Author: Anne-Sophie Rouckhout

Today we celebrate World Book Day! 📚 It is no coincidence that UNESCO chose this day, as it is the day important authors like Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare died. Ever since 1995 World Book Day has been annually organised on the 23rd of April in more than a hundred countries to promote the enjoyment of books and reading. With schools around the world still partially or fully closed, it is important, now more than ever, to use the power of books not only to educate but also to escape our reality for a while. So, try to take some time off today to grab a book and enjoy all the beauties written within. But be careful and take care of your books or this epigram’s poet might come and haunt you … 👻

✒️ Μὴ τεμνέτω τις τὰ φύλλα τῶν βιβλίων,
γράμμασιν αἰτῶ, κἂν σιγᾷ μου τὸ στόμα.
τί; σοὶ δοκοῦσιν εὐτελῆ τὰ χαρτία;
ἀλλὰ τὸ κρίμα τοῦ τέμνειν ἐστὶ μέγα.

📖 You! Do not dare to cut pages out of books.
I am warning you. With letters, as my mouth keeps silent.
Why? They seem unimportant to you, these sheets?
Make no mistake. Cutting them out is a serious, serious crime.

🌐 https://www.dbbe.ugent.be/types/4241
📸 https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b100380902/f377.item

This poem has been fully preserved in at least one manuscript: Mone Megistes Lauras Δ 70 dating from the 10th century. It was added by a later hand, not once but twice at the beginning of this theological manuscript (on f. 7r and 8r). In addition, the first verse also occurs on its own in at least two other manuscripts, both from the 10th century: Vaticanus gr. 539 and Coislinianus 242 (see picture). Curses or warnings like these were commonly used in Greek, Latin and many other traditions to ward off theft or damage of the book and show us how valuable books were back then and still are today.

This epigram is also featured in a blogpost written by DBBE intern Noor Vanhoe on the occasion of World Book Day in collaboration with the Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies. Go check it out at https://www.medievalmodern.ugent.be/world-book-day-blog-voices-margins!

Happy International Women’s Day to all the incredible women out there! 🦸‍♀️ And a special tribute to the amazing ladies working at DBBE and to the many women our database features as poets, scribes, patrons and subjects of various epigrams. 👏

The Alexandrian canon of nine lyric poets includes only one woman, the famous Sappho. In the Roman period, however, Antipater of Thessalonica wrote an epigram in honour of nine outstanding Greek female poets (Anthologia Palatina IX.26). Of some of these we have a considerable literary corpus extant, others remain more mysterious. They lived in different periods, came from different places and wrote different literary genres, but they were all considered to be one of the nine best female poets, the mortal pendants of the celestial Muses.

✒️ Τάσδε θεογλώσσους Ἑλικὼν ἔθρεψε γυναῖκας
ὕμνοις καὶ Μακεδὼν Πιερίας σκόπελος,
Πρήξιλλαν, Μοιρώ, Ἀνύτης στόμα, θῆλυν Ὅμηρον,
Λεσβιάδων Σαπφὼ κόσμον ἐυπλοκάμων,
Ἤρινναν, Τελέσιλλαν ἀγακλέα καὶ σέ, Κόριννα,
θοῦριν Ἀθηναίης ἀσπίδα μελψαμέναν,
Νοσσίδα θηλύγλωσσον ἰδὲ γλυκυαχέα Μύρτιν,
πάσας ἀενάων ἐργάτιδας σελίδων.
Ἐννέα μὲν Μούσας μέγας Οὐρανός, ἐννέα δ’ αὐτὰς
Γαῖα τέκεν θνατοῖς ἄφθιτον εὐφροσύναν.

📖 These are the divine-voiced women that Helicon fed with song, Helicon and Macedonian Pieria’s rock: Praxilla; Moero; Anyte, the female Homer; Sappho, glory of the Lesbian women with lovely tresses; Erinna; renowned Telesilla; and thou, Corinna, who didst sing the martial shield of Athena; Nossis, the tender-voiced, and dulcet-toned Myrtis—all crafts women of eternal pages. Great Heaven gave birth to nine Muses, and Earth to these nine, the deathless delight of mortals.

🌐 https://www.dbbe.ugent.be/types/7112
📸 https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/bav_pal_gr_215/0008

The epigram is transmitted as a book epigram in the Vatican manuscript Pal. gr. 215 (15th c.). On ff. 1v-2r, Ioannes Symeonakes wrote down these verses together with two epigrams on the Muses as an introduction to Herodotus’ Histories.

Over the past days and nights, Mount Etna, Europe’s largest and most active volcano, has put on a spectacular show, spewing glowing lava fountains and ashes into the sky. 🌋 Etna’s eruptions fascinated many ancient writers, such as Pindar, Thucydides and Strabo, who described the powerful explosions that have lighted up Sicilian nights for thousands of years. Byzantine authors were no exception. More than eight centuries ago, John Tzetzes dedicated the following, very imaginative epigram to the famous volcano.

✒️ Αἴτνη τίς ἐστιν Ἰταλῶν ὄρος μέγα,
ἐξ ἧς καταρρεῖ παμφάγου πυρὸς νᾶμα
μέχρι πολίχνης Κατάνης λεγομένης·
ῥοιβδεῖ δὲ δεινῶς ὡς ποταμὸς ἐκρέον·
πνεῦμα γὰρ ἐν γῆς ἐμπεσὸν ταῖς κοιλάσι
κισσήρεως νάφθης τε πεπληρωμένης,
χωροῦν σοβαρῶς ἐκπυροῦται τῇ βίᾳ·
εὑρὸν δὲ ταῖς σήραγξιν ὕδωρ ἐκρέον
τὸ πνεῦμα παντάπασιν ἠραιωμένον
ἀναφλογωθὲν ἐξανάπτει πῦρ ῥέον.

📖 The Etna is a big mountain of Italy, from which a stream of all-devouring fire flows down to the city called Catania, and it moves with a terrible whistle, as a river that flows forth. For when a puff of air has fallen into the valleys of the earth, which has been filled with stones and inflammable liquid, it violently goes forward and is burnt up with strength. But if it encounters water flowing from caves, the puff, completely rarefied, kindles the inflamed flowing fire.

🌐 https://www.dbbe.ugent.be/types/4594

The poem is preserved in three manuscripts as a book epigram, following Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound: Florence, Laur. Plut. 28,25 (last quarter of the 13th. c., 📸), Milan, Ambr. N 175 sup. (15th c.) and Vat. gr. 58 (15th c.). The Greek tragedy refers to the eruption of the volcano around 479 BC and provides a mythological explanation for the volcanic activity of the Etna with the story of the monstruous giant Typhon, who was imprisoned underneath the mountain by Zeus and breathes forth rivers of fire in his boiling rage. 🔥

All Souls’ Day, a day of remembrance of our deceased loved ones, is celebrated in various ways around the world. 🕯️💕 Thinking about the beloved family and friends we miss, sometimes – and even more in these COVID-19 times – reminds us of the shortness and transience of life, an idea also expressed in the following epigram:

✒️ Εἰπὲ ποῦ ἡ χθὲς ἔβη, ἡ δ’ αὔριον εἰπὲ ποῦ ἐστιν;
εἰπὲ δ’ ὅθεν προέβης καὶ ποῦ ὁδοιπορέεις;
καὶ τί μέγα ζώειν σε τὸν αὐτίκα νεκρὸν ἐόντα;
ὁ χρόνος ἀστατέει, φύλλῳ ἔοικε φύσις·
γαῖα, βροτὸς καὶ ὕδωρ, τὰ ἀπ’ αὐτόφιν εἰς τάδε δύνει,
ὥστε μάτην ὁ βίος καὶ ὅσα τις πονέει.

📖 Tell me, where did yesterday go and where is tomorrow?
Tell me, where do you come from and where are you travelling to?
And why live a great life if all at once you are dead?
Time is fickle, nature is like a leaf;
earth, mankind and water, these come from that
spot and there they sink, so life is vain and all that one toils for.

🌐 https://www.dbbe.ugent.be/types/3147

The poem, written in elegiacs, has been transmitted in many Byzantine manuscripts alongside the tragedies of Sophocles, mostly at the beginning of ‘Electra’. These verses resonate the reaction of the chorus to Electra’s lament for Orestes: πᾶσι θνατοῖς ἔφυ μόρος, “nature ordains death as the destiny of all mortals” (El. 860). Even though they can be read as a Byzantine response to Electra’s feelings of grief and despair, the epigram speaks to all of us as it reflects a more universal idea.

The first of September means the first day of school in Belgium! 🎓🏫 We wish all parents and children a great start of the new school year, and want to take this opportunity to put an epigram in the spotlight that all (ex-)students can relate to.

✒️ Ἄρξου χείρ μου ἀγαθή,
γράφε γράμματα καλά,
μὴ δαρθῇς καὶ λυπηθῇς
καὶ ὕστερον μετανοήσῃς.

📖 Begin, good hand of mine,
write beautiful letters,
so you are not beaten and hurt,
and later feel regret.

🌐 https://www.dbbe.ugent.be/types/5030
📷 http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000022766&page=277

The poem has thirty occurrences in our database. Many of them offer variations on the text of our type and all of them have a rich individual history that’s yours to discover. 🔎 From Mount Athos to Moscow, from a 10th century manuscript to a 17th century marginal comment; dive into the colourful history of writing neatly! 🖋 In one manuscript, we find for example three times the same poem written by different monks (👉 https://www.dbbe.ugent.be/manuscripts/15881). Funny detail: it’s not because the subject of the epigram is calligraphy that the text is always written impeccably (👉 https://www.dbbe.ugent.be/occurrences/26424)!

The image was taken from a 12th century manuscript featuring the ‘Synopsis historiarum’, John Skylitzes’ famous history of the Byzantine empire. This particular folium contains a beautiful miniature depicting two teachers (οἱ φιλόσοφοι) and their pupils (οἱ μαθηταί).

Every year, the week between 1 and 7 August is celebrated as World Breastfeeding Week, an initiative by the World Health Organization (WHO). Did you know DBBE features two epigrams referring to breastfeeding? 🤱 (and who knows, we might encounter more in the future!)
One of them is this variation on the famous and widespread “ὥσπερ ξένοι” colophon:

✒️ Ὡς ἡδὺ νηπίοισι μητρώας πέλει
θηλῆς γαλακτόβλυστον ἔλκειν εὖ ῥύσιν,
ξένοις βλέπειν τὲ ξὺν γονεῦσι πατρίδα,
οὕτω γε τοῖς γράφουσι ὕστατος στίχος.

📖 Comme il est doux pour les nourrissons de téter
au sein maternel duquel le lait coule bien,
et pour les étrangers de voir leur patrie et leurs parents,
ainsi la dernière ligne est douce pour les scripteurs.

🌐 https://www.dbbe.ugent.be/types/5991
📸 https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Barb.gr.166/0567

It is preserved in at least three manuscripts: Vat. Barb. gr. 166 (15th c.; see picture), Vat. Reg. gr. 99 (15th c.) and Escor. Σ.II.6 (16th c.). The poem in the picture was copied by Georgios Hermonymos in 1476 at the end of Quintus of Smyrna’s Posthomerica and is followed by two more epigrams. The more popular and conventional theme of strangers returning home is here combined with the unique and endearing image of an infant nursed by its mother; both are metaphors for the scribe reaching the end of his labours.