Callimachus (A.S. Hollis, ed.)
Oxford University Press (Clarendon Press), 1997 (reprint of 1990 edition).
Cloth, dj., 401 pp.
Book Number 18685
The "Hecale" of Callimachus was perhaps the most brilliant, imaginative and enjoyable example of the learned Greek poetry written in Ptolemaic Alexandria. Set in Attica, and full of local colour, it described how the hero Theseus was entertained by an old woman, Hecale, on the night before he captured the monstrous bull of Marathon. The complete poem was lost after 1200 CE but substantial fragments have been recovered in the last 100 years. This edition presents and discusses in detail our current knowledge of the poem, with new ideas and material, including new fragments. Greek text and English commentary.