Tzetzes' Allegories of the Iliad and Psellos' Allegories

PROLEGOMENA

but appearing from the glorious purple, as one might guess,
leaping up, light-bearing, and more than the morning star,
you need to drive far away with your mental rays
the darkness of words and the evening of books,
not like Cleopatra, the queen of old,
who, using the Ephesian doctor Soranus,
sought after things that beautify the forms of faces;
nor do you wish to dry up some very small sea,
as she did previously in Alexandria,
for the wise engineer Dexiphanes of Cnidus,
having dried up the sea up to four stadia;

leuse commanded; but in which keleuse does not appear. Assisted by the neat handwriting of codex A, from nearly vanished traces, and the still slightly visible abbreviation of the final syllable -an, I thought that it was not there now, but had been keleusan commanding at one time. — The Escorial codex divides the verse thus: "Since you are radiant, full-mooned moon, light-bearing." The Paris codices lack division. The division I made seemed better to me, as the hemistichs are not mixed up in this way. The Augusta is compared to the moon because of her beauty, which is traditional. Cf. v. 377, and, if it is worth it, what I appended to the Ecphrasis of John Eugenicus in the New Anecdota, p. 341. The Egyptian Cleopatra, of whom presently, v. 7, used to say she was the moon and Isis, as related by Dio Cassius 50, ch. 5, and Tzetzes in Chiliad 2, 25.
(3) From B, a learned man quoted kleines glorious. But his eyes deceived him. Burg. [writes] all’ epi p., with a longer hemistich.
(4) A, pheraugeis.
(5) C, aktisi. This is frequently erred in: which I shall hereafter refrain from noting.
(6) B, biblon. And such things I shall mostly neglect.
(7) Schol. in C: "Construction of the prologue." — AC, de but. I preferred de for/indeed, since the conjunction has its own force, and should not be considered an enclitic, which Tzetzes abuses so often in this position of the verse.
(8) Tzetzes Chil. 6, 299, about Cleopatra: "He used this Dexiphanes for machines, and the Ephesian doctors Soranus and Rufus, for all things that beautify the forms of faces, and for every ailment of women..." See Fabricius, Bibl. Gr. vol. 11, p. 685, where he discusses the various Sorani.
(10) A and Burg., chrysoun. Escorial B, C, chersoun.
(12) C, Dexiphane. B, Knidio. Tzetzes, whom Miller had already shown should be consulted, Chil. 4, 502: "Cleopatra, having dried up the Pharos, [used] Dexiphanes, the wise man originating from Cnidus." Again, Chil. 6, 294, about the same: "And Dexiphanes himself, an engineer from Cnidus, with whom she made many useful machines, and dried up the sea for four stadia." And Chil. 2, 27, about the same: "having dried up the sea of Alexandria." There the lemma in codex 2644: "Cleopatra's drying of the sea of Alexandria."
(13) C, mechri, with achri up to written above. Burg., achri. B, tetrasoudio so. A, tetrastadiois. Tzetzes Chil. 2, 28, about Cleopatra: "She, with the Cypriot architect Dexiphanes, having dried up the sea of Alexandria as far as four stadia, or a little more, built the greatest tower of the Pharos." Much could be discussed, if the constraints of time allowed. I will only warn that Tzetzes, who just