Edizione e commento dei Cypria

My research has as its goal the critical edition, translation into Italian, and commentary of the fragments of a lost poem, entitled Cypria, (the first one of the Troy cycle, dated around VII-VI century B.C.). My work is based on the Bernabé edition, but differs from this one both for editorial choices and for the exclusion of some fragments from the text. Through the formulaic and linguistic analysis of the textual fragments it is possible to assess what formulaic repertory was used by the poet (at the same time traditional and innovative) and to date the poem, even if the version we possess could not be the original one but a later Attic copy. For other fragments that lack attribution to an author or a title, it is possible to hypothesize their inclusion in the poem thanks to the indication included in the sources of the “Neoteroi” (cyclic poets), to be identified specifically with the author of Cypria. The attribution of frr. 6-7 (rather, their author is Nevius, a minor Latin poet), 12 and 16 B. to this poem is dubious. The same goes for 12 B., concerning Helen’s children, perhaps authored by a local Cypriot historian, and for 16. My analysis has underscored the characteristic nature of this poem, i.e., its “ethos,” quite different from the one of the Iliad because of the proliferation of fantastic, miraculous, and romantic scenes; the constant presence of the divine, of non-heroic episodes, and of various aspects of conviviality. Therefore the Cypria, are less linked to the heroic values expressed in the Iliad and offer the possibility of exploring and analyzing the epic in a different way and yet within the same tradition, by emphasizing some myths and/or some aspects and marginalizing others. In fact, in four fragments we may also find a local or epichoric aspect in the way they treat some myths.