De saltatione

Lucian of Samosata

Lucian, Vol. 5. Harmon, A. M., editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936.

And a man of the sort I have in mind will know about the Hesperides, too, and the dragon that guards the golden fruit, and the toil of Atlas, and about Geryon, and the lifting of his cattle from Erytheia.

And

v.5.p.263

he will not fail to know all the fabulous transformations, the people who have been changed into trees or beasts or birds, and the women who have turned into men; Caeneus, I mean, and Tiresias, and their like.[*](Caeneus and Tiresias are coupled also in Gallus, 19. On Caeneus, a woman who at her own request was changed by Poseidon into a man, see especially Sir J. G. Frazer’s note on Apoll., Epit., I, 22. )

In Phoenicia he will know about Myrrha[*](Mother of Adonis, called Smyrna by Apollodorus (III, 14, 4); cf. Ovid, Met., X, 298-518. ) and that Syrian tale of dissevered woe,[*](The words ‘néyBos epiléierar: which I have translated “dissevered woe,” seem to me to be certainly sound, and to reflect the identification of Adonis with Osiris then current, the piecemeal recovery of his dismembered body (with, no doubt, renewed mourning over every part), and in particular, the coming of the head to Byblus; see Lucian’s Dea Syria, 7 (IV, p. 344). The phrase is very similar to the λακιστὸν μόρον (“piecemeal doom”) which Lucian quotes (from a lost tragedy) in the Piscator 2 (III, p. 3), and may have been suggested by it. On “Assyrian” for Syrian, see the Index. ) as well as the more recent happenings that followed the establishment of Macedonian rule, the bold deeds of Antipater as well as those at the court of Seleucus over the affections of Stratonice.[*](The allusion to Antipater is inexplicable, unless it is to the son of Cassander, who murdered his mother (Justin., XVI, 1, 1). The story of Antiochus’ love for Stratonice, the wife of his father, Seleucus Nicator, its detection by 4 physician, and the father’s resignation of wife and kingdom to his son is a favourite with Lucian, and is told in Dea Syria, 17-18 (IV, pp. 360 ff.). )

Since Egyptian tales are somewhat mystic, he will know them, but will present them more symbolically; I mean Epaphus and Osiris and the transfigurations of the gods into their bestial forms.

Before all else, however, he will know the stories of their loves, including the loves of Zeus himself, and all the forms into which he changed himself,

and also the whole show in the realm of Hades, with the punishments and the reasons for each, and how the comradeship of Peirithous and Theseus brought them even to Hades.