Epitaph of Stlakkie
created: Transcription from stone (CDL).
source date: Perhaps second half of first century AD
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/)

[...], p. 269, fig. 1, whence Boter and Tybout in [...], 51.2212; [...], pp. 168-170, fig. 3 and [...], 2004.447, whence [...], 53.2057 and [...] 2003.1883; [...], p. 326, whence [...], 64.2009; [...] 007.

Δεύτερον εἰς λυκάβαντα καὶ ἰκοστόν με περῶσαν
λυγρὸς ἀφ᾿ ἱμερτῶν εἷλε μόρος θαλάμων

οὐδ᾿ὅλον εἰς πλειῶνα γάμοις ἐπιγηθήσασαν·
ἤματι δ᾿ὧι παστὸν καὶ σποδίην ἔλαχον,

Στλακκίη αἰνοδάκρυτος· ἀμαυροτέρηι δ᾿ὑπὸ λύπηι
θνήσκω τὴν μούνην σοι, πόσι, παρθεμένη ❧

ἰκοστόν[^a1] μόρος[^1][^a2] γάμοις[^2][^a3] ἐπιγηθήσασαν[^a4] ὧι[^3][^a5] παστὸν[^4][^a6] καὶ[^5][^a7] ἀμαυροτέρηι δ᾿ὑπὸ λύπηι[^a8] θνήσκω[^a9] μούνην[^a10]

[^a1: ἰκοστόν | εἰκοστόν | εἰκοστόν]

[^a2: μόρος | μόγος]

[^a3: γάμοις | γάμοις]

[^a4: ἐπιγηθήσασαν | ἔπι γηθήσασαν | ἐπιγηθήσασαν]

[^a5: ὧι | ᾧ]

[^a6: παστὸν | μαστὸν]

[^a7: καὶ | καὶ]

[^a8: ἀμαυροτέρηι δ᾿ὑπὸ λύπηι | ἀμαυροτέρηι δ᾿ὑπὸ λύπηι | ἀμαυροτέρη δ᾿ὑπὸ λύπης]

[^a9: θνήσκω | θνῄσκω]

[^a10: μούνην | μουνήν]

[^1: Reynolds]

[^2: Reynolds]

[^3: SEG 53]

[^4: Reynolds]

[^5: 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 [...]; for names of other members of the same family, cut directly on the wall, see IRCyr2020 C.591.

Most of the corrections proposed in [...], 51.2212 were due to hastily editing the inscription from a clumsy copy. Reynolds' definitive publication proved them useless and they were renounced in [...], 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. [...], 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 ([...], 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.