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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 March 2017
Aratus’ Phaenomena calls upon its reader to scrutinize the letters of the text as carefully as the stars and constellations that form its subject matter. The poem abounds with clever letter-play and wordplay, and its reception too is characterized by verbal cleverness, as later authors vie with Aratus and one another to create ingenious textual effects. Among the best-known examples is the word ἄρρητον (‘unspoken’) at Phaen. 2, a witty hidden sphragis for Aratus, who nowhere in his work directly names himself. Later poets picked up on this pun: Callimachus speaks of the λεπταὶ ῥήσιες Ἀρήτου (Anth. Pal. 9.507.3-4 = 27 Pf.), repeating the verbal root of ἄρρητον in ῥήσιες and its sound in Ἀρήτου. Leonidas of Tarentum meanwhile rates Aratus ‘second after Zeus’ (Διὸς … δεύτερος, Anth. Pal. 9.25.5-6), acknowledging the hidden sphragis, which follows directly after the invocation of Zeus in line 1 of the Phaenomena.
The authors gratefully acknowledge the help and encouragement of Kathryn J. Gutzwiller.
1 The comparison between stars and letters is developed in depth by Volk, K., ‘Letters in the sky: reading the signs in Aratus' Phaenomena ’, AJPh 133 (2012), 209–40Google Scholar.
2 Since the discovery of the now-famous ΛΕΠΤΗ acrostic at Phaen. 783–7 by Jacques, J.-M., ‘Sur une acrostiche d'Aratos (Phén. 783–787)’, REA 62 (1960), 48–61 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, scholars have proposed numerous instances of wordplay of various kinds in Aratus and in later authors who allude to him. The bibliography is gathered by Hanses, M., ‘The pun and the moon in the sky: Aratus’ ΛΕΠΤΗ acrostic’, CQ 64 (2014), 609–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 609 n. 2.
3 First noticed by Levitan, W., ‘Plexed artistry: Aratean acrostics’, Glyph 5 (1979), 55–68 Google Scholar, at 68 n. 18. The implications are developed further by Bing, P., ‘A pun on Aratus' name in verse 2 of the Phainomena?’ HSPh 93 (1990), 281–5Google Scholar. Cusset, C., ‘Poétique et onomastique dans les Phénomènes d'Aratos’, Pallas 59 (2002), 187–96Google Scholar, at 189–90 finds a similar wordplay in ἄρρητον at Phaen. 180.
4 Bing (n. 3), 284. For the later influence of this wordplay, cf. the subtle references to Aratus’ name uncovered in Virgil: see Springer, C., ‘Aratus and the cups of Menalcas: a note on Eclogue 3.42’, CJ 79 (1983), 131–4Google Scholar; Katz, J., ‘Vergil translates Aratus: Phaenomena 1–2 and Georgics 1.1-2’, MD 59 (2008), 105–24Google Scholar; Haslam, M., ‘Hidden signs: Aratus Diosemeiai 46ff., Vergil Georgics 1.424ff.’, HSPh 94 (1992), 199–204 Google Scholar.
5 Hanses (n. 2), 609 n. 1 notes anagrams of ΑΡΗΤΟΣ in ἐναρηρότες (Phaen. 383) and συναρηρότα (Phaen. 582). To these we may as well add ἀρηρότες at Phaen. 467. Cusset (n. 3) notes additional verbal echoes and near-anagrams of the name.
6 Indeed, Cusset (n. 3), 193 remarks that the reader could perhaps impute to Aratus ‘la tendance à voir des traces de son nom un peu partout—à l'image de l'omniprésence de Zeus dans le monde célébrée au début du poème’.
7 Cameron, Alan, ‘Ancient anagrams’, AJPh 116 (1995), 477–84Google Scholar, at 480. In the case of the famous ΛΕΠΤΗ acrostic, for instance, Bing suggests that the imperative σκέπτεο signals the reader to ‘look’ for the hidden wordplay ( Bing, P., ‘Aratus and his audiences’, MD 31 [1993], 99–109 Google Scholar, at 104 n. 10). Further subtleties here have been brought to light by Haslam (n. 4), 200–1, and Hanses (n. 2), 611–12. See also Hunter, R. in Fantuzzi, M. and Hunter, R., Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge, 2004), 229–30Google Scholar, on Phaen. 768–72.
8 On the compositional ring demarcating Phaen. 367–85, see Kidd, D., ‘The pattern of Phaenomena 367–385,’ Antichthon 1 (1967), 12–15 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 This antithesis between named and unnamed in a passage containing anagrams of Aratus’ name creates a paradox analogous to the wordplay in ἄρρητον, a word that ‘speaks’ the ‘unspoken’ name of the poet.
10 One of the two anagrams noted by Hanses (n. 2), 609 n. 1.
11 It is possible, as the anonymous referee from CQ suggests, to see in the verb ἀραρίσκω an imaginative alternate etymology for the name Ἄρητος, either as ‘the joiner (of letters or words)’ or perhaps ‘the one joined together’ (in reference to the reader's parsing of the anagram). Nagy, G., Best of the Achaeans (Baltimore, 1979), 297–300 Google Scholar illustrates the use of the verb ἀραρίσκω in comparisons of poetic composition to carpentry or construction in archaic poetry, and derives the name Ὅμηρος from the same verbal root.
12 Levitan (n. 3), 66 has suggested that the description of star-groups in this passage—some of them clear, others indistinct—is a metapoetic reflection on textual wordplay, some instances of which are clear (e.g. the ΛΕΠΤΗ acrostic), others more dubious.
13 For this comparison, see, for example, R. Hunter in Fantuzzi and Hunter (n. 7), 229. Cf. Volk (n. 1), 221.
14 Nelis, D., ‘Arise, Aratus’, Philologus 160 (2016), 177–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15 Kidd, D., Aratus Phaenomena (Cambridge, 1997)Google Scholar, 320 notes the parallel ἐφράσατ᾽ (Phaen. 374) ≈ ἐφράσατο. We note also δαήμονος (Anth. Pal. 9.25.1) ≈ δαῆναι (Phaen. 376). Leonidas’ choice of ὅστις (referring to Aratus) at Anth. Pal. 9.25.6 may point back to τις (referring to the ‘unnamed observer’) at Phaen. 373.
16 It seems remarkable that φαεινότερα contains the constituent letters of one of its antonyms, ἀερόεντα (looking back to Aratus’ ἠερόεντα?).