Pindar's Nemeans: a selection

SAMMLUNG WISSENSCHAFTLICHER COMMENTARE

PINDAR'S NEMEANS A SELECTION

K G · SAUR MÜNCHEN

LEIPZIG

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PINDAR'S NEMEANS A SELECTION

EDITION AND COMMENTARY BY W. B. HENRY

K

G

SAUR M Ü N C H E N · L E I P Z I G 2 0 0 5

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PREFACE This book is based on a doctoral thesis completed in 2001. If I were starting afresh, I might well have preferred to include all the Nemeans, but the addition of the remaining odes at this stage would have entailed a considerable delay, and I have preferred to publish what is ready. There is at any rate nothing unusual in a work of this kind: it is some time since a commentator writing in English tackled a whole book of the epinicians. And of course the individual books were not organized by the poet as units. Three of my odes (4, 6, and 8) commemorate athletic victories won by Aeginetan boys. These have a number of features in common, not least their single-stanza introductions and their mythical narratives concerned, as expected, with Aeacus and his line. But they do not follow a single pattern. While in the first two of the group, Pindar introduces his victor straight after the proem, in N. 8, he moves at first into myth, and the victors are not mentioned until near the end of the first epode. Indeed that ode gives little space altogether to the victors and their family. No names are given apart from those of the victors themselves, father and son. In N. 4 and 6, by contrast, numerous family members are introduced, and the victor's family takes up a considerable part of each ode. When we consider structural elaboration, on the other hand, it is N. 4 that stands out from the group. Whereas the other two odes are organized on a fairly simple plan, N. 4 displays considerable virtuosity in its central section, with the poet skilfully maintaining suspense by creating and frustrating expectations: one may suspect that he was encouraged to compose in a more exploratory vein here by the knowledge that the victor's family included amateur musicians who could be expected to listen receptively to a production more ambitious than any provincial poet would have attempted. The remaining two odes, N. 10 and 11, are from the appendix to the Nemeans (originally the last book of the epinician odes), containing odes which, though felt to belong with the epinicians, were not composed to commemorate victories in the great games. M i l , for the inauguration of a local official on Tenedos, shares material with N. 6, and is naturally studied alongside that ode. Ν. 10 stands alone among the extant epinicians as being for an Argive victor. It includes, besides a long catalogue of Argive mythical glories, the only extended narrative in the odes assembled here, the famous myth of the Dioscuri, notable not least for its extensive use of direct speech, an element otherwise unrepresented in this selection. This ode may serve as a specimen of Pindar's composition on the grandest scale. It is impossible at this stage in Pindaric criticism to discuss everything that has been published on any ode. I have been selective, but not, I hope, excessively so. The student of Pindar is well served by published bibliographies: see especially D. E. Gerber, A Bibliography of Pindar 1513-1966, Cleveland 1969; his Emendations in Pindar 1513-1972, Amsterdam 1976 (supplemented at Entretiens Hardt 31, 1985, 22-5); and his 'Pindar and Bacchylides 1934-1987', Lustrum 31, 1989,97-269 and 32, 1990,7-98, 283-92 (index); also E. Thummer,

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VI

PREFACE

'Pindaros, 5. Bericht ( 1 9 8 0 - 1 9 9 2 ) ' , AAHG 4 9 , 1996, 1 - 6 8 . Among more recent publications, two items of particular relevance are Gerber, 'Pindar, Nemean Six: A commentary', HSCP 9 9 , 1999, 3 3 - 9 1 , and the treatment of N. 4 in Μ. M. Willcock (ed.), Pindar, Victory Odes, Cambridge 1 9 9 5 , 4 0 - 3 , 9 1 - 1 0 9 . For the convenience of readers, I have included texts of the odes treated. T h e only non-interpolated medieval manuscripts containing all five odes are Β (Vat. gr. 1312; late xii AD) and D (Laur. 3 2 , 5 2 ; early xiv AD). For N. 4 . 1 - 6 8 and 6 . 3 8 - 4 4 , there is also V , called Ρ in the scholia (Paris, gr. 2 4 0 3 ; late xiii AD). I have used Turyn's reports, together with those of Mommsen and Snell. Only one papyrus has so far been published, Π 41 (P. Berol. inv. 16367; i BC), containing parts of N. 6 . 2 5 - 3 5 , but it is expected that further papyri of the epinicians will appear in a future volume of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri. An apparatus o f testimonia is included, but I have not attempted to make a complete collection. Titles are preserved in D for the first two of my odes, and titles of similar form have been devised for the remainder. These do not go back to the poet, and I have not felt obliged to adopt them here. T h e metrical schemes included in the commentary are accompanied by brief discussions of the stanza forms. In the case of N. 6, where there are many controversial points, I have added a series of notes on individual lines of the scheme. T h e metrical abbreviations are for the most part those of West, GM xi f., but I have used docP for W e s t ' s dod , and wil for wilamowitzianus, W e s t ' s gl. Related sequences are vertically aligned as far as possible, as in Snell's schemes for the aeolic odes. I have received invaluable advice and support from the supervisor o f my doctoral work, Dr. M. L. West. My examiners, Dr. Armand D'Angour and Professor James Diggle, also made helpful comments. At a later stage, Professor G. O. Hutchinson made some suggestions for the revision of my commentary on N . I I . I am grateful to them all. While I was revising the work for publication, Dr. West and Dr. A. S. Hollis most generously arranged for me to have access to unpublished work on Pindar by the late Mr. W. S. Barrett. This has been of great value to me; a number of points drawn from B a r r e t t ' s work will be found below with due acknowledgement. My work on the dissertation in which this book originated was supported by a three-year postgraduate studentship awarded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board and by a Prize Scholarship awarded by Merton College, Oxford. T h e revision of the dissertation was one of the projects on which I worked while holding a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship: I am most grateful to the Academy for the award, and to the Provost and Fellows of Oriel College, Oxford, for giving me a college association during the period of the Fellowship (2001-^1). Finally, it is a pleasure to thank Frau Dr. Elisabeth Schuhmann of Saur for agreeing to publish the book, and the Herculaneum Society, and in particular Dr. Dirk Obbink and Professor David Armstrong, for allowing me the time to put the finishing touches to it.

Oxford, January 2005

W. Β . H.

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CONTENTS Abbreviations, etc. Text Commentary

IX 1 23

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ABBREVIATIONS, ETC. I refer by editor's name alone to the main editions of Pindar, listed on p. χ of the first volume of the latest version of the Teubner text ('post Brunonem Snell edidit Hervicus Maehler', Leipzig 1987; ii, 'edidit Hervicus Maehler', Leipzig 1989); also to the editions by C. W. Ahlwardt (Leipzig 1820), A. Negris (Edinburgh 1835) and O. Höman (Leipzig 1876) and the edition of the Nemean and Isthmian odes by C. A. M. Fennell (Cambridge 1883, 2 1899). In the commentary on N. 6, 'Hermann" refers to the notes of G. Hermann in Heyne's 1798 edition, 'Hermann 2 ' to those in Heyne's 1817 edition, and 'Hermann 3 ' to his separate edition of the ode, first published in 1844 (Opuscula viii, Leipzig 1877, 68-75). 'Schroeder' refers to Otto Schroeder's large edition of 1900 with the 1923 appendix. References to the scholia vetera are accompanied by Drachmann's page and line; the volume number is omitted in the case of references to scholia to the Nemeans in volume iii. Classical authors and texts are generally abbreviated as in LSJ and its Revised Supplement and the Oxford Latin Dictionary, journals as in L'Annie Philologique. For fragmentary works, I have used the standard editions: for Pindar and Bacchylides, Snell-Maehler; for Sappho and Alcaeus, Voigt; for other lyric poets, Page and Davies; for elegy and iambus, West; for Hesiod, Merkelbach-West; for early epic, Bernabe and Davies; for comedy, Kassel-Austin; for tragedy, TrGF\ for Callimachus, Pfeiffer; for Posidippus' epigrams, Austin-Bastianini; for Nicander, Schneider; for historians, Jacoby; for early mythographers, Fowler; for the Presocratics, Diels-Kranz. Abel Barrett, Dionysiaca

Bowra Buck-Petersen

Chantraine Denniston Diggle, Euripidea Diggle, Studies DNP

E. Abel (ed.), Scholia vetera in Pindari Nemea et Isthmia, Berlin 1884 W. S. Barrett, 'The Oligaithidai and their victories (Pindar, Olympian 13; SLG 339, 340)', in R. D. Dawe et al. (edd.), Dionysiaca: Nine Studies ... Presented to Sir Denys Page, Cambridge 1978, 1-20 C. M. Bowra, Pindar, Oxford 1964 C. D. Buck and W. Petersen, A Reverse Index of Greek Nouns and Adjectives, Chicago 1945 P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue grecque, Paris 1968-80 J. D. Denniston, The Greek Particles2, Oxford 1954 J. Diggle, Euripidea, Oxford 1994 J. Diggle, Studies on the Text of Euripides, Oxford 1981 H. Cancik and H. Schneider (edd.), Der neue Pauly, Stuttgart and Weimar 1996-2003

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χ

ABBREVIATIONS, ETC.

Drachmann, MP Fehling

Forssman Frankel, D. u. Ph. Friederichs Gygli-Wyss Headlam KB

KG LfgrE LGPN

LIMC LSAG LSJ

Maas, Resp.

Mezger Mommsen, Parerga Paley

A. B. Drachmann, Moderne Pindarfortolkning, Diss. Copenhagen 1891 D. Fehling, Die Wiederholungsfiguren und ihr Gebrauch bei den Griechen vor Gorgias, Berlin 1969 B. Forssman, Untersuchungen zur Sprache Pindars, Wiesbaden 1966 H. Frankel, Dichtung und Philosophie des frühen Griechentums2, Munich 1962 C. Friederichs, Pindarische Studien, Berlin 1863 B. Gygli-Wyss, Das nominale Polyptoton im älteren Griechisch, Göttingen 1966 W. Headlam, On Editing Aeschylus, London 1891 R. Kühner, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, 1. Teil besorgt von F. Blass, Hannover 1890-2 The same, 2. Teil besorgt von B. Gerth, Hannover 1898-1904 B. Snell et al. (edd.), Lexikon des frühgriechischen Epos, Göttingen 1955P. M. Fräser and E. Matthews (edd.), A Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, Oxford 1987Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, Zurich etc. 1981-99 L. H. Jeffery, The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece2, Oxford 1990 H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th edition revised by Sir Henry Stuart Jones, Oxford 1925-40. 'Rev. Suppl.' refers to the Revised Supplement, edited by P. G. W. Glare, Oxford 1996. P. Maas, Die neuen Responsionsfreiheiten bei Bakchylides und Pindar i and ii, Berlin 1914 and 1921 (= JPhV 39, 1913, 289-320 and 47, 1921, 13-31) F. Mezger, Pindars Siegeslieder erklärt, Leipzig 1880 T. Mommsen, Parerga Pindarica, Progr. Frankfurt 1877 F. A. Paley (tr.), The Odes of Pindar, London and Edinburgh 1868

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ABBREVIATIONS, ETC. Passow-Crönert

RE

Risch, Kl. Sehr. Robert Roscher

Schmid, GGL

Schulze, Kl. Sehr Schwyzer(-Debrunner)

SGO

Slater Snell, 'Metrorum conspectus' Threatte Thummer Vanschoonwinkel

Verdenius,

Comm.

Von der Mühll, Kl.

Sehr.

Wächter Wackernagel, Kl. Sehr. West, Aeschyli

tragoediae

XI

Passow's Wörterbuch der griechischen Sprache, bearbeitet von W. Crönert, Göttingen 1912-14 G. Wissowa et al. (edd.), Paulys RealEncyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Stuttgart etc. 1893-1980 E. Risch, Kleine Schriften, Berlin and New York 1981 C. Robert, Die griechische Heldensage, Berlin 1920-6 W. H. Roscher (ed.), Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, Leipzig and Berlin 1884-1937 W. Schmid, Geschichte der griechischen Literatur (with Ο. Stählin), i.l, Munich 1929 W. Schulze, Kleine Schriften2, Göttingen 1966 E. Schwyzer, Griechische Grammatik i, Munich 1939; ii, vervollständigt u. hrsg. von A. Debrunner, Munich 1950 R. Merkelbach and J. Stauber (edd.), Steinepigramme aus dem griechischen Osten i, Stuttgart and Leipzig 1998; ii-, Munich and Leipzig 2001W. J. Slater, Lexicon to Pindar, Berlin 1969 Β. Snell, 'Metrorum conspectus', in the Teubner edition of Pindar (as above), ii.178-88 (cited by section number) L. Threatte, The Grammar of Attic Inscriptions, Berlin and New York 1980-96 E. Thummer, Pindar, die isthmischen Gedichte, Heidelberg 1968-9 J. Vanschoonwinkel, L'Egee et la Mediterranee orientate ά la fin du deuxieme millenaire, Louvain-la-Neuve 1991 W. J. Verdenius, Commentaries on Pindar CMnem. Suppl. 97 and 101), Leiden 1987-8 P. Von der Mühll, Ausgewählte kleine Schriften, Basel 1976 R. Wächter, Non-Attic Greek Vase Inscriptions, Oxford 2001 J. Wackernagel, Kleine Schriften, Göttingen 1953-79 M. L. West (ed.), Aeschyli tragoediae, Stuttgart 1990

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XII

ABBREVIATIONS, ETC.

West, Catalogue West, West, West, West,

East Face GM Studies in Aesch. Studies in El. & /.

Wilamowitz Young

id., The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, Oxford 1985 id., The East Face of Helicon, Oxford 1997 id., Greek Metre, Oxford 1982 id., Studies in Aeschylus, Stuttgart 1990 id., Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus, Berlin and New York 1974 U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Pindaros, Berlin 1922 Douglas Young, 'Some types of scribal error in manuscripts of Pindar', GRBS 6, 1965, 247-73 = W. M. Calder III and J. Stern (edd.), Pindaros und Bakchylides (Wege der Forschung 134), Darmstadt 1970,96-126

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ΝΕΜΕΑ IV I.

5

II. 10

15

III.

20

"ApicToc εΰφροούνα πόνων κεκριμένων ΐατρότ, αϊ δέ Γοφαί Moicav θύγατρεο άοιδαί θέλξάν νιν άπτόμεναι · ούδέ θερμόν ΰδωρ xocov γε μαλθακά τεύχει γυΐα xoccov ευλογία φόρμιγγι ουνάοροο. ρήμα δ' έργμάτων χρονιώτερον βιοτεύει, ö τι κε ).204-7 οΰτε γαρ αίέν όμώο θεοί θέοαν αθάνατοι κατ' αίαν Ιράν I νεΐκοο εμπεδον βροτοΐοιν I οΰδέ γα μάν φιλότατ', and perhaps at Pi. P. 7.19 and /. 3.18b (Denniston 348). έ π ι κ ώ μ κ κ ΰμνοο: see Ν. 6.32 n.

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90

ΝEM ΕΑΝ $

51. καΐ πρίν γενέοθαι τάν Άδράοτου τάν τε Καδμείων εριν: i. e. before the institution of the Nemean games. These were founded according to legend during the expedition of the Seven against Thebes as funeral games for Archemorus, killed by a snake at Nemea. The story is told by Bacchylides at 9.10-20. See in general M.-C. Doffey, 'Les mythes de fondation des Concours Nemeens', in M. Pierart (ed.), Polydipsion Argos (BCH Suppl. 22), Paris 1992, 185-93. Καδμείων: the normal poetic word for Θηβαίοι (Hutchinson on A. Sept. 1), also at P. 9.83, N. 1.51 (both in legendary contexts), 4.21 (contemporary); cf. /. 1.11 Κάδμου οτρατωι (the contemporary Thebans).

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ΝΕΜΕ AN 10 Occasion The performance took place during a celebration of the Argive festival of Hera (22f.), and in the latter part of an Olympiad, following the Great Panathenaea, at which Theaeus' most recent victory was obtained (33 n.). It is not clear to which Olympiad it is to be assigned: the argument of Wilamowitz (426) that, as Theaeus was from a Tirynthian family, the ode must have been composed after the fall of Tiryns, rests on a doubtful premiss (41 f. n.)· Further references on this question are given by Bowra 411; M. Cannata Fera, in P. Angeli Bernardini (ed.), La cittä di Argo, Rome 2004, 97-9. Composition of the Ode The main divisions of the material fall at triad-ends, a fairly unusual arrangement: odes comparable in varying degrees are O. 7, 13, P. 8, N. 8 (Christ 97). Pindar begins by calling on the Graces to celebrate Argos (If.), a catalogue of whose mythical glories fills the remainder of the first triad. He then announces and justifies a change of subject: the victories of Theaeus form his new theme, which again fills a triad. An implicit prayer to Zeus for Olympic victory is included (29f.). Commemoration of Theaeus' own victories leads naturally to mention of those of his mother's family (third strophe and antistrophe). All owe their success to the favour of the Dioscuri, who once visited their ancestor Pamphaes (third epode). Pindar goes on to explain that the Dioscuri spend alternate days in heaven and beneath the earth at Therapne: Polydeuces chose to share his immortality with his brother in this way rather than to let him die of the wound which Idas had inflicted, angry about cattle (fourth strophe). There follows a narration in sequence of the events of the battle in question (fourth antistrophe and epode), and then a long account of Polydeuces' choice, including speeches of Polydeuces himself and Zeus (fifth triad). The location of the myth at the end of the ode is exceptional, being paralleled only in O. 4, P. 9 and Ν. 1 (cf. Drachmann, MP 205-7). In P. 9, it is implied that the story of Alexidamus, an ancestor of the victor, is included following a special request (103-5), and it seems reasonable to suppose that Theaeus had in a similar way asked for a myth concerning the Dioscuri, whose connection with his family is mentioned at 49-51. In each case, the final myth is balanced by mythical glories of the victor's homeland at or near the start of the ode (in N. 10 a catalogue, in P. 9 the myth of Cyrene; cf. for this pattern the introduction to N. 8). The final myth of O. 4 is rather different, being merely a brief (one stanza) illustration of the gnome at line 18. In the case of Ν. 1, on the other hand, the same explanation for the inclusion of the final myth may perhaps apply as in P. 9

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92

ΝEMΕΑΝ 10

and Ν. 10, though there is no connection with the victor's family that could have prompted a request.40 Metre STR.

1 2 3 4 5

6 EP. 1 2 3 4 5 6

ο ν, ~ e-D II e-D-D II e-D II e-D-ell e-D~D\\ e-e-e e