Tzetzes' Allegories of the Iliad and Psellos' Allegories

OF THE ALLEGORIES.

since your Majesty by no means wishes such things,
nor to make the sea of Athos a great mountain,
nor to bridge the sea of Abydos for merchant ships,
as Xerxes the Persian did once before,
moving his army from Persia toward Greece;
but as an invisible goddess in position, even if not in nature,
delighting in the forms and beauties of words,
through thunder and storm, and together with the cloud,
sending forth a divine voice, filled entirely with awe,
you ordain your servant, what one, which one,
to become a pure type of the Moses of old,
not saving a fugitive Israelite people,
cutting the Red Sea with a rod;
nor the sea of Persia, nor the Hyrcanian,

said Dexiphanes was a Cnidian, now says he is the same Cypriot, and does not contradict himself. For he calls Cnidus Cyprian in Chil. 1, 83: "Ctesias... originating from the city of Cnidus in Cyprus." But Larcher, in his Herodotean Geography, thought he should be contradicted; and Baehr, in his notes to Ctesias, using the passage of Tzetzes, placed a mark of doubt on the word Kyprias. I will opportunely add a scholium of Tzetzes himself from the good Chiliad codex 2644: "Cnidus is near Cos; in ancient times, the authority of Cyprus extended even further."

(14) B, boulete sou. C, bouletai sou.

(15) Scor. C, ton Athon. B, ton Atho thalassan. Burg., ton Athon thalassan. A, ten Atho thalassan. Tzetzes Chil. 1, 911: "He made the Athos sea navigable with a deep canal." The good codex 2644, Athon. I preferred the reading of A, so that Athō might be genitive: "to make the sea of Athos from the great mountain." Immediately, "the sea of Abydos." And in the note to v. 12, there is "the sea of Alexandria." cf. n. 17.

(17) B, hoper. Burg., persen. Regarding Xerxes joining the shores between Abydos and Sestos with a bridge, and sending the waves of the sea through Mount Athos, it will be enough now to cite Herodotus 7, 24, 33, and Tzetzes' Chiliad 1, 888: "He also sends this man to bridge the sea of Abydos"; and ibid. v. 911, just cited.

(19) A B, theos god. In C the word theos is obscured by a correction so that the th and the accent of the last syllable are now only neat. Perhaps the scribe wanted to rewrite thea goddess for theos. There is thea in Burg.

(20) A C, epentruphōsi.

(21) B, lelapos.

(22) From B, propempousan sending forth is brought. I found propempousa. A, ...san.

(23) Scor. B C, ton tina. Burg., ton tina. A, deina. Both readings are brought to the same sound. I preferred the former, which has greater authority.

(24) B, topon. C, palai, with pany written above. Scor. C, Mōseōs.

(25) B, Israiliten.

(27) From A I have seen strateuma thalassan. I myself found persidos strateuma. B, Arkanian. The Caspian Sea is signified.