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Sound, Sense, and Music in Greek Poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

W. B. Stanford
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Extract

Until the fifth century B.C. all Greek poets made their poems for hearing not for seeing, for the ear and not for the eye. Poetry was social rather than private being usually sung, recited, or performed at religious ceremonies, festivals, feasts, or entertainments. Even when the Greeks began to read poetry privately for themselves – Euripides is the first known possessor of a private library – they read it aloud, not silently as we generally do. Silent reading of literature – as distinct from business documents – is not clearly attested until the fourth century A.D.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , October 1981 , pp. 127 - 140
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1981

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References

Notes

1. There is an excellent survey of modern views on euphony in the Princeton, Encyclopaedia of Poetry and Poetics, ed. Preminger, A. (Princeton, 1965)Google Scholar, at ‘Sound in Poetry'. Classical theory and practice are discussed in my Sound of Greek (Berkely, 1967)Google Scholar with a bibliography and a record of spoken Greek poetry. Articles on Homeric euphony are listed on p. 158 of A Bibliography of Homeric Scholarship 1930–1970 by Packard, D. W. and Meyers, T. (Malibu, California, 1974)Google Scholar. Packard's, D. W. ‘Sound-patterns in Homer’, TAPhA 104 (1974), 239–60Google Scholar (cited below as Packard) provides an indispensable checklist for remarks on Homer's euphony. Similar statistical studies are badly needed for other Greek poets. Packard in his interpretations of the sound-frequencies adopts a middle course between the view that sound-patterns are generally accidental (as exemplified, for example, by Leaf in his notes on Iliad 3.40, 13.158, 20.217) and my view that they are as little likely to be accidental as sequences of notes in a piece of music.

Studies in Greek euphony not mentioned in the works cited above will be found under the authors' names in the appropriate year of L'Année Philologique. On Homer: M. N. Nagler (1974), A. A. Perry (1971), W. B. Stanford (1976). On Hesiod: C. Angier (1964), H. Troxler (1964). On Pindar: G. A. Privitera (1964), W. Stockert (1969). On Bacchylides: H. Kriegler (1969). On Aeschylus: J. Diggle (1968), W. Porzig (1926). On Aristophanes: G. J. de Vries (1967). On Plato: M. Leroy (1967 and 1968). On aspects of classical euphony in general: W. S. Allen (1968), D. Fehling (1968), N. A. Bonavia-Hunt (1969), G. M. Messing (as cited in n. 3 below), C. Mugler (as cited in n. 2 below), I. Opelt (1953), G. P. Schipp (as cited in n. 7 below), W. B. Stanford (1971); cf. in Hermathena 127 (1979)Google Scholar. On Greek pronunciation: Allen, W. S., Vox Graeca (Cambridge, 2nd edn. 1974)Google Scholar. On euphony as an aid to memory: E. A. Havelock (1963), Jousse, M. in Archiv de Philologie 2 (1924)Google Scholar, Steppers, L. in Aequatoria 16 (1953)Google Scholar. Helpful recent studies on euphony in English poetry are: Poets and the Physical Voice by Berry, F. (London, 1962)Google Scholar; Sound and Form in Modern Poetry by Gross, H. (Ann Arbour, 1964)Google Scholar; and Sound and Meaning in English Poetry by Wilson, K. M. (London, 1930)Google Scholar.

2. Words of this type are listed and discussed by Mugler, C., Les ongines de la science grecque chez Homere (Paris, 1963), pp. 80 ffGoogle Scholar. Plato's objection to their use by Homer, is considered in my artide ‘Onomatopoeic Mimesis in Plato's Republic 396b–397c’, JHS 93 (1973), 185–91Google Scholar.

3. For sceptical arguments against intentional onomatopoeia of this kind see Todd, O. J., CQ 16 (1942), 29–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar and the reply by L. P. Wilkinson, ibid. 121–33, with many examples. See also Messing, G. M., Arethusa 4 (1971), 5–23Google Scholar.

4. Packard (p. 247) observes that this line contains more alphas than any other in the Il., which gives it a monotonous effect like the hoof-beats of the mules. The two W-alpha lines in the Od. (4.783 = 8.54) describe the customary preparations for launching a ship, where perhaps a hint of repetition is not out of place.

5. Packard (p. 250) notes that the highest concentration of liquid letters in the Il. is in 7.329 where the river Scamander is mentioned, and that Hesiod never uses more liquids than in Theogony 339, giving the names of three rivers.

6. For other harsh clusters of gutturals in apt contexts Packard (p. 253) cites Il. 11.351, Od. 11.111, and Hesiod, , Works and Days 25Google Scholar.

7. On consonant clashes in Homer see Packard, pp. 245–6,257–9 and, in general, Shipp, G. B., ‘Unusual Sound Combinations in the Greek Vocabulary’, Antichthon 1 (1967), 1–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Some of the notably harsh examples cited by Packard are in Il. 5.690; 10.156; 14.60 and 259; 16.105. As an example of how consonantal clusters can slow down a line he cites Il. 14.259. Perhaps, as he suggests, in Od. 11.598, as quoted above, the repetition of the cluster-νδ-adds to the mimetic force, as in English words like ‘thump, bump, thunder’, and in Ennius' magnum pulsatis Olympum. But he notes that the sceptic might derisively ask whether the formulaic phrase δνδε δμοδε should then be translated ‘thumping homeward’. The answer to that is that mimetic effect generally depends on prompting by the context. Where there is no such prompting, assonance of this kind may be merely for acoustic effect as, for example, in the formulaic Zε κδιστε μγιστε.

8. But, as Packard (p. 256) observes, there is similar hiatus in Od. 2.316, without suggestion of straining effort.

9. But, as Packard (p. 245) notes, Il. 3.127 is the only line in Homer that contains six omegas, and there is no direct suggestion of lamentation there though suffering is mentioned in the next line. In such cases the unusual sound-frequency may have been chosen for musical, as distinct from mimetic or expressive, effects.

10. Cf. the alliteration of pi and the assonance of omicron round the word πóλισ in ll. 20.217. Packard has kindly drawn my attention to 31 other similar examples in the Homeric poems, e.g. Il. 2.555, 9.19, 13.182; Od. 1.252, 2.276–7, 5,263, 9.232–3. He notices (p. 243) the curious fact that nine out of the twenty-one lines containing six occurrences of pi refer to ἲπποι. The Iliad also contains a notably large number of mimetic words describing the noises and movements of horses, an acoustic echo of Homer's general interest in equestrian matters.

11. On the other hand, as Packard notices (p. 247, and cf. p. 256), eta occurs frequently in lines describing youth, beauty, and lovemaking (Il. 24.348; 19.176; 24.30; 3,401; 14.360).

12. Cf. Scott, J. A., ‘Sigmatism in Greek Dramatic Poets’, AJPh 29 (1908), 69–77Google Scholar, and, with different conclusions, Todd as cited in n. 3 above. Packard (p. 254) notes that the highest concentration of sigmas in one line in Homer, 10, comes in Odysseus' rebuke to Agamemnon in Il. 14.94, but in contrast he observes that there are 8 sigmas without any suggestion of hostility or scorn in Od. 4.48 and 6.149. See also Scott, , ‘Effect of Sigmatism as shown in Homer’, AJPh 30 (1909), 72–7Google Scholar, and Cronin, P. A., ‘Sigmatism in Tibullus and Propertius', CQ 20 (1970), 174–80Google Scholar.