Complete Works of Achilles Tatius Read online

  The Complete Works of

  ACHILLES TATIUS

  (fl. 2nd century AD)

  Contents

  The Translation

  THE ADVENTURES OF LEUCIPPE AND CLITOPHON

  The Greek Text

  CONTENTS OF THE GREEK TEXT

  The Dual Text

  DUAL GREEK AND ENGLISH TEXT

  The Biography

  INTRODUCTION TO ACHILLES TATIUS by Stephen Gaselee

  The Delphi Classics Catalogue

  © Delphi Classics 2016

  Version 1

  The Complete Works of

  ACHILLES TATIUS

  By Delphi Classics, 2016

  COPYRIGHT

  Complete Works of Achilles Tatius

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by Delphi Classics.

  © Delphi Classics, 2016.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

  ISBN: 978 1 78656 379 8

  Delphi Classics

  is an imprint of

  Delphi Publishing Ltd

  Hastings, East Sussex

  United Kingdom

  Contact: [email protected]

  www.delphiclassics.com

  The Translation

  Alexandria, the capital of Roman Egypt — the birthplace of Achilles Tatius

  THE ADVENTURES OF LEUCIPPE AND CLITOPHON

  Translated by Stephen Gaselee, Loeb Classical Library

  Leucippe and Clitophon is one of the five surviving ancient Greek romances, notable for its many similarities to Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe and mild parodying nature. The narrative is believed to have been composed by Achilles Tatius of Alexandria, a Roman era Greek writer whose fame is attached to this only surviving work. Achilles Tatius flourished in the second century AD. Of the his life nothing is known, though the Suidas claims he became a Christian and a bishop and wrote works on etymology, the sphere and an account of great men.

  Leucippe and Clitophon opens with an unnamed narrator, who visits the Phoenician city of Sidon, where he is approached by a stranger, Clitophon, a young man that complains of his troubles in love. Clitophon is induced to talk of his adventures and narrates how his cousin Leucippe first visited his home in Tyre, causing him to fall deeply in love with her, despite his already being promised in marriage to his half-sister Calligone. He seeks the advice of another cousin, Kleinias, who is already experienced in love. After a number of attempts to woo her, Clitophon wins Leucippe’s love, but his marriage to Calligone is soon approaching. However, the marriage is averted when Kallisthenes, a young man from Byzantium who has heard of Leucippe’s beauty, comes to Tyre to kidnap her, but by mistake kidnaps Calligone, setting in place a series of misadventures for the lovers.

  The papyrus and linguistic evidence demonstrate that the text was composed early in the 2nd century AD. The first appraisal of Leucippe and Clitophon is found in Photius’ Bibliotheca, where the author notes: “the diction and composition are excellent, the style distinct, and the figures of speech, whenever they are employed, are well adapted to the purpose. The periods as a rule are aphoristic, clear and agreeable, and soothing to the ear”. To this Photius added a moralistic bias that would long persecute the author: “the obscenity and impurity of sentiment impair his judgment, are prejudicial to seriousness, and make the story disgusting to read or something to be avoided altogether.” Past scholars have passed scathing comments on the text, labelling its style as artificial and laboured. However, more recent judgements tend to be more favourable, valuing the elements of originality that the author introduces in the genre of the romance. The most striking of these elements would be Tatius’ decision to abandon an omniscient narrator, often found in ancient romance, for a first person narration.

  The author also takes pleasure in asides and digressions on mythology and the interpretation of omens, descriptions of exotic beasts (crocodiles, hippopotami) and sights (the Nile delta, Alexandria), and discussions of amorous matters (such as kisses, or whether women or boys make better lovers). Tatius’ descriptions of confused and contradictory emotional states (fear, hope, shame, jealousy, and desire) are exemplary (“baroque” conceits such as these would be frequently imitated in the Renaissance). There are also several portrayals of almost sadistic cruelty (Leucippe’s fake sacrifice and, later, decapitation; Clitophon chained in prison or beaten by Melite’s husband) that share much with Hellenistic sculpture (such as the “Dying Gaul” or the “Laocoön and his Sons”).

  The large number of existing manuscripts confirms the text’s popularity over the centuries. A part of the novel was first printed in a Latin translation by Annibal della Croce (Crucejus), in Lyon, in 1544, while his complete translation appeared in Basel in 1554. The first edition of the Greek original appeared in Heidelberg in 1601, printed together with similar works of Longus and Parthenius; another edition was published by Claudius Salmasius in Leiden, 1640, accompanied with an extensive commentary. The first important critical edition came out with Friedrich Jacobs in Leipzig in 1821.

  A papyrus fragment of ‘Leucippe and Clitophon’, P.Oxy. X 1250, 2nd – 4th century AD

  CONTENTS

  BOOK I

  BOOK II

  BOOK III

  BOOK IV

  BOOK V

  BOOK VI

  BOOK VII

  BOOK VIII

  ‘The Rape of Europa’ by Jean-François de Troy, 1716 — ‘Leucippe and Clitophon’ opens with a detailed description of a classical painting of this story.

  ‘Perseus and Andromeda’ by Frederic Leighton — another key mythological story related by Tatius in ‘Leucippe and Clitophon’

  BOOK I

  Please note: the translator’s original footnotes are inserted in brackets in the text.

  1. SIDON is on the sea-board of the Assyrian Ocean: it is the Phoenicians’ mother city, and its people may be termed the father of the Theban race. There is a double harbour in the bay, wide within but with a narrow entrance so as to land-lock the sea by a gentle curve: where the bay makes an inward turn towards the right, a second inlet has been channelled out, for the water to run in, and thus there is formed a further harbour behind the first, so that in winter the ships can lie safely in the inner basin, while in summer they need not proceed further than the outer port.

  On arriving there after a severe storm, I went to make my votive offerings for my safe arrival to the Phoenicians’ goddess; Astarte the people of Sidon call her: as I was thus walking about the city, paying especial attention to the temple-offerings, I saw a picture hanging up which was a landscape and a sea-scape in one. The painting was of Europa: the sea depicted was the Phoenician Ocean; the land, Sidon. On the land part was a meadow and a troop of girls: in the sea a bull was swimming, and on his back sat a beautiful maiden, borne by the bull towards Crete. The meadow was thick with all kinds of flowers, and among them was planted a thicket of trees and shrubs, the trees growing so close that their foliage touched: and the branches, intertwining their leaves, thus made a kind of continuous roof over the flowers beneath. The artist had also represented the shadows thrown by the leaves, and the sun was gently breaking through, here and there, on to the meadow, where the painter had represented openings in the thick roof of foliage. The meadow was surrounded on all sides by an enclosure, and lay wholly within the embowering roof; beneath the shrubs grass-beds of flowers grew orderly — narcissus, roses, and bays; in the middle of the meadow in the picture flowed a rivulet of water, bubbling up on on
e side from the ground, and on the other watering the flowers and shrubs; and a gardener had been painted holding a pick, stooping over a single channel and leading a path for the water. —

  The painter had put the girls at one end of the meadow where the land jutted out into the sea. Their look was compounded of joy and fear: garlands were bound about their brows; their hair had been allowed to flow loose on their shoulders; their legs were bare, covered neither by their tunics above nor their sandals below, a girdle holding up their skirts as far as the knee; their faces were pale and their features distorted; their eyes were fixed wide open upon the sea, and their lips were slightly parted, as if they were about to utter a cry of fear; their hands were stretched out in the direction of the bull. They were rushing to the water’s edge, so that the surge just wetted their feet: and they seemed to be anxious to run after the bull, but to be afraid of entering the water.

  The sea had two different tinges of colour; towards the land it was almost red, but out towards the deep water it was dark blue: and foam, and rocks, and wave crests had been painted in it. The rocks ran out from the shore and were whitened with foam, while the waves rose into crests and were then dashed into foam by breaking upon the rocks. Far out in the ocean was painted a bull breasting the waves, while a billow rose like a mountain where his leg was bent in swimming: the maiden sat on the middle of his back, not astride but sideways, with her feet held together on the right: with her left hand she clung to his horn, like a charioteer holding the reins, and the bull inclined a little in that direction, guided by the pressure of her hand. On the upper part of her body she wore a tunic down to her middle, and then a robe covered the lower part of her body: the tunic was white, the robe purple: and her figure could be traced under the clothes — the deep-set navel, the long slight curve of the belly, the narrow waist, broadening down to the loins, the breasts gently swelling from her bosom and confined, as well as her tunic, by a girdle: and the tunic was a kind of mirror of the shape of her body. Her hands were held widely apart, the one to the bull’s horn, the other to his tail; and with both she held above her head the ends of her veil which floated down about her shoulders, bellying out through its whole length and so giving the impression of a painted breeze. Thus she was seated on the bull like a vessel under way, using the veil as a sail; about the bull dolphins gambolled, Cupids sported: they actually seemed to move in the picture. Love himself led the bull — Love, in the guise of a tiny boy, his wings stretched out, wearing his quiver, his lighted torch in his hands: he was turning towards Zeus with a smile on his face, as if he were laughing at him for becoming a bull for his sake.

  2. I was admiring the whole of the picture, but — a lover myself — paid particular attention to that part of it where love was leading the bull; and “Look,” I said, “how that imp dominates over sky and land and sea!” As I was speaking, a young man standing by me broke in: “I may term myself a living example of it,” he said; “I am one who has suffered many buffets from the hand of Love.”

  “How is that?” said I. “What have your sufferings been, my friend? I can see by your looks that you are not far from being one of the god’s initiates.”

  “You are stirring a whole swarm of stories,” said he; “my adventures are really like fiction.”

  “I hope, Sir,” said I, “in the name of Zeus and that very god Love, that you will not hesitate to give me all the same the pleasure of hearing them, even if they are like fiction”: and while I was speaking I took him by the hand and led him to a grove at no great distance, where many thick plane-trees were growing, and a stream of water flowing through, cool and translucent, as if it came from freshly melted snow. There I bade him sit down on a low bench, and I sat by him, and said: “Now is the time to hear your tale; and the surroundings are pleasant and altogether suitable for listening to a love-story.”

  3. This is how he began: I am a Phoenician by nation, my country is Tyre; my name is Clitophon, my father is called Hippias, my uncle Sostratus; but he was only my father’s half-brother, on the father’s side, for my grandfather was twice married: my uncle’s mother was a Byzantine woman, my father’s a Tyrian. My uncle has lived all his life at Byzantium, having inherited there a very considerable property from his mother; my father stayed in Tyre. My mother I never knew, as she died when I was a baby; and then my father took a second wife, who was the mother of my sister Calligone. To this sister my father determined to unite me in marriage (Marriage was allowed in ancient Greece between half-brother’s and half-sisters descended from the same father: but not between uterine half-brothers and half-sisters.); but Fate, stronger than the will of man, was reserving another to be my wife.

  Providence sometimes foreshows the future to men in dreams, not so that they may be able to avoid the sufferings fated for them, for they can never get the better of destiny, but in order that they may bear them with the more patience when those sufferings come: for when disasters come all together and unexpectedly, they strike the spirit with so severe and sudden a blow that they overwhelm it; while if they are anticipated, the mind, by dwelling on them beforehand, is able little by little to turn the edge of sorrow. Well, I was nineteen years of age, and my father was making preparations to celebrate my marriage in the following year, when Fate began the drama of my fortunes. I had a dream, in which I seemed to have grown into one with Calligone from the belly downwards, while above we had two separate bodies: then there stood over me a tall woman of fearful appearance; she had a savage countenance, blood-shot eyes, grim, rough cheeks, and snakes for hair; in her right hand she held a sickle, and in her left a torch. She advanced angrily upon me, brandishing the sickle: and then struck with it at my waist, where the two bodies joined, and so cut the maiden away from me. In mortal fear I jumped up, terrified: I told nobody the dream, but revolved inwardly the most gloomy forebodings.

  Meanwhile, the following events were happening. My father’s brother, as I told you, was Sostratus; and a messenger came from him bringing letters from Byzantium. This was the purport of them: —

  Sostratus, to his brother Hippias, greeting.

  My daughter Leucippe and my wife Panthea are on their way to you: war has been declared by the Thracians against the Byzantines. Keep safe these, the dearest of my family, until the war is decided one may or the other.

  4. Directly my father had read these words, he jumped up and hurried down to the sea-shore. He was not long in returning, and then there followed him a great number of men-servants and maidservants, sent by Sostratus to accompany his ladies: in the middle of them walked a tall woman richly dressed; and as I gazed at her, I suddenly saw a maiden on her left, who blinded my eyes, as with a stroke of lightning, by the beauty of her face. She was like that picture of Europa on the bull which I saw but just now: an eye at once piercing and voluptuous; golden hair in golden curls; black eyebrows — jet black; pale cheeks, the pallor shading in the centre into a ruddy hue, like that stain wherewith the Lydian women tint ivory; and a mouth that was a rose — a rose-bud just beginning to uncurl its petals. Directly I saw her, I was lost: for beauty wounds deeper than any arrow and strikes down through the eyes into the soul; the eye is the passage for love’s wound. All manner of feelings took possession of me at once — admiration, stupefaction, fear, shame, shamelessness. I admired her tall form, I was stupefied by her beauty, I shewed my fear by the beating of my heart; I stared shamelessly at her, but I was ashamed to be caught doing so. Try as I would to drag my eyes away from gazing upon her, they would not obey me, but remained fixed upon her by the force of her beauty, and at length they won the day against my will.

  5. Such was the manner of their arrival. My father then set aside for their use a part of the house, and ordered dinner to be made ready. When the hour for it came, we sat down two on each couch my father arranged that he and I should occupy the middle one, the two mothers that on the left, and the two maidens the right-hand one. I was overjoyed when I heard of this arrangement, (drinking, the expressions left and
right in the text, describing the benches on which the ladies of the party reclined, must be from the point of view of a spectator looking up towards the middle bench occupied by the two men.) and I could hardly restrain myself from publicly embracing my father for thus putting the girl under my very eyes. I swear that I have not the slightest idea what I ate — I was like a man eating in a dream. I rested myself firmly on my elbow on the couch, and, leaning forward, devoured the maiden with my eyes, sometimes intercepting a glance on her part; for that was my dinner. After it was over, a young slave (one of my father’s servants) came in with a lute ready tuned; first of all he played it with his hands alone, sweeping over the strings and producing a subdued tone by twanging them with his fingers; then he struck the strings with the plectrum, and having played a short prelude he sang in concert with the music. The subject of his song was the chiding of Apollo as Daphne fled from him; his pursuit, and how he all but caught her; and then how the maid became a tree, and how Apollo made himself a crown out of its leaves. This story, as he sang it, at last set my heart more fiercely ablaze: for love stories are the very fuel of desire; and however much a man may school himself to continence, by the force of example he is stimulated to imitate it, especially when that example proceeds from one in a higher position than himself: for that shame, which prevents a man going astray, is converted into boldness by the approval of one of higher rank. So I said to myself: “Look, here is Apollo in love, and like you in love with a maiden; and when he is in love, he feels no shame about it, but pursues his maiden, while you hesitate and profess to be ashamed, and encourage a most untimely continence: do you put yourself above a god?”