Epitaph of Berenika
created: Transcription from photograph (CDL).
source date: Perhaps first half of second century BC
language: ar; en; fr; de; grc; grc-Latn; el; he
availability: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Deed Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. All citation, reuse or distribution of this work must contain a link back to DOI: https://doi.org/10.60760/unibo/igcyrgvcyr2 and the filename (IGCyr000000 or GVCyr000), as well as the year of consultation. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)

[...], n. A, pp. 168-169, plate XIII, fig. a and [...], p. 209, n. 17, whence [...], p. 362, n. 5362b; [...], n. 107; [...] 005.

Cf. [...], p. 90; [...], n. 260; [...], p. 312; [...], n. 1254 [...], pp. 168-170; [...], pp. 133-134; [...], p. 326 whence [...], 64.2009; [...], pp. 144-145, fig. 3; [...], p. 202, whence [...] 68.1745.

Δέρκεο τὰν ἀρίσαμον, ὁδοίπορε, τὰν Βερενίκας
εἰκόνα τᾶς μελέας, ἃν τάφος οὖτος ἔχει,
ἃ τὸ πρὶν ἐγ καλυβοῖς, νῦν δ᾿εἰς Ἀχέροντα μολοῦσα
ἐστερόμαν τῶν πρὶν νυμφιδίων θαλάμων,
πατρὶ γόους προλιποῦσα Φιλοξένωι, ὂς τόδ᾿ ἔτευξεν
εἴδωλον νύμφας μναμόσυνον θέμενος.

Βερενίκας[^a1] ἐγ[^a2] καλυβοῖς[^1][^a3] ἐστερόμαν τῶν[^a4] Φιλοξένωι[^a5]

[^a1: Βερενίκας | Φερενίκας]

[^a2: ἐγ | ἐπ᾿ | ἐν | ἐν]

[^a3: καλυβοῖς | καλύβοις | Χαλύβοις | καλυβοῖς]

[^a4: ἐστερόμαν τῶν | ἀστερομάντων | ἂ στερόμαν τῶν]

[^a5: Φιλοξένωι | Φιλοξένῳ]

[^1: from photograph]

Contemple, passant, le remarquable portrait de Bérénika

la malheureuse, que renferme ce tombeau:

moi qui, naguère sous le dais nuptial et maintenant en route vers l'Achéron,

me suis vue priver prématurément de ma chambre nuptiale,

ne laissant que des lamentations à mon père Philoxénos, qui fit faire

cette image de jeune femme et l'érigea en souvenir.

[trad. [...], p. 326, modifiée]

See, wayfarer, the notable portrait of Berenika

the hapless, whom this tomb keeps:

I who, being formerly under the virgin chamber and now on my way to the Acheron,

was prematurely deprived of my bridal room,

leaving only woes to my father Philoxenos, who had

this image of young woman made and erected it as a memorial.

Guarda, passante, il pregevole ritratto di Berenika,

sventurata, che questo sepolcro racchiude:

io dapprima nella stanza nuziale, ora invece sulla via dell’Acheronte,

anzitempo sono stata privata del talamo della sposa,

null'altro che lamenti al padre lasciando, a Filoxenos, che questo simulacro

di giovane donna fece costruire e pose come ricordo.

The stone was in Marseilles Museum when Froehner published his guidebook in 1883, whereas it was not mentioned in an earlier catalogue dating 1876. After enquiry in the Museum it seems to be now lost and the original glass negative is also lost. Fortunately enough, thanks to Prof. Hallof, we could get a reprint of this photograph kept in the archive of the late Prof. Peek at Berlin.

At l. 3, apart from Froehner, who read Χαλύβοις, name of a people near the Black Sea, all commentators rightly preferred the rare and poetical word καλυβός, a masculine typically Cyrenaican variant of καλύβη also attested at GVCyr008 and GVCyr009. Morelli pointed out that the Cyrenaean occurrences vindicate a glossa of Hesychios' unduly corrected by his editors.

At l. 4, πρίν is a preposition with genitive with the article anteceding it, as attested elsewhere.

Field commented in 1877 on Agnew's publication without knowing Welcker's proposals of 1842, which he echoed on most points. In addition he wanted to put a comma before νύμφας and not after it; this is not necessary for the syntax nor for the meaning and would be metrically harsh, for the caesura is at the hemistich.

Metrical analysis: three elegiac couplets without any problem of prosody; at l. 5, the long ending of Φιλοξένωι is shortened before the vocalic beginning of the following word.