Lucian of Samosata, Lexiphanes, Austin Morris Harmon (Translator), 7

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[7] Drinking-cups of all kinds stood on the dresser, your brow-hider, your Mentor-made¹ dipper with a convenient tail-piece, your gurgler, your longnecker, many “earth-borns” like what Thericles² used to bake, vessels both ventricose and patulous, some from Phocaeawards, other some from Cnidos way, all airy trifles,³ hymen-thin. There were also boats, chalices, and lettered mugs,⁴ so that the cupboard was full.

Lexiphanes. Lucian of Samosata. Austin Morris Harmon (Translator). United States. Perseus 5.0.

Funding provided by National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

Lexiphanes (English) (Lucian, Vol. 5. Harmon, Austin Morris, editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Λεξιφάνης Perseus (Lucian, Vol. 5. Harmon, Austin Morris, editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936 (printing).) — 7 focus

Λεξιφάνης

ποτήρια δὲ ἔκειτο παντοῖα ἐπὶ τῆς¹ δελφίδος τραπέζης, ὁ κρυψιμέτωπος καὶ τρυήλης² Μεντορουργὴς εὐλαβῆ ἔχων τὴν κέρκον καὶ βομβυλιὸς καὶ δειροκύπελλον καὶ γηγενῆ πολλὰ οἷα Θηρικλῆς ὤπτα, εὐρυχαδῆ τε καὶ ἄλλα εὔστομα, τὰ μὲν Φωκαῆθεν, τὰ δὲ Κνιδόθεν, πάντα μέντοι ἀνεμοφόρητα καὶ ὑμενόστρακα. κυμβία δὲ ἦν καὶ φιαλίδες καὶ ποτήρια γραμματικά, ὥστε μεστὸν ἦν τὸ κυλικεῖον.

Translations (1)

Lexiphanes Perseus (The Works of Lucian of Samosata, Vol. 2. Fowler, Henry Watson and Fowler, Francis George, translators. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.) — 7 focus

[7] On the dolphin-foot table stood divers store of cups; the eyeshutter, the ladle, slender-handled, genuine Mentor; crane-neck and gurgling bombyl; and many an earth-born child of Thericlean furnace, the wide-mouthed, the kindly-lipped; Phocaean, Cnidian work, but all light as air, and thin as eggshell; bowls and panntkins and posied cups; ob, ’twas a well-stocked sideboard.

Notes on the current edition

Lexiphanes

This is said to be the only reference to Mentor in extant Greek literature. The scholia allude to him as a maker of glassware, but various allusions in Latin writers from Cicero to Juvenal and Martial (especially Pliny, Nat. Hist., XX XIII, 147) make it clear that he was a silversmith whose productions were highly esteemed as antiques in Cicero’s time. When and where he lived is not indicated.

Thericles seems to have been a Corinthian potter, contemporary with Aristophanes (Athen., XI, 470). His name became attached to certain shapes, and even to imitations of these shapes in metal, made at Athens and Rhodes (Athen. XI, 469 8). Cicero (in Verrem, II, 4, 38) speaks of certain cups that are called Thericleian, made by the hand of Mentor with supreme craftsmanship.

By ἀνεμφόρητα Lexiphanes means “light enough to blow away,” but might be taken to mean “wind-blown.” Cf. ἀφόρητα, p. 307, n. 5.

Caps with an inscription; Athenaeus, XI, 466c (Gulick V, 56).

Lucian of Samosata Lexiphanes 7

Austin Morris Harmon (Translator)

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