User:Paul August/Delphyne

Delphyne

Sources

Ancient

Aeschylus

Eumenides

22

I worship the Nymphs where the Corycian⁴ rock is hollow

⁴ The Corycian cave, sacred to the Nymphs and Pan, has been identified with a grotto on the great plateau above Delphi.

Homeric Hymns

Hymn to Apollo (3)

300–304

[300] But near by was a sweet flowing spring, and there with his strong bow the lord, the son of Zeus, killed the bloated, great she-dragon, a fierce monster wont to do great mischief to men upon earth, to men themselves and to their thin-shanked sheep; for she was a very bloody plague.

305–348

[305] She [the she-dragon of Delphi] it was who once received from gold-throned Hera and brought up fell, cruel Typhaon to be a plague to men. Once on a time Hera bare him because she was angry with father Zeus, when the Son of Cronos bare all-glorious Athena in his head. Thereupon queenly Hera was angry [310] and spoke thus among the assembled gods:

“Hear from me, all gods and goddesses, how cloud-gathering Zeus begins to dishonor me wantonly, when he has made me his true-hearted wife. See now, apart from me he has given birth to bright-eyed Athena [315] who is foremost among all the blessed gods. But my son Hephaestus whom I bare [317a] was weakly among all the blessed gods and shrivelled of foot, a shame and a disgrace to me in heaven, whom I myself took in my hands and cast out so that he fell in the great sea. But silver-shod Thetis the daughter of Nereus [320] took and cared for him with her sisters: would that she had done other service to the blessed gods! O wicked one and crafty! What else will you now devise? How dared you by yourself give birth to bright-eyed Athena? Would not I have borne you a child —I, who was at least called your wife [325] among the undying gods who hold wide heaven. [325a] Beware now lest I devise some evil thing for you hereafter: yes, now I will contrive that a son be born me to be foremost among the undying gods —and that without casting shame on the holy bond of wedlock between you and me. [330] And I will not come to your bed, but will consort with the blessed gods far off from you.”

When she had so spoken, she went apart from the gods, being very angry. Then straightway large-eyed queenly Hera prayed, striking the ground flatwise with her hand, and speaking thus:

[335] “Hear now, I pray, Earth and wide Heaven above and you Titan gods who dwell beneath the earth about great Tartarus, and from whom are sprung both gods and men! Harken you now to me, one and all, and grant that I may bear a child apart from Zeus, no wit lesser than him in strength —nay, let him be as much stronger than Zeus as all-seeing Zeus than Cronos.” [340] Thus she cried and lashed the earth with her strong hand. Then the life-giving earth was moved: and when Hera saw it she was glad in heart, for she thought her prayer would be fulfilled. And thereafter she never came to the bed of wise Zeus for a full year, [345] nor to sit in her carved chair as aforetime to plan wise counsel for him, but stayed in her temples where many pray, and delighted in her offerings, large-eyed queenly Hera.

349–374

But when the months and days were fulfilled [350] and the seasons duly came on as the earth moved round, she bare one neither like the gods nor mortal men, fell, cruel Typhaon, to be a plague to men. Straightway large-eyed queenly Hera took him and bringing one evil thing to another such, gave him to the dragoness; and she received him. [355] And this Typhaon used to work great mischief among the famous tribes of men. Whosoever met the dragoness, the day of doom would sweep him away, until the lord Apollo, who deals death from afar, shot a strong arrow at her. Then she, rent with bitter pangs, lay drawing great gasps for breath and rolling about that place. [360] An awful noise swelled up unspeakable as she writhed continually this way and that amid the wood: and so she left her life, breathing it forth in blood. Then Phoebus Apollo boasted over her:

“Now rot here upon the soil that feeds man' You at least shall live no more to be a fell bane to men [365] who eat the fruit of the all-nourishing earth, and who will bring hither perfect hecatombs. Against cruel death neither Typhoeus shall avail you nor ill-famed Chimera, but here shall the Earth and shining Hyperion make you rot.”

[370] Thus said Phoebus, exulting over her: and darkness covered her eyes. And the holy strength of Helios made her rot away there; wherefore the place is now called Pytho, and men call the lord Apollo by another name, Pythian; because on that spot the power of piercing Helios made the monster rot away.

Apollonius of Rhodes

Argonautica

2.705–707

how once beneath the rocky ridge of Parnassus he [Apollo] slew with his bow the monster Delphyne, he still young and beardless, still rejoicing in his long tresses. ... And often the Corycian nymphs, daughters of Pleistus took up the cheering strain crying "Healer"; hence arose this lovely refrain of the hymn to Phoebus.

Callimachus

fragment 116 (364) Mair apud Schol. Apoll. Rh. ii. 706. [= fragment 643 Pfeiffer? cited by Ogden 2013a p. 42]

The dragoness Delphyne

[Not in Trypanis? see pp. 274, 275]

Fontenrose, p. 14 n. 4

One Scholiast on on Apollon. Arg. 2.706 says that some give the dragon the feminine name Delphyne, others the masculine Delphynes. Another Scholiast ibid. says that Callimachus called the Delphian dragon both Delphyna and Delphynes. He is apparently not referring to Call. Hymn 2.100 f. or 4.90-94, where the poet speaks of a male dragon, but gives no name.

Ogden 2013a, p. 42

Both Callimachus and the third-century BC historian Meandrius (or Leandrius) of Miletus, if the seeminly confused scholia to Apollonius of Rhodes can be trusted, referred both to a male Delphynes and a female Delphne (or Delpyna).⁹⁷

⁹⁷ Callimachus F643 Pfeiffer, Leandrius of Miletus FGrH 492. At Callimachus Hymns 2. 100-1 and 4. 90-4 we are given an unamed male drakōn. C.f. Fontenrose 1959: 14-15 n. 4.

Plutarch

Moralia

414A (V pp. 372, 373)

And regarding the oracle here at Delphi, the most ancient in time and the most famous in repute, men record that for a long time it was made desolate and unapproachable by a fierce creature, a serpent (δρακαίνης); they do not, however, put the correct interpretation upon its lying idle, but quite the reverse; for it was the desolation that attracted the creature rather than that the creature caused the desolation.

988A (XII pp. 504–507)

and not far away, they say, was the Pythoness who fought with Apollo for the oracle at Delphi.

Apollodorus

1.6.3

However Zeus pelted Typhon at a distance with thunderbolts, and at close quarters struck him down with an adamantine sickle, and as he fled pursued him closely as far as Mount Casius, which overhangs Syria. There, seeing the monster sore wounded, he grappled with him. But Typhon twined about him and gripped him in his coils, and wresting the sickle from him severed the sinews of his hands and feet, and lifting him on his shoulders carried him through the sea to Cilicia and deposited him on arrival in the Corycian cave. Likewise he put away the sinews there also, hidden in a bearskin, and he set to guard them the she-dragon Delphyne, who was a half-bestial maiden. But Hermes and Aegipan stole the sinews and fitted them unobserved to Zeus.⁴

⁴ According to Nonnus, Dionys. i.481ff., it was Cadmus who, disguised as a shepherd, wheedled the severed sinews of Zeus out of Typhon by pretending that he wanted them for the strings of a lyre, on which he would play ravishing music to the monster. The barbarous and evidently very ancient story seems to be alluded to by no other Greek writers.

Dionysius Periegetes

441-5

Fontenrose, p. 15 n. 4

Ogden 2013a, p. 178

Nonnus

Dionysiaca

13.28

Apollo mastered Delphyne,⁴ and then he came to live in the sky.

4. Name of the dragon, also called Python, which Apollo killed at Delphi.

John of Antioch

Fontenrose, p. 15 n. 4

Ogden 2013a, p. 179

Scholia on Apollon. Arg.

2.706, 2.711

Fontenrose, p. 14 n. 4

One Scholiast on on Apollon. Arg. 2.706 says that some give the dragon the feminine name Delphyne, others the masculine Delphynes. Another Scholiast ibid. says that Callimachus called the Delphian dragon both Delphyna and Delphynes. He is apparently not referring to Call. Hymn 2.100 f. or 4.90-94, where the poet speaks of a male dragon, but gives no name. The same Scholiast also informs us that Leandrios used the masculine name Delphynes; Scol. on 2.711 says that Leandrios spoke of a female dragon Delphyna.

Ogden 2013a, p. 42

Both Callimachus and the third-century BC historian Meandrius (or Leandrius) of Miletus, if the seeminly confused scholia to Apollonius of Rhodes can be trusted, referred both to a male Delphynes and a female Delphne (or Delpyna).⁹⁷

⁹⁷ Callimachus F643 Pfeiffer, Leandrius of Miletus FGrH 492. At Callimachus Hymns 2. 100-1 and 4. 90-4 we are given an unamed male drakōn. C.f. Fontenrose 1959: 14-15 n. 4.

Modern

Hard

p. 84

In post-Hesiodic accounts of Typhon's career, ... He then carried him through the sea to Cilicia and deposited him in a cave there (the Corycian cave), hiding the severed tendons inside in a bear's skin; and he appointed a fellow-monster as guard, the she-dragon Delphyne, who was formed half like a snake and half like a beautiful maiden.

p. 145

In Hellenistic and later accounts, however, the Delphian dragon is usually a male creature called PYTHON, and is itself the eponym of the region (although there are also accounts in which the beast is named Delphyne or Delphynes or the like after Delphi⁹).

p. 620

9 Athen. 701C citing Clearchus, Apollod. 14.1, Ov. Met. 1.438-47, etc.: Delphyne, A.R. 2.706, male form Delphynes, schol. ibid. citing Callimachus.

Fontenrose

p. 14

The female serpent is given no name in the Hymn, but is called Delphyne in later literature. Nor was she the guardian of Ge's or Themis's oracular shrine, since the Hymn knows of no shrine at Delphi before Apollo founded his.⁴

⁴ One Scholiast on on Apollon. Arg. 2.706 says that some give the dragon the feminine name Delphyne, others the masculine Delphynes. Another Scholiast ibid. says that Callimachus called the Delphian dragon both Delphyna and Delphynes. He is apparently not referring to Call. Hymn 2.100 f. or 4.90-94, where the poet speaks of a male dragon, but gives no name. The same Scholiast also informs us that Leandrios used the masculine [cont.]

p. 15

When we next encounter Apollo's combat, the dragon has become male and is called Python. ...

[continuation of n. 14:] name Delphynes; Scol. on 2.711 says that Leandrios spoke of a female dragon Delphyna. Apollonios himself leaves us in doubt with ... and nowhere a decisive pronoun. I am inclined to think he means dragoness. Likewise ambiguous is Nonn. Dion. 13.28. Dionysios Perigetes 441 f. has ... (if the text is right). The form is definitely feminine, though its appositive is the genitive of drakôn, used either to designate the male of this order or any individual regardless of sex; but the female is drakaina.

Grimal

p. 131

Lane Fox

p. 288

The name Delphyne is unique in Greek myths but it can be given a Hittite derivation.

Ogden

pp. 40ff.