- Source
- Herodotus. Godley, Alfred Denis, editor. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, Ltd., 1920-1925 (printing).
- Translation
- AI-generated (gemini-3.5-flash) — machine translation; may contain errors
- Languages
- 日本語 · English · 简体中文 · 한국어
- CTS URN
- urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0016.tlg001.humanitext-grc2:2.131.1-2.131.3
- Generated
- Humanitext Reader · reader.humanitext.ai · 2026-11-07
Herodotus introduces an alternative story told by some about Mycerinus's incest with his daughter and the cutting off of the handmaidens' hands, and refutes it by arguing that the statues' hands simply fell off due to the passage of time.
οἳ δὲ τινὲς λέγουσι περὶ τῆς βοὸς ταύτης καὶ τῶν κολοσσῶν τόνδε τὸν λόγον, ὡς Μυκερῖνος ἠράσθη τῆς ἑωυτοῦ θυγατρὸς καὶ ἔπειτα ἐμίγη οἱ ἀεκούσῃ·
But some tell the following story about this cow and the colossal statues: that Mycerinus fell in love with his own daughter, and then had intercourse with her against her will.
μετὰ δὲ λέγουσι ὡς ἡ παῖς ἀπήγξατο ὑπὸ ἄχεος, ὁ δέ μιν ἔθαψε ἐν τῇ βοῒ ταύτῃ, ἡ δὲ μήτηρ αὐτῆς τῶν ἀμφιπόλων τῶν προδουσέων1 τὴν θυγατέρα τῷ πατρὶ ἀπέταμε τὰς χεῖρας, καὶ νῦν τὰς εἰκόνας αὐτέων εἶναι πεπονθυίας τά περ αἱ ζωαὶ ἔπαθον.
And afterwards they say that the girl hanged herself out of grief, and he buried her in this cow; while her mother cut off the hands of the handmaidens who had betrayed her daughter to her father, and now their images have suffered just what they themselves suffered when alive.
ταῦτα δὲ λέγουσι φλυηρέοντες, ὡς ἐγὼ δοκέω, τά τε ἄλλα καὶ δὴ καὶ τὰ περὶ τὰς χεῖρας τῶν κολοσσῶν· ταύτας γὰρ ὦν καὶ ἡμεῖς ὡρῶμεν ὅτι ὑπὸ χρόνου τὰς χεῖρας ἀποβεβλήκασι,2 αἳ ἐν ποσὶ αὐτέων ἐφαίνοντο ἐοῦσαι3 ἔτι καὶ ἐς ἐμέ.
But in saying these things they are talking nonsense, as I think, both in other respects and especially in what concerns the hands of the colossal statues; for we ourselves also saw that these images have lost their hands through time, which were still visible lying at their feet down to my own time.
- 2.131.2τῶν ἀμφιπόλων τῶν προδουσέων
A genitive used with the verb ἀποτέμνω (to cut off), which does not regularly govern the genitive. It can be interpreted either as a genitive of separation (from whom the hands were cut off) or as a possessive genitive qualifying the noun τὰς χεῖρας (the hands of the handmaidens).
- 2.131.3ταύτας γὰρ ὦν καὶ ἡμεῖς ὡρῶμεν ὅτι ὑπὸ χρόνου τὰς χεῖρας ἀποβεβλήκασι
A construction of prolepsis (anticipation), where the feminine plural demonstrative pronoun ταύτας (referring to the statues, αἱ εἰκόνες), which logically functions as the subject of the ὅτι clause, is anticipated as the direct object of the main verb ὡρῶμεν in the accusative case.
- 2.131.3αἳ ἐν ποσὶ αὐτέων ἐφαίνοντο ἐοῦσαι
The relative pronoun αἳ refers back to the preceding τὰς χεῖρας (hands, feminine plural). The verb φαίνομαι with the participle ἐοῦσαι (from εἰμί) expresses a clear fact ('they were visible as being...', 'they were seen to be').