Tracking Satyrs (front-20)

The Tracking Satyrs is a substantial fragment of a satyr play by Sophocles, discovered at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt in 1907. We have some 400 lines of a play that was probably about 800 lines long. The plot is the same as that of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes: Apollo’s cows have been stolen, and the culprit turns out to be his newborn brother Hermes. This translation is adapted from The Ichneutae of Sophocles, Richard Johnson Walker, London: 1919. Walker established his own text for the fragment, filling in many of the gap reason"lost"s. I have occasionally adopted his supplements, but have basically translated the text of the first publication of the play, Oxyrhynchus Papyri 9, no. 1174, ed. Arthur S. Hunt, London: 1912. Apollo, son of Zeus and god of prophecySilenus, father of the satyrsCyllene, a nymphHermes, newborn son of Zeus[*]Chorus of satyrs