this fic ended up twice as long and with twice as many poems as I'd planned, which is why I'm publishing it now and not in the middle of June. Blegh.

Anyway, here it is. Poetry connected to Kassandra, both in the tidied original and in modern translation.

While this fic is rated T, erotic themes and imagery are overt in several of these poems. I expect y'all to read responsibly.


Cassandra's Inkblot #92: Pining in Verse

(originally posted on cass-inked)

The first mark appeared three years ago.

According to the witnesses present it came out of nowhere and burned its way directly into the tributary tablet. Since then it's appeared half a dozen times, each time attached to a previously-unknown engraving in verse. The mark has been identified as a lowercase nu (ν) about the size of a thumb and forefinger, radiant like gold melted down to liquid fire.

As I discussed in my previous post, I don't think it's an alphabetical symbol at all. Not a nu. I think it signifies wings in flight. Still a signature, but by way of a sigil.

Whose signature is the subject of this compilation.

There's been so much focus on the physics of this symbol - which is understandable, given that in three years no one's been able to figure out how its luminescence can shine through solid stone as if through glass - and on the dissection of each individual poem the symbol appears with that no one's yet published anything on what (who) connects them. There are papers coming on the subject in 2022, but I've received their authors' consent to give you all this intro. (Contact me at [REDACTED] for further info.)

Let's get to it, shall we?

- CI


Lyric 1a ("Anais")

Χε?ρε? ?ξ?αι ?ν?χεσσ? ?ρυθρα??,

τα?? ?δρηλα?? α?ματι χιλι?ν ?ν

π?ντ? ?θυσα?, δ?? δ? Φιλο?σιν ?δ?ω?

K?ρ τ?ρεν ?μμ?ν.

Translation

Your sharp-taloned hands,

still dripping crimson with the blood of the thousands you killed,

twice sweetly kiss my tender heart.

Blogger's Notes:

Sapphic stanza, ~418 B.C. Found inscribed on a stone tablet at a sanctuary site in the northwestern Peloponnese. The stonecutting is uneven and the lettering extremely crude. Other than the lampglow symbol that unifies these poems, the only identifier is the name, ?να??, carved below the poem. The name possibly links it to the small estate owner Anais of Phigaleia referenced in another dedication at the same sanctuary.

Identifiers should be noted in the following:

?ν?χεσσι - outside of its usage here, this plural dative form is attested only in epic. It is also a masculine noun that in this lyric, and in no other surviving works, is treated as feminine.

?θυσα?; ?ν π?ντα - while the grammar is ambiguous, all readings denote wholesale and not-entirely-mortal slaughter.

?μμον - it does not make obvious sense for an Arkadian farmer to use this Aeolic form. More to come.


Lyric 1b ("Regret")

φαμ? δ? ?λλ?? κατ?ζην ?μ?ρρειν.

ε? δυνα?μην γ?? ?να?? γε γεωργε?ν

?ν θ?ρ? τ? ε?? ν?κτα βαθε?αν σ?ν σο?

πολλ? ?λ?σσειν.

το?το ?δει? κα? ?πιθυμ?α? τ??

παρθενε?α? πτυξαμ?νη ?με ?ψω.

?πτ?α σ?ν τ?ν λαθ?μην ?αυτ??.

?στ? Κατ?νδρα.

Translation

I wish another life.

Would that I could work your fields, Anais,

dance with you in summer

and into winter night.

You knew this, held me close,

set my childhood dreams alight.

Lying with you I forgot myself; with you,

She's Kassandra.

Blogger's Notes:

Sapphic stanzas, time unknown but quite reasonably assumed to be contemporaneous with Lyric 1a. Discovered on the obverse of the tablet displaying Lyric 1a. It famously is not engraved into the stone but rather burns with the same liquid light as the nu-mark. For this reason, the final line has been taken as a signature as much as part of the verse, and "Kassandra" is the name we give to the common subject of these poems.

Similarity to my blog's name is entirely coincidental. I swear.


Lyric 2 ("Metic's Shame")

α? μελ?των…π?στει?

…ο?ρ?…

…κα?...(?)ρουρ(?)…

?ν...νυκτο?ν.

Translation

Honeyed words - - -

- - - (by the?) wind - - -

- - and - - - (soil?) -

in - - twin shadows.

Blogger's Notes:

Probably Sapphic stanza, found in a small cache outside of Delphi. The field at large presumes this to be the cache described by Polystichros (d. 416-403 B.C.) in the hundred and twenty-two words of his that have survived to us. The cache, which Polystichros possibly links to an unnamed figure in Perikles's - yes, that Perikles - inner circle, was found already pillaged. From the chamber's condition and from a single discarded stone charm found in the rubble (see Bibeau 2018), the cache may have been pillaged as early as Polystichros's time. Maybe even before he wrote about it. If he was writing about it.

There's no way for us to tell who wrote this piece or why. Our only clue is the symbol glowing beneath it that I believe links it in some way to Kassandra. I'm convinced that it's her mark but that she is not the poet.

νυκτο?ν - marked out for its strangeness. What is meant by this dual form?


Lyric 3 ("The Hetaira's Prayer")

ο?κ ?θ?νην ?λλισ?μην. τ? π?ν ο?:

?ν γ?ρ α?τ? μ?ποτε ?ν θε?? σ??.

μ?τιν ε?π?νην σ? λ?γου χ? ?φασμα

π?ν διατ?μνει?.

ο?τε ?ρτεμιν, σ? ?ρ? ο? κ?ρα ε?,

χρυσοτ?ξη κ?ν π?δα? ωκ?? ο?σα.

τ? ?φροδ?τη? κρυπτ?τα δ?δεκ? ?νδρα?

σινδ?σιν ?γξεν.

?ετ? α?τ?σ? Δι?? χ?ρα? κν??,

Φο?βο? ?χθει ν?κτα, ?ρεω? ?π?σω

κα? κελε?θου, κα? σ? μ?νον κε θ? ?ρμ??

ταχ?? αφ?ρει.

ο? δ? πρ?ξενον δ?λιον γιγν?σκω

ο? ?κο?ειν ?κεσ?ην χατ?ζω.

τ?νδε ?ν ?γ? ?ρ?ω Σελ?νν?

?στ? τ? ??ν π?ν:

?ππατ? α?θ?λα τε παραυν? κο?λα,

χελλ?ων πνο?ν ?ν ?κραι? π?τρ?σιν

?λλ?δο? τε κα? θαλ?μαι? ?τ? ε?ρε??

?? παρ? ?μ? ε??ν?.

Translation

I do not pray to Athena. Not her:

she would never be your god.

You cut through her tapestry,

every plan woven in her mind.

Nor to Artemis, no maiden you,

though fleet of foot, with golden bow.

Aphrodite's silken trysts strangled a dozen men.

With his own eagle you clawed Zeus's hands;

Apollo hates the night, you rejected Ares' way,

his head-on fight,

and swift Hermes would take you for himself alone.

I know not the treacherous patron

I wish to hear my prayer.

All I know is the woman

I see by moonlight:

your smoke-filled eyes,

your hollow cheeks,

from your lips the breath in the rocks,

cliffs, caves of Greece herself

when you say you'll come back to me.

Blogger's Notes:

Lyric poem in Sapphic stanza, 387 B.C. Discovered in the summer of 2019 in the Lechaion harbor site, one of a pile of stones unearthed shortly before the end of the dig season. As it was found in the site's Roman layer, only Kassandra's mark distinguished it enough to launch an investigation into its author and context.

Unlike those already listed, this poem was written to be spread. Fisher (2021) attributes it to Melino? of Corinth, a hetaira who was active in Peloponnesian politics in the early fourth century B.C. We know this from the words of others - this is the only writing of Melino? herself that we have found. We wouldn't have even this if the symbol hadn't shone beneath it clear as day.

I'm not stealing my friends' thunder regarding the content of this piece. For their treatments of this poem, wait for their papers next year (Fisher 2022, Wind 2022). But this much I think is obvious: yearning and destruction and divinity feature prominently. For our purposes with Kassandra in this post, connect ?ετ?, "eagle", to the talons of Lyric 1a.


("Janus's Daughter")

Elegaic 1 - ?λιο?

ν?ν καταπ?πτ? ?π? ?κρα? σιγ? ??κυια ?ν??

?απετιον?δη? ε?? Α?δου α?λ??.

Translation

Now fall from the cliffs, without a sound, like

Promethean punishment into Hades' halls.

Elegaic 2 - Μ?νη

ε? περ?ει? Α??να ρεοντ? ε???ει, Α?τ?,

Φ??, ?ντυγχαν? ?μο? ?ν τ? ?χθ? ?π?πτ?.

Translation

Should you cross the ever-moving Eon, Eagle,

Light, find me on that far shore.

Blogger's Notes:

Elegaic couplets, late first century B.C. or possibly early first century A.D. Discovered last year near the Mausoleum of Augustus; there are suggestions that this engraving was moved, but more chemical tests and textual analysis are required to make any further statement. These poems are unsigned, and no more akin to it have yet been found in any site in Rome. All we have are these two couplets, unassuming and unheralded for two millennia until Kassandra's mark glowed below them.

Every time I think about them, I get furious and sad all over again. Sad that we don't have more. Furious that it so often it boils down to "the people who could have preserved them, didn't". Whose heart is hidden in these twenty-five words? What kind of story would we have in five hundred words? Or ten thousand?

Identifiers should be noted in the following:

?ν?? ?απετιον?δη?; Α?τ? - the eagle theme remains consistent. As does its sharp cut.

Α?δου α?λ??; Α??να ρεοντ? ε???ει - mortality and eternity together. Kassandra is again linked to the divine.


Lyric 4 ("Battle Couple")

μολπ? δακτ?λο? ο? σο? μ? ?μαλ?σσαν, ?

μ?λιττα πολλ? οργαζομ?νη σφριγ?-

-σ? τ? ξ?ν? γλ?ττ? μ?χρ? ε?νο?-

-? κατ?γνυσ? γε χ?ματ? ?λγου.

Translation 1

Your verses sweetly soothed me,

a balm tempered in a fresh foreign language

that broke my walls down for love.

Translation 2

With a dance your fingers softened me,

honey kneaded on a lustful foreign tongue

until with love it shivered the dam.

Blogger's Notes:

Alcaic stanza, late 16th century A.D. Discovered with the tomb of an onna-musha in 2019 thirty miles outside of Kyōto, Japan. Art and other items found in the grave suggest that the occupant, though buried alone, was once married before being widowed young.

They fucked. This woman, whose name we haven't learned yet, and Kassandra. They fucked. And then wrote poetry about it. And then this tomb's occupant made sure she would be buried with her partner's poems in a place they could not be disturbed. And then five hundred years later, a mark associated with Kassandra glows so bright and warm that it shines through three meters of solid rock to lead us to the tomb and these no-longer-forgotten poems.

Which leads to my biggest question:

What the fuck is this symbol doing here?

Arcadia makes sense, and Attica. Corinth too. Augustan Rome doesn't, but one strange instance is dismissed as an outlier. Two begins a pattern. Two where the second one comes from late Sengoku-Period Japan...

Look, if you tell me the poems linked by this symbol all concern not just a queer Hellenic warrior woman but an immortal globetrotting one, sign me the fuck up. I don't care if it sounds impossible. But there's a reason I've started this on my pseudonymous fandom blog and not with a journal submission under my professional name. That'll come in time. These marks only started appearing three years ago, and not all at once. There may be more - there must be more. And not just across a few centuries in the central Mediterranean. This grave finding is proof of that. Who knows how many there are?

Kassandra, I'll find the truth of you someday. I'll find you. And when I do, I hope you're ready for a couple questions.

And maybe some fangirling. Just a little?


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πρ?τον ?σσ?νη, ν?ν σ?. Good. Find me, and we'll talk. Χα?ρε, "CΙ".


A/N: third and final of this Attestations project, whew. by far the most brutal because meter is cruel. I cheated a lot. (For example, I did not and will not bother with caesuras.) by far also the most fun I had in this series. if I trusted fanfic-site formatting I would try to put the different languages side by side, but I do not. so I didn't.

As with the other two works, please let me know if I messed up in the Greek somewhere (I know I blue-screened on enclitic accentuation). Comments and critique are always appreciated. Whether you've read all three in the series or just this one, thank you for stopping by!