Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T06:22:11.699Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Melica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

M. L. West
M. L. West
Affiliation:
University College, Oxford
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The context shows that the intention of the lines was to bring out the surpassing beauty of a certain girl and its value to the chorus as a whole. When the Pleiades rise up the sky, they are followed by a star that far outshines them all: Sirius. In Alcman's image, then, the Pleiades should correspond to the chorus and Sirius to the girl. The point of opdpiaiis that the comparison is not chosen at random, but suggested by something to be seen during the current ceremonies: the Pleiades rise up the sky before dawn when we carry the plough, with Sirius down below them, and they seem like a rival group.

There is no reference to Ortheia, and no rival chorus. We may translate: ‘For the Pleiades range themselves against us, before dawn, as we bear the plough through the ambrosial night, bringing Sirius up with them as they do.’

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , December 1970 , pp. 205 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1970

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 205 note 1 To the examples I gave in CQ xv(1965)Google Scholar, 197 n. 1 could be added Soph. Ph. 1331

page 205 note 2 Calculations of ancient dates of rising and setting are now available in Bickerman, E. J., Chronology of the Ancient World (1966)Google Scholar, 143; but the user must know that the definition there given (‘Heliacal phenomena: near sunrise. Acronical [sic]; and cos-mical phenomena: near sunset’) is quite wrong. Heliacal rising and cosmical setting occur near sunrise; acronychal rising and heliacal setting occur near sunset.

page 205 note 3 81.See Page, Alcman, The Partheneion, 79.

page 205 note 4 Art. cit. 194 f. The other interpretation, which linkswith, ‘summons to shine’, might be defended against my attack, on the ground that in the sun's case shining is inseparably connected with witnessing.

page 206 note 1 Maas, RE iiiA. 2460, suggests that the Suda's statement that Stesichorus’ real name was Teisias should be referred to this fellow.

page 206 note 2 With Foucart's correctionOiniades was a piper.

page 206 note 3 And Theocritus associates it with the river Himeras, 7. 75. Cf. Wilamowitz, ,Textgesch. d. gr. Lyriker, 16 n. 3Google Scholar; Sappho u. Simonides (hereafter SS), 240.

page 206 note 4 Schmid–Stählin, Gr. Lit. I. i. 479, say without explanation: ‘Die Skylla steht eher demjüngerenDithyrambikerStesichorosan.’

page 206 note 1 Dionysius, apparently, 15 F 12) ap. seh. Od. 12. 85; cf. Lye. 44 ff. with sch.

page 207 note 2 Class. Journ. xxix (1934), 375–80Google Scholar; Greek Lyric Poetry,1 262,2 251. Similarly Page, Aegyptus xxxi (1959), 170–2.Google Scholar

page 207 note 3 Labarbe, J., L'Ant. cl. xxxi ( 1962), 185 f.Google Scholar

page 207 note 4 Die Tyrannis bei den Griechen (1967), 582.Google Scholar

page 207 note 5 Barron is wrong in saying that the object of the tuition was to instil. that was its effect. There is no indication here that ‘the father ruled Samos no less than did the son’.

page 208 note 1 He describes it as a transposition by Bentley. In fact Bentley, finding it in his Suda, commented: ‘This is a Piece of History, that I know not what to say to. For the father of Polycrates the Tyrant was called Æaces’ (Diss, on the Epistles of Phalaris [ed. Wagner, , 1883], 122).Google Scholar

page 209 note 1 Lavagnini, B., Aglaia (1937), 173Google Scholar; Romagnoli, E., I poeti lirici, iii. 166Google Scholar; Page, Sappho and Alcaeus, 143; Harvey, A. E., CQ vii (1957), 213Google Scholar; Bowra, GLP 2 285; Campbell, D. A., Greek Lyric Poetry, 321.Google Scholar The interpretation is ignored by Fränkel, H., Dichtung u. Philosophie2, 333.Google Scholar

page 209 note 2 Not, of course, ‘another head of hair’ (Weir Smyth; Wilamowitz, SS 116; Gentili, Anacreonte, on fr. 13; Perrotta-Gentili, Polinnia1 2, 249).

page 209 note 3 LSJ s.v. χάοkω I. 2; Theoc. 4. 53(‘I was gawping at the heifer when I trod on the thorn’). The obscene interpretation by Wigodsky, M., CP lvii (1962), 109Google Scholar, accepted by Perrotta-Gentili, betrays total misapprehension of Anacreon's art. The desire to find hitherto unsuspected sexual meanings in ancient literature frequently seems to blind American scholars to all considerations of relevance, style, and common sense.

page 209 note 4 Cf. Wilamowitz, Ioc. cit.

page 210 note 1 ‘I pursue you’ (Bowra, 295); ‘Sehnsucht fast mich nach dir’ (Rüdiger, H., Gr. Lyriker2 [1968], 123).Google Scholar

page 210 note 2 I referred to Ibycus 298 as another example of prose printed as verse in Page's Melici. I have since struck more: Stes. 178 (partly verse, but "Hραν δ⋯ at least belongs to the indirect discourse); Anacr. 445 (is verse, but then it runs into rose); adesp. 985.

page 210 note 3 Wilamowitz saw this, but did not draw the necessary conclusion about the first line: Gr. Lesebuch, ii. 104, SS 141 n. Fränkel, Wege u. Formen2, 72, faces the difficulty, but the passages which he quotes to show that Simonides was using a typical archaic procedure are a mixed bag, and contain nothing to match our

page 211 note 1 Cf. Thuc.2.43.2

page 211 note 2 Not ‘habitant’ (Weir Smyth; Wila-mowitz; Fränkel, D. u. Ph.2 365; Campbell); the word does not mean that, and σηkοί are not camping sites. Bowra, 348 rightly rejects it, but his ’household spirit’ does not commend itself either.

page 211 note 3 Of examples of two shorts scanned as one in Hephaestion, Ench. 2. 3, the only relevant onely is Praxilla 748,We find the same scansion of τεόν in verse 9 of the Palaikastro hymn, also from a Doric-speaking area, and some special explanation seems called for. *τρόν would be philo-logically correct, but unlikely to appear so late. Perhaps it developed into *τρόν, for which the more lucid τρόν was substituted in the written tradition. An alternative in Praxilla's case is that she wrote *ε;ο, cf. Od. 23. 337(τῴ a papyrus). This would still satisfy Hephaestion's description.

page 212 note 1 IG iv.2 131; Maas, Epidaurische Hymnen, 134 fr.; Melici 935.

page 212 note 2 GGA cxcvi (1934), 409 ═ Kl. Sehr. 754.

page 214 note 1 Melanippides and Telestes, Mel. 764; Eur. Hel. 1301 ff., cf. Ph. 685 f., Ba. 275; P. Derveni xviii 7xix [1964], 17 ff.Google Scholar; from c. 400? Cf. Burkert, W., Antike u. Abendland, xiv [1968], 93 ff.)Google Scholar. The Helen passage is particularly relevant, as it tells the same story.

page 215 note 1 Priapeans are still used by Herodorus of Seleucia, SEG vii. 14 (first century B.c., cf. Nilsson, , Arch. f. Rel. xxx [1933], 164 n. 3)Google Scholar. Heitsch, Gr. Dicht, d. Kaiserzeit, no. 5 may be Hellenistic. Latin poets are not relevant.

page 216 note 1 IG iv2. 130; Maas, 130 ff.; Mel. 936; Latte, 405 (750) ff.