The Trojan Epic: Posthomerica (Johns Hopkins New Translations from Antiquity)

406 Pages·2007·0.96 MB·English

by  Quintus of Smyrna

The TROJAN EPIC

Quintus of Smyrna
The TROJAN EPIC
Posthomerica
Translated and edited by Alan James
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore and London
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this book as follows:
Quintus, Smyrnaeus, ≥rd cent.
[Posthomerica. English]
The Trojan Epic : Posthomerica / Quintus of Smyrna ; translated and edited by Alan
James.
p. cm. — (Johns Hopkins new translations from antiquity)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN ≠-∫≠∞∫-πΩ∏∑-∑ (hardcover : alk. paper)
∞. Epic poetry, Greek—Translations into English. ≤. Troy (Extinct city)—Poetry.
≥. Trojan War—Poetry. I. James, Alan (Alan W.) II. Title. III. Series.
PA∂∂≠π.Q∑E∑ ≤≠≠∂
∫∫≥%.≠∞—dc≤≤ ≤≠≠≥≠≤∑Ω∂≠
ISBN ∞≠: ≠-∫≠∞∫-∫∏≥∑-X (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN ∞≥: Ωπ∫-≠-∫≠∞∫-∫∏≥∑-∑
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
Contents
Preface vii
Introduction xi
The TROJAN EPIC
∞ Penthesileia 3
≤ Memnon 25
≥ The Death of Achilles 43
∂ The Funeral Games of Achilles 64
∑ The Contest for the Armor of Achilles 80
∏ The Arrival of Eurypylos 98
π The Arrival of Neoptolemos 116
∫ The Death of Eurypylos 135
Ω The Arrival of Philoktetes 149
∞≠ The Death of Paris 163
∞∞ The Defense of Troy 176
∞≤ The Wooden Horse 189
∞≥ The Sack of Troy 205
∞∂ The Departure of the Greeks 220
Critical Summary 239
Commentary 267
Index of Names 349
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Preface
The romantic legend of the Trojan War has exercised the imagination of
poets and artists and held a prominent place in the collective consciousness
of the Western world for more than three thousand years. Such promi-
nence is warranted because the war is the subject of the Iliad and the
Odyssey attributed to Homer, two of the world’s greatest epic poems and
works that mark the beginning of ancient Greek literature. Yet, despite the
opportunity to celebrate a whole war, these poems achieve their greatness
by focusing on small parts of the story. As a result, they refer only inciden-
tally to many of its main events. The consequent need to provide a full
narrative of these was met by several epics, part of the so-called Epic Cycle,
which influenced the classical period of Greek literature. Later neglect of
these Trojan epics led to their loss, probably in the third century a.d. They
were replaced in the second half of that century by the work of a learned
Greek poet named Quintus, who lived in the city of Smyrna on the west
coast of Asia Minor, one of the places that claimed Homer as its son. A
thousand years after the composition of the Homeric epics their meter and
archaic language were still in use and appealed to a cultivated readership.
This extraordinarily conservative tradition produced the Trojan Epic that is
presented here, and the tradition was revived often enough during the next
thousand years for Quintus’ work to survive to the fall of Constantinople
and the age of printing.
Printed editions of the Greek text and of translations have so far gener-
ated only very limited interest in Quintus’ epic, despite the intrinsic attrac-
tiveness of its subject matter not only to supplement the Homeric epics but
also for comparison with later versions of the legend. The work has tended
to be dismissed as a late imitation of Homer without any serious attempt to
assess its qualities. The following claim—‘‘The anaemic pastiche served up
by Quintus is utterly devoid of life’’*—o√ers an extreme example of the
prevailing prejudice against it. How far the main thrust of this critique is
justifiable can now be left for unprejudiced readers to judge for themselves.
Su≈ce it at this point to consider the applicability of the term pastiche. As a
synonym of cento—a patchwork of elements borrowed from other authors
—it is manifestly the wrong word. Only the alternative meaning—a work
*H. Lloyd-Jones, review of Combellack’s English prose translation, Classical Review 19
(1969): 101.
vii
viii PREFACE
that imitates the style of another author or period—applies to Quintus’
Trojan Epic, and that is true, in varying degrees, of many works of Greco-
Roman literature that are taken very seriously indeed. In fact the Trojan Epic
exhibits one of the most extensive and complex intertextual relationships
first and foremost with the Iliad, secondly with the Odyssey and the Argo-
nautika of Apollonios of Rhodes, and then occasionally with other works of
poetry, Latin as well as Greek. In this respect it is comparable with Virgil’s
Aeneid, the two epics being on a similar scale.
The commentary that accompanies this translation, in addition to its
function as a record of textual problems, is designed to present these inter-
textual relationships to nonspecialist readers, providing fairly full refer-
ences to ancient sources but none to modern scholarly literature, unlike the
general introduction with its notes and bibliography. Consequently it needs
to be stated here that the commentary’s greatest indebtedness, by far, is to
the one that accompanies Vian’s edition of the Greek text and French trans-
lation. It has been possible to improve on it at many points, but its wealth of
material has provided an indispensable foundation.
Renewed interest in Quintus’ epic has been reflected in three recent
publications, which are included in the select bibliography: the influence
on it of Apollonios’ Argonautika has been succinctly detailed by F. Vian; G.
Pompella’s critical edition of the Greek text has been reissued in one vol-
ume with very few changes, minus his Italian translation and textual notes;
M. Papathomopoulos’ concordance should facilitate linguistic and stylistic
research. Everything of relevance in the first two of these has been incorpo-
rated into my text.
The subject briefly outlined in the first part of my introduction has
received a thorough, scholarly review in Jonathan Burgess’ book The Tradi-
tion of the Trojan War in Homer and the Epic Cycle, which, by happy coinci-
dence, was published in 2001 by the Johns Hopkins University Press and
became available to me immediately after completion of my manuscript. I
have only one important disagreement with his conclusions about the early
Greek epics, Homeric and Cyclic: I do not see how they can be identified
with the works known to us if their transmission was not controlled from
the start by written texts.
Quintus’ epic first impinged on my awareness in my final year as an under-
graduate at King’s College, Cambridge, and the Loeb edition of it accom-
panied my travels round Italy in the summer of 1960. The advice of others
diverted me from my intention to make it the object of serious research,
and for many years I made no more than occasional reference to it in
published work. The idea of translating it came to me by a circuitous route.
PREFACE ix
In the southern winter of 1980 I conceived the ambition of improving on
the host of English verse translations of the Iliad, first using a strict form of
blank verse and later the freer meter of the present translation. That oc-
cupied much of my spare time for more than a decade and was taken as far
as the end of book 13. Although it is unlikely to see the light of day, it was a
salutary exercise, indeed a necessary training.
My serious interest in Quintus was revived in 1993 by Kevin Lee, my
friend and colleague in the Classics Department at the University of Syd-
ney. He suggested our joint undertaking of a full-scale commentary on one
or two books of the epic, preferably ones in which use of sources would give
us scope for drawing on Kevin’s expertise in Greek tragedy. At first we
agreed to tackle books 5 and 14, but then we narrowed it down to book 5
alone, which resulted in the commentary listed in my bibliography. Quite
early in the period of our collaboration I became aware of the lack of an
adequate English translation, and my idea of applying to Quintus’ Trojan
Epic the fruits of my experience in translating the Iliad was warmly sup-
ported by Kevin. As soon as most of the work on our commentary was
finished and I was free from teaching, I embarked, in January 1999, on my
new task. The translation had just been completed when Kevin’s sudden
and unexpected death on 28 May 2001 removed the one who would have
been my ideal reviewer. Consequently it is to his memory that I dedicate
whatever of this may be worthy of him.
Conversion of my rough manuscript into word-processed typescript has
been largely the work of my son Conrad, who acquired the necessary skills
while bravely bearing the loss of so much through illness. Other technical
support has been given by my wife Theresa, whose support in less direct
ways cannot be adequately acknowledged.