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Two Notes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

S. Benton
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Extract

This passage concerns the bird-colony on the Diomedean islands, now called Tremiti, off Gargano in Italy; it is said to have been formed by the companions of Diomede, when they became birds. ‘They shall hunt fish-spawn with their beaks, dwelling in an island bearing their leader's name they shall fashion the streets for their close-packed nests with firm blows (of their beaks), on an earth-covered slope, tiered like a theatre, imitating Zethos’ (i.e. building to music, the birds are noisy when breeding). ‘They shall set out to hunt and return to the hollow, together and at night. They shall flee all together from a crowd of barbarous men, but on the way home to their accustomed bivouacs they will take offscourings of bread and after-dinner fragments of barley-cake from the hand, provided they come from the pouches of Greek robes; they will murmur softly. in friendly fashion, sadly remembering, poor birds, their former way of life.’ In [Aristotle]'s account the birds dive-bomb the heads of barbarians. That passage does not describe shearwater but it may easily refer to other birds on the Tremiti. Evidently the observers did not drag the shearwater out of their burrows, which is the only way to be certain of their appearance. The Lockleys tell us of gulls marauding round the Skokholm colony. Black-headed gulls feed from the hand on the Embankment, and dive-bomb intruders near their eggs.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 10 , Issue 1-2 , May 1960 , pp. 110 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1960

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References

page 110 note 1 Mair s translation (Loeb ed.), ‘with firm bits of wood’, suits most birds' nests but not shearwaters'; in them there are no ‘twiggy bits’ (Glossary), nor ‘wattlework’ (Fowler, Warde, C.R. xxxii. 67)Google Scholar nor ‘crates’ (Pliny, , N.H. 10. 61). The birds dig tunnels. Why attempt to whitewash Pliny?Google Scholar

page 110 note 2 Mair has quite missed the point that these birds set out and return in the dark.

page 110 note 3 79 (836a).

page 110 note 4 Shearwaters. See opp. p. 9.Google Scholar

page 110 note 5 Cf. the Lockleys' account of shearwater sitting on the sea waiting for sunset, or the Koch broadcast of shearwater, setting off at 1 a.m.

page 110 note 6 Alex. 1. 599.Google Scholar

page 110 note 7 Alex. 594. See Thompson's article in his second edition of the Glossary. Aldro-vandi's drawing was taken from a dead shearwater sent to him from the Tremiti, and incorrectly represents the bird as standing: shearwater neither stand nor walk. The name Great Shearwater is kept now for an oceanic bird which flies from the Arctic to the Antarctic.Google Scholar

page 110 note 8 Strabo 283 ad fin.

page 110 note 9 Alex. 230. Surely a translator should aim at giving some meaning even to an obscure author.Google Scholar

page 111 note 1 Paus. 1. 5. 3; 41. 6; cf. Alex. 359. Of course this epithet can have nothing to do with ships: see Liddell and Scott.Google Scholar

page 111 note 2 Cf. Od. 5. 337, 353.Google Scholar Cf. Anth. 7. 285.Google Scholar

page 111 note 3 Beasts and Birds of the Greek Anthology, p. 105:Google Scholar commentary on Anth. 7. 212.Google Scholar Agamemnon had a mare called in a winning team: Iliad 23. 295.Google Scholar

page 111 note 4 Iliad 19. 350. ‘Shrill-voiced, with long beating wings.’ The description fits the shearwater exactly. Liddell and Scott say ‘unknown bird of prey, prob. shearwater’, which is no bird of prey.Google Scholar

page 111 note 5 e.g. Anth. 6. 23,Google Scholar 7. 285, 295, 374, 652, 654. Note on 6. 23 rock well-trodden by the shearwater. Though the birds cannot walk, they do wear grooves in climbing up rocks for the take-off. I cannot, however, be confident that this was known to the poet (Shearwaters, p. 49). They sometimes nest in caves, especially in Greece.Google Scholar

page 111 note 6 The latest Liddell and Scott follows the Glossary.

page 111 note 7 as an emendation of 21. 252 is not convincing.

page 112 note 1 Facts of this sort would not of course deter a punster, but this is tragedy.

page 112 note 2 There is no proof that Archilochus fr. 93 Diehl (110) is talking about an eagle.

page 112 note 3 Il. 21. 252–3.

page 112 note 4 H.A. 618b1(9.32).

page 112 note 5 An Osprey will not do because the king went on chasing a bird: the Osprey hunts fish only.

page 112 note 6 Weigand, Th., Poros-Architektur der Akropolis zu Athen Abb. 45–47. One of them (Abb. 47) is carrying a bone, presumably from a sacrifice.Google Scholar

page 112 note 7 Aristotle said that White-tail then frequented cities, H.A. 618b (9.32).

page 112 note 8 Aristotle tells us that each pair likes a wide territory to itself, H.A. 619a29 (9.32).

page 112 note 9 Portrait of a Wilderness, p. 158. Mountford describes an Imperial Eaglet.Google Scholar

page 112 note 10 H.A. 620a1 (9.34).

page 112 note 11 Makatsch, , Vogelwelt Macedoniens, mentions Lake Langada north of Salonika in this connexion.Google Scholar