Incertarum fabularum fragmenta (fr. 47)

269

luppiter ... canem ... caelo intulit. cuius exortus origine continetur tali, ut Amphis
tragoediarum scriptor refert. cum subito hominibus segetes delinquerent, illico missus
legatus canis ad Oporam (doloram codd., corn Meineke). quam ut vidit eo tempore
tempestivam esse, adamavit. qui cum flagraret amore nec posset frui, magis asperius
urebat. at homines calamitate accepta deos adiutores invocare coeperunt. tunc Aquilo
misit filios adulescentes, qui Oporam cani traderent, ipse flatu suo canis ardorem
sedavit. qui flatus etesiae dicuntur. amoris autem memoria remansit: eo tempore, quo
Opora id est pomatio est, eum oriri ferventissimum.
Zeus brought the Dog-Star to the sky. His rising was so astonishing that Amphis, the poet
of tragedies (sic; cf. Robert 21963: 20), refers to it. When unexpectedly people experienced
a grain shortage, immediately the Dog-Star was sent as an envoy to Opora; and, as soon
as he saw her being mature, he fell in love with her. And, although he was burning up,
he was not able to satisfy his passion; and so his burning grew more and more vehement.
And, after the calamity stroke, the people started praying to the gods to help them. Then
Boreas sent his adoloscent sons, who delivered Opora to the Dog-Star; and Boreas himself
soothed the Dog-Star’s fiery passion with his breeze. These breezes are called έτησίαι
(periodic winds; cf. the previous quotation). But the memory of this erotic passion re-
mained: at the time when crops (i. e. Opora) are mature, he rises being at his most fervent
and impassioned.
Discussion Meineke 3,320f., 1.404; Bothe 488; Kock 2,249f.; PCG 2,234;
Llopis/Gomez/Asensio 308
Citation Context The two texts cited above, featuring conspicuously bad
use and poor knowledge of Latin, refer to aspects of the constellation myth of
Sirius (Κύων, the Dog-Star) and attest to the fact that Amphis dealt with this
myth somewhere in his work, though they do not specify in which particular
play. The first text consists of a lacunose excerpt from the annotations of
Marcian of Heraclea on [Eratosthenes’] Catasterismi (Maass 1898: 579), which
is complemented by an extensive passage from Aratus Latinus (Maass 25lal9
sqq.). The second text derives from the ancient scholia on Germanicus’ Latin
version of Aratus (Robert 21963: 168).
Constitution of Text I include this section here simply to emphasise the fact
that both Latin texts quoted above abound in various errors (e. g. problematic
syntax), which make translation difficult; so, when translating, I practically
tightroped in an attempt to remain as faithful to the text as possible and at the
same time produce a meaningful English text. Perhaps the most preposterous
instance is the term *pomatio (last line of text b), which does not exist; the
closer existing terms are the adj. pomarius (fruit-bearing) and the noun pomum
(fruit, apple/ fruit-bearing tree). Another instance is the erroneous use of the
verb succendo (= set on fire), towards the end of text (a); Maass detected the
absurdity of the text (“ύπερπυροϋντο et ύπεπραΰνοντο confusum videtur”: