No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 March 2017
Odysseus has just entered the acting area following the choral song, during which he witnessed the Cyclops butchering, cooking and then eating two of his companions. In these lines Odysseus seemingly presents himself as being at a loss for words (τί λέξω), and claims that what he witnessed inside the cave is not to be believed (οὐ πιστά). These are, of course, nothing more than rhetorical ploys, with frequent parallels in Euripides and elsewhere. When Odysseus says οὐ πιστά he means not that what he is about to recount lacks credibility—he does, after all, expect the satyrs (and the audience) to accept his account as reliable—but that it surpasses the bounds of ordinary human experience. And the account that follows belies his apparent profession of being at a loss for words, since he is about to deliver what is in effect a messenger-speech of over fifty lines (382–436). Expressions of aphasia are common in Euripides, sometimes accompanied, as here, by lengthy exposition. Characters use such expressions to indicate that the circumstances in which they find themselves are beyond the power of language to convey. There is, therefore, something discordant in Odysseus immediately following his expression of aphasia by saying that what he has witnessed is ‘like stories’, especially when he is about to tell the story of the circumstances in which he finds himself. It is the purpose of this note to suggest that the words μύθοις εἰκότ’ have been universally misunderstood, and that Odysseus is here saying something quite other than that the events in the cave have a greater resemblance to stories than to reality.
1 The text is that of the lone manuscript and, punctuation aside, of all recent editions; the translation is that of Patrick O'Sullivan, in O'Sullivan, P. and Collard, C. (edd.), Euripides Cyclops and Major Fragments of Greek Satyric Drama (Oxford, 2013)Google Scholar. I invite my readers to join me in thanking the journal's anonymous referee, whose valuable comments have made significant improvements in both the substance and the readability of this note.
2 Compare Hec. 689 (with δεινά in 693), IT 328, 796, 1293, Hel. 1520 (with δεινά in the previous line), Ar. Pax 131, Av. 416, 421–2. For a discussion of this type of locution, see the illuminating article by T.C.W. Stinton, ‘“Si credere dignum est”: some expressions of disbelief in Euripides and others’, PCPhS 22 (1976), 60–89 (= Collected Papers on Greek Tragedy [Oxford, 1990], 236–64).
3 The noun ἀφασία is attested first in Euripides (HF 515, Hel. 549, IA 837); his use of it is parodied at Ar. Thesm. 904. Cf. Heracl. 535, HF 514, Hel. 483, 496, 564, 631, 656, Ion 1446, IT 777, 839, Phoen. 312.
4 Alc. 1082 (μᾶλλον ἢ λέγω), Hec. 667 (μᾶλλον ἢ λέγω), Suppl. 844 (κρείσσον’ ἢ λέξαι λόγῳ), HF 916 (οὐκ ἄν τις εἴποι), IT 837 (κρεῖσσον ἢ λόγοισιν), 840 (λόγου πρόσω), 900 (μύθων πέρα); cf. Ar. Av. 1706 (μείζω λόγου).
5 For a survey of the topos down to the time of Euripides, see Parry, A.M., Logos and Ergon in Thucydides (New York, 1981; originally diss. Harvard, 1957), 15–57 Google Scholar; for Euripides, see Solmsen, F., ‘ὄνομα and πρᾶγμα in Euripides’ Helen ’, CR 48 (1934), 119–21Google Scholar, and Egli, F., Euripides im Kontext zeitgenössischer intellektueller Strömungen (Leipzig, 2003), 214–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 μῦθος/ἔργον Hom. Il. 9.443, 19.242, [Aesch.] PV 1080–1, Soph. OC 1581–2, Eur. fr. 282.26 (Autolycus) Kannicht, CGFP 76.22–3 Austin (Cratinus?); ἔπος/ἔργον Hom. Il. 15.234, Od. 3.99, 4.163, 15.375, Hymn. Hom. Cer. 65, 117, 199, Heraclitus B1 DK, Aesch. Pers. 174, Soph. El. 622–3; ἔπος εἰπών/ἔρξας Hes. Op. 710; ὄνομα/ἔργον Eur. Hipp. 501–2, Tro. 1233, Hel. 792, Or. 454; γλῶσσα/ἔργον Soph. Phil. 99; ῥῆμα/ἔργον Soph. OC 873; λόγος/χείρ Soph. OT 883–4, Eur. Phoen. 313; λόγος/ὅπλα Eur. Ion 1298. For the various ways in which the antithesis is expressed by Thucydides (whose vocabulary admits τὸ μυθῶδες, 1.21.1 and 22.4, but not μῦθος), see Parry (n. 5), 11–14.
7 Parry (n. 5), 15, with discussion at 47–51. Compare Mastronarde, D.J. (ed.), Euripides Phoenissae (Cambridge, 1994), 259 Google Scholar, on Phoen. 389: ‘this antithesis, found … frequently elsewhere in Eur. and Thuc., usually implies criticism of λόγος as insubstantial, insincere, or false.’
8 Alc. 339. Other instances are frr. 97.3, 360.13, 528.2, 572.4–5, 727c.21, 898.5–6, Hipp. 501–2, Andr. 239, 264–5, Suppl. 908, El. 893, Tro. 1233, Ion 1298, Hel. 792, Phoen. 389, Or. 287, 454. The fragment from Autolycus referred to above (n. 6) is the exception that stands out; in it the unnamed speaker controversially condemns, in terms reminiscent of Xenophanes fr. 2 West, the universal practice of the Greeks, who honour athletes rather than the just and sensible man, ‘who eradicates evil deeds by means of his words’ (ὅστις τε μύθοις ἔργ’ ἀπαλλάσσει κακά).
9 See Lloyd, G.E.R., Polarity and Analogy (Cambridge, 1966), 90–4Google Scholar. Lloyd ([this note], 92) cites Hom. Od. 15.374–5 οὐ μείλιχόν ἐστιν ἀκοῦσαι οὔτ’ ἔπος οὔτε τι ἔργον. Similar are Aesch. Pers. 173–4 μή σε δὶς φράσειν μήτ’ ἔπος μήτ’ ἔργον, Anaxagoras B7 DK μὴ εἰδέναι τὸ πλῆθος μήτε λόγῳ μήτε ἔργῳ, and Eur. Heracl. 537–8 τίς ἂν λέξειε γενναίους λόγους μᾶλλον, τίς ἂν δράσειεν (with τί λέξω preceding at 535).
10 Some scholars have, indeed, advocated a sceptical ‘metapoetic’ reading of the line, in which the reality of the entire story is questioned, as Heracles seems to question stories like that concerning his own divine birth (HF 1346 ἀοιδῶν οἵδε δύστηνοι λόγοι); but in such a case there are no actual deeds to contrast with the words fabricated about them, so the topos is out of place. For such a reading of the line, see Lämmle, R., Poetik des Satyrspiels (Heidelberg, 2013), 336–7Google Scholar, Seaford, R.A.S., Euripides Cyclops, Edited with Introduction and Commentary (Oxford, 1984)Google Scholar, ad loc. and Kassel, R., ‘Bemerkungen zum Kyklops des Euripides’, RhM 98 (1955), 279–86Google Scholar, who considers this line the clearest evidence (286) in support of his view (endorsed by Napolitano, M., Euripide Ciclope [Venice, 2003]Google Scholar, ad loc. and Lämmle [this note]) that Euripides is using disruption of the dramatic illusion in order to present the epic accomplishments of Odysseus in an ironic light. This is, however, the only place Kassel can point to where the irony is put into the mouth of Odysseus himself. In any event, a metapoetic reference does not require a sceptical reading. Euripides can be seen as calling attention to the ‘real’ events that will only later be treated in the stories of poets like Euripides and Homer in the same way Homer himself presents Helen reflecting on the stories that poets will tell in future about her: Hom. Il. 6.357–8; cf. Od. 8.579–80, 24.196–202, Hymn. Hom. Ap. 299.
11 The revision, by M. Griffith and G.W. Most (2013), of Arrowsmith's Chicago translation is freer, but reflects the same understanding: ‘Unbelievable horrors, the kind of things men hear about in myths, not in real life.’ (Arrowsmith's original translation [1956] was ‘myths and plays’.) Similar are the Loeb translation by D. Kovacs (Cambridge, MA, 1994) and the translations into Italian by L. Paganelli (Bologna, 1991) and Napolitano (n. 10), into German by D. Ebener (Berlin, 1980) and into French by L. Méridier (Paris, 1925). This understanding is at least as venerable as the Latin translation by Portus, M. Aemilius (fabulis similia, non operibus hominum), printed in W. Canter's edition of Euripides (Heidelberg, 1597)Google Scholar.
12 R.G. Ussher (Rome, 1978), W. Biehl (Leipzig, 1983), Seaford (n. 10). Denniston's reference to ‘Crates Fr. 29 Dem.’ is to fr. 1 (page 29) Demiańczuk; Soph. ‘Fr. 624’ is presumably fr. 838 Radt. Hom. Od. 9.408, of which Denniston quotes only δόλῳ οὐδὲ βίηφιν, is a special case, as the context (ὦ φίλοι, Οὖτίς με κτείνει δόλῳ οὐδὲ βίηφιν) shows. In addition to Cyc. 376, Denniston cites two other examples from Euripides, frr. 87 (Alcmeon) γυναῖκες, ὁρμήθητε μηδ’ ἀθυμία σχέθῃ τις ὑμᾶς and 418 (Ino) γίγνωσκε τἀνθρώπεια μηδ’ ὑπερμέτρως ἄλγει.
13 Denniston, GP 194 (οὐδέ; add Hel. 395, Theoc. Id. 11.28 and Epigr. 6.6) and 511 (οὔτε). This phenomenon, where the negative appears only with the second of two negated words, is widely attested in languages other than Greek; for examples from English, Italian, German, Old English, Old Norse and Old High German, see Kühner–Gerth II 291; Jespersen, O., Negation in English and Other Languages (Copenhagen, 1917), 108–9Google Scholar; Wackernagel, J. (Engl. transl. Langslow, D.), Lectures on Syntax (Oxford, 2009), 787–8Google Scholar. For French, see La Rochefoucauld's Maxime 26: ‘Le soleil ni la mort ne se peuvent regarder fixement.’
14 For the collocation ‘incredible’ and ‘unspeakable’, compare Ar. Av. 421–2 οὔτε λεκτὸν οὔτε πιστόν (paratragic; cf. Eur. Hipp. 875 οὐ τλητὸν οὐδὲ λεκτόν).