VISIT…

ANCIENT FAIRY AND FOLK TALES

This anthology explores the multitude of evidence for recognisable fairy tales
drawn from sources in the much older cultures of the ancient world, appearing
much earlier than the 17th century where awareness of most fairy tales tends to
begin.
It presents versions of Cinderella, The Emperor’s New Clothes, Snow White, The
Frog Prince and a host of others where the similarities to familiar ‘modern’ ver-
sions far outweigh the differences. Here we find Cinderella as a courtesan, Snow
White coming to a tragic end, or an innocent heroine murdering her sisters. We
find an emperor’s new clothes where the flatterers compare him to Alexander the
Great, or a pair of adulterers caught in a magic trap. Tantalising fragments sug-
gest that there is more to be discovered: we can point to a Sleeping Beauty where
the girl takes on the green colouring of the surrounding wood, or we encounter
a Rumpelstiltskin connected to a mystery cult. The overall picture suggests a
much richer texture of popular tale as a fascinating new legacy of antiquity.
This volume breaks down the traditional barriers between Classical Mythol-
ogy and the fairy tale, and will be an invaluable resource for anyone working on
the history of fairy tales and folklore.

Graham Anderson is Emeritus Professor of Classics at the University of Kent.

He has written extensively on ancient folk and fairy tale, including Fairytale in the
Ancient World (2000) and Greek and Roman Folklore: A Handbook (2006). His most
recent publication is Fantasy in Greek and Roman Literature (Routledge, 2019). He
is currently working on a study entitled The Pepaideumenos and his World: Intellec-
tuals in the Roman Empire.
ANCIENT FAIRY AND
FOLK TALES
An Anthology

Graham Anderson
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 Graham Anderson
The right of Graham Anderson to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Anderson, Graham, author.
Title: Ancient fairy and folk tales: an anthology / Graham Anderson.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2019. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019031939
Subjects: LCSH: Fairy tales—History and Critism. | Folklore—History.
Classification: LCC GR550 .A56 2019 | DDC 398.209—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019031939

ISBN: 978-1-138-36178-2 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-36179-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-43244-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra
For Richard Stoneman
CONTENTS

Preface ix
List of abbreviations and cue-titles xi

1 Introduction: who’s been telling my tale? 1

2 The classic fairy tale: Cupid and Psyche 17

3 Arts of variation: Cinderellas and Snow Whites 55

4 Otherworldly encounters 70

5 Siren women 87

6 Rewards and punishments I 99

7 Rewards and punishments II: three innocent

slandered maidens 125

8 Tricksters 143

9 Traditional heroes, magic objects 155

10 Animal tales 167

viii Contents

11 Tiny people 178

12 Miscellaneous tales 184

Appendix 1: the Sleeping Beauty (ATU 410, The Petrified Kingdom) 195
Appendix 2: some fragmentary hints 198
Bibliography 199
Glossary of sources in Greek (G) or Latin (L) 207
Index of tale types 209
Index 211
PREFACE

There has been no lack of new writing about Fairy Tale over the past half-­
century. But amid the greatly increased provision of materials it is not unrea-
sonable to describe Ancient Fairy Tale as still a Cinderella subject. I set out to
remedy this at the end of the last millennium with a treatment entitled Fairytale in
the Ancient World; two years later William Hansen produced a much more com-
prehensive handling in his presentation of International Tales, Ariadne’s Thread.
Both treatments endeavoured to establish the existence of a canon of traditional
popular tales in Greek and Roman literature, and both were keyed as a matter
of strong principle to what is now the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, so as to
be easily accessible to professional folklorists and encourage the maximum access
to comparative material. But the overall result has given rise to a lack: we do
not have an annotated collection in translation of Greek and Roman fairy and
folktales as such. Both Hansen and I had presented our respective repertoires
through extensive summaries of tales: it is now useful to provide a collection
of actual texts in translation, as Bryan Reardon’s anthology has long done for
the ancient novel. While this book was in its final stages Hansen brought out a
comprehensive Book of Greek and Roman Folktales, Legends and Myths (2017): once
again Hansen’s scope is wider, emphasising originally oral anecdotes, jokes and
the like, but his scholarly apparatus is this time designedly much more limited.
Some 50 tales in the following collection do not appear in either of Hansen’s
volumes; the need for a further collection of classical fairy and folktales remains.
I have accumulated a number of debts along the way: more than a decade ago I
presented a consultation paper at the Folklore Society on the scope of a projected
anthology: I am grateful to all who took part and contributed useful suggestions.
I owe a special debt to William Hansen, who has supplied me with offprints over
a number of years, and to Nancy Canepa, Debbie Felton and Daniel Ogden,
who invited me to join in complementary projects which have offered further
x Preface

stimulus. I have been grateful for the support of Jack Zipes over many decades,
and of two anonymous referees who encouraged me towards a more expansive
introduction. The book is dedicated to Richard Stoneman, close on 20 years
after our first foray into Fairy Tale. I described my study then as a Bluebeard’s
castle of dismembered narratives; it has now seen their reassembly into witnesses
that speak with their own voice.

Graham Anderson
University of Kent at Canterbury
ABBREVIATIONS AND CUE-TITLES

Aesopica Aesopica ed. B.E.Perry, Urbana, IL

AJPh American Journal of Philology
AT A ntti Aarne and Stith Thompson The Types of the Folktale, 2nd
revision 1961, Helsinki
ATU A. Aarne-S.Thompson and H.-J. Uther (2004), The Types of
International Folktales, Helsinki
BP J. Bolte and G. Polivka, (1913–32) Anmerkungen zu den Kinder-
und Hausmärchen der Br űder Grimm, I-V, Leipzig
BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
CQ Classical Quarterly
Dasent G.W. Dasent (1910 repr. 1970) East o’ the Sun and West o’ the
Moon: Norwegian Folk Tales, New York
DBF K. Briggs (1970), A Dictionary of British Folktales in the English
Language, I-II, London
EM K. Ranke et al. (1977–2015) Enzyklopädie des Märchens, I-XV,
Berlin
FFC Folklore Fellows Communications, Helsinki
FGrH F. Jacoby (ed.) (1923–1958), Die Fragmente der griechischen
Historiker, Berlin and Leiden
Gantz T. Gantz (1993), Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and
Visual Sources, Baltimore, MD
Hansen W. Hansen (2002), Ariadne’s Thread: A Guide to International
Tales found in Classical Literature, Ithaca, NY
Imagines Philostratus (Senior) Imagines
JAF Journal of American Folklore
JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies
xii Abbreviations and cue-titles

LIMC  .C. Ackermann and J.-R. Gisler, (eds) (1981–97) Lexicon

H
Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, I-VIII, Zurich
Met. (Apuleius, Ovid) Metamorphoses
ML R. Christiansen (1958), The Migratory Legends, Helsinki
NH Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia
PIR 2 Prosopographia Imperii Romani
RhM Rheinisches Museum f űr Philologie
RSV Revised Standard Version
TAPhA Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association
(1955–58) A Motif-Index of Folk Literature, I-VI, Bloomington, IN
Thompson, S. 
VA Philostratus, Vita Apollonii Tyanensis
VS Philostratus, Vitae Sophistarum
1
INTRODUCTION
Who’s been telling my tale?

The catchphrase above suggests that someone else has got there first: that familiar
and much-loved stories we claim as ‘ours’1 may not necessarily be so after all; we
may not find older tellings instantly recognisable in every detail, but that is in
itself a reason for looking further back than we have been accustomed to do. The
dwarves in Snow White who ask that sort of question we take for granted as char-
acters in a fairy tale; but it will be useful to define what sort of material such a
term has come to entail, and just how old we might expect some fairy tales to be.
As a working definition of a fairy tale I have adopted the following: ‘a tale
with a marked fantastic or magical content and a high moral standpoint’. Fairy
tale belongs to the larger category of folktale, associated in the first instance with
oral tradition. Within that broad grouping it differs from myth in not attempting
explanation of creation or the world; it differs from legend in not offering histor-
ically believable material; and it differs from other non-magical folktale catego-
ries such as humorous tales and novellas in its framework of unbelievability.2 It
can include literary works of named authors as well as anonymous narrators: fairy
tales are frequently presented even in literary settings as popular and traditional
material being told orally to a listener or listeners. It is easy to think of examples
where such categories overlap, and scholars may choose to see the story of the
one-eyed ogre as fairy tale3 as readily as folktale.
So much for definitions in isolation. Students of fairy and folktale can voice
frustration at the diversity of formulations possible; and we can feel left with
a sense of confusion worse confounded.4 Of some half-dozen definitions col-
lected by Stein5 those of Bolte and Ranke are similar to the above; those of Stith
Thompson and Vladimir Propp emphasise their own specific interest in motifs
and functions6 respectively. J.R.R. Tolkien invoked a background of what he
called ‘Faerie’ for the ethos of the fairy tale.7 Perhaps the least satisfactory char-
acterisation is ironically one by Jacob Grimm himself, simply contrasting the
2 Introduction: who’s been telling my tale?

poetic quality of the fairy tale with the historical aspect of legend. The level of
­documentation is now such that the Grimms’ tales have acquired their own corpus
of annotations, by Bolte and Polivka (1911–1932); and even Tolkien’s celebrated
essay has acquired its own text and commentary! But some attempt at precision is
necessary, because in practice the terms relating to popular storytelling are often
loose and based on verbal association. Supernatural forces are normal in fairy tale,
but need not be fairies as such; and many tales include gods, but not acting in
some higher mythical capacity. The term ‘fairy tale’ is generally used as an equiv-
alent to ‘magic tale’8 (German Zaubermärchen) or ‘wonder tale’ (Wundermärchen),
but normal English usage now prefers Grimms’ Fairy Tales to Grimms’ Wonder
Tales. Folk tale and fairy tale are often treated as almost interchangeable, but a
traditional riddle-tale like King John and the Abbot is a folktale without any claim
to being a fairy tale, precisely because any wonder or magical element is missing.
The term ‘international tale’ is a useful professional term when linking folktales
to the Aarne-Thompson-Uther index of tales (ATU),9 where magic tales occupy
numbers 300–749; but again the term’s currency outside the academy is much less
than that of folktale as a matter of common usage. In the end I chose to emphasise
fairy tale because I think it best links an ancient tale like Cupid and Psyche with
the elaborately decorated contes de fées of 17th-century France,10 and because fairy
tales like those of Perrault or the Grimms are the kind of stories most likely to lie
still partly submerged and undetected in the ancient world.11
Fairy tales of any period present some specific expectations of thematic ­content.
We might expect family disharmony that calls for resolution: typically sibling
rivalry is involved, like that of Psyche and her sisters, or even incest, as in some
forms of Cinderella. A tale may involve a quest or the solution to a problem, like
Psyche’s implementation of tasks set by a future mother-in-law. Also important is
the sympathy of the reader or listener for the protagonist. A supernatural agent,
magic helper or magic object will somehow be expected to put matters right in
the plot; and there will be rewards for the modest and virtuous, and punishments
for those who are not. There are some distinctive motifs that seem to point to
fairy tale quite inexorably: if anyone is turned into or out of a frog,12 then fairy
tale will be the first thing to suggest itself. If however someone turns into or out
of a stag, the reader will be more likely to think of the story as myth13: such is the
whimsical power of traditional association. We expect some typical tale elements,
as when animal helpers assist the heroine to accomplish impossible household
tasks, or a king offers half his kingdom for whatever it might be, or there is a
surfeit of golden objects, or invisibility looms large. We are also prone to associate
certain stereotyped phrases with the fairy tale: ‘All the better to x you with…’ is
among the most distinctive; to say nothing of ‘Once upon a time’ and ‘happily
ever after’, as well as ‘Who’s been sleeping in my bed?’ There may be gruesome
features, like Psyche’s indirect murder of her sisters, and happy endings are not
as assured as we tend to take for granted: Hippomenes and Atalanta undergo a
transformation that denies them any sexual fulfilment, just as surely as Perrault’s
version does not save Red Riding Hood from being finally eaten by the wolf.
 Introduction: who’s been telling my tale? 3

The fairy tale: towards a traditional history

Before adding in a range of earlier examples, it is useful to suggest a ­chronological
overview of Western fairy tale. Two Renaissance collections mark the begin-
nings of the modern genre as generally conceived: Straparola’s Le piacevoli notti
(The Delectable Nights) (1550–1553) with 14 fairy tales among 73 tales; and
­Basile’s Lo cunto de li cunti (‘The Tale of Tales’, otherwise known as the Pentam-
erone), consisting of 49 tales and a frame (1634–1636). Both authors present an
audience listening to a cycle of tales, preserving the illusion of orality, and in
Basile’s case told by lower-class women. From the end of the 17th century come
the significant markers of Charles Perrault’s Histoires ou contes du temps passé, with
its sub-title Contes de ma mère L’oye (Mother Goose Tales) and tales by Madame
D’Aulnoy, who coined the term Contes de fées itself (1698)14; it is with her set of 15
tales that the resourceful manipulation of fairy tale motifs might be said to come
of age, and no fewer than five of her narratives look back to Cupid and P ­ syche
as a model. Perrault had just produced what have become canonic versions of
Cinderella, Puss in Boots, Sleeping Beauty and others; whatever the previous history
of these tales, they here appear against an aristocratic, court background which
valued good manners and an ethos of opulence. There is noteworthy inventive-
ness in evidence: d’Aulnoy’s Finette Cendron and her sisters touch on Babes in
the Wood, and even a one-eyed cannibal giant tricked into his own oven, before
their own Cinderella plot is completed. Such tales are the product of educated
circles and set the pattern of fairy tales that are essentially literary, and authored
by named individuals, in a world where Ancient Ovidian metamorphosis and
Medieval romance effortlessly coalesce.15 The fashion for fairy tale continued,
notably in the hands of educated women writers such as Marie-Jeanne L’héritier
and Rose de la Force,16 till the substantial Cabinet des fées on the threshold of the
French Revolution.
The tide now turned in favour of the notion of the oral tale collected from
humble informants. By the early 19th century such tales could be collected along
local or national lines for the most part, by individual scholarly initiatives, most
notably those of the Brothers Grimm. In contrast to the educated output of the
French salon-ladies, these tales were seen at least at the time as the preserve of
the folk, the heritage of a nation’s soul17 through the spontaneous voice of the
peasantry. This idealised state of affairs is now accorded a good deal of modi-
fication: the Grimms themselves edited and revised their collection Kinder-und
Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales) seven times between 1812 and 1857;
and at least some of their versions appear to have been influenced by literate ver-
sions of French inspiration.18
Since the Grimms the study of the oral tale has greatly developed, and a
landmark was reached in 1910 with Antti Aarne’s index of popular tale
types, revised by Stith Thompson in 1928 and 1961 and much expanded by
H.-J. Uther in 2004, under the title The Types of International Folktales. A se-
ries of monographs appeared until around 1960 by various researchers studying
4 Introduction: who’s been telling my tale?

the motif-variations of individual tales according to the historic-geographic

method.19 Stith ­Thompson’s revision of his motif-index of individual constitu-
ents of tales appeared in ­1955–1958. The ‘magic tales’, otherwise fairy tales, are
placed before religious tales, romances and stupid ogre stories in what is now the
Aarne-Thompson-Uther classification, though these categories also contain a
sprinkling of fairy/magic tales as well. And the massive Enzyklopädie des Märchens
begun by Kurt Ranke in 1977 saw its final supplementary volume in 2015.20
Of course the production of individually invented fairy tales taking only their
starting-point from the traditional fairy tale has continued through the last three
centuries, faster than scholarly study can keep up with them.
Here the history of the fairy tale might be allowed to rest, with occasional
skirmishing over the ‘invention’ of the first fairy tale: Ruth Bottigheimer saw
Straparola as the actual inventor of the genre, giving rise to substantial contro-
versy, particularly over whether the fairy-tale genre developed through oral use
of written texts.21 But there remains a nagging doubt that the outline suggested
so far cannot be the whole story. Two texts in particular stand out to challenge
the above account: the 9th-century ce Chinese story of Yeh-Hsien which has
been acknowledged as a fully-fledged Cinderella long before the European Re-
naissance, and one not truncated in any way22; and the substantial tale of Cupid
and Psyche forming the centrepiece of the picaresque novel the Metamorphoses
(The Golden Ass) by the Latin sophist Apuleius as early as the 2nd century ce.23
Some classicists explain the latter piece in different terms, and it is indeed a richly
multifaceted text24; but only its mannered Late Latin language would prevent its
being passed off as a text from an 18th-century French salonnière. The fairy tale
has been around for a good deal longer, and reached its literary maturity early.
To address the question of continuity between ancient and modern fairy tale
repertoire two treatments appeared around the millennium: the present author
and William Hansen independently produced studies setting out to show that the
links from Antiquity to the Renaissance are much more extensive than usually
assumed.25 Not all the examples adduced were of complete tales, but at least it
should now be no longer possible to claim that fairy tales as we know them are
no older than the Renaissance.26 (A recent radical claim in effect allowing fairy
tales to be no older than the Grimms depends on redefining the genre to an un-
convincing degree.27)
In fact classicists and folklorists alike have long been aware that there are
some continuities between Classical Antiquity and modern oral storytelling,
both at the level of motifs and complete tales: Stith Thompson (1946: 278–281)
listed a substantial number of significant motifs, including the single eye of
the ­Phorcides (K333.2), the war between pygmies and cranes (F535.5.1), the
­lotus-eaters (D1365.1.1), and the sail signal on Theseus’ ship (Z130.1). But groups
of ­motifs can also be found, yielding at least the possibility of survival of larger
tales: this appears to be the case with the story of the Argonauts, which fur-
nishes analogues to the tale ‘Six around the world/The land and water ship’ (the
­outward journey) and ‘the obstacle flight’ (the return). So too the Tale of the Two
 Introduction: who’s been telling my tale? 5

Brothers contains several motifs which turn up together in modern oral versions
of this very ancient tale (guaranteed as such by an ancient Egyptian version as
well as the Greek story of Peleus).28

Fairy tales in context

In a good number of instances we are lucky enough to have some notion of a
context in which an ancient fairy tale is actually being told. Odysseus tells the
stories of Polyphemus and Circe before an aristocratic audience in a place which
Homer himself seems to present as a kind of fairy-tale island in its own right.29
Other stories are told by the local bard Demodocus.30 Prominent among the
occasions is that of after-dinner entertainment. Indeed dinner-parties continue
to be a traditional opportunity for storytelling throughout antiquity: our clear-
est allusion to the Frog Prince story comes in a bizarre Roman dinner party in
Petronius’ comic novel (1st c. ce), which also provides an allusion to the man
who finds the goblin’s cap to take him to a treasure.31 A number of stories retold
by Lucian’s porte-parole Tychiades centre on the supernatural and are set by their
frame narrator at a sickbed clearly meant to evoke discussion of the after-life, and
looking back to Plato’s Phaedo.32 At the other end of the spectrum we find stories
presented or dismissed as old wives’ tales, told by female nurses to scare, enthral
or reward their child charges, often to the disapproval of the reporter: imagina-
tion is implied to be dangerous or subversive.33
In terms of literary genre there is a wide range of formal classifications in
which fairy tales are able to surface. Those I have included from the Odyssey can
at no point be mistaken for heroic tales: Odysseus is no giant-killer like Heracles
in the slaying of Cacus in the Aeneid, for example; in the Circe tale he has only to
follow Hermes’ instructions in order to turn the tables on the witch; and the tale
of Ares and Aphrodite is at base a novella which just happens to be in verse in the
middle of an Epic. Some fairy tales find themselves in slightly artificial company
in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, where they are part of a Hellenistically styled catalogue
poem, and may seem to be distorted to include an explanatory cause or a met-
amorphosis. Others however only survive in the barest of mythographers’ sum-
maries, or antiquarian travelogues, where their impact as fairy tales runs the risk
of being all but lost. Sadly, we should expect to have a great many more if we had
more substantial remains of Athenian Satyric drama, where the satyrs themselves
as mischievous and often comic supernatural creatures may well have provided
their fair share of otherworldly beings to interact with humans in distress. Most
intriguing are those fairy tales which appear embedded in larger works of fiction,
with varying degrees of recognisability. One at least, Chione, appears to be a Snow
White novel, but the remains are still very fragmentary.34 Such a development is
parallel to the efflorescence of fairy tale across the 17th/18th centuries in France,
where the fairy tale could indeed attain to novel proportions. We can also be
aware of traditional material being earthed into historiography, with or without
the credulity of the historical narrator himself. Without an actual ancient term
6 Introduction: who’s been telling my tale?

for fairy tale (other than Greek mythos, a not-necessarily-reliable tale) we have no
ancient anthology to correspond to the kind of compilation found in Straparola,
Basile or Perrault, though it might be suggested that Ovid and other compilers
such as Antoninus Liberalis,35 an assembler of metamorphoses in the 2nd century
ce, come at least close at times to such an enterprise.

Fairy tales and children

A good many fairy tales do seem to be directed towards a younger audience:
most obviously Cupid and Psyche is told as an anilis fabula – an old wives’ tale – to
a young girl; and we hear a number of instances where tales are told to distract,
reward, caution or otherwise influence children.36 More unusual is the setting
of Philostratus the Elder’s first set of Imagines (Greek Eikones), where the author
takes a child round a picture-gallery and explains paintings with a notably myth-
ical or fairy-tale subject-matter.37 But a passage in Aristophanes’ Wasps indicates
an unsophisticated old man as also a likely teller of (apparent) fairy tales; it may
be that for lack of any education in between, it is the tales that he heard as a child
that he regards as suitable for re-telling.38

Symbol and social agenda

Fairy tales offer an Aladdin’s cave of material for students of human nature and
social history alike, but there are a good many pitfalls along the way. Undoubt-
edly fairy tales target genuine family problems such as the death of a mother and
her replacement by a stepmother, or the issue of sibling rivalry and the need to
socialise children out of cruel and selfish behaviour. It is all very well to claim
that the adventures of fairy tale heroes and heroines encourage the resilience of
the growing child,39 but it might just as readily be suggested that they encourage
the child to wait for the fairy god-person to manage difficult family situations.
There will also be assumptions that are to say the least questionable: that nasty
people are physically ugly, and kindly ones correspondingly beautiful. We must
be ever wary of imposing the notion that all fantasy tales must have some kind
of ‘meaning’ that can be unlocked and can be proven: it is perfectly possible to
see competition between generations in tales where a humbly born hero threat-
ens to supplant a king, but it may be going too far to see the king himself as a
Freudian father-figure. Where we can see such motifs as incest we can expect it
to be explicit, as in those Cinderella variants where the heroine flees from a father
who wishes to marry her.40 We could be persuaded that stories of frog or snake
bridegrooms and the like are motivated by attempts to prepare innocent young
girls for the first sight and experience of male genitals; or indeed that the preoc-
cupation with fitting feet into shoes has a similarly sexual connotation.
It is worth noting that the social agenda of a specific fairy tale may change
over time: a society conscious of child abuse may feel that Little Red Riding Hood
is or may be read as a warning against strangers in lonely places, but in the
 Introduction: who’s been telling my tale? 7

ancient version of Euthymus and Lycus it is the whole community that has to
expose the girl to ‘marriage’ with the wolf-spirit, and the whole dynamic of the
story is correspondingly different.41 There is also a widespread assumption that
folktales in general concern the very humble in society, though it may chart their
social rise. This does not bear examination: in the five Cinderella- or Cinderella-­
related tales featured here, each girl starts at a different point on the social ­ladder:
­R hodopis is a slave, Aspasia lowborn but free, Chloe a foundling aristocrat,
Aseneth an aristocrat throughout and Aphrodite a goddess!
Sometimes social position is built into the tale: it is required that the per-
son who tells the truth in The Emperor’s New Clothes should be someone with
no social position to lose, hence an old woman from up country in the case
of Pyrrhus flattered as the image of Alexander the Great; in the late Medieval
Count Lucanor version the whistle-blower is a negro, for whom it is not impor-
tant whether legitimately born or not.42 Sometimes occupation will play a sig-
nificant part: Jack Zipes has underlined the essential economic role of spinning
in the tale of Rumpelstiltskin.43

How do ancient examples alter our perception?

It is often in relation to popular assumptions about the psychological meaning
and social history of tales that ancient examples can hope to offer if not correc-
tives, certainly cautions about what we can take to be the essentials of a tale.
The first thing one tends to notice is that the Ancient World is a great deal less
tolerant to heroines: those impregnated by gods are not seen in Antiquity as rape
victims, but as girls who must immediately curb their pride and arrogance.44 We
note too the insistence in the Polyphemus tale of the punishment for the giant’s
crime of neglecting Zeus and the laws of hospitality,45 a matter of rather less con-
sequence in versions after the end of Antiquity. We are also accustomed to think
of traditional fairy tale as being very unspecific (‘once upon a time in a certain
country…’), where a Greek mythographer handling the same material will rou-
tinely tie a specific hero to a specific parentage and a specific city. In some cases
the world below seems to be presented differently: the underworld is sometimes
peopled in modern folktale by trees with silver, gold and diamond branches46:
Virgil famously used the golden bough in the singular in just such a context.47
Underground one is to expect trees of precious metals and jewels.

How old are fairy tales?

It does not take much acquaintance with the tales of the Ancient Near East to
realise that classical versions of fairy tales are in most cases unlikely to be the first
of their kind. The adultery of Ares and Aphrodite on a divine level as early as
Homer’s Odyssey is little different from the human case of Ubainer’s wife and her
paramour from the Egypt of the previous millennium: a magic crocodile to hold
the adulterer under water serves the same function as the invisible bonds supplied
8 Introduction: who’s been telling my tale?

by Hephaestus.48 Sumerian sacred tales already anticipate a fair p­ roportion of the

essentials for Cinderella-type narratives, even if we cannot produce the whole
template from any one text49; and the ancient Egyptian Tale of Two Brothers sup-
plies more of the modern international tale than what has survived from the
Graeco-Roman world of the story of Peleus and Thetis.50 The Old Testament
also affords a number of folklore-based episodes: Abel’s murdered remains cry
out to God from the ground; Jacob is an accomplished trickster; Daniel fulfils
the qualification for an Emperor’s New Clothes story when he foresees the naked-
ness of Nebuchadnezzar; or the pharaoh defaults on payment for plagues, and so
God kills the Egyptian firstborn sons to the same effect as the Pied Piper. We
are wise to suspect or even assume that we are unlikely ever to know when we
have chanced on the very first telling of any specific fairy tale. It may take no
more than the belief in supernatural involvement in human domestic affairs to
generate such a story.

Oral or written?
Ancient examples do not have a great deal of light to shed on the transmission
of our materials. All our surviving specimens must have been written down at
some point; otherwise we should not have them at all. We know that sometimes
as humble a genre as the fable was versified for added elegance. Yet the Homeric
poems are generally acknowledged to be examples of a tradition of oral compo-
sition, and so the tales of Polyphemus and Circe, Nausicaa, and Ares and Aph-
rodite are seen as among the products of it. The prose example in the Medieval
Turkish Book of Dede Korkut is even more clearly suffused with oral mannerisms:
(‘What did he recite? Let us see, O my Khan, what he recited…’). At the other
extreme Apuleius’ version of Cupid and Psyche could scarcely be more clearly the
product of a literate culture decorated with rhetorical mannerisms learned in a
school. A near contemporary of Apuleius, Dio of Prusa, actually offers us an ac-
count of a female wise woman and oral storyteller he says he met on his travels in
rural Greece: but the story she tells, a version of the so-called Allegory of Prod-
icus, is once again a highly contrived literary artefact.51 Time and again we are
confronted with the mixture of oral and written: Lucian’s ghost stories underline
very well the interplay between superstitious intellectuals talking off the cuff.
The issue has tended to generate more heat than light between oral folklorists
and students of literature, but we are not likely to be far wrong if we suspect a
mixture of oral and written transmission for the majority of tales.

The historical progression of tales

It is difficult to attempt any continuous history of ancient to modern fairy tale,
because the gaps in what has survived are so great. If we were to set out even to
provide a history of Cinderella, for example, we have a huge gap between the first
‘modern’ telling in Basile’s La Gatta Cenerentola and the 9th-century Chinese
 Introduction: who’s been telling my tale? 9

version long wrongly thought to be the earliest known; we could now hope to
add a miscellany of classical Greek versions, not all of which quite encompass the
whole tale; or assemble the pieces of a group of Sumerian Inanna-texts that are
closest to Basile, with their distinctive date-tree dowry/trousseau tree motif. But
without any notion of how and when versions of the tale travelled (if indeed they
had to wait till historical times to do so) the operation is next to meaningless. We
should of course also be aware that in even the modern history of the tale it is
by no means clear how much one anthologist could have known of the work of
his predecessors, with Basile’s collection in particular inaccessible in Neapolitan
Dialect until translated into Italian in the 19th century. Yet it is equally clear that
for example the Egyptian Tale of Two Brothers should have remained in the oral
repertoire to re-emerge in the modern tale, and that The Poor Man of Nippur can
be confirmed as having done the same. The assumption of continuous tradition
should be the norm rather than the exception.

The selection and categorising of tales

Given the flexibility of definition we should allow for fairy tales, and the di-
versity of materials and contexts where they occur, it is worth reflecting on the
reasons for adopting the present arrangement of tales, which in the end has had
to be an arbitrary choice among many. My overall objective here has been to sug-
gest a sequence that offers variety and readability, and which serves to make the
relationship between ancient and modern fairy tales as clear as can be expected.

Cupid and Psyche

I have made Cupid and Psyche the starting point, as it offers the single best il-
lustration of what an ancient fairy tale could attain, both in scale and artistry:
otherwise few examples outside Homer and Ovid come close to it in the control
of detail, and they are in verse. At first glance it might appear that the author
has stitched together elements of Beauty and the Beast (the supposedly ‘animal
bridegroom’), Cinderella (the wicked jealous siblings) and Snow White (the near-
deathly sleep dispelled by the bridegroom); but the very similar story of Semele
establishes that the skeleton of the tale is earlier than Apuleius (analogues in
Hittite tales suggest how much earlier at least); and the story is part of the core
repertoire of international tales known both to Basile in the 17th century and
the Grimms in the 19th century. Central to the action is the innocent young girl
who is actually forced into a marriage, which the rest of the tale is contrived to
retrieve (the so-called ‘search for the lost husband’). Characteristic components
of the fairy tale are already in place: it centres on the unseen bridegroom, with a
sight taboo duly attached; the ever-vulnerable heroine persecuted by the bride-
groom’s mother, embodying the problem of family relationships; and the suppos-
edly lethal tasks which can only be accomplished with assistance from the natural
world and the supernatural husband himself. The divine characters behave like
10 Introduction: who’s been telling my tale?

fairy tale movers rather than religious forces; and Psyche does little on her own
initiative, other than tidy the shrines of Ceres and Juno, who are both powerless
to help her; and bizarrely, to contrive the deaths of her treacherous sisters. From
the outset, the matter of unquestioning obedience to the gods is in place: there is
no escape from the dictates of the oracle which enjoins Psyche’s marriage. Most
characteristic in the story is the atmosphere of opulence: in particular Cupid’s
palace with its invisible servitors attains a level of fantasy which the tales of
­Perrault and the contemporary coteries of French female storytellers will reclaim
only a millennium and a half later.

Arts of variation: Cinderellas and Snow Whites

It is useful at an early stage to appreciate how traditional tales change with trans-
mission from one storyteller to the next, and from one geographical area to an-
other; or how much an educated writer creating a literary version may introduce
a new twist to a familiar tale. Within the ancient world we have the sense that
tales may somehow turn out ‘the same but different’. It may come as a jolt that
Rhodopis is a slave and a courtesan, if we were simply expecting bullying by
jealous stepsisters as the basis for a persecuted heroine. We have to think of the
implications of a slave-owning society, and one where tales are not always aimed
at a child audience, but are allowed to contain ‘adult’ material. Again, we think
of ‘flight from the ball’; but what happens in a society where there are no such
events? Aspasia offers further mutations, including forced attendance at a royal
drinking-bout, and use of a token test to acknowledge the groom’s mother’s
status rather than identify the bride; Asenath’s washing of Joseph’s feet has the
same effect of establishing marital subservience. Longus’ pastoral tale makes free
use of a range of Cinderella motifs, including helpful animals and rustic deities:
here golden slippers are used to identify the social status rather than the identity
of the bride.
Snow White variants can be no less unpredictable. We are so used to the
magic mirror on the wall that we do not expect the heroine’s jealous rival sim-
ply to be named ‘Diviner’ (Manto), or the chaste helper to be a single herdsman
rather than three giants or seven dwarfs: Xenophon of Ephesus’ novel has to keep
to what is possible in the real world. Nor do we expect an unhappy ending, with
Ovid’s heroine killed by Artemis and immolated, yet her name Chione itself
clearly enough identifies her as the Snow Girl; to say nothing of the exposure of
Pygmalion’s bride as a marble statue that comes to life (rather than a girl in a glass
case), offering a happily-ending second half of the tale.

Otherworldly encounters
Actual practitioners of magic serve naturally as the protagonists of fairy tale,
sometimes combined with erotic themes and often featuring barbarian outsiders
to the Greek world. Nor was Apuleius alone in cultivating supernatural tales in
 Introduction: who’s been telling my tale? 11

an educated medium: the eminent sophist Hadrian of Tyre acquired a r­ eputation

for actually practising magic because of his tales of magicians, which are un-
fortunately lost.52 Tales range from simple detection of an unburied corpse ac-
tively haunting a house, to those of return from the dead, taking in corpses
who reclaim their lost property on the way, or unnaturally long sleeps. Familiar
favourites include The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, with its supernatural and duplicating
servants, and a rather minimalist version of Rip van Winkle, this time with the
little people missing. The ancient tale of Alcestis, thanks to Euripides’ dramatic
version, actually remains better known than the modern popular tale.

Siren women
Women living apart or in female-only communities could easily be cast as dan-
gerous outsiders: the operations of Circe are presented at the very outset of clas-
sical literature, in what has clearly the credentials of an international tale. The
instances of metamorphosis of men into beasts are not confined, however, and
St. Augustine’s notice of two cases he encountered in Italy emphasises the pop-
ular character of the belief, writ large in two novel-length versions in Apuleius’
The Golden Ass and a Greek epitome of the same story.53 It is worth noting
that for all its detail the Homeric tale of Circe leaves us asking why exactly the
witch-figure should wish to transform Odysseus’ crew in the first place: the two
tales from St. Augustine suggest an answer (transformation into draft animals
suggests rather that they should be raised as transport).

Rewards and punishments

This is a broad and miscellaneous group, but is justified by the strong moral
dimension which ensures punishment for undetected murder, after often mag-
ical means of detection. It also includes the tale of Hippomenes and Atalanta,
bizarrely punished for sacrilege and prevented from a normal sexual fulfilment.
The two tales of Erysichthon offer good illustrations of a vengeful fairy readily
equivalent to the classical nymph. The category also contains tales in which an
initial reward is cancelled out by the greed of an unthinking recipient, perhaps
the fairy tale which best represents one of the core features of the genre: the world
of make-believe and ‘if only’ can be realised, and then brought down to earth
again, by ordinary human failings.

Tricksters
There is an argument for placing tricksters in the realm of folktale rather than the
narrower field of fairy tale, but the one-eyed giant ogre situates the Polyphemus-
story firmly in the latter camp as well, and the king who offers the clever thief his
daughter’s hand in marriage would also place Herodotus’ tale of Rhampsinitus in
the same area. Homer’s tale of Odysseus and Polyphemus can be seen as a lavish
12 Introduction: who’s been telling my tale?

version of the story in terms of its detail, and we note also that there is actually no
magic or supernatural aid at all in the outwitting of the giant, but only the pro-
tagonist’s own skill. The tale as Odysseus tells it is probably incomplete, however,
as there is only a trace of the magic self-announcing ring motif which figures in
the medieval Oghuz Turkish version54 and elsewhere. It should be emphasised
that trickery is seldom absent for too long from most examples of fairy tale or its
mythical counterpart: even the innocent Psyche practises murderous deception
without turning a hair. Unfortunately we have no surviving detailed version of
the trickster-cycle surrounding Sisyphus and Autolycus, the former of whom
actually tricks Death himself into being locked up.

Traditional heroes, magic objects

In fairy tales of this broad category we can expect a number of standard features:
that the hero begins at some social disadvantage and is subject to threat or per-
secution; and that magical or supernatural intervention is necessary to enable
him to survive death threats and achieve marriage or some similar social success.
Both Bellerophon and Perseus underline the fact that little actual heroism is
required, rather than astute precautions, as in such matters as cutting out wild
beasts’ tongues to prevent false claims by rivals. The tales of Melampus and the
frenzied women and Hippomenes and Atalanta feature heroic pursuits, in the
latter case with golden apples supplied by Aphrodite. The treatments of the Ar-
gonauts in Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica afford little prominence to the spe-
cial skills of the crew: where these are limited to some half-dozen in the popular
versions there is room for all of them to show off their magic endowments of ex-
traordinary sight, hearing or the like. Also, the scattering of the limbs of Medea’s
brother Apsyrtus is a far cry from the magic comb giving rise to a forest that we
find in the oral fairy tale tradition. Euthymus’ rescue of a girl from a wolf-spirit
offers an ancient form of the longer version of Red Riding Hood, where the wolf
is defeated and drowned. Gyges’ magic ring is the nearest we seem to find for
Aladdin’s Lamp, perhaps unsurprisingly against a West Asian background.

Animal tales
Aesopic fables can seldom be subsumed within fairy tale: one accepts the initial
premise of talking animals, but otherwise the majority of stories proceed as sim-
ple parables of social hierarchy or survival. The tale of Demicoq (‘Half-Chick’)
on the other hand presents an animal with a capacious all-absorbing backside in
popular versions, and in Lucian’s polite literary presentation an animal able to
subsume multiple identities by transmigration. By contrast the story of Alope
seems to offer a compressed and elliptical working of Puss in Boots, with the fre-
quent alternative protagonist the fox. The effect is the same, but the ogre is here
actually the fox’s father, as the pauper who inherits a kingdom is her son. This
removes the criticism levelled at the modern tale that the hero prospers unjustly
 Introduction: who’s been telling my tale? 13

through the cat’s dishonest trickery. In this ancient version the heroine is in fact
the rightful heir to the ogre’s territory.

Little people
It seems natural enough that stories aimed at or at least told to children should
include the doings of tiny folk, and a number of categories could be distinguished
in classical antiquity: these include the P ēcheis (‘Cubits’) that are said to be chil-
dren of the Nile, Erōtes as depicted in classical art, Daktyloi (‘Tom Thumbs’), or
persons with names like Pygmalion (‘little fist’) or the like. In some cases only
the name seems to indicate stature, while the bearer seems otherwise to be of
normal size; but Erōtes in particular must be of a size to ride plausibly on swans
or dolphins.
Indispensable to the ancient nursery is a whole collection of bogeywomen
used to scare children into good behaviour (Akko, Alphito, Empousa, Gello,
Lamia, Mormo); their general association is with the loss, or indeed the eating,
of children; unfortunately we lack substantial ancient narratives about them, no
doubt because their nursery connections rendered them trivial in the eyes of the
highly educated.

Miscellaneous tales
Two tales deal with language: a cautionary tale is concerned with interpret-
ing symbols in accordance with wishful thinking; and understanding animal
speech is presented as a reward for pious action. The inversion of status offers
the essence of The Emperor’s New Clothes. Once more we need to adjust our vi-
sion to recognise Pyrrhus’ court flatterers not as praising the royal clothes, but
the king’s likeness to Alexander the Great. Two anecdotes deal with extraor-
dinary perception, of a woman’s touch and a feather. Deceptive appearances
figure in an unusual presentation of a familiar favourite; we have the repug-
nant brine-encrusted figure of Odysseus talking matrimony to a princess before
Athene transforms his own appearance to a handsome stranger – complete with
lost ball and location at the world’s end; we are at least in the broad territory
of the familiar frog prince. The last exhibits are two tantalising tales sharing in
common the problem that they appear to be connected with the celebration of
mysteries, which makes it very difficult to collect much testimony about ancient
versions, though in both instances we can build up a case from circumstan-
tial evidence. There are two nuggets of tradition about gold-related mysteries
which seem to set the scene for the story of Rumpelstiltskin without actually
telling it; an analogous story presented in dramatic form in Lucian’s Fugitivi
does give the significant name Cantharus (Scarab-beetle) for the mysterious and
cantankerous helper and kidnapper of women, but its dramatic form obscures
the outlines somewhat. Central to an ancient Bluebeard version is the person of
the Athenian Princess Procris, who in fact survives two Bluebeard figures in the
14 Introduction: who’s been telling my tale?

first instance, while Eumolpus, a son of Poseidon who demands the sacrifice of
sisters and institutes mysteries celebrating a girl kidnapped underground, seems
to continue the connexion with Eleusis. The Sleeping Beauty is among the most
difficult tales to reconstruct from ancient remains: but the Basile tale of Sun,
Moon and Talia seems to confirm its identity.

Scope of the present anthology

In the following collection I have translated some 70-odd different traditional
tales, the great majority of which can reasonably be presented as fairy tales of
the kind Perrault and the Grimms have produced, even if their ATU credentials
lie outside those they describe as ‘magic tales’. I have not included more than
a couple of Aesopic animal fables, which constitute a separate genre; historical
legends appear only if they offer a clearly fairy tale content; myths similarly only
if the gods in them seem to behave in such roles as magic helpers or bad fairies. A
number of ordinary folktales have also been included. The primary motive is to
alert students and scholars, classicists or folklorists and the general reader to what
is out there, and for that heritage to be enjoyed as well as studied.
There have had to be some economies of scale. I have not succumbed to the
temptation of including most or all of The Golden Ass, which is already well served
with translations; I have aimed in the notes to draw attention only i­ncidentally to
traditional commentary-type details which any reader has to know, and refer to
standard commentaries where available. The proliferation of accessible commen-
tary in recent years has made this task easier than it might have been, and most
readers will not need to go too far back beyond Hansen’s magnificent Ariadne’s
Thread of 2002.
Just as within modern collections of variants of individual tales there are some
exhibits more instantly recognisable than others, so in the case of ancient exam-
ples. Among those readily identifiable I should place most Cinderellas and Snow
Whites, The Dancing Princesses, The Stupid Ogre, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and a
good many others. Odysseus as The Frog Prince requires rather more adjustment
of focus, as may The Pied Piper, while Rumpelstiltskin, Bluebeard and Puss in Boots
present more debatable cases. But where a reader cannot accept the classification
suggested, we can still be left with examples which are clearly fairy tales; their
difficult relationship with modern tales as we know them may serve to remind us
of how many alternative versions and ‘missing links’ may have been lost.

Notes
1 For the concept of ‘ownership’ of fairy Tales, Haase in Tatar (1999), 353–364.
2 Cf. Swann Jones (1995), 8.
3 He has a walk-on part in Madame D’Aulnoy’s Finette Cendron, where he meets the
fate of the witch in Hansel and Gretel (Zipes, 1989, 409f.).
4 E.g. Zipes (2000), xv.
5 Ibid., 167f.
 Introduction: who’s been telling my tale? 15

6 Proppian functions (Propp, 1968, 25–65) are of limited value because of their
­vagueness and excessive elasticity.
7 On Fairy-Stories (1947), 32 in the Flieger-Anderson pagination (2008).
8 Short list of ‘magic tales’ in Hansen (2002), 13f.; cf. Gerndt s.v. Zaubermärchen, EM
14, 1182–1188 (on varied approaches to Structure and Function, 1184–1185). Gerndt
emphasises the importance of Zaubermärchen in relation to other types, but there is no
call for over-rigid hierarchies.
9 See below at n. 19.
10 Cf. Marina Warner (1994), xivf, taking her starting-point from Perrault.
11 Such titles as The Classic Fairy Tales (Opie and Opie, Tatar) or the several ‘Com-
panions to the fairy tale’ (Zipes, Ellis-Davidson and Chaudhri, Tatar) use the label
without risk of ambiguity. Cf. also Gerndt above n. 8.
12 Cf. Zipes (2008), ‘What makes a repulsive frog so appealing?’, 109–143.
13 I.e. with reference to the story of Actaeon (Ovid Met. 3. 193–199).
14 For fairy tale it may be important to bear in mind the derivation of French fées from
Latin fata: we should note how often fairies or fates do attend the birth or the wedding
of an individual, and what fate or fortune will rest upon it, as in the tale of Meleager,
Ovid Met. 8. 451–455.
15 See especially Zipes (2012), 32–37.
16 Conveniently collected by Zipes (1989).
17 Cf. Von Hendy (2002), 62ff, I am grateful to an anonymous referee for this reference.
18 So Bottigheimer in Zipes (2000), 204.
19 On the method, Krohn (1926); Stith Thompson (1946), 430–446. The rationale itself
is sound, but the difficulty lies in the relative lack of early examples for analysis.
20 I have generally included EM references to individual tales. These are on the whole
invaluable for tracing the earliest Late Medieval or early modern appearances of
­specific tales; and for disentangling bifurcating versions over time. They do justice
to ancient tales where an ancient example happens to be the best-known version, as
in the case of Polyphemus or Alcestis; but otherwise they do not always deal ade-
quately with the earliest classical examples. Kawan’s treatment of Schneewitchen too
readily dismisses the extant fragments of a Chione romance from the classical period
­(Anderson 2000, 50f.), while Wehse’s discussion of Cinderella does not pick up the
full implications of Herodotus’ treatment of Rhodopis.
21 Bottigheimer (2002, 2009). For overview of the issue, Ben-Amos in JAF 123 (2010),
426–446 (‘The Revolution That Was Not’); Jorgensen’s review of Bottigheimer
(2009), JAF 125 (2012), 508–510 (bibliography 509); Zipes, (2012), 157–173. On
‘Magic Tales and Fairy Tale Magic’, Bottigheimer (2014), with Jorgensen’s review in
Journal of Folklore Research, October 24th 2017.
22 Translation in Dundes (1982), 75–77.
23 Edition and Commentary by E.J. Kenney (1990).
24 As an oriental myth (Reitzenstein) or a religio-philosophical allegory (Walsh).
25 Anderson (2000, 2003); Hansen (2002).
26 Further support from Ziolkowski (2007), drawing on Medieval Latin predecessors of
Grimms’ tales.
27 So W. de Blécourt (2012); see the review by Zipes (2012), 175–189.
28 For Fable, Holzberg (2002).
29 Homer, Odyssey 9.1–10.396.
30 Odyssey 8.72–82; 266–366.
31 Petronius Satyrica 77.6; 38.8.
32 Lucian’s Philopseudeis, on which see now Ogden (2007). I accept Macleod’s emenda-
tion that the title is plural (‘Lovers of Lies’).
33 For the term anilis fabula, Apuleius Met. 4.27.
34 Anderson (2000), 46–57.
35 For the latter, see now the annotations of Celoria (1992).
16 Introduction: who’s been telling my tale?

36 Useful references in Anderson (2000), 2–9.

37 Philostratus: Fairbanks (1931); Kalinka-Schőnberger (1968). The author of the Ima-
gines may or may not be identical to that of the Lives of the Sophists and the Life of
Apollonius.
38 Aristophanes’ Wasps 1174ff.
39 Cf. Bruno Bettelheim (1976). I am grateful to A.M. Gray for discussion of this much
over-quoted book.
40 I.e. the variants at Aarne-Thompson-Uther 510B.
41 At Pausanias 6.6.7–11.
42 Lucian Adversus Indoctum (The Ignorant Book Collector) 21; Count Lucanor, Tale 31.
43 Zipes (1993), 43–60.
44 E.g. Chione, Ovid Met. 11.318–323.
45 Odyssey 9.275–279; 369f.
46 E.g. The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Opie and Opie (1980), 250f.
47 Aeneid 6.124–155.
48 Ubainer: Parkinson (1997), 106–109.
49 Anderson (2000), 39–41.
50 Anderson (2000), 184.
51 Dio Or. 1.52–84.
52 Philostratus VS 590.
53 See Scobie (1983).
54 For a possible trace of this elsewhere in Antiquity, cf. Petronius, Satyrica 48.7, with
M.S. Smith’s note ad loc.
2
THE CLASSIC FAIRY TALE
Cupid and Psyche1

Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 4.28–6.242

Cupid and Psyche has a fair claim to vindicate the case for the existence of Fairy
Tale in Antiquity. Its scale is like that of some 18th-century French tales, with
their preoccupation with expensive dresses, manners and furnishings, and a gen-
erally elite society. Its author is highly educated, just as was Charles Perrault in
the late 17th century, and no-one reading the tale unaware of its context is likely
to imagine that its supposed reporter Lucius happened to be in the form of an ass
when himself listening to the account told as an Old Wives’ Tale! Two similar
tales of the salvation of Semele after her similarly rash curiosity underline the
perils of sleeping with a god and boasting about it.

Cupid and Psyche

(4.28.1) In a certain city there were a king and queen. 3 They had three beauti-
ful daughters: the elder two were very pleasing to look at,4 but people thought
that human praise was enough to do them justice; however the youngest was so
conspicuously and so superlatively beautiful that human speech did not suffice
to describe her beauty or indeed to praise it enough. And so many citizens and
a stream of visitors were brought together in an eager throng by the report of
this amazing sight. They were dumbfounded by admiration of her unrivalled
beauty, and raising their right thumb and forefinger to their lips they would
worship her outright as though she were the goddess Venus herself. And already
the nearby cities and neighbouring regions had heard that the goddess born of
the deep blue sea and raised by the dew of its foaming waves was mingling amid
18 The classic fairy tale

the throng of mankind and distributing her favour far and wide, or at least that
through the seeding of heavenly dews it was not the sea but the land that had
produced a young Venus of her own in the full bloom of her virginity. Hence
the unbounded belief grew day by day, as her fame extended already to the
neighbouring islands and a great part of the mainland and most of the prov-
inces. Already many people made long journeys and crossed the ocean, flocking
together to see the glory of the age. No-one sailed to Paphos, no-one sailed to
Cnidos or even to Cythera 5 for a sight of the goddess Venus. People abandoned
her rites, profaned her temples, cast her couches to the ground and gave up her
ceremonies; no garlands adorned her statues, and her empty altars were dis-
figured with ashes gone cold. People prayed instead to the girl, and sought to
placate the power of this mighty goddess in human form; the name of Venus,
no longer present, was propitiated at the girl’s morning walk with sacrifices and
banquets: and already as she roamed the streets the crowds prayed to her with
garlands and single flowers.
(4.29.5) The real Venus was furious at this outrageous shift of divine honours
to the cult of a human girl6; she could not contain her indignation, but tossed her
head and went into a foul rage as she rehearsed to herself:

Just look at the ancient mother of the natural world, the first origin of the
elements: here is Venus, the nourisher of the whole earth7: I am treated
with only a share of my majesty, shared with a mortal girl, and my name,
set in heaven, is being profaned with earthly filth! No doubt I shall sustain
the uncertainty of sharing my worship with a deputy, and a mortal girl
will carry round the likeness that belongs to me. In vain did that shep-
herd whose fairness and integrity Jupiter approved prefer me to these great
goddesses for my outstanding beauty.8 But this woman, whoever she is,
will not enjoy like this these honours of mine she has usurped: now I shall
ensure that she will be sorry for this very beauty without a licence.

(4.30.4) And at once she called her winged son, that notorious and reckless boy
who flouts public decency with his wicked ways,9 and armed with flame and
arrows runs amok through other people’s houses, destroying everyone’s mar-
riages, and gets off with it, and commits such dreadful crimes and does no good
whatsoever. This lad already impertinent – it was in his own character to take
liberties – she goaded still further by her words and brought him to the city, and
pointed Psyche out to him – for that was the girl’s name10; she laid before him
the whole tale of her beautiful rival, moaning and seething with indignation,
and said:

I entreat you by the bonds of your mother’s love, by the sweet wounds of
your arrow, by the honey-sweet burning of your dreaded torch, exact full
vengeance for your mother’s sake. And severely punish her insolent beauty,
and do this one thing willingly in return for everything: let this detestable
 The classic fairy tale 19

girl be possessed with the most ardent passion for the basest of men, some-
one condemned by fortune for his low rank, his poverty, his insecurity –
someone so low that she cannot find anyone more miserable.

(4.31.4) With this she plied her son with long, close kisses with open mouth,
and returned to the nearest shores of the sea. As she placed her rosy feet on the
tips of the heaving waves, already on the damp surf there was an amazing calm;
and – the very thing she had begun to want – there immediately appeared
her watery retinue, as if she had previously given instruction. The daughters
of Nereus were there, singing their chorus, and Portunus, with his thick sea-
coloured beard, Salacia, weighed down with her lap of fish, and tiny Palaemon,
an outrider on his dolphin; and already far and wide hordes of Tritons leaping
on the sea.11 One gently blew his resounding horn, another with an awning
of silk shielded her from the heat of her enemy the sun, a third offered a mir-
ror beneath the eyes of her mistress, while others paired together, swimming
beneath her chariot. Such was the train that went with Venus as she made for
the ocean.12
(4.32.1) In the meantime, Psyche, although she realised she was so beautiful,
took no benefit from it. Everyone gazed at her, everyone sang her praises, and yet
no-one, no king, no prince, no common man even approached to seek her hand
in marriage. They admired her divine appearance, to be sure, but all admired
her like a statue brought to perfection by a sculptor. Some while back her elder
sisters, whose moderate beauty none had celebrated like her own, had been be-
trothed to royal suitors and had already won prosperous marriages,13 but Psyche
remained at home, an unmarried virgin: she wept over her lonely and abandoned
state, her body going to waste, her mind hurt; and she hated the beauty that
had enthralled the world. And so her unhappy father feared that divine jealousy
was at work against his afflicted daughter, and in fear of the wrath of the gods
he consulted the most ancient oracle of Milesian Apollo, and with prayers and
sacrifices sought marriage and husband for his unfortunate daughter from that
great deity.14 And Apollo, Greek and Ionian as he was, obliged the writer of our
Milesian15 tale with a response in Latin.

Place the girl, O king, on the peak of the lofty mountain

Arrayed in the garb of her funeral bridechamber;
Nor expect a son-in-law of mortal race
But a fierce and savage beast, an evil viper
which flits on wings over all the air and wearies all things,
weakening them with its fiery flame16;
Jupiter himself trembles at him, he terrifies the gods,
The rivers draw back in fear, and the darkness of the Styx.

The king, happy once upon a time, accepted the utterance of the holy prophecy,
and listless and sad returned home and unravelled the instructions of the unlucky
20 The classic fairy tale

oracle to his wife. There was mourning, weeping and lamentation for days on
end. But already the foul execution of her dire fate pressed upon them; already
the accoutrements for the fierce rites of the unhappy bride were laid out; already
the light of the torch grew dim with black smoke and ash, and the sound of the
wedding flute changed to the mournful Lydian mode; the joyful wedding song
concluded with mournful wails, and the bride-to-be wiped her tears with her
very bridal outfit. Thus the whole city too joined in the sad fate of the stricken
household, and immediately public business was suspended to accord with the
city’s grief.
(4.34.1) But it was necessary to obey the divine instructions, and they de-
manded that poor little Psyche should submit to her preordained punishment.
And so the rites of her savage bedchamber were carried out in the greatest sor-
row, and the bride was led forth escorted by the whole nation17 as a living corpse;
the tearful Psyche was accompanied not to her wedding but to her funeral rites.18
And while her distraught parents, reeling from such a terrible disaster, delayed
the execution of their dreadful crime, their daughter herself encouraged them19
with these words:

Why do you torment your unhappy old age with continual weeping? Why
do you weary your spirit, or rather mine, with all your laments? Why do
you spoil the faces I should worship with pointless tears? Why do you tear
my eyes by tearing yours? Why do you tear apart your white hair? Why
do you beat the breasts that I hold sacred? These are the chief rewards for
you of my outstanding beauty. Now do you realise too late that you are
struck by the deadly blow of wicked jealousy? When nations and peoples
were celebrating us with divine honours, they named me the new Venus
with one accord; then you ought to have mourned and wept. Then already
you should have wept for me as if I were lost. Now I realise, now I see that
I have been lost for the name of Venus alone. Take me and put me on the
rock my destiny has determined. Not soon enough 20 can I go through
this all too happy marriage of mine; not soon enough can I see my noble
bridegroom. Why do I postpone it; why do I shrink from his arrival, when
he is destined to destroy the whole world?

(4.35.1) With this the girl said no more, and now firmly stepped in time with
the accompanying procession. They made their way to the preordained rock on
the high mountain, and all left the girl in place on the highest peak. There they
left the bridal torches that had lit their way, now extinguished by their tears, and
made their way home with heads downcast. And her wretched parents, defeated
by their daughter’s dreadful misfortune, shut up their palace and secluded them-
selves in the darkness, and gave themselves up to everlasting night.21 But as for
Psyche, fearful and trembling as she was and weeping on the summit of her rock,
the gentle breeze of Zephyr’s soothing breath blew the borders of her dress back
and forth, breathed into its folds and gently lifted her up22; he carried her with
 The classic fairy tale 21

his quiet breath gradually down and down the slope of the high rock and quietly
sat her down after her fall on the flower-studded meadow in the bosom of the
valley below.
(5.1.1) Psyche lay sweetly relaxed in the tender grass on her couch of dewy
turf. And with all her anxiety at rest, she fell into a sweet sleep. And now that
she had had her fill of refreshing rest she rose in a calm frame of mind. She saw
a grove planted with mighty tall soaring tress; she saw a spring of water clear as
glass. In the middle of the grove beside where the spring tumbled down, there
was a royal palace,23 built not by human hands, but by divine arts. Already you
could see from the first entrance that you were looking at the resplendent and
beautiful pleasure pavilion of some god. For columns of gold supported a cof-
fered ceiling above, carefully hollowed out in citron-wood and ivory; all the
walls were covered with silver chasing, as wild beasts and other animals met
the visitor’s gaze. Indeed it was an amazing man or rather a demigod or even a
god who had brought the wildness out of so much silver with the subtlety of his
great art. Moreover even the floors were divided into various sorts of pictures in
mosaics cut from precious stones: twice blessed and more those who trample on
precious stones and jewellery! And now the rest of the priceless house extended
far and wide: and all the walls, built of solid gold, flashed with a brilliance of
their own, so that the house offered its own daylight even without the sun – so
brilliant was the glitter of the rooms, the colonnades, and even the doors. Nor
did the other furnishings fail to measure up to the magnificence of the house, so
that it seemed right to say that mighty Jupiter had fashioned a heavenly palace to
mingle with mortals.
(5.2.1) Enticed by the delight of such quarters Psyche came closer, and when
she grew more confident she crossed the threshold, then in her delight at so
beautiful a spectacle, she looked carefully at every detail; on the other side of
the mansion she saw lofty storehouses perfectly constructed and brimful of great
treasure. Nor was there anything that was not there. But apart from her amaze-
ment at so great a store of riches, what was most amazing was that this treasure
of the whole world was not protected by any chain, bar or guardian. And so she
viewed this with so much delight. There was a disembodied voice24:

Mistress, why are you amazed at such a great store of wealth? All this is
yours. And so go to your own room and relieve your weariness on your
very own bed, and take a bath whenever you like. We whose voice you
hear are your servants: we will wait diligently upon you; and once you are
refreshed you will enjoy a royal banquet without delay.

(5.3.1) Psyche realised that she was blessed with divine providence; she listened
to the advice of the disembodied voice, and first in sleep then by a bath she put
an end to her weariness. At once there appeared beside her a semi-circular seat;
she supposed from the dining layout that this was for her refreshment. She gladly
reclined at table. And at once there were course upon course of various foods
22 The classic fairy tale

and nectar-like wine, supplied by no servant, but blown to her only by some
mysterious breath. And yet she could see no-one, but only heard the words being
uttered, and had only voices for her table servant. After a sumptuous banquet
someone came in and sang invisibly and another played the lyre, which was like-
wise invisible. Then she heard the voices in harmony of a great many singers, so
that there was an invisible choir in evidence.
(5.4.1) When these pleasures were at an end, the evening persuaded Psyche to
lie down. And already night was well on when a gentle sound reached her ears.
Then, as she was all alone, she feared for her virginity, and in fear and trembling
she was afraid of the unknown more than whatever ill might befall. And already
her unknown husband was there, came to her bed, and made Psyche his wife,
and promptly departed before dawn.25 And at once the voices in attendance in
the bedchamber looked after the new bride <and consoled her for> the loss of her
virginity. And this was how things were for some time. And as nature had duly
arranged, the new experience she grew accustomed to, so that it became a source
of delight; and the sound of the unknown voice consoled her in her solitude.
Meanwhile her parents aged with their unrelenting grief and misery; and as
the tale spread further afield, her elder sisters came to know the whole story, and
at once they too were consumed with grief: they left home and rivalled each oth-
er’s efforts to see and speak to their parents. (5.5.1) That night her husband spoke
to his darling Psyche (for with her hands and ears she felt his presence totally,
only not with her eyes):

Sweetest Psyche, dear wife, Fortune in still crueller form is threatening

you with dreadful danger: I solemnly enjoin you to guard against her
with ever-increasing caution. Already your sisters, disturbed by the belief
that you are dead, are following your footsteps, and will soon reach the
­mountain-top: should you hear their mourning, you are not to answer or
even so much as look; otherwise you will give me the greatest suffering,
and bring total destruction on yourself.26

She assented and promised to follow her husband’s judgement; but as soon as that
night was over, the poor girl spent the whole day in tears and laments, repeating
that even now she was totally destroyed: she was shut up in this bountiful prison
and deprived of human company and conversation, and even when her own sis-
ters were mourning on her own behalf, she could not come to the rescue or even
see them at all. She refused to bathe or eat or refresh herself in any other way, but
sank into sleep in floods of tears.
(5.6.1) Without delay, a little earlier than usual her husband came to her bed
and finding her still weeping, embraced her and pleaded:

Is this what you promised, my very own Psyche? What am I, your own
husband, to expect from you, what hopes do I have? All day and all
night long you do not stop tormenting yourself, even in the arms of your
 The classic fairy tale 23

husband. Then act now as you please, and obey the ruinous dictates of
your heart. Only remember my grave warning, when you begin too late
to regret it.

Then Psyche begged her husband, and threatened suicide to force him to agree to
what she wanted: she was to see her sisters, soothe their grief and talk to them. So
he indulged the wish of the new bride, and besides let her give them all the gold
or jewels she wanted. But time and again he warned her and repeatedly not to
heed the ruinous advice of her sisters to enquire about her husband’s appearance,
nor with sacrilegious curiosity to cast herself down from such dizzy heights of
fortune so that she should be robbed of his embrace ever after. She thanked her
husband, and now with her mind more at ease, she said:

May I die a hundred times rather than be deprived of you, my sweetest of

husbands! For I love you and whoever you are I am besotted with you as I
love my own life; even Cupid himself I could not compare with you.27 But
this also I beg you to grant: instruct your servant Zephyrus to bring my
sisters here as he brought me.

And pressing him with seductive kisses and plying him with soothing words, and
enclosing her compelling limbs <round him> she added still more endearments:
‘my honey, my husband, the very soul of your dear Psyche!’. Unwillingly her
husband gave in to the powerful force of her whispered words of love, and said
he would do everything she asked; and as dawn was already drawing nigh he
disappeared from his wife’s embrace.
(5.7.1) But the sisters kept asking the site of the rock where Psyche had been
abandoned, and were quick to arrive; there they kept up their wailing and their
beating of breasts, so that the rocks and crags resounded with the echo. And
now they called on their hapless sister by her own name, until Psyche, out of her
mind at the penetrating sound of their lament, rushed out of the palace: ‘Why’,
she said,

are you distressing yourselves needlessly with unhappy laments? Here I

am, the very victim you are grieving over! Lay aside your doleful cries and
at last dry your cheeks, wet with continual weeping, since at last you can
embrace <the sister> you were mourning.

Then she called for Zephyrus and told him her husband’s order. Without delay
he obeyed the command and at once conveyed them safely with the gentlest
of breaths. And now they took their fill of mutual embraces and rushed to kiss
one another, and the tears they had held back now returned out of sheer joy.
‘You are welcome to enter my hearth and home and refresh your tortured souls
in your sister Psyche’s company’. With this she revealed to their eyes and ears
the bountiful riches of the golden palace, and the huge staff of servants’ voices.
24 The classic fairy tale

She refreshed them bountifully with the most beautiful bath and the elegance of
her supernatural table, so that they took their fill of the copious riches of their
divine affluence; they already nourished envy deep in their hearts. At length one
of them would not stop asking all too keenly and inquisitively who was the mas-
ter of all this heavenly wealth, or who or what was Psyche’s husband. But Psyche
did not rashly disobey her husband’s command in any respect, or drive them
from her inner heart, but made up that he was a handsome youth,28 his cheeks
growing with a downy beard; he himself was immersed for the most part in
hunting in the countryside and on the mountains. And to make sure she would
not betray her silent thoughts by some slip of the tongue, she immediately gave
them over to Zephyrus to carry back, after loading them with golden products
and jewelled gems.
(5.9.1) When she had done this deed, these wonderful sisters29 at once set off
home, already burning with the poison of their mounting envy, and created a
commotion as they went on and on to each other; in fact the one began:

To think how blind and savage and unfair Fortune is! Does she really ap-
prove that we sisters of the same parents should suffer such different fates?
We who are the elder, yielded up as maidservants to foreign husbands,
refugees from our home and our own country to live far from our parents
as exiles; but she, the youngest,30 born last from parents long past their
prime, should come into possession of such enormous wealth and a god for
a husband, she who does not even know how to make use of such a store
of good things. You, sister, saw all the precious necklaces, the shimmering
garments, the sparkling gems, and most of all, all the gold trodden every-
where underfoot. But if her husband too is as handsome as she claims,
there is no girl now happier in the whole world. But perhaps as they come
to know each other and their affection grows stronger, her divine husband
will make her a deity as well.31 That is how things are, I swear it: that is
how she was behaving and comporting herself. Even as we speak she looks
upward, and already has the air of a goddess, this girl who has voices as her
servants and gives the winds their orders. But as for me, my wretched lot is
a husband older than my father,32 balder than a pumpkin, and weaker than
any mere boy, who stands guard and keeps the whole house locked up with
bolts and chains.

(5.10.1) The other sister took over:

As for me, I have to suffer a husband folded over and bent with disease in
the joints, and so very rarely able to fulfil my needs. And I spend most of
my time massaging his twisted fingers hardened into stone, burning my
delicate hands with stinking poultices and horrid plasters: I do not play the
part of a dutiful wife, but instead perform the drudgery of a nurse. And you,
sister, for your part should consider how patiently, or rather slavishly – for
 The classic fairy tale 25

I shall speak my mind frankly – you can bear this, for I at any rate am
unable to suffer any longer such blessed fortune fallen to the undeserving.
For do you remember how proudly, how arrogantly she dealt with us and
betrayed her boastful spirit with the sheer display of boundless ostentation?
And from what huge wealth she reluctantly threw us a tiny amount, and
bored with our company lost no time in ordering us to be driven, blown,
and whistled off? As I am a woman, and indeed as I live, I swear to bring
her down to ruin from all her riches. And if as is proper, you too have been
stung by her contempt for us, let us both look for a courageous plan. And
now let us not show these contemptible gifts to our parents or anyone else,
or rather let us not even claim to know anything about her survival. It is
enough that we ourselves have witnessed what we wish we had not, with-
out broadcasting her great good fortune to our parents and all the nations
of the world. For people are not rich if no-one knows it. She will find out
that we are her sisters, not her servants. And now let us go back to our hus-
bands and return to our homes, poor as they are but decent, and at last let
us arm ourselves by thinking more urgently and more determined to come
back and punish her arrogance.

(5.11.1) This wicked plan the bad women thought a good one: they hid all their
precious gifts, dragged out their hair and tore their cheeks, just as they deserved,
to resume their pretended mourning. And so they rekindled their parents’ grief
all over again, and dashed their hopes, took off to their homes swollen with rag-
ing jealousy, as they planned a wicked ploy, or rather a murderous one against
their innocent sister. Meanwhile Psyche’s unknown husband once more warned
her in his familiar night’s conversation33:

Don’t you see how great the danger that is threatening you? Fortune is
engaging you at long range, and unless you take very strong-willed pre-
cautions, soon combat will be fought at close quarters. Treacherous little
she-wolves are trying hard to lay traps for you, especially to persuade you
to discover my face, which, as I have often warned you, once you have seen
it you will never see it again.34 And so if these dreadful hags come with
vicious intent, as I know they will, you must not even speak to them, and
if you cannot bear that because of your genuine naivety and tenderness of
heart, at least you are not to hear anything about your husband, nor give
them any answers. For soon we shall have an addition to our family35, and
this womb, till now a child’s, is carrying for us a child in turn36: if you
conceal our secrets in silence it will be divine, but if you declare it, it will
be mortal.

(5.12.1) At the news Psyche bloomed with happiness and applauded at the con-
solation of divine offspring; she rejoiced at the glory of their future child and
exulted in the dignity of a mother’s name. As the days increased and the months
26 The classic fairy tale

passed by she anxiously kept count, and as she taught herself to bear her unfamil-
iar burden she was amazed that from a quick little prick there should be such a
great yet delicate increase (tantum incrementulum) in her fertile womb.
But already those pests, those foulest of Furies, breathed vipers’ poison and
were at sea, hastening with unseemly haste. Then once more the fleeting hus-
band gave Psyche this warning37:

Now you are looking at the final day, the last chance. Already your own
sex is against you, your own flesh and blood are the enemy. Already they
have taken up arms and shifted camp and drawn up their battle-line
and sounded the trumpet; already with their swords drawn your own
wicked sisters are after your throat. What a disaster is forcing itself on us,
my sweetest Psyche! Have pity on yourself, on both of us; with careful
­restraint free your home, your husband, yourself and that tiny one of ours
from the misfortune of innocent ruin. Nor should you see or listen to
those wicked women, whom you should not call by the name of sister af-
ter their internecine hatred and their tramping on the ties of blood, when
like sirens perching on their crag they fill the rocks with their voices of
doom.

(5.13.1) Psyche made her reply as she fought against her sobs and tears:

For a long time, I think, you have weighed the proofs that I have been
loyal and said little, nor any the less now shall my stiff resolve win your
approval. Once more only order our servant Zephyrus to perform his
duty, and in place of the holy sight of you that is denied to me at least let
me have a sight of my sisters. I swear by your perfumed locks that hang
all over, by those tender, smooth cheeks so like my own, by your breast
warmed by heat unseen, so may I at least recognise your face in this little
son; I pray you to answer the prayers of an anxious suppliant and allow
me to enjoy my sisters’ embraces, and refresh with joy the heart of your
devoted Psyche. Nor do I ask for anything more (of the sight of ) your face;
at this time not even the darkness of night can blind me; I hold you, and
that is my light.

Her husband was enchanted by her words and her tender embrace; he wiped
away her tears with his own hair, promised he would do it, and quickly fore-
stalled the light of the coming day.
(5.14.1) The pair of sisters and fellow-conspirators without so much as visiting
their parents went straight from their ships and made for their accustomed rock
with headlong speed, and without waiting for the wind to carry them threw
themselves with presumptuous rashness down the cliff. And Zephyrus, unwilling
as he was, did not forget the royal command, but took them in the bosom of his
fresh breeze and restored them to the ground.38 But without delay they at once
 The classic fairy tale 27

rushed through the palace and embraced their quarry, pretending to the name
sister but hiding the richness of their treachery under a face of gladness, as they
flattered her:

Psyche, no longer the tiny little one you were before, already you too are a
mother; how much goodness you are bringing us in your tiny little pocket!
What joy you will bring to gladden our whole house! How glad we will be
to raise this wonderful child! If, as must be the case, he matches the beauty
of his parents, he will be born an absolute Cupid!

(5.15.1) Thus with pretended affection they gradually insinuated themselves into
their sister’s heart. And at once she sat them down to refresh them after their weary
journey, looked after them with a warm heart and delighted them with the refine-
ments of the dining hall, with that amazingly rich food and those delicacies. She
ordered the lyre to play, and it did so; for the flutes to sound, and they sounded;
for the choir to sing, and it sang. And all of these soothed their audience’s hearts
with their sweetest strains, with no-one in sight. The mischief of these wicked
women was not softened or put to rest by the honeyed sweetness of the music; but
bringing their conversation towards the intended trap of their wiles, they sought
to know under a pretext what sort of man her husband was, who his parents were
and what his calling. Then Psyche, too naive and forgetful of what she had said
before, made up a new tale, that he was a wealthy merchant in middle age, with a
sprinkling of white hair. But she paused only a little time to describe him, before
returning them to their aerial carriage loaded with opulent gifts.
(5.16.1) But as they made their way home, airborne on the gentle breath of
Zephyrus, they went at each other:

What, sister, do we say about that silly girl’s amazing lies? First he was a
young man only just growing a beard, with the down in bloom: now he
is middle-aged with shining white hair. Who is this man transformed in
a short interval into sudden old age? You will certainly find, sister, that
either that dreadful woman is making up a lie, or that she is unaware of
her husband’s appearance. And whichever is the truth, she must be ruined
as soon as possible through her wealth. But if she is unaware of her hus-
band’s face, she must have married a god and is bearing us a god with her
pregnancy. But if she will be hailed as the mother of a divine child – may it
not be so – I shall hang myself right away from a hangman’s noose. And so
meanwhile let us return home to our parents, and weave a yarn of the same
deceitful colour as the beginning of our conversation.

(5.17.1) This inflamed them: they greeted their parents with cool propriety, and
squandered the night in sleepless torment. In the morning they flew off and
touched down in agitation, protected as usual by the wind; they forced them-
selves to weep by rubbing their eyelids, and called the girl in their wily way:
28 The classic fairy tale

You for your part sit happy and blissful in your ignorance of such enor-
mous mischief, unaware of our danger; but we are ever wakeful on your
behalf, unceasingly alert, and dreadfully alarmed by your misfortune.
For we are aware, and cannot conceal from you as partners in your grief
and ill-fortune, that a huge snake, crawling in many coils, with its neck
bloody with deadly poison, and gaping with deep maw, is secretly sleep-
ing with you. Now remember the Pythian oracle, which proclaimed you
were destined to wed a wild beast. And many farmers and hunters around
the region and all the dwellers nearby have seen him returning from
feeding and bathing in the shallows of the nearby river. And they all say
that he will not be long, gently fattening you, but once your full womb
has brought your pregnancy to fruition, he will devour you, now that
you are richer in fruitfulness.39 In response to this you must now decide
whether you prefer to agree with your sisters anxious for your very life,
and by avoiding death live secure from danger with us, or be buried in
the entrails of the most savage beast. But if the loneliness of this singing
region or the fetid intercourse of a secret love and the poisonous embraces
of a serpent are what delight you, at least we your dutiful sisters will have
done our part.

(5.18.4) Then poor, dear Psyche, like the simple and childlike girl she was, was
terror-struck at such grim words. She was beside herself: she completely forgot
all her husband’s warnings and her own promises, and rushed herself into the
depth of calamity and trembling; and ghastly with pallor she could only manage
a whisper from half-opened lips:

Dearest sisters, you are steadfast in the discharge of your duty, as is right,
but those who confirm such things to you do not appear to me to be lying.
For I have never seen the face of my husband, nor have I any idea where he
is from, but I only endure a husband of whom I know nothing, and who
utterly shuns the light, catching his voice in the night, and I acknowledge
that you are right to say it is some beast. For he always terrifies me greatly
against looking at him, and warns me of the great ill of desiring to see his
face. Now if you are able to offer any hope of safety to your sister in danger,
now at this moment come to my aid; but a following neglect will detract
from the benefits of your previous foresight.

(5.19.5) Then these wicked women, already coming upon their sister’s mind with
its gates wide open, threw aside the covert devices of their secret siege-craft,
drew their swords of deceit, and took over the panic-stricken thoughts of their
simple sister. So the one finally said:

Since our ties of kinship do not allow us to countenance any sort of

danger when you are at risk, we will show you the one way which leads
 The classic fairy tale 29

to safety, for time and again we have thought it out. Take a very sharp
knife, and sharpen it even more by stroking it with your palm, and hide it
secretly on your own side of the bed. And trim a lamp, fill it with oil, and
as it burns with a clear light hide it with some sort of cover from a little
jar to block its light, and do take the utmost care to conceal all you have
prepared. And after he comes to his bed as usual, trailing the furrow of
his path and stretched out, and begins to breathe in deep sleep, wrapped
in the beginning of heavy slumber, slip out of bed on bare feet with tiny
steps on tiptoe one by one, and free your lamp from the guardianship
of blind darkness. By consulting the lamp40 to find the opportunity for
your glorious feat, boldly with your double-edged weapon, first raise
your right hand high, and with as strong an effort as possible sever the
join of the deadly serpent’s head and neck.41 And we will not fail to help
you, but as soon as you save yourself by his death, we shall be waiting
anxiously and will fly to you, and we shall take you away with all that
wealth of yours, and will join you to a human husband in a marriage you
would wish for.

(5.21.1) With these words they inflamed their sister’s inner feelings, already burn-
ing fiercely in her heart, and immediately deserted her, leaving the place of such a
dreadful crime in dire fear themselves, and stretched out on the usual force of the
winged breath they threw themselves forward in flight over the rock and at once
took ship and sailed off. But Psyche, left alone except that she was not alone but
agitated by hateful Furies, was driven in her mourning back and forth like waves
of the ocean, and no matter how steadfast her determined resolve, already she
applied her hands to the crime, though still uncertain in her mind. She wavered
and was torn by the many emotions of her plight.42 She made haste, she put off,
she dared, she hesitated, she was unsure, she was angry; and finally in one body
she hated the beast and loved the husband. But as evening already dragged on the
night, she laid out the means of carrying out her dreadful crime with precipitate
haste; night arrived, her husband came, and after first engaging in the games of
Venus,43 had fallen into a deep sleep.
(5.22.1) Then Psyche, weak though she was in body and mind in all other
ways, nonetheless grew more courageous, with the support of savage fate: she
brought out the lamp, seized hold of the blade, and took the courage of the other
sex. But the moment she cast the light to reveal the secrets of her bed, she saw the
gentlest and sweetest of all wild creatures, Cupid himself,44 the beautiful god in
a beautiful sleep. At the sight of him the light of the lamp felt joy and brightened,
and the blade felt ashamed of its sacrilegious point.45 And yet Psyche was awe-
struck at the amazing sight; she lost control, as weak, pale, worn out and trem-
bling, she let her legs give way and tried to hide the blade, but in her own bosom;
and she would have done so, had not the blade, fearing to commit so dreadful a
crime, fallen and flown from her rash hands. Already she felt weary, her safety
lost, yet as she gazed again and again at the beauty of his divine face, she felt
30 The classic fairy tale

her spirits return. She looked at the inviting head of golden hair, drenched in
ambrosia, the milk-white neck, the ruddy cheeks overrun with bunches of hair
becomingly held back, some hanging in front, others behind. And already the
lamplight was flickering at their excessive brilliance. And across the shoulders of
the flying god there shone wings dripping with the florid sparkle, and although
the wings themselves were resting, the down at the edge, gentle and delicate,
playfully and restlessly shimmered; the rest of his divine body was smooth and
shining; Venus had no need to be ashamed of giving birth to such beauty. And
before the feet of the couch lay his bow, quiver, and arrows, the soothing weap-
ons of a mighty god.
(5.23.1) Psyche was ever so curious, and could not resist going through her
husband’s weapons and handling them over and over in amazement. She took an
arrow from the quiver and tried the very point by pricking her thumb on it; but
even now her trembling hand applied too much force and she pricked too hard,
so that she pierced the surface of her skin and wet it with tiny drops of rose-red
blood. And so in her innocence Psyche through her own action fell in love with
Love.46 Then burning ever more with her desire for Desire, she lay over him: she
gazed at him distractedly, and quickly drenched him with an impulsive spread
of kisses, afraid he would wake. But while she was aroused by such a height of
pleasure, as the passion surged from the wound in her heart – the lamp, whether
out of treachery or guilty envy, or because it desired to touch so attractive a body
and kiss it as best it could, poured from its spout a drop of burning oil onto the
god’s right shoulder. Well! To think that a bold and impulsive lamp, a wicked
slave of love, should burn the very master of all fire, since some lover was no
doubt the first to invent lamps to be able to enjoy desire still longer, even at night!
That was how the god was burned: he jumped up, saw that his trust was betrayed
and tainted, and flew off without a word from the kisses and embraces of his all
too unhappy wife.
(5.24.1) But Psyche at once took hold of his right leg with both hands as he
flew up, a pitiful appendage to his flight aloft; she held on and accompanied him
as long as she could through the cloudy regions until at length she tired and fell
to the ground. Nor did her divine lover desert her as she lay on the earth, but
he flew to a nearby cypress tree and from its lofty top he spoke to her, bursting
with emotion:

Poor innocent Psyche, I forgot the instructions of my mother Venus: she

ordered me to bind you fast with desire for the lowliest wretch alive and
commanded you to be consigned to the most degrading marriage. But
instead I flew to you as your lover. But I did this lightly, I know, and re-
nowned archer that I was, I wounded myself with my own weapon and
made you my wife, so that I suppose I should appear to you as a beast and
you should cut off my head, a head which bears those eyes that love you.
Time and again I warned you always to be on your guard against this; I
kept warning you out of kindness. But those wonderful counsellors of
 The classic fairy tale 31

yours will soon pay me the penalty of their treacherous advice; but you I
shall only punish by leaving you.47

And with the end of his speech he threw himself up in the air on his wings.48
(5.25.1) Psyche for her part lay stretched on the ground; she watched her
husband’s flight as long as she could keep him in view, and tormented her mind
with dreadful lamentation.49 But when the distance had parted her husband
from her, sped away on the oarage of his wings, she threw herself from the
nearby river-bank. But the gentle river, in honour no doubt of the god who
is used to scorching even the very waters, and afraid for himself, at once with
his innocent current laid her up on a grassy bank. Then it so happened that
Pan, the rustic deity, was sitting near the brow of the river-bank with Echo in
his arms, the mountain deity, and was teaching her to repeat all sorts of tiny
utterances50; next to the bank his goats were playfully ranging at will, crop-
ping the greenery by the river. The goat-like god, somehow not unaware of
her plight, called Psyche to him, stricken and exhausted, and soothed her with
gentle words:

Little child, I for my part am a rustic and a herdsman, but have learned
much through the benefit of great old age and much experience. But if my
guess is right, and wise men I am sure call it divination, you are labouring
under too great a burden of love, as I infer from your hesitant and often
vacillating footsteps, and from your body’s pallid look and your continual
panting, and also from your failing eyes. And so listen to me, and do not
again destroy yourself by throwing yourself down or by any other sort of
self-sought death. End your grief, put aside your misery, and rather vener-
ate Cupid, mightiest of gods, and win him over with submissive service,
youthful, playful and pleasure-loving as he is.51

(5.26.1) When the shepherd-god said this, Psyche did not answer, but simply
paid her respects to her saving deity and went on her way. But when she had
wandered a good deal of the way with struggling steps, she came without know-
ing it by some path as day was already fading to a certain city, in which the
husband of one of her sisters was the ruler. When she realised this Psyche was
anxious to be announced to her sister; she was soon brought in and they ex-
changed embraces and greetings. She told her sister, inquiring why she had
come: ‘You remember your advice, when you persuaded me that I should de-
stroy with a double-edged blade the beast which slept with me under the false
title of husband, before he should swallow my poor boy in his voracious throat?
But the moment I saw his face in my accomplice the lamp as I had agreed to do, I
saw a marvellous, an absolutely divine vision, the son of Venus herself in person,
I tell you Cupid himself, drowsing in gentle slumber. And while I was excited
by the spectacle of such a great boon, and was confused by the sheer excess of
pleasure, I found myself so troubled that I could not enjoy it, and by the worst
32 The classic fairy tale

of ill-luck, to be sure, the burning lamp spurted a drop of oil on his shoulder.
He was at once shaken out of his sleep by the pain of this, and when he saw me
armed with iron and fire, he said:

You for your part leave my bed after so grave an offence and have all
your property away with you, while I will now marry in formal ceremony
your sister, and it was your name he mentioned. And right away he told
­Zephyrus to blow me beyond the boundaries of his mansion.’

(5.27.1) Psyche had scarcely finished speaking when her sister, driven by the goads
of mad lust and malevolent envy, put together spontaneously a lie to ­deceive her
husband, pretending that she had heard news of her parents’ death, and at once
sailed off and went straight away to the familiar rock, and although another wind
was blowing, nonetheless all agog with delusive hope, she said ­‘Receive me, ­Cupid,
as a worthy wife, and you, Zephyrus, sustain your mistress’; and she jumped head-
long with a great leap. But she was unable to arrive at the ­hallowed spot, not
even in her death. For she perished, among the rock crags, her limbs tossed and
scattered and just as she deserved, her innards torn and ­offering a feed to the birds
and beasts. Nor was Psyche’s second vengeance slow in coming: for she once again
arrived in her wanderings at another city, in which her other sister lived just like
the first. She too was just as eagerly induced by the same s­isterly ruse, and hurried
as a rival to wicked wedlock, and at the rock she fell to a like death.52
(5.28.1) In the meantime, as Psyche went from country to country in her
determined search for Cupid, he for his part lay in his mother’s own bedroom,
groaning with the injury from the lamp.53 Then that pure white bird, the tern,
which swims over the ocean waves on its wings, dived down swiftly to the deep
bosom of the ocean. There he found Venus bathing and swimming; he perched
beside her and told her that her son had been burned and was in agony from the
intense pain of his wound, and not assured of recovery. And already rumours
were circulating from mouth to mouth among all nations, and there were differ-
ent malicious reports staining the whole family of Venus with scandal:

He is off to consort with whores in the mountains, while you have gone off
to swim in the sea, and because of this there is no pleasure, no grace, no de-
light. But instead everything is squalid, barbarous, and repulsive. There are
no marriages, no friendly partnerships, no love between parents and chil-
dren, but only a great ghastliness and the foul stench of sordid pairings.54

This news the wordy and all too inquisitive bird would prattle in the ears of
Venus, tearing her son’s reputation to shreds. But Venus was beside herself and
suddenly cried out:

Then that fine son of mine has now acquired some girlfriend? You must
divulge it, my only devoted servant, the name of the girl who has led on
 The classic fairy tale 33

my innocent and unprotected son, whether she belongs to the Nymphs, or

the ranks of the Hours or the chorus of the Muses, or belongs to my own
servants the Graces.55

Nor did that talkative bird remain silent, but replied, ‘Mistress, I do not know,
but I think he is besotted with a girl – as I remember rightly, by the name of
Psyche.’ Then Venus in her indignation roared aloud: ‘Is his true love Psyche,
the very impostor of my beauty, the rival for my name? No doubt this burden-
some child thought of me as the procuress who arranged his introduction to
the girl?’.
(5.29.1) With these protests she hastily emerged from the sea and at once made
for her golden chamber. She found her sick son, just as she had heard, and already
she bawled out right from the very doorway:

These are upright actions, well suited to your parentage and your own fine
character, that at the very outset you should trample on the commands of
your mother, or indeed your slave-mistress; not only did you not torment
my enemy with a low-life love, but you, child that you are, joined her in
your wicked adolescent embraces, so that I should have to put up with my
enemy as a daughter-in law! But that you presume, you horrid worthless
seducer, that only you can breed children, and that I am too old to con-
ceive, then I should like you to know that I will give birth to a much better
offspring than you, or rather so that you may feel the insult more I shall
adopt one of my household slaves, and endow him with those wings, and
torches and bow and the very arrows and all my equipment, which I had
not given to you to treat like this56: for there is nothing from your father’s
estate to provide you with it.
(5.30.1) But you were badly brought up from your childhood. You have
sharp fists and have struck out time and again at your elders with no re-
spect, and your own mother, me I tell you, you show me up every day,
you parent-killer, and too often you have struck me, and you despise me
I suppose as a woman without a man, and you have no fear of your step-
father, strongest and mightiest of warriors as he is.57 Of course not, since
all too often to torment me you have been in the habit of supplying him
with girls for his affairs. But now I shall see to it that you are sorry for this
game, and that you feel the bitter acid taste of this marriage of yours. But
at this moment, after being made a fool of, what am I to do? Where am to
turn to? How am I to take control of this snake-in-the-grass (lit. lizard).
Am I to seek support from my enemy Sobriety,58 whom on account of the
excess of this very son of mine I have so often offended? But I absolutely
shrink from conversation with so unrefined and ill-kempt a woman. Yet
the consolation of revenge is not to be underestimated, wherever it comes
from. I must ally myself closely with her and no other: she will give that
good-for-nothing a really nasty talking to, take his quiver apart, disarm his
34 The classic fairy tale

arrows, unstring his bow, put out his torch, and for that matter correct his
own person with still sharper remedies.59 Then I might believe that I have
been compensated for my injuries, when she has shaved off the hair which
I have stroked to a golden sheen with these very hands of mine, and cut the
wings which I have nourished with nectar from my own breast.

(5.31.1) With this she threw herself out of doors, full of hate and an anger that
belongs only to Venus. But Ceres and Juno encountered her at that moment,
and they asked why her face was swollen, and why she restrained such attractive
shining eyes under her lowering brow. But she answered:

I suppose you arrive at just the right moment to assuage the desire that
burns in this breast of mine. But hunt down for me Psyche, I beg you, with
all your might: she is on the run and has taken to flight. For no doubt you
must be aware of the notorious tale of my family and the deeds of my son,
unworthy of the name.

Then they, not unaware of what had happened, tried to soothe Venus’ savage
rage:

My lady, what has your son done wrong that you should impugn the pleas-
ures of his high spirits, and that you should wish to destroy the girl he
loves? What charge is it against you if he has smiled so freely at a winsome
girl? Surely you are aware that he is a man and a young one, or at least have
you forgotten how old he is now? Or, because he is so good at carrying his
years, he always seems to you no more than a boy? Besides you yourself are
a mother and a woman with her wits about her: will you always enquire
closely into what your son gets up to, and find fault with his excess, and criti-
cize his love-affairs, and find fault with your own wiles and pleasures in your
good-looking son? For in any case what god or mortal will allow you to
disseminate desire to peoples all over, when you grudgingly restrain love in
your own family and debar the public discharging of women’s weaknesses?

This was how they flattered the absent Cupid, with ingratiating support for his
cause, in fear of his arrows. But Venus was indignant that her injuries should be
treated so light-heartedly,60 and she cut them short and sped off in another direc-
tion and made for the sea.61
(6.1.1) Meanwhile Psyche would wander back and forward, and day and night
she was intent on searching for her husband, and the more sick at heart she was,
the more eager to propitiate his anger with a slave’s entreaties, if it was not possi-
ble to soothe him with the endearments of a wife. And when she saw a temple on
the top of a steep hill, she said, ‘But perhaps it is here that my lord is living?’, and
immediately she quickened her pace and made for it: hope and wishful thinking
incited her speed, slowed by all her continual struggles. And now she made the
 The classic fairy tale 35

effort and scaled the higher slopes, and drew near to the sacred couch. She saw
ears of corn in a heap, and others bent into a crown, and ears of barley. There
were sickles and all sorts of harvesting tools, but all lying scattered in a careless
jumble as in summer, thrown down from the workers’ hands. Each of these Psy-
che carefully sorted and divided into their proper places,62 no doubt supposing
that she ought to neglect the shrines and worship of none of the gods, but to
invoke the kindness and pity of all of them.
(6.2.1) Kindly Ceres came upon her anxiously and busily attending to this and
immediately she exclaimed at length:

Well, Poor Psyche? All through the world Venus in a fit of fury is hunting
you in an intense search, and intends to punish you with the severest pun-
ishment, demanding revenge with the full strength of her divinity; and yet
you are at this moment looking after my property and thinking of anything
but your own safety.63

Then Psyche fell at her feet, her hair wetting the feet of the goddess with copi-
ous tears; and sweeping the ground with her hair and joining many entreaties
together she asked the goddess’ favour:

I beseech you by your fruitful right hand, by the gladdening rites of the
harvest, by the silent secrets of the caskets, by the winged chariot of your
dragon retinue and the furrows of the Sicilian turf, and the chariot that
snatched Proserpina and the earth that held her, and her descent to her
lightless wedding and her return to the discovery of the light,64 and all the
rest that the siren of Attic Eleusis conceals in silence65: come to the aid of
the spirit of your pitiful suppliant Psyche. Allow me even for a very few days
to lie concealed amid your heap of corn ears, until the savage wrath of so
great a goddess is soothed by the passage of time, or at least until my energy,
worn out by continual suffering, is gently nurtured by an interval of calm.

(6.3.1) Ceres replied:

Certainly I am moved by your tears and prayers and I wish to help you,
but I cannot suffer the ill-will of my kinswoman,66 with whom moreover I
have an old bond of friendship, and who is besides a fine woman. So leave
this temple at once; be grateful that I have not arrested you and put you
under guard.67

Psyche was rejected contrary to her hopes and smitten by double misery, as she
retraced her steps: when she caught sight of a skilfully built shrine in a half-lit
grove in the valley before her; and not wishing to miss out any way, even a
doubtful one, of improving her hopes, but to seek the grace of any god, she ap-
proached the sacred threshold. She saw precious gifts and cloths inscribed with
36 The classic fairy tale

gold lettering attached to the branches of trees and doorposts, which bore witness
to the name of the goddess they had been dedicated to, and the graciousness
of her help. Then kneeling and embracing the warm altar with her hands, she
wiped her tears away and prayed:

(6.4.1) ‘Sister and wife of mighty Jupiter, whether you reside in your ancient
shrine at Samos, which alone has the glory of your birth, your infant crying
and your nourishment, or whether you spend your time in your blessed abode
in lofty Carthage which worships you as a virgin riding the sky on the back of
a lion,68 or whether you preside over those famous walls of the Argives beside
the banks of the Inachus,69 which remembers you as already the Thunderer’s
consort and the queen of the goddesses, whom the whole of the East venerates
as Zygia and all the West as Lucina70: may you be Juno the Saviour in my
hour of direst need and free me from fear of imminent danger, worn out by
all the great sufferings I have endured. And as I am told, you are accustomed
to come of your own accord to those in peril in their pregnancy’.71

As she prayed in this way, Juno presented herself at once with the august dignity
of her divine presence and immediately declared:

How I should wish, I swear, to nod assent to your prayers. But against the
will of Venus my daughter-in-law, whom I have always loved as a daugh-
ter,72 shame does not allow me to override her. And then again I am pre-
vented by the law which forbids the protection of other people’s runaway
slaves without the consent of their master.73

(6.5.1) Psyche was terror-struck at this further shipwreck of her fortune, and no
longer able to find her winged husband she laid aside all hope of saving herself,
and reasoned with herself like this:

Now what other aid can I try or apply to my misfortunes, since not even
any of the goddesses can help me, even when they want to? So caught in
such a net, which direction am I to take? Where can I find shelter or shad-
ows where I am to hide from the inevitable eyes of mighty Venus? Rather
then must I not take a man’s courage and bravely renounce my shattered
hope and give myself up voluntarily to my mistress, and soothe her savage
attacks with submissiveness, even at this late hour?74 Who knows whether
the man I am searching for is to be found there in his mother’s house?

And so she prepared herself for uncertain submission,75 or rather for certain
death, and thought about how to begin her coming entreaty.
(6.6.1) But Venus renounced her search for terrestrial remedies and looked to
heaven. She ordered the chariot to be made ready that Vulcan the goldsmith had
carefully brought to perfection with his intricate workmanship and had given
 The classic fairy tale 37

her as a wedding present before the initiation of the bridal chamber76: an object
conspicuous for what the file had trimmed off and precious even for the gold it
had lost. From the many that had their quarters round their mistress’ house four
doves came forward. They gladly stepped out and twisted their painted necks to
take the jewelled yoke, and picked up their mistress and happily flew off. The
chariot was escorted by playful sparrows77 chirruping noisily, and other birds
sweetly singing and announcing the arrival of the goddess to the sound of their
honeyed strains. The clouds parted, heaven opened for his daughter, and the top-
most Aether joyfully received the goddess, nor did Venus’ household of singers
fear an encounter with eagles or savage hawks.78
(6.7.1) Then Venus immediately made for the royal citadel of Jupiter and
haughtily demanded the loan she needed – the service of the loud crier Mercury.
Jupiter nodded his dark brow,79 then she triumphantly left the sky at once with
Mercury in her train, and anxiously told him:

My Arcadian brother,80 doubtless you are aware that your sister Venus has
never done anything without Mercury’s being there, nor does it escape
you for how long now I have been unable to find my elusive handmaid. So
there is nothing for it but for you as herald to publish abroad the reward for
finding her.81 See then that you are quick to carry out my command, and
clearly set forth the signs by which she may be recognised, so that if anyone
commits the crime of concealing her against the law, he cannot defend
himself with the excuse of ignorance.

As she said this she handed him a paper82 with Pysche’s name and all her details.
When she had done so she immediately returned home.
(6.8.1) Nor did Mercury fail to obey her. For he ran far and wide across the
face of all nations discharging the duty of making the proclamation she had
ordered:

If anyone can retrace or reveal the whereabouts of a runaway princess, a

slave of Venus called Psyche, he is to report to the crier Mercury behind the
Murtian turning-point of the circus,83 and will receive from Venus herself
as a reward seven sweet kisses and one with a thick coating of honey from
the thrust of her flattering tongue.

When Mercury made this announcement the desire for such a great reward
aroused the zealous rivalry of all the world. And it now completely removed
from Psyche any will to delay. And already as she approached her mistress’ doors
she was met by one of Venus’ household, Habit as she was called, who immedi-
ately exclaimed as loudly as she could:

At last, wickedest of maids, are you beginning to realise you have a mis-
tress? Or in your usual shamelessness do you also pretend to be unaware
38 The classic fairy tale

what great efforts we have put out in our search for you? But fortunately
it is my hands you have fallen into, and now you are held fast in the grip
of Orcus,84 no doubt to pay immediately the punishment for all your
insolence.

(6.9.1) And she boldly took hold of Psyche’s hair with her hand and dragged her
in without any resistance. And when Venus saw her led in and at her mercy, she
came out with the broadest cackle, as people do when roused to a fury, and shak-
ing her head and scraping her right ear,85 ‘At last’, she said,

you have seen fit to pay your respects to your mother-in-law?86 Or have
you come instead to call on your husband, whose life is at risk from the
wound you gave him? But have no fear, for now I shall welcome you as a
good mother-in-law should,

and she went on, Where are my handmaids Anxiety and Misery? When she had
called them in, she handed Psyche over to them for torture. But they followed
their mistress’ command and after lashing poor dear Psyche with whips and tor-
menting her with other tortures, they brought her in again to face her mistress.
Then Venus once more put on her smile and said,

And just look how she tries to make me sorry for her with the enticement
of a swollen belly, with which no doubt she is to make me a grandmother87
with her amazing offspring. Happy indeed am I, who in the very flower of
my youth will be called grandmother and the son of a worthless slave will
hear himself called grandson of Venus. And yet I am silly to speak in vain
of a son: for the marriage is not an even match and moreover took place in
a country estate with no witnesses, without the groom’s father’s consent.
Such a wedding cannot appear legitimate,88 and through it this bastard will
be born, only however if I allow you to bear the child at all!

(6.10.1) With these taunts she lunged at Psyche: she tore her clothes to shreds,
tore apart her hair, shook her by the head and laid into her hard. She also took
wheat, barley, millet, poppy-seed, chickpeas, lentils and beans, mixed them all
together, and scrambled them into a single heap, then said to Psyche:

You seem to me to be so base a slave that you can only gratify your lovers
by busy drudgery: so now I myself will try out your worth. Separate this
jumbled heap of these seeds and sort them all out properly into separate
heaps, and before this evening let the work be done and carried out.89

And when she had assigned her the heap of such an amount of seeds, Venus went
off to a wedding-banquet. Nor did Psyche strive to set her hand to that confused
and inextricable mass, but dumbfounded by the awesomeness of the command
 The classic fairy tale 39

she was struck dumb with consternation. Then that tiny little country creature
the ant, sure of the scale of her difficult task, took pity on the mistress of the
mighty god, and horrified at the cruelty of her mother-in-law, she rushed to
call together and assemble the whole order of ants round about: ‘Have pity, agile
offspring of earth the mother of all, have pity on the wife of Love, the lovable
girl in danger, and come to the rescue with all speed!’90 Others rushed forward,
and others again, wave upon wave, and with the utmost eagerness each of them
sorted the whole heap a grain at a time, separated them, and distinguished the
types, before smartly disappearing from view.
(6.11.1) But at the beginning of the night, Venus came back from the wedding
feast 91 soaked in wine, reeking of perfume and garlanded all over with a bril-
liance of roses. When she saw the diligence of that amazing feat she said: ‘This
work, vilest slave, is not your doing, nor the work of your own hands, but is the
work of the boy who fancies you but to the cost of both of you’: she tossed Psyche
a lump of coarse bread and went off to bed. Meanwhile Cupid was alone, shut in
a single room within the house under lock and key, in part to stop him worsening
the wound with his impulsive indulgence, in part to stop him getting together
with his love.92 And so although under the same roof the lovers were separate
and apart, and spent a miserable night. But when Dawn was on her steed, Venus
called Psyche and said to her:

You see that wood with the river running by, and the long stretches of
banking, with the bushes down below, overlooking the neighbouring
spring? There sheep with shining fleeces of genuine gold wander and graze
without a shepherd. From there I command you to bring me at once, no
matter how you obtain it, a hank of that precious wool.93

(6.12.1) Psyche willingly set out, not that she really expected to perform the task,
but hoping for a respite from her miseries by throwing herself down into the
river from a rock. But at that point from the river a green reed,94 nurse of sweet
music, inspired with a gentle whisper of the sweet breeze, gave her this prophecy:

Psyche, troubled with all your sufferings, you are not to pollute my sacred
waters with your truly pitiful death, nor may you approach these fearsome
sheep at this hour, while they are used to be driven wild by dire madness,
taking their heat from the burning sun, and with their sharp horns and
stone-hard foreheads and often too with their poisoned bites,95 are used to
rage and cause the death of mortals; but until midday has abated the heat
of the sun and the flocks have settled in the cool breeze of the river, you
can hide unnoticed under that great towering plane-tree which drinks the
same river-current as I do. And once their fury has abated and the sheep’s
minds are relaxed, you must shake the branches in the nearby grove, and
you will find the woollen gold, which sticks all over in their entwined
stems.
40 The classic fairy tale

(6.13.1) In this way the simple, kindly reed told the stricken Psyche how to save
herself. Nor did she fail once instructed to pay attention to its valuable advice,96
but she performed the instruction, easily stole the wool, and brought back to
Venus her lap full of the softness of the tawny gold. And yet she did not receive a
favourable report for her efforts, at least from her mistress, for the danger of her
second labour. With knitted brow and a bitter smile Venus told her:

I am not unaware that it was your adulterous husband who did this too. But
now already I will be sure to test whether you are endowed with a truly
courageous spirit and are really prudent. Do you see the summit of that
steep mountain overhanging that loftiest of crags, from which dark waters
from a black fountain flow, and shut into the vessel of a neighbouring val-
ley, water the Stygian marshes, and feed the deafening flows of Cocytus?97
Bring back from that very spot, from the deep gush at the head of the
fountain at once in this tiny urn a draught of freezing water.

With this she handed her the little vessel hollowed from crystal, showering her
with still more threats.98
(6.14.1) But Psyche, eager to quicken her pace, made for the topmost summit,
at least hoping there to find an end to her life of utmost misery. But as soon as she
came near the summit prescribed by Venus, she saw the deadly difficulty of her
awesome task. For there was a great rock of enormous proportions, wild, slippery
and inaccessible, pouring out horrid cascades from the jaws of stone in its midst.
The water at once gushed from the gap of a sloping opening, and fell headlong,
concealed in the eaten-out course of a narrow channel, and fell unseen into the
nearby valley.99 And to left and right from the hollows in the rocks she could see
savage snakes with long necks crawling forth with their eyes devoted to waking
vigilance, their pupils on guard in perpetual wakefulness. And now the very
waters defended themselves with a voice of their own.100 For they said: ‘Leave’
and ‘What are you about? Take care’, and ‘What are you doing? Beware!’, and
‘Flee!’ and ‘You’ll die!’ And so Psyche was petrified by the very impossibility of
her task, and although her body was there, her senses were elsewhere: and totally
overwhelmed by the awesome scale of a danger from which she could not escape,
she could not even find the final consolation of tears.
(6.15.1) Nor did the misery of this innocent soul escape the august gaze of
kindly providence. For that royal bird of loftiest Jupiter, the snatching eagle,101
suddenly was at her side with his wings outspread; he remembered his duty of
old, when led on by Cupid he had stolen the Phrygian cupbearer102 for Jupiter.
Now he bore timely aid, and worshipping the god’s divine spirit he brought help
to his wife in her distress, deserting the roads of Jupiter on high, and flew down
before the girl’s face. ‘But you’, he said,

innocent as you are and inexperienced in such matters, do you expect

that you will steal so much as a single drop or get hold of it any other way
 The classic fairy tale 41

from this holiest and no less awesome of springs? You are aware that even
to the gods, and even Jupiter himself, those waters of the Styx are fearful
even to mention, and that what you mortals swear by the spirits of the
gods, they themselves are accustomed to swear by the Styx? But lend me
the tiny urn;

and at once he snatched if from her, held it and hurried off; and balancing on
his mighty span of wings, between the jaws and the triple-forked tongues of the
dragons he veered left and right, took the waters though they were unwilling
and warned him to withdraw before suffering harm. He pretended that he was
searching at the command of Venus and that his service was on her behalf, so that
it was a little easier for him to gain access.
(6.16.1) Psyche gladly accepted the little urn filled in this way and returned it
quickly to Venus. Not even then could she win the approval of the cruel goddess.
For she smiled a destructive smile and threatened Psyche with still greater and
more dangerous tasks, as she spoke to her: ‘Already you seem to me to be some
powerful and thoroughly accomplished witch, who have obeyed such orders of
mine so quickly. But still you must serve me, my little one. Take this casket’ – she
gave it to her –

go at once to the Underworld and the baneful deities of Hell itself. Then
give Proserpina the casket, and you are to say to her: “Venus asks from you
a little of your beauty – at least enough for the short space of a day.103 For as
she is looking after her ailing son, she has used up all she has and exhausted
her supply”. But come back in good time, as I must put it on before I visit
the theatre of the gods.

(6.17.1) Then Psyche sharply realised that her luck had run out and that the veil
was off, and understood that she was being clearly driven to a speedy end. How
could it be otherwise, when she was being forced to go of her own accord to
Tartarus and the Shades on her own two feet? Nor did she hesitate further, but
made her way to some tower of great height, to throw herself down from that
very place. For in this way she thought she would be able to go straight down
to the Underworld by the best possible route. But the tower burst suddenly into
voice104:

Why, poor wretch, do you wish to kill yourself by your headlong fall,
and why do you succumb rashly to the final dangerous trial? For if your
spirit should once become detached from your body, you will assuredly go
straight to the bottom of Tartarus, but from there you will be unable to
return by any means. (6.18.1) Listen to me. Sparta, a noble city of Achaea,
is situated not far from here. Look beside it for Taenarus, concealed off the
beaten track.105 There they point out the breathing-place of Dis, and the
gaping gates of its impassable road. Cross the threshold, entrust yourself
42 The classic fairy tale

to it, and you will go by a direct channel to the very palace of Hades. But
you must not enter so far into these dark regions without equipment, but
bring with you in each hand a cake of barley-meal soaked in honey-wine,
while in your mouth carry two coins. And now that you have covered a
good part of the deadly road you will encounter a lame ass loaded with
wood, and a lame driver, who will ask you to hand him over some sticks
that have fallen off the load, but without uttering a word you must pass
by in silence. And without delay, you will arrive at the river of the dead,
whose harbourmaster Charon at once demands the crossing-fare before he
ferries travellers in a boat of skins to the further bank. So even among the
dead avarice is alive. Nor does so mighty a god as Charon, the collector
for Dis,106 do anything for nothing, but a poor man on the brink of death
has to look for his travel expenses and should he not have a bronze coin
to hand no-one will allow him to die. To this unkempt old man you will
give one of the coins you are carrying for his fare, but on condition that he
takes it with his one hand from your mouth. And in like manner, as you
cross the sluggish river, an elderly corpse swimming107 over it will raise
his decaying hand and beg you to haul him aboard the boat, but you must
not be turned aside influenced by pity, as this is not allowed. (6.19.1) When
you have gone a little way beyond the crossing, old women weavers setting
up their loom will ask you to help them for a moment,108 but neither are
you allowed to be part of this. For all this and much besides will happen
through the traps set by Venus, so that you let go one of your cakes. Nor
should you take lightly the loss of that mere barley-cake: for if one of them
is lost you will never see the light of day again. For a great dog with three-
fold huge heads, a monstrous and formidable creature barking with its
thunderous throats at the dead, vainly terrifying those whom he can offer
no harm – this creature guards the empty house of Dis ever watchfully,
and he stands before the very threshold and gloomy halls of Proserpina.
This dog you must muzzle with the prize of one of your barley-cakes; then
you will pass him easily and gain access at once to Proserpina herself,109
who will receive you courteously and kindly, so as to persuade you to take
a soft seat and a sumptuous meal. But you must sit on the ground and ask
for cheap bread and eat it, then having announced the purpose of your visit
and received what is offered you should return. Bribe the savage dog with
the remaining cake and then give the greedy boatman the coin you had
kept back; cross the river and retracing your previous steps return to the
light of the chorus of heavenly stars. But amid all the rest I solemnly warn
you to observe this above all: you should not wish to open or inspect the
casket you bring,110 or with too much curiosity try the hidden treasure of
divine beauty.

(6.20.1) So did the perceptive tower fulfil its task of prophecy. Nor did Psyche
delay; she made for Taenarus, duly took the coins and the cakes, and ran down to
 The classic fairy tale 43

the lower world. She passed in silence the stumbling donkey-driver and gave the
coin to the ferryman, ignoring the request of the dead swimmer and rejecting the
crafty pleas of the weaving-women, and with the horrid rage of the hound put
to rest with the barley-cake, she penetrated the home of Proserpina. She did not
accept the delicate seat her hostess offered, nor the sumptuous meal, but sitting
low before her feet and content with coarse bread, she delivered Venus’ request.
And at once she took the casket filled and sealed in secret; she deceived the dog
with the trick of the second cake and muzzled its barking; she paid the ferryman
with the remaining coin, and returned from the Underworld with much more
vigour. She returned to the shiny light she knew and hailed it, and although she
was hurrying to bring her task to an end, her mind fell victim to rash curiosity
and she said: ‘Look what a fool I am, to be the carrier of divine beauty, and not
pour out even a tiny little of it for myself! And so perhaps to delight my beautiful
lover’; (6.21.1) and with that she undid the casket. There was nothing in it, not
any beauty, but a deathly and truly Stygian sleep,111 which at once revealed by
the opening of the lid took hold of her and went through all her limbs as a thick
cloud of slumber. It held her in her tracks just where she was on the path, and she
lay immobile, nothing but a sleeping corpse.
But Cupid, his wound now closed, was regaining his strength and could not
bear the continual absence of his dear Psyche: he slipped through the topmost
window of the room where he was held; his wings were refreshed by a good
rest, and flying forward much faster, he ran towards his dear Psyche. He care-
fully rubbed away the sleep and carefully replaced it in its hiding place in the
casket, and woke her with a tiny harmless prick of one of his arrows,112 and said
‘You see, once again you had perished, poor darling, through the same curios-
ity as before. But in the meantime you discharge diligently the task which was
ordered you by my mother’s bidding, and I will see to the rest’. With this her
nimble lover took to the air, while Psyche at once brought back Proserpina’s gift
to Venus.
(6.22.1) Meanwhile Cupid, utterly consumed by love, fearing his mother’s
unexpected severity and looking ill, returned to type. And on his swift wings he
went right to the summit of the sky and prayed to mighty Jupiter and pleaded his
cause. Then Jupiter took Cupid by the cheek and brought it with his hand against
his own cheek and kissed him and said to him:

Although you, my son, have never given me the honour decreed by the
acknowledgement of the gods, but have wounded with constant blows this
breast of mine113 by which the laws of the elements and the motions of
the stars are disposed, and have fouled it with frequent misadventures of
earthly lust, and although against the laws, even the Julian law,114 and pub-
lic morals, you have harmed my reputation and good name with shameful
adulteries, by foully changing my serene countenance into snakes, fire,
wild beasts, birds and beasts of the field,115 nonetheless remembering my
moderation and that you grew up in my hands I shall bring it all to fruition;
44 The classic fairy tale

whilst however you must know to look out for your rivals, and if there is
any girl on earth supreme in beauty, you must reward me with her in turn
in exchange for my present good deed.

(6.23.1) With this he ordered Mercury to call all the gods to a council right away,
and if any one absented himself from the assembly of the celestials, to pronounce
that he would incur a penalty of 10,000 sesterces. The heavenly theatre116 was
full as a result of this threat, and Jupiter, sitting on his lofty throne above the
throng, made the following announcement:

Conscript gods in the record of the Muses, this youth I am sure you all
know, and that I reared him with my own hands. I have decided that
the hot-blooded drives of his first flush of youth must be restrained by
some kind of curb; it is enough that he attracted scandal through daily
tales of adulteries and all manner of impropriety. All opportunity is to be
removed and the wantonness of youth is to be bound up in the fetters of
marriage. He has chosen his girl and taken her virginity. Let him keep her
and take her and embrace Psyche in his arms and ever have enjoyment of
his love.117

And to Venus he turned and said,

Nor must you, my daughter, take it badly, nor fear for your mighty line-
age or status because of marriage with a mortal. Now I shall make it not
an ill-matched but a legitimate marriage, and one in accord with civil
law.

And then through Mercury he ordered Psyche to be rushed to the spot and
brought up to heaven, and given a cup of ambrosia. ‘Take this, Psyche’, he said,
‘and be immortal, nor shall Cupid stray from his bond with you, but this mar-
riage will bind both of you for ever’.
(6.24.1) And without delay, a lavish wedding banquet was provided: the hus-
band held Psyche in his lap as he reclined on the couch of honour; as did Jupiter
with his spouse Juno, and then all the gods in due order. Then Jupiter was served
a cup of nectar by the country boy who served as his personal wine-waiter while
the others were served by Liber; Vulcan cooked the dinner; the Hours spread a
red hue over all with roses and other flowers, the Graces scattered perfumes, the
Muses performed their musical songs; Apollo sang to the lyre, the lovely Venus
danced, in step to the sweet music, having arranged a suitable spectacle, with the
Muses singing the chorus and playing their flutes, while satyrs and a tiny Pan
sang to a shepherd’s pipe.118
So was Psyche duly married to Cupid; and in the fullness of time she gave
birth to a daughter we call by the name of Pleasure (Voluptas).119
 The classic fairy tale 45

Another ‘lost husband’: two versions of Semele120

Diodorus 4.2.1ff. /Apollodorus 3.5.3 (ATU 425B)121

(Diodorus) Cadmus settled <in Thebes> and married Aphrodite’s daughter Har-
monia, and they had daughters Semele, Ino, Antinoe and Agave, as well as a son
Polydorus.122 Zeus was captivated by Semele and made love to her in secret and
in silence. She thought the god had no regard for her and so she asked him to
make love to her as he did to Hera. So Zeus came in a manner appropriate to a
god, with the full blaze of his thunder and lightning, but Semele was pregnant
and could not endure the great majesty of Zeus’ presence, but gave birth pre-
maturely. (Apollodorus) But Dionysus brought her back up from Hades123 and
ascended with her into heaven.

Nonnus, Dionysiaca 7.141ff.

(Semele) brushed the forgetful wing of sleep from her eyes, and sent her mind in
a wander after a dream’s image with a variety of oracles. It seemed to her that she
saw a lovely-leafed tree in a garden, loaded with burgeoning unripened fruit wa-
tered with the son of Cronus’ fostering dews, when suddenly a flash from heaven
fell through the sky, flattening the whole tree, but leaving the fruit untouched…
and Semele was the tree. The girl leapt up terrified from her bed,124 and told her
father of the fire that blasted the leafy tree, and King Cadmus shook when he
heard of the tree burned by the father, and called the divine announcer (Tiresias),
son of Chariclo, and told him that morning his child’s blazing dreams. When he
heard the oracular voice of Tiresias he sent out his daughter to the accustomed
temple of Athena, to sacrifice to Zeus the hurler of bolts a bull, the image of
Lyaeus who also bears horns, and a goat destined to be the enemy of the vintage
as it cut down the vines.
From there she went before the city to kindle the altar for Zeus, the lord over
lightning. As she stood beside the victims she sprinkled her bosom with blood;
the girl was drenched in blood, and great streams of blood soaked her hair, and
her clothes were crimson with the dripping bull’s blood. And swiftly making
her way beside the deep rush-beds of the river Asopus, the river of her native
place, the girl with the discoloured robes plunged in to wash garments soaked
and stained by the great spatter of blood. There she washed her body clean, and
naked with her maids the girl ran through the water using her hands as paddles…
(190) Nor did she escape the all-seeing eye of Zeus… (316ff.) The fastenings of
the palace door opened of their own accord as he passed through, and he held Se-
mele fast in the amorous bond of his arms. One moment he gave a bull’s lowing
voice with horned head above human limbs, in the image of Dionysus with his
bull’s horns; at another he took on the shape of a thick-maned lion; now he was a
panther, as the begetter of a fierce son, the driver of panthers and holder of lions’
reins.125 Or again as a bridegroom he bound his hair snooded with snake-coils
46 The classic fairy tale

and vine-leaves, winding the purple ivy round his hair, the plaited adornment
of Bacchus. And a coiling serpent crawled over the trembling bride’s rosy neck
with its gentle lips, and going down into her bosom it girdled the circling of
her firm breasts as it hissed a wedding hymn, pouring forth the sweet honey of
a bees’ happy swarm, not the venomed arrow of a viper.126 Zeus prolonged his
receptive rite, and as if beside the winepress he exclaimed Euos, as he fathered
the son who was to love the cry…and after the bedding he greeted Semele with
loving words, as he cheered his bride with hopes for the future. ‘My lady, I your
bridegroom am the son of Cronus…’.127 (8.178ff.) And Hera left the cave of
the Dictaean rock with its swinging shields and the cavern of the goddess who
brings about childbirth,128 and came with guileful intent to Semele’s chamber,
puffing in her jealousy. She took on the shape of a honey-tongued old woman,
the loving nurse that Agenor himself had chosen and supported. This was the
woman Hera looked like when she stepped into the house, fuming at Semele and
Cypris and Dionysus who had yet to see the light, and arriving at the chamber of
the recent wedding she turned her gaze to the opposite wall, so as not to see the
bed of Zeus; and Pisanassa the servant of Semele, the maiden of Tyrian descent,
sat her on a seat, and Thelxinoe spread rugs over the gleaming chair. There the
goddess sat alongside her, weaving her schemes.129 And she found the girl heavy
with the burden of ripening increase, and the birth, not yet reaching the month
of delivery; her pallid cheek, and the paleness of her once rosy limbs, told of a
womb unsealed. And the treacherous Hera’s false form trembled with a feigned
palsy as she sat, and the old woman nodded forwards to the ground on her bent
shoulders. With difficulty she found her excuse: she gave a groan, wiping the
well-pretended tear from her cheek, and she uttered her false words with her
voice, enchanting the mind:

Tell me, queen: Why these pale cheeks? Where has all your beauty gone?
Who has grudged you your beauty and dimmed the sparkle of your rosy
cheeks, and who has changed the rose colour to that of quickly fading
anemones? And why do you languish in this downcast state? Have you too
heard those shameful rumours that people are broadcasting? A curse on the
tongues of women, root of all evil! But tell me, and do not hide anything:
Who laid violent hands on your girdle? Which of the gods has polluted
you, which has robbed you of your virginity?… (247) And if, as you claim,
the son of Cronus is your bridegroom, let him come to your bed with the
thunder of desire, helmeted with marital lightning, so that someone may
say “Hera and Semele both enjoy the thunderings of the bridegroom”.
Jealous though she be, Zeus’ consort will not give you trouble, for your
grandfather Ares will not permit it…

… (264) With this she left the house, with the girl still troubled: she was envious
of Hera’s still unmatched marriage and resented the son of Cronus… (286) And
Semele was weighed down heavily in her newly suffering heart, longing for the
 The classic fairy tale 47

lightning to accompany their love with its flashes. She made her complaint to her
husband, wishing for the fireworks of Hera’s bed:

By the rich nuptials of Danae130 I beg you, grant me this gift, horned131
spouse of Europa! For I am ashamed to call you the husband of Semele,
when I see you only as a dream… (320) You go to Hera’s bed in your divine
form, lighting up your bride with nuptial lightnings, but for Semele you
approach as a serpent (drak ōn) or a bull. She hears the resounding Olympian
thud of love, Semele hears the bastard bellow of a sham bull with only the
shadow of a shape. Zeus comes to my bed noiselessly and cloudless, but
as cloud-gatherer132 he makes love to haughty Hera. My father flees the
scandal of a daughter’s disreputable marriage; your (very own) Cadmus is
confined to his palace and avoids where people walk, ashamed to show
face in public, because everyone pours scorn on your secret marriage, and
criticizes Semele for her secret husband. You have given me a fine wedding
gift – women’s sneers! And the chorus of handmaids finds fault with me,
and above all I fear the coarse tongue of a prattling nurse…(340) Not yet
have I seen the face of the real son of Cronus, the gleaming flash of the
eyelids, nor the light of his face, nor the blinding sheen of his beard. Not
yet have I seen your Olympian form, but I expect a panther or a lion, I
do not see a god as my husband. I view you as mortal when about to give
birth to a god….

(348) So did Semele beg to meet her own fate: for the short-living bride aspired
to be the equal of Hera, and hoped for the sweet spark of a gentle thunderbolt.
But father Zeus listened and put the blame on the jealous Fates, and pitied Se-
mele’s untimely death. But he saw the selfish anger of the unsoftening Hera over
Dionysus. And he ordered Hermes to seize the infant son of Thyone133 blasted by
the fire, from the flaming bolt… (407) And Zeus soothed the mind of the jealous
Hera: he calmed the wild burden of threatening hatred, and let fiery Semele be
transposed to the vault of the stars; she shared her home with the inhabitants of
heaven.

Notes
1 Swahn (1955); Binder-Merkelbach (1968); Walsh (1970), 190–223; Wright (1971),
273–284; Megas, EM 1 (1977), 464–472; Kenney (1990); Anderson (2000), 61–69;
Hansen (2002), 100–114.
2 Cupid and Psyche deserves pride of place as showing beyond reasonable doubt that
the literary fairy tale had already come of age in the ancient world. There is little in
content to say that this text belongs to Antiquity rather than the Renaissance, when
even the pagan gods, as opposed to fairies and elves, would not look out of place.
The sense of royal courts and opulence, the black-and-white moral values of wick-
edness punished, virtue rewarded, true love and happy ending are already there, to-
gether with a whole apparatus of magic effects, and the attention to a predominantly
female world, suitable to an old wives’ tale and its female captive audience; all this
48 The classic fairy tale

might as easily belong to the artificial world of the French Précieuses in the 17th and
18th centuries.
Other views of the story have been held by classicists, most notably those seeking
origins in oriental cult-myth (Reitzenstein) and Platonic Allegory (Kenney, among
others), Apuleius having been himself a writer on Platonism. To the former can be
added a number of analogues in Hittite myth about an ill-tempered god Telepinus,
his demand for a wife, his anger at some kind of disobedience and a number of
rituals performed to get him back and bring about the wedding (Anderson 2000,
63–67). These would correspond to Psyche’s own tasks and provide better motiva-
tion. The cultic context would suit the tale well, as a tale told to a woman in labour
to distract from the pain: one thinks of the pregnant Psyche faced with the threat
of delayed delivery.
3 The heroine need not have elevated social status: the version of Basile (5.4, ‘The
Golden Root’) has a poor man with three daughters.
4 Folk versions are sometimes less kind: ‘The two eldest were proud and ugly but the
youngest was the gentlest and most beautiful creature ever seen (Briggs, DBF 1970
A1, 458, ‘The Red Bull of Norroway’).
5 All three cult-centres of Aphrodite.
6 Many such tales tend to emphasise the arrogance of the woman (e.g. those of Chione,
Semele). Apuleius takes care to emphasise the modesty and good nature of Psyche
throughout.
7 The Lucretian echoes here pave the way for sly humour: the primeval majesty of the
mother of creation is assigned to a very human, jealous, caricature.
8 In the Judgement of Paris, in which Venus bribed the judge.
9 The traditional casting of Eros/Cupid as delinquent from Archaic Greek literature
onwards.
10 Psyche ‘soul’, with the name delayed with the casualness of the oral storyteller.
There is certainly an unmissable allegorical element here, though how far this is
simply ornamental is still a matter for debate.
11 A traditional cast-list of minor marine deities, presented as a retinue for Venus when
travelling by sea.
12 The first of several purple passages relating to the movements of divine beings.
13 In accordance with their ambitions: ‘I will have no-one lower than a king’…the
second would take a prince or a duke even (Briggs, DBF A1, 458, ‘the Red Bull of
Norroway’).
14 In folk-versions the divination for the bride may require nothing more than a spay-
wife or the like (‘What do you see?’. ‘…A great Black Bull…’. ‘Thon’s for you’)
(Briggs, ‘The Black bull of Norroway’, DBF A1, 156).
15 Milesian tales carried with them a reputation for salaciousness; the tale of the Widow
of Ephesus (Petronius, Satyrica, 111f.) typifies the genre.
16 They and the lector of The Golden Ass are not meant to interpret this as Eros/­Cupid,
traditionally a ‘dangerous’ figure in ornamental Graeco-Roman literature. One
might think in particular of the snake-lover which purports to seduce Olympias
at the beginning of the Alexander Romance. The ‘bestial’ nature of the husband is
­variously interpreted: he has a whole range of animal guises in Nonnus’ version of
the Semele story.
17 In the novels the superlative beauty of the heroine is engaged with the reactions of
the whole city (as much in the popular narrative of Xenophon of Ephesus as in the
more sophisticated writers).
18 Compare the human sacrifice motifs in the story of Perseus and Andromeda, the
exposure of Hesione, or the story of Lycus and the girl.
19 Psyche’s mood varies in Apuleius from ‘positive’ initiative here through to abject
suicidal resignation: Apuleius, and Silver-Age writers generally, have a taste for
­extremes of emotion.
 The classic fairy tale 49

20 Psyche’s willingness to give herself when all others are delaying may be a hint of
versions where the heroine has actually promised herself to be the bride of a monster
(see ‘The Red Bull of Norroway’, Briggs DBF (1970), A1, 458).
21 The shutting up of the palace reappears e.g. in Perrault’s version of Sleeping Beauty.
22 The Zephyr will act as celestial transport throughout: cf. the ornamental role in di-
vine love-affairs in e.g. Lucian, Dialogi Marini, 15. In Dasent, 29ff. first the East then
the more powerful West Wind, then South then North act as transport during the
wanderings to find the Stepmother’s abode. Some versions, particularly Italian, start
with access to the underground palace by uprooting a plant; in Basile 5.4 Parmetella
discovers a palace whose prince promptly proposes, with gold and silver around
(cf. the trees of silver in Hades, as in The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Opie and Opie
(1980), 250f.
23 The bridegroom’s abode is often sumptuous: so Dasent, 23:
The white bear gave a knock, and a door opened, and they came into a castle,
where there were many rooms all lit up, rooms gleaming with silver and gold;
and there too was a table ready laid, and it was all as grand as grand could be. The
white bear gave her a silver bell, and when she wanted anything, she was only to
ring it, and she would get it at once.
24 Sometimes the retinue is actually visible: Basile’s Parmetella (5.4) is given a diamond
coach drawn by winged horses complete with liveried monkeys. The disembodied
voices so characteristic of Apuleius’ version may be intended as a reinforcement of
the invisibility of the bridegroom. They also serve to emphasise the isolation of
Psyche herself.
25 The delicacy of Apuleius’ narrative obscures the fact that this is at the very least a
forced marriage, it not an actual rape: the ‘invisible bridegroom’ motif is of course
incompatible with any notion of the mutual passion of the couple. The husband is
not always invisible; Parmetella encounters a black youth who offers marriage which
she accepts. The taboo is the same in this instance: he turns white during the night,
a sight she must not see.
26 The first of Cupid’s warnings against the jealous sisters. Sometimes the taboo is
broken immediately: Parmetella is overcome by curiosity the second night of their
marriage. The nature of the taboo varies greatly in the folktale tradition. Sometimes
the bridegroom’s advice might be not to talk with her mother alone (Dasent, 24),
to whom she tells the whole story of the invisible groom, 25; the mother suspects a
troll); or not to talk more than three words with her father, Grimm, 127: so Zipes
(1987), 452.
27 An ‘Ovidian’ touch: in a conversation with a god, the divine party refers to him-
self, or the girl refers to him, in the third person, as yet unaware that she is actually
addressing him (e.g. Jupiter smiled to be compared with himself by Callisto in Met-
amorphoses, 2.429f.).
28 As of course he turns out to be.
29 The ugly sisters, as in Cinderella tales. The sibling rivalry of jealous sisters does not
figure in the Greek novel as currently known, but is familiar enough in the mytho-
graphic record: see especially Aglauros infected by jealousy for her sister Herse, lover
of Hermes in Ovid Metamorphoses, 2.797–832.
30 Underprivileged younger siblings are the characteristic underdog heroines of fairy
tale, but not always: the early Chinese Cinderella Yeh-Sien is an older sister.
31 As once more will prove to be the case, by which time envy will long ago have been
the death of the sisters.
32 Ancient marriage conventions often allow a substantial age gap: the Younger
Pliny’s third wife would have been married in her teens to a husband in his late 30s
or more.
33 The second warning of impending downfall.
50 The classic fairy tale

34 Again the feel of a fairy tale motif: the fantasy as so often depends on the breaking
of a taboo.
35 It is the husband who is first aware of the pregnancy, perhaps because divine inter-
course is unfailingly fertile, but Psyche may preserve the genuine ignorance of the
young and closeted aristocratic girl.
36 Pregnancy is a relatively rare component in Western fairy tale, with its preoccu-
pation with virginal progress to the goal of marriage (likewise in the Greek novel,
where only Chariton uses the motif prominently).
37 The third warning of impending downfall.
38 This trust in Zephyrus will be the eventual undoing of both.
39 Again a fairy tale motif of fattening to devour, as in the Empousa story, below c.5.
40 Lamps were endowed with personification as witnesses, especially in Hellenistic
epigram: cf. Apuleius Metamorphoses, 2.11; Lucian Cataplus, 27.
41 Kenney notes some inconsistency here: the sisters genuinely seem to expect a ser-
pentine husband, otherwise Psyche would have needed to be tricked into killing the
supernatural husband in the dark.
42 There is something of Ovid’s Althaea here (Metamorphoses, 8.465–474, where how-
ever it is the murder of a son that is in question).
43 Again a humorous twist, since uniquely they are his mother’s domain.
44 An ecphrasis of Cupid, skilfully broken with the confused and panicking reaction of
Psyche: here not quite Eros as the traditional Hellenistic putto.
45 For the naïve personification, cf. Ovid Metamorphoses, 8.513ff. (reluctance of Melea-
ger’s life-token to burn).
46 With slight inconsistency, as her love for her husband is already established.
47 Parmetella’s husband simply swears at her: his sufferings will now last for 7 years.
48 In some versions the hero is more explicit at this point: the white bear explains
­having been bewitched by his stepmother, and is now to be forced to marry a bride
with a nose three ells long in the castle East of the Sun and West of the Moon
(Dasent, 26f.).
49 Sometimes the magic palace disappears at this point (Dasent, 27), with no compli-
cation of the sisters having to be killed).
50 For Pan and Echo it is perhaps a facetious touch to turn Pan into a counsellor on
love: normally he is a shameless sexual opportunist with the nymphs: cf. Lucian
Dialogi Deorum, 2.4.
51 At this point the heroine has to receive instructions from one or more ‘supernatural
helper’ figures as to how to win back her injured husband. Parmetella is equipped
by a fairy with several of a variety of objects (spindles, figs, iron shoes) and a single
honey-jar, and told how to avoid the impending dangers. Submissive service is the
key to the tasks section of the story: the young bride is to have a prolonged initiation
into domestic tasks, in stark contrast to the comforts of her fully automated palace.
52 The murder of the sisters gives rise to some inconsistency. As Kenney notes, it rids
the plot of the two unjust plotters and tormentors as soon as they have forced Psyche
to betray her husband, thus gratifying the reader’s thirst for rough justice. But it
scarcely fits the character of Psyche herself, who is naturally generous and forgiving.
53 In the folk tradition he is often held by a witch or ogress, whose ugly daughter he is
being forced to marry. One notes in the Hittite Telepinus texts that it is the bee who
discovers the absent deity.
54 The Hittite tale already has the motif of failure of fertility:
Mist seized the windows; smoke [seized the house]. In the fireplace the logs were
stifled; [at the altars] the gods were stifled, in the sheep pen the sheep were stifled,
in the cattle barns the cattle were stifled. Therefore barley (and) wheat no longer
ripen. Cattle, sheep, and humans no longer become pregnant. And those already
pregnant cannot give birth.
(Hoffner, 14f.)
 The classic fairy tale 51

55 I.e. minor superhumans and so respectable liaisons. In Hellenistic poetry and

its sophistic prose successors there is often a comically bad relationship between
­Aphrodite/Venus and Eros/Cupid, as her disobedient and delinquent son.
56 Aphrodite/Venus threatens Eros’/Cupid’s arrows as early as Apollonius Rhodius’
Argonautica, 3.95ff. (and cf. Lucian Dialogi Deorum, 23).
57 I.e. Ares/Mars, as a (genuine) war-god.
58 A game of allegories has a characteristically Ovidian feel, where the opposites
need each other but are disinclined to meet directly (e.g. Ceres and Hunger in the
­Erysichthon story, Metamorphoses, 8.785f.)
59 For the threats, cf. the contemporary Lucian, Dialogi Deorum, 20. There are also
echoes of Apollonius of Rhodes’ presentation of Athena and Hera seeking the help
of Venus, Argonautica, 3.93–97.
60 One is reminded of her speedy and silent departure after being caught in bed with
Ares (Odyssey, 8.362–366).
61 Throughout the chapter there are echoes of Moschus Idyll, 1 (Erōs drapet ēs, where
Aphrodite sets up a hue and cry for her son as a dangerous and delinquent ‘Missing
person’). Here she is preparing to hunt down Psyche, but her wayward son’s attrib-
utes are evoked once more.
62 The sorting here seems a doublet of the grain-sorting which requires magic help in
due course. Such episodes serve symbolically to domesticate the young bride with
household tasks (cf. Snow White’s tidying of the cottage for the dwarfs).
63 The two episodes where Psyche is ‘moved on’ by Ceres and Juno appear to refashion
episodes where the folktale has the heroine stay with a supernatural/magical helper
who actually does help by providing e.g. a means to defeat a false bride: Briggs, DBF
A1, 459; ‘The Red bull of Norroway’ (Dasent, 32).
64 Psyche stresses the analogy between herself and Proserpina, readily realised in a
myth analogous to the current tale.
65 I.e. the still not fully revealed mysteries of Demeter/Ceres at Eleusis.
66 Ceres is a daughter of Saturn, Venus of Jupiter, and so Ceres is Venus’ aunt.
67 Other goddesses are wary of antagonising Venus, who is still capable of making
them in turn fall in love unsuitably.
68 In fact the local deity Tanit.
69 I.e. as the goddess of Argos, ruled by Inachus who gave his name to the river.
70 Zygia: as the goddess who yokes in marriage; Lucina: as the goddess who presides
over childbirth.
71 The fulsome flattery embodies typical prayer formulation, enumerating cult-titles and
sites of the deity addressed, in the hope of finding the form most pleasing to the recipient.
72 The affection is disingenuous, after the Judgement of Paris.
73 By a rescript of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus: Apuleius thinks in terms of cur-
rent Roman Law.
74 The desperate rhetorical expostulations are characteristic of the lamenting heroines
of the Greek novels, e.g. Chariton, 3.7.5.
75 In this instance Psyche also adopts the stereotypical pose of the passive heroine
which has so offended feminist re-workers of fairy tale.
76 Cf. his presentation in Iliad, 18.369–379.
77 Suitable birds of Venus, given their reputation for sexual insatiability.
78 Such scenes of departing celestial chariots are already well established in Homeric
Epic and here add to the glitz and glamour of the overall décor.
79 A conventional Epic touch, cf. Iliad, 1.528.
80 His favourite residence is Mount Cyllene in Arcadia.
81 Once more a reminiscence of Moschus’ Erōs drapet ēs.
82 A rare glimpse of literate update in ancient mythological machinery.
83 Where the goddess Murcia had a shrine, and which was associated with prostitutes.
The association is evidently with Venus Myrtia (myrtea): Kenny cites Varro de lingua
latina, 5.154; Pliny NH, 15.121. See also Ogilvie on Livy, 1.33.5.
52 The classic fairy tale

84 Orcus, i.e. Hades.

85 Scraping the right ear, as a gesture of annoyance.
86 Venus now plays the role of fairy tale stepmother/mother-in-law…
87 Not the least source of irritation: Venus has been made to ‘feel her age’ since the
beginning.
88 Only now is doubt cast on the legitimacy of the union: but it may not have been
clear-cut: Venus objects to the informalities of the countryside.
89 Sometimes the lost bridegroom may set a task with the persecutor’s approval: (to
wash the three drops of tallow off his shirt, Dasent, 34). Basile’s Parmetella has to
sort twelve sacks of vegetable seeds by evening, or be eaten. Ants sort the seed, sent
by the now-freed husband (‘Thunder and Lightning’).
90 In the fairy/folk tradition it is sometimes a cannibal ogress who has to be placated
(in Parmetella’s case, Basile, 5.4, 123 Penzer).
91 As if this should be an official duty of Venus: perhaps facetiously, as she is as much
the patroness of extra-marital affairs.
92 Is Psyche aware of Cupid’s presence here? Kenny compares the frustration of closely
proximate lovers in the novels: Chariton, 5.24, 6.2.11; Longus, 3.9.5; Achilles
­Tatius, 4.1.
93 Task two: Parmetella has to fill twelve mattresses with feathers by nightfall: Her
husband tells her to call out that the King of the Birds is dead: birds drop feathers
in grief. Walsh sees Psyche’s version as least ‘folkloric’ here (though he notes an ap-
proximation in a North African version before opting for a mythological borrowing
from Argonautic themes). But these are themselves steeped in folktale tradition. In
general the mythological parallels seem not conspicuously striking, whether from
Apollonius, Odyssey, 4, or Virgil’s Georgics.
94 The use of a reed as informant is at least as old as Gilgamesh, where it passes on the
warning of the flood to Utnapishtim; Kenney notes the same function in the story
of Midas’ ears.
95 Sheep with poisonous bites seem an unusual variation, given the range of others
available. Conflation of Apollonius’ guardian dragon and the golden fleece seem
far-fetched to me: they suggest determination to relate oddities to accessible classical
literature at all costs, and folk/fairy tale does not in general work like that.
96 One of the didactic mannerisms of fairy tale: the heroine must be seen to be
obedient.
97 Cocytus: as the river of wailing.
98 Ludwig Bieler took both the third and fourth tasks to be doublets of ‘the quest for
the waters of life’ (Binder-Merkelbach, 334–369); against, Wright, arguing that the
fourth task is not such a quest.
99 For a description of the falls of the Styx at Nonacris, Pausanias, 8.17.6.
100 The personification of the waters here seems unusual in either classical literature or
folktale tradition.
101 In the Hittite texts it looks for the vanished Telepinus, but is otherwise not
involved.
102 I.e. Ganymede, snatched by an eagle up to Olympus or by Zeus in the guise of an
eagle, e.g. Lucian, Dialogi Deorum, 10.1.
103 This is the task of fetching an object from a sister witch: ‘Forbidden’ caskets figure
prominently in the hinterland of ancient fairy tale: apart from Pandora, the daughters
of Cecrops break a similar taboo with still more lethal results: Gantz, 236f. In a cor-
responding task given to Parmetella, she has to placate seven spinning-women, sisters
of the prince, attracting them with the honey corresponding to the sop to Cerberus
here, and exacting an oath before she accepts their invitations. Parmetella has to go to
the Ogress’ sister to bring back a box of musical instruments; she has to give the ‘sop
to Cerberus’ to feed a runaway horse, and stop a banging door. But she breaks a taboo
not to open the box, and loses the instruments, which the husband has to replace.
 The classic fairy tale 53

104 The talking tower, like the lethal sheep, seems an odd detail, and might make better
sense in a fuller context elsewhere.
105 Underworld journeys have stereotyped tolls, inevitably including those of Charon
and Cerberus; for a much fuller list, cf. the twelfth tablet of Gilgamesh, with the
corresponding taboos for the Sumero-Akkadian hero.
106 For the literary traditions on Charon, Terpening (1985), 25–123.
107 Not a feature of the literary tradition, any more than the stumbling donkey
driver.
108 Parmetella encounters seven weaving-women, from whom she is to exact an oath
before complying with their request. As expected these are a prominent cliché in the
folk-tradition.
109 And so encourage the unwary traveller to repeat her own original error of eating in
the underworld.
110 The problem with Psyche, as with Lucius in the frame-tale of The Golden Ass.
111 A Snow White moment, duly relieved by ‘the prince’.
112 Corresponding to the kiss of the prince.
113 For the playful relationship with Zeus/Jupiter, cf. especially Achilles Tatius, 1.1f.
114 Augustus’ Lex Julia of 18BC made adultery a criminal offence.
115 For the standard metamorphoses for seduction, e.g. Lucian, Dialogi Deorum, 6.
116 Cf. the celestial council in Ovid Metamorphoses, 1.167–245. Such a gathering also
occurs in the Hittite Telepinus texts.
117 By contrast, in Parmetella’s version the husband is to marry an ogress, but the latter
confesses to selling kisses to a shepherd when Parmetella refuses to kiss the groom.
Since Venus plays the part of the ogress, the motif of a rival bride is difficult to op-
erate here. In folktale versions the Venus figure may burst with envy (Dasent, 35);
this kind of extreme reaction necessarily disappears here.
118 There is no final formula of the kind ‘I was at the wedding but didn’t get a taste of
the beer’; but the happy ending is clearly in place, in contrast to the frequent scenario
in Graeco-Roman mythological tales, which punish the couple after the wedding,
as in the case of Hippomenes and Atalanta, who commit sacrilege in a temple and
are turned into wild beasts.
119 In the folktale tradition the heroine may already have children, with the contacts
with the heroine’s family tied to the birth of successive offspring.
120 The two handlings illustrate a mere mythographic summary in contrast to a full-
blown late antique Epic version replete with ‘literary’ apparatus.
121 Semele does not originally sleep with an invisible Zeus; he is seen, but only in a form
suitable for mortal eyes.
122 For the misfortunes of Cadmus’ line, Gantz (1993), 467–473; on Semele, 473–477.
123 Through the grotto of Lethe (Plutarch, Moralia, 565f.), or the temple of Artemis at
Troezen, (Pausanias, 2.31.1f.)
124 A similar anticipatory dream precedes Europa’s seduction by Zeus in Moschus,
2.1–12. The dream corresponds to the unnamed king’s warning from the oracle in
Cupid and Psyche: the bride’s father has in effect to accede once more to his daughter’s
forced marriage.
125 Zeus routinely seduces mortal women under animal guises, but not normally the
same woman with a series of transformations: serial metamorphosis is rather the
hallmark of sea deities like Proteus or Thetis.
126 The snake as in Psyche’s oracle; also, in legendary tradition, Nectanebus’ shape
for seducing Olympias in order to beget Alexander the Great in the Alexander
Romance.
127 By contrast, Cupid does not announce his identity in Cupid and Psyche.
128 The cavern on mount Dicte is the birthplace of Zeus, and the shields were used
to conceal the baby’s cries from his cannibal father; the goddess of childbirth was
Eilythuia.
54 The classic fairy tale

129 For a similar scene, most likely the model for this one, compare the visit of Athene
and Hera to the house of Aphrodite to plan the love of Jason and Medea (Apollonius,
Argonautica, 3.36–110).
130 Seduced by Zeus disguised as a shower of gold, begetting Perseus.
131 In the guise of a bull.
132 Nephelēgetera, a Homeric epithet.
133 Her new, divine name, as noted also by Diodorus.
3
ARTS OF VARIATION
Cinderellas and Snow Whites

The variants of Cinderella underline the adaptability of the most popular h

­ eroines,
both in substance and in narrative length. The first two examples come as mere
narrative outlines, but the stories of Aspasia, Asenath and Chloe have consider-
able literary ambitions. Aelian offers a naïve and sentimental didacticism, and
expands his tale well beyond the limits of the miscellaneous memorabilia in
the rest of his collection: like the handling of Rhodopis it has the trappings
of ­h istoriography. The anonymous Asenath-author produces a combination of
Jewish piety and Hellenistic romance; and Longus uses a mixture of pastoral and
novel structure to reset essentials of Cinderella against a country background.
Known fragments of a Snow White novel (Chione) should make it less surprising
that ­Xenophon of Ephesus annexes most of the popular tale to serve a cheaply
emotional pulp-fiction plot, while Ovid presents us with what seems like two
halves of a Snow White: an unhappily ending version including rape as well as
murder; and instead of the girl in the glass case a statue that comes alive.

Five versions of Cinderella1 (ATU 510A)

(a) Rhodopis: Strabo 17.1.33 and Herodotus 2.134f.2

The two notices on Rhodopis complement each other, and the slipper-test is
not the only indicator of the story: the heroine’s slave status and function as a
courtesan supplies the ‘persecuted heroine’; the name of her benefactor supplies
the motif of supernatural help from a magic fish or tree (Charaxus’ name means
both ‘sea-bream’ and ‘vine-pole’); the eagle supplies a third kind of supernatural
helper. There are two hints of a connexion with the hearth: the unusual name
Hephaestopolis, corresponding to references to the hearth in modern Balkan
variants; and the votive offering of roasting-spits, which points in the same di-
rection. There is no society ball, and no sibling rivals.
56 Cinderellas and Snow Whites

Rhodopis
(Rhodopis) came from Thrace, and she was a slave of Iadmon, son of
­Hephaestopolis, a man from Samos; she was a fellow-slave of Aesop the writer of
fable…She arrived in Egypt, brought by Xanthus of Samos, and when she got there
she was freed for a large sum by Charaxus of Mytilene, son of S­ camandronymos,
brother of Sappho the lyric poet. Having obtained her ­f reedom, she actually
stayed in Egypt and became so popular with lovers that she obtained a huge for-
tune for a person in her profession (Herodotus).
They tell the fabulous story (mytheuousi) that while she was bathing, an eagle
seized one of her shoes from her maid and brought it to Memphis,3 and while the
king was dispensing justice in the open air, the eagle arrived over his head and
threw the shoe into his lap. The king was aroused by the rythmos of the sandal
and the strangeness of the event, and sent all around the country in search of
the woman who wore it. When she was found in Naucratis she was brought up
country to Memphis and became the king’s wife (Strabo).
She wanted to leave a memorial of herself in Greece by doing something that
no-one else would have thought of, and putting it in a temple, and laying it up
at Delphi as her memorial. So having made a great many iron roasting-spits for
oxen for a tenth part of her wealth, she sent them to Delphi4 (Herodotus).

(b) Venus and Mercury/Anaplas5: Hyginus De Astronomia 2.16

An important variant, similar to Strabo as far as it goes, but showing that gods
themselves can play the roles of human characters in fairy tales.

Venus
A good many have also said that Mercury, others again Anaplas, was induced
by the beauty of Venus to fall in love with her; and since he was unsuccessful,
he was downcast and felt insulted; but Jupiter took pity on him and when Venus
was bathing in the river Achelous, he sent an eagle, which brought her sandal to
Amythaonia6 in Egypt and gave it to Mercury. Venus went in search of it and
came to her admirer. And when he made love to her (copia facta), he set the eagle
in the sky in gratitude for her favour.

(c) Aspasia of Phocaea7: Aelian, Varia Historia 12.1

Here poverty provides the persecution of the heroine, unable to afford a cure for
disfigurement. Aphrodite serves as ‘helpful animal’ (the dove) before b­ ecoming
‘fairy godmother’. The rose petal beauty treatment hints at Rhodopis’ name in (a)
above (‘Rosy-cheek’). The revulsion at the satrap’s procurement and Cyrus’ un-
welcome advances offer a grimly realistic ‘flight from the ball’, when she ­attempts
to escape, while her shameless competitors correspond to the sibling rivals of the
 Cinderellas and Snow Whites 57

fairy tale. The necklace suggests a cultural adjustment to a ring-­token: by giving it

to the prince’s mother she is enacting the bride’s correct submission to the seniority
of her mother-in-law, and so clearing the way for ‘marriage to the prince’. If this
seems over-ingenious, it is worth bearing in mind that a fair number of Cinderel-
las dispense with the token-test altogether. The coercion used in this version is a
reminder of the not infrequent violence of the prince in oral versions of ‘the ball’.

Aspasia
Aspasia, the daughter of Hermotimus, came from Phocaea8 and was brought up
as an orphan; her mother had died in childbirth. Afterwards Aspasia was brought
up in poverty, but she was taught modesty and self-control. She used to have a
recurrent dream that offered her the prophecy of good fortune, and gave a hint
of good luck in the future, that she would live with a fine and noble partner.
And while she was still a child, she had a growth below her face, just underneath
her chin. It was unsightly to look at and distressed father and daughter alike. So
her father showed her to a doctor, who undertook to cure her for a fee of three
staters. Her father said he did not have the money, and the doctor said that he
for his part did not have enough of the medicine. And Aspasia naturally was dis-
tressed at this and went out to cry. As she put a mirror on her lap and saw herself
in it she was very distressed. She took nothing to eat in her misery, but at just
the right moment she fell asleep and as she slept, she dreamt that a dove arrived,
turned into a woman,9 and said: ‘Never fear, and have done with doctors and
drugs alike. But take all Aphrodite’s withered garlands of roses, grind them up
and put the powder on the growth’. When she heard this, the girl did as she was
told and the growth disappeared. And once more Aspasia was the most beautiful
girl of her time, and had regained her beauty from the most beautiful goddess…
Once Aspasia visited Cyrus, son of Darius and Parysatis,10 the brother of Ar-
taxerxes. She had been reluctant to go and her father had been reluctant to send
her, but she went of necessity, as often happens when cities are taken or tyrants or
satraps have their way. At any rate it was one of Cyrus’ satraps who had brought
her to Cyrus together with other girls…When she first came to him, he just hap-
pened to have come from dinner, and was on the point of having drinks accord-
ing to Persian custom: for the Persians after filling themselves with food spend a
long time in their cups and toasts; they prepare for drinking as (Greeks) do for a
wrestling bout.11 While they were in the midst of the drinking, then, four young
Greek girls were brought to Cyrus, including Aspasia, the girl from Phocaea.
They were most beautifully turned out. The other three had been groomed by
their serving women, who had come with them. Their hair had been done and
their faces were made up with face-powders and cosmetics. And they had been
schooled in how to win Cyrus’ attention, and how to flatter him and not turn
away if he approached them, and not to be annoyed if he touched them, and to
let themselves be kissed – in fact the skills of courtesans and the techniques of
women who traffic in their beauty. So each vied with the others to outdo the
58 Cinderellas and Snow Whites

rest in beauty. But Aspasia did not want to put on an expensive dress, nor did she
like the idea of an embroidered wrap; she could not even bring herself to take a
bath…But she was beaten into submission, and obeyed her instruction, although
it caused her distress to be forced to act the part of a courtesan12 rather than a
modest girl. Now the others arrived and looked directly at Cyrus and smiled and
put on a façade of pleasantness. But Aspasia looked down; her face was covered
in fiery blushes, her eyes were filled with tears, and she was obviously embar-
rassed at the whole performance. And when he told the girls to sit beside him,
they complied in a docile manner, but she took no account of the order until
the satrap took hold of her and forced her to.13 And when Cyrus touched them
and looked over their eyes and cheeks and fingers, the rest allowed him, but she
would not; when he so much as touched her with the tip of his finger she gave a
yell and told him that if he did so he would be sorry. Cyrus was delighted at this.
And when she got up and tried to run off because he had touched her breasts, the
son of D­ arius, contrary to Persian custom, was greatly impressed by her n ­ oble
­behaviour, and said to the trafficker, ‘This is the only girl you have brought
who is free and unspoilt. The others behave like courtesans, in their looks and
even more in their manner’. From this moment Cyrus loved her more than any
woman he ever had to do with. And later his love for her deepened, and she loved
him in turn; the pair fell so much in love that they were close to equals and did
not fall short of a Greek marriage14 in their harmony and unselfish devotion…
Once a necklace was brought to Cyrus from Thessaly, sent by Scopas the
younger; he had obtained the gift from Sicily. The necklace seemed to have been
worked with amazing skill and ornament. So everyone Cyrus showed it to was
amazed, and delighted beyond measure with his treasure, he at once went to
Aspasia in the middle of the day. He found her asleep, and slipped under the bed-
cover and lay down quietly beside her and stayed still without a sound while she
slept. When she had had her sleep and saw him, she embraced Cyrus in her usual
way and kissed him. He took the necklace out of its box and showed it to her,
making the remark that this necklace was worthy of a king’s mother or daughter.
She agreed and he said: ‘So I am giving it to you as a present; put it on just as you
are and show me how it looks on your neck’. But she was not overwhelmed by
the gift but gave him a clever and civilised reply: ‘And how can I presume to put
on a gift worthy of your own mother? Rather send this to her, Cyrus; I will show
you the beauty of my neck even without it’.15

(d) Joseph and Aseneth16 (Hellenistic version)

This variant offers a pious heroine, reduced to despair by the sight of the Biblical
Joseph as ‘the prince’. Her rolling in ashes offers the most explicit treatment of
association with the hearth; her handmaids born on the same day offer a very
mild hint of the traditional sibling rivalry. We have a fairy godfather in the man
from heaven who announces the impending marriage to Asenath and commands
her to change from a black robe of mourning to a ‘bride-show’ outfit. As in the
 Cinderellas and Snow Whites 59

case of Aspasia, the token test is unusual, and again a cultural explanation is in
order: as in the case of Christ washing the disciples’ feet, it is a gesture of sub-
servience. And again, as in the story of Aspasia, it is actually unnecessary to the
conclusion of the plot.

Aseneth
(10.2) And Aseneth was left alone with her handmaids; she was in a listless
state and wept till sunset. She neither ate bread nor drank water, and she alone
stayed awake when everyone else was asleep.17 And she opened the door, and
went down to the gate and found the doorkeeper asleep with her children. And
Aseneth quickly took the leather curtain down from the door and filled it with
ashes. She brought it back up to her room and put it on the floor. And she closed
the door firmly and put the iron latch across, and wept and wailed aloud…(10.9)
And Aseneth got up and quietly opened the door and went into her second room,
where she had the chests with her clothes, and opened her chest and brought out
a black and mournful tunic (this was the one she wore when her firstborn brother
died). And Aseneth took off her royal attire and put on the black tunic and undid
the gold girdle and tied a rope round her waist and put off the headdress and
diadem from her head and took the bracelets from her hands…(10.16) and she
took sackcloth and put it round her waist and took the ribbon from her hair and
sprinkled it with ashes…(10.18) And when she got up early in the morning she
was amazed to see that her tears had turned the ashes underneath her to mud;
And Aseneth fell once more on her face on the ashes till sunset. And she did this
for seven days without food or drink. (11–13: in her anguish she prays to God.18)
(14) And when Aseneth had finished her confession to God she was excited to see
the morning star rise from the Eastern sky and when she saw it she rejoiced and
said: ‘The Lord God has heard my prayer, for this star is the herald and messenger
of the great day’. And amazingly the heavens were rent near the morning star and
an indescribable light appeared. And Aseneth fell on her face on the ashes and a
man came out of heaven towards her.19 And he stood over her head and called
her: ‘Asenath’. And she said, ‘Here I am sir, tell me who you are’. And the man
said: ‘I am the commander of the Lord’s House and the commander-in-chief of
the whole host of the Most High. Stand up and I will talk to you’. And she raised
her eyes and looked and there was a man who looked just like Joseph in his dress,
his crown and royal sceptre, but his face was like lightning, and his eyes were
like the light of the sun, and the hair of his head was like flames of fire, and his
hands and feet were like molten iron. And Aseneth saw him and fell on her face
at his feet in great fear and trembling. And the man said to her: ‘Take courage,
Aseneth, and do not be afraid, but stand up and I will speak to you’. And Aseneth
stood and the man said to her:

Take off the tunic you had put on, the black one, and the sackcloth from
your waist, and shake the cinders from your hair and wash your face with
60 Cinderellas and Snow Whites

living water.20 And put on a brand new robe and shining girdle, the double
girdle of a virgin. And come again to me and I will tell you the words sent
to you.

And Aseneth went into her chamber where the chests of clothing were and
opened the chest and took off her black robe and took a new resplendent dress
and put it on…(15) And she went to the man and when he saw her he said, ‘Take
the veil from your head, for today you are a holy virgin and your head is like that
of a young man’. And she took it from her head, and the man said to her: ‘Take
courage, Aseneth: look, the Lord has given you Joseph for a husband and you
will be his bride. And you will not be called Aseneth but City of Refuge’21…
(15.9) And look: I am going to Joseph and I will talk to him about you, and he
will come to you tomorrow, and will see you and be delighted with you and
will be your husband. And listen to me, Aseneth, and put on your bridal dress,
the ancient robe, the first robe stored in your chamber, and put on all your fa-
vourite jewellery, and adorn yourself as a bride and get ready to meet him. For
he will come to you tomorrow and see you and be delighted with you.22 And
when the man had finished speaking to Aseneth, she was full of joy and fell at
his feet…(19) And a little slave came and said to Aseneth: ‘Joseph is at the gate
of our house’. And Aseneth came down with her seven handmaidens to meet
him. When he saw her Joseph said to her: ‘Come to me, holy virgin, because
I have received a message from heaven telling me all about you’. And Joseph
stretched out his hands and they had a long embrace, and were revived by each
other’s breath. (20) And she said to him, ‘Come into my house’, and she took his
right hand and brought him into the house. And Joseph sat down on her father
Pentephres’ seat, and she brought water to wash his feet, and he said to her ‘Let
one of your maidens come and wash my feet’. And Aseneth said to him: ‘No, sir,
for my hands are your hands, and my feet are your feet, and no-one else but me
shall wash your feet’.23 And she insisted on washing his feet, and Joseph took her
by the right hand and kissed her, and Aseneth kissed Joseph’s head. (They marry
the next day.)

(e) An ancient romance version: Longus, Daphnis and Chloe24

(extracts)
The short novel by Longus contains a number of motifs which can be joined up to
form a Cinderella-like plot. Chloe (‘Young Shoot’) is nourished first by a sheep,
then protected by a foster-father Dryas (‘Oakman’). She scrupulously worships
the local nymphs in their grotto, who collectively exercise a fairy godmother
role. At a local festival she enacts the story of Pan and Syrinx, hiding in a wood
from her friend Daphnis, a herd-boy soon to be revealed as ‘the prince’, and so
offering a ‘flight from the ball’. The nymphs reveal where he can find a purse,
guarded by the corpse of a dolphin, to provide a dowry; his aristocratic birth
is revealed, and a second time Chloe runs off; but her own aristocratic status is
 Cinderellas and Snow Whites 61

confirmed by birth-tokens including a pair of (miniature) golden ­slippers, iden-

tified by her real father. The couple are free to marry. Once again the token test
is different, but its variations tend to be at the hands of literate authors, as in the
case of Aspasia and Aseneth. The individual motifs (as of helpful animals and the
like) are not of course peculiar to this tale; but their coalescence as a group points
in the direction of Cinderella.

Chloe
(1.4) Already two years had gone by, when a shepherd grazing his flocks in the
neighbouring pastures, Oakman (Dryas) by name, also came across a similar
discovery and a similar sight. There was a cave of the nymphs, a big rock with a
hollow inside and rounded on the outside. The statues of the nymphs themselves
had been carved out of stone. They had bare feet, their arms were bare up to
their shoulders, their hair came down to their necks; there was a belt round their
waists, a smile on their faces25…
(1.5) When he came near, he saw nothing of what he expected, but the
ewe was giving her teat like a human mother and offering a plentiful supply
of milk 26; the child was not crying but greedily moving between the nipples a
mouth that was clean and shining, for the ewe licked its face clean once the child
had taken enough milk…This child was a girl, and it too had identity tokens: a
belt threaded with gold, golden sandals,27 and golden anklets. (1.6) The shepherd
thought his discovery was some gift of the gods, and taught by the sheep to feel
pity and love the child, he took up the baby in his arms, put away the tokens in a
bag and prayed the nymphs to look after the child that had taken sanctuary with
them and bring it good luck.

(The dance)
(2.37) Daphnis and Chloe were quick to jump up and danced the story Lamon
had told. Daphnis imitated Pan, Chloe Syrinx. He tried to persuade her with his
advances, while she smiled and paid no attention. He chased after her and ran on
tiptoe to imitate hooves, while she acted out being weary in flight. Then Chloe
hid in the wood as if concealing herself in a marsh,28 while Daphnis took the
great pipes of Philetas and piped a plaint, like a lover, a wooing song, like a suitor,
and a summoning, like someone in search of his love.29
(3.27) Daphnis, having got much less than he had asked for, did what poor
lovers usually do: he wept, and once more called on the Nymphs to help him.
And they stood before him as he slept at night, in the same form as previously, and
the eldest of them spoke. ‘Chloe’s marriage is the business of another god, but we
will give you gifts to charm Dryas. The ship belonging to the young men from
Methymna, whose willow mooring-rope your goats ate a while ago, was that day
carried far from the shore by the wind, and a sea-squall turned the water rough and
it was shipwrecked on the headland rocks. The ship itself was destroyed and most
62 Cinderellas and Snow Whites

of its contents, but a purse of 3,000 drachmae was washed up, and is lying covered
in seaweed near the body of a dead dolphin, so that no-one passing has even gone
near it, but takes a quick detour to avoid the smell of the rotting carcase. But you
go to it, and when you’ve gone up to it pick it up, and having picked it up, give it
as a gift.30 It is enough for now for you to seem not to be poor, but later on you’ll
actually be rich’. (3.28) After that they disappeared along with the night, and when
daylight came Daphnis leapt up and delightedly drove his goats to the pasture
with plenty of whistling, and kissed Chloe and worshipped the nymphs and came
down to the sea, as if he wanted to splash about and went along the shore next to
the breakers in search of the 3,000 drachmae. And he was not likely to have much
trouble, for the stench of the dolphin hit him: it had been washed up on the shore
and was clammy with decay. Using the stench as a guide he went right up to it at
once and removing the seaweed he found the purse, full of silver. This he picked
up, put in his wallet and did not go far before blessing the Nymphs and the sea it-
self. Although he was a goatherd, he now considered that the sea was sweeter than
the land, since it was helping him to win his marriage with Chloe. (3.29) Having
taken possession of the 3,000, he no longer held back, but as if he were the wealth-
iest not only of the farmers there but of all mankind, he at once went to Chloe and
told her the dream, showed her the purse, told her to guard the flocks till he came
back, and rushing eagerly to Dryas and finding him with Nape threshing corn, he
was utterly daring and launched into his proposal of marriage…
(4.31) Dionysophanes looked at Daphnis and seeing that he was pale and se-
cretly crying soon guessed that he was in love, and showing concern for his
own son rather than someone else’s daughter, he carefully examined Dryas’
words. And when he saw the birth-tokens as well, the golden slippers, the an-
klets and the belt, he called for Chloe and told her not to worry; she already had
a husband,31 and would soon find her parents. And Cleariste took her aside and
dressed her as her son’s future wife. And Dionysophanes took Daphnis up and
asked him on his own if Chloe were a virgin, and when he swore that nothing
more had happened than kisses and oaths, he was delighted and sat him down at
the drinking-party. (4.32) So it was possible to find what beauty is like when it
has the addition of order. For when Chloe was dressed and had her hair up and
had washed her face, she seemed so much lovelier to everyone that even Daphnis
could scarcely recognise her.
(4.34) And after a great deal of thought Dionysophanes fell into a deep sleep
and had the following dream. He seemed to see the Nymphs asking Love now
at last to give his consent to the marriage. And he unstrung his little bow and
laid aside his quiver and instructed Dionysophanes to invite all the noblest
among the Mytilinaeans to a drinking-party, and when he had filled up the
last ­m ixing-bowl, to show the recognition-token to each of them, and sing
the wedding-song. When he saw and heard this he got up in the morning and
­a fter giving orders for a lavish feast, to invite the best of the Mytilinaeans as his
­fellow-drinkers. And when it was already night and the mixing-bowl had been
filled for their libation to Hermes, a servant brought in the tokens on a silver
 Cinderellas and Snow Whites 63

tray, and taking them round from left to right, showed them to everyone. (4.35)
Now none of the rest recognised them, but Megacles,32 seated in the last and
most honoured place because of his age, recognised them and gave a great shout
like a youngster. ‘What’s this I see? What has become of you, my little daughter,
so you are still alive, or has some shepherd come across you and only walked off
with the tokens? Tell me, I beg, Dionysophanes, where did you find my child’s
tokens?’ (At last the couple marry.)

Three versions of Snow White

Like Cinderella, Snow White presents a range of possibilities. Over three contrast-
ing narratives we can find a number of features known to the modern tale: these
include the idea that the heroine’s rival has powers of divination: in Xenophon
she is actually called Manto (‘prophetess’), but she does not actually track her rival
by such means. The red-and-white colour coding appears, but forms the names
of her two servants (‘Mr. White and Miss Rose’). The compassionate executioner
is on call, but instead of dwarfs respecting the chastity of Snow White, we have
a single herdsman with the same honourable intentions. We can follow the plot
through to the motif of attempted poisoning – by Snow White herself, and her
being laid on a bier. One of the two verse workings by Ovid has the advantage of
her name Chione (‘Snow Girl’), but shows up a touch of expurgation in modern
versions, as there are rapes by Mercury and Apollo using the means of the first
two murder attempts in the modern tale, before an actual murder attempt suc-
ceeds and the corpse is burned. A second version seems to offer the happy end of
the story without any beginning: a King with a Dwarf name (­ Pygmalion, ‘little
fist’) is able to bring the girl back not from a coma but from having been realised
as a statue, and with the traditional kiss.

(a) Xenophon of Ephesus books 2–3 passim33 (ATU 709)

Anthia
(2.9)…Anthia, Leucon (‘White’) and Rhode (‘Rose’) were taken to Syria. And
when Manto34 and her train reached Antioch (for that was where her husband
Moeris came from), she bore a grudge against Rhode but hated Anthia. So she at
once ordered Rhode to be put on a ship together with Leucon, to be sold as far
away from Syria as possible, and planned that Anthia should live with a slave, one
of the meanest at that, a goatherd in the country; that way she hoped to get her
revenge on her. She sent for the goatherd, Lampon, gave him Anthia, and told
him to make her his wife, and if she refused his instructions were to use force.
And so she was taken to the country to live with the goatherd. And when she got
to where Lampon pastured his goats, she went down on her knees and implored
him to take pity on her and respect her chastity. She told him who she was,
how she had once been a lady, had had a husband, and had been taken prisoner.
64 Cinderellas and Snow Whites

When Lampon heard her story, he took pity on her and swore that indeed he
would not molest her, and tried to reassure her. (2.11) Anthia lived for some time
with the goatherd, while Moeris, Manto’s husband, made frequent visits and fell
passionately in love with her. At first he tried to hide it, but finally he confided
his love to the goatherd and promised him a great reward in return for his coop-
eration. The goatherd made an agreement with Moeris, but for fear of Manto he
went to her and told her about Moeris’s feelings. She flew into a rage. ‘I am the
most miserable woman on earth’, she exclaimed.

Will I be bringing my rival everywhere I go? Because of her I was first

robbed of a lover in Phoenicia, and now I am in danger of losing my
husband. But Anthia will not get away with attracting Moeris as well, for
I will take my revenge on her for what happened in Tyre at the same time.

For the moment then she said nothing; but while Moeris was away she sent for
the goatherd and ordered him to seize Anthia, take her into the thickest part of
the wood, and kill her, and promised him a reward. The goatherd for his part was
sorry for the girl, but for fear of Manto went to Anthia and told her her fate. …
The goatherd was moved to pity by her plea, since he thought he would be com-
mitting an unholy act by killing so beautiful a girl who had done no wrong. He
took hold of her, and yet he could not bring himself to kill her but said this to her:

Anthia, you know that my mistress, Manto, has ordered me to take you
and kill you. But I fear the gods and have pity on your beauty; I am willing
instead to sell you far way from here, in case Manto finds out that you are
not dead and takes her malice out on me…

(3.5) With this she grovelled at the feet of Eudoxus the Ephesian doctor and
begged him not to refuse to give her the poison; and she brought out twenty
minas of silver and her necklaces which she gave to Eudoxus…he promised to
give her the poison and went away to get it…Meanwhile after a short delay Eu-
doxus arrived, not with a lethal drug but with a sleeping-potion so that nothing
should happen to the girl… (3.6) She made an excuse that the tension had made
her thirsty and ordered one of the servants to bring her water to drink, and when
a cup was brought, she took it while no one was in the chamber with her, threw
in the poison, and wept…With his she drank the drug and immediately fell into
a deep sleep; she collapsed to the ground when the drug took its full effect. (3.7)
When Perilaus (her rescuer from the robbers) came in and immediately saw
­A nthia lying there, he was dumbfounded…he laid her out in all her finery and
surrounded her with a great quantity of gold. And no longer able to bear the
sight, when day came he put Anthia on a bier (she was still lying insensible) and
took her to the tombs near the city. And there he laid her in a vault, after slaugh-
tering a great number of victims and burning a great deal of clothing and other
finery. (She eventually is reunited with her husband Habrocomes.)
 Cinderellas and Snow Whites 65

(b) Chione35: Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.293–334 (ATU 709)

Chione
(293) [Chione’s father, Daedalion, son of Lucifer] subdued kings and their peo-
ples by his prowess… (301) He had a daughter Snow Girl (Chione).36 She had
reached the age of 14 and was ready for marriage; and endowed as she was with
exceptional beauty, she had a 1,000 suitors. It so happened that Phoebus and
Maia’s son Mercury were returning, the one from his favourite haunt of Delphi,
and the other from the summit of Mount Cyllene. Both of them saw the girl at
the same time and both, at the very same moment, fell in love with her. Apollo
put off his hopes of making love to her till night, but Mercury did not put up
with any delay: he touched the girl’s cheek with his sleep-inducing wand. At that
powerful touch, she lay there, and suffered the god’s violent act.37 When night
had scattered the sky with its stars, Phoebus took the form of an old woman, and
enjoyed the same pleasures that Mercury had stolen earlier. When her pregnancy
had taken its full course, Snow White gave birth to twins: to Mercury with his
winged feet a cunning child, Autolycus,38 who would turn white to black and
black to white; and to Phoebus, a son Philammon, famed for his singing and the
music of the lyre.
(320) But glory is an obstacle to many, and certainly to her: she had the audac-
ity to think herself more beautiful than Diana 39 and found fault with the goddess’
appearance. This provoked the goddess to savage anger: ‘You will not find fault
with my actions!’, she cried; and without delay she bent her bow, shot her arrow
from the string, and sent her shaft through the tongue which had brought it
on herself. Her tongue fell silent; and the words she was trying to voice failed;
her life-blood left her as she was still trying to speak…But her father…bitterly
lamented the loss of his daughter.40 And when he saw her body burning, four
times he tried to rush in to the heart of the funeral pyre; four times he was driven
back. Then he abandoned his limbs to a frenzy of flight (and turned into a hawk).

(c) Ivory Snow-White and King Little-Fist (Pygmalion): Ovid,

Metamorphoses 10.243–297 (ATU 709)

‘Ivory Snow-White’
(243) Because King Little-fist (Pygmalion41) had seen these women leading a
criminal life, he was outraged by all the vices with which nature had infected
women’s minds, and so he lived without a wife, and for a long time had had no
consort to share his bedchamber.42 But in the meantime he carved snow-white
ivory (niveum ebur) by amazing art and gave it the form of a woman fairer than
any ever born; and he fell in love with his own creation. She had the face of a
real maiden – you would have thought she was alive, and she wanted to move,
except that modesty held her back, so well did his art conceal its art. Little-dwarf
66 Cinderellas and Snow Whites

was amazed and his heart was inflamed with love for the image of a body. Often
he set hands to the work, to test whether it was the original ivory, or a real body.
No longer could he admit it was only ivory. He kissed it again and again and
thought it kissed him in return, and spoke to it and held it and thought that his
fingers sank into the lips he touched, and feared to redden the limbs he pressed.
At one moment he would whisper loving words to her; at another he brought
her the presents girls love: shells and polished stones and tiny birds and flowers of
every colour: lilies, painted balls and the amber tears for the Heliads fallen from
the trees; he decorated her limbs with clothes, put jewels on her fingers, and long
necklaces on her neck; light pearls hung from her ears, and little chains over her
breast. All the ornaments suited her; and yet she seemed no less beautiful wearing
nothing. He placed her on bedclothes dyed with Sidonian shells, called her the
companion who shared his bed, and placed her neck on soft feathers as if it could
feel them.43
(270) The festival of Venus had arrived, when the whole of Cyprus celebrated
the goddess, and heifers were cut down, their curved horns gilded, and the in-
cense was burning: Little- dwarf performed the rite at the altar, and stood there
and timidly whispered: ‘If you gods are able to grant all things, I pray for a wife
like the ivory image’ (he did not dare to say ‘the ivory maiden’). Golden Venus
was at her own festival and understood the meaning of his prayers. And as an
omen of the kindly goddess the flame burst forth and thrust its point through
the air. When he came home, he made for the image of his girl, and lying on
the bed he kissed her; she seemed hard. He applied his lips once more and felt
her breast with his hands; as he felt it the ivory softened and lost its hardness
and lay underneath his fingers and gave way, as the honey of Hymettus melts in
the sun and bends into a thousand shapes when held in the fingers and becomes
pliable by being applied. As he stood dumbfounded, he hesitated to rejoice and
feared he was mistaken. Again he was in love and again he felt the object of his
desire in his hands. She was flesh and blood; the veins surged when his finger
touched them.
(290) Then indeed did the Paphian hero utter fulsome prayers of thanksgiving
to Venus. And at last he pressed real lips with his own. The girl felt the kisses
he offered her, and blushed; and she raised her hesitant eyes to the light and saw
both the sky and her lover. The goddess was present at the marriage she herself
brought about; and when the moon had driven her horns to fullness nine times
over, she gave birth to a daughter Paphos, after whom the island is named.44

Notes
1 Opie and Opie (1980), 152–166; Wehse, EM 3 (1981), 39–57; Dundes (1982); Philip
(1989); Anderson (2000), 24–42; Hansen (2002), 85–89.
2 The Matching information from Herodotus makes it clear that the same Rhodopis is in
question. Hansen prefers to treat the Strabo material as simply the end of the tale. If the
Rhodopis material in Herodotus is included, we have much more of it (cf. Hansen, 24).
3 Naucratis was a culturally Greek settlement, Memphis the old Egyptian capital.
 Cinderellas and Snow Whites 67

4 The practice of offering the tools of one’s trade as a thank-offering to a patron god was
widespread in antiquity: a sailor might dedicate an oar to Poseidon, a soldier his weap-
ons to Ares. Here a collection of roasting spits reinforces the connexion with the hearth.
5 The eccentric version known only to Hyginus necessarily ends in katastērismos, trans-
formation into a star. The tale is a close mythological doublet of the previous version,
with deities instead of humans. It is unusual in that the supernatural helper helps the
hero rather than the heroine.
6 Amythaonia: a part of Elis named after the hero Amythaon, an ally of Jason.
7 An unusual and largely unnoticed version: the central incident is told as historical
legend by both Xenophon (Cyropaedia, 1.10) and Plutarch (Pericles, 24.7; Artaxerxes,
26), but without the miraculous elements of the prophecy of good fortune, or the
miracle of Aphrodite’s intervention. This presentation underlines the moral subtext
of the story more explicitly than most. The heroine is poor but virtuous, showing
both obedience to Aphrodite and chastity in the face of threat or temptation.
8 On the Western Seaboard of Asia Minor, and so effectively under Persian control
until Alexander the Great: a useful paradigm for the contrast between Greek and
Persian/ barbarian.
9 By implication the goddess herself.
10 I.e. Cyrus the Younger.
11 Cyrus’ after-dinner entertainment serves as ‘the ball’ of Perrault’s canonic
­17th-­century version. Just as Rhodopis is actually a courtesan, this further adult ver-
sion presents the girl in a clearly humiliating (and actually dangerous) position. The
three ‘rivals’ put forward for the king’s entertainment are unrelated to Aspasia, but
have the same function as ugly sisters/sibling rivals.
12 Compare the role of Rhodopis, who is actually just that.
13 The heroine’s modesty here corresponds in function to the ‘running away from the
ball’. ‘The prince’ has to have his honourable intentions put to the test.
14 A touch of the Greek bias against ‘barbarian’ mores.
15 We might otherwise explain the necklace as a ‘bride-show’ motif: in this case her
bare neck is the ultimate bridal asset.
16 The love story of the Biblical Joseph and Asenath has come down to us in a short
Hellenistic Jewish Romance, with close affinities to the more popular side of the
Greek novel (ed. Philonenko, 1968; discussion, West, 1974, 70–81); there is also a
fairly different Medieval version, discussed by Aptowitzer (1924); English version
reconstructed by Schwartz (1988), 156–162. In the latter there are also clear affinities
with the Cinderella story: persecution is provided by the rape of Dinah, Asenath’s
mother; the eagle takes both child and tokens to Egypt; some at least of the variation
is accountable through the Jewish background (Asenath is presented as a non-Jew and
a native Egyptian noblewoman, who has to convert); in the Medieval version she is
already of Jewish heritage through her mother Dinah.
17 Thanks to her lovesickness for Joseph on the strength of a single sighting, Aseneth
puts aside her rich attire and confines herself to her room, where she also rolls in
ashes, in the only Graeco-Roman version to make direct use of them.
18 Piety and obedience are often emphasised in the character of Cinderella: here she has
regarded her past pagan life as sinful.
19 There is no reason for the fairy god-person to be rigidly female: the well-known early
Chinese version (Yeh-Hsien) from the 9th century ce likewise uses a male character
for the role.
20 This is the critical transformation, and prepares for the essential ‘bride show’.
21 Change of name corresponds to the change of identity in the clothes themselves.
Again the oral tradition preserves changes from Ashiepattle or Katie Wooden-cloak
or the like to some name that is felt to be less insulting.
22 The Medieval version described by Aptowitzer uses not the slipper but an amulet
token, and the eagle as initial supernatural helper, to get Asenath’s mother Dinah to
Egypt in the first place.
68 Cinderellas and Snow Whites

23 A trace and no more of the ‘sibling rivalry’ element. Aseneth’s seven handmaids were
born on the same day as their mistress, and live with her in the manner of seven sis-
ters, but only she is to have physical contact with her future husband. ‘His feet are my
feet’ is as near as we shall get to ‘It fits! It fits!’
24 Daphnis and Chloe is generally acknowledged as an ancient novel with strong links to
classical and Hellenistic poetry and myth. But the plot mechanism also embodies a
number of essentials of the Cinderella plots for Chloe (helpful animals, helpful fish
(here represented by the dolphin, a marine mammal), supernatural helper, flight from
the ball, recognition by slipper), and some elements of the male ‘Cinderello’ story for
Daphnis.
25 The piety and obedience of both the lovers reinforces the role of the nymphs as su-
pernatural helpers.
26 The nurturing of the heroine in the wild by an animal is often done in the fairy tale
while she is a persecuted adult (or by means of a cow or an ‘ear cornucopia’). Here the
familiar (and socially authentic) device of infant exposure prompts the motif. Often
too it is the magic animal which actually provides the wealth for dresses and jewellery
for the ball; here these motifs only need to be associated.
27 The golden slippers set the plot up for a final slipper-test.
28 The ‘flight from the ball’ is enacted as the story of Pan, pursuing the nymph Syrinx
till she finally disappears (there being no ‘ball events’ in timeless rural Lesbos).
29 The hero’s taking of ancestral pipes resurfaces in a Scottish Cinderello tale; text in
Philip (1989), 91–94 (‘The finger lock’), where the supernaturally provided special
bagpipes mark the hero’s coming of age.
30 Frequently in folk versions the supernatural helper provides, often quite magically
and abruptly, the wherewithal (gold, jewels, and the like) necessary to elevate the sta-
tus of the hero/ine and so bring about the wedding. The at least semi-realistic novelist
has to bring all this about naturally. The nymphs supplying information about the
purse beside the stinking dolphin offer an ingenious way of embodying this motif,
and so significantly advancing the plot. The dolphin adds another ‘helpful animal’ to
the initial sheep.
31 Daphnis’ parentage is revealed naturally by his peasant foster-father to save the hero
from sexual exploitation. The tokens do not cause the recognition of Chloe as the
runaway from the ball, but as the lost noblewoman exposed by a wealthy parent.
32 Megacles (‘Bigshot’) is now revealed as Chloe’s father; despite the different motiva-
tion, the slipper test itself proceeds in a normal and recognisable way.
33 The basic outline of a Snow White story: the rival with ‘prophetic’ powers; a coded
version of the heroine’s name in her attendants ‘white and rose-colour’; attempted
murder in the woods; lethal sleep of the heroine.
34 The name of Anthia’s jealous rival Manto actually means ‘diviner’, and so supplies
the ‘mirror on the wall’ motif. Katoptromancy (divination by mirror) was known in
Antiquity, but is not explicitly specified here.
35 Opie and Opie, 227–237; Jones (1983, 1990); Anderson (2000), 43–60; Kawan, EM
12 (2007), 129–140.
36 The name simply means ‘Snow-girl’, though translators do not hesitate to use ‘Snow
White’, without intended reference to the modern tale. The heroine of the Chione
romance is likewise fourteen and has multiple suitors.
37 For the rape of the heroine in a coma, cf. Basile’s Sun, Moon and Talia, a Sleeping
Beauty tale (Appendix 1). The modern tale expurgates the rapes but keeps the means
(magical sleep, old woman disguise) to activate two further murder attempts instead.
38 With Sisyphus, an ancient master-thief, and so a suitable child of Mercury/Hermes.
39 She is finally killed by the jealous Diana/Artemis, not for her beauty but for her
boasting: compare the murder of Niobe’s children, Ovid Metamorphoses, 6.165–301,
again because of their mother’s boasting. Usually the last murder attempt is supplied
by a pin driven into her head, an over-tight bodice, or the like.
 Cinderellas and Snow Whites 69

40 The pyre eliminates any possibility of a happy ending or a glass case; though of course
Semele survives death by conflagration (above c.2), so that a more optimistic ending
is theoretically possible even when a pyre is used.
41 Literally ‘little fist’. The Pygmalion tale is usually seen as a mythological tale in its
own right, and Pygmalion is felt as uniquely associated with the love of a statue.
In fact the motif has a wider frame of reference as a theme for ancient rhetoricians
­( pseudo-Lucian Amores, Philostratus VS, 598f., VA, 6.40). But the story in effect em-
bodies the latter half of Snow White: the heroine in a coma, her worship by the dwarfs,
and her revival by ‘the prince’. A rare example of the folktale tradition has a dwarf
marry the girl.
42 The living women of Cyprus whose behaviour is impure, in contrast to the unsullied
purity of the statue itself.
43 For the worship of the statue of Aphrodite that a devotee intends to marry,
cf. ­Philostratus VA, 6.40.
44 The Cnidians in the episode described by Philostratus are enthusiastic in support of
the marriage, as potential propaganda for ‘their’ Aphrodite.
4
OTHERWORLDLY ENCOUNTERS

Ghost stories can show a good deal of diversity, as the two contrasting
­presentations of the haunted house serve to underline; returns from the dead
to pick up property or visit a lover may differ still more widely. The animated
servants in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice underline the role of magic in creating little
automata. Wrongful admission to the lower world takes us in yet another direc-
tion, closely followed by an ancient Rip van Winkle, and the mysterious Aristeas
and ­Hermotimus whose souls take leave of their bodies. The curse of dying by
day and reviving by night in a Greek wonder-romance adds a sinister side to
­Egyptian magic.

The Haunted House1: Lucian, Philopseudeis (Lovers of Lies) 29–32

(ATU 326A, Soul Released from Torment)
(29) At this point the Pythagorean 2 Arignotus3 came in, the long-haired man
with the impressive look, you know the one with a great reputation for wis-
dom, nicknamed ‘the holy one’. And when I saw him I gave a sigh of relief: I
thought to myself ‘Good show!: a two-headed axe has arrived to oppose their
falsehood. For the wise man will shut them up when they tell such marvellous
tales’. And I thought that was the proverbial god from the machine who had
been wheeled in by Fate. But when he had sat down – Cleodemus gave him
his seat – he first asked about Eucrates’ illness, and when he had heard from the
patient that he was already feeling better, he asked ‘What were you debating
among yourselves? For I overhead it as I came in, and you seemed to be about
to have a really good time’.
‘What else’, said Eucrates, ‘but trying to persuade this man as hard as iron’ –
pointing at me4 – ‘to believe that there are such things as spirits and apparitions,
and that dead men’s souls walk about in the upper world and appear to anyone
 Otherworldly encounters 71

they want to?’ For my part I turned red and looked down, out of respect for
Arignotus, while he replied,

Look, Eucrates, perhaps Tychiades is saying this, that only the souls of
those who died a violent death go about, for example if a man hanged him-
self or had his head chopped off or was crucified or departed life in some
such manner, but not those who died in the natural course of events; if that
is what he is saying, it is not to be altogether written off.

‘Certainly not’, said Deinomachus, ‘But he thinks that not even those ghosts
exist, nor can they be seen in physical form’.
(30) ‘What do you mean?’, said Arignotus, giving me a nasty look: ‘Do you
think that none of these things occurs, even although practically everyone sees
them?’. ‘Cite in my defence’, I replied, ‘if I do not believe, that it is because I am
the only person not to see them; if I did, I too of course would believe just like
yourselves’. ‘But’, he said,

if ever you go to Corinth, ask where the house of Eubatides5 is, and when
they point it out to you beside the Craneion, go in and say to the door-
keeper Tibeius6 that you want to see the spot where the Pythagorean
Arignotus raised the demon,7 and drove it out and made the house habit-
able for the future.8

(31) ‘What was that, Arignotus?’, asked Eucrates. ‘It was uninhabitable’, was the
reply,

for a long period because people were afraid, and if anyone did try to live
there he fled at once in terror, driven out by some fearful, frightful ghost.
So it was already falling to bits and the roof was falling in, and absolutely
no-one was brave enough to go in. When I heard this, I took my books – I
have a great many Egyptian9 ones on these kinds of subject – and I en-
tered the house when people have their first sleep, although my host tried
to get me to turn back, all but physically restraining me, when he heard
where I was off to, into disaster with my eyes open, so he thought.10 But
I took a lamp and went in on my own, and putting down the lamp in the
largest room I sat down on the floor and was busy reading; but the spirit
confronted me,11 thinking that he had come up against some layman and
expecting to terrify me the way he had terrified the others – he was filthy
and long-haired, and blacker than the darkness itself. And looking over me
he tried to get the better of me, attacking from every side to try to over-
come me, one moment as a dog, the next as a bull or a lion.12 But I reached
for my most blood-curdling curse, chanted it in Egyptian, and drove him
into a corner of a dark room; after noting where he went down, I was able
to rest for what remained of the night.
72 Otherworldly encounters

In the morning, when everyone was in despair for me and thought

they would find me dead just like the others, I came out contrary to
everyone’s expectation, and went to Eubatides13 with the welcome news
that it was now possible for him to live there, since it was purified and
free of its terrors. So I took him along, with many of the others – for
they were following in amazement at the event, and leading him to the
spot where I had seen the ghost go down, I gave orders to dig with picks
and shovels. And when they did so they found a mouldering corpse bur-
ied some six feet down, with only the bones still in order. We took it
up and buried it, and from that time the house has ceased to be troubled
by ghosts.

(32) When Arignotus said this, a man of superhuman wisdom and respected by
all, there was no-one else in the company who did not condemn me for my crass
stupidity for not believing in such things, especially since it was Arignotus who
had spoken. Nonetheless I did not flinch before his long hair or the reputation
that surrounded him: ‘What’s this’, I said, ‘Arignotus? Even you have turned out
just like the rest, you the only hope for truth, full of hot air and fantasies; for that
proves the proverb: “Our treasure has turned to dross”’.

The Haunted House: Pliny the Younger, Letters 7.27.4–11

(ATU 326A)
(4) Now surely this account I shall give you, just as I heard it, is both more
frightening14 and no less amazing. (5) There was at Athens a spacious mansion
house, but with a notorious and ominous reputation. The silence of the night
was broken by the sound of iron, and if you listened more intently, the rattle of
chains was heard, at first in the distance, then close at hand: soon an apparition
appeared, an old man worn out with leanness and filth, with a long beard and
hair standing on end; he had shackles on his legs, and chains on his hands that
he kept shaking about. (6) So the inhabitants spent miserable and awful nights
there as they stayed awake with fear. Illness would follow their sleepless nights,
and as their fear increased, death would result. For from time to time too, even
after the apparition had left, the recollection of it remained before their eyes, and
fear was engendered that lasted longer than the reason for it. So the house was
deserted and condemned to remain empty and was left exclusively to this awful
figure; but it was on the market, either for sale or let, in the hope that someone
unaware of such a dreadful thing might want it. (7) Now there arrived in Athens
the philosopher Athenodorus,15 who read the notice and heard the suspiciously
cheap asking price, carefully found out all about it, and nonetheless or rather all
the more (was eager to) rent it.16 When it began to get dark, he gave instructions
to be bedded down in the fore part of the house. He called for writing-tablets,
pen and lamp; he sent all his servants to an inner quarter,17 and turned his mind,
eyes and hand to writing, to prevent a vacant mind from conjuring up imaginary
 Otherworldly encounters 73

noises and empty fears. (8) First, as everywhere else, the still of night; then the
clanking of iron and the moving of chains; he did not raise his eyes, nor did he
stop writing, but strengthened his resolve and closed his ears. The hubbub be-
came more intense and advanced, one moment audible at the door, the next in
the room itself. He looked behind him, saw the ghost and recognised it from the
description. (9) It stood and beckoned with its finger as if summoning him. But
he gestured it to wait a little and returned to his writing, while the ghost rattled
its chains about the writer’s head; he looked round and saw it beckoning him as
before. Without delay he took the lamp and followed. (10) It travelled slowly, as
if weighted down with chains. After it turned into the courtyard of the house, it
suddenly vanished. The moment he was alone Athenodorus gathered some grass
and leaves and marked the spot. (11) Next day the authorities arrived18 and gave
orders for that specific place to be dug up. They found bones bound and held
fast with chains; the bones were bare and corroded by the chains, now that the
corpse had rotted away over time with exposure to the soil. They were taken
up and given a public burial. Afterwards the house was duly free of the properly
buried ghost.

Godfather Death19: Lucian, Philopseudeis 25 (ATU 332)20

And Cleodemus said,

The things you saw are not new, nor has no-one else seen them, since I
myself had a sight of something similar not long ago when I was ill, and
Antigonus here was keeping an eye on me and looking after me. Now it
was the seventh day of my fever, and the temperature was at its height.
And everyone was outside, the doors were closed, and I was left alone.
For you yourself, Antigonus, had given the order, in the hope that I
should fall asleep. So then, as I was awake, there stood beside me a very
handsome young man, wearing a white cloak, then he made me get up
and led me through some chasm into Hades, as I immediately realised the
moment I saw Tantalus and Tityus and Sisyphus. And to cut a long story
short, when I arrived in court – Aeacus and Charon and the Fates and
the Furies were there – someone like a king (Pluto, no doubt) was sitting
reading off the names of the people about to die, as they had reached the
end of their allotted lifespan. 21 The young man brought me in front of
him. But he was annoyed and spoke to my guide: “His thread has not yet
spun its full length”, he said, “so let him be off. But see that you bring
me the blacksmith Demylus, for he is living over the limit set for his
spindle”. And I ran back up full of glee, and that instant the fever left me.
But I brought back the news to everyone that Demylus was about to die.
He was our next-door neighbour, and people said that he too had some
sort of illness. And it wasn’t long before we heard the mourners wailing
over him.
74 Otherworldly encounters

Godfather Death: Plutarch Moralia fr. 176 Sandbach (ATU 332)

We ourselves were there when Antyllus was recounting to Sositeles and H
­ eracleon
how he had not long before been ill, and the doctors did not expect him to sur-
vive. Now he came round a little from some shallow trance state, but did not do
or say anything that suggested insanity, except that he maintained he had died
and come back from death and would not die at all from that current illness, but
the people who had brought him received a reprimand from their master.22 They
had been sent to fetch Nicandas, but had brought himself (Antyllus) instead.
Now Nicandas was a shoe-smith, but someone educated in the palaestra and well
known to many. Hence the young lads would go up and tease him as a runaway
or someone who had bribed the messengers from the other world. But he himself
clearly was uncomfortable and took it badly. At length he fell victim to a fever
and suddenly died two days later; whereas Antyllus here recovered and is doing
well, and is the most hospitable host.

The Ghost Reclaims Property23: Lucian, Philopseudeis 27f.

(ATU 366, The Man from the Gallows)24
(27) As we were saying this the two sons of Eucrates came in from the palaestra,
one already from the ephēboi,25 the other about 15, and after greeting us they
sat down on the couch beside their father; I had a chair brought in for me. As if
reminded by the sight of his sons, Eucrates said: ‘So may I have joy of these two
sons’, putting his hand on both of them,

I am going to tell you the truth, Tychiades. Everybody knows how I loved
my wife of blessed memory, the mother of these two sons. And I have shown
it by what I did for her not only while she was alive, but when she died too,
when I buried all her ornaments, and the clothes she liked when she was still
alive. But a week after she died I was lying on the couch just as I am doing
now, consoling myself in my grief; for I was quietly reading Plato’s book on
the soul.26 And in the course of this Demainete herself in person paid me a
visit and sat down beside me, just the way Eucratides here is doing now

(and he pointed to the younger of his sons: he immediately gave a shudder the
way children do)27; in fact he had been pale for some time at the story. ‘But when
I saw her’, Eucrates went on,

I put my arms round her, gave a loud groan, and burst into tears. But she
did not let me cry, but took me to task because I had not done everything
for her28: I had not burned one of her gold sandals; she told me that it was
underneath the chest where it had accidentally fallen. And because of that
we had not found it and had only burned the one. We were still chatting
when a confounded pet dog under the couch – it was a Maltese – gave a
 Otherworldly encounters 75

bark,29 and she disappeared at the sound of the barking. But the sandal was
found underneath the chest and was burned afterwards.30

(28) ‘Is it right to keep doubting these manifestations, Tychiades, when they are
plainly visible and appear as everyday events?’ ‘Certainly not’, said I. ‘People who
don’t believe and are so insulting over the truth should get their bottoms spanked
just like children – with a golden sandal!’

The Animated Avenger31: Lucian, Philopseudeis 18–20 (ATU 366)32

(18) ‘At any rate the business about the statue’, said Eucrates, ‘you would hear not
only from me but from all our household, as it was observed by everyone in the
house, boys and men, young and old’. ‘What statue was that?’, I said.
‘Did you not see as you came into the hall, an exquisite statue standing there,
the work of the sculptor Demetrius?’. ‘Not the discus-thrower, the figure crouch-
ing just at the moment of letting go, head bent back towards the hand holding the
discus, with one leg slightly bent, looking as if he is about to spring up after his
throw?’. ‘Not that one’, he said,

since that too is one of Myron’s works, the discus-thrower you mention.
Nor do I mean the one next to it, the one tying a fillet round his head, for
that is by Polyclitus. But leave aside the ones on the right as you come in,
including the two tyrant-slayers, the works of Critias and Nesiotes. But if
you see a figure beside the fountain – a pot-bellied man, receding, his body
half exposed by the way his cloak is hanging, with some of the hairs of his
beard blowing in the wind, and prominent veins, like a real man, that’s the
one I mean33. He is supposed to be Pellichus the Corinthian general.

(19) ‘Why yes’, I replied, ‘I did see one on the right of the waterspout, with rib-
bons and withered garlands, and with his chest covered in gilt leaves’. ‘I added
those gilt leaves’, said Eucrates, ‘when he cured me when I was at death’s door
with the ague every other day’. ‘So this fine Pellichus here is a doctor as well?’,
said I. ‘Don’t joke about it’, said Eucrates,

or the fellow will be after you in no time. For I am aware what great pow-
ers this statue has that you’re laughing at.34 Or do you not suppose that he
can send fevers against anyone he pleases, if it is possible for him to send
them away? ‘May the statue be kind and gentle, since it is so manly! But
what else do all of you in the household see him doing?’

‘As soon as it’s night’, he said,

he comes down from his pedestal and goes on his rounds about the house,
and all of us meet him sometimes even singing, and he has never done
76 Otherworldly encounters

anyone any harm. For one has only to run out of the way and he passes on
without troubling any of those who’ve seen him. And he actually takes baths
often and has fun all night long, so that we can hear the water splashing.

‘See then’, said I,

if the statue isn’t Pellichus, but Talus the Cretan, the offspring of Minos?
For he too was a bronze man of some sort and went his rounds on Crete,
and if he were not bronze, Eucrates, but wood, then there would be noth-
ing to prevent his being not the work of Demetrius but of Daedalus. At any
rate, from what you say, he too plays truant from his pedestal.

(20) ‘Take care, Tychiades, or you’ll be sorry for your joking later on. For I
know what happened to the man who filched the obols we offer him at each
new moon’.35 ‘It should have been something absolutely dreadful, for such an act
of sacrilege’, said Ion, ‘How did Pellichus punish him, Eucrates? For I want to
know, however much Tychiades here is going to disbelieve’.

There was a large quantity of obols lying at his feet, and some other silver
coins had been fixed to his thigh with wax, and leaves of silver, discharg-
ing vows or payment for a cure from one of the clients he had cured of a
fever. And we had a Libyan servant, a real villain,36 who was a groom. This
fellow planned to remove all those, and actually did so after waiting until
after the statue had come down. And the moment Pellichus returned and
found that he had been robbed, see how he punished the Libyan and ex-
posed his crime. For the miserable wretch went round the hall in a circle all
night, not able to get out, as if he had landed in a labyrinth,37 until he was
caught with what he had stolen at daybreak. And then when he was caught
he had a bad thrashing, and did not long survive, but died a miserable death
from being whipped, he said, each night, so that weals would appear on his
body the next day.38 In the light of this, Tychiades, make fun of Pellichus
and me as if it seems I am a contemporary of Minos already in my dotage.39

‘But Eucrates’, I said,

while bronze is bronze and Demetrius of Alopeke produced it, not a maker
of gods but a maker of statues, I shall not fear the statue of Pellichus, whom
I should not have feared in the slightest if he had threatened me when alive.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice40: Lucian, Philopseudeis 33–3741

(ATU 325*, cf. Christiansen ML 3020)
(33) For when I was still a young man living in Egypt (my father had sent
me off in order to complete my education42), I wanted to sail up to Kop-
tos and from there to visit (the statue of ) Memnon and hear the ­famous
 Otherworldly encounters 77

tones resounding in honour of the sunrise.43 Actually I didn’t hear what all
the ordinary people hear, just a meaningless voice; but Memnon himself
opened his mouth and gave me an oracle in seven verses,44 and if it weren’t
off the point, I would quote the verses to you. (34) But it was on the voyage
up-river that I happened to come across a fellow passenger, a man from
Memphis, one of the temple scribes there, a man of amazing wisdom who
knew everything about Egyptian culture. They said he had lived under-
ground for twenty-three years in the sacred shrines, receiving instruction
in magic from Isis.

‘You’re talking about Pancrates’,45 said (the Pythagorean) Arignotus, ‘my own
teacher, a holy man, with his head shaven, clad in linen, always thinking about
something, not speaking good Greek, tall, snub-nosed, with his lips protruding,
and thin in the legs’46: ‘the very man’ he said.
And at the outset I didn’t know who he was, but when I saw him every time
we put the boat in doing all sorts of wonders, especially riding on crocodiles
and swimming along with them, as they fawned and wagged their tails, I re-
alised that he was a holy man, and little by little I insinuated myself into his
friendship till I was his companion and associate, so that he made me a partner
in all his secrets.
And in the end he persuaded me to leave all my servants behind in Memphis
and share his company all by myself. He assured me that we would not be at a loss
for domestic servants. And after that, that was our arrangement. (35) But when-
ever we arrived at a stop-over, the man would take either the bar for the door, or
the broom or even the pestle, dress it up in clothes, pronounce some spell over
it, and set it in motion, so that it looked to everyone just like a man. It would
go off to draw water and buy boiled meat and get the meals ready, and acted as
our servant and attendant. Then, whenever he was finished with its services, he
would use another spell to make the broom a broom again or the pestle a pestle.

I was very keen to find out exactly how he did this, but there was no way I
could. For he was very jealous over this, although he was very accommo-
dating in every other way. But one day I hid in the shadows and overheard
the spell without his knowledge – it was no more than three syllables. And
off he went to the public square after giving the pestle its orders. (36) And
the next day while he was doing some business there I took the pestle,
dressed it up just as he had done, uttered the syllables, and told it to draw
water. And when it had filled the jar and brought it back, I said: “Stop: and
don’t go on drawing water, but go back to being a pestle”.47 But it was no
longer prepared to obey my instructions, but just kept on drawing water,
until it filled the house with jar after jar full of water. I had no idea what
to do, for I was scared that Pancrates would be furious when he got back,
as indeed he was – so I took an axe and split the pestle into two pieces.
But the two parts each took jars and instead of one servant I now had
two. In the meantime Pancrates came on the scene and realising what had
78 Otherworldly encounters

happened turned the things back into wood again, just as they were before
my spell; but he slipped away and left me; he just disappeared and I don’t
know where he went.48

‘So still’, said Deinomachus’, ‘you’d know how to turn a pestle into a man?’ ‘Of
course’, said Eucrates, ‘ – at least half-way, that is: for it isn’t possible for me to
change it back the way it was, once it turns into a water-carrier, but there’ll have
to be a deluge when the house is flooded!’49

(37) Won’t you old men stop talking all this nonsense about marvels? And
if not, for the sake of these young boys put off till some other time these
amazing and frightening tales, in case before we know it they’re crammed
full of frightful things and strange imaginings. So you should spare them
and not get them used to hearing such things, which will disturb them all
through life and make them scared of any sound by filling them with every
kind of superstition.

The Tale of Philinnion50: Phlegon of Tralles, Peri Thaumasio

ˉn
1(ATU 307?/425B?)
(1)…[the nurse] made her way to the door of the guest room, and by the light
of the burning lamp she saw the girl sitting beside Machates. (2) The sight was
so amazing that she could not wait any longer but ran to (the girl’s) mother and
shouted in a loud voice ‘Charito!’ ‘Demostratus!’ She thought they should get up
and go with her to their daughter, for she appeared to be alive in the guest room
with the guest, through some divine will.
(3) When Charito heard this amazing story, the news was too much for her
and the nurse was overexcited, so that first she was apprehensive and fainted;
after a little while she brought her daughter back to mind and wept. Finally she
accused the old woman of being out of her mind and ordered her to leave her at
once. (4) But the nurse protested and spoke out, insisting that she was in her right
mind and well, while the mother was hesitating and unwilling to see her own
daughter; with difficulty Charito in part was compelled by the nurse, in part
eager to know what had actually happened, and went to the guest-room door.
<And> as some time had elapsed, about a couple of hours since the nurse’s an-
nouncement, Charito got there rather late, so that by now the pair were already
asleep. (5) The mother peeped in and thought she recognised her daughter’s
clothes and appearance, but she had no way of finding out the truth, and thought
she should let things be. For she expected to get up early and take on the girl,
and if she should be too late, she would interrogate Machates about the whole
business. For she thought he was unlikely to tell any lies about something so
important. And so she went away without a word.
(6) But when dawn arrived it turned out that the girl had gone, either by divine
will or slipping away of her own accord, while her mother was annoyed at her de-
parture: she expected the guest to give an account from the beginning, and begged
 Otherworldly encounters 79

Machates to tell the truth without concealing anything. (7) The young man was
upset and at first didn’t know what to say, but reluctantly he eventually admitted
that her name was Philinnion. And he told her how she had come to him at first,
and how much she had desired him, and that she had said she was with him without
her parents’ knowledge; and anxious to prove the truth of his story, he had opened
the chest and taken out the gold ring he had received from her, and the breast-band
she had left behind the previous night. (8) And when Charito saw such convincing
evidence she cried out, and tore her clothes and cloak, and throwing off her head-
dress she fell to the ground, and casting herself on the tokens she began grieving all
over again. (9) When the stranger saw what was happening, with everyone hyster-
ical and in mourning as if they were on the point of burying the girl, he became
upset and begged them to stop: he said he would show them the girl if she returned.
She was won over and told him to take care not to forget his promise to her. (10)
When night fell and the time came when Philinnion usually arrived, they kept
watch, anxious to know of her arrival, and she duly came. And when she came in
at the usual time and sat on the bed, Machates pretended nothing was amiss, but
wanted to get to the bottom of the whole business, in particular not believing that
he was sleeping with a corpse who was so careful to come to him at the same time,
and was still taking meals and drinking with him; he did not believe what the oth-
ers had told him, and thought that grave-robbers had dug up the tomb and sold the
clothes and the gold to the girl’s father. So wanting to know the truth he secretly
sent the slaves to call them. (11) And soon Demostratus and Charito arrived and
saw her and at first were dumb and awestruck at the amazing sight, but then cried
out loudly and fell on their daughter. But at that point Philinnion spoke to them:

Mother and father, you were unfair to grudge me to spend three days with
your guest in my paternal home, doing no-one any harm. So you will soon
be sorry for your meddling, while I must go back to my appointed place.
For I did not come here without divine approval.

(12) With this she immediately became a corpse, and was laid out on the bed,
quite plainly such. Her mother fell on her and her father gathered round and
there was terrific confusion and mourning all through the house because of their
grief: this was an unbearable calamity and an unbelievable sight. And soon word
spread through the city and reached me. (13) And so that night I held back the
crowds gathering at the house, taking precautions that there should be no civil
disturbance as a result of the spread of such a report. (14) At crack of dawn the
theatre was full. After a full account had been received, it was resolved first of all
that we should go to the tomb and open it, to see whether the body was on its
resting place, or whether we should find the site empty. For it was not as long as
six months since the girl’s death. (15) And when we had opened the chamber to
which all the family were transferred and laid to rest, all the bodies were seen to
be lying on their biers, or their bones in the case of older burials, but at the spot
where Philinnion had been laid and was known to have been buried we found
only the iron ring that belonged to the stranger, and the gold cup, which she took
80 Otherworldly encounters

from Machates on the first night. (16) And at once we were amazed and dumb-
founded; we went immediately to the guest room in Demostratus’ house to see
the corpse, to see if it was really visible. We saw it lying on the ground and we
thronged to the assembly: what had happened was of great import, and incredible.
(17) In the assembly there was vigorous uproar and scarcely anyone could make
sense of the events, but first of all Hyllus stood up: he was reckoned to be not only
the best seer among us, but also a skilful augur (on other occasions he had proved
skilful in this craft). He ordered us to bury the girl outside the boundaries…

The Fairy Lover51: Eumelus fr. 8B Fowler

Arcas52 the son of Zeus or Apollo and Callisto the daughter of Lycaon…was
hunting with his hounds and came across one of the Hamadryad nymphs in
danger of perishing when the oak-tree in which the nymph had been living
was destroyed by a river in torrent. But Arcas turned back the river and secured
the bank with an earthwork. And the nymph – her name was Chrysopeleia 53
(‘golden dove’) made love with him and gave birth to Elatus and Amphidamas,
from whom the Arcadians came.

The Fairy Lover: Charon of Lampsacus FGrH 262 F12

(Schol. Apollonius Rhodius 2.476/83a)
For Charon of Lampsacus says that Rhoicus, seeing that an oak tree was about to
topple as never before, told his slaves to prop it up. And the nymph about to die
along with the tree appeared to him, thanked him for saving her life, and told
him to ask her for whatever he wanted. And when he said that he wanted to sleep
with her, she said that no harm would come of it, but he must have nothing to
do with any other woman, and their messenger would be the bee.54 And once
the bee flew alongside while he was playing draughts. And having cried out too
fiercely he had angered the nymph, so that she injured him.55

Alcestis56: Apollodorus 1.9.1557 (ATU 899)

[Admetus wooed] Alcestis, the daughter of Pelias. But he had promised his
daughter to the man who could yoke a lion and a boar to a chariot; Apollo
performed the feat and gave them to Admetus, who brought them to Pelias and
won Alcestis. And as he was sacrificing to celebrate the marriage, he forgot a
sacrifice to Artemis; and so when he opened the bridal chamber he found it
full of coiling snakes. Apollo told him to appease the goddess, and obtained
the request from the Fates that whenever Admetus was due to die he should be
freed from death if someone should volunteer to die in his place. And when the
day came for him to die and neither his father nor his mother was willing to
die for him, Alcestis died on his behalf. But Kore58 (Persephone) sent her back
up again, or as some say, Heracles fought with Hades <and brought Alcestis
up to him>.
 Otherworldly encounters 81

An Out-of-Body Adventure: Aristeas of Proconnesus59 Herodotus

4.13–15 (cf. Stith Thompson Motif E721.1, Soul wanders from
body in Sleep)
(4.13) Aristeas of Proconnesus,60 the son of Caystrobios, says in his epic poem
that possessed by Apollo he arrived among the Essedones, and that beyond them
there live Arimaspi with one eye, and beyond them the griffins that guard the
gold, and beyond these the Hyperboreans who stretch to the sea…61
(4.14) And I have said where Aristeas who has told us this came from, and I
will give the account I heard about him in Proconnesus and Cyzicus. For they
say that Aristeas, who was as nobly born as any of his fellow-citizens,62 went into
a fuller’s shop in Proconnesus and died. And the fuller shut up his shop and went
to tell the dead man’s relatives. And when word had spread through the city that
Aristeas had died, a man from Cyzicus arrived from the town of Artace (the port
of Cyzicus) who disputed the report, declaring that he had met with Aristeas on
the latter’s way to Cyzicus and had been in conversation with him. And while he
was insistently arguing, the dead man’s relatives had arrived at the fuller’s with
the funeral preparations. But when the premises were opened up there was no
trace of Aristeas, either dead or alive. And that after 6 years Aristeas appeared in
Proconnessus and composed the verses which the Greeks now call the Arimaspea,
and having done so disappeared a second time.
(4.15) That is the account given in these towns; but the people of Metapon-
tum in Italy had this experience, 240 years after Aristeas’ second disappearance,
as I discovered by reckonings from Proconnesus and Metapontum. The Meta-
pontines say Aristeas appeared to them and instructed them to dedicate an altar
to Apollo, and set up a statue beside it of Aristeas of Proconnesus himself; he
explained that Apollo had appeared in their territory alone among Italian peo-
ples, and that now Aristeas followed him; when he had done so, he was a crow;
and with that he disappeared. And the Metapontines say they sent to Delphi to
ask the meaning of the vision of Aristeas. And the Pythia ordered them to obey
the apparition, as it would be better for them. And after receiving this instruc-
tion they carried it out. And now there stands a statue of Aristeas beside that of
Apollo, and round about it a bay-tree grove; the statue is in the market-place.

An Out-of-Body Misadventure: Hermotimus of Clazomenae Pliny

the Elder NH 7.174, cf. Apollonius Paradoxographus Mirabilia 3
(Stith Thompson Motif E721.1.2.3, Soul of Sleeper prevented
from returning by burning the Body)
We find among other examples that the soul of Hermotimus of Clazomenae
used to leave his body and wander off, and would report from a distance many
things that could not be perceived except by someone actually there,63 while
his body remained in a semi-conscious state, until enemies of his known as the
­Cantharidae64 burned his body and removed as it were the sheath to which his
soul was returning.65
82 Otherworldly encounters

The Long Sleep: Epimenides of Crete66: Diogenes

Laertius 1.109, 11567 (ATU 766, The Seven Sleepers)68
Epimenides,69 according to Theopompus and many others, was the son of Phaes-
tius, though others give him a father Dosiades, others again Agesarchas. He was
a Cretan from Cnossus, though by letting his hair grow long70 he belied his or-
igins. This man was once sent by his father to search for a sheep in the wild; he
turned off the way at midday and fell asleep in some cave71 for 57 years.72 Then
he got up73 and continued to look for the sheep, imagining that he had only slept
for a short interval. But when he could not find the sheep, he returned to the
farm, only to find everything changed74 and another owner in possession, and
he went back to the town in total confusion. And there, when he went into his
own house, he came across people who wanted to find out who he was. At last he
found his younger brother,75 who was already an old man, and it was from him
that he learned the truth. And so his reputation spread throughout Greece and
people considered that he enjoyed divine favour.76

Paapis and the Magic Sleep: Antonius Diogenes, Photius

Codex 166 (cf. Stith Thompson Motif E155.1, Slain
Warriors Revived Nightly)
In this island of Thoule Deinias joins with a girl called Derkyllis and falls in
love with her: she was from a noble family of Tyre, and was accompanied by her
brother Mantinias. In keeping her company Deinias found out about the wander-
ings of the brother and sister, and all that an Egyptian priest Paapis did, who had
moved to Tyre when his own land was being ravaged, and although he seemed in
the first place kindly to his benefactors and their whole household, after that (he
heard) all the mischief Paapis had done to the household and themselves and their
parents. They arrived in Eryx, a town in Sicily, where she was arrested and taken
to Aenesidemus, the ruler of Leontini. Here she fell in once more with the thrice-
wicked Paapis, who was staying with the ruler…(later) Paapis, p­ ursuing in the
footsteps of Dercyllis and her companions caught up with them on the island (of
Thoule) and imposed upon them by his magic art the pain of dying by day, and
reviving at night.77 And he put this on them by spitting directly into their faces.
But one Throuskanos, fervently in love with Dercyllis, when he saw his love
afflicted by the punishment inflicted by Paapis, and was madly distressed, made a
sudden attack, hit Paapis with his sword suddenly and killed him, only thus find-
ing a way to put an end to his countless mischief. And Throuskanos committed
suicide when he saw Dercyllis lying apparently dead…Azoulis found the means
of Paapis’ magic, and how to rescue them from their suffering, having found the
means of inflicting and curing it. From Paapis’ magic bag he also found how
Dercyllis and Mantinias could rescue their parents from their terrible affliction:
Paapis had injured them by a ruse, under pretext of doing this for their own bene-
fit, having made them lie for a long time as if dead. Then Dercyllis and Mantinias
hurried to their home city to revive and rescue their parents.
 Otherworldly encounters 83

Notes
1 Rőlleke EM 5 (1987), 584–593; Stramaglia (1999), 144–162; Felton (1999); Anderson
(2000), 112–114; Ogden (2007), 205–224.
2 Pythagorean: the sect did enjoy limited revival under the early Roman Empire, as
evidenced by the prominence of the 1st-century sage Apollonius of Tyana, who like-
wise is credited with visiting Egypt and performing exorcisms. Pythagoreans early
and late believed in transmigration of souls and had a reputation for mysticism, both
traits put to malicious use here.
3 Arignotus: ‘very well known’ (‘Professor Prestigio’).
4 The speaker is the sceptical Lucian’s port-parole Tychiades (‘Son of Chance’,
‘Everyman’).
5 Perhaps no more than a variation of Eucrates, the host and central character of the
tales.
6 More corroborative detail, over which Lucian takes special care.
7 A supernatural being, covered by ‘demon’, ‘ghost’ or ‘spirit’ in English.
8 Arignotus acts throughout as his own self-publicist.
9 Many of the subjects of Lucian’s ghost stories come from or draw upon the barbarian
fringe of the Greek world. Magical papyri survive in Egyptian demotic as well as
Greek: collection and translation in Betz (1986).
10 Arignotus emphasises the risks, in order of course to maximise his own superiority.
The lamp for reading is a constant of the tale: the exorcist will be literate and needs
to shut out distractions.
11 The vain Arignotus presents the ghost as haunting for haunting’s sake, instead of
pleading for a proper burial: the last thing the unburied dead wish to do is drive off
the best chance of laying their own ghost.
12 The metamorphoses of the ghost seem to me (pace Ogden) out of place in the popular
tale, and suggest rather that Arignotus is thickening the texture for effect; the absence
of this detail from other versions also suggests as much. By contrast the curse to ‘con-
trol’ an unruly spirit has a more authentic feel.
13 As noted by Pliny commentators, the purely private action, to inform Eubatides, is
not correct procedure, and the proper burial is a public matter, not least because the
concealment of the improperly buried corpse is a criminal issue. In fact fuller versions
of the tale can expect to include the corpse’s explanation of how he came to be killed
in the first place. Cf. Plautus, Mostellaria, 497–505, and Cicero, de Divinatione, 1.57;
for the modern tale, e.g. Briggs (1970), 1.1.308.
14 More frightening than a rather tame story about a man dying in Africa after a pro-
phetic dream in 7.27.2f. For the context of Pliny’s trio of ghost stories, Baraz (2012),
116–130.
15 A likely candidate is the Stoic Athenodorus of Tarsus, an actual historical figure (PIR 2
A, 1288), friend of Augustus, though he has no other known connexion with Athens.
16 Less out of ambition, as in Arignotus’s case, than out of curiosity.
17 As properly in the layout of a Greek house.
18 Once again supernatural appearances are a matter of civic concern and public safety:
the authorities must be informed: compare most notably the case of Philinnion below.
There is no speculation in either author as to the reason for the ghost to be buried
where he was; nor is there any need. Burial could not have been allowed within city
boundaries, and so any such would automatically point to a suspicious death. Pliny
correctly has a representative of the community perform the burial of an unknown.
Sherwin-White (1966) compares the lex coloniae ursonensis. See also Felton (1999),
62–76; Stramaglia (1999); Ogden (2007), 205–224.
19 Moser-Rath EM 5 (1987), 1224–1233; Anderson (2000), 115f.; Ogden (2007), 171–193.
20 A man is sent back from the dead because of a case of mistaken identity: the testi-
mony is carefully co-ordinated with that of the doctor: it is important that the door
is confirmed as shut. The story is carefully limited to the narrative viewpoint of the
corpse, so that Hermes as psychopompos, escorter of souls, is not identified by name,
84 Otherworldly encounters

and Pluto’s own identity is only inferred. The mistake seems to be a combination
of ‘the wrong house’ (the intended victim lived next door) and the vague similarity
between the names Demylus and Cleodemus. Examples from Augustine and Gregory
the Great use the mistaken identity of two men of exactly the same name: texts in
Ogden (2007), 173ff.
21 Lucian has a particular aversion to beliefs about the underworld, popular or other-
wise, and this is an opportunity to score a point about disorganisation down below;
but the tale itself is not his, as shown by the following example, which is chronolog-
ically earlier.
22 Once more Pluto and for example Hermes are not identified; nor in this case is any
reason given for the confusion: the names are not similar, nor is there any indication
that Antyllus had a similar occupation.
23 Drascek EM 9 (1999), 175–179; Anderson (2000), 114f.; Ogden (2007), 195–204.
24 A ghost comes back to reclaim lost property. This is generally told as a serious and
cautionary tale, with horrific penalties for graveyard robberies, especially involving
severed limbs or the plundering of gold body-parts.
25 A grouping for youth training, indicating an age in the late teens.
26 Plato’s Phaedo, a favourite ‘set text’ for philosophical reflexion, combining discussion
of the immortality of the soul with an account of the death of Socrates. It was favour-
ite reading in exile for Dio of Prusa (Philostratus VS, 488).
27 A rare glimpse of child/adolescent reaction, indicating disapproval on Tychiades’
part: Eucrates is already brain-washing the children with his own credulity.
28 There is just the faintest hint of a nagging wife about Demainete here, comically
preoccupied with a trivial item: Lucian’s implication is ‘imagine the dead unable to
rest just because of a forgotten shoe’.
29 Instead of a cock crowing, and again deliberately trivialising: Maltese dogs were ‘toy’
dogs and fashion accessories, to judge by Lucian, de Mercede Conductis, 34; he contin-
ues to trivialise in the banter following the tale.
30 Compare the case of Periander’s wife (Herodotus, 5.92), which Lucian holds up to
ridicule: Felton (1999), 78–81; Ogden (2007), 195–204.
31 Ogden (2007), 137–159.
32 An animated statue (of undistinguished nature) or manikin, to which people hung
bizarre attachments, is responsible for the death of a thief.
33 Lucian takes care to emphasise that the animated statue is not a masterpiece of classi-
cal sculpture, but commemorates an ugly, droll, troll-like figure.
34 For the powers of healing statues, Ogden (2007), 145.
35 When bills were due to be paid: Aristophanes Clouds, 754ff.
36 And so a shifty barbarian.
37 Continuing the association of Pellichus with Talus the Cretan above.
38 Compare the fate of a servant beaten by witches in Petronius, Satyrica, 63.5–10.
39 Useful further parallels to the manikin in Lüthi (1976), 83–94.
40 Anderson (2000), 103–105; Hansen (2002), 35–38; Ogden, 231–270; de Blécourt,
EM, 14 (2014), 1165–1168.
41 The celebrated Sorcerer’s Apprentice tale is related to a genuine folktale: a novice gives
orders to tiny servants from a magic book and has to find enough for them to do to
break the spell. The master magician may be the devil himself.
42 Egypt is here seen as part of an ancient ‘Grand Tour’: see Casson (1974), 257–261,
271–286.
43 One of the two colossi was credited with emitting a sound as described; the effect was
ended by reconstruction under Septimius Severus, some time after the current version.
44 Again, the teller is concerned to advertise his own credentials: even an Egyptian oracle
honours him (cf. Heliodorus, 2.35f.: Calasiris claims a spontaneous oracle from Delphi).
45 Pancrates (‘All-Powerful’), inviting confusion with one Pachrates, a genuine E ­ gyptian
name attached to a prophet from a temple in Heliopolis, who performed magical
 Otherworldly encounters 85

demonstrations, including power over demons, in front of the Emperor Hadrian, and
probably identical with the Pancrates of Athenaeus 15.677C, honoured with mem-
bership of the Museum at Alexandria.
46 The caricatural description represents a stereotypical view of the Egyptian seen through
Greek eyes. A papyrus formula could be used for crossing the river on crocodiles’ back:
Harpocrates was depicted riding on crocodiles; the historia monachorum has anchorites
doing so. See also ‘Menas and the crocodile’, c. 10 below. Lucian seems the likely perpe-
trator of the detail that the crocodiles fawn and wag their tales. Schwartz (1963) ad loc.
comments on the absence of magical papyrus support for the precise feat described here.
47 The modern form of the tale usually deals with a magic book which produces little
servants who cannot be kept busy enough; one has to invent a task beyond them to
break the spell.
48 Sometimes the story ends in the turning to stone of the magician: perhaps the men-
tion of the oracular statue of Memnon is a reflection of such a detail in the story.
49 The climax of the whole work as far as the sceptical Lucian is concerned: it is impossible
for Eucrates to make good his boast, and so the audience has only to take his word for it.
50 Anderson (2000), 117–119; Hansen (1996), 79–85; (2002), 392–397. I have preferred
ATU Type 307 to Hansen’s allocation to Type 425J; but the tale is a curiosity by any
reasonable criteria.
51 For an extended sequel to the story, below on Rhoicus.
52 For the case that this is an early King Arthur figure (as Arktouros), Anderson (2004;
2007).
53 For the case that this bird is the merlin, Anderson (2007), 231ff. There is circumstan-
tial evidence to connect the story with the oracular activity at Dodona: Anderson
(2007), 243f.
54 Jacoby notes instances where the bee-sting is a punishment for adultery.
55 For a resemblance to the medieval romance of Sir Launfal, Anderson (2007), 235. A
third partial telling of the tale (Schol. Theocritus, 3.13c) has the unknown Rhoicus
as a Cnidian, the tree located rather unexpectedly in Nineveh.
56 Megas EM 1 (1977), 315–319; Anderson (2000), 116f.
57 Apollodorus’ version follows the latter of the two courses in order to involve Hera-
cles. A second large-scale account exists in the late Latin verse tale Alcestis Barcinonen-
sis. As a daughter of Pelias, Alcestis was one of her father’s innocent murderesses at the
instigation of Medea. Admetus (‘undaunted’) seems to specialise in the extant sources
in getting other people to do unpalatable tasks for him. Artemis plays ‘bad fairy’
roles in which she takes offence and has to be placated by some kind of commuting of
the sentence. Neither of Admetus’ parents is willing to die on their son’s behalf. In the
Islamicised version in tale 5 of the Medieval Turkish Book of Dede Korkut, the angel
Azrael takes the recalcitrant parents instead of the self-sacrificing wife. For Modern
Greek versions, Kakridis (1949), Appendix 3.
58 Persephone having been the victim of premature abduction to Hades is not unmoved
by such requests, most notably in such cases as Eurydice or Protesilaus.
59 This and the following notices on Hermotimus and Epimenides relate to a trio of
wonder-workers who amaze by their bilocations, their capacity to disappear or their
incredible feats of endurance; they are similar to the non-Greek figures who amaze
in Lucian’s Lovers of Lies.
60 For the background of Aristeas, Bolton (1962); Bremmer (1983), 25–53. Commen-
tary: Asheri et al. (2007), ad loc.
61 The northern area of reference may be consistent with Aristeas’ credentials as a
­shaman; but for scepticism about such a role, see now Bremmer (2002), 27–40: ‘Trav-
elling Souls? Greek Shamanism reconsidered’.
62 And so by implication a credible claimant.
63 Apollonius elaborates: he could foretell rainstorms, droughts, earthquakes and plagues,
among other things.
86 Otherworldly encounters

64 ‘Sons of the Scarab-beetle’. An Egyptian association of this insect was with the sun
and its powers of regeneration: presumably the cremators were professional rivals who
wanted to test Hermotimus’ own powers to destruction, and succeeded.
65 Apollonius peri thaumasiōn 3 adds a commemorative temple, from which women were
excluded because of the wife’s failure to protect the corpse.
66 Hansen, 392–397; Kandler EM 12 (2007), 662–666.
67 So Theopompus Philippica FGrH 115 F 67a; a similar account evidently based on the
same source FGrH 115 F 67b in Apollonius peri thaumasi ōn 1.
68 A ‘Rip van Winkle’ story, with some specific detail, as of a local legend. What is
missing here is any account of what Epimenides thought he was doing in the interval,
to correspond to Rip’s encounter with the little man with a cask, and the mysterious
lost valley with its ancient occupants. Hansen correctly compares the much later
Christian Legend of The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.
69 A real person, and so an appropriate hero of a tale of unexplained time-warp: he is
credited elsewhere with out-of-body soul flights, and with purification of Athens
after the Kylonian purge.
70 One marker of an impressive holy man, to judge from Lucian’s description of
­A lexander of Abonouteichos, Alexander 11.
71 And so less likely to be found. According to Maximus of Tyre (16.1) the cave was that
of Dictaean Zeus.
72 Sometimes, as in the case of the Seven Sleepers, the time is much longer.
73 He is however credited in Maximus of Tyre (16.1) with dreams of truth and justice in
the interval.
74 More developed versions of the tale may signify change: the fall of Jerusalem to
­Nebuchadnezzar, in the story of Abimalech; the prevalence of Christianity, in the tale
of The Seven Sleepers; the American Revolution, in the case of Rip van Winkle.
75 A family member is needed to vouch for the otherwise long-forgotten disappearance.
76 Compare the prestige of Lucian’s figure Pancrates, who allegedly spent 23 years un-
derground (but without timewarp), Philopseudeis, 34. Pliny (NH 7.134, 175) adds that
Epimenides lived for only 57 days after the 57 years, but died at the age of 157. Hansen
seems puzzled by the lack of motivation in the accounts; but Epimenides seems a
prime candidate for just this kind of adventure.
77 This is highly unusual in classical practice: perhaps the nearest is the story of Castor
and Pollux, who share their immortality by being alive on alternate days (Lucian,
Dialogi Deorum, 25); or warriors slain by day and revived at night, Stith Thompson
Motif E155.1.
5
SIREN WOMEN1

The fear of women as masters of magic is in evidence in a number of examples

here, although Homer in particular is strangely reticent about the contents of the
witch’s brew, or for that matter its actual purpose, while St. Augustine saw it as
to provide draft labour when required. I offer two presentations of an Empousa,
among the nastiest of child-scarers; a revealing attempt by Dio of Prusa to make a
blood-curling story of material he plainly does not take too seriously; and a view
of Hylas that relates him to a fairy tale known to the Grimms.

CIRCE2: Homer, Odyssey 10.203–399 (cf. ATU 567; Stith

Thompson Motif G263.1, witch transforms lovers into animals;
cf. also Scobie, 1983, Type IIA)
(203) But I counted all my well-grieved comrades into two bands, and set a
leader over each. I led the one, godlike Eurylochus the other. Speedily we shook
lots in a bronze helmet, and out jumped the lot of courageous Eurylochus. And
he set out, and with him 22 doleful companions; and they left us lamenting
behind.3 And among the glades they found the dwellings of Circe, built of
polished stones in a wide clearing. And around about it were mountain wolves
and lions, which she herself had enchanted when she gave them wicked drugs.
But they did not rush at the men, but stood fawning with their long tails, and
as when dogs fawn about their master as he returns from a feast, for he always
brings titbits to delight their hearts – so did the wolves with their strong claws
fawn on them. But they were afraid when they saw the dreadful monsters.4
And they stood in the vestibule of the fair-tressed goddess, while they heard
Circe5 sweetly singing inside, as she moved back and forth before her divine
loom, weaving the work that goddesses weave, fine, elegant and resplendent.
And Polites, a leader of men, was the first to speak: he was my dearest and most
88 Siren women

trustworthy companion: ‘My friends, someone is moving back and forth before
a great loom, sweetly singing,6 and the whole floor resounds about her, either a
goddess or a woman: but let us call her at once’. (229) And at this they raised a
shout and called to her. She at once came out, opened the shining doors, and
invited them in. And they all followed her unawares, but Eurylochus hung back,
suspecting that this was a trap. And she brought them in and sat them down on
couches and seats, and she mixed them a potion, cheese and barley meal, and
yellow honey with Pramnian wine. But into the food she mixed wicked drugs,
so that they should forget all about their native land.7 But when she had given
them it and they had drained their cups, then at once she struck them with her
wand and shut them in the swine-pens. And they had the heads, the voice, the
bristles and the shape of swine, but their minds remained unchanged, just as they
were before.8 And when they were penned up in tears, Circe tossed them mast
and acorns and cornel-berries to eat, the kind of food that swine bedded on the
ground are used to eating.
(244) But at once Eurylochus went off to the swift black ship to report on
his comrades and their unseemly fate. Nor was he able to utter a word, for all
his efforts, for he was distressed at heart with dreadful grief. And his eyes were
filled with tears, and his spirit could only lament. But when all of us had cross-­
examined him in our bewilderment, he then told us the dreadful fate of the rest
of his comrades:

Illustrious Odysseus, we went through the woodlands as you ordered.

Among the glades we found a fine palace built of polished stones in a wide
clearing, and there someone moving back and forth at a great loom and
singing in a shrill voice, either a goddess or a woman, and they raised a
shout and called to her. She immediately came out and opened the shining
doors and invited them in. And together they all followed, unaware. But I
held back, suspecting a trap, and they all disappeared in a body, nor has
any of them appeared again, although for a long time I sat and kept watch.

(261) At this I threw my silver-studded sword across my shoulders, a great sword

of bronze, and put my bow about me, and ordered him to lead me back along the
same road. But he took hold of me in both hands and entreated me by my knees
and spoke winged words to me in his distress:

Do not bring me there against my will, divinely nourished Odysseus, but

leave me here. For I know that neither will you return, nor will you bring
any other of your comrades back safely. But let us flee with these men all
the quicker, for we may still escape an evil day.

At this I replied, ‘Eurylochus, do indeed remain here in this place, eating and
drinking beside our hollow black ship; but I will go; for me there is a compelling
need’. With these words I went inland from the ship and the sea. But when as
 Siren women 89

I went through the sacred groves I was on the point of reaching the great house
of Circe of the many potions, Hermes of the golden wand met me as I made my
way there; he was in the guise of a young man, with the first down on his cheek,
whose youthfulness is most appealing.9 He clasped my hand and addressed me
in these words:

Where then, unfortunate man, are you wandering to alone on the slopes,
with no knowledge of the place? These companions of yours are held like
pigs in Circe’s house, with stout-built sties as their quarters. Have you
come here, then, to release them? I tell you that you will not return home
either, and you will stay there with the rest. But come now, I will free you
from your perils and save you. Take this powerful drug and go to the halls
of Circe: it will protect your head from the evil day. And I will tell you all
the dire ploys of Circe. She will make you a mixture, and throw drugs into
the food. But even so she will be unable to charm you, for the powerful
drug which I shall give you will not allow it; and I will tell you everything.
Whenever Circe drives you with her long wand, then you must draw your
sharp sword from your side, and rush at Circe, as if threatening to kill her.
And she will be afraid and will tell you to go to bed with her. Then do not
any longer refuse the goddess’ bed, so that she may set your comrades free
and look after you yourself. But order her to swear the great oath of the
blessed gods, to prevent her from plotting any ill against your person, and
so that having stripped you she may not do you mischief and unman you.10

(302) With this, the slayer of Argus11 plucked a herb from the ground, and
showed me its nature. It was black at the root, with a flower like milk. The gods
call it moly. It is difficult for mortal men to dig it up,12 but the gods can do all
things.13 Then Hermes made his way through the wooded island and went off to
mighty Olympus, and I went on to the palace of Circe, and my heart was full of
dark thoughts as I went. And I stood in the threshold of the fair-tressed goddess.
There I stood and called, and the goddess heard my voice.
And at once she came out and opened the shining doors and called me in,
while I followed with troubled heart. And she brought me in and sat me on a
silver-studded chair, beautifully wrought. And underneath there was a footstool
for my feet. And she made me a mixture in a golden cup, for me to drink, and
in it she put a potion, with evil thoughts in her heart, but when she gave it to
me and I drained it and it did not bewitch me, she struck me with her wand and
spoke, addressing me: ‘Go now to the swine-pen and lie with the rest of your
companions’. At this I drew my sharp sword from my thigh and rushed on Circe
as if threatening to kill her. But she gave a great cry, ran underneath and took
hold of my knees, and spoke winged words to me in her laments.

Who are you among men, and where do you come from? I am amazed
that after drinking that potion you are not bewitched. For no other man
90 Siren women

has endured this charm, when he has drunk it and it has first passed the
barrier of his teeth. But you have a mind within you that is immune to the
charm. You must be Odysseus, man of many wiles: the gold-wanded slayer
of Argus always used to say you would come on your return from Troy in
your swift black ship.14 But come now, put your sword in its sheath, and
then let the two of us go to my bed, so that after mingling in our bed of
love we may trust each other.

(336) But to this I replied:

Circe, how can you ask me to show you mercy when you have turned
my men into swine within your palace, and holding me here you ask me
to go to your chamber with guile in your heart and go to your bed, so
that once you have stripped me you can do me ill and unman me? And I
should not be willing to enter your bed unless you would bring yourself,
goddess, to swear a great oath not to devise any other wicked torture
against me.

(345) At this she immediately swore the oath, as I instructed. But when she
swore and made an end of her oath, then I mounted the beautiful bed of Circe.
And meanwhile her handmaidens laboured in the halls, four girls who did her
bidding in the palace. They are the offspring of springs and groves and sacred
rivers, that flow forth towards the sea. One of them threw beautiful rugs on the
chairs, and spread linen cloth below them. Another drew up silver tables, and
set golden baskets on them. And the third mixed honey-hearted wine in a silver
mixing-bowl, and put round golden cups. And the fourth brought water and
kindled a great fire beneath a huge tripod, and heated the water.15 But when it
boiled in the shining bronze, she made me sit in the tub and washed me from
the great tripod, mixing it delightfully over my head and shoulders, so that she
took the soul-destroying weariness from my limbs; but then she washed me and
anointed me with oil, and threw a beautiful robe and tunic round me and led me
to sit down on a silver-studded chair, a beautiful work of art, with a stool under
my feet. And a serving-maid brought water in a beautiful golden vessel, above a
silver basin, for us to wash; and beside us she stretched out a polished table; and
a respectable lady brought bread and put food generously before us, and told us
to eat. But I was sad at heart and sat thinking of other things, with my mind full
of ominous thoughts.
(375) When Circe noticed me sitting there and not putting my hands on the
food, she stood near me and addressed me in winged words:

Why, Odysseus, do you sit like this, like someone who is dumb, eating
your heart out, while you do not touch food and drink? Can it be that you
suspect some other trick? But you have no need to fear, for already I have
sworn you a binding oath.
 Siren women 91

But at these words he replied:

Circe, what man in his right mind could venture to taste food and drink
before freeing his comrades and seeing them face to face? But if indeed you
sincerely bid me to eat and drink, free them, so that I may see my trusty
companions with my own eyes.16

At this, Circe left the palace, wand in hand, opened the door of the swine-pen, and
drove them out, looking like 9-year-old swine. They then stood facing her, and she
went through them and anointed each with another potion. Then the bristles fell
from their limbs, which the baleful drug that lady Circe had given them had previ-
ously caused to grow. And they became men again, younger than they were before,
and much more handsome and taller to look at.17 And each of them recognised me
and clung to my hands, and each was possessed by passionate sobs, and there was a
terrible hubbub all through the palace, and even the goddess felt pity for them.

The Innkeepers and the Ass18: Augustine, City of God 18.18

(cf. ATU 567)
For when I was in Italy I too used to hear such things from a certain region in these
parts, when they used to say that women who ran inns and were skilled in these
wicked arts would give to any wayfarers they wished <something> in cheese which
at once transformed them into beasts of burden, and they would transport any sort of
goods (necessaria quaeque), then return to their own shape19; but they did not acquire
the mind of a beast, but retained their rational human faculty, just as Apuleius in the
books which he entitled The Golden Ass, either reported or claimed that after the
application of a drug he became an ass while retaining his human mind.20

Augustine ibid.: (Stith Thompson Motif E721.1 Soul wanders from

body in sleep; dreams explained as experiences of the soul on
these wanderings)
For a man by the name of Praestantius used to say that his father had happened
to take that particular drug in cheese in his own home, and lay in his own bed
apparently asleep, but no-one was able to waken him. Yet some days later, he
maintained, his father seemed to have wakened and reported what happened in
the form of dreams: to the effect that he had become a horse and along with other
beasts of burden had carried their grain ration known as Rhaetic because it is sent
to Rhaetia. It was found that it had happened just as he had reported, although it
had seemed to the man himself that he was <only> dreaming.21

The Empousa at Corinth: Philostratus, Life of Apollonius

of Tyana 4.2522 (ATU 327A, Hansel and Gretel)
At that time there happened to be a philosopher in Corinth called Demetrius,
who had adopted the full vigour of the Cynics…The effect of Apollonius on
92 Siren women

him was the same as that of Socrates’ wisdom on Antisthenes: he followed

him wishing to be his disciple, and applied himself to his teachings, and he
directed the more reputable of his own students to Apollonius. 23 Among these
was a Lycian called Menippus, a man of 25, of sound judgement and physi-
cally well endowed, so that he looked like a handsome, noble athlete. 24 Now
Menippus, so most people supposed, was loved by a foreign woman: she had a
beautiful appearance and a very refined look, and claimed to be rich, although
she was really none of these things, but only appeared to be. For as he has
walking all alone on the road to Cenchreae, 25 an apparition encountered him
in the guise of a woman, who clasped his hand and claimed that she had long
been in love with him. She claimed she was a Phoenician 26 woman, and that
she lived in a suburb of Corinth, naming a particular one. ‘Come there in the
evening’, she told him ‘and you will hear me singing and drink wine such as
you have never drunk before, and there will be no rival to bother you; and
we shall live together as two beautiful people’. 27 The young man agreed to
this, for strong as he was in everything else to do with philosophy, he was a
victim when it came to passion, and he went to her in the evening and from
then on paid her constant attention as his lover, not yet realising that she was
only an apparition.
But Apollonius looked at Menippus with the eye of a sculptor,28 and he formed
a picture of the young man and looked intently at him, and after noting his
weakness, he said ‘You are a handsome young man hunted by beautiful women,
but you are cherishing a serpent and she you’. And when Menippus was amazed
at this, Apollonius added, ‘because you cannot marry this woman. You ask the
reason? Do you suppose she loves you?’ ‘Of course she does’, Menippus replied,
‘since she treats me as a lover does’. ‘And would you marry her?’, he asked, ‘for
it would be delightful to marry a woman who loves you’. So <the sage> asked:
‘When will the wedding be?’ ‘In hot haste’, replied Menippus. ‘And perhaps
tomorrow’. So Apollonius waited for the time of the meal and confronted the
guests who had just arrived: ‘Where’, he said, ‘is the lovely girl who invited you?’
‘There’, said Menippus, and with a blush he made to get up. ‘And which of the
two of you has provided the silver and gold and the rest of the adornments for
the banqueting suite?’ ‘The lady’, he replied, ‘for I have nothing else but this’,
pointing to his philosopher’s cloak.29
But Apollonius asked: ‘Do you know of the gardens of Tantalus, that they
exist and yet do not?’30 ‘In Homer’, they said, ‘for we have not of course been
down to Hades’.

This is how you must regard this adornment as well. For it has no sub-
stance, but only the appearance of such. And so that you might be aware of
what I mean, this fine bride is an empousa,31 whom most people think of as
lamias and bugaboos.32 These creatures fall in love, and they have sex, but
most of all they desire human flesh and they entice with sexual enticement
anyone they want to eat in their feasts.
 Siren women 93

But the apparition said, ‘None of your sacrilegious talk! Get out!’ And she
­pretended to be disgusted at what she heard, and no doubt she tried to make
fun of philosophers and claimed that they always talked nonsense. But when the
gold goblets and what appeared to be silver were proved to be light as air, and all
leapt off out of their sight, the wine-pourers and the cooks and the whole staff of
servants disappeared when confounded by Apollonius,33 the phantom appeared
to shed tears and begged him not to torture her or coerce her to confess her true
nature,34 but when he persisted and would not relax his efforts she confessed to
being an empousa, and to be fattening Menippus with pleasures so that she could
devour his body, for she was in the habit of devouring beautiful young bodies,
since their blood is uncontaminated.35

Meeting an Empousa36: Aristophanes, Frogs 285–29837

(285) XANTHIAS: But I hear a noise.
DIONYSUS: Where is it? Where?
X.: Behind!
D.: You go behind!
X.: No, in front!
D.: You go in front this minute!
X.: Oh good heavens I see a huge beast -
D.: What sort of beast?
X.: Dreadful – at any rate it’s like all sorts. (290) One minute a bull, one minute
a mule, and then a very luscious young woman -
D.: Where is she? I’m off to meet her -
X.: It isn’t a girl any more. Now it’s a dog -
D.: Then it must be Empousa!
X.: Well, its whole face is alight with fire -
D.: And does it have a leg of copper?
X.: (295) Yes, by Poseidon, and the other one is cow-dung, I tell you -
D.: So where am I to turn?
X.: And me!
D.: Priest, protect me, so that we can have dinner together!
X.: King Heracles, we’re finished!

Sirens/Snake-Women: Dio of Prusa, Oration 5

(5.1) To spend effort on a Libyan tale and waste time elaborating over such trifles
is not an auspicious task; for these stories do not encourage the greatest of talents
to imitation. And yet we must not dismiss it out of contempt for such idle chat-
ter.38 For perhaps (the tale) would offer us no small advantage if it led us to our
moral duty and served as a comparison with things that are real and true.39 And
using one’s powers in this way seems to me like the way farmers use plants, if it
works, for sometimes they graft and implant domestic and fruit-bearing varieties
94 Siren women

on barren and wild stocks, and produce useful instead of useless and profitable
instead of unprofitable plants.
Now in this way if a useful and profitable moral is injected into unprofitable
tales these are not allowed to be mere idle tales. And perhaps those who first
made them up did so for some reason of this kind, hinting and symbolising for
those able to understand them correctly. ‘So much by way of introduction to my
ode’,40 as someone says. I have still to recite the ode itself or tell the tale, and sing
to what we should best liken the human passions.
(5.5) It is said that at some time long ago there was some dreadful and savage
species, mostly found in the uninhabited parts of Libya. For that country even to-
day seems to produce all manner of creatures, reptiles and other beasts.41 Among
them was the species this tale is about, whose body was a sort of compound out
of totally incongruous parts, an absolute monstrosity, and it roamed about as far
as the Mediterranean at the Syrtes42 in search of food. For it hunted both wild
beasts – lions and panthers, as these beasts hunt deer and wild asses – and sheep,
but took the greatest pleasure in hunting men. And for that reason it found its
way to the settlements as far as the Syrtes. This region is a bay of the sea pene-
trating far inland, and so they say it is an uninterrupted three-day voyage. But
those who sail in cannot sail out again: for there are shoals, cross-currents and
long stretches of sandbar to make the sea totally impassable and difficult. For the
sea bottom in that area is not clean, but is porous and lets the water in without a
solid floor. And that I think is the reason for the huge sandbars and dunes: there
is a similar effect on land caused by the winds, but in this case because of the surf.
The surrounding land is much the same, desert and sand-dunes. But shipwrecked
sailors travelling inland from the sea, or Libyans forced to cross the land or losing
their way – these the beasts appeared to and dragged off.
(5.12) The nature and appearance of their bodies is like this: their faces are
those of beautiful women, and their breasts and bosoms and neck are very beau-
tiful, like those of no mortal girl or bride in her prime, nor could any sculptor or
painter picture them.43 The skin-colour was brilliant, and their glance inspired
affection and desire in the hearts of any who looked at them. But the rest of the
body was hard and armoured with scales, and their lower part was all snake. And
their hindmost part was the snake’s head, utterly horrific. Now we are not told
that these creatures are winged, like the sphinxes, nor do they speak as sphinxes
do, nor utter any other sound, except a very shrill hissing sound, as dragons do.
But they are very swift overland, so that nobody could ever escape them. And
other creatures they overcome by strength, but men by guile, affording a glimpse
of their bosom and breasts and at the same time enthralling their onlooker and
implanting a passionate lust for intercourse. And men would approach them as
they would women, while they remained perfectly still and often looked down,
like modest women; but when a man came close they would seize him, for they
also had hands that were like claws, which they would conceal till that moment.
And so the serpent would at once sting the victim and kill him with its poison.
And the snake and the other part of the beast would devour the corpse.
 Siren women 95

(5.16) This tale, then, was not invented for a child, to make it less rash and
unruly, but for those who suffer greater and more total madness; since we have
brought it to this point we should perhaps be able to show the nature of the ap-
petites, that they are irrational and bestial, since they offer us a glimpse of some
sort of pleasure, enticing the foolish by trickery and bewitchment and destroying
them in the most poignant and pitiful way. And we must put these examples
before our eyes and be afraid of them just as those bogeymen scare children44
whenever they are aroused out of turn with a desire for food or play or something
else – so we ourselves, when we have a desire for luxury or money or sex or
reputation or some other pleasure, should not approach these wicked desires and
be seized by them to destroy us and annihilate us in the basest possible way. And
of course it would not be difficult for a leisured talker with more time perhaps
on his hands than he ought to have, to interpret the rest of the myth as well in
this way.
(5.18) For they add that some king of Libya set out to destroy this species of
creature, enraged as he was at the destruction of his people. And he found many
of them settled there, having taken over a dense wild wooded region beyond the
Syrtes. So raising a huge force he found their dens: for they were easily visible
from the tail-tracks of the serpents, and the dreadful stench from their lairs.
Having so surrounded them on all sides he hurled fire into <the dens>, and after
being cut off they were destroyed with their cubs, and the Libyans quickly took
flight, resting neither night nor day, until, reckoning that they had a long start,
they came to a halt beside some river. But those of the creatures who had been
away hunting, as soon as they realised their dens were destroyed, pursued the
army to the river, and destroyed the whole army, taking some of them as they
slept, the rest exhausted by their efforts. At that point, then, the work of destroy-
ing the species was not brought to an end by the king. But later on Heracles,
purifying the whole earth of monsters and tyrants arrived there too, set fire to the
area, and those that were escaping the flames he cut down, clubbing those that
attacked him and shooting with his arrows those that tried to run off.45
(5.22) So the tale perhaps hints that when someone of the many tries to purify
his soul as if it were an inaccesible region full of dreadful monsters, and taking
out and destroying the species of desires, expecting to be free of them and make
a complete escape, but not doing it thoroughly, a little later this is lost and totally
destroyed by his remaining desires. And Heracles son of Zeus and Alcmene saw
it through and proved his mind to be pure and gentle, and that this is what his
taming of the earth sets out to indicate.46
(5.24) Would you like me, then, to delight the youngsters as well by adding a
short tailpiece to the story? For they so totally believe it and are so convinced it
is true that they say that at some later time one of this species appeared to a party
of envoys from Greece to the shrine of Ammon, with a heavy escort of cavalry
and archers. For they thought they saw lying on a sand-dune a woman with a
sheepskin thrown over her head, as Libyan women do, but she was exposing her
bosom and breasts and her neck was thrown back; and they took her to be one of
96 Siren women

the courtesans from one of the villages going there for the crowd, and two young
men struck by her appearance went towards her, one outrunning the other. But
the creature, when she caught him, swept him down into a hollow in the sand
and ate him up. And the other lad running past saw what had happened and
raised the alarm, so that the rest of the party ran to help. But the creature rushed
at the lad snake part foremost, killed him and made off with a hiss. The body was
found rotting and putrifying. And the Libyan guides would not allow anyone to
touch the corpse, as this would have meant death for all.47

Hylas and the Nymphs: Antoninus Liberalis 26 (ATU 316)

(1) When the Argonauts had designated Heracles as their leader, he brought along
with him the orphaned son of Ceyx, Hylas, a young good-looking boy. (2) When
they arrived at the narrows of the Black Sea and were passing the headland of
­Arganthone, there was a storm, and a swell: they dropped anchor and rested from
the voyage. And Heracles prepared the heroes’ dinner. (3) But Hylas went with a pail
to the river Ascanius to draw water for the heroes. The nymphs saw him, daughters
of the river, and fell in love with him, and as he was drawing the water they drew
him down into the spring. (4) And Hylas disappeared, but Heracles when he did
not return left the heroes and looked everywhere in the woods and kept shouting
his name. The nymphs were afraid that Heracles would find that they were hiding
him, and they changed Hylas to an echo which often replied to H ­ eracles’ shout…
(5)… The local population still sacrifice to Hylas beside the spring, and the priest
hails him three times by name and three times the echo replies.48

Notes
1 On Circe Page (1973), 51–69; Schönbeck EM 3 (1981), 57–59; Heubeck-Hoekstra
(1989), 50–74. Scobie (1983), 229 classifies Circe’s transformative witchcraft as his
type IIA. It contains the motif of the observer who does not eat the magic food and
can accordingly outwit the witch.
2 The tradition of the beautiful but cruel otherworldly enchantress who enslaves men
in animal form is much older than the Odyssey: Gilgamesh enumerates the meta-
morphosed victims of Inanna/Ishtar, (VI ii–iii, Dalley, 78f.); and the tradition in the
Near East continues in the Arabian Nights’ Tale of Bedr Basim and others (Page, 60ff.).
Overall Homer seems to sacrifice the logic of the tale in favour of smooth integration
into the Odyssey.
3 The first expedition is largely redundant: Odysseus himself could have hung back like
Eurylochus and received Hermes’ help at that point. Eurylochus and his men do not
of course recognise the enchantment at the time. For a slightly different perspective,
Page, 53ff.
4 But not, as later in Apollonius Rhodius, assemblages of the spare parts of animals to
make horrid hybrids (Argonautica, 4.672–682).
5 Daughter of the Sun, according to Odyssey, 10.138.
6 The oral style of the Epic allows the fact of Circe’s movements at the loom to be
reported well-nigh verbatim, on the grounds that one action merits only one de-
scription and is perceived in the same way each time, largely regardless of the angle of
vision of the reporter.
 Siren women 97

7 Circe’s witches’ brew is remarkably consistent, right up to the comparisons of

St. ­Augustine, below.
8 The description of the metamorphosis is very cursory, as if Homer wants to maintain
an atmosphere of domestic realism throughout: Ovid puts the report into the mouth
of one of the crew, Macareus (Metamorphoses, 14.248–307), with rather more emphasis
on how the changes affect the victim. The purpose of the metamorphosis is not made
clear, and it may not have been clear to Homer: often, but not always, in mythologi-
cal tradition metamorphosis serves as a punishment. There is not a preponderance of
draft-animals here, nor a suggestion that the animals will be used for either food or
bestial practices.
9 A ‘normal’ form of theophany throughout ancient literature.
10 It is odd that Circe should prefer to enchant and dehumanise Odysseus rather than se-
duce him, again a detail drawing attention to the lack of firm motivation in Homer’s
version.
11 Argeiphontes (Slayer of Argus): the exact nature of Argus is not clear: Gantz, 201f.
12 For speculation on the nature of moly, Page, 64–68.
13 Hermes as the god of tricksters, rogues and good luck tends to play ‘magic helper’
parts in ancient fairy tale. The role of Hermes in the Arabian Nights’ version is played
by a friendly sheikh who tips off Bedr Basim (Page, 61).
14 Something of a lame contrivance, as in the corresponding recognition-scene of the
Cyclops story, below c.8.
15 Again touches of opulence and secrecy characteristic of fairy-tale fantasy (‘in the
palace in the wood…’).
16 Something of an afterthought, and not for the first time for Odysseus…
17 A rather lame excuse: compare Odysseus’ transformation at the hands of Athena for
the Nausicaa episode, 6.227–237.
18 Scobie (1983) studies Apuleius’ Golden Ass and the following two examples under
AT Types, 567, 449A and ML3045; Marzolph EM 14 (2014), 292–295. Augustine for
his part shares a common North African background with Apuleius, though the first
episode is located in Italy.
19 Here, in contrast to the presentation of Circe, there seems to be genuine motivation
for the transformation.
20 Cf. Yolen (1986), 308ff. (‘The Blacksmith’s wife of Yarrowfoot’).
21 Some kind of hallucinogen seems to be implied. Cf. the description of a witch’s flying
ointment in Apuleius 3.21 and Harper (1977), 105.
22 Philostratus introduces a popular local tradition with a veneer of philosophy, as far
removed as possible from the presentation in ‘Hansel and Gretel’: Scherf EM 6 (1990),
498–509. Demetrius the Cynic is a genuine historical figure, friend of the Younger
Seneca and of Paetus Thrasea.
23 Apollonius enjoys a kind of unchallenged superiority throughout the Vita Apollonii.
24 Philostratus, or one of his family, is interested in physical description, especially in
Heroicus and Gymnasticus.
25 One of the ports of Corinth.
26 And so an oriental voluptuary…
27 She is singularly direct: compare the overtures of Melite, the Ephesian widow,
to Clitophon in Achilles Tatius, 5.11.5f.; but these are done, as traditionally, by a
go-between.
28 Again, Philostratus has an interest in art work as part of his paideia, and may well be
the author of the first set of Imagines.
29 Menippus has no resources of his own, so at least the foreign woman is not parasitic
on his wealth.
30 Gardens of Tantalus: usually expressed as having receding and returning waters,
hardly the same idea as here (cf. Odyssey, 11.582–592).
31 A ‘nasty’, notably described to Dionysus in Aristophanes Frogs, 288–294, below. See
also below c. 11.
98 Siren women

32 Lamias and bugaboos: traditional child-eating monsters used to scare children: e.g.
Plutarch Moralia, 1040B; Strabo, 15.3.
33 Illusory banquets are an orientalising theme, expressed in a number of ways in ver-
nacular texts. One thinks of the feeding of the 4/5,000 in the Christian gospels
(Mark, 6.37–44, 8.1–9; Matthew, 15.32–39); but also of the tale of Judar and his broth-
ers in the Thousand and One Nights, where a Moorish magician can produce a meal
from a mysterious container, (Dawood, 341f.).
34 Evil spirits normally remonstrate against the interventions of the exorcist or holy
man: cf. Mark, 5.6–10.
35 Compare Hansel and Gretel; empousas feed on human flesh. This might be true of
innocent pre-pubertal children used in human sacrifice, but less likely for a 25-year-
old fully-grown man.
36 K.J. Dover on Frogs, 286–298.
37 Dionysus the god is en route to the underworld, and being naturally cowardly in
Comedy he tries to put his servant Xanthias between himself and a shapeshifting
apparition. Empousa’s shape as a beautiful woman suggests a siren quality; it may
well be, as Dover suggests ad loc., that Xanthias is having fun at Dionysus’ expense.
Empousa could be identified with Hecate herself, as at Aristophanes fragment 515.
38 A good example of the condescension which attaches to popular storytelling, dis-
missed as trivial by a political idealist such as Dio, but lavishly indulged just the same.
39 Such nonsense has to have a didactic motive attached in order to legitimise it.
40 Cf. Plato, Laws, 722D.
41 On the Libycus, Anderson in Swain (1999), 154–156. Sophistic preambles (prolaliae)
frequently draw their material from exotic locations in order to entertain the audi-
ence with diverting fare before settling into a more serious agenda.
42 A whirlpool region off the coast of Libya, proverbially inhospitable.
43 The overall function of the creatures appears to be similar to that of the Homeric
Sirens (Odyssey, 12.158–200); but the latter are sometimes depicted in visual sources
as winged, and not serpentine.
44 I.e. by terrifying fairy tales.
45 Philosophic tradition often idealises Heracles as a purifying crusader.
46 Compare the parable of the choice of Heracles (Virtue rather than Vice) in Dio’s first
Oration (1.58–84).
47 A reminder that Dio apparently considers a horrifying as well as obscene tailpiece as
suitable for young ears.
48 Strabo (12.4.3) describes a re-enactment of the search for Hylas at a local Bithynian
festival; and the local Mariandyni were noted for their style of ritual lament. The
three times repeated cry and sacrifice corresponds to the threefold sacrifice described
in Grimm tale 181, ‘The Nixie in the Pond’, where the objects offered are a comb,
flute and spinning-wheel. The modern tale is more complex than the Hylas story,
with a beginning in which the boy’s father is tricked into promising his son to the
supernatural agent:
A poor miller is tricked into promising his new-born son to a water-sprite. When
the boy grows up he is apprenticed to a hunter, becomes one himself, and acquires
a wife. On a hunting-expedition he unknowingly washes beside the millpond and
is taken by the water-sprite. The wife has it revealed to her that only if she offers
first a comb, then a flute, then a spinning-wheel, will her husband be progressively
revealed to her. They are united, but have to change to a frog and toad when the
pond floods, before finally finding each other in human form.
6
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS I

The magical world is evident once more in Hephaestus’ version of the ­‘himphamp’
or magic trap as a punishment for adulterers. Likely to incur the severest divine
displeasure are impiety to the gods, especially by murder, sacrilege or in the
breaking of the laws of kinship or hospitality (The Cranes of Ibycus; ­Erysichthon;
The Log as Life-token; Philemon and Baucis); so too is the reneging on bargains (‘The
Pied Piper of Troy’). The moral dimension of fairy-tale often asserts itself against
foolish greed, as in several variants on The Three Wishes. Perhaps most character-
istic among the repertoire of Fairy-tale punishments is Mercury’s lengthening of
an ungrateful woman’s nose!

The Magic Trap1: Homer, Odyssey 8.266–3662 (ATU 571B,

Lover Exposed)
(266) But the lyre-player struck up a sweet song about the love of Ares and the
lovely-garlanded Aphrodite: how first they slept together in secret in the house of
Hephaestus, and how Ares gave her many presents, and shamed the ­m arriage-bed
of Lord Hephaestus. But at once Helios came with the news, since he saw them
making love together. And when Hephaestus heard the painful tale, he went
off to his forge, plotting malicious revenge from the bottom of his heart, and
placed his great anvil on its block and cut out bonds that were unbreakable and
inescapable, so that they should stay stoutly in place. But when at last in his anger
against Ares he had forged his trap, he went to his bedchamber, where his own
bed stood, and he draped the thongs around the bedposts and hung many down
from the ceiling like fine spider-webs, so that no-one, even among the blessed
gods, could see them, so cleverly were they forged.3 But when he had hung all
his trap about the bed, he made to go to Lemnos, the stoutly built citadel, by
far the dearest land of all to him. Nor did Ares of the golden reins keep watch,
100 Rewards and punishments I

when he saw the famous smith Hephaestus going off, but he made for the house
of far-famed Hephaestus, desiring the love of well-garlanded Cythera4. And she
had just arrived from her father, the mighty son of Cronos, and had sat down. He
came into the house, and clasped her and spoke to her in these words5: ‘Come,
my darling, let us go off to bed and lie down, for no longer is Hephaestus in
the country, but already I suppose he is off to Lemnos, to the savage-tongued6
­Sintians’.7 At this she thought it delightful to lie down. The pair went to the
couch, and lay down to sleep. But round them fell the bonds forged by the cun-
ning Hephaestus. They could not stir their limbs nor raise them up. And then at
last they realised that no longer could they escape. And the illustrious god with
the limp in both legs approached them, after turning back before reaching the
land of Lemnos, for Helios had been on the lookout for him and had given him
the word. And he made for his own home with a heavy heart, and stood in the
vestibule as savage anger took hold of him. And he raised a terrible roar, and
shouted to all the gods8:

Father Zeus and other blessed and everlasting gods, come here so that you
may see laughable and intolerable acts, how Aphrodite daughter of Zeus
continually dishonours me as a cripple, and loves hateful Ares, because
he is handsome and strong-limbed, but I am ill-shaped; yet no-one is to
blame for that but my parents, who should never have conceived me. But
you shall see how the pair went into my bed and are lying down together
in the act, and I am stricken at the sight. Not that they will want to lie
like this any longer, amorous as they are. Soon the pair of them will not
feel like love-making, but my trap and bonds will hold them both until
her father pays back all my wedding gifts9 that I gave him in my wedding
settlement for this shameless girl, because his daughter is good-looking but
unfaithful.

(321) At this, the gods crowded towards his house with its bronze threshold.10
Poseidon the earth-holder came and Hermes the helper, and the far-darting lord
Apollo. But each of the lady goddesses stayed at home out of embarrassment. And
the gods, givers of good things, stood in the vestibule, and unquenchable laugh-
ter arose among the blessed gods when they saw the clever devices of cunning
Hephaestus. And one would say to the next:

wicked deeds do not prosper: the slow catches the swift, just as now
­Hephaestus, slow as he is, has caught Ares, swiftest as he is of the gods who
live on Olympus; and lame as Hephaestus is, he has done it by craft. And
this calls for an adulterer’s fine.

Such things they would say to one another. But Lord Apollo, son of Zeus, spoke
to Hermes: ‘Hermes, son of Zeus, guide and giver of good things, would you
be willing to sleep in bed beside golden Aphrodite though pressed with strong
 Rewards and punishments I 101

bonds?’. Then the Argus-slaying guide answered him: ‘Would that this might
happen, far-shooting lord Apollo: would there were three times as many im-
placable bonds about us and you gods and all the goddesses looking on, if only I
might sleep beside golden Aphrodite’.
(343) At this the immortal gods burst out laughing,11 but Poseidon did not
laugh, but kept praying Hephaestus, the renowned craftsman, to free Ares, and
spoke to him in winged words:
‘Free him, and I will pay you all your dues as you ask with the immortal gods
as witnesses’. The far-famed doubly-lamed one answered him: ‘Do not make me
this request, Poseidon holder of the earth. Sureties are worth little for people
worth little. How could I bind you among the immortal gods, if Ares should
walk off, avoiding his debt and his bonds?’
(354) Then once more Poseidon the earthshaker replied: ‘Hephaestus, should
Ares escape the debt and run off, I myself shall pay you this’. Then the renowned
doubly-lamed one answered: ‘It is not possible, nor would it be right, to doubt
your word’.12
(359) With this the mighty Hephaestus freed the bonds, and the pair, once
set free from the strong fetters, at once leapt up: Ares went to Thrace, and
­laughter-loving Aphrodite went to Cyprus, to Paphos, where she has her pre-
cinct and her sweet-smelling altar. There the Graces washed her and anointed
her with immortal oil, such as the immortal gods wear, and clothed her in lovely
garments, wondrous to behold.13

The Life-Token Log: Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.425–525

(ATU 1187, Meleager; Stith Thompson Motif D2063.1.1,
Tormenting by Sympathetic Magic)14
(425) Meleager pressed with his foot on the boar’s deadly head,15 and so an-
nounced: ‘take my rightful share of the spoil, Nonacrian lady,16 and may my
glory be shared with you’. At once he gives her as spoils the boar’s back, bristling
with stiff spines, and the head, amazing for its great tusks. The author of the gift
and the gift itself delighted her; but others were jealous, and there was a murmur
across the whole band; from among them the sons of Thestius17 held forth their
arms with a great shout: ‘Come, lay it down, girl, and do not usurp the honours
due to us, nor let confidence in your beauty deceive you, or the lovesick giver
of the gift will be not be able to help you!’ And they took the gift from the girl
and denied him the right to give it. The son of Mars Meleager could not bear
this, and seething with swollen anger he exclaimed: ‘You must learn, you who
rob someone else’s honour, how far deeds are different from threats’, and with
sacrilegious steel he drained the breast of Plexippus, who had not expected such
an act. Toxius did not know what to do, and wanted at the same time to avenge
his brother and feared his brother’s fate. Meleager did not allow him to hesitate
long, as he warmed with kindred blood once more the weapon still warm from
the previous slaughter.
102 Rewards and punishments I

(445) Althaea was in the act of bearing thank-offerings for her victorious son
into the temples of the gods when she saw the corpses of her brothers brought in.
She filled the city with beating of breasts and pitiful wailings, and exchanged her
gold-embroidered robes for black. But as soon as the murder was revealed, all her
grief fell away and was turned from tears to a desire for vengeance.
(451) There was a log which the three sisters (the Fates) placed on the fire as
Thestius’ daughter was resting after her birth-pangs18; and as they firmly pressed
the fatal threads with their thumbs, they chanted ‘we give you, newly born baby,
the same lifespan as the log’.19 After they had made their prediction and left,
Meleager’s mother snatched the burning branch from the fire and sprinkled it
with running water. For a long time it lay hidden away in the most secret of
shrines,20 and by its preservation it preserved your own life, young Meleager,21
as well. His mother brought out this log and ordered torches and kindling to
be put in place, and set the pyre alight with the hostile flame. Then four times
she tried to set light to the brand, and four times she checked her impulse: the
mother in her fought against the sister,22 and her two opposing names (sister and
mother) dragged her one heart back and forth. Often her face grew pale in fear of
her future crime; often her seething anger gave a redness of its own to her eyes.
And now her expression was like that of someone threatening some cruel deed,
now her face you could suppose was capable of pity; and when the fierce ardour
of her spirit had dried her tears, she nonetheless found still more tears, and as a
ship, snatched by the wind and the tide running against it, feels the twin force
and in its uncertainty tries to obey both, so did the daughter of Thestius wander
between her confused feelings, in turn laying aside her anger and reviving it once
laid aside. But the sister began to gain the upper hand over the parent, and to
soothe her brothers’ shades with blood she was pious in her impiety. For after the
destructive flame grew strong, she exclaimed: ‘May this dreadful pyre cremate
my own flesh and blood’, and as she held the fatal brand in her implacable hand,
the wretch stood before the sepulchral altars and said: ‘Triple goddesses of pun-
ishment, Eumenides,23 turn your faces to your Furies’ rites! I avenge one crime
as I commit another; death must be assuaged by death; one crime must be added
to another, one funeral to another; may an impious household perish in a heap
of mournings. Should happy Oineus rejoice in his victorious son, should Thes-
tius lose his offspring? Better for both to mourn. You now, my brothers’ spirits,
new ghosts, be aware of my duty and accept your funeral offerings shed at great
price, the evil offspring of my own womb. Alas, in what directions am I being
snatched? Brothers, pardon a mother, my hands are not equal to the task they
have begun: I confess he has deserved to die; I cannot approve his executioner.
So will he get off unpunished, and swelled by his own success hold the kingdom
of Caledon, while you lie there, a tiny pile of ash and cold shades? I for one will
not allow it; let the villain die and let him drag with him his father’s hopes, his
kingdom, and the ruin of his country! Where are my motherly feelings? Where
are the pious duties of parents, and the pangs I bore for ten whole months? If only
you had burned as a child with the first flames, and I should have suffered then.
 Rewards and punishments I 103

You lived by my gift. Now you shall die by your own desert. Take the rewards
of your deed, and give up the life twice given, first by birth, then by the removal
of the brand, or add me to my brothers’ burials. I want to act, yet cannot. What
am I to do? Now my brothers’ wounds are before my eyes, and the picture of
that awful slaughter. Now duty and a mother’s name break my resolve. Woe is
me! You shall overcome in great misfortune, brothers, yet overcome nonetheless,
provided that the solace I shall give to you, I myself shall follow as I follow you’.
(511) With this she turned her face away and, her right hand trembling, she
threw the fatal firebrand into the midst of the flames. The brand itself either gave
or seemed to give a groan, as it was caught by the unwilling flames and burned.24
(515) Unaware and far away, Meleager is burned by that very flame and feels
his innards scorched by unseen fires, and overcomes his great pangs with cour-
age. And yet he bewails the fact that he is dying a cowardly death in which no
blood is shed, and declares Ancaeus happy for the wounds he sustained from
the boar. Amid his groaning he calls on his aged father, his brothers, his duti-
ful sisters, his wife, with his dying breath; perhaps he even calls on his mother.
The flames and the pain increase and then subside again: both are extinguished
together and gradually his spirit departs into the insubstantial air, as white ash
covers the glowing embers.25

‘The Pied Piper of Troy’:26 Strabo 13.1.48; Apollodorus 2.5.9;

2.6.4; Servius on Aeneid 1.550 (ATU 570*, The Rat-Catcher; Stith
Thompson Motif D1427.1, The Pied Piper of Hamelin)
There is no continuous ‘Pied Piper’ tale surviving in classical literature; but the
three testimonia below show that the musician Apollo had an early reputation
for dealing with a plague of rodents; and that he and Heracles in turn punished a
city whose ruler refused to pay for services rendered by causing the removal of its
children. The motif of the [lame] child that got away is also present.
(Strabo 13.1.48) In this place, Chrysa, there is also the temple of Sminthian
Apollo; and the symbol which maintains the etymology of the title Sminthius,
namely the mouse, lies under the foot of the god’s image. These are the works
of Scopas of Paros; and associated with the site is the history or the tale (mythos)
about the mice. When the Teucri arrived from Crete (Callinus, the elegiac poet,
first handed down an account of them, and many others have followed), they re-
ceived an oracle to remain on whatever spot the earth-born should attack them.
They say this happened to them round Haxitus. For at night a great multitude of
field-mice swarmed out of the ground and chewed through the leather in their
weapons and equipment. And there the Teucri stayed. And they named the site
Ida after Mount Ida in Crete. Heraclides says that the mice swarming round the
temple were regarded as sacred, and for this reason the statue is constructed with
its foot resting on the mouse.
(Apollodorus 2.5.9) Apollo and Poseidon wanted to test the arrogance of
Laomedon, and disguising as men they contracted to build the walls of <the
104 Rewards and punishments I

Trojan citadel>, the Pergamum, for pay. When they had done so Laomedon
­refused to pay. So Apollo sent a plague and Poseidon, a sea monster, carried up
by a flood. (Servius on Aeneid 1.550) And so when Apollo was consulted…he
said that maidens should be offered to the monster. When this had happened
often and following an outcry Laomedon’s daughter Hesione had been bound
to a rock, a good many parents preferred to send their daughters abroad rather
than lose them at home; for others handed them over to merchants to carry
off.27 (Apollodorus, 2.5.9, 2.6.4) Seeing Hesione exposed, Hercules promised to
save her in return for the mares Zeus had paid as compensation for the seizure
of Ganymede. Laomedon agreed to pay, and Hercules killed the monster and
saved Hesione. But as Laomedon <again> refused to pay,28 Hercules sailed off,
threatening to make war on Troy… when he had captured the city he shot down
Laomedon and his sons except Podarces29 [Priam].

Moses and the Plague of the Firstborn: Exodus 8–1230 (RSV)

(8) Then the Lord said to Moses:

Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, Thus says the Lord: let my people go, that
they may serve me. But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will plague
all your country with frogs; the Nile shall swarm with frogs which shall
come up into your house, and into your bedchamber and on your bed, and
into the houses of your servants and of your people, and into your ovens
and your kneading bowls; and the frogs shall come up on you and on your
people and on all your servants.

And the Lord said to Moses, ‘say to Aaron, Stretch out your hand with your rod
over the rivers, over the canals, and over the pools, and cause frogs to come upon
the land of Egypt!’. So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and
the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. But the magicians did the same
by their secret art, and brought frogs upon the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh called
Moses and Aaron, and said, ‘Entreat the Lord to take away the frogs from me and
from my people; and I will let the people go to sacrifice to the Lord’. Moses said to
Pharaoh, ‘Be pleased to command me when I am to entreat, for you and for your
servants and for your people, that the frogs be destroyed from you and your houses
and be left only in the Nile’. And the Lord did according to the word of Moses; the
frogs died out of the houses and courtyards. And they gathered them together in
heaps, and the land stank. But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hard-
ened his heart, and would not listen to them. (Numerous plagues later, and as many
broken promises) (12.29) At midnight the Lord smote all the first-born in the land
of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the first-born
of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the first-born of the cattle. And
Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and
there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where one was not dead.
 Rewards and punishments I 105

Snow White’s Revenge: Servius Auctus on Aeneid 4.250

The Nile was the lover of Callirhoe, daughter of Ocean: from these parents was
born a girl called Snow White; while she lived in the country <she was raped
by a peasant>.31 Jupiter ordered Mercury to raise her up and mingle her with
the clouds. Hence it came about that the snows which the Greeks call chiones,
symbolising the girl’s pure life before her outrage, cling more to mountains; and
so falling as snow they lay waste the crops, to show their revenge for the outrage
she endured from the peasant.

The Spoilt Child: Cycnus Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses 1232

(Stith Thompson Motif H.1010, Impossible Tasks)
(1) Apollo and Thurie, 33 the daughter of Amphinomus, had a son called Cyc-
nus. This boy had a handsome appearance, but his character was without charm
and boorish. He was obsessively devoted to hunting, and lived in the country
halfway between Pleuron and Calydon. 34 And he also had very many admirers
because of his beauty. (2) But Cycnus in his arrogance35 would have nothing
to do with any of them. And soon he was loathed by his other admirers and
abandoned, and only Phylius remained loyal to him. But Cycnus insulted even
this admirer to excess. For at that time there appeared a huge lion in ­Aetolia, 36
which savaged men and flocks alike. (3) So Cycnus instructed Phylius to kill it
without the use of a sword. He promised to do so and destroyed it by the fol-
lowing trick. Knowing what time the lion would be on the prowl he filled his
stomach with a great deal of food and wine. And when the animal approached,
Phylius vomited the food. (4) And the lion was so hungry that it took this
food, and had its senses dulled by the wine, while Phylius covered his arm with
clothing he was wearing and obstructed the lion’s mouth. And taking up the
corpse and laying it on his shoulders he brought it back to Cycnus and enjoyed
widespread acclaim for his feat. (5) But Cycnus imposed another feat even more
absurd: for in that region there were vultures, colossal creatures, who killed
many men: these he commanded Phylius to take alive and bring back by any
means whatever. (6) Now Phylius was at a loss at this command, but provi-
dentially an eagle that had snatched a hare let it fall half-dead before it could
take it off home. And Phylius dismembered the hare and smeared its blood on
himself and lay on the ground. So the birds set on him as if on a corpse, and
Phylius, taking a grip of two and holding them fast, brought them home to
Cycnus. 37 (7) But he imposed a third task, more difficult still. For he asked
Phylius to bring a bull from the herd 38 with his bare hands and take it to the
altar of Zeus. Phylius was at a loss as to how to respond to the order; he asked
Heracles to come to his aid. 39 And in response to this prayer there appeared
two bulls in heat over a single cow, and striking each other with their horns
they fell to the ground. But Phylius, since they were exhausted, took one of
the bulls by the legs and brought it to the altar, but at the wish of Heracles he
106 Rewards and punishments I

ignored the boy’s further orders. (8) Cycnus was furious to be ignored, contrary
to his expectation, and in despair he threw himself into the Conopic lake as it
is called and disappeared.
And in addition to his own death, his mother Thurie threw herself into the
same lake. And at the wish of Apollo both became birds on the lake. (9) And
after they disappeared the lake too changed its name and became the Cycnaean
lake, and at ploughing time many swans appeared there. And nearby stands the
tomb of Phylius.40

The Cranes of Ibycus41: Suda s.v. Ibycus (ATU 960A)

Having been captured by robbers in a deserted place, [Ibycus] said that even the
cranes which happened to be flying overhead would be his avengers. And he
was in fact murdered, but after this one of the robbers seeing cranes in the city
said: ‘Look, the avengers of Ibycus!’ But someone heard this and made enquiries
about what had been said: the robbers confessed to the event, and were brought
to justice: hence the proverb came about ‘The cranes of Ibycus’.

Plutarch, Moralia 509E–510A (ATU 960A)

Were the murderers of Ibycus not captured by the same means? While they were
sitting in the theatre and cranes came into view, they whispered laughingly to
one another that the avengers of Ibycus had arrived. For those sitting beside
them who overheard, as Ibycus had already disappeared for a long time and was
being looked for, picked up on the remark and reported it to the authorities. And
having been convicted in this way and led off for punishment, they were not
punished by the cranes but by their own weakness of tongue, as if forced by a
Fury or Avenging Spirit to confess to the murder.

The Grateful Dead: Cicero de Divinatione 1.27.56f. (ATU 505)

An instance concerning Simonides42: when he had seen some unknown person
lying dead and had buried him, and intended to board a ship, he seemed to re-
ceive a warning from the man he had benefited by burial: if he sailed, he would
die in a shipwreck. And so Simonides came home safe, but those who sailed on
that ship were lost.

Foolish Wishes: Appendix Perrotina 4 (Stith Thompson Motif

J2072.3)
Once two women had accorded Mercury43 a mean reception, and entertained him
on the cheap. One of them had a little boy still in the cradle, while the other had
chosen to trade as a prostitute. (5) So in order to pay them back for their (misera-
ble) services, Mercury had told each of them as he was about to leave and already
 Rewards and punishments I 107

going out the door: ‘the person you see before you is a god44; I will grant you
right away anything you ask’. The mother asked to see her son in a beard as soon
as possible; (10) the prostitute asked that whatever she touched would follow her.
Mercury flew off, and the women went back inside. Amazingly, the child began
to bawl – in a beard; and when the prostitute was consumed with laughter at this,
her nose filled up with mucus, as it does. (15) And so as she wished to blow her
nose she took it with her hand and dragged it out till it touched the floor.45 And as
she laughed at someone else’s misfortune, she too turned into an object of laughter.

Foolish Wishes:46 Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.90–145 (ATU 775;

Stith Thompson J2072.1 Short-sighted Wish)
(90) But Silenus was absent (from Dionysus’ revels): the Phrygian peasants cap-
tured him tottering with old age and wine, and bound with garlands they led
him to king Midas, to whom Orpheus and Eumolpus, from the city of Cecrops,
had handed down orgiastic rites. The moment he recognised his associate and
companion in the holy rites, he merrily celebrated the advent of his guest for ten
successive days and nights. And already the eleventh dawn had driven off the lofty
host of the stars when the joyful king went into the territory of Libya and restored
Silenus to his pupil. To Midas the god gave the welcome but useless choice of
whatever gift he pleased, delighting in the recovery of his teacher. Midas, des-
tined to abuse his gift, said: ‘bring it about that whatever I touch with my body
should be turned into tawny gold’. Dionysus agreed to his wishes and paid him
with a gift sure to harm him, saddened that he should not have chosen better.
(106) The Berecynthian47 Midas went off delighted with his misfortune, and
tested the truth of the promise by touching individual objects. And scarcely
believing in his own powers, he pulled down a branch of a young holm-oak, a
branch burgeoning with green; the branch turned to gold. He lifted a rock from
the ground; the rock too turned pale with gold. He touched a clod of earth; at
his powerful touch the turf became a lump of metal; he pulled off ears of dry
corn; the harvest was golden; he held an apple taken from the tree; you would
think he had received the apples of the Hesperides. If he put his fingers to the
high gates, the gatepost seemed to shine. And even when Midas had washed his
hands in liquid water, the flowing water would have served to deceive Danae. He
could scarcely contain his hopes in his mind, as he imagined everything turned
to gold. As he rejoiced his servants set before him tables laden with banquets,
with an abundance of boiled fruit. Then at last if he had touched the fruits of
Ceres with his hand, the fruits of Ceres would harden; or if he made to chew
his meal with greedy teeth, he brought his teeth down hard on food that was
tawny metal. If he had mixed the wine-god, giver of the gift, with pure water,
you would see the wine flow solid through his open mouth. (127) Astonished
at the strange misfortune, and both rich and wretched, he wished to escape his
wealth and hated what he had only just prayed for. No amount of wealth could
relieve his hunger. Arid thirst parched his throat, as he was deservedly tortured
108 Rewards and punishments I

by the hateful gold. He stretched his hands and resplendent arms to the sky, and
exclaimed ‘Pardon, father Lenaeus, god of the wine-presses, I have done wrong.
But have mercy and wrench away my glittering curse’. The power of the god is
kindly: Bacchus restored the man who confessed his wrongdoing and destroyed
the gift he had given to honour his promise:

You are not to remain surrounded by the gold you craved: go to the river
that borders mighty Sardis, and make your way facing the river on its
downward path; follow the high banks until you come to the source of the
river. Bathe your head and body alike in the largest of its foaming springs,
and as you do so wash away your ill-starred deed.

The king immersed himself in the stream as the god had ordered. The force of
the gold touched the river and left the human body for the stream. Even to this
day the pale fields are solid, their clods sodden with gold, having taken on already
the seeds of the old vein.

The Foolish Wish: Aelian, Varia Historia 4.2548

Thrasyllus from the deme Aexone contracted an amazing and novel kind of mad-
ness. For he left the city and went down to the Piraeus, and lived there. He used
to think that all the ships that docked there belonged to him, and wrote down
their names and sent them off again, and was absolutely thrilled when they re-
turned safely. For a long time he continued to suffer from this mental aberration.
But his brother arrived from Sicily and handed him over for cure to a doctor,
and through this he recovered his wits. But often he harked back to the time he
spent in his delusions, and declared that he had never enjoyed himself as much
as when in those days he was delighted at the safe return of ships which did not
belong to him.49

Hospitality Rewarded: Philemon and Baucis50 Ovid,

Metamorphoses 8.618–724 (ATU 750B, Hospitality Rewarded)
(618) The power of heaven is immense and has no bounds, and whatever the gods
have willed is accomplished. And to lessen your doubt, there stands an oak-tree
next to a lime51 on the Phrygian uplands, surrounded by a little wall. I myself
have seen the place52; for Pittheus sent me to the fields of Pelops, once ruled over
by his own father. Not far from this site is a marshland once capable of supporting
life, but now a lake crowded with gulls and marsh-coots.
Jupiter once came there in mortal guise, and with his father came the grand-
son of Atlas,53 the bearer of the caduceus, but with wings laid aside.54 A thousand
households they approached looking for a place to sleep; a thousand households
barred their doors. But one household did receive them, tiny as it was, thatched
with straw and marsh-reeds. But in that cottage the dutiful old Baucis and
 Rewards and punishments I 109

Philemon her equal in years had been married in their youth, and in that cottage
they had grown old together.
(633) They lightened their poverty by acknowledging it, and they bore it with
resignation. It did not matter whether you looked there for masters or servants55:
the pair were the whole household; the same pair both obeyed and gave the
orders. So when the celestials reached their tiny household gods, and entered
through their humble doorposts, bowing their heads, the old man laid out a
couch, and invited them to rest their limbs; and busily Baucis threw over it a
rough cloth and stirred the warm cinders, and brought yesterday’s fire back to
life and nourished it with leaves and dry bark, and with her ageing breath she
brought it back to flames. And she brought down finely-split sticks and dry twigs.
She broke them up and put them under the tiny copper kettle. And from the
cabbage her husband had collected from their well-watered garden she removed
the (outer) leaves; he took a two-pronged fork and lifted the smoked back of a
pig hanging from a blackened beam, and cutting a tiny part of the back long
preserved, he softened the cut portion in the boiling water; meanwhile they be-
guiled the passing time with their chat…
…A soft sedge-mattress was placed on a couch with willow frame and feet.
This they covered with cloths, which they were accustomed to spread only at
festival times, but even the drape was cheap and old, not unworthy of the willow
couch. The gods reclined. The old woman tucked up her skirts and laid the table
with trembling, but one of the three legs was shorter than the others. She used
a tile to make it level. After this was put underneath and the slope was righted,
she wiped her levelled table with green mint. Here were laid the two colours of
olive, the berry of the guileless Minerva, and autumn’s cornel-cherries pickled
in vine-lees, and tiny onions and radishes and cream cheese, and eggs lightly
cooked over the warm ashes, all on earthenware plates. After this a mixing bowl
was set down, wrought of this same silverware, and beechwood cups, their hol-
low insides smeared with yellow wax. There was a short delay and the hearth sent
forth its steaming feast, and wine of no great age was once again brought, then
set aside to allow a small space for the second course. Here there were nuts, figs
mixed with wrinkled dates, fragrant apples in wide baskets, and purple grapes
picked from the vines; there was a white honeycomb in the middle,56 and above
all, friendly faces came to the table, and spontaneous and generous goodwill.
(679) Meanwhile they saw the mixing-bowl fill up again of its own accord as
often as it was drained, and the wine too filling up by itself.57 Astonished at the
strange sight, the pair were terrified and made a prayer by turning their hands
upwards, as Baucis and timid Philemon prayed for pardon for their food and
their lack of preparation. There was a single goose, the guardian of their tiny
estate, which the masters made ready to sacrifice to their divine guests. But the
quick-winged goose tired out the pair slowed down by their age, and for a long
time it escaped them and at last seemed to flee for refuge to the gods themselves,
who told them not to kill it. ‘We are gods, and your wicked neighbourhood will
pay the punishment it deserves. But you will be granted immunity from this
110 Rewards and punishments I

punishment; only leave your home and follow our footsteps and go together to
the mountain tops’.58 Both obeyed, and leaning on their sticks, they struggled
to plant their steps on the long slope. They were a single bowshot from the top
when they turned their gaze and saw the other dwellings sunk in a marsh, and
only their own home remaining.59 And as they showed their amazement and
bewailed the fate of their neighbours, that old house, tiny even for its two mas-
ters, changed into a temple.60 The forked supports gave way to columns. The
thatch turned yellow and assumed the appearance of a golden floor. The gates
were highly wrought and the earthen floor was covered in marble. Then the son
of Saturn spoke gently to them: ‘Tell me, dutiful old man and wife worthy of a
dutiful husband, what is your wish?’ Philemon spoke a few words with Baucis;
he revealed their common decision to the gods:

We ask to be your priests and to guard your shrines, and since we have
spent our years together in harmony, may the same hour take us both, nor
may I ever see my wife’s funeral pyre, nor should I be buried by her.61

Their prayers were granted. They served as the guardians of the temple, as long as
life was granted to them; but worn out with the weight of years, as they chanced to
be standing before the sacred steps relating the disasters that had befallen the place,62
Baucis saw Philemon put forth leaves and Philemon, the older of the two, saw
­Baucis do the same. And already as the treetops were growing over their two faces,
while they still could they exchanged their words: ‘Farewell, husband’, ‘­Farewell,
wife,’ they said together, as at the same time the bark covered over their lips and
hid them.63 Still on that spot the native Bithynians point out the neighbouring
stocks from their twinned trunk. This was told me by old men who were not fools
(nor had they any reason to deceive)64; I myself saw garlands hanging down over
the branches,65 and as I placed new ones there I said: ‘Those the gods look after
are themselves divine; those who worshipped are themselves to be worshipped’.66

Hospitality Denied: Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.317–381

(ATU 750E8, Flight to Egypt67 )
(317) One of them begins68: ‘The farmers of old in the fertile Lycian fields did
not spurn the goddess unpunished: the story is not well known because the men
were humble,69 yet it is amazing; I myself was there and saw the lake and the site
famed for its miracle. For my father, already advanced in years and not able to
travel a great distance, had told me to drive down from there choice oxen, and had
given me a Lycian guide; and as I went the rounds of the pastures with him we
actually saw in the middle of the lake the dark embers of an ancient altar stand-
ing surrounded by trembling reeds. The guide stood and with a fearful whisper
exclaimed ‘Have mercy on me’, and in a like whisper I repeated ‘Have mercy on
me’. I was asking whether this was an altar of the Nymphs or Faunus or of a local
deity, when my guide gave me this account: ‘It is not a mountain spirit in this
 Rewards and punishments I 111

shrine, young man. The goddess whom Jupiter’s consort once banned from the
earth claims it as hers…And now, when the hot sun scorched the fields in the land
of Chimaera-bearing Lycia, the goddess (Latona), weary with her long labour,
dried out with thirst from the heat of the sun, and drained of her breast milk by
her greedy offspring, happened to see a little lake in the floor of a valley. There
country folk were gathering osier bushes, and reeds and grasses from the marsh.
Titania70 approached and knelt on the ground to drink from the cool water. The
peasant throng denied her, and the goddess replied as they barred her:

Why do you prevent me from drinking? Water is for everyone.71 Nature

has not given anyone ownership of sunshine or air or gentle water; I have
come to what is a service for all. But I beg and implore you to give it to
me. I was not preparing to bathe my limbs and weary members, but only to
relieve my thirst. Even as I speak my mouth is dry, my throat feels parched,
and I am scarcely able to speak. A mouthful of water will be nectar to me,
and I will acknowledge that it has saved my very life. By allowing me water
you will have let me survive. Let these two children72 persuade you, as they
stretch out their tiny arms from my breast

(and by chance the children were indeed stretching out their hands). Who could
have remained unmoved by the goddess’ persuasive words? But these men per-
sisted in barring her for all her pleas, threatened her if she did not keep her dis-
tance, and added insults besides. Nor was that enough: they also disturbed the
very lake as well with their hands and feet, and moved the soft mud back and
forth from the bottom of the lake with their malicious leaps. Latona’s thirst gave
way to anger, for now Coeus’ daughter could no longer beg or bear to speak
further to the unworthy in less than divine words, and lifting her palms to the
heavens she said: ‘May you live for ever in your precious swamp!’
(370) The goddess’ wishes came to pass: it pleases them to live under water and
now let all their limbs sink in the hollow marsh: one moment to lean their heads
forward, one moment to swim in the whole lake, often to stand on the bank of
the swamp, often to jump into the lake, but now too to indulge in their quarrels
shamelessly. And though under water they still try to speak ill even there. Their
voice too is now raucous, and their inflated necks are swollen. And their very
din distends their spreading jaws. They stretch their unsightly heads, their necks
seem to have gone. They have green backs; their stomachs, the greater part of
their body, are white. They jump in the muddy water as new-formed frogs’.73

The Two Suitors: Appendix Perrotina 16 (Stith Thompson Motif

K1371.1, Lover steals Bride from Wedding with Unwelcome
Suitor; N721, Runaway Horse carries Bride to her Lover)
Two youths were wooing the same girl. The rich one won against the nobility
and good looks of the poor one. But when the day fixed for the wedding arrived,
112 Rewards and punishments I

(5) the disappointed lover, as he could not bear his grief, made his way to the
gardens next door; a little beyond them the rich man’s country mansion was
about to receive the girl from her mother’s bosom, because his house in town had
not seemed large enough. The procession sets forth, a huge crowd gathers (10)
and Hymen carries the marriage-torch in front. But a little ass that used to make
a little for the poor man was standing at the threshold of the gate. The bride’s
people happened to hire it to save the bride’s feet from the hard plod of the road.
(15) By the mercy of Venus there is a sudden wind storm, a thunderous crash in
the sky, and at the same time a hard hail-storm scatters her fearful colleagues
in all directions, (20) everyone forced to run for their own safely. The little ass
comes into his familiar shelter nearby and announces his presence with a loud
bray. The servants rush out, see the beautiful girl, and admire her; they announce
the news to their master. (25) He is sitting amid a tiny group of companions
consoling his lost love with drink after drink. When he hears the news, his joy
is rekindled. And with wine and love cheering him on, he performs the sweet
wedding rites amid the applause of his companions. (30) The bride’s parents seek
their daughter with a crier, the new ‘husband’ grieves for the loss of his wife.
After the townspeople found out what had happened, they all approved the mark
of divine favour.

The Fairy’s Revenge74: Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.738–878

(cf. ATU 779E, The Dancers of Kolbeck)75
(738) Nor did the wife of Autolycus,76 and daughter of Erysichthon, have
lesser powers77: her father was the kind to scorn the divine power of the gods
and offered no sacrifices on their altars. He is even said to have violated the
grove of Ceres with his axe, and ravished the ancient groves with his steel.78
There stood among them a huge oak strengthened by the years, one tree a
grove in itself; fillets and mindful tablets and garlands wreathed its middle,
proofs of the power of prayer.79 Often beneath the tree nymphs led their fes-
tal dances; often with their hands linked together in line they encircled the
measure of the trunk, and the measure of its wood was 15 ells; and it towered
as high above the rest of the wood as the wood did above all the grass. And yet
the son of Triopas 80 did not for that reason hold back his axe, and he ordered
his servants to fell the sacred oak81; and when he saw them hesitate to obey the
orders, the villain snatched the axe from one of them and uttered these words:
‘Even if she were a goddess, let alone the favourite of one, now she shall touch
the earth with her leafy top’. With this while he held his weapon poised for his
slanting stroke, the Deoian82 oak trembled and gave a groan,83 and at the same
time leaves and acorns alike began to pale, and the long branches too took
on a pallor. And when his impious hand made its wound in the trunk, blood
flowed from the severed bark, just as when a great bull falls victim before the
altar, as the blood pours from the break in its neck. All were aghast, and one of
the crowd dared to deter his sacrilege and stop the savage axe. The Thessalian
 Rewards and punishments I 113

saw him and said ‘receive the reward of a pious heart’, and turning the steel
from the tree to the man lopped off his head, and cut the oak with blow after
blow. And from the heart of the oak a voice like this was heard: ‘I am the
nymph beneath this wood, dearest to Ceres, and as I die I prophesy that the
punishment of your deeds is at hand, and this consoles me in my death’ 84.
Erysichthon completed his crime, and the tree, tottering under innumerable
blows and pulled down by ropes, fell down,85 and with its weight laid low
much of the wood.
(777) The wood-nymphs were amazed at their loss, and the loss sustained
to the forest, and in their dark robes of mourning they approached Ceres and
begged her to punish Erysichthon. The fairest of deities assented, and with a nod
of her head waved the fields laden with heavy harvest. She strove hard to devise
a pitiful kind of punishment, if anyone could have pity on him for his deeds: to
rack him with ferocious hunger. Since the goddess herself could not approach
(since the Fates do not allow Ceres and Famine to come together), she addressed
one of the mountain nymphs, a rustic oread, with these words:

there is a place on the furthest boundaries of icy Scythia, a gloomy soil,

a sterile land without corn or tree. There dwell Cold and Pallor and Fear
and gaunt Famine.86 Order her to hide herself in the wicked innards of
the ­sacrilegious wretch. Nor let abundance conquer her and let her over-
come my power in the contest; and do not be afraid of the distance of your
­journey, but take my chariot and guide its dragons aloft with your reins.

And she gave her the reins; she was carried through the air in the chariot Ceres
provided, and came down in Scythia. On the top of a hard mountain, which they
call Caucasus,87 she unyoked her serpents’ necks and saw Famine in a stony field
plucking the little grass with her teeth and nails. Her hair was matted, her eyes
hollow, her face pale; her lips were white with decay, her throat rough with scurf;
her skin was hard, and through it could be seen her innards; her bones stood
out dry under her hollow loins; instead of a stomach there was only a place; you
would have thought her chest hung loose and was held in place by the framework
of her spine.
Her thinness made her joints look larger, the rounded knees were swelling,
and her ankles came out as huge lumps.
(809) As soon as she saw her at a distance (for she did not dare to come near),
she passed on the goddess’ instructions. And although she stayed only a short
time, and kept her distance, and although she had only just arrived, yet she
seemed to have felt hunger,88 and turned about and drove her dragons on their
aerial reins back to Thessaly. Although always opposed to her task, Famine89
carried out the instructions of Ceres, and carried through the air on the wind,
arrived at the house as instructed. And immediately she entered the chambers of
the sacrilegious king, held him relaxed in deep sleep (for it was night), in both
her skinny arms, and breathed herself into him. She breathed on his throat and
114 Rewards and punishments I

chest and lips, and scattered hunger in his hollow veins. And when she had done
so she deserted the fertile world and returned to the homes of want and her usual
cavern.
(823) Still gentle sleep stroked Erysichthon with its gentle feathers. Under
the guise of a dream90 he sought banquets, moved his lips in vain and tired out
tooth upon tooth, exercising his deluded gullet on empty food. And instead of
banquets he devoured in vain the empty air. When his rest was at last at an end,
the craving to eat burned within him, and reigned throughout his greedy throat
and burning innards.91 Without delay he demanded the produce of sea, earth and
sky, and with the tables beside him complained of hunger, and amid feasts asked
for still more feasts. What was enough for cities and peoples was not enough
for one man; and the more he sent down to his belly, the more he desired. As
the sea receives the rivers from a whole land and yet is not filled with the wa-
ters, but drinks up the rivers that have reached it from afar, and as the rapacious
flame never refuses nourishment but burns innumerable brands, and the more
it receives the more it seeks, made hungrier by the sheer bulk it receives, so the
mouth of profane Erysichthon receives all his feasts and at the same time demands
more. All food in him causes him to crave more, and always does his stomach
become empty through eating.
(843) And already he had worn down his ancestral wealth through hunger
and the deep abyss of his belly, but dreadful hunger still remained unabated, and
the fire in his gullet raged unappeased.92 At length, when he had used up his
estate on his belly, there was still his daughter, too good for such a father.93 In his
poverty he sold her too: a high-spirited girl, she refused a master, and stretching
her hands over the neighbouring waves, she said ‘Snatch me from my master,
since you have the trophy of my virginity that you yourself snatched’. Neptune
indeed had it, and he did not spurn her prayer, but although her master following
had only just seen her, Neptune changed her form and gave her a man’s face and
garments fitting for a fisherman. Seeing her, her master said:

You who conceal the hook of dangling bronze in a little food, wielder of
the rod of reed, may the sea be calm, may the fish in the sea be credulous
and feel no hook till he is caught: the girl with dishevelled hair and poor
attire who stood on this shore (for I saw her standing here) – tell me where
she is, for her tracks go no further.

She realised that the god’s gift was turning out well, and delighted that she was
being sought from herself, she answered his question with these words:

Pardon me, whoever you are, I have not turned my eyes from this pool
in any direction; I have stuck to my concern for fishing. To assuage your
doubts, so may the god of the sea assist my craft, (as it is true) that no-one
for a long time on this shore, except for myself, nor any woman at all has
stood here.
 Rewards and punishments I 115

The master believed her, turned tail and walked the sand and went off deceived:
her own form returned to her. But when her father realised that his daughter
could change her shape, often he handed her over to masters, so that now a mare,
now a bird, now an ox, now a deer, she went off and provided unjust sustenance
to her greedy father. But when that evil force had consumed all his substance,94
and had given new sustenance to his dreadful disease, he himself began to tear
apart his own limbs with rending bite, and unhappily caused his body to grow
by diminishing it.95

The Fairy’s Revenge: Callimachus, Hymn 6.31–11796 (ATU 779E)

(31) But when the favouring spirit was angry with the sons of Triopas,97 then
wicked counsel possessed Erysichthon. He rushed with twenty servants, all in
their prime, all giant men each able to uproot a whole city98; he armed them
both with two-headed axes and with hatchets, and there was a poplar, a huge
tree reaching skywards, and at it by the middle of the day the nymphs used to
disport themselves. This tree he struck first, and it let out a cry of woe to the rest.
Demeter was aware that her sacred tree felt pain, and in anger she exclaimed:
‘Who’s been cutting my lovely tree?’99 Immediately she took on the appearance
of Nicippe, the girl the city had appointed as her public priest, with her garlands
and a poppy in her hand, and the key hanging from her shoulder. And she spoke
to calm the wicked and shameless man100: ‘Child, who cut the trees sacred to
the gods, child for whom your parents often prayed, stop and turn back your
servants, in case mistress Demeter should be angry, the goddess whose shrine you
are laying waste’. But he looked askance at her, more maliciously than a lioness
eyes a hunter in the hills of Tmarus101 – a lioness whose cubs are newly born,
whose glance is most dreadful of all. ‘Back’, he said, ‘or I shall fix my axe in your
skin. These trees will make me a sturdy house in which I shall always have joyful
banquets to satisfy my companions’.102 So the young man spoke, but Nemesis
set down on record his wicked utterance. (57) And Demeter was unspeakably
furious, and wore her divine shape. Her footsteps touched the earth, her head
reached Olympus. And the men were half-dead when they saw the great lady103;
they bolted at once, leaving their bronze axes in the trees. She left the rest, for
they only yielded to necessity under their master’s hand; but she replied to the
bad-tempered king, ‘Yes, yes, build the house, you dog, in which to hold your
feasts. For from now on you will have banquets galore’. And with as many words
she wrought mischief for Erysichthon. At once she implanted in him a dreadful
raging hunger, burning fiercely, as he was tortured by an awesome disease. The
accursed wretch, as much as he ate, so much again he was seized with desire to
eat. Twenty servants toiled to feed him, twelve drew off the wine. All that angers
Demeter angers Dionysus as well, and Dionysus was furious with him too. His
parents were ashamed, and would not send him to share a feast or dine with oth-
ers, and found every kind of excuse. The sons of Ormenos arrived to invite him
to the games in honour of Ithonian Athene. His mother refused them: ‘He is not
116 Rewards and punishments I

here, for yesterday he went to Crannon to demand a hundred oxen owed him’.
Polyxo, the mother of Actorion came – she was making ready for her child’s
marriage, and was inviting Triopas and his son. Tearfully she replied with a
heavy heart: ‘Triopas will come, but a boar drove at Erysichthon on fair-glenned
Pindus, and he has been bound in bed for nine days’. Poor loving mother, what
lying excuses did you not make! One man was giving a feast: ‘Erysichthon is out
of the country’. Another is having a wedding: ‘Erysichthon was hit by a discus’;
or ‘He fell from his chariot’, or ‘He is counting his flocks on Orthrys’.
(87) Then within his house he feasted all day long, eating all manner of count-
less dishes. And his wicked belly would leap up always eating more, and all the
food poured down, as if into the depths of the sea, in vain and with no thanks.
And like the snow on Mimas,104 like a wax doll in the sun, and even more than
these he wasted away right to his sinews; only sinew and bone were left on the
wretch. His mother wept, and again and again his two sisters gave a loud groan,
and the breast that nourished him and his ten handmaidens. And even Triopas
himself threw his hands on his grey hairs, beseeching the unheeding Poseidon
with prayers like these:

Look, false father, at this third generation of yours, if indeed I am the son
of yourself and Canace daughter of Aeolus, but this miserable brat is my
offspring: if only my hands had interred him, struck down by Apollo.
But now he sits before my eyes, an ill-starred glutton. Either remove this
tormenting disease from him, or take him and feed him yourself. For my
tables are exhausted. My folds are bereft of livestock, my byres are already
out of four-footed beasts, and already the cooks are saying there is nothing
left.

But they unyoked the mules from the great wagons, he ate the heifer his mother
was fattening up for Hestia, and the race-horse and war-horse, and the cat105 that
made the tiny vermin tremble. As long as there were provisions in the house of
Triopas, only the rooms of his own house were aware of his affliction. But when
his teeth had drained the great house, then did the king sit at the crossroads, beg-
ging for the crusts and the leavings thrown away from the feast.106 Demeter, let
it not be my friend who incurs your anger, nor the neighbour through the wall.
Ill-starred neighbours are abhorrent to me!

Tricking the Enemy into the Oven107: The Bull of Phalaris108

Lucian, Phalaris A 11f. (ATU 327A, Hansel and Gretel)

(11) There was a certain man in our city, a good metalworker but a wicked man.
This fellow completely misunderstood my attitude and thought he would please
me if he should devise some novel punishment, as if I wanted punishments of
every conceivable kind. And assembling the bull he brought it to me: it was a
 Rewards and punishments I 117

fine sight and a true likeness down to the very last detail, for it was only lacking
movement and mooing short of the real thing. When I set eyes on it I at once
exclaimed that this possession was worthy of Delphian Apollo, and that the bull
should be sent to the god. But Perilaus stood beside me and said: ‘but what if you
were to find out the clever contrivance in it and the use it provides?’ At that point
he opened the bull’s back and said:

If you want to punish someone, put him into this contraption and shut him
in, and attach these flutes to the bull’s nostrils, and order a fire to be lit un-
derneath, and the victim will moan and roar when he is seized by unremit-
ting pain, and his shouting by means of the tones of the flute will generate
the sweetest of sounds and will make mournful music and the most pitiful
lowing, and afford you delight through the playing of the flutes.

(12) But when I heard that, I was disgusted at the man’s perverted ingenuity and
hated the very idea of his machine, and imposed a punishment on him to fit the
crime. So I said ‘Now then, Perilaus, if this is not a mere empty promise, get
into it and show me yourself the true nature of your invention and imitate the
victims’ cries, to demonstrate the tunes voiced by the flutes’. Perilaus complied,
but when he was inside I shut him in and ordered the fire to be lit below, and said
‘Receive the just reward of your wonderful invention, so that you may be our
first music-teacher as you play’. And so he suffered a just punishment, enjoying
the fruits of his own inspired idea. But I ordered him to be taken out still alive
and breathing so as not to pollute the work with a corpse, and had him thrown
over the cliffs to remain unburied; purifying the bull I sent it to you the people
of Delphi as an offering to the god. And I ordered the whole story to be engraved
on it: the name of the donor, the name of the craftsman Perilaus, his invention,
the just punishment, his fitting reward, the songs of the ingenious metal-worker
and the first trying out of the music.

Hermes and the Golden Axe109: Fabulae Aesopicae Collectae

Halm 308 (ATU 729, The Merman’s Golden Axe)
A woodman beside a river lost his axe in the water. So at a loss he sat down beside
the bank and wept. But Hermes, finding out the reason for his grief, was sorry for
the man, and diving down into the river he brought up a golden axe and asked
him if that was the one he had lost. When he said it was not, Hermes brought up
a silver axe, but when he said this was not his either the god dived down a third
time and brought up the woodman’s own axe. When he said this was the one he
had lost, Hermes recognised his honesty by giving him all three axes. The man
joined his companions and told them what had happened. One of them decided
to do the same. And going beside the river he deliberately threw his axe into
the river and sat down and cried. Hermes appeared, and finding the cause of his
weeping he went down as before and brought up a golden axe and asked if this
118 Rewards and punishments I

was the one he had lost.110 And when he was delighted and said ‘Yes, that’s the
very one!’ the god was disgusted at such shameless fraud and not only did not give
him the golden one, but did not restore his own axe either.

Revenge on the Suitors: Ps.-Plutarch Amatoriae Narrationes 4

(ATU 780, The Singing Bone)
Phocus was a Boeotian from birth; for he came from Glisa, and was father of
Callirhoe, a girl of surpassing beauty and modesty. The thirty noblest young
men in Boeotia were her suitors. But Phocus caused one delay after another to
the marriage: fearing violence at their hands, and to put an end to their wooing,
he decided to leave the choice of husband to Delphi. But they were furious at his
decision: they rushed on him and killed him; but the girl escaped in the commo-
tion and fled through the countryside with the suitors in pursuit. But she came
upon farmers making a threshing-floor, and they gave her shelter, for they hid
her in the grain, and so her pursuers ran past. And she was rescued and observed
the festival for all of Boeotia, and then going to Coronea as a suppliant she sat
on the altar of Itonian Athena and related the lawless act of her suitors, revealing
the name and origin of each. So the Boeotians took pity on her and were furious
with the young men. They for their part saw this and fled to Orchomenos. The
inhabitants refused them and they made for Hippotae, a village beside Helicon
between Thisbe and Coronea, which accepted them. Then the Thebans sent men
demanding the murderers of Phocus. But they refused to give them up. They sent
a force with the other Boeotians under Phoedus, who was then in command of
the Thebans. They invested the village, which was well defended, but with the
inhabitants suffering from thirst they captured the murderers and stoned them.
They enslaved the inhabitants and demolished the walls and divided the land be-
tween the people of Thisbe and Coronea. And they say that at night, before the
capture of the Hippotai, a voice form Helicon was frequently heard saying ‘I am
here’, and the suitors recognised this as the voice of Phocus.111 And on the day
they were stoned, the old man’s memorial in Glisa was said to run with saffron…

Notes
1 Garvie (1994), 293–312; Wehse EM 8 (1996), 1056–1063; Hainsworth-Heubeck-West
(1998), 363–372.
2 An adulterous pair are caught and exposed in a compromising position by means of a
strange magical device which somehow locks them together. This may be a metal ob-
ject forged by a smith, humorously called a ‘Himphamp’, or a magically ‘adhesive’ ani-
mal, such as a magical crocodile or a goose. Sometimes an agent reports to the husband,
here a fellow god; in an ancient Egyptian example, the wronged husband Ubainer.
3 In the ‘traditional’ Himphamp version in Aarne-Thompson-Uther 571B the device
is an iron chamber-pot, and the wronged husband, as here, a blacksmith. The precise
mechanism in Homer is not clear: he is no less reticent than in the case of Circe and
her shape-shifting potion.
4 I.e. Aphrodite, identified by a favourite shrine at Cythera.
 Rewards and punishments I 119

5 Compare Ubainer’s wife’s speech, Parkinson (2007), 107f.

6 Lemnos and the Sintians carry a stigma, of base industrial work: it is aristocratic to
wield weapons, not to make them.
7 In Afanas’ev’s Russian version (13ff.) the merchant goes to his stall in the market (but
does not actually devise the trap, which happens spontaneously).
8 Ubainer takes his case to the pharaoh, and the adulterers are killed; the merchant
in Afanas’ev simply beats the lovers, not a practical punishment in the case of
­Hephaestus and Ares.
9 The merchant likewise refuses to release the lovers by calling off the magic goose,
until his wife has made a full confession (Afanas’ev, 15), while Ubainer’s wife’s lover
is trapped in the pool for a week till Ubainer himself is free to attend to the matter.
10 In Afanas’ev the crowd is in the market place, to which the errant pair have been
dragged by the magic goose; others have stuck to it on the way.
11 Laughter is the emphasis of type ATU 571B: everyone sticks to the goose and makes
the laughter-less princess laugh. There is no adultery in that instance.
12 The adulterer’s game suggests a sophisticated and gentlemanly amusement, in con-
trast to the peasant slapstick of the Russian tale.
13 After the sexual humiliation she needs to purify herself: one does not actually beat
even adulterous goddesses in Homer.
14 Commentary: Hollis (1970); Brednich EM 9 (1999), 547–551. A mother rescues her
son from the Fates by preserving a log from the fire, when they had condemned him
at birth to live no longer than the burning wood. She finally does burn the life-­
token log when he kills her brothers in a quarrel, and he dies accordingly. The tale
illustrates several typically folkloric features:
1 The operation of the Fates at the birth of the child;
2 The preference of sibling kinship over offspring;
3 The operation of sympathetic magic.
The last of these entails the use of the life-token, similar to an external soul: destroy
that and you destroy the object of vengeance. Ovid’s version tends rather to empha-
sise the theatrical aspects of Althaea’s inner torment, and the pathos of Meleager’s
ultimate fate. But the fairy-tale pattern is clear enough: the wise women have given
Meleager a very specific lease of life, which his mother can control at will, punishing
him for the murder of his two uncles as she pleases.
Kakridis (1949) offers no fewer than 13 modern analogues from Greece and
­Turkey. The motivations in the folktale versions vary considerably, such as a father’s
quarrel over property (3), a man’s quarrel with his wife after his mother’s death (4) or
the wife burns it out of carelessness (9), ignorance (13) or adulterous passion for his
brother (10). Kakridis (1949) lists thirteen variants of the story. The closest is the first,
a Cypriot variant recorded in 1939 (Kakridis, 128), where the victim kills a single
uncle, in this case because of a false rumour that the uncle had been planning to kill
his mother; she then kills the son.
15 In Ovid’s version the brothers are jealous of the honours given by Meleager to
­Atalanta for her prowess in the Caledonian Hunt; the Cypriot version motivates the
jealousy through the hero’s marriage to a princess.
16 I.e. Arcadian, after the local Mount Nonacris.
17 And so Meleager’s uncles.
18 Seven days after the birth, as in Apollodorus 1.65, Cypriot; on the third day in a
Turkish variant (Kakridis number 3, 129).
19 Meleager’s mother Althaea kills him by means of a magic life-token in the form of
the log: for the motif of fairies commuting a death sentence to one of a shorter life,
cf. Perrault’s version of The Sleeping Beauty, Opie and Opie (1980), 109. The Cypriot
version gives the hero gifts (handsome appearance, a singing voice) from the first two
fates, the life-sentence from the third (Turkish 3, riches instead of a singing voice).
120 Rewards and punishments I

20 Most modern versions have it in a chest; Apollodorus 1.8.2 and Bacchylides 5.141
have it in a larnax.
21 ‘Pathetic’ second person by which the narrator affects to be a direct witness of the
scene.
22 Pugnat materque sororque: Ovid rhetoricises the maternal conflict over a number of
varied expressions.
23 The Eumenides’ interest is as avengers of the murderer of kin, such as Orestes of his
mother Clytemnestra, or the Theban brothers Eteocles and Polyneices of each other;
on the theme of Intaphrenes’ wife, Kakridis (1949) Appendix 3.
24 In the Cypriot version the victim falls down dead in the palace itself.
25 A note of genuine pathos after the contrivances of Althaea’s speech.
26 Anderson (2000), 133–135. A king promises to pay an oddly-dressed musical
­rodent-catcher for services rendered. When he twice refuses to pay, first the girls,
then the young men, are deported/destroyed; one boy lives to tell the tale. There is
no continuous ‘Pied Piper’ tale surviving in classical literature; but the three testi-
monia above show that the musician Apollo had an early reputation for dealing with
a plague of rodents; and that he and Heracles in turn punished a city whose ruler
refused to pay for services rendered. This is a more complex Pied Piper story than
the modern local legend centred on Hamelyn: three creditors are not paid (two gods
and one hero) and so it is more difficult to produce a recognisable narrative. Apollo’s
credentials as a rodent catcher are well documented, but are not actually used in the
story as transmitted. He does seem to have an odd costume, though it is difficult to
work out what the oddity actually is.
27 I.e. only the girls are lost at first.
28 Yet a third supernatural helper is left unpaid. In effect we have three Pied-Pipers of
Troy.
29 The purpose of the sole survivor in the Hamelyn version is to witness how the
children actually disappear. In this instance it may be rather to witness the justice of
Priam (whom Diodorus reports as the only son to advocate honouring the original
agreement, 4.32.1–5). Normally the child is lame and cannot keep up. In the present
instance he may simply be too young to fight.
30 The version in Exodus repeats the motif of the plague a number of times with differ-
ent animals: but the ultimate effect is the same: the loss of the young male popula-
tion, and then of the workforce, the children of Israel themselves. The rod of Aaron
functions clearly enough as a magic wand. It demonstrates that the operations of the
plague-god involve animals and the revenge of someone who can control them.
31 The phrase is supported by only one MS (F), but is clearly inferred from the rest of
the narrative. If the missing portion had been longer, it might have supplied a death
or suicide for Chione herself.
32 As told by Nicander, Metamorphoses 3 and the Laconian Areus in an Ode to Cycnus,
both known only from Antoninus Liberalis, 12, whose commentator Celoria hails it
rather contemptuously as ‘showing the marks of being cobbled together by a village
storyteller rather than an editor’. Hansen, 338.
33 Ovid gives her name as Hyrie.
34 As chief towns of Aetolia.
35 Mythographers are characteristically hard on arrogant lovers.
36 Compare the remark of Agathion, below c.12.
37 The method is familiar from the Second Voyage of Sindbad in the Thousand and One
Nights (Dawood, 125f.), prior to the example cited by Celoria.
38 Again, compare the feats claimed by the Agathion known to Herodes Atticus,
­Philostratus VS, 554 (c.12 below).
39 Who had wrestled with the Cretan bull, the seventh labour.
40 A modern folktale parallel occurs in the north European story of Aioga, Anderson
(2000), 22.
 Rewards and punishments I 121

41 Hansen (2002), 89–92; Schmitt EM 8 (1996), 331–334. In addition to the idea that
the robbers convict themselves there is also an element of the sanctity of artists, as
shown also in the story of Arion of Lesbos, c. 10 below. This factor is not in evidence
in the version known to Iamblichus (Life of Pythagoras, 27.126), where the victims are
simply boys.
42 Röhrich EM 3 (1981a), 306–322.
43 Mercury/Hermes is an ambiguous figure, both patron of thieves and tricksters, and
yet ensuring just deserts.
44 And so capable of being later transformed into a fairy or a local saint.
45 The extended nose is comparable to the sausage stuck to the end of the wife’s nose in
English versions of The Foolish Wishes (Middle Eastern versions have the husband’s
wish for an extended penis, expurgated in the West).
46 One foolish wish rather than three; or rather two, with the second cancelling the
first, rather than as usually the third cancelling the second. Chessnut EM 14 (2014),
1076–1083.
47 i.e. Phrygian, after the local Mount Berecyntus.
48 As noted by G. Husson (1970) on Lucian’s Navigium; also Hansen (2002), 476f.
49 This instance is presented as a genuine historical report of delusive behaviour; it has
none of the secondary features of the tale type, and may be no more than an amusing
anecdote, as Aelian himself probably intended.
50 Hansen (2002), 220–222; Hollis (1970), 108–128 (unmentioned by Hansen);
Chessnut EM 14 (2014), 1076–1083.
51 The first metamorphosed from Philemon, the second from Baucis. These rustic cults
are both Middle Eastern and Graeco-Roman.
52 Theseus and his old retainer Lelex, the present speaker, are guests of the river
­Achelous in his underground cave, waiting for his own floodwaters to subside after
the Caledonian hunt. The story is told, like that of Erysichthon shortly afterwards,
as an exemplum or cautionary tale against impiety and abuse of the laws of hospital-
ity. The theophany of Jupiter and Mercury is well compared to the reception of Paul
and Barnabas at Lystra in Phrygian Galatia (Acts 14); epigraphic evidence supports
local joint worship of Zeus and Hermes.
53 Atlantiades: ‘descendant of Atlas’, the latter his maternal grandfather.
54 Hollis notes the general similarity with Odysseus’ visit to the humble swineherd
Eumaeus in Odyssey, 14, and the scenario where Theseus visits the equally humble
Hecale in Callimachus’ Hecale: but neither embodies the actual tale here, unless we
see the wicked suitors as turning down the disguised Odysseus and paying with their
lives.
55 An Ovidian humorous touch, comparable to the treatment of Deucalion and
Pyrrha in Met. 1.355 (Nos duo turba sumus – ‘we two are a crowd’).
56 The rustic humble board and lifestyle are Italian rather than Middle Eastern, as
Hollis points out (111f., 119).
57 For the self-replenishing bowl, cf. the widow’s cruse made self-replenishing when
the prophet Elijah visits, (1 Kings, 17.8–16).
58 Deucalion and Pyrrha in Metamorphoses 1 survive similarly while the wicked around
them are drowned, but without the improvised theoxeny depicted here.
59 There was strong local tradition of flooding round Apamea and Iconium, both with
reference to a local Deucalion legend and the early 3rd century tradition of an ark.
William Calder saw what he interpreted as continuous flood tradition at Iconium
until the 20th century. Hollis seems unduly cautious about how Ovid could know
such information; but a broader knowledge of the nature and diffusion of flood
tradition and its moral connotation (the wicked perish, the good are saved) explains
the correspondence adequately; and Middle Eastern flood tradition goes back to
Atrahasis and Gilgamesh.
60 A rare instance of a house rather than people or animals metamorphosed.
122 Rewards and punishments I

61 With ordinary disposal of the dead ruled out, the way is open for metamorphosis of
the pair.
62 Either by reminiscing or recounting what is now the temple legend of the locality to
others.
63 Synchronised metamorphosis, and a faintly ludicrous nuance. The site is Bithynian
only in the loosest sense, and the reading must remain suspect.
64 Lelex here bears witness to local oral tradition, and the local hero-cult of the pair.
65 Hollis (109) noted a tree at the Cilician Gates ‘covered with pious rags and sur-
rounded by a rampart of small stones placed there one by one by modern travellers’.
66 Compare a Yorkshire local legend, (Briggs DBF, 2.2.349): A long time ago there was a
village in the North Riding of Yorkshire called Simmerdale, at one end of which stood
a church, and the house of a Quaker woman at the other end. It happened one day that
a witch came into the village, and beginning at the house next to the church asked for
food and drink, but her request was refused. And so she went on from house to house,
without getting any food or drink, until at last she came to the Quaker woman’s house.
There, sitting in the porch, she was regaled with bread, meat and beer. Having finished
her repast, she rose and waved an ash twig over the village, saying:
‘Simmerdale, Simmerdale, Simmerdale, sink,
Save the house of the woman who gave me to drink’.
When the witch had said these words the water rose in the valley and covered the
village, except the old woman’s house. Simmer water is now a peaceful lake, and on
fine clear days people in the neighbourhood can see down in its placid depths the
ruins of the village and the church.
67 ATU uses a Christian example: Gypsies refuse to give the Holy Family refuge, and
in return they are condemned to wander ever after.
68 The narrator is among those who have just heard how Latona’s grown-up offspring
Apollo and Diana have murdered Niobe’s children because of their mother’s irrev-
erent boasting.
69 Res obscura quidem est ignobilitate virorum (‘The matter is unfamiliar because of the
men’s lowly status’). Ovid undervalues and underestimates the strength of local and
oral tradition, in contrast to educated, literary transmission of material.
70 The goddess Latona (Leto), as daughter of the Titan Coeus.
71 Despite her extreme condition, an Ovidian heroine can always summon the energy
for a smart rhetorical display!
72 The newly born Apollo and Diana, persecuted by Latona’s rival Juno.
73 The Latin text postpones the nature of their transformation to the very last word:
ranae.
74 A nature spirit (nymph, fairy) requests a king not to cut down her tree; her mistress
inflicts him with the punishment of uncontrollable hunger. Two versions are given:
Ovid’s in Metamorphoses 8 and the earlier Hellenistic telling in Callimachus Hymn 6.
A third elaborate version of the story survives as a Modern Greek folktale, reported
by Jacob Zarraftis from an old woman from Asphendiou on Cos towards the end of
the 19th century, and translated by R.M. Dawkins in his Forty-five Stories from the
Dodekanese (Cambridge 1951), 134ff. under the title Mygdonia and Pharaonia. The
scale is similar and some of the resemblances close enough to raise the suspicion (but
not the proof ) of a literary intermediary. The narrator expands on the cutting down
of the trees, plural in this case, with the grotesque image of the bloodied tree-fairy.
The king’s sword is wedged in the tree he struck, and is used by a horrid nightmare
image of Hunger who plunges it into the perpetrator’s throat, where it implants
hunger itself. The insatiable appetite is then duly narrated; the king sells his son but
is about to eat his own daughter, before turning cannibal on himself and dying with
his nails in his mouth. The appropriate use of the sword as the avenger is unique to
this version; the description of the burning and cold sensations is reminiscent of the
term Aithōn (‘burner’) for Erysichthon himself. Both touches hint at the possibility
 Rewards and punishments I 123

of an independent version, close to the Ovidian horrors, especially in the description

of Hunger, and far removed from Callimachus’ light touch.
75 ATU offers a Christian example to typify the tale: the dancers of the fictitious ­Kolbeck
profane a Mass in the church by holding a dance outside. The priest curses the danc-
ers who are condemned to dancing perpetually till they dance themselves into the
ground making a hole and they finally die. As the impious E ­ rysichthon’s hunger is
cursed into becoming perpetual, so the impious dancers are forced to ­perpetuate
their own form of impiety.
76 A son of Hermes, and likewise a trickster.
77 The tale of Erysichthon is told as a run-up to the metamorphoses of his daughter
(Hyper)mestra, here unnamed.
78 A perilous impiety even in historical times: see Dio, 51.8 on P. Turullius, executed
under Augustus for downing a grove of Asclepius to build boats; cf. Philostatus VS,
614 on Heraclides of Lycia.
79 Leaving Erysichthon in no doubt about its sacred character.
80 An alternative reading is Dryopeius, connecting him with the barbarous Dryopes; he
himself was a king of Thessaly.
81 Oak as in the modern Mygdonia and Pharaonia, poplar in Callimachus.
82 As the oak of Deo, Ceres/Demeter.
83 Ovid emphasises the animate qualities of even the tree-form of the nymph; compare
Aeneid, 3.22–46, the attempted uprooting of the bush that contains the corpse of
Elpenor.
84 The Modern Greek version also includes a curse of the sacrilegus at this point.
85 It is Callimachus (Hymn, 6.63–65) who reflects the ‘correct’ explanation for Hunger
as the punishment: the wood was intended for a banqueting hall.
86 Ovid uses the tale as a peg for a highly literary ecphrasis of Hunger herself, like his
treatment of the Cave of Sleep or the dwelling of Envy, with their parades of appro-
priate allegorical figures.
87 Sometimes identified with the Rhipaean mountains, set vaguely in the north, and
appropriate for the fantasy-landscape here.
88 As Iris in Metamorphoses, 9.630f. feels the effect of sleep.
89 The description of Famine offers a celebrated rhetorical ecphrasis in its own right; the
Modern Greek version is quite close, perhaps even suspiciously so.
90 He dreams also in Pharaonia, but a more ominous dream: it is his sword still sticking
in the oak that implants the hunger.
91 He was early named Aith ōn (‘burner’) in respect of this torment.
92 The feeding of Erysichthon is described in much more detail in the other versions:
Ovid has ‘shot his bolt’ with the horrific description of Hunger herself.
93 Ovid now moves to what is really a subsidiary tale: Hansen (2002), 189f. (­‘Hatchpenny’).
Hypermestra uses her powers of metamorphosis to feed her father. In the folktale he
has only a daughter and a son to sell. Ovid reserves his comic touches for the trickery
of Hypermestra, pretending not to have seen herself… In Pseudo-­Hesiod ­Erysichthon
even tries to swindle Sisyphus by selling Mestra as a bride for Glaucus; Athena ­arbitrates
and Erysichthon seems the loser.
94 It is not explained why the income from the daughter’s metamorphoses can no
longer support her father’s cravings.
95 The tale ends not in tragedy but in a typically Ovidian grotesque: for a similar ex-
treme of sick humour, cf. the picture of Marsyas’ asking ‘why are you wrenching me
from myself?’ when he is being flayed alive (6.385).
96 McKay (1962).
97 King of Thessaly.
98 Callimachus allows fairy-tale giants here: Erysichthon has twenty ‘heavies’, but
Demeter reaches the sky in due course…The general mood is fantastic and light-
hearted.
99 The form of question is not confined to the Seven Dwarfs and Three Bears.
124 Rewards and punishments I

100 The black-and-white moral indignation of the modern tale-teller, once more.
101 Tmarus: a mountain in north-western Greece south of Dodona.
102 And so the punishment of hunger fits the crime.
103 Giants though they be.
104 Proverbially inhospitable: the shoals and shallows extend from Tunisia to Cyrenaica.
See Pliny NH, 5.26–41: the lotus-eaters were also localised here.
105 By a deliberate anti-climax.
106 His ultimate fate is not described: social humiliation rather than cannibalism is in
question.
107 Scherf, EM, 6.498–509.
108 The context is a fictitious declamation in which Phalaris, an actual tyrant of
­A grigentum, (6th century BC) justifies his gift of a dedicatory offering to Delphian
Apollo. I can find no precise equivalent of the Hansel and Gretel story in a fairy tale
context in Antiquity.
109 Hansen (2002), 42–44, noting the theme of ‘unsuccessful repetition’, and compar-
ing a modern French Canadian version with a mermaid as the supernatural helper,
appropriate to the context of the river. Uther, EM, 14 (2014), 132–135. Hermes here
is an upholder of honesty, though he can just as readily be a patron of rogues.
110 In the minimalist telling of the story the bringing up of the silver axe is unsurpris-
ingly dropped: the rogue has already established his mendacity.
111 Cf. the reaction to the death of the Biblical Abel (Genesis, 4.10: ‘The voice of thy
brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground’).
7
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS II
Three innocent slandered maidens

Three romantic tales underline the themes of surpassing beauty, extreme ­jealousy
and their un-looked for consequences against very well contrasted contexts. The
first is told by one of the Minyads to her fellow tale-tellers to relieve the boredom
of repetitive work: its consequences are equally tragic for the innocent victim of
slander and its ungracious perpetrator, as they account for the aetiology of plants;
the second is presented as historical legend leading to the foundation of Cyrene,
thanks to a clever trick to preserve the life of another victim of slander; the third
shows the incorporation of a traditional tale-type to form much of the material of
a Greek novel, once again with a homage to historical fantasy, this time halfway
towards the realism of New Comedy.

Leucothoe and Clytie: Ovid Metamorphoses 4.167–271

(cf. ATU 480, The Kind and the Unkind Girls)
(167) After a short interval Leuconoe began,1 and her sisters were silent2…(195)
‘You,3 the sun who ought to look on all things, look only at Leucothoe and
fix your gaze on one maiden when you owe it to the whole world…(204) you
love her alone, …<and not> Clytie, whom you scorn, however much she has
sought your embraces and even now has the grave wound in her heart…(218)
The god entered his beloved’s chambers, taking on the appearance of her mother
Eurynome. He sees Leucothoe amid her twelve handmaids, drawing the light
threads on her whirling spindle. Then he kissed her as her mother would have
kissed her beloved daughter, and said ‘this is an intimate matter, servants take
your leave, and do not deny a mother her private words’. The handmaidens
obeyed; and when there was no witness left in the room he said ‘I am the one
who measures the long year, I am the one who see everything, by whom the
earth sees everything; I am the eye of the world. Believe me, you are pleasing to
126 Rewards and punishments II

me’. The girl was afraid, as the distaff and spindle fell as her fingers lost their grip.
Fear itself became her. Nor did he delay a moment longer, but returned to his
true shape and accustomed brightness. But the girl, terrified at the unexpected
sight, was overcome by the brilliance; she did not protest but suffered his force.
(234) Now Clytie was jealous, for the love of the sun still burned unmoder-
ated within her. Goaded by anger at her rival she blazed the girl’s shame abroad
and spread the news to Leucothoe’s father.4 He was fierce and unmerciful as
she stretched her hands out to the light of the sun and declared ‘He forced me
against my will’. Her savage father buried her deep in the ground and heaped up
the heavy sand in a mound. Hyperion’s son broke the mound with his rays and
made a way for you to be able to bring forth your buried face; nor were you able,
nymph, to raise your head, crushed by the weight of earth, and you lay there a
lifeless corpse. Nor is the driver of the winged steeds said to have seen anything
more pitiful since the flames that burned Phaethon. He for his part tried with
the force of his rays to recall her cold limbs to the warmth of life, but since fate
prevented his mighty efforts, he sprinkled the body and the ground with fragrant
odour and with many words of grief he said ‘And yet you will reach the air’. At
once the body, imbued with divine nectar, melted away through the ground and
dampened the earth with its fragrance; and a bush of frankincense arose slowly
from its deep roots and broke through the mound with its top.
(256) As for Clytie, although love could excuse her grief and although grief
could excuse her gossip, no longer did the source of light approach her, nor did
he find anything attractive about her. For this reason she faded away, and her
love became madness. She could not endure her fellow nymphs, but beneath
the sky night and day she sat on the ground naked, with her hair uncovered and
unkempt. And for nine days on end without food or water she fed her hunger
only from dew and tears, and did not move from the ground. She only gazed at
the face of the god as he went on his way and turned her face towards him. They
say her limbs stuck to the earth, and her lurid paleness changed to a bloodless
plant.5 And she was in part red, and a flower covered her very like a violet. And
she turns her head, though held fast by the root, and in her changed form pre-
serves her love’.
Leuconoe spoke, and the wonderful event held their attention.

Phronime6: Herodotus 4.154f. (ATU 883A The Innocent

Slandered Maiden)
(154) For the Cyrenians give a totally different account of Battus from the
Theraeans: this is their version. There is a city in Crete called Oaxus, in which
Etearchus became king. He had a daughter called Phronime, and when her
mother died he married again. When the second wife entered the household she
thought it her right to behave as a real stepmother to the girl, giving her a hard
time, and contriving all manner of mischief against her; and finally she accused
her of leading a loose life, and persuaded her husband that this was the case. The
 Rewards and punishments II 127

king believed his wife and planned a wicked deed against his daughter. Now
there was a merchant from Thera in Oaxus called Themison. Etearchus struck
up a guest-friend relationship with this man, and made him swear to do what-
ever favour he should ask. And once he had sworn, Etearchus handed over his
daughter and told the merchant to take her off and throw her into the sea. But
Themison was furious at the deceit of the oath: he broke off the relationship and
took the following action. He took the girl and sailed off; but when they were on
the open sea he duly discharged the oath sworn to Etearchus by binding her with
ropes, letting her down into the water, and drawing her up again, after which
he reached Thera. (155) And there one of the prominent citizens, Polymnestus,
took her as a concubine, and in time she gave birth to a son, with a weak voice
and a stammer, called Battus.7

Callirhoe: Chariton, Chaereas and Callirhoe, 1.2–3.4 (extracts)8

(ATU 882/883A The Wager on the Wife’s Chastity/The
Innocent Slandered Maiden)
(1.2) Callirhoe’s unsuccessful suitors9 were angry as well as disappointed. After
previously fighting among themselves, they were now of one mind; because of
this, as they felt insulted, they came together to plot. Envy led them in their
war against Chaereas. And first a young man from Italy, son of the tyrant of
­R hegium, got up and had this to say:

If one of you had married Callirhoe, I should not have been angry: just as
in gymnastic contests, only one of the competitors can win. But since a
man who put out no effort into achieving the marriage has passed us by, I
cannot endure the insult. We have exhausted ourselves with our sleepless
nights at her house door, and flattering her nurses and maidservants and
sending gifts to her attendants. How much time have we spent as slaves?
And, worst of all, we have hated one another as rivals in love. But this
man without means, poor, and no better than the next man has carried off
the prize (without grovelling in the dust) in competition with kings. But
let him have no joy in his prize and let us make the marriage fatal for the
groom.

All of them approved, except the tyrant of Agrigentum, who spoke out against
the murder.

I do not object to the plan out of goodwill to Chaereas, but from prudent
calculation. Remember that Hermocrates is not to be underestimated,10
nor that it is impossible to fight him in the open; a cunning approach is
better: for we take possession of our tyrannies by craft rather than brute
force. Elect me general for our campaign against Chaereas11: I promise
you the dissolution of the marriage. For I will arm Jealousy against him,
128 Rewards and punishments II

and taking Love as her ally she will bring about real damage. Callirhoe it
is true is level-headed, and has no experience of malice and suspicion, but
Chaereas, brought up of course in the gymnasium and not inexperienced
in the follies of youth, is easily able to form suspicions and fall into youthful
jealousy. And he is also easier to approach and talk to.

Even before he had finished speaking everyone voted their approval of his plan,
and they entrusted him with carrying it out as a man equal to any unscrupulous
ploy. So he embarked on the following stratagem. (1.3) It was evening when a
messenger came with word that Ariston, the father of Chaereas, had fallen off a
ladder on his estate and there was little hope that he would live. When ­Chaereas
heard, although he was devoted to his father, he was distressed at having to go
alone, for he was not yet able to take his bride. That night although no-one
dared to offer her a lover’s serenade, they secretly and without being seen left the
signs of a wild party: the vestibule was hung with garlands, and sprinkled with
perfumes; the ground was drenched with wine, and half-burned torches were
thrown to the ground.
When day dawned, every passer-by stopped out of common curiosity, while
Chaereas for his part, as his father was keeping better, hurried back to his wife.
And seeing all the people in front of the door he was at first surprised. But when
he found out the reason, he rushed in in a frenzy. And finding the bridal chamber
still shut off, he nearly banged the door down. And when the maid opened it
he burst in on Callirhoe, his anger changed to grief, and he tore his clothes and
burst into tears. When she asked what had happened he was speechless: he could
not disbelieve his eyes, nor could he bring himself to believe what he did not
want to. And while he trembled in his confusion, Callirhoe, with no suspicion of
what had happened, asked him to explain why he was angry. And with his eyes
bloodshot and a hoarse voice, he said ‘I am weeping over my misfortune, that you
have forgotten me so quickly’. And he reproached her over the party. But she,
as the daughter of a general, full of spirit, was revolted by the unjust accusation,
and said ‘No reveller has come to my father’s house: perhaps your portals are
used to parties, and your marriage is upsetting your boyfriends’. With this she
turned away, hid her head, and went into floods of tears. But lovers’ quarrels are
easily quelled, and they were glad to accept each other’s apologies. So Chaereas
changed his tone and began sweet talk, and his wife was quick to welcome his
change of heart. This made their love more ardent, and the parents of both con-
sidered themselves fortunate to see their children so devoted to each other.
(1.4) The man from Agrigentum, now that his first plan had been foiled, next
took more drastic action with a plan that went like this: he had a parasite who
was talkative and full of every sort of smooth talk and social charm. This man he
persuaded to play the part of a lover: the close and highly-valued servant-woman
of Callirhoe he was to fall in love with, and make her love him; so with some
effort this fellow enticed her with expensive presents, and saying that he would
hang himself if he failed to win her love. And a woman is easily convinced when
 Rewards and punishments II 129

she thinks she is loved. With this preparation then the producer of the drama
found another actor,12 not so attractive, but a resourceful and convincing talker.
This man he instructed what he had to do and say, and he sent him to Chaereas,
who did not know him. The man came to him as he was wandering around the
wrestling-ground and said:

I had a son, Chaereas, who was your age, and who admired and respected
you when he was alive. And now that he is dead I think of you as my son,
for indeed your wellbeing is to the good of the whole of Sicily. So give me
a moment of your time and you will hear a serious matter that affects your
whole life.

With such a speech the wicked rogue unsettled the lad’s heart and made him
full of hope and fear and suspicion. But when Chaereas asked him to speak he
hesitated and made excuses that the present occasion was not suitable: it was nec-
essary to put it off as they needed more time. Chaereas pressed him all the more,
already expecting something very serious. So the man took him by his right hand
and led him off to a quiet spot, then knitting his eyebrows and looking grief-
stricken, and even shedding the odd tear. ‘Chaereas’, he said,

I am telling you about a very regrettable matter, after wanting to tell you
but hesitating a long while. But since you are already being openly insulted
and the dreadful business is being gossiped about everywhere, I cannot
bear to keep silent. For I am by nature opposed to wrongdoing and par-
ticularly devoted to you. You must know then that your wife is being
unfaithful, and so that you can believe this, I am ready to point to the
adulterer in the very act.
Thus he spoke, but a black cloud of grief covered him,
And he took sooty dust in both hands
And poured it over his head and disfigured his lovely features.13

For a long time then he stood aghast, not able to open his mouth or lift his eyes.
And when he pulled himself together, he said in a thin voice not like his own:

I am asking an unhappy favour from you, to see with my own eyes my

own miseries. But you must show me, so that I may have the more reason
to do away with myself. For even if Callirhoe is doing me wrong, I shall
spare her.

‘Pretend’, said the villain, ‘that you are going off to the country, but keep watch
on the house late in the evening, for you will see the adulterer go in’.
They agreed, and Chaereas sent word (for he could not even bear to go into
the house), ‘I am off to the country’. But that wicked villain and slanderer set up
the scene. So when evening came Chaereas came to his vantage-point, but the
130 Rewards and punishments II

man who had seduced Callirhoe’s maid darted into the lane, playing the part of
someone choosing to act in secret, but making every effort to be noticed. He
had glistening hair and locks reeking of myrrh, eye-shadow on his eyes, a fine
cloak and elegant slippers. His fingers sparkled with fine rings. Then, with much
looking round, he went to the door, and knocking lightly he gave the usual sign.
The maid was very anxious for her part, quietly opened the door, and taking him
by the hand brought him in. When he saw this Chaereas no longer held back but
ran in in order to take the adulterer in the act.
He for his part concealed himself beside the door of the courtyard, and at once
went back out, but Callirhoe was reclining on her couch longing for Chaereas,
and had not even lit the lamp, she was so downcast: but when there was a noise
of footsteps she was the first to recognise her husband by his breathing and in her
delight she ran toward him. But he could not find the words to abuse her, but
overwhelmed by anger he kicked her as she came toward him. The blow hit her
right in the diaphragm and took the girl’s breath away. She fell and the maidser-
vants carried her up and laid her on the bed.
(1.5) So Callirhoe lay there unable to speak and out of breath, looking to
everyone like a corpse. Rumour acted as a herald of her misfortune, running
right through the city and raising lamentation through the alleyways right
down to the sea. Lamentation was heard from every quarter, and the business
was like the sack of a city. And Chaereas, still seething within, shut himself
in the whole night and tortured the maids, first and foremost Callirhoe’s fa-
vourite, and found out the truth as he applied the fire and the knife. Then he
was sorry for the dead girl and wanted to kill himself. But his closest friend,
Polycharmus, prevented him, the kind of friend Patroclus was to Achilles ac-
cording to Homer.14 And when it was day, the authorities empanelled a jury
to try the murder, expediting the trial out of respect for Hermocrates. But the
populace too ran to the agora, all of them shouting their various opinions. And
the unsuccessful suitors egged them on, especially the tyrant of Acragas: he
was very pleased with himself and swaggering as if he had brought off a totally
unexpected stroke. But there was a novel outcome, altogether unprecedented in
court: once the charge was read out and his share of the water-clock was fixed,
he accused himself still more harshly, instead of making his defence, and was
the first to vote for his own conviction. He said nothing of what could have
been justly brought in his defence, neither the slander, nor his own jealously,
nor the lack of intent, but disregarded them all.

Stone me to death in public: I have deprived the people of their crown.

It would be a kindness to hand me over to the public executioner. This I
should have deserved to suffer even if I had only killed the maidservant
of Hermocrates. Find some unspeakable method of punishment. I have
committed a worse crime than temple-robbery or patricide. Do not bury
me, do not pollute the earth, but sink this body of mine in the depths of
the sea!
 Rewards and punishments II 131

At this there was an outburst of grief, and all of them abandoned the dead woman
and mourned the living man.15 Hermocrates was the first to speak in defence of
Chaereas. ‘I know’, he said,

that what happened was not intentional. I see the people who plotted
against us. They shall not take a delight in two corpses, nor shall I cause
pain to my dead daughter. I have often heard her say that she would prefer
Chaereas to live rather than herself. So let us make an end of this unnec-
essary trial and go off to the necessary funeral. Let us not let her corpse be
ravaged by time, nor disfigure her body with decay. Let us bury Callirhoe
while she is still beautiful.

(1.6) The jury, then, voted to acquit Chaereas. But he would not acquit himself,
but wished for death and devised every means to bring it about. And P
­ olycharmus,
seeing that there was no other way to save him, accused him:

Traitor to your wife’s corpse, will you not survive even to bury Callirhoe?
Are you entrusting her corpse to the hands of others? It is now time for
you to bury her with rich funerary offerings and arrange a funeral fit for
a princess.

These counsels won him over, for they gave him a sense of honouring and caring
for Callirhoe.
Who then could have done justice to describing that funeral?16 Callirhoe
lay decked in her bridal gown and on a gold-studded bier, more magnificent
and striking than ever, so that everyone compared her to Ariadne asleep. And
before the bier came first the Thessalian cavalry and their horses in ceremonial
dress; after these the hoplites, bearing the insignia of Hermocrates’ triumphs;
then the council and all the magistrates, acting as Hermocrates’ bodyguards and
surrounded by the citizen body. And Ariston was carried along, still ill, calling
Callirhoe ‘daughter and lady’. Next followed the citizens’ wives decked in black;
then a royal treasure of funeral offerings: first the gold and silver of Callirhoe’s
dowry, beautifully ornamented clothing (Hermocrates had provided a great deal
from the spoils of war), and the presents from relatives and friends. Last came the
wealth of Chaereas: for he wanted, if possible, to burn all his possessions along
with his wife. The young men of Syracuse carried the bier, and the mass of the
people followed. Chaereas was heard lamenting louder than all the rest. Now
Hermocrates had a magnificent tomb near the sea,17 so as to be visible to sailors
far out across the water. The sumptuous funeral offerings filled it like a treasure
house. But what was meant to honour the girl’s corpse gave rise to even greater
events.
(1.7) For there was a man called Theron, a villainous fellow,18 who sailed the
sea for criminal ends, with pirates lying at anchor in the harbours on the pre-
text of being ferrymen; but Theron knocked them together as a pirate crew.19
132 Rewards and punishments II

This man chanced to run into the funeral and got his eyes on the gold; he could
not sleep that night in his bed for saying to himself:

Am I to risk my life fighting the sea and killing the living for the sake of
tiny rewards, when it is possible to make a fortune from a single dead girl?
Let the die be cast. I shall not give up on this profit. And yet who shall I
recruit for the enterprise? Look carefully, Theron: which of your associates
is right for the job? Zenophanes of Thurii? He is cunning, but cowardly.
Meno of Messene? Bold, but treacherous.

He went through them one by one in his calculations, like a money-changer,

rejecting many, but approving some as suitable. And so he found some of them
in brothels, others in taverns, a suitable army for such a general. So saying that
he had something important to say to them, he led them off behind the harbour
and began with this:

I have found a treasure-trove and have chosen you out of all <the band> to
share it: there is too much for one, and yet it does not call for a great deal of
effort; a single night can make us all rich. We are not inexperienced in this
line of work, which is condemned by fools but affords profit to thinking
men.

At once they realised that he was giving notice of some pirate raid or ­t omb-
breaking or temple-robbery, and said ‘Stop preaching to the converted, and
just tell us the job, and don’t let’s let the opportunity go by’. Theron resumed
from this point:

You have seen the gold and silver that belongs to the dead girl. It would be
fairer for it to belong to us who are still alive. So I have decided to open the
tomb, then putting the treasure in the cutter, to sail to wherever the wind
carries us, and sell the cargo abroad.

They approved the plan. ‘For the moment, then’, he said, ‘back to your normal
occupations. But when darkness falls each of you is to come down to the cutter
with a builder’s tool’.
(1.8) These men, then, went about their business, but as for Callirhoe, she
had a second return to life; through lack of food she experienced an easing of
her blocked breathing, and gradually and with difficulty she found her pulse.
Then she began to move, one limb at a time, and opening her eyes fully she
had the experience of awakening from sleep, and called Chaereas as if he were
asleep beside her. And when neither her husband nor the servants replied, but
everything was darkness and desolation, she felt a fearful shiver, and could
not work out what had really happened. As she slowly came to, she touched
the wreaths and ribbons, and made the gold and silver clink. And there was a
 Rewards and punishments II 133

heavy odour of spice. So then she remembered the kick and the fall resulting
from it. Gradually she realised that loss of consciousness had caused her to
be buried. So she screamed as loudly as she could, shouting ‘I’m alive!’ and
‘Help!’. And when despite her frequent cries nothing further happened, she
gave up hope of still being rescued, and laying her head on her knees she kept
sobbing:

what a dreadful business! I have been buried alive after doing nothing
wrong, and I am dying a lingering death. They are mourning me as dead,
while I am <alive and> well. Who will send word? It is unfair of you,
Chaereas: I blame you not for killing me, but because you were so quick
to throw me out of the house. It was not right for you to bury Callirhoe
<so> quickly, not even if she were really dead. But perhaps you are already
planning some other marriage!.

(1.9) Callirhoe, then, was absorbed in all her sorrows, but Theron waited for
midnight and silently approached the tomb, touching the water gently with the
oars. And when he was the first to disembark he organised his oarsmen as fol-
lows. He put four on watch, for anyone approaching, whom they were to kill if
they could. If not, to give an agreed signal for their approach. He himself went
to the tomb with four others. The remaining seven (for there were sixteen in all)
he ordered to remain on the cutter, with the oars at the ready, so that if some
sudden emergency should occur, they could quickly snatch the shore-party and
make off.20
And when they put their crowbars in place and their strokes grew louder as
they broke open the tomb, Callirhoe was seized by all her emotions together:
fear, joy, anxiety, bewilderment, hope, disbelief:

Where is the noise coming from? Has some spirit arrived for my poor
corpse, as happens to all the dying? Or is it not a noise, but the voice of the
powers below summoning me to them? More probably it is tomb-robbers.
And so I have more tribulations to face! Wealth is no use to a corpse!.21

She was still working it out when the robber put his head forward and slipped a
little way into the tomb. Callirhoe fell down in front of him, starting to plead
with him. But he was terrified and leapt out. And with a shiver he yelled to his
comrades, ‘Let’s get out of here! For there’s a ghost guarding what’s inside and
won’t allow us to come in!’. Theron laughed, calling him a coward, and deader
than the corpse. Then he ordered someone else to go in. But when no-one
would dare, he himself went in, with his sword at the ready. At the glint of steel
Callirhoe was terrified of being killed; she drew herself back into the corner
and begged him from there in a thin voice: ‘Whoever you are, show pity on a
woman who has had no pity from husband or parents. Do not kill the girl you
have saved’.
134 Rewards and punishments II

Theron took courage, and as a quick-witted fellow, he gathered the truth. He

stood thinking, and his first plan was to kill the girl, thinking that she would be
an obstacle to the whole undertaking. But he quickly changed his mind at the
prospect of profit, and said to himself: ‘She too must be part of the ­tomb-treasure.
There is plenty of silver and gold here, but the girl’s beauty is worth more than
all that’. So taking her hand he brought her out, then he called his companions
and said, ‘look, the spirit you were afraid of. Some pirates you are, terrified
of a woman! Now guard her, for I want to restore her to her parents. And let
us ­remove the hoard inside, since no longer is there even the corpse to guard it’.
(1.10) And when they had filled their cutter with the loot, Theron ordered the
guard to stand aside a little way with the girl. Then he laid before them the ques-
tion of what to do about her. Opinions were divided and rather contradictory.
For the first speaker argued,

We came for one purpose, comrades in arms, but Fortune, as it turns out, has
given us something better. Let us make use of it. For we can do our business
without risk. Now it seems to me that we should leave the ­tomb-offerings
where they were, but restore Callirhoe to her husband and father, claiming
that we were anchored near the tomb in the course of our usual fishing, but
that we heard her voice and opened the tomb out of pity, so as to rescue
the girl trapped inside. Let us bind the woman with an oath to back up all
our claims. She will gladly do this in her gratitude to the benefactors who
saved her. Think of all the joy we will bring to the whole of Sicily, and all
the rewards we shall have! And at the same time when we do this we shall
be acting righteously in the eyes of men, and piously in the eyes of the gods!

As he was still speaking another speaker opposed him:

You have no sense of timing, you fool! Are you telling us to behave like
philosophers? So robbing a tomb has turned us into reformed characters,
has it?22 Shall we take pity on her, when her own husband showed her
none, but killed her instead? For she has done us no harm; but she will do
us the greatest possible harm in future. For first of all, if we give her back
to her family, it is not clear how they will judge what has happened, and
impossible not to be suspicious of the reason we came to the tomb. And
even if the girl’s family thank us by dropping the charge, nonetheless the
magistrates and the people themselves will not let off tomb-robbers car-
rying the cargo to condemn themselves. And perhaps someone will say it
is more profitable to steal the girl, for she will fetch a high price because
of her beauty. But even this has its dangers: for gold does not have a voice,
and silver will not tell people where we got it. It is possible to make up
some story about these commodities. But a cargo with eyes and ears and
a tongue, who would be able to hide? Besides, her beauty is no ordinary
human variety, so that we could escape notice. Will we say she is a slave?
 Rewards and punishments II 135

Who will believe that to look at her? So let us kill her here, and not carry
round with us our own accuser.

Although many agreed with these suggestions, Theron did not support either of
them.

You are asking for danger, while you are knocking out our profit. I will
sell the girl rather than kill her. For while she is being sold she will hold her
tongue through fear, and once she has been sold let her accuse us once we are
no longer there. But let’s get aboard and set sail. For already it’s almost day.

(1.11) When they weighed anchor the ship made excellent progress, for they were
under no pressure from wind and wave, as they had planned no special route, but
every wind seemed to favour them and stood on their stern. And Theron tried to
console Callirhoe, attempting to deceive her with various notions. But she was
aware of her position and that she had not been rescued for her own good. And
she pretended not to be aware, but to believe him, fearing that if she showed her
indignation they might do away with her. And saying that she was unable to bear
the sea, she covered her face and wept: ‘You, father’, she said,

defeated three hundred Athenian ships on this sea, and yet a tiny cutter has
carried off your daughter and you are not coming to my aid. I am being taken
off to a foreign land, and noble girl as I am, I have to be a slave. Perhaps some
Athenian master will buy the daughter of Hermocrates. How much better it
was for me to lie dead in the tomb. At least Chaereas would have been laid
to rest with me. But now both in life and death we have been driven apart.

And so she was engaged in this sort of lamentation, but the pirates sailed past
small islands and towns, for theirs was not a poor man’s cargo, but they were
looking for wealthy buyers. And they dropped anchor under a headland facing
Attica. And there there was a spring with plenty of pure water and a lovely
meadow. Then bringing Callirhoe they expected her to wash and rest for a little
time from the sea, as they wished to preserve her beauty. And once on their own
they discussed where to make for. And someone said:

Athens is nearby, a great and prosperous city. There we shall find a horde
of traders and a horde of rich buyers. For it is possible in Athens to see as
many cities as you see men in a market-place.

All of them were for sailing to Athens, but Theron did not like Athenian curiosity.

Are you the only ones who have not heard of Athenian love of meddling?
The citizen body is talkative and fond of lawsuits. And in the harbour there
are any number of informers who will find out who we are and where
136 Rewards and punishments II

we got that cargo of ours. Nasty suspicion will take hold of these wicked
men. The Areopagus is right there, and the officials are more oppressive
than tyrants.23 We ought to be more afraid of the Athenians than the
­Syracusans.24 The place we need is Ionia, for there there are royal riches
flowing in from the whole of Asia, and people who practise luxury without
asking questions. And I expect to find there some of my cronies.

So they took on fresh water and fresh supplies from merchantmen moored along-
side. They made for Miletus, and after two days dropped anchor at a mooring 80
stades from the city, well suited to offer them shelter.
(1.12) Then Theron gave orders to ship the oars and make a shelter for
­Callirhoe and do everything to make her comfortable. This he did not do
out of human kindness but out of greed, as a salesman rather than a pirate. He
himself went off quickly to the city with two companions. Then he had no
wish to look in public for a buyer or to make a talking-point of the business,
but tried for a quick sale secretly and without a middleman. But this turned out
difficult to carry through. For the property was not for ordinary buyers, or for
some chance buyer, but for someone of means and princely standing, and yet
he was afraid to go near such clients. So after too much time-wasting he could
no longer bear further delay. And when night came he was unable to sleep, but
said to himself,

You are a fool, Theron, for already you have left gold and silver in a de-
serted spot for so many days, as if you were the only pirate. Do you not
know that other pirates too sail the seas? And I am even afraid of my own
men in case they desert me and sail off. For of course you did not recruit
the most upright of men so as to stay loyal to you, but the most unscrupu-
lous men you knew. Now, then, he said: you need to get some sleep, but at
daybreak make off to the cutter and throw into the sea this woman who is
superfluous at this point, and do not again bring aboard a cargo so difficult
to get rid of. Meanwhile:

***

He fell asleep and saw in his dream doors closed. So he decided to hold off for
that day. And wandering about he sat down in some shop with his thoughts in
confusion.
Meanwhile a crowd of people went by, slave and free, and among them a man
in the prime of life, with a black cloak and a doleful look. So Theron got up (for
people are naturally curious), and asked one of the man’s companions, ‘Who’s
this?’. The reply was, ‘I think you must be a stranger or have come from afar,
since you do not recognise Dionysius, the richest, noblest and most cultured
man in Ionia, a friend of the Great King 25’. ‘So why is he wearing black?’. ‘He
has ( just) lost his beloved wife’. Theron sought to keep up his conversation still
 Rewards and punishments II 137

further, now that he had found a man who was rich and in need of a woman
to love. So he no longer held out on the way back but asked ‘What position do
you have in his household?’ And the man replied, ‘I am the steward of his whole
estate, and I look after his daughter, who is only an infant, orphaned of her poor
mother before her time’; ‘What is your name?’ ‘Leonas’.

I met you at the right moment, Leonas; I am a merchant sailing at this mo-
ment from Italy, hence I know nothing of affairs in Ionia. A lady of Sybaris,
the wealthiest woman in the city, had a very beautiful maid whom she sold
out of jealousy, and I have bought her. So you stand to do well out of this,
whether you wish to acquire a nurse for the child (for she is well enough
trained), or whether you think it worthwhile to do your master a favour. It
is more advantageous to you for him to have a slave bought, so that he does
not bring in a stepmother for your young charge.

Leonas was delighted at this suggestion [which he acts upon, so that Callirhoe is
sold to Dionysius].
(3.3) After the tomb-robbers had sold their cargo, too hot to handle, they left
Miletus and set sail for Crete, hearing that it was a large and prosperous island,
in which they expected it would be easy to sell their wares. But a strong wind
caught them and thrust them into the Ionian Sea, and there they drifted indef-
initely over empty waters. Thunder and lightning and a great pall of night took
hold of the impious crew, and Providence demonstrated that they had previously
enjoyed good weather only because of Callirhoe. And as they came close to death
each time, God would not allow them to be released from their fear of it, but
only prolonged their shipwreck. And so land would not accept these villains, and
as they spent their long spell at sea they were reduced to a dearth of provisions,
especially water, and their ill-gotten gains did not avail them, but they were
dying of thirst amid their gold. And so slowly they repented of their evil deeds,
accusing one another that <their wickedness had been> pointless. All the rest,
then, were dying of thirst, but Theron even in those circumstances practised his
villainy. For by stealthily stealing water he even robbed his fellow robbers. Now
he considered that he had carried out a sort of professional task, but this was the
work of Providence, saving him for torture and the cross.26
The trireme carrying Chaereas27 ran across the cutter as it drifted, and at first
they gave it a wide berth as a likely pirate-ship. But when it appeared to have
no helmsman, and was drifting under the impact of the waves, someone from
the trireme shouted: ‘The ship has no crew! Let’s not be afraid, but heave to and
investigate the unexpected’. The helmsman agreed; Chaereas for his part was
weeping below deck with his head completely covered. And when they came
alongside, at first they called on the crew. And when no-one answered, someone
from the trireme went aboard. He saw nothing other than gold and corpses. He
passed the word to the crew, who were delighted and thought themselves in luck
to have found treasure on the high seas. And with all the noise and excitement
138 Rewards and punishments II

Chaereas asked the reason. When he found out he too wanted to see the strange
sight. But once he recognised the funeral offerings he tore his clothes to shreds
and exclaimed as he gave a loud piercing cry:

Alas, Callirhoe! These are your things! This is the wreath I laid about
you! Here is the one your father gave you, this one is your mother’s; and
this robe is your bridal gown. This ship is now your tomb. But I see your
things, and yet where are you? Among all we buried with you, only your
corpse is missing!

When he heard this Theron lay like one of the corpses, and in fact he actually
was half-dead. Now he had stiffly resolved not to let out a sound or make any
movement. For he was not unaware of what awaited him. Men love life by
nature and even in the utmost adversity they hope for a change for the bet-
ter, as their creator implanted this erroneous idea in all of them, so that they
should not shy away from life’s miseries. So in the grip of thirst the first word
he let out was ‘water!’. And when it was brought to him, and he had received
every attention, Chaereas sat down beside him and asked: ‘Who are you, and
where are you sailing to? Where did these come from, and what have you
done to the girl who owned them?’ The villain Theron remembered his old
self and said:

I come from Crete, and I am sailing to Ionia to look for my brother who
is serving in the army. I was left behind by my ship’s crew when they
embarked quickly in Cephallenia. From there I took a passage on this
cutter which was sailing past, as luck would have it. And we were driven
into these waters by gale force winds. Then we were becalmed for a long
stretch; all the crew died of thirst, while I alone was saved because of my
piety.

So when he heard this, Chaereas gave orders for the trireme to take the cutter
in tow, and at dawn he sailed home to the harbours of Syracuse.
(3.4) But Rumour, swift by nature, spread there first. She made still greater
haste to give word of so much surprising news. So all ran down to the sea at this
time, and there was a variety of emotions at once: people cried, were amazed,
or curious, or incredulous. For the strange tale had them dumbfounded. When
­Callirhoe’s mother saw her daughter’s funeral offerings she let out a wail. ‘I
­recognise everything: only you, daughter, are not here. A new kind of tomb
robber: they have kept the clothing and the gold safe, and have stolen only my
daughter!’. The shore and harbours resounded with women beating their breasts,
and they filled earth and sea alike with their mourning. And Hermocrates, who
was a natural leader and a man of affairs, said, ‘We cannot conduct an enquiry
here, but must examine matters in a more legal framework. Let us adjourn to the
assembly. Who knows whether we shall need a jury?’
 Rewards and punishments II 139

Not yet had the last word been said when already the theatre was full. That
assembly women too attended. The citizen body then sat all agog. Chaereas came
in first, dressed in black, pale and dishevelled, just as when he followed his wife
to her tomb, and he refused to mount the platform, but stood below and at first
wept at length; and although he wished to speak he was unable to. The crowd
kept shouting, ‘Come on, speak up’. With difficulty then he looked up and said:

This occasion was not intended for speechmaking, but for mourning. But I
am forced to speak for the same reason I am forced to live, until I can get to
the bottom of Callirhoe’s disappearance; for that reason I sailed from there,
and I do not know whether my voyage has been favourable or not. For
we saw a ship drifting in fair weather, oppressed by a storm of its own and
foundering in a calm sea. In our amazement we came in close. I thought I
was looking at my poor wife’s tomb: all her possessions were there, except
for herself. There was a mass of corpses, all of them strangers. And this
fellow was found among them, half dead. I made every effort to bring him
back to life, and I have guarded him on your account.

Meanwhile the public slaves brought Theron in chains into the theatre, with
a suitable escort. For he was followed by the wheel, the rack, the fire and the
whips, as Providence was paying him back the rewards for his efforts. But when
he stood in their midst, one of the magistrates cross-examined him: ‘Who are
you?’. ‘Demetrius’. ‘From where?’. ‘From Crete’. ‘What do you know? Tell us!’

I was sailing to Ionia to meet my brother, but I missed my sailing, then I

took a cutter passing by. At that time I took them for merchants, though
now I realise they were tomb-robbers. We were at sea for a long time, and
all the others have died for lack of drinking-water, but I alone have been
saved because I have never done anything wrong in my life. And so, Men
of Syracuse, a body renowned for its humanity, do not be more savage to
me than thirst and sea!.

When he said this the crowd felt pity towards him, and perhaps he would have
won them over, and even gained his passage home, had not some spirit of venge-
ance for Callirhoe taken exception to his wicked lies. For it would have been the
direst possible calamity for the Syracusans to have been persuaded that he alone
was saved because of his piety when he was only saved by his impiety, so as to
receive a still harsher punishment.
And so a fisherman sitting in the crowd recognised him and whispered to
his neighbours, ‘I’ve seen this man before, hanging about round our harbour’.
So quickly the word spread, and someone shouted, ‘He’s lying!’. So the people
turned about, and the magistrates told the man who had spoken first to step
down. And although Theron denied the accusation, it was the fisherman they
preferred to believe. And at once they called the torturers and put the villain
140 Rewards and punishments II

under the lash. Even when they burned and cut him he held out a long time
and almost got the better of the torturers. But conscience is a strong force in
everyone, and truth is all-powerful. For slowly and with great difficulty Theron
confessed, and so he began his account:

Seeing the wealth that was being buried, I got a pirate band together and
we opened the tomb. We found the corpse alive; we plundered everything
and put it in the cutter. After sailing to Miletus all we sold was the girl; the
rest we were transporting to Crete. And thrust out into the Ionian Sea by
the winds, you yourselves have seen what we suffered.

And in making his confession he failed to mention only the name of the man
who had bought Callirhoe.
When he had said this everyone was seized by joy and grief: joy that Callirhoe
was alive, and grief that she had been sold. And so the death penalty was passed on
Theron. But Chaereas begged for the man not to die yet: ‘So that he can come and
show me who bought her. Just think what I am forced to do – I am pleading on behalf
of the man who sold my own wife!’ This Hermocrates forbade: ‘It is better’, he said,

to undertake a more laborious search than to relax the laws. I beg you,
Men of Syracuse, to remember my feats as a general and my triumphs, and
repay me by finding my daughter. Send an expedition for her, so that we
can recover a freeborn girl from slavery.

While he was still speaking the citizen body shouted: ‘Let us all sail’, and of the
council the great majority were willing to go. But Hermocrates said 28 ‘I thank
you all for this honourable gesture, but two envoys from the citizen body and
two from the council will suffice, with Chaereas sailing as the fifth’.
This was decided and ratified, and Hermocrates dismissed the assembly on
these conditions. And a great part of the population followed Theron as he was
led away. And he was crucified 29 in front of Callirhoe’s tomb, and he looked
out from his cross over the sea over which he had carried the daughter of
Hermocrates, whom not even the Athenians had been able to capture.30

Notes
1 The tale is the middle tale of three told for mutual entertainment by spinning women
of Thebes, and illustrates a characteristic setting for oral tales.
2 The story seems best to belong with ATU 480, The Kind and Unkind Girls (EM 8,
1366–1375). Normally the good girl accomplishes tasks and is rewarded, the bad girl
does not do them and is punished. The contrast is provided in this version by the
plants they become: frankincense in the case of the virtuous girl, heliotrope in the case
of the spiteful slanderer. Here there are two traces of a common context: the theme of
the good girl at her spinning, and going down a well, here undergoing burial in the
sand. Sometimes there is a role for a malevolent demon, who would correspond to the
role of the rapist Helios.
 Rewards and punishments II 141

3 Latin idiom allows intrusions in the narrative of direct address to the subject, either
for variety or heightened emotional nuance.
4 Orchamus, an ancient king of Persia.
5 The heliotrope, supposed to turn toward the sun.
6 For the Innocent Slandered Maiden, Kawan, EM 8 (1996), 1402–1407. The jealous
stepmother lends a folktale/fairy tale feel to the tale, as does the cunning way of cir-
cumventing the rash promise.
7 The future founder of the Greek colony of Cyrene.
8 Kawan EM 8 (1996), 1402–1407. The ancient version here appears as part of a lengthy
romance. A good example of fairy tale treatment in Afanas’ev 415–418. There as
here it is a general who despises not the hero this time, but the heroine, as the mere
daughter of a merchant, and persuades an old woman to elicit the girl’s secret mark
(a golden hair under her arm) and steal her ring. This Russian version introduces ac-
tual magic: the slandered girl weeps diamonds into a glove, which she claims the false
accuser stole from her house when he slept with her as he claims. To deny the theft he
now has to deny ever having known her.
9 The unsuccessful suitors cut a faintly ludicrous spectacle, both in their degree of
co-operation and in the image of tyrants or their sons behaving in the role of stereo-
typical lovers.
10 Hermocrates radiates enormous prestige as the architect of the victory over the ill-
fated Athenian expedition to Syracuse, and his status is maintained throughout the
plot.
11 The paradoxical spectacle of a democratic assembly of tyrants is typical of Chariton’s
light touch.
12 Theatrical metaphor is typical of the texture of the novelists, culminating in its florid
use in late antiquity by Heliodorus.
13 A deliberately incongruous importation from Homeric scenes of physical combat and
mourning: Iliad, 18.22–24.
14 Polycharmus’ main function in the plot is to talk Chaereas out of suicide bids each
time the plot lurches from crisis to crisis.
15 One of many contrived paradoxes on the fortunes of the lovers: cf. 4.1.1.
16 The novels frequently arrange sumptuous spectacle appropriate to the tastes of a local
urban aristocracy: cf. Xenophon of Ephesus 1.2.
17 This will serve as a significant marker at the end of the tomb-robbery plot, below
3.4.18.
18 Theron: ‘wild’, lawless’. Theron’s lively and ironic style lends distinctive colour to his
villainous role: he is throughout a pragmatic searcher after profit.
19 Pirates are among the most stable and characteristic personnel of the Greek novel,
serving as the transport system in melodramatic and geographically wide-ranging
plots.
20 The details of organisation contribute to precision in mundane details at variance
with the fantasy of the plot.
21 Heroines’ expostulations are particularly prominent in the texture of the novels in
general: cf. 3.7.5.
22 The pirates invert normal human values in favour of stereotyped villainy.
23 The court of the Areopagus was used to try homicide cases, and the pirates have every
reason to fear it.
24 Reardon (1982), 25 dismisses Theron’s attitude as mere provincialism; but it is not
mere fun at the expense of the Athenians, who in general are not the epicentre of
romantic prose literature in later antiquity.
25 The Ionian cities in the era of Hermocrates still needed to maintain a cautious diplo-
matic relationship with the Persian Empire, of which they were in effect a part.
26 Theron maintains his professional villainy to the last.
27 Meanwhile following the discovery of the emptied tomb, Chaereas has gone off in
search of his kidnapped wife.
142 Rewards and punishments II

28 Hermocrates is wryly used to curb the wilder excesses of the Syracusan citizen body,
as previously, 1.5.6.
29 Scarcely less savage than the punishments produced by more obviously fairy tale
plots.
30 Strictly speaking in this plot the tyrants who devised the intrigue should be ­subject to
punishment: other versions of the tale in popular transmission tend to favour a ­scenario
where the female victim is in male disguise, and finds herself passing j­udgement on her
initial plotter.
8
TRICKSTERS

Cunning rather than heroism provides the impetus for trickster tales, even if the
protagonist shows a great deal of heroism elsewhere. The cannibal giant seems
close to the central stock of fairy-tale motifs: but Odysseus’ negotiations with
him suggest a veneer of politesse and sophistication lacking in most workings
of the theme. The three workings of the robbers of the king’s treasury advance
cunning to a new level, with the grim beheading of one of the thieves to avoid
detection. The offering of the king’s daughter as a reward for the thief ’s cunning
again seems consistent with fairy-tale values and expectations.

Blinding the Stupid Ogre1: Homer, Odyssey 9.177–566

(ATU 1137 The Ogre Blinded/Polyphemus)
(177) With these words I went aboard and ordered my comrades to embark as
well and cast off the stern cables. And at once they embarked and sat on the
rowers’ benches, and sitting in order they beat the hoary sea with their oars. But
when we arrived at the nearby land, there we saw at its edge near the shore a
lofty cave, with a screen of laurel. And there many flocks, both sheep and goats,
were quartered at night. And round about there was a high courtyard built with
stones laid deep in the ground, and huge pine-trees and lofty-crested oaks. And
there lived a great monster of a man,2 who grazed his flocks on his own, and did
not mix with others, but dwelt apart, a law unto himself. For he was an amazing
creature. He did not look like a man who lives by bread; he was like a wooded
peak among lofty mountains, which appears alone apart from the rest.
(193) So then I gave orders to the others to stay there beside the ship and guard
it, but I chose 12 comrades, the best, and moved off. But I took a goatskin of dark
sweet wine, a gift from Maron, son of Euanthes3: he was the priest of Apollo,
the patron god of Ismarus, and we had protected him with his wife and child:
144 Tricksters

we respected him since he dwelt in the wooded grove of Phoebus Apollo, and so
he gave me shining gifts: seven talents’ worth of well-worked gold, a solid silver
mixing bowl and in addition 12 wine-jars full of wine, sweet and undiluted, a
drink fit for the gods. Nor did any of his slaves or housemaids know about it, only
himself, his wife, and a single steward. And whenever they drank the honey-sweet
red wine, he filled a single cup and poured it into twenty measures of water,4 and
a sweet divine bouquet rose from the mixing bowl. The effect was unrestrained. I
took this and filled a great skin, and I put provisions in a bag. And in no time we
arrived at the cave, but we did not find him inside; he was grazing his fat flocks
on their pasture. And coming into the cave we were impressed at all we saw: the
crates were filled with cheese, and the pens were crammed with lambs and kids.
Each sort was in separate pens: firstlings, later lambs, and kids. And all the vessels
were swimming with whey – milk-pails and bowls – well-wrought they were –
into which he did the milking.5 Then my companions begged me first of all to
return with some of the cheeses, but then to drive off quickly to the swift ship the
kids and lambs from the pens, and to sail off on the briny sea. But I did not pay
heed to them6 – it would certainly have been much better if I had – so that I might
see him, and in the hope that he would give me gifts of hospitality. But when he
appeared, he was not likely to be a kindly host to my companions.
(231) But then we started a fire, offered sacrifice, and ourselves took some of
the cheeses and ate them, and sat inside the cave waiting for him until he re-
turned driving his herd. And he carried a frightful weight of dry wood, to use
at his supper, and threw it down inside the cave with a crash. But in terror we
retreated to a recess within the cave. But he drove his rich flocks into the wide
cave – all the ones he had milked, but left the rams and he-goats outside, within
the ample courtyard. But then he heaved up and set in place the awesome rock
that served as his doorway: two and twenty sturdy four-wheeled carts would not
have been able to lift if from the threshold, such a huge mass of rock did he place
in the doorway.7 And he sat down and milked his ewes and bleating goats, every
one in turn, and put each of the young under its dam. Then having curdled half
the white milk, he collected it in wicker baskets and put it into store, while the
rest he put in vessels to take to drink for his supper. But when he had quickly
done his chores, he then kindled the fire, spotted us, and asked8:

Stranger, who are you? Where are you sailing from over the ways of the
water? Are you on business, or are you wandering at random the way
­pirates do over the sea, men who wander risking their lives and bringing ill
on strangers from other lands?

(256) At this our hearts were dismayed, afraid at his deep voice and his monstrous
nature; but still I gave him this for an answer:

We are Achaeans, driven from Troy by all manner of winds over the huge
gulf of the sea, making for home one way or another. So no doubt did Zeus
 Tricksters 145

see fit to contrive. And we are proud to be called the host of Agamemnon
son of Atreus, whose fame is now indeed the greatest under the heavens,
for so great a city he sacked, and he slew many hosts. But we for our part
coming upon you grasp your knees in supplication, hoping that you will
provide us with some hospitality, or be generous to us in some other way,
as is the law for guests. You must respect the gods, noble sir, we are your
suppliants; and Zeus avenges suppliants and strangers: he it is who accom-
panies strangers to be respected.

(272) This was my case, but he at once replied with a cruel heart:

You are a fool, stranger, or you have come from far away, that you tell me
to fear or avoid the gods. For the Cyclopes have no regard for aegis-bearing
Zeus, nor for the blessed gods, since in fact we are far superior to them.
Neither would I spare either you or your companions to escape the hatred
of Zeus, unless I were minded to do so.9 But tell me where you moored
your sturdy ship on your voyage here. Was it far away or near at hand? I
should like to know.

(281) He said this to test me, but with all my experience I saw through it, as I
replied in turn in cunning words.

Poseidon the earth-shaker dashed my ship in pieces on the rocks on the

edge of your country, by bringing her onto a cliff as the wind blew her in
from the sea. But with these men here I escaped downright destruction.

That was my answer, but with his cruel intent he made no reply, but up he darted
and got his hands on my comrades. He took two of them together and dashed
them to the ground like puppies.10 Their brains rushed out on the ground and
stained the earth. He tore them limb from limb and prepared his upper. He ate
them like a lion reared in the mountains, and left nothing: he devoured the en-
trails, flesh, marrow and bone. We for our part wailed and held out our hands to
Zeus, at the sight of these wicked deeds, and our hearts were at a loss. But when
the Cyclops had filled his great belly with human flesh, and then drank pure
milk, he lay stretched out among the sheep within the cave. And I planned in my
courageous heart to approach him and draw the sharp sword from my side and
stab him in the chest where the midriff holds the liver, after feeling the spot with
my hand. But another thought held me back. For there we too would have met
certain death; for with our bare hands we could not thrust away from the lofty
doorway the dreadful stone he had set in place. So then we wailed and waited
for the shining dawn.
(307) And when the rosy fingers of early dawn appeared, then too he rekin-
dled the fire and milked his splendid sheep, each in turn, and put the lamb to
each mother, but when he had quickly performed his tasks, once more he seized
146 Tricksters

another pair and prepared his meal. After this he drove his rich flocks from the
cave, after easily removing the great stone door. But then he replaced it, like a
man putting the lid on his quiver. And the Cyclops whistled loudly as he turned
his rich flocks to the mountain, leaving me however plotting mischief in the
depths of my heart, hoping for revenge, and for Athene to grant me glory.11
(318) And in my heart this seemed the best plan. For there lay beside a pen a
great club of green olive. This he had cut to carry with him once it had dried
out: it looked to our gaze as big as the mast of a black twenty-oared ship, a broad-
beamed cargo ship which crosses the wide sea – that was how big and thick it
looked. I stood beside it and cut off as much as a fathom and handed it to my
crew and told them to smooth it down, and they levelled it and I stood aside and
sharpened the point, and at once took it and hardened it in the blaze of the fire.
(329) And I concealed it carefully away under the dung, which lay about the
cave in huge heaps. But I ordered the others to cast lots for who should be bold
enough to help me raise the stake and run it into his eye whenever sweet sleep
might overtake him. And the very men drew the lots that I myself would have
chosen. There were four of them, and I counted as fifth in the team.
(336) In the evening he came back, herding his lovely-fleeced sheep. And at
once he drove all the fat flocks into the breadth of the cave, and did not leave any
outside in the deep-fenced yard, whether out of suspicion, or because of divine
prompting. But when he had raised up the huge stone door, he sat and milked
the sheep and bleating goats, every one in turn, and put the young under each of
the dams. But when he had quickly done all his tasks, once again he snatched a
pair of my men and prepared his supper. And then I stood close to the Cyclops,
holding an ivy-wood bowl of the dark wine. ‘Cyclops’, I said,

here you are, drink wine, since you have been eating human flesh, so that
you may know what sort of drink our ship held in its hold. I was bringing
it as a libation for you, in the hope that you would take pity and send me
home. But your mad behaviour we cannot bear: cruel creature, how would
anyone of all mortal men ever visit you in the future, since you have not
treated us with justice?

(353) At this he took the cup and drained it; he was overjoyed as he drank the
sweet drink and asked me for it once again12:

Be generous and give me another, and now tell me your name, so that I can
give you a gift to gladden your heart. For the bountiful earth yields wine
from its rich clusters to the Cyclopes as well, and the rain from Zeus in-
creases it for them13; but this wine flows from a river of ambrosia and nectar.

At this time I gave him the sparkling wine once more. Three times I brought it
and gave it to him, and three times the fool drained it. But when the wine had
gone to the Cyclops’ head, then too I spoke my honeyed words to him: ‘Cyclops,
 Tricksters 147

you ask my famous name, and I will tell you it: and you give me the present you
promised. My name is “Nobody”.14 Nobody is the name my mother and father
and all my companions too call me’. That was what I told him, but he immedi-
ately replied from his cruel heart: ‘Nobody, I shall eat last of all his comrades,
after all the rest: that will be the gift I will give you’.
(371) He spoke, and rolled onto his back, and lay with his massive neck to one
side. And sleep that subdues all men took hold of him. And his throat spewed out
wine and chunks of human flesh, as he threw it up in his drunken stupor. And
then I drove the stake beneath the deep ash until it grew hot, and encouraged
all my companions so that no-one should take fright and falter. But as soon as
the olive stake was on the point of bursting into flame, green as it was,15 and
took on a fiery glow, at that moment I pulled it close to me from the fire, and
my comrades stood round me: and a god inspired us with great courage. They
took the olive stake, sharp at the tip, and thrust it into his eye.16 And I pressed it
down from above and spun it round, as when a man drills a ship’s plank with a
drill, and the men below twirl it round with a thong, holding it from either side,
as the drill keeps always running. Thus did we take hold of the bar with its fiery
point and spun it round in his eye, and the hot blood flowed round about it. And
all his eyelids and eyebrows round about the flame singed as the eyeball burned,
and the roots of the eye crackled in the fire. And as when a b­ ronze-worker dips
a great axe or an adze in cold water to temper it and it makes a loud hissing
sound – for from it comes the iron’s strength, so did his eye hiss around the
trunk of olive. And he gave a terrible cry, and the rock echoed round about,
while we shrank back with fright. But he tore the stake from his eye, foul with
all the blood. Then he threw it away from him with his hands in a mad fit; but
he shouted loudly to the Cyclopes who lived on the windy crags in their caves
round about.17 And they approached, hearing the cry from their various quarters,
and stood around the cave and asked what was troubling him. ‘Why are you so
upset, Polyphemus, that you cried out through the divine night and robbed us of
our sleep? Surely no mortal is driving off your flocks against your will, or killing
you with cunning or brute force?’ Then mighty Polyphemus answered from
inside the cave. ‘My friends, Nobody is killing me with cunning or brute force’.
They responded with winged words: ‘If you are alone and no-one is offering you
violence, you cannot escape illness from mighty Zeus, but you should pray to
your father Poseidon’.
(413) With these words they went off, and I laughed in my heart that my
name and my superb cunning had tricked them. But the Cyclops, howling and
struggling in pain, groped with his hand and moved the stone from the door,
and sat himself in the doorway with both his hands outstretched, hoping to
catch anyone going towards the exit along with the sheep. For that no doubt
was the sort of fool he took me for. But I plotted to find the best way of escaping
death for both my comrades and myself. And I spun all manner of devices and
plots; for I wanted us to survive, and there was a dreadful evil upon us. And this
seemed to me the best plan: there were well-fed, thick-fleeced rams, handsome
148 Tricksters

huge beasts, with violet-dark wool. I silently bound these together with twisted
withies, on which the Cyclops used to sleep, lawless monster that he was. I took
three together: the middle one held a man, with the two others flanking it and
protecting my comrades. And so three sheep carried each man. But as for myself,
there was a ram that was by far the best in the flock. I took hold of him by the
back and curled up under his shaggy belly. But as I clung with my hand to his
amazing fleece, I held on upside down with daring heart. And so we groaned
as we awaited the shining day. (437) And when early dawn appeared with her
rosy fingers, at that moment the rams rushed out to their pasture, and the ewes
bleated around their pens not yet milked, with their udders full to bursting. And
their ruler, tormented by his dreadful sufferings, groped over the backs of all the
sheep as they stood straight up. But the fool did not realise the men were bound
beneath the udders of the woolly sheep. Last in line of his flock, the ram went out
of the cave, sagging with the weight of his fleece and with me full of schemes.
And mighty Polyphemus, feeling along his back, spoke to him:

Dear ram,18 why do you rush out like this through the cave, last of all? Never
in the past have you been left behind by the sheep, but you were by far the
first to graze the tenderly blooming grass, with your great stride, and first to
arrive at the streams of the river, and first in the evening to want to return to
the fold. But now you are the very last. You must be sorry for your master’s
eye, which a wicked man blinded with his sorry companions, dulling my
senses with wine. Nobody – I tell you – has not yet escaped his destruction.
If only you were to have my sense and powers of speech to tell me where he
is skulking off from my wrath, his brains would be scattered all over the cave
after I had dashed him against the ground, and my heart would be relieved
of the troubles which the good-for-nothing Nobody has brought me.

(461) With this he sent the ram from him towards the entrance. And when we
had gone a little way from the cave and the courtyard, I was the first to free my-
self from below the ram, and then I freed my comrades. And swiftly we drove
off the long-shanked sheep, rich in fat, with many a backward glance, until we
reached the ship. Our dear companions were overjoyed at the sight of us who
had escaped death, while they wailed and groaned over the others. But I would
not allow them to weep; yet by nodding to each with my eyebrows I forbade
them, but ordered them to throw the fine-fleeced sheep quickly aboard and sail
across the salt sea. And at once they embarked and sat down on their benches.
And sat in formation they struck the hoary sea with their oars. But when I was
as far away as a man can be heard when he shouts, at that moment I taunted the
Cyclops19:

Cyclops, it could not have been a weakling whose comrades you were
minded to eat with your brute force in your cave. All too well were you
destined to come to grief, you wretch, who did not flinch from eating
 Tricksters 149

guests in your own home. And so Zeus and the other gods have paid
you back.

(480) At this he grew still angrier in his heart, and broke off the cap of a great
mountain and launched it at us. And it landed a little behind the dark-prowed
ship, and almost hit the tip of the steering-oar. And the sea was churned up be-
neath the rock as it landed. And the wave surged back, driving the ship rapidly
back to the shore, like a great wave, and pushed it back towards the land.
(486) But I took a long pole in my hands and pushed the ship away and along,
and encouraged my crew by a nod of the head to fall to their oars, so as to escape
our dire straits, and they threw themselves to the oars and rowed. But when at
last our efforts had taken us twice as far from the shore, then I hailed the Cyclops
and round about my companions tried from one quarter or another to dissuade
me gently:

You stubborn fool! Why do you wish to provoke a wild man, who even
now has brought the ship back to dry land by throwing his missile into
the sea, and we actually said we would perish in this very spot. And if he
had heard any of us uttering a sound or speaking, he would have thrown a
rugged rock and crushed together our heads and the boards of our ship, so
strong is his throw.

In spite of these words, they could not persuade my courageous heart, but I
­addressed him once more with anger inside me: ‘Cyclops, if any mortal man
should ask who shamefully blinded your eye, tell them it was Odysseus who sacks
cities, the son of Laertes, who lives on Ithaca’.20
(506) At this he answered with a groan:

Alas, now indeed an ancient prophecy comes upon me. Here there was
a prophet, a great and good man, Telemus son of Eurymus, who was by
far the best of soothsayers, and he grew to old age as a prophet among the
Cyclopes: he it was who said all this should happen in the future, that I
should lose my sight at the hands of Odysseus.21 But I was always expect-
ing some huge handsome man to come here, girt with great might; but
now a little man, worthless and a weakling, has robbed me of my eye after
subduing me with wine. But come here, Odysseus, so that I may lay beside
you gifts of friendship and urge the renowned Earth-shaker to give you a
send-off. For I am his son, and he claims to be my father, and he himself, if
he wishes, will heal me, but none other of the blessed gods or mortal men.

(522) To this I replied: ’If only I could deprive you of soul and life and send you
into the House of Hades, as <surely as> not even the Earth-shaker shall heal your
eye!’.22 In response to these words he then stretched out his hands to the starry
heavens and prayed the lord Poseidon:
150 Tricksters

Listen, Poseidon the Earth-shaker with the dark locks, if I am really your
son, and you claim to be my father: grant me that Odysseus sacker of cities
son of Laertes dweller in Ithaca may not return home, but if he is fated to
arrive at his well-built house and see his friends and reach his native land,
may he arrive late in misery, after destroying all his crew, on someone else’s
ship, and may be find sorrows in his household.23

Master-Thief: Herodotus 2.121 (ATU 950 Rhampsinitus)

They said that Rhampsinitus24 succeeded Proteus… (a) This king had great
wealth in silver, which none of his successors could exceed or approach. And as
he wished to keep his treasure safe he built a stone treasury, which had one wall
shared with the outer wall of his palace. And the builder planned this device: he
prepared one of the stones to be easily removable by two men or even one. And
when the building was finished, the king stored his treasure there. And as time
went on the builder, at the end of his life, called together his sons (there were
two of them) and explained to them that he had seen to it that they should enjoy
a prosperous lifestyle, by the way he had contrived the building of the treasury.
He explained clearly all about the removal of the stone, and gave the measure-
ments to find it, telling them that if they preserved the secret they would be the
stewards of the king’s wealth. And he died, but the sons lost no time in setting
to work: they went at night to the palace, easily found and handled the stone in
the treasury, and removed a large quantity of treasure. (b) But when the king
chanced to open the treasury, he was amazed to see the treasury vessels depleted,
and did not know whom to accuse, as the seals were intact and the building
securely shut. And when he opened the chamber a second and a third time and
the treasure always seemed less (for the thieves did not stop their plundering), he
took the following action: he ordered traps25 to be constructed and laid round
the vessels containing the treasure. And when the thieves came as before and one
of them slipped in, when he approached a particular vessel he was instantly held
in the trap. And when he realised the danger he was in, he immediately called
his brother and showed him the way things were, and ordered his brother to slip
in as quickly as he could and cut off his own head, so that he himself should not
be seen and recognised, and bring about the death of his brother as well. The
latter approved of the plan, and once convinced carried it out, and putting the
stone back in place he left for home, carrying his brother’s head. (c) And when
day came, the king came into the treasury and was aghast to see the body of the
thief in the trap without his head, and the treasury intact without any way in or
out. And at a loss he took the following action: he hung the thief ’s body down
from the outer wall, and set guards over it, with orders to arrest and bring before
him anyone they saw weeping or lamenting over it.
But when the body was hung up, the thief ’s mother was greatly distressed; she
spoke to the surviving son and told him to find a way of freeing his brother’s body
and bringing it home.26 And if he neglected to do this, she threatened that she
 Tricksters 151

herself would go to the king and tell him that her son had the treasure. (d) And
when she took the surviving brother to task and he could not win her round after
a great deal of argument, he devised the following trick: he got ready asses and
after filling skins full of wine he put them on the asses and then drove them off.
And when he was at the spot where the guards were minding the hanging body,
he tugged at the feet of two or three of the skins and loosened their fastenings, and
when the wine ran out he beat his head and bawled loudly, as if he did not know
which of the asses to attend to first. And when the guards saw a great quantity of
wine running, they ran into the road with vessels as though they had made a great
windfall by carrying off the spilt wine. The thief put on a show of anger and gave
them all a rollicking27; the guards consoled him and in time he pretended to calm
down and abandon his anger, and at last he drove his asses off the road and put
his things in order. And when he and the guards fell into conversation and one of
them joked with him and they started laughing, he gave them one of the skins;
and they sat down there just as they were and were minded to drink, and brought
him into their company and told him to stay and share the wine with them; and
he let himself be persuaded and stayed. And when they grew merry towards him
with the drink, he gave them yet another of the skins. As the wine flowed the
guards became hopelessly drunk, and overcome by sleep they lay down where
they were drinking. And as the night was far gone he cut down his brother’s body,
and to insult the guards shaved each one’s right cheek, placed the body on the
asses, and drove off home, having fulfilled his mother’s instructions.28

(e) When the king was told that the thief ’s corpse had been stolen, he was out-
raged, and wished to find whoever contrived the trick at all costs, and took the
following action, although I find it incredible.29 He installed his own daugh-
ter in a chamber with instructions to receive all comers, but before sleeping
with them, to force each man to confess to her the cleverest and the wickedest
thing he had done in his life. And whoever told her the thief ’s story, to seize
him and not allow him to escape. And when the girl carried out her father’s
instructions, the thief realised why she was doing this and wishing to outwit
the king’s cunning took the following action. He cut off the arm of a newly
dead corpse at the shoulder, and went with the arm under his cloak to the
king’s daughter; when asked the same question as the others, he told her that
his most impious act was to cut off his brother’s head when he was trapped in
the king’s treasury, and the cleverest when he freed his brother’s hanging body
by inebriating the guards. And when she heard this she took hold of him, and
in the darkness the thief stretched out to her the arm of the corpse and she
took hold of that, thinking that she was taking hold of the thief ’s arm; while
he, having given it to her, made off and escaped through the door.
(f ) When word was brought of this to the king he was at his wits’ end over
the resourcefulness and audacity of the fellow, and at last he sent word to
every city, granting immunity and offering a great reward if he would ap-
pear in the king’s presence. The thief trusted the king and appeared before
152 Tricksters

him; Rhampsinitus was greatly impressed, and gave him the daughter as his
wife, because he was the cleverest of men. For insofar as the Egyptians were
superior to all others in cunning, so he was superior to the Egyptians.30

Agamedes and Trophonius: Pausanias 9.37.3 (ATU 950)

Erginus took a young wife in response to the oracle, and had sons Trophonius and
Agamedes. And Trophonius was said to be the son of Apollo and not of Erginus.
And I believe this, as does anyone who has gone to consult Trophonius’ oracle.
They say that when they grew up they became skilled at building shrines for the
gods and palaces for men. For they built Apollo’s temple in Delphi and the ­Treasury
for Hyrieus. And there they constructed one of the stones so that they could re-
move it from the outside. And they kept on taking something from the store.
Hyrieus was speechless when he noticed that keys and seals were otherwise intact,
while the supply of money continued to diminish. So among the vessels containing
his silver and gold he placed traps or some other device to catch the thief who came
in to steal the money. And when Agamedes came in he was caught in the trap: but
Trophonius cut his head off, so that when day came Agamedes should not be put
to the torture and he himself should not be informed on as a partner in crime. And
the earth split open and received Trophonius at the grove at Lebadeia where the
so-called pit of Agamedes is situated, with the monument beside it.

Agamedes and Trophonius: Charax of Pergamum

(FGrH 103 F5 = schol. V Aristophanes Clouds 508) (ATU 950)
Agamedes, the ruler of Stymphalus in Arcadia, married Epicaste, who gave birth
to the illegitimate Trophonius. These men were the greatest of their time in
technical skills, and built the temple of Apollo in Delphi. In Elis they built the
treasury for the gold of Augeas. In this they left a stone loose, and going in at
night they stole money with Kerkyon as an accomplice, the legitimate child of
Agamedes and Epicaste. And when Augeas was at a loss, he begged Daedalus,
who was living as an exile from Minos, to seek out the thief. He set traps, and
Agamedes fell victim and was caught. Trophonius cut his head off to avoid his
being recognised, and fled, while Kerkyon fled to Orchomenos. When Augeas
at the instruction of Daedalus set off in pursuit following the trail of blood, they
fled, Kerkyon taking refuge in Athens; Trophonius went to Lebadeia in Boiotia,
and making a trench he lived there. And on his death an accurate oracle appeared
to him, and they sacrifice to him as to a god.

Notes
1 On Polyphemus: Hackman (1904); Frazer (1921), 404–455; Page (1955), 1–20;
­Heubeck and Hoekstra (1989), 19–42; Anderson (2000), 123–131; Hansen (2002),
289–301; Conrad EM 10 (2002), 1174–1184.
 Tricksters 153

2 We are left in no doubt that the Cyclops is a giant or even ogre, but very little is said
about his actual appearance: compare the similes used to characterise his counterpart
in the Third Voyage of Sindbad (Dawood, 130): ‘tall as a palm-tree, with red eyes burn-
ing in his head like coals of fire; his mouth was a dark well, with lips that drooped like
a camel’s loosely over his chest’.
3 The deliberate description of the strength of the wine (in ancient Greek practice very
strong, but heavily diluted) acts as a broad hint of its importance for the story.
4 This suggests that it is four or five times the strength of ordinary wine.
5 Odysseus’ crew see the acceptable side of the Cyclops first: he is a well organised and
devoted pastoralist; only in the cannibal phase of his behaviour are we introduced to
the heaps of dung left inside the cave, 9.329f. below.
6 A rare misjudgement on Odysseus’ part, brought about by a decidedly ‘materialist’
approach: compare his preoccupation with ‘checking’ that the Phaeacians have not
stolen any of his gifts, 13.215f.
7 This is the problem that precludes killing the Cyclops while asleep. The doorway in
the Thousand and One Nights version is a metal door of a palace, and is used very care-
lessly: Sindbad’s crew escape but aimlessly return when they can find no h ­ iding-places
on the island!
8 The creature in the Thousand and One Nights version does not speak.
9 Homer seems to have forgotten that the Cyclops is a son of Poseidon, which ought to
indicate some degree of recognition for the latter’s brother Zeus.
10 Here the victims are chosen apparently at random; some other versions, including
Sindbad, have the ogre feeling the victims for their fatness, and sparing the leanest till
last. In most instances of the folktale versions the victims are cooked first, hence their
need for a metal roasting-spit.
11 Athene is conspicuously absent as a deus ex machina in this episode, in contrast to her
role in e.g. the episode of Nausicaa or the showdown with the suitors.
12 The Cyclops seems a stupid ogre at his stupidest here: why should those clearly about to
die still offer their thank-offering in the face of the ogre’s ingratitude? In oral folktale the
powers of the black-and-white enemy are not high. The motif is absent from the Sindbad
story and from Dede Korkut because of cultural attitudes to alcohol in the Muslim world.
13 Oddly again: the Cyclops seems to acknowledge the help of Zeus, despite his previous
indifference.
14 The ‘Noman’ trick is significantly absent from most oral versions, except a small
Finnish group (Hackman’s type C). The tale-type it embodies does not normally
involve a giant, but rather fairies hurt by a spark from the fire, by someone called
‘myself ’. It offers wordplay on cunning intelligence by the pun between mētis and mē
tis, the oblique negative form, which does occur in the narrative. But outis is the form
originally given, and the pun would be difficult to grasp.
15 A little awkwardness here; it has been suggested that the stake glows red-hot because
the original would have been metal: cf. Page (1955), 9–12.
16 We have not actually been told that he only has one eye (he has two in Sindbad, so
that ‘synchronised blinding’ is needed there).
17 The community as hitherto described before the start of the tale proper (9.105–115)
is very loose, each Cyclops being a law unto himself.
18 An unusual note of pathos, absent in oral versions; the Cyclops has a rapport with his
animal companions, lacking in his relation to humans.
19 This foolhardy gesture does appear in the folk versions. In some a fairy tale feature
appears at this point but is missing in the Odyssey: the hero, ever set on gifts, equally
stupidly falls for the gift of a talking ring from the Cyclops; it acts as a homing device
by saying ‘Here I am’ until the hero saves his life by cutting off the finger to which it
is now irremovably attached.
20 Another error of judgement: the Cyclops can now tell his father Poseidon the true
name of the perpetrator.
154 Tricksters

21 Likewise Circe finds in Od. 10.325–332 that Odysseus has been predicted to outwit
her.
22 Odysseus will pay for the arrogance of this: cf. the comic development in Lucian
Dialogi Marini, 2.4.
23 As turns out to be the case: Odysseus loses the last of his own crew in book 12, and
comes back from Scheria on a Phaeacian ship.
24 There is little hope of determining the earliest history of this tale from the three
ancient examples that survive: that in Herodotus set in the Egyptian New ­K ingdom;
Charax of Pergamum in a scholiast on Aristophanes (Clouds, 508) and a ­testimony
in Pausanias (9.37.4–8) both set on the Greek mainland. It clearly belongs to a
larger trickster cycle, where it is possible for episodes to be inserted or ­omitted at
will. For ­Herodotus’ version, note Asheri-Lloyd-Conshera (2007) ad loc. The name
­R hampsinitus (‘Rameses son of the goddess Neith’) is evidently a conflation of s­ everal
Egyptian rulers of the 19th and 20th Dynasties. Sometimes the modern f­olktale has
an initial motif in which the thieves meet and test one another, instead of being in a
predetermined family relationship, which in itself is variable in the ancient ­examples
(two brothers, father and son…). The two Greek versions omit any entertaining
pranks and centre attention firmly on the founding of Trophonius’ oracle. See also
Hansen, 357–371; van der Kooi EM 11 (2004), 633–640.
25 Some of the folktale versions are more specific, for example a surface of adhesive
pitch.
26 A truncated presentation that does not require public mourning on the part of the
mother or spouse.
27 Sometimes the mother’s mourning is effected by her being seen to lament for the
leakage of wine from the wineskin, without actual theft of the body.
28 An additional trick is for a guard to follow the thief home and mark his door, to
which the thief responds by marking all other doors in the street.
29 This action, dismissed as incredible by Herodotus, suggests the consolidation of the
folktale before the historian: it has the feel of ‘I will give my daughter in marriage to
anyone who can catch the thief…’
30 Other Near Eastern versions sometimes include an episode where the royal thief
­silences criticism of a neighbouring monarch who criticises the king for the ­m arriage.
The thief disguises as a guide to the dead and cons the king and queen into ­thinking
they are dead and must dance naked when their coffins open – of course in front
of his own master’s court. There may be some hint of this in Herodotus’ allusion
to Rhampsinitus’ interest in the world below, but it does not form part of the tale
itself. There is further chthonic reference in the two shorter accounts, that the earth
­swallowed Trophonius (Pausanias), or that he dug a trench and lived in it (Charax).
The architectural theme figures in both Greek versions, and is developed in Charax
with the appearance of the master-builder Daedalus, constructor of the Cretan
­Labyrinth; and an accomplice appears in the person of Kerkyon, but seems to add
nothing to the overall narrative.
9
TRADITIONAL HEROES,
MAGIC OBJECTS

A number of the examples occupy the ground claimed here for fairy tale but
often thought of loosely as ‘mythology’. The somewhat similar stories of Perseus
and Bellerophon deal with a hero betrayed into undertaking an impossible task,
but supplied with the means of completing it by divine aid and magic object, and
in the case of beheading Medusa lateral thinking with a mirror. Melampus wins
kingdom and bride by pursuit and dance with mad maidens; Hippomenes too
performs a heroic pursuit, this time with apples in a race. The Jason story also has
heroic tasks, this time with the ‘girl as helper’ for their carrying out. The classical
version of The Two Brothers is included, though it offers a less distinctive example
than its ancient Egyptian counterpart. ‘Euthymus and the wolf ’ makes a hero out
of the girl’s rescuer, showing that the death of the wolf is an early part of the Red
Riding Hood tale. The magic ring of Gyges lacks any heroic motivation, but its
property of invisibility fulfils the same function as Perseus’ cap.

The Dragon-Slayer: Bellerophon1: Apollodorus 2.3.1f.

(ATU 300)
Bellerophon,2 son of Glaucus son of Sisyphus,3 by accident killed his own brother
Deliades (others give his name as Piren, others again Alcimenes); and he came to
Proetus to receive purification. And <Proetus’ wife> Stheneboea4 had a passion
for him, and sent him overtures to make love. He turned her down, and she told
Proetus that Bellerophon had sent her an indecent proposal. Proetus5 believed her
and gave him letters6 for Iobates,7 with instructions to kill Bellerophon. Iobates
read the letters and ordered him to kill the Chimaera, thinking that he would be
killed by the beast: for it was not an easy task to capture for many men, let alone
one. It had the forepart of a lion, the tail of a dragon and its third part, the middle
one, was a goat’s, and through it it breathed fire.8 And it destroyed the land and
156 Traditional heroes, magic objects

harried the cattle, for in one creature it had the power of three beasts. And it is also
said that this Chimaera was nurtured by Amisodarus, as Homer has said,9 and that
it was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna, according to Hesiod.10
(2.3.2) Mounting then his winged steed Pegasus, which had been fathered by
Poseidon on Medusa,11 he was borne aloft and shot down the Chimaera from it.
And after this contest Iobates instructed him to fight with the Solymi. And when
he achieved this feat as well, he ordered him to fight against the Amazons.12
And when he had killed them too, Iobates picked out those he considered the
finest of the Lycians, and ordered them to ambush Bellerophon and kill him.
And when he had killed all of these, Iobates in amazement at his prowess showed
him the letter and invited him to stay at his court. And giving him his daughter
­Philonoe13 he bequeathed the kingdom to Bellerophon on his own death.14

The Dragon-Slayer: Perseus15: Apollodorus 2.4.1–5:16

(ATU 300)
(2.4.1) Some say that it was Proetus who seduced Danae, and that the quarrel
­( between Acrisius and Proetus) started from this; but others say that Zeus changed
into gold, and flowing through the roof into the lap of Danae had intercourse
with her. And when Acrisius found out later that she had given birth to a child,
he did not believe that she had been seduced by Zeus; he threw his daughter with
the child into a chest and threw it into the sea. When the chest was washed up
on Seriphus, Dictys took up the child and raised him. (2.4.2) And the brother of
Dictys, the king of Seriphus Polydectes, fell in love with Danae, but was unable
to be with her, as Perseus had already grown to manhood. So he called together
his friends, including Perseus, saying that he was collecting contributions for a
wedding present for Hippodameia, the daughter of Oenomaus. When Perseus said
that he would not refuse to provide even the Gorgon’s head, Polydectes asked for
horses from the others, but as Perseus could not provide horses he required him to
bring him the Gorgon’s head instead. But Perseus received guidance from Hermes
and Athena and reached the daughters of Phorcys, Enyo, Pephredo and Dino.
These were Phorcys’ children by Ceto, sisters of the Gorgons, and old women
from birth (Graeae). And the three had one eye and one tooth, and took them in
turn. Perseus commandeered these, and when they asked for them, he agreed to
return them if they would tell him the way to the nymphs. These nymphs had
winged sandals and the kibisis, which they say was a wallet. And they also had the
cap of Hades. When he received guidance from the Phorcides, he returned their
tooth and eye, and arriving where the nymphs lived he had the good luck to get
what he wanted. He slung on the kibisis, put the sandals on his ankles, and put
the cap on his head. And with this he saw those he wished to see, but he himself
was invisible. And having taken from Hermes a sickle of adamant, he flew off to
the Ocean and caught the Gorgons asleep. Their names were Stheno, Euryale and
Medusa. Only the last was mortal, hence it was her head that Perseus was sent to
fetch. But the Gorgons had heads twined with the scales of dragons, and huge
 Traditional heroes, magic objects 157

tusks like boars’ tusks and brazen hands and golden wings for flying. And those
who looked at them they turned to stone. So Perseus stood over them as they slept,
while Athena guided his hand, and turning away and looking into a bronze shield
through which he saw the Gorgon’s reflection, he cut off (Medusa’s) head. And
when the head was cut off, there sprang from the Gorgon winged horses Pegasus
and Chrysaor, the father of Geryon. These the Gorgon conceived by Poseidon.
(2.4.3) Perseus, then, put the head of Medusa into the kibisis and made his way
back; the other Gorgons, raised from their sleep, tried to pursue him, but were
unable to see him thanks to the cap, as he was hidden by it.
Perseus then arrived in Ethiopia,17 whose king was Cepheus, and found the
king’s daughter Andromeda exposed to feed a sea-monster. For the wife of
Cepheus, Cassiopeia, quarrelled with the Nereids over beauty, and boasted that
she was superior to all of them. So the nymphs were furious, and Poseidon shared
their anger and sent a flood against the country, and a sea-monster. And Ammon
gave an oracle that the country would be saved from the disaster if Cassiopeia’s
daughter Andromeda were put out as prey to the monster, and Cepheus did this,
compelled by the Ethiopians, and bound his daughter to a rock. Perseus saw
her, and fell in love with her: he promised to Cepheus to kill the monster if he
would give him the rescued princess as his wife. When Cepheus swore an oath to
this effect, Perseus stood up to the monster and killed it, and freed ­A ndromeda.
Phineus plotted against him, the brother of Cepheus originally betrothed to
Andromeda, but when Perseus discovered the plot he showed the Gorgon’s head
to him and his fellow-conspirators, and turned them at once to stone. And when
he arrived back in Seriphus and found his mother together with Dictys as a
suppliant at the altars because of the violent threats of Polydectes, he went into
the palace, called together Polydectes’ friends, turned away, and showed them
the Gorgon’s head. And when they saw it, each of them was turned to stone, in
whatever posture he happened to be. And after making Dictys king of Seriphus,
he returned the sandals, the kibisis and the cap to Hermes, and gave the gorgon’s
head to Athena.18 And Hermes returned the objects mentioned to the nymphs,
while Athene set the Gorgon’s head in the middle of her shield. And some say
that Medusa was beheaded at the behest of Athena. For they say that the Gorgon
wished to rival the goddess in beauty.
Perseus hurried with Danae and Andromeda to Argos to see Acrisius. But when
the latter heard and (still) feared the prophecy, he left Argos and withdrew to the
land of the Pelasgians. But Teutamides, king of Larissa, was holding an athletic
contest in honour of his father who had died, and Perseus arrived to compete.
As he took part in the pentathlon, he threw the discus and hit ­Acrisius on the
foot and killed him.19 And realising that the oracle was f­ulfilled, he b­ uried him
outside the walls, and not wishing to return to Argos to r­ eceive the i­nheritance
of the man he had killed, he went to Megapenthes, son of P ­ roetus at Tiryns, and
exchanged kingdoms with him, giving him Argos instead. And Megapenthes
ruled the Argives, while Perseus was king of Tiryns and also ­fortified Midia and
Mycenae. (2.4.5) And Andromeda had sons by him: Perses before he arrived in
158 Traditional heroes, magic objects

Greece, whom he left with Cepheus (and from him it is said that the kings of
Persia are descended), while in Mycenae his children were Alcaeus and Sthenelus
and Eleius and Mestor and Electryon, and a daughter Gorgophone, who was
married to Perieres.20

The Dancing Princesses21: Apollodorus 2.2.2 (ATU 306,

The Danced-Out Shoes)22
Proetus23 had daughters by Stheneboea: Lysippe, Iphinoe and Iphianassa. And
when they grew to woman-hood they went mad, according to Hesiod, because
they did not accept the rites of Dionysus, but according to Acusilaus, because
they failed to respect the wooden statue of Hera. In their madness they would
wander all over Argive territory, and afterwards, passing through Arcadia and
the ­Peloponnese, they would run through desert regions in total disregard for
­decency.24 But Melampus,25 the son of Amythaon and Eidomene daughter of
Abas, a seer who first discovered healing through drugs and purifications,
­promised to cure the girls in return for a third of Proetus’ kingdom.26 When the
king refused to agree to pay for the cure in return for so high a price, the girls
­became still more deranged and <the madness spread to> the rest of the women
as well. When the disaster reached epidemic proportions Proetus agreed to pay
the amount demanded (Melampus <now> agreed to undertake the cure when his
brother Bias <too> should receive a <further> third of the kingdom <in turn>).
­Proetus was now afraid that if the cure were to be delayed the price would increase
still further, and agreed to the cure on these conditions. And so Melampus took
the strongest young men with him and pursued the girls from the mountains to
­Sicyon with shouting and ‘a sort of frenzied dancing’. In the course of the pursuit
the eldest of the daughters, Iphinoe, lost her life. But the rest had the good luck to
return to their right minds thanks to the purifications. Proetus gave the two girls
in marriage to Melampus and Bias, and the latter later had a son Megapenthes.

Hippomenes and Atalanta: Ovid Metamorphoses 10.

560–68027 (cf. ATU 306)
(560) (Venus speaks:) Perhaps you have heard of a woman who overcame swift
men in a footrace? That rumour was not an idle tale, for indeed (Atalanta) used
to win races over men; nor could you tell whether she was more outstanding for
her speed than for her beauty. When this girl consulted (Apollo) on marriage he
replied ‘You have no need of marriage, Atalanta: avoid the custom. And yet you
will not escape it, and though still living you will lose your own self ’. In fear of
the divine oracle, she lived unwedded in the woodland shades and put to flight
her pressing crowd of suitors with a harsh condition:

No man is to have power over me, unless he has conquered me in a race:

strive against me with your feet: the swift runner will have a wife and a
 Traditional heroes, magic objects 159

marriage bed as his prize; death will be the penalty for the slow-footed: let
that be the condition for the contest.

(Hippomenes volunteers, and the pair fall in love.) (638) Already the people
and her father were pressing for the usual race, when Neptune’s descendant
­H ippomenes sought my (Venus’) help with anxious voice: ‘I beg the lady of
Cythera to be with me in my daring enterprise and assist the flames she ­k indled!’
The ungrudging breeze brought me his persuasive prayers. I confess I was
moved, nor did I long delay my help. There is a field which the natives call
Tamasenus, the best of the soil of Cyprus, which the ancient elders consecrated
to me and ordered to be given as an offering in addition to my temples: in the
middle of it shines a tree with tawny leaves and branches crinkling with tawny
gold. I ­happened to be coming from here with three golden apples I had plucked;
­invisible to all but Hippomenes, I approached him and told him how to use
them. The trumpets had given the sign, when both darted forward from their
enclosure and moistened the surface of the sand with their swift feet: You might
suppose the pair were able to skim the waves without wetting their feet, or cross
over the ears of white grain still leaving them standing… (664) Then at last the
scion of Neptune launched one of the three tree-fruits: the girl was amazed and
in her desire for the shining apple she wandered off from the course and picked
up the rolling golden ball. Hippomenes passed her; the seating reverberated with
applause. But she made up her delay and the time she had conceded by her swift
course, and once more left the youth behind, and again delayed by the throw
of the second apple she pursued and overtook him. The final part of the course
remained. ‘Now’, he said, ‘goddess who first gave me this gift, be present!’ And
into the broad plain, so that she should return still more slowly, he threw the
shining object with a young man’s strength in a sideways direction. The girl
seemed to hesitate to go for it; but I forced her to pick it up and made the apple
heavier when she had done so; I blocked her both with the added weight and the
delay. Nor let my tale be slower than the race itself: he passed the girl, and led off
the prize he had won.

The Two Brothers: Peleus and Telamon28: Apollodorus 3.

12f. (ATU 303, The Twins or Blood-Brothers)
(3.12) Phocus29 was superior in athletic prowess, and his brothers Peleus and
Telamon plotted against him. And Telamon drew the lot and killed him as they
were exercising together by throwing a discus against his head, and carried the
body together with Peleus, and hid it in some wood. But the murder was dis-
covered and the two were driven away from Aegina by Aeacus. And Telamon
came to Salamis, to the court of Cychreus, son of Poseidon and Salamis, daugh-
ter of Asopus.30 Now Cychreus became king of Salamis after killing a snake
which was wreaking havoc on the island, and as he had no children, when he
died he bequeathed the kingdom to Telamon, who married Periboia daughter of
160 Traditional heroes, magic objects

Alcathous31 son of Pelops, and when Heracles prayed that he should have a male
child, an eagle appeared after the prayer and he called his child Ajax. And he
went on expedition with Heracles against Troy, and took as a prize Hesione the
daughter of Laomedon, and with her he had a son Teucer.
(3.13) And Peleus fled to Phthia, to the court of Eurytion, son of Actor, and was
purified by him, and received from him his daughter Antigone and a third part of
his territory. And he had a daughter Polydora who was married to Boreas, son of
Perieres. Then he went with Eurytion on the Calydonian boar-hunt, and throwing
a javelin at the boar he accidentally hit and killed Eurytion.32 And so fleeing once
more from Phthia to Iolcus he came to Acastus at Iolcus and received purification
from him. And he competed also at the games in honour of Pelias, wrestling with
Atalanta. And Astydameia, the wife of Acastus, falling in love with Peleus, sent
him a message offering to sleep with him. And unable to persuade him, she sent
word to his wife that Peleus was about to marry Sterope, Acastus’ daughter. And
when she heard this she hanged herself. And she told lies about Peleus to Acastus,
saying that he had tried to persuade her to sleep with him. But when Acastus
heard this he was unwilling to kill the man he had purified,33 but took him on a
hunt on Pelion. There was a hunting-contest, and Peleus cut out the tongues of
the animals he had overcome and put them in a wallet, while Acastus’ followers
took possession of his quarries and laughed at him for being empty-handed. But
he produced all the tongues for them, and claimed to have as many quarries as he
had tongues.34 And when he was asleep on Pelion, Acastus abandoned him and re-
turned home, after hiding his sword in the cow-dung. When he got up and looked
for his sword, he was caught by the centaurs and was about to die, when he was
rescued by ­Chiron,35 who sought out his sword and gave it back.
Peleus married Polydora,36 the daughter of Perieres, by whom he had a son
Menesthius – supposedly, though the real father was the river Spercheius. ­A fter
that he married Thetis, daughter of Nereus, over whose marriage Zeus and Po-
seidon had been rivals. But when Themis made the prophecy that her child
would be mightier than his father they desisted.
Chiron, then, gave Peleus advice to take and keep hold of her while she
changed shape, and looking out for her he seized her, and though she changed
by turns into fire, water, and a wild animal, he would not let go till he saw her
resume her former shape. And he married her on Pelion, and there the gods cel-
ebrated their marriage with feasting and singing.37 And Chiron gave Peleus an
ashen spear, Poseidon the horses Balius and Xanthus, immortal steeds.
And when Thetis had a child by Peleus, wishing to make it immortal and
without Peleus’ knowledge, she would hide it at night in fire to destroy its father’s
mortal element, while by day she anointed the child with ambrosia. And Peleus
kept watch and saw the child writhing in the fire, while Thetis, prevented from
carrying out her design, abandoned the infant 38 and went off to the Nereids.
Peleus for his part took the child to Chiron, and he fed it on the innards of lions
and wild boars and the marrow of bears, and called it Achilles (his former name
was Ligyron) because he did not put his lips to his mother’s breast.39
 Traditional heroes, magic objects 161

The Girl Helper in the Hero’s Flight: Jason and Medea40:

Apollodorus 1.9.23–28 (ATU 313, The Magic Flight)
(1.9.23) Having sailed past the Thermodon and the Caucasus (the Argonauts)
reached the river Phasis, a river in Colchis. After anchoring the ship Jason arrived
at the court of Aeetes, and reciting the instruction from Pelias called on Aietes to
give him the fleece, and Aeetes promised to give it to him, if he should yoke the
bronze-hooved bulls single-handed. These were a pair of wild bulls in his pos-
session, of enormous bulk, the gift of Hephaestus, which had bronze hooves and
breathed fire from their mouths. And when he had yoked them he ordered him
to sow the dragon’s teeth. For Aeetes had received from Athena half the dragon’s
teeth which Cadmus sowed in Thebes. And when Jason was at a loss as to how to
yoke the bulls, Medea fell in love with him41; she was the daughter of Aeetes and
Eiduia, daughter of Ocean, and was a witch.42 And fearing that Jason would be
destroyed by the bulls, without her father’s knowledge she promised to help him
to yoke the bulls43 and put the fleece in his hands, if he should swear to marry her
and take her as a partner on the voyage back to Greece. And when Jason swore
the oath, she gave him a drug with which she told him to anoint his shield, spear
and body when about to yoke the bulls. For she said that anointed with this he
would not be harmed by fire or iron for a single day. And she indicated to him that
when the teeth were being sown, armed men would spring up out of the ground
against him44; she told him that whenever he saw them tightly gathered together,
he should throw stones into their midst from a distance, and when they fought
each other on this account, he was then to kill them. When Jason heard this and
anointed himself with the drug, he arrived at the temple grove and went after the
bulls, and although they sent against him a great deal of flame he yoked them.
And when he had sowed the dragon’s teeth, armed men rose up out of the earth,
and when he saw a group of them he threw stones at them unobserved, and while
they fought one another he came up and cut them down. And although Jason had
yoked the bulls Aeetes still refused to give him the fleece, but intended to burn
the Argo45 and kill the crew. But Medea was one step ahead, and brought Jason by
night to the fleece, and after she and Jason had lulled its guardian dragon to sleep,
she took the fleece and arrived at the Argo. And her brother Absyrtus also fol-
lowed her. And in company with them the Argonauts put to sea during the night.
(24) When Aeetes discovered Medea’s daring deed he set off to pursue the
ship. Medea saw him close at hand, murdered her brother and tearing him limb
from limb threw him into the sea. Aeetes gathered the child’s limbs and delayed
the pursuit, and so he turned back,46 buried the limbs he had rescued, and called
the place Tomi.47 And he sent many of the Colchians to hunt for the Argo,
threatening that if they did not bring him Medea, they should suffer the pun-
ishments owed to her; they split up and each band searched in different places.
… (25) And as they sailed past the Sirens, Orpheus held the Argonauts back
by singing a counter-chant. Only Butes left the ship and sailed towards them, but
Aphrodite snatched him and settled him in Lilybaeum.
162 Traditional heroes, magic objects

And after the Sirens, Charybdis, Scylla and the Wandering Rocks received
them, above which they saw a great flame and smoke rising. But Thetis and the
Nereids, at the invitation of Hera, brought the ship through.
… (28); they arrived in Corinth, and continued to live happily there for ten
years, but afterwards King Creon of Corinth betrothed his daughter Glauce48 to
Jason, who divorced Medea and married her. But Medea called on the gods Jason
had sworn by, and finding fault again and again with Jason for his ingratitude,
sent to the bride a robe steeped with poisons, and when she put it on both she
and her father were consumed by a raging fire, and the children Medea had from
Jason, Mermeros and Pheres, she killed; and taking from the sun a chariot drawn
by winged dragons she flew off on it to Athens.

Little Red Riding Hood: Euthymus and the Wolf49:

Pausanias 6.6.7–11 (ATU 333)50
(7) They say that during his wanderings after the fall of Troy Odysseus was driven
with his fleet by the winds to cities in Italy and Sicily, among them Temesa.51
There one of his sailors got drunk and raped a girl; as a punishment the local peo-
ple had stoned him to death.52 (8) Odysseus for his part was unconcerned at the loss
and sailed off, but the daimōn of the stoned man lost no opportunity to kill the peo-
ple of Temesa, young and old alike. They were preparing to leave Italy altogether
when the Delphic priestess forbade them, but ordered them instead to ­propitiate
the Departed Spirit (Hero53) and set aside an enclosure and build a temple,54 and
every year to give him the most beautiful young woman in Temesa as a wife. (9)
And so when they carried out the god’s commands they were terrorised no longer
by the ghost. But Mr. Courage (Euthymus55) happened to arrive in ­Temesa at the
very time when it was the custom to propitiate the ghost. He found out what was
happening, and felt the urge to enter the temple and see the girl. When he saw her,
first of all he was seized with pity for her, then he fell in love with her. And the girl
promised to marry him if he would save her.56 Mr Courage put on his armour and
waited for the ghost to attack. (10) And he won the fight and the ghost was driven
out of the region; it sank into the sea and was never seen again.57 Mr. Courage
had a prestigious marriage, and the people of Temesa were henceforth free of the
ghost… (11) I happened to see a picture58 and learned the following: (it was a copy
of an ancient painting). There was a young man, Sybaris, the river Calabrus and
the spring Lyca. In addition there was the ghost’s shrine and the city of Temesa,
and among them too the ghost that Mr. Courage cast out: his colour was terribly
black and he looked utterly fearful, and he was wearing a garment of wolfskin.
And the lettering on the picture called him Lykos (‘Mr. Wolf ’).59

Gyges and the Magic Ring: Plato, Republic 2. 359C–360B (ATU

560–562, The magic Ring/Aladdin/The Spirit in the Blue Light)
The sort of power I am talking about would be precisely the sort they say was
possessed by [the ancestor of ] Gyges60 the Lydian. For they say he was a shepherd
 Traditional heroes, magic objects 163

under the then king of Lydia, and that after a great rainstorm and earthquake
the ground gave way and there was a chasm in the place where he was grazing
his flock. When he saw this he was amazed and went down into it; and they tell
the fanciful tale (mythologousi) that he saw among other wonders a hollow bronze
horse with doors; when he peeped in he saw a corpse inside, which seemed of
greater than mortal size, with nothing else but a golden ring on its hand, which
he put on before leaving,61 and when the shepherds had their usual gathering to
make their monthly report to the king about his flocks, Gyges appeared there
wearing the ring. So sitting beside the others he happened to turn the bezel of the
ring towards the inside of his hand. And when this happened (360) he appeared
invisible to those sitting beside him, and they spoke about him among themselves
as if he were absent. He was amazed at this, and as he continued to fumble with
the ring he turned the bezel out again, and by doing so became visible again. And
noticing this he performed an experiment with his ring to see whether it had
this power, and observed that that was indeed the case: if he turned it inwards,
he became invisible, if he turned it outward he became visible.62 When he real-
ised this, he managed to become one of the messengers who attended the king’s
court, and he arrived and seduced the king’s wife, and with her help he attacked
the king and took possession of the kingdom.63

Notes
1 For the tale-type as a whole, Röhrich EM 3(1981b), 797–820; Hansen, 119–130.
2 On the Chimaera, Ogden (2013), 75–81. The name Bellerophon itself is problematic:
‘slayer of Bellerus’? And if so, who was he?
3 The celebrated arch-trickster in Greek tradition: Gantz (1993), 173–176.
4 Anteia in Homer’s version: the ‘Potiphar’s wife’ theme: numerous analogues in
Hansen, (332–352), including most notably the case of Hippolytus and Phaedra; for
an anthology, Yohannan (1968).
5 King of Corinth (Homer’s Ephyre), and stepfather of Oedipus.
6 The sēmata lugra (‘baleful signs’) of Homer’s version. The celebrated ‘Uriah letter’
theme, Stith Thompson K978.
7 King of Lycia.
8 The nature of the beast, like the sphinx, suggests a Near Eastern hybrid, appropriate
to the Lycian colour of the tale.
9 Amisodorus, Homer Iliad, 16.328f.
10 Hesiod Theogony, 325–329.
11 Pegasus: first only in post-Homeric versions; it is supplied at the instigation of Athena,
(Pindar, Olympian, 13.63–92).
12 We have no details of these latter two tasks. There seem to be four tasks rather than
three, perhaps suggesting one as part of an alternative tradition.
13 Anonymous in Homer.
14 Apollodorus misses out a negative end to the tale, present in Homer, that Bellerophon
is reduced to wandering on the Aleian Plain (‘plain of wandering’): Kirk (1990) on
Iliad, 6.201f.
15 Hartland (1894–1896); Röhrich, EM 3 (1981b), 787–829; Hansen, 119–130, 246–251;
Ogden (2008).
16 Perseus’ adventures offer the hero-tale par excellence: the hero, of secretly divine
ancestry, is sent by a wicked king on a deliberately fatal quest. Supernatural helpers
provide him with the wherewithal to acquire magic objects/helpers necessary to
slay a sequence of monsters and enemies. Often his title is proven by cutting out a
164 Traditional heroes, magic objects

monster’s tongue, to be produced when an impostor claims the victory. In fact, as

normally in fairy tales, the hero requires little by way of actual valour. He is provided
and protected almost throughout by others, whose support is predetermined by his
birth.
17 At this point the Dragon Slayer properly begins: some mythographers relocate the ex-
ploit to Joppa in Palestine: local tradition still points out Andromeda’s fetters ­( Pausanias,
4.35.9; Josephus, Bellum Judaicum, 3.9.3). For the offence by the wife of Cepheus,
cf. ­Niobe’s fatal boast offending Leto, which does not however activate a Dragon Slayer
account, and Laomedon’s offence against Apollo and Poseidon, which does. Cf. also
Euthymus and the wolf (above, a very truncated version). Hansen (2002), 123 seems
right to see Phineus as a trace of the ‘false suitor’ motif, but here he has a prior claim.
18 The return of magic objects is rarely reported in hero-tales: the handing over of the
Gorgon’s head to Athena may be part of her motivation for helping Perseus in the first
place.
19 The final motif in the story of Acrisius actually belongs to the much broader folklore
theme of vain attempts to elude destiny, central for example to the Oedipus story
(ATU, 931).
20 Hansen considers six ancient examples of dragon-slayer tales which he tentatively
groups in three sub-types, with Perseus and Heracles-Hesione as one type, sited in
coastal regions away from the Greek mainland. The criteria are sound, but the sample
necessarily too small.
21 Opie and Opie (1980), 245–252; Anderson (2000), 119–122.
22 Kőhler-Zű lch EM 12 (2007), 221–227. The modern tale has the girls attending a
secret ball where they dance with corpses, sometimes with their former lovers, in an
underworld. This setting is hinted at in an allusion in Pausanias (8.18.7) to the fact
that one of the three girls died at a cave in the Aonian mountains above Nonacris,
where there is an entrance to the Styx (ibid., 8.18.4).
23 Proetus was the king of Corinth who purified Bellerophon (Apollodorus, 2.3.1).
24 For madnesses of this kind, cf. Plutarch’s account of mass female suicides in Miletus,
solved only by threatening to expose the naked corpses of the girls, Moralia, 249b–d.
25 Melampus is a resourceful trickster figure from Hesiod onwards.
26 The fantasy of kings giving huge portions of their kingdom and executing failed
suitors puts the story firmly into the fairy tale repertoire.
27 Only one princess this time, and running rather than dancing. But the magic apples
supplied by Aphrodite from the magically leaved tree, and the death penalty for fail-
ure, should leave us in little doubt as to the similarity of the two stories.
28 Ranke EM 2 (1979), 912–919. Hansen regards the overall tale as too complex for
discussion (333f.), and only focuses on Potiphar’s wife, but does relate the overall
tale, much adapted, to Plautus’ Menaechmi. The story is one of relatively few tales
where we can immediately point to a securely dated Ancient Near Eastern version
­( Lichtheim 2, 1974, 203–211) quite unequivocally predating by some two millennia
the modern popular tale, and conveniently showing how far two such versions can
differ, consistent with remaining securely identical.
29 Phocus (‘seal’): some modern versions have the brothers eating a golden crab so that
one becomes a king, the other fabulously wealthy.
30 Purification for murder is a recurrent opening to ATU 303, as it is to ATU 300.
31 Her father Alcathous has ‘dragon-slaying’ credentials in his own right (Hansen, 124f.)
32 For misfortune striking twice in this way (the purified accidentally killing the
­purifier’s son), cf. Herodotus’ story of Croesus and Adrastus, 1.34–43.
33 Potiphar’s wife: the episode is found as part of the Ancient Egyptian version of the
Two Brothers tale: see also Hansen, 450f.
34 Cutting out the animal tongues is a defining characteristic of the Dragon Slayer
(ATU, 300). Note its presence also in Gottfried von Strassburg’s version of Tristan,
much of which likewise dates from Antiquity (Anderson 2007).
 Traditional heroes, magic objects 165

35 Peleus is rescued by the half-man, half-horse Chiron; Bata is rescued by a talking cow
in the Ancient Egyptian version.
36 Polydora, ‘much-gift’ seems to be the equivalent of the treacherous wife in the Bata
story, who is endowed by all the gods, and seems to ‘prefer the better offer’ in the
form of the Pharaoh. For the episode, cf. the advice of Eidothea to Menelaus to keep
hold of the shape-shifter Proteus, Odyssey, 4.414–424.
37 The subject of the celebrated epyllion by Catullus (64).
38 The same is told of Demeter in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, 242–262.
39 The defining motif of Type 303 is actually missing from Apollodorus’ version, namely
the ‘life-token’ aspect which will enable one brother to rescue the other (already pres-
ent in the Ancient Egyptian version).
40 The latter half of the Argonautic expedition is generally recognised as belonging
to ‘The Girl Helper in the hero’s Flight’ (Hansen, 151–166; Puchner EM 9, 1999,
12–19). The girl falls in love with the hero her father is trying to kill with fatal tasks,
gives him magic help to accomplish the tasks, and then obstructs her father’s pursuit;
a false bride often distracts the hero, but the heroine defeats her. The Theseus-Ari-
adne story follows the pattern (with no pursuit by Minos), but the forgotten fiancée
element is this time more prominent. Hansen makes a good case for Epicaste daughter
of Augeas as a similar helper for Heracles’ cleansing of the Augean stables.
41 Normally in the folktale tradition the heroine falls in love naturally; in Apollonius
the love-affair is managed by Hera and Athena for their own ends. Aeetes plays the
part of the ogre: treacherous and cruel rather than a dreadful giant as such.
42 And also of course the niece of the arch-witch Circe.
43 Sometimes all three tasks concern the taming of animals, as in Dede Korkut; note also
Culwych in the Mabinogion, faced with the task of sowing a field in a day.
44 What the sown men were remains open to speculation: were they autochthones,
‘sons of the soil’? An underground army, or concealed in trenches? Whatever the
answer, the same result is faced by Cadmus in dealing with the other half of the teeth
­(Apollodorus, 3.4.1).
45 Hansen points out a bizarre modern Mexican version, in which the hero is fed three
hot breakfasts.
46 Normally the folktale ruses are impossible, taking the form of tossing a magic object
behind to produce a barrier (e.g. a comb which turns into an impassable forest), and
are normally given three variations. The dismemberment of Absyrtus may be a dis-
placement from the episode much later where the heroine arranges the dismember-
ment of the hero’s uncle Pelias; sometimes this entails dismemberment of the heroine
herself.
47 I.e. cutting <temn ō>.
48 Normally the rival is an ugly pretender who insinuates herself because the hero has
broken a taboo (e.g. by kissing his mother), and literally forgets the heroine till his
memory has been jogged by a ruse. The ending is usually a happy one, but conspic-
uously not so in the Greek versions, where Medea’s revenge and its consequences are
irreversible.
49 Red Riding Hood in a very different guise, without the jingling dialogue, the red hood
or the grandmother: a young girl is rescued by an athletic hero from a ghost called
wolf, depicted wearing a wolf-skin, and already punished for rape by stoning (in a
previous life), but finally by drowning.
50 Opie and Opie (1980), 119–125; Zipes (1993); Anderson (2000), 92–96; Hansen,
127f.; Kawan EM 11 (2004), 854–868.
51 There may be an element of confusion with the Teumessian fox, a Greek mainland
legend from Boeotia.
52 A traditional community punishment in antiquity; it is applied in a different way in
Red Riding Hood, where the wolf ’s belly is filled with stones, but ‘death by stones’ is
the same in both cases.
166 Traditional heroes, magic objects

53 The term hero is morally neutral, as used for example of the suitors in Homer’s Odyssey.
54 A rather more elevated ‘take’ on the grandmother’s cottage.
55 Euthymus was an actually attested athletic victor, so that Pausanias’ version of the
story is strictly speaking a local legend. Hansen relates the story to ATU 300, as a
‘dragon-slayer’ narrative.
56 Not now a politically correct rescue: the girl gives herself to the hero under duress.
57 The Grimms’ Red Riding Hood has a second wolf drowned: it is not clear how sinking
in the sea ‘kills’ the ghost.
58 Only the visual depiction of the story identifies the villain as Lycus (‘wolf ’). Such
paintings were often exhibited in temples as propaganda for a local hero or saint.
59 Paintings sometimes rationalise where stories metamorphose: compare the case of
Actaeon depicted visually as wearing a deerskin rather than actually turning into a
deer.
60 Proclus defends Plato’s reading, of an ancestor of the Gyges, but the Gyges of ­Herodotus,
1.7–14 and Nicolaus of Damascus seems obviously one and the same. In Herodotus
we have a scandalising novella blaming King Candaules for antagonising his wife; in
Nicolaus a quasi-historical account where Gyges makes improper advances to the future
queen and must stage a coup to save his own life.
61 The subterranean treasure looks more like a genuine archaeological possibility than it
did when K.F. Smith discussed the tale over a century ago; but the story as presented
is still resolutely magical.
62 Plato’s narration has a scientist’s or logician’s precision, while the fantastic detail is
left imprecise or ambiguous. The prevailing resemblances are to Aladdin, or to Near
Eastern wonder-tale in general.
63 Smith (1901 and 1920); Ranke EM 1 (1977), 240–247; Tucker EM 5 (1987), 928–933.
Anderson (2000), 284–287; (2007), 284–287 (with analogues to the Gawain l­egend);
Marzolph EM 14 (2014), 1189–1194.
10
ANIMAL TALES

The most prevalent theme in the following examples is that the animals are
helpful to individual men in distress: a friendly dolphin rescues a famous singer
from pirates; a household cockerel offers vengeance and moral instruction to
his household companion, the poor cobbler; a gnat gives its life to save a shep-
herd from a snake; a fox-girl secures her son’s succession to a kingdom. None
of the examples, except the last (‘the goose that laid the golden egg’) is actually
an Aesopic fable, a genre that overlaps surprisingly little with fairy tale. The
testamentum porcelli is a parody of a Roman will. Helpful animals often figure as
subsidiary motifs in larger tales, as for example in the cow that might yield its
bones to provide a trousseau tree for Cinderella, or the ants that help Psyche in
her grain-sorting task.

Animal Helpers: Arion and the Dolphin: Herodotus 1.23f.

(Stith Thompson Motif B550, Animals Carry Men)
(23) The Corinthians say, and the people of Lesbos agree with them, that in the
lifetime of (Periander of Corinth) there occurred a very great marvel: Arion of
Methymna was brought to Taenarus on the back of a dolphin.1 This man was the
foremost lyre-player of his age; he was the first man known to us to compose and
name the dithyramb, and he taught it in Corinth. (24) They say that this Arion,
after spending the best part of his time at Periander’s court, had a desire to sail to
Italy and Sicily, and having made a fortune wished to return to Corinth. Now he
set out from Tarentum, hiring a Corinthian ship, because he trusted Corinthians
above all others. But on the high seas these men plotted to dispose of Arion and
keep his money. When he realised this, he begged them to take his money but
spare his life; however, he could not persuade them, but the sailors ordered him
either to kill himself, so as to be buried on land, or at once to jump into the sea.
168 Animal tales

Threatened by this dilemma Arion begged them, since that was their decision,
to allow him to take his stance in his full robes on the poop deck and sing to
them; and he promised to do away with himself after the song. Now the men
were delighted at the prospect of hearing the greatest of singers, and withdrew
amidships. Arion then dressed in his full regalia, performed the orthios nomos and
at the end threw himself into the sea, still wearing all his robes. And the crew
sailed on to Corinth, but they say that the dolphin took up Arion and brought
him to Taenarus. Arion then made his way to Corinth, still in his robes, and on
his arrival told them all that had happened to him. Periander for his part did not
believe him, but put Arion under heavy guard and kept a close lookout for the
sailors. When they arrived, they were asked if they had any news of Arion, and
when they replied that he was safe in Italy and they had left him flourishing in
Tarentum, Arion made his appearance to them, just as when he leapt from the
ship, and they were terrified and unable to deny their crime now that their guilt
had been proven. So say the Corinthians and people of Lesbos alike, and there
is a small monument of bronze at Taenarus, depicting a man riding a dolphin.

Arion and the Dolphin2: Hyginus Fabulae 194 (Stith Thompson

Motif B550)
Since Arion of Methymna was a master in the art of the cithara, he was a great
friend of Periander king of Corinth. When he had asked the king to allow him to
demonstrate his art throughout the state and amassed a great fortune, his servants
conspired with a crew of sailors to kill him. But Apollo appeared to him in a
dream and told him to perform in his regalia and bardic crown and entrust him-
self to those who would protect him. When the servants and the sailors wanted
to kill him, he begged them that he would sing to them first. And so when the
sound of the cithara could be heard along with his voice, dolphins came round
the ship, and when he saw them he jumped. They took him up <and brought
him to king Periander>. But when he reached land he was eager to be on his way
and neglected to push his dolphin back into the sea, so that it died there. When
he told Periander his misfortunes the king ordered the dolphin to be buried and
for a monument to be erected.3 After a short time word came to Periander that
the ship Arion had travelled on had been brought to Corinth by a storm. When
he ordered the crew to be brought to him and asked about Arion, they said he
had died and that they had buried him. The king replied: ‘tomorrow you will
swear an oath at the dolphin’s monument’. For that reason he ordered them to be
put under guard and told Arion, dressed as when he threw himself overboard,
to hide next morning inside the monument. When the king brought them there
and told them to swear by the dolphin’s spirit that Arion was dead, he stepped out
of the monument. They were dumbfounded, wondering by what divinity he had
been rescued. Periander ordered them to be crucified at the dolphin monument.4
Apollo for his part on account of his skill on the cithara placed Arion and the
dolphin among the stars.
 Animal tales 169

Micyllus and the Magic Cockerel5: Lucian, The Dream or the Cock,
excerpts) (ATU 715/715A, Demi-cock/The Wonderful Rooster)6
(1) (The cock speaks for the first time):
My master Micyllus, I thought I would do you a good turn by getting ahead
of the night-time as much as I could, so that you could make use of the early
hours and get most of your work done early. At any rate if you should finish
a single sandal before sunrise, you’ll be that further forward towards toiling
for your daily bread. But if you prefer to sleep on, I will be quiet and have
much less to say than fish do: but see that you don’t dream you’re rich and go
hungry when you wake up.
(2) M.: O Zeus lord of miracles and Heracles averter of ills! What misfortune is
this? The cock spoke with a human voice!
C.: Then you consider such a thing a miracle, for me to talk in the same tongue
as you?
M.: How can it be anything else? Ye gods, avert this ill-omen from us!
(The cock hears how his master has been humiliated by two grandees in
succession)
(8) C.: Tell me first, Micyllus, what happened at Eucrates’ house, both what the
dinner was like and everything that went on at the drinking-party after-
wards…For there is nothing to stop you dining once more, by putting to-
gether a dream of that dinner, as it were, and chewing the cud of what you
ate in your memory.
(9) M.: I thought I would annoy you by going over all that, but since you
want to hear it, this is my story. I had never dined at a rich man’s table,
­P ythagoras,7 in my whole life, but yesterday I had the good luck to run
into ­Eucrates, and I respectfully addressed him as usual as ‘Master’, and was
ready to go off, so as not to embarrass him by falling in with him in my
beggar’s cloak. But he said, ‘Micyllus, today I am celebrating my daughter’s
birthday and I’ve invited a good many of my friends, but since they tell me
one of them is ill and is unable to dine with us, you take a bath and come in
his place, unless the man I’ve invited says he can come, for at this moment
it isn’t clear’. When I heard this I gave him a bow and went off…I thought
it an absolute age till my bath, and kept looking at the length of the shadow
(on the sundial), and when it would actually be time for it…(Eucrates’
friend, the grandee philosopher Thesmopolis, turns up after all). (11) I for
my part was getting ready to go off, but Eucrates turned to me and after a
good deal of hesitation, he said as he noticed I looked very disappointed,
‘You must come in too, Micyllus, and join us for the dinner. For I’ll tell my
son to dine with his mother in the women’s quarters, so that you can have
his place’. So I did go in, after coming close to gaping hungrily like the
wolf; but I was embarrassed because it looked as if I had driven Eucrates’
boy out of the dining-room…
(The second figure to insult Micyllus)
170 Animal tales

(14)…Take my neighbour and fellow-cobbler Simon, who had a meal

with me not long ago, when I boiled up soup at the festival of Cronus with
two slices of sausage in it…
C.: I know the man: the snub-nosed little fellow who made off with your earth-
enware bowl under his arm after dinner – the only one we had. For I saw it
with my own eyes.
M.: So he was the one who stole it and then swore by all those gods that he
hadn’t! But why didn’t you cry out and give the word, cockerel, when you
saw us being robbed?
C.: I crowed, which was all that I was able to do at the time. But what about
Simon, then? For you looked as if you were about to say something about
him.
M.: He had a tremendously rich cousin by the name of Drimylus. This man
didn’t give so much as an obol to Simon – for why should he, when he
himself didn’t touch the money? But when he died the other day, all that
money is Simon’s and now the man with the filthy rags, the man licking the
pot, happily drives out in his luxurious purple robes, with his servants and
carriages and golden goblets and tables with ivory legs, receiving homage
from everyone and no longer giving me so much as a glance. The other day
for instance I saw him coming towards me and said, ‘Hello, Simon’, but he
was annoyed, and replied ‘Tell this beggar not to shorten my name. For I am
not called Simon, but Simonides’.
(16ff.) Micyllus now hears about the cock’s transformations (Apollo,
­Euphorbus, Pythagoras, Aspasia…)
M.: But what man or woman did you become after Aspasia?
C.: The Cynic Crates.
M.: What amazing shifts of fortune, in the name of the Dioscuri: a courtesan,
then a philosopher!
(20) C.: Then a king, then a pauper, and a little later a satrap, then a horse, a
jackdaw, a frog and umpteen other things. It would be a long business to go
through them all. But most recently I have often been a cock, for I’ve taken
to this kind of life…
M.: …And so, Pythagoras – but what do you most like being called, so that I
shouldn’t confuse the conversation by calling you different names at differ-
ent times?…
C.: It won’t make any difference whether you call me Euphorbus or Pythagoras,
Aspasia or Crates. For I am all of them.8 But you would be better to call me
what you now see, a cock, so that you do no dishonour to the bird which
seems of little account, but has in it so many souls.
(The cock now demonstrates his magic powers to enter his enemies’
quarters)
(28) C.: I will cure you, Micyllus. And since it is still night, get up and follow me.
For I will take you to Simon’s house, and the houses of the other rich men,
so that you may see what their quarters are like.
 Animal tales 171

M.: How is that, when their doors are locked? Unless you’re going to make me
a burglar.
C.: Not at all, but Hermes, since I am his sacred bird, gave me this gift, that if
someone took my longest tail-feather, the pliant one that curls round…
M.: You have two like that –
C.: The right one, then; and if I let anyone pull it out and keep it, this sort of
man, for as long as I like, is able to open every door and see everything
without being seen himself.
M.: I wasn’t aware, cockerel, that you were a magician as well. But if you just
give it to me, you’ll see all Simon’s belongings quickly transported over here.
For I’ll slip in and bring them here instead, and he will once again chew the
leather as he stretches it.
C.: That’s not to happen, for Hermes instructed me that if the person in posses-
sion of the feather did anything of the sort, I was to raise my voice and get
him caught.9
M.: That’s incredible, for Hermes, a thief himself, to grudge that sort of thing to
anyone else. But let’s go: I’ll keep off the gold if I can.
C.: First pluck out the feather, Micyllus…What’s this? You’ve plucked the pair
of them!
M.: It’s safer that way, cock, and would be less disfiguring to you, so that you
won’t be limping on one side of your tail.
(29) C.: Very well then. Do we go first to Simon, or one of the other rich men?
C.: No, Let’s go to Simon’s, since he thinks he ought to have a four-syllable
name instead of two syllables, now that he’s rich.
M.: And here we are at his door. What do I do next?
C.: Put the feather into the lock -
M.: There we are, then. Heracles! The door has been opened as if by a key!10
C.: In you go. Do you see him still awake and doing his sums?
M.: Goodness, I do, at a dim, oil-guzzling lamp. He’s pale for some reason, cock-
erel, and all worn out and thin, no doubt from worry; for no-one said he was
ill of anything else. Listen to what he says and you’ll know why he’s like this.
S.: So these seventy talents are quite safe buried under the bed, and no-one else
knows. But the other sixteen I think the groom, Sosylus, saw me hiding
under the manger; or at least he’s always around the stable, not specially
concerned otherwise and not fond of work. I’ve likely been robbed of much
more: how else did Tibeios manage to buy the big flat-fish he’s supposed to
have bought yesterday, or the five drachmas worth of earring he’s supposed
to have bought his wife? These people are squandering my money, dear,
oh dear! But all these cups aren’t put away in a safe place either! At any rate
I’m scared someone will dig under the wall and snatch them: there are lots
of people who’re jealous and plotting against me, most of all my neighbour
Micyllus!
M.: I’ll say! For like you I’ll be off with the dishes under my arm!
C.: Quiet, Micyllus, or he’ll find out we’re here.
172 Animal tales

S.: Anyway it’s best to stay awake myself and be on guard. I’ll get up every now
and then and go round the whole house. Who’s that? I see you, you bur-
glar…Oh Lord, You’re only a pillar, it’s all right. I’ll dig up the gold and
count it again in case I got it wrong yesterday. But listen again! Someone
made a noise; he’s coming for me, that’s for sure. I’m under siege and every-
one’s plotting against me. Where’s my dagger? If I catch anyone…Let me
bury the gold again.
(30) C.: That’s the sort of life Simon leads. But let us go and call on someone else,
while we still have a little night left…
M.: Poor soul, what a life he leads. I hope my enemies are rich like him! But I
want to strike him over the head and go.
S.: Who hit me? Oh dear, I’m being robbed!
M.: Groan and stay awake, and turn yellow like the gold and melt into it. But let’s
go and visit Gnipho the moneylender, if you like. His house isn’t far away
either. This door too has opened for us. (31) Do you see him wide awake too
with worry, counting up his interest and wearing away his fingers? But soon
he’ll have to leave it all and turn into a beetle or a gnat or a dog-fly.
M.: I see a miserable fool of a man, living even now a life little better than a
beetle’s or a gnat’s. And he too is worn down with all his sums. Let’s go to
someone else’s.
(32) C.: To see your friend Eucrates, if you like. And look, this door too is open,
so let’s go inside.
M.: All this was mine a little while ago…
C.: Are you still dreaming about wealth, then? But do you see Eucrates himself
underneath his servant, old man that he is…?
M.: Yes, good heavens: I see lewdness and passive posturing and licentiousness
unnatural for a man; and in another quarter I see Eucrates’ wife in turn un-
derneath the cook…
(33) C.: Well then? Would you want to fall heir to all this as well, Micyllus, and
to have everything that Eucrates has?
M.: Certainly not, cockerel, I’d sooner starve! Goodbye to the gold and the din-
ners! Two obols are riches enough for me, instead of being buggered by the
servants!11
C.: But now dawn is already breaking; let’s go home. You’ll see the rest, Micyl-
lus, some other time.

The Faithful Gnat: Ps.-Virgil, Culex: 174–414 passim12

(ATU 178A, The Innocent Dog)
(174) [A snake] was surveying his surroundings when the huge beast saw before
him the guardian of a flock…(179) His mind is afire, his hisses furiously resound-
ing through his mouth … (183) [A gnat], a tiny creature nurtured by the dew ter-
rifies the (shepherd) victim in advance, and through his bites warns him to avoid
death. For where the shepherd’s eyes were drawn apart and opened his eye-lids,
 Animal tales 173

here the old man’s gleaming pupil had been struck by the light dart of nature,
when the shepherd leapt up in fury and pounded the creature and sent him to
his death, and all his breath was scattered and left his senses. Then he caught
sight of the serpent’s grim gaze at close quarters; then quickly, pale and scarcely
in command of his senses he rushed back, and pulled a sturdy branch from a tree
with his hand. What chance or divine force supported him we do not know, but
such as to avail to conquer the dreadful spinning limbs of the scaly dragon; and
he struck its bones with blow after blow as it fought back and made for him in its
foul attack; he struck where the crest surrounds its temples…When through his
body there entered a less substantial dream, and his languid limbs were laid to rest
by the outpouring of sleep, the effigy of the gnat descended and sang reproaches
over the event of his sad death: ‘By what deserts am I carried off and forced to
face a bitter reward? While your life was dearer to me than life itself, I am carried
away by the winds through the void… (214) The Shades compel my remains to
swim across the water of Lethe; I am driven off as booty for Charon; I see the
doorway ablaze with torches.
(391) The shepherd eagerly sets out to form a place; he decides to mark it out
as a circle, turns the hilt of his iron spade to use again and again to dig the grassy
earth from the green turf… (411) then on its face he inscribed his praises, and
letters form them with silent voice: ‘Tiny gnat, the guardian of the flock repays
to you who deserve so much the rite of your death in return for the gift of life’.13

The Faithful Snake: Pausanias 10.33.5 (ATU 178A, The

Innocent Dog)
About Amphicleia the natives tell the following tale14: a ruler was afraid his
enemies were plotting against his baby son, and put him in a vessel and hid it in
the ground where he supposed it would be safest. Now a wolf made an attack
on the child, but a snake coiled round the vessel and maintained a strict guard.
When the child’s father returned, he thought the snake was minded to attack
the boy and let fly with his javelin, which killed both boy and snake. When he
ascertained from shepherds that he had killed the snake who had been the boy’s
benefactor and guardian, he made a pyre to serve them both. They say that the
place is like a burning pyre even today, and the town is called Ophiteia after the
snake (ophis).

Puss in Boots? Miss Fox: Hyginus Fabulae 187 (ATU 545A/B,

The Cat Castle/Puss in Boots)
Alope15 is a beautiful girl raped by Poseidon, and she exposes her child with a
royal robe16; the child is suckled by a mare and found by a shepherd. A dispute
arises with a fellow shepherd who is willing to bring up the child but wants
the robe, withheld by the original shepherd. When they go to Alope’s father,
Kerkyon, he immures Alope alive17 and has the child once more exposed; it is
174 Animal tales

once more reared by the mare, and this time the shepherds recognise the divine
protection for the child, now called Hippothoon (‘Swifthorse’). Now the evil
Kerkyon (‘animal tail’) kills strangers who fail to beat him in a wrestling match.
Theseus does so and Hippothoon petitions him for his ancestral kingdom as a son
of Poseidon18; as a fellow descendant of Poseidon himself, Theseus grants the re-
quest. It is too late to save Alope,19 but Poseidon changes her body into a spring.

Menas and the Crocodile (Diodorus 1.89):

(Stith Thompson Motif B550, Animals Carry Men)
For some say that one of their ancient kings, called Menas, on the run from his
own hounds, arrived in his flight at the lake known as the lake of Moeris and
then was amazingly taken by a crocodile on his back and ferried to the other
side. As he wished to show his gratitude for his rescue, he founded a city nearby
which he named Crocodeilopolis. And he gave instruction to the local people to
honour these animals and dedicated the lake to sustaining them. And there too
he constructed his own tomb as a four-sided pyramid, and built the Labyrinth
admired by many.

Piglet’s Last Will and Testament (Testamentum Porcelli)20

(cf. ATU 200, The Dogs’ Certificate; Stith Thompson
Motif B270, Animals in Legal Relations)
Here begins the will of Piglet:
Marcus Grunnius Corocotta 21 the Piglet has made his will. As I could not
write it with my own hand, I had it taken down from dictation.22
Lecuisinier23 the cook said, ‘come here, you who have turned the house up-
side down, you who have not buried your parents,24 you who have run away,
and today I will take away your life’. Corocotta the piglet said: ‘If I have done
anything, if I have broken any little pot with my trotters, spare my life and give
heed to a suppliant’s prayer’. Lecuisiniier replied: ‘Off with you, my boy,25 to the
kitchen, and get me my knife, so that I can shed the blood of this piglet’. Piglet
was seized by the house-slaves, and led away, on the 16th day before the first day
of the month Lamplighting,26 when there are plenty of cabbages, in the consul-
ship of Ovendone and Peppersprinkle,27 and when he saw that he was about to
die, he asked for an hour’s delay and begged the cook to be allowed to make his
will. He summoned his parents so as to leave them something from his provi-
sions. These are his words:
To my father, Lardy Hogman,28 I do hereby bequeath 30 modii of acorns,
and to my mother Oldsow29 the breeder I bequeath 40 modii of Laconian silage,
and to my sister Miss Piggie,30 whose wedding I have been unable to attend,
I do bequeath 30 modii of barley. And of my inner parts I give my bristles to
the cobblers,31 my grey cells to those who argue, my little ears to the deaf, my
tongue to the lawyers and windbags, my intestines to the sausage-makers, my
 Animal tales 175

thighs to the stuffers, my loins to women, my bladder to boys, my tail to girls,

my muscles to effeminates, my trotters to messengers and hunters, my nails to
robbers. And to the cook whose name I refuse to mention, I bequeath the ­mortar
and pestle which I had brought with me: let him hang his neck with a rope
anywhere between Tynside and Timbuctoo.32 And I wish to have a monument
inscribed in gold letters: Marcus Grunnius Corocotta the piglet lived for 999 and
a half years; if he had lived another half-year, he would have lived a thousand.33
Those of you who have been my best friends and my advisers in life, I beg that
you treat my corpse with respect, that you may season it with fine condiments of
nutmeg, pepper and honey, so that my name may be remembered for all eternity.
My lords and kinsmen who have been present to witness the will, order it to be
sealed. ­Baconson signed,34 Morselman signed, Cumminseed signed, Sausagefel-
low signed, Porkrinder signed, Applesauce signed, Wedding-pig signed.
Here concludes the will of Piglet made this 16th day before the first days of
Lamplighting in the consulship of Ovendone and Peppersprinkle. <May its out-
come be> auspicious.

The Goose that laid the Golden Eggs: Fabulae Aesopicae

Collectae Halm 343b (ATU 219E**, The Hen that Laid
the Golden Eggs)
Thanks to the lavish devotion of one of his worshippers, Hermes35 gave him the
present of a goose36 that laid golden eggs. But the man could not wait for the
benefits a little at a time, but supposed that the goose was all gold inside, and
sacrificed the bird without delay. So it came about that not only did he fail to
gain what he expected, but he lost the eggs as well; for inside he found that the
bird was all flesh.

Notes
1 The tale of Arion might better be classified as a local legend: it relies on the genuine
rapport reported in Antiquity between dolphins and humans, as in Pliny the Young-
er’s report of boys playing with a dolphin (Ep. 9.33). On Gellius’ and Fronto’s versions
of Herodotus’ account, Anderson in Holford-Strevens and Vardi (2004), 108–111.
2 Hyginus’ version now sounds eccentric beside Herodotus’ classic telling, but there are
two important omissions from the latter that assume importance here. Firstly, Apollo
emerges as the protector of a fellow musician, and serves as a ‘supernatural helper’.
Secondly, there is careful motivation for Arion’s final performance: the music is to
attract his rescuers.
3 The dolphin monument is here integrated into the action of the story, rather than
serving merely as a tailpiece or afterthought as in Herodotus.
4 Compare the fate of Theron in the tale of Callirhoe (above, c. 7).
5 A poor man gets his own back on rich and powerful enemies through the agency of
a cockerel whose magic tail-feathers open doors, and whose person conceals a whole
range of different identities.
6 Marzolf EM 6 (1990), 396–401; Köhler-Zülch EM 7(1993), 1069–1083, 1126–1131;
Anderson (2000), 107–109.
176 Animal tales

7 Of whom the cock is a transmigrated form.

8 The folktale version ‘half-chick’ accommodates all the creatures in its apparently
limitless hindquarters, with decidedly coarser peasant humour.
9 In the folktale, the robbery is permitted; but Lucian’s diatribe against wealth in effect
precludes this particular path to justice.
10 For the magic key motif, Stith-Thompson Motif D1550: ‘Magic object opens and
closes’.
11 In the folktale, the cock would itself perform coarse acts against his master’s enemies.
Here buggering and the rest is left to the servants, in Graeco-Roman society a par-
ticular social disgrace, cf. Juvenal Satire, 9.40–46.
12 The story as given here corresponds to the Medieval Welsh legend of Gelert, the
hound who is mistakenly killed by Prince Llewelyn: too late he finds that the hound
had bloodied himself in killing a wolf to protect the child.
13 The style of the Culex is tortuously contrived and loaded with poetic mannerism, in
contrast to Pausanias’ unvarnished narration of the ophis-legend.
14 Pausanias thus accords it the status of a local legend, as is the Welsh tale which gives
its name to the type (Bedd-Gelert). Cf. Hansen (2002), 9. But genre-labelling can be
unhelpful: the story itself is the same whether it carries a specific historical or geo-
graphical setting or not.
15 ‘She-Fox’. Anderson (2000), 173–176; Köhler-Zülch EM 7 (1993), 1126–1131.
­Culture-areas for this tale diverge, depending on whether the animal is a fox or a cat,
the latter less common as a character in the Greek world. The key connection to ‘Puss
in Boots’ amid much diversionary material lies in the helpful animal’s providing the
royal tokens which secures the kingdom for her protégé.
16 In Western forms of the tale as exemplified by Straparola, Basile and Perrault the cat
has to acquire royal or aristocratic costume by trickery (the hero has his clothes sto-
len while bathing, and royal replacements are provided); here Poseidon provides the
connection with water just as directly.
17 The shabby treatment of the cat/fox heroine is part of the tale in both Straparola and
Basile, though in only the one instance is the animal actually killed. Rather than
having the fox as mother of the hero, a Norwegian example known to Asbjørnsen and
Moe, Lord Peter, has the cat as a princess transformed by a troll, and so able to marry
the hero at the end of the tale.
18 This is proven by the birth tokens; in the early modern versions, the cat has to threaten
the inhabitants of the ogre’s lands into claiming that they belong to the cat’s master.
19 In Basile’s Gagliuso (2.4) the Cat hero has been promised a golden cage for burial and
only pretends to be dead.
20 The Testamentum Porcelli is included as a sample of children’s literature, though it is
not strictly a tale, let alone a fairy tale. But it is cited with disapproval by no less than
St. Jerome as occasioning laughter for small boys (in the preface to book 12 of his
commentary to Isaiah: decantant in scholis puerorum agmina cachinnantium ‘hordes of
chuckling boys recite it in schools’). It is quite clearly literate entertainment, as it is a
parody will, though ATU 200 offers a tale of dogs with certificates tucked under their
tails. However tiny his offences, the piglet’s butcher is unrelenting.
21 The fun begins with the name itself: Corocotta is a pun on choerococta, ‘roast pig’ and
corocotta the hyena, perceived as a talking pig rather than a laughing dog (Anderson
1980, 57f.). For a ‘historical’ reading, Champlin (1987), 174–183; for detailed com-
mentary, Bott (1972). Grunnius = ‘Grunter’< grunnire.
22 As indeed one should expect of an upper-class Roman.
23 Lecuisinier = Greek Magirus, a cook.
24 On the face of it an impious act, but they appear as legatees and so are still alive.
25 I.e. a slave.
26 Lamplighting: lucerninus, a fictitious month, comically suggesting the start of long
winter nights.
 Animal tales 177

27 Ovendone and Peppersprinkle: Clibanatus (‘baked in a clibanus’) and Pipperatus

(‘peppered’).
28 Lardy Hogman: Verrinus Lardinus.
29 Oldsow: Veturina.
30 Miss Piggie: Quirina, with a similar pun to that in choerococta.
31 Some of the uses of the pig’s anatomy are less obvious than others; some seem to imply
sympathetic magic.
32 Tyneside and Timbuctoo: i.e. diagonally across the Empire: Thebeste was situated in
the south-west of the province of Africa, Tergeste on Italy’s northeastern border with
Dalmatia.
33 For the monument, cf. the pretentious tomb of Trimalchio, Petronius Satyrica, 71.5–
12. The 1000-year lifespan may conceal a seriously entrenched error, or extraordi-
nary delusions of grandeur.
34 The formulae are authentic, the signatories not so.
35 The god plays a part in a number of ‘Aesopic’ tales, as a deity of gain and good luck.
36 ATU has a hen instead of a goose. Grätz EM 5 (1987), 677, 681, n. 17, cf. Rodin EM
6 (1990), 374.
11
TINY PEOPLE

Several of the examples will have offered at least a nod to a childhood audience.
Both the portrayal of the Nile-dwarves and the pygmies are shown swarming
over giants, in the persons of the Nile and Heracles respectively. The infant
thieving of the day-old Hermes, like Heracles’ defeat of the pygmies, is presented
as amusing and good-humoured. ‘Artemis and the Three Hairy Giants’ (my title)
is the closest so far noted to our ‘Three Bears’, which may however be a modern
creation. I can point to no exact modern fairy tale equivalent to the treatment
of Smikros.

Dwarves a Cubit High: Philostratus, Imagines 1.5

(Stith Thompson Motif F451, Dwarf)
(1) The Cubit-dwarfs play around the Nile, children no bigger than their names,
and the Nile is overjoyed, especially as they announce his great floods coming
to the Egyptians. At any rate they approach and seem to come to him out of the
water as infants tender and smiling, and I think they can also speak. And some
of them sit on his shoulders, some hang from his hair, some are sleeping on his
arms, others are having fun on his chest. And he gives them flowers, some from
his lap, some from his arms, so that they can plait garlands and fall asleep on
them, as children who are both holy and fragrant.1 And the infants climb up one
on top of another with their rattles: their sound is a familiar one for the river.
(2) But crocodiles and hippopotamuses, which some painters depict on the Nile,
lie now in its deep eddies so as not to frighten the children. And symbols of ag-
riculture and sailing show that the river is the Nile, my boy, and for this reason:
the Nile makes Egypt navigable by boats; and when the fields have drunk their
fill of it, it gives the Egyptians fertile lands; and in Ethiopia, from which it starts,
its spirit (daim ōn) stands over it as a steward; and this spirit sends it in proportion
 Tiny people 179

to the seasons. He is depicted as high as the sky, and he plants his foot on its
springs, nodding forward like Poseidon. The river looks towards him and prays
for many children.

The Thief in the Cradle: The Birth of Hermes: Philostratus,

Imagines 1.26 (ATU 700, Thumbling)2
(1) The figure no more than a child still in swaddling clothes,3 the one driv-
ing the cattle into the cleft in the earth, and the one also stealing the arrows
of Apollo – this is Hermes. The god’s thefts are sheer delight; for they say that
Hermes, when Maia gave birth to him, loved to steal and knew his craft, not of
course that the god did this from poverty, but devoting himself to high spirits
and good fun. And if you want to watch him one step at a time, first he is born
on the peaks of Olympus, right at the top, the seat of the gods… (2) There the
Hours are holding Hermes newly born. The painter has shown these too, each
at her proper time, and they are wrapping him in swaddling clothes, sprinkling
him with the loveliest flowers, so as to let him have baby-clothes of no mean
sort. And these ladies are turning their attention to Hermes’ mother lying in
childbed, but he has given his baby-clothes the slip and is already off and comes
down from Olympus. The mountain is delighted with him – for it has a smile
just like a man’s – and you must imagine that Olympus is delighted that Hermes
was born there.
(3) So what was it he stole? The cattle that are grazing on the foothills of
Olympus, the ones I mean with the golden horns and whiter than snow – they
too are sacred to Apollo – these he is leading, winding this way and that into a
cleft in the ground, not so as to kill them, but to make them disappear for a day,
until Apollo is anxious about their disappearance, and as if the affair is nothing
to do with him, he slips back into his baby-clothes. And Apollo comes to Maia
to demand the return of the cattle, while she cannot believe him and thinks the
god is talking nonsense. (4) Would you like to know what he is saying? For he
seems to me to be indicating by his expression not just a sound but actual words.
For he seems to be on the point of saying this:

Your son, the one you gave birth to yesterday, is doing me an injury. For
the cattle I take such a pride in he has thrown into the ground, and I don’t
know where on earth they are. But he will come to grief and will be
thrown even further underground!

But his mother is amazed and does not believe his claim. (5) While the pair are
still disputing Hermes stands behind Apollo, and jumps lightly on his back, and
quickly undoes Apollo’s bow, steals it and slips off, but once he has done so he
gives himself away. And that is where the painter has been clear. He dissolves
Apollo’s anger and has him delighted. His laughter is held in check: it sits over
his face as pleasure conquers anger.
180 Tiny people

Hop O’My Thumb4: Hyginus Fabulae 4 (ATU 327B,

The Brothers and the Ogre)
When Athamas, king of Thessaly, thought his wife Ino, the mother of his two
sons, had died, he married Themisto, the daughter of a nymph, and had twin
sons by her. After that he found out that Ino was in Parnassus, where she had
gone for a Bacchic rite. He sent for her and had her brought back and then he
concealed her. Themisto found out that she had been found, but did not know
who she was. She began to want to kill his sons. She took as her partner in crime
Ino herself, whom she took to be a prisoner, and told her to clothe her own
(Themisto’s) sons in white, those of Ino in black. Ino clothed her own in white,
Themisto’s in dark clothes. Then Themisto, taken in by the trick, killed her
own sons; when she found out, she took her own life. As for Athamas, he killed
Learchus, his elder son, on a hunt in a fit of madness; but Ino with her younger
son Melicertes threw herself into the sea and became a goddess.

Heracles and the Pygmies5: Philostratus, Imagines 2.22

(1) As Heracles is sleeping in Libya after killing Antaeus, the Pygmies attack him,
with the intention of avenging <the giant>. For they claim to be his brothers,
stout-hearted fellows, not athletes nor equal to his prowess in wrestling, but
born of the earth and strong men as well, and when they rise out of the earth the
sand gives a slight billow. For the Pygmies inhabit the earth like ants and have
their provisions stored underground, and their provisions are not obtained from
others, but theirs alone and produced by themselves. For they sow and reap and
ride on a cart with a tiny yoke, and they say that they use an axe on the stalks
of grain,6 considering these to be trees. But how intrepid they are! These men
are making their assault on Heracles, and wish to kill him as he sleeps; and they
would not be afraid of him even if he were wide awake. (2) But Heracles lies
asleep in the soft sand, since weariness has crept over him in his wrestling, and he
draws his breath with all his chest and with his fill of sleep with open mouth, and
Sleep in person is standing over him making much, no doubt, of his own part in
the fall of Heracles, while Antaeus is lying there; but the painter’s art has Heracles
breathing and warm, but Antaeus dead and wizened, and leaves him to the Earth.
(3) The Pygmy army is surrounding Heracles7: this phalanx attacks Heracles’
left hand, while two companies set out against the right hand, since it is the
stronger: archers and a host of slingers lay siege to both his feet, amazed at the size
of his shin. And those who are advancing against his head – there the king is po-
sitioned, as this they take to be his strongest point. And they bring siege-engines
as if against a citadel: fire against the hair, a mattock against his eyes, some kind
of doors against his mouth and these gates, I suppose, against his nose, so that
Heracles may not be able to breathe when his head has been captured. (4) And all
these measures against the sleeping figure – but look how he stands up and how
he laughs at the danger, and collecting his enemies in a single body, he puts them
into his lion-skin and no doubt is carrying them to Eurystheus.
 Tiny people 181

Wine-Girl (Oenoe) and the Pygmies8: Antoninus Liberalis,

Metamorphoses 16 (cf. Stith Thompson Motif F535.5.1, War
of Pygmies and Cranes)
(1) Among the men known as Pygmies (i.e. Dwarves) there was a girl called
‘Wine-girl’. Her appearance was faultless, but she was disagreeable and conceited.
She had no regard for Artemis or Hera, (2) but she was married to Nicodamas, a
good, sensible man, and gave birth to a son Mopsus. And all the Pygmies adored
her and brought her a great many gifts to celebrate the child’s birth. But Hera
was angry with Wine-girl for not showing respect to her and turned her into a
high-flying crane with a long neck. And she stirred up war between the crane-
girl and the pygmies. (3) But Wine-girl, longing to see her child Mopsus, would
circle the houses and not leave, while the pygmies put on armour and chased her
off. And as a result there is even now a state of war between Pygmies and cranes.9

Smikros (‘Tiny’): Conon, Narrationes 33

Democles of Delphi fathered a remarkable infant called Tiny. On the orders of
an oracle, he set sail for Miletus, taking with him the young boy. But in his haste
to set sail he abandoned him unintentionally; the boy was 13. A goatherd, son of
Eritharses, found Tiny in great distress and took him to his father; and Eritharses,
hearing the misadventure of Tiny and his origin, took care of him as of his own
child. Now the two children had together captured a swan, but quarrelled: she
now appeared as Leucothea and told the children to tell the Milesians that they
should give her a cult and organise gymnastic games for children in her honour,
because she loved children’s competitions. Tiny married the daughter of a noble
Milesian: and while she was in labour she had a vision: the sun came in by her
mouth and exited by her genitals; this vision, according to the diviners, was a
good omen. She gave birth to a son called Branchos, because of her dream, since
the sun had passed through her throat (branchos); and the child was the loveliest
in the world, and Apollo fell in love with him when he found him tending his
flocks, where there is set up an altar of Apollo the friend. And Branchos, who re-
ceived from Apollo the gift of prophecy, gave oracles in the place called Didyma,
and to this day it is acknowledged that mong the Greek oracles we know this is
the most important after Delphi.10

‘Artemis and the Three Hairy Giants’11: Callimachus

Hymn 3.66–85
(66) But when any of the young girls is disobedient to her mother, the mother
calls upon the Cyclopes against her child – Arges or Steropes. And from inside
the house comes Hermes, covered in glowing ashes, and at once he plays the
bogeyman to the girl, and she sinks into her mother’s lap and covers her eyes
with her hands. (72) But still earlier, when you (Artemis) were a little girl, only
182 Tiny people

3 years old, Leto came holding you in her arms at Hephaestus’ invitation, so that
he could give you presents on seeing you for the first time. And when Brontes
set you on his sturdy knees, you plucked the shaggy hair from his great chest
and tore it free by force. And even to this day the middle part of his breast is still
hairless, as when mange sits on a man’s temples and eats away at this hair.
(80) And so you spoke to them boldly:

Cyclopes, make a Cydonian12 bow and arrows and a hollow quiver for my
darts. For I too am the child of Leto, just like Apollo. And if I should hunt
down a wild beast or a dreadful wild animal, the Cyclopes should eat it.

And you spoke, and they brought your request to fruition.

Notes
1 For Cupids playing children’s games, Philostratus Imagines, 1.6.
2 Pape EM 3 (1981), 349–360. Yolen (1986), 58 (‘The two pickpockets’) contains a
modern analogue of the ‘thief in the cradle’. Two pickpockets marry to produce a
master pick-pocket. He has apparently an arm injury to make theft impractical. The
doctor tests his vision with a pocket-watch. As the baby’s arm stretches out to take it,
the mid-wife’s wedding-ring falls out of the baby’s clothes.
3 The subject occurs in vase-painting also: LIMC V.1 309ff., on a Hydria from Crete,
c. 530BC: the infant Hermes resting on a couch with Maia, Apollo and Zeus in
animated discussion; also Apollo’s flock hidden in the cave. The most elaborate
and literary version is contained in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes: commentary by
N. ­R ichardson (2010).
4 Petit Poucet, first English version in Opie and Opie (1980), 170–178. Meraklis EM
3(1981), 360–365. The substitution of the wrong clothes is the identifying element;
much of the modern tale, such as the ogre’s seven-league boots, does not figure in this
early version.
5 A parergon, with no more than a comic interlude among the Labours of Heracles. It
will have provided the inspiration for the Lilliputians’ siege of Gulliver in Part I of
Gulliver’s Travels. Reference to a Pygmy lochagos is as early as Epicharmus (Scholiast
on Aristophanes’ Peace, 73). Aristotle already attests to their actual existence (Histo-
ria Animalium, 8.12.597A7f.: ‘not a mythos: there really is a tiny people,…with tiny
horses; they live in caves…’. For further testimonia, Hansen on the pygmies against
the cranes, 45–49. Stith Thompson, Motif F535.5.1. Pygmies, like Erōtes, were regu-
larly depicted both in mythological and everyday scenes in their own right.
6 For this detail, Tom Thumb uses a barley straw as a cudgel against the crows, Opie
and Opie, 48.
7 It is not altogether clear whether Philostratus is describing one scene and extending it
verbally, or two separate scenes. For visual evidence, LIMC 2805 (Marble relief from
Rome, villa Albano: ‘part of Heracles reclining on his lionskin, cup in hand. A small
naked figure has climbed a ladder and stoops into the cup as if to drink’). For Heracles
and Erōtes trying to steal his weapons, LIMC V.1, 3419–3431; for Heracles and satyrs,
LIMC V.1, 3230–3238 (various combinations of satyrs robbing him of cloak, quiver,
club, bow, lionskin).
8 There is a hint of this story and its doublet where the girl is actually called gerana
(crane-girl) at ATU 709A, a reference to a small number of Indian variants which
combine a Snow White-like plot with the idea that the girl has stork parents. The
variant given in Ramanujan (1994), 104–110 (‘The Kite’s Daughter’) has a girl rescued
 Tiny people 183

by a kite from infant exposure, and given by the kite to a merchant who already has
seven wives. They are jealous when the stork helps her with all the household tasks,
for which she is of course not trained, and kill the stork, before the merchant finds
out and kills the wives. What skews the resemblance is the classical insistence on the
girl’s arrogance.
9 On the hostilities of Pygmies and Cranes, Hansen, 45–49.
10 Smikros also appears in a scholiast to Statius’ Thebaid, 8, 198: again he is a lost child,
taken in by a stranger Patron, with whose son he again forms a companionship. He
and Patron’s son wrap a swan as a gift to Patron: Smikros is married to Patron’s mas-
ter’s daughter. We appear to be looking at complementary parts of the same story.
11 This is the closest I can find to anything like the modern favourite The Three Bears,
Opie and Opie (1980), 260–269, which has not been traced earlier than 1831; but
early versions of it have an old crone, not a young girl, upsetting the bears.
12 I.e. Cretan, after Cydonia on the island’s northern coast, modern Canea.
12
MISCELLANEOUS TALES

In conclusion a varied sample of tales: The language of signs misunderstood ­underlines

the ‘wisdom’ element in ancient popular storytelling, while the language of ani-
mals understood by a human may owe its origins to close observation and actual
understanding of animal behaviour. Pyrrhus and the Old Woman demonstrates that
a well-established medieval and early modern tale could have arisen as an histor-
ical anecdote much earlier. ‘Herodes Atticus and Heracles Goodfellow’ also has
an historical basis, although it entails a feat of what the reporter sees as extraordi-
nary perception; the same focus occurs in the story of Smindyrides. I end with a
largely unnoticed version of The Frog Prince, followed by three ­puzzling variants
related to Rumpelstiltskin and one to Bluebeard, with the possibility of yet another
version of the former’s name and the latter’s beard!

The Language of Signs Misunderstood1: Herodotus 4.131f.

(ATU 924, Discussion in Sign Language)2
(131) …At last Darius did not know what to do, and the Scythian rulers found
this out and sent a herald with gifts for the king: a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five
arrows. The Persians asked the bearer the meaning of the gifts; but he replied
that his instructions were no more than to deliver the gifts and leave as quickly
as possible; he told the Persians to work out what the gifts meant, if they had the
wits to do so.
(132) On hearing this the Persians discussed the matter. Darius’ opinion was
that the Scythians were surrendering to him themselves, their land and their
water, arguing that the mouse is a creature found on land and eating the same
food as men, the frog lives in water, while the bird most resembles the horse, and
the arrows signified that the Scythians were surrendering their military strength.
This then was Darius’ interpretation; but Gobryas, one of the seven who had
 Miscellaneous tales 185

killed the Magian, had a different understanding. His view was that the gifts
meant: ‘Unless you become birds and fly up to heaven, Persians, or become mice
and burrow in the earth, or turn into frogs and jump into the lakes, you will not
return home, but will be shot by these arrows’.

Understanding the Language of Animals3: Apollodorus 1.9.11f.

(ATU 517, The Boy Who Understands the Language of Birds)
(11) Now Amythaon lived in Pylus and married Eidomene, daughter of Pheres,
and had two sons, Bias and Melampus; the latter stayed in the area, and as there
was in front of his house an oak tree in which there was a lair of serpents, the
servants killed the snakes; but he gathered wood together and burned the bodies,
but reared their offspring. And when they reached adulthood they stood beside
his shoulders as he slept, and from either side they purified his hearing with their
tongues. He stood up in a panic, but understood the voices of the birds flying
overhead, and learning from them he foretold the future to men. And he added
to this besides the art of divination from sacrifices, and having encountered
Apollo at the river Alpheus he was thereafter the finest of prophets.
(12) His brother Bias was wooing Pero the daughter of Neleus; the latter
promised to give her to whichever of the many suitors brought him the cattle of
Phylacus. These were in Phylace, and they were guarded by a dog which it was
impossible for either man or beast to approach. Being unable to steal the cattle,
he called on his brother to help: Melampus promised to do so, and prophesied
that he would be caught thieving and after being shut up for a year he should get
the cattle. And after this promise he went off, and just as he had foretold, he was
caught in the act of stealing and was held prisoner in a cell. A little short of a year
later, he heard the bore-worms in the hidden part of the roof, one asking how
much of the beam had been gnawed through, the other replying that there was
very little left. And quickly he asked to be transferred to another cell, and when
that had been done, not long afterward the cell collapsed. Phylacus was amazed,
and on learning that Melampus was the best of prophets, he freed him and asked
him to say how his own son Iphicles might produce children. Melampus prom-
ised to tell him provided he should receive the cattle. And having sacrificed two
bulls and cut them up, he summoned the birds; and when a vulture arrived,
he learned from him that Phylacus once while gelding rams laid down the still
bloody knife beside Iphicles. He had been terrified and ran off; he had fixed the
knife in a sacred oak, and the bark had grown round the knife and hidden it.
So he told him that if he found the knife and scraped off the rust, and gave it to
Iphicles to drink for ten days, he would father a child. Melampus found this out
from the vulture, found the knife, scraped off the rust, and gave it to Iphicles to
drink for ten days, and a son Podarces was born to him. Melampus drove the cat-
tle to Pylos, and receiving the daughter of Neleus he gave her to his brother. And
for a while he remained in Messine, but when Dionysus drove the women mad
in Argos he healed them for a share in the kingdom and settled there with Bias.
186 Miscellaneous tales

The Emperor’s New Clothes: Pyrrhus and the Old Woman4:

Lucian, Adversus indoctum 21 (ATU 1620)
They say that even Pyrrhus of Epirus, in other respects a marvellous man,5 was…
so corrupted by flatterers as to believe that he was like the famous Alexander.6
And yet as musicians say, the two men were two octaves apart, for I have seen
Pyrrhus’ picture…<Now> when Pyrrhus was in this state of mind and was
convinced that this was how he was, there was no-one who did not agree, and
everyone went along with him, until at last some old foreign women in Larissa7
put a stop to his nonsense by telling him the truth. For Pyrrhus showed her pic-
tures8 of Philip, Perdiccas, Alexander, Cassander 9 and other kings, and asked her
who he himself was like, absolutely convinced that she would go for Alexander;
but she held back a good while, then said ‘Froggy the cook’.10 And in fact there
was a cook in Larissa who did look like Pyrrhus.

‘Herodes Atticus and Heracles Goodfellow’: Philostratus, Lives

of the Sophists 2.1.552–55411 (cf. ATU 655, The Wise Brothers)
This is doubtless a true report of a figure of local legend. His name as Philostratus
gives it as Agathion ‘Son of, little, Goodman’, i.e. Goodfellow. The minor feats
described suit a ‘child of the countryside’ and local hero, whom the eminent
arbiter of Athenian elegance has taken the credit for discovering. He is also a
good-natured giant; and Lucian, not usually complimentary about such phe-
nomena, or always sympathetic to the controversial Herodes, speaks well of the
same figure, this time under the name of Sostratus. We need not stress continuity
with the figure of Robin Goodfellow associated with peasant gifts of milk and
local good-deeds/mischief-making; but the identical name must be allowed to
speak for itself.
(552) The figure most people called the Heracles of Herodes was a youth
growing his first beard, like a huge Celt,12 and around eight feet tall. Herodes
gives a description of him in one of his letters to Julianus13: he says that his hair
grew evenly and he had bushy eyebrows, which met together as if they were
one, and from his eyes there flashed a brilliant gleam which indicated his im-
pulsive character. He had a hooked nose and a well-developed neck, the result
of exertion rather than diet; and he had a chest stoutly built and elegantly slim,
and his knees bent outward slightly and gave him a firm stance. (553) And he
was dressed in wolf-pelts sewn to form a garment, and he used to take on wild
boars, jackals and wolves and mad bulls, and showed the scars of these contests.
And some say that this Heracles14 was a child of the earth15 in Boeotia, but
Herodes says he heard him say that his mother was strong enough to herd cat-
tle,16 and that his father was Marathon, whose statue is at Marathon, and who
is a rustic hero.17 Herodes asked this Heracles whether he too was immortal,
but he said ‘I only live longer than mortals’. He asked him also what he ate,
and he replied:
 Miscellaneous tales 187

I live on milk most of the time, and goats nourish me and herds of cow
and brood mares, and from the she-ass I receive a sweet and light kind
of milk, but when I apply myself to barley-meal, I take ten quarts at a
time, and the farmers of Marathon and Boeotia contribute this feast for
me18: they call me ‘Little Goodfellow’ (Agathion)19 since I seem to bring
them luck.

‘And as for your speech’, said Herodes, ‘how were you educated 20 and by what
teachers? For you do not seem one of the uneducated to me’. And Little Good-
fellow replied,

The interior of Attica is a good school for a man who wishes to engage in
conversation; for the Athenians in the city admit as hirelings young men
from Thrace and Pontus and from other barbarian nations who flood in,
and are corrupted in their speech by them more than they contribute to
improving the foreigners’ speech. But the interior is uncontaminated by
barbarians and so its language is healthy and its dialect sounds the purest
of Atthis.21

Herodes asked, ‘Have you been to a public festival?’ Agathion replied,

At Pytho,22 but I did not mix with the crowd but listened from the
­vantage-point of Parnassus23 to the music competitions, when Pammenes
won his reputation in tragedy, and (554) the wise Greeks seemed to me to
have done no good thing listening with pleasure to the ills of the houses
of Pelops and Labdacus24; for when myths are not disbelieved they are the
counsellors of evil deeds.25

Seeing that he had a philosophic disposition, Herodes asked his views on gym-
nastic contests,26 and he said,

I despise these, seeing men competing in the pancratium and boxing and
running and wrestling, and receiving crowns for this. The athlete who
runs should receive a crown for overtaking a deer or a horse, and the man
who undergoes training for heavier contests should be crowned for wres-
tling with a bull or a bear, as I do every day27; but fortune has taken away
the chance of a great contest, since Acarnania no longer nurtures lions.

Herodes therefore was taken with him and asked him to dine with him. ­Agathion
replied ‘I will come to you tomorrow at noon at the temple of Canobus, and you
must have the largest bowl in the temple full of milk not milked by a woman’.28
And he arrived the next day at the time agreed, but when he put his nose to the
bowl he said ‘The milk is not pure, for the hand of woman hits me’. And with
this he went off without touching the milk. So Herodes took up what he said
188 Miscellaneous tales

about the woman and sent servants to the cow-sheds to find out the truth, and on
learning that that was indeed the case, he realised that there was a superhuman
nature about the man.29

Sleeping on a Feather: The Oversensitive Sybarite: Aelian,

Varia Historia 9.24 (ATU 1290B*)
Smindyrides of Sybaris fell into luxurious habits30; all the Sybarites made it
their business to practise luxury and lead an extravagant lifestyle, and especially
Smindyrides: at any rate he lay down on rose petals and when he had slept on
them he got up complaining that his bed had given him blisters.

The Frog Prince?31: Homer, Odyssey 6.85–245 extracts

(ATU Type 440, The Frog King)32
(85) And when at last they reached the lovely river-stream,33 where there were
the washing beds that never failed them, and plenty of lovely water welled up
to clean even the most soiled garment, there the girls let the mules out from
the wagon, and drove them along the river eddies to graze the honey-sweet
water-grass. And from the cart they took the clothes in their hands and carried
them into the dark river, and vied with one another, rivalling one another in
their speed, and trampled them in the pits. But when they had washed them all
and cleaned out all the dirt, they spread them in order beside the shore of the
sea, where the sea coming against the land would wash the pebbles the cleanest.
And they bathed and richly anointed themselves with oil, then they took their
meal beside the banks of the river, and waited for the sunlight to dry the clothes,
but when the princess and her handmaids had enjoyed their lunch, they threw
off their veils and played ball, and Nausicaa the white-armed led their song…
(115) The princess threw the ball in the direction of one of her maids; she
missed her maid and it fell into a deep eddy.34 And the girls let out a great shout.
And lordly Odysseus awoke and sitting up he reflected in his mind and heart…
(127) With this lordly Odysseus slipped out from under the bushes and with his
sturdy hand broke a leafy branch from the thin undergrowth, so as to conceal
his manly parts by holding it against his skin… (137) and he seemed a terrifying
sight to them, with a filthy layer of brine, and they shrank from him in all direc-
tions along the jutting spits of land.35 Only the daughter of Alcinous (Princess
­Nausicaa) stood firm, for Athena put courage in her heart and took the fear out
of her limbs. (He is not slow to hint at marriage):

(158) ‘That man will be happiest of all in his heart who wins you with his
wedding gifts and leads you home with him. For never have I set eyes on
such a mortal, neither man nor woman, I am seized with awe at the sight…’.

(223) (Nausicaa)’s maids went apart and spoke to the princess. But lordly O
­ dysseus
washed his skin with water from the river <and removed> the brine which was
 Miscellaneous tales 189

all over his back and broad shoulders, and from his head he wiped the scurf of the
barren sea. But when at least he had washed it all off and anointed himself with
oil, and put on the clothes the unwed girl had given him, Athena the daughter of
Zeus made him taller to behold and mightier, and sent down from his head the
flowing curls, like a hyacinth flower… (237) And the princess was amazed: She
spoke to her fair-tressed handmaidens:

Listen, white-armed maidens, so that I can speak. It is not without the will
of all the gods who dwell on Olympus that this man comes among the god-
like Phaeacians. Beforehand certainly he seemed to me to be uncouth, but
now he is like the gods who dwell in the broad heaven. If only such a man
might be called my husband and dwell here, and he might remain here…

The Name of the Helper: Rumpelstiltskin-Type Tales36:

Parthenius, Ero
ˉtica patheˉmata 27 (ATU 500, The Name of
the Supernatural Helper)
The story goes that Alkinoe,37 the daughter of Polybus of Corinth, and wife of
Amphilochus son of Dryas, fell passionately in love with a stranger from Samos
whose name was Xanthus,38 (‘Goldie’) because of the wrath of Athena. For she
had hired for wages a spinning-woman called Nicandra, and after this woman
had worked for her for a year, had driven her out of the house without giving
her full wages; Nicandra had constantly prayed to Athena to avenge her for the
unjust loss of her wages. And so she went as far as to leave her home and children
she had already had, and sail away with Xanthus. But in the midst of her voyage
she realised what she had done, and at once wept floods of tears and cried now
for her husband, now for her children. And finally, although Xanthus tried to
console her and promised to marry her, she refused to listen and threw herself
into the sea.

Dio of Halicarnassus 1.68:

Gold-girl (Chryse) daughter of Pallas brought with her as a dowry to <King>
Dardanus the gifts of Athena, the Palladium and the sacred objects of the megaloi
theoi (she had been instructed in their mysteries).39 And when the Arcadians fled
from the flood in the Peloponnese and settled in the Thracian island, Dardanus
there made a temple of these gods, not telling others their secret names, and he
performed the rites in their honour that are still practised by the Samothracians.40

Lucian, Fugitivi 12–33 (extracts):

(Philosophy speaks):
(12) But listen, Zeus, to how important they are: for there is a vile tribe of men,
and for the most part slaves and serfs, with nothing to do with me (Philosophy)
190 Miscellaneous tales

in their youth for lack of leisure. For they acted as slaves or serfs, or they learned
some other trades proper for people of that kind, cobbling or metalworking or
having to do with fullers’ tubs or carding wool so that it should be easy for women
to work, and easy to wind, and easy to lead off whenever they twist yarn or spin
their thread.41 When therefore they were practising such occupations in their
youth they did not even know my name…
(Heracles, Hermes and Philosophy go off to Thrace to hunt down three such
creatures)

(26) HERMES:…What must we do now, or how must we track the beasts down?
HERACLES: That is now up to you, Hermes: for you are a crier, so waste no time
in making your announcement.
HERMES: That is no problem. But I don’t know their names. So you tell me who
to name, and their distinguishing marks as well.
PHILOSOPHY: Nor do I know what their names are,42 for I have never had an-
ything to do with them ever. But from their appetites for possessions, you
would not be wrong to call them Gainman or Gainhorse or Goodgain or
Muchgain.
(27) HERMES: You are right, but who are these men, and why are they too look-
ing around? But they are coming towards us and want to ask something.
HUSBAND: Would you be able to tell us, gentlemen, or you, madam, if you
know three magicians together, and a woman with her hair close-cropped
like a Spartan, like a boy and thoroughly masculine?
PHILOSOPHY: Ah, they are looking for our fugitives -
HUSBAND: Why yours? For these are runaway slaves. And I am looking espe-
cially for my wife, whom they have kidnapped.
HERMES: You will soon know why we are searching for them; but for now let
us make our proclamation together –
‘If anyone has seen Paphlagonian slaves, one of the barbarians from Sinope,
with some kind of name with ‘gain’ in it, sallow, close-cropped, with a
long beard, with a wallet hanging from his shoulder and wearing a tiny
cloak, bad-tempered, ill-educated, foul-mouthed, and abusive,43 he is to
give us the information for an agreed reward’.
(28) FIRST SLAVE-OWNER: The description you give does not fit, my man: his
name when he was with me was Kantharos (Scarab-Beetle).44 And he wore
his hair long and trimmed his beard, and knew my trade. For he sat in my
fuller’s shop and cut off ‘the excessive nap that makes clothes fuzzy’.
(they now hear of two other scoundrels, (29) and the local hero Orpheus
gives them directions):
ORPHEUS: I would show you the house where he lives, but not Scarab-beetle
himself, so as not to be insulted by him, for he is far too foul-mouthed: that’s
the only skill he has mastered.
HERMES: Just show us.
 Miscellaneous tales 191

ORPHEUS: Here it is, not far, and I’ll be out of here so as not even to look at him.
(30) PHILOSOPHY: One moment, is that not the voice of a woman reciting some-
thing from Homer?45
HERMES: Indeed it is! But let us hear what she is saying:
WOMAN: ‘For I hate that man like the gates of Hades
Who loves gold in his heart, but denies it’.46
HERMES: So you must hate Scarab-Beetle!
WOMAN: ‘He has insulted any host who has shown him kindness –’47
HUSBAND: This verse is about me! He ran off with my wife when I gave him
shelter!
(31) FIRST SLAVE-OWNER: …Got you, Scarab-beetle! Nothing to say now?
Come on, let’s see what’s in your wallet. Lupines, perhaps, or a crust of
bread? No, my goodness, but a money-belt of gold!…
(33) HERMES: This is my decree: the woman is to return to Greece to her
­husband, so that she may give birth to no many-headed monster; …Then as
for this one, he is to be handed over to the pitch-plasterers, so that he may
be killed by having his hair pulled out, and with filthy pitch too, the kind
women use, then to be brought to Haemus stark naked and stand there in the
snow with his feet tied together.48
SCARAB-BEETLE: Alas for my miseries. Woe Woe lackaday! (Ototoi Papapaiax)

Bluebeard49: Apollodorus 3.15.1; Strabo 10.2.9 (ATU

312, Maiden-Killer)
(Apollodorus) Procris slept with Pteleon in exchange for a golden crown, and
having been found out by Cephalus she fled to Minos,50 who fell in love with
her and persuaded her to sleep with him. But if a woman slept with Minos, it
was impossible for her to survive, for, since Minos was in the habit of sleeping
with numerous women, Pasiphae bewitched him and when he slept with any
other woman, he excreted wild beasts into her crotch, and that was what killed
them. So in exchange for Minos’ swift dog and unerring javelin, Procris slept
with him, after giving him some of Circe’s drugs to drink to avoid his harming
her. But later, fearing Minos’ wife, she returned to Athens (Strabo) <disguised
as Pterelas>.51

Notes
1 West, JHS 108 (1988), 207–211.
2 An eminent or wise man interprets a coded message one way (often in a naively op-
timistic manner favourable to himself ); a social inferior interprets the signs in a more
convincing or morally compelling way, showing up the previous interpretation as
foolish. S. West adduces a number of authentic or plausible oriental instances where
diplomacy or even a love-affair is conducted by means of symbolic gifts, associating
it with illiterate or semi-literate cultures where writing would be ineffective. She
considers but rejects a folktale connexion only by noting the absence of comparable
material in Stith-Thompson’s motif index; but the material is accessible through the
192 Miscellaneous tales

Aarne-Thompson-Uther index of complete tales. The point is not symbolic com-

munication as such, but the contrasting interpretations of it, which can be set in a
narrative context and thus constitute a tale. Other ancient instances appear in the
popularly conceived Alexander Romance, in communications between Darius and Al-
exander (1.36–38), and in the no less popular Aesop Romance, where letter-codes con-
cerning a buried treasure are read one way by the slave master Xanthus, then by the
wise slave Aesop (Vita Aesopi, 79f.) West plausibly suggests that Herodotus’ version
is a reworking and simplification of a version known to Pherecydes (210). See also
Chesnutt and Kawan, EM 14 (2014), 1229–1237.
3 Hansen, 462–469; Schmitt, EM 10 (2002), 1413–1419. Similar feats are attributed to
Apollonius of Tyana, who can conjecture the reason for sparrows’ speech at Philostra-
tus, VA 4.3 without actually seeing the sparrows.
4 A delusive king believes his flatterer about his royal dignity until someone too hum-
ble to be dishonest exposes the truth: Uther, EM 7 (1993), 852–857.
5 King of Epirus in the 4th/3rd centuries BCE, whose expansionist foreign policy
qualified him as Rome’s first foreign enemy.
6 Already termed ‘the Great’ as early as Plautus, Mostellaria, 775.
7 The tale requires a social outcast or innocent to speak up and reveal what everybody
thinks. The informant here is female, not a courtier, and from up-country Larissa, so
that the lookalike would not himself have been widely known.
8 This scenario touches on a less celebrated variant of the tale, illustrated by Tyl
­Eulenspiegel, 27: a rogue paints a canvas white and pretends it portrays royalty; no-one
contradicts him.
9 Alexander’s father and two of his lieutenants.
10 Batrachion, ‘Littlefrog’.
11 An evidently genuine report of an encounter between a serious intellectual of the
high empire and a rustic credited with supernatural powers. Herodes Atticus was
a prominent Athenian philanthropist, politician and man of letters embodying the
­values of the so-called Second Sophistic, and capable of being credited with reasona-
bly objective observation.
12 Celtic speakers in antiquity are spread from Anatolia to the British Isles.
13 Tiberius Claudius Julianus.
14 In a lost work so titled Lucian had called him Sostratus, most likely his real name.
15 A child of the earth: i.e. without a clearly identified human father (‘a son of the soil’),
and appropriate for a giant.
16 Like the rustic prophetess described in Dio of Prusa Oration, 1, 53–58.
17 I.e. a minor supernatural, enjoying longer than human life rather than immortal.
18 An entirely rustic non-meat diet.
19 ‘Little Goodfellow’.
20 Herodes would have been in search of the purest Attic dialect: Agathion complains
of foreign infiltration (one thinks of Aristophanes’ ridicule of the speech habits of
Scythian policemen).
21 Atthis: the traditional language of Athenian local historians (Atthidographers).
22 I.e. at Delphi in honour of Apollo Pythius.
23 Parnassus: a mountain above Delphi, associated with the seat of the Muses.
24 Pelops: giving the family history of Agamemnon; Labdacus: the Thebans, including
Oedipus.
25 Hence Plato’s views on censorship of poets and rewriting of myths (Republic
376C–394B).
26 On which at least one of the Philostrati had strong views, expressed in Gymnasticus.
27 Agathion favours contests where his own strength would be at a premium.
28 This could be regarded as polluted if handled, for example, by a menstruating woman.
29 The story of extraordinarily refined perception touches on the tale of the three ex-
perts (ATU 655), where one of three youths may detect milk handled by a woman,
menstruating or otherwise, wine smelling of a graveyard, or the like.
 Miscellaneous tales 193

30 The sensitivity in bed evokes Hans Christian Andersen’s The Princess and the Pea
(ATU, 704): she is disturbed by a pea under 20 coverlets, and by her fastidiousness
wins the hand of a prince. Book 12 of Somadeva’s 11th-century Katha Sarit Sagara
uses it in a contest to determine the most fastidious of three, but not in a wooing
tale. Smindyrides himself is also the centre of a wooing tale (as a suitor of Agariste of
­Sicyon, daughter of Cleisthenes, in pursuit of whom he deploys a huge retinue, Aelian
Varia Historia, 12.24); but he is unsuccessful. See also Opie and Opie (1980), 283–287;
Uther, EM 12 (2007), 10f.
31 Opie and Opie (1980), 238–244; Röhrich, EM 5 (1987), 410–424; Anderson (2000),
176–178; Hansen (2002), 145.
32 Commentators on the Odyssey have suspected the folktale character of the Nausicaa
story: Hainsworth (1988, 291): ‘The motif of her impending marriage probably has
deep roots in folktale, as if the unknown stranger she assisted were to become her
suitor’. Hellanicus married her to Telemachus (FGrH 323aF156, Aristotle fragment
506 Rose).
33 The location is important. Princess Nausicaa subsequently notes that the Phaeacians
live apart from the familiar world (6.204f.). The action of the Frog Prince story often
takes place at ‘the well at the world’s end.’ Here the action is located precisely at the
edge of the Ocean, where the Phaeacian river meets the sea.
34 The Grimms’ version of The Frog Prince has the crucial detail of the ball lost in the
water, rather than drawing water from the well at the world’s end.
35 Homer introduces here a simile, not of a frog, but a lion with flashing eyes; but
­Odysseus is covered in brine and scurf, has been bedded down under olive bushes
with leaves, has come from the water, and advances naked and with an olive branch
before him; he is an unaccustomed and unwelcome sight.
36 Opie and Opie (1980), 253–259; Röhrich, EM 9 (1999), 1164–1175; Anderson (2000),
138–142.
37 The first tale has the key motif of the woman unable to pay for spinning, with en-
forced elopement as the penalty for default; but there is no guessing of the name of
the man who carries off the defaulter; as in the other two versions, the name given
(Xanthus) is connected with the colour of gold.
38 ‘Goldman’, cf. Chryse (‘Gold-girl’) in Diodorus.
39 Chryse is doubly endowed with the wherewithal for spinning: Athena herself is the
patroness of domestic skills; while the Megaloi theoi are droll, sinister figures, with
secret names (which in this instance we do happen to know: they included Axiokerses
and Kadmilus, and were associated with gyration (hence modern jingling names like
Terry-top).
40 This extract in effect sets up the story, but does not actually tell it. To complete the
action we need Chryse to force either the megaloi theoi or the king to disclose the se-
cret names to avoid her paying some penalty demanded by them.
41 Rumpelstiltskin’s expertise is in spinning yarn into gold.
42 The key link to ‘The Name of the Helper’: the kidnapped wife cannot be rescued
until the helper’s name is revealed. It would be reasonable to suspect that the wife
has been initially seduced by the villain as part-payment for his magically complet-
ing household, or particularly spinning, tasks. Sometimes the villain’s bargain is not
to ask for the wife’s first child, but for herself, as in a Cornish version (Briggs DBF,
1.1.217–220).
43 The beard, tiny cloak and bad temper point well to a Rumpelstiltskin-type manikin.
44 Another crucial piece of evidence: this was the secret name of Ra, extracted by Isis
thanks to the excruciating pain of the god’s foot that she had contrived to poison.
Brunner-Traut (1989), 115–120.
45 Occasionally traditional fairy tales incorporate the device of the persecuted female
overheard, e.g. Basile 2.8.
46 The Homeric pastiche is drawn from Iliad 6, 181f., freely adapted.
47 Iliad, 3.354, slightly adapted.
194 Miscellaneous tales

48 Once more punishments are summary and severe: in one Grimm version of Rumpel-
stiltskin, the manikin stamps the earth hard enough to split himself in two.
49 Opie and Opie (1980), 133–141; Puchner, EM 8 (1996), 1407–1413; Anderson (2000),
97–100.
50 Minos is doubly qualified as a ‘Bluebeard’ figure. As the powerful king of Crete he
was a sea-king, who might reasonably be presented as the colour of the waves; and
he acquired the magic purple lock of Nisus of Megara (Ovid, Met. 8.85–95) (though
Ovid’s own version has him refuse it).
51 Only Strabo appears to give the elusive name. It is important, as the version given by
the Grimms (Fitcher’s Bird, 46) also contains escape from Bluebeard in some kind of
avian disguise (pteron = wing).
APPENDIX 1

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY1

(ATU 410, THE PETRIFIED KINGDOM)

There has never been a problem in recognising that this story is well represented
in the early modern period: it appears in Catalan and in French, and then in
­Basile (Pentamerone, 5.5) as Sun, Moon and Talia:

It is foretold that lady Talia will be in danger from a splinter of flax: her
parents remove all such material from the palace. But she sees an old lady
spinning, and dies when flax gets under her finger-nail. Her father leaves
her in the palace in a wood; after some time a king appears; unable to
wake her, he rapes her and she gives birth to two children called Sun and
Moon. They succeed in waking her, and she is revisited by the king. He
succeeds with difficulty in stopping his original wife from making him
eat the two children, and she is duly punished in a fire she had prepared
for Talia.

This is clearly enough ‘our’ Sleeping Beauty, though readers of more modern
tellings will recognise that the second half has undergone a good deal of expur-
gation, where it appears at all. The longest ancient ‘take’ can be pieced together
from two Homeric passages and an extract of Pausanias:
(Iliad, 24.602–612)
(Niobe’s) 12 children perished in her palace, six daughters and six sons in
their prime: these Apollo slew with arrows from his silver bow, in anger
at Niobe, and Artemis delighting in shafts killed her daughters, because
Niobe compared herself to Leto of the fair cheeks, saying that Leto had
only borne two, while she herself had borne many2; but the two, though
there were only two, killed all those others. For nine days long they lay
slaughtered, nor was there anyone to bury them, for the son of Cronus
turned the people to stone.3
196 Sleeping Beauty (Homer, Pausanias)

(Pausanias, 2.21.10)
They say that Niobe’s daughter’s original name was Meliboia, but when
Amphion’s children were shot down by Artemis and Apollo, she and Amy-
clas alone survived, since they prayed to Leto. Meliboia however turned
so green from fear, and remained green for the rest of her life, that from
Meliboia her name was changed to Chloris.4
(Odyssey, 11.281–284)
Chloris, the most beautiful lady, whom long ago Neleus5 wooed with count-
less gifts and married for her beauty, was the youngest daughter of Amphion,
the son of Iasus. In those days he held sway at Orchomenos over the Minyai.

Here we have most of the story: the mother’s transgression and the goddess’ re-
venge, with the whole kingdom immobilised. Chloris turns the colour of vegeta-
tion rather than being surrounded by it. The marriage to Neleus is ominous, as his
name itself means ‘cruel’. One thinks of the rape of the sleeping girl in Basile; this
time he woos her conventionally, and there is no long sleep as such. We might note
that Basile’s name for the Sleeping Beauty is Talia: now Greek Thalia means ‘the
growth in plants’ (<thallo) and so is consistent with the name Chloris. Basile has
her children as Sun and Moon.6 The mother of Sun and Moon in Hesiod (Theog-
ony, 371–374) is given as Theia,7 who should therefore be equivalent to Thalia; her
extended form Pasithea in Homer is said to be the bride of Sleep (Iliad, ­14.265–271).
Both Thalia and Pasithea are said to be Graces.8 These various connexions leave
much unexplained,9 but Basile’s connexion of Talia with the birth of Sun and
Moon guarantees the link of much of the detail with the Sleeping Beauty story.

A short episode in Cupid and Psyche affords a still more concise ‘take’, under
different names:
Apuleius Met. 6.21 1–3.
With these words she opened the box: in it she found no objects, no beauty,
but an infernal sleep, truly Stygian, which immediately was uncovered by
the removed lid: it entered her and poured through her into all her limbs
with a thick cloud of sleep, and took hold of her as she collapsed on the very
pathway. And she lay motionless and nothing other than a sleeping corpse…
Cupid ran up to his dear love Psyche, carefully wiped off the sleep and re-
placed it in its original box, and awoke her with a harmless prick of his arrow.
Only the length of the sleep and the immobilising of the kingdom are missing
here. All in all there is enough mythographic material to show that there was at
least one Sleeping Beauty story in Antiquity:
Niobe offends the goddess Leto by her boasting; as part of her punishment
most of her family are killed, and the kingdom turned to stone. Her one
surviving daughter Meliboia is spared, but turned the colour of blooming
vegetation and renamed Chloris, a synonym of Thalia (<thallo). She is
wooed by a suitor Neleus whose name means ‘cruel’.
 Sleeping Beauty (Homer, Pausanias) 197

The fact that the story can fit in as an episode to that of Cupid and Psyche will
suggest further lines of enquiry. So will the story of the grace Pasithea, offered
by Hera as a Bride of Sleep (Il., 14.267–269).

Notes
1 Opie and Opie (1980), 102–118; Anderson (2003), 92f.; Neeman, EM 12 (2007),
13–19.
2 Modern Sleeping Beauties tend to offer rather more trivial insults, as when the bad
fairy in Perrault takes exception to her inferior cutlery!
3 This detail offers us the scenario of the immobile kingdom once the girl is put to
sleep; but normally in modern fairy tales the kingdom recovers when the girl is awak-
ened by the prince, whereas Niobe’s lithification is forever.
4 Here she is not surrounded by greenery, but literally turns green. It is to be assumed
that she would have been lithified with all the rest in Iliad, 24 above.
5 On the face of it this is the normal ‘prince’; but in fact Neleus means ‘cruel’, and this
detail accords with the details in Basile’s early modern version, where the girl is raped
and the prince panders to the wishes of his previous, now jealous, wife…
6 Perrault’s two children are similarly Morning and Dawn.
7 M.L. West ad loc. can offer no explanation for the name.
8 The names and numbers of Graces are fluid, as noted by Pausanias, 9.35.1.
9 Notably how Hyperion as father of the Sun and Moon in Hesiod fits into the picture.
APPENDIX 2

SOME FRAGMENTARY HINTS

Aside from tales either fully told or summarised we have a small number of tanta-
lising hints of what might appear to be familiar tales. Clearest among these is qui
fuit rana nunc est rex (‘the man who was once a frog is now king’, Petronius, 77.6),
as clear an allusion as we could hope for to ‘The Frog Prince’. Horace offers neu
pransae Lamiae vivum puerum extrahat alvo (Ars Poetica, 340) (‘Do not let (the fabula)
drag the boy alive from the belly of the Lamia who has eaten him’), which we
might relate to the notion of bringing someone alive from the wolf ’s stomach in
Red Riding Hood, or some similar tale. Lamiae turres et solis pectines (‘the Lamia’s
towers and the combs of the sun’, Tertullian adversus Valentinianos, 2) was tenta-
tively offered by Bolte and Polivka as a hint of Rapunzel, with the towers serving
as the castle where the ogress imprisons the heroine, and the combs of the sun as
part of the obstacle-flight intended to catch the fugitive; but they might also be
drawn from separate tales. Cum Incuboni pilleum rapuisset, thesaurum invenit (‘after
he stole the goblin’s cap, he found the goblin’s treasure’, Petronius, 38.8) seems
to imply a story where the hero has forced the incubo (goblin, devil) to reveal
where treasure is hidden in exchange for the return of his cap. The fairy-tale
preoccupation with royalty produces Persius Satura, 2.37: Hunc optet generum rex et
regina (‘let the king and queen wish for this man as their son-in-law’). Ibid., 37f.
Puellae/hunc rapiant (‘let girls snatch this other fellow away’) probably alludes to
Hylas and the nymphs. And ibid., 38 quidquid calcaverit hic, rosa fiat (‘whatever this
fellow may trample, let it turn into a rose’) might allude to Orpheus’ powers
over nature. Basile’s heroine Marziella (Pentamerone, 4.7) is given by a fairy the
power to produce violets and lilies from her footprints, in a version of The Kind
and Unkind Girls.
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Aelian (1997), Historical Miscellany (Varia Historia), (ttr) N.G. Wilson, Cambridge, MA:
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Aesopica (1952), B.E. Perry, (t), Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Afanas’ev, A. (1945, repr. 1970), Russian Fairy Tales, (tr) N. Guterman, New York: Pan-
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Anderson, G. (2007), The Earliest Arthurian Texts, (ttrc). Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen.
Antonius Diogenes (1959–1977), Wonders beyond Thule (Ta Hyper Thoul ēn Apista) in Pho-
tius Codex 166, (ttr) R. Henry, Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
Apollodorus (1921), The Library, (ttr) J.G. Frazer, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
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Apollonius Paradoxographus (1877), Rerum Naturalium Scriptores Graeci Minores I, (t)
O. Keller, Leipzig: Teubner.
Apollonius Rhodius (1989), Argonautica Book III, (tc) R. Hunter, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
——— (1993), Jason and the Golden Fleece, (tr) R. Hunter, Oxford: World’s Classics.
Apuleius (1990), Cupid & Psyche, (ttrc) E.J. Kenney, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Aristophanes (1968), Clouds, (tc) K.J. Dover, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
——— (1994), Frogs, (tc) K.J. Dover, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Asbjørnsen, P.C., and Moe, J. (1970), East o’ the Sun and West o’ the Moon: Fifty-Nine
­Norwegian Folk Tales, (tr) G.W. Dasent, New York: Dover Publications.
Ashliman, D.L. (1987), A Guide to Folktales in the English Language, New York: Greenwood.
Augustine of Hippo (1965), City of God XVI–XVIII, (ttr) E.M. Sanford with W.M.
Green, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Babrius and Phaedrus (1965), B. E. Perry, (ttr), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Basile, G. (1932), The Pentamerone of Giambattista Basile, I–II, (tr) N.M. Penzer (from
Benedetto Croce’s Italian version), London: John Lane, The Bodley Head.
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Betz, H.D. (1986 rev. 1992), The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic
Spells, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Boggs, R.S. (1933), The Half-Chick Tale in Spain and France (FFC 111), Helsinki: Academia
Scientiarum Fennica.
Bőklen, E. (1910, 1915), Sneewitchenstudien, I–II, Leipzig: J.C. Hinrich.
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GLOSSARY OF SOURCES
IN GREEK (G) OR LATIN (L)

Antoninus Liberalis, (G) mythographer, 2nd c. ce

Anon. Testamentum Porcelli, 4th c. ce?
Appendix Perottina, (L) Additional fables by Phaedrus transcribed by Niccolo
Perotti
Aelian, (G) miscellanist, 2nd /3rd c. ce
Aesop, (G) supposed author of (anonymous) fables, 6th c. bce?
Antonius Diogenes, (G) novelist, 1st/2nd c. ce?
(Ps.-)Apollodorus, (G) mythographer, 1st/2nd c. ce
Apollonius paradoxographus, (G) writer on wonders, 2nd c. bce?
Apuleius, Latin novelist and man of letters, 2nd c. ce
Aristophanes, (G) comic dramatist, 5th/4th c. bce
Augustine of Hippo, (L) theologian and scholar, 4th/5th c. ce
Callimachus, (G) poet and scholar 4th/3rd c. bce
Charax of Pergamum, (G) historian, 2nd c. ce
Chares of Mytilene, (G) historian, 4th c. bce
Charon of Lampsacus, (G) historian, 5th c. bce
Conon, (G) mythographer, 1st c. bce/ce
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, (G) writer on rhetoric and historian, 1st c. bce
Dio of Prusa, (G) belletrist and philosopher. 1st/2nd c. ce
Diodorus Siculus, (G) historian, 1c. bce
Diogenes Laertius, (G) biographer, 3rd c. ce
?Eumelus, (G) archaic poet, 8th c. bce
Herodotus, Greek historian, 5th c. bce
Homer, Epic poet 8th c. bce?
Hyginus, (L) mythographer, 2nd c. ce?
Longus, Greek novelist, 2nd/3rd c. ce
Lucian, Greek satirist and belletrist, 2nd c. ce
208 Glossary of sources in Greek (G) or Latin (L)

Nonnus, Greek poet, 5th c. ce

Ovid, (L) poet, 1st c. bce/ce
Parthenius, (G) poet and scholar, 1st c. bce
Pausanias, (G) scholar and periegete, 2nd c. ce
Philostratus, (G) sophist and biographer 2nd/3rd c. ce
Philostratus, (G) author of descriptions of artworks 2nd/3rd c. ce (may be iden-
tical with the previous entry)
Phlegon of Tralles, (G) miscellanist 1st/2nd c. ce
Photius, (G) Greek scholar and prelate, 9th c. ce
Plato, (G) philosopher, 5th/4th c. bce
Pliny the Elder, (L) polymath, 1st c. ce
Pliny the Younger, (L) statesman and epistolographer, 1st/2nd c. ce
Plutarch, (G) biographer and moralist, 1st/2nd c. ce
Servius, (L) commentator on Virgil, 4th c. ce
Strabo, (G) geographer 1st c. bce/ce
Suda (G) Byzantine Dictionary 10th c. ce
Xenophon of Ephesus, (G) novelist, 2nd c. ce?
INDEX OF TALE TYPES

ATU 178A The Innocent Dog 172–173 ATU 560–562 The Magic Ring/Aladdin/
ATU 200 The Dogs’ Certificate 174–175, The Spirit in the Blue Light 162–163
176n20 ATU 570* The Rat-Catcher 103–104
ATU 219E** The Hen that laid the ATU 571B Lover Exposed 99–101, 119n11
Golden Eggs 175 ATU 655 The Wise Brothers 150, 152
ATU 300 The Dragon-Slayer 155–158, ATU 700 Thumbling 179
164n30, 164n34, 166n55 ATU 709 Snow White 1, 5, 9, 14, 55,
ATU 303 The Twins or Blood-Brothers 63–66, 68n33, 69n41
159–160, 164n30 ATU 750A The Three Wishes 99
ATU 306 The Danced-out Shoes 158–159 ATU 750B Hospitality Rewarded 108–111
ATU 307 The Princess in the Coffin 78–80 ATU 766 The Seven Sleepers 82
ATU 313 The Magic Flight 161–162 ATU 779E The Dancers of Kolbeck 112–115
ATU 326A Soul Released from Torment ATU 780 The Singing Bone 118
70–73 ATU 882 The Wager on the Wife’s Chastity
ATU 327A Hansel and Gretel 91–93, 116–117 127–140
ATU 327B The Brothers and the Ogre 180 ATU 883A The Innocent Slandered Maid
ATU 332 Godfather Death 73–74 126–127, 141n6
ATU 333 Little Red Riding Hood 162 ATU 899 Alcestis 11, 15n20, 80–81, 85n57
ATU 366 The Man from the Gallows 74–76 ATU 924 Discussion in Sign Language
ATU 410 The Petrified Kingdom 195–197 184–185
ATU 425B Son of the Witch (Cupid and ATU 950 Rhampsinitus 11, 150–152
Psyche) 17, 45 ATU 960A The Cranes of Ibycus 99, 106
ATU 440 The Frog King 188–189 ATU 1137 The Ogre Blinded
ATU 480 The Kind and Unkind Girls (Polyphemus) 143–150
125–126, 140n2, 198 ATU 1187 Meleager 101–103
ATU 500 The Name of the Supernatural ATU 1620 The Emperor’s New Clothes 7,
Helper 189–191 8, 13, 186
ATU 505 The Grateful Dead 106
ATU 510A Cinderella 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 55–63 Christiansen Migratory Legends:
ATU 517 The Boy who understands the ML 3020 The Sorcerer’s Apprentice/
Language of Birds 185 Inexperienced Use of the Black Book
ATU 545A/B The Cat Castle/Puss in 70, 76–78, 85n41
Boots 3, 12, 14, 173–174, 176n15 ML 3061 The Pied Piper 14, 103–104, 120n26
210 Index of tale types

Stith Thompson Motif-Index: F647 Marvellous sensitiveness 188,

B270 Animals in Legal Relations: 193n30
Testamentum Porcelli 174–175 G263.1 Witch transforms Lovers into
B550 Animals carry Men 167–168, 174 Animals 87–91
D1427.1 Pied Piper of Hamelin 103–104 H1010 Impossible Tasks 105
D1550 Magic object opens and closes J2072.1 Short-sighted Wish 107–108
176n10 K978 Uriah Letter 163n6
D2063.1.1 Tormenting by sympathetic K1371.1 Lover steals Bride from Wedding
magic 101–103 with Unwelcome Suitor 111–112
E155.1 Slain Warriors revived Nightly N721 Runaway Horse carries Bride to her
82–83 Lover 111–112
E721.1 Soul wanders from body in sleep
81, 91 Unclassified:
E721.1.2.3 Soul of sleeper prevented from ‘Artemis and the Three Hairy Giants’ 178,
returning by burning the body 81, 91 181–182
F452 Dwarf 178–179 Snow White’s Revenge 105
F535.5.1 War of Pygmies and Cranes 4, 181 The Fairy Lover 80
INDEX

Note: Page numbers followed by “n” denote endnotes.

Aarne-Thompson-Uther index of tales Beauty and the Beast 9

(ATU) 2, 4 Bolte, J. 2
Adversus indoctum (Lucian) 186 Book of Dede Korkut 8, 85n57
Aelian 55: Varia Historia 56–57, 108, 188 Bottigheimer, R. 4, 15n21
Allegory of Prodicus 8
Amatoriae Narrationes 118 Callimachus: Hymns 115–116, 123n85,
Andersen, Hans Christian: The Princess and 181–182
the Pea 193n30 Chaereas and Callirhoe (Chariton) 127–140
Animal tales 12–13; Culex 172–173; The Charax of Pergamum 152, 154n24
Dream or the Cock (Lucian) 169–172; Chariton: Chaereas and Callirhoe 127–140
Fabulae (Hyginus) 168, 173–174; Charon of Lampsacus 80
Herodotus 167–168; Testamentum Porcelli Cicero: de Divinatione 106
174–175, 176n20 Cinderella 9, 10; Daphnis and Chloe (Longus)
Antoninus Liberalis 6, 96; Metamorphoses 60–63; Hyginus de Astronomia 56;
105, 181 Strabo and Herodotus 55–56; Varia
Antonius Diogenes 82–83 Historia (Aelian) 56–57, 108, 188
Apollodorus 45, 80–81, 103–104, 159–162, City of God (Augustine of Hippo) 91
185, 191 Conon: Narrationes 181
Apollonius Rhodius 80; Argonautica 12 Contes de fées (D’Aulnoy) 3
Appendix Perrotina 106–107, 111–112 Cranes of Ibycus 106
Aptowitzer,V. 67n16, 67n22 Culex 172–173
Apuleius: Cupid and Psyche 2–4, 6, 8, 9–10, Cupid and Psyche (Apuleius) 2–4, 6, 8, 9–10,
17–47, 47n2, 196, 197; The Golden Ass 91 17–47, 47n2, 196, 197
Aristeas of Proconnesus 81
Aristophanes: Frogs 93; Wasps 6 Daphnis and Chloe (Longus) 60–63
Augustine of Hippo: City of God 91 D’Aulnoy, Madame: Contes de fées 3
de Divinatione (Cicero) 106
Babes in the Wood 3 Diodorus 45
Basile, G. 9, 176n16, 176n17, 195; Gagliuso Diogenes Laertius 82
176n19; La Gatta Cenerentola 8; Lo cunto Dionysiaca (Nonnus) 45–47
de li cunti 3 Dio of Halicarnassus 189
212 Index

Dio of Prusa 8, 87; Oration 1 93–96 Lucian: Adversus indoctum 186; The Dream or
The Dream or the Cock (Lucian) 169–172 the Cock 169–172; Fugitivi 13, 189–191;
Phalaris 116–117; Philopseudeis 70–78
The Emperor’s New Clothes 7, 8, 13, 186
Enzyklopädie des Märchens (Ranke) 4 magic tales 2, 4, 14
Epimenides 82, 86n59, 86n68, 86n76 Metamorphoses: Antoninus Liberalis 105,
Erōtes 13, 182n5 181; Ovid 4, 5, 65–66, 107–108,
Erōtica pathēmata (Parthenius) 189–191 110–115, 125–126, 158–159
Eumelus 80 Moralia (Plutarch) 74, 106

Fabulae (Hyginus) 168, 173–174, 180 Narrationes (Conon) 181

Fabulae Aesopicae Collectae (Halm) non-magical folktale categories 1
117–118, 175 Nonnus: Dionysiaca 45–47
Frogs (Aristophanes) 93
Fugitivi (Lucian) 13, 189–191 Odyssey (Homer) 5, 7, 87–91, 99–101,
143–150, 188
Gagliuso (Basile) 176n19 Opie, I. 182n4
The Golden Ass (Apuleius) 11, 14, 91 Opie, P. 182n4
Grimms 1, 2, 4, 9, 14: Kinder-und Oration 1 (Dio of Prusa) 93–96
Hausmärchen 3 Ovid: Metamorphoses 4, 5, 65–66, 107–108,
110–115, 125–126, 158–159
Hadrian of Tyre 11
Halm: Fabulae Aesopicae Collectae 117–118, 175 Parthenius: Erōtika Pathēmata 189–191
Hansen, William 4, 14 Pausanias 152, 162, 173
Hermotimus of Clazomenae 81–82 Peri Thaumasiōn (Phlegon of Tralles) 78–80
Herodotus 55–56, 126–127, 150–152, Perrault, Charles 2, 10, 14, 17, 176n16,
167–168, 184–185 176n17; Histoires ou contes du temps passé
Histoires ou contes du temps passé (Perrault) 3 3; Little Red Riding Hood 6, 162
Homer: Odyssey 5, 7, 87–91, 99–101, Phaedo (Plato) 5, 84n26
143–150, 188 Phalaris 116–117, 124n108
Hyginus: Fabulae 168, 173–174, 180 Philip, N. 68n29
Hyginus de Astronomia 56 Philopseudeis (Lucian) 70–78
Hymns (Callimachus) 115–116, 123n85, Philostratus: Imagines 178–180; Life of
181–182 Apollonius of Tyana 91–93; Lives of the
Sophists 186–188
Ibycus 106 Phlegon of Tralles: peri Thaumasiōn 78–80
Imagines (Philostratus) 178–180 Photius Codex 166 82–83
international tale 2, 8, 9, 11 Piglet: Testamentum Porcelli 174–175, 176n20
Ivory Snow-White 65–66 Plato: Phaedo 5, 84n26; Republic 162–163
Pliny the Younger: Letters 72–73
Kakridis, J. 119n4 Plutarch: Moralia 74, 106
Kinder-und Hausmärchen (Grimms) 3 Polivka, G. 2
King John and the Abbot 2 The Poor Man of Nippur 9
King Little-Fist 65–66 The Princess and the Pea (Andersen) 193n30
Propp,Vladimir 1
La Gatta Cenerentola (Basile) 8
Le piacevoli notti (Straparola) 3 Ramanujan, A.K. 182n8
Letters (Pliny the Younger) 72–73 Ranke, Kurt: Enzyklopädie des Märchens 4
L’héritier, Marie-Jeanne 3 Republic (Plato) 162–163
Life of Apollonius of Tyana (Philostratus) Rip van Winkle 11, 70, 86n68
91–93 Rose de la Force 3
Little Red Riding Hood (Perrault) 6, 162
Lives of the Sophists (Philostratus) 186–188 Schwartz, H. 67n16
Lo cunto de li cunti (Basile) 3 Servius on Aeneid 103–105
 Index 213

The Sleeping Beauty 14, 195–197 Thompson, Stith 1, 3–4

Smith, K.F. 166n61 Tolkien, J.R.R. 1, 2
Snow White 1, 5, 9, 10, 55; Metamorphoses The Types of International Folktales
(Ovid) 65–66; Xenophon of Ephesus (Uther) 3
63–64
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice 11, 70, 85n41 Uther, H.-J.: The Types of International
Strabo 55–56, 98n48, 103–104, 191 Folktales 3
Straparola 4, 6, 176n16, 176n17:
Le piacevoli notti 3 Varia Historia (Aelian) 56–57, 108, 188

Tale of Two Brothers 4–5, 8, 9 Xenophon of Ephesus 10, 55, 63–64

Testamentum Porcelli (Piglet) 174–175,
176n20 Zipes, Jack 7