New Discovery: Fragment of the "Attoliad"

[ricardienne]

So while I have been delaying thoughts of how to choose for next fall (and beyond) what will make me satisfied, happy, and successful, I've been thinking about Homeric hexameters & the Queen's Thief books.

It started a while ago, actually, when I realized that "Eugenides" and "Atreides" are homometric, and mentally started hearing "Εὐγενίδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν..." instead of "Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς" (Iliad 1.7). I've been trying to fill in the line for a while, and have finally (in light of CoK) produced a 3-line mini catalog of monarchs from the Megan Whaler Turner books that may be slightly spoilery for A Conspiracy of Kings. I think that the meter all works (while it takes advantage of weak position rather egregiously on occasion), and I *think* I even have the accents in the right places.

τόξαρχος Σοφὸς ἠδ᾽ Ἔδδεως πότνι᾽ οὐρεγενεῖα
Ἀττολιδῶν τε χρυσομίτρη δεσποῖνα φαλάγγων
Εὐγενίδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν ἑνὶ χειρὶ κρατύνων

[...there were present]
the master-shooter Sophos and the queen of Eddis, born among mountains;
the Attolians' gold-diademed mistress of battle lines,
and Eugenides, the lord of men, holding sway with one hand.

I was trying to work out an epithet phrase along the lines of "left-handed swordsman," but I was having to do some really dubious contractions. Maybe I will discover more fragments of this, someday, and it will appear there!

ETA 9/4/10: minor revision of the translation, thanks to anna_wing

Comments

[keestone.livejournal.com]

I think most of the relevant adjectives have been taken up. I'm tempted to lapse into surfer slang.

This is so totally awesome!