Intorno a byssa: una nota testuale ad Antonino Liberale, 15.4

Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses 15, tells the story of Byssa, Meropis and Agron, the three children of Eumelos who, after having repeatedly offended the gods, were transformed into birds: an owl, a plover, a ‘night raven’ and a mysterious byssa (almost surely a night owl comparable to the byxa of Metamorphoses 10), qualified in the text of the only manuscript as ‘the bird of Leukothea’. Scholars generally have been puzzled by this association, since Leukothea was a sea goddess, and no plausible explanation has been given so far. It might therefore be supposed that Λευκοθέας of the manuscript is corrupted; the proposed emendation is λευκόθριξ, ‘of white plumage’, with reference to the typical color of the White or Barn Owl (Tyto alba alba), whose features have been associated with Latin strix and could be connected also to Antoninus’ byssa.