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Response and Composition in Archaic Greek Poetry*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2015

Diana Burton
Diana Burton*
Affiliation:
Victoria University of Wellington, [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper discusses a series of archaic poems in which one poet responds directly to the work of another, identifying the other by name or by direct allusion (for example, Simonides frag. 542 PMG, Solon frag. 20 West, Sappho frag. 137 Voigt). Such responses often disagree with their models, and this disagreement is frequently constructed in terms of a correction, not only to the subject matter, but also to the way in which the original is composed. These responses, therefore, not only reflect the pattern of improvisation and ‘capping’ common to much Greek poetry, but form an ongoing debate on the nature and role of the poet and his poetry. The construction of such responses also serves to underline both the importance of improvisation and the permanency of the fame conveyed by the completed poem.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 45 , 2011 , pp. 58 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2011

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Footnotes

*

This paper was given, in various forms, in London, Wellington and Glasgow. I am grateful to audiences for their discussion of it, and in particular to John Davidson, Stephen Epstein, Alan Griffiths, Fiona Hobden, Liesl Nunns, Richard Rawles, Benet Salway, Jeff Tatum, Janet Watson and the anonymous reviewers for Antichthon for their comments on different drafts.

References

1 Lloyd, G.E.R., Magic, Reason and Experience (Cambridge 1979) 234Google Scholar: Greek argumentative flair is not unique but ‘their dialectical skills are deployed over a wider range of far-reaching topics than can readily be paralleled elsewhere.’

2 Griffith, M., ‘Contest and Contradiction in Early Greek Poetry’, in Cabinet of the Muses: Essays on Classical and Comparative Literature in Honour of Thomas G. Rosenmeyer, ed. Griffith, M. and Mastronarde, D.J. (Atlanta 1990) 193Google Scholar. See also Collins, D., Master of the Game: Composition and Performance in Greek Poetry (Washington 2004)Google Scholar.

3 Clearly the line between allusion and direct response can be a fine one to draw, and these poems should be regarded as sitting at one end of a wide and varied spectrum. I have tried to confine myself only to those poems where the response and authorship are unambiguous, and may therefore have missed some that might have been included in the group. I will discuss Sappho frag. 137; Solon frag. 33 and frag. 20, replying to Mimnermos frag. 6; Simonides frag. 542 and frag. 581; Timokreon frag. 10, replying to Simonides frag. 92. Cf. e.g. Sappho frag. 55; Anakreon frag. 2; Pratinas frag. 712 for more general criticisms of others' style. See also Ford, A., The Origins of Criticism (Princeton 2002) 41–2Google Scholar for a broader list of responses, including responses to prose and to wise sayings. Editions cited: Voigt, E., Sappho et Alcaeus (Amsterdam 1971)Google Scholar for Sappho and Alkaios; Page, D.L., Poetae Melici Graeci (Oxford 1962)Google Scholar for other lyric; and West, M.L., Iambi et Elegi Graeci, 2 vols, 2nd ed. (Oxford 1989–1992)Google Scholar for iambic and elegy. Translations and testimonia are from Campbell, D.A., Greek Lyric, 5 vols (Cambridge MA 1990-1993)Google Scholar; Gerber, D.E., Greek Elegiac Poetry (Cambridge MA 1999)Google Scholar; ibid., Greek Iambic Poetry (Cambridge MA 1999).

4 E.g. among many others Corinna frag. 664 on Myitis' rivalry with Pindar; Timokreon test. 1 for his criticism of Simonides; Bacch. test. 7-10 on the rivalry between Pindar, Bacchylides and Simonides.

5 This may be contrasted with self-correction, in which the poet may say directly that he has his facts wrong: e.g. Hes., WD 11–12Google Scholar, on the two spirits of Strife, cf. Hes, . Th. 223–5Google Scholar in which there is only one; Stesichoros' Palinode (frag. 192).

6 On the range of occasions broadly denoted as symposia, see Carey, C., ‘Genre, Occasion and Performance’, in The Cambridge Companion to Greek Lyric, ed. Budelmann, F. (Cambridge 2009) 33Google Scholar. Response to the work of another poet seems to be more frequent, as might be expected, in monody than choral lyric, even though self-correction is more common in choral lyric: Scodel, R., ‘Self-correction, Spontaneity and Orality in Archaic Poetry’, in Voice into Text: Orality and Literacy in Ancient Greece, ed. Worthington, I. (Leiden 1996) 65Google Scholar and passim. Simonides' response to Skopas (frag. 542) is a rare example of a response in choral lyric.

7 Schol. Ar. Clouds 1364 (= frag. 89 Wehrli); Suda s.v. Σκολιόν (= schol. Plat. Gorg. 451e = frag. 88 Wehrli); on which see Collins (n. 2) esp. 84-98; see also Ar. Wasps 1216 ff, with schol. ad loc.; Athen. Deip. 15.693f-694c. The definition and use of the term are fraught with problems; see Reitzenstein, R., Epigramm und Skolion: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der alexandrinischen Dichtung (Giessen 1893)Google Scholar; Harvey, A.E., “The Classification of Greek Lyric Poetry’, CQ 5 (1955) 162–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bowra, C.M., Greek Lyric Poetry from Alemán to Simonides (Oxford 1961) 373–97Google Scholar. Bowie, E., ‘Early Greek Elegy, Symposium and Public Festival’, JHS 106 (1986) 13–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Collins (n. 2) 84-98; Faraone, C.A., The Stanzaic Architecture of Early Greek Elegy (Oxibrd 2008) 71–6Google Scholar; Carey (n. 6) 33-4.

8 Non-Attic skolia: Campbell (n. 3) scolia test. 910-91.; Athen. Deip. 694a; citing Ar. Banqueters for Alkaios and Anakreon (frag. 235 B.-A.).

9 It is likely that a fairly high proportion of Anakreon's and Alkaios' poetry, in particular, originated in, or at least for, this sort of context. See Griffith (n. 2) 192. Bowie (n. 7) has also shown that the shorter form of elegiac poetry is very closely associated with the symposium.

10 Collins (n. 2) 63; Ford (n. 3) 39–45.

11 The degree of interaction between orality and literacy in the process by which these poems were composed, memorised, polished, adapted and performed is much debated. See Finnegan, R., Oral Poetry: Its Nature, Significance and Social Context (Cambridge 1977) 6–24Google Scholar, for definitions of orality. Among modern scholars, opinions as to the compositional habits of poets are divided; e.g. Havelock, E.A., Preface to Plato (Oxford 1963) 38Google Scholar: ‘after Homer undoubtedly their works were composed in writing’; Powell, B.B., ‘Text, Orality, Literacy, Tradition, Dictation, Education and Other Paradigms of Explication in Greek Literary Studies’, Oral Tradition 15 (2000) 117–8Google Scholar, states that choral lyric ‘could not have existed before alphabetic writing'; compare Thomas, R., Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece (Cambridge 1992) 40CrossRefGoogle Scholar, pointing out that ‘care is not the monopoly of the literate’; Calame, C., Masks of Authority: Fiction and Pragmatics in Ancient Greek Poetics (Ithaca and London 2005) 91Google Scholar, suggests that literacy was employed as an aid to memory. However, what is important here is not so much whether the poems were actually composed orally, but rather that they were given the appearance of orality — with all that implies for spontaneity.

12 On this see Morrison, A.D., The Narrator in Archaic Greek and Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge 2007) 68–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Even if (as in the case of choral lyric) the circumstances of its performance make it obvious that it is not only composed in advance, but also thoroughly rehearsed, the illusion may still be potent. See Scodel (n. 6).

14 West, , Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus (Berlin 1974) 1–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on the elegiac tradition on how to behave in the symposium; Harvey (n. 7) 170-1; Ford (n. 3) 35-6.

15 Collins (n. 2) 63; Ford (n. 3) 35-43; Nagy, G., Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond (Cambridge 1996) 218–9Google Scholar; F. Hobden, The Rhetorics of the Symposium (forthcoming) chap. 1, on competitiveness in sympotic poetry. This is neatly epitomised in the school scene by Douris, which includes not only an aulos-case and kithara but also kylikes hanging on the walls; these, Lissarague argues, indicate the context in which the schooling will be put to use (Berlin, Staatl. Mus. 2285, Attic red-figure kylix, c. 480 BC, ARV 2 431.48, by Douris; Lissarrague, F., The Aesthetics of the Greek Banquet: Images of Wine and Ritual [Princeton 1990] 137–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar with fig. 106a; Ford, , ‘From Letters to Literature: Reading the “Sound Culture” of Classical Greece’, in Written Texts and the Rise of Literate Culture in Ancient Greece, ed. Yunis, H. [Cambridge 2003] 25)Google Scholar.

16 Hobden (n. 15) chap. 1, with reference to Thgn. 789–94. esp. 890: …

17 Collins (n. 2) 69-83, 145-6.

18 Herington, J., Poetry into Drama: Early Tragedy and the Greek Poetic Tradition (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1985) 3Google Scholar. See also Ford (n. 3) 152-3.

19 Herington (n. 18) 62. Cf. Vernant, J.-P., Myth and Thought among the Greeks, trans. Lloyd, J. (Paris 1996) 134Google Scholar, for the argument that the deified memory of the Greeks similarly did not aim to reconstruct the past according to a temporal perspective. We need look no further than the many interpolations into the corpus of Anakreon, Theognis or, for that matter, the Homeric epics, to see how later and earlier material may become almost inextricably intertwined.

20 Nagy, , “Theognis and Megara: A Poet's Vision of his City’, in Theognis of Megara: Poetry and the Polis, ed. Figuera, T.J. and Nagy, G. (Baltimore 1985) 46–50Google Scholar; id. (n. 15) 19-20.

21 Lardinois, A.P.M.H., ‘Have We Solon's Verses?’, in Solon of Athens: New Historical and Philological Approaches, ed. Blok, J.H. and Lardinois, A.P.M.H. (Leiden 2006) 23Google Scholar. See also Faraone (n. 7) 93-4.

22 Herington (n. 18) 62.

23 Pindar changes direction: e.g. Pyth. 11.38–40Google Scholar; Ol. 1.52Google Scholar; Ol. 6.22–5Google Scholar; Isth. 4.1Google Scholar; Nem. 3.26–7Google Scholar; Nem. 5.16–18Google Scholar; etc. Longevity of song (and thus fame): e.g. Ol. 11.4–6Google Scholar; Isth. 7.16–19Google Scholar; Isth. 4.40–4Google Scholar; Nem. 4.6–8Google Scholar; Nem. 6.29–30Google Scholar; Nem. 7.12–17Google Scholar; etc. See further Nagy (n. 15) esp. 22-6; Scodel (n. 6) passim.

24 A yet more striking example is Solon's vivid description of the slanders put upon him by his enemies: , ‘Solon is by nature a man of shallow mind and a fool’, etc. (frag. 33). Unfortunately his refutation does not survive. This is not, strictly speaking, part of our group, unless we assume to have addressed him in elegiac couplets.

25 In fact, the number and identity of the Seven Sages were rather fluid; see Martin, R.P., “The Seven Sages as Performers of Wisdom’, in Cultural Poetics in Archaic Greece: Cuit, Performance, Politics, ed. Dougherty, B. and Kurke, L. (Cambridge 1993) 108–28Google Scholar.

26 See Gentili, B., Poetry and its Public in Ancient Greece: From Homer to the Fifth Century, trans. Cole, A.T. (Baltimore 1988) 64–7Google Scholar with notes for a discussion of the arguments; also Beresford, A., ‘Nobody's Perfect: A New Text and Interpretation of Simonides PMG 542’, CPh 103 (2008) 237–56Google Scholar. Gerber, D.E., ‘Greek Lyric Poetry since 1920. Part II: From Alemán to Fragmenta Adespota’, Lustrum 36 (1994) 139–44Google Scholar. for bibliography. Although Pittakos did write poetry, none of it survives, and it is not clear here whether Simonides is quoting more or less directly, paraphrasing a poem of Pittakos, or actually recasting a prose saying as poetry; Pittakos' poetry: Diog. Laert. 1.78; Martin (n. 25) 114. For other examples of the same problem, see Kritias frag. 7, quoting (or rephrasing) Chilon; Alkaios frag. 360 (on Alkidamos).

27 I am here following the solution proposed by Easterling, P.E., ‘Alemán 58 and Simonides 37’, PCPhS 20 (1974) 37–43Google Scholar, that Χαλεπóν means first ‘difficult’ (v. 2) and then ‘impossible’ (v. 13). Simonides' response is therefore to state, not that Pittakos is on the wrong track, but that his formulation does not go far enough. See also Most, G.W., ‘Simonides' Ode to Scopas in Contexts’, in Modem Critical Theory and Classical Literature, ed. Jong, I.J.F. de and Sullivan, J.P. (Leiden 1994) 127–52Google Scholar.

28 Beresford (n. 26).

29 Ibid. 244, paraphrasing the second strophe of his version.

30 Gentili, B. and Lomiento, L., Metrics and Rhythmics: History of Poetic Forms in Ancient Greece (Pisa 2008) 151Google Scholar: ‘his variations are … perfectly coherent with the varied repetitions of the content.’ See also West, , Greek Metre (Oxford 1982) 63–6Google Scholar.

31 The Sages seem particularly open to this kind of discussion, perhaps because their wisdom is so often preserved in apothegms, and perhaps also because they themselves were charac- terised as a combination of poet, practical man and public performer, and their sophiā lies in a combination of these skills (Martin [n. 25] 119 and passim). This is very much the sophiā required to respond quickly and dextrously to another's poem. In Simonides' dialogue with Pittakos, then, he also stakes his claim to possess the same kind of sophiā as the Sages.

32 See Morrison (n. 12) 48-57 on ‘quasi-biography’ and its functions. On the importance of deictic pronouns see Pellizer, E., ‘Outlines of a Morphology of Sympotic Entertainment’, in Sympotica: A Symposium on the Symposion, ed. Murray, B. (Oxford 1990) 179Google Scholar.

33 On dactylo-epitrite see West (n. 30) 76; Gentili and Lomiento (n. 30) 206 (they refer to it as kat ‘ enóplion epitrité).

34 I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer for this point.

35 Simonides frag. 19 West: , ‘and this was the best thing the man of Chios ever said’; Solon frag. 20 West (see below). This is in direct contrast to the practice of self-naming — that is, a poet's identification of himself by name in his own poetry, e.g. Sappho frag. 1, where she is named by Aphrodite, or more directly, Simonides in frag. 14, a boast about the power of his memory, or Theognis 19-30, putting a ‘seal’ upon his words to prevent interference. Self-naming can serve (among other functions) as a statement of authorship; this is particularly useful in a context where poems are frequently reperformed by singers other than the author. See Morrison (n. 12) 58-9; but see also A. Ford, ‘The Seal of Theognis: The Politics of Authorship in Archaic Greece’, in Figuera and Nagy (n. 20) 82-95, who argues that Theognis' 'seal’ is not about authorship, but rather is designed to ‘marshal the gnomonological tradition into politically serviceable form’ (94). Calame (n. 11) 93 notes that self-naming appears at approximately the same time as the first signatures in pottery; both have the function of making the work into ‘a mnēma, a memorial on display before a community of citizens’.

36 As Ruth Scodel kindly pointed out to me.

37 Gentili and Lomiento (n. 30) 136, with reference to Simonides FGE 37 (Anth. Pal. 7.348Google Scholar) and the Rhodian cult of Herakles βou9otvas, ‘one who ate an entire bull’.

38 Murray, P., ‘Poetic Inspiration in Early Greece’, JHS 101 (1981) 98–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 On which see Murray, , ‘The Muses and their Arts’, in Music and the Muses: The Culture of Mousikêin the Classical Athenian City, ed. Murray, P. and Wilson, P. (Oxford 2004) 372CrossRefGoogle Scholar and passim.

40 Anth. Pal. 13.30 (Simonides), 13.31 (Timokreon)Google Scholar. Simonides frag, 581 offers another example of this. The source for this fragment is Diog. Laert. 1.89s. Discussing Kleoboulos, Diogenes says, (‘Some say that it was he who wrote the epigram on Midas: “I am a maiden of bronze …” They adduce as evidence a song of Simonides where he says, “What man who can trust his wits would commend Kleoboulos …?”’) Again, knowledge of the authorship of Kleoboulos' epigram survived only because Simonides gave the name in his response.

41 Ford (n. 3) 14–17.

42 Rawles, R., Simonides and the Pole of the Poet, Ph.D. Thesis (London 2008) 100–1Google Scholar.

43 Ibid. 100; cf. Ford (n. 3) 105-9, who argues that the fault lies in expecting the inscription in stone to outlast oral tradition (108).

44 See, however, West (n. 14) 72-3, arguing that Mimnermos is ‘enunciating an ideal for Everyman.’

45 West (n. 14) 17.

46 This can be true whether the responses are directed at other poems or not. See e.g. Theognis 1115: , ‘Because you're rich you throw up to me my poverty’; 1123, , ‘Don't remind me of my misfortunes’; 1211, , ‘Don't make silly jokes and mock my parents, Argyris.’ These are quite possibly not responses to actual poems, although there is no way of telling.

47 I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer for this point.

48 Arist. Rhet. 1367a: . ‘Men are ashamed to say, to do or to intend to do shameful things; cf. Sappho's reply when Alkaios said…’

49 Schol. anon, in Rhet. 1367a (p. 51Rabe)Google Scholar: . This may mean that Sappho wrote both parts of the poem; i.e., she recorded Alkaios' speech and then replied to it (and Aristotle's words could be taken this way). Stephanus (11th cent, AD) suggests that Sappho is writing a dialogue between a man and a woman which does not refer to herself or Alkaios; Stephan, . Schol In Rhet. 1367a (p. 280Rabe)Google Scholar: … However, if the poem was a dialogue between Sappho and Alkaios, it still may not have named either of them, in accordance with the tactic of anonymous identification described earlier, and this may have misled Stephanus.

50 Vases depicting Sappho and Alkaios show similar interest in their interaction. E.g. a kalathoid vase showing the pair depicts Alkaios playing and singing, while Sappho listens, lyre in hand, ready to reply (Munich Antikenslg. 2416; Attic red-figure kalathoid vase with spout, c. 470 BC, ARV 2 385.228, by the Brygos Painter). Picard, C., ‘Art et littérature, 1: Sur la rencontre d'Alcée et de Sappho’, RÉG 61 (1948) 338–44Google Scholar. has argued that the painting depicts a real encounter between Alkaios, shown as a rejected lover, and Sappho; Schefold, K., Die Bildnisse der antiken Dichter, Redner, und Denker (Basle 1943) 54Google Scholar, has suggested that this piece refers specifically to this poem. Matching a specific piece of art with a specific fragment in this way seems a highly dubious process, particularly when we have so few of the first and so little of the second, and there is also no need to posit that an actual meeting between the two is depicted. See also Lissarrague (n. 15) 125-6, and 123-39 on depictions of poetry in vase-painting more generally. On paintings of Sappho see further Richter, G., The Portraits of the Greeks (Ithaca 1984) 194–6Google Scholar; Snyder, J.M., ‘Sappho in Archaic Vase Painting’, in Naked Truths, ed. Kolowski-Ostrow, A.O. and Lyons, C.L. (London 1997) 108–19Google Scholar. Yatromanolakis, D., ‘An Early Representation of Sappho’, CPA 96 (2001) 159–68Google Scholar.

51 Bowra (n. 7) 225.

52 Page, D.L., Sappho and Alcaeus (Oxford 1953) 105–6Google Scholar ad 8f. He supports Lobel's emendation , with the meaning ‘speak about that which you thought to be your due.’

53 See Martin, ‘Solon in No Man's Land’, in Blok and Lardinois (n. 21) 161, for a similar technique of using composition to draw a political lesson in Solon frag. 13.

54 On Sappho's audiences see Stehle, E., Performance and Gender in Ancient Greece (Princeton 1997) 262–318Google Scholar.

55 Kritias frag. 1, with Wilson's comments: Wilson, “The Sound of Cultural Conflict: Kritias and the Culture of Mousikê in Athens’, in Dougherty and Kurke (n. 25) 190-3.

56 See Rawles (n. 42) 102-3. On poetic personae see Slings, S.R., “The I in Personal Archaic Lyric’, in The Poet's I in Archaic Greek Lyric: Proceedings of a Symposium Held at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, ed. Slings, S.R. (Amsterdam 1990) 1–30Google Scholar; Scodel (n. 6) 60-1.

57 Scodel (n. 6) 61 aptly terms this sense of eavesdropping ‘pseudo-intimacy’.

58 Hunter, R., Theocritus: A Selection (Cambridge 1999) 144Google Scholar; Morrison (n. 12) 27-35. See also Martin's comments on Solon: Martin (n. 25) 169 n. 49.

59 Detienne, M., The Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece, trans. Lloyd, Janet (New York 1992) 39–52Google Scholar; West (n. 14) 14-16 (on elegy).

60 Compare Martin (n. 25), arguing that the particular brand of wisdom of the Seven Sages was characterised by a combination of poet, politician and performer.

61 Morrison (n. 12) 40.

62 Ford (n. 3) 41.

63 Ibid 47-8.

64 Ibid 189.

65 Griffith (n. 2) 191.

66 Detienne (n. 59) 43.

67 See Herington (n. 18) 34-5; Rawles (n. 42) 102. The casting of many of Solon's political views in the form of poetry reflects its importance as a means of communication for serious matters. On the audience see Ford's discussions of Herodotus' audience, (n. 3) 146-8, and of Sophocles at the symposium, (n. 3) 188–94.