Note 1869 — Chapter XVIII · THE CONFESSION OF CYPRIAN AND SOME SIMILAR STORIES

Idem. The attempt to bewitch the furnaces reminds one of the fourteenth Homeric epigram, in which the bard threatens to curse the potters’ furnaces if they do not pay him for his song, and to summon “the destroyers of furnaces,”—Σύντριβ’ ὁμῶς Σμάραγόν τε καὶ Ἄσβετον ἠδὲ Σαβάκτην,—words usually interpreted as names for mischievous Pucks and brawling goblins who smash pottery. But the two middle names suggest the stones, smaragdus or emerald, and asbestos. The poet also invokes “Circe of many drugs” to cast injurious spells, and appeals to Chiron to complete the work of destruction. He further prays that the face of any potter who peers into the furnace may be burned. This epigram is probably of late date. See A. Abel, Homeri Hymni, Epigrammata, Batrachomyomachia, Lipsiae, 1886, pp. 123-4.