Of This The Poet Has Made Mention In The "Prowess
Of Diomede," And The Verses Run Thus:
"There she had robes many-coloured, the works of women of Sidon,
Those whom her son himself the god-like of form Alexander
Carried from Sidon, what time the broad sea-path he sailed over
Bringing back Helene home, of a noble father begotten."
And in the Odyssey also he has made mention of it in these verses:
"Such had the daughter of Zeus, such drugs of exquisite cunning,
Good, which to her the wife of Thon, Polydamna, had given,
Dwelling in Egypt, the land where the bountiful meadow produces
Drugs more than all lands else, many good being mixed, many evil."
And thus too Menelaos says to Telemachos:
"Still the gods stayed me in Egypt, to come back hither desiring,
Stayed me from voyaging home, since sacrifice due I performed not."
In these lines he makes it clear that he knew of the wanderings of
Alexander to Egypt, for Syria borders upon Egypt and the Phenicians,
of whom is Sidon, dwell in Syria. By these lines and by this passage
it is also most clearly shown that the "Cyprian Epic" was not written
by Homer but by some other man: for in this it is said that on the
third day after leaving Sparta Alexander came to Ilion bringing with
him Helen, having had a "gently-blowing wind and a smooth sea,"
whereas in the Iliad it says that he wandered from his course when he
brought her.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 82 of 134
Words from 22877 to 23132
of 37770
