Ctesylla
Antoninus Liberalis wrote forty-one short prose tales of transformation, mostly summarising lost Hellenistic poems. This page is Tale 1 only. The tale is headed, in the Greek, with its source: Nicander tells it in the third book of his Heteroeumena. Greek and English are given paragraph by paragraph, so each paragraph can be checked against the other. Further tales will be added one at a time as they are finished.
1
Ἱστορεῖ Νίκανδρος Ἑτεροιουμένων γ΄.
Κτήσυλλα ἐγένετο Κεία τὸ γένος ἐξ Ἰουλίδος Ἀλκιδάμαντος θυγάτηρ. ταύτην ἰδὼν Ἑρμοχάρης Ἀθηναῖος χορεύουσαν Πυθίοις παρὰ τὸν βωμὸν τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος ἐν Καρθαίᾳ ἐπεθύμισεν αὐτῆς, καὶ ἐπιγράψας μῆλον ἔρριψεν ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ τῆς Ἀρτέμιδος, ἡ δὲ ἀνείλετο καὶ ἀνέγνω· ἐγέγραπτο δὲ ὅρκος κατὰ τῆς Ἀρτέμιδος ἦ μὴν γαμηθήσεσθαι Ἑρμοχάρει Ἀθηναίῳ.
Nicander tells this in the third book of his Heteroeumena.
Ctesylla was Cean by birth, from Ioulis, daughter of Alcidamas. Hermochares the Athenian, seeing her dancing at the Pythia beside the altar of Apollo at Carthaea, desired her, and having written upon an apple, threw it into the sanctuary of Artemis. She picked it up and read it. Written on it was an oath by Artemis: “I solemnly swear that I will marry Hermochares the Athenian.”
2
ἡ μὲν οὖν Κτήσυλλα ἀπέρριψε τὸ μῆλον αἰδεσθεῖσα καὶ χαλεπῶς ἤνεγκεν, ὥσπερ ὅτε Κυδίππην Ἀκόντιος ἐξηπάτησεν. Ἑρμοχάρει δὲ αἰτησαμένῳ κατῄνεσε τὸν γάμον ὁ πατὴρ ὁ τῆς Κτησύλλης καὶ ὤμοσε τὸν Ἀπόλλωνα τῆς δάφνης ἁψάμενος.
So Ctesylla threw away the apple, feeling shame, and took it hard, just as when Acontius deceived Cydippe. When Hermochares asked for her hand, Ctesylla’s father consented to the marriage, and swore by Apollo, touching the laurel.
3
ἐπεὶ δὲ διῆλθεν ὁ τῶν Πυθίων χρόνος, Ἀκλκιδάμας ἐκλαθόμενος τὸν ὅρκον, ὅν ὤμοσεν, ἑτέρῳ συνῴκιζε τὴν θυγατέρα. καὶ ἡ παῖς ἔθυεν ἐν τῷ τῆς Ἀρτέμιδος ἱερῷ. χαλεπῶς δὲ φέρων Ἑρμοχάρης ἐπὶ τῷ τούτου διαμαρτεῖν εἰσέδραμεν εἰς τὸ Ἀρτεμίσιον· καὶ ἡ παῖς αὐτὸν ἰδοῦσα κατὰ θεῖον ἠράσθη, καὶ συνθεμένη διὰ τῆς τροφοῦ διαλαθοῦσα τὸν πατέρα, νύχιον ἀπέπλευσεν εἰς τὰς Ἀθήνας καὶ γάμος ἐπράχθη τῷ Ἑρμοχάρει. τεκοῦσα δ’ ἡ Κτήσυλλα καὶ χαλεπῶς ἐκ τοῦ τόκου διατεθεῖσα ἐτελεύτησε κατὰ δαίμονα, ὅτι ὁ πατὴρ αὐτῆς ἐψεύσατο τὸν ὅρκον.
But when the time of the Pythia had passed, Alcidamas, forgetting the oath he had sworn, was giving his daughter in marriage to another man. And the girl was sacrificing in the sanctuary of Artemis. Hermochares, distressed at losing the marriage, rushed into the Artemisium. And the girl, seeing him, fell in love with him through divine agency, and having made an arrangement through her nurse, escaping her father’s notice, she sailed by night to Athens, and she married Hermochares. After giving birth, Ctesylla suffered severely from the delivery and died through divine agency, because her father had broken his oath.
4
καὶ τὸ μὲν σῶμα κομίσαντες ἔφερον ὅπως κηδεύσωσιν, ἐκ δὲ τῆς στρωμνῆς πελειὰς ἐξέπτη καὶ τὸ σῶμα τῆς Κτησύλλης ἀφανὲς ἐγένετο. χρωμένῳ δ’ Ἑρμοχάρει ὁ θεὸς ἀνεῖλεν ἱδρύσασθαι ἱερὸν παρὰ τοῖς Ἰουλιήταις ἐπώνυμον Ἀφροδίτης Κτησύλλης· ἔχρησε δὲ καὶ τοῖς Κείοις.
As they were carrying her body out for burial, a dove flew from the bier, and Ctesylla’s body disappeared. When Hermochares consulted the oracle, the god declared that he should establish a sanctuary among the people of Ioulis under the name of Aphrodite Ctesylla. He gave the same oracle to the Ceans as well.
5
οἱ δὲ θύουσιν ἄχρι νῦν, Ἰουλιῆται μὲν Ἀφροδίτην Κτήσυλλαν ὀνομάζοντες, οἱ δὲ ἄλλοι Κτήσυλλαν Ἑκάεργην.
And they sacrifice to this day, the Ioulietans calling her Aphrodite Ctesylla, the others calling her Ctesylla Hecaerge.
Notes
- Cean, from Ioulis: Ioulis is a town on Ceos, not the island of Cos. Pythia: the local festival at Carthaea on Ceos, not necessarily Delphi.
- The apple oath: the Greek says only that she “read” (ἀνέγνω). The trick depends on her voicing the first-person oath aloud, but “aloud” is not in the Greek and is not added to the translation.
- Divine agency: κατὰ θεῖον and κατὰ δαίμονα are left vague, as in the Greek; no particular god is named behind them.
- The dove: the Greek says a dove flew from the bier and the body vanished. It does not state in so many words that Ctesylla turned into the dove, and the translation does not add that statement.
- Hecaerge: “working from afar,” an epithet otherwise used of Apollo and Artemis.
- Text note: the Greek source prints Ἀκλκιδάμας once, in paragraph 3, which looks like a transposition for Ἀλκιδάμας, used everywhere else. It is reproduced as printed and translated as Alcidamas. The Greek text has not yet been collated against a critical edition.
Next tale: the Meleagrides (Tale 2). Corrections are welcome via the contact form; please say which paragraph you mean.