξέφυσε. πάντως πὲπρακται ταῦτα κοὐκ ἐκφεύξεται. ἐπεὶ ἐγὼ […κτλ...

CPF: ISIM Annual Conference, DEADLINE EXTENDED

The Organizing Committee of the 7th Annual Conference of the International Society for Interpretive Mimetics has been authorized by the ISIM Executive Organ of Grand Councillors and Other Animals to extend the deadline for submissions to, like, anytime someone wants to submit something.

There have been some suggestions left anonymously that perhaps the conference ought to be held instead in Majorca or Ibiza. (The ISIM earnestly considers any anonymous suggestions left in its "Courtesy Suggestion Drop," i.e. the overturned bowler next to the left luggage room at Stazione Termini, Rome. Please don't remove any change.) The Organizing Committee will consider this if further such suggestions are made. One note observed that Kyustendzh would be a horrible place for a conference, as Ovid was clearly not pleased with it.

Fragmentary Poets have consented to act as the clearinghouse for abstracts or panel proposals for the 7th Annual Conference. Please post them in the Comments.

Codex Walgreenensis (Chicago) 2

[Ed.: This is the second portion of text released from the sequestered community of brilliant, young scholars who have come to be known as “The Chicago Project.” The lead editor and commentator is still beyond definitive identification. Fragmentary Poets do have one well placed source in The Chicago Project. He can only confirm that an unusually high proportion of Diet Coke is consumed there relative to other fine soft beverages. Fear not, gentle reader. We will know more soon. For the moment, please find useful the below.]



Codex Walgreenensis (Chicago) 2

carmina de factis hominum diuomque poeta
      primus Homerus enim talia composuit.
quid me profecta iuuat haec legere alta puella,
      et tantos uersus mente tenere mea,
an quid eos laete recitare in limine amatae,
      si non ianua tum discere Homerica uult?
cura mihi non est nunc sed prius officium egi;
      nemo operam melius me dedit †ipso† avidam. 




1. Text
This portion may or may not be subsequent to the previously released portion of WC, as this text has come to be represented in conspectus siglorum of textual edition being furiously reedited around the globe. Cf. previously deposited portion on WC n.1.


2. Language and Prosody
The language appears to be Latin. Due to the alternate, but not severe, indentation, it is the resolved and practiced opinion of this commentator that the meter is likely to be possibly elegiac couplets, again. The monosyllabic termination of uult suggests feeble authorship.


3. Authorship
Hasn’t Faber, or pseudo-Faber, received enough for his fifteen minutes?


4. Materia
A predictable return to the limen puellae and to the hackneyed epic v. elegy debate. Though here, that debate rises to a level of internal discourse demanding posited (re)affirmation in the ever-inwardly-expanding web of self-conscious meta-verbal intramissions. [Ed.: Some still call this programmatic poetry.]


5. Commentary

1 (9) hominum diuomque: cf. Lucretius 1.1 Aeneadum genetrix hominum diuuomque uoluptas. Why would the poet allude to this, unless the goal is to introduce further archaism when the subject is epic? And why this line? Elegy requires no dedication, except perhaps to the puella. But the reference is clearly to Venus, which draws immediately contrasting comparison to Homer and his material. Perhaps this is a less capable attempt to recreate the timelessly elegiac trope of casting players representing the two disparate genres. Ovid clearly perfected this in Amores 3.1, which suggests that Faber was composing earlier, or in an egocentric stupor.

3 (11) quid me…iuvat: cf. Propertius 1.2.1, 3 (…6) Faber continues in the uniquely Propertian tradition of using harsh, abrupt questions to redirect the reader.

      Alta puella: This does not occur as a description of a poet’s puella. Perhaps the reading should be longa or recta, cf. Catullus 86. The condition of the text makes it impossible to discern whether this is a recensio or a prima primarum, and thus the nature of the reading.

5 (13) quid: cf. 3 (11)

6 (14) ianua: An allusion to the paraklausithyron. Thanks goodness that this is only an allusion. Or is that an illusion?

8 (16) ipso: without another noun or pronoun, this is ill-informed. Faber is clearly not a native speaker of Latin. Oh, wait. Maybe the ipso agrees with me. Nevermind.

frag. XXXXX(b)

[Ed.: Dr. Bruno Fabrizio has authorized us to publish this work in progress on the condition that Fragmentary Poets do not reveal the source of the fragment or its current location. Dr. Fabrizio asked that Fragmentary Poets function as an open forum for the scholarly community on any possible reactions or conjectures, and we are pleased to do so. We ask readers to submit any remarks or hypotheses regarding meaning, possible origin, date, context, authorship, etc. Dr. Fabrizio assures that the text is stable.

It is unclear at this time if and when Dr. Fabrizio will ever pursue this to publication. He just took on a new graduate student, who is another bella figura and apparently not without some talent, and, well, we know what's happening now. (We have a source in Ibiza who, well...we're selling that story to the Sun.) Fragmentary Poets sincerely hopes that Dr. Fabrizio, clearly one of the greatest minds in the history of textual criticism, will not pursue this life to the end that Wilfried Stroh has met.]


frag. XXXXX (b)


ἴσθι μὲν τὸν ἵππο[…
ἴσθι δ’ ὁ αὐτὸς ἵππ[…

Codex Walgreenensis (Chicago)

Faber(?) 1-8

[Ed.: I am very pleased to have secured a a copy of this work-in-progress. In fact, the very existence of this text has been well kept beneath any word of confirmation. I cannot reveal the editor and commentator; any faults in the text I will assume myself. Presently I make this text known for the greater enrichment of the scholarly community.]


Codex Walgreenensis (Chicago)
The following text has been reconstructed from a palimpsest reading of a series of forged prescriptions for a variety of medications (seventeen have been recovered to date), to include OxyContin, Percocet, Tylenol 4, and Pepcid AC, known among some circles of graduate students as “The Four Pillars.” Three things alerted the Chicago-area pharmacist to their dubious quality: 1) they were all written on “heavy, crunchy paper” [parchment]; 2) the prescribing physician’s name was printed as “Dr. Sanjeev Smith, ABD, MD-still a doctor”; 3) the person submitting the prescriptions concealed his/her appearance by wearing a large “hoody” and mirrored sunglasses from the rack adjacent to the prescription counter. The person presented him-/herself as “P.O. Nasone.” It is unclear if Mr./Ms. Nasone is the individual who cut the parchment into the seventeen, or more, 4" x 5" prescriptions.

This seems to coincide with the disappearance of six graduate students from the recent conference of the American Philological Association in Montréal. It is believed that these graduate students, from three top-tier public and private research institutions, have become involved in the illicit black market trade in medieval codices and fragmenta. Curiously, their absence was not noted until the fourth week of the semester when faculty at one institution discovered that no one was teaching second-semester Latin (faculty figured this out when they saw the highest pre-registration numbers for third-semester Latin ever). Due to this four-week lead time, the authorities have been as yet unable to locate the missing graduate students.

Federal and local authorities in the Chicago area have graciously remanded these parchment scraps to the scholarly community.

Scholars using facilities at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and Duke University have been able to reconstruct the text, employing ultraviolet photography as well as scotch tape. The arduous process of dating is still ongoing.

We are presently able to reproduce only the first four couplets.



quaeritis unde inter mortales, qui sale nullo,
      optuma epe veniant quae omnibus perplaceant,
an quis cantarit primum prima arma uirumque,
      nec pater Ennius est, nec tamen ille Maro.
quem ingeniosum etiam tam diligit aurea Musa       5
      ut uersus doctos candida commoueat?
is non Graeculus est qui luminibus careat
      sed Graius caecus iam est, referunt, alius. 





1. Text
Depite the dramatic circumstances of its recovery, the text itself seems stable, if not without comparanda. Textual issues remain beyond the scope of this cursory initial treatment.


2. Language and Prosody
The language is clearly Classical Latin. A terminus post quem of composition is c. 1 BC. The reference to Ovid’s Amores establishes this. (For further discussion on the dating of Amores, cf. McKeown (1989).)

The poem is composed in elegiac couplets. There are some rather heavy elisions and several monosyllabic endings, placing this well below the caliber of other classical poets composing in this meter.


3. Authorship
Faber (Homerius) is named by no ancient source, nor by any medieval source. He clearly sees himself composing in the tradition of the other elegists, but his persona is completely at odds with this posture. Faber claims to aspire to epic. This sort of transgeneric recusatio is unique to Faber. Rather than follow in the tradition of Catullus, Propertius, and Ovid, Faber composes elegy while asserting his prowess in composing epic. In doing so, he has exceeded the persona of the exclusus amator; Faber is the exclusus poeta. The effect is nothing short of ironic self-praise, which is subverted in ironic self-mocking at the poem’s close. Elegy is, after all, about the elegist. Unfortunately, this elegist, whoever he may be, is not in the same league as those familiar to our canon. Yet, unfailingly, he places himself well above them. Too bad. The poem seems to have been well served in a “recycled” capacity.


4. Materia
Beyond the conventional tropes associated with the exclusus amator, there is nothing original in substance. A great amount of attention seems to have been given to this elegy’s statement on genre and perhaps being an elegist. Yet, that statement is not given; it remains incomplete, not unlike the history of elegy itself. But this poet, whoever he is, could not have been that clever.


5. Commentary

1      cf. Prop. 2.1.1-2 “quaeritis, unde mihi totiens scribantur amores,
/ unde meus veniat mollis in ore liber.”


2      sale nullo “witless,” supply sunt

        optuma: deliberate archaism with epe, but why?

       perplaceant: In poetry occurs only in comedy, Plautus Mostellaria 907, Mercator 348, and Terence Heauton 1066. Whether this is another deliberate archaism or lazily applied metri causa is unclear.


3      cf. Aen. 1.1. The primum seems to serve adverbially as well as adjectivally. The former reading supports the meaning; the latter frames the chiasmus. If this were a more capable poet, this commentator would be impressed.


4      An unusual generic twist. Faber, in an elegy, does what elegists do: he claims literary primacy over epic poets, though even Catullus and Propertius do not take aim at first-tier poets like Ennius or Virgil. Yet, Faber is asserting, or at least building up to the assertion, that his epics are superior. Yet, where are Faber’s epics?


5      aurea Musa: It is not above elegists to discuss this sort of muse above their puellae. Yet, none refers to his Muse as golden. Though Propertius refers to his Musa or Musae considerably more often than the other elegists, the line recalls Tibullus 1.4.65.

        ingeniosum For a thorough discussion on elegists and their ingenium, cf. Carpenter (2004).


6      uersos doctos: really?


7-8  What classics undergraduate hasn’t heard this joke? Could this be its origin? Have we been carrying cliché evidence of Faber within the transmitted soft-discourse of classical scholarship?

CFP: ISIM Annual Conference

[ed.: From time to time, Fragmentary Poets will post calls for papers as a service to the professional communities of papyrology and classical philology. All standard apologies for cross-posting, etc., are given.]



The 7th Annual Conference of the International Society for Interpretive Mimetics
12-29 July 2006 in Kyustendzh, Romania


Call for Papers
Submission of Abstracts

The Organizing Committee is accepting abstracts of papers and proposals for panels at the 7th Annual Conference. Abstracts and proposals must not exceed 9000 words, or 27 minutes (for presentations offered in mime or dissonant chant). The Committee must unfortunately return all submissions from persons not yet of majority age.

Abstracts and submissions should address any of the issues facing the field of interpretive mimetics today. What are we doing? What is being done? How does it compare to what could be done? What’s he doing? Can I do that, too? How can we emulate what might be done through our own self-consciousness in the act of self-mimeticism despite the marginalization of the traditional paradigm of phallogenocentric schemata in today’s society? How can we trans-/remit the performative metadiscourses of the emergent transcultural mensch through re-receiving the canon in neo-formalist mimetic response?

Abstracts and submissions that respond to our keynote speaker’s area of specialty are particularly welcome.

The Committee is proud to welcome Dr. Bruno Fabrizio, M.H. of the Università di Bologna and University College, Blarney (NUI Blarney). Dr. Fabrizio will present his recent research in papyrology in his talk titled, “(Re)digitizing the Fragmentary Poets: finger puppetry and textual criticism in the next decade of classical philology.”

Submissions should be sent to:

Mr. F. N. Lackey, M.Litt.
Faculty of Classics and Mime,
High Stone Square,
behind the sonorous goat,
NUI Blarney,
Blarney,
Co. Cork,
Ireland

Deadline for submissions: 1 May 2006

pseudo-Bacchylides 1 (P. Oxon. 3 Bodleian)

[ed.: I am very grateful to Oxford University Press for allowing me to post a pre-press copy of the following.]

pseudo-Bacchylides 1 (P. Oxonensis 3 Bodleian)
Text, Prolegomena, and Commentary by Bruno Fabrizio, Università di Bologna & NUI Blarney

. . .]με καὶ τὰ[. . .
. . . ]χελῶνα[ . . .
. . . ]δὲ τὴν πο[ . . .
. . . μ]ετὰ τὸν Θησ[ . . .
. . . ]άων τινων[ . . .5
. . . ]ντα μὲν τοῦ ι[ . . .
. . . ]υθεῖσα[ . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .]έειν[ . . . 10
. . . . . . .]ασθαι[ . . .
. . . . . ]ἔγγυές τιν[ . . .
. . . ]χελῶναι στρατ[ . . .
. . . ]ον ἕπτα ταὶ[ . . .
. . . ]λέγοντι ἦθος[ . . .15
. . . ]σθέμεν τοῖσιν[ . . .
. . . . .]θι νεκροῖσι[ . . .
. . . . . . . ]τῷ θριπὶ[ . . .


1. The Text
A fragment recovered from a mummified hedgehog. Date of composition uncertain (see below). Date of text c.476-31 BC., though a terminus ante quem can only be confidently established as 1976 (see below). Original site of excavation is unknown due to an uncommon archival error, though probably from the Mediterranean basin. The fragment was “rediscovered” in 2005, found tucked inside a take-out menu for a chip shop, “Time and Tide,” which is no longer in business, though is reputed to have enjoyed the custom of many graduates in classics. The menu itself was found in the 1976 volume of L’Année philologique, apparently marking the page of the Pindar entry.

2. Language and Prosody
The dialect appears to be literary Doric, in the manner of Pindar and Bacchylides, and absent of the “restored” vernacularisms of Alexandrian poets writing in affected Doric, e.g. Callimachus and Theocritus. The uncontracted -άων gen.pl. of line 5 is, however, inconsistent with Pindaric and Bacchylidean forms.

The meter is iambo-trochaic, beyond more precise determination without the left margin. It would not be unreasonable to identify it as a trochaic meter by analogy to Bacchylides, especially Bacchylides 17 (see below). The meter suggests that the poem is dithyrambic, if not the content. Vowel quantity is consistent with the prosody observed by Pindar and Bacchylides. The hiatus in line 15 is prevented by the presence of digamma, cf. Pindar O. 11.20.

3. Authorship
Pseudo-Bacchylides was likely a contemporary of Bacchylides and Pindar. It is impossible to determine if he enjoyed patronage to the extent of his contemporaries. The content of the fragment, however, suggests that he was writing in imitation of Bacchylides, rather than in admiration. The similarities to Bacchylides 17 are numerous, though there are several deviations from the conventional account of Thesus’s expedition to Crete. Gantz records no lemmata or recensions of the Theseus myth including eels (line 12) or wood-eating insects (line 18). Theseus is well known to have contended with a turtle, but the present context is sufficiently departed. What remains does not appear to rise to the level of intertextual allusion. (Anyone who has had the dubious fortune of judging submissions for undergraduate Latin and Greek composition prizes will recognize this ignorant “one-ups-manship.” Pardon the apostrophe.)

4. Materia
The state of the fragment prohibits any informed attempt at translation, yet it does provide some enticing hints at reconstructing the poem’s context.

5. Commentary

1 τὰ: prob. τὰ but perhaps ταὶ

2 χελῶνα: prob. χελῶναι.

3 τὴν πο: prob. τὴν πόλιν. Athens?

4 τὸν Θησ: prob. τὸν Θησέα

6 ι: digamma present. Perhaps ϝίδε(ν) or ϝίδον. Campbell does not read digamma in Bacchylides 17.16, but he was Australian.

7 υθεῖσαι: prob. τυθεῖσαι, in reference to the girls, or turtles?, to be offered to the Minotaur.

13 στρατ: prob. στρατός, one comprised of both turtles and eels. Or perhaps στρατόν, an army that the eels and turtles are facing together.

14 ἕπτα ταί: ταί nom. pl. Could these be the seven girls? Or are they the seven turtles? Or perhaps the girls are being represented as turtles, to reflect the expectations of public modesty. If so, what then of the eels? Indeed. For a thoughtful discussion on maritime images as models of genderization in New Comedy, see Ute Mannschrank, forthcoming in Arethusa.

15 λέγοντι: 3pl pres. The subject is the seven turtle-girls, who appear to be explaining their character (ἦθος) to the dead. Stripped of their physical femininity, in their syncretistic chelonid depiction, they are offering the purest form of woman to an audience unwilling, or unable, to receive it. The foreshadowing of Ariadne's lot is chilling.

18 τῷ θριπί: dat., either as the other recipient of the speech of the turtle-girls or as the instrument of a lost participle explaining how the men happened to die.



6. Conclusions
None. This is either a more interesting version of the Theseus myth that, were it available to Pindar and Bacchylides, would give new reading pleasure to graduate students, or perhaps it is a complete ringer, composed by some Bacchylides-wannabe. Regardless, it is an important text, demanding complete reconsideration of the reception-tradition of the Theseus myth as well as of the culture of lyric poetry, and of the lyric poetry of culture.

[ed.: Dr. Fabrizio is currently engaged in a rigorous and ambitious program of fieldwork searching for any additional evidence of alternate Theseus cycles. He has immersed himself into the storytelling cultures of both Attica and Crete. You may contact him with queries about his work at the ΤΑΒΕΡΝΑ ΘΗΣΕΙΟ (The "Theseum" Tavern) in the Piraeus or in the ΤΑΒΕΡΝΑ ΧΡΥΣΟΧΕΛΩΝΕΣ (The "Golden Turtles" Tavern) in Iraklio, Crete. He is not accepting applications from graduate students, but is sorely in need of several manservants (graduate students, perhaps).

P. Oxyrhynchus 7819b Zimmermann

ta]lis iactabat †clamorem† in me atque etiam ungues

li]mine perstantem sola puella mea

1 talis] talis Zimmermann   :   mollis Ruddybottom-Jones   :  fortis corr. Stahl, forte recte    clamorem] clamorem Handschuhputz   :   digitum atque Pozzo

2 limine] limine Zimmermann   :  flumine Ruddybottom-Jones  :  fulmine Stahl



"That's just how she was hurling a shout at me and even her fingernails, while I was standing firm on her doorstep, my girl all by herself." trans. E. W. Ruddybottom-Jones

"...so did my girl, alone, assail me with her shouts, and claws, as I stood resolved on her threshold." trans. B. Zimmermann



from Textual Criticism Weekly, 4 April 2006

This fragment, recovered just recently, has already been circulated widely among textual critics specializing in elegy or epigram. The condition of the fragment is better than that of many recent finds from Oxyrhynchus, though still lacking in critical points. And so the first round of critical treatment has already generated considerable disagreement. Perhaps the greatest point of dispute is that of authorship.

Handschuhputz is convinced that this is a fragment of Gallus. "Given the source of this papyrus fragment and the elegiac motifs, this must be a fragment of Galllus. As such, this casts new insight into the death of Gallus. Perhaps he did not take his own life after he disgraced himself in his praetorship of Egypt. Rather than by the will of Augustus, it appears he died by the lacerations of his puella."

Zimmermann argues that it is a Propertian couplet, citing the resolved simile opening line 1 (cf. Prop. 1.3.7), which implies that this could not be the first line, and the zeugma. Handschuhputz replied simply that he wanted to be able to say that he worked on a Gallus fragment "[...]in this way really, really bad, nevertheless just once." The other critics have refrained from posing any conjecture.

Brugel Zimmermann and Jürgen Handshuhputz are well known textual critics of today. As leaders of the New Leipzig School of German philologists, they have been especially critical of the Anglo-American sloth among textual critics in those countries. E. W. Ruddybottom-Jones is currently completing his DPhil at the University of Blackpool. He was a student of Zimmermann, but returned to Britain in flight, fearing "committee persecution" over his nation's role in the Second Gulf War. Before reading ancients at Blackpool, he was an assistant script editor on the set of Eastenders. T. Hunter Stahl and Paolino Pozzo have not previously published critical editions of any text.

The editors of Fragmentary Poets Press are currently soliciting additional conjecture or corrigenda.