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ON THE DATING OF TERPANDER FR. 2

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2014

Christopher Metcalf*
Affiliation:
Wolfson College, Oxford

Extract

Surveying the ancient biography and work of Terpander, Maarit Kivilo has recently referred to an observation by Martin West on fr. 2 Gostoli:

Ἀμφί μοι αὖτις ἄναχθ' ἑκαταβόλον ἀειδέτω φρήν

Following parallels in Simonides, Pindar and Aeschylus, West would locate Terpander's use of φρήν in the fifth century b.c. While Kivilo realizes that this observation has serious implications for her attribution of fr. 2 to Terpander, whom she places in the early to mid seventh century, she does not make her own position clear. Other recent contributions by Antonia Gostoli, Alexander Beecroft, Luana Quatrocelli, Carlo Brillante and Timothy Power have not taken up the issue at all. Kivilo's study therefore presents an opportunity to revisit this fragment. While I would not venture to suggest a date, I do hope to show that the particular use of φρήν in fr. 2 does not necessarily point to the fifth century.

Type
Shorter Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2014 

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References

1 Early Greek Poets' Lives: The Shaping of the Tradition (Leiden, 2010)Google Scholar, 149 n. 75.

2 ‘Stesichorus’, CQ ns 21 (1971), 302–14, at 307 n. 3. Repeated in West, M.L., Greek Metre (Oxford, 1982)Google Scholar, 130 n. 130.

3 Simon. 519 fr. 35b.9–10 (ἱέμενοι ἐνοπὰν ... ἀπὸ φρενός), Pind. Pyth. 6.35–6 (Μεσσανίου δὲ γέροντος | δονηθεῖσα φρὴν βόασε παῖδα ὅν), Pae. 4.50 (ἔα, φρήν), Aesch. Sept. 967 (μαίνεται γόοισι φρήν). West also states that the metre suggests the fifth century, but Fraenkel, E., Kleine Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie I (Rome, 1964)Google Scholar, 215 n. 1, to whom he refers, makes no such claim. Fraenkel describes the metrical form of fr. 2 as ‘recht alt’ (ibid. 203).

4 Terpander (Rome, 1990)Google Scholar. Gostoli accepts fr. 2 as genuine; on φρήν she presents the same parallels as West (see previous note). One might add e.g. Pind. Nem. 4.6–8 (ῥῆμα … | ὅ τι κε σὺν Χαρίτων τύχᾳ | γλῶσσα φρενὸς ἐξέλοι βαθείας), further Ol. 2.90, 7.8, 10.2, Pae. 7b.18.

5 Nine fragments in search of an author: poetic lines attributed to Terpander’, CJ 103 (2007–8), 225–41.Google Scholar

6 Les fragments de Terpandre et l'hymne dans la Sparte archaïque’, in Lehmann, Y. (ed.), L'hymne antique et son public (Turnhout, 2007), 6580.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Il cantore e la Musa (Pisa, 2009), 4653Google Scholar (on φρένες and poetry).

8 The Culture of Kitharôidia (Washington, DC, 2010)Google Scholar, 195 (on Terpander fr. 2).

9 See especially Jahn, T., Zum Wortfeld Seele-Geist in der Sprache Homers (Munich, 1987), 20–4Google Scholar (types c1 and c2) and Darcus, S.M., ‘A person's relation to φρήν in Homer, Hesiod, and the Greek lyric poets’, Glotta 57 (1979), 159–73Google Scholar, at 166. Meyer, H., Hymnische Stilelemente in der frühgriechischen Dichtung (Würzburg, 1933)Google Scholar, 49, recognizes but overstates the similarity when he asserts, with respect to the two fragments of Terpander and Alcaeus: ‘Die φρήν hier entspricht durchaus dem θῦμος dort.’

10 Ιmitated by Aesch. Ag. 990–3. On φρήν and song compare the opening of Alcm. fr. 3 Davies (Ὀλ]υμπιάδες περί με φρένας), Archil. fr. 120 West (ὡς Διωνύσου ἄνακτος καλὸν ἐξάρξαι μέλος | οἶδα διθύραμβον οἴνῳ συγκεραυνωθεὶς φρένας). On φρήν and story-telling: σοὶ δ' ἔπι μὲν μορφὴ ἐπέων, ἔνι δὲ φρένες ἐσθλαί, | μῦθον δ' ὡς ὅτ' ἀοιδὸς ἐπισταμένως κατέλεξας (Od. 11.367–8).