Anthony Alcock has sent me another translation from Coptic. There is a collection of 10th century Coptic poems, which were published in Oriens Christianus (the volumes are online at Archive.org). One of these is about the martyr Archellites. Here it is:
- archellites_alcock_2016 (PDF)
There is no historical content to this, but it is useful to have this material in English – thank you!
I remember long ago transcribing the English translation of the Legend of Hilaria, a story about a female monk, who supposedly lived in the late 5th century, in the time of the Emperor Zeno. There is also a Legend of Archellites. In fact a translation of these two prose narratives, and the Coptic version of the Legend of the Seven Sleepers, was made in 1947 by James Drescher.[1] A rather clumsy site has the book here.
UPDATE: There is a useful short article on Coptic poetry online here. It is only two pages long. It comes from the Coptic Encyclopedia.
- [1]James Drescher, Three Coptic Legends: Hilaria, Archellites, the Seven Sleepers, Cairo: Imprimerie de l’Institut Francais d’Archeologie Orientale, 1947. Series: Supplément aux des Annales du Service des antiquités de l’Égypte, Cahier No. 4.↩
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