The Homeric hymns : interpretative essays

T H E HO M E R I C H Y M N S

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The Homeric Hymns Interpretative Essays

Edited by ANDREW FAULKNER

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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York # Oxford University Press 2011 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by MPG Books Group, Bodmin and King’s Lynn ISBN 978–0–19–958903–6 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Preface The Homeric Hymns have by no means been ignored in scholarship in the past century, but a collection of interpretative essays, which treats each of the long narrative Hymns individually and also gives attention to the corpus as a whole, is a desideratum (as expressed to me by several colleagues) that has until now never been realized. I decided to pursue this project in earnest during a short sojourn in Lyon, France, in June of 2008, after much stimulating conversation with the participants in a conference on Greek hymns organized by Richard Bouchon, Pascale Brillet-Dubois, and Nadine Le MeurWeissman. This confirmed in my mind the timeliness of the present volume, whose contents reflect a wealth of important scholarship on the Homeric Hymns in the past twenty-five years and give voice to the extremely valuable work currently being undertaken on these poems. I am of course enormously grateful to all of the contributors, who have supported this volume from the time I first wrote to suggest it in the summer of 2008 and generously agreed to write original essays expressly for inclusion here. Throughout the past two years, they have all patiently dealt with my requests and queries, and delivered work to me in a timely fashion despite extremely busy schedules. I have learned a great deal from them all. I owe particular thanks to a number of individuals. Nicholas Richardson, who has taught me an incalculable amount about the Hymns (and much else as well) since I went to Oxford in 2001 to begin my doctoral studies under his supervision, kindly read my introduction and essay on reception and offered many valuable comments and criticisms. William Furley and Oliver Thomas also read my essay with care and offered insightful suggestions for improvement. Athanassios Vergados, Cecelia Nobili, and Ivana Petrovic kindly shared with me work either forthcoming or in progress. Megan Campbell gave me useful feedback on aspects of the introduction and Andrea Barrales-Hall efficiently double-checked references. I am indebted to Joy Mellor, whose keen eye as a copyeditor saved me from a number of errors. I would also like to thank my colleagues at the University of Waterloo for their indefatigable encouragement; of these, Craig Hardiman kindly advised me on several matters of art history. As ever, I am grateful for the support

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and patience of my wife Kate Timmers, who deserves a laudatory hymn of her own. Finally, I would like to thank the Delegates of Oxford University Press for undertaking to publish this book and all those at the Press who have helped to see it to completion, in particular Hilary O’Shea, Dorothy McCarthy, Jenny Wagstaffe, Emma Barber, and Kathleen Fearn; the anonymous referees for the Press also offered much helpful advice and encouragement. The illustrations of the Exekias Cup and François Vase are reproduced by permission of the Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek in Munich and Nimatallah / Art Resource in New York respectively; I am indebted in particular to Dr Annette Hojer, Ms Irene Bösel, Dr Gerhard Gruitrooy, and Ms Tricia Smith for their help. The contributions of Dominique Jaillard (Ch. 7) and Claude Calame (Ch. 14) were translated by me from the original French in which they were submitted. The authors have confirmed the accuracy of the translations, but any deficiencies in the English style of these chapters must be attributed to me. A.F. Waterloo, Canada June 2010

Contents List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors List of Abbreviations

ix xi xiii

1. Introduction. Modern Scholarship on the Homeric Hymns: Foundational Issues Andrew Faulkner

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PART I 2. The First Homeric Hymn to Dionysus Martin West 3. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter: Some Central Questions Revisited Nicholas Richardson

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4. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo: The Question of Unity Mike Chappell

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5. The Homeric Hymn to Hermes: Humour and Epiphany Athanassios Vergados

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6. An Erotic Aristeia: The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite and its Relation to the Iliadic Tradition Pascale Brillet-Dubois

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7. The Seventh Homeric Hymn to Dionysus: An Epiphanic Sketch Dominique Jaillard

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8. The Homeric Hymn to Pan Oliver Thomas

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PART II 9. The Collection of Homeric Hymns: From the Seventh to the Third Centuries bc Andrew Faulkner

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10. Homeric and Un-Homeric Hexameter Hymns: A Question of Type William D. Furley 11. The Homeric Hymns as Genre Jenny Clay

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12. Children of Zeus in the Homeric Hymns: Generational Succession Nancy Felson

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13. The Earliest Phases in the Reception of the Homeric Hymns Gregory Nagy

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14. The Homeric Hymns as Poetic Offerings: Musical and Ritual Relationships with the Gods Claude Calame

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Works Cited Index Locorum General Index

359 383 397

List of Illustrations Fig. 1. François Vase, by Kleitias. By Permission of Nimatallah/Art Resource, New York Fig. 2. Dionysus Cup, by Exekias. By Permission of Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München

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Notes on Contributors Pascale Brillet-Dubois is Maître de conférences in Greek language and literature at the Université Lumière Lyon 2, France. Claude Calame is Professor of Greek at the Université de Lausanne and Directeur d’études at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, France. Mike Chappell is Lecturer in the Open University in London, England. Jenny Clay is William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Classics at the University of Virginia, USA. Andrew Faulkner is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Nancy Felson is Emerita Professor of Classics at the University of Georgia, USA. William Furley is Apl. Professor in the Seminar für Klassische Philologie, Universität Heidelberg, Germany and Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Classical Studies, London, England. Dominique Jaillard is Maître d’enseignement et de recherche at the Université de Lausanne, Switzerland. Gregory Nagy is Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University and Director of the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington, USA. Nicholas Richardson is Emeritus Fellow of Merton College, Oxford and former Warden of Greyfriars, Oxford, England. Oliver Thomas is Christopher Tower Junior Research Fellow in Greek Mythology at Christ Church, Oxford, England.

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Athanassios Vergados is Lecturer at the University of Athens, Greece. Martin West is Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, England.

List of Abbreviations ABV

J. D. Beazley, Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters (Oxford, 1956).

AHS

T. W. Allen, W. R. Halliday, and E. E. Sikes, The Homeric Hymns (Oxford, 1936).

Allen

Homeri Opera 5, ed. T. W. Allen (Oxford, 1912).

AS

T. W. Allen and E. E. Sikes, The Homeric Hymns (Oxford, 1904).

Bernabé

Poetae Epici Graeci, ed. A. Bernabé (2nd edn.; Leipzig, 1996– 2007).

CA

Collectanea Alexandrina, ed. J. U. Powell (Oxford, 1925).

Campbell

D. A. Campbell, Greek Lyric III: Stesichorus, Ibycus, Simonides, and Others (Loeb Edition, Cambridge, Mass., 1991).

Càssola

F. Càssola, Inni omerici (Milan, 1975).

DELG

P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque: histoire des mots, revised edition (J. Taillardat, O. Masson, and J.-L. Perpillou, eds.), with a supplement ‘Chronique d’étymologie grecque 1–10’ by A. Blanc, Ch. de Lamberterie, and Jean-Louis Perpillou (Paris, 2009).

DK

Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, ed. H. Diels and W. Kranz (6th edn.; Berlin, 1952).

Dr

Scholia in Pindarum, ed. A. B. Drachmann, 3 vols. (Lepizig, 1903–27).

E.-K.

Posidonius: the Fragments, ed. L. Edelstein and I. G. Kidd, vol. 1 (2nd edn.; Cambridge, 1989).

Erbse

H. Erbse, Untersuchungen zu den attizistischen Lexika (Berlin, 1950).

Farnell

L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, 5 vols. (Oxford, 1896–1909).

FGrH

Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, ed. F. Jacoby (Berlin/ Leiden, 1923–58).

Foerster

Libanii Opera, ed. R. Foerster, 12 vols. (Leipzig, 1903–27).

IEG

Iambi et Elegi Graeci (ed. altera), ed. M. L. West, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1989–92).

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List of Abbreviations 2

IG II

Inscriptiones Graecae: Inscriptiones Atticae Euclidis anno posteriores (2nd edn.; Berlin, 1913–40).

Keil

Aelii Aristidis Smyrnaei quae supersunt omnia, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1898).

LfgrE

Lexikon des frühgriechischen Epos, ed. B. Snell et al. (Göttingen, 1955–2010).

LIMC

Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, 8 vols. (Zurich and Munich, 1981–99).

Lobel-Page

Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta, ed. E. Lobel and D. L. Page (Oxford, 1955).

LSJ

H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, H. Stuart Jones, R. McKenzie, and P. G. W. Glare, Greek–English Lexicon, with a Revised Supplement (9th edn.; Oxford, 1996).

M–W

Fragmenta Hesiodea, ed. R. Merkelbach and M. L. West (Oxford, 1967).

OC

A. Heubeck, S. West, A. Hoekstra, J. B. Hainsworth, J. Russo, and M. Fernández-Galiano, A Commentary on Homer’s Odyssey, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1988–92).

OLD

Oxford Latin Dictionary, ed. P. G. W. Glare (Oxford, 1982).

PCG

Poetae Comici Graeci, ed. R. Kassel and C. Austin (Berlin, 1983– ).

Pertusi

Scholia Vetera in Hesiodi Opera et Dies, ed. A. Pertusi (Milan, 1955).

Pf.

Callimachus, ed. R. Pfeiffer (Oxford, 1949–53).

PMG

Poetae Melici Graeci, ed. D. L. Page (Oxford, 1962).

PW

H. W. Parke and D. E. W. Wormell, The Delphic Oracle, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1956).

Rose

Aristotelis qui ferebantur librorum fragmenta, ed. V. Rose (3rd edn.; Leipzig, 1886).

Schober

A. Schober, ‘Philodemi De Pietate pars prior’ (CronErc 18: 67–125. 1988).

SEG

Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, ed. J. J. E. Hondius et al. (Leiden, 1923–75; Amsterdam, 1978–2006; Leiden, 2007–).

Semitelos

—Øæı åºØÆ —Æ ØÆŒ, ed. D. Semitelos (Athens, 1875).

SH

Supplementum Hellenisticum, ed. H. Lloyd-Jones and P. Parsons (Berlin, 1983).

SLG

Supplementum Lyricis Graecis, ed. D. Page (Oxford, 1974).

List of Abbreviations

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SM

Bacchylidis Carmina cum Fragmentis, ed. B. Snell and H. Maehler (Leipzig, 1992).

SnM

Pindari Carmina cum Fragmentis, ed. B. Snell and H. Maehler (Leipzig, 1987–9).

TrGF

Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, Göttingen, ed. B. Snell, R. Kanicht, and S. Radt, 5 vols. (Göttingen, 1971–2004).

Vian

F. Vian and E. Delage, Apollonios de Rhodes, 3 vols. (Paris, 1974–96).

West

M. L. West, Greek Epic Fragments (Loeb Edition, Cambridge, Mass., 2003).

WL

M. L. West, The Homeric Hymns, Homeric Apocrypha, Lives of Homer (Loeb Edition, Cambridge, Mass., 2003).

Abbreviations of ancient authors and their works are for the most part those of LSJ and OLD. The Homeric Hymns are abbreviated as Dionysus (1), Demeter (2), Apollo (3), Hermes (4), Aphrodite (5), and then Hymn(s) with numbers 6–33; or Dion., Dem., Apoll., Herm., Aphr., and then Hy(s). Journal titles are abbreviated as in L’Année philologique. The spelling of ancient Greek names does not follow one system; where common Latinate forms exist, these have been used, but transliterated Greek forms are also employed in many instances. The choice between bc/ad and bce/ce varies according to preference of the individual author.

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1 Introduction Modern Scholarship on the Homeric Hymns: Foundational Issues Andrew Faulkner

1. BEGINNINGS TO THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY The Homeric Hymns are a collection of thirty-three hexameter hymns, in antiquity often attributed to Homer but in fact of varied authorship, provenance, and date.1 Many of the poems are short celebrations of a god’s or goddess’s powers and attributes, ranging from three to twenty-two lines, but a few (2–5, 7, 19) contain extended narrative sections that recount the birth of a deity or an important event in his or her life and stretch from forty-nine (19, to Pan) to almost six hundred lines (4, to Hermes) in length. Modern scholarship on the Hymns has its origins in the fifteenth century, when in 1488 Demetrius Chalcondyles published the first printed edition of the Hymns in Florence along with the Iliad and Odyssey. In establishing his text, Chalcondyles compared manuscript readings critically and often demonstrated admirable editorial skill.2 This 1

For more on the formation of the collection, see in this volume Faulkner (pp. 175–81). 2 This edition seems to have been based upon a manuscript of the f family (probably D), with use made also of a manuscript of the x family (possibly L) as well as one of the p family. Chalcondyles also appears to have introduced a number of his own conjectures. See further Allen (1895a), 154–60, Càssola 612–13.

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edition included what are now numbered Hymns 3–33 in the collection, incorporating the long narrative poems to Apollo (3), Hermes (4), and Aphrodite (5). Subsequent scholars gave critical attention to the language of this corpus in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the most significant study being that of the French scholar Bernard Martin.3 The next major advance, however, in the study of the Hymns came in the eighteenth century. The British scholar Joshua Barnes published an edition of the Hymns in 1711, but the most important step forward came in the second half of the century when the Dutch scholar David Ruhnken turned his critical attention to the texts and undertook a systematic comparison of manuscript readings.4 A significant stimulus for Ruhnken’s work on the Hymns came in the late eighteenth century with the uncovering of the famous manuscript M in Moscow in 1777 by C. F. Matthaei, who subsequently sold the codex to Leiden. This manuscript, whose first thirty folia are missing, contains at its outset the final twelve lines of what is now known as the first Hymn to Dionysus, another Hymn that originally contained an extended narrative in its middle section, and a largely intact text of the second long Hymn to Demeter, which is followed by Hymns 3–28. 4.5 Apart from a few more recent papyrus finds and ancient testimonia, M remains the sole surviving witness of the first two Hymns.6 Following the rediscovery of these poems, there was a flourish of scholarship on the Hymns at the turn of the nineteenth century, as complete editions together with critical commentaries appeared in quick succession.7 Apart from matters of textual criticism and language, studies of this period gave attention to broader questions such as the authorship and performance of the Hymns, as well as the structure and unity of the longer narrative poems, and many of these early views have remained influential to the present day.

3 Martin (1605). For more extensive surveys of early modern editions and philological work on the Hymns before the twentieth century, see AHS cx–cxv, Càssola 612–23. The first Latin translation of the Hymns was produced by Georgius Dartona in the sixteenth century. 4 Barnes (1711), Ruhnken (1782). The latter compared manuscripts B, C, and M; see Càssola 619. 5 On the M manuscript, see Gelzer (1994). 6 On the text of Dion. see West (2001a), and Ch. 2 in this volume. P. Oxy. 2379 and P. Berol. 13044 contain fragments of Dem.; see Richardson (1974), 66–7. 7 Note in particular Ilgen (1796), Matthiae (1805), Hermann (1806), Wolf (1807).

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F. A. Wolf ’s arguments, for example, on the proemial function of the Hymns are still widely accepted,8 while Ruhnken’s suggestion that the Hymn to Apollo might be composed of originally separate parts paved the way for separatist views of that poem, which became dominant in the nineteenth century in accordance with the broader popularity at that time of analytical readings of Homer.9 The nineteenth century saw a great deal more work completed on the manuscript tradition of the Hymns and the establishment of the text. Subsequent to an important edition of the corpus by A. Baumeister in 1860, which took into account manuscripts of the ¨ family for the first time since Chalcondyles in the fifteenth century, there appeared in 1886 editions of the Hymns by both E. Abel and A. Gemoll, who considered readings of a number of new manuscripts of the p family, as well as a study of the manuscript transmission by H. Hollander.10 Then at the end of the century, following his editorial role in the posthumous publication of A. Goodwin’s Oxford edition, T. W. Allen published a series of important articles on the text of the Hymns, work which would lead to the publication of his Oxford edition with commentary together with E. J. Sikes in the first years of the twentieth century.11 This work, which was substantially revised in 1936 with the collaboration of W. R. Halliday, as well as Allen’s Oxford Classical Text, provided the foundation for much of twentieth-century scholarship on the Hymns and met no equal until the edition and commentary of Càssola in 1975.12

2. ORAL POETICS Starting in the early twentieth century, the study of Homeric poetry began to undergo a transformation due to an increased appreciation of the role played by oral composition in the development of early 8

See below pp. 17–19. On the still debated question of Apoll.’s unity, see Chappell in this volume (Ch. 4). 10 Baumeister (1860), Gemoll (1886), Abel (1886), Hollander (1886). 11 Goodwin (1893), Allen (1895a, b; 1897a, b; 1898), AS (1904). Allen was also largely responsible for the text of the Hymns in Monro (1896). 12 Allen (1912), AHS (1936), Càssola. Also of note is the Budé edition of Humbert (1936). 9

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Greek hexameter poetry. As is well known to anyone who has worked on Homer, this critical shift was inspired largely by the work of Milman Parry in the 1920s and 1930s, who demonstrated the formulaic, traditionally oral quality of Homeric poetry on the levels of both versification and theme.13 The formulaic nature of early hexameter poetry was for Parry a sign not just of development from an oral tradition, but of oral composition in performance by Homer, a fact which he and Albert Lord sought to demonstrate through their groundbreaking comparisons with South Slavic epic and other oral poetic traditions.14 This view naturally had implications also for the Homeric Hymns. Parry himself was aware of the comparative evidence of the Hymns and the Epic Cycle for the formularism of the Homeric epics, but did not make extensive use of them for the reason that ‘these poems and hymns belong to different periods and clearly do not all follow the tradition with equal fidelity.’15 Others, however, have subsequently argued that some of the Homeric Hymns are oral compositions because of their employment of formular language and style.16 This is possible, but the view that the Hymns are entirely oral compositions has not gone unchallenged.17 In a first instance, it is ultimately impossible to prove from their language that the Hymns, in much the same form as we have received them, were entirely oral compositions: poets who made use of writing might well have imitated traditional formulaic diction, such that the quantity and quality of formulae in a given composition are no sure indicator of oral composition, only congruity with oral composition.18 This is true even of the Homeric epics themselves, which, although clearly the product of a poet or poets steeped in the tradition of oral composition and performance, will have reached the fixed form in which we have them through the process of being written down.19 One theory is 13 His writings are collected in Parry (1971). For a more detailed overview of scholarship on Homer and oral poetics, see Foley (1997). 14 See in particular Lord (1960). 15 Parry (1971), 4. 16 See e.g. Notopoulos (1962), Preziosi (1966), Pavese (1972); cf. Postlethwaite (1979). 17 Kirk (1966) rejected Notopoulos’ method for determining orality in the Hymns on the grounds that quantity of formulae is not in itself a sign of orality. Kirk’s more subjective analysis is in turn rejected by Lord (1968). 18 See Janko (1982), 18–19, 40–1; cf. Richardson (1974), 31, Clay (1997), 491–2. 19 See West (2001b), 3–4. For a defence of the intermediate position that the Homeric epics are ‘oral-derived traditional texts’, see Foley (1997), 163–4.

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that the poems are oral dictated texts recorded by a scribe during oral performance,20 but the poet or poets of the Homeric epics might alternatively have taken a more active role in the writing of the poems over an extended period of years, a process involving changes to the written text as it evolved.21 Scholars since the time of Parry have also recognized that it is reductive to distinguish sharply between oral and literate composition, when various intermediate stages between a creative oral tradition and literate composition can be imagined.22 Literate and oral traditions can coexist,23 but one must assume that writing a poem down will inherently promote its fixity, while continued creative oral composition will further its multiformity. The demonstrable uniformity of a poem in contrast to its multiformity, the latter a sign of continued creative oral composition, therefore has wide implications for how one treats its transmission at different points in antiquity. In the case of the Homeric epics, opinions continue to differ concerning the extent to which genuinely creative oral composition persisted in effecting distinctly variant forms of the Iliad and Odyssey. On the one hand, it is maintained that a gradual process of fixing the Homeric epics continued down to the second century BC, until which point oral performance produced multiforms of the Iliad and Odyssey, which are reflected in the variants of the textual tradition.24 On the other hand, it is argued that the Homeric epics seem to have been largely fixed by the end of the seventh century BC, or at latest the mid-sixth century BC: in comparison to oral epics of other cultures such as the Chanson de Roland, whose manuscript tradition preserves alternate versions that vary by thousands of lines, the evidence for variation in the tradition of the Iliad and Odyssey is minimal, for the most part restricted to occasional additional lines and small verbal changes of little narrative import.25 On this view, the continuous tradition of oral performance of Homer in the Classical

20

See Janko (1998); as he points out (7), this would not preclude premeditation. See West (2000), contra the theory of oral dictated texts. 22 See Richardson (1974), 337–8, Janko (1982), 41, Foley (1997), 162–4. Lord (1995), 212–37 himself later accepted an overlap between written and oral compositions. 23 See e.g. Thomas (1992). 24 See Nagy (1996a), esp. 107–206, with earlier bibliography. He posits five successive stages, ‘showing progressively less fluidity and more rigidity’ (109–10). 25 See Finkelberg (2000), who provides an excellent overview of this debate with earlier bibliography. On the Doloneia as the one major interpolation in the Iliad, albeit part of the poem by the end of the seventh century BC, see West (2001b), 10–11. 21

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and Hellenistic periods still produced minor oral variants, as are visible in the manuscript tradition, but aimed at reproduction of the fixed poems rather than creative oral composition.26 The date at which one considers the Homeric epics to have been in essence fixed naturally affects how one treats the Homeric Hymns and other archaic hexameter poetry. Some, for example, insist that it is not possible to speak of direct imitation of the Homeric epics in the Hymns.27 One must certainly be cautious not to assume direct imitation at every turn, but if the Homeric epics were fixed by the seventh century BC or earlier and many of the Hymns as we have them seem to date to a period later than this, direct imitation of a fixed poem is a distinct possibility with which one must reckon. As for the fixity of the Homeric Hymns themselves, approaches continue to diverge along similar lines. One might not expect the Hymns to have been as readily fixed as the Homeric epics. It has been shown, for example, that the tradition of the Cypria, a poem of the Epic Cycle which deals with the beginning of the Trojan War, displays greater multiformity than the Homeric epics,28 a reminder that the Iliad and Odyssey held a special place in the tradition. Earlier versions of hexameter hymns similar to our Hymns are perhaps reflected in the corpus of hymns by the Lesbian poet Alcaeus at the turn of the sixth century BC,29 and Neoanalysis can potentially identify the interaction of the narratives recounted in the Hymns with the Homeric epics at earlier stages of the oral tradition.30 At the same time, there is evidence that several of the longer Hymns became fixed by relatively early dates, and it seems reasonable to consider the possibility of direct imitation of the Hymns as fixed poems, even amongst the Hymns themselves, from the seventh century onward.31 Another important consideration in the case of the Hymns is that they cannot 26

See Pelliccia (2003). See recently the review of my commentary on Aphr. by Bartol (2010), 289–90: ‘his thinking of these poetic products in terms of interrelations between fixed texts is very difficult to sustain with reference to oral culture’. 28 See Finkelberg (2000), 6–11. 29 See West (2002a), 216–17, and in this volume (pp. 39–40); cf. Faulkner (pp. 200–1). 30 See in this volume Brillet-Dubois (Ch. 6). West (Ch. 2) argues for the influence of Dion. itself on Homer, dating the Hymn possibly to 650 BC. 31 For two different, but not mutually exclusive, approaches to the reception and transmission of the Hymns, which give different emphasis to their fluidity in the sixth and fifth centuries, see in this volume Faulkner (Ch. 9) and Nagy (Ch. 13). 27

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be treated as a unified body. As will be considered in the next section, their use of traditional epic language is not consistent, and it is clear that some of the poems in the collection date to the fifth century BC or later.

3. DATING AND LANGUAGE The Homeric Hymns have often been assumed to be later compositions than both the Iliad and Odyssey and the Hesiodic Theogony and Works and Days. In many instances, this is clearly the case, but one must nonetheless be cautious not to assume a priori that the Hymns are post-Homeric and/or post-Hesiodic. Despite some internal markers that help to establish the dates of the poems, a chief method for determining the relative dates of the Hymns has been linguistic comparison. Several important investigations of the Hymns’ language undertaken in the past fifty years have in this way attempted to date the poems in relation to other early hexameter poetry. The modification of traditional formulae in the Hymns was notably linked to established linguistic developments by Hoekstra, who demonstrated on these grounds that the language of Demeter, Apollo, and Aphrodite is at a more advanced stage of the formulaic epic tradition than the Iliad and Odyssey, a sign for him also of the poems’ chronological relationship.32 But the most detailed and inclusive study of language is that of Janko,33 who provides a thorough statistical analysis of a wide range of linguistic criteria, including the use of digamma and nu-mobile, as well as a number of alternative older and younger morphs (such as the older o-stem genitive -Ø in comparison to the more advanced contracted form -ı) in the Homeric epics, the Hesiodic corpus, and the Hymns; his statistical results are combined with careful evaluation of parallel passages, instances of modification, and other evidence for dating in each of the long Hymns. Just as for Hoekstra, his findings place all of the long Hymns later than the 32 Hoekstra (1969), who excludes Herm. His very useful study was unfortunately accompanied by the view that increased modification of formulae indicated inferiority. 33 Janko (1982), who provides (7–16) an excellent review of earlier linguistic studies and attempts at dating. This remains a widely consulted and indispensable tool for the study of the Hymns.

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Homeric epics, which he dates to the second half of the eighth century. Also, with the exception of Aphrodite and the Delian section of Apollo, which he cautiously suggests are contemporary with Hesiod in the first half of the seventh century, Janko dates the long Hymns later than the Theogony and Works and Days. Not everyone, however, has agreed that linguistic criteria are an accurate means of dating early hexameter poetry. Prior to Janko, the supposed oral composition of the Hymns led Notopoulos to reject comparison of linguistic criteria altogether as a tool for dating.34 Few will agree with excluding linguistic criteria as a means of dating to the extent that he proposes, but some of his cautions against such an approach are nonetheless salutary and reflected in later scholarship. Pavese subsequently argued that differences in language can be explained by geographical and stylistic variation rather than chronological disparity, as part of his contention that there existed distinct mainland and Ionic traditions of early Greek poetry.35 Janko, whose study in part responds to Pavese, is well aware of the possibility that geographical and stylistic factors may have played a role. He considers regional variation while refuting Pavese’s more extreme divisions, but argues strongly that linguistic criteria are determinants of date. Yet, more recently, arguments have again been made against the chronological significance of linguistic criteria: ‘the major determinant of the quantity of younger forms in a given poet is the extent to which his language diverges from the formulaic, and this depends on many other factors apart from his date.’36 In the end, it is impossible to draw firm conclusions on this issue, but one might reasonably accept linguistic criteria as a valuable tool for evaluating the Hymns’ place in the tradition, without assuming that they provide absolute indicators of relative date. Below is a brief survey of the evidence for dating the individual long Hymns, as well as some of the mid-length and shorter Hymns in the collection for which it is possible to say something about date. When considering the relative dating of the Hymns, one must keep in mind that the dates given to Homer and Hesiod are themselves uncertain. The Homeric epics have traditionally been dated to the 34

Notopoulos (1962), 362–5. Pavese (1972), 111–65. 36 West (1995), 204–5, who, contra Janko, places Hesiod before Homer; see next paragraph. 35

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second half of the eighth century, prior to Hesiod. In the Works and Days, Hesiod claims to have taken part in the funeral games of Amphidamas, where he may have performed the Theogony,37 and Amphidamas is said by later sources to have been killed in the Lelantine war. The date of this war is uncertain but it will have taken place sometime in the late eighth or early seventh centuries; this, combined with possible cases of imitatio of Hesiod by early lyric poets, dates Hesiod at a lower extreme to the first half of the seventh century.38 As regards Homer, West has alternatively maintained in recent years that the Iliad and Odyssey post-date Hesiod and therefore belong to the middle to second half of the seventh century.39 In making this claim, he refutes earlier attempts to show that Hesiod imitates passages in Homer, and rejects the conclusions of Janko’s comparative linguistic studies. This would push down the dates of several Hymns. However, it remains uncertain whether Homer should in fact be dated later than Hesiod and one must remain open to the possibility of an eighth century date for the Iliad and Odyssey.40 In turning to the dates of the Hymns, it should be emphasized from the outset that there is very little certainty in these matters, as is indicated by the variety of views presented below:

First Hymn to Dionysus The fragmentary nature of this poem, which will originally have extended to over 400 lines,41 makes dating particularly challenging. Comparison of linguistic criteria is invalidated by the paucity of data. However, it may possibly be one of the oldest Hymns in the collection. Based upon fragments A and D, Allen, Halliday, and Sikes remarked that, ‘[t]here is nothing either mythological or linguistic in the fragments of this hymn which suggests a late period.’ With the addition of fragment C (P. Oxy. 670), which recounts Hera’s binding by Hephaestus, West suggests in this volume that, while the myth 37

Op. 654–9. See West (1966), 44–5. See Janko (1982), 94–8, 228–31. 39 See in particular West (1966), 40–8, (1995), and (2003), 12 n. 56, for a list of other scholars in agreement with a seventh-century date. 40 For a recent defence of an eighth-century date for Homer, see Lane Fox (2008), 381–4. 41 See West (2001a), 1. 38

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could have existed earlier than our poem, the Hymn may itself have influenced the Iliad and therefore go back to 650 BC or earlier.42 Two points of vocabulary in fragment C (P. Oxy. 670) are otherwise not attested before the fourth century,43 although this is by no means a certain indication of a late date. Dihle, however, has argued that both it and the other fragments of the poem are Hellenistic.44

Hymn to Demeter This Hymn is in character the most Hesiodic of the corpus. It is probable that the poem draws directly upon the Theogony, as well as the Homeric epics.45 A terminus post quem also seems to be established by the Hymn to Aphrodite, with which the poem shares a number of parallels that together point to a direct relationship; the balance of the evidence suggesting that Demeter is secondary.46 If it is accepted that Demeter was influenced by these poems, the Hymn at the earliest belongs to the latter half of the seventh century. On the other end, a terminus ante quem of the mid-sixth century, the time when Athens took control of, or at least renewed interest in, the Mysteries at Eleusis, has reasonably been suggested on the grounds that Demeter does not mention Athens or show an interest in mythology that from this time onward became prominent in Attica.47 Not everyone agrees that this is a reliable criterion,48 but a date in the late seventh or early sixth century will not be far wrong.

42

See in this volume West (Ch. 2). See Faulkner (2010a). It is possible that P. Oxy. 670 is late and should not be assigned to Dion., even if the Hymn preserved in the Leiden manuscript was early and originally recounted the story of Hera’s binding. 44 Dihle (2002). 45 See Richardson (1974), 30–41, Janko (1982), 181–3. 46 See Richardson (1974), 42–3, Janko (1982), 163–5, Faulkner (2008), 38–40. 47 See Richardson (1974), 5–11. This assumes that the poem was composed for performance in Eleusis. 48 Clinton (1986) has argued that the lack of reference to Athens in the poem is an indication that the poet was not from Attica and unfamiliar with Eleusis; for criticism of this position, see Richardson in this volume (pp. 51–2). Foley (1994), 169–78, on the other hand suggests that the Panhellenic nature of the Hymn explains the poem’s silence concerning Athens. Neither of these, however, argues for a late date. 43

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Hymn to Apollo The dating of this poem is particularly contentious. The two sections of the Hymn, the Delian (1–181) and the Pythian (182–546), have often been considered originally separate compositions,49 and therefore given different dates. A majority has taken the Delian section to be older, and Janko argues on the basis of his linguistic analysis that this section should have a date roughly contemporary with Hesiod.50 Alternatively, West has maintained that the Pythian section is earlier and that the Delian part was modelled upon it in the sixth century.51 The Pythian section has been dated by some to the 580s BC because of Apollo’s prophecy in lines 540–3 that his priests will be ruled by others if they do not behave. This could refer post eventum to the First Sacred War (c.595–585 BC), which gave control of the Delphic oracle to the Amphictyonic league.52 Amongst the arguments for the Hymn’s original disunity is also a theory for its eventual unification in the second half of the sixth century. A scholium to Pindar’s second Nemean informs us that a Chian poet Cynaethus composed the Hymn to Apollo, and it has been suggested that this Cynaethus may be responsible for the combined Hymn, which he performed in 523/2 BC at the festival of Delian and Pythian Apollo celebrated on Delos by the Samian tyrant Polycrates.53 However, against a date in the late sixth century may be the fact that Thucydides (3. 104) speaks of the Delian section of the Hymn as unique evidence for poetic contests at the festival in the distant past, which were discontinued in his own time; but he has detailed knowledge of Peisistratus’ purification of Delos and Polycrates’ dedication of Rheneia to Delian Apollo, which could suggest that the discontinuation of poetic contests came earlier.54 49 Against Apollo’s original unity, see Chappell in this volume (Ch. 4). For arguments in favour of unity, see the next paragraph. 50 Janko (1982), 99–115. 51 West (1975), WL 10–12. 52 See Janko (1982), 119–21, 127–8, Richardson (2010), 13–15. 53 For more on this view, see in this volume esp. Chappell (pp. 71–3), Nagy (pp. 288–91), with bibliography. Some suggest that Cynaethus combined existing hymns, but West (WL 9–12) has argued that Cynaethus actually wrote the Delian hymn and then combined it with the Pythian hymn for Polycrates’ festival. He proposes that Cynaethus added the Hera–Typhaon section to the earlier Pythian hymn to please Polycrates, as Hera was an important deity on Samos. 54 See Richardson (2010), 14, also on the lack of any mention of the Pythia in the poem.

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It must also be emphasized that not all scholars agree that the Hymn is composed of two originally separate parts. Both Miller and Clay have argued for the Hymn’s original unity on the grounds of thematic coherence, and Clay’s arguments convinced Janko to change his mind and adopt a unitarian position in his review of her book.55 Clay also argues against the view that Apollo’s prophecy at 540–3 should be linked to the First Sacred War; in this case, the unified Hymn could go back to the first half of the seventh century, following Janko’s original dating of the Delian section.56 However, the Hymn’s description of the construction of Apollo’s magnificent stone temple at Delphi (285–99) might suggest a date after 650 BC, given that our current evidence suggests that the first stone temple at Delphi belonged to the second half of the seventh century.57 If one were alternatively to accept both unity and the link to the First Sacred War, the whole Hymn would date to the 580s. In the end, one can date Apollo with reasonable confidence between the first half of the seventh and the second half of the sixth century, but it is difficult to be more precise with any certainty. A date in the early to middle sixth century BC seems attractive; it may be noteworthy that knowledge of the myth recounted in Apollo is not reflected in Alcaeus’ hymn to Apollo, whereas narrative elements of Dionysus, Hermes, and Hymn 33 to the Dioscuri are echoed in his corpus of hymns.58 But much depends upon whether one views Apollo as an originally unified poem, and the weight given to the connection of Apollo’s prophecy in lines 540–3 to the First Sacred War.

Hymn to Hermes The poem is universally acknowledged to be the latest of the long Homeric Hymns and its language is certainly the least traditional;59 55 Miller (1979), (1986), Clay (1989), Janko (1991). The Hymn transmitted to us was at least intended to be received as a unity. 56 See Clay (1989), 87–92, Janko (1991), 13. AHS 184–6 date the poem to the late eighth century. 57 See Richardson (2010), 14. 58 See West (2002a), 216–17, and in this volume West (pp. 39–40), Faulkner (pp. 200–1). 59 See Janko (1982), 133–50.

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composition before the sixth century seems unlikely. Nonetheless, there is much debate about the poem’s precise date. A number of parallels strongly suggest the influence of the unified Apollo on Hermes.60 But as we have seen above, the date of this poem is fraught with uncertainties and therefore does not provide a secure terminus post quem. Görgemanns proposed that Hermes’ use of rhetoric, including argumentation based upon probability (265–73), and references to music as a technē ( åÅ) requiring ‘practice’ (æ  ; 447–8), are aligned with sophistic thought and could indicate a date in the fifth century.61 The difficulty with such criteria is the indeterminacy of how early these rhetorical techniques and ideas developed; their presence in the Hymn therefore does not exclude a date before the fifth century.62 Artistic evidence has also been used in favour of a date in the sixth century. The syrinx, which is invented by Hermes in lines 511–12, is transferred from Hermes to Pan in art after the turn of the sixth century, and the motif of Hermes as an infant cattle thief seems to have been particularly popular between c. 565 and 490 BC.63 One might not, however, wish to posit too strict a correspondence between art and literature.64 Finally, it has been suggested that Hermes’ reference to Apollo’s Delphic temple as an attractive and challenging mark for theft (177–81) might exclude the period c.548–505 BC, when the site is known to have been under construction;65 this is possible, although such an honorific formulation need not exclude contemporary upheaval. Ultimately, a late-sixth-century date for Hermes seems most attractive, but the Hymn could also belong to the first half of the fifth century. 60

See Richardson (2007), 89–91, (2010), 20–1, Thomas (2009), 289–94. Görgemanns (1976). On these and other arguments put forth for dating Herm. in the fifth century, see Janko (1982), 142, who himself prefers a late-sixth-century date. 62 See Richardson (2010), 21. Nobili (2008) argues for a date c.510–500 (she attempts to tie Herm. to Athens and suggests performance at the Panathenaea or symposion, in part on the grounds that Herm. privileges the themes of sacrifice, communal banqueting, and music. Performance in Athens is certainly possible, but the Hymn’s themes of sacrifice, communal banqueting, and music could apply to a number of performance contexts. On Herm.’s possible links to Olympia, see below pp. 21–2). Athanassios Vergados, who kindly showed me his commentary on Herm. in advance of publication, also argues that these concepts may have existed earlier and prefers a date in the second half of the sixth century. 63 See Nobili (2008), 184–9, Richardson (2010), 24. 64 See Thomas (2009), 28 contra this as a secure tool for dating. 65 Thomas (2009), 25. 61

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Hymn to Aphrodite Sometimes called the most Homeric of the Hymns, the Hymn to Aphrodite is one of the oldest in the collection. Aphrodite’s prophecy to Anchises (197–8) is very similar to Poseidon’s prophecy about the future of Aeneas’ race in the Iliad (20. 307–8), and the unique character of the passages makes a common formulaic source improbable. Reinhardt argued that the Hymn was in fact composed by the poet of the Iliad, but its language is almost certainly later than both of the Homeric epics, and is very probably also later than both the Theogony and the Works and Days.66 The prophecies nonetheless suggest a close link between the Iliad and the Hymn: both may have been intended to honour a family in the Troad who claimed descent from Aeneas, although this theory has not gone unchallenged.67 One cannot exclude a late eighth-century date, but assuming that the Hymn is later than both the Theogony and the Works and Days, it will most probably have been composed no earlier than the middle of the seventh century. As discussed above, a terminus ante quem is provided by Demeter, which itself seems to belong to the late seventh or early sixth century.

Hymn 7 to Dionysus and Hymn 19 to Pan The lack of tangible historical references or allusions in the seventh Hymn to Dionysus make it difficult to date this Hymn with any precision, although its language and straightforward style are consistent with a relatively early but post-Homeric date.68 Attempts have been made to link the mention of the Tyrsenian pirates (7–8) to the Etruscans and to locate the Hymn in late-seventh-century Corinth.69 However, such associations are at best reflected obliquely in the poem and one might rather emphasize the Panhellenic, temporally generic

66 Reinhardt (1956). On Aphr.’s relationship to Homer and Hesiod, see Faulkner (2008), 26–38. Janko (1982), 165–9 has alternatively suggested that the poem was composed between Hesiod’s Th. and Op. 67 See Faulkner (2008), 3–10. 68 See AHS 379–80, Janko (1982), 183–4. Càssola 287–8, who reviews earlier scholarship, concludes that the poem is undatable. 69 See recently Nobili (2009).

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nature of the narrative.70 The fact that the myth of Dionysus’ abduction is elsewhere first attested in Pindar (fr. 236) has suggested a date in the late sixth or early fifth century, which is perhaps also supported by the possible reflection of the myth on the Exekias cup of c.530,71 but one should not exclude the possibility of an earlier date. As for the nineteenth Hymn to Pan, which seems to have been influenced by Hermes, it is most probable that it does not date before c.500, on the grounds that the cult of Pan did not expand beyond Arcadia before this point.72 One cannot, however, rule out a date in the late sixth century; Herodotus (6. 105) reports that Pan’s cult was adopted by the Athenians after the battle of Marathon, but it could have spread elsewhere earlier than this.73 Also, as we have seen above, Hermes may itself date to the sixth century.

Other Hymns The remaining Homeric Hymns, all of which are shorter than those discussed above, often do not contain any evidence on which to make a decision about date. Janko analyses certain linguistic features of Hymns 6, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, and 33, which are all between 16 and 22 lines in length,74 but the small data set does not allow for reliable conclusions about date. In most cases, the shorter Hymns can probably be assigned to the period between 700 and 500 BC, but there are a few exceptions which are worth discussing briefly here. An obvious outsider in the collection is Hymn 8 to Ares. Its style, distinguished by an accumulation of epithets, and its identification of Ares with the planet Mars suggest Neoplatonic authorship. It has been attributed to Proclus in the fifth century AD: this is not certain, but it should in any case not belong to a time before the third century AD.75 Elsewhere, the

70

See in this volume Jaillard (p. 133 n. 2). See WL 16–17, who also compares the juxtaposition of Egypt and the Hyperboreans to Pi. I. 6. 23. For the Exekias cup, see in this volume Fig. 2 (Chapter 7, p. 134). 72 For more detailed discussion of Hy. 19’s date and its relation to Herm., see Thomas in this volume (pp. 169–72). 73 See Càssola 361–2 and cf. Janko (1982), 184. 74 Janko (1982), 186–7. 75 For further discussion and bibliography, see in this volume Faulkner (p. 176 n. 4). 71

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pair formed by Hymns 31 to Helios and 32 to Selene are distinguished from the rest of the collection by their closing formulae, which state clearly that they will go on to sing of the deeds of heroes, and have often been thought to date to the fifth century or later on stylistic grounds: a fifth-century date seems reasonable, but an earlier date cannot be ruled out entirely.76 Finally, the concept in Hymn 20 of Hephaestus and Athena leading mankind from a primitive state in caves to civilization through their teaching of crafts could suggest a date for this poem after Protagoras in the second half of the fifth century.77

4. PERFORMANCE AND FUNCTION At the very end of the Delian section of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, which describes an Ionian festival in honour of Apollo on Delos (146–78), the poet-narrator speaks directly to the chorus of Delian maidens. He requests that, should anyone in future ask who is the sweetest singer to visit the island, the maidens identify him as that man:  E ’ s ºÆ AÆØ ŒæÆŁÆØ Iç ø · ‘ıçºe Iæ, NŒE b ø fi Ø ÆØƺ fiÅ· F AÆØ ØŁ IæØıØ IØÆ.’  E ’  æ Œº  Y , ‹ K’ ÆrÆ IŁæø æç ŁÆ ºØ s ÆØÆÆ . Q ’ Kd c ÆØ, Kd ŒÆd Kı  KØ. ÆPaæ Kªg P ºø ŒÅ º ººøÆ   ø Iæªıæ, n MŒ   Œ ¸Å. (Apoll. 171–8) You should all answer in unison, ‘He is a blind man and lives in rugged Chios, and all of his songs are best in perpetuity.’ And we will carry your fame wherever we should wander between the populated cities of men. And they will believe it since it is indeed true. And I will not stop hymning far-shooting Apollo of the silver bow, whom well-tressed Leto bore.

76 77

See Càssola 439–40, 446. See WL 18.

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These lines portray the poet as the blind Homer himself performing the Hymn to Apollo at a Delian festival, just as he is said to do also in the Certamen (315–21), one of many such stops for him throughout the Greek world.78 Whether or not this description is typical in its details, it is clear that the Hymns were in part performed by travelling rhapsodes at major festivals. Such performances will often have been competitive: in Hymn 6 to Aphrodite, the singer specifically asks the goddesses ‘to grant victory in this contest’ (e ’ K IªHØ j ŒÅ fiH ç æŁÆØ, 19–20), and one can assume that this was the case elsewhere too.79 Apart from their performance at public religious festivals, Clay points out that the Hymns could have been performed in more private contexts, possibly at symposia or as entertainment accompanying feasts in court settings.80 When Odysseus visits the Phaeacians in the Odyssey, the bard Demodocus sings instalments from the Trojan War after dinner in the palace of Alcinous (8. 62–96, 499–535), just as Phemius sings of the war at the suitors’ private feast on Ithaca earlier in the poem (1. 325–7). During Odysseus’ visit Demodocus also sings the well-known tale of Aphrodite’s affair with Ares (8. 266–366), an account of embarrassing sexual activity which strongly resembles the narrative of the Hymn to Aphrodite. Demodocus performs the tale of the love affair at a more public gathering organized by the Phaeacians, which includes games and dancing, but one might nonetheless reasonably infer from the Phaeacian episode that early hexameter hymns of some length could, just as epic, have been sung in more private court settings. It has been argued, for example, that the Hymn to Aphrodite was composed in honour of a family in the Troad who claimed descent from Aeneas, and it is notable that this Hymn, in contrast to some others, shows little to no concern with cult.81 Regardless of their exact performance context, the extent to which the Homeric Hymns stood on their own as compositions in these settings has been a matter of debate. Since Wolf at the end of the eighteenth century, the Hymns have commonly been thought to serve 78

On the performance of this Hymn, see further in this volume Nagy (Ch. 13). See Richardson (2010), 1–2, and in this volume Clay (pp. 236–7), Calame (p. 355). Th. 3. 104. 5 assumes that Apoll. was performed in a contest (agōn); cf. in this volume Nagy (pp. 322–3). The term agōn (Iª) is itself used in its basic sense of ‘gathering’ at Apoll. 150; cf. Richardson (2010), 105. 80 Clay (1989), 7, and in this volume (pp. 249–50). 81 See Faulkner (2008), 3–10, (forthcoming b). 79

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as preludes to longer epic recitations. There is some good evidence pointing in this direction. The closing formulae of many Hymns indicate that the poet will go on to sing another song: most explicit is, ‘Having begun with you I will now pass on to another song’ (  ’ Kªg Iæ  Æ  ÆØ ¼ºº K o , Aphr. 293, Hys. 9. 9, 18. 11), but this introductory function could also be indicated by the more common, ‘And I will remember both you and another song’ (ÆPaæ Kªg ŒÆd E ŒÆd ¼ººÅ  ’ IØB , Dem. 495, etc.).82 Hymns 31 and 32 uniquely state at their close that they will go on to sing of the deeds of heroes. External sources seem to attest to this function as well. Thucydides, who is the first ancient source to quote from the Homeric Hymns, refers to the Hymn to Apollo as a prooimion (æ Ø, 3. 104. 4–5), a word which can be taken to mean ‘prelude’, and Pindar claims at the beginning of his second Nemean Ode that the Homeridae begin their recitations with a prooimion to Zeus (˜Øe KŒ æØ ı, N. 2. 1–5). As well, in the Homeric epics the bard Demodocus is said to begin his singing with an invocation to a god (› ’ ›æ ÅŁd ŁF Xæå, Od. 8. 499). It is not, however, agreed by everyone that the long Hymns functioned as preludes to further epic recitation. One consideration is whether poems of 300 to 500 lines could actually have served as preludes to longer recitation when they are substantial pieces themselves.83 Their size is not necessarily an obstacle, given the scale of epic and the potential ability of an ancient audience to sit through long recitations,84 but Demodocus’ performance of the narrative about Ares and Aphrodite discussed above is perhaps an indication that narrative Hymns of some length stood on their own in performance. The term prooimion (æ Ø) used by Thucydides of the Hymn to Apollo is not decisive evidence either, as it can indicate simply the first in a series of songs, which may or may not have included epic.85 Even if the term prooimion was originally used of shorter hymns that preceded epic recitation, it could have been understood in a technical sense by Thucydides without the implication of a subsequent performance of any type.86 There is perhaps no

82 83 84 85 86

On the exact meaning of the latter, see Richardson (1974), 324–5. See AHS xciii–xcv. See Richardson (1974), 3–4, (2010), 2. See further Clay (1997), 494–8, and in this volume (pp. 237–40). AHS xciv–xcv, who compare the modern musical term ‘prélude’.

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way to decide with certainty, but the extent to which one views the longer Hymns as preludes attached to epic poetry in performance potentially has broader interpretative repercussions. For those who see the long Hymns as intrinsically linked to epic, the poems will less readily be understood to stand on their own as a distinct type or genre within the tradition of ancient poetry.87 And whether or not they should be thought of as an independent genre of poetry has become a central discussion in scholarship on the Hymns in the past twenty-five years.

5. GENRE, PANHELLENISM, AND LOCAL CONNECTIONS One of the most influential books published on the Homeric Hymns in the past fifty years has been J. Clay’s The Politics of Olympus.88 In it, she offers a systematic reading of Demeter, Apollo, Hermes, and Aphrodite as complex literary compositions that constitute a distinct genre within archaic Greek poetry. Linear readings of all four poems argue that each of the long Hymns ‘describes an epoch-making moment in the mythic chronology of Olympus’:89 in the narratives of Apollo and Hermes, the births of the two gods require a rearrangement of the Olympian hierarchy, while Demeter and Aphrodite narrate a reordering of relations among gods and between gods and mortals. As such, the Hymns can be seen as overlapping with but distinct from both Homeric epic and Hesiodic theogonic poetry, which constitute the pre- and post-history of the narratives recounted in the Hymns. This approach has many positive implications for the study of the long Hymns and has opened up new avenues for scholarship.90 Some differences between the Hymns and epic poetry are obvious at a first glance: apart from structural divergences, epic focuses chiefly upon 87

See Nagy in this volume (pp. 322–32), who closely links the Hymns and epic. Clay (1989). 89 Clay (1989), 15; cf. her remarks in this volume (Ch. 11). 90 In this volume, see in particular Felson (Ch. 12), who following Clay examines power relations in the Hymns in light of theogony, and Brillet-Dubois (Ch. 6), but also passim. 88

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the world of mortals, in which the gods sometimes interfere, while the narratives of the long Hymns focus on deities, who at times enter into the world of mortals. Nonetheless, the Hymns have often been viewed in the shadow of the Iliad and Odyssey as subordinate, if fascinating, poetry. With Clay, we have an increased understanding of how the Hymns are to be viewed as compositions in their own right. Furthermore, while the Hymns have frequently been treated as a heterogeneous body of poetry which, apart from their shared language, should be read largely independently, Clay’s work has pushed scholars to read the Hymns together. As such, her approach also emphasizes the Panhellenic quality of the Hymns in place of individual connections to local cults.91 There has been some disagreement with aspects of this approach to reading the Hymns. Each of the Hymns certainly narrates an important moment in the life of a god, but the concern with cosmic hierarchy is perhaps not equally strong in all cases.92 One might wonder to what extent the composers of the Hymns were consistently concerned with theological order rather than entertainment.93 There are also consequences open for discussion in assuming a high degree of cohesion among and within the longer Hymns. Whether or not, for example, the Hymn to Apollo is composed of two originally independent sections is a question for continued debate.94 That said, Clay’s work has without doubt done much to improve our understanding of the Homeric Hymns as unified literary works,95 and the Hymns should never again be read in isolation from each other. While opinions about particular readings will continue to differ, it is possible to find middle ground. Even if Apollo is a composite of originally separate hymns, the poem as we have it has clearly been arranged to be read as a unity and benefits from being understood in this way.96 Related to these issues is the question of the extent to which the Homeric Hymns should be considered Panhellenic, as opposed to poems attached to particular localities and cults. In some respects, 91

Clay (1989), 8–11. See Thalmann (1991), and on Apoll. Chappell in this volume (pp. 74–5). For a qualification of the cosmic significance of Aphr., see Faulkner (2008), 10–18. 93 See in this volume Furley (pp. 208–10). 94 See in this volume Chappell (Ch. 4), contra the view of an originally unified Hymn held by Clay (1989) and Miller (1986). 95 See Janko (1991). 96 Cf. Richardson (2010), 15. 92

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the Hymns are evidently Panhellenic in outlook. A distinction has with good reason been drawn between the Homeric Hymns as literary hymns and the hymns used in cult worship in Greece.97 But it would be wrong to draw an absolute line between the two: the Homeric Hymns themselves, assuming that they were performed at religious festivals, can be understood as genuine offerings to a divinity and in this way involved in cult worship.98 Nonetheless, the Homeric Hymns are much less attached to particular ritual contexts, and more strongly linked to the literary Panhellenic theologies of Homer and Hesiod, than cult hymns. One might still recognize a difference between the Panhellenism of the Homeric epics and the Homeric Hymns, some of which, while not cult hymns per se, show a concern with particular cults not found in either Homer or Hesiod. On the surface, Apollo and Demeter both display an interest in local cult: the former narrates the foundation of Apollo’s sanctuaries on Delos and at Delphi, while the latter tells of Demeter’s foundation of the Mysteries at Eleusis. We are told in the Certamen (315–21) that the Hymn to Apollo was inscribed by the Delians and dedicated in a temple of Artemis, and one might assume a particular connection to worship at Delos and Delphi in the two halves of the poem.99 With respect to Demeter, certain details of Demeter’s visit to Eleusis are comparable to what we know of ritual practice in the Mysteries from other sources, which could suggest a relatively close relationship between the Hymn and Eleusis.100 Elsewhere in the collection connections to cult are less obvious but have been proposed also for both Dionysus and Hermes. The myth of Dionysus freeing Hera from the bonds of Hephaestus has been linked to the Samian Tonaia, a ritual in which a cult image of Hera was bound and taken to the shore, and the fragments of the poem seem to refer at least once to the foundation of cult.101 Hermes’ division of meat into twelve portions in Hermes (127–9) could associate it 97

See Furley and Bremer (2001), i. ix. On the Hymns as a musical offering to the divinity, see in this volume Calame (Ch. 14); Richardson (p. 53 n. 25) and Nagy (p. 306 n. 78) also question the rigid exclusion of the Hymns from the category of cult hymns. 99 See in this volume Chappell (pp. 66–7). 100 See Richardson (1974), 12–30, and in this volume (pp. 50–3). For arguments in favour of the poem’s Panhellenic outlook see above n. 48. 101 See West (2001a), 3–4. Fr. D 1–3 seem to explain the establishment of Dionysiac trieteric festivals. 98

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with the cult of the Twelve Gods at Olympia, where Hermes was worshipped together with Apollo.102 As noted above with respect to dating, it has also been argued that the seventh Hymn to Dionysus could be linked to Corinth. If accepted, these links may be an indication of original performance context, but could also in some cases be the result of the Hymns having developed as literary expansions of cult myth.103 But not all of the Hymns evince a connection to cult. In Aphrodite there is mention of the goddess’s sanctuary on Paphos (58–65), but this is stock epic material and no indication of a particular link to cult; other evidence points to northern Asia Minor as the Hymn’s place of composition.104 As well, when Aphrodite first arrives before Anchises on Mt Ida, in the disguise of a young Phrygian princess, the shepherd’s first reaction is to offer to build her a temple and make sacrifices to her (100–2). This has been taken by some to refer to the foundation of an actual cult on Ida,105 but there is no reason to assume this here. Anchises’ reaction is a general attempt at piety in the face of a miraculous stranger, whom (after her sudden appearance on his mountain) he assumes is a goddess; he mentions no geographical or cultic details, such as we find in Demeter and Apollo, and does not even know to which goddess he might be speaking.106 One must, it seems, accept variation in the extent to which the Hymns’ narratives connect them to local cults, and it cannot be assumed that the Hymns all developed in the same way. Yet, connections to local cult do not rule out Panhellenic appeal in the Hymns’ narratives. It is hard to deny this even in the cases of Apollo and Demeter, which, in keeping with the status of Delphi and Eleusis as major Panhellenic sites in Greece, celebrate the universal power and significance of Apollo and Demeter. Whether they evince local connection or not, the narratives of all the long Hymns without doubt transcend both local and temporal boundaries.

102 See Burkert (2001), 178–88, Johnston (2002), 124–6, WL 13–14, Thomas (2009), 14–20. Larson (1995) argues that the poem contains an aetiology for the cult of the bee maidens at Delphi, and Nobili (2008) connects it to the Panathenaea. 103 See in this volume Furley (Ch. 10). 104 See Faulkner (2008), 49–50. 105 Podbielski (1971), 44–5, Càssola 549. 106 See Faulkner (2008), 179.

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6. THE PRESENT VOLUME The preceding discussion has surveyed a number of essential questions in scholarship on the Homeric Hymns up to the present day. It is not by any means an exhaustive account, but it is hoped that it will provide for the reader a foundation for approaching the study of the Hymns, and a sense of how the individual essays in this volume, which have been referred to above in the footnotes, fit into the broader tradition of scholarship on the Hymns. This book proceeds from a steady flow of interest in the Homeric Hymns in the past fifteen years. To name a few contributions since the turn of the century: M. L. West published an important article on the reconstruction of Dionysus and his Loeb edition of the Hymns;107 following a gap of more than twenty-five years from the publication of N. J. Richardson’s full commentary on Demeter in 1974, detailed commentaries on Apollo, Hermes, and Aphrodite have either been published or are currently in preparation for publication;108 a booklength study of the Hymns’ relationship to Callimachus’ Hymns has been completed;109 and N. J. Richardson has recently published his own edition and commentary on Apollo, Hermes, and Aphrodite in the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series.110 But despite their recent popularity, there has never been a volume of collected essays devoted to the corpus of Homeric Hymns. In his review of the New Companion to Homer in 1999, Hainsworth noted the need for a collection of expert studies dedicated to the Hymns alone.111 It is hoped that the present volume will fill this gap. However, this book is more than just a companion. It aims not only to evaluate the state of scholarship on the Hymns but also to advance it, and it is ultimately hoped that it will prove useful to a wide range of readers, from undergraduate students under the direction of an 107 West (2001a), WL. See also the German edition of Pfeiff (2002) and slightly earlier the Italian edition of Zanetto (1996). 108 On Aphr. Faulkner (2008). In preparation: expanded and revised versions of the doctoral theses whose dates are given in brackets, on Apoll. Chappell (1995), on Herm. Vergados (2007) and Thomas (2009). Nobili (2008) is another major study of Herm. undertaken as a doctoral thesis in recent years. Another commentary on Aphr. and some of the shorter Hymns is also now in preparation by Professor D. Olson. 109 Vamvouri-Ruffy (2004). 110 Richardson (2010). 111 Hainsworth (1999).

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instructor to experts who turn to the Hymns with an inquisitive eye. In pursuit of this blend, as well as general breadth of vision, the contributors to the volume are composed of both senior and emerging scholars from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Switzerland, Greece, the United States, and Canada, who together bring a variety of methodologies and backgrounds to the study of the Homeric Hymns. The volume, which is made up of thirteen original essays plus the preceding introduction to scholarship on the Hymns, is divided structurally into two parts. In the first part, an essay is devoted to each of the long narrative Hymns, as well as to the two mid-length Hymns to Dionysus (7) and Pan (19): Martin West considers the reconstruction of the fragmentary first Hymn to Dionysus and the relationship of its narrative to the Homeric epics; Nicholas Richardson revisits questions central to the interpretation of the Hymn to Demeter in light of scholarship since the publication of his commentary on the poem; Mike Chappell re-examines the question of the Hymn to Apollo’s unity; Athanassios Vergados considers the unique presentation of epiphany in the Hymn to Hermes; Pascale BrilletDubois evaluates the Hymn to Aphrodite’s relationship to the Iliadic tradition; Dominique Jaillard examines the epiphanic nature of Hymn 7 to Dionysus in relation to the other Hymns in the collection; and Oliver Thomas offers a systematic reading of Hymn 19 to Pan and its relationship to the Hymn to Hermes. In the second part, six essays give broader attention to the collection as a whole, including the shorter Hymns: Andrew Faulkner considers the formation of the collection and surveys the evidence for the transmission and reception of the Hymns from the seventh to the third centuries BC; William D. Furley explores the relationship of the Hymns to other early hexameter hymns and their possible genesis from theogonic hymns and cult myth; Jenny Clay looks at the generic coherence of the Hymns and their development as a genre; Nancy Felson offers a reading of intergenerational conflict in Apollo and Hymn 28 to Athena and considers further the Hymns’ relationship to Hesiod; Gregory Nagy examines the earliest phases of transmission and reception of the Hymns from the perspective of oral poetics and performance, with particular attention to Apollo; and Claude Calame considers musical performance in the Homeric Hymns and their nature as musical offerings to divinities.

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All of the contributions stand on their own but not in isolation. Where possible, contributors have taken into account the relevant arguments of others in the volume, and throughout the book pertinent discussions elsewhere in the volume (whether in agreement or disagreement) are signalled in the footnotes as much as is practical. Discussion of particular topics or passages can as well be located by using the indexes. The consolidated list of works cited at the back provides a full, if not exhaustive, list of bibliography on the Hymns, which, it is hoped, will also be a valuable tool. In order to accommodate readers of different backgrounds, quotations in languages other than English, including Greek and Latin, are together given in the original and an English translation, except in some cases where it was not possible to include the Greek original for reasons of space. Transliteration is also used in some instances.

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Part I

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2 The First Homeric Hymn to Dionysus Martin West

For many people mention of ‘the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus’ will bring to mind the charming fifty-nine-line poem, numbered as Hymn 7 in modern editions, that tells the story of the god’s capture by Etruscan pirates, his wondrous transformations of himself and their ship, and their mutation into dolphins. There is another brief Hymn to Dionysus, a mere thirteen lines, at number 26. But the collection originally contained a much longer and more important Hymn to him. Only fragments of it now remain, but they stand under the prestigious heading of Hymn 1. They are sufficient for us to reconstruct the principal myth related in the poem. It will appear that this myth, and probably this Hymn, was already known to the poets of the Iliad and Odyssey and influenced several scenes in those epics. In the most recent edition of the Hymns the poem is represented by four separate fragments, containing altogether sixty-three lines or parts of lines.1 In older editions only two of these fragments are printed. It is not quite certain that the other two belong, but it is highly probable. The last twelve lines of the poem are actually preserved in a manuscript of the Hymns, the codex in Leiden (M) that alone preserves the Hymn to Demeter. The earlier part of the manuscript contains a portion of the Iliad, after which a quinion and a folio have fallen out; following the gap there appears the end of the Dionysus Hymn,

1

WL 26–31. The four fragments are there designated A–D, with separate linenumbering for each, and that system of reference will be followed here (as throughout the volume).

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and then the long Demeter Hymn and the rest as far as Hymn 18. 4. On certain assumptions it can be calculated that the Dionysus Hymn would have been some 411 lines in length.2 The other fragment printed in older editions comes from a quotation in Diodorus, who attributes it to ‘the Poet’ (or in another passage ‘Homer’) ‘in the Hymns’.3 This must refer to the same collection of Homeric Hymns that has (mostly) come down to us. As the fragment concerns the birth of Dionysus and is clearly from the beginning of a hymn to him, and as it is unlikely that we have lost two separate Dionysus hymns from the same corpus, we can accept without more ado, what has been generally assumed since Ruhnken, that Diodorus’ fragment is from the same poem as the one in M. In both fragments Dionysus is addressed by the title ¯NæÆçØHÆ, ‘Bull god’ (A 3, D 8). In 1992 André Hurst identified a Geneva papyrus of the second or first century BCE as containing the lines quoted by Diodorus and parts of several more. Four of the fragmentary lines, it has since been discovered, reappear almost unchanged in the Orphic Argonautica, a poem of the fifth century CE, and can be restored from that source.4 They show that the poet’s description of Mt Nysa, Dionysus’ birthplace, continued beyond Diodorus’ quotation and that he portrayed it as a locus amoenus, cut off from human traffic by high cliffs and a lack of any harbour. Zeus gave birth to Dionysus there, ‘far from mankind, concealing him from white-armed Hera’ (ººe I’ IŁæø, Œæø ºıŒº  ˙æÅ, A 8). Hera, of course, was ill disposed towards her husband’s illegitimate children. By the end of the hymn (D) Dionysus was established as a god, presumably on Olympus, destined to enjoy a thriving cult in Greek lands. He no longer had to be kept apart from Hera, who must have become reconciled to him. The main part of the hymn must have contained a mythical narrative that explained how he progressed from the initial to the final situation. We can guess how the story went. We know from various sources of a myth, evidently well known from sometime before 600 BCE, that told how both Dionysus and Hephaestus came to be received in Olympus and accepted by Hera, and this was no doubt the tale told in our hymn. It ran as follows. When Hera gave birth to Hephaestus 2 3 4

See West (2001a), 1. ‘The Poet’ (› ØÅ ), Diod. 1. 15. 7; 3. 66. 3; ‘Homer’ (›  O Åæ ), 4. 2. 4. Hurst (1994); West (2001a), 2. Cf. below pp. 42–3.

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she was disgusted at the crippled child she had borne and threw him down from heaven into the sea. There he stayed for many years with the sea nymphs, the Nereids. After developing his engineering skills to the necessary degree, he made a fine golden throne and sent it as a present to his mother. But in it he had incorporated a secret mechanism of invisible bonds, and when she sat down in it, she found herself trapped. The other gods laughed at her plight. None of them was able to free her. They debated what to do, and concluded that the only recourse was somehow to induce Hephaestus to come back and undo what he had done. Ares undertook to go and fetch him by force. He went off, but failed to achieve his object because Hephaestus defended himself with fire, which Ares could not face. Then Dionysus, who was not yet acknowledged as one of the Olympians, went equipped with wine. He made Hephaestus drunk and brought him back to Olympus in a merry mood, riding on a donkey or mule. He released his mother from the throne, and she rewarded Dionysus by persuading the other Olympians to admit him as one of the Twelve Gods. For a connected account of the myth we have to look to late sources.5 But a series of fragments of Alcaeus shows that he knew and retold the story, and so did Pindar and Epicharmus. The tragedian Achaeus treated it, or at least touched on it, in a satyr play. Plato alludes to ‘Hera’s binding by her son’ as a well-known poetic myth.6 It was a favourite subject with artists.7 The François Vase, a work of Kleitias dating from about 570 BCE (Fig. 1), has a particularly good representation of it, from which some further details may perhaps be gleaned. Dionysus and the ithyphallic mule bearing Hephaestus approach Olympus, attended by a company of Silenoi and nymphs. Behind the throned Zeus and Hera, Athena looks down disdainfully at the armed but submissively postured Ares, as if mocking the failure of his mission. In front of Zeus, as the first to meet the new arrivals, stands Aphrodite, who makes gestures of dismay. Carl Robert conjectured that in the version followed by the artist she had been promised to Hephaestus as payment for releasing Hera. Wilamowitz 5 Paus. 1. 20. 3; ps.-Libanius, Narr. 30. 1 (viii. 38–9 Foerster); cf. Aristid. Or. 41. 6 (ii. 331 Keil); Hyg. Fab. 166; Serv. auct. Ecl. 4. 62. 6 Alc. frs. 349a–e Voigt (cf. Page 1955, 258–61; Libermann 1999, ii. 152–3); Pind. fr. 283; Epicharmus, ˚ø ÆÆd j ῞`çÆØ , PCG i. 51; Achaeus TrGF 20 F 16b–17; Pl. R. 378d. 7 LIMC iv(1). 628–9; Gantz (1993), 75–6. For the François Vase see e.g. Arias, Hirmer, and Shefton (1962), plates 41 and 45 and p. 291.

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Fig. 1. François Vase, by Kleitias. By Permission of Nimatallah / Art Resource, New York

developed the idea: Aphrodite, he supposed, had been promised to Ares if he succeeded in his mission, but in the event it was Hephaestus who got her.8 Perhaps Hera had promised her to whoever could induce Hephaestus to come and set her free, and Dionysus, having obtained her as his reward, bestowed her on his new friend Hephaestus. The Homeric Hymn was no doubt the classic account that later poets and painters had primarily in view. Already in 1872 Theodor Bergk, noting the popularity of the myth in archaic poetry and art, remarked that it might have been related in a hymn of the Homeric type, and Wilamowitz postulated a seventh-century hymn to Hephaestus as the original source of it.9 Bruno Snell made a convincing modification to the hypothesis, namely that the hymn was not a hymn to Hephaestus but to Dionysus.10 It was Dionysus, after all, who came out of the story with the most credit, and it was his admission to Olympus that formed its conclusion. He was, besides, a likelier god than Hephaestus to be honoured with a major hymn. But if such a hymn existed and was widely known in the sixth and fifth centuries, there is some likelihood that it was the same major hymn to Dionysus as was later incorporated in the corpus of Homeric Hymns, the one of which we have fragments. Our third main fragment, C, comes from a papyrus published in 1904. The first editors, Grenfell and Hunt, did not recognize the 8 Robert (1894), 177 n. 3; Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1895), 220 ¼ (1937), 9. Cf. Il. 14. 267–8, where Hera promises Hypnos one of the younger Graces if he will help her. 9 Bergk (1872), 761 n. 48; Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1895), 221–3 ¼ (1937), 9–12. 10 Snell ap. Treu (1952), 138–9 ¼ (1963), 149–50; id. (1966), 102–4; Eisenberger (1956), 31–2.

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subject matter. R. Ganszyniec in 1922 saw that it contained the story of Hera’s throne, but he took it to be verse of the late Hellenistic or early Imperial period. It was not until 1973 that Reinhold Merkelbach proposed assigning it to the archaic hymn that Wilamowitz and Snell had postulated.11 This is very plausible. The lines are straightforward in style and do not look like a Hellenistic or later re-telling of the myth. One cannot be certain that they are early,12 but if they are, they must be from a ‘classic’ work, which cannot be any but the Homeric Hymn. About the content of the poem there is not much more that we can say. In its narrative portion it must have been a fine example of the kind of Olympian burlesque represented in the Hymn to Hermes, in Demodocus’ song about Ares and Aphrodite in the Odyssey (8. 266–366), and in more than one scene of the Iliad.13 We think of this as a typically Ionian genre, and there is little doubt that the Dionysus Hymn was an Ionian poem. Wilamowitz connected the myth of Hera’s bondage with the ritual of the Samian Tonaia festival, in which (as may be inferred from an aetiological myth told by Menodotos, a Hellenistic local historian) the goddess’s wooden image was taken down to the shore and tied up in withies.14 He also draws attention to a story that Hera, on giving birth to Hephaestus, apprenticed him to Kedalion in Naxos to train as a smith; Dionysus was important on that island.15 Against a Naxian origin for the Hymn is the fact that in fragment A (2–7) Naxos appears in a list of places where, according to the poet, people falsely claim that Dionysus was born. The other places in the list are Drakanos, Ikaros, Thebes, and somewhere by the Alpheios. The mention of Drakanos and Ikaros as claimants, the first a promontory on Cos, the second a small island near Samos, does indicate the southeast Aegean as the poet’s vantagepoint. P. Oxy. 670; CA 80–1, cf. 245; Ganszyniec (1922); Merkelbach (1973), 212–15 ¼ (1997), 35–7. 12 Dihle (2002) still maintains that they are late, and Faulkner (2010a) draws attention to a couple of vocabulary items which, while not intrinsically late in formation, are not attested in early texts. 13 On humour in Herm., see in this volume Vergados (Ch. 5). 14 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1895), 234–5 ¼ (1937), 23–5; Menodotos FGrH 541 F 1 ap. Ath. 672a–d. 15 SchT Il. 14. 296a; Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1895), 237 ¼ (1937), 27. Dionysus and Hephaestus are supposed to have contested the possession of Naxos (sch. Theoc. 7. 149/150a). 11

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As to his date, if we accept that he was the model for Alcaeus, we must put him sometime before 600 BCE. That does not necessarily mean shortly before 600. In several places in the Iliad and Odyssey we find what look like echoes and adaptations of the Hymn’s central myth. The myth might be older than the Hymn. But one has the feeling that it is not a myth with a firm basis in ancient tradition but a newly invented story; there is a lively freshness about it, as of a story that has just appeared and is going the rounds, captivating new hearers. It is quite possible that it first appeared in our Hymn, or at any rate that it was our Hymn that first made it widely known. If so, we shall probably have to put the Hymn back at least to 650. It may well be the earliest in the collection. Let us look at these apparent Homeric echoes. We may start with the scene in Iliad 18 where Thetis goes to visit Hephaestus to ask him to make new armour for Achilles. He has a sweet and beautiful wife, one of the Graces (382–3). This conflicts with Demodocus’ tale in Odyssey 8, where Hephaestus is married to Aphrodite. But the Aphrodite of the Iliad is a pro-Trojan goddess; we have seen her rescuing Paris from Menelaos (3. 373–82) and trying to rescue Aeneas from Diomedes (5. 311–430). The poet could not plausibly have shown her as the mistress of the house in the Thetis–Hephaestus episode. We may see the Grace as a substitute for Aphrodite: the Graces are after all closely associated with her as spirits of beauty and charm.16 But what is behind the marriage of Hephaestus to Aphrodite? They are an ill-matched pair, and in Demodocus’ tale she is unfaithful to him, as if he were not her partner of choice. In the Dionysus Hymn, as we have seen, there is some reason to suspect that she was given to him against her will, in fulfilment of Hera’s promise that if he did what she wanted he would possess the most beautiful goddess. When Hephaestus hears that Thetis has come, he is delighted: q Þ  Ø Ø  ŒÆd ÆNÅ Łe , l ’ Kø’, ‹ ’ ¼ºª IçŒ Bº Æ Åæe K B NÅØ ŒıØ , l ’ KŁ ºÅ ŒæłÆØ åøºe KÆ. ’ i Ł ¼ºªÆ Łı fiH, N  ’ ¯Pæı Å  ¨ Ø Ł’  Æ Œºø fi , ¯Pæı Å, ŁıªÅæ Iłææı ὨŒÆE.

16

Il. 5. 338; Od. 8. 364, 18. 193–4; Apoll. 194–5, Aphr. 61; Cypria fr. 5. 1 West.

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B fi Ø æ’ N 庌ı ÆÆºÆ ºº, æÆ  ªÆ  Ł’ ºØŒÆ ŒºıŒ  ŒÆd ‹æ ı , K Bœ ªºÆçıæfiH· æd b Þ ὨŒÆE IçæfiH æ æø Þ  ¼ . P Ø ¼ºº Y h ŁH h ŁÅH IŁæø, Iººa ¨ Ø  ŒÆd ¯Pæı Å YÆ, Æ¥ ’ KøÆ. (Il. 18. 394–405) Ah, I have a goddess worthy of fear and respect in my house, the one who saved me when I was in distress after a long fall at the instance of my shameless mother, who wanted to put me out of sight because I was lame. Then I would have suffered woe if Eurynome and Thetis had not received me in their bosom, Eurynome the daughter of back-flowing Oceanus. With them I spent nine years forging many ornaments, pins, bent spirals, rosettes, and necklaces, in their hollow cave, while around it Oceanus’ stream teeming with spume flowed endlessly. No one else knew, neither of gods nor mortal men; only Thetis and Eurynome knew, the ones who had saved me.

Here is the first half of the myth related in the Dionysus Hymn. Hephaestus leaves it unexplained how he got back to Olympus and took up his place there; to have continued with the story of the trick throne would not have been appropriate to the context, where only his indebtedness to Thetis was relevant. However, we can find a reflection of the throne motif in the Dios Apate episode, where Hera seeks assistance from the god Hypnos, Sleep, to overcome Zeus. She goes and finds him in Lemnos (Il. 14. 230). Why Lemnos? It is a convenient staging-post on the way from Olympus to Ida, but not the only available one, and this is hardly a sufficient explanation of Hypnos’ being located there. The only god who would naturally be found there is Hephaestus, for Lemnos is his favourite resort.17 It looks as if the poet has a story concerning Hephaestus in mind. And when Hera asks Hypnos to put Zeus to sleep for her, she promises to repay him with a fine golden throne that her son Hephaestus will make specially (14. 238–40)—not the most obvious gift for the god of sleep, who spends his time roaming over the earth to exercise his office.

17

Cf. Il. 1. 593; Od. 8. 283–4; ‘Hes.’ fr. 148(a).

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Hypnos demurs, recalling an earlier occasion when he had put Zeus to sleep at Hera’s request, when Heracles was sailing back from Troy and she had wanted an opportunity to rouse a storm against him (243–62). The hero had been blown to Cos in consequence. This was part of the pre-existing Heracles mythology known to the poet of the Iliad (cf. 15. 18–30). From it he has borrowed the idea of Hera’s putting Zeus to sleep, with Hypnos’ help, for the Dios Apate. But in referring to the Heracles story here he adds an inorganic tailpiece that may again be spun out of a motif in the Hephaestus story: n ’ Kªæ  åƺ ÆØ, ÞØÇø ŒÆa H Æ Ł , K b ’ åÆ ø ÇØ· ŒÆ Œ ’ ¼œ I’ ÆNŁ æ  ƺ ø fi , N c ˝f  ØæÆ ŁH Kø ŒÆd IæH. c ƒŒ Å çªø, n ’ KÆÆ åø  æ· –Ç ªæ, c ˝ıŒd ŁB fi IŁ ØÆ æØ. (Il. 14. 256–61) And he [Zeus] woke up and was angry, hurling gods about the house; he was looking for me [Hypnos] especially, and he would have thrown me out of sight from the sky into the sea if Night had not saved me, she who subdues gods and men. To her I fled; and he gave up, angry though he was, for he was hesitant to do anything displeasing to swift Night.

Hypnos is thrown down from heaven into the sea and saved by a friendly goddess, just as Hephaestus was in the Dionysus Hymn. A variation on the same motif has appeared in Iliad 1. 590–4, where Hephaestus recalls how he was once thrown from heaven, not by Hera (whom he is now comforting) but by Zeus; he landed not in the sea but on Lemnos, and he was looked after not by Nereids but by the local people, the Sinties. Hera reassures Hypnos that Zeus does not care so much about the Trojans as he did about his son Heracles, and that he will not be so angry with Hypnos this time. And now she succeeds in persuading him by offering him a different reward: Iºº’ YŁ’, Kªg  Œ Ø Ææø Æ ›ºæø ø OıØ ÆØ ŒÆd c ŒŒºBŁÆØ ¼ŒØØ. (Il. 14. 267–8) But come, I will give you one of the younger Graces to marry and to be called your wife.

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Hypnos is thrilled with this, and after making Hera confirm the offer with an oath he sets about doing her bidding. Of course there was no tradition of Hypnos being married to one of the Graces, and it makes no mythological sense. It is an invention ad hoc, inspired by Hera’s offer of Aphrodite to Hephaestus. Hypnos could not be offered Aphrodite, so she is replaced by a minor goddess of love and beauty, a Grace, just as in the Thetis–Hephaestus scene in book 18. Later, when Zeus wakes up and sees how Hera has tricked him, he threatens her with rough punishment and reminds her of the same Heracles episode that Hypnos had recalled (Il. 15. 18–30). There we heard of Zeus’ rage against Hypnos; here he speaks of what he had done to Hera, and again this seems to be a new element in the story, invented for the context.18 He had strung her up with anvils fastened to her feet and bound her hands with an unbreakable golden ligature. This does not correspond to anything in the Dionysus Hymn, but the additional detail that ‘the gods were upset and stood round her, but could not free her’ (Mº b Łd ŒÆa ÆŒæe Ὄºı , j ºFÆØ ’ PŒ KÆ ÆæÆÆ, 21–2) might be adapted from the story of when she was trapped in the trick throne. Zeus seized any of these sympathizers he could and threw him down to earth (22–4): this corresponds to what we heard previously of his treatment of Hephaestus (Il. 1. 590–4) and Hypnos (14. 257–8). Turning to the Odyssey, we recall Demodocus’ tale of the adulterous affair of Ares and Aphrodite. Here we find Hephaestus married to Aphrodite, in accord with the story told in the Dionysus Hymn, only here he is represented as having obtained her by paying a bride-price to her father (8. 318–19). But she despised him for being lame (308–11), just as Hera had done at his birth, and she took Ares as her lover. Initially he seduced her with generous gifts (269), but presently he only had to suggest a session of lovemaking and she willingly agreed (292–5). But Helios, the all-seeing one, had told Hephaestus what was going on (270–1). The cunning artificer then rigged up his bedroom with a network of bonds, fine as spider’s silk, so fine as to be invisible, and withdrew to his favourite island, Lemnos (273–84). Seeing that the coast was clear, Ares went to the house and took Aphrodite to bed. Down came the bonds, and the lovers found themselves caught fast, unable to move an arm or a leg. Helios once again reported

18

So Von der Mühll (1952), 227.

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proceedings to Hephaestus, who returned from Lemnos, took one look into the bedroom, and called upon the rest of the gods to come and see how he had been betrayed. The male gods came (the goddesses were too modest), and they had a good laugh when they saw how Hephaestus had caught the guilty pair (285–332). There are two motifs here, besides Hephaestus’ marriage to Aphrodite, that recall the myth of the Dionysus Hymn. One is Ares’ attempt to get the better of Hephaestus, which fails because of the handicapped god’s mastery of technology. The other is the idea of a piece of furniture that traps those who put themselves on it and holds them so fast that no one but its maker, Hephaestus, can release them. The throne that traps Hera seems likely to be the primary instance, at least if it is the mythical reflection of a seated and bound cult statue. The bed that traps Ares and Aphrodite will be a secondary adaptation of the motif. At the end of the Dionysus Hymn (fragment D) Zeus proclaimed the details of the cult with which the god was to be worshipped, and then gave solemn confirmation that it would be so: q, ŒÆd ŒıÆ fi ÅØ K’ OçæØ F ˚æø· I æØÆØ ’ ¼æÆ åÆEÆØ KææÆ ¼ÆŒ ŒæÆe ¼’ IŁÆØ, ªÆ ’ Kº ºØ Ὄºı . (D 4–6) So spoke the son of Kronos, and nodded thereon with his sable brows; and the lord’s ambrosial locks danced up from his immortal head, and he sent a tremor through great Olympus.19

These same lines also occur, of course, in the Iliad (1. 528–30), where Zeus confirms to Thetis his promise that he will give the Trojans superiority in battle and so ensure Achilles’ restoration to honour. The passage has been celebrated since antiquity as one of the greatest things in the poem. But how is the coincidence to be interpreted? Are the lines simply a formula that a poet might use whenever Zeus decided something?20 The first line does reappear at 17. 209. But in 19 As in certain other places in the Hymns, the manuscript tradition shows a combination of alternative recensions; cf. West (2001a), 9. D 7, S Ng K ı ŒÆæÆØ ÅÆ Z (‘So saying, wise Zeus confirmed it with a nod of his head’), gives a shorter replacement for 4–6, and 11–12 are likewise an alternative to 8–10. 20 As suggested by Càssola 465: ‘il cenno di Zeus doveva essere un tema abituale del repertorio epico, e qualunque rapsodo poteva usarlo’ (‘Zeus’ nod must have been a regular motif in the epic repertoire, and any rhapsode could use it’).

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the Thetis scene the poet certainly does not treat Zeus’ nod as routine; he introduces it as something special: N ’ ¼ª Ø ŒçƺB fi ŒÆÆ ÆØ, ZçæÆ ŁfiÅ · F ªaæ K K Ł ª ’ IŁÆØØ ªØ  Œ øæ· P ªaæ K e ƺتæ P’ IÆź P’ IºÅ, ‹  Œ ŒçƺB fi ŒÆÆø. (1. 524–7) Come, I will nod for you with my head, so that you may rely on it. For this is the greatest sign from me among the immortals: nothing of mine is taken back or delusive or unaccomplished, that I nod upon with my head.

And when Zeus returns to his halls Hera voices her suspicion that he has ‘nodded’ definitively for Thetis (558). It is usually taken for granted, unreflectingly, that the lines are original in the Iliad and that in the Dionysus Hymn they are, if not interpolated, an imitation. But if we are right in finding so many echoes and reflections of the Hymn in the Iliad and Odyssey, it will be natural to see the lines as a borrowing from the Hymn by the Iliad poet. Zeus’ promise to Thetis is of momentous significance for the Iliad, and we can see why the poet wanted to emphasize it. Yet from a wider viewpoint it may be felt that the Mighty Nod is more appropriate to an occasion such as that in the Hymn, where another god’s honours and privileges are being solemnized,21 than to a private agreement with a minor deity for a temporary purpose. The Dionysus Hymn remained influential for centuries. Alcaeus composed one of his own in which he retold the same myth; it was one of several poems in which he drew on current hexameter hymns to encapsulate their substance in a more compact lyric format.22 If the

21

Cf. Sappho 44A. 7–8 Voigt. In his hymn to Hermes (fr. 308 Voigt þ SLG S264) he related how the infant god stole Apollo’s cattle and then his bow, the story we know from the Homeric Hymn to Hermes. The Homeric Hymn is unlikely to be as early as Alcaeus, but it no doubt had an older model. Alcaeus’ hymn to the Dioskouroi, fr. 34 Voigt (with which PMG 1012 perhaps belongs), had very similar content to Hymn 33. There is also a fragment of a hymn to Artemis, ascribed by some to Alcaeus (304 Lobel–Page) but by others to Sappho (44A Voigt), in which the goddess swears an oath of eternal virginity while touching the head of her father Zeus, and he assents and grants her her special role as a huntress. In the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (25 ff.) there is a similar description, but applied to Hestia instead of Artemis. On Alcaeus’ (and Sappho’s) relationship to early hexameter hymns and epic poetry cf. West (2002a). 22

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five tiny fragments assigned to it in Voigt’s edition (349a–e) all belong there, the god was addressed with the Lesbian form of the same title as in the Homeric Hymn, ! ¯ ææÆçHÆ ¼ ¯NæÆçØHÆ (‘bull god’). The gods’ laughter at the entrapped Hera’s plight was noted, as was Ares’ boast that he would fetch Hephaestus by force. Dionysus ended up as ‘one of the Twelve’. Alcaeus and Sappho can already refer to a body of established ‘classic’ poems. So do the Attic black-figure vase painters of a decade or two later, such as Sophilos who depicted the chariot race at Patroclus’ funeral games from the Iliad. On the magnificent volute krater known as the François Vase Sophilos’ younger contemporary Kleitias painted a whole series of mythological scenes from various poems: the Calydonian boar hunt; the chariot race at the games for Patroclus; Theseus’ liberation of the Athenian youths and maidens from Crete; the battle of Lapiths and Centaurs; the wedding of Peleus and Thetis; Achilles’ pursuit of the doomed Troilos; Hephaestus’ return to Olympus with Dionysus, as described above (Fig. 1); and the battle of the Pygmies and Cranes. The inclusion of the myth from the Dionysus Hymn testifies to its prominence in Athenian consciousness at the time. We know virtually nothing of the treatments by Pindar, Epicharmus, and Achaeus, but they confirm the continuing appeal of the myth, and the Hymn, which by now will have been current under the name of Homer, will have been well known to these authors, and will have served as their primary source. ‘Hera’s binding by her son’ figures prominently among the poetic topics that Plato would ban from his ideal city, together with ‘Hephaestus’ casting out by his father when he made to assist his mother who was being beaten [Il. 1. 590–1], and all the battles of gods that Homer has composed’ (R. 378d).23 When Callimachus in his hymn to Zeus asks: H ŒÆ Ø, ˜ØŒÆE I  Mb ¸ıŒÆE; K ØB fi ºÆ Łı  , Kd ª  I çæØ. ZF, b b !" ÆØØ K hæ çÆØ ª ŁÆØ, ZF, b ’ K æŒÆfi Å· æØ, æ, KłÆ; ‘˚æB Id łFÆØ’ . . . K   —ÆææÆfi Å ῾#Å  Œ. (Call. Hy. 1. 4–10) 23

 HæÆ b  f e   ŒÆd  HçÆı ÞłØ e Ææ , ºº B fi Åæd ı fiÅ I ıE, ŒÆd Ł ÆåÆ ‹Æ  O Åæ ÅŒ P ÆæÆŒ  N c ºØ, h’ K ÆØ ØÅ Æ h ¼ı ØH.

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How shall we sing of him, as Dictaean or Lycaean? I am in two minds, since his birth is disputed. Zeus, they say you were born in the mountains of Ida, but Zeus, they say in Arcadia: which of the two parties, Father, spoke false? ‘Cretans are always liars’ . . . It was in Parrhasia that Rhea bore you.

— we might think he is being the typical Alexandrian, showing off his erudition, playing off different traditions against each other, and asserting the right to pass judgment on them. In fact, at the outset of his first hymn, he is following the model of what was probably already read as the first Homeric Hymn (A 2–8):24 Q b ªaæ ˜æÆŒø fi ’, Q ’ !" Œæø fi M  fiÅ çA’, Q ! K ˝ø fi , E ª  ¯NæÆçØHÆ, Q  ’ K’ ºçØfiH Æ fiH ÆŁıØØ {ŒıÆ Å $ ºÅ Œ Ø ˜Ød æØŒæÆø fi }, ¼ººØ ’ K ¨ fiÅØ ¼Æ  º ªıØ ª ŁÆØ, łı Ø· b ’ ØŒ Æcæ IæH  ŁH  ººe I’ IŁæø . . . . For some say it was at Drakanos, some on windy Ikaros, some on Naxos, O scion of Zeus, Bull god, and some at Alpheios the deep-swirling river, while others, Lord, say that it was at Thebes you were born— all false! The father of gods and men gave you birth far from humankind . . .

A century later the Pergamene scholar Crates of Mallos quoted from ‘the ancient Hymns’, meaning no doubt the Homeric Hymns, a hexameter, ‘luxuriant with their own dark grape clusters’ (ÆPB fi Ø ÆçıºB fi Ø ºÆfi ÅØ Œ ø ) referring presumably to vines. It is a reasonable assumption that it came from a hymn to Dionysus, and that it was the one Homeric Hymn to Dionysus that we know we have lost. It is included in my edition as fragment B. The line might have stood in the lengthy description of Nysa, where Dionysus was born (fr. A). Alternatively it might have described the response of nature as he made his way with Hephaestus in a bibulous ŒH  (‘revel’) from land to land—a Dionysiac miracle like the one that

24

On the formation of the collection, see Faulkner in this volume (pp. 175–81).

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happens on the pirate ship in Hymn 7. 35–42, when a vine laden with grape clusters spreads along the top of the sail. Diodorus in the time of Augustus quotes eight lines from fragment A on the birth of Dionysus.25 The last two he quotes twice again in other passages, and they are also quoted by a scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius. Evidence for knowledge of the Hymn continues in the Roman period. Pausanias, commenting on a painting in the theatre of Dionysus at Athens that showed the god bringing Hephaestus up to heaven, gives a summary of the myth, starting from Hephaestus’ birth, that corresponds well with our other evidence for the content of the Homeric Hymn, and he introduces it with the words º ªÆØ b ŒÆd  e % Eººø (‘this also the Greeks say’, 1. 20. 3). Pausanias was an avid reader of early poetry, and it is likely that he is drawing on his direct knowledge of the Hymn. We cannot necessarily assume this for the other late sources that relate or allude to the myth. However, the plagiarization of the Hymn by the author of the Orphic Argonautica is a striking testimony that cannot be gainsaid. The verses that he takes over are: Ł’ h Ø f Å €d] æ: [A fi ] æø IŁæø· P ªæ ƒ Ø ºØ] : , ÅH Zå I çØºØ ø, Iºº ƒ Mº Æ]: : :  æÅ æØ æ  fiÅ łÅº,   ŒÆ]º: a çØ ØŒ Æ ºº. (A 11–14  Orph. Arg. 1199–202) No one of humankind crosses there by ship, for it has no harbour where curly-tipped ships can ride, but a steep cliff encloses it all about to a great height. But it grows lovely and delicious things in abundance.

The later poet applies the lines to the Oceanic island of Demeter from which Pluto carried off Persephone as she picked flowers in the broad grove. That story is told, of course, at the beginning of the Hymn to Demeter, the Hymn that follows the Dionysus Hymn in the Homeric corpus. It may have been the contiguity of the two Hymns that led the poet of the Argonautica to think of the topographical description that stood in the one when he referred to the myth narrated in the other. 25 Diod. 3. 66. 3. A ninth line (A 5) is interpolated in some manuscripts of Diodorus, but absent from the Geneva papyrus. Cf. above p. 30.

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In any case his knowledge of the passage provides further confirmation that the Dionysus Hymn was a standard text, still being read in the fourth or fifth century of our era. But then, we know that it survived the end of antiquity together with the rest of the Homeric Hymns; that it survived, indeed, at least into the fifteenth century, when Ioannes Eugenikos copied it complete in M, probably in Constantinople sometime after 1439. The loss of its greater part occurred at an unknown date between then and 1777, when Christian Friedrich Matthaei, professor and Rector in Moscow, discovered the manuscript there. Is it beyond the bounds of possibility that the missing leaves might one day turn up, to restore to us one of the earliest of Greek poems and one of the most significant for literary history?

3 The Homeric Hymn to Demeter Some Central Questions Revisited Nicholas Richardson1

1. INTRODUCTION This Hymn stands out from the other ones in the collection, because of the sustained intensity and dramatic power of its narrative, and the seriousness of its theme, the rape of Demeter’s daughter Persephone by the lord of the underworld and its consequences. A brief review of the poem should illustrate these points. It is really a hymn to both Demeter and Persephone, deities so closely linked in both myth and cult that they were often referred to simply as g Ł (‘the two goddesses’). After announcing that he will sing of Demeter and her daughter the poet immediately moves into the narrative of Persephone’s violent abduction by Hades, an action sanctioned directly, as he says, by her father Zeus (1–3). The carefree innocence of the scene where she is gathering flowers with the daughters of Oceanus is undermined by the description of the narcissus as a ‘trap’ (º , 8) created by Gaia, through the will of Zeus, as a favour to Hades, ‘the host of many’ (ºı Œfi Å, 9). The whole universe, gods and mortals, heaven, earth, and sea are caught up in wonder at its extraordinary beauty. For Kore (Persephone) it is simply ‘a lovely plaything’ (ŒÆºe ¼Łıæ Æ, 16), but when she reached out to pluck it: 1 I should like to thank Andrew Faulkner for his helpful suggestions for improvements to this paper. Translations are my own.

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å b åŁg PæıªıØÆ ˝Ø i  B fi Zæı ¼Æ —ºı ª ø ¥Ø IŁÆØØ ˚æı ºıı  ıƒ . ±æÆ ’ I ŒıÆ Kd åæı ØØ ZåØØ qª’ Oºçıæ Å· NåÅ ’ ¼æ’ ZæŁØÆ çøB fi ŒŒº Å Æ æÆ ˚æÅ oÆ ŒÆd ¼æØ. (Dem. 16–21) The broad-wayed earth gaped open On the Nysian plain, where sprang forth the Lord, the Host of many, With his immortal horses, Kronos’ son who has many names. Seizing her against her will upon his golden chariot, He carried her away lamenting. And she cried out with a shrill voice, Calling upon her father, the son of Kronos, highest and best.

In their dramatic force these opening lines have some similarity with the introduction to the Hymn to Apollo, which portrays the god’s terrifying entry to Zeus’ palace and the other deities’ response to this. But this scene ends with calm restored, and acts as a prelude to the story of Apollo’s birth, whereas in the Hymn to Demeter the narrative continues with the same intensity, up to the point where the mountains and sea re-echo Persephone’s cries and Demeter at last hears: Of  Ø ŒæÆÅ ¼å ººÆ , I çd b åÆÆØ I æÆØ Œæ Æ Æ&Ç åæd çºfiÅØ, Œı b Œºı Æ ŒÆ’ I ç æø º’ þ ø, Æ ’ u ’ Nøe Kd æÆçæ  ŒÆd ªæ. (Dem. 40–3) And a sharp grief seized her heart, about her ambrosial locks Her headdress was torn apart by her hands, She cast a dark covering over both her shoulders, And sped like a bird over land and water in her search.

Demeter’s grief at her daughter’s loss is intensified when she learns from the Sun god who her abductor is. Her grief and her anger against Zeus are leading motifs in what follows. Ultimately they lead her to create a famine, which continues until Zeus sends Hermes to bring Persephone back to the upper world (305–83). Before this, however, come the central episodes of the poem: Demeter’s visit to Eleusis disguised as an old woman, her nursing of Demophon, the infant son of king Celeus, her attempt to immortalize Demophon, which fails when his mother Metaneira discovers what she is doing, and finally

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the revelation of her true identity and the building of her temple at Eleusis (91–304). In these scenes the pace of the narrative is more leisurely. In some ways they resemble the more domestic episodes in the Odyssey, whose influence they seem to show. There is also a more cheerful atmosphere, in the description of the daughters of Celeus, whose youthful innocence and grace resembles that of Persephone and her companions, their courteous dialogue with the goddess, the jests of Iambe which cheer Demeter and make her laugh, and the miraculous growth of the baby Demophon. But in counterpoint to this is the continuing theme of Demeter’s sorrow, and the whole atmosphere is changed when Metaneira detects Demeter hiding her son in the fire, and the anger of the goddess at being thwarted is directed towards her. Demeter’s self-revelation (in which she castigates mankind for their folly) leads to a dramatic scene of domestic confusion and terror, strongly contrasted with the previous order and harmony of the royal household. The last part of the narrative (305–489) reverts to the theme of Demeter’s anger against Zeus and her withdrawal from divine society. But whereas in the opening scenes she was a helpless victim of Zeus’ plan, here the tables are turned. The narrative of the events leading up to Persephone’s return progresses in a fairly traditional manner, with messenger scenes, journeys and speeches (some abbreviated), and with some epic breadth, as in Persephone’s extended recapitulation of how she was carried off (405–33) and the threefold recurrence of the conditions for her future life above and below the earth (398–400, 445–7, 463–5). Demeter’s grief and anger eventually give way to joy at her daughter’s recovery, and this is mirrored in the return of life to the natural world, the two goddesses’ ascent to Olympus, and the promise of blessings in life and after death to those who enjoy their favour. Thus the more positive character of the closing part of the Hymn is in marked contrast with the opening scenes. At the same time, however, the seriousness of death is not avoided. Just as Demophon must die, so too Persephone must still spend a third of the year with Hades, as ruler of the dead, and those who fail to propitiate her will suffer punishment for all time to come (364–9). The rites which Demeter teaches the Eleusinian leaders are strictly secret, and anyone who is not initiated into these ‘will never have a part in an equal destiny after death, down in the mouldy gloom’ (h Ł’ › ø ÆrÆ åØ çŁ  æ e Ççø fi PæØ, 481–2).

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In addition to its seriousness and intensity, the Hymn is unusual in that throughout much of the narrative the focus of attention is on the female characters, both divine and human. Hades instigates the action, but it is Persephone’s cries which echo through the opening scenes. Later on Hades speaks only once, addressing Persephone when he has been asked to let her go (360–9). Zeus, whose consent sanctions the drama, is significantly absent when she is carried off and does not hear her cries (20–9), and when he later sends a series of envoys first to Demeter, then to Hades, and then again to Demeter, we never hear him speak directly: his instructions are reported in indirect speech and in the words of the messengers (314–56, 441–69). In the opening part of the poem Demeter meets Hecate and Helios, both of whom speak to her, Helios at greater length (51–89), and Helios’ attempt to console Demeter by assuring her of the status of her new son-in-law anticipates Hades’ own words of reassurance to his bride (82–7, 362–9). But the main function of this scene is to trigger Demeter’s anger and withdrawal from divine society. In the Eleusinian episode, the main participants are female, Demeter in disguise, Celeus’ daughters, Iambe, and Metaneira. Demophon, although the centre of attention during his divine nursing, can do no more than cry pitifully when she abandons him (284–91), and king Celeus appears only at the end, when he carries out Demeter’s instructions to build a temple, again without direct speech (292–300).2 In the final scenes, once Hades has released Persephone, our attention is focused on the reactions of her and her mother and their dialogue. They are joined by Hecate, as Kore’s future attendant, and by Demeter’s mother Rhea, who brings Zeus’ final instructions and relays them in detail. In terms of sympathy, the poet encourages us to identify with the female characters, especially Demeter and Kore in the portrayal of their suffering, and Metaneira in her anxiety and subsequently her grief for her son. One might see a parallel between this Hymn and the longer Hymn to Aphrodite, since both goddesses are portrayed as victims of Zeus’ plans. Whereas Apollo and Hermes in their Hymns both perform exploits which proclaim their character and powers, Aphrodite is ironically the helpless victim of her own power of love, 2

On the direct and indirect speeches in the Hymn see especially Beck (2001), and also Richardson (1974), 41, with his comments on Dem. 172–3, 314–23, and Nünlist (2004), 38–9.

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and the characters of Demeter and Kore could almost be defined in terms of suffering. In the Hymn to Apollo also Leto is portrayed as wandering helplessly around the Aegean in her search for a birthplace for Apollo (45–9), and as a victim of the jealousy of Hera (92–106). Later, in the episode about the birth of Typhaon, Hera in turn views herself as the suffering victim of Zeus’ disdain, and her angry withdrawal from divine society resembles that of Demeter (305–55). Demeter’s counterpart, Dionysus, is also regularly portrayed as a suffering god, in this case at the hands of mortals, on whom he takes revenge (cf. Hy. 7), but he is often seen as an ambivalent figure, androgynous in appearance. By contrast, Athene reveals her masculine side in the dramatic description of her birth in full armour from the head of Zeus (cf. Hy. 28). Thus, to some extent at least, one might say that the feminine in these divine stories is associated with suffering and passion, the masculine with action and achievement.

2. RECENT INTERPRETATIONS OF THE HYMN Recent studies have considered the poem from a range of different perspectives.3 These include: (1) the language and style of the Hymn and its place in the development of early hexameter poetry; (2) the relationship of the narrative with the cults of Demeter and Persephone, especially those at Eleusis; (3) the way in which the Hymn defines (or redefines) the roles of the two goddesses in the Olympian order of the world; (4) the aspect of ‘gender conflict’ in the Hymn and the view of the rape of Persephone as a possible paradigm for human marriage; (5) the structure of the narrative, and problems concerning its coherence. What follows is a brief review of these various forms of interpretation.

3

This essay is mainly concerned with scholarship on the Hymn since the publication of my edition (1974), reprinted with corrections and additional bibliography in 1978.

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(1) Place in the tradition of early hexameter poetry In terms of language, this Hymn draws on a traditional body of material represented both in the Iliad and Odyssey and also in the Hesiodic poems, especially the Theogony and Works and Days. The Hesiodic character of the Hymn is quite marked. In addition to words, phrases, and formulae with Hesiodic parallels, analogies between some parts of the Theogony and the Hymn are close enough to suggest the possibility of direct influence. Direct knowledge of the Iliad and Odyssey is also a distinct possibility.4 There are, moreover, striking points of contact with the longer Hymn to Aphrodite, which are probably best explained as due to the influence of this poem.5 At the same time, the Hymn shows a good deal of individual language and formulaic developments.6 The dating of all these works remains a subject of debate, but a late seventh-century date for the Hymn to Demeter would fit with these assumptions, and with other internal evidence.7 It is possible that the poem was originally composed for performance at an Eleusinian festival, but whether the poet was himself from Attica, as has been suggested, remains uncertain.8 Studies of the language of the Hymn in relation to the early formulaic tradition in general have emphasized a greater fullness of expression, for example in the use of multiple epithets with names of deities,9 and the use of repetition as ‘a major literary device’.10 Segal has analysed in detail the ways in which repeated language is used to articulate the narrative, and give emphasis to a series of leading motifs, such as grief, wrath, withdrawal, light and darkness, honour, mortality and immortality, fasting and eating, and so on. Porter, in discussing the use of repetition in the Hymn to Aphrodite, suggested that this technique is employed in a way which is more appropriate to hymnic than to epic style.11 The Homeric Hymns describe the nature 4

See Richardson (1974), 30–4, 333–5, Janko (1982), 181–3. See Richardson (1974), 42–3, Faulkner (2008), 38–40. 6 See Richardson (1974), 43–52. 7 Cf. Richardson (1974), 5–11, Janko (1982), 181–3. See in this volume Introduction (p. 10). 8 Cf. Richardson (1974), 12, 52–6, Janko (1982), 183, Clinton (1986). 9 Cf. Gaisser (1974), Segal (1981). 10 Cf. Richardson (1974), 59–60, Segal (1981). 11 Cf. Porter (1949), esp. 269–72. 5

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of a god or gods, and this gives them a certain timeless or reflective quality, which is combined with their narrative and dramatic functions insofar as they also tell of the actions or exploits of the gods. Repetition can help to bring out the permanent character and attributes of a deity, or emphasize the power of the gods. Fullness of expression in relation to the gods is also more suitable for hymnic style, as it helps to dignify or praise them. For example, in the opening scenes of the Hymn to Demeter the frequent multiple epithets attached to Demeter, Zeus, and Hades emphasize their natures, Demeter as solemn and graceful goddess of fruitfulness, Zeus as supreme ruler of the world, and Hades as lord of the dead. At the same time, the recurrent language also brings out the motifs of wonder at the miraculous narcissus, the violence of Kore’s rape, and the desperation of her cries for rescue. These features reflect the fact, well expressed by Parker, that there is ‘a certain feel of oxymoron’ to the title Homeric Hymns, since ‘the style and manner of these poems are, in a very broad sense, those of Homer and heroic epic; the content—the attributes, powers, cults and histories of gods—is rather that of prayers and hymns’.12

(2) Aetiology and ritual The central episode of this Hymn culminates in the building of Demeter’s temple at Eleusis and her promise to teach her rites to the Eleusinians (270–4, 293–304), a promise fulfilled at the end of the poem, where these rites are said to be strictly secret (473–82). The Hymn has thus been described as ‘the Mysteries’ foundation myth’.13 It has also been argued that other parts of the narrative of Demeter’s quest for Kore can be related to the ritual of the two goddesses.14 A number of these passages can be linked to those aspects of the cult of the goddesses which did not belong to the central and secret rites of the Eleusinian Mysteries: for example, Demeter’s wandering with torches, her fasting and abstention from washing, sitting at the well called Parthenion, and also sitting in silence on a stool covered by a 12

Cf. Parker (1991), 2. Cf. West (2003), 7. 14 Cf. Richardson (1974), 20–30, and see also his commentary, especially notes on Dem. 24–6, 40 ff., 47, 48, 98 ff., 105 ff., 126, 153, 154, 155, 169–88, 176–81, 180 ff., 188–211, 188–90, 192–211, 200, 202 ff., 207, 231–55, 265–7, 292–304, 387–404, 438–40, 439, 440, 450, 470–82, 474–6, 489. 13

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fleece inside the palace, the jesting of Iambe, and Demeter’s breaking of her fast by drinking a special potion (the cyceon; ŒıŒ). Others concern the various figures who later received honours in the cult at Eleusis. Not all of these connections are necessarily related solely to the various stages of the Mysteries themselves. Iambe’s jesting, for instance, is said by Apollodorus (1. 5. 1) to be the origin of the jesting at the women’s festival of the Thesmophoria, although there is also evidence for such jesting, or ‘ritual abuse’, as a preliminary to the Mysteries, as well as at other festivals of Demeter.15 In the case of Demeter’s nursing of Demophon, and her failed attempt to make him immortal, it is tempting to see a thematic connection with the Mysteries, in which the role of Demeter and Kore as divine nurses for the initiates seems to have been prominent, and the benefits offered by initiation could be viewed as a kind of substitute for the immortality which is denied to Demophon, and by analogy to mortals in general.16 The extent to which the Hymn is concerned with the cults of Eleusis, and more specifically with the Eleusinian Mysteries, has been questioned by Clinton, who argued strenuously in 1986 that ‘the story of the Rape was no doubt a standard one, sung all over the Greek world. Our author gave it a partly Eleusinian setting; he may have been an initiate, but he was not deeply interested in Eleusis.’17 This view was countered by Parker, who replied that ‘his argument 15 16 17

Cf. Richardson (1974), 213–17. Cf. Richardson (1974), 26–30, 231–6, Parker (1991), 8–10. Cf. Clinton (1986), 48. He gave the following reasons: (a) The name Persephone, used in the Hymn, is not found in Greek inscriptions from within the sanctuary at Eleusis. The Hymn also disregards the sacred names Theos and Thea for Hades and Persephone, and does not refer to Hades as Plouton, as inscriptions do. (b) The Rape is located on the plain of Nysa, rather than Eleusis. (c) Hecate is prominent in the Hymn but not found in Eleusinian inscriptions. (d) Eumolpus is mentioned, but not as the first Eleusinian Hierophant. (e) Keryx, the mythical ancestor of the Attic ª  of the Kerykes, is not mentioned. (f ) There is no reference to Athens in the Hymn. (g) Triptolemus is listed among the Eleusinian princes, but the Hymn does not refer to the story of Demeter’s gift to him of grain. (h) At the end of the poem, Paros and Antron are mentioned as cult centres of Demeter, as well as Eleusis (Dem. 490–1).

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that the poet was ill-informed about details of Eleusinian cult and organization is much weakened by the chronological gap, probably of at least a century, between the Hymn and the other, chiefly inscriptional, evidence to which he appeals; and the instances of good local knowledge weigh against him more heavily than he allows’. He also pointed out that Attic poets and vase-painters ‘did not treat the name “Persephone” as taboo in an Eleusinian context’, and that ‘Hecate is certainly prominent in Eleusinian iconography, even if her cult happens not to be attested’. Parker concluded that ‘if one removes Eleusis, the hymn falls to pieces’.18 Clinton subsequently modified his position, to allow for the greater prominence of Eleusinian themes, but argued that connections between the Hymn and cult have more to do with the Thesmophoria than the Eleusinian Mysteries.19 In view of the nature of the evidence, and especially the secrecy attaching to a good many rituals of Demeter and Kore, it may be unwise to be too dogmatic about this question. It is probably reasonable to speak, as Brumfield does, of the ‘symbolic complexity and multivalence’ of the Hymn,20 in other words that it bears a close relationship to the rituals of the two goddesses in general, but cannot be treated too literally as a guide to any of these. At the same time it is an attractive idea, as expressed by Parker, that ‘the Hymn ends with a kind of poetic epopteia, a viewing of the Mysteries, in which the association of corn with a revelation and a promise about the afterlife is fundamental’. His further suggestion is that ‘one might see Demeter’s first mention of the rites at 273 as the poem’s equivalent to myēsis [i.e. the first stage of initiation at Eleusis], the final revelation of 474 as epopteia [the final stage]’.21 Thus the structure of the narrative would actually mirror the experience of the initiates as they progress from anxiety and fear, as in the climax of the Demophon episode, to hope and joy in the final vision of a better fate. If the assumptions which have been made about the closeness of this Hymn to cult are correct, one might ask to what extent this is a special case among the Homeric Hymns. The first Hymn to Dionysus, 18

Cf. Parker (1991), 6 n. 22, and passim for a detailed review of the evidence. Cf. Clinton (1992), esp. 13–37, 96–9, 116–20, and (1993), esp. 110–16. He argued that the jesting of Iambe, the nursing of Demophon, the roles of Hecate and Hermes, and the Callichoron Well (Dem. 272) all fit better with the Thesmophoria. 20 Cf. Brumfield (1981), 240. 21 Cf. Parker (1991), 13. 19

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of which only fragments survive, may have told the story of how Hera was bound fast to a throne made by Hephaestus, who was subsequently persuaded to release her by Dionysus. This myth in turn has been linked to the ritual of the Samian Tonaia, in which the goddess’s statue was taken down to the seashore and bound with withies.22 The final part of this Hymn, preserved in the Leiden manuscript (M), also contains a passage connecting the narrative of the poem with the origin of the biennial festival of Dionysus (Dion. D 11–12). The Hymn to Apollo is very much concerned with the god’s cults, especially those of Delos and Delphi, and in addition to the extended passage about the Delian festival, the later part of the poem is full of references to actions of the god which were commemorated in ritual. It is thus quite heavily aetiological in character.23 The Hymn to Hermes charts the origin of a series of inventions created by Hermes, and the sacrifice by Hermes of two of Apollo’s cattle by the river Alpheios is quite probably an ÆYØ for the cult of the Twelve Gods at Olympia. But in the Hymn to Demeter it remains striking how closely narrative and cultic elements seem to be interwoven. Some later writers speak of how the story of Kore’s rape and Demeter’s search for her was commemorated during the Mysteries, and the initiates may well have seen themselves as to some extent participating in these events.24 It has also been suggested that this Hymn in itself is designed as an ‘act of cult’, in view of the close connection at the end between the double proclamation of blessing and prosperity for those favoured by the goddesses (Dem. 480–2, 486–9), and the closing prayer of the poet for their favour (490–4): the performance of the poem itself evokes the prosperity which it describes.25

(3) The Hymn and the order of the world It has been suggested that the Homeric Hymns as a type of early hexameter poetry form a complementary genre, which together with the Homeric epics and the Hesiodic poems charts the nature of the 22

Cf. West (2001a), esp. 2–4, and in this volume (p. 33). See also Chappell in this volume (esp. pp. 64–6). 24 Cf. Richardson (1974), 25–6, Parker (1991), 4–5. 25 Cf. Calame (1997), 130–3. This aspect of ‘cult hymns’ is emphasized by Furley and Bremer (2001), i. 6–8. In this respect their exclusion of the Homeric Hymns from this category may be open to question. 23

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gods and their relationship with mankind. The four longer narrative Hymns, in particular, define their deities’ place within the Olympian pantheon, under the direction of Zeus, and so are concerned with ‘the politics of Olympus’.26 The Hymn to Demeter fits into this pattern, since as a result of the events which it describes the cosmic order undergoes a significant development. At the end of the Hymn the two goddesses are established firmly as members of the divine society on Olympus (483–6), but Persephone’s situation is unique in that she is Hades’ wife, and as such must return to the Underworld for part of each year. At the same time the gulf between gods and men, because of men’s mortality, is not breached (as Demeter wished to breach it for Demophon), but instead a new relationship is established for mankind after death, thanks to the special favour of Demeter and Kore. Moreover, the sufferings of the two goddesses bring them into a closer sympathy with mankind in their plight, since Persephone herself has been carried off by the lord of the dead, and regularly crosses the boundary separating the upper and the lower worlds. It is because of their closer identification with men, and Kore’s status as an intermediary figure, that Demeter and her daughter can offer mortals their special affection and favour, both in life and after they die.27 The Hymn thus has its place from this point of view within the wider context of early hexameter poetry as a whole.

(4) Marriage and death in the Hymn Another branch of modern scholarship has seen in the story of Kore’s rape a paradigm for human marriage as a form of ‘symbolic death before a symbolic rebirth and reincorporation into a new household as wife and mother’.28 Other Greek myths of the abduction of a bride, or of a father’s sacrifice of his daughter, have been compared to this one and interpreted in similar terms. This approach views the story as one of gender conflict, as in some of the cosmological myths in Hesiod’s Theogony, and also in Aeschylus’ Oresteia.29 The intense relationship of mother and daughter is opposed to the masculine 26 Cf. Clay (1989), esp. 15–16, 267–70, and in this volume (Ch. 11). For some qualifications to this approach cf. Furley in this volume (esp. pp. 208–10). 27 Cf. especially Rudhardt (1994), 198–211, and see also Alderink (1982). 28 Cf. Foley (1994), 104, and passim. 29 Cf. Foley (1994), 112–18.

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roles of Zeus, Hades, and also Helios (who supports Hades and Zeus). Demeter’s resistance ultimately forces Zeus to yield to a compromise, whereby Persephone is shared between heaven and underworld, rather as a reconciliation is effected between Zeus and the Erinyes at the end of the Oresteia, and they acquire a new role and honours as beneficent powers. Given the close analogy and sometimes equation of Demeter and Erinys this parallel is striking, especially as the Aeschylean conflict stems originally from Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his daughter Iphigeneia, and the anger of her mother Clytemnestra. The Hymn might even be regarded as a kind of dramatic trilogy in miniature, with loss and conflict followed by an intermediary development, and then final resolution and reconciliation. The view of Persephone’s rape as a paradigm for marriage in general is more debatable. The imagery and rituals associated with death and marriage have elements in common, and this is also true of marriage and various mystery cults. But there does not seem to be clear evidence to show that the ancient Greeks in the historical period viewed the violent abduction of Persephone as a model for marriage as an institution in itself. To maintain it therefore one needs to argue that the myth is the reflection either of a deeper psychological reality, or of a more primitive stage in Greek society, as some scholars have done. It is questionable how relevant this is to interpretation of the actual narrative of the Hymn.30

(5) The coherence and significance of the Hymn The structure of the Hymn has been criticized on the grounds that the sequence of events is not always clearly motivated. In several other versions of the myth, Demeter comes to Eleusis or another place in search of her daughter and receives information about the rape, for which she rewards the local inhabitants with the gift of agriculture, or establishes her rites.31 In the Hymn, however, she learns from Helios that Hades has abducted Kore. She then withdraws herself from divine society and visits Eleusis. No explicit reason is given for this,

30

Cf. the criticisms of Clay (1989), 209–11; also Calame (1997), 124–5, and Kledt (2004), 33–4. 31 Cf. Richardson (1974), 81–2, 174.

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although we subsequently learn that she wishes to immortalize Demophon. Again, however, we are left to speculate about why she does this. Having failed in this attempt she commands a temple to be built and promises to teach the Eleusinians her rites. But at this point she again withdraws, this time within her new temple, and creates the famine which forces the hand of Zeus. In other myths of a similar kind from Greece and the Near East, the death of crops and vegetation arises more directly from the disappearance or wrath of a powerful deity, and just as Persephone’s return in the Hymn is followed by the renewal of life in the fields, so too one might expect that her abduction would have resulted directly in the famine.32 The Hymn presupposes that men already know the art of agriculture, whereas from the middle of the sixth century onwards the Eleusinian hero Triptolemus receives the gift of corn from Demeter and then teaches it to the rest of the world.33 It was on the Rarian Plain, near Eleusis, that the first sowing of crops was said to have taken place, and it is here in the Hymn that Rhea meets Demeter and gives her Zeus’ instructions, which lead to the rebirth of the crops (Dem. 450–6, 470–3). This suggests that the poet is aware of the form of the story in which agriculture was first given to men after Kore’s rape and return, but only alludes to this obliquely.34 It is possible to speculate about the relationship between the Hymn and other versions of the myth, in order to explain some of the twists and turns of the narrative. But the poet has chosen to tell the story in a particular sequence and it is only fair to assume that he has his own reasons for doing so. Moreover the longer Homeric Hymns differ from Homeric epic in the manner with which they treat everyday realism, as Parker has observed.35 As he says, ‘they present divine myths, stories about the organization of power in the world, with all the freedom of fantasy that such serious subjects demand’. In the Hymn to Hermes, for example, Hermes is ‘hungry for meat’ (Œæø KæÆÇø: 64), steals some of Apollo’s cattle, and roasts two of them, but then does not eat them despite his hunger (115–37). This may be because he is a god, and gods normally do not

32 33 34 35

Cf. Richardson (1974), 258–60. Cf. Richardson (1974), 194–6. Cf. Richardson (1974), 297–8. Cf. Parker (1991), 4.

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consume the main parts of a sacrificial animal, but the poet does not see the need to explain this. Equally, he does not have to explain all of Demeter’s behaviour to his audience. Part of a god’s power lies precisely in the fact that their purposes are not always clear to men. At the same time, it is possible to view the actions of Demeter in terms of the results they produce.36 The poet wants to give a central place to the story of Demophon, with its potential implications for mankind’s lack of immortality, counterbalanced by the special favour of the divine nurses for the initiate. Demeter’s visit to Eleusis results in the institution of her cult there, with its universal importance for mortals in general. The motif of the famine is postponed until after this central section of the poem. It is also possible, as we have seen, that the poet wished the structure of his work to reflect the two main stages of initiation at Eleusis, at the conclusion of the central and final parts. Whatever the truth about such speculations may be, the Hymn surely gains rather than loses in its effectiveness as a result of the mysterious quality of its narrative. Demeter’s visit to Eleusis, for example, is based on patterns which are typical of early epic narrative.37 But into these patterns is woven a sequence of motifs which are quite extraordinary, because this goddess is no ordinary visitor and her cult is one shrouded in awe and mystery. It is the achievement of the poet that he has succeeded in evoking so powerfully this sense of mystery and awe, in a work which uses traditional narrative techniques in such an original way.

3. CONCLUSION The range of interpretations evoked by the Hymn in recent times is a testimony to its appeal, both as a poetic narrative and also as a work which sheds light on Greek religious belief and practice. The poet has succeeded in investing a story which might have had purely local

36

Cf. Parker (1991), 11. Cf. Richardson (1974), 179–80, 190, 205–6, 207–8, 226–7, 339–43, etc. See also Lord (1994), and Foley (1995), 136–80, esp. 160–80. 37

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relevance with a more universal significance, thus giving credibility and dignity to the claim of Eleusis to be the most important cultcentre of Demeter and Kore. Above all the Hymn in itself could be regarded as an ¼ªÆº Æ, a work of art offered to the goddesses in whose honour it is composed: ªæø b ŁE ŒººØ IØÆ For songs are the finest of honours for the gods (Theoc., Id. 22. 223).38

38

In addition to the books and articles cited above, the following selection may be found useful: Sowa (1984), Motte (1986), Saintillan (1986), Cheyns (1988), FelsonRubin and Deal (1994), De Bloois (1997), Nickel (2003).

4 The Homeric Hymn to Apollo The Question of Unity Mike Chappell

The Hymn to Apollo is one of the most studied of the Homeric Hymns. Until recent years scholarship mostly focused on the problem of the hymn’s unity.1 The most important more recent works, those of Miller and Clay, have continued to discuss the question of unity but have taken a more unitarian view than earlier studies, and attempted to demonstrate the Hymn’s unity by treating it as a unified work of art that has a coherent plan and themes linking the two sections. Whether or not one accepts their arguments for the Hymn’s unity, it is a welcome change to read works that do look at the Hymn as a planned poem with definite themes rather than merely as a clumsily stitched together patchwork, and their studies have greatly increased our understanding not only of the Hymn to Apollo but all the Homeric Hymns and their relationship to other archaic Greek poetry. As their arguments for unity look at the themes of the poem as well as its structure, after looking at the unity problem I shall combine a discussion of some important themes with analysis of whether the treatment of these themes does indeed support the idea that the hymn is a well-planned unity. Clay also sees the Hymn’s combination of Delian and Delphic themes and emphasis on the spread of Apollo’s 1 For a detailed survey of the problem and of earlier opinions on it, see Förstel (1979), 20–62. Important more recent contributions are Janko (1982), Thalmann (1984), Miller (1986), Clay (1989), Stehle (1996). Clay summarizes her views on the hymn in Clay (1994).

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worship in terms of the conscious Panhellenism that in her view is a feature of the longer Hymns.2 Whether an original unity or not, the Hymn is clearly divided into a Delian and a Pythian section.3 D. (1–181) narrates Apollo’s birth on the island of Delos. It tells how Leto searched for a place to give birth, being rejected by many places because of their fear that Apollo would be a powerful and dangerous god who might scorn his birthplace (19–48). Eventually, the small rocky island of Delos agrees to be the god’s birthplace, but only after extorting an oath from Leto that Apollo will honour her and be worshipped there (49–96). Hera tries to delay the birth by keeping back Eileithyia, but after the other goddesses fetch her, Apollo is born. As soon as the infant god tastes nectar and ambrosia he develops miraculously, bursting his swaddling bands and declaring that his main attributes will be the bow and lyre, and that he will prophesy to men the will of Zeus (97–132). Then comes a list of Apollo’s favourite haunts, culminating in the description of a festival on Delos and the chorus of Delian maidens, to whom the poet says farewell. He also asks them to praise him as a blind singer from Chios (133–78). P. (182–546) tells of Apollo’s search for a place to found his oracle. His route takes him from Olympus, through Pieria and Iolcus to Euboea, and then up to Delphi through Boeotia and Phocis. He first chooses the spring Telphousa in Boeotia as a suitable site, but Telphousa persuades him that there is a better site on the slopes of Parnassus (244–76). When Apollo arrives there he kills the snake that was a menace to local people, then lays the foundations of his temple, which is completed by the heroes Trophonius and Agamedes and the people dwelling nearby (277–387). After this, the god decides to find priests for his temple and chooses a group of Cretans sailing to Pylos (388–99). In the form of a dolphin he hijacks their ship and takes it up the west coast of the Peloponnese to Crisa (400–39). There he leaps out of the ship in the form of a star and kindles the fire in his temple. He returns to the Cretans in the form of a vigorous young

2

See below, pp. 64–7. On this issue, cf. the Introduction in this volume (pp. 19–22). I shall use the abbreviations D. for the Delian section, and P. for the Pythian. Unless otherwise indicated, translations of the Hymns are taken from Evelyn-White (1936). 3

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man, reveals his identity and tells them that henceforth they will serve at his shrine and never return home (440–85). He also commands them to found an oracle on the shore to him as Apollo Delphinios, because he appeared to them in the form of a dolphin. He then leads them in procession to Delphi, where he tells them that they will live off the offerings of pilgrims and warns them that if they behave hubristically they will live under the yoke of new masters (485–544). The first scholar to question the Hymn’s unity was David Ruhnken in 1782. He based his argument mainly on lines 165–78, on the grounds that they contain all the features of a typical hymnic ending.4 He also argued that the first hymn praises the Delian Apollo and the second the Pythian Apollo; and that the independence of D. is confirmed by the external evidence of Thucydides and Aristides.5 In the nineteenth century, scholarship on the Hymn mainly followed the analytical trend of Homeric scholarship, and some scholars divided it into more than two original hymns; as early as 1786 Groddeck argued that it was made up of five fragments of hymns. It is not necessary to postulate such a patchwork of fragments. D. and P. are both coherent wholes, except that P. lacks a proper beginning (it has a prologue, but no hymnal opening). As is usual for the Hymns, the typical present-tense sections come at the beginning and end, and as with the other long Hymns they frame a developed narrative. Each has a coherent theme which is announced at the beginning and brought to a conclusion by the end. D. has a longer present-tense section which describes the occasion of the Hymn’s performance and refers to the poet himself (146–76). Though its length and elaboration are untypical, other Hymns do also at the end refer to the performance situation and describe current cults which (in the longer Hymns) result from the god’s actions in the

4

Ruhnken (1782). I discuss these features in more detail below (p. 63). Thucydides (3. 104) quotes lines 146–50 and 165–72 of the Hymn (with some variants), and introducing 165–72 says that here the poet finished his praise (KºÆ F KÆı). Ruhnken and others see this as evidence that Thucydides knew an independent Delian hymn, but others argue that he was only referring to the end of the section praising the Delian maidens. Aristides (Or. 34, 35 Keil) cites 169–72 as the ending of a hymn (ŒÆƺø e æ Ø), but most commentators believe he is dependent on Thucydides here rather than quoting the Hymn first-hand. For the argument that these quotations are evidence of D.’s separate existence, see Jacoby (1933), 689–92; contra, Heubeck (1966). Cf. Clay in this volume (pp. 238–40). 5

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narrative (e.g. Dem. 470–95, Hys. 6. 19–21, 13. 3, 24. 4–5, 26. 11–13). Thus the two parts each have a beginning, middle, and end which match those of other Hymns. With the addition of an opening line or two to P., both parts would work well as independent Hymns. Perhaps the most influential separatist theory has been that of Wilamowitz, in his Die Ilias und Homer.6 He argued that the two hymns were not independent fragments later cobbled together; P. was composed as an addition to, and imitation of, an originally independent D. This theory has several attractions. It explains the composite Hymn’s origin as a poetic design rather than an accident of transmission. It accounts for the similarities and parallels between the two parts, which are too close to be a matter of chance, and for the fact that P. has no proper hymnal beginning (it starts abruptly without the usual announcement of which god will be the subject of the song). It is also much simpler than some of the complex analytical theories about the Hymn’s genesis. For these reasons something like Wilamowitz’s theory has remained the most popular among separatists.7 A notable exception is West, who has argued that it was D. that was composed later, and modelled on P.8 Later the two hymns were put together and some further changes made at that point (notably addition of the Typhaon episode at lines 305–54). In his recent Loeb edition,9 West suggests that it was the same poet, Cynaethus of Chios, who first composed the D. section and then later produced the combined version that we have. West is not the first to suggest that one hymn was not simply added to the other, but that the poet who composed the addition also altered the original poem. Hermann argued that there was an independent Delian hymn, and a combined hymn that omitted the description of the Delian festival, as it was only relevant for the original circumstances of performance (thus consisting of lines 1–139 and 179–546).10 A scribe who had both versions before him combined them rather than write out lines 1–139 twice. Jacoby combined this theory with that of Wilamowitz, suggesting that the composer of the P. addition altered

6

Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1916a), 440–62. French scholars have often referred to P. as the ‘suite Pythique’, e.g. Humbert (1936). 8 West (1975). 9 WL 9–12. 10 Hermann (1806). 7

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D., and that traces of the different versions remain in the form of doublets in D.11 The heart of the separatist position is that lines 165–78 form, in the words of Ruhnken, the ‘customary epilogue and ending of a hymn’ (solitum hymni epilogum et finem). Certainly they have a strong sense of closure, and have formal elements typical of hymn endings: (a) Iºº’ ¼ªŁ’ (‘but come now’) in 165; cf. Dem. 490, Hy. 20. 8. (b) ¥ºÅŁØ (‘be favourable’) requesting the god’s favour. Forms of ¥ºÅŁØ/¥ ºÆ ÆØ are common in the closing prayer (Dion. D. 8; Hys. 19. 48; 20. 8; 21. 5; 23. 4). (c) åÆEæ/åÆæ (‘farewell’) which occurs in the endings of 27 of the 33 Hymns. (d) the promise to continue singing of the god. Other features appropriate to the end of a hymn are the shift to the present tense, the description of a festival whose origins the narrative has explained, and the references to the circumstances of performance and the poet himself.12 In favour of the Hymn’s unity, Miller argues that P ºø (‘I will not cease’) in line 177 shows that the poet intends to continue;13 but this is more naturally understood as the sort of promise to sing of the god in the future which is typical of hymnal endings. A precise parallel is SEG 8. 548. 25 P ºø ªºÅ Æ  ı Iø (‘I will not cease singing of your power’), from the concluding section of a hymn to Isis. At the end of many Homeric Hymns the poet promises to remember the god as well as to move to another song. It also seems natural to take it as parallel to the immediately preceding futures in which he promises to spread the fame of the Delian maidens. He says that he will praise the maidens ( E ’  æ Œº  Y . 174), but not cease singing of Apollo, just as he will remember the god as he moves to another subject. If 1–178 existed as an independent hymn, nobody would ever say it seemed incomplete or lacked a proper ending.

11 Jacoby (1933). His posited doublets are 6/7–9, 10–13/14–18, 72/73–9, 96/98, 128/129, 136–8/139 (the last has some manuscript support). Wade-Gery (1936) suggests that there are also some doublets in P., notably at 295–9. 12 On the formal aspects of hymnic endings, cf. in this volume Calame (pp. 354–7). 13 Miller (1979), (1986), 65–6.

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Miller does succeed in showing that the passage has some untypical features for a hymnic ending. Apollo is not directly addressed, which is unparalleled in the other Homeric Hymns. It is the Delian maidens who are addressed by the poet, and the åÆæ (‘farewell’) is directed to them. As with the gods addressed in other endings, there is a request for their favour and a promise to sing of them in the future. Miller therefore argues that it is only the Delian maidens (and by extension the Delian theme) of which the poet is taking leave, and that the passage is a transition to a new theme rather than the end of a poem. These are good points, but I think not enough to counterbalance the many features that give the lines the unmistakable feel of an ending. It is true that Apollo is not addressed, but the passage still begins and ends with him, and we still have a request for his favour and promise to sing of him in future (165, 177–8). I would argue that the poet has ingeniously combined his evocation of the circumstances of performance and address to the maidens with a standard prayer for the god’s favour and promise to remember him in return. The other major argument against the Hymn’s unity is the different geographical spheres of the two sections. D. is focused only on the Aegean and its coasts, and it is only Ionians who visit the great Delian festival (30–44, 140–64); while P. centres on mainland Greece, notably Boeotia and Phocis (especially in 216–99). It could be argued that this is just a reflection of their subject matter, but the division need not have been so clear cut. A poet might have described mainlanders coming to Delos, or have had Leto travel also over the mainland in her search for a birthplace. Another link would have been to have Apollo go to Delphi after his birth on Delos, as later authors did.14 In our Hymn, Apollo is said in D. to wander over coasts and islands, and delight most in Delos; and in P. he is first described (with a present tense describing typical activities) going to Delphi, and from there to Olympus, from where he begins his journey in search of a site for his oracle. On the side of unity, Clay argues that the Hymn treats both Delos and Delphi because its outlook, in common with that of the other major Hymns, is consciously Panhellenic.15 Though the two halves do 14 First in E. IT 1234–57, though it appears in fifth-century art (see LIMC s.v. Apollon, nos. 988–97). For later references, cf. e.g. Call. Hy. 2. 103, A. R. 2. 707–8, Hyg. Fab. 140, Serv. ad A. 3. 73, Macr. Sat. 1. 17. 52. 15 Clay (1989), 9–11, 47–9, 92–4, and this volume (p. 246).

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focus on shrines in particular locations, these are shrines that had a Panhellenic and not just local significance. The two sections between them emphasize Apollo’s Panhellenic importance: D. covers the Aegean and its coasts, while P. deals first with northern and central Greece and then the Peloponnese. In both parts the wide geographical range of Apollo’s worship is stressed, and his shrines are said to attract pilgrims from far afield, especially at lines 247–53 ¼ 287–93. Though the lines are first spoken when Apollo arrives at Telphousa, this is an aetiological poem and it is the Pythian Apollo and his shrine that they really glorify by stressing the wide range of pilgrims that the Delphic oracle will attract. This could be understood as an expression of rivalry with other shrines such as Delos rather than a unifying Panhellenism. Clay argues that there would have been no difficulty with a hymn designed for performance on Delos also narrating the story of Delphi’s founding, because these were Panhellenic shrines. She states that ‘we should not foist off a nineteenth-century parochialism on the Greeks’.16 Yet it is more problematic than she suggests to imagine such a combined hymn. Burkert argues that, as the Hymns were probably composed for specific local festivals, ‘the Apollo hymn, as we read it, seems to become an impossibility: the first part in fact describes the festival and addresses an audience at Delos, but the second part presupposes a Boeotian-Phocian setting.’17 It is true that there was a development of Panhellenic shrines in the archaic period, but this does not mean that regional interests and rivalries were wholly superseded.18 A hymn performed at Delos would focus on Delian themes, and a Delphic hymn on Delphic.19 Certainly a 16 Clay (1989), 48. Miller (1986), 112–13, expresses similar sentiments. AHS 190–2, Càssola 98, and Förstel (1979), 163, also think it would not have been a problem to perform a combined Delian and Delphic hymn at Delos or Delphi. 17 Burkert (1979), 58–9. This is not an outdated viewpoint. Cf. Graf (2009), 26, ‘All major hymns are intimately connected with a specific local cult about which the text talks and in which the hymn must have originally been performed’. 18 Panhellenism as a conscious ideology probably only developed after the Persian Wars, but from the early archaic period there seems to have been a development of cultural Panhellenism: cf. Nagy (1979), 6–9, 115–21, Morgan (1993). For a recent survey of theories about the rise of Panhellenism, see Mitchell (2007). 19 Apart from D. and Call. Hy. 4 to Delos, no complete Delian hymns have survived. Pindar’s Paeans 7b and 12 were probably composed for performance on Delos, and focus on the birth story. Extant Delphic hymns unsurprisingly focus on Delphic themes. The surviving hymns celebrating Delos or Delphi are collected, with discussion and commentary, in Furley and Bremer (2001).

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Delphic hymn might mention Apollo’s birth on Delos, but not as a major theme;20 and it is unlikely that a poet performing on Delos would follow his Delian hymn with a much longer narration of the founding of the Delphic oracle. Equally, a hymn composed for performance at Delphi would hardly state that Delos was Apollo’s favourite place (as in 146) and describe a Delian festival as if it were the occasion of the hymn’s performance. It is reasonable enough to argue that the Homeric gods are Panhellenic, in the sense that they are pictured largely on Olympus, and references to their local cults are avoided. This is well-established, as Clay shows by citing Rohde’s formulation.21 However, the Hymns are not precisely the same as Homer in this respect. They do use the same apparatus of the Olympian family, but also show more interest in particular localities and cults, as one might expect of hymns. As indicated above, both parts of the Apollo Hymn have a strong sense of place, and the focus is much more on the god at Delos or Delphi than on Olympus, though both parts do open with an Olympian scene to remind us of this background. In the Apollo Hymn the Pythian poet shows interest in and knowledge of Boeotian topography and cult, as well as the focus on the location of Delphi. Apollo founds cults to himself at Telphousa (375–87) and on the shore at Crisa as Delphinios (490–6), and the shrine at Onchestus of Poseidon is also described (229–38). Nor is it correct to say that ‘the hymn presents the Delian panegyris as a Panhellenic affair rather than a local festival’,22 since only Ionians are said to be there. Clay also argues in favour of the Hymn’s Panhellenism that it presents the foundations of Delos and Delphi as purely Apolline foundations, with no local predecessors. In both cases the barrenness of the site is stressed (53–5, 529–30), and in P. no mention is made of any previous owners of the oracle. Thus local traditions are played down in favour of the Olympian and Panhellenic. However, the poet makes no explicit comments to this effect, and the poverty of the sites of Delos and Delphi can equally be understood in other ways—for example Miller interprets it as a way of praising Apollo by stressing

20 e.g. Limenius’ Delphic paean describes the birth at 5–10, and Alcaeus’ seems to have begun with the birth, according to the summary in Himerius (fr. 307c Voigt ap. Him. Or. 48). 21 Clay (1989), 9, citing Rohde (1898), 38–9. 22 Clay (1989), 93.

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how he, by his power, has made unpromising locations into famous shrines.23 There is no need to see this praise of Apollo as a promotion of Panhellenism, nor is it a strong argument in favour of the Hymn’s unity. Stehle rightly argues that D. (which she regards as originally independent), with its purely Ionian festival and emphasis on Delos as Apollo’s favourite place, does not have a Panhellenic outlook. On her view P., which is consciously Panhellenic, was composed as an addition to D., so it is the combined Hymn that is fully Panhellenic.24 This theory does partially solve a problem facing separatist theories. I have argued that a unified poem celebrating both Delos and Delphi at some length is unlikely, yet, in that case, why would someone have created the combined Hymn, and what performance context would it suit?25 Someone might have created the combined Hymn with a self-conscious Panhellenic agenda. If this is so, we could say that the whole Hymn is Panhellenic in celebrating both Delos and Delphi, but its two parts, or at least D., are not—this only makes sense on a separatist view of the Hymn’s genesis. So if there is Panhellenism in the Hymn it need not be a unifying theme, but rather an argument for its original disunity. If the two parts of the Hymn are originally independent, can we detect linguistic or stylistic differences between them? Linguistic criteria might provide a more objective basis for deciding the unity question. The most important linguistic analysis is that of Janko,26 who does find differences between D. and P. in various linguistic criteria. The largest variation is in their use of nu-mobile before consonants: D. has 60. 8 occurrences per thousand lines, P. only 13. 7. Nu-mobile seems to be a feature largely of Attic-Ionic from an early period, so this suggests that D. has an Ionian origin, and P. a mainland one, which is what we might expect from their content. This criterion seems to be more reliable than most of Janko’s as an indicator of a poem’s geographical origin, since it does not cut across dialectal boundaries in the way that (e.g.) the treatment of pre-vocalic 23

Miller (1986), 22–3, 75. Stehle (1996), 177–96. She describes D. as ‘a mimesis of communal poetry and correspondingly anti-Panhellenic’ (178). Mitchell (2007) similarly argues that D., the earlier poem, is concerned with Ionian identity, and it was the poet of P. who later joined his poem to D. and had a more Panhellenic agenda. 25 See below (p. 72) for one proposed answer to this question. 26 Janko (1982), 99–132. 24

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digamma does.27 Hesiod’s language is Ionicized in many respects, but not this one: Janko’s figures for the Theogony and Works and Days are 21. 5 and 21. 7 respectively, while for the Iliad and Odyssey they are 35. 6 and 37. 2. The Delian section’s higher figure probably reflects its later date. It is hard to draw conclusions from Janko’s other criteria, since P. varies a great deal in its results relative to other Hymns; but since this variation is different from the results for D., it is another indication of disunity. So the linguistic evidence provides some arguments against unity, but has to be used with caution given the shortness of the Hymn and of D. in particular.28 Many scholars have detected differences in style and ethos between the two parts, although these judgments are inevitably subjective. A common view is that D. is more ‘lyric’ in style, and is also the better poem.29 It has been compared to lyric poetry in its swift movement and rapid transition from one topic to another, and the use of apostrophe (though this continues until line 282, well into P.).30 The poet’s references to himself and his audience also seem more characteristic of lyric than epic. P. is often more Homeric and leisurely in style, especially in the episode of the Cretan sailors (388–544), but this could be due to ‘epic’ subject matter such as the voyage and landing scene, where the closest Homeric parallels are found (e.g. 421–7 and Od. 15. 295–300; 440–7 and Il. 4. 74–9; 452–5 and Od. 3. 71–4; 503–7 and Il. 1. 433–7, 485–6). The Pythian poet also displays a fondness for etymology that is absent from D. in his explanations of the cult titles Pythios and Delphinios (371–4, 493–6). Miller criticizes ‘the assumption that stylistic differences within a literary work can be accounted for only by positing multiple authorship’.31 This is a fair point, but stylistic differences are more of an argument for disunity than for unity; and more 27 Janko (1982), 64–8. Hoekstra (1965), 78 ff. argued that the frequency of this usage increased in the course of the epic tradition; Janko shows that this is true at least for the Ionian branch. 28 Some examples of Janko’s figures are: % neglect of digamma D. 34.6, P. 22.4; % genitives in -Ø D. 34.4, P. 45.6; % genitives in -ı D. 28.6, P. 52.0; % a-stem acc. plurals before vowels D. 33.3, P. 55.6. 29 D.’s superiority: Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1916a), 455, Jacoby (1933), 751, Van Groningen (1958), 319–20, Wade-Gery (1936), 56, Càssola 98. Contra: AHS 192. 30 Rapid transitions: 14, 19, 45, 133, 146, and 179 if it is part of D. Apostrophes: 19–29, 127, 140–8, 179–81, throughout 207–46, 281–2. In D. the apostrophe is largely confined to the opening and closing present-tense sections, whereas in the first part of P. it is used for the main narrative. 31 Miller (1986), 115.

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subtle linguistic differences, such as the use of nu-mobile, are certainly not the result of any conscious stylistic variation. There are nonetheless many parallels in structure and phraseology between the two parts. Both open with a scene on Olympus in which Apollo arrives and has an effect on the other gods, and his parents rejoice in their son (1–13, 186–206). Both have a ‘choice of theme’ section introduced by the line H æ ’  ø, ø hı  KÆ (‘How then shall I sing of you who are in all ways a worthy theme of song’, 19/207). Leto wanders through many places looking for a place to give birth, as does Apollo in the search for a site for his oracle, as discussed above.32 Both encounter and have a dialogue with a local goddess (Delos, Telphousa) at the place they choose (in Apollo’s case not his final choice). Leto persuades Delos to accept Apollo, while Telphousa persuades Apollo not to choose her. In both cases there is a promise to build a temple and sacred grove at the site, and here the verbal parallels are close, as are the parallel phrases referring to the people who will bring hecatombs to the future shrine, and the founding of the oracle: ÆN  Œ’ ººø ŒÆ æªı Åe åfiÅŁÆ, ¼Łæø Ø  IªØı’ ŒÆ Æ KŁ’ IªØæ Ø, ŒÅ  Ø ¼ ÆN Å F IÆ&Ø, ŒØ Ł’ ¥ Œ ’ åøØ åØæe ¼’ IººæÅ , Kd h Ø EÆæ ’ sÆ (Apoll. 56–60) But if you have the temple of far-shooting Apollo, all men will bring you hecatombs and gather here, and incessant savour of rich sacrifice will always arise, and you will feed those who dwell in you from the hand of strangers; for truly your own soil is not rich. › ’ ¼ººÅ ªÆEÆ IçÆØ,fi w Œ –fiÅ ƒ ÆŁÆØ Å  ŒÆd ¼ºÆ æÅ Æ· (Apoll. 75–6) he will go to another land such as will please him, there to make his temple and wooded groves. Iºº’ Y Ø ºÆÅ ª, Ł, ªÆ ‹æŒ O ÆØ, KŁ Ø æH Ø æ،ƺº Æ Å  ÆØ IŁæø åæÅæØ, ÆPaæ ØÆ Æ K’ IŁæı , Kd q ºıı  ÆØ. (Apoll. 79–82)

32

See above (pp. 60–1).

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But if you will dare to swear a great oath, goddess, that here first he will build a glorious temple to be an oracle for men, and then [build temples] among all mankind; for surely he will be greatly renowned. (trans. adapted from Evelyn-White, 1936) B ’ Kd ¸Åºø fi ø fi ,  Ø På – Łı fiH ÆŁÆØ Å  ŒÆd ¼ºÆ æÆ. (Apoll. 220–1) You stood in the Lelantine plain, but it pleased not your heart to make a temple there and wooded groves. B ’ Kd 'ºçÅ · ŁØ Ø – åHæ I ø ÆŁÆØ Å  ŒÆd ¼ºÆ æÆ. (Apoll. 244–5) Then you went to Telphousa; and there the pleasant place pleased you for making a temple and wooded groves. 'ºçF’, KŁ c çæ ø æ،ƺº Æ Å IŁæø FÆØ åæÅæØ, ¥  Ø ÆN KŁ’ IªØıØ ºÅ Æ ŒÆ Æ (Apoll. 247–9 ~ 258–60, 287–9) Telphousa, here I intend to make a glorious temple, an oracle for men, who will always bring to me here perfect hecatombs.

These are not standard formulaic phrases, so the parallel passages cannot be independent. Another parallel is the idea that the inhabitants of the shrine will feed on the sacrifices brought by worshippers (59–60, 528–36). These parallels between D. and P. are too great to be coincidental, and show that either the Hymn is a genuine unity or that one poet imitated the other—the two parts can never have been wholly independent poems joined together by a third person. This means that the most economical separatist hypothesis is that one poem was composed as an addition to the other, though it is also possible that a poet composed an imitation of one hymn which was not originally intended to be joined to it. As noted above,33 most separatist critics have followed Wilamowitz in seeing P. as an addition to a preexisting D., but West has argued for the contrary.34 His main argument is that some of the parallel passages are less awkward and fit their context better in P. than in D., and so P. is likely to be the original. This applies especially to the mention of an oracle, and the 33 34

See above (pp. 62–3). West (1975).

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idea that the place’s inhabitants will be able to live off visitors’ sacrifices. The first is clearly more natural in P., and West argues that Delos does not really express concern about her inhabitants’ livelihood, only her own safety and reputation (62–78). In P., on the other hand, the Cretans naturally express concern about how they are to live, and it was a common topos that the Delphic priests lived off the offerings of pilgrims (535–7).35 These arguments have some weight, but are not really conclusive. Förstel argues that the mention of Delos feeding her inhabitants from visitors fits the emphasis on her rockiness and barrenness.36 Janko rejects West’s view as well, arguing on linguistic grounds that the Delian passages are probably prior.37 West also points out that P. does not seem designed to follow on from D.: it does not pick up on anything in D. but begins abruptly with Apollo going to Delphi.38 He is right to say that this gives the impression of an independent poem that has lost its beginning. One might then ask: if D. is designed to precede P., why does it have a clear ending? The foundation of the separatist case, as discussed above,39 is that D. is meant to end at line 178, in which case it was not composed to go before another poem. West’s answer to this is that D. was composed with P. in mind, but originally intended as an independent poem. Later another poet, or possibly the same one, joined the two poems together. West further suggests that the author of the original Delian hymn was the rhapsode Cynaethus of Chios.40 Our information about Cynaethus comes from a scholium to the first line of Pindar’s second Nemean, which states:41 ‘Homerids they called in ancient times the 35

See the references listed in AHS 264–5. Förstel (1979), 293–5 n. 14, lists his objections to West’s arguments. 37 Janko (1982), 109–12. 38 West (1975), 162. 39 Above (p. 63). 40 This seems more likely than the view of Wade-Gery (1936) that Cynaethus was the author of P. If either of the hymns is by this Chian Homerid, it must surely be D. 41 Sch. Pi. N. 2, 1c, III 29, 9–18 Dr (¼ FGrH 568 F 5): % ˇ ÅæÆ ºª e b IæåÆE f Ie F % ˇ æı ª ı , Q ŒÆd c ÅØ ÆPF KŒ ØÆåB fi q, a b ÆFÆ ŒÆd ƒ ÞÆłø fi d PŒ Ø e ª  N  O Åæ Iª . KØçÆE b Kª  ƒ æd ˚ÆØŁ, o çÆØ ººa H KH ØÆÆ K ƺE N c % ˇ æı ÅØ. q b › ˚ÆØŁ e ª  E , n ŒÆd H KتæÆç ø % ˇ æı ØÅ ø e N ººøÆ ªªæÆçg o  IÆ ŁØŒ ÆPfiH. y s › ˚ÆØŁ æH K $ıæÆŒÆØ KæÆłfiÅ a % ˇ æı Å ŒÆa c ŒŁ ! Oºı ØÆ, ‰ % IæÆ çÅØ. 36

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descendants of Homer, who also used to sing his poetry by right of succession; afterwards also the rhapsodes who no longer claimed descent from Homer (were called Homerids). Prominent became Cynaethus and his like, who are said to have interpolated many verses in the poetry of Homer. Cynaethus was Chian by origin, and he wrote, among the works attributed to Homer, the hymn to Apollo and fathered it on Homer. This Cynaethus was the first to recite Homer’s verses at Syracuse in the sixty-ninth Olympiad (504/1 BC), as Hippostratus says.’42 This date has often been rejected as too late both for the hymn’s composition and the first performance of Homer in Syracuse, but it is defended by West and Burkert.43 Hippostratus may have taken the information from some list of victors in rhapsodic contests, and we know that not long before this Hipparchus instituted Homeric recitations at the Athenian Panathenaea.44 Burkert and Janko have independently suggested a possible context for the performance of a combined Delian and Pythian hymn, which also fits the scholiast’s dating of Cynaethus.45 In 523/2 Polycrates celebrated a festival on Delos. Inquiring of the Delphic oracle whether he should call the contests Delia or Pythia, he was told ÆF Ø ŒÆd ˜ºØÆ ŒÆd —ŁØÆ (‘these are both Delian and Pythian for you’).46 Burkert suggests that this reflects Polycrates asking the oracle to endorse Delian and Pythian games. More recently,47 West combines this with his earlier theory, arguing that Cynaethus first composed the independent D. hymn in the mid-sixth century, modelling it on an earlier P. hymn, and then created the combined Hymn for Polycrates’ festival. He also altered the parts of the Hymn when combining them, and the signs of this are visible in our text. In order to please his Samian patron, he increased Hera’s role by inserting the Typhaon episode in P. (305–55), and introducing her into lines 94–114 of the D. hymn. Certainly this last passage would run more smoothly without the lines referring to Hera,48 and the joins at the start and finish of 42

Translation taken from Burkert (1979), 54. West (1975), Burkert (1979), 54–7. 44 Pl. Hipparch. 228b. 45 Burkert (1979), Janko (1982), 112–15. 46 Suda s.v. ÆF Ø . . . More detail on the sources in Burkert (1979), 59 n. 31. 47 WL 9–12. 48 At 95–6 it is awkward that we are told all the goddesses were present except Hera, and then that Eileithyia also was not present. At 95–9 the repetition of language is also difficult. Lines 97–8 state that Eileithyia had not perceived Leto’s labour 43

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the Typhaon episode are awkward.49 If Cynaethus did recite the combined Hymn at Polycrates’ festival on Delos, then this would explain why he left in the section describing the Delian festival, and omitted the beginning of P. Though West’s theory may not be correct in all its details, it does provide a plausible picture of how the Hymn we have came into being. Unitarians deny that the two parts are fully satisfactory as independent wholes, and suggest ways in which they need each other for the full completion of their themes. Miller compares the structure of the Hymn to programmes of encomiastic rhetoric, in which the subject’s origin and upbringing are followed by his or her pursuits and exploits.50 P. represents the praise of the hero’s exploits. Certainly the unified Hymn’s structure of birth followed by exploits is reasonable, but this is a basic sort of unity that could easily result from joining two hymns together. The narration of the god’s birth is a standard theme of hymns, and may or may not be followed by description of the god’s upbringing and exploits.51 For Delian hymns the birth of Apollo and/or Artemis was of course the standard subject, and a hymn narrating the god’s birth would in no sense be incomplete. A common way to follow the narration of the birth might have been to describe the current cult on Delos inspired by the birth, as D. does. From a Delian religious perspective the current festival is the true completion of the birth theme, not Apollo’s exploits elsewhere. The D. poet does in any case look forward to Apollo’s maturity by describing his miraculous growth and indicating what his main timai will be: YÅ Ø ŒŁÆæ  çºÅ ŒÆd ŒÆ ºÆ Æ j åæø ’ IŁæØØ ˜Øe Å æ Æ ıº (‘The lyre and curved bow shall ever be dear to me, and I will declare to men the unfailing will of Zeus’, 131–2). The Hymn also deals in its opening scene with the theme of a new god’s acceptance on Olympus, which often follows a god’s birth in the Hymns, and describes the favourite haunts of the mature god, culminating of course in Delos and his festival there. because she was sitting in clouds, and then the idea that this was contrived by Hera could easily be an addition. 49 At 305 the digression starts abruptly, and the shifts of subject at 354–6 are awkward. 50 Miller (1986), 6–10. 51 On the structure of the Hymns, cf. Janko (1981). On typical themes and their combinations, cf. Sowa (1984).

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Apollo’s statement at lines 131–2 has been used as evidence of the Hymn’s unity because of the emphasis it places on Apollo’s oracular role, which is in the climactic position of the passage and gets a line to itself. Is this preparation for what is in fact the Hymn’s main theme, the founding of the Delphic oracle? The mention of the lyre can also be viewed as a preparation for P.’s prologue. This is one of the better arguments for unity. However, the verses can equally well be explained along the lines already suggested, that in a birth hymn it is only by such a prophecy that the god’s mature attributes can be described.52 The three attributes mentioned are standard ones for Apollo (the same three spheres are mentioned by Callimachus at Hy. 2. 24, though he may have had our Hymn in mind) and so need no special explanation; but it has to be conceded that we might not expect so much emphasis on Apollo’s oracular role in a Delian hymn. If one part of the Hymn was composed to join the other, the Delian poet might have emphasized prophecy to link his poem to the Pythian one, and the Pythian poet might have picked up on such a line, or even inserted it himself in his combined Hymn. These last points are not arguments in favour of disunity, but show that, if we take a separatist view on other grounds, links and similarities between the two poems are compatible with this view. Indeed, this is what we might expect if most separatist theories are right in suggesting one hymn was composed as an addition to the other. The most ingenious attempt to show thematic connections between the two parts, such that each is incomplete without the other, is that of Clay. She takes lines 67–9 ºÅ ªæ Ø çÆØ IŁÆº ººøÆ j ŁÆØ, ªÆ b æıÆı  IŁÆØØ (‘They say that Apollo will be one that is very haughty and will greatly lord it among gods and men all over the fruitful earth’) to mean that Apollo is rumoured to be a threat to Zeus, whose rule on Olympus is not yet fully secure. This theme is also suggested in the opening scene on Olympus, where Apollo appears brandishing his bow and frightening the assembled gods (1–13). The theme of a threat to Zeus’ rule is also found in P., in the episode of Typhaon’s birth (305–54). Here Hera explicitly states that she wishes to bear a son who will be greater than Zeus, and Typhaon’s combat with Zeus was a familiar myth, notably in Hesiod’s Theogony (820–80). Typhaon is linked by the poet to the 52 The god’s attributes can also be mentioned in descriptions of typical activity in the opening and closing sections of the Hymns—in D. cf. 1–13, 19–24, 140–6.

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Delphic snake killed by Apollo, and hence Apollo is on the side of Zeus and the Olympians against the dangerous chthonic monsters that threaten his rule. Apollo’s establishment of his oracle is also under the aegis of Zeus, and he is the one who conveys Zeus’ will to mortals. Clay links this to Hera’s attempts to delay the birth of Apollo, and states that she is also behind Delos’ and other places’ fear of the new god: ‘the source of the malicious rumour turns out to be none other than Leto’s persecutor, Hera, no mere jealous wife, but the mother of Typho and an avowed enemy of Zeus’ cosmos’.53 As Thalmann points out, there is no evidence at all in the text for this last statement, or the link it makes between the two parts of the Hymn.54 In some other versions of Apollo’s birth (e.g. Callimachus’ Hy. 4. 55–204) it is fear of Hera’s anger that makes places reject Leto, but in the Homeric Hymn it is only after Delos agrees to be the birthplace that Hera’s opposition is mentioned. Delos states that the reason she fears Apollo is that this haughty god may despise a rocky and barren birthplace and harm her (66–78). There is no need to read into Delos’ fears about Apollo’s character the idea that he will be a threat to Zeus. This would in fact be an unlikely thing to suggest about Apollo, the most Olympian of gods and loyal son of Zeus, so would need to be stated more explicitly if it were the poet’s meaning. Delos need not mean any more than that Apollo will be a haughty and powerful god, and indeed this is how he was often portrayed in Greek art and literature.55 Even if we do understand Delos’ words as meaning Apollo is a threat to Zeus, the Delian hymn shows that the threat is negated: in its opening scene Apollo hangs up his bow and accepts a cup from Zeus, and at line 132 Apollo says that he will prophesy Zeus’ will to men. This is not a theme which is left incomplete and D. is a satisfactory independent hymn in this as in other respects. For both Clay and Miller, however, it is a central theme of the unified Hymn that Delos’ prophecy is not realized, and that Apollo’s behaviour in P. shows this. He punishes Telphousa for her pride and deceitfulness (375–87), kills a monster that was harming local people (366–74), founds his oracle to benefit and instruct mortals (247–53 ¼ 53 Clay (1989), 74. For a reading of intergenerational conflict in Apoll., which follows Clay’s approach, see in this volume Felson (Ch. 12). 54 Thalmann (1991), 145. For a more sympathetic review see Janko (1991). 55 I will return to this in more detail below (pp. 76–7).

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287–93), and finally warns the Cretan priests against hubris or impiety (537–43). Förstel, who is not a unitarian, agrees with this description of Apollo’s actions in P., but argues that the two parts of the Hymn have different conceptions of Apollo. In P. he is moral and benevolent but in D. he is ambivalent: as the opening scene shows, he is both frightening and a bringer of joy. Delos fears him, but then rejoices in his birth.56 So for Förstel there is a difference that supports a separatist view, while for Clay and Miller the difference between the (apparently) dangerous god of D. and the moral god of P. is actually a sign of unity, as it shows a thematic development. My view is that there is no development of the type posited by Clay and Miller; both sections merely depict Apollo as he is usually portrayed. Apollo is indeed a bringer of both fear and joy in D., but so he is in P. also. His actions can be seen as proud and haughty rather than just and philanthropic. He kills the snake that is an obstacle to his plans and boasts over its corpse (357–74). He punishes Telphousa (and again boasts over her) not for the sake of any abstract justice, but for attempting to deceive him and keep her shrine to herself (375–87). He is not more righteous than her, merely more powerful. Moreover, he hijacks the Cretan sailors without any regard for their own wishes, and addresses them disdainfully (531–44).57 This does not mean that Apollo’s behaviour should be condemned: it is simply how a powerful god behaves. It is misguided to see a contradiction between Apollo the Delphic lawgiver, upholder of morality and moderation, and the arbitrary power he displays in the Hymn.58 Gods are not judged by the same standards as men. Apollo’s haughtiness and his warnings to mortals against hubris are two sides of the same coin. He is the upholder of boundaries between men and gods. The Delphic maxim ªHŁØ Æı (‘know thyself ’) is a reminder to mortals that they are not gods, and it is Apollo who warns Diomedes in the Iliad: çæÇ, 'ıÅ, ŒÆd åÇ, Åb ŁEØ r’ Łº çæ Ø, Kd h  çFº › E IŁÆø  ŁH åÆ Æd Kæå ø ’ IŁæø. (Il. 5. 440–2)

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Förstel (1979), 279–80. Davies (2007), 49, vividly describes Apollo as ‘browbeating a boatload of hapless Cretan sailors, and in general calling all the shots in a pretty tyrannical fashion’. 58 Cf. Davies (1997), esp. 47 and 57–8. 57

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Take care, give back, son of Tydeus, and strive no longer to make yourself like the gods in mind, since never the same is the breed of gods, who are immortal, and men who walk groundling. (trans. Lattimore, 1951)

Similarly he refuses in the Iliad to fight Poseidon over insignificant mortals (21. 461–7) and warns Achilles not to waste his time chasing a god (22. 7–10). He sends the plague on the Achaeans at the start of the poem; he descends ‘like the night’ (ıŒd KØŒ , 1. 47) and ‘terrible was the clash that arose from the bow of silver’ (Øc b ŒºÆªªc ª ’ Iæªıæ Ø ØE, 1. 49). He destroys the Achaean wall easily, like a boy kicking over sandcastles on the seashore (15. 361–6), and strikes Patroclus with his hand, dazing him and shattering his armour (16. 788–817). In the Iliad he is a frightening and powerful god. For Clay, Apollo’s foundation of the Delphic oracle illustrates both his benevolence towards humans and his allegiance to the Olympian order presided over by Zeus. It shows that ‘as the mouthpiece of Zeus, Apollo will be a mediator between his father and mankind’.59 The oracle’s foundation is more than just the creation of a new sanctuary: as the first ever oracle, it changes the relationship between men and gods, to some extent bridging the gap between them, and making them capable of moral choice.60 The Cretan sailors, in their helplessness and ignorance of Apollo’s plans, ‘represent the helpless state of mortals before Apollo inaugurated his oracle’, but now ‘the decrees of the gods are no longer completely hidden from us.’ 61 These statements are not clearly borne out by the text. If we look at what Apollo says about his oracle, he states that it will be rich and men will bring hecatombs there from all over the Greek world and that he will give them infallible counsel (lines 247–53 ¼ 287–93). To the Cretan sailors he says that they will serve his rich temple and know the gods’ intentions; that both they and the oracle will be honoured by men for all time; and that they will be able to live on the meat from the abundant sacrifices brought there (lines 475–85, 532–7). He also warns them that if they behave hubristically they will be subjugated to new masters (lines 538–44). There is nothing in any of this about mortals now becoming capable of moral choice for the first time, an alleviation of their wretched status, or a permanent 59 60 61

Clay (1989), 44. Clay (1989), 75. Clay (1989), 80.

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change in relationships between men and gods. The hymn does not state that Delphi is the first oracle, unless 214–15 (q’ ‰ e æH åæÅæØ IŁæØØ j ÇÅø ŒÆa ªÆEÆ  Å , ŒÆÅ º’ @ºº;) is interpreted as ‘the first oracle’. Most commentators and translators prefer to take e æH as adverbial; e.g. West in his recent Loeb has ‘how you first went over the earth . . . in search of a place for your oracle for humankind’.62 Clay further suggests that the human folly and helplessness sung of by the Muses on Olympus (lines 190–3) will be ‘somewhat alleviated by the establishment of Apollo’s oracle’,63 but this is a timeless description, not one that precedes in time the oracle’s foundation— in fact in this scene Apollo goes up to Olympus from Delphi: Ł b æe Ὄºı  Ie åŁe u  Å Æ j rØ ˜Øe æe H Æ ŁH Ł’ › ªıæØ ¼ººø (‘Thence [from Pytho], swift as thought, he speeds from earth to Olympus, to the house of Zeus’, 186–7). The human condition the Muses sing of is not something changed by the oracle, it is how things are. To suffer and be ignorant, to grow old and die, is what it means to be a mortal and not a god. An oracle does grant humans some knowledge of the divine will, but many stories about oracles stress how cryptic and ambiguous this communication is. As I have argued above, Apollo is the god who preserves the gap between gods and mortals rather than seeking to diminish it. The Cretans are indeed typical humans in their difficulty in recognizing the god who appears to them and their worries about the future, but this is not something that has been alleviated because of the oracle’s establishment—it is normal in stories about a god’s epiphany. P. does emphasize that the oracle is founded ‘for mankind’ (248, 288), but this need not be seen as purely benevolent. There is at least as much emphasis on the benefits for Apollo himself: humans will come in crowds bringing him perfect hecatombs (lines 249–50 ¼ 288–9, 366, 535–6); his temple will be rich and honoured by all men (lines 478–9, 522–3). After punishing Telphousa, Apollo says to her KŁ c ŒÆd K e Œº  ÆØ, Pb e YÅ (‘I am going to be renowned here, not you alone’, 381). Olympian gods are not disinterested benefactors of humankind: they desire to receive honours 62 Miller (1986), 71 n. 182, also argues for the adverbial meaning of e æH here. The poet emphasizes a concern with the origins of the oracle, not its primacy relative to other oracles. 63 Clay (1989), 55–6. Similar ideas in Miller (1979), 74, and Förstel (1979), 233.

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from mortals, and the relationship is a reciprocal one. Apollo will tell men the divine will, but in return he will receive more honour and more sacrifices. Clay also stresses that the Hymn depicts Delphi as a purely Olympian foundation, and shows Apollo to be the loyal son of Zeus and champion of the Olympian regime. She argues that the poet suppresses the myth of the previous owners at Delphi because he wants to portray it as a purely Apolline and Olympian foundation, and stress the Olympian and male at the expense of the chthonic and female.64 This also accounts for the absence of the female Pythia from the Hymn, and the depictions of Apollo’s victory over a female snake, and by association over Typhaon and his mother Hera, who is hostile to the patriarchal Olympian order. I have discussed these issues more fully elsewhere,65 and made the objection that on this view it seems illogical for the poet to suppress the previous (chthonic, female) owners of Delphi; if he wishes to show Apollo’s superiority, why not depict his victory over them explicitly? It seems more likely that we have here an earlier variant of the dragon combat, in which the snake is merely a menace to the local population, and not a guardian of Earth’s oracle. Clay regards the longer Hymns as a genre that is unified by content rather than by structure or language.66 In her view the Hymns fill a gap between Hesiod’s Theogony, which depicts the conflicts of the older gods and Zeus’ rise to power, and the settled Olympian pantheon of Homeric epic, where Zeus’ supremacy is assured and conflicts between gods are confined to squabbling. The Hymns tell how this ordered Olympian hierarchy was formed, and also how relations between men and gods came to be as they are. Each Hymn therefore describes a crisis point on Olympus, whose solution leads to ‘an epoch-making moment’, a ‘new era in the divine and human cosmos’; and all this is planned and controlled by Zeus, who distributes to the gods their timai. ‘In the final analysis, the politics of Olympus are the politics of Zeus.’ 67 In the Hymn to Apollo the crisis 64 As discussed above (p. 77), Clay also takes the absence of previous owners as a mark of the Hymn’s Panhellenic orientation, stressing the Olympian over local mythology. 65 Chappell (2006). 66 Clay (1989), 6–16, 267–70, and this volume (Ch. 11). For some good criticisms of this view, see Thalmann (1991). 67 Clay (1989), 268.

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is the threat the new male god may pose to Zeus, whose loyal son he proves to be. The founding of the oracle demonstrates this loyalty, and also inaugurates a new order between men and gods. In my discussion above, I have argued against the view that the Hymn depicts any atmosphere of crisis around Apollo’s birth or ever suggests that he is a threat to Zeus, and have also argued that there is no suggestion in the text that the foundation of Delphi fundamentally changes the relationship of men and gods. Zeus’ supremacy and plans are certainly important in the long Hymns to Demeter, Hermes, and Aphrodite, but seem less so in the Hymn to Apollo. Rutherford has argued that the main difference between Pindar’s depiction of Apollo’s birth on Delos and the Homeric Hymn’s is the greater role that the former gives to Zeus.68 Nor is the role of Zeus at Delphi greatly stressed in P., compared to many Delphic hymns and other poems.69 It is only in D., at line 132, that Apollo explicitly states that he will prophesy to men the ‘infallible will of Zeus’ (˜Øe Å æ Æ ıº). In P. Apollo states that he will declare the ‘infallible will’ (Å æ Æ ıº, 252 ¼ 292), but without mentioning Zeus. When talking about the oracle to the Cretan sailors he again makes no mention of Zeus except to introduce himself as Zeus’ son Apollo, and he tells the Cretans that they will know the ‘gods’ intentions’ ( ıº ’ IŁÆø, 484), not the will of Zeus specifically. Other than this, Zeus is only mentioned in the opening scene, approving of his son (205), and in conventional phrases referring to the weather such as ˜Øe hæø fi (‘the breeze from Zeus’, 427) and KŒ ˜Øe ÆYÅ (‘by ordinance of Zeus’, 433).70 Overall, the attempts to demonstrate the Hymn to Apollo’s coherence and thematic unity are in my opinion unconvincing, and the arguments in favour of its division are stronger. As I have argued above, Clay’s argument that the two halves are linked by the theme of Apollo being a possible threat to Zeus who turns out to be his loyal supporter and combats the chthonic female enemies of Olympus rests on assumptions and connections that are not evident in the text (notably her assertion that the Typhaon episode somehow shows 68

Rutherford (1988). e.g. Herm. 469–72, 531–40, Alc. fr. 307c Voigt ap. Him., Or. 48 (2. 1 in Furley and Bremer 2001), A. Eu. 17–19, 616–18. 70 Miller (1986), 97 and Clay (1989), 82 view these mentions of Zeus as stressing his important role in the process, but they are too unemphatic and conventional for that. 69

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that Hera was behind the rumour cited by Delos that Apollo would be a violent and lawless god). The two parts have no strong thematic connection other than the basic idea of a god’s birth followed by exploits, which could easily have resulted from the joining together of two originally independent hymns. There is no real evidence for Panhellenism in the two parts; it is true that the combined Hymn can be seen as Panhellenic in dealing with both Delos and Delphi, but I have argued that this Panhellenizing combination of nonPanhellenic parts actually fits better a separatist view of the hymn’s genesis. Like the other Homeric Hymns, the concerns of D. and P. are mainly aetiological. D. tells how the god himself came into being, and hence the cult on Delos which is depicted in the Hymn’s closing section; and P. describes the origin of Delphi and its priests, and of the cult titles Pythios, Telphousios, and Delphinios.

5 The Homeric Hymn to Hermes Humour and Epiphany Athanassios Vergados

Scholars often remark on how the Homeric Hymn to Hermes differs from the rest of the major Hymns in its unusual diction and narrative style, as well as in its humorous treatment of the gods.1 An unusual feature that has not yet received sufficient attention is this: contrary to the rest of the major Homeric Hymns, Hermes lacks a narrated epiphany. The god’s epiphany seems to be a regular component of the rhapsodic hymn and follows a pattern that has been set out in detail by D. Turkeltaub.2 In all the other major Hymns (as well as the seventh Hymn to Dionysus), at some point in the narrative the celebrated god reveals his or her divine identity to mortals. After Apollo appears as a dolphin and a star in broad daylight in the Hymn to Apollo (400, 440–5), the god assumes the form of an ephebe 1 See for instance WL 12: ‘The Hymn to Hermes (4) is distinctive in other ways. Of all the earlier Greek hexameter poems, it is without doubt the most amusing. It is also the most untraditional in its language, with many late words and expressions, and many used in slapdash and inaccurate ways; and it is the most incompetent in construction, with many narrative inconsistencies and redundancies and no command of the even tempo appropriate to epic storytelling.’ Richardson (2007), 85, relates the poem’s unusual diction and narrative style to its humour. See also Richardson (2010), 19–20, 23–4. 2 See Turkeltaub (2003), 16–50, for the general overview of the Homeric epiphany scene-pattern, and 51–122 for its instantiation in the Homeric Hymns. See also Kullmann (1956), 83–111, Richardson (1974), 207–8, Bremer (1975), 1–12, Sowa (1984), 236–72.

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(449–50) and declares: N d ! Kªg ˜Øe ıƒ , ººø ! hå ÆØ rÆØ (‘I am the son of Zeus, and declare that I am Apollo’, 480).3 Similarly, in the seventh Hymn, Dionysus makes his presence manifest, as fragrant wine flows in the pirates’ ship (35–7), a vine and ivy grow on the mast (38–41), and the oar-pins are all crowned with garlands (42). In addition, the god transforms himself into a lion (44–5).4 All the pirates jump frightened into the sea and are transformed into dolphins, but the god spares the helmsman who was the only one to acknowledge Dionysus’ divine identity from the very beginning, when the pirates’ bonds fell onto the ground (15–24; cf. 46).5 Dionysus bids the helmsman not to fear him and reveals his divinity (56–7): N d ! Kªg ˜Øı Kæ æ  n  Œ Åæ j ˚Æ ÅU $ ºÅ ˜Øe K çغÅØ ØªEÆ (‘I am loud-roaring Dionysus, whom Cadmus’ daughter, Semele, bore, after mingling in love with Zeus’). In Aphrodite the goddess of love assumes her divine form before Anchises: her head reaches the roof-beam, and divine beauty radiates from her cheeks (172–9); she then explicitly announces her identity (285–6). Finally, Demeter has two epiphanies in her Hymn. The poet first narrates her partial epiphany: when the goddess enters Celeus’ palace, her head reaches the roof-beam while the doors are filled with divine radiance (188–9). But it is later that the audience experience Demeter’s full epiphany when she reveals her identity (N d b ˜Å Åæ Ø å . . . , ‘And I am Demeter, the honoured one . . . ’, 268). Shortly thereafter she assumes her proper form, filling the palace with radiance and a divine fragrance (268–80).6 Despite the absence of a full epiphany in Hermes, the poet uses motifs that are typically associated with divine presence, while some of the stages of the typical Homeric epiphany scene do occur in the poem. After stealing fifty of Apollo’s cows at Pieria, Hermes leads 3

All translations are mine unless otherwise noted. On epiphany in Hy. 7, see in this volume Jaillard (Ch. 7). Lines 45–7 mention the appearance of a bear in the midst of the ship, while the god’s actions are collectively labelled  ÆÆ. However, this section is possibly interpolated; see Sparshott (1963). For fear as a reaction to a divine epiphany, cf. Hy. 19. 38–9 with Thomas in this volume (p. 162). 5 Interestingly, a similar miracle occurs at Herm. 409–14: Apollo attempts to bind Hermes with withies, but the bonds fall to the ground, take root, and bind the cows instead; see Kuiper (1910) 43–4, Baudy (1989), and Vergados (forthcoming) ad 409–14. 6 The epiphany scene in Dem. probably depends on the similar scene in Aphr.; see Faulkner (2008), 38–40 on the relation between the two poems, and Sowa (1984), 243. 4

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them backwards to the Peloponnese. At Onchestus in Boeotia he encounters an Old Man working on his vineyard whom he insults and to whom he gives instructions (90–3). Later in the Hymn, Apollo somehow becomes aware of the Old Man’s presence and travels to Onchestus to interrogate him about his stolen cattle (184–200).7 Hermes’ shining eyes are mentioned (278, 415–16), as is the divine fragrance and the divine footprint motif (231–2, 237, 342–3), while Hermes’ actions cause helplessness and wonderment to their observer.8 It is noteworthy that some of these epiphanic motifs are not perceived by (or focalized through) a mortal, but rather Apollo. Thus it is Apollo who finds himself perplexed by Hermes’ tricks: at 196 he admits to the Old Man his wonderment at the fact that the cows disappeared while the bull and the four watchdogs remained in the field.9 At 219 he exclaims t Ø, q ªÆ ŁÆF Æ ! OçŁÆº EØ ›æH ÆØ, ‘Alas, what I see with my eyes is a great wonder indeed’, a phrase elsewhere found in archaic hexameter in contexts where a mortal observes the effects of a god’s workings.10 At 407 Apollo admires Hermes’ power (ŁÆı Æø ŒÆØŁ e e Œæ , ‘I wonder at your future power’). After Hermes manages to 7 For the insult motif, see Turkeltaub (2003), 33; for instructions to a mortal as a typical occurrence during divine revelation, see Richardson (1974), 242–4, Turkeltaub (2003), 27. Apollo’s encounter with the Old Man is also to some extent reminiscent of motifs typically found in epiphany scenes: the god notices the Old Man and attempts to convince him to provide information that will help him recover his lost cattle; see Turkeltaub (2003), 19, 24. The Old Man’s answer to Apollo’s request for information is also noteworthy. It is clear that he thought his encounter with Hermes extraordinary (a talking infant was leading fifty backwards-marching cows!). One might have expected the Old Man to realize that he had encountered a god, and perhaps the poet is playing with audience expectations at this point. The Old Man’s failure to perceive Hermes’ divine nature confirms the validity of the god’s insult to the Old Man (see also below n. 23). It is Apollo who, combining the information provided by the Old Man, the bird omen he receives at 213, and his observation of the footprints at 342–3, perceives the thief ’s divine identity. 8 Herm. 342–3 (a ! ¼æ! YåØÆ Øa  ºøæÆ j x ! IªÆŁÆØ ŒÆd IªÆıF Æ  æªÆ, ‘the tracks were of two kinds, monstrous, such as to cause amazement, and the deeds of a mighty spirit’). At Il. 13. 68–75 Poseidon’s divinity is recognized from his YåØÆ . . . H Mb ŒÅ ø (‘the marks of his feet . . . and shins’); cf. Sowa (1984), 247–50. 9 The passivity of the watchdogs may be a further hint at divinity: at Od. 16. 162–3 the dogs at Eumaeus’ hut perceive Athena and do not bark at her but flee instead. 10 Cf. Il. 15. 286, 20. 344, Od. 19. 36. Words related to ŁÆF Æ or Ł  often express the observer’s reaction to a divine epiphany; cf. Pfister (1924), 317, Bremer (1975), 2 n. 2, Turkeltaub (2003), 31–2, Jaillard (2007), 83.

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escape from Apollo’s bonds, the latter ŁÆ Æ IŁæÆ (414; ‘[he] saw and wondered). And finally at 455 Apollo expresses his admiration for Hermes’ music (ŁÆı Çø ˜Øe ıƒb ! ‰ KæÆe ŒØŁÆæÇØ , ‘I admire, son of Zeus, how beautifully you sing these things to the lyre’). In his speech to Zeus Apollo remarks on Hermes’ strange footprints, which appear to him to be x  ! IªÆŁÆØ ŒÆd IªÆıF Æ  æªÆ (‘such as to cause amazement, and the deeds of a mighty spirit’, 343). Moreover, the divine fragrance motif is mentioned when Apollo bursts into Maia’s cave searching for his cattle: an O c ƒ æÆ (‘a charming fragrance’) wafts around Cyllene (231– 2), while, at the sight of Apollo, Hermes dons his æªÆÆ ŁıÆ (‘his fragrant swaddling clothes’, 237).11 Finally, there are several references to Hermes’ shining eyes during his encounter with Apollo: after his first defence speech, Hermes ‘casts many sparking glances from his brows’ (ıŒe Ie ºçæø I Ææø, 278), while at 415–16 he attempts to conceal his radiant look from Apollo (åHæ  ºÅ KŒ łÆ Fæ I Ææ j KªŒæłÆØ  Æ , ‘he surveyed the area with his eyes downcast, eager to hide the darting fire [sc. from his eyes]’).12 Yet these motifs do not lead to an epiphanic moment. Indeed neither Hermes nor Apollo makes the slightest attempt to disguise themselves before they appear to the Old Man at Onchestus, even though elsewhere in the Hymns the gods take on disguises (e.g. at Apoll. 400 where the god appears to the Cretan sailors as a dolphin, or Dem. 101 where the goddess arrives at Eleusis with the appearance of an old woman). This absence of a proper divine epiphany is particularly striking, given that Hermes conforms to the general pattern found in the longer Hymns. The Er-Stil that dominates the narrative of rhapsodic hymns switches to the Du-Stil that is typical of the hymnal envoi and implies the addressee’s (¼ the god’s) presence at the end of the poem. In other words, the narrative of the god’s story effects his or her epiphany to the audience and ideally also his or her blessing of that 11 On this motif, see Lohmeyer (1919), 4–14, Deonna (1939), Lilja (1972), 25–30, Meloni (1975), 12–14. In Herm. this motif is used playfully: at 232 the poet adds, ººa b BºÆ ÆÆÆ Œ Å (‘and numerous long-shanked sheep were grazing the grass’). And of course one cannot expect a baby’s diapers to be fragrant! 12 The poet of Herm. correlates the god’s radiant look with his inventiveness; cf. the simile at 43–6. On Herm. 415, see Vergados (forthcoming) ad loc. For radiance as a motif associated with divine presence, see Keyssner (1932), 150, Bremer (1975), 5 and 7, Dietrich (1983), 68, Turkeltaub (2003), 137.

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community.13 Hermes forms no exception to this pattern. After a proem that partly announces the Hymn’s subject, we pass to the pars epica, which presents the god’s birth story and first achievements in either third person narrative or direct speech. Lines 579–80 switch to the second person, asking the god to rejoice in the song just completed, and this second person implies Hermes’ presence at the performance. But why is it that in the other longer Hymns the god’s perceived presence (and consequently the shift from Er- to Du-Stil) is effected after the god’s epiphany has been narrated in the pars epica, while in the case of Hermes. such narrated epiphany never occurs?14 The peculiar treatment of Hermes’ epiphany in the fourth Homeric Hymn can be explained if we consider the mode of this god’s presentation in early Greek literature. Hermes often appears in situations that involve humour and comedy: examples of such presentation can be found in the Odyssey, the Homeric Hymn to Pan, the fragments of Hipponax, and Old Comedy. When an epiphany of Hermes does occur (as for instance his epiphany to Priam in Iliad 24), it is not presented in the grandiose fashion of the typical hymnic epiphanies. This can be accounted for by Hermes’ nature as a trickster figure who operates with metis (cunning) and stealth. The poet of Hermes effects Hermes’ epiphany with similar stealth: instead of being explicitly narrated (as in the other major Hymns), Hermes’ epiphany is enacted in performance. The poet achieves this in two ways. First, by narrating an extremely humorous tale, he elicits from his audience (the Hymn’s external audience) the same reaction that Hermes’ actions cause to his own addressees (the Hymn’s internal audience, viz. Apollo and Zeus), i.e. laughter (cf. 281, 389, 420). And, second, by narrating how the god invented objects and institutions familiar to 13 For the structure of the Homeric Hymns, see Janko (1981), and Calame in this volume (Ch. 14) who speaks of evocationes, epicae laudes, and preces. For the Hymns as staging the god’s epiphany ‘insofar as they represent the performer(s), as well as the group for whom he speaks, as “remembering”, or “singing” the god, which is to say, bringing the god into the context of the performance to offer him a verbal agalma’, see Depew (2000), esp. 73–4; further Danielewicz (1976), 116–19, García (2002), esp. 28–34, for whom the ‘exclamation åÆEæ . . . [is] the singer’s welcome at the arriving god’ (33), and in this volume Thomas (p. 164). Bierl (2004), 45, points out that ‘the Homeric Hymns often seem to be songs about the advent of a god.’ See Furley and Bremer (2001), i. 61 for the use of second-person imperatives that signal the desire for the god’s advent. 14 Apoll. does not entirely conform to this norm either, as it moves much more freely from Du- to Er-Stil than the other longer Homeric Hymns.

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the audience from their everyday experience (some of which are necessary for, or otherwise tied to, the poem’s very performance), the poet intimates Hermes’ constant presence in the audience’s life.15 This last strategy is of course not peculiar to Hermes. But, as I hope to show in what follows, the poet of Hermes takes this strategy to an extreme by presenting the celebrated god as the inventor par excellence, with whom he identifies himself.

HERMES AND HUMOUR The Homeric Hymn to Hermes is extremely witty and humorous as is appropriate for a poem that celebrates a trickster figure.16 Even though the other Homeric Hymns occasionally reveal humorous moments,17 Hermes’ divine persona is especially amusing, and it would perhaps not be an exaggeration to speak of a tradition of Hermes’ presentation in poetry that involves humour and laughter.18 Epic poetry furnishes examples for this aspect of Hermes’ divine persona. In the second song of Demodocus (Od. 8. 266–366) the male gods have gathered around Hephaestus’ bed and witness the lame god’s craftiness in how he was able to trap Ares and Aphrodite.19 Apollo asks Hermes: % Eæ Æ, ˜Øe ıƒ , ØŒæ, Hæ ø q Þ Œ K  E! KŁ ºØ ŒæÆæEØ ØŁ oØ K º ŒæØØ Ææa åæı fi Å çæfiÅ (Od. 8. 335–7) 15 Hermes’ stealthy presence was well-understood by Callimachus; cf. Vergados (forthcoming), Introduction IV B } 13–17. For the reception of the Homeric Hymns in Hellenistic literature, see Faulkner in this volume (Ch. 9). 16 The comical dimension of the poem was already noted by Eitrem (1906), 248, who remarked, ‘At first sight, the entire Hymn appears to contain very few religious elements; the tone is playfully light, full of humour and jugglery; the divine babe is conceived of as a mischievous Greek youth who deceives his elders, and especially his closest kin in order to have fun and pave the way for himself; [Hermes is presented as] divinely gifted and puerile to the extent of scurrility’ (my translation; emphasis in the original). Schneidewin (1848), 663 had spoken of the ‘roguish poet’ who composed this Hymn. Cf. further Bielohlawek (1930), 203–9, Sikes (1940), 123, and Otto (1987), 142, 315, who calls Hermes a Schelm (‘rogue’). 17 See in this volume Clay (pp. 245–6). 18 See Nesselrath (2010), 147–9, for a brief overview of Hermes’ presence in earlier literature. 19 For more on this episode, see in this volume Clay (pp. 249–50).

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Hermes, son of Zeus, conveyer, giver of good gifts, would you wish to lie in bed beside golden Aphrodite, pressed by strong bonds?

To this the divine messenger replies: ÆD ªaæ F ª Ø, ¼Æ ŒÆÅ º! @ºº.  d b æd Ø Iæ I çd åØ,  E ! Næø fi  Łd AÆ  Ł ÆØÆØ, ÆPaæ Kªg oØ Ø Ææa åæı fi Å çæfiÅ (Od. 8. 339–42) I wish that this would happen, lord Far-shooter Apollo. Even if thrice as many inescapable bonds should hold me, and both you gods and all the goddesses should look upon me, nevertheless I would lie beside golden Aphrodite.

This answer causes the by-standing gods to laugh (343 S çÆ! , K b ª ºø tæ! IŁÆØØ ŁEØ; ‘Thus he spoke and laughter arose among the immortal gods’).20 In addition, there is a strong connection between Hermes and the iambic poets. The plot of Hermes bears some similarities to the story about Archilochus of Paros, transmitted in the Mnesiepes inscription. I quote the relevant passage (E1II. 22–40) with the translation from Clay (2004),21 and underline those words and phrases which resemble the story of Hermes:22 º ªıØ ªaæ æåºå Ø æ ZÆ  çŁ Æ e F Ææe 'ºØŒº ı N Iªæ, N e B , n ŒÆºEÆØ ¸Ø H , [u] F ŒÆƪƪE N æAØ, IÆÆ æøØÆæ B ıŒ , ºÅ ºÆ Å , _ ªØ c F N ºØ· _ [¼] ‰ ! Kª  ŒÆa e _ [], n ŒÆºEÆØ ¸Ø , ÆØ ªıÆEŒÆ [N]E ±ŁæÆ ·  ÆÆ ! Ie H æªø IØ ÆØ _ N ºØ æºŁÆ ŒØ. a b ÆPa _  ÆŁÆØ ÆPe a ÆØØA ŒÆd ª ºø ŒÆd _ _ æøBÆØ, N øºø _ _ c F· çÆ  , [K] ¼ªØ _

25

30

20 For the significance of laughter in this scene, see Brown (1989), 290–1, Halliwell (2008), 77–8. Notice too that in Hy. 19. 44–6, Hermes causes joy to the Olympians by showing them his newborn son Pan. Cf. also Hermes’ words at Il. 21. 497–501. 21 See Clay (2004), 104, with bibliography on the inscription (SEG 15. 517). 22 Some of the similarities between the Mnesiepes inscription and Hermes have already been pointed out by the first editor, N. Kontoleon (1952), 64–7; cf. Peek (1959) who rejected these similarities and Kambylis (1963), 143, who acknowledged only a general resemblance between the two texts. See also Compton (2006), 41–3.

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[N]E ‹Ø ÆPÆd ıØ ÆPfiH Ø c IÆ· [ÞÅ]Ł ø b ø ÆPa b Pb c F PŒ Ø _ æe H H b ºæÆ ›æA ÆP· [ç]Ææa rÆØ, 35 [ŒÆ]ƺƪ Æ b ŒÆd  ØÆ åæ ı [ª]  ºÆ E a )Æ rÆØ a çÆÆ _ ºæÆ ÆPfiH øæÅÆ Æ ŒÆd Iº[ŒÆ]d [ ]_  ÆPc æŁÆØ N ºØ ŒÆd fiH Ææd [a]_ ª Æ źHÆØ. 40 _ They recount that Archilochus, when he was still a young man, was sent by his father Telesikles to the fields, to the district called the Meadows (Leimones), to bring a heifer down for sale. He got up at night before sunrise, while the moon was still bright, to lead the heifer to the city. As he came to the place called Slippery Rocks, they say that he thought he saw a group of women. And since he thought that they were leaving work for the city, he approached them and made fun of them. But they greeted him with good humour and laughter, and asked him if he intended to sell the cow he had in tow. When he answered that he did, they said that they would give him a good price. But, once they had said this, neither they nor the heifer could be seen, but lying before his feet he saw a lyre. He was dumbfounded and, after he had the time to regain his wits, he realized that the women who had appeared to him were the Muses and it was they who had given him the gift of the lyre. And he picked up the lyre and went to the city and told his father what had happened.

In both stories, the protagonist is young. The events involve cows: Hermes steals fifty of Apollo’s cows, while Archilochus is sent by his father to sell a cow. The events occur at night (cf. Mnesiepes inscription E1II. 26  Hermes 99  b   ŒØc æ Æ EÆ $ºÅ, ‘the divine Moon had just reached her look-out point’, and 141 ŒÆºe b çø ŒÆ ºÆ  $ºÅ , ‘and the moon’s beautiful light was shining down upon him’). Both protagonists meet characters whom they mock,23 while both stories involve the exchange of a cow (or 23

This is termed ŒØ in the Mnesiepes inscription. We may compare Hermes’ cryptic address to the Old Man at 90–3: t ª æ, ‹  çıa ŒØ KØŒÆ ºÆ ŒAºÆ, j q ºıØØ s! i  Æ ç æfiÅØ·j ŒÆ  Ng c Ng rÆØ ŒÆd Œøçe IŒÆ , j ŒÆd تA, ‹  Ø ŒÆÆ ºfiÅ e e ÆPF (‘Old man who digs these curved logs as if they were plants, indeed you will obtain lots of wine when all these produce [i.e. never!]; thus be blind though you have seen and deaf though you have heard, and be silent since your own affairs are not harmed’). In 90 I adopt ŒAºÆ with AS and Radermacher (1931). The manuscripts are here divided: * transmits KØŒÆ º þ ı while M offers the unmetrical KØŒÆ ºÆ ºÆ, where

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cows) for a lyre: the price of the lyre is mentioned (in the inscription the lyre is Ø c IÆ [sc. B  ], ‘a good price’, while at Herm. 437 Apollo exclaims after Hermes’ second song: ŒÆ H IØÆ ÆFÆ ÅºÆ , ‘this song you have contrived is worthy of fifty cows’). Both stories, furthermore, mention the meadows (ºØ H ), and both protagonists have a relation to the Muses (Archilochus receives a lyre from them; cf. Herm. 429 where Mnemosyne is said to be the patron goddess of Hermes).24 This type of tale derives from a folk-tale tradition that is also reflected in Hesiod’s Dichterweihe at the outset of the Theogony.25 But Hermes and the Mnesiepes inscription differ from Hesiod’s narrative in that both Hermes and Archilochus’ stories take place at night instead of high noon, the usual time of a Dichterweihe,26 while the lyre in both texts is said to be a worthy price for the animal (or animals); such a comment is missing from the Hesiodic account where the Muses do not present the poet with a musical instrument. Furthermore, in both texts the narrative is presented by a third person (an ‘objective’ narrator) and not by the character who experienced the encounter with the Muses. And finally, the protagonists poke fun at deities related to poetry and song (cf. E1II. 33 and Hermes 75–8, 261–80, 294–8, 464–74). In addition to this general similarity of plot between some of Hermes’ Œºıa æªÆ (‘glorious deeds’) in Hermes and Archilochus’ encounter with the Muses as preserved in the Mnesiepes inscription, Hermes enjoys a conspicuous presence in the admittedly scanty remains of Hipponax’s poetry.27 The iambic poet prays to Hermes, asking for boots and a cloak to protect himself from cold:

ºÆ must be a gloss for ŒAºÆ that made it into the text (KØŒÆ ºÆ ŒAºÆ recurs at Hes. Op. 427 at a different sedes); see my discussion in Vergados (forthcoming), ad loc. With these words Hermes suggests that the Old Man’s toil is in vain (90–1, he is digging worthless logs that will never produce anything) and bids him to continue his thoughtless existence (92–3); these words are surely cryptic and manipulate proverbial wisdom; see Clay (1989), 115, and Tzifopoulos (2000), esp. 154–8. 24 For Hermes’ songs, see in this volume Calame (pp. 348–50). 25 Dichterweihe denotes the poet’s call to his art by a divinity (or divinities) who introduce(s) him to poetry and inspire(s) his song. On the Dichterweihe theme, see Kambylis (1965) and West (1966), 159–61. 26 See Kambylis (1965), 59–61. 27 Walcot (1979), 347–8, notes some similarities between Hermes and iambic poetry.

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% Eæ B, çº! % Eæ B, )ÆØÆF, ˚ıººØ, Kå Æ Ø, ŒæÆ ªaæ ŒÆŒH ÞتH ŒÆd Æ ÆºÇø . . . e åºÆEÆ % IÆŒØ ŒÆd ŒıÆŒ ŒÆd Æ ÆºŒÆ ŒIŒæŒÆ ŒÆd åæıF ÆBæÆ ŒÆ P æı åı (Hippon. fr. 32, IEG) Hermes, dear Hermes, Maia’s puppy, Cyllenian, I solemnly pray to you; for I tremble rather badly and chatter . . . give a cloak to Hipponax, and a small woollen undergarment and little shoes and little boots and sixty stateres of gold from the other side of the wall.28

This fragment is a parody of a prayer which begins with an emphatic invocation of the god: Hermes is invoked twice, the second time as çº (‘friend’), as if the speaker were addressing an equal and not a god. Furthermore, Kå ÆØ (‘I solemnly pray’), a word that belongs to high poetry, is followed by a request that concerns rather prosaic matters and is expressed in low diction.29 The final part of the request (golden stateres P æı åı, ‘from the other side of the wall’) may strike one as somewhat unexpected since all the items in the list are pieces of clothing. But it will be remembered that Hermes was also the god of burglars: in Hermes the god himself declares his intention to break into Apollo’s temple at Delphi to steal gold, silver, iron, and other valuable possessions (176–81). Thus it is reasonable for Hipponax to ask Hermes for gold that is found on the other side of the wall (i.e. in someone else’s house).30 The persona loquens also invokes 28 On this fragment see De Sousa Medeiros (1961), 16–18, Degani (2007), 99–102. The iambographer deflates motifs typically attested in hymnic invocations: )ÆØÆF recalls the god’s parentage, but its formation is comic as Degani (2007), 100 has shown: it consists of the suffix -Å /-(Ø)Å found in epic patronymics (e.g. —źŜÅ , æÅ ) to which the ending - is attached, a combination found only in nouns derived from animal names (e.g. IºøŒØ , ªÆºØ , ºÆæªØ ). Degani accordingly renders ‘cucciolo di Maia’, i.e. Maia’s puppy; see also Degani (2002), 189–91. Acosta-Hughes (2002), 71–2 n. 6, detects in this fragment an allusion to the opening of Hermes and draws our attention to the ‘juxtaposition of genres’ present in both the Hipponax fragment and Hermes. 29 For KåŁÆØ in high poetry, cf. Il. 5. 119, 16. 829, 17. 35, 17. 450, 21. 121, Od. 14. 423, 22. 286, 23. 59, Apoll. 370, Thgn. 358, 944, A. Sept. 276, Ag. 501, Cho. 856, Eu. 58, Soph. Trach. 809, OT 249, OC 484, Eur. IT 508 etc. For the low diction of Hipponax’s prosaic request, cf. the onomatopoeic Æ ÆºÇø (‘chatter, stammer’) and the diminutives ŒıÆŒ (‘small woollen undergarment’), Æ ÆºŒÆ (‘little shoes’), IŒæŒÆ (‘little boots’) which have a colloquial tinge. 30 Degani (2007), 102, rendering ‘nell’altro piatto della bilancia’ (‘in the other of the scales’), sees here a reference to Hermes as the god of weights and measures, based

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Hermes at Hipponax fr. 3a IEG: % Eæ B ŒıªåÆ, fi ÅØd ˚ÆÆFºÆ, j çøæH ÆEæ, Fæ Ø ŒÆÆæFÆØ (‘Hermes, dog-choker, Kandaula in the Maeonian dialect, companion of the thieves, come hither to help me out’).31 The fragment reflects Hermes’ role as the enemy of watchdogs and the leader of thieves (cf. Herm. 175, 292; 194–6). A promise to invoke Hermes occurs at Hipponax fr. 35 IEG (Kæ ø ªaæ oø˙ ‘˚ıººØ )ÆØ % Eæ B’; ‘for I shall speak thus: “Cyllenian Hermes, son of Maia”’). The beginning of this verse is iambic, but its end dactylic (cf. Herm. 408 ˚ıººØ )ÆØ ıƒ ).32 Furthermore, Boupalos is said to have called on Hermes at Hipponax fr. 3 IEG ( ø )ÆÅ ÆEÆ, ˚ıººÅ º ı, ‘he called on Maia’s son, the ruler of Cyllene’),33 while at fr. 177 IEG the speaker addresses Hermes as the god associated with sleep (% Eæ B ŒÆæ, (Meineke— West) Œı rÆ KªæØ, ‘Blessed Hermes, for you know how to rise someone from his sleep’; cf. Herm. 15, 290). It is worth stressing once more that in all these fragments of Hipponax Hermes is mentioned in contexts that are reminiscent of

on the interlinear F æ æı; but cf. Masson (1962), 124 n. 2, who considers this a deterioration of the text and not a gloss; so De Sousa Medeiros (1961), 20, West (1974), 29. Masson (1962), 124 n. 3, appears sceptical of the idea of ØåøæıåÆ, while Fränkel (1993), 248, translates ‘von der inneren Wand’ (‘from the interior wall’), linking Hipponax’s request to Hermes’ function as the patron of thieves. Hippon. fr. 34 (K d ªaæ PŒ øŒÆ h Œø åºÆEÆ j ÆEÆ K åØ HØ çæ ÆŒ Þª j h’ IŒ æfiÅØ f Æ Æfi ÅØ j ŒæıłÆ , u Ø c å ºÆ ÞªıÆØ, ‘for you did not give me yet a thick cloak to be my defence against cold in the winter, nor did you hide my feet in thick boots, so that I don’t catch chilblains’) may imply either that Hermes did not grant Hipponax his wish or may function as a justification for why Hermes ought to provide these objects to the poet (i.e. you have not provided them to me in the past, at least do so now). 31 For ŒÆÆæFÆØ, see LSJ s.v. ŒÆæø, who refer to Tzetzes ap. Analect. Oxon. 3.351 (where it is glossed ı ÆåBÆØ); but cf. Hsch.  855 ŒÆÆæFÆØ, ºØæBÆØ. There is something distinctly incongruous in the juxtaposition of the iambic poet’s ‘learnedness’ (including a foreign gloss in an invocation of Hermes as the patron of thieves) in a verse that ends in the rather prosaic ŒÆÆæFÆØ; see Fränkel (1993), 247. 32 Note that we do find traces of hexameters in Hipponax’s fragments; e.g. possibly fr. 23 IEG f ¼æÆ ı OÅ {ØƺºØæØØÆ{, where Masson (1962), ad loc., and Degani (2007), 84, accept Bergk’s OÅ ! ØƺE Þتź. On the presence of dactyls among the choliambs in Hipponax, see Masson (1962), 26–7. Of course, there are purely parodic hexameters among Hipponax’s fragments—cf. fr. 128–9a IEG; see also West (1974), 30, Degani (2002), 217 n. 96, Carey (2009), 163–5. 33 For the identity of the speaker, see Degani (2007), 79. Note the exotic term º ı (¼ king), playing upon ˚ıººÅ  Æ; cf. also Masson (1962), 103 with n. 4.

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hymnal settings; at frs. 3, 3a, and 32 the god is described by means of a reference to his parentage (son of Maia) and an important Kultort, his birth-place (Cyllene), while fr. 3a exhibits another hymnal trope, namely the accumulation of some of the god’s main by-names and characterizations (ŒıªåÆ, ˚ÆÆFºÆ,34 çøæH ÆEæ). Hipponax’s invocations of Hermes, furthermore, are comically incongruous, since the ‘higher’ form of prayer is used to express ‘lowly’ requests.35 To these we should add two more fragments. First, fr. 47 IEG (Ææ! fiz f ºıŒº  æÅ Æ j æe b ŒıØ e +ºıÅø % Eæ B), which may have comic intent: as Degani observes,36 the name +ºıØØ may be fictitious, derived from çºıÇØ; the verse would thus amount to ‘Hermes of the Chatterboxes’.37 Second, fr. 79. 9–10 IEG (% Eæ B ! K % IÆŒ IŒºıŁÆ j . . . F Œıe e çغÅ), where West proposes ‘and Hermes having given escort to Hipponax’s [had kept safe] the burglar from the dog’.38 Although it is difficult to interpret these fragments with a high degree of certainty, given that we are lacking the context, it is nevertheless evident that the iambic poet presents himself as having a particular relation to Hermes. We observe a similar presentation of Hermes in Old Comedy. The hero of Aristophanes’ Peace, Trygaios, flies to Olympus, where he encounters Hermes, who is depicted in an undignified manner, reminiscent of what we find in the fragments of Hipponax. The god is the doorkeeper of Olympus, left there by the other gods to guard their petty household equipment.39 Interestingly, Hermes’ initially hostile reception of Trygaios changes as soon as the mortal offers him a few pieces of meat.40 It will be remembered that in the Hymn to Hermes the god is twice said to be ‘desirous of meat’ (ŒæØH KæÆÇø; 64, 287) and that he actually attempts to taste some of the meat he has roasted at the Alpheios river, but is unable to consume his portion.41 34

See Masson (1962), 104–6. See West (1974), 29. 36 Degani (2007), 107. 37 If correct, this may point humorously to Hermes as the patron of oratory. 38 See West (1974), 144. 39 Ar. Pax 201–2. 40 Ar. Pax 191–4. 41 In ps.-Apollod. 3. 113 Hermes eats some of the meat. Hermes’ greed is prominent also in Ar. Pl. (1136–8, 1118–32), where the god laments his hunger because of the loss of his earlier offerings. Cf. also Telecl. fr. 35 PCG. t  Ł! % Eæ B, Œ H ŁıºÅ ø (‘Lord Hermes, gulp down some of the offerings’). 35

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The exchanges between Trygaios and Hermes are humorously irreverent. For instance, at 400–2 the mortal unscrupulously declares Hermes a thief, stating it in a rather casual manner as if he and Hermes were equals who had been on the friendliest terms for a long time (note the endearing diminutive % Eæ fiØ, ‘my dear little Hermes’ at 924). The same may be said of 363–5, where Trygaios expresses his confidence that Hermes as the god of luck and lot will help him. Furthermore, it is only after Trygaios explains to Hermes the material loss that the collapse of Greece would entail for the gods that Hermes decides to help him.42 Such a reversed relation between Hermes and a mortal occurs also at Wealth 1139–70: whereas normally it is the mortal who reminds a god of his previous service to him (or her) in order to justify his request (da quia dedi), here it is Hermes who reminds Karion of his previous services to him and requests that the humans admit him.43 All this is of course humorous, since the gods (by definition ‘lofty’ characters) are depicted in human fashion and implicated in lower actions, which creates comic incongruity.44 This representation of the gods is crucially relevant for the Homeric Hymn to Hermes. The archaic hymn recalls and foreshadows in many ways what we have just observed regarding the presentation of Hermes in iamb and comedy. To begin with, the praised deity is presented in his infancy: Hermes accomplishes all his Œºıa æªÆ (‘glorious deeds’) when he is just two days old. Of course, the cattle-theft myth is very old, going back to an Indo-European archetype,45 and Hermes’ cattle-theft is well-known. But the attribution of this action to the newborn Hermes (probably an innovation of Alcaeus, who also composed a hymn to Hermes)46 certainly has a great potential for comedy and even the grotesque. In fact, Middle Comedy saw a proliferation of the ŁF 42

His argument is that Helios and Selene, to whom the barbarians sacrifice, have been conspiring with the barbarians against the Olympians so that, once the Olympians have been removed, they can enjoy the sacrifices they used to offer them. Cf. Ar. Av. 1515–24. 43 Hermes appears also in Phrynichus fr. 61 and fr. 204. Philiscus wrote a play entitled % Eæ F ŒÆd çæÅ ªÆÆ, of which unfortunately not a single fragment survives. Divine satire occurs elsewhere in Comedy; cf. the divine ambassadors in Ar. Av. 1565–693 or the presentation of Dionysus in Ra. (passim). 44 See Nesselrath (1995), 10 on the archaic precedents for such comic incongruity; he cites Arist. Po. 1448a 17 ff. and 1449a 32–4 for the ‘degrading of characters’. For the comic presentation of the gods in Homer, see below (pp. 97–8). 45 See Lincoln (1976), Walcot (1979), West (2007), 451–2. 46 See Cairns (1983), 29–33.

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ªÆ plays,47 while Hellenistic poetry picked up this theme to a great extent.48 But this is not all: the infant Hermes, still wrapped in his swaddling-clothes, delivers defence speeches to Apollo and Zeus which are highly polished in terms of their organization and rhetorical effects (261–77, 368–86).49 Hermes, furthermore, is a trickster who outsmarts Apollo, a god who, though both older than him and the patron of divination, cannot discover his cows’ whereabouts and has to ask a mortal and his infant brother for information (190–200, 254–9). He steals fifty cows from Apollo’s herd and leads them away backwards to confuse their owner, while he fabricates a set of wondrous sandals which create footprints that cause Apollo’s amazement.50 As an infant, he constructs a lyre with a view to using it as a means to barter with Apollo for the cattle later (34–5, 47–51). Finally, his actions cause his audience to laugh: at 281 Apollo laughs at Hermes’ defence speech and feigned indifference, while at 389 it is Zeus’ turn to laugh at Hermes’ skill in lying.51 Furthermore, there is an indirect reference to the iambic ethos in Hermes. At lines 55–6 Hermes’ improvised hymn to himself is compared to the playfully teasing words young men direct at each other at the symposia ( . . . M ŒFæØ j  ÅÆd ŁÆºfi ÅØ ÆæÆØ ºÆ Œæ ıØ, ‘just as young men tease each other with indirect attacks at banquets’).52 These Œæ ÆØ were a kind of ‘indirect speech 47

Nesselrath (1995). See Ambühl (2005). 49 See already Radermacher (1931), 127–8, Görgemanns (1976), 115. Hermes uses what Kennedy (1994), 14 considers ‘the first specific example of argument from probability . . . in Greek’. The poet attempts to represent Hermes’ speech as childlike: in Hermes’ defence speech to Apollo (261–77) we observe repetition in diction (263–5, 265–6, 275–6) and rhythm (eleven of the seventeen lines end with a verb-form in the metrical shape wqq [261–6, 269–71, 274, 277]; of these, six include a trochaic noun before the verb-form [263, 265, 266, 269, 274, 279], while 268 reproduces this metrical pattern, though without a verb). Hermes’ speech, furthermore, consists of short clauses that sometimes lack connectives (263–4, 266–7, 273). All of this contributes to creating the impression of child-talk; see van Nortwick (1974), 94–5. 50 Cf. above n. 8. 51 See Halliwell (2008), 100–3, with Furley in this volume (pp. 224–5), who compares Hermes’ actions in the Hymn to the machinations of a seruus callidus in comedy, at which the audience (both internal and external) has to laugh. 52 For such Œæ ÆØ, cf. IEG 27. 1–6 (Adespota); Alex. fr. 9. 8–10 PCG (with Arnott [1996] ad loc.); A.R. 1. 457–9  ØÆ ’ I Ø Æd IºººØØ j ıŁFŁ! x  ººa  Ø Ææa ÆØd ŒÆd Yø fi j æH łØøÆØ, ‹! ¼Æ o æØ IÅ, ‘then they were addressing each other in turns, as young men often pleasantly amuse themselves by food and drink, when insatiate insolence is missing’ (which may be 48

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characteristic of young men at feasts, that involved assertion of status and could sometimes be playful’.53 This is precisely the implication of the simile introducing Hermes’ hymn to himself: the young god attempts to assert his status by means of his improvised song, emphasizing the duration of Maia and Zeus’ affair and his parents’ equal status (note ÆØæfiÅ çغÅØ, ‘companionable affection’ at 58), as well as praising the wealth in his mother’s cave. But we can go a step further. J. Clay has demonstrated how the major Homeric Hymns represent a critical moment in the divine cosmos. The narrator depicts a crisis on Olympus, which threatens to destabilize the world as Zeus has organized it. Zeus then has to act as a mediator, and his involvement leads into a re-definition or re-distribution of divine timai.54 The Hymn to Hermes conforms to this pattern. Hermes is the last born of the Olympians, which causes a problem: the divine honours have already been distributed. In order to acquire his own place in the world of the Olympians, Hermes (whose background is both Olympian through Zeus and Titanic/ Promethean through Maia) resorts to stealing what belongs to Apollo with a view to exchanging it later. By doing this, he enacts some of his traditional roles. But the poet adds a twist to this theological scheme. The gods in this Hymn are humanized to the extreme: Hermes, the youngest brother, covets the possessions of the elder (Apollo). He even threatens to resort to (further) thievery if his father does not give him what he thinks he deserves (174–81). Maia is portrayed as a mother who reprimands her son for returning home late (150–61). Her words at 160 (ææ ºØ, ‘get lost to where you came from’) indicate her frustration. The quarrelling brothers have to resort to their father in order to settle their dispute (322–4). Thus a serious problem that could destabilize Olympus (what happens when a new god is added to the already existing pantheon?) is treated in a comic

an echo of Herm.); see further Reitzenstein (1893), 26 n. 2, and MacDowell (1971) on Ar. V. 1308–13. On the semantics of Œæ Æ and Œæ E, see Clay (1999), 620–1 with n. 11, Clarke (2001), Lloyd (2004), Gottesman (2008), esp. 6–7. I do not agree with the suggestion in Compton (2006), 43 n. 5 that Hermes’ song is satirical: Hermes’ hymn to himself is playful on account of its possibly risqué topic, yet serious as it shares many points with the opening to the actual Homeric Hymn to Hermes. Whom would Hermes be satirizing? For the correspondence between the poet’s song and divine musical performances, see Calame in this volume (p. 348–50). 53 Gottesmann (2008), 11. 54 Clay (1989), 15 and in this volume (Ch. 11). Cf. Introduction (pp. 19–20).

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way by the Hermes poet, who renders the divine actors in extremely human terms. Such incongruity occurs also at the linguistic level: Hermes’ language is deceptively childish.55 Furthermore, lofty epic language describes such lowly matters as digestive distress. When Apollo seizes Hermes in his attempt to force him to reveal where he had hidden his cattle, Hermes counters this bie with his metis (note  . . . çæÆ  , ‘having contrived’ at 294), by ‘letting forth an omen, a wretched labourer of the belly, an insolent messenger’ (Nøe æ ÅŒ . . . j º Æ ªÆæe æØŁ, IŁÆº IªªºØÅ, 295–6).56 The combination of the word º ø (‘wretched’), generally associated in early poetry with such higher concepts as Łı  and łıå (‘spirit’), with his flatulence would cause comic deflation, for as Katz (1999), 318 observes, ‘ . . . merely upon hearing º Æ, the audience of Hermes would associate this word with a “lofty” spirit and thus find amusement in the rather less positive sort of wind evoked by a ªÆæe æØŁ.’57 The divine world of this Hymn does not differ significantly from what we encountered in Hipponax and Aristophanes. It may of course be objected that Hermes is not the only archaic epic poem that exhibits divine comedy. Early epic, after all, offers some examples of such treatment of the gods. For instance, at Iliad 1. 571–600, Hephaestus attempts to prevent Hera from arguing against Zeus, reminding her how Zeus had thrown him down from Olympus when he attempted to protect her from his physical abuse. The mood is lightened when Hephaestus offers nectar to Hera and then bustles around in Zeus’ palace pouring nectar to the gods’ cups—an ugly and lame god usurping the role otherwise reserved for the beautiful and young Ganymede or Hebe. The result is of course laughter.58 As mentioned above, in Odyssey 8 Ares and Aphrodite are trapped on Hephaestus’ bed, caught by the invisible net that he had created after Helios informed him about their adulterous affair. This 55

See above, n. 49. For Hermes’ ‘fart-omen’, see Katz (1999), esp. 317–19, and Bain (2007), 51–2, who points out the riddling dimension of this description. See Degani (2007), 9, for similar parodic devices in Hipponax’s poetry, which are relevant to Hermes (cunning stratagems, coining of new words, use of lofty epic words or phrases in a lower context, detorsio Homeri, and etymological puns). 57 It will be remembered that at Ar. Eq. 639 a fart is also treated as an omen. See the parallels in Katz (1999), 316 n. 3. 58 On the gods’ laughter at Il. 1. 571–600, see Halliwell (2008), 58–64. On p. 63, Halliwell proposes that the gods’ laughter is caused by Hephaestus acting as a ªºøØ parodying Hebe and Ganymede. This interpretation was already present in scholia bT and A on Il. 1. 584. 56

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too results in laughter, as the male gods gather around Hephaestus’ bed and look at the trapped adulterers.59 These scenes are humorous, to be sure, but they differ from the comedy of Hermes. In the Hymn the humour is sustained throughout, while in Homer the brief comic scenes interrupt (and comment on) the main narrative.60 The Hymn poet seems to enjoy reminding us that Hermes is an infant when he accomplishes his deeds: his swaddling-clothes are mentioned no fewer than six times (151, 237, 268, 301, 306, 388). Furthermore, in both Homeric scenes the gods’ laughter suggests Schadenfreude. In the Iliadic scene the gods laugh at the expense of a crippled god who acts as the wine-pourer, while in the Odyssey a group of males laughs at the expense of the cuckolded husband (even if they admire his craftiness).61

HERMES’ EPIPHANY We have thus far examined the amusing aspect of Hermes’ divine persona, which is manifested both in his presence in works of the epic, iambic, and comic traditions as well as in the way in which the poet of the Hymn to Hermes represents the god’s story. Hardly anyone would expect a magnificent epiphany to occur in such a setting. But there is another set of considerations that may account for the peculiarities of his ‘epiphany’ in the Hymn. Hermes is a cunning god, always in 59

To these scenes one may add Aphrodite and Ares’ wounding by Diomedes in Il. 5, the Dios Apate in Il. 14, and the Theomachy of Il. 21. The Theomachy is not essentially different from the divine scenes in Il. 1, 14 and Od. 8: even though it seems to have a more public character, it appears so only to the poem’s privileged audience. The human actors of the poem are as much unaware of the Theomachy as they are of Hephaestus’ nectar-pouring in Il. 1. For the anthropomorphic presentation of the gods in the Dios apate, see the comments in Golden (1990), 48–50. 60 This is not to say that these scenes are not related to the main story; see Bielohlawek (1930), 195–202, Sikes (1940), Rinon (2006), 211–13. 61 It is worth noting that both Homeric scenes involve an underdog or trickster figure who wins either through humour (Il. 1) or through metis (Od. 8). Moreover, just as Hermes’ story presented in Herm., both divine scenes portray the gods in a humanized fashion, involving problems in the most basic human institution, the family. The Iliad presents a father abusing his wife and the son who tries to protect his mother; the Odyssean tale involves adultery. On the humorous aspects of Homer, see Friedländer (1934); for a different presentation with emphasis on their serious aspect, see Griffin (1980), 144–204.

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motion, closely linked to night and darkness: the cattle-theft takes place at night, as the poet reminds us many times (67–9, 97–100, 141, 155, 341), and the god is also referred to as the companion of the night (290; cf. 358).62 His nature as a tricky god who operates stealthily through metis can help us understand the nature of his epiphanies, when they do occur. In Iliad 24, Hermes appears to Priam and Idaios at Zeus’ behest to help them cross into the Greek encampment and reach Achilles’ tent unnoticed (358–467). Although the god eventually reveals his divine identity, his epiphany differs significantly from other epiphanies in both Homer and the Hymns. Instead of a grandiose appearance, Hermes’ self-revelation is subtler and preceded by his enacting some of his traditional functions.63 To begin with, the form in which Hermes first appears to Priam is that of a young man on the verge of adulthood (347–8). He is IŒŒÅÆ, ‘harmless’ (370–1 Iºº’ Kªg P   Þ ø ŒÆŒ, ŒÆd  Œ ¼ºº j F IƺÆØ Ø, ‘but I will not harm you at all, and I will ward off anyone else from you’). His father’s name is —ºŒøæ (¼ ‘he who owns many possessions’, 397), which is appropriate for a greedy figure such as Hermes.64 He is the youngest son (399) who was chosen by lot to join the Trojan expedition.65 At 439 he refers to his own action of escorting (PŒ ¼  Ø  e O  Æå ÆØ, ‘no one would fight against you in scorn at such an escort’; cf. his titles  ÆE , łıå  ); at 440 he is called KæØØ , an adjective which in antiquity was often understood as ‘beneficial’.66 At 445 he casts sleep on the eyes of the Myrmidon guards (thus enacting

62 Note too that Hermes is associated with sudden silence, as a proverbial phrase cited by Plu. Mor. 502–3 reveals: ŒÆŁæ ‹Æ K ıººªø fi Ød Øøc ª ÅÆØ, e % Eæ B KغźıŁ ÆØ º ªıØ (‘just as when at a gathering there is silence, they say that Hermes has suddenly come in’). 63 See Turkeltaub (2007), 60 with n. 28, who points out that Hermes’ ‘individualizing personality . . . shapes the scene’. 64 Cf. Il. 16. 180–6 for Hermes’ affair with Polymele (¼ ‘she who owns many flocks’); his son was called Eudoros (‘he who possesses good gifts’). 65 Hermes was the patron god of lot; cf. Suda Œ 1785, Eitrem (1906), 258, Olson (1998) ad Ar. Pa. 365, Jaillard (2007), 126 with n. 143. 66 On the meaning of this epithet, see Reece (1999). Note that four out of six occurrences of KæØØ in the Il. appear in book 24 (360, 440, 457, 679; cf. 20. 34, 20. 72). The fact that in this section of the Il. Hermes indeed helps Priam, may suggest that this is how the poet understood the adjective too, and thus Hermes is enacting the (perceived) meaning of this title.

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his role as god associated with sleep), while he opens the gate at 446 (thus performing his role as the god of doors, locks, and hinges).67 It is also significant that when Hermes reveals his divine identity to Priam, he does not change his appearance; nor is there any radiance, fragrance, change in size, or any other physical manifestation, in contrast to other divine epiphanies both in the Hymns and in Homer.68 Unlike Dionysus when he is kidnapped by the pirates in Hymn 7, Hermes does not perform any miracles in front of the mortals. And Priam and Idaios certainly do not experience any fear, since Hermes quietly reveals who he is and that he was sent by Zeus to be the old king’s escort, gives instructions to the old king, and departs for Olympus. Significantly Priam does not say anything in reply, just as the Old Man in Hermes does not respond to Hermes’ brief address. Hermes has a similar appearance in Od. 10. 277–9, where he appears to Odysseus. This event is presented in a mediated form in the hero’s narrative, which shares some of the wording with the description of Hermes’ appearance in Iliad 24.69 There are some thematic similarities as well: Hermes helps the hero, he gives him instructions, but there is no proper epiphany (or if there was one, it was suppressed by Odysseus’ narrative).70 67 See Farnell (volume 5), 66, on the evidence for Hermes’ cult-names æºÆØ , ºØ , ŁıæÆE , æçÆE . 68 On the differences between divine epiphanies in Homer and the Homeric Hymns, see Dietrich (1983), 70–1, Pucci (2008), 59–60, 81–2, who speaks of ‘blank’ epiphanies in Homer, in the sense that we do not know in what form the god appears to the mortal, and Faulkner (2008), 235. But note that even in the ‘blank’ epiphanies in Homer there are physical manifestations that hint at divinity; e.g. Il. 1. 199–200 (Ł Å ! åغ , a ! Kæ! , ÆPŒÆ ! ªø j —ƺº! ŁÅÆÅ· Øg  ƒ Z çÆŁ, ‘and Achilles was astonished and turned around and immediately recognized Pallas Athena; the flash of her eyes was terrible’), 3. 396–8 (ŒÆ Þ! ‰ s KÅ ŁA æ،ƺº Æ Øæc j ŁÆ ! ƒ æÆ ŒÆd Z ÆÆ Ææ ÆæÆ, j Ł Å  ! ¼æ! ØÆ . . . ; ‘and when she observed the beautiful neck of the goddess and her breasts and her shining eyes, she was then astonished . . . ’), or Poseidon’s feet and shins at Il. 13. 68–75. Note too that a god’s divine identity may be revealed by his or her transformation; cf. Od. 3. 371–2 (S ¼æÆ çøÆ! I Å ªºÆıŒHØ ŁÅ j çfiÅ N Å· Ł  ! º Æ NÆ , ‘Athena spoke thus and departed in the likeness of a sea-eagle; and astonishment seized all who saw it’). 69 Cf. Il. 24. 347–8 B ! N ÆØ Œæø fi ÆNı ÅBæØ KØŒg j æH ÅfiÅ, F æ åÆæØÅ X Å (‘he went forth in the appearance of a young prince at the age when he grows his first beard, whose youth is most graceful’)  Od. 10. 277–9 ŁÆ Ø % Eæ Æ åæıææÆØ I ºÅ j . . . Åfi Å Iæd KØŒ , j æH ÅfiÅ, F æ åÆæØÅ l Å (‘then Hermes of the golden wand, met me . . . in the appearance of a young man at the age when he grows his first beard, whose youth is most graceful’). 70 See De Jong (2001), 260–1.

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This kind of divine presence in which the god enacts some of his functions points to another way of understanding Hermes’ peculiar epiphany in Hermes. Hermes’ presence is subtle and is revealed to both the internal and external audience of the poem through his æªÆ (‘deeds’).71 The poet establishes an analogy between the hymnal past (the time when Hermes appeared in the world and introduced his inventions and cultural institutions) and his own present (when humans use these inventions and re-enact the primal performance of the first ‘hymn to Hermes’). The works and inventions of Hermes, some of which are instrumental for the performance of the very Hymn, establish links between the mythological past and audience’s present. The lyre which Hermes creates at the beginning of the poem and uses to accompany his own hymn to himself is the same instrument the poet uses when performing the Hymn to Hermes which we are hearing.72 Hermes is not only the inventor of the instrument, but also the founder of the hymnic genre (or at least the composer of the first ‘hymn to Hermes’). Furthermore, the Æd KÅ (a banquet in which the food is distributed equitably to the guests) that Hermes establishes at the banks of Alpheios also forms part of the audience’s experience, as feasting and dining, both private and public, was an important cultural institution throughout Greek antiquity.73 In addition, if the Hymn was performed at a banquet setting, as has been proposed,74 then Hermes’ transferring the lyre to Apollo may be a proleptic device. Standing on Hermes’ right, Apollo receives the

71 See Versnel (1987), 50–2, who shows that for the ancient Greeks a god’s immediate presence could be perceived through his or her miraculous deeds, even without the visual perception of his or her actual appearance. Versnel further points out that ‘the term epiphaneia denotes two things: the personal appearance of a god and his miraculous deeds . . . [t]o the Greek mind both constituents are merely the two aspects of one indissoluble unity, of which now the one, then the other may dominate the description.’ The poet of Hermes emphasizes the god’s Œºı or IæÅ Æ æªÆ (rather than the physical aspect of his divinity) which reflect Hermes’ divine presence. 72 Cf. Clay in this volume (pp. 244–5). The link between the internal performance in a Hymn and the mortal singer’s performance can be found in other Hymns as well, as Calame (Ch. 14) argues in this volume. What distinguishes Hermes from the other Hymns is that the performer re-enacts the god’s original performance (instead of merely representing or imitating it). 73 For the interpretation of the events at the Alpheios as a dais, see Clay (1989), 121–2. 74 Clay (1989), 7, and in this volume (p. 233); see also Nobili (2008), 288–91, who proposes a semi-public symposion as a possible performance venue, and cf. in this volume Introduction (pp. 16–19).

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instrument and begins to sing. Thereby the two gods enact the K ØÆ æªÆ (lit. ‘the [youths’] deeds [at the banquet], going from left to right’, 454) with the lyre.75 Furthermore, Greene has noted the use of proleptic epithets for Hermes in the Hymn’s proem.76 But such proleptic characterizations are not confined to Hermes. For instance, at 31 the young god addresses the tortoise in terms that envision it as a musical instrument, using the same double entendre that we will meet later in the Hymn when Hermes describes the lyre as a hetaira.77 At the same time, this address creates yet another link between the poem’s mythic time and the audience’s present. The actions of Hermes in this part of the poem have an effect in the audience’s world since this åæØ (‘[the companion] who beats the rhythm’) is present at the poem’s performance. This analogy (or perhaps temporal collapse) is supported by aetiological expressions that emphasize the permanence of the effects of Hermes’ first appearance in the world for humans and gods alike. At lines 124–6 we learn how Hermes disposed of the hides of the slaughtered cows: ÞØf ! Kı ŒÆÆıç ºø fi Kd  æfi Å, j ‰ Ø F a ÆÆ ºıåæØØ çÆØ j Åæe c a ÆFÆ ŒÆd ¼ŒæØ (‘and he stretched the cow-hides on a rugged rock, so that they are there still now, many years thereafter, a long and incalculable time after these events’). The number of temporal markers in these few lines is remarkably high, and the poet emphasizes the continuity of a ritual practice despite the long time that has passed since Hermes inaugurated it. Likewise at 507–10 the poet underscores the permanence of Hermes and Apollo’s reconciliation.78 Here the poet affirms another point of continuity between mythic past and his present: the reconciliation of the two divine brothers lasts even today, and this is 75

See Manuwald (2002), 161. See Greene (2005), 344, who calls these proleptic epithets of the proem ‘a metaphorical bank account of traits from which the child can draw as he wins his timai in succeeding episodes’. 77 Cf. 478–86. This eroticized reference to the musical instrument is exploited in a comic context in Pherecrates’ Cheiron (fr. 155 PCG), where the sufferings inflicted on Mousike by the poets who practised the so-called ‘New Music’ are also presented in erotic terms. 78 ŒÆd a b % Eæ B j ¸Å&Å KçºÅ ØÆ æ

, ‰ Ø ŒÆd F j  Æ! , Kd ŒŁÆæØ b % EŒÅ ºø fi KªªıºØ j ƒ æ, Æ › ! Køº Ø ŒØŁæØÇ (‘And Hermes on the one hand, loved Leto’s son continuously, so that there is proof even today; for he handed the lyre to the Far-Shooter, and he began to play the lyre skilfully on his arm’). Note that I do not punctuate after ŒÆd F. 76

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proven by the fact that Apollo is still the god of the lyre. This proof is the sema that indicates to the poet’s audience the truth of his words. To be sure, the power and presence of the gods is felt through the permanence of their inventions or deeds elsewhere as well. The establishment of the Delphic oracle in Apollo abides in the audience’s experience. The same can be said of the rituals established by Demeter in the long Hymn dedicated to her. And the re-definition of Aphrodite’s power and the ensuing interruption of the generation of heroes is certainly relevant to the audience’s human condition. But again, the Hermes poet takes this theme a step further: the very performance of Hermes is a re-enactment of the god’s deeds by using some of his inventions. By performing the Hymn to Hermes the poet assumes the role of Hermes by repeating one of the god’s most significant actions, i.e. the composition of the poem.79 This identification does not occur only on a symbolic level as a re-enactment, but also in more concrete terms twice in the Hymn. First, in Hermes’ hymn to himself (54–63). In this miniature mise en abîme the poem’s protagonist performs a song of the same genre as the enveloping text (i.e. a ‘hymn to Hermes’). Although Hermes’ own hymn is introduced by I ç with the accusative (as opposed to the way the enveloping text begins, i.e. % Eæ B o Ø )FÆ . . . , ‘Sing, Muse, of Hermes . . . ’),80 the contents of both versions are nevertheless very similar. Both Hermes and the poet’s proems emphasize the god’s parentage and stress the duration of Zeus and Maia’s loveaffair.81 This coincidence in the song’s contents validates the poet’s own account: if the god were to praise himself, he would have performed a song similar to the one we are in fact hearing. Second, in Hermes’ words at 475–88, the divine child explains to Apollo how to use the lyre. Apollo should ‘question’ her only with the proper preparation and knowledge if he wants to receive a pleasing answer. But if someone who is inexperienced questions her violently, she produces an ill-sounding reply. While these words are spoken by the character Hermes, they are actually uttered by the poet who is 79 For the identification of the voice of the divinity and the enunciator, see Capponi (2003), 19–20, 29–30 (on Apoll.). Similarly, during a re-performance of Hesiod’s Theogony the bard assumes the persona of Hesiod; cf. Clay (2003), 3 n. 6. 80 The introduction of a Hymn by I ç þ accusative is found in Hys. 7. 1, 19. 1, 22. 1, 33. 1. 81 Note the iterative TæÇŒ at 58, which is surely meant to remind us of the iterative ت Œ at 7 and the iterative optative of 8 ŒÆ . . . åØ.

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impersonating Hermes at this point. We can imagine a professional bard speaking about his art in the same terms as Hermes.82 The poet thus identifies with his protagonist, Hermes, and this gives the impression that the god is present through the performance of a Hymn like the one he himself had originally composed.83 Hermes’ epiphany is then of a different kind. Instead of being explicitly narrated as in the other Homeric Hymns, it is brought about indirectly through the narration of the god’s Œºıa æªÆ (‘famous deeds’) which are not only described but are also enacted within the Hymn’s performance. The humorous aspects of Hermes’ divine persona link the Hymn with the similar treatment of the god in iambic poetry (a genre which might have had a ritual-dramatic performance component)84 and Old Comedy, which precludes a full epiphany such as the ones we meet in the other long Homeric Hymns or (sometimes) in Homer. Furthermore, in each performance of Hermes, the bard re-enacts some of the god’s wondrous deeds. The singer follows closely the god’s example in praising himself. And just as the singer’s performance partly re-traces Hermes’ own hymn, his audience resemble the poem’s internal audience by sharing with them a similar reaction to the god’s story, namely laughter.85 Through this subtle evocation of the god’s presence, the poet adapts the hymnic conventions to Hermes’ nature as a trickster god, who operates with stealth and metis and whose actions often cause amusement.

82 Cf. Radermacher (1931), 157, who remarked ‘Now it is not Hermes speaking any longer; now the poet himself speaks of the art that is entrusted to him, and he does this with warm sensitivity’ (translation mine). For Hermes’ musical performances in the Hymn, see also Vergados (forthcoming), introduction, V. 83 Cf. Sinos (1993), 83–5 on the ritual impersonation of gods attested in the epigraphic record. Drawing on parallels from the Divine Liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church, she speaks of the audience’s ‘playful participation in a shared drama’, a drama that has the effect of causing the transcending of temporal boundaries, so that the human audience is elevated to the mythic time, ‘hav[ing] been removed from their mundane world and hav[ing] left historic time to experience the heroic past, the time of myth, when gods and humans mingled more freely than they do in our world’. 84 For the ritual origins of iamb, see West (1974), 22–39. Carey (1986), 63–7, argues contra the ritual component of Archilochus’ poems against Lycambes and his daughters; cf. also Bowie (2002), 42–3. 85 For this ‘dramatic’ form of epiphany, see Bierl (2004), 45, who reads E. Ba. and Ar. Pax and Pl. as ‘epiphanies in performance’.

6 An Erotic Aristeia The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite and its Relation to the Iliadic Tradition Pascale Brillet-Dubois1

To Jenny Clay The Hymn to Aphrodite celebrates the power of the love goddess by recounting her seduction of the mortal Anchises. Scholarship on this delightful piece has been discussing for two centuries its complex relationship with the other Hymns of the collection as well as other epic poetry, most of all the Iliad with which the Hymn shares a number of formulae, verses, and thematic sequences.2 Debates have so far focused on three main questions: (1) When was the Hymn composed?3 The communis opinio that the poem’s diction and language—as they appear in the text that we have—are later than the Iliad’s and older than most of the other Hymns’ is now grounded in

1 This chapter is a considerably reworked version of Brillet-Dubois (2006) and of my contribution to the Oslo Symposium on ‘Relative Chronology in Greek Epic’ organized in 2006 by O. Andersen, D. Haug, and A. Maravela-Solbakk. I thank all the colleagues who discussed my ideas and helped me to bring them to maturity. S. Schein and A. Faulkner deserve special mention for their constant support and challenging critique. 2 The union of Aphrodite and Anchises is mentioned in the Iliad (2. 820–1; 5. 311–13) and the Theogony (1008–10). 3 Discussion of the different hypotheses in Janko (1982), 151, Faulkner (2008), 47–9, and in this volume Introduction (p. 14).

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thorough statistical analyses,4 but no certainty can be reached about absolute dating. (2) Is the Hymn to Aphrodite imitating the Iliad? During the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, the extensive use of Homeric formulae and vocabulary in the Hymn to Aphrodite was considered proof of conscious imitation of Homer by the Hymn poet.5 With the rise of oral studies following Milman Parry’s work, new interpretations were made of those similarities: they could indicate that the poet was drawing from the same traditional stock of formulae as Homer6 and that the Hymn was primarily an oral composition.7 The debate on the originality of the poet has not been resolved to this day, as appears clearly in Faulkner’s introduction to his commentary on Aphrodite: although he states in a very cautious way that ‘it is impossible to be certain of direct influence’,8 he believes that some sort of imitation, whether between stable oral poems or written texts, is likely and lists parallels to Homer and Hesiod under the label ‘imitatio’.9 To put things simply, such obvious parallels between two hexameter poems as the ones connecting the Hymn to Aphrodite to the Iliad now receive two main types of explanations: independent composition within the same tradition, or conscious interaction with either the other poem or a common source. Oralists often challenge the idea that the poems are quoting or alluding to each other. They insist that, although the poets have been trained to use certain common formulae, typical scenes and myths, the poems have been composed in different performances and their meaning develops independently.10 On the side of interaction, 4

Hoekstra (1969), Janko (1982). Notable exceptions: Reinhardt (1961) and Heitsch (1965) who respectively suggest that the same poet composed the Il. and Aphr., or the Hymn and an interpolated Iliad 20; Freed and Bentman (1955) believe the poem to be Hellenistic. 5 Discussion of the meaning of these parallels has been overshadowed by the endless and disproportionate debate about the existence of Aineiadai as patrons of one or both texts; see Faulkner (2008), 3–18. I agree with the many scholars who, especially since the survey of the evidence by Smith (1981b), consider the testimonies concerning the historical existence of Aineiadai in Troad to be inconclusive and believe that the hypothesis of one or two poets composing the Hymn and Il. 20 to praise them is unnecessary to explain the prophecies about Aeneas’ descendance. 6 Porter (1949), 266–7. 7 Notopoulos (1962), followed by Preziosi (1966). 8 Faulkner (2008), 31, 23–5. 9 Faulkner (2008), 31, 35. 10 Nagy (1979), 267, on Il. and Aphr.; Burgess (2001), 134. On this issue, cf. Introduction (pp. 3–7).

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imitatio as a derivative relation between the great Homeric and Hesiodic poems and later, minor, or ‘sub-epic’ hexameter poems is giving way to more complex (and stimulating) analyses of epic poetry. These combine the assumption that the poems are traditional and orally derived with the neo-analyst search for traces of reference to pre-existing works. Poems, defined not as texts but as products of poetic traditions, can allude to each other in a dynamic way and reference to other extant traditions can be used to convey meaning to an informed audience.11 This does not imply any more that the exemplum is a written text,12 though it is hardly conceivable without the poem or the poetic tradition it belongs to having reached a form, be it oral or written, that is stable enough for an audience to identify it. In other words, the genealogical model of the relation between the poems is now being supplemented by a dialogic or even agonistic one. (3) Questions about the hymnic genre also appear central to the interpretative debate on the Hymn to Aphrodite. While Aphrodite seems to share the other Homeric Hymns’ compositional characteristics,13 it also stands as the least cultic of all the longer Hymns: the conventional mention of Aphrodite’s temple in Paphos and Anchises’ promise of offerings (100–2) could hardly be interpreted as an aetiology for an extant cult.14 In the analysis of the relationship between the Hymn to Aphrodite and non-hymnic epics, the problem of genre was first raised as a means to define the hymn’s originality and specific poetics: Porter, Podbielski, and Lenz insisted that, for all its parallels in heroic poetry, the poem makes use of traditional material that is subordinated to the celebration of Aphrodite’s power. But the poem as a hymn also met with great interest among scholars who, following upon Vernant’s groundbreaking work on Hesiod, developed anthropological readings of early Greek poetry. That trend of studies culminated with J. Clay’s major book The Politics of Olympus, which examines the cosmogonic aspects of Aphrodite’s story in relation mainly to the Theogony and the other Homeric Hymns, but also in relation to the Catalogue of Women, the Cypria and the Iliad.15 Clay thus sums up her arguments: ‘while the theogonies outlined the 11

See Rousseau (2001), Currie (2006), Burgess (2009), 56–71. Currie (forthcoming) makes excellent comments on Dem. from this perspective. 12 On intertextuality, see Pucci (1995), and critique in Burgess (2001), 133–4. 13 Janko (1981), Lenz (1975). See in this volume Calame (Ch. 14). 14 Faulkner (2008) and, in this volume, Introduction (p. 22). 15 Clay (1989), Rudhardt (1991).

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genesis of the cosmos and the gods and Homeric epic recounted the exploits of the heroes, the [longer narrative] Hymns narrated critical moments in the evolution of the Olympian order and thus filled the gap between the two other genres of epos’.16 The love affair of Aphrodite and Anchises, just as the abduction of Persephone and the foundation of Eleusis or the birth and establishment of Hermes and Apollo in the other major Hymns, constitutes an epoch-making moment in the history of Zeus’ reign. For it was to be, according to Zeus’ plan, the last union between a mortal and a god.17 The Hymn’s emphasis on the relation between mortals and immortals had been elucidated previously,18 but Clay places it in the context of a global, consistent, and Panhellenic representation of cosmogonic history. Without clearly addressing the question of epic interaction, her argumentation postulates that the audience of the Hymn and of Greek epos in general was aware of that cosmogonic background and that the poem’s significance was to be constructed in relation to that shared knowledge. The following interpretation is an attempt to supplement Clay’s work and reflect on the relationship between the Hymn to Aphrodite and the Iliad by being more specific about the way the Hymn defines its own place in relation to theogonic and heroic traditions. I hope to contribute to the understanding of Aphrodite by showing that it not only refers to general traditional motifs (bathing and dressing, encounter with a stranger, epiphany) as all epics do,19 but more specifically that its narrative structure as a whole links the tale of Aphrodite’s seduction of Anchises to the Achillean aristeia, and that this dialogue with the Iliadic tradition (which, however subtle, I assume could be identified by at least some members of the audience) is a key element of the Hymn’s poetics and meaning. The experience of the immortal goddess mirrors that of the mortal hero and is thus revealed as an exploit paradigmatic of the goddess’s works20—an ergon both parallel to and other than the heroic one.

16

In the new preface to the reprint of Clay (1989) in 2006, vi. Clay (1989), 169–70. See also Brillet-Dubois (2001). 18 Segal (1974), Smith (1981a). 19 See Graziosi and Haubold (2005). Faulkner (2008) is a precious source for these parallels. 20 On the repetition of æªÆ (‘works’, 7 occurrences in 21 lines), see AHS 349, Porter (1949), 251–54, Podbielski (1971), 18–21, Càssola 249, Faulkner (2008), 72–3. 17

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The hymn’s pars epica combines the following traditional scenes: (1) Divine motivation: Zeus inspires Aphrodite with the love of Anchises (53–7). (2) Preparation: the goddess goes to Cyprus where the Graces bathe, anoint, and dress her (58–65). (3) Journey: she travels to Mount Ida (66–9); wild beasts follow in her wake (69–72); she inspires them with the desire to mate (72–4). (4) Encounter: she stands before Anchises (75–83) who wonders at her appearance (description of the shining clothes and jewellery, 84–90). He greets her as a goddess (91– 106); she pretends to be a mortal sent by the gods to wed him (107–43). (5) Intercourse: he gives in to desire, takes her to bed, and undresses her (144–66); they have intercourse and he falls asleep (167–71). (6) Aftermath: Aphrodite awakens Anchises and reveals herself in her true form (171–80); he reacts with fear (181–90); the goddess comforts him, predicts the birth of Aeneas, announces that she will never boast again about her power over the gods (191–290). Having ended her speech, she departs to the sky (291).

On a primary level, this sequence is a typical ‘seduction’ or ‘allurement’ narrative with known parallels in Greek epic that we will examine shortly. Yet one can already notice that the sequence closely follows that of the Iliadic aristeia in which the hero (1) is inflamed with the desire to fight, (2) arms himself, (3) moves towards the frontline, (4) meets his opponent, (5) fights him, and (6) reflects upon his victory.21 The main difference lies in the central action: sexual intercourse on the one hand, martial conflict on the other. There are a number of traditional symbolic and formulaic links between the two.22 It is on these grounds, I will argue, that the hymn-poet progressively develops the narrative of a love aristeia. Aphrodite’s action begins with a preparation scene which is very similar to two famous Homeric passages: Hera preparing herself before seducing Zeus in Iliad 14, and Aphrodite bathing after having been caught in bed with Ares in Odyssey 8. The text of the Hymn was long thought to be a combination of the Homeric lines.23 It is now more generally assumed that the three poems drew independently,

21

See Fenik (1968), Janko (1994). Monsacré (1984), 41–94. 23 Aphr. 59  Od. 8. 362; 60  Il. 14. 169; 61–2  Od. 8. 364–5; 63  Il. 14. 172. Aphr. 64–5, which concern Aphrodite’s dressing, are parallel in content but not in wording to Od. 8. 366 and to Il. 14. 178–85. AHS 357, speak of ‘the writer who combined the passages in X and q’; cf. Lenz (1975), 118–22. 22

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with different generic agendas, on the same traditional material.24 The hypothesis of a typical preparation scene is strengthened by two other poems. Fragments 4 and 5 (Bernabé) of the Cypria describe the clothing and adornment of Aphrodite. Fr. 4 focuses on Aphrodite dressing in the clothes made by the Horai and the Charites and places specific emphasis on the fragrant flowers used to dye the clothes. In fr. 5, Aphrodite is singing on Mount Ida among the Nymphs and Charites; they have crowned themselves with garlands made of flowers. The purpose of the scene, though, is probably other than to describe their preparation—the main verb is missing and the adornment is described with a circumstantial participle. Given that fr. 5 is set on Mount Ida and that, according to Athenaeus, fr. 4 belongs in the first book of the Cypria, it is more than likely that Aphrodite’s preparation scene precedes the Judgement of Paris.25 Hymn 6 also presents a comparable scene. The poem celebrates Aphrodite as the sovereign of Cyprus and recalls her arrival on the island. She was first carried there by the wind and the waves (3–5) and was welcomed by the Horai who dressed her and adorned her with golden jewellery (5–14). Then she was introduced to the immortals, who greeted her gracefully, and the sight of her inspired the gods with the desire to wed her (15–18). In all cases but the Odyssey, the preparation scene precedes an erotic encounter: Aphrodite exerts her charm on Anchises (Aphr.), the Olympian gods (Hy. 6), and very probably Paris (Cypria), while Hera seduces Zeus (Il. 14). It seems reasonable to think that the dressing motif, followed by journey and encounter, is part of a typical seduction sequence, just as the arming-motif is part of a fighting sequence. In our examples, seduction might end in intercourse only indirectly or implicitly: in the Cypria, Aphrodite substitutes Helen for herself as Paris’ lover,26 while Hymn 6 ends before any of the gods is designated to become her husband. One noticeable feature of our series is that, apart from the Iliad, all sequences involve Aphrodite. A close examination of the Hera scene 24 Porter (1949), 268–9, Janko (1994), 171. Faulkner (2008), 142 does not exclude imitatio. 25 See the beginning of Proclus’ summary. Cf. also E. Hel. 676–8 (bath of the goddesses precedes the Judgement), IA 1294–8 (judgement takes place next to the springs of the Nymphs where the goddesses pick flowers). On Euripides and the Cypria, see Jouan (1966). 26 See Brillet-Dubois (2001), 258–9.

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confirms that, among the many possible tales of seduction, there existed a traditionally Aphroditean one, for the Iliad includes elements pointing to a consciously ironic transference of the motif.27 Once Hera has bathed, anointed, and clothed her body, her preparation appears to be still incomplete. The episode then expands to tell of her visit to Aphrodite: as if her personal seduction were not enough, she needs to borrow the girdle in which the love-goddess keeps the charms (ŁºŒæØÆ, 14. 215) which constitute her prerogatives and power over all creatures.28 Using lies that her victim, though familiar with beguiling persuasion, paradoxically does not detect,29 Hera talks smiling Aphrodite (çغ Ø , 14. 211) into lending her the garment which is her exclusive property; it allows her to become herself a triumphantly smiling goddess ( Å, 222; ØÆÆ, 223) and ensures the success of her erotic trickery against Zeus. It also signals in a humorous metapoetic way to an ‘epically informed’ audience the transference of a traditional Aphroditean theme. Therefore, the fact that the narrative seems to wander off an expected course is in itself meaningful and draws the attention to the substitution of Hera for Aphrodite.30 That the girdle is not mentioned elsewhere is another proof that it is only necessary in this case of (poetic and mythological) transfer of prerogatives. Finally, given that Hera, using Aphrodite’s weapons, overcomes Zeus on Mount Ida in order to prevent a Trojan victory, the re-use of the sequence can be interpreted as a Homeric integration of the cyclic tradition, and as an inverted replica of the Judgement of Paris.31 This illuminates the second digression of the Dios Apate episode: Hera’s visit to Sleep and her promise to give him one of the Graces to wed.32 Just as Aphrodite bribed Paris by promising the love of Helen, Hera uses as bait a typically Aphroditean character, which again points to transference.33 In both narratives, the whole seduction sequence is

27 For theoretical discussions, see Danek (1998), Burgess (2006), (2009), Currie (2006). 28 Compare Th. 201–6. 29 Janko (1994), 179. 30 Janko (1994), 178–9. 31 See Burgess (2001), (2009), 65–6. 32 See in this volume West (Ch. 2) on the connection of this episode to the myth of Hephaestus’ binding of Hera. 33 Conversely, it seems significant that Athena, Hera’s ally in war since the Judgement, should be substituted for the Graces in the making of her clothing (14. 178–9).

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motivated less by intercourse itself than by the victory at stake. Having been defeated by Aphrodite in the krisis, Hera now ironically has her contribute to the success of Paris’ opponents. The interaction here is rather between Iliadic and Cyprian traditions than between the Iliad and Aphrodite. Let us turn back to the Aphroditean seduction sequence. Variations from the pattern point to meaningful poetic choices. In Hymn 6, the bath is replaced by the motif of Aphrodite floating on the sea, ‘in soft foam’ (IçæfiH Ø ÆºÆŒfiH, 5).34 The poet thus pointedly chooses the Hesiodic version of Aphrodite’s birth and sets his description in a theogonic rather than an erotic perspective. The emphasis on the goddess’s golden jewellery serves as an aetiology of her epithet ‘golden-crowned’ (åæı çÆ , 1)35 and manifests her divine nature, while her preparation leads to her introduction into the society of gods.36 Although the effect she produces on the Olympians is erotic (they all wish to wed her),37 this aspect of the Aphroditean scene is subordinate to the characteristically hymnic representation of her admission among the immortals.38 Departure from the traditional sequence is also visible in Odyssey 8, where the Aphroditean preparation-scene is placed after sexual intercourse instead of before. Aphrodite’s return to Cyprus is usually interpreted as a ‘natural’39 closure for the episode. After the humiliation she just experienced, the goddess is supposed to seek the comfort of her familiar dwelling.40 Instead of this moral interpretation, I would rather suggest that by moving the scene, which traditionally indicates preparation for love, to the end of the episode, Demodocus provides an ironical close to his humorous poem: far from being tamed by humiliation, the goddess is replying by getting provokingly ready for another round.

34

Same pun on aphros/Aphrodite in Th. 191. Compounds of åæı (‘gold’) appear in lines 1, 5, 8, 9, 11, 12; mention of a golden crown in 7–8. 36 Compare Apoll. 186–8. 37 The effect of Aphrodite on the male gods of Olympus might be traditional. Compare the salacious jokes shared by the gods in Od. 8. 333–43; also Pandora’s presentation to the gods at Th. 588. 38 See Lenz (1975), 16–21. 39 See OC i. 371; De Jong (2001), 209. 40 Porter (1949), 267. 35

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As for the preparation-scene of the Hymn to Aphrodite, Porter convincingly argued that it develops traditional themes in its own way and gives special force to the mentions of fragrance.41 From a narrative perspective, the specific treatment of the traditional sequence in the Hymn consists in separating the description of clothes and jewellery from the preparation motif (58–64, 81–90). This choice allows a very interesting shift in focalization, since it is not the primary narrator who describes the effect that Aphrodite produces once she has bathed and dressed. Rather, it is Anchises, her victim, who mentally surveys her when she appears: ªåÅ ’ ›æø KçæÇ ŁÆ ÆØ   r  ªŁ  ŒÆd ¥ ÆÆ تƺÆ.  º b ªaæ  çÆØæ ıæe ÆPªB , rå ’ KتÆ a ºØŒÆ ŒºıŒ  çÆØ , ‹æ Ø ’ I ç’ ±ƺB fi ØæB fi æ،ƺº  qÆ, ŒÆº, åæØØ, Æ ŒØºØ· ‰ b ºÅ ŁØ I ç’ ±ƺEØ Kº , ŁÆF Æ N ŁÆØ. ªåÅ ’ æ xº (Aphr. 84–91) Anchises gazed and took stock of her, wondering at her appearance, her stature and her gleaming garments; for she wore a dress brighter than firelight, and she had twisted bracelets and shining earbuds. Round her tender neck there were splendid necklaces of gold, most elaborate, and about her tender breasts it shone like the moon, a wonder to behold. Anchises was seized by desire.42

The pattern is further modified as the Hymn reduplicates that description when Anchises undresses the goddess: Œ   ƒ æH Ie åæe xº çÆØ, æÆ  ªÆ  Ł! ºØŒÆ ŒºıŒ  ŒÆd ‹æ ı . ºF  ƒ ÇÅ Nb ¥ ÆÆ تƺÆ Œı ŒÆd ŒÆ ŁÅŒ Kd Łæı Iæªıæºı ªåÅ . (Aphr. 162–6) He first removed the shining adornment from her body, the pins and twisted bracelets and earbuds and necklaces; he undid her girdle, and divested her of her gleaming garments and laid them on a silver-riveted chair—he, Anchises.

41 42

Porter (1949), 267–9. Translations of Aphr. are adapted from WL.

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Emphasis is thus put not only on Anchises’ reaction to the sight of Aphrodite but also—for the action has no parallel in the other Aphroditean seduction-sequences—on the stripping of her body. These features, I believe, are meant to underline the relation between the Hymn’s sequence and the Achillean aristeia. For if Aphrodite’s dress which is ‘brighter than firelight’ (çÆØæ ıæe ÆPªB , 86) is thematically similar to Hera’s sunbright veil (Il. 14. 185), lines 86 and 87 share their diction not with her preparation-scene but with lines of Iliad 18 describing the objects forged by Hephaistus. The hemistich çÆØæ ıæe ÆPªB (86) qualifies Achilles’ corslet in the Iliad (18. 610), while line 87 (reduplicated at 163), is a variation of the formula at Il. 18. 400–1: 'BØ Ææ’ N 庌ı ÆÆºÆ ºº, æÆ  ªÆ  Ł’ ºØŒÆ ŒºıŒ  ŒÆd ‹æ ı I [Hephaestus] spent nine years in the company of [Thetis and Eurynome] forging many cunning objects, pins and twisted bracelets and earbuds and necklaces.

When the formula first occurs in Aphrodite at line 87, the replacement of ‹æ ı at the end of the verse by the adjective çÆØ (‘shining’) qualifying ŒºıŒÆ (‘earrings’) allows the Hymn poet both an insistence on the metallic glow and an extended description of the ‹æ Ø (‘bracelets’); of their richness, variety, and moonlike brilliance, which recall the flare of Achilles’ divine weapons in his arming-scene.43 This emphasis on Aphrodite’s glowing finery results from a choice comparable to that of Hymn 6, but very different from that of frs. 4 and 5 of the Cypria, where the use of natural flowers is what characterizes her beauty. Among the possible traditional representations of the goddess, the description in Aphrodite selects the one that allows the poem to take on a heroic flavour and through diction turns the jewellery into a set of weapons comparable to Achilles’ armour. From this perspective, it is striking that when shining Aphrodite appears before Anchises, she is not only intent on seducing him but anxious not to frighten him (  Ø Ææ Ø, 83). Fright, as we know, is the reaction of the Trojan soldiers, then of Priam, Hecuba, and Hector, to the sinister reappearance of Achilles surrounded by the light of his bright new armour.44 Both poems make 43 44

Il. 19. 369–83. See Armstrong (1958), 351–2. Il. 20. 44–6; 22. 35–91, 131–6.

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it clear that it is the perception of divine power symbolized by an unnatural aura that causes fear, whether it reveals Achilles’ outstanding yet temporary superiority or actual divinity: Aphrodite softens the shock she might cause to Anchises by taking the stature and appearance of a young girl,45 but as soon as she reveals herself as a goddess, he is terrified (æ Å, 182). There is more to it, I think, than the traditional expression of the awe that seizes men when confronted with the divine: the negative formulation of Aphrodite’s precaution, combined with the Achillean description of her adornment, are discreet signals that the narrative model transfered here is the heroic aristeia.46 As for the undressing scene, I said earlier that it had no parallel in the Aphroditean seduction sequences. Yet it does have two masculine counterparts. The first one belongs to a masculine seduction scene: at Odyssey 11. 245 Poseidon loosens the girdle of Tyro, a mortal maiden (ºF b ÆæŁÅ ÇÅ). The story shares other elements with the tale of Anchises and Aphrodite: it recounts the union of a god and a mortal, and the prediction that Poseidon makes to Tyro after intercourse, promising a splendid offspring, is clearly related to the one Aphrodite makes to her lover. The undressing motif, therefore, might very well be part of traditional (not exclusively Aphroditean) seduction scenes. Nevertheless, the only known parallel to Aphrodite’s elaborate narrative structure, in which Aphrodite’s dressing scene is counterbalanced by her undressing and the loosening of her belt (ºF  ƒ ÇÅ, 164), features in Iliad 16 where Patroclus’ arming scene (16. 130–44) is pointedly echoed by a disarming scene (16. 793– 804). As Apollo strikes him, his helmet rolls to the ground, his spear breaks in his hands, his shield falls from his shoulders; finally, the god loosens his corslet (ºF  ƒ ŁæÅŒÆ, 804).47 This parallel defines the erotic encounter in the Hymn to Aphrodite in sharp contrast to single combat: what follows for Patroclus is ultimate defeat and death, while the stripping of Aphrodite suggests her utter victory as a seducer and reveals the true nature of her sexual power. Whereas Iliadic heroes strive to overcome their enemies and 45

See Faulkner (2008), 164–5, on this half-successful transformation. The episode of Hera’s seduction in the Iliad is also an aristeia, but the use of the heroic model turns her action into a feminine act of war, whereas I intend to show that in Aphr. erotic power is praised instead of heroic virtue. 47 The only other occurrence of this formula is at Il. 4. 215 (Machaon loosens the corslet of an injured Menelaus). 46

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to lay a hand on their spoils, her own feminine, paradoxical heroism aims at intercourse and lies in her ability to induce her masculine victim to strip her.48 Focusing on the way the Hymn to Aphrodite disrupts the traditional order of the seduction sequence has led us to look ahead in the course of the narrative and we must take a few steps back. Once prepared, Aphrodite moves to Mount Ida which is to be her battlefield. There she is first joined by ‘grey wolves and fierce-eyed lions, bears and swift leopards insatiable for deer’ (ºØ  ºŒØ åÆæ  º  j ¼æŒØ ÆæºØ

 ŁÆd æŒø IŒæÅØ, 70–1); upon seeing them, she rejoices and casts desire in their breast (72–3). It has been suggested that the motif of the wild animals following in Aphrodite’s wake might have Asiatic connotations or origin, while other scholars prefer to underline that the episode illustrates the goddess’s power as it has been earlier defined (Aphrodite is said to reign over all creatures including animals, 4–5).49 Neither explanation is incompatible with the fact that it also occurs at the point where, in the structure of a heroic aristeia, the audience could expect a catalogue of minor victims,50 and if the contrast between the ferocious nature of the beasts and their sexual activity enhances the overwhelming strength of desire, these predators also evoke in a humorous way the heroes who are repeatedly compared with them in Iliadic similes. Aphrodite then moves on to her great duel with a most challenging opponent, one who matches her excellence, ‘the hero Anchises who has his beauty from the gods’ (ªåÅ læøÆ ŁH ¼ Œºº åÆ, 77). The Trojan prince is not only a man whose heroic virtue manifests itself in great beauty, like Achilles or Hector: his beauty is what makes him a hero in this erotic encounter. His bucolic environment, suggestive of a prosperity based on breeding, and his activity, playing the cithara (80), liken him to Paris and similarly characterize him as belonging to the Aphroditean world.51 In order not to cause him fear, as we have seen, Aphrodite takes the appearance of an 48 See Schein (forthcoming). Sowa (1984), 47, 74–6, 79–81, sees in the removal of Aphrodite’s clothes the symbol of the fertility-goddess’s death in her ritual marriage to a mortal. Although suggestive, the comparative perspective of Sowa’s work and its definition of tradition seem to me too broad to be utterly convincing. 49 See Faulkner (2008), 152–3. 50 See Fenik (1968), Krischer (1971), 13–89. 51 Il. 3. 54. See Faulkner (2008), 160.

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inexperienced maiden (ÆæŁ  I  , 82). The disguise is appropriate in all respects: it allows the goddess to develop the lie about her being a mortal sent to Anchises to wed him; it puts her in an inferior position in front of Anchises and motivates her apparent reluctance to have intercourse with him—a very strong incentive indeed for male desire;52 there also seems to be a traditional association between young girls and sweet conversation (OÆæ or OÆæØ ),53 which is part of Aphrodite’s timai along with beguiling persuasion. Thus the form and content of the trickery are paradigmatic of the goddess’s prerogatives as well as the love (æ , 91, 144) and lust (¥ æ , 143) they produce. But they also reverse the traditional formulae comparing a hero to Ares,54 a god whose ergon is markedly opposed to Aphrodite’s in the Hymn (10). Here a goddess disguises herself as a mortal, there epic diction confers a divine persona upon mortals. The subsequent dialogue is first of all typical of allurement scenes in the epic tradition55 and in itself a splendid illustration of the verbal aspects of Aphrodite’s erga. Yet it is also strongly linked to the part of an aristeia where heroes, before engaging in fight, question each other about their identity and make genealogical claims. ‘Who are you among mortals?’ ask Diomedes to Glaucus and Achilles to Asteropaios in the Iliad (6. 123 and 21. 150). Diomedes’ more elaborate speech in Iliad 6 anticipates the possibility that Glaucus might be an immortal, in which case he would renounce the duel in fear of divine anger (6. 128–9). But, says he, if his opponent is a mortal, then they must proceed to fight. Similarly, Anchises, delaying the satisfaction of the eros that has seized him, first asks ‘Who are you among goddesses?’, saluting Aphrodite in a hymnic way (92–9). As will become apparent at the time of Aphrodite’s epiphany, he is aware, just as Diomedes, of what dangers threaten the mortal who interacts with an immortal. But when the goddess has convinced him that she is a mortal, he immediately proceeds to take her to bed (145–50). Scholars debate the sincerity of Anchises’ address:56 has he recognized a 52

Compare Hera’s feigned reluctance at Il. 14. 329–40. See Il. 14. 216; Th. 205. Also Il. 22. 127–8. The most common one is ŁfiH IºÆ @æÅœ, ‘equal to swift Ares’ (eleven occurrences in the Il.); also æºتfiH r @æÅœ, ‘equal to man-destroying Ares’ (six occurrences). 55 See Forsyth (1979), Sowa (1984). A. Faulkner kindly let me read his forthcoming study ‘Les rencontres érotiques dans l’épopée grecque! (forthcoming, d). 56 See Faulkner (2008), 173–4. 53 54

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deity in disguise and is he acting as a pious mortal, or is he trying to flatter the girl by pretending to think she is a goddess, thus displaying an ability to deceive that matches hers? I would emphasize that this ambiguity is a fundamental element of the scene’s humour. The introductory line (ªåÅ ! æ xº,   Ø I ÅhÆ, ‘love seized Anchises, and he replied to her’, 91) inscribes Anchises’ speech in his erotic strategy but leaves the nature of his words undefined, as opposed to the line introducing his supplication after the goddess’s epiphany (ŒÆ Ø ºØ  Æ æÆ æÅÆ, ‘and in prayer he said these winged words to her’, 184). The parallel to the dialogues preceding heroic fights might support the second reading. In these exchanges, the fighters boast about their superiority while challenging the worth of their opponent. If the heroic model applies here, it is reversed to fit the ‘erotic conquest of the stronger by the weaker’57 and the lovers must not only appear as inferior but make a claim about it in order to impress their adversary. Anchises assumes a submissive position, praising the girl he hopes to seduce as if she were divine, promising offerings, praying to her. She in turn replies with a flattering tale that puts her back in his power, substituting for the man’s reverence towards the goddess an attitude of maidenly shyness towards a male. She subtly answers at least part of his prayer by suggesting that, if he weds her, he will gain prestige and father superb children (127). Then, mirroring the dynamics of his speech, Aphrodite voices a supplication (131–8) and promises a dowry (140). In the light of this battle of persuasion and of the poem’s allusive art, I think it is not too far-fetched to interpret as metapoetic the way in which Aphrodite, after defining her identity, makes the strange claim that she can speak Anchises’ language as well as her own. She starts with details on her genealogy and Phrygian origin which can evoke other narratives than the Hymn’s. The adjective O Œºı (‘famous’, 111) applied to Otreus, her alleged father, combined with the remark that follows the mention of his name, Y ı ±ŒØ (‘if you ever heard of him’, 111), point to his kleos and to the (epic) words that are conveying it. They are addressed both to the internal and external audience.58 It is possible, though unprovable, that the epithet 57

Clay (1989) and (2006), 173. Nagy (1979), 265–75, commenting on the speeches of Achilles and Aeneas before their duel, interprets in this metapoetic way the mention by Aeneas of the 58

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would have sounded ironic to the the Hymn’s listeners: Otreus is mentioned only once in passing in what is left of Greek hexameter poetry.59 Aphrodite then gives Anchises this puzzling reassurance that she knows his language, which is, as the text explains immediately, the Trojan language. Commentators are uncomfortable with this unique allusion to bilingualism: they relate it to the mention of different languages in the Iliadic catalogue of the Trojans’ allies,60 but do not convincingly explain why the two characters should not conventionally speak the same language, as in the Iliad the Trojans and Lycians or the Phrygian Asios and his nephew Hector do.61 I think Aphrodite’s remark can receive simultaneously different interpretations. On the internal narratological level, it is not motivated by any reaction of Anchises concerning her language, yet as part of the seduction speech, it could be aimed at emphasizing that the Phrygian stranger makes a perfect match for the Trojan prince.62 It might also signify that Aphrodite is capable of adopting the same kind of flattering and seductive speech as Anchises. Her utterance could be transposing the heroic claim made by Aeneas and Hector in the Iliad that they share the language of blame with Achilles: when replying to Achilles’ provocative boasts, both answer him that they are not to be frightened as if they were children, for they ‘very well know, just as he does, how to speak mocking and unseemly words’ (Kd çÆ rÆ ŒÆd ÆPe j M b Œæ Æ M! ÆYıºÆ ıŁÆŁÆØ, Il. 20. 200–2, 20. 431–3). The diction is close but not identical: çÆ rÆ occurs at the end of line 113 of Aphrodite, while the claim of the heroes has the hemistich Kd çÆ rÆ ŒÆd ÆPe . Finally, on a metapoetic level, the singer of the Hymn is signalling that he knows very well of other songs than his, songs about Troy of which the Iliad is an example, and that he has learned to master them. While remaining (at least during the performance of the Hymn) an Aphroditean poet, he is pointedly borrowing the diction and patterns of the heroic epos.

挺ıÆ . . . Æ (‘well-known words or songs’, 20. 203–9) that have brought his half-divine birth to the knowledge of his opponent. 59 Il. 3. 186. 60 See Faulkner (2008), 190. 61 Il. 16. 717–18. 62 Faulkner (2008), 190, also links Aphrodite’s deceptive use of a foreign language to Odysseus’ Cretan lies.

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Heroes, after delighting in threatening taunts and noble claims, in the end reject speech impatiently to engage in combat with their enemy; they feel that words, however stimulating, are impeding action.63 Persuasion, on the contrary, is an essential part of the erotic confrontation. Just as the sight of Aphrodite was a first love-blow, her beguiling words hit and wound (143), and Anchises acknowledges that the urge he feels to make love with Aphrodite derives from her words (145–54). This brings us back to the undressing scene. It is, at first sight, as we have said earlier, the prelude to Aphrodite’s sexual victory. Yet the contrast with Patroclus’ defeat is about to disappear as her success reveals itself to be a delusion planned by Zeus. This reversal is prepared for in several ways. The poet first lingers on the description of Anchises’ bed, which is covered with the hides of the bears and lions he has hunted (157–60). Faulkner synthetizes the multiple degrees of significance of those details:64 they symbolize Anchises’ manliness, balancing Aphrodite’s feminine attributes and beauty; by contrasting the effect of Aphrodite’s presence among the wild beasts, they ‘underline [her] own loss of power in the face of Anchises’ momentary strength’. Her set of clothes and jewels become another hide, turning her into another hunted animal just about to be killed. It should be added that the description brings Anchises closer to the world of heroes than when Aphrodite first met him playing the cithara, for hunting is not only a peace-time occupation appropriate to warriors but also the principal activity to which fighting and slaying are compared in heroic similes. As Aphrodite lets the mortal undress her and lead her to bed, the reference to the Iliadic aristeia takes on a more sinister ring, as if Aphrodite could not be pictured as a hero without having, ultimately, to face the reality that lies at the core of heroism: death itself.65 The image of a fatally wounded warrior is thus being subtly superimposed on that of the goddess, and her intercourse with Anchises becomes an even more intimate connection to mortality as the poet transfers to her a diction normally appropriate to a dying man. Goddess and hero lay side by side ‘by the will of gods’ (ŁH NÅØ, 166), a formula used once in the Iliad, precisely of the death of Patroclus (Il. 19. 9). At this crucial moment, Aphrodite not only sexually but poetically mingles with a mortal. 63 64 65

See e.g. 20. 244–55, 20. 367–70, 22. 126–8, 22. 282. Faulkner (2008), 227. See also Schein (forthcoming). See Schein (1984).

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Sexual intercourse is not deathly and goddesses do not die, though in a way Aphrodite’s mortal persona does as she recovers her divine appearance.66 At the same time, the pastoral Aphroditean atmosphere is restored: mention of the flocks and of their flowery pastures (168–9) serves to dissipate the gloomy shadow cast on the scene by Anchises’ hides and hunting skills. The goddess also regains her superiority over Anchises. Her unmistakable divinity causes him to tremble and recoil: now he is the one shyly averting his gaze (182–3).67 Yet the epiphany does not immediately disentangle Aphrodite from mortality or from heroic poetics. Before she departs, the two lovers engage in a dialogue that, despite significant inversions, parallels the last exchange between a victor and his expiring victim. Instead of voicing triumphant taunts as heroes do when their opponent falls to the ground, revealing his vulnerability,68 Anchises, at the epiphany of the immortal, assumes again (this time without any ambiguity) the position of a supplicant. Whereas heroic victors boast (hå ÆØ, Kå ÆØ) at the sight of their defeated enemy, Anchises takes no responsibility and places it instead on Aphrodite who deceived him (186). He does not rejoice at having erotically overcome a goddess, for he knows it to be a dangerous situation: a man might consequently suffer the loss of his menos and be condemned to renounce a flourishing life (188–90). Following Smith,69 I rely on internal narrative and language to interpret Anchises’ fears as related to his wish for a ŁÆºæe ª (‘a flourishing offspring’, 104) and thus primarily expressing the idea that he might lose sexual potency and reproductive power. At least this is how Aphrodite understands menos: when she invites her lover not to be afraid, she soothes his worries by announcing that he will have a son (193–6). Later on, she calls this son a Łº (‘offspring’, 278). That in Homer menos has a less specific definition and designates the energy of a hero’s body during fight, or that deprivation of menos indicates death is but another signal that Aphroditean features are being markedly defined in relation to and contrast with the heroic epic.70 66 On the epiphany, see Podbielski (1971), 59–64, Lenz (1975), Richardson (1974), 208–10. 67 Cf. 156, 182. 68 For Hector and Achilles, see Il. 16. 829, 22. 330, but this kind of boasting appears constantly in the battle-scenes. 69 Smith (1981a), 66. 70 See Giacomelli (1980), Faulkner (2008), 248–51.

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Aphrodite replies to Anchises with a long speech. Clay thus sums up its triple function: ‘Addressed to Anchises, the goddess’ words simultaneously comfort and warn her mortal lover. At the same time, she gives voice to reflections concerning the relations between the human and the divine that spring from her forced contact with mortality and her recognition of the complicity of Zeus. Finally, while she refers prophetically to the future, of whose ultimate contours she is only dimly aware, she invites our participation and understanding of its evolution and necessity.’71 Consideration of Aphrodite’s discourse in the light of heroic epic will lead me to reassess or reinforce Clay’s reading in several ways. Though pronounced with the undisguised authority of the goddess, the speech still belongs to the aristeia, at least to the most complete and elaborate pattern of the Achillean aristeia,72 for it mirrors Patroclus’ and Hector’s last words. Both heroes, as they meet their death, experience a moment of reand pre-cognition. They suddenly find themselves capable of recognizing the gods who brought about their defeat (Il. 16. 844–7, 22. 296–303). As for Aphrodite, she does not explicitly acknowledge Zeus’ role in her own misfortune, though she reveals that she is aware of it by assuring Anchises that the gods love him and by alluding to Zeus’ central function in the stories of Ganymedes and Tithonus. Lenz has already suggested that, in the hymnic structure of the poem, Aphrodite’s speech replaced an epilogue in a divine setting concluding the plan of Zeus.73 We can now add another structural argument to his: in the course of Aphrodite’s aristeia, this would be the moment for the goddess to name Zeus as the agent of her defeat. Her reluctance to do so is a sign of her great shame ( ª! ZØ , 247), of her ‘unutterable’ delusion (PŒ O Æ, 254), but I see it also, if compared to her characterization in Iliad 5, where she is paternally rebuked by Zeus, as participating in the poem’s humour: Aphrodite is something of a capricious child forced to submit to her father’s authority but refusing to admit it. The second important feature of Patroclus’ and Hector’s final words is pre-cognition, which takes the form of a warning addressed 71

Clay (1989), 183–4. On this aspect of the Achillean aristeia, see Janko (1994), 417–21, Richardson (1993), 139–44. 73 Lenz (1975), 24–5. 72

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to their victorious opponent: death of the triumphant hero will inevitably and soon follow his victim’s. Patroclus foresees Achilles’ revenge over Hector (16. 852–4), while Hector predicts that Achilles will in turn provoke the wrath of the gods and be killed by Paris and Apollo (22. 358–60). Now, it is a remarkable lacuna in the goddess’s speech that she does not explain why she rejects the possibility of immortalizing Anchises.74 After all, Zeus has turned his own lover Ganymedes into an Olympian, and Aphrodite has no reason to reproduce the mistake of Eos. Instead, she voices regrets: Iºº! N b ØF Kg r   Æ  ÇØ  æ  Ø ŒŒºÅ  YÅ , PŒ i Ø ! ¼å ıŒØa çæ Æ I ç،ƺØ. F   b åÆ ªBæÆ › Ø I ç،ƺłØ źØ

,  ! ØÆ ÆæÆÆØ IŁæØØ, Pº  ŒÆ ÆÅæ, ‹  ıª ıØ Ł æ. (Aphr. 241–6) If you could go on living as you are now in appearance and build, and be known as my husband, sorrow would not then enfold my subtle mind. But as it is, you will soon be enfolded by hostile, merciless old age, which attends men in the time to come, accursed, wearisome, abhorred by the gods.

The optatives followed by F  (‘but as it is’) express an unfulfilled condition, but there is nothing explicit to justify why Aphrodite considers that condition impossible. Clay postulates ‘on the ground of both dramatic and narrative logic’ that ‘Aphrodite knows that her request for Anchises’ immortality would meet with scornful rejection on the part of Zeus, who intended from the first to teach her a lesson’.75 The structural argument derived from the aristeia pattern again supports her view, for the defeated goddess’s prediction reveals Anchises’ humanity—symbolized, as is shown in the generalizing relative clause of 245, by ageing—to be the ineluctable consequence of his victory. That said, this passage of Aphrodite, however closely framed in heroic diction,76 manages a remarkable displacement of focus. The erotic duel is a matter of life, not death. Aphrodite is an immortal and cannot be fatally wounded. Anchises will suffer in old age but does 74 75 76

See discussion by Clay (1989), 189–91. Clay (1989), 190. See Faulkner (2008), 278, and his remark on line 243.

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not risk death, unless—and Aphrodite is explicit about it—he should assume the posture of an actual warrior: should Anchises boast about his adventure (Kfi Å ŒÆd KÆØ, 286), she predicts divine wrath and death at the hands of Zeus, uttering a truly heroic warning, very similar to Hector’s.77 But Anchises has not claimed victory and the hymnic narrative has taken another path. Aphrodite’s grief (¼å ) can now be safely interpreted as the inevitable outcome of her own boasting. Let us turn back to the justification of Zeus’ plan given earlier in the Hymn: ZçæÆ åØÆ Å! ÆPc æ Å PB Iæª Å YÅ, ŒÆ ! KıÆ Å YfiÅ a AØ ŁEØ f ªºØÆÆ, çغ Øc çæÅ, u ÞÆ Łf ı Ø ŒÆÆŁÅB fi Ø ªıÆØ, ŒÆ  ŒÆÆŁÅf ıƒE  Œ IŁÆØØ, u  Ła I Ø ŒÆÆŁÅE IŁæØ . (Aphr. 46–52) He wanted to bring it about as soon as possible that not even she was set apart from a mortal bed, to boast among the assembled gods with a merry laugh how she had coupled gods with mortal women, and they had borne mortal sons to immortal fathers, and how she had coupled goddesses with mortal men.

The association of the boasting (quest for individual superiority)78 and of the ‘hitter hit’ motif (experience of a shared vulnerability) is at the heart of the heroic experience.79 It is in this constant reversal from god-like victor to expiring victim that the hero—Achilles more than any other—learns about the limitations of his nature, but also discovers an individual way to transcend them: the conquest of kleos in beautiful death (Vernant’s belle mort).80 Similarly, Zeus forces Aphrodite to acknowledge the limitations of divine nature by having her share the dire grief she imposed on other deities.81 Excessive proximity with mortals will cause her to suffer anxieties that will alter her divine felicity, for she will have to face the inevitable deaths of her lover and son, a situation that the Iliad presents as a threat to cosmic

77 78 79 80 81

Compare Aphr. 286–90 and Il. 22. 358. See Muellner (1976). See Schein (1984), 128–67, esp. 148–9. See Vernant (1992). See Schein (forthcoming).

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stability.82 The lesson she is being taught is thus that the superiority she exerted on the other gods was temporary and partly illusory; her universal power did not exclude her from the community of the immortals nor allow her to escape the law of cosmic order. As her aristeia ends with a speech assimilating her to expiring heroes, finally tamed by a fate that makes all men equal, she appears to be definitively forced to respect the boundaries separating the divine from the human. After the closure of the Hymn’s narrative, she will never again engage in coupling immortals and mortals, just as the dead Hector will no longer engage in fighting. Thus we come, though from another perspective, to the same conclusion as Clay: Zeus’ purpose is cosmogonic and aims at preventing unseemly erotic contacts between gods and humans.83 I see no other way to understand these much disputed lines from Aphrodite’s long speech to Anchises: ÆPaæ K d ª! ZØ K IŁÆØØ ŁEØ ÆØ X ÆÆ Æ ØÆ æb ¥ŒÆ E, Q æd K f Oæı ŒÆd ØÆ , Æx  Æ IŁÆı ı ØÆ ŒÆÆŁÅB fi Ø ªıÆØ, æ Œ: Æ ªaæ K e  ÆŒ Å Æ. F b c PŒ Ø Ø  Æ åÆØ K BÆØ F ! IŁÆØØ (Aphr. 247–53) I shall suffer great reproach among the gods evermore on your account. Formerly they used to be afraid of my whisperings and wiles, with which at one time or another I have coupled all the immortals with mortal women, for my will would overcome them all. But now my mouth will no longer open wide enough to mention this among the immortals.

Again, the parallel with Hector can shed light on the implications of the fear once provoked by Aphrodite. When the Trojan hero expires, the Achaeans, once terrified by his power, now gather to hit and mock his dead body, in a shocking but pathetic gesture betraying the extent of their relief (Il. 22. 369–75). Until this point, Hector represented for them the greatest threat of all; but the time when he set fire to the ships is over.84 Similarly the immortals will stop dreading Aphrodite’s 82 83

Clay.

See Brillet-Dubois (2001), 254–5. See discussion in Faulkner (2008), 10–18, who reads the passage differently than

84 Compare the fear of the Achaeans when Hector sets fire to their ships at Il. 15. 623–8.

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power because she will not be a threat any more. And she will never claim victory again over the gods because her will shall never again overcome them all, as she claims happened in the past (251). However difficult the text of line 252,85 I take K BÆØ (‘to mention’ or ‘clearly name’) to refer to the boasts in which Aphrodite would name herself as being responsible for the coupling of gods and mortals, just as Å! O ÆØ (‘do not mention or name’, 290) refers to the boast Anchises could make about seducing Aphrodite. I also take F (‘this’, 253) to refer to the whole sentence Æ ªaæ K e  ÆŒ Å Æ (‘for my will would overcome them all’, 251). Fear of the victims and boasting of the victor both cease as Aphrodite experiences ultimate defeat at the hands of Zeus. The birth of Aeneas guarantees that she will never forget the grief that it caused her: fiH b ŒÆd `NÆ Z ! ÆØ, oŒÆ ! ÆNe å ¼å , ŒÆ æF I æ   PB fi (Aphr. 198–9) His name shall be Aeneas, for an ainon (terrible) sorrow took me, because I fell into a mortal’s bed.

In these lines, the enjambment of 199 and the unusual separation of the formula ÆNe ¼å 86 obviously put heavy emphasis on the pun between `NÆ and ÆN (‘terrible’) at line-end, but also on ¼å (‘grief ’) which is moved to the following line and stands at the caesura. Had Aphrodite expressed the causal relation in the reverse order, starting with the acknowledgement of her feeling to explain subsequently her son’s name, we would have expected her to come up with a name beginning with akh—but Akhilles was already taken. Aeneas is thus introduced as another Achilles (his divine mother Thetis is a paradigm of Aphrodite’s grieving victims),87 but also as other than Achilles. For, that Aphrodite shall from now on submit to Zeus and refrain from uniting beings who should not be matched (mortals and immortals) is only part of the lesson;88 this does not mean she has to

85 The manuscripts read ÆåÆØ which makes no sense. See discussion of the conjectures in Faulkner (2008), 282–3. I follow West (2003) in reading åÆØ (‘open wide’). 86 The only two displacements of the formula in the Iliad occur in speeches uttered by Achilles: Il. 16. 55, 19. 307. 87 See Il. 18. 50 ff. On Aphrodite and Thetis, see Schein (forthcoming). 88 Contrast the way Hera’s greatness and wisdom match Zeus’ in lines 36–44.

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renounce superiority altogether. An aristeia is first and foremost a language of praise, which here meets and serves the hymnic celebration of the goddess. Before she finds herself tamed by Anchises and Zeus, Aphrodite demonstrates her erotic excellence. And even as she falls, Zeus’ plan also reveals the proper way for her to exert her unique power, just as the heroes’ individual glory balances their inevitable death. While she can no longer bring mortals close to immortals in sexual intercourse, she can still liken them to the gods by granting them a specifically Aphroditean compensation for their mortality: virtually eternal reproduction.89 She is now bearing one of the IªºÆa  ŒÆ (‘splendid children’) that she promised to Anchises when she was in disguise (127). Aeneas and his flourishing descendants will be the eternal reminders not only of Aphrodite’s delusion, but also of her erotic accomplishments: d ’ ÆØ çº ıƒe , n K 'æØ IØ ŒÆd ÆE ÆØ ØÆ æb KŒªªÆØ (Aphr. 196–7) You are to have a dear son who will rule among the Trojans, and children to his children always shall be born.

This prophecy has long been at the heart of the discussion of the relationship between the Iliad and Aphrodite, for it echoes the prediction made by Poseidon in Iliad 20: F b c `NÆ Å 'æØ IØ ŒÆd Æø ÆE ,  Œ ØŁ ª øÆØ. (Il. 20. 307–8) The mighty Aeneas shall rule among the Trojans, he and his children’s children that shall be born hereafter.

I will limit the scope of my comparison to the perspective of competing Aphroditean and Iliadic poetics. Significant differences between the two prophecies point to two contrasting uses of a common tradition concerning Aeneas’ offspring. The lines of the Hymn contain a hapax, the verbal form KŒªªÆØ, which, following P. Chantraine,90 I consider as a future based on a perfective stem. Because this is ‘post-Homeric coinage’, Hoekstra, though generally reluctant to postulate borrowings from one epic to another, exceptionally assumes that the Hymn is here both imitating and modifying the 89 90

See Smith (1981a), 47–8. Chantraine (1935).

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Iliad.91 Lamberterie, who suspects the form because of its uniqueness, suggests that the problematic final -ÆØ of the form was influenced by the Iliadic ª øÆØ and points to an erroneous quotation.92 I agree that the Hymn’s version of the prophecy implies the existence of the Iliadic diction, but instead of being tempted, as Lamberterie or West, to correct the text of the manuscripts and replace KŒªªÆØ by a participle (KŒªª or the more fomulaic KŒªªÆH ), so as to subordinate the mention of the offspring to the announcement of Aeneas’ rule, I would suggest that the version in Aphrodite is a conscious assessment of erotic values in reference to and against the Iliadic definition of heroism. The strange verbal form chosen (maybe even invented) by the hymn poet is meant to emphasize the differences between the two poetical perspectives. These differences lie in the syntactical and thus thematic priority that the Iliad gives to the reigning status of Aeneas and his offspring and that the Hymn to Aphrodite, adjusting to its addressee, symmetrically gives to the everlasting fertility of the lineage.93 Aphrodite’s prophecy answers the wish voiced earlier by Anchises to the divine-looking girl who materialized before his eyes:   a 'æØ IæØæ ’  ÆØ ¼æÆ, Ø ’ KØø ŁÆºæe ª, ÆPaæ  ’ ÆPe Åæe KV ÇØ ŒÆd ›æA ç MºØ Zº Ø K ºÆE ŒÆd ªæÆ Pe ƒŒ ŁÆØ. (Aphr. 103–6) Grant that I may become a man outstanding among the Trojans, and give me flourishing offspring for the time to come. Grant me myself to live long and well, seeing the light of the sun, and enjoying good fortune among the people, and to reach the doorstep of old age.

Anchises’ words also echo a famous Iliadic passage, Hector’s prayer for his son (6. 476–81), in which the Trojan hero asks the gods that Astyanax be ‘outstanding among the Trojans’ (IæØæ Æ 'æØ, 477) and that he may prove himself as excellent a warrior and king as his father. In comparison to the Iliadic passages, the same shift of focus appears in the mortal’s wish as in Aphrodite’s prophecy. What 91

Hoekstra (1969), 39–40. In a conference given at the Université Lumière-Lyon 2 in 2004. 93 See Lenz (1975), 114–15: he explains the difference by the fact that Iliad 20 does not refer to Aphrodite, whereas the hymnic praise of the goddess logically brings the topic of her fertility. Podbielski (1971), 74, suspected without elaborating that the hymn-poet was adopting ‘une attitude polémique envers l’épopée héroïque’. 92

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Anchises asks for in order to ensure for himself an outstanding (IæØæ , 103) position in Trojan society is not royal status, nor strength, nor bloody victory as Hector does, but the privilege of a flourishing offspring. The parallel is completed at lines 278–9: Aphrodite says that when Anchises first sees his son, ‘[he] will rejoice as [he] look[s] on him, for he will be quite godlike’ (e b Kc c æH Yfi Å Łº OçŁÆº EØ, j ªÅŁØ ›æø· ºÆ ªaæ ŁŒº ÆØ); that is to say that Aeneas will be as handsome as his father, who ‘had his beauty from the gods’ (ŁH ¼ Œºº åÆ, 77). In other words, what Anchises hopes to be granted, what he and his son do obtain, is erotic excellence. Beauty, seduction, fertility are the qualities that define Aphroditean heroism and constitute not only the goddess’s timē, but also her lover’s and son’s. This is how the Hymn achieves its programme, stated in the first line of the poem, of celebrating the ‘deeds’ of golden Aphrodite (æªÆ ºıåæı çæÅ ). It might be significant here that the Hymn to Aphrodite does not end with a prayer as other Hymns do. The one that Anchises expressed has been successfully answered and the whole poem, in a way, invites Aphrodite to repeat her gift by exerting her power over all humans. As the goddess returns to Olympus (291) and leaves Anchises to his human world, the poem abruptly abandons heroic diction to regain its hymnic form with the characteristic åÆEæ Ł (‘farewell, goddess’, 292).94 Aphrodite is saluted as the benevolent but distant goddess she will now forever be. In order to clarify the relationship between Aphrodite and the Iliadic tradition, I will now turn quickly to the Iliad and indicate a few examples of the way the heroic poem, in turn, integrates elements present in Aphrodite to define by contrast its own thematic and poetics. At Iliad 5, Aphrodite in person is expelled from the battlefield by Diomedes. The primary narrator, the hero, and Zeus all voice the idea that she does not belong there,95 for hers are not the works of war but the works of marriage. Following the same pattern as in the Hymn to Aphrodite’s priamel (7–33), her prerogatives are opposed to Athena’s.96 As for the Aphroditean heroes, Anchises, Paris, and Aeneas, they serve as foils to the truly heroic Diomedes, Menelaus, and Achilles. 94 95 96

On this feature of the Hymns, cf. in this volume Calame (pp. 354–5). Il. 5. 331–3, 5. 348–51, 5. 428–30. Il. 5. 428–9. Compare Aphr. 9–11.

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The only narrative involving Anchises, apart from the short mentions of his union with Aphrodite, recounts how he manages, in secret, to mate his mares with Laomedon’s divine horses so that he might breed extraordinary colts. The story, told by Diomedes (5. 263–71), enhances his own heroic way of conquering Aeneas’ horses in fighting instead of using the means of reproduction for greatness. Paris and Aeneas, even as they accept the single combat with Menelaus and Diomedes, are rescued and taken away from the battlefield by Aphrodite (3. 373–82, 5. 311–17). On a metapoetic level, it is as if we were witnessing the conflict between Aphroditean and Iliadic traditions about who belongs in what poem. I will not dwell on the case of Paris, for it is related more to the Cypria than to the Hymn to Aphrodite and its examination would take me too far. But a few more words are needed to examine Aeneas’ position in the Iliad. Nagy suggests the existence of a traditional Aineid presenting strong thematic parallels with Achilles’ story.97 His argumentation rests primarily on a passage of Iliad 13 that shows an angered Aeneas withdrawing from battle because Priam does not honour him (13. 461). The pattern of frustration of timē, wrath, and withdrawal is recognizably Achillean. Another detail of the episode reveals that this representation of Aeneas is in fact competing with the hymnic one, for Deiphobus, exhorting Aeneas to join in the fight and defend Alcathous, his brother-in-law, reminds him of the time when he was a child raised in Alcathous’ house. In this version, it is a hero, not the Nymphs, who nurses the young son of Aphrodite. Whereas the transition of Aeneas from the divine to the mortal world in the Hymn is aptly symbolized by the Nymphs, who are moreover traditional kourotrophoi,98 there is nothing in the Iliad to motivate the entrusting of the care of Aeneas to a male relative, such that the motif appears as displaced and secondary compared to the Hymn’s version. Besides, Priam’s attitude towards Aeneas also contrasts with the way he honours Hector above all men, likening him to the son of a god (24. 258–9). Hector is the only Trojan warrior matching Achilles in the Iliad and not Aeneas, despite his being actually, not metaphorically, the son of a goddess.99 But Hector’s intimate connection to 97

Nagy (1979), 265–6. Faulkner (2008), 284–5. 99 On the structural opposition between Hector and Aeneas in the Iliad, see BrilletDubois (1998). 98

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Achilles originates in the common fate that awaits them: death and glory. The Iliad, though integrating Aphrodite’s son into the heroic epic and even adjusting his characterization to its own purpose, finally markedly rejects him as unsuited to its narrative. In an extraordinary reversal of the Hymn’s poetics, Poseidon suffers ¼å (‘grief ’) at the thought that Achilles might kill Aeneas (he associates ¼å with Aeneas’ name at 20. 293) and regrets that he should, innocent and pious as he is, experience pain, ‘vainly grieving because of the deeds of others’ ( ał Œ! Iººæø Iå ø, Il. 20. 298).100 By motivating in these terms his rescue of Aeneas, Poseidon is clearly assuming the role that Aphrodite, threatened by the grief of mourning her protégés, assumes elsewhere in the Iliad. But he is also repeating, as a powerful fighter among the gods, the earlier exclusion of Aphrodite. However brave (the courage he demonstrates in book twenty’s duel is unambiguous), Aeneas does not belong in the world of ¼å , he does not belong as Achilles’ foe. His moira, his share of fate but also his assigned role in epic traditions,101 is to overcome mortality by surviving and fathering a long lineage, and not to conquer Iliadic glory (he will not reappear in the Iliad after this). In other words, he is sent back to poems like the Hymn to Aphrodite. Therefore I do not think it is necessary, as Nagy does, to postulate the existence of a heroic Aineid: the characterization of Aeneas as another Achilles seems to be the result of his integration into the Achillean tradition, just as the erotic nature of Aphrodite’s aristeia results from its transposition into a song about love. It appears finally that, while the Hymn to Aphrodite adapts the narrative structure of the Achillean aristeia to construct its meaning and enhance its cosmogonic and laudatory purposes, the transference of Aphroditean elements seems at the same time to be part of the Iliad’s ‘poetic strategies’.102 This strongly suggests that creative and subtle interaction existed between well-established Aphroditean and Iliadic traditions. The transposition of the prophecy concerning Aeneas, of Hector’s wish for his son, of Patrocles’ disarming, all point to the borrowing of dictional elements firmly related to specific contexts, themselves included in an elaborate narrative, which makes it difficult to exclude allusion from a strict oralist perspective. That the diction of 100 101 102

I take here Iå ø as a participle. See Nagy (1979), 268; also 40. Burgess (2009), 69.

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our Hymn to Aphrodite can be considered in places to be secondary to our Iliad’s might prove that the Hymn was composed or written down later than the Iliad. It does not in any respect disprove that the hymnic and the heroic traditions developed simultaneously in a fruitful dialogue, defining their themes and poetics in relation to each other. It is very tempting to suppose that the same poets could adopt alternately Aphroditean or Achillean perspectives, that is, according to the occasion or the mood of the audience, sing in turn tales of war or tales of love, glorify the mortal hero or celebrate the works of the smiling goddess.

7 The Seventh Homeric Hymn to Dionysus An Epiphanic Sketch Dominique Jaillard

The seventh Homeric Hymn to Dionysus is among the Hymns which have attracted the least critical attention and it is undeniable that, at first glance, it does not appear to offer much with which to grapple.1 From both a philological and a historical point of view, the poem’s relative brevity (59 lines) and the absence of precise historical allusions have rendered efforts at dating and contextualization particularly tricky.2 But it is perhaps the linear and clear character of the Hymn’s narration 1 Note, however, the forthcoming publication of the proceedings of a day-long conference devoted to Hy. 7, organized by A. Andrisano, ‘L’Inno Omerico VII a Dioniso e l’iconografia relativa’ (Ferrara, 23 November 2005). Note that English translations of the Hymns are throughout taken from WL. 2 Conclusions about dating have varied widely: Patroni (1948) attributes Hy. 7 to the poet of the Iliad and Odyssey, while Gemoll (1886) dates it to the Hellenistic period. There is no decisive argument for either a late or an early date. Janko (1982), 183–4, concludes that ‘in fact, its diction indicates a post-Homeric date’, and that ‘there is nothing to establish the Hymn’s geographical origins, but it may tentatively be dated within the seventh century’. More cautiously, it is tempting to adopt the nuanced conclusion proposed by AHS 379 (‘There is no reason to deny it to the sixth or seventh century bc’), or the comments of the more recent editors Ca`ssola 288 (‘non databile’) and WL 17. In dating a Homeric Hymn it is important not only to consider isolated elements of the text transmitted in the collection (linguistic features or historical allusions), which is at best a variant of a tradition whose degree of variability over time is often difficult to establish, but also the tradition itself. In the case of Hy. 7, any attempt at a solution remains purely speculative, given the current state of knowledge. The question also seems inseparable from the equally obscure issue of the performative contexts in which this type of short narrative hymn developed, of which Hys. 7 and 19 are our only surviving examples. The historical problem

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Fig. 2. Dionysus Cup, by Exekias. By Permission of Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München

which best explains the fact that it has rarely been studied or commented upon in and of itself. The very simple framework of the story is eclipsed by the powerful and manifest epiphanic image of the god. Dionysus is captured by pirates and takes possession of their ship, which he transforms by his marvels (ŁÆ ÆÆ) into a dionysiac universe similar to that which is depicted by Attic painters: not only the celebrated image of Dionysus sailing on the Exekias cup (Fig. 2), but also the image of the oversized god, terrible and fascinating, who rises up on a black-figure amphora of the National Museum of Tarquinia.3 It is these images of the god demonstrating his power and the relationship that they establish between wine and the sea, more than the Hymn itself, which have attracted the attention of specialists

of the Tyrsenians is discussed below n. 5. It provides very little help for dating and contextualizing the Hymn. 3 Black-figure kylix, Munich, Antikensammlungen, 2044, found in Vulci, ABV 146. 21, v. 530; black-figure neck amphora, Museo Nazionale Tarquiniese 678, LIMC 790, plate 392, v. 500–50.

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working on Dionysus and ancient art: these scholars take account of the poem in as much as it encapsulates, with an undeniable visual power, recurrent and highly significant features of dionysiac epiphany.4 From a different perspective, the Hymn has also been treated by historians as an important document concerning interaction between the Aegean and the western Mediterranean: they consider principally the poem’s mention of Tyrsenian pirates in lines 7–8 (ºÅœÆd 'ıæÅ) and discuss its geography in comparison to other versions of the myth. The Tyrsenians have been taken to refer to either Lemnians or Etruscans.5 As legitimate as it might be, this approach gives to the few geographical references in the poem a weight which accords poorly with the streamlined character of the 4

See Lissarrague (1987), 16–118, Isler-Kerényi (2007), 171–86. See De’ Spagnolis (2004), Nobili (2009), with earlier bibliography. 'ıæÅ (‘Tyrsenian’) can refer to the inhabitants of Lemnos (at least from the time of Thuc. 4. 109; see also Philoch. FGrH 308. 100, D. S. 10. 19. 6), who are also taken to be Pelasgians (Hdt. 4. 145, 6. 137–40) and Etruscans (Hes. Th. 1015–16, Hecat. FGrH 18, 19, etc.). The image of the Tyrsenians, whether they be Lemnians or Etruscans, is sufficient to call to mind piracy in the context of the sixth century bc; see Nobili (2009), 11 ff. Taking into consideration the intentionally indeterminate character of space in Hy. 7, any attempt to give a more precise historical or geographical value to the Tyrsenians seems in contradiction to the Hymn’s poetics. The suggestion of Crusius (1889), often cited since, of an Attic performance context for Hy. 7, specifically at the festivals of Dionysus celebrated at Brauron and as a commemoration of the abduction of young Athenians by Pelasgian or Tyrsenian pirates, is purely speculative. A version of the narrative specifically designed for such a context would have increased the number of specific geographical and mythical references. At the most, one could say that there is nothing against a Panhellenic poem such as ours being performed in this context, but there is no way to know whether it was. As regards the view that the role played by the Athenians (the capture of Lemnos by Miltiades in 510 bc) in the elimination of piracy in the Aegean sea supports an Athenian origin and a connection with the Anthesteria, during which the god seems to have been carried in a float shaped like a boat (see the excellent discussion of Parker (2005), 302–3), this is too general an argument and has no more demonstrative value than the vague iconographic parallels recently put forward as evidence; see De’ Spagnolis (2004), 61–6, criticized by Nobili (2009), 4. The version of ps.-Apollod. 3. 37–8 (whatever its source) and the monument of Lysicrates suggest that there were Attic variants of the story—but our version of Hy. 7 is not one of them. The identification of the pirates as Etruscans and Corinth as the place of the Hymn’s production, recently defended by Nobili (2009), runs up against the same types of objections: her arguments only provide a context in which versions of the story may have circulated, and to which Euripides’ version may refer (13). The links she proposes between Hy. 7 and the Corinthian references of the myth of Arion are also no more than suggestive (18–26). However, her article illuminates a real difficulty, by showing that there is no proof that the Lemnians were considered Tyrsenians before the second half of the fifth century bc (the first attestation is by Thucydides). 5

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narrative, whose framework and emphasis seem on the contrary to be exceptionally (and perhaps intentionally) detached from all local anchorage, whether it be cultic, mythical, or historical. For this reason it seems essential foremost to try to understand the internal logic and the particular poetics of the Hymn’s narrative, whose most striking feature is, as discussed above, the almost exclusive focalization on the epiphany of the god. Taking into account its disconcerting clarity, it is necessary first of all to compare the seventh Hymn with the other Hymns of the existing corpus, in order to evaluate the uniqueness of its formal and thematic characteristics; this is the only somewhat certain ground for comparison, regardless of the uncertainties surrounding the genesis of the collection. The seventh Hymn to Dionysus (59 lines) constitutes, in the same manner as the nineteenth Hymn to Pan (49 lines), a short narrative Hymn. As such, it contrasts with both the long ‘narrative’ Hymns and the short Hymns, which, even when they contain an outline of a narrative (Hys. 6, 27), do not properly speaking develop a narrative of divine action. This difference of format seems, as much as one can judge from only two surviving specimens, to involve a more profound distinction. The narrative sections of the four long Hymns each deal with a readjustment in the division of timai, the prerogatives and functions which define the place or status of everyone in the universe, man or god.6 The four long Hymns all narrate a situation, either the birth of a ‘new’ god (Hermes, Apollo) or a ‘crisis’ (Demeter, Aphrodite), involving an adjustment in the articulations or relations of divine prerogatives (timai), a refinement or partial redefinition of the divisions and interactions between divine powers and between mortals and immortals.7 In contrast, however, to the Hesiodic Theogony, a ‘hymn to Zeus’, which enacts the division and redistribution of powers from the point of view of establishing the basileia (‘dominion’) of the sovereign god, the long Homeric Hymns consider the world to be already organized. The principal articulations are already in place, and are not lacking except for the abilities and divine functions which are precisely at the heart of the narrative and are the object of the hymnic celebration. Although they formulate a plan of Zeus, to whom the initiative most 6

See Detienne and Sissa (1989), 161–2, Jaillard (2005), 49–62, (2007), (forthcoming). 7 A feature well-emphasized by Clay (1989), and in this volume (Ch. 11).

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often belongs (˜Øe  KºE),8 the long Hymns narrate the specific actions of the god which they praise, thereby delineating certain areas of competence and prerogatives which belong to that god within the divisions of the pantheon. Even if the entirety of relations between divine powers is at issue, they are mostly considered in connection to the specific deity celebrated, whom the Hymn by its very nature helps to magnify.9 At some decisive moment, the hymnic narrative represents a fictional situation in which one of the functional powers is lacking. The stress on the effects of the god’s absence helps to define the deity’s field of action.10 Without Hermes the inventor, Apollo remains ignorant of the lyre, which he claims as his right just after birth in the Hymn to Apollo (131–2); without Demeter, who withdraws in the Hymn to Demeter from the council of the gods (çØŁEÆ ŁH Iªæc ŒÆd ÆŒæe , ˇºı , 92), the timai of the gods would be reduced to nothing because the sacrifices of men would no longer be accomplished.11 In the Hymn to Hermes, which reflects upon hymnic practice itself, the question of the readjustment of timai is even the explicit subject of the theogonic song performed by the young god (426–33).12 The question is also treated (in a manner appropriate to Hermes) in both the terms of division in the exchange with Apollo, as well as in the odd strategies deployed in the abnormal sacrifice accomplished by the new-born god. All the glorious deeds (Œºıa æªÆ) of the young Hermes have an epiphanic value: they show the abilities and the skills (æªÆ,  åÆØ) which at the end of the narrative will be recognized as his own timai.13 The Hymn to Demeter also deals with timē and the division of functions amongst the pantheon. The goddess is deceived by Zeus, who is above all concerned to ensure regular and regulated communication between the underworld and the upper world (i.e. between Hades and the rest of the gods), without which the inviolable boundary between the living and the dead would create within the pantheon itself an untenable divide. At the end of the crisis, the new 8 Herm. 10. Variants: ˜Øe ıºB fi Ø (‘by the will of Zeus’), Dem. 9; ˚æø ıŒØc Øa BØ (‘crafty design of father Zeus’), Dem. 414; see also Aphr. 45–7. 9 See Nagy (1979), 186–7, Jaillard (2010). 10 Jaillard (2007), 22–3. 11 She and Persephone then return to Olympus at the end of the Hymn (484,  Þ’ Y  ˇhºı  ŁH Ł’ › ªıæØ ¼ººø), echoing line 92. Cf. Jaillard (2005). 12 See Jaillard (forthcoming). 13 On epiphany in Herm. see further Vergados in this volume (Ch. 5).

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timai that Demeter and Persephone together obtain achieve Zeus’ project much better than a marriage which traps Kore in Hades would have done: they weave between the different levels of the cosmos a network of interaction which is subtly articulated and differentiated. Although she is the queen of Hades, Persephone will participate fully in the assembly of the gods on Olympus for twothirds of the year, by forming an indissoluble functional pairing with her mother. Meanwhile, the power of Demeter extends into Hades through her provision of increased happiness in the afterlife for Eleusinian initiates.14 In the Hymn to Aphrodite, Zeus, in turning against the goddess the irresistible power of sexual desire, subjugates an extremely potent cosmic power by her own dominion and deepens the divisions between mortals and immortals.15 Without resorting to an equally explicit conceptualization of polytheistic ‘theology’, the Hymn to Apollo explores the consequences of the god’s birth, while discretely delineating the reality before his birth, as evinced, for example, by the lands not yet cultivated which he passes on route to Delphi.16 It is precisely this reflection upon the structures of the pantheon, the å Æ’ ! Oº ı (‘forms of Olympus’), which Chiron is said to have taught to humans in a fragment of the cyclic Titanomachy,17 and the entire theogonic and cosmogonic dimension characteristic of the long narrative Hymns in the collection (despite their differences) which is absent from the two short narrative Hymns 7 and 19. At least, these short narrative Hymns do not deal explicitly with the power struggles of the pantheon. The Hymn to Pan tells of the birth of the god, but the effects of his birth on the articulation of the pantheon and the ordering of the world are not considered. The narrative 14

See Jaillard (2005). Aphrodite’s universal power is emphasized at the outset of Aphr. (1–6). See Pironti (2007), 116–19. On the separation of mortals and immortals, see Aphr. 45–52, 247–55, with the commentary of Clay (1989), 164–70, 191–7, who argues that the Hymn narrates the end of unions between gods and mortals. This is a strong possibility, although the poem is not explicit about a complete division; see Faulkner (2008), 10–18. A diminishment of her powers and the interaction of gods and men is in any case implied. 16 See Detienne (1998), 25–9. 17 Fr. 11 Bernabé: Y  ØŒÆØÅ ŁÅH ª  XªÆª, Æ j ‹æŒı ŒÆd ŁıÆ ŒÆºa ŒÆd å Æ’ ! Oº ı (‘And he led the race of mortal men to righteousness, teaching them oaths, good sacrifices, and the forms of Olympus’). Cf. [Hes.] fr. 283 (M–W). 15

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emphasizes the dual nature of the god, who is a ‘goat-footed, twohorned, rowdy, merry laugher’ (ÆNªÅ ØŒ æøÆ ºŒæ ıª ºøÆ, 37), and the effects that he produces on those to whom he appears: sight of him causes his terrified mother to flee (38–9), and he delights the immortals when Hermes shows him to them (45–6). These genealogical references to parents are not an occasion to introduce a matrimonial strategy aimed at reordering the pantheon,18 but rather serve, as in the shortest Hymns, to explore the features of the gods, as do epithets and brief celebrations of functional or descriptive traits. If one compares, for example, the first nine lines of the long Hymn to Hermes, which mention the secret liaisons of Zeus and Maia in the murky cave in Cyllene, with the almost identical lines that form the main body of the short eighteenth Hymn to Hermes, only the presence of a narrative recounting the journey of the newborn god from the atimia (‘dishonour’) of the maternal grotto to Olympus, the object of his desire, confers upon the genealogical references an extra meaning: this is signalled straightaway in line 10 of the long Hymn, at the start of the narrative proper, by the mention of the ‘purpose’ ( ) of Zeus. One might nevertheless ask whether the variant in line 4 of Hymn 18, naming Maia as the daughter of Atlas, the reprobate, would not have suggested to a Greek mind, more polytheistic in orientation than our own and replete with cultural knowledge that we do not have, an implicit equivalent to the absent narrative. One might also consider in this light the very brief introduction of Hymn 7 to Dionysus, ‘Of Dionysus, glorious Semele’s son, I will make remembrance: how he appeared . . . ’ (I çd ˜Øı $ ºÅ KæØŒı  ıƒ j  ÆØ, ‰ KçÅ . . . , 1–2), to which the declaration of Dionysus in line 56, ‘I am Dionysus the mighty roarer, born to Cadmus’ daughter Semele’ (r Ø ’ Kªg ˜Øı Kæ æ  , n  Œ Åæ j ˚Æ ÅU $ ºÅ) and the closing farewell, ‘I salute you, child of fair Semele’ (åÆEæ,  Œ $ ºÅ PØ , 58) both respond. As conventional as it seems, this could, by its insistence on maternal descent, be a significant clue for the analysis of a narrative about the misadventure of a god mistaken for the mortal son of some king (11). From the very outset, the Hymn speaks of appearance and apparition, and their ambiguous nature. With the superior knowledge that 18

29.

On the matrimonial strategies of Zeus, see Bonnafé (1985), 92–6, Clay (2003),

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is indicated by the formula  ÆØ (‘I will make remembrance of ’, 2), evocative of the powers of Mnemosyne,19 the Hymn first celebrates how the god ‘appeared by the shore of the barren sea’ (‰ KçÅ Ææa ŁE’ ±ºe Iæıª Ø, 2). Immediately following this, however, the poem introduces the deceptive nature of his appearance ‘in the likeness of a youth’ (ÅfiÅ Iæd KØŒ , 3). The narrative depicts the god on a promontory, clearly visible to those who are ironically not able to recognize him, and to whom he appears to be a son of a king: ‘they reckoned he was the son of a princely line’ (ıƒe ªæ Ø çÆ Øæç ø Æغø, 11). Perception is therefore from the outset troubled, as the pirates are both unaware of and at the same time recognize the affiliation of the young man with Zeus. The ambiguity of the dionysiac manifestation (phanein) begins the narrative and prepares for the victorious epiphany later in the poem. Dionysus reveals himself while also hiding himself, and shows himself while rendering himself invisible to those who are not capable of seeing him. If one accepts in the initial ‰ KçÅ (‘how he appeared’, 2) both its epiphanic value and its ambiguity, it then follows that it presents misrecognition as a constituent part of dionysiac epiphany.20 As in the Bacchae of Euripides, it is vision and appearance that bring about the process of misrecognition and recognition.21 The Hymn, therefore, narrates a specific pattern of dionysiac epiphany, which belongs to the typical representation of the god in Greek culture, within a narrative structure and a semantic field that arise from the traditional

19 The formula is a variant, functionally and semantically equivalent to the formulae  )FÆ (‘tell Muse’, Hy. 19. 1),  )FÆØ (‘tell Muses’, Hy. 33. 1), where the name of the god is likewise introduced by the preposition I ç; see also o Ø )FÆ (‘sing Muse’, Hys. 9. 1, 14. 2),  E . . . ¼æå )FÆ (‘begin to sing Muse, Hy. 31. 1), I )FÆ (‘sing Muse’, Hys. 17. 1, 20. 1), with the name in the accusative; and ¼æå ’ IØ (‘I begin to sing’, Dem. 1). For a full list of variants, see Pavese (1991), 160–2. As Calame (1995), 6, has shown, the evocation of the god in the third person, as the object of song, is more important than the manner in which the speaker-narrator introduces it; cf. also in this volume (pp. 337–41). The divine power at work can be explicitly named, its relationship to the speaker specified, or on the contrary it can remain implicit, in which case it is contained in the meaning of the verb in the first person. Within the framework of the collection, any attempt to explain the first person by an evolutionary or chronological schema, or by a distancing from the Muse, creates untenable contradictions (for example the early date of Dem.). 20 While the Hymns tend to introduce the narrative by a relative pronoun (‹ , ), the ‰ of Hy. 7 reflects the terms of his apparition, as if the enunciation is favouring the singularity of his epiphany. 21 See Vernant (1986), 248–50, Segal (1997), 221–2.

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knowledge of the poet.22 The Homeric Hymn subtly treats a motif, which the tragic poet later varies and amplifies. Fettered by the pirates, Dionysus puts on his first display of marvels (ŁÆ ÆÆ). The bonds do not hold him and the osiers fall away on their own, while the god sits impassively and smiles with his dark eyes: e ’ PŒ YåÆ  , ºªØ ’ Ie ź’ Ø åØæH Mb H, n b ØØø KŒŁÅ Z ÆØ ŒıÆ ØØ. (Hy. 7. 13–15) But the bonds would not contain him, the osiers fell clear away from his hands and feet, while he sat there smiling with his dark eyes.

Similarly, the stranger in the Bacchae is liberated from his bonds and sits in an equally tranquil fashion to watch the collapse of Pentheus’ palace.23 Upon viewing these wonders, the blindness of the pirates becomes more profound: according to them, a god has sent them this young man (Kd  E  ƺ Æ ø, 31) in order to ensure a good ransom for them (26–31). The blindness of the Theban king is also increased after he sees the deeds of Dionysus: he asks himself how and why the stranger has been freed and reappeared without understanding.24 Placed against the blindness of the impious king is the semi-clairvoyance of the tragic messenger,25 which in the Hymn belongs to the helmsman of the ship. He does not know Dionysus, but he recognizes the divine, even Olympian, nature of the hostage who does not resemble mortal men: j ªaæ Zf ‹ ª’ Kd j Iæªıæ ººø Mb —Øø, Kd P ŁÅEØ æEØ YŒº , Iººa ŁE Q ! Oº ØÆ  Æ’ åıØ (Hy. 7. 19–21) This is either Zeus, or silverbow Apollo, or Poseidon; he is not like mortal men, but the gods who dwell on Olympus.

There then follows a second set of marvels (åÆ  çØ KçÆ ŁÆı Æa æªÆ, ‘But suddenly they began to see miraculous apparitions’, 22

See Detienne and Sissa (1989), 168–71. Cf. E. Ba. 614–59; notably 621–2, ºÅ ’ Kªg Ææg j Xıå Łø ºı (‘And I sat close by watching calmly’). 24 Cf. E. Ba. 642–6; esp. 645–6 H æØ j çÆfiÅ æe YŒØ E K E ø   (‘How have you come outside to appear in front of my palace?’). 25 See E. Ba. 770–4. 23

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34), which transforms the vessel into a dionysiac ship, in which the impious pirates have no more rightful place than Pentheus amongst the Bacchants. Upon perceiving the fragrant wine that spreads across the black ship, the pirates are seized by astonishment (ÆÆ b ç º  Æ NÆ , 37). Then immediately upon seeing (Q b N , 42) the mast and sails covered by vines teeming with grapes, the sudden appearance of ivy with fruits and flowers, and the oars girded by garlands, they try in vain to row the ship to shore. Finally, in an ultimate reversal of the relationships of vision, it is the oblique and terrifying look cast by the god (Øe æÆ N, 48), now changed in front of their eyes into a roaring lion,26 which definitively places the pirates under the control of fear (Kç Ł, 48): having vainly tried to huddle together with the helmsman and having seen their captain seized by the lion (50), they leap into the sea, whereupon they are changed into Dolphins ( › H ÅÆ, Kd Y, N –ºÆ EÆ, 52). Prey to a powerful blindness that has continued to grow, the pirates are not able to perceive Dionysus when their gaze meets with his, except in his wild and terrifying form. By his metamorphosis into a lion and the apparition of a shaggy bear standing erect on his hind paws (46–7), Dionysus manifests his power ( ÆÆ çÆø, 46) in his most terrible and formidable facets. Meanwhile, to the helmsman who did not fail to recognize his hidden divinity, he reveals his name (Dionysus Kæ æ  , the ‘mighty roarer’, 56) and his genealogy (son of Semele, daughter of Cadmus, and Zeus, 56–7) at the end of his epiphany. He also grants him limitless prosperity and happiness (ŒÆ Ø ŁÅŒ ƺ Ø, 54). The details of the dionysiac epiphany narrated by the Hymn make evident certain powers of the god and the specific manner of his manifestation, which could not but suggest to a Greek audience accustomed to listening to rhapsodes in the archaic and classical periods a broad network of interconnected myths, in which the god, at first not recognized, reveals his power in his most terrible and destructive aspects, but grants exceptional benefits to those who recognize him or take part in his rites.27 In both Orchomenus and 26 His roaring ( ªÆ ’  æÆå, 45) echoes in epic diction the terrifying groan of weapons (Il. 4. 420, 12. 396, Hes. Sc. 423) or the earth (Il. 21. 387) and suits the god’s self-identification as the ‘mighty-roarer’ (Kæ æ  , 56) to the helmsman. 27 Cf. E. Ba. 859–61: ªÆØ b e ˜Øe j ˜Øı, n  çıŒ K  ºØ Ł , j ØÆ , IŁæØØ ’ MØÆ (‘And he will come to know Dionysus, son of Zeus, who is fully a god, most terrible, although also most gentle to men’). See Detienne (1985), esp. 11–43.

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Thebes, there is a strict division between the daughters of Minyas or Cadmus doomed to religious impurity and the other women, whether ‘citizen’ Bacchants destined to ensure the prosperity and happiness of the city or Lydians accompanying the god. However, there are important differences between other accounts of dionysiac epiphany and the narrative of the Hymn. First of all, in the Hymn there is no human community or city involved. Everything instead takes place offshore, on the ‘wine-faced sea’ (YÆ , 7),28 a shimmering space that is both uncertain and deceptive. As well, no previous offence against the god is mentioned, nor any refusal to accept or to recognize him. The god appears on an unnamed promontory, his divinity hidden beneath his appearance as a courtly young man, almost as a trap extended to the passing pirates. Moreover, there is no reason given for the profound blindness of the pirates, except for bad fate that leads them on (f b qª ŒÆŒe æ , 8).29 At most, the subtle reference to Dionysus’ Theban genealogy (57), could suggest the recurrent misrecognition of a figure whose divinity remains questionable until he shows his more terrible aspects. But there are also significant differences between the narrative of the Hymn and other versions of the abduction of Dionysus by pirates. In the version given in Euripides’ Cyclops (11–12)—the oldest apart from the Hymn, if one excludes the brief allusion of Pindar to dolphins who have not forgotten the life ( Ø) dear to men30—it is the anger of Hera which motivates the action of the pirates. She wishes him to be sold far away, after he has been freed from the madness with which she previously struck him. The ship of Silenus and the satyrs sets off to look for the god, rounding the Cape of Malea and heading towards Sicily (13–22). In the Library of pseudo-Apollodorus (3. 37–8) the 28 The meaning of the epithet is disputed, but in a context so evidently dionysiac, it would surely for an audience of the archaic period have suggested the metaphorical sea crossed by an intoxicated drinker, on which he is tossed around, prey to confusion, and where he risks sinking into a state of mania; see Pi. fr. 124 SnM, Choeril. fr. 9 Bernabé, Timae. FGrH 566 F 149, with the comments of Lissarrague (1987), 104–7. On the Exekias cup (Fig. 2, see p. 134), the horizon, the division between sky and sea (the dolphins come up close to the vines that surround the mast), is not indicated, thereby creating a space that is infinite (covered by a coral red background) and open (the depiction is not surrounded by a band as is most common). 29 They flee the same fate when they later throw themselves into the sea (ŒÆŒe æ Kƺ , 51). 30 Fr. 236 SnM ƒ ºçE (sc. KŒ H ºfiÅH ª Ø): çغæÆ ’ PŒ ºØ Ø.

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geography is even more precise, as Dionysus hires a ship of Tyrsenian pirates to take him from Icaria, in Attica, to Naxos, places where there were sanctuaries of the god. Taking into account the method of mythographical rewriting characteristic of the Library, these geographical references in the myth could be at least as old as those of Euripides. The wonders produced by Dionysus are not the same (the mast and the oars are changed into snakes, ivy and the sound of flutes spread throughout the ship, and the pirates are struck by mania), but they are enough, as those in the Homeric Hymn, to represent the epiphany of the god and the dionysiac transformation of the ship. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses (3. 597–691),31 the action takes place between Chios and Naxos. In the Homeric Hymn, however, the only geographical indications concern the faraway places where the pirates may have to carry their hostage before he reveals his origins, from Egypt or Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean to the uncertain boundaries of the world: ‘to the Hyperboreans, or beyond’ (K % -æ æ ı j ŒÆ æø, 29). The action of the poem itself is therefore detached from all local anchorage and has no attributable cause. And under the influence of Dionysus’ presence, a somehow reasonable act of piracy is transformed into a strange and almost fantastical journey to the ‘elsewhere’. It is tempting to interpret these differences as characteristic of the poetics of the Homeric Hymn, which represent a choice in opposition to other poetic traditions, or a distinctive trait of the particular version of the tradition that has entered into the collection. If one accepts that the distance from local versions is one of the key indicators for measuring the degree of Panhellenism of a poem or a poetic 31 Other versions or references to the story: Seneca Oed. 449–66; Hygin. Fab. 134, Astr. 2. 17 (¼ Aglaosthenes FGrH 499 F 3, on Naxos), the Tyrsenian pirates leap into the sea without realizing their actions, under the charm of the song of the baby Dionysus’ entourage; AP 9. 82; Luc. Salt. 22 (allusion), Dionysus subdues the pirates with dance; Philostr. Im. 1. 19, ecphrasis of a tableau in which the ship of the Tyrsenian pirates is in the process of attacking the ship of Dionysus and his Maenads, which is burgeoning with vines and ivy—the pirates, seized by madness upon hearing the dionysiac harmonies, forget to row and some are in the process of transforming into Dolphins; Opp. H. 1. 650; Nonn. D. 44. 240–9, 45. 105–69, 683–92—other allusions to the story in Nonn. are discussed by Vian (2000); Serv. A. 1. 57. The frieze of the choragic monument of Lysicrates (334 bc) offers a distinctive version: the scene takes place on the coast, where Dionysus sits and plays with a panther while his satyrs attack the pirates, whom Dionysus has begun to transform into Dolphins; see Ehrhardt (1993). The connection of the frieze to the narrative of a dithyramb victory in the Dionysia of 334 bc, which the monument commemorates, or to a satyr drama, is possible but not certain; see further bibliography in Caspo (2003), 80.

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tradition,32 the seventh Hymn to Dionysus could be taken as a model Panhellenic poem, adaptable to many different performance contexts. The process of distillation or delocalization of the narrative may have proved to be easier since the dionysiac sea is an ‘elsewhere’ that can be represented more abstractly, as is indicated also by the representation of the winy sea on Attic drinking cups from the middle of the sixth century bc. But there are many other ways of distilling and delocalizing a narrative. For instance, the Arcadia of the nineteenth Hymn to Pan is no less Panhellenic: it offers an adequate landscape for the god, but in no way fixes it in a more precise location, nor attaches it to the particular cults and mythic elaborations of a local community.33 We should also consider for a moment the influence of performance context on the composition of the short narrative hymns. We do not know for certain the constraints imposed upon a rhapsode by a Hymn limited to about fifty verses, but the simple fact that there are Hymns of varying length dedicated to the same deities suggests a response to functional demands. How best to celebrate a divinity within the predefined framework? How to compose the agalma that will most please the rhapsode’s divine audience and most increase his timē? The response of generations of rhapsodes who fashioned the tradition of Homeric Hymns could, in the case of short performances, have been to favour a brief and concentrated narrative sequence, capable of demonstrating the powers of the god within a more or less minor episode, but designed in a fashion so as to encapsulate the distinctive features of the divinity. The narrative thus constructs a poetic epiphany of the divinity,34 both invoked and evoked, in a scene which crystallizes the figure of the god and the details of his activity. Rather than exploring the position of the god within the divisions of the pantheon and the cosmos, the Hymn instead takes on a strong iconic value, which, by means of a dense narrative sequence, renders the god intensely present in the place of performance. In this respect, the poetics of the seventh Homeric Hymn to Dionysus seem deeply similar to the economical art of painters such as Exekias, who distils into a synthetic image on his drinking cups the

32 See Nagy (1979), 115–21. On the Panhellenic aspect of the long narrative Hymns, see Clay (1989) and in this volume (pp. 246–7); cf. Introduction (pp. 19–22). 33 On the landscapes of Pan, see Borgeaud (1988), and in this volume Thomas (Ch. 8). 34 On the problem of textual epiphanies, see Pucci (1998), 69–80, and for Herm. Jaillard (2007), 21–2, 69 ff.

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epiphany of the dionysiac world, in which the drinker is caught up while drinking the wine: the iconic image of the tondo is even possibly revealed to him after he has met the fascinating eyes on the exterior of the cup. In this context, the actions of the pirates, which in the narrative logic of the Hymn serve to articulate the particular qualities of misrecognition and recognition in the dionysiac epiphany, have no place. On the cup, there is only the representation of the dionysiac world in which the drinker participates fully and with happiness, if he respects the rules of the symposion. As has been well-established,35 the iconographic documents of the archaic period do not provide assistance in dating the appearance of the myth of the Tyrsenian pirates, neither the tradition of the story nor the text of the Hymn as has been transmitted to us. Nonetheless, the connection between the aesthetics of the poetic production and the visual images has another virtue, in that it helps in understanding the process of crystallization and distillation of the narrative: both the painters and the tradition of the Homeric Hymn either elaborated or selected the imagery that has to do with the epiphany of a specifically epiphanic god,36 thereby isolating the motif. As such, both the Hymn and the images express the shared knowledge involved in religious and social practices,37 while in return helping, as part of a dynamic process, to give form to that shared knowledge, notably from a Panhellenic point of view. The differences between the poetics of the two short narrative Hymns, to Dionysus and Pan, depend largely upon specific configurations of power, whose brief and striking images are elaborated by rhapsodic traditions. The seventh Hymn to Dionysus narrates a pure epiphany, whose context is reduced to a narrative motif required to signal the initial misrecognition of the god that leads up to his revelation: the actions of the Tyrsenian pirates, who seem to come out of nowhere, take place in a location which has no other function than to provide a stage for the manifestation of the god’s power. The epiphanic narrative is constructed in relation to the modes of appearance and action of the god: the ambiguation of appearance and apparition, the alteration of perception and sight, the freeing of 35

AHS 378, Lissarrague (1987), 118, West (2003), 17. The theory that the representation of dolphin-men illustrates the metamorphosis of the pirates in Hy. 7 has recently been supported by Kossatz-Deissmann (1992), but justly criticized by Rasmussen and Spivey (1986), Caspo (2003), 79 ff. (with earlier bibliography). 36 See Detienne (1985), 11 ff. 37 See Scheid and Svenbro (1996), 3–5.

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bonds, and the transformation of the transitory and mobile human space of the ship into a purely dionysiac space (as in the Golden Age,38 there is spontaneous vegetation, but without soil it owes nothing to the cultivating work of Demeter and causes the growing seasons of flowers and fruit to overlap). Plants and dionysiac substances overrun the space: a fragrant wine spreads throughout the ship, adding to the visible marvels (ŁÆ ÆÆ) a divine scent (O c I æÅ, 36–7), yet another mark of the god’s hold upon the place.39 The quick rhythm of the narrative, which scholars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were quick to condemn as a sign of poetic poverty, incoherence, and eccentricity,40 in fact accords with the accelerated temporality in which the god produces marvels (ŁÆ ÆÆ) and phenomena that conflict with the ordinary rhythm of time: the rapid flow of the narrative is underlined by the accumulation of adverbs (åÆ ‘quickly’, ÆPŒÆ ‘immediately’, Ær łÆ ‘right away’, KÆÅ ‘suddenly’).41 As for the nineteenth Hymn to Pan, it produces imagery that is just as strongly epiphanic, but does so by integrating the figure of the god into the landscape in which he carries out his actions. The evocation is not followed by a single narrative that treats together certain powers of the god, as is the case in the seventh Hymn to Dionysus; instead, the poem contains a number of short, isolated narrative elements (Pan’s dance amongst the shepherds, Hermes’ arrival in Arcadia, the mother’s fright upon seeing her newborn’s face, etc.), all of which contribute to the representation of the god’s appearance within the pastoral space of the mountain. In producing a ‘sketch’ of dionysiac epiphany, the seventh Hymn to Dionysus removes it from the mythical (non-recognition of the god leading to the introduction of his cult throughout Greece)42 or ritual (maenadic possession, symposion) contexts which ordinarily give rise 38 Cf. E. Ba. 141–3, 695–711, with the comments of Segal (1997), 65, Vernant (1986), 254. 39 Cf. the mention of Syrian incense in E. Ba. 144–50, at the height of the trance described in the parodos. 40 Gemoll (1886), 317, AHS 379, Humbert (1936), 169. 41 See Detienne (1985), 89–98 for discussion of the features of dionysiac dunamis. For a parallel analysis of ‘how the scene changes are in syncopation with steady linguistic features’, see in this volume Thomas (p. 155). 42 Cf. E. Ba. 83–7, Y ŒåÆØ, Y ŒåÆØ, j Bæ Ø ÆEÆ Łe ŁF j ˜Øı ŒÆªıÆØ j +æıªø K Oæ ø % Eºº N P- j æıåæı IªıØ , e Bæ Ø (‘Go Bacchae, go, leading Bromius, child of a god, from the Phrygian mountains to the broad streets of Greece—Bromius’), and see Detienne (1985), 11–42.

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to the epiphany (in its many forms) within narrative or ritual practice; the poem thus performs a sort of abstraction, a fact which reveals all the better certain aspects of its internal structure. It is the very apparition of the god in the form of a young man which produces the misrecognition of the god: as such, Dionysus’ appearance reiterates the blurring of lines between mortal and immortal, which is implied by his double birth as the son of Semele, daughter of Cadmus, and Zeus. The ambiguous form in which Dionysus manifests himself on the promontory, where he appears seemingly without cause, deceives and lures the Tyrsenian pirates with the promise of a marvellous ransom. It is thus the initiative of the god, whose appearance induces the wild and impious act of the pirates, which produces the epiphany of his powers and the dionysiac transformation of the sea. The known ambiguity of dolphins enamoured with human life is significant in that it blurs (or, to be more exact, displaces), in a similarly ambiguous fashion, another constituent boundary of the world order—that between men and beasts.43 Through their impiety and their misrecognition of the god, the pirates reveal their lack of humanity, while dolphins on the contrary approach towards humanity. The dolphins’ sudden appearance in the extremely elliptical description of the metamorphosis, with the brief and almost dry statement that the pirates ‘became dolphins’ (ºçE ’ Kª , 53), accomplishes the dionysiac epiphany. As a simple image, it calls to mind, without further description or explicit allusion to another myth, the broader imagery of the dolphin familiar to men. The compressed image of the dolphin in the Hymn stirs up a dense network of other images and stories: dolphins accompanying ships, saving men from drowning, and taking them back to shore;44 dolphins enamoured with the flute (çºÆıºØ)45 and responding to the call of Arion’s flute with an emotion that remains foreign to the pirates who abduct the poet;46 or dolphins leaping in a circle around the ship like a dancing chorus.47 Moreover, in blurring the boundary between humanity and animality, Dionysus also effects another 43

Cf. Pi. fr. 236 SnM, quoted above n. 30. Plut. Mor. 984c, Ael. NA 12. 22, etc.; see Stebbins (1929). 45 Pi. fr. 140b. 16–17 SnM [ºçE ] e  IŒ  K ı ºªØ j ÆPºH KŒÅ’ KæÆe º (‘[the dolphin] which the lovely sound of flutes inspires in the waveless sea’). 46 Hdt. 1. 23–4. 47 See Caspo (2003), esp. 78 ff. 44

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displacement: from coarse and savage pirates, he makes musical and benevolent beasts, whose philanthropy accords with the sweetness of the song being performed. This same sweetness is attributed to Dionysus in the final invocation of the seventh Hymn: åÆEæ,  Œ $ ºÅ PØ • P Å Ø E ª ºÅŁ  ªºıŒæc Œ BÆØ IØ (Hy. 7. 58–9) I salute you child of fair Semele; there is no way to adorn sweet singing while heedless of you.

It is through his auditory qualities, previously eclipsed by the intensity of the epiphanic vision, that Dionysus reveals himself to the helmsman. He is this time presented as Kæ æ  (56), ‘mighty-roarer’ or ‘rumbler’, an epithet which conveys the ambiguity of the auditory and musical world of Dionysus, which varies between the terrifying roar of the lion, the deafening racket of tympanies mixed with the shrill sounds of flutes, and the sweet and pleasurable sound produced by these same flutes when they accompany the mountain wandering of entranced bacchant women.48 By changing the pirates into dolphins, the epiphany of the god transforms the savage cry of the lion into a dancing choir and therefore ends by celebrating the sweetness that Dionysus confers upon song. But why, one might ask, the Tyrsenian pirates? Taking into consideration the unique aesthetic of the Hymn, ‘Tyrsenian’ is nothing more than a convenient signifier in the delocalized space of the dionysiac sea. It is polysemous and connected to various geographical locations in the Greek world.49 One might hypothesize, in giving full value to the metamorphosis of the pirates into Dolphins, that the sea as a space for piracy is antithetical to the blissful dionysiac sea depicted with such force by Attic painters in the image of Dionysus sailing, or figuring in the motif of a voyage across the winy sea that the drug (çæ ÆŒ) of wine promises to participants in the symposion. It is from this dionysiac sea that the god is supposed to come when he arrives by sea in the cities of men. And it is in the same sea that he finds refuge when he is pursued by his enemies.50

48 49 50

See E. Ba. 159–65. On 'ıæÅ (‘Tyrsenian’), see above, note 5. See the tale of Lycurgus in Il. 6. 123–43.

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The seventh Homeric Hymn to Dionysus can be analysed as a document all the more valuable for our understanding of the epiphanic figure of Dionysus when one defines more exactly its particular poetic logic. In order to do so, a double comparative study has been undertaken above: on the one hand, the poem has been compared to the other Hymns of the collection, taking into account the length of the narratives and the particular qualities of the deities celebrated; on the other hand, the poem has been compared to the corpus of narratives and images dealing with dionysiac epiphany. The seventh Hymn, or more probably the tradition that underlies it, has abstracted from the framework of the story of Dionysus’ abduction a ‘sketch’ of dionysiac epiphanic structure. It displays this structure in a narrativeimage, whose iconic force lies in the fact that it evokes virtually, in the absence of any explicit allusion, an entire dionysiac mythology. It recalls a set of narratives, categories, images, cults, and places, which are all possible resonances of dionysiac elements relevant to the audience. From a poetic point of view, the narrative is configured according to the epiphanic powers of Dionysus. We are therefore dealing not only with the narration of the divine epiphany, but with the epiphanic structuring of the narrative. In the relationship it creates between words and images, the seventh Hymn to Dionysus thus gives precise meaning to the statements that later tradition attributed to Simonides: ‘the word is the image of things’ (› ºª H æƪ ø NŒ KØ), ‘painting is silent poetry and poetry is a talking painting’ (c b ÇøªæÆçÆ ÅØ ØøHÆ æƪæØ, c b ÅØ ÇøªæÆçÆ ºÆºFÆ).51 Other versions of the myth are no less epiphanic, but by the emphasis they place upon the auditory manifestations of Dionysus, they create a different relationship between the visual and the auditory. Moreover, through the details that they supply, other versions predetermine to a greater extent the network of myths with which they resonate. Meanwhile, in the long narrative Homeric Hymns such dazzling epiphanic appearances as that in the seventh Hymn have been subsumed by the complex ‘theological’ rationales which order the narrative according to exact configurations of the pantheon.

51

Simon. T 47 a–b (Campbell).

8 The Homeric Hymn to Pan Oliver Thomas

The Hymn to Pan begins unexpectedly: I ç Ø % Eæ Æ çº ª , )FÆ . . . (Hy. 19. 1) Tell me, Muse, of the dear son of Hermes . . .

Where is the personal name of the divinity which occurs in the first line of all the other Homeric Hymns, and of the hymnic proem to Hesiod’s Theogony?1 The indirection is not strictly ambiguous, since only one son of Hermes is a plausible subject for a hymn. Nevertheless it may, unless the original performance context created an expectation of a hymn to Pan, have required enough cogitation that the next two words—ÆNªÅ ØŒ æøÆ (‘goat-footed, two-horned’)—produced a cognitive ‘epiphany’, in a low-level mimesis of the true epiphany which is the notional goal of many Greek hymns.2 But whether or not we identify Pan immediately, both çº (‘dear’) and the marked patronym prime us for the subsequent importance of Hermes’ genealogical relationship with and affection for Pan.

1

Superficially similar is Hy. 33. 1–3, I çd ˜Øe Œæı ºØŒØ  )FÆØ, j . . . j ˚æ Ł’ ƒÆ  ŒÆd I  Å —ºıŒÆ, ‘Round-eyed(?) Muses, tell of Dios kourous . . . horse-taming Castor and blameless Polydeuces’. However, ˜Øe ŒFæØ / Œæø had crystallized from a patronymic (‘the sons of Zeus’) to a name in its own right (‘the Dioscuri’), as its preponderance over apparent alternatives such as ˜Øe ıƒ, Œæø ˜Ø or ˜Øe . . . Œæø shows. 2 It is relevant to the possible confusion that Pan’s father is not always Hermes. The manuscripts offer ÆNªÅ in verse 2 and ÆNªØÅ in 37: either is possible. For epiphany as a request in cletic hymns, see e.g. Furley and Bremer (2001), i. 61.

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Besides ‘goat-footed’ and ‘two-horned’, line 2 calls Pan çغŒæ (‘krotos-loving’), an epithet embellished by its echo of çº ª in the same colon of line 1: Pan inspires and feels affection with a reciprocity which Greek worshippers in particular would appreciate. Here, his affection is directed at krotos, which describes a range of percussive noises. Is this the stamp of dancing feet or snap of a dancer’s fingers, or the clatter of castanet and tambourine in Cybele’s cult? Or is it the krotos of a musician strumming a lyre and the audience’s applause, in a performance such as Hymn 19 itself ?3 We need not decide yet. What follows, we will see, tends to privilege the first and last suggestions. Next comes ‹ ’ (‘who’), the typical hymnic relative moving us on from the opening epithets; here ‘epic’  (LSJ s.v., B) signals that we will continue with a description of typical behaviour, rather than with a specific narrative (similarly Apoll. 2, Aphr. 2). Pan Ia Æ æ’ ¼ ıØ çØfi A åæŁØ  çÆØ (Hy. 19. 2–3) ranges over the wooded meadows together with nymphs who haunt the dance.4

As with Hermes and his paternal love, we are introduced immediately to the nymphs who will play a large role in the Hymn, and to its particular focus on their choruses. The poet has varied the line-end formula Æ ØÆ (‘grassy meadows’), so that the Æ retain their traditional nuance of a habitat for nymphs, but are also adorned with the trees where dryads reside.5 The clause introduces a location and a type of motion, and from here to line 26 the Hymn is dominated by three wild spaces and (from line 8) a whirl of unrestrained movements through them.6 By

Pan snaps his fingers: e.g. LIMC Pan no. 33. Pan in Cybele’s cult: Pi. frs. 95–6 SnM, Brommer (1956), 1003. Krotos of lyre: e.g. Posidonius fr. 62 E.-K.; cf. S. fr. 926 TrGF, of a harp. The Athenians pleased Pan with the honour of the ‘bare krotos’ of applause: Luc. Bis. Acc. 9–10; see Borgeaud (1988), 149. 4 åæŁÅ (‘who haunt the dance’) is a hapax. Most compounds of -ÅŁÅ express ‘with good / bad / familiar / unfamiliar character’. However, compare åØæŁÅ ‘accustomed to the hand, tame’ and qŁ ‘accustomed haunt’ (LfgrE s.v., 1). Schmidt suggested åæªŁØ, ‘who rejoice in the dance’. The nymphs’ erotic relations with Pan nearly surface in çØfi A (which I translated ‘ranges’): see below on lines 25–6. 5 Nymphs in Æ: Il. 20. 8–9, Od. 6. 123–4, Aphr. 98–9; later A. R. 3. 1218. 6 In lines 4–7 a song by the nymphs is described: I will discuss this later (pp. 159–60). 3

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contrast, the lines from 27 on are dominated by Hermes’ purposeful journeys to Cyllene and to Olympus. Whereas humans and the other gods experience space as a network of set paths and destinations, and whereas Hermes’ movements as messenger and herald are archetypically directed, Pan moves like the paradigmatically free-ranging goat and the pursuing goatherd, both of whose spirits he embodies, through a more open space beyond civilization’s structures; so, perhaps, his primary association is with Arcadia as a whole rather than with a specific city. çØfi A ’ ŁÆ ŒÆd ŁÆ Øa ÞøœÆ ıŒ, ¼ºº b ÞŁæØØ K續  ƺƌEØ, ¼ºº ’ Æs  æfiÅØ K MºØ ØØ ØØåE IŒæÅ Œæıçc źŒ NÆÆ Æø. ººŒØ ’ IæªØÆ Ø æÆ  hæÆ ÆŒæ, ººŒØ ’ K ŒÅ EØ ØºÆ ŁBæÆ KÆæø O Æ æŒ  • b ’ . . . (Hy. 19. 8–14) He ranges here and there through the thick underwood, sometimes attracted to gentle streams, but sometimes he traverses amid the sheer crags, ascending a very high peak which looks out over the flocks; and he has frequently run across the tall whitened mountains, and on the lower slopes he has frequently driven and killed beasts, with piercing eyesight. At other times . . . 7

çØfi A ’ ŁÆ ŒÆd ŁÆ Ø (‘he ranges here and there through’) recalls lines 2–3 çØfi A I (‘he ranges over’), and contains the first Ø (‘through, across’) of an emphatic quartet. After ŁÆ ŒÆd ŁÆ the variety of his movements continues to be emphasized by balancing adverbs, all first in their phrases: ¼ºº  . . . ¼ºº ’ Æs (‘sometimes . . . but sometimes’) and ººŒØ . . . ººŒØ . . .  (‘frequently . . . frequently . . . At other times’). A consonant effect is achieved in ÞŁæØØ K續  (‘attracted to streams’), where the passive suggests undeliberated, whimsical wandering. Even within the dancing-ground of 22–3, his movements are unrestrained (see below). 7

ÞøœÆ may also be clumps of rushes. Switch to aorists denoting a typical action which has happened and continues to happen: Faulkner (2005). Gemoll’s suggestion źŒ (so that Pan is looking for the flock) is good; Pan is źŒ in the bucolic fragment discussed in Bernsdorff (1999), verse 11. Either way, there is an allusion to the common iconography of Pan peering into the distance after flocks (IŒø): see Jucker (1956).

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Verses 2–26 categorize Pan’s world into three broad regions. The first is characterized by meadows, which connote lush vegetation and a water-source, and trees (2–3). Next the nymphs appear higher up, on ‘the crown of the goat-left crag’ (ÆNªºØ  æÅ . . . ŒæÅÆ, 4); this is not, however, left by goat-footed Pan, since he ‘has been allotted every snowy ridge, the peaks of the mountains, and tracks over crags’ (Æ ºç ØçÆ º ºªå, j ŒÆd Œæıça Oæ ø ŒÆd æÆ Œ ºıŁÆ, 6–7).8 Here water has ceded to snow, and vegetation to rock.9 This second scene is abandoned as we jump downhill to where we left Pan in lines 2–3: again he ‘ranges’ and again there is water and vegetation (8–9). The view pans back uphill in lines 10–12, as the ‘snowy ridge’, ‘peak’, and ‘crag’ of 6–7 are carefully revisited in reverse order. Then at line 13 we cut to the ŒÅ  (literally ‘shins’) of the mountains where Pan hunts—a new location as a new characteristic activity is specified.10 But almost immediately Pan climbs again from the hunt (14–15), back to the water and vegetation of an upland meadow beneath the peaks (20–6). The three scenes could be schematized as in the table below: Activity

Altitude

Characteristics

Pan with nymphs; music and dance

Peaks, crags, ridges Upland meadow Lower slopes

Snow; bare; no animals Water; vegetation; animals? Water; vegetation; animals

Pan alone; hunting

At the different levels, Pan’s behaviour also varies between the bestial and the humanoid. As a hunter, he is no goat. In the meadows, he plays music and dances like a pastor, but drinks from streams like a

8 ŒæÅÆ ‘crown’ is a variant for Œ ºıŁÆ ‘tracks’ which produces a ring-composition with 4  æÅ . . . ŒæÅÆ ‘crown of the crag’. But Œ ºıŁÆ avoids a tautology with Œæıç ‘peaks’, and there is still a ring-composition of ideas, if not of words. æØ is ‘containing crags’ (LfgrE) not ‘rocky’ (LSJ). Pan and tracks, perhaps qua patron of transhumant pastors: Preller (1894), 741 n. 3. 9 ‘Goat-left’ was the ancient interpretation of ÆNªºØł, whatever the etymology. One explanation was ‘left by goats because bare and pastureless’: Paus. Gr. Æ 38 Erbse. 10 The ‘shins’ are above  (‘foot-hills’) but below ºçØ (‘ridges, necks’) or ŒæıçÆ and ŒæÅÆ (‘peaks, heads’): the metaphors are noted by sch. D Il. 2. 497. Like Artemis, Pan controls the death of wild animals, sometimes as patron of hunter, sometimes as saviour of hunted; hunting small game is also a herdsman’s pastime. See Borgeaud (1988), 62–73.

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goat. At some points in the peaks he acts like a human pastor (11), but at others he is a supergoat who can even reach the ‘goat-left crag’, or is summoned as a god by the nymphs. However, any static scheme fails to capture how the scene-changes are in syncopation with steady linguistic figures. The meadow is introduced in line 8 and expanded with ¼ºº  (‘sometimes’); then ¼ºº ’ Æs (a balancing ‘sometimes’) is not a further expansion, but introduces a scene-change. The crag remains in focus through the first ººŒØ ’ (‘frequently’, 12), since the line describes the mountains as ‘tall’ and ‘whitened’; a new topic—Pan’s running—is introduced. By contrast, the ººŒØ  in 13 zooms in, specifying the topic (Pan runs in the hunt) and focusing attention rather on the lower slopes. Meanwhile, 11 źŒ (‘which looks over the flocks’) and 14 O Æ æŒ  (‘with piercing eyesight’) form a bridge between the two areas of behaviour, as does 16 ÆæÆæ Ø (‘would surpass’) after Ø æÆ  (‘has run across’). At line 14 the prevalence of main verbs expressing motion begins to wane: b ’ æ ŒºÆª r ¼ªæÅ KÆØ, Œø o FÆ IŁæø ı · PŒ i  ª ÆæÆæ Ø K º Ø ZæØ , l ’ Ææ ºıÆŁ  K ºØØ ŁæB KØæå ıÆ å Ø ºªÅæı IØ. (Hy. 19. 14–18) At other times, when alone at dusk he ascends from the hunt, he makes a cry, amusing himself with sweet music to the accompaniment of reedpipes: he would not be surpassed in melodies by the bird who among the leaves during the blossoming spring pours forth her lament and pours out her honey-voiced song.11

The pace drops for a moment; ‘surpass’ is here, but the contest is hypothetical and musical, rather than the real chase of the hunt (12) or an athletic competition. The shift from motion to music is signalled by the prominent, riddling ŒºÆª (14). Why does the goatgod suddenly ‘make a cry’ like a bird? Line 15 gives a hint: the panpipes, as a high-pitched wind instrument, approach birdsong; 11 Baumeister’s d ’ æ ‘towards dusk’ avoids the adjectival use of æ as if it were  æØ (but compare ıå ¼ KåØ ‘at night’). LSJ is wrong about 15 KÆØ. On 17 l ’ ‘who’, see Germany (2005), 202 n. 47. Although the repetition of ‘pour’ in line 18 is slightly troubling, no emendation stands out.

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Alcaeus of Messene twice uses the same verb ŒºÇØ of piping.12 This metaphor is then dwelt on for three lines in the Hymn’s only extended comparison, of Pan to a nightingale. The comparison is not straightforward, and I will just sketch its stimulating open-endedness, rather than attempting to resolve it into a fixed interpretation. The nightingale is identified indirectly, by being a paradigm songbird and a female lamenter, and by the crepuscular solitude of Pan’s music: nightingales stand out for singing after dusk and with such melodic virtuosity and stamina.13 However, the Greek for nightingale is IÅ, so the identification is perhaps confirmed by its cognate IØ (‘song’) at the end of line 18. A further similarity is certainly sweetness: ı  ‘sweet’ is placed with hyperbaton immediately before the comparison, and resumed by ºªÅæı ‘honey-voiced’. Perhaps too, the frenetic, apparently irregular shifts in a nightingale’s song are matched by the ‘jumping around’ or ‘dancing’ of the panpiper’s mouth from reed to reed (Ach. Tat. 8. 6. 6–7), and suggest that ÆæÆæ Ø might mean ‘surpass in tempo’ as much as ‘surpass in quality’.14 However, for all these points of contact, Pan is characteristically ‘amusing himself’ with his music.15 Against male, partly instrumental self-entertainment stands female, purely vocal mourning for another, for the nightingale’s song is a threnody poured forth like honey—the sonic correlate of a wineless libation at a funeral rite.16 This idea of ‘pouring’ sounds has two nuances which coexist in tension: smoothness (like honey) or unceasing ‘phonorrhoea’. The latter suggests a further difference between Pan and the nightingale: 12

Anth. Plan. 8. 226. For the disputed ªºÇØ in Pi. fr. 97 SnM, see Lehnus (1979), 169–79. The panpipes’ tessitura is inferred from depictions—see Haas (1985)—and from the nuances of ıæÇø ‘whistle’ (e.g. LSJ appendix s.v., I 2). A bird’s vocal organ is now its ‘syrinx’; cf. ‘sandpiper’. 13 The word ‘nightingale’ encompasses both night and song (cf. PIE *ghel- ‘call’). The evening virtuoso is actually a male attracting females. In Greek myth, it was perhaps specified by pitch to be female (Procne), and from the range of women’s songs to be lamenting (for her son Itys); similar stories are collected in Epit. Bion. 37–43. 14 The panpipes’ sound is ÆNº (‘variable’) at E. Ion 499–500. Further evidence about Greek panpiping might clarify the picture. 15 In Orph. H. 11. 6, Pan even makes cosmic harmony çغƪ Ø ºB fi ‘with playful music’. 16 For wineless libations, see Graf (1980). Hy. 19 seems to ignore or to be ignorant of the story that Pan plays—rather like the nightingale—in longing for Syrinx. The myth is extant in Greece and Rome from Vergil on (e.g. Ov. Met. 1. 689–712); Hellenistic sources are assumed. The panpipes’ tone is also mournful at E. Hel. 171.

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birdsong could, on its own terms, be pleasant while disordered; Pan’s music, as a projection of human music, requires order. This deviance in the comparison makes this rather different from human musical competition in Greece, including as a trope in bucolic poetry.17 But the choice perhaps suggests the inadequacy of alternative comparanda: clearly no human herdsman’s piping can match Pan’s. The landscape of the comparison is woods during early spring. Aristotle HA 632b 20–3 casts light on the relevant bird-lore: ‘The (female) nightingale sings continuously for fifteen days and nights when the mountain’s foliage is at last returning; afterwards it sings, but no longer continuously.’ In fact, males sing at night in spring until they find a mate, then sing almost exclusively during the day.18 Continuity with this landscape helps us switch seamlessly back from the change of pace: f  çØ   çÆØ OæØ ºØª ºØ çØHÆØ ŒÆ d Kd ŒæfiÅ ºÆæø fi ºÆØ, Œæıçc b æØ Ø hæ ! Hå. Æ ø ’ ŁÆ ŒÆd ŁÆ åæH, b ’ K  æø ıŒa d Ø Ø, ºÆEç ’ Kd HÆ ÆçØ ºıªŒe åØ, ºØªıæB fi Ø IªÆºº  çæ Æ ºÆE K ƺƌfiH ºØ HØ, ŁØ ŒæŒ M’ ŒØŁ PÅ ŁÆº Łø ŒÆÆ ªÆØ ¼ŒæØÆ fiÅ. (Hy. 19. 19–26) With him then the clear-singing mountain nymphs, moving to and fro with rapid footsteps by a dark spring, sing, and Echo moans around the mountain’s peak. The divinity, proceeding to this or that part of the choruses, and sometimes into the centre, makes his way through them on rapid feet, and wears over his back the tawny cloak of a lynx; his heart swells at the clear singing in a soft meadow where crocus and fragrant blooming hyacinth mingle indistinguishably with the grass.19

We return to a meadow, which contains flowers which bloom early in spring. Pan appears in a ‘cloak’ (ºÆEç ) which turns out against 17

The genetic relationship between the passage of Hy. 19 and this trope is unclear.  ’ IÅg fi ¼Ø b ıåH  æÆ ŒÆd ŒÆ ŒÆ , ‹Æ e Zæ XÅ ÆÅÆØ• a b ÆFÆ fi ¼Ø , ıåH ’ PŒ Ø. See Amrhein, Körner, and Naguib (2002). 19 In line 20, I accept Barnes’s emendation of ıŒ, which scans less easily. Echo deserves a capital: nouns in -ø were originally female personifications, and æØ Ø (‘moans around’) is anthropomorphic. For Ø ø ‘make one’s way through’ (normally ‘marshal’), compare Il. 24. 247, and Kç ø ‘make one’s way to’, Ł ø ‘make one’s way after’. 18

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expectation to be made from . . . lynx. This creates a smooth transition by recalling the hunting of line 13.20 The Eurasian lynx is appropriate both as a denizen of Pan’s remote mountains, and as a master of subtlety in its reclusive lifestyle and its dappled skin, which proves the aptness of 14 O Æ æŒ  (‘with piercing eyesight’).21 Second, Echo, nature’s correlate to Pan’s music, is female and ‘in the minor key’, just as the nightingale was. The detail adds to the pleasant depiction a tinge of the uneasiness to which piping was the isolated pastor’s antidote. As Pan is rejoined by the oreads, the tone rejoins movement and pleasure. Again we find çØø (‘range, go to and fro’), recalling the situation of the meadow at lines 2–3 and 8–9. The nymphs dance to and fro ŒÆ  ‘with rapid footsteps’, while Pan makes his way through them (Ø Ø: Ø again), equally ıŒa ; his movements again involve the phrase ŁÆ ŒÆd ŁÆ ‘this way and that’.22 As lines 2–3 developed into an inset song, so these lines in a more mannered fashion set up a more elaborate inset song, via the ring-composition ºØª ºØ  ºØªıæB fi Ø . . . ºÆE (‘clear-singing . . . at the clear songs’), perhaps supported by ŒÆ   ıŒa  (‘with rapid footsteps’). That structure makes lines 25–6 something of a coda, but they are not stranded. They complement the focus on landscape in the early part of the hymn with a visual and olfactory close-up. The sensuous attention to detail is comparable to the Hymn to Demeter 6–14, describing the meadow from where Kore was abducted. The ravishing meadow recalls the hint of eroticism in line 3 ¼ ıØ çØfi A ‘goes to and fro together with’, and ŒÆÆ ªÆØ (26, ‘mingle’) in particular insinuates what Pan may get up to when evening turns to night and the dancing ends (see e.g. LfgrE ªø 2d). 20 There, ŁBæÆ ‘beasts’ was unclear: it is normally used of large game (and so in that formula, ŁBæÆ KÆæø ‘killing beasts’), but Pan more often hunts birds and hares. 21 Lynx remote: X. Cyn. 11. 1. Dappled quality: e.g. E. fr. 863 TrGF, Plu. Mor. 16d. As Nicholas Richardson reminds me, the lynx is itself sharp-sighted (cf. Lynk-eus’ supernatural vision), so that it is a match for Pan’s sharp eyesight. In Callimachus’ Hymn to Artemis, at 88–9, Pan is butchering a Maenalian lynx for his hunting-dogs when Artemis arrives. Quite possibly, Callimachus is fleshing out what happened to the rest of the lynx whose pelt Pan is wearing here. He may furthermore have sensed the rather similar hunting-then-music structures of Hys. 19 and 27 (to Artemis). 22 Metrical variatio within repetition (as in ŒÆ  . . . ıŒa ) was a traditional embellishment: see Hopkinson (1982), adding Herm. 77–8 a æŁ ZØŁ, j a ’ ZØŁ æŁ.

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We are at the end of verse 26, and the Hymn has developed in an unusual way. Unlike the long Hymns or Hymn 7, Hymn 19 fills its hymnic frame by describing at length the god’s typical activities and ambit, without a narrative of a specific past episode; the closest parallels are Hymn 27 (22 lines), and the Hymn to Aphrodite, where the main narrative does not start until verse 45. The expected narrative does now arrive, with the typical contents of Pan’s conception, birth, and introduction to Olympus; but it is subsumed into a description of an oread song.23 Before considering this, let us return to the previous nymph-song, since we did not fully explore the ramifications of the oreads . . . Æ¥  ŒÆ’ ÆNªºØ  æÅ  ıØ ŒæÅÆ —A’ IÆŒŒº ÆØ,  Ø Ł, IªºÆ ŁØæ, ÆPå Ł’, n Æ ºç ØçÆ º ºªå ŒÆd Œæıça Oæ ø ŒÆd æÆ Œ ºıŁÆ. (Hy. 19. 4–7) who tread along the crown of the goat-left crag, invoking [or ‘summoning’] Pan, the pastoral god, resplendent in his mane and squalid, who has as his lot every snowy ridge, the peaks of mountains, and tracks through crags.

Following the play in lines 1–2 with the manner of reference to Pan, the expected proper name finally appears here, subsumed into the first inset song as the rhapsode’s expected narrative about Pan is subsumed into the second. This final ‘revelation’ of the addressee is pointedly placed, as a cry first in its verse.24 The oreads’ song is a choral hymn, consisting as it does of an invocation with the name placed first (as so often in Greek hymns), a trio of epithets, and further attributes after a relative pronoun; we do not hear of a particular prayer, unless IÆŒŒº ÆØ is interpreted as ‘summoning’. There is in fact a precise parallelism with the encompassing rhapsodic hymn, which began with evocation, followed by three epithets (two of which were physiognomical, as here), followed by a relative clause, again describing a typical haunt.25 Three further points about the oreads’ hymn stand out. First, they make an obvious

23

Regarding music within the Homeric Hymns, see Calame, this volume (Ch. 14). Sapph. fr. 44. 33 Voigt —’ OŒÆº  ‘invoking Paean’ has a strikingly similar effect. 25 It is this, and the ring-composition mentioned in n. 8, which imply where the nymphs’ words stop. 24

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wordplay with ‘Pan’ and Æ (‘every’); the rhapsode could not have brought this out better than with the elided accusative —A’, since this is only an apostrophe away from meaning ‘everything’.26 Second, they are intimate enough to call him ÆPå Ł’ (‘dry, squalid’, particularly in his unwashed hair, 6) without a tone of reproach or horror, and even to let this follow immediately on IªºÆ ŁØæ (‘resplendent in his mane’), which from a human perspective constitutes a jarring progression. Thirdly, they locate Pan at precisely their own performance location, in order to enhance their relationship with their addressee. Returning to the overarching level of the rhapsode’s composition, the use of ŒÆÆ ıØ (‘tread down’ or ‘tread along’, 4) to describe the nymphs’ danced performance is, with its focus on impact, of a piece with ‘krotos-loving’ just before in line 2. The verb simultaneously suggests that Pan’s love of the noise of dancing was important there, and (therefore) that he receives the nymphs’ dances with pleasure. The nymphs’ second inset song has largely parallel characteristics, but is arranged to take up roughly the second half of the whole hymn. It is performed with Pan’s own participation, so that no cletic function is appropriate. The topic is an example of their various songs about gods (28–9). We have heard that these songs in general fill Pan with pride and pleasure (24 IªÆºº  implies both), which suggests that they normally contained an element of praise of the god in their midst, as one might expect. But the genre of this second song is harder to establish from the summary given. Their specific performance is described with  (29, ‘tell of ’), which emphasizes narrative rather than the invocation and prayer which set hymns apart from other ‘god-poetry’; one could therefore see the song as an extract of theogonic poetry, supplementing Hesiod.27 However, its contents are typical of the narrative in a hymn to Pan. Alternatively, one might take it more as a hymn to Hermes, whose name comes first,

26 Compare Pi. fr. 96 SnM ÆÆ

(‘omnifaceted’), Castorion SH 310. 3 ªŒºØ’ (‘all-famed’), PMG 936 several times. Later, and perhaps in the last instance—see Wagman (2000)—such wordplay develops into Pan’s interpretation as a cosmic ‘Allgott’: so, for example, Orph. H. 11. 27  should be compared especially to Hes. Th. 10 Eå ‘they go’. These unaugmented imperfect forms express regular action without any past temporal reference: see West (1989). For the relationship of the Hymns with theogonic poetry, see Furley in this volume (Ch. 10).

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followed by three clauses beginning ‹ ª (‘he’), in hymnic Er-Stil.28 In any case, as with the nymphs’ earlier song, there are clear links to what the rhapsode chants, which force us to compare and contrast the inset performance with the encompassing one. These enter when Pan is born:  Œ ’ K ªæØØ % Eæ fiÅ çº ıƒ, ¼çÆæ æÆøe N ŁÆØ, ÆNªØÅ, ØŒ æøÆ, ºŒæ, ıª ºøÆ. (Hy. 19. 35–7) She bore in her halls a dear son for Hermes, from the first monstrous to behold, goat-footed, two-horned, noisy, laughing sweetly.

Compare lines 1–2 % Eæ Æ çº ª . . . j ÆNªØÅ, ØŒ æøÆ, çغŒæ (‘the dear son of Hermes . . . goat-footed, two-horned, noise-loving’). The last adjective has perhaps been changed because we are here looking at Pan as at a new quantity, whose likes are still unknown, though his clatter is immediately perceptible. One may wonder why it is stated that Pan was monstrous, etc., ‘from the first’ (¼çÆæ, 36). The second inset song here observes a tendency in Greek hymns for the god’s character to be brought to a final form within the narrative’s narrow compass, with the result that their personalities do not develop as ours do. This is of a piece with the characteristic emphasis in Greek hymns on the origins of contemporary life, which the nymphs’ song certainly shows.29 Thus, at its climax it gives an etymology of Pan’s name, instead of the mere wordplay of the first song. When Pan was introduced on Olympus,  ’ ¼æÆ Łı e æçŁ IŁÆØ, æƺºÆ ’ › BŒåØ ˜Øı , —AÆ  Ø ŒÆº Œ ‹Ø çæ Æ AØ æł. (Hy. 19. 45–7)

28

See below (pp. 165–7) on the similarities with Herm. 1–4. Lost hymns to Zeus may well have described how he fathered other gods, and praised the children too. Conversely, Apoll. includes a hint of a hymn to Leto at 14–18, beginning åÆEæ, ŒÆØæ’ t ¸ÅE, Kd  Œ . . . (‘Be favourable j Hail, Leto, blessed because you bore . . . ’). For Er-Stil see Norden (1913), 163–6; it is rather rare in Greek hymnography, but see the peroration of Aelius Aristides’ To Zeus. 29 Thus Dem. gives an aetiology for the sanctuary and rites at Eleusis, Apoll. for those at Delos and Delphi, Herm. 24–62 for the tortoiseshell lyre, etc. In other cases, ‘world firsts’ are presented without this causative relationship to contemporary culture: e.g. Herm. 112–41 presents a precursor to (but not the cause of ) Dodecatheon cult at Olympia, and Hermes’ first interest in butchery.

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All the immortals took pleasure in their hearts, and especially Dionysus the Bacchant, and they called him ‘Pan’ because he pleased the mind of all (pasin).30

This aetiology completes a theme of joy which has pervaded the nymphs’ song, ever since Pan’s birth. First come two lines of the human female response: çFª ’ IÆ&ÆÆ, º ’ ¼æÆ ÆEÆ ØŁÅ· E ªæ, ‰ Y ZłØ I ºØå Mߪ Ø. (Hy. 19. 38–9) She jumped up and fled, and the nurse left the child. For she was afraid when she saw his full-bearded, unappeasable face.

Here Pan’s mother may be the subject of the first words (as of the preceding clause), or the nurse is the delayed subject of both verbs: the articulation would be clear in performance.31 Thus one or two women flee in fright. There is an oblique link here to the common human fright at epiphanies, and also a sense that Pan is causing his first panic attack, though in Greek terms that is normally a specifically military phenomenon.32 The nymphs revel in human misguidedness. The humour is already clear in line 38, especially if the phrase was felt to overturn a normative formula ç æØ ’ ¼æÆ ÆEÆ ØŁÅ (‘and the nurse took the child’) now represented only in Il. 6. 389.33 Then I ºØå (‘unappeasable’, 39) is ironic: the nymphs, given the pointed disjunction with 37 ıª ºøÆ ‘laughing sweetly’ and 24 Iªºº  ‘taking pleasure’, are presenting a strong human focalization, which they deem to be erroneous.34 39 Mߪ Ø (‘fullbearded’) implies that Pan appeared monstrous (cf. the echo 36 æÆøe N ŁÆØ  39 Y ZłØ) because humans cannot cope with a bearded infant. This horror at Pan’s inhuman body-hair contrasts with the nymphs of the first song, who happily called him IªºÆ ŁØæ, j ÆPå Ł’ ‘resplendent in his mane and squalid’, and 30 Pan is depicted with Dionysus already in the early fifth century, and very commonly from the fourth century. See Brommer (1956), 1001; LIMC Pan no. 4, IV G, V E. 31 Some editors (e.g. AHS, WL) instead refer ØŁÅ to Pan’s mother. However, the word is normally a nurse as opposed to the mother. 32 Fear at epiphanies: e.g. Richardson (1974), 208. Panic: Borgeaud (1988), 88–102. 33 Cantilena (1982), 299. 34 For غت- and friendly laughter, see e.g. PW no. 129, Call. fr. 24. 13 Pf. It is ‘meta-humorous’ that the amusing disjunction centres on the question of Pan’s humour.

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with the oreads’ focalization of him in ıª ºøÆ (‘laughing sweetly’) as in fact more cute than screaming newborn humans.35 The oreads follow this with a balancing couplet containing Hermes’ very different response: e ’ Ær ł’ % Eæ Æ KæØØ K å æÆ ŁBŒ   , åÆEæ b ø fi æØØÆ Æ ø. (Hy. 19. 40–1) But immediately swift Hermes took him and placed him in his hand, and the divinity rejoiced exceedingly in his mind.

Instead of double abandonment, we have double welcome (taking and holding get separate mentions), and instead of fear we have exceeding joy, as in 45–7, quoted above. Thus within the human hymn is an oread song in which, as implicitly in the first inset song, the nymphs can be seen to construct their personal relationship with Pan in opposition to his relationship to humans: humans are first afraid then wary of his society, whereas nymphs ‘get’ him and interact freely with him (as they are doing during their performance) from day one. Hymn 19’s view of how Pan interacts with his human worshippers, and of the differences of mortals and immortals—two issues which are otherwise important in Greek hymnography—seems practically limited to this hierarchy pronounced by nymphs.36 However, the representation is ironized and complicated by being that of secondary focalizers, under the final poetic control of a human. The overarching context of a human hymn to Pan implies that humans do not really think Pan is ‘unappeasable’ (39). Indeed, immediately following the second inset song is the rhapsode’s envoi: ŒÆd f b oø åÆEæ, ¼Æ, º ÆØ  ’ IØB fi , ÆPaæ Kªg ŒÆd E ŒÆd ¼ººÅ  ’ IØB . (Hy. 19. 48–9)

35 The Epidaurian Hymn to Pan shows that humans could be more open-minded about appearances: PMG 936. 9–11 . . . Æ çıb ø H  Æ j Påæı , Pæø j K æ ø ÆŁfiH ªø fi (‘ . . . a good dancer plying his body of every form, a good looker conspicuous for his yellow beard’). 36 The oreads have also emphasized at lines 32–3 the normal pecking order: ŒÆd Łe þ . . . K ı j Iæd æÆ ŁÅfiH (‘although a god, he herded for a mortal man’). The relationship of mortals and immortals is a particular focus throughout Aphrodite. For hymns commenting on a god’s attitudes to his worshippers, see e.g. Apoll. 146 ‘But, Phoebus, it is Delos which pleases your heart the most’, Herm. 541–9, 577–8.

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And be thus favourable [also ‘with this, goodbye’], lord, I beseech you in song. Meanwhile I will call to mind both you and another song.

Here º ÆØ ‘I beseech’, and the sense ‘be favourable’ underlying åÆEæ, entail that Pan is appeasable.37 The rhapsode’s desired relationship of favour-exchange (charis) is not that of spontaneous and mutual pleasure which the nymphs constructed for themselves (though charis could denote this too), and after all nymphs are of a distinctly superior status to mankind. Nevertheless, it certainly belies their one-sided depiction of humans. Similarly, this subversion of the nymphs’ view comes at a crux of the hymn, where Pan moves from third to second person, in a virtual ‘epiphany’ symbolizing the rhapsode’s hope for Pan’s presence at his performance. Again, he does not expect Pan to be a fellow-performer, as for nymphs, but he still exposes their tendance in describing human fear at Pan’s first appearance. Furthermore, the Homeric Hymns are a genre of communication broadcast on two channels: on ‘terrestrial’ is a narrative about and description of a god, and on ‘Sky’ is a request directed to the god, for favour. These broadcasts are not sequential, as they might seem, but simultaneous and entangled. The artistry and content of the pars epica, and its public performance, are all displays of reverence which the god is to notice, and which are presupposed by the closing request.38 Thus the elegance with which our rhapsode handles the transition into the final address can be part of his strategy for generating gratitude in Pan.39 In the event, the build-up through the nymphs’ song about Pan causing joy in the gods, to a request that he should feel favourable towards mortals, is triply elegant. oø åÆEæ oscillates between the normal ‘feel charis with this performance’ and, with reference to the preceding verse (47), ‘feel charis as Dionysus rejoiced at you’. Second, this interacts with the very start of the hymn: as we heard in lines 1–2 that Pan is dear to Hermes and krotos is dear to Pan, so here we find that Pan is dear to Dionysus and that—hopefully—the rhapsode’s krotos is as dear to Pan. Thirdly, the interesting partiality of the nymphs’ representation of divine-human charis, and its deflation, 37

The point is even clearer with the variant ¥ºÆ ÆØ (‘I propitiate’). For the sense of åÆEæ, see in this volume Calame (pp. 344–5). 38 For the two channels, see Danielewicz (1976), 119; also Calame in this volume (pp. 334–7). 39 The handling of such transitions in some of the other Hymns is discussed by Capponi (2003).

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self-reflexively become an integral part of how the rhapsode attempts to engender Pan’s charis for himself. Let me summarize my discussion of the two inset songs so far. They both contain verbal parallels with the surrounding rhapsodic hymn, and are generically close or identical to choral hymns. Both focus on aspects which one expects in the rhapsodic hymn proper, and indeed subsume important parts of it: the former focuses on naming (and subsumes the expected naming of Pan at the beginning of the verse in the accusative) and the choice of fitting attributes; the latter subsumes a typical hymnic narrative, with its (broadly speaking) ‘aetiological’ accent. In both songs, the nymphs construct a close relationship between themselves and Pan with a view to ensuring the efficacity of their performance, and in both cases the rhapsode suggests that the song does find favour. But in the second song, the nymphs’ construction of the human relationship with Pan is undermined by the rhapsode’s own performance, particularly in the envoi which follows immediately. These songs thus constitute a detailed meditation on the contents and performative roles of hymns, using inset choral performances as a suggestive analogue for rhapsodic performance. The handling of this might profitably be compared and contrasted to the similar role of the Deliades in Apollo 156–75, and the slightly different presentation of the Muses’ songs in the proem of the Theogony, though I do not propose to flesh this out here.40 I have postponed my discussion of the opening of the nymphs’ second song.   ıØ b Łf ŒÆæÆ ŒÆd ÆŒæe ºı • x Ł’ % Eæ Å KæØØ å ¼ººø , ‰ ‹ ª’ –ÆØ ŁE Łe ¼ªªº KØ ŒÆ Þ’ ‹ ª’ K æŒÆÅ ºıÆŒÆ, Å æÆ ºø, KŒ’· ŁÆ  ƒ   ˚ıººÅı K. Ł’ ‹ ª ŒÆd Łe J łÆçææØåÆ Bº’ K ı Iæd æÆ ŁÅfiH• Łº ªaæ Ł ªæe KºŁ  çfiÅ KߺŒ ø fi ˜æ çغÅØ ØªBÆØ. KŒ ’ K º ª  ŁÆºæ . . . (Hy. 19. 27–35) They sing of the blessed gods and tall Olympus. For example, they tell of Hermes, beneficent above all others, how he is the quick messenger for 40

Again, see in this volume Nagy (pp. 305–7) and Calame (pp. 351–2). Such a comparison forms part of a forthcoming doctoral dissertation by Sarah Harden (University of Oxford), whom I thank for her comments.

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all the gods, and how he came to Arcadia of many springs, the mother of flocks—and his sanctuary as the Cyllenian is there. There, although a god, he herded straggly-haired [or ‘rough-haired’] flocks for a mortal man, since the liquid desire to mingle in love with the beautiful-haired bride of Dryops assailed him and blossomed. And he accomplished a fertile union . . . 41

This is done with notable style. After a chiasmus with alliteration in line 27, the switch in 29 away from formulaic Æåf ¼ªªº (‘fast messenger’) produces more alliteration, in ŁE Ł ; also present are the alliterative formulas % Eæ B KæØØ and Å æÆ ºø. Then Łº Ł (‘the desire blossomed’) and ª  ŁÆºæ (‘a fertile union’) ring the sentence of lines 33–5. In line 32, łÆçææØåÆ (‘straggly-haired’) varies and opposes the formulaic and in this case less interesting ŒÆººæØåÆ (‘with beautiful hair’), to bring the flock more into line with Pan of the unappealing body-hair (6, 39). 42 Structurally, the smooth transition into past narrative is noteworthy: the end of the nymphs’ attributive section focuses on Hermes’ travelling job, and he is still travelling in KŒ’ (‘he came to’, 31). These lines are important for a quite separate issue: the cluster of underlined words and phrases is shared with the beginning of the Hymn to Hermes: % Eæ B o Ø )FÆ, ˜Øe ŒÆd )ÆØ ıƒ ˚ıººÅ  Æ ŒÆd æŒÆÅ ºı ºı, ¼ªªº IŁÆø KæØØ, n  Œ )ÆEÆ  çÅ KߺŒÆ  ˜Øe K çغÅØ ØªEÆ. (Herm. 1–4) Muse, praise Hermes, the son of Zeus and Maia who rules over Cyllene and Arcadia of many flocks, the beneficent messenger of the immortals,

41 The underlining becomes relevant below. WL prints Koechly’s r and makes å qualify : ‘It is Hermes alone that they tell of most of all’; but then ‘alone’ is practically redundant. The etymology of KæØØ is probably ‘very swift’: Latte (1955), 192–4. However, ancient lexicography generally interpreted ‘very beneficial’, and it is unlikely that 29 Ł is a ‘gloss’ by the poet. For the genitive ˚ıººÅı after ƒ, compare e.g. Od. 14. 527. ‘Bride’ is the obvious meaning of  çÅ; for ª  of sex without marriage, see e.g. E. Hel. 190 (Pan rapes a nymph), LSJ ªÆ ø I 2. I do not think  çÅ can mean ‘marriageable daughter’ (cf. LSJ I 2); nor is it ‘nymph’ (Villarrubia 1997, 11) since men cannot father nymphs. 42 łÆçÆæ describes hair in Rufinus AP 5. 27 (a wizened ex-prostitute) and Nonn. D. 4. 363 (a dying man); in the þfourth-century lexicon PSI 8. 892 and Hesychius, łÆçÆæåÆÅ is equated with çıŒØåÆÅ , ‘with hair like/of seaweed’. It is uncomplimentary, for humans. For ŒÆººæØåÆ BºÆ, see Od. 9. 336, 469.

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whom the beautiful-haired nymph Maia bore after mingling in love with Zeus.

The parallels may be even more thoroughgoing, if their apparent disruption in Hymn 19. 32–3 is removed. Hermes’ infatuated herding for the mortal Dryops in order to get close to his wife is only recorded here, and may well be a motif transferred from a more famous similar occasion: Apollo’s herding for Admetus, which had initially been an expiation, was motivated by desire at least by the time of Rhianus fr. 10 (CA) and Callimachus Hy. 2. 49; furthermore, Hermes’ theft of cattle from Apollo was sometimes—though not in Hermes—located during precisely this service.43 On a different level, the similarity of Hermes’ love for Dryops’ bride and Zeus’ love for Maia picks up on the ‘like father like son’ characterization of Hermes which is prominent through Hermes, but particularly in the nocturnal secrecy of Zeus’ affair with Maia described in lines 6–9. Once we are primed in this way, other links to Hermes gain plausibility. The series of epithets æÆøe N ŁÆØ, ÆNªØÅ, ØŒ æøÆ, ºŒæ, ıª ºøÆ (36–7) is a rare structure in the Homeric Hymns, whose most elaborate instance is the description of Hermes, again just after his birth (Herm. 13–15).44 That Pan’s carers jump up and leave him (38, especially IÆ&ÆÆ) bears a neat antithetical relationship to the newborn Hermes jumping up and leaving his carers (Herm. 21–2, including IÆ&Æ ). Hermes takes Pan to Olympus wrapped in a hare-skin blanket for introduction, as Apollo took the swaddled Hermes to Olympus for introduction.45 Finally, the nymphs’ inset songs overlap with the contents of the surrounding hymn, as does Hermes’ first song (Herm. 57–8  1–9), so that both rhapsodes place themselves in a tradition traceable to

43 The relationship with Vergil’s nymph Dryope who fathers a child with Faunus (A. 10. 551) is tantalizing. See Williams (1978) on the Callimachus passage; in Ant. Lib. 23, Apollo is in love with Admetus’ great-grandson Hymenaeus, and has left his cows with Admetus’ herd when Hermes steals them. Hermes steals Admetus’ cows: Pherecyd. FGrH 3 F 131, sch. Nic. Alex. 560a; the theft occurs during Apollo’s service to Python, a mythic doublet of Admetus, in the hypothesis to Pindar’s Pythians. 44 Strings of epithets become more common in later Greek hymns, e.g. Hy. 8 and Orph. H. 45 Internally, the hare-pelt is like Pan’s lynx-pelt of line 24: the less ambitious form of Pan’s hunting is alluded to while his infancy is described. It is perhaps worth noting that the hare and Hermes’ tortoise provoke epic’s only uses of the genitive OæŒfiØ (Herm. 42, Hy. 19. 43).

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superhuman performers.46 One might add that when Pan is depicted playing the panpipes, this constitutes a point of contact with Hermes 511–12 where Hermes invents them, and the contact may be reinforced by the language of Hymn 19. 15 Œø o FÆ IŁæø, since the stem IŁıæ- occurs repeatedly in Hermes (152, and with reference to a musical instrument in 32, 40, 52, 485), but rarely elsewhere in Epos (IŁæø in Il. 15. 364; ¼Łıæ Æ x 4). All these similarities fit neatly with the emphasis which we noted above: Hymn 19 from the start brings in Hermes as a benevolent and like-minded father. It therefore might well choose to intertwine the important relationship of Pan and Hermes with an intertextual relationship, whereby it is the ‘heir’ to what must have been the most important hexameter hymn to Hermes of its time.47 The hypothesized allusion is thus meaningful, and not implausible given a very similar relationship—this time of sibling rivalry rather than father– son accord—which I would see between the Hymn to Hermes itself and the Hymn to Apollo, or between Callimachus’ Hymn to Artemis and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo.48 Such a construction, whereby an intratextual genetic relationship mirrors an intertextual generic one, allows for slippage between the two levels. In particular, Pan pleases everyone on Olympus as the poet wishes his hymn to please all his audience. Given this possible intertextual relationship, one might speculate on the link between the comparison with the nightingale (lines 16–18, cited on p. 155) and Odyssey 19. 518–22, where Penelope describes herself crying in bed: ‰ ’ ‹ —ÆÆæ ı ŒæÅ, åºøæÅU IÅ, ŒÆºe IfiÅØ Ææ   ƒÆ Ø, æ ø K ºØØ ŒÆŁÇ Å ıŒØEØ, l  ŁÆ a æøHÆ å Ø ºıÅå Æ çø, ÆE’ Oºçıæ Å ! ”ıº . . . (Od. 19. 518–22)

46 The types of correspondence between the inset songs used virtuosically in the proem of Hesiod’s Theogony and its main body are slightly different. Regarding Herm. 57–8, see Vergados, this volume (pp. 103–4). 47 By contrast, Herm. can hardly allude to hymns about Pan, in whom it shows no interest. 48 For parallels between the Hymns, see Dornsieff (1938), 81–4, Richardson (2007), 89–91; for interpretation, Thomas (2009), 290–5. On Call. Hy. 3 to Artemis, see Ambühl (2005) and in this volume Faulkner (pp. 190–1).

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As when the daughter of Pandareus, the yellow-brown nightingale, sings beautifully at the beginning of spring, sitting among the trees’ thick petals, and with rapid modulations pours out her echoing voice, mourning for her son Itylus . . .

The two passages on their own do not require us to posit an allusion with compression. However, it is at least suggestive that in many versions Pan’s mother is Penelope.49 The intertext may then be the kind of allusion which evokes something to draw attention to its suppression, for here Pan’s mother is the bride of Dryops. In between the possible allusions to Penelope and Hermes is verse 21, where at the sound of the nymphs singing to Pan’s syrinx ‘Echo moans around the mountain’s peak’ (Œæıçc b æØ Ø hæ ! Hå). Echo here may well be a symbol, in Pan’s typical location, of Hymn 19’s allusivity.50 Pan’s cult began to spread from Arcadia c.500 bc.51 This is a secure terminus post quem for the hymn, since we hear nothing about Arcadian rhapsodic traditions before this date, and since the nymphs so prominent here seem to have been unusually unimportant in Arcadia.52 The possible allusion to the Hymn to Hermes might provide a slightly more stringent terminus post: its date is also unclear but in my view falls between the rebuilding of the temple at Delphi in c.505 bc and Sophocles’ Ichneutae.53 It is equally hard to identify a terminus ante quem. I have mentioned a possible allusion in Callimachus (above, n. 21). Filiation with Hermes, if accepted, favours a date shortly after that Hymn, whose importance for later texts is limited, largely to Sophocles’ Ichneutae and Callimachus’ Hymns to Zeus and Artemis.54 Hymn 19 shows numerous interactions with traditional formulas, and

49

Roscher (1894). There is no strong reason for seeing a further allusion to Pan’s love for Echo, a story first entailed by Call. fr. 685 Pf. The myth grew naturally from the independent location of Echo and randy Pan in mountain wildernesses (for Echo there, see Apollodorus FGrH 244 F 135), which may well be the idea at Hy. 19’s date. Germany (2005) gives a different analysis of Echo’s role in the Hymn. 51 For his importation into Athens c.490 see the famous story in Hdt. 6. 105, with Parker (1996), 163–8. Other fifth-century locations: Brommer (1956), 961–8. 52 See Jost (1985), 476. 53 Thomas (2009), 20–9, 309–12. 54 For the general question of the Hymns’ reception, see in this volume Faulkner (Ch. 9) and Nagy (Ch. 13). 50

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I see no reason to suppose it was only an amateur’s ‘imitation’ of traditional diction, rather than professional rhapsodia.55 For alternative dating-evidence, students of early Greek hexameter may turn to stylometry, but Hymn 19’s forty-nine lines are normally too few to generate significant statistics.56 Janko (1982), 184–5, suggests one morphological dating criterion which is not statistical, namely the uses of ıª ºøÆ and ØŒ æøÆ. Nouns in -ø were initially declined as -stems (like ÆN ), and were only later assimilated, at different rates, to -stems. The process is already identifiable for åæ in Iliad 10 and the Odyssey, but the first datable sources for ªºø- are fifth-century and those for Œæø- are Hellenistic.57 Comparable arguments can sometimes be made from semantic developments. Thus FÆ in the sense ‘music’ (15) and ¼ ıØ as a preposition meaning ‘together with’ (3) are derivative usages, as is ı  (‘sweet’) in line 16. But in this case, for varying reasons none of these improve our terminus post.58 For many other features, the problem is rather that variation may rest on more than chronological factors. For example, it may have been simply the composer’s taste to use compound epithets so frequently, or longer strings of epithets, or an unusually dactylic rhythm (particularly in the second foot).59 A corresponding point regarding the location of the composer’s training is the use of movable nu before a consonant, to lengthen a princeps syllable (e.g. 38 º ’ ¼æÆ). Hymn 19 uses this resource five times, a higher rate than other epic

55 Formularity: Cantilena (1982), Fröhder (1994), 338–45. Hy. 19, if one accepts that the myths of Syrinx and Echo are not pertinent, shares the earlier focus on Pan’s attributes and genealogy, rather than on further mythology which gained ground in the Hellenistic period. But this shift is a broad generalization, not a dating criterion. 56 So for the frequency of observed digamma, articular use of ›--, masculine caesura, bucolic diaeresis, word-break after the fifth princeps, or the treatment of Meyer’s laws. For (less than satisfactory) statistics about ›--, see Scott (1921), 90–1. For the metrical terms, see West (1982), 45, 153–5. 57 ªºø-: A. Cho. 447, PW no. 129. Œæø-: Megasthenes FGrH 715 F 27, Euphorion fr. 14 CA. 58 The sense of FÆ already occurs in Pratin. fr. 6 TrGF, Pi. N. 3. 28. That of ¼ ıØ is unique, and the prior phase where ¼ ıØ ¼ adverbial – Æ already occurs at Od. 12. 415. ı  was an obscure, obsolete epithet of sleep; by Alcm. fr. 135 PMG, lı  ‘sweet’ developed by reanalysis; later, ı  was reinstated as an archaizing alternative, and finally (here) transferred to a referent other than sleep. See also Lacore (1997). Unfortunately, these phases cannot be dated. 59 Second foot dactyls x35/49. Compare the figures at Ludwich (1885), 327–9. (The very striking contrast between the figures for Il. and Od. deserves wider recognition.)

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texts, though again the sample is unreliably small. Janko suggested that in general the feature was more common in Ionian compositions, but I would allow more weight to factors such as the metrical fastidiousness or even facility of the individual composer.60 In determining the Hymn’s location, unfortunately external information about festivals involving Pan is too exiguous to help us. Absences from the Hymn offer a few suggestions. Hymn 19 does not mention caves, which figure extremely prominently in Pan’s Attic cult, but hardly at all in Arcadia.61 The absence of allusions to Pan’s military engagements might also tell against Attica in the first few decades after Marathon, with which his importation to Attica was closely allied; Aeschylus, for example, mentions Pan at the site of Persian slaughter at Psyttaleia at Pers. 448–9. The absence of Cybele / Mother perhaps tells against a Boeotian cult background. Among the contents which do occur in the hymn, the most indicative is probably Pan’s birth to Hermes and the bride of Dryops, at Cyllene.62 Dryops is the eponym of the Dryopes, a race to whom the Greeks assigned three local connections: to Arcadia, where Dryops is sometimes located; to the region which became Doris, from which Heracles expelled them before the Dorians moved in; and to the destinations of the subsequent diaspora, particularly Ambracia, South Euboea, and the Eastern Argolid.63 The genealogy goes against the three main local Arcadian versions, including the most popular one that Pan’s mother was Penelope (to which Hy. 19 may allude).64 Nor does the mention of Cyllene imply an Arcadian cultic background to the Hymn. Rather, Pan is placed there only in literary sources, via Hermes, who is so important to Hymn 19.65 These considerations tell against an Arcadian performance context. 60 Janko (1982), 64–8. I feel some unease about the poet’s control when he uses ‹ ª three times in lines 29–32, switches subject so abruptly in verse 35, and uses K å æÆ ŁBŒ in verse 40 to mean ‘took in hand’ rather than ‘put in another’s hand’. 61 Caves in Attica: e.g. E. Ion 493–4; see Parker (1996), 164–5. They feature in PMG 936 (Epidaurus) and prominently in Pindar’s Hymn to Pan (fr. 95. 2 SnM). See further Lehnus (1979), 116 n. 52. 62 Strictly, line 32 Ł’ might mean ‘in Arcadia’ rather than ‘near Cyllene’. But that would render the mention of Cyllene less pertinent. 63 For sources on the Dryopes, see Strid (1999). 64 Jost (1985), 460–3. 65 Pan and Cyllene: also S. Aj. 695. Erycius AP 6. 96 places him there, but also attributes to two cowherds a heroic bull sacrifice: one cannot say where the fiction starts.

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To sum up: I have argued that the Hymn is probably classical, perhaps from the generation after Hermes. Regarding performance location, the discussion is perforce aporetic. I have mentioned some regions which are less likely (Boeotia, Attica, Arcadia) and some such as the Argolid which are marginally more likely, given our limited information. The Hymn to Pan is a text which repays examination through several lenses. For historians of religion it is unusually long among literary sources for Pan of (as I have argued) the classical period. It therefore helps us not only to describe Pan, but potentially to examine the dynamics of a ‘new’ god’s spread across the wider Greek world over the course of the fifth century. Meanwhile for cultural historians it helps to map out, particularly through its representation of space, a conceptual world of life in the wilds and margins (KåÆØÆ) as imagined by educated Greeks. For students of hymns as a literary genre, it is a rare example of a mid-length hexameter hymn, and one which reflects on a hymn’s functions and the relationship of choral and rhapsodic hymns. Its possible allusion to Hermes is relevant to reconstructing the earliest phase of transmission of the Homeric Hymns: was Hermes widely known, and by whom and how, or were the Hymns transmitted from the archives of a rhapsodic school, whose members would have learnt from each other’s work as a matter of apprenticeship; is it coincidental that Hymn 19 ended up following the shorter Hymn to Hermes? And in its displacement of such a fixed hymnic element as the god’s proper name in the evocation, its fast introduction of the whole composition’s essentials, its play both in lines 5–7 and in 27–47 with the poetic use of inset songs, and its vivid visualization of a god whose hybrid exterior is his most prominent characteristic, the Hymn reveals itself as a skilled and ambitious composition. Let us honour the wide-ranging and versatile god appropriately, with a wide-ranging and versatile approach to his Hymn.

Part II

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9 The Collection of Homeric Hymns From the Seventh to the Third Centuries bc Andrew Faulkner

In memory of Penelope Stewart

The medieval manuscript tradition has conveyed a collection of thirtythree Homeric Hymns.1 The twenty-eight manuscripts of the * family, with the exception of three manuscripts of the subgroup z,2 transmit Hymns 3–33 (or some portion thereof ) in the same order, adopted by most modern editions.3 The distinct Leiden codex (M), the sole manuscript witness of Hymns 1 to Dionysus and 2 to Demeter, transposes 10 and 11 but otherwise follows the identical sequence until it breaks off at 18. 4. It is difficult to know at what point in the poems’ transmission this particular order was imposed, but the collection will not have been in the exact form we have inherited before the third century ad. The eighth Hymn to Ares, characterized by its long list of epithets and planetary allegory, is markedly different from the other Hymns in the collection 1 All 29 extant manuscripts are late, dated to the fifteenth century. For more on the manuscript tradition, see AHS xi–xliii, Humbert (1936), 12–18, Càssola 593–616, WL 21–2, Faulkner (2008), 525, Richardson (2010), 32–3; on At and M, Wilson (1974), Irigoin (1970), Richardson (1974), 65–7, Gelzer (1994), 113–25. 2 J and K contain Hymns 8–18 followed by 3. 1–186, H Hymns 8–18 followed by 3. 1–55. See further AHS xxxix–xlii, Càssola 599–601, West (1970), 304. 3 Humbert (1936), esp. 18–19, groups together the Hymns to the same divinity; for the order followed in earlier editions see his concordance table (256). Manuscripts of the ¨ tradition (and through contamination C) also contain at the end of the collection a five-line poem N  ı , a version of the Homeric epigram transmitted in the pseudo-Herodotean Vita 9 (Allen); see AHS 442–3, Càssola 610—contra its omission from the collection of Hymns Janko (2004), 283.

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and appears Neoplatonic. This poem could have been included intentionally in antiquity or inserted sometime thereafter due to an accident of transmission.4 A compilation of some sort must have been in existence before the inclusion of the eighth Hymn. Both Diodorus and Philodemus seem to have known a collection of Homeric hymns in the first century bc. They quote from the long Hymns to Dionysus, Demeter, and Apollo, referring in a general way to the o Ø of Homer.5 The source of Philodemus’ quotations may go back to Apollodorus’ On the Gods in the second century, which was an important source for Philodemus.6 The scholia Genevese on Iliad 21. 319 also report that Apollodorus claimed an initial  (‘s’) in ()å æÆ (‘(s)cherados’ ¼ ‘gravel’) to be superfluous, ‰ Ææ’ % ˇ æø fi c çæ  Ø (‘as in the word “lifegiving” (pheresbios) in Homer’): çæ  Ø (‘life-giving’) does not occur in the Iliad or Odyssey, but several times in the Hymns (Apoll. 341, Dem. 450, etc.) and once in Hesiod (Th. 693).7 If this does go back to Apollodorus, it assumes that he did not distinguish between the 4

This poem has long been thought later than the rest of the collection and assigned by some to the Orphic corpus; see AHS 384–5, Càssola 297–9. West (1970) proposes that the Hymn is the work of Proclus, placed in the midst of the Homeric Hymns through a late mishap of transmission; the Hymns are conveyed together with the Callimachean, Proclan, and Orphic hymns in the majority of manuscripts. Gelzer (1987), (1994), 125–9, instead suggests it is the work of an unknown earlier philosopher working in the tradition of Plotinus and that it was intentionally inserted in the collection; the poem’s attribution to Proclus is rejected also by Devlin (1994), 338–42, Saffrey (1994), 75, Berg (2001), 6–7, the latter on the grounds that the concept of epistrophe is absent in the poem but central to Proclus’ hymns. Others have suggested that Proclus compiled the collection; see Càssola lxv. 5 D. S. 1. 15. 7 (  BŁÆØ b B ˝Å e ØÅc K E o Ø [çÆ], cit. Dion. A. 9–10), 4. 2. 4 (e  O Åæ b Ø ÆæıæBÆØ K E o Ø [çÆ], cit. Dion. A. 9–10), 3. 66. 3 (› ØÅc K E o Ø , cit. Dion. A. 2–10); Phld. Piet. p. 87 Schober ( O Åæ ’ K [E o ]Ø , cit. Dem. 440), p. 93 Schober (o []Ø[  O] Åæ , cit. Apoll. 91); see Boserup (1971), 109–11, Henrichs (1972), 72–7. Dion. A. 9–10 is also quoted by the scholiast on A. R. 2. 1211. Later quotations and references include Paus. 1. 20. 3 (possible ref. to Dion.; see West in this volume, p. 42), 1. 38. 2–3 (ref. Dem. 154–5), 4. 30. 4 (cit. Dem. 417–20), 10. 37. 4 (ref. Apoll. 269), Ath. 22b (cit. Apoll. 514– 6), 653b (possible cit. Dion. B; see West [2001a], 8), and Aristid. Orat. 34. 35 Keil (cit. Apoll. 169–71). Further testimonia are listed in AHS lxxii–lxxviii. 6 See Henrichs (1975a). 7 Cf. AHS lxxiii–lxxiv, Richardson (1974), 68. Without indication of its provenance, the word çæ  Ø (‘life-giving’) is connected to a comment of Aristarchus in the T scholia on Il. 16. 163 æØ ÆØ {b ªÆæ}: æÆæå Id F ‘æØÆØ’ Øa c ºÅ c ‰ çæ Ø çæ  Ø (‘the belly is glutted (peristenetai): Aristarchus [reads this] in place of “is distended” (periteinetai) because of the abundance [implied by  (‘s’)], as in pherebios/pheresbios’).

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Homeric epics and the Hymns in the phrase Ææ’ % ˇ æø fi (‘in Homer’). Opinion about the Hymns’ authorship in ancient sources is, as one would expect, inconsistent. An anonymous Life of Homer states explicitly that the Hymns are not by Homer, just as other sources speak of the Hymns as ‘attributed to Homer’ (IÆçæ Ø N  O Åæ).8 As well, the scholiast on Pindar Nemean 2 assigns the Hymn to Apollo to Cynaethus.9 Other sources, however, speak of Homer as the author of the Hymns, as did Thucydides when quoting the Hymn to Apollo.10 The scholiast on Aristophanes’ Birds 575 states that, while some scholars claim that the line (in which Iris is said to fly like a timid pigeon) is a playful distortion of Iliad 5. 778, where Hera and Athena are compared to timid pigeons, others claim that the idea occurs elsewhere in Homer, ‘because the hymns are also by him’ (Nd ªaæ ÆPF ŒÆd o Ø): Iris and Eileithyia are compared to timid pigeons at Apollo 114.11 At the very least, the Hymns do not seem to have been set apart from the Homeric epics in the early Hellenistic period as explicitly as were the hexameter poems of the Epic Cycle, which Aristarchus deemed to have been written by inferior ‘younger’ (æØ) poets.12 In contrast to the view Aristarchus took of the Epic Cycle, there is no certain evidence that Alexandrian scholars from Zenodotus to Aristarchus in the third century bc concerned themselves with the Hymns. Allen, Halliday, and Sikes note that the Homeric scholia on a number of occasions fail to refer to relevant passages in the Hymns

8

Vita V 20–3 Allen Iººa f o ı ŒÆd a ºØa H N ÆPe IÆçæ ø ØÅ ø ªÅ  IººæØÆ ŒÆd B çø ŒÆd B ı ø ŒÆ (‘but the hymns and the remainder of the poems attributed to him should be thought the work of others because of both their nature and their force’), Ar. fr. 56. 26–7 (¼P. Oxy. 2737, second century ad: commentary on Anagyros), sch. Nic. Alex. 130. 9 Sch. Pi. N. 2, 1c, III 29, 9–18 Dr (¼ FGrH 568 F 5), q b › ˚ÆØŁ e ª  E , n ŒÆd H KتæÆç ø % ˇ æı ØÅ ø e N ººøÆ ªªæÆçg o  IÆ ŁØŒ ÆPfiH (‘Cynaethus was a Chian by birth, who, of the poems ascribed to Homer, wrote the hymn to Apollo and attributed it to Homer’). See in this volume Chappell (pp. 71–2), Nagy (pp. 288–91). 10 Th. 3. 104 źE b ºØÆ  O Åæ ‹Ø ØÆFÆ q K E Ø E, – KØ KŒ æØ ı ººø (‘Homer makes this very clear by these verses from the hymn to Apollo’); slightly variant versions of lines 146–50 and 165–72 are quoted. For other sources see above n. 5. On ‘Homer’ used of epic poetry other than the Iliad and Odyssey in the Classical period and earlier, see Burgess (2001), 129–30. 11 Cf. Dunbar (1995), 386. 12 See Severyns (1928), 31–61, Burgess (2001), 9.

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when discussing words not known in ‘Homer’.13 This could, as they suggest, be the result of Hellenistic scholars excluding the Hymns from the canon of authentic ‘Homeric’ texts, but it is nevertheless striking that the Hymns are not mentioned at all in these contexts. One might consider, for example, that line 51 of Hermes was quoted by Antigonus of Carystus in the third century.14 In P. Oxy. 2737, a fragment of a second-century commentary on what is very probably Aristophanes’ Anagyros (fr. 56. 19–27), the commentator remarks that the transmitted lemma ŒŒ e æªø Ø (‘the swan accompanied by its wings such . . . ’) is drawn from the five-line Hymn 21. 1 +E , b b ŒÆd ŒŒ e æªø ºª’ IØ (‘Phoebus, the swan also sings of you with a clear voice accompanied by its wings’). Immediately preceding this statement, the commentator reports that Aristarchus thought the lemma to imitate Terpander and that Euphorion thought it to derive from Ion. These reported observations seem to relate to the beginning of the parabatic ode of the Anagyros, which may have been included in a more extensive lemma, of which only the end is transmitted in the later commentary.15 If this is the case, the later commentator’s corrective statement about the source of the transmitted lemma need not imply that Aristarchus and Euphorion originally made no comment on the similarity of Hymn 21, but this is at least a strong possibility. The ancient testimonia for the shortest Hymns are even more limited: the scholiast on Pindar Pythian 3. 14 cites the opening verses of the five-line Hymn 16 as amongst the ‘Homeric hymns’ (K E % ˇ ÅæØŒE o Ø ), but there is otherwise no quotation of a short Hymn that might be traced back to the Hellenistic period.16 It is nonetheless hard to believe that the longer Homeric Hymns escaped the learned activities of the third century bc, when the opera of earlier Greek poets were assembled, arranged, and studied to a

13 AHS lxxix–lxxx. S. West (1967), 32–5, points out that Apoll. may have influenced the variant text of Il. 1. 484–94 attested in a Ptolemaic papyrus (P.S.I. 1454; cf. Apoll. 503–7), as well as the text of Od. 15. 295 quoted by Strabo (8. 3. 26, 10. 1. 9) but not transmitted by the mss. (cf. Apoll. 425). 14 See Vergados (2007), Thomas (2009), 304. 15 See Luppe (1973), 281–5, Montana (2006), 169–73, (2009), 43–4, with further bibliography. 16 Cf. Richardson (2010), 3. P. Oxy. 4667, datable to the third century ad, contains fragments of Hys. 18 and 7, in that order. Although see below p. 197 on lines equivalent to Hy. 18 on a fifth-century Attic lekythos.

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greater extent than before. Ordered editions were produced of the lyric poets, in which poems were organized into books according to metre or genre, and within books according to alphabetization and descending order of importance.17 Callimachus compiled his prodigious Pinakes, a structured bibliography of Greek literature in a hundred and twenty books,18 as well as a special chronological table of the dramatic poets.19 Homeric book-division probably originated prior to Alexandrian scholarship,20 but the so-called Epic Cycle appears to have been assembled in the Hellenistic period.21 Signs of editorial activity on the Hymns are preserved in the medieval manuscripts at Apollo 136–9.22 There is some evidence that a collection of Homeric Hymns existed in the time of Callimachus. Prominent amongst several possible allusions to earlier texts in the opening of his hymn to Zeus is the apparent modelling of lines 4–8 on the beginning of the first Homeric Hymn to Dionysus: apart from the shared hexameter verse and epic Kunstsprache, both passages contain the motif of the god’s rival birthplaces.23 The hymn to Zeus comes first in the sequence of Callimachus’ hymns, which does not vary in the extant manuscripts, and it is probable that the transmitted order bears Callimachus’ authorial stamp.24 We can therefore conjecture that, in alluding at 17 On the organizational principles used in ancient editions of Greek lyric poets, see Rutherford (2001), 158–62, Pfeiffer (1968), 182–8. Pindar’s KØŒØÆ were of course grouped by the location of the victory. Alphabetical ordering is also apparent in Callimachus’ Pinakes and was surely a widespread organizational principle; see Pfeiffer (1968), 128–30. On Hellenistic books, see also Hutchinson (2008). 18 Frs. 429–453 Pf. On the Pinakes, see further Schmidt (1922), Blum (1977). 19 Frs. 454–6 Pf. See Pfeiffer (1968), 131–2. On the collection and study of tragedy and comedy in the Hellenistic period, see Olson (2007), 26–9, Pfeiffer (1968), 119–20, 159–62, 188–96. 20 See Skafte Jensen et al. (1999) for a survey of scholarly opinion on the issue. Some maintain that Homeric book-division was imposed by the Alexandrians, but the division into ÞÆłø fi ÆØ at least suggests that this goes back to rhapsodic performance; cf. M. L. and S. West in Skafte Jensen et al. (1999), 68–73, Burgess (2001), 31. 21 See Burgess (2001), 7–46, esp. 15–19, with further bibliography. 22 See West WL 20–1. 23 Call. Hy. 1. 4–8  Dion. 2–6; cf. West in this volume (pp. 40–1). The first three lines of the poem call to mind Pi. fr. 89a SnM, a prosodion to Artemis, and Callimachus may also have intended an allusion to Pindar’s Hymn to Zeus (fr. 29 SnM), which similarly contains the motif of questioning what to sing. On these and other allusions, see McLennan (1977), 30, passim, Fuhrer (1988), 60–1, Haslam (1993), 115, Hunter and Fuhrer (2002), 171, Fantuzzi and Hunter (2004), 371, Depew (2004), 119. 24 Cf. Hopkinson (1984), 13–17, Bing (1988), 126 n. 57, Cameron (1995), 255, 438, Hunter and Fuhrer (2002).

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the beginning of his first hymn to the opening of Dionysus, the first of the Homeric Hymns in the Leiden manuscript, Callimachus knew an ordered collection in which Dionysus came first.25 It is perhaps also significant that Callimachus’ sixth hymn to Demeter has thematic and structural links to the fifty-nine-line Hymn to Dionysus transmitted seventh in our collection: the narratives of both poems involve transgression by arrogant mortals against a divinity who makes an epiphany and metes out punishment; Dionysus is also named and openly compared to Demeter in lines 70–1 as a god who grows angry for the same reasons as the goddess. As well, while Dionysus’ epiphany in Hymn 7 is accompanied by plenty in the form of wine, fruit, and abundant vegetation (35–42), Demeter inversely places an unquenchable need for plenty on Erysichthon, whose appetite is his downfall.26 If Callimachus intended a thematic allusion to this shorter Hymn to Dionysus in the final hymn in his collection, it could be seen to echo the allusion to the longer Hymn to Dionysus at the outset of his collection.27 Without positing one-to-one correspondence between each of Callimachus’ hymns and the Homeric Hymns, one might even speculate further about the significance of the allusion for the early ordering of the Hymns. With the exception of the twentyone-line sixth Hymn to Aphrodite, the first seven Hymns range from fifty-nine to five hundred and eighty lines and contain developed narratives.28 The shorter sixth Hymn to Aphrodite seems to have been placed after the longer Hymn to the same goddess because of similar

25 Cf. Hunter and Fuhrer (2002), 169–3, Fantuzzi and Hunter (2004), 371, Depew (2004), 119, who also point out that the collected Hellenistic edition of Pindar’s works may have begun with his hymn to Zeus, to which Callimachus seems to make allusion here as well (see above n. 23). If this was the case, it would corroborate the idea that Callimachus is thinking of hymns that begin collections. The order of Pindar’s collected works varies in surviving testimonia: only the Vita Ambrosiana places the hymns first, while P. Oxy. 2438 and Hor. Od. 4. 2 place the dithyrambs first; see further Race (1987), Rutherford (2001), 146–8. Nonetheless, Pindar’s hymn to Zeus will have come first in the book of his hymns (cf. scholia ad Ps.-Luc. Dem. Enc. 19). 26 See Bulloch (1977), 99–101, who discounts specific allusion by Callimachus. He notes only small verbal similarities between the two hymns (Hy. 7. 42–44  Call. Hy. 6. 59–61, Hy. 7. 50  Call. Hy. 6. 60). 27 Cf. Depew (2004), 134 on the link to the first hymn suggested by the relation of DemeterIsis and DionysusOsiris. 28 On the original length of Dion., which can be estimated at over four hundred lines, see West (2001a), 1.

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content, but its scale is out of place at this point in the collection,29 and one might entertain the possibility that it was inserted here in a later arrangement. If this were the case, an early collection of Hymns could have begun with the six narrative Hymns to Dionysus, Demeter, Apollo, Hermes, Aphrodite, and Dionysus, in that order. Could Callimachus be alluding in his first and sixth hymns to the first and sixth Hymns to Dionysus in the collection he knew? Speculation aside, there can be no doubt that many of the Homeric Hymns were well-known to early Hellenistic poets. In what follows, I will survey the evidence for the transmission and reception of the Hymns from the late seventh to the early third centuries bc. Having just discussed Callimachus, I will first consider the impact of the Hymns on Hellenistic poetry of the first half of the third century bc, when evidence for the Hymns’ reception is at its greatest. I will then move backwards in time to explore the Hymns’ influence from the fourth to the seventh centuries bc. Signs of the Hymns’ impression in these earlier centuries are fewer than in the Hellenistic period, but a picture of their circulation and impact nonetheless emerges from the surviving evidence. As might be expected, Callimachus himself makes extensive verbal and thematic allusion to the Homeric Hymns throughout his collection of hexameter hymns, which both announces his debt to the poetic tradition and informs his innovation upon these models. Callimachus’ second hymn to Apollo, for example, alludes thematically to both of the central narrative components of the Hymn to Apollo. First, the god’s birth on Delos, which dominates the Delian section of Apollo, is obliquely referred to at the outset of the poem: K ı › ˜ºØ  Ø çEØ KÆÅ , › b ŒŒ K M æØ ŒÆºe IØ (Call. Hy. 2. 4–5) The Delian palm tree suddenly nods sweetly, and the swan sings beautifully in the air.

The mention of this Delian palm tree recalls for a learned reader its role in the god’s birth in Apollo, in which Leto is said to ‘cast both of 29

See Torres-Guerra (2003), 5, who considers Hy. 6 to be of a different class than Hy. 5, mid-length rather than long, and groups Hy. 7 with the long Hymns because of its developed narrative.

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her arms around a palm tree’ (I çd b çØŒØ º å, 117) just before delivering her son on Delos;30 an allusion which contains irony given that Leto’s grasping of the now sweetly nodding tree comes in Apollo at the end of an arduous nine days and nine nights of labour (90–1). While mention of the palm tree precedes the god’s birth in Apollo, it here announces his epiphany to the celebrants of his cult, signalled explicitly in the opening lines of the poem; in part in the description of the palm itself by the unusual application to a tree of the verb KØø, which is normally used of a divinity giving assent.31 The palm tree is also a detail to which Callimachus returns in his fourth hymn to Delos, where he does narrate the birth of Apollo. At lines 209–11, Leto is said to lean back against the trunk of the palm tree with her shoulders, rather than grasp the tree with her arms as she did in the Homeric Hymn: ºÆ b ÇÅ, Ie ’ KŒºŁÅ  ƺØ þ Ø çØŒ d æ  I ÅåÆÅ e ºıªæB Øæ Å· Ø b Øa åæe ææ ƒæ . And she loosened her girdle, and leaned back with her shoulders against the trunk of a palm tree, distressed by terrible hardship, and a moist sweat flowed over her skin.

It has been suggested that Callimachus’ departure from the earlier model in this case is meant to reflect his knowledge of Herophilus’ medical innovations concerning the best posture for giving birth.32 Whether or not this is behind the change, the passage demonstrates Callimachus’ interest in this feature of Apollo’s birth and strengthens the case that the image of the palm tree at the outset of his second hymn is intended to call to mind the god’s nativity, which is replaced in the poem by his cultic epiphany.33

30

See Hunter and Fuhrer (2002), 150, who also point out that line 5, › b ŒŒ K M æØ ŒÆºe IØ (‘and the swan sings beautifully in the air’), provides a link to the swans who sing at Apollo’s birth in Call. Hy. 4. 49–55; it is perhaps also intended to recall Hy. 21. 1 (cf. above p. 178). Cf. Leto’s grasping of the palm tree also at Thgn. 5–10. 31 See Williams (1978), 19. 32 Most (1981). 33 This parallelism is perhaps strengthened by the fact that the goddesses attending Leto’s birth give a ritual shout upon his leap into life at Apoll. 119 KŒ ’ Łæ æe çø, ŁÆd ’ OººıÆ –ÆÆØ (‘He jumped out into the light, and all the goddesses shouted’), as upon his birth at Call. Hy. 4. 258 (a possible echo of Aphr. 19); see further Fantuzzi and Hunter (2004), 367, Faulkner (2008), 96–7.

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Then near the end of his second hymn Callimachus refers to the main narrative thread of the Pythian section of the Hymn to Apollo, the god’s slaying of the dragon Pytho which leads to the foundation of his cult in Delphi: ƒc ƒc ÆØB IŒ , oŒÆ F ˜ºç Ø æØ Kç Ø oæ ºÆ , q  ŒÅ ºÅ åæı ø KŒı ø. —ıŁ Ø ŒÆØØ ı ÆØ Ø Łæ, ÆNe ZçØ . e b f ŒÆÆæ ¼ºº K’ ¼ººø fi ººø TŒf Oœ, KÅÅ b ºÆ , ‘ƒc ƒc ÆØB, ¥Ø º .’ PŁ  Åæ ªÆ’ IÅBæÆ, e ’ K Ø ŒEŁ IfiÅ (Call. Hy. 2. 97–104) We hear ie ie paieon, because the Delphians first invented this song of praise, when you gave proof of the far-shooting of your golden bow. A god-sent beast, a terrible dragon, met with you descending to Delphi. You slew it, firing swift arrow upon swift arrow, and the people cried out ‘ie ie paieon, shoot an arrow.’ Your mother bore you to be a helper straightaway, and you are still sung as such because of this deed.

The short description of the slaying of the dragon here, which ends with another passing reference to Apollo’s birth, is subordinate to the aim of providing an aition for the refrain ie ie paieon, explained by the similarity of ƒ (‘hie’) to ¥Ø (‘shoot’ [hei]) and ÆØB (‘paieon’) to both ÆE (‘child’ [pai]) and N (‘arrow’ [ion]).34 This acts as an allusive alternative to the aition for the place name Pytho and Apollo’s cult title Pythios given in the Hymn to Apollo after the narration of the same event (363–74): the dragon is there said to rot in the sun after its death, with forms of the verb ŁØ (‘to rot’ [pythein]) used three times in twelve lines.35 The etymologies link the two texts, but while the much lengthier narrative of the dragon’s death in the 34

See Williams (1978), 85. In Apoll. 514–19 the Cretan sailors are said to sing the refrain on their way to Delphi, led by Apollo, in the manner of the paeans of the Cretans inspired by the Muses. 35 On this etymology in later sources see AHS 251–2. Callimachus’ reworking of the etymology given in Apoll. is briefly noted by Haslam (1993), 117. Richardson (2010), 132 intriguingly suggests that Apoll. 357 Ne KçBŒ (‘he shot his arrow’) alludes to the etymology of the paean refrain; Callimachus could well have been thinking of this. On the erudite nature of Callimachean aitia, in contrast to those in the Homeric Hymns, see Vamvouri-Ruffy (2004), 235.

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Homeric Hymn (300–74) is an important phase in Apollo’s foundation of his sanctuary at Delphi, the focus of Callimachus’ hymn lies elsewhere. Apollo’s actions explain the origins of the ritual refrain ƒc ƒc (‘hie hie’), which has already been heard a number of times in the poem in different combinations: lines 21 ƒc ÆØB ƒc ÆØB (‘hie paieon hie paieon’), 25 ƒc ƒc çŁ ªªŁ (‘shout hie hie’), and 80 ƒc ƒc ˚ÆæE (‘hie hie Carneius’). The last of these occurs within the lengthy section of the poem dedicated to the foundation of Cyrene (65–96), which provides the first palpable indication of the location of the ritual performance described in general terms at the outset of the poem.36 The recollection of the ritual cry strengthens the comparison between these previous passages,37 and reminds the reader that it is Cyrene, not Delphi as in the Homeric Hymn, whose foundation is treated most prominently in the poem. In fact, the Cyrene episode is flanked by shorter narrative accounts, both aetiological,38 related to the foundation of Apollo’s two most important cult centres treated in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo: Delos (55–64, his foundation of the Horned Altar together with Artemis), and Delphi (97–104, the slaying of the dragon).39 In the first of these foundation myths, the repetition of the word Ł ºØÆ (‘foundations’, 57, 58, 64) also seems intended to recall Apollo 254/294 Ø ŁÅŒ Ł ºØÆ +E  ººø (‘Phoebus Apollo laid his foundations’).40 In this way, Callimachus recalls the central narrative elements of the Homeric Hymn, only to reject them as his principal subject matter. Nowhere in his collection of hymns does he narrate in full 36

On the location of the imagined festival, see Bing (1993), 191. The mention of the Delian palm in line 4 at first suggests Delos as the location of Apollo’s epiphany, but the point may be to mislead: cf. Williams (1978), 19. 37 See Calame (1993), 45–6, Cheshire (2005), 344–6. 38 An aition for Apollo’s title Nomios, explained by his having tended Admetus’ horses (47–9) with an implied link to the verb  Ø (‘to pasture’[nemein]), also prefigures the Cyrene episode: see Calame (1993), 41, Depew (1993), 74–5. 39 This tripartite division of lines 55–104 is marked by indentation in Pfeiffer’s text and is well-established. Cheshire (2005) proposes a tripartite division of the section on thematic grounds of foundation, celebration, and reciprocation. Cf. Calame (1993), 50, who, as part of his analysis of Apollo’s role in construction in the hymn as a progression towards civilized space, notes that Cyrene ‘is situated between the two geographical and religious poles of the cult dedicated to Apollo: Delos where the god’s epiphany seems to take place (1–8) and Delphi where his civic function is realised (32–41). These two religious centres are also the two poles of Greek civilization, on the model given by the Homeric Hymn to Apollo in its two sections!’ 40 Cf. Williams (1978), 57, Depew (2004), 122.

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the killing of the dragon, a traditionally popular story,41 or the foundation of Delphi, and when he does narrate the birth of Apollo it is unexpectedly in a hymn dedicated to Delos, and there treated in an innovative way.42 The Hymn to Apollo was not Callimachus’ only model. Callimachus himself treated the myth of Apollo’s slaying of the dragon in his Aetia (fr. 88 Pf.) and may be referring here to his own poetry,43 while Pindar offered a poetic source for the foundation of Cyrene.44 The pronounced focus on ritual performance in the poem, from the opening scene of epiphany at the god’s temple to the repetition of the ritual cry, is also reminiscent of cultic hymns such as Aristonous’ fourth-century paean to Apollo.45 Even, however, within this context of cultic performance, the Homeric Hymn to Apollo remains an important intertext. At the end of the Delian section (156–64), the poet describes a choral performance of Delian maidens, who know how to imitate perfectly the voices of others: ø ’ IŁæø çøa ŒÆd Æ ÆºØÆ Ø EŁ’ YÆØ çÆÅ  Œ ÆPe ŒÆ çŁ ªªŁ’·oø çØ ŒÆºc ıæÅæ IØ. (Apoll. 162–4) They know well the voices and the chatter of all people. Each man would say that he himself is speaking; their beautiful song is so well fitted.

Bing insightfully proposes that Callimachus’ treatment of the poetic voice in his second hymn, which blends the voice of choral performance with the voice of the poet-narrator, and ultimately the voices

41 See Vamvouri-Ruffy (2004), 207 n. 161. Brief mention of Delphi and the dragon is also made in Call. Hy. 4. 90–3. 42 See Bing (1988), 91–143: the hymn to Delos is profoundly influenced by Apoll., but at the same time departs significantly from it; cf. below pp. 199–200 on Pindar’s inspiration for Delos as subject. 43 A similar treatment of the story is given by Apollonius Rhodius (2. 703–13), who may also be imitating the version in the Aetia. See Pfeiffer ad fr. 88, Williams (1978), 82, Albis (1996), 123–5 with further bibliography. 44 See Calame (1993), 38–43, Depew (1993), 74–5, Vamvouri-Ruffy (2004), 117–18. 45 See text and commentary of this hymn in Furley and Bremer (2001) ii. 45–52, who note on line 13 çæØŒ (‘awe-inspiring’) that, ‘Exactly this mood of excited awe at the supernatural presence of divinity is invoked by Callimachus.’ The shaking laurel in lines 10–11 is paralleled at Call. Hy. 2. 1; cf. Williams (1978), 16. See also Vamvouri-Ruffy (2004), 94–6, 211–15, on Aristonous, and passim on Callimachus’ poetic engagement with the form of inscribed cultic hymns.

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of those enacting the ritual performance through reading the text, may be looking back to this description of the Delian maidens’ remarkable ability to fit their song to the voices of others.46 This interpretation is perhaps strengthened by the fact that, immediately following the account of the Delian maidens in the Homeric Hymn, the poet-narrator addresses the chorus directly (165–78): identifying himself as a blind man from Chios, he addresses the chorus as a group ‘you’ ( E , 171), then switches to the first-person plural to speak of how ‘we’ ( E , 174) will carry ‘your’ ( æ) fame far and wide, before switching once again back to the first-person singular ‘I’ (Kª, 177) to tell of his ceaseless hymning of Apollo. The first-person plural here most probably refers to the singer himself (with the plural used for the singular) or other rhapsodes.47 But there is nonetheless an implied blending of the singer’s voice with that of the chorus, as both celebrate Apollo hymnically.48 In Callimachus’ hymn, the mixing of voices throughout the poem explicitly involves movement between the first-person singular and plural. The first-person plural in line 11 incorporates both the chorus and the poet-narrator at the outset of the poem: Oł ŁÆ, t % EŒæª, ŒÆd K Ł’ h ºØ (‘We will see you, O far-shooter, and we will never be lowly’). There is then a switch to the first-person plural at the beginning of the dragonslaying episode: ‘we’, which includes Apollo himself, are said to listen to the choral refrain ie ie paieon (ƒÅ ƒc ÆØB IŒ , 97).49 By incorporating the audience into his complex blend of voices with this final use of the first-person plural in the poem, Callimachus both recalls and goes beyond the mixing of voices in the Delian section of the Homeric Hymn.

46 Bing (1993), esp. 189. At Apoll. 162 Æ ÆºØÆ (‘chatter’) appears in only a few mss. in place of the majority reading Œæ ƺØÆ, but fits well with the subsequent claim that anyone would say he himself is speaking. Bing (196) takes Œæ ƺØÆ metaphorically also to mean ‘chatter’, but the literal sound of Œæ ÆºÆ (musical instruments, perhaps similar to ŒæÆºÆ ‘castanets’) could also work in the context of a musical chorus. See further the helpful discussion of Richardson (2010), 107–8, who reads Œæ ƺØÆ on the grounds that it is the lectio difficilior and that ‘it is hard to see how a word which would most naturally denote inarticulate or confused sounds can be used in this context’. In either case, the mimetic abilities of the Delian Maidens are explicit. Cf. Peponi (2009). 47 See Richardson (2010), 110–11, Aloni (1989), 127–8. 48 Cf. Calame in this volume (pp. 351–2). 49 See Calame (1993), 47–9.

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The explicit identification with the audience at this point also leads into the final section of Callimachus’ hymn (105–13),50 a dialogue between Apollo and Envy which has long been recognized to reflect upon poetic aesthetic. Envy tells Apollo that he does not honour ‘the singer who refuses to sing as much as the sea’ (PŒ ¼ªÆ ÆØ e IØe n P ‹Æ  IØ, 106),51 after which Apollo kicks Envy and explains that the great stream ( ªÆ Þ , 108) of the Assyrian river carries a lot of filth, while bees bring water to Demeter only from the small, pure stream of a holy fountain (ŒÆŁÆæ  ŒÆd IåæÆ . . . j ÆŒ K ƒæB OºªÅ ºØ  , 111–12). The bees ( ºØÆØ) function here on a number of levels: bees are animals connected to industry and purity, but ‘bee’ is also used metaphorically of both poets and the priestesses of Demeter.52 Understood as operating together, these two metaphorical uses of ‘bee’ once again identify the speaker (as poet) with the ritual celebrants (the priestesses of Demeter),53 both of whom Apollo, as divine audience, praises in this concluding section.54 Apollo’s judgment also recalls his praise of the chorus for its singing earlier in the poem (28–9). Much ink has been spilt over the question of whether the sea ( , 106) in this final passage should be taken to refer to Homeric epic in contrast to the refined, small stream (OºªÅ ºØ  , 112) which is equated with Callimachus’ poetry.55 Given the thematic allusions and responses that lead into and are recalled in this final section, it seems most natural to link the image of

50 Cf. Williams (1978), 82, Bassi (1989), esp. 227, who argue that the dragonslaying episode provides a bridge to the final section; the latter demonstrates that Apollo’s combative role throughout the hymn is linked to his confrontation with Envy. See also Calame (1993), 50–5 on the links between the epilogue and the Cyrene episode. 51 I follow Köhnken (1981), 416, and Cameron (1995), 405, in taking P’ ‹Æ here emphatically. 52 See Williams (1978), 92–4. The identification of the bees with Demeter’s priestesses has been disputed, but there are good grounds for accepting it; see Petrovic (2011c forthcoming). On the possible relationship of this imagery to Philitas’ grove, see Heyworth (2004), 150–1. 53 For this identification, cf. Petrovic (2011c forthcoming), Bing (1993), 192–4. 54 Cf. Hunter and Fuhrer (2002), 151–2, who suggest that Apollo’s approval of Callimachus’ hymn here imitates the poet’s request at Apoll. 165–77 to be remembered as the most pleasing of singers (Icæ XØ IØH, 169). 55 The generic identification of the sea with Homer and qualitative criticism of epic poetry proposed by Williams (1978), 85–9, is rightly dismissed by Köhnken (1981), Cameron (1995), 403–7. For a list of bibliography on the topic, see Vamvouri-Ruffy (2004), 65–6 nn. 59–62.

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the sea specifically to the Hymn to Apollo, rather than generically to Homeric epic.56 An even more pointed departure from the narrative content of one of the long Homeric Hymns is found in Callimachus’ sixth hymn to Demeter. Like his hymn to Apollo, this poem also opens with the evocation of a cultic setting, in which the voice of the poet-narrator is blended with that of the ritual celebrants, in this case the fasting female priestesses of Demeter.57 When the poet-narrator first embarks upon the narrative, it is to tell the story of Demeter’s search for Persephone (6–16): like the celebrants in the ritual frame, Demeter does not eat, drink, or bathe in her search for Persephone, wandering the earth and sitting by her well in grief until she is persuaded by Hesperus to end her fast. In its broad outline, this is parallel to the narrative recounted in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, in which Demeter searches for her daughter and in her anger causes a universal famine for mankind. There are differences of detail (Callimachus has Hesperus convince Demeter to break her fast, whereas in the Hymn it is Iambe who functions in this role),58 but there are structural parallels in Callimachus’ more condensed account that seem intentionally to recall the Homeric Hymn: as in Demeter (49–50, 200–1), Demeter’s fasting and abstinence from bathing is twice described by Callimachus, first during the search for her daughter and then when she is seated in grief at the Callichoron well (11, 15–16).59 The fact that Demeter sits by the Callichoron in line 16 also recalls the Homeric Hymn, in which she sits by the same well, there called the Parthenion,60 when she arrives at

56

See Cameron (1995), 406:

Having at lines 30–31 announced that his hymn will last for several days, so inexhaustible a theme is Apollo, Callimachus then cuts it short after barely 100 lines. At 546 lines, the Homeric hymn to Apollo is five times as long. It is natural that Callimachus should make some comment on this conspicuous failure to fulfill not only traditional expectations but his own promise. Williams (1978), 38 also takes P’ . . . Kç’ £  q Ææ in Call. Hy. 2. 30 to mean that ‘the supposed festival will last several days’, although N. Richardson points out to me that it could refer more generally to hymns sung to Apollo on different occasions. Cf. Traill (1998), who proposes that Envy rejects even Apoll. as a hymn of suitable length for Apollo. 57 On the voice in this poem, see Hopkinson (1984), 3–4, Bing (1995), 37–42. 58 See Richardson (1974), 215, Hopkinson (1984), 87, Kledt (2004), 64–5. 59 See Bing (1995), 30–1. 60 On the identification of these two wells, see Richardson (1974), 326–8.

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Eleusis in disguise as an old woman (98–104). Apart from the popularity of this myth in antiquity,61 Demeter’s visit to Eleusis in the Hymn (91–304), the details of which have been variously linked to cult practice,62 perhaps further suggested to Callimachus the close association of the myth of Persephone’s abduction with the ritual frame he imposes on the hymn. The impression, however, that Callimachus will go on to narrate in full Demeter’s search for Persephone is short lived. Immediately after the second mention of her fasting, the poet-narrator makes an unexpected turn: c c ÆFÆ º ªø  L Œæı ¼ªÆª ˜ÅE· ŒººØ, ‰ ºØ ÆÆ  Ł ØÆ HŒ, ŒººØ, ‰ ŒÆº Æ  ŒÆd ƒæa æª ÆÆ æÆ IÆåø I Œł ŒÆd K Æ ~Œ ÆBÆØ, ±ŒÆ 'æغ  IªÆŁa KØŒ  åÆ· ŒººØ, ‰ (¥Æ ŒÆ Ø æ ÆÆ Iº ÅÆØ) [ÆEÆ ŒÆŒe 'æØÆ ŒØØ Æ ŁBŒ] N ŁÆØ.63 (Call. Hy. 6. 17–23) Let us not speak of these things which brought tears to Demeter, better to tell of how she gave rightful laws to cities. better to tell of how she first cut straw and sacred handfuls of corn and put oxen to the task of threshing them, when Trioptolemus was first taught the good art. better to tell of how (in order that one might avoid transgression) [she made the wicked son of Triopas wraithlike].

Rather than recount the tale of Demeter’s search for her daughter, the poet-narrator instead tells of how the goddess punishes the hubristic Erysichthon for cutting down a tree in her sacred grove by giving him an unquenchable appetite. This rejection of the well-known Persephone narrative does not suppose the Homeric Hymn as its only model. The choice of the alternative myth, with the metapoetic image of the slim Erysichthon, perhaps has in mind (among other models) the treatment of both the Persephone and Erysichthon myths in the Lyde of Antimachus, a figure at the heart of Hellenistic

61

See Richardson (1974), 74–86. See Richardson in the present volume (pp. 50–3). I here follow the supplement of Wilamowitz; see Hopkinson (1984), 99. Regardless of the exact wording, this line will certainly have introduced the punishment of Erysichthon recounted in the subsequent narrative. 62 63

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debate about Callimachean poetic aesthetic.64 Nonetheless, the narrative of the Homeric Hymn remains an important point of reference for the reader, as signalled by verbal reminiscences at the beginning of the Erysichthon tale: the divine tree which Erysichthon cuts is said to reach the sky ( ªÆ  æ ÆNŁ æØ ŒFæ, 37) in language similar to the description of Demeter’s partial epiphany before Metaneira in Demeter, where her head is said to reach the roof-beam of the palace ( ºŁæı j ŒFæ ŒæÅ, 188–9);65 the description of Demeter’s actual epiphany before Erysichthon then recalls these same lines in Demeter when her head is said to touch Olympus (Œçƺa  ƒ –łÆ’ ! Oº ø, 58).66 Moreover, the Erysichthon narrative seems to play upon a central element of the myth told in Demeter, namely the famine which Demeter brings upon mankind in her anger: the same word (ºØ  ) which in Demeter describes the famine (310–11) is used by Callimachus of the insatiable hunger given to Erysichthon (66–7).67 As in the case of Callimachus’ second hymn to Apollo, the thematic recollection, effected on this occasion through verbal inversion, highlights the departure from the earlier model. Knowledge of both Hermes and Aphrodite is also reflected in Callimachus’ collection of hymns. Influence of Hermes is particularly evident in the portrayal of precocious young divinities in his hymns to Zeus and Artemis. In the former, some of the more prominent links are as follows:68 Zeus is said to accomplish in the evening things he thinks of in the morning (87–8), just as in Hermes the young god is said to steal the cattle of Apollo in the evening after his birth in the morning (17–18); the placement of Zeus in a ‘golden cradle’ (ºŒø fi Kd åæı ø fi , 47) in a cave in Crete recalls Hermes’ repose in a ‘holy cradle’ (ƒæfiH Kd ºŒø fi , 21) in Maia’s cave; Zeus establishes the eagle as the IªªºØÅ (‘messenger’, 67) of his signs, a word which is 64

See Faulkner (forthcoming a), with further bibliography. The intended echo is proposed by Bulloch (1977), 116–21, but treated with caution by Hopkinson (1984), 113–14. The suggestion of partial epiphany before Demeter reveals herself fully as a goddess at lines 57–8 (the same pattern as in Dem.) at least makes the allusion a strong possibility. The language is also used of the epiphany of Aphrodite at Aphr. 173–4; cf. Richardson (1974), 209–10, Faulkner (2008), 238–42. 66 Cf. Hopkinson (1984), 131. Richardson (1974), 69 n. 4, notes other verbal parallels between Dem. and Callimachus. 67 See Haslam (1993, 119 n. 14), Bing (1995, 32). The word is used of Erysichthon’s hunger at Hes. fr. 43. 5–7. 68 See further Clauss (1986), 161–6, Thomas (2009), 300–1. 65

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earlier attested only in Hermes 296, where it is used of the young god’s portents of flatulence; and both poems contain the theme of rivalry and reconciliation—in Callimachus the claim that Zeus settled the division of rule with his brothers Hades and Poseidon through their recognition of his strength rather than by lot (55–6), and in Hermes the god’s reconciliation with his brother Apollo at the end of the poem (436–578).69 Similar thematic connections to Hermes are found in Callimachus’ hymn to Artemis:70 like Hermes, the young Artemis moves with precocious speed after her birth to establish her place in the cosmos, requesting Ø Æ (‘honours’) from Zeus while sitting on his knee at the outset of the poem (4–40), perhaps a humorous reworking of Zeus’ role as arbitrator in the struggle between Hermes and Apollo for Ø Æ in the Hymn; the theme of sibling rivalry with Apollo is also again prominent—Artemis proclaims at the outset of her speech to Zeus that she wishes to be ‘widely celebrated, in order that Phoebus should not vie with me’ (ºıøı Å, ¥Æ  Ø +E  KæÇfi Å, 7), while a later scene of arrival on Olympus depicts Apollo in a subordinate position welcoming her (140–69), an inversion of Apollo’s arrival on Olympus in Apollo (1–13, 186–206);71 Hermes also appears twice in the poem, once in the guise of a Cyclops to scare disobedient daughters of Oceanus (66–71) and then later paired with Apollo to welcome Artemis on Olympus (142–4), in between which the description of Artemis’ hunting seems to echo Hermes’ theft of the cattle in Hermes.72 Amidst these quite extensive allusions to Hermes and Apollo, the influence of Aphrodite on Callimachus’ hymn to Artemis is also perceptible. The mention of Artemis’ punishment of a city of unjust men (Iºº Ø N IŒø  ƺ ºØ, 122) may be a direct imitation of her stated concern for cities of the just in Aphrodite (ØŒÆø 

69

Clauss (1986) suggests that the theme of sibling rivalry and reconciliation in Callimachus’ hymn reflects upon the contemporary strife between Ptolemy Philadelphus and his older step-brother Ceraunus. 70 See further Ambühl (2005), 288–95, Thomas (2009), 301–2. 71 On Artemis’ rivalry with Apollo in Callimachus’ collection, see Hunter and Fuhrer (2002), 161–4, Fain (2004), Plantinga (2004), 258–64, Ambühl (2005), 275–84. On the influence of Apoll. on the Artemis hymn, see also Bornmann (1968), xvi–xvii, Bing and Uhrmeister (1994), 29–30. 72 As Thomas (2009), 302 remarks: ‘The two references to Hermes function as book-ends to a section of narrative about Artemis’ early hunting whose general structure and some of whose details are conditioned by a sequence peculiar to Herm.’

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ºØ IæH, 20), a rare attribute of the goddess in literature.73 Another echo is found at the beginning of the poem. The first request that Artemis makes to her father is for her virginity (6), which, along with her other wishes, is granted by Zeus after she playfully tries to pull upon his beard and thereby force him to nod assent: S  ÆE NFÆ ªØ XŁº Ææe –łÆŁÆØ, ººa b Å KÆÆ åEæÆ , åæØ ¥ Æ łÆØ. Æcæ ’ K ı ªºÆ (Call. Hy. 3. 26–8) Thus speaking, the young goddess wanted to grasp her father’s beard, but to no avail she frequently stretched forth her hands to touch it. And her father, laughing, nodded assent.

This seems to draw upon a lyric hymn to Artemis attributed to either Sappho or Alcaeus (Sapph. fr. 44a. 1–11 Voigt), but also the similar description of Hestia swearing an oath of virginity to Zeus in Aphrodite (25–32), which includes the detail of her ‘grasping the head of her father aegis-bearing Zeus’ (±łÆ Å ŒçƺB Ææe ˜Øe ÆNªØåØ, 27).74 Recollection of Aphrodite in the context of female virginity, an important theme in Callimachus’ collection,75 is also effected at the outset of the fifth hymn to Athena. The masculine goddess is in lines 19–22 directly contrasted with Aphrodite in not displaying vanity: h’ K OæåƺŒ ªºÆ Łe h $Ø F  ºł Æ K ØÆçÆØ Æ· P’  HæÆ· ˚æØ b ØÆıª Æ åƺŒe ºEÆ ººŒØ a ÆPa d  ŁÅŒ Œ Æ. (Call. Hy. 5. 19–22) The great goddess looked neither into a mirror, nor the clear eddy of the Simois river; nor did Hera. But Cypris, taking the translucent bronze, often readjusted the same lock of hair.

Despite the lack of verbal similarity, the negative contrast of the virgin Athena at the outset of a hymn calls to mind the priamel at the beginning of Aphrodite, in which the three virgins Athena, Artemis, and Hestia are presented as exceptions to Aphrodite’s otherwise

73 See Faulkner (2008), 98–101. In this role, Artemis resembles the virginal Dike in Hes. Op. 256–62: see Erler (1987), Hunter and Fuhrer (2002), 182–3, Fantuzzi and Hunter (2004), 353–55. 74 See Faulkner (2008), 110–12. 75 See Depew (2004), 125–35.

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universal ability to conquer others in love (7–33): Callimachus inverts the comparison in a poem that will, like Aphrodite, narrate a potentially erotic encounter between a goddess and a mortal man.76 Callimachus’ deep and intricate knowledge of the longer narrative Homeric Hymns,77 reflected in his innovative reworking of their language, content, and structure, was not unique amongst poets of the early third century bc. Amidst a number of possible verbal echoes,78 several passages in Apollonius’ Argonautica suggest a particular connection with the Hymns. The first lines of the poem contain a hymnic invocation of Apollo: Iæå   , +E , ƺÆت ø Œº Æ çøH j  ÆØ (‘Beginning from you, Phoebus, I will call to mind the glorious deeds of men of old’, 1–2). Their language resembles the statement made at the end of several Hymns that the singer will ‘call to mind’ (  ÆØ) another song now that he has begun with the god (cf. Aphr., Hys. 9, 18, 31), and is particularly similar to the end of Hymn 32 to Selene:   ’ Iæå  Œº Æ çøH jfi ¼ ÆØ  ØŁ ø (‘Beginning from you, I will sing the glorious deeds of semi-divine men’, 18–19).79 But this hymnic invocation of Apollo at the outset of the poem, with the placement of  ÆØ first in the line, is perhaps meant also to recall the first line of Apollo:  ÆØ Pb ºŁø ÆØ ººø ŒØ (‘I will call to mind and not forget far-shooter Apollo’, 1).80 Apollonius delays the expected invocation of the Muses until line 22 of his epic,81 and, although  ÆØ here takes as a direct object Œº Æ çøH (‘glorious deeds of men’), the subtle echo of the Hymn would highlight for an educated audience the fact that he, unlike Homer in the Iliad, does not forget to remember Apollo in hymnic fashion at the outset of the 76 See Hunter (1992), 12. Cf. Faulkner (2010b) for the suggestion that the grouping of three hymns to the virgin goddesses Artemis, Delos (who is called the ‘hearth’, ƒÅ, of islands in Call. Hy. 4. 325), and Athena looks back to this grouping of Athena, Artemis, and Hestia at the beginning of Aphr. There may also be an allusion to Aphr. 264–72 at Call. Hy. 4. 82–5: see Faulkner (2008), 288–9. 77 For a possible allusion to Hy. 19 to Pan at Call. Hy. 3. 88–9, see Thomas in this volume (p. 158 n. 21). 78 See Campbell (1981), 119–22. 79 There is no certainty that Apollonius had Hy. 32 specifically in mind, but this possibility should not be ruled out; see Clauss (1993), 15–16, Hunter (1993), 129 n. 110. For further instances of singers beginning from a god, see Kidd (1997), 161 on Arat. 1. 80 Cf. also the inception of Hy. 7. 1–2 I çd ˜Øı $ ºÅ KæØŒı  ıƒ j  ÆØ (‘I will call to mind Dionysus, son of glorious Semele’). 81 See Clauss (1993), 17.

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poem:82 Apollo plays a significant role in book one of the Iliad, and concern about this initial hymnic celebration of the god could have been stimulated by the existence of an alternative hymnic ‘proem’ (æ Ø)83 to Apollo and the Muses at the beginning of the Iliad, mention of which in the prolegomena to the D scholia probably goes back to Crates’ Diorthotika.84 This opening stance of Apollonius also prepares the way for the blending of the poet’s voice into Orpheus’ hymn to Apollo later in the poem (2. 703–13).85 Other echoes of the Hymns in Apollonius are more straightforward. Parallels between the description of Thetis’ attempt to immortalize Achilles (4. 869–84) and that of Demeter’s efforts to immortalize Demophoon in Demeter (237–302) are better explained by direct influence than a common model.86 A number of passages in the Argonautica show possible influence of Hermes: the narrative of the launch of the Argo and the division of the rowing benches amongst the heroes (1. 363–401) shares language and structural features with the description of Hermes’ sacrifice of Apollo’s cattle (111–41)—recollection of the Hymn highlights the shared motifs of a journey to steal an animal prize (Hermes the cattle, Jason the fleece of a ram) and reconciliation brought about through the lyre (Hermes’ appeasement of Apollo with the lyre at Herm. 417–35, Idas’ dispute with Idmon settled by Orpheus’ song at 1. 460–518);87 Hermes’ clandestine theft of cattle and sacrifice of two cattle may also have influenced elements of Jason’s encounter with the bulls in book three

82 See Hunter (1993), 119–29 (1996), 46, on the proem’s establishment of the Argonautica as a rewriting of Homeric epic and the importance of hymnic form in the poem, which is framed as a ‘hymn’. 83 On this word used of the Hymns, see in this volume Clay (pp. 237–40) and Introduction (pp. 17–19). 84 See West (2001b), 73; the reference includes the incipit )Æ Iø ŒÆd ººøÆ Œºı (‘I sing of the Muses and Apollo renowned for the bow’). 85 On the mixing of voices in the Orpheus hymn, see Hunter (1993), 150–1: ‘In fact it is not possible to distinguish the voices here, as both etymology and aetiology, which are prominent in these verses, are familiar markers both of the poetic voice of the Argonautica and of the voice of hymns.’ 86 See Richardson (1974), 237–8, Vian iii 178. 87 See the detailed discussion of Clauss (1993), 69–74: the most striking linguistic parallel is Herm. 128  A. R. 1. 365 (ºø fi Kd ºÆÆ HØ, ‘upon a smooth stone slab’). A further link between the journeys of Jason and Hermes might be found in the fact that both lose their sandal(s) in a river: the former drops one of his ( غ) in the river Anauros, the sign to Pelias that Jason will be his downfall (1. 5–11), while Hermes throws his (ƺÆ) into the river Alpheios to cover his tracks (Herm. 139).

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of the Argonautica (3. 1191–325);88 finally, Aphrodite’s offer of an ¼Łıæ Æ (‘plaything’) to her precocious and tricky son Eros (3. 114– 66) and the description of Eros shooting at Medea (3. 275–97) seem to be indebted to Hermes.89 As for Aphrodite, language used of the Argonauts’ erotic encounter with the Lemnian women in book one recalls the opening of the Hymn: both 1. 803 ˚æØ , l  çØ Łı çŁæ  ƺ ¼Å (‘Cypris, who cast life-destroying delusion upon them [the husbands of the Lemnian women]’) and 1. 850 ˚æØ ªaæ Kd ªºıŒf ¥ æ tæ (‘For Cypris roused up sweet desire [in the Argonauts for the Lemnian women]’) echo Aphr. 2 ˚æØ ,   ŁEØ Kd ªºıŒf ¥ æ tæ (‘Cypris, who rouses up sweet desire amongst the gods’). Elsewhere in early Hellenistic poetry, Theocritus clearly rewrites Hymn 33 to the Dioscuri in the opening lines of Idyll 22 and structures his poem as a rhapsodic hymn.90 Idyll 17, the encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus, is also patently fashioned as a hymn (if not as clearly a Hymn as Idyll 22), which interacts with the account of Apollo’s birth on Delos in Apollo, as do Callimachus’ Hymns.91 Also, the reaction of Alcmena to the snakes attacking her infant sons Heracles and Iphicles in Idyll 24. 1–63, which begins in the fashion of a Hymn by placing Heracles’ name as the first word in the poem,92 seems to recall the Metaneira–Demophoon episode in Demeter,93 a poem which, along with Apollo, seems to have been very popular in the Hellenistic period. It stood as a principal model for Philitas’ hymn to Demeter,94 and was probably also a source for

88 See further Thomas (2009), 304, who points out that Jason’s search for the bulls could ‘be an inverse of Herm.: where Apollo looks at confusing trails and cannot find the cows’ underground stall, Jason succeeds—and he is compared to Apollo (3. 1283).’ 89 See Campbell (1983), 18–19, (1994), 116–36 passim, Pace (2004), Thomas (2009), 303–4. 90 See Hunter (1996), 46–57, Sens (1997), 13, 75–95 passim. Alcaeus’ hymn to the Dioscuri (fr. 34 Voigt) may also have been a model. 91 See Hunter (2003), 8–9, 142–4, passim, who notes that Aratus (SH 109) may also have drawn on Apollo. He also (145) signals a possible echo of Hy. 26. 3–4 at Id. 17. 59. 92 Cf. Hy. 15 to Heracles and see Hunter (1996), 11. On this common feature of the Hymns, cf. Faulkner (2008), 70–1. 93 See Hunter (1996), 12, with further bibliography. Thomas (2009), 305 tentatively compares elements of Heracles’ questioning of a cowherd of Augeas in Id. 25 to Apollo’s questioning of the old man of Onchestus in Herm. 189–212. 94 See Spanoudakis (2002), 239–40, passim.

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Philicus’ hymn to the goddess.95 Aratus may have had Hermes in mind in Phaenomena 268–9, when he tells of Hermes’ invention of the lyre.96 More examples might be adduced, but these are enough to demonstrate the widespread and pervasive influence of the Hymns on early Hellenistic poetry. As Hunter points out, this popularity can be linked to the general prevalence of hymnic praise evident in Hellenistic literature, which is tied to the changing dynamics of patronage in an age when rulers had themselves become divine: ‘The “Homeric hymn”, which identified the areas of a god’s power and placed him or her within the overall scheme of the divine, seems in retrospect an obvious vehicle for describing these shifting boundaries of power.’97 Prior to the Hellenistic period, the demonstrable influence of the Hymns is less, but their currency from the seventh to the fourth centuries bc nonetheless appears to have been considerable. In exploring the transmission and reception of the Hymns before the third century in particular, one must always keep in mind that the continued tradition of oral rhapsodic performance produced variants to the texts transmitted in our collection. The quotation of the Hymn to Apollo by Thucydides shows that at least minor variants of the longer Hymns existed in his time,98 and there were undoubtedly many different versions of short hexameter hymns circulating in the fifth century bc and earlier. Nonetheless, there are indications, as will be explored below, that Apollo at any rate was a relatively fixed text by the end of the sixth century, such that one can speak tangibly of its direct influence on later texts. Indeed, even while assuming ongoing oral performance, one must consider the possibility that the long Hymns transmitted in our collection were fairly fixed texts, in some cases from at least the late seventh or early sixth century bc onward, 95 SH 676–80; see Richardson (1974), 70. In his recent edition and study of the poem Furley (2010) proposes that the unknown goddess with whom Demeter is speaking in fr. 680 is Aphrodite, who on this reading refers to her son Aeneas as forced upon her by Zeus: this is highly speculative, but would provide a link to Aphr., which contains the only account of Zeus as the instigator of Aphrodite’s affair with Anchises. 96 See Kidd (1997), 281–3; he also (278) suggests that Arat. 263 ØÆ )ÆEÆ (‘distinguished Maia’) recalls Herm. 19, 183, the only other occurrences of the phrase. 97 Hunter (1996), 47. Petrovic (2011b forthcoming) argues that the Hymns were models for Hellenistic epyllia. 98 See above n. 10. On the variants of Thucydides quotations and the reception and transmission of the Hymns within the oral tradition, see Nagy in this volume (Ch. 13).

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and were (despite minor variants) models for later literature (including even for other Hymns).99 In some instances, the accumulation, uniqueness, or context of parallels is particularly suggestive, but it will be useful also to adduce some more speculative cases, particularly in literature of the fourth and fifth centuries, with the admission that one can in many cases not be certain. Plato, despite his concern with the classification of hymns (o Ø: one of the acceptable forms of poetry in his ideal city)100 and frequent quotation of Homer, does not cite the Hymns.101 But the quotation of Apollo by Thucydides, just mentioned above, suggests that the Hymns were established in the literary landscape at least by the late fifth century. Thucydides refers to the verses he cites as from the ‘prooimion of Apollo’ (æ Ø F ººø , 3. 104); in the absence of any mention of the Pythian section of the Hymn or further poetic praise of the god, the term prooimion (‘prelude’) is best taken here as a generic term for the Hymns, which seem to have served as preludes to longer epic recitations.102 Fragments of the Thebaid and Lyde of Antimachus of Colophon, active at the end of the fifth century and an important precursor to later Hellenistic authors, also indicate knowledge of the Hymns.103 Some of the shorter Hymns must as well have been circulating in the fifth century. An Attic lekythos dated to c.470 bc shows a young boy holding a papyrus roll, on which are inscribed the first lines of our Hymn 18 to Hermes, % Eæ B Iø (‘I sing of Hermes’), an indication that hexameter hymns of this type served as school texts in the fifth century.104 There is good reason as well to think that dramatists of the fifth century were familiar with the Hymns. Exemplary of the difficulty

On the fixity of early hexameter texts, see Introduction (pp. 3–7). Cf. R. 10. 607a, Lg. 700b. See Furley and Bremer (2001) i. 8–12. Garvey (2008) argues that Plato looks back to the Hymns in the fashioning of his Atlantis myth as a hymn to Athena, but the connections he notes are extremely general. The rejection of Hephaestus’ binding of Hera as a suitable myth for his ideal city at R. 378 may reflect knowledge of Dion.; cf. West in this volume (p. 40). 102 See, however, Clay in this volume (pp. 237–40) and cf. Introduction (pp. 17–19). 103 See Richardson (1974), 69, Matthews (1996), 26, 38–9, passim; the latter rightly points out that the extent of influence of the Hymns on the Lyde proposed by Del Corno (1962), 89–90, who supposed Antimachus to be reaffirming their Homeric paternity, is not supported by the fragmentary remains of the poem. 104 See Beazley (1948), (1950), 318–19. Cf. Richardson (2010), 153 ad Herm. 1. 99

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in distinguishing between cult and literary hymns, the choruses of tragedy often enact religious choral hymns within the context of a dramatic plot.105 It is unsurprising that playwrights may at times have drawn on the Hymns in such instances and it is worth considering some possibilities, however uncertain these may be. The second stasimon of Euripides’ Helen (1301–68) recounts the tale of Demeter’s search for Persephone. It departs from the tale told in Demeter (e.g. in its syncretism of Demeter and Cybele), but there are a number of similarities with the Hymn that together suggest influence: Demeter rushes madly over land and water in her search (1301–7  Dem. 43–4); Demeter is in a state of ‘longing’ (Łø fi ) for her daughter (1306–7  201, 304); Demeter is accompanied by Athena and Artemis, who are companions of Persephone at the time of her abduction in the Hymn (1314–16  424); Zeus is involved in the abduction (1317–18  passim); Demeter causes a famine upon the earth, bringing an end to sacrifices (1327–37  Dem. 305–12); Zeus sends divine messengers, albeit different ones, to try to appease Demeter (1338–49  313–28); the goddess laughs in both accounts and turns from her anger (1349– 52  Dem. 202–4), although in the Hymn this is caused by Iambe and is prior to the famine, whereas in Euripides the envoy of gods is successful in cheering Demeter.106 One wonders whether Euripides might elsewhere have had the first lines of the first Hymn to Dionysus in mind when describing Dionysus’ birth in his hymn to that god in the parodos of the Bacchae (64–169: see 71 ˜Øı  ø ‘I will hymn Dionysus’): similar language describes Zeus’ concealment of Dionysus from Hera in the context of the double birth from Zeus’ thigh (98 Œæıe Iç’  HæÆ ‘hiding [him] from Hera’  Dion. A 8 Œæø ºıŒº  HæÅ ‘hiding [you Dionysus] from white-armed Hera’). In the hymn to Aphrodite at the beginning of the fourth stasimon of the Hippolytus, Eros is said to tame all creatures of land, sea, and sky (1268–81); the structure is traditional for expressing ‘all creation’,107 but its occurrence in a hymn brings to mind the opening lines of Aphrodite (3–5). More extensively, a healthy body of shared language and details of plot seem clearly to point to the influence of Hermes on Sophocles’ Ichneutae, which likewise told of Hermes’ invention of the

105 106 107

On the classification of dramatic hymns, see Furley and Bremer (2001), i. 273–9. See Richardson (1974), 69, Allan (2008), 292–310, passim. See Barrett (1964), 394.

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lyre and theft of Apollo’s cattle.108 There are, however, few signs of the Hymns’ influence in Aeschylus.109 At least, the Pythia’s account of how Apollo comes to occupy Delphi in the opening lines of the Eumenides (1–19) has the site pass peacefully from Gaia, to Themis, to Phoebe, and then as a birthday gift to Apollo; there is no mention of Apollo’s violent conquest of Delphi as recounted in Apollo (300–74).110 Turning to comedy, we have seen above that Aristophanes’ Birds 575 may echo Apollo 114,111 and it is probable that knowledge of the same poem is reflected in Knights: Apollo shouts prophetically from his temple in language that recalls his entrance to the Delphic temple in Apollo (1016 YÆå K IØ Øa æØø KæØ ø ‘[Apollo] shouted from his sanctuary through the prized tripods’  Apoll. 443 K ’ ¼ı ŒÆ ı Øa æØø KæØ ø ‘[Apollo] entered his sanctuary through the prized tripods’). The repeated attribution of the phrase )ıø Łæø OæÅæ (‘busy servant of the Muses’) to Homer (ŒÆa e  O Åæ) in Birds 909–10 and 913–14 might also reflect knowledge of Hy. 32. 20, where singers are called the ‘servants of the Muses’ ()ıø Łæ ), although the expression occurs as well in the cyclic Margites (fr. 1. 2 Bernabé) and in Hesiod (Th. 100).112 Lyric poetry likewise provides evidence of the Hymns’ impact and shows that by the early fifth century Apollo at least was established in the canon of hexameter poetry circulating in Greece. A fragmentary Paean (7b) of Pindar that treated the origins of Delos-Asteria not only reflects knowledge of the poem but also sets the subject of Pindar’s own choral poetry against it as a measure: ŒºÆÆŁ’ o ı , % ˇ æı [Œa ¼æØ]:  ŒÆ’ I ÆØ N I: [d PŒ Iº]ºæÆØ I’ ¥Ø Kd ÆP[d e ]Æe –æ Æ )ØÆ[E KºÆ] . (Pa. 7b. 10–14)113 108

See the detailed discussion of Thomas (2009), 309–12, Richardson (2010), 25. Athanassios Vergados, whose commentary on Herm. is forthcoming, also discusses the connection. 109 Cf. Wecklein (1920), 3–4, whose general discussion of the relationship of the Hymns and tragedy remains useful, if dated. 110 See Clay (1989), 62–3 on the uniqueness of Apoll.’s narrative. Cf. Rutherford (2001), 396–7. 111 Above p. 177. Cf. also above p. 178 for a possible recollection of Hy. 21 in the Anagyros. 112 Cf. Dunbar (1995), 529. 113 This text follows the supplements of D’Alessio (1995).

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Andrew Faulkner Sing hymns, journeying [far from] Homer always upon an [un]trodden wagon-track, not on the mares of others, since we drive the winged chariot of the Muses.

This rejection of ‘Homer’ in a poem concerned with Delos can only be an allusion to the Hymn to Apollo (Apollo and Leto are addressed in lines 1–3). There has been some debate whether the fragmentary papyrus text necessarily signals a departure from Homer, but the discrepancies between the narratives of the two poems (Asteria is not a subject in the Hymn), along with differences in the accounts of Apollo’s birth in the Hymn and another Pindaric fragment (Pa. 12), make this interpretation by far the most probable.114 Pindar as chorus leader also states a few lines later (18–20) that ‘the minds of men are blind’ (]ıçºÆ: [d ªa]æ IæH çæ  ) who pursue the ‘road of wisdom’ (çÆ › ) without the Heliconian Muses: this is possibly a reference to the poet-narrator’s self-identification as a blind bard from Chios in Apollo (165–78) and is indicative not only of Pindar’s departure from the narrative content of the hexameter poem but also his problematization of the authority of the Hymn’s poetic voice in relation to his own choral voice.115 Elsewhere, Bacchylides seems to imitate the journey of Hades and Persephone in Demeter (375–83) in an eagle simile (Ep. 5. 16–30).116 Earlier still, West notes several possible points of contact between the Hymns and the Lesbian poetry of Sappho and Alcaeus in the late seventh and early sixth centuries:117 the similarity of Hestia’s oath of virginity in Aphrodite (25–32) and Artemis’ oath of virginity in a hymn attributed to either Sappho or Alcaeus (Sapph. fr. 44a. 1–11 Voigt), both discussed above as models for Callimachus,118 provides 114 See Rutherford (2001), 243–52, 364–72, D’Alessio (1995) with further bibliography, contra Di Benedetto’s % ˇ æı [ºæØ]:  ŒÆ’ I ÆØ j N (‘Journeying upon the well-trodden wagon track of Homer’). 115 See Bing (1988), 103–10, Fearn (2007), 9–16; the latter also links Pa. 7b. 42   Æ[Ø and Apoll. 176 ÆØ. On the possible blending of choral and rhapsodic voices in Apoll. and Callimachus’ later engagement with this aspect of the Hymn, see above pp. 185–8. 116 See Maehler (2004), 113. Cf. Richardson (1974), 75 for a possible reflection of Demeter’s claim to arrive at Eleusis from Crete (Dem. 123–4) in B. fr. 47 SM. 117 West (2002a), 216–17, and in this volume (pp. 39–40) on the links between Dion. and Alcaeus. 118 See above pp. 191–2.

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one such case; broadly similar to Hermes, Alcaeus’ hymn to Hermes (fr. 308 Voigt and SLG S264) told of the birth of Hermes and his theft of Apollo’s cattle and arrows;119 his hymn to Dionysus (fr. 349a–e Voigt) recounted the birth of the god and the myth of the binding of Hera, as in Dionysus; and his hymn to the Dioscuri (fr. 34 Voigt) treats much of the same material as Hymn 33 to the pair.120 None of these correspondences need be the result of direct influence of the Hymns transmitted to us (at least in their exact form). As West points out, this is certainly possible in the cases of Dionysus and Hymn 33 to the Dioscuri, but the probable late sixth- or early fifth-century date of Hermes rules out its influence on Alcaeus,121 while the oath of virginity in Aphrodite by Hestia, a goddess rarely personified, has a secondary look and might be linked to Alcaeus’ hymn by a common hexameter model.122 If one assumes with him that Alcaeus was drawing upon a body of hexameter hymns, of which similar versions may be included in our collection, it is striking that there is no sign of direct interaction with the narrative of Apollo in Alcaeus’ own hymn to the god (fr. 307 Voigt).123 This could be a sign that the central narratives of the Hymn’s Delian and Pythian sections are largely epicized embellishments of cult myth composed principally in the sixth century;124 they were at least not circulating with the body of epic hexameter hymns available to Alcaeus and Sappho. The earliest possible influence of the Hymns (or at least earlier versions of the hexameter hymns transmitted to us) on Homer is treated elsewhere in the volume.125 It remains to consider briefly the interaction of the Hymns themselves, which extends back at least to

119

Cf. Page (1955), 252–8. Hor. Carm. 1. 10. 9–12 drew on Alcaeus’ hymn. For a list of parallels, see Page (1955), 267. 121 Thomas (2009), 292–3, notes that mention of Apollo’s fear that Hermes will steal his ŒÆ ºÆ Æ at Herm. 515, which the trickster god subsequently promises not to do, ‘simultaneously alludes to and eschews the version of reconciliation first extant in Alcaeus’ Hymn to Hermes’. 122 Cf. Faulkner (2008), 110–11 and 45–50, on the links between Aphr. and the Lesbian poets, which may be explained by the Hymn’s origin in northern Asia Minor. 123 On the distance between Alcaeus’ hymn and Apoll., see Page (1955), 249–50. The former recounts Apollo’s return to Delphi from the Hyperboreans, who were significant players in traditional hymns to Apollo ascribed in antiquity to Olen; on these, see Furley and Bremer (2001), i. 146–51. 124 See in this volume Furley (pp. 221–4). 125 See in this volume West (Ch. 2) and Brillet-Dubois (Ch. 6). 120

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the beginning of the sixth century. The Hymn to Aphrodite, dating probably to the middle or late seventh century bc and one of the older poems in the collection, seems to have given inspiration to the poet of Demeter. Numerous verbal parallels, some of them unique within extant early epic, link the two directly—e.g. Ø å (‘honoured’, Aphr. 31–2  Dem. 268–9), ºŁæı j ŒFæ ŒæÅ (‘her head reached the roof-beam’, Aphr. 173–4  Dem. 188–9 in the context of epiphany)—and the balance of the evidence suggests that Demeter is secondary.126 Assuming that Demeter was itself composed in the late seventh or early sixth century, Aphrodite will have gained a reasonably wide circulation by this time. Elsewhere, Hermes seems to fashion itself in relation to Apollo, two poems that are connected in a general fashion by Apollo’s role as a principal protagonist in Hermes:127 on the level of detail, Hermes’ encounter with the old man in Boeotian Onchestus, a substantial detour for a god on his way to Elis from Cyllene, may have been suggested by Apollo’s sojourn there during his search for a suitable spot to found his oracle in Apollo (229–38), while both gods precociously ‘jump’ into action at their births (Herm. 20 Łæ  Apoll. 119 ŒŁæ)—the theme of competition and reconciliation between Hermes and Apollo in Hermes sets it in competition with Apollo on the metapoetic level. Furthermore, instances of allusion to both the Delian and Pythian sections of Apollo suggest that Hermes responds to a unified poem that had achieved wide enough popularity to make the intertexual references in Hermes perceptible to an audience. If one subscribes to the view that Cynaethus combined the two sections of Apollo for performance at a festival of Polycrates in 523/2,128 this would provide a terminus post quem of the late sixth century for Hermes,129 but this is not certain.130 As we have seen, the canonical status of Apollo is similarly reflected in Pindar. Later still, it is likely, as Thomas argues in this volume, that

126

See Janko (1982), 163–5, Richardson (1974), 42–3, Faulkner (2008), 38–40. On the links between these two poems see Richardson (2007), 89–91, (2010), 20–1, and the detailed discussion of Thomas (2009), 290–5, with further bibliography: Thomas (296–7) also points out a number of parallels which could suggest that the poet of Herm. knew Dem. 128 See in this volume Chappell (pp. 71–3) and Nagy (pp. 288–91). 129 See Thomas (2009), 20–9. 130 On the dating of the Hymn, in this volume Introduction (pp. 12–13). 127

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Hymn 19 to Pan makes substantial allusion to Hermes, a case of metapoetic genealogy.131 Turning to the smaller Hymns, 31 to Helios and 32 to Selene form an obvious pair (both celebrate celestial bodies and uniquely mention the deeds of heroes in their closing formulae). Otherwise, several of the smaller Hymns share similarities with longer Hymns in the collection: Hymn 13 (three lines) to Demeter and Persephone is a variant of the first two lines of Demeter; Hymn 17 (five lines) to the Dioscuri shares language with Hymn 33 (Hy. 17. 3–4  Hy. 33. 4–5; Hy. 17. 5  18); Hymn 18 to Hermes (twelve lines) is a variant of the first nine lines of Hermes; in Hymn 27 to Artemis (twenty-two lines), the description of the goddess’s pleasure in the bow and hunt, as well as her subsequent return to Apollo’s house in Delphi, recalls the scenes of her brother’s return to Olympus in Apollo (Hy. 27. 4–20  Apoll. 2–9, 186–206);132 and Hymn 30 to Earth Mother of All (nineteen lines) shares language with Demeter (Hy. 30. 7–8  Dem. 486–7; Hy. 30. 18-19  Dem. 494-5). Of these, the links between Apollo and Hymn 27 are enough to suggest direct influence of the former, although one cannot be certain of this: Artemis’ movement on the hunt causes the mountains to tremble (æ Ø b ŒæÅÆ j łÅºH Oæ ø, Hy. 27. 6–7), a possible adaptation of the gods’ trembling at Apollo’s approach to Olympus (‹ [ººøÆ]  Łd ŒÆa H Æ ˜Øe æ ıØ NÆ, Apoll. 2); both Artemis and Apollo draw their bows (Æ ØÆØ, Hy. 27. 5 and Apoll. 4); Artemis unstrings and hangs up her bow upon arrival at Delphi (Hy. 27. 11–17), both of which Leto does for her son upon his arrival on Olympus (Apoll. 5–9); and Artemis leads the chorus of the Muses and Graces at Delphi (Hy. 27. 13–20), in which she joins after her brother’s arrival on Olympus (Apoll. 197–9). If there is a direct connection, Artemis’ dancing at Delphi looks secondary to the scene on Olympus, which is described in much greater detail and is particularly appropriate for the god of music, who travels from Delphi to Olympus while playing the lyre 131 In this volume (pp. 166–8). It is notable that the short Hy. 18 to Hermes precedes Hy. 19 to his son Pan, although this could be due to the hand of a later editor rather than indicating an earlier link between the two. 132 AHS 242 also compare Hy. 28. 15–16 (to Athena eighteen lines) to Apoll. 7 and 12, but the link seems negligible. However, shared language between Hys. 27 and 28 (Hy. 28. 3  27. 2; Hy. 28. 10  Hy. 27. 8) could suggest a direct relationship between the two (Gemoll supposed they were composed by the same person): Athena’s birth causes existence to shake and cry forth, as does Artemis’ hunting.

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(Apoll. 182–5). It is also significant that the similarities are with the opening scenes of both the Delian and Pythian sections of Apollo. As regards the other similarities between shorter and longer Hymns noted above, it is possible that some of the Hymns derived from others. Hymn 25 to the Muses and Apollo, for example, has often been thought to derive from the longer hymn to the Muses at the outset of Hesiod’s Theogony.133 One must also consider the possibility that the longer narrative Hymns in fact developed as expansions of shorter hexameter hymns to gods, variants of which have been transmitted in our collection. In the end, however, such similarities, even as extensive as those between Hymn 18 and the opening of Hermes, are easily explained by the Hymns’ development in a common tradition and do not necessarily suppose direct influence of the Hymns transmitted in our collection. The eclecticism of time has undoubtedly effaced much which could be added to the parallels and possible allusions discussed above. Nonetheless, the surviving evidence provides a broad picture of the transmission, reception, and status of the Hymns from the late seventh to the third centuries bc. From the earliest stage, we can imagine the Hymns being circulated in Greece by rhapsodes, as described in the poet’s self-referential comments in Apollo (165–78), and functioning oftentimes as preludes to recitations of longer epic poetry. By the late seventh century, knowledge of the Hymns, or at least a body of hexameter hymns in the same tradition, seems to be reflected in the poetry of Sappho and Alcaeus. The direct influence of the Hymns on each other can also be traced to the late seventh or early sixth century, as indicated by the close relationship of Aphrodite and Demeter. By the last half of the sixth or early fifth century, Apollo at least had achieved canonical status, as reflected in Pindar and Hermes. The Hymns were familiar to both lyric and dramatic poets and may have played some role in the fifth-century school curriculum. Thucydides’ famous quotation of Apollo reflects that poem’s continued popularity at the end of the fifth century, although the evidence does not allow us to posit a collection of Hymns at this point. The traces of their transmission in the fourth century are scanty, but by the early third century they were widely emulated by the earliest

133

See AHS 420, West (1966), 186, but contra Càssola 401–2.

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Hellenistic poets. The numerous and intricate allusions to the Hymns by Callimachus in particular allow for the supposition that a collection of some sort was formed in the early third century bc, at a time when Alexandrian scholars were collecting together the literature of the past and the Hymns’ popularity was at its greatest. Scholarship on this topic has made enormous strides in the past century. In comparison to the Homeric epics the Hymns acquired little notice in antiquity, but their substantial impact on the Greek poetic tradition must nonetheless be acknowledged.

10 Homeric and Un-Homeric Hexameter Hymns A Question of Type William D. Furley

It is easy to forget that the Homeric Hymns were not the only kind of hexameter hymn to gods in circulation in the archaic to early classical period in Greece. Because they, solely, are visible to us, one tends to think that hymns started with compositions like the Homeric Hymns and developed from there. The purpose of this contribution will be to examine what we can reconstruct about other types of hexameter hymns of this period in order to compare their characteristics with those of the Homeric Hymns.1 In that way, I hope, we will learn more about the Homeric Hymns by seeing how they differ from other compositions. It might be as well at this point to sketch some commonly held opinions about the Homeric Hymns as a poetic type. The thirty-three hymns in our collection vary greatly in length from several hundred verses (approximately equivalent to a ‘book’ of Homeric epic) to only a handful of lines.2 They begin, almost 1

I take the main period of currency of compositions such as the extant Homeric Hymns to have been the seventh–fifth century BC. Precise dating of individual hymns in the collection is notoriously difficult; see Introduction (pp. 7–16). Janko (1982) is still fundamental. 2 This is to omit the thirty-fourth Hymn, entitled ‘To Strangers’ (N  ı ), as it is not a hymn to one or more gods. It does, however, mention the birth of River Hermos to Zeus. Pfeiff (2002), 196–7, makes the plausible suggestion that a (or ‘the’) compiler of the collection of Homeric Hymns may have inserted these lines from the pseudoHerodotean Life of Homer (9 Allen) as a kind of poetic sphragis. The lines are

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universally, with a third-person invocation of the god to be addressed,3 and then launch almost immediately into a description of the god’s nature and his mythical origin and deeds. They close, typically, with a salute to the god and a self-exhortation to strike up another song following this hymn. The variable length is explained by varying degrees of expansion of the middle section in which the god’s behaviour and career are elaborated upon.4 Here, we feel, length was a matter of the author’s discretion. A long hymn required narrative elaboration; a short hymn could be reduced to a brief sketch of the subject. In antiquity the term prooimion is used of the Homeric Hymns, indicating some kind of prelude.5 A combination of evidence points to the conclusion that the Homeric Hymns served as preludes to epic recitations by rhapsodes, who introduced their recital of Homeric and cyclic epic with a bow to the gods in the same language and metre as Ionic epic.6 We know that rhapsodic competitions took place at various panegyreis in Greece;7 one can well imagine how a rhapsode would want to gain favour at the commencement of his performance both with the local audience and the local gods by singing a hymn of praise to the patron god of the occasion. The singer of the Apollo, for example, is clearly in Delos when he sings of the birth of Delian Apollo and engages in a kind of dialogue with a local chorus of Delian women.8 Not that the view of the Hymns as rhapsodic preludes is completely universal: some have imagined other settings for the performance of the Hymns: large formal banquets, for example, might provide an alternative setting, such as is conventionally transmitted as Epigram 1. Càssola and WL both omit it from their editions of the Hymns. 3 Calame uses the term evocatio to distinguish this from direct appeal to a god to come or appear (invocatio); see in this volume (Ch. 14). Clay in this volume (pp. 235–6) points out that the Homeric Hymns typically move from an opening address to the deity in the third person to a farewell at the close in the first person. Thus the intervening narrative has established a line of communication with the god addressed, which the poet acknowledges with his closing salute. 4 Surely Ausfeld’s description of the central part of a hymn as pars epica derived from the Homeric Hymns: Ausfeld (1903), 505. 5 See esp. Böhme (1937); Aloni (1980). Cf. in this volume Introduction (pp. 17–19) and Clay (pp. 237–46). 6 The conclusion of Hy. 32 to Selene says explicitly that the singer wishes to pass on to recitation of the deeds of mortals and half-gods; this seems equivalent to the klea andrōn of epic. 7 Herington (1985), ch. 1; Kirchhoff (1893). 8 More on this below pp. 221–4.

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illustrated in Homer himself when Demodocus sings of the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite before the assembled Phaeacians.9 The conspicuous and ‘Homeric’ feature of the Hymns is, at least in the long Hymns, their extended narrative. They tell, at length, what ‘happened’ in mythical time when the chosen god first came into existence or first came to prominence. True, Janko distinguishes such ‘mythical’ hymns in the collection from ‘attributive’ hymns, which tell only of the gods’ timeless attributes and power,10 but the memorable quality of the major Hymns, and some of the medium length Hymns, is their dramatic narrative, recreating for the listener a key moment in the rise to prominence of the divine subject. Not all the myths told in the Homeric Hymns concern the birth and youthful development of the god, although that is an important element of the Hymns to Apollo, Hermes, and probably the fragmentary first Hymn to Dionysus.11 Others concentrate on a crisis or turning-point in the god’s career which changed things for ever. Demeter loses her daughter to the god of the Underworld, Hades, but establishes her main cult on earth, the Eleusinian Mysteries, in the course of her unhappy search for her daughter. Aphrodite in her Hymn is made by Zeus to couple with a human, Anchises, in order to end her playful tyranny over the other gods in making them stoop to unions with men and women. Interestingly, Janko sees a common element in both birth myths and ‘crisis myths’ (my term): the ‘apparition’ (his term) of the god either literally through appearing in the world at birth, or through epiphany at the climactic moment of a drama on earth.12 Accepting this, we could see the main point of the extended myths in the Hymns as documenting the god’s dazzling appearance among the company of Olympians as a force to be reckoned with, and worshipped by people for this reason. Clay has famously argued that the major Hymns focus on the ‘politics of Olympus’; that is, on the inter-personal power relations between gods under the supremacy of Zeus.13 The myths can be seen to dramatize key moments in the acquisition or distribution of power or prerogatives among individual gods: Hermes vies with Apollo;

9 10 11 12 13

See in particular Clay (1989), and in this volume (pp. 249–50). Janko (1981). Cf. West (2001a) and in this volume (Ch. 2). Janko (1981), 13–14. Clay (1989), and in this volume (Ch. 11).

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Zeus subjugates Aphrodite to his will; Demeter and Hades become reconciled after the rape of Kore. Once the conflict has been resolved, usually by Zeus, and the antagonists reconciled, a divine order is established which provides the framework for cult and worship. Thus narrative action in the past tense may be seen to lead to, and justify, a lasting order in the world. The insight is valuable, but it may attribute a greater theological authority to the Homeric Hymns than they themselves intended. Their composers, if they were intent on winning a competition in epic recital, probably wished to show off their narrative and recitatory prowess rather than lay down a new theological order for the audience.14 No doubt the myths they drew on and ‘epicized’ were traditional and well-known in one form or another to the audience. Of course, a good epic-style narrative of a traditional myth would lend popularity and hence authority to the poet’s version, but the rhapsodes who composed these overtures to epic were probably not great innovators.15 One might point to the debate surrounding the Hymn to Demeter. Clearly it describes the founding of the Eleusinian Mysteries and at some points it refers to known features of cult at Eleusis. However, as has been pointed out by Clinton, there are many discrepancies and omissions in the Hymn’s account of Eleusis compared with what we know of historical cult there from other sources which make it unlikely that the author is a

14 The more arbitrary nature of the theology of these compositions comes out in Plu. Mor. 1133c (De mus. 6), a ªaæ æe f Łf ‰ ºÆØ IçØø Ø K ÆØ (sc. ŒØŁÆæø fi d) PŁf K  c % ˇ æı ŒÆd H ¼ººø ÅØ· Bº b F! Ø Øa H 'ææı æØ ø, ‘[sc. kitharodes] first dispatch their religious duty to the gods as they see fit and then proceed directly to the poetry of Homer and others. This is obvious from the prooimia of Terpander.’ One would like to know more about these prooimia of Terpander; cf. id. 1132d with Böhme (1937), 15–16. They seem to have been the precursor of the nome (  ŒØŁÆæø fi ØŒ ); cf. Proclus ap. Phot. Bibl. 320a 35 and Rutherford (1995). In another passage of Plu. Mor. 1132d (De mus. 3), Terpander is said to have ‘set his own and Homer’s epic compositions to music’ (E ÆıF ŒÆd E % ˇ æı ºÅ æØØŁ Æ fi ¼Ø K E IªHØ). It seems we must distinguish rhapsodic recital of Homeric works from their musical, kitharoedic performance; Pausanias vehemently denies that Hesiod, for example, was a kitharode, but recited ‘to the staff ’ (9. 30. 3 Kd Þ ı çÅ ). Cf. Böhme (1937), 25 and 49; and Càssola xxii–xxv. 15 This is not to exclude the possibility of some original invention by the authors. Faulkner (2008), for example, points to elements in Aphrodite which may be innovative (Zeus’ revenge on Aphrodite and the pursuit of Hestia by Poseidon and Apollo: see his notes on lines 53–199 and 24–5 respectively).

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‘high priest’ or even ‘founding father’ of the Eleusinian cult.16 I believe the truth is more likely to be that these Homeric Hymns are a special type of hymn adapted by their authors, the Homerids and rhapsodes, from traditional hymnic stock for their own immediate purpose and audience: epic recitation, whether in competition with other rhapsodes at an agon mousikos or at another festive occasion.17 What we should do at this point is try to establish what this hymnic stock might have been at the time when the Homeric poems were spreading like wildfire around Greece (late seventh and sixth centuries BC).18 A good starting point, I think, is Hesiod. It has often been observed that both his major works, Theogony and Works and Days, begin with introductory sections addressed to divinities, the Muses and Zeus respectively.19 This seems to confirm our belief that hymns such as the Homeric Hymns served as preludes to longer epic compositions. The proem of the Theogony is over a hundred lines long, and complex; that of the Works is shorter, addressed to Zeus. In the Theogony Hesiod begins by invoking the Heliconian Muses and describing their typical activity: they dance and sing, wash in a spring on Mt Helicon, then proceed to hymn the Olympian gods (1–21). On one occasion, Hesiod relates, they appeared to him while he was herding his flocks, and ordered him to become a poet. He should sing, they said, of things future and past, and of the race of immortal gods. In doing so, he should commence and finish his song by addressing the Muses (22–34). Then, in a second take, Hesiod revisits the relation between his poetic undertaking and the Muses.20 He describes how, on Olympus now, the Muses sing, as they had instructed him, of things present, future, and past and please Zeus’ ear by singing in dulcet tones of the generations of gods preceding the present Olympian dynasty. They trace the gods’ lineage from Gaia and Ouranos in the beginning, through their descendants, ‘givers of good things’, to Zeus, 16

Clinton (1986), esp. 48. In later work Clinton (1992) proposed that the hymn bore closer affinities to the Thesmophoria ritual. For criticism of Clinton’s position, see Richardson in this volume (pp. 50–3). 17 Most ancient sources cite—and rather sparsely at that—from ‘Homer’s hymns’ or ‘the poet’s’. Ath. 22b wonders whether Apoll. was by Homer or ‘one of the Homeridai’; % ˇ ÅæÆØ is the term used by Pi. N. 2. 1. Cf. in this volume Faulkner (p. 176 n. 5). 18 Cf. West (1995). 19 Among many works on these opening sections see, for example, Schwabl (1963), Friedländer (1966), Von Fritz (1956), Minton (1970), Ziegler (1911). 20 Janko (1981) speaks of two separate proems, in fact.

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father of gods and men, most mighty (35-51). It is clear that this song of the Muses is closely parallel to what Hesiod intends in the Theogony. At the end of the proem, after elaborating on the birth and gifts of the Muses, Hesiod invokes them again to come now and celebrate ‘the sacred race of immortal gods who descended from Ge and starry Ouranos’ (105-6). The typical performance of the Muses on Olympus, then, is depicted as a model or precedent of what Hesiod intends now. Inspired by the Muses he wishes to emulate their example by hymning the gods, in particular, their generations down to the present day rule of Zeus.21 The traditional way of taking the proem of the Theogony, I think, is to see it as a hymnic prelude to a didactic poem. As the Homerids prefaced epic with a ‘Homeric’ hymn, so Hesiod prefaced his poem about the birth of the gods with a salute and tribute to the Muses.22 No doubt this is partly true. But there is another way of looking at it, which may explain rather better the nature of the proem itself. Hymns commonly start either by direct invocation in the second person (or third) of the god(s) addressed, or by calling on collective Muses to visit the poet with inspiration to hymn the deity. The proem to the Works and Days is definitely of the latter type: the Pierian Muses are called upon to hymn Zeus. It is hardly necessary to list examples generally from Greek hymnody here. The pattern is too common.23 Perhaps we can also discern the influence of this model on the concept of the proem to Hesiod’s Theogony. The ‘hymn to the Muses’ may be seen from this vantage point as an extended version of the traditional appeal to the Muses for inspiration on the threshold of delivering a hymn. In this proem Hesiod calls first on the Heliconian (1–51), then the Pierian Muses to inspire his song (52–114). True, the extended proem has many of the attributes of a fully-fledged hymn in its own right. The Muses are invoked; their characteristic behaviour is

21 On musical performance by the Muses and other gods in the Hymns mirroring the musical activity of the poet, see in this volume Calame (Ch. 14). 22 Cf. Càssola xxi, ‘la Teogonia ci offre un esempio (l’unico esempio sopravvissuto) della sequenza prooimion-oime’ (‘the Theogony offers an example (the only surviving example) of the sequence prooimion-oime’). 23 Cf. Wheeler (2002). Note also the alternative beginning of the Iliad recorded in Anecd. Osanni (Nauck 1867, 273) consisting of a short hymnic invocation of the Muses and Apollo. Cf. Böhme (1937), 13, West (2001b), 73. And the opening line of Eumelos’ hymn (fr. 16 Bernabé) )Å Å ŒÆd ZÅe ! Oºı ı K Æ ŒFæÆØ. On Eumelos cf. West (2002b).

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described; their lineage is named. But the function of this appeal to the Muses is the same as in more curtailed appeals for assistance from the Muses which we find in many other hymns. According to this model, the Theogony itself becomes the hymn addressed to the Olympian gods; the initial appeal to the Muses changes its status somewhat, from prooimion with separate subject matter (as we imagine the relationship between a Homeric Hymn and following recitation of heroic epic to have been), to subordinate part of the main endeavour: a long hexameter narrative hymn whose subject is the genealogy of the gods from the first beginnings to the present day world order. It suits this view that Hesiod himself may refer to the Theogony as the hymnos with which he won the prize in the funeral games of Amphidamas.24 If this is right, we have gained considerable insight into what constituted a good hymn in the eyes of Hesiod and, presumably, his contemporary audience. Theogony was good material for hymns. What the gods wanted to hear was how they came into being, how they came to power. Hesiod’s Theogony goes on to tell of the generations of gods who preceded Zeus and Hera, beginning with dark Chaos (115 ff.). He takes the story up to the ascendancy of Zeus, his battles against challengers, and his establishment of the present order of Olympians. Hesiod’s Theogony was by no means the only hymnos we hear about which had theogony as its main subject. A number of nebulous figures such as Musaeus, Orpheus, Pamphos, and Olen are accredited with hymnic compositions explaining cosmogony in terms of succeeding generations of gods. Most of these works are completely or nearly completely lost. Some few fragments, preserved in later authors, hint at the nature of the lost texts.25 Two surviving texts, however, one a recent discovery, and one a comic lampoon, help us better to appreciate the nature of these theogonic cosmologies. The discovery, and partial decipherment, of the so called Derveni Papyrus

As argued by West (1966), 44–5. Cf. Hes. Op. 656–7: ŁÆ çÅ Ø j o ø fi ØŒÆÆ ç æØ æ! TÆ. Of course, hymnos here may bear the more general sense of ‘song’ or ‘song of praise’ which it commonly has in epic, and not refer specifically to a song about the gods. Cf. Furley and Bremer (2001), i. 9–10 with notes, Ford (2002), 12 n. 27. 25 For a brief survey of these texts see below (pp. 215–17). 24

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shows us a text with two aspects.26 It appears to be written by a sophistic commentator explaining an older poetic text which he attributes to Orpheus.27 His method is to quote a line or two of the poetic original, then to offer an ‘explanation’ of the poet’s real meaning. For the commentator, the underlying, ‘secret’ meaning of the poem is the physical and conceptual constitution of the universe. In this, he seems to be a physikos like the pre-Socratics, who sought universal theories of matter. Some have suggested that the commentator is in fact trying to update the message of Orpheus by showing that the original divine personifications in the poem may be interpreted as symbolic physics and ethics. If that were true the author might have been an Orphic himself; or at least, not a sophistic ‘deconstructor’ of the Orphic gospel.28 Assuming that the verses quoted by the author stem (though not exclusively) from the same poem by ‘Orpheus’ and in the order quoted,29 we may assemble them to gain an impression of the original hexameter composition:30 . . . Who were born from Zeus the almighty king . . . When Zeus took from his father the ordained rule and strength in his hands and the famed divinity . . . thus he (Kronos?) prophesied all that was allowed for him to do so that he might rule on the fine throne of snowy Olympus. And when Zeus heard his father’s prophecy . . . he swallowed the reverend one, who first entered the air . . . Ouranos, son of Night, who first ruled as king. From him in turn Kronos, then Zeus wise-counsellor, who possessed Wit and royal honour among gods . . . of the reverend first-born King, and in him (Zeus) all immortal and blessed gods and goddesses were joined and rivers and lovely springs and everything else 26 Decades after the discovery of the Derveni papyrus in 1962 near Thessalonica we now finally have an authoritative edition, with good photographs, in KouremenosParássoglou-Tsantsanoglou (2006). For an account of the find, and gradual, sometimes surreptitious, circulation of early versions of the text see Betegh (2004). 27 Cols. 7. 5 (restored) and 18. 2 and 7, for explicit attribution to Orpheus. 28 This is not the place for an examination, or even a summary, of this perplexing question. Some fundamental discussions of the question are to be found in Burkert (1968), Laks and Most (1997), Betegh (2004), esp. ch. 5. 29 This is roughly the premise of Betegh (2004), ch. 3. 30 Cf. West (1983), esp. 114–15 for an exempli gratia reconstruction of the portion of the original commented on by the Derveni author; Laks and Most (1997); Betegh (2004); Bernabé pars ii. i, 2–32 for text of the original verses. Detailed discussion of the issues of reconstruction here are beyond the scope of this chapter.

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William D. Furley which had existed then; and he became the one and only. Now he is King of all and will be forever more . . . Zeus is king, Zeus the ruler over all with the shining bolt . . . And he placed therein the sinews of silver-eddying Acheloos . . . . . . which shines for many mortals on the measureless earth . . . And when Zeus’ mind had devised all the works . . .31

Although many details of this text elude our grasp, the general nature of the composition is clear enough. The Orphic poem which the Derveni commentator is discussing is a hymnic theogony tracing the rise to sovereignty of Zeus following previous generations of gods. The commentator calls the composition a ‘hymn’ in col. 7. 2.32 At another point he quotes a statement by Orpheus ‘in the hymns’ (22. 11 K E % . Ø ), which sounds like the title of a collection of hymns by Orpheus.33 Whether the theogony commented upon in detail by the Derveni author was one of this collection is open to question. In the quoted verses we hear of a succession myth as in Hesiod: Ouranos–Kronos–Zeus, finally, who assumes all gods and beings within himself (16. 3–4 fiH ! ¼æÆ  j IŁÆ: Ø æ çı ) by swallowing the first-born deity of creation.34 Since the Derveni papyrus itself is dated to the fourth century BC, and its commentator to the late fifth or early fourth, the Orphic poem quoted must, by simple logic, belong to the fifth century or earlier. The Derveni 31 I cite the Greek text from Bernabé. Numbering is by column and line-number: ]Q ˜Øe Kª: :  [æ ]  ÆغB:  (8. 2) j Zf b Kd c : Ææe F æÆ Ł []çÆ Iæåc j [I]ºŒ ! Kª åæØ {}[º]: [ Œ]Æ: [d] Æ : [Æ] Œıæ (8. 4–5) j [‰ b] åæÅ –ÆÆ,  ƒ Ł [ Ø q IÆ]Ł: ÆØ (11. 10) (S ! in. Furley: m b Betegh, al.) j ‰ i: : [åØ ŒÆ]a ŒÆºe :  Øç ! Oº ı (12. 2) j Zf b Kd c: : Ææe F æÆ: [Ł] : çÆ! IŒÆ[ ] (13. 1) j ÆNEª ŒÆ: Ø, n ÆNŁ æÆ åŁæ:  æH (13. 4) j ˇPæÆe ¯PçæÅ , n æØ: : ƺı (14. 6) j KŒ F c ˚æ Æ: sØ , ØÆ b ÅÆ Z (15. 6) j Bت ŒÆd: [ ÆŒæø ŒÆ å]ø: ÆغÅÆ Ø : [ (15. 13) j æøªı Æغ ø ÆNı, fiH ! ¼æÆ  j IŁÆ: Ø æ çı ŒÆæ Łd M: b Ł ÆØÆØ j ŒÆd Æ d ŒÆd ŒæBÆØ KæÆØ ¼º: ºÆ  Æ, j –: Æ ! qª ªªÆH! · ÆPe ! ¼æÆ F:  ª. (16. 3–6) j [F ! Kd] Æغf : : [øª ŒÆ ’ ! ]ØÆ (16. 14) j Zf : Æغ , Zf ! Iæåe ±: ø:  IæªØŒ æÆı (19. 10) j r Æ ! KªŒÆ:  º! åºØı Iæªı: æ: :ø (23. 11) j m ººE çÆØ æ! {Ø} K! IæÆ ªÆEÆ (24. 3) j [ÆP]a: æ [K]: d [c ]: Æ ˜Øe[ çæc ]Æ: [ ]æ: ª: Æ: (25. 14). 32 [o] : [ª]Ø: B ŒÆd Ł [Ø]: a º ª[Æ, ‘a hymn containing pure and unobjectionable matter’. 33 See below p. 216. It was, of course, distinct from the surviving collection of Orphic Hymns, which are later; cf. West (1983), 28–9. 34 Phanes or Protogonos in other Orphic theogonic cosmogonies. This is not the place to examine details of the Derveni theogony, for which see West (1983), ch. 3.

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commentator treats the Orphic text as a venerable theological or hieratic text, hardly as a contemporary poetic work. That the poem goes back to the sixth century, that is, to the main period of circulation of rhapsodic ‘Homeric hymns’ is hardly a flight of fancy.35 The second text is Aristophanes’ mock bird theogony in Birds (685–703).36 The chorus of birds first invoke the ‘dearest of birds’, the nightingale, to accompany the ‘hymns’ which they are about to sing (678–9   H K H o ø). The role of the nightingale is comparable to that of the Muse(s) in conventional hymnology, invoked to assist and inspire the song. Then the bird chorus begin the anapaestic section of the play’s parabasis. They introduce themselves as the ‘immortal, eternal gods, ethereal, ageless and unfathomably wise’, and then present an account of their origin (688–702). Theogony began, they say, when black-winged Night conceived a ‘wind-egg’ in the deep caverns of Erebos, from which winged Eros hatched. In his gleaming plumage he mated with another winged partner, Chaos, from which union the race of immortal birds arose (694–9). The chorus claim they preceded the Olympian gods in the theogonic order. They are the true children of Eros, winged and gifted with flight, companions of lovers (704). The song is a playful lampoon on Orphic theogonies, designed, the birds say, as riposte to the sophist Prodicus (692 —æŒø fi ÆW K F ŒºØ YÅ e ºØ, ‘tell Prodicus from me to get lost in future’). We gather from this that Prodicus, too, specialized in the interpretation of Orphic hieroi logoi, which the birds aim to match with their playfully subversive theogony.37 At this point we might glance at some fragmentary remains of the ‘pre-historic’ poets mentioned before. Olen was said to have been the most ancient composer of hymns.38 A Lycian himself, he is said to Bernabé ii. 1, p. 10 ‘theogoniam Orphicam saec. VI a. Ch. in papyro laudatam’. For pertinent scholarly literature cf. Bernabé ii. 1, pp. 73–5 (fr. 64 V). 37 Cf. Guthrie (1971), 238, 274–80. Our sources do not mention a specific theogony propounded by Prodicus, nor a learned work on ‘Orphic’ or other theogonies; they do accredit him, however, with a theory about the origin of religion: men came to worship useful and life-sustaining things and called them by gods’ names, e.g. Demeter for bread. See S. E. M. 9. 18 and Phld. Piet. ¼ P. Herc. 1428 fr. 19 (Henrichs, 1975b). 38 Boio, a Delphic poetess quoted by Paus. 10. 5. 8: Ὠº Ł! , n ª  æH + Ø æÆçÆ , j æH ! IæåÆø o ø ŒÆ! IØ (‘Olen, who was the first divine speaker of Phoibos [Apollo], and first composed the strain of ancient hymns’). For Olen cf. AHS lv–lvi, Furley and Bremer (2001), i. 146–51. 35 36

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have composed hymns for the Delian gods. In particular, his compositions celebrated the birth of Apollo and Artemis and the advent of other goddesses to Delos (Eileithyia and Hera) to attend the birth.39 This will become relevant in the discussion of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo below. The Attic Pamphos is said to have composed hymns for the Attic cult of Demeter and Kore at Phlya.40 A hymn to Demeter is cited repeatedly by Pausanias.41 The nature of his hymn(s) is indicated by a remark in Philostratus to the effect that ‘Zeus is lifeproducing; all things emerge from the earth through him’.42 This points clearly to a cosmogonic function of Zeus in the hexameter verses quoted, in a manner comparable with the Derveni theogony. The collection of early ‘Orphic Hymns’ cited at one point by the Derveni author is also mentioned by Pausanias (9. 30. 12)43 and by the fourth-century Atthidographer Philochoros, who cites the ‘hymns of Orpheus’ for corroboration of the identity of Demeter and Hestia.44 The passage in the hymn may have been theogonic, but that is not certain. Pausanias characterizes these ‘Orphic Hymns’ as ‘less well embellished by words than the Homeric Hymns but more devotional than these by virtue of their sanctity’.45 It is a comparison we will be returning to. Musaeus is sometimes depicted as a kind of disciple of Orpheus. Pausanias says that his hymn to Demeter contained the information that Attic Phlyos was the son of Ge;46 a work attributed to Musaeus 39 Note also Pi. Pa. 12. 17 where Eileithyia and Lachesis are said to have cried aloud when Leto bore the twins; the mention of Lachesis may tie in with Pausanias’ remark (8. 21. 3) that Olen called Eileithyia hºØ , ‘the good spinner’, obviously because she is identical to Fate. Otherwise we learn from Pausanias that Olen called Eileithyia ‘older than Kronos’ and ‘Mother of Eros’ (9. 27. 2). 40 For cult and archaeology cf. Marinatos (1951); Loucas and Loucas (1986), 396–9; Parker (1996), 305. 41 1. 38. 3; 1. 39. 1; 8. 37. 9; 9. 31. 9 et al. 42 Her. 693 ‹Ø Zf YÅ e ÇøتF ŒÆd Ø! y IÆÆØ a KŒ B ªB Æ. 43 They were sung, Pausanias says, as accompaniment to the ritual of the Lykomidai at Phlya in Attica. 44 Cf. Obbink (1994): Œi : E % . Ø ! ! O: æ: ç: [f ] Ææa +غåæøØ ªB [Œ]Æd ˜ ÅæÆ c ÆPc % EÆØ (‘and in the Hymns Orpheus in Philochoros [says] that Demeter is the same as Hestia’). The fragment of Philochoros is from Phld. Piet. (p. 103 Schober) ¼ FGrH 328 F185. The mention of Orpheus’ hymns in the Derveni papyrus is in col. 22. 11–12. 45 9. 30. 12 Œ ø fi b c H KH ıæEÆ ç æØ i  ª % ˇ æı f o ı , Ø B b KŒ F Łı ŒÆd K º  KŒø lŒıØ. Cf. AHS lvii. 46 Paus. 4. 1. 5. For the minuscule surviving records about his hymns and his relationship to Orpheus, see Bernabé ii. 3, frs. 57–61.

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told that (Eleusinian) Triptolemus was the son of Ocean and Ge.47 The Cretan Epimenides is certainly a historical figure, although his prowess as prophet and healer became legendary.48 He is credited with both a Theogony (frs. 46–53 Bernabé) and a Birth of the Kuretes and Korybantes (Bernabé ii. 3, p. 159). This brief survey is sufficient to show that, without exception, the mythical (and semi-legendary) poets were held to have composed hexameter hymns for the gods, whose character we may in most cases discern as being theogonic. Most of the citations in later sources from these works tend to be of the form ‘according to X, a certain god/ goddess was the son/daughter of xy divine parents’. Diels–Kranz collected the fragments of the ‘mythical poets’ at the beginning of their compendium of pre-Socratic texts. Hesiod, too, has often been termed ‘proto-philosophical’ in that his theogonic poem offers a mythical account of cosmic, that is, physical, history. The connection is apparent in the Derveni author, too. His work focuses on the Orphic theogonic poem precisely because it offers an account of the origins of the world, albeit couched in theological terms (ƒæºªEÆØ, ‘he theologizes’, in e.g. col. 7. 7) which the author reinterprets in accordance with his own ‘enlightened’ world view. The theogonic hymn, in short, may be seen as incipient philosophy. In some of the pre-Socratics we find comparable hexameter hymns serving as preludes to philosophy. Empedocles seems to have composed a ‘hymn to Apollo’, which Zuntz has interpreted as germinal in his philosophical system.49 Parmenides prefaces his Way to Truth with a proem in which cosmic personifications take on mythical status. The legendary figure Linos, too, is said to have composed cosmogonic hexameter poems on the origin of the universe and the creation of living creatures.50 The Homeric Hymns should, in my opinion, be seen against this background. Since only they among epic hymns of the archaic period survived intact in the manuscript tradition, it is easy to assume that they typify, not to say constitute, the genre. I hope the preceding paragraphs are sufficient to show that this was not the case. On the

47 Paus. 1. 14. 3 ¼ fr. 60 F Bernabé, where Pausanias expresses uncertainty about the author of these particular hexameters. 48 Testimonia and fragments are collected in Bernabé ii. 3, 105–68. 49 Zuntz (2005), 1–25; cf. Solmsen (1980). 50 Bernabé frs. 78–93.

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contrary, the dominant type of hexametric hymn to the gods in this period is likely to have been a theogonic poem narrating the genealogy of gods and how they came to assume present powers. Interestingly, Clay has argued that this is precisely the deeper significance of the Homeric Hymns: they chart the emergence of the Olympian gods under Zeus’ dominion, showing how powers and privileges were apportioned among them.51 In fact it was the theogonic hymn which aimed to show a god’s ancestry, place in a genealogical scheme, and family relations within a divine pantheon. Divine genealogy was the way of establishing a god’s credentials, his or her place in the cosmic pecking order. We will now turn to the Homeric Hymns and see how they adapted and modified this traditional scheme no doubt in response to different aesthetic and performative considerations. The genealogical, theogonic model is by no means absent from the Homeric Hymns. A count shows that over half of the extant collection contained an account of the god or goddess’s birth.52 Even this account, however, differs from that given in theogonic hymns. One may compare Hesiod’s account of the birth of Aphrodite with the sixth Hymn to the same goddess. Hesiod is interested in placing Aphrodite’s birth in the cosmic scheme of things.53 Gaia castrates Ouranos and flings his severed organ into the sea. The foaming organ germinates the goddess Aphrodite who is washed up on the coast of Cyprus. She steps onto land and grass grows under her feet. Hesiod explains that this myth accounts for two appellations of Aphrodite, Cythereia (from Cythera, where she beached), and Cyprogeneia (from Cyprus). He adds that Eros and Himeros became her companions and that she acquired from the beginning the power over ‘maidenly talk, smiles and deceits, pleasure and sweet and enjoyable love’ (205–6, ÆæŁı ’ Oæı Ø Æ ’ KÆÆ  j  æłØ  ªºıŒæc çغÅ  غØåÅ ). Hesiod has told us precisely 51

Clay (1989), and in this volume (Ch. 11). I count eighteen hymns out of thirty-three which tell of the birth or parentage of the god/goddess hymned; in nine of these eighteen the birth myth is a major narrative motif: Dion., Apoll., Herm., Hys. 6 (Aphrodite), 16 (Asclepius), 17 (Dioscuri), 19 (Pan), 28 (Athena), 31 (Sun). Only one, the last mentioned to Helios, is what one might call a ‘genealogical hymn’: the author is concerned to trace Helios’ lineage back three generations. Of the eighteen Hymns with a god’s birth one (32 Selene) mentions the birth of another god, not the Hymn’s recipient but her own offspring Pandeia by Zeus. Cf. Clay in this volume (pp. 241–2) for divine birth as a prominent motif of the Hymns. 53 Hes. Th. 173–206. 52

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Aphrodite’s parentage, the circumstances of her birth, her companion gods and her area of potency. When we compare the sixth Hymn with this we see that the author picks up on Hesiod’s account when he narrates that the West wind blew Aphrodite onto the coast of Cyprus ‘amid soft foam’ (5). He omits all mention of how this foam was generated. Instead he launches into an ecphrasis of the goddess’s dressing and adornment by the Horai when she emerged on land (5–15).54 The passage is essentially an elaboration of Hesiod’s line in which he says that grass grew under the nascent goddess’s feet. The Homeric author then narrates how the Horai led Aphrodite up to the assembled company of gods, who admired the sight of her and each male god vowed he would like her as wife. Then the author signs off, with an explicit wish that Aphrodite should grant him ‘victory in this competition’ by ‘supporting my song’ (19–20 e ! K IªHØ j ŒÅ fiH ç æŁÆØ, K c ! ı IØ).55 The author has concentrated on the aesthetic quality of Aphrodite’s appearance, both at the moment of her birth and when she was introduced to the gods. He omits all mention of her parentage and her divine powers. True, these were known to the audience. The point I am making is that we can see the author’s process of selection at work here in his composition. His strengths are ecphrastic embellishment of a narrative moment. One might call the two scenes he evokes—Aphrodite’s first appearance on land, then her appearance among the gods—tableaux. The second also contains the germ of dialogue, an essential feature of epic,56 when the male gods mutter under their breath in admiration of Aphrodite’s beauty. The scene is reminiscent of Demodocus’ lay in Odyssey 8 when the gods stand around looking at the spectacle of Aphrodite trapped in bed with Ares (321–32). In short, the author disassociates his narrative from the cosmic order established in Hesiod’s Theogony and concentrates on episodic embellishment. Theogony and cosmogony have been truncated leaving only a pretty scene.

54

Cf. Boedeker (1974). For the endings of the Hymns generally, see Capponi (2003). On the reference to a competition in this hymn cf. in this volume Clay (p. 236), Nagy (pp. 322–5), and Calame (p. 355). West (1992), 19 n. 25 suggests the panegyris at Old Paphos as a possible setting. 56 Cf. J. Griffin (1986); on speech in the Hymns, see Faulkner (forthcoming c). 55

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This analysis can be extended to the major fifth Hymn to Aphrodite.57 Here the author abandons theogony altogether, concentrating instead on the power over love which Aphrodite has received as her lot. His treatment focuses, however, on the reduction of Aphrodite’s absolute power over gods, men, and animals to make them all couple at her will, sometimes with degrading partners. The narrative, one might say, aims at refinement of the plain theogonic statement that Aphrodite has received sexual love as her divine power. It turns out that the uncontrolled wielding of this power is an irritant to Zeus’ dominion. He himself is made to fall in love with mortal women, to the vexation of Hera, and other gods too engage in demeaning unions with mortals, while Aphrodite herself remains immune. The author tells a story reflecting a plan by Zeus to limit Aphrodite’s power. She is made to fall in love with a mortal herself, the Trojan Anchises, and give birth to a mortal child, Aineias (45–52). Her distress at this humiliation means that she will in future no longer be able to wreak havoc among the gods by making them pair with mortals indiscriminately (247–55). In view of this, Clay and others have pointed out that the hymn’s narrative dovetails with the Hesiodic scheme in that the age of heroes came to an end according to Zeus’ will when gods ceased joining with humans in love.58 The taming of Aphrodite in this Hymn seems to support a cosmogonic narrative according to which intercourse between gods and humans ceased at a given point, ushering in the grim age of iron. The view has not gone unchallenged, however. As Faulkner argues, the Hymn indeed narrates a humiliation of Aphrodite leading to greater circumspection on her part in the future. Whether that amounts to cessation of relations between gods and humans for ever after is, however, not said. There is a difference between a mildly chastised Aphrodite and one whose powers to cause existential anarchy have been drastically curtailed.59 According to my analysis, the Hymn’s narrative is secondary to theogonic hymns. Aphrodite’s power to cause love is the datum of the story; its relativization is the author’s theme. From representing a cosmic force capable of moving the hearts of gods, humans, and beasts at will, Aphrodite becomes a fallen queen. The Hymn’s author picks 57 On this Hymn see now Faulkner (2008) and in this volume Brillet-Dubois (Ch. 6). See also Bergren (1989); Pirenne-Delforge (1989). 58 Clay (1989), 167–9. 59 Faulkner (2008), 10–18.

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up a minor mythical motif—the birth of Aeneas—which in turn is likely to be secondary to the other great romance on Mt Ida (the judgement of Paris), in order to show Aphrodite involved in an (all too) human drama, a sordid affair almost. The narrative contains many epic elements—travel and adventure, dialogue with deceitful speech, human susceptibility to divine will, the nature of mortality— indeed the Hymn has been called ‘the most Homeric’ in the collection.60 Comparison with the model of theogonic hymns shows just how far the author has departed from the hymnode’s usual remit. Instead of glorifying the goddess, he has shown how Zeus shamed her. Instead of establishing her primeval power, he has described its limitation. He has completely omitted her descent. Schmid’s observation that Aphrodite in the Hymn is like a grand Ionian lady stooping to folly with a social inferior is not so wide of the mark.61 At any rate, the composition is as far from cultic praise of the goddess as it could be.62 The appeal is to the emotionality of the piquant union between Aphrodite disguised and the good-hearted but helpless Anchises. Particularly relevant to my discussion is the third Hymn to Apollo.63 Here the Hymn composer indeed takes up the theme of the god’s birth, but, as I will show, he does this in characteristically ‘Homeric’ fashion, distinct from the standard genealogical form of praise. Apollo’s birth is, in fact, one of the ‘great’ hymnic subjects. In many extant compositions and fragments we hear of Leto’s delivery of the divine twins on Delos, an event which is accompanied by a kind of pantheistic celebration on earth. The elements hold their breath, as it were, while the twins are born; nature blossoms and earth and its rivers gleam golden and silver. The birth moment is celebrated as an epiphany of two mighty gods, children of Zeus himself and Leto.64 The author of the Homeric Hymn embellishes this traditional myth in multiple, revealing ways. In a nutshell, he extracts the birth myth from its theogonic context—children of Zeus outside his ‘prime’ 60

e.g. in Gottfried Hermann’s Leipzig edition (1806): Homeri nomine dignissimum. 61 Schmid (1929), I 239–40. 62 It is interesting, however, to note the author’s hymnic enthusiasm when describing Aphrodite’s arrival at Mt Ida (69–74): all nature falls in with her wanton spirit with literal enthusiasmos. 63 The literature on this Hymn is vast; see in this volume Chappell (Ch. 4). 64 See Furley and Bremer (2001), nos. 2. 1, 2. 6, 3. 3 with further literature; Rutherford (1988).

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union with Hera—and amplifies it into a complex drama told in terms of human emotions and rivalry. The emphasis turns from simple worship of the child god in his astonishing infantile glory to a narrative whose human interest will draw in the assembled (human) audience. The narrative is built around two different confrontations: that between Leto and Delos and that between Hera and the other goddesses. The exchanges between these paired antagonists involve travel, persuasive speech, and trickery (Iris tricks Hera by negotiating with Eileithyia privately)—all elements in the epic poet’s repertoire. Leto must persuade Delos to accommodate Apollo’s birth although the island has heard that Apollo will be a wild and unruly god (49 ff.); the other goddesses must outwit Hera who, through jealousy of Zeus’ strapping son, alone impedes the birth by restraining Eileithyia ªŒ , divine aide in childbirth (97–101). The emotions involved in the first exchange are Delos’ and other lands’ trepidation (47 æ ø, ‘tremble’) at the prospect of harbouring Apollo, overcome in Delos’ case by the promise of rich reward from Apollo’s worshippers who will flock to the island if it is home to his favourite cult (56–60). The author’s main invention here concerns Delos herself, who becomes a living being capable of trepidation and kerdosunē, profit-lust. The theme is successful as literary narrative, lending as it does human interest and suspense to the question of where Apollo will be born. But it distracts from the genealogical core of the story: Delos moves into centre-stage instead of Leto, the mother, and, indeed, Zeus, the father. The second drama—that played out between the other goddesses and Hera—similarly raises suspense but distracts from the Olympian status of Apollo. Hera is against his birth through reasons of human jealousy and must be tricked by Iris into releasing Eileithyia. The narrative as a whole is light years from Hesiodic or Orphic theogony. A simple account of who bore whom to whom is embellished by an extended cast, rapid movements, canny speech, faction, and deceit. This is surely a tale told for human entertainment (and edification) rather than cultic worship. Uniquely, the Hymn appears to take time to describe its intended audience and occasion. Having established that Delos is Apollo’s favourite island, the author goes on to describe the assembly of Ionians who meet to celebrate his cult with an agōn including boxing, dancing, and song (149). He describes the fine appearance of the congregation; how, on this day, they appear ‘godlike and ageless’ (151). The remark fits the Greek convention whereby the charis of

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worship, its charm and beauty, is seen as a means of obtaining divine charis, grace or favour, by reciprocal exchange.65 The author then describes one particular performance at the Ionian festival: the song dance of the Deliades, Delian Women, who sing hymns to Apollo, Artemis, and Leto, to long-dead previous generations of men, in the course of which they imitate the voices and ‘hubbub’ of all races of men. This last is likely to be a reference to a song describing the coming of the Hyperboreans to Delos, a legendary northern people, who, according to myth, travelled through all countries on their pilgrimage to Delos to bring the sacra to the god.66 The author of the Hymn then addresses the Deliades personally (165–78). He asks them to remember him in the future; when asked by travellers who their favourite itinerant bard is, they are to answer: a blind man from Chios whose songs always win the prize. Clearly the allusion is to Homer. Less clear is the position taken by the hymnode himself: he may only be inferring that this song is a work of Homer, not that he, the itinerant bard, is Homer. An ancient tradition held that Cynaethus of Chios forged works of Homer, among them the Hymn to Apollo itself.67 It is a nearly compelling conclusion that the Hymn’s author (whoever he was) composed the hymn to Delian Apollo for performance of the pan-Ionia at Delos.68 He recommends himself and the works of the ‘blind bard’ to the Deliades just after praising their own performance at the Delian Games for Apollo. Moreover, the praise of the appearance of the Ionians at their major Delian festival is surely intended as a captatio benevolentiae. Given that, we may see in the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo a competition piece for performance at Apollo’s festival before a large audience intent on multiple sources of entertainment: sport, dance, and song. It 65 Cf. Furley and Bremer (2001), 1. 61–3, Parker (1998), Bremer (1998), Scott (1983). 66 Cf. Hdt. 4. 35; Paus. 5. 7. 8; 9. 27. 2; 10. 5. 7. Cf. Sale (1961), Furley and Bremer (2001), 1. 142–51; ibid. 151 for the suggestion that the Œæ ƺØÆ , lit. ‘rattling with castanets’, or Æ ÆºØÆ (a variant reading in the mss.), ‘chattering’, of the Delian women reflected the foreign dialects encountered along the ‘via Hyperborea’. 67 Sch. Pi. N. 2. 1c III 29, 9–18. Dr. Burkert (1979) defends the content of the scholion to the extent that Cynaethus may indeed have popularized the Homeric poems in Sicily as late as the sixth century BC. Cf. West (1975). See further in this volume Chappell (pp. 71–3), Nagy (pp. 288–91). 68 Burkert (1979) suggests that the piece was composed for Polycrates of Samos’ Delia kai Pythia festival at Delos in 522 BC; cf. in this volume Nagy (p. 286). For a discussion of the unity of the composition, cf. Chappell in this volume (Ch. 4).

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is precisely the audience and occasion which the embellishment of cult myth I have pointed to in the Hymn would lead us to expect.69 We see a marked departure from traditional theogonic poetry to cater for the sophisticated taste of an Ionian audience brought up on Homer. Incidentally, the Hymn will have found an interesting foil in the traditional hymns to Apollo, Artemis, and Leto—ascribed to Olen, no doubt—recited by the Deliades. Whilst paying due respect to the patron god of the festival, Apollo, the author of the Hymn shone by his narrative inventiveness, his personalized treatment of myth, in short its ‘Homerification’. The best example of what one might call ‘mythical expansion’ of a theme, in this case the birth of a god, comes in Hermes.70 Here we find the basic mythical occurrence—the birth of Hermes by a nymph Maia to Zeus71—amplified into a lengthy drama with many twists and turns, humour, irony, invention, direct speech, and forensic appeal. The birth itself is narrated in Homeric terms as a ‘Seitensprung’72 by Zeus with Maia who lived in a remote cave out of sight of Olympus. Zeus visited her while Hera slept (8), a reversal of the Dios apatē in Il. 14. The author salutes Hermes’ arrival in the world with a spate of epithets all emphasizing his tricky, deceitful, and wily character (13–16). The epithets read almost like a satire of traditional strings of epiklēses with their honorific titles. On birth, Hermes immediately sprang into action. The author is concerned to show the amazing infantile energy, ambition, and resourcefulness of the god. On the very day of his birth he has invented the kithara by midday and stolen the cattle of Apollo by evening (17–19). Instead of remaining quietly in his crib, he immediately sets out to look for his big brother’s cattle. On setting foot outside Maia’s cave he encounters a tortoise ambling past the entrance (22–4). The encounter might be described as a playful skit on high epic style.73 Hermes addresses the creature as one might a respected comrade in arms, only to ‘excise his lifespan’ 69

Cf. Barner (1977) for some theoretical remarks on the role of audience expectations for poetic form and content. One of his examples is Demodocus’ song of Ares and Aphrodite in the Odyssey. 70 On this Hymn, see in this volume Vergados (Ch. 5). 71 Hesiod’s Theogony devotes a mere couplet to the event, containing precisely these bare bones of information, plus Hermes’ job as messenger of the gods (938–9). 72 Engl. ‘extramarital affair’ but with connotations of casual and short-term pleasure. 73 On this episode, see Shelmerdine (1984).

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(ÆNH! KæÅ, 42) abruptly in order to turn his shell into a lyre. Hermes’ speech to the tortoise is full of gleeful but also sadistic wit. ‘Lovely creature,’ he addresses the tortoise, ‘chorus-member, companion of the feast’ (åÆEæ, çıc KæÆ, åæØ ÆØe ÆæÅ, j IÆÅ æçÆEÆ, 31–2): the terms are maliciously ironical as the tortoise will not enjoy future dancing and feasting but will forfeit his shell as an instrument. Hermes points out to him that it is better to be dead than alive as, living, he will function only as a charm against sorcery, whilst dead he will resound beautifully. The killing itself is described with a startling aesthetic oxymoron: Hermes carries the ‘lovely plaything’ indoors, then ‘gouges out its life with a knife of grey steel’ (KæÆØe ¼Łıæ Æ, 40; ªºıçøØ ºØE Øæı j ÆNH! KæÅ, 41–2). The contrast is between Hermes’ appreciative speech and the lumbering speechless creature, as well as with the cheerful callousness of the actual killing. My point here is that the narrative has leapt, like Hermes himself, from the god’s incunabula to a miniature epic encounter with a very unheroic opponent. Not only has the author embellished the birth myth with a lively and piquant narrative in epic style, he has even capped epic klea andrōn with parody. It is no great step from here to the mock-Homeric Batrachomyomachia.74 It is true that the subsequent narrative of Hermes’ theft of Apollo’s cattle and the adjudication before Zeus results in a reconciliation between Hermes and his older brother, which may be construed as a step in the establishment of the ‘politics of Olympus’. But the tone of the narrative is throughout witty and tongue-in-cheek. It is as if the author were playing on tradition for literary effect rather than legislating for relations on Olympus. The listener or reader, like Zeus himself (389), has to smile at the god’s youthful antics and deceitfulness as one smiles, for example, at the machinations of a servus callidus in comedy. The aesthetic effect is a long way from awe and respect for the god’s numen. Finally, narrative amplification of a god’s birth myth is wellillustrated by the surviving opening section of the first Hymn in the collection, to Dionysus. A Geneva papyrus augments to some extent lines quoted by Diodorus.75 The poet begins with a kind of priamel,

74 On the sophistication of the language of this hymn as an index of fifth-century composition see Görgemanns (1976); cf. in this volume Introduction (pp. 12–13). 75 D. S. 3. 66. 3, citing from › ØÅc K E % . Ø , ‘the poet in the Hymns’; Hurst (1994). On the reconstruction of the text see West (2001a) and in this volume (Ch. 2).

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stating that there are rival accounts of where Dionysus was born: ‘Some say in Drakanos, some in windy Ikaros, others in Naxos, O child of Zeus, Eiraphiotas, some beside the River Alpheios with its deep eddies; others, Lord, say you were born in Thebes, but they are wrong’ (Dion. A 1–6 Q b ªaæ ˜æÆŒø fi ’, Q ’ !" Œæø fi M  fi Å j ç’, Q ’ K ˝ø fi , E ª  ¯NæÆçØHÆ, j Q  ’ K’ ºçØfiH Æ fiH ÆŁıØØ j ¼ººØ ’ K ¨ fi ÅØ ¼Æ  º ªıØ ª ŁÆØ j łı Ø).76 The author immediately states his preference for a version which places Dionysus’ birth from Zeus on a rocky island ‘far from Phoenicia and close to the streams of Egypt’ (A 9–10). The line with which the author launches into the birth narrative reminds one of a number of Odyssean descriptions of rocky islands rising from the sea.77 There follows quite an elaborate ecphrasis of the unapproachable island—it has no harbour for ships, but is a high, sheer rock all round. Plant life is abundant.78 At this point the papyrus becomes scrappy although it is clear that the description continues for at least nine more lines. Some individual words may be made out: something ‘extends’ (A 16 ı[ÆØ; cf. Od. 9. 116), probably the island itself at a distance from the mainland; some place on it is probably ‘away from the roar of the sea’ (A 18 Ie çº: [ Ø ŁÆºÅ ); in A 21 there may be mention of nymphs as ‘attendants’ (I çØ]: : º: ø); in A 23 we hear of ‘pleasant meadows’ (:æÆØ  : : [) and A 24 may refer to the shade ‘under thickets’ (e æı : : :E : : e æı: ::Ø West). A line quoted by Crates (of Mallos?) referring to the ‘lush growth of vines’ might also come from this section of the Hymn.79 What survives is enough to show that the author took care

76

Text in West (2001a), 10, omitting line 5, ŒıÆ Å $ ºÅ Œ Ø ˜Ød æØŒæÆø fi , ‘[they say] that Semele having become pregnant bore to Zeus thunder-wielder’; the Geneva papyrus and some mss. of Diodorus omit this line and it does not suit the context well, as the author goes on immediately to say that Zeus bore Dionysus (sc. from his thigh). 77 Line 9 Ø  Ø ˝Å oÆ Zæ , IŁ  oºfiÅ . . . ‘there is a high and verdant mountain, Nysa’; cf. e.g. Od. 4. 844 Ø  Ø B fi Å ±ºd æÆ, j Ūf !" ŁŒÅ  $ Ø  ÆØƺ Å , ‘there is a rocky isle in mid-ocean, lying between Ithaca and rocky Samos’. 78 Lines 11–14; supplements to the papyrus are made possible by an almost verbatim copy of the lines in Orph. Arg. 1199–202. 79 Dion. B ¼ Crates ap. Ath. 653B, K E % . Ø E IæåÆØ : ÆPB fi Ø ÆçıºB fi Ø ºÆfiÅØ Œ ø , ‘in the Ancient Hymns: “laden with their bunches of dark grapes” ’; cf. West (2001a), 8.

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to describe the scene of Dionysus’ clandestine birth away from Hera’s jealous eye with considerable Homeric enargeia.80 Only the end of the Hymn is reliably transmitted in another quotation by Diodorus. Zeus acknowledges the inauguration of Dionysus’ trieteric cult on earth. He nods his head in assent and Olympus quakes. The poet then takes leave of Dionysus with a reverent bow (Dion. D 6–12). Between the god’s birth, however, and his instatement on Olympus a narrative of several hundred lines has been lost.81 West, following Wilamowitz and, before him, Bergk, has argued that the myth was most likely that of Dionysus’ success in persuading Hephaestus to return to Olympus in order to free his mother from the rigged throne which he had sent her.82 This myth involved a web of intrigue and rassentiment among the Olympians. Hera ejected her child Hephaestus from heaven for his deformity. He fashioned a throne for her which trapped her in chains when she sat on it. Ares failed to force Hephaestus to relent. Dionysus succeeded in the mission by giving his boon to Hephaestus, wine, and escorting him, drunk, on a donkey up to Olympus. There, it seems, Aphrodite awaited Hephaestus as bride. The scene is memorably depicted on the François Vase by Kleitias (Fig. 1, see Chapter 2, p. 32). This narrative, then, took as its starting point the clandestine birth of Dionysus on a remote rocky isle called Nysa and followed the god’s rise to power through a truly Olympian upheaval: the chaining, and release, of Hera. One can see how Hera’s jealousy at Dionysus’ birth (from Zeus’ thigh, without Hera’s agency) will have been appeased by the good offices of Dionysus in persuading Hephaestus to release Hera. The author apparently succeeded in tying in his version of the god’s birth with a major myth describing Dionysus’ adult prowess and his instatement as a major Olympian. A primitive story of the wine god’s birth from a father’s thigh has grown into a full-scale

Dion. A 8 Œæø ºıŒº  ˙æÅ, ‘secretly from pale-armed Hera’. West (2001a), 1 calculates the whole length of the hymn as 411 lines. 82 Cf. P. R. 378d and Euthphr. 8b4; the reference there to something which ‘pleases Hephaestus but displeases Hera’ must also be to the ‘chains of Hera’. It is not certain that P.Oxy. 670 contains a section of this narrative in which Zeus addresses Hera, although West’s reconstruction of text and sense is persuasive; see in this volume (Ch. 2). For a possible objection, see Faulkner (2010a). 80 81

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family drama,83 one which inspired a series of later poetic treatments and painted pictures.84 It is, as Pausanias said, that the Homeric Hymns have more ‘ornament of words’ than Orphic (and other) hymns, which have more ‘devotional piety’. In the case of Dionysus’ birth myth we are in a position to compare the ‘Homeric’ treatment with the Orphic. Clement of Alexandria and a number of other authors give a version of an Orphic hieros logos which no doubt found expression in a hexameter poem attributed to Orpheus, i.e. a ‘hymn’.85 Dionysus was held to have been born of a strange incestuous union, namely that between Zeus and Persephone, who herself was the daughter of Zeus and his mother Demeter. So, according to this version, Persephone was Zeus’ wife, daughter, and half-sister, making Dionysus his son, grandson, and nephew. The Orphics were not content with this lurid drama, however, reminiscent of some recent incestuous goings-on in an isolated mid-Western farmstead, but inflicted a second birth on Dionysus more traumatic even than the ‘orthodox’ birth from Zeus’ thigh.86 The Titans enticed Dionysus within their grasp by means of toys. Then they dismembered him and cooked the body parts first in a cauldron then on spits held over flames, but not before Athena made off with the still beating heart. Zeus blasted the Titans for their misbehaviour and gave the dismembered Dionysus to Apollo for burial. Apollo buried the parts on Parnassus but the god was brought back to life by Rhea,87 no doubt using the heart which Athena had saved.88 It is a pity we do not have the Derveni author’s allegorical interpretation of this Orphic myth. One wonders what cosmic principles the dismemberment of Dionysus might have symbolized. As it stands, however, the narrative contrasts starkly with the ‘Homeric’ birth-myth of Dionysus in the first Hymn. Orpheus operates with a 83 It occurs to me: in the manner of a vine spliced onto a vine-stock in a standard viticultural process. 84 Alc. fr. 349a–e Voigt; Pi. fr. 283 SnM; Epich. ˚ø ÆÆd j  AçÆØ ; Achaios TrGF 20 F 16b–17. 85 Clement Protr. 2. 17. 2, quotes two hexameters from Orpheus’ 'º in this connection. 86 For sources, see Bernabé ii. 1, pp. 50–68. 87 Where ‘Dionysus’ tomb’ was shown in Apollo’s sanctuary: Plut. Mor. (De Is. et Os.), 365a3. The myth is memorably treated at the beginning of Jane Harrison’s Themis. 88 Note the ritual ‘waking’ of the god performed annually at Delphi: Plu. Mor. (De Is. et Os.), 365a6.

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gruesome set of symbolic actions constituting, one might say, distinctly adult viewing. It is not the subtleties of human relations which characterize these divine agents but rather a ghoulish manipulation of body-parts more reminiscent of Frankenstein’s monster. The difference seems to me to reflect clearly the different audiences for which the myths were intended: the ‘Homeric’ version is an aesthetically pleasing narrative designed to give its human audience insight into the world of the mighty Olympians. The Orphic narrative seems to be intended for an audience of initiates who will understand the significance of these arcana.89 In this chapter I have been arguing that archaic Greek hexameter hymns to the gods commonly took as their basic material a mythical account of the gods’ genealogy (= theogony). To attribute birth and parentage to a god was to establish both his/her existence and their relations to preceding and present generations of divinities. It was to identify a particular divine power within a complex of divinities governing the world using the model of human genealogy. The gods are conceived as a family, with ancestors, a pater familias, his first lady, his children from this union and others, and their children. Herodotus at one point says that the hymn (literally ‘incantation’) sung by a Persian magos at sacrifice consists of nothing but theogony.90 No doubt Herodotus records this detail because the custom contrasts with Greek usage, in which hymns, including those sung during worship, do not consist solely of genealogical lists but contain praise and embellishment of various sorts. It shows, however, that, at its most basic, a song of worship could consist of the plain recital of gods’ ancestry. I began by showing that for Hesiod, the gods are most pleased to hear a hymn about their own birth and ancestry. His Theogony proceeds to satisfy that requirement. Similarly the ancient collection of Orphic hymns (quite distinct from the extant collection) appears to have consisted of similar theogonic hexameter verse, albeit with a different constellation and sequence of divinities. My examples were the hymn of ‘Orpheus’ quoted by the Derveni author, a collection of

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Note the distinction in P. Prt. 316d7–9 that Homer and Hesiod practised poetry whilst Orpheus, Musaeus et al. practised ‘initiations and prophecies’ (ºa ŒÆd åæÅ øØÆ ). 90 1. 132: ª Icæ Ææg KÆØ ŁªÅ, ¥Å c KŒEØ º ªıØ rÆØ c KÆØ (‘a priest standing by sings an incantatory theogony, as those people explain their incantation to be’).

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(lost) Orphic hymns to which a number of ancient authors refer, Aristophanes’ parody of an Orphic theogonic hymn in Birds as well as numerous other lost hexameter poems by legendary poets.91 Against this background the Homeric Hymns can be seen to have successfully contrived new departures. They, too, frequently take up the theme of a god’s birth, but their telling of the birth receives a different emphasis and focus of interest, and the birth myth itself is often the springboard for a longer narrative of how the god developed after his/her birth. From bare theogony the Homeric Hymns transform the gods’ arrival in the world into a kind of Bildungsroman,92 in which the young gods find their place in the pantheon by undergoing trials and tests in human fashion. This humanizing of the gods’ early careers makes them figures with whom a human audience can readily identify. Who, by contrast, could identify with the strange gods of Orphic theogonies? They served rather to shock and jolt as a tool in that disorientation which seems to have formed part of initiation into a mystery cult. The humanization of the gods in the Homeric Hymns, on the other hand, made Persephone a figure with whom daughters wrenched from their parental homes by marriage at a young age could identify.93 Hermes’ youthful antics will have appealed to many young Greeks keen to challenge the authority of brothers and fathers. Likewise the myth (probably) told about Dionysus in the first Hymn and (certainly) in the seventh Hymn contained actions towards which a young male might aspire: rescue of a mother, outwitting pirates. The Homeric Hymns demystify and familiarize old and traditional divinities. The narratives popularize and humanize their stories so as to reduce the distance between the god and worshipper. This familiarization works in two directions: the gods are made human and humans conversely godlike. When the poet of the third Homeric Hymn

91 Clay in this volume (pp. 244–5) distinguishes between hymnic and theogonic poetry in that the latter treats ‘the pre-history of the Olympian order’. I do not think this is a possible objection to my comparison in this chapter of ‘Homeric’ with theogonic hymns, as I am using ‘theogony’ in its broad sense of ‘birth story of a god’ without restricting the gods concerned to the pre-Olympians. Nor does Hesiod in his Theogony. He takes the story from the very beginning to the birth of the Olympians and some of their descendants. 92 Engl. ‘educational tale’ with emphasis on the hero’s development to maturity as a result of trials and experiences. 93 See Foley (1994), passim.

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to Apollo describes the congregation assembled on Delos to worship Apollo he says that their beauty makes them appear godlike and ageless (çÆÅ Œ! IŁÆı ŒÆd Iªæø  ÆØ ÆN, 151). The stern theogony of distant and unapproachable divinities still present in Hesiod has become a company of gods temptingly like ourselves.

11 The Homeric Hymns as Genre Jenny Clay

The thirty-three hymns, collectively known as the Homeric Hymns, form a highly heterogeneous collection of hexameter poems dedicated to various divinities. They range from three to five hundred and eighty lines and vary in date from the eighth to the second century BCE and even later.1 Given the great diversity of their length and their apparent temporal span, can we even speak of them as constituting a genre? Our ignorance of their provenance and circumstances of performance make it difficult to define them generically as a function of occasion. Attempts to tie individual Hymns to particular cults or festivals have met with only limited success.2 Even apparently obvious cases like Apollo and Demeter with their connections to specific cultplaces and their founding have, on closer examination, proved problematic. To be sure, the former includes a vivid description of the Delian festival, but it also—if one believes the poem is a unity— describes the equally important establishment of the god’s Delphic sanctuary.3 Demeter too links Eleusinian cult to a broader Panhellenic This chapter revisits my earlier discussions in Clay (1989) and (1997) of the Homeric Hymns. While it summarizes previous conclusions, it also elaborates on some different aspects of that earlier work, especially the possible evolution of the genre. For general introductions to the Hymns, see now Richardson (2010) and WL 3–25. 1 For an overview on the dating of the Hymns, see the Introduction (pp. 7–16), this volume. 2 But cf. in this volume Richardson (pp. 50–3) and Chappell (pp. 64–7). It is worth noting that Janko (1991), 12, has been converted to a unitarian view of Apollo. 3 See Burkert (1979) for an attempt to link Apollo with both Cynaethus and Polycrates’ Delian festival. On the Hymn’s disputed unity, see also the discussion of Chappell, this volume (Ch. 4).

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framework and does not require performance in Eleusis. Some of the divinities honoured within our corpus (e.g. Sun, Moon) do not even have cults; others are dedicated to heroes (Heracles, Asclepius, and the Dioscuri). Various performance contexts have been proposed for our Hymns: rhapsodic contests at festivals, symposia, and entertainments in royal or aristocratic settings.4 All are credible, but no single venue seems to offer a generic definition. Despite their label in our manuscripts, our collection is neither by Homer nor strictly speaking hymns, if we remember that in the archaic period o  simply means ‘song’.5 Nor do they qualify if we adopt the definition of Furley and Bremer in their collection of Greek Hymns (‘songs used by the ancient Greeks in worship’), where the authors deliberately omit what they call ‘literary hymns’ including the corpus of the Homeric Hymns.6 In celebrating divinities, their subject-matter does indeed ally them with cult hymns, but in their language and diction, and their Panhellenism—precisely in their not being tied down to one locale or occasion—they form a subgroup of hexameter epos. As a recent scholar puts it: ‘We should surely wonder, at the least, whether the Hymns, works designed to entertain and needing no pious devotion to render them palatable, were necessarily any more occasional or context-bound than was epic itself.’7 However, certain shared characteristics, both formal and thematic (opening and closing formulae, relative predication, and description or narrative) may point to collective generic expectations and, in any case, led to their being collected and transmitted together, presumably during the Hellenistic period.8 Divorced from local cultic concerns, these compositions may have had diverse functions and diverse performance settings that may have changed over time. Both internal and external evidence points to such an evolution while certain

4

For attempts to nail Hermes down to a specific occasion, see Johnston (2002), who connects the hymn to various Hermaia festivals; and Nobili (2008), who argues for a Panathenaic setting, which has also been suggested as a venue for many of the other Hymns. Yet if Athens was a focal point for performance of hexameter hymns, it is striking that we have no long hymn to Athena in our collection. 5 Cf. Ford (2002), 12 and n. 27, for a discussion of hymnos, along with examples. 6 Furley and Bremer (2001), i. ix; cf. 43: ‘they are not cult hymns in any real sense.’ García (2002) attempts to define our hymns as ‘religious’ but not cultic. But cf. Clay (forthcoming). 7 Parker (1991), 1–2. 8 For the formation of the collection, see in this volume Faulkner (Ch. 9).

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characteristic features indicate a common conceptual space, which we will attempt to define. Let us begin from some rather basic observations concerning genre and ancient genres in particular.9 Early Greek poetic genres may be defined according to various criteria: formal (e.g. metre, dialect), performance mode (e.g. monodic, choral, etc.), occasion (victory celebration, symposium, religious festival, etc.), content (praise, blame, martial epic, stories about the gods). Clearly, these categories may overlap in sundry ways, and audience expectations of the kind of performance they are going to witness may be reinforced or undermined. Indications of genre, for instance occasion and performance modes, may be internal, or evidence may involve external testimonia. Yet whatever system of classification we set up, whether tidy or messy, must not be viewed as static. So along with a synchronic scheme of genres, we cannot ignore their diachronic evolution, which may move in tandem with developments in other genres. The collection known as the Homeric Hymns shows unmistakable signs of such an evolution, first of all in the huge disparity in length. No one, I think, would deny that scale is a generic marker. It is further agreed that at least some of the shorter Hymns may be abbreviations of the long ones or that the long Hymns may constitute rhapsodic expansions of the short ones.10 Yet we must remain open to the possibility that some shorter Hymns are not truncated versions of longer ones and that the latter may form an autonomous genre.11 In any case, their variety in length offers an apparent indication of changing performance circumstances and needs. Whether one begins from the long Hymns or the shorter compositions will inevitably shape the discussion and have a major impact on generic definitions.12 It is probably safe to assume that the 9

For general discussions of early Greek genres, see Harvey (1955), Rossi (1971), Ford (1992), 13–56, and (1997). On the Homeric Hymns in particular: Keyssner (1932), Lenz (1975), Janko (1981), Clay (1989), 6–16, 267–70, and (1997), Fröhder (1994), 1–90, Paz de Hos (1998), and Richardson (2010), 1–9. 10 Cf. AHS xcv, Càssola xii–xxi; Koller (1956), and Paz de Hos (1998) on the long Hymns as expansions of the short ones; cf. Parker (1991), 14 nn. 2 and 3 for a list of what he considers ‘abbreviated’ Hymns. 11 On the mid-length Hymns, see Fröhder (1994). I include the so-called midlength Hymns among the shorter ones, even though one (Hy. 7 to Dionysus) offers a fairly extensive narrative as does Hy. 19 to Pan. But the shortest of the long Hymns (Aphr.) with 293 lines is five times as long as the longest of the mid-length Hymns (Hy. 7) with 59 lines. 12 Cf. above n. 10.

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Alexandrian scholars who collected these compositions and created the corpus, ascribing them to Homer, were in large part motivated by their common formal characteristics (epic style, hexameter). Once again, they may not have been aware of their development and their varied functions or their temporal frameworks. Another aspect of the dynamic character of genre—and one that has rightly captured scholarly attention lately—is the issue of reperformance. The same composition can be performed in different contexts, and it can even build into itself the possibilities of such varying venues as well as evolving performance modes.13 Songs composed for public festivals could be—and were—sung at intimate symposia. Finally, freestanding genres might be swallowed up into larger genres, while subordinate genres can cut loose and become independent. We need only think of the monumental Homeric epics that manage to incorporate catalogues, gooi, and folk-tales among others.14 With these generalities in mind and acknowledging that much here is inevitably speculative, let us try to use some of the varied, even contradictory, evidence, internal and external, concerning the Hymns to define their generic integrity as well as make an attempt to explain the various stages of their evolution. In addition to metre and the use of the Epic Kunstsprache, the opening and closing formulae are the most characteristic features of the Hymns.15 Many open with the expression ‘I begin to sing’. The presence of the speaking—or rather the singing—‘I’ at the beginning and the farewell to the divinity in the second person which brings the composition to a close differentiate the Hymns from epic recitation where the Muse is asked to sing and the speaker appears to submerge or meld his own voice with hers.16 What sets the Hymns apart from prayers and most cultic hymns is the absence of an opening address to 13 Cf. Nagy (1994). For Pindar, see, among others, Morrison (2007) and Morgan (1993). 14 For instance, the Catalogue of Heroines in the Nekyia incorporates the Ehoia tradition in the Hesiodic Catalogue. For gooi in the Iliad, see Tsagalis (2004); for folktale motifs, especially in the Odyssey, see Page (1973) and Hölscher (1988). 15 In fact, the shortest of these compositions, the three-line Hy. 13 to Demeter, consists of nothing else. See Calame, this volume (pp. 334–6), and (2005), 22–4, who labels these opening formulae evocationes: ‘Such an evocation tends to establish between the divinity and the speaker . . . a mediated relationship. This relationship is put in place through the act of singing itself ’ (p. 24). 16 While the Muse or Muses may indeed be invoked (eight times) in the epic manner, the subject of their song is always a divinity. On three occasions, the god to be

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the divinity in the second person. Formally like an epic invocation, the god who is to be the subject of the song is named in the third person. The presence of the hymnist’s ‘I’ thus indicates a certain distance between the speaker and his subject matter in the third person, which via a relative pronoun17 introduces a brief description or a narrative vignette in the short and mid-length Hymns, or a full fledged extended narrative in the long ones. By the end of the Hymn, however, the distance has been bridged, and the god has become fully present; the bard, whose account has somehow precipitated an epiphany of the god, can now bid the god farewell with the formulaic åÆEæ and perhaps also offer a prayer or promise future praise. What seems to distinguish the Hymns from prayers and cult songs is this movement from the distant third-person announcement of the opening to the proximity of the final greeting.18 The vehicle of this dynamic progression is their most distinctive feature, the intervening narrative in the epic style. The Hymns’ efficacy is thus demonstrated by first drawing attention to the gulf between the mortal singer and his divine subject and finally revealing the Hymns’ successful bridging of the distance that normally obtains between god and man. If epic makes the heroic past present, the Hymns make the divine present.19 The closing exhortation (åÆEæ), which simultaneously bids the god farewell and asks that he take pleasure in the song just completed, is a typical feature of Greek hymns, and by no means limited to the Homeric Hymns; in our Hymns, a brief prayer for favour, general prosperity, or pleasing song often follows. In one case (Hy. 6) a Hymn ends with a request for victory ‘in this contest’ (K IªHØ fiH, 19–20);20 another presents a request ‘to return here joyfully next year and for many years to come’ (e ’  A åÆæÆ K uæÆ ÆsØ ƒŒ ŁÆØ, j KŒ ’ ÆsŁ’ ‰æø N f ººf KØÆı , Hy. 26. 12–13), which suggests an annual festival; both appear to allude to the setting of the Hymns’ performance. On three occasions, a promise concludes: ‘having begun from you, I shall pass on to another hymnos’ celebrated is invoked directly. Aphr. is an exception since the subject is announced not as the goddess herself, but her works (æªÆ). 17 On the ‘hymnic relative’, see the classic study of Norden (1913), 168–76. 18 Calame (2005), 19–35. 19 Cf. Bakker (2002), García (2002), Depew (2000). 20 West (1992), 19 n. 25, argues that the occasion of Hy. 6 ‘was one of the Cyprian festivals of Aphrodite, such as the panegyris in Old Paphos’.

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( Æ  ÆØ ¼ºº K o ); in the two late Hymns to the Sun (31) and Moon (32), the following song is explicitly described as heroic epic. These closing formulae point to performance in agonistic contexts, possibly in conjunction with recurring festivals, and as part of a sequence of songs—either more hymns or heroic epics. But it bears emphasizing that such statements occur either in short compositions or those recognized to be late; moreover, a majority of the Hymns make no mention of a song to follow.21 Occurring twelve times, the most common closing formula—‘I will remember you and another song’ (ÆPaæ Kªg ŒÆd E ŒÆd ¼ººÅ  ’ IØB )—is usually interpreted as equivalent to the Æ  ÆØ formula, that is, as a transition to another song that follows immediately. But some scholars interpret ¼ºº . . . o  and ¼ººÅ . . . IØB as ‘the rest of my song’, in other words, that the invocation to the god is the first part or a prelude to a composition, which is identified with the kitharodic nomos, and not an independent genre at all.22 But the phrase can just as plausibly be understood as a promise of future hymnic praise to the same divinity; the present hymn may be completed, but the task of praising the god is neverending and may be continued either immediately or on some future occasion.23 These closing formulae constitute the basis for the proem theory, which goes back to Wolf (1795) and is still widely accepted, that holds that the Homeric Hymns were performed as preludes to epic recitations. The scale of the longer Hymns, viewed as rhapsodic expansions of the shorter ones, it is argued, does not preclude their serving as preludes to epics of the magnitude of our Iliad and Odyssey at major 21 Cf. Paz de Hos (1998), 63 who argues that the short Hymns could be used on all kinds of occasions and do not fundamentally differ from ‘lyric’ hymns in their contents. 22 See Koller (1956), followed by Nagy (1990a), 353–60. But consider Certamen 97–8 ()F’ ¼ª Ø  ’ KÆ  ’ K Æ æ ’ KÆ j H b Åb ¼Ø, f ’ ¼ººÅ BÆØ IØB , ‘Muse, come now, the things that are and those that will be and were—of these sing nothing; but you bring to mind another song’), where the expression must mean ‘another song’. In the longer Hymns Koller believes that the formula becomes a kind of vestige of an earlier practice. Böhme (1937) traces the origins of the longer Hymns to the kitharodic nomos itself. 23 In Od. 8. 492–3, after complimenting Demodocus for his accuracy in singing the misfortunes of the Achaeans, Odysseus asks Demodocus: ‘come now, pass on and sing of the wooden horse’ Iºº’ ¼ª c  ÅŁØ ŒÆd ¥ı Œ  ¼Ø j ıæÆ ı. What is striking is that over a hundred lines have intervened since the bard sang and over 400 since he sang about the Trojan War.

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festivals like the Panathenaea.24 But I will try to make the case that the sheer length of the long Hymns is by no means their only common feature. A possible further reference to the practice of beginning an epic recitation with a prelude to a god has been detected at Odyssey 8. 499 where Demodocus is said to ‘begin from the god’ or to ‘be roused by a god’ (› ’ ›æ ÅŁd ŁF Xæå, çÆE ’ IØ) before he launches into his account of the wooden horse. But the Greek is ambiguous: even if he did ‘begin from the god’, did he begin with a hymnic praise of the god (which one?) or did he, like the poet of the Iliad, begin his epic narrative with a divinity who instigates the action ( . . . ŁH)? Moreover, the use of the genitive of the god to be celebrated with ¼æå ÆØ does not seem hymnic.25 The testimonia of Pindar and Thucydides have also been invoked to support the proem theory, but they too are not unproblematic. Pindar opens the second Nemean with a reference to the Homeridae (‘Sons of Homer’, presumably a guild of rhapsodes): ‘Even as the Sons of Homer, singers of sewn songs, begin for the most part from a prooimion to Zeus, so too has this man received a down payment of victory in the sacred games for the first time in the much-hymned grove of Nemean Zeus’ (N. 2. 1–5).26 Yet if this was a pervasive custom cultivated by the Homeridae, it may refer only to a brief nod to Zeus; at any rate, it is not reflected in our collection of the Homeric Hymns, where Zeus receives only a brief four-line composition (Hy. 23).27 Thucydides’ references (3. 104. 4–5) also raise questions; as evidence for both athletic and musical competitions on Delos, he cites lines 146–50 from the Hymn to Apollo (with some variants), as ‘from the prooimion of Apollo’; immediately afterwards he goes on to quote Apoll. 165–72 ‘from the

24 A proem of only one line to the Iliad, similar to our hymnic openings, is attested, but its authenticity is suspect: ‘I sing the Muses and Apollo of the famous bow’ ()Æ Iø ŒÆd ººøÆ Œºı). Cf. Kirk (1985), 52 and more recently West (2001b), 73. On the proem theory, cf. Introduction (pp. 17–19), this volume. 25 The exception, Hy. 25 to the Muses and Apollo, is obviously an abbreviation drawn from the opening of the Theogony. For the meaning of ¼æåø ÆØ there, see Clay (2003), 50–3. 26  OŁ æ ŒÆd % ˇ ÅæÆØ j ÞÆH K ø a ºº’ IØ j ¼æåÆØ, ˜Øe KŒ æØ ı, ŒÆd ‹’ Iæ j ŒÆÆ ºa ƒæH Iªø ØŒÆçæÆ  ŒÆØ æH j ˝ Æı K ºıß ø fi ˜Øe ¼ºØ. 27 Pindar’s analogy between ‘down payment’ and a prooimion would militate against Koller’s (1956) interpretation that the term refers to the first part of a composition, since future payments need not follow immediately.

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same prooimion’.28 If we understand prooimion as a prelude to another song, did an epic recitation follow? Possibly, but Delos was famous throughout the Greek world, as the Hymn itself acknowledges, for its choral competitions. If the Delian section was originally a stand-alone composition, then Thucydides’ use of the term prooimion would be peculiar since the Delian Hymn would not be a prelude to anything.29 Or did it continue with the Pythian narrative, as in our texts? If it did, Thucydides might have thought the Delian hymn to be a prelude to the longer piece describing the god’s founding of his Delphic sanctuary.30 Indeed, other evidence also suggests prooimion may refer to the first of a series of songs.31 Paradoxically, Stesichorus is quoted to have said: ‘I will pass on to another prooimion’ ( Ø Ø b Kd æ æ Ø, fr. 64 PMG). In some manuscripts, the long Hymn to Aphrodite is linked to the following short Hy. 6; and the beginning of Hesiod’s Theogony has been interpreted as a sequence of two hymns to the Muses (1–34, Heliconian, 35–104, Olympian) followed by the exordium proper (105–15).32 In Apollo, the Muses are said to sing ‘the deathless gifts of the gods and the sufferings of human beings’ (  ı ÞÆ ŁH Hæ’ ¼ æÆ M’ IŁæø j ºÅ Æ , 190–1); likewise in the Theogony the Muses entertain Zeus by singing about the race of the gods followed by the race of human beings and Giants (44–50). Such a sequencing of songs with compositions about gods preceding narratives about heroes would thus reflect Greek hierarchical notions embracing gods—

28 KŒ æØ ı ººø (3. 104. 4. 3); KŒ F ÆPF æØ ı (3. 104. 5. 2). For a survey of the use of the term, see Constantini and Lallot (1987). 29 Paz de Hos (1998), 62, notes that ‘in the unique reference to an extant hymn in which the term prooimion appears (i.e. in Thucydides), verses are quoted from a long hymn, and it is precisely in those that the function as proem is most disputable’ (translation mine): ‘en la única referencia a un himno concreto en que aparece el término “proemio” (la de Tucidedes), se citan versos de un himno largo, y es precisamente en éstos donde la función de proemio parece más discutibile’). For the view that Apoll. did lead into a longer epic recitation, see Nagy, this volume (Ch. 13). 30 For separatist arguments, see Chappell, this volume (Ch. 4). 31 Cf. Càssola xix: ‘The proem is not an exordium of a rhapsodic song, but rather the first song in a series, and as such, it must have its own exordium’ (translation mine): ‘Il proemio non è l’esordio di un rapsodia, bensì la prima rapsodia di una seria, e come tale deve contenere un proprio esordio.’ Note Pindar’s expression æØ ø I º (P. 1. 4). 32 However, Hesiod’s proem is integral to the Theogony that follows rather than a free-floating prelude that could be attached to any poem; cf. Clay (2003), 53–72. On the link between prooimion and oimê, see Aloni (1980).

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men—beasts. But the crucial point remains that the term prooimion is a functional term: it means the first in a sequence of songs; it does not intrinsically indicate a mode of performance, whether choral or monodic, melic or rhapsodic.33 Perhaps over time and through custom, its content became restricted to songs about the gods; perhaps too the term could become further narrowed to the hexameter compositions that make up our Hymns and thus became a generic term for our Hymns.34 We will return to these issues when we attempt to reconstruct the evolution of the genre and review additional external evidence for performance contexts. The history and pre-history of the compositions that have come down to us as the Homeric Hymns may, then, not be monolithic, but complex and multiple with varied functions at different periods, adapted to changing situations and occasions of performance. While acknowledging that different premises may lead to other conclusions, I start from certain basic assumptions that inevitably shape the argument that follows. If the shorter Hymns—and I include the mid-length Hymns—were indeed exordia to other songs, they may never have formed a completely independent genre. Yet many discussions of the Hymns begin by positing the shorter or middlelength compositions as the norm with the longer Hymns a subsequent development.35 If, however, the long narrative Hymns do not constitute rhapsodic expansions of the short ones, they may represent an autonomous type of hexameter epos, developing alongside, and complementary to, heroic epic. It must, however, be emphasized that it is not merely the length of these poems that distinguishes them from their shorter counterparts. Rather, they share certain features in their narrative content and its elaboration that should likewise be considered generic characteristics. Thus I posit that their style, content, and narrative purpose offer the generic coordinates for this kind of composition and should provide the starting point for a discussion of their genre. I will further argue that within hexameter epos the long narrative Hymns form a separate genre, a genre with its own 33 Cf. Aloni (1998), 117–38, who, however, believes that prooimia were tied to specific occasions rather than compositions that could be re-performed. This would not seem to be the case with our Hymns. See below on Panhellenism. 34 For the shift from functional criteria for genres in the archaic period to more formalist characteristics in the Classical and Hellenistic periods, see Ford (2002), 11–12. 35 E.g. Fröhder (1994), 15. See also Clay (1997), 495–97, and cf. above n. 10.

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pre-history and evolution, utilizing traditional diction and techniques which may parallel and sometimes overlap with, but also diverge from, those of heroic epic. If the tales of Troy were already traditional for Homer and his audience, they must have been equally familiar with the story of Persephone’s abduction or Apollo’s combat with the Pythian dragon. That is, that by discovering the commonalities in the longer Hymns, we can begin to define the Homeric Hymns as a genre. The purely formal similarities (metre, diction, opening and closing formulae, etc.) that are shared by the short and the long Hymns are dwarfed by the main feature that defines and distinguishes the latter: the highly developed central mythological narrative. Moreover, these compositions reveal a shared conceptual framework that is not merely formal, but thematic.36 Each presents a fully developed narrative whose main actors are divinities, gods of the Olympian pantheon. The story line serves to define and present dramatically the character and prerogatives of the divinity to be praised, both in relation to other gods and to human beings, that may involve the founding of cult or some other innovation or invention. Birth narratives provide ideal scripts as they portray the newborn gods as they acquire their individual timai and spheres of influence, often overcoming various kinds of opposition, to become fully integrated members of the Olympian pantheon. Thus Apollo, Hermes, and presumably the fragmentary Dionysus, which stood first in the collection.37 But there are also other episodes in the lives of the gods that may offer suitable hymnic material: incidents that are, in one way or another, defining moments in the history of the gods and their relations with mankind. While discrete episodes, they seem to contribute to a larger whole that recounts the evolution of the Olympian order and thus fills the gap between its pre-history that culminates in the triumph of Zeus, which forms the subject-matter of theogonic

36

Sowa (1984) traces some thematic similarities such as type scenes found in both the Hymns and Homeric epic. García (2002) finds the theme of recognition central to the major Hymns. 37 See West (2001a) for an attempted reconstruction and his comment (p. 2): ‘At the start of the hymn, Dionysos is born in a remote region . . . By the end, he is established as a god, presumably on Olympus, destined to enjoy a thriving cult in Greek lands. The main part of the hymn must have contained a narrative that explained how he progressed from the initial to the final situation’. Also, his chapter (2) in this volume. But see Faulkner (2010a).

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epos, and heroic epic which presupposes the stability of Zeus’ regime and the final configuration of the pantheon under his tutelage. This temporal mythological framework explains the importance of Zeus in these narratives. Although sometimes discreetly positioned in the background of the action and rarely intervening directly in the narrative, the supreme god is often the crucial wellspring of the action or the one who manipulates its course or is required for its denouement.38 It is also his interventions that guarantee the innovations or adjustments in the relations of power between the gods and sanction their spheres of influence. In Apollo, immediately after his birth, Apollo declares his allegiance to Zeus (132), thus revealing himself not as a threat to his father, but a loyal upholder of the Olympian order. In Hermes, Zeus’ recognition of his illegitimate son (389–95) leads to the reconciliation of the wily trickster god with his more august and powerful, but nevertheless easily outwitted, older brother Apollo. The integration of Hermes into the pantheon allows for mediation and exchange, the characteristic prerogatives of the new god, between divine spheres of influence and established prerogatives. In Demeter, Zeus’ acquiescence to his daughter’s rape by Hades (3) sets the plot in motion, one that results in Zeus’ incorporation of the underworld within his domain;39 moreover, his assent to Persephone’s alternating sojourns below and above the earth (460–9) provides the compromise that reintegrates Demeter into the Olympian order. If Zeus is in some sense the architect of the narratives of the Hymns, and their outcomes rearrange and adjust the powers and prerogatives of the gods under his regime, their plots also inaugurate fundamental changes in the relations between gods and mortals. Thus, through the founding of his oracle, Apollo becomes the means of curing human ignorance of the divine by making Zeus’ will known to mankind (Apoll. 132). Hermes’ arrival on the cosmic stage also signals a change in human existence; the god’s many inventions (e.g. lyre, Herm. 41–51; fire sticks, Herm. 111; exchange, Herm. 496–9) raise mankind from its brutishness and ease the human lot through, among other things, technology and commerce. Even while narrating a sexual union between the goddess and a mortal, Aphrodite at the same time insists on the unbridgeable gulf between 38 39

See Faulkner (forthcoming c). Rudhardt (1994); Clay (1989), 211–14.

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human beings and the immortal gods (Aphr. 239–46). Although also emphasizing this fundamental divide, Demeter nevertheless mitigates the absolutes of human mortality through Demeter’s establishment of her Eleusinian cult that offers to her initiates some sort of hope for a better life after death (Dem. 480–2). If, as I have suggested, each Hymn can be considered a discrete episode within the larger story of the evolution and stabilization of the Olympian order, these compositions can even be ordered chronologically as distinct phases within that development. Thus Apollo belongs to an early phase of Zeus’ ascension to supreme power; it plays out within the shadow of the Succession Myth as the new god is rumoured to become a violent ruler over gods and men, and Hera’s opposition is reminiscent of earlier revolutions in heaven.40 But in the course of the Hymn, Apollo not only defeats the enemies of Zeus’ order, but also becomes, through the founding of the Delphic oracle, not his father’s adversary, but his prophet. As disseminator of his father’s will, he extends Zeus’ dominion over mankind and opens a new venue for communication between gods and men. Hermes recounts the birth of the last-born of the Olympians, whose divine status first remains in doubt, and who must wrest his privileges and establish his timai through his hallmark modus operandi, trickery and trade. Doubtless, the fragmentary Dionysus that stands first in our collection also fitted into such a chronological framework. Of our two fragments traditionally ascribed to the poem, one (A) begins with the god’s birth and, if the second (D) comes from the Hymn’s end, the poem closes with Zeus’ confirmatory nod admitting the god and his mother into Olympus. But an additional fragment (B) suggests that the main narrative may have involved the binding of Hera and the return of a drunken Hephaestus to Olympus in the entourage of Dionysus, a favourite theme of early Greek vase painting.41 Here too one can perhaps reconstruct a larger context of cosmogonic significance, involving not only some of the final workings-out of the Succession Myth in the reconciliation of Zeus and Hera via their children,42 but also, on a more abstract level, the necessary combination of craft and inspiration, art and desire.43 Aphrodite clearly is set 40

On Apoll.’s relationship to Hesiod, see also in this volume Felson (pp. 271–9). See West (2001a), and this volume (Ch. 2), Merkelbach (1973), WilamowitzMoellendorff (1895¼1937). Cf. above n. 37. 42 See Bonnafé (1985), 87–101, and Clay (2003), 28–30. 43 I am indebted to my student Sarah Herbert for this insight. 41

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in the era just before the Trojan War in which Aeneas, the son that the goddess bears to Anchises, will become a leading figure. With the Trojan War traditionally identified as the conflict that brings the heroic age to an end,44 Aeneas’ birth coincides with the end of divine and human intimacy. Finally, Demeter depicts a world very much like our own in which initiation into the goddess’s Mysteries holds out the possibility of some happier state for mankind in the afterlife. The chapters in the history of the Olympian pantheon represented in the Hymns have clear links to the end of Hesiod’s Theogony which likewise sketches an outline of the aftermath of Zeus’ accession to power.45 It is, I suggest, no accident that the plot of Demeter can be viewed as an expansion of the three lines Hesiod consecrates to the goddess: ÆPaæ › ˜ Åæ ºıçæ Å K º å qºŁ, m  Œ —æçÅ ºıŒº, m Øøf læÆ w Ææa Åæ , øŒ b ÅÆ Z . (Th. 912–14). Then he [Zeus] entered the bed of much-nurturing Demeter, who gave birth to Persephone, whom the Lord of the Dead snatched from her mother, but cunning Zeus had given her.

In fact, I have argued that the Hymns elaborate on the lines that form the climax of the Theogony: ‘The blessed gods . . . then urged Olympian wide-seeing Zeus . . . to be king and lord of the immortals; and he divided up their timai well’ (881–5). Hermes provides an exemplar of the temporal continuity and generic complementarity between hymnic and theogonic poetry—by which I mean the pre-history of the Olympian order—in the young god’s two performances on his newly invented lyre: the first song he improvises is a ‘Hymn to Hermes’, a mirror image of the composition we are in fact hearing, that begins from his birth (57–62).46 His second performance is a theogony that describes how ‘the immortal gods and the dark earth first came into 44

Cf. Il. 12. 13–33, Hes. Op. 158–66, fr. 204 (M–W). See Furley, this volume (Ch. 10), on the relationship between the Hymns and theogonic poetry. I would, however, emphasize that it is precisely when it comes to the genealogies of the Olympians that Hesiod’s Theogony becomes terse. See Clay (1989), 15, where I characterize the Homeric Hymns as filling the gap between theogonic poetry and heroic epic. 46 Clay (1989), 108–10. See Calame, this volume (Ch. 14), on musical performance within the Hymns; on Hermes’ performance with his newly invented lyre, cf. Vergados (pp. 101–2). 45

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being, and each received his share . . . according to their seniority, recounting all in due order’ (427–8, 431–3). Hermes’ theogony will naturally end with his own birth, a hymn to Hermes, this one perhaps more complete than the first, as he is now well on his way to acquiring the timai that will become his share. We should also note that the god’s performance begins with a proem dedicated to Mnemosyne, ‘the mother of the Muses, whom he celebrated first of the gods with his song’ (429–30).47 Thus the episodic narrative character of the Hymns functions within a larger mythico-temporal continuum that spans the history of the cosmos from its first beginnings through the triumph of the Olympians and the ordering of the pantheon, including the heroic age and even beyond to our own diminished times.48 While duly recognizing the cosmic dimension of each of the major Hymns, we must not overlook another feature: their entertaining character, most prominent, to be sure, in Hermes, the wily kid who outfoxes and both repels and charms his older and more pompous brother.49 Aphrodite too exploits the comic potential of the goddess’s seduction of the unwitting but lusty Anchises, which culminates in his terrified recognition of her identity and his cowering under the blankets while clutching the bedclothes (Aphr. 181–3). Apollo includes a charming talking island, Delos, whose poverty obliges her to look after her self interests (Apoll. 63–73), and the crafty spring Telphousa, who gets her comeuppance for attempting to deceive the god (Apoll. 256–74, 375–87); Apollo himself shows up as a monstrous dolphin heaving himself on board ship and terrifying the ignorant sailors who worry more about their next meal than the grandiose fate that awaits them (Apoll. 399–404, 528–30). Even the august Demeter’s world-destroying grief and anger is relieved by laughter,50 and her sublime attempts to immortalize a human child are punctured by an anxious mother’s fears (Dem. 198–204, 281–91). These lighter moments do not, however, undermine the cosmic import and grandeur of these stories, and they are of course not confined to 47

Clay (1989), 138–40. I intend to outline this mythico-historical continuum in my forthcoming History of the World, Part One. 49 On humour in Herm., see in this volume Vergados (Ch. 5). 50 This is of course not the overtly sexual story of Baubo preserved in some ‘Orphic’ versions. Cf. Richardson (1974), 213–17, on Iambe and jesting in Demeter, with discussion also of Baubo and the later Orphic version with reference to laughter and its significance in Eleusinian cult. 48

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the hymnic narratives, but are to a certain extent inherent in the anthropomorphism of the Homeric gods.51 Yet in the case of our Hymns, their disconnection from an immediate cultic context allows simultaneously for moments of light-hearted entertainment as well as for serious theological speculation. While for us the comic elements detract from the reverence owed the gods, the Greeks apparently could combine the two without discomfort. Finally, the Hymns are characterized by a distinct Panhellenic tendency, that is, a strategy of avoiding versions or associations that tie them down to specific local traditions, which, to be sure, may not preclude indications of their origins. Such avoidance is most clearly exemplified in the fragmentary first Hymn to Dionysus, which rejects a number of local claims to be the god’s birthplace.52 Even Apollo and Demeter, which focus on the founding of cults, do not depict sites or rituals of merely local interest; the accent throughout is on the Panhellenic dimension of these sanctuaries. Moreover, in uniting his celebration of both Delian and Pythian Apollo and including geographical catalogues that encompass the wider Greek world, the poet of Apollo insists on the Panhellenic status of the god. Demeter likewise seems to diverge in important ways from both local Eleusinian and other traditional versions and instead offers a unique synthesis designed to reinforce its Panhellenic message.53 In the case of Aphrodite the delicious narrative of the goddess’s seduction of the Trojan prince Anchises and the subsequent birth of the hero Aeneas, which some scholars view as a composition first intended to enhance the ancestral claims of a local Trojan aristocratic family, is transformed into a universal story by the emphasis accorded the actions of Zeus. He plays no role in other versions,54 but his plan frames the Hymn within a world-historical context that signals the end of an era when gods and mortals united to produce the demi-gods called heroes and therefore precipitates the conclusion of the heroic age.55 51

One thinks of the laughter provoked by Hephaestus in Il. 1. 599. Cf. Griffin (1980), 183–5. 52 But see West, this volume (p. 33). 53 On the relationship of Dem. to Eleusinian cult, see Richardson in this volume (pp. 50–3). 54 Cf. Faulkner (2008), 138. 55 For the view presented here, see Clay (1989), 165–201; Van der Ben (1981), 69–107; and Brillet-Dubois, this volume (pp. 123–6). Contra, see most recently Faulkner (2008), 3–18, with earlier literature.

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In a different manner, Hermes, while incorporating various locations and traditions associated with the god, shuns any easy identification of provenance in order to insist on the young god’s Panhellenic nature and his unique contributions to the Olympian pantheon. The pervasively Panhellenic colouring of the Hymns points to their diffusion throughout all parts of the Greek world; no matter where each composition arose and under whatever local conditions or impulses, like Homeric epic, it could be performed in Sparta as well as Athens, in Metapontum as well as Lesbos. Panhellenism, in turn, suggests a certain degree of mobility for the Hymn poets and their compositions; whatever the locus of ‘original’ performance and audience, re-performance in different venues continued to shape the Hymns and reinforce their Panhellenic character, creating a kind of theological lingua franca.56 Having now outlined a descriptive definition of the major Homeric Hymns as a genre, I propose to sketch out a possible scenario, inevitably speculative, for their evolution. I begin from the Homeric poems, which as I have said swallowed up and incorporated various subgenres. As such, they may give us intriguing glimpses into the prehistory of the genre while attesting to our earliest examples of rhapsodic hymns, modified, to be sure, to fit their epic contexts. Several scenes in the Iliad would seem to fulfil the criteria we have laid out and offer possible candidates for such generic incorporation: I speak first of the conflict between Zeus and Poseidon in Iliad 15 (158–217), which may replay in a lighter key a far more serious earlier competition between the two gods for divine supremacy. There Poseidon’s support for the Greeks conflicts with Zeus’ promise to Thetis to give momentary victory to the Trojans. When Zeus threatens him by pulling rank, Poseidon appeals to the ancient division of honours among the three sons of Kronos (15. 187–93). Before backing down, he invokes the possibility of a widespread rebellion among the gods. Conflict between the Olympians in tandem with the distribution and adjustments of their prerogatives under the supreme hegemony of Zeus are, as we have seen, dominant themes in the Hymns. What in the Iliad becomes a quarrel quickly resolved could have originated in a cosmic struggle for control of the Olympian pantheon. Such cosmic themes form the subtext of Demeter where the plot springs from Zeus’ 56 On the Panhellenic nature of Hy. 7, see in this volume Jaillard (Ch. 7); cf. generally on the issue of Panhellenism, Introduction (pp. 19–22).

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design to annex the nether regions to his domain through the marriage of his daughter Persephone. The oddly interrupted theomachy in Iliad 20 (4–75) and 21 (385–514), which frames Achilles’ murderous rampage and serves to amuse Zeus, offers similar material, perhaps from a similar source.57 Even more germane to the present discussion is the seduction of Zeus by Hera in Iliad Book 14 that also suggests an instance of the epic’s appropriation of hymnic material. Like the Homeric Hymns in style and diction, it is also full of intimations of cosmogony. Scholars have long pointed out its parallels to the Hymn to Aphrodite as both goddesses arm themselves for seduction by donning their finery.58 Like Aphrodite, the Iliadic episode incorporates the high comedy of feminine wiles overcoming witless males in the throes of desire with more serious hints of the consequences of attacking the patriarchal system and Zeus’ supremacy. Moreover, it manages to unite divine horseplay with the sublime image of the hieros gamos that guarantees universal fecundity (Il. 14. 346–51). The seduction episode thus nicely fits the contextual criteria for the Homeric Hymns. In its present position within the Iliad, it mainly serves to retard the inevitable progress of the plot by diverting Zeus from his plan to grant the Trojans temporary superiority—and to give the audience a break from the battlefield. It could, however, be appropriate to multiple mythological frameworks where, for her own nefarious purposes, Hera manages to distract Zeus—even though only for a while—to undermine his intentions. If one were to speculate, the story might fit nicely into a Hymn to Heracles or Dionysus,59 or even some other tale of Zeus’ amorous adventures that have wide-ranging consequences and incite Hera’s opposition; Apollo surely provides a far more threatening example of Hera’s power. In any case, both the ribald character of the Iliad’s divine seduction as well as its cosmogonic overtones find parallels in narrative elements of our Hymns. In fact West, in this volume (Ch. 2), argues for the adaptation and incorporation of motifs from the fragmentary first Hymn to Dionysus into both the Iliad and the Odyssey in precisely the episodes we have been

57

See Il. 1. 396–406 and Slatkin (1991). For the suggestion that Hera’s preparations are modelled on Aphrodite in the Cypria, see Janko (1994), 185. Cf. Faulkner (2008), 32–3, 141–8, and Brillet-Dubois, this volume (pp. 109–12), for further parallels. 59 Cf. West, this volume (pp. 35–7). 58

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discussing: the Dios apatê and the Lay of Ares and Aphrodite. Hymnic motifs may also lie behind Hephaestus’ attempt to effect a reconciliation between Hera and Zeus that brings the first book of the Iliad (571–600) to a close. Other passing references in the Iliad to Thetis’ rescue of Zeus (1. 396), Hera’s anvils (15. 18–22), and Zeus’ threats of a tug of war with an insubordinate pantheon (8. 18–27) may well incorporate hymnic material. Moreover, the description of an angry Hera descending to Tartarus and the seat of the Titans (8. 477–83) has obvious parallels with her actions in the Hymn to Apollo (332–39), where she enlists the aid of the Titans to produce Typhoeus. Perhaps even more relevant to a reconstruction of the pre-history of the Homeric Hymns and helpful for the understanding of their performance context is the Lay of Ares and Aphrodite, the second of the songs performed by Demodocus, the resident bard in Phaeacia (8. 266–366), which has often been compared to the Homeric Hymns.60 Wilamowitz thought it a model for our Hymn to Aphrodite, but also a decadent and interpolated sequel to a no longer extant Homeric Hymn to Hephaestus, although its origins and point may lie elsewhere.61 To be sure, the singing or chanting of the Phaeacian bard to the lyre differs from the unaccompanied recitation of the rhapsodes (Pindar’s ‘singers of stitched songs’). While Homer’s depiction may well be archaizing, there is nevertheless no reason to doubt that it may depict an earlier stage of performance, well suited to the presentation of compositions of limited length in which the singer chanted to the accompaniment of the lyre.62 In this notorious episode, Demodocus recounts how the beauteous Aphrodite and her equally handsome lover Ares were caught in flagrante by her ugly and lame husband Hephaestus who draped their bed with chains. The cuckolded husband invites the gods to witness

60 Cf. AHS lxxxvii–lxxxviii who remark that only the invocation, i.e. proem, and the farewell are missing. 61 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1895), 12–14; Merkelbach (1973), following Snell (1966), suggested that the story of Dionysus’ restoring Hephaestus to Olympus belongs more properly to a hymn to Dionysus, and West (2001a) identified its beginning and end with our first Hymn to Dionysus. See above n. 37. 62 Nagy (1990a), 21, speaks of ‘diachronic skewing’ in the depiction of the Homeric bards. This performance mode of accompanied recitative may be the common ancestor of both epic recitation and the more musical kitharodia. Cf. the performances of Hermes at Herm. 57–62 and 425–33, and see Nobili (forthcoming).

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the trapped lovers, a sight that precipitates gales of laughter among the (male) divinities. Within its context, Demodocus’ song offers a light-hearted diversion and inversion of heroic epic themes, possibly truncated and tailored to fit the dominant Odyssean motifs of infidelity and its consequences as well as the triumph of metis. The affinity of the episode with our hymnic narratives has long been recognized.63 Here too one can perhaps reconstruct a larger context of cosmogonic significance in the conflict between Hephaestus and Ares, the two legitimate male offspring of Zeus and Hera.64 In the Iliad Ares is always problematic, and Hephaestus for all his skills is defective and always appears under his mother’s thumb; Ares, on the other hand, is called the åŁØ ŁH (‘most hated of the gods’, 5. 890) by his father and treated with similar contempt by Athena. Underneath the lascivious Odyssean tale, which has some of the fun of Aphrodite, lies a nuanced version of the final working out of the Succession myth: the competition between Ares and Hephaestus embodies the tension between beauty and brawn (bie) and craft and guile (metis), where metis triumphs over bie; yet neither of these divine sons can rival their father Zeus who combines both.65 If, as I have suggested, the divine narratives of the long Hymns can be viewed as parts of a larger account that constitutes a history of the Olympian order, then early Greek epos provides us with a close analogy in the traditions of the Epic Cycle where individual episodes from the story of the Trojan War, while self-contained, nevertheless form part of a larger narrative tapestry.66 Similarly, while each Hymn is an autonomous composition, its plot simultaneously functions as 63 Note the use of I ç at Od. 8. 267, which occurs in Hy. 7 to Dionysus, 19 to Pan, 22 to Poseidon, and 33 to the Dioscuri, and is identified as a common opening of the citharodic nomos. But in the Hymns, the name of the god follows in the accusative, while Demodocus sings ‘about the love of Ares and Aphrodite’. 64 In Demodocus’ song (as in the Iliad), Hephaestus is the son of both Hera and Zeus, rather than the product of her lame effort to bring forth a son without him. Clearly, the Homeric poems know several traditions involving Hephaestus; in the Iliad he is married to Charis. 65 I intend to elaborate further on the incorporation of hymnic material in a separate study. 66 Cf. Burgess (2004), 3: ‘it is apparent that mythological material was thought to cohere into certain units; a Heroic Age with chronologically arranged groupings of mythological tales, like the Theban wars and the Trojan war, is assumed in Homeric and Hesiodic poetry.’ Burgess (ibid.), 15 cites Apoll. along with Hes. fr. 375 M–W as an example of ‘discontinuous performance’ with more than one singer; but he also similarly characterizes Demodocus’ two episodes from the Trojan War (p. 17).

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part of a larger narrative that defines the Olympian pantheon. And I have argued that the Hymns form part of an even more comprehensive master narrative that embraces three strands of epos: theogonic, Olympian, and heroic.67 The three songs of Demodocus in the Odyssey with the two episodes from the Trojan War flanking the hymnlike narrative of Ares and Aphrodite are suggestive and may help to define performance occasions for both kinds of compositions. First and last, ‘The Quarrel between Achilles and Odysseus’ (8. 73–82) and the ‘Trojan Horse and the Fall of Troy’ (8. 499–520) are thematically linked by the motif of the triumph of Odyssean metis, but they do not form a continuous narrative; but instead they belong to the beginning and the end of the war, thus offering bookends that allude to the whole narrative. Both are performed after dinner in Alcinous’ court. The hymnic narrative in which Hephaestus traps Ares and Aphrodite in flagrante is framed by these two heroic episodes and is performed outdoors at an ad hoc public (but not religious) festival with the Phaeacians looking on; Demodocus’ song may have been mimed in some way, and it is certainly followed by other kinds of dancing. But perhaps we should not make too sharp a distinction between public and private here; if heroic episodes could be presented at festivals, why should the Hymns not be sung after dinner or at symposia?68 The scenario that I am suggesting has a parallel widely accepted by Pindarists who recognize that an original choral presentation and occasion of an ode can be repeatedly re-performed and disseminated via a solo performance in a variety of settings.69 Indeed, the Hymn to Apollo points to a certain interchangeability in performance modes and occasions: the Delian Maidens offer a choral and perhaps mimetic performance in the context of a Panhellenic (or Panionian) festival.70 The hymnist who identifies himself as the ‘Blind Man from Chios’ first describes the festivities on Delos and the Maidens’ performance and then proposes what seems to be a reciprocal arrangement: the girls are to advertise his excellence to all those who frequent the island; he in turn promises to spread the fame (kleos) of their performance throughout the world as he traverses ‘the well-inhabited 67

See Clay (1989), 268–70. Cf. Faulkner (forthcoming b). 69 For instance, Morgan (1993) and Morrison (2007). 70 Cf. Clay (1989), 50–2. A similar interchangeability obtains in the Theogony where Hesiod purveys a monodic (although not necessarily unaccompanied by the lyre) version of the Muses’ choral song. 68

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cities of men’ (147–76). The text implies that choral and solo performances are to a certain extent interchangeable. The poet’s version, whether it is envisaged as rhapsodic or accompanied by the Apolline lyre, constitutes a portable and solo rendering equivalent to the lyric presentation on Delos. By way of conclusion, let me now offer a possible outline for the development of the Homeric Hymns that attempts to integrate the often contradictory internal and external evidence into a diachronic scheme. Originally, the major hexameter hymns were independent compositions usually not attached to a single location or cult, but consciously Panhellenic, usually focused on one of the Olympian gods, and which define and exemplify the divinity’s role within the pantheon and in relation to mortals. Their length made them appropriate both to an evening’s entertainment or to a public festival. The latter context may have given rise to competitions, such as that envisioned in the story of a duel between Homer and Hesiod in which each presented a hymn to Apollo.71 Passages in both Hesiod and the Hymn to Apollo suggest that if several relatively short poems—say under 500 lines—were performed, it may have become customary to arrange them in a sequence so that songs in which the gods were the chief actors would precede episodes drawn from the exploits of heroes. Unlike the heroic narratives of similar length presented on similar occasions, the stories of the gods remained episodic compositions and were not amalgamated into the cyclic epics that set out to present the Trojan War from beginning to end. The lack of a straightforward narrative continuity between the divine narratives precluded any simple linkage. But with the rise of the monumental Iliad and Odyssey, these originally independent compositions could become drawn into the ambit of those epic performances, becoming the first in a series of songs, a pro-oimion proper. Some poets might, however, still continue to offer the traditional brief salute to a god that introduced heroic narrative—equivalent to our short Hymns—but others might have preferred to begin with a more extensive narrative where the gods were the protagonists. Both might be called prooimia, but the label masks a divergent history and development. Nevertheless, the longer Hymns maintained their independent existence and may have continued to be performed as

71

Cf. in this volume Nagy (pp. 294–304).

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autonomous compositions at symposia and festivals both private and public. They also maintained their generic coherence as narratives embodying theological speculation that complemented the Panhellenic epic and theogonic poetry of Homer and Hesiod. To conclude, the longer Homeric Hymns in both their scale and episodic character find an analogue in the oimai of the Epic Cycle, discrete incidents constituting an evening’s entertainment, but nevertheless part of a master narrative of the exploits of the heroes. The monumentalization of Homeric epic finally precipitated the disappearance of these earlier forms, and hymnic material could eventually be swallowed up in these huge productions. At a certain point, the ancestors of our Hymns may have acquired a new function, as preludes to heroic epics; but they nevertheless continued to be performed in their previous venues, exercising their earlier functions. An analysis of our Hymns and their generic characteristics may thus provide a precious glimpse of, and an illuminating contribution to, the prehistory of hexameter epos.

12 Children of Zeus in the Homeric Hymns Generational Succession Nancy Felson

This chapter explores how Zeus’ displacement of his father Kronos in the succession myth of Hesiod’s Theogony is reflected in Homeric Hymns honouring his offspring. It examines how the triangular structure of the mother and son united against the father, reiterated in three generations of the Theogony and leading to a ‘revolution’ in the first two cases—Kronos and Gaia against Ouranos, Zeus, and Rhea/Gaia against Kronos—finds expression in Hymns to two of Zeus’ offspring. In principle, unless the father and son reach a mutually beneficial accommodation, ‘son’ always entails a suppression of ‘father’.1 Both Athena and Apollo (in Hymn 28 and Hymn 3, and other archaic Greek texts) invert their father’s narrative and end up as his staunch and reliable allies. Yet they both retain traces of an ‘as if ’ narrative that reduplicates (at least in part) the life-story of Zeus as told primarily in Hesiod’s Theogony. At two moments in typical Greek hero tales and in the story of Zeus’ coming to power a son confronts his father and either yields to him or challenges and often supplants him. One is at birth and the other at the peak of youth, which the Greeks call l Å (hēbē). The Homeric formula, ‘when he reached the metron hēbēs’, marks this second critical moment, while an oracle (predicting a confrontation, or the father’s defeat at the hands of his son, or hatred of the one

1

Pucci (1992), drawing on Lacan, is particularly insightful on this point.

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toward the other, or simply excess energy in either) marks the first. The following schema sets forth the plot sequence typical of tales of intergenerational strife; it includes variants at discrete moments in the chain of events: 1. The father sires a series of sons. 2. He hates and/or fears some of them a. because of their excessive manhood, size, or monstrosity (hybridity). b. because he has learned from an oracle that one of them will displace him. 3. He tries to obliterate those dread sons a. by repressing them. b. by swallowing them as each is born. c. by swallowing the pregnant mother. 4. With this act he dishonours/violates their mother. 5. He also dishonours/violates the sons. 6. The mother is enraged and in pain. 7. She betrays her spouse a. by enlisting the aid of their youngest son. b. by rescuing the threatened son and instructing him to retaliate later, at the peak of youth (hēbē). 8. The youngest son embraces her plan and punishes (¼ displaces) the father a. by castrating him. b. by defeating him (or his generation) in battle. c. he may receive aid from an ancestress (mother or grandmother). 9. The victorious son becomes king, takes a bride, and sires sons. 10. The defeated father may curse or threaten his youngest son or all his sons. 11. The victorious son exiles or murders his father (¼ parricide). Alternatively, the second half of the sequence can develop as follows: 7b. The mother betrays her spouse by saving a threatened son and instructing him to retaliate later at the peak of youth (hēbē). 8b. The rescued son grows up in hiding, away from his natal home. 9b. At hēbē he returns to carry out his vengeance. 10b. He receives aid from an ancestress (mother or grandmother).

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11b. He defeats his father (and his allies) in a war or other contest. 12b. He exiles or murders his father (¼ parricide). 13b. The victorious son gains the kingdom and a bride as queen. Another alternative ending, instead of 10b–13b, is: 9c. The father defeats his son and eliminates him as a threat (through murder or exile). 10c. The father retains his kingdom and his wife as queen. The plot sequence extracted from the succession myth in Hesiod’s text reveals the two critical moments of tension between father and son: at the child’s birth and at the peak of his youth. Zeus, for example, outstrips Kronos twice in his rise to power: at birth, when (aided by Gaia and Rhea and the trick of the swaddled stone) he avoids being ingested like his siblings, and at the peak of his youth, when he returns from Crete, wins the intergenerational Titanomachy and banishes the vanquished Titans, including his own father, to Tartarus. Once Zeus is victorious, all the blessed gods (the Olympian victors), through the plans of Gaia, urge him to become king and to rule (Th. 881–5; cf. in the proem 112–13 and 72–4). On his pathway to kingship, and even after his election as king, Zeus faces a series of challengers who would have usurped his kingship. These include: (1) Prometheus; (2) Typhoeus; and (3) a child of Metis.2 In the ‘life-history’ of these last two challengers—Typhoeus and the unnamed, unborn son—their birth (or anticipated birth) is marked as menacing to Zeus: Typhoeus immediately challenges Zeus, while Metis’ son never gets that opportunity (since he is never conceived, much less born). In the Homeric Hymns to Athena (28) and Apollo (3) these two critical moments of potential conflict are collapsed into one, the moment of ‘arrival’. In both cases, tensions rise and are marked by divine or cosmic disorder. While Apollo’s parents, Leto and Zeus, diffuse the aggression of their bow-armed son, Athena dispels tension by disarming herself and thus making her father Zeus rejoice. In Apollo’s case, the aggressive energy or impulse to attack is translated into his struggles against females and monsters, while Athena channels her energy through heroes she supports and, in Hymn 11, through citizens at war. 2 On the Prometheus and Typhoeus episodes as part of the theogonic tale, see Vergados (2007), 51–4.

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Among Zeus’ divine offspring, Athena and Apollo ‘inherit’ the revolutionary trait from their progenitors. Each one could, in principle, undermine cosmic order. Yet in different ways, and for different reasons, each overcomes or redirects any such tendencies, becoming in the end a supporter of the cosmic order over which Zeus will continue to preside. In each case, the avoidance or resolution of conflict allows the fourth-generation offspring to take up his or her place in the now fully established order of things and to assume an appropriate identity without seriously challenging the position of the one whose signal epithet, ‘father of gods and men’ (Æcæ IæH  ŁH ), denotes his supreme patriarchal authority. Gaia, as primal mother, has a decisive role in the succession myth of the Theogony even after she sanctions the rule of Zeus, and this maternal role provides a model for one subset of mothers of potentially rebellious sons. Gaia is a bivalent figure, who functions in two incompatible capacities, as both an enemy and a friend of order.3 She has her own personal goals and plans, according to which she acts as a helper or an obstructer, combining disorderly traits with a need for security and stability. On the one hand, she has monstrous qualities, like several of her Ancient Near Eastern prototypes.4 Gaia expresses her monstrosity through the products of her womb, most notably the Cyclopes, the Hundred-Handers, and finally Typhoeus. She is frequently called ‘monstrous Earth’ (ˆÆEÆ ºæÅ: Th. 159, 173, 479, 821, 858; cf. 505, 731, 861) and the implement with which she has Kronos castrate Ouranos shares that epithet (179: ºæØ . . . –æÅ, ‘monstrous sickle’). At the same time, Gaia’s order-loving side informs her actions for most of the poem, until Zeus defeats her last monstrous offspring, Typhoeus. For one thing, Gaia knows the future: she is the source of prophecies, especially those having to do with future kings. Moreover, right after she comes into being, Gaia is the stable seat for two constituencies, the celestial (Olympian) and the chthonic gods: . . . ÆPaæ ØÆ ˆÆE’ Pææ , ø  Içƺb ÆNd

3 Mondi (1984), 334, comments that it is ‘useless to try to make synchronic sense out of the shifting allegiances of Gaia in the various episodes of the Theogony’. 4 On Gaia’s relation to her Mesopotamian precursors, see West (1966), 25–30, and Penglase (1994), 103–4 and 189–90.

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But then Gaia the broad-breasted, the ever unshakable seat of all the immortals who possess the peaks of snowy Olympos and murky Tartarus in the recess of the broad-pathed earth . . .5

The phrase ‘ever unshakable seat’ ( Içƺb ÆN) is a metaphor for an evolved, stable state of the cosmos. As she evolves from ‘then’ to ‘now’ time, Gaia is fundamentally tied to cosmic stability: she is both committed to it and particularly sensitive to disturbances of it. In a sense, then, her purpose and the direction of the poem are one and the same. She is a kind of temporal glue persisting across generational orders. As time moves forward in the succession plot, Gaia relinquishes some of her initial power. When she parthenogenetically produces Ouranos equal to herself, in her first act of creation, there is a gap between her intention, expressed in two sequential purpose clauses, and what almost immediately transpires: ˆÆEÆ  Ø æH b KªÆ r øıB fi ˇPæÆe IæŁ’, ¥Æ Ø æd Æ ŒÆºØ, Zçæ’ YÅ ÆŒæØ ŁE  Içƺb ÆN (Th. 126–8) Gaia first of all bore, equal to herself, starry Ouranos, so that he might cover her on every side, in order that he/there would be an ever unshakable seat for the blessed gods.

The first purpose clause, ‘so that he might cover her on every side’ (¥Æ Ø æd Æ ŒÆºØ), indicates Gaia’s intention, capturing her focalization (what she sees or visualizes or imagines) as she implements her plan: she produces Ouranos expecting that they will be commensurate (symmetrical and equal) and knowing that, on her own, she cannot maintain cosmic order. Yet the connotations of the verb ŒÆºØ exceed Gaia’s vision: to ‘cover’ can also mean to ‘bury’, to ‘eclipse’. Thus she is mistaken in believing that the presence of Ouranos equal to herself will stabilize the cosmos. As it turns out, the fact that Ouranos is ‘equal to herself ’ is the source of their eventual conflict. On a physical level, the image of Sky covering or

5

Translations of Hesiod are my own. Those of the Hymns are by Rayor (2004).

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roofing over Earth, both having identical dimensions, invokes a stable form. It is also an anthropomorphic image of coitus, with the traditional ‘male on top’, thus implying male domination and female subordination.6 The translation of the second purpose clause is problematic: is the subject of YÅ (‘would be’) Ouranos, which seems most natural, or Gaia herself;7 or could YÅ even be existential, ‘so that there would be an ever immovable seat for the blessed gods’? If the subject is Ouranos, then Gaia is relegating to her son and first mate half of her initial prerogative to be the ever immovable seat for Olympian and chthonic gods. Now he is to be that stable seat for the blessed gods who inhabit Olympus—the ÆŒæØ ŁE —while she retains that prerogative for the chthonic gods who inhabit Tartarus.8 Gaia’s belief that stability will require a male consort accounts not only for her production of Ouranos equal to herself but also for her successive support of one male entity after another to be the ruler of gods and men. She consistently expects the right king to maintain order and stability. With this in mind, she acts, time and again, to tip the balance in favour of one potential male ruler or another. She also encounters one disappointment after another. As a character in the story (and not as the first prophetess), Gaia is neither clairvoyant nor perspicacious. She herself evolves over time, at first producing the Cyclopes and Hundred-Handers with no particular forethought, but later giving birth to Typhoeus out of exasperation: she is enraged because Zeus’ lightning and thunderbolts have devastated her and disturbed the other elements within the universe, the sky and the seas. Although hatred between generations is most intensely expressed as hatred between father and son,9 in Hesiod’s Theogony ‘monstrous 6 Cf. Lakoff and Johnson (1980), 14–21, on ‘orientation metaphors’, such as up–down, in–out, front–back, on–off, deep–shallow, and central–peripheral. They all have to do with spatial orientation. 7 To translate 128, ‘so that she would be . . . ’, as in Most (2006), requires a difficult change of subject; a more natural subject of YÅ is Ouranos, the subject of the preceding verb ŒÆºØ (see West [1966], 198). But an existential translation, as I have proposed, makes sense as well, since Gaia’s capacity to remain a stable seat forever is intimately tied to the existence of such a stable seat. The goal of ensuring such stability is projected forward into the ‘now’ time of the poem. 8 This would mark a split between the Olympian and the Chthonian realms. In any case, Gaia expects to retain to the end of time (ÆN) the value she has from her birth, not on her own but through the anticipated stabilizing existence of Ouranos. 9 The emotion of hatred permeates tales of intergenerational conflict. Hatred of a father motivates a son’s act of aggression—as in the case of Kronos’ castration of Ouranos or Zeus’ defeat of Kronos in the Titanomachy. A father’s hatred for his

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Gaia’ helps create the conditions for such mutual hatred—in part by producing dread children (Øa  ŒÆ), in part by fuelling competition between an existing male power, such as Ouranos, and new creations who might vie for the position of king of gods and men. For example, enraged at Ouranos for keeping some of their offspring in her recesses, she incites the young Kronos to castrate his father. Here, as often, hatred between father and son may already have existed, but Gaia helps ignite it. In the Theogony, Ø (‘dread’) marks a child ( Œ) as menacing to its parents. The adjective reflects the focalization of the vulnerable and replaceable father, to whom, in particular, an offspring appears to be dread.10 The superlative ‘most dread of children’ (ØÆ /-Ø Æø) depicts Kronos at 138 and certain offspring of Gaia and Ouranos at 154 (‹Ø . . . ˆÆÅ  ŒÆd ˇPæÆF Kª ).11 Along with synonyms such as ¼ºÅ (‘unapproachable’), this derogatory adjective is regularly used as well for monsters within and outside the poem, oversized, often deformed creatures that threaten cosmic order; in particular, the descendants of Phorcys and Ceto (Th. 270–336). The use of Ø to describe potential usurpers as well as genuine monsters aligns both types of disrupters of order in the same paradigmatic set. Some ‘dread children’ (Øa  ŒÆ) are literally monstrous (the Hundred-Handers, Typhoeus, hybrid creatures); for others their ‘monstrosity’ indicates their

offspring is often proleptic: he especially hates the son predicted to dislodge him, the one he expects to usurp his throne. Aggression between fathers and sons often involves damaging their respective bodies or banishing and relocating the loser in the contest. The struggle determines who will occupy (and monopolize) the seat of power—who, as king, will wield the sceptre, assign tasks and prerogatives to his subordinates, and mediate quarrels, and who will have superior bodily strength/ energy (IºŒ/  ). Zeus’ body is augmented by the accoutrements of thunder and lightning—metonymic extensions of his embodied self. 10 The use of ØÆ /-Ø (‘dread’) for rebellious or overly powerful sons underscores their potential to harm the father’s domain or realm or indeed (as for Ouranos) his very body. These designations align despised or despicable sons with the brood of monsters, deformed enemies of cosmic order for whom the adjective Ø (‘dread’) is regularly used, often accompanied by a string of adjectives. 11 The relative ‹Ø (‘as many as’) probably designates only the Hundred-Handers and the Cyclopes but not the first brood of Titans. Yet this interpretation remains problematic, especially if one locates the hiding place (ºå ) from which Kronos ambushes and castrates his father (174, 178) inside the recesses or womb of mother Earth.

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anticipated rebellion against their father or against the king. The designation of Kronos and the second and third of Ouranos’ broods as ‘most dread’ points to their capacity to wreak havoc, destabilize the cosmos, and usurp whatever power (or licence) is held by their father Ouranos. The last of the challengers of Zeus in the third generation of the succession myth is also a ‘dread’ (Ø ) creature—Typhoeus—the youngest (›ºÆ ) and final offspring of Gaia after she mates with Tartarus through golden Aphrodite (820–52). Like his older half-siblings, especially the Hundred-Handers, Typhoeus is monstrous in his deformed body, with a hundred heads of a dread serpent (ØE æŒ ) coming from his shoulders (824–5). Moreover, the hypothetical statement, ‘he would have ruled over the mortals and immortals, had not the father of men and gods taken note’ (ŒÆ Œ ‹ ª ŁÅEØ ŒÆd IŁÆØØ ¼Æ, j N c ¼æ’ Of Å Æcæ IæH  ŁH , 837–8), designates Typhoeus as an ‘almost-usurper’. In this respect he resembles and is in the same set as Kronos and Zeus. Gaia, in the end, values not random disorder but political and cosmic stability, which explains her active role in the succession myth: ultimately, at her urging, the gods elect Zeus king.12 She comes to fully support him in the belief, never stated outright, that, under him, there will be stability. Before that, Gaia in the Theogony is the prototypical mother who supports a son against a powerful and unjust father. Theogonic elements lurking beneath the surface of the Homeric Hymns to Athena and Apollo help underscore the vast gap between the early days of Olympian ‘history’ and its later denouement, a gap that Clay articulates when she writes: ‘Between theogonic poetry and epic there remains a gap, one that is filled by the Olympian narratives of the longer hymns. The major hymns, then, serve to complete the

12 This election precedes Gaia’s production of Typhoeus, which, in a synchronic reading, is difficult to interpret. Was Gaia having second thoughts about Zeus’ capacity to rule or, perhaps, was she wishing to present Zeus with one last challenge to overcome? Hesiod exerts great effort to legitimize Zeus’ kingship and affirm the principle that Zeus will never be overthrown. The perpetuation of Zeus’ hegemony must have had an important political function in archaic Greek society. On Gaia’s motivations in the Theogony, see Clay (2003), 26–7 with n. 43.

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Olympian agenda and provide the clearest account of . . . the politics of Olympus.’13 In the case of Hymn 28 to Athena, as Càssola puts it in his commentary, ‘the tradition received by the rhapsode contaminates the myth of Athena with a myth of divine succession’.14

1. ATHENA: HYMN 28 Athena’s birth, as recounted in Hymn 28 and in a few other ancient sources, notably Pindar’s Olympian 7 (35–8), is a disruptive cosmic event.15 She is fourth in the patriline that extends from Ouranos to Kronos to Zeus. As such, she shares a set of parents with the son who would have supplanted Zeus as king of the cosmos, had he been born (Th. 897–9). In this section, I will first demonstrate the presence of the usurper trait in Athena and then explore the manifold ways in which she differs from other divine offspring that threaten the cosmos. Using selected passages from Hesiod’s Theogony and Homer’s Iliad, Book 8, I will show how deeply Hymn 28 is imbued with cosmogonic and theogonic conflicts and how Athena evolves in the course of that short Hymn to become her father’s powerful ally. Hymn 11 captures her as she has evolved into a ‘defender of cities’ (KæıºØ ). In that capacity, she will channel her extraordinary force towards positive and orderly ends for the host of citizens she protects as they come and go (Hy. 11. 4: KææÆ ºÆe NÆ  Ø  ). This civic role is in line with her traditional support of heroes against their (often monstrous) enemies.16

13 Clay (1989), 15, argues plausibly that ‘the hymns fill a gap between Hesiod’s Theogony, which depicts the conflicts of the older gods and Zeus’s rise to power, and the settled Olympian pantheon of Homeric epic, where Zeus’s supremacy is assured and conflicts between gods are confined to squabbling’. 14 Càssola 419: ‘la tradizione accolta dal rapsodo contamina il mito di Atena con un mito di successione divina.’ 15 On Athena’s birth in full panoply, see AHS 424–5; Penglase (1994), 230–6; and Deacy (2008), 21–5, and cf. Pindar’s account (O. 7. 38), where Hephaestus delivers the goddess, and Sky and Mother Earth react to her birth with voiceless agitation and absolute immobility. 16 Athena supports winners, like Heracles, Theseus, and Bellerophon, against monstrous adversaries, according to Willcock (1970), 6.

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Athena’s power for good develops precisely from the fact that, had not Zeus swallowed her pregnant mother and given birth to her as his own, and had she not exhibited self-restraint, she would have undermined his power. In her unrealized narrative, she would have replicated what, in previous generations, Zeus did to Kronos and Kronos to Ouranos: displaced her father. In Hesiod’s account Zeus has been elected king of the gods when he takes his first wife, Metis: Zf b ŁH Æغf æÅ ¼ºå Ł  )BØ, ºEÆ ŁH NıEÆ Nb ŁÅH IŁæø. Iºº’ ‹ c ¼æ’  ºº Ła ªºÆıŒHØ ŁÅ  ŁÆØ, ’ ØÆ ºø fi çæ Æ KÆÆÆ Æƒ ıºØØ ºªØØ c KŒŁ Å, ˆÆÅ çæÆ fiÅØ ŒÆd ˇPæÆF Iæ · g ªæ ƒ çæÆÅ, ¥Æ c ÆغÅÆ Ø c ¼ºº åØ ˜Øe Id ŁH ÆNتø. KŒ ªaæ B ¥ Ææ æçæÆ  ŒÆ ª ŁÆØ· æÅ b ŒæÅ ªºÆıŒØÆ 'æت ØÆ, r åıÆ Ææd  ŒÆd KçæÆ ıº, ÆPaæ Ø’ ¼æÆ ÆEÆ ŁH ÆغBÆ ŒÆd IæH X ºº  ŁÆØ,  æ Ø qæ åÆ· Iºº’ ¼æÆ Ø Zf æŁ c KŒŁ Å, u ƒ ı çæÆØ Ła IªÆŁ  ŒÆŒ . (Th. 886–900) Zeus, king of the gods, took Metis (Wisdom) as his first wife, she being the most wise of gods and mortal men. But right when she was about to give birth to the goddess, bright-eyed Athena, then, after deceiving her mind through cunning and with guileful words, he put her into his belly, by the crafty plans of Earth and of starry Sky; for this was how they had declared it to him, lest another of the eternally living gods should have the kingly honour instead of Zeus. For it was destined that exceedingly wise children would be born of her: first she would give birth to a maiden, bright-eyed Tritogeneia, owning strength equal to her father and sound counsel, and then she would give birth to a son, a king of gods and of men, with an extremely violent heart. But before that could happen Zeus put her into his belly, so that the goddess would advise him about good and evil.

Here Hesiod highlights the joint role of Gaia and Ouranos in counselling Zeus, with the use of çæÆ fi ÅØ (‘by their cunning

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plans’, 891) and its cognate çæÆÅ (‘the two of them declared/ advised’, 892). The purpose clause introduced by ¥ Æ (‘lest some other one of the eternally living gods hold the kingly honour instead of Zeus’, 892–3) indicates that, at this juncture, they both support Zeus’ remaining in power. The prophecy itself is given in indirect discourse. It pairs Athena and her potential younger brother, designating them both as exceedingly wise children (æçæÆ  ŒÆ). That they are both in the prophecy and that the prophecy motivates Zeus to swallow Metis pregnant with Athena mark Athena too as a potential threat, like other children ( ŒÆ) in prophecies. Moreover, the positive term æçæÆ (‘wise’) applies to the brother as well, who, as we soon learn (897), is destined to become king. At 895–6 the two are differentiated: the maiden Tritogeneia, first born, will possess ‘might equal to her father’ and sound counsel, while her brother, whom Metis ‘was going to bear as king of gods and men’, will possess ‘a very violent heart’, like the Cyclopes at 139 ( æ Ø qæ åÆ , ‘having overweening hearts’) and the Hundred-Handers at 149 (æçÆÆ  ŒÆ, ‘overbearing children’). Though the two participial clauses, introduced by åıÆ (896) and åÆ (898) respectively, distinguish the siblings sharply from one another, the equation of Athena’s strength (  , 896) with her father is surprising and arresting, especially if we recall that Gaia produced Ouranos ‘equal to herself ’. This ‘equality’ seems to invite competition. Should we imagine that, despite being female, being born from Zeus’ head and having sound counsel (KçæÆ ıº), Athena could have held the kingly honour instead of Zeus? This (and this alone) would explain why Zeus swallows Metis as she is about to give birth to Athena and why he feels the need to usurp the prerogative of the female womb. Moments of theogonic tension in Homeric epic look back to Zeus’ victories over his predecessors, which must have been part of the extensive oral poetic tradition. The Iliad, in particular, preserves traces of dissent which threaten to disrupt the cosmic order now consolidated under Zeus’ kingship, despite the general truth that ‘the Homeric poems show us the fully perfected and stable Olympian pantheon in its interaction with the heroes’, while ‘the Theogony reveals the genesis of the Olympian order and ends with the triumphal accession to power of Zeus’.17 A brief overview of these traces

17

Clay (1989), 15.

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reveals four main points that illuminate Hymn 28: (1) the treatment of Athena as if she were Zeus’ son and heir; (2) the collusion against Zeus by Athena and Hera and Zeus’ angry reaction, which includes a threat to hurl any disobedient Olympian to gloomy Tartarus; (3) Zeus’ appeal to his might and his boast of being superior to all the other gods put together; and (4) Zeus’ reference to Athena’s sword in his final threat to his daughter as ºæØ, ‘huge, monstrous’ (Il. 8. 424), the same epithet that Hesiod applies to Kronos’ implement, the sickle, with which he castrated his father (Th. 179: ºæØ . . . –æÅ), and regularly to Gaia. As Book 8 begins, Zeus commands all the gods to stay out of the fray and to refrain from protecting the Achaeans against Hector (8. 5–27), re-asserting his supreme power. He threatens to hurl all who disobey his command to gloomy Tartarus (13–16)—a traditional motif.18 Athena is the first to object. After acknowledging his strength (31– 2), she says simply, ‘We (i.e. Hera and I) pity the Danaans’ (˜ÆÆH Oºçıæ Ł’, 33). Zeus, smiling, tries to placate his dear child (çº  Œ , 39) and claims: ‘I want to be gentle to you’ (KŁ ºø  Ø XØ rÆØ, 40). The epithet XØ (‘gentle’) is used especially for a father, or a king like a gentle father,19 as opposed to the reckless father (IŁÆº Ææ) of Hesiod’s succession myth, as we shall see. When the quarrel resumes at 8. 350–484, Hera and Athena form an alliance that structurally parallels Gaia’s alliance with Kronos. At Theogony 164–6 Gaia addresses her offspring as ‘sons of mine and of a wicked father’ (ÆE K d ŒÆd Ææe IÆŁºı). She asks them to obey her and together avenge their father’s evil outrage, since he was the first to devise unseemly deeds (IØŒ Æ Æ æªÆ). Similarly, at Il. 8. 350–6 Hera approaches Athena to urge that the two of them join forces because of the evil works of Hector, thus blaming a human, not Zeus, for her revenge. The two goddesses, Zeus’ wife and daughter, act as partners in an act of disobedience: together, they will defy Zeus’ earlier command and try to enter the fray. 18 Harrell (1991), 307–18, argues that the Iliad poet and Hesiod took this traditional ‘rhipto motif ’ from a common tradition. She cites two Hesiodic fragments: fr. 54a M–W (¼ P. Oxy. XXVIII 2495 fr. 1a) and fr. 30 M–W (¼ P.Oxy. XXVIII 2481 fr. 1. 15–23). The former, though poorly preserved, seems to suggest that Zeus, in anger at Apollo, was about to hurl him to Tartarus and would have killed him, presumably for attacking the Cyclopes (cf. ps.-Apollod. 3. 10. 4). 19 See Felson (2000), 89–98, and (2002), 189–200, on these two divergent paradigms of fatherhood.

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Athena’s response to Hera at Iliad 8. 358–80 resembles that of Kronos to Gaia at Theogony 170–2, when he accepts her challenge and tells her of his disregard for Ouranos. Athena characterizes Zeus as mad and evil and a thwarter of her intents: Iººa Æcæ  e çæd ÆÆØ PŒ IªÆŁB fi Ø å ºØ , ÆNb IºØæ , K H  ø Iæø · (Il. 8. 360–1) But my father rages in his evil mind. Hard, forever wicked, he is the thwarter of my impulses.

Then she indirectly aligns herself with Hera through her opposition to Thetis. She claims that, although Zeus is in her debt, he does not remember how she protected Heracles (362–9); i.e., he is ungrateful to her. Then, in strong language, she adds that he hates her (ıª Ø, 370) and has accepted the plans of Thetis, but that ‘there will be a day when he will again call her his dear bright-eyed one’ (ÆØ  ‹’ i Æs çºÅ ªºÆıŒØÆ Yfi Å, 373). Her rivalry with Thetis for Zeus’ attention recalls Hera’s own rivalry when she detects that Zeus has conspired with Thetis to honour Achilles at the Achaeans’ expense (1. 539–43 and 552–9). Even though Athena aligns herself with her father’s wife, the quarrel does not escalate: Hera and Athena eventually back down and comply with Zeus’ command. Collusion between Athena and Hera against Zeus is a familiar motif in the Iliad: the two heckle Zeus at critical moments in the poem when he acts, or threatens to act, unilaterally, as when he expresses his desire to rescue his son Sarpedon and Hera objects and reminds him that not all the other gods may approve of him (16. 431–9) or when he expresses his desire to rescue Hector and Athena reacts with similar language (22. 178–81). In Book 8, after railing against Zeus, Athena urges Hera to arm for battle (374) and she herself takes off her peplos and dons the chiton of cloud-gathering Zeus (385–8), implying (by wearing his garment) that she is taking his place. When Zeus learns of their defiance, instead of carrying out his earlier threat to hurl them to Tartarus, he sends Iris to deliver further threats: that he will lame their horses, cast them from their chariots, and shatter their chariots, using his thunderbolt, ‘so that the bright-eyed one may come to understand what happens when she fights with her father’ (Zçæ! NB fi ªºÆıŒHØ ‹! i fiz Ææd åÅÆØ, 406).

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In the Theogony, mother–child collaboration and father–child alienation precede the violent crossroads confrontation, whereby the son replaces the father. In Iliad 8, though, Zeus never comes to blows with Athena and Hera; the menacing speeches they exchange express a weaker form of the kind of sedition that we find in the theogonic mother/son conspiracies to unseat or unman a father and king. Moreover, the subversive pact between the hyper-masculine Athena and her disgruntled stepmother Hera parallels the intergenerational alliances in the Theogony between Kronos and Gaia, Zeus and Rhea, Zeus and Gaia, and Typhoeus and Gaia. Against this background, I now turn to Hymn 28 to Athena. This hymn encapsulates an essential feature of the representation of the goddess, the juxtaposition of her two distinctive traits of rebelliousness and self-restraint. The former trait appears at the first of the two possible moments of intergenerational conflict: right after birth but not at hēbē. I have divided the Hymn into eight segments, as follows (line numbers in brackets): A. conventional beginning, including a string of traits (1–4) B. relative clause (4–6) C. reaction of immortals (6–7) D. event 1 (7–9) E. reaction of cosmos (9–14) F. event 2 (14–16) G. reaction of Zeus (16) H. conventional couplet ending (17–18) A. [—ƺº’ ŁÅÆÅ, Œıæc Ł, ¼æå ’ IØ ªºÆıŒHØ º ÅØ I ºØå qæ åıÆ ÆæŁ  ÆNÅ KæıºØ IºŒÆ 'æتB,] B. [c ÆPe KªÆ ÅÆ Z  B KŒ ŒçƺB , º œÆ å’ åıÆ åæÆ Æ çÆøÆ·] C. [ Æ ’ å Æ ›æHÆ IŁÆı ·] D. [m b æŁ ˜Øe ÆNªØåØ Kı ø þæı I’ IŁÆØ ŒÆæı Æ’ Of ¼ŒÆ·] E. [ ªÆ ’ KººÇ’ ! …ºı  Øe e æ Å ˆºÆıŒØ , I çd b ªÆEÆ  æƺ  NåÅ, KŒØŁÅ ’ ¼æÆ  Œ ÆØ æçıæ ØØ ŒıŒ  , å ’ –º Å KÆÅ · B ’ % -æ IªºÆe ıƒ ¥ı TŒÆ Åæe åæ] F. [N ŒæÅ

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Nancy Felson ¥º’ I’ IŁÆø þ ø ŁŒºÆ åÅ —ƺºa ŁÅÆÅ·] G. [ªŁÅ b ÅÆ Z .] H. [ŒÆd f b oø åÆEæ, ˜Øe  Œ ÆNªØåØ· ÆPaæ Kªg ŒÆd E ŒÆd ¼ººÅ  ’ IØB .] (Hy. 28. 1–18) A. [I sing the glorious goddess Pallas Athena, owl-eyed deity with crafty wisdom and steady heart, revered virgin, stalwart guardian of the city, Tritogeneia.] B. [From his august head, cunning Zeus himself gave birth to her, born in warlike armour of gleaming gold.] C. [Awe seized all the gods watching.] D. [She sprang quickly from his immortal head and stood in front of Zeus who bears the aegis, shaking her sharp spear.] E. [Great Olympus reeled violently beneath the might of her shining eyes, the earth let out an awful cry, and the deep shifted, churning with purple waves. Suddenly the sea held still and the shining son of Hyperion halted his swift horses a long while] F.[until the maiden Pallas Athena lifted the godlike armour from her divine shoulders,] G. [and wise Zeus rejoiced.] H. [Hail, child of aegis-bearing Zeus— but I will remember you and the rest of the song.]

The string of Athena’s attributes is enumerated within the invocation (A), with cumulative force, a rhetorical strategy that underscores both the hybridity and the excess of monstrous offspring.20 The goddess has an implacable heart (I ºØå qæ åıÆ, 2); in the Theogony she has a life-force equal to her father’s and prudent counsel (r åıÆ Ææd  ŒÆd KçæÆ ıº, 896), while her brother has an excessively violent spirit ( æ Ø qæ åÆ, 898). Athena in the Hymn is a chaste virgin, a mighty protector of cities, Triton-born. In the relative clause at B, she is the one whom Zeus, after swallowing Metis, bore from his august head in full panoply; a second string of attributes describes her weapons (5–6). A series of three reactions ensues. First, at C, awe ( Æ , 6) grips the immortal gods as they witness the birth. The narration of the birth event (D) tells what they see even as it reiterates B, adding details. One detail in particular suggests aggressive belligerence: brandishing 20 Cf. Th. 146 (Cyclopes), 148 and 153 (Hundred-Handers), 297–300 (Echidna), 307 (Typhoeus), 312 (Cerberus) and 320 (Chimera).

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the sharp javelin (Æ’ Of ¼ŒÆ, 9). To all this—the birth in full panoply and the brandishing of the javelin—the cosmos responds with anxious anticipation (E).21 At this pivotal moment in the story, the listener/reader wonders what will happen next. From the focalization of not only the immortal gods (C) but all the natural elements which see Athena emerge in her full panoply, this particular goddess, so much like her father, has the potential to disrupt cosmic order. The cosmic turbulence in the Hymn (9–14: E), is brought on by the birth of a fully armed Athena brandishing her javelin. With great compression, three elements—sky, earth, and sea—experience commotion. Suddenly, the sea and the sun reverse the situation, each by a surprise move that seems to get Athena’s attention. Her response is to remove her armour from her shoulders, and this act immediately introduces calm. Before that, noisiness and commotion are evident in Earth’s letting out an awful cry (I çd b ªÆEÆ j  æƺ  NåÅ, 10–11) and in the churning motion of the deep (KŒØŁÅ ’ ¼æÆ  j Œ ÆØ æçıæ ØØ ŒıŒ  , 11–12). Section E shares themes and formulaic diction with the upheavals, respectively, of the Titanomachy (Th. 629–721) and especially the Typhonomachy (Th. 820–900). In the former, the first cosmic battle, noise and widespread conflagration signal the scale of the upheaval and the collapse of order: ‘All around, the life-giving earth roared as it burned, and all around the great immense forest crackled; the whole earth boiled, and the streams of Ocean and the barren sea’ (I çd b ªÆEÆ çæ  Ø K ÆæªØÇ j ŒÆØ Å, ºŒ ! I çd ıæd ªº! ¼ oºÅ. j Ç b åŁg AÆ ŒÆd ! 0ŒÆE Þ ŁæÆ j  ! Iæª ·, 693–6). Moreover, noise provides the ground for the comparison in the striking simile, which invokes an image either of the first coupling of Earth and Sky—a regression to the time when earth and sky were not yet separate—or of a cataclysmic collapse of Sky on Earth as a result of strife:22 21

For other sources on the birth in full panoply, see Càssola 419–21. I read the Titanomachy and Typhonomachy synchronically, while acknowledging the ways in which they reduplicate one another and the problematic joins: cf. especially Solmsen (1982) and, on the possibility of a synchronic rather than a diachronic reading of the Theogony and of a middle ground between a Unitarian and a neoanalytic approach to the poem, Mondi (1984), 325–44. For Most (2006), 59 n. 38, the simile implies that Zeus’ actions in this epic intergenerational battle are undoing the union with which Gaia instigated change: ‘the analogy is not to some cataclysmic 22

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Nancy Felson ‰ N ˆÆEÆ ŒÆd ˇPæÆe Pæf oæŁ ºÆ· E ªæ Œ ªÆ e F OææØ B b KæØ Å , F ! łŁ KæØ ·  F ª ŁH æØØ ıØø. (Th. 702–5) It seemed just as if Gaia and broad Ouranos up above were approaching one another:23 for such a great thud rises up as she is dashed down and as he dashes her down from on high; so great a thud was produced as the gods ran together in strife.

The reeling of Sky, the awful cry of Earth, and the churning of the deep in the Hymn resonate with the turbulence of the same three elements in the Typhonomachy, where parallel diction and theme (even without the destruction by fire, caused by Zeus’ lightning and thunderbolt in the Typhonomachy) assure us that here too we have a case of cosmic unrest.24 At F in the Hymn, ‘after a long while’ (Åæe åæ) Athena lifts her armour from her shoulders. The duration of time allows Athena to take time considering her next move. The conjunction N (‘until’), introducing F, implies that this cosmic unrest ends with Athena’s act of self-restraint, whereby the goddess breaks the pattern of conflict and next-generation (usually male) usurpation. Moreover, because she is a virgin, she will not replicate the female propensity in the succession myth toward using the womb as an instrument to retaliate against male brutality by producing a challenger. Thus neither as a ‘male’ nor as a female will she attempt to unseat her father and threaten the cosmic order. The verb ªŁÅ (‘he rejoiced’, 16) in G gives us access to Zeus’ focalization not so much on the birth in full panoply of his daughter as on her decision to disarm.25 The final collapse of the sky onto the earth, but instead to the primordial sexual union between Sky and Earth.’ I would add that the imagery of Ouranos dominating Gaia from above suggests a violent and conflictual sexual union, perhaps even drawing on the image of a (male) victor raping a vanquished (female) city. 23 The verb ºÆ (‘approach’) can have a hostile valence, as here, or a positive one. 24 Cf. especially how, in the Typhonomachy, ‘great Olympus was shaken . . . and the earth was groaning’ ( ªÆ º Ç’ ! …ºı  j . . . KåØÇ b ªÆEÆ, Th. 842–3), ‘all the earth was seething, and the Sky and Sea’ (Ç b åŁg AÆ ŒÆd PæÆe Mb ŁºÆÆ·, Th. 847), and ‘huge/monstrous Gaia was groaning’ (åØÇ b ªÆEÆ ºæÅ, Th. 858). The turbulence that arises from this clash between Zeus and Typhoeus is the very opposite of the ‘stable seat forever’ ( Içƺb ÆN) of the earlier purpose clause (Th. 128). 25 On ªŁÅ (‘he rejoiced’) as relief cf. Odysseus at Od. 13. 250, when he realizes he has come home.

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placement of Zeus’ rejoicing right after Athena’s removal of her weapons marks it as a sign of relief and not simply an indicator of a father’s pride in his offspring and joy at her birth. As noted earlier, births are intrinsically unsettling: in the Theogony, anxious fathers greet with apprehension the birth of sons (especially those that are huge, monstrous, and over-manly). Here, the hymnist defers the account of Zeus’ reaction to Athena’s birth until the new-born daughter has herself eliminated the possibility that she will become a fourth-generation usurper. In the last couplet of the Hymn (17–18), as the hymnist bids farewell to Athena, he surrounds the child ( Œ ) by two genitives that describe her father (˜Øe and ÆNªØåØ, ‘of aegis-bearing Zeus’).26 This arrangement points to Athena’s destiny, to be her father’s obedient and unrebellious child.27 The Hymn thus encapsulates both Athena’s potential to challenge her father and establish her own rule and her voluntary subordination to her father’s cosmic order. It celebrates her signature quality, the practice of self-restraint: she will use her energy (  ) ‘equal’ to her father’s to uphold the cosmos over which he presides as king. And she will channel this energy to protect cities against their enemies and help citizens as they come and go (Hy. 11), as she traditionally enhances both the  (‘energy’) and IºŒ (‘might’) and often the BØ (‘cunning’) of the victorious heroes whom she favours.

2. HYMN 3 TO APOLLO The Hymn to Apollo recounts the distinctive ways in which Apollo’s potential for rebellion is tamed and redirected. Even though Apollo reduplicates (and thus threatens) his father in multiple ways, he turns out to be reliable and orderly and comes to assume a legitimate place in his father’s household. Though Apollo starts out as a potentially threatening child, he soon becomes a supporter of cosmic stability under his father. The Hymn tells the story of how (and why) he directs his formidable energy against unruly forces, such as Pytho and Telphousa. Apollo, then, belongs to the class of heroes who 26

On the aegis, especially in Homeric epic, cf. Gantz (1993), 84–5. Cf. Athena’s claim, not attested till the fifth century (A. Eu. 827–8), to know where Zeus keeps the thunderbolt implies that Zeus has confidence in his dutiful daughter. 27

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return home at hēbē to assume their legitimate role in their father’s household and kingdom. His story, as recounted in the Hymn, belongs to the tale-type of divine succession myths, a large category that incorporates (with a difference) hero-tales of exile and return, like the stories of Jason, Theseus, and Bellerophon. The proem of Hymn 3 encapsulates both Apollo’s capacity to disrupt order and his entry into the divine community:  ÆØ Pb ºŁø ÆØ ººø ŒØ, ‹  Łd ŒÆa H Æ ˜Øe æ ıØ NÆ· ŒÆ Þ ! IÆ&ıØ Kd åe Kæå Ø  Iç! æø, ‹ çÆØ Æ Æ ØÆØ. ¸Åg ! YÅ   ÆæÆd ˜Ød æØŒæÆø fi , l ÞÆ Ø ! KåºÆ ŒÆd KŒºœ çÆæ æÅ, ŒÆ ƒ I! NçŁ ø þ ø åæØ ºFÆ  ÆŒæ Æ æe ŒÆ Ææe E ƺı KŒ åæı ı· e ! K Łæ x ¼ªıÆ. fiH ! ¼æÆ  ŒÆæ øŒ Æcæ  Æœ åæıø fi ØŒ  çº ıƒ· ØÆ b Æ  ¼ººØ ŁÆ ŒÆŁÇıØ. åÆæØ   ØÆ ¸Å, oŒÆ çæ ŒÆd ŒÆææe ıƒe ØŒ. (Apoll. 1–13) I will remember and not forget far-shooting Apollo. Gods tremble as he approaches the home of Zeus: all rise from their seats as he draws near when he stretches his gleaming bow. Only Leto stays beside Zeus who delights in thunder. She unstrings Apollo’s bow, closes his quiver, lifts the bow from his mighty shoulders, hangs it from a golden peg on a pillar near his father, leads him to his throne and bids him sit. His father hands him nectar in a golden cup, welcoming his dear son—then the other gods return to their seats. Queen Leto rejoices that she bore a strong son, an archer.

In the proem, which chronologically takes place at Apollo’s hēbē, the young god approaches Olympus with bow drawn taut, as if he is on the attack.28 The gods tremble at his arrival and only take their seats after Leto has removed his weapons and Zeus has offered nectar, 28 For a full discussion of the tenses in the proem, see Clay (1989), 23–9, who emphasizes the timeless quality of the aorists, and especially Bakker (2002), 65–7, 76–7, who treats the present tenses like the comparans of a simile, framing the series of aorists. The latter are not temporal but ‘perceptual aorists’. My focus on Apollo’s

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greeting his son with a welcoming toast that incorporates the young god into the divine community and into his father’s home. Together, these benign parental acts eliminate any threat the youth might have posed. This opening scene on Olympus, where Apollo appears brandishing his bow and frightening the assembled gods, gives substance to the rumour Delos quotes at lines 67–9, when she explains to Leto her reluctance to become the birthplace of Apollo. The depiction of Apollo’s arrival on Olympus captures one of his salient features: he is the quintessential kouros (‘young man’), as his regular epithet, IŒæŒ Å (‘of the unshorn hair’, 134), indicates.29 In terms of the story pattern for intergenerational rivalry presented above, Apollo arrives home (i.e., to his father’s house) at hēbē, returning like countless heroes (and like Zeus at Th. 492–3) once he is of age, with his bow fully drawn and his mood aggressive. For the young Apollo, as for the Øa  ŒÆ (‘dread children’) in the Theogony, there are two critical moments of danger: at his birth and upon his arrival at Olympus. In these first thirteen lines of the Hymn, the behaviour of each of Apollo’s parents differs markedly from that of succession-myth parents in the Theogony. In fact, all the family members in the Hymn (mother, father, and son) treat one another in a manner opposite to their theogonic counterparts. Leto, who disarms Apollo, contrasts with Gaia, the mother of Kronos, a most dreadful (ØÆ ) offspring, whom she arms and provides with a plan, a hiding place, and an implement for castrating Ouranos (Th. 161–2, 179–81). Zeus in the Hymn welcomes Apollo into the Olympian community, while Ouranos banishes his children, at least the second and third broods, relocating them in the bowels of Gaia (Th. 156–8) and binding them in Tartarus (Th. 501–6 the Cyclopes, 617–23 the Hundred-Handers), and Kronos swallows his as each emerges from Rhea’s womb (Th. 459–62). While theogonic fathers fear they will be overthrown by their sons, Zeus in the Hymn, by now secure in his kingly power, arrival at hēbē does not preclude their interpretations. The arrival at hēbē can also be seen as a timeless, exemplary arrival. 29 Cf. his role as the one who guides Telemachus to manhood at Od. 19. 86–8, where the beggar-Odysseus reassures Penelope that, even if Odysseus himself has perished, ‘here is Telemachus, his son, by grace of Apollo grown such a man’ (Iºº’ XÅ ÆE E ººø ª ŒÅØ, j 'ź Æå ). Whatever else this passage suggests about the bow contest at the festival of Apollo (see Austin 1975, 245), it also marks Apollo as the god who escorts a young boy to manhood.

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harbours no such fear with respect to Apollo. Benign gestures from his parents defuse Apollo’s desire to take Olympus by storm.30 Later in the Hymn (186–8) Apollo is completely and harmoniously incorporated into the community of the gods, when he leads them in the dance.31 When Delos responds to Leto’s request for a birthplace by openly expressing the reasons for her hesitation to grant it, she not only articulates the fear of all the lands previously visited by Leto but introduces a negative characterization of the god (even while disclaiming any responsibility for it): ºÅ ªæ Ø çÆØ IŁÆº ººøÆ ŁÆØ, ªÆ b æıÆı  IŁÆØØ ŒÆd ŁÅEØ æEØ Kd Çøæ ¼æıæÆ. (Apoll. 67–9) They say that Apollo will be someone exceedingly reckless and will lord it greatly over immortals and mortal men along the life-sustaining field.

Delos’ use of the term IŁÆº (‘reckless’) to explain why she is reluctant to provide a birthplace for Apollo places him in a paradigmatic set with theogonic usurpers (as well as ‘atasthalic’ figures in Homeric epic, like Aegisthus and the Suitors).32 By attributing the charge of recklessness and haughtiness to rumour (‘they say’, çØ), the island avoids incurring the god’s wrath. Yet her fears remind the Hymn’s audience of Apollo’s aggressive behaviour in the proem and, in a sense, reinforce the notion that IÆŁÆºÆ (‘recklessness) is integral to his character.33

30

Cf. how, in the Odyssey, Odysseus includes Telemachus in his plans and how, at the Bow Contest, Telemachus desists from attempting to string the bow in obedience to a signal from his father. 31 Cf. Il. 1. 472–4. On the relation between this later arrival scene and the arrival on Olympus in the proem, see Bakker (2002), 80–1. 32 On IÆŁÆºÆ as a mark of adolescent excess, see Felson (2000), 89–98. As the quintessential term for a disruptive individual in archaic poetry, ‘recklessness’ is inappropriate for an Olympian god. In the context of cosmic evolution and cosmic stability the terms ‘reckless’ (IŁÆº ) and ‘dread’ (Ø ) tend to characterize the same entities. 33 Moreover, Delos’ trembling (Iººa  æ ø, 66) not only reiterates the trembling and fear of the previously visited lands (Kæ  ŒÆd KØÆ, 47) but re-invokes the trembling of all the gods except Leto upon Apollo’s arrival at Olympus (æ ıØ, 2).

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Apollo’s rumoured recklessness is an indicator of his potential to be the son who unseats his father; it identifies the newborn, even before his birth, as destined to terrify and usurp, and is isomorphic with (or performs an analogous function to) all the theogonic prophecies that predict a son’s overthrow of the father. As it turns out, however, females and humans, not father Zeus, have the most to fear from Apollo. As Apollo comes of age, he directs his destructive energy against a serpent that resists him (Pytho) and a land/spring that defies (lies to) him (Telphousa). He also orders and threatens humans who might disobey him (the Cretan servants). Like his father, he uses violence to implement cosmic order. Apollo’s management of his violent attributes and tendencies cements his bond with his father, rather than undermining their relation. The hymnist accentuates the resemblance between father and son by incorporating a long digression on Hera’s rage at Zeus for giving birth by himself and her active choice to produce Typhaon as Zeus’ rival (300–54). Whether or not this episode was part of an imagined ‘original’ hymn to Apollo, or has been interpolated at a later time (perhaps when the Delian and Pythian portions were joined), is beyond the scope of this paper.34 The important point about the Hera episode is how very theogonic the goddess’s complaint, plan, and implementations are and how much they form a continuation of the theme of the myth of divine succession, with its goal of ensuring a stable seat forever. The key role of the mother in the succession plot is evident in the Hymn to Apollo not only in the actions of the gentle mediator, Leto, but in those of Hera, her polar opposite. In the Hera episode, beginning at line 300 and focalized entirely by the goddess, Hera blames Zeus for starting the contest by producing Athena from his head apart from her (ŒÆd F çØ K E  Œ ªºÆıŒHØ ŁÅ, j m AØ ÆŒæØ Ææ Ø IŁÆØØ, 314–15). Athena’s preeminence ( Ææ Ø) exacerbates the offence and contributes to Hera’s claim that cloud-gathering Zeus is the first to dishonour her (‰  ! IØ ÇØ ¼æåØ çºÅªæ Æ Z , 312). The offence is further compounded by the deformity of the child whom she bore alone, 34

See Richardson (2010), 126–31, on the Typhaon episode; he argues against considering it to be an addition to the original version of the Hymn (126), as many have suggested; cf. in this volume Chappell (pp. 72–3).

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Hephaestus, a cripple (ÞØŒe Æ , 317). When she hurls Hephaestus in anger from Olympus, Thetis rescues him and cares for him, thereby thwarting Hera’s destructive plan to destroy (or at least evict) her child. Such an opposition between the two goddesses and rivals can also be seen in Book 1 of Homer’s Iliad (493–611). From her public complaint to the rest of the Olympians Hera now turns to Zeus, whom she reviles in direct address, using language that corresponds to his (perceived) slight to her. Most strikingly, she threatens to devise some new evil thing in answer to his offence: å ºØ, ،غ BÆ,  F ÅÆØ ¼ºº; H ºÅ r Œ Ø ªºÆıŒHØ ŁÅ; PŒ i Kªg Œ Å; ŒÆd c ŒŒºÅ Å  Å qÆ Þ! K IŁÆØØ, Q PæÆe Pæf åıØ. IçæÇ F,   Ø ŒÆŒe Å ! Oø. ŒÆd F  Ø Kªg å ÆØ, u Œ ª ÅÆØ ÆE K  , ‹ Œ ŁEØ Ææ Ø IŁÆØØ, h e ÆNåÆ! ƒæe º å h! K e ÆPB · P Ø N Pc øº ÆØ, Iºº! Ie E źŁ! KFÆ ŁEØ   ÆØ IŁÆØØ. (Apoll. 322–30) Cruel, cunning trickster, what else will you plan? How dare you bear owl-eyed Athena on your own? Could I not have borne her? I was still called yours among the immortals who live in wide heaven. Watch out that I do not devise some evil in return. I will scheme to bear a child who will be preeminent among the immortal gods. I, at least, will not shame our holy marriage, but I will not approach your bed. Being far away from you, I will still be among the undying gods!

Thereafter, Hera prays to Earth and wide Heaven above and the Titans to ‘grant a child apart from Zeus, in no way weaker in strength than he, a child greater than Zeus by as much as Zeus is greater than Kronos’ (ŒÆd  ÆEÆ j çØ ˜Ø , Å  Ø Å KØı Æ Œı: j Iºº! ‹ ª ç ææ ø, ‹ ˚æı PæÆ Z , 337–9). Then she dramatically enacts her threat by striking the earth with her massive hand (¥ Æ åŁÆ åØæd Æåfi Å, 340). The earth shifts in response (ŒØŁÅ ’ ¼æÆ ªÆEÆ çæ  Ø , 341) and Hera rejoices in the sight, believing her prayer will be fulfilled (m b NFÆ j  æ n ŒÆa Łı , 341–2).

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In this long digressive passage, Hera quarrels with Zeus and attempts to thwart his will. They contend over who has the prerogative of childbirth, based on who produces the superior child. Hera, enraged, behaves toward Zeus in ways reminiscent of her foremothers, Gaia and Rhea, in the Theogony. She reacts like Gaia, when Ouranos interferes with her birthing and represses several of her broods of offspring (pressing them back into her recesses) and like Rhea, when Kronos undoes her birthing by ingesting each of her offspring. Hera first threatens to retaliate and bear a child who would be preeminent among the immortal gods (ŒÆd F  Ø Kªg å ÆØ u Œ ª ÅÆØ j ÆE K  , ‹ Œ ŁEØ Ææ Ø IŁÆØØ, 326–7). Then she affirms her intention to undermine Zeus’ kingship by producing a usurper ( Œ): ‘let him be as much stronger than Zeus as Zeus is stronger than Kronos’ (ç ææ . . . ‹ ˚æı PæÆ Z , 339). In her speech, Hera aligns herself with Gaia of the Theogony. Like Gaia, she is using her womb as an instrument of revenge. Moreover, by her action of striking the earth with her palm, she involves Gaia in the production of her chthonic child. Hera’s quarrel with Zeus, though not of the magnitude of Gaia’s with Ouranos or Rhea’s with Kronos, is in the same paradigmatic set as part of the succession myth. All these quarrels are cosmogonic. To be sure, the lengthy Hera passage has the feel of an insertion into the text of a pre-existing episode, like the Typhoeus episode in the Theogony. It has, however, come down to us embedded in a Hymn in which Hera, in the Delian portion, detains Eileithyia in order to obstruct the birth of the dragon-slayer Apollo. Therefore, it is appropriate to read the episode synchronically as undergirding the deep polarization of male versus female in the Hymn. The Hymn to Apollo enacts the transformation of the rebellious son eager to dominate into the obedient son eager to emulate his father without ever replacing him. The role of the gentle mother in upholding family harmony rather than fuelling the natural antagonism between father and child is enacted by Leto in the proem, while Zeus’ extension of hospitality to his feisty son, when he returns home at his metron hēbēs, is the gesture that invites filial obedience. For Apollo, the son, obedience to his father guarantees that he will have a legitimate place in the universe and will have a number of realms in which he can be preeminent. Thus the tone of the Hymn that recounts the birth and exploits of the god Apollo draws on the

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narrative pattern of the succession myth to depict, by way of contrast, the harmonious, stable, evolved hierarchic positioning of the new child within the cosmos. The Hymn celebrates the young god as a figure who, instead of rebelling, attacks and eliminates two female entities, Pytho (357–62) and Telphousa (382–7), and thereby consolidates his masculinity.35 In his defeat of these two, Apollo replicates his father’s victory over Typhoeus in the Theogony (853–68). He will, in addition, disseminate the word of Zeus the father through his own oracle at Delphi (132). By the end of the poem, Apollo is incorporated and tamed: he will never undermine his father, though he may, like other youths, experience ‘benign regression’.36 He has evolved from a potential challenger to his father’s staunch ally. He dominates a series of potentially dangerous females much as Zeus in the Theogony incorporates Metis: he acquires the name and locale first of Delos, then of Telphousa, and finally of Pytho. He specifically resembles his father not only in his aggressive arrival on Olympus, ready for combat, but in his slaying of the dragon that guards Delphi, Pytho, which corresponds to Zeus’ slaying of Typhoeus. The Homeric Hymns to Athena and Apollo present each god as an ally of Zeus who might have been, or might have remained a rival. Both Hymns partake of the theme of intergenerational conflict and in both, Zeus’ position as king of gods and men is strengthened once each god is incorporated into his regime. Given the scholarly opinion on how the major Hymns relate to the Theogony and to the politics of Olympus,37 it is fascinating to find Hymn 28 functioning in a manner similar to the long Hymns, including the Hymn to Apollo. In this short but nonetheless dramatic poem, Athena’s self-restraint, when she removes her armour, brings joy and relief to her enthroned father; in Hymn 3, though his capacity for rebellion may remain, Apollo

35 Cf. Felson (1994), 86–7, on Telemachus’ motivation for hanging the twelve maidens. 36 Felson (1994), 72, 167–8 n. 22. Cf. Apollo’s ‘benign regression’ in Hymn 4 (to Hermes), where he vies for a place in the cosmic hierarchy with his newborn brother and their father, Zeus, good-humouredly mediates the quarrel. On their sibling rivalry and its resolution, see Harrell (1991), 307–18, and Vergados (2007). 37 See esp. Clay (1989), and in this volume (Ch. 11). For a contrary view regarding Apoll., see Chappell in this volume (pp. 73–81).

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channels his potentially subversive energy against female menaces to order. The actions of each child of Zeus illustrate how rapport can be established and tension resolved in time between a potentially menacing (monstrous) offspring and a potentially hostile (dread) father. If the rapprochement is successful, the offspring will never upset cosmic order by unseating the father. Consequently, as Gaia wishes in the Theogony (128), the ‘seat’ ( ) of the cosmos will remain, indeed, ‘stable forever’ (Içƺb ÆN).

13 The Earliest Phases in the Reception of the Homeric Hymns Gregory Nagy

INTRODUCTION It has been argued that Hesiodic poetry, like Homeric poetry, contains references to four aspects of oral poetry: composition, performance, reception, and transmission.1 In the present project, I argue that the poetry of the Homeric Hymns, as oral poetry, similarly contains references to all four of these aspects. In making this argument, I will concentrate on the reception of the Hymns, analysing the internal evidence of references to the Hymns within the Hymns themselves along with the external evidence of early references we find elsewhere, especially in the comments of Thucydides on the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. In the course of making my argument, I will refer to interconnecting arguments I have published elsewhere in the pursuit of related projects.2

The argument is made in Nagy, ‘Hesiod and the Ancient Biographical Traditions’ (2009a), hereafter abbreviated as HB, with reference to Most (2006), xix-xx, who mentions all four aspects. The argumentation of Most differs, however, from my own (see especially HB 273). 2 These projects are represented especially by twin books that I abbreviate as follows: HC ¼ Homer the Classic (2008/9) and HPC ¼ Homer the Preclassic (2009/ 10). I refer also to these related books: BA ¼ Best of the Achaeans (1979; 2nd edn. 1999), PH ¼ Pindar’s Homer (1990a), GM ¼ Greek Mythology and Poetics (1990b), PP ¼ Poetry as Performance (1996a), HQ ¼ Homeric Questions (1996b), PR ¼ Plato’s Rhapsody and Homer’s Music (2002), HR ¼ Homeric Responses (2003), HTL ¼ Homer’s Text and Language (2004c). 1

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I use the term reception here not in the narrow sense that applies in studies of literature, where this term conventionally refers to whatever happens after a given piece of literature is composed for transmission to the public. A broader sense of the term is needed if we are dealing with oral traditions.3 The phenomenon of reception in oral traditions is connected with the transmission of any composition by way of performance. In any oral tradition, the process of composition is linked to the process of performance, and any given composition can be recomposed each time it is performed. The performer who recomposes the composition in performance may be the same performer who composed it earlier, or it may be a new performer, even a succession of new performers. The point is, such recomposition-in-performance is the essence of transmission in oral traditions. And this kind of transmission is the key to a broader understanding of reception.4 Unlike what happens in literature, where reception by the public happens only after a piece of literature is transmitted, reception in oral traditions happens during as well as after transmission. That is because the process of composition in oral traditions allows for recomposition on each new occasion of performance for a public that sees and hears the performer. In oral traditions, there is an organic link between reception and performance, since no performance can succeed without a successful reception by the public that sees and hears the performer or performers. The link between reception and performance affects the actual content of the composition performed before a given public. That is because the performance of a given composition can speak about itself. For example, the performance can say things about the context of performance or even about the performer or performers. What is said, however, will be subject to change from performance to performance, and such change can actually affect the content of the composition by way of recomposition-in-performance.5

3

The next three paragraphs derive from HB 282–3. For an example of concrete applications of theories about transmission, I cite my work on the oral poetics of the ancient Greek symposium Nagy (2004b). 5 PP 207–25. 4

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Gregory Nagy CONTEXTS OF RECEPTION: THE CASE OF THE HOMERIC HYMN TO APOLLO

On the basis of external evidence about one of the Homeric Hymns, combined with the internal evidence of that Hymn and of other Hymns, we can say in general that the Homeric Hymns were performed at festivals. The primary external evidence comes from Thucydides, who quotes two passages from a composition that we know as the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. In what follows, I give a translation of the text of those two passages, in its entirety, together with a translation of the framing text of Thucydides (3. 104. 2–6):6 {3.104.2} [The island of] Rheneia is so close to Delos that Polycrates, tyrant of the people of [the island-state of] Samos, who had supreme naval power for a period of time and who had imperial rule [¼ arkhein] over the islands, including Rheneia, dedicated Rheneia, having captured it, to the Delian Apollo by binding it to Delos with a chain. After the purification [katharsis], the Athenians at that point made for the first time the quadrennial festival [pentetēris] known as the Delia. {3.104.3} And, even in the remote past, there had been at Delos a great coming together of Ionians and neighbouring islanders [nēsiōtai], and they were celebrating [¼ making theōria] along with their wives and children, just as the Ionians in our own times come together [¼ at Ephesus] for [the festival of] the Ephesia; and a competition [agōn] was held there [¼ in Delos], both athletic [gumnikos] and musical [mousikos], and the cities brought [anagein] song-and-dance groups [khoroi]. {3.104.4} Homer makes it most clear that such was the case in the following verses [epos plural], which come from a prooemium [prooimion] having to do with Apollo: But when in Delos, Phoebus, more than anywhere else, you delight [terpesthai] in your heart [thumos], there the Ionians, with chitons trailing, gather with their children and their wives, along the causeway [aguia], and there with boxing and dancing and song they have you in mind and delight [terpein] you, whenever they set up a competition [agōn].

6

As for the text of the medieval transmission of the Hymn, I argue in HPC I}26 (in the footnotes) that most if not all of the textual differences between the medieval and the Thucydidean transmission are a matter of authentic formulaic variations.

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{3.104.5} That there was also a competition [agōn] in the craft of music [mousikē (tekhnē)], in which the Ionians went to engage in competition [agōnizesthai], again is made clear by him [¼ Homer] in the following verses, taken from the same prooemium [prooimion]. After making the subject of his humnos the Delian song-and-dance group [khoros] of women, he was drawing toward the completion [telos] of his words of praise [epainos], drawing toward the following verses [epos plural], in which he also makes mention [epi-mnēsthēnai] of himself: But come now, may Apollo be gracious, along with Artemis; and you all also, hail [khairete] and take pleasure, all of you [Maidens of Delos]. Keep me, even in the future, in your mind, whenever someone, out of the whole mass of earthbound humanity, while here [in Delos], after arduous wandering, someone else, asks this question: ‘O Maidens, who is for you the most pleasurable of singers 170 that wanders here? In whom do you take the most delight [terpesthai]?’ Then you, all of you [Maidens of Delos], must very properly respond [hupokrinasthai], without naming names:7 ‘It is a blind man, and he dwells in Chios, a rugged land.’ 165

{3.104.6} So much for the evidence given by Homer concerning the fact that there was even in the remote past a great coming together and festival [heortē] at Delos; later on, the islanders [nēsiōtai] and the Athenians continued to send song-and-dance groups [khoroi], along with sacrificial offerings [hiera], but various misfortunes evidently caused the discontinuation of the things concerning the competitions [agōnes] and most other things—that is, up to the time in question [¼ the time of the purification] when the Athenians set up the competition [agōn], including chariot races [hippodromiai], which had not taken place before then.

7 According to the Thucydidean transmission of the Hymn, we read here Iç ø , which I interpret to mean ‘without naming names’. The medieval transmission shows other variants besides Iç ø , including Iç’  ø ‘about me’. In HC 2}27 n. 25, I connect the adverb Iç ø to the adjective ¼çÅ  , which was understood to be a synonym of IıŁ (as we see in the scholia to Arat. 1. 270. 2). This word IıŁ is used in the sense of ‘without information’, as in Od. 3. 88 and 184. When the Delian Maidens are asked to respond to the question ‘who is the singer?’, they respond without naming names, that is, without giving information about the singer’s name.

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As we can see from this account by Thucydides, the setting for the Homeric Hymn to Apollo was the festival of the Delia on the island of Delos (3. 104. 2). This festival is viewed here in the historical context of a major reorganization of the Delia, undertaken by the city-state of Athens (3. 104. 6). At the time of that reorganization, which can be dated to the winter of 426 bce, this festival of the Delia was the central event that gave meaning to the Delian League, a political and cultural confederation of Ionian city-states that eventually came under the control of what we now know as the Athenian maritime empire.8 In the passage I just quoted, Thucydides explicitly compares the Delia, as a seasonally recurring Panionian festival celebrated at Delos, with the Ephesia, a seasonally recurring Panionian festival celebrated on the mainland of Asia Minor, in Ephesus (3. 104. 3). The Ephesia, as a festival, had been a rival of the Panionia, which had once been the premier Panionian festival in Asia Minor.9 Clearly, the festival of the Delia rivalled those other two festivals as an expression of Ionian identity, and this identity was ultimately re-defined by the city-state of Athens in its claimed role as the metropolis or ‘mother city’ of all Ionian city-states. Such a role was foundational for the genesis of the Athenian maritime empire.10 In the context of referring to the Panionian festival of the Delia as celebrated on the island of Delos, Thucydides links this festival to the politics of empire. He is taking for granted the immediate political reality, which was the Athenian maritime empire, and he is highlighting an earlier reality, which was an earlier maritime empire that took shape in the sixth century bce under the rule of Polycrates of Samos: as we have seen in the passage I quoted, Thucydides describes Polycrates as ‘tyrant of the people of [the island-state of] Samos, who had supreme naval power for a period of time and who had imperial rule [¼ arkhein] over the islands’ (3. 104. 2).11 For Thucydides, the maritime empire of Polycrates in an earlier time was a predecessor of the Athenian maritime empire in the historian’s own time.12

8

Hornblower (1991), 527, Rhodes (1994), 258–9. HPC II}}237–8, 246–61. On the festival of the Panionia, I cite the foundational work of Frame (2009), especially ch. 11. 10 HPC I}}15–23, II}}19–23. 11 —ºıŒæÅ › $Æ ø æÆ NåÆ Øa åæ ÆıØŒfiH ŒÆd H  ¼ººø ø ¼æÆ . 12 HPC II}}239–44, 252, 254. 9

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The wealth, power, and prestige of the Athenian empire are reflected in the magnificent spectacle of the Delian festival as celebrated in the era described by Thucydides, after the reorganization of 426 bce. Such magnificence, as we can infer even from the historian’s understated description, is given a full-blown treatment in the reportage of Plutarch in his Life of Nicias (3. 5–7). At a later point, we will consider the relevance of Plutarch’s reportage. For now, however, I concentrate on the perspective of Thucydides as he proceeds to reconstruct earlier phases of the festival of the Delia on the basis of the two passages he quotes from the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. In the Hymn as quoted by Thucydides, Delos is described as a festive centre where representatives of all Ionian cities converge in a grand assembly to validate their common origin by celebrating a Panionian festival (146–50). The historian is saying that this description of the festival indicates a prototype of the Delia, to be contrasted with the reorganized version of the festival, which as we have seen can be dated to 426 bce. After that date, the festival of the Delia was celebrated on a quadrennial basis.13 Thucydides says that there had been also an earlier Athenian katharsis (‘purification’) of Delos, and that it took place at the initiative of Peisistratus of Athens (3. 104. 1). This earlier katharsis signals an earlier Athenian inauguration of the same festival of the Delia at Delos.14 This earlier moment in the history of the Delia goes back to some point within a period of time that lasted from 546 to 510 bce, when Peisistratus and his sons were ‘tyrants’ of Athens. Thucydides views this earlier moment as a precedent for the later moment, in 426 bce, when this festival was reorganized by Athens in the era of the Athenian democracy. In terms of what Thucydides is saying, there was already a prototype of the Athenian maritime empire in the era of the Peisistratidai in the sixth century bce, and there was already a

13 As Thucydides says (3. 104. 2), ‘after the purification [katharsis], the Athenians at that point made for the first time the quadrennial festival known as the Delia’ (ŒÆd c ÅæÆ  æH a c ŒŁÆæØ KÅÆ ƒ ŁÅÆEØ a ˜ºØÆ). The wording prōton ‘for the first time’ here refers to the first time that this festival was celebrated as a pentetēris or ‘five-year festival’ (by way of inclusive counting), that is, on a quadrennial basis (to restate by way of non-inclusive counting). Clearly, the wording does not refer to the first time that this festival was ever celebrated. 14 Besides Thucydides, Herodotus too (1. 64. 2) refers to this earlier katharsis (‘purification’), and he specifies that it was initiated by Peisistratus. See Hornblower (1991), 527.

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version of the festival of the Delia that reflected the realities of that earlier empire.15 In the era of the Peisistratidai, we find a major complication in the history of Delos and the Delia. As we can see from the account that I have quoted from Thucydides, control of Delos and the Delia by the Peisistratidai of Athens must have shifted to Polycrates of Samos for a brief period in the late 520s bce, though it must have shifted back to the Peisistratidai after the death of Polycrates in 522, which had led to the collapse of his Panionian empire.16 This complication has left its mark in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo as we know it. As we can see from the mention of Polycrates in the account I have quoted from Thucydides, this Hymn was once performed in the period when control of Delos and the Delia shifted temporarily from the Peisistratidai to Polycrates.17 Thucydides signals the occasion of such a performance when he tells about the chaining of the island of Rheneia to the island of Delos by Polycrates. On this occasion, according to later sources, Polycrates organized an event that resembled a combination of two festivals, the Delia and the Pythia, for an ad hoc celebration on the island of Delos.18 The Homeric Hymn to Apollo, which offers praise for both the Delian and the Pythian aspects of the god Apollo, fits the occasion. And this occasion has been dated to 522 bce.19 Soon thereafter, in the same year, Polycrates was overthrown and killed by the Persians. Peisistratus had died earlier, in 528/7.

AN ANCIENT ATHENOCENTRIC VIEW OF HOMER The indications about a performance of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo at the festival of the Delia on the island of Delos in 522 bce need to be 15

Hornblower (1991), 520. For a sketch of the relative chronology, involving Naxos as well as Samos and Athens, see Aloni (1989), 46–7, 54–5, 62–3, 122–3. 17 HPC I}33. 18 Zenobius of Athos 1. 62; Suda s.v. tauta kai Puthia kai Dēlia; for a fuller collection of sources, see Aloni (1989), 35 n. 2, 83 n. 1. 19 See Burkert (1979), 59–60, Janko (1982), 112–13; West (1999), 369–70 n. 17 argues for 523, but his dating criteria depend on whether or not we posit a perfect match between the datable events narrated by Herodotus and Thucydides. For more on possible performance of Apoll. at Polycrates’ festival, see in this volume Chappell (pp. 71–3) and cf. Introduction (pp. 11–12). 16

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correlated with the idea of a prototypical performance of the Hymn by Homer himself. In order to understand this idea, we must first consider how Homer was viewed in Athens at the time when it was ruled by the Peisistratidai (546–510 bce). Within that period these rulers appropriated not only Delos and the Panionian festival of the Delia. They appropriated Homer as well. And they did so by making the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey the primary repertoire for performance at the most important festival in that city, the Panathenaea.20 This appropriation did not happen all at once. Still, there was a most decisive moment that led to it, and we can see that moment in the following description of an initiative taken by one of the sons of Peisistratus, Hipparchus, when he ‘brought over’ (komizein) the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey to Athens for performance there at the seasonally recurring festival of the Panathenaea: Hipparchus . . . who publicly enacted many and beautiful things to manifest his expertise [sophia], especially by being the first to bring over [komizein] to this land [¼ Athens] the verses [epos plural] of Homer, and he required the rhapsodes [rhapsōidoi] at the Panathenaea to go through [diienai] these verses in sequence [ephexēs], by relay [ex hupolēpseōs], just as they [¼ the rhapsodes] do even nowadays. ([Pl.] Hipparch. 228b–c)

Partly on the basis of this passage, Martin West has argued that Hipparchus arranged for the first complete performance of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey by rhapsōidoi ‘rhapsodes’ competing at the festival of the Panathenaea that was celebrated in 522 bce (starting on 19 August).21 I in turn have argued that these epics had been ‘brought over’ (komizein) to Athens from the island state of Chios, along with Homer’s notional descendants, called the Homēridai, who were the official performers of these epics in Chios.22

20

HPC I}25. West (1999), 382. 22 HPC I}}53–5, 141–56. The use of the word komizein in [Pl.] Hipparch. 228b, in expressing the idea that Hipparchus ‘brought over’ to Athens the epē (¼ epos plural) ‘verses’ of Homer, is parallel to the use of the same word komizein in expressing the idea that Hipparchus also ‘brought over’ to Athens the poet Anacreon—on a state ship, from the island of Samos (228c). These two initiatives are relevant to my overall argumentation about the shaping of the Panathenaea by the Peisistratidai (HQ 81 n. 50). I find it relevant to highlight here a passing reference in Plato to a garland of gold that the rhapsode Ion of Ephesus expects to win in competition for first prize in 21

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In this light, we can see more clearly the significance of the fact that the speaker in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo says explicitly that his home is the island of Chios (171–3). Such a Chiote signature on the part of the speaker was for Athenians a sign of their claim to the ownership of Homer. When Thucydides recognizes the speaker of the Hymn to Apollo as Homer (3. 104. 4–6), he is expressing an Athenocentric point of view by equating Homer, poet of the Iliad and Odyssey as performed at the Panathenaea in Athens, with Homer of Chios, the notional ancestor of the Homēridai, who is envisioned as performing the Homeric Hymn to Apollo at the Delia in Delos.23 From an Athenocentric point of view, then, the Hymn to Apollo and the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey are all composed by Homer, ancestor of the Homēridai. And all this poetry is composed in a metre known as the dactylic hexameter, which as we will see is the primary medium of performance for rhapsodes in general and for the Homēridai in particular.

AN ANCIENT POST-ATHENOCENTRIC VIEW OF HOMER From a post-Athenocentric point of view, by contrast, the man from Chios who speaks in the Hymn to Apollo is not Homer but a rhapsode by the name of Cynaethus, who may or may not be one of the Homēridai. This Cynaethus may be speaking in Homeric hexameters as if he were Homer, but he is not Homer. A passage that represents this alternative point of view comes from the scholia for Pindar’s Nemean 2, and I offer here my translation: Homēridai was the name given in ancient times to those who were descended from the lineage of Homer and who also sang his poetry [poiēsis] in succession [ek diadokhēs]. In later times, (it was the name rhapsodic performance of Homer at the feast of the Panathenaea: Ion is quoted as saying that this garland will be awarded to him by the Homēridai (Ion 530d). This reference to the Homēridai shows that the Athenians in the late fifth century (which is the dramatic time of the Ion) recognized the Homēridai of Chios as the official regulators of rhapsodic competitions in performing the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey at the Panathenaea in Athens. See HC 3}36. 23 HPC I}}138–40.

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given also to) rhapsodes [rhapsōidoi] who could no longer trace their lineage back to Homer. Of these, Cynaethus and his association became very prominent. It is said that they are the ones who made many of the verses [epos plural] of Homer and inserted [en-ballein] them into his [¼ Homer’s] poetry [poiēsis]. Cynaethus was a Chiote by lineage, and, of the poetic creations [poiēmata] of Homer that are ascribed to him [epigraphein] as his [¼ Homer’s], it was he [¼ Cynaethus] who wrote [graphein] the humnos to Apollo and attributed it to him [¼ Homer].24 And this Cynaethus was the first to perform rhapsodically [rhapsōideîn] in Syracuse the verses [epos plural] of Homer, in the sixty-ninth Olympiad [¼ 504–501 bce], as Hippostratus says. (Schol. Pi. N. 2, 1c, III 29, 9–18 Drachmann [¼ FGrH 568 F 5])

It can be argued that the ultimate source for this compressed and elliptic account transmitted in the scholia for Pindar is Aristarchus of Samothrace, head of the Library of Alexandria in the second century bce.25 As for the dating of Cynaethus by Hippostratus, the timeframe of 504–501 bce for his rhapsodic performance in Syracuse is comparable with the date proposed for the performance of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo on the occasion arranged by Polycrates of Samos: as we have seen, that date could be 522 bce. So the performer for that occasion could have been Cynaethus himself. The scholia for Pindar have more to say about this Cynaethus, and again I give a translation: Philochorus [FGH 328 F 212] says that they [¼ rhapsōidoi] were called that [¼ rhapsōidoi] on the basis of the idea of composing, that is, stitching together, the song. Proof for this comes from Hesiod, who says [¼ Hes. fr. 357 M–W]: In Delos, back then at the very beginning, I and Homer, singers [aoidoi], sang- and-danced [melpein],26 stitching together [rhaptein] a song in new humnoi, making Phoebus Apollo the subject of our song, the one with the golden weapon, the one born of Leto.

24 Martin (2000), 419 n. 58 suggests that the phrasing here could mean instead: ‘and dedicated it to him [¼ Apollo]’. See also Collins (2004), 184. 25 See HTL 28–9 n. 14, where I argue that Aristarchus is the basic source for the statement up to the portion mentioning the testimony of Hippostratus concerning the date of a rhapsodic performance by Cynaethus in Syracuse. 26 The verb melpein / melpesthai and the noun molpē convey the combination of singing and dancing: PH 12}29 n. 62 (¼ p. 350) and n. 64 (¼ p. 351).

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Nicocles [FGrH 376 F 8] says that Hesiod was the first to perform rhapsodically [rhapsōideîn]. The investigations of Menaechmus indicate that rhapsodes [rhapsōidoi] were called verse singers [stikhōidoi] because verses [stikhoi] were called staffs [rhabdoi] by some people. Here is another version: the Homēridai were in former times the descendants of Homer, but then, in later times, they were a group comprised of Cynaethus and his associates, who were called rhabdōidoi [staff-singers]. For these [¼ Cynaethus and his associates] are the ones who used to bring back to memory and to perform the poetry [poiēsis] of Homer, which had been scattered. But they mistreated [lumainesthai] it [¼ the poetry]. And they [¼ the Homēridai] always started with a prooemium [prooimion], making mostly Zeus their point of departure and occasionally the Muses. (Sch., Pi. N. 2. 1d–e, III 31, 7–20 Dr)

In the first part of the relevant Pindar scholia, as quoted earlier, it was claimed that Cynaethus and his associates ‘interpolated’ (enballein) additional hexameter verses and ascribed to Homer various other compositions. Supposedly, rhapsodes like Cynaethus illegitimately interpolated additional verses to augment the original verses of Homer.27 In the second part of these same scholia, as quoted just now, it is claimed that Cynaethus and his group ‘mistreated’ the body of Homeric poetry. As we can see from the claims in the first part, this alleged mistreatment involved the adding of hexameter verses that were not originally Homeric. To test the supposition that Cynaethus added verses to Homer’s own verses, let us consider the structure of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo as we have it. This Hymn appears, at least on the surface, to be a combination of two originally separate hymns,28 and so it seems reasonable to understand the Pindaric scholia to mean that Cynaethus did add verses to an earlier hymn composed by Homer. In terms of such an understanding, the verses supposedly added by Cynaethus could be described as Hesiodic rather than Homeric. Here is why. These verses constitute the part of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo that celebrates the god Apollo as he was worshipped at Delphi. In other words, the referent of these verses was the Pythian

27

HPC I}160. For this view, see Chappell in this volume (Ch. 4) and cf. Introduction (pp. 11–12). 28

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Apollo, not the Delian Apollo who was worshipped at Delos. And, as Richard Martin has shown, the verses of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo celebrating the Pythian Apollo are distinctly Hesiodic in style, whereas the verses celebrating the Delian Apollo are distinctly Homeric.29 By the term ‘Hesiodic’ he means the style that is characteristic of the Theogony and Works and Days; by ‘Homeric’ he means the style that is characteristic of the Iliad and Odyssey.30 If Cynaethus himself really performed the Homeric Hymn to Apollo at the festival of the Delia at Delos in 522 bce, then it follows that this would-be descendant of Homer could have conflated a Homeric hymn to Apollo with a rival Hesiodic hymn, treating the Hesiodic version as an aspect of an overall Homeric tradition.31 In terms of such an ancient post-Athenocentric point of view, then, the real Homer would have performed a hymn to Apollo that was more simple than the augmented Hymn as performed by Cynaethus of Chios, and the supposedly original Homeric hymn would have celebrated only the Delian Apollo at Delos, not the Pythian Apollo at Delphi.

OTHER ANCIENT VIEWS OF HOMER Such an ancient view of Homer must have been based on the evidence of an ancient text of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo that featured both the Delian and the Pythian portions as they have survived to this day. To be contrasted are other ancient views that must have been based simply on the hearing of a performance, not on the reading of a text. For audiences who heard a rhapsode perform the Hymn on a given occasion at the festival of the Delia, what would matter is not the identity of the rhapsode but the identity of the poet who was being reenacted by the rhapsode. Similarly, for audiences who heard rhapsodes perform the Homeric Iliad or Odyssey on a given occasion at 29

Martin (2000). HPC I}174. See also Petrovic (2011a and b forthcoming). 31 HPC I}175. As for why Apoll. survives as a Homeric and not as a Hesiodic hymn, I offer an explanation in HB 302. For further discussion of the Delian and the Delphic parts of this Hymn, see Chappell (Ch. 4), with alternative explanations and relevant bibliography. 30

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the festival of the Panathenaea, what would matter is the simple fact that the rhapsodes re-enact Homer. Here and hereafter, I equate the concept of ‘re-enactment’ with the concept conveyed by the Greek word mimēsis, which I hereafter write simply as mimesis. When the Homeric rhapsode performs the words that say ‘tell me, Muses!’ (Il. 2. 484) or ‘tell me, Muse!’ (Od. 1. 1), this ‘I’ is not just a representation of Homer: it is Homer.32 In other words, the rhapsode is re-enacting Homer by performing Homer, and he is Homer so long as the mimesis stays in effect, so long as the performance lasts. From the standpoint of the mimesis, the rhapsode is a recomposed performer: he becomes recomposed into Homer every time he performs Homer.33 From this point of view, the rhapsode who adds verses in the act of performance does not necessarily disqualify himself as a re-enactor of Homer. The adding of verses is an act of interpolation only in terms of a text, not in terms of a performance.

EVIDENCE FROM LIFE OF HOMER NARRATIVES What I just said about the adding of verses is a theme that is actually attested in a text that belongs to a set of texts known as the Life of Homer narratives.34 Before I show the attestation, however, I offer a general formulation about the significance of such narratives:35 The Life of Homer traditions represent the reception of Homeric poetry by narrating a series of events featuring purportedly ‘live’ performances by Homer himself. In the narratives of the Lives, Homeric composition is consistently being situated in contexts of Homeric performance. In effect, the Lives explore the shaping power of positive and even negative responses by the audiences of Homeric poetry in ad hoc situations of performance. To put it another way, the narrative strategy of the Lives is a staging of Homer’s reception. My describing the Life of Homer traditions as a staging converges with my aim to show that the narratives of these Lives are myths, not 32 33 34 35

PP 61. Again, PP 61. See also Papadopoulou (2004) and Petrovic (2011b forthcoming). For background on these narratives, see HPC I}}55–136 (also Nagy 2004a). HPC I}}57–8.

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historical facts, about Homer. To say that we are dealing with myths, however, is not at all to say that there is no history to be learned from the Lives. Even though the various Homers of the various Lives are evidently mythical constructs, the actual constructing of myths about Homer can be seen as historical fact.

And the point I have just made about Life of Homer narratives applies also to Life of Hesiod narratives.36 That said, I am ready to show the attestation I have found in the Life of Homer narratives where even the figure of Homer himself is viewed in the act of adding verses to his own compositions. It happens in the Herodotean Life of Homer, which is composed in the Ionic dialect and which reflects a political and cultural perspective that is favourable to the island state of Chios.37 In this narrative, we catch the figure of Homer himself in the act of ‘interpolating’ (en-poieîn) by adding verses glorifying Athens while composing the Iliad and Odyssey in Chios (379–99).38 Homer eventually leaves Chios and sails off for Athens, expecting to perform there his augmented version of the Iliad and Odyssey after a stopover in Samos (483–4); when he sets sail from Samos, however, Homer makes the mistake of making another stopover, on the island of Ios, and he dies there before he can reach his final destination, which would have been Athens (484–516).39 As we see from this example taken from the Life of Homer traditions, Homer can be viewed as a prototypical performer whose compositions come to life in his performances. Unlike the Herodotean Life of Homer, where Homer composes for performance in Athens though he never reaches Athens, another Life of Homer narrative shows another outcome. This narrative, known as the Contest of Homer and Hesiod (or Certamen), is derived from the work of Alcidamas, an Athenian intellectual who flourished in the fourth century bce. According to the narrative of the Contest, 36

HB 278–80. I here and below cite the Herodotean Life of Homer and the Contest of Homer and Hesiod from Allen. 38 HPC I}}94–8. At I}153, I offer an explanation for a complication that we see here in the Herodotean Life of Homer: while this narrative accepts the idea that the Iliad and Odyssey as composed in Chios by Homer were later performed at the Panathenaea in Athens, it differs from other such narratives by undermining the genealogy of the Homēridai of Chios. 39 Commentary in HPC I}}91–9, 141, 144, 154. 37

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the figure of Homer does in fact get to perform in Athens (276–85), and then he goes on to perform in other major cities of the Helladic mainland, especially Corinth (286–7) and Argos (288–314). Homer’s long-awaited songmaking tour of the Helladic mainland, which failed to take place in the Herodotean Life of Homer, is realized in the Contest of Homer and Hesiod.40

HOMER AS PERFORMER OF THE HYMN TO APOLLO IN A LIFE OF HOMER NARRATIVE Just as Thucydides attributes the Homeric Hymn to Apollo directly to Homer, so too does the Athenocentric narrative of the Contest of Homer and Hesiod: After he [¼ Homer] stayed a while in the city [of Argos], he sailed over to Delos to the festival [panēguris] there. And, standing on the Altar of Horn he speaks the humnos to Apollo, the beginning of which is: I will keep in mind and not leave out of mind Apollo, who makes things work from afar. [This verse matches the first verse of Apoll.] Then, after the humnos was spoken, the Ionians made him [¼ Homer] their common citizen [koinos politēs]. And the people of Delos, writing down his verses [epos plural] on a white tablet [leukōma], dedicated them in the sacred space of Artemis. Then, after the festival [panēguris] was declared to be finished, the Poet [poiētēs] sailed to Ios to meet Kreophylos. (Contest 315–22)

The myth about Homer in this narrative amounts to an aetiology of the festival of the Delia.41 Also, this myth about Homer in Delos motivates the institutional reality of Homeric reception, just as surely as it motivates the institutional reality of the festival that defines Homer as the model performer at that festival. And this reception depends on the basic idea that Homer comes to life in performance.42

40

Commentary in HPC E}53. HPC I}}124–36. By ‘aetiology’, I mean a myth that motivates an institutional reality, especially a ritual. See BA 16}2n2 (¼ p. 279). 42 HPC I}130. 41

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HOMER AND HESIOD AS PERFORMERS OF THE HYMN TO APOLLO IN ANOTHER LIFE OF HOMER NARRATIVE In the myth we have just seen about the performance of Homer at the festival of the Delia, there is no mention of anyone else performing at that festival. So we do not expect to see anyone other than Homer performing at the Delia. But there exists an alternative myth that shows another performer performing along with Homer at that same festival, and that other performer turns out to be Hesiod. This alternative myth is embedded in the verses of the Hesiodic fragment that I quoted earlier (fr. 357 M–W).43 In terms of the myth embedded in these verses, Homer and Hesiod collaborated with each other by producing two hymns, that is, two humnoi—one performed by Homer and the other performed by Hesiod.

MYTHS ABOUT CONTESTS OF HOMER AND HESIOD For the moment, I will concentrate on the idea of these two performances, not on the actual mode of performing. In the myth that we are now considering, the reference to performances by both Homer and Hesiod at Delos can be viewed as part of a vast complex of variant myths centring on the myth of a competition between the figures of Homer and Hesiod in a contest that will determine which of the two is the better poet. In the example at hand, the idea of an actual competition is only implicit, since the myth confines itself to showing the two poets in the act of producing two Hymns together. As we are about to see, however, the idea of competition is explicit in other examples. I begin with two references to such a competition in the overall narrative of the Contest of Homer and Hesiod. In the first of these two references, there is a passing mention of a contest of Homer and Hesiod at Aulis in Boeotia (54–5). In the second reference, we find the 43

See above pp. 289–90.

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beginning of an extended narrative about another contest between these two figures, which takes place at Chalcis in Euboea (68) on the occasion of funeral games commemorating the death of a king named Amphidamas (63–4). In the course of this extended narrative, which takes up a huge portion of the overall narrative of the Contest of Homer and Hesiod, Homer is ultimately defeated by Hesiod in the poetic competition held at Chalcis, though the narrative attributes the victory of Hesiod to the favouritism of a contemporary king who declares Hesiod as the winner and who thus overrules the favourable reception that Homer is accorded by the populace attending the contest (62–214). It has been argued that the myth of the Contest of Homer and Hesiod as mediated by Alcidamas was his own invention, based on a passing reference in Hesiodic poetry to a poetic contest that Hesiod had won in Chalcis (Hes. Op. 650–9).44 But the argument that this myth was invented by Alcidamas in the fourth century bce is untenable. Even in terms of this argument, it has to be admitted that the verses quoted in the text of the Contest as the verses of Homer and Hesiod themselves ‘were already current in the fifth century’.45 And there is ample evidence to show that the myths embedded in the text of the Contest must be far earlier than even the fifth century bce.46 As I will now argue, one version of the myth of a contest between Homer and Hesiod is embedded even in the Hesiodic Works and Days. And, as I will argue thereafter, another version is embedded in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo.

AN EMBEDDED MYTH ABOUT THE CONTEST OF HOMER AND HESIOD IN THE HESIODIC WORKS AND DAYS In the Hesiodic Works and Days, we see such a trace in a variant verse reported by the Hesiodic scholia. In this variant verse, Hesiod is declaring that his adversary in the poetic contest that he won in Chalcis was Homer himself: 44 45 46

WL 299. WL 299. HB 300.

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defeating god-like Homer with [my] humnos, at Chalcis (Sch. Hes. Op. 657a Pertusi)47

instead of winning with [my] humnos, [I say that I] carried away [as a prize] a tripod with handles on it. (Hes. Op. 657)48

The variant verse mentioning Homer is also attested in the Contest of Homer and Hesiod (213–14), where it is part of an epigram ascribed to Hesiod, who reputedly composed it in celebration of his victory over Homer.49

AN EMBEDDED MYTH ABOUT THE CONTEST OF HOMER AND HESIOD IN THE HOMERIC HYMN T O APOLLO In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, there is no explicit reference to the names of either Homer or Hesiod, and there is no explicit reference to a competition between the two. But there is an implicit competition in the form of a competing set of two parts of one Hymn. One of these two parts of the Hymn, as we have seen, is addressed to Apollo as worshipped at the festival of the Delia at Delos and the other is addressed to Apollo as worshipped at the festival of the Pythia at Delphi. The competition between these two parts of one Hymn, as we have also seen, is all-pervasive, if Martin is right that the Delian part is composed in a Homeric style while the Pythian part is composed in a Hesiodic style.50 o ø fi ،ƒ K ƺŒØ ŁE ῞ˇ Åæ. o ø fi ØŒÆÆ ç æØ æ’ TÆ. 49 All this is not to question whether the variant verse as attested in the medieval manuscript tradition of Hes. Op. 657 is genuine to the Hesiodic tradition. This verse mentioning the tripod itself may be just as genuine as the verse mentioning Homer. And each one of these two alternative verses is composed in an epigrammatic style that characterizes the verses that follow (658–9) as also the verse that precedes (656). Though both of these two variant verses may be genuine, the one that directly mentions Homer must have been phased out in the course of the poem’s crystallization into a fixed text. See HB 304, with reference to further argumentation in GM 78. 50 Martin (2000). See also Petrovic (2011b forthcoming). 47 48

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And the winner of this implicit competition between Homer and Hesiod must be in this case Homer, not Hesiod, since the Delian part of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo predicts the superiority of Homer to all other poets every time he returns to the Delia. In response to the question addressed to the Maidens of Delos, ‘Who is the most pleasurable of singers that wanders here, in whom do you (Maidens) take the most delight [terpesthai]?’ (169–70), the Delian Maidens must declare that the greatest singer of them all is the blind man who dwells in Chios (172). This blind man, ancestor of the Homēridai of Chios, must be Homer himself, who keeps eternally returning to the seasonally recurring festival of the Delia to ask the same eternal question that calls for the same eternal response.51 It remains to be seen how the identity of Homer depends on his interaction here with the Delian Maidens in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. But first, we must consider further the theme of Homer’s eternal return at the festival of the Delia.

HOMER AND HESIOD AS RHAPSODES When the Homeric Hymn to Apollo says that Homer the wanderer returns eternally to the Delia, what is really being said is that Homer gets to be re-enacted year after year by wandering rhapsodes who compete at each new seasonally recurring occasion of the festival. The idea is that Homer gets to be re-enacted eternally by rhapsodes. As I have already argued, the ‘I’ or ‘me’ in rhapsodic performances of Homeric poetry is notionally Homer himself, not the rhapsode. And I must now add that the same principle applies to Homer’s eternal competitor, Hesiod. 51 HC 2}}38–9. The ‘someone’ who asks the Delian Maidens the question that leads to their response is described as a wanderer who comes to the Delia and will be hosted there (167–8). In the version as transmitted in the medieval manuscript tradition, the use of the wording tis ‘someone’ (167) leaves open the option of imagining the same singer returning again and again, in an eternal loop, with each seasonal recurrence of the festival of the Delia. As for the version as transmitted in the quotation made by Thucydides (3. 104. 5), the variant wording tis . . . allos ‘someone else’ (verses 167–8) leaves open the same option: this seemingly ‘other’ person becomes the same person as the speaker—once the response of the Delian Maidens to that ‘other’ person is actually quoted by the speaker.

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Not only are Homer and Hesiod re-enacted by rhapsodes. They are imagined as performing like rhapsodes in their own right. The variant myths about a primal contest of Homer and Hesiod stem from the idea that these two poets performed like rhapsodes, and this idea in turn stems from variant rhapsodic traditions in the transmission of Homeric and Hesiodic poetry. The existence of such rhapsodic traditions is acknowledged by Plato, as when Socrates imagines Homer and Hesiod themselves in the act of ‘performing in the manner of rhapsodes’ (rhapsōideîn) as they ‘go wandering around’ (perierkhesthai) from city to city (Pl. R. 10. 600d–e).52 The wording we find here is strikingly similar to the wording we find in the Contest of Homer and Hesiod, where Homer is explicitly pictured as a rhapsode who wanders from city to city: ØÆÆ ªaæ e )ÆæªÅ  O Åæ æØ æåŁÆØ ŒÆa ºØ ÞÆłø fi FÆ, ‘having made [poieîn] the [comic poem] Margites [in the city of Colophon in Asia Minor], Homer went wandering around [perierkhesthai] from city to city, performing in the manner of rhapsodes [rhapsōideîn]’ (55–6).53 After his poetic competition with Hesiod at Chalcis (72–211), Homer is said to continue his life as a wandering rhapsode, and the wording echoes the earlier wording we saw just a moment ago: ‘as he went wandering around [perierkhesthai], he was telling his poetic creations [poiēmata]’ (255).54

RHAPSODIC COMPETITION AND COLLABORATION I focus on the symmetrical image, as verbalized by Plato’s Socrates, of Homer and Hesiod as itinerant professional rhapsōidoi ‘rhapsodes’ who perform at urban festivals (Pl. R. 10. 600d–e). A prime example of such performances is the tradition of rhapsodic competitions in performing Homeric and other epic poetry at the festival of the Panathenaea in the city of Athens. And, as we can see most clearly from the surviving evidence about that tradition, rhapsodic performances at such a festival were not only competitive: they were also collaborative. 52 53 54

ÞÆłø fi E . . . æØØÆ . I back up this interpretation of the text in HPC I}}103–7. æØæå  ºª a Ø ÆÆ.

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At the festival of the Panathenaea, already in the era of the Peisistratidai, competing rhapsodes were required to take turns in performing by relay the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, as we saw in the passage I quoted earlier from the Platonic Hipparchus (228b–c). In such rhapsodic performance by relay, collaboration was fused with competition, since the rhapsodes competing at the Panathenaea would be expected to collaborate with each other in the process of performing, by relay, successive parts of integral compositions like the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey.55 The regulating of rhapsodes in their relay performances, as we see it at work in the description we read in the Platonic Hipparchus, did not originate at the festival of the Panathenaea at Athens, even if Hipparchus can be credited with the initiative of bringing over to Athens, for the Panathenaea of August 522 bce, the Homēridai of Chios for the purpose of regulating the rhapsodic performances of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey at that Athenian festival. As the work of Douglas Frame has shown, such regulation of rhapsodic performance by relay, as represented by the Homēridai, was already operational in the late eighth and early seventh centuries at the festival of the Panionia held at the Panionion of the Ionian Dodecapolis in Asia Minor.56 Still, since the practice of regulating the relay performances of rhapsodes can be seen most clearly in the case of the Panathenaea in Athens, I refer to this practice as the Panathenaic Regulation.57 The model I have developed so far, where rhapsodes collaborate as well as compete in the process of performing, by relay, successive parts of integral compositions like the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, can be used to explain the unity of these epics as they evolved over time.58 And now it can also be used to explain the unity of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo as a fully integrated composite of two hymns. The 55

PR 36–9. For a comparative perspective on the concept of competitionin-collaboration, see PP 18. 56 Frame (2009), ch. 11. Also, I agree with Frame’s argument (583–4) that the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, as epic traditions, ‘reached Athens almost immediately after they took root on Chios, and that even earlier they may have begun to be known in Athens directly from the Panionia’. In terms of this argument, Hipparchus can be credited only with the actual authorization of the Homēridai as regulators of epic performances by rhapsodes at the Panathenaea in Athens. 57 More on the Panathenaic Regulation in HC 2}297 and HPC I}}37–43, 47, 54, 144, 166–8, 229–31; II}}109–10; E}69. 58 PR 42–7.

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prototypical event of performing such a composite of a Delian hymn composed by Homer and of a Pythian hymn composed by Hesiod is dramatized in the Hesiodic fragment that I quoted earlier (fr. 357 M–W). The word rhaptein ‘stitch together’ as used in the verses in this fragment is a reference to the performances of rhapsodes, since the word rhapsōidos means, etymologically, ‘he who stitches together [rhaptein] songs [aoidai]’.59 As for the word melpein ‘sing-and-dance’ as also used here, I need to postpone my analysis until we reach a later point in the argumentation. As we can see from these verses, a rhapsodic performance of a Hymn to Apollo at the Delia in Delos was not necessarily envisioned as one performance by one rhapsode. There could be successive rhapsodic performances by successive rhapsodes, even by successive Homēridai, who could be re-enacting Homer and Hesiod in succession. And such succession would require collaboration as well as competition. In making this point, I draw on the relevant wording in the scholia for Pindar’s Nemean 2 (1c) translated above, focusing on the expression ek diadokhēs with reference to the relay singing of the Homēridai of Chios: ‘and they [¼ the Homēridai] also sang his [¼ Homer’s] poetry [poiēsis] by taking turns [ek diadokhēs]’.60 This expression ek diadokhēs is conventionally translated as ‘in succession’.61 But such a translation leaves it open whether the ‘succession’ is from ancestor to descendant or from one participant to another while taking turns. I have collected examples of this expression where we see both senses, succession by heritage and succession by relay.62 59

PP 61–9. See the fragment above p. 289. Q ŒÆd c ÅØ ÆPF KŒ ØÆåB fi q. See the scholia above pp. 288–9. So West (1999), 368. 62 HPC I}}163–4. We find an example of the first sense in the scholia for Pi. O. 6 (158a, I 191 Dr), where Hieron is said to have inherited a priesthood ek diadokhēs ‘in succession’ from one of his ancestors. We find an example of the second sense in the scholia for Pi. P. 12 (25 Semitelos p. 121), where the three Graiai are said to share one eye and one tooth, using them ek diadokhēs ‘in relay’, that is, by taking turns. There is another example in Arist. Ph. 5. 227a 28–9: ŒÆd x  ºÆ a KŒ ØÆåB çæa Kå Å, ıåc ’ h (‘and just as the torch race by relay [ek diadokhēs] is locomotion that is consecutive but not continuous . . . ’). Moreover, the expression ek diadokhēs can mean ‘taking turns’ in contexts where it is used together with allēlois ‘with each other’. A case in point is a passage from Arist. fr. 347. 15 Rose (¼ Ael. VH 1. 15) where he describes how a mother bird and a father bird warm the eggs in their nest by taking turns (ek diadokhēs) with each other (allēlois). I end this list with a particularly striking example from the scholia D for Iliad I (604), where ek diadokhēs refers to 60 61

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On the basis of the examples I have collected, I offer this formulation about rhapsodic traditions of relay performance, applying the terms synchronic and diachronic as pioneered by Saussure:63 In order to represent this diachronic succession of generations, there has to be a synchronic grouping of these generations as a corporation of practitioners. That corporation is named as the Homēridai, the ‘descendants of Homer’. In the act of performance, the descendants are all synchronized as one corporation who incorporate the ancestor by taking turns in re-enacting him.64 In the scholia for Pindar’s Nemean 2 (1c), the idea that members of this corporation of the Homēridai sing the poetry of Homer in relay, taking turns, is then followed up by the idea of generational succession. But the legitimacy of this succession is questioned. From an Aristarchean perspective, the successors of Homer are not genuinely doing what their predecessor had done, and so they are not genuine. So they are illegitimate. This supposedly illegitimate corporation described as ‘Cynaethus and his association’65 engage in various poetic activities like ‘interpolating’ (en-ballein) additional verses to augment the supposedly genuine verses of Homer or ‘ascribing’ (epi-graphein) to Homer a humnos that they composed on their own. Even though the statement as recorded in the scholia for Pindar rejects the poetic activities of ‘Cynaethus and his associates’ as illegitimate, typical of those who are more recent than the genuine Homer, it nevertheless sets up a parallel between them and the Homēridai—as associations of performers. By implication, just as the Homēridai sing Homer as a group, taking turns, so too ‘Cynaethus and his associates’ sing Homer as a group, taking

the relay singing of the Muses: ŒÆd ÆyÆØ ººø ŒØŁÆæÇ KŒ ØÆåB Ææa æ fi q (‘and they, while Apollo was playing the kithara, were singing in relay [para meros], by taking turns [ek diadokhēs]’). 63 For my use of the words ‘synchronic’ and ‘diachronic’, see HR 1, with reference to De Saussure (1916), 117. 64 See HPC I}164. There I go on to argue that the same can be said about, say, the mother bird and the father bird that feed their young in relay: that principle of relay is the model for the idea that each new generation has to follow the practice of the previous generation in feeding the young. Or again, the principle of the relay in the Athenian torch race is a ritualized way of expressing the continuity of the tradition of torch racing in and of itself. We may compare the idea of the Asklēpiadai, notional descendants of the prototypical physician Asklēpios, who are figured as a corporation of physicians who practise medicine by continuing the practice of their ancestor. So also the Homēridai, notional descendants of Homēros, are figured as a corporation of singers who continue the practice of singing Homer. For them to sing in relay is a synchronic ritualization of the diachronic continuity. 65 ƒ æd ˚ÆØŁ.

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turns. Whatever it is that ‘Cynaethus and his associates’ may do, the statement is explicit about what is done by the Homēridai: they sing the poetry of Homer ‘by taking turns’ (ek diadokhēs).66

This formulation applies primarily to the model of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey as relay poetry performed by the Homēridai, but it can apply secondarily to the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, in the sense that Homer and Hesiod can be imagined as performing by relay. And, in this kind of relay performance, Homer and Hesiod would have to be collaborating with each other while they are competing with each other. There are traces of this theme of rhapsodic relay even in the narrative of the Contest of Homer and Hesiod, the setting of which is Chalcis. In this case, however, the balance between competition and collaboration is markedly uneven, and the narrative makes it evident that the unevenness stems in part from the faulty and even unfair regulation of this contest at Chalcis by the king who presides. In the course of the unfairly regulated competition between Homer and Hesiod, Hesiod has the advantage of testing Homer unilaterally by challenging his rival to perform a variety of feats in poetic improvisation (72–204).67 Still, even though the terms of this particular 66

HPC I}165. At one point in the narrative of the Contest, after Homer has already countered successfully the initial poetic challenges thrown at him by Hesiod, he is challenged by Hesiod with what is meant to be an impossible poetic task (Contest 94–101): )F’ ¼ª Ø  ’ KÆ  ’ K Æ æ ’ KÆ j H b Åb ¼Ø, f ’ ¼ººÅ BÆØ IØB (‘Come Muse, sing for me things that are, and that will be, and that have been once upon a time, j yes sing them, and, of all of these things, sing nothing, but you must have in mind the rest of the song’); Homer responds, P ’ I çd ˜Øe  ø fi ŒÆÆå ¥Ø j –æ ÆÆ ıæłıØ KæÇ æd ŒÅ (‘Never around a tomb of Zeus will horses with clattering hooves j smash up the chariots they draw as they compete for victory’). I interpret the expression ¼ººÅ . . . IØB in the wording of Hesiod’s challenge to Homer to mean ‘the rest of the song’, not ‘another song’. At a later point, I will examine further contexts of this and other related expressions, showing that these expression refer to the poetics of rhapsodic relay, where one rhapsode takes over from the previous rhapsode in performing what becomes one song by way of the relay. In the present context, the challenge in the riddle is this: how can you sing ‘the rest of the song’ in competitive relay with the previous singer if you cannot sing anything about the past, present, and future? Homer rises to the challenge by singing, in competitive relay, about an event that is surely exempt from the past, present, and future because it can never happen, and that event is the death of Zeus, to be commemorated by funeral games held in the god’s honour. If we chose the alternative interpretation, ‘another song’, then the point of Hesiod’s challenge would be blunted, because there would be no difficulty in responding to the challenge of simply performing ‘another song’, which would not need to be a distinctly different song and could even be any other song at all. 67

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competition are shown to be unfair, the formal characteristics of Hesiod’s quoted poetic challenges and of Homer’s quoted poetic responses are clearly traditional.68 Such formal characteristics can also be found in ancient reportage concerning rhapsodic competitions that actually took place in the historical period extending from the sixth into the fourth century bce.69 The parallelism of Homer and Hesiod as symmetrically matched poetic opponents is formalized only at the very end of the Contest of Homer and Hesiod, when the storytelling reaches the final phase of the contest (176–210): ‘It is only when each poet is asked to recite the finest piece of his poetry that their abilities can be weighed against one another.’70 This last part of the Contest is what comes closest to what we see in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, which combines the best of Homer as a master of this form of poetry with the best of Hesiod as a rival master.71 But Hesiod, unlike Homer, is a recessive figure in this Hymn, which after all represents the legacy of the Homēridai. In the end, the Hymn to Apollo survives as a Homeric hymn, not as a Hesiodic one. The figure of Hesiod could perhaps have defeated Homer at the festival of the Pythia in Delphi, just as he defeats him at Chalcis, but Hesiod cannot defeat Homer at the festival of the Delia in Delos, where Homer as the ancestor of the Homēridai must have his own victory.72

68 Another version of this competitive exchange is provided by Plutarch’s Banquet of the Seven Sages (153f–4a), who says that it was another poet, Lesches of Lesbos, who challenged Hesiod by way of quoting his own verses about saying nothing about everything (Lesches Little Iliad fr. 23 Allen), to which Hesiod responded by way of quoting verses of his own about the impossible event of a funeral for Zeus (Wilamowitz-Moellendorff [1916b], p. 56. 2–3). In the version of the myth as we have just seen it in the Contest, by contrast, the verses that match closely the verses quoted by Lesches are attributed to Hesiod (97–8), whereas the verses that match closely the verses quoted by Hesiod are attributed to Homer (100–1). See HB 303, where further analogies are analysed. 69 Collins (2004), 177–8, 185. 70 WL 300. 71 Such a combination of hymns, I should note, could have been performed solo as well as by relay. Even a solo performance, however, would have accommodated a reenactment of a relay from Homer to Hesiod, so long as the principle of performing by relay was in any case embedded in the conflated composition. 72 On a potential competition between Homer and Hesiod at Delphi, see HB 300–3. A related topic, as I show there, is the appropriation of Hesiodic poetry by the Peisistratidai of Athens.

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A DISTINCTION BETWEEN RHAPSODIC AND CHORAL PERFORMANCE The theme of a victory by Homer over Hesiod at the Delia in Delos is linked with the theme of Homer’s interaction with the Delian Maidens in the Hymn to Apollo. This interaction, as the text of the Hymn makes clear, leads to Homer’s status as a Panhellenic celebrity: once Homer leaves Delos behind after his performance there, he will wander from city to city throughout the Hellenic world (174–6), spreading the poetic kleos ‘fame’ of the Delian Maidens (174), and this fame will be a reciprocation of the fame of his own poetry, which is thus universalized (173). So this fame, stemming from Homer’s interaction with the Delian Maidens at the Delia, is essential for his victory at that festival. But there is a distinction to be noted here: although Homer wins by way of performing as a rhapsode, the Delian Maidens with whom he interacts are performing in a mode that is not rhapsodic but choral. This distinction between rhapsodic and choral performance turns out to be vital for an understanding of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo and of all the Homeric Hymns.73 I begin by elaborating on the point I just made, that the performance of the Delian Maidens in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo is pictured as choral. Wording that indicates such performance is evident from the references in the Hymn to their singing (161 o  IıØ, 164 IØ) and to their dancing to the rhythm of percussive instruments (162 Œæ ƺØÆ).74 In this context of choral performance, I highlight the fact that the Delian Maidens in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo are described as masters of mimesis or ‘re-enactment’ (verb mimeîsthai at verse 163).75 This reference is saying something that is fundamentally Before we proceed, I must note that I use the words ‘choral’ and ‘chorus’ in the ancient sense of the Greek word khoros, which means ‘song-and-dance group’ or ‘choral group of singers-dancers’, to be contrasted with the everyday meaning of the modern English word ‘chorus’, which fails to convey the aspect of dancing that complemented the aspect of singing in the ancient Greek word khoros. See PH 1}8 (¼ p. 20). 74 Peponi (2009). She notes the iconographical evidence showing Muses in the act of dancing to the rhythm of these instruments. The parallelism of the Muses and the Delian Maidens in this regard is relevant to what I have to say later about other such parallelisms. On the reading Œæ ƺØÆ, cf. in this volume Faulkner (p. 186 n. 46). 75 Commentary in HC 2}27 n. 22. 73

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true about choral performance in general, which as we know from the surviving textual evidence is highly mimetic. A most striking example in general is the extant body of choral lyric poetry composed by such masters as Simonides and Pindar.76 What I just said about choral performance applies to rhapsodic performance as well: this medium too is highly mimetic. A most striking example is the interaction of Homer with the Delian Maidens in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. As we have seen, Homer re-enacts the Maidens by quoting what they say, which is said not in their own choral medium but in the rhapsodic medium of the Hymn.77 So the medium of rhapsodic performance shows that it can make a mimesis of the medium of choral performance as exemplified by the Delian Maidens, who are the absolute masters of choral mimesis. This way, Homer demonstrates that he is the absolute master of rhapsodic mimesis. As absolute masters of choral mimesis, the Delian Maidens in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo are parallel to the Muses in the Hesiodic Theogony, who are pictured as an idealized chorus (7 åæ , 63 åæ) as they sing (10/43/65/67 ZÆ ƒEÆØ, 68 Od ŒÆºB fi ) and dance (3–4 ’ ±ƺEØ j OæåFÆØ, 8 KææÆ b , 70 KæÆe b H o F OææØ). And, further, the figure of Homer as an absolute master of rhapsodic mimesis is parallel to the figure of Hesiod in the Theogony, who re-enacts the Muses by quoting what they say, but who says it not in the choral medium of the Muses but in the rhapsodic medium of the Theogony (99–101 ÆPaæ IØe j . . . ŒºEÆ æ æø IŁæø j  Ø).78

76 In the case of Pindar’s victory odes, for example, the speaking ‘I’ can make a mimesis of everyone and anyone who may be relevant to the act of praising the victor: the laudator, the laudandus, the kōmos, an optional khoros embedded within the kōmos, the ancestor, the athlete, the hero, and so on. Pindar’s odes also make mimesis of a wide variety of poetic functions, including what Bundy (1972) describes as a ‘hymnal’ function (55–7). As Bundy shows, Pindar’s odes can even make mimesis of ‘the actual process of thought in arriving at its goal’ (59 n. 59; see also 61–2). 77 HC 2}40. 78 I use the term ‘rhapsodic’ here in a sense that resembles the usage of Meyer (1933), though I distance myself from the idea that ‘rhapsodic’ is not ‘cultic’. This idea leads to the further idea of a dichotomy between ‘rhapsodic’ hymns and ‘cult’ hymns. Both these ideas shape the thinking of Bundy (1972), 73; also Bundy (1986), 46; more in Miller (1986), 1–6. I find it important that Miller (4) entertains the view that ‘the rhapsodic and the “cult” hymn share a common origin’. See Furley in this volume (Ch. 10) on rhapsodic hymns as epicized elaborations of cult hymns.

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On the basis of these and other parallels between the Delian Maidens of the Hymn to Apollo and the Muses of the Hesiodic Theogony, I have argued that the Maidens of the Hymn are in fact local Muses of Delos.79 There is a symmetry between the poet of the Hymn to Apollo and Hesiod as the poet of the Theogony. I focus on the fact that the Delian Maidens are addressed with the hymnic salutation khairete in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (166) just as the Olympian Muses are addressed with the hymnic salutation khairete in the Theogony (104). This symmetry indicates that the poet of the Homeric Hymn is in effect addressing the local Muses of Delos, who are divine in their own right.80 That said, I come back to my argument that the Delian Maidens in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo make mimesis by way of choral performance, while Homer makes mimesis by way of rhapsodic performance. On the basis of the parallelisms we have just seen between the Homeric Hymn to Apollo and the Hesiodic Theogony, I argue that the Delian Maidens, as Homer’s local Muses in the Hymn, are a divine model for the performance of humnoi by Homer just as the Muses in the Theogony are a divine model for the performance of humnoi by Hesiod.81

THUCYDIDES ON CHORAL PERFORMANCE BY THE DELIAN MAIDENS AT THE DELIA As we saw in the passage I quoted from Thucydides (3. 104. 5) at the outset, the historian refers to the Delian Maidens as gunaikes ‘women’ 79 See also HB 284. In Apoll., the Delian Maidens are described as the therapnai ‘attendants’ of the god Apollo (157), and they are addressed by the poet of the Hymn with the hymnic salutation khairete ‘hail and take pleasure’ (166), in conjunction with the god Apollo (165). With his salutation of khairete (166), the poet is asking the Delian Maidens to accept the kharis ‘favour’ of his song and to give him their ‘favour’, their kharis, in return. The hymnic salutation khaire / khairete is used in the Homeric Hymns to address the given god / gods presiding over the performance of each given Hymn. Similarly in the Hesiodic Theogony, the figure of Hesiod addresses the Muses with the hymnic salutation khairete (104) in the context of naming them, in conjunction with Apollo, as the divine sources of poetic power (94–5). On the salutation khaire cf. in this volume Calame (p. 354). 80 On the transformation of the Hesiodic Muses in the Theogony from local Heliconian goddesses to Panhellenic Olympian goddesses, see HB 285. 81 HC 2}40. On musical performance embedded in the Hymns, see in this volume Calame (Ch. 14).

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who perform in a ‘song-and-dance group’, that is, in a khoros (e . . . ˜ÅºØÆŒe åæe H ªıÆØŒH). I will start with this reference to choral performance at the Delia as I examine further the testimony of Thucydides on the relationship of the Delian Maidens and Homer. When Thucydides refers to this group as a khoros of local ‘women’, not Muses, he is simply following his usual practice of downplaying details of myth and ritual. But I argue that the Delian Maidens who perform at the festival of the Delia in Delos are simultaneously Muses as well as real-life performers participating in a chorus of local girls or women, since the role of divinity can be appropriated by participants in a chorus during choral performance.82 That is to say, the Delian Maidens as a local female chorus can re-enact the Delian Maidens as local Muses.83 What is essential for now is that even Thucydides accepts the idea that the chorus of Delian Maidens with whom Homer himself interacted in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo is somehow a prototype for the choruses that perform at the Delia in historical times. Relevant is the wording of Thucydides where he makes these further remarks about the performances of choruses at the Delia (3. 104. 6): ‘So much for the evidence given by Homer concerning the fact that there was even in the remote past a great coming together and festival [heortē] at Delos; later on, the islanders [nēsiōtai] and the Athenians continued to send songand-dance groups [khoroi], along with sacrificial offerings [hiera].’84 For city-states to send their local choruses to perform at festivals like the Delia was considered to be part of a ‘sacrifice’, as conveyed by the word hiera ‘sacrificial offerings’ in the description I just quoted from Thucydides.85 In fact, as I show in a study of epigraphical and literary sources dating especially from the fourth century bce, a traditional word for ‘festival’ was thusia, which literally means ‘sacrifice’.86 There is a most relevant attestation of both these words, hiera ‘sacrificial offerings’ and thusia ‘sacrifice, festival’ in an account 82

HB 284–5; also Nagy (2006), 317, 319–20. See also Calame (2001) 30, 104, 110. 84 ÆFÆ b  O Åæ KŒ Åæø ‹Ø q ŒÆd e ºÆØ ªºÅ  ŒÆd æc K B fi ˜ºø fi · oæ b f b åæf ƒ ÅØHÆØ ŒÆd ƒ ŁÅÆEØ Ł’ ƒæH  . 85 Relevant also is the word anagein ‘bring’ in Thucydides 3. 104. 3, since this verb, with khoroi as its direct object, ‘seems to describe a typically religious “contribution”’. So Kowalzig (2007), 71. 86 PR 40–1, 48–9, 52–3, 83. 83

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concerning the celebration of the Delia at Delos in the glory days of the Athenian empire. This account, which gives a full-blown description of the magnificent spectacle of choral performances at the Delia, comes from Plutarch’s Life of Nicias (3. 5–7). This description by Plutarch, composed half a millennium after the events described, still features the essential ritual concepts of hier(ei)a ‘sacrificial offerings’ and thusia ‘sacrifice, festival’.87 And we know that the practice of sending choral groups to perform at Delos, as attested in Plutarch’s narrative about events taking place in the second half of the fifth century, was in full bloom already in the first half of the fifth century bce, when choruses sang and danced choral songs composed by such master poets as Simonides and Pindar. The primary evidence comes from surviving fragments of their choral songs.88

87 Here is my translation of the relevant passage in Plutarch’s Life of Nicias (3. 5–7), showing in context the two key words hier(ei)a ‘sacrificial offerings’ and thusia ‘sacrifice, festival’:

Nicias is remembered for his ambitious accomplishments with regard to Delos— accomplishments most spectacular in all their splendour and most worthy of the gods in all their magnificence. Here is an example. The choral groups [khoroi] that cities used to send (to Delos) for the performances of songs sacred to the god (Apollo) used to sail in (to the harbour of Delos) in a haphazard fashion, and the crowds that would gather to greet the ship used to start right away to call on the performers to start singing their song. There was no coordination, since the performers were still in the process of disembarking in a rushed and disorganized way, and they were still putting on their garlands and changing into their costumes. But when he [¼ Nicias] was in charge of the sacred voyage [theōria] (to Delos), he first took a side trip to the island of Rheneia, bringing with him the choral group [khoros] and the sacrificial offerings [hiereia] and all the rest of the equipment. And he brought with him a bridge that had been made in advance, back in Athens, to fit the present occasion, and this bridge was most splendidly adorned with golden fixtures, with dyed colours, with garlands, with tapestries. Overnight, he took this bridge and spanned with it the strait between Rheneia and Delos—not a very great distance. Then, come daylight, he led the procession in honour of the god and brought across the bridge to their destination the performers of the choral group [khoros], who were outfitted most magnificently and were all along performing their song. Then, after the sacrifice [thusia] and after the competition [agōn] and after the feasting, he set up as a dedication to the god the (famous) bronze palm tree . . . I should note about this passage that the initiative of Nicias in spanning the strait between the islands of Rheneia and Delos must have been interpreted as the ritual equivalent of the earlier chaining together of the two islands by Polycrates, as narrated by Thucydides 3. 104. 2. 88 This evidence has been surveyed and analysed by Kowalzig (2007), ch. 2.

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In one of these choral songs, composed by Simonides to be performed at the Delia in Delos, the Delian Maidens themselves are actually called upon to shout a choral cry (PMG 519 fr. 55a 3): [Oºº]Æ ˜Æºø ŁªÆæ (‘shout the cry of olologē, daughters of the Delians’).89 The majority of these choral songs performed in honour of Apollo can be identified as paianes ‘paeans’.90 And there is an explicit reference in Euripides to such a paean as chorally performed by the Delian Maidens themselves at Delos: A paean do the Delian Maidens sing as a humnos around the temple gates, singing (Apollo) the true child of Leto as they swirl, and they have such a beautiful khoros. I too, singing paeans at your palace, aged singer that I am, like a swan, from my greybearded throat, will send forth a cry. For whatever is real has a place to stay in my humnoi. (E. HF 687–95)91

As we can see from this reference in a choral song composed by Euripides, the Delian Maidens are described as performing the kind of choral song that is known as the paian ‘paean’, which is equated here with the performing of a humnos.92 The equation is made clear in the syntax of the wording, which can be analysed in two steps. First, the verb humneîn ‘sing a humnos’ takes as its inner object the song that is sung as a humnos, and this song is in fact a paian ‘paean’. Second, the same verb humneîn takes as its outer object the name of the god Apollo, who is both the object of praise and the subject of the song that is the humnos. When I use the expression subject of the song here, I mean the subject matter, not the grammatical subject. In the grammar of a humnos as a song, the divinity that figures as the subject of the song is in fact the grammatical object of the verb of singing the song.

89

Kowalzig (2007), 64–6. Kowalzig (2007), 57. 91 Here are the original Greek lines that correspond to my translation: ÆØAÆ b ˜ÅºØ j  F’ I çd ºÆ j e ¸ÆF hÆØÆ ª, j ƒºıÆØ ŒÆººåæØ·j ÆØAÆ ’ Kd E ºŁæØ j ŒŒ S ª æø IØe j ºØA KŒ ªø j ŒºÆø· e ªaæ s j E o ØØ æåØ. 92 See Kowalzig (2007), 66, and, in general, Henrichs (1996). 90

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The ritual context of such choral performance is made evident in a paean (Paean 12 ¼ fr. 52m SnM) composed by Pindar to be performed at Delos by a chorus sent there from the island state of Naxos (6, [˝Æ]Ł), and the context of the actual performance of the paean is highlighted as a thusia ‘sacrifice’ (also line 6, Łı[Æ fi ]).93 In this same paean by Pindar, performers belonging to a local female chorus, who are described as enkhōriai ‘the local ones’, are said to be shouting a ritual cry (19, [..]çŁ ªÆ ’ KªåæØÆØ). It has been argued, plausibly, that this local female chorus can be identified with the Delian Maidens.94 And I note with great interest that this local female chorus is evidently interacting with the visiting male chorus sent from the island state of Naxos. The precise nature of such choral interaction is most likely to be mimetic: for example, the visiting male chorus may be re-enacting the performance of the local Delian Maidens,95 much as the visiting rhapsode Homer is re-enacting the performance of the Maidens in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo.96

THUCYDIDES ON RHAPSODIC PERFORMANCE BY HOMER AT THE DELIA From the evidence, then, of choral songs actually performed at the festival of the Delia in Delos, it is clear that the Delian Maidens are envisaged as performers of choral songs such as paeans.97 And it is also clear that the verb humneîn, which I have been translating as ‘sing a humnos’, expresses in those songs the ideal of choral 93

Kowalzig (2007), 60. Kowalzig (2007), 66–7. 95 Kowalzig (2007), 71 argues that ‘the Naxians performing Paean 12 . . . themselves become, as it were, the Deliades’. I disagree, however, with her idea (67) that these Delian Maidens are ‘local women in myth’ as well as ‘local women in ritual’. 96 On the re-enacting of mythical performances of female khoroi by way of the ritual performances of male khoroi, see Power (2000) on B. Ode 13; also Nagy (forthcoming). 97 In this context, I return to a point I made earlier, when I noted the parallelism between the Panionian festival of the Delia at Delos and the Panionian festival of the Ephesia at Ephesus. I think that this parallelism is relevant to another parallelism— between the choral performances of the Delian Maidens at Delos and the choral performances of the so-called Lydian Maidens at Ephesus. For ancient references to the Lydian Maidens, and for a brief analysis of these references, I cite PH 10}31 (¼ pp. 298–9). 94

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performances by the Delian Maidens. From the wording of Thucydides, however, it is just as clear that the historian understands this same verb humneîn as a word that applies to the performing of a humnos by Homer himself.98 And the problem is, the Homeric form of performance is not choral but rhapsodic. We can see the problem more clearly when we consider the wording used by Thucydides in referring to the Delian Maidens (3. 104. 5), e . . . ˜ÅºØÆŒe åæe H ªıÆØŒH  Æ , which I have been translating this way: ‘after making the subject of his humnos the Delian song-and-dance group [khoros] of women . . . ’. Thucydides may well have imagined the Delian Maidens as simply a chorus of local women whom Homer is praising, but the historian’s use of the verb humneîn says something different, showing that the Delian Maidens are not only the object of Homer’s praise but also the subject of a humnos addressed to divinities and telling all about these divinities. The use of the verb humneîn here by Thucydides is in fact an accurate syntactical replica for what is actually being said to divinities and about divinities in the Homeric Hymns in general, not only in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo in particular. For example, in the Hymn to Hermes (verse 1), the object of humneîn and the main subject to be praised is the god Hermes. We see comparable uses of humneîn at the beginnings of Homeric Hymns 9 (Artemis), 14 (Mother of the gods), 31 (Helios): o Ø )FÆ at verses 1, 1, 2 of Hymns 4, 9, 14 and  E . . . ¼æå )FÆ at verse 1 of Hymn 31. So also in the Hymn to Apollo, as we see at verses 177–8, the object of humneîn ‘singing the humnos’ and the main subject to be praised is the god Apollo: ÆPaæ Kªg P ºø ŒÅ º ººøÆ j   ø Iæªıæ, n MŒ   Œ ¸Å (‘as for me, I will not stop making Apollo the subject of my humnos, the one who shoots from afar, the one with the silver bow, the one who was born of Leto with the beautiful hair’). In this last example, the performer who sings the praises of Apollo is figured as Homer himself. In the Delian part of the Hymn to Apollo, the figure of Homer is singing the praises of the god Apollo and, secondarily, of the Delian Maidens as the local Muses of the god. As we have already seen, these Maidens are described as the therapnai ‘attendants’ of the god Apollo The word humnos is sometimes translated simply as ‘song’. As my analysis proceeds, I hope to show that this translation is too general and that humnos is used in specific contexts referring to the linking of songs in performance. 98

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(157), and the figure of Homer addresses them with the hymnic salutation khairete ‘hail and take pleasure’ (166), in conjunction with the god Apollo (165). Here I repeat a relevant fact, that the hymnic salutation khaire / khairete is used in the Homeric Hymns to address the given divinity or divinities presiding over the performance of each given Hymn. Similarly in the Hesiodic Theogony, the figure of Hesiod addresses the Muses with the hymnic salutation khairete (104) in the context of naming them, in conjunction with Apollo, as the divine sources of poetic power (94–5). So the Delian Maidens, just like the Muses, receive the same form of hymnic salutation that all the divinities of the Homeric Hymns are eligible to receive. At the very moment when Thucydides is getting ready to quote the verses in which the figure of Homer gives the Delian Maidens his hymnic salutation, the historian describes as an act of epainos ‘praise’ what Homer is about to do (3. 104. 5): ‘after making the subject of his humnos the Delian song-and-dance group [khoros] of women, he was drawing toward the completion [telos] of his words of praise [epainos], drawing toward the following verses [epos plural]’.99 From this wording of Thucydides, we see that the verses in which Homer addresses the Delian Maidens are morphologically parallel to verses that address divinities like the Muses or even Apollo himself in the Homeric Hymns.

THE PERFORMING OF HUMNOI BY THE DELIAN MAIDENS AND BY THE MUSES We have already seen that the figure of Homer ‘sings a humnos’, as expressed by the verb humneîn, in the Hymn to Apollo at verses 177–8, where the object of humneîn and the main subject to be praised is the god Apollo himself (ÆPaæ Kªg P ºø ŒÅ º ººøÆ j   ø Iæªıæ, n MŒ   Œ ¸Å). But now we will see that the Delian Maidens themselves can be shown in the act of ‘singing a humnos’, as expressed by the same verb humneîn: it 99

Å.

e ªaæ ˜ÅºØÆŒe åæe H ªıÆØŒH  Æ KºÆ F KÆı K  a

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happens earlier on in the same Hymn, at verses 158–9, and once again the object of humneîn and the main subject to be praised is the god Apollo himself, though he is accompanied this time by his divine mother and sister, Leto and Artemis (Æ¥ ’ Kd iæ æH b ººø’  øØ, j ÆsØ ’ Æs ¸Å  ŒÆd @æ Ø Nå ÆØæÆ). The fact that the Delian Maidens are shown here in the act of ‘singing the humnos’, as expressed by humneîn, shows that they are acting as Muses: we have already seen the same verb humneîn in contexts where the Muses themselves are called on to sing the praises of a given divinity who presides over a given humnos, as at the beginnings of Homeric Hymns I listed above. Here I need to review what I said before about the context of humneîn in the Heracles of Euripides (687–9), where the agents of praise for Apollo are envisaged once again as the Delian Maidens: in this context, the verb humneîn means not just ‘sing a humnos’ but also, more specifically, ‘sing a humnos to and about a divinity’, taking as its inner object the song that is sung as a humnos and as its outer object the name of the divinity who is the subject of the song. I repeat my formula: in the grammar of a humnos as a song, the divinity who figures as the subject of the song is in fact the grammatical object of the verb of singing the song. All this is not to say that the Delian Maidens, or the Muses, for that matter, sing only the praises of gods. To make this point, I start by noting that the Delian Maidens also sing about ‘men and women of ancient times’, as we see in the full version of the description that tells about the performance of the Maidens in the Hymn to Apollo: And after they [¼ the Delian Maidens] make Apollo, first and foremost, the subject of their humnos [humneîn], and, right after him, Leto and Artemis, the one who delights in her arrows, then they [¼ the Delian Maidens] take note of men and women of the past as they [¼ the Delian Maidens] sing their humnos, enchanting all the tribes of humans. (Apoll. 158–61)100

100 Here are the original Greek lines that correspond to my translation: Æ¥ ’ Kd iæ æH b ººø’  øØ, j ÆsØ ’ Æs ¸Å  ŒÆd @æ Ø Nå ÆØæÆ, j Å ÆØ IæH  ƺÆØH Mb ªıÆØŒH j o  IıØ, Ł ºªıØ b çFº’ IŁæø.

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The noun humnos here (161) applies evidently to subjects other than the subject of gods as we see them being praised in the Homeric Hymns. Similarly, the Muses in the Hymn to Apollo include subjects that are other than their main subject, Apollo, in their own singing of the humnos, as we can see in this description of the Muses as they ascend to the heights of Olympus:101 In the meantime (as the Muses are ascending to Olympus), they are taking turns, all of them, as they sing with their beautiful voice, making as the subject of their humnos [humneîn] the immortalizing gifts of the gods (yes, I can see it all102) and, when it comes to humans, (they make as the subject of their humnos) the things that humans have to endure—all the things they have to deal with, since humans are under the power of the immortal gods, and they live out their lives without the right thoughts and without the right solutions. They are unable to discover the remedy for death and the prevention of old age. (Apoll. 189–93)103

As we can see in this passage, a humnos that begins with a divinity or divinities as its opening subject can then move on to stories of the human condition as its next subject. The surviving evidence about such stories takes the form of poetry composed in hexameters and transmitted in rhapsodic performances.104 And what kinds of stories could be told in such rhapsodic performances? Closest to home, such stories could be about humans in the era of heroes, as we find them in some of the larger Homeric Hymns (as in the case of Anchises in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite). Or they could be about heroes as we find them in epic poetry like the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey. Such a subject is announced in Hymn 32

101 On the ‘politics of Olympus’, see GM 48–9, Clay (1989), 9–10, and this volume (Ch. 11); also HB 295 n. 64. 102 The particle ¼æÆ / ÞÆ / ¼æ ‘so, then’ has an ‘evidentiary’ force, indicating that the speaker notionally sees what is simultaneously being spoken. See Bakker (2005) 12 n. 32, 80, 84, 97–100, 104, 146, 172 n. 33. 103 Here are the original Greek lines that correspond to my translation: )FÆØ  Ł’ – Æ AÆØ I Ø  ÆØ Od ŒÆºB fi j  F ÞÆ ŁH Hæ’ ¼ æÆ M’ IŁæø j ºÅ Æ , ‹’ å ’ IŁÆØØ ŁEØ j Çı’ IçæÆ  ŒÆd I åÆØ, Pb ÆÆØ j æ ÆØ ŁÆØ ’ ¼Œ ŒÆd ªæÆ ¼ºŒÆæ· 104 HC 2}}110–17.

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to Selene (17–20).105 Or again, they could be about heroes in genealogical poetry. Such a subject is announced in Hymn 31 to Helios (17–19).106 Such a subject is also announced in the part of the Hesiodic Theogony that tells of mortals begotten or conceived by immortals (starting at verse 965). In the case of the Theogony, the part of the narrative that tells about the genesis of heroes comes after the initial part of the composition, where the figure of Hesiod performs a humnos (33  E) that praises the Muses (34), who are themselves the models for the performing of a humnos (11/37/51  FÆØ, 70  ÆØ ).107

A PARTING OF WAYS BETWEEN CHORAL AND RHAPSODIC PERFORMANCES OF THE HUMNOS In what we have seen so far, the performing of the humnos in the Homeric Hymns is visualized mostly as a choral activity. And the choral aspects of performing the humnos are shown most clearly in descriptions of the Muses, who are the idealized performers of the Hymns and who are represented as singing and dancing in an ideal form of choral performance. But the fact remains that the real form of performing humnoi, when these humnoi are Homeric Hymns, must be rhapsodic, not choral, since these Hymns are composed in hexameter, which is a decidedly rhapsodic form of performance. So we see here a parting of ways between rhapsodic and choral performances of the humnos. The rhapsodic form of performing the Homeric Hymns affects even the idealized descriptions of the Muses in these Hymns, since these Muses reveal some traits of rhapsodic as well as choral performers. In the last quotation I showed from the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, for example, we can see an allusion to the poetics of rhapsodic relay in the description of the Muses in the act of performance: these goddesses are said to be ‘taking turns, all of them, as they sing with their beautiful voice’ ()FÆØ  Ł’ – Æ AÆØ I Ø  ÆØ Od ŒÆºB fi , 189).108 105

HC 2}110. Again, HC 2}110. HC 2}}112–14. 108 Relevant is a reference I cited earlier from the scholia D for Iliad I (604), where the phrase ek diadokhēs refers to relay singing by the Muses: ŒÆd ÆyÆØ ººø 106 107

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Aside from such sporadic examples, however, most references to the performing Muses in the Homeric Hymns show them in a purely choral setting. By contrast, the references to the performing Homer in the Hymn to Apollo show him in the act of rhapsodic performance. It can happen, however, that the idealized choral form of performing the Homeric Hymns affects even the otherwise realistic descriptions of rhapsodic performance. A case in point is the Hesiodic fragment, quoted above (fr. 357 M–W), in which we have found an embedded version of the myth about a contest between Homer and Hesiod. In this fragment, as we have seen, the verb melpein ‘sing-anddance’ explicitly conveys a combination of singing and dancing.109 So this example illustrates once again the point I made earlier, that rhapsodic as well as choral performances are highly mimetic. Still, the fact remains that there is a parting of ways between rhapsodic and choral performances of the humnos that is this Hymn. And, as we will now see, Thucydides is aware of the gap produced by such a parting of ways.

THUCYDIDES ON THE GAP BETWEEN CHORAL AND RHAPSODIC PERFORMANCES OF THE HOMERIC HYMN TO APOLLO As we saw earlier, Thucydides says at one point that the Homeric Hymn to Apollo actually refers to the practice of sending choral performers to the Delia (3. 104. 3–4). At a later point he adds that, while this practice was continued up to the time when the Athenians reorganized the festival in 426 bce, other related practices had already been discontinued (3. 104. 6): ‘but various misfortunes evidently caused the discontinuation of the things concerning the competitions [agōnes] and most other things—that is, up to the time in question [¼ the time of the purification] when the Athenians made the competition [agōn], including chariot races [hippodromiai], ŒØŁÆæÇ KŒ ØÆåB Ææa æ fi q (‘and they [¼ the Muses], while Apollo was playing the kithara, were singing in relay [para meros], by taking turns [ek diadokhēs]’). 109 PH 12}29 n. 62 (¼ p. 350) and n. 64 (¼ p. 351). See above pp. 289–90.

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which had not taken place before then’.110 As I will now argue, one of the aspects of the festival of the Delia that had been ‘discontinued’, in terms of the reconstruction offered by Thucydides, was the practice of performing rhapsodically the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, to be contrasted with the continuing practice of sending choral performers to that festival. As the wording of Thucydides indicates here, what had been discontinued at the Delian festival were agōnes ‘competitions’ other than the competitions in choral performance. Earlier in the passage I have quoted, Thucydides describes such non-choral competitions in terms of two categories (3. 104. 3): ‘and a competition [agōn] was held there [¼ in Delos], both athletic [gumnikos] and musical [mousikos]’.111 The first kind of agōn ‘competition’ mentioned here by Thucydides is self-evident: it is gumnikos or ‘athletic’, as exemplified by the contests of boxing mentioned in the Hymn to Apollo (149). As for the second kind of agōn ‘competition’ mentioned here, however, it can easily be misunderstood: it is an agōn that is mousikos. So far, I have translated this word mousikos as ‘musical’, but I must now point out that a mousikos agōn is a competition that involves more than what we mean when we say ‘musical’. More generally, as we are about to see, a mousikos agōn is a competition in recitative as well as sung forms of performance. Such recitative forms of performance, as we are also about to see, are basically rhapsodic, as exemplified by the Homeric Hymns. In the same extended passage I quoted at the beginning from Thucydides, he refers to this same kind of competition also as agōn mousikēs. Here again is his wording (3. 104. 5): ‘that there was also a competition [agōn] in the craft of music [mousikē (tekhnē)], in which the Ionians went to engage in competition [agōnizesthai], again is made clear by him [¼ Homer] in the following verses, taken from the same prooemium [prooimion]’.112 Here again, though I have so far translated agōn mousikēs as ‘competition in the craft of music’, I must point out that the adjective mousikē, which describes the understood noun tekhnē, refers to a craft that is more than simply ‘musical’. More 110 a b æd f IªHÆ ŒÆd a ºEÆ ŒÆºŁÅ e ı çæH, ‰ NŒ , æd c ƒ ŁÅÆEØ  e IªHÆ KÅÆ ŒÆd ƒæ Æ , n ææ PŒ q. 111 ŒÆd Iªg KØE ÆPŁØ ŒÆd ªı ØŒe ŒÆd ıØŒ . 112 ‹Ø b ŒÆd ıØŒB Iªg q ŒÆd IªøØ Ø Kçø K E Æs źE, – KØ KŒ F ÆPF æØ ı.

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generally, as we are about to see, the tekhnē or ‘craft’ of mousikē refers to forms of rhapsodic as well as sung performance. Decisive comparative evidence comes from the terminology concerning the competitions at the festival of the Panathenaea in Athens. In the Aristotelian Constitution of the Athenians (60. 1), there is an explicit reference to the ‘competition [agōn] in mousikē’ (e IªHÆ B ıØŒB ) at the Panathenaea. The author goes on to say that ten magistrates called athlothetai ‘arrangers of the contests [athloi]’ were selected by lot every four years to organize the festival of the Panathenaea, and one of their primary tasks was the management of this ‘competition [agōn] in mousikē’. According to Plutarch’s Pericles (13. 9–11), the Athenian statesman Pericles reformed this competition in mousikē when he was elected as one of the athlothetai.113 In such contexts, the word mousikē is a shorthand way of saying mousikē tekhnē, meaning ‘craft of the Muses’, that is, ‘musical craft’. As I am now arguing, however, it is misleading to think of ancient Greek mousikē simply in the modern sense of music, since the categories of ‘musical’ performers at the Panathenaea included not only kitharōidoi ‘kithara-singers’ and kitharistai ‘kithara-players’ and aulōidoi ‘aulos-singers’ and aulētai ‘aulos-players’ but also rhapsōidoi ‘rhapsodes’.114And the medium of rhapsodes performing at the Panathenaea was recitative and thus not ‘musical’ in the modern sense of the word. By recitative I mean (1) performed without singing and (2) performed without the instrumental accompaniment of the kithara or the aulos.115 In the historical period, as we see especially in the evidence from the fourth century bce, the competitive performances by rhapsodes at the Panathenaea were limited to the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey. These performances were ‘musical’ only in an etymological sense, and the medium of the rhapsode was actually closer to what we call ‘poetry’ and farther from what we call ‘music’ in the modern sense of the word. Still, the fact remains that the performances of rhapsodes belonged to what is called the ‘competition [agōn] in mousikē’ (e

113

Rhodes (1981), 670–1. PR 38, surveying the evidence from inscriptions (especially IG II2 2311) and from literary sources (especially Pl. Ion and Lg.). 115 PR 36, 41–2. 114

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IªHÆ B ıØŒB ), just like the performances of citharodes, citharists, aulodes, auletes, and so on.116 We find in Plato’s Ion an explicit reference to the recitation of Homeric poetry by rhapsodes competing in ‘the competition [agōn] in mousikē’ at the Panathenaea (Ion 530a).117 And there is another such explicit reference in Speech 5 of Isocrates, the Panegyricus (159), where the speaker describes as an ancestral Athenian institution the performing of Homeric poetry in competitions at the Panathenaea, referring to these competitions as athloi ‘contests’ in mousikē (  E B ıØŒB ¼ŁºØ ). As I have already argued, the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, which is composed in hexameter, just like the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, was a rhapsodic medium. And so, just like the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, this Homeric Hymn would have been performed in the context of an agōn ‘competition’ in the craft of mousikē. This is understood by Thucydides when he says (3. 104. 3), ‘and a competition [agōn] was held there [¼ in Delos], both athletic [gumnikos] and musical [mousikos], and the cities brought song-and-dance groups [khoroi]’,118 and when he says later (3. 104. 5), ‘that there was also a competition [agōn] in the craft of music [mousikē (tekhnē)], in which the Ionians went to engage in competition [agōnizesthai], again is made clear by him [¼ Homer] in the following verses, taken from the same prooemium [prooimion]’.119 In the wording of Thucydides here (3. 104. 5), I highlight the ‘also’ (ŒÆ) in the expression ‘that there was also a competition [agōn] in the craft of music’ (‹Ø b ŒÆd ıØŒB Iªg q). Since Thucydides is referring to what Homer is about to say about his own performance in the verses about to be quoted, it is clear that mousikē must be understood here as including not only the performances of choral groups but also the performance of the Homeric Hymn, which is a rhapsodic medium composed in hexameter. So the agōn ‘competition’ in mousikē at the Delia in Delos, according to the understanding of Thucydides, had once included the performance of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. And of course it also included the performances of khoroi ‘choruses’ as part of an overall 116

HC 3}29. I have analysed this passage in PR 22, 37–8, 99. ŒÆd Iªg KØE ÆPŁØ ŒÆd ªı ØŒe ŒÆd ıØŒ , åæ  IBª ƃ ºØ . 119 ‹Ø b ŒÆd ıØŒB Iªg q ŒÆd IªøØ Ø Kçø K E Æs źE, – KØ KŒ F ÆPF æØ ı. 117 118

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mousikos agōn.120 And the mousikos agōn matched an overall gumnikos agōn or athletic competition. In the verses that Thucydides quotes as supporting evidence from the Hymn to Apollo, there is reference made to boxing, dancing, and song, as we have already seen (verse 149). But then, sometime after the Homeric Hymn to Apollo was first performed, according to the understanding of Thucydides, most aspects of both the mousikos agōn and the gumnikos agōn were ‘discontinued’ until the Athenians re-established them in the year 426 bce. I repeat the relevant wording of the historian (3. 104. 6): ‘later on, the islanders [nēsiōtai] and the Athenians continued to send song-anddance groups [khoroi], along with sacrificial offerings [hiera], but various misfortunes evidently caused the discontinuation of the things concerning the competitions [agōnes] and most other things—that is, up to the time in question [¼ the time of the purification] when the Athenians set up the competition [agōn], including chariot races [hippodromiai], which had not taken place before then’.121 This statement about the continuity of the practice of sending khoroi ‘choruses’ to perform competitively at the Delia in Delos matches the evidence we have already considered about the performances of choral songs like paeans at the Delia in the era of Simonides and Pindar. And the corresponding statement about discontinuities matches our lack of evidence for any other continuity. Evidently, among the practices that had lapsed before 426 bce was the seasonally recurring performance of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, despite the prediction we hear within the Hymn about the eternal continuity of this practice. And it is not at all clear whether the Athenians restored this practice in 426 bce. What they did restore, however, is a set of practices that match the practices then current at their own great festival, the quadrennial Panathenaea, as we see from the reference made by Thucydides to a new quadrennial format and the inclusion of such new events as chariot racing.122 120 I analyse in HC 3}}77–94 the meaning of mousikē in Plato’s Laws. In that analysis, I should have mentioned also Strabo 10. 3. 9–10. See Petrovic (2011a forthcoming). I note with special interest what Strabo says about Plato and the Pythagoreans at the beginning of 10. 3. 10. 121 oæ b f b åæf ƒ ÅØHÆØ ŒÆd ƒ ŁÅÆEØ Ł’ ƒæH  , a b æd f IªHÆ ŒÆd a ºEÆ ŒÆºŁÅ e ı çæH, ‰ NŒ , æd c ƒ ŁÅÆEØ  e IªHÆ KÅÆ ŒÆd ƒæ Æ , n ææ PŒ q. 122 See Rhodes (1994), 260.

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The word hiera ‘sacrificial offerings’, applied by Thucydides in the context of the Delia (3. 104. 6), is surely applicable in the context of the Panathenaea as well. The same can be said about the word thusia in the sense of ‘festival’, as we have seen it used by Plutarch along with the word hier(ei)a in referring to the Delia (Nic. 3. 5–7). A prime example of such an overall sacrificial context is the great Athenian festival of the Panathenaea, to which Plato’s Socrates refers as a thusia (Ti. 26e).123 The Athenocentrism inherent in the reorganization of the festival of the Delia at Delos is made explicit in the myth that connects Theseus, as culture hero of Athens, with the Delia: he is described as the founder of an agōn ‘competition’ there (Plu. Thes. 21. 3).124 Though the Athenocentrism is left implicit in the account of Thucydides, the underlying idea is unmistakable: ‘Thucydides claims, as Athenian propaganda must have done at the time, that the Athenians were not creating something new but reviving an ancient Ionian festival.’125 The setting of the festival of the Delia as reorganized in 426 bce is parallel to the setting of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo itself. In terms of the Hymn, as quoted and interpreted by Thucydides, the speaker in this setting is the speaker of the Hymn. And Thucydides recognizes the speaker of the Hymn as Homer (3. 104. 4, 5, 6). The ancient historian thinks he is quoting the words of Homer himself as he quotes from the Hymn the verses we recognize from the medieval manuscript transmission of Homer (Thucydides 3. 104. 4 / 5: Hymn to Apollo 146–50 / 165–72). This thinking of Thucydides is a most valuable piece of evidence about ancient ideas of Homer. It goes to the root of the conventional Athenian idea of Homer.126

AN OCCASION FOR PERFORMING A HOMERIC HYMN We may conclude from the testimony of Thucydides that the festival of the Delia had undergone many changes over the years leading up 123 124 125 126

PR 53. Hornblower (1991), 523; Rhodes (1994), 258. Rhodes (1994), 259. See also Graziosi (2002), 222–6, who adduces Choricius Laudatio Marciani 2. 3.

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to 426 bce. But one thing clearly remained a constant, and it is captured by the word agōn, which means literally ‘competition’. When Thucydides refers to the festival of the Delia in the passages I quoted above, he uses this noun not once but several times.127 In the text of the Homeric Hymn itself, the same noun agōn is used in referring to the festival (150). And what kind of ‘competition’ takes place at this festival? In the words of the Hymn as quoted by Thucydides, there is ‘singing and dancing’ as well as ‘boxing’: ‘and there with boxing and dancing and song j they have you in mind and delight [terpein] you, whenever they set up a competition [agōn]’ (149–50).128 So, evidently, the contests were ‘musical’ as well as ‘athletic’. In using these words ‘musical’ and ‘athletic’, I am following directly the wording used by Thucydides in considering the evidence of the verses he quotes from the Hymn (in this case, 149–50). Here again is his wording (3. 104. 3–4): ‘a competition [agōn] was held there [¼ in Delos], both athletic [gumnikos] and musical [mousikos], and the cities brought song-and-dance groups [khoroi]. Homer makes it most clear that such was the case in the following verses [epos plural], which come from a prooemium [prooimion] having to do with Apollo’.129 In another one of the Homeric Hymns we see an explicit reference to such a festival that served as a setting for the competitive performance of a Hymn. It happens in Hymn 6 to Aphrodite (19–20), which refers explicitly to the occasion of the festival where the performance of this Hymn is taking place: ‘I pray to you [¼ Aphrodite] to grant that in the competition [agōn] that is at hand I may win victory. Arrange my song.’130 It seems to me unjustifiable to assume that a performer could win such a victory by performing a Homeric Hymn in competition with other performers performing other such Hymns. The competition, I will now argue, is not between Hymns. Each Hymn has something

127 Once at 3. 104. 3, once at 3. 104. 5 [along with the verb derived from the noun], twice at 3. 104. 6. 128 ŁÆ  ıª ÆåfiÅ  ŒÆd OæåÅıE ŒÆd IØB fi j Å Ø  æıØ, ‹Æ ŒÆŁ øØ IªHÆ. 129 ŒÆd Iªg KØE ÆPŁØ ŒÆd ªı ØŒe ŒÆd ıØŒ , åæ  IBª ƃ ºØ . źE b ºØÆ  O Åæ ‹Ø ØÆFÆ q K E Ø E, – KØ KŒ æØ ı ººø . 130 e ’ K IªHØ j ŒÅ fiH ç æŁÆØ, K c ’ ı IØ.

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additional that is part of the same Hymn. And the competition includes not only each Hymn but also that additional something that is part of each Hymn.131 In making this argument, I introduce a word that Thucydides uses twice in referring to the Homeric Hymn to Apollo: that word is prooimion, which I have until now translated simply by way of a Latin term borrowed from the Greek, ‘prooemium’. As far as Thucydides is concerned, the Homeric Hymn to Apollo is ‘the prooimion of Apollo’, and it is from this prooimion that he quotes the words of Homer (3. 104. 4/5 KŒ æØ ı ººø j KŒ F ÆPF æØ ı). The essential characteristic of a prooimion is that it starts a performance. To back up this formulation, I return to an ancient paraphrase that I have already quoted in a larger context but have not yet highlighted. This paraphrase concerns the Homēridai, and we find it in the scholia for Pindar’s Nemean 2 (1d): ‘and they [¼ the Homēridai] always started with a prooimion, making mostly Zeus their point of departure and occasionally the Muses.’132 This wording paraphrases the genuine wording of Pindar, which is a mimetic rewording of a genuine ‘prooimion of Zeus’ as performed by the Homēridai: (Starting) from the point where [hothen] the Homēridai, singers, most of the time begin [arkhesthai] their stitched-together words, from the prooimion of Zeus . . . (Pi. N. 2. 1–3)133

Besides Pindar’s imitation, there is an actual attestation of a Homeric Hymn to Zeus. It is highly compressed, consisting of only four verses: I will sing Zeus as my subject, best of the gods, and most great, whose sound reaches far and wide, the ruler, the one who brings things to their outcome [telos], the one who has Themis attentively seated at his side, and he keeps her company with regular frequency.

131

For a different view on the Hymns as prooimia, see Clay in this volume (pp. 237–40); cf. Introduction (pp. 17–19). 132 ÆNd s c Iæåc ‰ Kd e ºE KŒ ˜Øe KØF æØ ØÆÇ Ø, K b ŒÆd )ıH. 133 ῞ˇŁ æ ŒÆd % ˇ ÅæÆØ j ÞÆH K ø a ºº! IØ j ¼æåÆØ, ˜Øe KŒ æØ ı.

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Be propitious, you whose sound reaches far and wide, son of Kronos, you who are most resplendent and most great. (Hy. 23)134

Zeus is figured as a transcendent hymnic subject: he can preside over a humnos even if that humnos is being performed at a festival sacred to another god. This way, Zeus gets to preside over a humnos that leads to a transcendent form of epic, which is a hymnic consequent of the ‘prooimion of Zeus’. And that epic form is the poetic legacy inherited by the ‘descendants of Homer’, the Homēridai.135

TRANSITION Here I will shift gears in order to give a working definition of the technical terms (1) hymnic subject and (2) hymnic consequent. And, in the process of defining these two terms, I will address the basic meanings of the Greek words humnos and prooimion.

THE HYMNIC SUBJECT By hymnic subject, I mean the divinity who is invoked in a humnos or ‘hymn’, as in a Homeric Hymn. Up to now, I have avoided using the word hymn with a lower-case ‘h’ as a translation of humnos. Only with reference to the Homeric Hymns, which do qualify as humnoi in the Greek language, have I equated humnos with hymn. From here on, however, I will use the English word hymn as the equivalent of Greek humnos in general, since we are about to see convergences between the ordinary uses of English hymn and the programmatic uses of Greek humnos in choral as well as rhapsodic forms of performance. What I say here about the

134 Here are the original Greek lines that correspond to my translation: ZBÆ ŁH e ¼æØ I ÆØ Mb ªØ j PæÆ ŒæÆ ºçæ, ‹  ¨ ØØ j KªŒºØe Ç fiÅ ıŒØf Oæı OÆæÇØ. j ¥ºÅŁ’ PæÆ ˚æÅ ŒØ ªØ. 135 HPC I}}242–9.

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noun hymn applies also to the adjective hymnic. That said, I am ready to explain further what I mean by the term hymnic subject. In a hymn, the invoked divinity who presides over a given festival is the subject of the hymn. In the grammar of the Homeric Hymns, for example, the divinity who figures as the subject of any hymn is normally the grammatical object of the verb of singing the hymn.136 In the logic of the Homeric Hymns, the divinity that presides over the occasion of performance becomes continuous with the occasion and thus becomes the occasion.137 And this occasion of the humnos is notionally perfect because the god who is the occasion is perfect. Such perfection is expressed by way of the word eu-humnos (hı  ) ‘good for hymning’, as in this sublime aporetic question:138 For how shall I hymn you, you who are so absolutely [pantōs] good for hymning [eu-humnos]? (Apoll. 19, 207)139

The theology, as it were, of this aporetic question can be formulated this way:140 Faced with the absoluteness of the god, the performer experiences a rhetorical hesitation: how can I make the subject of my humnos something that is perfect, absolute? The absoluteness of this hymnic subject is signalled by the programmatic adverb pantōs ‘absolutely’, which modifies not only the adjective eu-humnos ‘good for hymning’ but also the entire phrasing about the absoluteness of the subject.141 The absoluteness of the god Apollo is continuous with the absoluteness of the humnos that makes Apollo its subject. This Homeric Hymn is saying about itself that it is the perfect and absolute humnos. As such, it is not only the beginning of a composition but also the totality of the composition, authorizing everything that follows it, because it was begun so

136

As at the beginnings of Hys. 2, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23. 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32. 137 HC 2}83. 138 On the term ‘aporetic question’, see Bundy (1972) 47. On ‘apologetic’ and ‘aporetic’ rhetorical strategies, see Bundy (1972), 59 n. 59; also 60–1, 65. 139 H ªæ !  ø, ø hı  KÆ. At Apoll. 19, the manuscript reading is ªæ, while at 207, it is ’ ¼æ. 140 HC 2}24. 141 On the syntax of pantōs ‘absolutely’ as an overall modifier of absolute phraseology, see for example Solon F 4.16 ed. West and the commentary in Nagy (1985), 59–60, PH 9}7n38 (¼ p. 256).

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perfectly. And the source of the perfection is the god as the subject of the humnos.

The naming of the divinity as the subject of the humnos, together with the initial describing of the divinity, is the notionally perfect beginning of the humnos, and this beginning is the prooimion. Whereas the word prooimion refers only to the start of the continuum, the word humnos refers to both the start of the continuum and the continuum itself. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo is a perfect example: it refers to itself in terms of a humnos (verses 158, 161, 178), while Thucydides refers to it explicitly as a prooimion (3. 104. 4, 5).142 The etymology of the compound noun prooimion ‘prooemium’ indicates that the word is a metaphor referring to the world of pattern weaving.143As for the etymology of the simplex noun humnos, it has in common with the compound noun prooimion a metaphorical reference to fabric work, but in this case the fabric work is not specified as pattern weaving. If I am right in explaining the etymology of humnos in terms of the root huph- as in huphainein ‘weave’, the basic idea conveyed by this noun is weaving in general, not pattern weaving in particular.144

THE HYMNIC CONSEQUENT By hymnic consequent, I mean a performance, epic or otherwise, that follows the performance of a humnos. There is a formal relationship between the concept of humnos and the concept of epic as a hymnic consequent.145 Here I highlight only one aspect of that relationship, which is the device of metabasis. Three most telling examples from the Homeric Hymns show this identical wording: 142

HC 2}89. See also Petrovic (2011a forthcoming). HC 2}92. The word prooimion means literally the ‘initial threading’ of a song, parallel to the etymology of Latin exordium, which likewise means ‘prooemium’ in poetic and rhetorical contexts and which can likewise be traced back to the basic idea of an ‘initial threading’ or, to say it more technically in terms of fabric work, exastis or ‘selvedge’. See also PP 63 n. 20 and PR 72, 81, with reference to Latin ex-ordium as a semantic equivalent of Greek pro-oimion. 144 HC 2}91, with bibliography on alternative etymological solutions. 145 HC 2}}97, 109, 113–14, 116. 143

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But, having started off from you, I will move ahead and shift forward [metabainein] to the rest of the humnos. (Hys. 5. 293, 9. 9, 18. 11)146

The transition in all three cases, as marked by metabainein ‘move ahead and shift forward’, is predicated on the idea of a perfect beginning. The idea is, ‘I begin, starting from the god’. The process of transition or metabasis, signalled by the verb metabainein, is activated by the hymnic salutation khaire / khairete, which I interpret as ‘hail and take pleasure’. In each of the three Homeric Hymns we are considering, the salutation khaire takes place in the verse preceding the verse of metabasis. Implicit in this imperative form khaire of the verb khairein is the meaning of the related noun kharis, which conveys the idea of a ‘favour’ achieved by reciprocating the pleasure of beauty.147 What drives the performative gesture of khaire / khairete is the fundamental idea that the reciprocal favour of kharis is the same beautiful thing as the pleasure that it gives. To give such pleasure, I argue, is the key to success in reception.148 After the signal khaire / khairete in the Homeric Hymns, the actual process of metabasis can be activated. This process is made explicit in the expression I have just highlighted, Æ  ÆØ ¼ºº K o  ‘I will move ahead and shift forward [metabainein] to the rest of the humnos’ (Hys. 5. 292–3, 9. 7–9, 18. 10–12). The word humnos in the wording ¼ºº K o  in the Homeric Hymns marks the whole performance, so that ¼ºº K o  means not ‘extending into another performance’ but ‘extending into the rest of the performance’.149 So also the expression ¼ººÅ . . . IØB in other Homeric Hymns means not ‘another song’ but ‘the rest of the song’, as in the following example:

146

F ’ Kªg Iæ  Æ  ÆØ ¼ºº K o . Making this idea explicit, I have formulated this paraphrase of khaire / khairete in the context of all its occurrences in the Homeric Hymns (HC 2}99): Now, at this precise moment, with all this said, I greet you, god (or gods) presiding over the festive occasion, calling on you to show favour [kharis] in return for the beauty and the pleasure of this, my performance. See also Bundy (1972), 44, 49. For more on the rhetoric of seeking the pleasure of the gods, see his p. 62 n. 65. 148 With reference to the use of kharis in Hy. 24 to Hestia (5), Bundy (1972), 83, speaks of a ‘concern for the pleasure of a critical audience as well as for that of the god’. 149 PH 12}33 (¼ pp. 353–4), following Koller (1956), 174–82; see also Bakker (2005), 144, disagreeing with Clay (1997), 493. Further discussion in Petrovic (2011b forthcoming). 147

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You [¼ Demeter and Persephone] be favourably disposed, granting me a livelihood that fits my heart’s desire, in return for my song. As for me, I will keep you in mind along with the rest of the song. (Dem. 494–5)150

Here is the way I can summarize my findings about these transitions: ‘Metabasis is a device that signals a shift from the subject of the god with whom the song started—what I have been calling the hymnic subject—and then proceeds to a different subject—in what must remain notionally the same song.’151 I bring this section to a close by quoting the relevant words of Elroy Bundy: ‘Beginnings, middles, and ends: the meaning of literature resides in its transitions.’152

THE STAGING OF A HUMNOS IN THE HOMERIC ODYSSEY My formulation of the meaning of humnos is relevant to an ongoing performance by the singer Demodocus as represented in Rhapsody

150 Here are the original Greek lines that correspond to my translation: æçæ I’ fiTB  Łı æ’ OÇØ. j ÆPaæ Kªg ŒÆd E ŒÆd ¼ººÅ  ’ IØB . Other examples of this type include Apoll. 545-6, Herm. 579–80, Hys. 6. 19–21, 10. 4–6, 19. 48–9, 25. 6–7, 27. 21–2, 28. 17–18, 29. 13–14, 30. 17–19, and 33. 18–19. These and other such examples of the expression ¼ººÅ . . . IØB have been described in terms of a ‘break-off formula’ by Bundy (1972), 52–3, even though he recognizes the ‘transitional’ function of this formula (52). I find the term ‘break-off ’ misleading because it blunts the idea of ‘transitional’ (for more on Bundy’s use of the term ‘transitional’ see his p. 87). 151 HC 2}109. There I go on to say: Ideally, the shift from subject to different subject will be smooth. Ideally, the different subject will be consequential, so that the consequent of what was started in the humnos may remain part of the humnos. This way, the transition will lead seamlessly to what is being called ‘the rest of the song’. In other words, the concept of humnos is the concept of maintaining the song as the notionally same song by way of successfully executing a metabasis from the initial subject to the next subject. The initial subject of the god and the next subject are linked as one song by the humnos in general and by the device of hymnic metabasis in particular. What comes before the metabasis is the prooimion, the beginning of the humnos. What comes after the metabasis is no longer the prooimion—but it can still be considered the humnos. 152

Bundy (1972), 59 n. 58.

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8 of the Odyssey. The ongoing performance is signalled by the word humnos at verse 429. And the occasion for this ongoing humnos is an ongoing festival, as signalled by the word dais ‘feast’ at the same verse 429.153 This ongoing performance of Demodocus is envisaged as an alternative to and rival of the epic about to be performed by Odysseus in Rhapsodies 9 through 12 of the Odyssey. And why is the performance of Demodocus so different from the later performance of Odysseus? As I argue, it is because Demodocus is represented as performing forms of song that resemble (1) the epic form of the epic Cycle, in the case of his first and third songs, which are about the Trojan War, and (2) the hymnic form of the Homeric Hymns, in the case of his second song, which is about the love affair of Ares and Aphrodite.154 By contrast, Odysseus is represented as performing a form of song that resembles the epic form of the Homeric Odyssey itself. Here are ten relevant points, presented here in the form of an outline: (1) Each of the three songs of Demodocus in Rhapsody 8 of the Odyssey starts with a new hymnic prooimion, and each one of these three new prooimia is followed by a new hymnic consequent.155 (2) In the case of the first and the third songs, the hymnic consequent is epic poetry about the Trojan War. In the case of the second song, the hymnic consequent is a choral song and dance that makes a mimesis of the love affair of Ares and Aphrodite (370–80; supplemented by 262–5); in the overall narration, the performance of choral song and dance is preceded by an embedded narration of this love affair, performed by Demodocus and quoted by the rhapsodic medium of the Homeric Odyssey (266–366).156 (3) Just as the Homeric Hymns have hymnic prooimia and allow for metabasis to follow, so also the third song of Demodocus has a hymnic prooimion followed by a metabasis, which is performed by Demodocus after the disguised Odysseus challenges him to metabainein ‘move ahead and shift forward’ to the story of the

153

HPC I}223. On this passage as evidence for the performance of the Hymns, see Clay in this volume (pp. 249–50). 154 HPC I}}188–223. 155 HPC I}}242. 156 HPC I}}207–8. In effect, the rhapsodic medium is making a mimesis of the mimesis made by the choral medium.

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Wooden Horse in the epic narration of the Trojan War (492  ÅŁØ).157 (4) Although the metabasis as successfully executed in the third song of Demodocus may be typical of the general epic form of the Cycle, it is antithetical to the specific epic form of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, which was shaped by what I have already described as the Panathenaic Regulation of rhapsodic relay.158 This regulation, as we have seen, requires each successive performer of Homeric poetry to continue the epic performance at exactly the point where the anterior performance left off. And so, unlike the Homeric Hymns and unlike the third song of Demodocus, the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey allow for no metabasis—except for the metabasis performed by Demodocus himself as a rival of Odysseus.159 (5) Just as the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey allow for no metabasis, these two epics allow for no hymnic prooimia either. Such a prooimion is missing at the start of both the Iliad and the Odyssey.160 And it is also missing at the start of Rhapsody 9 of the Odyssey, which is the start of an embedded rhapsodic performance by Odysseus himself. To be contrasted with this regulated rhapsodic performance of Odysseus, starting with Rhapsody 9 and extending all the way to the end of Rhapsody 12, are the three unregulated performances of Demodocus in Rhapsody 8, each of which is preceded by a distinctly hymnic prooimion.161 (6) The god invoked in each one of the three hymnic prooimia performed by Demodocus in Rhapsody 8 turns out to be one and the same god, but the identity of this god is revealed only in Rhapsody 13, after both Demodocus and Odysseus have finished their rival performances. Retrospectively, we can see that both these rival

157 HPC I}}225–6. This poetic act of moving ahead makes it possible to shift the narrative forward from what had been narrated in the first song of Demodocus, which had started his ongoing epic narration of the Trojan War, and thus the third song can jump over what had been narrated in the second song. Such a shifting form of epic narration, as embedded in Od. 8, is analogous to the forms of epic that could have been introduced by the Homeric Hymns. And such a form of epic is typical of the epic Cycle. See HC 2}307. 158 HC 2}}297, 304. 159 HPC I}240. 160 There survives, however, a variant Iliadic prooimion, addressed to the Muses and Apollo: see Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1916b), 32. 16–20; I analyse this variant in HPC I}260. 161 HPC I}240.

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performances took place in the context of an ongoing festival, which is stylized as a dais ‘feast’ in Rhapsody 8 (429; also at 61).162 (7) The word agōn ‘competition’ in Rhapsody 8 (259, 260, 380) points to the festivities that have been ongoing at this festival ever since it started with an animal sacrifice (59–61), which inaugurates the dais ‘feast’ (61). Here I recall the Hymn to Apollo, where we have seen this same word agōn ‘competition’ used with reference to the recurrent festival of Apollo on the island of Delos (150). In the Odyssey, the feasting and the competition that start in Rhapsody 8 continue all the way through the narrative performed by Odysseus in Rhapsodies 9 through 12, lasting all night. Then, when dawn finally arrives in Rhapsody 13 (23), there is another animal sacrifice (24), and this time the divine recipient of the sacrifice is mentioned by name: he is Zeus himself (25). This god, as I argue, is the transcendent hymnic subject of the Homēridai.163 (8) In the course of time, the prooimion of the Homēridai gets detached from its epic consequent, which can be either the Homeric Iliad or the Homeric Odyssey, and these two epics can then develop their own abbreviated prooimia, which are non-hymnic—that is, without the naming of a hymnic subject.164 (9) In the case of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, the ancient reception of these epics featuring prooimia that are non-hymnic goes back to the age of Callimachus. In that age, the old poetic form of the prooimion as represented by the Homeric Hymns was rethought as a new genre, separable from the old poetic form of the epic consequent.165 (10) The Hymns of Callimachus, which preclude an epic consequent, are the clearest examples of this new genre, which is still known to this day as a hymn.166

WAS THE HYMN A GENRE IN ITS EARLIEST ATTESTED PHASES? I argue that the answer to this question is no. As we have seen in the earliest textual evidence, the humnos in the sense of ‘hymn’ can take 162 163 164 165 166

HPC I}298. Again, HPC I}298. HPC I}}284–9. HC 2}}118–22. HPC I}287. See also Petrovic (2011b forthcoming).

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on a variety of different forms and functions, both choral and rhapsodic.167 So the hymn transcends the concept of genre—at least, until the era of Callimachus. At best we can apply to the hymn the larger concept of a supergenre, just as Richard Martin applies this larger concept to epic.168

167 I note with interest that the stylized hymn to Apollo as described in Il. 1. 472–4 figures itself as a paean (ÆØÆ, 473); see Bundy (1972), 74. 168 Martin (2005), 17. Also Martin (1997). For a different view of the Hymns as a genre, see Clay in this volume (Ch. 11).

14 The Homeric Hymns as Poetic Offerings Musical and Ritual Relationships with the Gods Claude Calame

˜ Åæ’ MŒ   c Łe ¼æå ’ IØ, ÆPc ŒÆd ŒæÅ æ،ƺº Æ —æçØÆ. åÆEæ, Ł, ŒÆd  ı ºØ, ¼æå ’ IØB . Of Demeter the lovely-haired, the august goddess first I sing, of her and her daughter beautiful Persephone. I salute you, goddess: keep this city safe, and give my song its beginning. (Hy. 13)1

There is in the corpus of Homeric Hymns no shorter composition than this poem addressed to Demeter. Nevertheless, despite the Hymn’s extreme conciseness, these three verses not only have the tripartite structure which is characteristic of every Homeric Hymn, but above all they fulfil the essential pragmatic aspects of the Hymns. On the one hand the goddess hymned is evoked in the third person by the ‘I’ of the persona cantans; Demeter is then defined very briefly by her engendering of Persephone, before she is invoked directly by the speaker and narrator ‘I’, who addresses a special request to her: evocatio, epica laus, preces.2 The central descriptive and narrative

1

English translations of the Hymns are drawn from WL. The term evocatio is used instead of invocatio because in the Homeric Hymns the god is evoked in the third person (and not invoked in the second); epica laus is used because the central part of the Hymns, which is narrative and descriptive, corresponds to the praise of a divinity; preces is used because the final prayer is adressed in the second person to the divinity. 2

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section generally introduced by the so-called hymnic relative, which in the longer Homeric Hymns leads to narrative accounts of dozens of verses, is here reduced to just one line; overlapping with the evocatio, the epica laus introduced by ŒÆ mentions only the existence of Persephone as daughter of Demeter.3 From an enunciative point of view, the final prayer is introduced by the expression which concludes numerous addresses to the gods: åÆEæ (‘rejoice’). This resonant åÆEæ (‘rejoice’) corresponds not to a simple form of salutation, but refers to the rejoicing experienced by the goddess upon hearing the sung praise which has just been addressed to her.4 Within the principle of do ut des, the wish is accompanied by a prayer concerning the well-being of the city. From then on, with the reciprocity which the prayer implies for the relationship with the god, the poem is presented as a musical offering to the divinity: she rejoices in it and, in exchange, ensures the safety of the city. But whoever speaks the utterance also speaks something pragmatic. On the one hand, the poetic ‘I’ of the persona loquens engages in a double act of speaking: first in undertaking, as ‘I’, the beginning of the song (¼æå ’ IØ, ‘I begin to sing’), thereby choosing the most performative of the three forms of opening known in Homeric poetry;5 then in asking the goddess to begin the song itself (¼æå ’ IØB , ‘begin the song’) in a request that responds to the wish, addressed to the divinity, that she rejoice in the song. This second petition also confirms the function of the Homeric Hymns as proems to aedic songs and rhapsodic recitations:6 first the evocation and the praise of the divinity with the final petition addressed to her, then the narrative song itself placed under the inspiration and the authority of the divinity celebrated, by way of hymn as prelude to a longer poem. On the other hand, the request for safeguarding the city is accompanied by an act of verbal deixis, which consists of  ı ºØ

3 Cf. Calame (2005), 19–22, following several studies of structure, among which see esp. Bremer (1981), 195–203. 4 Cf. Calame (2005), 26–9, with further bibliography on the meaning of åÆæØ in n. 57; cf. Nagy in this volume (pp. 327–9). See also below n. 39 on the Delian section of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. 5 Cf. Calame (2000), 59–69. The two other forms are: ‘Sing, Muse, of Artemis . . . ’, and ‘Muse, tell me of the deeds of Aphrodite . . . ’. The connection between the form of hymns and prayers is explored notably by Aubriot-Sévin (1992), 172–93. 6 On IØ as ‘creative singer’ and ÞÆłø fi  rather as ‘reciter’ see, among others, Nagy (1990a), 19–26, (2003), 41–3.

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‘save this city’. The self-referential act of singing (aedic-rhapsodic) is located in both time and space: it takes place hic et nunc. Whatever its length, the Homeric Hymn, in its role as a hymnic song addressed to a divinity as a musical offering, has the function of introducing the rhapsodic recitation into the series of ritual acts honouring this divinity. The hymn therefore makes the performance of the rhapsodic song itself a ritual act and an activity of cult.7 By its function as a proem on a cultic level, the Homeric Hymn in a way transforms the narrative song into melic song. The narrative poem is sometimes introduced by a performative formula:   ’ Kªg Iæ  Æ  ÆØ ¼ºº K o  (‘having begun with you, I will pass on to another song’), and I will do it now.8 It is well-known that the different forms of melos are full of these performative futures, referring in a self-referential manner to the act of singing.9 It is observable that, by different enunciative means of the category of speech acts, the Homeric Hymns try to establish a practical relationship with the divinity, whom the aoidos-rhapsode is praising. It is during the performance, sung and presented as such, that the poem is transformed into a musical offering: as a prelude, this hymnic poem is destined to make the aedic-rhapsodic recitation that it introduces a cultic act; as such it is inserted among the different ritual acts honouring a divinity on the occasion of his or her celebration in a city or a particular sanctuary. It is from this perspective of ritualized musical performance that, in what follows, I will examine the poetic means employed in the Homeric Hymns for establishing and maintaining a relationship of a cultic nature with the divinity hymned: naming and definition of the divinity in the introductory verses of the evocatio;

7

On the Homeric Hymns as rhapsodic proems, according to the sense of the term given by Th. 3. 104, see Nagy in this volume (pp. 322–5), as well as my references and notes in Calame (2005), 193 n. 5; for some reservations about this view for the long Hymns, see in this volume Clay (pp. 237–40) and cf. Introduction (pp. 17–19). For the movement from sung aedic creation to rhapsodic repetition or recitation, see Nagy (1990a), 20–5. 8 This formula concludes Aphr. (293) and Hy. 9. 9, thus in long Hymns as well as short. See also the common closing formula ÆPaæ Kªg ŒÆd E ŒÆd ¼ººÅ  ’ IØB (‘but I will remember you and another song’): Apoll. 546, Hy. 6. 21, etc. Cf. below n. 51. 9 On the forms of the present and the ‘performative future’, which in general make melic poems speech acts and consequently acts of singing, see Calame (2005), 195 n. 25 with further bibliography, and D’Alessio (2004), 274–84. For the narrative category of ‘melic’ instead of modern ‘lyric’ poetry, see Calame (2008a), 85–106.

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musical scenes recounted in the descriptive and narrative section of the epica laus; and the ‘performative’ enunciation in the concluding section of the preces.

1. AEDIC AND RHAPSODIC DESIGNATION OF THE DIVINITY (EVOCATIONES) % Eæ B Iø ˚ıººØ æªØçÅ, ˚ıººÅ  Æ ŒÆd æŒÆÅ ºı ºı, ¼ªªº IŁÆø KæØØ, n  Œ )ÆEÆ @ºÆ ŁıªÅæ ˜Øe K çغÅØ ØªEÆ ÆNÅ· Of Hermes I sing, the Cyllenian Argus-slayer, the lord of Cyllene and Arcadia rich in flocks, the immortals coursing messenger, whom modest Maia bore, the daughter of Atlas, in shared intimacy with Zeus. (Hy. 18. 1–5)

Every Homeric Hymn begins with the naming of the god about to be evoked in the initial speech act, here represented by Iø (‘I sing’: aoidos then rhapsode). One will remember that for Herodotus in particular, ‘to name’ (O ÇØ) a god is not simply to give him a name, but also to identify him; it is to confer qualities upon him, which in a polytheistic system are placed in relation to the functions practised in a specific field of action. Indeed, from the perspective held by Plato’s Cratylus, the name of a divinity cannot be distinguished from his substance; in the absence of a clear distinction between signifier and signified, the name of a god reflects his essence—Eros is for instance connected to the verb ÞE (‘to flow’) because desire flows into the soul from outside (420a–b). And, from an aetiological perspective, the identification of a divinity by a proper name is accompanied in general by the institution of sacrificial practices, if not by the foundation of a sanctuary. In short, this process of substantial naming of the gods corresponds to that of which many Homeric Hymns are the vehicle: the narrative part of the hymnic poem often consists in defining and awarding to the god being celebrated his timē (Ø ). The word timē refers to the portion which rightfully belongs to a particular god, as opposed to the other divinities of a pantheon that in Greece is always moving and changing

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in historic time and civic space.10 Thus, well before the proposals of Georges Dumézil for the study of gods in a polytheistic system, the Greek gods were defined, in an indigenous way, by a name and a profile which reflect functions and modes of operation for a particular domain and aspect of the social life of mortals.11 But such naming is regularly accompanied by qualifications with the help of terms which, already in Pausanias, are identified as epiclēseis: simple surnames which, in the case of the gods, could either have been created by the poets, or correspond to local names or to epiclēseis shared by all. Without being at all systematic, the distinction proposed by Pausanias concerning Poseidon venerated in Arcadia suggests a differentiation of operational order between theonyms proper, poetic epithets, local cultic epiclēseis, and pan-Hellenic epiclēseis, in categories which often overlap.12 Because of their narrative character, the Homeric Hymns mostly contain poetic qualifications: for example, ¼ªªº IŁÆø KæØØ (‘swift messenger of the immortals’) in Hymn 18 to Hermes is a qualification followed immediately by the hymnic relative, which introduces the narrative part of the poem; this is also the case in the opening of the long Hymn to Hermes, through the use of the same formulaic verse (3). Otherwise, if æªØçÅ (‘Argus-slayer’) can generally be considered an alternative theonym to Hermes in Homeric poetry, the initial qualification of the god hymned and described often refers to his place of origin or to his space of privileged action:13 Hermes of Cyllene rules over Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, where he is born (also in Herm. 1–2). This geographical parameter is so important for the relationship which the naming and the qualification create with the god that it can 10 Cf. Hdt. 2. 49–50, with my comments on the meaning of the naming of a god in Calame (forthcoming); concerning the process of awarding timai, which takes place in the Homeric Hymns, see notably Clay (1989), 15–16, passim, and in this volume (Ch. 11). 11 See my clarification of this correspondence between the indigenous perspective and the scholarly point of view on the organization of the Greek polytheistic system in Calame (2006), 210–25 with full references, particularly to Dumézil (1974), 186, 239. 12 Paus. 7. 21. 7: ‘At the harbour is a temple of Poseidon with a standing image of stone. Besides the names (O ÆÆ) given by poets to Poseidon to adorn their verses, and in addition to his local names (KØåæØÆ), all men give him the following surnames (KØŒºØ )—Marine, Giver of Safety, God of Horses’ (trans. Jones 1933). 13 This observation applies generally to the hymnic form: cf. Furley and Bremer (2001), i. 52–6. For æªØçÅ as a ‘synonym’ of % Eæ B , see for example Il. 2. 103–4 and Od. 1. 84, as well as in the Hymns themselves Hy. 29. 7 (Hestia); cf. Jaillard (2007), 211.

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be considered to constitute the leading thread of the narrative. Starting from the enunciative and performative question of how one should hymn a god so well-celebrated (H æ ’  ø, ø hı  KÆ—‘How shall I hymn you, fit subject as you are in every respect’, 19) the narrative of the Hymn to Apollo goes through all of the places which could accept the god’s birth, before situating him first in Delos (after a long list of cities on the Greek islands and the coast of the Aegean), then in Delphi (at the end of a new geographical voyage, which this time focuses on mainland Greece).14 The aedic narration thus becomes the aetiological ‘myth’ which explains the musical honours given to the founding god in his sanctuary on Delos and the power of his oracular voice at the site of Delphi. To this spatial locating, with its at times aetiological function, is generally added an indication of genealogy; it is often by this temporal locating that the transition is effected, in general by way of a hymnic relative, from the evocatio to the epica laus: the passage from the ‘discourse’ (marked by the use of the first person in the present or the performative future) to the ‘narrative’ (marked by the third person and aorist, to use the linguistic categories proposed by Émile Benveniste, who speaks of ‘discours’ on one hand, and of ‘histoire’ or ‘récit’ on the other).15 It is on Mount Cyllene that Maia gives birth to Hermes after her union with Zeus, in both Hy. 18 and the long Hymn to Hermes. Likewise, for example, it is in the foothills of Mount Taygetus that Leda gives birth to the Dioscuri, presented at the same time as Tyndaridai and sons of Zeus (Hy. 17. 1–6; cf. 33. 1–5); Coronis bears Asclepius, the son of Apollo, on the Dotian plain in Thessaly (Hy. 16. 1–3); and it is in the valleys of Mount Nysa (whatever its precise location) that the nymphs rear the infant Dionysus, born from the union of Zeus and Semele (Hy. 26. 1–5).16 Following his enunciative naming, therefore, accompanied by some qualifications more poetic than cultic, the divinity is readily provided in the initial section of the evocatio with a geographic-genealogical identity. 14 Apoll. 19; this rhetorical question with its future performative form is repeated at the outset of the Pythian section (207); cf. Miller (1986), 20–6, Nagy (2009b), 17–19. See in this volume Chappell (p. 64) on the geography of the Delian and Pythian sections. 15 Cf. Calame (2005), 22–4. 16 Cf. Furley and Bremer (2001), i. 54–5 on the importance of the god’s location in various hymnic forms.

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Now, from the point of view of syntax, the enumeration of the poetic qualities and the possible epiclēseis attributed to the hymned god is characterized by parataxis in asyndeton. Uncommon in Greek, this device is connected to the expression of strong emotion. It marks in particular the appeals to the divinity which initiate and punctuate cultic hymns, such as the so-called paean of Philodamos:17 [ . . . . . . .] ˜ØŁæÆ , BŒå’ [hØ, 'ÆFæ Œ]Ø: : : åÆEÆ, Bæ Ø’, MæØÆ[E ƒŒF ÆE’] ƒæÆE K uæÆØ (1–4) Come here, Lord Dithyrambos, Bakchos, god of jubilation, Bull, with a crown of ivy in your hair, Roarer, oh come in this holy season of spring. (trans. Furley-Bremer, 2001)

Then in another metrical rhythm: ¯PE t Ne [BŒå’, t Nb —ÆØ] (5) Euhoi, o io Bakchos, o ie Paian

The initial address to the god and the refrain repeated after every strophe of this hymnic song do not contain any connective particles. Through invocatio (in the second person) and not simply evocatio (in the third person), the direct address to the divinity aims to provoke, by the musical performance of the song, his epiphany. The device is pushed to the extreme in the Orphic Hymns, the majority of which enumerate the qualities of the hymned god in asyndetic parataxis. It corresponds at the same time to the invocatory offering to the hymned divinity which the Orphic Hymn represents and to the theological desire, belonging to the Orphic movement, to superimpose the divinities of the traditional pantheon in order to merge them in unity with Zeus.18 In the Homeric Hymns, the evocation in asyndeton of the name of the god and his qualities is combined with the act of singing represented by the self-referential forms in the first 17 Text and translation from Furley and Bremer (2001), no. 2. 5; see their excellent commentary at ii. 58–60 and for parataxis in the definition of the god invoked or evoked, cf. i. 53–4. 18 Cf. Hopman-Govers (2001), 37–49, Morand (2001), 59–76. It is in this respect that Hy. 8 to Ares, which is composed of an accumulation of epithets in asyndeton and which assumes the hymnic form of a prayer, can be considered to be of Orphic inspiration; cf. Càssola 297–9.

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person; the asyndetic parataxis of the epithets and the verbal performative forms give to the inaugural naming of the divinity its pragmatic dimension. This naming does not necessarily aim at the epiphany of the hymned divinity, but in any case at his praise; that is, it aims to honour him with a musical offering, which will be continued in the ritualized aedic-rhapsodic recitation that the Homeric Hymns introduce as a poetic genre.19

2. MUSICAL RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN MEN AND GODS (EPICAE LAUDES) In the long Hymns, as in the short, the narrative section of the aedicrhapsodic composition generally further specifies the genealogical and geographical identity of the god and places the god’s identity in relation to humans. If one takes into consideration the most developed narratives, in the Hymn to Apollo the god Apollo is settled from his birth in Delos itself, where the Ionians come together to pay him musical homage (to which I will return later); then the narrative places the young god at Delphi, where he founds his oracle, which reveals the plans of the gods, in a temple ‘honoured by many men’ (ººEØ Ø  IŁæØØ, 479). At the end of the Hymn to Demeter, Demeter establishes her daughter Persephone in cult at Eleusis, between Olympus and Hades, with the aid of Zeus and the ruling family, and she founds the different rites and mysteries which will ensure prosperity for men in the present life and the afterlife. If the Hymn to Hermes settles the newborn god in the heart of Arcadia in the valleys of Mount Cyllene, the end of the poem makes him the guide to the underworld and the messenger of mortals, whom he does not hesitate to deceive. Finally, the Hymn to Aphrodite places the goddess between Cyprus and Cythera (as elsewhere do the two short Hymns to the goddess of seduction, 6 and 10), and ends with the probable separation between mortals and immortals.20 Although it is not the case for Apollo at Delphi, the place hymned usually corresponds to the birthplace of the divinity who, in one way or another, 19

Cf. above n. 7 and, for hymns in general, Aubriot-Sévin (1992), 182–93. On the question of the implied separation of men from the gods in Aphr., see Faulkner (2008), 8–10. 20

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helps to organize the relations between gods and mortals, between Olympus and Hades. From the geographical point of view, nothing is said concerning the place of performance of the poem, except for generic designations such as ‘this city’ ( ºØ).21 This lack of spatial determination in the act of verbal deixis leaves open, on the pragmatic level, the re-performance of the hymnic poem in different locations and ritual circumstances of enunciation:22 it also ensures for them the possibility of Panhellenic diffusion, just as for the Homeric poems introduced by the hymnic prelude. As the promise made to Persephone by Hades in the Hymn to Demeter shows in particular, the notion of timē implies a relationship between gods and mortals. The daughter of Demeter, in her role as the young bride of the god of the underworld, reigns in the afterlife over all mortals, but she also enjoys, amongst the immortals, the ‘greatest honours’ (Ø a ªÆ , 366); whoever should commit the injustice of not consenting to the offering, which the accomplishment of the sacred rites constitutes, will inevitably be punished.23 Involving the definition of a mode of action and the delimitation of a field of intervention, the ‘honours’ (Ø Æ) which the long Homeric Hymns establish by way of the aetiological narrative engage the divinity concerned in the reciprocal relationship between gods and mortals mentioned above. Taking into consideration the importance of descriptive and narrative expansion in the hymnic form,24 I will now focus my attention on the role of the Muses’ arts in the attribution of an ‘honour’ (timē) to a god, and by consequence the attribution to him of a particular quality, ability, or function. Indeed, music, understood in an indigenous way as a combination of poetic singing, choreography, and instrumental melody, plays a central role in the establishment and maintenance of ritual communication between mortal men and the 21

Cf. Hy. 13. 3. Hy. 24. 4 to Hestia asks the goddess of the hearth to intervene in ‘this house’ (æå  Ia rŒ). This type of verbal deixis, frequent in melic poetry and in tragedy with its strong pragmatic dimension, is treated in Calame (2004a), which should be read together with the other studies on this subject collected in the same special volume of Arethusa 37 (2004). 22 On the re-performance of the Homeric Hymns, see in this volume Clay (p. 235). 23 Dem. 345–69; see the commentary of Richardson (1974), 269–75 and in this volume (pp. 50–3) concerning the allusion which these verses contain to the institution of the mystery rites at Eleusis. Also Clay (1989), 251–4. 24 Following the excellent suggestion formulated and developed by VamvouriRuffy (2004), 27–36.

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immortal gods. The mise-en-scène of the different arts of the Muses in the narrative section of the Homeric Hymns takes on, in relation to the function of the poem itself as a musical offering, a reflexive aspect that requires elucidation. Of concern in this respect are not only the divinities involved in the field of music (in the Greek sense of the term) by their individual qualities and abilities, but also other deities of the Greek polytheistic system. Thus in Hymn 30 dedicated to Gaia, the Homeric aoidos-rhapsode substitutes in the narrative, in place of a biographical episode of the goddess, a list of the benefits that the protection of Mother Earth accords to all beings: prosperous children, abundant harvests, flourishing flocks, a house filled with riches, a city of beautiful women marked by justice and prosperity—in one word life (  , 6) for mortal men. For young men, as well as for young women who perform choral dances in flowery fields, this means good cheer (PçæÅ, 13–15), which is also that of the gods. Such are the honours (emphasized by the repeated use of the verb Ø A to enclose the list of honours in lines 7–16 in ring composition) the august goddess provides to mortals in exchange for the present song, which is offered to her in the final section of the preces. The joining of this final prayer of the form do ut des with the central part of the Hymn and the reciprocal relationship between the immortal divinity and mortal men are both underlined by the exceptional use of the second person in the epica laus, which is still, as is usual, introduced by a hymnic relative (m ç æ Ø . . . , 2). By the immediate passage from ‘she who’ to ‘you’, and by the introduction of a form of beatification ( ÆŒÆæØ  : ‘happy is he whom you are going to honour with a beneficent heart’, n ’ Zº Ø , ‹ Œ f Łı fiH j æçæø Ø fi Å , 7–8), the relationship between immortals and mortals is situated on the enunciative plane; it coincides with the relationship that the aoidosrhapsode establishes with the goddess celebrated by his poem, hic et nunc, and the choral rejoicing evoked in the city that has benefited from the prosperity granted by Gaia.25 Musical performance is also staged on at least two occasions in the long narrative that forms the central part of the Hymn to Aphrodite. In the first instance, when the goddess approaches Anchises tending his cattle on Mount Ida, the young, divinely beautiful hero devotes 25 The final part of Dem. (480–2 and 486–9) is marked by a double ÆŒÆæØ  ; cf. Richardson (1974), 310–14 and 316–21, as well as Calame (2008a), 68–71.

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himself to music; like Achilles in the Iliad, he plays his lyre by himself, apart from his fellow herdsmen (75–80). In a sort of parallelism, the goddess presents herself to the young shepherd in disguise as an ‘untamed young girl’ (ÆæŁ  I Å , 82). She pretends to be mortal, seized by Hermes while she was dancing in a chorus of Artemis with her companions (comprised of both nymphs and young girls); she is like the young maidens seized by the king of Sparta Aristomenes while dancing in a chorus for Artemis at Caryae (117–25).26 To these two scenes which follow the paradigm of musical activity reserved for unmarried heroes, young men on the one hand, young women on the other, one can also add the description of the rearing of Aeneas, the child born from the union of an immortal goddess and a young mortal hero; his destiny is to be raised on Mount Ida by the nymphs, who, being neither mortals nor immortals, are associated with the beautiful choral dances of the gods (256–63).27 To participate in choral celebration is therefore for mortal men to share in the life of the gods. Now, if for Aphrodite choral activity is only a mask which conceals her status as a young woman ready to unite in love even with a mortal man, the same certainly cannot be said of Artemis. The twenty-twoline Hymn 27 dedicated to her confirms the musical gifts to which the Hymn to Aphrodite makes allusion. The central section of the Hymn, which describes in the third person but in the present tense the particular abilities of the virgin goddess, presents two of the privileged activities of the sister of Apollo, one after the other in a double scene: after indulging in the hunt for savage beasts, which howl in the shady forest on the peaks of mountains, the archer goddess unstrings her bow in order to go to Delphi and take her place next to her brother Apollo (4–14); assuming once again her graceful habits, she takes the lead in the beautiful chorus formed by the Muses and the Charites (15–20). It is in taking on this role as chorus-leader that the goddess initiates the choral poems which sing of how Leto gave birth to her two children, Artemis and Apollo. In this narrative section which, through the use of the present tense, makes the double identity of 26

Cf. Calame (2001), 149–53, and Faulkner (2008), 163–5 concerning the status of the parthenos (compared to that of the woman) whose identity Aphrodite adopts, and the status attached to choral activity; also 192–5 on the the Homeric case of Hermes’ rape of Polymele while she is dancing in a choral group (Il. 16. 179–83). 27 On the ambiguous status of the nymphs, see the commentary of Faulkner (2008), 185–6.

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Artemis as both huntress and choral-leader a permanent quality, the genealogy of the goddess is projected from the Homeric Hymn upon the choral song of the Muses and the Graces; led by Artemis, this choral song assumes a reflexive character.28 Artemis is therefore in the category of gods who are active in the field of the Muses’ arts. The same is naturally true of Apollo, as demonstrated in the five-line Hymn 21 dedicated to him.29 This poem, which is of an atypical enunciative form, has song as its theme from start to finish: +E , b b ŒÆd ŒŒ e æªø ºª’ IØ ZåŁfiÅ KØŁæfiŒø Æ e æÆ ØÆ —ÅØ b ’ IØe åø çæ تªÆ ºªØÆ ıc æH  ŒÆd oÆ ÆNb IØ. ŒÆd f b oø åÆEæ, ¼Æ· ¥ºÆ ÆØ  ’ IØB fi . (Hy. 21) Phoibos, of you the swan too sings in clear tone from its wings as it alights on the banks beside the eddying river Peneios; and of you the bard with his clear-toned lyre and sweet verse ever sings in first place and last. So I salute you, lord, and seek your favour with my singing.

In an evocatio, which remarkably assumes the form of an invocation through the direct address to Phoebus, the persona cantans turns over his voice, altogether exceptionally, to the beating wings of the swan; the bird is charged with hymning the god (IØ), in a melodious voice, on the river Peneius in Thessaly (1–3). Then in a second address in the second person ( ) and by way of an epica laus, the speaker delegates his voice to an anonymous singer (IØ ) with a sweet voice, who hymns the god in the present tense (3–4). Finally, in the verse of the preces, the meaning of the traditional request to the god to rejoice in the song (oø åÆEæ) is made explicit: ¥ºÆ ÆØ  ’ IØB fi (‘I seek your favour with my singing’). The song which spans the whole poem (and which the poem itself is) becomes a sacrificial offering which, within the principle of do ut des, is intended to win the favours of the hymned god.

28

On this double function of Artemis, cf. Calame (2001), 52–3, 91–101. See also Aphr. 19 with the relevant commentary by Faulkner (2008), 95–7, on the relationship of Artemis with music and choral dance. 29 Càssola 375 puts forward the hypothesis that these five verses are the final section (preces) of a longer hymn, the rest of which is now lost; also 578 for the qualities which the Greeks ascribed to the song of the swan.

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As far as Hymns full of musical activity are concerned, there is also naturally the short seven-line Hymn 25 addressed at the same time to Apollo, the Muses, and Zeus: )ıø ¼æåø ÆØ ººø  ˜Ø · KŒ ªaæ )ıø ŒÆd ŒÅ ºı ººø ¼æ IØd ÆØ Kd åŁd ŒÆd ŒØŁÆæØÆ, KŒ b ˜Øe ÆغB · n ’ Zº Ø , ‹ ØÆ )FÆØ çºøÆØ· ªºıŒæ ƒ Ie  Æ Þ Ø ÆP. åÆæ,  ŒÆ ˜Ø , ŒÆd K c Ø Æ’ IØ· ÆPaæ Kªg  ø  ŒÆd ¼ººÅ  ’ IØB . (Hy. 25) From the Muses let me begin, and Apollo and Zeus. For from the Muses and far-shooting Apollo men are singers and lyre-players on earth, and from Zeus they are kings. He is fortunate whom the Muses love: the voice flows sweet from his lips. I salute you, children of Zeus; honour my singing. And I will take heed both for you and for other singing.

In a more traditional form, this Hymn is from the outset undertaken by the ‘I’ of the aoidos-rhapsode, who begins with a brief formula of evocatio and goes on to tell (by way of a laus or pars epica) of the dependence of singers and lyre-players upon the Muses and Apollo, in contrast with kings who depend upon Zeus (with a subtle genealogical allusion). From this point, the principle of do ut des of the concluding prayer can only relate to song: in exchange for the musical celebration offered to the children of Zeus, the poetic ‘I’ asks these divinities to honour his own song and finishes with the common formula of introduction to rhapsodic song: ÆPaæ Kªg  ø  ŒÆd ¼ººÅ  ’ IØB (‘And I will take heed both for you and for other singing’, 7); with a probable etymological play on the name of the Muses, which is repeated three times in six verses (1, 2, 4),  ÆØ recalls the name of their mother Mnemosyne, the incarnation of poetic memory.30 The thematic coincidence between the three constituent parts of the Hymn is underlined, from the enunciative point of view, not only by the use of the present in the narrative section, but above all by the introduction of a formula of beatification ( ÆŒÆæØ  ): n ’ Zº Ø , ‹ ØÆ )FÆØ j çºøÆØ ªºıŒæ ƒ Ie  Æ Þ Ø ÆP (‘He is happy whom the Muses love; from his mouth flows a sweet voice’, 4–5). Through the 30 Hy. 25 (Muses, Apollo, Zeus); on the possible etymological relationship between )FÆ and )Å Å, see the bibliography below in n. 52.

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enunciative formulation of these four verses, which appear identically in the prelude of the Theogony and without doubt have a formulaic quality, the ‘narrative’ level is confused with that of the ‘discourse’.31 The dependence of singers and lyre-players on the Muses and Apollo and the happiness they can gain from the love of the Muses in fact belong to the poetic ‘I’, the persona cantans. Especially when the ‘argument’, of the narrative and descriptive part is focused on song, the aoidos-rhapsode becomes, through the song as musical offering, the intermediary between men and gods; in the final prayer he becomes the direct protagonist of the hymnic relationship between mortals and immortals. But, in a polytheistic system, several divinities can intervene in a given field, each according to his or her own qualities, abilities, and functions. As concerns the field of musical arts, the corpus of Homeric Hymns demonstrates this. In the shortest of the Hymns dedicated to him (Hy. 26), Dionysus is straightaway described by the epithet Kæ æ  (‘mighty roarer’, 1) which refers to the resounding clamour that marks his appearance. Following this, the narrative of his rearing by the nymphs concludes with the mention of the ‘noise’ ( æ  , 10) which fills the valleys of Mount Nysa in a revel; followed by the nymphs, who act as would a choral group, the young god so ‘often hymned’ (ºı  , 7) runs through the forest crowned with ivy and laurel like a chorus-leader.32 On the other hand, the Mother of gods and men (venerated in different forms in cults attested in many Greek cities of Asia Minor) is the object of the six-line Hymn 14; its central part is entirely focused on the musical signs indicating the presence of the goddess: the sounds of cymbals and tambourines, the bellow of oboes, the howling of wolves and lions resounding in the valleys of mountains.33 Finally, it is no surprise to see Pan, in the epic section of the relatively long Hymn 19 dedicated to him, gliding through the landscape of the highest peaks and returning from the hunt playing 31

Verses 2–5 correspond to Hes. Th. 94–7, without evincing a direct relationship: see the remarks of Càssola 401–2, 580, and on this Hesiodic passage Brillante (2009), 61–4, Pucci (2007), 111–21. On the distinction between ‘narrative’ and ‘discourse’ and the use one can make of it for the study of the pragmatics of Greek poetry, see Calame (2005), 1–16 and (2008b), 124–9. 32 Dionysus is also qualified as Kæ æ  at Hy. 7. 56; cf. in this volume Jaillard (p. 149). 33 In his commentary, Càssola 327–30, mentions the different places where the Mother of the Gods was worshipped, under different toponymic epiclēseis.

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his reed pipes; in his hands the pipes produce more melodious sounds than the sweetest songs of the birds in spring (2–18). At the outset, the god ‘who loves rhythmical sound’ (çغŒæ, 2), following a hymnic relative, dances among the nymphs ‘devoted to choral dance’ (åæŁØ, 3; corrected by Schmidt to åæªÅŁ Ø ‘dance-merry’) who summon the presence of the god (2–5). It is upon his return from the snowy peaks that the mountain nymphs, with the beating of their feet and the sound of their clear voices, cause to resound a soft meadow of grass mixed with crocus and hyacinth; it is similar to the erotic meadow where Persephone is seized in the opening scene of the Hymn to Demeter. The god joins these choral dances, only to become their leader (12–26).34 In addition, in the second part of this developed descriptive-narrative section, it is the task of the gods themselves, in unison with Olympus, to sing ( FØ, 27) of the love affair between Hermes of Cyllene and the nymph-daughter of Dryops, as well as the birth of the deformed god who succeeds in bringing joy to the immortals, including Dionysus.35 There remain the long Homeric Hymns composed in honour of Hermes, the inventor of the lyre for Apollo, and in honour of Apollo himself, who is installed musically in Delos and then in Delphi. These two Hymns receive detailed attention in individual chapters earlier in this volume (Chappell Ch. 4 and Vergados Ch. 5), and I will here confine myself to looking at aspects of musical activity in the poems. First, I will consider the ring-composition of the narrative in the Hymn to Hermes, which at the beginning of the Hymn places the invention of the lyre on the same day as the birth of the god, and at the end recounts at length the transmission of the enchanting instrument to Apollo. There are therefore two musical scenes, the first of which, placed under the control of the immortals, allows us to be present at the creation of the ‘tortoise singer’ (å ºı IØ , 25), which is the lyre. By killing the tortoise in order to appropriate its shell, the infant god in a way immortalizes the tortoise by making of him a ‘symbol of great benefit’ ( º, 30), which sings with a beautiful voice (IØ , 38). He then takes hold of the recently created instrument, with its seven strings in harmony, and strikes some chords which give rise to his beautiful song (e ŒÆºe ¼Ø, 54). Hermes, 34

The nature and function of erotic meadows are illustrated by Dem. 2–11; see parallels and commentary in Calame (2002), 173–85. 35 On music in Hy. 19 cf. Thomas in this volume (Ch. 8).

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compared to adolescents who compete in poetry during festive celebrations (55–6), subsequently sings of the love affair of Zeus and Maia, of which he is himself the product. Thus, after having delegated the singing of Hermes’ genealogy to the Muse in the initial invocation (o Ø, 1), and after having treated the same theme right at the beginning of the narrative section introduced by the hymnic relative, the speaker-narrator finally turns over to the god himself the task of singing his divine and mountainous origin.36 As concerns the transmission of the marvellous instrument to Apollo, the long scene preceding the concluding phase of the narrative (which is called in narratology the ‘phase of sanction’) making up the central part of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, is punctuated by musical moments. To begin with, there is the melody which Hermes plays on the recently created lyre in order to appease Apollo and inspire in him the erotic sweet desire to which the music gives rise. Then it is the turn of the song, pronounced in a voice with a similarly erotic effect (KæÆc çø, 426), in which the god speaks of the primordial times when each of the gods received his or her own portion ( EæÆ, 428); special mention is made in this passage of Mnemosyne, the mother of the Muses and the incarnation of aedic memory. Then follow Apollo’s questions about the origin of this musical technique (  åÅ,  FÆ, 447), which inspires an overpowering anxiety, as well as good cheer (PçæÅ, 449), erotic desire, and sleep; it is even more powerful than the choral songs which the god sings with the Olympian Muses to the sounds of the double oboe (450–3). Finally, there is the scene of exchange in which, in return for his function as blessed guide, Hermes gives over to Apollo his instrument and an art which the musician god will be able to employ at thriving banquets, in choral dances, and on the occasion of ritual processions, providing widespread ‘good cheer’ (PçæÅ, 482). Thus, with the lyre, which he takes hold of in order to lead the oxen stolen by Hermes back to Olympus with music, Apollo increases his sphere of musical ability, while Hermes is still the inventor of the lyre. In exchange, the divine guide of the immortals receives, by way of timē (516), the privilege of promoting commercial transactions amongst men; with the gift of the caduceus, a golden staff signifying 36 Cf. Jaillard (2007), 222–6, and Calame (2008b), 136–9, concerning the enunciative polyphony in Pindar.

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wealth and prosperity, Apollo provides to Hermes the sign of this particular ability, which carries with it the power to fulfil the principles ensuring just words and good acts. The caduceus is therefore a ‘symbol’ ( º, 527), which corresponds to the ‘symbol’ of the lyre at the beginning of the poem. And just as Apollo can either help or hinder mortals with prophecy, a skill which he reserves for himself, Hermes will in the future be able to help or deceive the ‘tribes of mortal men’ (çFºÆ ŁÅH IŁæø, 578).37 The inventions of the lyre and the caduceus serve to enrich verbal communication between men and gods, but only through the interpretation and seduction inherent in the sung or recited word, which can be deceptive. It is obviously through his powers of music and oracular voice that Apollo is associated with Delos and Delphi respectively, places to which the long Hymn dedicated to the archer god pays homage. Whether it be a true rhapsodic composition, put together through a ‘stitching’ of a Delian and a Pythian section, or a unified hymn, the double narrative section which forms the poem’s centre treats the biography of the god from his birth on Delos and his installation in a sanctuary marked by choral music to the foundation of his oracular sanctuary at Delphi.38 In a narrative in the aorist tense (although punctuated by direct addresses in the second person, first to Apollo’s mother and then to the god himself ), Apollo, recently born and nourished with nectar and ambrosia, himself defines the attributes corresponding to his future abilities: the lyre, the curved bow, and the oracle for revealing the will of Zeus to men. It is from this perspective that, on his own initiative, he settles himself in Delos and from Mount Cynthus watches the gymnastic contests and the competitions of music and dance organized in his honour by the people from neighbouring Ionia. The narrative movement from the aorist to the present, accompanied by a new direct address to Phoebus, makes this long musical scene coincide with the nunc (and perhaps the hic) of the recitation of the Hymn. To this extent, the reciprocity which the narrative establishes between the joy of the god witnessing the honours rendered to him and the rejoicing of the Ionians in the 37

Cf. Jaillard (2007), 215–29, Càssola 535–41 on the objects of exchange, the terms of which are explored in Leduc (2001). For the performance of Herm. as a ‘reenactment’ of the deeds of the god, see Vergados in this volume (pp. 103–4). 38 On the question of Apoll.’s unity, see in this volume Chappell (Ch. 4). The issue is also usefully treated by Càssola 97–102; on the circumstances of composition and performance of the poem, such as it has come down to us, see Aloni (1989), 107–31.

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performance of these musical offerings anticipates the close connection which at the end of his hymnic composition the aoidos-speaker or rhapsode-speaker establishes with the god; all the more so given that the musical activity and the pleasure of choral performance make the assembled Ionians the equals of the gods, forever liberated from cares and old age (151–2).39 It is then that the Delian women, the young servants of the farshooting god, enter the scene. They sing a hymn which enchants humans, in praise of Apollo, Artemis, and Leto, as well as the men and women of old ( øØ, 158; o  IıØ, 161). Musically, the young women of Delos in the service of Apollo sing what the aoidos-rhapsode sings in his hymnic composition.40 There follows a direct address to the Delian maidens, which reinforces this strong relationship between immortal divinities and mortal men by way of the shared choral celebration. It also reinforces the enunciative relationship between the speaker-‘I’ and the performer of the Homeric Hymn. In a significant switch from the third to the second person, the Delian maidens are first asked to rejoice (åÆæ, 166), then to celebrate the persona poetica himself (who is identified as Icæ lØ IØH, 169; ‘the sweetest of singers’). In a remarkable reflexive movement it is the poetic ‘I’, distinguished by the bewitching sweetness of his voice, who becomes the object of the Delian maidens’ song: through this technique of delegating his own aedic-rhapsodic voice to the choral voice of the young maidens, whom he himself places on stage, the aoidos-rhapsode introduces (in the third person and once again marked by poetic terpein) a form of ‘signature’ (sphragis): the chorus of Delian maidens sing, ‘he is a blind man, he lives in rocky Chios, all of his songs remain supreme afterwards’ (ıçºe Iæ, NŒE b ø fi Ø ÆØƺ fi Å j F AÆØ ØŁ IæØıØ IØÆ, 172–3). Beyond the question of the identity of this singer, who is marked by a blindness that reflects his poetic inspiration, everything happens as if the choral voice of the young maidens created by the speaker-singer were colouring his own voice; indeed, following the ‘signature’, the ‘I’ of the persona cantans adopts 39

Apoll. 127–32, 138–55. On the nature of the offering pleasing to the god, which represents the hymn in general, see the excellent discussion of Aubriot-Sévin (1992), 182–93; on the relationship of the bow and the lyre, as defined from an anthropological point of view, see Mombrun (2001), 67–78. 40 On the status of the choral group of Delian women, cf. Calame (2001), 104–10. The function of their song is recently examined by Peponi (2009), 39–51.

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the plural ‘we’: it is this poetic ‘we’ which, reciprocally with the praise of the singer by the young dancers, will spread Œº  to other cities, the poetic glory of ‘you’ the Delian maidens.41 Regardless of any rhapsodic ‘stitching’, related to which there is great textual uncertainty,42 the Pythian section of the Hymn to Apollo begins with a double musical progression. In a first movement towards rocky Pytho, the son of Leto, dressed in a divinely perfumed cloak, accompanies himself on a lyre (çæ ت, 184), from which he brings forth sounds that give rise to desire. Then, after a change of location to Olympus, he is received by the song of the Muses, to the sound of the lyre (ŒŁÆæØ , 188); in their beautiful voice, accompanied by the dances of the Graces, the Hours, Harmony, Hebe, and Aphrodite herself, the Muses sing ( FØ, 190) of the privileges of the immortals and the misfortunes of humans who suffer from old age and death. The Muses are followed in the dance by Artemis, while her brother plays the lyre, as well as by Ares and Hermes; at this sight of their two children dancing and singing, wise Zeus and Leto of the golden locks rejoice. In response, the model song of the young Apollo is taken up by the poetic ‘I’ who, as at the beginning of the Delphic section, poses the rhetorical question, ‘How shall I hymn you, fit subject as you are in every respect?’ (H æ ’  ø, ø hı  KÆ, 207). The use of the future performative form  ø confirms that this in fact coincides with the beginning of the narrative praise offered by the speaker-‘I’, who in this context once again uses the present form Iø (‘I sing’, 208).43 This is yet another correspondence between musical performance amongst the gods and musical recitation undertaken by the mortal singer, in the context of a ritual and cultic sequence addressed to the divinity. In accordance with other enunciative modalities, an analogous phenomenon is repeated at the end of the Pythian section and 41

On this scene as a mimetic staging of the singer’s inspiration by a chorus of Muses, cf. Nagy (2009b), 19–30; on a certain ‘inter-changeability’ in the monodic or choral mode of performance of the Hymns, see Clay in this volume (pp. 250–2). For the authorial meaning of the sphragis device, see Calame (2004b), 13–19, with further bibliography; and as far as the (erotic) charm produced by musical poetry is concerned, see the numerous parallels and bibliographical references quoted in Calame (2002), 58–63. On the relationship with the ritual, see Taddei (2007), 89–93. 42 On this ‘stitching’ cf. Miller (1986), 66–9. On the unity of the Hymn see also the references given above in n. 38. 43 Cf. Apoll. 19. The narrative incoherence has suggested to some a lacuna; cf. Càssola 499–51.

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therefore at the end of the unified long Hymn dedicated to Apollo. The god is compelled to reveal his identity to the Cretan sailors whom he intends to lead to Delphi (now liberated from the monster Typhaon) to become his first priests: ‘For I am Zeus’ son, I declare myself Apollo’ (r Ø ’ Kªg ˜Øe ıƒ , ººø ’ hå ÆØ r ÆØ, 480). As for the foreign Cretans, they will be the guardians of the god’s sanctuary which is honoured by all men. Within a narrative that unfolds very normally in the aorist and the third person, the authoritative speech of Apollo in direct discourse in the present and future tenses brings about the coincidence of past heroic time and space with the time and space of the Hymn’s recitation. Equally, the different indications given by Apollo in direct discourse of the ritual actions that the Cretan sailors must accomplish before they reach Delphi are placed in connection, from an enunciative point of view, with the hic et nunc of the performance of the Hymn. This is the case in particular with the paean that the Cretans sing (NÅÆØ’ IØ, ‘sing Ie Paieon’, 500) while following the god, who therefore becomes their chorus leader. As is often the case in epic narrative, the accomplishment of the different ritual acts prescribed by the god in direct discourse is subsequently integrated into the narrative in the aorist. The musical scene plays a leading role in the narrative: it portrays the musical accompaniment of the chorus-leader Apollo on the lyre and the procession of the Cretans singing Ie Paieon, just like the Cretans whose paeans are inspired by the Muses (517–18). When he has arrived within the confines of Parnassus, it only remains for Apollo to confer to the young Cretans the administration of his sanctuary, including the function of intermediary between the men who visit Delphi and the god of prophecy and justice. According to the will of the god, this function will be taken up by ‘interpreters’ (Å æ , 542), in concurrence with the role that Heraclitus attributes to the Delphic oracle: not to ‘speak’ (º ªØ), not to ‘conceal’ (ŒæØ), but to ‘indicate’ (Å ÆØ).44 Commentators have identified the Delphic interpreters with the administrators of the Delphic sanctuary who became the representatives of the amphictyony.45 44 Heraclit. fr. 22 B 93 Diels-Kranz. The ritual acts prescribed by Apollo in the direct discourse of lines 475–501 (see the initial vocative address EØ) are then taken up again in the narrative mode in lines 503–23. Detienne (1998), 134–44, 169–72 describes in vivid detail the profile and function of this god, who is at the same time the founder, informer, and interpreter of the sanctuary. 45 For the creation of the amphictyony and the administrative circle of the sanctuary, cf. Càssola 91–2, 515–16.

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The formulaic phrasing of the concluding verses of each Homeric Hymn aims to achieve, in and by the poem itself, a relationship between mortal men and the divinity. In a previous morphological study, I have tried to illuminate the different poetic and verbal methods used in the Homeric Hymns to make the hymnic composition a musical offering to the invoked divinity and to involve the god in the reciprocal relationship proper to prayer.46 This poetic contract of do ut des generally begins with a direct address to the divinity; the evocatio of the initial section becomes the invocatio, just as in every other hymnic form. Under the grammatical form ‘you’, the god takes part in a direct relationship, achieved in the present poem, with the poetic ‘I’ of the aoidos-rhapsode who is the representative of the people witnessing the cultic ceremony for which the Homeric recitation is intended. In the great majority of Homeric Hymns included in the corpus transmitted by the manuscript tradition, the final section, termed preces, opens with a formula of ‘salutation’ (åÆæØ); it is appropriate to interpret this åÆæØ (which begins the prayer section in 27 of the 33 Hymns) in the etymological sense of the verb, as an invitation to the divinity to rejoice.47 As I indicated at the outset of this chapter, in some cases the object of rejoicing is mentioned: it is the song. Thus, in the brief Hymn 9 to Artemis, the goddess is invited, with all other feminine divinities, to ‘rejoice in the song’ (åÆEæ . . . IØB fi , 7); this is a formulation that one finds, for example, also at the end of Hymn 25 to the Mother of gods and men, discussed above. Also, in a third of the Hymns which conclude with a request to the divinity to rejoice, the imperative åÆEæ is accompanied by oø (‘thus’), which links the pleasure to the preceding laudatory section.48 The role of the central narrative and descriptive part of the Hymn is thus confirmed;

46 The essential elements of my study of morphology of the preces section found in Calame (2005), 24–30 are therefore again taken up here. 47 For bibliography on the literal sense of åÆæØ, see above n. 3. 48 Dion. D 11, Apoll. 545, Herm. 579, Hys. 9. 7, 14. 6, 16. 5, 18. 10, 19. 48, 21. 5, 26. 11, 28. 17.

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the narrative and descriptive praise is introduced into the logic of the reciprocity between man and god. The final address to the divinity often leads into a prayer, the object of which is explicit. Thus, Hymn 11 dedicated to Athena asks the goddess to ‘grant us’ ( ¼ Ø, 5) good fortune and prosperity, while in the short Hymn 10 to Aphrodite the aoidos-rhapsode-‘I’ asks the goddess to grant a song full of charm that evokes amorous desire (ƒ æÆ IØ, 5). This same reciprocal relationship is made clear in Hymn 30 to Gaia, already discussed above, by the participation of the young maidens in choral celebrations which signify the prosperity that Gaia gives to just cities: ‘Rejoice, mother of the gods, consort of starry Heaven; be favourable and grant comfortable livelihood in return for my singing’ (åÆEæ, ŁH Åæ, ¼ºå’ ˇPæÆF Iæ j æçæø ’ ¼’ fiTB  Łı æ’ ZÆÇ, 17–18). Just like the epica laus section, the concluding verses are focused upon aedic song. Elsewhere, the request is sometimes accompanied by an act of verbal deixis, which connects the request to the hic et nunc of the hymnic prayer: in the brief Hymn 13 to Demeter cited at the beginning of this chapter, the speaker-singer asks the goddess to keep safe ‘this city’ ( ºØ, 3) while beginning the song (¼æå IØB , 3); and at the end of Hymn 6 to Aphrodite the poetic persona explicitly asks the goddess not only to order his song, but above all to grant him victory in ‘this competition’ (K IªHØ fiH, 19–20). This contest can be little other than a competition of musical recitation, such as that which formed an integral part of the Panathenaic festival.49 A third distinctive trait of the final section of the Homeric Hymns is that many of the concluding sequences establish a contract between the persona cantans (including those for whom he is the spokesperson) and the divinity evoked, then invoked. The aedic-rhapsodic hymn, which itself constitutes a musical offering by its performance, often places on the level of musical celebration the contractual relationship of reciprocity between the divinity and the poetic-‘I’ (the latter readily expanded to a poetic-‘we’ that reflects the community associated with the cultic ceremony). In exchange for the pleasure provoked by the song which is in the process of being offered to him, 49 On the Iª as a competition of rhapsodic recitation, cf. Shapiro (1992) and in this volume Nagy (pp. 322–5). According to West (1992), 19 n. 25, Hy. 6 was meant to be performed at ‘one of the Cyprian festivals of Aphrodite, such as the panegyris of Old Paphos (Strab. 14. 6. 3)’.

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Dionysus is called upon in Hymn 26 to grant to his audience-‘we’ future rejoicing at the due time each year. And it is no surprise to see the Muses and Apollo, who have just been lauded for the support they give to singers and lyre-players, engaged in a reciprocal poetic relationship in Hymn 25: the Muses and Apollo are invited to rejoice in exchange for the glory that they are requested to confer upon the song of the poetic-‘I’ (K c Ø Æ’ IØ; ‘honour my song’, 6). The model for this reciprocal rejoicing in musical activity is furnished by the narrative of the Delian scene in the first part of the long Hymn to Apollo. On the level of syntax, the reciprocity thus established between gods and mortals is underlined, from an enunciative point of view, by the proximity of the forms of ‘you’ and ‘I’. This is, for example, the case also at the end of the prelude of Hesiod’s Works and Days.50 This morphological and syntactical proximity is particularly noticeable in the formulas that conclude a certain number of the Hymns by announcing, in a performative manner, the movement to another song: the line ÆPaæ Kªg  ø  ŒÆd ¼ººÅ  ’ IØB (‘And I will take heed both for you and for other singing’) concludes Hymn 30 to Gaia and, as we have seen above, Hymn 25 to the Muses and Apollo. The same formula is found also at the end of Hermes, Demeter, and Hymn 6 to Aphrodite, not to mention the Hymn to Apollo.51 Finally, the form  ÆØ refers to the function of memory, which is the foundation of poetic epic recitation and also central to other poetic genres. Embodied in the figure of Mnemosyne, the mother of the Muses (both names being etymologically linked to memory), this function of memory corresponds to the inspired ability of the aoidosrhapsode to draw from the long tradition of epic poetry the resources required to narrate the great deeds of the heroes who were still close to the gods: creative memory, which depends upon a tradition of memory to maintain and revive the common recollection of a foundational poetic past.52 The function of memory finds fulfilment at the close of many Homeric Hymns in the form of the performative future, 50

Cf. Hes. Op. 10, with parallels in Calame (2005), 40–1. On this and the formulae below as an indication of passage to another song, cf. in this volume Nagy (pp. 322–5); for an alternative interpretation, see Clay (pp. 237–40). 52 This poetic function of aedic memory has been widely explored: see the references given in Calame (2005), 195 n. 26, to which one should add Brillante (2009), 43–6. 51

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which expresses the intention of the poetic-‘I’ in the very completion of his act of singing. The performance of the present Hymn is an act of praise and verbal offering to the divinity, which is destined to lead into a new act of poetic memory. This performative movement to another song is also made explicit in another concluding formula, which likewise contains a form of the performative future: F ’ Kªg Iæ  Æ  ÆØ ¼ºº K o  (‘having begun with you, I will pass on to another song’). This formula concludes the Hymn to Aphrodite, as well as both the short Hy. 18 to Hermes (with repetition of the invitation to rejoice after the announcement of movement to another song) and the even shorter Hy. 9 to Artemis. In the last case, after the invitation to rejoice in the song (IØB fi , 7), the first part of the concluding formula is anticipated by an expression which recalls an opening formula: ÆPaæ Kªg   æHÆ ŒÆd KŒ  Ł ¼æå ’ IØ (‘Of you and from you first I sing’, 8).53 In addition to the new formal and syntactic connection made between ‘I’ and ‘you’ and the terminal use of a performative future, which confirms the function of this Hymn as a proem to further poetic performance, this concluding line establishes the semantic equivalence often noted between the terms o  and IØ. To conclude, understood in a generic manner as a song, the Homeric Hymn is an offering made by mortals to a god, which leads into another offering, itself also poetic. In this ritual play of gift and counter-gift, the Homeric Hymn establishes between the god and a community of mortals a poetic contract concerning the performance of the song as a ritual sacrifice. The polytheistic culture of ancient Greece did not have a monopoly on this verbal and musical contract between a mortal and a divinity. One finds an analogous form in the Hebrew Psalms in this invocatory prelude (141, 1–2): Lord I call upon you: make haste unto to me, Give ear to my supplication when I call upon you. May my prayer be set before you like incense, And the raising up of my hands be an evening sacrifice.

53 Other Hymns contain more subtle indications of performance: cf. Calame (2005), 196 n. 28.

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Index Locorum ACHAEUS (TrGF) fr. 20 F 16b–17: 31, 228 n. 84 ACHILLES TATIUS 8. 6. 6–7: 156 AELIAN NA 12. 22: 148 n. 44 AESCHYLUS Ag. 501: 91 n. 29 Cho. 447: 170 856: 91 n. 29 Eu. 1–19: 199 17–19: 80 n. 69 58: 91 n. 29 616–18: 80 n. 69 827–8: 271 n. 27 Pers. 448–9: 171 Sept. 276: 91 n. 29 AGLAOSTHENES (FGrH) fr. 499 F 3: 144 n. 31 ALCAEUS (Voigt) fr. 34: 39 n. 22, 195 n. 90, 201 307c: 66 n. 20, 80 n. 69, 201 308: 39 n. 22, 201 349a–e: 31, 40, 228 n. 84 ALCMAN (PMG) fr. 135: 170 n. 58 ALEXIS (PCG) fr. 9. 8–10: 95 n. 52

ANTHOLOGIA GRAECA 6. 96: 171 n. 65 (Erycius) 8. 226: 156 n. 12 9. 82: 144 n. 31 ANTONINUS LIBERALIS 23: 167 n. 43 APOLLODORUS (FGrH) fr. 244 F 135: 169 n. 50 PS.-APOLLODORUS 1. 5. 1: 51 3. 10. 4: 265 n. 18 3. 37–8: 135 n. 5, 143 3. 113: 93 n. 41 APOLLONIUS RHODIUS 1. 1–2: 193 1. 803: 195 1. 363–401: 194 1. 457–9: 95 n. 52 1. 460–518: 194 2. 703–13: 185 n. 43, 194 2. 707–8: 64 n. 14 2. 1211: 176 n. 5 3. 114–66: 195 3. 275–97: 195 3. 1191–325: 195 3. 1218: 152 n. 5 4. 869–84: 194 ARATUS Ph. 263: 196 n. 96 268–9: 196 fr. (SH) 109: 195 n. 91 ARISTIDES Or. 34–5: 61, 176 n. 5 41. 6: 31 n. 5

384 ARISTOPHANES Av. 575: 177, 199 909–14: 199 1515–24: 94 n. 42 1565–693: 94 n. 43 Pax. 363–5: 94 365: 99 n. 65 191–4: 93 201–2: 93 400–2: 94 924: 94 Eq. 639: 97 n. 56 1016: 199 Pl. 1118–32: 93 n. 41 1136–8: 93 n. 41 1139–70: 94 V. 1308–13: 96 n. 52 fr. (PCG) 56. 19–27: 178 56. 26–7: 177 n. 8 ARISTOTLE HA 632b 20–3: 157 Ph. 227a 28–9: 301 n. 62 Po. 1448a: 94 n. 44 1449a: 94 n. 44 fr. 347. 15: 301 n. 62 ATHENAEUS 22b: 176 n. 5, 210 n. 17 653b: 176 n. 5

Index Locorum 2. 11: 186 2. 21: 184 2. 24: 74 2. 25: 184 2. 30: 188 n. 56 2. 47–9: 184 n. 38 2. 49: 167 2. 65–96: 184 2. 80: 184 2. 97: 186 2. 97–104: 183–5 2. 103: 64 n. 14 2. 105–13: 187–8 2. 209–11: 182 3. 4–40: 191 3. 26–8: 192 3. 66–71: 191 3. 88–9: 158 n. 21 3. 122: 191 3. 140–69: 191 4. 49–55: 182 n. 30 4. 55–204: 75 4. 82–5: 193 4. 90–3: 185 n. 41 4. 258: 182 n. 33 4. 325: 193 n. 76 5. 19–22: 192–3 6. 6–16: 188–9 6. 17–23: 189–90 6. 37: 190 6. 58: 190 6. 59–61: 180 n. 25 6. 66–7: 190 6. 70–1: 180 fr. (Pf.) 24. 13: 162 n. 34 88: 185 429–6 (Pinakes): 179 685: 169 n. 50

BACCHYLIDES fr. 5. 16–30: 200

CASTORION (SH) fr. 310. 3: 160 n. 26

CALLIMACHUS Hy. 1. 4–8: 179 1. 4–10: 40–1 1. 47: 190 1. 55–6: 191 1. 67: 190 1. 87–8: 190 2. 4–5: 181–2

CERTAMEN (Allen) 54–214: 295–6, 299 72–204: 303 94–101: 303 n. 67 97–8: 237 n. 22 176–210: 304 255: 299 276–314: 294 315–22: 17, 21, 294

Index Locorum CHOERILUS (Bernabé) fr. 9: 143 n. 28 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA Protr. 2. 17. 2: 228 CYPRIA (Bernabé) fr. 4–5: 110, 114 DIODORUS SICULUS 1. 15. 7: 30, 176 n. 5 3. 66. 3: 30, 42 n. 25, 176 n. 5, 225 4. 2. 4: 30, 176 n. 5 10. 19. 6: 135 n. 5

Hipp. 1268–81: 198 IA 1294–8: 110 n. 25 Ion 493–4: 171 n. 61 499–500: 156 n. 14 IT 508: 91 n. 29 1234–57: 64 n. 14 fr. (TrGF) 863: 158 n. 21

ERYCIUS (Anthologia Graeca) 6. 96: 171 n. 65

HERODOTUS 1. 23–4: 148 n. 46 1. 64. 2: 285 n. 14 1. 132: 229 2. 49–50: 338 n. 10 4. 35: 223 n. 66 4. 145: 135 n. 5 6. 105: 15, 169 n. 51 6. 137–40: 135 n. 5

EUMELUS (Bernabé) fr. 16: 211 n. 23

HECATAEUS (FGrH) fr. 18–19: 135 n. 5

EUPHORION (CA) fr. 14: 170 n. 57

HERACLITUS (D.–K.) fr. 22 B 93: 353

EURIPIDES Ba. 64–169: 198 83–7: 147 n. 42 141–3: 147 n. 38 144–50: 147 n. 39 159–65: 149 n. 48 614–59: 141 n. 23 642–6: 141 n. 24 695–711: 147 n. 38 770–4: 141 n. 25 859–61: 142 n. 27 Cyc. 11–32: 143 Hel. 171: 156 n. 16 190: 166 n. 41 676–8: 110 n. 25 1301–68: 198 HF 687–9: 314 687–95: 310

HESIOD Op. 158–66: 244 n. 44 256–62: 192 n. 73 427: 90 n. 23 650–9: 9 n. 37, 296 656–7: 212 n. 24 657: 297 Th. 1–115: 210–12, 239, 306–7 10: 160 n. 27 44–50: 239 72–4: 256 94–5: 313 94–7: 347 n. 31 100: 199 104: 313 112–13: 256 116–19: 257–8 126–7: 258–9 128: 270 n. 24, 279 138: 260

EPICHARMUS (PCG i) fr. 51: 31 n. 6, 228 n. 84

385

386 HESIOD (cont.) 139: 264 149: 264 154: 260 156–8: 273 159: 257 161–2: 273 164: 265 170–2: 266 179: 257 179–81: 273 191: 112 n. 34 201–6: 111 n. 28 205: 117 n. 53 205–6: 218 270–336: 260 459–62: 273 492–3: 273 501–6: 273 617–23: 273 629–721: 269 693: 176 693–6: 269 702–5: 270 820–52: 261 820–80: 74 820–900: 269 837–8: 261 842–58: 270 n. 24 853–68: 278 881–5: 244, 256 886–900: 263–4 896: 268 897–9: 262 898: 268 912–14: 244 938–9: 224 n. 71 965: 316 1008–10: 105 n. 2 1015–16: 135 n. 5 PS.-HESIOD fr. 30: 265 n. 18 54a: 265 n. 18 148(a): 35 n. 17 204: 244 283: 138 n. 17 357: 289, 295, 301, 317 375: 250 n. 66 Sc. 423: 142 n. 26

Index Locorum HIMERIUS Or. 48: 66, 80 n. 69 HIPPONAX (IEG) fr. 3: 92–3 3a: 92–3 23: 92 n. 32 32: 91, 93 34: 92 n. 30 35: 92 47: 93 79. 9–10: 93 128–9a: 92 n. 32 177: 91 HOMER Il. 1. 47: 77 1. 49: 77 1. 199–200: 100 n. 68 1. 396: 249 1. 433–7: 68 1. 472–4: 274 n. 31 1. 484–94: 178 n. 13 1. 524–7: 39 1. 528–30: 38 1. 539–59: 266 1. 571–600: 97, 249 1. 590–4: 36–7 1. 593: 35 n. 17 1. 599: 246 n. 51 2. 103–4: 338 n. 13 2. 484: 292 2. 820–1: 105 n. 2 3. 54: 116 n. 51 3. 136: 119 n. 59 3. 373–82: 34, 130 3. 396–8: 100 n. 68 4. 74–9: 68 4. 215: 115 n. 47 4. 420: 142 n. 26 5. 119: 91 n. 29 5. 263–71: 130 5. 311–430: 34, 129–30 5. 440–2: 76–7 5. 778: 177 5. 890: 250 6. 123: 117 6. 123–43: 149 n. 50 6. 128–9: 117 6. 389: 162

Index Locorum 6. 476–81: 128–9 8. 5–40: 265 8. 18–27: 249 8. 350–484: 265–6 8. 424: 265 8. 477–83: 249 12. 13–33: 244 n. 44 12. 396: 142 n. 26 13. 68–75: 84 n. 8, 100 n. 68 13. 461: 130 14. 172: 109 n. 23 14. 178–9: 111 n. 33 14. 178–85: 109 n. 23 14. 185: 114 14. 211: 111 14. 215: 111 14. 216: 117 14. 222–3: 111 14. 230: 35 14. 238–40: 35 14. 256–61: 36–7 14. 267–8: 36–7 14. 329–40 14. 346–51: 248 15. 18–22: 249 15. 18–30: 37 15. 158–217: 247 15. 286: 84 n. 10 15. 361–6: 77 15. 364: 168 16. 55: 126 n. 86 16. 130–44: 115 16. 163: 176 n. 7 16. 179–83: 344 n. 26 16. 180–6: 99 n. 64 16. 431–9: 266 16. 717–18: 119 n. 61 16. 788–817: 77 16. 793–804: 115 16. 829: 91 n. 29, 121 n. 68 16. 844–7: 122 16. 852–4: 123 17. 35: 91 n. 29 17. 209: 38 17. 450: 91 n. 29 18. 382–3: 34 18. 394–405: 34–5 18. 400–1: 114 18. 610: 114 19. 9: 120 19. 307: 126 n. 86 19. 369–83: 114 n. 43

20. 4–75: 248 20. 8–9: 152 n. 5 20. 44–6: 114 n. 44 20. 200–9: 119 20. 293: 131 20. 298: 131 20. 307–8: 13, 127 20. 344: 84 n. 10 20. 431–3: 119 21. 121: 91 n. 29 21. 150: 117 21. 319: 176 21. 385–514: 248 21. 387: 142 n. 26 21. 461–7: 77 21. 497–501: 88 n. 20 22. 7–10 22. 35–91: 114 n. 44 22. 127–8: 117 n. 53 22. 131–6: 114 n. 44 22. 178–81: 266 22. 296–303: 122 22. 330: 121 n. 68 22. 358–60: 123 22. 369–75: 125 24. 247: 157 n. 19 24. 258–9: 130 24. 347–8: 99, 100 n. 69 24. 358–467: 99–100 24. 370–1: 99 24. 397: 99 24. 439–40: 99 24. 445: 99 Od. 1. 1: 292 1. 325–7: 17 3. 71–4: 68 3. 88: 283 n. 7 3. 184: 283 n. 7 3. 371–2: 100 n. 68 4. 844: 226 6. 123–4: 152 n. 5 8. 62–96: 17 8. 73–82: 251 8. 266–366: 33, 37–8, 87–8, 97–8, 249–50, 330–2 8. 283–4: 35 n. 17 8. 321–32: 219 8. 333–43: 112 n. 37 8. 335–7: 87–8 8. 339–43: 88

387

388

Index Locorum

HOMERIC HYMNS Hy. 1 (Dionysus) A 1–10: 176 n. 5 A 1–24: 226 A 2–8: 41 A 3: 30 A 8: 30, 198 A 11–14: 42 D 4–6: 38 D 6–12: 227 D 7: 38 n. 19 D 8: 30, 63 D 11–12: 53

91–304: 45–46 92: 137 101: 85 188–9: 83, 190, 202 198–204: 245 200–1: 188 202–4: 198 237–302: 194 268: 83 268–9: 202 270–4: 50 281–91: 245 284–300: 47 293–304: 50 304: 198 305–12: 198 345–69: 342 366: 342 424: 198 460–90: 242 473–82: 50 480–2: 243 480–9: 343 n. 25 484: 137 n. 11 486–7: 203 494–5: 203, 329 495: 18 305–489: 45–6 310–11: 190 314–56: 47 360–9: 47 441–69: 47 450: 176 450–6: 56 470–3: 56 470–95: 62 480–94: 53 481–2: 46 490: 63

Hy. 2 (Demeter) 1: 140 n. 19 1–21: 44 2–11: 348 n. 34 3: 242 9: 137 n. 8 14: 137 n. 8 20–9: 47 40–3: 45 43–4: 198 49–50: 188 51–89: 47 82–7: 47

Hy. 3 (Apollo) 1: 193 1–13: 45, 69, 74, 272–4 1–139: 62 1–181: 60 186–8: 274 2: 152 2–9: 203 3: 184 4–9: 203 14–18: 161 n. 28 19: 69, 326, 339

HOMER (cont.) 8. 362: 109 n. 23 8. 364–5: 109 n. 23 8. 366: 109 n. 23 8. 429: 330 8. 492–3: 237 n. 23 8. 499: 18, 238 8. 499–535: 17, 251 9. 116: 226 9. 336: 166 n. 42 9. 469: 166 n. 42 10. 277–9: 100 11. 245: 115 12. 14: 170 n. 58 13. 250: 270 n. 25 14. 423: 91 n. 29 14. 527: 166 n. 41 15. 295: 178 n. 13 15. 295–300: 68 16. 162–3: 84 n. 9 19. 36: 84 n. 10 19. 86–8: 273 n. 29 19. 518–22: 168–9 22. 286: 91 n. 29 23. 59: 91 n. 29

Index Locorum 30–4: 64 45–9: 48 47: 222 53–5: 66 55–64: 184 56–60: 69, 222 59–60: 70 62–78: 71 63–73: 245 66–78: 75 67–9: 74, 273–4 75–6: 69 79–82: 69–7 92–106: 48 95–9: 72 n. 48 97–104: 184, 222 114: 177, 199 117: 182 119: 182 n. 33, 202 127–55: 350–1 131–2: 73–4, 137 132: 75, 80, 242, 278 136–9: 179 140–64: 64, 191 146: 163 n. 36 146–76: 61, 238–9, 252, 322, 351–2 149: 318, 321 149–50: 323 151: 231 156–75: 165 158–9: 314 158–61: 314–15 162: 186 n. 46 162–4: 185–6 162–78: 61, 63, 186–7, 200, 204, 223–4, 305–7 169: 187 169–72: 298 171–8: 16–17 174: 63 177: 63 177–8: 312–14 179–546: 62, 352–3 182–5: 204 182–546: 60–1 186–7: 78 186–8: 112 n. 36 186–206: 69, 203 189: 316 189–93: 315 190–1: 239 190–3: 78

197–8: 203 205: 80 214–15: 78 216–99: 64 220–1: 70 229–38: 66, 202 244–5: 68 247–9: 70 247–53: 65, 75, 77 248: 78 249–50: 78 252: 80 256–74: 245 285–99: 12 288: 78 300–74: 184, 199, 275–6 305–55: 48, 62, 73 n. 49, 74 322–30: 276 326–7: 277 332–9: 249 337–42: 276 341: 176 357: 183 n. 35 357–74: 76, 278 366–74: 75, 183 370: 91 n. 29 371–4: 68 375–87: 66, 75, 245 381: 78 382–7: 278 388–544: 68 399–404: 245 400: 82, 85 421–7: 68 425: 178 n. 13 427: 80 433: 80 440–5: 82 440–70: 68 443: 199 449–50: 83 452–5: 68 475–85: 77 478–9: 78 479: 341 480: 83 484: 80 490–6: 66 493–6: 68 503–7: 68, 178 n. 13 514–19: 183 n. 34 522–3: 78

389

390 HOMERIC HYMNS (cont.) 528–30: 245 528–36: 70 529–30: 66 531–44: 76 532–7: 77 535–70: 71 537–43: 76 538–44: 77 540–3: 12 546: 336 n. 8 Hy. 4 (Hermes) 1: 103 1–4: 161 n. 28, 338 1–54: 348–9 6–9: 167 8: 224 10: 137, 139 13–15: 167 13–24: 224 15: 92 17–18: 190 19: 196 n. 96 20: 202 21: 190 21–2: 167 24–62: 161 n. 29 31: 102 34–5: 95 40–2: 225 41–51: 242 42: 167 n. 45, 225 43–6: 85 n. 12 47–51: 95 54–63: 103–4 55–6: 95 57–8: 167 57–62: 244, 249 n. 62 64: 56, 93 67–9: 99 77–8: 158 90–3: 84, 89 n. 24 97–100: 99 99: 89 111: 242 112–41: 161 n. 29, 194 115–37: 56 124–6: 102 127–9: 21 141: 89, 99 150–61: 96

Index Locorum 152: 168 155: 99 160: 96 174–81: 96 175: 92 176–81: 13, 91 184–200: 84 189–212: 195 n. 93 190–200: 95 194–6: 91 196: 84 219: 84 231–2: 84–5 237: 84–5 242–3: 84 254–9: 95 261–77: 95 265–73: 13 278: 84–5 281: 86 287: 93 290: 92, 97 292: 91 294–6: 96 296: 191 322–4: 96 341: 99 342–3: 84 n. 8 343: 85 368–86: 95 389: 86, 225 389–95: 242 407: 84 408: 92 409–14: 83 n. 5 414: 85 415–16: 84–5 417–35: 194 420: 86 425–33: 245, 249 n. 62 426–578: 349–50 429: 89 436–578: 191 437: 89 447–8: 13 454: 102 455: 85 469–72: 80 n. 69 475–88: 103 496–9: 242 507–10: 102 511–12: 13, 168

Index Locorum 515: 201 n. 121 531–40: 80 n. 69 541–9: 163 n. 36 577–8: 163 n. 36 Hy. 5 (Aphrodite) 1–6: 138 n. 15 2: 152, 195 3–5: 198 7–33: 129, 193 19: 182 n. 33 20: 192 25–32: 39 n. 22, 192, 200 31–2: 202 36–44: 126 n. 88 45–7: 137 n. 8 45–52: 124, 138 n. 15, 220 58–65: 22, 109 n. 23, 113 69–74 221 n. 62 70–3: 116 75–82: 344 77: 116, 129 81–90: 113–14 82: 117 84–91: 113 91: 117–18 92–9: 117–18 98–9: 152 n. 5 100–2: 22 103–6: 128–9 104: 121 111: 118 113: 119 117–25: 344 127: 127 127–40: 118 143: 117, 120 144: 117 145–54: 117, 120 157–60: 120 162–6: 113 164: 115 166: 120 168–9: 121 172–9: 83 173–4: 190 n. 65, 202 181–3: 245 182: 115 182–3: 121 184: 118 186–90: 121 193–6: 121

196–7: 127 197–8: 14 198–9: 126 239–46: 123, 243 247: 122 247–55: 125–6, 138 n. 15, 220 254: 122 264–72: 193 n. 76 278: 121 278–9: 129 285–6: 83 286: 124 290: 126 292: 129 293: 18, 328, 336 n. 8 Hy. 6 (Aphrodite) 1: 112 5: 112 5–15: 219 19–21: 17, 62, 219, 236, 336, 355 Hy. 7 (Dionysus) 1: 103 n. 80 1–2: 139, 193 n. 80 2: 140 3: 140 7–8: 14, 143 11: 140 13–15: 141 15–24: 83 19–21: 141 29: 144 31: 141 35–45: 83, 180 36–7: 147 37–57: 142 42–50: 180 n. 26 51 143 n. 28 53: 148 56: 139, 347 n. 32 56–7: 83 57: 143 58: 139 58–9: 149 Hy. 9 (Artemis) 1: 140 n. 19 7–9: 357 9: 18, 328, 336 n. 8 Hy. 10 (Aphrodite) 5: 355

391

392 HOMERIC HYMNS (cont.) Hy. 11 (Athena) 4: 262 5: 355 Hy. 13 (Demeter) 1–3: 334–7 3: 62, 342 n. 21 Hy. 14 (Mother of the Gods) 2: 140 n. 19 Hy. 16 (Asclepius) 1–3: 178, 339 Hy. 17 (Dioscuri) 1: 140 n. 19 1–6: 339 3–5: 203 Hy. 18 (Hermes) 1: 197 1–5: 337 11: 18, 328 Hy. 19 (Pan) 1: 103 n. 80, 140 n. 19, 151 1–2: 161, 164 1–9: 167 2–3: 152–3, 158 2–27: 154–5, 348 3: 170 4–7: 159–60 8–9: 158 8–14: 153 14–18: 155–6 15: 168, 170 16–18: 168–9 19–26: 157–8 32–3: 163 n. 36, 167 35–7: 161 36–7: 167 37: 139 38: 167, 170 38–9: 162–3 39: 163 43: 167 n. 45 45–7: 161–2 47: 164 24: 160 27–35: 165–6 28–9: 160 38–9: 83 n. 4, 139 40–1: 163

Index Locorum 44–6: 88 n. 20, 139 48: 63 48–9: 163–4 Hy. 20 (Hephaestus) 1: 140 n. 19 8: 63 Hy. 21 (Apollo) 1–5: 345 1: 178, 182 n. 30 5: 63 Hy. 22 (Poseidon) 1: 103 n. 80 Hy. 23 (Zeus) 1–4: 325 4: 63 Hy. 24 (Hestia) 4–5: 61, 342 Hy. 25 (Apollo, the Muses, Zeus) 1–7: 346–7 6: 356 Hy. 26 (Dionysus) 1–5: 339 1–10: 347 3–4: 195 n. 91 11–13: 62 12–13: 236 Hy. 27 (Artemis) 4–20: 203, 344–5 Hy. 28 (Athena) 1–18: 267–71 3–16: 203 n. 132 Hy. 29 (Hestia) 7: 338 n. 13 Hy. 30 (Mother of All) 2–16: 343 7–8: 203 17–18: 355 18–19: 203 19: 356 Hy. 31 (Helios) 1: 140 n. 19 18–20: 237, 316 Hy. 32 (Selene) 18–19: 193, 207 n. 6, 237, 316 20: 199

Index Locorum Hy. 33 (Dioscuri) 1: 103 n. 80, 140 n. 19 1–3: 151 n. 1 1–5: 339 4–5: 203

fr. 715 F 27: 170 n. 57

HORACE Carm. 1. 10. 9–12: 201 n. 119 Od. 4. 2: 180 n. 25

MUSAEUS (Bernabé) fr. 46–53: 217 60 F: 217

HYGINUS Astr. 2. 17: 144 n. 31 Fab. 134: 144 n. 31 140: 64 n. 14 166: 31 n. 5 IEG (Adespota) fr. 27. 1–6: 95 n. 52 ISOCRATES Paneg. 159: 320 PS.-LIBANIUS Narr. 30. 1 (viii. 38–9 Foerster): 31 n. 5 LINUS (Bernabé) fr. 78–93: 217 LUCIAN Salt. 22: 144 n. 31 PS.-LUCIAN Dem. Enc. 19: 180 n. 25 LXX Psalm 141: 357 MACROBIUS Sat. 1. 17. 52: 64 n. 14 MARGITES (Bernabé) 1. 2: 199 MEGASTHENES (FGrH)

MENODOTUS (FGrH) fr. 541 F 1: 33

NICANDER Alex. 130: 177 n. 8 560: 167 n. 43 NICOCLES (FGrH) 376 F 8: 290 NONNUS D. 4. 363: 166 n. 42 44. 240–9: 144 n. 31 45. 105–69: 144 n. 31 45. 683–92: 144 n. 31 OPPIAN H. 1. 650: 144 n. 31 ORPHICA A. 1199–202: 43, 226 Hy. 11. 6: 156 n. 15 fr. (Bernabé) 8–25: 212–15 OVID Met. 1. 689–712: 156 n. 16 3. 597–691: 144 PAUSANIAS 1. 20. 3: 31 n. 5, 42, 176 n. 5 1. 38. 2–3: 176 n. 5, 216 1. 39. 1: 216 4. 1. 5: 216 4. 30. 4: 176 n. 5 5. 7. 8: 223 n. 66 7. 21. 7: 338 8. 21. 3: 216 n. 39 8. 37. 9: 216 9. 27. 2: 216 n. 39, 223 n. 66

393

394 PAUSANIAS (cont.) 9. 30. 12: 216 9. 31. 9: 216 10. 5. 7: 223 n. 66 10. 5. 8: 215 n. 38 10. 37. 4: 176 n. 5 PHERECYDES (FGrH) fr. 3 F 131: 167 n. 43 PHERECRATES (PCG) fr. 155 (Cheiron): 102 n. 77

Index Locorum 52m: 311 89a: 179 n. 23 95. 2: 171 n. 61 95–6: 152 n. 3 96: 160 n. 26 97: 156 n. 12 124: 143 n. 28 140b 16–17: 148 n. 45 236: 15, 143, 148 n. 43 283: 31, 228 n. 84 Scholia ad N. 2: 71–2, 177 n. 9, 223 n. 67, 284–91, 301–3

PHILODEMUS Piet. p. 87 Schober: 176 n. 5 Piet. fr. 19 (Henrichs, 1975b)

PLATO Cra. 420–a–b: 337 Euthphr. 8b 4: 227 Ion 530a: 320 530d: 288 n. 22 Lg. 700b: 197 Prt. 316d 7–9: 229 n. 89 R. 378d: 31, 40, 197, 227 n. 82 600d–e: 299 607a: : 197

PHILOSTRATUS Her. 693: 216

PS.-PLATO Hipparch. 228b–c: 287, 300

PHILOSTRATUS JUNIOR Im. 1. 19: 144 n. 31

PLUTARCH Mor. 16d: 158 n. 21 365a 6: 228 n. 87 502–3: 99 n. 62 984c: 148 n. 44 1132d: 209 n. 14 1133c: 209 n. 14 Nic. 3. 5–7: 285, 309, 322 Per. 13. 9–11: 319 Thes. 21. 3: 322

PHILICUS (SH) fr. 676–80: 196 PHILOCHORUS (FGrH) fr. 308. 100: 135 n. 5 328 F 185: 216 328 F 212: 289 PHILODAMUS (Furley-Bremer) 1–5: 340

PINDAR N. 2. 1–5: 18, 210 n. 17, 238, 324 3. 14: 178 3. 28: 170 O. 6: 301 n. 62 7. 35–8: 262 P. 1. 4: 239 n. 31 12: 301 n. 62 fr. 7b: 199–200 29: 179 n. 23

PMG 936: 160 n. 26, 163 n. 35, 171 n. 61

Index Locorum 1012: 39 n. 22 POSIDONIUS (E.–K.) fr. 62: 152 n. 3 PRATINUS (TrGF) fr. 6: 170 n. 58 RHIANUS (CA) fr. 10: 167

395

STESICHORUS (PMG) fr. 64: 239 STRABO 8. 3. 26: 178 n. 13 10. 1. 9: 178 n. 13 14. 6. 3: 355 n. 49 TELECLIDES (PCG) fr. 35: 93 n. 41

SAPPHO (Voigt) fr. 44. 33: 159 n. 24 44A. 7–8: 39 44A. 1–11: 192, 200–1

THEOCRITUS Id. 17: 195 22: 195 22. 223: 58 24. 1–63: 195

SEXTUS EMPIRICUS M. 9. 18: 215 n. 37

THEOGNIS 358: 91 n. 29 944: 91 n. 29

SENECA Oed. 449–66: 144 n. 31

THUCYDIDES 3. 104: 11, 18. 61, 177 n. 8, 196–7, 238, 282–6, 288, 307–9, 312–13, 317–25, 327 4. 109: 135 n. 5

SERVIUS A. 1. 57: 144 n. 31 3. 73: 64 n. 14 Ecl. 4. 62: 31 n. 5 SLG S264: 39 n. 22, 201 SIMONIDES fr. T 47 a–b (Campbell): 150 519 (PMG): 310 SOPHOCLES Aj. 695: 171 n. 61 OC 484: 91 n. 29 OT 249: 91 n. 29 Trach. 809: 91 n. 29 fr. (TrGF) 926: 152 n. 3

TIMAEUS (FGrH) 566 F 149: 143 n. 28 TITANOMACHY (Bernabé) fr. 11: 138 VERGIL A. 10. 551: 167 n. 43 VITA HOMERI HERODOTEA (Allen) 379–516: 293 XENOPHON Cyn. 11. 1: 158 n. 21 INSCRIPTIONS SEG 8. 548. 25 15. 517 (Mnesiepes Inscription): 88–90 PAPYRUS FRAGMENTS P. Herc.

396 PAPYRUS FRAGMENTS (cont.) 1428: 215 n. 37 P. OXY. 670: 33, 227 n. 82 2438: 180 n. 25 2737: 177 n. 8, 178

Index Locorum 4667: 178. n. 13 PAP. GENAV. 432: 30 P.S.I. 1454: 176 n. 13

General Index References to specific passages of ancient authors discussed in the volume can be found in the Index Locorum Achilles 105–32, 114–17, 119, 121 n. 68, 123–4, 126 n. 86, 130–1 Aeneadae 17, 106 n. 5 Aeneas 14, 118 n. 58, 126–8, 130 n. 99, 131, 244, 246 name 126 birth 221, 344 Aeschylus 54–5, 171, 199; see also Homeric Hymns Agamemnon 55 Alcaeus 6, 12, 39, 156, 192, 200–1 Amphidamas, funeral games 9, 212 Amphyctionic League 11 Anchises 14, 22, 83, 105–32, 343 Antimachus 189, 197 Aphrodite affair with Ares 17, 32–3, 37–8, 97, 219, 249–50, 330 animals, power over 116, 120, 220 birth 218–19 epiphany 83, 121, 190 n. 65 Hephaestus, marriage to 34 loss of power 124–7, 208, 220 Paphos, sanctuary at 22 seduction, type scene 109–10, 112–15, 120 Apollo birth 60, 73, 138, 181–2, 221–2, 339 child of Zeus 256–7, 265 n. 18, 271–8 epiphany 184 n. 36 old man at Onchestus, encounter with 84 oracle/prophecy 11–12, 60–1, 70–1, 74, 77–9 Apollonius Rhodius 193–5; see also Homeric Hymns Arcadia 145, 147, 151–72, 338, 341 Archilochus 88–90 Ares 117; see also Aphrodite Arion 135 n. 5, 148 Aristarchus 177–8

Aristophanes 93–4, 97, 177–8, 215; see also Homeric Hymns Athena birth from Zeus 48, 256–7, 262–71, 275 Bacchylides 200; see also Homeric Hymns bilingualism 119 Brauron 135 n. 5 Cadmus 139, 142–3, 148 Callimachus 179–93; see also Homeric Hymns Chalcondyles, D. 1–2 Chanson de Roland 5 Chios 144, 186, 223, 287–8, 293, 298 Chiron 138 Corinth 14, 22, 135 n. 5, 294 cosmogony 212, 216, 219 Crates of Mallos 41, 226 Cretan sailors 60–1, 76–8, 353 cult hymns 20–2, 50–3, 66, 107–8, 185, 197–8, 206–31, 232–4, 306 n. 78 Cybele 152, 171, 198 Cyllene 93, 139, 153, 171, 338, 339, 341 Cynaethus 11, 62, 71–3, 177, 202, 223, 288–91 Cyprus 110, 112, 144, 218, 341 Cyrene 184–5 dating; see Homeric Hymns Delia 284–6 Delos 21, 60, 64–7, 69, 71–3, 75–6, 81, 207, 216, 221–3, 231, 273–4, 278, 285–6, 308–9 Demeter anger at Zeus 45–6 bringer of famine 45, 55–6 epiphany 83 search for abucted daughter; see Persephone

398

General Index

Demodocus 17–8, 34, 37, 112, 208, 219, 237 n. 23, 238, 249–52, 302, 329–31 Derveni papyrus 212–16 Dichterweihe 90 Diomedes 117, 129–30 Dionysus abduction by pirates 100, 133–50 admission to Olympus 30–3 birth 30, 148, 226–9, 339 counterpart of Demeter 48 epiphany 83, 133–50 trieteric festival 21 n. 101, 53 wine 134, 142, 146–7, 149 Doloneia 5 n. 25 Drakanos 33 Dryops 167, 169, 171, 348 Echo 157 n. 19, 158, 169, 170 n. 55 Eleusinian Mysteries 46, 50–3, 138, 208–10 Empedocles 217 Eos (Dawn) 123 Epic Cycle 4, 6, 177, 250, 330, 331 n. 157 epica laus (pars epica) 341–53 Epimenides 217 epiphany 83, 85–6, 98–104, 108, 121, 135–6, 140, 142–50, 164, 190 Erinys 55 Erysichthon 189–90 Etruscans 135 etymology 68, 154 n. 9, 161, 166 n. 41, 183–4, 327 Euripides 140, 143, 198, 310, 314; see also Homeric Hymns evocatio 207 n. 3, 337–41 Exekias 134, 143 n. 28, 145 First Sacred War 11–12 François Vase 31–2, 40, 227 Gaia 218, 257–67, 273, 277, 279, 343, 355 Ganymede 97, 123 genealogy 118, 142, 170 n. 55, 171, 212, 218, 229, 339 genre 19–20, 53–4, 79–80, 101, 107–8, 160, 164, 206–31, 232–53, 332–3 Glaucus 117 Graces 34, 111, 352 Hebe 97, 352 Hector 114, 116, 121–5, 130, 265–6

Helen 110 Hephaestus 97 binding of Hera 9–10, 30–3, 40, 227 birth 30–1, 275–6 marriage 34, 37–8 Hera; see also Hephaestus anger 30, 48, 74–5, 97, 143, 222, 227, 265–7, 275–7 Samian Tonaia 21, 33, 53 seduction of Zeus 35–7, 109–12, 248 Heracles 36–7, 195, 266 Hermes; see also Pan birth 108, 224, 339 epiphany 85–6, 98–104 humour 87–98, 225 meat, sacrifice of 21–5, 56–7, 93–4 thief 13, 83–4, 92, 94–5 trickster 86, 224, 242 Herophilus 182 Hesiod 160, 210–12, 217–18, 261 n. 12, 265 n. 18, 290, 295–9 Hipparchus 72, 287 Hipponax 90–3, 97 Hippostratus 72, 289 Homer 288–94 Homeric Hymns collection 41, 175–81, 234–5 dating 7–16 editions 1–3 Hellenistic poetry, influence on 181–96 language 7–8, 49–50, 312 performance 16–19, 86–7, 101–4, 145–6, 165, 207–9, 219, 223–4, 232–4, 251–2, 280–333 structure 61–4, 85–6, 206–8, 233–7, 334–57 Hymn 1 to Dionysus Callimachus, influence on 179–81 dating 9–10, 34, 39 Euripides, influence on 198 origin 33 Hymn 2 to Demeter Apollonius, influence on 194 Bacchylides, influence on 200 Callimachus, influence on 188–90 dating 10 Eleusis, connection to 7, 10, 21, 50–3, 161 n. 29, 209–10, 232–3 Euripides, influence on 198 female characters 47 Hesiodic character 49 language and style 49

General Index structure 55–6 Theocritus, influence on 195 tone 44–8 Hymn 3 to Apollo Aeschylus, influence on 199 Apollonius, influence on 193 Aristophanes, influence on 199 Callimachus, influence on 181–8 cults, connection to 53 dating 7, 11–12 geography 64, 339 inscribed by Delians 21 language and style 67–71 performance 223–4, 282–6 Pindar, influence on 199–200 Theocritus, influence on 195 unity and structure 11–12, 59–81, 290–1 Hymn 4 to Hermes; see also Hymn 19 to Pan Apollonius, influence on 194–5 Callimachus, influence on 190–1 cults, connection to 21–2, 53 dating 12–13 humour 87–98, 225 language and style 82, 97 performance 13 n. 62, 86–7, 101–4, 233 n. 4 rhetoric 13, 95 Sophocles, influence on 198 Hymn 5 to Aphrodite; see also Aeneadae Apollonius, influence on 195 Callimachus, influence on 191–3 cults, connection to 17, 22 dating 7, 14, 49, 105–6, 202 Euripides, influence on 198 humour 118, 122 imitation of Homer 106–7 immortality vs. mortality 108, 126–7, 163 n. 36, 341, 352 language 127–8, 195, 198 structure 105–32 Theocritus, influence on 195 Hymn 7 to Dionysus Callimachus, influence on 180–1 dating 14–15, 133 n. 2 performance 145–6 structure 136 style 146–7 Hymn 8 to Ares 15, 175–6, 340 n. 18, 227 Hymn 19 to Pan dating 15, 169–72

399

humour 162–3 language 169–72 performance 165, 169–72 relationship to Hermes 166–8 style 146–7, 151–72 Hymn 20 to Hephaestus dating 16 Hymn 31 to Helios 203 dating 16 Hymn 32 to Selene 203 Apollonius, influence on 193 dating 16 Hymn 33 to the Dioscuri 39 n. 22, 201, 339 Theocritus, influence on 195 Hyperboreans 144, 201 n. 123, 223 Hypnos (Sleep) 35–7, 111 Iambe 51, 93, 188, 198, 245 n. 50 Ida 22, 110, 116, 221, 344 Ioannes Eugenikos 43 Ikaros 33 Judgement of Paris 110–11, 221 Karion 40, 94 Kleitias 31, 40 kleos 118, 124, 305 Kore; see Persephone Kronos 214, 254–79 krotos 152, 160, 164 Lelantine War 9 Lemnos/Lemnians 35, 37, 135 n. 5 Leto 48, 60, 64, 69, 181–2, 221–2, 256, 272–6 Linus 217 Lycurgus 149 n. 50 Lynx 158, 167 n. 45 lyre 74, 101–2, 194, 225, 344–53 Lysicrates 135 n. 5, 144 n. 31 manuscripts 1–2, 29–30, 43, 89 n. 22, 175 Maia 96, 139, 167, 224, 339 Menelaos 34, 115 n. 47 Metis 256, 263–4, 278 Mnemosyne 88–90, 140, 245, 356–7 Mnesiepes inscription 88–90 Musaeus 212, 216 Muses 90, 210–12, 305–8, 314–17, 342–9, 352

400

General Index

music 154, 156–9, 318–20, 334–57 Mysteries, Eleusinian 21, 50–3, 208–9

prooimion (prelude) 17–19, 197, 207–8, 237–40, 290, 324–5, 327, 336

Naxos 33, 144, 143, 311 Neoanalysis 6, 107 nightengale 156–7, 168–9 nymphs 152, 154, 159–60, 162–6, 344, 347–8

repetition 49–50, 95, 108 n. 20, 155 n. 11, 158 n. 22, 184, 185, 336 n. 7 Rhea 56, 228, 256, 267, 273, 277 Ruhnken, D. 2, 30, 61, 63

Odysseus 66, 100, 270 n. 25, 273 n. 29, 274 n. 30, 330–2 Olen 201 n. 123, 212, 215–16 Onchestus 84–5 oral poetics 3–9, 106–7, 280–1 Orchomenos 142 Orpheus 194, 212–15, 228–9 Orthodox Church (Christian) 104 n. 81 Ouranos 214, 218, 258–61 Pamphos 212, 216 Pan 151–72 birth 138 cult 15, 169 name 152, 161 relationship to Hermes 13, 151 n. 2, 166–8 Panathenaea 13 n. 62, 22 n. 102, 72, 287, 300, 319 Panhellenism 14, 20–22, 64–7, 81, 108, 135–6, 144–6, 232–4, 246–7 Parry, M. 4 Peisistratus 11, 285–7 Penelope 168–9, 171, 273 n. 29 Pentheus 142 performance; see Homeric Hymns Persephone abduction and marriage 42, 44–6, 54–5, 108, 137–8, 188–9, 189, 209, 241, 248 Phemius 17 Pindar 18, 31, 65 n. 19, 80, 143, 167 n. 43, 171 n. 61, 199–200, 238–9, 249, 251, 306, 309, 311, 324; see also Homeric Hymns Polycrates 11, 72–3, 202, 223, 284, 286 Politics of Olympus 79, 96–7, 107–8, 135–9, 208–9, 225, 242–5 Poseidon 115, 127, 131, 247, 338 preces 86 n. 13, 354–7 Priam 99–100, 114, 130 Prometheus 256

Schadenfreude 98 Semele 139, 148 seruus callidus 95 n. 51, 225 sexual potency 121 Silenus 143 Sophocles 169, 198; see also Homeric Hymns symposium 17, 146, 149, 251 syrinx 13 Tartarus 259, 261, 265, 266, 273 Telphousa 60, 69, 75–6, 271, 275, 278 Thebes 143 Thetis 34–5, 38–9, 126, 194, 266–7 Theocritus 195; see also Homeric Hymns theogony 212, 214–22, 229–31 Thesmophoria 50–3, 210 n. 16 Thucydides 11, 18, 61, 135 n. 5, 177, 196–7, 204, 238–9, 282–6, 288, 307–9, 312–13, 317–25, 327 timai 73, 79, 96, 102 n. 74, 117, 136–8, 191, 241, 337–8 Titanomachy 256, 269 Triptolemus 56, 217 Troy 119 Trygaios 93–4 Twelve Gods, cult at Olympia 22, 53, 161 n. 29 Typhaon 73, 74–5, 275 n. 34 Typhoeus 256, 257, 259, 261, 267, 278 Tyro 115 Tyrsenian pirates 14, 133–50 virginity 192, 200, 201 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von 31–2, 62, 227, 249 Wolf, F. A. 3, 17–18, 237 Zeus; see also Hera role in Hymns 47, 79–80, 96, 108, 122–7, 138–9, 208–9, 214, 220–1, 225, 227, 242, 254–79, 325