'And when girls wish to escape the yoke of maidens, refusing for
bridegrooms men adorned with locks such as Hector wore, but with defect of form
or reproach of birth, they will embrace my image with their arms, winning of
mighty shield against marriage, having clothed them in the garb of the Erinyes
and dyed their faces with magic simples. By those staff-carrying women I shall
long be called an immortal goddess.'
LYCOPHRON of Chalcis was a Greek poet and scholar of
the Library of Alexandria who flourished in the C3rd BC. His cryptic poem, the
Alexandra, tells the stories of the heroes of the Trojan War in the riddling,
prophetic words of the Trojan princess Cassandra.
Callimachus,
Hymns and Epigrams. Lycophron. Aratus. Translated by Mair, A. W. & G. R.
Loeb Classical Library Volume 129. London: William Heinemann, 1921.[1122]
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