Πολλὰ μάλ᾽, ὅσσα τε μητρὸς Ἐριννύες ἐκτελέουσιν.
[637] Iliad, xxiii. 680, with the scholiast who cites Hesiod. Proclus, Argum. ad Cypria, ap. Düntzer, Fragm. Epic. Græc. p. 10. Νέστωρ δὲ ἐν παρεκβάσει διηγεῖται ... καὶ τὰ περὶ Οἰδίπουν, etc.
[638] Pausan. ix. 5, 5. Compare the narrative from Peisander in Schol. ad Eurip. Phœniss. 1773; where, however, the blindness of Œdipus seems to be unconsciously interpolated out of the tragedians. In the old narrative of the Cyclic Thêbaïs, Œdipus does not seem to be represented as blind (Leutsch, Thebaidis Cyclici Reliquiæ, Götting. 1830, p. 42).
Pherekydês (ap. Schol. Eurip. Phœniss. 52) tells us that Œdipus had three children by Jokasta, who were all killed by Erginus and the Minyæ (this must refer to incidents in the old poems which we cannot now recover); then the four celebrated children by Euryganeia; lastly, that he married a third wife, Astymedusa. Apollodôrus follows the narrative of the tragedians, but alludes to the different version about Euryganeia,—εἰσὶ δ᾽ οἵ φασιν, etc. (iii. 5, 8).
Hellanikus (ap. Schol. Eur. Phœniss. 59) mentioned the self-inflicted blindness of Œdipus; but it seems doubtful whether this circumstance was included in the narrative of Pherekydês.
[639] Pausan. ix. 9. 3. Ἐποιήθη δὲ ἐς τὸν πόλεμον τοῦτον καὶ ἔπη, Θηβαΐς· τὰ δὲ ἔπη ταῦτα Καλλῖνος, ἀφικόμενος αὐτῶν ἐς μνήμην, ἔφησεν Ὅμηρον τὸν ποιήσαντα εἶναι. Καλλίνῳ δὲ πολλοί τε καὶ ἄξιοι λόγου κατὰ ταῦτα ἔγνωσαν· ἐγὼ δὲ τὴν ποίησιν ταύτην μετά γε Ἰλιάδα καὶ τὰ ἔπη τὰ ἐς Ὀδυσσέα ἐπαινῶ μάλιστα. The name in the text of Pausanias stands Καλαῖνος, an unknown person: most of the critics recognize the propriety of substituting Καλλῖνος, and Leutsch and Welcker have given very sufficient reasons for doing so.
The Ἀμφιάρεω ἐξελασία ἐς Θέβας, alluded to in the pseudo-Herodotean life of Homer, seems to be the description of a special passage in this Thêbaïs.
[640] Hesiod, ap. Schol. Iliad. xxiii. 680, which passage does not seem to me so much at variance with the incidents stated in other poets as Leutsch imagines.
[641] Ἄργος ἄειδε, θεὰ, πολυδίψιον, ἔνθεν ἄνακτες (see Leutsch, ib. c. 4. p. 29).
[642] Fragm. of the Thêbaïs, ap. Athenæ. xii. p. 465, ὅτι αὐτῷ παρέθηκαν ἐκπώματα ἃ ἀπηγορεύκει, λέγων οὕτως·