A Problem in Egypto-Canadian Cultural Relations

A Problem in Egypto-Canadian Cultural Relations DOUGLAS YOUNG Classical scholars were greatly excited early in 1968 when the latest volume of Amblyrhynchus Papyri was found to contain an almost totally legible poem, preserved on a fragment of mummy-wrapping, and couched in a verse-form rarely paralleled in Greek before the 20th Century AD. The editor princeps, Dr. Ethelred Le Bol, presented the text thus, the only doubtful letter being in the last word of the second verse: ΚΑΙ ΤΟΔΕ ΛΙΜΕΡΙΚΟΝ: Νεᾶνις ὀνόματι Αὐλὴ ἐχόρευσε τόκων ἐπὶ παύληι, δαπάνηι δὲ πολλῆι, σοφὰ πριαμένη ὑπερώφθη ὅλως ἅτε φαύλη. A working version might run thus: “A young woman by name Aule (? hypocoristic for αὐλητρίς, ‘girl piper’) danced in connection with a cessation of births (? of interest payments ), and with much expense having purchased wise (? clever) things was overlooked entirely as inferior.” The sociological context of the poem is debatable. In a colloquium at Horsdoeuvres in autumn 1968, to which the Fondation Sanft invited an international galaxy of veteran Hellenists, a venerable scholar light-heartedly suggested that Aule had borrowed funds to attend an Ivy League graduate school and then flunked out. arion 24.3 winter 2017 A weightier contribution came from Prof. Dr. Magnus Hevistjern of Utterecht in Lethe, Ser. VI, vol. lxxxiii (1970), pp. 726–958, where he correctly stated that the lemma requires the noun ἆ ‘ σμα to be mentally supplied; but he erred in proposing to read ΛΙΜΕΝΙΚΟΝ, with the assumption that the poem reached the Mouseion library, ἐκ τῶν πλοίων. The rho of ΛΙΜΕΡΙΚΟΝ is indubitable. For trade between Heroic Age Limerick, Eire, and Amblyrhynchus, see Fr. Aloysius O’Grady, S.J., in Transactions of the North Munster Field and Cycle Club, XLV (1905), p.13, n.6. Dr. Hevistjern also argued that dancing in Greco-Roman Egypt must be related to fertility cults, and proposed to read in v.2 ἐχόρευσε τόκέω ‿ ς ἐπὶ θαυλέη ‿ ι, with synizesis. He cited Hesychius’s entry: θαυλέα. οὐρά, κέρκος, and translated “saltauit patris penem uenerandi causa,” rejecting in a footnote the interpretation of a colleague, “. . . excitandi causa.” Dr. Hevistjern’s insight was developed somewhat differently by Prof. Auguste Embonpoint, in Sphinx, III (1970), pp. 85–90, where he proposed to read ἐχόρευσε τόκων ἐπὶ καύληι, a late Greek borrowing equivalent to the Latin ablative caule. For caulis = membrum uirile, cf. Servius on Verg. Aen.12.413. Embonpoint interpreted, “Mlle. Aulé exécuta une danse pour célébrer la verge des naissances.” More subtle was the restoration ventured by Prof. Dr. Dr. Sigismund Rumpff, in Tübinger Beiträge zur agnoiologischen Forschung, XXII (1971), pp. 62–98. Rumpff punctuated v.2 thus, ἐχόρευσε τὸ “Κῶν’ ἐπὶ ναύληι,” translating: “Ein Mädel namens Aule tanzte das Harz auf der Harfe!” Rumpff cited κῶνα, meaning “resin,” from Dioscorides 1.72 and supplied mentally the noun σχῆμα, in the sense “dance figure.” The ναῦλα or νάβλα was an instrument with ten or twelve strings, apparently of Jewish origin. Archeology knows as yet no representation of a dance describable as “Resin on the harp!” Dr. Le Bol’s original constitution of the text may, however, be defended if a thematic connection is admitted between the poem of the Amblyrhynchus mummy-wrapping and an Enga problem in egypto-canadian cultural relations 188 lish poem of similar structure and content printed in a copy of a university student newspaper, which was found in a cafeteria at the Toronto International Airport. This poem runs: There was a young lady named Hall, who went to a Birth Control Ball. She bought all the devices, at exorbitant prices, — and nobody asked her at all. The exact relationship between the two poems is a problem that will continue to exercise departments of Comparative , and even those of Superlative, Literature. October 1972 Douglas Young 189 ...

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