Chapter 17, The Return from Troy
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♠ Parthenios, Love Romances 3
THE STORY OF EVIPPE
From the Euryalus of Sophocles
Aeolus was not the only one of his hosts to whom Ulysses did wrong: but even after his wanderings were over and he had slain Penelope’s wooers, he went to Epirus to consult an oracle, and there seduced Evippe, the daughter of Tyrimmas, who had received him kindly and was entertaining him with great cordiality; the fruit of this union was Euryalus. When he came to man’s estate, his mother sent him to Ithaca, first giving him certain tokens, by which his father would recognize him, sealed up in a tablet. Ulysses happened to be from home, and Penelope, having learned the whole story (she had previously been aware of his love for Evippe), persuaded him, before he knew the facts of the case, to kill Euryalus, on the pretence that he was engaged in a plot against him. So Ulysses, as a punishment for his incontinence and general lack of moderation, became the murderer of his own son; and not very long after this met his end after being wounded by his own offspring with a sea-fish’s prickle. Greek Text
♠ Eustathios, scholia at Homer, Odyssey p. 1796—Eustathii Commentarii ad Homeri Odysseam, vol. 2, pp. 116-17. Leipzig 1825-26.
♠ Apollodoros, Epitome 7.38
But some say that Penelope was seduced by Antinous and sent away by Ulysses to her father Icarius, and that when she came to Mantinea in Arcadia she bore Pan to Hermes. Greek Text
♠ Douris of Samos 76F21 – Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker pt. 2, sect. A, p. 144, ed. F. Jacoby, 2d ed. Leiden 1957.
♠ Pausanias, Description of Greece 8.12.6
For in it the poet says that when Odysseus returned from Troy he had a son Ptoliporthes by Penelope. But the Mantinean story about Penelope says that Odysseus convicted her of bringing paramours to his home, and being cast out by him she went away at first to Lacedaemon, but afterwards she removed from Sparta to Mantineia, where she died. Greek Text
♠ Apollodoros, Epitome 7.39-40
However others say that she met her end at the hands of Ulysses himself on account of Amphinomus, for they allege that she was seduced by him. [40] And there are some who say that Ulysses, being accused by the kinsfolk of the slain, submitted the case to the judgment of Neoptolemus, king of the islands off Epirus; that Neoptolemus, thinking to get possession of Cephallenia if once Ulysses were put out of the way, condemned him to exile; and that Ulysses went to Aetolia, to Thoas, son of Andraemon, married the daughter of Thoas, and leaving a son Leontophonus, whom he had by her, died in old age. Greek Text
♠ Plutarch, Moralia 294c-d – vol. 4, pp. 190-94, ed. F. C. Babbitt, Cambridge, Mass., 1957.
Greek Text and English Translation
♠ Telegoneia fr 3 PEG – Poetae Epici Graeci 1, p. 104, ed. A. Bernabé. Leipzig 1987.
♠ Hesiod, Ehoiai (Catalogue of Women) fr 221 MW – Fragmenta Hesiodea, pp. 110-11, ed. R. Merkelbach and M. L. West. Oxford 1967.
♠ Hellanikos 4F156 – Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 1, p. 143, ed. F. Jacoby, 2d ed. Leiden 1957.
Edited by Elena Bianchelli, Retired Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, Univ. of Georgia, April 2023
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