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The Unity of Callimachus' hymn to Artemis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Peter Bing  and
Volker Uhrmeister
Peter Bing
Affiliation:
Emory University
Volker Uhrmeister
Affiliation:
Schule Birklehof
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Extract

At the start of the section entitled ‘structure’ in his commentary on Callimachus' Hymn to Artemis, Fritz Bornmann notes that the third Hymn has enjoyed less success among critics than any other. ‘They lament’, he says, ‘the lack of unity'. And indeed, beginning with Wilamowitz, this has been not only the dominant, but the only view of the hymn. The latter part of the poem, said Wilamowitz, ‘macht trotz allen Künsten den Eindruck eines gelehrten Nachtrages' und es ist das auch’, he adds. Some forty years later K.J. McKay put it this way: ‘If there is a stronger unifying principle in this straggling composition than the idea of weaving together a number of disparate strands into a ‘historic day’ in the life of Artemis (with vv. 183–268 as a possibly unfortunate addition), it still eludes us'. And recently, Michael Hasiam has remarked on the poem's ‘disjointed tail section’. The hymn, to his mind, ‘progressively disintegrates, as the clear structural framework with which it started fades totally from view’. Even Herter, in his famous and influential essay on the hymn, ‘Kallimachos und Homer‘, echoes this opinion of the final third of the poem. The commentator Bornmann concludes: ‘this estimation is essentially correct’.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 114 , November 1994 , pp. 19 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1994

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References

1 ‘Si è lamentata la mancanza di unità,’ Callimachi hymnus in Dianam (Florence 1968) xxvi.

2 Hellenistische Dichtung in der Zeit des Kallimachos ii (Berlin 1924) 46.

3 ‘Mischief in Callimachus’ hymn to Artemis', Mnemosyne xvi (1963) 243.

4 ‘Callimachus’ Hymns', Callimachus, Hellenistica Groningana i, ed. M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit, G.C. Wakker (Groningen 1993) 115 and 114 respectively.

5 ‘Kallimachos und Homer. Ein Beitrag zur Interpretation des Hymnos auf Artemis', Xenia Bonnensia. Festschrift zum 75jährigen Bestehen des Philologischen Vereins und Bonner Kreises (Bonn 1929) 50–105 = Kleine Schriften (Munich 1975) 371–416. Herter evidently approves Wilamowitz’ judgement on vv. 170–182: ‘“Hier hätte er aufhören und nur einen kräftigen Schluss machen sollen”, so empfindet der moderne Leser mit Wilamowitz, aber der Alexandriner konnte nicht darauf verzichten, seine Gelehrsamkeit noch etwas mehr zu zeigen, als er bisher Gelegenheit gehabt hatte’ (p. 104=416). Cf. also below.

6 Bornmann (n. 1) xxvii: ‘La valutazione è quindi essenzialmente giusta’. Bornmann qualifies this statement, however, by suggesting that we must judge the hymn by a different standard of unity, namely the far looser kind of unity in diversity pioneered by Callimachus in the Aetia. But while there is certainly a common aetiological interest between our hymn and the Aetia, we feel that Bornmann's recourse to the aesthetic of an entirely different poetic genre, the ‘Sammelgedicht’, is a counsel of desperation.

7 Skiadas, A.D., Kallimachos (Darmstadt 1975) 354–375.Google Scholar

8 He does so, moreover, without ever explicitly stating that he is only publishing an extract. The unsuspecting reader is the more deceived because of the decision to renumber the original footnotes, so that n. 1 in Skiadas corresponds to n. 25 in Herter.

9 As we shall see in 72ff., Artemis is already well-acquainted with the Cyclopes through a visit when she was three years old.

10 For the first and last of her heart's desires—perpetual virginity and mountains—Callimachus was evidently drawing on the brief but comparable scene in Sappho fr. 44a.4–8 (Voigt = Alcaeus jr. 304 LP; the connection with Callimachus already seems to have been made in the scholia, cj. Pfeiffer ii 125). In that fragmentary text Artemis (age apparently unmentioned) asks Zeus for just these things.

11 Thus already Heiler (n. 5) 64 = 383.

12 The unusualness of the repetition is only somewhat mitigated by interpreting the first instance as a demonstrative, the second as the relative, cf. the index vocabulorum of Pfeiffer's edition of Callimachus, s.v. ὅστις, and Fernández-Galiano, E., Léxico de los Himnos de Calimaco iii (Madrid 1978) under the same entry.Google Scholar

13 Thus already Wilamowitz, , Der Glaube der Hellenen ii (Berlin 1931–2, repr. Darmstadt 1959) 146 n. 1.Google Scholar

14 In order to elucidate this process we present the following chart:

15 Cf. the fundamental discussion of Norden, E. in Agnostos Theos (Leipzig 1913) 143–163Google Scholar, and also Meyer, H., Hymnische Stilelemente in dei frühgriechischen Dichtung (Würzburg 1933).Google Scholar

16 καὶ γὰρ έγὼ Λητωιὰς ὤσπερ Ἀπόλλων (83). In other words, Artemis at this point still derives her self-image from being ‘her mother's daughter’, just as Kairatos and Tethys had viewed her in 45.

17 The term δαίμων can, of course, also be used of the fully fledged goddess, as is the case in 173: any clearly identifiable god still includes in his or her nature the quality of being, among other things, a δαίμων. But the immediate context here in 86, and Artemis' subsequent development in the hymn, leave no doubt that the designation δαίμων in 86 points to the sense of undifferentiated divinity, which the word can convey. On δαίμων cf. Nilsson, M.P., Geschichte der griechischen Religion i (Munich 1955) 216–222Google Scholar; Burkert, W., Greek Religion (Oxford 1985) 179–181Google Scholar, esp. 180: ‘Daimon is occult power, a force that drives man forward where no agent can be named…Daimon is the veiled countenance of divine activity. There is no image of a daimon, and there is no cult’.

18 Cf. Lorimer, H.L., ‘Gold and ivory in Greek mythology’, in Greek poetry and life (Oxford 1936) 14–33Google Scholar.

19 It is important, too, that Callimachus describes this as the source of the North Wind which brings bitter frost to men. A few verses later (125) we will see that Artemis' connection with this region is picked up when she causes a destructive frost to settle on the crops in the City of the Unjust.

20 On the 3 + 1 formula cf. Göbel, F., Formen und Formeln der 3 (Tübingen 1935) and Bornmann (n. 1) 59 (introduction to 120–122).Google Scholar

21 The Hesiodic model for the City of the Unjust and the City of the Just is Op.225ff. Cf. the detailed discussions of Reinsch-Werner, H., Callimachus Hesiodicus (Berlin 1976) 74–86Google Scholar, and Erler, M., ‘Das Recht (ΔΙΚΗ) als Segenbringerin für die Polis’, SIFC v (1987) 5–36, esp. 22–27.Google Scholar

22 Callimachus found the seed for this novelty in the unelaborated declaration of the Hy. Hom. Ven. that the city of just men, δικαίων τε πτόλις άνδρῶν, is pleasing to Artemis (20). From this brief statement, which is not taken up anywhere in the subsequent tradition, Callimachus builds the entire picture of Artemis' relations with the City of the Unjust and the City of the Just. Further rare cases of the goddess'; interest in cities are Bacchylides 11.116 (Maehler) and Anacreon PMG 348.4–8: ň (scil. Ἅρτεμις) κου νῦν έπὶ Ληθαίου / δίνῃσι θρασυκαρδίων / άνδρῶν έσκατορᾷς πόλιν,/ χαίρουσ᾿ ού γὰρ άνημέρους / ποιμαίνεις πολιήτας.

23 Thus also Reinsch-Werner (n. 21) 74–75, and Erler (n. 21) 24.

24 This may throw light on the word-play of 4–5: πατρὸς έφεζομένη γονάτεσσι / …τάδε προσέειπε γονῆα in that it stresses Zeus' role not just as father but as begetter. For γούνατα as ‘lap’ see Schwyzer, E., ‘Der Götter Knie—Abrahams Schoss’, in AntidoronGoogle Scholar, Festschr. Wackernagel, J. (Göttingen 1923) 283–293.Google Scholar

25 Bassi, K., ‘The poetics of exclusion in Callimachus' hymn to Apollo’, TAPhA cxix (1989) 219–231Google Scholar, contrasts ‘the desired inclusion of those favoured by the god’ (221) here in Hymn 3 with ‘the motif of exclusion’ (Ibid. n. 11) in Hymn 2. And indeed, here it is a whole community that enjoys the goddess’ protection, and that the speaker wants to be part of, whereas in the Hymn to Apollo only those members of the community who are not ‘impious’ (άλιτροí) may participate in the song-god's ritual, and of these only the élite (the έσθλοí) will see the god. On the different levels of participation in divine favour in Hymn 2, cf. Bing, P., ‘Impersonation of voice in Callimachus’ hymn to Apollo, TAPhA cxxiii (1993) 181–198, esp. 184f. with n. 11.Google Scholar Later in the Hymn to Artemis the speaker's status vis-à-vis the goddess seems to approach that of the έσθλοí in Hymn 2, cf. p. 31–32 below, with n. 36.

26 έσσεται (138) is thus that future described in KG i 173 no. 5, in which an expectation is so definite that its realization is an absolute certainty. So here the promise of a song is immediately fulfilled. See verse 186 of our hymn, where the promise άεíσω is also at once fulfilled. Significantly, our use of έσσεται at 138 is comparable to the structurally parallel oύ λήξω at Hy. Hom. Ap. 177, where actualization is likewise immediate. See below.

27 Herter (n. 5) 98 = 411 notes the total lack of any reference to kings here in contrast with the Hesiodic model for this section, as does Reinsch-Werner (n. 21) 76. The latter goes too far, however, in stating that in Callimachus ‘die Bürger selbst sind für die Gerechtigkeit in der Stadt verantwortlich’ by contrast cf. Erler (n. 21) 25. For the restrained etiquette with which Callimachus addresses his rulers, cf. Geizer, T., ‘Kallimachos und das Zeremoniell des ptolemäischen Königshauses’, in Aspekte der Kultursoziologie, Festschr. M. Rassem (Berlin 1982) 13–30.Google Scholar

28 ‘Pindars Hymnos auf Zeus’ in Die Entdeckung des Geistes (Göttingen 1975) 87.

29 Heiter (n. 5) 100 = 412.

30 Thus already Wilamowitz (n. 2) 81 n. 1, cf. also Dornseiff, F., ‘Kallimachos' Hymnos auf Artemis’, PhW lvi (1936) 733–734 and Bornmann (n. 1) xvi-xvii.Google Scholar

31 Many were adduced by Dornseiff, (n. 30) 733–736, cf. idem, Die archaische Mythenerzählung (Berlin 1933) 76–77Google Scholar; others by Bornmann (n. 1) xvi-xvii. But there are any number that they missed, and all are worth rehearsing here.

32 On the question of the original separateness of the Delian and Pythian Hymns to Apollo, and how they were united, cf. West, M.L., ‘Cynaethus' hymn to Apollo’, CQ xxv (1975) 161–170CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Burkert, W., ‘Kynaithos, Polycrates, and the homeric hymn to Apollo’, in Arktowos, Festschr. B.W.M. Knox (New York 1979) 53–62Google Scholar; Janko, R., Homer, Hesiod and the hymns (Cambridge 1982).Google Scholar

33 On this section cf. Bing, P., ‘Callimachus' cows: a riddling recusatio’, ZPE liv (1984) 1–8Google Scholar and ‘Boves errantes’, ZPE lvi (1984) 16, both reproduced in abbreviated form in The well-read muse: present and past in Callimachus and the hellenistic poets (Göttingen 1988) 83–89.

34 Wilamowitz (n. 2) 58.

35 The circle-dance also functions as an organizing principle in the Hymn to Delos. For this and other striking resemblances between the two hymns, cf. Bing 1988 (n. 33) 125–128 and 126 n. 57.

36 In earlier epic the only comparable passage is Iliad xvi 692ff., where the poet likewise puts questions to his own theme (Patroklos). For a contrast of these two passages cf. Bing 1988 (n. 33) 36–37.

37 ‘Si noti la forte contrapposizione…che colloca il poeta in una posizione di privilegio di fronte agli altri. Questa posizione versa la divinità si avvicina molto a quella del poeta-spettatore degli inni mimici II, V, VI. Dalla sostituzione delle Muse con Artemide scaturisce un rapporto del tutto personale del poeta con la dea’, Bornmann (n. 1) 89, ad 186.

38 Is the section intended to recall the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women? In other words, does the question ποίας ὴρωίδας ἔσχες ὲταίρας; (185) imply an answer such as ἤ οἵη? With Reinsch-Werner (n. 21) 202–204, we believe that it does.

39 φίλαο (189), ὲταρίσσαο, ἔδωκας (206), ἐθήκαο (210), φιλῆσαι (211), ᾔνησας (215), ἑδίδαξας (217).

40 The same can be said of the prominence given here to the settings of Crete and Arcadia which, as we recall, were precisely the places that were important for Artemis' development in the early part of the poem (41–45 and 87–109).

41 We are tempted to take μέγα in the closing verse (χαῖρε μέγα κρείουσα 268) as functioning ἀπὸ κοινοῦ. Artemis would thus ‘rejoice greatly’ in that she ‘rules greatly’ and one could take the latter phrase as a pointed reference to her entire sphere of influence, comprising both the outdoors realm and that of civilization.