Notes

Epicaste

“And I saw the mother of Oedipodes, beautiful Epicaste, who did a monstrous thing in the ignorance of her mind, wedding her own son; and he, when he had slain his own father, wedded her; and soon the gods made these things known among men. Nevertheless, in lovely Thebes, suffering woes, he ruled over the Cadmeans by the dire designs of the gods; but she went down to the house of Hades, the strong warder, making fast a deadly noose from the high ceiling, caught by her own grief; but for him she left behind countless woes, all that a mother’s Furies bring to pass.

Eustathius on Homer, Odyssey 11.277

It should be recognized that many people have hanged themselves out of grief and that according to the ancient account the daughters of Lycambes did so because of Archilochus’ poetry, since they could not bear the onslaught of his gibes. For the man was skilful at insulting, and hence “you have stepped on Archilochus” is a proverb with reference to those who are adept at such gibes, as if one were to say that you have stepped on a scorpion or snake or painful thorn.

Notes

Lydian Empire

Lydian Empire ca. 600 BCE

Achaeus

At the subsequent sitting of the Council, there were many proposals as to the proper punishment to inflict on Achaeus, and it was decided to lop off in the first place the unhappy prince’s extremities, and then, after cutting off his head and sewing it up in an ass’s skin, to impale his body. …

Thus did Achaeus perish, after taking every reasonable precaution and defeated only by the perfidy of those whom he had trusted, leaving two useful lessons to posterity, firstly to trust no one too easily, and secondly not to be boastful in the season of prosperity, but being men to be prepared for anything.

[For this kind of execution there are Near Eastern precedents, among them Bessus, the murderer of King Darius III, Arr. An. 4.7.3–4, with A. B. Bosworth, A Historical Commentary on Arrian’s History of Alexander, 2 (Oxford 1995), 44–45.]

Acheus

Or hanging like the captive Achaeus mayst thou die, who hung miserably by the stream that bears the gold.

[Note: A rebel against Antiochus the Great, who beheaded him, sewed him up in an ass’s skin and hung him on a cross at Sardis, by the “golden” river Pactolus (214 B.C.)]

Œuvres ed. Esmangart

Ou plutôt Achaeus. Ce roi de Lydie, fut pendu sur les rives du Pactole, selon Ovide dans le poëme d’Ibis, pas ses sujets, qui s’étoient révoltés contre lui, parceqi’il avoit volu établie sur eux de nouveaux impôts. Rabelais auroit pu en effet ajouter bien d’autres personnages de l’antiquité, historiques ou fabuleux, qui s’étoient pendus, entre autres Antigone et Menon; mais les huit qu’il nomme sont plus que suffisants pour éclaircir sa pensée, et prouver que le pantagruélion est la corde qui a été substituée de son temps à la hart, pour pendre ceux à qui Dieu avoit refusé la grace de croire à l’infaillibilité du pape, et qui lui préféroient celle de l’Évangile.

Acheus

Voy. Ovide, Ibis.

Achaeus

Ovid, Ibis 299.

Acheus

D’aprés Ovide, Ibis, 301, ses sujects l’aurient pendu, au bord du Pactole parce qu’il les accablait d’impôts. Il est difficile de dire si Rabelais a constitué lui-même cette liste de gens qui sont morts par pendaison ou s’il l’a trouvée tout faite dans les recueils d’esemples qui avaient cours de son temps. Voir Plattard, L’œuvre de Rabelais, p. 274.

Achæus

Achæus, King of Lydia, strung up by his subjects for overtaxing them.

Acheus

Ovide, Ibis, v. 301 (pendu par ses sujets qu’il accablait d’impôts).

Lydia

Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern western Turkish provinces of Uşak, Manisa and inland İzmir. Its population spoke an Anatolian language known as Lydian. Its capital was Sardis.

The Kingdom of Lydia existed from about 1200 BC to 546 BC. At its greatest extent, during the 7th century BC, it covered all of western Anatolia. In 546 BC, it became a province of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, known as the satrapy of Lydia or Sparda in Old Persian. In 133 BC, it became part of the Roman province of Asia.

Achaeus

Achaeus (Ancient Greek: Ἀχαιός, Akhaios; died 213 BC) was a general and later a separatist ruler of part of the Greek Seleucid kingdom. He was the son of Andromachus, whose sister Laodice II married Seleucus Callinicus, the father of Antiochus III the Great. He accompanied Seleucus Ceraunus, the son of Callinicus, in his expedition across mount Taurus against Attalus I, and after the assassination of Seleucus Ceraunus revenged his death; and though he might easily have assumed the royal power, he remained faithful to the family of Seleucus.

In 223 BC Antiochus III, the successor of Seleucus Ceraunus, appointed him to the command of all Asia Minor on the western side of Mount Taurus. Achaeus recovered all the districts which Attalus had gained for the Seleucids once more; but being falsely accused by Hermeias, the minister to Antiochus, of intending to revolt, he did so in self-defence, assumed the title of king, and ruled over the whole of Asia on the western side of the Taurus. As long as Antiochus was engaged in the war with Ptolemy, he would not march against Achaeus; but upon the conclusion of a treaty with Ptolemy, he crossed the Taurus, uniting his forces with Attalus, and in one campaign deprived Achaeus of his dominions and took Sardis (with the exception of the citadel). After sustaining a siege of two years, the citadel at last fell into the hands of Antiochus in 213, through the treachery of Bolis (who had been employed by Sosibius, minister to Ptolemy). Bolis pledged to deliver Achaeus to safety, but turned him over to Antiochus, who immediately put him to death.

Polybius, 4.2.6, 4.48, 4.51.4, 5.40, 5.42, 5.57, 7.15–18, 8.17–23

Notes

Leda

In F (the edition of 1552) are found the names Pheda and Leda, but not in the earlier W. The presumption is that the insertion of Leda and the omission of r in Phaedra are printer’s errors. Leda is not recorded to have hanged herself.

Leda

Léda ne s’est point pendue. Ce nom est entré dans le texte par une erreur du typographe qui aura mal lu Phædra.

Leda

Leda, unless she is wrongly included through some typographical error.

Leda

Léda ne s’est pas pendue. Phæda et Leda semblent des lectures fautive d’une addition de 1552 (var. a).

liste de pendus

Cette liste de pendus est presque tout entière dans Ravisius Textor, Officina, aux rubriques «Qui variis modis sibi consciuerunt» et «Cruce et suspendio mortui». In n’y manque que l’empereur Bonose (mais on le trouve à la rubrique «Vinolenti») et Léda. «Phæda, Leda» constitue une addition où le premier nom estropié (il s’agit de Phèdre) fait craindre que le second ne sout un coquille, car Léda n’a pas fini sa vie au bout d’une corde.

Notes

Phaedra

Phaedra with an attendant, probably her nurse, a fresco from Pompeii, 60-20 BC

Phaeda

Nurse: Help, help! Come, help, anyone near the palace! My lady, Theseus’ wife, has hanged herself!
Chorus Leader: Alas! It is all over! The Queen is no more, caught in a suspended noose!
Nurse: Hurry! Someone fetch a double-edged sword to cut this noose about her neck!
…
Chorus Leader: She tied aloft a noose to hang herself.

Phaedra

Euripides. Hippolyte. 779

Phædra

Phædra, when spurned by her son Hippolytus.

Notes

Pallas and Arachne

Arachne

Arachne

So saying, she [Pallas] turned her mind to the fate of Maeonian Arachne, who she had heard would not yield to her the palm in the art of spinning and weaving wool. Neither for place of birth nor birth itself had the girl fame, but only for her skill. Her father, Idmon of Colophon, used to dye the absorbent wool for her with Phocaean purple. Her mother was now dead; but she was low-born herself, and had a husband of the same degree. Nevertheless, the girl, Arachne, had gained fame for her skill throughout the Lydian towns, although she herself had sprung from a humble home and dwelt in the hamlet of Hypaepa. Often, to watch her wondrous skill, the nymphs would leave their own vineyards on Timolus’ slopes, and the water-nymphs of Pactolus would leave their waters. And ’twas a pleasure not alone to see her finished work, but to watch her as she worked; so graceful and deft was she. Whether she was winding the rough yarn into a new ball, or shaping the stuff with her fingers, reaching back to the distaff for more wool, fleecy as a cloud, to draw into long soft threads, or giving a twist with practised thumb to the graceful spindle, or embroidering with her needle: you could know that Pallas had taught her. Yet she denied it, and, offended at the suggestion of a teacher ever so great, she said: “Let her but strive with me; and if I lose there is nothing which I would not forfeit.”
Then Pallas assumed the form of an old woman, put false locks of grey upon her head, took a staff in her hand to sustain her tottering limbs, and thus she began: “Old age has some things at least that are not to be despised; experience comes with riper years. Do not scorn my advice: seek all the fame you will among mortal men for handling wool; but yield place to the goddess, and with humble prayer beg her pardon for your words, reckless girl. She will grant you pardon if you ask it.” But she regarded the old woman with sullen eyes, dropped the threads she was working, and, scarce holding her hand from violence, with open anger in her face she answered the disguised Pallas: “Doting in mind, you come to me, and spent with old age; and it is too long life that is your bane. Go, talk to your daughter-in-law, or to your daughter, if such you have. I am quite able to advise myself. To show you that you have done no good by your advice, we are both of the same opinion. Why does not your goddess come herself? Why does she avoid a contest with me?” Then the goddess exclaimed: “She has come!” and throwing aside her old woman’s disguise, she revealed Pallas. The nymphs worshipped her godhead, and the Mygdonian women; Arachne alone remained unafraid, though she did turn red, for a sudden flush marked her unwilling cheeks and again faded: as when the sky grows crimson when the dawn first appears, and after a little while when the sun is up it pales again. Still she persists in her challenge, and stupidly confident and eager for victory, she rushes on her fate. For Jove’s daughter refuses not, nor again warns her or puts off the contest any longer. They both set up the looms in different places without delay and they stretch the fine warp upon them…

Pallas pictures the hills of Mars on the citadel of Cecrops and that old dispute over the naming of the land…

Arachne pictures Europa cheated by the disguise of the bull…

Not Pallas, nor Envy himself, could find a flaw in that work. The golden-haired goddess was indignant at her success, and rent the embroidered web with its heavenly crimes; and, as she held a shuttle of Cytorian boxwood, thrice and again she struck Idmonian Arachne’s head. The wretched girl could not endure it, and put a noose about her bold neck. As she hung, Pallas lifted her in pity, and said: “Live on, indeed, wicked girl, but hang thou still; and let this same doom of punishment (that thou mayst fear for future times as well) be declared upon thy race, even to remote posterity.” So saying, as she turned to go she sprinkled her with the juices of Hecate’s herb; and forthwith her hair, touched by the poison, fell off, and with it both nose and ears; and the head shrank up; her whole body also was small; the slender fingers clung to her side as legs; the rest was belly. Still from this she ever spins a thread; and now, as a spider, she exercises her old-time weaver-art.

Arachné

Elle étoit habile dans l’art de broder; mais Minerve ayant brisé le métier et les fuseaux de sa rivale, elle se pendit de désespoir, et fut changée en araignée.

Arachne

Voy. Ovide, Metam. lib. VI.

Arachne

Ovid Met. vi 5-135.

Arachne

Sur le suicide d’Arachné, voir Ovide, Métamorphoses, VI, 5.

Arachne

Arachne, the skilful spinner, who, having challenged Minerva, lost, and had recourse to the rope, Minerva changing her, later, into a spider.

Arachné

Ovide, Métamorphoses, VI, v. 5.

Notes

Licambe

Take care now, take care! For I am utterly ruthless against villains, and now toss my horns in readiness, like the son-in-law rejected by the treacherous Lycambes,¹ or the fierce enemy of Bupalus.

1. Archilochus of Paros wrote his iambics in the seventh century B.C. According to tradition, Lycambes, after promising his daughter Neobule to the poet, reneged, whereupon Archilochus attacked them with such savage invective that they hanged themselves.

Lycambe

Lycambe ayant marié sa fille au pöete Archiloque, et ne la lui ayant pas livrée, en fut puni par des vers si mordants, qu’il se pendit de désespoir. D’où Horace, Epod., od. vi, a dit:

Qualis Lycambo spretus infido gener.

Et Ovide, Ibis:

Tincta Lycambæo sanguine tela dabit.

Licambe

Belle-mère d’Archiloque; les vers satiriques de son gendre la forcèrent de se pendre.

Lycambes

Hor. Epod. vi. 13.

Licambe

Citoyen de Thèbes, que les attaques du poete Archiloque poussèrent à se pendre. Cf. Horace, Épod., VI, 13, et Épîtres, I, 19, 25.

Lycambes

Lycambes, the Theban poet, attacked by his rival Archilochus.

Licambe

Horace, Épodes, VI, v. 13 (poussé à se pendre par les attaques du poète Archiloque).

Notes

Auctolia, properly Autolyca or Anticlea, Euryclea in Homer

Odysseus meets the ghost of his dead mother in the underworld:
“In the same way I too perished and met my fate. Neither did the keen-sighted archer goddess assail me in my halls with her gentle shafts, and slay me, nor did any disease come upon me, such as oftenest with loathsome wasting takes the spirit from the limbs; no, it was longing for you, and for your counsels, glorious Odysseus, and for your gentle-heartedness, that robbed me of honey-sweet life.”

Autolia

Ou mieux Autolyca, fille d’Autolycus, et mère d’Ulysse. Elle se pendit lorsque Nauplius, pour se venger d’Ulysse qui avoit tué son fiils Palamède, lui apporta la fausse nouvelle de la mort de son fils. Elle est aussi appelée quelquefois Auticlia ou Auticlea, et Antiocha. On lit Auctolia dans l’edition de 1552 et dans les deux éditions de M. D. L.; mais ce nom n’a jamais éte grec: c’est un corruption d’Autolia ou d’Autolyca.

Autolia

Ou plutôt Autolyca, Anticlia ou Antiocha, mère d’Ulysse. Elle se pendit de désespoir en recevant la fausse nouvelle de la mort de son fils.

Auctolia

Auctolia, properly Autolyca or Anticlea, Euryclea in Homer, daughter of Autolycus and wife of Laertes. According to Eustathius, she hanged herself on hearing from Nauplius, the father of Palamedes, that her son Ulysses was dead. Homer represents her as dying on account of his long absence (Od. xi 196).

Auctolia

Autolyca, mère d’Ulysse, se pendit, d’après Eustathe, in Ody., XI, 196, lorsque Nauplius imagina, par vengeance, de lui dire qu’Ulysse, était mort.

Auctolia

Mère d’Ulysse, qui se pendit après la fausse annonce de la mort de son fils.