Introduction: a brief survey of concepts and aims

Part I: Mimesis and the making of identity in poetic performance

1. The Homeric nightingale and the poetics of variation in the art of a troubadour

2. Mimesis, models of singers, and the meaning of a Homeric epithet

3. Mimesis of Homer and beyond

4. Mimesis in lyric: Sappho’s Aphrodite and the Changing Woman of the Apache

Part II: Fixed text in theory, shifting words in performance

5. Multiform epic and Aristarchus’ quest for the real Homer

6. Homer as script

7. Homer as “scripture”

Epilogue dead poets and recomposed performers

Appendix

Bibliography

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Preface to the online edition

This book was originally published in print in 1996 by Cambridge University Press. It was published online in 2009 by the Center for Hellenic Studies, with the permission of CUP. The second online edition is published here on Classical Continuum 9 May 2025. The original print page-numbers are indicated within braces (for example, “{1|2}” indicates the break between pages 1 and 2.

Preface for the 1996 version

This book grew out of the J. H. Gray Lectures that I gave for the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge on 10, 12, and 14 May 1993. I am very grateful to the faculty, students, and friends of the Faculty, many of whom are singled out below, for the happy memories of my visit.

A shorter version of Chapter 5 was read as a paper at an international conference organized by Françoise Létoublon, the “Colloque Milman Parry,” held at the University of Grenoble on 14, 15, and 16 September 1993.

This book took a long time to write, and I was fortunate to get the advice of many people along the way. These include: Elizabeth Adkins-Regan, Robert Albis, Margaret Alexiou, Nancy Andrews, Ernst Badian, Ann Batchelder, Victor Bers, Graeme Bird, David Blank, Timothy Boyd, P. G. McC. Brown, Myles Burnyeat, Paul Cartledge, Matthew Clark, R. G. G. Coleman, Derek Collins, Gregory Crane, Olga M. Davidson, Laurence de Looze, Marian Demos, Carol Dougherty, Peter Dronke, Ursula Dronke, Andrew Dyck, Andrew Ford, Patrick K. Ford, Philip M. Freeman, Marjorie Garber, Simon Goldhill, John Hamilton, Michael Haslam, Albert Henrichs, Carolyn Higbie, Geneviève Husson, Barbara Johnson, C. P. Jones, Pierre Judet de La Combe, Charles de Lamberterie, André Lardinois, Françoise Létoublon, Geoffrey Lloyd, Janet Lloyd, Anthony A. Long, Nicole Loraux, Mary Louise Lord, Deboral Lyons, Richard P. Martin, Michael Messersmith, Steven Meyer, Elisabeth Mitchell, Stephen A. Mitchell, John Morgan, Kenneth Morrell, Oswyn Murray, Blaise Nagy, Joseph Nagy, Robin Osborne, George Pepe, Ann Perkins, Rubert T. Pickens, M. D. Reeve, Panagiotis Roilos, Philippe Rousseau, Ian Rutherford, William Sale, Albert Schachter, Elizabeth Scharffenberger, David, Schur, Charles Segal, Kathryn Slanski, Laura Slatkin, Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, Richard Tarrant, Richard Thomas, Thomas du Toit, S. V. Tracy, Roger Travis, Emily Vermeule, Dimitrios Yatromanolakis, Jenny Wallace, Calvert Watkins, Heather Williams, Dan Wiley, James Zetzel, Jan Ziolkowski, Bella Zweig. To anyone whose name I may have forgotten in this list, I apologize. Also, I assume responsibility for whatever mistakes may remain.

The title of this book is an indirect tribute to the pioneering anthropological insights of Richard Bauman, Verbal Art as Performance (Prospect Heights, Ill. 1988).

On 7, 13, and 17 January 1994, I had a chance to “repeat” my Gray Lectures, this time in French, at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, thanks to the initiative of my friend Nicole Loraux. She has always been the most supportive of colleagues, but I particularly appreciated her encouragement as I was struggling with the final phases of this book. In the fall of 1994, just as I was about to write to her to announce jokingly that the ordeal was finally over, I learned, to my shock, that Nicole had suddenly become very ill. As I write this, she continues a gallant struggle against the effects of her illness, living out the heroic meaning of an ancient Greek world for ‘ordeal’ that she herself has understood better than any other Hellenist, pónos. I dedicate this book to her in recognition of her heroic courage, and in fond hopes that she will prevail yet again, as she has always prevailed before.

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Introduction: A Brief Survey of Concepts and Aims

The two central concepts of this book can be summed up in the words performance and composition, which are to be taken as two different aspects of one process in oral poetics. The emphasis here is on performance, as the title of the book indicates.

The basic work on the interaction of performance and composition continues to be Albert Lord’s The Singer of Tales.[1] Since we will be concentrating here on the oral poetics of ancient Greece, it is important to stress, from the very start, the importance of Lord’s book for Hellenists.[2] Though it is cited by many who offer various arguments about “oral poetry,” the book is often treated only superficially, and there are even instances where those who agree or disagree with it have evidently not read it at all.

The complementarity of performance and composition, as observed by Lord, parallels that of parole and langue, as formulated by Ferdinand de Saussure in the field of linguistics.[3] The present book places the emphasis on parole, parallel to the emphasis on performance.[4]

The English noun song, along with the verb sing, expresses admirably the coexistence of performance and composition as a {1|2} continuum. Further, the idea of performance inherent in song, which is absent from the word poetry, makes it more useful to apply the word song rather than poetry to archaic Greek traditions, which do not explicitly distinguish song from poetry. The resonance of performance led Albert Lord to describe the medium of the South Slavic guslar—and of Homer—as song rather than poetry. The same idea figures prominently in the title of his pathfinding book, The Singer of Tales.[5]

The background for applying the linguistic terms langue and parole, especially with reference to other linguistic terms such as synchronic and diachronic, unmarked and marked, has been worked out in Pindar’s Homer, a compendium of over ten years of research,[6] and in the essay “Early Greek Views of Poetry and Poets” in volume I of the Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, which can serve as an epitome of that compendium.[7] Another essay, “Homeric Questions, offers a general outline of comparative linguistic as well as ethnographic approaches, summing up in this way the task at hand: “The essence of performing song and poetry, an essence permanently lost from the paideíā [‘educational system’] that we have inherited from the ancient Greeks, is for me the primary question.”[8]

A qualification is needed concerning the term comparative, which in linguistics can be used in two senses, one more specific and the other more general. The first is represented by the méthode comparative, perfected by linguists like Antoine Meillet, where comparison entails the study of cognate forms and meanings within the discipline of historical linguistics.[9] The second sense is more general, referring to the study of typological parallels, that is, of analogies between historically unrelated languages.[10] While {2|3} the establishing of cognates or borrowings is a matter of empirically proving a historical connection between the languages compared, the adducing of typological parallels need not be taken as proof for a given argument, but only as an intuitive reinforcement. The “beyond” in the subtitle of this book refers to both senses of comparison, applied to the study of song and poetry in performance.

Suffice it for the moment to offer one example each of the two senses of the term comparative. To start with the more specific sense: if we compare the meters of Song 44 of Sappho with those of Homeric hexameter, we are dealing with forms that are arguably cognate, that is, derivable from a common source.[11] The more general sense of the term comes into play if we compare, for example, the conventions of a performer’s switching from second person to first person in Song 1 of Sappho with similar conventions in the female initiation songs of Athapascan language groups like the Apache and Navajo.[12] Such a comparison is not a matter of proving something outright, since the Greek and the Athapascan traditions are obviously unrelated to each other historically. What is achieved, rather, is simply the enhanced likelihood that parallel lines of interpretation might lead to a deeper understanding of the individual traditions being compared.

One long-range comparative inference reached in previous work extends into the present book, which is, that group dynamics in performance help explain solo dynamics more effectively than the other way around.[13] This inference leads to a new emphasis on the distinction between group and audience, which in turn leads to refinements of the Greek concept of mimesis. Ultimately, these questions converge on a more specific question, that is, the relationship of lyric and epic.

Epic is more difficult to define diachronically than lyric. The eventual form of ancient Greek epic is more complex than that of “lyric,” despite the fact that epic happens to be the earliest-attested body of literature in Greek history.[14] “Epic” is also more {3|4} difficult to define synchronically, because it is even more deceptive than “lyric” when we apply the distinction between what Plato and Aristotle call diegesis and mimesis. While the first of these two terms is easily understood as ‘narrative’, the second is much more difficult to pin down. It will be argued at length that the primary meaning of mimesis is ‘dramatic re-enactment’. Suffice it to stress for now a central conclusion reached in this book, that the diegesis of epic is subsumed by mimesis. We may recall the perceptive wording of Stephen Halliwell, who considers the possibility that “Aristotle’s guiding notion of mimesis is implicitly that of enactment: poetry proper (which may include some works in prose) does not describe, narrate or offer argument, but dramatises and embodies human speech and action.”[15] Such a formulation of Aristotle’s notion can apply even to the “I” who narrates Homeric song.[16]

The ultimate aim, then, is to show that both epic and lyric in ancient Greece were fundamentally a medium of mimesis, which we can understand only if we keep asking how, when, where, and why these two kinds of verbal art were performed. {4|}

Footnotes

[1] Lord 1960.

[2] Cf. HQ 16–17.

[3] Saussure 1916. A critical summary in Ducrot and Todorov 1979:118–120.

[4] See for example the implications of parole in my preface (pp. ix–xi) to the inaugural volume of the “Myth and Poetics” series, Martin 1989, The Language of Heroes. See also Dronke 1968:13–31, the Introduction, which is entitled “Performers and Performance.” Eric Havelock remarks in The Muse Learns to Write (1986:93) that “surviving orality also explains why Greek literature to Euripides is composed as a performance, and in the language of performance.” The term orality, however, can lead to many misunderstandings, some of which I survey in HQ 19–27.

[5] Lord 1960.

[6] N 1990a. Hereafter abbreviated as PH.

[7] N 1989. One additional set of terms introduced in the present work involves the distinction that needs to be made, in analyzing oral poetics, between a syntagmatic or “horizontal” axis of combination and a paradigmatic or “vertical” axis of selection. Cf. Ducrot and Todorov 1979:111: “Thus the meaning of a word is determined both by the influence of those that surround it in discourse and by the memory of those that could have taken its place.”

[8] HQ 8. The essay “Homeric Questions” (N 1992a) was incorporated into the book Homeric Questions (N 1996b).

[9] Meillet 1925.

[10] A classic example is the study of Benveniste 1946 on the function of the third person in the verb-systems of a wide variety of unrelated languages.

[11] Such a comparison is the main topic of N 1974 ch. 4.

[12] See ch. 4 in this book.

[13] Cf. PH ch. 12.

[14] N 1974, PH 439–464.

[15] Halliwell 1986:128.

[16] There is a key formulation in Martin 1989:87–88.

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Chapter 1. The Homeric Nightingale and the Poetics of Variation in the Art of a Troubadour.

{|7} Let us begin with a passage from epic, where the epic is representing lyric, not epic. Specifically the lyric form is a song of lament. Penelope is at the moment comparing herself to a nightingale, the typical songbird of lament in ancient Greek traditions, who in a previous life had been a woman who suffered the ultimate grief of ‘inadvertently’ killing her own child:

ὡς δ᾿ ὅτε Πανδαρέου κούρη, χλωρηῒς ἀηδών,
καλὸν ἀείδῃσιν ἔαρος νέον ἱσταμένοιο,
520 δενδρέων ἐν πετάλοισι καθεζομένη πυκινοῖσιν,
ἥ τε θαμὰ τρωπῶσα χέει πολυηχέα φωνήν,
παῖδ᾿ ὀλοφυρομένη Ἴτυλον φίλον, ὅν ποτε χαλκῷ
κτεῖνε δι᾿ ἀφραδίας, κοῦρον Ζήθοιο ἄνακτος.

As when the daughter of Pandareos, the nightingale [aēdṓn] in the green[1]
sings beautifully at the onset anew of springtime,
perched in the dense foliage of trees,
and she pours forth, changing it around thick and fast, a voice with many resoundings, {7|8}
lamenting her child, the dear Itylos,[2] whom once upon a time with weapon of bronze
she killed inadvertently, the son of Zethos the king.

Odyssey xix 518–523

This form of the story, where the unfortunate woman is daughter of Pandareos and wife of Zethos, is different from the better-known variant native to Athens, where Procne the daughter of Pandion and wife of Tereus deliberately kills her child Itys.[3] For now, however, the focus is on the variations not in the myth but rather in the actual wording of the passage. At verse 521, a variant reading πολυδευκέα (poludeukéa), the meaning of which is unclear, is reported by Aelian De natura animalium 5.38, in place of what we see in the text as quoted, πολυηχέα (poluēkhéa) ‘with many resoundings’.[i]

In a book about the textual history of the Homeric poems, one critic notes that poludeukḗs (the nominative) is “rarer” than poluēkhḗs, adding: “we have seen, however, that many conjectures were introduced by the ancients into Homer and that sometimes the original was replaced by a rarer and more difficult word.”[4] In his footnotes, he offers this opinion: “in a poet such as Homer the simpler and less sophisticated expression is likely to be the original one.”[5]

Let us juxtapose this opinion with a general formulation offered by Albert Lord in response to modern cultural preconceptions about oral poetry: {8|9}

Our real difficulty arises from the fact that, unlike the oral poet, we are not accustomed to thinking in terms of fluidity. We find it difficult to grasp something that is multiform. It seems to us necessary to construct an ideal text or to seek an original, and we remain dissatisfied with an ever-changing phenomenon. I believe that once we know the facts of oral composition we must cease trying to find an original of any traditional song. From one point of view each performance is an original.[6]

If we apply this line of thinking to the passage about the nightingale, we may ask whether the variant readings poluēkhḗs and poludeukḗs may both be “original,” if indeed they stem ultimately from variant performances in oral poetry. But how do we square variation in performance with variation in text? This question brings me to consider two concepts, mouvance and variance. As we will see, neither of these concepts provides an immediate answer to the question at hand, but together they help shape an ultimate answer.

The term mouvance was suggested by Paul Zumthor as a way of coming to terms with his perception that a medieval literary production like the Chanson de Roland is not so much a finished product, un achèvement, as it is a text in progress, un texte en train de se faire.[7] Viewing mouvance as a widespread phenomenon in medieval manuscript transmission, Zumthor defines it as a quasi-abstraction that becomes a reality in the interplay of variant readings in different manuscripts of a given work; he pictures mouvance as a kind of “incessant vibration,” a fundamental process of instability.[8] He links mouvance with the workings of oral tradition: for example, he suggests that certain textual variations in the Carmina Burana reflect the potential for actual variations in performance.[9] {9|10}

Zumthor’s idea of mouvance is not far removed from the idea of variance, which is a second concept that I apply to the general question of variation in performance and variation in text. This term variance was formulated by Bernard Cerquiglini in his influential Eloge de la variante.[10] For Cerquiglini, “medieval writing does not produce variants; it is variance.”[11] Unlike mouvance, however, Cerquiglini’s model of variance is not to be viewed in terms of oral tradition as reflected in written tradition: his definition insists that the written tradition itself is a matter of variance.[12]

While there is much to be learned from Cerquiglini’s far-reaching insights concerning the fact of variation in medieval manuscript traditions, it is more useful for now to pursue the implications of Zumthor’s term mouvance. There are two reasons.

First, since the term mouvance is predicated on a link with oral traditions, it seems apt for describing a wide variety of situations where we do indeed observe a distinct degree and even a distinct kind of textual variation: there is a genuine distinction, it can be argued, between variant manuscript readings stemming from errors or deliberate changes in the mechanical process of writing copies of previous manuscripts on the one hand and, on the other, variant manuscript readings reflecting a performance tradition that is still alive in a given culture. This observation about the writing down of poetic wording extends also to the writing down of melodic patterns that may accompany the wording, as the research of musicologists has suggested: in the case of the medieval French chansonniers, for example, “there was not only a scriptless culture next to a literate one, but also a notationless culture side by side with a very small notated one.”[13] It has even {10|11} been argued that “for each chanson there existed probably as many versions as there were jongleurs who performed that particular chanson.”[14]

Second, mouvance is not just a word coined by Zumthor: we are about to see a word meaning ‘to move’ which actually designates the process of mouvance and which is being used by a given songmaking tradition in referring to its own capacity for variation. Moreover, this word meaning ‘to move’ is used in this given tradition to refer to the song of both the nightingale and the poet.

It should be noted in advance that the tradition in question—even the culture in question—differs is in many ways from that of the ancient Greeks. We must therefore recognize from the start that any parallels we may find between the two traditions about to be compared are merely typological ones, and the implications of such parallelisms will have to be re-examined at length in terms of the available Greek evidence—to which we will turn in the two chapters that follow this one. Still, the poetic and even philological problems that we are about to see are in some respects strikingly similar to those faced by specialists in the ancient Greek Classics.

The key word in question is Provençal mover, the equivalent of French mouvoir and meaning, like the French word, ‘to move’. The textual tradition in question involves the medieval Provençal chansonniers—in this case a sub-set of songs or lyric poems attributed to a twelfth-century troubadour named Jaufré Rudel, prince of Blaye. The edition in question is a 1978 publication by Rupert {11|12} T. Pickens. The methodology that is adopted in this edition, as we will see, is particularly relevant to the questions at hand.

Pickens, as editor of Jaufré Rudel, is candid in telling his readers that he had originally undertaken his project in hopes of improving on an earlier edition of this troubadour by Alfred Jeanroy (1924):

In the beginning stages of this project, I thought simply that it was possible to determine what Jaufré’s “authentic” texts were by adopting a more dispassionate regard for the poems than Jeanroy was apparently able to do. The arrogant assumption was that Jeanroy’s edition could be “improved upon” by rigorous application of Lachmannian principles. … It soon became apparent, however, that not only can “authentic” texts not be discovered, much less “established” with a sufficient degree of certainty, but that, given the condition of the manuscripts and the esthetic principles involving textual integrity affirmed by Jaufré himself as well as by his transmitters, the question of “authenticity,” insofar as the meaning of the texts was concerned, was largely irrelevant. The conventions and traditions of the courtly lyric have conspired to efface the author and to create at least as many Jaufré Rudels as there are medieval anthologies.”[15]

In abandoning one solution, where the goal is to reconstruct a given manuscript tradition back to one textual archetype, following methods established by Karl Lachmann,[16] this particular editor adopts an alternative solution by invoking the concept of mouvance as formulated by Zumthor,[17] and he explicitly connects “the poetics of mouvance” with the factor of “performance” in oral tradition.[18] More than that, this editor has discovered a {12|13} remarkable detail, to which I have just now drawn attention: that the Provençal word mover in the sense of French mouvoir and English move is actually used in Provençal songmaking to express an idea of mouvance.

The passage in question is the ending of Jaufré Rudel’s Song VI, version 1a:[19]

bos es le sons s’ieu non menti
e tot qant i a, ben ista;
e cel qi de mi l’apenra
gard si non mueva ni camgi,
qar si l’auson en Caerzi;
le coms de Tolsa l’entendra. a. a.

The melody is good, if I have not lied, {alternatively: so I have not lied}
and all there is in it goes well;
and the one who will learn it from me,
beware lest it move or change,
for if they hear it in Quercy, {alternatively: for thus may they hear it in Quercy}
the count of Toulouse will understand it. Ha! Ha!”

In other attested manuscript versions of Song VI of Jaufré Rudel, it is made clear by the composer that the intermediary transmitter of the song, described in the passage just quoted as ‘the one who will learn it from me’, must deliver it unchanged to two noblemen, who must in turn hear it. In version 1a of Song VI, the composition ends as just quoted. In other versions, however, the references to the destined audiences are followed by further references, resulting in a longer song. Of these other available versions, let us take as one example the last eight lines of Song VI version 1 (as distinct from 1a):[20]

       bos es lo vers s’ieu no.y falhi,
       ni tot so que.y es, ben esta;
       e selh que de mi l’apenra,
       guart si que res no mi cambi,
       que si l’auzon en Caerci
       lo vescoms ni.l en Tolza.{13|14}

bos es lo sos, e faran hi
quas que don most chans gensara

Good is the poem if I did not fail in it {alternatively: so I did not fail in it}
and all there is in it goes well;
and the one who will learn it from me,
let him beware lest he change anything for me,[21]
for thus may they hear it in Quercy,
the viscount and the count in the Toulousain.

The melody is good, and they will do there
whatever things from which my song will grow more noble. {alternatively: more fair}

As another example, let us take the last eight lines of Song VI version 1b:[22]

       bos es lo vers can no.i falhi,
       e tot so que.i es, ben esta,
       e sel que de mi l’apenra
       gart se no.i falha ni.l pessi,
       qu[e] si l’auzo en Lemozi
       e Bertrans e.l coms el Tolza.

bons er lo vers e faran y
calsque motz que hom chantara

The poem is good, since I did not fail in it,
and all there is in it goes well,
and the one who will learn it from me,
let him beware lest he fail in it and break it up,
for thus may they hear it in the Limousin,
both Bertran and the count in the Toulousain.

The poem will be good, and they will make there [the Limousin or the
Toulousain] (for it)
whatever words someone will sing.

Whereas according to Pickens the intermediary must deliver the song unchanged to two noblemen, “those who are destined to receive it must, on the contrary, introduce changes.”[23] It is {14|15} probably enough to say that the destined audience may “move” the song while the intermediary must not.

As we see from the wording of the variations in Song VI, the chance to move the song is equivalent to the chance to change it into a version different from that of the composer, even though the intermediary must keep the composer’s version the same until it reaches the destined audience. The noblemen who are to be the song’s audience are in turn to become the song’s new performers—and thereby the song’s recomposers.

The remarkable thing, moreover, is that mover ‘move’ can designate not only the recomposing of a song through reperformance but even its archetypal composition through its archetypal performance. As Pickens also notices, mover ‘move’ can refer not only to the changing of the song, as here, but also to the actual singing of the song, even to the actual beginning of the singing, as when the poet starts his song by picturing a nightingale as it sings, that is, as it moves its song.[24] Here is the beginning, for example, of Jaufré Rudel’s Song I version 1:[25]

quant lo rosignols el fuoillos
dona d’amor e.n quier e.n pren
e mou so chant jauzen joios
e remira sa par soven,
e.ill riu son clar e.ill prat son gen,
pel novel deport que reingna,
me ven al cor grans jois jacer.

When the nightingale in the leafy wood
gives of love, asks for it and takes of it
and composes (moves) his song rejoicing and joyous
and beholds (reflects) his she-equal often,
and the streams are clear and the fields are pleasant,
through the new[ii] sense of pleasure that reigns,
great joy comes to lie in my heart.

Here in Song I of Jaufré Rudel, the symbol of the singing nightingale is drawn into a parallel with the singer who is the {15|16} poet. Just as the nightingale moves his song by singing—that is, by performing—so also the poet implicitly moves his own song by composing it.[26] This symbol provides an opportunity to compare a model developed by Lord, centering on composition-in-performance, with the model of Zumthor centering on mouvance. The symbol of the nightingale, deployed as it is to launch the poet’s composition, superimposes the medium of performance on the act, the fact, of composition. By comparing himself to the nightingale, the poet presents himself as one who performs as he composes. Just as the nightingale goes about his performance, so also the poet goes about his composition by performing it, by moving it. Just as the poet composes his song, so too his model, the nightingale: in Pickens’ translation, the songbird “composes (moves) his song rejoicing and joyous” (e mou so chant jauzen joios). We may recall the image in Aeschylus (Suppliants 60–67) of the mythical figure Procne, who has been transformed by the gods into a nightingale (aēdṓn, verse 62: ἀηδόνος): the songbird is pictured as literally “composing” (sun‑títhesthai, verse 65: ξυντίθησι) the sad song of her murdered child’s fate (verse 65: παιδὸς μόρον).[27][iii]

Just as the nightingale’s song in Song I of Jaufré Rudel is an implicit model for the poet who hears him and makes his own song, so also the poet is the model for the noblemen who in turn hear him and make their own song by performing the song of the poet. To perform the song, however, is to recompose it, to change it, that is, to move it. In this light, mouvance is the same thing as recomposition-in-performance. The nightingale who is “composing” his song in Song I of Jaufré Rudel may serve as the model, the archetype, for the song of the poet, but even the songbird is in fact recomposing his own song by virtue of performing it. So it is apt for the nightingale to move his song, which is “original” for the poet but which is at the same time inherently recurrent and recomposed, much as every new season of spring is {16|17} a joyous event of inherent recurrence and recomposition, even re-creation.

In applying the idea of a “poetics of mouvance” to his edition of the songs of Jaufré Rudel, Pickens confronts a set of problems. Even without a single holograph, to be reconstructed according to the principles of Lachmann,[28] the question remains whether it is possible to explain the variations in Jaufré Rudel’s manuscript tradition simply in terms of the poet’s own lifetime activity: “a stemma,” Pickens explains, “could represent the career of a poet just as easily as a two-hundred-year tradition of manuscript transmission.”[29] It is in any case impossible to exclude the author himself from the process of varying his own composition.[30] Accordingly, in considering all the variations attested in the manuscript tradition of Song V, Pickens is willing for the moment to entertain the idea that all these variations may be “by” Jaufré Rudel; after all, Jaufré “was a troubadour who constantly reworked his material.”[31] Pursuing the question, Pickens concludes after an intensive analysis of the manuscript variations in both Songs I and V of Jaufré Rudel:

Jaufré’s authorship of at least two formally and linguistically distinct versions of the former [Song I] and two of the latter [Song V] cannot be disproved; the poems have equal claims for authenticity and there is no reason to suppose that Jaufré did not compose them. If he could have produced two or three versions of the same song, then why could he not also have produced six or ten or fifteen? Corollary to the theory is the assumption that Jaufré was a troubadour-performer creating his works in an atmosphere heavy with the esthetics of oral composition. As epic criticism has suggested, orality and mutation, not writing and fixity, were the compositional medium and consequent destiny of chanson de geste texts. The courtly lyric is also an oral genre, performed orally and heard, not read. It is not {17|18} unreasonable to suppose, therefore, that Jaufré altered his works frequently in conformity with the practices of oral tradition and that, in concert with all poetic practice, he strove to “perfect” his poetry by reworking, adding and casting out (but, like all who publish, the person who changes must still ever be confronted by what has previously been released to the public).[32]

Even allowing for this much participation by the author himself in the process of variation, we are reminded of his own references to other participants, such as the noblemen in Song VI who are imagined as not only hearing the song in performance but also reperforming it themselves afterwards and thereby recomposing it. Pickens explicitly argues for the reality of such participation by invoking “the dynamic condition of the medieval poem,” with specific reference to Zumthor’s idea of mouvance.[33] Here he links his observations about the medieval Provençal troubadour with those of Harry H. Lucas about the medieval French trouvère: the song, Lucas argues, is not only created by the trouvère but also re-created by any number of fellow trouvères, as well as amateurs, before it is ever incorporated into the manuscript tradition of the chansonnier, and most likely even afterward, so that the song of a trouvère can truly be said to be a work of collaboration.[34]

By now, Pickens has brought into play two “solutions”: according to the first, Jaufré Rudel is the only contributor to the “creative acts”; according to the second, these creative acts “are seen as operating in transmission as well.”[35] Moreover, “Jaufré himself affirms the principle of change as esthetically proper to his genre, so that it might be said that mouvance is an aspect of the intention of his songs.”[36] Precisely in this context Pickens introduces the passage {18|19} from Song VI where the poet urges that the noblemen must hear and then reperform the song of Jaufré Rudel, with the implicit assumption that they will thereby recompose it as well.[37] In this same context we have seen the poet urging the intermediary transmitter not to “move” the poem, that is, not to recompose it.

This detail is essential for coming to terms with questions of authorship in this culture. If indeed Jaufré Rudel is not the only contributor to the “creative acts,” then how exactly is he an author? Here we may recall the striking formulation of Rupert Pickens: “The conventions and traditions of the courtly lyric have conspired to efface the author and to create at least as many Jaufré Rudels as there are medieval anthologies.”[38]

Let us go beyond the problems raised by this particular example in this particular culture and ask a more general question: what is it, in any case, to be an author in any tradition where performance is needed to make a song come to life?[39] Applying the observation of Parry and Lord that composition and performance are aspects of the same process in oral traditions, I suggest that authority in performance is a key to the very concept of authorship in composition.[40][iv] In the present example from Jaufré Rudel as well, it is authority in performance that is crucial: the poet’s song does not become authoritative until it is performed in an authorized setting. Only then does the song become real, authentic. Thus the intermediary transmitter is enjoined not to “move” the song of Jaufré Rudel because he is as yet unauthorized to do so. This injunction by the poet is presented not as a statement of fact so much as a stylized gesture to his intended audience. Thus I doubt that this unnamed intermediary is really understood by the poet to be a “mechanical” transmitter who is not a “re-creative” singer.[41] I propose instead that the authorization of the composer is implicitly not enough because the transmitter as performer must also be authorized by his audience, who are presumed to be authoritative members of the song culture.[42] {19|20}

The intermediate transmitter of the troubadour, who is potentially a jongleur, becomes an authoritative performer through the dual authorization of composer and audience.[43] It would be misleading, though, to generalize the jongleur as a mechanical performer who repeats the song of the authoritative composer, the troubadour; it would also be misleading to set up a strict dichotomy between a “creative” troubadour and a “re-creative” jongleur.[44] In the troubadour traditions, the transmitter of song becomes a potential troubadour by virtue of reperforming the song. It all depends on the circumstances of reception: in Jaufré’s song, for example, it is implied that the transmitter of his song must have approval from both the composer and the audience which is to hear the transmitter’s performance. The transmitter is to be authorized on the grounds that both the composer and the audience of noblemen are authoritative. The noblemen may reperform and thereby recompose the song precisely because they are presumed, by the song, to be authoritative. So also the nightingale “moves” the song because he has the authority to do so. Only in this case, the authority is not social but elemental—even archetypal. We will return to this theme of archetypal authority in Chapter 2, where I will explore the idea that repetition is archetypal.

We see another example of performative intermediacy in Song II of Jaufré Rudel, where the song is pictured as being transmitted from the troubadour to a nobleman through an intermediary, named Fillol or ‘Godson’ in some versions.[45] Here is the text of Song II, version 1, strophe v:[46]

senes breu de pargamina,
tramet lo vers en chantan
plan et en lenga romana
a.n Hugon Brun per Fillol. {20|21}
bon m’es, car gens Peitavina,
de Beiriu et de Bretaigna
s’esgau per lui, e Guianna.

Without any writing on parchment,
I transmit the poem in singing,
plainly and in the vernacular language,
to Lord Hugh the Swarthy, by Godson.[47]
I am glad, since the people of Poitou,
of Berry, and of Brittany
are delighted by him; and of Guyenne.[48]

The song, as its poet stresses, is not fixed by writing on parchment (senes breu de pargamina), so that the intermediary is not a text but a live performer. Moreover, this performer is cherished by the poet, so that the composer implies authorization on his own part while all along presuming a reciprocal authorization on the part of his intended audience. Although we may agree that the poet’s song is here being “released to the hazards of oral transmission”[49] in terms of the reality of its historical setting, it is at the same time imagined to be safe and intact in terms of its own rhetoric. Here the composer is implying his certainty that the setting for the performance is to be authoritative, as surely as if it were written down on parchment, thanks to his confidence in both the performer and the intended audience.

Even in the sort of situation where the composer allows himself to express a concern that his song may be exposed to unauthorized performance, as if there were a danger that someone will “move” it in a negative sense, this concern turns out to be a rhetorical way of seeking reassurance from the audience that the performance really is authoritative, so that those who heard the song and learned to perform it can thus implicitly “move” it in a positive sense, much as the nightingale “moves” his own song. {21|22} We come back to the case of Song VI, which is predicated on the poet’s satisfaction with his composition: bos es lo vers can no.i falhi ‘the poem is good, since I did not fail in it’ (version 1b strophe v). The anonymous transmitter is enjoined to learn the song from the poet exactly as it was composed: in the different versions of the song, we hear that the transmitter must therefore ‘beware lest he fail in it and break it up’ (gart se no.i falha ni.l pessi, version 1b strophe v) or ‘beware lest he fracture it or break it up’ (gart no.l fran[ha] ni [no.]l pezi, version 2a strophe vii) or ‘beware lest it move or change’ (gard si non mueva ni camgi, version 1a strophe iv) or even perhaps ‘beware lest anything changes me’ (guart si que res no mi coambi, version 1 strophe vii).[50]

The fact that even this poetic injunction against variation survives by way of variants is a striking example of a paradox that is characteristic of a wide variety of oral traditions: a tradition may claim unchangeability as a founding principle while at the same time it keeps itself alive through change.[v] Outsiders who are looking in, as it were, on a given tradition can be objective about any change that they do observe. Insiders, however, are apt to be subjective. Participants in a given tradition may of course choose to ignore any change whatsoever.[51] If they do recognize change, however, either it must be negative or, if it is to be positive, it must not really be change after all. In other words, positive change must be a “movement” that leads back to something that is known, just as negative change leads forward to something that is unknown, uncertain, unpredictable. And yet, even if positive change is a moving back toward whatever is known, certain, and predictable, all the more will it be deemed to be an ongoing process of improvement, not deterioration, by those who participate in the tradition. In fact, it will be an improvement precisely because such positive ‘movement’ aims at the traditional, even the archetypal.

From this point of view, the noblemen who are to hear the song of the poet are described in Song VI of Jaufré Rudel as {22|23} destined to improve that song by way of a presumed authoritativeness inherent in their reperformances. To quote from one of the variants that we have already seen, ‘The melody is good, and they will do there | whatever things from which my song will grow more noble’.[52] When the nightingale ‘moves’ his song, it is a matter of positive change because tradition is reactivated. If, however, a jongleur ‘moves’ the song of a troubadour in an unauthorized situation, it is a matter of negative change because tradition breaks down. For a performer of a song to ‘move’ it in a negative sense is to ‘change’ it, even to ‘break’ it.[vi]

Just as the idea of ‘moving’ a song can be turned from a negative to a positive sense, however, even the idea of ‘breaking’ a song can be made positive in the poetics of mouvance. The negative poetics of the verb franhar ‘break’, as deployed in the poet’s injunction to the transmitter not to ‘break’ the song, are echoed by the positive poetics of the verb refranhar, to be interpreted in another poem of Jaufré Rudel as ‘refract’ in referring specifically to the singing of the nightingale and, in response, the singing of the poet.[53] Before we reflect on the meaning of the metaphor inherent in the image of ‘refraction’, let us consider its precise context in the song:

qan lo rius de la fontana
s’esclarzis si cum far sol,
e par la flors aiglentina,
e.l rossignoletz el ram
volf e refraing et aplana
son doutz chantar et afina
dreitz es q’ieu lo mieu refraigna

When the stream from the spring
runs clear, the way it usually does,
and the sweetbrier[vii] flower appears,
and the little nightingale on the branch
turns and refracts and polishes
his sweet singing and refines it (brings it to an end),
it is right that I should refract my own. {23|24}

Jaufré Rudel, Song II version 1 strophe i[54]

The metaphor inherent in the Provençal verb refranhar can be explained as an auditory equivalent of a visual metaphor, the ‘refracting’ of light (as in Latin re‑fringere). The driving image of refraction also accounts for two Provençal nouns: refrins, meaning ‘echo’ (as a part of sound that repeats itself), and refrim, meaning ‘birdsong, sound, refrain’.[55] The verb refranhar can also refer to the musical process of modulation in song: much as light is refracted through glass or a prism, so also the musical sound of song is modulated.[56] When the nightingale ‘turns and refracts [refranhar] and polishes’ his song, the songbird is being envisaged as a craftsman who is constantly engaged in the process of improving the work of his craftsmanship, in principle coming ever nearer to the finished product.[viii] The poet echoes the songbird as he reaches the end of the strophe just quoted, and so also by implication the other singers must echo the poet, as they too must ‘turn and refract and polish’ the song, refining it and ‘bringing it to an end’. The end of one singer’s ‘refinement’, however, is the beginning of another’s, and each beginning, each new ‘movement’, is a return to tradition. In this theme of ‘refinement’, we see the ultimate image of improvement as an eternal return to the traditional, which is envisaged as an eternal musical modulation.[ix]

Let us return here once again to the troubadour’s image of the songbird, with one more example of the word mover ‘move’ in the archetypal sense of referring to birdsong.[x] In the sole extant version of Song IV, the first four verses of the last strophe run as follows:[57]

el mes d’abril e de Pascor,
can l’auzel movon lurs dous critz,
adoncs vueill mon chas si’ auzitz;
et aprendetz lo, cantador … {24|25}

In the month of April, and of Easter,
when birds compose (move) their sweet cries,
then I wish my song to be heard:
and learn it, singers …

It is time to propose a reformulation of the idea of mouvance, supplementing it with the usage of mover as we have seen it operate in a troubadour’s poetics—and in light of one given editor’s detailed and patient work on the texts attributed to Jaufré Rudel. I propose, then, that mouvance is the process of recomposition-in-performance as actually recognized by a living oral tradition, where the recognition implies the paradox of immediate change without ultimate change.

On the basis of his editorial experience, Rupert Pickens concludes that “at least in the case of Jaufré Rudel, mutation is appropriate to the lyric genre.”[58] According to this line of thinking, the courtly lyric of Jaufré is not “authoritative” in the same sense as Scripture, in that the work is freed to be “re-created and re-generated.”[59] I agree, though I stress that the authoritativeness of Jaufré’s tradition is as real as that of Scripture, with the basic difference being that the troubadour’s words do not insist on the idea of unchangeability, typical of the claims of scriptures in a wide variety of cultures. At a later point, we will consider in further detail the very notion of “scripture.”

Pickens observes about the patterns of mutation in the lyrics of Jaufré Rudel that “it is impossible to determine at what points his personal interventions ceased and his transmitters continued the process of perfecting beyond his personal intentions.”[60] Which leads to this conclusion: “Given these conditions, under which it is impossible to rediscover Jaufré’s intentions (i.e., the extent of his personal involvement in the creation and regeneration of his works), each manifestation of a song must be considered to be, in its own right, as valid a whole, complete poem as any other versions.”[61] In light of these findings, this editor of medieval texts differs from the approach of previous {25|26} scholars like Gaston Paris and Alfred Jeanroy, whose goal was to recover a given author’s archetypal text.[62] But he also differs from the approach of other editors like Joseph Bédier, whose own findings about textual variation led him to abandon the idea of recovering the archetypal text, but whose goal remained nevertheless the idea of recovering at least the closest thing to an archetype.[63][xi] Pickens offers the following critique:

… the Bédier method forces the editor to ignore what the poem has acquired through mouvance (making what is not in the base manuscript become, in Gaston Paris’s phrase, “les oubliettes de l’appareil critique,” whatever their literary worth); moreover, it might be added that Bédier’s methodology tends to falsify the historical question by giving only the “best” version of a song the stamp of authority.[64]

While offering his own adjustments in line with the hermeneutic principle of mouvance, Pickens has this to say about the criteria of editing proposed by Lucas: “to my knowledge, they have never been observed in an edition of medieval lyric poetry.”[65] In a retrospective work, Pickens with good reason describes his own 1978 edition of Jaufré Rudel, with its “multitext format,” as “the first widely recognized edition attempting to incorporate a procedure to account for re-creative textual change.”[66]

The need for a multitext format in editing texts is most evident in the case of manuscript traditions where the phenomenon of phraseological variation seems to reach all-pervasive proportions. A striking example is the textual transmission of the medieval French epic, the Chanson de Roland.[67] As Ramón Menéndez Pidal observes, three of the earliest manuscript versions of the Chanson {26|27} have not a single identical verse in common with each other.[68] He concludes that such a degree of textual variation is symptomatic of an ongoing oral tradition, and that in fact an oral tradition stays alive through its variations and reworkings.[69] Following Menéndez Pidal, Michael Zwettler has concluded that early Arabic poetry is likewise the product of a vigorous oral tradition, as reflected in the extraordinary wealth of variants transmitted in the textual tradition:

We are doubly fortunate in Arabic, in that we often have not only two or more recensions of many poems … but also a mass of additional variants presented in the scholia to the poems or in various supplementary philological and literary-historical sources where poetry held a paramount position. And nowhere does the inherent instability or, better, fluidity of the early Arabic poem—its essential multiformity—emerge with greater clarity than through consideration of the body of those lectiones variae that the textual tradition has preserved.[70]

Following Lord, Zwettler emphasizes not only the multiformity inherent in the oral tradition, as in the observation just quoted, but also the futility of attempting to establish an “original” text on the basis of attested variants. If indeed oral poetry lives through its variants, then it is ironic, Zwettler finds, “that scholars of Arabic poetry have so often cast doubt upon the ‘authenticity’ or ‘genuineness’ of this or that verse, poem, or body of poems or, sometimes, of pre-Islamic poetry in general, because they have found it impossible to establish an ‘original version’.”[71] Following Zwettler, Olga Davidson argues that the degree of textual variation in the medieval Persian manuscript transmission of the epic Shāhnāma of Ferdowsi likewise reveals the product of an oral tradition.[72] Using as a test-case a randomly-selected passage from the Shāhnāma, Davidson shows that “every word in this {27|28} given passage can be generated on the basis of parallel phraseology expressing parallel themes.”[73] She finds, moreover, that “the degree of regularity and economy in the arrangement of phraseology” is “suggestive of formulaic language.”[74] She advocates the need for a monumental new edition of the Shāhnāma that would account for all attested variants above and beyond the verifiable instances of scribal error, in order to come to grips with “the full creative range of the Shāhnāma tradition.”[75]

Davidson too, like Zwettler before her, stresses the futility of trying to recover the archetypal fixed text from a mass of textual variants that can all be judged “genuine” in terms of the poetic tradition that had generated these variants. There are many other studies that focus on variation in textual transmission as a mark of oral tradition, but it will suffice for the moment to mention just one more example, the work of Joseph Nagy on medieval Irish traditions: he concludes that “the bewildering proliferation of variants which often characterizes the medieval literary transmission of Irish narrative takes on new meaning when viewed as the imprint of an ongoing oral tradition.”[76]

In all three of these studies just mentioned, as also in the study of troubadour poetry that we had considered in detail earlier, it is the degree of multiformity in the textual tradition that leads to the conclusion that an oral tradition is at work backstage, as it were. In each case, the nature of the given oral tradition may be quite different, but the effect of variation may be strikingly similar. The question arises, then, whether we can find cases of a comparable degree of variation in ancient Greek—or for that matter in Latin—textual traditions.

From a survey of Martin West’s handbook on textual criticism, we see from the precise wording of his descriptions that the most likely candidates are (1) Greek tragedies, “which suffered extensively from interpolations by actors (or at any rate for their use), probably more in the fourth century BCE than at any later {28|29} time,”[77] (2) the comedies of Plautus, “which may have undergone something of the sort on a smaller scale in the second century,”[78] and (3) the Homeric poems, through the “embellishment” of rhapsōidoí ‘rhapsodes’ as reflected in quotations by authors of the fourth century and in the attested papyri, especially those dated before the middle of the second century.[79]

In West’s descriptions here, as also in most accounts written by Classicists, the textual traditions of ancient tragedy, comedy, and epic are not organically related to the performance traditions of these three forms. It is as if the performance traditions were impositions on the text, rather than historical antecedents of the text. Thus textual variations are explained in terms of textual rather than performative conditions even when the medium in question is overtly performative. It is not the performance itself that is held accountable for textual variation, but the text that is used by the performer. Thus the so-called “actors’ interpolations” are invoked to explain textual change in drama. Where epic, too, is concerned, West explains the existing patterns of textual variation in terms of textual causes: the “embellishment” of rhapsodes, he notes, is primarily characterized by “additional lines of an inorganic nature (often borrowed from other contexts).”[80]

Where the Classical text stems not so much from performance traditions as from “practical learning,” the role of ongoing recomposition as a direct cause of textual variation is more easily understood.[81] With reference to works of practical learning, West makes the remark that “commentaries, lexica and other works of a grammatical nature were rightly regarded as collections of material to be pruned, adapted or added to, rather than as sacrosanct literary entities.”[82] A similar description applies to more exalted compositions such as treatises on rhetoric, perhaps even to such canonical works as the essay on style attributed, rightly or wrongly, to Demetrius of Phaleron. An ideal example of a literary {29|30} form in which massive textual variation results from active ongoing recomposition is the Hippocratic corpus: as West puts it, parts of this corpus “were subject to revision or rearrangement.”[83][xii]

James Zetzel is exceptional among contemporary Classicists in comparing explicitly the textual variations resulting from traditions of practical learning with those resulting from traditions of performance.[84] Zetzel’s list of “works that provide practical learning,” subject to “wholesale alteration,” includes such other diverse examples as the cookbook of Apicius, magical prescriptions, and the Digest of Roman Law.[85] Adopting for all such works the operative metaphor of the cookbook, Zetzel goes on to describe them as “unprotected texts.”[86] By contrast, he notes that “wholesale alteration of the sort just described rarely occurred in the transmission of standard texts of the school curriculum …, precisely because they generally stayed out of the kitchen.”[87] A notable exception among standard works, however, is a text that stems from a performance tradition: Zetzel cites Plautus’ comedies, “the only major Latin literary text that I know in which wholesale alteration has taken place, precisely because our manuscripts largely descend from actors’ versions.”[88]

Zetzel makes clear his sense that the ultimate sources of textual variation in such cases as Plautine comedy are the traditions of performance, even if we posit the texts of the performers as an intermediate source. Zetzel’s emphasis on performance is subtle but clear, as we see in his assessment of textual variations in Greek tragedy: “similarly, our texts of Greek tragedy incorporate actors’ interpolations that must have been added at a time when the plays were still being performed.”[89]

Where textual variations stem from outright performance traditions, as in the case of drama, it seems justified to compare the phenomenon of mouvance. In cases of textual variations stemming from the vicissitudes of practical learning, as in the case of, say, a {30|31} cookbook, the broader term variance, as coined by Cerquiglini, seems a more appropriate point of comparison. It must be recognized, however, that the prescriptive traditions of a cookbook may also be to some extent “performative.” As for instances of textual transmission following the schoolbook mentality, in sharp contrast with the “cookbook” mentality, we may expect the minimum degrees of variation.[90] In such instances, it seems unnecessary to insist on any point of comparison with either mouvance or variance.

Let us focus on the subject of variations in the textual traditions of Greek drama and epic. Unfortunately, historical circumstances have prevented our access to an ample range of attested variants in the performance traditions of drama. As for epic, there is relatively more attested evidence, but the history of Homeric transmission is in any case far more complicated than what we have seen so far in the case of medieval traditions. If indeed a multitext format is needed for editing medieval texts like the songs of Jaufré Rudel, then perhaps the need is even greater in the case of ancient Greek drama and epic. But the difficulties are greater as well.

Here we must confront a major intellectual and aesthetic obstacle for Classicists. It is clear to us that the actor in a Sophoclean drama is not another Sophocles, the rhapsode of epic is not another Homer. How, then, could an actor’s so-called “interpolation” or a rhapsode’s “embellishment” be comparable to the ipsissima verba of a Sophocles, of a Homer? Any answer must be formulated in relative terms, and varying degrees of comparison are to be applied. To start at one extreme of the spectrum, we might say that the compositions attributed to, say, Sophocles, are relatively less adaptable to the process of recomposition because the phraseology itself is less capable of variation in the first place. At the other extreme, the compositions attributed to Homer were in the earliest recoverable periods doubtless far more adaptable to {31|32} ongoing recomposition because the phraseology traditionally operated on the very principle of variation. In the later periods of Homeric transmission, however, this adaptability becomes drastically reduced, for reasons that we will later on examine in some detail.

Concentrating on the principle of variation in earlier phases of Homeric transmission, let us return to the passage with which we started this chapter, the Homeric image of the aēdṓn ‘nightingale’ in Odyssey xix (518–523), who is pictured as singing her beautiful song at the onset of yet another new season of springtime (519: ἔαρος νέον ἱσταμένοιο), perched in the dense foliage (520) and pouring forth her voice as she keeps changing it around (521: τρωπῶσα), thick and fast (521: θαμά)—a voice that is described as poluēkhḗs ‘with many resoundings’ (521: πολυηχέα) or, according to the variant reported by Aelian (De natura animalium 5.38), as poludeukḗs (521: πολυδευκέα), the meaning of which word we have not yet examined. Here, then, is Aelian’s report:

Χάρμιδος ἀκούω τοῦ Μασσαλιώτου λέγοντος φιλόμουσον μὲν εἶναι τὴν ἀηδόνα, ἤδη δὲ καὶ φιλόδοξον. ἐν γοῦν ταῖς ἐρημίαις ὅταν ᾄδῃ πρὸς ἑαυτήν, ἁπλοῦν τὸ μέλος καὶ ἄνευ κατασκευῆς τὴν ὄρνιν ᾄδειν· ὅταν δὲ ἁλῷ καὶ τῶν ἀκουόντων μὴ διαμαρτάνῃ, ποικίλα τε ἀναμέλπειν καὶ τακερῶς ἑλίττειν τὸ μέλος. καὶ Ὅμηρος δὲ τοῦτό μοι δοκεῖ ὑπαινίττεσθαι λέγων

[Odyssey xix 518–523, with πολυηχέα at verse 521]

ἤδη μέντοι τινὲς καὶ πολυδευκέα φωνὴν γράφουσι τὴν ποικίλως μεμιμημένην, ὡς τὴν ἀδευκέα τὴν μηδ’ ὅλως ἐς μίμησιν παρατραπεῖσαν.

I hear tell from Charmis of Massalia that the nightingale is a creature who is a lover of the Muses and even a lover of fame. He [= Charmis] goes on to say, in any case, that when she is singing to herself in desolate places, her melody is simple, and that the bird sings without preparation. But when she is captured and has no lack of an audience, he says that she strikes up her melody in a varied [poikíla] way and meltingly changes the song around. And Homer seems to me to be referring to this enigmatically when he says:

[Here Aelian quotes Odyssey xix 518–523, with poluēkhḗs at verse 521] {32|33}

But there are even those who write πολυδευκέα φωνὴν [a voice that is poludeukḗs], that is, “making imitation [mímēsis] in a varied [poikílōs] way,” just as ἀδευκέα [adeukḗs] means “not at all adapted for imitation [mímēsis].”

Aelian De natura animalium 5.38

In considering these two variants poluēkhḗs and poludeukḗs in Odyssey xix (521), I am ready to argue that both are legitimate, both ultimately generated from the multiform performance tradition of Homer. I will also argue that the variant reported by Aelian has an archaic meaning that even he could not fully understand. This meaning, as we will see in the next chapter, captures the very essence of continuity in variation.

We have already considered one critic’s analysis of these two variants.[91] His view is that, although poludeukḗs is “rarer” than poluēkhḗs, the editorial principle of lectio difficilior should not be applied in this case: “we have seen … that many conjectures were introduced by the ancients into Homer and that sometimes the original was replaced by a rarer and more difficult word.”[92] Arguing that the reading poludeukḗs could not be “original,” this critic goes on to say: “If this reading were original, it would be very surprising that the leading critics of antiquity ignored it, while it was preserved by a later author like [Aelian], who had far fewer resources at his disposal.”[93]

Let us contemplate for a moment the resources at Aelian’s disposal.[xiii] Born in the third quarter of the second century CE, he seems to typify the kind of scholars who populate the compendium that we know as Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistai.[xiv] As for his specific source in this case, Aelian says that he ‘had heard tell’—that is to say, that he had read or had someone read to him—about the nightingale, and that his source was a man called Charmis of Massalia.[94] At the very mention of Massalia, a question may arise {33|34} in our minds whether this man from Marseille may also have been Aelian’s actual source for the variant reading in the Homeric passage about the nightingale—and whether this variant may even have stemmed from the so-called Massaliōtikḗ, the city text of Homer that was often cited by the Homer critic Aristarchus.[95] While we cannot with any certainty answer such a question, we can say at least this much: that Aelian in De natura animalium 5.38 uses the report of Charmis about nightingales as a pretext for offering what he implies is his own scholarly interpretation of the Homeric variant poludeukéa describing the sound the nightingale makes.

‘I hear tell’, says Aelian, ‘from Charmis of Massalia’ (Χάρμιδος ἀκούω τοῦ Μασσαλιώτου λέγοντος…) that the nightingale is a creature that loves the tradition of the Muses: it is philómouson. It also loves the fame that songmaking brings with it: it is philódoxon. When the nightingale sings in the wilderness, as Charmis reports, her song is simple and unvaried; when she sings in captivity, however, she becomes aware that she now has an audience, and so she now shifts to a different style, that is, ποικίλα … ἀναμέλπειν καὶ τακερῶς ἑλίττειν τὸ μέλος ‘she sings in a varied [poikíla] way and meltingly changes the song around’.[xv] Then Aelian quotes the passage from the Odyssey, xix 518–521 in the same form that we have in our latter-day editions, featuring poluēkhéa ‘with many resoundings’ as epithet of phōnḗn ‘voice’ at verse 521.

It would seem, at first sight, that the reading poluēkhéa ‘with many resoundings’ has already aptly illustrated the report of Charmis about the more patterned voice of the nightingale who has become aware that she has an audience. Then, if it were an afterthought, Aelian adds at this point the scholarly observation that ‘some even write’ (ἤδη μέντοι τινὲς … γράφουσι) not poluēkhéa but poludeukéa, which he glosses as τὴν ποικίλως μεμιμημένην ‘making imitation [mímēsis] in a varied [poikílōs] way’, and he compares the formation poludeukéa with the negative adeukéa (ἀδευκέα), which he glosses as μηδ᾿ ὅλως παρατραπεῖσαν ἐς μίμησιν ‘not at all adapted for imitation’. The use of the word mímēsis, which can be translated for the moment as {34|35} ‘imitation’, is crucial for the interpretation of the variant reading poludeukéa, as we will see in Chapter 2.[xvi]

Whether this variant reading is Aelian’s own additional piece of information or, as is more likely, it stems ultimately from Charmis of Massalia, it seems that Aelian’s own interpretation does not do full justice to the archaic meaning of poludeukéa. Aelian is interested mainly in the nightingale’s versatility as an imitator, whereas the epithet poludeukéa draws attention also to the continuity of the singer’s performance, as we will see in the next chapter.

We may be dissatisfied also with other facets of Aelian’s interpretation. He seems to be saying that the expanded variety of the songbird’s repertoire as a musician (philómouson) is a singer’s desire for fame (philódoxon) before an expanded audience, now that she finds herself in captivity. We may note the fact that the nightingale in the ancient Greek songmaking traditions is generically female, singing a song of lament, unlike the male nightingale of the medieval troubadour traditions, which is conventionally singing a love-song.[96] This is not to say that songs of lament and songs of love are incompatible: they are in fact regularly interchangeable in Greek traditions, for example.[97] The point is, rather, that the nightingale sings from the heart, as it were, the afflictions of love or death. As a captive, the nightingale may sing her heart out not only because of any pride in her songmaking virtuosity but also, more basically, because of her sorrows.[98] In light of the {35|36} tragic story underlying the nightingale’s lament in the Greek traditions, we may wish to reinterpret the variety of the songbird’s song not only as a performer’s response to an ever-widening audience but also as a victim’s response to an ever-widening threshold of pain and suffering. We may note in passing the title of the autobiography of the poet Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.[99] (The wording of the title is taken from the exquisite poem “Sympathy,” by Paul Laurence Dunbar [1872–1906], which needs to be read in its own right.)

Surely the nightingale in the Odyssey sings her beautiful song of lament about the fact of her own suffering. The woman who had killed her own child—inadvertently, the Odyssey claims—had suffered much, but now she suffers more, transformed into a songbird singing her own mournful song. Of course the song is as beautifully varied as it is mournful, and then it can become even more so with her new misfortune, her loss of freedom and her new identity as a captive singer. We may recall the words in Toni Morrison’s Beloved, a novel centering on the twin tragedies of slavery and infanticide: “it was not a story to pass on.”[100] And yet, as we will see in the next chapter, the song of the nightingale has a continuousness, a continuity. It is indeed passed on.

The continuity is implicit in the variety. We may note the meaning of trōpôsa (τρωπῶσα) in Odyssey xix (521), describing the nightingale as she changes around or literally turns the sound of her beautiful song. Let us recall the song of the he‑nightingale in Song I of Jaufré Rudel, where birdsong serves as model for the song of the poet, and where the model itself is that of recomposition, not just composition, in that even the songbird is in fact recomposing his own song by virtue of performing it. The nightingale moves his song, which as we have seen is inherently both recurrent and recomposed, much as every new season of spring is a joyous event of inherent recurrence and {36|37} recomposition, even re-creation. To the extent that mouvance in the poetics of the troubadour conveys the idea of continuity through variation, we can see in the usage of the word trōpôsa (τρωπῶσα) in Odyssey xix (521), the first attestation of this idea in European traditions.

The usage of the root *trep- as in trōpôsa, with the basic meaning of ‘turn’ or ‘change around’ and with the implied meaning of continuity through variation, lives on in the songmaking traditions of ancient Greece, taking on the form of the noun-derivative trópos. This word refers in practical terms to a given pattern of modulation in the singing voice, corresponding to a given pattern of accordatura or tuning of the accompanying lyre (an ideal example is Pindar Olympian 14.17). More generally and theoretically, trópos is a ‘style’ of melody (“Aristotle” Problems 19.38).[xvii] Such a ‘style’, in the usage of ancient Greek music theory, “may be determined by any combination of scale-structure, pitch, and melodic shape.”[101] Eventually, trópos becomes a word for ‘style’ in general, especially rhetorical style (Plato Republic 3.400d).[xviii] In the technical language of rhetoric, it takes on the meaning of ‘trope, figure of speech’, and it is at this stage of semantic development that Greek trópos is borrowed into Latin as tropus (Quintilian Institutio oratoria 8.6).[xix] From the high language of the schools, the noun tropus is borrowed into the popular language, which creates on its own a derivative verb *tropāre. This “Vulgar Latin” verb *tropāre is actually attested in late Latin authors as the compound verb contropāre (also adtropāre),[102] and it lived on as an inherited form in the Romance languages or as a borrowed form in the Celtic languages, witness modern French trouver and medieval Irish trop.[103] Most important for now, *tropāre also lived on as the medieval Provençal verb trobar, meaning ‘find, invent’ or ‘compose poetry’, and in the noun-derivative trobador, later spelled as troubadour. This meaning is pertinent, as we shall see, even to the modern French verb trouver, in the everyday sense of ‘find, invent, discover’.

This is not the time to attempt a systematic retracing of the semantic route of continuity in meaning from *tropāre to trobar in {37|38} the language of the troubadours. We may simply review the intuitive summary of Peter Dronke concerning medieval musical traditions during the century and a half following the death of Notker in the year 912:

Sequences become more and more abundant throughout this period, especially at the established musical centres such as Saint-Gall and Saint-Martial, but also in England. Gradually syllabic parallelism in the sequence is embellished by regular stresses and rhymes, giving more obvious—and less subtle—harmonies than any that the ninth century had known. Alongside the sequences were composed tropes, that is, poetic and musical amplifications of liturgical texts, some of which, probably under the influence of vigorous popular oral traditions of drama and dramatic song, become lyrical dialogues.[104]

The concept of lyrical dialogues, which we may picture in ancient Greek terms as the mímēsis—let us translate the word for now as ‘imitation’—of speech by way of song, lies at the heart of the medieval troubadour traditions, where one side of a dialogue, the side of the lover, is highlighted as if it were a monologue. As a performance, such a monologue is of course implicitly a dialogue with the audience who is being addressed, as also with the beloved, real or imaginary.[xx]

Here the chapter comes to a halt. But the subject of the nightingale’s song, sung again and again in all its varieties through time, from the aoidoí of ancient Greece to the troubadours of medieval Provence, will continue. {38|39}

Footnotes

[1] On the identification of the aēdṓn, here apparently personified as Aedon, with what we know as the nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos), see Thompson 1936:16–22; cf. Pischinger 1901:15–16 and Schmid 1904:3–4. For the moment, khlōrēḯs (χλωρηΐς) is rendered as ‘in the green’. Cf. Irwin 1974:72–75, who points out that the usage of khlōrēḯs must be related to that of khlōraúkhēn (χλωραύχην), conventionally translated as ‘green-throated’, which serves as epithet of the nightingale in Simonides PMG 586.2 (ἀηδόνες … χλωραύχενες). The visual characteristics of khlōrós, even if we translate it imperfectly as ‘green’, are linked metaphorically with the auditory characteristics of the nightingale’s voice: see ch. 3n1.

[2] On the onomatopoeia implicit in the name Itylos = ´Itulos, as derivative of ´Itus, see ch. 2n7. In the ancient Greek lyric traditions, as we will see, this name apparently mimics the birdsong of the nightingale.

[3] Cf. Apollodorus 3.14.8. Van der Valk 1949:203 argues that the Odyssey version is an Ionic myth. On the pertinence of the nightingale simile, and of the implied myth of Aedon / Procne, to the situation of Penelope in this narrative context, see Papadopoulou-Belmehdi 1994:135–147; cf. Austin 1975:228–229 and Seaford 1994:56. {Antoninus Liberalis 11 gives a version of the myth of Aedon featuring different names.}

[4] Van der Valk p. 83. (The highlighting of “original” is mine.) Van der Valk concedes that the variant πολυδευκέα (poludeukéa) of Odyssey xix 521 is attested not only in Aelian but also in Hesychius, where πολυδευκέα φωνήν is glossed as τὴν πολλοῖς ἐοικυῖαν ‘[the voice] similar to many’ (on the basis of the arguments assembled in ch. 2, we will see that this gloss is perhaps not far off the mark). In Hesychius we also find, besides πολυδευκέα φωνήν, the variant that prevailed in the Homer text as it has come down to us: πολυηχέα φωνήν.

[5] Van der Valk 1949:83n4. The highlighting of “original” is mine.

[6] Lord 1960:100. The highlighting of “original” (three times) and of “multiform” is mine.

[7] Zumthor 1972:73.

[8] Zumthor 1972:507: “le caractère de l’oeuvre qui, comme telle, avant l’âge du livre, ressort d’une quasi-abstraction, les textes concrets qui la réalisent présentant, par le jeu des variantes et remaniements, comme une incessante vibration et une instabilité fondamentale.” Cf. Zumthor pp. 43–47, 65–75. See also HQ 69. (In N 1992a:44, another discussion of mouvance is cited, Zumthor 1984:160; this citation should be corrected to 1987:160.) On the notion of a “transitional text,” as applied to the Chanson de Roland in Curschmann 1967, see the critique of Zwettler 1978:21.

[9] Zumthor 1987:160-161. For more on mouvance, see HQ 69.

[10] Cerquiglini 1989; cf. Vance 1987:xxvi–xxvii.

[11] Cerquiglini 1989:111: “Or l’écriture médiévale ne produit pas de variantes, elle est variance.” Cf. Nichols 1990:1, with reference to “new” philology; as he points out at p. 3, “editors of the ‘old’ philological persuasion sought to limit variation, not reproduce it.” In the same volume edited by Nichols, we may note the remarks on Cerquiglini by Fleischman 1990:19 and Bloch 1990:46. Pickens 1994 offers a critique of the “new” philology in medieval studies.

[12] See Cerquiglini 1989:120n19, where he distances himself from Zumthor’s idea of mouvance. Other important works on the question of approaches to variation in the editing of texts include McGann 1983 (cf. also 1991) and Gabler 1984 (cf. 1993); see in general Greetham 1993. Thanks to Jenny Wallace for introducing me to the pioneering studies of McGann.

[13] Van der Werf 1993:173.

[14] Van der Werf 1967:232. There will be more below concerning the convergences as well as divergences between jongleur as “performer” and trouvère as “composer.” For instances where the scribe may have copied from memory what was heard in formal performance—or even in his own informal unit-by-unit reperformance—rather than what was seen in an earlier copy, see van der Werf 1965:65–66. Though there are isolated instances where the musical notation may have been affected by the copyist’s adherence to principles of theory rather than praxis (van der Werf p. 66), it can be said in general that “the chansons of the trouvères originated and circulated in a notationless musical culture in which notation and theory exercised little or no influence” (p. 67, with his highlighting). Surveying the textual variants in the musical notations of medieval French chansons, he notes that “only an infinitesimally small number of them” are mechanical errors of the scribe. This formulation differs from that of earlier editors who “seem to have been guided by the principle that most of the discrepancies in the sources are deteriorations caused by scribal inaccuracy or by inadequacies of the oral tradition” (van der Werf 1965:62).

[15] Pickens 1978:40. The highlightings here, to be explained further below, are mine.

[16] The case in point is Lachmann’s 1850 work on the manuscript tradition of Lucretius. For a critique of Lachmann’s methodology, see Pasquali 1952:3–12, Timpanaro 1981, Zetzel 1993:101–103; for background, see Reynolds and Wilson 1991:209–211.

[17] Pickens 1978:34; also in his article, Pickens 1977, which is actually entitled “Jaufré Rudel et la poétique de la mouvance.”

[18] Pickens 1977:323. In this article, written as it is in French, the author puts “performance” in quotation marks in view of the fact that the word is considered by native speakers of French to be a borrowing from English. It goes without saying that Pickens’ reference to Provençal songmaking as oral tradition should not be taken to mean that the Provençal and the ancient Greek poetic traditions are the “same.” On the dangers of trying to universalize the features of oral and written traditions, see PH 35.

[19] As edited by Pickens 1978:232; here as elsewhere, I follow closely his translations of Jaufré Rudel. The highlighting of mueva ‘move’ is mine.

[20] Pickens 1978:224; I also follow his translation at p. 225.

[21] For this interpretation, see Pickens 1978:225n40, which seems preferable to ‘let him beware lest anything changes me’, as Pickens p. 225n40 renders guart si que res no mi cambi at p. 225. On this point, I have benefited from the generous advice of Ursula Dronke and Peter Dronke.

[22] Pickens 1978:236; I also follow his translation at p. 237.

[23] Pickens 1978:36.

[24] Pickens 1978:36. In the Provençal tradition, the nightingale is a he not a she, as in the ancient Greek. Pliny Natural History 11.268 tells us that the female nightingale has the same song repertoire as the male. On the topic of the nightingale in medieval literature in general, see Pfeffer 1985.

[25] Pickens 1978:70; I also follow his translation at p. 71.

[26] For another attestation of this theme in the troubadour traditions, see for example Bernard de Ventadour, Song 20 verse 4, where the nightingale mou so chan ‘moves his song’.

[27] Cf. Loraux 1990:145n138, who points out that the same word sun‑tithénai is used by Thucydides in referring to the process of composing history (1.21.1: ὡς λογογράφοι ξυνέθεσαν; cf. 1.97.2).

[28] Pickens 1978:23, with references to studies arguing for such a hypothetical holograph.

[29] Pickens 1978:23.

[30] Pickens 1978:24.

[31] Pickens 1978:32. Pickens at p. 26 sets up a useful distinction between palaeographically significant or non-significant variants, while all along insisting that “no variant is poetically non-significant.”

[32] Pickens 1978:32–33.

[33] Pickens 1978:34.

[34] Lucas 1965:701, quoted by Pickens 1978:34–35: “Toutefois, une chanson de trouvère n’est pas qu’un document historique; et le trouvère, bien qu’il ait joué le rôle prépondérant dans sa création, n’a pas été seul à contribuer. Telle chanson, “trouvée” par tel ou tel poète, mais qui a eu du succès, qui a été chantée, modifiée, améliorée parfois, par des douzaines de confrères et d’amateurs, avant d’être incorporée dans la tradition des chansonniers—et encore après, sans doute—est, en un sens très réel, une oeuvre de collaboration.” The highlighting here is mine. This formulation by Lucas is comparable with the term “collaborative interpolation” suggested by Tarrant 1989.

[35] Pickens 1978:35.

[36] Pickens 1978:35.

[37] Pickens 1978:35.

[38] Pickens 1978:40. The highlightings here are mine.

[39] This discussion has a bearing on the broader question posed by Foucault 1969: “Qu’est-ce qu’un auteur?”

[40] PH 339–381, ch. 12: “Authority and Authorship in the Lyric Tradition.” Also pp. 79–80 on the “LMN” principle.

[41] To use the wording of Pickens 1978:36.

[42] On the term song culture, see Herington 1985:3–5.

[43] On the relationship between troubadour = trobador and jongleur = joglar, the remarks of Dronke 1968:20–21 are most helpful. Of special interest is his observation, p. 20, with reference to patterns of social difference between higher-class trobadors and lower-class joglars, that “the joglar tends to adopt a ‘stage-name’, a name that is striking, piquant, witty, or self-mocking: Alegret, Esperdut, Falconet, Brisepot, Mal Quarrel, Quatre-oeufs.” Dronke’s use of the term “stage” here is pertinent to the concept of mimesis as interpreted in ch. 3 and following. The jongleur is represented as a nightingale in the poetry of Elias Cairel, Song 13.49–53 (cf. Pfeffer 1985:110–111).

[44] PH 55.

[45] Cf. Pickens 1978:103n.

[46] As edited by Pickens 1978:102; I also follow his translation at p. 103.

[47] I have added the comma before by.

[48] Pickens 1978:103 points out that the wording can also be interpreted to mean ‘by it’ that is, by the song; as for the alternative interpretation, ‘by him’, the ‘him’ could be either Hugh or Fillol the “godson.” Pickens p. 103n compares the godfather-godson relationship that is evoked at Song V strophes vii–viii; on the basis of this comparison, we may infer that the ‘godson’, in his role as ‘messenger’ of the song (so Pickens p. 103), is the poetic apprentice. If indeed Fillol is to be the jongleur, whose authorization depends on both the troubadour and the audience, and if indeed Hugh represents an authoritative audience, then the ‘him’ could refer to both.

[49] To use the wording of Pickens 1978:35.

[50] Cf. Pickens 1978:35 (but see n21 above). In a late twelfth-century poem entitled Donnei des Amants, Tristan secretly woos Iseut by imitating birdsong: he ‘disguises his human language’ (humain language deguisa verse 463), ‘like one who had learned to break it up’ (cum cil que l’aprist de pec[e]a 464), and he ‘counterfeits’ a series of songbirds, the first of which is a nightingale (il cuntrefit le russinol 465); hearing Tristan’s sound, Iseut leaves the bed where King Mark is sleeping. Cf. Pfeffer 1985:155.

[51] See ch. 8 on Theognis.

[52] Rudel Song VI version 1 strophe vii. For this and other examples of the theme of improvement by way of reperformance in a noble context, see Pickens 1978:36.

[53] Pickens 1977:330–331.

[54] As edited by Pickens 1978:100; I follow his translation at p. 101, except for my substitution of the working translation ‘refract’ in the sense of ‘modulate’.

[55] Extended discussion in Pickens 1977:331n20. The idea of ‘breaking’ a song in a positive rather than negative sense is attested in Greek poetry. In the Hesiodic Shield, verse 279, we find the striking expression περὶ δέ σφισιν ἄγνυτο ἠχώ ‘and the echoing sound [ēkhṓ] they made was refracted [= literally ‘broke’] all around them’. Here the voice of a potential solo singer, accompanied by herdsmen’s pipes, has been refracted into the multiple voices of the khorós, that is, of a ‘chorus’ of singers and dancers. Their voices echo the lead tune accompanied by the pipes. Further discussion below, ch. 2n67.

[56] Pickens 1977:331n20. See PH 91–103 for a discussion of ancient notions of mode as a system of intervals in pitch and of modulation as a process of switching from one given system to another. Pliny Natural History 10.85 refers to the vox ‘voice’ of the nightingale as modulata ‘modulated’ and varia ‘varied’—qualities that he says become diminished in the birdsong as the summer wears on.

[57] As edited by Pickens 1978:148; I also follow his translation at p. 149.

[58] Pickens 1978:38.

[59] Pickens 1978:36.

[60] Pickens 1978:38.

[61] Pickens 1978:39.

[62] Paris 1893, Jeanroy 1934.

[63] Bédier 1928. See the critique by Nichols 1990:5–6; also Cerquiglini 1989:122.

[64] Pickens 1978:41.

[65] Pickens 1978:42.

[66] Pickens 1994:61. Here he refers also to other editorial projects in multitext format that take into account the factor of mouvance, most prominently the complete edition of the fabliaux by Noomen and van der Boogaard 1983 / 1984 / 1986 (with reference to Zumthor at 1983:ix); this format is also used by editors for whom “textual change is regarded as a hindrance to our perception of medieval textuality rather than its essence.” Cerquiglini 1989:112 mentions some of these editors, along with Noomen and van der Boogaard, but he does not stress the differences in their methodologies.

[67] A key work on the subject is Duggan 1973.

[68] Menéndez Pidal 1960:60–63, the importance of whose discussion is emphasized by Zwettler 1978:207 and Davidson 1985:134.

[69] Menéndez Pidal 1960:67–68

[70] Zwettler 1978:206. He stresses that scribal mistakes “do not constitute a major source of variation.”

[71] Zwettler 1978:189.

[72] Davidson 1994:54–72.

[73] Davidson 1994:63–64.

[74] Davidson 1994:64. On the concepts of “economy” and “formula,” see HQ 16–27.

[75] Davidson 1985:139.

[76] [J.] Nagy 1986:288, who in turn cites the work of Melia 1975:37 and Slotkin 1977–79:450.

[77] West 1973:16, citing Page 1934.

[78] West 1973:16.

[79] West 1973:16, citing [S.] West 1967. In ch. 3, I propose to re-examine the concept of rhapsōidoí ‘rhapsodes’.

[80] West 1973:16.

[81] For applications of the term “practical learning,” see Zetzel 1993:111.

[82] West 1973:16.

[83] West 1973:17.

[84] Zetzel 1993.

[85] Zetzel 1993:110–111.

[86] Zetzel 1993:111.

[87] Zetzel 1993:111.

[88] Zetzel 1993:111–112.

[89] Zetzel 1993:112.

[90] In the transmission of the medieval English text known as Cædmon’s Hymn, there is noticeable difference between the Latin and the vernacular environments, as noted by O’Keeffe 1990:46: “when the Hymn travels as ‘gloss’ to the Historia ecclesiastica, the text is subject to little variation, while those records of the Hymn which are integrated in the West Saxon translation of the History show a high degree of freedom in transmission.” In general, we may expect the Latin environment to foster the schoolbook mentality in medieval textual traditions.

[91] Van der Valk 1949:82–89.

[92] Van der Valk 1949:83. See also p. 8 above for a further statement about the “original” reading.

[93] Van der Valk 1949:83.

[94] On the idiom ἀκούειν + genitive of name X + λέγοντος, see Schenkeveld 1992:132, context type iii: “the hearer himself read, or listened to a public reading by his slave, from a text written by X.” At p. 133, Schenkeveld cites Aelian De natura animalium 7.7: Ἀριστοτέλους ἀκούω λέγοντος ὅτι ἄρα γέρανοι ‘I hear tell from Aristotle that the cranes …’.

[95] More on Aristarchus and the Marseille “edition” of Homer in ch. 5.

[96] I recall the viva voce remark made by Nicole Loraux (7 January 1994) when she first heard my arguments about Aelian’s interpretation of the Homeric nightingale: Aelian forgets that the nightingale is a lamenting woman. In other words, he forgets about the metaphorical world that constitutes the habitat, as it were, of this Homeric songbird. On the nightingale as a singer of lament (thrênos): Homeric Hymn to Pan 18. On the association of the nightingale with love-songs and even with eroticism in medieval European traditions, see especially Pfeffer 1985 ch. 7, “Sex and the Single Nightingale.”

[97] Alexiou 1974:56.

[98] Again, the evidence of Greek traditions in the performance of lament shows that the expression of pride in one’s songmaking virtuosity—even the element of intense competition—is not incompatible with the expression of one’s sorrows: see Alexiou 1974:40 (cf. Herzfeld 1993). For a zoömusicological perspective on the competitiveness of the nightingale as singer, see Mâche 1991:156; see also in general his discussion, pp. 155–157, of the musical duel as a functional equivalent of a duet. In the same discussion, he reviews some salient ethnomusicological examples of “duel as duet,” including the sfide traditions of latter-day Sicily, analogous to such stylized amoebaean compositions as Theocritus 5, 8, 9, and so on. When one troubadour competes with another, as when Peire d’Alvernha in Song 28.1–7 challenges Bernard de Ventadour by name (verse 1), the challenge can take the form of a comparison with nightingales: in this case, Bernard is told that the nightingale understands love better than he does (verse 7, melhs s’enten que vos en amor).

[99] Angelou 1969. Thanks to Marjorie Garber and Barbara Johnson for their helping me think through the “caged bird” conventions.

[100] Morrison 1987:274. In Ovid’s version of the tragic story of Procne, Philomela, and Tereus, Metaphorphoses 6.412–674, the pain felt by Procne—as a woman—is beyond verbal expression: silet: dolor ora repressit ‘she is silent: the pain has repressed word of mouth’ (verse 583). Segal 1994:267 remarks: “what she finds is a tale whose pain lies beyond the power of words.” On the expression of this pain as a text, see ch. 3n25.

[101] Barker 1984:199n68. This note by Barker is for me a treasury of relevant information and insights. Also Barker at p. 223n125. Most valuable are his remarks on continuity and music at p. 243.

[102] Ernout / Meillet DELL 704.

[103] Meyer-Lübke 1935 entry no. 8936 a.

[104] Dronke 1977:44.

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Chapter 2. Mimesis, Models of Singers, and the Meaning of a Homeric Epithet

Let us continue where we left off, with the song of the nightingale. In the previous chapter, we noted that the idea of variation is implicit in the epithet poludeukḗs describing the voice (phōnḗ) of the songbird in Odyssey xix (521), but the task remains to formulate the precise meaning of this epithet, which will be pertinent to the meaning of the elusive word mímēsis (henceforth spelled simply as “mimesis”). We will see that mimesis, ordinarily translated as ‘imitation’, can have a deeper sense, ‘re-enactment’. To make a re-enactment is to pattern something on a model, and the idea of such patterning is inherent, as we will see, in the meaning of the Homeric epithet of the nightingale. This idea will prove to be essential for understanding poetry as performance.

Let us look again at the context of the epithet for the nightingale. We have seen that Aelian in De natura animalium (5.38), who says that poludeukḗs is an alternative to poluēkhḗs ‘with many resoundings’ in Odyssey xix (521), interprets the first of these two variant epithets to mean τὴν ποικίλως μεμιμημένην ‘making imitation [mimesis] in a varied [poikílōs] way’. If he is right, then this variant epithet poludeukḗs points to the songbird’s capacity for variety, that is, the capacity to perform poikílōs ‘in a varied way’.[1] The idea of variety is reinforced by the meaning of the participle trōpôsa (τρωπῶσα) in Odyssey xix (521), describing the {39|40} nightingale as she ‘changes around’ or literally ‘turns’ the sound of her beautiful song.[2]

The nightingale’s distinctive capacity for variety—for ‘turning’ as it were—is empirically verifiable. In his “zoömusicological” description of patterns inherent in the singing of the nightingale, specifically the Luscinia megarhynchos, François-Bernard Mâche actually uses the term “strophe,” deliberately evocative of the idea of “turning,” to denote a distinctive sequence of sound-units—let us call them “notes”—in the bird’s song.[3] Moreover, the melodic patterning of the nightingale’s song, as opposed to that of the lark, for example, involves the operation of a paradigmatic or “vertical” axis of selection, not only a syntagmatic or “horizontal” axis of combination.[4]

Such a patterning is made clear in Mâche’s study of a “corpus” of 165 strophes produced by four individual nightingales, two of the singers recorded in Hungary and two in France.[5] According to one formulation, each strophe is divisible into three parts: an opening, a middle, and a closing or coda.[6] The opening consists of different notes and different numbers of these notes, averaging between five and six; the middle consists of a series of repeated notes, with an average of two-thirds being in staccato format, that is, where one note is being rapidly repeated between extremely short pauses, and the other third being in trill format, that is, where the alternation of two notes—one of them simplex in timbre and the other, complex—is likewise being rapidly {40|41} repeated; and the coda, finally, consists of a single note in general, uniquely different from all the other notes in the strophe. There exists an option to insert—at a point that comes before the coda and after the middle, with its cluster of repetitions—transitional notes and even one or several clusters of further repetitions; moreover, the actual linking of such clusters of repetitions generally causes an abrupt change in tempo.

We may compare this description with the onomatopoeia that represents the nightingale’s song in the Birds of Aristophanes: τιὸ τιὸ τιὸ τιοτίγξ = tiò tiò tiò tiotínx (738, 741, 743, 751) and τὸ τὸ τὸ τὸ τὸ τὸ τὸ τὸ τοτίγξ = tò tò tò tò tò tò tò tò totínx (748).[7][xxi] In the first instance of tiò tiò tiò tiotínx (738), the birdcall is framed by the vocative of ‘Muse in the thickets’ (737: Μοῦσα λοχμαία) and by her epithet, poikílē ‘varied’ (739: ποικίλη). Also, the music of the aulós ‘reed’ fulfills the representation of the nightingale’s song, as indicated in the manuscript tradition of the Birds by the notation αὐλεῖ ‘plays the aulós’ at verse 222.[xxii]

To return to the description by Mâche, what emerges is a pattern of interplay between combination and selection in the song of the nightingale. In other words, it is not just a matter of the songbird’s capacity to combine sounds into given sequences. More than that, each combination of sounds can be selected—or, better, re-selected—to create further combinations. The idea of re-selecting, that is, selecting again the same combination in order to make another combination, fits the image of coming around, turning, returning.

In this light, let us return to Aelian’s interpretation of the epithet poludeukḗs describing the voice of the songbird in Odyssey xix (521). To repeat, if indeed poludeukḗs implies that the nightingale {41|42} is τὴν ποικίλως μεμιμημένην ‘the one who makes imitation [mimesis] in a varied [poikílōs] way’, then this variant epithet poludeukḗs points to the songbird’s capacity for variety. But the argument goes beyond establishing the idea of variety in the word poludeukḗs. There is even more to Aelian’s description of the nightingale’s birdsong, since he insists on the notion of mimesis in his definition: τὴν ποικίλως μεμιμημένην ‘the one who makes imitation [mimesis] in a varied [poikílōs] way’. If Aelian is right, then the variant epithet poludeukḗs conveys not only variety but also the very idea of mimesis, which is translated here as ‘imitation’. If he is right, then poludeukḗs is closely parallel in meaning to poluēkhḗs ‘with many resoundings’, since ēkhṓ ‘resounding, echo’ likewise conveys the idea of mimesis. As we will now see, moreover, there is a deeper meaning of mimesis, which can be understood by discovering the deeper meaning of the epithet poludeukḗs.

Let us pursue the argument that poludeukḗs, once we examine its usage and its etymology, is indeed parallel in meaning to poluēkhḗs as an epithet of the Homeric nightingale’s song. Let us begin with the first component, polu‑, of both poluēkhḗs ‘with many resoundings’ and poludeukḗs, the variant epithets describing the voice of the nightingale in Odyssey xix (521). In the case of the compound poluēkhḗs, which has been translated up to now simply as ‘with many resoundings’, that is, ‘having many resoundings’, the idea of variety is inherent even in the semantic combination of polu‑ ‘much, many’ with ēkhṓ ‘echo, resounding’, to the extent that we may interpret the meaning of this compound not only as ‘having resoundings/echoes many times’ but also as ‘having resoundings/echoes in many ways’.[8] In the case of poludeukḗs, however, the idea of variety is revealed by its etymology, in the second component as well, ‑deukḗs. Also inherent in the etymology is the idea of mimesis. {42|43}

The strong sense of variety, even multiformity, in poludeukḗs is evident in its application to the word morphḗ ‘form’ in Nicander’s Theriaka (209), in a zoological description of vipers as a sub-set of the snake family. The combination of the words poludeukḗs and morphḗ with the genitive of the word for ‘vipers’ has aptly been translated by the editors of Nicander as “the various forms of the viper.”[9] In the next verse of Nicander (210), we are in fact told by the poet that vipers are to be found in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. We have in this attestation, then, a convenient point of departure for surveying the ideas of variety and polymorphism inherent in the rare epithet poludeukḗs. But the question remains to be pursued: is there an idea of mimesis as well as variety in poludeukḗs?

Let us for a moment turn to matters of etymology. Pierre Chantraine in his Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque and Ernst Risch in his Wortbildung der homerischen Sprache are both uncertain about how to explain the meaning of the root *deuk‑ / *duk‑ in poludeukḗs, but they are both quite certain about the morphological relationship of this word with two other words, the negative adeukḗs and the adverb endukéōs.[10] We have seen in the previous chapter that Aelian as well, in his discussion of poludeukḗs as an epithet of the nightingale, treats adeukḗs as the negative of poludeukḗs. He thinks that adeukḗs means ‘incapable of mimesis’. As we will see, mimesis in such a context means more than ‘imitation’: it conveys also a deeper sense of continuity.

Let us start, however, not with the negative adjective adeukḗs but rather with the adverb endukéōs. From a survey of its contexts, I infer that this word endukéōs is associated with the notion of an uninterrupted sequence, as for example in contexts like the verse in Odyssey xiv (337) involving the action of sending or accompanying someone on a journey (verb pémpein at 333, 334, 338). There are sinister implications here concerning any interruption of the journey as a sequence, a continuum. Similarly in Iliad XXIV (438), a disguised Hermes tells Priam that he will accompany him endukéōs, whether {43|44} on ship or on foot: as your pompós or ‘conductor’ (437), he continues, I would journey with you even as far as Argos itself, and no one will dare stand up to you so long as I am your ‘conductor’ (439: again, pompós). Again, a successful journey is pictured as a sequence, a continuum.

Conversely, the negative adeukḗs occurs in contexts referring to an interrupted sequence, as in a quoted question about the Achaeans coming home from Troy in Odyssey iv (489): did any of them, Menelaos is asking the Old Man of the Sea, perish while on a ship at sea, destroyed by a doom (ólethros) that is adeukḗs?[11] In Odyssey x (245), Eurylokhos puzzles over how to announce the bad news that Odysseus’ companions have just been turned into swine, which is a fate (pótmos) that is adeukḗs. In Odyssey vi (273), Nausikaa is worrying about bad things that the Phaeacians may say about her: they may, she fears, make the kind of utterance (phêmis) that is adeukḗs for her reputation. It is as if one’s good reputation were a steady stream of positive speech, the interruption of which threatens to produce a bad reputation.

Returning to the adverb endukéōs, we may say that its contexts of an uninterrupted sequence imply a ritualized continuity or consistency, as in descriptions of a host’s treatment of a guest. In Odyssey xv (305), for example, Odysseus is testing the swineherd Eumaios, who is, unwittingly, playing host to his disguised master, whether he philéoi ‘loves’ him endukéōs or whether he will suddenly switch, turning against him. In Odyssey xv (491), endukéōs refers to the steady flow of food and drink provided by the master of the household to his dependent, in this case Eumaios, without ever cutting off the supply; Eumaios is not aware that he is being told all this by his own long-lost master, the disguised Odysseus. In Odyssey xiv (111), a disguised Odysseus as guest is eating, in a way that is described as endukéōs, the meal that Eumaios, philéōn ‘loving’ host that he is, is offering him. In Odyssey xvii (111), Telemakhos says that Nestor as host ephílei ‘loved’ him endukéōs, treating him as if he had been a son who had just returned after an absence: here the status of the child as dependent {44|45} has been interrupted, but the love of the father has not.[12] This is how, continues Telemakhos (xvii 113), Nestor took care of me (ekómize), along with his own sons. In Odyssey xiv (390), the old woman endukéōs takes care of (koméesken) the old man.[13] In Homeric Hymn 26 (4), the Nymphs endukéōs raised (atítallon) the infant Dionysus in Nysa.[14]

In Odyssey x (65), there is a combination of both sending and hosting contexts: Aeolus the god of winds is telling Odysseus that he had sent him off endukéōs, so that the hero could reach home, but now the journey has been interrupted and the hero’s homecoming is utterly ruined because the bag of winds has been opened. We see here an ultimate interruption not only in the journey of the hero but in the epic narrative as well.

It is worth the effort to go to such lengths in examining the contexts of endukéōs and the morphologically related adeukḗs because their positive and negative associations respectively with the notions of uninterrupted and interrupted sequences makes it clear that these words, and poludeukḗs also, as we will see presently, are all derived from the same root *deuk‑ / *duk‑ that we find in Latin dūcere, dux. The arguments that follow are intended as proof of an etymological connection of endukéōs / adeukḗs / poludeukḗs with Latin dūcere, dux on the basis of the inherited contexts that we are about to find for these Latin words.[15]

In their etymological dictionary of Latin, Ernout and Meillet explain dūcere as an old pastoral word conveying the basic idea of pull rather than push (agere): the herdsman or dux is “pulling” or leading (dūcere) the herd when he goes in front, while he is “pushing” or driving (agere) when he is coming up from behind.[16] Going beyond this formulation of Ernout and Meillet, Emile Benveniste adds the notion of a continuum, so that the dux who {45|46} marches in front of the aggregate is necessarily connected, as the prime linking force, as it were, to the train that follows.[17] We may compare the semantics of Latin prae, which means not simply ‘in front of’ but ‘in front of and connected to what follows’. When someone falls praeceps or ‘head-first’, for example, the body follows the head because it is connected to it.[18] We can understand the semantics of dūcere more clearly if we substitute for the translation pull the English synonym draw, the richly varied compound patterns of which, such as draw up, draw out, draw in, draw back, and so on are comparable to the ones that we are about to see in the Latin compounds of dūcere.[19]

As we will now see, the idea behind dūcere, and draw, for that matter, is not only an uninterrupted sequence but also one that draws toward a definite goal. Benveniste’s most telling example is the Latin expression rationem dūcere, which means ‘add up’ or ‘add up the account’ and which we may translate more literally as ‘draw up’, as in the expression draw up the account.[20] When you add, you are following an uninterrupted sequence from the bottom up, with the definite goal of a summa or summit, that is, a sum. The direction of sequence in a sum is likewise from bottom to top, as in the idiom to sum up. There is a similar set of semantics, with the same visualization of movement from bottom to top, in the Greek verb ekkoruphoûn (as in Hesiod Works and Days 106).[21]

Another instance of this idea of an uninterrupted sequence drawing toward a definite goal is the Latin expression dūcere aquam /aquas ‘conduct water’. As we may infer from the derivative aquae ductus, an aqueduct must ultimately have a destination.[22] As we look back at the contexts where the Greek adverb endukéōs is associated with the idea of raising a child, we can now see a basic semantic connection with the Latin compound verb ēducāre, {46|47} which conveys the idea of raising a child, or a plant, toward the definite goal of maturity.[23]

Having a set sequence and a set goal by no means precludes the idea of variety. We may consider Benveniste’s examples of Latin expressions combining the verb dūcere with a direct object indicating the shape of a letter of the alphabet: hence the ductus of a letter is the drawing or tracing of a letter, and of course each different letter has its own different ductus. Thus the sequence or pattern of drawing, the pattern of dūcere, is itself a matter of variety. Even the English word pattern provides a striking illustration of this idea: a basic meaning of pattern is ‘model’, as in the world of dress-making. Etymologically, a pattern is a model. And yet, pattern is variety, as we can see even from the current sense of the word.

The idea of pattern as variety comes to life in the rich variety of compound patterns built from Latin dūcere, such as condūcere, dēdūcere, ēdūcere / ēducāre, indūcere, and so on, as also the corresponding compounds in the Germanic languages.[24] And there is a rich variety of meaning and application even within each one of the compounds. In the case of indūcere, for example, let us consider some of the categories of definition in the Oxford Latin Dictionary: meaning 5 is ‘introduce a custom or law’; meaning 6, in the legal sense, is ‘sanction, give grounds for’; meaning 7 is ‘apply a rule’; meaning 1, again in a legal sense, is ‘bring in’, as for example a witness; meaning 8 is ‘initiate, install into a position’; meaning 3, is ‘put on stage’, that is, introduce a performer into the action of the drama, or alternatively, to introduce a character into a narrative by presenting him or her to the mind’s eye, as it were; and the list goes on. Then there is the abstract noun derivative, inductiō, meaning (1) bringing in a performer, (2) initiation, (3) prompting to a course of action, focusing the mind, (4), reasoning by analogy—which translates the Greek philosophical concept of epagōgḗ. In Cicero’s De inventione (1.51), we read the following definition: inductio est oratio quae rebus non dubiis captat {47|48} assensionem eius quicum instituta est; quibus assensionibus facit ut illi dubia quaedam res propter similitudinem earum rerum, quibus assensit, probetur ‘induction is a form of speaking that seeks, in matters that are not open to doubt, the assent of the person with whom this form of speaking has been undertaken; by way of these assents the speaker makes credible to this person some matter that is open to doubt, because of its likeness to those things to which he has already given assent’.[25]

This definition of induction can also serve as a definition of the root *deuk‑ / *duk‑ itself, as we focus our attention on the notion of similitūdō as a key to the process. In terms of Cicero’s definition of induction, we may view the root *deuk‑ / *duk‑ as ‘draw continuously toward a definite goal’, where continuity is established through the mental process of connecting like with like. Moreover, the continuum is achieved through variety and diversity. The notion of continuum through variety and diversity may be pictured as a game of “connect the dots,” where the object of the game is to keep on moving from one dot to the closest dot: the thicker the clustering of dots along the way, the easier is the movement.[26]

The Alexandrian dictionary tradition that goes under the name of Hesychius helps confirm this interpretation with a series of glosses. The otherwise unattested adjective endeukéa is glossed in Hesychius as empherê, hómoia. The Greek adjectives empherḗs and hómoios mean ‘similar, resembling’. Also in Hesychius, endeukés is glossed as hómoion ‘similar, resembling’, and the first gloss for endukés is sunekhés ‘continuous’.[27] In Nicander’s Theriaka (263), endukés is attested in the sense of ‘continuous’.[28] {48|49}

The word sunekhḗs ‘continuous’ is actually used in [“Aristotle”] Historia animalium 632b21 to describe the singing of the nightingale: ἀηδών ᾀδει μὲν συνεχῶς ‘the nightingale sings in a sunekhḗs way’. Likewise Pliny Natural History 10.81 describes this birdsong as garrulus sine intermissu cantus ‘a talkative song without interruption’.

As we approach the end of this sequence of examples for the idea of continuity in the root *deuk‑ / *duk‑, we reach perhaps the most striking example in the Latin expression fīlum dēdūcere ‘draw out a thread [in spinning]’ (e.g. Ovid Metamorphoses 4.36; cf. Tibullus 1.3.86). There are comparable expressions where the verb dūcere or dēdūcere is metaphorically combined with objects like carmen ‘song’ to mean ‘compose the song’ (e.g. Propertius 4.6.13, Ovid Metamorphoses 1.4).

The association of the root *deuk‑ / *duk‑ with the idea of songmaking takes us back to the meaning of poludeukḗs, variant epithet for the nightingale’s song in Odyssey xix (521), which we may now interpret as meaning ‘having much continuity’ or ‘having continuity in many different ways’ or even ‘patterning in many ways’ (or ‘many times’).[29] The translation ‘patterning’ highlights the idea of continuity through variety and diversity.[xxiii] And the patterns of continuity through variety and diversity are conceived as the distinctly poetic skills of songmaking in performance. From the discussion that follows, moreover, it will be clear that the idea of ‘many different ways’ (or ‘many times’) is an inherently agonistic one, with each new {49|50} performance ever competing against previous performances. Thus we will find that poludeukḗs in the sense of ‘patterning in many different ways’ (or ‘many times’) as an apt description of oral tradition itself.

As Lord observes about the dynamics of oral tradition, “there is a pull in two directions: one is toward the song being sung and the other is toward the previous uses of the same theme”.[30] If we reformulate this insight in terms of Prague School linguistics, we may say that the poetic process of referring to anything involves, simultaneously, a “horizontal” axis of combination and a “vertical” axis of selection.[31] Lord himself implies such an interaction between combination and selection when he says:

Where the association is not linear, it seems to me that we are dealing with a force or ‘tension’ that might be termed ‘submerged.’ The habit is hidden, but felt. It arises from the depths of the tradition through the workings of the traditional processes to inevitable expression. And to be numb to an awareness of this kind of association is to miss the meaning not only of the oral method of composition and transmission, but even of epic itself. Without such an awareness the overtones from the past, which give tradition the richness of diapason of full organ, cannot be sensed by the reader of oral epic. The singer’s natural audience appreciates it because they are as much part of the tradition as the singer himself.[32]

From this point of view each occurrence of a theme (on the level of content) or of a formula (on the level of form) in a given composition-in-performance refers not only to its immediate context but also to all other analogous contexts remembered by the performer or by any member of the audience.[33]

Pursuing the argument that the Homeric epithet poludeukḗs conveys a distinctly poetic idea, we may use as evidence the formulaic system of Homeric diction. There is a striking parallelism, both morphological and semantic, between poludeukḗs ‘having {50|51} much continuity [es-stem *deûkos]’ or ‘having continuity in many different ways’ (or ‘many times’), epithet of the aēdṓn ‘nightingale’ as a lamenting songbird on the one hand and, on the other, polupenthḗs ‘having much grief [es-stem pénthos]’ or ‘having grief in many different ways’ (or ‘many times’), epithet of the (h)alkúōn, another lamenting songbird, in Iliad IX (563).[34][xxiv] In Homeric diction, both pénthos and ákhos mean not only ‘grief’ but also ‘song about grief’, that is, a ritual song of lament.[35]

Also pertinent is the name of one of the two Divine Twins, Poludeúkēs (Iliad III 237, Odyssey xi 300). The noun itself is straightforwardly related to the adjective poludeukḗs, in that the recessive accent of the name is typical of the naming function, as we see from such morphologically related formations as Poluneíkēs ‘having many quarrels [es-stem neîkos]’ or ‘having quarrels in many different ways’ (or ‘many times’).[36] In the mythological functions of the divine figure Poludeúkēs, the idea of continuity seems as evident as that of variety, since the Divine Twins are models of consistency, perseverance, reliability (as in Homeric Hymn 33).[37] In an astrological sense, we could say that Poludeúkēs, in the role of Morning Star, is ‘repeating many times’, the symbol of many happy returns.[38] And the repetition can be visualized as a cyclical one—a pattern of eternal return. There is a striking semantic and morphological parallel in poluderkḗs ‘seeing in many different ways’ (or ‘many times’), epithet of the dawn-goddess Eos in Hesiod (Theogony 451).

The multiple repetition of the same, each repetition being different, is an idea encapsulated in the very identity of Poludeúkēs as a twin, one of the Divine Twins. The very idea of a twin conveys both sameness and difference. Here we may consider in general {51|52} the semantic function of the Homeric epithet: each time the epithet is repeated, it is both same and different in meaning.[39] With each of its countless returns, the epithet refers to the same thing, but to a new instance of the same old thing.

The word repetition has been introduced in this context in order to evoke a 1843 work of Kierkegaard, entitled Repetition. Just as ancient Greek philosophy teaches, it is claimed, “that all knowledge is a recollecting,” so also “modern philosophy will teach that all life is a repetition.”[40] To quote further: “repetition and recollection are the same movement, except in opposite directions, for what is recollected has been, is repeated backward, whereas genuine repetition is recollected forward.”[41]

The idea of “recollecting forward” is applicable to the definition of induction that we have examined earlier, and to the reinterpretation of the root *deuk‑ / *duk‑ as ‘draw continuously toward a definite goal’, with the implication that continuity takes place through the mental process of connecting like with like. As we will now see, such a reinterpretation suits the ancient Greek concept of mimesis as well, which is fundamental to poetry as performance. In fact, the semantics of mimesis will help us reach a sharper definition of the mental process of connecting like with like. From the earliest attested meanings of mimesis, we will see there must be a definitive model as well as a definite goal.

It is easier to approach the topic of a definitive model if we first review the idea of a definite goal. In case of the root *deuk‑ / *duk‑, we have already seen the example of the Latin compound verb ēducāre, which conveys the idea of raising a child, or a plant, toward the definite goal of maturity, and this idea is still current in the English usages of educate.[42] We may note, with reference to {52|53} the definite goal of maturity, that the Greek word télos can designate either such a goal or a ritual of initiation.[43] Further, we have already seen derivatives of the root *deuk‑ / *duk‑ such as indūcere and the English borrowing induct in the sense of ‘initiate’.

This much said, let us proceed to explore in more depth the meaning of mimesis. As with the root *deuk‑ / *duk‑, where the goal that is implied helps us comprehend the model as well, so also with mimesis. The definitive models of mimesis take shape by way of a process that leads towards definite goals such as initiation and education—which are the very concepts reflected in the Latin words indūcere and ēducāre.

With the ultimate purpose of arriving at a working definition of mimesis, let us first consider its function in the context of the khorós ‘chorus, song-and-dance ensemble’, a traditional Greek performance medium that serves as an instrument of initiation as well as education in archaic Greek society.[44] A premier example, as we will see, is Alcman Song 1 (as numbered in the PMG edition of Denys Page), the so‑called Partheneion, the text of a choral composition destined for performance in archaic Sparta.[45]

As John Herington argues in his Poetry into Drama, the performance of a chorus is ordinarily a matter of a seasonally recurring reperformance.[46] There are particularly striking examples from Sparta, such as the description in Sosibius (FGH 595 F 5, by way of Athenaeus 15.678bc), of choral performances at the Spartan Feast of the Gymnopaidiai, featuring reperformances of compositions attributed to Alcman and other archaic figures. We may note too the description in Polycrates (FGH 588 F 1, by way of Athenaeus 4.139e) of choral performances at the Spartan festival of the Hyakinthia, where the compositions of Alcman were most likely a part of the repertory (witness the papyrus commentary to Alcman, PMG 10[a].5). Here is the text of Polycrates’ vivid description:

τῇ δὲ μέσῃ τῶν τριῶν ἡμερῶν γίνεται θέα ποικίλη καὶ πανήγυρις ἀξιόλογος καὶ μεγάλη· παῖδές τε γὰρ κιθαρίζουσιν ἐν χιτῶσιν ἀνεζωσμένοις καὶ πρὸς αὐλὸν ᾄδοντες πάσας ἅμα τῷ πλήκτρῳ τὰς χορδὰς ἐπιτρέχοντες ἐν ῥυθμῷ μὲν ἀναπαίστῳ, μετ’ ὀξέος δὲ τόνου τὸν θεὸν ᾄδουσιν· ἄλλοι δ’ ἐφ’ ἵππων κεκοσμημένων τὸ θέατρον διεξέρχονται· χοροί τε νεανίσκων παμπληθεῖς εἰσέρχονται καὶ τῶν ἐπιχωρίων τινὰ ποιημάτων ᾄδουσιν, ὀρχησταί τε [ἐν] τούτοις ἀναμεμιγμένοι τὴν κίνησιν ἀρχαικὴν ὑπὸ τὸν αὐλὸν καὶ τὴν ᾠδὴν ποιοῦνται. τῶν δὲ παρθένων αἳ μὲν ἐπὶ καννάθρων [καμαρωτῶν ξυλίνων ἁρμάτων] φέρονται πολυτελῶς κατεσκευασμένων, αἳ δ’ ἐφ’ ἁμίλλαις ἁρμάτων ἐζευγμένων πομπεύουσιν, ἅπασα δ’ ἐν κινήσει καὶ χαρᾷ τῆς θεωρίας ἡ πόλις καθέστηκεν. ἱερεῖά τε παμπληθῆ θύουσι τὴν ἡμέραν ταύτην καὶ δειπνίζουσιν οἱ πολῖται πάντας τοὺς γνωρίμους καὶ τοὺς δούλους τοὺς ἰδίους· οὐδεὶς δ’ ἀπολείπει τὴν θυσίαν, ἀλλὰ κενοῦσθαι συμβαίνει τὴν πόλιν πρὸς τὴν θέαν.

But the middle day of the three days there is a variety-filled [poikílē] spectacle [théā] and a great and notable gathering of all {53|54} [panḗguris]. Boys wearing girt‑up khitons play the lyre, sweeping all the strings with the plectrum as they sing the god in the anapaestic rhythm and at a high pitch. Others pass through the viewing area [théatron] on finely ornamented horses. Massed choruses [khoroí] of young men now enter and sing some of the epichoric songs, while dancers mixed in with them perform the ancient dance‑movements to the pipe [aulós] and the singing. Next maidens enter, some riding in richly adorned wicker carts, while others make their competitive procession in chariots yoked with mules. And the entire city is astir, rejoicing at the spectacle [theōríā]. On this day they sacrifice an abundance of animal victims, and the citizens feast all their acquaintances and their own slaves. And no one is left out of the sacrifice [thusíā], and what happens is that the city is emptied for the spectacle [théā].[47]

Polycrates FGH 588 F 1, by way of Athenaeus 4.139e

Herington concludes, on the basis of this and similar testimony, that “some at least of Alcman’s compositions were still being reperformed well into the Hellenistic era [emphasis mine].”[48]

In an earlier work, I linked the meaning of mimesis with this medium of the khorós,[49] arguing that the primary meaning of mimesis was ‘re‑enactment, impersonation’ in a dramatic sense, as in a khorós, and that the secondary meaning of ‘imitation’—which is a built‑in aspect of re‑enactment—became the new primary meaning of this word only after the dramatic sense of mimesis was destabilized.[50] For present purposes, let us use the word “dramatic” strictly with reference to traditional societies like those of archaic Greece, where drama entails an interaction of myth and ritual.[51] As for myth, we may define it tentatively as a given {54|55} traditional society’s coding of truth‑values through narrative.[52] And we may adopt, at least for the moment, Stanley Tambiah’s definition of ritual as “a culturally constructed system of symbolic communication.”[53] Keeping in mind this broad working definition of ritual, I propose that myth—or at least the performance of myth as song, poetry, or prose—can even be seen as an aspect of ritual, though of course myth is also potentially distinguishable from ritual.[54]

This working definition of mimesis as ‘re-enactment, impersonation’ is supported by the celebrated description of mimesis in the Poetics of Aristotle as the mental process of identifying the representing ‘this’, as in the ritual of acting the drama, with the represented ‘that’, as in the myth that is being acted out by the drama: in Greek this mental process can be expressed by way of the equation hoûtos ekeînos ‘so this is that!’ (1448b17).[55] The restatement of this equation in Aristotle’s Rhetoric (1.1371a21 [[corrected to 1.1371b9]]) makes it clear that the media of representation that Aristotle has in mind are not just the visual arts but also the verbal arts, primarily the art of songmaking and poetry as performed in the dramas of Athenian State Theater.

As the discussion proceeds, it will become clear that I think of all song and poetry as mimetic, although in varying degrees—not just the song and poetry of theatrical drama in particular and of performance by a khorós in general. My usage of performance is analogous, in that I extend the theatrical connotations of this English word to all kinds of song and poetry. For the moment, though, let us consider Aristotle’s formulation of mimesis primarily from the viewpoint of song and poetry in drama or, at least, in the framework of a khorós. So long as the represented ‘that’ remains absolute—that is, absolutized by the myth—the representing ‘this’ remains a re-enacting ‘this’.[56] So long as ‘this’ imitates an absolute ‘that’, it re-enacts as it imitates; the re-enactment remains primary, and the imitation remains {55|56} secondary.[57] Once you start imitating something that is no longer absolute, however, you can no longer re-enact the absolute: then you can only make a copy, and your model may be also just a copy. I have just described here the general mentality induced by the destabilization of the conceptual world of mimesis.[58]

It bears repeating that both re-enactment and imitation are genuine aspects of the older conceptual world of mimesis. If you re-enact an archetypal action in ritual, it only stands to reason that you have to imitate those who re-enacted before you and who served as your immediate models. But the ultimate model is still the archetypal action or figure that you are re-enacting in ritual, which is coextensive with the whole line of imitators who re-enact the way in which their ultimate model acted, each imitating each one’s predecessor.

Pursuing the idea that mimesis was a traditional function of the khorós, let us turn to the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, which describes a khorós of Delian Maidens performing at a festival on the island of Delos.[59] In earlier work, I argued that the Delian Maidens represent an idealization of choral lyric.[60] We may compare Plato’s picture of the ultimate divine khorós, comprised of the Olympian gods themselves, serving as model for all human choruses (Phaedrus 247a: θείου χοροῦ). I also argued that the Delian Maidens are presented in the Hymn as archetypes meant to be re‑enacted in the local ritual context of real choral performances at Delos—in which context any real chorus‑members would be equated, for the ritual moment, with the archetypal Maidens.[61] Such a re‑enactment of a model would be mimesis in the primary sense just outlined.

The Delian Maidens show the way for others to re-enact them by demonstrating their own power to re-enact all other people, in all their varieties. These Maidens are models of mimesis by way of practicing mimesis: they can repeat everyone’s voice, mimeîsthai (Hymn to Apollo 163), and everyone who hears the repetition will {56|57} think that it is his or her own voice (163–164).[62] We may compare this usage of mimesis with the semantics of Latin inductiō, meaning not only ‘induction’ in the sense of initiation but also induction as a mental process of connecting like with like, thus achieving a continuum through variety. We may also compare the traditional image of the sacrificing god, as recently studied by Kimberley Patton in a wide variety of different cultures: when gods take the seemingly paradoxical stance of sacrificing, they are simply acting as models, authoritatively showing the way for others to sacrifice by being the first to do so themselves.[63]

I offer a similar formulation in the case of Alcman’s Partheneion: I propose that archetypal figures, including the primary archetypal figures named Hagesikhora and Agido, are models being acted out by real chorus‑members in performances held on a seasonally‑recurring basis.[64] Even their names designate models—either divine, like Hagesikhora, or royal, like Agido.[65]

We may reconstruct a similar principle at work in the earliest stages of Athenian State Theater: the real chorus‑members of a tragedy would be re‑enacting an archetypal ensemble that is interacting with archetypal figures of the heroic world, figures acted by actors playing roles differentiated out of the ranks of the chorus.[66]

But the paradox of mimesis is that the archetype to be re-enacted must re-enact, not just enact, in its own right. So also in Song I of Jaufré Rudel, we had seen that the song of the nightingale, which serves as model for the song of the poet, is itself a model of recomposition, not just composition, in that even the songbird is in fact recomposing his own song by virtue of performing it. The nightingale of Provençal songmaking moves his song, which is inherently recurrent and recomposed, much as every new season of spring is a joyous event of inherent recurrence and recomposition, even re-creation.

So also in the case of poludeukḗs, variant epithet for the nightingale of Homeric songmaking: if the interpretation, ‘patterning {57|58} in many different ways’, is cogent, we see here a model of songmaking that is ultimately patterned on its own goal, achieved by maintaining continuity through variety.[67] To maintain this continuity is to keep on re-creating, which is the process of mimesis.[68] In mimesis, every performance is a re-creation. To rephrase the words of Aristotle in the Poetics, the representing “this” re-creates the represented “that” (1448b17). {58|59}

Footnotes

[1] The semantics of poikílos ‘varied’ are illuminated by the context of the epithet of the nightingale in Hesiod Works and Days 203, poikilódeiros, which is interpreted as ‘having a varied[-sounding] throat’ in ch. 3n1; also by the context of the epithet of Aphrodite in Sappho 1.1, poikilóthronos, which is interpreted in the sense of ‘with varied pattern-woven flowers’ in ch. 4.

[2] Pliny Natural History 10.85 refers to the vox ‘voice’ of the nightingale as modulata ‘modulated’ and varia ‘varied’ (where modulated is to be understood in the ancient, not modern, sense: see ch. 1n56).

[3] Mâche 1991:119, with reference to the Luscinia megarhynchos. A “phrase” in birdsong, according to the descriptive scheme developed by Mâche, is a sequence or “suite” of sounds framed by intervals of silence; wherever such a sequence or “suite” begins with a repeated pattern of sounds, it is a “strophe” (Mâche p. 112). On the functioning of such strophes in situations where we find no explicit framing by pauses or intervals of silence, see Mâche p. 144.

[4] Mâche 1991:119. On the concept of an opposition between an axis of combination and an axis of selection, see n7 in the Introduction above. On the sequencing of the “strophes” themselves in the case of the nightingale’s singing, Mâche p. 121n14 refers to Todt 1971, whose work raises—at least implicitly, in my opinion—important questions concerning the opposition of langue and parole in the performance of an individual nightingale.

[5] Mâche 1991:119–123.

[6] Mâche 1991:121. What follows in the rest of this paragraph is a close paraphrase of his formulation. We may note in passing the implications of many of these formulations for the diachronic analysis of Greek lyric meters, as in PH 439–464.

[7] There is an analogous onomatopoeia implicit in the form ´Itus (Ἴτυς), a name of the son of the unfortunate mythical woman who was turned into a nightingale, in contexts where ´Itus is doubled, as in Aeschylus Agamemnon 1144: Ἴτυν Ἴτυν στένουσ᾿ ‘[the nightingale] mourning “´Itun ´Itun”’; also Sophocles Electra 148: ἃ Ἴτυν αἰὲν Ἴτυν ὀλοφύρεται ‘who keeps on mourning “´Itun ´Itun”’. As Ian Rutherford points out to me, the refrain ἴτω ἴτω χορός = ítō ítō khorós ‘let the chorus get under way!’ in SLG S 460.13/15/17 represents not only the song of the nightingale (ἀηδονὶς ὧδε λέλακε ‘thus the nightingale spoke’ at line 8) but also the sound of the song, by way of onomatopoeia; in this context, the songbird signals the inception of choral song and dance in springtime (cf. ἐν ὥραις at line 12). In the song of Tereus at Aristophanes Birds 228–229, the onomatopoeia of ítō is made explicit by the purely onomatopoeic sequence that precedes it: ἰὼ ἰὼ ἰτὼ ἰτὼ ἰτὼ ἰτὼ | ἴτω τις ὧδε τῶν ἐμῶν ὁμοπτέρων ‘iṑ iṑ itṑ itṑ itṑ itṑ | ítō [let come] all my fellow feathered-ones’.

[8] The scholia V for Odyssey xix 521 explain poluēkhéa as pollàs metabolàs poiouménēn ‘making many changes’. The same word poluēkhḗs occurs in Iliad IV (422), epithet of aigialós ‘beach’. Applying the interpretation of the scholia, we may translate either ‘resounding many times’ or ‘resounding in many ways’. To emphasize the idea of variety, we may translate hereafter: ‘resounding in many different ways’. In what follows, I will have more to say about other compounds where the combination of polu‑ ‘much, many’ with a given noun yields a meaning that can be approximated by ‘in many different ways’.

[9] Gow and Scholfield 1953:43. In the scholia to Nicander Theriaka 209, poludeukḗs is glossed as poikílos ‘varied’ in morphḗ ‘shape’. {The varia lecto is πολυδερκέα. The gloss is πικράν.}

[10] Chantraine DELG s.v. ἀδευκής (cf. already Frisk GEW 20) and Risch 1974:81–83 (cf. also Bader 1986, whose explanation differs from the one presented here.

[11] On the possibility of a variant reading involving adeukḗs in Odyssey i 46, with reference to the death of Aegisthus, see Dyck 1993:11–12, especially p. 12n26. In the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes we find adeukḗs as epithet of átē ‘doom’ (1.1037), aîsa ‘fate’ (4.1503), háls ‘sea’ (2.388), áellai ‘gusts of wind’ (2.267).

[12] We may compare the collocation of verse-initial ḗpios and verse-initial endukéōs in Odyssey xv 490 / 491, the Eumaios passage. On the semantics of ḗpios, see Edmunds 1990:98: “The typically ḗpios figure is mature, gives good advice, understands justice, and promotes social cohesion.

[13] In Odyssey x 450, Circe endukéōs washes and anoints the companions.

[14] For the moment, let us simply note in passing the combinations of endukéōs with tréphein ‘raise’ in Iliad XXIII 90, Odyssey vii 256. These combinations turn out to be valuable evidence in the discussion that follows. {Cf. xiv 62, xv 305, 543, xvii 56, 11, xix 195, xxiv 272; also xxiv 212, 390; cf. xvii 113; xiv 109, XXIV 158, 187.Cf. xiv 62, xv 305, 543, xvii 56, 11, xix 195, xxiv 272; also xxiv 212, 390; cf. xvii 113; xiv 109, XXIV 158, 187.}

[15] In the discussion that follows, I have benefited from the valuable advice of Richard P. Martin.

[16] Ernout / Meillet DELL 185.

[17] Benveniste 1973.121–130. Cf. Ernout / Meillet DELL 185, who stress the correlation of dūcere ‘lead’ with sequī ‘follow’—the verb conveying the very idea of sequence.

[18] Benveniste 1949. {Cf. athroos in Theocritus.Cf. athroos in Theocritus.}

[19] Besides the English combinations, we may consider the vast variety of nuances in the corresponding Gothic compounds, as noted by Benveniste 1973:125. On the implications of German ziehen and Zug, see Schur 1998.

[20] Benveniste 1973:122.

[21] Cf. West 1978:178.

[22] See OLD 578. Ernout / Meillet DELL point out that Cicero uses ductus aquarum where Vitruvius has ductio aquarum.

[23] Contexts of ēducāre with plant as object include Columella 4.29.17 (human agent; other contexts listed in OLD 588 s.v., section c); we may compare the correlation, as noted above, of the Homeric adverb endukéōs with contexts of tréphein and atitállein, where the object of the verb may be a child or a plant.

[24] See n19 above. For an illuminating analysis of the poetics of German ziehen, see Schur 1998.

[25] The notion of captat assensionem ‘seeks assent’ is analogous to the implications of assent in Aristotle’s description of mimesis in terms of the formula οὗτος ἐκεῖνος ‘this is that’ in Poetics 1448b17 as discussed in PH 44, especially n134; further discussion of this formula in what follows.

[26] Cf. the formulation offered by Mâche 1991:125 concerning the “art” of birdsong in particular and music in general: virtuosity is a matter of finding an equilibrium between recurrence and novelty.

[27] The other glosses given in Hesychius for endukés are sunetón ‘aware, understanding’, aphelés ‘even’, asphalés ‘steady’, glukú ‘sweet’, próthumon ‘cooperative’, eúnoun ‘kindly disposed’, pistón ‘reliable’, epimelés ‘caring’. Most of these interpretations suit the contexts of the Homeric adverb endukéōs as surveyed above. I see as a common semantic thread the idea of attentiveness to proper procedure. The glosses in Hesychius for endúkion are pistón ‘reliable’, phílon ‘near and dear’, empherés ‘similar’, bébaion ‘certain’, and apókruphon ‘obscure’; perhaps the last of these is meant as a comment on the meaning; the gloss for deukés is hómoion ‘similar’ (in Latte’s 1953 edition of Hesychius vol. 1, the other gloss lamprón ‘shining, visible’ is removed and transposed under the entry deikés).

[28] This endukés is also apparently attested as an adverb in Apollonius of Rhodes 1.883: as bees are ekkhúmenai ‘pouring forth’ from their hive (880), so also the women, in an endukés manner, prokhéonto ‘poured forth’ (883), lamenting, around the men. We may note that the nightingale in Odyssey xix 521 khéei ‘pours forth’ her poludeukéa (or poluēkhéa) sound. Recalling the adverb endukéōs, derivative of this adjective endukḗs, we may note some additional attestations beyond the Homeric ones already surveyed. In Bacchylides 5.125 endukéōs refers to the steady fighting of warriors over the hide of the Calydonian Boar, and at 5.112 endukéōs is used correlatively with sunekhéōs ‘continuously’ with reference to the warriors’ fight against the Boar itself. Chantraine DELG s.v. ἐνδυκέως emphasizes the idea of continuity and perseverance in this passage. In the Hesiodic Shield 427, endukéōs refers to a lion’s tearing away at the flesh of its prey: in today’s idiom, we would say that the lion is systematically or methodically devouring its prey. At Pindar Pythian 5.85, hosts are described as receiving their guest endukéōs with thusíai ‘sacrifices’.

[29] On the semantics of polu‑ in the sense of ‘many different’, not just ‘many’ or ‘much’, cf. polu‑ēgerées ‘assembled from many different places’, a variant reading reported by Aristarchus for tēle‑kleitoí in Iliad XI 564, and polu‑sperḗs ‘much-dispersed’, referring in Iliad II 804 to peoples who are dispersed throughout many different places. Further morphological parallels for this kind of compounding with es‑stems: polu‑tharsḗs ‘having much audacity’, as in Iliad XVII 156, etc., and polu‑kankḗs ‘much-burning’, epithet of thirst in Iliad XI 642.

[30] Lord 1960:94; cf. also pp. 66, 94–97.

[31] See n7 in the Introduction above.

[32] Lord 1960:97.

[33] Cf. Foley 1991, who invokes the term immanence to argue that the immediate reference in oral poetics is but a part of the totality of meaning.

[34] On the explicit connections of the (h)alkúōn with songs of lamentation, see BA 111.

[35] BA 94–117, especially pp. 99–100 on Odyssey iv 220.

[36] Cf. also Polupheídēs in Odyssey xv 249, which could mean ‘having parsimony in many different ways’ (or ‘many times’). On the poetics of naming as an aspect of a poetic system, see PH 206–207 and Higbie 1995:189.

[37] In light of the close association of endukéōs, as surveyed above, with the ritualistic performance of one’s duties as xénos, ‘host’ or ‘guest’, we may note the traditional characterization of the Divine Twins as philóxe(i)noi ‘dear to xénoi’, as in Pindar Olympian 3.1.

[38] On the mythological model of the Divine Twins as alternating Morning Star / Evening Star, see GM 258–259.

[39] Cf. Foley 1991, who shows how the Homeric epithet transcends its immediate context, that is, its “instance.” The referentiality of the epithet is “extrasituational,” in that “epithet and instance harmonize not because the phrase can be reduced—its complexity conveniently denatured—but rather because it entails a larger reality than can be presented in any one narrative event” (p. 141). In the “pars pro toto” logic of oral composition-in-performance, “the ever-incomplete performance or text is the only medium through which we can completely experience the oral traditional work of art” (p. 10; cf. p. 58). Meaning is thus “inherent” in the context, not “conferred” exclusively by the context (p. 8).

[40] Kierkegaard 1843 [1983]:131.

[41] Kierkegaard 1843 [1983]:131.

[42] See n23 above.

[43] Cf. PH 245–246.

[44] For more on the khorós as a medium of initiation and education, see Calame 1977, especially I 437–439.

[45] Detailed discussion in PH 345–349 (cf. N 1989:50–51) and Clay 1991.

[46] Herington 1985.

[47] This translation of Polycrates FGH 588 F 1 is based on that of Herington 1985:7, who goes on to say about Polycrates: “Even if he lived relatively late in the Hellenistic period, … Sparta’s ritual and musical conservatism was such that he could well have witnessed a celebration of the Hyakinthia in much the same form that it would have had in classical times” (p. 224n8; cf. PH 351, 371n168 and Clay 1991:64). As Victor Bers points out to me, the emphasis on the idea that ‘no one is left out of the sacrifice’ echoes the semantics of a ‘gathering of all’ inherent in the word panḗguris.

[48] Herington 1985:25–26. I disagree, however, with his general assumption that the composition of archaic Greek lyric performances required the technology of writing (pp. 41–42): see PH 19n7.

[49] PH 339–413. A pioneering study of mimesis, to which I am much indebted, is Koller 1954.

[50] PH 42–45, 346, 349, 373–375, 381, 387, 411.

[51] PH ch. 13.

[52] Elaborations in GM 8; cf. PH 313–317.

[53] Tambiah 1985:128.

[54] Cf. the formulation “myth implies ritual in the very performance of myth” at p. xi of my foreword to Martin 1989 and at GM 317.

[55] PH 44.

[56] PH 42–44.

[57] PH 42–44.

[58] Cf. Nehamas 1982.

[59] Burkert 1987:54 interprets lines 162-165 of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo as a reference to the “performance of choral lyrics.”

[60] PH 43, 375–377.

[61] PH 43, 375–377.

[62] Detailed discussion in PH 43–44, 375–377.

[63] Patton 1992.

[64] N 1989:50–51, PH 345–370; cf. Clay 1991.

[65] PH 345–348.

[66] On the complex patterns of differentiation that led to the emergence of the first, second, and third actors as distinct from the chorus, see PH 378–379.

[67] The idea of continuity through variety may be expressed by the metaphor of ‘breaking’. Successive interruptions or ‘breakings’ in a continuum may actually contribute to an overall sense of continuity or non-interruption, as in the pulsation of sound or light. Hence the metaphor of refraction, as we see in the expression περὶ δέ σφισιν ἄγνυτο ἠχώ ‘and the echoing sound [ēkhṓ] they made was refracted [= literally ‘broke’] all around them’ in the Hesiodic Shield, verses 279 and 348. At verse 348, the expression applies to the neighing of war-horses; at 279, it applies to the sound of choral voices singing in response to a tune presumably sung by a choral leader, accompanied by herdsmen’s pipes. With reference to verse 279, we may compare the metaphors of refraction as discussed in the context of ch. 1n55 above. There is a relevant discussion by Bonanno 1993:68, who actually cites both these Hesiodic passages, though she does not, I think, fully integrate their significance with her own arguments.

[68] The metaphor of breaking’ can express—even mime—discontinuity as well as continuity, as in the expression κὰμ μὲν γλῶσσα ἔαγε ‘my tongue has broken down’ in Sappho 31.9; the translation ‘has broken down’ here connotes the English metaphor of breakdown with reference to the operation of a mechanism or a faculty—in this case, the faculty of speech. In N 1974:45, I argue that the metaphor of ‘breakdown’ here is reinforced by a ‘gagging’ effect, produced by the hiatus of word-final and word-initial short vowels in the actual sequence κὰμ μὲν γλῶσσα ἔαγε ‘my tongue has broken down’. Thus the discontinuity in speech is symbolized by the discontinuity in sound. The sound of gagging—that is, the sound of an interrupted voice—is conveyed by hiatus and thus matches an expression that designates the sensation of gagging. And the voice that is being interrupted in Sappho 31 is of course ultimately the poetic voice. Such an onomatopoetic effect, as I point out in N 1974:45, could not have evolved if there had not been a pre-existing pattern of hiatus associated with the inherited phraseology of the root ἀγ‑, thanks to the loss of initial ϝ‑ in the root ϝαγ‑ of ἔαγε, which can be reconstructed as *ϝέϝᾱγε. There may also be an onomatopoetic effect in the positive instance of the ‘breaking’ metaphor that we examined earlier, περὶ δέ σφισιν ἄγνυτο ἠχώ ‘and the echoing sound [ēkhṓ] they made was refracted [= literally ‘broke’] all around them’ in the Hesiodic Shield, verses 279 and 348; this time, the hiatus is etymologically motivated by the loss of initial ϝ‑ in *ϝᾱχώ. See Bonanno 1993, especially pp. 62 and 68, who does not give me credit for having recognized the linguistic background for the hiatus in Sappho 31.9 (she does make clear, however, that I initiated the onomatopoetic interpretation, and for this I am grateful to her). While I agree with her that the ancient imitations of Sapphic γλῶσσα ἔαγε, in Lucretius 3.155 and Theocritus 2.108–109, convey the idea of stammering, I maintain that the more basic idea is that of an interruption of speech—or, to return to the English idiom, breakdown of speech.

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Chapter 3. Mimesis of Homer and Beyond

The variant epithet of the Homeric nightingale’s voice in Odyssey xix (521), poludeukḗs ‘patterning in many different ways’, applies to Homer himself and—just as important—to those who perform Homer. In making this claim, I am arguing that Homer’s nightingale is in effect a model for Homer—and even for performers who model their identities on Homer—in her capacity to maintain continuity through variety. In other words, the song of the nightingale is a metaphor for the mimesis of Homer.

As a point of comparison, we may look back for a moment at the Provençal nightingale, who as we have seen is a model for the troubadour—in his capacity to ‘move’ the song. Looking at the actual Greek evidence, we may compare the epithet of the Hesiodic nightingale in the Works and Days (203), poikilódeiros ‘having a varied[-sounding] throat’,[1] who is in effect a model for Hesiod—in her capacity to raise her voice against the brutality of the hawk, as narrated in the aînos ‘fable’ about the hawk and the nightingale (Works and Days 202-212; aînos at verse 202); within the framework of this Hesiodic fable, the hawk and the nightingale become {59|60} negative and positive models respectively for king and poet, and the idea of ‘poet’ becomes explicit in the description of the nightingale as an aoidós ‘singer’ (verse 208).[2]

The driving idea of maintaining continuity through variety, as reconstructed for the epithet poludeukḗs ‘patterning in many ways’, is inherent also in the early meaning of rhapsōidós ‘rhapsode’. The etymology of this word, like that of poludeukḗs, reveals a central metaphor for the mimesis of Homer.

Before we turn to matters of etymology, however, let us review briefly some questions about the actual function of the rhapsode as a professional performer of Homer throughout the historical period of ancient Greek civilization. I have attempted elsewhere an overall diachronic sketch of rhapsodes,[3] concluding that “it is simplistic and even misleading to contrast, as many have done, the ‘creative’ aoidós [‘singer’] with the ‘reduplicating’ rhapsōidós.”[4] Here the argument is more specific: that the rhapsode cannot be viewed as merely “reduplicating” what Homer had said. The conventional view of the rhapsode as a mere replica of Homer is mainly inspired by Plato’s Ion, where the rhapsode Ion is metaphorically pictured as the last and weakest link in a long magnetic chain of rhapsodes leading all the way back to the real thing, the original magnet, the genius of Homer (535e–536a).[5] This idea of a reperformed composer, as we will see, is contradicted by the more archaic mentality of mimesis, which shapes (over a lengthy stretch of time) the alternative idea of a recomposed performer, that is, the idea that performers may persist in appropriating to themselves the persona of the composer.

The singer of Homeric poetry begins the song by praying to {60|61} his Muse: “sing!” (Iliad I 1) or “tell me!” (Odyssey i 1).[6] What he then tells his audience is supposed to be exactly what he hears from the Muse or Muses, goddesses of memory, who are conceived as the infallible custodians of the ipsissima verba emanating from the Heroic Age.[7] The words of Homer are supposed to be the recordings of the Muses, who saw and heard exactly what had happened in that remote age; therefore, what Homer narrates is exactly what the Muses saw, and what Homer quotes within his narrations is exactly what the Muses heard.[8]

In line with this pattern of thinking, a Homeric narration or a Homeric quotation of a god or hero speaking within a narration are not at all representations: they are the real thing. When a Homeric hero is quoted speaking dactylic hexameters, it is to be understood that heroes ‘spoke’ in dactylic hexameters, not that they are being represented as speaking that way.[9] Further, and this is crucial for the argument at hand, when the rhapsode says ‘tell me, Muses!’ (Iliad II 484) or ‘tell me, Muse!’ (Odyssey i 1), this ‘I’ is not a representation of Homer: it is Homer. My argument is that the rhapsode is re-enacting Homer by performing Homer, that he is Homer so long as the mimesis stays in effect, so long as the performance lasts. In the words of T. S. Eliot (The Dry Salvages, 1941), “you are the music / While the music lasts.”[10] From the standpoint of mimesis, the rhapsode is a recomposed performer: he becomes recomposed into Homer every time he performs Homer.

We will soon be looking at some other sources of information concerning the archaic concept of rhapsōidós ‘rhapsode’, going beyond the premier testimony of Plato’s Ion. But first it is crucial to examine the etymology of this compound noun rhapsōidós, ‘he who sews together [rháptein] the song(s) [aoidḗ]’.[11] {61|62}

The metaphor implicit in the etymology of this word is actually made explicit in the syntax of a song composed by Pindar. More important, this metaphor is placed at the very beginning of that given song, Nemean 2.1–3. Most important of all, this metaphor at the beginning of Pindar’s song refers to the very beginning of a Homeric performance by the Homērídai ‘Sons of Homer’: ὅθεν περ καὶ Ὁμηρίδαι ῥαπτῶν ἐπέων τὰ πόλλ᾿ ἀοιδοὶ ἄρχονται, Διὸς ἐκ προοιμίου … ‘starting from the very point where [hóthen] the Homērídai, singers [aoidoí] of sewn-together [rhaptá] utterances [épē], most often take their start [= verb árkhesthai], from the prooimion of Zeus…’ (Pindar Nemean 2.1–3).

The ultimate starting-point, in the logic of this song, is the ultimate god, Zeus.[12] The association of Zeus here with the songmaking form of the prooímion ‘prelude’ (plural prooímia) in referring to an ultimate starting-point in Homeric songmaking is crucial, since it is precisely within the framework of this form, the prooímion, that the author of a given song conventionally identifies himself.[13] The most salient example is the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, to which Thucydides explicitly refers as a prooímion (3.104.4–5), where the first-person speaker identifies himself as the blind singer of Chios, whose songs will win universal approval in the future (Hymn to Apollo 172–173); in effect, the singer of this hymn claims to be none other than Homer, “author” of the universally approved Homeric poems.[14] From the standpoint of this prooímion, the performer who speaks these words in the first person is not just representing Homer: he is Homer.[15]

The prooímia or ‘preludes’ are represented in Pindar’s song as performances of the Homērídai ‘Sons of Homer’; this name applies to a lineage of rhapsodes in Chios who traced themselves back to an ancestor called Hómēros, or Homer (scholia to Pindar Nemean 2.1, Plato Phaedrus 252b, Strabo 14.1.33–35 C645, Contest {62|63} of Homer and Hesiod p. 226.13–15 Allen).[16] In terms of this representation in Pindar Nemean 2.1, it is the Homērídai who start the songs of Homer, and yet, paradoxically, they are not Homer himself but a continuum of descendants of Homer who keep on re-starting his song. The idea of continuum is further emphasized in the placement of the adverb hóthen ‘starting from the very point where’ as the very first word of Pindar’s song. Here we see another paradox: in the conventions of real prooímia, a performative marker like hóthen is transitional, expected to occur only after a given divinity has been invoked.[17] Having observed how Pindar’s song begins, let us look ahead to see how it ends: the celebrants are called upon to start the song (Nemean 2.25), and the idea of start is expressed at this point with the verb árkhesthai. Here we see yet another paradox: in the conventions of a real prooímion this word árkhesthai ‘start’ would be expected to occur at the beginning, not the end, of the song. To make such an ending that proceeds into its own beginning produces what has aptly been described by one critic as a looping effect.[18]

Pindar’s representation of the Homeric prooímion is pertinent to the etymology of this word, which has up to now been translated conventionally as the ‘prelude’ of a song. It stems from oímē ‘song’, so that the pro‑oímion is literally the front or, better, the starting end of the song.[19] Further, pro‑oímion may be interpreted as the starting end of the thread of the song, if it is true that the noun oímē stems from a verb-root meaning ‘sew’.[20] The metaphor implicit in this etymology of {63|64} oímē, where making songs is equated with a process of sewing together or threading songs, is explicit in Pindar’s reference to the Homeric rhapsodes at the beginning of Nemean 2, where rhaptá ‘sewn together’ is applied to épē in the sense of poetic ‘utterances’. The same metaphor is implicit, as we have seen, in the etymology of the actual word for rhapsode, rhapsōidós, ‘he who sews together [rháptein] the song(s) [aoidḗ]’.[21]

This metaphor of sewing together the song(s) must be contrasted with a related metaphor in archaic Greek traditions, that of weaving the song(s), which is in fact so old as to be of Indo-European linguistic provenience.[22] An example is this phrase of Pindar (F 179): ὑφαίνω δ᾿ Ἀμυθαονίδαισιν ποικίλον ἄνδημα ‘I weave [huphaínein] a varied [poikílos] headband [that is, of song] for the Amythaonidai’.[23] As we see from such passages, song is being {64|65} visualized as a web, a fabric, a textile (Latin textilis, from texere ‘weave’), or—to use only for the moment an English word that no longer retains its metaphorical heritage—even a text (Latin textus, again from texere).[24] An apt epithet for the beautiful handiwork of weaving is poikílos ‘varied, patterned’, as we see it applied to that ultimate fabric, the péplos that the goddess Athena herself once made with her own hands (Iliad V 734–735: πέπλον … ποικίλον). It follows that the fabric of song is likewise poikílos, as we have just seen in the Pindaric quotation and as we saw earlier in the epithet of the Hesiodic nightingale, poikilódeiros ‘having a varied[‑sounding] throat’ (Works and Days 203).[25]

As we juxtapose these two metaphors for songmaking in {65|66} archaic Greek traditions, weaving and sewing, we discover that the second of the two is more complex than the first. The idea inherent in rhapsōidós, ‘he who sews together [rháptein] the song(s) [aoidḗ]’, is that many and various fabrics of song, each one already made, that is, each one already woven, become re-made into a unity, a single new continuous fabric, by being sewn together. The paradox of the metaphor is that the many and the various become the single and the uniform—and yet there is supposedly no loss in the multiplicity and variety of the constituent parts.[26] In effect, this metaphor conveyed by the concept of rhapsōidós amounts to an overarching esthetic principle, one that may even ultimately settle the ever-ongoing controversy between advocates of unitarian and analytic approaches to Homer.

There is a similar paradox at work in later European traditions about the song of the nightingale. For example, in Poem 23.29-32 (ed. Hartel) of Paulinus of Nola (died 431), we read: quae uiridi sub fronde latens solet auia rura | multimodis mulcere modis linguamque per unam | fundere non unas mutato carmine uoces, | unicolor plumis ales, sed picta loquellis ‘[the nightingale] which, hiding beneath the green foliage, | soothes the pathless countryside with multi-mode modulations and with one tongue | pours forth many voices, changing its tune, | a winged creature that is monochrome of feather, but colorful of speech’.[27] In the preface to the Philomena (ed. Stone) of John of Howden (died 1278), we read: et a non ceste pensee: “Rossignos,” pur ce ke si come li rossignos feit de diverses notes une melodie, auci feit ceste livres de diverses matires une acordaunce ‘and this poem is called “Rossignol” [Nightingale”] because just as the nightingale makes one melody out of diverse notes, this book makes an accord out of diverse materials’.[28]

Eustathius, in his Commentary on the Iliad (1.10), quotes the Pindaric description (Nemean 2.1–3) of the Homērídai ‘Sons of Homer’ as ῥαπτῶν ἐπέων … ἀοιδοί ‘singers [aoidoí] of sewn–together [rhaptá] utterances [épē]’, interpreting these words as a periphrasis of the concept inherent in the word rhapsōidoí ‘rhapsodes’. He goes on to offer what he considers a second interpretation {66|67} (again, 1.10), claiming that this concept of sewing together can be taken either in the sense that we have seen made explicit in Pindar’s wording or in a more complex sense—a sense that is actually implicit in the same Pindaric wording—which emphasizes the characteristic unity of the Iliad and the Odyssey: ῥάπτειν δὲ ἢ ἁπλῶς, ὡς εἴρηται, τὸ συντιθέναι ἢ τὸ κατὰ εἱρμόν τινα ῥαφῇ ὁμοίως εἰς ἓν ἄγειν τὰ διεστῶτα. σποράδην γάρ, φασί, κειμένης καὶ κατὰ μέρος διῃρημένης τῆς Ὁμηρικῆς ποιήσεως, οἱ ᾄδοντες αὐτὴν συνέρραπτον οἷον τὰ εἰς ἓν ὕφος ᾀδόμενα ‘sewing together [rháptein] either in the simple sense, as just mentioned, of putting together or, alternatively, in the sense of bringing different things, in accordance with some kind of sequencing [heirmós] in sewing [rhaphḗ], uniformly into one thing; for they say that Homeric poetry, after it had been scattered about and divided into parts, was sewn together [sun-rháptein] by those who sang it, like songs sung into a single fabric [húphos]’.

An analogous interpretation is given by the scholia to Pindar Nemean 2.1d: οἱ δέ φασι τῆς Ὁμήρου ποιήσεως μὴ ὑφ᾿ ἓν συνηγμένης, σποράδην δὲ ἄλλως καὶ κατὰ μέρη διῃρημένης, ὁπότε ῥαψῳδοῖεν αὐτήν, εἱρμῷ τινι καὶ ῥαφῇ παραπλήσιον ποιεῖν, εἰς ἓν αὐτὴν ἄγοντες ‘but some say that—since the poetry of Homer had not been brought together under one thing, but rather had been scattered about and divided into parts—when they performed it rhapsodically [rhapsōideîn], they would be doing something that is similar to sequencing [heirmós] or sewing [rhaphḗ], as they produced it into one thing’.

The scholia to Pindar Nemean 2.1d proceed to offer yet another version, which supposedly explains the naming of Homeric performers as rhapsodes: there was a time when each performer of the once-disintegrated Homeric poems sang whatever ‘part’ he wanted, and they were all competitors (τῶν ἀγωνιστῶν) for a prize of a lamb or arḗn, so that the performers were then called arnōidoí; but later, once the competitors (τοὺς ἀγωνιστάς) started to adjust each ‘part’ so as to achieve a totality (τὴν σύμπασαν ποίησιν ἐπιόντας), these performers were called rhapsōidoí: οἱ δέ, ὅτι κατὰ μέρος πρότερον τῆς ποιήσεως διαδεδομένης τῶν ἀγωνιστῶν ἕκαστος ὅ τι βούλοιτο μέρος ᾖδε, τοῦ δὲ ἄθλου τοῖς νικῶσιν ἀρνὸς ἀποδεδειγμένου προσαγορευθῆναι τότε μὲν ἀρνῳδούς, αὖθις δὲ ἑκατέρας τῆς ποιήσεως {67|68} εἰσενεχθείσης τοὺς ἀγωνιστὰς οἷον ἀκουμένους πρὸς ἄλληλα τὰ μέρη καὶ τὴν σύμπασαν ποίησιν ἐπιόντας, ῥαψῳδοὺς προσαγορευθῆναι, ταῦτά φησι Διονύσιος ὁ Ἀργεῖος ‘others say that previously—since the poetry had been divided part by part, with each of the competitors singing whichever part he wanted, and since the designated prize for the winners had been a lamb—[those competitors] were in those days called arnōidoí [= lamb-singers], but then, later on—since the competitors, whenever each of the two poems[29] was introduced, were mending the parts to each other, as it were, and moving toward the whole poem—they were called rhapsōidoí. These things are said by Dionysius of Argos [between 4th and 3rd centuries BCE; FGH 308 F 2]’. We will return to some of the details of these versions at a later point, especially to the image of a disintegrated totality that suddenly becomes reintegrated.

Following up on what he considers two different interpretations of Pindar Nemean 2.1-3, Eustathius (1.10) offers a third one as well: that the concept of sewing together songs is parallel to the concept of rhapsōidíā, a word that he uses to designate any one of the twenty-four scrolls of the Iliad or Odyssey. At a later point, we will re-examine from a historical point of view the eventual division of the Iliad and the Odyssey into twenty-four scrolls each.[30] For now it will suffice to remark that, even in considering this interpretation, Eustathius goes back to connecting the meaning of rhapsōidoí ‘rhapsodes’ with the esthetic principle of sewing songs together into a unified whole. Only, in this case, the songs are visualized textually, as separate rhapsōidíai or ‘scrolls’ of Homer.

In the esthetics of sewing, as conveyed by the verb rháptein, one’s attention centers on the totality of the Gestalt that has been sewn together, not on the constituent parts. For an attention-getting example, we may consider the following description of a type of fashionably tailored khitṓn worn by the young women of Sparta to show off their beauty: τῷ γὰρ ὄντι τοῦ παρθενικοῦ χιτῶνος αἱ πτέρυγες οὐκ ἦσαν συνερραμμέναι κάτωθεν, ἀλλ᾿ {68|69} ἀνεπτύσσοντο καὶ συνανεγύμνουν ὅλον ἐν τῷ βαδίζειν τὸν μηρόν ‘for in fact the flaps of the khitṓn worn by their young women were not sewn together [rháptein] at the lower ends, and so they would fly back and bare the whole thigh as they walked’ (Plutarch Comparison of Lycurgus and Numa 3.4). Just exactly where you sew together—and where you leave off sewing together—becomes an exquisite art of tailoring to suit the senses and the sensibilities of the viewer.

The esthetic principle of combining many different patterns into a one new unified pattern seems to be the basis of a foundation myth that explains the genesis of Homeric poetry, specifically in Athens. According to this myth, the key figures who transmitted this poetry are none other than the rhapsōidoí, performers who arguably derive their very identity from the metaphor of sewing together many separate patterns of song into one new unified pattern. The foundation myth in question, like others examined in more detail elsewhere, accounts for an entire institution—in this case, the seasonally-recurring performances of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey at the Feast of the Panathenaia in Athens—as if this institution had been created overnight, so to speak.[31] Moreover, the myth centers on historical figures who were in all likelihood genuinely involved in shaping or, better, reshaping not only this institution of the Panathenaia in general but also, in particular, the institution of Homeric performances that became a featured event of this festival. The figures in question are the Peisistratidai—that is, Peisistratos and his sons—who traced themselves back to the heroic-age Peisistratos, son of Nestor (as portrayed in Odyssey Scroll iii) and who ruled Athens as tyrants during the second half of the sixth century BCE.[32] {69|70}

A key premise of this foundation myth, preserved in “Plato” Hipparchus 228b-c, is the very concept of rhapsōidoí as performers of Homer. It is claimed, first of all, that Hipparkhos, son of Peisistratos, introduced the Homeric poems to Athens, and, second, that he “forced” the rhapsōidoí to perform them in a fixed sequence:

Ἱππάρχῳ, … ὃς ἄλλα τε πολλὰ καὶ καλὰ ἔργα σοφίας ἀπεδείξατο, καὶ τὰ Ὁμήρου ἔπη πρῶτος ἐκόμισεν εἰς τὴν γῆν ταυτηνί, καὶ ἠνάγκασε τοὺς ῥαψῳδοὺς Παναθηναίοις ἐξ ὑπολήψεως ἐφεξῆς αὐτὰ διιέναι, ὥσπερ νῦν ἔτι οἵδε ποιοῦσιν

Hipparkhos, … who publicly enacted many and beautiful things to manifest his expertise [sophíā],[33] especially by being the first to bring over [komízein] to this land [= Athens] the poetic utterances [épē] of Homer,[34] and he forced the rhapsodes [rhapsōidoí] at the Panathenaia to go through [diiénai] these utterances in sequence [ephexês], by relay [ex hupolḗpseōs], just as they [= the rhapsodes] do even nowadays.

“Plato” Hipparchus 228b-c {70|71}

From this source and also from another one, Lycurgus Against Leokrates 102, we may infer that the épē ‘poetic utterances’ of Homer performed at the Panathenaia were exclusively the Iliad and Odyssey.[35]

In another attested report about this same subject, Diogenes Laertius 1.57, we find the same emphasis on the rhapsodes’ being forced to perform Homer in a fixed sequence: τά τε Ὁμήρου ἐξ ὑποβολῆς γέγραφε ῥαψῳδεῖσθαι, οἷον ὅπου ὁ πρῶτος ἔληξεν, ἐκεῖθεν ἄρχεσθαι τὸν ἐχόμενον ‘he [Solon the Lawgiver] wrote a law that the works of Homer were to be performed rhapsodically [rhapsōideîn], by relay [ex hupobolēs], so that wherever the first person left off, from that point the next person would start’. We have here clear traces of different versions of the foundation myth: this time, the culture hero who is given credit for the institutional reality of rhapsodic performances is Solon the Lawgiver, not Hipparkhos, son of the tyrant Peisistratos. Further below, we will examine still other different versions, which attribute the institution to Peisistratos himself. For now, however, let us concentrate not on the transformations of this foundation myth, which serve to suit different political climates in different historical periods, but rather on one single aspect of the myth, the detail about rhapsodic sequencing.

The esthetics of rhapsodic sequencing, where each performer takes up the song precisely where the last one left off, are in fact built into the contents of Homeric poetry: much as rhapsodes sing in sequence, each one taking his turn after another (“Plato,” Hipparchus 228b and Diogenes Laertius 1.57), so also the Iliad represents the heroes Patroklos and Achilles as potentially rhapsodic performers of epic. While Achilles, becoming the ultimate paradigm for singers, is represented as actually performing the epic songs of heroes, kléa andrôn ‘glories of men’ in Iliad IX (189), Patroklos is waiting for his own turn, in order to take up the song precisely where Achilles will have left off: {71|72}

τὸν δ’ εὗρον φρένα τερπόμενον φόρμιγγι λιγείῃ

καλῇ δαιδαλέῃ, ἐπὶ δ’ ἀργύρεον ζυγὸν ἦεν,

τὴν ἄρετ’ ἐξ ἐνάρων πόλιν Ἠετίωνος ὀλέσσας·

τῇ ὅ γε θυμὸν ἔτερπεν, ἄειδε δ’ ἄρα κλέα ἀνδρῶν.

Πάτροκλος δέ οἱ οἶος ἐναντίος ἧστο σιωπῇ,

δέγμενος Αἰακίδην ὁπότε λήξειεν ἀείδων

And they [the members of the embassy] found him [Achilles] delighting his spirit with a clear sounding lyre,

beautiful and well-wrought, and there was a silver bridge on it.

He won it out of the spoils after he destroyed the city of Eetion.

Now he was delighting his spirit with it, and he sang the glories of men [kléa andrôn].

But Pátroklos, all alone, was sitting, facing him, in silence,

waiting for whatever moment the Aeacid would leave off singing.

Iliad IX 184–191

Both the plural usage here of kléa andrôn ‘glories of men’ (as opposed to singular kléos ‘glory’) and the meaning of the name Patrokléēs are pertinent to the rhapsodic implications of this passage: “it is only through Patrokléēs ‘he who has the kléa [glories] of the ancestors’ that the plurality of performance, that is, the activation of tradition, can happen.”[36] So long as Achilles alone sings the kléa andrôn ‘glories of men’, these heroic glories cannot be heard by anyone but Patroklos alone. Once Achilles leaves off and Patroklos starts singing, however, the continuum that is the kléa andrôn—the Homeric tradition itself—can at long last become activated. This is the moment awaited by Patrokléēs ‘he who has the kléa [glories] of the ancestors’.[37] In this Homeric image of {72|73} Patroklos waiting for his turn to sing, then, we have in capsule form the esthetics of rhapsodic sequencing.[38]

It is not only these main heroes of Homeric poetry who can perform like rhapsodes. In the myths about the prototypical poets, those figures too become practicing rhapsodes. Thus Homer and Hesiod themselves are conventionally represented in such a way. For example, the scholia to Pindar Nemean 2.1 (the source is Philochorus FGH 328 F 212) quote the following verses attributed to Hesiod, who speaks of performing, in competition with Homer, hymns to Apollo:

ἐν Δήλωι τότε πρῶτον ἐγὼ καὶ Ὅμηρος ἀοιδοὶ

μέλπομεν, ἐν νεαροῖς ὕμνοις ῥάψαντες ἀοιδήν,

Φοῖβον Ἀπόλλωνα …

Then it was, in Delos, that Homer and I, singers [aoidoí], for the first time

sang, in new hymns, sewing together [rháptein] the song [aoidḗ],

[sang] of Phoebus Apollo

Hesiod F 357

In the previous chapter, we have seen the Delian Maidens in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo show the way for others to re-enact them by demonstrating their own power to re-enact all other peoples, in all their varieties. These Maidens are models of mimesis by way of practicing mimesis (Hymn to Apollo 163).[39] So also Homer and Hesiod are models of rhapsodes by way of performing like rhapsodes.[40] Even for Plato (Republic 600d), Homer and Hesiod can be visualized as performing like rhapsodes (rhapsōideîn). For {73|74} Plato, a figure like Phemios, represented as a prototypical poet in the Odyssey, is likewise a rhapsōidós (Ion 533c).

The poet as rhapsode is the ultimate performer, but he is also the ultimate composer—at least from the standpoint of myth. The esthetics of sewing as a metaphor for singing highlight, as we will now see, both the technique and the product of poetic craftsmanship.

Let us begin with the name of Homer, Hómēros. The meaning of this name can be correlated with the traditional status of Homer as author.[41] The further we go back in time, the greater the repertoire attributed to this author, including in the earlier times all the so-called Cycle, all the Theban epics, and so on.[42] In fact, the very notion of “Cycle” had once served as a metaphor for all of Homer’s poetry.[43] I propose that the metaphor of kúklos as the sum total of Homeric poetry goes back to the meaning of kúklos as ‘chariot-wheel’ (Iliad XXIII 340, plural kúkla at V 722). The metaphor of comparing a well-composed song to a well-crafted chariot-wheel is explicitly articulated in the poetic traditions of Indo-European languages (as in Rig-Veda 1.130.6); more generally in the Greek poetic traditions, there is a metaphor comparing the craft of the master carpenter or ‘joiner’—the téktōn—to the art of the poet (as in Pindar Pythian 3.112-114).[44] Further, the root ar‑ of ararískein ‘join, fit together’ (the verb refers to the activity of the carpenter in the expression ἤραρε τέκτων ‘the joiner [téktōn] joined together [ar‑]’ in Iliad IV 110, XXIII 712) is shared by the word that means ‘chariot-wheel’ in the Linear B texts, harmo (Knossos tablets Sg 1811, So 0437, etc.). Most important of all for my argument, the same root ar‑ is evidently shared by the name of Homer, Hómēros, the etymology of which can be explained as ‘he who joins together’ (homo‑ plus ar‑).[45] Thus the making of the {74|75} kúklos by the master poet Homer appears to be a global metaphor that pictures the crafting of the ultimate chariot-wheel by the ultimate carpenter or, better, ‘joiner’. This traditional pattern of thinking matches the classification of both the aoidós ‘singer’ and the téktōn ‘carpenter, joiner’ under the category of dēmiourgós or ‘itinerant artisan’ in Odyssey xvii (381–385).[46]

The root of the Greek verb ar‑ ‘join’ is cognate with the root of the Latin noun ars / artis ‘craft, art’ (also artus ‘joint’), while the root of the Greek nouns téktōn ‘carpenter, joiner’ and tékhnē ‘craft, art’ is cognate with that of the Latin verb texere, which means not only ‘weave’ but also ‘join, carpenter’ (as in Virgil Aeneid 11.326, where the objects that are being carpentered are ships).[47] These and other such facts lead to the general conclusion that the metaphor of carpentry as songmaking in Indo-European languages is parallel to the metaphor of weaving.[48] I propose, further, that there is a corresponding parallelism between the concepts of Hómēros and rhapsōidós.

Implicit in this parallelism is the following complex proportionality of metaphors: the carpenter of song is to the joiner of song as the one who weaves the song is to the one who sews together or stitches the song, that is, to the rhapsōidós. In other words, just as a joiner is a master craftsman, capable of special feats of craftsmanship like the making of a chariot-wheel out of pieces of woodwork already made by himself or by other carpenters, so also the stitcher, one who sews together pieces of fabric already woven, is a master craftsman in his own right, fashioning something altogether “new” that is tailor-made to suit a given form. {75|76} Thus the metaphor of a joiner or a stitcher, as distinct from a carpenter or a weaver, conveys the idea of a master singer. I hasten to add that the English word stitcher may be inappropriate for expressing the esthetics of a master’s handiwork, in that stitch implies something makeshift, as if stitchwork were simply patchwork. More appropriate than stitcher—at least esthetically, perhaps—is tailor. Related images that come to mind are connector and conductor. In any case, just as Hómēros is the ultimate ‘joiner’, so also the poetry of Homer becomes the handiwork of the ultimate rhapsōidós, the one who sews the songs together.

Whichever way myth figures the creation of Homeric poetry, whether it be a joiner’s chariot wheel or a “tailor’s” perfect fit, the actual creation is viewed as happening at a remote point in time, not over time. From the standpoint of the myth, it is as if there had been a “big bang” that produced a fixed pattern of composition, which led to a fixed pattern of performance or both.

Moreover, Homer is not just the creator of heroic song: he is also the culture hero of this song.[49] Ancient Greek institutions tend to be traditionally retrojected, by the Greeks themselves, each to a proto-creator, a culture hero who gets credited with the sum total of a given cultural institution.[50] It was a common practice to attribute any major achievement of society, even if this achievement may have been realized only through a lengthy period of social evolution, to the episodic and personal accomplishment of a culture hero who is pictured as having made his monumental contribution in an earlier era of the given society.[51] Greek myths about lawgivers, for example, whether they are historical figures or not, tend to reconstruct these figures as the originators of the sum total of customary law as it evolved through time.[52] So also with Homer: he is retrojected as the original genius of heroic song, the protopoet whose poetry is reproduced by an continuous succession of performers. We have {76|77} already noted Plato’s Ion (533d–536d), where Socrates envisages the rhapsode Ion as the last in a chain of magnetized metal rings connected by the force of the original poet Homer: In this mythical image of Homer and his successors, the magnetic force of the poetic composition weakens with each successive performer. Pictured as the last or at least the latest replicant of Homer, Ion becomes the weakest of all replicants.[53]

From the standpoint of an evolutionary model for the fixation of Homeric poetry, by contrast, the reality is altogether different from the myth: “even if the size of either the Iliad or the Odyssey ultimately defied performance by any one person at any one sitting, the monumental proportions of these compositions could evolve in a social context where the sequence of performance, and thereby the sequence of narrative, could be regulated, as in the case of the Panathenaia.”[54] In quoting this formulation, I have highlighted the idea that an evolving fixity in patterns of performance leads to a correspondingly evolving fixity in patterns of composition, given that performance and composition—or, better, recomposition—are aspects of the same process in this medium.

In myth, the nature of events is radically different, and their order is reversed: a moment of fixation in composition leads to a moment of fixation in performance. As we look back at the foundation myths we have already considered, we see that the establishment of a fixed sequence in Homeric performance is viewed by the myths as a moment in time, coming after the fact of composition, which must go back to an earlier moment in time. The fixity of this composition is visualized as a totality created once upon a time by Homer, the “original” culture hero. In the version of the myth that we are now considering, this totality is then disintegrated, only to become reintegrated at the initiative of a subsequent culture hero, whose role is claimed by a succession of historical figures ranging from Solon to Peisistratos to the son of Peisistratos. The process of reintegration is a matter of making sure that the totality of the “original” composition will be performed in the right sequence. Let us review the wording of {77|78} Eustathius: ῥάπτειν δὲ ἢ ἁπλῶς, ὡς εἴρηται, τὸ συντιθέναι ἢ τὸ κατὰ εἱρμόν τινα ῥαφῇ ὁμοίως εἰς ἓν ἄγειν τὰ διεστῶτα. σποράδην γάρ, φασί, κειμένης καὶ κατὰ μέρος διῃρημένης τῆς Ὁμηρικῆς ποιήσεως, οἱ ᾄδοντες αὐτὴν συνέρραπτον οἷον τὰ εἰς ἓν ὕφος ᾀδόμενα ‘sewing together [rháptein] either in the simple sense, as just mentioned, of putting together or, alternatively, in the sense of bringing different things, in accordance with some kind of sequence [heirmós] in sewing [rhaphḗ], uniformly into one thing; for they say that Homeric poetry, after it had been scattered about and divided into separate parts, was sewn together [sun-rháptein] by those who sang it, like songs sung into a single fabric [húphos]’. This time, let us concentrate on the idea that the totality had been scattered about and divided into separate parts, only to be later reassembled, or sewn together, by those who sing it.

In another version of the myth, the idea of a whole fabric that once became divided into separate parts and scattered about but was later successfully sewn back together again extends into the idea of an actual written text that was disassembled and then reassembled. I have examined this version at length in my earlier work, citing parallels from other cultures where an oral tradition applies to itself the metaphor of a written text.[55] In that work, the following conclusions were reached: “the intrinsic applicability of text as metaphor for recomposition-in-performance helps explain a type of myth, attested in a wide variety of cultural contexts, where the evolution of a poetic tradition, moving slowly ahead in time until it reaches a relatively static phase, is reinterpreted by the myth as if it resulted from a single incident, pictured as the instantaneous recovery or even regeneration of a lost text, an archetype.”[56] Here I limit myself to offering a brief summary of this alternative version of the foundation myth, where the Homeric poetry produced by the “big bang” is visualized as a written text.

According to this version, four men were commissioned by Peisistratos, tyrant of Athens in the second half of the sixth century BCE, to supervise the ‘arranging’ of the Homeric poems, which were before then ‘scattered about’ (διέθηκαν οὑτωσὶ σποράδην οὔσας τὸ πρίν: Tzetzes in Anecdota Graeca 1.6 ed. {78|79} Cramer).[57] There is a parallel narrative reported in Aelian Varia Historia 13.14, where the introduction of Homeric poetry to Sparta by Lycurgus the Lawgiver is explicitly compared to a subsequent introduction of the Iliad and Odyssey to Athens by Peisistratos. A further detail of interest can be found in Cicero De oratore 3.137: Peisistratos, supposedly one of the Seven Sages (septem fuisse dicuntur uno tempore, qui sapientes et haberentur et vocarentur),[58] was so learned and eloquent that “he is said to be the first person ever to have arranged the scrolls of Homer, previously scattered about, in the order that we have today” (qui primus Homeri libros confusos antea sic disposuisse dicitur, ut nunc habemus).[59] The detail concerning the division of Homeric poems into separate scrolls which then become separated from each other reflects the outlook of a later era, when the Iliad and Odyssey were in fact each divided into twenty-four papyrus scrolls. We have already seen the same detail reflected in the third of the three alternative explanations offered by Eustathius concerning the ultimate sewing together of the Homeric poems: according to this third version, the separate parts are conceived as scrolls, which are equated with rhapsōidíai.[60] We will consider in more detail at a later point the historical division of the Iliad and Odyssey each into twenty-four scrolls. Suffice it to conclude, for now, that all the various accounts of a supposedly original Athenian reception of Homeric poetry have inspired a modern construct that has come to be known among Classicists as the “Peisistratean recension.”[61] {79|80}

Despite the metaphor of a written text, this version of the foundation myth, just like the others, centers not on proving the hypothetical existence of some unattested textual transmission of Homer but rather on explaining the institutional reality of ongoing performances of Homeric song at the Feast of the Panathenaia in Athens. That is, the myth is concerned with the performance of Homer, the mimesis of Homer—in the archaic sense of that word. Throughout this chapter, it has been argued that the rhapsode, the performer of Homer, is engaged in a mimesis that re-creates not only the characters of heroic song but also the composer and prototypical performer of that song, Homer himself.

From a modern point of view that sees Homer as the author of a text, the re-creating of a real Homer in the performance of a rhapsode may not even seem to be a matter of mimesis. Even for Plato and Aristotle, a straightforward third-person narration in heroic song is technically a matter of diegesis or ‘narration’ as opposed to mimesis. In contemplating the “I” of “tell me, Muses” or “tell me, Muse,” we find ourselves at a loss in finding the element of the mimetic—or, to say it in a more modern way, the dramatic. And yet, my claim is that this “I” is perhaps the most dramatic of all the characters in heroic song—once we see this song on the level of performance as well as composition. This “I” is Homer speaking. For us, however, his role is no longer overt as it had been for audiences of Homeric song, and Homer has lost his power as a dramatic persona.

There is in fact a staggering variety of roles to be played out in all the various performance traditions of ancient Greek songmaking, whether they are overtly dramatic or otherwise. Even in diegesis or ‘narration’, there is an outer frame of mimesis within which we find an “I” who narrates, whose identity is either highlighted or shaded over in performance.[62] Still, it is justifiable to consider drama, with all its ritual background, as a primary form of mimesis. Moreover, it may well be the ultimate status of drama as State Theater in Athens—and as the near-equivalent of {80|81} that concept in other city-states as well—that conferred upon the word mimesis (mímēsis) its ultimate importance and seriousness. The word’s prehistory, to be sure, suggests that mimesis (mímēsis) once had a less important and less serious tone, since it is after all derived from mîmos, the meaning of which never really went far beyond the relatively lowly meaning that corresponds to our own notion of ‘mime’ (Aristotle Poetics 1447b10).[63] The eventual importance, however, of the derivative of mîmos, that is, mimesis (mímēsis), is quite clear even in its earliest attested usage, in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, where we have seen the stately Delian Maidens themselves being described as engaging in the activity of making mimesis, that is, mimeîsthai (Hymn to Apollo 163).

It could even be said that the attestation of mimesis (mímēsis) in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo gives us an essential terminus ante quem for a functioning institutional complementarity, in Athens, between the performance of drama by actors and chorus at the City Dionysia on the one hand and, on the other, the performance of Homeric epos—and of Homeric hymns that serve as preludes to the epos—by rhapsodes at the Panathenaia.[64] As two premier media of performance that are highlighted at two premier festivals organized by the State, epos and tragedy—the primary form of drama—become complementary forms, evolving together and thereby undergoing a process of mutual assimilation in the course of their institutional coexistence.[65]

We can see clearly the complementarity of epos and tragedy from the wording of Aristotle, at the beginning of the Poetics, who puts at the head of his list of poetic forms the pair that he calls epopoiíā ‘making of epos’ and tragōidíās poíēsis ‘making of tragedy’: {81|82} ἐποποιία δὴ καὶ ἡ τῆς τραγῳδίας ποίησις, ἔτι δὲ κωμῳδία,[xxv] καὶ ἡ διθυραμβοποιητική, καὶ τῆς αὐλητικῆς καὶ κιθαριστικῆς, πᾶσαι τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι μιμήσεις τὸ σύνολον ‘the making of épos [epopoiíā] and the making [poíēsis] of tragedy, also comedy, and the making [‑poiētikē] of dithyrambs, and the [making] of reed-songs and lyre-songs—all these are in point of fact forms of mímēsis, by and large’ (Aristotle Poetics 1447a14–15). In effect, Aristotle is here pairing off the forms of epos and tragedy as genres, but the status of these forms as genres derives from their complementarity not only as media of composition but also, explicitly, as media of performance. The prerequisite of performance is made explicit by Aristotle’s assertion here that all these forms of songmaking are a matter of mimesis. Thus whenever Aristotle’s Poetics draws our attention to the tragic features of Homeric epos and to the epic features of evolving tragedy (especially chapters 23–24), we have reason to think that such marks of mutual assimilation between two genres result from complementarity of traditions in performance, not just composition. Such complementarity is reflected in the usage of the verb of mimesis in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo.

Elsewhere, I have argued that the Delian Maidens of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo offer to make a mimesis of Homer, and Homer responds by making a mimesis of them.[66] In the mythical world of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, epic performance is being notionally assimilated to the mimetic performance of an idealized chorus. This relationship, it can now be argued, reflects what is actually happening in the real world of Athenian state festivals, where epic performance is being historically conditioned by the mimetic performance of drama in State Theater.

All this is not to lose sight of changes in the later history of the word mímēsis. Eventually, its authority became destabilized, and in fact we start seeing traces of such destabilization as early as the second half of the fifth century, as for example in some passages of Herodotus.[67] For the moment, however, I stress the surviving authority of the word, suggesting that any eventual diminution in its authority may be simply a symptom of an eventual {82|83} diminution in the authority of Athenian State Theater itself. Ironically, Plato’s negative treatment of mimesis as a concept may be interpreted as a sign of the surviving power and prestige that marked the poetics of State Theater, even in the fourth century.[68]

Ancient Greek dramatic re-enactment, that is, mimesis, could take place in the song and poetry of not only theater, not only choral performance, but even monody. Let us review briefly the conventions of both choral and monodic performance, including epic under the category of “monody,” with the aim of finding the broad outlines of the performer’s patterns of identification with the contents of the performance. Here I return to a long-range inference reached in my earlier work, which is, that patterns of performance in ensemble help explain patterns of solo performance more effectively than the other way around.[69]

From the standpoint of mimesis, it is essential to make further distinctions concerning performance. Besides the opposition of solo and ensemble, we may subdivide “ensemble” by distinguishing between audience and group—corresponding to various distinctions of specialization and non-specialization in songmaking traditions.[70] Whereas a performer performs for an audience, a group can perform together for each other. Group performance is possible even if some members take on far more important roles than others, to the extent that an outsider may not even be able to distinguish a group from an audience. So long as the mentality of group performance is there, everyone who is present at a mimesis becomes part of it.

The distinction between audience and group can be applied to scenes of person-to-person or person-to-group interaction in Homeric narrative. Let us consider as an example any given Homeric narration that pictures a woman singing a lament for the death of someone she loves, as when Andromache mourns the {83|84} killing of her husband Hector in Iliad XXIV (725–745).[71] For those who are the characters inside the narrative, the woman is the performer of a song of lament, which is addressed directly or indirectly to the characters that hear her. For those who are the audience outside the narrative, a performer is re-enacting for his or her audience the woman who is singing the lament. Such re-enactment is a matter of mimesis. The point is, the person-to-person or person-to-group interaction in Homeric narrative mirrors the actual conventions of performer-audience interaction in the “real world” that frames the performance of the narrative.[72] It is as if the lamenting woman were addressing not only her group but also the audience that is listening to the performer as he re-enacts the woman.[73]

Such mirroring is pertinent to the issues raised by Wolfgang Rösler’s pioneering book, Dichter und Gruppe, which investigates the reception of archaic Greek lyric monody in the specific social context of archaic Lesbos.[74] It can be argued that the interactions of Alcaeus and Sappho with their respective groups on one level simply mirrors the performances of the Alcaeus-persona and the Sappho-persona to their respective audiences on another level.[75] With this adjustment, we can follow Rösler’s argument that there is no “fiction” per se on the occasion of, say, an epithalamium or bridal song attributed to Sappho. We may add, though, that there is indeed re-enactment. On an occasion like a wedding, there are archetypal situations to be acted out. With specific reference to the songmaking form of a bridal song, for example, we may simply note in passing that the ancient Greek word númphē means both ‘bride’ (e.g. Iliad XVIII 492) and ‘goddess’, that is, ‘nymph’ (e.g. Iliad XXIV 616). By implication, the ritual occasion of a wedding, as formalized in a bridal song, collapses the distinction between ‘bride’ and ‘goddess’. In the next chapter, we will explore the poetic implications of such mergers in identity.

When we speak of a “group” in such contexts, it is important to keep in mind not only such dramatic settings as a hetaireíā {84|85} ‘assembly of comrades’ addressed by Alcaeus himself at one time and one place but also such historical settings as symposia, with all their variations in time and place, where the spirit of hetaireíā provides a context for re-enactments of, say, Alcaeus’ words in song.[76] Thus the dramatic setting of Alcaeus’ words addressed to his hetaireíā, which was primarily the symposium according to Rösler, can be perpetuated in a historical setting that is primarily this same medium, the symposium.[77]

In previous work, I argued extensively that the performance traditions of lyric compositions that were attributed to the likes of Alcaeus and Sappho—as also of non-lyric compositions attributed to the likes of Archilochus and Theognis—were perpetuated by the medium of the symposium, in all its varieties.[78] I also highlighted the other central medium that perpetuated and to some degree transformed these performance traditions, that is, the institution of State Theater in Athens.[79] Thirdly, I linked these two media with the institution of private schools, elitist training grounds that enhanced the artistic competitiveness and bravura inherent in the performance traditions perpetuated by the symposium and the theater.[80] Here it suffices simply to note the fundamental role of mimesis in all these traditions. And mimesis is predicated on the mentality of what we may call the group, as distinct from the audience.

Once we distance ourselves from the idea of a “fictional” dimension in the performance of archaic Greek song and poetry, we acquire a ready counterargument to Plato’s reasoning in the {85|86} Laws, which promotes the idea that Athenian State Theater appropriates real genres from real occasions and makes them make-believe. A case in point is the thrênos, a kind of lamentation. As Nicole Loraux points out, the condemnation of mimesis as a representative of theater in general and of tragedy in particular is specifically correlated in Plato’s Republic Scroll III (395d-e) with the condemnation of imitating women’s behavior, especially when it comes to lamentation.[81] For Plato, a lament must be implicitly a lament in “real life,” where real living persons mourn for a real dead person in a song that marks a real occasion, while a thrênos in tragedy is supposedly an imitation, a fiction, where make-believe persons mourn for a make-believe dead person in a song that merely imitates a real occasion. As we now see, however, from a deeper reading of mimesis as re-enactment, the songs of lamentation in State Theater are really archetypal. They are prototypes, as it were, of the “real-life” laments of “real-life” people. Far from being an intended imitation of a “real-life” genre, the dramatized thrênos of Athenian State Theater can be seen as an intended model. There is an authority inherent in mimesis, and this authority confers an absolute status upon the person or thing to be re-enacted.

So also with laments that are quoted, as it were, in Homeric performance. When the rhapsode performs Andromache’s lament, he is Andromache, singing her lament, just as he is Homer when we hear in the Homeric poems: “tell me, Muses,” or “tell me, Muse.” So also, finally, with the lament of the nightingale in Odyssey xix (518–523): the songbird’s beautiful sad song is being chosen by an epic character as a model for her own epic self-expression. Moreover, in narrating the lyric lament of the nightingale, epic imitates it as a model. This way, epic is not only imitating but actually re-enacting lyric, drawing on its own resources of mimesis. {86|87}

Footnotes

[1] In translating poikilódeiros as ‘having a varied[-sounding] throat’ (ἀηδόνα ποικιλόδειρον in Hesiod Works and Days 203), I follow the reasoning of Irwin 1974:72–73 on khlōraúkhēn, conventionally translated as ‘green-throated’, which serves as epithet of the nightingale in Simonides PMG 586.2 (ἀηδόνες … χλωραύχενες): “there is nothing noteworthy about the plumage on the neck of the nightingale to cause Simonides to mention the colour of their necks. The neck or throat is only noteworthy as the source of the music the nightingale sings. If one observes a song-bird, one can see the throbbing of the throat as he pours forth his song.” See ch. 1n1. On the element poikilo‑ ‘varied, patterned’ in poikilódeiros ‘having a varied[‑sounding] throat’, epithet of the Hesiodic nightingale, we may recall the comment of Aelian De natura animalium 5.38 on the variant epithet of the Homeric nightingale at Odyssey xix 521, poludeukḗs, which he glosses as τὴν ποικίλως μεμιμημένην ‘making imitation [mimesis] in a varied [poikílōs] way’. The element poikilo‑ ‘varied’ is parallel to aiolo‑ ‘varied’, as in the epithet for the nightingale in Oppian Halieutica 1.728, aoilóphōnos (ἀηδόνος αἰολοφώνου). For more on aiolo‑ ‘varied’, see also the next note. On the paradox of a monochrome exterior in form and a colorful interior in content, see also pp. 65–66.

[2] BA 238–241; also PH 256 and 312. On the poet or aoidós ‘singer’ as an aēdṓn ‘nightingale’, see also Theocritus 16.44, where the lyric master Simonides as described as the aoidós ‘singer’ of Keos (ἀοιδὸς ὁ Κήιος), who makes his aióla ‘varied’ songs (αἰόλα φωνέων) to the tune of his many-stringed lyre (on poikílos ‘varied’ as a attribute of the lyre, cf. Pindar Olympian 4.2); in Bacchylides 3.98, the poet actually calls himself the nightingale of Keos (Κηΐας ἀηδόνος). While the image of a nightingale serves as an ultimate model for Bacchylides as poet, the image of his maternal uncle Simonides as a nightingale is surely an immediate model. According to Democritus B 154 DK, all human singers are disciples of the nightingale.

[3] PH 21–28; also GM [1982] 40–47.

[4] GM 42, based on a formulation made in N 1982. This formulation is corroborated by the article of Ford 1988.

[5] In Plato Ion 535e–536a, performers of epic and of drama are imagined as Middle Rings in relation to the poets of epic and of drama, who are First Rings, whereas the audiences watching rhapsodes performing Homer—and the audiences watching actors performing drama in the theater—are the Last Rings. Cf. PH 21–22.

[6] Instances of “tell me, Muses!” in the Iliad: II 484, XI 218, XIV 508, XVI 112. An instance of “tell me, Muse!”: Iliad II 761, on which see Martin 1989:238.

[7] GM 26–27; cf. BA 15–18.

[8] GM 26–27.

[9] GM 26–27.

[10] Eliot 1941 [1963]:199.

[11] Schmitt 1967:300–301 (with a definitive discussion of the morphology of rhapsōidós), Durante 1976:177–179, BA 298 par. 10n5 and PH 28. On the accent of rhapsōidós, see Durante p. 177.

[12] Such a theme is particularly appropriate to a Nemean song celebrating a victory at the Nemean Games, over which Zeus presides: see the scholia to Pindar Nemean 2.1a.

[13] GM 53–54.

[14] PH 22 (especially n23), 376.

[15] BA 5–6, 8–9; PH 375–377.

[16] A fuller collection of references in PH 23. On an alternative tradition, which attributes the final form of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo not to Homer but to Kynaithos of Chios, a rhapsode who supposedly could not trace himself back to Homer (scholia to Pindar Nemean 2.1), see PH 22–23, with further bibliography.

[17] Cf. PH 356–357.

[18] Kurke 1991:43; cf. Mullen 1982:234n36 and PH 357.

[19] PH 353. The genitive of oímē in Odyssey viii 74, marking the point of departure for the performance of the first song of Demodokos, is functionally a genitive of origin, parallel to the origin-marking adverb hóthen ‘starting from the very point where’ in Pindar’s representation of the prooímion at Nemean 2.1.

[20] Durante 1976:176–177, pace Chantraine DELG s.v. οἴμη. Durante points out (p. 177) that there is an analogous metaphor inherited by Latin ex‑ordium, the semantic equivalent of Greek prooímion. He also argues persuasively (pp. 176–177) that oímē is cognate with oîmos; though the discussion of Chantraine (s.v. οἴμη) is inconclusive on this matter, at least it is made clear that oîmos (from *hoîmos, as evident in Attic phroímion) cannot be derived from eîmi ‘go’. If indeed oímē is to be interpreted etymologically as ‘song-thread’, we may compare the semantics of Latin fīlum dēdūcere ‘draw out a thread’, as analyzed in ch. 2.

[21] Schmitt 1967:300–301, Durante 1976:177–179, BA 298 par. 10n5 and PH 28.

[22] Schmitt 1967:298–300. I disagree with Scheid and Svenbro 1994:119–138 when they argue that there was no such metaphor in archaic Greek poetics—until a terminus post quem which they set in the era of choral lyric, as pioneered by the likes of Simonides and Pindar. I agree with Koller 1956:177 that the expression ἀοιδῆς ὕμνον ‘húmnos of the song’ in Odyssey viii 429 conveys the idea of the totality of performance (cf. PH 354n77 and 1990b:54n56); further, despite the reservations of Chantraine DELG s.v. ὕμνος, I think that húmnos derives from huphaínein in the metaphorical sense of a ‘web’ or ‘fabric’ of song. See also below on the usage of húmnos in Hesiod F 357.

[23] Schmitt 1967:300. Scheid and Svenbro 1994:119–138 argue that this kind of explicit reference to weaving as a metaphor for songmaking is absent in Homeric diction. It can be counter-argued that the Homeric usage of húmnos and oímē, as discussed above, points to a survival of metaphors for songmaking as weaving and sewing respectively. It is preferable to say “survival” because Scheid and Svenbro p. 121 seem to me justified in emphasizing that Homeric expressions like the verb huphaínein + mêtis as object, meaning ‘I weave a ruse’ (e.g. Iliad VII 324, Odyssey iv 739), or like rháptein + kaká as object , meaning ‘I sew together evil things’ (e.g. Iliad XVIII 367, Odyssey iii 118), are preoccupied with the idea of constructing evil words or plans to the detriment of others. But we must keep in mind that Homeric poetry portrays many negative or negativized kinds of songmaking and poetry, as in the case of the Sirens in Odyssey xii 189–191 (cf. BA 271, Pucci 1979). Such a pattern of negativization seems to have extended, at least in part, to the metaphors of weaving or sewing as singing, as we see from the example of Iliad III 125–128, where Helen is represented not as singing while weaving, which is the conventional Homeric image, but as weaving the epic theme of the evils suffered, on her account, by both Achaeans and Trojans in the Trojan War: instead of a positive reference to a woman’s performance of a song while the woman weaves, the narrative here gives a negative reference to the composition of the song, which is not literally sung by Helen but instead woven by her into the fabric (BA 294–295 par. 5n7, with further bibliography). Such a substitution of content for form is parallel to what seems to be a tendency of phasing out, in Homeric diction, the application of metaphors of weaving or sewing to the form of singing. If the metaphor tends to become restricted to the content of singing, then its explicitness may indeed become blurred. When a Homeric character weaves words or sews words together, these words are tantamount to “singing” in that they could be performed or “sung” by the Homeric medium, but they are not explicitly represented as singing. It is important to reconsider in this light the collocation of the verb huphaínein ‘weave’ with mûthos as object in Iliad III 212, as incisively analyzed by Martin 1989:95–96. In brief, the Homeric tradition may have preserved only vestiges of these metaphors in a positive or at least neutral sense.

[24] Schmitt 1967:14–15, Dubuisson 1989:223; on Latin textus, see Scheid and Svenbro 1994:139–162, especially p. 160 with reference to Quintilian Institutio oratoria 9.4.13.

[25] This Hesiodic epithet of the nightingale seems to stem from an early version of what we know from later versions as the story of Procne, who was turned into a nightingale. Let us review here the best-known later version of the story, Ovid Metamorphoses 6.412-674. After Tereus rapes Procne’s sister Philomela , he cuts out her tongue, but Philomela weaves a fabric that tells her sad tale (lines 576–578), and her sister Procne then “reads the pitiful song” (carmen miserabile legit 582) from the fabric. Segal 1994:267 remarks: “Procne, the tale’s first ‘reader,’ unrolls (evolvit [verse 581]) the woven narrative as a contemporary of Ovid would unroll the poem; and she is the model for the later reader’s immediate reaction. What she finds is a tale whose pain lies beyond the power of words [reference to verse 583, quoted above at ch. 1n100].” In Ovid’s version (verses 667–669), it is not specified which one of the two tragic women is turned into a nightingale and which one, into a swallow. In any case, the image of a varied fabric of song is inherent, as already proposed, in poikilódeiros ‘having a varied [‑sounding] throat’ (Hesiod Works and Days 203; I disagree here with West 1978:206). If this proposal is justified, then we have here another counterexample to the argument that the metaphor of weaving as songmaking is not attested before Simonides and Pindar. With reference to the myth of Procne and Philomela, as reflected in Sophocles’ tragedy Tereus (F 595 ed. Radt), Aristotle Poetics 1454b37 takes note of the expression κερκίδος φωνή ‘voice of the shuttle [kerkís]’. In Aristophanes Frogs 1316, the shuttle (kerkís) is described as a ‘singer’ (aoidós). In Greek Anthology 6.174.5, the shuttle (kerkís) is metaphorically equated with the nightingale. It may be pertinent to the mythical detail about the cutting-out of Philomela’s tongue that the nightingale is described in [“Aristotle”] Historia animalium 616b8 as bereft of a tongue-tip (ἴδιον … τὸ μὴ ἔχειν τῆς γλώσσης τὸ ὀξύ). On the general topic of metaphorical connections between the nightingale and the process of weaving, see Papadopoulou-Belmehdi 1994:155–156; cf. Seaford 1994:56.

[26] Such a paradox may be viewed as a working convention within the tradition. See HQ 80–89, 91–93, 101–104, 109–111.

[27] Cf. Pfeffer 1985:26.

[28] Cf. Pfeffer 1985:38.

[29] The expression ἑκατέρας τῆς ποιήσεως ‘each of the two poems’ specifies, it seems, that the Iliad and the Odyssey are meant.

[30] See ch. 6.

[31] There is a more detailed discussion in HQ 70–75.

[32] See also PH 52–81, HQ ch. 3. For bibliography on the claim of the Peisistratidai to be descended from the Homeric Peisistratos, son of Nestor, see PH 155. On the effects of the régime of the Peisistratidai on the contents of Homeric poetry, especially the Odyssey, see also Catenacci 1993 (at pp. 7–8n2, he offers a useful summary of the arguments of Aloni 1984 and 1986). All this is not to deny that there may well have been earlier associations of Nestor and his lineage with the lineages of other historical dynasties, such as those at Colophon and Miletus. See Janko 1992:134, with bibliography. I agree with Janko that the earlier Ionic phase of Homeric transmission is decisive, but I note that he too, like me, posits a later Attic phase as well (p. 37): “the superficial Attic traits in the epic diction do prove that Athens played a major role in the transmission, and this must be related to the Pisistratids’ patronage of Homeric poetry.” I disagree, however, when Janko goes on to say that the Peisistratidai “probably procured the first complete set of rolls to cross the Aegean.” It may be enough to claim that the Peisistratidai introduced the Homeric performance tradition from Ionia, probably from Chios.

[33] The archaizing phraseology of the entire passage about Hipparkhos in “Plato” Hipparchus 228b–229d, only a small portion of which is quoted above, is strikingly consistent in leaving unspecified the question of authorship and in emphasizing instead the fact of authority, which is expressed as sophíā ‘expertise’ in the understanding of poetry; this sophíā is in turn implicitly equated with sophíā in performing this poetry, without specification of the process of actually composing the poetry. For further details, see PH 161.

[34] When Hipparkhos ‘brings over’, by ship, the poet Anacreon to Athens (“Plato” Hipparchus 228c), the word used, komízein, is the same verb used earlier to designate his ‘bringing over’ the épē ‘poetic utterances’ of Homer in the passage quoted here (228b). By providing the people of Athens with the poetry and songmaking of Homer, Anacreon, and Simonides (the latter is coupled with Anacreon, 228c), Hipparkhos ostensibly demonstrates to them that he is not ‘stinting with his sophíā’ (σοφίας φθονεῖν: cf. PH 161), as if it was his sophíā that had somehow generated the performances of these poets. We may infer that the application of komízein to the songs of Anacreon and, by extension, to those of Simonides is made parallel to the application of this same word to the poetry of Homer because Hipparkhos did not simply invite these poets for a single occasion of performance but rather institutionalized such performances in contests of kitharōidíā ‘lyre-singing’ at the festival of the Panathenaia (on which subject cf. PH 98, 104), parallel to contests of rhapsōidíā at the same festival.

[35] Further discussion in PH 21–24. Lycurgus Against Leokrates 102 says that a customary law at Athens required that only the épē ‘poetic utterances’ of Homer could be performed at the Panathenaia; he is speaking at a time when “Homer” is generally held to be the “author” of only the Iliad and Odyssey. Cf. HQ 38. In the passage from “Plato” Hipparchus 228b-c, moreover, it is presupposed that there were already epic performances by the rhapsodes at the Panathenaia before Hipparkhos brought the épē of Homer to Athens. It seems, by implication, that these newer épē were exclusively the Iliad and Odyssey.

[36] PH 202.

[37] It could be argued that Patroklos as the solo audience of Achilles becomes interchangeable with the general audience of the Iliad. On the Homeric device of creating an effect of interchangeability between characters of epic and members of an audience, see Frontisi-Ducroux 1986; cf. Russo and Simon 1968. For a compelling interpretation of the self-referentiality conveyed by the image of Achilles singing the kléa andrôn ‘glories of men’, see Martin 1989:234–236, who also discusses in this context the special effects of apostrophe in the Homeric passages where the narrator addresses Patroklos in the second person.

[38] In Cicero’s Laws (1.3.9) and Pro Caelio (18), con‑texere is used in the sense of taking up the activity of weaving, texere, where it had been interrupted and thus left off; this idea is applied metaphorically to the process of literary composition, including poetic composition. Cf. Scheid and Svenbro 1994:150–151. In this sense, con-text is a matter of continuity.

[39] I refer back to the argumentation in ch. 2.

[40] Scheid and Svenbro 1994:120 concede that the concept of rhapsōidós is driven by the metaphor of songmaking as sewing together. Still, they argue that this metaphor cannot be taken further back and applied to Homer. In their view, as we have seen, the metaphors of weaving and sewing together did not exist before the era of Simonides and Pindar. I disagree, having just argued that these metaphors are at least residually attested in even the earliest evidence and that the concept of Homer as rhapsode is basic to Homer.

[41] PH 52–81.

[42] PH 70–79.

[43] Pfeiffer 1968:73; HQ 38.

[44] BA 297–300, interpreting the evidence assembled by Schmitt 1967:296–298.

[45] BA 300. Bader 1989:269n114 attempts to connect the root *seH‑ ‘sew’ with the Hóm‑ of Hómēros, though she makes clear that her proposed etymology poses some phonological difficulties. While I agree with her that hómēros in the sense of ‘hostage’ may possibly be compatible with the metaphorical world of the root *seH‑, homo‑ ‘together’ plus the root of ararískein ‘fit, join’ is an even more plausible etymology for a noun meaning ‘hostage’, given the social metaphors inherent in the derivatives of ararískein (cf. Chantraine DELG s.v. ἀραρίσκω, especially with reference to arthmós ‘bond, league, friendship’ and related forms). There is a striking semantic parallel to phōnêi homēreûsai ‘fitting [the song] together with their voice’, describing the Muses at Theogony 39: it is artiépeiai ‘having words fitted together’, describing the Muses at Theogony 29 (BA 297).

[46] As we ponder the archaism of this metaphor of kúklos, we may note a curious detail in the chariot inventories of the Linear B texts: there is a dichotomy of red and purple in descriptions of colors painted on these chariots. In Homeric diction, as we will see later, there is a parallel dichotomy of red and purple in descriptions of colors painted on ships. In ch. 6, I connect this dichotomy with an observation made by Eustathius (1.9) in the Prolegomena to his commentary on the Iliad: that performers of the Iliad wore costumes dyed red and those of the Odyssey, purple. The precise colors may be different, but the dichotomy itself seems analogous.

[47] Schmitt 1967:14–15, BA 297–300.

[48] Schmitt 1967:298–301.

[49] PH 78–81.

[50] Cf. Kleingünther 1933.

[51] For an illuminating discussion of culture heroes in Chinese traditions, cf. Raphals 1992:53. Yi invents the bow; Zhu, armor; Xi Zhong, the carriage; Qiao Chui, the boat.

[52] N 1985:33.

[53] PH 55.

[54] PH 23.

[55] HQ 69–71.

[56] HQ 70.

[57] HQ 73. Allen 1924:233 thinks that the source of Tzetzes here was Athenodorus, head of the Library at Pergamon. Note the parallel wording in the Greek Anthology (11.442), representing Peisistratos as speaker: ὅς τὸν Ὅμηρον ἤθροισα, σποράδην τὸ πρὶν ἀειδόμενον ‘I who gathered together Homer, who was previously being sung here and there, scattered all over the place’.

[58] There is emphasis on the idea that each of the Seven Sages except Thales had been head of state (Cicero De oratore 3.137: hi omnes praeter Milesium Thalen civitatibus suis praefuerunt).

[59] On this passage from Cicero, see Boyd 1996.

[60] It is relevant to recall the comment of Eustathius (1.10), as noted earlier in this chapter: that the rhapsōidíai correspond to the twenty-four books of the Iliad and Odyssey, which are scattered and then reassembled into the totality of the Homeric poems. This particular notion of rhapsōidíai corresponds to Cicero’s notion of libri confusi ‘scattered books’.

[61] For a brief restatement and for a survey of primary information pertinent to the concept of a “Peisistratean recension,” see Allen 1924:225–238. See also PH 21–22n20. In the scholia to Dionysius Thrax, Codex Venetus 489 (as printed in Allen p. 230), it is reported that the Homeric poems were ‘sewn together’ (συνερράφησαν) by Peisistratos himself.

[62] It is essential to make a distinction here between an “I” within mimesis and an “I” outside of mimesis. On the hermeneutics of the latter kind of “I” or “je,” see Calame 1986.

[63] A useful semantic overview in Chantraine DELG s.v. μῖμος.

[64] Cf. PH 391: “The close association of the Peisistratidai of Athens with the City Dionysia, context for performance of drama, and with the Panathenaia, context for performance of epic, is analogous to the association of the tyrant Kleisthenes of Sikyon with innovations in the performance of both epic (Herodotus 5.67.1) and drama (5.67.5).” On the mutual assimilation of Homeric epos and Homeric hymns, see PH 353–354. The fact that Thucydides (3.104.4–5) uses the word prooímion ‘prelude’ in referring to the version of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo that he knew suggests to me that he heard the Hymn performed at the Panathenaia as a prelude.

[65] Cf. PH 388, 390–391; cf. also Herington 1985:138–144 on the “Homeric” repertoire of Aeschylus. On the process of mutual assimilation in the evolution of tragedy and comedy, which follows an earlier era of differentiation between these forms, see PH 384–388; on the mutual assimilation of tragedy and dithyramb, see PH 388–389.

[66] PH 376.

[67] See Nehamas 1982:75n49 on e.g. Herodotus 5.67.1; cf. PH 349n58.

[68] Cf. PH 42, 44, 349, with extensive further references. Another sign is the attitude of another fourth-century figure like Isocrates, who throughout his own extensive corpus of written work uses the word mimesis (mímēsis) in a positive light, without implications of disapproval: in his eyes, mimesis seems to be a matter of utmost importance and seriousness (e.g. Euagoras 75, Antidosis 3).

[69] PH ch. 12. For zoomusicological analogies, see Mâche 1991:158–163, especially p. 158 concerning the synchronized singing of cicadas.

[70] For illuminating examples in the songmaking traditions of India, see Kothari 1989:103.

[71] On which see Martin 1989:87.

[72] For a far-reaching investigation of such mirroring, see Martin 1989:87–88.

[73] Martin 1989:87–88. Cf. BA 95–96, 114.

[74] Rösler 1980.

[75] On the monodic form of Sappho, cf. PH 371.

[76] On the poetics of Alcaeus in the context of the symposium, see N 2004b.

[77] Page 1955:185 entertains the possibility of interpreting Alcaeus F 6, a song that describes a storm at sea, as follows: “Alcaeus recreates it as if it were yet to be suffered.” He then proceeds to reject this interpretation: “To define a procedure so futile, and so discordant with the practice of ancient poets at any period, is alone enough to condemn it beyond belief.” Bowie 1986:17 criticizes Page’s condemnation: “what he ignores is the dramatic element in non-dramatic poetry.” I agree in part, though I disagree with the description of Alcaic poetry as “non-dramatic.” Any song is dramatic to the extent that it is mimetic.

[78] PH 15; 107 (with pertinent bibliography); 109–110; 112; 113 (relevant formulations here); 115; 340–342 (relevant formulations at p. 342); 368, 371(on Theognis as an “asympotic” personality); 375; 409; 435 (on Sappho and Alcaeus); 436 (a useful general statement); 437. On the imitation of Sappho in symposia and in acted situations in general, see PH 373–374. Cf. Murray 1990:8, who acknowledges the pioneering work of Reitzenstein 1893 on the symposium as a context for performance (for more on the perspectives of Reitzenstein, see also PH 109–110). {I postpone for another occasion a discussion of Bowie’s views on the mimetic potential of elegiac poetry as performed at symposia.I postpone for another occasion a discussion of Bowie’s views on the mimetic potential of elegiac poetry as performed at symposia.}

[79] PH ch. 13.

[80] PH ch. 13.

[81] Loraux 1990:22 and 125n15.

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Chapter 4. Mimesis in Lyric: Sappho’s Aphrodite and the Changing Woman of the Apache

We turn to a striking example of the equation between a ritual “this” and a mythical “that,” as postulated in Aristotle’s formulation of mimesis. This example of dramatic re-enactment, taken from a culture that is definitely unrelated to the Greek, is explicitly a case of initiation—a concept that we have seen only implicitly in the semantics of the epithet for the Homeric nightingale, poludeukḗs ‘patterning in many different ways’. As a re-enactment that serves the explicit social purpose of initiation, this example gives us a valuable point of comparison with examples of ancient Greek dramatic re-enactment, as brought to life in performance.

To make sure that the comparison about to be made serves its intended purpose of allowing us to see the ancient Greek evidence in a new light, it is important to stress that ancient Greek dramatic re-enactment could in fact take place not only in theater, not only in choral performance, but even in monody, the conventions of which are replete with stylized choral roles.[1] Such monody could be performed not only at public “recitals” but also at symposia.[2] An outstanding case in point is the ostensibly monodic poetry of Sappho, whose songs “presuppose or represent an interaction, offstage, as it were, with a choral aggregate.”[3]

Our example is a Navajo ritual of girls’ initiation into puberty called the kinaaldá, customarily performed by and in honor of a young female member of the community on the occasions of her first and second menstruation. Much has been written about the Navajo kinaaldá ritual, and it is difficult to do justice to its rich complexities. For my present purposes, the most telling summary of the Navajo evidence is to be found in a book of cross-cultural {87|88} studies concerning the general topic of female initiation.[4] There are related rituals in other societies of the same Athapascan language family to which the Navajo belong, notably in Apache societies, where the term for girls’ puberty ritual is nah‑ih‑es.[5]

The focal point of the Navajo myth and ritual is the goddess Changing Woman, also known as White Shell Woman, who is to become the mother of the Divine Twins. More literally, her name means “the woman who is transformed time and again” (p. 25). The Apache analogue is likewise known as Changing Woman, or White Painted Woman (p. 135). In the case of the Navajo kinaaldá ritual, most of the proceedings take place in the family hogan (the Navajo word for a type of earth-covered edifice) of the girl to be initiated. On the final night of the kinaaldá, the ritual program features the performance of what are called the hogan songs, claimed to be originally composed for the kinaaldá of Changing Woman herself (pp. 18–19). There are two kinds of hogan songs, corresponding to the girl’s first and second menstruations: the Chief Hogan Songs and the Talking God Hogan Songs (p. 22). According to Navajo myth, the power of these same hogan songs enabled the prototypical figures First Man and First Woman to sing the prototypical hogan into existence (p. 18). In the here and now of the ritual, these hogan songs are thought to have the power of re-enacting the prototypical event. The words of the singer’s songs, by identifying the family hogan with the first hogan, claim to rebuild and thus renew the identified edifice, as the words themselves say explicitly (p. 18).

Thus the localization of the Navajo family hogan becomes sacred space, where the distinctions between the details of myth and the details of ritual can merge in the minds of those who participate in the ritual (p. 19). In one particular recording of these hogan songs, we can observe the continual repetition of a phrase that can be translated: “I fully understand it” (p. 19).[6] This {88|89} phrase frames such declarations as “Now with my doorway, now with my door curtain, the house has come into being, it is said” and “Now long life, now everlasting beauty, were brought into the interior, it is said” (p. 19). Within the sacred space of this interior, the young girl to be initiated becomes identified with the goddess Changing Woman (p. 119n35). In the corresponding Apache ritual, the family of the girl initiand, before the actual puberty ritual takes place, conventionally refers to the daughter as “she who is going to become White Painted Woman” (p. 135). Since the feasting is open to all, the initiand can be conventionally designated by the people at large as “she through whom we will have a big time” (p. 135).

In the course of the Navajo ritual, the young girl initiand has the authority to confer the blessings of prosperity and fertility upon the participants in the ritual, “thus imparting some of the powers of growth with which she abounds at this moment of her life” (p. 20); in the Apache ritual as well, “during those four days the celebrant was considered to have power” (p. 135).[7] After the blessings in the Navajo ritual, the initiand leaves the hogan and runs a race with other young people who are participants in her initiation, and it is ritually prescribed that she must take the lead in the race (p. 50). We may compare the authoritative status of the chorus-leader or khorēgós in Alcman’s Partheneion (which apparently refers to some sort of ritualized race).[8]

In the Navajo ritual, the prescribed course of the race to be run by the girl initiand is clockwise, heading eastward from the hogan toward the sun, returning westward to the hogan (p. 20). It has been observed that “the race is, in effect, her pursuit of the {89|90} sun” (p. 20). In the myth of Changing Woman, which is correlated with the race of the girl initiand, the goddess actually mates with the Sun (p. 29).[9] At the moment of intercourse, the Sun takes on the form of a handsome youth (p. 120n55). We may compare a theme that is prevalent in the poetics of Sappho, where the female speaker declares her érōs āelíō ‘lust for the sun’ (Sappho F 58.25–26 V), which parallels a story in Lesbian mythology about the pursuit of a handsome youth Phaon by all the women of Lesbos, headed by Aphrodite herself; the mythical pursuit by Aphrodite corresponds to a poeticized pursuit of Phaon by the principal female speaker featured in Sappho’s poetics—let us call her Sappho.[10] Phaon’s name (Pháōn) means ‘shining’, parallel to the name Phaethon (Phaéthōn), derived from the participle ‘shining’, attested as the ornamental epithet of Helios the sun-god.[11]

The positioning of the participants in the Navajo ritual is regulated so that the kinaaldá girl and the chief singer, who leads the ritual events of the evening, are situated next to each other, in the West of the hogan; in the middle of the hogan is a mound of earth and a vessel of water; in the North and South are the women and men respectively (pp. 21–23). In the East is the doorway, where the first rays of the sun will enter at dawn, “just as Sun came to Changing Woman through her hogan’s eastern door at the beginning of time” (p. 22). In this setting, the singing of the hogan songs begins. In this context, we may compare the variety of possibilities in choral positioning as implied in the wording of Alcman’s Partheneion; in that particular song, of course, the main divine referent is a Dawn Goddess (Orthria at line 61, Aōtis at line 87).[12] Such a conceptualization cannot exactly apply to Changing Woman, but there are nevertheless clear parallels, as we may infer from the following description: “Changing Woman’s chief concern is fertility of all kinds—the {90|91} ebb and flow of birth, death, and rebirth—and in this respect she is similar to the sun, who is also much concerned with the bestowing of new life and with the rhythms of plants and seasons” (p. 30). In the corresponding Apache ritual, the symbols painted on the Puberty Dress of White Painted Woman include the crescent moon, morning star, rainbows, and sunbeams (p. 136).[13]

In the Talking God type of hogan songs in Navajo ritual, the goddess is conventionally described as moving towards the ritually decorated family hogan and then signaling her arrival. As she arrives, the references to the goddess shift from the third to the first person, so that the goddess herself, represented in the words of the singer, now speaks as an “I.” A phrase continually repeated in Talking God Hogan Song 25 goes like this: “With my sacred power, I am travelling” (p. 23). Towards the end of this song, this repeated phrase frames, on either side, the following declaration: “Now with long life, now with everlasting beauty, I live” (p. 23). This image of a traveling goddess whose climactic epiphany in the here and now signals a shift from third to first person is comparable to the celebrated inaugural song of the Alexandrian edition of songs attributed to Sappho (F 1 V), where Aphrodite shifts from second-person addressee to first person speaker (in a stretch starting at line 18 and lasting through line 24).[14]

In the whole Navajo ritual, the chief purpose “is the identification of the girl initiand with Changing Woman” (p. 24). This identification is explicit in the following Twelve Word Song (p. 24):

I am here; I am White Shell Woman, I am here.

Now on the top of Gobernador Knob [a local mountain], I am here.

In the center of my white shell hogan I am here.

Right on the white shell spread I am here.

Right on the fabric spread I am here.

Right at the end of the rainbow I am here. {91|92}

We may note the immediacy of this epiphany, comparable with the epiphany of Aphrodite in Song 1 of Sappho (F 1 V). Even more important, it seems that the “I” here stands for a composite of the girl initiand and Changing Woman herself, though the actual performer is the chief singer.

In the corresponding Apache girls’ initiation ritual, there are similar distributions in roles, though we can expect many variations in the hierarchy of participants in the ritual. In our survey of the Navajo ritual, we noted in particular the role of the chief singer. In the corresponding Apache ritual, there is likewise a chief singer, but in this instance let us shift our attention to a ritual figure who functions as a correlate of the chief singer. She is an attendant, an older and more experienced woman whose task it is to take charge of the girl initiand during the period of the ritual. It has been observed that “some attendants could claim supernatural experience with [White Painted Woman] herself,” so that the girl’s attendant is placed “more in the role of priestess than true shaman” (p. 136). We may compare Pausanias’ description of the Leukippides, historical analogues to the main choral figures of Alcman’s Partheneion, as hiéreiai ‘priestesses’ (3.16.1).[15] In the Apache girls’ initiation ritual, once the attendant is matched with the initiand, the woman and the girl are expected, from that point on, to address each other as mother and daughter respectively for the rest of their lives (p. 136). This relationship seems comparable to the dramatized interactions of heroines and nurses in Greek tragedy, especially the case of Phaedra and her nurse in Euripides’ Hippolytus; just as the attendant in the Apache ritual is well versed in women’s lore, so also is the nurse in Greek tragedy.[16] Despite the importance of the attendant, the overall ritual itself is directed by the chief singer. We are told that “the most sought after singers were old men who, by community observation, had presided over ceremonies that produced a high percentage of healthy, strong, good-natured, industrious women” (p. 136).

Besides the attendant and the chief singer, there is a third key participant in the Apache girls’ puberty ritual. This is the shaman {92|93} or di‑yin, whom the girl’s family has to select and who has the power, through supernatural beings called the ganh‑s, to select and prepare dancers for the ritual (p. 136). The di‑yin is asked to miss the puberty ritual himself, since “the one who dressed and painted the ganh‑s had to stay in a little camp well removed from the festivity” (p. 136). This phase of the ritual complex is pervaded by a deeply felt sense of danger, in that the dancers are to re-enact the powerful ganh‑s (p. 136), and the di‑yin is well paid for his troubles in recruiting and training them (p. 136).

On the day that the Apache girls’ puberty ritual begins, before dawn, the girl initiand is entrusted to the attendant, who washes her hair; as the sun rises, the initiand faces the East as the attendant prays while adorning her and dressing her in her ritual costume. “From this instant she was a woman, and for the next four days she was [White Painted Woman] and had to be addressed so” (p. 137). As for the ritual edifice to be built for the occasion, there is a great deal of variation from tribe to tribe. A key feature is an alignment with the four directions and a runway to the East. The chief singer is in charge of the Dwelling Songs, which accompany the building of the ritual edifice (p. 138). In response to the mention of the key supernatural figures in the singing, the attendant utters the same ululation with which White Painted Woman had once upon a time greeted the deaths of the monsters that threatened the universal order (p. 138). In fact the attendant is known as She Who Makes the Cry (p. 138). Later, as the crowd gathers, the attendant pushes White Painted Woman out of the East entrance to run clockwise around a basket of offerings placed outside, with other women and men who want good fortune trotting after the girl initiand (p. 139). Meanwhile, the di‑yin is getting the dancers ready. Morris Opler has collected the ganh‑making songs that are performed at this part of the ritual, including the following:[17]

In the middle of the Holy Mountain,

In the middle of its body, stands a hut,

Brush-built, for the Black Mountain Spirit.

White lightning flashes in these moccasins;[18] {93|94}

White lightning streaks in angular path;

I am the lightning flashing and streaking!

This headdress lives; the noise of its pendants

Sounds and is heard!

My song shall encircle these dancers.

I have highlighted the last line in order to draw attention to its remarkable metaphor concerning the relationship of song and dance. To ponder the image of song as encircling and thereby containing dance is a fitting way to bring to a close our consideration of this extended example of re-enactment as initiation.

It is in this light that we may re-examine an ancient Greek example of re-enactment as genuine initiation. The passage in question is the prophecy spoken by the goddess Artemis as a consolation to the dying virgin hero Hippolytus in lines 1423–1430 of Euripides’ Hippolytus.[19] These verses describe, briefly but explicitly, a ritual of female initiation, pictured as seasonally recurring in the past, in the present, and for all time to come in the city of Trozen, where the local girls customarily cut their hair and sing songs of lament for the death of Hippolytus as a formal sign of their coming of age. The myth of the hero’s death and of Phaedra’s unrequited love for him (1430) is described as a sad love-song, ‘a troubled thought that happens with songmaking’ (mousopoiós … mérimna, 1428–1429).[20][xxvi]

We may note in passing, for purposes of further comparison, the observation of Vladimir Propp about love-songs in Russian folk traditions: “the songs are about unhappy love more often than about happy love.”[21] He goes on to note that traditional Russian women’s songs at weddings, including the bride’s songs, include instances of formal lamentation;[22] in fact, “the wailing of the bride is one of the richest and artistically complete forms of ancient peasant poetry.”[23] Given that weddings are elaborate rites {94|95} of passage in Russian folk traditions and that “many wedding songs were never performed outside the wedding ritual,”[24] we stand to gain a wealth of comparative insights from detailed descriptions of women’s songmaking in the context of weddings, especially in view of Propp’s conclusion that traditional Russian wedding songs “are so closely related to love and family lyrics that they cannot be studied outside the framework of women’s folk lyrics in general.”[25] Of special interest for the study of archaic Greek choral traditions is the Russian tradition of the ritual unplaiting of the maiden’s braid as a preparation for the wedding, where the unplaiting is accompanied by songmaking, and where the bride’s girl-friends sing in the name of the bride.[26]

With specific reference to the ancient Greek girls’ initiation ritual described in lines 1423–1430 of Euripides’ Hippolytus, one commentator has noted that “the Athenian audience felt strongly the continuity of legendary past and present,” and that “there is an evident emotional satisfaction in the feeling that the events and persons one has been witnessing live on in effect or name into the life of the present day.”[27] We may note with special interest the commentator’s use of the word “emotional” here because it captures the subjective level of páthos in Aristotle’s reading of tragedy: on this level, páthos can be translated as emotion.[28]

Still, it remains to ask how the choral lyric of real-life girls who are experiencing initiation by lamenting for Hippolytus and the unrequited love of Phaedra in the real-life community of Trozen translates into the “emotional satisfaction” of the Athenian audience of State Theater. I propose that the song of initiation performed on a seasonally recurring basis by the girls’ chorus in Trozen is dramatically replayed, or, better, preplayed, as the songs performed by the chorus of young men in Athenian State Theater {95|96} who are re-enacting a chorus of young women in Trozen as they sing and dance the choral lyrics of Euripides’ Hippolytus. With reference to the second choral lyric, where the chorus emotionally identifies with Phaedra’s most intimate thoughts in an exquisitely poeticized escapist reverie while she is killing herself offstage (732–775), one critic has noted the “intersubjectivity” of the chorus and the hero.[29] This perceptive line of thought can be extended: in the sacred space of Athenian State Theater, the páthos or primal ordeal of a hero like Hippolytus or Phaedra becomes identified with the páthos or emotion of the audience as well, all through the intersubjectivity of choral performance.

It has been remarked that, when the maidens of Trozen mourn for Hippolytus, they mourn for themselves.[30] So too the audience of the drâma that is Athenian State Theater experiences the páthos of the hero through the páthos of re-enactment in choral song and dance.[31][xxvii]

The mentality of re-enactment requires the idea of an archetype, not just the latest model in a series of previous models. In diegesis or ‘narration’ this principle may be latent, though it can be argued that even diegesis is subsumed by mimesis: if the role or even the identity of the narrator, the one who performs diegesis, is left unspecified in a narration, then its frame of mimesis is merely hidden from view.[32] As for mimesis pure and simple, on the other hand, the principle is overt: mimesis is predicated on such archetypes as gods or heroes, as we have already noted in the case of Alcman’s Partheneion.

We may try to sidestep the central idea of mimesis by telling ourselves that the pronoun “I” used by the one who re-enacts a given god or hero is at that moment merely an “actor,” no matter who the speaker may be—a member of a chorus, or a chorus-leader, or even the one whom we identify as the composer. But I must insist that this kind of “acting” in the context of {96|97} archaic Greek poetry is not a matter of pretending: it is rather a merger of the performer’s identity with an identity patterned on an archetype—a merger repeated every time the ritual occasion recurs.

According to this argument, then, mimesis in the older sense of the word requires that the speaker’s identity merge with that of his role as speaker, just as the identities of those who are spoken to and spoken about must merge with their respective roles. If the merger is successful, then the model has not been merely copied, that is, imitated. It has been remodeled, that is, re-enacted. What is remodeled can continue to be a model. What is merely copied cannot. The paradox here is that a model implies no change, whereas whatever is remodeled does indeed imply change. That is to say, an explicit idea of unchangeability through time subsumes an implicit idea of change in the here-and-now of the occasion of performance.

The premier metaphor for this paradox of re-enactment is repetition, as ideally expressed by adverbs or preverbs meaning ‘again’, such as Greek dēûte in Song 1 of Sappho:[33]

ποικιλόθρον’ ἀθανάτἈφρόδιτα,

παῖ Δίος δολόπλοκε, λίσσομαί σε,

μή μ’ ἄσαισι μηδ’ ὀνίαισι δάμνα,

πότνια, θῦμον,

5 ἀλλὰ τυίδ’ ἔλθ’, αἴ ποτα κἀτέρωτα

τὰς ἔμας αὔδας ἀίοισα πήλοι

ἔκλυες, πάτρος δὲ δόμον λίποισα

χρύσιον ἦλθες

ἄρμ’ ὐπασδεύξαισα· κάλοι δέ σ’ ἆγον

10 ὤκεες στροῦθοι περὶ γᾶς μελαίνας

πύκνα δίννεντες πτέρ’ ἀπ’ ὠράνωἴθε-

ρος διὰ μέσσω·

αἶψα δ’ ἐξίκοντο· σὺ δ’, ὦ μάκαιρα,

μειδιαίσαισ’ ἀθανάτωι προσώπωι

15 ἤρε’ ὄττι δηὖτε πέπονθα κὤττι

δηὖτε κάλημμι {97|98}

κὤττι μοι μάλιστα θέλω γένεσθαι

μαινόλαι θύμωι· τίνα δηὖτε πείθω

βαῖσ᾿[34] ἄγην ἐς σὰν φιλότατα; τίς σ’, ὦ

20 Ψάπφ’, ἀδικήει;

καὶ γὰρ αἰ φεύγει, ταχέως διώξει,

αἰ δὲ δῶρα μὴ δέκετ’, ἀλλὰ δώσει,

αἰ δὲ μὴ φίλει, ταχέως φιλήσει

κωὐκ ἐθέλοισα.

25 ἔλθε μοι καὶ νῦν, χαλέπαν δὲ λῦσον

ἐκ μερίμναν, ὄσσα δέ μοι τέλεσσαι

θῦμος ἰμέρρει, τέλεσον· σὺ δ᾿ αὔτα

σύμμαχος ἔσσο

You with varied pattern-woven flowers,[35] immortal Aphrodite,

child of Zeus, weaver of wiles, I implore you,

do not devastate with aches and sorrows,

Mistress, my heart!

5 But come here, if ever at any other time 5

hearing my voice from afar,

you heeded me, and leaving the palace of your father,

golden, you came,

having harnessed the chariot; and you were carried along by beautiful

10 swift sparrows over the dark earth

swirling with their dense plumage from the sky through the

midst of the aether,

and straightaway they arrived. But you, O holy one,

smiling with your immortal looks,

kept asking what is it once again this time [dēûte] that has happened to me and

15 for what reason

once again this time [dēûte] do I invoke you, {98|99}

and what is it that I want more than anything to happen

to my frenzied spirit? “Whom am I once again this time [dēûte] to persuade,

setting out to bring her to your love? Who is doing you,

20 Sappho, wrong?

For if she is fleeing now, soon she will give chase.

If she is not taking gifts, soon she will be giving them.

If she does not love, soon she will love

against her will.”

25 Come to me even now, and free me from harsh

anxieties, and however many things

my spirit yearns to get done, you do for me. You

become my ally in war.

As the song begins, its female speaker invokes Aphrodite, the archetype of love, in the form of a prayer.[36] The goddess is then described as flying down from Olympus, but the action takes place not in a third-person diegesis but still in the second person, so that the potential diegesis is subsumed by the syntax of prayer. Then, as the goddess arrives all the way from her distant celestial realm, she is quoted by the speaker as speaking directly in the first person to this speaker, who is now suddenly shifted into the second person (lines 18–24). Aphrodite’s first question is: what is wrong with you this time (line 15)? And she is addressing a woman whom she calls Sappho (line 20). So we see that the speaker who had started speaking at the beginning of the song was Sappho. But now, from the standpoint of performance, the speaker Sappho is speaking in the first person of Aphrodite (lines 18–24): she is in effect re-enacting the goddess. We have earlier noted a comparable shift to the first person in the songs of the Changing Woman rituals. Moreover, at the end of Sappho’s prayer, she asks to be the goddess’s equal partner, a súmmakhos ‘fellow warrior’ in the warfare of love. The active télessai in place of the expected passive telésthēn at line 26 suggests that the controlling plan is meant to be the mind of Sappho, as if she were equivalent to Aphrodite herself.[37] {99|100}

The re-enactment of Aphrodite as the archetype of love is made manifest by the adverb dēûte (δηὖτε) ‘again, once again this time’, which refers to the onset of love in the speaker’s heart. It is reinforced by the repetition of this adverb denoting repetition—three times at that. And there is further reinforcement in the triple repetition of ótti / k’ṓtti ‘what?’. Yet, in this paradox of repetition, the more you hear “again” or “one more time,” the more changes you see. It is all an archetypal re-enactment for the archetypal goddess of love, but for the humans who re-enact love it becomes a vast variety of different experiences by different people in different situations. This paradox of repetition brings to mind the words of Kierkegaard: “The dialectic of repetition is easy, for that which is repeated has been—otherwise it could not be repeated—but the very fact that it has been makes the repetition into something new.”[38]

The variety of erotic situations suggested by dēûte (δηὖτε), and highlighted by the instances of amor versus at lines 21 to 24, can also be illustrated by the strikingly plentiful set of examples that we find in the relatively few surviving fragments of Anacreon: at PMG 358 golden-haired Eros throws at me dēûte (δηὖτε) a purple ball; at 376, ἀρθεὶς δηὖτε ἀπὸ Λευκάδος πέτρης ἐς πολιὸν κῦμα κολυμβῶ μεθύων ἔρωτι ‘lifting off dēûte from the white rock I dive down into the gray eddies below, intoxicated with eros’; at 394b, Alexis is wooing dēûte (δηὖτε); at 400, one is fleeing Eros dēûte (δηὖτε); at 413, eros smites me dēûte (δηὖτε) with a great pelékus ‘double-axe’ like a khalkeús ‘coppersmith’, and it washes me in a wintry torrent; at 428, I love dēûte (δηὖτε) and I do not love / And I am mad and I am not mad. Surveying these and other instances of dēûte (δηὖτε) in Greek love lyric, Anne Carson remarks about the constituents δή ‘now’ and αὖτε ‘again’: “The particle dē marks a lively perception in the present moment: ‘Look at that now!’ The adverb aute peers past the present moment to a pattern of repeated actions stretching behind it: ‘Not for the first time!’ Dē places you in time and emphasizes that placement: now. Aute intercepts ‘now’ and binds it into a history of ‘thens’.”[39] {100|101}

We could go on with other illustrations, but the point has already been made. Every time I say to myself, “here I go again,” I am repeating the pattern of Aphrodite, but each time it is a different experience for me. No wonder Aphrodite is invoked as poikilóthronos in the first word of Song 1 of Sappho. This epithet, if indeed it is derived from thróna ‘pattern-woven flowers’ rather than from thrónos ‘throne’, can be translated ‘with varied pattern-woven flowers’.[40] For those who re-enact her, the goddess of love is as limitlessly varied as the limitless varieties of flowers that are pattern-woven on her exterior.

Let us compare the experiences of those initiated in the Changing Woman ritual. Keith Basso, one of the most conscientious collectors of Apache traditions, has recorded the conventional Apache understanding that “Changing Woman’s power grants longevity.”[41] The reason, as he explains, is that “Changing Woman, unlike other mythological figures, has ‘never died.’”[42] It is understood that, “although she grows old, she is always able to recapture her youth.”[43] Two different accounts were related to Basso by Apache informants, and here is one of them:

When Changing Woman gets to be a certain old age, she goes walking toward the east. After a while she sees herself in the distance looking like a young girl walking toward her. They both walk until they come together and after that there is only one. She is like a young girl again.[44]

The old identity is here pictured as finding the young identity. Also, the other way around, the young finds the old. They find each other, young and old, old and young, through an everlasting repetition of the Changing Woman ritual. Each repetition of the Changing Woman ritual, old as it is, brings newness, youth, change. I repeat in this context the words of Kierkegaard: “The dialectic of repetition is easy, for that which is repeated has been {101|102}—otherwise it could not be repeated—but the very fact that it has been makes the repetition into something new.”[45]

The idea of a meeting between old and new as the core of the Apache Changing Woman ritual may be compared to the story in Lesbian mythology, already noted, about the pursuit of a handsome youth Phaon by all the women of Lesbos, headed by Aphrodite herself, where the mythical pursuit by Aphrodite corresponds to a poeticized pursuit of Phaon by the principal female speaker in Sappho’s songs. Phaon’s name (Pháōn), as we have seen, means ‘shining’, that is, ‘shining like the sun’. Here we may turn to another story taken from the Lesbian myths about this Phaon (the testimonia are collected in Sappho F 211 V).[46] He is an old man who generously ferries an old woman across a strait, only to discover that the old woman is none other than the goddess Aphrodite in disguise. After Aphrodite crosses over the strait, the old woman changes back into a beautiful young goddess, who then confers beauty and youth on Phaon as well (again, Sappho F 211 V).

I once argued “that the figure of Sappho identifies herself with this figure of an old woman.”[47] That is, Sappho identifies herself with the goddess Aphrodite not only explicitly in compositions like Song 1 but also implicitly by virtue of her poeticized declaration that she loves Phaon: after all, Aphrodite too loved Phaon. In the Lesbian myths about Phaon, I saw an opportunity for Sappho the author to find a precedent, in that she could love Phaon just as Aphrodite had once loved him. Today I would stress not so much Sappho’s own authorial identification as the role of the main female speaker in Sappho’s songmaking tradition, the performing prima donna who is re-enacting not only Sappho but also Aphrodite herself by declaring her own love for Phaon. In the performance of Sappho’s songs, the prima donna who sings can become for the moment the archetypal Aphrodite through the intermediacy of Sappho, much as the initiand in the Changing Woman ritual is Changing Woman through the intermediacy of the chief singer, so long as the ritual lasts. And we {102|103} may add: much as a Greek bride is called a númphē, which can also mean a goddess, but which means ‘bride’ while the wedding lasts.[48]

To repeat the words of T. S. Eliot (The Dry Salvages, 1941), “you are the music / While the music lasts.”[49] While the music of Sappho lasts, Aphrodite is present, and whoever performs the music is Sappho, is the music of Aphrodite. The performers may keep changing from one person to the next as each new time of performance comes round, but it is the old model of Aphrodite that gets repeated, over and over. Each new performer is recomposed in performance, according to the old model. But the old model is in turn renewed by each new performer. Each performance is a meeting of old and new.

This theme of the old finding the new, the new finding the old, as we see it played out in the exotic Lesbian myths about the old ferryman Phaon and his discovery of the eternally young Aphrodite, can lead us back finally to the semantics of an everyday word like French trouver, ‘to find’, derived from “Vulgar Latin” *tropāre, derived in turn from the school usage of Greek trópos ‘modulation’ in the ultimate sense of ‘continuity through variation’. It is this sense that we have found in the earliest attested Greek traditions, in the word trōpôsa (τρωπῶσα) in Odyssey xix (521), describing the nightingale at springtime as she keeps changing around or literally turning the sound of her beautiful song.[50] An everyday notion of find has led back to an ancient songmaking metaphor that paradoxically told of reaching a goal of novelty by maintaining, in a vast variety of ways, a genuine sense of continuity. {103|}

Footnotes

[1] PH 370–371.

[2] PH 107, 340–342, 368, 371, 375, 409, 435–437.

[3] PH 371.

[4] Lincoln 1981 ch. 3: “Kinaaldá: Becoming the Goddess,” pp. 17–33. Unless otherwise indicated, page-numbers in the text proper concerning Navajo rituals refer to Lincoln’s work.

[5] For an introduction to the Apache nah‑ih‑es, see Haley 1981. Unless otherwise indicated, page-numbers in the text proper concerning Apache rituals refer to Haley’s work.

[6] We may compare the element of assensiō ‘assent’ in the mental process of induction as analyzed in ch. 2.

[7] The etymology of authority is pertinent to my choice of this word in denoting the initiand’s power: Latin auctor, the founding form of auctoritas, is attested in the sense of ‘he who makes things grow/flourish’ (cf. Virgil Georgics 1.27; from augēre, conveying the idea of vegetal fertility) and ‘he who is first to speak with authority’ (cf. Cicero in Pisonem 35 and the comments of Ernout / Meillet DELL 57).

[8] On the correlation of female athletic events, especially footraces, with female choral participation, see Calame 1977 I 335–350 and II 125–131 (with reference to what seems to be a prescribed footrace between Hagesikhora and Agido in Alcman’s Partheneion); also PH 367 and Clay 1991:60–62 In the previous note, we noted the semantics of authority as applied to the power of a girl initiand within the sacred space of a ritual. We may also note the semantics of authorship implied by the usage of the word khorēgós ‘chorus-leader’; cf. PH 339–381, where it is argued that the chorus is the ultimate mimesis of authority in early Greek society, and that the very concept of authorship is ultimately defined by choral authority.

[9] The Divine Twins whom Changing Woman mothers are both connected with this event, though the sun fathers only one of the Twins, the Monster Slayer, while the other, Born for Water, is in different versions fathered by different elements: see Lincoln 1981:29–30. The concept of Born for Water is comparable to the Indo-Iranian concept of Apām Napāt, on which god see GM 99–102.

[10] For an extensive discussion of this theme in Sappho’s poetics, see GM 261.

[11] GM 235, 255.

[12] Cf. Clay 1991:54–58, who argues that Orthria and Aōtis are epithets of Artemis.

[13] For more on the puberty ritual of the Apache, see Golston 1996.

[14] The full text of Song 1 of Sappho is provided later on in this chapter, with further discussion.

[15] PH 346.

[16] Karydas 1998 studies the influence of the tradition of women’s choral poetics on the figure of the nurse in Greek tragedy.

[17] Opler 1941:108.

[18] For comparative perspectives on the semantics connecting flashes of fire or light with dancing, see BA 331–332.

[19] The following discussion of Euripides’ Hippolytus recapitulates N 1995:51–52.

[20] In Bacchylides 19.11, the same noun mérimna, which I translate here as ‘a troubled thought’, refers to the thought-processes of the poet himself as he is pictured composing his song.

[21] See Propp 1961 [1975:13].

[22] Propp 1961 [1975:17–23].

[23] Propp 1961 [1975:19–20]. We may also note in general the important performative distinction, which affects the process of composition / recomposition in Russian folk lyric, between singing that is combined and singing that is not combined with dance (Propp p. 14); also important, for purposes of comparison with archaic Greek choral traditions, is the traditional presupposition in certain forms of song‑and‑dance that one girl in a given performance will be selected, through the performance, as better in beauty or skill than the other girls, so that the song becomes in effect her praise-song by virtue of formally making an admission or acknowledgment of her poeticized superiority (p. 15).

[24] Propp 1961 [1975:18].

[25] Propp 1961 [1975:18].

[26] Propp 1961 [1975:23].

[27] Barrett 1964:412.

[28] Further discussion in N 1994/5:50–52.

[29] Zeitlin 1985:195n41 and 199n72. {She refers in the first note to the work of Ruth Padel. She refers at p. 190n4 to the identification of Artemis with Phaedra in the context of bride and bridegroom rituals.She refers in the first note to the work of Ruth Padel. She refers at p. 190n4 to the identification of Artemis with Phaedra in the context of bride and bridegroom rituals.}

[30] Zeitlin 1985:96. {She refers also to Reckford 1972:421. Fauth 1959 has something to say on the ritual. The work of Nicole Loraux is also surely relevant.She refers also to Reckford 1972:421. Fauth 1959 has something to say on the ritual. The work of Nicole Loraux is also surely relevant.}

[31] PH 387–388.

[32] Cf. HQ 137: “Homeric poetry makes no overt reference to its own social context, the occasions of its own potential performability.” Following Martin 1989, the argument continues (HQ 137): “still, if Homeric narrative itself gives us ‘texts’ within its own ‘text’, with appropriate contexts to which these ‘texts’ refer, then the outer context, out there in the ‘real world’, is at least indirectly recoverable.”

[33] The discussion that follows is expanded in N 1994, with reference to Horace Odes 4.1 and 4.2.

[34] See Petropoulos 1993:51, who adduces evidence from the diction of magical formulae to support the restoration first proposed Parca 1982:47–48; I agree with Petropoulos that the wording in Sappho 1.18–19 is based on the language of love spells, not on “Homeric allusion,” as Parca pp. 49–50 claims. Translation: ‘whom am I, this time once again, to persuade, setting out to bring her to your love?’

[35] The imagery of weaving, as conveyed by my translation of poikilóthronos, will be explained in the discussion that follows.

[36] Travis 1990 has written a perceptive study of the poetics of prayer in Song 1 of Sappho.

[37] On the poetic contrast between active télessai and passive telésthēn in Sappho’s poetics, see GM 259–260.

[38] Kierkegaard 1983 (=1843) 149.

[39] Carson 1986:118–119. {Carson here relies on the criteria of Denniston.Carson here relies on the criteria of Denniston.}

[40] Putnam 1960/1, with further bibliography. A decisive passage is Iliad XXII 441, where thróna poikíla (θρόνα ποικίλ᾿) refers to ‘varied flower patterns’ woven into the fabric. On the magical properties of the thróna, see Petropoulos 1993:53.

[41] Basso 1966:151.

[42] Basso 1966:151.

[43] Basso 1966:151.

[44] Basso 1966:151.

[45] Kierkegaard 1843 [1983]:149.

[46] GM 262.

[47] GM 262.

[48] I am building here on the argumentation presented in ch. 3 above.

[49] Eliot 1941 [1963]:199.

[50] Antisthenes (F 51 ed. Caizzi) connects the epithet of the nightingale, trōpôsa in Odyssey xix 521, with the epithet of Odysseus, polútropos ‘of many turns’ in Odyssey i 1, reasoning that the hero deserves this epithet in part because he is skillful with words. We may compare also the poetic implications atropíē in Theognis 218, as analyzed in PH 425.

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Chapter 5. Multiform Epic and Aristarchus’ Quest for the Real Homer.

{|107} Multiformity, as conveyed by poludeukḗs ‘patterning in many different ways’, the variant epithet describing the sound of the nightingale in Odyssey xix (521), is a key concept in understanding poetry as performance in ancient Greece. This has been the general argument so far, which will now be applied specifically, in the second part of this work, to the heritage of Homeric poetry as performance. The task at hand is to work out a historical perspective of Homeric poetry as it changes over time.[1]

In confronting the dynamics of change in any songmaking tradition, it is useful to apply criteria of fluidity and rigidity. We will find, it must be emphasized at the outset, that some traditions of songmaking are at any given stage relatively more fluid, while others are more rigid; we may even allow for varying degrees of fluidity and rigidity within any one given tradition.[2] In Athenian tragedy, for example, we may expect more phraseological fluidity in some of its aspects, such as the iambic trimeters declaimed by actors, than in others, such as the songs sung and danced by the chorus.[3] {107|108}

For this important distinction of fluidity and rigidity, there are striking illustrations to be found in other cultures, as in the case of Hungarian dance traditions: it has been observed that “at a certain threshold, when the collective knowledge of the tradition within the community has reached the point where it will no longer support improvisation, the dance form may become solidified into a set sequence of figures and thus preserved—in a rigid, ‘canonical’ version—for a considerable time after the disappearance of improvisatory dancing.”[4] This formulation is ideal for my purposes, provided we understand “improvisatory” in a strictly ethnographic sense as reworked on the spot, in performance.[5] In another description of other dance traditions, one anthropologist observes that various structures of performance, as they become progressively more rigid, can suffer “abrupt confrontation and loss.”[6]

With reference to this observation, I had described in my earlier work even the pan-Hellenic period of Homeric transmission as relatively rigid in comparison to still earlier periods.[7] And I substituted a more esthetic metaphor for what I have just described as rigidity, resorting to the image of crystallization.[8] This image served to convey the essential idea of an overall “evolutionary model” of Homeric text-fixation, which I envisage not as a single event but as a long-term process, a general progression from more fluid to more rigid phases.[9]

The term “crystallization,” used as a metaphor to describe the evolution of a Homeric text without the aid of writing, can be applied also to the evolution of an individual singer’s repertoire. In ballad studies, for example, it has been observed that a given song tends to be more fluid when it is being learned by one singer {108|109} from another and progressively more rigid when it becomes part of the repertoire of the individual singer.[10]

The term has been applied in other fields as well. To mention a particularly striking example: Peter Marler, a biologist who pioneered in a 1981 article the systematic description of stages in the process of a bird’s learning its distinctive birdsong, was the first to use the term “crystallization” to designate the definitive stage of birdsong.[11] Also in the forefront of research in this area is Heather Williams, whose work centers on the zebra finch, a type of semidomesticated cagebird.[12] “Most important for Williams’ research, the male bird learns its song in a 60-day period from the 30th to 90th day after hatching, and thereafter, absent some intervention from the experimenter, it sticks with the same song for life.”[13] To quote Williams’ own words on the matter: “They stop learning and fix their song when they come into sexual maturity.”[14] We may note especially her use of the expression fix their song.

With these considerations of fluidity and rigidity serving as a backdrop, let us proceed to analyze the multiformity of Homeric transmission, with the immediate goal of refining the “evolutionary model” of Homeric text fixation by answering various questions of periodization that are raised by this model. The ultimate goal is to lay down the groundwork for a multitext edition of Homer.[15]

Let us begin with an outline, to be defended in the extensive discussion that follows it, of what I see as five distinct consecutive periods of Homeric transmission, “Five Ages of Homer,” as it were, with each period showing progressively less fluidity and more rigidity:[16] {109|110}

a relatively most fluid period, with no written texts, extending from the early second millennium into the middle of the eighth century in the first millennium.
a more formative or “pan-Hellenic” period, still with no written texts, from the middle of the eighth century to the middle of the sixth.
a definitive period, centralized in Athens, with potential texts in the sense of transcripts,[17] at any or several points from the middle of the sixth century to the later part of the fourth; this period starts with the reform of Homeric performance traditions in Athens during the régime of the Peisistratidai.
a standardizing period, with texts in the sense of transcripts or even scripts,[18] from the later part of the fourth century to the middle of the second; this period starts with the reform of Homeric performance traditions in Athens during the régime of Demetrius of Phaleron, which lasted from 317 to 307 BCE.
a relatively most rigid period, with texts as scripture,[19] from the middle of the second century onward; this period starts with the completion of Aristarchus’ editorial work on the Homeric texts, not long after 150 BCE or so, which is a date that also marks the general disappearance of the so-called “eccentric” papyri, to be defined later on in the discussion.

There is progressively less variation in each of the five successive periods, though the third, fourth, and fifth yield us progressively more information about variation in all five periods. In previous work, I treated extensively the periods here described as the first and the second and the third, considering in detail both the phenomenon of pan-Hellenism and the reforms that seem to have taken place later on in Athens during the sixth century BCE, the era of tyranny when the Peisistratidai ruled Athens.[20] Here I will limit myself to the third, fourth, and fifth periods of Homeric {110|111} transmission, working my way backward in time and devoting less attention than in my previous work to the pivotal role of Athens in the third period.[21] But I must still note in passing, at precisely this point, the importance I attach to (1) the Athenian reforms of Homeric performance associated with the Peisistratidai in the sixth century BCE, centering on the performance traditions at the Feast of the Panathenaia,[22] and (2) the Athenian reforms associated with Pericles in the fifth century.[23] Both sets of reforms fall within what I call the third period of Homeric transmission.[24]

In the present {111|112} chapter, then, and also in two more that follow, I will concentrate on periods 4 and 5. Following a reverse chronological order, I will examine in depth the relevance of Aristarchus to the fifth period and of Demetrius of Phaleron to the fourth.

It is important to keep in mind from the start that the point of reference in setting up a scheme of five periods of Homeric transmission is the dimension of performance, not of text. Accordingly, we need special working definitions for the otherwise purely textual terms transcript, script, and scripture, as assigned to the third, fourth, and fifth periods respectively. By transcript I mean the broadest possible category of written text: a transcript can be a record of performance, even an aid for performance, but not the equivalent of performance.[25] We must distinguish a transcript from an inscription, which can traditionally refer to itself in the archaic period as just that, an equivalent of performance.[26] As for script, I mean a narrower category, where the written text is a prerequisite for performance.[27] By scripture I mean the narrowest category of them all, where the written text need not even presuppose performance. In order to alert the reader that this term will be used metaphorically rather than literally—for reasons that become clear in Chapter 7—“scripture” will regularly be placed within quotation marks.[28][xxviii]

It is also important to keep in mind the traditional wording that was used to express the idea of performance during the five periods. The word rhapsōidoí ‘rhapsodes’ designates performers of Homer in the reports about reforms of epic performance under the Peisistratidai (“Plato” Hipparchus 228b, Diogenes Laertius {112|113} 1.57),[29] and the same word is regularly used in the same sense throughout the stretch of time that has been divided here into periods 3, 4, and 5, with the most prominent examples to be found in Plato’s Ion.[30] To repeat my diachronic formulation concerning the concept of rhapsōidoí:[31] “it is simplistic and even misleading to contrast, as many have done, the ‘creative’ aoidós [‘singer’] with the ‘reduplicating’ rhapsōidós.”[32] Suffice it to add here that the currency of the term rhapsōidós can be reconstructed to extend to an era even before that of periods 3, 4, and 5 all taken together, that is, to an era corresponding to what I call here period 2.[33] Moreover, there is a parallel to be drawn between the rhapsodic transmission of Homer and that of Hesiod.[34]

In brief, then, this scheme of five periods in Homeric transmission brings into play primarily the dimension of performance, in particular the traditions of the rhapsōidoí, and, secondarily, the dimension of text as a derivative of performance, where each successive period reflects a progressively narrower concept of textuality, from transcript to script to “scripture.” It should be stressed again that the ultimate purpose in drawing up this scheme is to lay the groundwork for an eventual multitext edition of Homer, one that would be expected not only to report variant readings but also to relate them wherever possible to different periods in the history of textual transmission, such as the five {113|114} categories proposed here. An example of this kind of approach is my earlier work on variants in the textual transmission of Theognis, especially on the phenomenon of what may be called “Solonian” and “non-Solonian” doublets, which seem linked with different periods in not only the textual history but also the political history of Megara and its daughter cities.[35]

It is essential to stress from the start, moreover, that a multitext edition of Homer is clearly not what Aristarchus, who became ultimately the most influential textual critic of Homer in the ancient world, had in mind. The era of Aristarchus corresponds to what has just been described as period 5 in the history of Homeric transmission, when the text of Homer was becoming equivalent to “scripture.” By the time we reach the end of the last chapter, I hope that I will have justified my use of this term, as also the overall scheme of the third, fourth, and fifth periods in the history of Homeric transmission. Let us turn, then, to Aristarchus, as we proceed to review the historical circumstances, working backward in time.

Aristarchus of Samothrace became head of the Library of Alexandria sometime after 180 BCE, the estimated date of the death of a distinguished predecessor, Aristophanes of Byzantium; we do not know how soon it was after 180 that the accession of Aristarchus took place, but in any case he held on to the position of head of the Library through the reign of Ptolemy VI Philometor, whose death in 145 set off a chain reaction of events climaxing in the violent removal of Philometor’s son Ptolemy VII by Philometor’s brother Ptolemy VIII; that same year (145/4) Aristarchus departed from Alexandria and from Egypt altogether, along with many of his pupils and other scholars.[36] “From this secessio doctorum,” it has been said, “the first crisis ensued in the history of scholarship.”[37] Looking further backward, let us focus on another key figure, Aristophanes of Byzantium, who had been head of the Library probably starting with the death of Eratosthenes, perhaps sometime between 196 and 193 BCE, until his death, around 180 BCE.[38] These two figures, {114|115} Aristophanes and especially Aristarchus, are essential for my formulation of period 5.

There is a mass of references to Aristarchus in the Homeric scholia, especially in those of the tenth-century Venetus A manuscript of the Iliad.[39] From these references, derived in large part from the reports of Didymus (second half of the first century BCE and beginning of the first CE), we may infer that Aristarchus was the author of a hupómnēma ‘commentary’ on Aristophanes’ ékdosis ‘edition’ of Homer, also known as diórthōsis, and that he later went on to produce his own edition, also writing a commentary to accompany it, which in turn was followed by a revised edition made by members of his school.[40] These ekdóseis or diorthṓseis ‘editions’ and hupomnḗmata ‘commentaries’, it has been argued, were all still available to Didymus.[41] We know many details about Aristarchus’ editorial methodology from the Homeric scholia, especially from the scholia of Venetus A, and we even know from the reports of Didymus (also of Aristonicus, Nicanor, and Herodian), as recorded or paraphrased primarily in the A scholia, about the texts used by Aristarchus and about his editorial judgments concerning their relative worth.[42]

We must immediately confront the problems raised by the concept of edition here. The terms ékdosis and diórthōsis, commonly used in the scholia and elsewhere, may be interpreted to mean ‘edition’ only within limits, even in the case of critics like Aristarchus.[43] To the extent that he produced his own texts of {115|116} Homer, which were to be used as a point of reference in the Library of Alexandria, the interpretation of ékdosis or diórthōsis as ‘edition’ seems to fit.[44] Still, the usage of these same terms in the context of references to the work of other critics may fall short of what we would mean by an edition.[45]

With these qualifications in mind, let us consider the editorial criteria of Aristarchus, as transmitted mainly through the writings of Didymus. It appears that Aristarchus deemed as khariésterai ‘more elegant’ and khariéstatai ‘most elegant’ the texts of Homer that were “edited” by previous scholars, as also the undated texts known as the politikaí or ‘city editions’ stemming from Chios, Argos, Cyprus, Sinope, Massalia, and so on.[46] Conversely, he deemed as eikaîa or eikaiótera ‘random’ and phaûla or phaulótera {116|117} ‘inferior’ the texts of Homer that were not so “edited.”[46] Included under this heading of “worse” were the text or texts called koinḗ in the singular and koinaí in the plural, which Richard Janko and others interpret as the ‘common’ or ‘popular’ texts, as if they were merely a default category; the same goes for the term dēmṓdeis ‘popular’.[47] This version of Homer is the so-called “Vulgate.”

In what follows, the argument is that the koinḗ, which I prefer to call not the “Vulgate” but simply the Koine, can be traced back to a distinct category, even if it did indeed in the course of time become merged into a default category along with any other “unedited” and therefore “inferior” manuscripts.[49] In positing an earlier distinct status for the Koine, I will be in partial disagreement with Janko, but for now it is more important to stress my agreement with his argument that Aristarchus was unjustified if he deemed inferior those variants that happen to be recorded in the koinaí.[50] I also agree with Janko’s argument that the readings of the koinaí often “preserve oddities” that the other manuscript traditions level out—oddities “which are now explained from comparative philology or oral composition.”[51] But again I disagree, at least in part, with his inference that these “oddities” prove that “the ‘common’ texts are usually superior.”[52] The empirical methods of comparative philology and the study of oral {117|118} tradition can be used to defend a variant reading as traditional, not as superior. On the basis of comparative studies of textual variation in manuscript traditions that are based on oral traditions, these same empirical methods can be used to defend variant readings that happen to be attested only in manuscripts judged inferior by editors ancient or modern.[53]

The problem is that any given variant reading attested in texts that Aristarchus or his followers deemed “superior” and editors like Janko now deem “inferior” may be suspected of being an ancient editor’s conjecture rather than a genuine variant derived from oral traditions. The word conjecture is used here in an extreme sense, to indicate a hypothetical situation where an editor rejects all variant readings that he finds in the manuscripts and substitutes a reading of his own invention—his own rewriting—into the master copy.

If indeed it were simply a matter of conjectures, Janko would be justified in treating the Homer texts “edited” by ancient scholars as less valuable for his purposes than the “unedited” manuscripts, which I prefer to describe as the less edited manuscripts—less edited, that is, from the standpoint of the Alexandrian critics. But I will now argue that even the more “corrected” texts of Homer, including whatever traces there may be of the editions of Alexandrian Homer critics earlier than Aristarchus, can provide genuine variants stemming from oral traditions. The argument will extend to a still earlier Homer critic, Aristotle.[54]

The problem can be restated this way: if we read a report about an ancient critic who makes a diórthōsis or ‘correction’ in a manuscript of Homer, especially in contexts where the report itself questions the judgment of the given critic, are we to assume that this diórthōsis can only be a conjecture?[55] For an example of such a report, let us consider an anecdote in Plutarch’s Alcibiades (7), the {118|119} setting of which is to be dated 435 BCE, that tells of an Athenian teacher who claims to own a copy of Homer that he himself had corrected; the verb here is diorthoûn ‘correct’ (ἑτέρου δὲ φήσαντος ἔχειν Ὅμηρον ὑφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ διωρθωμένον).[56] Alcibiades follows up with a play on words: he remarks mockingly that the teacher is ‘correcting’ Homer instead of students. We may note in this context another anecdote, this one reported by Diogenes Laertius (9.113) about Timon of Phleious (ca. 320–230 BCE), who advised Aratus to read tà arkhaîa antígrapha ‘the ancient copies’ of Homer, not those that were ‘already corrected’, ḗdē diōrthōména (ἤδη διωρθωμένα); again the verb is diorthoûn ‘correct’. Rudolf Pfeiffer has suggested that Timon was here “alluding no doubt to the editorial work of Zenodotus.”[57] Rudolf Blum goes further, associating such an example of diórthōsis with the school of Aristotle himself.[58]

Let us start with Zenodotus and then work our way back to Aristotle. The attitude of Timon as it is reported here is indeed clearly antithetical to that of Zenodotus—and even more so to that of Aristarchus. For Aristarchus, copies that were ‘already corrected’ would have been ‘superior’, as we have seen from the testimony of the Homer scholia. We may note again that Pfeiffer immediately associates the very word diorthoûn ‘correct’ with the “editorial work” of Zenodotus.[59] He has good reasons, as we will now see from a brief review of relevant facts suggesting that Zenodotus was a methodological forerunner of Aristarchus.

Though there are controversies surrounding the precise date, Zenodotus of Ephesus was put in charge of the Library of Alexandria about a hundred years before Aristarchus became head of the Library.[60] Zenodotus is described in the Suda as the first {119|120} diorthōtḗs ‘corrector’—let us at least for the moment continue to render this word as ‘editor’—of the Homeric poems.[61] In the Prolegomena to Tzetzes’ excerpts from Scholia on Aristophanes and Dionysius Thrax, there is a catalogue of the earliest Alexandrian critics who diōrthṓsanto ‘edited’ various ancient scrolls, and it is said that ‘Zenodotus at first and later Aristarchus’ should be given credit for ‘editing’ what are vaguely called the ‘poetic’ scrolls (τὰς δὲ ποιητικὰς Ζηνόδοτος πρῶτον καὶ ὕστερον Ἀρίσταρχος διωρθώσαντο).[62] The editorial work of Zenodotus included, besides Homer, Hesiod and Pindar.[63] Pfeiffer summarizes his own interpretation of the data: Zenodotus “was indeed the first diorthōtḗs of the Homeric and other poems, revising and emending the text, and [the word diorthoûn] was the proper technical term.”[64] The reference to Aristarchus, he goes on to say, “proves conclusively that this is what the Prolegomena mean.”[65]

Such a parallel assessment of Zenodotus and Aristarchus brings us back to the problem of determining to what extent we may interpret a diórthōsis of Homer by any critic as an ‘edition’. Even in the case of Aristarchus, it should be stressed again, there is only a limited conceptual equivalence of diorthoûn ‘correct’ with contemporary notions of edit a text.[66] There are also other related problems. Is the critic who is responsible for a given diórthōsis reliable? Or at least are his methods of diórthōsis to be trusted? Further, are the theoretical underpinnings of his methods sound? {120|121} Even if the answers are positive in the case of, say, Aristarchus, can we extend such a positive assessment further back to Zenodotus? The last question can be taken even further back, to Aristotle.

It has been shown that Aristotle was very much engaged in research on problems of Homeric textual transmission.[67] Moreover, there is considerable evidence linking him with the very concept of diórthōsis. Aristotle consistently uses the verb diorthoûn ‘correct’ and its abstract derivative diórthōsis in the sense of provide the right interpretation of a difficult text, or provide the right solution to a question (erṓtēma); as in Sophistici Elenchi (chapters 18 and 19).[68] In the same work, we even find the expression τὸν Ὅμηρον ἔνιοι διορθοῦνται ‘some people correct [diorthoûn] Homer’ (Sophistici Elenchi 166b3), with reference to an exegetical problem in Iliad XXIII (328): some critics interpret the ΟΥ in the received text as οὗ instead of οὐ (cf. also Aristotle Poetics 1461a21).[69] It is evident that such “corrections” were envisioned as markings in the margins or diacritics in the text.[70] For the sophistic tradition in general and for Aristotle in particular, the format of diórthōsis was distinctly a matter of marginalia.[71] A case in point is Aristotle’s mention of the parásēmon ‘marginal mark’ in Sophistici Elenchi (177b), in a context of discussing a variant accentuation (and breathing).[72] We may note as well the wording used to describe a copy of Homer owned by Alexander the Great: φέρεται γοῦν τις διόρθωσις τῆς Ὁμήρου ποιήσεως, ἡ ἐκ τοῦ νάρθηκος λεγομένη, τοῦ Ἀλεξάνδρου μετὰ τῶν περὶ Καλλισθένη καὶ Ἀνάξαρχον ἐπελθόντος καὶ σημειωσαμένου τινά ‘it is reported that there was a diórthōsis of the poetry of Homer, called “the one from the nárthēx,” when Alexander with Callisthenes and Anaxarchus went over it and {121|122} made some marks [sēmeîa] on it’ (Strabo 13.1.27 C594).[73] Elsewhere, we hear that this nárthēx edition of Homer resulted from a diórthōsis of Aristotle himself, Ἀριστοτέλους διορθώσαντος (Plutarch Life of Alexander 8.2).[74]

The editorial format or diórthōsis of Zenodotus and of those like Aristarchus who came after him was likewise a matter of marginalia. There is in fact a noticeable continuity from Aristotle to Aristarchus not only in the format of diórthōsis but also in the discourse associated with it, as evidenced most clearly in the case of Aristarchus himself, whose criteria at times bear a striking resemblance to those represented by the school of Aristotle. Let us take for example Aristarchus’ criterion of khariésterai ‘more elegant’ or khariéstatai ‘most elegant’, which as we have seen was applied with reference to the “edited” texts of Homer. I have found the same critical term in an earlier fourth-century context. The speaker is Isocrates, and the work in question is the last oration that he composed, the Panathenaicus or ‘Panathenaic’ speech, issued in 339 BCE (Oration 12), when the author was ninety-seven years old.[75] As the author says, an illness had prevented him from finishing the work earlier (Panathenaicus 267–270), and it seems that he had originally intended to issue the work on the occasion of the Great Panathenaia of 342 BCE (Panathenaicus 7).[76] We are about to see Isocrates referring negatively to some so-called ‘sophists in the Lyceum’.[77] These sophists are said to practice the art of the rhapsodes (1) as they perform the poems of Homer, Hesiod, or others and (2) as they are mnēmoneúontes {122|123} ‘mentioning’, in a supposedly derivative way, the khariéstata or ‘most elegant things’ about these poems:

Ἕως μὲν οὖν τοὺς λόγους ἡμῶν ἐλυμαίνοντο, παραναγιγνώσκοντες ὡς δυνατὸν κάκιστα τοῖς αὑτῶν καὶ διαιροῦντες οὐκ ὀρθῶς καὶ κατακνίζοντες καὶ πάντα τρόπον διαφθείροντες, οὐδὲν ἐφρόντιζον τῶν ἀπαγγελλομένων, ἀλλὰ ῥᾳθύμως εἶχον· μικρὸν δὲ πρὸ τῶν Παναθηναίων τῶν μεγάλων ἠχθέσθην δι᾿ αὐτούς. ἀπαντήσαντες γάρ τινές μοι τῶν ἐπιτηδείων ἔλεγον ὡς ἐν τῷ Λυκείῳ συγκαθεζόμενοι τρεῖς ἢ τέτταρες τῶν ἀγελαίων σοφιστῶν καὶ πάντα φασκόντων εἰδέναι καὶ ταχέως πανταχοῦ γιγνομένων διαλέγοιντο περί τε τῶν ἄλλων ποιητῶν καὶ τῆς Ἡσιόδου καὶ τῆς Ὁμήρου ποιήσεως, οὐδὲν μὲν παρ᾿ αὑτῶν λέγοντες, τὰ δ᾿ ἐκείνων ῥαψῳδοῦντες καὶ τῶν πρότερον ἄλλοις τισὶν εἰρημένων τὰ χαριέστατα μνημονεύοντες· ἀποδεξαμένων δὲ τῶν περιεστώτων τὴν διατριβὴν αὐτῶν ἕνα τὸν τολμηρότατον ἐπιχειρῆσαί με διαβάλλειν, λέγονθ᾿ ὡς …

Isocrates Panathenaicus (Oration 12) 17–19

Anyway, so long as they [= Isocrates’ detractors] were abusing my discourses [logoi] only to the extent that they were reading them side-by-side [paranagignōskein] with their own, doing so in the worst possible way by making divisions of wording incorrectly and by mangling and corrupting the text in every which way, I [= Isocrates] was not yet worried about the things that were being reported to me about them. But then, a short time before the Great Panathenaia, I got very annoyed at them [= Isocrates’ detractors]. For, according to what was reported to me by some friends that I happened to meet, there were these run-of-the-mill sophists, sitting together in the Lyceum, three or four of them, the kind who tell you that they know everything, the kind who quickly turn up at every occasion, and here they were discussing various poets, and especially the poetry of Hesiod and Homer, saying on their own part nothing about them but rather performing rhapsodically [rhapsōideîn] their {123|124} poems [that is, the poems of Homer, Hesiod, and other poets] and mentioning [mnēmoneúein] the most elegant things [khariéstata] taken from what has previously been said [about the poems] by others. Then, when the bystanders showed their approval of their [= the sophists’] performance [diatribḗ], the most audacious one of them [= the sophists] started trying to slander me, saying that …

περὶ μὲν οὖν τῶν πεπαιδευμένων τυγχάνω ταῦτα γιγνώσκων. περὶ δὲ τῆς Ὁμήρου καὶ τῆς Ἡσιόδου καὶ τῆς τῶν ἄλλων ποιήσεως ἐπιθυμῶ μὲν εἰπεῖν, οἶμαι γὰρ ἂν παῦσαι τοὺς ἐν τῷ Λυκείῳ ῥαψῳδοῦντας τἀκείνων καὶ ληροῦντας περὶ αὐτῶν, αἰσθάνομαι δ᾿ ἐμαυτὸν ἔξω φερόμενον τῆς συμμετρίας τῆς συντεταγμένης τοῖς προοιμίοις.

Isocrates Panathenaicus (Oration 12) 33

Such, then, are my opinions about educated men. As for the poetry of Homer and Hesiod and the others, I [= Isocrates] do have the desire to speak about it, since I think I could silence those who rhapsodically perform [rhapsōideîn] their poetry [= the poetry of Homer and Hesiod] in the Lyceum and speak idly about them, but I sense that I am being carried along beyond the proportion set for the introductory remarks.

We may note with interest the criterion of khariéstata ‘the most elegant things’ that these men are ‘mentioning’ about poets like Homer, Hesiod, or others. This criterion, attributed to these ‘sophists in the Lyceum’ who perform just like rhapsodes and who allegedly offer no critical judgment of their own about such poets, resorting instead to ‘what has previously been said by others’, seems to me a precursor of the Aristarchean criteria which privilege those Homer editions that are supposedly khariésterai ‘more elegant’ or khariéstatai ‘most elegant’—and which prefer the variant reading that is supposedly khariestátē ‘most elegant’.[78]

We may note also the idea that these ‘sophists in the Lyceum’ are mnēmoneúontes ‘mentioning’ received knowledge about these poems, which they are able to perform just like rhapsodes. The question arises: are they not only performing but also ‘commenting’ or ‘making commentaries’ on these poems by virtue of ‘mentioning’ received knowledge about them?[79] We may compare the claim of Socrates, in Plato’s Ion, that a rhapsode is expected to be a hermēneús ‘interpreter’ of a poet like Homer, and that therefore he must surely know the poet’s intention, or diánoia (531c). In other words, the rhapsode is expected to make a commentary on the poet he performs.[80] To which Ion replies that he {124|125} can indeed ‘speak’ most beautifully about Homer, more so than any of his predecessors (καὶ οἶμαι κάλλιστα ἀνθρώπων λέγειν περὶ Ὁμήρου 530c; cf. 533c-d), and that the diánoiai that he ‘speaks’ about Homer are more beautiful than those spoken by any of his predecessors (ὡς οὔτε Μητρόδωρος ὁ Λαμψακηνὸς οὔτε Στησίμβροτος ὁ Θάσιος οὔτε Γλαύκων οὔτε ἄλλος οὐδεὶς τῶν πώποτε γενομένων ἔσχεν εἰπεῖν οὕτω πολλὰς καὶ καλὰς διανοίας περὶ Ὁμήρου ὅσας ἐγώ 530c-d).[81]

Although the format of diórthōsis was a matter of marginalia for both Aristotle and Aristarchus, we can expect to find important changes or improvements in the system developed by the experts at the Library of Alexandria. One such change is the way in which Aristarchus deals with accentual idiosyncrasies in Homer. For Aristotle, as we have seen, questions of Homeric accent were a matter of diórthōsis. For Aristarchus, by contrast, such questions were to be taken up not in the diórthōsis—which is by now to be interpreted in a more strict sense, closer to our own notions of ‘edition’—but in the hupomnḗmata or ‘commentaries’. Accents were not part of the text, as Aristarchus understood the concept of text. The assumption of Karl Lehrs and others[82] that the Homer edition of Aristarchus entailed the systematic placement of accent-signs over the words of Homeric verses has been challenged—successfully, I think—by Bernhard Laum.[83] As Laum has shown, information provided by Aristarchus about accentual variations in Homer was primarily recorded in his hupomnḗmata ‘commentaries’; and, however valuable it must have been, this information did not get systematically transferred into the texts of Homer as edited by the experts at the Library of Alexandria.[84] Only in the post-Aristarchean era did some of this information in his hupomnḗmata ‘commentaries’ make its {125|126} way from there into the marginalia of Homer texts.[85]

The situation was not radically different in the case of texts from outside the Library, as evidenced by the papyri from Hellenized Egypt: even these texts, some of which we may expect to have served as “scripts”—for learning situations or even for performances before audiences—are very seldom marked systematically for accent.[86] Still, though the accentual notations that we find in the texts from Hellenized Egypt are for the most part only sporadic, they provide a wealth of information about the history of ancient Greek accentuation.[87]

For the experts in the Library of Alexandria, questions of accent were primarily though not exclusively a matter of exegesis: since accent could be the only element distinguishing one word from another, it would be crucial to know the right accent in order to distinguish one meaning from another. For non-expert readers of papyri, by contrast, there were more practical considerations: questions of accent were primarily a matter of getting the pronunciation {126|127} right.[88] In the papyri, especially in those texts that served as scripts or quasi-scripts for performance[89] or just for teaching,[90] we see that accent tends to be marked mostly where it differed from everyday pronunciation: the maximum accentual difference—and therefore the maximum accentual marking—is to be found in the poetic texts and the minimum, in the prosaic.[91]

Despite the difficulties we encounter in trying to recover the information that Aristarchus and his predecessors had collected about Homeric accentual idiosyncrasies, this information is vital for purposes of arguing (1) that there was a continuum from Aristotle to Aristarchus in the procedures of editing and commenting on the Homeric text and (2) that there was a continuum in Homeric performance traditions that are indirectly reflected by these procedures.

The Homeric accentual idiosyncrasies reported by the experts at the Library of Alexandria are an ideal test-case, in that even Aristarchus, as we have seen, treated accents as if they were not at all part of the Homeric textual transmission, thus giving us reason to think that accents were instead part of the Homeric performance tradition inherited by rhapsodes. Moreover, we have noted a scholarly interest, as early as the fourth century, in the idiosyncrasies of Homeric accentuation and even in the actual performances of rhapsodes. In the first case, we have seen that Aristotle himself spoke of Homeric accentual questions in terms of diórthōsis. In the second case, we have seen Isocrates’ disparaging picture of ‘sophists’ acting like rhapsodes by performing Homeric, Hesiodic, or other such poems and by delivering learned commentaries about them.[92] {127|128}

For an example of the accentual idiosyncrasies in Homer, let us begin with the accentuation of ἀγυιῇ in Odyssey xv (441). The pattern that we might expect on the basis of Classical Greek is ἀγυίῃ, which in this case is also attested as a textual variant in the same verse. In a 1914 article, Jacob Wackernagel proposed that such sporadically attested prosodic anomalies as ἀγυιῇ reveal authentic traditional patterns.[93] Here the evidence of linguistics, as adduced by Wackernagel, is decisive. On the basis of comparative Indo-European linguistics, we can be sure that the anomalous final-syllable accentuation of ἀγυιῇ is an archaism and that the recessive accentuation of ἀγυίῃ is an innovation.[94] Wackernagel proposed further that the authenticity of prosodic anomalies like ἀγυιῇ is supported by the very fact that they caused problems for the ancient critics of Homer and even led to false analogies in the diction of later poets.[95]

The thesis, then, as formulated by Wackernagel and as more recently reformulated by myself and others, is that such transmitted accentual patterns were reported by Alexandrian critics not on the basis of grammatical conjecture but on the basis of the actual pronunciation perpetuated by rhapsodes in their performances of the Homeric poems.[96]

To this thesis I now add two further theses (the wording of both theses has been modified in this new edition of Poetry as Performance):

The reports of the Alexandrian critics about such authentic prosodic anomalies stemmed primarily from the Homeric hupomnḗmata ‘commentaries’ of Aristarchus.
What Aristarchus himself knew about prosodic anomalies stemmed not from any direct experiences with rhapsodes but from [A] his hearing the text of Homer read out loud to him by expert performers whose mode of delivery stemmed ultimately from the performance traditions of rhapsodes (I offer details in “Reading Homer out loud to Aristarchus,” §14 of the Prolegomena in my 2007 book, Homer the Classic) and [B] his reading the writings of earlier critics associated with the school of Aristotle.

In considering these two theses, I start with a most striking example: it is the accentuation of δηιοτῆτι in Iliad III (20). The scholia attribute this {128|129} anomalous accentuation explicitly to the authority of Aristarchus.[xxix] As Wackernagel points out, the accent of δηιοτής is anomalous when we compare the everyday Greek words κακότης, νεότης, φιλότης.[97] And yet, the accent of δηιοτής can be verified as an archaism in terms of Indo-European linguistics, on the basis of cognate formations, especially in Vedic Sanskrit.[98] What is striking in this example, as well as in many others, is that the witness for this anomalous form is specifically named in the scholiastic tradition as Aristarchus. There is an irony here, in that Aristarchus had the reputation, even in his own era and thereafter, of being the supreme Analogist, that is, of seeking to replace, in texts that he edited, anomalous forms with analogous forms.[99]

At this point, I draw attention to a work I published in 1970, where I accepted Wackernagel’s thesis of a rhapsodic performance tradition as the ultimate witness for the archaizing prosodic anomalies preserved in the transmitted Homeric text, and where I adduced the work of Karl Lehrs, who, even before Wackernagel, had mentioned the rhapsodes as a possible source for the preservation of prosodic anomalies in the Homeric text.[100] As Lehrs argues, the very fact that a later commentator like Herodian, who flourished around the second half of the second century CE, was quite knowledgeable about the prosodic patterns reported by the earlier {129|130} commentator Aristarchus but seemed to have no idea about how or where Aristarchus got his information suggests that the earlier critic relied on evidence that goes beyond the level of pure text.[101] That evidence, Lehrs inferred, may be the testimony of rhapsodes. A similar inference was made by Martin West in his 1970 Oxford Classical Dictionary article on rhapsodes, where he cites the arguments of Wackernagel.[102]

This inference, I argue, needs to be adjusted. What Aristarchus and his successors knew about prosodic anomalies was based on indirect rather than direct experiences with the rhapsodic tradition. And, as I also argue, Aristarchus had access to earlier relevant information stemming from the era of Aristotle.

If later Alexandrian critics like Aristarchus did not have direct access to rhapsodes, whether by choice or otherwise, then we have a reason to account for the almost complete absence of references in the Homer scholia to rhapsodes.[103] The one exception of which I know is a reference in the scholia bT for Iliad XXI (26) mentioning one “Hermodoros the rhapsode” (Ἑρμόδωρος ὁ ῥαψῳδὸς χεῖρας ἐναίρων ἤκουε “χειροκοπῶν,” κατεχρήσατο δέ).[104] Erbse remarks about Hermodoros: “vir aliunde ignotus.”[105] Hermodoros may have been a contemporary of Aristarchus, but it may be more likely that he is from an earlier era.[106] In any case, to judge from the bit of exegesis attributed to Hermodoros in the scholia, Aristarchus would surely have held him in low regard.[107]

A question remains: how exactly did the performance {130|131} traditions of rhapsodes preserve the archaic and ultimately anomalous accent patterns? The answer, I suggest, has to do with the inherited melodic contours of the Homeric hexameter, however reduced the component of melody may have become in hexameter as opposed to the lyric meters, with their overt melodies.[108] These reduced melodic contours, as perpetuated in the performance traditions of rhapsodes, would have aided in preserving archaisms in the pitch accentuation—archaisms that were otherwise leveled out in everyday Greek.[109] My reformulation here, which derives from my 1970 work, is built not only on the work of Wackernagel, which goes back to 1893,[110] but also on a 1951 work by Meinrad Scheller, whose own reformulation had originally led me to appreciate Wackernagel’s insights.[111] Scheller adduces a rule in traditional Greek music, to the effect that unaccented syllables did not have higher pitch than {131|132} the acute-accented syllable: with such preexisting rules, argues Scheller, embedded patterns of archaic accentuation could be preserved within a traditional melodic frame.[112] Such a frame is what I have just called the melodic contour.[113]

By now we have a variety of reasons to justify the idea that the Homer scholarship of the Alexandrian critics, especially when it comes to information about performance, was a continuation of traditions set by the school of Aristotle. A basic question remains, however: where do we find a historical point of contact between the Homeric research of Aristotle and that of the Alexandrian critics? I will argue in the course of the next two chapters that the missing link, as it were, was Demetrius of Phaleron.

Before we consider this link, however, we must follow through in confronting the more basic question, which is, how reliable is the editorial judgment of Alexandrian critics? Their reliability, as we have seen, must be tested with special reference to cases {132|133} where they report variant readings. On the matter of variant readings in accentuation, I have already concluded that the testimony of Aristarchus is indeed reliable. But we have yet to examine variants in actual wording. To test the authenticity of such variants as reported by the Alexandrian critics, we may use the criteria of comparative philology and formulaic analysis, just as Janko has done in testing the authenticity of readings taken from the Homer texts called koinaí by Aristarchus. The difference is that I will use these criteria to test only authenticity, not correctness. To repeat my previous point, the empirical methods of comparative philology and the study of oral tradition can be used only to defend a variant reading as traditional, not to establish it as the superior reading—let alone the correct reading.[114]

Let us start with the earliest of the three major Alexandrian Homer critics, Zenodotus. For purposes of the present argument, a telling example of a variant that is backed up by the authority of Zenodotus and that turns out to be justified through the application of comparative philology and through the study of the attested formulaic system of Homeric diction is the phrase ἔλπομαι εὐχόμενος ‘I hope, praying…’ in Iliad VIII (526), as opposed to εὔχομαι ἐλπόμενος ‘I pray, hoping…’, the reading that is found in the majority of manuscripts and that is supported by the authority of Aristarchus himself.[115] In his 1976 monograph on the formulaic behavior of the Homeric verb εὔχομαι, Leonard Muellner shows convincingly that in fact both manuscript variants, ἔλπομαι εὐχόμενος as well as εὔχομαι ἐλπόμενος, can be generated syntactically from parallel formulaic patterns attested elsewhere in the Homeric text even as we have it.[116] In this case, we happen to find more internal evidence as precedent for the reading given by Zenodotus, but there are clear indications that {133|134} the “Vulgate” reading—or, as I prefer to call it, the Koine reading—is “genuine epic diction” as well.[117]

To take the argumentation further, I insist that neither variant in this example has a claim to be the original reading or, to put it positively, that both variants are traditional multiforms. In a multitext format of editing Homer, we would have to take both forms into account, and then we could still pursue the question whether one variant was more suitable than another at a given time and place. An ideal example is Zenodotus’ reading οἰωνοῖσί τε δαῖτα in Iliad I (5), reported in Athenaeus (1.12f), as opposed to the reading attested in all the manuscripts, οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι.[118] There is evidence that Zenodotus’ reading follows a version that was current in the Athenian performance traditions of the fifth century, the era of the three canonical tragedians: witness the expression in Aeschylus’ Suppliants (800–801): κυσὶν δ᾿ ἔπειθ᾿ ἕλωρα κἀπιχωρίοις | ὄρνισι δεῖπνον.[119] Yet there is evidence that the manuscript reading οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, apparently defended by Aristarchus against Zenodotus, was also authentic: we have not only the external testimony of the manuscripts but {134|135} also the internal testimony of formulaic expressions, found throughout the Homeric poems, with the same idea of “hyperbolic allness” that we find in the idea that the corpses of heroes were prey to “all” birds.[120]

Let us pursue further the central question, whether any given variant reported on the authority of, say, Zenodotus, or even of Aristarchus, can be treated as just that, a variant, or whether it is merely a conjecture. The credibility of all Alexandrian editors, Aristarchus included, as witnesses to genuine readings was already seriously questioned in the eighteenth century by Friedrich August Wolf.[121] In recent times, the work of Marchinus van der Valk is most prominently cited for its sustained polemics against the credibility of all major Alexandrian scholars.[122]

There have been many variations in the history of such polemics. Earlier scholars could be selective in their approaches, concentrating their attacks on the reliability of some Alexandrian scholars while defending that of others. Thus for example Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and Giorgio Pasquali tended to favor Zenodotus at the expense of Aristarchus, while Karl Lehrs and Arthur Ludwich championed Aristarchus, often at the expense of Zenodotus.[123] T. W. Allen relied heavily on {135|136} Aristarchus,[124] and the trustworthiness of Aristarchus was also a cornerstone in the overall account of Rudolf Pfeiffer’s History of Classical Scholarship.[125]

More recently it has been the negative assessment of van der Valk that seems to dominate a number of influential works on Homer. With reference to the Alexandrian critics and to the so-called politikaí or ‘city scrolls’ of Homer, valued as independent textual sources by both Zenodotus and Aristarchus, Geoffrey Kirk in the introduction to his Iliad commentary has this to say about the polemics of van der Valk:

Moreover the city and individual texts, when their readings are taken as a whole, seem to be very erratic and to possess no special ancient authority; indeed the ‘common’ or ‘worse’ ones often appear, by modern criteria, more reliable than the ‘ancient’ or ‘more refined’ ones! Obviously this is a large and difficult topic; most scholars from Nauck and Wilamowitz on have held that Aristarchus sometimes made conjectures and on other occasions relied on earlier texts. That seems like a reasonable view on a priori grounds, but on the whole I side with van der Valk, who in Researches [on the text and Scholia of the Iliad] II, 86 records his opinion reached after astute if sometimes arcane studies, that ‘Aristarchus’ readings are nearly always subjective and personal conjectures’, and that the cited texts, whatever their description, are comparatively recent products of Hellenistic and especially Alexandrian criticism. That applies a fortiori to Zenodotus also, whose distinctly shorter text, in particular, is clearly the result of his applying stringent and sometimes {136|137} foolish standards of τὸ πρέπον, ‘what is appropriate’ in Homer, rather than being due to any authoritative special sources which modern criticism can discern.[126]

A similar though far more moderate position is taken by Richard Janko in the introduction to his commentary on Scrolls 13–16 of the Iliad, part of the overall Iliad commentary that has been put together under the general editorship of Kirk.[127] Although I have benefited a great deal from Janko’s discussion, and although I agree with much of what he has to say, I object when he writes: “I agree with van der Valk and Kirk (vol. I, 43) that most readings where the Alexandrians lack support in the papyri and other codices are conjectures.”[128] Janko speaks of van der Valk’s “radical re-evaluation” of Alexandrian scholarship, “which Allen had prized too highly.”[129]

I disagree, arguing that van der Valk’s efforts to discredit in general the reliability of the Alexandrian scholars and in particular the value of the variant readings that they report must be systematically juxtaposed with the efforts of earlier scholars like Arthur Ludwich, and even earlier ones like Karl Lehrs, whose work persuades me that variant readings attributed by later ancient sources to editors like Aristarchus were just that, variants attested in the extant manuscripts or manuscript traditions available to these editors, and that these variants did not as a rule stem from conjectures supposedly made by these editors or by their predecessors.[130] As for Zenodotus, a recent study by Klaus Nickau concludes after a thorough analysis that, even if this critic may have made conjectures, it is impossible in any given instance to {137|138} prove it.[131] Moreover, using the textual evidence of the actual surviving poems of Apollonius of Rhodes, Callimachus, and other Hellenistic authors, Antonios Rengakos has argued convincingly that these poets “cited” Homer—other Classicists would rather say “alluded” to Homer—on the basis of various privately-owned Homeric texts that either stem from the Homer text of Zenodotus, a contemporary of Apollonius and Callimachus, or are at least closely related to it; he argues, further, that the variants contained in these pre-Aristarchean texts are exactly that, variants, not conjectures.[132]

Further support for the thesis that the Alexandrian editors of Homer preserved genuine variants comes from the work of M. J. Apthorp, who argues that the edition of Aristarchus, taken as a whole, contained practically the sum total of genuine Homeric verses.[133] According to Apthorp, and here he follows the position of George M. Bolling, the numerus versuum of Aristarchus’ Homer edition is a functional norm, reflecting the conventions of an earlier era in Homer transmission.[134] Janko in fact implicitly {138|139} agrees with Apthorp’s inference that the plus-verses, that is, those verses that were evidently not included in Aristarchus’ edition, are “interpolations,” to be excised from modern editions of Homer.[135]

Despite my disagreement, for reasons to be elaborated presently, with Apthorp’s argument that only the verses contained in Aristarchus’ edition are “genuine,” I accept his judgment that Aristarchus’ numerus versuum is indeed genuine to the extent that it cannot be simply the cumulative result of conjectural selections.[136] I even accept his idea that the plus-verses are “interpolations” in the medieval manuscript tradition—though they would be so only retrospectively, from the hindsight of an Aristarchean editorial tradition.[137] But I find it difficult if not impossible to reconcile Janko’s {139|140} acceptance of Apthorp’s privileging of Aristarchus’ edition when it comes to variations in the number of verses—Bolling’s numerus versuum—with his simultaneous acceptance of van der Valk’s discrediting of this same edition when it comes to variations in the actual wording of verses.[138]

I propose that variations, both in wording and in numerus versuum, be treated as parallel phenomena as we reconsider the editorial task that confronted the Alexandrian Homer critics. With the establishment of any final text of Homer by Aristarchus, however faithfully this critic may have collected all the facts that he knew from all the available manuscript evidence, we would have to expect that he was left with a mass of variants, on the level of wording within lines, that would have to be omitted in the text established by him. If such a text becomes a definitive edition, from then on the re-entry of any of these variants may indeed be considered an interpolation retrospectively, from the standpoint of the hypothetical edition. Let us apply the same reasoning to the problem of numerus versuum. In this connection, we cannot lose sight of the mechanism of fluctuating expansion and compression in oral poetics, a phenomenon discussed at length elsewhere.[139] This phenomenon produces fluctuation between more and fewer lines, and the very fact of this fluctuation must be, at least in some cases, a matter of variants. Granted, if a shorter version is accepted into a canonical edition established by Aristarchus, then a longer version could re-enter the tradition represented by that edition only as an interpolation—even if this longer version is diachronically a variant of the given shorter version.

As for Kirk’s acceptance of the position taken by van der Valk, it is far more extreme than Janko’s: for Kirk to go even further than August Nauck—not to mention Wilamowitz—in insisting, as we have seen in the passage quoted above, that the Alexandrian editors invented and imposed their own readings is to ignore the arguments that Arthur Ludwich had worked out specifically to counter the arguments of Nauck and Wilamowitz concerning the alleged “conjectures” of the Alexandrian critics. {140|141}

On the other hand, I disagree with some aspects of the further inferences drawn by Ludwich and others from the evidence that they collected—evidence meant to show that the Homer edition of Aristarchus was a reliable collection of genuine readings. Even if it is justified to infer that Aristarchus’ edition accurately reflected an official Athenian version of Homer, and we will presently review some reasons for arguing such a possibility, we cannot infer further that Aristarchus’ edition therefore reflects the “original” Homer. We have already seen one decisive argument against this further inference, which is, that there are variant readings stemming from the editions known as koinaí—and rejected by Aristarchus—that are genuine readings as well.

There are also at least two other arguments against the inference that the Aristarchus edition of Homer represents the only genuine Homer. The first comes from the evidence of the so-called “eccentric” papyri.[140] As Stephanie West describes them, these papyri are “characterized by a high proportion of variants and additions,” and they can be dated mostly before around 150 BCE; they generally “die out” after this terminus, while “later papyri offer a text which differs little from that of the medieval manuscripts.”[141] West allows for the possibility—and this is as far as she is willing to concede—that these “eccentric” papyri from the Ptolemaic period contain variants derived from the performance traditions of rhapsodes.[142] The case could be made more forcefully.[143]

West and others explain the disappearance of “eccentric” versions as due directly or indirectly to the influence of Aristarchus’ new edition of Homer, which apparently was finished also around 150 BCE.[144] This theory seems to me insufficient. To start with the obvious, I agree with Allen that such a strategy of explanation, which requires {141|142} that an Alexandrian critic’s edition caused the obsolescence of the “eccentric” versions, “is an excellent example of the argument post hoc ergo propter hoc.”[145] West herself raises a problem with this theory: that even the papyri dated after 150 BCE “offer too wide a range of variants to allow the hypothesis that they might all be copies of a single edition.”[146] Any explanation of the obsolescence must take into account a factor mentioned by Allen, who notes that these “eccentric” versions “had depended on the rhapsode,” but now they “withered of themselves” as the rhapsodic art withered.[147] In this connection, we may note with interest the argument, advanced by Aldo di Luzio, that the linguistic peculiarities of the “eccentric” Homer papyri reflect a phase of rhapsodic transmission emanating from Athens.[148]

The subject of rhapsodes leads us to yet another argument against the inference that the Aristarchus edition represents the only genuine Homer. This time, the evidence comes from the works of Plato, whose citations of verses from Homer have been systematically studied by Jules Labarbe.[149] In the era of Plato, as we can deduce from these citations, there seems to have been no single Athenian Homer text of the sort posited by Ludwich and others in their arguing for some kind of archetype as a source for Aristarchus’ Homer edition. Labarbe finds demonstrably genuine variants that are distinct from those adopted by Aristarchus,[150] and some variants are in fact attested only in Plato and nowhere in the medieval manuscript tradition of Homer.[151] There is even an instance, with reference to a verse in Iliad XXIII (335), where Plato and Xenophon each report variant readings, each differing from the other, which do not survive into the medieval manuscript tradition.[152] {142|143}

Labarbe allows for the possibility that Plato used an Athenian text of Homer for his citations.[153] Still, there is no way to equate such a text with some kind of Athenian “archetype” as reconstructed by Ludwich and others.[154] More important, the Homeric variations attested in Plato, whether or not they were mediated by way of a text, must derive ultimately from the oral tradition: the criteria that Labarbe applies to test whether or not any Homeric variant cited in Plato is “genuine” are soundly based on Milman Parry’s methodology of formulaic analysis, and to this extent Labarbe is justified in claiming that at least some of the Homeric variations attested from the citations of Plato must stem from the performance traditions of rhapsodes.[155][xxx]

And yet, even though I resist the idea that a Homer text owned by Plato can be derived from an archetypal Athenian text of Homer, there is one aspect of Plato’s “text” that does indeed suggest the existence of at least a conceptual Athenian archetype. Unlike the “eccentric” papyri that are dated from around 300 to 150 BCE, Plato’s Homer is not characterized by plus-verses.[156] Labarbe attributes this aspect of stability in Plato’s Homer text to the hypothetical existence of a “control text,” which he equates tentatively with the so-called “Peisistratean Recension,” the popular influence of which would have regulated the numerus versuum even of commercial copies, such as the one that Plato presumably possessed.[157] In previous work, I have already given reasons to doubt the construct of such an early “control text,” arguing instead that a crystallizing Athenian performance tradition of Homer at the Panathenaia could be sufficient in and of itself to account for the quasi-textualization of Homeric poetry in the era of the Peisistratidai.[158] Patterns of stabilization in length of performance need not presuppose the agency of a written text.[159] {143|144}

More important for now, the stabilization of the numerus versuum in papyri after 150 BCE can hardly be due to the influence of a new Aristarchean edition—if indeed it is true that the Homer citations of Plato already reveal a similar pattern of stabilization, one that we find in place as early as the fourth century.[160] In the discussion that follows, extending into the next two chapters, I prefer to argue that any stabilization of the Homeric numerus versuum in the fourth century is due to the regulation, by the Athenian State, of rhapsodic performance traditions, and that the “eccentric” papyri dating from around 300 to 150 BCE, with their plus-verses, reveal a later and relatively more fluid phase of rhapsodic tradition when such regulation by the State was no longer in effect.[161]

That the “eccentric” papyri become obsolete in a still later phase, after around 150 BCE, raises the possibility that we are witnessing the beginnings of some new kind of interference by the State, in this case the state of Ptolemaic Egypt.[162] Such a possibility, however, is not necessarily incompatible with Allen’s theory that the performance tradition of the rhapsodes had by this point “withered.” Granted, Allen’s metaphor surely overstates the case in that we cannot say that the performance traditions of Homer simply died out around 150 BCE. As we will see, {144|145} they persisted for several centuries beyond that point, even in areas like Hellenized Egypt. But at least the higher levels of flexibility in the rhapsodic tradition as reflected in the “eccentric” papyri do indeed seem to have ceased after 150 BCE or so, and this cessation coincides with the emergence of the Aristarchean text of Homer as the only version of Homer.

The ultimate outcome, with the atrophy of the “eccentric” papyri after 150 BCE or so, is that both the later performance traditions and the later commercial “books” or scrolls of Homer revert to reflecting more closely an earlier and more canonical Athenian rhapsodic tradition that pre-dates the era of the “eccentric” papyri. There will be more to say about such a rhapsodic tradition in the next two chapters. Further, these patterns of reversion in the popular Homer do indeed correspond to the canonical new edition that had just been prepared by Aristarchus—an edition that reflects most closely a canonical Athenian tradition. Thus it may be more apt to find a metaphor other than withering away, such as sclerosis, in describing the fate of the performance tradition of Homer after 150 BCE. We may prefer, however, a metaphor that leaves room for the esthetic possibilities of the envisaged process, and thus I revert to the image with which we started this chapter, that of crystallization.

Let us return to the important implications of what Labarbe had discovered in his study of Plato’s Homer. We have seen that at least some of the variations that are attested in this instance of Homeric transmission reveal clearly the performance traditions of rhapsodes. “If Labarbe and other modern critics are right,” as van der Valk comments, then “the Homeric text was originally transmitted orally.”[163][xxxi] “It is obvious,” he continues, “that the acceptance of this theory has far-reaching consequences.”[164] In fact, “the whole basis of our Homeric text becomes uncertain.”[165] To put it another way: if Labarbe is right, we can no longer determine the archetype.

Van der Valk’s reaction is to posit a purely textual rather than oral transmission, going back all the way to a time when “Homer {145|146} put down his poems in writing.”[166] Whereas I prefer Labarbe’s findings about a rhapsodic phase of transmission and resist van der Valk’s radical alternative, Labarbe makes further inferences about his findings that I cannot share. According to Labarbe, we simply do not know exactly what the real Homer said, but we do know that the rhapsodes could change it in the context of a continuing oral tradition.[167] So this critic too, like those who believe in a purely textual transmission, posits an archetype, albeit an unwritten one, setting up yet again the choice between right variants that supposedly come from this archetype and wrong ones that come from elsewhere. According to Labarbe’s model, there are inferior variants stemming from the rhapsodes and superior ones, from Homer, so that only the second category is allowed to be “authentic.”[168] And yet, the criteria for establishing what is superior or inferior, right or wrong, seem to me subjective.

What is needed is a set of objective editorial criteria that take into account the phenomenon of variation in reperformance. This phenomenon is reflected not only in the textual variants that we find in Plato’s Homer but also in those reported by Alexandrian critics like Aristarchus. Again I find that most arguments about whether a given variant is spurious or genuine, inferior or superior, are unfounded. We are entitled to like or dislike any given variants that the various Alexandrian critics had chosen from time to time, and we may even classify these critics according to their methods or prejudices in choosing one kind of variation over another, but what we cannot do is simply assume that they have made a conjecture just because their choice of a reading does not suit our own sense of editorial verisimilitude.[169] {146|147} A rigorous case-by-case review of instances where van der Valk has argued that ancient critics substituted conjectures for genuine readings can lead to conclusions quite different from his. The case-by-case review of Ludwich 1884 / 1895 remains in my opinion a most valuable aid.

There has been one such review by Vittorio Citti, in which many of the variant readings stemming from the politikaí or ‘city editions’ of Homer have been defended, in my opinion successfully, from van der Valk’s arguments against their authenticity.[170] Though I disagree wherever Citti concludes that a given reading of the politikaí is “superior” to that of the surviving manuscript traditions,[171] or for that matter wherever he says that a reading is “inferior,”[172] we may note with interest that he treats some variants, like the reported reading χέει ἄσπετον of the Massaliotike at Iliad XII 281 (scholia AT) and the reading χέει ἔμπεδον of the surviving manuscripts (and of Aristarchus: scholia AT), as “both ancient” (ambedue antiche).[173] The central question is not even whether both such readings are ancient but more simply whether both are authentic. {147|148}

In general, a most convincing proof of a variant’s authenticity is its relative archaism. A particularly striking example is the reported reading δούρασιν ἄμφω of the Massaliotike at Iliad XXI 162 (scholia AT), with an archaic indeclinable ἄμφω (also attested in Homeric Hymn to Demeter 15), as opposed to the reading δούρασιν ἀμφίς of the surviving manuscripts. Still, δούρασιν ἀμφίς may be just as archaic in terms of a formulaic system that could generate both forms.[174] What turns out to be an even more striking example of proven archaism appears in a variant: at Iliad XXI 351, where the surviving manuscripts read ἠδὲ κύπειρον, the politikaí read ἠδὲ κύπαιρον (scholia AT: αἱ ἐκ τῶν πόλεων ἠδὲ κύπαιρον εἶχον). Citti thinks that kúpairos is a “Dorism” as distinct from Ionic kúpeiros,[175] while van der Valk says that kúpairos “is, in my opinion, a corruption or an instance of local orthography.”[176] I propose instead that kúpairos is an archaism, which could have entered the oral poetic tradition at a relatively early period, perhaps even as early as the second millennium BCE: in the Linear B documents, for example, we find the form ku-pa-ro2 = kuparyos, ancestor of kúpairos.[177] It is precisely this same form kúpairos that we find attested in the “city editions.” Even in this case, however, I would argue that kúpeiros too is an authentic variant.

It is instructive in the context of this discussion to assess van der Valk’s opinion about a pair of variant readings that we have already considered, the case of the phrasing ἔλπομαι εὐχόμενος ‘I hope, praying…’ at Iliad VIII 526, which is the reported reading of Zenodotus and is found in a minority of manuscripts, as opposed to εὔχομαι ἐλπόμενος ‘I pray, hoping…’, which is the reported reading of Aristarchus and is found in a majority of manuscripts. In this case, van der Valk concludes from the sense of the Homeric passage in question that “Zenodotus’ reading seems to be the better one.”[178] So Zenodotus is here exceptionally being rescued from the charge of conjecture. But now the blame is shifted to Aristarchus instead: according to van der Valk, if Zenodotus {148|149} did not make a conjecture in this case, then surely Aristarchus must have.[179] Whoever has the “better” reading, if we follow this line of thought, must be using the real text. Whoever has the “worse” reading, to continue in this line, must be making a conjecture. The problem with such an approach, as Muellner’s findings reveal, is that the question of a “better” or “worse” reading is moot here, once we re-examine the question from the standpoint of formula analysis: both readings can in fact be shown to be genuine.[xxxii]

Thus I reaffirm my position that we need to take all authenticated variants into account in establishing a multitext format for the editing of Homer. Only within such a multitext editorial framework can we turn to questions of whether one variant was more suitable than another at a given time and place. But it is important also to reaffirm that Aristarchus and his predecessors, even though they collected a wide range of variants, had in mind an editorial goal very different from the one I am advocating. They treated the textual traditions of Homer as primary evidence and the performance traditions, which as we will see were still alive in their time, as mostly irrelevant to their primary goal, which was the recovery of an original Homer.[180]

In this respect, Aristotle may have had a different outlook, if I am not mistaken in detecting in his work traces of a sustained interest in the performative aspects of Homer. A clear example is his critique, in Poetics 1462a, of the techniques of a rhapsode called Sosistratos, otherwise unknown to us, as an actor.[181] It may also be pertinent to cite the anecdote that has Plato giving Aristotle the sobriquet anagnṓstēs ‘the one who reads out loud’ (Vita Marciana, Aristotle Fragments 428.2 ed. Rose).[182] Rudolf Blum remarks about this sobriquet: “in order to understand the joke one must remember that in Antiquity people read aloud, but that well-to-do gentlemen had slaves read aloud to them.”[183] We may note that anagnṓstēs can designate, more specifically, a slave who is trained {149|150} to read out loud to copyists in the process of book-production.[184] As we will see in the next chapter, however, to say this much about the meaning of anagnṓstēs may not be enough, especially in view of a custom current in an earlier historical period, conveyed by the verb paranagignṓskein, of reading out loud to performers.[185] For now, however, it is enough to say that the sobriquet anagnṓstēs shows that Aristotle was interested in how the text of Homer should sound, as it were.

By contrast, as we move forward in time to the era of Aristarchus and his followers, we find that they were interested almost exclusively in the textual rather than the performative dimensions of Homeric transmission.[186] To that extent they were not all that different from many contemporary investigators of the Homeric text, who assume that their task is a quest to recover the original composition despite the historical reality of multiformity in the text—a reality that reflects multiformity in performance.

The intellectual framework, then, of this quest for the real Homer was pioneered by the likes of Aristarchus. It seems clear that they believed in a real Homer, an original Homer. And to believe this much is of course nothing new. It was not only the editors of Homeric texts who posited an original: so too did myth, and myth posits an original author as well, called Homer.[187] The further back we go in time, the greater the repertoire of this Homer, including in the earlier times all the so-called Cycle, all the Theban epics, and so on; as we have seen, the very notion of “Cycle” had once served as a metaphor for all of Homer’s poetry.[188]

The further we go forward in time, by contrast, the less there is that Homer did himself. Not only is his repertoire becoming restricted to the Iliad and Odyssey: there are many parts even of {150|151} these epics that now become suspect: for example, Homer surely could not have composed the Shield of Achilles in Iliad XVIII (483–608), in the opinion of Zenodotus (scholia A for Iliad XVIII 483a).[189] And the original Homer of this more critical and suspicious age becomes all the more specific and even brittle in identity, reflecting ever more the critics’ understanding of his archetypal creation, his text. For Aristarchus, it appears that Homer was an Athenian who lived around 1000 BCE, in the time of Athenian migrations (Proclus F a 58–62 Severyns; cf. Life of Homer p. 244.13, p. 247.8 Allen; cf. scholia A for Iliad XIII 197);[190] moreover, the scholiastic tradition stemming ultimately from Aristarchus implies that Homer wrote his poems (scholia A for Iliad XVII 719) and that Hesiod actually had a chance to read them (scholia A for Iliad XII 22a).[191]

Even though Aristarchus, following the thought-patterns of myth, posited a Homeric original, he nevertheless accepted and in fact respected the reality of textual variants. He respected variants because, in terms of his own working theory, it seems that any one of them could have been the very one that Homer wrote (and Hesiod read). That is why he makes the effort of knowing the many different readings of so many manuscripts. He is in fact far more cautious in methodology than some contemporary investigators of Homer who may be more quick to say which is the right reading and which are the wrong ones. Aristarchus may strike us as naïve in reconstructing an Athenian Homer who “wrote” around 1000 BCE, but that kind of construct enables him to be more rigorous in making choices among variants.[192]

What, then, would Aristarchus have lost, and what would we stand to lose, if it really is true that the variants of Homeric textual tradition reflect for the most part the multiforms of a {151|152} performance tradition? If you accept the reality of multiforms, you forfeit the elusive certainty of finding the original composition of Homer but you gain, and I think this is an important gain, another certainty, an unexpected one but one that may turn out to be much more valuable: you recover a significant portion of the Homeric repertoire. In addition, you recover a sense of the diachrony. From the sketch of Homeric periodization that I have just offered, one can develop a sense of different Homers for different times, such as a relatively “proper Homer” for the late fourth century and thereafter, periods 4 and 5, as opposed to a “primitive Homer” in, say, periods 1 and 2, the era before the reforms of the Peisistratidai. As for period 3, we will see in the next chapter that the most appropriate description may be the “common” Homer—or let us say the Homer of the Koine.

Let us return to the fact that some Homer experts who accept Lord’s formulation of “oral” poetry seem ready at times to discount the value of Aristarchus’ editorial repertoire of variants, which go far beyond the Koine or “Vulgate” texts of Homer. There is an irony here. It would be more understandable for proponents of a “writing Homer” to reject variant X or Y, accepting Aristarchus’ implicit premise that only one variant can be right and that Homer could not have written X or Y for such-and-such reasons. It is unnecessary, however, for proponents of an “oral Homer” to insist on one and only one right version, unless they are also willing to believe that the oral tradition ground to a dead halt sometime around the second half of the eighth century BCE, after the text was supposedly dictated.[193] In earlier work, presenting arguments that challenge the idea of an early dictation, I substituted an “evolutionary model” to account for the process of Homeric text-fixation.[194] Here I have refined that model with a scheme of five consecutive periods of Homeric tradition culminating with the text of Aristarchus. Still, we are left with the clear impression that multiformity, however reduced, remains a persistent feature even in the terminal phases of this tradition. {152|153}

Footnotes

[1] Cf. GM 29: “the language of a body of oral poetry like the Iliad and Odyssey does not and cannot belong to any one time, any one place: in a word, it defies synchronic analysis.” Cf. di Luzio 1969:11, where he refers to the “diachronic” nature of oral epic composition; cf. D’Ippolito 1984. In my own work, the terms synchronic / diachronic refer not to the internal standpoint of any given structure but only to the external standpoint of one who analyzes that structure (cf. PH 4). Thus it is preferable to say that the analysis of oral composition requires the simultaneous application of synchronic and diachronic perspectives, and that the absence of either of these perspectives can lead to a warped analysis. Aldo di Luzio offers a comparable formulation that appears toward the end of his work, p. 138. {He cites Pagliaro on Dante; in an earlier context, p. 13, he cites Pagliaro Saggi pp. xii ff. and Nuovi saggi pp. 381–408.He cites Pagliaro on Dante; in an earlier context, p. 13, he cites Pagliaro Saggi pp. xii ff. and Nuovi saggi pp. 381-408.}

[2] Cf. Lord 1995 ch. 2.

[3] Cf. PH 45–46.

[4] Kraft 1989:278n18, who continues: “I have the impression that this has been the fate of many Hungarian dance traditions in the villages of Hungary proper.” For more on the rigid/fluid distinction, see PH 60–61.

[5] Miller 1982b:15 and pp. 5–15 in general, with a catalogue of instances in contemporary scholarship where the term “improvise” has been oversimplified with reference to oral tradition.

[6] Royce 1977:104.

[7] PH 60–61.

[8] PH 53.

[9] See also HQ ch. 3; and Seaford 1994:144-154. Cook 1995:4 extends my evolutionary model: “the crystallization of the Odyssean tradition into a written text, the growth of Athenian civic ritual, and the process of state formation in Attica were simultaneous and mutually reinforcing developments.”

[10] Andersen 1991, especially p. 26 (where he uses the term “crystallization”), with further bibliography. At p. 37 he says about one of his informants: “Stanley Robertson is capable of imitating the singing styles of his aunt Jeannie and his cousin Lizzie to perfection, but he will never sing like them in public.”

[11] Marler 1986. I owe this information to Professor Heather Williams (per litteras 23 September 1993).

[12] The results of Williams’ work are cited from the lucid account of M. R. Montgomery, Boston Globe 26 August 1993 pp. 61 and 64.

[13] Montgomery 1993.

[14] Montgomery 1993, quoting Williams.

[15] On the concept of a multitext edition of Homer, see Bird 1994.

[16] The category of “period,” used here in setting up tentative boundaries of periodization, is meant to be more precise than the category of “phase” and the subcategory of “stage” as I use those words in HQ 109–10.

[17] The word is used in a narrow sense, to be defined below.

[18] The word is used in a narrow sense, to be defined below.

[19] The word is used in a narrow sense, to be defined below.

[20] Summary in ch. 3 above.

[21] For more about the Athenian impact on the Homeric tradition in what I call here the third period, see HQ 42–63. For a discussion of the evidence of vase paintings as a criterion for determining the gradual fixation of Homeric traditions around the middle of the sixth century, especially in Athens, see Lowenstam 1993, especially p. 216.

[22] HQ 42–43.

[23] HQ 75–76n37. For a reference to reforms, instituted by Pericles, of performance traditions at the Panathenaia, see Plutarch Pericles 13.11: φιλοτιμούμενος δ᾿ ὁ Περικλῆς τότε πρῶτον ἐψηφίσατο μουσικῆς ἀγῶνα τοῖς Παναθηναίοις ἄγεσθαι, καὶ διέταξεν αὐτὸς ἀθλοθέτης αἱρεθείς, καθότι χρὴ τοὺς ἀγωνιζομένους αὐλεῖν ἢ ᾄδειν ἢ κιθαρίζειν. ἐθεῶντο δὲ καὶ τότε καὶ τὸν ἄλλον χρόνον ἐν ᾨδείῳ τοὺς μουσικοὺς ἀγῶνας ‘It was then for the first time that Pericles, ambitious as he was, got a decree passed that there should be a competition [agṓn] in mousikḗ at the Panathenaia, and he set up the rules, having been elected as an athlothétēs [= organizer of the athloi ‘contests’] for those who were competing [agōnízesthai]—rules for them to follow about the aulós-playing and the singing and the kithárā-playing. At that point in time and in other periods of time as well, it was in the Odeum that people used to be spectators [theâsthai] of competitions [agônes] in mousikḗ.’

[24] This note elaborates on the previous note. Davison 1968:63 argues that Plutarch’s reference to Pericles’ reform should not be taken to mean that the institutions he mentions actually began with the reform. Herington 1985:86 infers that the contests of kitharōidoí ‘lyre-singers’, aulōidoí ‘pipe-singers’, kitharistaí ‘lyre-players’, aulētaí ‘pipe-players’- as indicated by αὐλεῖν ἢ ᾄδειν ἢ κιθαρίζειν, may be understood here as being in addition to contests of rhapsōidoí. I agree, on the basis of the comparative evidence provided by parallel wording in other passages such as Isocrates Panegyricus 159, where Homeric performances are described as taking place ἐν τοῖς μουσικοῖς ἄθλοις. We may compare also the parallel wording in IG XII ix 189, an inscription from Eretria in Euboea (ca. 340 BCE). Line 5: τιθεῖν τὴμ πόλιν ἀγῶνα μουσικῆς. Lines 10-15: τὴν δὲ μουσικὴν τιθεῖν ῥαψωιδοῖς, | αὐλωιδοῖς, κιθαρισταῖς, κιθαρωιδοῖς, παρωιδοῖς, | τοὺς δὲ τὴν μουσικὴν ἀγωνιζομένους πάντα[ς] | ἀγωνίζεσθαι προσόδιον τεῖ θυσίει ἐν τεῖ αὐλεῖ ἔ|[χο]ντας τὴν σκευὴν ἥμπερ ἐν τοῖ ἀγῶνι ἔχουρ[ι]. For more on rhapsōidoí in agonistic contexts where they are mentioned as parallel to kitharōidoí and aulōidoí, see PH 29, 54, 104 (with reference to the Eretrian inscription, IG XII ix 189). In light of the fact that Plutarch describes Pericles as taking on the role of athlothétēs [= organizer of the athloi ‘contests’] (καὶ διέταξεν αὐτὸς ἀθλοθέτης αἱρεθείς), we may compare Aristotle Constitution of the Athenians 60.1, where the athlothétai are described as arranging the Panathenaic procession and the agṓn of mousikḗ: διοικοῦσι τήν τε πομπὴν τῶν Παναθηναίων καὶ τὸν ἀγῶνα τῆς μουσικῆς. Elsewhere (HPC), I argue the following point: when Pericles is represented as saying in Thucydides 2.41.4 that ‘we’ Athenians do not need Homer as an epainétēs, an official giver of praise, it is implicit that ‘we’ Athenians already own Homer and therefore do not need to hear ‘our’ ownership made explicit by way of excessive references to Athens in the narrative of Homer. Relevant is the interpretation offered by Lardinois 1995:161 for the Homeric verse that we know as Odyssey xvi 161, οὐ γάρ πως πάντεσσι θεοὶ φαίνονται ἐναργεῖς ‘for it is not to everyone that the gods appear as manifest’. According to Lardinois, this verse may be interpreted as an oblique Homeric reference, in the context of Homeric performance at the Panathenaia, to the notional presence of Athena at the Panathenaia. According to this interpretation, the verse implies that those attending the Panathenaia are a privileged audience. Also relevant is the fact that in Odyssey iii 240 Athena makes herself enargēs ‘manifest’ to Nestor.

[25] HQ 66–69.

[26] HQ 66–69.

[27] HQ 68.

[28] In any case, my literal understanding of “scripture” is not casual: I take seriously the efforts of Smith 1993 to achieve greater semantic precision in using this word. At p. 209, he notes: “even when scripture is seen as, is understood to be, explicitly written, it is an error to suppose that this means written rather than oral.” Cf. Graham 1987:7.

[29] Summary in ch. 3 above.

[30] PH 22.

[31] Cf. PH 21–28.

[32] GM 42, based on a formulation made in N 1982. This formulation is corroborated by the article of Ford 1988.

[33] GM 40–47. Citti 1966:8 uses the criteria of stadio di trasmissione libera and stadio di trasmissione rigida to distinguish what he describes as the era of the aoidós from that of the rhapsōidós. I agree with the wording of his criteria but not with its application to the concepts of aoidós and rhapsōidós, in that I am arguing for a broader range of applications in the case of the latter word. Also, in the extensive report on rhapsodes in the scholia to Pindar Nemean 2.1e, we may note the usage of apangéllein in referring to the performance of rhapsodes in the circle of Kynaithos (οἱ περὶ Κύναιθον … τὴν Ὁμήρου ποίησιν … ἐμνημόνευον καὶ ἀπήγγελλον) in light of the usage of this same word in Herodotus 7.142.1, as discussed in PH 168. On the relationship of master and disciple in the traditions of the rhapsodes (as indicated by the expression οἱ περὶ Κύναιθον), see Ritoók 1970:23–24.

[34] PH 29n66 on the sunthútai Mousôn Hēsiodeíōn ‘fellow-sacrificers to the Hesiodic Muses’ at Thespiae, IG VII 1785. Cf. the reference to paideutaí ‘students’ belonging to a gymnasium called the Mimnermeîon (after the poet Mimnermus) at Smyrna, Ionia/Smyrna doc. 661.9 [CIG 3376]; there was a gymnasium called the Homēreîon (after Homer) at Chios, Ionia/Chios doc. 268b4 [CIG 2221]; there is also a Homēreîon at Smyrna, Ionia/Smyrna doc. 703.1, and at Delos, Inscriptions de Délos 2.443.faceB.fr b.147.

[35] N 1985:46–51.

[36] Pfeiffer 1968:210–212.

[37] Pfeiffer 1968:212.

[38] Pfeiffer 1968:172.

[39] Edited by Erbse 1969–1988. On the D scholia, not covered in Erbse’s edition, see Montanari 1979:3–25 (cf. Henrichs 1971, especially pp. 100–105).

[40] The historical sequence formulated here, with an Aristophanes edition followed by an Aristarchus commentary followed by an Aristarchus edition followed by a second Aristarchus commentary followed by a second edition by the school of Aristarchus, is essentially the construct of Pfeiffer 1968:217; followed by Janko 1992:26. On the second edition, supposedly produced by Aristarchus’ students, see Apthorp 1980:132. On the notion of a hupómnēma ‘commentary’, see Lührs 1992:10, who visualizes it as a combination of what we would call an apparatus criticus and a commentarius criticus. On the early sources of the D scholia, especially as mediated in the format of the hupómnēma, see Montanari 1979:14–15.

[41] Pfeiffer 1968:217–218.

[42] Janko 1992:26. Also Ritoók 1987:15, who summarizes the Alexandrian editorial criteria of preferring some readings over others as follows: relative age of manuscript, majority of manuscripts showing a given reading, quality of given manuscript, internal evidence.

[43] Allen 1924:307 says that the editions of the Alexandrians “were not editions in the modern sense, that is so many hundred copies (ἴσα) produced by scribes from a single original. The words ékdosis and diórthōsis were often verbals and meant ‘proposal for edition’, and ‘revision’.”

From the usage of the Homeric scholia, I infer that ékdosis means the production of a new copy containing readings based on the procedure of diórthōsis. This procedure entails, if we follow Pfeiffer p. 94, the collating of manuscripts and the emending of texts—which would amount to a “recension.” We should expect, of course, the quality of the procedure to vary from editor to editor (cf. Cameron 1990:117 on the editorial criteria of Eutocius, early sixth century CE). I prefer the formulation of Blum 1991:65n10, who says that ékdosis and diórthōsis are practically the same: “there was no ékdosis without diórthōsis, there were only different degrees of diórthōsis.” Allen goes on to say (p. 308): “If, as has been remarked, Aristarchus’ ‘edition’ had been multiplied and put upon the market, his successors Ammonius and Dionysius Thrax could never have quarrelled about his readings.”

[44] The work of Apthorp 1980, reinforcing the arguments of Pfeiffer 1968:215–217 against Erbse 1959, argues persuasively that Aristarchus did indeed produce his own texts of Homer. Cf. Lührs 1992:6-13. For reasons about to be discussed, however, I am not persuaded by Apthorp’s arguments that the texts of Aristarchus recovered practically all that was genuine in the Homeric tradition, any more than I am persuaded by the arguments of others, also about to be discussed, seeking to prove that Aristarchus’ base text was riddled with spurious conjectures. Further, we will see that there are important insights to be gained from the position taken by Erbse and defended by Nickau 1977:18–19 against Pfeiffer, especially with reference to the fluidity, however reduced, of textual transmission even after the editions of Aristarchus.

[45] On the vagueness of the term ékdosis as used in texts other than the scholia and with reference to the work of other scholars, for example Apollonius Dyscolus, see also Nickau 1977:18–19n39, citing a concession on this point by Pfeiffer 1968:216.

[46] Allen 1924:283–296, 297–299; cf. Janko 1992:22 and Apthorp 1980:47–48. As Apthorp (p. 102n2) points out, feminine adjectives like khariésterai presuppose nouns like ekdóseis ‘editions’ (in however limited a sense). I find one clear instance, scholia A for Iliad III 10, where the Chios and the Massalia texts are referred to as ekdóseis ‘editions’. For reasons that will become clear later, it is important to note the usage of the superlative khariéstatai ‘most elegant’, as in the scholia for Iliad II 53a (A), II 164a (A), II 192b (A), II 196c (T), III 18a (A), III 51 (A). Moreover, in the scholia for Odyssey x 70 (hypothesis format), a reading adopted by Zenodotus is followed by the following comment: καὶ ἔστι χαριεστάτη ἡ γραφή ‘and it is this way of writing it that is most elegant [khariestátē]’.

[47] Allen 1924:277–278; cf. Janko 1992:26 and Apthorp 1980:47–48. As Apthorp (p. 102n2) points out, neuter adjectives like eikaîa presuppose nouns like antígrapha ‘copies’.

[48] Janko 1992:22, 26. I find one case, scholia A for XVII 214, where koinaí explicitly describes ekdóseis, that is, the word for ‘edition’ (in however limited a sense) in the plural. Janko p. 26n29 argues that the references by Didymus epitomators to “all” or “most” manuscripts should be understood to mean all or most of the named editions (including that of Aristarchus himself), not the manuscripts in general. There may be, however, an analogous pattern of reference to unnamed editions, if Allen 1924:278 is justified in printing the emended reading of scholia A for Iliad VIII 349, αἱ πλείους τῶν δημωδῶν ‘the majority of the dēmṓdeis [= popular texts]’ (emended by Villoison from αἱ πλείους τὴν δημώδη), which would be the equivalent of αἱ πλείους ‘the majority’ in scholia T.

[49] Relevant is the question formulated by Allen 1924:278: “is there ground to believe that the koinḗ originally meant ‘usual’, ‘universal’, and that the disparaging sense was secondary?” The discussion that follows will treat in detail Allen’s own answer to this question.

[50] Janko 1992:26.

[51] Janko 1992:26.

[52] Janko 1992:26.

[53] Cf. e.g. Davidson 1994:54–72.

[54] On references to a diórthōsis of the Iliad by Aristotle, see Blum 1991:21–22 and 69–70n45, who nevertheless sides with the view that “the Alexandrian philologists of Homer … did not pay any attention to the Aristotelian diórthōsis of the Iliad” (p. 70). In what follows, I attempt to explain why there are gaps in references by Alexandrian critics to the editorial judgments of the Peripatetic School.

[55] The phrasing here reflects the attested usage of diórthōsis in the sense of an ad hoc editorial judgment, as distinct from that of an overall editorial procedure. Both senses are well represented in the Homer scholia.

[56] Blum 1991:70n46.

[57] Pfeiffer 1968:98; relevant are the perceptive remarks of Rengakos 1993:15.

[58] Blum 1991:22. We would expect questions of diórthōsis to be raised in the six books of Aristotle’s Homeric Questions, now lost, to which Diogenes Laertius 5.81 makes reference.

[59] Pfeiffer 1968:98.

[60] Blum 1991:101 considers 291 BCE as a possible date for Zenodotus’ appointment, but he judiciously weighs the alternative possibilities of later datings. On this topic, I refer to the ongoing work of J. D. Morgan, who has revived the long-neglected argument that it was Ptolemy II, not Ptolemy I, who appointed Zenodotus head of the Library of Alexandria and tutor to his children, and that Ptolemy III, not Ptolemy II, made Apollonius of Rhodes head of the library and tutor to his son Ptolemy IV, not Ptolemy III. This reassessed chronology makes it possible to date Zenodotus’ editorial activity to the reign of Ptolemy II (283-246), after the death of Demetrius of Phaleron in the late 280-s (on which subject there is more in ch. 7).

[61] For an objective assessment of the Suda reference on Zenodotus, see Blum 1991:101. The idea that Zenodotus, in the process of editing Homer, did indeed produce his own text is argued—to my mind persuasively—by Rengakos 1993:12–14 (his discussion also provides an admirable bibliographical survey of opposing views). He also argues that Aristarchus had direct access to the Homer edition of Zenodotus, even if Didymus and Aristonicus may not have (p. 14). So too Apollonius of Rhodes and Callimachus, both contemporaries of Zenodotus, had access to such a text (p. 14). More on this point later.

[62] Pfeiffer 1968:105–106.

[63] Pfeiffer 1968:117–118.

[64] Pfeiffer 1968:106.

[65] Pfeiffer 1968:106.

[66] Cf. Allen’s argument on diórthōsis, as quoted at n43.

[67] Blum 1991:22.

[68] Laum 1928:105.

[69] Laum 1928:104–105. Aristotle Poetics 1461a21 identifies Hippias of Thasos as the initiator of the interpretation οὗ instead of οὐ. What matters here is not the philological validity of the interpretation itself, which is negligible, but the usage of the word diorthoûn with reference to diacritics. Cf. Hintenlang 1961:76n1, who also gives another example of such issues of interpretation: Aristotle Poetics 1461a22–23 (cf. Plato Republic 2.383a) on διδόμεν for δίδομεν in Iliad II 15.

[70] Laum 1928:104–105.

[71] Laum 1928:108.

[72] Laum 1928:106.

[73] See Callisthenes FGH 124 T 10; cf. Pfeiffer 1968:71.

[74] The Vita Marciana speaks of Aristotle’s ékdosis of the Iliad, which he gave to Alexander (τὰ γεγραμμένα αὐτῷ ὁμηρικὰ ζητήματα, καὶ ἡ τῆς Ἰλιάδος ἔκδοσις ἣν ἔδωκε τῷ Ἀλεξάνδρῳ Aristotle Fragments p. 427.5 ed. Rose). In the Vita Latina, this edition is called a dictamen (Aristotle Fragments p. 443.5–6 ed. Rose: Homerica commenta scripta ab eo et Yliadis dictamen quod dedit Alexandro). For more on the nárthēx edition of Homer—and on the reliability of the reports about it—see ch. 7.

[75] It goes without saying that, for Isocrates, the writing of a speech, expressed by way of gráphein ‘write’ (cf. Panathenaicus 1), is tantamount to the composing and even the notional ‘delivering’ of a speech. On gráphein ‘write’ as a notional speech-act, see PH 233n86.

[76] Cf. Jebb 1893 II 113.

[77] Although the Lyceum cannot be identified specifically with the school of Aristotle until a later period (after the philosopher’s death, when his successor Theophrastus institutionalized the school in the Lyceum), the place was known as a sort of forum for philosophers even before the era of Isocrates (cf. e.g. Plato Lysis 203a).

[78] For these usages in the Homeric scholia, see n46 above.

[79] On the possibility that the ‘commentaries’ of Zenodotus, accompanying his edition of Homer, had the format of oral disquisitions rather than written texts, see Rengakos 1993:14. In the case of Aristarchus, on the other hand, we can be more certain that his hupomnḗmata ‘commentaries’ were indeed written texts: see n40 above.

[80] The verb used in Plato Ion 530a for the rhapsode’s performance is diatríbein, which matches the noun diatribḗ that we have seen used in the passage from Isocrates with reference to the performance of the ‘sophists in the Lyceum’. We note again the idea that these ‘sophists’ are mnēmoneúontes ‘mentioning’ received knowledge about the poet they perform; so also in the Ion, the rhapsode notes that his attention is always awakened when someone ‘mentions’ Homer, and the verb used is mnēsthênai (532c: ἐπειδὰν δέ τις περὶ Ὁμήρου μνησθῇ); this verb is here made parallel to dialégesthai ‘engage in discourse’ (532b: ὅταν μέν τις περὶ ἄλλου του ποιητοῦ διαλέγηται). Later on in the Ion, the same theme of the rhapsode’s awakened attention is transferred from the act of making comments on the poet (536c: περὶ μὲν Ὁμήρου ὅταν τις μνησθῇ) to the act of actually performing the poet (536b: ἐπειδὰν μέν τις ἄλλου του ποιητοῦ ᾄδῃ).

[81] At Plato Ion 531a-b, the rhapsode’s ‘speaking about Homer’ is now expressed by way of ex(h)ēgeîsthai—a term even more appropriate to the idea of ‘commentary‘.

[82] Lehrs 1882:248–249.

[83] Laum 1928:60. Laum’s work remains indispensable, despite the need for some corrections (cf. the bibliography in Turner 1987:159). On the invention, by the Alexandrian critic Aristophanes of Byzantium, of the actual notation-system for ancient Greek accents, see Laum p. 62. At pp. 100–102, Laum prints the testimony from the manuscript Parisinus 2102 reporting Aristophanes’ invention, and he traces this testimony, however flawed, to Theodosius of Alexandria, who flourished around 400 CE. Pfeiffer 1968:179n1 questions the reliability of the text as printed by Laum.

[84] Laum 1928:327.

[85] Laum 1928:62. Of the over 150 mentions of Aristarchean diórthōsis that Laum counted in the Homer scholia, he found in those contexts only a single reference to an accentual variation noted by Aristarchus (scholia A for Iliad XIII 191, χρόος instead of χροός).

[86] Laum 1928:327. It can be said in general for Greek literature that only in the Byzantine editions of the ninth and tenth centuries did it become a regular practice to mark the accent on each word in a given text. Laum 1928:63n2 finds a dramatic illustration of neglected accent-markings in the case of a papyrus containing Menander’s Perikeiromene, dated between the first and second centuries CE: in this text, we find that punctuations are meticulously supplied (three different categories), that miswritings are corrected, that variants are added, that elided letters are restored, and that role-assignments are straightened out—but there are no accent-marks.

[87] In addition to the evidence of sporadic accentual notations in the papyri, there is the evidence provided by ancient experts in Greek grammar. Two key sources of information about accent are Herodian (second half of the second century CE) and Theodosius (around 400 CE); as Laum points out (pp. 29–30), the first was interested more in the theoretical aspects of accentuation and the second, in the practical. The Byzantine conventions of marking accents go back to Theodosius, whose orthographic system reveals some surprising divergences from the accentual patterns attested by Herodian and by his predecessors in the Library of Alexandria. Modern editors of ancient Greek texts anachronistically obey the Byzantine accentual orthographic system that we can trace back only as far as Theodosius, thus bypassing Herodian, not to mention the earlier testimony of papyri with marked accents. It is not the accents of individual words that turn out to be different in the earlier sources: rather, it is the accentuation of word-combinations. For example, modern editors print a polysyllabic oxytone word consistently with a grave accent when that word is followed by another word without an intervening syntactical break, and yet the evidence of the papyri and of the Homeric scholia indicates that the accent in this context could in fact be acute, not grave: see Laum pp. 152, 159, 161. I say “could,” not “should,” because Moore-Blunt 1978 has found several instances of papyri dated earlier than 400 CE where we do see the spelling of grave as well as acute in this same context (cf. Mazzucchi 1979). Laum treats the earlier pattern of acute spellings as a constant, whereas in fact it is a gradually disappearing tendency. The point remains—and Laum says this just as effectively as Moore-Blunt—that earlier patterns of ancient Greek accentuation are conditioned by the melodic contour, as it were, of the overall syntax. Relevant is the formulation of West 1992:199 concerning a general tendency in ancient Greek melodic traditions: “when the accent [is] on the final syllable of a word, and is not circumflex, and not succeeded by a grammatical pause, then the melody does not fall again until after the next accent.”

[88] Laum 1928:63. There is a particularly striking illustration given by Moore-Blunt 1978:161–162: “papyri also demonstrate how, in questions, the final syllable of the last word (i.e. the final syllable of the sentence) could bear the high pitch, regardless of the normal [I would prefer to say not normal but lexical] accentuation of the word.” As Moore-Blunt points out (p. 162), such a spelling of an acute is especially useful where the syntax has no interrogative particle, as in the case of ακηκουκάς at Herodas 5.49.

[89] Laum 1928:63.

[90] Laum 1928:63, 163, 327.

[91] Laum 1928:63 offers the dictum that accentuated texts were meant for students, not scholars. I hasten to add that the category of “student” needs to include students of performance traditions. {Laum p. 63n1 disagrees with Wackernagel, who thought that accented texts were meant for scholars.Laum p. 63n1 disagrees with Wackernagel, who thought that accented texts were meant for scholars.}

[92] Isocrates Panathenaicus (Oration 12) 18–19 and 33, as quoted above.

[93] Wackernagel 1914 [1953]:1175.

[94] N 1970:121.

[95] Wackernagel [1953]:1176.

[96] Wackernagel 1983 [1953]:1103: “Aber die Zitate basieren doch selbst wieder auf der mündlichen Rezitation der homerischen Gedichte [reference also to Schulze 1892:213n3]; da die Rhapsodik bis an die Anfänge der Philologie hinanreicht, haben wir hier eine ununterbrochene Traditionskette. Dass beim mündlichen Vortrag neben den Versikten auch der musikalische Wortton zum Ausdruck kam, is unzweifelhaft.” Cf. also Lehrs 1882:258, quoted by N 1970:121, where the discussion is taken further.

[97] Wackernagel 1893 [1953]:1103.

[98] Wackernagel 1909 [1953]:1119–1120.

[99] The observation of Didymus in the scholia A for Iliad XVI 467c, that Aristarchus would not leave something aparamúthēton, in other words, that he would not miss the opportunity of making contextual comparisons with all available internal evidence, does not mean that his priorities ranked internal logic ahead of manuscript evidence: in this regard, I find persuasive the discussion of Ludwich 1885:92, 97, 109 (yes, Aristarchus is an analogist, but not at the expense of the manuscript evidence), 114 (striking examples where Aristarchus reads an anomalous form instead of substituting an analogous form). There is an interesting critique by Janko 1990:332-335 of the analogizing tendencies in the Monro-Allen 1920 Oxford Classical Texts edition of the Iliad. With reference to the manuscript reading δ᾿ ἑκάθεν in Iliad XVIII 107, which the OCT edition replaces with δὲ ἑκάς on the analogy of the manuscript reading in Iliad V 791, Janko argues that the manuscript reading δ᾿ ἑκάθεν in Iliad XIII 107 “is superior precisely because it is different, even though it happens to include a more recent linguistic form (which the poet uses elsewhere).” I agree with the wording except for an important detail: I would substitute authentic for superior. Given that Zenodotus and Aristophanes both read δὲ ἑκάς in Iliad XIII 107, I suggest that this reading too is authentic (I will have more to say presently on Zenodotus and Aristophanes). What is lectio difficilior for one period may be lectio facilior for another (here again I disagree with Janko, pp. 332–333n21). Cf. Pasquali 1952:122 and di Luzio 1969:144–145.

[100] N 1970:121, following Lehrs 1882:258.

[101] Lehrs 1882:258.

[102] West 1970; see also West 1981:114.

[103] Ludwich 1898:163 remarks on the absence, in the Homer scholia, of any reference to variant readings that are explicitly connected with rhapsodes. The scholia mention nothing along the lines of “ἀντίγραφα τῶν ῥαψῳδῶν” or the like. Also, I find no mention of Homērídai in the Homer scholia edited by Erbse.

[104] The uniqueness of this attestation can be verified by way of the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.

[105] Erbse vol. 5 p. 130.

[106] Cf. also the extract quoted in Suda, omicron 760: δειξάτω, οὗ κεῖται Ὁμήρου ῥαψωιδιῶν στίχος. ἀλλ᾿ οὐδ᾿ ἂν Ἴωνα δοκῶ τὸν ῥαψωιδὸν ἐξευρεῖν ‘let him show where a line of Homer’s rhapsōidíai is attested; but I don’t think that even Ion the rhapsode could find it’.

[107] We may note in this context an anecdote reported by Vitruvius about Aristophanes of Byzantium, T 17 in the Aristophanes edition of Slater 1986. The text is given in the Appendix of the printed version of Poetry as Performance. In this narrative, the idea of reading aloud is equated with the idea of oral performance, and the details about the competition at the ludi suggest that earlier versions of this narrative concerned rhapsodic traditions of performance. Particularly noteworthy is the detail about the fixed sequence of competing poets.

[108] In PH 20–28, there is an extended discussion of the phenomenon that I call reduced melody or recitative in hexameter traditions as performed by rhapsodes. For more on the melodic contours of the hexameter, see West 1986:45, who argues that the epic singer of the eighth century “followed the contours given by the word accents”; also, that “this tradition was perpetuated by the rhapsodes, but in a gradually decaying form,” and that “the rhapsodes preserved many archaic accentual features of Homeric Greek into the Hellenistic age”; cf. also West 1981:114 and 1992:208–209. I agree with most of these formulations, though I resist the idea of a “decaying form.” On the concept of recitative, see van der Werf 1967. In the traditions of the Old French chansons, as he argues, there are cases of distinctly recitative melodies and distinctly arioso ones but there are other compositions where “we can no longer discern whether the original of a given line was a recitative on d or an arioso melody with d as a tonal center” (van der Werf 1967:234). In other words, there are instances where “we cannot conclude from the preserved music whether a manuscript gives us a simplified variant of an arioso original or an ornamented variant of a strict recitative.” It is clear that “a trouvère recitative could easily be transformed into a trouvère arioso, or an arioso transformed into a recitative.” Though it is impossible at times to determine in which direction the shift is headed, whether it is from arioso to recitative or vice versa, it is clear that these two styles were not “two rigorously separated styles for the jongleurs, notators, and scribes at the end of the thirteenth century.” We may compare the ancient Greek traditions associated with the “lyric” Stesichorus and the “epic” Homer, as discussed in PH 49–51.

[109] On the distinction between sung hexameter and rhapsodic hexameter, see West 1986:44. At pp. 43–45, West collects valuable comparative evidence on distinctions between repeated and varied melodic contours in line-by-line epic performance (especially with reference to the French chansons de geste, p. 43n12, and Kirghiz epic, p. 44n15).

[110] Wackernagel 1893 [1953]:1103, quoted at n96 above.

[111] Scheller 1951. I first applied the findings of Scheller in N 1970:111–112, 120–121. Scheller p. 10 resists the negative judgment of Wilamowitz 1916:8–9 about the value of the Alexandrian tradition on accents. According to Wilamowitz, this tradition represents an arbitrary application of analogy principles, revealing an unawareness of etymology and of the fundamental principles of word-formation; he thinks that linguists should be the last people on earth to pay so much attention to these patterns. It is thanks to the research of Wackernagel, as Scheller points out, that the negative judgment of Wilamowitz can be “modified.” Besides accent, there are also variations in breathings that must have survived by way of performance traditions: see N 1972:66 on such Homeric contrasts as ἁμός vs. ἄμμι, ὑμός vs. ὔμμι (see Laum 1928:365 on the spelling ἀμμι in Papyrus A for Bacchylides 17.25).

[112] Scheller 1951:9n3. See further Comotti 1989:91 on the Delphic Hymns, where syllables having acute or even grave accent in any given word consistently avoid any pitch that is lower than the other pitches assigned to the other syllables in the same word. For more on the relationship of pitch accent and melody in ancient Greece, especially on the more archaic pattern where the melodic patterns are conditioned by the accentual patterns, see PH 39 and n113. Cf. West 1981:115, 1986:45, 1992:199. See also Comotti p. 91 on the concept of logôdes mélos ‘speech-like melody’ in Aristoxenus Harmonics 1.18 p. 23.14 ed. Da Rios. Comotti p. 92 juxtaposes this concept with the arguments of Dionysius of Halicarnassus De compositione verborum 11.58ff, p. 40.17 ed. Usener-Radermacher, who insists that melody controls the words, not the words the melody, and who cites Euripides Orestes 140–142 (making mistakes with the accents of some words: see Comotti p. 92n6). According to Comotti, Dionysius is slanting his argument by citing Euripides, who is musically the most innovative of the tragedians. He argues that the Delphic Hymns are musically far more conservative than the lyric compositions of Euripides. I agree. West 1992:199 attempts to explain the melodies of Euripides’ Orestes in terms of constraints imposed by the principle of responsion between strophe and antistrophe.

[113] Cf. Laum 1928:164 on a convention found in the papyri: there is a tendency to signal an acute accent belonging to only one word within a given string of words, instead of signalling all the acutes belonging to all the words (for example, P.Oxy. III 448, from Odyssey xxii 184: τηι δ᾿ετερηι σακος ευρύ γερον, which is spelled by modern editors as τῆι δ᾿ ἑτέρηι σάκος εὐρὺ γέρον). To mark the one acute is to mark the highest point of the melodic contour. (On the practice of marking polysyllabic oxytones with acute rather than grave in some clause-medial situations, see n87 above.) It may be possible to compare this kind of pattern with what we find in the Homeric scholia, which frequently refer not to individual words but to strings of words (e.g. Laum p. 378), reflecting a practical mode of commenting on texts that had once been spelled without word-divisions. In the scholia, there is a tendency to comment on only one accent belonging to only one word within a given string of words instead of commenting on all the accents belonging to all the words (e.g. Laum p. 143). More in N 2000 about the ancient practice of marking melodic contours in papyri.

[114] See p. 117 above. Cf. di Luzio 1969:141 and D’Ippolito 1984:224–225.

[115] Van der Valk 1964:76 reviews the facts; as the discussion that follows will show, I do not share his interpretation of the facts.

[116] Muellner 1976:58–62; also p. 24 with n18. {With reference to Lehrs 1882.258.With reference to Lehrs 1882.258.}

[117] Muellner 1976:58–62.

[118] Zenodotus athetized Iliad I 4–5 according to Athenaeus 1.12f, which means that he considered what he had read in these lines to be un-Homeric. But the point is, as I understand it, that οἰωνοῖσί τε δαῖτα is in fact what he had read at Iliad I 5. On athetesis as an editorial judgment rather than an act of omission—a judgment that may or may not affect manuscript transmission—see n134 below. Kirk 1985:53 remarks on Zenodotus’ reading οἰωνοῖσί τε δαῖτα: “Aristarchus (who is evidently Athenaeus’s source, through Aristonicus, at [Athenaeus] [1.]12e–13a, cf. Erbse I, 9) tried to refute [it] on the erroneous ground that Homer never uses δαίς of animal food—as he does in fact at [XXIV] 43.” Ludwich 1885:87 points out that we cannot be sure what exactly Aristarchus said. So I would reply to Kirk: whatever the merits, or even the substance (which, to repeat, we do not know for sure), of Aristarchus’ arguing on internal grounds for οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι in Iliad I 5, his primary reason for preferring this reading over οἰωνοῖσί τε δαῖτα was surely not internal evidence but the external evidence of what he considered the “superior” manuscript versions (cf. Ludwich p. 89). More on this point presently.

[119] For the view that Aeschylus was aware of the version οἰωνοῖσί τε δαῖτα in Iliad I 5, see e.g. Pfeiffer 1968:111, with further examples from tragedy (we may note that Pfeiffer would have assumed that such an awareness was based on the existence of such a version in the manuscript tradition, not in the performance tradition of Homer); see also Pasquali 1952:236–237. See also Janko 1992:23, who accepts the idea that Zenodotus’ reading may go back to the fifth century BCE but who still prefers to think of it as “an early emendation”—meant “to remove the ‘problem’ that not all birds eat flesh” (cf. the reasoning in the scholia b for Iliad I 5; cf. also Eustathius 1.390.26). Kirk 1985:53 describes Zenodotus’ reading as “a fussy change of the vulgate.” Rengakos 1993:30n1 draws attention to Kirk’s assumption of “change” here.

[120] The Homeric examples adduced by Ludwich 1885:89n55, where the notion of ‘all’ is logically a matter of hyperbole, are for me persuasive (especially Iliad V 52, Odyssey xviii 85). As for Zenodotus’ reading οἰωνοῖσί τε δαῖτα, we have in its defense some internal testimony as well, most notably the picture of a ravenous lion who lunges for his meal in Iliad XXIV 43 (ἵνα δαῖτα λάβῃσιν). We have already seen this passage cited by Kirk p. 53—though he was of course not defending Zenodotus but attacking Aristarchus.

[121] Wolf 1795. An indispensable summary of Wolf’s position is Pfeiffer 1968:215–218. Apthorp 1980:xiii, in line with the arguments of Bolling 1925, uses the term “Wolfian vulgate” in a negative sense to characterize post-Wolf Homer editions that tend to discount the judgments of Alexandrian critics, especially with reference to criteria of excluding lines in the Homeric corpus. Such an edition is the Monro-Allen 1920 Oxford Classical Texts version of the Iliad. Pfeiffer pp. 214–215 outlines the efforts of Lehrs 1882 and Ludwich 1884/1885 to rehabilitate the authoritativeness of Aristarchus as editor of Homer, as also the arguments of Erbse 1959 challenging this rehabilitation. In offering his own counterarguments to Erbse’s position, Pfeiffer begins by saying (p. 215): “it looks to me as if by a sort of unconscious counter-revolution Wolf has now been put back on the throne from which Lehrs had driven him.”

[122] Van der Valk 1949, 1963/1964.

[123] For Zenodotus: Wilamowitz 1916 (e.g. pp. 120–121, 261n2, 262n2; cf. van der Valk 1964:10) and Pasquali 1952 (e.g. pp. 207, 235–236; cf. van der Valk p. 15). For Aristarchus: Lehrs 1882, Ludwich 1884 / 1885. Given that there is unanimous manuscript authority for the reading οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι in Iliad I 5 as opposed to Zenodotus’ reading οἰωνοῖσί τε δαῖτα (as reported in Athenaeus 1.12f), Ludwich 1885:89 defends the first reading and rejects the notion that it was a conjecture of Aristarchus. As I indicated earlier (n120), I agree with Ludwich that it was not a conjecture. But I do not agree with him that the alternative reading, οἰωνοῖσί τε δαῖτα, is therefore a conjecture. We have already seen evidence that Zenodotus’ reading follows a version that was current in the Athenian performance traditions of the fifth century, the era of the three canonical tragedians. In order to maintain the idea that this reading was a conjecture or interpolation, Ludwich is forced to say that it must have been an “old” one indeed (see also the position of Janko as cited at n119 above). For a critique of the position taken by Ludwich and others, that the Aristarchean text comes closest to a Homeric “original,” see di Luzio 1969:6–9.

[124] Allen 1924:302–327.

[125] Pfeiffer 1968:210–219.

[126] Kirk 1985:43. Editions of the Iliad / Odyssey by Nauck, 1877 / 1875. On the position of Wilamowitz, see n123. Kirk’s position is disputed by Rengakos 1993:22n3.

[127] Janko 1992:22–29.

[128] Janko 1992:2–25. His reference is to Kirk’s commentary, 1985:43. Cf. also van Thiel 1991 and the comment of Janko 1994:291: “T.’s attitude to the Alexandrians (p. ix-xiii) derives, like mine, from the great work of van der Valk.”

[129] Janko 1992:21n6.

[130] Lehrs 1882; Ludwich 1884/1885, 1898. The principle is most forcefully stated, as “Lehrs’ Law,” by Ludwich 1884:86. I agree with the criticism of van der Valk’s methods by Nickau 1977.31n1. I resist in general the idea that the Alexandrian editors would have contemplated any kind of theory-driven policy for making conjectures. Their theories may well have led them to argue for some variants over others, but that is a far cry from the idea that they rewrote the text as they saw fit.

[131] Nickau 1977:48; cf. Slater 1989:42n17. Slater goes on to say at a later point: “ultimately, as Nickau [1972 column 34] says, no amount of generalizing theory relieves the modern critic from assuming that every reading of an early grammarian could be a variant until some alternative is demonstrated.”

[132] Rengakos 1993 (especially pp. 11, 23, 31). He insists on the concept of citation—as distinct from allusion—as a way of underlining the fact that, for the Alexandrian poets, Homer was the absolute source, not only the unsurpassable model (p. 9). Beyond the poetry of Apollonius and Callimachus, Rengakos draws special attention to the text of another Hellenistic poet, Rhianos, as witness to a set of variants derived from a Homer text that is markedly different from the Homer texts of Zenodotus, Aristophanes, and Aristarchus (p. 10). The value of the Homeric textual sources used by other poets, including “Euripides,” Antimachus, Philitas, and Aratus, is also discussed (p. 11).

[133] Apthorp 1980. We may note in this context Apthorp’s severe criticism (p. xiv) of van der Valk’s methods.

[134] Apthorp’s valuable work (1980) builds on the findings of Bolling 1925, which he summarizes as follows (p. xiv): “where a line is weakly attested by the medieval manuscripts and papyrus evidence was available, then that line was almost invariably absent from the papyrus or papyri.” Apthorp adds: “papyri published since 1925 have served only to confirm Bolling’s position, sometimes dramatically.” (It is important to note that Apthorp is referring here to papyri dated after, not before, 150 BCE or so.) In terms of Bolling’s position, the evidence of the papyri indicates (to follow Apthorp’s wording) that “the numerus versuum of our medieval vulgate, when purged of these weakly-attested lines, is identical with the numerus versuum of Aristarchus.” Apthorp notes the important distinction (p. xv) between athetesis, where Aristarchus marks with an obelus a verse that he deems non-authentic though he leaves it in the text, and outright omission; as he points out, “the evidence shows conclusively that [Aristarchus] omitted only lines which were absent from the vast majority of his manuscripts.” For further insights on Aristarchus’ methodology—on the levels of (1) manuscript evidence and (2) content—in deciding whether or not a Homeric line was authentic, see Lührs 1992. I find especially important the observations of Lührs p. 11 concerning instances where Aristarchus excluded verses in his Homeric text and then apparently signaled in his commentaries (that is, in his hupomnḗmata) that these plus-verses had been included in the Homer text of Zenodotus: as Lührs argues, Aristarchus did not think of such verses as conjectures made by Zenodotus but rather, more simply, as verses deemed authentic by Zenodotus and non-authentic by himself. Presumably, such verses must have been attested in some manuscripts and absent in others for them to be included and excluded in the Homer texts of Zenodotus and Aristarchus respectively (again, Lührs 1992).

[135] Janko 1992:21n6: “interpolations” (see also Janko 1990:334). Despite this position taken by Janko, we see that a few pages later in his commentary (1992:27–29) he defends, I think successfully, the authenticity of what he calls “the most notorious case” of such plus-verses, Iliad IX 458–461. This passage, missing in the medieval manuscript tradition and omitted from a papyrus that covers this stretch of the Iliad, happens to be known only from a citation by Plutarch (Quomodo adolescens poetas audire debeat 26f), who claims that Aristarchus omitted these lines “out of fear” (the lines concern Phoenix as he contemplates killing his father).

[136] In other words, I infer that the omission or non-omission of a verse is really a question of variation, not conjecture, in that Aristarchus will omit a verse—whatever contextual reasons he may adduce for such an omission—only when the documentary evidence allows him to do so. This extreme conservatism of Aristarchus, Apthorp notes (1980:xv), was appreciated by Ludwich and Bolling—but definitely not by van der Valk.

[137] Apthorp (1980:xvi) goes on to argue that “the numerous lines absent from all our manuscripts which we know to have been pre-Aristarchean but absent from Aristarchus’ edition—some cited by the scholia, some present in extant Ptolemaic papyri, some included in ancient quotations or discussions of Homer—stand condemned as interpolations alongside the weakly-attested lines of the mediaeval manuscripts.” I object to this condemnation, as also to Apthorp’s followup remark (p. xxvn2): “Thus the attempt by A. di Luzio [1969] to defend numerous plus-verses of the Ptolemaic papyri on so-called linguistic and stylistic grounds must be pronounced unsuccessful.” I remain unconvinced that a verse must be an interpolation if it is both non-Aristarchean and pre-Aristarchean.

[138] Janko 1992:21n6. Apthorp 1980:110n64 speaks of “the limited influence of Aristarchus on the text of the subsequent tradition within his numerus versuum,” with further discussion at pp. 37–38.

[139] HQ 76–77.

[140] The term “eccentric papyri” is claimed by Allen: see 1924:302.

[141] [S.] West 1988:45; cf. also 1967:15.

[142] [S.] West 1967:13; cf. Apthorp 1980:60.

[143] Cf. D’Ippolito 1984:224–225, especially p. 224n12. In what follows, it will be clear that I generally accept the arguments of di Luzio 1969 that these “eccentric” Ptolemaic papyri of Homer, dated mostly before around 150 BCE, contain a significant number of genuine variants, reflecting an ongoing rhapsodic tradition. In his article, di Luzio offers case-by-case counterarguments about Homeric variants discounted by West and by other critics (cf. Del Corno 1960 and 1961) who have examined the “eccentric” Homer papyri. More on di Luzio in n137 above.

[144] [S.] West 1988:45; Apthorp 1980:1–3.

[145] Allen 1924:303.

[146] [S.] West 1988:47.

[147] Allen 1924:326; cf. also 320.

[148] See di Luzio 1969:7–8.

[149] Labarbe 1949. The attempt of Lohse 1964 to refute the findings of Labarbe is in my opinion unconvincing: the criteria that Lohse sets up (especially pp. 5–7) for determining what is or is not oral poetry seem to me too rigid to be applicable to Homeric performance traditions in the fourth century BCE For the purposes of my own argumentation, it is essential simply to stress Lohse’s concession that any Homer text used by Plato was at least to some degree different from what we have (e.g. p. 7). I concede that there may well be instances of Homeric quotations where Plato has selectively introduced his own rewordings (cf. Lohse 1967).

[150] Labarbe 1949:419.

[151] Labarbe 1949:415–416.

[152] Labarbe 1949:424; also pp. 90–94, 98–99.

[153] Labarbe 1949:423. To this extent, I can accept the formulation of Erbse 1959:301 concerning an “Athenian Recension” of Homer; cf. Lohse 1967:230n14.

[154] Labarbe 1949:423.

[155] Labarbe 1949:423–425. I am not convinced by the specific discussions offered by Lohse (e.g. 1965:259n21, 262n27) concerning criteria for determining what is or is not genuine formulaic variation.

[156] Labarbe 1949:423. Cf. Lohse 1967:229. On the concept of plus-verses, see p. 139 above.

[157] Labarbe 1949:423. {Here he cites Mazon pp. 275, 276–277, on the existence of a Panathenaic Homer. According to Mazon, there was a text from Chios that the Peisistratidai used as a control-text; the influential role of Peisistratos in Homer-transmission is emphasized; so the text is a script, as it were, dating from the 6th century.Here he cites Mazon pp. 275, 276-277, on the existence of a Panathenaic Homer. According to Mazon, there was a text from Chios that the Peisistratidai used as a control-text; the influential role of Peisistratos in Homer-transmission is emphasized; so the text is a script, as it were, dating from the 6th century.}

[158] HQ 40–43.

[159] HQ 76.

[160] Apthorp 1980:3 points out that the numerus versuum of Aristarchus does not match that of his predecessor Aristophanes in six known cases, and in each case the readings in papyri dated after 150 BCE back up Aristarchus, not Aristophanes. On these grounds, he argues against supposing “that our manuscripts are descended from some other recension which just happened to largely coincide with that of Aristarchus.” I would argue rather that Aristarchus may have simply surpassed Aristophanes in his editorial efforts to recover an Athenian version, on which more later. Apthorp concedes that Aristophanes’ numerus versuum was indeed very similar to that of Aristarchus.

[161] We may note with interest the observation of Laum 1928:33 that papyri from the fourth and third centuries BCE tend to be less prone to archaizing tendencies—from a palaeographical point of view—as opposed to papyri from the second century BCE to the second CE

[162] J. D. Morgan suggests (per litteras 30 November 1993) that this dating for the obsolescence of the “eccentric” papyri corresponds closely to 145/4 BCE, the date for the departure of Aristarchus and the other grammarians when Ptolemy VIII came to power (see p. 114 above). Morgan suggests further: “it was the grammarians who were interested in collecting and copying such papyri, and when they left, almost nobody was left to take an interest in them.”

[163] Van der Valk 1964:266–267.

[164] Van der Valk 1964:267.

[165] Van der Valk 1964:267.

[166] Van der Valk 1964:269. See also Bolling 1925:33–34, who claims that all Homeric variants result from a written rather than oral tradition, and that this tradition has a single “fountain-head,” which is “an Athenian text not earlier than the sixth century.”

[167] Labarbe 1949:423–425.

[168] Labarbe 1949:425.

[169] This point applies even to situations that we could consider minimal conjecture, such as athetesis. When an Alexandrian editor athetizes, he does not propose to change any reading in the text proper but simply questions the genuineness of a line with an obelus in the margins. There is evidence that, at least in the case of Aristarchus, the editor formed his judgment about the alleged spuriousness of a line quite methodically, on the basis of not only the internal evidence but also the external evidence of the manuscript traditions. In the case of Aristarchus’ editorial work, Apthorp 1980 has demonstrated the consistency of his method. With reference to the tag perissós ‘extraneous’ in the transmitted judgments of Alexandrian critics of the Homer text, Reeve 1972:250 observes: “but if in one single case an Alexandrian athetesis can be shown to have rested on documentary evidence, the possibility must always be reckoned with that perissós has documentary authority behind it.” He then gives three examples of Alexandrian perissós verdicts that are indeed backed up by documentary evidence: in Iliad XXIII 92, IV 88, XXI 290—in that order. In the second case, there is an outright omission of the given line, an omission attributed to Zenodotus (actually, it is line 89 that he left out of his edition, while he leaves in 88 with wording that differs from what survives in the medieval manuscript tradition), and his judgment is backed up by the evidence of Papyrus 41 (the numbering follows the Monro-Allen 1920 OCT edition of the Iliad), on which see Apthorp 1980:1–2, 81.

[170] Citti 1966 (cf. Rengakos 1993:74n5). See also Apthorp 1980:116n112, who finds “unconvincing” van der Valk’s efforts to dismiss as conjectures the variant readings of the politikaí. In the case of the Chios edition, Apthorp (p. 76) dates it earlier than Zenodotus. Citti (p. 32) dates the politikaí back to the fourth century BCE He also points out (p. 420) an important fact about the Homer citation in Aeschines Against Timarchus 149, where the verse corresponding to Iliad XXIII 77 contains a variant οὐ γὰρ ἔτι, which is shared by some of the politikaí (scholia A: ἔν τισι τῶν πολιτικῶν) as opposed to the variant οὐ μὲν γάρ of the surviving manuscript traditions: the verses that Aeschines here is asking the grammateús ‘recorder’ to read out loud come from a Homer edition that clearly had plus-verses.

[171] E.g. Citti 1966:10, 43; at p. 17, there is even talk about an “original” reading.

[172] E.g. Citti 1966:14, 18, 23, 43.

[173] Citti 1966:15.

[174] Iliad V 723 and XIV 123 are comparable instances of verse-final ἀμφίς.

[175] Citti 1966:27.

[176] Van der Valk 1964:7n33.

[177] Ventris and Chadwick 1973:557–558, with special reference to Pylos tablets Un 249 and Un 267.

[178] Van der Valk 1964:76.

[179] Van der Valk 1964:76.

[180] An illuminating discussion: Ritoók 1987:17.

[181] Just as the art of the dramatic actor, hupokritikḗ, is associated here in Aristotle Poetics 1462a with the art of the rhapsode, so also in Plato Ion 536a, Ion is both rhapsōidós ‘rhapsode’ and hupokritḗs ‘actor’.

[182] Pfeiffer 1968:71n2 gives further information, which is of great interest.

[183] Blum 1991:70n47.

[184] Sealey 1990:129 and 183n17, with reference to a successful publisher in the Roman era, T. Pomponius Atticus, who is said to have employed men described as anagnostae optimi et plurimi librarii ‘the best readers [anagnôstai] and the greatest number of scribes’ (Nepos Life of Atticus 13.3). Sealey p. 129 adds that “one could achieve multiple production on a small scale by setting one slave to read a text aloud while many slaves sat around him and wrote down what they heard.”

[185] See ch. 6.

[186] See the discussion of Hermodoros the rhapsode at p. 130 above.

[187] See ch. 3.

[188] See ch. 3.

[189] On the factor of changing esthetics in the process of Homeric transmission, see also di Luzio 1969:142.

[190] Cf. Davison 1955:21, Pfeiffer 1968:228, Janko 1992:32 (n53), 71.

[191] Porter 1992:83.

[192] This is not to say, of course, that his choices are necessarily “right.” We may recall the remark of Reeve 1972:258 about the dilemma faced by modern editors who restrict their choices to the evidence of the manuscript transmission as they have reconstructed it: “an editor who prints a reading when he regards another as more probable is not doing his job, and an editor who fancies he can avoid arbitrary procedure by sticking to the transmitted text is making a judgement of probability just as arbitrary as if he were to change it.”

[193] For the theory that the Iliad and Odyssey were indeed dictated in the eighth century, see Janko 1992:22, 26.

[194] Summary, with bibliography, in HQ ch. 2.

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Chapter 6. Homer as Script

The Athenian Koine or “Vulgate” version of Homer, even if it were to have no claim to be the original Homer any more than the text established by Aristarchus, represents a crucial era in the history of Homeric performance traditions. This is the next argument to be made, added as a qualification to my earlier argument that we cannot simplistically apply the criteria of right or wrong, better or worse, original or altered, in the editorial process of sorting out the Homeric variants transmitted by Aristarchus or by earlier sources. It is indeed justifiable, however, to ask whether a variant is authentic or not—provided we understand “authentic” to mean in conformity with traditional oral epic diction.[1]

Further, it is justifiable to ask whether a given variant can be assigned to a particular period. In the scheme of five periods in the history of Homeric transmission, formulated at the beginning of the previous chapter, I propose that the variants attributed by Didymus and, ultimately, by Aristarchus to the Koine version of Homer tend to converge toward period 3, while the variants often preferred by Aristarchus himself or by other Alexandrian critics are typical of periods 4 and 5. This is not going so far as to say that some variants go all the way back to period 3 while others go only as far back as periods 4 and 5. It is only to say that certain kinds of variants seem to predominate at certain periods within the continuum of Homeric transmission. And it still remains to ask what if any distinguishing features we may find in an Athenian Koine version of period 3—an era defined in the previous chapter {153|154} as extending from the middle of the sixth century BCE to the later part of the fourth.

Let us briefly review the terminology. T. W. Allen’s summary concerning the terms koinḗ (singular) and koinaí (plural) is instructive:

We conclude that the koinḗ or vulgate adduced by Didymus in his commentary—if not by the Alexandrians themselves—consisted of the ordinary or uncorrected copies produced by the book trade, whose general characteristic was an increasing modernity in syntax, vocabulary, and phonetics. In most of these points the vulgate was ‘careless’ and even ‘bad’. The principal aim of the professional critic, Alexandrian and other, was to stay the course of the modernizing process by restoring older forms and words.[2]

Allen’s notion of “modernism” is also instructive: “In an unfenced text the single tendency that is constant is that to modernism, the effect of the ambient: our printed Bibles, Shakespeares, Miltons have long since been adduced.”[3]

There is a problem with this formulation. As we have seen in the previous chapter, the variants in the Koine textual tradition of Homer are in fact frequently more archaic than those found in the edited versions of the Alexandrian scholars. Thus the Koine is by no means the most “modernistic” version of Homer. Some, in fact, would claim just the opposite. For example, Richard Janko and others who agree with the theory of a dictated Homer text interpret the archaisms of the Koine as proof that this particular textual tradition comes closest to a hypothetical archetype, a dictated text stemming from the eighth century BCE.[4] According to this theory, the Koine is a sort of default category, a core text that reflects the Homeric “archetype” more closely and accurately than do the texts of Aristarchus and the other Alexandrian scholars who came before him.[5]

But there is a problem with this formulation as well. As we have also seen in the previous chapter, many Homeric variants {154|155} reported by the Alexandrian scholars as alternatives to the variants in the Koine can be shown to be just as authentic in their own right. So if indeed the Koine textual tradition of Homer is no more “original” than other traditions, then the question is: what if anything makes the Koine distinct?

In terms of my evolutionary model of Homeric text fixation, what stands out about the Koine is precisely the fact that it is not at all some kind of systematically “modernized” version, and to this extent I resist Allen’s quoted description. On the other hand, we can in principle accept Allen’s notion of an unfenced text—provided we restrict the description “unfenced” to Homeric Koine texts as transcripts of performances. The point is, however, that the actual performance traditions as reflected by the posited transcripts seem to be anything but unfenced. A salient example is the principle of a fixed numerus versuum: as suggested in the previous chapter, this principle of Homeric transmission can be explained as a performative as well as textual norm.[6] Patterns of stabilization in length of performance need not presuppose the agency of a written text.[7] Following up on this line of thinking, I raised the possibility that these and other patterns of performance stabilization are connected with patterns of performance regulation by the Athenian State.[8] That possibility will now be explored in depth.

Let us adopt for the moment the standpoint of Homer experts who do not reckon with the dimension of performance in the history of Homeric transmission. For them, the evidence of a fixed numerus versuum argues for the concept of an Athenian Homer text as a historical reality.[9] From this standpoint, the Athenian Homer is in effect a “fenced” text, not an “unfenced” one as it is for Allen.[10] From the standpoint of my argument, however, it is an oversimplification to posit a “fenced” Athenian {155|156} text. The Koine or “Vulgate” version of Homer may be traced back to a “fenced” tradition of performance, located primarily in Athens during “period 3,” which extends from the middle of the sixth century BCE to the later part of the fourth. Granted, we may expect that the concept of such a “fenced” Athenian tradition was indeed moving toward the status of a text, especially toward the end of “period 3,” but it is useful for now to maintain a distinction between this kind of “text” and the ultimate form of Homer. An apt term for the “fenced” Homer tradition at the end of “period 3” is script.

I will introduce several different pieces of evidence to justify the application of this term to the late Koine version of Homer, as also to later versions. The centerpiece will be a passage taken from Athenaeus (14.620b-c), which suggests that Homeric performance traditions were reformed in Athens at the initiative of Demetrius of Phaleron. This is the Demetrius who, as we learn from other sources, came to power at Athens in 317 and ruled until 307 BCE, when he was overthrown.[11] Since our basic attested source concerning Demetrius and his reform of Homeric performance traditions is going to be this single passage from a relatively late author, Athenaeus of Naucratis (who flourished around 200 CE), and since the wording of this passage, as we are about to see, is opaque and difficult to interpret, it is essential for the sake of an overall perspective to begin with a brief outline of the some historical facts, as known from other sources, concerning Demetrius as a reformer of Athenian traditions.[12] It is only from the perspective of this historical background that we may then more fully appreciate the implications of the relevant passage in Athenaeus (14.620b-c), to be quoted and analyzed later on.

For purposes of the present argument, the most important historical fact to keep in mind about Demetrius of Phaleron is that he was the reformer of many Athenian institutions. He is best known for having initiated a major reform of Athenian State {156|157} Theater in the fourth quarter of the fourth century,[13] following the patterns of an earlier reformer, the statesman Lycurgus, in the third quarter.[14] Demetrius took the decisive step of abolishing the khorēgíā, that is, the duty imposed on wealthy citizens to finance the choruses of State Theater.[15] From around 309 BCE onward, the Athenian State went beyond the earlier pattern of paying salaries to the actors, hereafter paying salaries also to the chorus and even financing its costumes.[16]

Demetrius is also credited with other reforms, each of which was seemingly intended to insure the prevalence of canonical forms. For example, he was responsible for a collection of a corpus of popular tradition that has come down to us as the Fables of Aesop: in Diogenes Laertius 5.80, we read ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ λόγων Αἰσωπείων συναγωγαί, and, in 5.81, there is a reference to this corpus in the bibliographical listing of his works: Αἰσωπείων α’.[17] Demetrius also had a role in establishing a canonical form for the ongoing lore about the Seven Sages (Stobaeus 3.79 and 43.131).[18] Demetrius is the same man, it should be added, who was author of two volumes entitled “On the Iliad” (Περὶ Ἰλιάδος α’ β’) and four volumes entitled “On the Odyssey” (Περὶ Ὀδυσσείας α’ β’ γ’ δ’), according to Diogenes Laertius (5.81).

With this historical background, let us now turn to the key passage suggesting that Demetrius had reformed the institution of Homeric performances in Athens: {157|158}

οὐκ ἀπελείποντο δὲ ἡμῶν τῶν συμποσίων οὐδὲ ῥαψῳδοί. ἔχαιρε γὰρ τοῖς Ὁμήρου ὁ Λαρήνσιος ὡς ἄλλος οὐδὲ εἷς, ὡς λῆρον ἀποφαίνειν Κάσανδρον τὸν Μακεδονίας βασιλεύσαντα, περὶ οὗ φησι Καρύστιος ἐν Ἱστορικοῖς ὑπομνήμασιν ὅτι οὕτως ἦν φιλόμηρος ὡς διὰ στόματος ἔχειν τῶν ἐπῶν τὰ πολλά· καὶ Ἰλιὰς ἦν αὐτῷ καὶ Ὀδυσσεία ἰδίως γεγραμμέναι. ὅτι δ᾿ ἐκαλοῦντο οἱ ῥαψῳδοὶ καὶ Ὁμηρισταὶ Ἀριστοκλῆς εἴρηκεν ἐν τῷ περὶ Χορῶν. τοὺς δὲ νῦν Ὁμηριστὰς ὀνομαζομένους πρῶτος εἰς τὰ θέατρα παρήγαγε Δημήτριος ὁ Φαληρεύς. Χαμαιλέων δὲ ἐν τῷ περὶ Στησιχόρου καὶ μελῳδηθῆναί φησιν οὐ μόνον τὰ Ὁμήρου, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰ Ἡσιόδου καὶ Ἀρχιλόχου, ἔτι δὲ Μιμνέρμου καὶ Φωκυλίδου. Κλέαρχος δὲ ἐν τῷ προτέρῳ περὶ Γρίφων “τὰ Ἀρχιλόχου, φησίν, [ὁ] Σιμωνίδης ὁ Ζακύνθιος ἐν τοῖς θεάτροις ἐπὶ δίφρου καθήμενος ἐραψῴδει.” Λυσανίας δ᾿ ἐν τῷ πρώτῳ περὶ Ἰαμβοποιῶν Μνασίωνα τὸν ῥαψῳδὸν λέγει ἐν ταῖς δείξεσι τῶν Σιμωνίδου τινὰς ἰάμβων ὑποκρίνεσθαι. τοὺς δ᾿ Ἐμπεδοκλέους Καθαρμοὺς ἐραψῴδησεν Ὀλυμπίασι Κλεομένης ὁ ῥαψῳδός, ὥς φησιν Δικαίαρχος ἐν τῷ Ὀλυμπικῷ. Ἰάσων δ᾿ ἐν τρίτῳ περὶ τῶν Ἀλεξάνδρου Ἱερῶν ἐν Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ φησὶν ἐν τῷ μεγάλῳ θεάτρῳ ὑποκρίνασθαι Ἡγησίαν τὸν κωμῳδὸν τὰ Ἡσιόδου,[19] Ἑρμόφαντον δὲ τὰ Ὁμήρου.

Nor were rhapsodes [rhapsōidoí] missing from our symposia. For Larensis took delight in the works of Homer as no one else could, so much so that he made even Cassander, the one who was King of Macedonia, look superficial. About whom [Cassander] it is said by Carystius in his Historika hupomnḗmata that he was such a Homer enthusiast [philómēros] that he could orally render much of the epic poetry of Homer. And he [Cassander] made his own private transcript of the <<Iliad>> and <<Odyssey>>.[20] That the rhapsodes [rhapsōidoí] were also called Homēristaí is reported by Aristocles {158|159} in his work On choruses. Demetrius of Phaleron was the first to introduce those who are nowadays called Homēristaí into the theaters. Chamaeleon, in his work On Stesichorus, says that not only the poetry of Homer was melodically sung but also that of Hesiod and Archilochus, even that of Mimnermus and Phocylides. Clearchus, in the first of the two scrolls of his work entitled On riddles, says: “Simonides of Zacynthus, seated on a stool, used to perform rhapsodically [verb rhapsōideîn] the poetry of Archilochus in the theaters.”[21] Lysanias, in the first scroll of his work On the iambic poets, says that Mnasion the rhapsode [rhapsōidós] used to act [hupokrínesthai] in his performances [deíxis plural] some of the iambs of Simonides.[22] As for the Katharmoi of Empedocles, Kleomenes the rhapsode [rhapsōidós] used to perform them rhapsodically [verb rhapsôideîn] at the Olympics, as Dicaearchus says in his work, The Olympic. Jason says, in the third scroll of his work The sacred institutions of Alexander, that Hegesias the performer of comedies acted [hupokrínesthai] in the Great Theater in Alexandria the poetry of Hesiod, and Hermophantos, the poetry of Homer.

Athenaeus 14.620b-c

According to this passage, the contents of which are repeated by Eustathius (4.937.19–24), Demetrius of Phaleron transferred the performances of Homer ‘into the theaters’, as we see from the highlighted wording, and the performers of this reformed performance tradition are ‘nowadays’ called Homēristaí. The wording here allows a variety of interpretations. My own is this: that the Homēristaí eventually replaced the earlier category of rhapsōidoí or rhapsodes. Since Athenaeus is linking performances in theaters by Homēristaí with historically attested performances in theaters by rhapsōidoí, we may infer that he thinks of the Homēristaí as continuing in the traditions of the rhapsodes—this despite the {159|160} likelihood that the performance traditions of the Homēristaí, as we will see below, evolved into something quite different from the traditions of the earlier rhapsodes. As we begin to recognize the differences, however, we should at the same time keep in mind that the performance traditions of fifth- and fourth-century rhapsodes, who apparently declaimed in recitative style, without musical accompaniment, were in turn quite different from those of the even earlier aoidoí ‘singers’ as they are actually portrayed by the Homeric narrative.[23]

I argue, then, for a historical connection between rhapsōidoí and Homēristaí on the basis of the passage just quoted from Athenaeus (14.620b-c). These arguments are in general agreement with conclusions reached by the papyrologist Geneviève Husson, and we will examine presently some of the supporting evidence that she adduces.[24] In earlier work on this Athenaeus passage, I had already posited a continuity between the rhapsōidoí and the Homēristaí, though at the same time I stressed the differences between the two designations of performers, recognizing that the testimony of Athenaeus may well have conflated various different stages in the evolution of performance traditions.[25]

Granting that there are differences, I propose to defend the connection between rhapsōidoí and Homēristaí made by our source here, Athenaeus of Naucratis (around 200 CE), who cites the {160|161} authority of Aristocles (between first century BCE and first century CE).[26] I will also defend the connection that Athenaeus makes between Demetrius of Phaleron and the shifting of performances of Homer ‘into the theaters’, in which context Athenaeus identifies the performers as the Homēristaí.[27] Then, on the basis of morphological parallels about to be adduced, we will consider the possibility that the term goes as far back as Demetrius himself. As we proceed, it is important to keep in mind that, even if the word Homēristaí goes as far back as the era of Demetrius of Phaleron, it does not follow that Homeric performers known by such a name in the late fourth century BCE would have been just like the Homēristaí in the era of Athenaeus, at the beginning of the third century CE, about half a millennium later.[28]

Let us begin by considering a premier example of rhapsode-style performance in theaters, as cited by Athenaeus in the same passage quoted above: he is someone called Hermophantos, who is described, towards the end of our passage, as ‘acting’ the poems of Homer at a performance in the Great Theater of Alexandria. The authority cited by Athenaeus for this information, Jason of Nysa (first century BCE), takes us back to the Ptolemaic era.[29] We may compare another passage that deals with the performance of a rhapsode in the Ptolemaic era of Alexandria:

καὶ ὁ μὲν ῥαψῳδὸς εὐθὺς ἦν διὰ στόματος πᾶσιν, ἐν τοῖς Πτολεμαίου γάμοις ἀγομένου τὴν ἀδελφὴν καὶ πρᾶγμα δρᾶν ἀλλόκοτον <νομιζ>ομένου καὶ ἄθεσμον ἀρξάμενος ἀπὸ τῶν ἐπῶν ἐκείνων·

Ζεὺς δ᾿ Ἥρην ἐκάλεσσε κασιγνήτην ἄλοχόν τε [Iliad XVIII 356][30] {161|162}

The rhapsode [rhapsōidós] was the talk of everybody—the one who, at the wedding of Ptolemy who, in marrying his own sister was considered to be committing a deed unnatural and unholy,[31] began with the following words: ‘And Zeus summoned Hera his sister, his wife’ [Iliad XVIII 356]

Plutarch Quaestiones convivales 736e

There is also earlier and to that extent even more valuable evidence connecting the performance of Homer with theatrical traditions. Already in Plato’s Ion, we see the figure of Socrates making an explicit equation between the rhapsōidós ‘rhapsode’ and the hupokritḗs ‘actor’ (536a).[32] The rhapsode Ion himself is vividly portrayed as a master of histrionics (535c).[33] Aristotle too in his Poetics notes an overlap between the art of the rhapsode and that of the actor in drama, commenting on what he considers to be overacting on the part of one particular rhapsode, Sosistratos by name, specifically with regard to this man’s use of physical dramatic gestures (1462a6).[34]

We find further evidence for a relatively early theatricalization of rhapsodic traditions when we look beyond the references to a specifically Homeric repertoire on the part of rhapsodes. Let us begin with Plato’s Ion, where we learn that a rhapsode’s repertoire could include not only Homer and Hesiod but also Archilochus (531a, 532a).[35] In light of this information, we may look back at the extended passage in Athenaeus (14.620b-c), where we saw sources from the third century BCE reporting rhapsodic performances of Archilochean poetry in particular (Clearchus) and {162|163} “iambic” poetry in general (Lysanias).[36] We may note in both sets of testimony the strong emphasis on the theatrical aspects of performance: the rhapsodic performance of Archilochean poetry by Simonides of Zacynthus is said to take place in theaters [théatra] (Clearchus), while Mnasion the rhapsode is said to act [hupokrínesthai] in his performances [deíxis plural] of íamboi ‘iambs’ (Athenaeus 14.620c).

In this connection, it is crucial to compare a statement made by Aristotle in his Politics (1336b20–22): τοὺς δὲ νεωτέρους οὔτ᾿ ἰάμβων οὔτε κωμῳδίας θεατὰς θετέον, πρὶν ἢ τὴν ἡλικίαν λάβωσιν ἐν ᾗ καὶ κατακλίσεως ὑπάρξει κοινωνεῖν ἤδη καὶ μέθης, καὶ τῆς ἀπὸ τῶν τοιούτων γιγνομένης βλάβης ἀπαθεῖς ἡ παιδεία ποιήσει πάντως ‘it should be ordained that younger men not be theater-goers [theataí] of íamboi or of comedy until they reach the age where they have the opportunity to participate in lying down together at table and getting intoxicated [that is, to participate in symposia], at which point their education [paideíā] will make them altogether immune to the harmful effect of these things’.[37] I infer that Aristotle is contrasting professional performance by rhapsodes or actors in theaters with amateur performance at symposia, and that he has in mind such poets as Archilochus {163|164} when he speaks of the performance of íamboi, presumably by rhapsodes, as parallel to the performance of comedy by actors.[38]

Let us pursue further, now moving considerably ahead in time, the connection made by the third century BCE sources of Athenaeus (14.620b-c) between rhapsode-style performance and the setting of theaters. There is an incidental reference to theatrical performances of Homer in Achilles Tatius (3.20.4): τῶν τὰ Ὁμήρου τῷ στόματι δεικνύντων ἐν τοῖς θεάτροις ‘those who perform [deiknúnai] the poems of Homer orally in theaters’.[39] Let us now consider a related passage, by the same author, where the art of performing Homeric poems is designated by the verb Homērízein. It is this verb, of course, from which Homēristaí is derived. As we examine this passage, we will note various allusions to the theatricality of Homeric performance in what seems to be a parody of the very ideology of paideíā ‘education’ in the arts. The context is this: in a legal wrangle, a speaker is attacking his opponent by portraying him as a moral degenerate. The man’s degeneracy is being expressed metaphorically in a humorous narrative about his counterfeit paideíā ‘education’ in the arts, as it were, where the idea of practicing the art par excellence seems to be equated mockingly with a theatrical image of ‘playing the Homēristḗs’. The central joke is in the word itself, since the form Homērízein is being used here as a pun to convey a sexual double entendre (mēr‑ in the sense of ‘thigh’):

καί τοι γε νέος ὢν συνεγίνετο πολλοῖς αἰδοίοις ἀνδράσι καὶ τὴν ὥραν ἅπασαν εἰς τοῦτο δεδαπάνηκε. σεμνότητα δ᾿ ἔδρακε καὶ σωφροσύνην ὑπεκρίνατο, παιδείας προσποιούμενος ἐρᾶν καὶ τοῖς εἰς ταύτην αὐτῷ χρωμένοις πάντα ὑποκύπτων καὶ ὑποκατακλινόμενος ἀεί. καταλιπὼν γὰρ τὴν πατρῴαν οἰκίαν, ὀλίγον ἑαυτῷ μισθωσάμενος στενωπεῖον, εἶχεν ἐνταῦθα τὸ οἴκημα, ὁμηρίζων μὲν τὰ πολλά, πάντας δὲ τοὺς χρησίμους πρὸς ἅπερ ἤθελε προσηταιρίζετο δεχόμενος. καὶ οὕτω μὲν ἀσκεῖν τὴν ψυχὴν ἐνομίζετο, ἦν δ᾿ ἄρα τοῦτο κακουργίας ὑπόκρισις. {164|165}

When he was a boy, he would consort with many respectable men, and in fact he prodigiously spent the entire bloom of his youth in this pursuit. He put on the look of solemnity and played the role [hupokrínesthai] of moderation, pretending to be passionately devoted to education [paideíā] and behaving consistently in a submissive and abjectly self-abasing way towards those who became involved with him in this pursuit. Leaving his father’s house, he rented a little shack. So he had his ménage there, being the Homēristḗs[40] for the most part, while all along playing host and making friends with anyone who would prove useful for whatever he wanted.[xxxiii] And in this way, the thinking was, he was edifying his spirit. Of course, all this was acting [hupókrisis], a thing of perversion.

Achilles Tatius 8.9.2–3

Given that the art of the rhapsode was becoming ever more theatrical and mimetic over time, as we see from the testimony of Plato and Aristotle already in the fourth century BCE, we have reason to expect Athenaeus, near the beginning of the third century CE, to assume that the theatrical tradition of the Homēristaí was ultimately derived from an earlier rhapsodic heritage. Further, on the basis of Aristotle’s remark about stylized physical gestures in the mimesis of Homer—let us say the acting of Homer—we have reason to expect such specific aspects of mimetic performance to become ever more pronounced with the passage of time. Let us consider a case in point, with explicit reference to Homēristaí. In the Interpretation of Dreams by Artemidorus (4.2 p. 205 ed. Hercher), dated to the second century CE, there is an anecdote about a surgeon who once dreamed that he was acting Homer, expressed by the verb Homērízein (ὁμηρίζειν νομίσας), and the reason given for this dream is a mechanical analogy between the motions made by surgeons as they make their incisions and the motions made by Homēristaí as they make their gestures of wounding opponents with weapons and drawing blood: καὶ γὰρ οἱ ὁμηρισταὶ τιτρώσκουσι μὲν καὶ αἱμάσσουσιν, ἀλλ᾿ οὐκ ἀποκτεῖναί γε βούλονται· οὕτω δὲ καὶ ὁ χειρουργός ‘for just {165|166} as the Homēristaí make wounds and draw blood, without any intention of killing, so also does the surgeon’.[41]

There is a comparable reference to Homēristaí in Petronius (Satyricon 59.2–6), where the histrionics of these performers are being ridiculed as an abstruse exercise in art, on display for pretentious but ludicrously ignorant connoisseurs.[42] In this humorous account, the host Trimalchio starts by saying (59.2–3): …simus ergo, quod melius est, a primitiis hilares et Homeristas spectemus ‘so let us be festive, which is better, right from the start; let us watch the Homēristaí. At that point (59.4–6), intravit factio statim hastisque scuta concrepuit. ipse Trimalchio in pulvino consedit, et cum Homeristae Graecis versibus colloquerentur, ut insolenter solent, ille canora voce Latine legebat librum. mox silentio facto “scitis” inquit “quam fabulam agant? Diomedes et Ganymedes duo fratres fuerunt. horum soror erat Helena. Agamemnon illam rapuit…” ‘there entered right away a troupe [of Homēristaí], beating on their shields with their spears. Trimalchio himself sat down on his cushion and, while the Homēristaí were having their dialogues in Greek verses, in their usual pompous manner, he [Trimalchio], in a sonorous voice, was reading along, in Latin, from a scroll.[43] Then after a moment of silence, he said: “do you know what story they are acting? Well Diomedes and Ganymedes were two brothers. They had a sister, Helen, and Agamemnon abducted her …”’[this display of Trimalchio’s faulty education continues through section 6]. When Trimalchio finishes (59.6): haec ut dixit Trimalchio, clamorem Homeristae sustulerunt, … ‘when Trimalchio said these things, the Homēristaí raised a clamor …’.

These passages from Artemidorus and Petronius show clear signs of a newer and ever more theatrical stage in the lengthy history of Homeric performance traditions—a stage where these traditions come closest to our own contemporary notion of a “script.” We begin to appreciate from these later sources just {166|167} how far the theatrical conventions in the performance of Homer have evolved from the conventions envisioned by earlier sources. We have just seen in the passage from Artemidorus that the Homēristaí actually act out the wounding of opponents with weapons. Now we see in Petronius that such explicitly mimetic gestures are being reinforced by stage props, as it were, such as spears and shields.[44] Moreover, in the passage from Petronius, it appears that different players take on different roles in enacting a Homeric scene. The players seem to have speaking parts, delivered in Greek verses (to be contrasted with Trimalchio’s Latin), apparently representing the speeches of Homeric heroes engaged in combat with each other. I infer that these dialogues were dramatically excerpted—or let us say “scripted”—from actual combat scenes contained by the overall Homeric narrative. Thus I propose to adjust, ever so slightly, a formulation concerning the Artemidorus and the Petronius passages: according to Louis Robert, the Homēristaí mimed battles.[45] Surely the activity of miming does not exclude the factor of speaking parts, delivered in Greek verse. Still, my use of the expression “speaking parts” shows just how far removed we now are, as we contemplate this particular moment in the history of Homeric performance, from the early traditions of the rhapsodes. The text of Homer has achieved the status of a “script.”[46]

The usage of calling the performers of Homer Homēristaí, as made explicit in the literary passages surveyed so far, is confirmed by the attested references in documentary papyri to live performances of Homer in Hellenized Egypt:[47] {167|168}

P.Oxy. 3.519 fr. A 3–4 (Oxyrhynchus; ii CE) ὁμηριστῇ (δραχμαί ͺ+ number 448)
P.Oslo 3.189.16 (place?; iii CE) ἀπόδιξις Ὁμηρι[στῶν],[48] ἀγὼν ποιητῶν at line 19

3a. SB 4.7336.26 (Oxyrhynchus iii CE) ὁμηριστῇ

3b. same document, line 29 [ἄλλ]ῳ ὁμηριστῇ[49]

P.Oxy. 7.1050.26 (Oxyrhynchus ii/iii CE) ὁμη̣ρ̣ι̣σ̣[τῇ]
P.Oxy. 7.1025.8 (Oxyrhynchus; iii CE) καὶ Σαραπᾷ ὁμηριστῇ

Let us start with papyrus 5, which is the text of a contract formalized by the magistrates of the metropolis of Oxyrhynchus for the engagement of a Homēristḗs and a dramatic mime (biológos) who are to travel all the way to the metropolis of Arsinoe in order to perform at a seasonally-recurring festival of Kronos.[50] From the context, Geneviève Husson infers that Oxyrhynchus must have had a special reputation for producing artisans of this kind.[51] Next we look at papyrus 1: here the performance of, again, a Homēristḗs, who is to be paid 448 drachmas, is slated to occur after that of a mime, who is to get 496 drachmas, and before that of a dancer, whose wages can be reconstructed at somewhere between 100 and 200 drachmas.[52] In papyrus 4 as well, a Homēristḗs and a mime are listed alongside each other.[53] As Husson notes, all these occasions of performance by Homēristaí are festivals.[54] Moreover, the dates of all these occasions are not far removed from the era of our main source about Homēristaí, Athenaeus of Naucratis (around 200 CE). It is realistic, no doubt, to be reminded again that we are by now over 500 years removed from {168|169} the glory days of Demetrius of Phaleron, whom Athenaeus credits with the theatricalization of rhapsodes. But it is also realistic to keep in mind the continuity, however transformed, of Hellenic culture even half a millennium later. As Husson points out, for example, the metropolis of Oxyrhynchus had a theater with a seating capacity of over 10,000.[55] Such theaters were to be found throughout the Hellenic cities that dotted the Egyptian hinterland or khṓrā, and Husson reminds us that the cultural vitality of urban life in that era can in no way be imagined as a phenomenon restricted to a small handful of “gymnasium élite.”[56] It is clear even from the theatrical events mentioned in our Oxyrhynchus papyri that Hellenic institutions actively coexisted with Egyptian counterparts: in the papyrus mentioning the festival of Kronos, for example, on which occasion there was a Homēristḗs contracted to perform, it appears that the cult of the god Anubis also figures prominently.[57]

For yet another attestation of Homēristḗs, we turn to an inscription, published by Charlotte Roueché,[58] that was found by excavators on the side of a doorway leading into Room 6 behind the stage front of the theater at Aphrodisias in Caria: it reads Δημητρίου ὁμηριστοῦ διασκεύη ‘equipment of Demetrius the Homēristḗs’,[59] and its date cannot be much later than the end of the third century CE.[60] As in the case of the evidence from Oxyrhynchus, the naming of this Homēristḗs occurs in a context associated with mimes: the inscriptions on the sides of other doorways leading into other rooms behind the stage designate mimes (as in the case of Room 1: Παρδαλᾶ[xxxiv] μειμολόγου).[61] In this era, however, it must be kept in mind that such an association does {169|170} not reflect negatively on the Homēristaí, since the status (and prestige) of mimes was ascending exponentially throughout the Hellenic areas of the Empire at around the time of the third century.[62] The question, then, is not whether the status of Homēristaí was declining with the passage of time: what needs to be determined, rather, is to what extent their very identity was becoming assimilated to that of mimes.[63] The mimetic connotations of this particular attestation of a Homēristḗs at Aphrodisias in the third century CE bring us to a remarkable additional detail: inscribed above the name of Demetrius the Homēristḗs is the following phrase: ἐγενήσθη[xxxv] Ἀλέξανδρος ‘he became Alexander’.[64] Here is an interpretation, considered by Roueché: ‘he was (acted) Alexander, i.e. Paris’.[65] If this particular interpretation is right, then Demetrius the Homēristḗs is known for his acting—or, let us say, re-enacting—of Paris in the Iliad.

The picture that we see emerging in the second and third centuries CE, that of Homer as an obviously excerpted “script” to be performed by Homēristaí in a stylized mimetic format, can be seen as a terminal or at least near-terminal stage in the history of Homeric performance.[66] This has been my argument so far. {170|171} To be sure, any continuum entails discontinuities as well as continuities—one might say that this is the essence of Hellenism, even of tradition itself—but I maintain that the cumulative evidence of the traces that we have examined up to now does indeed seem to bear out the suggestion made in the passage of Athenaeus that the Homēristaí continued the traditions of the rhapsōidoí.

There are further traces of Homēristaí to be found, in Eustathius. Here we must be even more cautious, given that this scholar of the twelfth century CE often makes spectacular mistakes in his own internalized chronology of the cultural history of Classical and post-Classical Athens, Ptolemaic and post-Ptolemaic Egypt. At the very beginning of his Prolegomena to his Commentary on the Iliad (p. 1 ed. Van der Valk), for example, Eustathius treats Aristarchus as a predecessor of Zenodotus, and he assigns both scholars to the era of Peisistratos. Still, Eustathius had access to information that was often more complete than what we now have, as for example in the case of the Athenaeus text that he used for reference, and thus the actual information that he gives can be valuable even when his own interpretation of that information may not be so.[67] Let us begin with two cases of the noun itself, Homēristaí. In one case (Eustathius 4.937), the information replicates what we have just read in Athenaeus (14.620b-c).[68] In the other case (Eustathius 4.970), the reference is en passant, as if Homēristaí had once been the standard word for ‘performers of Homer’: ταῦτα δὲ πάντα καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα ὑποκρουσάμενος τοῖς Ὁμηρισταῖς ὁ ποιητὴς αὐτὸς αὖθις ἐπελύσατο διά τε θείων προσώπων καὶ διὰ λόγων δεξιότητος… ‘being faulted for all these things [that is, for various narrative inconsistencies] and for however many other such things by the Homēristaí, the poet himself provided explanations’.[xxxvi] I find this second reference significant precisely because it is used so casually—not just by Eustathius but also, presumably, by his ancient source.[69] {171|172}

Let us note in this connection a further comment, made at an earlier point by Eustathius (1.9) in the Prolegomena to his commentary on the Iliad, that performers whom he describes as “those in a later period” had “acted Homeric poetry in a more dramatic fashion,” with performers of the Iliad wearing costumes dyed red and those of the Odyssey, purple (εἰ δὲ καὶ τὴν Ὁμηρικὴν ποίησιν οἱ ὕστερον ὑπεκρίνοντο δραματικώτερον, τὴν μὲν Ὀδύσσειαν ἐν ἁλουργοῖς ἐσθήμασι, τὴν δὲ Ἰλιάδα ἐν ἐρυθροβαφέσιν).[70] Eustathius makes this comment in the context of conceding that Homeric poetry had indeed been acted like tragedy, even though it was not called drama (οὐ μὴν δράματα, ὡς τὰ παρὰ τοῖς τραγικοῖς). Given the explicit association of the Homēristaí with the theatricalization of Homeric performance traditions, as we have seen from the passage in Athenaeus, I infer that Eustathius—or, better, perhaps his source, who may be Athenaeus—is referring to the Homēristaí when he speaks here of “those in a later period” who “acted Homeric poetry in a more dramatic fashion” (to repeat, τὴν Ὁμηρικὴν ποίησιν οἱ ὕστερον ὑπεκρίνοντο δραματικώτερον).

Let us return to the evidence of the extant papyri, all dated to the second or third century CE, concerning the performances of Homēristaí. It is important to note that these attestations come {172|173} from a relatively late era—considerably later than that of the “eccentric” Homer papyri of 300 to 150 BCE or so. I have already argued that a phase of relatively more fluidity in the Homeric performance tradition, as reflected in the “eccentric” papyri, was coming to a halt by around 150 BCE, after which time both the performance tradition and the commercial “books” or scrolls of Homer could revert to reflecting more closely an earlier and more canonical Athenian rhapsodic performance tradition.[71] But we have yet to consider fully whether the very term Homēristaí is related to such an earlier, more canonical, rhapsodic tradition.

True, the attestations of this term are so relatively late that we cannot be sure, at this point in the argument, whether it is justifiable to date the institution of Homēristaí as far back as the fourth century BCE. For now, at least, the only direct textual evidence we have for this argument is the passage in Athenaeus 14.620b-c, already quoted, which suggests that the Homēristaí are offshoots of Homeric performance traditions as reformed by Demetrius. What follows, however, is additional textual evidence for taking the actual term Homēristaí all the way back to the era of Demetrius. Also, I will present arguments for linking this term with the idea of a fourth-century “State Script.”

We have already noted that Demetrius of Phaleron, apparently credited in Athenaeus (14.620b-c) with a reform of Homeric performance traditions at Athens towards the end of the fourth century, is definitely to be credited with a major reform of Athenian State Theater. By abolishing the khorēgía, he brought about the ultimate professionalization of the chorus, that former bastion of non-professional and “liberal” education.[72] Thanks to the reforms of Demetrius, as we have seen, the Athenian State was hereafter paying salaries not only to the actors, as it had already before, but also to the chorus, even financing its costumes.[73] In other words, Demetrius legitimated the evolution of a relatively more professionalized corps of actors in State Theater.[74] This {173|174} historical fact suggests that a new detail can be added to the argument: extrapolating from Athenaeus (14.620b-c), I now propose that Demetrius legitimated the evolution of a corps of Homeric performers who were relatively more professionalized than earlier performers—and who may have been actually called Homēristaí.

There are in fact historical precedents, beyond the reform of Athenian State Theater instituted by Demetrius himself in the fourth quarter of the fourth century, for this same man’s reform of Homeric performance traditions. A few years earlier, in the third quarter of the fourth century, we find that Lycurgus of Athens had instituted something that seems analogous: this statesman had initiated reforms in the performance traditions of State Theater in Athens, legislating an official “State Script” for the tragedies of three poets and three poets only, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.[75] The crucial piece of evidence comes from a compressed and problematic passage in [“Plutarch”] Lives of the Ten Orators (841f).[76] According to this passage, Lycurgus introduced a law requiring that the Athenians erect bronze statues of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and that the State make official the texts of the tragedies of these three poets in the following way:

…τὰς τραγῳδίας αὐτῶν ἐν κοινῷ γραψαμένους φυλάττειν καὶ τὸν τῆς πόλεως γραμματέα παραναγινώσκειν τοῖς ὑποκρινομένοις· οὐκ ἐξεῖναι γὰρ αὐτὰς ὑποκρίνεσθαι

…that they were to transcribe their tragedies [that is, the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides] and keep {174|175} them under control in common possession,[77] and that the recorder [grammateús] of the city[78] was to read them as a model [paranagignṓskein][79] to those acting in the tragedies, for otherwise it was not possible to act them [that is, the tragedies].[80]

“Plutarch” Lives of the Ten Orators 841f

With reference to this passage about Lycurgus, one scholar has suggested the following possible interpretation: “Did the recorder [grammateús] perhaps attend rehearsals … with the official text in front of him, following the rehearsal in his text and pointing out whenever the actors departed from it, so as to ensure that they got it right in the actual performance?”[81] Another possibility is that the grammateús read out the text in advance,[82] in which case we may interpret paranagignṓskein as ‘read out loud as a model’.[83] Either way, the implication is clear: the actors of tragedy were bound to an Athenian “State Script.” {175|176}

There is further testimony about such an Athenian text: tragoedias primus in lucem Aeschylus protulit, sublimis et gravis et grandilocus saepe usque ad vitium, sed rudis in plerisque et incompositus; propter quod correctas eius fabulas in certamen deferre posterioribus poetis Athenienses permisere; suntque eo modo multi coronati ‘the first to bring out tragedies was Aeschylus—sublime, severe, and often grandiloquent to a fault, but unpolished in many ways and disorganized; on account of which the Athenians allowed later poets to introduce into dramatic competitions the corrected versions of his dramas, and in this way many of these later poets won the garland of victory’ (Quintilian Institutio oratoria 10.1.66). We note with special interest the expression correctas, which seems to me analogous to the concept of diórthōsis, which in turn may be related to the concept of paranagignṓskein.

In this context, as we contemplate further the usage of paranagignṓskein in the sense of ‘read out loud as a model’, we may perhaps find a deeper level of meaning in the sobriquet reportedly applied by Plato to Aristotle, anagnṓstēs ‘the one who reads out loud’ (Vita Marciana, Aristotle Fragments p. 428.2 ed. Rose).[84] It may even be pertinent that the Vita Latina of Aristotle refers to his own edition of Homer as a dictamen (Aristotle Fragments p. 443.5–6 ed. Rose).[85] Given the theatrical context of paranagignṓskein in the passage about Lycurgus’ reform of performance traditions in Athenian tragedy, we may compare anagnṓstēs with the French stage-word souffleur.[86] Such an interpretation of anagnṓstēs {176|177} may help explain this word’s occurrence alongside Homēristḗs in an Oxyrhynchus papyrus dealing with Homeric performance.[87] In other words, the parallelism of Homēristḗs and anagnṓstēs in this papyrus implies that the recitation of Homer, like the acting of drama, depended on a “script.” Moreover, if indeed the actors of drama in Athens were regulated on the basis of a “script” imposed by the State, the same may be said about the Homēristaí.

In continuing the argument for a relationship between the Homēristaí and an Athenian “State Script” of Homer, I posit the following sequence of events:

(A) A new state-controlled performance tradition and “script,” associated with the Homēristaí, is founded by Demetrius in Athens sometime between 317 and 307 BCE.

(B) Then, with the fall of Demetrius in 307 BCE, the Athenian State loses or at least relaxes control of Homeric performance traditions, with the result that more variations can proliferate in Athens and elsewhere.[88] Such variations are reflected in the so-called “eccentric” Homer papyri. This period of instability in performance traditions lasts until around 150 BCE During this period from 307 BCE to 150 BCE, we can expect the generic designation of Homeric performers to default to the older term rhapsōidoí ‘rhapsodes’.[89]

(C) After this burst of variation peters out, around 150 BCE, the performance traditions of the Homēristaí reassert themselves, matching closely the more canonical textual traditions as reconstituted by Aristarchus.[90] {177|178}

In terms of this hypothetical scenario, the relatively late attestations of the word Homēristaí in the papyri can be correlated with the relatively most rigid period in the evolution of Homeric transmission.

In arguing for the emergence of the term Homēristaí already in the late fourth century, the era of Demetrius of Phaleron, I find crucial evidence in the parallel formations of other terms used in parallel contexts. One such form that is parallel to Homēristaí features the verb-suffix ‑ízein from which the derivative noun-suffix ‑istḗs / ‑istaí is derived.[91] The word in question is Thamuríddontes (Θαμυριδδόντων), the Boeotian dialectal equivalent of Thamurízontes, attested in an inscription from Boeotia that is dated to the first half of the fourth century BCE (Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 32.503). The inscription records a ritual event, mentioning twenty-two participants, and among them is a hiararkhíōn ‘hierarch’ and two Thamuríddontes, all of whom Paul Roesch connects with a hero-cult of the prototypical poet Thamyris in the Valley of the Muses.[92] Pausanias reports having seen a statue of Thamyris in the Valley of the Muses, where this prototypical poet is represented as already blinded, holding on to his broken lyre (9.30.2): the best-known version of the story of Thamyris and his punishment for insulting the Muses is told in Iliad II (594–600).[93]

There is another early parallel to the formation Homēristaí. The form in question is Puthagoristaí, a designation for followers of {178|179} Pythagoras, which is attested already in a comedy from the fourth century BCE (Aristophon F 9.1, 12.3 Kassel / Austin; the word is attested in a comedy of Aristophon’s bearing the actual title Puthagoristḗs). These Puthagoristaí are to be distinguished from the ostensibly more “legitimate” line of Pythagoreans, called the Puthagóreioi: unlike the Puthagóreioi, the Puthagoristaí are professionalized and therefore ostensibly more lowly, as we are explicitly told by the Iamblichean Life of Pythagoras (18.80). The lowly characterization of the Puthagoristaí is also indicated by the context of the reference to them in Theocritus 14.5 (in Dorian dialect, Puthagoriktaí).[94] We may compare the morphology of the more elevated name Puthagóreioi with that of the name Kreōphúleioi, designating a lineage of rhapsodes from Samos who had been rivals of the Homērídai, the lineage of rhapsodes from Chios.[95] The archaic ethos of the suffix ‑eioi in the forms Puthagóreioi and Kreōphúleioi is to be contrasted with the innovative ethos of the suffix ‑istaí in Puthagoristaí—and Homēristaí. It is worth stressing again that Athenaeus seems to link the reforms of Homeric performance at Athens in the fourth century BCE with the term Homēristaí.

I propose that the term Homēristaí replaced the earlier Homērídai,[96] and we may see in this replacement of terms a pattern of displacement in authority, in that we know of traditions that report of claims to authority and even legitimacy made by the earlier Homērídai.[97] These traditions even report of instances where the Homērídai disclaimed as illegitimate a given performer {179|180} of Homer, as in the case of the sixth-century figure Kynaithos.[98] It seems that the claim of the Homērídai had been that they were the only authorized performers of Homer.[99]

Given the exclusiveness of the Homērídai as distinct from the Homēristaí, we may again compare the distinction made between the ostensibly more “legitimate” line of Pythagoreans, called the Puthagóreioi, and the less-connected and therefore ostensibly more lowly Puthagoristaí. I propose also that an increased inclusiveness in membership, as implied by the displacement of Homērídai by Homēristaí, may be symptomatic of a decreasing flexibility in the inherited repertoire, to be correlated with an increasing professionalism needed to ensure the survival of performance traditions. There is a similar correlation in the history of Athenian State Theater, where Demetrius’ reform of performance traditions goes hand in hand with a trend toward intensified professionalization.[100]

Let us return to the comment, made by Eustathius (1.9) in the Prolegomena to his commentary on the Iliad, that performers whom he describes as ‘those in a later period’ had ‘acted Homeric poetry in a more dramatic fashion’ (εἰ δὲ καὶ τὴν Ὁμηρικὴν ποίησιν οἱ ὕστερον ὑπεκρίνοντο δραματικώτερον). I have already suggested that Eustathius—or, better, perhaps his source, which may have been a fuller version of Athenaeus than the one we have—is referring to the Homēristaí . This reference of Eustathius to ‘later’ conventions in Homeric performance implies also a contrast with what he describes in the same context (p. 10) as earlier conventions of ‘the ancients’, the majority of whom had referred to the totality of Homeric poetry as rhapsōidíā {180|181} ‘rhapsody’ and to those who sing it, as rhapsōidoí ‘rhapsodes’ (οἱ δὲ πλείους τῶν παλαιῶν τήν τε ὅλην Ὁμηρικὴν ποίησιν ῥαψῳδίαν λέγουσι καὶ ῥαψῳδοὺς τοὺς αὐτὴν ᾄδοντας ‘but the majority of the ancients refer to the totality of Homeric poetry as rhapsōidíā and to those singing it as rhapsōidoí’).[101] This earlier practice is then contrasted explicitly (Eustathius, top of p. 10) with the later practice of designating as rhapsōidíā each of the twenty-four units of the Iliad and Odyssey, with each rhapsōidíā corresponding to a letter of the alphabet. I now propose to link this reportedly ‘later’ practice with the era of Demetrius of Phaleron and with the traditions of the Homēristaí.

In the era of Demetrius, it appears that the equivalent of rhapsōidíā is still a matter of performance—though the emphasis may have shifted from the process of putting together the units of performance to the status of each unit’s being divided from the other. In this matter I agree with the opinion of Stephanie West, who infers that “the use of the term rhapsōidíā for what we call each ‘book’ of Homer indicates that the system was based on rhapsodic practice.”[102] It does not necessarily follow, however, that the custom of naming after a letter of the alphabet each one of the twenty-four units of both Homeric poem, each designated as rhapsōidíā, goes back to the era of the Peisistratidai.[103] The farther back we go in time, the less textual the {181|182} idea of rhapsōidíā becomes: and we may certainly expect patterns of performance-segmentation—as reflected in the very word rhapsōidíā—to vary over time.[104] Accordingly, let us pursue the argument that the era of Demetrius of Phaleron, who according to Athenaeus (14.620b-c) introduced Homēristaí into the theaters, is a more likely setting for the canonical division of the Iliad and the Odyssey each into twenty-four units of performance.

It is claimed in an ancient source (“Plutarch” Life of Homer 2.4 p. 25.23–25 ed. Wilamowitz) that the division of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey each into twenty-four scrolls originated with the school of Aristarchus. This claim is rejected by those who reconstruct the division all the way back to the era of the Peisistratidai,[105] while it is tentatively accepted by those who resist such a reconstruction.[106] I propose a middle way, arguing that the school of Aristarchus did not originate the division of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey into twenty-four scrolls each but merely re-established this form of division.[107] Before the era of the Alexandrian critics, in terms of this proposal, the division into twenty-four units was a convention primarily of performance, supervised by the Athenian State. {182|183}

In the era of Aristarchus as distinct from the era of Demetrius, the twenty-four units of the Iliad and Odyssey could have become reconceptualized, shifting their identity from quasi-textual rhapsōidíai, numbered according to the twenty-four letters of the Athenian State Alphabet, to veritable “books” or scrolls of the Iliad and Odyssey. In general, however, Aristarchus’ organization of the Homeric text was perhaps closer to Demetrius’ earlier organization than to what we find attested in the so-called “eccentric” Homer papyri. Conventions of book-production in the early Ptolemaic era, as reflected by the “eccentric” Homer papyri, seem to ignore the canonical division of the Homeric poems into the relatively small units marked off by the twenty-four letters of the alphabet. Following the calculations of Jean Irigoin and others, John Van Sickle argues that the pre-Aristarchean Ptolemaic norm for the size of a papyrus scroll or “book” of Homer could have been the length of, say, one of the four scrolls or “books” of the Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes (Scroll 1, 1362 verses; Scroll 2, 1285; Scroll 3, 1407; Scroll 4 1781)—or for that matter the length of an Athenian tragedy or comedy—in any case, within the range of 1000 to 2000 lines.[108] By contrast, the post-Aristarchean norm for the size of a papyrus scroll or “book” of Homer averages around 500 to 650 lines—and these lengths match the book-divisions that have come down to us through the medieval manuscript tradition.[109] Moreover, as Van Sickle shows, the norm of any book in the literary world of the post-Aristarchean era actually became reconceptualized to approximate the size of the Homeric book.[110] The two prime examples are Virgil’s Aeneid, the “books” or scrolls of which average 850 verses, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, where the average is 800.[111]

To repeat, the so-called “eccentric” Homeric papyri of the pre-Aristarchean period tend to fall within the range of 1000 / 2000 lines, without regard for divisions into twenty-four units: “these early Ptolemaic papyri of Homer … show no explicit signs of the division into ‘books’ designated by letters of the alphabet.”[112] {183|184} This preference for 1000 / 2000 line-groupings, Van Sickle suggests, “must represent the custom and convenience of an earlier period, stemming not as yet from Alexandria but from more distant centers, including Athens itself.”[113] It is possible, however, that already in Athens there were stricter customs coming to the fore toward the end of the fourth century, at which point my hypothesis calls for the development of something that approximates an Athenian “State Script” of Homer, formalized by Demetrius of Phaleron. The post-Aristarchean era, with its Homeric texts divided into twenty-four scrolls, represents in my opinion not an innovation but a reversion to something like a “State Script”—if not to the actual norms of Homeric performance in late fourth-century Athens.

In support of the notion that the Homer text as formalized by Aristarchus was much closer to such an Athenian “State Script,” as I have called it, than to the intermediate texts represented by the “eccentric” Homer papyri, there is an analogy in the textual history of the Rule of Saint Benedict.[114] The Rule was written down in the sixth century, and Benedict’s manuscript was preserved at Monte Cassino by the Benedictine Order until 896, when it was destroyed in a fire. An “improved” version of the Rule, known as the traditio moderna, was evolving ever since the inception of the text in the sixth century till the end of the eighth century. At that point, Charlemagne himself visited Monte Cassino and acquired a manuscript copied from the original manuscript of the Rule. This copy of the original Rule, which was much closer to the text as it originally existed in the sixth century, then became “the basis for the diffusion of the text throughout the reformed monasteries of the Carolingian kingdom.”[115] Ironically, however, “the concern for the establishment of an accurate text led copyists to insert into the margins readings from the traditio moderna, thus recorrupting the text away from Benedict’s original.”[116]

To restate the analogy, we could say that the evolution of the Rule in the traditio moderna matches the evolution of the Homeric tradition in the era of the “eccentric” Homer papyri, and that the return to the earliest layer of the Rule at the initiative of {184|185} Charlemagne matches the return to an earlier layer of the Koine tradition, at the initiative of Aristarchus. The “recorruption” of the Benedictine Rule matches the eventual “recorruption” of the Aristarchean version of Homer in the post-Aristarchean manuscript traditions.[117] A major difference that offsets the analogy, however, is that the earlier layer of the Koine text, as restored by Aristarchus, does not match the archetypal quality of the earliest layer of the Benedictine Rule. Moreover, for reasons that we will examine in the next chapter, the history of the Athenian text as restored by Aristarchus covers its tracks, as it were.

For now, however, the argument runs as follows: that the performance traditions of fifth-century tragedy and even those of Homer were concurrently reaching a relatively rigid stage in the era of the Athenian reforms starting in the third quarter of the fourth century. It will be important to keep this era in mind as we consider the succeeding era of Alexandrian scholarship, with all its intense editorial activity—which is the central topic of the next chapter. The present argument is that the medieval text traditions of Homer stem, at least in part, not from the Alexandrian era but rather from this earlier Athenian era.[118] In terms of the {185|186} scheme of periodization as outlined in the previous chapter, the Homeric textual tradition that we know today by the vague designation of the Koine or “Vulgate” is typical of period 3, while period 4 begins with the emergence of a “State Script” of Homeric performance traditions as reformed under the régime of Demetrius of Phaleron.

There may indeed have been a textual prototype, in the loosest sense of the word, for the kind of “State Script” that reflects the performance reforms instituted under this régime. Such a prototype could have been influenced by, or even derived from, a copy of Homer that Aristotle and his school had used for their own research, which would surely have included his diórthōsis as marginalia.[119] Be that as it may, we could expect the “State Script” that inaugurates period 4 to be based on the Koine performance traditions of the earlier period 3. As a text, however, such a script would have been considered superior, from the standpoint of its editors, to any earlier commercial transcript of Koine performance traditions. Whether or not such a script stemmed directly from Aristotle’s own diórthōsis of the Koine, we will see in the next chapter that it reflected an ultimate diórthōsis that had been promoted and perhaps even executed by Demetrius of Phaleron, student of Theophrastus, who in turn was student and direct successor of Aristotle.[120] {187|188}

Footnotes

[1] The criteria of any “traditional oral epic diction,” it is important to repeat, are hardly universal: they have to be studied within the different historical contexts of different cultures.

[2] Allen 1924:282.

[3] Allen 1924:281.

[4] Janko 1992:22, 26.

[5] Janko 1992:22, 26.

[6] See p. 143.

[7] See p. 144 Also HQ 76.

[8] Again, p. 144.

[9] Bolling 1925, followed by Apthorp 1980.

[10] Those who envisage an Athenian version of Homer purely in textual terms can disagree radically about the reliability of the Alexandrian critics in transmitting such a version: see Rengakos 1993:15–16, who lists various experts representing what he sees as the two opposing sides (it may be noted here that many other radical disagreements separate those who are supposedly members of each side). See further below at n118.

[11] Basic works on Demetrius of Phaleron: Bayer 1942, Dow and Travis 1943, Wehrli 1968.

[12] On the cultural reforms of Demetrius in Athens, and on his connections with the school of Aristotle, see in general Williams 1987 (who also surveys the bibliography, which is vast).

[13] Blum 1991:24.

[14] On Lycurgus as a cultural forerunner of Demetrius, see Mossé 1989. In the discussion that follows, I propose to compare briefly the reforms of Athenian State Theater undertaken by Lycurgus and Demetrius.

[15] Blum 1991:24.

[16] Blum 1991:24.

[17] Cf. FGH no. 228 p. 957. Cf. Adrados 1983. Jacoby (FGH no. 228 Notes p. 644) points out that the bibliography of Demetrius’ works as listed in Diogenes Laertius 5.80-81 tends to prove Demetrius’ connection with the Library of Alexandria (T 6b, e), in that ordinarily there are no such lists for “modern” authors. The total list, as given in Diogenes Laertius 5.80–81, is staggering. This cumulative bibliography of Demetrius, which is supplemented in Wehrli 1968:518–522, is reproduced in the Appendix.

[18] Χρειῶν α’ in the bibliography of Demetrius as given in Diogenes Laertius 5.81 has been identified with this lore about the Seven Sages: Jacoby FGH no. 228 (Notes p. 644). In Diogenes Laertius 1.22, we read about Thales of Miletus: καὶ πρῶτος σοφὸς ὠνομάσθη ἄρχοντος Ἀθήνησι Δαμασίου, καθ’ ὃν καὶ οἱ ἑπτὰ σοφοὶ ἐκλήθησαν, ὥς φησι Δημήτριος ὁ Φαληρεὺς ἐν τῇ τῶν Ἀρχόντων ἀναγραφῇ (Demetrius of Phaleron FGH 228 F 1).

[19] Valckenaer emends, maybe unnecessarily, from Ἡροδότου.

[20] J. D. Morgan comments (per litteras 6 June 1994): “This is certainly evidence for Cassander’s high level of interest in Homer and possibly even for his concern for the proper constitution of the text of Homer.” For Cassander to write out the Iliad and Odyssey by hand is effectively to produce his own private edition. I suspect that Aristotle himself did so, and that he may in fact be the model for what Cassander is reported to have done. Cassander, son of Alexander’s regent Antipater, was the ruler of Macedon from 317 to 297. He was on close terms with Aristotle’s successor, Theophrastus, who composed a book entitled Πρὸς Κάσανδρον περὶ βασιλείας ‘To Cassander, on Kingship’ (Diogenes Laertius 5.47, Athenaeus 4.144e). In the discussion that follows, I will take note of Cassander’s relationship with Demetrius of Phaleron.

[21] On the dating of Clearchus, who flourished between 300 and 250 BCE, see Bartol 1992:67, with further references.

[22] Lysanias was reportedly the teacher of Eratosthenes (Suda s.v. Eratosthenes); the latter flourished in the third century BCE, so that Lysanias is roughly contemporaneous with Clearchus. I draw attention to the dates of Clearchus (previous note) and Lysanias because both these relatively early sources seem to associate the art of the rhapsodes with theatrics. Such an association is important for later stages of my argumentation.

[23] For an extensive discussion of the recitative format of rhapsodic performance traditions: PH 19–28.

[24] Husson 1993. She stresses the pertinence of Athenaeus 14.620b-c to the history of Homeric performance traditions. She argues also that the comments by Robert 1936=1969:673n4 and 1983:182-184 on Homēristaí need to be modified, if ever so slightly, on the basis of this passage. Further discussion below.

[25] PH 26–27 (cf. West 1970:919), where I offer a detailed diachronic explanation of such concepts as represented by the word melōidēthênai ‘to be sung melodically’ (in the passage quoted from Athenaeus 14.620c), arguing that it is anachronistic to translate this word as ‘to be set to music’. Although the fifth and especially the fourth centuries mark an innovative phase in songmaking traditions where even poetic forms with reduced melody, such as hexameters and iambic trimeters, can indeed be “set to music” (again, PH 26–27), there is a more basic principle to be kept in mind: that even recitative poetic forms like the hexameter stem ultimately from traditions of singing (PH 24–26). Thus we may expect the modified survival of traditional patterns of melody even in poetic forms with ultimately reduced melody, like the hexameter. We may also expect the performance traditions of rhapsodes to reflect such patterns, which in turn would promote the preservation of archaic patterns of pitch accent (PH 29). More below on the subject of accent-patterns preserved in performance.

[26] Cf. Husson 1993:94–95. On this point, I disagree with Boyd 1994, who argues that the connection between rhapsōidoí and Homēristaí is unjustifiable.

[27] Cf. Husson 1993:95. She notes that the usage of the term Homēristaí seems to be linked with the era of Athenaeus.

[28] Timothy Boyd draws my attention to Diomedes Ars Grammatica 3.484.12–16 (fourth-century CE), where the word rhapsōidía is associated with performance, in theatrical contexts, by Homēristaí.

[29] Husson 1993:95.

[30] It is crucial to note the use of δέ at the beginning of a rhapsodic performance. The fact that correlative μέν and δέ can be found separated by Homeric book-divisions, as at Odyssey ii 434 (μέν) and iii 1 (δέ), has been used along with other facts to argue that the division of the Iliad and Odyssey into twenty-four books each is “not original but most likely a product of the Hellenistic age”: see S. Douglas Olson, in a paper presented 28 December 1993 at the annual convention of the American Philological Association (APA 1993 Abstracts p. 41). On the basis of the anecdote that we have just seen, however, I would argue that such separations of correlative μέν and δέ are traditional rhapsodic practice: the δέ of Iliad XVIII 356, beginning a performance at the wedding of Ptolemy II, is syntactically correlated with a μέν in an earlier Iliadic verse, XVIII 354. More below on the possibility that Homeric book-divisions were based on rhapsodic practices.

[31] The historical occasion is the marriage, in the first quarter of the third century before our era, of Ptolemy II Philadelphus to his sister, Arsinoe, in accordance with the practice of Egyptian pharaohs—and in violation of Hellenic practices.

[32] See also Plato Ion 535b; cf. Husson 1993:95.

[33] Cf. Boyd 1994.

[34] See Dupont-Roc and Lallot 1980:407.

[35] PH 25.

[36] See p. 159 above.

[37] Cf. Bartol 1992:66. My interpretation of this Aristotle passage depends on whether the paideíā here refers to whatever the boy learns—by way of songs and the erotic sensibilities conveyed in the songs—as preparation for participation in the symposium. See Calame 1989, with reference to a red-figure painting by Douris on a drinking-cup produced between 490 and 480 BCE (ARV2 431, 48 and 1653; CVA II pp. 29–30, with plates 77 and 78): the painting illustrates in rich detail two scenes, “A” and “B,” where boys are being educated in the learning and the performance of song and musical accompaniment. On the left in both scenes A and B, a seated ephebe (B) or adult (A) is playing the reed (B) or the lyre (A). On the right in both scenes, a seated pedagogue, with a cane, looks on. In the middle is a young boy standing and facing a seated ephebe who holds a tablet, on which he is writing (B) and a young boy standing and facing a seated adult who holds a scroll of papyrus, which he is reading (A). Another young boy is standing and facing the seated reed-playing ephebe on the left (B), and a seated lyre-playing ephebe faces the seated lyre-playing adult on the left (A). In scene A, there are musical instruments—both lyres and reeds—represented as levitating above the action, and they are framed on either side by representations of drinking-cups shaped just like the one painted by Douris. As Calame argues (p. 53), the songmaking apprenticeship of the boys, with distinct implications of homoerotic undertones (on both sides, there is an erotic inscription designed to touch the lips of whoever drinks from the cup), is being represented as a prerequisite for the integration of adolescents into the symposia of adult citizens, which is the context for which the drinking-cup of Douris is destined.

[38] Further discussion in ch. 8, p. 218.

[39] On this passage, see Jones 1991:189, especially with reference to the use of weapons as props, as it were, for Homeric performance. See also p. 167 below.

[40] In LSJ s.v. Homēristḗs, it is pointed out that the word conveys a sexual double entendre in this context. For another such sexual pun involving mēr‑ in the sense of ‘thigh’, see Crates, Greek Anthology 11.218.

[41] Cf. Jones 1991:189. For a related passage, Achilles Tatius 3.20.4, see p. 164 above.

[42] Cf. also Jones 1991:189.

[43] The humorous effect that is intended here may be this: one would expect an educated person to read along from a libretto written in the original Greek, as it were, but Trimalchio has to resort to a Latin translation. The implications of this detail, where someone is described as reading along while the Homeric performers recite their lines, may be pertinent to a custom dating back to fourth-century Athens, as discussed below.

[44] In some contemporary epic performance traditions of India, various characters of epic are re-enacted by performers who dance wielding specific weapons: for example, Arjuna with a bow and arrow, Draupadī with a scythe, and so forth. These weapons, once used in performance, are venerated as sacred objects. See Sax 1991.

[45] Robert 1936=1969:673n4 and 1983:182–184. In the Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum, the Homēristaí are mentioned s.v. atellani; see Husson 1993:94n6, who cites e.g. CGL II p. 22 lines 40–42 and VI p. 108 (we note the verbal association of atellani with skēnikoí and biológoi as well as Homēristaí).

[46] I should add: what is already “scripture” for Aristarchus may continue to be a “script” for the Homēristaí. More on the notion of “scripture” in ch. 7.

[47] I had first discussed these papyri in a paper presented 28 December 1992 at the annual convention of the American Philological Association (“Prosodic Anomalies in Homer: Evidence for Rhapsodic Performance Traditions?” APA 1992 Abstracts p. 89). The perceptive analysis of these same papyri by Husson 1993 has added valuable new information about these texts, which I now list in the order that she prefers. C. P. Jones points out to me that an inscription published by Marek 1993:144 (no. 28; cf. also p. 109) seems to refer to a Homēristḗs (though the actual term is not used in this case).

[48] Of great interest to me is the collocation here of Homēristaí with the word apódeixis in the sense of ‘performance’; I discuss the concept of apódeixis at length in PH, especially pp. 222–224, 320, 344, 364, 411. We have already noted at p. 164 above the collocation of Homēristaí and the verb of apódeixis in Achilles Tatius 3.20.4.

[49] In the case of examples 3a and 3b, which come from the same document, Homēristḗs is in collocation with anagnṓstēs.

[50] For the term biológos, cf. cross-ref. n45 above.

[51] Husson 1993:96–97.

[52] Husson 1993:98.

[53] Husson 1993:98.

[54] Husson 1993:97.

[55] Husson 1993:99.

[56] Husson 1993:99.

[57] Husson 1993:98–99, along with other striking illustrations of Greek-Egyptian cultural coexistence in the context of the festivals noted in these Oxyrhynchus papyri.

[58] Roueché 1993:18; this evidence was kindly brought to my attention by Geneviève Husson, per litteras (29 November 1994).

[59] Roueché 1993:22: “In Room 6 it is clear that more than one text had been inscribed and erased. [The Room 6 inscription] seems to have read Δημητρίου ὁμηριστοῦ διασκεύη; the description ὁμηριστοῦ, after Demetrius’ name, is in a different hand, and was presumably either added to the inscription, or possibly, left over from a previous inscription which Demetrius replaced with his own.” On diaskeûos in the sense of ‘theatrical equipment’ (perhaps ‘costume’), see Roueché p. 20.

[60] Roueché 1993:24.

[61] Roueché 1993:16.

[62] Roueché 1993:24, who also points out that two of the mimes mentioned in the Aphrodisias inscriptions, Philologos (Room 4) and Autolykos (Room 3), were “almost certainly mimes who were competitors at ‘sacred’ contests at some time in the third century.” See also p. 25: “It does seem to be the case … that the two types of performance which had been increasing in popularity in the Roman period—the pantomime and the mime—dominated the late Roman period.” The evidence of ancient testimony surveyed by Roueché pp. 26–27 makes it clear that the performances of pantomimes and mimes involved singing as well as dancing; cf. p. 26: “While the dancer himself did not speak, he was normally accompanied by a choir who would sing the story; … the songs themselves might be picked up and sung at home by the spectators [with reference to Libanius, iv CE, On Dancing 93]).” Cf. also Lucian On Dance 68. {In Bonario II p. 57 test. no. 535, we read concerning Homeric conventions: γνῶμας ἐμμέτρους ἀλλήλοις ἀντιτιθέναι: this is from Choricius, as ed. by Stephanes.In Bonario II p. 57 test. no. 535, we read concerning Homeric conventions: γνῶμας ἐμμέτρους ἀλλήλοις ἀντιτιθέναι: this is from Choricius, as ed. by Stephanes.}

[63] The passage about the Homēristaí in Petronius Satyricon 59.4–6, as discussed above, is instructive in this regard: intravit factio statim hastisque scuta concrepuit. ipse Trimalchio in pulvino consedit, et cum Homeristae Graecis versibus colloquerentur, ut insolenter solent, ille canora voce Latine legebat librum. mox silentio facto “scitis” inquit “quam fabulam agant? Diomedes et Ganymedes duo fratres fuerunt. horum soror erat Helena. Agamemnon illam rapuit…” ‘there entered right away a troupe [of Homēristaí], beating on their shields with their spears. Trimalchio himself sat down on his cushion and, while the Homēristaí were having their dialogues in Greek verses, in their usual pompous manner, he [Trimalchio], in a sonorous voice, was reading along, in Latin, from a book. Then after a moment of silence, he said: “do you know what story they are acting? Well Diomedes and Ganymedes were two brothers. They had a sister, Helen, and Agamemnon abducted her …”’.

[64] Roueché 1993:18.

[65] Roueché 1993:22.

[66] To repeat an ongoing point: what is already “scripture” for Aristarchus may continue to be a script for the Homēristaí.

[67] For example, Eustathius used an epitome of Athenaeus that was in several respects fuller in detail than the C and E versions that have come down to us; see Van der Valk 1971:lxxxv.{From Lohse 1965.290n85, I learn of Klara Aldick, De Athenaei Dipnosophistarum Epitomae codicibus Erbac. laurent. Parisino. Diss. Münster 1928.From Lohse 1965.290n85, I learn of Klara Aldick, De Athenaei Dipnosophistarum Epitomae codicibus Erbac. laurent. Parisino. Diss. Münster 1928.}

[68] For a general discussion of the possibilities of recovering, by way of Eustathius, fuller versions of the Athenaeus text tradition, see Van der Valk 1971:lxxix–lxxxv.

[69] Besides the two cases of the noun Homēristaí in Eustathius, we find also the verb Homērízein. In Eustathius (1.553), the expression κατά τε Ὅμηρον καὶ τοὺς ὁμηρίζοντας, may imply that the Homērízontes (from Homērízein) are the equivalent of Homēristaí. Eustathius (1.1), in the Prolegomena to his commentary on the Iliad, says that no poet would miss the opportunity to imitate Homer, πάντα ποιῶν δι᾿ ὧν ὁμηρίζειν δυνήσεται ‘doing everything that enables him to be a Homērízōn’. It seems as if the idea of a poet’s imitating Homer is being implicitly equated with the idea of performing Homer.

[70] Eustathius (1.9), in the Prolegomena to his commentary on the Iliad, may perhaps be guessing when he attributes to ‘the ancients’ this rationale for the distinct color-schemes: that red stands for the blood shed in war, and purple, for the sea, as the setting of Odysseus’ wanderings. Still, his report about the actual color dichotomy seems to be grounded in tradition. In Homeric diction, we find a parallel dichotomy of red and purple in descriptions of colors painted on ships: nêes miltopárēioi in Iliad II 637 and Odyssey ix 125 vs. néas phoinikoparḗious in Odyssey xi 124 and xxiii 271. Moreover, the inventories of chariots in the Linear B tablets show yet another parallel dichotomy of red and purple in descriptions of colors painted on chariots: the noun i-qi-ja ‘chariot’ is described as either mi-to-we-sa = miltówessa ‘red’ as in Knossos tablet Sd 4407 (Ventris and Chadwick 1973:562 compare nêes miltopárēioi in Iliad II 637) or po-ni-ki-ja = phoinikíā ‘purple’ as in Knossos tablet Sd 4402 (Ventris and Chadwick p. 573 compare néas phoinikoparḗious in Odyssey xi 124). For the translation ‘purple’ in the latter case, I note φοινικόβαπτα ἐσθήματα in Aeschylus Eumenides 1028. In Iliad XXIII 717, the same notion of purple may even fit σμώδιγγες … αἵματι φοινοκόεσσαι, if the reference is to a special kind of discoloration associated with welts.

[71] See pp. 141, 144 above.

[72] Blum 1991:24.

[73] Blum 1991:24. Perhaps it is pertinent to recall the remark of Eustathius (1.9), in the Prolegomena to his commentary on the Iliad, about the red and the purple costumes worn by performers of the Iliad and Odyssey respectively. {See Pickard-Cambridge [1988]:290 on purple robes worn by priests of the Dionúsou tekhnîtai in Athens around 125 BCE. The inscription is cited at p. 291n1.See Pickard-Cambridge [1988]:290 on purple robes worn by priests of the Dionúsou tekhnîtai in Athens around 125 BCE. The inscription is cited at p. 291n1.}

[74] I hasten to add that any increased inclusiveness of membership in an actors’ corps, as implied by the professionalization of the chorus in Athenian State Theater, seems symptomatic of a decreasing flexibility in the inherited repertoire. By the time of Demetrius, the ancestral choral traditions in Athens seem to have grown so obsolete as to require revitalization by professionals. The trend of professionalism in the fourth century BCE is made clear by Pickard-Cambridge [1988]:279–280, who traces this trend forward in time into the norms of professionalism that prevail in the early third century BCE and thereafter, under the general heading of Dionúsou tekhnîtai ‘Artists of Dionysus’: see his illuminating chapter “The Artists of Dionysus,” pp. 279–321. He also points out that this category of Dionúsou tekhnîtai included “professional reciters of epic” (p. 92n4). Cf. Stephanes 1988, especially pp. 573–574 (index of rhapsōidoí). More on this subject at n89 below. {It is relevant to mention here the role of Demetrius as the patron of Menander, on which see Handley’s ed. of the Dyscolus.It is relevant to mention here the role of Demetrius as the patron of Menander, on which see Handley’s ed. of the Dyscolus.}

[75] Cf. Wilamowitz 1895:132 and 148, followed by Blum 1991:42, on Lycurgus’ “theater reform.” As the discussion that follows makes clear, I do not agree with the opinion of Wilamowitz that the texts of the Athenian tragedians came into being as books intended for a reading public.

[76] See Bollack 1994.

[77] I interpret ἐν κοινῷ γραψαμένους φυλάττειν to mean ‘that they were to transcribe them [that is, the tragedies] and keep them under control in common possession’, with ἐν κοινῷ linked directly with φυλάττειν and not with γραψαμένους (thus I disagree with the interpretation ‘that they were to transcribe them [that is, the tragedies] all together [that is, as an ensemble] and keep them under control’—if I understand Blum 1991:83n155 correctly). On ἐν κοινῷ ‘in common possession’ as opposed to ἰδίᾳ ‘in private possession’, cf. Demosthenes In Leptinem 24: εἰ ἐν κοινῷ μὲν μηδ’ ὁτιοῦν ὑπάρχει τῇ πόλει, ἰδίᾳ δέ τινες πλουτήσουσ’ ἀτελείας ἐπειλημμένοι.

[78] Cf. grammateús as ‘recorder of memory’ (so LSJ) in Plato Philebus 39a. Bollack 1994 compares another mention of ‘the recorder [grammateús] of the city’ in Thucydides 7.10.

[79] In LSJ s.v., we may note the translation of paranagignṓskein as ‘read beside, compare, collate one document with another.’ One of the most interesting attestations of paranagignṓskein is Aeschines De falsa legatione 135 (the orator asks his audience to listen to a reading ἐκ τῶν δημοσίων γραμμάτων). {Among other attestations of paranagignṓskein: Isocrates 12.17 and many others listed in LSJ; Bollack cites Isocrates Panegyricus 120 and Aeschines Against Ctesiphon 201. Plus the following: Isocrates, Panathenaicus (orat. 12), Section 17, line 2; Galen, De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis, Book 2, chapter 5, section 24, line 2; Galen, De compositione medicamentorum secundum locos libri x, Volume 12, page 865, line 4.Among other attestations of paranagignṓskein: Isocrates 12.17 and many others listed in LSJ; Bollack cites Isocrates Panegyricus 120 and Aeschines Against Ctesiphon 201. Plus the following: Isocrates, Panathenaicus (orat. 12), Section 17, line 2; Galen, De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis, Book 2, chapter 5, section 24, line 2; Galen, De compositione medicamentorum secundum locos libri x, Volume 12, page 865, line 4.}

[80] Editors have usually adopted the reading οὐκ ἐξεῖναι γὰρ <παρ᾿> αὐτὰς ὑποκρίνεσθαι ‘for it was not possible to be acting in contradiction of them’ (e.g. the Teubner text of J. Mau, Leipzig 1971). Even without the conjectured <παρ᾿>, however, the text as it is makes sense: ‘for otherwise it was not permitted to act them [that is, the tragedies]’. For the usage of γάρ in the sense of ‘for otherwise’, see Denniston 1954:62–63.

[81] P. G. McC. Brown, per litteras (14 July 1993).

[82] Cf. Cameron 1990:124, with an inventory of important parallels. See also Bollack 1994.

[83] I compare the formula ἐκδόσεως παραναγνωσθείσης (plus dative), as in the explicit to the commentary of Eutocius of Ascalon (sixth century CE) to his commentary on Book I of Archimedes, De sphaera et cylindro (see Cameron 1990:103–107 for this and other examples of the formula). I interpret this formula to mean ‘and the edition [ékdosis] was read out loud (by reader X) for (editor) Y’. The ékdosis ‘edition’ in question is the text of the work about which the commentary is written, not the commentary itself, and this text is ‘corrected’ by the one who ‘has it read out loud’ (this editor is sometimes but not always the same person as the commentator), with variant readings placed at the margins of the ‘edited’ text (Cameron pp. 116–117). I suggest that the idea of ‘reading out loud’ is a way of expressing the process of establishing a definitive text as if it were a speech-act. The interpretation I give here in this footnote is different from the one I had given in the corresponding footnote of the printed version of Poetry as Performance. In that version, I interpreted the formula ἐκδόσεως παραναγνωσθείσης (plus dative) to mean ‘and the edition [ékdosis] was read out loud, as a model, by (editor) X’. In terms of that interpretation, the text is being corrected by the one who reads it out loud as a model.

[84] See p. 149.

[85] See n74.

[86] My suggestion, in a lecture given on 13 January 1993, entitled “Démétrius et les rhapsodes,” in the seminar of Françoise Létoublon at the Centre d’Etudes Anciennes, Ecole Normale Supérieure. It may be pertinent that in Aristophanes Frogs 52–53, Dionysus, is represented as anagignṓskōn ‘reading’ to himself (ἀναγιγνώσκοντί μοι … πρὸς ἐμαυτόν), on a ship, the Andromeda of Euripides. Given the self-referential jokes, throughout the Frogs, about Dionysus as god of State Theater, the self-representation of Dionysus as reading to himself may be interpreted not so much an act of “silent reading” (for bibliography on which see Dover 1993:196) but rather as a comic reference to a script reading, as it were, performed out loud by the god of the script himself.

[87] See n49 above. I owe this observation to Geneviève Husson, per litteras (20 February 1994).

[88] For possible references in New Comedy to the fall of Demetrius of Phaleron and to a subsequent relaxation of governmental control over the conventions of Athenian State Theater, see MacKendrick 1954; cf. Wiles 1984.

[89] To cite an example: at the Amphictyonic festival of the Soteria at Delphi, as reflected in third-century inscriptions, the professionalized guild of performers known as the Dionúsou tekhnîtai ‘Artists of Dionysus’ includes, besides such categories as tragōidoí ‘tragic actors’ and khoreutaí ‘chorus-performers’ (both boys’ and men’s choruses), the category of rhapsōidoí ‘rhapsodes’ (e.g. SIG3 424, where two rhapsodes are mentioned); see Pickard-Cambridge [1988]:283–284. On the Dionúsou tekhnîtai in Alexandria, there is a reference in Athenaeus 5.198c, in the context of a report describing a spectacular procession during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (282–246 BCE); see Pickard-Cambridge p. 287, who adduces the corroborating evidence of two decrees dated around 240 BCE

[90] This is not to say that we should still expect to see patterns of “fenced” performance traditions, which I have posited in general for the earlier “period 3,” dating from the era of the Peisistratidai in the sixth century all the way to the era of Demetrius toward the end of the fourth. From the middle of the second century BCE onward, the performance traditions of Homer would have been a far cry from those of earlier periods, as we may infer from the anecdotes about Homēristaí, reviewed above. My point is simply that the performance traditions of the Homēristaí were bound, by default, to a more canonical textual tradition of Homer. Though I cannot rule out the possibility that the Homēristaí may have taken liberties with the Homeric text, any such textual excerptings or even adjustments would be a far cry from the dynamics of variation within an oral performance tradition. As for P.Oxy. 3001 (second century CE; see Parsons 1974:8–12), I doubt that these fragments can be viewed as some sort of an adaptation of epic passages taken from the Iliad (especially from Scroll XXIII), let alone that such a creation could be attributed to the ad hoc activities of Homēristaí (tentative suggestion of M. L. West, as reported by Parsons p. 9). It is more likely, I think, that these fragments represent a poetic creation that has its own literary history.

[91] On Homēristaí as derivative of Homērízein, see pp. 164, 171–172n69.

[92] On which see Roesch 1982:138–142. I am grateful to Albert Schachter, who alerted me to this inscription and to the observations of Roesch.

[93] On the poetic implications of the name Thámuris as a parallel to Hómēros: BA 311 par. 2n6.

[94] Cf. again Aristophanes F 160.1. See also the scholia (vetera) to Theocritus (Prolegomena anecdote 14, section 5b, lines 4-10: τῶν Πυθαγόρου οἱ μὲν ἦσαν περὶ θεωρίαν καταγινόμενοι, οἵπερ ἐκαλοῦντο σεβαστικοί· οἱ δὲ περὶ τὰ ἀνθρώπινα, οἵπερ ἐκαλοῦντο πολιτικοί· οἱ δὲ περὶ τὰ μαθήματα τὰ γεωμετρικὰ καὶ ἀστρονομικά, οἵπερ ἐκαλοῦντο μαθηματικοί. τούτων οὖν οἱ μὲν αὐτῷ συγγινόμενοι τῷ Πυθαγόρᾳ ἐκαλοῦντο Πυθαγορικοί, οἱ δὲ τούτων μαθηταὶ Πυθαγόρειοι, οἱ δὲ ἄλλως ἔξωθεν ζηλωταὶ Πυθαγορισταί ‘Some of the followers of Pythagoras were concerned with theōría, and they were called sebastikoí; others were concerned with human affairs, and they were called politikoí; others were concerned with mathematics and geometry and astronomy, and they were called mathēmatikoí. And of all these followers, those who were companions of Pythagoras himself were called Puthagorikoí. And the disciples of these were the Puthagoreîoi, while those who were outsiders—but otherwise zealous followers—were the Puthagoristaí’.

[95] Detailed discussion, with bibliography, in PH 23, 74, relying especially on Burkert 1972. More on the Kreōphúleioi in the Appendix.

[96] Further arguments in PH 26.

[97] PH 22–23. I note in this context the report of Eustathius (1.6) in his commentary on the Iliad concerning the Contest of Homer and Hesiod: εἰ δὲ καὶ ἤρισεν Ὅμηρος Ἡσιόδῳ τῷ Ἀσκραίῳ καὶ ἡττήθη, ὅπερ ὄκνος τοῖς Ὁμηρίδαις καὶ λέγειν ‘if indeed Homer had a contest with Hesiod of Ascra and was defeated—which was taboo for the Homērídai even to talk about’. Cf. GM 78–79.

[98] PH 22–23, 73–75.

[99] I infer from Plato Ion 530d that the Homērídai may have served as official judges in the competition of rhapsodes at the Feast of the Panathenaia at Athens.

[100] See pp. 173–174. Perhaps the very name of Demetrius the Homēristḗs, in the inscription on the wall of Room 6 in the Theater at Aphrodisias (Roueché 1993:18) is significant; there is a possibility that the mime Philistion (named in the inscription of Room 1) was a namesake of one of the reputed founders of the art of the mime (Roueché p. 21, citing Bonaria 1955 II fasti nos. 516–540; on Philistion as a contemporary of Menander, cf. nos. 536, 537, 540). I raise the possibility that the namesake of Demetrius the Homēristḗs might be Demetrius of Phaleron, if indeed he was the founder of the Homēristaí.

[101] I repeat the claim of Eustathius (1.10) that the process of sewing together, as implicit in the traditional concept of rhapsōidós, is what confers upon the Homeric poems their unity: ῥάπτειν δὲ ἢ ἁπλῶς, ὡς εἴρηται, τὸ συντιθέναι ἢ τὸ κατὰ εἱρμόν τινα ῥαφῇ ὁμοίως εἰς ἓν ἄγειν τὰ διεστῶτα. σποράδην γάρ, φασί, κειμένης καὶ κατὰ μέρος διῃρημένης τῆς Ὁμηρικῆς ποιήσεως, οἱ ᾄδοντες αὐτὴν συνέρραπτον οἷον τὰ εἰς ἓν ὕφος ᾀδόμενα ‘sewing together [rháptein] either in the simple sense, as just mentioned, of putting together or, alternatively, in the sense of bringing different things, in accordance with some kind of sequence [heirmós] in sewing, uniformly into one thing; for they say that Homeric poetry, after it had been scattered about and divided into separate parts, was sewn together by those who sang it, like songs sung into a single fabric [húphos]’.

[102] [S.] West 1988:40. When we consider the rareness of the word rhapsōidós in the Homeric scholia, the frequency of rhapsōidía as a designation of a given “book” of the Iliad or Odyssey stands out all the more.

[103] [S.] West pp. 39–40. I note the story, in the T scholia for Iliad X 1, reporting that the rhapsōidía that we know as Book X had been composed by Homer separately, not as part of the Iliad, and that it was later arranged, tetákhthai, by Peisistratos to fit into the Iliad. In terms of this story, I suppose that such an insertion is imagined to happen at a time when there was as yet no ongoing convention of dividing the Iliad into twenty-four units—from either a performative or even a textual point of view. On the apparent appropriateness of the contents of Iliad X to the ideology of the Peisistratidai, see Catenacci 1993:18n34.

[104] Further discussion in HQ ch. 3; see also HQ 88, where I consider the theory of a three-night performance division of the Iliad, as formulated by Taplin 1992.

[105] For example: [S.] West 1988:39–40.

[106] For example: Janko 1992:31n47. He is tentative to the extent that he allows for a slightly earlier date for the division, though not earlier than the era of Apollonius of Rhodes. A similar stance is taken by Olson, whose arguments are summarized above (n30). In the context of that summary (n30) I noted the rhapsodic practice of beginning a Homeric performance by starting with a δέ that picks up, midstream, a narrative that had contained a preceding μέν. In the same context, I compared this phenomenon with the splitting of a μέν / δέ construction by way of a Homeric scroll-division.

[107] If it had been Aristarchus—or at least the school of Aristarchus—that really originated the division of the Iliad and Odyssey into twenty-four scrolls each, it is difficult to explain the claim of the scholia to Odyssey xxiii 296, according to which Aristarchus as well as Aristophanes of Byzantium thought that this line marks the end of the authentic Odyssey (Ἀριστοφάνης καὶ Ἀρίσταρχος πέρας τῆς Ὀδυσσείας ποιοῦνται and τοῦτο τέλος τῆς Ὀδυσσείας φησὶν Ἀρίσταρχος καὶ Ἀριστοφάνης). That this claim of the scholia means what it says, the end of the Odyssey, is argued by Rossi 1968; cf. Garbrah 1977 and Catenacci 1993:14. It would be typical of Aristarchus’ editorial practice to adhere to an earlier convention—in this case, let us say, a division into twenty-four scrolls—even when such a convention was not “original” to Homer according to his own scholarly assessment. Further, even if Aristarchus thought that the “original” Odyssey ended at xxiii 296, such an opinion did not seem to stop him from making further distinctions between what he thought were more or less authentic portions of the Odyssey beyond xxiii 296. For example, the Odyssey scholia report that Aristarchus athetized xxiii 310–343, where Odysseus retells to Penelope the story that he had told Alkinoos about his adventures. The scholia (QV) speak of thirty-three lines. I find it striking that Aristotle Rhetoric 3.1417a13, in referring to the same Odyssey passage, speaks of sixty lines, not thirty-three. I infer that Aristotle’s version of the Odyssey did not stop at xxiii 296. {On the dating of a division into 24 rhapsodies, Janko 1992.31n47 cites Fowler, Materiali e discussioni 22 [1989] 104n111.On the dating of a division into 24 rhapsodies, Janko 1992.31n47 cites Fowler, Materiali e discussioni 22 [1989] 104n111.}

[108] Van Sickle 1980:8, following Irigoin 1952:41.

[109] Van Sickle 1980:9.

[110] Van Sickle 1980:9 and following.

[111] Van Sickle 1980:12. It seems to me that the average size of the books in Virgil’s Aeneid comes closer to 825 verses.

[112] Van Sickle 1980:9. Cf. Rengakos 1993:93–94.

[113] Van Sickle 1980:9.

[114] On Benedict’s Rule, see Zetzel 1993:103–104, following Traube 1910.

[115] Zetzel 1993:103.

[116] Zetzel 1993:103.

[117] The term “corruption” is of course valid only from the standpoint of Benedict’s original. Similarly, it is valid only from the standpoint of what we understand to be Aristarchus’ editorial principles.

[118] There are also other theories of a pre-Alexandrian Homer text, founded on arguments different from mine. I note in particular the position taken by Ludwich 1898 (defended by Allen 1924:327), according to whom the Homeric text is pre-Alexandrian, to be traced back to Athenian copies and continuing as the basis of the medieval manuscript tradition. At least on this point, the views of van der Valk 1964:609 are similar: he argues that a pre-Aristarchean “vulgate” had “preserved the authentic text,” and that this text “was also transmitted by the vulgate of the medieval manuscript.” Van der Valk and Ludwich agree also in positing that this textual transmission bypassed the editions of the Alexandrian critics, especially that of Aristarchus. For van der Valk, what are thus bypassed are “conjectures,” whereas Ludwich affirms that Aristarchus did not make conjectures. For Ludwich, what are bypassed by the “vulgate” are for the most part better readings. For van der Valk, the “vulgate” version is superior to the Aristarchean version; for Ludwich, it is the reverse. [S.] West 1988:46 argues that “we should certainly reject the theory that an official Athenian copy, never mentioned because everywhere taken for granted, provided the basis for Aristarchus’ text.” At an earlier point, West (p. 39) posits a sixth-century Athenian “recension” of Homer, which “must be regarded as the archetype of all our Homeric manuscripts and of the indirect tradition represented by ancient quotations and allusions.” On the implications of Ludwich’s attempt to discredit the authenticity of the “eccentric” early Ptolemaic papyri, see Nickau 1977:31–32n3. My main problem with all these theories is that they concentrate almost exclusively on questions of textual traditions, without sufficient regard for questions of performance traditions. {Nickau 1977.32n5 refers to Pasquali 1952.220–221.Nickau 1977.32n5 refers to Pasquali 1952.220-221.}

[119] Blum 1991:21–22 and 69-70n45 argues, despite the skepticism of a host of predecessors, for the existence of a diórthōsis of Homer by Aristotle. The key passage is Plutarch Life of Alexander 8.2, concerning a copy of the Iliad known as ἐκ τοῦ νάρθηκος ‘from the casket [nárthēx]’, a copy that Alexander kept under his proskephálaion, ‘headrest’ and that had been “corrected by Aristotle,” Ἀριστοτέλους διορθώσαντος (8.2). In the next chapter, there are further arguments for the existence of such a diórthōsis of Homer.

[120] On Demetrius, Diogenes Laertius 5.75 says: οὗτος ἤκουσε μὲν Θεοφράστου ‘he attended the lectures of Theophrastus’.

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Chapter 7. Homer as “Scripture”

Let us turn to the last of the five periods in the history of Homeric transmission, as formulated at the beginning of the fifth chapter. For the later Alexandrian scholars starting with Aristarchus, whom I put into period 5 of Homeric transmission, that is, into the most “rigid” period, the script or scripts stemming from the Athenian State tradition became “scripture.” This is the next thesis, which I will now develop by re-examining some key terms—and the ideas behind them.[1] Even before we consider the reasons for my use of the term “scripture,” however, we must start with the relevant Greek terms.

When a scholar like Aristarchus referred to the koinḗ or to the koinaí, I will argue that he was citing, from his own point of view, copies derived from the Athenian “City Edition” of Homer. Not that this version was the text for the Alexandrian scholar: it was a text, which had to be considered alongside other texts that the school of Aristarchus seems to have valued more highly for variant readings, like the “city editions” of Chios, Argos, Massalia, and so on. I think that Minna Skafte Jensen says it most incisively when she claims that the Koine too was a “city edition”—I would say the city edition by default—that is, the city edition of Athens.[2] It seems remarkable, she reasons, that a politikḗ or ‘city edition’ of Athens is never mentioned in the Homer scholia, in light of the numerous references to the politikaí of other cities. A ready explanation is that the politikḗ of Athens is indeed the koinḗ. {187|188}

In this connection, I agree with T. W. Allen’s view that the very word koinḗ had once conveyed in the context of Homeric transmission the fundamental idea of ‘common’ in the sense of ‘universal’.[3] The built-in Athenian ideology, I would further suggest, is that this text was koinḗ or ‘common’ to all because it was standard, authoritative.[4]

I also agree with Allen that the usage of the word koinḗ developed the negative connotation of ‘common’ in the sense of ‘vulgar’ only secondarily, in the context of the scholiastic tradition stemming ultimately from the school of Aristarchus, for whose followers koiná in the negative sense of ‘common’ (the neuter plural is cited for the sake of symmetry with the forms still to be cited) and dēmṓdē in the negative sense of ‘vulgar’ become synonymous with such descriptions as eikaîa ‘random’ or eikaiótera ‘random by comparison’ and phaûla ‘base’ or phaulótera ‘base by comparison’ in scholiastic references to the less “edited” versions of Homer, as opposed to the more “edited” ones described as khariéstera ‘more elegant’ and the like.[5]

Let me anticipate my conclusions. In an earlier era, at a time when an “edited” text of Homer was not yet conceptually distinguishable from any other text, I hold that the expression koinḗ in everyday usage would indeed have meant something like the Athenian “City Edition.” Such a usage could have been appropriate even in a later era, as in the time of Demetrius of Phaleron. For Demetrius himself, as reformer and standardizer of {188|189} Homeric performance traditions, there would have been a positive sense of ‘common’ inherent in koinḗ—a sense also connected in Athenian usage with the concept of control by the State.[6] The koinḗ would be considered ‘common’ to all, the prized possession of all—of all Athenians, at least.[7] Such a positive sense of koinḗ would have signaled the standardization—and, from the Athenian point of view, the universalization—of Homeric performance traditions. Any standardization of performance traditions could have led to relative standardization of written copies as well, including commercially available copies. Moreover, standardization of performance traditions could have provided an added incentive for the commercial production and sale of the Homeric text, to the extent that the very concept of a Standard Version of Homer implies to the buyer a prized and even unique possession.

All this is not to say that the standardization of Homeric performance—or perhaps even the concept of koinḗ—started with Demetrius. The idea of making the poetry of the heroic age a common possession can be traced back all the way to the middle of the sixth century BCE, the era when the régime of the Peisistratidai was already reforming the rhapsodic performance traditions at the Panathenaia.[8] And the idea continues in the fifth {189|190} century, the era of Pericles.[9] Still, the idea of a standard, as arguably realized by Demetrius through his specific reform of what I have been calling a State Script, implies a semantic narrowing that can be schematized as a progression from a “Common Homer” to a “Standard Homer,” corresponding respectively to period 3 and period 4. In other words, the concept of koinḗ may apply to both period 3 and period 4, with an intensification or specialization of ideology in period 4, when Homer becomes not only common to all—at least, from an Athenian point of view—but also the enforced standard for all.

In period 5, by contrast, which I equate with the era of Aristarchus and his school, the same word koinḗ could have come to mean, more generally, the Athenian City Text. The alternation of singular koinḗ and plural koinaí in the scholia reporting the views of Aristarchus suggests that he found some degree of variation within this textual tradition of an earlier era, but the Aristarchean convention of consistently juxtaposing the readings of the koinḗ or koinaí with the readings of other textual transmissions suggests that Aristarchus treated the koinḗ or koinaí as a distinct manuscript family. For him, the koinaí at his disposal may have been mostly commercial copies.

We know that Aristarchus also had access to the private copies of earlier Homer critics dating back to the era of Demetrius and even before, whose editorial work would have survived mostly in marginalia anchored in copies of the Homeric text.[10] Still, it appears that he would not have valued all that highly the work of the earliest critics—though he did value the earliest manuscripts. To put it positively, Aristarchus would have valued more highly the work of later critics like Aristophanes of Byzantium, who came far closer to his own standards of editorial judgment and practice.[11]

Still, it seems remarkable that there are in the Homer scholia practically no references at all to anything resembling the activity of “editing” the text of Homer in the fourth century—let alone fourth-century Athens.[12] We might have expected the most likely {190|191} candidates to be Aristotle and the whole Peripatetic School.[13] This school surely included Demetrius of Phaleron.[14]

Despite this silence, we have seen instances where Aristotle clearly speaks in terms of diórthōsis as an editorial procedure involving a Homeric reading.[15] So even if we agree that Aristotle {191|192} had no direct role in the production of a Homer “edition”—and I do not necessarily agree—he still speaks knowledgeably about the editorial activities of others. We have also noted other evidence for the existence of scholarly research on Homer in the fourth century. There was for example Isocrates’ negative account of ‘sophists’ who deliver in public learned commentaries, in the style of rhapsodes, about Homer and Hesiod.[16]

And there must have been scholarly research on other poetic traditions as well in the fourth century. Since the later Alexandrian critics seem not to have taken an active interest in performance traditions, whereas the earlier Athenian critics clearly did so, it seems to me most likely that the initial impetus for editing various non-Athenian songmaking traditions, including those of Alcman, Sappho, and Alcaeus, can be traced back to fourth-century Athens. I say this because the textual transmission of these songmaking traditions, mediated by the Alexandrian editors, reveals a wealth of details on the levels of dialect, prosody, and even orthography that could not have been preserved except through performance traditions.[17] And such traditions would be a most likely topic of research for scholars in fourth-century Athens.

I believe I have found an example of such a fourth-century scholar: in Isocrates’ Letter 8, To the Rulers of Mytilene (dated around 350), Isocrates is pleading for the restoration from exile of one Agenor of Mytilene in Lesbos, currently living in Athens and serving as the ‘music teacher’ of Isocrates’ grandsons (paideuthéntes … tà perì tḕn mousikḗn, section 1). The father of these boys is Aphareus, a poet of tragedy. Isocrates goes on to say about Agenor of Mytilene (section 4): αἰσχρὸν γὰρ τὴν μὲν πόλιν ὑμῶν ὑπὸ πάντων ὁμολογεῖσθαι μουσικωτάτην εἶναι καὶ τοὺς ὀνομαστοτάτους ἐν αὐτῇ παρ᾿ ὑμῖν τυγχάνειν γεγονότας, τὸν δὲ προέχοντα τῶν νῦν ὄντων περὶ τὴν ἱστορίαν τῆς παιδείας ταύτης φεύγειν ἐκ τῆς τοιαύτης πόλεως ‘it is a shame that, while your city [= Mytilene] is acknowledged by all to be the most “musical” and the most famed figures in that field [ἐν αὐτῇ] happen to have been born in your city, yet he who is preeminent {192|193} among those who are currently engaged in the historía of this paideía [maybe the ἐν αὐτῇ refers proleptically to this paideía] is an exile from such a city’.

This passage suggests to me that around the middle of the fourth century there was in Athens an ongoing tradition of research in Lesbian songmaking, and I think that Lesbian songs were at this time still represented primarily by Sappho and Alcaeus. We may note Isocrates’ use of the word historía, which I interpret as referring to Agenor’s research in establishing texts of these songs, as well as the word paideía, referring surely to the practical activity of teaching youths how to perform these songs. Isocrates goes on to argue (section 9) that Agenor and his kin, if they were restored from exile, would not be offensive to the older generation of Mytilene, whereas … τοῖς δὲ νεωτέροις διατριβὴν παρέχειν ἡδεῖαν καὶ χρησίμην καὶ πρέπουσαν τοῖς τηλικούτοις ‘to the younger generation, they provide an activity [diatribḗ] that is pleasant, useful, and appropriate’.[18] Again we may note the ideology of paideíā.

Let us return, however, to our immediate problem: why is it that we see in the Homer scholia practically no references to the activity of “editing” the text of Homer in the fourth century? There is a solution to be found if we can establish that the koinḗ tradition of Homer was linked to the editorial scholarship of the Peripatetic School in general and of Demetrius in particular. If that is the case, then there are clear and understandable reasons to account for any disinclination on the part of critics in the Library of Alexandria, from Zenodotus onward, to authorize explicitly this stream of scholarship—even if they themselves were the continuators of that scholarship. We will turn to these reasons presently.

The use of koinḗ ‘common’ in the positive sense of ‘standard’—and therefore, by implication, ‘universal’—is to be found in reference not only to the text of Homer, as just argued, but also to the sacred text of scripture, specifically the Hebrew Bible as translated into the Greek. Here I come to the original reason for my using the word “scripture”—with specific reference to the era of Aristarchus. {193|194}

In Jerome’s Epistle to Sunnia and Fretela (106.2), the word koinḗ, glossed in Latin as the vulgata or ‘vulgate’, is cited as designating two different Greek versions of the Hebrew Bible, namely, that of Lucianus and that of the Septuagint, as edited by Origen.[19] As we see from the context of Jerome’s reference, these two versions were ‘common’ in different regions of the early Church. The fact that koinḗ is the word used here to refer to the Septuagint is of special interest to Allen, who detects analogies between the status of the Septuagint in Origen’s edition of the Hebrew Bible and the status of the Koine in Aristarchus’ edition of Homer.[20]

The Septuagint is the fifth selís or ‘column’ in the six-column format of Origen’s edition of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Hexapla: the first column is the Hebrew text, the second is a transliteration into the Greek alphabet, and the third through the sixth are Greek translations, of which the fifth column represents the privileged but hardly exclusive authority of the Septuagint (Eusebius Historia Ecclesiastica 6.16).[21] Origen avoided the insertion of conjectures or emendations in the Septuagint column of his Hexapla; also, wording that was present in the Septuagint but absent in the corresponding Hebrew texts—that is, wording that Origen would have considered to be “interpolated”—was retained in the Hexapla and simply marked in the margins by the obelus.[22]

Allen envisages an analogous method in Aristarchus’ edition of Homer, with the Koine occupying a distinct status that is at least conceptually comparable to the distinct column occupied by that other Koine, the Septuagint, which Origen had annotated with such editorial marks as the obelus, the lemniscus, the hypolemniscus, and the asterisk (Epiphanius On Measures and Weights 2 and 7).[23] In the case of the Hebrew Bible, as Allen concludes, koinḗ could refer to different editions in different parts of the {194|195} world, but in any case it meant, wherever it was used, “the general or usual text.”[24] Allen goes on to argue that it once had meant “the general text” of Homer as well.

More than that: just as koinḗ designates a text that is sacred as well as common in the case of the Septuagint, so also the koinḗ text of Homer is sacred, in Allen’s judgment.[25] He justifies his specific use of the word “sacred” with reference to the Homeric koinḗ by arguing for its scriptural status in the editorial practice of the Alexandrians: “critics expressed their opinion of the genuineness of parts of it by signs appicted on its margin (as they did to Hippocrates also …), without removing a jot or tittle from it (as they did not from Hippocrates either).”[26]

Although Aristarchus may have valued other textual traditions more highly, I agree with Allen that this Alexandrian critic treated the koinḗ version of Homer with some measure of respect, as a standard. I also agree that Aristarchus would have thought of the hypothetical archetype of the koinḗ version of Homer as a sacred text—sacred as far as the Athenians were concerned.

Here we return to the term Homēristaí, which Athenaeus (14.620b-c) seems to connect with a reform of Homeric performance traditions under the régime of Demetrius of Phaleron—and which I have tried to connect with the idea of an Athenian “State Script” of Homer. In the previous chapter, we have seen that the same term Homēristaí was actually used in Hellenized Egypt with reference to Homeric performers. Now I propose to go one step even further: the standard “script” tradition of Homeric performers in Egypt, who were known as Homēristaí, may have been derived from a “State Script” instituted for Homeric performers in Athens under the régime of Demetrius of Phaleron, who were also known as Homēristaí according to my interpretation of the passage from Athenaeus.

In any case, I must insist that the Koine tradition was for Aristarchus simply a “scripture,” not the “scripture.” Similarly, the Septuagint was simply one of six columns in the six-column format of Origen’s edition of the Hebrew Bible, the Hexapla. {195|196}

Mention of the Hebrew Bible brings us to the crucial testimony of the Letter of Aristeas, dated around 100 BCE.[27] This document dramatizes the genesis of the Septuagint in mythological terms that I think are closely analogous to a wide variety of narrative traditions where the synthesis of oral and textual traditions is pictured as an instantaneous cohesion, a spontaneous generation, a Big Bang. I have treated at length this type of narrative about the genesis of Homeric poetry in my 1992 essay, “Homeric Questions.”[28] Here I need only add two points. First, the narrative of the spontaneously inspired collective translation of the Septuagint by 72 assembled wise men, as reported in the Letter of Aristeas and other sources, fits neatly the specific rhetoric of distinct Alexandrian Jewish identity, as a 1991 article by Naomi Janowitz has shown clearly.[29] Second, it fits also the general rhetoric of generating an aetiology for a sacred text. As an aetiology, it reveals some remarkable parallels with the various aetiologies about the genesis of Homeric poetry.

The testimony of the Letter of Aristeas is relevant to our discussion not only because of the parallelisms between the status of the Septuagint and the status of Homeric poetry. Even more important, the Letter of Aristeas credits none other than Demetrius of Phaleron, the historical figure whom Athenaeus (14.620b-c) credits with reforming the Athenian traditions of Homeric performance, as the agent responsible for the actual commissioning of the Septuagint. On the basis of a variety of sources (Strabo 9.1.20 C398, Diodorus Siculus 20.45, and Diogenes Laertius 5.78), we know that Demetrius fled in 307 from Athens to Thebes, which had been refounded by his patron, Cassander, and then, after the death of Cassander in 297 BCE, he found refuge at the court of Ptolemy I in Alexandria, whose first wife, Eurydice, happened to be the sister of Cassander;[30] in Alexandria, Demetrius had a key role in instituting the collection of books that resulted ultimately in the Library of Alexandria.[31]

More than that, the Letter of Aristeas represents Demetrius as {196|197} advising King Ptolemy to commission the Septuagint for a specific purpose, that is, so that the régime may possess the sacred text of the Alexandrian Jews. Even though the narrative of the Letter of Aristeas confuses Ptolemy I with Ptolemy II,[32] the ideology that is being dramatized here is historically verifiable.[33] The Ptolemies developed the policy of possessing official sacred texts representing each of the major cultural constituents of their kingdom, a prominent example being the history of Egypt by Manetho.[34]

The partly mythologized role of Demetrius as the agent responsible for the Ptolemies’ acquisition of the Septuagint can be drawn into a parallel with his historical role in the acquisition of Classical Greek books for the Library of Alexandria (Letter of Aristeas 9–10).[35] The parallelism itself is of great historical interest.[36] With regard to the role of Demetrius as a collector of the {197|198} Greek Classics, it has been argued that it was in fact he who became the first de facto head of the Library of Alexandria, and that Zenodotus took over at the Library only around 291 BCE—or maybe even as late as 283 BCE, when Ptolemy II Philadelphus became sole ruler. In any case, 283 BCE marks the point when Demetrius, who had miscalculated in the politics of succession, became a persona non grata to the new king and was banished.[37] Demetrius had been a protégé of Eurydice, the first wife of Ptolemy I and sister of Cassander, Demetrius’ deceased patron; Ptolemy II, on the other hand, was the son of Berenice, the second wife of Ptolemy II.[38]

Here I return to my earlier argument that, for earlier Homer critics like Demetrius himself, the koinḗ could have meant the Athenian “City Text,” as reshaped through the diórthōsis of Aristotle and the Peripatetic School, while for later critics like Aristarchus, the same designation would have meant, more generally and more simply, copies derived from the Athenian “City Text.” Now that we see how Demetrius became a persona non grata to Ptolemy II and his descendants, we may ask whether such a debacle may have produced radical changes in any reference by later Alexandrian critics—starting already with Zenodotus, the protégé of Ptolemy II—to the Athenian “City Text” of Homer. Any reference by Alexandrian critics to the Athenian text, from that point onward, would be likely to underplay or even slight what may once have been a key role played by the Peripatetic figure Demetrius in a diórthōsis of this text—and even in its transformation into a Ptolemaic possession.[39] {198|199}

We see such a pattern of slighting even when it comes to the ultimate service performed by Demetrius for the Ptolemies. There is a celebrated remark by Strabo (13.1.54 C608–609) about Aristotle’s prestige as a renowned collector of books, and in this context it is he rather than Demetrius who gets the credit—despite the historical evidence indicating otherwise—for ‘teaching’ the Ptolemies how to achieve the greatest book-collection of them all, the Library of Alexandria: Ἀριστοτέλης … πρῶτος ὧν ἴσμεν συναγαγὼν βιβλία, καὶ διδάξας τοὺς ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ βασιλέας βιβλιοθήκης σύνταξιν ‘Aristotle … was the first that we know of to collect books, and he taught the kings in Egypt how to put together a library’.

This is not to say that Zenodotus and the Alexandrian critics that came after him slighted the Peripatetic tradition of Aristotle—all on account of the fallen Demetrius, that most visible of Peripatetics in early Alexandria.[40] I am saying only that a Homeric diórthōsis by Aristotle, if it was strongly identified with the subsequent editorial and political activities of Demetrius of Phaleron at the Library of Alexandria, would have faded from official memory along with the man who brought it from Athens. Or, even more likely, such a diórthōsis of Aristotle could have changed identities many times over, becoming transformed into the diórthōsis of Demetrius and then into the diórthōsis of Zenodotus, whose own editorial reshaping could easily have justified in any case such a change of nomenclature.[41]

The point remains that the pieces of evidence concerning the {199|200} activities of Demetrius of Phaleron add up to a premier example of a historical fact: that the ideology of actually possessing the text, whether by commissioning or by acquisition, was a key principle in the genesis of the Library of Alexandria. Witness this anecdote in Plutarch Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata 189d: Δημήτριος ὁ Φαληρεὺς Πτολεμαίῳ τῷ βασιλεῖ παρῄνει τὰ περὶ βασιλείας καὶ ἡγεμονίας βιβλία κτᾶσθαι καὶ ἀναγινώσκειν· “ἃ γὰρ οἱ φίλοι τοῖς βασιλεῦσιν οὐ θαρροῦσι παραινεῖν, ταῦτα ἐν τοῖς βιβλίοις γέγραπται” ‘Demetrius of Phaleron gave King Ptolemy this advice [paraínesis]: that he should possess [ktâsthai] and read [anagignṓskein] books about kingship and hegemony, giving this as a reason: “those who are near and dear to kings do not dare to give them advice [paraínesis] about the kind of things that are written in these books.”’

In this regard, not enough attention has been paid to a detail recorded in Plutarch’s Life of Alexander 8.2, on the authority of Onesicritus FGH 38 F 134 (who actually accompanied Alexander on his campaigns), concerning a copy of the Iliad known as ἐκ τοῦ νάρθηκος ‘the one from the casket [nárthēx]’, which Alexander the Great reputedly used to keep under his proskephálaion ‘headrest’ as he slept. This copy, Plutarch says, had been ‘corrected by Aristotle’, Ἀριστοτέλους διορθώσαντος (8.2): in other words, it featured the diórthōsis of Aristotle. Rudolf Blum is helpful in suggesting ways to visualize the nárthēx ‘casket’ as a container big enough to accommodate the text of the Iliad: he estimates the dimensions at 40 x 30 x 25 centimeters.[42] The discussion that follows offers a way to visualize the idea of a nárthēx under the proskephálaion, sometimes mistranslated as a ‘pillow’. But first I should note simply my conviction that the wording that is used here to describe Aristotle’s work on this copy, diorthoûn ‘correct’, may yet vindicate the historicity of Plutarch’s description, thus removing the doubts expressed by Rudolf Pfeiffer concerning whether or not Aristotle had produced his own edition of Homer.[43]

We have already seen some historical evidence linking this technical word diorthoûn with the school of Aristotle.[44] Also, in {200|201} light of Aristotle’s traditional sobriquet anagnṓstēs, I find it significant that Plutarch’s Life describes Alexander, precisely in the context of his possessing Aristotle’s edition of Homer, as philanagnṓstēs (8.2).[45] In this same context, Alexander is said to have taken along on his military campaigns not only this text of Homer as “edited” by Aristotle but also texts of the tragic poets Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, as well as texts of the dithyrambic poets Telestes and Philoxenus (8.3).[46] These texts of the three tragedians must be related to the official Athenian State Script of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, commissioned by the statesman Lycurgus (“Plutarch” Lives of the Ten Orators 841f).[47] In this connection, we may note the opinion of Rudolf Blum and others that Aristotle himself was the one who had produced, at the initiative of Lycurgus, these official Athenian texts of tragedy.[48] Like Aristotle, Lycurgus had studied in Plato’s Academy.[49]

What is essential for the present argument is not whether this story of Plutarch about Alexander stems from a historical fact. What matters is whether the use of the story is indeed a historical fact. I suggest that it is, and that it reflects an ideology promoted by the dynasty of the Ptolemies when they came to power in Egypt. The premise of this ideology, I suggest further, is that the Ptolemies had succeeded in taking possession of the most canonical text owned by Alexander the Great, his own copy of the Iliad. When the Library of Alexandria was founded in the reign of Ptolemy I, the core of its acquisitions may indeed have included texts from Alexander’s own library. The expression ἐκ τοῦ νάρθηκος ‘the one from the nárthēx’ (8.2), designating Alexander’s copy of the Iliad, seems typical of the terminology used for cataloguing new acquisitions in the Alexandrian Library.[50]

Let us return to the detail in Plutarch’s Life of Alexander 8.2 {201|202} concerning a copy of the Iliad kept in a box that was placed under the proskephálaion of Alexander the Great as he slept. I prefer to translate proskephálaion as ‘headrest’. The point is that the text was under the king’s head, so that the notion ‘under the headrest’ translates into ‘under the bed under the headrest under the head’. As we will now see, not only did the king possess the text: in the logic of the story, the text possessed the king—specifically the king’s head—in his sleep.

The narrative of the Life of Alexander tells of a dream that Alexander had after he conquered Egypt (26.3: νύκτωρ κοιμώμενος ὄψιν εἶδε θαυμαστήν), and according to my interpretation this dream was caused, in terms of the story, by the presence of the Homeric text under Alexander’s head. For the story of the dream, Plutarch cites as his source Heraclides Ponticus (F 140 Wehrli), and he adds explicitly that this was the story ‘believed by the people of Alexandria’ (26.3)—that is, that this story was accepted as a charter myth, as it were, of Alexandria.[51] Moreover, the story of the dream is explicitly connected by Plutarch with Alexander’s choosing to store the Homeric Iliad in a container (26.2: αὐτὸς ἔφη τὴν Ἰλιάδα φρουρήσειν ἐνταῦθα καταθέμενος). This container had been his most precious war-prize by far, a kibōtíon ‘box’ that had been captured from his defeated enemy, King Darius (26.1). The kibōtíon ‘box’ as described here by Plutarch is clearly identical with the nárthēx that we have already seen at an earlier point in the narrative (8.2).[52]

The dream of Alexander takes place after he has been pondering where he should found the ultimate Hellenic city; in the dream, an old man with gray hair appears to him and declaims the verses that we know as Odyssey iv 354–355 (Plutarch Life of Alexander 26.5). When Alexander awakens, he realizes that the apparition was Homer and that the mention of Pharos in the Homeric verses meant that he was destined to found the ultimate city at the very site that was to become Alexandria (26.5 and following).[xxxvii] I see here a charter myth reflecting what I have just described as the ideology of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt—and, {202|203} more directly, the early ideology of the Library of Alexandria. This charter myth, to repeat, would have been founded on the idea that the Ptolemies now possessed the texts of Alexander the Great, especially Aristotle’s text of Homer. According to this charter myth, as Alexander reportedly inferred after his dream, he now had Homer as his military companion (26.3: οὔκουν [οὐκ] ἀργὸς οὐδ᾿ ἀσύμβολος αὐτῷ συστρατεύειν ἔοικεν Ὅμηρος)—and so too, according to this version of the story as believed by ‘the people of Alexandria’, did the Ptolemies (26.3: εἰ δ᾿, ὅπερ Ἀλεξανδρεῖς λέγουσιν Ἡρακλείδῃ [F 140 Wehrli] πιστεύοντες, ἀληθές ἐστιν).[53] What was ‘believed’ by ‘the people of Alexandria’ was the ideology of the Ptolemies. And this ideology, I propose, goes back to a time when Demetrius of Phaleron was still helping Ptolemy I acquire all the available books of Greek civilization, the most treasured of which could have been the text of Homer’s Iliad, the product of a diórthōsis executed by Aristotle himself.

Another prominent example of this driving idea, that the Library of Alexandria was predicated on the ideological principle of possessing the canonical texts, is the report of Athenaeus (1.3a-b) concerning the patron of Zenodotus, none other than King Ptolemy II himself, who reigned from 283 to 246 BCE: the king purchased the whole library of Aristotle from one Neleus, to whom it had been handed down by Theophrastus, who in turn had inherited it from his teacher Aristotle himself. Included in this collection, we might expect, were other valuable copies of Homer. But given the fact that Demetrius of Phaleron was a student of Theophrastus, we might also expect that any “State Script” of Homer, instituted under the régime of Demetrius while he was still in power in Athens, would have already incorporated the diórthōsis of Aristotle. If Demetrius had brought with him from Athens an authorized copy of such a “State Script” at the time when he was welcomed to Alexandria by Ptolemy I, then the later purchase of Aristotle’s whole library by Ptolemy II need not have significantly affected the Alexandrian textual transmission of Homer. This line of reasoning may explain in part why we find in the Homeric scholia no mention, attributed to the Alexandrian critics, of a Homeric diórthōsis by {203|204} Aristotle; the results of such a diórthōsis would have been already incorporated into the text as reshaped under the régime of Demetrius of Phaleron—and as further reshaped through the Homeric diórthōsis by Zenodotus and by the later Alexandrian critics.[54]

Yet another prominent example of such an acquisition of texts comes from Galen (17.1.607–608, Commentary on the Hippocratic Epidemiai 3.2.4. He tells of Ptolemy III Euergetes, who reigned from 246 to 221 BCE. It seems that this king had borrowed from the Athenians, who accepted a deposit of 15 talents, a state-owned text described as containing the scrolls of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, which was to be copied for the Library of Alexandria—and which was then never returned to the Athenians.[55] This text is evidently the same State Text of the tragedians that had been instituted in the era of the Athenian statesman Lycurgus ([“Plutarch”] Lives of the Ten Orators 841f).[56]

Galen tells the anecdote about Ptolemy III and the State Text of the three canonical poets of tragedy in the context of having recounted how Scroll III of the Hippocratic Epidemiai found its way to the Library at Alexandria. This scroll, he says, belongs to the τῶν ἐκ πλοίων category (Galen 17.1.606), that is, one of the old scrolls that had been borrowed ‘straight off the boat’, in that Ptolemy had the policy of requiring that any travelers to Alexandria should hand over whatever old scrolls they owned so that these could be copied, whereupon originals would be kept while new copies would be given back to their owners. Galen then goes on to say that the extent of just how far Ptolemy would go in pursuit of his policy is illustrated by the case of the Athenian State Text of tragedies. The deposit of this large sum of fifteen talents indicates the exceptional nature of this acquisition. Moreover, we see in the very fact of the acquisition a transformation in the status of the text from script to “scripture.”

So also with the acquisition of Homeric texts: what had been a {204|205} script in Athens becomes scripture in Alexandria for the scholars of the Library. And a major figure in this transition is Demetrius of Phaleron himself. More than that, he is an actual agent of transition. In terms of the sequence of five periods of Homeric transmission that I postulated at the beginning of the fifth chapter, the activities of Demetrius not only overlap between period 3 and period 4: they even anticipate period 5. With reference to the transition from period 3 to period 4, we have examined a source claiming that Demetrius was instrumental in the theatricalization of traditions in Homeric performance. If we accept this claim, we can say that Demetrius was primarily responsible for the mentality of what I have been calling the script. With reference to the eventual transition from period 4 to period 5, we have also examined a source claiming that Demetrius was a key figure in the founding of the Library of Alexandria during the interim years after he had fled from Greece and before he fell from grace with Ptolemy II in Alexandria. If we accept this claim, we can say that Demetrius had been instrumental in the Library’s acquisition of a copy or copies of the Koine, the more heavily edited versions of which I identify with the new Athenian State Script of Homer, instituted under his old régime. A parallel phenomenon is the later acquisition by the Ptolemies of an older Athenian State Script, the corpus of the three tragedians.[57] These scripts of the Athenian State become the “scripture” for a later Alexandrian editor like Aristarchus.

As we contemplate the standardizing or “scriptural” period of Homeric transmission, the era of Alexandrian transmission, it is enough to repeat one last time what I argued in the fifth chapter: that Aristarchus and his predecessors, even though they collected a wide range of variants, had in mind an editorial goal very different from the one I am advocating. They insisted on the idea of an original version of Homer, which must be reconstructed by way of sorting out the variants attested in surviving texts. I insist, by contrast, on the historical fact that the performance tradition of Homer stayed alive well beyond the sixth century BCE, and that {205|206} a primary heritage of this tradition—at least until the era of Aristarchus—was multiformity.

In the end, the textual tradition of Homer, as most strongly represented by Aristarchus, won out. Or, to put it more aptly, the performance tradition, as by now most weakly represented by the Homer performers of Hellenized Egypt, lost out to an ever more uniform text. {206|207}

Footnotes

[1] For a historical analysis of the term “scripture,” see Smith 1993; cf. also Graham 1987, especially pp. 92–95 on the Arabic word qur’ān as a common rather than proper noun meaning ‘act of recitation’.

[2] Jensen 1980:109.

[3] Allen 1924:278.

[4] In Plato Phaedrus 252b, there is a quotation of a pair of hexameters about Eros, nowhere else attested, that are supposedly taken from apótheta reported by ‘some of the Homērídai’ (λέγουσι δὲ οἶμαί τινες Ὁμηριδῶν ἐκ τῶν ἀποθέτων δύο ἔπη εἰς τὸν Ἔρωτα). As Lohse 1964:26 points out, following Lobeck 1829:861-863, apótheta conveys the idea of ‘removed from common usage and known only to a few’ (“communi usu exempta paucisque nota”) rather than ‘esoteric’ or ‘reserved’. Without entering the debate over whether these two hexameters are “genuine,” I simply draw attention to the idea of common usage as a principle ascribed to the repertoire of the Homērídai.

[5] Allen 1924:278. On the implications of khariéstera ‘more elegant’ from the earlier standpoint of the fourth century BCE, see p. 122 above. The semantic heritage of dēmṓdēs ‘vulgar’ is also of interest. In Plato Phaedo 61a, Socrates implies that all mousikḗ except for philosophy is dēmṓdēs, in the context of explaining why he chose to engage in the mousikḗ of composing 1) a hymn to Apollo and 2) poetic versions of fables of Aesop (60c-d). Both of these poetic forms, he says, are a matter of mûthos, not lógos (61b: ἐννοήσας ὅτι τὸν ποιητὴν δέοι, εἴπερ μέλλοι ποιητὴς εἶναι, ποιεῖν μύθους ἀλλ᾿ οὐ λόγους).

[6] I have already noted the expression en koinôi ‘in common possession’ in [“Plutarch”] Lives of the Ten Orators 841f. In this context, the expression means in the possession of the Athenian State, with reference to the texts of the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides that the State had commissioned to be transcribed and kept under its control: τὰς τραγῳδίας αὐτῶν ἐν κοινῷ γραψαμένους φυλάττειν καὶ τὸν τῆς πόλεως γραμματέα παραναγινώσκειν τοῖς ὑποκρινομένοις· οὐκ ἐξεῖναι γὰρ αὐτὰς ὑποκρίνεσθαι ‘…that they were to transcribe their tragedies [that is, the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides] and keep them under control in common possession, and that the recorder [grammateús] of the city was to read them as a model [paranagignṓskein] to those acting in the tragedies, for otherwise it was not permitted to act them [that is, the tragedies]’.

[7] For an example of koinós in this sense, see Demosthenes 18.170: ἣν γὰρ ὁ κῆρυξ κατὰ τοὺς νόμους φωνὴν ἀφίησι, ταύτην κοινὴν τῆς πατρίδος δίκαιον ἡγεῖσθαι ‘as for the voice that the herald emits in accordance with the laws, it is just that it be considered the common possession [koinḗ] of the fatherland’. As Victor Bers points out to me, Isocrates 15.296 claims that the Attic dialect is the lingua franca of Greece because of its koinótēs, that is, because of its quality of being koinḗ, the common possession of all Greeks.

[8] Cf. PH 160–162, with special reference to the promotion, by the Peisistratidai, of an Athenian ideology of shared poetic culture, as articulated in “Plato” Hipparchus 228d. Cf. also Aloni 1984 and 1986, along with the assessment of Catenacci 1993:7–8n2.

[9] See ch. 5 p. 111n23.

[10] See ch. 5. p. 121.

[11] Cf. Ludwich 1884:118–122 and the critique of Janko 1992:26.

[12] Pfeiffer 1968:72 argues: “the only pre-Hellenistic editor of Homer” was Antimachus of Colophon (late fifth century BCE). Pfeiffer means “editor” here in a strictly qualified sense: “we have no reason to assume that Antimachus made a ‘recension’ of the Homeric poems, collating manuscripts and emending the text; his work is never called a ‘diórthōsis’” (p. 94).

[13] Pfeiffer 1968:72 interprets the silence of the Homer scholia concerning any “edition” of Homer by Aristotle to be proof that there was no such thing. On the general failure of the Homer scholia to mention Aristotle in the context of references to Aristarchus’ Homer research, see Lührs 1992:14, who goes on to survey instances where Aristarchus seems nonetheless to show an awareness of Aristotle’s views (pp. 13–17).

[14] There are sporadic instances in the Homer scholia where the editorial judgment of a critic called “Demetrius” is actually still on record. In most of these situations, however, it is difficult if not impossible to know for sure whether Demetrius of Phaleron is meant. One obstacle is that there were other critics by the name of Demetrius, such as Demetrius Ixion, a contemporary of Aristarchus (in the Homer scholia, sometimes called Demetrius, sometimes Ixion; seven attestations where both parts of the name are given), mentioned prominently by Janko 1992.203. An even bigger obstacle, of course, is the nature of scholiastic writing, where the perspective of the latest scholiast tends to displace the perspectives of earlier ones. What may be obviously Demetrius of Phaleron to an earlier scholiast may easily be reinterpreted as, say, Demetrius Ixion by a later one. Nor does it help that the earlier Demetrius, as we will see, eventually became a persona non grata in Alexandria. Even if certainty is precluded, we find some examples from the Homer scholia. In the scholia A for Iliad VI 414c, Demetrius is cited as an authority for the reading ἁμόν (Δημήτριός φησιν ἀντὶ τοῦ ἐμόν). In the scholia AT for XIII 5b, he is said to interpret ἀγαυῶν as ‘splendid-looking’ (Δημήτριος δὲ ἀγαυοὺς τοὺς εὐειδεῖς). The scholia A to Iliad XIV 221a report that Aristarchus reads γε νέεσθαι where Demetrius reads γενέεσθαι, a form that the scholia reject as a false analogy (γε νέεσθαι τουτέστι πορεύεσθαι· οὕτως Ἀρίσταρχος. Δημήτριος δὲ “γενέ<ε>σθαι” ἀντὶ τοῦ γενήσεσθαι, βιαίως πάνυ· οὐδὲ γὰρ τὸ “πυθέσθαι” πυθέεσθαι γίνεται οὐδὲ τὸ λαβέσθαι λαβέεσθαι, ἵνα καὶ τὸ “γενέσθαι” “γενέεσθαι” γένηται); Janko p. 203 seems sure that we are dealing with Demetrius Ixion. In the scholia A for Iliad XV 194, where the attested manuscript tradition reads βέομαι φρεσίν, we see that Demetrius reads ἀποβήσομαι in the sense of ‘I will yield’ (διὸ οὐκ ἂν κατὰ τὴν αὐτοῦ γνώμην βιώσομαι, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὴν ἐμαυτοῦ. Δημήτριος δὲ ἀποβήσομαι, εἴξω); Janko p. 248 again seems sure that we are dealing with Demetrius Ixion. The only case in the Homer scholia where a reference to Demetrius of Phaleron is incontrovertible can be found in Odyssey iii 267, where the scholia give πὰρ γὰρ ἔην καὶ ἀοιδὸς· οὕτω Δημήτριος ὁ Φαληρεύς: that is to say, Demetrius read what the majority of our attested manuscripts give, πὰρ γὰρ ἔην, as opposed to πὰρ δ᾿ ἄρ᾿ ἔην, the minority reading (and the reading chosen in the OCT). In Athenaeus 5.177f–178a, there is a report of Demetrius’ negative judgment of the ethos reflected in Iliad II 409. Bayer 1942:146–147 argues that the technical language expressing Demetrius’ criticism, as in the case of the word parálēpsis, is anachronistic. I propose, however, that we give this report the benefit of the doubt, given the implications of marginal notation in this term parálēpsis. As we have seen, explicit references to marginal notation are a characteristic of Peripatetic text criticism. {I note with interest the term ἀττικίζων, which suggests that Demetrius too thought of an Athenian Homer.I note with interest the term ἀττικίζων, which suggests that Demetrius too thought of an Athenian Homer.}

[15] See again ch. 5.

[16] Isocrates Panathenaicus (Oration 12) 18–19 and 33, as quoted in ch. 5.

[17] Pathfinding work by Risch 1946 on the early textual history of such poets.

[18] We may compare the usage of diatribḗ as ‘performance’ in Isocrates 12.19, as quoted at pp. 123–124.

[19] Allen 1924:278, 317, who also cites Basil In Esaiam 2 p. 447d ed. Garnier, where koinḗ refers, again, to a Greek version of the Hebrew Bible.

[20] Allen 1924:315–320.

[21] Allen 1924:315–317, quoting other texts as well besides Eusebius. We may note with interest the use of the word ktêma ‘possession’ in the passage from Eusebius that is cited here.

[22] Neuschäfer 1987 I 99–100; cf. Lührs 1992:8n27.

[23] Allen 1924:316; cf. Neuschäfer 1987 II 388n175.

[24] Allen 1924:320.

[25] Allen 1924:320.

[26] Allen 1924:320. Allen’s relevant remarks about the editing of the Hippocratic corpus are to be found at his p. 313.

[27] On which see Murray 1987.

[28] Recast in HQ 70–75.

[29] Janowitz 1991. {The Reverend P. Southwell of Queen’s College, Oxford, points me to the 14th ch. of 2 Esdras concerning the numbers 22 and 70 and 72.}

[30] This crucial link between Demetrius and Ptolemy I was brought to my attention by J. D. Morgan (per litteras 30 November 1993).

[31] Cf. Blum 1991:100–101, reviewing the discussions of Wilamowitz 1924 I 22 and 165, Pfeiffer 1968:96, 99-104. Both these earlier discussions stress the academic links of Demetrius with the school of Aristotle. Pfeiffer p. 99 remarks: “Demetrius was always a great favourite with Wilamowitz.” {Pfeiffer has in mind especially the discussion of Wilamowitz in his Antigonos von Karystos p. 291.}

[32] J. D. Morgan comments (per litteras 30 November 1993): “I heartily agree with your argument that the Letter of Aristeas is evidence that Demetrius played a crucial role in collecting books under Ptolemy I, and that when it refers to Ptolemy II, that is a slip, whereas most previous scholars had thought that the Letter had right the name of the Ptolemy but had got wrong Demetrius’ role. It needs to be emphasized that confusion of one Ptolemy with another is a common error: e.g. P.Oxy. 1241, our primary source for the librarians, confuses Ptolemy I with Ptolemy IV and Ptolemy Philopator with Ptolemy Philometor.”

[33] It is clear from the arguments assembled by Bayer 1942 (especially p. 99) that Demetrius was formally associated with Ptolemy I. On this detail, as Blum 1991.100 points out, the Letter of Aristeas has it wrong in referring to Ptolemy II. Blum pp. 116–117n27 takes to task Pfeiffer 1968:98 for making too much of the attested references to Ptolemy I instead of II. Blum p. 101: “one should not diminish the role of [Demetrius of Phaleron] in the foundation of the Alexandrian Library, as Pfeiffer and others have done.” Ptolemy II “supported the library during his forty years of government so lavishly that he was thought to have been its founder already in the second century BCE” (Blum p. 102, who as we have seen dates Letter of Aristeas at around 100 BCE). {Here Blum analyzes the Suda reference and calls into question the habit of referring to Zenodotus as the first Head of the Library [p. 101: “it does not say that he was the first head of the library,” my emphasis, only that he was a head], arguing that this position really became defined only later). Blum 102 even speculates that the rank of Zenodotus “was lower than that of Demetrios and that he was probably subordinated to him.”}

[34] See Blum 1991:103, who points out that the History of Egypt by Manetho was dedicated to Ptolemy II Philadelphus. Blum also adduces a “translated” book on magic by “Zoroaster,” again in the reign of Ptolemy II, listed by the Callimachean Hermippus. Blum puts the Septuagint into a comparable context. {I draw attention here to the idea of a program for collecting national literatures—a program promoted by Ptolemy II (Blum 118n43 compares Charles V of France and his library at the Tour de Louvre: see Handbuch der Bibliothekswissenschaft 2nd ed. vol. 3, Wiesbaden 1955 p. 463). It makes sense, accordingly, that the Letter of Aristeas appropriates this Ptolemy for the sake of its own rhetoric. Janowitz has more to say about the rhetoric of the Letter of Aristeas.}

[35] The relevant passage, as well as reinforcing passages from Tzetzes’ Prolegomena to his commentary on Aristophanes, are conveniently quoted by Pfeiffer 1968:100–101.

[36] Although the Letter of Aristeas says that Demetrius of Phaleron was head of the Library under Ptolemy II, other sources indicate Ptolemy I, not II (Eusebius Historia Ecclesiastica 5.8.11 = Irenaeus Adversus Haereses 3.21.2) while still other sources give both possibilities (Clement of Alexandria Stromateis 1.48). J. D. Morgan comments (per litteras 30 November 1993): “With such variation in our sources regarding the identity of the Ptolemy and no variation regarding the role of Demetrius of Phaleron, it is clearly more systematic to give precedence to the latter.”

[37] Blum 1991:101, 117n32, 127. Ptolemy II was a former pupil of Philitas of Cos: Pfeiffer 1968:124.

[38] See n30 above. J. D. Morgan comments (per litteras 30 November 1993),: “The connection is now clear. Upon the death in 297 of his protector Cassander, Demetrius of Phaleron sought refuge at the court of Cassander’s sister, and while there promoted the interests of his protectress, with ultimately fatal consequences to himself.” So finally the relationship of Cassander and Demetrius, which had seemed as if it were merely a random association in the passage of Athenaeus (14.620b-c) that we considered in the last chapter becomes evident. Morgan continues: “I think it is easy to suppose that one of the important personal links between the two was a common enthusiasm for studying the text of Homer, with each inspired by the earlier work of Aristotle on this topic.”

[39] The formulation of Pfeiffer 1968:95 is instructive: “the line Philitas-Zenodotus-Callimachus, of which we have stressed the non-Aristotelian character, met in Alexandria with a genuine Peripatetic line from Athens.” At its earliest stages at Alexandria, the Peripatetic approach was represented most visibly by Demetrius of Phaleron (Pfeiffer p. 96). For a discussion of instances in the Homer scholia where the views attributed to Aristarchus imply an awareness of Aristotle’s views on Homer, see Lührs 1992:13–17.

[40] I agree with Slater 1989:42, who argues that the tradition of the Alexandrian school, which “is best represented in our surviving scholia,” was “rooted in the methods of the sophists as redefined by Aristotle.” Still, there are clear signs of anti-Peripatetic tendencies, especially in the line of thought represented by Callimachus: see Pfeiffer 1968:136–137.

[41] In this connection, we may note that Rengakos 1993:11 cautions against the reductionist mentality, evident already in the ancient world, of crediting Zenodotus, by retrojection, with all or most pre-Aristarchean variant readings of Homer. On Zenodotus’ methods in editing Homer, see Rengakos pp. 18–21 (with whom I agree that the variants reported by Zenodotus are genuine textual variants, not glosses or cited parallels, as van Thiel 1992 argues).

[42] Blum 1991:69–70n 45.

[43] Pfeiffer 1968:71–72.

[44] See p. 121 above.

[45] On Aristotle as the anagnṓstēs, see p. 149 above. For a mention, in passing, of a rhapsōidós ‘rhapsode’ who performed at a grand feast, the context of many other performances as well, arranged by Alexander the Great, I cite Athenaeus 12.538e. Worth noting is the whole narrative of the feast in Athenaeus 12.538c–539a, reporting the account of Chares in his History of Alexander (FGH 125 F 4). Cf. Pickard-Cambridge 1968:280.

[46] Telestes and Philoxenus are dated to the late fifth and early fourth centuries.

[47] On which see pp. 174–175 above.

[48] Blum 1991:42.

[49] Blum 1991:42.

[50] Witness the designation of a certain category of acquired texts as ἐκ τῶν πλοίων ‘straight off the boats’ (Galen 17.1.606.13-14), to be discussed at p. 204 below.

[51] On the concept of charter myth, see Leach 1982:5, following Malinowski 1926.

[52] On the use of the word kibōtós ‘box’ and its derivatives to designate the special storage place of texts containing a powerful political message, see PH 171–172, 431.

[53] On Alexander as a “second Achilles,” see Plutarch Alexander 5.8, 15.9.

[54] See p. 199 above. Even before the Ptolemaic acquisition of the library of Aristotle, we may expect that the Library at Alexandria already had selective access to the works produced by the school of Aristotle, as eventually represented by his successor Theophrastus: Blum 1991:59. {I save for another occasion a critique of Fortenbaugh on Theophrastus.I save for another occasion a critique of Fortenbaugh on Theophrastus.}

[55] Pfeiffer 1968:82.

[56] On which see pp. 174–175 above.

[57] We may note with interest the comment of Pfeiffer 1968:192: “in contrast to comedy, tragedy seems to have been neglected by the scholars of the third century.” See also Blum 1991:83n155.

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Chapter 8. Epilogue: Dead Poets and Recomposed Performers

There is a late twelfth-century lai by Marie de France, entitled Laüstic, about a nightingale that was killed by a jealous knight who had been told by his wife, when asked why she would leave the bed so often at night and stand by the window, that ‘there is no joy in all the world like hearing the nightingale’ (verses 84-85: il nen ad joië en cest mund | ki n’ot le laüstic chanter).[1] Till then, there had been a series of nightly contacts, purely by voice, between the wife and her secret lover, whose window was nearby:

des chambres u la dame jut,

quant a la fenestre s’estut,

poeit parler a sun ami

de l’autre part, et il a li.

From the rooms where the lady lay,

when she stood by the window

she could talk to her lover

and, from the other side, he could talk to her.

Marie de France, Laüstic verses 39–42

To warn her lover that the secret has been discovered—an inference that follows, without explanation, from the death of the nightingale—the lady sends the body of the dead songbird to him. She starts by saying: {207|208}

“le laüstic li trametrai,

l’aventure li manderai.”

en une piece de samit

a or brusdé et tut escrit

ad l’oiselet envolupé;

un suen vaslet ad apelé,

sun message li ad chargié,

a sun ami l’ad enveié.

“I will send the nightingale to him,

I will pass on to him the story.”

In a piece of silk,

embroidered with gold and with writing all around,

she wrapped up the bird.

She called one of her servants

and charged him with her message

which she sent to her lover.

Marie de France, Laüstic verses 133–140

When the lover receives the body of the dead songbird, he enshrines it in a reliquary, which he carries around on his person for the rest of his life.[2]

This story of the nightingale, according to the interpretation of one critic, draws a parallel between the song of the bird and the medium of the lai, but the parallelism is enigmatic:

Nowhere in the lai is the presence of a voice anything but a substitute for something else. The lovers are never present to each other, and the nightingale never sings to the lovers. It is itself nothing more than the sign of a ruse or lie told to calm the jealous husband’s suspicions, an invention synonymous with the lai itself. Moreover, the dead bird is embroidered and written (a or brusdé et tut escrit) and sent like a poetic envoi to the lover once consummation or the presence of bodies is no longer even imaginable. Nor was it ever. Presence in the lai is always deferred.[3] {208|209}

This formulation is offered in the larger context of a disagreement with Paul Zumthor’s hermeneutics of oral poetry, who claims that medieval literature is driven by the primacy of what he calls the living voice.[4] As an alternative to Zumthor’s model, it is suggested that “the Old French text is a tomb of the voice which it betrays.”[5] I agree, at least to the extent that the voice of the nightingale has indeed been ‘betrayed’ or revealed by the text:

la dame prent le cors petit,

durement plure e si maudit

ceus ki le laüstic traïrent

The lady took the small body.

She lamented bitterly and cursed

those who betrayed the nightingale.

Marie de France, Laüstic verses 121–123

And yet, it is not just the text that betrays the voice of the nightingale. Even the voice of poetic performance betrays the songbird’s voice. In the logic of the song, the nightingale sings a secret language, to be understood by lovers only, and the songbird is therefore betrayed if his love-song is made public, that is, if his secret language is sung to the public, the poet’s public.

To appreciate more fully the poetic implications of this theme of betrayal, it is instructive to begin with the poem Philomena praevia temporis amoeni by John Pecham (died 1292). This poet reshapes along religious lines the related theme of the nightingale’s love-song, and the legend it implies can be summarized as follows: {209|210}

[The] nightingale knows before-hand the time of her death and when she perceives that it is near, flies to the top of a tree and there, at daybreak, pours out her soul in many songs. At the hour of Prime her voice rises higher and in her singing she knows neither respite nor repose. About the time of Tierce, the gladness and passion increase, until at noon, her heart is ready to break as she cries oci! oci! [‘kill! kill!’], and her strength begins to fail until at None she dies.”[6]

The songbird’s cry of love and death signals the theme of betrayal. In Song 18[xxxviii] of the troubadour Guillaume le Vinier, for example, the nightingale utters this cry oci! oci! ‘kill! kill!’ (verse 4) precisely because he is denouncing the trahitour ‘traitors’ (verse 7), that is, those who betray true lovers—and thereby cause the nightingale’s death.[7] It is a central convention of the troubadour traditions to represent the nightingale as a loyal messenger sent to the beloved by the lover, by the maker of a love-song: thus in Peire d’Alvernha, Song 1.1–4, the songbird is both the discreet communicator and the faithful guardian of the lovers’ secrets.[8] In the logic of this poetic tradition, the language of the nightingale is like the language of secret lovers: it cannot be understood by the uninitiated. This same language, it follows, is the language of the poet. In an early thirteenth-century poem by Peire Cardenal, Song 56 (verses 33–40), the homology is made explicit:

a mos ops chant e a mos ops flaujol,

car homs mas ieu non enten mon lati;

atretan pauc com fa d’un rossinhol

entent la gent de mon chant que se di.

ez ieu non ai lengua fiza ni breta

ni sai parlear flamenc ni angevi,

mas malvestatz que los escalafeta

lor tol vezer que es fals ni es fi. {210|211}

I sing and I play the flute for myself.

For no man except me understands my language.

As little as they understand the nightingale

do the people understand what my song says.

And I do not have a tongue that shakes or stutters,

nor do I know to speak Flemish or Angevin,

but the meanness which contains them

takes away the vision of what is false, what is true.[9]

To betray the nightingale, then, is to betray the lovers’ secrets, which they communicate to each other through their love-song.[10] To betray the songbird’s secret love-song is to make it public. The irony here is that the death of the nightingale becomes essential for the continuity of the bird’s song as art: to betray and thus make public this love-song, with all its beautiful heartache, is to keep it alive—in the form of the song that the troubadour sings to his public.[11] If the poet compares himself directly to the nightingale, as we have just seen in the stanza from Peire Cardenal, it is more appropriate for him to stage himself at that very moment as being alone, without a public, singing to himself a song misunderstood by the uninitiated.

What, then, is the secret theme of the nightingale’s song in the lai of Marie de France? In the logic of the lai—or of the lady’s lament in the lai—the songbird’s betrayal and death signal both the lovers’ feeling of powerlessness to consummate their love and the expression of this feeling in song. It may be that this feeling of unfulfilled love is the secret theme of the nightingale’s song. This theme can be linked with a medieval belief that the nightingale ceased to sing and lost his singing voice once his songs finally led to the long-awaited moment of success in copulating.[12] There is a related theme in the troubadour tradition, as in Song 35 of Gaucelm Faidit, where the poet himself is pictured as dying from an inability to express his love fully in song.[13] {211|212}

My aim, however, is not to reflect any further on the feelings conveyed by the nightingale’s song but to explore the meaning of the song as a symbol of continuity in spite of death, even because of death. Within the story of Marie de France, to repeat the formulation that we saw earlier, the nightingale is “the sign of a ruse or lie told to calm the jealous husband’s suspicions, an invention synonymous with the lai itself.” Beyond the story, however, the song of the nightingale is the very opposite of an ad hoc invention: it is a sign of continuity, of a sad but compellingly beautiful song that cannot end with the death of the songbird. Marie de France draws attention to her use of a Breton word, laüstic, for ‘nightingale’: ceo est ‘russignol’ en franceis / e ‘nihtegale’ en dreit engleis ‘that is, russignol in French and nihtegale in proper English’ (Laüstic verses 5–6). Even in this word of Celtic origin, laüstic, we find an indirect historical indication of continuity in an oral and non-Latin tradition.[14] The image of the nightingale as oral poet persists to this day in the poetic traditions of the Celtic world: for example, the cognate of Breton laüstic in Welsh, eos or eosig, means both ‘nightingale’ and ‘bard’.[xxxix]

The letters embroidered on the silk that enshrouds the nightingale, preserved in the reliquary kept by the lover, are the transcript, as it were, of the song he once sang. To that extent, letters are indeed the tomb of performance.[15] In Greek traditions as well, “the poet seems to be saying that [his] poetry is his sêma ‘tomb’.”[16] This formulation has been applied in interpreting some cryptic verses of Theognis, where the poet’s words mirror the language of inscriptions actually found on tombs:[17]

Αἴθων μὲν γένος εἰμί, πόλιν δ᾿ εὐτειχέα Θήβην

οἰκῶ, πατρῴας γῆς ἀπερυκόμενος

I am Aithon by birth, and I have an abode [oikeîn] in well-walled Thebes,

since I have been exiled from my native land.

Theognis 1209–1210 {212|213}

It appears that the poet here is picturing himself as already dead, speaking from a tomb.[18] The verb oikeîn in parallel contexts refers to the establishing of a corpse in a sacred precinct for the purposes of hero cult.[19] After the cryptic words of Theognis 1209-1210, and some further cryptic words that go beyond the scope of this inquiry (1211–1213), the poet reiterates that he is an exile (1213–1214), and then he announces that his abode is next to the Plain of Lethe (1215–1216)—clearly, the realm of the dead (cf. Aristophanes Frogs 186).[20]

And yet, the image of the tomb in this and other archaic Greek passages conveys a message of life after death, achieved through the dead poet’s words.[21] Moreover, sêma means not only ‘tomb’ but also the ‘sign, signal, symbol’ that is the poem.[22] So long as the sign of the dead poet is there, the song may continue to live. A sign authorizes, making the poet an author.[23] The same may be said of the medieval traditions that we have considered: so long as the sign of the dead nightingale is there, the song of the poet may continue.

Still, it would not be enough to think that the death of the nightingale—the death of the poet—ensures the continuity of the song. The one who continues the song must somehow find a point of engagement with the dead poet, through the dead poet’s words. In his 1919 essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” T. S. Eliot says that, for the modern poet, the “most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously.”[24] For a culture like that of the ancient Greeks, where performance is still needed to bring the composition to life, Eliot’s words can be reapplied if we take for a moment the performer’s point of view: all I need {213|214} for the moment is to reword his work as his performance. Let me recompose, then: for a performer, the most individual parts of his performance may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously. In other words, the reperformed composer becomes the recomposed performer.

Here we return to the subject of mimesis in Greek poetic traditions. This book has consistently stressed the fundamental role of mimesis in the performance of song and poetry in the theater, in choral events, in professional citharodic or aulodic events, in rhapsodic events, and even in the symposium.[25] So long as the authority of mimesis continues, we must reckon with its power to reshape the identity of those who take part in the process of performing a song or poem. Just as every performance becomes a potential re-creation in mimesis, that is, a virtual recomposition, so also the very identity of the performer stands to be re-created, recomposed. When the performer re-enacts an identity formerly enacted by previous performers, he or she is re-creating his or her own identity for the moment. That is to say, a performer’s identity is recomposed in performance.

From the standpoint of the Alexandrian period, an era that inaugurates terminal rigidity in the performance traditions of both tragedy and Homer, it is reasonable to expect the perception of a veritable chasm between the actor of, say, a Sophoclean drama and Sophocles himself, or between the immediate rhapsode and Homer, the ultimate Singer. We have seen a striking example of such a chasm at an even earlier date, already in the fourth century: it is the metaphor of the magnet in Plato’s Ion, with the rhapsode Ion pictured as the last and weakest link in a magnetic chain of rhapsodes leading all the way back to the genius of Homer (533d–536d). Still, I maintain my earlier objection to this idea that a rhapsode is a mere replica: such a mentality is contradicted by the more archaic mentality of mimesis, which shapes the idea of a recomposed performer, in that performers may still appropriate to themselves the persona of the composer.

In a performance tradition that is markedly more fluid, as in the case of the troubadour songs represented by Jaufré Rudel, we have seen that any distinction between the so-called “original” {214|215} composer and the performer is in fact so blurred as to lead a modern editor to talk about multiple authorship. Let us recall the striking formulation of Rupert Pickens: “The conventions and traditions of the courtly lyric have conspired to efface the author and to create at least as many Jaufré Rudels as there are medieval anthologies.”[26]

A comparative perspective, taking into account the differences we have observed so far, leads to the following two axioms:

The greater or smaller the degree of mouvance, the smaller or greater respectively is the distinction between composer and performer.[27]
Where the distinction between composer and performer requires it, the performer’s identity becomes reshaped—recomposed—to fit the ideology of his or her distinctness from the supposedly prototypical composer, the author.

All this is not to renounce the historical reality or even the very concept of authors, of earlier composers of earlier compositions in oral tradition. What I resist is simply the insistence of some scholars on the notion that an original composer of an original composition in oral tradition can be recovered as a synchronic reality. The parallel of historical linguistics imposes itself. Within the conceptual framework of this discipline, we can claim to be reconstructing a given earlier phase of a language on the basis of cognate forms, but we cannot ever say that we have recovered an original phase.[28] The different details that we reconstruct cannot be reassembled into one synchronic reality, one glorious instance of real speech as really spoken in one time and one place. All we can do is predict the relationships that the reconstructed details {215|216} maintain with each other within a continuum that is diachrony. Our predictions must take the form of hypothetical cross-sections of synchrony that correspond to genuinely attested cross-sections, that is, to recordings of living speech.

So also in the study of oral tradition, we cannot expect, as Lord warns us, to recover an “original,” in this case an original composition. Nevertheless, following the model of historical linguistics, we may indeed hope to reconstruct earlier stages or cross-sections of traditions in composition. In my earlier work, I used the letters L M N and so on as symbols for various reconstructed stages of authorship in oral traditions, avoiding the sequence of letters A B C and so on with the implicit purpose of emphasizing that a model of reconstruction cannot start with the beginning, only with a beginning.[29] To start with L M N and so on is thus symbolically apt, in line with the archaic Roman custom, derived from earlier conventions in the writing traditions of Semitic languages, of dividing the alphabet into two halves for teaching purposes, with the recto, as it were, starting at A-B-C and the verso, at L-M-N. Thus by learning the essentials of language, one would learn concurrently one’s A-B-C-s and L-M-N-s. The idea of L-M-N-s as implicit essentials, alongside the A-B-C-s as explicit ones, helps explain the etymology of Latin elementum, alongside abecedarium, as Michael Coogan has argued persuasively.[30] To use Coogan’s metaphor, the sequence L M N in one particular Qumran student’s practice abecedarium represents “a fresh start.”[31]

This etymology of elementum can serve as a fitting symbol for the elements of authorship in oral tradition. As we attempt to trace a progression of originators within an oral poetic tradition, we will predictably fail if we start with an originator standing at a starting line, as it were, but we may indeed succeed in catching up, along the way, with successive relays of continuators, each of whom becomes an originator for the next continuator.

The continuators, of course, need a continuum—a continuous setting, to match any original setting. We may link such “original” {216|217} settings as the hetaireía ‘assembly of comrades’ addressed by Alcaeus at one time and one place with such historically continuing settings as the symposium, in all its varieties throughout many times and many places, where the spirit of hetaireía writ large provides a fitting context for re-enactments of Alcaeus’ words in song.[32] To this extent, I accept Wolfgang Rösler’s dictum that the identity of Alcaeus as a lyric poet was a function of his social group, his hetaireía: “ohne Hetairie kein Lyriker Alkaios”.[33] I even accept the notion of Alcaeus as an author. I must insist, however, that the hetaireía is diachronic—and so too, for that matter, is the persona of Alcaeus. That is to say, the persona of Alcaeus may be adaptable through time, fitting a wide variety of situations—both positive and negative—affecting the very idea of hetaireía. Just as the society reflected by Alcaeus—let us continue to call it his hetaireía—changes over time, so also the persona of Alcaeus may change along with it. If indeed Alcaeus was transmitted primarily through the symposium, then Alcaeus the author will change as the symposium changes through time.

The symposium can serve as an ideal example of a setting for performance, since this institution happens to be more conservative than most in maintaining a continuum of traditional values in the history of Hellenism.[34] And the stronger the continuity, the stronger we may expect to be the sense of potential identification between composer and performer. For example, the sympotic persona of Alcaeus, conveyed in the varieties of ethos that are being acted out in the songs attributed to him, makes it all the more natural for any sympotic performer of Alcaeus to develop a relatively strong sense of identification with him in performance. The same can be said of monodic poetry composed in elegiac couplets, as in the case of Theognis: “the figure of Theognis speaks less as a generalized choral personality and more as a specialized sympotic personality” (cf. especially Theognis 239–243).[35] Even the verses of Archilochus, at least {217|218} those composed in elegiac couplets, were suited for performance at symposia.[36]

We may recall in this connection the opinion of Aristotle, for whom the paideía ‘education’ that a younger man acquires in the symposium, presumably by way of performing as well as hearing the kind of songs that were traditionally performed in that context, provides an immunization against the potentially harmful effects of attending theatrical performances of íamboi ‘iambs’ and comedy, where we would expect the mimesis to concentrate on negative varieties of ethos: τοὺς δὲ νεωτέρους οὔτ᾿ ἰάμβων οὔτε κωμῳδίας θεατὰς θετέον, πρὶν ἢ τὴν ἡλικίαν λάβωσιν ἐν ᾗ καὶ κατακλίσεως ὑπάρξει κοινωνεῖν ἤδη καὶ μέθης, καὶ τῆς ἀπὸ τῶν τοιούτων γιγνομένης βλάβης ἀπαθεῖς ἡ παιδεία ποιήσει πάντως ‘it should be ordained that younger men not be theater-goers [theataí] of íamboi or of comedy until they reach the age where they have the opportunity to participate in lying down together at table and getting intoxicated [that is, to participate in symposia], at which point their education [paideía] will make them altogether immune to the harmful effect of these things’ (Politics 1336b20–22).[37] By implication, the paideía of mimesis in the symposium—even the cumulative ethos of the symposium—provides a proper balance for Hellenic youth in their educational experience of learning the variations of ethos. The symposium, it seems, provides a “safe” occasion for morally vulnerable younger men to hear things that might be “unsafe” to hear in the theater. Presumably even the roguish blame poetry of Archilochus becomes a “safe” topic in the symposium.

In this connection, we may note Aristotle’s tendency to use specific passages from the poetry of Archilochus when he tries to reconstruct the prototypes of comedy (for example, Poetics 1449a9ff, apparently with reference to Archilochus F 120 W);[38] we may note too his theory that íamboi are a prototype of comedy and that they stem from blame poetry (Poetics 1448b32–1449a6).[39] And yet, it seems that Aristotle does not rule out the symposium as {218|219} a context for performing this kind of poetry, despite its frequent representation of rogues who exemplify a negative morality.

An example of such roguishness is Archilochus F 4.7–8 W, where the speaker says that ‘we’ cannot endure guard-duty without drinking wine. The question imposes itself: is the speaker referring to a real situation? One critic offers this answer: “I think it far more probable that Archilochus is evoking a situation with which his audience was all too familiar but which they could thank the gods was not their actual situation while they sang.”[40] I agree, but my point of emphasis is different: the negative morality that is being represented in this composition is being framed by the positive morality of the symposium as the setting of the representation. If I understand Aristotle correctly, the same representation in a setting that is different from the symposium, such as the theater, would make it easier for impressionable youth to become vulnerable to the negative morality that is being dramatized. In other words, Aristotle seems to be saying that the symposium provides a proper frame for moral discrimination, whereas the theater is more hazardous.

In the mimesis of a rogue’s persona, as in the case of Archilochus, we may expect an intensification of distinctions between composer and performer in the symposium. A similar point can be made about other personae as well, as in the case of Sappho. We know that Sappho’s songs, like those of Archilochus, were performed at symposia. In one source, Solon himself is pictured as becoming enraptured by a song of Sappho as sung by his own nephew at a symposium (Aelian via Stobaeus 3.29.58).[41] The point is, for a male singer to act out a woman’s persona implies a radical reshaping of personality in performance. One critic {219|220} remarks, in arguing for a contrast between the ease with which a symposiast may perform the words of Theognis addressing his boy-love Kyrnos and the difficulty with which the same symposiast may perform the dramatized words of Aphrodite addressing Sappho: “Contemporaries will have had little difficulty in singing a song addressed to [Kyrnos]; they might, however, have felt some oddity in singing Sappho [F] 1, with its give-away τίς σ᾿ ὦ Ψαπφ᾿, ἀδικήει; [‘who, Sappho, is doing you wrong?’]; or reciting such lines as Hipponax [F] 32.4 W δὸς χλαῖναν Ἱππώνακτι [‘give a cloak to Hipponax!’].”[42] So also with such songs as Alcaeus F 10 V and Anacreon PMG 385: in each case, the dramatized persona who is speaking is clearly female.

We must distinguish, however, between a dramatized ‘I’ who simply plays out a conventional role in a conventional situation and a dramatized ‘I’ who claims to be the author, as when a rhapsode intones ‘tell me, Muses’ or ‘tell me, Muse’, thereby becoming Homer the author, Homer the culture hero of epic. Here we return to the second axiom: where the distinction between the composer and performer requires it, the performer’s identity becomes reshaped—recomposed—to fit the ideology of his or her distinctness from the supposedly prototypical composer, the author. When a rhapsode performs the lament of a woman, the lamenting ‘I’ is surely distinct from the narrating ‘I’ of Homer the author.[43] Granted, the equation of the rhapsode’s ‘I’ with Homer’s ‘I’ is itself an act of mimesis, but the further equation with a lamenting woman’s ‘I’ surely intensifies the mimesis. In the same way, a sympotic performer’s ‘I’ is surely less mimetic when it renders an ‘I’ overtly equated with Archilochus as author or with Sappho as author and more mimetic when it renders an ‘I’ that seems distinct from the authors.

Even so, the identity of the author is at risk. Let us reconsider the various songs in which an “author” is speaking through what is understood to be his or her own persona. The variety of situations conjured up even in such appropriated songs may lead to a commensurate variety of speaking personae. In other words, the demands of mimesis may lead toward an intensified multiplicity {220|221} in ethos even for the author, with the persona of an Archilochus or a Sappho becoming transformed into multiple personalities that fit multiple situations. Just as the performer may be recomposed in multiple ways, so too this multiplicity may be retrojected all the way to the supposedly prototypical composer, the author. A case in point is the persona of Sappho, which becomes refracted into multiple personalities that eventually become distinguished from the “real” poetess in various Life of Sappho traditions: one such “fake” Sappho is a lyre-player who reputedly jumped off the cliff of Leukas (Suda Σ 108, iv 323 ed. Adler; cf. Strabo 10.2.9 C452), while another is a courtesan (hetaíra: Aelian Varia Historia 12.19, Athenaeus 13.596e), even a prostitute (publica: Seneca in Epistles 88.37).

Despite the verifiable reality of recomposition-in-performance, of change in identity within the process of mimesis, the songmaking tradition may continue to insist on its unchangeability. The tradition may even claim that mimesis itself is the visible sign or seal of unchangeability for the song and, by extension, for its author. Such a traditional mentality is evident in two passages from Theognis of Megara.

In the first passage, the persona of Theognis claims that he is placing a sphragís ‘seal’ upon his words as he identifies himself by name:

Κύρνε σοφιζομένῳ μὲν ἐμοὶ σφρηγὶς ἐπικείσθω

τοῖσδ᾿ ἔπεσιν, λήσει δ᾿ οὔποτε κλεπτόμενα

οὐδέ τις ἀλλάξει κάκιον τοὐσθλοῦ παρεόντος.

ὧδε δέ πᾶς τις ἐρεῖ· Θεύγνιδός ἐστιν ἔπη

τοῦ Μεγαρέως· πάντας δὲ κατ᾿ ἀνθρώπους ὀνομαστός.

ἀστοῖσιν δ᾿ οὔπω πᾶσιν ἁδεῖν δύναμαι

Kyrnos, let a seal [sphrāgís] be placed by me, as I practice my skill [sophía],

upon these my words. This way, it will never be undetected if they are stolen,

and no one can substitute something inferior for the genuine thing that is there.

And this is what everyone will say: “These are the words of Theognis

of Megara, whose name is known among all mortals.”

But I am not yet able to please [= verb handánein] all the townspeople [astoí].

Theognis 19–24 {221|222}

It has been argued about the “seal”:

Like the code of [a] lawgiver, the poetry of Theognis presents itself as static, unchangeable. In fact, the sphragís ‘seal’ of Theognis is pictured as a guarantee that no one will ever tamper with the poet’s words. Outside this ideology and in reality, however, the poetry of Theognis is dynamic, subject [like the law code of Lycurgus] to modifications and accretions that are occasioned by an evolving social order. And the poet is always there, observing it all—despite the fact that the events being observed span an era that goes well beyond a single lifetime.[44]

With his “seal,” then, the figure of Theognis is authorizing himself, making himself the author.[45] There is an explicit self-description of this author as one who succeeds in sophía, the ‘skill’ of decoding or encoding poetry.[46] On the basis of this success, the author lays claim to a timeless authority, which resists the necessity of changing just to please the audience of the here and now, who are described as the astoí ‘townspeople’.[47] The author must risk alienation with the audience of the here and now in order to attain the supposedly universal acceptance of the ultimate audience, which is the cumulative response of Panhellenic fame.[48]

Such fame is achieved, as we see from the second Theognis passage, through the authority and authenticity of mimesis. Implicitly, only the pleasure of exact reperformance, which is {222|223} supposedly the ongoing achievement of mimesis, is truly lasting, while the pleasure elicited through changes in response to an immediate audience is ephemeral. In this second passage, the persona of Theognis declares that only the one who is sophós, that is, ‘skilled’ in the decoding and encoding of poetry, can execute a mimesis of Theognis:

οὐ δύναμαι γνῶναι νόον ἀστῶν ὅντιν’ ἔχουσιν·

οὔτε γὰρ εὖ ἕρδων ἁνδάνω οὔτε κακῶς·

μωμεῦνται δέ με πολλοί, ὁμῶς κακοὶ ἠδὲ καὶ ἐσθλοί·

μιμεῖσθαι δ’ οὐδεὶς τῶν ἀσόφων δύναται.

I am not able to decide what disposition it is that the townspeople [astoí] have towards me.

For I do not please [= verb handánein] them, either when I do for them things that are advantageous or when I do things that are disadvantageous.[49]

There are many who find blame with me, base and noble men alike.

But no one who is not skilled [sophós] is able to re-enact [mimeîsthai] me.

Theognis 367–370

Here the notion of mimesis becomes an implicit promise that no change shall ever occur to accommodate the interests of any local audience in the here and now, that is, of the astoí ‘townspeople’. The authorized reperformance of a composition, if it is to be a true re-enactment or mimesis, can guarantee the authenticity of the “original” composition. The author is saying about himself: “But no one who is not skilled [sophós] can re-enact my identity.”

Here is an occasion to conjure up, yet again, the reworded words of Eliot: for a performer, the most individual parts of his performance may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously. These words bring us back to the paradox of mimesis, which demands a never-changing identity for the author through an ever-changing identification with whatever the author chooses to represent: {223|224}

The concept of mimesis, in conveying a re-enactment of the realities of myth, is a concept of authority as long as society assents to the genuineness of the values contained by the framework of myth. Correspondingly the speaker who frames the myth, or whose existence is re-enacted as framing the myth, is an author so long as he or she speaks with the authority of myth, which is supposedly timeless and unchanging. The author has to insist on the timelessness and unchangeability of such authority, which resists the pressures of pleasing the interests of the immediate audience by preferring the pleasure of timeless and unchanging values transmitted to an endless succession of audiences by way of mimesis.[50]

To this extent, there is indeed such a thing as an author in oral tradition—or at least, there are different kinds of author in different traditions. In pre-Islamic poetry, for example, as critics contemplate the myriad variants constituting the corpus of a single poet, they claim they can sense the author’s presence in the creation—and re-creation—of his poetry:

Thus, although we may not possess the verbatim record of [Imru’ al-Qays]’ mu‘allaqa as uttered by the poet himself on a specific occasion, we do possess something perhaps even more valuable: a verse-by-verse delineation of a fine and majestic living poem in all its protean states of oral existence—a carefully developed multiple exposure, as it were, of a fluctuating poetic organism that still kept its own unique identity so as to be recognized by all who knew and heard it.[51]

To recognize the song, then, is to recognize the singer. And yet, the singer cannot be independent of the song, as it continues to be performed and re-performed. We may heed the words of Thomas Hardy, echoing the poems of Wordsworth, Keats, and many others:

The Selfsame Song

A bird sings the selfsame song,

With never a fault in its flow,

That we listened to here those long

Long years ago. {224|225}

A pleasing marvel is how

A strain of such rapturous rote

Should have gone on thus till now

Unchanged in a note!

—But it’s not the selfsame bird.—

No: perished to dust is he….

As also are those who heard

That song with me.[52] {225|}

Footnotes

[1] There is a related narrative, this one centering on the figures of Tristan and Iseut, in a late twelfth-century poem entitled Donnei des Amants (see ch. 1n50 above): hearing Tristan imitating the song of birds—and the first bird to be mentioned in the text is a nightingale—Iseut leaves the bed where King Mark is sleeping, following Tristan’s seductive sound. See Pfeffer 1985:154–156; also in general her ch. 7, “Sex and the Single Nightingale.”

[2] See Pfeffer pp. 157–168, who compares the narrative of Marie de France with several other versions of the “nightingale’s death” theme in medieval literature, including an obscene treatment in Boccaccio’s Decameron, Day 5 Story 4 (“Caterina and Ricciardo”). I am grateful to Rupert T. Pickens for showing me a copy of his paper, “The Bestiary of Marie de France’s Lais,” in which he gives the background for visualizing the two art objects featured in the lai of the nightingale: 1) the finely-crafted box or reliquary and 2) the luxuriant silk embroidered with gold thread and wrapped around an object to be treasured—in this case, the body of the nightingale. The embroidered message on the silk could not be “read” unless it was unwrapped.

[3] Bloch 1988:71.

[4] Bloch 1988:63, especially with reference to Zumthor 1983, 1984. At p. 66, Bloch challenges Zumthor’s emphasis on the “biological” aspects of “orality.”

[5] Bloch 1988:73, who argues that traire ‘betray’ is treated in this work as a synonym of traire ‘transmit’. Since, however, we expect the two words to be distinct, that is, pronounced differently (traïr ‘betray’ vs. traire ‘transmit’), such an argument can work only on the level of the written word (cf. Pickens 1994:68). Bloch goes on to say: “To write or treat (“traire”) is to betray (“traire”); or, to carry this idea further, to write immanence, whether figured as the body or the voice, is to betray it, and, as in the case of the nightingale, to ensnare and contain it, kill it and, ultimately, to entomb the living voice in the dead letter of a text, to silence it. This is why, I am convinced, silence is such an obsessive theme in Old French literature: every work silences a voice.” Cf. Vance 1986:51–85 (“Roland and Charlemagne: The Remembering Voices and the Crypt”), especially p. 85 on “two modes of experiencing language, one proper to an oral culture, the other to a culture of writing, though the former cannot be known except as a dialectical myth of the latter.”

[6] Raby 1951:445–446. On the vernacular background of the onomatopoeia implicit in the cry oci! oci! ‘kill! kill!’, see Pfeffer 1985:41. On the mythological background for the theme of death by ‘killing’, see Pfeffer p. 136–137, 140.

[7] Pfeffer 1985:134–137, 140.

[8] Pfeffer 1985:111–113. On the theme of the nightingale as a messenger of lovers in modern French folksongs, see Pfeffer p. 214.

[9] Translation after Pfeffer 1985:107.

[10] Just as the nightingale is a model of discretion for lovers, other birds, like the starling, become models of indiscretion: on this counter-theme, see Pfeffer 1985:113–114.

[11] For a similar theme, see Schur 1998 on a work by Franz Kafka, Josefine, die Sängerin oder Das Volk der Mäuse.

[12] This belief is played out in the Old French jeux-partis tradition of the trouvères, as in Princes del Pui, mout bien savés trouver, analyzed by Pfeffer 1985:141–150, 175.

[13] Analyzed by Pfeffer 1985:101–102.

[14] In the work mentioned at n2 above, Rupert T. Pickens discusses the reliance on Celtic oral traditions (matiere de Bretagne)—alongside Latin written traditions (matiere de Rom)—in the lais of Marie de France, whose literary activity is historically linked with the court of Henry II of England.

[15] As the discussion still to come makes clear, however, it does not follow that the symbol of the tomb reflects the permanent death of the entombed.

[16] GM 222n62.

[17] GM 273–274. Cf. Svenbro 1993:84.

[18] For analogous themes in Irish and Welsh poetry, see Ford 1987: in the Celtic traditions, a given poem can represent its poet as if he were already dead. Ford connects this convention with attested rituals of poetic initiation.

[19] GM 274n20.

[20] Detailed analysis in N 1985:76–81. Cf. N 1993 on Alcaeus F 129 and 130 V, where the persona of the poet seems to be speaking from the dead.

[21] N 1985:76–81.

[22] GM 221–222; cf. Ford 1985:91, 95. On the etymology of sêma, see Ivanov 1993b.

[23] On the conceptual link between authorizing and authorship, see PH 79–81, 169–170, 350, and 412–413. It is hazardous, however, to retroject to the ancient world our contemporary notions of the “author”—notably the individual author. On the semantic problems of retrojecting our notions of the individual, see Held 1991.

[24] Eliot 1919 [1975]:38.

[25] See especially p. 85.

[26] Pickens 1978:40.

[27] This formulation restricts the term mouvance to mean a phenomenon of variation in oral poetics as shown by the evidence of manuscripts, not the manuscript evidence showing that phenomenon. As Laurence de Looze points out to me, the presence or absence of manuscript evidence in any given case may be an accident of history. It often may not be possible, therefore, to work out quantitative or comparative criteria for measuring mouvance. My axiom is meant merely as a practical index of mouvance.

[28] Cf. N 1972:49: “it can happen that in a given set of cognates … the least common denominator of the semantic sphere is no longer extant in any of the Indo-European languages with relevant … evidence.”

[29] PH 80.

[30] Coogan 1974, 1990; cf. Ivanov 1993a, especially pp. 1–2.

[31] Coogan 1974:61.

[32] See pp. 84–85 above.

[33] Rösler 1980:40.

[34] Cf. Murray 1990.

[35] PH 368n159. See also Bowie 1986. Perhaps it is not necessary to postulate, as does Bowie on p. 14, that the elegiac verses of a figure like Theognis must have been accompanied by an aulós. In PH 25–26 it is argued that such accompaniment may have been optional but not obligatory.

[36] Bowie 1986:16–18, especially with reference to Archilochus F 4 W (also F 2).

[37] See p. 163 above. Cf. Bartol 1992:66. {I save for another occasion my comments on the observations of Gentili, who also notices this.I save for another occasion my comments on the observations of Gentili, who also notices this.}

[38] PH 394–395.

[39] BA 253; cf. Rosen 1988.

[40] Bowie 1986:16.

[41] Cf. Herington 1985:35. For more on the singing of Sappho’s songs at symposia, see Plutarch Sympotic Questions 711d: ὅτε καὶ Σαπφοῦς ἂν ᾀδομένης καὶ Ἀνακρέοντος ἐγὼ μοι δοκῶ καταθέσθαι τὸ ποτήριον αἰδούμενος ‘even when Sappho’s songs are sung, or Anacreon’s, I feel like putting down my drinking-cup, out of respect’; also 622c: ἐζητεῖτο παρὰ Σοσσίῳ Σαπφικῶν τινων ᾀσθέντων ‘there was a debate at the house of Sossios, after some songs of Sappho had been sung…’ (cf. Rösler 1980:101). Also Aulus Gellius Noctes Atticae 19.9 (mention of Anacreontic and Sapphic songs sung at a symposium by both boys and girls). I am grateful to Dimitrios Yatromanolakis for the last reference.

[42] Bowie 1986:14.

[43] See p. 86 above.

[44] N 1985:33. Cf. Ford 1985:85: “Theognis is not simply the name of a marvelous performer but the lock and key fixing a body of poetry and guaranteeing its provenience.”

[45] Cf. Batchelder 1994 on the poetics of the sphragís ‘seal’ in the Electra of Sophocles. Here too, as in Theognis, the seal functions as a sign that authorizes the author. In this case, there are two levels of successful authorization and authorship: inside the dramatic frame, Orestes takes control of the state—and of his own drama—as he competes with his rivals for control, while Sophocles himself maintains ultimate control of the frame from the outside, as the definitive dramaturge.

[46] On sophós ‘skilled’ as a programmatic word used by poetry to designate the ‘skill’ of a poet in encoding the message of the poetry, see PH 148. See also PH 374n190: “A successful encoder, that is, poet, is by necessity a successful decoder, that is, someone who has understood the inherited message and can therefore pass it on. Not all decoders, however, are necessarily encoders: both poet and audience are decoders, but only the poet has the authority of the encoder.”

[47] In this and related contexts, astoí ‘townspeople’ seems to be the programmatic designation of local audiences, associated with the special interests of their own here and now. See PH 273–275.

[48] This theme of the alienated poet is examined at length in N 1985:30 and following.

[49] The ‘doing’, of course, may amount simply to the performative level of ‘saying’ by way of poetry.

[50] PH 373–374

[51] Zwettler 1978:221.

[52] Hardy 1929 [1978]:221. Thanks to Steven Meyer (31 March 1994).

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Appendix

Testimonia on the Kreophuleioi of Samos

In Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus 4.4 we read how Lycurgus the Lawgiver acquired the Homeric poems from the descendants of Kreophylos in Samos and brought the poems back to the Spartans: ἐκεῖ δὲ καὶ τοῖς Ὁμήρου ποιήμασιν ἐντυχὼν πρῶτον, ὡς ἔοικε, παρὰ τοῖς ἐκγόνοις τοῖς Κρεοφύλου διατηρουμένοις, καὶ … ἐγράψατο προθύμως καὶ συνήγαγεν ὡς δεῦρο κομιῶν. ἦν γάρ τις ἤδη δόξα τῶν ἐπῶν ἀμαυρὰ παρὰ τοῖς Ἕλλησιν, ἐκέκτηντο δὲ οὐ πολλοὶ μέρη τινά, σποράδην τῆς ποιήσεως, ὡς ἔτυχε, διαφερομένης· γνωρίμην δὲ αὐτὴν καὶ μάλιστα πρῶτος ἐποίησε Λυκοῦργος. (Besides Κρεόφυλος, Κρεώφυλος is also attested in the textual transmission, as in Strabo 14.1.18 C638; also Callimachus Epigram 6.4, where the ω is guaranteed by the meter.) In Aristotle F611 Rose, we read: Λυκοῦργος ἐν Σάμῳ ἐτελεύτησε. καὶ τὴν Ὁμήρου ποίησιν παρὰ τῶν ἀπογόνων Κρεοφύλου λαβὼν πρῶτος διεκόμισεν εἰς Πελοπόννησον. The expression hoi apógonoi Kreōphúlou ‘the descendants of Kreophylos’ is equated with the epithet Kreōphúleios in Iamblichus Life of Pythagoras 2.11: μετὰ τοῦ Ἑρμοδάμαντος μὲν τὸ ὄνομα, Κρεοφυλείου δὲ ἐπικαλουμένου, ὃς ἐλέγετο Κρεοφύλου ἀπόγονος εἶναι, Ὁμήρου ξένου τοῦ ποιητοῦ. On the contacts of Pythagoras with Hermodamas the Kreōphúleios, see Neanthes FGH 84 F 29, Diogenes Laertius 8.2 (cf. Richardson 1975.75). See also Porphyry Life of Pythagoras 2: ἐπανελθόντα δ᾽ εἰς τὴν Ἰωνίαν ἐντεῦθεν τὸν Πυθαγόραν πρῶτον μὲν Φερεκύδῃ τῷ Συρίῳ ὁμιλῆσαι, δεύτερον δ᾽ Ἑρμοδάμαντι τῷ Κρεοφυλείῳ ἐν Σάμῳ ἤδη γηράσκοντι. Also Life of Pythagoras 15: νοσήσαντα δὲ τὸν Φερεκύδην ἐν Δήλῳ θεραπεύσας ὁ Πυθαγόρας καὶ ἀποθανόντα θάψας εἰς Σάμον ἐπανῆλθε πόθῳ τοῦ συγγενέσθαι Ἑρμοδάμαντι τῷ Κρεοφυλείῳ. Also Suda π 3120: <Πυθαγόρας,> Σάμιος, φύσει δὲ Τυρρηνός, Μνησάρχου υἱὸς δακτυλιογλύφου. νέος δὲ ὢν σὺν τῷ πατρὶ ἐκ Τυρρηνίας ᾤκησεν εἰς Σάμον. {226|227} οὗτος ἤκουσε πρῶτος Φερεκύδου τοῦ Συρίου ἐν Σάμῳ, εἶτα Ἑρμοδάμαντος ἐν τῇ αὐτῇ Σάμῳ, ὃς ἦν ἀπόγονος Κρεοφύλου, εἶτα … The story as reported by Aristotle, in the passage already cited, that Lycurgus died in Samos, the same place where he acquired the Homeric poems for the Spartans, can be compared to the variant story that he died in Crete, the same place where he acquired the Laws for the Spartans (on the latter variant, see N 1985.78).

2. An ancient bibliography of the writings of Demetrius of Phalerum

The bibliography of Demetrius of Phalerum, as given by Diogenes Laertius 5.80–81: Πλήθει δὲ βιβλίων καὶ ἀριθμῷ στίχων σχεδὸν ἅπαντας παρελήλακε τοὺς καθ᾽ αὐτὸν περιπατητικούς, εὐπαίδευτος ὢν καὶ πολύπειρος παρ᾽ ὁντινοῦν· ὧν ἐστι τὰ μὲν ἱστορικά, τὰ δὲ πολιτικά, τὰ δὲ περὶ ποιητῶν, τὰ δὲ ῥητορικά, δημηγοριῶν τε καὶ πρεσβειῶν, ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ λόγων Αἰσωπείων συναγωγαὶ καὶ ἄλλα πλείω. ἔστι δὲ τὰ Περὶ τῆς Ἀθήνησι νομοθεσίας α´ β´ γ´ δ´ ε´, Περὶ τῶν Ἀθήνησι πολιτειῶν α´ β´, Περὶ δημαγωγίας α´ β´, Περὶ πολιτικῆς α´, β´, Περὶ νόμων α´, Περὶ ῥητορικῆς α´ β´, Στρατηγικῶν α´ β´, Περὶ Ἰλιάδος α´ β´, Περὶ Ὀδυσσείας α´ β´ γ´ δ´, Πτολεμαῖος α´, Ἐρωτικὸς α´, Φαιδώνδας α´, Μαίδων α´, Κλέων α´, Σωκράτης α´, Ἀρταξέρξης α´, Ὁμηρικὸς α´, Ἀριστείδης α´, Ἀριστόμαχος α´, Προτρεπτικὸς α´, Ὑπὲρ τῆς πολιτείας α´, Περὶ τῆς δεκαετίας α´, Περὶ τῶν Ἰώνων α´, Πρεσβευτικὸς α´, Περὶ πίστεως α´, Περὶ χάριτος α´, Περὶ τύχης α´, Περὶ μεγαλοψυχίας α´, Περὶ γάμου α´, Περὶ τοῦ δοκοῦ α´, Περὶ εἰρήνης α´, Περὶ νόμων α´, Περὶ ἐπιτηδευμάτων α´, Περὶ καιροῦ α´, Διονύσιος α´, Χαλκιδικὸς α´, Ἀθηναίων καταδρομὴ α´, Περὶ Ἀντιφάνους α´, Προοίμιον ἱστορικὸν α´, Ἐπιστολαὶ α´, Ἐκκλησία ἔνορκος α´, Περὶ γήρως α´, Δίκαια α´, Αἰσωπείων α´, Χρειῶν α´.

3. An anecdote indirectly reflecting on the custom of consecutive recitation by rhapsodes and on the negative attitude of Alexandrian scholars concerning the performance of poetry:

Vitruvius on Aristophanes of Byzantium, T 17 in the Aristophanes edition of Slater 1986. Vitruvius preface to 7.4–7, ed. Fensterbusch: reges Attalici magnis philologiae dulcendinibus inducti cum egregiam bybliothecam Pergami ad commune delectationem instituissent, tunc item Ptolemaeus infinito zelo cupiditatisque incitatus studio non minoribus industriis ad eundem modum contenderat Alexandriae comparare. {227|228} Cum autem summa diligentia perfecisset, non putavit id satis esse, nisi propagationibus inseminando curaret augendam. itaque Musis et Apollini ludos dedicavit et, quemadmodum athletarum, sic communium scriptorium victoribus praemia et honores constituit. his ita institutis, cum ludi adessent, iudices litterati, qui ea probarent, erant legend. rex, cum iam sex civitatis lectos habuisset nec tam cito septumum idoneum inveniret, retulit ad eos, qui supra bybliothecam fuerunt, et quaesiit, si quem novissent ad id expeditum. tunc ei dixerunt esse quondam Aristophanen, qui summo studio summaque diligentia cotidie omnes libros ex ordine perlegeret. itaque conventu ludorum, cum secretae sedes iudicibus essent distributae, cum ceteris Aristophanes citatus, quemadmodum fuerat locus ei designates, sedit. primo poetarum ordine ad certationem inducto cum recitarentur scripta, populous cunctus significando monebat iudices, quod probarent, itaque, cum ab singulis sententiae sunt rogatae, sex una dixerunt, et quem maxime animadverterunt multitudini placuisse, ei primum praemium, insequenti secundum tribuerunt. Aristophanes vero, cum ab eo sentential rogarentur, eum primum renuntiari iussit, qui minime populo placuisset. cum autem rex et universi vehementer indignarentur, surrexit et rogando impetravit, ut paterentur se dicere. itaque silentio facto docuit unum ex his eum esse poetam, ceteros aliena recitavisse; oportere autem iudicantes non furta sed scripta probare. admirante populo et rege dubitante, fretus memoriae certis armariis infinita volumina eduxit et ea cum recitatis conferendo coegit ipsos furatos de se confiteri. itaque rex iussit cum his agi furti condemnatosque cum ignominia dimisit, Aristophanen vero amplissimis muneribus ornavit et supra bybliothecam constituit.

Abbreviations

BA – The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry = N 1979a

GM – Greek Mythology and Poetics = N 1990b

HC – Homer the Classic = N 2008

HQ – Homeric Questions = N 1996b

HP – Homer the Preclassic = N 2009

HR – Homeric Responses = N 2003a

HTL – Homer’s Text and Language = N 2004a

LP – “The Library of Pergamon as a Classical Model” = N 1998

N – Nagy, G.

PH – Pindar’s Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past = N 1990a

PP – Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond = N 1996

PR – Plato’s Rhapsody and Homer’s Music: The Poetics of the Panathenaic Festival in Classical Athens = N 2002

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Endnotes

[i] Isidore of Seville Origines 15.1.63: how Latin/Greek/Celtic are spoken in Marseille; cf. also Athenaeus 576ab, re Aristotle Constitution of Marseille.

[ii] The theme of ‘newness’ here, as we will see, is the theme of renewal. Cf. dēute in Song 1 of Sappho.

[iii] Cf. also Procne’s lament in Sophocles Tereus F 583 Radt. Cf. Wilamowitz on Hercules 1022, Fraenkel on Agamemnon 1144, Easterling on Trachiniae 963.

[iv] Cf. de Looze in Vox Intexta; cf. also M.-L. Chenu on Auctor, Autor, Author, in Bulletin du Cange; also Alistair Minnis’ book.

[v] I have written about this theme in HQ. Consider also the case of the Delphic Oracle, where again transmitters are enjoined not to change anything.

[vi] Conceivably, the composer himself may become transformed. I note the variant wording in version 1 strophe vii: guart si que res no mi coambi, which may possibly be interpreted as ‘beware lest anything changes me’. In other words, there is a danger that the familiar will become the alien. The authorship of the poet may become alienated, that is, it may be re-attributed to someone else, someone alienated from the self. If such an interpretation is impossible, then the translation would have to be ‘beware lest anything changes for me’.

[vii] This translation needs to be verified.

[viii] Victor Bers reminds me of Wackernagel Vorlesungen 1.181, concerning the use of imperfects in signed Greek pots.

[ix] Cf. Benveniste’s explanation of aiei, etc.

[x] For other examples of mover in collocation with the theme of singing, see Bernard de Ventadour 3.1 and 20.4 (in the edition of Lazar 1966) as cited by Pickens 1977:330n19.

[xi] Note the critique of Bédier in Reynolds and Wilson 1991:289, where it is clear that they are willing to concede that “certain works of medieval literature” defy the reconstruction of stemmata. They cite as an example of a successful attempt at eliminatio codicum even despite contaminations Kassel, R. 1971. Der Text der Aristotelischen Rhetorik. Berlin. Specifically pp. 54–55.

[xii] Another relevant work is that of Robert Wardy, The Chain of Change, re Aristotle Physics VII, published in Cambridge Classical Studies.

[xiii] Bolling CP 24 (1929) 332ff says that Aelian had the “text alpha” of Homer.

[xiv] Other scholars in this era include the likes of Galen, Oppian, Philostratus.

[xv] My translation of τακερῶς as ‘meltingly’ follows the interpretation given in LSJ.

[xvi] The voice of the nightingale is imitated by the wind-instrument known as the aulos in Aristophanes Birds 222, where the text contains the parepigraphē “auleî” and the scholia explain hoti mimeitai tis tēn aēdona hōs endon ousan en tēi lokhmēi—see Pickard-Cambridge p. 262. Ingrid Rowland has interesting observations about the aspect of dissonance built into the consonance, when it comes to aulos playing. That is because the intervals on each half of the aulos do not match identically.

[xvii] Relevant are the Plato attestations as listed in LSJ s.v.

[xviii] See LSJ, who also cite Isocrates 15.45.

[xix] LSJ and OLD agree on this citation.

[xx] I think of the story about the jongleur who sings a male lover’s lament, a lai de la complainte, and then a female response, a lai de confort. He is then acclaimed by his public for singing and thus teaching the experiences of both men and women. See Sylvia Huot’s book, 1987:297–299. This story captures, I think, the essence of the art of the troubadour.

[xxi] Cf. 228, 237, 243, 260, 262, 267.

[xxii] Cf. Pischinger 28ff; also G. Schmid p. 166.

[xxiii] Other members of the morphological family, as listed in the book of Risch, are polugēthḗs and gētheîn, erithēlḗs and thēleîn. Also aellḗs at III 13 from eílesthai/ eileîn. At this point, I will not rule out the morphological family discussed by Risch 83–87, of the type polutharsḗs. Beyond Homer, there is poluarkḗs.

[xxiv] I remind myself that continuity is imitative. This is a very performative word. As for lampron, maybe we see here an implication of e.g. a steady stream of light. Like the idea of a steady voice, which can still vary. Or like the idea of a steady Polydeukes, who always comes to the rescue. Also, poludeukḗs is cyclical, like poluderkḗs, the epithet of Eos. Perhaps the blepein gloss of poluderkḗs comes from this context. In astronomical contexts, I think that polu‑ conveys the idea of many happy returns, as does the root nes‑ in Nemean 2, which replays the name of the patriarch of the family, Timonoos. Another image: reverberation, where I might quote again from my PH concerning the reverberation of a Pindaric song. Yet another image: refraction, which we have already seen.

[xxv] This is the way Lucas gives the text.

[xxvi] I will check Goff 1990.105–129 to see what she has about this passage. Karydas 1992:258n326 cites Halleran 1991:120: “The maidens’ song about Hippolytos and about Phaidra’s passion will commemorate the sad events of the play, but here the destruction will be only mimetic, safely sung by the maidens as they pass to a new stage of their lives.” I read this page, and the only thing I find that needs to be added is a reference to Segal’s Cornell UP book, Interpreting Greek Tragedy p. 281. Karydas also cites Foley Ritual Irony p. 22.

[xxvii] I need to read Ruth Padel, Hugh Parry, etc. And I need to develop the idea of the balladic element in the first choral passage, as suggested by Barrett.

[xxviii] The concepts of transcript and script as I have defined them allow for varying degrees of mouvance, whereas the concept of scripture does not, at least not in theory.

[xxix] I will study the wording of the scholia here.

[xxx] Apthorp 1980:110n67, speaking about variants qua wording not qua numerus versuum, cites Parry HSCP 1932.46–47.

[xxxi] Others that van der Valk mentions besides Labarbe: Chantraine, Mélanges Desrousseaux, 68; Dodds, Fifty Years, 13-17; Del Corno, I papiri dell’Iliade, 78

[xxxii] Aristarchus chooses the more regular form; Zenodotus, the more idiosyncratic. I should mention the Aristotelian take of Aristarchus, as in Nickau’s discussion.

[xxxiii] I query my translation of ta polla as ‘for the most part’.

[xxxiv] Dots under αρδα.

[xxxv] Dot under γ.

[xxxvi] I take it that Eustathius is using this expression in the style of the New Testament, where Jesus explains things to his disciples. Also, I query my translation of ὑποκρουσάμενος.

[xxxvii] Aristotle F 169, cf. Hintenlang 1961:26–29, worries about Pharos; I wonder if this is relevant.

[xxxviii] R. 1039.

[xxxix] For Marie de France, poetry itself is envisioned as a continuity, a process of drawing (traire) from Latin into a Romance language: pur ceo començai a penser / d’aukune bone estoire faire / et de latin en romaunz traire ‘for this reason I began to think of making some good stories and of drawing them from Latin to Romance’ (Prologue verse 30).

About

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Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond

Contents

Part I: Mimesis and the making of identity in poetic performance

Part II: Fixed text in theory, shifting words in performance

Preface to the online edition

Preface for the 1996 version

Introduction: A Brief Survey of Concepts and Aims

Footnotes

Chapter 1. The Homeric Nightingale and the Poetics of Variation in the Art of a Troubadour.

Footnotes

Chapter 2. Mimesis, Models of Singers, and the Meaning of a Homeric Epithet

Footnotes

Chapter 3. Mimesis of Homer and Beyond

Footnotes

Chapter 4. Mimesis in Lyric: Sappho’s Aphrodite and the Changing Woman of the Apache

Footnotes

Chapter 5. Multiform Epic and Aristarchus’ Quest for the Real Homer.

Footnotes

Chapter 6. Homer as Script

Footnotes

Chapter 7. Homer as “Scripture”

Footnotes

Chapter 8. Epilogue: Dead Poets and Recomposed Performers

Footnotes

Appendix

2. An ancient bibliography of the writings of Demetrius of Phalerum

3. An anecdote indirectly reflecting on the custom of consecutive recitation by rhapsodes and on the negative attitude of Alexandrian scholars concerning the performance of poetry:

Abbreviations

Bibliography

Endnotes

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