EpiDoc XML:
GVCyr0072
Trismegistos ID:
738903
Support: Plain white marble stele slightly tapering (w: 0.93 × h: 0.345 to 0.38 × d: 0.22 to 0.23).
Layout: Inscribed on front face in twelve lines, two for each verse, beginning at 0.055 from the top and ending at 0.61 from the bottom.
Letters: 0.015 to 0.017; very carefully cut inside guidelines still visible; small serifs; alpha with dropped bar, theta with short central bar, kappa with large oblique bars, slightly slanting mu, large round or oval omicron, rho with square loop, non slanting sigma, phi with large round loop, developed lower appendices of omega.
Date: Perhaps second half of first century AD (lettering).
Findspot: Found by Dorothy Thorn in 1998 at Cyrene ➚: North Necropolis, from tomb N258 Cassels.
Place of origin: Findspot.
Last recorded location: Cyrene Museum, inv. number unknown. Seen by C. Dobias-Lalou in 2001 in Shahat: Cyrene Museum.
Text constituted from: Transcription from stone (CDL).
Almuzzeini 1998, p. 269, fig. 1, whence Boter and Tybout in SEG, 51.2212; Reynolds 2003, pp. 168-170, fig. 3 and Dobias-Lalou, BE, 2004.447, whence SEG, 53.2057 and AE 2003.1883; Dobias-Lalou 2014, p. 326, whence SEG, 64.2009; GVCyr 007 ➚.
2: ἰκοστόν: εἰκοστόν Reynolds 2003 Reynolds; <ε>ἰκοστόν SEG Boter SEG 51, again Tybout SEG 53
4: μόρος Reynolds 2003 Reynolds: μόγος SEG Tybout SEG 51
5-6: γά|μοις Reynolds 2003 Reynolds: ⸢γ⸣ά|μοις SEG Boter SEG 51
6: ἐπιγηθήσασαν: ἔπι γηθήσασαν Reynolds 2003 Reynolds; ἐπιγη⸢θ⸣ήσασαν SEG Boter SEG 51
7: ὧι SEG SEG 53: ᾧ Reynolds 2003 Reynolds and already SEG 51 || παστὸν Reynolds 2003 Reynolds: ⸢μ⸣αστὸν SEG Boter SEG 51 || καὶ Reynolds 2003 Reynolds: καὶ {σ} SEG Tybout SEG 51
10: ἀμαυροτέρηι δ᾿ὑπὸ λύπηι Dobias-Lalou, BE: ἀμαυροτέρηι δ᾿ὑπὸ λύπηι Reynolds 2003 Reynolds; ἀμαυροτέρη{ι} δ᾿ὑπὸ λύπη⸢ς⸣ SEG Martin SEG 51 and again Tybout SEG 53
11: θνήσκω: θνῄσκω Reynolds 2003, SEG || μούνην SEG: μουνήν Reynolds 2003 Reynolds
Alors que je m'acheminais vers ma vingt-deuxième année,
un lamentable sort m'a arrachée à mon aimable chambre nuptiale,
sans que j'aie joui de mon mariage jusqu'à une année complète;
et le jour où m'est échu le voile nuptial, m'est échue aussi la cendre,
à moi Stlakkiè, qui mérite des pleurs amers; sous le poids d'un chagrin débilitant,
je meurs, après t'avoir confié, mon époux, cette unique enfant.
As I was passing towards my twenty-second year,
gloomy fate snatched me from my beloved bridal-chamber,
when I had not rejoiced in my marriage for a full year;
but on the day on which I was alotted a bridal bed was I also promised to ashes,
I Stlakkie, deserving of bitter lament; under the weight of enfeebling pain,
I die, having entrusted you, my dear husband, this only girl (transl. J.M. Reynolds at with some changes)
Mentre mi incamminavo verso il mio ventiduesimo anno,
un destino terribile mi ha sottratto dall'amata stanza nuziale,
senza che io abbia goduto nemmeno per un anno intero delle nozze;
proprio nel giorno in cui ho ricevuto in sorte il talamo nuziale, eccomi condannata anche alla cenere,
io, Stlakkie, che merito amare lacrime. Sotto il peso di un dolore che mi esaurisce,
muoio, dopo aver affidato a te, sposo, questa unica figlia.
For the probable position of the stele inside a recess, flanked by two series of three niches (all features being re-used in Roman date in the Hellenistic tomb) see the other contributions associated with Reynolds 2003; for names of other members of the same family, cut directly on the wall, see IRCyr2020 C.591.
Most of the corrections proposed in SEG, 51.2212 were due to hastily editing the inscription from a clumsy copy. Reynolds' definitive publication proved them useless and they were renounced in SEG, 53.2057.
Once the text was really published, only two points remained discussed. First the rare construction of ὑπό with the dative case is not admitted by Tybout for SEG; however the dative ending is sure for both the adjective and the noun and the use of this case instead of the genitive does occur especially in poetry.
The second point is the word ΜΟΥΝΗΝ at line 11. Instead of the rare noun μονήν, only attested in prose without lenghtening of the first syllable, and never used in funerary contexts, it seems better to identify it with the adjective μόνος, very often used since Homer with the lengthened first syllable. Dobias-Lalou, BE, 2004.447 proposed to connect it with the feminine noun λύπη mentioned at the preceding line and understood so: 'having brought you this only sorrow (i.e. my death)'. However, Tybout's proposal (SEG, 53.2057) of a subaudible παῖδα seems eventually more convincing for the premature death of a recently married wife: she probably died in childbearth.
Metrical analysis: three elegiac couplets. At verse-line 2, apart from the shortening in hiatus of καί, there has been some discussion about ἰκοστόν. It might be an effect of iotacism, however, it is better explained as recording the Doric form of number 'twenty' with a long i and might therefore be a touch of dialectal tradition in Cyrenaica. At line 9 the final vowel of the name Στλακκίη is metrically shortened before the following vowel.
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