A convergence of visual narration as pattern-woven into a fabric and as metalworked into bronze is re-enacted in the picture that I am about to analyze.
This picture, metalworked into the surface of the Shield of Achilles in Iliad XVIII, is a Homeric masterpiece of ekphrasis. I have in mind here the most basic sense of this technical term ekphrasis, which is, an imitation of visual art by verbal art. In this case, the verbal art of poetry performs a narration that was supposedly performed by the visual art of metalwork in bronze. And the poetry visualizes the performer of this narration as none other than the god of metalwork himself, the divine smith Hephaistos, whose primary medium of metalwork is bronze, as we know from the Homeric description of the god as a khalkeus ‘bronzeworker’ (Iliad XV 309).
The performance of metalwork by Hephaistos, as we will see, is expressed by way of a powerful metaphor: in the extract that I am about to quote from Iliad XVIII, the god’s act of metalworking his narration into a surface of bronze is compared to an act of pattern-weaving that same narration into the substance of a fabric, as if he were making a peplos. And the word here for ‘pattern-weaving’ is poikillein, which occurs in the very first line of my quoted extract:
4-A
|590 The renowned one [= Hephaistos], the one with the two strong arms, pattern-wove [poikillein][1] into it [= the Shield of Achilles] a place for singing-and-dancing [khoros].[2] |591 It [= the khoros] was just like the one that, once upon a time in far-ruling Knossos, |592 Daedalus made for Ariadne, the one with the beautiful tresses [plokamoi]. |593 There were young men there,[3] and young women who are courted with gifts of cattle, |594 and they all were dancing [orkheîsthai] with each other, holding hands at the wrist. |595 The girls were wearing delicate dresses, while the boys were clothed in tunics [khitōn plural] |596 well woven, gleaming exquisitely, with a touch of olive oil. |597 The girls had beautiful garlands [stephanai], while the boys had knives |598 made of gold, hanging from knife-belts made of silver. |599 Half the time they moved fast in a circle, with expert steps, |600 showing the greatest ease, as when a wheel, solidly built, is given a spin by the hands |601 of a seated potter, who is testing it whether it will run well. |602 The other half of the time they moved fast in straight lines, alongside each other. |603 A huge crowd stood around the place of the song-and-dance [khoros] that rouses desire, |604 and they were feeling delight [terpesthai];[4] in their midst sang-and-danced [melpesthai] a divine singer [aoidos], |605 playing on the special lyre [phorminx];[5] two special dancers [kubistētēre] among them |606 were swirling as he led [ex-arkhein][6] the singing-and-dancing [molpē] in their midst.
Iliad XVIII 590-606[7]
Special note: as in the other ten passages in the sequence of Extracts 4-A through 4-K, I highlight here the context of terpesthai ‘feeling delight’ at line 604.
In contemplating this picture, the mind’s eye sees the metalwork executed by the god Hephaistos, that ultimate bronzeworker: as I have already noted, that is what Hephaistos is actually called by Homeric poetry, a khalkeus ‘bronzeworker’ (Iliad XV 309). Metaphorically, however, the actual epic narration of the Shield in the Iliad is figured not only as metalwork, specifically as bronzework, but also as pattern-weaving: we have just seen the decisive word, poikillein, in the first line of the extract I just quoted (XVIII 590).
♢Back to pattern-weaving as a metaphor for Homeric poetry
The craft of pattern-weaving is especially privileged as a metaphor for the craft of metalworking, since it is also a metaphor for the craft of making Homeric poetry, as we saw in Part Two when we considered the Iliadic passages picturing the web that was pattern-woven by Andromache, quoted in Extract 2-O, and the web that was pattern-woven by Helen, quoted in Extract 2-P. Virgil understood this privileging of the metaphor of pattern-weaving: in the Aeneid, the metalwork of the divine smith Vulcan in producing the Shield of Aeneas is described there as an act of weaving a ‘web’, a textus (Aeneid 8.625).[8]
So, the ekphrasis of the Shield of Achilles in Iliad XVIII is one step removed from a metaphor for Homeric poetry, since the metaphor that compares the metalworking of this Shield to the pattern-weaving of a web can be seen as an ingenious substitution for the metaphor that compares the making of Homeric poetry itself to this same privileged process of pattern-weaving.
♢Pattern-weaving Homer himself into his own web
Having just considered again the centrality of pattern-weaving as a metaphor for the verbal art of Homeric poetry, this time in the context of lines 590-606 in Iliad XVIII, quoted in Extract 4-A, I now take a closer look at lines 603-606 in that same extract. We find in these four lines something we see nowhere else in texts of the Iliad as they have survived into our time. Right in the center of the festive scene that is pattern-woven into the metaphorical web of pictures created by Homeric poetry is a singer who is none other than Homer himself.
Perhaps this Homer is not the kind of Homer we may have expected to find, but here he is, for all to see. That is what I will now argue.
♢Homer as a lead singer
In arguing that the singer we see in lines 603-606 of Iliad XVIII is meant to be Homer himself, I start by focusing on the fact that this singer is shown here in the act of taking the lead in the performance of a khoros. This word khoros means ‘chorus’ in the sense of a singing-and-dancing group.[9] I quickly add here in passing that I have started to use hyphens in saying singing-and-dancing, but I will postpone till a later point my rationale for using such a format.
To reword my argument in terms of this meaning of khoros ‘chorus’ as a singing-and-dancing group, I am saying that Homer in the present context is imagined as a lead singer who participates in the singing-and-dancing of such a choral group. In making this argument, I will highlight five words that we find in lines 603-606 of Iliad XVIII. I start by quoting again these four lines:
4-B (four lines re-quoted from 4-A)
|603 A huge crowd stood around the place of the song-and-dance [khoros] that rouses desire, |604 and they were feeling delight [terpesthai]; in their midst sang-and-danced [melpesthai] a divine singer [aoidos], |605 playing on the special lyre [phorminx];[10] two special dancers [kubistētēre] among them |606 were swirling as he led [ex-arkhein][11] the singing-and-dancing [molpē] in their midst.
Iliad XVIII 603-606[12]
Special note: as in the other ten passages in the sequence of Extracts 4-A through 4-K, I highlight here the context of terpesthai ‘feeling delight’ at line 604.
I have already indicated, in the special note immediately above, the first of the five words that especially concern me in Extract 4-B here, which is terpesthai ‘feeling delight’ at line 604. But I am not yet ready to explain my reasons for highlighting this word.
So, without any further explanation for now, I proceed to the second of the five words that I highlight here, which is the noun khoros ‘chorus’ at line 603. In general, as I have already observed with reference to an earlier occurrence of khoros, at line 590 as quoted in Extract 4-A, this word can refer not only to a choral group of singers-and-dancers but also to the place where the singing-and-dancing happens, and the relationship of the place to the group inside that place is a fine example of synecdoche: the place for the grouping is seen as the grouping itself. And, to return to my translation of line 603, the word khoros in this context can refer not only to a singing-and-dancing group but also to the place where the group is performing.
The third and the fourth words that I highlight here in lines 603-606 of Iliad XVIII are the verb melpesthai at line 604 and the noun molpē at line 606: both of these words, as we know from other contexts, refer to the combined activities of singing and dancing in a khoros or choral group.[13] Because these words melpesthai and molpē combine the idea of singing with the idea of dancing, I will consistently translate them in a hyphenated format, ‘singing-and-dancing’. In fact, I have been using this format from the start in defining the word khoros as a ‘singing-and-dancing group’, in order to highlight the fact that this Greek word khoros, unlike the borrowed English word chorus, includes dance.
The fifth and last word that I highlight in this passage is the verb ex-arkhein at line 606, which signals an individuated act of performance that interacts with the collective performance of a khoros as a singing-and-dancing group.[14]
I now offer an overall interpretation of Iliad XVIII 603-606, as just quoted in Extract 4-B, in which these five words occur. I focus on the picturing of an individuated singer who is singing while playing on a phorminx, which is a special kind of lyre. He is flanked by two individuated dancers, kubistētēre. The three of them are surrounded by a choral group of radiant young men and women who are not only dancing but also evidently singing, as we see from the contexts of the words khoros at line 603 and melpesthai / molpē at lines 604 /606. The lead singer himself is not only singing but also dancing - or at least he is participating in the overall choral dancing, as we see again from the contexts of the words melpesthai / molpē at lines 604 /606. So, this lead singer too is part of the overall khoros. And all of them - the lead singer together with the choral group - are performing to the delight of a huge crowd. Here I come back to the programmatic word terpesthai ‘feeling delight’ at line 604.
I said a while ago that Homer, as pattern-woven into the metaphorical web created by Homeric poetry, is here for all to see. But now I must add a major qualification. The fact is, Homer is “here” only in one version of the Homeric textual tradition. We will now consider an alternative version - and this version is the one that actually survives in the medieval manuscripts - where we see no Homer at all. I now show the text of this alternative version:
4-C (three lines different in meaning from the four lines quoted in 4-B)
|603 A huge crowd stood around the place of the song-and-dance [khoros] that rouses desire, |604 and they were feeling delight [terpesthai]; in their midst sang-and-danced [melpesthai] a divine singer [aoidos], |605 playing on the special lyre [phorminx];[15] two special dancers [kubistētēre] among them |606 were swirling as they led [ex-arkhein][16] the singing-and-dancing [molpē] in their midst.
Iliad XVIII 603-606[17]
Special note: as in the other ten passages in the sequence of Extracts 4-A through 4-K, I highlight here the context of terpesthai ‘feeling delight’ at line 604.
A part of the wording here - the part that I indicate with a double strikethrough - is not attested in the medieval manuscript tradition: ‘|604 and they were feeling delight [terpesthai]; in their midst sang-and-danced [melpesthai] a divine singer [aoidos], |605 playing on the special lyre [phorminx]; two special dancers [kubistētēre] among them |606 …’.[18] This missing part in Iliad XVIII 603-606 was restored by Friedrich August Wolf in his 1804 edition of the Iliad, and the relevant line-numbering 604-605 in current editions of the Iliad reflects that restoration, going back to the edition of Wolf.[19] The restoration, as I call it, is based on what we read in a source that dates back to the late second century CE, Athenaeus (his relevant text can be found at 5.180c-e, 181a-f).[20] From this source, we learn about the treatment of Iliad XVIII 603-606 in the Homeric text edited by Aristarchus, whose editorial work can be dated to the middle of the second century BCE. As we learn from Athenaeus (5.181c), Aristarchus rejected as un-Homeric the part of the wording that I have translated this way: ‘|604 … in their midst sang-and-danced [melpesthai] a divine singer [aoidos], |605 playing on the special lyre [phorminx] … |606 …’.[21] But, as we also learn from Athenaeus (again 5.181c), Aristarchus did not reject the same wording in another Homeric context, at Odyssey iv 17-18, where we read once again: ‘|17 … in their midst sang-and-danced [melpesthai] a divine singer [aoidos], |18 playing on the special lyre [phorminx] … |19 …’.[22] And, in fact, this wording is preserved for Odyssey iv 17-18 in the medieval manuscript tradition.
I quote here the full context of the passage I just cited from the Odyssey:
4-D
|15 So they feasted throughout the big palace with its high ceilings, |16 both the neighbors and the kinsmen of glorious Menelaos, |17 and they were feeling delight [terpesthai]; in their midst sang-and-danced [melpesthai] a divine singer [aoidos], |18 playing on the special lyre [phorminx]; two special dancers [kubistētēre] among them |19 were swirling as he led [ex-arkhein][23] the singing-and-dancing [molpē] in their midst.
Odyssey iv 15-19[24]
Special note: as in the other ten passages in the sequence of Extracts 4-A through 4-K, I highlight here the context of terpesthai ‘feeling delight’ at line 17.
I just quoted the reading ‘as he led’ (ex-arkhontos), indicated by Athenaeus (5.180d, 5.181d) both for this line, at Odyssey iv 19, and for the line at Iliad XVIII 606.[25] With regard to this reading, Athenaeus (5.180d) also indicates that the editor Aristarchus and his followers had accepted an alternative reading ‘as they led’ (ex-arkhontes) at Odyssey iv 19 - as also in Iliad XVIII 606.[26] In fact, it is this alternative reading (ex-arkhontes) that we find preserved in the medieval manuscripts of both the Iliad and the Odyssey. Still, as the wording of Athenaeus indicates further, his own preferred reading ‘as he led’ (ex-arkhontos) existed in ancient times as a textual variant that had been noted by Aristarchus - even though that editor preferred the alternative textual variant ‘as they led’ (ex-arkhontes).
I focus here on the methodology of Aristarchus in making these judgments. Here was a scholar whom the ancient world generally acclaimed as the greatest of all experts in the editing of the Homeric texts. His working procedure was to track variations in the Homeric textual tradition by collating manuscripts that were available to him - and then to publish in his hupomnēmata or ‘commentaries’ his scholarly judgments in choosing which textual variants were authentically Homeric and which ones were supposedly not.[27] In the case of line 606 in Iliad XVIII, I argue, we are dealing with two textual variants that were known to Aristarchus, ‘as he led’ (ex-arkhontos) and ‘as they led’ (ex-arkhontes); in his commentaries, he evidently expressed his judgment that the second of these variants was authentically Homeric while the first was supposedly un-Homeric.[28] Then, about 350 years later, Athenaeus seized an opportunity to show off his own learning by criticizing this particular judgment of Aristarchus about the two textual variants, arguing that the authentically Homeric version is really the first one, ‘as he led’ (ex-arkhontos) and not the second one, ‘as they led’ (ex-arkhontes). In the larger context of the passage where this line 606 occurs, that is, in lines 603-606 of Iliad XVIII, Aristarchus had evidently found a related textual variation, in the form of a longer four-line version as quoted in Extract 4-B and a shorter three-line version as quoted in Extract 4-C. In the case of these lines 603-606 of Iliad XVIII, Aristarchus judged the shorter three-line textual variant of this passage to be the authentically Homeric one. And the three-line variant requires the reading ‘as they led’ (ex-arkhontes), since there exists in this version no singular referent to which the alternative reading ‘as he led’ (ex-arkhontos) could refer. Only in the case of the four-line variant could there be room for allowing either the reading ‘as they led’ (ex-arkhontes), with the plural referent, or the reading ‘as he led’ (ex-arkhontos), with the singular referent. In this case, it all depends on whether the leading of the chorus is ascribed respectively to the one singer or to the two dancers. And, here again, Aristarchus is criticized for his judgment by Athenaeus, who argues on the basis of comparable contexts that only a singer can lead off a choral performance, not dancers. In terms of this criticism, only the longer four-line version could be authentic, and, even in this case, such a longer version would require the reading ‘as he led’ (ex-arkhontos), which refers to the singer, since the reading ‘as they led’ (ex-arkhontes) would be simply wrong.
In terms of my argument, however, the authenticity of the longer version does not rule out the possibility that the shorter version is also authentic. As we will see, both versions can be authenticated. And what really matters, I argue, is that Aristarchus in the course of his collating Homeric manuscripts could verify here the existence of both a longer and a shorter textual variant, and that he makes note of the variation itself in his commentaries.[29] What Athenaeus is criticizing here is simply the judgment of Aristarchus in preferring one textual variant instead of another. But the fact is, if Aristachus had not mentioned two variants in this case, Athenaeus would have had nothing to criticize.
More important for now, both of the textual variants at line 606 of Iliad XVIII, ‘as he led’ (ex-arkhontos) and ‘as they led’ (ex-arkhontes), can be shown to be formulaic variants as well.[30] To say it more forcefully, the existence of these forms as textual variants was determined by their pre-existence as formulaic variants.
Here is what I mean. The form and the meaning of both variants can be explained in terms of variations that existed in the formulaic system of the Homeric language, which stemmed from an oral poetic tradition and thus did not depend on the technology of writing for either the composition or the performance of Homeric poetry. Just as any language is a system, so also the special language of Homeric poetry was a system, albeit a specialized one, and therefore this special language has to be analyzed as a system in its own right. The basic formal components of this system are known as formulas, and that is why I describe Homeric poetry in terms of a formulaic system. In using these terms formulas and formulaic system, I follow the lead of Milman Parry and Albert Lord, who perfected a methodology for analyzing the textual tradition of Homeric poetry in terms of the formulaic system underlying the textualization of this poetry.[31]
So, applying the approach of Parry and Lord, I am arguing that the variants ‘as he led’ (ex-arkhontos) and ‘as they led’ (ex-arkhontes), attested in Odyssey iv 19 and in Iliad XVIII 606, are independent of the Homeric textual tradition and depend instead on pre-existing variations that derive from the formulaic system of Homeric poetry.[32]
These two variants, I will now go on to argue, stem from two different narrative scenarios corresponding to the longer and the shorter versions of the wording transmitted for lines 603-606 of Iliad XVIII. According to the shorter version as signaled by ‘as they led’ (ex-arkhontes) at line 606, which is the reading I quote in Extract 4-C, it is the two individuated dancers whose performance leads into the choral singing-and-dancing. According to the longer version as signaled by ‘as he led’ (ex-arkhontos), which is the reading I quote in Extract 4-B, the individuated singer combines his performance with the corresponding performance of two individuated dancers who flank him as he leads into the choral singing-and-dancing.
These two scenarios both resemble, in different ways, what happens in Odyssey viii when Demodokos the blind singer performs the second of his three songs:
4-E
|250 [Alkinoos is speaking.] “Let’s get started. I want the best of the Phaeacian acrobatic dancers [bētarmones] |251 to perform their sportive dance [paizein],[33] so that the stranger, our guest, will be able to tell his near-and-dear ones, |252 when he gets home, how much better we (Phaeacians) are than anyone else |253 in sailing and in footwork, in dance [orkhēstus] and song [aoidē]. |254 One of you go and get for Demodokos the clear-sounding special lyre [phorminx], |255 bringing it to him. It is in the palace somewhere.” |256 Thus spoke Alkinoos, the one who looks like the gods, and the herald [kērux] got up, |257 ready to bring the well carved phorminx from the palace of the king. |258 And the organizers [aisumnētai], the nine selectmen, all got up |259 - they belonged to the district [dēmos] - and they started arranging everything according to the rules of the competition [agōn]: |260 they made smooth the place of the singing-and-dancing [khoros], and they made a wide space of competition [agōn]. |261 The herald [kērux] came near, bringing the clear-sounding phorminx |262 for Demodokos. He moved to the center [es meson] of the space. At his right and at his left were boys [kouroi] |263 in the first stage of adolescence [prōthēboi], standing there, well versed in dancing [orkhēthmos]. |264 They pounded out with their feet a dance [khoros], a thing of wonder, and Odysseus |265 was observing the sparkling footwork. He was amazed in his heart [thūmos]. |266 And he [= Demodokos], playing on the phorminx [phormizein], started [anaballesthai] singing beautifully |267 about [amphi] the bonding [philotēs] of Ares and of Aphrodite, the one with the beautiful garlands [stephanoi], |268 about how they, at the very beginning,[34] mated with each other in the palace of Hephaistos, |269 in secret. [The story that has just started at line 266 now continues, ending at line 366.] |367 These things, then, the singer [aoidos] was singing [aeidein], that very famous singer. As for Odysseus, |368 he felt delight [terpesthai] in his heart as he was listening - and so too did all the others feel, |369 the Phaeacians, those men with their long oars, men famed for their ships.
Odyssey viii 250-269, 367-369[35]
Special note: as in the other ten passages in the sequence of Extracts 4-A through 4-K, I highlight here the context of terpesthai ‘feeling delight’ at line 368.
I paraphrase what we have just seen narrated here, in the larger context of Odyssey viii 248-380.[36] To start, a special lyre called the phorminx is brought to Demodokos (lines 254, 257), and then he proceeds es meson ‘to the center’ (262) of the space where the performance is to take place; that space is a khoros ‘chorus’ (260) - and we have already seen that this word can refer both to a singing-and-dancing group and to the place where the group performs. This space has been smoothed over (260), and it is enveloped by a wider overall space that is marked out for accommodating a vast assembly of people attending what is described here as a competitive event. The one word that is used in this context to express two meanings, both ‘assembly of people’ and ‘competitive event’, is agōn (259 and 260). Participating in this competitive event of choral performance are the young men of the Phaeacians, who are described as specially skilled performers at such events (248-253); among the words that we see in this description are khoroi ‘choruses’ (248), orkhēstus ‘dancing’ (253), and aoidē ‘singing’ (253). Also participating in this competitive event is the singer in the center, Demodokos himself. When this singer makes his way es meson ‘to the center’ (again, 262) of the space set aside for the performance, he is surrounded by kouroi ‘boys’ (262) whose nimble feet are already pounding out the rhythm of the song on the surface of the space set aside for singing-and-dancing. And the word for this space here again is khoros (264). Meanwhile the singer starts ‘singing’, aeidein (266), while accompanying himself on the special lyre called the phorminx (266). His song, about the love affair of Ares and Aphrodite, is now retold, and the retelling takes one hundred lines exactly within the framing narrative of the Odyssey: he starts at 266 and ends at 366. So, what is the reaction of the disguised Odysseus, who is the primary character attending this performance of Demodokos? The answer is, as we see in the text as I quoted it here in Extract 4-E, Odysseus terpeto ‘felt delight’ (368), and the same delighted reaction was experienced, it is said, by everyone else attending the performance (368-369). Then the virtuoso song of this individuated singer Demodokos leads into a virtuoso performance by two individuated dancers (370-379). Responding to these dancers in choral performance are the rest of the kouroi ‘boys’ (379-380).
So, in the formulaic wording that I have just paraphrased from Odyssey viii, we find a wealth of free-standing comparative evidence that I can cite in support of authenticating both the longer and the shorter versions of lines 603-606 in Iliad XVIII, as quoted respectively in Extract 4-B and Extract 4-C. These two different versions, I argue, would have suited two different eras in the evolution of Homeric poetry as a formulaic system. In an earlier era, Homer would have been appreciated as a lead singer who could interact with choral singing-and-dancing; in a later era, by contrast, he would be a solo singer, and so he could no longer fit into a festive scene of choral performance.
For the moment, I highlight one detail that stands out in the longer and older version of lines 603-606 in Iliad XVIII as quoted in Extract 4-B: there is an individuated lead singer here, flanked by two individuated dancers, and this picture matches closely what we see in Odyssey viii 370-379, which likewise shows an individuated lead singer flanked by two individuated dancers. Conversely, the focus on the two individuated dancers instead of the one individuated singer in this part of the description in Odyssey viii 370-379 is comparable to what we see in the shorter and newer version of lines 603-606 in Iliad XVIII, quoted in Extract 4-C, where the figure of the lead singer is occluded - and thus excluded from any possibility of interacting with the choral performance that is being described.
Pursuing further my argument that the Iliad, like the Odyssey, shows a lead singer whose performance interacts with choral singing-and-dancing, I now come to a new piece of evidence. We see it in Odyssey xiii, where the singer Demodokos performs one last song before Odysseus leaves the land of the Phaeacians. The occasion is most festive, marking the conclusion of the overall festivities that had started in Odyssey viii - and had continued ever since then. Bringing these festivities to a spectacular close, Alkinoos the king of the Phaeacians slaughters a sacrificial ox to the god Zeus, and this animal sacrifice is the cue for Demodokos to emerge once again as the lead singer in the midst of a festive crowd:
4-F
|24 On their [= the Phaeacians’] behalf Alkinoos, the one with the holy power, sacrificed an ox |25 to Zeus, the one who brings dark clouds, the son of Kronos, and he rules over all. |26 Then, after burning the thigh-pieces, they feasted, feasting most gloriously, |27 and they were feeling delight [terpesthai]; in their midst sang-and-danced [melpesthai] the divine singer [aoidos], |28 Demodokos, honored by the people.
Odyssey xiii 24-28[37]
Special note: as in the other ten passages in the sequence of Extracts 4-A through 4-K, I highlight here the context of terpesthai ‘feeling delight’ at line 27.
We see here in line 27 of Odyssey xiii exactly the same wording that we saw in line 17 of Odyssey iv, quoted in Extract 4-D. More important, we see the same wording also in line 604 of Iliad XVIII, quoted in Extract 4-B and already in Extract 4-A, that is, in the line that shows a part of the longer version of Iliad XVIII 603-606 as restored by Wolf. In each one of these three lines that I just listed, Odyssey xiii 27 and iv 17 and Iliad XVIII 604, a solo singer is shown, but the individuated soloist is leading into a choral song combined with dance, as signaled by the word melpesthai in all three contexts. This word, as we have seen, combines the idea of singing with the idea of dancing - that is, choral dancing. That is why I have translated melpesthai all along in a hyphenated format, ‘singing-and-dancing’.
The passage I have just quoted in Extract 4-F from Odyssey xiii 24-28 is a most decisive piece of comparative evidence validating the authenticity of the corresponding passage in the longer version of Iliad XVIII 603-606, quoted earlier in Extract 4-B and even earlier in Extract 4-A. Both of these two passages show an individuated lead singer in the midst of a festive crowd surrounding a choral performance that brings delight to all. Both in Odyssey xiii 27 and in Iliad XVIII 604, the decisive word that shows the interaction of the individuated lead singer with choral performance is melpesthai ‘sing-and-dance’.[38] But the passage in Odyssey xiii 24-28 occludes any direct mention of dancers, thus differing from the corresponding passage in the longer version of Iliad XVIII 603-606, which highlights two individuated dancers as well as a chorus. Conversely, the passage in the shorter version of Iliad XVIII 603-606, quoted earlier in Extract 4-C, occludes any direct mention of a singer, thus differing from the corresponding passage in Odyssey xiii 24-28, quoted just now in Extract 4-F, which highlights Demodokos as an individuated lead singer.
The decisive evidence of this passage in Odyssey xiii 24-28 is missing from the reportage of Athenaeus (5.181c) about the editorial decisions of Aristarchus concerning Odyssey iv 15-19 and Iliad XVIII 603-606. And it is missing also from the argumentations of those who build theories about various kinds of textual interpolation; according to one such theory, for example, the longer version of Iliad XVIII 604-605 results from some kind of “rhapsodic intervention,” which supposedly happened at some undetermined stage in the history the Homeric textual tradition.[39] The problem with this kind of theorizing is that it fails to account for the formulaic nature of such an “intervention.”[40] As we have seen by now, the evidence of the wording in Iliad XVIII 604-605 indicates that both the shorter and the longer versions result from formulaic variation.[41]
♢Homer as the lead singer of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo
So far, I have highlighted three Homeric passages, two of them in the Odyssey and one in the Iliad, where we see a lead singer interacting with the performance of a choral group. Now we turn to the Homeric Hymn (3) to Apollo, where we are about to see once again a lead singer in the act of interacting with a choral performance. And, in this case, we have evidence from the historical period that the lead singer was actually recognized as Homer himself, as we learn from the explicit testimony of the historian Thucydides:
4-G
|3.104.2 … After the ritual purification [of the sacred island of Delos], the Athenians at that point for the first time turned the festival known as the Delia into a quadrennial [instead of an annual] festival. |3.104.3 Even in the remote past, there had been at Delos a great [annual] coming together of Ionians and neighboring islanders [nēsiōtai], and they were celebrating [ἐθεώρουν ‘were making theōriā’] along with their wives and children, just as the Ionians in our own times come together [= at Ephesus] for [the festival of] the Ephesia. A competition [agōn] was held there [= in Delos], both in athletics and in mousikē (tekhnē),[42] and the cities brought choruses [khoroi]. |3.104.4 Homer makes it most clear that such was the case in the following verses [epos plural], which come from a prooimion[43] of Apollo:
[[beginning of quotation by Thucydides]] |146 But when, O Phoebus [Apollo], in Delos more than anywhere else you feel delight [terpesthai] in your heart [thūmos], |147 there the Ionians, with tunics [khitōn plural] trailing, gather |148 with their children and their wives, along the causeway [aguia],[44] |149 and there with boxing [pugmakhiē] and dancing [orkhēstus] and song [aoidē] |150 they have you in mind and make you feel delight [terpein], whenever they set up a competition [agōn]. [[end of quotation by Thucydides, who now resumes his own comments]]
|3.104.5 That there was also a competition [agōn] in mousikē (tekhnē),[45] in which the Ionians went to engage in competition [agōnizesthai], again is made clear by him [= Homer] in the following verses, taken from the same prooimion.[46] After making the subject of his hymn [humnos] the Delian chorus [khoros] of women, he was drawing toward the completion [telos] of his song of praise, drawing toward these verses [epos plural], in which he also makes mention of himself -
[[beginning of further quotation by Thucydides]] |165 But come now, may Apollo be gracious, along with Artemis; |166 and you all also, hail [khairete] and take pleasure, all of you [Maidens of Delos]. Keep me, even in the future, |167 in your mind, whenever someone, out of the whole mass of earthbound humanity, |168 comes here [to Delos], after arduous wandering, someone else, and asks this question: |169 “O Maidens, who is for you the most pleasurable of singers |170 that wanders here? In whom do you take the most delight [terpesthai]?” |171 Then you, all of you [Maidens of Delos], must very properly respond [hupokrinasthai], without naming names [aphēmōs]:[47] |172 “It is a blind man, and he dwells in Chios, a rugged land.” [[end of quotation by Thucydides, who now resumes his own comments]]
|3.104.6 So much for the evidence given by Homer concerning the fact that there was even in the remote past a great coming together and festival [heortē] at Delos; later on, the islanders [nēsiōtai] and the Athenians continued to send choruses [khoroi], along with sacrificial offerings, but various misfortunes evidently caused the discontinuation of the things concerning the competitions [agōnes] and most other things - that is, up to the time in question [= the time of the ritual purification] when the Athenians set up the [quadrennial] competition [agōn], including chariot races [hippodromiai], which had not taken place before then.
Thucydides 3.104.3-6[48]
Special note: as in the other ten passages in the sequence of Extracts 4-A through 4-K, I highlight here the contexts of terpesthai ‘feeling delight’ at lines 146 and 170 of the Homeric Hymn as quoted here.
The two sequences of verses here, as quoted by Thucydides and as attributed by him to Homer himself as the speaker of these verses, correspond to the following sequences of verses transmitted by the medieval manuscript traditions of the Homeric Hymn (3) to Apollo:
4-H
|146 But you, O Phoebus [Apollo], in Delos more than anywhere else feel delight [terpesthai] in your heart [ētor], |147 where the Ionians, with tunics [khitōn plural] trailing, gather |148 with their children and their circumspect wives. |149 And they with boxing and dancing [orkhēthmos] and song [aoidē] |150 have you in mind and make you feel delight [terpein], whenever they set up a competition [agōn].
Homeric Hymn (3) to Apollo 146-150[49]
Special note: as in the other ten passages in the sequence of Extracts 4-A through 4-K, I highlight here the context of terpesthai ‘feeling delight’ at line 146.
4-I
|165 But come now, may Apollo be gracious, along with Artemis; |166 and you all also, hail [khairete] and take pleasure, all of you [Maidens of Delos]. Keep me, even in the future, |167 in your mind, whenever someone, out of the whole mass of earthbound humanity, |168 arrives here [to Delos], after arduous wandering, as a guest entitled to the rules of hosting, and asks this question: |169 “O Maidens, who is for you the most pleasurable of singers |170 that wanders here? In whom do you take the most delight [terpesthai]?” |171 Then you, all of you [Maidens of Delos], must very properly respond [hupokrinasthai] about me [aph’ hēmeōn]: |172 “It is a blind man, and he dwells in Chios, a rugged land.”
Homeric Hymn (3) to Apollo 165-172[50]
Special note: as in the other ten passages in the sequence of Extracts 4-A through 4-K, I highlight here the context of terpesthai ‘feeling delight’ at line 170.
At line 171 of this version as we find it in the medieval manuscript tradition, I show the variant reading aph’ hēmeōn (ἀφ’ ἡμέων). There are other corresponding variant readings also attested in the manuscripts, but I single out this one because it is comparable in its formulaic function to the variant reading aphēmōs (ἀφήμως) that we have already seen in the version quoted by Thucydides. I translate the variant reading aph’ hēmeōn (ἀφ’ ἡμέων) as ‘about me’, to be contrasted with the variant reading aphēmōs (ἀφήμως), which I translated as meaning ‘without naming names’. As I will argue, both aph’ hēmeōn and aphēmōs are authentic formulaic variants, and both of them are relevant to the role of Homer as lead singer. In both versions, as we will see, the context is opaque and riddling.
♢The riddling of Homer in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo
In the case of the variant aph’ hēmeōn at line 171 of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo in a version that survives in the medieval manuscript tradition, as we read it in Extract 4-I, my translation ‘about me’ is a cover for the deeper meaning of this expression, which is ‘by me’. As I will argue, the Maidens of Delos are being prompted ‘by me’ to respond dialogically to a question ‘about me’.[51] And the reference to ‘me’ here, as we will see, is a riddling way of referring to Homer himself. The wording of Homer is coming ‘from me’ and is thus worded ‘by me’ to become the wording ‘about me’.
Similarly in the case of the variant aphēmōs in the version of line 171 quoted by Thucydides, as we read in in Extract 4-G, the meaning ‘without naming names’ signals the fact that the Maidens are being prompted to identify Homer in a riddling way, without naming him directly.[52]
And who are these Maidens of Delos, so prominently featured here in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo? As I argue in the book Homer the Classic, the Hymn pictures the Maidens as the local Muses of Delos who sing-and-dance as a prototypical chorus, which is parallel to the picturing of Homer as a prototypical lead singer.[53]
In this context of choral performance, I highlight the fact that the Delian Maidens in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo are described as masters of mimesis or ‘re-enactment’ (verb mīmeîsthai at verse 163).[54] This reference is saying something that is fundamentally true about choral performance in general, which as we know from the surviving textual evidence is highly mimetic. A shining example is the extant body of choral “lyric” songs composed by Pindar in the fifth century BCE.[55]
At a later point in my argumentation, I will elaborate on the mimetic power of Pindar’s songs. For now, however, I extend the analysis from the medium of choral performance to another medium. What I just said about choral performance applies to the medium of rhapsodic performance as well: this medium too is highly mimetic. A most striking example is the interaction of Homer with the Delian Maidens in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. In this hymn, as we will now see, the rhapsodic medium is making a mimesis of the choral medium.
When I say rhapsodic here, I am referring to a non-choral medium of performance, which is a medium that is not sung-and-danced and not even sung - but recited. As I already noted in Part One, this medium of recitative performance was practiced by professional performers known as rhapsōidoi ‘rhapsodes’, who both competed and collaborated with each other in the performance of epic at Panhellenic festivals like the Panathenaia in Athens. I have studied this rhapsodic medium extensively in other projects, especially in the book Plato’s Rhapsody and Homer’s Music, and I present here only a brief summary of what is relevant to my ongoing argument.[56]
Presiding over the rhapsodic competitions at the festival of the Panathenaia, as we know from a fleeting reference in Plato’s Ion (Ion 530d), were the Homēridai, who were a corporation of epic performers stemming from the island of Chios and claiming to be descended from Homer himself.[57] These Homēridai, masters of rhapsodic performance, also performed hymns. Unlike other hymns, which were conventionally performed in a choral mode, the hymns of the Homēridai were composed as well as performed only in a rhapsodic mode, as characterized by a single meter known as the dactylic hexameter. And it is these hymns that have survived down to our time in a collection of hexametric hymns that we now call the Homeric Hymns. As for the choral mode of composing and performing hymns, it too has survived - in the form of choral “lyric” singing, characterized by a vast multiplicity of meters. I have already highlighted the example of choral “lyric” songs composed by Pindar in the fifth century BCE. As we will now see, the Homer of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo performs a mimesis of such a non-rhapsodic choral mode of singing when he interacts with the chorus of the Delian Maidens - though this interaction is composed in the rhapsodic medium of the dactylic hexameter.
In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, Homer re-enacts the Maidens by quoting what they say, which is said not in their own choral medium but in the rhapsodic medium of the Hymn.[58] So the medium of rhapsodic performance shows that it can make a mimesis of the medium of choral performance as exemplified by the Delian Maidens, who are described as the absolute masters of choral mimesis. This way, Homer demonstrates that he is the absolute master of rhapsodic mimesis.[59]
The argument can be taken further: the figure of Homer in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo is acting as a lead singer when he prompts the Delian Maidens to perform a response, in choral song-and-dance, to a question. As we will see, the question will be a perennial one, just as the response of the Maidens will be perennial.
To understand this question that is addressed to the Delian Maidens, we need to consider the entire context of the dialogue that takes place between them and Homer. The complete wording of this dialogue is not quoted by Thucydides, and we find it attested only in the medieval manuscript tradition of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. I now quote here the complete wording as preserved in that textual tradition:
4-J (including lines 165-172 as quoted already in 4-I)
|165 But come now, may Apollo be gracious, along with Artemis; |166 and you all also, hail [khairete] and take pleasure, all of you [Maidens of Delos]. Keep me, even in the future, |167 in your mind, whenever someone, out of the whole mass of earthbound humanity, |168 arrives here [to Delos], after arduous wandering, as a guest entitled to the rules of hosting, and asks this question: |169 “O Maidens, who is for you the most pleasurable of singers |170 that wanders here? In whom do you take the most delight [terpesthai]?” |171 Then you, all of you [Maidens of Delos], must very properly respond [hupokrinasthai] about me [aph’ hēmeōn]: |172 “It is a blind man, and he dwells in Chios, a rugged land. |173 and all his songs will in the future prevail as the very best.” |174 And I[60] in turn will carry your fame [kleos] as far over the earth |175 as I wander, throughout the cities of men, with their fair populations. |176 And they will all believe - I now see -[61] since it is genuine [etētumon]. |177 As for me, I will not leave off [lēgein] making far-shooting Apollo |178 [the subject of] my hymn [humnos] - the one with the silver quiver, who was borne by Leto of the fair tresses.
Homeric Hymn (3) to Apollo 165-178[62]
Special note: as in the other ten passages in the sequence of Extracts 4-A through 4-K, I highlight here the context of terpesthai ‘feeling delight’ at line 170.
Our first impression is that the question addressed here to the Delian Maidens, as quoted directly at lines 169-170, is simple and straightforward: ‘“|169 O Maidens, who is for you the most pleasurable of singers |170 that wanders here? In whom do you take the most delight [terpesthai]?”’.[63] And the response of the Maidens at line 172, as also quoted directly, seems likewise simple and straightforward: ‘“|172 It is a blind man, and he dwells in Chios, a rugged land”’.[64]
What complicates both the question and the answer, however, is that the person who originally asks the question seems at first to be distinct from Homer. Homer seems at first to be simply quoting the question. The original questioner is described at line 168 as some nameless wanderer who will come to visit Delos in the future. Let us consider again lines 167-168 in the medieval manuscript tradition, where the nameless wanderer who addresses the question to the Delian Maidens is described in this way: ‘“|167 … whenever someone, out of the whole mass of earthbound humanity, |168 arrives here [to Delos], after arduous wandering, as a guest entitled to the rules of hosting, and asks this question …”’.[65] So, it is as if someone other than Homer were asking the question quoted by Homer.
This complication is what turns both the question and the answer into a riddle, since the nameless questioner is kept distinct here from Homer, even though the description of this nameless person as a wanderer who claims the right to be treated as a guest makes him look as if he were Homer himself. After all, Homer too is a wanderer, just as the nameless questioner is a wanderer. And Homer is a wandering singer who claims the right to be treated as a guest at whatever place he visits, as we see later on at lines 174-175, where he describes in his own words the fame that he will create for the Delian Maidens: ‘|174 And I in turn will carry your fame [kleos] as far over the earth |175 as I wander, throughout the cities of men, with their fair populations’.[66]
Homer will create fame for the Delian Maidens as an act of reciprocation for the fame that the Maidens will create for Homer when they respond to the question in the words quoted by Homer himself. The difference is, the Maidens create fame for Homer in their role as singers-dancers who are stationary, while Homer creates fame for the Maidens in his role as a lead singer who is mobile, a wanderer. And Homer is the best of all wandering singers, as predicted by the wording of the question directly quoted at lines 169-170, where we read: ‘“|169 O Maidens, who is for you the most pleasurable of singers |170 that wanders here?…”’.[67] This question already presupposes that Homer is that wandering singer. So, now the meaning loops back again to lines 167-168, where the person who addresses the question to the Delian Maidens is described in this way: ‘“|167 … whenever someone, out of the whole mass of earthbound humanity, |168 arrives here [to Delos], after arduous wandering, as a guest entitled to the rules of hosting, and asks this question …”’.[68] By now we see that this nameless wanderer, even though he seemed at first to be distinct from Homer, must be identical with Homer. And he is pictured as returning to Delos year after year to ask a question that requires the same answer year after year, and that answer is ‘Homer’.
Similarly, as I have argued in the book Homer the Classic, even the alternative wording of line 168 of the Hymn as quoted by Thucydides about the ‘other someone’ who comes to Delos leaves open the option of imagining that the ‘other someone’ who asks the riddling question could still be the same singer returning again and again to Delos, and this singer could still be Homer, not a substitute for Homer.[69] The ‘other someone’ is an ‘other’ only so long as the identification is not yet made, since this ‘other’ is nameless. But Homer does have a name, which is ostentatiously not spoken. If that name were in fact spoken, however, then the identification of the ‘other’ as Homer himself could become clear. But Homer is here being identified without being named. That, I argue, is the force of the riddling expression aphēmōs at verse 171 of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo as quoted by Thucydides: as I already noted, this expression means ‘without naming names’. So, the Maidens are being prompted by Homer to identify Homer in a riddling way, without naming him directly.[70]
What makes the riddle work is that Homer remains unnamed, just as the wanderer who is quoted as asking the question is not named. But the response of the Maidens, about that blind singer who dwells in Chios, gives away the answer: this wandering singer must be Homer, who is known to be blind and who claims Chios as his residence. As we know from the Life of Homer traditions, which preserve evidence that is independent of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, the blind singer who once resided in Chios can in fact be identified as Homer. I refer here to a detailed study of this evidence in the book Homer the Preclassic, where I focus on the evidence we can find in the Herodotean Life of Homer.[71]
So, the response of the Maidens as quoted at lines 172-173 of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo can be seen as a mimesis of Homer by Homer about Homer; and, to complicate matters further, this mimesis is performed for Homer by the Maidens of Delos, whose existence in the song is a mimesis by Homer because it is Homer who quotes what they say.[72] In a sense, then, the whole performance originates from this lead singer. And that, I argue, is the force of the complex expression aph’ hēmeōn at verse 171 of the Hymn: the Maidens are prompted ‘by me’ to respond dialogically to a question ‘about me’, and the prompt originates ‘from me’.[73]
♢Homer’s eternal return to Delos in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo
The riddling dialogic response of the Delian Maidens to Homer is made perennial by their recurrent choral performance in response to the recurrent visit of Homer to Delos in his role as their lead singer. According to the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, the performance of Homer in choral interaction with the Maidens of Delos will become a perennial event. In terms of the myth that we see encapsulated in the Hymn, there will be an eternal return of Homer to Delos.
To back up this formulation, I will show that the Homeric Hymn to Apollo foretells in a riddling way a seasonally recurring re-enactment of the prototypical visit of Homer to Delos. The visit will be re-enacted year after year, in a loop that loops back eternally, so that Homer may forever interact with succeeding generations of young women who will re-enact in song-and-dance the prototypical Maidens of Delos in the act of chorally responding to Homer about Homer for Homer.
As we will now see, the occasion for Homer’s eternal return to Delos was the annual festival of the Delia, and the word that signals this festival in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo is agōn, which as I already noted means ‘competition’.
♢Homer as the lead singer at an agonistic choral event
In Odyssey viii 250-269, quoted in Extract 4-E, we have seen the figure of Demodokos performing as a lead singer who interacts with a chorus that is singing-and-dancing at a competitive choral event, and the word for this event at lines 259 and 260 is agōn, meaning ‘competition’. Here again is the wording: ‘|259 … they started arranging everything according to the rules of the competition [agōn]: |260 they made smooth the place of the singing-and-dancing [khoros], and they made a wide space of competition [agōn]’.[74] So too in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo we see the figure of Homer himelf performing as a lead singer in his own right, and he too is interacting with a chorus that is singing-and-dancing at a competitive choral event called an agōn. That is what I will show here, arguing that the figure of Homer qualifies as a lead singer in the context of such an agōn. Or, to put it in terms of a modern word derived from agōn, Homer is a lead singer at the agonistic choral event of the Delia.
If we look back at the lengthy passage I quoted from Thucydides (3.104.3-6) in Extract 4-G, we can see that the historian uses this word agōn with reference to both choral and athletic competitions at the festival of the Delia (3.104.3 [choral], 3.104.5 [choral and athletic], 3.104.6 [choral and athletic]). As we can see further in Extract 4-G, Thucydides also quotes from the Homeric Hymn to Apollo a passage that features the same word agōn with reference to both choral and athletic competitions at the festival of the Delia: in one of the lines (149) quoted from the Hymn, the words orkhēstus ‘dancing’ and aoidē ‘singing’ indicate the choral competition, while the word pugmakhiē ‘boxing’ indicates one example of the various athletic competitions. The same three words, with one slight formal variation (orkhēthmos instead of orkhēstus for ‘dancing’), are also attested in the corresponding line (149) of the version found in the medieval manuscripts of the Hymn to Apollo and quoted in Extract Q. From here on, whenever I refer to competitive choral events, I will substitute the term agonistic for competitive in order to evoke the meaning of agōn as this word is used in the contexts we have just considered.
In the case of Odyssey viii, the agonistic choral event is ostentatiously festive, as we have already seen from my overall paraphrase of the relevant narrative, but it cannot be tied to any specific festival. In the case of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, by contrast, the corresponding agonistic choral event is pictured as taking place on a very specific occasion, at the festival of the Delia in Delos. And the choral aspect of this agonistic event that took place at the seasonally recurrent festival of the Delia is highlighted by Thucydides: he uses the word khoros ‘chorus’ in referring to female singers-and-dancers who performed at this festival (3.104.3, 3.104.5, 3.104.6). It is clear that Thucydides, in analyzing the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, imagined that Homer himself had once interacted with a prototypical khoros of these female singers-and-dancers (3.104.5), and it is also clear that he connected this prototypical khoros with the historical attestations of agonistic choral events that were taking place at the annual festival of the Delia (3.104.3, 3.104.6). This connection made by Thucydides is justified, since the Homeric Hymn in its own wording connects the Maidens of Delos with an agonistic choral event that is celebrated at the festival of the Delia in Delos. Highlighted in the Hymn, as I already noted, are the words orkhēstus / orkhēthmos ‘dancing’ and aoidē ‘singing’ (line 149). And here I return to a comparable highlighting in Odyssey viii, with reference to the skills of the Phaeacian youths in choral as well as athletic competitions (248-253): among the words that we see in this context are khoroi ‘choruses’ (248), orkhēstus ‘dancing’ (253), and aoidē ‘singing’ (253). And we have also seen the word khoros in the specific context of referring to the place of the singing-and-dancing (260).
In Odyssey viii, the reaction of all those who attend such an agonistic choral event is delight, as expressed by the verb terpesthai, meaning ‘feeling delight’, and such a reaction is best exemplified by the disguised Odysseus as the primary character attending the performance of Demodokos in concert with the choral singers-dancers: it is said that Odysseus, in reacting to this performance, terpeto ‘felt delight’ (368), and the same delighted reaction was experienced, it is also said, by everyone else attending the performance (368-369). Again in Odyssey xiii, where Demodokos is performing as a lead singer for the last time, the entire community is described as terpomenoi ‘feeling delight’ (27), as we saw in the passage I quoted in Extract 4-F.
And there is a comparable reaction in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo: at lines 146-150, which I have already quoted in Extract 4-G, the Ionian Greeks who celebrate the festival of the Delia, which is called an agōn here (150), are delighting Apollo himself: as Homer says to the god, these celebrants ‘give you delight’, terpousin (again, 150), precisely because they are celebrating the festival by way of both choral and athletic competitions (149). As the principal god who presides over the festival of the Delia, Apollo is told by Homer that ‘you feel delight’, epi-terpeo, at each recurring occasion when the festival is celebrated. Here again is the wording of the relevant lines 146-150 in the Hymn, which I quoted already in Extract 4-G: ‘|146 But when, O Phoebus [Apollo], in Delos more than anywhere else you feel delight [terpesthai] in your heart [thūmos], |147 there the Ionians, with tunics [khitōn plural] trailing, gather |148 with their children and their wives, along the causeway [aguia], |149 and there with boxing [pugmakhiē] and dancing [orkhēstus] and song [aoidē] |150 they have you in mind and make you feel delight [terpein], whenever they set up a competition [agōn]’.[75] The same wording, with minor variations, is attested in the corresponding text of the medieval manuscripts, and I have already quoted that text in Extract 4-H.
So the god Apollo, as a god, is the perfect model for everyone who attends the festival of the Delia: he reacts to the beauty and the pleasure of the Hymn to Apollo by feeling utter delight. We can see in this reaction another example of the theological principle of do as I do.[76] And the god’s reaction is re-enacted by the Delian Maidens when they identify Homer, without naming him, as the one who surpasses all other singers in making them too feel delight, just as Homer makes everyone feel delight. Already the question asked by the nameless singer makes it clear that the ultimate purpose of Homer is to give that feeling of delight to all: ‘“|169 O Maidens, who is for you the most pleasurable of singers |170 that wanders here? In whom do you take the most delight [terpesthai]?”’.[77] That singer, as the response of the Delian Maidens indicates in its own riddling way, must be identified as Homer.
♢Homer and Demodokos as masters of hymnic singing
We have just seen, then, how the Homeric Hymn to Apollo idealizes the sheer delight that must surely be felt by all when they hear Homer himself singing at the agonistic choral event of Apollo’s festival, the Delia. In the Hymn, a clear signal of this idealization is the programmatic use of the word terpesthai ‘feeling delight’ (146, 150, 170) in describing the reaction to Homer’s song. Also in Odyssey viii, we have seen the same programmatic use of this word terpesthai ‘feeling delight’ in describing the reaction of all those who hear the song of Demodokos about Ares and Aphrodite (368-369). And the key word for referring to the form of singing that we see being performed in both these cases is humnos, which I have translated so far simply as ‘hymn’. As the argumentation advances, we will see that both Homer and Demodokos are masters of such hymnic singing.
Essential for my argument is an extraordinary single line, Odyssey viii 429, referring to the singing of a humnos by Demodokos. Nowhere else in the Odyssey - or in the Iliad, for that matter - is this word humnos attested. For the moment, I translate the line without translating the word humnos itself:
4-K
… so that he [= Odysseus] may feel delight [terpesthai] at the feast [dais] and in listening to the humnos of the song.
Odyssey viii 429[78]
Special note: as in the other ten passages in the sequence that comes to an end with this passage, Extract 4-K, I highlight here the context of terpesthai ‘feeling delight’.
♢An idealization of the delight experienced at a festival
The context of line 429 in Odyssey viii is this: at lines 424-428, Alkinoos is speaking of his plans for the further hosting of his guest Odysseus, who has not yet identified himself. As a gracious host, Alkinoos says that he wants to arrange for his guest to be bathed in a lustral basin and then to be clothed in luxurious new garments before they all sit down to dine together, at which occasion Odysseus will receive going-away presents. The syntax of the expression ‘so that he may feel delight [terpesthai] ’ at line 429 carries two levels of meaning here, since the host’s wish is both general and specific. Generally, the guest should be gratified by the good hosting. But there is also the specific gratification of dining well while hearing the performance of song. The idea of dining at line 429, as expressed by the word dais, meaning ‘feast’, is closely combined here with the idea of hearing the performance of ‘song’, as expressed by the word aoidē together with humnos, and this combination is viewed as the best of all gratifications. In this same line 429, such sheer gratification is signaled by the programmatic word terpesthai, ‘feeling delight’. As I will now argue, what we see here is an idealization of the experience of ‘feeling delight’ in the context of a dais ‘feast’, which in turn is an idealization of a festival.
As Odysseus himself says later on in Odyssey ix, when he finally identifies himself, there is in fact no greater gratification in the whole world that the combination of good feasting and good singing, and the model for the general reference to singing here is the singer Demodokos:
4-L
|3 This is indeed a beautiful thing, to listen to a singer [aoidos] |4 such as this one [= Demodokos], the kind of singer that he is, comparable to the gods with the sound of his voice [audē], |5 for I declare, there is no outcome [telos] that has more pleasurable beauty [kharis] |6 than the moment when the spirit of festivity [euphrosunē][79] prevails throughout the whole community [dēmos] |7 and the people at the feast [daitumones], throughout the halls, are listening to the singer [aoidos] |8 as they sit there - you can see one after the other - and they are seated at tables that are filled |9 with grain and meat, while wine from the mixing bowl is drawn |10 by the one who pours the wine and takes it around, pouring it into their cups. |11 This kind of thing, as I see it in my way of thinking, is the most beautiful thing in the whole world.
Odyssey ix 3-12[80]
The feast that is going on here is a continuation of the feast that is already signaled by the word dais at line 429 of Odyssey viii, quoted in Extract 4-K, which basically means ‘feast’. In that context, dais refers short-range to an occasion of communal dining (dorpon ‘dinner’: 395), which will take place after sunset (417). The intended guest of honor at this feast will be Odysseus. This occasion of communal dining leads into the third song of Demodokos (484-485). But this same word dais at line 429 of Odyssey viii is also making a long-range reference: it refers metonymically to a stylized festival that has been ongoing ever since an earlier occasion of communal dining (71-72), which actually led into the first song of Demodokos (73-83). And let me go even further back in time. Leading up to the communal dining, there had been an animal sacrifice (as expressed by the word hiereuein ‘sacrificially slaughter’: 59). Then, the meat of the sacrificed animals (twelve sheep, eight pigs, and two oxen: 59-60) had been prepared to be cooked at the feast (61). And I stress that the word at line 61 for ‘feast’ is once again dais.
Etymologically, this word dais refers to the ‘distribution’ of cooked meat in various hierarchical ways among the people of the community. Then, by way of synecdoche, the specific idea of distribution extends metonymically to the general idea of feasting and further to the even more general idea of a festival.
Following the logic of this sequence of meanings, we see that the animal sacrifice in Odyssey viii (59) had led to the cooking and the distribution of the meat (61), which had led to the communal dining (71-72), which had led to the first song of Demodokos (73-83), and so on. In terms of this logic, the metonymic use of the word dais ‘feast’ marks a whole complex of events that are typical of festivals: animal sacrifice, communal feasting, singing at the feast.[81]
Besides these events in Odyssey viii, we find another set of events that are likewise typical of festivals. Right after the first song of Demodokos has come to an end (83), the king of the Phaeacians announces that there will now be a pause in the eating and the drinking, to which he refers generally as a dais ‘feast’ (98 and 99), and the pause extends to the singing that accompanies the dais (99), since the time has come for athletic contests, that is, aethloi / aethla (100), to be held outside the palace, in the public gathering space of the Phaeacians (100-101, 109). The king refers to boxing, wrestling, jumping, and footracing (103). The first athletic event turns out to be the footrace (120-125), followed by wrestling (126-127), jumping (128), discus throwing (129), and boxing (130). The general term that refers to the occasion of all these events is agōn, meaning ‘competition’ or ‘place of competition’ (200, 238).
There is a striking parallel to be found in a passage we have already examined in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (146-155), describing a festival of all Ionians gathered on the island of Delos. In this case as well, the occasion of that Delian festival is described as an agōn ‘competition’ (149). The competitive events at that festival include athletics - boxing is the example that is highlighted – as well as dancing and singing (149). Similarly in Odyssey viii, the competition includes singing as well as athletics, as we see from the fact that the three songs performed by Demodokos become a foil for the later performance of Odysseus starting in Odyssey ix. And the occasion for the singing of Demodokos in Odyssey viii, as we have already seen, is the ongoing dais ‘feast’ (429), which is a stylized festival - and which continues to be the occasion for the competing performance of Odysseus in Odyssey ix.[82]
For the moment I concentrate not on the singing but on the athletics. As in the case of singing, athletics too can be seen as a source of ‘feeling delight’, terpesthai, to be experienced at a festival. I cite yet again the relevant lines 146-150 in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, as quoted in Extract 4-G, concerning the festival of the Delia: ‘|146 But when, O Phoebus [Apollo], in Delos more than anywhere else you feel delight [terpesthai] in your heart [thūmos], |147 there the Ionians, with tunics [khitōn plural] trailing, gather |148 with their children and their wives, along the causeway [aguia], |149 and there with boxing [pugmakhiē] and dancing [orkhēstus] and song [aoidē] |150 they have you in mind and make you feel delight [terpein], whenever they set up a competition [agōn]’.[83]
♢The relevant etymology of a Hittite word
The idea of ‘feeling delight’ at a festive event, as expressed by the Greek verb terpesthai, is built into a related form that we find attested in the Hittite language. It is the noun tarpa-, attested in a Hittite text dating from the second millennium BCE. In this particular text (Keilschrifttexte aus Boghazköi XXIII 55 I, 2-27), analyzed by Jaan Puhvel, an athletic event is described. There is to be an animal sacrifice (four rams and an unspecified number of bulls), and a wrestling match takes place. As Puhvel notes, “a miltary gathering in the iconic presence of the solar deity seems to be the occasion.”[84] And the word that refers to this event is tarpa-. This word, Puhvel suggests, “would then be the ‘pleasure part’ of the event, the distribution, celebration, and enjoyment of winnings, perhaps even etymologically cognate with the Greek terp[esthai], ‘to delight’, which crops up so often in the Homeric vocabulary of sports.”[85]
In making this argument, Puhvel cites a number of Homeric lines that feature this word terpesthai, and among them is line 131 of Odyssey viii, where the Phaeacians are said to be ‘feeling delight’ in response to the spectacular aethloi / aethla or ‘contests’ that are then taking place. These contests are athletic competitions, which as we have just seen are imagined as part of the ongoing festivities that are narrated in Odyssey viii. At line 131, the word terpesthai ‘feeling delight’ focuses on athletics as a particular aspect of the festivities, whereas later on at line 429, as quoted in Extract 4-K, the same word focuses on the singing of Demodokos. In both lines, the overall context is a stylized festival.
♢The festive context of hymnic singing
I now turn to the humnos that Demodokos is singing at line 429 of Odyssey viii. As we have just seen in the same line, the overall context for this singing is a stylized festival, signaled by the word dais ‘feast’. This festive context, as we will now see, is the key to understanding what the word humnos means here.
As I showed in the book Homer the Classic, this word humnos fits all the forms of singing performed by Demodokos at the ongoing festival narrated in Odyssey viii, including the song that he finishes performing at line 367, which is a story about Ares and Aphrodite.[86] As I also showed in that book, the morphology of this particular song is cognate with the morphology of the so-called Homeric Hymns, including the Homeric Hymn to Apollo.[87] And, as we will see, many of the Homeric Hymns actually refer to themselves in terms of humnos. This is not to say, however, that the translation of humnos as ‘hymn’ is sufficient for helping us understand the combination of this noun with the genitive of the noun aoidē at line 429 of Odyssey viii, where Alkinoos expresses the wish that Odysseus ‘may feel delight [terpesthai] at the feast [dais] and in listening to the humnos of the song [aoidē]’. We are still left with the problem of translating humnos in the actual context of a ‘humnos of the song [aoidē]’. Here is where I shift from the figure of Demodokos as a master of hymnic singing to the figure of Homer as represented in the Homeric Hymns, especially in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. Homer too, as we will now see, is a master of hymnic singing.
♢A metonymy of hymning
The English words hymn / hymnic / hymning derive from the programmatic use of the Greek word humnos in poetry as exemplified by the Homeric Hymns. Each one of these Hymns is addressed to a god or goddess who notionally presides over the performance of the hymn, and this link to divinity is in fact the key to the meaning of humnos. As we will see from attestations of this word in the Hymns, a humnos is seen as a perfect beginning of a perfect song. And the beginning is perfect if the divinity to whom the song is addressed favors the performance of the beginning. But the humnos is not just a perfect beginning. It is also the signal of a perfect transition to the rest of the performance. By metonymy, the humnos includes the rest of the performance, proceeding sequentially all the way to the conclusion of the whole performance. If the performance is sequential, consequential, you know it was started by a humnos and you know it is really a humnos.[88]
♢The hymnic subject
To analyze further the programmatic use of the word humnos in the Homeric Hymns, I find it useful to introduce a relevant term, the hymnic subject. In the Homeric Hymns, the invoked divinity who presides over a given festival is the hymnic subject of the hymn. In the language of the Hymns, however, the divinity who figures as the subject of any hymn is normally the grammatical object of the verb of singing the hymn (as at the beginnings of Homeric Hymns 2, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23. 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32). In the logic of the Hymns, the hymnic subject is the divinity that presides over the occasion of performance and becomes continuous with the occasion and thus becomes the occasion.[89]
♢A theology of perfection in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo
The occasion of a humnos is notionally perfect because the divinity who is the occasion is perfect. The theological notion of such perfection is expressed by way of the word eu-humnos (εὔυμνος) ‘good for hymning’, as in the sublime aporetic question that is asked twice in the Homeric Hymn (3) to Apollo (verses 19 and 207):[90]
4-M
For how shall I hymn you, you who are so absolutely [pantōs] good for hymning [eu-humnos]?
Homeric Hymn (3) to Apollo 19 and 207[91]
The theological rationale of this aporetic question can be formulated this way:
Faced with the absoluteness of the god, the performer experiences a rhetorical hesitation: how can I make the subject of my humnos something that is perfect, absolute? The absoluteness of this hymnic subject is signaled by the programmatic adverb pantōs ‘absolutely’, which modifies not only the adjective eu-humnos ‘good for hymning’ but also the entire phrasing about the absoluteness of the subject. The absoluteness of the god Apollo is continuous with the absoluteness of the humnos that makes Apollo its subject. This Homeric Hymn is saying about itself that it is the perfect and absolute humnos. As such, it is not only the beginning of a composition but also the totality of the composition, authorizing everything that follows it, because it was begun so perfectly. And the source of the perfection is the god as the subject of the humnos.[92]
The naming of the divinity as the subject of the humnos, together with the initial describing of the divinity, is the notionally perfect beginning of the humnos, and this beginning is the prooimion. We have already seen in Extract 4-G that Thucydides refers to the Homeric Hymn to Apollo explicitly as a prooimion (3.104.4, 5).
Whereas the word prooimion is a term referring only to the start of the continuum that is activated by a hymn, the word humnos retains the full extent of the poetic agenda, referring both to the start of the continuum and to the continuum itself. This connecting of the start to the continuity, as expressed by the word humnos, is a sublime act of metonymy. And the Homeric Hymn to Apollo is a perfect example: it refers to itself in terms of a humnos (verses 158, 161, 178), while Thucydides, as I just noted again, refers to it in a more restrictive way as a prooimion (3.104.4, 5).[93]
♢The etymologies of prooimion and humnos
This parallelism of the words prooimion and humnos in referring to the start of a continuum, which I have just described as a sublime act of metonymy, can be explained in terms of a parallelism that we find in their etymologies.
I will start with prooimion. The conventional meaning of this Greek word is conveyed by the Latin borrowing prooemium, which refers to the beginning of any work of verbal art. The original Greek form pro-oimion is a compound noun, and its etymology derives from a metaphorical reference to pattern-weaving: the word means literally the ‘initial threading’ of a song, parallel to the etymology of Latin ex-ordium, which is a synonym of pro-oemium in poetic and rhetorical contexts and which can likewise be traced back to the basic idea of an ‘initial threading’. To say it more technically in Greek, using the terminology of fabric work, the ‘initial threading’ is the exastis or ‘selvedge’.[94]
As for the etymology of the simplex noun humnos, I argue that it too derives from a metaphorical reference to pattern-weaving. If I am right in explaining humnos morphologically as a noun derived from the root huph- of the verb huphainein ‘weave’, the basic idea conveyed by this noun is ‘web’. In terms of my argument, the humnos is metaphorically the product of weaving in general and of pattern-weaving in particular.[95]
♢Starting again with Homer and Demodokos as masters of hymnic singing
These parallel etymologies of words referring to the hymning of Apollo are relevant to the figuring of both Homer and Demodokos as masters of hymnic singing. If in fact such hymnic singing is to be understood in terms of a metaphor for pattern-weaving, then what we see at work here once again is the metaphorization of Homeric poetry as a masterpiece of such pattern-weaving. We have already seen such a metaphorization when we considered the passages in the Iliad describing the web pattern-woven by Andromache, as quoted in Extract 2-O, and the web pattern-woven by Helen, as quoted in Extract 2-P. In those cases, we also saw that such masterpieces of pattern-weaving are likewise masterpieces of metonymy. And now I will develop a parallel argument about the humnos that refers to the ongoing performance of Demodokos in Odyssey viii 429 and about the humnos that refers to the ongoing performance of Homer in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo 178.
♢The hymnic metabasis and the hymnic consequent
Here I introduce two relevant terms, the hymnic consequent and the hymnic metabasis. The first, hymnic consequent, refers to a performance that follows the performance of a humnos. The second term, hymnic metabasis, refers to the transition that actually makes it possible for the hymnic consequent to follow the humnos.[96]
Here are three most telling examples of hymnic metabasis in the Homeric Hymns:
4-Na
|292 Hail and take pleasure [khaire], goddess, queen of well-founded Cyprus. |293 But, having started off from you, I will move ahead and shift forward [metabainein] to the rest of the humnos.
Homeric Hymn (5) to Aphrodite 292-293[97]
4-Nb
|7 So, with all this said, I say to you [= Artemis] now: hail and take pleasure [khaire], and along with you may all the other goddesses [take pleasure] from my song. |8 As for me, I sing you first of all and from you do I start off [arkhesthai] to sing. |9 And, having started off from you, I will move ahead and shift forward [metabainein] to the rest of the humnos.[98]
Homeric Hymn (9) to Artemis 7-9[99]
4-Nc
|10 So, with all this said, I say to you [= Hermes] now: hail and take pleasure, son of Zeus and Maia. |11 And, having started off from you, I will move ahead and shift forward [metabainein] to the rest of the humnos. |12 Hail and take pleasure [khaire], Hermes, giver of pleasurable beauty [kharis], you who are conductor [of psukhai] and giver of good things.
Homeric Hymn (18) to Hermes 10-12[100]
The transition in each one of these passages, as marked by metabainein ‘move ahead and shift forward’, is predicated on the idea of a perfect beginning. The idea is, ‘I begin, starting from the god’. This process of transition, to which I refer by way of the prosaic noun metabasis, which is derived from the poetic verb metabainein as we see it used in these three passages, is activated by the hymnic salutation khaire / khairete, which I interpret as ‘hail and take pleasure’. Implicit in these imperative forms of the verb khairein is the meaning of the related noun kharis, which conveys the idea of a ‘favor’ achieved by reciprocating the pleasure of beauty. Making this idea explicit, I have formulated a paraphrase of khaire / khairete in the context of all its occurrences in the Homeric Hymns:
Now, at this precise moment, with all this said, I greet you, god (or gods) presiding over the festive occasion, calling on you to show favor [kharis] in return for the beauty and the pleasure of this, my performance.[101]
What drives the performative gesture of khaire / khairete is the fundamental idea that the reciprocal favor of kharis is the same beautiful thing as the pleasure that it gives. And to give such pleasure, I argue, is seen as an essential requirement for achieving a successful reception.[102]
After the signal khaire / khairete in the Homeric Hymns, the actual process of metabasis can be activated. This process is made explicit in the expression we have just seen in the three passages that I quoted, ‘I will move ahead and shift forward [metabainein] to the rest of the humnos’ (Homeric Hymns 5.292-293, 9.7-9, 18.10-12).[103] The word humnos in the wording ἄλλον ἐς ὕμνον in the Homeric Hymns marks the whole performance, so that ἄλλον ἐς ὕμνον means not ‘extending into another performance’ but ‘extending into the rest of the performance’.[104]
Here I summarize my earlier findings about these transitions, which I continue to describe in terms of metabasis:
Metabasis is a device that signals a shift from the subject of the god with whom the song started – what I have been calling the hymnic subject – and then proceeds to a different subject – in what must remain notionally the same song. Ideally, the shift from subject to different subject will be smooth. Ideally, the different subject will be consequential, so that the consequent of what was started in the humnos may remain part of the humnos. This way, the transition will lead seamlessly to what is being called ‘the rest of the song’. In other words, the concept of humnos is the concept of maintaining the song as the notionally same song by way of successfully executing a metabasis from the initial subject to the next subject. The initial subject of the god and the next subject are linked as one song by the humnos in general and by the device of hymnic metabasis in particular. What comes before the metabasis is the prooimion, the beginning of the humnos. What comes after the metabasis is no longer the prooimion – but it can still be considered the humnos.[105]
In this formulation centering on the hymnic metabasis, I have already anticipated the concept of the hymnic consequent. Following up, I now propose to show examples of the kind of performance that “comes after” the hymnic metabasis. In the book Homer the Preclassic, I have worked up a set of relevant arguments that take up more than twenty-five paragraphs of space, and there is no time for me here to recapture all that argumentation. Instead, I have to content myself here with a brief summary, which I divide into five comments that all relate to the concept of a hymnic consequent.[106]
Each one of the five comments will refer to the ongoing performance of the blind singer Demodokos in Odyssey viii. The word for this performance, as we have already seen at line 429 as quoted in Extract 4-K, is humnos. And the context for this ongoing humnos, as we have also already seen, is described in the same line 429 as a dais ‘feast’, indicating a stylized festival. This ongoing humnos is envisaged as an alternative to - and a rival of - the future performance of Odysseus when he gets to tell his own story in Odyssey ix x xi xii. And what makes the performing of Demodokos so different from the future performing of Odysseus? As I show in Homer the Preclassic, Demodokos is represented as performing forms of song that resemble (a) the epic form of the so-called epic Cycle, in the case of his first and third songs, which are about the Trojan War, and (b) the hymnic form of the Homeric Hymns, in the case of his second song, which is about the love affair of Ares and Aphrodite.[107] By contrast, Odysseus is represented as performing a form of song that resembles the epic form of the Homeric Odyssey itself.
With this background in place, I am now ready to make my five comments relating to the concept of a hymnic consequent:
On the basis of the analysis I have offered in these five comments, I can offer an overall formulation about the device of metabasis as we find it activated at line 492 of Odyssey viii (μετάβηθι): in the ongoing performance of Demodokos, viewed as a humnos at line 429 (ὕμνον ἀοιδῆς), the hymnic consequence of the hymnic metabasis is epic itself.
But the ongoing performance of Demodokos in Odyssey viii, as signaled by the word humnos at line 429, is more complicated. A distinctive feature of the outer narrative in Odyssey viii is that it separates the three songs of Demodokos from each other: each one of his three songs is represented as having its own separate starting point. And yet, these three separate inner narratives show signs of a narrative continuum connecting the three songs. The connectedness of this continuum will be made evident through the privileged perspective of Odysseus as he listens to the three stories of the inner narrative. The hero will make the mental connections that need to be made by the outer narrative, and his own performance of epic in Odyssey ix x xi xii shows that these connections were successfully made. That is what I argue in the book Homer the Classic.[113] In terms of this argument, the process of making the humnos in Odyssey viii, as signaled at line 429, is the process of making such mental connections. By indicating connections that achieve a narrative continuum in the Homeric Odyssey, the word humnos is self-referential: in referring to the ongoing humnos, Homeric poetry is referring to itself.
The Homeric Hymn to Apollo, featuring the ongoing performance of the singer who is figured as Homer, is likewise quite complicated. This figure addresses the Delian Maidens with the hymnic salutation khairete ‘hail and take pleasure’ at line 166 - just as the figure of Hesiod addresses the Olympian Muses with the same hymnic salutation khairete at line 104 of the Theogony. The parallelism indicates that Homer in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo is in effect hymning not only the divine Apollo but also the Delian Maidens, who can be seen as the local Muses of Delos and who are therefore divine in their own right.[114]
In fact, the role of the Delian Maidens as divine hymnic counterparts of the god Apollo is what directly authorizes the role of Homer as master of the humnos. These Maidens are figured not only as attendants of Apollo (157) but also as the prototypical singers of a humnos or ‘hymn’ (161: ὕμνον), which is a song that makes Apollo the subject of that song (158: ὑμνήσωσιν). That song, of course, is the prototype of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo as sung by Homer himself, who declares that he in his own right is making Apollo the subject of the humnos that he himself sings (178).
But Homer is also making the Delian Maidens the subject of this same humnos, since he addresses them in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo as if they were a sacred chorus led by the god Apollo himself as their lead singer. The Delian Maidens must be delighted by Homer’s song just as Apollo is delighted.
So, what really complicates things here is the fact that the hymnic salutation khairete ‘hail and take pleasure’ that signals a hymnic metabasis at line 166 in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo is addressed not to Apollo but to the Delian Maidens. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo is not yet directing its hymnic salutation at Apollo, who is still to be hymned as the god of Delphi after he is hymned as the god of Delos. And what follows the hymnic salutation to the Delian Maidens at line 166 of the Hymn is not a metabasis or transition to a new subject in the rest of the performance, as in other Homeric Hymns. Instead, the primary subject remains Apollo, and the performance itself continues in a hymnic mode, with a transition from hymning Apollo as worshipped at Delos to Apollo as worshipped at Delphi. In the meantime, however, there is another kind of transition going on. Homer himself will be transitioning out of Delos and taking his performance on the road, as it were, throughout the cities of the Greek world. He will be a wandering singer of epic while the Delian Maidens, as stationary singers-dancers of the Hymn to Apollo, will stay in Delos, awaiting the return of Homer on the ocasion of the upcoming year’s festival of the Delia.
Homer’s hymnic salutation of the Maidens at line 166, khairete ‘hail and take pleasure’, is a wish that is fulfilled every year, and the Maidens affirm this annual wish-fulfillment when they respond to the question ‘“|169 O Maidens, who is for you the most pleasurable of singers |170 that wanders here? In whom do you take the most delight [terpesthai]?”’.[115] Each and every year at the Delia, the answer will be the same: this most pleasurable of all singers will be Homer himself, and Homer’s hymnic salutation to the Maidens, wishing that they take pleasure in his singing, will be his eternal wish-fulfillment.
Thucydides himself shows that he understands the significance of Homer’s hymnic salutation of the Delian Maidens in the context of his paraphrasing what Homer tells the Maidens at lines 165-172 of the Hymn: in the words of the historian (3.104.5), as quoted in Extract 4-G, Homer in his prooimion praises these prototypical singers of the humnos as the subject of his own humnos, just as he praises the god Apollo himself. The noun used here by Thucydides (3.104.5) with reference to the humnos performed by Homer is not humnos but prooimion, but the corresponding verb that he uses in this same context to express the idea of Homer’s performance is humneîn (ὑμνήσας). This verb here takes as its grammatical object the noun referring to the female singers-dancers who represent the Delian Maidens themselves. So, in the reading of Thucydides, Homer in his prooimion is ‘hymning’ the Delian Maidens, not only the god Apollo.
It is not a contradiction, however, to maintain that the Delian Maidens are simultaneously envisioned as members of a local khoros ‘chorus’ of girls or women.[116] In terms of my argument, the role of divinity can be appropriated by members of a chorus during choral performance. That is to say, the Delian Maidens as a choral ensemble can re-enact the local Delian Muses.[117]
By now we have seen a wide variety of complications and subtleties involved in the making of metabasis, which I define overall as a transition from a notionally perfect beginning into a continuum that will ultimately come to a perfect close. Viewing the poetics of transition from this standpoint, I bring this section to a close by citing a relevant formulation by Elroy Bundy: “Beginnings, middles, and ends: the meaning of literature resides in its transitions.”[118]
♢The festive humnos in the Homeric Odyssey
Having analyzed the meaning of the word humnos as we see it at work in the Homeric Hymns, I now look back at the unique attestation of this same word at verse 429 of Odyssey viii, quoted in Extract 4-K. By now we can see that humnos here signals an ongoing performance by the singer Demodokos, and the occasion is a correspondingly ongoing festival, as signaled by the word dais ‘feast’ at the same line 429.[119] Part of the ongoing humnos is the second performance of Demodokos in Odyssey viii, where he sings the story of the love affair of Ares and Aphrodite, and I already referred to the occasion of this performance as a festival. I noted, though, that this occasion cannot be tied to any specific festival as in the case of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, where that particular occasion is clearly the festival of the Delia. Still, the performance of Demodokos happens at a festival, even if that festivel is only a virtual one. And, as I say, it is an ongoing festival.
♢Returning to that most festive of all moments in the Iliad
From our reading of the narrative in Odyssey viii about the ongoing performance of Demodokos at a festival that is stylized as a correspondingly ongoing feast, we can see at least in broad outlines the figuring of an earlier kind of Homer as he existed in an earlier phase of his evolution. In this earlier phase, Homer is pictured as a master of hymnic singing, which would be an older kind of performance. In a later phase, he becomes a master of epic recitation, which would be a newer kind of performance. I have already described the occasion of hymnic singing as an agonistic choral event. As for the occasion of epic recitation, it is likewise an agonistic event, but the competition is in this case no longer choral but rhapsodic. In speaking here of an agonistic rhapsodic event, I have in mind once again the recitative and non-choral medium of performance practiced by professionals called rhapsōidoi ‘rhapsodes’.
This formulation, as we will now see, is relevant to what I described earlier as that most festive of all moments in the Iliad. It is the moment at lines 603-606 of Iliad XVIII where we either see or do not see Homer himself performing at a festival. In the longer version of this Iliadic passage, as quoted in Extract 4-B, we do see Homer performing, but in the shorter version, as quoted in Extract 4-C, he has been removed from view.
This dichotomy reflects a differentiation between rhapsodic and choral performance, and I review here the relevant parts of what I said earlier about this differentiation:
- Rhapsodes both competed and collaborated with each other in the performance of epic at Panhellenic festivals like the Panathenaia in Athens.
- Presiding over the agonistic rhapsodic events at that particular festival were the Homēridai, epic performers claiming to be descended from Homer of Chios.
- These Homēridai, masters of epic performance, also performed hymns, but these hymns were composed as well as performed only in a rhapsodic mode, as characterized by a single meter known as the dactylic hexameter. And it is these hymns that have survived down to our time as the Homeric Hymns.
- As for the choral mode of composing and performing hymns, it too has survived - in the form of choral “lyric” song, characterized by a vast multiplicity of meters.[120]
That said, I confront here a simple historical fact: the rhapsodic recitation of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey in historical times is not a choral mode for performance. Similarly, the figure of Odysseus does not engage in a choral mode of performance when he recites his own epic narrative in Odyssey ix x xi xii. By contrast, Demodokos still needs the old choral mode when he interacts with a stylized chorus of Phaeacians in performing the story of the love affair between Ares and Aphrodite. And even the Homer of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo is at least performing a mimesis of the old choral mode when he interacts with the chorus of the Delian Maidens - though this interaction is performed in the rhapsodic medium of the dactylic hexameter.
A comparable formulation applies in the case of the variation we see between the longer version of Iliad XVIII 603-606 as quoted in Extract 4-B and the shorter version as quoted in Extract 4-C. In the longer version, we find Homer himself engaging in the earlier choral mode of performance, while the shorter version has no room for him any more, because he has already become a rhapsodic specialist. So, in the shorter version, Homer is elided from the choral scene. We can no longer see him there.
By contrast, it is the chorus that we can no longer see in Odyssey xiii 24-28 as quoted in Extract 4-F, where Demodokos is shown performing for the last time. Here the choral mode of his performance is shaded over while the rhapsodic mode is highlighted. There is no direct mention of a participating chorus here. Such an elision of the chorus in Odyssey xiii reflects a transition in the narrative - from the generally choral mode of performance by Demodokos in Odyssey viii to the specifically rhapsodic mode of Odysseus as a precursor of a newer non-choral Homer in Odyssey ix x xi xii. And the naming of Zeus as the recipient of the sacrifice that concludes the feast in Odyssey xiii 24-28, as quoted in Extract 4-F, can be seen here as a signature of the Homēridai as the rhapsodic heirs of Homer, since the form of their hymns - specifically, of their prooimia - allowed for Zeus to become the ultimate hymnic subject of any Homeric performance - even if that performance took place at a festival celebrating some other god. No matter which god was the immediate hymnic subject of a Homeric prooimion, the ultimate hymnic subject for the Homēridai was normally Zeus.[121]
This Homeric signature of the Homēridai in starting any Homeric prooimion with Zeus is most tellingly echoed in the words of Pindar. These words, which I now quote, start off a song that we know as Nemean 2:
4-O
[Starting] from the point where [hothen] the Homēridai, singers, most of the time [ta polla] begin [arkhesthai] their stitched-together [rhapta] words, from the prooimion of Zeus …
Pindar Nemean 2.1-3[122]
To say that Zeus is the song’s point of departure in Pindar’s Nemean 2 is the equivalent of saying that this point of departure is the prooimion of Zeus, in that the prooimion starts with the god and is a continuation from the god. Further, the continuity that is started by the prooimion becomes the continuum that is the humnos.[123]
With this formulation in place, I can now return to my earlier argument about a basic divergence between the meanings of prooimion and humnos: whereas the word prooimion refers only to the start of the continuum, the word humnos refers to both the start of the continuum and the continuum itself. To put it another way, the naming of the god is a metonymy – of and by itself – from the standpoint of the prooimion that starts off with the naming of the god, and the whole process of starting and then continuing is the essence of humnos. Then, in the logic of the humnos, there is even further metonymy: the god who presides over the occasion of performance becomes continuous with the occasion and thus becomes the occasion.[124]
At the very end of Pindar’s Nemean 2, the wording of the song most tellingly loops back to the very beginning:
4-P
Him [= Zeus, presiding over the festival of the Némea] you O citizens of the city must celebrate [kōmazein] for the sake of Timodemos, at the moment of his homecoming marked by genuine fame [kleos], and, in sweet-sounding song, you must lead off [ex-arkhein] with your voice.
Pindar Nemean 2.23-25[125]
Here at the end of the song, the chorus of performers is imagined as an assembly of the citizens of the city who are called upon to ‘begin’ or ‘lead off’, ex-arkhein, as if they had become transformed into a lead singer whose song will lead into the collective choral singing-and-dancing. So the chorus here is pictured as making a mimesis of its own lead singer - who could be imagined as Homer himself, the notional ancestor of the Homēridai.
In terms of my argument, we have already seen such a lead singer. He was pictured at lines 603-606 of Iliad XVIII, as quoted in Extracts 4-A and 4-B. The word ex-arkhein ‘lead off’ at line 606 there, as we saw, signals an individuated performer who interacts with the collective performance of a singing-and-dancing chorus.[126] So also in the mimetic world of Pindar’s Nemean 2, the same word ex-arkhein ‘lead off’ at the last line of this song signals a new beginning for the singing-and-dancing of the chorus - a beginning that is ‘led off’ by an imagined Homer who gives ‘voice’ to the words of song.[127]
This imagined Homer matches not only the anonymous singer of Iliad XVIII 606 but also another ostentatiously anonymous singer. I have in mind here the Homer who refers to himself without naming himself in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. That other Homer seems at first to be simply a solo singer, but he is not. Rather, that Homer is a solo singer only in the making. The self-portrait of that Homer in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo pictures a singer in the act of taking the lead in the performance of a singing-and-dancing chorus.[128] That Homer in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo is making a mimesis of himself as the lead singer of a chorus, and the model for his emergence as an individual performer is the god Apollo himself.[129]
[1] The Homeric textual tradition shows a textual variation here: besides ποίκιλλε (poikillein) in the specific sense of ‘pattern-weave’ we find also the variant ποίησε (poieîn) in the general sense of ‘make’.
[2] As we will see, this word khoros can designate either the place where singing-and-dancing takes place or the group of singers-and-dancers who perform at that place.
[3] The ‘there’ is both the place for song-and-dance and the place in the picture that is the Shield.
[4] The form of the participle here, terpomeno- ‘feeling delight’, is plural (τερπόμενοι) in the majority of the medieval manuscripts, but singular (τερπόμενος) in a small minority. My translation is not affected by this textual variation. In the Greek text as I quote it in the corresponding note below, I show τερπόμενοι.
[5] My translation here follows the Greek text as I quote it in the corresponding note below.
[6] Again, my translation here follows the Greek text as I quote it in the corresponding note below.
[7] |590 Ἐν δὲ χορὸν ποίκιλλε περικλυτὸς ἀμφιγυήεις, |591 τῷ ἴκελον οἷόν ποτ’ ἐνὶ Κνωσῷ εὐρείῃ |592 Δαίδαλος ἤσκησεν καλλιπλοκάμῳ Ἀριάδνῃ. |593 ἔνθα μὲν ἠΐθεοι καὶ παρθένοι ἀλφεσίβοιαι |594 ὀρχεῦντ’ ἀλλήλων ἐπὶ καρπῷ χεῖρας ἔχοντες. |595 τῶν δ’ αἳ μὲν λεπτὰς ὀθόνας ἔχον, οἳ δὲ χιτῶνας |596 εἵατ’ ἐϋννήτους, ἦκα στίλβοντας ἐλαίῳ· |597 καί ῥ’ αἳ μὲν καλὰς στεφάνας ἔχον, οἳ δὲ μαχαίρας |598 εἶχον χρυσείας ἐξ ἀργυρέων τελαμώνων. |599 οἳ δ’ ὁτὲ μὲν θρέξασκον ἐπισταμένοισι πόδεσσι |600 ῥεῖα μάλ’, ὡς ὅτε τις τροχὸν ἄρμενον ἐν παλάμῃσιν |601 ἑζόμενος κεραμεὺς πειρήσεται, αἴ κε θέῃσιν· |602 ἄλλοτε δ’ αὖ θρέξασκον ἐπὶ στίχας ἀλλήλοισι. |603 πολλὸς δ’ ἱμερόεντα χορὸν περιίσταθ’ ὅμιλος |604 τερπόμενοι· μετὰ δέ σφιν ἐμέλπετο θεῖος ἀοιδὸς |605 φορμίζων· δοιὼ δὲ κυβιστητῆρε κατ’ αὐτοὺς |606 μολπῆς ἐξάρχοντoς ἐδίνευον κατὰ μέσσους. The Greek text that I quote in lines 605-606 here follows the reading given in the edition of the Iliad by Wolf 1804. In the analysis that follows, I will defend the validity of this reading. I also note here, in passing, the textual variation between τερπόμενοι and τερπόμενος at line 604 in the medieval manuscript tradition. We find the plural form τερπόμενοι in a majority of the manuscripts, while the singular τερπόμενος is attested in a small minority. My translation of line 604, as I indicate in my corresponding note on this line, is not affected by this textual variation. In the text of Athenaeus (5.181b and 5.181d) where he quotes this same line 604 of Iliad XVIII and the corresponding line 17 of Odyssey iv, which I will quote in Extract 4-D, we read τερπόμενος in the case of the Odyssey and τερπόμενοι in the case of the Iliad.
[8] HPC II§413 p. 291.
[9] For me the ideal introduction to the subject of ancient Greek choruses is Calame 2001.
[10] My translation here follows the Greek text as I quote it in the corresponding note below.
[11] Again, my translation here follows the Greek text as I quote it in the corresponding note below.
[12] |603 πολλὸς δ’ ἱμερόεντα χορὸν περιίσταθ’ ὅμιλος |604 τερπόμενοι· μετὰ δέ σφιν ἐμέλπετο θεῖος ἀοιδὸς |605 φορμίζων· δοιὼ δὲ κυβιστητῆρε κατ’ αὐτοὺς |606 μολπῆς ἐξάρχοντoς ἐδίνευον κατὰ μέσσους.
[13] PH 12§29n62 (= p. 350) and n64 (= p. 351). Also HC 2§75.
[14] HC 2§74. See also HC 2§§65-82, with reference to the formulation of Aristotle Poetics 1449a10-11, which is relevant to a wide variety of poetic contexts involving the verb ex-arkhein (also arkhein) in the sense of ‘lead a performance of singers-dancers’.
[15] The deletion here is in line with the Greek text as I quote it in the corresponding note below, where we see an omission of the wording μετὰ δέ σφιν ἐμέλπετο θεῖος ἀοιδὸς |605 φορμίζων.
[16] My translation here follows the Greek text as I quote it in the corresponding note below, where we read ἐξάρχοντες and not ἐξάρχοντος.
[17] |603 πολλὸς δ’ ἱμερόεντα χορὸν περιίσταθ’ ὅμιλος |604 τερπόμενοι· μετὰ δέ σφιν ἐμέλπετο θεῖος ἀοιδὸς |605 φορμίζων· δοιὼ δὲ κυβιστητῆρε κατ’ αὐτοὺς |606 μολπῆς ἐξάρχοντες ἐδίνευον κατὰ μέσσους. The Greek text that I quote here in lines 604 and 606 follows the reading given in the medieval manuscript tradition of the Iliad, omitting the words μετὰ δέ σφιν ἐμέλπετο θεῖος ἀοιδὸς |605 φορμίζων· as printed in the edition of Wolf 1804.
[18] |604 τερπόμενοι· μετὰ δέ σφιν ἐμέλπετο θεῖος ἀοιδὸς |605 φορμίζων· δοιὼ δὲ κυβιστητῆρε κατ’ αὐτοὺς |606 … .
[19] Wolf in his Prolegomena ad Homerum (1795 §49n49) already comments on his restoration. Revermann 1998 tracks the vast array of published opinions on Iliad XVIII 603-606 since Wolf’s Prolegomena.
[20] The relevant testimony of this ancient source is dismissed by Revermann 1998. I strongly disagree with this move.
[21] |604 … μετὰ δέ σφιν ἐμέλπετο θεῖος ἀοιδὸς |605 φορμίζων· … |606 … .
[22] |17 … μετὰ δέ σφιν ἐμέλπετο θεῖος ἀοιδὸς |18 φορμίζων· … |19 … .
[23] Μy translation here follows the Greek text as I quote it in the corresponding note below.
[24] |15 ὣς οἱ μὲν δαίνυντο καθ’ ὑψερεφὲς μέγα δῶμα |16 γείτονες ἠδὲ ἔται Μενελάου κυδαλίμοιο, |17 τερπόμενοι· μετὰ δέ σφιν ἐμέλπετο θεῖος ἀοιδὸς |18 φορμίζων· δοιὼ δὲ κυβιστητῆρε κατ’ αὐτοὺς |19 μολπῆς ἐξάρχοντος ἐδίνευον κατὰ μέσσους..
[25] |19 … ἐξάρχοντoς and |606 … ἐξάρχοντoς.
[26] |19 … ἐξάρχοντες and |606 … ἐξάρχοντες.
[27] More in HTL 48-54, 63-64, 70-71 on the editorial methodology of Aristarchus in analyzing textual variants that he collected on the basis of collating Homeric texts.
[28] HC 2§74.
[29] I agree with Revermann 1998:36 when he says in passing that the editorial work of Aristarchus included the collating of Homeric manuscripts.
[30] Once again, HC 2§74; HPC II§435 pp. 300-301n88.
[31] I offer an overview of this methodology in HQ 13-27, focusing on the primary publications of Parry [1971] and Lord 1960.
[32] See HC 2§74, where I criticize the approach of Revermann 1998 in dealing with variants that he finds in Homeric references to singing and dancing and lyre-playing. In his study of these references, with a focus on Iliad XVIII 603-606, he persistently misreads the relevant formulaic variants as if they were exclusively textual variants, ignoring the methodology of Parry and Lord.
[33] On paizein as ‘perform a sportive dance’, see especially Odyssey xxiii 147. See also the Hesiodic Shield 277.
[34] The syntax of the indirect question here, appropriate to the introduction of the main subject of the performance, includes the concept of ta prōta ‘in the beginning’ - which has cosmogonic implications.
[35] |250 “ἀλλ’ ἄγε, Φαιήκων βητάρμονες ὅσσοι ἄριστοι, |251 παίσατε, ὥς χ’ ὁ ξεῖνος ἐνίσπῃ οἷσι φίλοισιν, |252 οἴκαδε νοστήσας, ὅσσον περιγινόμεθ’ ἄλλων |253 ναυτιλίῃ καὶ ποσσὶ καὶ ὀρχηστυῖ καὶ ἀοιδῇ. |254 Δημοδόκῳ δέ τις αἶψα κιὼν φόρμιγγα λίγειαν |255 οἰσέτω, ἥ που κεῖται ἐν ἡμετέροισι δόμοισιν.” |256 ὣς ἔφατ’ Ἀλκίνοος θεοείκελος, ὦρτο δὲ κῆρυξ |257 οἴσων φόρμιγγα γλαφυρὴν δόμου ἐκ βασιλῆος. |258 αἰσυμνῆται δὲ κριτοὶ ἐννέα πάντες ἀνέσταν, |259 δήμιοι, οἳ κατ’ ἀγῶνα ἐῢ πρήσσεσκον ἕκαστα, |260 λείηναν δὲ χορόν, καλὸν δ’ εὔρυναν ἀγῶνα. |261 κῆρυξ δ’ ἐγγύθεν ἦλθε φέρων φόρμιγγα λίγειαν |262 Δημοδόκῳ· ὁ δ’ ἔπειτα κί’ ἐς μέσον· ἀμφὶ δὲ κοῦροι |263 πρωθῆβαι ἵσταντο, δαήμονες ὀρχηθμοῖο, |264 πέπληγον δὲ χορὸν θεῖον ποσίν. αὐτὰρ ᾿Οδυσσεὺς |265 μαρμαρυγὰς θηεῖτο ποδῶν, θαύμαζε δὲ θυμῷ. |266 αὐτὰρ ὁ φορμίζων ἀνεβάλλετο καλὸν ἀείδειν |267 ἀμφ’ Ἄρεος φιλότητος ἐϋστεφάνου τ’ Ἀφροδίτης, |268 ὡς τὰ πρῶτ’ ἐμίγησαν ἐν Ἡφαίστοιο δόμοισι |269 λάθρῃ. [The story that has just started at line 266 now continues, ending at line 366.] |367 ταῦτ’ ἄρ’ ἀοιδὸς ἄειδε περικλυτός· αὐτὰρ Ὀδυσσεὺς |368 τέρπετ’ ἐνὶ φρεσὶν ᾗσιν ἀκούων ἠδὲ καὶ ἄλλοι |369 Φαίηκες δολιχήρετμοι, ναυσικλυτοὶ ἄνδρες. At line 267, there is a variant reading attested: φιλότητα in the accusative, instead of φιλότητος in the genitive.
[36] In HPC I§§206-209 pp. 86-88, I offer a fuller commentary on Odyssey viii 248-249 and 250-269.
[37] |24 τοῖσι δὲ βοῦν ἱέρευσ’ ἱερὸν μένος Ἀλκινόοιο |25 Ζηνὶ κελαινεφέϊ Κρονίδῃ, ὃς πᾶσιν ἀνάσσει. |26 μῆρα δὲ κήαντες δαίνυντ’ ἐρικυδέα δαῖτα |27 τερπόμενοι· μετὰ δέ σφιν ἐμέλπετο θεῖος ἀοιδός |28 Δημόδοκος, λαοῖσι τετιμένος.
[38] The verb melpesthai ‘sing-and-dance’ at line 604 of Iliad XVIII is picked up by the corresponding noun molpē ‘singing-and-dancing’ at line 606. This noun here at line 606 continues to convey the idea of singing as started by the lead singer at line 604. The singing at line 606 is now choral, combined with the choral dancing that is being highlighted in the description. Despite this highlighting of choral dance, however, the aspect of choral song in the meaning of molpē as ‘signing-and-dancing’ is maintained. Revermann 1998:29 recognizes that molpē at line 606 refers to choral singing as well as dancing. In this context, he describes molpē as “this blunt and colourless noun.” I can agree only with the first part of this description.
[39] Revermann 1998:37.
[40] This criticism meshes with what I said in my earlier note about the ignoring of formulaic variants.
[41] There is an abbreviated version of this argument in HC 2§74.
[42] Comparable to the agōn ‘competition’ mentioned here by Thucydides (3.104.3) is the agōn ‘competition’ in mousikē ‘craft of the Muses’ at the festival of the Panathenaia, where the word mousikē includes the tekhnē ‘craft’ of rhapsōdoi ‘rhapsodes’. As my argumentation proceeds, I will have more to say about this Athenian agōn.
[43] I leave this word prooimion untranslated for now. It can be used with reference to the beginning of a humnos or ‘hymn’, as in the case of the Homeric Hymns. At a later point, I will analyze the technical meaning of this word and its etymology.
[44] On this aguia as the via sacra of Delos, see Aloni 1989:117-118.
[45] The word agōn ‘competition’ as used here by Thucydides (3.104.5) needs to be correlated with his use of the same word earlier on in the passage that I am quoting here (3.104.3).
[46] See my earlier note on this word.
[47] In HC 2§27n25, I make an argument for interpreting this word aphēmōs (ἀφήμως) to mean ‘without naming names’. The adjective ἄφημος was understood to be a synonym of ἀπευθής (as we see in the scholia to Aratus 1.270.2 ed. J. Martin 1974). This word ἀπευθής is used in the sense ‘without information’, as in Odyssey iii 88 and 184. When the Delian Maidens are asked to respond to the question ‘Who is the singer?’, they respond without naming names, that is, without giving information about the singer’s name. See also De Martino 1982:92-94. For a similar explanation, see also Burkert 1979:61.
[48] |3.104.2 … καὶ τὴν πεντετηρίδα τότε πρῶτον μετὰ τὴν κάθαρσιν ἐποίησαν οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι τὰ Δήλια. |3.104.3 ἦν δέ ποτε καὶ τὸ πάλαι μεγάλη ξύνοδος ἐς τὴν Δῆλον τῶν Ἰώνων τε καὶ περικτιόνων νησιωτῶν· ξύν τε γὰρ γυναιξὶ καὶ παισὶν ἐθεώρουν, ὥσπερ νῦν ἐς τὰ ᾿Εφέσια Ἴωνες, καὶ ἀγὼν ἐποιεῖτο αὐτόθι καὶ γυμνικὸς καὶ μουσικός, χορούς τε ἀνῆγον αἱ πόλεις. |3.104.4 δηλοῖ δὲ μάλιστα Ὅμηρος ὅτι τοιαῦτα ἦν ἐν τοῖς ἔπεσι τοῖσδε, ἅ ἐστιν ἐκ προοιμίου Ἀπόλλωνος· [[beginning of quotation by Thucydides]] |146 ἀλλ’ ὅτε Δήλῳ, Φοῖβε, μάλιστά γε θυμὸν ἐτέρφθης, |147 ἔνθα τοι ἑλκεχίτωνες Ἰάονες ἠγερέθονται |148 σὺν σφοῖσιν τεκέεσσι γυναιξί τε σὴν ἐς ἀγυιάν· |149 ἔνθα σε πυγμαχίῃ τε καὶ ὀρχηστυῖ καὶ ἀοιδῇ |150 μνησάμενοι τέρπουσιν, ὅταν καθέσωσιν ἀγῶνα. [[end of quotation by Thucydides]] |3.104.5 ὅτι δὲ καὶ μουσικῆς ἀγὼν ἦν καὶ ἀγωνιούμενοι ἐφοίτων ἐν τοῖσδε αὖ δηλοῖ, ἅ ἐστιν ἐκ τοῦ αὐτοῦ προοιμίου· τὸν γὰρ Δηλιακὸν χορὸν τῶν γυναικῶν ὑμνήσας ἐτελεύτα τοῦ ἐπαίνου ἐς τάδε τὰ ἔπη, ἐν οἷς καὶ ἑαυτοῦ ἐπεμνήσθη· [[beginning of further quotation by Thucydides]] |165 ἀλλ’ ἄγεθ’, ἱλήκοι μὲν Ἀπόλλων Ἀρτέμιδι ξύν, |166 χαίρετε δ’ ὑμεῖς πᾶσαι. ἐμεῖο δὲ καὶ μετόπισθε |167 μνήσασθ’, ὁππότε κέν τις ἐπιχθονίων ἀνθρώπων |168 ἐνθάδ’ ἀνείρηται ταλαπείριος ἄλλος ἐπελθών· |169 ὦ κοῦραι, τίς δ’ ὔμμιν ἀνὴρ ἥδιστος ἀοιδῶν |170 ἐνθάδε πωλεῖται, καὶ τέῳ τέρπεσθε μάλιστα; |171 ὑμεῖς δ’ εὖ μάλα πᾶσαι ὑποκρίνασθαι ἀφήμως· |172 τυφλὸς ἀνήρ, οἰκεῖ δὲ Χίῳ ἔνι παιπαλοέσσῃ.” [[end of quotation by Thucydides]] |3.104.6 τοσαῦτα μὲν Ὅμηρος ἐτεκμηρίωσεν ὅτι ἦν καὶ τὸ πάλαι μεγάλη ξύνοδος καὶ ἑορτὴ ἐν τῇ Δήλῳ· ὕστερον δὲ τοὺς μὲν χοροὺς οἱ νησιῶται καὶ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι μεθ’ ἱερῶν ἔπεμπον, τὰ δὲ περὶ τοὺς ἀγῶνας καὶ τὰ πλεῖστα κατελύθη ὑπὸ ξυμφορῶν, ὡς εἰκός, πρὶν δὴ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι τότε τὸν ἀγῶνα ἐποίησαν καὶ ἱπποδρομίας, ὃ πρότερον οὐκ ἦν.
[49] |146 ἀλλὰ σὺ Δήλῳ, Φοῖβε, μάλιστ’ ἐπιτέρπεαι ἦτορ, |147 ἔνθα τοι ἑλκεχίτωνες Ἰάονες ἠγερέθονται |148 αὐτοῖς σὺν παίδεσσι καὶ αἰδοίῃς ἀλόχοισιν. |149 οἱ δέ σε πυγμαχίῃ τε καὶ ὀρχηθμῷ καὶ ἀοιδῇ |150 μνησάμενοι τέρπουσιν, ὅταν στήσωνται ἀγῶνα.
[50] |165 ἀλλ’ ἄγεθ’, ἱλήκοι μὲν Ἀπόλλων Ἀρτέμιδι ξύν, |166 χαίρετε δ’ ὑμεῖς πᾶσαι· ἐμεῖο δὲ καὶ μετόπισθε |167 μνήσασθ’, ὁππότε κέν τις ἐπιχθονίων ἀνθρώπων |168 ἐνθάδ’ ἀνείρηται ξεῖνος ταλαπείριος ἐλθών· |169 ὦ κοῦραι, τίς δ’ ὔμμιν ἀνὴρ ἥδιστος ἀοιδῶν |170 ἐνθάδε πωλεῖται, καὶ τέῳ τέρπεσθε μάλιστα; |171 ὑμεῖς δ’ εὖ μάλα πᾶσαι ὑποκρίνασθαι ἀφ’ ἡμέων· |172 τυφλὸς ἀνήρ, οἰκεῖ δὲ Χίῳ ἔνι παιπαλοέσσῃ.
[51] There is an earlier version of my argument in HPC I§26 p. 17n27.
[52] Again, there is an earlier version of my argument in HPC I§26 p. 17n25.
[53]HC 2§§27-40.
[54] Commentary in HC 2§27n22.
[55] In the case of Pindar’s victory odes, for example, the speaking ‘I’ can make a mimesis of everyone and anyone who may be relevant to the act of praising the victor: the laudator, the laudandus, the kōmos, an optional khoros embedded within the kōmos, the ancestor, the athlete, the hero, and so on. Pindar’s odes also make mimesis of a wide variety of poetic functions, including what Bundy 1972 describes as a “hymnal” function (pp. 55-57). As Bundy shows, Pindar’s odes can even make mimesis of “the actual process of thought in arriving at its goal” (p. 59n59; see also pp. 61-62).
[56] In PR 9-35, I offer a more extensive summary.
[57] More on the Homēridai in HPC I§§52-54, 138-167 pp. 28, 57-69.
[58] HC 2§40.
[59] Nagy 2011d:305-306,
[60] Literally, ‘we’.
[61] The particle δή here has an “evidentiary” force, indicating that the speaker has just seen something, in other words, that the speaker has achieved an insight just a moment ago (‘Aha, now I see that …’ ). See Bakker 1997:74-80 and 2005:146.
[62] |165 ἀλλ’ ἄγεθ’, ἱλήκοι μὲν Ἀπόλλων Ἀρτέμιδι ξύν, |166 χαίρετε δ’ ὑμεῖς πᾶσαι· ἐμεῖο δὲ καὶ μετόπισθε |167 μνήσασθ’, ὁππότε κέν τις ἐπιχθονίων ἀνθρώπων |168 ἐνθάδ’ ἀνείρηται ξεῖνος ταλαπείριος ἐλθών· |169 ὦ κοῦραι, τίς δ’ ὔμμιν ἀνὴρ ἥδιστος ἀοιδῶν |170 ἐνθάδε πωλεῖται, καὶ τέῳ τέρπεσθε μάλιστα; |171 ὑμεῖς δ’ εὖ μάλα πᾶσαι ὑποκρίνασθαι ἀφ’ ἡμέων· |172 τυφλὸς ἀνήρ, οἰκεῖ δὲ Χίῳ ἔνι παιπαλοέσσῃ. |173 τοῦ πᾶσαι μετόπισθεν ἀριστεύουσιν ἀοιδαί. |174 ἡμεῖς δ’ ὑμέτερον κλέος οἴσομεν ὅσσον ἐπ’ αἶαν |175 ἀνθρώπων στρεφόμεσθα πόλεις εὖ ναιεταώσας· |176 οἱ δ’ ἐπὶ δὴ πείσονται, ἐπεὶ καὶ ἐτήτυμόν ἐστιν. |177 αὐτὰρ ἐγὼν οὐ λήξω ἑκηβόλον Ἀπόλλωνα |178 ὑμνέων ἀργυρότοξον ὃν ἠΰκομος τέκε Λητώ.
[63] |169 ὦ κοῦραι, τίς δ’ ὔμμιν ἀνὴρ ἥδιστος ἀοιδῶν |170 ἐνθάδε πωλεῖται, καὶ τέῳ τέρπεσθε μάλιστα;
[64] |172 τυφλὸς ἀνήρ, οἰκεῖ δὲ Χίῳ ἔνι παιπαλοέσσῃ.
[65] |167 … ὁππότε κέν τις ἐπιχθονίων ἀνθρώπων |168 ἐνθάδ’ ἀνείρηται ξεῖνος ταλαπείριος ἐλθών·
[66] |174 ἡμεῖς δ’ ὑμέτερον κλέος οἴσομεν ὅσσον ἐπ’ αἶαν |175 ἀνθρώπων στρεφόμεσθα πόλεις εὖ ναιεταώσας.
[67] |169 ὦ κοῦραι, τίς δ’ ὔμμιν ἀνὴρ ἥδιστος ἀοιδῶν |170 ἐνθάδε πωλεῖται, καὶ τέῳ τέρπεσθε μάλιστα;
[68] |167 … ὁππότε κέν τις ἐπιχθονίων ἀνθρώπων |168 ἐνθάδ’ ἀνείρηται ξεῖνος ταλαπείριος ἐλθών.
[69] HC 2§39. On the formulaic integrity of both versions of lines 166-168 of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, see Aloni 1989:111-112.
[70] HPC I§26 p. 17n25.
[71] HPC I§126 pp. 51-52.
[72] HPC I§26 p. 17n27.
[73] Again, HPC I§26 p. 17n27. There I note the relevance of the formulation of Bakker 2002:21 about the preverb apo: “In the case of verbs denoting speech, the addition of apo- turns the sensibility to context into an immediately dialogic sense: apo-logeomai ‘speak in return’, ‘defend oneself against’, apo-krinomai ‘reason in return’, ‘answer’.”
[74] |259 … οἳ κατ’ ἀγῶνα ἐῢ πρήσσεσκον ἕκαστα, |260 λείηναν δὲ χορόν, καλὸν δ’ εὔρυναν ἀγῶνα.
[75] |146 ἀλλ’ ὅτε Δήλῳ, Φοῖβε, μάλιστά γε θυμὸν ἐτέρφθης, |147 ἔνθα τοι ἑλκεχίτωνες Ἰάονες ἠγερέθονται |148 σὺν σφοῖσιν τεκέεσσι γυναιξί τε σὴν ἐς ἀγυιάν· |149 ἔνθα σε πυγμαχίῃ τε καὶ ὀρχηστυῖ καὶ ἀοιδῇ |150 μνησάμενοι τέρπουσιν, ὅταν καθέσωσιν ἀγῶνα.
[76] For a general examination of this theological principle, I cite again Patton 2009.
[77] |169 ὦ κοῦραι, τίς δ’ ὔμμιν ἀνὴρ ἥδιστος ἀοιδῶν |170 ἐνθάδε πωλεῖται, καὶ τέῳ τέρπεσθε μάλιστα;
[78] δαιτί τε τέρπηται καὶ ἀοιδῆς ὕμνον ἀκούων.
[79] On the programmatic implications of euphrosunē ‘mirth’ as the atmosphere, as it were, of the poetic occasion, see BA 5§39 (= p. 91), 12§15 (= p. 235) and PH 6§92 (= p. 198), following Bundy 1986:2.
[80] |3 ἦ τοι μὲν τόδε καλὸν ἀκουέμεν ἐστὶν ἀοιδοῦ |4 τοιοῦδ’, οἷος ὅδ’ ἐστί, θεοῖσ’ ἐναλίγκιος αὐδήν. |5 οὐ γὰρ ἐγώ γέ τί φημι τέλος χαριέστερον εἶναι |6 ἢ ὅτ’ ἐϋφροσύνη μὲν ἔχῃ κάτα δῆμον ἅπαντα, |7 δαιτυμόνες δ’ ἀνὰ δώματ’ ἀκουάζωνται ἀοιδοῦ |8 ἥμενοι ἑξείης, παρὰ δὲ πλήθωσι τράπεζαι |9 σίτου καὶ κρειῶν, μέθυ δ’ ἐκ κρητῆρος ἀφύσσων |10οἰνοχόος φορέῃσι καὶ ἐγχείῃ δεπάεσσι· |11 τοῦτό τί μοι κάλλιστον ἐνὶ φρεσὶν εἴδεται εἶναι.
[81] HPC I§192.
[82] HPC I§§190-191 pp. 80-81.
[83] |146 ἀλλ’ ὅτε Δήλῳ, Φοῖβε, μάλιστά γε θυμὸν ἐτέρφθης, |147 ἔνθα τοι ἑλκεχίτωνες Ἰάονες ἠγερέθονται |148 σὺν σφοῖσιν τεκέεσσι γυναιξί τε σὴν ἐς ἀγυιάν· |149 ἔνθα σε πυγμαχίῃ τε καὶ ὀρχηστυῖ καὶ ἀοιδῇ |150 μνησάμενοι τέρπουσιν, ὅταν καθέσωσιν ἀγῶνα.
[84] Puhvel 1988:29.
[85] Again, Puhvel 1988:29.
[86] HC 2§321.
[87] Again, HC 2§321.
[88] HC 2§98
[89] HC 2§83.
[90] On the term aporetic question, see Bundy 1972:47. On “apologetic” and “aporetic” rhetorical strategies, see Bundy p. 59n59; also pp. 60-61 and 65.
[91] πῶς γάρ σ᾿ ὑμνήσω πάντως εὔυμνον ἐόντα. At verse 19 of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, the manuscript reading is γάρ, while at 207, it is τ’ἄρ.
[92] HC 2§24. On the syntax of pantōs ‘absolutely’ as an overall modifier of absolute phraseology, see for example Solon F 4.16 ed. West and the commentary in Nagy 1985:59-60, PH 9§7n38 (= p. 256).
[93] HC 2§89. See also Petrović 2013.
[94] HC 2§92. See also PP 63n20 and PR 72, 81,with reference to Latin ex‑ordium as a semantic equivalent of Greek pro‑oimion.
[95] HC 2§91, with bibliography on alternative etymological solutions. On a possible Avestan parallel, see Skjærvø 2005:274.
[96] HC 2§§97, 109, 113-114, 116.
[97] |292 χαῖρε θεὰ Κύπροιο ἐϋκτιμένης μεδέουσα· |293σεῦ δ’ ἐγὼ ἀρξάμενος μεταβήσομαι ἄλλον ἐς ὕμνον.
[98] Note the wording in the beginning of this hymn, in verse 1: Ἄρτεμιν ὕμνει Μοῦσα ‘make Artemis, O Muse, the subject of my humnos’.
[99] |7 καὶ σὺ μὲν οὕτω χαῖρε θεαί θ’ ἅμα πᾶσαι ἀοιδῇ· |8 αὐτὰρ ἐγώ σε πρῶτα καὶ ἐκ σέθεν ἄρχομ’ ἀείδειν, |9 σεῦ δ’ ἐγὼ ἀρξάμενος μεταβήσομαι ἄλλον ἐς ὕμνον.
[100] |10 καὶ σὺ μὲν οὕτω χαῖρε Διὸς καὶ Μαιάδος υἱέ· |11 σεῦ δ’ ἐγὼ ἀρξάμενος μεταβήσομαι ἄλλον ἐς ὕμνον. |12 χαῖρ’ Ἑρμῆ χαριδῶτα διάκτορε, δῶτορ ἐάων.
[101] HC 2§99. See also Bundy 1972:44, 49. For more on the rhetoric of seeking the pleasure of the gods, see his p. 62n65.
[102] With reference to the use of kharis in the Homeric Hymn (24) to Hestia (5), Bundy 1972:83 speaks of a “concern for the pleasure of a critical audience as well as for that of the god.”
[103] μεταβήσομαι ἄλλον ἐς ὕμνον.
[104] PH 12§33 (= pp. 353-354), following Koller 1956:174-182; see also Bakker 2005:144, disagreeing with Clay 1997:493. Further discussion in Petrović 2012. So also the expression ἄλλης … ἀοιδῆς in other Homeric Hymns means not ‘another song’ but ‘the rest of the song’, as in the case of Homeric Hymn (2) to Demeter 494-495. Other examples of this type include Homeric Hymn (3) to Apollo 545-546, Homeric Hymn (4) to Hermes 579-580, Homeric Hymn (6) to Aphrodite 19-21, Homeric Hymn (10) to Aphrodite 4-6, Homeric Hymn (19) to Pan 48-49, Homeric Hymn (25) to the Muses and Apollo 6-7, Homeric Hymn (27) to Artemis 21-22, Homeric Hymn (28) to Athena 17-18, Homeric Hymn (29) to Hestia 13-14, Homeric Hymn (30) to Gaia 17-19, Homeric Hymn (33) 18-19 to the Dioskouroi. Further analysis in Nagy 2011d:328-329, where I note that these and other such examples of the expression ἄλλης … ἀοιδῆς have been described in terms of a “break-off formula” by Bundy 1972:52-53, even though he recognizes the “transitional” function of this formula (pp. 52 ). I find the term “break-off” misleading because it blunts the idea of “transitional” (for more on Bundy’s use of the term “transitional,” see his p. 87).
[105] HC 2§109.
[106] There is a longer summary, featuring ten comments, in Nagy 2011d:330-332.
[107] HPC I§§188-223 pp. 203-214.
[108] HPC I§§242 p. 222.
[109] HPC I§§207-208 pp. 207-208.
[110] HPC I§§225-226 pp. 214-216.
[111] Again, HPC I§298 p. 240.
[112] Again, HPC I§298 p. 240.
[113] HC 2§278.
[114] HC ‘hail and take pleasure’
[115] |169 ὦ κοῦραι, τίς δ’ ὔμμιν ἀνὴρ ἥδιστος ἀοιδῶν |170 ἐνθάδε πωλεῖται, καὶ τέῳ τέρπεσθε μάλιστα;
[116] HC 2§34. See also Peponi 2009:54-55, 66n71 and Calame 2001:30, 104, 110. Thucydides 3.104.5 refers to this chorus as gunaikes ‘women’, but I think that this description does not exclude young women.
[117] See my note for Homeric Hymn to Apollo verse 163 at 2§27. The designation of the Delian Maidens as therapnai ‘attendants’ of the god Apollo in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (157) is comparable to the designation of the generic aoidos ‘singer’ as therapōn ‘attendant’ of the Muses (Μουσάων θεράπων), as in the Hesiodic Theogony (100). Since the feminine form therapnē is related to the masculine therapōn, I suggest that the Delian Maidens as choral performers are surrogates of Apollo and, by extension, of his choral ensemble of Muses, just as the generic aoidos ‘singer’ in the Theogony is a surrogate of the Muses, and by extension, of their choral leader Apollo. On Apollo as a metonym for Apollo and the Muses in choral contexts, see PH 12§§29 (= pp. 350-351) and 58 (= p. 370). On therapōn ‘attendant’ in the earlier sense of ‘ritual substitute’, I refer again to BA 18§1-9 (= pp. 301-307), with special reference to the use of the epithet Μουσάων θεράπων ‘therapōn of the Muses’ in the Life of Archilochus and Life of Aesop traditions. On the Hesiodic model of Μουσάων θεράπων ‘therapōn of the Muses’ (Theogony 100), I refer again to GM 47-51. With reference to the word therapnai ‘attendants’, consider also the Laconian place-name Therapna (Serapna), which I interpret as a metonym like Mukēnē, Thēbē, and so on (on these place names, see HTL 163).
[118] Bundy 1972:59n58.
[119] HPC I§223 p. 94.
[120] Especially relevant is what Bundy 1972:55-57 says about the “hymnal” function.
[121] HC 2§72, HPC I§§199-201 pp. 84-85; I§§248-259 pp. 105-109.
[122] |1 ῞Οθεν περ καὶ Ὁμηρίδαι |2 ῥαπτῶν ἐπέων τὰ πόλλ᾿ ἀοιδοί |3 ἄρχονται, Διὸς ἐκ προοιμίου.
[123] PH 12§§33-43 (= pp. 353-360).
[124] HC 2§83.
[125] τόν, ὦ πολῖ|ται, κωμάξατε Τιμοδήμῳ σὺν εὐκλέϊ νόστῳ·| ἁδυμελεῖ δ᾿ ἐξάρχετε φωνᾷ.
[126] See again HC 2§74; also HC 2§§65-82, with reference to the formulation of Aristotle Poetics 1449a10-11 involving the verb ex-arkhein (also arkhein) in the sense of ‘lead a performance of singers-dancers’.
[127] HC 2§73.
[128] HC 2§75.
[129] Again, HC 2§75.