(25) This and the next two fragment segments are meant to be read together. -- DBK.
(26) Sacred to Poseidon. For the custom observed there, cp.
"Homeric Hymns" iii. 231 ff.
(27) The allusion is obscure.
(28) Apollonius `the Crabbed' was a grammarian of Alexandria under Hadrian. He wrote largely on Grammar and Syntax.
(29) 275-195 (?) B.C., mathematician, astronomer, scholar, and head of the Library of Alexandria.
(30) Of Cyme. He wrote a universal history covering the period between the Dorian Migration and 340 B.C.
(31) i.e. the nomad Scythians, who are described by Herodotus as feeding on mares' milk and living in caravans.
(32) The restorations are mainly those adopted or suggested in "Ox. Pap." pt. xi. pp. 48 ff.: for those of ll. 8-14 see "Class. Quart." x. (1916) pp. 67-69.
(33) i.e. those who seek to outwit the oracle, or to ask of it more than they ought, will be deceived by it and be led to ruin: cp. "Hymn to Hermes", 541 ff.
(34) Zetes and Calais, sons of Boreas, who were amongst the Argonauts, delivered Phineus from the Harpies. The Strophades (`Islands of Turning') are here supposed to have been so called because the sons of Boreas were there turned back by Iris from pursuing the Harpies.
(35) An Epicurean philosopher, fl. 50 B.C.
(36) `Charming-with-her-voice' (or `Charming-the-mind'), `Song', and `Lovely-sounding'.
(37) Diodorus Siculus, fl. 8 B.C., author of an universal history ending with Caesar's Gallic Wars.
(38) The first epic in the "Trojan Cycle"; like all ancient epics it was ascribed to Homer, but also, with more probability, to Stasinus of Cyprus.
(39) This fragment is placed by Spohn after "Works and Days" l.
120.
(40) A Greek of Asia Minor, author of the "Description of Greece"(on which he was still engaged in 173 A.D.).
(41) Wilamowitz thinks one or other of these citations belongs to the Catalogue.
(42) Lines 1-51 are from Berlin Papyri, 9739; lines 52-106 with B. 1-50 (and following fragments) are from Berlin Papyri, 10560. A reference by Pausanias (iii. 24. 10) to ll. 100ff. proves that the two fragments together come from the "Catalogue of Women". The second book (the beginning of which is indicated after l. 106) can hardly be the second book of the "Catalogues" proper: possibly it should be assigned to the EOIAI, which were sometimes treated as part of the "Catalogues", and sometimes separated from it. The remains of thirty-seven lines following B. 50 in the Papyrus are too slight to admit of restoration.
(43) sc. the Suitor whose name is lost.
(44) Wooing was by proxy; so Agamemnon wooed Helen for his brother Menelaus (ll. 14-15), and Idomeneus, who came in person and sent no deputy, is specially mentioned as an exception, and the reasons for this -- if the restoration printed in the text be right -- is stated (ll. 69 ff.).
(45) The Papyrus here marks the beginning of a second book ("B"), possibly of the EOIAE. The passage (ll. 2-50) probably led up to an account of the Trojan (and Theban?) war, in which, according to "Works and Days" ll. 161-166, the Race of Heroes perished. The opening of the "Cypria" is somewhat similar. Somewhere in the fragmentary lines 13-19 a son of Zeus -- almost certainly Apollo -- was introduced, though for what purpose is not clear. With l. 31 the destruction of man (cp. ll. 4-5) by storms which spoil his crops begins:
the remaining verses are parenthetical, describing the snake `which bears its young in the spring season'.
