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UNDER THE SIGN OF THE DISTAFF: AETIA 1.5, SPINNING AND ERINNA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2020

Kathryn Gutzwiller
Kathryn Gutzwiller*
Affiliation:
University of Cincinnati
*
[email protected]
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Extract

Scholars continue to make progress addressing the lacunae in our papyrological sources for Callimachus’ prologue to the Aetia, both by lending additional support to old supplements and by discounting others or demonstrating their weaknesses. To the first category belongs the crucial verb at the end of line 5, where, in my view, Callimachus first characterizes the making of his poetry (Aet. 1–6):

      πολλάκι μοι Τελχῖνες ἐπιτρύζουσιν ἀοιδῇ,
      νήιδες οἳ Μούσης οὐκ ἐγένοντο φίλοι,
      εἵνεκε]ν οὐχ ἓν ἄεισμα διηνεκὲς ἢ βασιλ[η
      ⋅⋅⋅⋅⋅⋅]ας ἐν πολλαῖς ἤνυσα χιλιάσιν
      ἢ⋅⋅⋅⋅⋅]⋅ους ἥρωας, ἔπος δ᾽ ἐπὶ τυτθὸν ἑλ[ίσσω
      παῖς ἅτε, τῶν δ᾽ ἐτέων ἡ δεκὰς οὐκ ὀλίγη.
      Often the Telchines mutter at my poetry,
      being ignorant and no friends of the Muse,
      because I have not completed one continuous poem
      in many thousands … on kings and …
      … heroes, but I … my poem only a little
      like a child, though the decades of my years are not few.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 70 , Issue 1 , May 2020 , pp. 177 - 191
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2020

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References

1 For instance, Pontani, F., ‘The first word of Callimachus’ Aitia’, ZPE 128 (1999), 57–9Google Scholar, adducing a scholium on Od. 2.50, has confirmed the reading πολλάκι in line 1. In addition, G. Bastianini, ‘ΚΑΤΑ ΛΕΠΤΟΝ in Callimaco (fr. 1.11 Pfeiffer)’, in M.S. Funghi (ed.), ΟΔΟΙ ΔΙΖΗΣΙΟΣ, le vie della ricerca: Studi in onore di Francesco Adorno (Florence, 1996), 69–80 has shown that αἱ κατὰ λεπτόν at the end of line 11, derived from scholium 1d.11, does not match the traces of the scholium in the papyrus; αἵ γ’ ἁπαλαί τοι, suggested by W. Luppe, ‘Kallimachos, Aitien–Prolog V.7–12’, ZPE 115 (1997), 50–4, at 52–4, has found some favour despite the accumulation of particles.

2 Citations of the Aetia are from Harder, A., Callimachus Aetia: Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary (Oxford, 2012)Google Scholar; the Hecale is cited from Hollis, A.S., Callimachus Hecale: Edited with Introduction and Commentary (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar; other citations of Callimachus are from Pfeiffer, R., Callimachus (Oxford, 1949–53)Google Scholar. The translations are my own.

3 Hunt, A.S., ‘2079’, in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri 17 (London, 1927), 45–57Google Scholar, at 49–50.

4 As noted, early on, by Pfeiffer, R., ‘Ein neues Altersgedicht des Kallimachos’, Hermes 63 (1928), 302–41Google Scholar, at 310–11, repr. in Bühler, W. (ed.), Ausgewählte Schriften: Aufsätze und Vorträge zur griechischen Dichtung und Humanismus (Munich, 1960), 98–131Google Scholar, at 105.

5 Asper, M., Onomata allotria: Zur Genese, Struktur und Funktion poetologischer Metaphern bei Kallimachos (Stuttgart, 1997), 148Google Scholar, for instance, tries to get around this problem by interpreting ἔπος as the metaphorical equivalent of a papyrus roll (= ἔπος … ἑλισσόμενον, at 150), to signify an essential aspect of ‘die neue Schriftlichkeit’. In my view, however, understanding ἔπος as some form of poetic speech (e.g. ἀοιδῇ, 1), not as a container for poetic speech, is required by the context. The metaphor lies in the verb, not in the noun.

6 Friedländer, P., ‘Retractationes’, Hermes 64 (1929), 376–84Google Scholar, at 383 (repr. in id., Studien zur antiken Literatur und Kunst [Berlin, 1969], 313–18, at 317) proposed ἐλαύνω, which was accepted by Alan Cameron, Callimachus and his Critics (Princeton, 1995), 340. Friedländer compares τὴν κατὰ σαυτὸν ἔλα in Anth. Pal. 7.89.12, 16, a proverbial phrase meaning ‘drive your own path’, applied to children playing with tops. Lehnus, L., ‘Callimaco fr. 1.5 Pf.’, ZPE 89 (1991), 24Google Scholar has supported that suggestion by adducing [Metrod.] Anth. Pal. 14.121.10–11, where ἐλαύνω (in a different sense) follows an echo of Aet. 1.4. The difficulty, however, is fitting ἐλαύνω with ἔπος in any readily understandable or standard meaning: the usage in Anth. Pal. 7.89 involves a different image, referring to suitable life choices. Another supplement, ἔλεξα, suggested by Acosta-Hughes, B. and Stephens, S.A., ‘Aetia fr. 1.5: I told my story like a child’, ZPE 136 (2001), 214–16Google Scholar, at 215–16, has found even less favour. Not only does ἔλεξα seem too prosaic for this important position in the prologue, but the aorist is unlikely, as Harder (n. 2), 2.27 points out.

7 E.g. Cameron (n. 6), 340, citing Pfeiffer on Callim. fr. 468, γράμματα [= συγγράμματα] δ᾽ οὐχ εἵλισσεν ἀπόκρυφα. Examples of this usage include M. Arg. Anth. Pal. 9.161.1, anon. Anth. Pal. 9.540.1, Strat. Anth. Pal. 12.208.4 and Nonn. Ev. Joh. 7.191–2.

8 Harder (n. 2), 1.116, with 2.26–7. Similarly, Massimilla, G., Callimaco Aitia libri primo e secondo (Pisa, 1996), 204Google Scholar, translating ‘rigiro la poesia su un piccolo tratto’ (at 175), and G.B. d'Alessio, Callimaco: Aitia, Giambi, e altri frammenti, volume secondo (Milan, 1996), 369.

9 Acosta-Hughes and Stephens (n. 6), 215, and Acosta-Hughes, and Stephens, , ‘Rereading Callimachus’ Aetia fragment 1’, CPh 97 (2002), 238–55Google Scholar, at 242. Cf. Harder (n. 2), 2.26: ‘After saying what Callimachus does not do the Telchines apparently added that he was playing around like a child in spite of his age.’

10 On the distinction and similarity of ‘narrator’ to ‘poet’ in Hellenistic poetry, see Morrison, A.D., The Narrator in Archaic Greek and Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 In the words of Cameron (n. 6), 340, it ‘conveys Callimachus's contempt’. The key to this disparaging tone is the onomatopoetic ἐπιτρύζουσιν (1.1), which is of uncertain translation but is clearly derogatory; cf. Hesychius’ explanations, interpreting both the character and the intent of the verb: ἐπιγογγύζουσιν, ἐπιλέγουσιν (ε 5365 La.), ‘mutter, speak against’.

12 A number of factors make Callimachus’ report of the Telchines’ criticism necessarily unreliable. First, the Telchines are multiple nameless persons, and their speech occurs in the present tense as if it is continuing to happen, so being subject to variation. Second, the narrator, as the object of complaint, may not have heard this criticism firsthand, and is clearly hostile to its perceived content.

13 Published in three versions: Durante, M., ‘Ricerche sulla preistoria della lingua poetica greca: la terminologia relativa alla creazione poetica’, Atti Academia Nazionale dei Lincei: Classe di Scienze morali, storiche e filologiche 15 (1960), 231–49Google Scholar, at 240; ‘Untersuchungen zur Vorgeschichte der griechischen Dichtersprache: die Terminologie für das dichterische Schaffen’, in R. Schmitt (ed.), Indogermanische Dichtersprache (Darmstadt, 1968), 261–90, at 275–6; and Sulla preistoria della tradizione poetica greca, parte seconda: Risultanze della comparazione indoeuropea (Rome, 1976), 175. Very briefly, Grilli, A., ‘Vecchio e nuovo nella cultura ellenistica’, in Aspetti e momenti del rapporto passato-presente nella storia e nella cultura (Milan, 1977), 83–98Google Scholar, at 97 n. 10 and, independently, Clauss, J.J., ‘Vergil's sixth Eclogue: the Aetia in Rome’, in Harder, M.A., Reguit, R.F. and Wakker, G.C. (edd.), Callimachus II (Leuven, 2004), 71–93Google Scholar, at 73 have made a similar connection (the latter on the suggestion of M. Cuypers), seemingly without knowledge of Durante's discussions.

14 In Homer we find a different verb with the same basic meaning, ἠλακάτα στρωφάω, ‘keep turning threads from a distaff’ (Od. 6.53, 6.306, 7.105, 17.97). Hesychius (ε 2088 La.) reports that the thread spun onto a spindle was called ἑλίκων.

15 Metrical difficulty in this line has produced a variety of texts. Following J. Diggle's OCT text, I understand the noun ἠλακάτᾳ to be a locative dative (schol. ad loc. τὸ λίνον τὸ ἐν τῇ ἠλακάτῃ εἵλισσεν); so Biehl, W., Euripides Orestes (Berlin, 1965), 155Google Scholar, who in Euripides Orestes (Leipzig, 1975) prints ἁ δὲ λίνον ἠλακάτᾳ | δακτύλοις ἕλισσεν. In ‘On the Orestes of Euripides’, CQ 40 (1990), 100–23, at 115, J. Diggle explains that he supplied the second λίνον for metrical reasons and because of its suitability for ‘the repetitive act of spinning’; the repetition fits the style of the Phrygian's excited monody (Φρυγίοις … Φρυγίοισι, 1426; Ἑλένας Ἑλένας, 1428; ἄγει δ᾽ ἄγει, 1444). Possible, however, is the adjective form ἠλάκατα (neut. acc. pl.). In the view of C.W. Willink, Euripides Orestes (Oxford, 1986), 317, λίνον was added in antiquity as the object of ἕλισσε by someone who misunderstood ἠλάκατα as a dative of the noun. D. Kovacs, Euripides Helen, Phoenician Women, Orestes (Cambridge, MA, 2002), 570 chooses more simply to print ἁ δὲ λίνε’ ἠλάκατα | δακτύλοις ἕλισσε. In all these versions, my point about the meaning of ἕλισσε stands.

16 In both instances the number of extensions in the verb ἑλίσσω varies in the manuscripts. Aristophanes is making fun of a device called ἐπέκτασις, ‘prolongation’ (schol. ad loc.), by which a performer sings multiple notes on one syllable or repeats the same note. This is a common feature of the New Music, as comic poets mocked its elaborate twists and turns (e.g. Pherecrates, fr. 155 K.–A.).

17 Ancient descriptions of the spinning process are found in Ar. Lys. 567–86 (where carding and joining flocks of wool are explained but not the spinning itself), Pl. Plt. 282a6–283a1 (less clearly); the fullest description appears in Catull. 64.311–19; see too Ov. Met. 4.32–6, 6.19–22. Modern descriptions are found in D. Müller, Handwerk und Sprache: Die sprachlichen Bilder aus dem Bereich des Handwerks in der griechischen Literatur bis 400 v. Chr. (Meisenheim am Glan, 1974), 192–210, especially at 203–4; Barber, E.W., Women's Work, the First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times (New York, 1994), 37–8Google Scholar; and Spantidaki, S., Textile Production in Classical Athens (Oxford, 2016), 38Google Scholar. Illustrations of spinning in Spantidaki: fig. 4.15 (Acropolis Museum ΠΡ27–4), fig. 4.16 (British Museum 1873.0820.304), fig. 4.17 (Archaeological Museum of Kerameikos Τ 20/ΙΧ) and fig. 4.18 (National Archaeological Museum, Athens 1584).

18 Prominent among textile workers mentioned on Linear B tablets at Thebes, Knossos and Pylos are ‘spinners’ (a-ra-ka-te-ja), a word that is connected to the later form ἠλακάτη, ‘distaff’ (= *a-ra-ka-ta); see Freo, M. Del, Nosch, M.-L. and Rougemont, F., ‘The terminology of textiles in the Linear B tablets, including some considerations on Linear A logograms and abbreviations’, in Michel, C. and Nosch, M.-L. (edd.), Textile Terminologies in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean from the Third to the First Millennia b.c. (Oxford, 2010), 338–73Google Scholar, at 345, 354–6. The noun ἠλακάτη is found in Homer (e.g. Il. 6.491) as is the adjectival form [τὰ] ἠλάκατα (e.g. Od. 6.53), meaning ‘threads drawn from a distaff’. Homer has no separate word for ‘spindle’, which was later called ἄτρακτος. Barber, E.W., Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages (Princeton, 1991), 264Google Scholar (followed by Nosch in her contribution to Del Freo, Nosch and Rougemont [this note], 355–6) has argued that ἠλακάτη originally meant ‘spindle’. This approach, however, leaves us without a Homeric word for distaff. The explanation may be that originally, in Mycenean times and even later, ἠλακάτη was a term for any rod used for making thread, whether it held the fibres for spinning or collected the twisted threads; cf. Spantidaki (n. 17), 42 and Neri, C., ‘Telai, conocchie, fusi e … lessicografe (per amor di ΗΛΑΚΑΤΗ)’, in Casanova, A., Messeri, G. and Pintaudi, R. (edd.), E sì d'amici pieno. Omaggio di studiosi italiani a Guido Bastianini, vol. 2 (Florence, 2016), 555–63Google Scholar, at 563. That ἠλακάτη and ἄτρακτος were distinguished by the fifth century b.c. is clear from Hdt. 4.162, where the mother of a Cyrenean king was reportedly given a golden spindle and a golden distaff with wool on it for spinning; cf. Leonidas, Anth. Pal. 7.726.3 on the elderly weaver Platthis, who sang πρὸς ἠλακάτην καὶ συνέριθον ἄτρακτον, ‘beside her distaff and its assisting spindle’ (cf. Neri [this note], 561–2).

19 Plato (Soph. 226b8–10) considers all the actions involved in spinning and weaving to be ἐν ταῖς τέχναις. In Ov. Met. 6.14–23 Arachne's skill was so great that Nymphs gathered to gaze upon her artful production of cloth, both the spinning and the weaving (tantus decor adfuit arti, 18).

20 On pre-Hellenistic usages of ἔπος, see Koller, H., ‘Ἔπος’, Glotta 50 (1972), 16–24Google Scholar. Acosta-Hughes and Stephens (n. 6), 215 have pointed out that Callimachus uses ἔπος of ‘significant speech’, and it may introduce a speech of some length in variable metres, often with a narrative and/or prophetic quality, e.g. Aet. 75.21–37, fr. 384.7–15, Hymn 4.162–95 and Hymn 5.96–130. Even so, the word has a series of more specific meanings that might have appealed to readers of the prologue. The common meaning ‘verse’ is possible (cf. Ov. Pont. 1.5.13, deducere uersum), and even the meaning ‘word’ might resonate, as a reference to Callimachus’ rare and obscure vocabulary. Most likely, however, the meaning would be understood from the context as ‘poem’. There is a parallel in Theoc. Id. 17.136, ἔπος οὐκ ἀπόβλητον (cf. Il. 2.361), ‘what I say will … not be rejected’, as cautiously translated by R. Hunter, Theocritus Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Berkeley, 2003), 91, where ἔπος clearly refers back to the encomium that is ending. The meaning ‘poem’ later appears in Antipater of Sidon, Anth. Pal. 7.713.2 (second century b.c.), of Erinna's Distaff, and in Anth. Pal. 9.545.1 (Augustan), of Callimachus’ Hecale. Greek grammatical sources state that ἔπος commonly meant a hexameter poem, though some point out that it could also be applied to any stichic metre (e.g. [Theodosius] Περὶ γραμματικῆς, K.W. Goettling, Theodosii Alexandrini grammatica [Leipzig, 1822], page 59.16–20: ἔπος λέγεται πᾶς στίχος ἰαμβικὸς καὶ τροχαϊκὸς καὶ ἀναπαιστικὸς καὶ δακτυλικὸς καὶ οἱῳδήποτε ποδὶ μετρούμενος κατ᾽ ἐξοχὴν δὲ καὶ ὑπεροχὴν τὸ ἡρωϊκὸν μέτρον ἔπος καλεῖται; sim. schol. Dion. Thrax, GG i.iii page 21.6–10 Hilgard = 751b.1–4). The ancient reader might therefore find reference in Callimachus’ ἔπος to the elegiac Aetia, or to his poetry more generally. Acosta-Hughes, B., ‘A gift of Callimachus’, SIFC 10 (2012), 24–39Google Scholar claims a specific reference to the Hecale, arguing that this hexameter poem preceded the Aetia in a comprehensive edition of Callimachus’ work, in parallel with the poet's look forward to his Iambi in the epilogue (Aet. 112.9; as in P.Oxy. 1011, late fourth century a.d.). But possible evidence that the Hecale directly preceded the Aetia in such an edition appears only in an epigram of the sixth century or later (Hymns, Hecale, Aetia, Ibis) affixed to a copy of Callimachus’ Hymns (Test. 23; Pfeiffer 2.lv); the order in the iambic paraphrases by Marianus (a.d. c.500) was different (Hecale, Hymns, Aetia, Epigrams) (Test. 24).

21 As Pfeiffer (n. 4), 310–11 = (1960), 105 points out; note too ἐπὶ βραχύ (Xen. An. 3.3.17). Tmesis of the verb ἐφελίσσω, ‘roll up’, as of book rolls, should be (and generally now is; e.g. Massimilla [n. 8], 205 and Harder [n. 2], 2.27) discounted because that meaning is unsuitable to the context. Callimachus uses the adverbial phrase in the same way as do Apollonius (‘blew only a little’, Argon. 1.1359, and ‘all but dying’, 4.1529) and Nicander (‘parch just a little’, fr. 70.11). The Florentine scholia (Aet. 1b.9) gloss ἐπὶ τυτθόν with τὸ κάτισχνον, ‘the quality of thinness’, and Pollux (Onom. 7.32) reports that one of the terms used in spinning is ἀπισχναίνειν, ‘make thin’.

22 As translated by Acosta-Hughes and Stephens (n. 9), 239 and explained at 242 (‘with the story told in small increments’). That would be κατὰ τυτθόν, as in κατὰ βραχύ (Thuc. 1.64.2).

23 At the end of Lycophron's Alexandra, Cassandra's enigmatic speech is called ἑλικτὰ … ἔπη, ‘twisted words’ (1466), a direct reference to Callimachus’ ἔπος … ἑλίσσω. Cf. Looijenga, A., ‘Unrolling the Alexandria: the allusive messenger-speech of Lycophron's prologue and epilogue’, in Cusset, C. and Prioux, É. (edd.), Lycophron: Éclats d'obscurité (Saint-Étienne, 2009), 59–80Google Scholar, at 71–2, who connects the two phrases without recognizing Callimachus’ spinning image. Later, in Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Thuc. 48) ἕλικες is a term for convolutions in complex sentence structure.

24 The phrase ri-no re-po-to = λίνον λεπτόν, ‘fine thread’, occurs once in Linear B (KN L 693.1); see Del Freo, Nosch and Rougemont (n. 18), 344.

25 For fuller discussion of the Latin passages, see Gundlach, I., Poetologische Bildersprache in der Zeit des Augustus (Hildesheim – Zurich – New York, 2019), 227–35Google Scholar.

26 Eisenhut, W., ‘Deducere carmen: ein Beitrag zum Problem der literarischen Beziehungen zwischen Horaz und Properz’, in Radke, G. (ed.), Gedenkschrift für Georg Rohde (Tübingen, 1961), 91–104Google Scholar, repr. in id. (ed.), Properz (Darmstadt, 1975), 247–63 traced the development in Latin poetry of deductum carmen as a metaphor for fine poetry; like others, he associated it with spun thread but failed to explain in detail the connection to actual practice or to note its source in Aet. 1.5. In general, scholars have worried little about how Virgil's image of spun thread functions in relation to fat sheep. An exception is Deremetz, A., ‘Le carmen deductum ou le fil du poème: à propos de Virgile, Buc., VI’, Latomus 46 (1987), 762–77Google Scholar, at 766 and 775, who argues that Virgil's sheep are the source of the wool that is to be drawn down to make the fabric of his poem. To my mind, this is an unlikely reading that obscures the opposition between fat sheep and thin Muse inherited from the Aetia prologue.

27 Cf. Macrob. Sat. 6.4.12 on Ecl. 6.5: deductum pro tenui et subtili eleganter positum est.

28 Barber (n. 18), 42 explains: ‘To achieve control over the fineness and evenness of the yarn, one must draw and twist the fibers simultaneously and with some speed.’

29 We may also note that the placement of ἔπος … ἑλίσσω in the fifth line of the Aetia prologue is paralleled by the placement of deductum … carmen in the fifth line of Eclogue 6. Cf. Scodel, R.S. and Thomas, R.F., ‘Virgil and the Euphrates’, AJPh 105 (1984), 339Google Scholar on a similar phenomenon in Callimachus’ Hymn 2.108 and three Virgil passages (G. 1.509, 4.561; Aen. 8.726), in all of which the river Euphrates is mentioned six lines from the close.

30 Fineness and shortness were conjoined concepts in Callimachean poetics; see Lohse, G., ‘Der Aitienprolog des Kallimachos als Reproduktion von Wirklichkeit’, A&A 19 (1973), 20–43Google Scholar, though his evidence from the reading κατὰ λεπτόν is now to be discounted.

31 So Wimmel, W., Kallimachos in Rom: Die Nachfolge seines apologetischen Dichtens in der Augusteerzeit (Wiesbaden, 1960), 164Google Scholar.

32 Scholarly discussions concerning the allusions to the Aetia prologue in the proem of the Metamorphoses have been extensive; for a survey, see Tress, H. van, Poetic Memory: Allusion in the Poetry of Callimachus and the Metamorphoses of Ovid (Leiden, 2004), 26–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 The meaningful detail of the fingers, found also in Eur. Or. 1432 and Ar. Ran. 1314 and 1348, appears elsewhere in neoteric and Augustan poetry: e.g. Catull. 64.312–14 (of one of the Parcae) leuiter deducens fila supinis | formabat digitis, tum prono in pollice torquens [torqueo = ἑλίσσω] | … uersabat … fusum; Tib. 2.1.64 fusus et adposito pollice uersat opus; Ov. Met. 6.22 (of Arachne) leui teretem uersabat pollice fusum, 4.229 colus et fusus digitis cecidere remissis, and 14.264–5 uellera motis | nulla trahunt digitis nec fila sequentia ducunt. Ironically, in Ov. Her. 9.73–80 Hercules’ mighty thumb pulls down only coarse strands of fibre (crassaque robusto deducis pollice fila, 77), while his rough fingers prove so inadequate for twisting thread (digitis dum torques stamina duris, 79) that the spindle is crushed, a marker of genre violation in the inverted elegiac paradigm of the hero performing female tasks as Omphale's slave (cf. Prop. 3.11.17–20, 4.9.47–50; Ov. Ars am. 2.217–20).

34 The phrase leuiter deducens in Catullus’ description of the Parcae spinning (64.312) can be understood, ambiguously, as either ‘drawing down gently/lightly’ or ‘drawing down only a little’ (OLD s.v. leuiter 2 and 3).

35 The metapoetic implications of tying the prologue to the story of the Minyeides through deducere have been much discussed, though without any connection, to my knowledge, to the source of spinning imagery in ἑλίσσω. An essential study is that of Rosati, G., ‘Form in motion: weaving the text in the Metamorphoses’, in Hardie, P., Barchiesi, A. and Hinds, S. (edd.), Ovidian Transformations: Essays on the Metamorphoses and its Reception (Cambridge, 1999), 240–53Google Scholar; see too Jouteur, I., Jeux de genre dans les Métamorphoses d'Ovide (Leuven, 2001), 71–2Google Scholar; Barchiesi, A. and Rosati, G. (edd.), Ovidio Metamorfosi Volume II Libri III–IV (Milan, 2007)Google Scholar, 244, 252 and 255; Heath, J., ‘Women's work: female transmission of mythical narrative’, TAPhA 141 (2011), 69–104Google Scholar, at 86–94; and Ohrman, M., ‘From calathos to carmen: metapoetic in the story of the daughters of Minyas (Ovid Metamorphoses 4)’, in Fanfani, G., Harlow, M. and Nosch, M.-L. (edd.), Spinning Fates and the Song of the Loom: The Use of Textiles, Clothing and Cloth Production as Metaphor, Symbol and Narrative Device in Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford, 2016), 285–95Google Scholar.

36 Because of wide scholarly acceptance, it is worthwhile to examine Skutsch, O., The Annals of Quintus Ennius (Oxford, 1985), 329–30Google Scholar on the metaphor in a line of Ennius that apparently opened Annales Book 6: ingentis oras euoluere belli (fr. 164 Skutsch). He interpreted the image in euoluere to be that of unrolling a book and ascribed it to an unknown Hellenistic text with similarity to Callimachus’ ἔπος … ἑλίσσω. I suggest, however, that Ennius may employ a different textile image, one more appropriate for a book of epic poetry. In Ov. Her. 12.3–4, a despairing Medea, abandoned by Jason, proclaims that ‘the sisters [Fates] who apportion the threads of human life ought to have unrolled [the threads on] my spindles’ (quae dispensant mortalia fila sorores | debuerant fusos euoluisse meos). Similarly, the image evoked by Ennius’ euoluere may be the unwinding of thread from a spindle to form the borders (orae) that determine the size of the garment to be made (for ora as ‘border’ of a woven garment, see Catull. 64.308, Ov. Met. 5.398, Quint. Inst. 11.3.138). Ennius thus images the extreme boundaries of the war (oras belli) that he is just beginning to recount as the borders of a woven garment. For the metapoetics of such borders in early Greek poetry, see Harlizius-Klück, E. and Fanfani, G., ‘(B)orders in ancient weaving and archaic Greek poetry’, in Fanfani, G., Harlow, M. and Nosch, M.-L. (edd.), Spinning Fates and the Song of the Loom: The Use of Textiles, Clothing and Cloth Production as Metaphor, Symbol and Narrative Device in Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford, 2016), 61–99Google Scholar, at 89–96. If this interpretation is right, Ennius was perhaps after all alluding to Aet. 1.5, though changing the metaphor from spinning thread to weaving borders to suit the kind of continuous epic narrative that Callimachus eschewed. For later examples of euoluo with (metaphorical) reference to rolling out epic-type poetry or themes, see Verg. Aen. 9.528 (a clear allusion to Ennius), Sil. Pun. 5.40–1 and Stat. Theb. 1.1–3.

37 As, for instance, in μύθους καὶ μήδεα … ὕφαινον (Il. 3.212). For weaving as a symbol for poetry in the prehistory of Greek and other Indo-European languages, see Schmitt, R., Dichtung und Dichtersprache in indogermanischer Zeit (Wiesbaden, 1967), 298–301Google Scholar; Durante (n. 13 [1960]), 238–9; id. (n. 13 [1968]), 272–4; id. (n. 13 [1976]), 173–4. Nünlist, R., Poetologische Bildersprache in der frühgriechischen Dichtung (Stuttgart, 1998), 110–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar provides references for metapoetic imagery involving textile production in archaic and classical poetry. There exists a substantial body of scholarship on weaving as a poetic metaphor, including Snyder, J.M., ‘The web of song: weaving imagery in Homer and the lyric poets’, CJ 76 (1981), 193–6Google Scholar; Nagy, G., whose primary theory of making poetry concerns the rhapsodic art of stitching, (e.g.) Plato's Rhapsody and Homer's Music: The Poetics of the Panathenaic Festival in Classical Athens (Cambridge, MA, 2002), 70–98Google Scholar; Nosch, M.-L., ‘Voicing the loom: women, weaving, and plotting’, in Nakassis, D., Gulizio, J. and James, S.A. (edd.), KE-RA-ME-JA: Studies Presented to Cynthia W. Shelmerdine (Philadelphia, 2014), 91–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar. With implications for the origins of the metaphor, Tuck, A., ‘Singing the rug: patterned textiles and the origins of Indo-European metrical poetry’, AJA 110 (2006), 539–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar argues that the complex woven designs known from representations of archaic cloth indicate that women weavers matched patterns of warp and weft to metrical schemes through the songs they sang as they wove.

38 Nünlist (n. 37) lists no metapoetic images from spinning in the archaic and classical eras. For the image of the spinning Fates in Greek and Indo-European poetry, see Giannakis, G., ‘The “fate-as-spinner” motif: a study on the poetic and metaphorical language of ancient Greek and Indo-European (part I)’ and ‘(part II)’, IF 103 (1998), 1–27Google Scholar and 104 (1999), 95–109.

39 For finely spun verse as an image for poetic novelty, cf. Prop. 1.16.41 tibi saepe nouo deduxi carmina uersu.

40 It is worth noting that by the fifth century a metaphor from thread had come to signify exactness or subtlety of thought or speech; see Durante (n. 13 [1960]), 239–40; id. (n. 13 [1968]), 274–5; id. (n. 13 [1976]), 174–5. While some examples (κατὰ μίτον, Pherecrates, fr. 156.7 K.–A.; λίνον λίνῳ συνάπτεις, Pl. Euthyd. 298c6) seem based on the intricacies of weaving, in the Meno (80e2) Plato's image of ‘drawing down’ a proper eristic argument (ἐριστικὸν λόγον κατάγεις) is derived from the shaping of fibres into a narrow, precisely formed roving.

41 See (e.g.) E. Csapo, ‘Later Euripidean music’, ICS 24–5 (1999–2000), 399–426, at 419–26 and ‘The politics of the New Music’, in Murray, P. and Wilson, D. (edd.), Music and the Muses: The Culture of Mousike in the Classical Athenian City (Oxford, 2004), 207–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 230–2.

42 Neri, C., Erinna: testimonianze e frammenti (Bologna, 2003), 94–8Google Scholar and ‘Erinna's loom’, in G. Fanfani, M. Harlow and M.-L. Nosch (edd.), Spinning Fates and the Song of the Loom: The Use of Textiles, Clothing and Cloth Production as Metaphor, Symbol and Narrative Device in Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford, 2016), 195–216, at 206–7 discusses the origin of the title Distaff, concluding that it came either from Erinna herself or from the Hellenistic literature about her.

43 The lacunose text also may contain references to shearing sheep (SH 401.13) and to wool workers (SH 401.23). A section of the poem appears to have concerned a child's game known as ‘Tortitortoise’ (χελιχελώνη, perhaps with a secondary reference to the lyre), during which a girl who sat in the middle as other girls ran around (like a dancing chorus) would utter the words ἔρια μαρύομαι καὶ κρόκην Μιλησίαν, ‘I am pulling down wool and Milesian thread’ (Poll. Onom. 9.125). In SH 401.40–1, which follows the phrase about looking at a distaff, we might speculatively read κ[λωστῆρες suggested by M.L. West, ‘Erinna’, ZPE 25 (1977), 95–119, at 110, with E. Wolff's ἀμφέλικες (a hapax legomenon contracted like ἀμφελικτός, Eur. HF 398), and τελέ[θουσι (Lloyd-Jones and Parsons, dub.) to mean ‘threads (or ‘distaffs’) become wound around’.

44 Neri (n. 42 [2003]) prints ἠλεκάτη, the text of P, here (T 5) and in Anth. Pal. 9.190.5 (T 7), with discussion at 191. This variant is attested in Hellenistic inscriptions, e.g. an epitaph from Cyrene (GVI 758.4, second or first century b.c.); cf. ἠλετάκη, Hesych. ε 307.4, 333.1 La. Similar forms survive in Byzantine manuscripts and in Modern Greek; see Neri (n. 18), 562–3. It is entirely possible that the variant is due to scribal error.

45 The phrase μίτον … πολύπλοκον might refer to ‘tangled thread’, but it fits better as a stylistic metaphor for Erinna's poetry (LSJ s.v. πολύπλοκος 2.b, ‘subtle’, ‘acute’, of words and thoughts).

46 The anonymous authors of Anth. Pal. 7.12 and 9.190, Hellenistic or Early Imperial, undoubtedly had copies of the Distaff (the papyrus dates to the second century a.d.), though it is not clear whether Christodorus of the Justinian era would have known firsthand a text of Erinna or rather relied on the tradition about her; see Neri (n. 42 [2003]), 10–12.

47 Neri (n. 42 [2003]), 10: ‘La poetessa viene … clamorosamente inclusa … tra i modelli della poetica callimachea’. É. Prioux, Petits musées en vers: Épigramme et discours sur les collections antiques (Paris, 2008), 245–6 has suggestively argued that Asclepiades’ epigram praising Erinna for her λεπτότης was of a pair with his epigram praising Antimachus’ Lyde for its σεμνότης (Anth. Pal. 9.63) and that Callimachus’ quarrel with the Telchines stemmed from his disagreement regarding the admiration of others for Antimachus.

48 Spinning is often presented as laborious (e.g. Leonidas, Anth. Pal. 6.288.2–3, 6.289.8; Ap. Rhod. Argon. 1.1062–3; Antip. Sid. Anth. Pal. 6.47.1–2; Catull. 64.310; Tib. 2.1.63, femineus labor), and poor spinning women often work late into the night (Leonidas, Anth. Pal. 7.726; Antip. Sid. Anth. Pal. 6.160.7). Horace (Epist. 2.1.224–5) expressly connects finely spun poetry with labor: cum lamentamur non apparere labores | nostros et tenui deducta poemata filo. Cf. Val. Max. 3.7.ext.1 [Euripides] queretur quod eo triduo non ultra tres uersus maximo inpenso labore deducere potuisset.

49 The honey and bee metaphors, standing for the sweet quality of the Distaff, also resonate with the metapoetic bees in the programmatic coda to Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo (2.110–12). Sens, A. (ed.), Asclepiades of Samos: Epigrams and Fragments (Oxford, 2011), 190Google Scholar suggests that Erinna's comparison to a bee may be connected to the Distaff as a πόνος.

50 E.g. Snell, B., The Discovery of the Mind: The Greek Origins of European Thought (transl. T. Rosenmeyer) (Oxford, 1953), 271–2Google Scholar; discussion in Ambühl, A., Kinder und junge Helden: Innovative Aspekte des Umgangs mit der literarischen Tradition bei Kallimachos (Leuven, 2005), 9–12, 386–90Google Scholar. Interesting from the perspective of the spinning image in Aet. 1.5–6 is Goldhill, S., ‘An unnoticed allusion in Theocritus and Callimachus’, ICS 12 (1987), 1–6Google Scholar, who connects Callimachus’ παῖς ἄτε with the metapoetic scene of a boy plaiting a grasshopper cage in Theoc. Id. 1.52–4. It should also be noted that the twisting ivy tendrils decorating the goatherd's cup (μαρύεται, ἑλιχρύσῳ, ἕλιξ εἱλεῖται, 1.29–31) seem to herald Callimachus’ ἑλίσσω as an image of spinning. Against the metapoetic background of both Theocritus’ plaiting boy and Callimachus’ spinning girl, Virgil at the end of the Eclogues pictures himself singing as he plaits a basket of ‘slender marshmallow’ (gracili … hibisco, 10.71).

51 In Euripides’ Ion Creusa explains to her son that, when she exposed him as a baby, she wrapped him in a piece of cloth that she had been weaving for practice, since she was then but a girl (παῖς ποτ’ οὖσ’, 1417). Among examples from Callimachus, παῖς describes both Acontius (Aet. 67.2, 75.76) and Cydippe (Aet. 75.22, 75.26) as young persons on the cusp of marriage, and also the young hero Theseus of the Hecale (236.1 = 10.1 Hollis, 345 = 13 Hollis).

52 As noted by Grilli (n. 13), 97 n. 10, ‘a mo’ di fanciulla’. Since I view Aet. 1.3–6 as a Callimachean speech act that simultaneously reports, critiques and positively recasts what is said by his critics, it is altogether possible that Callimachus had been accused of girl-like behaviour, a slam against his authority conferred by age, his position at court, and his masculinity. Perhaps too there is an allusion to this analogy in Propertius’ very Callimachean aetiology, 4.9, where, at lines 47–50, Heracles demands to be admitted to the sanctuary of the Bona Dea because once, in servitude to Omphale, he spun with a Lydian distaff and actually ‘was a girl equipped with rough hands’ (manibus duris apta puella fui, 50).

53 Barber (n. 17), 88–9 describes how Hungarian girls of the twentieth century were taught to spin at the age of ten to twelve, while mature women wove the cloth. A similar custom is indicated in an epitaph by Posidippus (46 Austin–Bastianini), where an elderly hired woman, who taught young girls to process fibres, spin threads and plait hair nets, was buried by her older pupils who were approaching marriage.

54 Another address to a distaff is seemingly found among the epigram incipits in P.Oxy. 3724, vi.16, παῦε φιληλακατη[. . The compound φιληλάκατος seems excluded (e.g. Antip. Sid. 6.160.5), and Parsons points out that the feminine ending indicates φίλ’ ἠλακάτη; see Sider, D., The Epigrams of Philodemos: Introduction, Text, and Commentary (New York, 1997), 220Google Scholar.

55 There is no reason to doubt the possibility of such a precious gift; cf. Hdt. 4.162 (n. 18 above). In the fantasy world of the Odyssey (4.130–2), Helen received as gifts a gold distaff and a silver wool basket trimmed in gold. Spindles, or possibly in some cases distaffs, of silver, bronze and ivory have been found at various Bronze Age sites, and in the Classical Age ‘fancy’ distaffs were often in bronze; see Barber (n. 18), 61–3, 69–70.

56 Cf. Hopkinson, N., A Hellenistic Anthology (Cambridge, 1988), 176Google Scholar: ‘[T]he distaff, like The Distaff, is in fact precious, highly wrought and exotic in appearance.’

57 For the initial position of Idyll 28 on one of three papyrus rolls that were combined in the Antinoe Papyrus, see Gutzwiller, K., ‘The evidence for Theocritean poetry books’, in Harder, M.A., Regtuit, R.F. and Wakker, G.C. (edd.), Theocritus (Groningen, 1996), 119–48Google Scholar, at 140–1. For the introductory aspects of the poem, see Acosta-Hughes, B., Arion's Lyre: Archaic Lyric into Hellenistic Poetry (Princeton, 2010), 107–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The argument by F. Cairns, ‘The distaff of Theugenis – Theocritus Idyll 28’, Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar 1976 (1977), 293–305 that Idyll 28 is dedicatory in form, albeit for human recipients, supports the poem's introductory character; cf. ‘Theoc.’ Epigr. 1 = Anth. Pal. 6.336, apparently heading a libellus of epigrams ascribed to Theocritus.

58 Papadopoulou, M., ‘Textile and textual poetics in context: Callimachus’ 4th Iamb and Theocritus’ Idyll 28’, in Fanfani, G., Harlow, M. and Nosch, M.-L. (edd.), Spinning Fates and the Song of the Loom: The Use of Textiles, Clothing and Cloth Production as Metaphor, Symbol and Narrative Device in Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford, 2016), 217–39Google Scholar, at 231 suggests that, just as the distaff is to have a new home in Miletus, a centre for wool working, so Theocritus hopes to find there a place for ‘weaving new poetic texts’; she also wonders, at 234, if Theocritus has Erinna in mind; see earlier Gutzwiller, K., A Guide to Hellenistic Literature (Malden, MA and Oxford, 2007), 94CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Given Erinna's fame in the Early Hellenistic period, it is hard to believe that a poem addressed to a distaff would not have immediately evoked her Distaff.

59 There is no certainty about the chronological relationship of Idyll 28 to the prologue, which may have been written for Aetia Books 1–2 at an unknown date or for the whole Aetia in the mid 240s. If the prologue was composed significantly earlier than the 240s and the Aeolic Idylls perhaps later than the earlier ones, Theocritus might have been alluding to Callimachus’ ἑλίσσω. Alternately, if the collection of Aeolic Idylls was earlier (as is most likely), the evocation of Erinna through the address to the distaff would have prepared for Callimachus’ subtler spinning image. In either case there seems to be a connection of one poet to the other, through the model of Erinna.

60 Harder (n. 2), 2.130 (cf. 2.134) and 2.410 (cf. 2.268). Other weaving references are preserved in Aet. 26.5 (τὸν ἐπὶ ῥάβδῳ μῦθον ὑφαινόμενον, ‘the story woven beside the [rhapsode's] staff’, perhaps as object of ἀείδω in 26.8) and in Aet. 66 about Argive girls ‘whose task it is to weave a sacred garment for Hera’ (῞Ηρης | ἁγνὸν ὑφαινέμεναι τῇσι μέμηλε πάτος, 2–3) and who after a ritual bath ‘stand by the heddle rods’ on the loom (στῆναι [πὰ]ρ κανόνεσσι, 4).

61 Gutzwiller, K., ‘Callimachus’ “Lock of Berenice”: fantasy, romance, and propaganda’, AJPh 113 (1992), 359–85Google Scholar, at 375–6; for a supporting view, see Harder (n. 2), 805.

62 The main ideas in this paper were presented at a conference on La Fémininité dans les arts hellénistiques at Lyon, France in September 2017, and a fuller version was read at the Midwest Classical Literature Consortium, Ann Arbor, Michigan in April 2018. My thanks to both audiences for encouraging discussion. I am grateful to Évelyne Prioux for her stimulating suggestions and Jim Clauss for his comments. I especially offer my appreciation to the journal's reviewer for a careful reading and helpful suggestions.