Thursday, November 29, 2012

 

A Gift for Pan

Georg Kaibel, Epigrammata Graeca ex Lapidibus Conlecta (Berlin: Reimer, 1878), p. 326, no. 802 (Rome, Julian Basilica, 2nd century A.D.):
Σ]οὶ τόδε, συρικτά, ὑ[μνη]πόλε, μείλιχε δαῖμο[ν,
  ἁγνὲ λοετροχόων κοίρανε Ναϊάδων,
δῶρον Ὑγεῖνος ἔτε[υξε]ν, ὃν ἀργαλέης ἀπὸ νούσου
  αὐτὸς, ἄνα[ξ], ὑγιῆ θήκαο προσπελ[ά]σ[ας·
πᾶσι γὰρ [ἐν τεκέ]εσσιν ἐμοῖς ὰνα[φ]ανδὸν ἐπέστης 5
  οὐκ ὄναρ, ἀλλὰ μέσους ἤματος ἀμφὶ δρόμους.
There is a similar text, also by Kaibel, in Inscriptiones Graecae XIV = Inscriptiones Italiae et Siciliae (Berlin: Reimer, 1890), p. 268, no. 1014.

My rough translation of the Greek as printed by Kaibel:
For you, player on the pipes, composer of songs of praise, gentle god,
holy leader of the Naiads who pour water for bathing,
Hygeinos made this gift. From a painful disease
you yourself, lord, cured him when you came near;
for among all my children you appeared openly,
not in a dream, but in the middle course of the day.
In the last line, "as a dream" is possible, but Liddell-Scott-Jones also give an adverbial meaning for ὄναρ = "in a dream".

Cf. the Latin translation in Ed. Cougny, Epigrammatum Anthologia Palatina cum Planudeis et Appendice Nova Epigrammatum Veterum ex Libris et Marmoribus Ductorum, Vol. III (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1890), p. 33, #214:
Tibi hocce, fistulator, hymnos-tractans, placide deus,
  pure lavacra-fundentium rex Naiadum,
donum Hyginus (i. est Valentinus) fecit, quem gravi ex morbo
  ipse, princeps, validum fecisti accedens:
omnes enim inter liberos meos palam adstitisti
  non somno, sed medium diei per cursum.
I haven't seen J. Bousquet, "Epigrammes romains," Klio 52 (1970) 37–40, but according to Georges Daux, "En marge des Mélanges Klaffenbach," Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 95 (1971) 267-275 (at 269-272), Bousquet proposed the supplement Π[ὰν αἰ]πόλε (goatherd Pan) for ὑ[μνη]πόλε (composer of songs of praise) in the first line. Daux p. 270: "La lettre Π, déchiffrée dans le premier vers par J. Bousquet sur la reproduction photographique, est un gain assuré; les restes visibles excluent tout autre signe, alors que les éditeurs successifs adoptaient une lecture Y (d'où ύ[μνη]πόλε), sans hésitation ni réserve."

In line 5, Kaibel attributes the supplement [ἐν τεκέ]εσσιν ἐμοῖς (among my children) to E. Curtius. There have been a number of other proposals to fill the gap:
I'm tempted to adopt Bousquet's supplement in line 1 and Latte's supplement in line 5. With these supplements the Greek would read thus:
Σ]οὶ τόδε, συρικτά, Π[ὰν αἰ]πόλε, μείλιχε δαῖμο[ν,
  ἁγνὲ λοετροχόων κοίρανε Ναϊάδων,
δῶρον Ὑγεῖνος ἔτε[υξε]ν, ὃν ἀργαλέης ἀπὸ νούσου
  αὐτὸς, ἄνα[ξ], ὑγιῆ θήκαο προσπελ[ά]σ[ας·
πᾶσι γὰρ [ἐν παθέ]εσσιν ἐμοῖς ὰνα[φ]ανδὸν ἐπέστης 5
  οὐκ ὄναρ, ἀλλὰ μέσους ἤματος ἀμφὶ δρόμους.
My translation would change as follows:
For you, player on the pipes, goatherd Pan, gentle god,
holy leader of the Naiads who pour water for bathing,
Hygeinos made this gift. From a painful disease
you yourself, lord, cured him when you came near;
For in the midst of all my sufferings you appeared openly,
not in a dream, but in the middle course of the day.
I learned of the inscription from H.S. Versnel, "What Did Ancient Man See When He Saw a God? Some Reflections on Greco-Roman Epiphany," in Dirk van der Plas, ed., Effigies Dei: Essays on the History of Religions (Leiden: Brill, 1987), pp. 42-55 (at 48).

The inscription is in Luigi Moretti, Inscriptiones Graecae Urbis Romae, I (Rome: Istituto Italiano per la Storia Antica, 1968), pp. 165-167, no. 184, whence the following image of the stone (p. 166; click to enlarge):




Thanks to Karl Maurer for some corrections.



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