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queensthiefIn King of Attolia, Eugenides quotes some lyrics of Melinno to Costis (p. 346-7 US Hardback edition):
I just discovered that Melinno's poem is in fact a genuine ancient lyric in our world. (I know I've posted fake Greek poetry here before, but this one is for reals. You can google it!)
We don't know anything about Melinno. We have no testimony about her, and only one poem, a hymn to Rome which is transmitted by a 5th century CE encyclopedist (Stobaeus). He claims that Melinno was from Lesbos, but he's probably guessing based on the fact that Melinno uses a meter associated with Sappho (but she writes in standard literary Doric, not in a Lesbian dialect). And since he thinks that it's a hymn to "strength" (ρώμη) rather than to Rome, it's not clear that we should trust him too far (and yet: obviously Melinno is playing with the idea of Rome = "strength"). We don't know when Melinno wrote: it might have been any time from the mid-third century BCE to the second-century CE.
So here are all of Melinno's stanzas behind the cut, followed by my translation (which is less lyrical than MWT's, but tries to preserve the meter of Sapphic strophe). My text is that of Lloyd-Jones, but in the last line I've adopted Bergk's conjecture of ἀπ’ ἀγρῶν for the MSS ἀπ’ ἀνδρῶν. I've bolded the parts that appear in King of Attolia
To you alone, Eldest,
the Fates have given unassailable rule.
Time alters all things,
except this one thing.
For you alone,
the wind that bellows the sails of rule
makes no shift.
I just discovered that Melinno's poem is in fact a genuine ancient lyric in our world. (I know I've posted fake Greek poetry here before, but this one is for reals. You can google it!)
We don't know anything about Melinno. We have no testimony about her, and only one poem, a hymn to Rome which is transmitted by a 5th century CE encyclopedist (Stobaeus). He claims that Melinno was from Lesbos, but he's probably guessing based on the fact that Melinno uses a meter associated with Sappho (but she writes in standard literary Doric, not in a Lesbian dialect). And since he thinks that it's a hymn to "strength" (ρώμη) rather than to Rome, it's not clear that we should trust him too far (and yet: obviously Melinno is playing with the idea of Rome = "strength"). We don't know when Melinno wrote: it might have been any time from the mid-third century BCE to the second-century CE.
So here are all of Melinno's stanzas behind the cut, followed by my translation (which is less lyrical than MWT's, but tries to preserve the meter of Sapphic strophe). My text is that of Lloyd-Jones, but in the last line I've adopted Bergk's conjecture of ἀπ’ ἀγρῶν for the MSS ἀπ’ ἀνδρῶν. I've bolded the parts that appear in King of Attolia
χαῖρέ μοι, Ῥώμα, θυγάτηρ Ἄρηος,
χρυσεομίτρα δαΐφρων ἄνασσα,
σεμνὸν ἃ ναίεις ἐπὶ γᾶς Ὄλυμπον
αἰὲν ἄθραυστον.
σοὶ μόνᾳ, πρέσβιστα, δέδωκε Μοῖρα
κῦδος ἀρρήκτω βασιλῇον ἀρχᾶς,
ὄφρα κοιρανῇον ἔχοισα κάρτος
ἀγεμονεύῃς.
σᾷ δ’ ὐπὰ σδεύγλᾳ κρατερῶν λεπάδνων
στέρνα γαίας καὶ πολιᾶς θαλάσσας
σφίγγεται· σὺ δ’ ἀσφαλέως κυβερνᾷς
ἄστεα λαῶν.
πάντα δὲ σφάλλων ὁ μέγιστος αἰὼν
καὶ μεταπλάσσων βίον ἄλλοτ’ ἄλλως
σοὶ μόνᾳ πλησίστιον οὖρον ἀρχᾶς
οὐ μεταβάλλει.
ἦ γὰρ ἐκ πάντων σὺ μόνα κρατίστους
ἄνδρας αἰχματὰς μεγάλους λοχεύεις
εὔσταχυν Δάματρος ὅπως ἀνεῖσα
καρπὸν ἀπ’ ἀγρῶν
You I hail, Roma, daughter of the war god,
Golden-girdled queen with a mind for battle,
Who inhabits on Earth holy mount Olympus
ever unshattered.
You alone, Eldest, have from Fate apportioned
Rule unbreakable and its king-like glory,
That you, holding your chieftain's might may
act as a leader.
Under your yoke, under its mighty thongs the
breast of earth is bound and the graying ocean
tight. But you guide with your helmsman's rudder
towns and their peoples.
Time's eternal length trips all a-tumble;
time remoulds all life now to this side, now that;
You alone see empire's breeze behind you
unchanging billow.
For indeed, you solely, of all the nations
birth men mighty in war: strongest, greatest fighters,
just as if you culled Dêo's splendid bounty
thickly from wheat fields.
