Talk:Tiberius Claudius Narcissus
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[edit] Who was scared by Cerberus?
In this article it is stated that in the Apocolocyntosis Narcissus is the one who is scared by Cerberus, so different from the white dog he—Narcissus—owned when alive. Interestingly, W. H. D. Rouse in his translation, not only in the 1920 edition available at Gutenberg, but also in the revised 1969/1975 edition, makes Claudius the one who is perturbed by Cerberus (look for the phrase 'trifle perturbed'). In the Latin text, no subject is mentioned here: 'Pusillum perturbatur'. The whole sequence of events, the fact that earlier 'a touch of the gout' was mentioned (which applies to Narcissus), and the fact that immediately afterwards 'he' cried 'Claudius is coming!'--as Narcissus had been told to do--all point to Narcissus. It looks like Rouse was mistaken here, and Narcissus really must be the one who is scared of Cerberus, and who owned a white dog when alive.
Later, I checked a couple of other translations, and they agree that Narcissus was scared by the dog: Wagenvoort (1936) and Russo (5th ed., 1965) simply follow the original here, in not specifying any name, while Robert Graves (in an appendix to Claudius the God) and Waltz (2nd ed., 1961) expressly mention Narcissus. Engelsman 19:41, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
