'Loosen the cables' (Aemilianus AP 9.28 = Gow-Page, GP 2) Taylor Coughlan Aemilianus AP 9.218 = Gow-Page GP 2, transmitted in a surviving sequence of Philip's Garland, presents the reader with a nautical paradox:1 an unmanned ship has arrived at harbor lacking all of its cargo and carrying in its places the corpses of its crew. In this note I defend the reading of the manuscripts at line 4 in the printed text: Ἀβάλε χειμερίου με κατέκλυσε κύματα πόντου δειλαίην, νεκύων φόρτον ἀμειψαμένην.αἰδέομαι σωθεῖσα. τί μοι πλέον ὅρμον ἱκέσθαι δευομένῃ φωτῶν πείσματα λυσομένων;Κωκυτοῦ με λέγοιτε βαρὺ σκάφος· ὤλεσα φῶτας, 5 ὤλεσα· ναυηγοὶ δ' εἰσὶν ἔσω λιμένος.2 4 λυσομένων PPl: δυσομένων Stephanus If only the waves of the wintry sea capsized wretched me, who has exchanged my cargo for corpses. I am ashamed that I have been saved. What's the benefit for me to reach anchorage lacking the men who will loosen my cables [End Page 291] for departure? You may call me the weighty skiff of Cocytos; I've destroyed my men, destroyed them. Within the harbor they are shipwrecked. The text of line four as transmitted in the two manuscript witnesses (P and Pl) has presented scholars with interpretive difficulties. The phrase λύειν πείσματα refers to act of loosening a ship's cables in preparation for departure,3 an action which appears to run counter to that required by the context.4 Stephanus emended λυσόμενων to δησομένων to provide the sense of binding the cables for anchorage.5 Dübner and Cougny 1871–1890, Paton 1916–1919, and Gow and Page 1968 print δησομένων. Brunck 1772–1776, Jacobs 1813–1817, Stadtmüller 1894–1906, Waltz 19576 and Beckby 1957–1958 each print the παραδόσις. Gow and Page note that Brunck 'accepted δυσ- in his note',7 while Jacobs expressed uncertainty in his ('Fort. δησομένων'). Beckby translates the phrase as 'meine Taue … löst' without comment.8 Waltz, who translates 'détacher mes amarres', asserts that the phrase can refer to 'les hommes qui devraient manier les cordages pour aborder' but does not provide any evidence and I have not found a passage in support of this claim.9 The reference to a departure and future trips implied in the phrase πείσ-ματα λυσομένων is intelligible within the narrative context of the epigram and thus emendation is not required. In the epigram's central couplet the ship, having survived some type of catastrophic event that has left her without a crew, considers her uncertain future. What is the benefit of reaching safe harbor if she lacks the crew that will allow her to set sail once again and perform her mercantile purpose? Aemilianus underscores the inversion of the status quo a line earlier with νεκύων φόρτον ἀμειψαμένην. Ἀμείβομαι with an accusative and genitive (in some instances the object of the preposition ἀντί) has the meaning of 'get X (accusative) in exchange for Y (genitive)'.10 Gow and Page object to the translation 'got a cargo instead of corpses' on the grounds that such a statement does not make sense in the context of a ship returning to harbor laden with dead sailors, and thus [End Page 292] propose that 'we must either take νεκύων with φόρτον, "a cargo of corpses", or invert the normal construction and render "exchanged cargo for corpses"'. They conclude that the 'former seems likelier' and then offer up the translation 'having got a corpse-cargo in exchange (i.e. in exchange for my merchandise-cargo)'.11 Paton ('my load of living men now changed for one of corpses') and Beckby ('Denn statt einstigen Frachte berge ich Tote mir'), albeit more freely, render the phrase similarly.12 While the inversion of the normal construction of exchange is quite unlikely, the presence of a genitive and accusative noun + a middle form of ἀμεἰβω is enough, I suggest, to induce the reader to pause and then likely reflect on the syntactic combinations required to make grammatical and semantic sense of the phrase. In the process, the paradox of the image is felt all the more powerfully. The juxtaposition of νεκύων and φόρτον neatly encapsulate the paradox of our Totenschiff: the ship has returned to harbor laden not with cargo ready for the marketplace but rather packed with the corpses of the men who should soon offload it. If it is her fate to lack a crew for future excursions, then she might as well be renamed: Κωκυτοῦ με λέγοιτε βαρὺ σκάφος. An obvious allusion to Charon's vessel that ferries the dead...