Brill's Companion to Theocritus 9004373551, 9789004373556, 2021022000, 2021022001, 9789004466715

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Brill’s Companion to Theocritus

Brill’s Companions to Classical Studies

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bccs

Brill’s Companion to Theocritus Edited by

Poulheria Kyriakou Evina Sistakou Antonios Rengakos

leiden | boston

Cover illustration: Wall painting: Polyphemus and Galatea in a landscape, from the imperial villa at Boscotrecase, Rogers Fund, 1920, Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kyriakou, Poulheria, editor. | Sistakou, Evina, editor. | Rengakos, Antonios, editor. Title: Brill's companion to Theocritus / edited by Poulheria Kyriakou, Evina Sistakou, Antonios Rengakos. Other titles: Companion to Theocritus Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2021] | Series: Brill's companions in classical studies, 1872-3357 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2021022000 (print) | lccn 2021022001 (ebook) | isbn 9789004373556 (hardback ; acid-free paper) | isbn 9789004466715 (ebook) Subjects: lcsh: Theocritus–Criticism and interpretation. | Greek poetry, Hellenistic–History and criticism. | lcgft: Literary criticism. | Essays. Classification: lcc pa4444 .b75 2021 (print) | lcc pa4444 (ebook) | ddc 884/.01–dc23 lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021022000 lc ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021022001

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Contents Preface ix List of Figures x Notes on Contributors

xii

Introduction: Modern Trends in the Study of Theocritus 1 Alexandros Kampakoglou

part 1 Author and Text 1

A Poet’s Lives 41 Tom Phillips

2

Theocritus’ Textual History and Tradition Claudio Meliadò

3

Theocritus’ Dialects Olga Tribulato

4

“Linking Together Rushes and Stalks of Asphodel”: The Forms of Theocritean Poetry 105 Jan Kwapisz

63

85

part 2 Genres and Models 5

Theocritus and Bucolic Poetry Giulio Massimilla

131

6

Performing Mime in the Idylls of Theocritus: Metrical Mime, Drama, and the “Everyday” in Theocritus, Idylls 2, 14, 15 154 Sarah Miles

7

Theocritus’ Hymns and “Epyllia”: Poems 13, 22, 24, 26 Alexander Sens

176

vi

contents

8

Generic Experimentation in the Epigrams of “Theocritus” Taylor S. Coughlan

198

9

Theocritus and the Bucolic Homer Richard Hunter

10

Pan’s Pipes: Lyric Echoes and Contexts in Theocritus Alexandros Kampakoglou

11

Θεόκριτος κωμῳδοποιός: Comic Patterns and Structures in Theocritus’ Bucolic Poems (with a Supplement on Tragic Patterns) 271 Christophe Cusset

223

242

part 3 Poetics and Aesthetics 12

Ancient Scholarship on Theocritus Lara Pagani

301

13

The Sweet Pleasures of Theocritus’ Idylls: A Study in the Aesthetics of ἁδύτης 324 Evina Sistakou

14

Theocritus’ Contest Poems Karl-Heinz Stanzel

15

The Programmatic Idylls of Theocritus 364 Jacqueline Klooster

16

Theocritus and the Visual Arts Évelyne Prioux

346

387

part 4 Narrative and Themes 17

Myth and Narrative in Theocritus A.D. Morrison

431

vii

contents

18

Theocritean Spaces 454 William G. Thalmann

19

Theocritus and the Rural World Viola Palmieri

20

Childhood and Youth in Theocritus Annemarie Ambühl

21

Eros and the Pastoral David Konstan

473

494

517

part 5 Contexts and Topics 22

Among the Cicadas: Theocritus and His Contemporaries Benjamin Acosta-Hughes

23

Rulers and Patrons in Theocritus Dee L. Clayman

559

24

Theocritus’ Intercultural Poetics Frederick T. Griffiths

584

25

Gods and Religion in Theocritus Ivana Petrovic

604

26

Women in Theocritus 626 Poulheria Kyriakou

part 6 Imitation and Reception 27

[Theocritus]: The Early Reception of Theocritus 651 Poulheria Kyriakou

28

Sicilian Muses: Theocritus and Virgil’s Eclogues Brian W. Breed

679

537

viii

contents

29

The King’s Nectar: Theocritean Encomium and Augustan Poetry Joseph D. Reed

30

Theocritus and Post-Virgilian Pastoral Tradition Evangelos Karakasis

31

Theocritus and Longus Ewen Bowie

32

“Simple Theocritus” from the 16th to 18th Centuries Thomas K. Hubbard

33

Theocritus in Nineteenth-Century British Poetry Juan C. Pellicer General Index 813 Index of Passages 822

723

747

769

789

703

Preface A companion to Theocritus has been long overdue. One of antiquity’s most sophisticated and influential poets, Theocritus created a fictional universe and began an entire poetic tradition. With several permutations, this tradition reaches down at least to the nineteenth century ce, holding a place that may be compared only with that of the Homeric epics. This volume has also been long in the making. Apart from delays common to multi-authored volumes, at a point when the gathering of the Muses in one fold had come into view, the coronavirus pandemic struck and caused further scattering. We are happy and grateful that in such difficult circumstances the dedication of the contributors and the press to the project limited the losses as much as possible. The companion, conceived as a guide to students and point of reference to scholars, aims at providing a wide-ranging and thorough overview of the poet’s work, from both traditional philological and novel theoretical perspectives. As editors, we have not sought to encourage a single approach or excessive crossreferencing. The contributions in the volume reflect various expert attempts at tackling the intricacies and ambiguities of Theocritus’ art and the traditions he responded to and inaugurated. We hope that the result reflects the gains in the poet’s interpretation so far and serves as a basis for further research. We wish to extend special thanks to the contributors for their willingness to participate in the project and their kind collaboration. We also thank warmly Giulia Moriconi and Wilma de Weert of Brill for their genial diligence and unfailing professionalism. The volume is dedicated to our teachers and our students. Poulheria Kyriakou, Evina Sistakou, Antonios Rengakos Thessaloniki, June 2021

Figures 16.1 16.2 16.3

16.4

16.5 16.6 16.7

16.8 16.9

16.10

16.11 16.12 16.13 16.14 16.15 16.16

Naples, MAN, inv. 145504: silver cup (scyphus) discovered in Pompeii, House of the Menander. © Wikimedia Commons / Sailko 395 Naples, MAN, inv. 145505: silver cup (scyphus) discovered in Pompeii, House of the Menander. © Wikimedia Commons / Miguel Hermoso Cuesta 395 Marseille, musée d’Archéologie méditerranéenne (Vieille Charité), inv. 2946: Apulian Gnathia-ware bell-crater © Ville de Marseille, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Jean Bernard 396 Lecce, Museo Provinciale Sigismondo Castromediano, inv. 622. Su concessione del MIBAC—Direzione Regionale per i Beni Culturali e Paesaggistici della Puglia—Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Puglia 397 Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, AN 1892.1494; intaglio from Trikka showing a fox in a vineyard. © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford 398 Veroia, Archaeological Museum, Π 4046: terracotta statuette, Aphrodite and the dying Adonis. After Tzavanari 1987 400 Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Abteilung Rom, Arkiv (DAIR 83.299): Watercolour after a painting discovered in Pompeii, ins. ix, 4, 16, room (a). © DAI-Rom 403 Pompeii, Vettii house, room (n), east wall: Pentheus’ punishment. © Wikimedia Commons 405 Paris, BNF, cabinet des médailles, Luynes. 267: cast of an Etruscan carnelian scarab. Castor at the fountain. © BnF / CNRS-Maison Archéologie & Ethnologie (Serge Obhoukoff) 408 Richmond, VMFA, inv. 80.162: Apulian lekythos of unknown provenance © VMFA, Richmond. Gift of the Council of the VMFA on the Occasion of its 25th Anniversary/Tr. Fullerton 409 Rabat, Archaeological Museum: statuette found in Lixus (Morocco) and depicting Theseus and the Minotaur © Marc Danchin 412 Assisi, so-called House of Propertius: general view of the corridor, with the respective positions of the various vignettes. © É. Prioux 414 Assisi, so-called House of Propertius, vignette with Polyphemus and Galatea. © É. Prioux 415 Ma’arrat al-Numan, Museum, inv. 1378; Severan mosaic: Herakles strangling the snakes. © C. Noël/LIMC-France 416 Ma’arrat al-Numan, Museum; Severan mosaic: Herakles received on Mount Olympus. © A. Vukovich 417 Windsor Castle, Lantern lobby, Royal collection trust, RCIN 51538: Paul Storr,

figures

16.17 16.18

xi

The Theocritus Cup, silver gilt krater-shaped. © The Royal Collection Trust 420 Prints of the four scenes represented on each side of the Babelon canthari 13 and 14. After the engravings of J. Courtil, in Babelon 1916 421 Saint Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, W-277: silver dish showing a goatherd. © The State Hermitage Museum 422

Notes on Contributors Benjamin Acosta-Hughes is Professor of Greek and Latin at The Ohio State University. He is the author of Polyeideia: The Iambi of Callimachus and the Archaic Iambic Tradition (2002), of Arion’s Lyre: Archaic Lyric: Archaic Lyric into Hellenistic Poetry (2010) and co-author, with Susan A. Stephens, of Callimachus in Context. From Plato to the Augustan Poets (2012). With Luigi Lehnus and Susan A. Stephens he is coeditor of Brill’s Companion to Callimachus (2011). Annemarie Ambühl is Associate Professor of Classics at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. She specializes in Hellenistic and Latin poetry and has contributed to handbooks such as the Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram (2007), A Companion to Hellenistic Literature (2010) and A Companion to Ancient Epigram (2019). Her research focus on children in ancient literature originates in her University of Basel PhD thesis on Callimachus (Kinder und junge Helden: Innovative Aspekte des Umgangs mit der literarischen Tradition bei Kallimachos, Leuven 2005). Ewen Bowie now an Emeritus Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was Praelector in Classics there from 1965 to 2007, and successively University Lecturer, Reader, and Professor of Classical Languages and Literature in Oxford University. He has written numerous articles on early Greek elegiac, iambic and lyric poetry, Aristophanes, Hellenistic poetry, and many aspects of imperial Greek literature and culture. He has published a commentary on Longus, Daphnis and Chloe (CUP 2019), edited a collection entitled Herodotus. Narrator, scientist, historian (de Gruyter 2018), and co-edited Archaic and Classical Choral Song (de Gruyter 2011) and Philostratus (CUP 2009). Brian W. Breed is Professor and Chair of the Department of Classics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is the author of Pastoral Inscriptions: Reading and Writing Virgil’s Eclogues (London 2006) and other work on Roman poets including Horace, Propertius, Lucilius, and Ennius.

notes on contributors

xiii

Dee L. Clayman is Professor of Classics at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York where she is Executive Officer of the PhD Program in Classics. She is President of the Société internationale de bibliographie classique, former Editor-in-chief of Oxford Bibliographies: Classics, and Past-President of the Society for Classical Studies. She is the author of Timon of Phlius: Pyrrhonism into Poetry (de Gruyter 2009) and Berenice ii and the Golden Age of Ptolemaic Egypt (Oxford 2014). She is currently under contract with the Harvard University Press for a new edition and translation of Callimachus for the Loeb Classical Library. Taylor Coughlan specializes in the literature and culture of the Hellenistic period. His primary interest lies in epigram and epic, particularly how they interact with and reimagine other poetic traditions. He has published on dialect imitation, authorial self-fashioning in the epitaphs of Nossis and Leonidas, and similes in Apollonius’ Argonautica; currently he is at work on a monograph on the poetics of dialect choice in Greek epigram. He is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Pittsburgh. Christophe Cusset is Professor of Greek literature at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon. He is interested in intertextuality and poetic theory in the Hellenistic period. He has published commentaries on Theocritus’ Idylls 26 and 6, Euphorion and Lycophron. Frederick T. Griffiths is Professor of Classics at Amherst College in Massachusetts. He is the author of Theocritus at Court (1979) and articles on Theocritus, Callimachus, and Apollonius Rhodius. He is currently working on the structures of cultic and navigational practice in relation to spaciality and political geography in the Argonautica. As a comparatist, he has also written on politics and reception in Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and (with S.J. Rabinowitz) Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Pasternak. Thomas K. Hubbard is the James R. Dougherty, Jr. Centennial Professor of Classics at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the author of The Pipes of Pan: Intertextuality and Literary Filiation in the Pastoral Tradition from Theocritus to Milton (1998), as well as numerous other books and articles on Greek lyric and dramatic poetry,

xiv

notes on contributors

Republican and Augustan Roman poetry, Greek and Roman sexuality, and classical reception. He has held multiple fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Study, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He also serves as President of the William A. Percy Foundation for Social and Historical Studies. Richard Hunter is Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College. His most recent books include Hesiodic Voices: Studies in the Ancient Reception of Hesiod’s Works and Days (2014), Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica iv (2015), (with A. Uhlig) Imagining Reperformance in Ancient Culture (2017), The Measure of Homer (2018), and (with C. de Jonge), Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Augustan Rome: Rhetoric, Criticism and Historiography (Cambridge 2019). He is an Editor of Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics and of Cambridge Classical Studies. Alexandros Kampakoglou is Lecturer in Classics at Trinity College, Oxford. He has published widely on Hellenistic poetry, particularly on the Hellenistic reception of archaic lyric and the use of intercultural imagery in court poetry. He is the author of Studies in the Reception of Pindar in Ptolemaic Poetry (De Gruyter 2019). He is currently working on choral poetics in Hellenistic poetry. Evangelos Karakasis is Professor of Latin at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His main research interests include Roman Comedy, Roman Pastoral and Latin Linguistics. He is currently working on a Green and Yellow Commentary on PostVergilian pastoral poetry with an emphasis on Calpurnius Siculus, the Einsiedeln Eclogues, Nemesianus and Endelechius. Jacqueline Klooster (PhD 2009, Amsterdam University) is Assistant Professor of Greek Literature at the University of Groningen. Besides a number of scholarly articles, she is also the author of Poetry as Window and Mirror. Positioning the Poet in Hellenistic Poetry (Brill, 2011) and co-author of the edited volumes Homer and the Good Ruler. The Reception of Homeric Epic as Princes’ Mirror (Brill, 2018), Callimachus Revisited. New Perspectives in Callimachean Studies (Peeters, 2019) and After the Crisis. Remembrance, Re-anchoring and Recovery in Ancient Greece and Rome (Bloomsbury, 2020).

notes on contributors

xv

David Konstan is Professor of Classics at New York University. His research focuses on ancient Greek and Latin literature, especially comedy and the novel, and classical philosophy. In recent years, he has investigated the emotions and value concepts of classical Greece and Rome, and has written books on friendship, pity, the emotions, forgiveness, beauty, and love. He is a past president of the American Philological Association, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Jan Kwapisz is an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Classical Studies at the University of Warsaw. His main research interests lie in Hellenistic poetry and in linguistic games in ancient literature. He is the author of The Greek Figure Poems (Peeters, 2013) and The Paradigm of Simias: Essays on Poetic Eccentricity (de Gruyter, 2019), and has co-edited The Muse at Play: Riddles and Wordplay in Greek and Latin Poetry (with David Petrain and Mikołaj Szymański, 2013) and Fragments, Holes, and Wholes: Reconstructing the Ancient World in Theory and Practice (with Tomasz Derda and Jennifer Hilder). Poulheria Kyriakou is Professor of Greek Literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Her research interests include archaic epic and lyric, Athenian drama and Hellenistic poetry. She is the author of the books Homeric hapax legomena in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius (Stuttgart 1995), A Commentary on Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris (Berlin/New York 2006), The Past in Aeschylus and Sophocles (Berlin/Boston 2011), and Theocritus and his native Muse. A Syracusan among many (Berlin/Boston 2018). She has also co-edited Wisdom and Folly in Euripides (Berlin/Boston 2016) and written articles on archaic, classical and Hellenistic poetry. Giulio Massimilla is Professor of Greek Literature at the University Federico ii in Naples (Italy). He is the author of a two-volume critical edition, with introduction and commentary, of Callimachus’ Aetia (1996, 2010). He has written on archaic Greek lyric, Attic drama, ancient Greek literary criticism, Hellenistic poetry, imperial and late antique Greek epic, ancient Greek novels, Greek literary papyri, and the reception of classical antiquity in contemporary literature.

xvi

notes on contributors

Claudio Meliadò is Associate Professor of Ancient Greek language and literature at the University of Messina. His main interests concern Greek epic, Hellenistic poetry, Aelian, ancient Greek scholarship, and literary papyrology. He has published “E cantando danzerò” (2008), in which he reedited P.Lit.Goodspeed 2 with translation and commentary, and the first critical edition of the scholia to Aelian’s Historia animalium for the Bibliotheca Teubneriana. Sarah Miles is Associate Professor (Teaching) in the Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of Durham, UK, publishing on Greek drama, the ancient receptions of Old and New Greek Comedy in Tragedy and Philosophy, comic fragments and their engagement with tragedy (paratragedy), and contemporary receptions of Greek epic in Children’s media, including television and animation. A.D. Morrison is Professor of Greek at the University of Manchester, where he has taught since 2001. He is the author of Apollonius, Herodotus and Historiography (Cambridge, 2020), The Narrator in Archaic Greek and Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge, 2007) and Performances and Audiences in Pindar’s Sicilian Victory Odes (London, 2007). He edited Classical Quarterly between 2013 and 2018. He is currently working on a commentary on selected poems of Callimachus for the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series, a New Survey on Hellenistic poetry for Greece & Rome and co-directing the AHRC project on Ancient Letter Collections (2016–2021). Lara Pagani is Associate Professor of Greek Literature at the University of Genova. Her main interests concern ancient Greek scholarship and grammar, Homeric studies, Greek lexicography and studies on language in ancient Greece, and literary papyrology. She is co-editor of the series Supplementum Grammaticum Graecum (SGG, Brill), of the encyclopedia Lexicon of Greek Grammarians of Antiquity (LGGA, BrillOnline), and of a forthcoming new edition of the scholia to the Iliad (de Gruyter). Her publications include a critical edition of the fragments of Asclepiades of Myrlea (2007), as well as a chapter on Hellenismos in the Brill’s Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship.

notes on contributors

xvii

Viola Palmieri is PhD student at the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen. Her main interests are Aeolic lyric and Hellenistic poetry, especially Theocritus. She is the author of Teocrito. I carmi eolici (Id. 28–31). Introduzione, edizione critica, traduzione e commento (2018, repr. 2019), and has written on Theocritus’ pseudepigraph Idyll 25. She is currently preparing a new critical edition with English translation and commentary on [Theocritus’] Idyll 25. Juan Christian Pellicer is Professor of English at the University of Oslo. He has written extensively on eighteenth-century poetry, focusing especially on the traditions of British and American pastoral and georgic verse. He also writes on contemporary poetry, and is writing a book on modern receptions of Virgil. Ivana Petrovic is Hugh H. Obear Professor of Classics at the University of Virginia. She is the author of a study of the cult of Artemis in Theocritus and Callimachus, Von den Toren des Hades zu den Hallen des Olymp (Brill, 2007) and co-editor of Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram (Cambridge, 2010), Triplici invectus triumpho— der römische Triumph in augusteischer Zeit (Franz Steiner, 2008), The Materiality of Texts (Brill 2018) and Ancient Greek Literary Epigram (OUP 2019). Her current research project with Andrej Petrovic is a large-scale diachronic study of belief in Greek religion, the first volume of which has appeared as Inner Purity and Pollution in Greek Religion. Vol. i: Early Greek Religion (Oxford, 2016). Tom Phillips is Lecturer in Classical Literature at the University of Manchester. He is the author of Pindar’s Library: Performance Poetry and Material Texts (OUP, 2016), Untimely Epic: Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica (OUP, 2020), and articles on Greek and Latin lyric poetry. Évelyne Prioux is a scientific researcher in the CNRS. Her scholarship focuses on the relationship between Hellenistic and Roman poetry and the visual arts. She is the author or co-author of four monographs: Regards alexandrins. Histoire et théories des arts dans l’épigramme hellénistique (2007); Petits musées en vers. Épigramme et discours sur les collections antiques (2008); Voir les mythes. Poésie hellénistique et arts figurés (2017); Rubens, des camées antiques à la galerie Médicis (2018).

xviii

notes on contributors

Jay Reed is Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at Brown University. His interests lie mainly in Hellenistic and Latin poetry, particularly where the poetic representation of cultural identity is concerned, and in their reception in modern poetic and political discourse. He has also published on the ancient cult and myth of Adonis. Alexander Sens is Markos and Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis Chair of Hellenic Studies at Georgetown University. His work focuses on late Classical and early Hellenistic poetry, and particularly on its engagement with the literary tradition. He is the author of six sole-authored or collaborative books, including Theocritus: Dioscuri (Idyll 22) (Göttingen, 1997), Asclepiades of Samos: Epigrams and Fragments (Oxford, 2011) and, most recently, a commentary on select Hellenistic epigrams (Cambridge, forthcoming). Evina Sistakou is Professor of Greek Literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She is the author of The Geography of Callimachus and Hellenistic AvantGarde Poetry (Athens 2005, in Modern Greek), Reconstructing the Epic. CrossReadings of the Trojan Myth in Hellenistic Poetry (Leuven 2008), The Aesthetics of Darkness. A Study of Hellenistic Romanticism in Apollonius, Lycophron and Nicander (Leuven 2012) and Tragic Failures. Alexandrian Responses to Tragedy and the Tragic (Berlin/Boston 2016). She has published articles on Apollonius, Callimachus, Lycophron, Euphorion, Greek epigram and Hellenistic aesthetics. Karl-Heinz Stanzel is Professor of Greek at the University of Tübingen. He is the author of Liebende Hirten (Berlin, 1995) and many articles on Theocritus and Hellenistic poetry. His main field of research is Plato and Ancient Philosophy. William Thalmann is Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. He is the author of books and articles on Greek poetry, including Conventions of Form and Thought in Early Greek Epic Poetry (Baltimore/London, 1984), The Swineherd and the Bow: Representations of Class in the Odyssey (Ithaca, 1998), and Apollonius of Rhodes and the Spaces of Hellenism. The chapter in this volume is part of a longer project on space, presence, and absence in Theocritus’s poetry.

notes on contributors

xix

Olga Tribulato is Associate Professor at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Her research interests concern the Greek dialects and literary languages, historical morphology, epigraphy, ancient bilingualism and Greek theories of language. She is currently working on Atticist lexicography and its transmission. She is the author of Ancient Greek Verb-Initial Compounds: Their Diachronic Development within the Greek Compound System (Berlin-Boston 2015), the editor of Language and Linguistic Contact in Ancient Sicily (Cambridge 2012) and has contributed to Storia delle lingue letterarie greche edited by A.C. Cassio (Florence 2016, 2nd edn.).

introduction

Modern Trends in the Study of Theocritus Alexandros Kampakoglou

1

Introduction

It has often been said that the 20th century was the century of papyrology.1 Not only has the discovery of papyri restored to modern readers a significant part of the work of poets such as Bacchylides, Menander, Sappho, and Archilochus, papyrology has also contributed considerably to our understanding of specific periods of Greek literary history—Hellenistic literature being one of the greatest beneficiaries in this respect. Apart from Menander,2 the publication of the Milan papyrus (P. Milan 18), containing prose outlines of Callimachus’ poems (the so-called diegeseis), has enabled us to restore the content of his poems and more importantly their sequence in ancient editions.3 More recently, the publication of the Lille papyrus has restored significant parts of the first elegy in the third book of the Aetia—the so-called Victory of Berenice (P. Lille 76d, 78a–c, 79), with further contributions to the structure of the poem made in the early 2000s by additional papyrus fragments in Milan (PSI xv 1500). Along similar lines, mention should be made of the Milan papyrus containing a collection of Posidippus’ epigrams (P. Mil. Vogl. viii 309), considerably expanding the corpus of his surviving poetry and our understanding of the networks of poetic production and patronage.4 Without a doubt, the final twenty-five years of the previous century were fascinating for the study of Hellenistic poetry.5 Unlike the poetry of Callimachus or Posidippus, Theocritus’ corpus has survived mainly through the channels of medieval manuscript tradition.6 The 1 2 3 4

The phrase is attributed to Theodore Mommsen; see van Minnen (1993) 5. For Menander’s papyri, see Nervegna (2013) 271–279. Norsa/Vitelli (1934). See the studies collected in Acosta-Hughes/Baumbach/Kosmetatou (2004); Gutzwiller (2005). 5 van Minnen (1993) 8. 6 There is the obvious exception of Callimachus’ Hymns, on which see Pfeiffer (1953) li–xciv and Stephens (2015) 38–46, and Posidippus’ epigrams preserved in the Greek Anthology. For the textual transmission of Theocritus’ poetry, see Gow (1952) 1.xxx–lxii; Gutzwiller (1998); Meliadò, this volume.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004466715_002

2

kampakoglou

appeal of his bucolic poetry for later pastoral poetry might be one of the factors that influenced the survival of his work.7 One could claim that papyrology has not presented us with many great surprises in the case of Theocritus’ poetry.8 Still, the unearthing at Antinoe (modern Sheik Abāda) of a papyrus of Theocritus by John de Monins Johnson (1913–1914) and its subsequent publication by Hunt and Johnson (1930) mark in many regards a significant moment in Theocritean studies in the first half of the previous century. Indeed, the New York Times (May 16, 1914) hailed the discovery with a special mention on their third page, noting the date of the papyrus, the number of lines it preserves, as well as further paleographical details about corrections by a second hand. The papyrus, dated to the 5th or 6th century ce, provides information not only about Theocritus’ poetic idiom but also about the order of the poems in ancient editions, which differs considerably from that preserved in the medieval manuscript tradition.9 The various marginal comments offer a welcome addition to our understanding of Theocritean criticism in antiquity.10 In many regards, the publication of Theocritus’ Antinoe papyrus confirms van Minnen’s (1992) general remark about the contribution of papyrology to literary criticism in the twentieth century: “The flood of information that has become available in the past hundred years has not only expanded research in these fields, but it has radically changed the study of testimonia to the study of actual texts.” Using Theocritus’ Antinoe papyrus as a starting point, this chapter maps the various modern trends in the interpretation of Theocritus’ poems. Its aim is not only to offer a survey of Theocritean scholarship in modern times but also to demonstrate that it is the variability of Theocritus’ poetic art that can sustain such diverse theoretical approaches. Furthermore, this survey serves as an introduction to the discussions that follow, since several of the scholars named in connection with specific trends have authored chapters for this companion. Against this background, I would like to trace the development of Theocritean studies since the publication of A.S.F. Gow’s monumental Theocritus in two volumes (19501; 19522). The discussion will first focus on literary criticism using the Antinoe papyrus as an example of how this papyrological find improves our understanding of Theocritus and, in so doing, also confirms the directions that Theocritean scholarship has taken in the last thirty years or so. I will then turn

7 8 9 10

Rosenmeyer (1969); Halperin (1983). Gow (1952) 1.xlviii–li surveys the papyri containing poems of Theocritus. See also Gallavotti (1984); Gutzwiller (1998); Meliadò (2014) 9–11. For an appraisal of the significance of this papyrus, see Meliadò (2014). Montana (2011) examines the marginalia of the papyrus. For ancient scholarship on Theocritus, see Pagani (2007) and this volume.

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to a short survey of textual studies, before moving on to a more general survey of studies of Theocritus’ poetry and the future of Theocritean criticism.

2

Modern Trends Foreshadowed in Ancient Scholarship

The general enthusiasm that greeted the publication of Theocritus’ Antinoe papyrus quickly gave way to a feeling of disappointment. In his review of Hunt and Johnson’s edition, Gow (1930) 230 notes that “our texts, as far as I can see, will not in the future be much better, or even much different.” As Gow explains, the Antinoe papyrus presents a text of Theocritus that is in many regards inferior to that offered by the medieval manuscript Ambrosianus 886 of the 13th century (commonly marked as K in modern standard editions of Theocritus). Gow’s assessment reflects the priorities of Theocritean criticism at the time: the emphasis was on ironing out the linguistic irregularities of Theocritus’ idiom and the production of a reliable text. Even so, the original sense of disappointment was compensated first by the fact that the papyrus preserves some thirty new lines beyond the end of the so-called Heracliscus (Idyll 24) and second that it offers proof of the existence of a fourth Aeolic poem (Idyll 31).11 In both these regards, the discovery of the Antinoe papyrus foreshadows the modern discussion of Theocritus’ poetry in particular with regard to performative context and the genre identity or prehistory of his poetry. The Antinoe papyrus confirmed the surmise of Theocritus’ early editors (e.g., Musurus, Callierges, Giunta) that medieval manuscripts have not preserved the final part of Idyll 24 after line 140.12 It seems certain now that the poem ended with Heracles’ apotheosis and his wedding to Hebe, the personification of youth. Thus, Theocritus provided a complete narrative of Heracles’ career, paralleling Pindar’s similar treatment of the myth in Nemean 1. In addition to this, it is also clear that the poem ends with the poet taking farewell of Heracles in the manner typical of the Homeric Hymns. The final lines point towards the existence of a self-referential comment. Theocritus combines the word for “bard” (aoidos) with what quite likely looks like a form of the verb “to win” (nikan). The marginal comment on these lines specifies that the poet draws an analogy between himself and Heracles. In particular, the poet requests that he

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Even so, some reviewers (e.g., Spencer (1931) 711) were not particularly thrilled by the discovery: “Possibly we need not too much mourn the loss; what remains in full of xxix and xxx is sufficiently nauseating.” See Ahrens (1855) 1.144 note on line 140.

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might also be victorious, following the example of Heracles, who defeated the snakes sent by Hera against him. At the time of publication, and until the last decade of the previous century, little importance was accorded to the significance of these lines for our understanding of Theocritus’ poetics, his imagining of himself, and the possible context of his poetry.13 A fresh evaluation and publication of the relevant papyrus fragment by Hans Bernsdorff in 2011 elucidates the structural arrangement of this Idyll and demonstrates its influence on Virgil’s Eclogue 4. At the same time, Bernsdorff’s text offers a new impetus for interpretation, which in many ways reflects and confirms recent trends in Theocritean scholarship. In particular, one can surmise three aspects of Theocritus’ poetic technique, all of which constitute focal points in recent discussions of his poetry. The analogy between the poet and Heracles pertains to Theocritus’ representation of himself in his poem (Section 3 below) but also to the influence of archaic lyric poetry, and specifically Pindar, on his discourse (Section 4 below). Second, the appeal for assistance in a competition raises the possibility of performance and relates to the much-discussed issue of the performance of Theocritus’ poetry (Section 5.3 below). Finally, the concluding address to Heracles (171–172) suggests connections with the corpus of hexameter hymns attributed to Homer, calling into question naive classifications of Idyll 24 as a pure narrative (Section 6 below). In turn, the issue of genre leads to the poet’s rhetorical and political agenda in the selection of his mythological material (Section 5.4 below).

3

Theocritus’ Image

The issue of the manner in which a poet, and in particular a Hellenistic poet, presents themselves in the body of their poetry is not without significance. Callimachus’ pseudo-autobiographical passages (e.g., the Aetia prologue; the epilogue of Hymn 2) have been prominent in modern appreciations of Alexandrian aesthetic principles. And even though scholars are nowadays reluctant to accept such passages at face value,14 they still retain their importance in that they allow us to establish links with previous authors and genre traditions

13 14

In his comment, Gow (1952) 2.436 correctly acknowledges that “the poem itself was written for a competition,” without specifying any further. Especially in the wake of Lefkowitz’s (20122) influential monograph. For the notorious quarrel between Callimachus and Apollonius of Rhodes, see also Bundy (1972). Cameron (1995) 185–232 argues against Lefkowitz in favor of a more balanced approach to ancient biographical traditions.

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(e.g., Aristophanes; Plato; Pindar etc.). Jacqueline Klooster’s (2011) monograph offers a systematic discussion of the manner in which Hellenistic poets situate themselves in their cultural milieu through references to older (both real and mythical) and contemporary poetic figures. Such self-aggrandizing generally holds a more prominent position in Callimachus’ output than it does in that of Theocritus or Apollonius. In addition to the various allusions that scholars have detected, Callimachus does not shy away from naming other poets (e.g., Hipponax in Iamb 1). This is not the case in Theocritus’ poems with a few exceptions: e.g., Homer (“the Chian bard” at 7.47; 16.20) or Simonides (“the bard of Ceos” at 16.44). Older poetic figures such as Daphnis and Comatas are invested with a mythological or heroic status similar to that of Orpheus in the Argonautica. The programmatic Idyll 7 has given rise to a discussion about Theocritus’ eclectic intertextuality: in addition to the mention of Homer, the ancient scholia inform us that Sicelidas stands for Asclepiades, and Simichidas, for Theocritus himself (Σ 21b).15 Nonetheless, although Theocritus’ poem is ambiguous enough not to contradict such an interpretation, it does not indubitably support this reading either. The image of Theocritus we get at the end of Idyll 24 agrees more with images of him known to us from other poems. In Idyll 16, an encomium for Hiero ii, the poet fashions for himself the image of a poet dependent on the system of patronage.16 In the course of the poem, Theocritus establishes connections with Homer and Simonides by name, while Pindar is a prominent influence for the style and motifs used throughout. Along similar lines, Idyll 17 situates Theocritus at the very center of a similar Ptolemaic structure at Alexandria. Whether realistic or not, this image is corroborated to a certain degree by the Ptolemaic and agonistic intimations of Idyll 24. Furthermore, this intertextual nexus of allusions and references underlines the primacy of encomiastic poets such as Simonides and Pindar to the politics of Theocritus’ poetry. It further raises the issue of whether Idyll 24 is to be grouped with Idylls 16 and 17 as an encomium, a question to which I return below in Section 6. The analogy between poet and mythological hero or subject of praise (laudandus) is traditional and goes back to Homer: the Homeric narrator requests the support of the Muses in a manner not that different from the epic warrior relying on divine support in the battlefield. A similar analogy between the narrator and the epic’s main hero permeates the Odyssey. Simonides’ “Plataea Elegy,” a poem Theocritus knows and to which he alludes in his enco-

15 16

See also Phillips, this volume. For patronage in Theocritus, see Clayman, this volume.

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miastic poems,17 recasts this relationship in the praise context of lyric poetry. Indeed, given the close intertextual relationship between Idyll 24 and Pindar’s Nemean 1, another possible intertext is offered by Pindar’s similar treatment of his poetic image in the ode for Chromius.18 The analogy with Heracles then could be seen as a lyric echo. This leads us to our first major strand in Theocritean criticism—intertextuality.

4

Intertextuality: Weaving a New Genre

4.1 Lyric Heritage The connection between Theocritus and archaic or classical lyric poetry is not new. The ancient scholia on Theocritus provide ample evidence that this habit of reading Theocritus’ Idylls against other lyric poems formed part of ancient reading practices as well.19 In recent years, there has been rising interest in the information that scholastic corpora can impart regarding the reception of lyric poets in Hellenistic times. These studies examine the evidence that such bodies of text provide for writing a history of the reception of archaic poets such as Pindar.20 Bearing in mind, however, that most Hellenistic scholars were also poets, such bits and pieces of Hellenistic scholarship carry significance for our understanding of Hellenistic poets’ tendencies and ways of composing. Further examination of the ancient scholia to Theocritus as well as their increased availability to the scholarly community, as has recently been the case with the valuable ancient scholia to Apollonius Rhodius, will help further develop this area of study.21 Building on such information, two old but still-valuable papers provide a starting point for the examination of the influence of lyric poets on Hellenistic poets. Smiley’s (1914) compendious article of Pindaric echoes in Callimachus is nicely complemented by Clapp’s (1913) paper on Theocritus’ Pindaricizing endeavors. In this context, one should also mention the connections between Sappho and Theocritus provided in Mesk’s (1925) discussion of Himerius’ first speech. Still, these papers from the beginning of the previous 17 18 19 20 21

Theocritus 16: Vox (2002), Kyriakou (2004); Theocritus 17: Fantuzzi (2001). See also Rawles (2018). Kowerski (2008) identifies an echo of the “Plataea Elegy” at Theocritus 22.214–223. Kampakoglou (2019) 182–211 and 196–197, in particular, on the analogy between Pindar and Teiresias in Nemean 1. E.g., Alcman: 12.arg.a–b; Sappho: 11.38–39c; Simonides: 16.34–35a; Pindar: 2.17 etc. Phillips (2016). Lachenaud (2010). Wendel (1914) remains the standard edition for Theocritus’ scholars. For the typology of comments in the ancient scholia to Theocritus, see Grisolia (2004).

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century remained without any major continuation for many years. With the exception of Norman Austin’s paper on the connections between Theocritus and Simonides from 1967, this area of study remained mostly underdeveloped until the middle of the 1990s. Indeed, one has to wait for the publication of Richard Hunter’s groundbreaking Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry (Cambridge, 1996) for lyric patrimony to be securely anchored in any serious study of Theocritus’ poetry. Breaking with the dominant approaches to Theocritus, Hunter focuses primarily on the “non-bucolic” poems and employs intertextuality to examine the “restoration and re-creation of various poetic traditions” (ix). Unlike previous scholars, Hunter incorporates the occasional allusions to archaic lyric poets such as Alcman, Ibycus, and Pindar in an organized approach to Theocritus’ poetry, arguing that such intertextual connections form part of a wider and systematic attempt on Theocritus’ part to engage and recreate archaic lyric poetry in the narrative format of Hellenistic times. Hunter opens up new vistas of interpretation suggesting possible connections not only with archaic lyric but also with the contemporaneous realities of Ptolemaic court.22 To give one example, Theocritus’ engagement with the Spartan poetry of Alcman could very well be motivated by consideration of foreign policy (Chremonidean war) and forms part of a wider picture orchestrated by the Ptolemaic court.23 Hunter’s monograph is also the first to draw attention to the previously little-studied group of Aeolic poems (28–31). In many ways, this monograph realigns the direction of Theocritean studies, making use of theoretical tools—such as intertextuality—and attempting to create historical, social, and political contexts within which to read Theocritus’ non-bucolic poems. As a result, Theocritus emerges as the archive or repository of cultural knowledge, an image that has found recent echoes in the study of ancient scholia mentioned above. The publication of Hunter’s book coincides with a wider increase in interest in the influence of lyric poetry on Hellenistic poets in general.24 Four years prior, Therese Fuhrer (1992) published her own book examining the influ22

23 24

In this context one should also mention Hunter’s 2015 piece on the influence of Stesichorus on Theocritus 18, which continues a path of inquiry initiated by the ancient scholia on this poem (18 arg.). On the connection with Stesichorus, see also Ornaghi 2013. Massimilla 1995 offers an overview of the Hellenistic reception of Stesichorus. Hunter (1996) 157. In addition to the monographs mentioned above, the topic of archaic lyric influence on Hellenistic poetry is the subject of two special issues of Trends in Classics 9.1 (2017) and Aitia 8.1 (2018). The contributions of Sistakou (2017) and Noussia-Fantuzzi (2017) deal particularly with aspects of Theocritus’ lyricism. See also Acosta-Hughes (2006); Kampakoglou, this volume.

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ence of Pindar, Bacchylides, and Simonides on Callimachus’ epinician elegies. Fuhrer’s monograph brings to the foreground not only the relevance of these poets for Callimachus in general but more importantly the revival of praise poetry in Hellenistic times. The publication of Posidippus’ Milan papyrus has not only enriched our understanding of this genre tradition, but also confirmed the primary role of praise discourse in the poetry produced under the reign of the first three Ptolemies (approximately 310–240 bce).25 Further book-length treatments of the topic have secured the presence of archaic lyric poetry in the study of Hellenistic poetry generally and Theocritus in particular. Benjamin Acosta-Hugh’s Arion’s Lyre: Archaic Lyric into Hellenistic Poetry (Princeton, 2010) offers comprehensive coverage with particular emphasis on Theocritus’ connections with Sappho and Alcaeus. More recent, focused studies include chapters that discuss the connections between Theocritus and individual poets such as Alcman, Pindar, and Simonides.26 In the same context, Andrew Morrison (2007) approaches the relationship between archaic lyric and Hellenistic poetry from the point of view of narratological conventions and specifically the role of the narrator. 4.2 Epic Background In a field previously dominated by the influence of Homer and Hesiod, this revived interest in a different branch of poetic tradition is particularly welcome. Even so, unlike Apollonius or Callimachus,27 Theocritus still lacks a comprehensive study of Homeric and Hesiodic influence on his work. The significance of early hexameter poetry for any understanding of Theocritus’ poetic output cannot be overstated. The issue at stake is not solely the interpretation of a passing allusion to Homer, which carries significance in the immediate context of the poem in which it is found; it also concerns the origins and the creation of bucolic discourse.28 Whatever importance one attributes to the tra-

25 26

27 28

For Posidippus and the Ptolemies, see the papers collected in Acosta-Hughes/Baumbach/ Kosmetatou (2004), and Gutzwiller (2005). Alcman: Kousoulini (2019); Pindar: Kampakoglou (2019); Simonides: Rawles (2018). In this context, one should mention Vox’s (1986) seminal paper on the influence of Sappho fr. 1 Voigt on Theocritus 1 and the various contributions by Sbardella (1997) (Sappho), (2004a) (Homer), and (2004b) (Pindar). González (2010) offers a reading of Theocritus 16 inspired by Theognis. See also n. 17 and 22 above for links with Simonides and Stesichorus, respectively. Apollonius: Knight (1995); Callimachus: Reinsch-Werner (1976). The major exponent of this trend is Halperin (1983). For a recent case study, see e.g., Chesi (2018). See also Hunter, this volume.

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dition that Stesichorus treated the story of Daphnis in his poems,29 evidence is not forthcoming about this aspect of lyric influence on Theocritus. A far more fruitful approach is represented by Jasper Griffin (1992), who points to the possible connection between Theocritus’ bucolic poetry and Homer’s heroic shepherds.30 It is against the intertextual background offered by previous hexametric poetry that Marco Fantuzzi (2000) situates Theocritus’ bucolic poems. Expecting his readers to make the connection with traditional epic, Theocritus innovates in these poems by avoiding gods and heroes, focusing instead on lowly characters such as shepherds and common folk. One aspect of this process not often acknowledged is that Theocritus’ attitude towards the traditional gods and heroes of epic poetry in his bucolic Idylls goes hand in hand with the promotion of Ptolemy ii and his family to a divine status in his non-bucolic Idylls. However, the relevance of early Greek hexameter poetry for the study of Theocritus’ poetry exceeds the connections with just the Homeric corpus. Although the possible Hesiodic nature of Idyll 10 has been recently underplayed, Hesiodic imagery percolates through Theocritus’ relationship with the Muses.31 In addition to this, the undeniable possibility that Theocritus harks back to the Cypria for the scenes he relates in Idyll 18 and 2232 is strengthened by the consideration of the apotheosis of Berenice i: Theocritus’ version in Idylls 15 and 17 borrows elements from the story of Iphigenia in the Cypria and the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women.33 This brief and far from exhaustive selection suggests that the relevance of early Greek hexameter poetry is not restricted to the bucolic or non-bucolic poems; rather it runs through all parts of Theocritus’ work, thus destabilizing the too-strict separation of bucolic from non-bucolic poems. 4.3 Drama, Mime, and Platonic Dialogues The vitality of intertextual readings in Hellenistic poetry is further demonstrated by Evina Sistakou’s (2016) recent exploration of tragic influence on Hellenistic poetry. In particular, the discussion of theatrical elements or connections in Idylls 1, 2, and 26 throws into relief the erudition and experimental

29 30 31 32 33

The most recent editors of Stesichorus’ fragments remain skeptical about this information; Davies/Finglass (2014) 596–598. For shepherds in pre-Hellenistic literature, see Gutzwiller (1991) 23–79. Kyriakou (2018) 50–51, 160–161, 177–178, 186–187. See also Halperin (1983) 245–247; Cameron (1995) 415–417; Fantuzzi (2000) 143–144. Sistakou (2015). Kampakoglou (2013).

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aspects of Theocritus’ poetry.34 Beyond this, such analyses also help situate performance at the center of Hellenistic culture and literary life, doing away with the older idea of Alexandrian poets secluded in the ivory tower afforded by the Museum.35 Theocritus 15 focuses on the performance of a hymn during Arsinoe ii’s Adonia. The proximity of Theocritus’ poetry to mimes is already noted in the ancient scholia, which point to the influence of Sophron on Theocritus.36 In the fictional universe of Idyll 6, Theocritus’ characters impersonate “bucolic heroes,” such as Polyphemus. Performance is central to both Idyll 1 and 7. To the bucolic songs of Idylls 1 and 6, Lycidas and Simichidas in Idyll 7 add the important evidence of songs with clear connection to archaic lyric poets such as Pindar and Sappho or poetic genres such as the propemptikon.37 In addition to the various poets mentioned so far, no study of Theocritean intertextuality can be complete without consideration of Plato. “Plato’s Phaedrus occupies a special place in the history of literary presentation of landscape,” notes Hunter (1993) 14 in the Introduction to his commentary on Theocritus. It has always been felt that Theocritus’ poetry has a special affinity for Plato.38 Recently, the importance of Plato has been reappraised in the study of Callimachus by Acosta-Hughes/Stephens (2012). Theocritus’ engagement with Plato represents an intriguing path for further investigation of possible areas of intersection such as symposia, desire, fiction, and imitation. 4.4

Implications of Intertextual Criticism: Genre, Performance, and Context The last thirty or so years have been particularly fortunate in the intertextual approaches to Theocritus’ poetry. Thanks to these studies, Theocritus is progressively gaining his place alongside Callimachus and Apollonius as an erudite poet who creatively engages with a variety of genre traditions, such as epic, lyric, and drama. Focusing intertextual interest on poets who did not compose in dactylic hexameter has invited a welcome reassessment of scholarly assumptions about intertextuality, as set out, for instance, in the works of Giuseppe Giangrande and his students. How can one establish connections which are 34 35 36

37 38

See also Cusset, this volume, who focuses on the influence of comedy on Theocritus. D’Alessio (2017) is an important contribution towards reevaluating the character of Alexandrian culture. See also Cameron (1995) 24–70. For the influence of Sophron’s mimes on Theocritus, see Hordern (2004a) 26–28; Lanowski (1964). For the connection between Theocritus’ Idylls and mimes, see Stanzel (1998) and Miles, this volume. Pretagostini (2009) examines the various contexts of performance in Theocritus’ poetry. See also Acosta-Hughes (2012a). Billault (2017a), (2008); Testut-Prouha (2017); Montes Cala (2009); Erbse (1986); Murley (1940).

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not supported by the positioning of words in the same sedes in a line?39 Inevitably, the emphasis has moved to different criteria. The selection of dialect could point towards the reworking of specific genre traditions in the cases of Idyll 12 in Ionic (possible connection with the pederastic elegy; cf., e.g., the second book of Theognis) and Idylls 28–31 in Aeolic (connection with Lesbian poetry). One can also mention the criterion of content. But this again is not enough to consider the implications that such connections might have for establishing the genre identity of poems through allusive or intertextual means, as suggested by Richard Thomas (1996) in the case of Latin poets looking back at Theocritus. In a similar light, Fantuzzi (2008) has argued that the allusions to archaic and classical lyric poetry help Theocritus to connect his bucolic Idylls with the poetic traditions of agonistic and sympotic poetry. Thus, Theocritus can enhance the status of the new genre. Indeed, it is thanks to such connections that previously ignored genre aspects of Theocritus’ poems, especially praise, have been brought to the foreground. The connection with lyric poets of the archaic and classical times allows us to reconsider aspects of poetic activity after the death of Alexander the Great.40 In place of gaps, it allows us to establish continuities in poetic discourse: the need of Hellenistic poets to establish their autonomy against Homer finds suggestive parallels in lyric attitudes towards Homer.41 At the same time, engaging with texts originally meant for performance has allowed for a better understanding of experimentation on the part of Hellenistic poets42 In addition, the strongly communal and cohesive function of lyric performance is now carried, on a textual level at least, to new supranational environments that extend beyond traditional civic boundaries.

5

Contexts of Interpretation

Through an application of a variety of different approaches to the study of Idyll 24, this poem has emerged as a case of a more interdisciplinary and contextu39 40

41 42

For the importance of the sedes in Giangrande’s approach, see, for instance, Giangrande (1967). Apart from the various archaic poets mentioned in the course of the discussion, we should also note the influence of the so-called New Dithyramb of Philoxenus and Timotheus. See Montes Cala (2014); Hordern (2004b). Note in particular Sappho fr. 16 Voigt and Ibycus PMGF S151, which are discussed more fully in Kampakoglou, this volume. Cf. Hunter/Fuhrer (2002) 156; Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 363–364. Theocritus’ engagement with the tradition of victory songs in Idyll 4 is discussed in Rawles (2007) and Kampakoglou (2014).

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ally aware discussion of Theocritus’ discourse. To begin with, acknowledging the possible importance of artistic evidence is only one aspect of viewing/reading Hellenistic poems against the background of the society that hosted their composition and reception. Alongside art, modern readers of Theocritus recreate a multifaceted ambience, which also includes mythology, propaganda, and politics. To be more specific, in the case of Idyll 24 the consideration of artistic evidence operates in light of the connection between the Ptolemies and Heracles, whom they repeatedly claim as their divine ancestor.43 Combining different approaches, one comes to a finer appreciation of Idyll 24 as a court poem meant to flatter the sovereign, quite probably Ptolemy ii Philadelphus. As we are going to see next, this is only one of many such cases. Typical of New Historicism, these approaches suggest a break with exclusively text-based approaches prevalent in the field in the second half of the twentieth century. 5.1 Theocritus and Art The relevance of this background becomes clearer when one considers the Ptolemaic ramifications of Idyll 24. The poem centers around Heracles’ first miraculous achievement: the killing of the snakes sent by Hera to devour Heracles and his twin brother. Judging from the two existing Pindaric accounts (Nemean 1 and Paean 20—more likely a hyporchema), this was a very famous myth. Pherecydes is also known to have narrated this episode, and one may reasonably speculate that epic poets such as Panyassis and Peisander might have also included it in their extensive epic treatments of Heracles’ career.44 In addition to these possible intertextual connections, the consideration of its presence in contemporaneous art has opened new possibilities with regard to the interpretation of the poem. Indeed, scholars have associated this poem’s mythological narrative with miniature statues depicting Heracles killing the snakes. According to Laubscher (1997), monumental versions of these statues adorned the Ptolemaic capital. Broadening the scope of our inquiry to consider the evidence provided by different media (statuary in this case) not only complements but also develops the interpretation of the poem. It is possible that Theocritus would expect his audience to associate his version of the myth with depictions of it in other artistic media. Such interactions between art and poetry have gradually claimed center stage in recent criticism following similar approaches in the study of archaic lyric.45 Two monographs published in the second half of the 1980s were among 43 44 45

E.g., OGIS 54.4–5. See Kampakoglou (2019) 182–183. See also Cozzoli (2010); Lamari (2008); and Prioux, this volume.

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the first to engage with the pictorial aspects of Hellenistic poetry. Graham Zanker’s Realism in Alexandrian Poetry: A Literature and its Audience (London, 1987) defines pictorial realism as the common attribute of Hellenistic poetry and art.46 Zanker has developed and extended this interdisciplinary approach in a series of later publications, which also concern questions of style and genre classification.47 Along similar lines, Barbara Fowler (1989) reconstructs the aesthetic ideals of the Hellenistic period, laying equal emphasis on both poetry and art. Both monographs include important discussions of Theocritus, with particular emphasis on items such as the rustic cup of Idyll 1, the various tapestries of Idyll 15, and also narrative scenes. Since then, the publication of Posidippus’ Milan papyrus has strengthened the interest in the interaction of art and poetry in Hellenistic times. The detailed attention to the fine details of jewels (lithika) or statues (andriantopoiika) in the poems of the Milan collection confirms the pronounced metapoetic interest this discourse carries for Hellenistic poets.48 Moving beyond the analogies that exist between various artistic media, contributions in this field have taken interesting turns, fruitfully combining discussion of art with other theoretical approaches. More recently, Zanker (2014) has employed the analogies between art and poetry to discuss the issue of gaze and reader response in Hellenistic texts. On the other hand, Marylin Skinner (2001) has analyzed the ekphrastic mode prevalent in Idyll 15 in light of gender studies, arguing that the expression of emotions at the description of artefacts is an element Theocritus derives from the female epigrammatists of the early Hellenistic period (e.g., Erinna; Anyte; Nossis). Page DuBois (2007) also views ekphrasis in gendered terms, associating descriptions of artefacts with the questions of status, power, and authority. If the studies just mentioned examine the role of art as a comparandum for the poetic text, there is a growing awareness of the significant role that objects, not necessarily of an artistic nature, may hold in defining gender, status, and character in Theocritus’ poems. Applying a theoretical approach inspired by New Materialism and gender studies, such studies can help open new paths in the criticism of Theocritean poetry in the future.49

46 47 48 49

Nicosia (1968) constitutes an early attempt in this direction. Zanker (1998); (2014). See, in particular, Goldhill (1994). Noel/Remond (2017). See also Borghini (1993); Purchase (2003). Canevaro (2019) offers a survey of material studies.

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5.2 Intercultural Approaches Combining traditional textual analysis with intertextuality and consideration of Ptolemaic history, recent studies of Theocritus are increasingly paying more attention to the context in which his poems could have been composed and performed, in the hope that uncovering such information might unlock further aspects of interpretation. The particulars of Ptolemaic royal ideology figure prominently in such readings.50 Specifically, Ludwig Koenen (1977) 79–86 has influentially suggested that Idyll 24 is occasioned by the proclamation of Ptolemy ii Philadelphus as co-regent with his father Ptolemy i Soter in 284 bce. Nonetheless, contextualizing Theocritus’ poetry ought not to be defined in the very narrow sense of performative context. Koenen’s later work (1983; 1993) on the ideological underpinnings of royal ideology in the Ptolemaic court has expanded the field of study to take into account political, religious, and symbolic discourses. Whether Heracles in Idyll 24 stands for Ptolemy ii or not, the analogy suggested or intimated between the Ptolemaic monarch and mythological gods (e.g., Zeus or Apollo) in other court poems raises the difficult question of the king’s divine hypostasis. Koenen’s paper on “The Ptolemaic King as a Religious Figure” (1993) makes clear the connection between the Greek depiction of the Ptolemaic monarch in Hellenistic poetry and traditional pharaonic conceptions regarding the divinity of the king. By virtue of performing his royal duties, the king was supposed to be divine. The importance of this paper lies in the fact that it employs Egyptian royal ideology to account for the prominence of certain themes in Ptolemaic poetry (e.g., love) as well as for the selection of specific mythological scenes such as the incestuous union of Zeus and Hera. Koenen’s paper develops and stands at the crossroads of two influential interpretative trends: intercultural readings of Hellenistic poetry and Ptolemaic interpretation of traditional mythology.51 The last decades have been rife in interpretations that enable connections with other cultures, particularly Egyptian tradition. The works of Walter Burkert and Martin West in the study of early Greek poetry offer a useful context in which to view the rise of such readings of Ptolemaic poets. In the case of Hellenistic poetry, an even earlier beginning is made with Reinhold Merkelbach’s

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For a recent discussion of Ptolemaic ideology and the role of Hellenistic texts therein, see Wyns (2017). Koenen’s approach has been influential in a series of important studies of Theocritus and Callimachus. I single out for particular mention Gutzwiller (1992) (Callimachus); Heerink (2010) (Theocritus 17); Rossi (2000) (Callimachus).

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(1963) important paper on Eratosthenes’ Erigone. Merkelbach shows how the old Attic myth of Erigone and her father Icarius translates into the realities of Egyptian culture. Several papers since have examined religious syncretism and intercultural exchange in the court of the first Ptolemies. These point out the presence of Egyptian scholars in the Ptolemaic court and explore the possible channels of intercultural communication in official and bureaucratic circles.52 After all, it was exactly this ambience that fostered the creation of a new Ptolemaic god, Sarapis.53 Among such intercultural readings, Daniel Selden’s (1998) Alibis holds a prominent position; he examines the multinational profile of Alexandria and correlates Callimachus’Lock of Berenice with astral myths about Isis and Osiris. This detailed publication inaugurates a fruitful examination of intercultural connections in the field of Hellenistic poetry that includes the publication of Hunter’s (2003) commentary on Theocritus 17, the first largescale commentary to incorporate this new theoretical approach. In a series of publications, but also in her important Seeing Double: Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria (Berkeley, 2003), Susan Stephens has given an intercultural bend to the study of Hellenistic poetry. As Stephens argues, the deep structure of the poetic material has palpable Egyptian connotations. Although it is unlikely that high poetry like that of Theocritus would ever reach Egyptian audiences outside the court, the use of material “susceptible” to a double, intercultural reading sustains the images the Ptolemies desired of themselves as both Greek and Egyptian kings.54 5.3 Performance and Patronage The final line of Idyll 24 raises the perplexing possibility that Theocritus’ Idyll was performed or recited in the context of an official poetic competition. Indeed, the poet’s appeal to Heracles for his support parallels the conclusion of a lesser Homeric Hymn addressed to Aphrodite (In Venerem (6) 19–20). Unfortunately, there can be no certainty about whether there was a performance of Theocritus’ poem or not. It may very well be that this is just a contextualizing mechanism similar to the mimetic frames one finds in Callimachus’ hymns.55 Nonetheless, the possibility of performance (however understood) should not be entirely excluded, and an increasing number of scholars are will-

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Rochette (1994); Legras (2002). For Hellenistic poets and the Ptolemaic court, see Weber (1993). Borgeaud/Volokhine (2000). For intercultural poetics in Theocritus, see Griffiths, this volume. Kampakoglou (2019) 198.

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ing to allow it for Callimachus’ hymns.56 Whether recited or acted, these poems not only textualize performance, but also place it at the very center of their discourse. Acknowledging this possibility leads inevitably to the discussion of possible venues for such performances and the implications that they carry. Idyll 15 offers an intriguing example: the embedded hymn to Adonis relates to the deification of Queen Berenice i. The venue (the royal palace) supports and encourages the Ptolemaic reading.57 Along similar lines, the selection of Cyrene and Argos in Callimachus’ Hymns 2 and 5, respectively, is fraught with the implications that these locations had in Ptolemaic circles of the third century bce. Among the various testimonia about performances in Ptolemaic times, prominent place should be accorded to Theocritus’ reference to the “sacred contests (agonas) of Dionysus” (17.112–117). It is unclear what specific context Theocritus has in mind.58 Ptolemy ii established the Ptolemaea in honor of his deified father, which might offer the context for such performances. Inscriptional evidence (Syll.3 390 = IG xii,7 506 l. 22) attests that music contests formed part of the official program. If Callixenus’ description (BNJ 627) of Philadelphus’ Great Procession refers to the celebration of the Ptolemaea, as is often assumed,59 then the presence of the dramatic poet Philicus at the head of the guild of the Artists of Dionysus might be a further indication of the presence of poetic contests in them. Beyond offering a venue for the performance of poetry, these lines are significant because in them Theocritus describes a system of patronage according to which Ptolemy ii Philadelphus rewards bards for their skill and the praise, which they bestow upon their patron. The mention of kleos (“fame”) at line 117 agrees with the Homeric flavor of the poem. Much of the discourse used in these lines recurs in Idyll 16, another Idyll presenting itself as an encomium of Hiero ii of Syracuse. However, the Ptolemaic subtext of Theocritus’ poems is not always as clear as in the case of Idylls 16 and 17, particularly for those poems that have a prominent mythological profile. For instance, the Ptolemaic association of Idyll 24 surfaces only when one takes into account artistic evidence (see Section 5.1 above) and the claim of the Ptolemies’ descent from Heracles. Accordingly, the selection of the specific episode becomes fraught with implications that can

56 57 58 59

Fraser (1972) 1. 652, 656; Falivene (1990) 105; Cameron (1995) 63–67; Petrovic (2007) 128– 137, 177–181; Acosta-Hughes/Cusset (2013) 128–131. See, in particular, Reed (2000). See Hunter (2003) on lines 112–116. Foertmeyer (1988).

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even go as far as suggesting an analogy between mythological figures (Heracles, Alcmene) and historical individuals (e.g., Ptolemy Philadelphus; Berenice i). Appreciating the political aspects of myths in Hellenistic poetry has brought to the foreground the study of Theocritus’ praise poetry and the use of mythology in it. A movement can be observed in recent years, not only in focusing on Theocritus’ role as a eulogist, but even in approaching his bucolic poems in a Ptolemaic context.60 This tendency contrasts with older views that considered Theocritus’ encomiastic Idylls (16, 17) as “stiff and sycophantic.”61 However, Gow was not the only one to think so. One notes the general indifference with which scholars treated Idyll 16 and 17 until recently. With the exception of Meincke’s monograph (on which see next paragraph) and Rossi’s (1989) commentary on Theocritus 17, both poems were mostly ignored.62 The publication of Simonides’ “Plataea Elegy” offered a new impetus for the revival of interest in this part of Theocritus’ corpus. One also notes numerous discussions in the years following Hunter’s monograph (1993) and commentary on Theocritus 17 (2003). Gow’s approach has given way to more nuanced readings that enable us to insert Theocritus in a complicated nexus of correspondences with other court poets and examine the way in which he incorporates the diverse material that lies at his disposal. In many regards, the foundations for the modern study of Theocritus’ encomia are laid by Werner Meincke’s monograph (1965). Meincke provides an exhaustive discussion of the praise discourse of Idyll 16 and 17 from the point of view of rhetorical tradition. However, Theocritus proceeds farther than the confines of encomiastic tradition by the reworking of well-known myths. The selection of mythological material for conveying praise is typical of court poetry. Although the use of mythology is rare in Theocritus’ bucolic poems (see Fantuzzi above), this is not the case in his non-bucolic Idylls. Hylas, Heracles, Polyphemus, Adonis, Helen, and the Dioscuri are prominent figures of Hellenistic poetry very often with clear Ptolemaic associations.63 Their presence in Theocritus’ poetry has a twofold significance: on the one hand, such myths imply that Theocritus participates in a system of meticulous analogies or parallels between royal personages and mythical figures encouraged, if not suggested, to Hellenistic poets by the court. At the same time, the fact that sev60 61 62 63

See, for instance, Stephens (2018). Gow (1952) 2.325, 346 on Theocritus 17. See, however, Gutzwiller (1983); Hunter (1993). For the association of Arsinoe ii with Helen, see Basta Donzelli (1984); Acosta-Hughes (2014). For the Dioscuri: Acosta-Hughes (2012b).

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eral Hellenistic poets, such as Callimachus, Apollonius, and Theocritus, use the same mythological material allows us to envision Theocritus as participating in a creative literary dialogue with contemporary poets. The lines separating these two strategies—i.e., use of court imagery and interacting with the work of other poets—are not always easy to discern. 5.4 Ptolemaic Mythology Frederick Griffiths’s monograph Theocritus at Court, Leiden, 1979 has laid much of the groundwork for the proper appreciation of mythological references not only in Theocritus but more generally. Griffiths breaks with the tradition of allegorical readings according to which mythological figures stand for historical individuals in a neat, one-to-one correspondence. Instead, it is the power of suggestion or analogy that Hellenistic poets and Theocritus, in particular, seek. In this view, Heracles not only offers the model of an ideal king that Ptolemy ii can follow but also intimates Ptolemy’s prospect of immortalization. Similarly, Helen in Idyll 18 may stand for Arsinoe ii.64 The infelicitous associations of such a connection do not count as much as her divine hypostasis and her independent position in Greek mythology, a position that agrees with the dynamic profile of Ptolemaic queenship.65 On the other hand, the association with Aphrodite intimates the power of the Ptolemaic queen to inspire love in her consort. Beyond this theoretical background, the realization of the political implications of the Argonautic myth and of figures such as Helen, Heracles, or the Dioscuri leads to the examination of the reasons behind the popularity of such poetic material. Gennaro Perrotta (1925) was one of the first scholars to systematically examine the numerous correspondences between Theocritus’ and Callimachus’ court poems. The description of Ptolemy ii’s birth on Kos and the description of the enlightened king in Idyll 17 and Hymn 1 suggest not only possible connections between the two poets but also that both poets were responding to the requirements of the court.66 Theocritus himself, as is obvious from the passage (17.112–117) discussed above, suggests a connection between Ptolemy ii and successful poets. Indeed, competition is one of the modalities that convey a poet’s interaction with contemporary poets.

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Similar trends can be detected in the study of other major Hellenistic poets; see, for instance, Mori (2008) for Apollonius and Clayman (2014) for Callimachus. See also the papers collected in Cusset/Meur-Weissman/Levin (2012). Cf. Depew (1993). See also Pretagostini (2000), who approaches the connections with an eye towards settling the issue of priority.

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Connections between Theocritus and other Hellenistic poets, particularly Callimachus, Apollonius, and Herodas, have been the object of endless critical discussion.67 A case in point is the study of episodes from the Argonautic saga, which appear in all three major poets of the period. Traditionally, such connections have been seen in terms of influence, priority, and relative chronology.68 The discussion has often focused specifically on the connection itself, ignoring the ambience that fostered it in the first place. Setting aside the difficulty of always establishing a clear direction with regard to the various allusions, there is a case to be made about seeing some of these episodes in light of their relevance to Ptolemaic ideology.69 In addition to this interpretation, Christophe Cusset (1997) approaches the topic from a completely different angle, positing the collusion of the poets—an intriguing possibility in the case of roughly contemporaneous poets working in the same environment. Without a doubt, there are obvious limitations to such approaches in the case of myths with no clear Ptolemaic relevance. For instance, the myth of Polyphemus has pronounced metapoetic implications that enable its use as a means of artistic interaction between the poets of this period (e.g., Posidippus, Callimachus, and Theocritus). Another such case is the myth of Hylas, present in Callimachus, Theocritus, and Apollonius.70 More nuanced study of even “court” myths (e.g., Heracles) reveals that Theocritus’ adaptations are never monosemantic. Irony and humor are present even in Ptolemaic poems of Heracles (e.g., Theocritus 17; Callimachus Hymn 3).71 Acknowledging this possibility argues against seeing such poems as cases of mere sycophancy. Reflecting a multifaceted poetic tradition, Theocritus can establish his claims to independence in the face of his patrons. And yet, we see that Theocritus as well as Callimachus lack the admonitory attitude of archaic poets such as Pindar, instead adopting a rather documentary approach towards Ptolemaic rule and excellence.

67 68

69 70 71

For Theocritus’ relationship to his contemporary poets, see Acosta-Hughes, this volume. E.g., Köhknen (1963). For more recent discussions of Hellenistic chronology, see Effe (1992); Köhnken (2008). Bulloch (2016) discusses all available evidence about Theocritus’ life. Stephens (2011). Heerink (2016). Cusset (2009); Hamm (2009). For humor and irony more generally in Theocritus, see Horstmann (1976).

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The Textual Politics of the Theocritean Corpus

Traditionally, Theocritus’ poems have been divided into various categories, reflecting in many ways the diverse aspects of his poetic universe.72 Although the so-called bucolic Idylls (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, and 11) seem to form an easily demarcated unit, the remaining poems throw into relief the difficulties of offering a comprehensive description for the “non-bucolic” poems in the collection. These comprise mimes (2, 14, 15), mythological poems (13, 18, 24, 26), and hymns and encomia (16, 17, 22). To these categories one also adds the Aeolic and pederastic Idylls (12, 28–30) and Theocritus’ epigrams. Convenient though such classifications may be, they fail to capture Theocritus’ aesthetic plan and philosophy in their entirety. As Gregory Hutchinson (1988) 142–145 notes, traditional classifications of Theocritean poetry such as the one just described overemphasize fine lines of difference instead of encouraging an approach that prioritizes the common themes and motifs that permeate the collection. Indeed, this remains a major desideratum of Theocritean criticism. Depending on the approach one favors, different aspects of Theocritus’ poetry could be foregrounded. For instance, allusions to archaic poets such as Homer, Pindar, and Sappho span the entire collection. As we have already seen, this is not so much an issue of picking connections with previous texts; rather it concerns a process whereby one discovers different generic angles from which to approach Theocritus’ art with an eye to establishing continuities and innovative breaks with tradition. The multiplicity of textual foci that such an approach entails does justice to the variety or versatility (poikilia) scholars often associate with Hellenistic poetry. Perhaps not as comprehensive as Theocritus’ allusive art is the affinity to the genre of mime that certain Idylls exhibit: accordingly, one speaks of bucolic and urban mimes. There is something to be said about the appeal of this description particularly since this approach enables the discussion to move towards different paths. Viewing Theocritus’ Idylls in light of the combination of epic with mime, Karl-Heinz Stanzel (1995) has underlined poikilia as the principal characteristic of Theocritus’ poetry. The decision to focus on shepherds and goatherds Stanzel views as programmatic: Theocritus breaks with tradition and lowers the register. Interest in love as an affliction and the poet’s sympathy towards his characters are characteristic traits of the bucolic mimes, which find parallels in the non-bucolic poems. As with the bucolic poems, the examina-

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This is, for instance, the approach Foster (2009) adopts in his informative survey of Theocritean studies.

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tion of the urban mimes as one unit favors the consideration of issues such as gender, ethnicity, social mobility, and patronage, which do not figure prominently or at all in Theocritus’ bucolic mimes.73 The interest that these poems show in offering a view of contemporary reality allows interconnections to be established with Theocritus’ encomia and Ptolemaic hymns: the Ptolemaic tones in Idylls 14 and 15 complement the presentation of the dynasty in Idyll 17. On the other hand, the issue of performance and of its context as well as the metapoetic discourse (e.g., ekphrasis, weaving) so prominent in the urban mimes offer a solid foundation upon which to examine the similar concerns in the bucolic poems.74 At the same time, both categories of poems eschew the realism of mime or comedy, creating instead a fictional world in which the reader can identify with the characters and their concerns, as Mark Payne (2007) has suggested. In many regards, Payne’s exploration of Theocritus’ creation of fiction paves the way for a better understanding of Theocritus’ influence upon later pastoral poetry and the novel. Another way of tackling the issue of cross-corpus similarities has been to look for common elements in more than one subgroup. For instance, one notes the bucolic lushness prominent in mythological, hymnic, and encomiastic poems. The idyllic scene in Idyll 13 conveys the ominous prospect of the nymphs that will abduct Hylas. One might even include here the description of the nature surrounding Amycus’ spring in Idyll 22. Amycus’ boorishness contrasts with the beauty of the setting, but once again one notes the ominous connotations of the idyllic setting (locus amoenus) in non-bucolic poems. Additionally, the scenes of prosperity and abundance in Idyll 17 recall the description of Polyphemus’ island in Odyssey 9. The bucolic aspect of this poem sustains Ptolemy’s proximity to the gods and the benevolence of his rule. Along similar lines, two papers by Nita Krevans (2006) and Susan Stephens (2006) reflect on overlaps in the collections, positing the existence of urban pastoral (Idyll 15) and Ptolemaic pastoral,75 respectively. Moving beyond the two poles represented by categories such as bucolic and urban, Poulheria Kyriakou’s (2018) recent monograph finds in the Idylls a connective theme in Theocritus’ treatment of poetic tradition and the effect of song. Theocritus’ poetry conveys a sense of modesty towards previous and contemporary poets, while an ironic stance undermines the effectiveness of the embedded songs to soothe the affliction that is love. The approach combines 73 74 75

A particularly fruitful reading is offered in Joan Burton’s Theocritus’ Urban Mimes (Berkeley, 1996). See further Miles, this volume. Further developed in Stephens (2018).

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readings not only of Theocritus’ canonical Idylls but also of the pseudepigrapha and epigrams. This inclusivity allows for a more uniform approach that also takes into account the role of the non-Theocritean poems in discussing the reception of Theocritus and creating a genre tradition of bucolic poetry. In both these regards, Kyriakou reflects the increasing attention that has recently been paid to either category of Theocritus’ work. The importance of Theocritus’ poetics far exceeds the discussion of providing some sense of unity to the corpus of Theocritus’ surviving poetry. This exercise has significant ramifications that touch upon the textual and hermeneutic processes that led to the creation of the collection as has been transmitted to us. In addition to this aspect of the discussion, one is faced with the question of genre and Theocritus’ role in either creating one or laying the foundation for later poets to create one. Despite its age, Wilamowitz’s 1906 textual companion to his OCT edition of the same year is still one of the best available discussions of the textual transmission of the collection. As is well known, the order of the poems in the surviving papyri, including the Antinoe papyrus, differs considerably from the order in our medieval manuscripts, also followed by Gow in his edition. The realization that Hellenistic poets curated the editions of their poems and that the sequence they chose carries significance is one of the achievements of older scholarship. However, unlike the case of Callimachus, for whom we tread on safe ground, the evidence is not conclusive in the case of Theocritus. For instance, Gilbert Lawall (1967) famously suggested that Idylls 1–7 constitute a core of Coan bucolic poems around which Theocritus composed his book of poetry. The difficulty of this approach lies in the fact that our papyri do not bear it out. Kathryn Gutzwiller (1998) offers the most up-todate treatment of the available material elucidating the principles underlying the arrangement of the poems. Surveying the available material, Gutzwiller proves the existence of not one, but three sequences of Idylls in the ancient editions. The better understanding of the poetics that led to the creation of Theocritus’ corpus has a bearing on the issue of the so-called pseudepigrapha included in the collection and the creation of a specific bucolic tradition that encourages the crystallization of the bucolic genre. With the exception of the commentaries on selected poems,76 there is no major comprehensive treatment of the Idylls falsely attributed to Theocritus. Even so, a growing number of publications has treated various aspects of these poems, focusing on issues such as their evidence for Theocritus’ early reception and their contribution to

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Chryssafis (1981) (Idyll 25); Belloni (2004) (Idyll 27); Kirstein (2007) (Idylls 20, 21, 27).

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the formation of the bucolic tradition (in particular Idylls 8 and 9).77 A particular case among this group, the epic Idyll 25, has attracted considerable attention because of its susceptibility to parallelism with contemporaneous artistic trends78 and as a specimen of the category of epyllion outside the work of the main Hellenistic poets.79 In addition, Idyll 21 is unique in focusing not on shepherds or goatherds, but on fishermen. Aside from the presence of fishermen on the cup described in Idyll 1, this is the only such known case; the inclusion of this poem in the corpus pushes to its limits the definition of the bucolic genre. Although terms such as “Idyll” and “bucolic” constitute an irreplaceable part of the critical vocabulary of Theocritean scholarship, the exact contours of their meaning and their semantic range are far from clear. On the one hand, bucolic seems to imply the “competitive exchange of songs” so prominent in Theocritus’ poems; on the other, as Kathryn Gutzwiller (2006a) has shown, bucolic also anticipates the soothing or at times deceptive or illusory effect of the whole genre. The prominence of song and of its poetics is a prominent aspect of Gutzwiller’s (1991) earlier treatment of the genre as a whole and of Theocritus’ bucolic poems. Applying formalist and structural analysis to the discussion of Theocritus, Gutzwiller responds to the two major trends prominent in Theocritean studies in the four decades after the publication of Gow’s commentary (1952). One could term the first of these as ironic, represented by scholars such as Giagrande (1971), Effe (1977, 1978), and Horstmann (1976), and the second as symbolic, represented by Lawall (1967) and Segal (1981).80 Both schools of thought aim at uncovering the hidden meaning or intent of the poem. These readings Gutzwiller terms “mimetic.” Accepting that some Idylls might be more susceptible to such a reading, Gutzwiller situates “analogy” in the sense of the structural pairs, conceived as characters in the poem or between the frame and the framed, at the very center of Theocritus’ art and of the later evolution of the genre.81 Although such exchanges of poetic songs are not consistently present (e.g., Idyll 1), competitions, and the metapoetic implications they carry, seem important to the genre.82 Nonetheless, the neatness of such structural pairs has not gone unchallenged, particularly in the case of the interactions of framing and framed voices, in the work of Simon Goldhill

77 78 79 80 81 82

Van Sickle (1976); Hubbard (1993); Fantuzzi (1998), (2007); Kyriakou, this volume. Hebert (1987); Zanker (1996). Hunter (1998); Schmitz (2012). Roth (1995) 207. Structural or antithetical principles also underlie the works of Ott (1969), Serrao (1971) and Pretagostini (1984). See further Stanzel, this volume.

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(1991) inspired by post-structuralism. Still, one also senses that the monographs of both Gutzwiller (1991) and Stanzel (1995) represent a change of tack in the attempts to define bucolic in the works produced at the time. Instead of reading Theocritus as part of a historic (or diachronic) process in the light of later pastoral poetry (e.g., Rosenmeyer (1969); Halperin (1983); Hubbard (1998)), both scholars focus on the influence of previous traditions upon the image of the shepherd in Hellenistic poetry83 and promote synchronic readings in which Theocritus’ Idylls are seen as parts of two systems, one narrower (the bucolic corpus) and one wider (Hellenistic poetry). Outside the bucolic sphere, the difficulty that traditional approaches pose is nicely illustrated in the case of Idyll 24. Often seen as a mythological poem, the “Heracliscus” has also been discussed in terms of an “epyllion,” an equally difficult and elusive category.84 The conclusion of the poem in the Antinoe papyrus suggests affinities with the model of the Homeric Hymn, also present in Idylls 22 and 26. In the case of Idylls 22 and 24 the associations of Heracles and the Dioscuri with the Ptolemies encourage viewing these poems as encomia.85 The possible association of Helen in Idyll 18 with Arsinoe ii (see also Idyll 15) might also cast doubt on traditional classifications. The issue under discussion is of importance when one considers its impact on any effort to divine the poetic principles underlying Theocritus’ poetic collection. The mixture of genre references (hexametric form combined with lyric modalities of praise) appears in the programmatic Idyll 7. Setting out the aesthetic principles of Hellenistic refinement, Lycidas declares his dislike of poetasters trying to emulate Homer (47–48).86 Although the sentiment seems typically Hellenistic, the language strongly recalls lyric discourse. The description of poets as “craftsmen” (tekton, 45) could be seen as a lyric, if not Pindaric (Pythian 3.113; Nemean 3.4–5), echo; however, the bird imagery and the description of their purposeless efforts in crowing (49) recalls Pindar’s description of his opponents in Olympian 2.86–87—a reference to Simonides and Bacchylides, according to the ancient scholia ad loc. (Σ Α 157α). In this context, such a mixture goes hand-in-hand with another ambiguity that this time pertains to the status of the laudandus (Ptolemy ii). As has often been noted, Hellenistic poets had to adjust traditional structures of praise to the political and religious realities of Hellenistic monarchies. Whilst Pindar may intimate the heroic honors awaiting his patrons, paying special attention not to confuse the boundaries between 83 84 85 86

See also Bernsdorff (2001); Gutzwiller (2006b). Gutzwiller (1981). For this group of poems, see Sens, this volume. See Sbardella (2004a).

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gods and mortals, Hellenistic poets rely on such ambiguities to deliver much of their praise. The discourse oscillates between the two extremes represented by analogy and assimilation, although this is an honor attributed to royals only posthumously (e.g., Berenice i in Theocritus 15 and 17). This ambiguity is carried to a textual level through the generic ambiguity of the poem itself. These poems operate on the premise of their combination of elements typical of hymns (songs for gods) and encomia (songs for mortals).87

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Towards the Future of Theocritean Criticism

This chapter opened with the discovery of Theocritus’ Antinoe papyrus. More than a hundred years after its unearthing and approaching the centenary of its publication, it is only fitting to conclude this survey with another landmark moment of Theocritean studies—the publication of A.S.F. Gow’s (19501; 19522) monumental edition of the bucolic corpus. In the last thirty years the field of Theocritean criticism has yielded a rich crop of theoretically inspired approaches. Genre, intertextual, intercultural, and structural readings already mentioned have dominated the field, but there is still more. Andrew Foster (2016) has offered a narratological reading of Theocritus rich in details of intertextuality and genre. Dee Clayman (2009) approaches Theocritus in light of Timon of Phlius’ possible influence on the Idylls. Ivana Petrovic (2007) examines the cult elements present in Theocritus. In many regards, it is safe to claim that this wealth of material would not have been possible but for the foundation laid by Gow eighty years ago. Indeed, it is a testament to Gow’s scholarship that his work has not been surpassed. Published around the same time as Pfeiffer’s edition of Callimachus (1949–1953), Gow’s Theocritus offered a fresh impetus to the study of Hellenistic poetry. Gow’s commentary is typical of the period in which it was produced: encyclopedic in its exhaustive breadth of information about archaeology, history, religion, and textual problems, it falls easily into, if it does not define, the category of major reference commentary. The versatility of the commentary reflects the various aspects of Theocritus’ art. Gow has offered what has since become the standard edition of Theocritus’ text.88 However, his commentary leaves room for subsequent scholars to develop a different kind of exegetical exercise, incorporating novel theoret87 88

Di Marco (2004); Prioux (2013). Making use of Gallavotti’s work on papyri and manuscripts, Gow’s edition is considered less bold and so more reliable in its editorial principles than that of Gallavotti (19461; 19933).

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ical approaches such as intertextuality, intercultural reading, narratology, and genre, and focusing on either individual Idylls89 or groups of Idylls such as the bucolic mimes (Hunter (1999)), the Aeolic poems (Palmieri (2019)), the epigrams (Rossi (2001)), or the pseudepigrapha (Kirstein (2007)).90 In his review of Burton’s (1995) monograph, Alexander Sens (1996) notes a gradual move of interest from the first third of the bucolic collection (primarily, but not exclusively (e.g., Idyll 2), the bucolic mimes), to urban mimes and the praise and heroic poems of the second half. As we have seen, this move has brought with it a realignment of interpretative priorities, which in many ways reflect similar adjustments in other fields of classical studies. One thinks in particular of structuralism, post-structuralism, gender studies, and cultural poetics. A quarter of a century has passed since Sens’s comment, and one notes that certain directions have been further strengthened by scholars’ moving towards the final sections of the corpus—the pseudepigrapha, the Aeolic poems, and more importantly the little-discussed epigrams. What does the future hold for the fate of Theocritean studies? A look at the papers united in the present volume confirms that the theoretical approaches described in this survey are here to stay.91 Special attention is paid to intertextuality as a hermeneutic tool that enables us to map the process whereby Theocritus creates his distinct poetic profile and paves the ways for the creation of a specific bucolic tradition. Reflecting the importance accorded them in recent scholarship, these chapters discuss the interaction of Theocritus with Homer, drama, and lyric, but also examine the poetics of epigrams and the performance contexts of his poetry (Chapters 5–11). In addition to intertextuality, studies of Theocritus’ text and poetics maintain their central place in this volume (Parts 1 and 3). One notes in particular the comparative approach between Theocritus and art, and the salutary discussion of emotions in Theocritus. Cognitive approaches focusing on the representation of emotions or the role of objects for the construction of genre and authority are currently gaining momentum and hold much promise for the studying of Theocritus and Hellenistic poets more generally.92

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Belloni (2004) (Idyll 21); Cusset (2001) (Idyll 26), (2011) (Idyll 6); Chryssafis (1981) (Idyll 25); Hatzikosta (1982) (Idyll 7); Hunter (2003) (Idyll 17); Rossi (1989) (Idyll 17); Sens (1998) (Idyll 22); White (1979) (Idyll 24). On unclear criteria of selection, the student commentaries of Monteil (1968) and Dover (1971). The recently published Présence de Théocrite volume, edited by Cusset/Kossaifi/Poignault (2017), lends further strength to this conclusion. An early discussion of “feeling” in Theocritus can be found in Walsh (1985). See also Sistakou (2014).

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Parts 4 and 5 balance the demands of two different approaches. The chapters contained in Part 4 lay the emphasis on the poems themselves, discussing the poetics of Theocritus’ fictional world, the structuring of the narrative, and the presence of common themes (e.g., eros). On the other hand, Part 5 counters the preceding approach by promoting an understanding of Theocritus’ oeuvre embedded in the cultural, societal, and political realities of the Ptolemaic world. While connections with his contemporaries, Ptolemaic patronage, religion, and intercultural readings represent important aspects of contemporary Theocritean scholarship, the discussion of women is a most welcome addition to these contexts.93 The concluding seven chapters in Part 6 correlate the study of Theocritus with the thriving field of reception studies. This connection allows one to explore Theocritus’ influence within the familiar, and expected, area of Augustan and later pastoral poets, but also develops it to include later periods of ancient literary history and even modern poetry. Once again, these discussions mirror the increased interest in the reception of bucolic poetry in the ancient novel and poetry of late antiquity in recent years.94 Typical of Theocritus’ art, elusiveness and malleability render his poetry amenable to a variety of scholarly responses. Such is the vigor of these approaches that they attest to Theocritus’ ever-increasing appeal for readers but also bestow upon his Idylls the much sought-after longevity of truly the classical work.

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chapter 3

Theocritus’ Dialects Olga Tribulato

1

Dialects or Literary Languages?

The skillful use of language and metre is one of the most innovative features of Theocritus’ poetry. Theocritus’ language is a conscious condensation of the main Greek poetic traditions, which nonetheless never amounts to mere imitation. On the contrary, it represents one of the most original linguistic and stylistic operations ever undertaken in Greek poetry. By drawing upon the lyric, epic, and dramatic traditions, Theocritus creates a sophisticated mosaic in which specific linguistic features are selected and inserted as though they were individual pieces—each carrying its own dialectal colouring—which contribute to the poikilia of his poetic language. It is necessary, therefore, to point out right from the start that Theocritus’ language is not a “dialect,” that is to say the literary version of a language variety actually spoken in an area of Greece. Rather, it is an artificial language specifically developed to attain certain stylistic effects. It is significantly influenced by elements borrowed from the three main dialect groups: Doric, Ionic, and Aeolic. The previous poetic tradition had already raised these dialects to the status of prestigious literary vehicles: choral lyric and the Sicilian comic and mimic tradition of Epicharmus and Sophron had done so with Doric; Homeric epic with Ionic; and Sappho and Alcaeus’ poetry with (eastern) Aeolic. Theocritus seems to conform to the previous poetic tradition insofar as, in certain Idylls, he preserves the connection between a particular poetic genre, represented by the use of a particular metre, and the choice of a given dialectal colouring. We thus find hexametric compositions that make more frequent use of Ionic-epic diction (12–13, 16–17, and 24) and compositions in Aeolic metre that more systematically evoke the language of Sappho and Alcaeus (28– 30).1 At the same time, however, in typically Alexandrian fashion, Theocritus sets out to undermine the very cornerstone of the archaic and classical poetic tradition. The hexameter—conventionally a metre used for solemn epic poetry in

1 For this division of the Idylls, see Gow (1952) 1.lxxii.

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the Ionic dialect—is adopted in order to portray rural and urban scenes marked by the use of Doric: a dialect which had never been used in hexametric compositions before the experimental hymns by Isyllus and Callimachus. This desire to loosen the link between dialects, literary genres, and metric forms is also discernible in compositions where the Ionic element is more prominent. While the combination of Ionic with the hexameter is a classic one, the choice of the subject matter is often more unusual—as in the case of Idyll 12, a pederastic love song. The overall picture just outlined is clear enough. Nevertheless, an analysis of Theocritus’ literary language presents a number of difficulties. On the one hand, it is impossible to provide an objective description of it by employing simple formulas, since the careful balancing of elements drawn from different dialects and poetic traditions varies from Idyll to Idyll. Just to give an example, the Doric of the “Doric Idylls” varies from the lofty form of Thyrsis (Idyll 1) and Thalysia (Idyll 7), where Doric elements are combined with a large number of epic (Ionic and Aeolic) ones, to the more colloquial language of the Syracusan Women (Idyll 15), which features elements closer to spoken varieties. A Doric sheen, often given by the use of /a:/ (ᾱ) and of other typically Doric elements, in contrast characterizes the aforementioned “mixed Idylls” (13, 16–17, 24), in which the Ionic component is far more prominent. Moreover, certain dialectal elements escape one-sided explanations. One example, to which we will return, is the classification of feminine participles in -οισα. Traditionally regarded as Aeolic elements, these participles—very common in the language of choral lyric—have been the focus of influential modern theories that have sought to trace them back to an originally Doric stage and which thus consider them to be “Doric” features in Theocritus.2 In addition to all this, it is also worth recalling that what we read in critical editions is often the outcome of the textual choices of modern editors. As we shall see in Section 2.1, the manuscript tradition for Theocritus is a maze where alternative dialectal forms appear side by side, apparently without any overarching criterion. Hence Gow’s observation that it is impossible to reconstruct an original text: “to tinker with the text in such details is as likely to deprave as to improve it.”3 This claim is echoed by Hunter’s comment that “the early circulation of T.’s poems is a fascinating and frustrating subject.”4 Therefore, anyone planning to rely on quantitative data to evaluate the relative presence 2 The thesis is variously espoused by Vollgraff (1919); Braun (1932); Gallavotti (1952) and Ruijgh (1984), but is linguistically untenable: see Cassio (1993a); Willi (2012) 269. 3 Gow (1952) 1.lxxv. 4 Hunter (1999) 26.

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of Aeolic, Doric, and Ionic in a certain poem should bear the following methodological premise in mind: in the case of dialectal features that are metrically equivalent—as most indeed are, as we shall see—any analysis of this sort may prove misleading and must always be measured against the textual tradition.

2

Doric Dialect(s) in Theocritus: An Example from Idyll 1

Starting from the necessary caveat that almost no Theocritean line is written in an actual “dialect”—i.e., in a more or less “pure” dialectal variety—and that this may have played an important role in the way the text was handled in antiquity, let us turn to the most prominent dialectal layer in Theocritus’ text: Doric. Theocritean studies traditionally ascribe Idylls 1–7, 10–11, 14–15, 18, and 26 to the group of Doric compositions.5 A different linguistic layer is employed in those Idylls (13, 16–17, and 24) which feature select Ionic traits alongside Doric ones (see Section 3). Theocritus’ Doric shows a high number of recurrent phonological and morphological traits which belong to West Greek as a whole (a dialectal group of which Doric is a member), alongside a smaller number of traits which are more typical of individual Doric subvarieties. With regard to this last point it is fundamental to pay attention to the fact that Doric subvarieties diverge in their treatment of secondary /ē/ and /ō/, i.e., those long vowels which derive from contractions and compensatory lengthenings. In some varieties (e.g., Laconian) these vowels are open: [ε:], [ɔ:], written as ω, η in the classical Greek alphabet. Greek dialectology, following a classification first introduced by Ahrens, refers to these varieties with the term Doris severior (“Strong Doric”).6 In other Doric subvarieties the same vowels are closed: [e:], [o:], written ει, ου. This treatment is typical of the so-called Doris mitior (“Mild Doric”), which therefore crucially agrees with Attic-Ionic (and koine). It would be fair to say that, by and large, Theocritus’ text shows mild vocalism (ει) for /ē/ and strong vocalism (ω) for /ō/. However, the neat (albeit artificial) distribution which one observes in modern editions becomes much less clear once one turns to the manuscripts and papyri, where strong and mild outcomes may be distributed with a different ratio, or with no apparent ratio at all. Mild vocalism could be considered to be original in Theocritus because it is

5 Gow (1952) 1.lxxii, followed in different ways in all later works, e.g., Hunter (1996) 32 and Willi (2012) 268–269. Doric Idylls also include the spurious 8–9, 19–21, 23, 25 and 27, on which see Section 4. 6 Ahrens (1843). Of course, he was also a Theocritean scholar.

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typical of Syracusan, the dialect Theocritus himself must have spoken, but also because it is the most common Doric variety in the textual tradition of choral lyric. At the same time, though, it would not be unreasonable to hold copyists responsible for some instances of mild vocalism, which resembles that of the koine. The result is that, by and large, modern editions tend to privilege strong vocalism whenever it is reasonably backed up by the manuscript tradition and sometimes to extend it to words which the textual tradition transmits with mild vocalism instead. In order to get an idea of what Theocritus’ Doric looks like let us consider the first fourteen lines from Idyll 1 (Doric features are marked in bold in the text):

1

5

10

14

θυρσισ Ἁδύ τι τὸ ψιθύρισμα καὶ ἁ πίτυς, αἰπόλε, τήνα, ἁ ποτὶ ταῖς παγαῖσι, μελίσδεται, ἁδὺ δὲ καὶ τύ συρίσδες· μετὰ Πᾶνα τὸ δεύτερον ἆθλον ἀποισῇ. αἴ κα τῆνος ἕλῃ κεραὸν τράγον, αἶγα τὺ λαψῇ· αἴ κα δ’ αἶγα λάβῃ τῆνος γέρας, ἐς τὲ καταρρεῖ ἁ χίμαρος· χιμάρω δὲ καλὸν κρέας, ἔστε κ’ ἀμέλξῃς. αιπολοσ ἅδιον, ὦ ποιμήν, τὸ τεὸν μέλος ἢ τὸ καταχές τῆν’ ἀπὸ τᾶς πέτρας καταλείβεται ὑψόθεν ὕδωρ. αἴ κα ταὶ Μοῖσαι τὰν οἴιδα δῶρον ἄγωνται, ἄρνα τὺ σακίταν λαψῇ γέρας· αἰ δέ κ’ ἀρέσκῃ τήναις ἄρνα λαβεῖν, τὺ δὲ τὰν ὄιν ὕστερον ἀξῇ. θυρσισ λῇς ποτὶ τᾶν Νυμφᾶν, λῇς, αἰπόλε, τεῖδε καθίξας, ὡς τὸ κάταντες τοῦτο γεώλοφον αἵ τε μυρῖκαι, συρίσδεν; τὰς δ’ αἶγας ἐγὼν ἐν τῷδε νομευσῶ.

These first lines feature the following Doric elements: – Inherited /ā/ is preserved and not changed into /ē/ as in Attic-Ionic: e.g., the feminine article ἁ for ἡ (1: ἁ πίτυς) or the adverb (and adjective) ἁδύ for ἡδύ (1). In antiquity ᾱ was considered to be the hallmark of Doric and as a consequence Theocritus’ textual tradition has various cases of non-etymological ᾱ corrected by modern editors.7 7 On the other hand, other forms with such “hyper-Doric” ᾱ may have been perceived as authentic in the Hellenistic age and hence used by Theocritus: see Cassio (1993b).

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– The contraction of a- with o-sounds yields /ā/, not /ō/: we see this clearly in the first-declension genitive plural τᾶν Νυμφᾶν (12) instead of τῶν Νυμφῶν (both derive from τάων Νυμφάων). – The second-declension genitive singular ends in -ω (e.g., 6, χιμάρω “of the goat”): this is typical of Strong Doric, while in Mild Doric—as in AtticIonic—the ending is -ου. The same long open vowel characterizes seconddeclension plural accusatives, which end in -ως: e.g., ταύρως (121 = ταύρους).8 – The first and second singular personal pronouns are ἐγών “I” (14), τύ “you” (2) for σύ and τέ “you” (accusative, 5) for σέ (and similarly, the second-person adjective is τεός “your,” 7, whereas the Attic form is σός; τεός is also Homeric, though). – The nominative plural of the masculine and feminine article may retain the original stem in τ-: see ταὶ Μοῖσαι (9). Attic-Ionic οἱ, αἱ is an innovation: Theocritus, however, also uses these standard forms, as is shown by αἵ τε μυρῖκαι in 13 (see below). – The deictic pronoun ἐκεῖνος is replaced by the typically Doric form τῆνος (1, 4, 5, 8, 11). – The second-person singular ending of the thematic present ends in -ες, not -εις: see συρίσδες “you pipe” (3, Attic συρίζεις). – The active future has endings which resemble those of contract verbs, as signalled by perispomenon accentuation: see ἀποισῇ (3), λαψῇ (4), ἀξῇ (11), νομευσῶ (14), which correspond to the “normal” forms ἀποίσῃ, λήψῃ, ἄξῃ (second-person singular middle futures of ἀποφέρω, λαμβάνω and ἄγω) and νομεύσω. “Contracted” Doric futures of this kind are attested in the textual tradition of choral lyric, Epicharmus, Sophron, and Pythagoras: it is difficult to decide in which cases they are authentic, since most forms are metrically equivalent to standard futures.9 – Verbs in -ζω form their sigmatic future and aorist on a stem in -ξ- even when their root does not end in a velar stop. Consider the aorist participle καθίξας (12): the verb καθίζω has a dental root (< καθ-ίδ-) and so the normal form of the participle should be καθίσσας (Il. 9.488) or καθίσας. Such Doric futures and aorists take their -ξ- from those verbs in -ζω which have a velar root (e.g., κράζω “croak” < κραγ-).

8 The long vowel (open ω or closed ου) derives from the contraction of the ancient genitive ending -oo, still used in epic language. 9 The standard linguistic study on the Doric futures is Méndez Dosuna (1993). For their use in literature, see Cassio (1999).

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– The thematic active infinitive may feature a short ending in -εν in place of the common “long” ending in -ειν (or -ην with “strong” contraction): see συρίσδεν in 14 (though not metrically guaranteed: see below). Such short infinitives were normal in certain Doric varieties (e.g., the dialect of Tarentum and Cyrene), but they were already used in literary Doric (Simonides, Pindar, Bacchylides, Pythagoras) as well as in Hesiod: it is therefore very likely that for Theocritus they represented a refined feature of poetic language and not an element of a spoken variety.10 – The preposition πρός is replaced by its West Greek equivalent ποτί (2, 12): it is an archaism, already attested in Mycenaean. – The conditional conjunction (εἰ) and the modal particle (ἄν) in Doric are αἰ and κᾱ (e.g., 4, 5 and 9): the latter is akin to Aeolic κε and may sometimes also have a short scansion (κᾰ).11 – The verb “want” is not βούλομαι but λῶ, λῇς (12): this typically Doric lexical item is amply attested in Doric inscriptions and features, e.g., in Epicharmus and Aristophanes’ parody of Laconian in the Lysistrata.12 Other prominent features, which are not shown in this passage of Idyll 1, are the following:13 – The first-person plural active ends in -μες (e.g., δεδοίκαμες in 16), very well documented in ancient copies of Theocritus’ text. It is an archaism, while Attic-Ionic -μεν is an innovation. – The third-person plural active ends in -ντι: this too is an archaism. – The aorist of ἔρχομαι is ἦνθον: the -νθ- cluster, which replaces -λθ- is preserved in all the aorist forms of this verb. – First- and second-declension plural accusatives may show short endings in -ᾰς and -ος. These were original features in the Doric varieties of Crete, Thera, and Cyrene, as well as in Thessalian and Arcadian. It is very likely that the reason why they feature in Theocritus’ poetry is that they were already an element of the literary language of Hesiod, Alcman, Simonides, Empedocles, and Epicharmus, and thus constituted a metrically convenient embellishment of his diction. – Theocritus derives from Doric dialects and poetry a number of pronominal forms which usually offer convenient metrical alternatives to other pro-

10 11 12 13

On the origin of these short infinitives see García Ramón (1977). See Vessella (2016) 461. Elsewhere Theocritus employs the Doric version of βούλομαι, i.e., δήλομαι, with transmitted severior vocalism from the compensatory lengthening resulting from *gwel-s. A comprehensive treatment of Theocritus’ Doric can be found in Molinos Tejada (1990); Vessella (2016).

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nouns: first- and second-person plural forms in ᾱ̔μ- and ῡ̔μ-, such as ᾱ̔μές (“we,” nominative) and ῡ̔μές (“you,” nominative); the third-person enclitic pronoun νιν; singular datives ending in -ῑν, e.g., ἐμίν “to me,” τίν “to you.” In the context of early Hellenistic literature, producing hexametric poetry about shepherds in a dialect which had almost no previous connection with the hexameter was a real novelty.14 This linguistic choice—which programmatically characterizes an Idyll of strategic importance in the Theocritean corpus— becomes more pregnant still when one considers that in a large number of cases Theocritus may have used non-Doric features. Many of the traits analysed above can be replaced with metrically equivalent forms taken from other dialects. This applies not only to vowels (e.g., ἁδύ is equivalent to ἡδύ, τᾶν Νυμφᾶν to τῶν Νυμφῶν, etc.), but also to morphological traits that are typical of Doric diction, e.g., συρίσδες in 3 and συρίσδεν in 14: both forms, which are followed by a consonant, could be replaced with the standard forms συρίζεις and συρίζειν.15 Yet, precisely the uncertain status of these and many other forms raises the question of whether they are original. συρίσδες, for instance, is one of the only four examples of -ες transmitted by the tradition, none of them in a metrically guaranteed position (i.e., before a vowel). In the remaining cases, before a consonant, the tradition transmits the standard ending -εις, which is also guaranteed before a vowel. It is very likely that the Doric ending -ες was introduced into Theocritus’ text because of ancient grammatical theories according to which Theocritus must have used certain Doric features. As regards short infinitives in -εν, these are metrically guaranteed (before a vowel) in only four instances. In this case too, one cannot be certain whether συρίσδεν is authentic or a later addition to the text.16 We will return to this point shortly. These first lines of Idyll 1 may also help us appreciate another fact, namely that Theocritus’ diction is not uniformly Doric. The Doric layer is encrusted with certain features from epic or lyric language. The first member of the compound γεώλοφον (13) shows Ionic quantitative metathesis (it would be γᾱο- in Doric). Then follows the feminine plural article αἱ, an Attic-Ionic innovation contrasting with the conservative Doric form ταί, which Theocritus has used a 14 15

16

Cf. Hunter (1996) 33: “the cumulative effect of distinctive Doric forms seems to be to convey the ‘new’ sound of ‘new poetry.’ ” σδ for ζ is standard in ancient copies of Theocritus’ text and is a feature that it shares with the text of Alcman, Sappho, and Alcaeus. This spelling is clearly based on theories concerning the pronunciation of this sound in older Greek: Theocritus may have used σδ himself, or this spelling may have been introduced into the text by later copyists. It is impossible to know for sure: see Hunter (1999) 24; Molinos Tejada (1990) 120–128; Vessella (2016) 459. Cf. Molinos Tejada (1990) 312.

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few lines before 9 (ταὶ Μοῖσαι). αἱ is necessary to keep the final syllable of γεώλοφον short, which would become long should the Doric article ταί be used. This Ionic trait is therefore an original feature of the text, and not a trivialization introduced during transmission. Another epic trait which occurs a bit later in Idyll 1 is the genitive singular ending in -οιο (6× in this poem), a useful metrical alternative to monosyllabic endings -ω and -ου. Unlike these metrically guaranteed Ionic features, one cannot be sure that Μοῖσαι of 9—which is not the standard Doric form, given that Doric dialects would mostly have Μῶσαι or Μοῦσαι—was written by Theocritus himself. The textual tradition is split between those manuscripts which transmit Μοῖσαι (KAGS in Gow’s edition) and those which transmit the Strong Doric form Μῶσαι (PQW). Deciding whether Μοῖσαι or Μῶσαι was the authentic form here affects our interpretation of Theocritus’ language as a whole. Did he use the “strong” form Μῶσαι in order to accentuate this Idyll’s Doric character, or did he use Μοῖσαι, a form which is typical of lyric diction, in order to enhance the linguistic poikilia of the piece? Gow and most modern editors opt for Μοῖσαι, because it is supported by the consensus between the Ambrosian family (manuscript K) and the Vatican family (AGS) against the testimony of the Laurentian family (PQW). However, what this consensus in fact shows is that in the late Middle Ages two branches of the manuscript tradition agreed on preferring Μοῖσαι to Μῶσαι and not necessarily that this was the original form in Theocritus’ text—a text which certainly underwent important changes during the imperial and Byzantine periods.17 2.1 The Transmission of Doric Forms in the Textual Tradition The issue of -οισα participles is a perfect example of how an objective description of Theocritus’ Doric is actually hampered by the way in which his language—which must have exhibited a degree of mixture from the very beginning—has been transmitted. The history of Theocritus’ text has been studied in several contributions which, albeit dated, remain standard.18 Molinos Tejada (1990) has looked specifically into the role of transmission in shaping Theocritus’ language. In the 90s her study provided a significant advancement because it could take advantage of a larger number of papyri, published in the years following Gow’s 1952 edition.19 Papyri—the oldest of which go back to the 17 18 19

On the manuscript tradition of Theocritus I have followed the introduction in Gow (1952) 1.xxx–lxvi. See also references quoted in the next footnote. Morsbach (1874); Wilamowitz-Moellendorf (1906); Wendel (1914); Gallavotti (1993) 13–33; Gow (1952) 1.xxx–lxvi. For the papyri see now the update in Meliadò (2014).

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first century ce (P. Hamb. 202, with Idyll 15, and P.Oxy. 1806, with Idyll 16)— preserve a text very similar to the one transmitted by medieval manuscripts. Second-century ce papyri, however, tend to display a more Doric characterization of language, a fact which may signal a wish to produce more accurate editions of “dialectal” poets and provide readers with instructions on how to pronounce these texts correctly (a similar tendency characterizes papyri of Sappho and Alcaeus). This emerges quite clearly from the traces of Doric accentuation in the papyri from this age.20 Papyri often treat the same linguistic trait differently. In the case of participles in -ουσα and -οισα, they show a tendency to prefer -ουσα, but -οισα becomes the most common reading in later papyri and then becomes standard in medieval manuscripts. -ωσα is never found in participles, and this is at odds with the other “strong” forms transmitted by the papyri. The situation is different in the case of the word for “Muse.” Although Μοῖσα is the most widely attested form, manuscripts have several instances of Μῶσα.21 Thus, while it is impossible to ascertain whether Theocritus preferred either participles in -ουσα or those in -οισα, or whether he used both, as regards the word for “Muse” the behaviour of the manuscript tradition seems to suggest that at some point choices were made on the basis of dialectal or grammatical theories, according to which Μῶσα was considered the more appropriate form in Theocritus’ Doric. Alternations of this kind also concern other forms showing competing “strong” and “mild” treatments. A good example is the treatment of the /sm/ cluster produced by the encounter between the root of the verb “to be,” ἐσ- and the Doric infinitive ending -μεν or the Doric first-person ending -μες. In Theocritus’ text we find the strong form ἦμεν (< es-men) and the mild form εἰμές (< es-mes): the very same compensatory lengthening produces an open vowel in the first case but a closed one in the second. It remains an open question to what extent oscillations of this kind depend on grammatical or editorial reasoning, or whether they go back to Theocritus himself.22 In the case of futures, too, both papyri and manuscripts have an almost equal number of Doric (con20 21 22

Molinos Tejada (1990) 1–18. The distribution of these endings is discussed by Molinos Tejada (1990) 54–59. Molinos Tejada (1990) 56 assumes that εἰμές arose through trivialization and that the authentic form therefore was ἠμές. Abbenes (1996), on the other hand, assumes that mild vocalism was introduced into forms that, if represented with strong vocalism, would be difficult for a Hellenistic audience. He believes that this criterion ruled the Alexandrian edition of Alcman and was adopted by Theocritus himself for his literary Doric. It may be objected, however, that Theocritus’ floruit precedes the philological activity on the text of the lyric poets inaugurated by Aristophanes of Byzantium.

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tracted) and standard forms. As we saw in Section 2, fluctuations and analogical extensions of Doric traits—or, conversely, of koine treatments—in metrically guaranteed positions also concern other pivotal forms such as short accusatives and infinitives, verbal endings, and the genitive singular.23 2.2 Interpreting Theocritus’ Doric: Realism or Literary Game? The mélange of forms which can be attributed to different Doric varieties combined with others which are foreign to the Doric tradition has puzzled scholars of Theocritus’ poetry for a long time. Yet, in spite of this unquestionable mixture (which should lead to the conclusion that Theocritus’ Doric is an artificial literary variety, as first claimed by Ahrens), already ancient scholars and even more so the Byzantines considered Theocritus a model of Doric tout court. The scholia vetera state that Theocritus employed Doric to imitate the language of rustics.24 This ancient interpretation finds an echo in the frequent modern attempts to explain the composite character of Theocritus’ Doric by means of theories which see him as being set on realistically reproducing a historical Doric variety, the authenticity of which would have been altered by confused or careless copyists in the course of the textual transmission.25 The best-known theories of Theocritus’ linguistic realism are those by Magnien (1920) and Ruijgh (1984). The former has suggested that Theocritus wrote his poems in the Mild Doric variety spoken in Syracuse in the third century bce. A cornerstone of Magnien’s hypothesis is Theocritus’ use of -εσσι datives in third-declension consonantal stems (e.g., πάντεσσι), an innovative trait which is found in the dialect of Syracuse (among others). However, this linguistic trait can more easily be explained as an element inherited from the Greek poetic tradition as a whole: -εσσι datives are frequent in both epic and lyric language, and may sometimes feature also in tragedy. More importantly, Magnien’s theory that Theocritus used the authentic Syracusan dialect clashes with some notably non-Syracusan elements, from strong genitive and accusative endings in -ω and -ως (which could still be explained as later corruptions of the text) to “short infinitives” in -εν (which, when metrically guaranteed, must be an original feature). The article by Ruijgh (1984) also goes in the direction of realism, although his theory does not ignore the literary and composite character of Theocritean lan23 24 25

A study of how all these features are distributed in the textual tradition is provided in Molinos Tejada (1990). Schol. in Theocr. vet. 7.8–10 (Anecdoton Estense). This idea is already expressed in Morsbach (1874) 8–9. A critique of such an approach is advanced in the classic article by Di Benedetto (1956).

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guage. Ruijgh claimed that for his Doric Idylls Theocritus drew inspiration from the dialect spoken in Cyrene in the early Hellenistic age, a dialect which is characterized by -οισα participles, genitives in -ω, and second-person endings in -ες, and with which Theocritus was acquainted because of the many Cyrenaeans who had moved to Alexandria.26 Historical details aside, Ruijgh’s hypothesis presents some unavoidable linguistic shortcomings. It does not explain the high number of Mild Doric features, the widespread second-person ending -εις, plural accusatives in -ως οr -ους (since Cyrenaean only has “short” accusatives in -ος), or thematic infinitives in -ην or -ειν (Cyrenaean only has short infinitives in -εν). In order to account for these non-Cyrenaean features, Ruijgh has to resort to the hypothesis that the Cyrenaean Doric known to Theocritus had been influenced by the koine spoken in Alexandria: in other words, that Theocritus’ language is a sort of “koineized” Doric.27 All of these theories inevitably place much emphasis on Idyll 15—the “urban mime” that portrays an exchange between two women of Syracusan origin who now live in Ptolemaic Alexandria, Gorgo and Praxinoa. Compared to the rarefied style of the bucolic poems, Idyll 15 is striking not only for its colloquial expressions and immediacy, which resemble those of a comic piece, but also because at 87–93 it contains a rare metalinguistic reflection. Upon hearing Gorgo and Praxinoa’s incessant chatter, a passerby complains about the unpleasant sound of their “open vowels” (πλατειάσδοισαι ἅπαντα, 88). This complaint triggers Praxinoa’s proud reply, which pivots on the ancient Corinthian lineage of Syracuse: “We talk Peloponnesian, and I suppose it may be allowed to Dorians to speak in Doric” (Πελοποννασιστὶ λαλεῦμες, / Δωρίσδειν δ’ ἔξεστι, δοκῶ, τοῖς Δωριέεσσι, 92–93). Starting in the ancient scholia, the man’s comment has always been taken as a reference to Doric ᾱ.28 However, as Gow notes “the dialect of the complainant, like that of the singer in 100 ff., is not appreciably less broad than that of Praxinoa, though we are plainly invited to suppose that he is not a Dorian.”29 The interpretation of this scene in the context of Theocritus’ linguistic mimesis has been taken up again by Willi (2012), who offers a radically different

26

27 28

29

Risch (1954) had already claimed that Cyrenaean had played an important role in early Hellenistic Alexandria and that the Alexandrian philologists had used it as a model in their editions of Alcman’s poetry. For criticism of this view, see Cassio (1993a). E.g., Ruijgh (1984) 61; cf. the criticism in Willi (2012) 269–270. Schol. in Theocr. vet. ad Id. 7.87–88 Wendel: πλατυστομοῦσιν οἱ Δωριεῖς τὸ α πλεονάζοντες “the Dorians speak with open vowels, since they abound in long a.” On this scholium and parallel sources cf. Gow (1952) 2.290. Gow (1952) 2.290.

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explanation. The complainant would not be referring to ᾱ, but to the pronunciation of secondary /ē/ and /ō/. As we saw above, in Mild Doric Syracusan these sounds were the same as those of Attic-Ionic. In the koine, which follows AtticIonic, the secondary long vowels written with ει and ου had started evolving towards a closed pronunciation, which would later produce the [i:] and [u:] preserved (minus the length) in Modern Greek.30 According to Willi, therefore, the implicit contrast in the passerby’s comment is between the more advanced koine pronunciation—in which ει and ου have become more closed sounds— and the conservative dialectal pronunciation of the Syracusan women, which is representative of Doric tout court.31 This hypothesis would in turn explain the occurrence of strong vocalism (η, ω) in some words, which Willi regards as an expedient to mark “a greater degree of vocalic openness” in some Doric diagnostic forms: a way to signal that in Doric long /e/ and /o/ had a slightly different pronunciation than in koine Greek.32 Idyll 15 would thus provide a metalinguistic key for the alternation between mild and strong vocalism throughout the tradition of Theocritus’ Doric and not simply in the language of Gorgo and Praxinoa. All these approaches have sought to find historical significance in Theocritus’ linguistic choices, which have been explained either as a wish to reproduce the authentic Syracusan dialect (Magnien), the “koineized” Doric spoken in Alexandria (Ruijgh) or, conversely, a form of Doric programmatically distinguished from Alexandrian koine (Willi). Yet, a systematic analysis of those features which, differently from secondary long vowels, are not metrically equivalent should raise some scepticism toward the assumption that Theocritus intended to represent one dialectal variety, be it Syracusan, Cyrenaean, or a form of Doric contrasted with koine. The very fact that even those Idylls in which Doric is most marked contain ineradicable non-Doric features shows that Theocritus’ Doric is not some faithfully reproduced local variety, but a Kunstsprache mixing Doric features of varied origin—which should have been familiar to readers who knew choral lyric or Doric comedy—with features which had become established through other literary genres. Theocritus styles himself as both a continuator and an innovator of a prestigious Doric literary tradition whose language already had a record of interaction with other literary dialects. For instance, the Doric diction of the programmatic Idyll 7 admits 30 31 32

On the main changes in the pronunciation of vowels in post-classical Greek see Horrocks (2010) 160–170. Willi (2012) 278: “Thus, what is at stake in Theocritus is not Laconian, Syracusan or Cyrenaean, and not Mild Doric or Strong Doric either, but simply Doric or not Doric.” Willi (2012) 276.

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various instances of movable ny and of -αισι and -οισι datives, all of which are non-Doric features (Doric has -αις and -οις datives); they separate the Idyll’s diction from authentic Doric while at the same time bringing it closer to lyric and epic language.33 Of course, one should not underestimate the fact that the possibility of using non-Doric features affords Theocritus a greater flexibility with metre. Yet the recognition that metrical concerns may shape language should not lead us to dismiss the alternation of metrically equivalent forms as a purely mechanical game. Non-equivalent alternatives—such as -οιο vs. -ω, ξεῖνος vs. ξένος (i.e., observed or ignored third compensatory lengthening) or -αισι vs. -αις—do not have an identical distribution across the Doric Idylls. They are frequent in Idylls 1–7, but much more limited in Idylls 10–11, 14–15 and 18. Even so, a distinction between Idylls along these lines should not be applied too strictly. Let us consider, for instance, the slight differences occurring between Idylls 15 and 10, part of the group in which Doric is less prone to other dialectal alternatives. In Idyll 15 Theocritus never employs movable ny for metrical purposes, nor the epic genitive in -οιο and datives in -αισι and -οισι. Moreover, two of the three epic datives in -εσσι occur in the song for Adonis (105, 111; the third one is Δωριέεσσι of 93, which could be interpreted as an authentic Syracusan trait or, to the contrary, as Praxinoa’s attempt to elevate her diction).34 At the same time, the hexameter of this Idyll is the farthest from Callimachean norms that one gets in Theocritus: this fact seems to signal that there indeed was a correlation between content, dialectal choices, and the form that hexameter took.35 Idyll 10 similarly avoids -οιο genitives and -αισι datives: it has, however, one dative in -οισιν, which also features the movable ny to block elision (ἐπ’ ἀμφοτέροισιν ἀμύκλας, 35), and one dative in -εσσι (in the participle ἀμάντεσσι, 16). The fact that in practice it is not so easy to treat groups of Idylls as if they were coherent and monolithic entities confirms Hunter’s warning to exercise caution in “assuming a single explanation or a single flavour for all poems.”36 In fact, the level of discussion that Theocritus’ Doric has elicited and continues to elicit concretely shows how his linguistic choices have made his poetry a unique case in Greek literature.

33 34 35 36

Molinos Tejada (1990) 375–376. Di Benedetto (1956) 52–55 discusses the varying distribution of epic-Ionic traits in the Doric Idylls, though he does not treat -εσσι datives. See Di Benedetto (1956). Hunter (1996) 23.

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Epicizing Language and Ionic Dialect: Idylls 12–13, 16–17, and 24

Theocritus returns to a more pronounced mélange of Doric and epic-Ionic forms in his two encomia (16, for Hiero ii, and 17, for Ptolemy ii) and in the epyllia Hylas (13) and Little Heracles (24). In comparison to the odd intrusion of epic forms in the Doric Idylls, the poems of this second group contain a larger typology and a much higher percentage of Ionic features. Let us take as an example the frequency of -οιο genitives, movable ny in -σι and third-person -ε endings, and artificial -εσσι datives (i.e., those in consonantal stems and those of the kind -εεσσι) in the Doric Idylls 1 and 15 in comparison to 16, as summarized in the table below:37

Idyll 1 Idyll 15 Idyll 16 -οιο -σιν and -εν -εσσι

6 5 4

0 2 3

5 21 18

The higher frequency of all these epic features in 16 is all the more remarkable considering that this Idyll is shorter than either of the other two (109 lines against 152 in Idyll 1 and 149 in Idyll 15). Idyll 16 is also quite liberal in the use of unaugmented preterites (e.g., θῆκε, 45), uncontracted verbs (e.g., νέεσθαι, 28), and uncontracted genitives in -αων and -αo (e.g., Μοισάων, 29; Ἀίδαο, 30), the normal Doric forms being -ᾶν and -ᾱ.38 In this group, the choice of epic-Ionic probably serves the purpose of elevating diction in the encomia and bringing the epyllia closer to their model genre, epic. At the same time, the presence of Doric features may serve a specific purpose. In the encomia, it may hint at epinician poetry and its association with the fifth-century Sicilian tyrants who embodied a monarchic experience not too dissimilar to those of Hiero ii and Ptolemy ii.39 As regards the epyllia, Doric may have been chosen also because their main character, Heracles, is the Doric

37

38 39

The distribution of the movable ny in the Doric Idylls is treated by Molinos Tejada (1990) 179–190. A sketch of the Ionic and Doric features in Idyll 17 is provided by Hunter (2003) 53–60. Theocritus uses unaugmented forms in many of the Doric Idylls as well, but they are absent from 15. For the distribution, see Molinos Tejada (1990) 266–270. See Hunter (2003) 62 on Idyll 17.

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hero par excellence: the model behind Idyll 24 is the episode narrated in Pindar’s Nemean 1 and it should not be forgotten that Heracles had a strong presence in Epicharmus’ Doric comedy. The overall impression is that of a diction not unlike the admixture of epic Ionic and Mild Doric exemplified in Stesichorus’ text. A different case is that of two other Idylls: 12 (a first-person song celebrating pederastic love) and 22 (a hymn to the Dioscuri). The latter has been transmitted with an epic-Ionic diction in some manuscripts: η replacing ᾱ, genitives in -ου, second persons in -μεν (ὑμνέομεν, 1), and -ῃσι datives. Other manuscripts and the Antinoe papyrus (ca. ce500), on the other hand, contain a higher number of Doric features. The frequency of metrically guaranteed epicisms confirms that Theocritus chose to compose this long hymn in a different language than the one employed in the Doric or “half-Doric” Idylls: see for instance the epic imperfect ἦεν where Doric would have ἦς, or the frequent cases of movable ny and unaugmented verbs. The latter tend to cluster in typically epic transitional or narrative lines such as 75–76: Ἦ ῥ’ Ἄμυκος καὶ κόχλον ἑλὼν μυκήσατο κοῖλον. / οἱ δὲ θοῶς συνάγερθεν ὑπὸ σκιερὰς πλατανίστους κτλ.40 The language of Idyll 12 is ambiguous and a matter of controversy. Since the scholia state that this poem was written “in the Ionic dialect” (Ἰάδι διαλέκτῳ), modern editors tend to disregard the high number of Doric features transmitted in the manuscript tradition, particularly because the oldest copy of the poem, that of the Antinoe papyrus, is consistently written in Ionic.41 Giangrande, however, has defended the dialectal mélange as an identifying feature of what he calls “the Hellenistic hexameter Lied,” an identifying part of which was the mixture of Ionic and Doric.42 Be that as it may, the epic diction of 12 is quite different from that of the Idylls we have just reviewed. Perhaps because of its brevity (37 lines), there are only one unaugmented verb (γενέσθην, 12) and two -οιο genitives, both in the pastoral-yet-bombastic similes of the speaker’s opening lines. The Idyll is, on the other hand, replete with Homeric or quasiHomeric expressions. The impression is that of a piece in which epic diction serves a very different purpose than it does in the encomia and epyllia. In this context, it is not a priori impossible that the original Idyll, which after all is bucolic in character, may have contained more Doric features than editors are

40 41 42

Other features are discussed by Sens (1997) 37. See Gow (1952) 2.221, Gallavotti (1993) 44 and 123–125, with a fuller apparatus than Gow. On the papyrus: Hunt/Johnson (1930), Meliadò (2014). Giangrande (1971) 99.

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willing to admit.43 While this last question remains open, a possible answer to Gow’s puzzled statement that “it is impossible to guess why a piece of such content should be written in Ionic hexameters” may be that Ionic features and an epic feel were chosen to create a humorous contrast between the high-flown language of the lovesick speaker and his rustic background.44

4

Aeolic Dialect and the Lyric Background of Idylls 28–30

In Idylls 28–30 Theocritus forsakes his customary hexameter to create a learned exercise in imitation of Aeolic poetry.45 The occasion of 28 (a poem accompanying a present to the wife of Theocritus’ friend Nicias) justifies the choice of the so-called greater Asclepiad, the metre in which Sappho composed all the poems collected in book 3 of the Alexandrian edition. The same metre is used in 30, a pederastic poem. Idyll 29 too is a pederastic song, composed in imitation of Alcaeus and again in a metre established by Sappho, the so-called Aeolic pentameter (in which modern scholars traditionally believe the whole of book 2 was composed). This metre, which for Hellenistic readers must have been a real rarity, sets Idyll 29 apart from the other two poems, whose Hellenistic taste is more marked.46 All poems are very short compared to the other Idylls (twenty-five lines in Idyll 28, forty in Idyll 29, and thirty-two in Idyll 30) and this too is meant to imitate the brevity of lyric compositions. The different themes and metre of these Idylls called for a different language. Indeed, the whole purpose of these three poems seems to have been to produce a virtuoso imitation of Lesbian poetry, which Theocritus appears to be very familiar with in the rest of his production too. Common features of Theocritus’ Aeolic may be exemplified by considering those of Idyll 29:47 – /ā/ is preserved (e.g., ἀλάθεα “truth,” 1). – Secondary /ē/ and /ō/ are open (= η, ω: cf. the thematic genitive σιδαρίω = σιδηρίου in 24). 43 44 45 46

47

Sens (1997) 37 similarly cautions against making the automatic assumption that the text of 22 “must be absolutely uniform in dialect.” Gow (1952) 2.221. For this interpretation of the Idyll as a humorous piece, see WilamowitzMoellendorff 179; Giangrande (1971) 101–113. The extent and technique of this virtuoso imitation are discussed in Pretagostini (1997). Pretagostini (1995) 40–42, Hunter (1996) 167–186, Pretagostini (1997), and Fassino/Prauscello (2001) all discuss Theocritus’ different strategies of innovation and conservatism in his imitation of the Lesbian models: for the metre Fassino/Prauscello (2001), with updates in Prauscello (2006) 185–213, are particularly useful. A sketch of the Aeolic features of Idyll 28 is provided by Hopkinson (2002) 171.

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– We find ορ, ολ instead of αρ, αλ (e.g., μόλθακον “soft” for μαλθακόν, 24). – There are various forms with geminated nasals and liquids, e.g., ἄμμες, ὔμμες (“we,” “you” = Doric ἁμές, ὑμές, Attic-Ionic ἡμεῖς, ὑμεῖς: see 2 with the accusative ἄμμε “us” and the infinitive ἔμμεναι “be”). – Third-person plural endings and feminine participles show the diphthong -oι- (both features are not documented in Idyll 29, but see the third-person plural φορέοισι = φοροῦσι “they carry” in 28.11 and the participle θέρσεισα = θαρσοῦσα “full of courage” in 28.3). – Some forms of contract verbs are treated as athematic forms: see the participles φίλεντα for φιλοῦντα in 18 and κάλεντος for καλοῦντος in 39. – The conditional conjunction is αἰ (= εἰ “if”: 10). – πεδά replaces μετά: see πεδέρχομαι (25). It is fair, however, to note that almost all of the above features are not metrically exclusive, in the sense that—with the exception of ἔμμεναι (2)—they could be replaced with Doric or Ionic equivalents without troubling the metre. As a matter of fact, many of the most striking Aeolic features are modern corrections of manuscript readings considered to be trivializations. Let us consider, for instance, the already cited participle θέρσεισα of 28.3: this is Bergk’s conjecture, against the readings θερσοῖσα, θαρσεῖσα, and θαρσοῖσα of the medieval tradition. At 28.6 editions print ξέννον (= ξεῖνον) with non-etymological gemination: the correct Aeolic form would be ξένον, exactly as in Attic, but the metre requires a long first syllable. Manuscripts have ξεῖνον, which may be a corruption (hence Ahrens’ correction into ξέννον), but we will never know for sure. A similar question arises when one considers artificial infinitives such as φιλέην (29.4). The original Aeolic form would be φίλην and manuscripts transmit the epic-Ionic form φιλέειν. φιλέην is a modern conjecture, based on the assumption that the language of this Idyll must have originally been entirely in Aeolic: but how correct is such an assumption? Let us also consider Aeolic psilosis (lack of initial aspirations) and barytonesis (accent retraction). These typically Aeolic features are introduced into the text by modern editors: the relevant papyri do not have any breathings and accents, while medieval manuscripts are inconsistent in noting them.48 When we turn to metrically guaranteed Aeolic features, the harvest is meagre: ἔμμεναι and the other athematic infinitives in -μεναι, artificial geminated forms required by the metre (which may go back to Theocritus himself), and apocope of bisyllabic prepositions (e.g., περ for περί) are as much as one can safely attribute to the original Aeolic of Theocritus. It remains an open ques-

48

See Gallavotti (1993) 45.

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tion what the extent of Aeolization in these three Idylls was and whether their language might originally have been more mixed than it appears in our neat modern editions.

5

A Note on Dialects in the Spurious Idylls

The corpus of Theocritus’ poems includes some Idylls as well as some epigrams which are now more or less unanimously regarded as spurious (Idylls 8–9, 19– 21, 23, 25, 27 and Epigrams 2–6).49 The earliest of these poems, which were composed as close imitations of Theocritus’ bucolic style, are Idylls 8 and 9 (mid-third century bce). Together with 19–21, these compositions share a language which may be defined as both more prone to the inclusion of koine forms and at the same time more radical in preserving the appearance of “Doricness,” a fact which shows that already immediately after Theocritus’ death Doric had been selected as the defining code of bucolic poetry.50 This linguistic code may perhaps also account for the fact that ancient sources had no problem regarding these compositions as authentic. As an example of the first tendency, take two forms mentioned by Gow in his introduction to Idyll 9: the participle ὤν (21 et al.) and the genitive ᾠδᾶς (1). The former is a koine feature, the normal form in Theocritus being ἐών; the latter betrays koine phonology in the root (ᾠδ- for ἀοιδ-) but Doric phonology in the ending. The second tendency may be illustrated by line 3 of Idyll 27, where the sentence κενὸν τὸ φίλαμα λέγουσιν contains a koine or Attic feature (κενόν, a hapax: the expected form in Theocritus’ Doric is κηνόν), a hyper-Doric form (φίλαμα for φίλημα, where however /ē/ is etymological), and an Attic-Ionic (or koine) ending in λέγουσιν (the correct Doric form being λέγοντι). Not all spurious poems, however, are composed in Doric. Idyll 25 (an epyllion on Heracles’ deeds) uses an epic-Ionic language similar to that of 12 and 22, though it was infiltrated by Doric forms in its late-Byzantine tradition. Both the transmission path and style of this Idyll suggest that it is not authentically Theocritean. Its language, in particular, is often too pedantically Homeric, while its linguistic variations are dissimilar to the style of Theocritus’ authentic Idylls.51 This poem shows that, in spite of the early establishment of Theocritus

49 50 51

On the fluctuating status of the group of spurious Idylls, see Hunter (2002) 95–97. On the conventional bucolic code of the spurious epigrams, see Rossi (2001) 62–73. See, in general, Gow 2.439–440. The language is analysed in the outdated but still useful study by Perrotta (1978).

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as a Doric poet, there was still room for an appreciation of his linguistic poikilia even among later and less apt imitators.

Bibliography Abbenes, J.G.J. (1996), “The Doric of Theocritus, a Literary Language,” in M.A. Harder/ R.F. Regtuit/G.C. Wakker (eds.), Theocritus (Groningen) 1–19. Ahrens, H.L. (1843), De Graecae linguae dialectis ii: De dialecto Dorica (Göttingen). Braun, A. (1932), “Gli ‘eolismi’ a Cirene e nella poesia dorica,” RFIC 10, 181–193. Cassio, A.C. (1993a), “Alcmane, il dialetto di Cirene e la filologia alessandrina,” RFIC 121, 24–36. Cassio, A.C. (1993b), “Iperdorismi callimachei e testo antico dei lirici,” in R. Pretagostini (ed.), Tradizione e innovazione nella cultura greca da Omero all’età ellenistica: scritti in onore di Bruno Gentili (Rome) 903–911. Cassio, A.C. (1999), “Futuri dorici, dialetto di Siracusa e testo antico dei lirici greci,” in A.C. Cassio (ed.), Katà Diálekton: Atti del iii colloquio internazionale di dialettologia greca (Napoli–Fiaiano d’Ischia 25–28 settembre 1996) (Naples) 187–214. Di Benedetto, V. (1956), “Omerismi e struttura metrica negli idilli dorici di Teocrito,” ASNP (s. ii) 25, 48–60. Fassino, M./Prauscello, L. (2001), “Memoria ritmica e memoria poetica: Saffo e Alceo in Teocrito Idilli 28–30 tra ἀρχαιολογία metrica e innovazione alessandrina,” MD 46, 9–37. Gallavotti, C. (1952), Lingua, tecnica e poesia negli Idilli di Teocrito (Rome). Gallavotti, C. (1993), Theocritus quique feruntur bucolici Graeci, third edition (Rome). García Ramón, J.L. (1977), “Le prétendu infinitif grec ‘occidental’ du type ἔχεν vis-à-vis du mycénien e-ke-e,” Minos 16, 179–206. Giangrande, G. (1971), “Theocritus’ Twelfth and Fourth Idylls: A Study in Hellenistic Irony,” QUCC 12, 95–113. Gow, A.S.F. (1952), Theocritus. Edited with a Translation and Commentary, vols. 1–2 (Cambridge). Hopkinson, N. (2002), A Hellenistic Anthology (Cambridge). Horrocks, G. (2010), Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers, second edition (Malden, MA/Oxford/Chichester). Hunt, A.S./Johnson, J. (1930), Two Theocritus Papyri (London). Hunter, R.L. (1996), Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry (Cambridge). Hunter, R.L. (1999), Theocritus: A Selection. Idylls 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 13 (Cambridge). Hunter, R.L. (2002), “The Sense of an Author: Theocritus and [Theocritus],” in R.G. Gibson/C. Shuttlework Kraus (eds.), The Classical Commentary: Histories, Practices, Theory (Leiden/Boston/Cologne) 89–108.

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Hunter, R.L. (2003), Theocritus: Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Cambridge). Magnien, V. (1920), “Le Syracusain littéraire et l’idylle xv de Théocrite,” MSL 21, 49–138. Meliadò, C. (2014), “Il codice di Antinoe. Contributi al testo e all’esegesi di Teocrito,” Seminari Romani (n.s.) 3, 9–38. Méndez Dosuna, J. (1993), “Metátesis de cantidad en Jónico-Atico y Heracleota,” Emerita 61, 95–134. Molinos Tejada, T. (1990), Los Dorismos del Corpus Bucolicorum (Amsterdam). Morsbach, L. (1874), De dialecto Theocritea (diss. Bonn). Perrotta, G. (1978), “Teocrito e il poeta dell’Ἡρακλῆς λεοντοφόνος,” in G. Perrotta, Poesia ellenistica. Scritti minori ii. A cura di B. Gentili, G. Morelli, G. Serrao (Rome) 325–389. Prauscello, L. (2006), Singing Alexandria: Music Between Practice and Textual Transmission (Leiden/Boston). Pretagostini, R. (1995), “L’autore ellenistico tra poesia e ‘filologia,’” Aevum Antiquum 8, 33–46. Pretagostini, R. (1997) “La ripresa teocritea della poesia erotica arcaica e tardoarcaica (Idd. 29 e 30),” MD 38, 9–24. Risch, E. (1954), “Die Sprache Alkmans,”MH 11, 20–37. (Reprinted in Id., Kleine Schriften [Berlin/New York 1986] 314–331). Rossi, L. (2001), The Epigrams Ascribed to Theocritus: A Method of Approach (Leuven/ Paris/Sterling VA). Ruijgh, C.J. (1984), “Le dorien de Théocrite: dialecte cyrénien d’Alexandrie et d’Égypte,” Mnemosyne 37, 56–88. Sens, A. (1997), Theocritus: Dioscuri (Idyll 22) (Göttingen). Vessella, C. (2016), “Teocrito,” in A.C. Cassio (ed.), Storia delle lingue letterarie greche, second edition (Milan) 451–468. Vollgraff, W. (1919), “De Theocriti et Callimachi dialecto,” Mnemosyne 47, 333–340. Wendel, C. (1914), Scholia in Theocritum vetera (Leipzig). Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von (1906), Textgeschichte der griechischen Bukoliker (Berlin). Willi, A. (2012), “‘We Speak Peloponnesian’: Tradition and Linguistic Identity in PostClassical Sicilian Literature,” in O. Tribulato (ed.), Language and Linguistic Contact in Ancient Sicily (Cambridge) 265–288.

chapter 4

“Linking Together Rushes and Stalks of Asphodel”: The Forms of Theocritean Poetry Jan Kwapisz

The corpus of the poems attributed to Theocritus, as it has reached us through numerous Byzantine manuscripts and rather scant papyri, comprises thirty so-called Idylls, twenty-something epigrams, and a so-called figure poem, or technopaegnion.1 What are the poems behind these names, exactly? What do they look like, what do they sound like, and most importantly, what do they read like? This chapter aims to find a way to answer these questions by offering a somewhat idiosyncratic reflection on, rather than a methodical survey of, the formal aspects of the poems we find in the Theocritean corpus. A convenient starting point for approaching Theocritus’ poetry from the perspective of their form will be a discussion of the generic terms by which the poems included in the Theocritean corpus are designated. In Greek usage, the category of eidyllion is almost exclusively restricted to Theocritean poetry (for a discussion of the term, see Section 1); these are mostly hexameter poems, except Idyll 8 (probably not by Theocritus), which includes elegiacs, and Idylls 28–30, which are in lyric metres of Aeolic origin, used stichically. Their length varies from only 8 lines (Idyll 19, which is unlikely to be genuine; the second-shortest poem, Theocritus’Idyll 28, has 25 lines) to 281 lines (Idyll 25, probably not by Theocritus; the second-longest poem is the Theocritean Idyll 22, which consists of 223 lines). The Theocritean epigrams, in turn, are deeply rooted in Hellenistic epigrammatic production—with the exception of a series of pastoral epigrams (Ep. 2–6), which are heavily indebted to the bucolic Idylls. Most Theocritean epigrams are predictably elegiac, yet Ep. 17–22 are strikingly polymetric. The single couplet of Ep. 23 is an isolated example; the

1 This count excludes fragments, including the so-called Idyll 31; the present discussion is not overly concerned with distinguishing between Theocritus and “Theocritus,” i.e., spurious poems, although the former is obviously of more interest to anyone concerned with the formal refinement of Hellenistic poetry. Standard editions are Gow (1952) and Gallavotti (1993); the text used in this chapter is from Hopkinson (2015), which is based on these two editions.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004466715_006

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bulk of the collection consists of quatrains and six-liners, whereas the longest epigram has 18 lines (Ep. 4).2 Thus the Theocritean Idyll is, in most cases, a relatively short poem, usually in hexameters—therefore in its basic formal aspects it approaches the hymn, an issue to which we will return further on (Section 1). The Theocritean epigram does not depart from the standards of the genre in that it normally consists of two or three distichs, usually elegiac. Brevity is Theocritus’ trademark. Although he at times experiments with metre, he is generally content with elegiacs when composing epigrams and with hexameter when composing other poetry—clearly, a sign of traditionalism. As with most first-glance impressions one gets when reading Theocritus, the alluring straightforwardness of these preliminary conclusions is quite misleading.

1

Idylls

In this section, we will see that there is no straightforward answer to the question of what makes an Idyll an Idyll. Since there seems to be a fundamental interconnection between the fuzzy concept of what both modern and ancient scholarship refer to as Idylls and the label itself, it is convenient to begin by approaching the problem of the semantic value of the word Idyll/eidyllion. We may note that the adoption of this perspective will provide us with an apt point of departure for discussing Theocritus’ epigrams, for we will find out that the terms eidyllion (εἰδύλλιον) and epigramma (ἐπίγραμμα) have given rise to a somewhat similar terminological confusion. This is arguably caused by shared problems inherent to what constitutes the essence of the two different categories of Hellenistic poetry. As it happens, a passage of Pliny’s Epistles aligns epigrammata and idyllia as terms for short poems (4.14.8–9): unum illud praedicendum videtur, cogitare me has meas nugas ita inscribere ‘hendecasyllabi’ qui titulus sola metri lege constringitur. proinde, sive epigrammata sive idyllia sive eclogas sive, ut multi, poematia seu quod aliud vocare malueris, licebit voces; ego tantum hendecasyllabos praesto. 2 An issue related to the metrical shape of the Theocritean corpus—yet one I will not treat in the present discussion—is the dialectal diversity of the Idylls and epigrams, which include poems in Doric, Ionic/epic, and Aeolic (the latter being predictably reserved for the Aeolic Idylls). For a systematic description, see Gow (1952) 1.lxxii–lxxx, and for a nuanced discussion, Hunter (1996) 28–45 (and on the dialect of the epigrams, Rossi (2001) 51–52). See also Tribulato, this volume.

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One thing I think I must tell you now: I intend to give these trifles of mine the title of “hendecasyllables,” which refers only to the metre in which they are written. You call them what you like—epigrams, idylls, eclogues, or simply “short poems,” which is the popular name, but I shall stick to my “hendecasyllables.”3 Although this no doubt reflects a post-Hellenistic practice, which is obviously influenced by Catullus’ concept of nugae, we ought to keep in mind that this passage implies some fundamental resemblance between epigrammata and eidyllia, the latter term being used in antiquity, as far as we know, solely for Theocritus’ poems.4 The word appears in the scholia on Theocritus and in the Byzantine manuscripts of Theocritus, the latter usage surely also reflecting the ancient scholarship on this poet. Most of what there is to say on the meaning of the term was said by Kathryn Gutzwiller: The word εἰδύλλιον is clearly not a generic term in antiquity, since it did not refer to specific formal characteristics. It is used in the Theocritean scholia without regard to subject matter, meter, or dialect. Theocritus’ poems about herdsmen are called εἰδύλλια, but so are his urban mimes, his praise poems for Hiero and Ptolemy, his mythological poems (Idylls 13 and 18), and his love poetry (Idyll 12). Nor was the term confined to his hexameter poems, since the argumentum to the Distaff (Idyll 28) calls that poem an εἰδύλλιον and another of the Aeolic παιδικά (Idyll 29) is entitled Εἰδύλλιον ἐρῶντος in K.5 So what are eidyllia? As recent studies clarify, the word is a diminutive of εἶδος, which is in itself obscure when it is used as a poetic terminus technicus, but it was employed in reference to forms of Pindar’s odes in the Pindaric scholia, a usage reflected in εἰδογράφος, a nickname attributed to Apollonius, an editor of Pindar, due to his work on the classification of Pindaric εἴδη. The meaning of εἴδη as “forms of poetry” is confirmed, in a context closely pertaining to Theocritus, by the appearance of the term πολυείδεια in the Diegesis to Callimachus’ Iambus 13 (Dieg. 9.34, cf. 37; this implies that the term appeared in the lost part of the poem), which characterizes the polymorphism of Callimachean poetry. On this interpretation, the term must have originally been used not for indi3 Transl. Radice (1969). 4 Cf. Fantuzzi (2004). 5 Gutzwiller (1996) 129. What follows, in particular the following paragraph, is largely based on this discussion and on Fantuzzi (2004).

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vidual poems but for a collection of Theocritean poetry, as it underscored its variegated character, while the diminutive form pointed to the programmatic importance of brevity in this collection. There are good reasons to believe that this term was coined as early as the third century bce. This is suggested not only by the parallel evocation of εἶδος in the Callimachean term πολυείδεια, but arguably also by the fact that the meaning of the term eidyllion was already unclear to ancient commentators of the imperial period, as is evidenced by various etymologizing attempts reported in the Theocritean scholia (Proleg. E).6 One of these interpretations (albeit rejected by the scholiast) etymologizes the term by inventing the spelling ἡδύλλιον, which “is clearly an attempt to explain the title of the poems as a reference to the opening of Idyll 1,”7 i.e., to the Hellenistic buzzword ἁδύ (the Theocritean form is Doric; this becomes ἡδύ in the Ionic dialect), whose programmatic character, due to its prominent position in Idyll 1 (and its employment in reference to singing elsewhere in Theocritus; cf. Id. 7.89), was recognized by imitators of Theocritus.8 We may therefore conjecture that the spelling ἡδύλλιον was invented when the concept of the bucolic was invented, which suggests that the term eidyllion was in turn roughly contemporary with Theocritus himself. Employing a diminutive to name a collection of poetry is a gesture of lightness and unseriousness that finds parallels in several poetic terms that appear in similar contexts; however, it is remarkable how eidyllion contrasts the scholarly seriousness of the term εἶδος with the lightening force of the diminutive suffix. The word παίγνια, “playthings”—a cognate of παῖς, “child,” formed with the diminutive suffix -ιον—is used as the title for collections of light poetry by the early Hellenistic poets Philitas and Aratus. The title of Ennius’ collection of poems modelled on Sotades’ poetry is Sota—the Latinization of Σωτᾶς, i.e., a hypocoristic form of the name Σωτάδης. Particularly striking is the fact that the only reference to his own poem in Theocritus is the diminutive μελύδριον, “little song,”9 i.e., a derivative of μέλος (Id. 7.51, the final line of Lycidas’ introduction of his song, i.e., a locus of programmatic potential). This appears as a scholarly terminus technicus in reference to Aristophanes’ lyric in the scholia (sch. Ar. V. 1265), but is also used by Aristophanes himself (Eccl. 883), which tells us something about its character. The programmatic importance of this word was recognized by Bion, who uses the plural form in reference to his own poems 6 7 8 9

Cf. Fantuzzi (2004); Gutzwiller (1996) 129–130. Gutzwiller (1996) 128 n. 33. Cf., e.g., Id. 9.7–8; Ep. 5.1–2; Bion fr. 9.5; Epith. Ach. et Deid. 1; Epitaph. Bion. 120; Syrinx 17. As noted by Fantuzzi (2004). On the importance of this lexical choice and in general on lyric terminology in Hellenistic poetry, see Massimilla (2017); μελύδριον is discussed on p. 401.

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(fr. 8.1). This confirms that even if it was not Theocritus himself who first used the term eidyllia for his poems—which remains a tantalizing possibility—it is an apt editorial choice, much in the spirit of his poetry. It is true that the term eidyllia was chosen precisely because it refers to no specific generic feature, and consequently embraces the entire polymorphism of Theocritus’ poems. μελύδριον is, apart from the connotations of poetic lightness it carries, a particularly unspecific and noncommittal term, like the diminutive poemation we saw in the passage of Pliny quoted above. In my view, however, the term eidyllia did originally evoke a set of vague and elusive generic associations, even if the testimonies of Pliny and the Theocritean scholia suggest that later readers found it difficult to identify these. Its use being almost exclusively limited to Theocritus’ poetry strongly indicates that it was coined specifically for this poetic collection (a virtual or an actual poetry book). We must therefore try to understand why the need to invent a distinctive term emerged. Why not simply “miscellaneous poems” ποιήματα διάφορα? As it happens, this is how the Suda refers to the poems of different types by the Hellenistic poet Simias of Rhodes. This is because, I suggest, there are some basic formal tendencies displayed in Theocritus’ Idylls, which are not evident in single poems, but emerge when one approaches the collection as a whole. These notably include a tendency towards the use of the hexameter and a tendency towards relative brevity. It is noteworthy that a similar formula might also be applied to the hymnic genre, particularly in its Hellenistic realizations, such as Callimachus’ Hymns or Simias’ and Philicus’ hymnic poems. Yet it is immediately clear from the fact that polymorphism is also an important defining feature of the Idylls that these are not hymns, although this is one of the genres that Theocritus notably reuses (cf. Idylls 22 and 26). Idyll 15, which weds the forms of mime and hymn, may be read as a self-referential comment on the construction of the Idylls.10 Equally important is how the two basic features—brevity and the preference for the hexameter—add together to produce a third one: a crucial tension between the epic connotations of the hexameter, with the resulting hints of grandness, poetic solemnity, traditionality, etc., and what the miniature forms of Hellenistic art and literature alike entail, i.e., lightness of tone, technical refinement, and attention to detail (see further Section 3). Other features that make the Idylls distinct among other types of Hellenistic poetry do not have to do with their form and are so elusive that it is difficult to find appropriate terms to name them. These call for an essayistic rather than a

10

For a metapoetic reading of Idyll 15, see Hunter (1996) 117–119.

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purely scholarly treatment; it is not out of place to mention Theocritus’ preoccupation with “structure and parallelism,” “illusionistic realism,” and “allusive learning,”11 and even such shadowy categories as a subtle sense of humour and a feeling of intimacy that results from the reader’s immersion in Theocritus’ fictional worlds. In short, everything that constitutes what we might call, for lack of a better word, the intuitively perceived “Theocriteanism” of the Idylls. Let us return to firmer ground, however, by scrutinizing the purely formal aspects of a sample of what the extant collection of the Idylls has to offer. In order to get a better understanding of how more can be seen when one of these poems is read in a broader context created by other poems, let us concentrate on a pair of Idylls rather than a single poem. Consider Idyll 14 and Idyll 15, both classified by modern scholarship as “urban mimes,” which are a subspecies of Theocritean “mimes in verse.” The appropriateness of this label is confirmed, inter alia, by the scholiast’s note, which suggests that Idyll 15 is modelled on Sophron’s mime Women Watching the Isthmia and by the mime-like form of both poems; e.g., the general resemblance of the openings of both poems to each other and to what one finds in the fragments of Sophron and Herodas suggests the adoption of a conventional opening formula.12 What somewhat complicates this generic affiliation is the fact that, as modern scholarship frequently underscores, Idyll 15 falls into two parts: embedded within the mime-frame is an encomiastic hymn (lines 100–144).13 This division is self-evident in itself, but it is additionally marked by a formal feature: when the hexameters of Idyll 15 are tested for their conformity to the norms of the Callimachean hexameter, one notices a stark contrast between the metrical liberty of the mime-frame and the relative restraint of the hymnic part, which approaches the more “elegant” practice of Theocritus’ bucolic poems and in particular, unsurprisingly, epyllia on mythological themes.14 I would like to point out, however, that putting the emphasis on this structural dichotomy, mime vs. hymn, may obscure the fact that we are dealing with a much more intricate compositional design. While being bipartite composition, Idyll 15 must also be regarded as being divided into three self-contained scenes (hence comprising three distinct mini-mimes?)—The Home (lines 1–

11

12 13 14

These are identified as Theocritus’ main concerns by Arnott (1996); for another essayistic attempt to capture the elusive essence of Theocritean poetics, including its Platonism, see Levi (1993). Cf. Id. 14.1–2 vs. Id. 15.1; Id. 15.2–3 vs. Sophr. fr. 10 Kassel-Austin/Hordern and Herod. 6.1–2; Id. 15.1–3 vs. Herod. 1.1–8. For the mimes see Miles, this volume. For a judicious discussion, see Hunter (1996) 123–138. See Fantuzzi (1995) passim, esp. 246–247.

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43), The Street (44–77), and The Palace (78–149)—which are clearly marked as such by the occurrence of forms of the verb ἀποκλᾴω, “to shut off,” at the end of lines 43 and 77, i.e., the symbolic locking of the door at the end of the two first scenes.15 Again, this may be a conventional mime feature; one might perhaps compare going inside the house at the end of scenes in an anonymous papyrus mime fragment (Cunningham, Popular Mime, fr. 7.16 ἔνδον εἰσελεύσομαι and 56 εἰσελθοῦσα). Moreover, perhaps we should view Idylls 14 and 15 as companion poems—in a way, two parts of the same whole. A number of such pairs have been pointed out in the Theocritean corpus, e.g., Idylls 6 and 11, the Polyphemus poems, or Idylls 16 and 17, two encomia.16 This phenomenon is widespread in Hellenistic poetry (epigram in particular) and may have much to do with its playful bookishness, which entails, inter alia, encouraging the reader to explore various connections between different poems within one poetry book.17 Particularly relevant to us is the interconnectedness of Herodas’ Mimiambs 6 and 7,18 i.e., the poems which are in other ways closely linked with Idyll 15.19 May the concept of such interconnectedness in Herodas owe something to Theocritus’ shaping Idylls 14 and 15 as a sort of diptych? That the two Idylls were conceived as a diptych is suggested by two facts. First, it was observed that, since the main characters of Idyll 14 are males and it praises Ptolemy Philadelphus and Idyll 15 analogously features female characters and Arsinoe, these poems may be suspected to reflect the division into “men’s mimes” and “women’s mimes” that we know Sophron introduced in his mimes.20 Second, there is a remarkable interconnectedness, and even continuity, between the themes of the two poems: whereas Idyll 14, which is set somewhere in mainland Greece,21 mentions a voyage to Alexandria and specifically to Philadelphus’ court, Idyll 15 depicts two immigrants’ walk to the Ptolemies’ palace through the streets of Alexandria. Although the points of departure and involved characters differ, these are two stages of the same journey, or even two versions of the same journey, in terms

15 16 17

18 19 20 21

Cf. Krevans (2006) 142; also Burton (1995) 17–18 and 74. See, respectively, Köhnken (1996) and Acosta-Hughes (2010) 197. For illustrations of this practice, see Gutzwiller (1998), Gutzwiller (2005a), Krevans (2005); cf. my comment on the interconnectedness of Ep. 19–20 Austin-Bastianini and the two couplets of Philitas fr. 7 Lightfoot = 13 Sbardella = 23 Spanoudakis in Kwapisz (2016) 129 n. 25. See Zanker (2009) 166 and 214–217. See Simon (1991) 35–45 and 127–144; Burton (1995) 110–114; Ypsilanti (2006) 411–418. Griffiths (1979) 109 and 120; cf. Hunter (1996) 111. Beck (1992) argues specifically for Megara, but there is no need to insist on a specific location.

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of poetic design. This is not to say, however, that the two poems are of equal literary calibre; the fact that Idyll 14 is structurally simpler and half the length of Idyll 15 makes the former a sort of prelude to the latter. All in all, the two Idylls form a stunningly complex composition, whose intricacy is, characteristically, difficult to grasp through a simple formula from those offered by either ancient or modern literary criticism.22 The formal elaboration of the Idylls is paired by the generic indefiniteness of their contents. The tension between the mime-frame of Idyll 15 and its hymnic inset is a particularly manifest example of this indefiniteness; the picture is, however, made much more complicated, e.g., by Homerisms and Homeric allusions regularly embedded in the otherwise realistic linguistic fabric of the mime-like dialogue of lines 1–99, or the intertextuality brought in by the ekphrasis at lines 78–86, with reference not only to the tradition of literary ekphrases since Homer, but also to “texts” of works of art.23 In Idyll 14, the chain of generic associations progresses from the mime-like beginning, through what was identified as a comic tease and evocations of Homer much like those in Idyll 15, to allusions to archaic poetry, including a reminiscence of Tyrtaeus at lines 65–68.24 The archaic lyric affiliations are of particular importance, since the poem’s main theme is a recollection of a symposium, i.e., a setting that ancient readers instinctively associated with lyric poetry. It is tempting to suppose that the insistence with which the name Lycus, “Wolf,” recurs throughout Idyll 14 was meant to evoke Alcaeus’ lyric composition(s), undoubtedly homoerotic and intended for performance at symposia, since the way in which Horace recalls the Alcaean “Lycus adorned with dark eyes and dark hair” clearly testifies to this poem’s (or these poems’) having a prominent place in Alcaeus’ poetry (Hor. C. 1.32.10–12 = Alc. test. 26 = fr. 430 Campbell). In Theocritus, Lycus is the name of the young lover of the main character’s mistress, and moreover the poem includes a mention of “a Thessalian song” (Θεσσαλικόν τι μέλισμα, line 31) entitled “My Wolf.”25 In addition, Idyll 14 ends on a lyric note (lines 68–70):

22 23

24 25

Cf. Arnott’s (1996) remarks on structure as one of Theocritus’ chief preoccupations. Hunter (1996) 116–138 offers a nuanced discussion of the elaborate poetic design of Idyll 15; note that its wide-ranging intertextuality also includes numerous points of contact with Theocritus’ other poems, which enabled Krevans (2006) to provocatively consider the possibility of classifying it as a bucolic composition. All these are discussed by Hunter (1996) 111–116. We do not need to assume, with Beck (1992), that it is precisely the famous Alcaean poem that is mentioned here (and wrongly identified by Aeschinas) to recognize an allusion to Alcaeus.

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ἀπὸ κροτάφων πελόμεσθα πάντες γηραλέοι, καὶ ἐπισχερὼ ἐς γένυν ἕρπει λευκαίνων ὁ χρόνος· ποιεῖν τι δεῖ ἇς γόνυ χλωρόν. We’re all growing gray at the temples, and time’s white mark is creeping gradually down our cheeks. We should be doing something while our knees are still nimble.26 The description of the signs of old age is vaguely reminiscent of Sappho’s “Tithonus poem” (fr. 58 Campbell + the additions from PKöln 21351 and 21376, i.e., “the new Cologne Sappho”): ] ποτ’ [ἔ]οντα χρόα γῆρας ἤδη ἐγ]ένοντο τρίχες ἐκ μελαίναν· βάρυς δέ μ’ ὀ [θ]ῦμος πεπόηται, γόνα δ’ [ο]ὐ φέροισι, τὰ δή ποτα λαίψηρ’ ἔον ὄρχησθ’ ἴσα νεβρίοισι. … skin once soft is withered now … hair has turned white which once was black, my heart has been weighed down, my knees, which once were swift to dance like young fawns, fail me.27 In effect, the Idyll that began as a proper mime ends, after a series of generic transformations, with a reminiscence of the sympotic poetry of archaic Lesbos. One might question the relevance of scrutinizing the Idylls’ contents in a discussion whose focus should be on the formal aspects of Theocritean poetry, yet it is important to realize that the generic affiliations evoked by such textual allusions affect the reader’s perception of the generic character of the Idylls more than anything else—a point to which I will return in the concluding section of this chapter. In other words, the form of the Idylls is relatively transparent and indeterminate per se; the resulting flexibility allows Theocritus to allusively suggest the presence of multiple poetic forms through subtle manipulations. These are either formal, such as switching between different hexameter modes in different poems (for instance, it is a curious fact that those of Theocritus’Idylls that exhibit, like Idyll 1, a high incidence of the bucolic caesura, which divides the hexameter into two cola, have, effectively, something of an epodic feel) or even in different parts of the same poem (as in the contrasting hexameter types of 26 27

All translations of Theocritus in this chapter are from Hopkinson (2015). Text (papyrological dots suppressed) and translation from Obbink (2009). For echoes of this poem elsewhere in Theocritus, see Méndez Dosuna (2008).

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the mime-frame and the hymn in Idyll 15), or purely intra-textual, e.g., embedding what must be envisioned by the reader as a lyric hymn within the only seemingly consistent hexameter fabric of Idyll 15. The Idylls’ rich allusiveness is a particularly prominent means of such manipulation. Occasionally, generic allusiveness very markedly affects the form of the Idylls. This is the case with the so-called Aeolic poems (Idylls 28–30), in which there is a manifest interplay between the (mostly paederastic, with the exception of Idyll 28) subject matter, which obviously alludes to archaic Lesbian poetry, and the metrical form, i.e., the stichic metres of plainly lyric origin Theocritus reclaimed from the Aeolic tradition. It is possible to see in these verse forms a means of direct continuation of the metrical tradition of lyric poetry.28 I choose to emphasize, however, that these may be regarded, in view of Theocritus’ marked predilection for the hexameter in the other Idylls, as a sort of lyric alternative to the hegemony of the hexameter. This is suggested by how other contemporary experiments with the metrical heritage of archaic lyric seek to offer an alternative to the hexameter: Sotades rewrote the Iliad in ionic tetrameters (“sotadeans”; frr. 4a–c Powell), whereas Philicus composed a hymn to Demeter in choriambic hexameters (SH 676–680).29 It is notable, in this light, that Theocritus’ Aeolic poems are stichic, non-stanzaic compositions (the absence of stanzas is implied by an odd number of lines in Idyll 28), that the rhythm of Idyll 29 is—due to dactylic expansion—dactylic, and that one might mistake the incipits of Idylls 28 and 30, in view of the presence of a spondee in the Aeolic base, for hexameter incipits:30 Γλαύκας, ὦ φιλέριθ(ε) … (Id. 28.1) Ὤιαι τὼ χαλέπω … (Id. 30.1) One may wonder, therefore, how sharp a distinction one should make between the hexameter and the non-hexameter poems of Theocritus; broadly speaking, the Idylls are metrically uniform in the sense that they are either composed in 28

29 30

For such an approach, see Hutchinson (2018). Fassino/Prauscello (2001) and Prauscello (2006) 185–213 offer a detailed discussion of the metre of Theocritus’ Aeolic poems and their engagement with earlier metrical traditions; Hunter (1996) 167–186 and AcostaHughes (2010) 107–110 provide broader discussions of how these poems are in dialogue with the tradition of Lesbian poetry. On such third-century bce metrical experiments, see Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 37–41 and Barbantani (2017) 362–368. For a striking parallel, cf. the galliambs quoted at D.L. 8.91 (= AP 7.744), in which the beginnings of the first three lines scan as hexameter openings: ἐν Μέμφει λόγος ἐστίν … / Εὔδοξόν ποτε μοῖραν … / ταύρου. κοὐδὲν ἔλεξεν ….

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flexible hexameters, whose forms are adapted to the tone of a poem and can even vary within a single poem, or in what may be regarded as a functional equivalent of the hexameter, which is similarly adapted to a poem’s subject matter. This explains why both types were included alongside each other in the same ancient poetry books.31 In the subsequent section, we will see that this phenomenon is also paralleled in the extant corpus of Theocritean epigrams.

2

Epigrams

I begin this part of my discussion with general remarks on the Hellenistic meaning of the term epigramma. We have already seen that, several centuries after Theocritus, Pliny felt that epigrammata and eidyllia could be used interchangeably for short poems. Even if both terms are somewhat vague, though, what sets them apart is that the former immediately evokes the inscriptional origin of the genre. When discussing the semantic transition, or better, expansion of the term epigramma from the original meaning “inscription,” and subsequently “epigraphic poem,” to denote what we associate with it today, i.e., a genre of brief poems, mostly in elegiacs, recent studies have sought to argue that the genre had not acquired definite characteristics until the imperial period,32 and that in the Hellenistic period the meaning of the term was limited to purely inscriptional poems, or at best to “titles,” i.e., to poems that served as book tags.33 These conclusions are for the most part based on an argument ex silentio—the alleged absence of the term in the Hellenistic poems to which it might be applied and in other relevant Hellenistic sources—and as is often the case, new evidence proves them to be fragile. Since the publication of a third-century bce papyrus containing an extensive list of epigram incipits (PVindob. G 40611, “the Vienna epigrams”),34 there is no doubt that the term epigramma had acquired the sense it carried in later antiquity as early as the third century bce.35 Although the papyrus yields only brief incipits, many of which are highly fragmentary, it affords us a fair 31

32 33 34 35

The point made by Hutchinson (2018) n. 20: “Theocritus’ Aeolic poems must have been included in the same roll as some hexameter poems when circulated (not necessarily always the same poems).” Puelma (1997). Bruss (2005) 2–10. Parsons/Maehler/Maltomini (2015); see also Floridi/Maltomini (2014). Puelma (1997) 195 mentions this extraordinary document, based on a preliminary description in Harrauer (1981), and even notes that it provides the earliest known testimony to the use of the term epigramma for a non-inscriptional poem, but does not go further than that.

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amount of useful information. The incipits are grouped under headings, the first of which explicitly identify the poems as epigrammata.36 The extant fragments point to a striking variety in metre—although the bulk of the epigrams must have been in elegiacs, this is the second-richest document of Hellenistic epigrammatic polymetry, after Book 13 of the Palatine Anthology—as well as in themes; non-inscriptional subgenres clearly abound, including the earliest known examples of scoptic epigrams, and the only incipit we are able to connect with a previously known epigram is identical with the opening of Asclepiades 15 Gow-Page/Guichard/Sens, an erotic poem. Stichometric information accompanies each incipit, which allows us to see that the majority of the epigrams were quatrains, but the poems’ length varied from single couplets to the epigrammata longa of 20, 21, 40 and even 52 lines. The inescapable conclusion that the use of the term epigramma was not confined to inscriptional poems in the Hellenistic age finds corroboration in a self-referential allusion to it in one of Asclepiades’ “shopping lists” (Ep. 25 and 26 Gow-Page/Guichard/Sens). These are, effectively, comic monologues in miniature, which may at once serve as preludes to Asclepiades’ sympotic and erotic epigrams insofar as they describe preparations for symposia and the resulting lovemaking. Their generic polymorphism makes one think of Theocritus’ Idylls,37 yet that all this is encapsulated in the epigrammatic form is underscored by the closing word of Ep. 25, ἐπεγράφετο, i.e., a self-referential allusion to the term epigramma.38 What exactly is the Hellenistic definition of the epigram that all this entails? An attempt to formulate an absolute, all-encompassing definition that can be successfully applied to every single Hellenistic epigram is likely to prove futile. It is important to realize that Hellenistic epigrams come in hordes—as elements of larger poetic collections, just like the one attested by the Vienna epigrams papyrus. These collections are for the most part consistent in what they comprise, but they allow, and even cherish, a certain amount of generic fluidity. Accordingly, it is possible to formulate a definition that will be applicable to most elements of a collection; single exceptions should be accounted for, but do not affect the general definition as long as these are viewed within the broader context of the larger whole. Hence judging from the evidence of the

36

37 38

Col. i 1–2 τὰ ἐπιζητούμενα τῶν ἐπιγραμμάτων ἐν τῆι ᾱ βύβλωι, “the epigrams sought from Book 1,” sc. a reference to an epigram collection; cf. iv 19, i.e., stichometric information with another occurrence of the term ἐπίγραμμα. Note that Hunter (1996) 111 mentions these epigrams in his discussion of Idyll 14. On Ep. 25, see further Bettenworth 2002. Cf. Sens (2011) 172 ad loc.

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Vienna incipits, the Hellenistic epigram is a genre of mostly, but not necessarily, brief poems, mostly in elegiacs, but exhibiting a variety of metres, appearing in a number of subgenres, most of which, but not necessarily all of them, can be traced to the genre’s epigraphic origin.39 In effect, epigramma is useful as a far-ranging rather than restrictive denomination; apart from implying epigraphic connotations—which include not only “writtenness” but also brevity and the preference for elegiacs—it is sufficiently broad and indeterminate to be applied to poems much variegated in their formal aspects.40 It is a telling fact that the characteristics of the Theocritean epigrammatic corpus do not depart from what one finds in the collection attested by the Vienna incipits. Most poems are brief, but Ep. 4 is a notable exception; most are in elegiacs, but Ep. 17–22 are polymetric. Most Theocritean epigrams are more strictly epigraphic in character,41 but there stands out a novel category of the bucolic epigrams attributed to Theocritus (Ep. 2–6). If Theocritus’, and his imitators’, bucolic Idylls seek to capture rich and vivid images of pastoral life in a relatively condensed form, these epigrams double the effort of miniaturization by packing the Theocritean pastoral world and its inhabitants—i.e., the newly established bucolic genre—into the form of epigrams. Even this peculiarly Theocritean subgenre, however, conforms to the broader Hellenistic pattern of restraining generic innovation by including traces of the epigrammatic affiliation. A particularly noteworthy instance of the interplay between the bucolic genre and the epigrammatic form comes with the already mentioned Ep. 4. It is almost too long to be an epigram (hence an epigramma longum),42 as it consists of nine elegiac couplets, yet despite its potential of being classified as a bucolic

39

40

41

42

As recent studies emphasize, the Schriftlichkeit is an important defining feature in noninscriptional epigrams also; cf. a broadening of the definition of the epigram in Meyer (2005) 33: “Die poetische Form des Epigramms, insofern sie durch den Appell an den Leser mitbestimmt wird, kann als ein ‘schriftliches’ Merkmal gelten, das auch im Buchepigramm zu finden ist, und nicht, wie man immer wieder glaubte, die raumbedingte Beschränkung auf die kleine Form.” These conclusions are to a significant extent influenced by those formulated in Gutzwiller (1998). We may note, however, that some of the Hellenistic epigrammatic corpora, like the “Milan Posidippus roll” or—in a later period—Meleager’s Garland, point to their compilers’ having sought to produce collections more consistently uniform in character, which presumably reflects conflicting poetic programmes. Ep. 7, 9, 15, and 16 are epitaphs, Ep. 1, 8, 10, 12, and 13 are votive epigrams or poems on statues, Ep. 14 is a bank advertisement, Ep. 26 and 27 are epigrammata in the sense of “book tags.” On the types of the Theocritean epigrams, see Rossi (2001) and Coughlan, this volume. For this category in Hellenistic epigram, see Cairns (2008).

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Idyll in view of its length and the insistently pastoral subject matter—it features goatherds, Daphnis and a locus amoenus—it also contains clear-enough epigrammatic features. The notable presence of a statue of Priapus brings to mind Theocritus’ epigrams on statues, with their epigraphic baggage (see below), and it ends with a set of formulae borrowed from votive epigrams.43 Whereas most pastoral epigrams were probably composed by Theocritus’ imitators, Theocritus himself may well have authored the six polymetric poems that constitute another notable category within the epigrammatic corpus ascribed to him. By displaying a marked tension between their metrical form and epigrammatic affiliation these conform to the tendencies of third-century bce poetry which I have already identified when discussing Theocritus’ Aeolic poems (Section 1). These are either epitaphs or epigrams for statues of famous poets (with the exception of Ep. 20, an epitaph for a nurse). Their metres for the most part seem to reflect the metrical practice of the respective honorandi (Ep. 17–22).44 Thus the epitaph for Hipponax is in scazons (Ep. 19), whereas the poem on a statue of Archilochus (also an epitaph?) is in a simple strophic metre (Ep. 21), which mimics Archilochus’ epodic compositions.45 In view of their plainly epigraphic character, these epigrams may be viewed, alongside most elegiac epigrams within the Theocritean corpus, as fairly conventional and conservative poems, which, unlike the many erotic or sympotic Hellenistic epigrams collected in Meleager’s Garland, evoke the inscriptional origin of the epigram. What singles them out, however, is their illusive lyricism, an effect achieved through the substitution of standard elegiacs with metres rooted in the practice of the archaic poets these epigrams pay tribute to.46 If the metres of the Aeolic Idylls are equivalent to the hexameter, these may be viewed as equivalent to elegiacs; this is suggested by the fact that four out of the six epigrams are in epodic metres (17, 18, 20, 21), which makes one think of the epodic structure of the elegiac distich. However, the metrical manipulation becomes at the same time a means of stressing the modernism of these poems. The epodic metre of the epigram for a statue of Anacreon (Ep. 17), iambic trimeters alternating with phalaecians,

43 44

45 46

Cf. Hopkinson (2015) 419 n. 1 ad loc. and Rossi (2001) 163–165. Cf. Rossi (2001) 77–78; Bing (1988) 120. I do not consider Ep. 24, whose simple polymetry paralleled in real inscriptions (cf. West (1982) 45 and Bowie (2010) 319–322 and 378–379) confirms the suspicion that this is an actual epigraphic poem, unlikely to have been composed by Theocritus; see Gow (1952) 2.574 and Rossi (2001) 339–341 and 356. On these compositions see West (1982) 43–44. The standard metre of the epigram was originally the hexameter, but by the classical period elegiacs became the metrical vulgate; see Bowie (2010) 319–323.

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is, as far as we know, only partially modelled on Anacreon’s poems; whereas iambic trimeters are an attested element of his epodes,47 the phalaecians are not.48 Although the phalaecian hendecasyllable has a longer history,49 the fact that this is the Hellenistic poet Phalaecus’ eponymous metre (cf. Phalaec. 3 Gow-Page) suggests that it may have had the tinge of a Hellenistic innovation. This interpretation is confirmed by the Theocritean epigram for a statue of the archaic poet Pisander of Camirus, who wrote an epic poem on Heracles (Ep. 22). Although the poem celebrates a hexameter poet, it is composed in phalaecians; the epigram’s closing lines may be read as a self-apology that justifies this novel, and inappropriate, metrical choice (lines 6–8): τοῦτον δ’ αὐτὸν ὁ δᾶμος, ὡς σάφ’ εἰδῇς, ἔστασ’ ἐνθάδε χάλκεον ποήσας πολλοῖς μησὶν ὄπισθε κἠνιαυτοῖς. You should know that many months—many years—later the people set up this likeness of him here in bronze. It is the metre that arguably makes it clear (σάφα) to the reader that the (probably virtual) statue was set several centuries after Pisander’s lifetime. This is an elegant dodge to avoid the problem of how to compose a lyric epigram on a hexameter poet.

3

The Syrinx Technopaegnion

In some Byzantine manuscripts, Theocritus’ poems are accompanied by a collection of the six so-called technopaegnia, i.e., pattern poems whose verses form, by way of metrical manipulation of their length, the shapes of the objects they describe.50 The reason why these curious metrical-visual experiments had 47 48 49 50

See Bing (1988) 120. Cf. Hopkinson (2015), 431 n. 1 ad loc. See Gow/Page (1965) 459. On these poems, see Strodel (2002), Guichard (2006), Kwapisz (2013), all with further references. It is notable that, as far as we can tell, ancient criticism lacked a term for them, despite their distinct form. They were referred to as παίγνια, ἀθύρματα and ἀγάλματα by ancient and Byzantine scholars (see Kwapisz (2013) 10), whereas Charisius, pp. 375.13– 376.2 Barwick, refers to figure poems in the shape of wings simply as pterygia. The term technopaegnion, now in vogue, is ancient, but was not used of these poems in antiquity, as it is the title of a (non-visual) poem by Ausonius; it came to be used of various experiments

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come to be appended to an edition of Theocritus, probably already in antiquity, is that one of these, the Syrinx, purports to be an inscription on the musical instrument offered to Pan by Theocritus, here clearly styled as a pastoral poet. In the Theocritean manner, the Syrinx discloses several generic affiliations. This is essentially a votive epigram (cf. especially the dedicatory formula in lines 11– 12) in a refined technopaegnic costume, which also exhibits elements of a hymn (the vita of Pan, including a catalogue of his loves, fills lines 1–10; the closing part, lines 13–20, contains a hymnic/epigrammatic prayer). All this is a reminiscence of Theocritus’ bucolic poems; note especially the bucolic subject matter and characters, the presence of emblematically pastoral attributes such as the panpipe and a herdsman’s knapsack, and obvious allusions to the programmatic Idylls 1 and 7, including the appearance, at line 17, of the bucolic key word ἁδύ which I discussed above (Section 1). Although the Syrinx is clearly, much like Theoc. Ep. 27, a Theocritean sphragis,51 the way in which it utilizes the concept of bucolicism practically warrants that it was not written by Theocritus himself. Starkly contrasting with the otherwise Theocritean tone of the poem (even its poet’s liking for Klangspiele may reflect Theocritean poetics52) and with the general readability of Theocritus is its riddling diction. The Syrinx is composed of riddles and obscure periphrases, in a way paralleled in extant Greek literature only by Lycophron’s Alexandra and another technopaegnion in the collection, Dosiadas’ Altar, which is probably modelled on the Syrinx. This sort of poetic playfulness may not be to everyone’s liking, but the Syrinx has been seen to stand out as the most accomplished of the six technopaegnia;53 this virtuoso play with Hellenistic conventions, which is an ingenious tribute to Theocritus, was clearly authored by a talented poet, probably not long after Theocritus’ lifetime.54 It is therefore a remarkable instance of arte allusiva, an elaborate play on what its poet recognizes as the defining features of the Idylls, including their formal aspects. As such, it is noteworthy how, through its playful metrical manipulation, the Syrinx becomes a meditation on the hexameter, i.e., Theocritus’ preferred metre. The poem consists of 20 lines; it begins with a pair of hexameters, but each consecutive pair of verses is made shorter than the preceding through

51 52 53 54

with poetic forms in the late Middle Ages and subsequently gained popularity throughout the early modern period. See Kwapisz (2013) 154. Cf. Kwapisz (2013) 143. Legrand (1925) 219; Kwapisz (2013) 138; Danielewicz (2018) 291. I even suggested that the Syrinx may have been authored by the poet of the Alexandra; see Kwapisz (2013) 23–29.

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catalexis, all the way until the concluding pair yields a choriamb and a molossus, i.e., the shortest units conceivable in a dactylic context. Since this echoes the way in which Simias of Rhodes manipulates lyric polymetry in his three pattern poems,55 which are a part of the same collection in which we find the Syrinx, the poet of the Syrinx does two things at once: he primarily underscores Theocritus’ finesse in adapting the hexameter to his aims, but also alludes to his dialogue with earlier poetic traditions through the metrical intertextuality of his Aeolic poems and polymetric epigrams. This clearly bespeaks the poet’s typically Hellenistic awareness of the prominence of metre as a constituent of poetic “languages,” as much in his own poem as in Theocritus’ Idylls. Due to the gradual dismantlement of its metrical structure, the Syrinx is, of necessity, a brief form, a fact additionally highlighted by its epigrammatic character and also by how it condenses poetic meanings in the absurdly concentrated units of its riddling diction. By creating a study in poetic brevity, its poet also nods to a crucial feature of Theocritus’ poetry. “Ellipse” is a particularly useful term in attempting to characterize Theocritus’ narrative techniques.56 Idyll 1 and Idyll 7 in particular deserve to be read as “total poems” in view of how each of these encapsulates a complex, illusively comprehensive vision of the world. In fact, it may be argued that Idyll 1 encapsulates the totality of, if not the world, then at least a world—namely, the bucolic world—by including at lines 27–56 an ekphrasis of an intricately decorated cup, which echoes the Homeric ekphrasis of the Shield of Achilles (Il. 18) that is itself an epitome of the world.57 This penchant for brevity reflects a broader Hellenistic preoccupation with finding ways to capture the world with its totality and grandness in small forms of artistic and literary craftsmanship.58

4

Conclusion: The Poetics of Weaving

The generic flexibility of the Syrinx is not necessarily a deliberate evocation of the polymorphism of the Idylls, but simply another realization of the overarching trait of Hellenistic poetic aesthetics, which defines the character of the

55 56 57 58

Polymetry is Simias’ trademark as much in the technopaegnia as in his other poems; see Kwapisz (2018a) = Kwapisz (2019) 30–33. Cf. Hunter (1999) 63 on Idyll 1; for another example, cf. Luz (2012) on Theocritus’ use of Pindaric techniques of epitomization in constructing his mythological narratives. See Hunter (1999) 76–77. On the Hellenistic “aesthetics of scale,” see Porter (2011) and Squire (2016), and cf. Squire (2011), Leventhal (2015) 215–219, Leventhal (2017) 76–77, and Kwapisz/Pietruczuk (2019).

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Idylls to such an extent that, as we have seen, it is probably even reflected in their name. Unlike the poems of earlier periods, which are tied to their performative contexts that shape their generic character, the Idylls are emblematic of the character of Hellenistic poetry in assuming no specific context of performance. Being primarily intended for reading,59 the Idylls take the liberty of evoking different contexts and alluding to different forms, so that the perception of their fluid forms results from the reader’s ability to decipher various intertextual codes. Modern scholars have tested a variety of terms and metaphors to capture the essence of this characteristically Hellenistic fluidity, from Wilhelm Kroll’s Kreuzung der Gattungen—which is somewhat unfortunate in how it implies a mechanical compositional procedure and the rigid concept of strictly defined genres—through intersezione, “generic enrichment,” “contamination,” to “genre blending.”60 As a matter of fact, we may turn to Theocritus himself for what may be read as a suggestive characterization of this indefiniteness. The already mentioned ekphrasis of the marvellous cup in Idyll 1 begins with depicting an ornament in the form of a dense growth of ivy at lines 29– 31: τῶ ποτὶ μὲν χείλη μαρύεται ὑψόθι κισσός, κισσὸς ἑλιχρύσῳ κεκονιμένος· ἁ δὲ κατ’ αὐτὸν καρπῷ ἕλιξ εἱλεῖται ἀγαλλομένα κροκόεντι. High up on the rim winds ivy, ivy speckled with gold-flowers; and along it twines the tendril making a fine show of its yellow fruits. By way of ring-composition,61 the ekphrasis concludes with another image of a tangle of creeping greenery and the climactic representation of a boy plaiting a trap for a musical insect (lines 52–55): αὐτὰρ ὅγ’ ἀνθερίκοισι καλὰν πλέκει ἀκριδοθήραν σχοίνῳ ἐφαρμόσδων· μέλεται δέ οἱ οὔτε τι πήρας οὔτε φυτῶν τοσσῆνον ὅσον περὶ πλέγματι γαθεῖ. παντᾷ δ’ ἀμφὶ δέπας περιπέπταται ὑγρὸς ἄκανθος.

59 60

61

Cf. Hunter (1996) 4–6 and Hunter (1999) 11. For these labels see, respectively, Fedeli (1989), Harrison (2007), Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 17–26, Allen (2013); all these are usefully discussed in an illuminating introduction to Hellenistic lyric by Danielewicz (2018) 11–26 (in Polish). Cf. Hunter (1999) 78 on 29–31.

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He [sc. the boy] is weaving a fine trap for grasshoppers by linking together rushes and stalks of asphodel, and his care for his knapsack and vines is much less than the pleasure he takes in his plaiting. All around the cup is spread pliant acanthus. Both images of weaving have strong metapoetic undertones,62 where the boy “is at one level a figure of the poet.”63 The imagery is bucolic,64 but its selfreferential application extends beyond Idyll 1 alone or Theocritus’ poems on herdsmen—perhaps Theocritus’ care for his knapsack and vines is, too, much less than the pleasure he takes in his plaiting! This is suggested by the similarity of the passages of Theocritus, and possibly even debt, to two epigrams by Simias: the winding ivy of lines 29–31 is strongly reminiscent of Simias’ description of ivy entwining the tomb of Sophocles (Simias fr. 23 Fränkel = 5 Gow-Page), whereas the image of the boy weaving a cricket-cage in Theocritus makes one think of the image of a cricket captured in a dense coppice in order to be put in a cage in another epigram by Simias (fr. 25 Fränkel = CA 20 = 2 GowPage). These and other depictions of dense foliage in Simias also have a rather obvious metapoetic dimension.65 Therefore, although the imagery of weaving is common not only in Indo-European cultures but even worldwide,66 I suspect that what Theocritus had in mind while composing these passages was contemporary, i.e., Hellenistic poetry rather than all poetry—poetry such as that composed by Simias and by himself; poetry in which various metres, genres and forms programmatically intertwine. As a result, this poetry is like the cricketcage represented on the cup represented in Idyll 1; we need to keep in mind that both the plaited cage and the cup are metaphors for poetry, whereas the intertextual links inherent in these images, such as those leading to Simias, add even further twists to this breathtaking (meta)poetic manoeuvre. This affords us a formula to characterize the Theocritean poetic forms—poetry woven into poetry woven into poetry.

62 63 64 65 66

Cf., again, Hunter (1999) 78 on 29–31; also p. 83 on 52. For metapoetry in the ekphrasis see also Klooster and Ambühl, this volume. Hunter (1999) 62. Cf. an echo of this imagery in the bucolic Ep. 4.6–9 (discussed above); the unusual size of this epigram suggests its programmatic character. See further Kwapisz (2018a) = Kwapisz (2019) 41. See Kwapisz (2013) 115 on Sim. Ov. 3.

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Bibliography Acosta-Hughes, B. (2010), Arion’s Lyre: Archaic Lyric into Hellenistic Poetry (Princeton). Allen, M. (2013), “Against ‘Hybridity’ in Genre Studies: Blending as an Alternative Approach to Generic Experimentation,” Trespassing Journal 2 (online). Arnott, W.G. (1996), “The Preoccupations of Theocritus: Structure, Illusive Realism, Allusive Learning,” in Harder/Regtuit/Wakker (1996) 55–70. Bagnall, R.S./Browne, G.M./Hanson, A.E./Koenen, L. (eds.) (1981), Proceedings of the Sixteenth International Congress of Papyrology (Chico, CA). Barbantani, S. (2017), “Lyric for the Rulers, Lyric for the People: The Transformation of Some Lyric Subgenres in Hellenistic Poetry,” in Sistakou (2017) 339–399. Baumbach, M./Bär, S. (eds.) (2012), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and its Reception (Leiden). Baumbach, M./Petrovic, A./Petrovic, I. (eds.) (2010), Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram (Cambridge). Beck, W. (1992), “Theocritus, Idyll 14: Alcaeus and Megara,” WJA 18, 171–182. Bettenworth, A. (2002), “Asclepiades xxv G.-P. (A.P. 5,181): Ein Beitrag zum sympotischerotischen Epigramm,” in Harder/Regtuit/Wakker (2002) 27–38. Bing, P. (1988), “Theocritus’ Epigrams on the Statues of Ancient Poets,” A&A 34, 117– 123. Bowie, E.L. (2010), “Epigram as Narration,” in Baumbach/Petrovic/Petrovic (2010) 313– 384. Bruss, J.S. (2005), Hidden Presences: Monuments, Gravesites, and Corpses in Greek Funerary Epigram (Leuven). Burton, J.B. (1996), Theocritus’s Urban Mimes: Mobility, Gender, and Patronage (Berkeley). Cairns, F. (2008), “The Hellenistic Epigramma Longum,” in Morelli (2008) 55–80. Cavallo, G./Fedeli, P./Giardina, A. (eds.) (1989), Lo spazio letterario di Roma antica, vol. 1: La produzione del testo (Rome). Danielewicz, J. (2018), Antologia liryki hellenistycznej (Warsaw). Erskine, A./Llewellyn-Jones, L. (eds.) (2011), Creating a Hellenistic World (Swansea). Fantuzzi, M. (1995), “Variazioni sull’esametro in Teocrito,” in Fantuzzi/Pretagostini (1995) 221–264. Fantuzzi, M. (2004), “Eidyllion,” in Brill’s New Pauly, vol. 4, 856. Fantuzzi, M./Hunter, R.L. (2004), Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge). Fantuzzi, M./Papanghelis, Th. (eds.) (2006), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden). Fantuzzi, M./Pretagostini, R. (eds.) (1995), Struttura e storia dell’esametro greco, vol. 1 (Rome).

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Fassino, M./Prauscello, L. (2001), “Memoria ritmica e memoria poetica: Saffo e Alceo in Teocrito Idilli 28–30 tra αρχαιολογια metrica e innovazione alessandrina,” MD 46, 9–37. Fedeli, P. (1989), “Le intersezioni dei generi e dei modelli,” in Cavallo/Fedeli/Giardina (1989) 375–397. Floridi, L./Maltomini, F. (2014), “Sui contenuti e l’organizzazione interna di P.Vindob. G 40611 (CPR xxxiii),” Aegyptus 94, 19–62. Gallavotti, C. (1993), Theocritus quique feruntur bucolici Graeci, 3rd ed. (Rome). Gow, A.S.F. (1952), Theocritus, 2 vols, 2nd ed. (Cambridge). Gow, A.S.F./Page, D.L. (1965), The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams, vol. 2 (Cambridge). Green, P. (ed.) (1993), Hellenistic History and Culture (Berkeley). Greene, E./Skinner, M.B. (eds.) (2009), The New Sappho on Old Age: Textual and Philosophical Issues (Washington, DC). Griffiths, F.T. (1979), Theocritus at Court (Leiden). Guichard, L.A. (2006), “Simias’ Pattern Poems: The Margins of the Canon,” in Harder/ Regtuit/Wakker (2006) 83–103. Gutzwiller, K.J. (1996), “The Evidence for Theocritean Poetry Books,” in Harder/Regtuit/ Wakker (1996) 119–148. Gutzwiller, K.J. (1998), Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigrams in Context (Berkeley). Gutzwiller, K.J. (2005a), “The Literariness of the Milan Papyrus or ‘What Difference a Book?,’” in Gutzwiller (2005b) 287–319. Gutzwiller, K.J. (ed.) (2005b), The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic Poetry Book (Oxford). Harder, M.A./Regtuit, R.F./Wakker, G.C. (eds.) (1996), Theocritus (Groningen). Harder, M.A./Regtuit, R.F./Wakker, G.C. (eds.) (2002), Hellenistic Epigrams (Leuven). Harder, M.A./Regtuit, R.F./Wakker, G.C. (eds.) (2006), Beyond the Canon (Leuven). Harrauer, H. (1981), “Epigrammincipit auf einem Papyrus aus dem 3. Jh. v. Chr.: P. Vindob. G 40611: Ein Vorbericht,” in Bagnall/Browne/Hanson/Koenen (1981) 49–53. Harrison, S.J. (2007), Generic Enrichment in Vergil and Horace (Oxford). Hopkinson, N. (2005), Theocritus, Moschus, Bion (Cambridge, MA). Hunter, R.L. (1996), Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry (Cambridge). Hunter, R.L. (1999), Theocritus: A Selection: Idylls 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 13 (Cambridge). Hutchinson, G.O. (2018), “‘Modernism,’ ‘Postmodernism,’ and the Death of the Stanza,” in Kwapisz (2018b). Klooster, J.J.H./Harder, M.A./Regtuit, R.F/Wakker, G.C. (eds.) (2019), Callimachus Revisited: New Perspectives in Callimmachean Scholarship (Leuven). Köhnken, A. (1996), “Theokrits Polyphemgedichte,” in Harder/Regtuit/Wakker (1996) 171–186. Krevans, N. (2005), “The Editor’s Toolbox: Strategies for Selection and Presentation in the Milan Epigram Papyrus,” in Gutzwiller (2005b) 81–96.

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Krevans, N. (2006), “Is There Urban Pastoral? The Case of Theocritus’ Id. 15,” in Fantuzzi/Papanghelis (2006) 119–146. Kwapisz, J. (2013), The Greek Figure Poems (Leuven). Kwapisz, J. (2016), “Sotades on Kings,” Eikasmos 27, 121–136. Kwapisz, J. (2018a), “The Three Preoccupations of Simias of Rhodes,” in J. Kwapisz (2018b). Kwapisz, J. (ed.) (2018b), Hellenistica Posnaniensia: Faces of Hellenistic Lyric, Aitia 8.1 (online). Kwapisz, J. (2019), The Paradigm of Simias: Essays on Poetic Eccentricity (Berlin). Kwapisz, J./Pietruczuk, K. (2019), “Your Own Personal Library of Alexandria: Callimachus’ Scholarly Works and Their Readers,” in Klooster/Harder/Regtuit/Wakker (2019) 221–247. Legrand, Ph.-E. (1925), Bucoliques grecs, vol. 1 (Paris). Leventhal, M. (2015), “Counting on Epic: Mathematical Poetry and Homeric Epic in Archimedes’ Cattle Problem,” Ramus 44, 200–221. Leventhal, M. (2017), “Eratosthenes’ Letter to Ptolemy: The Literary Mechanics of Empire,” AJPh 138, 43–84. Levi, P. (1993), “People in a Landscape: Theokritos,” in Green (1993) 111–127. Linant de Bellefonds, P./Prioux, É./Rouveret, A. (eds.) (2016), D’Alexandre à Auguste: Dynamiques de la création dans les arts visuels et la poésie (Rennes). Luz, C. (2012), “Pindaric Narrative Technique in the Hellenistic Epyllion,” in Baumbach/Bär (2012) 201–219. Massimilla, G. (2017), “Melos and Molpe in Hellenistic Poetry,” in Sistakou (2017) 400– 419. Méndez Dosuna, J. (2008), “The Literary Progeny of Sappho’s Fawns: Simias’ Egg (AP 15.27.13–20) and Theocritus 30.18,” Mnemosyne 61, 192–206. Meyer, D. (2005), Inszeniertes Lesevergnügen: Das inschriftliche Epigramm und seine Rezeption bei Kallimachos (Stuttgart). Morelli, A.M. (ed.) (2008), Epigramma longum: Da Marziale alla tarda antichità / From Martial to Late Antiquity, vol. 1 (Cassino). Obbink, D. (2009), “Sappho Fragments 58–59: Text, Apparatus Criticus, and Translation,” in Greene/Skinner (2009) 7–16. Parsons, P.J./Maehler, H./Maltomini, F. (2015), The Vienna Epigrams Papyrus (G 40611) (Berlin). Porter, J.L. (2011), “Against λεπτοτησ: Rethinking Hellenistic Aesthetics,” in Erskine/ Llewellyn-Jones (2011) 271–312. Prauscello, L. (2006), Singing Alexandria: Music between Practice and Textual Transmission (Leiden). Puelma, M. (1997), “Epigramma: Osservazioni sulla storia di un termine greco-latino,” Maia 49, 189–213.

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Radice, B. (1969), Pliny the Younger: Letters, vol. 1 (Cambridge, MA). Rossi, L. (2001), The Epigrams Ascribed to Theocritus: A Method of Approach (Leuveņ). Sens, A. (2011), Asclepiades of Samos: Epigrams and Fragments (Oxford). Simon, F.-J. (1991), τα κυλλ’ αειδειν: Interpretationen zu den Mimiamben des Herodas (Frankfurt/Main). Sistakou, E. (ed.) (2017), Hellenistic Lyricism, Trends in Classics 9.2 (Berlin). Squire, M. (2011), The Iliad in a Nutshell: Visualizing Epic on the Tabulae Iliacae (Oxford). Squire, M. (2016), “Sémantique de l’échelle dans l’art et la poésie hellénistiques,” in Linant de Bellefonds/Prioux/Rouveret (2016) 183–200. Strodel, S. (2002), Zur Überlieferung und zum Verständnis der hellenistischen Technopaignien (Frankfurt/Main). West, M.L. (1982), Greek Metre (Oxford). Ypsilanti, M. (2006), “Mime in Verse: Strategic Affinities in Theocritus and Herondas,” Maia 58, 411–431. Zanker, G. (2009), Herodas: Mimiambs (Oxford).

part 2 Genres and Models

∵

chapter 5

Theocritus and Bucolic Poetry Giulio Massimilla

The origins of bucolic poetry as a distinct genre within the Theocritean corpus are difficult to determine.1 The late antique or Byzantine versions of an essay preceding the scholia to Theocritus’ Idylls connect the invention of “bucolics” (τὰ βουκολικά) to some cults of Artemis in Laconia or Sicily.2 This account finds no support in the contents of the extant Theocritean bucolic poems and is generally regarded as a scholarly construction based on the Peripatetic explanation of the emergence of Attic drama out of rural rites.3 Some other accounts, although dubious, are at least more closely related to what we know about Theocritean bucolics. In this regard, the most conspicuous point of contact is the archetypal oxherd Daphnis, whose wasting away and death are lamented in Id. 7.72–77 and 1.64–142. Among several later sources dealing with the Daphnis story,4 a passage of Diodorus Siculus and another of Aelian are of special interest, because they include references to the origins of bucolic poetry:5 In the Heraean mountains [southeast Sicily, inland from Syracuse], so the story goes, was born Daphnis, a son of Hermes and a nymph, and he, because of the bay (δάφνη) which grew there in profusion, was called Daphnis. He was brought up by the nymphs, and possessed very many herds of cattle which he tended very carefully. For this reason he earned the name “Boucolos”. He was a naturally gifted musician and invented bucolic poetry and song (ἐξευρεῖν τὸ βουκολικὸν ποίημα καὶ μέλος), which 1 Recent discussions include Van Sickle (1976); Effe (1977); Segal (1981); Halperin (1983); Berger (1984); Nauta (1990); Gutzwiller (1991); Vara (1992); Stanzel (1995); Hubbard (1998) 19– 44; Hunter (1999) 5–17; Gutzwiller (2006); Lucarini (2007); Payne (2007); Fantuzzi (2008); Karakasis (2011) 11–15; Klooster (2011) 91–110; Ornaghi (2013); Scholl (2014); Scafoglio (2017). The so-called bucolic Idylls of the Theocritean corpus are Theocritus’ Id. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11 and pseudo-Theocritus’ Id. 8, 9, 20, 27. On the bucolic epigrams transmitted under the name of Theocritus (Ep. 1–6 Gow), see Massimilla (1999) 47–54; Rossi (2001) 121–186; Stanzel (2007). 2 Wendel (1914) 2–3, 8–9. The original author of the essay may have been the Augustan philologist Theon, who worked extensively on the major Hellenistic poets: see Bernasconi (2010). On Theon, see Matthaios (2015) 215–216; Montana (2015) 178–180. 3 Hunter (1999) 5–6; Klooster (2011) 97. 4 Prescott (1899); Gow (1952) 2.1–2; Hunter (1999) 63–66; Scholl (2014). 5 Translations by Hunter (1999) 64–65. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004466715_007

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persists throughout Sicily to the present day. The story is that Daphnis hunted with Artemis and found favour with the goddess, and that he delighted her exceedingly with his syrinx playing and bucolic singing (διὰ τῆς σύριγγος καὶ βουκολικῆς μελῳδίας). They say that one of the nymphs fell in love with him and warned him that, if he slept with another woman, he would lose his sight. A king’s daughter made him drunk and he slept with her, whereupon he was blinded in accordance with the nymph’s warning. diod. sic. 4.84

Some say that Daphnis the boucolos was Hermes’ eromenos, others that he was his son …. His mother was a nymph and she exposed him in a bay bush (ἐν δάφνῃ). They say that his cattle were from the same stock as the cattle of the sun, of which Homer tells in the Odyssey [12.127–136, 260–266]. When he was herding his cattle in Sicily, a nymph fell in love with him; he was beautiful and young, with his first beard, and she slept with him. She got him to agree not to sleep with anyone else, and she threatened that if he transgressed the agreement he would be blinded …. Some time later the daughter of a king fell in love with him, and under the influence of wine he broke his agreement by sleeping with the princess. As a result of this, bucolic song was sung for the first time (τὰ βουκολικὰ μέλη πρῶτον ᾔσθη) and its subject was what happened (τὸ πάθος) to his eyes. Stesichorus of Himera [fr. dub. 323 Finglass] began this kind of lyric (τῆς τοιαύτης μελοποιίας ὑπάρξασθαι). aelian. VH 10.18

Both Diodorus and Aelian, as apparently Timaeus before them (FGrHist 566 F 83 ap. Parthen. Narr. amat. 29), mention some essential aspects of the “Theocritean Daphnis”: his Sicilian background, his proximity to Hermes and the Nymphs, and his musical skill. It is nevertheless noteworthy that their narratives are inconsistent with Theocritus’ versions of Daphnis’ sad end in Id. 1 and 7, where Daphnis dies because (as it seems) he refuses to give in to love or pines away for love of a girl, respectively. By contrast, Diodorus’ and Aelian’s accounts of Daphnis’ affair with a nymph have some similarities to what we read in the last line of pseudo-Theocritus’ Id. 8, where a herdsman named Daphnis (presumably to be identified with the bucolic hero)6 happily marries a nymph called Nais (43, 93).7 6 Gow (1952) 2.171; Fantuzzi (1998). We have good reasons for supposing that also the oxherd Daphnis of Id. 6 is the same as the legendary Daphnis: see Gow (1952) 2.120; Hunter (1999) 245. This is not the case with the oxherd Daphnis of pseudo-Theocritus’ Id. 27. 7 Gow (1952) 2.2; Massimilla (1995) 47–48.

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Furthermore, while Diodorus says that Daphnis himself “invented” bucolic poetry and then tells the story of his blinding, Aelian states that bucolic song was sung for the first time as a result of Daphnis’ blinding and took it as its subject, and adds that it was the famous archaic poet Stesichorus who “began this kind of lyric” (fr. dub. 323 Finglass). The meaning of this last phrase is uncertain: should we understand that Stesichorus first told the Daphnis story, or that he was the first to produce bucolic poetry?8 More generally, the reliability of Aelian’s reference to Stesichorus is very much open to question.9 Some critics are willing to believe that Stesichorus dealt with Daphnis’ unfortunate love affair and blinding,10 or at least mentioned Daphnis in some of his poems:11 in this regard, it may be significant that Theocritus (Id. 7.74–75) situates Daphnis’ wasting away on the banks of the Sicilian river Himeras, since this detail could be taken as an allusion to Stesichorus and to his poetry about Daphnis.12 Some other scholars, by contrast, reject Aelian’s mention of Stesichorus, remarking that love stories seem to have no prominent place in Stesichorus’ extant fragments and sometimes adding an (admittedly dangerous) argumentum ex silentio, i.e., the absence of any reference to Stesichorus in the essays on the “inventors of bucolics” preceding the scholia to Theocritus’ Idylls13 or in Diodorus Siculus’ account of the Daphnis story (4.84). Alternatively, West suggests that the poet “Stesichorus of Himera” mentioned by Aelian should be identified with the shadowy Stesichorus of Himera the Second, whose dithyramb Cyclops was performed before Philip of Macedon in 354bce (PMG 841).14 Besides Daphnis, other archetypal figures found their way into the Theocritean corpus. One of them is the herdsman Menalcas, who is presented as a competitor of Daphnis in two song contests in pseudo-Theocritus’ Id. 8 and 9.15 The story of Menalcas, as told by the Peripatetic philosopher Clearchus

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Lightfoot (1999) 526 n. 341. For recent discussions, see Davies/Finglass (2014) 596–598; Rutherford (2015). Among others, Lehnus (1975); Vox (1986) 312–314. See already Rizzo (1895) 32–34. Wilamowitz (1913) 240. Wendel (1914) 2–3, 8–9. West (1970) 206. On Stesichorus of Himera the Second, see Ercoles (2013) 222. In Id. 8 Menalcas is both a shepherd (9) and a goatherd (63), while in Id. 9 he is first portrayed as an oxherd (3), and then as a shepherd and goatherd (17). The main narrator of Id. 9 converses with Daphnis and Menalcas: in my opinion, this does not necessarily mean that here “Daphnis and Menalcas … cannot be as in Id. 8 … the mythical herdsmen of those names,” as stated by Gow (1952) 2.185.

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of Soli in his Erotica (fr. 32 Wehrli ap. Athen. 14.619cd), resembles in some ways that of Daphnis:16 Eriphanis, the lyric poetess (ἡ μελοποιός), fell in love with Menalcas while he was hunting, and in her desire she too went hunting. She wandered and roamed over all the woods of the mountains … so that not only the most heartless men, but also the most savage beasts, wept at her suffering, for they perceived the lover’s delusion. Hence, they say, she composed poetry and wandered through the wilderness calling out and singing the so-called “pastoral song” (νόμιον), in which occur the words “Tall are the oaks, Menalcas.” What we read about Menalcas in Id. 8 and 9 has no connection with Clearchus’ account of Eriphanis’ unfortunate love for him. Nevertheless, the fact that he and Daphnis were brought together in the Theocritean corpus, as well as in the Daphnis or Lityerses of the Hellenistic playwright Sositheus (TrGF 99 F 1) and in a passage of Hermesianax (fr. 2–3 Powell = 8–9 Lightfoot),17 suggests that they were conceived as rival archetypal figures.18 Within the Theocritean corpus we also come across two founding figures of “aipolic” poetry. The former emerges anonymously in a song which (as the poetgoatherd Lycidas foretells in Id. 7.78–82) Tityrus will soon perform at a country party, and the latter (named Comatas) is addressed immediately afterwards by Lycidas himself (Id. 7.83–89):19 ᾀσεῖ δ’ ὥς ποκ’ ἔδεκτο τὸν αἰπόλον εὐρέα λάρναξ ζωὸν ἐόντα κακαῖσιν ἀτασθαλίαισιν ἄνακτος, ὥς τέ νιν αἱ σιμαὶ λειμωνόθε φέρβον ἰοῖσαι κέδρον ἐς ἁδεῖαν μαλακοῖς ἄνθεσσι μέλισσαι, οὕνεκά οἱ γλυκὺ Μοῖσα κατὰ στόματος χέε νέκταρ. ὦ μακαριστὲ Κομᾶτα, τύ θην τάδε τερπνὰ πεπόνθεις· καὶ τὺ κατεκλᾴσθης ἐς λάρνακα, καὶ τὺ μελισσᾶν κηρία φερβόμενος ἔτος ὥριον ἐξεπόνασας.

16 17 18

19

Translation by Hunter (1999) 66. By contrast with Daphnis’ Sicilian background, Hermesianax situates Menalcas in Euboea. He also says that Daphnis and Menalcas were lovers. Hunter (1999) 66. As Hunter notes, a comparable rivalry with Daphnis’ position as a subject for herdsmen’s song is explicitly asserted in Callimachus’ Epigram 22 Pf. (AP 7.518 = HE 1211–1214), a funerary poem honouring the divinized Cretan goatherd Astacides. The translations from the Theocritean corpus are those of Hopkinson (2015).

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αἴθ’ ἐπ’ ἐμεῦ ζωοῖς ἐναρίθμιος ὤφελες ἦμεν, ὥς τοι ἐγὼν ἐνόμευον ἀν’ ὤρεα τὰς καλὰς αἶγας φωνᾶς εἰσαΐων, τὺ δ’ ὑπὸ δρυσὶν ἢ ὑπὸ πεύκαις ἁδὺ μελισδόμενος κατεκέκλισο, θεῖε Κομᾶτα. He [i.e., Tityrus] will sing how the goatherd was once enclosed alive in a great chest thanks to his king’s wicked impiety, and how the blunt-nosed bees came from the meadows to the fragrant coffer of cedarwood to feed him on tender flowers because the Muse had poured sweet nectar on his lips. Blessed Comatas, you have experienced these pleasures; you too were shut in a chest; you too were fed on honeycomb and labored hard in the year’s springtime. If only you had been counted among the living in my day, so that I could have herded your fine goats in the hills and listened to your voice as you sat making sweet music under the oaks or pines, divine Comatas. In the preceding lines (72–77) Lycidas has said that the first subject of Tityrus’ song will be the wasting away of the lovesick oxherd Daphnis on the banks of the Himeras. He now proceeds to foretell Tityrus’ second theme. As far as we can tell from Theocritus’ elliptical diction, he here alludes to a story summarized in a scholium to vv. 78–79,20 and there attributed to the historian Lycus of Rhegium (late 4th to early 3rd century, FGrHist 570 F 7):21 In a cave of the Nymphs on Mount Thalamos near Thurii … a shepherd (ποιμήν) regularly sacrificed his master’s (δεσπότου) animals to the Muses; in his anger at this, the master shut him away in a box (λάρνακα) to see whether the goddesses would save him. After two months he opened the box and found the shepherd alive and the box full of honeycombs. Unlike Lycus, Theocritus specifies that the herdsman saved by bees was a goatherd (78) and expressly says that he was also a poet (82). He is presented as a parallel figure to Comatas, now dead and divinized (83, 86, 89), whom Lycidas addresses in the following lines: Comatas too was shut in a chest and fed by bees (83–85) and was a poet-goatherd (87–89).22 A mythical goatherd named 20 21 22

Wendel (1914) 99. Translation by Hunter (1999) 176. According to the traditional interpretation (see Gow (1952) 2.152–153), the nameless goatherd and Comatas are the same person, and the emphatic καὶ τύ … καὶ τὺ in v. 84 presumably introduces a comparison between Comatas’ ordeal and a similar trial experienced by

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Comatas is not otherwise attested, and there is no way to know whether Theocritus invented this figure or borrowed it from an earlier tradition.23 By contrast, the poems of the Theocritean corpus do not refer to the legendary Sicilian oxherd Diomus, who, according to Athenaeus (14.619ab), invented a kind of song called βουκολιασμός and was mentioned by Epicharmus in two of his plays:24 There was a song for people leading flocks (ἦν δὲ καὶ τοῖς ἡγουμένοις τῶν βοσκημάτων), the so-called βουκολιασμός. Diomus was a Sicilian oxherd, and he invented this type; Epicharmus mentions him in the Alcyon [PCG 4] and the Shipwrecked Odysseus [PCG 104]. Despite the absence of any reference to Diomus in the Theocritean corpus, the Theocritean use of the words βουκολικός, βουκολιάσδομαι, and βουκολιαστάς in connection with song and music agrees with the meaning of βουκολιασμός in Athenaeus’ passage and (as we shall see) may point to an influence of Epicharmus upon Theocritus. All in all, we know little or nothing (as in the case of Comatas) about the preTheocritean traditions on the archetypal figures so far discussed, who are not of much help in trying to determine the origins of Theocritean bucolic poetry. Furthermore, as we have seen, in this regard we must rely on later sources that, at least in the case of Daphnis, may well have been partly influenced by the Theocritean tradition.25 Even if some of these sources trace several Theocritean founding figures back to authors earlier than Theocritus (Stesichorus for Daphnis, Clearchus for Menalcas, Lycus of Rhegium for the nameless goatherd of Id. 7), it is reasonable to suppose that their Theocritean counterparts resulted from substantial creative reworking.

23 24 25

Daphnis, who is the subject of the preceding lines (72–77). The scholia to vv. 78–79 and 83 (Wendel (1914) 99, 101) go so far as to state that Theocritus borrowed the whole story of Comatas from the Daphnis myth, but this assertion, as Gow (1952) 2.153 remarks, “must … be regarded with suspicion, and it may well be due to someone who noticed the emphatic καὶ τύ and assumed that as Daphnis was the last person mentioned he must have been the other victim.” Besides, as Hunter (1999) 176 notes, “bees enter the Daphnis story elsewhere only in texts plainly influenced by Theocritus.” All in all, it seems more probable that the nameless goatherd (78–82) and Comatas (83–89) are two different persons, as proposed by Radt (1971) 254–255. See also Kyriakou (2018) 181–182. We have no reason to assume that the mythical Comatas of Id. 7 and the Italian goatherd Comatas, who engages in a singing match in Id. 5, are the same character. Translation by Hunter (1999) 9. Hunter (1999) 63–64.

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We are on firmer ground to appreciate such reworking in Id. 6 and 11, both centered on Polyphemus’ love for the sea nymph Galatea in Sicily.26 From the Odyssey (9.170–542) onwards, Polyphemus had come to be regarded as the mythical shepherd par excellence. Euripides had already given prominence to the bucolic elements of the Homeric episode in his satyr play Cyclops (set in Sicily), and Polyphemus had become a popular subject in Middle Comedy27 and in the new dithyramb of the late 5th / early 4th century.28 What we know about the dithyramb Cyclops by Philoxenus of Cythera (about 400 bce) suggests that it influenced not only the erotic focus, but also several specific aspects of Theocritus’ Id. 6 and 11.29 According to the Peripatetic philosopher Phaenias of Eresus ap. Athen. 1.6e–7a (Phaen. fr. 17 Engels = Philox. PMG 816, test. 30 Fongoni), Philoxenus composed the Cyclops while he was jailed in the stone quarries of Syracuse. He showed Polyphemus in love with Galatea, and made him sing a love song to the lyre (PMG 819, 821, cf. Theoc. 11.19–79) and “console himself for his love of Galatea and tell the dolphins to report to her that he was healing his love with the Muses” (PMG 822, cf. Theoc. 11.1–6).30 If we may trust the testimony of the late antique writer Synesius (Epist. 121 = Philox. PMG 818), in Philoxenus’ Cyclops Odysseus advised Polyphemus to pretend indifference for Galatea, anticipating Polyphemus’ feigned nonchalance in Theocritus’ Id. 6.21–40.31 Theocritus’ treatment of Polyphemus, who is a primary model for his bucolic characters, suggests that the origins of Theocritean bucolic poetry should not be traced back to any specific tradition or archetypal figure, but rather to a wide spectrum of traditions and literary genres which Theocritus reworked in a highly creative manner.

26 27 28 29 30

31

Stanzel (1995) 149–190; Christoforidou (2005). Arnott (1996) 139–141. Hunter (1999) 216; Hunter/Laemmle (2020) 4–9, 101–102. On Philoxenus’ Cyclops, see Fongoni (2014) 97–115. For its influence on Hellenistic poetry, see Hordern (2004). Translation of PMG 822 (= scholium to Theoc. 11.1–3b, Wendel (1914) 241) by Campbell (1993) 165, adapted. The motif of Polyphemus healing his love with the Muses is also found in Callimachus’ Epigram 46.1–4 Pf. (AP 12.150.1–4 = HE 1047–1050). In Id. 7.151–153 Simichidas says that Polyphemus danced after drinking Odysseus’ wine. Since Aristophanes parodied Philoxenus’ Cyclops in a dance scene of his Plutus (290– 295), it is plausible that Philoxenus made Polyphemus dance (PMG 819): Theocritus may well recall that part of Philoxenus’ dithyramb, as well as a passage of Euripides’ Cyclops (503–510) where the drunken Polyphemus sings and probably dances. See Hunter (1999) 197–198; Hunter/Laemmle (2020) 207.

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In this regard, Homer is of course an essential starting point.32 The description of Achilles’ shield in the Iliad (18.478–607), with its scenes of singing, dancing, and rural and pastoral life, was widely influential on bucolic poetry, and had a profound impact on the description of the wooden cup in Id. 1.27– 60. The pastoral settings of many Iliadic similes foreshadow Theocritean features.33 The Odyssey offered Theocritus several inspiring episodes: the Goat Island (9.116–151), Polyphemus (9.170–542), the cattle of the Sun (12.127–136, 260–266), and Odysseus’ reception by Eumaeus (14.1–110, 410–456). The proem to Hesiod’s Theogony, where the Muses appear to Hesiod while he herds sheep on the slopes of Helicon, hand him a laurel staff, and inspire him to sing of the gods (22–34), set the model for the bucolic figure of the poet-herdsman and influenced Theocritus’ description of how Lycidas gives Simichidas his stick of wild olive after they have both performed their songs (Id. 7.43–44, 128–129). The Hesiodic motif of the poet’s encounter with the Muses was apparently given a specifically bucolic twist in the story of the young Archilochus’ encounter with the Muses while he drove a cow to town, as recorded in a mid-third century inscription of the Archilocheion at Paros (SEG 15.517 = Arch. test. 3 Gerber): according to this story, the Muses in disguise joked with the boy and made the cow disappear, but in its place Archilochus found the lyre of poetry.34 The whole Greek poetic tradition, from epic to lyric to drama to early Hellenistic poetry, resonates in Theocritus’ descriptions of loca amoena.35 Also the idyllic setting of Socrates’ conversation with Phaedrus in Plato’s Phaedrus anticipates Theocritus’ idealized landscape.36 In the opening scene of the dialogue, Socrates comes across Phaedrus on the outskirts of Athens and walks with him into the countryside. Here Socrates draws attention to the beauty of the grove on the banks of the Ilissus where, as suggested by Phaedrus, they rest at noon (230bc):37 By Hera, it is a charming resting place. For this plane tree is very spreading and lofty, and the tall and shady willow is very beautiful, and it is in full bloom, so as to make the place most fragrant; then, too, the spring

32 33 34 35 36 37

Halperin (1983). Cf. Il. 2.474–475, 480–481, 3.196–198, 4.275–279, 433–435, 5.902–903, 13.492–493, 571–572, 16.641–643, 23.845–846, but also Od. 4.413, 22.299–301. Nagy (2009) 308. Elliger (1975) 27–398. Murley (1940); Gutzwiller (1991) 73–79; Hunter (1999) 14, 145–146. Translation by Fowler (1913).

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is very pretty as it flows under the plane tree, and its water is very cool, to judge by my foot. And it seems to be a sacred place of some nymphs and of Achelous, judging by the figurines and statues. Then again, if you please, how lovely and perfectly charming the breeziness of the place is! And it resounds with the shrill summer music of the chorus of cicadas. But the most delightful thing of all is the grass, as it grows on the gentle slope, thick enough to be just right when you lay your head on it. So you have guided the stranger most excellently, dear Phaedrus. The setting of the Phaedrus is a particularly significant antecedent for bucolic poetry because it forms the background to speeches on love, as many Theocritean loca amoena form the background to songs and utterances about love. Furthermore, later on, Socrates tells that the Muses transformed into cicadas some men who sang so incessantly that they forgot to eat and drink (258e– 259d): this explicit association of singers and poets with the musical insect par excellence38 foreshadows the typically Theocritean interplay between the sounds of nature and human song and music. Drawing on these multiple sources, as well as (presumably) on traditions of rustic Sicilian song making,39 Theocritus produced his bucolic poetry, a highly original achievement which came to be regarded as a distinct genre invented by him.40 Broadly speaking, some recurring features characterize bucolic poetry in the Theocritean corpus:41 in most poems, singing and piping herdsmen exchange songs in a competitive or friendly manner, or produce solo performances; the most usual setting is an idealized countryside where nature sometimes responds to human actions and states of mind with its sounds and sights; love, especially unrequited love, is the herdsmen’s main concern and forms the main subject of their songs; bucolic characters live in an “enclosed” world, where the same names recur (Daphnis, Comatas, Amaryllis, etc.) and a limited set of gods operates (Pan, the Nymphs, etc.). The words βουκολικός, βουκολιάσδομαι, and βουκολιαστάς occur in several Theocritean bucolic Idylls, always in connection with pastoral song and

38

39 40 41

Cf. Hom. Il. 3.151–152, Hes. Op. 582–584, [Hes.] Sc. 393–397, Alc. fr. 347.3 Voigt, Theoc. 1.148, 5.29, 7.138–139, 16.94–96, and see Massimilla (2017) 409. On the cicada as a model for the poet, cf. Call. Aet. fr. 1.29–35 Massimilla = Harder, with Massimilla (1996) 222–227 and Harder (2012) 68–81. Dover (1971) lxi–lxiii; Pretagostini (2007); Lelli (2017). On Theocritus’ “invention” of a bucolic tradition, see Fantuzzi (2008). On his invention of a “bucolic fiction,” see Payne (2007); Payne (2010). Karakasis (2011) 15–20, 23–24.

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music.42 This kind of use may attest to an influence of Epicharmus upon Theocritus since, as we have seen, Athenaeus records that the Sicilian oxherd Diomus invented a pastoral song called βουκολιασμός, and says that Epicharmus mentioned Diomus in two of his plays. Judging from Athenaeus’ testimony, Theocritus may have borrowed his “bucolic” terminology from a Sicilian tradition of “bucolic” singing, not limited to oxherds but extended to shepherds and goatherds, which had apparently already had an impact on the great Syracusan poet Epicharmus.43 Theocritus’ “specialized” use of the “bucolic” terminology proved to be successful, and was also adopted in pseudo-Theocritus’ Id. 8 and 9.44 Βουκολιασταί (The Bucolic Singers) is the transmitted title of those two poems and of Theocritus’ Id. 6, and is one of the transmitted titles of Theocritus’ Id. 4 and 5. The earliest known collection of Theocritean poems, which was put together by the grammarian Artemidorus of Tarsus in the first half of the first century bce, was presumably called Βουκολικά, as we may infer from Artemidorus’ prefatory epigram transmitted in the Greek Anthology under the heading “For the gathering together of the bucolic poems” (ἐπὶ τῇ ἀθροίσει τῶν βουκολικῶν ποιημάτων, AP 9.205 = [Theoc.] Ep. 26 Gow, Theoc. test. 9 Hopkinson):45 Βουκολικαὶ Μοῖσαι σποράδες ποκά, νῦν δ’ ἅμα πᾶσαι ἐντὶ μιᾶς μάνδρας, ἐντὶ μιᾶς ἀγέλας. The Bucolic Muses were once scattered, but are now all united in one fold, in one flock. With regard to “bucolic markers”, Idyll 1 stands out in the Theocritean corpus. Here is its opening passage, spoken by the shepherd Thyrsis of Etna (cf. 65) and an unnamed goatherd (1–11):

42

43 44 45

Cf. Theoc. 1.20, 64, etc., 94, etc., 127, etc., 5.44, 60, 68, 7.36, 49, [Theoc.] 8.32, 9.1, 5, 28. See Hunter (1999) 5–8; Karakasis (2011) 11–13. In one of the epigrams ascribed to Theocritus (AP 6.177.2 = Ep. 2.2 Gow) Daphnis is described as a performer of “bucolic songs” (βουκολικοὺς ὕμνους) on his syrinx. See Hunter (1999) 8–11, who also notes that Theocritus’ Id. 3 has some points of contact with the mimes of Sophron of Syracuse. See further Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 141–142. Cf. further Bion fr. 10.5 Reed, [Mosch.] 3.95, 120. Translation by Hunter (1999) 27, who comments: “Such a collection … will have begun with the strictly ‘bucolic’ poems, but may have included other poems as well, and also the works of other poets.” On the problem of determining how comprehensive Artemidorus’ collection was, see Gow (1952) 1.lx–lxi. In any case, the collection was probably accessible to Virgil, who chose the title Bucolica for his pastoral poems.

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θυρσισ ἁδύ τι τὸ ψιθύρισμα καὶ ἁ πίτυς, αἰπόλε, τήνα, ἁ ποτὶ ταῖς παγαῖσι, μελίσδεται, ἁδὺ δὲ καὶ τύ συρίσδες· μετὰ Πᾶνα τὸ δεύτερον ἆθλον ἀποισῇ. αἴ κα τῆνος ἕλῃ κεραὸν τράγον, αἶγα τὺ λαψῇ· αἴ κα δ’ αἶγα λάβῃ τῆνος γέρας, ἐς τὲ καταρρεῖ ἁ χίμαρος· χιμάρω δὲ καλὸν κρέας, ἔστε κ’ ἀμέλξῃς. αιπολοσ ἅδιον, ὦ ποιμήν, τὸ τεὸν μέλος ἢ τὸ καταχές τῆν’ ἀπὸ τᾶς πέτρας καταλείβεται ὑψόθεν ὕδωρ. αἴ κα ταὶ Μοῖσαι τὰν οἴιδα δῶρον ἄγωνται, ἄρνα τὺ σακίταν λαψῇ γέρας· αἰ δέ κ’ ἀρέσκῃ τήναις ἄρνα λαβεῖν, τὺ δὲ τὰν ὄιν ὕστερον ἀξῇ. thyrsis: A sweet thing is the whispered music of that pine by the springs, goatherd, and sweet is your piping, too; after Pan you will take the second prize. If he should choose the horned goat, you will have the she-goat, and if he has the she-goat as his prize, the kid falls to you. The flesh of a kid is good before you milk her. goatherd: Sweeter is the outpouring of your song, shepherd, than that cascade teeming down from the rock up above. If the Muses should take the sheep as their gift, you will have a stall-fed lamb, and if they would like to have a lamb, you will be next and take away the sheep. Thyrsis remarks that the rustle of the pine is on a par with the goatherd’s piping: in this locus amoenus the sweet sounds of nature resemble human music (ψιθύρισμα … μελίσδεται).46 Then Thyrsis introduces the motif of relative musical merits and proportionate “aipolic” prizes, duly giving virtual priority to Pan, the piper par excellence and tutelary god of the bucolic world. The goatherd returns Thyrsis’ compliment in intensified form: Thyrsis’ song “flows down” (καταλείβεται) more sweetly than the water pouring down from a rock.47 Then the goatherd picks up the motif of merits and prizes, adapting it to Thyrsis’ status as shepherd and piously giving virtual first choice

46 47

Gutzwiller (1991) 14–15; Massimilla (2017) 410. On the construction and significance of καταλείβεται in this passage, see Gow (1952) 2.3; Gutzwiller (1991) 85.

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to the Muses, the tutelary goddesses of singers and poets.48 The mention of prizes prepares the ground, in a minor key, for the accurate description of the cup which the goatherd will give to Thyrsis at the end of the poem (149), in return for his song on Daphnis. Besides, although Id. 1 revolves around Thyrsis’ solo performance (64–142), the opening passage, with its balanced and dichotomous structure, alludes to the song exchanges of other Theocritean bucolic Idylls.49 Later on, the goatherd observes that Thyrsis is a renowned bucolic singer when he tells him: “and you have truly great distinction in country song” (20 καὶ τᾶς βουκολικᾶς ἐπὶ τὸ πλέον ἵκεο μοίσας). Thyrsis’ pièce de résistance is a song on the sufferings of Daphnis (19 τὰ Δάφνιδος ἄλγε’ ἀείδες), which he has successfully performed in a song contest (23–24). Urged by the goatherd, Thyrsis sings this same song (64–142), progressively punctuating it with three different refrains addressed to the Muses of bucolic poetry: “Begin, dear Muses, begin the pastoral song” (64 ἄρχετε βουκολικᾶς, Μοῖσαι φίλαι, ἄρχετ’ ἀοιδᾶς), “Begin, Muses, begin again the pastoral song” (94 ἄρχετε βουκολικᾶς, Μοῖσαι, πάλιν ἄρχετ’ ἀοιδᾶς), “Cease, Muses, come cease the pastoral song” (127 λήγετε βουκολικᾶς, Μοῖσαι, ἴτε λήγετ’ ἀοιδᾶς). Once Thyrsis has fully commemorated Daphnis’ wasting away and death in eastern Sicily, the Muses dominate both the end of his song and his last words to the goatherd (140–145). Thyrsis tells that not only the Nymphs (whom he has mentioned at the beginning of the song, 66–69), but also the Muses care for Daphnis: he is “the man dear to the Muses, the man by no means unwelcome to the Nymphs” (141 τὸν Μοίσαις φίλον ἄνδρα, τὸν οὐ Νύμφαισιν ἀπεχθῆ), which means that, once dead, he has become the hero of bucolic poetry. Then Thyrsis says that he will use the cup awarded to him by the goatherd to offer an impromptu libation of goat’s milk to the Muses. At the end, appropriating a hymnic voice, he bids farewell to the Muses and says that he will sing again for them: “Farewell, Muses, many farewells. Some other time I will sing you a yet sweeter song” (144–145 ὦ χαίρετε πολλάκι, Μοῖσαι, / χαίρετ’· ἐγὼ δ’ ὔμμιν καὶ ἐς ὕστερον ἅδιον ᾀσῶ). The bucolic singer Thyrsis (cf. 20) is also a bucolic poet.50

48 49

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Hunter (1999) 73: “The association of the Muses with sheep may go back to Hesiod’s ‘initiation’ while herding his lambs (Theog. 23).” A similar allusion (with a stronger emphasis on the agonistic element) may be found in the description of the first scene carved on the cup, in which two men courting the same woman “are contending in speech, one from each side” (32–38, esp. 34–35 ἀμοιβαδὶς ἄλλοθεν ἄλλος / νεικείουσ’ ἐπέεσσι). See Hunter (1999) 69, 80. On the Theocritean Muses and Nymphs, see Fantuzzi (2000).

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Thyrsis’ final announcement of a future “sweeter song” looks back to the initial compliments he has exchanged with the goatherd on the sweetness of each other’s piping and singing.51 The last lines of the Idyll (146–152) enhance this ring-composition effect, since the goatherd not only praises the sweetness of Thyrsis’ song, but also refers to the initial motif of the resemblance between human singing and the sounds of nature when he says to Thyrsis: “your song is better than the cicada’s” (148 τέττιγος … τύγα φέρτερον ᾄδεις). Thyrsis’ song stands out in the complex structure of Id. 1. Solo performances dominate other bucolic Idylls of the Theocritean corpus in a more straightforward way. In Idyll 3 a nameless goatherd leaves his goats and goes to sing a serenade outside the cave of a girl called Amaryllis. The goatherd’s first words “I’m going to serenade Amaryllis” (1 κωμάσδω ποτὶ τὰν Ἀμαρυλλίδα) qualify the poem as a rustic and parodic version of the eminently urban komos or paraklausithyron.52 Here Theocritus, as noted by Hunter, may have been inspired by a passage of Euripides’ Cyclops (514–516), “in which the chorus tease Polyphemos, as he wants to set out on a komos, that a τέρεινα νύμφα awaits him ‘within his dewy cave,’” and may also be reminiscent of a poem by the late classical lyricist Lycophronides (PMG 844), where a goatherd proclaims his love for a girl.53 The Theocritean goatherd dares not enter the cave, and wishes he could turn into a bee which he sees fly into it through the ivy and fern (12–14).54 He is keeping a goat for Amaryllis and will give it to her if she receives him (34). He says he will rest against a pine while singing (38). To persuade Amaryllis, he refers to several heroines and goddesses who gave in to love (40–51), and it is no surprise to discover that most of them were conquered by young men who either were herdsmen or had to do with herds: Pero yielded to Bias after his brother Melampus had recovered her father’s cattle, Aphrodite to Adonis “as he pastured his flock on the hills” (46 ἐν ὤρεσι μῆλα νομεύων), Selene to Endymion.55 At the end of his serenade, in the hope of attracting Amaryllis’ compassion, the goatherd makes use of the komastic motif of thyraulia (“sleeping in front

51 52 53 54 55

Breed (2006) 111–112. Cf. Theoc. 2.118–128, 153, [Theoc.] 23. Hunter (1999) 107–108. Hunter (1999) 114. In Id. 1.105–110 Daphnis reminds Aphrodite of her lovemaking with the oxherd Anchises and of her beloved shepherd Adonis (on Aphrodite and Adonis, cf. Theoc. 15.100–144, [Theoc.] 20.35–36; on Aphrodite and Anchises, cf. [Theoc.] 20.34–35). As for Selene and Endymion, cf. [Theoc.] 20.37–38: Ἐνδυμίων δὲ τίς ἦν; οὐ βουκόλος; ὅν γε Σελάνα / βουκολέοντα φίλασεν (“What was Endymion? Wasn’t he an oxherd? Selene fell in love with him as he herded his cattle”).

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of the door”) in an appropriately rustic form: “I shall die where I fall,” he says, “and the wolves will devour me just so” (53 κεισεῦμαι δὲ πεσών, καὶ τοὶ λύκοι ὧδέ μ’ ἔδονται). The polarity between town and countryside, which implicitly presides over Theocritus’ pastoral komoi, becomes explicit in pseudo-Theocritus’ Idyll 20, a poem strongly influenced by Theocritus’ Id. 3 and 11. Here the feelings of love have turned sour.56 An unnamed oxherd complains that Eunica, a girl from the town, has refused to kiss him. In the presence of other herdsmen, he praises his own handsomeness in rustic terms: his beard is like ivy, his hair like parsley, his mouth is softer than curd, and his voice sweeter than honey (22–27). He also claims to be able to play sweet music on the syrinx and other pastoral instruments (28–29)57 and lists some divine lovers of oxherds: Aphrodite lover of Anchises and Adonis, Selene of Endymion, Cybele of Attis, and Zeus of Ganymede (34–41). At the end, he prays to Aphrodite that Eunica may enjoy love neither in town nor on the hill (42–45). Theocritus’ most accomplished bucolic serenade is Polyphemus’ song for Galatea in Idyll 11 (19–79). The young Cyclops’ song is preceded by Theocritus’ gnomic address to a friend of his, the Milesian doctor and poet Nicias, declaring that only the Muses can provide a remedy against love (1–6),58 and by the introduction to the mythical exemplum, describing the behaviour and the state of mind of the lovesick Polyphemus: oblivious of his sheep, he used to sing his serenade sitting on a high rock and gazing out to sea (7–18). Like the mouth of Amaryllis’ cave in Id. 3, here the surface of the sea stands for the locked door which separates a town girl from a komastes. Throughout his song, Polyphemus naively tries to persuade Galatea that shepherds (and shepherdesses) live much better than sea nymphs. His perspective is unmistakable: he considers Galatea “whiter than curd to look on, softer than the lamb, more skittish than the calf, sleeker than the unripe grape” (20–21 λευκοτέρα πακτᾶς ποτιδεῖν, ἁπαλωτέρα ἀρνός, / μόσχω γαυροτέρα, φιαρωτέρα ὄμφακος ὠμᾶς), and complains that she flees him as an ewe flees a wolf (24). In order to attract Galatea, he boasts of his thousand sheep, delicious milk, and cheese supplies, and claims to be the best piper among the Cyclopes (34–38). He wants Galatea to daydream of his cave as the quintessential locus amoenus, with laurels,

56 57 58

Fantuzzi (2007). Kirstein (2007) 111–114. Also Theocritus’ Id. 13 opens with a gnomic address to Nicias about love (1–4). On Nicias, cf. further Theoc. 28.7, 9, [Theoc.] AP 6.337 = Ep. 8 Gow. Nicias’ response to Theocritus’ Id. 11 is preserved (SH 566).

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cypresses, ivy, a vine, and cold water flowing down from Etna (44–48).59 He wishes he could bring flowers to Galatea under water, but his heart’s desire is that she would leave the sea and tend sheep, do the milking, and make the cheese together with him (54–66). Like the goatherd’s song in Id. 3, Polyphemus’ serenade ends on a sombre note, when he calls himself back to his usual tasks (72–74). His pastoral identity humorously emerges in the proverbial expression he adopts to convince himself that he would better turn to a “dryland girl”: “milk the sheep that’s by you” (75 τὰν παρεοῖσαν ἄμελγε). The metaphorical use of pastoral language is reaffirmed in the closing narrative couplet of the Idyll, where Polyphemus is said to have “shepherded his love with singing” (80–81 ἐποίμαινεν τὸν ἔρωτα / μουσίσδων).60 Polyphemus and Galatea are also the subject of the “prompt and response” bucolic exchange described in Idyll 6. The poem opens with a narrative passage presenting the two singers and the occasion (1–5): Δαμοίτας καὶ Δάφνις ὁ βουκόλος εἰς ἕνα χῶρον τὰν ἀγέλαν ποκ’, Ἄρατε, συνάγαγον· ἦς δ’ ὃ μὲν αὐτῶν πυρρός, ὃ δ’ ἡμιγένειος· ἐπὶ κράναν δέ τιν’ ἄμφω ἑσδόμενοι θέρεος μέσῳ ἄματι τοιάδ’ ἄειδον. πρᾶτος δ’ ἄρξατο Δάφνις, ἐπεὶ καὶ πρᾶτος ἔρισδεν. Damoetas and Daphnis the oxherd once brought their herd together to the same place, Aratus.61 One of them had a downy face, the other a beard half-grown. One summer noon they both sat down at a spring and sang as follows. Daphnis first began, since he first made the challenge. The state of things between Polyphemus and Galatea, as dramatized in the two songs (6–19, 21–40), has radically changed in comparison with Id. 11, since now Polyphemus—acting on his self-admonition (cf. Id. 11.72–79)—feigns indifference to Galatea in order to attract her. In his song, Daphnis turns the Cyclops’ attention to the nymph’s attempts to catch his interest while he sits piping (8–9). After a narrative verse of transition (20), Damoetas’ song begins. He impersonates Polyphemus, who explains his strategy and remarks, among 59 60 61

Pretagostini (2006) 72. As Hunter (1999) 242 notes, the phrase apparently means that “he kept his love under control, ‘managed’ it.” This is probably the same Aratus who is mentioned in Simichidas’ song of Id. 7 (98, 102, 122).

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other things, that Galatea gazes in vexation on his caves and flocks from the sea (27–28). As we read in the final narrative passage (42–46), the song exchange ends in harmony: “neither was victorious; each was undefeated” (46 νίκη μὲν οὐδάλλος, ἀνήσσατοι δ’ ἐγένοντο). The “prompt and response” pattern applies also to the bucolic contest of pseudo-Theocritus’ Idyll 9. In its transmitted form, this is a strange poem.62 At the beginning, someone urges Daphnis and Menalcas to compete in song (1–6). Daphnis sings his song, praising his life and his resources for having comfort in summer (7–13). Then the first-person verse of transition between the two songs is unexpectedly diegetic, instead of mimetic (14). In his song Menalcas commends his Sicilian cave, saying that he knows how to keep it warm in winter (15–21). At the end, the proposer of the contest tells how he rewarded both singers, and repeats a song which he himself sang on that same occasion (22–36). Particularly interesting for our purposes is the use of the “specialized bucolic” terminology in this poem. In the introduction the speaking voice invites Daphnis to sing with these words: “Sing your country songs, Daphnis … sing me your country songs” (1 βουκολιάζεο, Δάφνι, 5 ἐμὶν δὲ τὺ βουκολιάζευ). The same person, before performing his own song, greets the “Muses of country singing” (28 Βουκολικαὶ Μοῖσαι). The “specialized bucolic” terminology also occurs in some of the Theocritean bucolic Idylls that conform more or less closely to the “cut and thrust” pattern, according to which the song contest “takes the form of an ‘amoebean’ (i.e. alternating) exchange …, in which the second singer must, to some extent, follow and try to cap the themes set by the first.”63 This kind of structure is most prominently found in Idyll 5, a poem set in southern Italy near the town of Thurii (the former Sybaris)64 and characterized by the very aggressive attitudes of the two competitors, the goatherd Comatas and the shepherd Lacon. At the beginning of the Idyll, each accuses the other of stealing his holdings, in a sort of amoebean squabble (1–19): for instance, Lacon swears by “Pan of the shore” (τὸν Πᾶνα τὸν ἄκτιον) that he has not stolen Comatas’ goatskin coat, and in response Comatas swears by the “Nymphs of the lake” (τὰς λιμνάδας … Νύμφας) that he has not stolen Lacon’s syrinx (14–19). Lacon challenges Comatas to a singing match, and they acrimoniously stake a lamb and a he-goat respectively (20–30). With many insults, they engage in a sort of amoebean “pre-agon” over where the contest should take place (31–61): for example, Lacon says that he will set up a large bowl of milk for the Nymphs, 62 63 64

Wilamowitz (1906) 202–209; Gow (1952) 2.185–186; Bernsdorff (2006) 174–175. Hunter (1999) 6. Cf. 1, 72, 126, 146, and see Gow (1952) 2.94–95.

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and Comatas responds that he will set up eight pails of milk for Pan (53–54, 58–59), in a passage that is also remarkable for the inversion of the competitors’ former affiliations to Pan and the Nymphs. In the course of the “pre-agon,” Lacon says defiantly to Comatas: “but come over here, and you’ll be competing for the last time” (44 ἀλλὰ γὰρ ἕρφ’, ὧδ’ ἕρπε, καὶ ὕστατα βουκολιαξῇ). They end up keeping their respective places: “compete from where you are,” says Lacon to Comatas, “and perform your pastoral song from there” (60 αὐτόθε μοι ποτέρισδε καὶ αὐτόθε βουκολιάσδευ). When, still abusing each other, they appoint the woodcutter Morson as judge (61–79), Lacon explains the situation to him as follows: “we are competing to see who is better at pastoral singing” (67–68 ἄμμες γὰρ ἐρίσδομες, ὅστις ἀρείων / βουκολιαστάς ἐστι). The song contest proper (80–135) takes the form of an exchange of extemporized couplets, with Comatas singing first and progressively setting the themes.65 Here is an example of this amoebean technique (96–99): κοματασ κἠγὼ μὲν δωσῶ τᾷ παρθένῳ αὐτίκα φάσσαν, ἐκ τᾶς ἀρκεύθω καθελών· τηνεὶ γὰρ ἐφίσδει. λακων ἀλλ’ ἐγὼ ἐς χλαῖναν μαλακὸν πόκον, ὁππόκα πέξω τὰν οἶν τὰν πέλλαν, Κρατίδᾳ δωρήσομαι αὐτός. comatas: I shall soon give my girl a dove, catching it in the juniper bush; that’s where it perches. lacon: And I, when I shear the black ewe, shall present its soft fleece unasked to Cratidas to make a cloak. The poem ends with the victory of Comatas, who fully enjoys his triumph (136– 150). The overall structure of Idyll 5 influenced pseudo-Theocritus’ Idyll 8, which is apparently set in Sicily (cf. 55–56). The poem opens with a narrative passage describing Menalcas’ encounter with Daphnis and the former’s challenge (1–10). The following lines dramatize the competitors’ offering of syrinxes as stakes and their choice of an unnamed goatherd as judge (11–27). Another

65

Serrao (1971) 73–74; Kyriakou (2018) 33.

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narrative passage describes the appointment of the judge and introduces the singing match, making clear that the leading role was allotted to Menalcas, while “in response Daphnis took up the pastoral song” (31–32 ἀμοιβαίαν ὑπελάμβανε Δάφνις ἀοιδὰν / βουκολικάν). The song contest first takes the form of a “cut and thrust” exchange of elegiac quatrains (32–60), and then, after a two-verse narrative transition, that of a “prompt and response” exchange of eight hexameters each, with the interposition of a narrative verse (63–80). At the end, the external narrator relates that the goatherd-judge praised Daphnis for his sweet voice66 and awarded him the prize: “from that time,” we read, “Daphnis came to be first among the herdsmen” (92 κἠκ τούτω πρᾶτος παρὰ ποιμέσι Δάφνις ἔγεντο). Idyll 4, although not containing a song contest, is formally similar to Idyll 5 in that it dramatizes, first in stichomythia (1–14) and then through cues consisting of few lines (15–63), a dialogue between Battus (apparently a goatherd, cf. 39) and Corydon, who is herding Aegon’s cattle (cf. 1–2).67 Their conversation takes place in southern Italy near the town of Croton (cf. 32) and rambles from one “bucolic” subject to another, including Corydon’s claim to have some skill as a piper and singer (28–34).68 By contrast with Idyll 4, pseudo-Theocritus’ Idyll 27, although equally lacking a song contest, dramatizes an amoebean exchange. In its transmitted form, the poem is incomplete at the beginning: it must have opened with a narrative introduction, and the first part of the conversation between the two “competitors” is probably missing. Our text contains a long dialogue in stichomythia between an oxherd named Daphnis and a goatherdess, dramatizing the latter’s progressive seduction by the former (1–66):69 among other things, Daphnis urges the girl to come under the elms and listen to his piping (13). The poem ends with a short narrative passage (67–71).70 Finally, the verb βουκολιάσδομαι and the adjective βουκολικός refer to the juxtaposition of two independent songs in Idyll 7, the most self-reflexive of Theocritus’ poems. The Idyll is set on Cos and is narrated by the poet Simichidas, a fictional character representing in many respects the author. While he is walking at noon with some friends from Cos town to a harvest festival for Demeter

66 67

68 69 70

Massimilla (2017) 408. Aegon, who has gone off to Olympia as an athlete, is a skilled piper (cf. 28). His absence resembles the death of Daphnis (cf. Theoc. 1.64–142) for its effect on the bucolic world: see Hunter (1999) 131. Vox (1985) 175. Massimilla (2010) 444. Bernsdorff (2006) 175–176. On the puzzling couplet following this narrative coda (72–73), see Gow (1952) 2.492–494; Kirstein (2007) 74.

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in the country, he encounters the poet-goatherd Lycidas.71 Simichidas compliments Lycidas on his universal fame as a piper72 and, feeling confident of his own talent, invites him to a performance of songs: “let’s perform bucolic songs, and maybe each of us will benefit the other” (36 βουκολιασδώμεσθα· τάχ’ ὥτερος ἄλλον ὀνασεῖ). Lycidas praises Simichidas for his poetic preferences and introduces their performances as follows: “but come, let’s begin our bucolic songs at once” (49 ἀλλ’ ἄγε βουκολικᾶς ταχέως ἀρξώμεθ’ ἀοιδᾶς). Lycidas sings a propemptikon for his beloved Ageanax, which he has recently composed (52–89). Simichidas announces that he will now perform the best of the songs the Nymphs have taught him while he tended his cattle on the mountains (90–95). The song he performs focuses on his friend Aratus’ unrequited love for Philinus (96–127). Lycidas gives Simichidas his stick of wild olive in recognition of his poetic talent and walks away (128–131). Simichidas and his friends reach the farm where the celebration takes place (131–146). After mentioning the fragrant wine they drank on that occasion, the narrator Simichidas addresses the Castalian Nymphs and asks them whether it was similar to the wine provided by Chiron for Heracles in Pholus’ cave73 or to Odysseus’ wine drunk by Polyphemus (147–155).74 At the end the narrator, adopting a quasi-hymnic voice, says he wishes to take part in another harvest festival and to enjoy the favour of Demeter again (155–157). The setting of the celebration described in the final part of the Idyll is probably the most famous of Theocritus’ loca amoena (135–146): πολλαὶ δ’ ἄμμιν ὕπερθε κατὰ κρατὸς δονέοντο αἴγειροι πτελέαι τε· τὸ δ’ ἐγγύθεν ἱερὸν ὕδωρ Νυμφᾶν ἐξ ἄντροιο κατειβόμενον κελάρυζε. τοὶ δὲ ποτὶ σκιαραῖς ὀροδαμνίσιν αἰθαλίωνες τέττιγες λαλαγεῦντες ἔχον πόνον· ἁ δ’ ὀλολυγών τηλόθεν ἐν πυκιναῖσι βάτων τρύζεσκεν ἀκάνθαις· ἄειδον κόρυδοι καὶ ἀκανθίδες, ἔστενε τρυγών, πωτῶντο ξουθαὶ περὶ πίδακας ἀμφὶ μέλισσαι.

71

72 73

74

Here Theocritus’ most important model is the encounter of the disguised Odysseus and Eumaeus with the goatherd Melantheus in the Odyssey (17.204–214): see Halperin (1983) 224–227; Hunter (1999) 147–148. Hunter (1996) 21–22. This passage may be reminiscent of Stesichorus’ Geryoneis, where the encounter of Heracles and Pholus was described (fr. 22 Finglass). Epicharmus and possibly Aristophanes composed comedies on the subject: see Hunter (1999) 197; Davies/Finglass (2014) 239. On Simichidas’ address to the Nymphs, see Fantuzzi (1995) 27–28.

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πάντ’ ὦσδεν θέρεος μάλα πίονος, ὦσδε δ’ ὀπώρας. ὄχναι μὲν πὰρ ποσσί, παρὰ πλευραῖσι δὲ μᾶλα δαψιλέως ἁμῖν ἐκυλίνδετο, τοὶ δ’ ἐκέχυντο ὄρπακες βραβίλοισι καταβρίθοντες ἔραζε. Many a poplar and elm murmured above our heads; trickling down from a cave of the nymphs, a sacred spring plashed nearby; on the shady branches the dusky cicadas worked hard at their song; far off in the dense brambles the tree frog kept up its crooning; linnets and finches sang; doves were cooing, and humming bees were flying around the spring. Everywhere was the smell of rich harvest, the smell of gathered fruits. Pears rolled plentifully at our feet and apples by our side, and the branches weighed down with sloes were bent to the ground.

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Fantuzzi, M. (2000), “Theocritus and the ‘Demythologizing’ of Poetry,” in M. Depew/ D. Obbink (eds.), Matrices of Genre: Authors, Canons, and Society (Cambridge, MA/ London) 135–151. Fantuzzi, M. (2007), “The Importance of Being Boukolos: Ps.-Theocr. 20,” in M. Paschalis (ed.), Pastoral Palimpsests: Essays in the Reception of Theocritus and Virgil (Herakleion) 13–38. Fantuzzi, M. (2008), “Teocrito e l’invenzione di una tradizione letteraria bucolica,” in D. Auger/J. Peigney (eds.), Φιλευριπίδης: Mélanges offerts à François Jouan (Paris) 569– 588. Fantuzzi, M./Hunter, R. (2004), Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge). Fantuzzi, M./Papanghelis, Th. (eds.) (2006), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden/Boston). Fongoni, A. (2014), Philoxeni Cytherii testimonia et fragmenta (Pisa/Roma). Fowler, H.N. (1913), Plato, Vol. 1, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus (London/New York). Gow, A.S.F. (19522), Theocritus, vols. 1–2 (Cambridge). Gutzwiller, K.J. (1991), Theocritus’ Pastoral Analogies: The Formation of a Genre (Madison). Gutzwiller, K.J. (2006), “The Bucolic Problem,” CPh 101, 380–404. Halperin, D.M. (1983), Before Pastoral: Theocritus and the Ancient Tradition of Bucolic Poetry (New Haven/London). Harder, A. (2012), Callimachus. Aetia, vol. 2 (Oxford). Hopkinson, N. (2015), Theocritus, Moschus, Bion (Cambridge, MA/London). Hordern, J.H. (2004), “Cyclopea: Philoxenus, Theocritus, Callimachus, Bion,” CQ 54, 285–292. Hubbard, T.K. (1998), The Pipes of Pan: Intertextuality and Literary Filiation in the Pastoral Tradition from Theocritus to Milton (Ann Arbor). Hunter, R. (1996), Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry (Cambridge). Hunter, R. (1999), Theocritus. A Selection: Idylls 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 13 (Cambridge). Hunter, R./Laemmle, R. (2020), Euripides. Cyclops (Cambridge). Karakasis, E. (2011), Song Exchange in Roman Pastoral (Berlin/New York). Kirstein, R. (2007), Junge Hirten und alte Fischer. Die Gedichte 27, 20 und 21 des Corpus Theocriteum (Berlin/New York). Klooster, J. (2011), Poetry as Window and Mirror: Positioning the Poet in Hellenistic Poetry (Leiden/Boston). Kyriakou, P. (2018), Theocritus and His Native Muse. A Syracusan Among Many (Berlin/Boston). Lehnus, L. (1975), “Note stesicoree: i poemetti ‘minori’ (fr. 277–9 PMG),” SCO 24, 191–196. Lelli, E. (2017), Pastori antichi e moderni: Teocrito e le origini popolari della poesia bucolica (Zürich/New York).

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Lightfoot, J.L. (1999), Parthenius of Nicaea. The Poetical Fragments and the Ἐρωτικὰ παθήματα (Oxford). Lucarini, C.M. (2007), “L’origine della poesia bucolica in Grecia,” GIF 59, 213–244. Massimilla, G. (1995), “L’influsso di Stesicoro sulla poesia ellenistica,” in L. Dubois (ed.), Poésie et lyrique antiques (Lille) 41–54. Massimilla, G. (1996), Callimaco. Aitia, libri primo e secondo (Pisa). Massimilla, G. (1999), “Teocrito e l’epigramma bucolico,” in G. Ramires (ed.), Teocrito nella storia della poesia bucolica (Milazzo) 47–59. Massimilla, G. (2010), Callimaco. Aitia, libro terzo e quarto (Pisa/Roma). Massimilla, G. (2017), “Melos and Molpe in Hellenistic Poetry,” Trends in Classics 9, 400– 419. Matthaios, S. (2015), “Greek Scholarship in the Imperial Era and Late Antiquity,” in Montanari/Matthaios/Rengakos (2015) 184–296. Montana, F. (2015), “Hellenistic Scholarship,” in Montanari/Matthaios/Rengakos (2015) 60–183. Montanari, F./Matthaios, S./Rengakos, A. (eds.) (2015), Brill’s Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship, vol. 1 (Leiden/Boston). Murley, C. (1940), “Plato’s Phaedrus and Theocritean Pastoral,” TAPA 71, 281–295. Nagy, G. (2009), “Hesiod and the Ancient Biographical Traditions,” in F. Montanari/ A. Rengakos/C. Tsagalis (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Hesiod (Leiden/Boston) 271–311. Nauta, R.R. (1990), “Gattungsgeschichte als Rezeptionsgeschichte am Beispiel der Entstehung der Bukolik,” A&A 36, 116–137. Ornaghi, M. (2013), “Stesicoro, Teocrito, Epicarmo e i padri della poesia bucolica,” SIFC 11, 41–82. Payne, M. (2007), Theocritus and the Invention of Fiction (Cambridge). Payne, M. (2010), “The Bucolic Fiction of Theocritus,” in J.J. Clauss/M. Cuypers (eds.), A Companion to Hellenistic Literature (Malden) 224–237. Prescott, H.W. (1899), “A Study of the Daphnis-Myth,” HSCPh 10, 121–140. Pretagostini, R. (2006), “How Bucolic Are Theocritus’ Bucolic Singers?,” in Fantuzzi/ Papanghelis (2006) 53–73. Pretagostini, R. (2007), “Tracce di poesia orale nei carmi di Teocrito,” in Ricerche sulla poesia alessandrina ii: Forme allusive e contenuti nuovi (Roma) 61–76. Radt, S.L. (1971), “Theocritea,” Mnemosyne 24, 251–259. Rizzo, G.E. (1895), Questioni stesicoree i: vita e scuola poetica (Messina). Rossi, L. (2001), The Epigrams Ascribed to Theocritus: A Method of Approach (Leuven/ Paris/Sterling, Virginia). Rutherford, I. (2015), “Stesichorus the Romantic,” in P.J. Finglass/A. Kelly (eds.), Stesichorus in Context (Cambridge) 98–108. Scafoglio, G. (2017), “The Pastoral from Theocritus to Virgil: Constructing and Deconstructing a Literary Genre,” Philologia Antiqua 10, 31–58.

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Scholl, W. (2014), Der Daphnis-Mythos und seine Entwicklung: von den Anfängen bis zu Vergils vierter Ekloge (Hildesheim/Zürich). Segal, C. (1981), Poetry and Myth in Ancient Pastoral: Essays on Theocritus and Virgil (Princeton). Serrao, G. (1971), “L’agone bucolico dell’idillio v,” in Problemi di poesia alessandrina i: Studi su Teocrito (Roma) 69–90. Stanzel, K.-H. (1995), Liebende Hirten: Theokrits Bukolik und die alexandrinische Poesie (Stuttgart/Leipzig). Stanzel, K.-H. (2007), “Bucolic Epigram,” in P. Bing/J.S. Bruss (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram (Leiden/Boston) 333–351. Van Sickle, J. (1976), “Theocritus and the Development of the Conception of Bucolic Genre,” Ramus 5, 18–44. Vara, J. (1992), “The Sources of Theocritean Bucolic Poetry,” Mnemosyne 45, 333–344. Vox, O. (1985), “Il contrasto di Batto e Coridone nell’idillio iv di Teocrito,”MD 15, 173–178. Vox, O. (1986), “Dafni lirico,” Belfagor 41, 311–317. Wendel, C. (1914), Scholia in Theocritum vetera (Leipzig). West, M.L. (1970), “Melica,” CQ 20, 205–215. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von (1906), Die Textgeschichte der griechischen Bukoliker (Berlin). Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von (1913), Sappho und Simonides: Untersuchungen über griechische Lyriker (Berlin).

chapter 6

Performing Mime in the Idylls of Theocritus: Metrical Mime, Drama, and the “Everyday” in Theocritus, Idylls 2, 14, 15 Sarah Miles

1

Identifying Mime, and Mime in Theocritus

There is a slight tension observable in recent scholarship on Theocritus that wants to view his Idylls as a unity, while also acknowledging and embracing the enormous variety in his output.1 This is demonstrated by the very existence of a chapter in this volume that is dedicated solely to mime and Theocritus, and which focuses on Idylls 2, 14, and 15. Prior to the 21st century these three Idylls were classed by scholars as “urban mimes” due to their dramatic setting in the city, and the late 20th century saw two independent, highly influential monographs by Joan Burton (1995) and Richard Hunter (1996) which explored and thoroughly enriched our understanding of the presence and effects of mime in these Idylls.2 However, this chapter will avoid this label of “urban mime” because it risks imposing unnecessary generic restrictions on the variety and richness of Theocritus’ Idylls and the way they engage with mime. As we shall see, other Idylls also engage with mime, but this varies in form and intensity across the Idylls. The designation of Idylls 2, 14, and 15 as the mimes of Theocritus is done based on a number of factors: definitional, contextual, and content-based. We shall explore each of these in the course of the chapter. Definitional relates to the questions: what is mime, and what did scholars understand by an “urban 1 Recent monographs seek to draw the Idylls together e.g., Kyriakou (2018) on Theocritean aesthetics, Payne (2007) on Theocritus’ creation of a fictional world in the Idylls. The edited volume of Harder/Regtuit/Wakker (1996) provided a much-needed study of the variety across Theocritus. Cf. Segal (1981) 207, who had earlier argued for the unity of the bucolic Idylls: “the bucolic Idylls illuminate one another in their multiple interconnections of theme and verbal echo, and they should no longer be treated as discrete, unrelated poems.” 2 The so-called urban mimes of Theocritus are still identified as Idylls 2, 14 15 by the majority of scholars: e.g., Acosta-Hughes (2012) 396; Hunter (1999) 8; Burton (1995) Appendix 1 includes only Idylls 2, 14, and 15 for translation as “urban mimes”; Rosenmeyer (1969) 28 refers to them as “city mimes.” Cf. Panayotakis (2014) 379, who includes Idyll 3 alongside Idylls 2, 14, and 15.

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mime” of Theocritus? Contextual factors situate Theocritus Idylls 2, 14, and 15 in the historical contexts of mime as well as comic drama, tragic drama, and epigram. We must also consider the contemporary Hellenistic contexts of Herodas’Mimiambs and the continuing development of mime in Hellenistic literature and performance. Throughout the chapter we will look to the content and style of Idylls 2, 14, and 15 that are noted for their connections to mime, as well as seeking echoes of mime in Theocritus’ wider corpus. Indeed, the very concept of connecting mime with Theocritus stems from ancient scholars who identified connections between Idylls 2 and 15 and specific mimes of Sophron, who was the most famous composer of mime from fifth-century bce Syracuse.3 By comparison, scholars note that Idyll 14 is characterised by an overt crossover between mime and Greek comic drama, and it makes great use of proverbs, which is a characteristic feature of Sophron’s mime.4 As ever with Theocritus the richness, complexity, and creativity of his works risks being obscured by imposing rigid generic lines onto them. Therefore, this chapter steps over these lines, by acknowledging the connection between Theocritus and mime across the Idylls and by focusing on Idylls 2, 14, and 15, because this is where most scholarly attention has been directed, and more importantly, this is where we see overt engagement with mime, but this always occurs alongside other creative art forms such as drama, epigram, and epic. Indeed, the overlap between Greek comic drama and our understanding of mime is particularly striking (discussed in Section 2). And so in order to isolate the influence of mime within the Idylls it is all the more important that we focus on the three Idylls where that influence is clearest to see. We can begin with the summary of what we understand by the art form of mime, which Theocritus would have drawn on in the creation of his Idylls. Jeffrey Rusten and Ian Cunningham in their recent Loeb edition that surveys all the remnants of mime (2014, 183) define mime as follows: The Greek mime was a popular entertainment in which one actor or a small group portrayed a situation from everyday life in the lower levels of 3 The scholiast on Id. 2.60 declares: τὴν δὲ τῶν φαρμάκων ὑπόθεσιν ἐκ τῶν Σώφρονος μίμων μεταφέρει· “He takes the plot of the drugs from the mimes of Sophron.” The Argument to Idyll 2 notes: τὴν δὲ Θεστυλίδα ἀπειροκάλως ἐκ τῶν Σώφρονος μετήνεγκε μίμων “he transferred Thestylis ignorantly [or, tastelessly] from the mimes of Sophron.” The Argument to Idyll 15 states: παρέπλασε δὲ τὸ ποιημάτιον ἐκ τῶν παρὰ Σώφρονι Ἴσθμια θαμένων, “He fashioned the poem from the Women Viewing the Isthmia in Sophron.” (text and transl. from Rusten/Cunningham (2014)). See further in Section 3 below. 4 Hunter (1996) 110–138 and see Section 2 below. Demetrius (On Style 156) comments on Sophron’s prolific use of proverbs.

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society, concentrating on depiction of character rather than on plot. Situations were occasionally borrowed from comedy. Indecency was frequent …. The normal vehicle was prose and the spoken language. This gives a starting point, but any discussion of mime and Theocritus is complicated by three factors: (1.) There is very little continuous text and direct material of mime extant now, and indeed Idylls 2, 14, and 15 of Theocritus alongside the Mimiambs of his contemporary Herodas provide us with key information about mime. Therefore, we must be careful to avoid circular argument with regard to Theocritus’ Idylls.5 (2.) The tradition of mime goes back at least to Sophron in the 5th century bce but it extends forward into Theocritus’ own age and on into the Roman period. Therefore, we are dealing with a developing art form, not a static one. (3.) This development of mime in the Hellenistic period sees the adaptation of mime into a literary context alongside performance, and these performances probably took place before Ptolemy ii Philadelphus at the royal court, as discussed by Eric Csapo.6 There are fragments of other mimes from the Hellenistic period, but these present the same debates among scholars over the idea of literary mime vs. performance.7 Within this chapter, I will be taking the same attitude as I have taken elsewhere regarding the Hellenistic response to Greek drama:8 namely, there are developing and evolving traditions of the textual reception and performance of mime occurring in tandem during the lifetime of Theocritus. This makes it all the more likely that these Idylls were performed out loud, a view held by Eric Csapo and Benjamin Acosta-Hughes, the latter who rightly warns against anachronism in assuming that “literary mime” means poetry which was intended to be read. I would like to add that neither should we underestimate the sophistication that

5 Panayotakis (2014) 379 provides an engaging discussion on the difficulty of defining mime; cf. Zanker (2009) 40, n. 2 in his discussion of Herodas’ Mimiambs. 6 Csapo (2010) 178 summarises as follows: “Alexander’s successors appear to have adopted the fashion set by the Macedonian court for the cultivation of dramatic skills, for developing personal relationships with dramatic artists, and for giving dramatic entertainments a central place within the social life of the court, and particularly within the entertainments of large formal banquets.” 7 For the extant fragments of mime from the Hellenistic period onward see Cunningham (2004) and Rusten/Cunningham (2014). Chesterton (2016) 199 compares literary mime vs. performance mime. Panayotakis (2014) 382 neatly sums up the issues faced by scholars, noting that mime “becomes difficult to pin down, because it may have signified not only unscripted spectacles by solo performers of music and role playing but also scripted poems of high sophistication.” 8 Miles (2016).

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is possible in performances.9 By contrast, Karl-Heinz Stanzel argues that Theocritus and Herodas draw on the performance genres of drama and mime only in order to evoke a performance context, and that these Hellenistic works were not created for an audience of spectators, i.e., these Hellenistic works were not intended for performance.10 I would agree that Theocritus draws on mime and comic and tragic drama in his Idylls to relay the effect of a particular performance mode to his original audience. By so doing Theocritus injects an element of the real and the contemporary effects of mime into his Idylls, and these effects would suggest these Idylls were performed. Now that we are aware of the difficulties and disagreements of scholars when it comes to mime, an art form that Costas Panayotakis rightly labels “elusive,”11 we can turn to Idylls 2, 14, and 15. For these three Idylls contain the strongest evidence for the influence of mime specifically—as opposed to comic drama more generally—and as such it is the hardest to refute. I begin with a short summary of each mime before we discuss the features that have been seen in them as drawing on ancient mime: Idyll 2 is a monologue in which a woman Simaetha is at home and alone, angry and hurt following her treatment by Delphis, a man who slept with Simaetha for a while, but has now moved on to another woman or man. Simaetha takes action to assuage her anger and confusion by using magic on Delphis. In the course of the Idyll we learn the backstory as Simaetha performs the magic rituals, and so we come to know much about the thoughts, motivations, desires, and fears of the character of Simaetha. Idyll 14 is a dialogue between Thyonichus and his friend Aeschinas, who is resentful and angry with his girl Cynisca. In the course of the dialogue Aeschinas’ character emerges as we learn that, in a fit of jealousy, he physically assaulted Cynisca at a symposium. Just like Simaetha, Aeschinas’ mood compels him to take action, but in this case he has decided to enlist as a mercenary, providing a pre-echo of the concept of militia amoris in Roman elegy. As with Simaetha, the character of Aeschinas emerges as the Idyll develops. The ending is most notable for the advice Thyonichus offers Aeschinas: Aeschinas should seek employment with Ptolemy ii Philadelphus. The Idyll ends on this note of open

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Csapo (2010); Acosta-Hughes (2012) 408: “The assumption that the originally Sicilian genre on arrival in a more sophisticated Alexandria evolved into poetry marked, as it were, for performance that is intended in fact to be read is fraught with problems and a good deal of anachronism.” Stanzel (1998) 162 concludes that both Herodas and Theocritus employ “eine eher quasidramatische Konzeption” (“a rather quasi-dramatic approach”). Panayotakis (2014) 378.

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praise to Ptolemy, which is unexpected compared to the opening, where the focus was on the personal matters of Aeschinas. Therefore, the influences of mime help to make this a surprise ending that heaps praise on Ptolemy, Theocritus’ patron. Idyll 15 is another dialogue, this time between friends Gorgo and Praxinoa, who are women with young families. The dramatic setting is at first Praxinoa’s home, where Gorgo comes to visit and to persuade Praxinoa to join her in going to the Adonis festival. Therefore, unlike Idylls 2 and 14, our characters end up being on the move, and we are taken with them out of the family home onto the busy streets of Alexandria where they meet other characters. This is an unexpected move, but the surprises do not stop there. Once Gorgo and Praxinoa arrive, they (and we the audience) witness a song to Adonis composed in honour of Queen Arsinoe ii, Ptolemy’s wife, which Gorgo then praises. Therefore, like Idyll 14 we find that the ending of Idyll 15 places the audience in an unexpected position, one that was not signalled at the start, and where mime provides a recognisable and down-to-earth frame of reference. The surprise ending again presents another favourable image of Ptolemaic rule. The complexity of each of these Idylls is clear from these summaries, and the influences go far beyond mime (see Sections 2, 3, and 4 below). Nonetheless, these three Idylls have in common a preponderance of characteristics that are thought to draw on the art form of ancient mime. These are: (1.) The urban setting, which is, therefore, a very contemporary and Hellenistic setting, and one of direct relevance to Theocritus’ original audiences. This aspect is in oppositional tendency with the bucolic Idylls, whose setting is in the countryside. However, this does not prevent tropes from the urban being imported into the bucolic, e.g., in Idyll 3 where the urban-based scene of paraklausithyron is restaged outside a countryside cave. This reveals already the importance of looking for mime beyond the so-called urban mimes.12 (2.) The “everyday” subject matter of Hellenistic men and women. This includes their style of speech, the gap between epic hexameter and “everyday” content, and particularly the use of proverbs, which is prevalent in these Idylls, especially Idyll 14,13 and which Demetrius (On Style 156) connects specifically with Sophron: “almost

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Paraklausithyron (παρακλαυσίθυρον): “a lament before a door,” refers to a man locked outside the house of the girl or woman he sexually desires. Notably the earliest attestation of the word is in Plutarch, Moralia 753a–b. The focus on a paraklausithyron as a separate, self-contained scene is first attested in Hellenistic poetry, including Theocritus Idyll 3 and the epigrams of Asclepiades (e.g., AP 5.145, and cf. 5.64). Hopkinson (2015) 192 notes the preponderance of proverbs in Idyll 14: lines 9, 23, 38, 43, 46, 49.

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every proverb can be collected from his [Sophron’s] plays” (σχεδόν τε πάσας ἐκ τῶν δραμάτων αὐτοῦ τὰς παροιμίας ἐκλέξαι ἐστίν). We shall return to the significance of this last point in connection with mime in Section 3 below. (3.) A focus on character rather than plot, which is a feature of Sophron’s mime.14 This is visible from the summaries of Idylls 2, 14, and 15, but it is evident elsewhere, e.g., Idyll 4 and the gossipy conversation between the contrasting characters of Corydon and Battus, which bears striking resemblances to Gorgo and Praxinoa’s exchanges in Idyll 15. (4.) Female voices are protagonists present in Idylls 2 and 15, and most notably in no other of Theocritus’ Idylls, aside from Idyll 27, which is not thought to be by Theocritus.15 Elsewhere in the Idylls we have only reported female speech, thoughts, and emotional reactions (e.g., Idyll 14). However, it is only in Idylls 2 and 15 that we hear female voices expressing their thoughts, joys, emotions, and sexual experiences as constructed by Theocritus. The added significance here is that in the mimes of Sophron and subsequent mimes female roles were played by female performers: μῖμοι γυναικεῖοι (“female mime”).16 This is not what occurs in Greek comic drama, where all parts are played by men. On the significance of a female voice in mime, we should note now that the Mimiambs of Herodas also give voice to a variety of female protagonists (discussed below, Section 4). By invoking the performance of mime in these Idylls, Theocritus creates a more powerful image of realism in the construction of his female speakers. Equally notable is the link in Idylls 2 and 15 between female voice and urban/domestic settings; Simaetha is alone in her home, while Praxinoa and Gorgo leave Praxinoa’s house and journey to the festival of Adonis in Alexandria. In the world of Theocritus’ Idylls, life within the city is where women’s voices are present and active. Conversely male voices, including expression of desire and sexual frustrations, dominate in the bucolic environment of the countryside. It is all the more notable, therefore, that it is precisely Idylls 2 and 15 that the ancient scholia cite for their apparent connections with specific mimes of Sophron (as noted above). In the case of Idyll 15 we have the contrasting pair of the flamboyant Gorgo playing against the more practical Praxinoa, discussing their lives and providing a running commentary on their experience of the festival of Adonis. Meanwhile in Idyll 2 we have the lonesome Simaetha

14 15 16

Discussed e.g., by Rusten/Cunningham (2014) 183, as quoted above. Hopkinson (2015) 373; Gow (1950) 2.485. Hordern (2004) suggests that the two types of mime: μῖμοι γυναικεῖοι (“female mime”) and μῖμοι ἀνδρεῖοι (“male mime”), go back to Sophron. Cf. Plato Republic 451c where Socrates separates the performance of ἀνδρεῖον δρᾶμα …. τὸ γυναικεῖον (“male drama … female drama”).

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at home, whose isolation and (fictional) privacy provides the perfect environment for the audience of Idyll 2 to listen in on her emotive expressions, her sexual desires, frustrations, and arousal. However, the four features listed above are by no means limited to Idylls 2, 14, and 15, and the effects of mime are felt across the Idylls. Sometimes this is easier to detect than others; Idyll 3 has a countryside setting but it involves a comical paraklausithyron taking place in front of a cave, and for Richard Hunter Idyll 3 “certainly evokes related traditions of quasi-dramatic solo performances, though ones not specifically linked to Sicily,” despite its rural setting.17 Costas Panayotakis even includes Idyll 3 among his designation of “urban mimes” alongside Idylls 2, 14, and 15, a further indication of the generic slippage detectable in Theocritus’ Idylls.18 We very quickly reach the limits of the label “urban mime” when exploring the role of mime in Theocritus. Already we can see that the relationship between mime and Theocritus is as complex and interwoven as any of Theocritus’ engagements with other literary genres. Indeed, Richard Hunter goes as far as to declare: “Idylls 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 14 and 15 are ‘mimes,’ that is ‘playlets’ set either in the town or the countryside with more than one character, though Idylls 2 and 3 have only one speaker,” and Hunter goes on to describe Idyll 6 as a “rustic mime” and then to draw parallels between “the ‘mime’ of Idyll 3 and Idyll 11, with its song of the Cyclops Polyphemus.”19 Hunter is right to warn us against attempting to pigeonhole an Idyll of Theocritus within one particular literary genre, but quite what is understood here by “mime” is unclear. What even this short summary shows us is that the influence and role of mime varies hugely across the Idylls. Poulheria Kyriakou’s recent analysis of the Idylls is another case in point; the summary of Idyll 9 begins: “The poem begins in dramatic mode, as a mime …” which indicates a recognition of mime, but this is left as a tantalising aside, and quite what distinction is being drawn between drama and mime is not discussed.20 Similarly, Kyriakou’s discussion of Idyll 10, starts: “This mime, neither bucolic nor urban,” but as with Hunter, what the designation mime actually means is unclear.21 This trend continues to the present moment (2018), as seen in Sofia Belioti’s loose categorisation of Idylls “that combine mimelike speech by characters with a narrative framing (2, 6, 7, 11, 14, 15).”22

17 18 19 20 21 22

Hunter (1999) 10. Panayotakis (2014) 379. Hunter (1999) 4. Kyriakou (2018) 155. Kyriakou (2018) 43. Belioti (2018) 6.

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It is certainly true that many of the Idylls involve direct speakers in dialogue or monologue, which evokes performance-based genres such as drama and mime, but it is important for us to be clear what weight these different terms hold. To this end, the rest of the chapter focuses on the Idylls where mime is most clearly at work, namely Idylls 2, 14, and 15. My line has been to start with the concrete and then move out to the less overt, stable connections to mime. Otherwise, the term “mime” risks just being a homonym for “dramatic,” as seen from the scholars above, and this is something I wish to avoid in the chapter. Rather our aim is to isolate features specific to mime that Theocritus draws on in his Idylls. Most notably we see that the influence of mime is at its most striking alongside other artistic forms such as tragedy, comedy, and epigram, as we shall now discuss.

2

Mime, Drama and Epigram

The four characteristics of mime in Theocritus, which were listed in the previous section (the urban, the everyday, the focus on character and female voices), are not features unique to mime. They are also familiar in comic drama, both Hellenistic and of the preceding period, which scholarship has noted.23 Many of the Idylls reflect the influence of Greek drama; for example, Epicharmus, a Syracusan comic dramatist from 5th century bce, composed a Cyclops that is compared with Idylls 6 and 11, and an Amycus. The latter is echoed in Idyll 22 and Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica, where Amycus is a son of Poseidon defeated by Polydeuces in a boxing match. The echoes of comic drama are also at work in Idyll 4, in which Battus and Corydon share local gossip and conversation that colour the bucolic setting with everyday matters. There is even a moment of comic action as Corydon helps Battus remove a thorn from below his ankle (4.51). By comparison, the contest of Idyll 5 between Lacon and Comatas quickly devolves to comic insults, mockery, and sexually explicit language that recalls a comic agon (e.g., Aristophanes’ Knights or Clouds). Indeed, Thomas Rosenmeyer long ago summarised Idyll 5 in the following manner: “the spirit of which is, in large part, downright Aristophanic, tempered with flashes of humility.”24 All of which reflects the diversity of ways that scholars have 23

24

E.g., Kutzko (2008) discusses comic meta-drama in Idyll 15 and Herodas, Mimiamb 1; Hunter (1996) 110–116 explores the relationship between comedy, mime, and Idyll 14, focusing on New Comedy and Menander. For comedy and the bucolic poems see Cusset, this volume. Rosenmeyer (1969) 14–15.

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observed Greek comedy at work in the Idylls of Theocritus. Overall, the role of other performance-based art forms in Theocritus’Idylls is being increasingly acknowledged. Harder/Regtuit/Wakker’s Drama and Performance in Hellenistic Poetry (2018) is an important case in point, but the attention to mime and Theocritus in this important volume is still minimal. As well as Greek comedy, it is important to consider Hellenistic epigram, particularly the work of Asclepiades of Samos, with its erotic, desire-filled subject matter, including paraklausithyron (5.164; 5.189), use of humour, and everyday dialogue. All these features have been noted for their affinities with our understanding of mime (e.g., the paraklausithyron in Idyll 3 discussed in Section 1).25 Theocritus’ own awareness of the work of Asclepiades is evident from the favourable mention he gives to Asclepiades in Idyll 7.39–40, as well as Philitas, an epigrammist and literary predecessor of both Theocritus and Asclepiades. We can compare the striking echo of the epigrammist Anyte in the opening lines of Idyll 1.26 Epigram-style was something that infuses Theocritus’ work, and as we see from Asclepiades, the literary exchange was mutual. We should not forget either that some twenty-four epigrams are attributed to Theocritus, and so he too was aware of the capabilities of this art form. This makes all the more significant his own references, explicit and implicit, to other authors of epigram, because they mark the influence of the contemporary Hellenistic craft of composing epigram. Therefore drama, mime, and epigram are overlaid by one another in Hellenistic literature. As with all Hellenistic poetry, there is always an enmeshing of different literary genres, and in the case of Theocritus’ Idylls we can see the influences of comic drama, mime, and Hellenistic epigram. Evina Sistakou’s recent 2016 monograph Tragic Failures: Alexandrian Responses to Tragedy and the Tragic contains a chapter on the tragic dramatic features evident in Theocritus’ Idylls, and touches upon the influence of the performance-based genre of tragedy across Theocritus’ work. Most interestingly for our discussion of mime and Theocritus is Sistakou’s analysis of Idyll 2, which draws parallels between

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Sens (2019) 341 discusses the characteristics of Asclepiades’ epigrams; Degani et al. (2006): “It is no coincidence that there occasionally appear short scenes of dialogue from everyday life (with questions, exclamations and responses), which consume the whole poem that then bears all the hallmarks of a miniature mime (5.181; 185; cf. Posidippus, Anth. Pal. 5.183).” E.g., Hunt (2017) 96 addresses the influence of the poet Anyte and her epigrams on Theocritus, Idyll 1. Both use the theme of sweetness: ἡδύ (hedu), and Theocritus opens his programmatic poem with it. Anyte’s focus on herdsmen is thought to be unique within the epigram tradition up to that point.

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Simaetha and Medea, noting that the former “has a tragic side to her.”27 We can compare this to Acosta-Hughes’ recent analyses of Callimachus, and especially his epigrams in connection with tragedy, to see how the influence of tragedy permeates Hellenistic literature.28 However, it is important to remember that we have a huge gap in our knowledge of tragedy from the Hellenistic period, particularly of the Pleiad tragedians, a group of influential Hellenistic tragedians whose work is extant only in fragments. These have been presented in a recent edition by Agnieszka Kotlińska-Toma (2006; 2015), providing the means for a richer discussion of Hellenistic tragedy in the context of other Hellenistic authors. But much of the work of situating the Pleiad alongside Theocritus still waits to be done. Overall we can say that there are detectable qualities and features of mime and drama that infiltrate a large number of Theocritus’ Idylls. Most significant to this point is the fact that both mime and drama are performance-rooted genres and both have a literary afterlife that coexists with their continued development in performance. This is observable in the Hellenistic period and on into the Roman. It is therefore important to note that while we are concerned with mime in relation to Theocritus, by exploring the four characteristics listed above (urban setting, everyday content, focus on character, and female voices), this can never be viewed in isolation from the influence and effects of comic or tragic drama and epigram. The overlap between comic drama and mime is particularly strong, not only due to their mode of performance, but also as seen in the socioeconomic status of its characters and their informal, everyday interactions and discourse. Comedy and mime have more in common than is acknowledged in scholarship. Therefore, again, the issue arises of how we sufficiently isolate the influence of mime specifically. It is clear that Theocritus’ Idylls are composed in such a way that they purposefully enmesh layers of historical and contemporary culture and literature; to try and unpack each layer is to unravel Theocritus. And yet there is a balance to be had here. For, the more we gain an understanding of what each of these different layers contributes to Theocritus, the more we can engage with his uniquely Hellenistic art form: the Idylls and their relationship with contemporary and earlier art forms, such as mime.

27 28

Sistakou (2016) 133–139. Acosta-Hughes (2012) 392–396.

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Theocritus, Mime, and Sophron: The Syracusan Connection

There is a notable difference between the mimes of the fifth-century bce poet Sophron and the Hellenistic Idylls of Theocritus in that the former were apparently composed in rhythmic prose, the latter in hexameters. Similarly the Mimiambs of Herodas are also metrical, though they are in iambics. Therefore, the relationship of these two Hellenistic authors who draw on mime is anything but straightforward. Nonetheless, these two contemporary Hellenistic authors, engaging with mime and responding to it metrically, mark a significant moment in the history of our understanding of mime. Sophron’s connection with Theocritus is intriguing because Sophron was, like Theocritus, a Syracusan who composed in Doric dialect, and we can only wish we had better information on the connections between the two authors. The ancient scholia linked Idylls 2 and 15 directly to Sophron’s mimes, and the ethnic and artistic connections between Sophron and Theocritus may suggest that these Idylls hold a stronger biographical, personal connection for Theocritus. A similar case can be made for Theocritus’ connection with the Syracusan comic poet, Epicharmus (discussed in Section 2), but as with Sophron we lack the textual evidence to explore these links fully. Nonetheless, Theocritus’ connection to Epicharmus is hinted at elsewhere in Theocritus’ work, if the authenticity of Epigram 18 (= AP 9.600) is accepted, which is an epigram for Epicharmus. Even if this is not an original work by Theocritus, it points to an understanding of the close relationship between these two Syracusan authors.29 By using a formal frame that draws on mime and comedy connected to Theocritus’ roots in Syracuse, Theocritus can deploy a creative strategy that enables him to relay a fictional image of the contemporary Hellenistic world in which he lived and that engages with his own Syracusan heritage. This in itself adds a personal creative touch to these Idylls that connects Theocritus with both Hellenistic present and his inherited poetic past. In this sense, Theocritus’ Idylls overall are remarkable for their interest in artistic genealogies and interrelationships, rather than a more restrictive interest in genre affiliations and formations in individual Idylls. The interweaving of mime and comedy forms an important part of this, and the influence of Epicharmus and Sophron is key. Indeed, this throws further significance onto Idylls 4 and 5 (see Section 2) for their mimetic and comic qualities, because both Idylls have a south Italian setting.

29

On Epigram 18 see Rossi (2001) 287–293.

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Therefore, Theocritus’ relationship with mime is complex, and it is complicated by two further factors: first, very little mime survives, and in the case of Sophron we have only fragments, now presented in the excellent commentary and edition by James Hordern (2004).30 Secondly, Theocritus engages both with Sophron and historical mime alongside contemporary Hellenistic mime, which is equally fragmentary. This engagement with the contemporary and historical is a hallmark of how scholars choose to understand Hellenistic literature, but in the case of Theocritus and mime, our partial knowledge of the form further shapes the way that scholarship engages with Theocritus and mime. Hordern’s 2004 critical edition and commentary on Sophron has played a key role in promoting and enhancing our knowledge of Sophron and mime. And yet, we are in that frustrating situation where Theocritus had access to the mimes of Sophron and the comedies of Epicharmus in composing his poetry, whereas we are left to infer much of our knowledge of mime from fragments and secondary sources, one of which is Theocritus himself. This not only creates circularity in interpretation of mime and Theocritus’ mime, but it is important to realise the gaps in our knowledge of mime, in contrast to the wealth of knowledge that Theocritus would have possessed (and presumably some of his audience too).31 In short, mime was a key source for Theocritus, but we lack access to that source. Therefore, our attempts to interpret, understand, and situate the mimes of Theocritus within his wider work will always be frustrated and frustrating to some degree. Nonetheless, there are some tantalising glimpses as to the power and influence of mime in the periods surrounding Theocritus. Our ancient sources provide vital hints of this power and its continuing influence into the 4th century bce. Indeed, Aristotle, Poetics 1447a–b even marks out the mimes of Sophron alongside Socratic dialogues as examples of works that have not been categorized: οὐδὲν γὰρ ἂν ἔχοιμεν ὀνομάσαι κοινὸν (“for we would not be able to give them a common name”). Aristotle continues by noting that this is in contrast with poetry where everything in verse is named according to its metre (e.g., elegy or epic), and the poets are not grouped together in accordance with their 30

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Sophron was first added to the Loeb series in 2002 by Jeffrey Rusten and Ian Cunningham, in their edition on Herodas’ Mimiambs and Theophrastus’ Characters, both of which have had a significant effect on how we view mime, Sophron, and its relationship to subsequent literary genres. This occurred not long before Cunningham’s own critical edition of Herodas (2004). The difficulties over identifying evidence for mime reaches even into visual culture, where the form and function of so-called grotesque figurines as possible depictions of mime remains a contentious issue, as recently summarised by Masséglia (2015) Appendix 1, 317– 318.

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mimesis (κατὰ τὴν μίμησιν, “representation”). The influence of Sophron is felt across literary genres, including Platonic dialogue, which no doubt used and adapted the rhythmic prose of Sophron. The synthesis of their styles of dialogue and mime alongside comic drama is reflected in the anecdote that Plato kept a copy of Sophron under his pillow (Diogenes Laertius 3.18), which again indicates the continuing high status of Sophron through the 4th century bce and in the period directly preceding the works of Theocritus and Herodas. Again we see the connection of the prose mime of Sophron and prose dialogue form developed by Plato.32 So, from the Idylls of Theocritus through to Aristotle’s intriguing remark, down to Diogenes Laertius in the 3rd century ce, we see a link forged between Sophron, mime, mimetic art, prose art, and the Platonic dialogue form. All of these authors, prior to Diogenes Laertius, were available to Theocritus as a source for his own Idylls. However, it is a defining feature of the Idylls that they are each and every one in hexameter verse, a point that is in itself remarkable, but more so when we place the Idylls in their Hellenistic context alongside the Mimiambs of Herodas.

4

Metrical Mime and Female Voices: Theocritus and the Mimiambs of Herodas

Theocritus’ choice to move the rhythmic prose of mime into the hexametric rhythm of his Idylls marks a key distinction between the Idylls and mime. This is a purposeful choice by our Hellenistic poet, but at the same time it differentiates Theocritus from his contemporary Herodas, whose Mimiambs, as the name suggests, are an open hybrid form of mime and iambic poetry. However, the Mimiambs use the iambic metres identified with Hipponax. Therefore, both Theocritus and Herodas made the same conscious decision to turn the rhythmic prose of mime into metrical mime, but notably each Hellenistic poet uses different metres: Herodas the iambics of Hipponax, and Theocritus the hexameter of epic poetry, particularly of Homer. A full-scale comparison of Herodas and Theocritus, particularly with regard to their engagement with mime, is still lacking, but there have been various individual articles and chapters that place the two authors in juxtaposition.33 32 33

Hunter (1999) 11 further notes Diogenes Laertius 3.37, citing Aristotle who remarks that Plato’s dialogues lie “between poetry and prose”: μεταξὺ ποιήματος εἶναι καὶ πεζοῦ λόγου. The richest comparisons of the two are by Chesterton (2016) 184–188 who compares Herodas, Mimiamb 4, and Theocritus Id. 15; Zanker (2009) 32–39 argues that Herodas has used Theocritus 2, 14, and 15 in constructing his own first Mimiamb, and Zanker suggests “Hero-

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The independent choices of Theocritus and Herodas tell us something of the open approaches that these Hellenistic poets could make to the earlier traditional art form of mime. It is noteworthy too that the rhythmic prose of mime was not felt to be aligned with only one metrical form, but rather mime appears to have contained the flexibility to combine with other performative art forms. This also tells us that Theocritus and Herodas were aiming for individual and different effects in terms of the audial impact of their works and the implications of tones and resonances with past poetry. Nonetheless, scholarship on Herodas faces the same debates over whether, and how, the Mimiambs of Herodas were performed, just as we earlier discussed in relation to mime and Theocritus. This strongly suggests that the problem lies in our poor comprehension of mime as well as our preconceptions about the literary sophistication of Hellenistic poetry, as if that were to preclude performative sophistication.34 The effect of epic hexameter in Idylls 2, 14, and 15, which draw most notably on mime, has been interpreted as creating a stark distinction between form and content: between the high tone of epic form and the low, bawdy content of mime, particularly where direct links are drawn to Homer. This can be seen in Idyll 14 as Aeschinas employs two Homeric similes in their native hexameter but in the context of discussing his love life and failed relationship with Cynisca.35 In addition Idyll 14 employs a large number of proverbs, hallmarks of mime (see Section 1 above), alongside potential affiliations with New Comedy,

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das as the debtor” (36). However, the evidence for this is not compelling. Kutzko (2008) 142 argues that Theocritus and Herodas imitate comic meta-theatre: “simulating dramatic effects in a non-dramatic context,” a position he reiterates in connection with Herodas (Kutzko (2018) 160). Hunter (1993) 39–44 provides a more nuanced view that Theocritus pays more attention to scenic detail which emphasises the “constructedness” and fictionality of the context, whereas Herodas provides fewer details for the scene. Cf. Ypsilanti (2006). Fantuzzi in Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 33 asserts that Herodas employed much more dramatisation than Theocritus, and such an assertion warrants a fuller investigation. See Section 1 above. On the literary and performative quality of Herodas see Chesterton (2016) 170–171. Chesterton astutely observes that scholars cannot decide whether a text allows for performance, or just encourages one to imagine a performance, see e.g., Esposito (2010), Zanker (2009); Kutzko (2008); Hunter (1993). Idyll 14 twice refers to Homer’s Iliad: Id. 14.31–33 and Il. 16.7–10; Id. 14.39–42 and Il. 9.323– 327, upon which Hunter (1996) 114 draws out the distinction between past and present worlds: “In a poem which speaks of the place of the soldier in a contemporary world, the evocation of the Iliad makes clear what has changed.” Cf. Hutchinson (1988) 200 who focuses on the contrast of literary tone: “We may surely suppose that in these poems [Idylls 2, 14, 15], and to a lesser degree in others, the associations with a lowly form of literature on the one hand, and on the other the dignity which must still attach to the hexameter, will enhance the interplay of the base and sordid with the grand and intense.”

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as discussed by Hunter.36 This unique fusion also adds to the effect of treating this epic-sounding Idyll in a dramatic style with its roots in mime. And, as we saw in Section 3, this has distinctly Syracusan origins that form a personal link to Theocritus. So, Theocritus has produced something with Syracusan roots, but which was a distinct and unique cultural product of the early Hellenistic world. In this way Theocritus creates a wholly Hellenistic form of cultural memory for Greeks across the Hellenistic world, and this is distinguished by its memorable, unique sound and rhythm, as relayed in performance. The mixture of epic tone, mimic form, and contemporary context mixes past and present worlds that are fictional, mythical, and artistic representations of actual Hellenistic life. This is an aspect of Theocritus’ Idylls that Joan Burton’s 1995 monograph, Theocritus’s Urban Mimes. Mobility, Gender, and Patronage, admirably addresses: “The mixed, open texture of Theocritus’s urban mimes (which could include, e.g., song, hymn, and street talk) was especially wellsuited for representing a heterogeneous world, with its mix of old and new, native and immigrant, ordinary and privileged, everyday and fantastic.”37 We see these effects at work, for example, at Idyll 15.61–62, where an old woman responds to Gorgo’s inquiry about entering the palace by noting that the Achaeans took Troy by trying. Greek epic and mime of the past here collide with Hellenistic present as the two women, citizens of Alexandria, Syracusans by heritage, are placed in the role of Greeks taking Troy as they enter the royal palace in Alexandria. The vibrancy, vitality, and variety in these Idylls should not be in doubt, and this is due to the unique juxtaposition that Theocritus creates through using the performance arts of mime, comedy, and epic. Equally, we should not forget that Herodas’ Mimiambs also engage closely with Homeric epic.38 This adds a particular level to Theocritus’ engagement with mime because we see the tension between epic model and contemporary present played out through the sound and rhythm of these Idylls, and such effects are best rendered and appreciated in live performance. One of the most notable characteristics of Idylls 2 and 15 is the focus on constructing female voices, female presence, expression, and thought. These are the two Idylls which, as noted in Section 1, the ancient scholia connect with the mimes of Sophron. They are also the only two Idylls where female voices hold centre stage throughout, and this has drawn scholarly attention, e.g., Valeria 36 37 38

Hunter (2014) 70. Burton (1995) 9. E.g., Zanker (2009) 34 notes that Mimiamb 1 is filled with Homeric allusions in the depiction of Gyllis.

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Pace (2017), who provides a much-needed discussion of female voices in these Idylls, building on the work of Joan Burton (1995). Notably, in Herodas’ Mimiambs too we see numerous female-only scenes. In particular there are striking parallels between Theocritus, Idyll 15 and Herodas, Mimiamb 4, in which Cynno and Coccale travel from home to the temple of Asclepius. Marilyn Skinner’s important discussion of Idyll 15 and Mimiamb 4 reveals the richness of these works when situated in the context of Erinna, Anyte, and Nossis, who potentially drew on conventions from fifth-century Greek tragedy in presenting the female gaze.39 Again we see that analysis of Theocritus and Herodas must draw on multiple genres and multiple authors. The depiction of these female voices is not unlike the comic scenes witnessed in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae, Lysistrata, and Ecclesiazusae in which the female only space is viewed through the comic lens of the male Aristophanes directed towards a receptive and largely male audience. However, the key difference between Athenian comedy and Syracusan mime is that in mime the performers were female, whereas in comedy they were male in female costume. In comedy the female characters are enacted through the male body in performance, but this was not the case for mime. The artificial and constructed female identity of comedy is one that the Greek comedies play with on a metatheatrical level, as witnessed in the frequent use of costume change and disguise in comic drama. This makes all the more notable the conscious choice on the part of Theocritus and Herodas to engage actively with mime as a source, not just comedy, when depicting female figures. In the case of Theocritus this adds to the constructed realism of Idylls 2 and 15 precisely because the imagined performers were real females, not males in female garb. Theocritus harnesses a different aspect of the constructed realism of mime in Idylls 14 and 15 by exploiting the ability of mime to focus on character portrayal as developing a connection between the character and the audience to build a praise to Ptolemaic rule (as noted in Section 1). Notably this use of mime is distinct from the Mimiambs of Herodas, and as such it shows one of the features that mime offered Theocritus and gives important hints as to Theocritean aesthetics at work. Idylls 14 and 15 start off with an everyday setting, familiar character types, and human problems, which are then unexpectedly brought round to compliments of the power structures above and to those in power, Ptolemy and Arsinoe. In Idyll 15 Theocritus has spent the first part of the Idyll using techniques from mime to create realistic, believable, fallible, and therefore sympathetic characters, with whom the audience can identify as

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Skinner (2001) 202–211.

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knowing someone a bit like them, whether you laugh at them, empathise with them, or loathe them. Therefore, the frame of mime, with its focus on character depiction, helps to provide the means to create the most reliable, and therefore trustworthy, eyewitnesses to the events that they see, and which ends in a favourable image of Ptolemaic rule. The same technique is at work in Idyll 14, where the Idyll starts with Thyonichus lending a sympathetic ear to Aeschinas’ relationship troubles and his violent character, circumstances that are all too familiar in life. And yet, by the end of the Idyll the praise is for Ptolemy’s relationship with his people as ruler, as a lover, as a fellow Greek of upstanding character, and of course—most significantly for Theocritus’ Idyll—as φιλόμουσος (“a muse-loving man”). In both of these cases, mime offers a refractive lens through which to view and focus attention on Ptolemaic power in a way that appears to come through the language, the culture, and the eyes of the “everyday” Alexandrians, the contemporaries of the audience of these poems. This is a tactic to popularise Ptolemy, or perhaps rather to harness his popularity and to preserve, enhance, and maintain it for future generations. In this regard mime serves as the perfect vehicle given its roots in popular performance.

5

Theocritus and Reception: Are Some Idylls More “idyllic” Than Others?

There is one further aspect of what mime means as a category in Theocritus’ work that we need to address in order to understand earlier scholarly approaches to Theocritus and to Idylls 2, 14, and 15 in particular. This relates to the distinction that scholars have traditionally drawn between the bucolic Idylls of Theocritus and Idylls 2, 14, and 15. However, all thirty of the extant Idylls ascribed to Theocritus have the identical name: Idylls (εἰδύλλια), which one could translate as “formlets; figurines; little images,” although I would choose “snapshots” for the way the word relays the idea of a live-action human being captured in an artistic compositional event, while drawing attention to the visual connotation of the Greek (εἰδ-). While the scholia use the term εἰδύλλια, its origin is unknown, and Idylls 2, 14, and 15 were not known as mimes by Theocritus. Rather the concept of an “urban mime of Theocritus” is a postTheocritean label, which acknowledges the variety of subject matters, styles, and influences at play in the Theocritean corpus as a whole. This label of “urban mime” is one that I discounted at the start of the chapter for the restrictions it placed on analysing Theocritus’ relationship with mime. Indeed, it is also to the ancient commentators on Theocritus whose scholia survive today that we owe the first designation of the features of ancient mime to some of the Idylls

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of Theocritus. And, it is subsequent scholarship through to our own time that has chosen to preserve this categorisation and to mark out Idylls 2, 14, and 15 as distinct from the better-known bucolic poetry of Theocritus. This is in no small part due to the influential reception that Theocritus’ work underwent in antiquity, and one that subsequent historical periods have maintained. This has privileged certain of Theocritus’ Idylls, often classed as his bucolic poems, which went on to inspire and create the poetic tradition of bucolic poetry that was continued directly by Moschus (also from Syracuse) and Bion (from Smyrna, Asia Minor), and then immortalised in Virgil’s Eclogues (c. 40 bce). In fact, the role of Virgilian poetry and its reception in later poetic traditions has been pivotal, first in the development of the bucolic tradition after Theocritus, second in how we look at Theocritus’ poetry, and last, but by no means least, on what we look to his poetry for.40 So, the popularity of Virgil has weighed heavily on Theocritus and the study of Theocritus.41 The unintended consequence of this is that the poems that do not fit this bucolic picture received less attention. In the case of the role of mime in Theocritus the shift of focus onto mime did not take place until the late 20th century with the monographs of Joan Burton and Richard Hunter, and subsequently the work of Graham Zanker on Herodas (2004, 2009) and the work on Sophron’s mime (Hordern 2002, 2004; Rusten/Cunningham 2014). But there is still lacking a systematic study of Theocritus’ relationship with mime and drama across the Idylls. So, Theocritus is more than the sum of his parts. He is a poetic whole in his own right and deserved not to be treated in such a fragmentising manner by scholars pre-1990s, just because we possess partial information about some of his artistic sources, such as Sophron, Epicharmus, and New Comedy, and even less information about many of his contemporaries, including Anyte, Asclepiades, the elegiac poet Hermesianax, and their predecessor Philitas. Theocritus is a classic case of how the extant evidence dictates the modes of our study into

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E.g., for a sense of changing categorisations, see Longinus On the Sublime 33.4, who compares Homer with Apollonius and Theocritus, by treating the titles of the two works in parallel: Bucolica and Argonautica. A symptom of this problem is seen in scholars applying the standard label “non-bucolic” to various of Theocritus’ Idylls, including, but not limited to, Idylls 2, 14, 15: e.g., Hunter (1999) 27: “In the Eclogues Virgil echoes the spurious Idylls 8 and 9 and ‘non-bucolic’ poems such as Idylls 2 and 17.” Damien Nelis’ review of Hunter (1996) classes 2, 14 and 15 as “non-bucolic” (Nelis (1999) 185); J. Andrew Foster’s entry “Theocritus of Syracuse” in Oxford Bibliographies distinguishes between bucolic and “non-bucolic” Idylls in order to classify scholarship on Theocritus prior to 2009, and this inevitably has a hand in shaping how we approach future research (Foster (2009); entry last reviewed 2013).

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his poetry to such a degree that it shapes our very definition of what an Idyll of Theocritus is, and more generally, what the aesthetics of Theocritus entail. This results in a critical distortion that does unequal justice to the ingenuity of Theocritean poetry in its own right.

6

Conclusion: Theocritus, Mime, and the Power of Performance

Mimes are a curious form, hard to define, and poorly attested. Our partial knowledge of them shows that they offer an imitation of human behaviour based on human interactions in urban and rural human-created environments. This is in contrast to the natural, wild, outside world of the countryside, and this divide between urban and countryside is one that Theocritus exploits in numerous of his Idylls. Theocritus’ Idylls 2, 14, and 15 take the time to create setting, character, tone, and metre that relay a fictional image of the human environment and contemporary Hellenistic (“everyday”) life by focusing on presenting character rather than plot, and in the case of Idylls 2 and 15, by giving the active voice to a variety of female protagonists. Theocritus draws on the conventions of performance-based arts to bring his Idylls alive, including mime, comic and tragic drama, and epigram, with which Theocritus can signal particular modes and styles of performance. What is interesting about Idylls 2, 14, and 15 is the degree to which they draw actively and openly on mime, when mime is an art form rooted in the Syracusan fifth-century poet Sophron. The potential effects that Theocritus could harness through using mime are what we have addressed in this chapter: namely, the use of the urban, the contemporary human (“everyday”) setting, character and language, the focus on character rather than plot development, and the focus on female voices in Idylls 2 and 15. By considering mime and Theocritus alongside each other, we have seen that it is the complexity of human intercourse, human interaction, and human emotion that instils these Idylls of Theocritus with their power. Mime, with its roots in performance, its origins in Syracuse, where Theocritus’ own family comes from, and its unique ability to have female performers appear in female roles, all work to bring Idylls 2, 14, and 15 down to earth for the Hellenistic audience and forge a close contemporary connection between them, their poet, and the world of the characters within the Idylls. The audience becomes almost a participant, grounded in the events of these Idylls by being placed as one experiencing a mime through their role as audience member. This forms a unique bond between audience and Idyll, as it enacts the bond created between performer and audience member at a live performance. This is the art of Theo-

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critus, and indeed Herodas: to take the performative essence of mime and the unique bond of performer and audience, and transpose that into their own art forms alongside a range of contemporary and historical cultural influences, from mime to epigram, drama, iambic, and epic. In this way the depiction of human life and art in Theocritus’Idylls is its most important and unifying quality, and the art form of mime contributes to making the humanity of the Idylls more powerful and vibrant than it has hitherto been given credit.42

Bibliography Acosta-Hughes, B. (2012), “Outlines of Theatrical Performance in Theocritus,” in K. Bosher (ed.), Theater Outside Athens: Drama in Greek Sicily and South Italy (Cambridge) 391–408. Belioti, S. (2018), “The Motif of Paraclausithyron as Hint of Performance in Hellenistic Poetry,” in Harder/Regtuit/Wakker (2018) 1–12. Burton, J.B. (1995), Theocritus’s Urban Mimes. Mobility, Gender, and Patronage (Berkeley). Chesterton, B. (2016), “The Bookish Turn: Assessing the Impact of the Book-Roll on Authorial Self-Representation in Early Hellenistic Poetry,” Durham E-Theses Online. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11933/. Csapo, E. (2010), Actors and Icons of the Ancient Theater (Chichester). Cunningham, I.C. (ed.) (2004), Herodas: Mimiambi (Leipzig). Degani, E./Döring, K./Pressler, F./Nutton, V./Montanari, F., “Asclepiades,” in Brill’s New Pauly. First published online 2006; consulted on 26 March 2019 http://dx.doi.org​ .ezphost.dur.ac.uk/10.1163/1574‑9347_bnp_e203620. Esposito, E. (2010), “Herodas and the Mime,” in J.J. Clauss/M. Cuypers (eds.), A Companion to Hellenistic Literature (Oxford) 267–281.

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Indeed, what would benefit scholarship is an up-to-date comparison of mime in Herodas and Theocritus that takes account of the work achieved in recent commentaries on mime, Herodas, and Theocritus. There is also a need to explore the relationship of mime to drama, to comedy and tragedy, not just in terms of origins and developments, but also in terms of shared themes, performance strategies, and their reception. There is equally plenty of scope to engage with theories of popular culture in trying to understand the role of mime, the everyday, the real, and the graphic depictions of human behaviour that we find in Theocritus’ work, and even more in Herodas. But hopefully this chapter has shown most of all that Idylls 2, 14, 15 each warrant, as much as they merit, an up-to-date critical edition and commentary. Attention to all of these matters will shape our idea and understanding of mime and its place in the Idylls of Theocritus.

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Fantuzzi, M./Hunter, R.L. (2004), Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge). Foster, J.A. (2019), “Theocritus of Syracuse,” Oxford Bibliographies. https://www.oxford bibliographies.com/view/document/obo‑9780195389661/obo‑9780195389661‑0065 .xml Entry last reviewed: 16th May 2013; entry last modified: 14th December 2009. Gow, A.S.F. (1950), Theocritus, 2 vols. (Cambridge). Harder, M.A./Regtuit, R.F./Wakker, G.C. (eds.) (1996), Theocritus (Groningen). Harder, M.A./Regtuit, R.F./Wakker, G.C. (eds.) (1998), Genre in Hellenistic Poetry (Groningen). Harder, M.A./Regtuit, R.F./Wakker, G.C. (eds.) (2018), Drama and Performance in Hellenistic Poetry (Leuven). Hopkinson, N. (2015), Theocritus. Moschus. Bion (Cambridge, MA). Hordern, J.H. (2002), “Love Magic and Purification in Sophron, PSI 1214a, and Theocritus,” CQ 52, 164–173. Hordern, J.H. (ed.) (2004), Sophron’s Mimes (Oxford). Hunt, J.M. (2017), “Tradition and Succession in Theocritus’ Bucolic poetry,” in M.A. Harder (ed.), Past and Present in Hellenistic Poetry (Leuven) 83–100. Hunter, R.L. (1993), “The Presentation of Herodas’ Mimiamboi,” Antichthon 27, 31–44. Hunter, R.L. (1996), Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry (Cambridge). Hunter, R.L. (1999), Theocritus: A Selection (Cambridge). Hunter, R.L. (2014), “Theocritus and the Style of Hellenistic Poetry,” in A. Rengakos/ E. Sistakou, E. (eds.), Hellenistic Studies at a Crossroads. Exploring Texts, Contexts and Metatexts (Berlin) 55–74. Hutchinson, G.O. (1988), Hellenistic Poetry (Oxford). Kotlińska-Toma, A. (2006), Tragedia Hellenistyczna (Wrocław). Kotlińska-Toma, A. (2015), Hellenistic Tragedy: Texts, Translations and a Critical Survey (London). Kutzko, D.E. (2008), “All the World’s a Page: Imitation of Metatheater in Theocritus 15, Herodas 1 and Virgil Eclogues 3,” CJ 103, 141–161. Kutzko, D.E. (2018), “Enacting Drama: Herod. 1 and A.P. v.181 (Ascl. 25, Gow-Page),” in Harder/Regtuit/Wakker (2018) 157–171. Kyriakou, P. (2018), Theocritus and His Native Muse: A Syracusan Among Many (Berlin). Masséglia, J. (2015), Body Language in Hellenistic Art and Society (Oxford). Miles, S. (2016), “Greek Drama in the Hellenistic World,” in B. van Zyl Smit (ed.), A Handbook to the Reception of Greek Drama (Chichester), 45–62. Nelis, D.P. (1999), “Reviewed Works: Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry by R.L. Hunter, Theocritus’ Urban Mimes: Mobility, Gender and Patronage by J.B. Burton,” JHS 119, 185–186. Pace, V. (2017), “Singing Women in Theocritus: Magic, Genre and Gender in Idylls 2 and

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15,” in Chr. Cusset/Chr. Kossaifi/R. Poignault (eds.) Présence de Théocrite (ClermontFerrand) 63–90. Panayotakis, C. (2014), “Hellenistic Mime and Its Reception in Rome,” in M. Fontaine/A.C. Scafuro (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy (New York) 378–396. Payne, M.E. (2014), Theocritus and the Invention of Fiction (Cambridge). Rosenmeyer, T.G. (1969), The Green Cabinet: Theocritus and the European Pastoral Lyric (Berkeley). Rossi, L. (2001), The Epigrams Ascribed to Theocritus: A Method of Approach (Leuven). Rusten, J./Cunningham, I.C. (eds.) (2014), Theophrastus: Characters. Herodas: Mimes. Sophron and Other Mime Fragments (Cambridge, MA). Segal, C. (1981), Poetry and Myth in Ancient Pastoral (Princeton, NJ). Sens, A. (2019), “Asclepiades of Samos,” in Chr. Henriksén (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Epigram (Hoboken, NJ) 337–350. Sistakou, E. (2016), Tragic Failures: Alexandrian Responses to Tragedy and the Tragic (Berlin). Skinner, M.B. (2001), “‘Ladies’ Day at the Art Institute. Theocritus, Herodas, and the Gendered Gaze,” in A. Lardinois/L. McClure (eds.), Making Silence Speak. Women’s Voices in Greek Literature and Society (Princeton) 201–222. Stanzel, K.-H. (1998), “Mimen, Mimepen und Mimiamben—Theokrit, Herodas und die Kreuzung der Gattungen,” in Harder/Regtuit/Wakker (1998) 143–165. Ypsilanti, M. (2006), “Mime in Verse: Strategic Affinities in Theocritus and Herodas,” Maia 58, 411–431. Zanker, G. (2004), Modes of Viewing in Hellenistic Poetry and Art (Madison, WI). Zanker, G. (2009), Herodas. Mimiambs (Oxford).

chapter 7

Theocritus’ Hymns and “Epyllia”: Poems 13, 22, 24, 26 Alexander Sens

Introduction Four genuinely Theocritean poems (13, 22, 24, and 26) include compressed narratives on the deeds of gods and other mythological figures in dactylic hexameter; a fifth poem (25), comprising a sequence of narratives featuring Heracles, is probably (though not certainly) by a different poet and is not considered here.1 Apart from their basic formal similarity, all of them focus on divine figures who were important symbols for the Ptolemaic house, and all of them engage intensively with earlier literature; each constitutes a rewriting of an earlier version or versions of the tale(s) it reports. In 13, the story of Hylas’ abduction by nymphs and Heracles’ reaction to it seems, on the most likely relative chronology (see below), to be modeled on Apollonius’ treatment of the same episode; it serves as an exemplum that illustrates the consolatory claim with which the poem opens. The other poems are, in varying ways, hymnic in form. Theocritus 22 is framed as a rhapsodic hymn to the Dioscuri and opens with a proem reworking the thirty-third Homeric hymn; the central body of the poem consists of two tonally disparate narratives, each devoted to one of the twins; the poem’s models include Apollonius of Rhodes, Pindar, the cyclic Cypria, and Simonides, as well as the Homeric epics.2 In 24, the story of the infant Heracles’ killing of serpents and his parents’ response to it rewrites Pindar’s account of the episode in Nemean 1 (cf. also Paean 20) but also evokes Danae’s lullaby to another son of Zeus, the baby Perseus, at Simonides PMG 543.8–12.3 A fragmentary papyrus containing the ending of the poem shows that it concluded with a hymnic envoi in which the poet asked for Heracles’ favor in a poetic competition; against that backdrop, the specification of the poem’s sub-

1 On this poem, see Serrao (1962); Chryssafis (1981); Gutzwiller (1981) 30–48; Hunter (1998); Schmitz (2012). 2 Cf. Sens (1997); Kowerski (2008). 3 Stern (1974) 354; Hunter (1996) 12.

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ject in the accusative in the first words (1 Ἡρακλέα δεκάμηνον ἐόντα) may be understood as a hymnic feature.4 Theocritus 26 is principally modeled on two messenger speeches from Euripides’ Bacchae. Its account of the dismemberment of Pentheus by his mother and aunts, however, is initially focalized by an anonymous “epic” narrator; only in the final third of the poem does the narrator interject in the first person, praying that similar misfortunes befall the unrighteous and bidding Dionysus farewell in the manner of a rhapsodic hymn. In a broad sense, Theocritus 13, 22, 24, and 26 reflect a Hellenistic interest in short, self-contained mythological narratives,5 and invite being read against Theocritus 7.45–51, where Lycidas’ stated distaste for those who vainly toil in competition with Homer and his offer to sing a “little song” that he has “produced with labor” (51 ἐξεπόνασα) oppose grand compositions in the Homeric manner to smaller, refined poetry produced by properly directed, rather than ill-spent (cf. 48 ἐτώσια μοχθίζοντι), labor. These short narratives may be read as examples of the sort of poetry Lycidas endorses;6 they thus raise the broad question of the poet’s attitude towards the literary traditions within which he operates and from which he draws, particularly towards epic poetry. At one extreme, they have been read as a critique of epic and a deflation of its values,7 but this reductive approach effaces the variability and nuance of the individual poems. Broadly speaking, Theocritus’ mythological poems appropriate (a refined version of) the language and meter of the epic tradition to explore a range of alternative perspectives on heroic and divine behavior. In this sense, they are not hostile to epic but rather call into question the privileged authority of that genre in the tradition.

4 Cf. Gutzwiller (1981) 12–16. 5 Scholars have used the term “epyllion,” “little epic,” as shorthand for a range of relatively compressed hexameter narratives from the Hellenistic period, including Theocritus’ embedded mythological narratives and short, unframed narratives like Moschus’ Europa as well as more substantial, if still relatively brief, works like Callimachus’ Hecale. This chapter avoids the question of the status of “epyllion” in the early 3rd century, for which see Gutzwiller (1981); Merriam (2001); Ambühl (2010). 6 There is little reason to credit the view of Moulton (1973) 46 that the Castor-narrative of Theocritus 22 is an example of the archaic style which the poet rejected; cf. Laursen (1992) 75–82; Cameron (1995) 432; Sens (1997) 21. 7 Effe (1978); for an excellent critique, see Zanker (1989).

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Theocritus’ Mythological Narratives in the Theocritean Corpus

One preliminary issue raised by these miniaturized mythological narratives has to do with their relationship to other parts of the Theocritean corpus. As a group, they share metrical features that affiliate them with epic and differentiate them from the bucolic poems, whose meter tends to follow Callimachean norms more closely.8 They are, moreover, closely interconnected with one another at the verbal and thematic level: 13 and 22 report episodes from the voyage of the Argo and contain similar accounts of the landing and bivouacking of the Argonauts on a strange shore; 13 and 24 present contrasting portraits of Heracles’ feats; 26 recalls and subverts the representation of motherhood in 24.9 The generic boundaries between them and other parts of the Theocritean corpus are nonetheless fluid, and they interact with the mimic poems in various ways. They thus cannot be separated too brightly from other parts of the corpus; to think about them only as examples of Hellenistic heroic narrative, a category for which our evidence is lamentably thin, misses some of their generic complexity. Most obviously, some may be read against Theocritus’ bucolic poems. In the first of the paired central narratives of 22, for example, the Dioscuri wander off from the other Argonauts on the shore of Bebrycia and find themselves in an idyllic landscape. There they encounter Amycus, depicted in terms that recall the Homeric description of the monstrous Cyclops Polyphemus in the Odyssey. But rather than exchanging the salutatory speeches that are naturally expected after an introduction in the Homeric manner (53 τὸν πρότερος προσέειπεν ἀεθλοφόρος Πολυδεύκης “him did prize-winning Polydeuces first address”; cf. Il. 5.276), Polydeuces and Amycus engage in a stichomythic dialogue unmarked by indications of speaker-changes. Such dialogue has roots in drama but most obviously assumes the existence of—and resonates against—the world of Theocritean bucolic mimes, in which herdsmen compete with one another in idyllic landscapes; here, the contest is not a singing match but a ferocious boxing match.10 There are similar generic implications in the play on Homeric speech introductions at 24.47–51, where Amphitryon, awakened by his wife, calls out an order which is repeated by one of the servant women (47–51):

8 9 10

Cf. Fantuzzi (1995a); Hunter (1996) 29–30. See below, p. 186. Thomas (1996) 232–238; Sens (1997) 119.

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δμῶας δὴ τότ’ ἄυσεν ὕπνον βαρὺν ἐκφυσῶντας· ‘οἴσετε πῦρ ὅτι θᾶσσον ἀπ’ ἐσχαρεῶνος ἑλόντες, δμῶες ἐμοί, στιβαροὺς δὲ θυρᾶν ἀνακόψατε ὀχῆας’, ‘ἄνστατε, δμῶες ταλασίφρονες· αὐτὸς ἀυτεῖ’, ἦ ῥα γυνὰ Φοίνισσα μύλαις ἔπι κοῖτον ἔχουσα. Then he cried to his servants as they were breathing deeply in heavy slumber: “Bring fire, taking it from the hearth, as quickly as possible, my servants, knock the mighty bolts from the door.” “Get up, stout-hearted servants! The master calls,” said a Phoenician woman who slept at the mills. Verse 50 seems initially to be a continuation of what precedes; only in the clausula, αὐτὸς ἀυτεῖ, is it revealed that a second speaker is passing on Amphitryon’s instructions, a reality made explicit by the epic speech-concluding formula of the next verse (cf. Il. 6.390 ἦ ῥα γυνὴ ταμίη). The blurring of the boundaries between narrative and speech perhaps reflects broader tendencies in the Hellenistic period,11 but here the momentary impression of dialogue in a domestic context is reminiscent of Theocritus’ urban mimes, which consist wholly of such conversations. Such interconnections between the mythological poems and other parts of the corpus shed light on a detail in Theocritus 26. Among the ways in which the account of the dismemberment of Pentheus in this poem departs from the Euripidean messenger speeches on which it is principally modeled (see below) is that, whereas Euripides’ messenger reports that Pentheus spied on the bacchants from a lofty pine tree in which the god himself has placed the king (Eur. Ba. 1063–1074), Theocritus’ narrative places him in a mastic bush on a “lofty rock” (10 ἀλιβάτω πέτρας ἄπο) near a meadow from which the bacchants have picked plants. The change avoids the necessity of having to explain how the bacchants dislodge him as the Euripidean messenger does in detail at Bacchae 1095–1113, and, more importantly, it finds a Euripidean antecedent in the chorus’ prediction, at Bacchae 982–983, that Agave will notice Pentheus “from a smooth rock or crag.”12 At the same time, in its context the change may also have particular generic resonance. Pentheus’ position resembles that of the fisherman who toils from a rock in the programmatic ekphrasis of 1.39–41 (πέτρα τε τέτυκται / λεπράς, ἐφ’ ᾇ … / ὁ πρέσβυς) and the lovesick, “bucolic” Cyclops of

11 12

Cf. Hunter in Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 208–209. Cusset (2001) 77.

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Theocritus 11.17–18 (καθεζόμενος δ’ ἐπὶ πέτρας / ὑψηλᾶς),13 and the entire episode is susceptible to being read as an inversion of idealized bucolic encounters, which, like the ritual of 26, typically take place on the mountainside.14 Similarly, the mythological narrative of Theocritus 13 is clearly related in its function and content to the exemplum of Theocritus 11, where Polyphemus resembles the lovelorn shepherds of the bucolic poems. In 13, the account of Heracles’ ineffectual reaction to the loss of Hylas illustrates the consolatory observation, to Theocritus’ friend Nicias, that they are not the first to love.15 In 11, Polyphemus’ plea to Galatea is similarly adduced as an example of the power of poetry to cure lovesickness. In both narratives, a traditional figure from the heroic tradition is reduced to haplessness by love, and both end up as the object of derision: that of his fellow Argonauts who mock Heracles for his ship-desertion in 13, and that of the girls whose tittering (11.78 κιχλίζοντι) the naive Cyclops mistakes for admiration at the conclusion of 11.16 The distinction between the poems, then, amounts to one of voice—in 11, the voice of the Cyclops himself, in 13, that of the “poet” who, despite his personal interest in the story, reports the episode like an impartial epic narrator.17 At the same time, the focus in 13 on the lover’s subjective response to beauty (3 οὐχ ἁμῖν τὰ καλὰ πράτοις καλὰ φαίνεται ἦμεν “we are not the first for whom that which is beautiful appears to be so”) also evokes the subjective reaction of the first-person speakers of lyric, as for example in Sappho 16 and especially 31, where the speaker’s claim that the most beautiful thing in the world is whatever one loves is set up by a foil evoking military units and illustrated by the jarring example of Helen’s abandonment of Menelaus. The porousness of the boundaries between the mimetic and narrative poems reflects a broader feature of Theocritus’ approach. In the latter group, Theocritus engages directly with epic antecedents, but he also appropriates aspects of the reception of epic, including tragic messenger speeches, lyric narrative, and his own bucolic poetry, and restores it to an epic context. For example, the messenger speech was the most “epic” feature of tragedy, as Aristotle seems to have recognized, and its diegetic authority imperfectly resembles 13 14

15 16 17

For Polyphemus as a bucolic figure see Fantuzzi (1995b) 20; Hunter (1999) 217. Line 2 εἰς ὄρος … ἄγαγον recalls the ritual cries of the chorus of bacchants at Eur. Ba. 116, 163; at the same time, the opening verses represent the bacchants’ laborious production (7 ἱερά … πεποναμένα) of rites on the mountainside in a way that evokes the work of Theocritus’ singing shepherds (cf. Theoc. 4.56 εἰς ὄρος ὅκχ’ ἕρπῃς, μὴ νήλιπος ἔρχεο, Βάττε; 7.51 ἐν ὄρει τὸ μελύδριον ἐξεπόνασα). In an amatory context, cf. Thgn. 696, Asclep. 12.50.2–4 (16 Gow-Page, Sens). Cf. Hunter (1999) 242. Cf. Payne (2007) 82.

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that of the divinely inspired epic narrator;18 Theocritus 26, in its engagement with Euripidean messenger speeches, erases the messenger and restores the anonymous voice of the epic narrator, at least until the intrusion of a firstperson rhapsodic voice in the final third of the poem. So, too, the encounter between Polydeuces and Amycus in Theocritus 22 amounts to a re-heroizing of the idealized rural landscape: in it, a reworking of the Cyclops-episode of Odyssey 9 is mediated by a reframing of the dialogue characteristic of Theocritus’ bucolic Idylls, which for their part depend on the application of epic meter and diction to shepherds. Finally, Theocritus 24 suggests its belatedness in the tradition (while telling a story that anticipates the events of the Trojan cycle and Heracles’ adult achievements) by imagining a postwar domestic setting in which a shield won by Amphitryon is recast as domestic furniture but then ironically becomes the site of a miniature “epic” battle.19

2

Theocritus’ Mythological Narratives as Ptolemaic Texts?

Although there is no unambiguous external evidence for the date or place of composition of Theocritus’ mythological narratives, it is reasonable to suspect that they were composed in Alexandria under the patronage of the Ptolemies20 and that they should be read alongside Theocritus 17 as participating in the formation and dissemination of a particular representation of the royal house: so understood, the appeal for divine favor in the hymnic endings of Theocritus 22, 24, and 26 are self-referential appeals for a reciprocally beneficial relationship with the king.21 It seems unlikely to be an accident that together these poems treat precisely those heroic and divine figures, all sons of Zeus by a mortal mother, with whom the royal family particularly associated itself. Ptolemy i Soter traced his ancestry to Heracles and Dionysus and thus to Zeus (Satyrus F 29 Schorn).22 Dionysus’ importance for Ptolemaic self-representation is illustrated by his prominence in the Great Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Ath. 5.197c–203b), in which an enormous statue of the god dwarfed those of

18 19 20 21 22

Cf. Barrett (2002). Payne (2010) 225–226. For Theocritus’ engagement with and contribution to Ptolemaic (self-)representation, see, e.g., Griffiths (1979); Stephens (2003); Hunter (2003). Cairns (1993) 13–21 raises the possibility that Theocritus 26 was performed by a chorus of Theban boys. Cf. Theoc. 17.20–27, where shared descent from Heracles further links Ptolemy to Alexander the Great; cf. Hunter (2003) 116–117; Acosta-Hughes (2014) 245.

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other divinities;23 subsequently, Ptolemy iv and his successors directly identified themselves with the god. The Dioscuri, as sibling “savior” gods who despite apparent mortal background were actually of divine descent, were intimately associated with the Ptolemies in a variety of ways. Berenice and Ptolemy i Soter were, like them, apotheosized as “savior gods,” and though the opening tableau of foundering ships at sea saved by the Dioscuri is a reworking of Homeric Hymn 33, the role played by the gods there closely resembles the protection of sailors at sea afforded by Arsinoe-Aphrodite in her cult at Zephyrium (cf. Posidippus 39, 116 Austin-Bastianini). Moreover, the appeal of devoted siblings to Ptolemy ii Philadelphus and his sister-wife Arsinoe is obvious and reflected in the fact that in Callimachus’ account of her apotheosis it is they who carry her off to the temple of Aphrodite (fr. 228 Pf.). In Theocritus 24, the astrological details of lines 11–12 seem to point precisely to a particular moment in the calendar, and it has been suggested that the poem, focusing on the precocious power of the infant Heracles, was designed for the Basileia festival of 285/4, when Ptolemy ii celebrated his birthday and was made co-regent by his father.24 Alcmene plays a particularly prominent role in the narrative: whereas in the Pindaric model, it is Amphitryon who consults Tiresias, here Alcmene summons the seer and arranges for her son’s education. Her greater role suits the poem’s focus on the domestic sphere, in which women played a larger role, but may also be understood against the importance of Berenice in the royal house as it is represented in Theocritus 17 and other early Hellenistic poems like Posidippus 88 Austin-Bastianini, where Ptolemaic familial virtue is particularly illustrated by Berenice’s extraordinary accomplishment in chariot racing.25 There is thus a prima facie case for seeing at least some of the mythological poems as reflecting on the Ptolemaic house. To the extent that this is true, however, they paint a complex picture of royal power that includes both their benefactions and their capacity for brutality against opponents, even for reasons that elude easy comprehension. Theocritus 22 is an obvious case in point. A central issue raised by the poem is the relationship of the two central narratives to one another and to the representation of the Dioscuri as savior gods in the proem. The first narrative seems to fit neatly in this framework. Polydeuces is represented as a polite visitor to a strange land who is greeted inhospitably 23 24 25

Fraser (1972) 1.194, Rice (1983), Friesen (2015) 73. See Koenen (1977) 79–86; Stephens (2003) 102, 122–146; Murray (2014) 256–258. For Alcmene in the poem, see Merriam (2001) 25–49; Acosta-Hughes (2014) 249–250 suggests that in referring to Alcmene as βασίλεια rather than βασίλισσα, Theocritus evokes a performance context at the Basileia festival.

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by the monstrous Amycus and then defeats him in the boxing match to which Amycus challenges him. In Apollonius’ related version of the story, Polydeuces kills the Bebrycian king with a vicious blow, but in the Idyll, he merely extracts a promise that Amycus will not be harsh to strangers in the future. The episode is susceptible to being read as an idealized version of Hellenization: a Greek hero travels to the east, defeats a barbarian who opposes him, but rather than killing him, teaches him the value of hospitality. He is the perfect Hellenistic gentleman, whose potential ideological resonance for the world created by the campaigns of Alexander and his successors is obvious. The second narrative, however, represents the Dioscuri very differently. That section opens abruptly with a brief narrative summary: Castor and Polydeuces have abducted the daughters of Leucippus and are being chased by their cousins, Idas and Lynceus, sons of Aphareus, to whom the girls have been betrothed. Lynceus confronts the Dioscuri in a long speech to which the twins offer no response, and he makes what seems a damning case against his rivals before challenging Castor to a duel in order to minimize bloodshed. Their fight, related in language reminiscent of Homeric battles, ends with Castor killing Lynceus from behind; when Idas tries to intervene, Zeus kills him with a thunderbolt. The apparently weak moral position of the Dioscuri and the bloodshed with which the conflict ends stand in stark opposition to Polydeuces’ gentility and mercifulness in the first narrative, and have been greeted with critical puzzlement and hostility. Wilamowitz, noting confusion in the transmitted text of line 175, sought to mitigate the apparently unfavorable treatment of Castor here by arguing that a section of text had dropped out in which Castor had explained his case; Gow, while accepting Wilamowitz’s lacuna, further adopted an analytical approach according to which the poem comprised pieces composed for other settings that had been hastily conjoined.26 Neither response is satisfactory. A series of verbal correspondences unify the narratives, and a papyrus preserving part of the second episode (P. Colon. 212, 2nd century ce) does not offer ground for believing that a substantial section of text is missing. Instead, Lynceus’ speech, though superficially compelling, also reflects his ignorance about his rivals’ divine status: most strikingly, the emphasis he places on their ancestry and his insistence on his consanguinity with them (173) is undercut by the entire Idyll, in which both Castor and Polydeuces are treated as the sons of Zeus (1) without distinction.27 Indeed, in Pindar and the Cypria, the fight with the sons of Aphareus is the occasion on

26 27

Wilamowitz (1906) 191–193; Gow (1952) 2.384–385. Cf. Sens (1996), (1997).

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which Castor, mortal son of Tyndareus, is killed, and Polydeuces, son of Zeus, appeals to his father to intervene. In Theocritus’ narrative, by contrast, there is no trace of Castor’s mortality. The narrator’s concluding observation that “it is not a light thing to fight with the Tyndarids, for they rule and were born from a ruler” (212–213 οὕτω Τυνδαρίδαις πολεμιζέμεν οὐκ ἐν ἐλαφρῷ· / αὐτοί τε κρατέουσι καὶ ἐκ κρατέοντος ἔφυσαν) recasts Pindar’s comment in the parallel position in his narrative (Nem. 10.72 “strife with their betters is hard for men to engage in” χαλεπὰ δ’ ἔρις ἀνθρώποις ὁμιλεῖν κρεσσόνων) by emphasizing their common descent from a “ruler.” It thus effaces any distinction between being a “Tyndarid” and being a “son of Zeus” and lends the twins a special status that bridges the boundary between the mortal and divine worlds. The two narratives are thus a carefully balanced and contrasting pair: in one episode, Polydeuces behaves mercifully to a stranger, in the other his brother behaves brutally and without mercy towards his own kin.28 Though Lynceus is treated with sympathy, ultimately the episode is a portrait of a human faced, like Chariclo and Tiresias in Callimachus’ Bath of Pallas, with forces he cannot understand. Together the paired episodes capture the range of divine behavior: the twins are merciful saviors, but also capable of crushing force to achieve their ends, which may not be fully comprehensible by ordinary mortals. Theocritus 26 endorses even greater brutality toward the opponents of a god. The poem includes elements from throughout the Bacchae, but it especially brings together features from two separate Euripidean speeches: the description of the peacefully resting bacchants at Bacchae 680–713, and the account of the dismemberment of Pentheus at 1043–1152. Whereas the first Euripidean messenger is an oxherd who explicitly marks his autopsy of the event (680–682 ὁρῶ δὲ θιάσους τρεῖς γυναικείων χορῶν, / ὧν ἦρχ’ ἑνὸς μὲν Αὐτονόη, τοῦ δευτέρου / μήτηρ Ἀγαύη σή, τρίτου δ’ Ἰνὼ χοροῦ “I see three bands of women’s choruses, of which Autonoe led one, your mother Agave the second, and Ino the third”), the Idyll opens as third-person diegesis by an unmarked speaker who, like the Homeric narrator, has privileged knowledge about what the god desires (26.1–9): Ἰνὼ καὐτονόα χἀ μαλοπάραυος Ἀγαύα τρεῖς θιάσως ἐς ὄρος τρεῖς ἄγαγον αὐταὶ ἐοῖσαι. χαἲ μὲν ἀμερξάμεναι λασίας δρυὸς ἄγρια φύλλα, κισσόν τε ζώοντα καὶ ἀσφόδελον τὸν ὐπὲρ γᾶς, ἐν καθαρῷ λειμῶνι κάμον δυοκαίδεκα βωμώς, τὼς τρεῖς τᾷ Σεμέλᾳ, τὼς ἐννέα τῷ Διονύσῳ. 28

Hunter (1996) 63–73.

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ἱερὰ δ’ ἐκ κίστας πεποναμένα χερσὶν ἑλοῖσαι εὐφάμως κατέθεντο νεοδρέπτων ἐπὶ βωμῶν, ὡς ἐδίδαξ’, ὡς αὐτὸς ἐθυμάρει Διόνυσος. Ino and Autonoe and apple-cheeked Agave led three companies to the mountains, being three themselves, and gathering the wild leaves of leafy oak and live ivy and the asphodel which grows on land they made twelve altars in an open meadow, three of them for Semele, nine for Dionysus. And taking from a chest the offerings that had been made with their hands they put them reverently on newly plucked altars, as Dionysus taught them, as he himself enjoyed. Theocritus converts the idyllic scene witnessed by the messenger into an orderly, carefully delineated rite, with the informal rustic beds of the play transformed into altars.29 In Euripides, the scene is interrupted by the messenger and his comrades, who are persuaded to ambush Agave and present her to Pentheus; they are discovered, and although they escape dismemberment, the bacchants go on a rampage and tear apart the grazing cows. In the same relative position in his narrative, Theocritus has substituted for this failed ambush a variation of a different moment from the Bacchae, the attack on Pentheus reported by a second messenger later in the play. The conflation of the two messenger speeches juxtaposes Pentheus’ dismemberment with the orderly practice of Dionysiac rites, here represented not, as in Euripides, as a new and unfamiliar importation in conflict with traditional religion, but as an existing practice.30 The divine newcomer of Euripides’Bacchae becomes, in Theocritus, converted into the protector of established order. Theocritus’ account of the dismemberment, moreover, emphasizes the perversion of the mother-son relationship in new and startling ways. The passage rewrites Bacchae 1139–1143, where Agave carries off her son’s head as if it were a lion’s: κρᾶτα δ’ ἄθλιον, ὅπερ λαβοῦσα τυγχάνει μήτηρ χεροῖν, πήξασ’ ἐπ’ ἄκρον θύρσον ὡς ὀρεστέρου φέρει λέοντος διὰ Κιθαιρῶνος μέσου, λιποῦσ’ ἀδελφὰς ἐν χοροῖσι μαινάδων.

29 30

For the ritual character of the language, see Cairns (1993) 5–9. Cf. Friesen (2015) 81–85.

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His mother has taken his wretched head in her hands and fixed it on the top of a thyrsus, and she carries it through the midst of Cithaeron as if it were a mountain lion’s, having left her sisters in the dances of the maenads. Whereas in Euripides Agave imagines that her son’s head is that of a lion cub, in Theocritus she is compared to a lion who has just given birth (20–21): μάτηρ μὲν κεφαλὰν μυκήσατο παιδὸς ἑλοῖσα, ὅσσον περ τοκάδος τελέθει μύκημα λεαίνας. As she took hold of her son’s head, the mother roared, as loud as is the roar of a mother lioness. The ironic comparison of a murderous mother to a mother lion, a creature whose proverbial ferocity derives from protectiveness,31 is drawn not from the Bacchae, but from the description of the soon-to-be child-killer Medea at Med. 187.32 At the same time, the passage probably evokes Alcmene’s maternal concern at 24.6, where she caresses her sons’ heads as she sings a lullaby: ἁπτομένα δὲ γυνὰ κεφαλᾶς μυθήσατο παίδων And laying hold of her children’s heads the woman spoke Each element in 26.20 corresponds, with variation, to one in 24.6: μάτηρ to γυνά, genitive singular παιδός to plural παίδων, κεφαλάν to κεφαλᾶς, the participle ἑλοῖσα at line end to ἁπτομένα at line beginning, and μυκήσατο “roared” to the phonetically similar μυθήσατο “spoke.” The relative chronology of the poems is not wholly certain, but the pathos of an allusion to Alcmene’s care of her children would be neatly ironic in an evocation of the Medea. In any case, the contrast between Agave and Alcmene—one brutally punitive, one protective—is analogous to that between Castor and Polydeuces in Theocritus 22. This literary background highlights the shocking intrusion of the narrator’s first-person voice.33 In Euripides the messenger notes that Agave’s brutal “vic31

32 33

Cf. Call. h. 6.51–52. Cusset (1997) 461 notes that the image of Agave as a lioness extends her treatment of her son as a lion, as well as the chorus’s characterization of him at Ba. 988–989. Cf. Cusset (1997) 461. Damon (1995) 115–516 distinguishes the narrator of the poem from the poet.

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tory” is a source of tears (ᾧ δάκρυα νικηφορεῖ, 1147), observes that it is “not good to rejoice over bad things that have been done” (1039–1040), and concludes his report of Pentheus’ death with the moralizing observation that temperance and piety towards the gods is the best course (1050–1051). Here, by contrast, the speaker denies feeling any sympathy, despite having previously connected Pentheus’ name to πένθημα (cf. Eur. Ba. 367–368); instead, he expresses the hope that even worse might befall the enemies of the god, even if they are very young.34 The poem concludes with a hymnic envoi to Dionysus and Semele in which the killing of Pentheus is said not to be subject to blame (36–38), in pointed contrast to the way in which it is represented at the end of the Bacchae. The various approaches scholars have taken toward the poem include reading it as a critique of Euripidean theology,35 as (conversely) an ironic deflation of the speaker’s self-righteous piety,36 or as an exploitation of possibilities already present in the Bacchae.37 The possibility that it was connected to Alexandria and the Ptolemies has sometimes been greeted with skepticism,38 but the importance of Dionysus to the court and the probable allusion to the representation of motherhood in Theocritus 24, where Alcmene’s prominence is readily understandable as reflecting Berenice’s importance in Ptolemaic selfrepresentation (above), are suggestive. Whereas in Euripides, Dionysus’ arrival poses a challenge to traditional civic and religious order, Theocritus represents the god as protecting the sanctity of well-established rites.39 In this sense, the changes he has wrought to the story as told by the playwright may be read as reflecting Ptolemy’s position as a new but firmly established divine-king and protector of religious order. The god’s brutality may be disquieting to a modern audience, but the tonal contrast between the narrative and the speaker’s first-person response to it resembles, mutatis mutandis, the contrast between the salvific role played by the Dioscuri and the narrator’s claim to be honoring them, on the one hand, and their brutality and apparent disregard for familial bonds, on the other. The capacity of the god, and of the divine-sovereign, to deal harshly with opponents is as important a part of the projection of his power as is his ability to benefit his friends (cf. Call. h. 2.25–27).

34 35 36 37 38 39

His words here find a model in the triumphalism of the chorus at Ba. 997–1116, where it asserts that death is the reward for anyone who violates the rites of Dionysus and Semele. Carrière (1958). Effe (1978). Cusset (1997). Cairns (1993) 17; Cusset (2001) 25–26. For an excellent discussion, see Friesen (2015) 72–85.

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But if Theocritus’ narratives may have political resonance, they are not simply, or even primarily, political documents. A Ptolemaic reading is hard to conceive in the case of 13, which ends with Heracles being mocked by his former crewmates as a deserter; that poem, at any rate, suggests that there is no simple or inevitable assimilation of an obviously resonant figure such as Heracles and the king. Indeed, the primary concern of the mythological narratives is in the literary tradition and the poet’s place in it. Theocritus 13 shares with the poet’s other mythological narratives an interest in heroism and its representation in literature.

3

Theocritus and the Hellenistic Hero

A particular question in this regard has to do with the relationship of the Idylls, and especially 13 and 22, to Apollonius’ Argonautica. In that epic, the stories of the loss of Hylas and Heracles from the expedition and the boxing match between Amycus and Polydeuces—which is the subject of the first long narrative of Theocritus 22—appear contiguously, the first at the end of Book 1, the second at the beginning of Book 2. The poems are clearly interconnected. Theocritus’ account of the Argonauts’ landing in Mysia in 13 and his account of their arrival in Bebrycia in 22 are similar, and both resemble Apollonius’ account of their arrival in Mysia before the loss of Hylas: ἐκβάντες δ’ ἐπὶ θῖνα κατὰ ζυγὰ δαῖτα πένοντο δειελινοί, πολλοὶ δὲ μίαν στορέσαντο χαμεύναν. λειμὼν γάρ σφιν ἔκειτο μέγα στιβάδεσσιν ὄνειαρ, ἔνθεν βούτομον ὀξὺ βαθύν τ’ ἐτάμοντο κύπειρον. theoc. 13.32–35

Disembarking onto the shore bench by bench they made dinner in the evening, and many men laid out a single bed. For a meadow lay before them, a great boon for bed-construction, where they cut sharp sedge and deep galingale. ἔνθα μιᾶς πολλοὶ κατὰ κλίμακος ἀμφοτέρων ἔξ τοίχων ἄνδρες ἔβαινον Ἰησονίης ἀπὸ νηός· ἐκβάντες δ’ ἐπὶ θῖνα βαθὺν καὶ ὑπήνεμον ἀκτήν εὐνάς τ’ ἐστόρνυντο πυρεῖά τε χερσὶν ἐνώμων. theoc. 22.30–33

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There many men left Jason’s ship down a single ladder from both sides. And going onto a deep shore and windless headland, they spread out their beds and manipulated fire-sticks in their hands. ἔνθα δ’ ἔπειθ’ οἱ μὲν ξύλα κάγκανα, τοὶ δὲ λεχαίην φυλλάδα λειμώνων φέρον ἄσπετον ἀμήσαντες στόρνυσθαι, τοὶ δ’ αὖτε πυρήια δινεύεσκον, οἱ δ’ οἶνον κρητῆρσι κέρων πονέοντό τε δαῖτα, Ἐκβασίῳ ῥέξαντες ὑπὸ κνέφας Ἀπόλλωνι. A.R. 1.1182–1186

There then some brought dried wood, others brought leaves from the meadows for bed-making, reaping it in abundance for spreading out, and still others whirled fire-sticks, and some mixed wine in mixing bowls and labored over dinner, having sacrificed at sunset to Apollo, god of disembarkation. In addition to the obvious connections among these passages, there are a number of verbal and thematic points of contact between the Theocritean and Apollonian narratives of the Hylas-episode and of the boxing match, as well as substantial differences between them. The likelihood that Theocritus and Apollonius knew one another’s compositions before their final publication in the form we have them complicates the much-debated question of relative date: it is possible that each had the other’s work in mind at various stages. Individual arguments for relative chronology are rarely compelling in isolation, since they are usually reversible. Arguments for Theocritean priority have been advanced, but the cumulative force of thematic and verbal evidence suggests that at least in their original conception Theocritus’ poems were written with the Argonautica in mind.40 Both episodes feature sons of Zeus—the Dioscuri, Heracles—who wander off from their companions. Both in the Argonautica and in Theocritus 13, Hylas goes to find water for dinner, but whereas in 13 Heracles leaves the group only out of concern for the boy, in the Argonautica his departure is independently motivated by his quest to find an oar to replace the one he has broken in the previous episode. In Theocritus 22, by contrast, no specific motivation prompts

40

See Serrao (1971) 111–150; Hunter (1996) 59–63; Hunter (1999) 271; Sens (1997) 25–31; for the contrary view, see Köhnken (1965), (2008); Cameron (1995) 430–431. For a late dating of the Argonautica, see Murray (2014).

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the departure of the Dioscuri; instead, they go off “inspecting the diverse, wild woods on the mountain” (36 παντοίην ἐν ὄρει θηεύμενοι ἄγριον ὕλην). Subsequently they encounter a locus amoenus with a spring guarded by Amycus, whom Polydeuces asks for water almost as an aside in the midst of a broader discussion about hospitality (62). The twins’ touristic interest in trees and Polydeuces’ casual interest in water from the spring make best sense if the poet is thinking of Apollonius’ version of the Hylas story, in which both Heracles’ inspection of trees and Hylas’ quest for water have specific, internally integrated motivations.41 In that case, then Theocritus 13 too will almost surely have been modeled on Apollonius. The priority of Apollonius’ epic has important implications for evaluating Theocritus’ poems. There is little ground for the view, despite its ancient roots, that Theocritus and Callimachus were hostile to the Argonautica as an example of the longer poetry they disliked.42 Instead, Theocritus 13 and 22 may be read as engaging with an opposition that traces back to the contrast between Odysseus and Achilles present already in Homer and well developed in the Argonautica. A basic dichotomy running through the Argonautica is between Heracles’ form of heroism, relying on solitary, brute force, and Jason’s more communitarian leadership, which relies less on martial strength than on exploitation of other resources, including the power of Eros.43 This opposition, rooted in the Homeric contrast between two models of heroism—one rejecting deception, the other embracing it (cf. Il. 9.308–313)—is a central theme of the boxing match in both Apollonius and Theocritus, though Apollonius’ Polydeuces, who kills his opponent with a single blow, combines elements of both types. In Theocritus 22, the Polydeuces-narrative evokes Odysseus’ boxing match with Irus in Odyssey 18, and his cunning is thus cast as Odyssean. By contrast, Lynceus’ speech noting that the Dioscuri can marry other girls than the Leucippides evokes Achilles’ own rejection of Agamemnon’s daughters at Iliad 9 on the ground that many other women are available (156–158 ~ Il. 9.395–397), and so casts Castor as a latter-day version of that hero.44 In the broadest sense, then, Theocritus’ Dioscuri together constitute paradigms of heroic behavior that are opposed in his Apollonian model.

41 42 43 44

Hunter (1991) 61; Sens (1997) 26. See e.g., Cameron (1995) 262–302. Clauss (1993), Hunter in Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 108–116. Cf. 170 ~ Il. 1.259, where Nestor tries to settle the dispute between Achilles and Agamemnon. The Castor narrative also repeatedly connects the Dioscuri by allusion to the suitors who abuse Odysseus and his household in the Odyssey (cf. Sens (1997) 180, 181–182).

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Theocritus’ treatment of the Hylas-story similarly plays with the Apollonian representation of Heracles. In Apollonius’ account, Heracles’ departure is the result of his solipsistic heroism—he breaks his oar rowing the Argo by himself and wanders off to find a tree to replace it—but is also part of a divinely sanctioned plan that leads to the completion of his labors and to his greater glory. In Theocritus, the outcome is not praise but blame and mockery, and Heracles’ frantic and ineffectual response to the loss of Hylas undercuts his heroism, at least temporarily: unlike Apollonius’, Theocritus’ Heracles seems ultimately to rejoin his comrades, but even his arrival in Colchis on foot seems to confound the divine plan for his ascension into Olympus as it is laid out in the Argonautica (1.1315–1319).45 After the grand description of Heracles as “the killer of the savage lion” at the beginning of the narrative, the reference to his sexual desire for a boy (ἤρατο παιδός) is perhaps bathetic, though not in itself inevitably critical. Over the course of the poem, however, Heracles’ heroism is revealed to be ineffectual: the incongruous simile comparing him, in his frantic response, to a lion hungering for a fawn (62–63) appropriates a common feature of epic, the comparison of ferocious warriors to lions, to show Heracles’ failure in both heroic and amatory realms; the boy he wishes to protect is assimilated in the imagery to a prospective victim.46 By the conclusion of the poem, Heracles is reduced, in the view of his heroic companions, to the status of deserter, and the subversion of his heroism is underlined with brutal humor by the pun on ἥρωες, applied to the Argonauts in line 73, in the claim in the succeeding line that Heracles “abandoned” (ἠρώησε) the Argo.47 By contrast, Hylas is elevated to the position elsewhere occupied by the deified Heracles: as a result of his misadventure, the boy is counted “among the blessed ones.”48 He thus achieves a status that Heracles had hoped for him, but he achieves it by a different route. At the opening of the narrative Heracles is said to teach Hylas the skills that made the hero a worthy subject of poetry (8 ἀοίδιμος), apparently, as the scholia observe, in the hope of making him equally famous. His training of the boy is represented as one of his labors (πόνοι; cf. 14 “so that the boy might be crafted in accordance with his desire,” ὡς αὐτῷ κατὰ θυμὸν ὁ παῖς πεποναμένος εἴη), and the larger point is that Heracles’ effort is unsuccessful.

45 46 47 48

ἵκετο in line 75 seems best understood as parallel to ἠρώησε part of the οὕνεκεν clause; cf. Mastronarde (1968) 288; Hunter (1999) 288–289. See Mastronarde (1968) 277–278; Ambühl (2010) 158. Cf. Mastronarde (1968) 287. Hunter (1999) 287 observes that 72 μακάρων ἀριθμεῖται leaves unresolved the question of whether he is in fact blessed.

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At the same time, the common Hellenistic use of πόνος and its cognates to denote poetic labor produces a self-referential irony.49 Heracles’ laborious molding of the boy is analogous to the poet’s own construction of him, but it is ultimately the latter rather than the former that endows him with glory;50 the passive boy, capable of emitting only a “thin” (ἀραιά) cry through water, achieves a status that the deep-throated hero cannot (58–60). That contrast may be understood against the programmatic opposition of size and refinement that one finds in Callimachus’ Aetia and Theocritus 7, but the deflation of Heracles’ heroism need not be understood as a serious critique of epic in general or of Apollonius’ Argonautica in particular. Instead, Theocritus engages playfully with the ancient question of the relationship of eros to heroism and of the place of eros in epic.51 Theocritus 24 plays with the literary tradition in a different way. Here, the account of Heracles’ choking of the serpents sent by Hera to kill him is closely modeled on a passage of lyric, Pindar’s treatment of the event at Nemean 1.41– 47: τοὶ μὲν οἰχθεισᾶν πυλᾶν ἐς θαλάμου μυχὸν εὐρὺν ἔβαν, τέκνοισιν ὠκείας γνάθους ἀμφελίξασθαι μεμαῶτες· ὁ δ’ ὀρθὸν μὲν ἄντεινεν κάρα, πειρᾶτο δὲ πρῶτον μάχας, δισσαῖσι δοιοὺς αὐχένων μάρψαις ἀφύκτοις χερσὶν ἑαῖς ὄφιας. ἀγχομένοις δὲ χρόνος ψυχὰς ἀπέπνευσεν μελέων ἀφάτων. The doors having been opened, they entered into the broad recess of the chamber, yearning to entwine their swift jaws about the children. He raised his head upright, and he made his first attempt at battle, snatching the two snakes by their necks with his two inescapable hands, and as they were choked, time exhaled the souls from their monstrous bodies.

49 50 51

Cf. Theoc. 7.51 τὸ μελύδριον ἐξεπόνασα with Hunter ad loc. Hunter notes the similarity of πεποναμένος to πεπλασμένον in the description of the poet Simichidas at 7.44. The failure of Heracles as a pedagogue contrasts starkly with the training Alcmene arranges for him in Theocritus 24. Mastronarde (1968) 288–289; for the ancient question of whether eros was appropriate in epic, cf. McNelis/Sens (2016) 127–128.

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Theocritus’ account of the encounter mirrors Pindar’s in its sequence and specifics.52 As in Pindar, Heracles notices the serpents, grabs them by the necks with his hands, and throttles them (26–33): ὁ δ’ ἐναντίος ἵετο χερσίν Ἡρακλέης, ἄμφω δὲ βαρεῖ ἐνεδήσατο δεσμῷ, δραξάμενος φάρυγος τόθι φάρμακα λυγρὰ τέτυκται οὐλομένοις ὀφίεσσι, τὰ καὶ θεοὶ ἐχθαίροντι. τὼ δ’ αὖτε σπείραισιν ἑλισσέσθην περὶ παῖδα ὀψίγονον, γαλαθηνὸν ὑπὸ τροφῷ, αἰὲν ἄδακρυν· ἂψ δὲ πάλιν διέλυον, ἐπεὶ μογέοιεν, ἀκάνθας δεσμοῦ ἀναγκαίου πειρώμενοι ἔκλυσιν εὑρεῖν. He rushed against them with his hands and bound both in a heavy bond, seizing them by the throat, where the grievous poison is in destructive serpents, which even the gods abhor. They wound with their coils about the child, late-born, still fed by the nurse, always tearless, and then released their spines again when they grew tired as they tried to find an escape from his fatal grip. At the stylistic level, Theocritus’ account of the fight recasts and expands Pindar’s rapid lyric narrative by adding epic features like the relative clauses τόθι φάρμακα λυγρὰ τέτυκται and τὰ καὶ θεοὶ ἐχθαίροντι and an asyndetic series of epithets (31), but the narration nonetheless moves quickly. Unlike the Pindaric model, the narrative does not immediately make clear that the snakes are dead, but delays that information by lingering on the reaction of Heracles’ parents—both of whom give speeches—and other members of the household.53 Here, the pace slows considerably. This section elaborates Pindar’s narrative, in which the reaction of Heracles’ parents is treated with a brevity and economy that suits the scale of the narrative and the haste of its principals: Alcmene rushes from bed without bothering to put on her robe, and Amphitryon arrives brandishing his unsheathed sword with other Theban leaders (Nem. 1.50–52). By contrast, Theocritus’ attention is not on the civic and military space but on the household, and the king’s adjutants are his domestic slaves rather than his comrades in arms. Alcmene, awakened by the noise, urges her husband to get up without delay, but then continues to speak for another

52 53

For a helpful table of correspondences, cf. Dover (1971) 263–264. Cf. Sistakou (2009) esp. 306–312.

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five lines in which she explains the reasons for her fear. In this context, the adjective ὀκνηρός, which suggests a delayed reaction caused by fear (cf. LSJ i.2), has a self-referential quality: like Alcmene herself, the narrative hesitates. More important, though Amphitryon’s response is immediate, it is recounted at a leisurely pace, with special attention paid to details of his armor (41–45): ὣς φάθ’· ὃ δ’ ἐξ εὐνᾶς ἀλόχῳ κατέβαινε πιθήσας· δαιδάλεον δ’ ὥρμασε μετὰ ξίφος, ὅ οἱ ὕπερθεν κλιντῆρος κεδρίνου περὶ πασσάλῳ αἰὲν ἄωρτο. ἤτοι ὅγ’ ὠριγνᾶτο νεοκλώστου τελαμῶνος, κουφίζων ἑτέρᾳ κολεόν, μέγα λώτινον ἔργον. So she spoke, and he obeyed his wife and got out of bed. He rushed for his wrought sword which always hung on a peg above his cedar couch; he reached for his newly woven baldric as he lifted the scabbard, a great work of lotus-wood, with his other hand. Amphitryon himself is not being dilatory, but the leisurely, “Homeric” armingscene (cf. e.g., Il. 3.330–339) gives the impression that he is, especially in contrast with the emphasis on the haste of other members of the household (53), and his donning of armor seems out of place in the intimate, domestic context of his bedroom. There is a playfully paradoxical contrast between two narrative modes: the martial action is recounted in an “epic” version of Pindar’s compressed lyric narrative while a more Homeric manner is deployed to report the “heroic” response in a domestic sphere. The relative brevity with which Heracles’ fight with the snakes is recounted and the juxtaposition of the martial and the domestic find close parallels elsewhere in other Hellenistic narratives, including Callimachus’ Hecale, where Theseus’ conquest of the Marathonian bull appears to have been recounted concisely and provided the foil for the more extended focus on Hecale and her household, and the opening of the third book of the elegiac Aetia, where the hospitality provided by Molorchus and his attempt to solve his mouse problem are set in juxtaposition to Heracles’ killing of a grander beast. The Idyll also exemplifies other broader tendencies of Hellenistic narrative. Its attention to Heracles’ earliest exploit reflects a Hellenistic interest in the childhoods of familiar literary figures, before the events that constituted central moments of the literary tradition, as for example in Theocritus’ treatment of the Cyclops as a lovesick young man. At the same time, the focus on Amphitryon’s household participates in a characteristically Hellenistic manner of representing the world of gods and heroes in human terms, without neces-

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sarily diminishing or undercutting their special status. In 24, the education which Alcmene arranges for Heracles is a pointedly “modern” one that includes training in letters under the tutelage of Linus, who is described in terms that evoke the labor and precision valued by Hellenistic poets (106 μελεδωνεὺς ἄγρυπνος).54 That training, whose success contrasts with the failed heroic education that Heracles himself offers to Hylas in 13, avoids the buffoonery of comic scenes of Heracles’ education (e.g., Alexis fr. 140) and some of the problematic behaviors for which he was otherwise known, including gluttony (cf. 137–139) and the murder of Linus; the lion-skin bed on which he sleeps (136) also anticipates his future exploits.55 The poem thus resembles the Polydeuces-narrative of 22 in casting its hero (and his mother) as a genteel, civilizing force. The contrasting portraits of Heracles in 13 and 24, like the opposition between Polydeuces and Castor in 22, and between Alcmene of 24 and Agave of 26, reflect the multiplicity of ways in which Theocritus transforms the mythological tradition. He does not aim to diminish or reject that tradition, but instead uses the authority vested in it as a template for exploring a range of other voices and perspectives.

Bibliography Acosta-Hughes, B. (2014), “Miniaturizing the Huge: Hercules on a Small Scale (Theocritus Idylls 13 and 24),” in M. Baumbach/S. Bär (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and its Reception (Leiden) 245–257. Ambühl, A. (2010), “Narrative Hexameter Poetry,” in J.J. Clauss/M. Cuypers (eds.), A Companion to Hellenistic Literature (Chichester) 151–165. Barrett, J. (2002), Staged Narrative: Poetics and the Messenger in Greek Tragedy (Berkeley). Cairns, F. (1993), “Theocritus, Idyll 26,” PCPhS 38, 1–38. Cameron, A. (1995), Callimachus and His Critics (Princeton). Carrière, (1958), “Théocrite et les Bacchantes,” Pallas 6, 7–19. Chryssafis, G. (1981), A Textual and Stylistic Commentary on Theocritus’ Idyll xxv (Amsterdam). Clauss, J.J. (1993), The Best of the Argonauts: The Redefinition of the Epic Hero in Book One of Apollonius’ Argonautica (Berkeley). Cusset, C. (1997), “Théocrite, lecteur d’Euripide: L’exemple des ‘Bacchantes,’” REG 110, 454–468. 54 55

Cf. Ambühl (2010) 159; Acosta-Hughes (2014) 251–252. Cf. Ambühl (2010) 159.

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Cusset, C. (2001), Les “Bacchantes” de Théocrite: Texte, corps et morceaux: édition, traduction et commentaire de l’Idylle 26 (Paris). Damon, C. (1995), “Narrative and Mimesis in the ‘Idylls’ of Theocritus,” QUCC 51, 101– 123. Dover, K.J. (1971), Theocritus: Select Poems (Basingstoke). Effe, B. (1978), “Die Destruktion der Tradition: Theokrits mythologische Gedichte,”RhM 121, 44–71. Fantuzzi, M./Hunter, R. (2004), Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge). Fantuzzi, M. (1995a), “Variazioni sull’esametro in Teocrito,” in M. Fantuzzi/R. Pretagostini (eds.), Struttura e storia dell’esametro greco (Rome) 221–264. Fantuzzi, M. (1995b), “Mythological Paradigms in the Bucolic Poetry of Theocritus,” PCPhS 41, 16–35. Fraser, P.M. (1972), Ptolemaic Alexandria, 3 vols. (Oxford). Friesen, C.J.P. (2015), Reading Dionysus: Euripides’ Bacchae and the Cultural Contestations of Greeks, Jews, Romans, and Christians (Tübingen). Gow, A.S.F. (19522), Theocritus, 2 vols. (Cambridge). Griffiths, F.T. (1979), Theocritus at Court (Leiden). Gutzwiller, K.J. (1981), Studies in the Hellenistic Epyllion (Königstein). Hunter, R. (1996), Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry (Cambridge). Hunter, R. (1998), “Before and After Epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25,” in M.A. Harder/ R.F. Regtuit/G.C. Wakker (eds.), Genre in Hellenistic Poetry (Groningen) 115– 132. Hunter, R. (1999), Theocritus: A Selection (Cambridge). Hunter, R. (2003), Theocritus: Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Berkeley). Köhnken, A. (1965), Apollonios Rhodios und Theokrit. Die Hylas- und die Amykosgeschichten beider Dichter und die Frage der Priorität (Göttingen). Köhnken, A. (2008), “Hellenistic Chronology. Theocritus, Callimachus, and Apollonius Rhodius,” in Th. Papanghelis/A. Rengakos (eds.), A Companion to Apollonius Rhodius (Leiden) 73–92. Koenen, L. (1977), Eine agonistische Inschrift aus Ägypten und frühptolemäische Königsfeste (Meisenheim am Glan). Koenen, L. (1983), “Die Adaptation ägyptischer Königsideologie am Ptolemäerhof,” in E. Van’t Dack/P. Van Dessel/W. Van Gucht (eds.), Egypt and the Hellenistic World (Leuven) 143–190. Kowerski, L.M. (2008), “A Competition in Praise: An Allusion to Simon. fr. 11 W2 in Theoc. ‘Id.’ 22.214–23,” Mnemosyne 61, 568–585. Laursen, S. (1992), “Theocritus’ Hymn to the Dioscuri: Unity and Intention,” Class. et Med. 4 (1992) 71–95. Mastronarde, D.J. (1968), “Theocritus’ Idyll 13: Love and the Hero,” TAPA 99, 273–290.

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McNelis, M./Sens, A. (2016), The Alexandra of Lycophron: A Literary Study (Oxford). Merriam, C.U. (2001), The Development of the Epyllion Genre through the Hellenistic and Roman Periods (Queenston). Moulton, C. (1973), “Theocritus and the Dioscuri,” GRBS 14, 41–47. Murray, J. (2014), “Anchored in Time: The Date in Apollonius’ Argonautica,” in M.A. Harder/R.F. Regtuit/G.C. Wakker (eds.), Hellenistic Poetry in Context (Leuven) 247–283. Payne, M. (2007), Theocritus and the Invention of Fiction (Cambridge). Payne, M. (2010), “The Bucolic Fiction of Theocritus,” in J.J. Clauss/M. Cuypers, (eds.), A Companion to Hellenistic Literature (Chichester) 224–237. Rice, E.E. (1983), The Grand Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Oxford). Schmitz, T. (2012), “Herakles in Bits and Pieces: Id. 25 in the Corpus Theocriteum,” in M. Baumbach/S. Bär (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and its Reception (Leiden) 259–282. Sens, A. (1996), “A Man of Many Words: Lynceus as Speaker in Theoc. 22,” in M.A. Harder/R.F. Regtuit/G.C. Wakker (eds.), Theocritus (Groningen) 187–204. Sens, A. (1997), Theocritus: Dioscuri (Göttingen). Serrao, G. (1962), Il carme xxv del Corpus Teocriteo (Rome). Serrao, G. (1971), Problemi di poesia alessandrina, i: Studi su Teocrito (Rome). Sistakou, E. (2009), “‘Snapshots’ of Myth: The Notion of Time in Hellenistic Epyllion,” in J. Grethlein/A. Rengakos (eds.), The Content of Narrative Form in Ancient Literature (Berlin) 293–319. Stephens, S.A. (2003), Seeing Double: Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria (Berkeley). Stern, J. (1974), “Theocritus’ Idyll 24,” TAPA 95, 348–361. Thomas, R. (1996), “Genre through Intertextuality: Theocritus to Virgil and Propertius,” in M.A. Harder/R.F. Regtuit/ G.C. Wakker (eds.), Theocritus (Groningen) 227–245. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von (1906) Textgeschichte der griechischen Bukoliker (Berlin). Zanker, G. (1989), “Current Trends in the Study of Hellenic Myth in Early Third-Century Alexandrian Poetry: The Case of Theocritus,” A&A 35, 83–103.

chapter 8

Generic Experimentation in the Epigrams of “Theocritus” Taylor S. Coughlan

Greek literary epigram was a capacious genre, expanding the boundaries of its inscriptional models to accommodate language, motifs, and themes from various other literary traditions. Indeed, this self-conscious engagement with and commentary on the literary tradition is one of the essential qualities of epigram that made it appealing both in antiquity and even still today. Theocritean bucolic, in particular, received a good deal of attention from literary epigrammatists in no small part because of the genre’s establishment of an “appealing, coherent, distinctive fictional world,” as Nita Krevans has recently recognized.1 This fictional world is reinforced by the presence of repeating stock characters (e.g., Daphnis and Thyrsis), a timeless pastoral setting, stable plots and scenarios, and a distinctive linguistic register.2 Theocritean bucolic, in other words, is particularly well suited for appropriation, adaptation, and commentary.3 The process of epigrammatic engagement with Theocritean bucolic began almost immediately. Take, for instance, Callimachus’ bucolic lament for the Cretan goatherd Astakides (Callimachus 36 HE = AP 7.518):4 Ἀστακίδην τὸν Κρῆτα τὸν αἰπόλον ἥρπασε Νύμφη ἐξ ὄρεος, καὶ νῦν ἱερὸς Ἀστακίδης. οὐκέτι Δικταίῃσιν ὑπὸ δρυσίν, οὐκέτι Δάφνιν ποιμένες, Ἀστακίδην δ’ αἰὲν ἀεισόμεθα. A nymph snatched Astakides the Cretan goatherd from the mountain, and now he is holy Astakides. No longer under Dictean oaks, no longer shall we herdsmen sing of Daphnis, but always of Astakides.5 1 Krevans (2016) 298. 2 On Theocritus and the creation of the first “fully fictional” world, see Payne (2007). On Theocritean dialect, see Hunter (1996) 31–45 and Tribulato, this volume. 3 The bibliography on post-Theocritean appropriations of bucolic is massive and ever increasing, helpful introductions to the field include Bernsdorff (2006); Fantuzzi (2006); and Reed (2006). See also the contributions of Kyriakou, Breed, Karakasis, and Bowie, this volume. 4 On the poem, see Larson (1997); Bing (2009); and Krevans (2016). 5 All translations are my own, unless noted otherwise. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004466715_010

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In his treatment of the epigram, Peter Bing convincingly argued that the point of the poem lies in its “gently mocking” response to Idyll 1.6 Here the poetic speaker proclaims that he and his fellow Cretan herdsmen will no longer (l. 3: οὐκέτι … οὐκέτι) sing of Daphnis (and his tragic death), the famous subject of Thyrsis’ song in Idyll 1. Creatively deploying the figure of anaphora bucolica, especially prominent in Thyrsis’ lament, Callimachus has his herdsmen underline their rejection of the Theocritean bucolic hero.7 This bucolic retort to Theocritean poetics is further emphasized by Callimachus’ studied avoidance of Doric dialectal features, which is even more overt given the Cretan identity of the subject and speaker.8 From one perspective, Callimachus writes a bucolic epigram that is decidedly outside of and apart from the world of Theocritean bucolic. Through its dialect, setting, and subject, the poem makes clear that this is not a work of or by Theocritus. But what would it look like if one tried to write a “Theocritean” epigram? How can epigram accommodate the self-contained fictional world of Theocritean bucolic to the small scope of epigram? Among others, the six bucolic epigrams transmitted under the name of Theocritus, which are the focus of this chapter, provide a fascinating study in the history of Theocritean reception. The Ambrosian family of the bucolic manuscripts transmits twenty-two epigrams ascribed to Theocritus.9 The authenticity of these poems is debated and a consensus on those epigrams to be considered Theocritean is unlikely to be reached.10 Theocritus is not listed among the poets incorporated into Meleager’s Garland; however, Meleager favored particular themes and authors, which has since significantly shaped our understanding of Hellenistic literary epigram, and thus the omission of Theocritus cannot necessarily be used as a terminus post quem for the composition of the epigrams. It appears that epigrams circulating under the name of Theocritus were known by the time of Virgil, based on several allusions in his Eclogues, but in what form Virgil knew these

6 7 8 9

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Bing (2009) 102–105. Bing (2009) 103–104; Pfeiffer (1949–1951) 2.86 first observed the figure. Krevans (2016) 303: “Its dialect is aggressively unDoric.” On dialect as a marker of ethnic and poetic identity in epigram, see Coughlan (2020). These epigrams and five others (23–27 Gow) are also transmitted in the Greek Anthology with some confusion in ascription, notably the series AP 7.658–7.664 (15, 7, 9, 11, 16, 20, and 21 Gow) is erroneously ascribed to Leonidas of Tarentum. On the manuscripts and transmission history of these epigrams, see Helmbold (1938); Gow (1952) 2.523–527; Smutny (1955); Gallavotti (1986); Cameron (1993) 140–144; Gutzwiller (1996); Rossi (2001) 361–375. For a summary of the various scholarly opinions, see Rossi (2001) 355–359 with bibliography.

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poems is impossible to reconstruct with any certainty.11 Despite these barriers to our understanding of the paternity and circulation of the epigrams ascribed to Theocritus, it is generally agreed upon by scholars that the collection contains epigrams that postdate the third century bce, and thus constitute part of the Theocritean Nachleben. While recognizing the possibility that some of the bucolic epigrams could be authentic compositions by Theocritus, I approach these six epigrams as very plausibly the products of later imitators.12 The collection of epigrams in the bucolic manuscripts displays evidence of purposeful and artistic arrangement by a later editor.13 Most scholars divide the collection into three distinct groupings of epigrams—i) epigrams on bucolic themes (1–6 Gow); ii) a mixture of elegiac epitaphic, dedicatory, and epideictic epigrams (7–16 Gow); and iii) polymetric epigrams, primarily on poets (17–22 Gow)—while at the same time recognizing that thematic, formal, and linguistic features bridge and link these groups.14 For example, the first section of bucolic poems opens and closes with epigrams whose form and language are drawn from the traditional features of dedicatory (1 Gow = AP 6.336) and sepulchral (6 Gow = AP 9.432) epigram respectively. The sepulchral motifs of the final bucolic epigram on the death of Thyrsis’ favorite goat then serve as a bridge to the central section of epigrams whose first poem (7 Gow = AP 7.659) is an epitaph for the son of a certain Eurymedon.15 In a similar fashion, the central section of the sylloge closes with an epitaph for a young girl (16 Gow = AP

11

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13 14

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On Virgil and the Theocritean epigrams, see Segal (1976); Gutzwiller (1996); and Rossi (2001) 363–370. Gutzwiller (2019) 362 “now consider[s] it possible, even if some epigrams may be spurious, that Theocritus himself formed such a poetry book.” Among the remaining epigrams in the sylloge, the polymetric epigrams on poets have a better probability of being original Theocritean compositions, since it appears that epigrams in lyric meters are primarily a feature of third-century bce epigram; cf. Dale (2010). Based on the subtle handling of the interplay of epigrammatic subgenres in many of the poems, Sens (2020) 192 concludes that “there is no reason to exclude Theocritean authorship” for most of the epigrams and declares that Theocritus 8 Gow “is almost certainly genuine.” For discussion of the evidence and various possible reconstructions of the collection preserved in the bucolic corpus, see the scholarship cited in n. 14. On the organization of the collection, see Gutzwiller (1998) 42–45; Szepessy (1994); Rossi (2001) 361–375; Stanzel (2007) 347–350; and Hasegawa (2016). The variety of themes, content, and formal features may also reflect a recognition by the collection’s editor of the polyeideia of Theocritean poetry (cf. Hunter 1996); see the observation of Bing (1988) 188 that the subjects of Theocritean epigrams on statues of poets all “represent a genre favored by Theocritus himself.” The same man is likely commemorated in a companion piece (15 Gow = AP 7.658) towards the section’s conclusion; see Kirstein (2002).

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7.662), whose mournful lament of the deceased echoes the consolation directed at Thyrsis in 6 Gow at the end of the bucolic section of epigrams before the final sequence of polymetric epigrams on poets. Indeed, analysis of the editorial arrangement of this collection has produced some of the most stimulating treatments of this corpus in the literature to date. Apart from their importance in reconstructing the history of ancient poetry collections, the epigrams of Theocritus have remained on the margins of Theocritean scholarship, generally cited for examples of parallel language and thought, even as the pseudo-Theocritean Idylls and the development of postTheocritean bucolic have received increased critical interest.16 Studies of the literary epigrams, with some exceptions, have taken note of the poems in as much as they shed light on the vexing question of bucolic epigram.17 Otherwise, until recently scholars have dismissed them as mechanical, failed exercises in accommodating Theocritean themes, style, and language to epigram.18 Rather than criticizing these poems for what they are not—Theocritean bucolic Idylls in miniature—it is much more productive to meet them on their own terms as epigrams that engage with, comment on, and supplement the bucolic world of Theocritus that serves as their primary source material. On this point, the epigrams ascribed to Theocritus, problems of authenticity and chronology aside, share in common with the bucolic epigrams of third-century poets, such as Anyte and Leonidas, an interest in exploring the boundaries of the epigrammatic genre,19 though here the focus is directed specifically at the intersection of epigram and the corpus of Theocritean bucolic. In this chapter, then, I examine the bucolic epigrams of Theocritus as experiments in writing the self-contained fictional world of Theocritean bucolic into the small scope of epigram. In particular, I am interested in how these poets, as readers of Theocritus (since not all, and possibly none, of the poems are by Theocritus), adapt canonical Theocritean characters to their new epigrammatic surroundings, and negotiate and play with the conventions of Theo-

16 17

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See the discussions and bibliography in the chapters of Kyriakou, Breed, and Karakasis, this volume. What defines bucolic epigram has been debated for over a century; cf. Whitmore (1918). Important recent discussions of this topic include Bernsdorff (2001) 91–179; Rossi (2001) 29–73; Sens (2006); Stanzel (2007); and Krevans (2016). See, for example, the comments of Rossi (2001) 139 on 2 Gow as a “mechanical imitation” of Theocritean bucolic Idylls that “betrays the hand of a clumsy” poet or Gow (1952) 2.532 on 5 Gow as a “pastiche from T[heocritus]” lacking in any poetical value. Sens (2006).

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critean bucolic. In the primary discussion to follow, I will treat the six bucolic epigrams in the same order as they are transmitted in the bucolic manuscripts. This arrangement, however, does not reflect an assumption on my part that any of these epigrams were expressly composed with another in mind; rather their organization by a later editor, in some instances, helps elucidate particular points to which I wish to call attention. I conclude the discussion by considering briefly examples of non-bucolic intergeneric and intrageneric play in the epigrams beyond the important bucolic sequence. The sylloge of epigrams opens with a tableau of dedications of pastoral items to the Muses and Apollo (Theocritus 1 Gow = AP 6.336). Prior research has focused on the possible programmatic significance of the poem given its form as a dedication to the gods of poetry and the presence of allusions to several earlier poetic traditions.20 Equally of interest is the epigram’s synthesis of formal features from epigram and bucolic, since it has an important bearing upon our appreciation of the voice of the poem: τὰ ῥόδα τὰ δροσόεντα καὶ ἁ κατάπυκνος ἐκείνα ἕρπυλλος κεῖται ταῖς Ἑλικωνιάσιν· ταὶ δὲ μελάμφυλλοι δάφναι τίν, Πύθιε Παιάν, Δελφὶς ἐπεὶ πέτρα τοῦτό τοι ἀγλάισε· βωμὸν δ’ αἱμάξει κεραὸς τράγος οὗτος ὁ μαλός, τερμίνθου τρώγων ἔσχατον ἀκρεμόνα. Dew-drenched roses and this tufted thyme is dedicated to the Heliconians; for you, Pythian Apollo, dusky-leaved laurels since your Delphian rock has adorned itself with it; but this here white, horned goat, nibbling on the lowest-hanging branch of the terebinth, will bloody the altar. The epigram begins as a votive dedication, whose pastoral character is reminiscent of the bucolic dedicatory epigrams of Anyte and Leonidas, early innovators in the introduction of epigram to pastoral motifs. While we are not provided the name of the dedicator, the dedication is expressed in the third person and so pretends to be an inscription.21 The epigraphic nature of the poem recedes in

20 21

Gutzwiller (1998) 42–43; Rossi (2001) 123–126. The epigram has also been interpreted as an ekphrastic caption to a work of art, perhaps in a similar fashion to the bucolic vignettes accompanied by inscribed verses like those from the House of the Epigrams at Pompeii; cf. Wilamowitz (1906) 120 and Gow (1952) 2.527–528.

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the final couplet. The focus of the epigram shifts from present to the future, and here “we arrive emphatically in the world of herdsmen.”22 Consequently, the identity of the epigrammatic voice shifts and becomes unstable. Is the reader to imagine, for instance, that the voice is emanating from an inscription or a herdsman as he performs the dedication? The description of the goat is distinctly Theocritean. The phrase κεραὸς τράγος echoes the description of the goat that Pan would take as a prize for placing first in piping at the programmatic opening speech of Thyrsis in Idyll 1 (4: αἴ κα τῆνος ἕλῃ κεραὸν τράγον, “If [Pan] should select the horned goat”).23 Also Theocritean is the placement of a color epithet in the attributive position, sometimes in combination with a deictic.24 This type of phraseology is used by bucolic herdsmen in Theocritus when referring to members of their flock and functions “to create a sort of mimetic/colloquial framework.”25 The tense of αἱμάξει echoes the future verbs used by Thyrsis and the goatherd in the opening exchange of Idyll 1 where they establish the prizes for the singing contest. The description, then, of the sacrificial goat has several hallmarks of the speech of Theocritean herdsmen. The formal inscriptional voice of the dedicatory opening of the epigram has blended with the mimetic speech of a bucolic herdsman, resulting in a related shift from the permanence of epigraphic language to the impermanence of song.26 Such a revelation reorients our interpretation of the epigram as a whole. What we once imagined to be an inscription transforms into a miniature scene of bucolic discourse; the originally inscriptional deictic in the first line now resonates, like its counterpart at line five, as a bucolic mannerism used for indicating features on the pastoral landscape. Indeed, this change in the perspective of the epigram may well explain the absence of the name of the “dedicator” noted above: since the herdsman is describing a scene of pastoral dedication, he does not need to say his own name. Thus with this change in the identity of the epigrammatic speaker, the poem self-consciously calls attention to its experimentation with

22 23 24

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Stanzel (2007) 347. Rossi (2001) 127–128. Cf. Id. 4.20 (χὠ ταῦρος ὁ πυρρίχος) and Id. 5.147 (οὗτος ὁ λευκίτας ὁ κορυπτίλος). The association of this phraseology with Theocritus, and particularly the speech of bucolic herdsmen, is reinforced by its appearance in the spurious Idyll 8 (l. 27: ὁ κύων ὁ φάλαρος). Rossi (2001) 127–128. Rossi (2001) 127. Sens (2020) 198 observes on the use of deictic pronouns that they “are as appropriate to the voice of a herdsman as to that of a viewer of a representation” or, I would add, an inscription. On the intersection of the inscriptional and bucolic and its relationship to permanence and impermanence see the discussion of Theocritus Gow 4 below.

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the intersection of the generic conventions of bucolic and epigram,27 which is itself programmatic for the sequence of poems that follows. The four central epigrams in the bucolic sequence of the sylloge share in common the figure of Daphnis, whom the poet(s) use as a touchstone for the experimentations with the Theocritean canon. In Theocritus 2 Gow = AP 6.177, a young and handsome Daphnis makes a dedication of bucolic objects to Pan: Δάφνις ὁ λευκόχρως, ὁ καλᾷ σύριγγι μελίσδων βουκολικοὺς ὕμνους, ἄνθετο Πανὶ τάδε, τοὺς τρητοὺς δόνακας, τὸ λαγωβόλον, ὀξὺν ἄκοντα, νεβρίδα, τὰν πήραν ᾇ ποκ’ ἐμαλοφόρει. Fair-skinned Daphnis, who plays bucolic hymns on his beautiful pipes, dedicated these items to Pan: pierced reeds, a staff, a sharpened spear, fawn skin, and a knapsack in which he once used to carry apples. It has been observed that the epigram engages with “tools-of-the-trade” dedications in which a professional pledges their equipment upon retirement.28 This generic subtype was likely popularized by Leonidas of Tarentum, whose works evince an interest in the lives of the working and lower classes. Unlike Leonidas’ humble urban craftsmen, whose dedications are motivated by old age, the young Daphnis likely makes his dedication to Pan for the sake of love. The epithet λευκόχρως in line 1, a rare compound primarily used to describe the pale complexion desired in unmarried maidens,29 both signals the erotic atmosphere of the epigram and underscores the contrast between Daphnis and the standard subjects of these retirement dedications.30 At the epigram’s close, the description of Daphnis’ knapsack (πήραν), “the final, longest, and thus emphasized item” in the list, reinforces the dual motifs of retirement and love.

27

28 29

30

Sens (2020) 198 reaches a similar conclusion: “the epigram is a generic experiment in which dedicatory features are integrated into a rustic scene that plays on the existence of Theocritean bucolic.” Gow (1952) 2.528; cf. Tarditi (1988) 47; and Stanzel (2007) 347. Rossi (2001) 133 questions the influence of retirement dedications. Cf. Alexis fr. 98 and Eubulus fr. 35. Menander applies a related form of the epithet to a male character, Moschion, in his Sikyonioi (l. 200: λευκόχρω[ν), where it takes on a pejorative sense, marking out the rival suitor as physically and socially undesirable; cf. Witzke (2016) 58–59. Arland (1937) 73 first recognized the erotic dimension of the epithet, although he incorrectly identified Daphnis as an eromenos (followed by Bernsdorff (2001) 159), rather than in his more conventional role of erastes.

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Daphnis “once” (ποκ’)—thus suggesting this is no longer the case—used this item to transport apples, which invariably serve as love tokens in Theocritus.31 Like a prostitute with her spurs, Daphnis has hung up his pouch of love tokens, from which he used to gently toss apples at those young women who caught his attention, and “retired” from love.32 But what does it mean for Daphnis, who is a lover by nature, to retire from love? Thyrsis’ song (ὕμνον) in Idyll 1 provides one possible outcome: death. Our epigram appears to recall this model in the mannered bucolic style of its first couplet. The description of Daphnis as one “who pipes on a fair syrinx” (ὁ καλᾷ σύριγγι μελίσδων) in the second half of line 1 is constructed out of language drawn from Idyll 1’s famous opening lines (2: μελίσδεται) and, more significantly, from the cowherd’s “deathbed dedication” (Id. 1.128–130), which Gow has suggested as a possible inspiration for our epigram. There Daphnis asks Pan to come to his side and take his syrinx, which is “fragrant from its congealed wax, wrapped well around its lip” (πακτοῖο μελίπνουν / ἐκ κηρῶ σύριγγα καλὸν περὶ χεῖλος ἑλικτάν) since he is dying from love (ἦ γὰρ ἐγὼν ὑπ’ Ἔρωτος ἐς Ἅιδαν ἕλκομαι ἤδη, “For in truth I am drawn now by Eros into Hades”).33 Indeed, the echoes of Idyll 1 in the first line may well resonate in the choice of ὕμνους at line 2 to qualify the type of song Daphnis sings. The use of the term is unexpected in conjunction with the programmatic adjective βουκολικός, which is applied only to ἀοιδά and Μοῖσα in Theocritus’ authentic Idylls, and so may call attention to its presence.34 The use of ὕμνος to refer to song is absent in the bucolic Idylls except for its use at Idyll 1.61. The unnamed goatherd promises Thyrsis that he will shower him with presents if Thyrsis will sing a “lovely song” (τὸν ἐφίμερον ὕμνον) in exchange, and the marked deployment of ὕμνος underlines the solemnity of the song’s topic. While the use of βουκολικός is a bit graceless, there may well be a particular resonance in having Daphnis envisioned as singing the same sort of serious song as Thyrsis did of Daphnis’ own erotic-tragic death in Idyll 1.35 If

31 32

33 34 35

The quote is from Gutzwiller (1983) 178 and the examples of apples as love tokens in Theocritus are collected in n. 26. Compare the dedication of professional accessories by a love-struck goatherd in Lycophronides PMG 844, which is a further possible model for the exploration of the incompatibility of love and the bucolic lifestyle at Theocritus 2 Gow; see LeVen (2014) 231 and Fantuzzi (2017) 332–334. Gow (1952) 2.528; cf. Eratosthenes AP 6.78, an imitation of Theocritus 2 Gow, where Daphnis is described as “wretched in love” (δύσερως), an epithet itself borrowed from Id. 1.85. Fantuzzi-Hunter (2005) 142 with n. 37. More commonly bucolic singers in Theocritean Idylls describe their songs as μέλη; cf. Gow (1952) 2.15. We may compare this playful reworking of Idyll 1 with that discussed in relation to the description of an exhausted Daphnis in 3.1–2 Gow below at 207–208.

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we accept Daphnis’ offer of his syrinx to Pan in Idyll 1 as an inspiration for this epigram, then we can better appreciate how the author of the epigram cleverly appropriated the motif of dedications given on the occasion of a retirement and then applied it to the final moments of the life of the hero-singer. In doing so, he eschewed a more straightforwardly epigrammatic writing of Daphnis’ death in the form of an epitaph. The motif of hunting suggested by some of the items dedicated by Daphnis in 2 Gow becomes the centerpiece of 3 Gow = AP 9.338, an epigram that supplements the Theocritean narratives involving Daphnis. Here a sleeping Daphnis, now in the role of eromenos, is the erotic prey of Pan and Priapus: εὕδεις φυλλοστρῶτι πέδῳ, Δάφνι, σῶμα κεκμακός ἀμπαύων· στάλικες δ’ ἀρτιπαγεῖς ἀν’ ὄρη· ἀγρεύει δέ τυ Πὰν καὶ ὁ τὸν κροκόεντα Πρίηπος κισσὸν ἐφ’ ἱμερτῷ κρατὶ καθαπτόμενος, ἄντρον ἔσω στείχοντες ὁμόρροθοι. ἀλλὰ τὺ φεῦγε, φεῦγε μεθεὶς ὕπνου κῶμα †καταγρόμενον†. You sleep on a leave-strewn ground, Daphnis, resting your exhausted body; and the stakes are just now set up on the mountains; but Pan and Priapus, who fastened a saffron ivy wreath on his lovely head, hunt for you, marching together into the cave. But you run, run abandoning the overpowering (?) depths of sleep. To the degree that previous scholarship has paid attention to this epigram, it has focused on the difficulty of its classification within an epigrammatic subgenre. Based on evidence from vase paintings of similar scenes of Pan chasing a rustic character, the epigram has been interpreted as a caption to a piece of art.36 Finding few parallels for the scene, particularly the concluding interjection of an “off-stage voice,” Rossi classed the epigram as a bucolic “vignette” based on its apparent focus on narrative over description.37 While the Du-Stil address may be interpreted as providing a visual frame for the bucolic scene, there are no particular markers (e.g., deictics) in the epigram that necessarily characterize it as ekphrastic; rather the blurring of generic distinctions is central to the epigram’s purpose and interpretation.38 I wish to demonstrate that this epigram enacts a playful and self-conscious poetic “mash-up” of bucolic 36 37 38

Cf. Gow (1952) 2.529 with Beazley citation and Tarditi (1988) 47–48. Rossi (2001) 142. Rossi (2001) 141.

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narrative, primarily inspired by Idyll 1, with erotic/sympotic epigram. Let us begin with the opening verb εὕδεις, which can suggest both the recuperative act of sleep and/or sexual congress (cf. Od. 8.337 or Thgn. 1063) and the metaphorical “sleep” of death. Thus at first the reader is left uncertain as to the thematic core of the epigram—whether it is funerary or erotic. Indeed, it is quite likely that the use of εὕδεις in 3 Gow plays with the semantic ambiguity of the term, particularly when found in relation to Daphnis in whose figure the motifs of erotic desire and death overlap. Elsewhere in epigram, the verb εὕδεις appears twice in the same epigram-initial position at Antipater 16 HE = AP 7.29, an epigram for Anacreon (εὕδεις ἐν φθιμένοισιν, “you sleep among the dead”), and Meleager 36 HE = AP 5.174, an erotic epigram addressed to a sleeping Zenophila (εὕδεις, Ζηνοφίλα, τρυφερὸν θάλος, “you are asleep, Zenophila, tender bud”).39 Meleager appears to acknowledge the dual resonances of “sleep,” since the final wish of the poetic speaker to hold Zenophila (l. 4: κάτεχον δ’ αὐτὸς ἐγώ σε μόνος, “I myself alone held you”) may recall a conventional expression found in epitaphs (e.g., “I (the tomb) hold (ἔχω) X”). Similarly, some of the pleasure of the remainder of the epigram resides in decoding the various markers (e.g., hunter-hunted) of the predominant erotic motif. While, then, it is impossible to know the relationship between our epigram and the erotic epigram of Meleager, it is appealing to read the use of εὕδεις as establishing an erotic gaze.40 The description of the exhausted Daphnis that takes up the remainder of the first couplet establishes the scene as taking place in a version of the bucolic world of Idyll 1. As Rossi observed, the poet introduces the exhausted and vulnerable Daphnis with a citation of language from early in Idyll 1, and so conspicuously places his own narrative into conversation with a famous Theocritean model.41 The expression σῶμα κεκμακός / ἀμπαύων echoes that used by the unnamed goatherd to describe a fatigued Pan (Id. 1.16–17: ἦ γὰρ ἀπ’ ἄγρας / τανίκα κεκμακὼς ἀμπαύεται, “for worn out from the hunt then he rests”), whom he fears to awaken from his siesta should he play his pipes at the invitation of Thyrsis.42 In doing so, the poet underlines his reworking of the Theocritean model: whereas the goatherd refuses to pipe in fear of awaken-

39 40 41 42

See also the fragmentary Philodemean (?) epigram incipit, εὕδεις Καλλικρα(), at P.Oxy. 3724 iii.20, which is plausibly interpreted as erotic or sepulchral. It is possible, though not necessary, to interpret this erotic gaze as mediated through an ekphrastic framework. Rossi (2001) 151–152. Tarditi (1988) 48, who also detects an echo of the invitation to rest directed at a weary traveler from the bucolic Anyte AP 9.313 (ὄφρα … φίλα γυῖα / ἀμπαύσῃς, “so that you may rest your dear limbs”), and Rossi (2001) 152.

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ing Pan, here disrupting the sleep of Daphnis is the solution for staving off the erotic advances of Pan and Priapus. Elaborating on the first couplet, the remainder of the poem further joins the erotic and bucolic. Daphnis, just returned from preparations for the hunt (l. 2: στάλικες δ’ ἀρτιπαγεῖς ἀν’ ὄρη), has now become the hunted, a popular Hellenistic erotic motif that is especially suitable within the pastoral setting of the epigram. In dress and movement, however, the hunters of Daphnis are described as if they have just stumbled out of a symposium. Priapus’ headwear receives particular emphasis, its description taking up much of the central couplet. The wreath is made out of saffron-colored ivy, a plant associated with the realms of love and intoxication and which is a standard component of wreaths worn during symposia.43 In a doubtlessly comic contrast, Pan and Priapus march (στείχοντες) not into the streets and to the door of a beloved, but instead to the mouth of the cave where Daphnis rests. Further, the bucolic komos of Pan and Priapus to Daphnis’ cave playfully “de-tragicizes,” to reuse a phrase of Marco Fantuzzi, Priapus’ deathbed visit to Daphnis in Idyll 1, and thus underlines the erotic appropriation of bucolic material.44 The closing call to Daphnis to awaken from his sleep and flee echoes the hunting motif at the poem’s beginning, and emphasizes the erotic tenor of the poem, particularly if one accepts Gallavotti’s emendation of the difficult final line (φεῦγε μεθεὶς ⟨ἔρρον⟩ κῶμα κατ’ ἀκρεμόνων),45 which would partially evoke Sappho 2 PLF (l. 7–8: αἰθυσσομένων δὲ φύλλων κῶμα καταίρει [Gallavotti prints κατέρρον], “deep sleep swoops out of the shimmering leaves”).46 The description of Daphnis’ sleep as a ὕπνου κῶμα may also recall the state of pleasurable rest afforded by bucolic song. In a bucolic epigram ascribed to Plato on a statue of Pan (Plato FGE 16 = APl 13), the god instructs a passerby to sit down in the shade of a pine tree alongside a spring where his piping “will bring a κῶμα upon your enchanted eyelids” (ll. 3– 4: σῦριγξ / θελγομένων ἄξει κῶμα κατὰ βλεφάρων). While bucolic song acts as a soporific, “love,” as Marco Fantuzzi recently observed, “usually does not let the lovers of erotic poetry sleep.”47 In this regard, the epigrammatic lover’s closing

43 44 45

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Rossi (2001) 149 with bibliography; for a similar wreath in a sympotic context see Nicaenetus 5 HE = AP 13.29.5. For the term, see Fantuzzi (2016) on love in post-Theocritean bucolic epigram. Gow (1952) 2.529–530 rejects καταγρόμενον as an irregular form of καταγρέω (-ημι) on the grounds that it is “unsatisfactory both in form and voice” and considers Toup’s καταχρόμενον, which suggests Daphnis has only just fallen asleep, as the “most satisfactory” emendation. Gallavotti (1986) 103. Fantuzzi (2016) 290.

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command for Daphnis to awaken from his slumber may take on a metapoetic dimension as a self-referential comment on the intrusion of the erotic literary tradition of epigram into the world of Theocritean bucolic. The blurring of boundaries between the bucolic and epigrammatic in the epigrams ascribed to Theocritus perhaps takes its most fully realized form in Theocritus 4 Gow = AP 9.437, an eighteen-line poem that sends an unnamed addressee/the reader on an important errand. The poem opens with directions to the location of a recently carved and roughly hewn fig-wood statuette of Priapus, which not only evokes dedicatory epigram, including specifically Greek Priapea, but scholars since Wilamowitz have also adduced several inscriptional verse parallels for the motif of guiding a traveler (ll. 1–4):48 τήναν τὰν λαύραν τόθι ταὶ δρύες, αἰπόλε, κάμψας σύκινον εὑρήσεις ἀρτιγλυφὲς ξόανον ἀσκελὲς αὐτόφλοιον ἀνούατον, ἀλλὰ φάλητι παιδογόνῳ δυνατὸν Κύπριδος ἔργα τελεῖν. Having wend your way, goatherd, on that path where the oaks are, you will discover a recently carved fig-wood figurine, which lacks limbs and ears and is still covered in bark, but is able to accomplish the deeds of Kypris with his potent phallus. In this version, however, a goatherd (αἰπόλε), not a stranger/passerby as in the inscriptions, is the addressee and he is directed along a lane that wends its way into a highly idealized pastoral landscape. If we are to identify the voice of the epigram as emanating from an inscription, then we must imagine it as standing on the threshold of the bucolic world, and so marking a boundary between the epigrammatic tradition and this bucolic world into which the goatherd/reader will shortly enter. However, the address to a goatherd in combination with features of a rural setting, recalls Thyrsis’ address to his goatherd interlocutor in Idyll 1.1 (ἁδύ τι τὸ ψιθύρισμα καὶ ἁ πίτυς, αἰπόλε, τήνα, “something sweet is the whispering, goatherd, of that pine tree”), a verse considered to epitomize the themes and sounds of bucolic song. Further, the presence of oaks (ταὶ δρύες) and a figure of Priapus may remind one of the landscape opposite the site chosen by the goatherd for Thyrsis’ performance (Id. 1.21–23):49 48

49

Wilamowitz (1906) 200. The closest inscriptional parallels are SGO 01/01/03 = Kaibel 781 from early Hellenistic (post 282 bce) Knidos and SGO 01/12/09 = Kaibel 782 from Hellenistic Halicarnassus. Cf. Rossi (2001) 164–165. Bing (2009) 104 at n. 57 observes a similar play with the bucolic

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δεῦρ’ ὑπὸ τὰν πτελέαν ἑσδώμεθα τῶ τε Πριήπω καὶ τᾶν κρανίδων κατεναντίον, ᾇπερ ὁ θῶκος τῆνος ὁ ποιμενικὸς καὶ ταὶ δρύες … Let us sit here under the elm across from the statue of Priapus and the springs where that shepherd’s seat and the oaks are located. By leading the reader to a pastoral location, different from, but adjacent to the site of Thyrsis’ performance in Idyll 1, the poem comments on the different “path,” so to speak, which it will take in its engagement with bucolic and epigram. Altogether, the poem thus begins by calling attention to its appropriation of an inscriptional motif for the bucolic world.50 The intersection here of the inscriptional and bucolic is a difficult balancing act. The poet brings into dialogue one genre—bucolic—defined, to a great degree, by the immediacy of its fictional world, as exemplified by the impermanence of performance in its dramatized song contests, with another genre—epigram—which often seeks to convey or exploit a sense of permanence. In view of this, there might be particular resonance in the description of the figure of Priapus to which the addressee is directed as “recently carved” (ἀρτιγλυφές). This is the second compound adjective constructed with the adverbial prefix ἀρτι- in the bucolic epigrams ascribed to Theocritus, the first being ἀρτιπαγής used to describe Daphnis’ recently erected hunting stakes at Theocritus 3.2 Gow. While compounds with ἄρτι are not rare, both of these examples are. Whereas in 3 Gow the immediacy produced by the description of Daphnis’ hunting stakes as recently set in place reinforces the erotic subjectivity of the epigram, the attention called to the sculpted newness of the statuette of Priapus is striking in a context that evokes inscribed directions, which are designed to be efficacious for some time. Further, the wood of the fig-tree, in addition to being a plant “particularly connected with fecundity and the sexual sphere” and so fitting for a figure of Priapus,51 is soft and easily hewn by even amateur whittlers, which partially explains the low regard in which it was held in antiquity (cf. Horace Serm. 1.8.1: inutile lignum). We have, then, directions to a roughly carved figure made of a soft and generally devalued wood—the type of statuette one could imagine a shepherd or goatherd

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setting of Callimachus’ Astakides epigram (36 HE = AP 7.518) with which our discussion began: ὑπὸ δρυσίν … ποιμένες ≈ ὁ θῶκος / τῆνος ὁ ποιμενικὸς καὶ ταὶ δρύες. Given the echoes of Idyll 1 in these opening lines, it is worth considering if the assonance of α, τ, and σ in the first three lines too recalls the poem. Rossi (2001) 155 n. 9.

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casually whittling in the shade of a pine, but not necessarily designed to draw visitors or withstand the elements and tests of time. Consequently, it is worth considering how the emphasis on novelty or recently completed activities functions within poems that attempt to negotiate the immediacy of the fictional bucolic world and the impermanence of performance in bucolic song with the imagined permanence of the inscriptional epigrammatic tradition. If this was an actual inscription, the figure of Priapus would not always be ἀρτιγλυφές for a passerby, but in the bucolic environment that the poem constructs (see below on the locus amoenus of the shrine to Priapus) the statue can remain evergreen. As our speaker guides the unnamed goatherd to the sanctuary of Priapus, he leads him (and the reader) further into an idealized pastoral landscape, and so underscores the generic orientation of the poem (ll. 5–12). The seven-line scene of a limpid, ever-flowing spring from whose craggy surroundings burst forth an abundance of plant life, which provide homes and sustenance for song birds, whose chirps and warbles are the natural accompaniment to bucolic song, luxuriates in the sounds and smells of the locus amoenus found in Theocritean bucolic.52 Drawn from lyric, tragedy, and epic, the language reveals this section of the poem to be a literary set piece, even if it is perhaps a bit too mannered in its elaboration of the sights and sounds of the scene.53 Indeed, it is almost as if our bucolic speaker, after evoking epigrammatic style in the first quatrain of the poem, is now showing off his ability to compose a locus amoenus at an elevated register.54 The song of the nightingales (ll. 11–12: ξουθαὶ δ’ ἀδονίδες μινυρίσμασιν ἀνταχεῦσι / μέλπουσαι στόμασιν τὰν μελίγαρυν ὄπα, “trilling nightingales warble in reply, singing in a melodious voice”) with which the description of the locus amoenus concludes echoes the language used by the Sirens of their own enticing voice in the Odyssey (12.187: μελίγηρυν ἀπὸ στομάτων ὄπ’, “a melodious voice from our mouths”) and so might call attention to the spellbinding “bucolicity” of the preceding lines as the songs of the Sirens, whose topics include the events at Troy (cf. Od. 12.189–190), have been understood to represent the allure of the epic tradition. The generic seams, then, are meant to be seen and appreciated as part of the poem’s compositional structure. Once the goatherd has arrived in the bucolic setting of the sanctuary, the speaker advises him to take a seat (l. 13: ἕζεο δὴ τηνεὶ, “take a seat there”). This invitation recalls a similar request by the goatherd to Thyrsis in Idyll 1 and the allusion, then, fittingly chimes with the echo of Idyll 1 in the poem’s opening 52 53 54

Cf. Tarditi (1988) 48. Rossi (2001) 160–161 collects the various parallels. Rossi (2001) 161 too recognizes a “formal break” between the first quatrain and the description of the locus amoenus.

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line, as it also looks forward to the theme of unhappy love in the poem’s closing prayer.55 For the injunction, we may also productively compare a bucolic epigram of Anyte (16 HE = AP 9.313), whose speaker encourages the passersby to sit under the shade of a laurel and take a drink from a nearby spring as a refreshment from laboring in the summer’s scorching heat. The imperative in 4 Gow recalls the imperative Anyte used to introduce her epigram (ἵζε’), and it is certain that the Theocritean poem was composed after Anyte’s epigram.56 Kathryn Gutzwiller has plausibly suggested that this epigram held programmatic value for Anyte, with the invitation to enjoy the shade of the laurel and cool water of the spring being a metaphor for the relief and refreshment provided to a reader by her verses.57 By placing this echo of Anyte 16 HE at the end of the poem’s long locus amoenus, rather than its beginning, the poet of 4 Gow demonstrates an understanding and control of an important model of bucolic epigram at another significant juncture in the movement of the poem. The poem concludes with a plea from the unnamed speaker to the goatherd to make a prayer to Priapus on his behalf (ll. 13–18): ἕζεο δὴ τηνεὶ καὶ τῷ χαρίεντι Πριήπῳ εὔχε’ ἀποστέρξαι τοὺς Δάφνιδός με πόθους, κεὐθὺς ἐπιρρέξειν χίμαρον καλόν. ἤν δ’ ἀνανεύσῃ, τοῦδε τυχὼν ἐθέλω τρισσὰ θύη τελέσαι· ῥέξω γὰρ δαμάλαν, λάσιον τράγον, ἄρνα τὸν ἴσχω σακίταν. ἀίοι δ’ εὐμενέως ὁ θεός. Take a seat there and pray to dear Priapus that I discard my desire for Daphnis and straightaway I will sacrifice in return a beautiful kid. If he should refuse, but I obtain that man’s love, I wish to make three sacrifices: I will offer a heifer, a wooly goat, and a stall-fed lamb, which I own. May the god listen in a favorable fashion. Here we learn that the speaker of the epigram has fallen in love with Daphnis, again in the role of the beloved (cf. Theocritus 3 Gow), who has not reciprocated this affection, and wishes for Priapus to relieve him of this psychic burden.58 The motif of how to remove unrequited love is a theme of the songs of Lycidas and Simichidas in Idyll 7, the latter also taking the form of a prayer; though here 55 56 57 58

Rossi (2001) 164–165. Tarditi (1988) 49. Gutzwiller (1998) 73. Bernsdorff (2001) 159.

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we also have the innovation of leaving open the possibility of a happy ending that does not involve the dissolution of the love.59 By evoking these models, the poem reinforces the connections between the poetic voice and bucolic song. At the same time, the form of the prayer draws heavily from traditional votive epigram, naturally given that the object of his prayer is a figure of Priapus, and thus has been interpreted as echoing the epigrammatic motifs at the poem’s beginning.60 On this reading, the couching of what is essentially a dedicatory epigram in the form of a prayer encapsulates the poem’s play with the boundaries between speech and inscription with which it began. Thus an important point of the poem exists in the detection of the studied balance and accommodation of bucolic and epigrammatic modes of discourse from which the unhappy speaker of our poem constructs his appeal to the goatherd. The preceding three epigrams presented the reader with various reimaginings of Daphnis in his role as lover/beloved, while here in Theocritus 5 Gow = AP 9.433 we find Daphnis playing the part of the hero-founder of bucolic song (note the conventional Theocritean epithet βουκόλος at l. 3). The speaker of the poem invites the addressee and Daphnis to assemble in a bucolic setting before a cave where Pan sleeps in order to play their various instruments: the addressee his aulos, the speaker his πηκτίς (variously identified as a stringed instrument or a pipe),61 and Daphnis his syrinx: λῇς ποτὶ τᾶν Νυμφᾶν διδύμοις αὐλοῖσιν ἀεῖσαι ἁδύ τί μοι; κἠγὼ πακτίδ’ ἀειράμενος ἀρξεῦμαί τι κρέκειν, ὁ δὲ βουκόλος ἄμμιγα θέλξει Δάφνις, κηροδέτῳ πνεύματι μελπόμενος. ἐγγὺς δὲ στάντες λασίας δρυὸς ἄντρου ὄπισθεν Πᾶνα τὸν αἰγιβάταν ὀρφανίσωμες ὕπνου. Would you please, by the Nymphs, play something sweet for me on your double pipe? And taking up my pektis I will begin to pluck something, and joining in with us Daphnis the cowherd will enchant with the breath of the wax-joined pipe. Standing near the shaggy oak behind the cave, let us deprive Pan the goat-mounter of his sleep. Deeply indebted to Theocritus, the poem recalls the extended, dramatized invitation-to-song set piece known from Idyll 1 (later imitated in the spurious 59 60 61

On these motifs in 4 Gow and other bucolic epigrams, see Fantuzzi (2016). Rossi (2001) 163. Rossi (2001) 170–173 collects and discusses the evidence.

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Idylls 8 and 9).62 The opening expression of the first verse imitates Thyrsis’ plea to the unnamed goatherd to play for him at the beginning of Idyll 1 (l. 12: λῇς ποτὶ τᾶν Νυμφᾶν, λῇς, αἰπόλε, τεῖδε καθίξας, “in the name of the Nymphs, please, please, goatherd, take a seat”), which becomes a marker of the opening of song exchange in later bucolic poetry.63 Moreover, the speaker’s call to the addressee of the poem to play “something sweet” (ἁδύ τι), enjambed and thus emphasized, recalls Thyrsis’ description in Idyll 1 of the sweetness of the whisper of the pines (l. 1: ἁδύ τι τὸ ψιθύρισμα, “something sweet is the whispering”) and the piping of the goatherd (ll. 2–3: ἁδὺ δὲ καὶ τύ / συρίσδες, “and you also pipe sweetly”) from the poem’s programmatic first lines, and thus suggests that the imagined song will share an important quality with Idyll 1. Lastly, the purpose of the performance—to rouse Pan from his sleep—reverses the goatherd’s excuse for not accepting Thyrsis’ invitation to pipe in Idyll 1, and thus reinforces the Theocritean model while also providing the poem with a fitting epigrammatic pointe through oppositio in imitando.64 From the outset, then, the epigram invites its reader to consider the bucolic world of competitive song exchange illustrated in Idyll 1 as its setting, and the following lines in which the various instrumental parts are assigned and the pastoral location is described elaborates the scene. Given the numerous echoes of Thyrsis’ speech from Idyll 1, it is tempting to identify the voice of the speaker with Thyrsis, in which case the poem imagines an alternate (and less tragic?) chronology when Daphnis was still alive and performing. In many ways, then, the epigram succinctly constructs a bucolic set piece in which the reader, as the addressee, is decidedly involved.65 Theocritus 5 Gow, however, is not just “a pastiche from T[heocritus]”66 or even, more charitably, “a perfect example of fan fiction,” as Nita Krevans recently noted, in that “it is completely authentic as a canonical creation inside the Theocritean universe.”67 While thoroughly “bucolicizing,” the poem does diverge from its Theocritean model by suggesting an event whose purpose is not, so it appears, a competition, but rather a knavish gathering, perhaps even

62 63

64 65 66 67

Gow (1952) 2.532–533 and Rossi (2001) 184–185 collect the various reminiscences of Theocritus discussed in this paragraph. Cf. Menalcas’ invitation to Daphnis in the spurious Id 8.6 (λῇς μοι ἀεῖσαι) and the opening address of pseudo-Bion Epithalamium Achillis et Deidameiae (l. 1: λῇς νύ τί μοι, Λυκίδα, Σικελὸν μέλος ἁδὺ λιγαίνειν). Bernsdorff (2001) 151–152. See Krevans (2016) 300–301 on the bucolic world-building active in this epigram. Gow (1952) 2.532. Krevans (2016) 301.

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a sort of symposiastic party.68 Rossi has suggested that the epigram shares an affinity with poetic “invitation-cards,” known primarily from Latin literature but also attested in Greek epigram in the invitation from Philodemus to his patron Piso to attend a party in honor of Epicurus (Philodemus AP 11.44 = 27 Sider).69 And, indeed, the poet fashions the commonplaces of dramatized speech into an epigram that includes all the necessary information for a formal invitation: the who (the speaker, addressee, and Daphnis), what (a sympotic(?) musical performance), where (outside the cave of Pan), and even when (noontime, as suggested by the allusion to Pan’s midday siesta in Idyll 1). If we should decide to read the epigram as a written invitation, rather than a monologic narrative, the poet has playfully converted the dramatized speech of the Theocritean bucolic world into a text that must necessarily stand outside of it—for shepherds do not write poems to one another, but rather their encounters are predicated on the movement of their flocks. The theme of song, particularly the echoes of Idyll 1, in Theocritus 5 Gow prepares the way for the final epigram of the bucolic sequence whose subject is now Thyrsis. In a clever reversal of the situation in Idyll 1, however, at Theocritus 6 Gow = AP 9.432 Thyrsis does not sing of Daphnis’ tragic love, but rather has become himself the inconsolable subject of the poem, mourning the death of a favorite young goat:70 ἆ δείλαιε τὺ Θύρσι, τί τὸ πλέον εἰ κατατάξεις δάκρυσι διγλήνους ὦπας ὀδυρόμενος; οἴχεται ἁ χίμαρος, τὸ καλὸν τέκος, οἴχετ’ ἐς Ἅιδαν· τραχὺς γὰρ χαλαῖς ἀμφεπίαξε λύκος. αἱ δὲ κύνες κλαγγεῦντι· τί τὸ πλέον, ἁνίκα τήνας ὀστίον οὐδὲ τέφρα λείπεται οἰχομένας; Oh wretched Thyrsis, what is the use if you will melt your eyes with tears while mourning? The kid is gone, the fair nipper, gone to Hades, for a cruel wolf snatched her up in his jaws. The dogs howl; what is the use, when neither bone nor ashes of the deceased remain?

68

69 70

Vox (1997) 396 at n. 14 has proposed that this epigram also recalls the imagined pastoral symposium in Lycidas’ song at Id. 7.71–82, where Tityrus, accompanied by two pipers, is to perform bucolic songs about Daphnis and Comatas. Rossi (2001) 169; cf. Sider (1997) 152 with bibliography for invitation poems. Thus the editor has begun and closed the sequence with poems that include the death of goats inserted within epigrams that draw on traditional motifs of dedications and epitaphs.

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In this epigram, the poet unites the bucolic and epigrammatic through an inventive engagement with opposing discourses of consolation drawn from the two genres. On one reading, the opening couplet recalls the speech of Priapus in Idyll 1, both through the presence of the figure of Thyrsis, who is very likely to be identified with the celebrated singer of the lament, and the reuse of some key vocabulary. The opening exclamation (ἆ δείλαιε) is a variation on the Homeric formula ἆ δειλέ primarily used at the opening of speeches to signal the speaker’s compassion, but also deployed in vaunts over the bodies of fallen enemies (cf. Il. 11.452 and 16.837).71 There is an exasperation, then, in the tone of the speaker’s address, reinforced by the repeated question τί τὸ πλέον (“what is the use?”) at lines 1 and 5, which recalls Priapus’ chiding of Daphnis for being someone “too much wretched in love” (Id.1.85: ἆ δύσερώς τις ἄγαν);72 and like the Daphnis of his own song in Idyll 1 (cf. Id 1.82: τί τὺ τάκεαι, “why do you now pine away?”), the Thyrsis of 6 Gow too is asked somewhat pointedly about his weeping (l. 1: τί τὸ πλέον εἰ κατατάξεις). Consequently, the poem has playfully assimilated Thyrsis with the subject of his famous song through their shared behaviors and the critical tone of their interlocutors to their respective grief.73 At the same time, the subject of Thyrsis’ grief introduces the motif of epitaphs for animals into the poem.74 And indeed, some of the same language that evokes the admonishments of Priapus can be construed as expressing a more sympathetic tone when read in the context of funerary conventions. While ἆ δείλαιε very likely recalls the exasperated reproval of Priapus, the exclamation should not be interpreted as totally devoid of sympathetic emotion, particularly given the convention in inscribed epigram of an opening sympathetic address to the deceased or family member.75 Similarly, the repeated rhetorical question τί τὸ πλέον, which when read through the lens of Idyll 1 may well bristle with annoyance, is also an epitaphic formula that “always introduces a ‘gnomic consolation’” designed to forestall the lamentation of those who survive the deceased.76 Moreover, the mournful expression οἴχετ’ ἐς Ἅιδαν and the emphasis on the absence of physical remains (τήνας / ὀστίον οὐδὲ τέφρα λείπεται οἰχομένας), which echoes the language used to describe the emaciated state of Aegon’s calf in Idyll 4 (ll. 15–16: τήνας μὲν δή τοι τᾶς πόρτιος αὐτὰ λέλειπται / 71 72 73

74 75 76

Brügger (2018) ad. Il. 16.837 with bibliography. Cf. the tone of mock contempt in ὦ δείλαιε at Id. 4.60, directed at Battus by Corydon. There is also a possible humorous link between Priapus’ insult of Daphnis in calling him a goatherd rather than a cowherd and the depiction of Thyrsis as completely devastated by the death of a goat. Rossi (2001) 179–184. Sens (2020) 197 with citation of CEG 591. Rossi (2001) 276–277.

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τὠστία, “only the bones of that calf remained”), lend a sepulchral note to the final quatrain of the epigram since they further humanize the deceased goat.77 So too the sympathetic keening of the dogs (note the mournful repetition of κ, ε, α, and ν in αἱ δὲ κύνες κλαγγεῦντι) is a detail that recalls the pathetic fallacy in Idyll 1,78 while plaintive anaphora οἴχεται … οἴχετ’ in the first foot and following the bucolic diaeresis recall the repeated anaphora bucolica in Thyrsis’ own lament for Daphnis in Idyll 1.79 Thus in 6 Gow we should recognize a poem whose purpose is not to expose the seams between these two genres but rather to intertwine the worlds of Theocritean lament and funerary epigram into a unique consolatory fiction. While nowhere near as sustained or focused as the engagement with Theocritean bucolic, the engagement with generic distinctions in the corpus of Theocritean epigrams extends beyond the opening sequence of six bucolic epigrams, which have been the focus of the present discussion. The group of five epigrams on poets in the final polymetric sequence of the sylloge (16–22 Gow)—imagined inscriptions to statues for Anacreon (17 Gow = AP 9.599), Epicharmus (18 Gow = AP 9.600), Archilochus (21 Gow = AP 7.664), and Peisander (22 Gow = AP 9.598), and an epitaph for Hipponax (19 Gow = AP 13.3)— present their author(s) with an opportunity to reflect on their relationship to other, earlier literary traditions.80 A notable question raised by the epigrams on statues of the poets, as Peter Bing has explored, has to do with the distance between a poetic model and its imitator.81 Composed in meters used by their models, the cadence of the epigrams reproduces the poetic voices of their subjects.82 But it is a faint echo of the past. None of the epigrams are imagined to recreate the voice of the poet; rather the speakers are the plinths of statues or a tombstone, which are often baldly fictive inscriptional masks for the voice of the poet himself. The presence of the epigrammatic imitator is particularly apparent in the epigrams on the statues of Anacreon and Archilochus, both of which are composed in the Doric of Theocritus rather than in their native and original Ionic. The choice of dialect brings the voice of Theocritus to the fore. Writing of the epigram on Anacreon, Bing observes that “the statue is no 77 78

79 80 81 82

Rossi (2001) 184. Rossi (2001) 184 further observes that the verb ὀδύρομαι, used to describe the grief of Thyrsis in our epigram, only appears once more in Theocritus, where it is used for the lament of the animals for Daphnis at Id. 1.75. Schmidt (1987) 93 with n. 65. For discussion of these epigrams, see Bing (1988); Rossi (2001); Rosen (2007); Kyriakou (2018) 300–342. Bing (1988). Bing (1988) 120 and n. 12.

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anonymous tribute to an earlier notable, it is a literary fiction that … asserts the individuality of its modern maker.”83 A similar process is very likely at play in the epitaph for Hipponax. Like other literary epitaphs for the iambist,84 the tombstone advises the passerby to be wary of its occupant, though it departs from the others in making it clear that Hipponax will not indiscriminately attack those who draw near. Should you be bad (l. 2: πονηρός) it is advisable to steer clear, but if you are good and from honest stock (l. 3: κρήγυός τε καὶ παρὰ χρηστῶν), one can rest on their way, and even take a nap. While this more measured version of Hipponax possibly represents a corrective to those other epigrammatists who cast the poet as an inveterate misanthrope, it is more likely that the distinction between good and bad men, which itself is attested in other epitaphs, signals a critical understanding of the parameters of invective in Hipponactean iambic.85 The tombstone-cumepigrammatist, in other words, demonstrates that he has read and parsed the vituperations of Hipponax, neatly packaging his generic understanding in Hipponactean scazons. A further indication of the generic awareness at play is a possible echo of the invitation to a passerby to relax at Antye 16 (see discussion above at 212). While Anyte 16 imagines the bucolic atmosphere of her epigrams as providing a welcoming respite to all passersby/readers, in the world of iambic only the “good” can rest easy. As we saw with Theocritus 1 Gow, the Theocritean epigrams also self-consciously manipulate the conventions of epigram itself. Such intrageneric experimentation is often on display in epigrams that have a basis in inscriptional subtypes, such as dedications and epitaphs. Among the sepulchral epigrams in the middle section of the sylloge (7–16 Gow) is an epitaph for a certain Orthon of Syracuse (Theocritus 9 Gow = AP 7.660), which gains much of its humor from the interplay of epitaphs on two very different subjects: drunks and victims of shipwrecks. The epigram is of the type where the deceased offers advice to the passerby, which is befitting for Orthon whose name might suggest he is a real “straight” talker. “May you never go out drunk on a stormy evening” (l. 2: χειμερίας μεθύων μηδαμὰ νυκτὸς ἴοις), Orthon warns all passersby. In the second couplet he reveals that this pitiable fate is further compounded by the fact that his accident occurred while abroad from Syracuse (ll. 3–4: ἀντὶ δὲ πολλᾶς / πατρίδος ὀθνείαν κεῖμαι ἐφεσσάμενος, “I lie covered in a foreign land rather than my great fatherland”). The mention of the stormy conditions that contributed to his drunken accident, emphasized by the line-initial placement of the adjective 83 84 85

Bing (1988) 123. Leonidas 58 HE = AP 7.408; Alcaeus 13 HE = AP 7.536; Philip 34 GP = AP 7.405. Rosen (2007) 470–471. See now Kyriakou (2018) 310–311.

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χειμερίας in line 2, in conjunction with his burial abroad, very likely represent a humorous attempt to elicit pity by evoking the popular shipwreck epitaphs in which the storm-tossed deceased or their tombs lament their burial in foreign soil. Unlike those unfortunate souls, Orthon has met a very different sort of “watery” death.86 “In this little group of six epigrams,” Charles Whitmore observed about the bucolic sequence over a century ago, “we have something unique in the history of the form.”87 For Whitmore, after surveying the literary landscape of Hellenistic bucolic epigram, what made the bucolic epigrams ascribed to Theocritus particularly of note was their “concentration of the essence of pastoral song, one which for perfection of workmanship and freshness of touch remains elsewhere unrivaled.”88 Whitmore’s effusive praise for these poems, then, is directed at their immersion in the world of Theocritean bucolic: the presence of familiar figures like Daphnis, Pan, and Priapus, and the pastoral setting. In his view, their epigrammatic motifs and form are distracting intrusions. Theocritus 1 Gow is “merely a dedication, distinguished … by the fresh touch in some of its details,” while in Theocritus 5 Gow, whose form is strongly inspired by the bucolic invitation-to-sing, Whitmore finds the “perfect utterance” of the “pastoral spirit.”89 Conversely, Gow often criticized these epigrams for not being “epigrammatic” enough. On Whitmore’s beloved 5 Gow, the commentator sneered at the epigram because it was “not obviously suitable for any epigraphic purpose.”90 What makes these epigrams innovative and successful, however, is to be located exactly in the intersection of these two genres. The bucolic epigrams ascribed to Theocritus, as I hope to have demonstrated in this chapter, are experiments in writing the Theocritean world of bucolic into and out of epigram. Theocritus 1 Gow, for instance, exploited the shared deployment of deictics in dedicatory epigram and the speech of bucolic herdsmen to fashion an epigrammatic voice that brings the commemorative discourse of dedicatory epigram into a bucolic sphere. Theocritus 4 Gow, on the other hand, constructs out of epigrammatic models a bucolic monologue of unrequited love set in a locus amoenus. Altogether, the poems display a rather

86

87 88 89 90

See Cairns (2016) 257 who briefly argues for the epigraphic reality of the epigram in the context of a larger discussion which challenges the assumption that poems on “humiliating and/or harrowing causes” (243) of death are necessarily epideictic. Whitmore (1918) 618. Whitmore (1918) 619. Whitmore (1918) quotes at 618 and 619 respectively. Gow (1952) 2.532. Krevans (2016) 306 draws attention to the contrasting evaluations of Whitmore and Gow on Theocritus 5 Gow.

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nuanced appreciation of Theocritean and epigrammatic poetics. Further, the shared engagement of these epigrams with the motifs, figures, setting, and language of Idyll 1 reinforces the project of generic experimentation at play in each individual epigram, since when read together in a sequence they provide a reader with something akin to a “variation on a theme.” The fascination with the intersection of epigram and other generic traditions and the boundaries of the epigrammatic genre itself are on display elsewhere in the collection, as is most clearly attested by the series of epigrams on famous lyric, iambic, and epic poets. Putting questions of authenticity aside, the epigrams of Theocritus, particularly the bucolic epigrams, are innovative attempts at reimagining the contours of the genre.

Bibliography Arland, W. (1937), Nachtheokritische Bukolik bis an die Schwelle der lateinischen Bukolik (Leipzig). Bernsdorff, H. (2001), Hirten in der nicht-bukolischen Dichtung des Hellenismus (Stuttgart). Bernsdorff, H. (2006), “The Idea of Bucolic in the Imitators of Theocritus, 3rd–1st Century bc,” in M. Fantuzzi/Th. Papanghelis (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden) 167–207. Bing, P. (1988), “Theocritus’ Epigrams on the Statues of Ancient Poets,” A&A 34, 117–123. Bing, P. (2009), “Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus,” in P. Bing, The Scroll and the Marble: Studies in Reading and Reception in Hellenistic Poetry (Ann Arbor) 85–105. Brügger, C. (2018), Homer’s Iliad: The Basel Commentary, Book xvi, translated by B.W. Millis and S. Strack (Berlin/Boston). Cairns, F. (2016), Hellenistic Epigram: Contexts of Exploration (Cambridge). Cameron, A. (1993), The Greek Anthology from Meleager to Planudes (Oxford). Coughlan, T.S. (2020), “The Poetics of Dialect in the Self-Epitaphs of Nossis and Leonidas of Tarentum,” CP 115, 607–629. Dale, A. (2010), “Lyric Epigrams in Meleager’s Garland, the Anthologia Palatina, and the Anthologia Planudea,” GRBS 50, 193–213. Fantuzzi, M. (2006), “Theocritus’ Constructive Interpreters and the Creation of a Bucolic Reader,” in M. Fantuzzi/Th. Papanghelis (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden) 235–262. Fantuzzi, M. (2016), “Novice Pastoral Eros and Its Epigrammatic Critics,” in E. Sistakou/A. Rengakos (eds.), Dialect, Diction, and Style in Greek Literary and Inscribed Epigram (Berlin/Boston) 281–295.

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Fantuzzi, M. (2017), “Theocritus’ Shepherdly Eros,” in C. Cusset/C. Kossaifi/R. Poignault (eds.), Présence de Théocrite (Clermont-Ferrand) 331–346. Fantuzzi, M./Hunter, R. (2004), Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge). Gallavotti, C. (1986), “Epigrammi di Teocrito,” BollClass 7, 101–123. Gow, A.S.F. (19522), Theocritus, 2 vols. (Cambridge). Gutzwiller, K. (1983), “Character and Legend in Idyll 8,” TAPA 113, 171–182. Gutzwiller, K. (1996), “Vergil and the Date of the Theocritean Epigram Book,”Philologus 140, 92–99. Gutzwiller, K. (1998), Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigrams in Context (Berkeley). Gutzwiller, K. (2019), “Posidippus and Ancient Epigram Books,” in C. Henriksén (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Epigram (Hoboken) 351–370. Hasegawa, A.P. (2016), “Mescla genérica e forma editorial nos epigramas bucólicos atribuídos a Teócrito,” Organon 60, 131–147. Helmbold, W.C. (1938), “The Epigrams of Theocritus,” CP 33, 37–62. Hunter, R.L. (1996), Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry (Cambridge). Kirstein, R. (2002), “Companion Pieces in the Hellenistic Epigram,” in A. Harder/ R.F. Regtuit/G.C. Wakker (eds.), Hellenistic Epigrams (Leuven) 112–135. Krevans, N. (2016), “Pastoral Markers in Hellenistic Epigram: The Fan-Fiction Approach,” in E. Sistakou/A. Rengakos (eds.), Dialect, Diction, and Style in Greek Literary and Inscribed Epigram (Berlin/Boston) 297–308. Kyriakou, P. (2018), Theocritus and His Native Muse: A Syracusan among Many (Berlin). Larson, J. (1997), “Astakides the Goatherd (Callim. Epigr. 22 Pf),” CP 92, 131–137. LeVen, P.A. (2014), The Many-Headed Muse: Tradition and Innovation in Late Classical Greek Lyric Poetry (Cambridge). Payne, M. (2007), Theocritus and the Invention of Fiction (Cambridge). Pfeiffer, R. (1949–1953), Callimachus, 2 vols. (Oxford). Reed, J.D. (2006), “Continuity and Change in Greek Bucolic between Theocritus and Vergil,” in M. Fantuzzi/Th. Papanghelis (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden) 209–234. Rosen, R.M. (2007), “The Hellenistic Epigrams on Archilochus and Hipponax,” in P. Bing/J.S. Bruss (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram (Leiden) 459–476. Rossi, L. (2001), The Epigrams Ascribed to Theocritus: A Method of Approach (Leuven). Schmidt, E.A. (1987), Bukolische Leidenschaft oder über antike Hirtenpoeisie (Frankfurt/Bern/New York). Segal, C. (1976), “Caves, Pan, and Silenus: Theocritus’ Pastoral Epigrams and Virgil’s Sixth Eclogue,” ZAnt 26, 53–56. Sens, A. (2006), “Epigrams at the Margins of Pastoral,” in M. Fantuzzi/Th. Papanghelis (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden) 147–165. Sens, A. (2020), Hellenistic Epigrams: A Selection (Cambridge).

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Sider, D. (1997), The Epigrams of Philodemus: Introduction, Text, and Commentary (Oxford). Smutny, R.J. (1955), The Text History of the Epigrams of Theocritus (Berkeley). Stanzel, K.-H. (2007), “Bucolic Epigram,” in P. Bing/J.S. Bruss (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram (Leiden) 333–351. Szepessy, T. (1994), “La collection d’épigrammes de Théocrite,” AAntHung 35, 73–102. Tarditi, G. (1988), “Per una lettura degli epigrammatisti greci,” Aevum(ant) 1, 5–75. Vox, O. (1997), Carmi di Teocrito e dei poeti bucolici greci minori (Torino). Whitmore, C.E. (1918), “Pastoral Elements in the Greek Epigram,” CJ 13, 616–620. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. (1906), Die Textgeschichte der griechischen Bukoliker (Berlin). Witzke, S. (2016), “Gendered Recognitions in Menander’s Sikyonioi,” EuGeSta 6, 41–65.

chapter 9

Theocritus and the Bucolic Homer Richard Hunter

Theocritus is rightly regarded as the “first inventor” of bucolic poetry and the Idylls as an originary moment in European literature; if it was Theocritus’ successors who gave bucolic poetry the recognisability of a generic form, it was Theocritus himself and his native Sicily to which the subsequent tradition always looked back. When the Eclogues then became a kind of second beginning for poetry of this kind, there was a creative tension available to be exploited between two founding poets, one Greek and one Latin, a tension which could also be expressed as that between the old and the new. This tension, which is still sometimes described as one between “bucolic” and “pastoral,” should not surprise, for that tension is already there at the moments of origin themselves. As is well known, Theocritus creates a sense both of the timelessness of the rural performances he describes—the ἄλγεα Δάφνιδος has always been sung before—and the newness of his poetic undertaking, the “beginning of bucolic song,” as the refrain of Idyll 1 has it. The continuing fame of that poetry, its constant repetition and survival as Nachleben, was already there at the very beginning. Theocritus’ own acknowledged moments of origin are both multiple and well known. There are not only the apparently timeless song traditions of rural Sicily and southern Italy, but there are the great figures of Sicilian poetry, Stesichorus, Epicharmus, Sophron,1 and the figures of Sicilian story, above all Daphnis and the Cyclops, though a Cyclops who is both before and later than the Homeric depiction, one who has not yet met Odysseus, but also one whose depiction owes a great deal to post-Homeric poetic forms. One non-Sicilian poet who is part of Theocritus’ own set of originary moments is (inevitably) Homer, whose importance, as both model and anti-model, is suffused over all of Theocritus’ bucolic poetry,2 in both macro-structures (the κισσύβιον in Idyll 1, for example) and everywhere in the micro-structures of language. David 1 Hunter (2021) argues that Theocritus also exploited Sappho as an “honorary Syracusan.” 2 This essay is concerned exclusively with the Theocritean poems which are standardly acknowledged as “bucolic”; there are obvious dangers in dividing up the Theocritean corpus in this way, but I hope that these do not vitiate the limited aims of the essay. The debt of the “non-bucolic” poems to Homer is of course well established and much discussed.

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Halperin’s Before Pastoral of 1983 was the book which taught many modern students of Theocritus to give proper thought to the Sicilian poet’s Homeric, particularly Odyssean, heritage, and the influence of that book deserves proper acknowledgement. Ten years later Jasper Griffin gathered together many apparently “bucolic” moments scattered through the Iliad, particularly in similes and the brief biographies which accompany many less significant figures, and he sought in them echoes of a non-martial world of poetry which Theocritus may have inherited, directly or indirectly, from the Near East (Griffin (1992)). In this paper, I will turn back to two very familiar Homeric passages, with which Theocritus marked the epic heritage of his bucolic poetry. This is, of course, in no sense an attempt to survey all of those passages in Homer which Theocritus was able to construct as part of his bucolic heritage, indeed as “originary moments” in that heritage, but there is little doubt of their significance for the bucolic and pastoral traditions which Theocritus himself inaugurated.

1

The Silence of the Ram

Few moments of the Odyssey are as famous as the Cyclops’ address to his favourite ram, as it struggles with the weight of Odysseus clinging to its underside: κριὲ πέπον, τί μοι ὧδε διὰ σπέος ἔσσυο μήλων ὕστατος; οὔ τι πάρος γε λελειμμένος ἔρχεαι οἰῶν, ἀλλὰ πολὺ πρῶτος νέμεαι τέρεν’ ἄνθεα ποίης μακρὰ βιβάς, πρῶτος δὲ ῥοὰς ποταμῶν ἀφικάνεις, πρῶτος δὲ σταθμόνδε λιλαίεαι ἀπονέεσθαι ἑσπέριος, νῦν αὖτε πανύστατος. ἦ σύ γ’ ἄνακτος ὀφθαλμὸν ποθέεις; τὸν ἀνὴρ κακὸς ἐξαλάωσε σὺν λυγροῖσ’ ἑτάροισι, δαμασσάμενος φρένας οἴνῳ, Οὖτις, ὃν οὔ πώ φημι πεφυγμένον ἔμμεν ὄλεθρον. εἰ δὴ ὁμοφρονέοις ποτιφωνήεις τε γένοιο εἰπεῖν, ὅππῃ κεῖνος ἐμὸν μένος ἠλασκάζει· τῶ κέ οἱ ἐγκέφαλός γε διὰ σπέος ἄλλυδις ἄλλῃ θεινομένου ῥαίοιτο πρὸς οὔδεϊ, κὰδ δέ τ’ ἐμὸν κῆρ λωφήσειε κακῶν, τά μοι οὐτιδανὸς πόρεν Οὖτις. homer, Odyssey 9.447–460

Good ram, why please do you come out thus through the cave the last of the flock? Previously you did not lag behind the sheep, but you were far the first to feed on the tender flowers of the grass, moving proudly with

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long strides, and you were the first to reach the streams of the river, and the first to long to return to the stall at evening. Now you come last of all. Surely you are sorrowing for the eye of your master; an evil man, along with his terrible comrades, blinded me, when he had overmastered my wits with wine, Noman, who, I tell you, has not yet escaped destruction. If only you and I were like-minded and you could be empowered with speech to tell me where he skulks away from my strength, then could I strike him and his brains would be smashed on the ground all over the cave; my heart would be relieved of the sorrows which nobody Noman has brought me. The wishful pathetic fallacy (cruelly ironic in view of the real reason why the ram is last out),3 the idea that the ram feels πόθος and a sympathy for its master, would seem to mark the first part of this passage as truly βουκολικόν before its time. So, at any rate, the grammarians whose work has filtered into the scholia thought: δοκεῖ δὲ βουκολικὸν εἶναι τοῖς νεωτέροις τὸ πρὸς κριὸν διαλέγεσθαι. δαιμονίως δὲ ὑπὸ Ὁμήρου πρώτου κατώρθωται τὸ αὐτοῖς τοῖς ζῴοις ὡς φρονοῦσι διαλέγεσθαι, ὡς Ἕκτωρ, Ξάνθε τε καὶ σὺ Πόδαργε. Scholium, homer, Odyssey 9.456

Later (i.e., post-Homeric) poets think that talking to the ram is bucolic. With marvellous skill, Homer was the first to succeed in representing men talking to animals as though they had intelligence, as Hector “Xanthos and you Podargos” (Iliad 8.185) The scholium reflects the standard view of late Hellenistic and Byzantine scholarship that Homer was the source of all literary forms, in this case the interaction between man and animal typical of bucolic and pastoral literature. Nevertheless, one of the most striking things about this passage of Odyssey 9 is that, despite its obvious importance in subsequent bucolic literature, its own explicit Nachleben is, to say the least, meagre. For his Teubner edition of the Odyssey, Martin West could not find a single ancient quotation of vv. 447– 456 to list in his apparatus of the indirect tradition, and, with the exception of the scholium I have cited, the scholia on the passage are threadbare, even

3 Cf., e.g., Halperin (1983) 233. On the projection of human motives to the ram in this speech cf. the note of Di Benedetto ad loc. (2010) 532–533.

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by the standards of the Odyssey scholia. Moreover, if we look at ancient critical and rhetorical traditions, we will not find this passage where we might have expected to find it. Thus, for example, Hermogenes shows that, in the second century ce (and presumably before), ἀφέλεια, “simplicity,” was known to be a stylistic trait appropriate to bucolic (he cites the opening of Idylls 1 and 3),4 but the Cyclops is nowhere to be found in his discussion (perhaps because the Homeric Cyclops qua character is anything but ἀφελής, and the last part of the speech to the ram veers back to the grim splattering of human brains). That silence is compensated (as so often) by Eustathius, who notes that to call the ram πέπων is the action of a character which is “uncomplicated and simple and a bit childlike” (ἁπλοῦ … ἤθους καὶ ἀφελοῦς καὶ ὑπό τι νηπίου, Hom. 1638.59). Eustathius is here very clearly echoing the passage of Hermogenes about bucolic ἀφέλεια which introduces a citation of the opening of Idyll 3;5 Eustathius, who was of course very familiar with the grammatical traditions on view in the extant scholia, has fully appreciated the “bucolic” nature of the Cyclops’ address and replaced Hermogenes’ Theocritean example with one of its Homeric forebears. Even more striking perhaps is that Hermogenes has nothing to say about the Cyclops and his ram when he comes to discuss the γλυκύτης, “sweetness,” which arises from giving animals human characteristics and motives (335 Rabe). It is unlikely that the reason for this silence is that it is the Cyclops, not the poet, who is speaking the relevant verses; all Hermogenes’ examples come in fact from Xenophon On Hunting. This ancient silence, broken only by a single scholium, does not of course mean that the Homeric scene went “underground” until the Hellenistic age. If we only had a play title and brief plot summary, we would never guess that Aristophanes’ Wasps contains a relatively extended reworking of the escape of Odysseus and his men from the cave.6 Philocleon, desperate to escape from the house, hides under a donkey which he claims should be sold; Bdelycleon’s concerned query to the donkey, κάνθων, τί κλάεις; (179–181), clearly picks up the Cyclops’ address to his ram with which we are concerned. Aristophanes’ audience knew the Homeric scene well; for whatever reason the grammatical tradition was less interested. The Cyclops’ apparent affection for his ram is not just a remarkable poetic effect in its context, but also—as we have seen—almost preternaturally pres-

4 Hermogenes 322.19–20, 323.20 Rabe. 5 At 322.12–21 Rabe Hermogenes notes that “simple thoughts” are those ἀπλάστων ἠθῶν καὶ ὑπό τι νηπίων; on the opening of Idyll 3 cf. further below. 6 To the standard commentaries add Davies (1990).

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cient in its foreshadowing of the bucolic tradition. At least as early as the fifth century, Sicily had been identified as the land of the Cyclopes, and it is very likely indeed that the Syracusan Epicharmus set his comic Cyclops (first half of the century?) in the region of Mount Etna, as Euripides was to set his Cyclops. The parodos of Euripides’ play, which very clearly picks up and varies the Homeric Cyclops’ address to his ram, is also another remarkable foreshadowing of Theocritean motifs. Very likely it does not merely “exploit the audience’s belief” in Sicilian song traditions,7 but actually mimics (real or believed) features of such traditions;8 this is something different from the longacknowledged debt of pastoral to the real traditions of rustic song-exchange which Reinhold Merkelbach famously found in Theocritus.9 How much, if any, “bucolic song” (of any form) lies behind the Cyclops’ address to his ram, or is what is said too specific to the Cyclops’ own desperate situation to allow us to think of a wider context? Does Homer want us to think of bucolic song traditions when we hear these verses, just as elsewhere (particularly in the Odyssey) he appropriates many different poetic traditions into his all-encompassing epic? If so, were these traditions for Homer and his audience at all localised? It may be worth considering, if only for a moment, the possibility that the poet of the Odyssey, whoever and whenever he was, also associated such song with Sicily, and that the localisation of the land of the Cyclopes as Sicily is already there somehow in the Odyssey, though necessarily submerged beneath the “unreal” geography which governs Odysseus’ account of his adventures. Might Sicilian poetic traditions already surface in the Cyclops’ address to his ram? One very important aspect of these verses of the Odyssey is that the Cyclops’ speech is presumably intended to work to the greater kleos of Odysseus who lies beneath the ram—in two senses. The Cyclops’ speech is given to him by Odysseus as part of his apologoi to the Phaeacians, and so it is really Odysseus’ speech as much as the Cyclops’. Odysseus thus makes the Cyclops confirm the hero’s narrative out of his own mouth; it is, after all, Odysseus who has already identified this ram as a “hero” among the sheep, μήλων ὄχ’ ἄριστος ἁπάντων (432), just as Odysseus himself stands out from his crew. It is obviously important that the misguided “pathetic fallacy” and the emotional empathy with the ram’s normal behaviour are all placed in the Cyclops’ mouth by Odysseus himself, but what then is the tone of these verses? Is it just a way of mocking the Cyclops’

7 Hunter (1999) 9. 8 Cf. esp. Serrao (1969), Hunter–Laemmle (2020) 103–104. 9 Merkelbach (1956).

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stupidity and exalting Odysseus’ cleverness? It has long been acknowledged by most commentators that μακρὰ βιβάς in v. 450 assimilates the movement of the ram to that of an Iliadic hero striding towards the battle,10 though not all are prepared to see humour in the phrase.11 Is Odysseus inviting us to smile at a victim who is so deluded that (in his solitariness) he creates a daily epic drama in which his sheep are the principal characters? If so, “bucolic” Homeric poetry would then itself evoke a very different, Homeric world, just as Theocritus was constantly to do, and I shall return to this possibility. Tone here is indeed hard to catch. Immediately before the Cyclops’ speech, Odysseus describes how the ram was the last to leave the cave: ὕστατος ἀρνειὸς μήλων ἔστειχε θύραζε, λάχνῳ στεινόμενος καὶ ἐμοὶ πυκινὰ φρονέοντι. homer, Odyssey 9.444–445

The ram came last of the sheep to the entrance, weighed down by its fleece and by me with my close-set thoughts. Eustathius (Hom. 1638.56–57) found something witty (ἔχει τι ἀστεϊσμοῦ) in v. 445, as Odysseus describes himself as πυκινὰ φρονέοντι while clinging to the fleece of the ram which itself was πυκινόν.12 Eustathius’ instincts are surely correct here: Odysseus celebrates his own guile with what amounts to a wry twisting of formulaic language. We are left in no doubt as to who is in charge both of the action and of the narration, but we might also ask whether, in giving the “bucolic” speech to the Cyclops, Odysseus creates the kind of ironic and distanced de haut en bas empathy with which we are familiar from later pastoral and in which pity for the herdsman’s lot is always the result of a sense of readerly superiority. Any consideration of this scene in Odyssey 9 must take into account Priam’s description of Odysseus on the plain in front of Troy in Iliad 3:

10 11 12

In the Iliad the phrase is most associated with Ajax; the only other example in the Odyssey is μακρὰ βιβᾶσα of Achilles’ ghost at 11.539. Stanford ad loc. (strangely) denies the possibility of “intentional humour” because of the nature of formulaic language. Stanford ad loc. notes (without reference to Eustathius): “the zeugma (or metalepsis) is almost comic”; Dawe (1993) 382 describes the verse as “the strangest thing of all” in its passage. It is (inevitably) tempting to recall Helen’s praise of Odysseus’ μήδεα πυκνά, immediately after Priam’s comparison of him to a ram (Iliad 3.202, below p. 229).

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δεύτερον αὖτ’ Ὀδυσῆα ἰδὼν ἐρέειν’ ὁ γεραιός· ‘εἴπ’ ἄγε μοι καὶ τόνδε, φίλον τέκος, ὅς τις ὅδ’ ἐστίν· μείων μὲν κεφαλῇ Ἀγαμέμνονος Ἀτρεΐδαο, εὐρύτερος δ’ ὤμοισιν ἰδὲ στέρνοισιν ἰδέσθαι. τεύχεα μέν οἱ κεῖται ἐπὶ χθονὶ πουλυβοτείρῃ, αὐτὸς δὲ κτίλος ὣς ἐπιπωλεῖται στίχας ἀνδρῶν· ἀρνειῷ μιν ἔγωγε ἐΐσκω πηγεσιμάλλῷ , ὅς τ’ οἰῶν μέγα πῶϋ διέρχεται ἀργεννάων.’ τὸν δ’ ἠμείβετ’ ἔπειθ’ Ἑλένη Διὸς ἐκγεγαυῖα· ‘οὗτος δ’ αὖ Λαερτιάδης πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς, ὃς τράφη ἐν δήμῳ Ἰθάκης κραναῆς περ ἐούσης εἰδὼς παντοίους τε δόλους καὶ μήδεα πυκνά.’ homer, Iliad 3.191–202

Odysseus was the second whom the old man saw and enquired about: “Come, tell me also, dear child, who this man here is. He is shorter than Agamemnon the son of Atreus, but to look upon he is broader in the shoulders and the chest. His arms lie on the richly fertile earth, but he patrols the ranks of men like the leading ram; I liken him to a thick-fleeced ram which roams among a large flock of snowy sheep.” Then Helen, the daughter of Zeus, answered: “This is the son of Laertes, Odysseus of the many wiles; he was brought up on Ithaca, a rocky land, and he is the master of all sorts of trickery and cunning plans.” Odysseus is like a thick-fleeced ram, the leading ram of the flock in fact, the κτίλος (cf. further below); although we have seen Odysseus in action already in Books 1 and 2, the teikhoskopia is in some senses his “presentation” to the audience of the Iliad, as Helen’s lapidary verses about him make clear (200– 202).13 It is tempting to think that the Odyssey-poet knew these Iliadic verses and that some early audiences at least will have appreciated how the particular version of the folktale motif of escape from the giant’s cave which Homer gave to Odysseus in Book 9 resonated against the presentation of the hero in the Iliadic teikhoskopia. If any scene illustrated Odysseus’ παντοίους δόλους καὶ μήδεα πυκνά, it was the blinding of and escape from the Cyclops. Moreover, the relation between the two scenes suggests again that the interplay between bucolic

13

Cf. the observation of the scholia ad loc. which rightly identify the epigrammatic quality of the verses: “the epigram gives everything in a short space”; cf. further Nünlist (2009) 249 n. 39.

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foreground and Homeric background which shimmers everywhere through Theocritus’ bucolic poetry is in fact repeating a poetic gesture which was there already in Homer, as I suggested above in noting the “heroic” descriptions of Odysseus’ ram. What was a “bucolic” simile in the Iliad becomes a bucolic song in the Odyssey, and one in which the language gestures to a larger and martial world of heroic poetry. Theocritus has borrowed and adapted a Homeric technique for the display of the Homeric heritage. In his discussion of the Cyclops’ ram, Eustathius noted that the anaphora of πρῶτος in the Cyclops’ address made it clear that the ram was a κτίλος, that is the sheep (or goat) which led the flock (cf. Hesychius κ 4319); it was indeed a κτίλος ram to which Priam had compared Odysseus in the Iliad. Aristotle (HA 6.573b25–27) reports that herdsmen would choose one male sheep to be trained from a young age to do this task of leading, whenever “he was called by name.” The Cyclops’ ram as the flock leader takes us immediately to a famous Theocritean opening: κωμάσδω ποτὶ τὰν Ἀμαρυλλίδα, ταὶ δέ μοι αἶγες βόσκονται κατ’ ὄρος, καὶ ὁ Τίτυρος αὐτὰς ἐλαύνει. Τίτυρ’, ἐμὶν τὸ καλὸν πεφιλημένε, βόσκε τὰς αἶγας, καὶ ποτὶ τὰν κράναν ἄγε, Τίτυρε· καὶ τὸν ἐνόρχαν, τὸν Λιβυκὸν κνάκωνα, φυλάσσεο μή τυ κορύψῃ. theocritus 3.1–5

I go to serenade Amaryllis; my goats are grazing on the mountain, and Tityrus drives them. Tityrus, my very dear friend, graze my goats and lead them to the spring, Tityrus; and watch out for the billy goat, the tawny Libyan one, in case he butts you. This is one of the passages which Hermogenes uses to illustrate bucolic ἀφέλεια, “when someone explains things and narrates them, though there is no need to do so and no one has enquired” (322.14–16 Rabe). There is of course a longstanding debate as to whether we are to understand Tityrus here as a herdsman or as a goat, i.e., the leading goat of the flock, as Odysseus’ ram led the Cyclops’ flock; there is ancient lexical support for such a view.14 If Tityrus is understood as a goat, then the situation will be rather like that of the Cyclops in Idyll 11: the flocks go home alone (11.12–13), while the lovesick shepherd busies himself with his girl.

14

Cf. Gow’s note ad loc.

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The opening of Idyll 3 is the subject of a very interesting passage of pastoral Nachleben, namely Aulus Gellius’ discussion of Virgil’s adaptation of these Theocritean verses. The context is Virgil’s skill in knowing what to translate and what to leave alone: sicuti nuperrime, apud mensam cum legerentur utraque simul Bucolica Theocriti et Vergilii, animadvertimus reliquisse Vergilium quod Graecum quidem mire quam suave est, verti autem neque debuit neque potuit. sed enim quod substituit pro eo, quod omiserat, non abest quin iucundius lepidiusque sit: βάλλει καὶ μάλοισι τὸν αἰπόλον ἁ Κλεαρίστα τὰς αἶγας παρελᾶντα καὶ ἁδύ τι ποππυλιάζει. (Theocr. 5.88–89) malo me Galatea petit, lasciva puella, et fugit ad salices et se cupit ante videri. (Virgil, Ecl. 3.64–65) illud quoque alio in loco animadvertimus caute omissum, quod est in Graeco versu dulcissimum: Τίτυρ’, ἐμὶν τὸ καλὸν πεφιλημένε, βόσκε τὰς αἶγας καὶ ποτὶ τὰν κράναν ἄγε, Τίτυρε· καὶ τὸν ἐνόρχαν τὸν Λιβυκὸν κνάκωνα φυλάσσεο, μή τυ κορύξῃ. (Theocr. 3.3–5) quo enim pacto diceret: τὸ καλὸν πεφιλημένε, verba hercle non translaticia, sed cuiusdam nativae dulcedinis? hoc igitur reliquit et cetera vertit non infestiviter, nisi quod caprum dixit, quem Theocritus ἐνόρχαν appellavit. auctore enim M. Varrone is demum Latine caper dicitur, qui excastratus est: Tityre, dum redeo (brevis est via) pasce capellas et potum pastas age, Tityre, et inter agendum occursare capro (cornu ferit ille) caueto. (Virgil, Ecl. 9.23–25) aulus gellius, NA 9.9.4–11

For example, when very recently the Bucolics of Theocritus and Virgil were being read together at table, we perceived that Virgil had omitted something that in the Greek is, to be sure, wonderfully pleasing, but neither could nor ought to have been translated. But what he has substituted for that omission is almost more charming and graceful:

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Clearista pelts the goatherd with apples as he drives his goats past her and she whistles sweetly to him. (Theocr. 5.88–89) Galatea throws an apple at me, the playful girl, and flees to the willowtrees, but wants to be glimpsed first. (Virgil, Ecl. 3.64–65) Also in another place we noticed that what was very sweet in the Greek was prudently omitted: Tityrus, my very dear friend, graze my goats and lead them to the spring, Tityrus; and watch out for the billy-goat, the tawny Libyan one, in case he butts you. (Theocr. 3.3–5) But how could Virgil reproduce τὸ καλὸν πεφιλημένε, words that, by Heaven, defy translation, but have a certain native charm? He therefore omitted that expression and translated the rest very cleverly, except in using caper for Theocritus’ ἐνόρχας; for, according to Marcus Varro, a goat is called caper in Latin only after he has been castrated: Tityrus, until I return (it is a short trip), graze my goats and, Tityrus, lead them to drink once they are full, and while leading them make sure not to come up against the he-goat—he butts with his horn. (Virgil, Ecl. 9.23–25) trans. rolfe, adapted

For Gellius, bucolic/pastoral is, above all, the realm of the suave and the dulce, but in identifying τὸ καλὸν πεφιλημένε as dulcissimum, he draws our attention to a perhaps colloquial adverbial use of the neuter adjective (and one which certainly puzzled the scholiasts) and a phrase which certainly does not lessen the case for seeing Tityrus in Idyll 3 as a goat. We will here recall again not just the Cyclops’ address to his ram, presumably the model for this opening to Idyll 3, but also Hermogenes’ account of the stylistic sweetness which results when animals are described in human terms. Gellius’ observation about Virgil’s unfortunate use of caper for an uncastrated he-goat, contrary to Varro’s lexical distinctions (Varro was presumably distinguishing between caper and hircus), is normally simply an excuse for modern scholars to grumble about Gellius’ pedantry; Virgil in fact has most of Latin literature on his side. Nevertheless, that alleged pedantry should direct our attention to the interesting questions which arise and perhaps underlie Gellius’ discussion.

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Ancient lexicographers, as well as Eustathius (cf. Hom. 403.31, 404.13, 943.31), were clear that κτίλος as an adjective meant “tame, gentle”;15 the scholia on Iliad 3.197, the comparison of Odysseus to a κτίλος (cf. above), note that Odysseus is there compared to the “most gentle” (πραύτατος) animal,16 and D’Arcy Thompson recalled that il manso (i.e., mansueto) to designate the leading sheep in Italian exemplified the same synonymy (Thompson (1932)). One reason why the leading ram might be “tame, gentle” is of course that it has been castrated (cf. il castrone, castrù in Italian/Sicilian, “bellwether” in English). If we are to imagine such a situation in Idyll 3, then we suddenly find a real point in τὸν ἐνόρχαν in v. 4: Tityrus, perhaps himself a goat, needs to be careful of a hegoat which, unlike Tityrus, is still in full possession of its goathood. There are of course other issues about these verses which would require discussion in any full treatment (e.g., the resonances of ἐλαύνει in 2), but the present case is an excellent example of the constant need to balance up what we can learn from the grammatical tradition and what we think the poetic tradition teaches us. We might guess, incidentally, that Virgil, who will certainly have known Varro’s pronouncement, used caper in his adaptation of these verses in order, as far as possible, to remove ambiguity about the identity of Tityrus, an ambiguity of which he would have known inter alia from the Theocritean scholia;17 had he used hircus he would have left open the possibility that Tityrus was himself a (castrated) goat. Polyphemus and his ram are also at the centre of what is one of the most extraordinary moments of Theocritean Nachleben, Aeneas’ description of the blinded Cyclops in the third book of Virgil’s Aeneid: vix ea fatus erat summo cum monte videmus ipsum inter pecudes vasta se mole moventem pastorem Polyphemum et litora nota petentem, monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum. trunca manum pinus regit et vestigia firmat; lanigerae comitantur oves; ea sola voluptas solamenque mali. [de collo fistula pendet].

15 16 17

Modern scholarship connects the word with κτι- (as in κτίζω): “près de l’habitation” (Chantraine), “belonging to the dwelling place” (Beekes). Cf. further Morpurgo (1960). Cf. also Eustathius, Hom. 403.31–37, 404.6–8. For the relationship between the Eclogues and the Theocritean scholia cf. Keeline (2017). The relevant part of Eclogue 9 is itself something of a meditation on translation from Greek to Latin, and Virgil will certainly have expected his audiences to reflect upon his lexical choices.

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postquam altos tetigit fluctus et ad aequora venit, luminis effossi fluidum lavit inde cruorem dentibus infrendens gemitu, graditurque per aequor iam medium, necdum fluctus latera ardua tinxit. virgil, Aeneid 3.655–665

Scarcely had he spoken when we saw him on the top of the mountain, the shepherd Polyphemus moving with his huge bulk among his flocks and seeking the shores he knew well—a monster awful to behold, hideous, huge, his eye removed. In his hand a cut pine leads and steadies his steps. The fleeced sheep accompany him; this is his only pleasure and consolation for his distress; [from his neck his pipe hangs down]. When he reached the deep waves of the sea, he washed the bloody gore which flowed from where his eye had been removed; he gnashed his teeth and groaned, and as he walked through the open sea, the wave did not touch his lofty flanks. Behind Aeneas’ description lies the same passage of the Odyssey we have been considering. Virgil seeks to create a “mixed” emotional and generic effect, to match the two very different parts of the Cyclops’ address to the ram; it might be thought typical of Virgilian mimesis that there is not the apparently clean distinction between the parts which we find in Homer. In most modern editions of the Aeneid, the second half of v. 661 de collo fistula pendet, which has an uncomfortably fragile status in the manuscript tradition, is treated as a late antique attempt to complete a verse which Virgil had left as half a verse. A decision on that matter is in fact separate from a recognition that Virgil here takes us back, not just to Homer, but also to the bucolic Cyclops of Theocritus (and perhaps also to the Eclogues).18 Virgil’s solamen not merely recalls the Cyclops’ “shepherding of his love” in Idyll 11 but also brings out very finely something important about the Homeric scene of Odyssey 9: the wishful pathetic fallacy is a consolation for the Cyclops in the loss of his eye, which is like a kind of death (lumen ademptum). comitantur in v. 660 both evokes the ὁμοφροσύνη between man and beast for which the Homeric Cyclops longs and reverses the situation of Idyll 11 in which the flocks return to the steading without their shepherd; comitantur also reminds us, as does voluptas, that that shepherd has no human, particularly female, company to soothe the pain and the loneliness, marked out

18

Cf. esp. Glenn (1972) 55–59, Thomas (1999) 260–263.

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by the echoing sola … solamen. Whoever added de collo fistula pendet to Virgil’s half-verse recognised something very important about it. Finally, the Homeric scene of the Cyclops and his ram can illustrate an important aspect of the modern reaction to ancient bucolic and pastoral. In the parodos of Euripides’ Cyclops (52), which has already been identified as both a descendant of Odyssey 9 and a prescient foreshadowing of Theocritean motifs (cf. above), a ram (clearly the Homeric ram redivivus) is addressed as ὦ κεράστα (or perhaps Κεράστα, if this is actually the animal’s name). In 1932 D’Arcy Thompson suggested that a Sicilian dialect word for the sheep that leads the flock, crastù “can surely be no other than Greek κεράστης … it is highly interesting, it is very beautiful, to find Euripides putting into the mouths of his Sicilian chorus a shepherds’ word, which shepherds on the slopes of Etna have in use today.”19 Thompson was all but certainly wrong about the etymology (the word is, very likely, simply dialect for castrone), but what really is “interesting and beautiful” here is Thompson’s desire to get in touch with “the real,” to find in ancient bucolic poetry timeless practices and language which one can still see today by going to the wild places. However artificial and mannered pastoral poetry might be, we have a yearning, by no means limited to D’Arcy Thompson and a world before the Second World War, to find in it something “real,” and the more complicated and sophisticated our own lives, the stronger the πόθος for a lost innocence, for, to use Hermogenes’ terms, an ἀφέλεια to which we can no longer lay claim. Even if the desire, perhaps most famously enshrined in Thomas Rosenmeyer’s The Green Cabinet of 1969, to associate the rise of bucolic with a quasi-Epicurean desire to escape the complications of life in the large Hellenistic cities such as Alexandria is now seen as at best overstated, we nevertheless should acknowledge the powerful hold that such nostalgia for life before the Fall holds over us. The characters of pastoral can seem to represent our own prelapsarian selves; the wistful longing of the satyrs in the parodos of Euripides’ Cyclops is our longing also. What is so powerful, then, about Virgil’s dispossessed herdsmen, Meliboeus in Eclogue 1 and Moeris in Eclogue 9, is that they are both before and after the Fall; they have a share both in pastoral simplicity and in the ruthlessness of modernity. To this extent, they reembody the violent failure of another of Homer’s bucolic intimations, the innocent and doomed syrinx players on the Shield of Achilles (Iliad 18. 525–526).

19

Thompson (1932) 54.

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The Bucolic Journey

In Odyssey 17 Eumaeus escorts the disguised Odysseus into town; this is the hero’s first approach to his own palace for twenty years: ἦ ῥα, καὶ ἀμφ’ ὤμοισιν ἀεικέα βάλλετο πήρην, πυκνὰ ῥωγαλέην, ἐν δὲ στρόφος ἦεν ἀορτήρ· Εὔμαιος δ’ ἄρα οἱ σκῆπτρον θυμαρὲς ἔδωκε. τὼ βήτην, σταθμὸν δὲ κύνες καὶ βώτορες ἄνδρες ῥύατ’ ὄπισθε μένοντες. ὁ δ’ ἐς πόλιν ἦγεν ἄνακτα πτωχῷ λευγαλέῳ ἐναλίγκιον ἠδὲ γέροντι, σκηπτόμενον· τὰ δὲ λυγρὰ περὶ χροῒ εἵματα ἕστο. ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ στείχοντες ὁδὸν κάτα παιπαλόεσσαν ἄστεος ἐγγὺς ἔσαν καὶ ἐπὶ κρήνην ἀφίκοντο τυκτὴν καλλίροον, ὅθεν ὑδρεύοντο πολῖται, τὴν ποίησ’ Ἴθακος καὶ Νήριτος ἠδὲ Πολύκτωρ· ἀμφὶ δ’ ἄρ’ αἰγείρων ὑδατοτρεφέων ἦν ἄλσος, πάντοσε κυκλοτερές, κατὰ δὲ ψυχρὸν ῥέεν ὕδωρ ὑψόθεν ἐκ πέτρης· βωμὸς δ’ ἐφύπερθε τέτυκτο Νυμφάων, ὅθι πάντες ἐπιρρέζεσκον ὁδῖται· ἔνθα σφέας ἐκίχανεν υἱὸς Δολίοιο Μελανθεὺς αἶγας ἄγων, αἳ πᾶσι μετέπρεπον αἰπολίοισι, δεῖπνον μνηστήρεσσι· δύω δ’ ἅμ’ ἕποντο νομῆες. homer, Odyssey 17.197–214

With these words he threw the shabby, very tattered bag over his shoulders—there was a strap on which it hung—and Eumaeus gave him a staff which suited him. The two of them headed off, while the dogs and the herdsmen stayed behind to protect the steading. So he led to the town his master, looking like a wretched beggar and an old man, leaning on a staff; the clothes on his body were tatters. When along the steep path they were close to the town, they reached a fountain, man-made, fair-flowing, where the townspeople drew water; it had been made by Ithacus, together with Neritus and Polyctor. Around it was a grove of water-nurtured poplar trees, a spreading circle, and cold water flowed down from the rock high up. Above, an altar to the Nymphs had been built, where all travellers performed sacrifice. There they were met by Melantheus, the son of Dolios, who was bringing the very finest goats of the flock to serve as dinner for the suitors; two shepherds accompanied him.

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In 1972 Ulrich Ott pointed out that this scene was an important model for Theocritus, Idyll 7,20 in which Simichidas and his friends travel “from the polis” into the countryside. That poem celebrates a fountain and locus amoenus (cf. esp. 7–9, 135–137) created by early founders of Cos (Clytia and Chalcon),21 and the travellers meet a goatherd (at least someone who “looked very much like a goatherd,” 14); the suggestion that this goatherd is not quite what he seems to be reflects the Homeric motif of Odysseus disguised as a beggar (“like a wretched beggar and an old man,” 202): Odysseus is certainly more than he seems to be.22 Theocritus’ reworking thus fashions the subsequent quarrel between Eumaeus and Melantheus into an originary “bucolic” exchange (cf. Comatas and Lacon in Idyll 5). Odysseus’ approach to his palace repeats two of the significant geographical names from his self-presentation to the Phaeacians: εἴμ’ Ὀδυσεὺς Λαερτιάδης, ὃς πᾶσι δόλοισιν ἀνθρώποισι μέλω, καί μευ κλέος οὐρανὸν ἵκει. ναιετάω δ’ Ἰθάκην εὐδείελον· ἐν δ’ ὄρος αὐτῇ, Νήριτον εἰνοσίφυλλον, ἀριπρεπές· ἀμφὶ δὲ νῆσοι πολλαὶ ναιετάουσι μάλα σχεδὸν ἀλλήλῃσι, Δουλίχιόν τε Σάμη τε καὶ ὑλήεσσα Ζάκυνθος. homer, Odyssey 9.19–24

I am Odysseus, son of Laertes; all men know of my trickery, and my fame has reached heaven. I dwell in Ithaca seen from afar. There is a mountain, leafy Neriton, which clearly stands out, and round about there are many inhabited islands, all set close together, Doulichion and Same and wooded Zacynthos. The repetition supports De Jong’s view that the description of the fountain is “(implicitly) focalised” by Odysseus and Eumaeus: they, and particularly Odysseus, have the appropriate knowledge of Ithacan history; Odysseus’ knowledge and recognition of the landmark is in fact part of his reclaiming of his homeland.23 The eponymous Ithacus and Neritus make no other appearance any-

20 21 22 23

Ott (1972) 146–149, cf. Halperin (1983) 226–227, Griffin (1992) 194–195, Hunter (1999) 147– 148. We are here reliant on the scholia on 5–9, cf. Hunter (1999) 153. The description of Lycidas in 15–19 picks up Odysseus’ preparations at Od. 17.197–199. De Jong (2001) 406; for an attempt to identify the location of the locus amoenus cf. Bittlestone (2005) 458–462.

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where in literature, except in the lore preserved in the scholia and Eustathius on 207 (cf. below). The same is true of Polyctor, if—as seems entirely probable— he is to be understood as a figure from the island’s legendary past; the name is, however, also given to the father of one of Penelope’s suitors (18.299, 22.243), who, so perhaps we are to understand, traces his family back to that “founder,” just as Simichidas’ hosts in Idyll 7 trace their ancestry back to significant names in the history of the island.24 That Homer offers no further explanation of these three names is both a striking technique (is the significance of the names too obvious to require explanation?),25 and also one which helps to reinforce the sense that Odysseus is reaching a familiar landmark. Not only is his selfintroduction to the Phaeacians recalled, but also his first “unclouded” vision of Ithaca, as Athena points out the significant landmarks to him:

345 346 349 35026

355

24

25

26

ἀλλ’ ἄγε τοι δείξω Ἰθάκης ἕδος, ὄφρα πεποίθῃς· Φόρκυνος μὲν ὅδ’ ἐστὶ λιμήν, ἁλίοιο γέροντος, ἥδε δ’ ἐπὶ κρατὸς λιμένος τανύφυλλος ἐλαίη· τοῦτο δέ τοι σπέος εὐρὺ κατηρεφές, ἔνθα σὺ πολλὰς ἔρδεσκες Νύμφῃσι τεληέσσας ἑκατόμβας· τοῦτο δὲ Νήριτόν ἐστιν ὄρος καταειμένον ὕλῃ. ὣς εἰποῦσα θεὰ σκέδασ’ ἠέρα, εἴσατο δὲ χθών· γήθησέν τ’ ἄρ’ ἔπειτα πολύτλας δῖος Ὀδυσσεὺς χαίρων ᾗ γαίῃ, κύσε δὲ ζείδωρον ἄρουραν. αὐτίκα δὲ Νύμφῃσ’ ἠρήσατο χεῖρας ἀνασχών· ‘Νύμφαι Νηϊάδες, κοῦραι Διός, οὔ ποτ’ ἐγώ γε ὄψεσθ’ ὔμμ’ ἐφάμην· νῦν δ’ εὐχωλῇσ’ ἀγανῇσι This seems much more probable than the suggestion of Di Benedetto (2010) 901–902 that we are to understand the three names as those of contemporaries or near contemporaries of Odysseus (i.e., the two Polyctors are identical). Di Benedetto offers, however, a valuable discussion of the scene of Odyssey 17; he also notes how the construction of v. 207 gives precedence to Ithacus over the other two builders of the shrine of the Nymphs. “Polyctor” is also the name which Hermes chooses for his alleged father when he meets Priam at Iliad 24.397: “suitable for a rich man” (Richardson ad loc.). The D scholia explain that Ithacus and Neritus, sons of Pterelaus, settled Ithaca from Cephalonia, and they adduce Acusilaus of Argos (late sixth century) as their authority (fr. 43 Jacoby-Fowler); the BQ scholia (and cf. Eustathius, Hom. 1815.48–50) claim that the third brother, Polyctor, gave his name to a place on Ithaca (not otherwise attested), cf. Fowler (2013) 556. It seems very unlikely that the poet of the Odyssey knew or expected his audience to know such lore; it is, rather, very probable that this is a (very interesting) post-Homeric construction of local history. Along with most recent editors, I omit what are transmitted as lines 347–348 (= 13.103– 104).

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χαίρετ’· ἀτὰρ καὶ δῶρα διδώσομεν, ὡς τὸ πάρος περ, αἴ κεν ἐᾷ πρόφρων με Διὸς θυγάτηρ ἀγελείη αὐτόν τε ζώειν καί μοι φίλον υἱὸν ἀέξῃ.’ homer, Odyssey 13.344–346, 349–360

“But come, I will show you the layout of Ithaca, so that you will believe. This is the harbour of Phorcys, old man of the sea; here at the head of the harbour is an olive tree with its slender leaves; here is the broad, vaulted cave where you often offered perfect sacrifices to the Nymphs. Here is Mount Neriton, covered in forest.” With these words, the goddess scattered the mist, and the land became clear. Long-suffering, noble Odysseus rejoiced with pleasure in his homeland and he kissed the fertile soil. At once he raised his arms and prayed to the Nymphs: “Naiad Nymphs, daughters of Zeus, I thought that I would never see you again; now take pleasure in my loving prayers. I shall also offer you gifts, as I did before, if the daughter of Zeus, the plunderer, graciously allows me to live and brings my dear son to manhood.” Ithaca, Mount Neriton and the Nymphs all reappear (the first two through reference to their eponymous heroes), as Odysseus finally approaches his own palace; so too the piety to the Nymphs which Odysseus shows in Odyssey 13 (vv. 355–360) is evoked again in Odyssey 17 (vv. 210–211, 240–246), as it will be picked up in the festive ending of Idyll 7 (vv. 135–137, 148). The Homeric spring and grove of the Nymphs was built “close to the astu,” presumably as a benefaction to the inhabitants, as it was there that “the people of the polis drew water” (v. 206). The only other occurrence of πολῖται in the Odyssey is in exactly the same half verse at 7.131 describing the springs in front of Alcinous’ palace, also—like the grove of Odyssey 17—as seen by Odysseus (cf. 7.133–135). The Ithacan spring to some extent marks a boundary where polis- or astu-life begins and the countryside recedes.27 There are, of course, no very sharp divisions between the two, whether in Homer or Theocritus (cf. 16.87–97), but the importance in the Odyssey of a distinction between the two realms is very clear: in one the suitors lay siege to Penelope and waste to Odysseus’ house, in the other Eumaeus and Laertes (“whom they say no longer comes to the polis, but leads a hard life far away in the countryside (ἐπ’ ἀγροῦ),” Od. 1.189–190) embody an older virtue. That this Homeric scene is reworked in Idyll 7 is of particular significance, as this is the poem which, perhaps more than any other of Theocritus’ poems, defines the nature of bucolic song in terms 27

Cf. Scully (1990) 13–14.

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of the boundaries between polis and country. Simichidas is a “polis-dweller,” for whom “bucolic song” is a poetic mode to be adopted, not—as it is for Lycidas— a mode of life. The city, in all its forms, plays very little part in Theocritus’ bucolics. Other than 7.2, the term πόλις appears in the “bucolics” only at 4.32, a snatch of song καλὰ πόλις ἅ τε Ζάκυνθος, and at 5.78, where Lacon tells Comatas not to delay Morson, the judge of their contest, too long, but “let him get back to the polis”; Morson may be going there to sell the heath he has cut (cf. vv. 64–65), but Lacon is also trying to flatter the judge to get him on his side: Morson is a sophisticated man who knows the polis and will (no doubt) judge Lacon’s song to be superior. As for ἄστυ, this occurs in the bucolic poems only at 7.24 in Lycidas’ teasing of Simichidas, a teasing which makes clear that Simichidas belongs in the town and only comes into the countryside for celebratory pleasure.28 There is of course nothing in the bucolic poems to match the place of Rome in Virgil’s First Eclogue, and Virgil perhaps draws attention to this move away from tradition: Urbem quam dicunt Romam, Meliboee, putavi stultus ego huic nostrae similem, cui saepe solemus pastores ovium teneros depellere fetus. sic canibus catulos similes, sic matribus haedos noram, sic parvis componere magna solebam. verum haec tantum alias inter caput extulit urbes quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi. virgil, Eclogues 1.19–25

The city which they call Rome, Meliboeus, in my foolishness I thought was like ours here, where we shepherds regularly take29 the tender offspring of the sheep. Thus I knew that puppies were like dogs and kids like shegoats, thus I used to compare great things with small. But this city raises its head among all others as cypresses do amidst bending climbers. The contrast between Rome and “this urbs of ours” is not just a contrast between (perhaps) Rome and Mantua, but also between Rome and the towns 28

29

The two occurrences of ἀστικά at Idyll 20.4, 31 perhaps suggest that post-Theocritean bucolic made more of the city-country distinction than did Theocritus; this would not surprise. There is a distinction in Idyll 25 between the astu and Augeas’ “country estate” which Heracles visits, cf. vv. 45–46. The meaning of depellere is disputed.

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which hide “offstage” in Theocritus’ bucolics, such as in Idyll 5 (above). The urbs which Rome has surpassed, Ptolemaic Alexandria, has of course a major place in Theocritus’ poems, above all Idylls 15 and 17, but the difference is telling: when we do catch a possible glimpse of Ptolemy and his capital in the bucolic poems, it should not surprise that it is in the mouth of the town-dweller Simichidas, the fame of whose songs may have reached “the throne of Zeus” (7.93).30

Bibliography Bittlestone, R. (2005), Odysseus Unbound (Cambridge). Davies, M.I. (1990), “Asses and Rams: Dionysiac release in Aristophanes’ Wasps and Attic vase-painting,” Metis 5, 169–181. Dawe, R.D. (1993), The Odyssey. Translation and Analysis (Lewes). De Jong, I. (2001), A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey (Cambridge). Di Benedetto, V. (2010), Omero, Odissea (Milan). Fowler, R.L. (2013), Early Greek Mythography, Vol. ii Commentary (Oxford). Glenn, J. (1972), “Virgil’s Polyphemus,” G&R 19, 47–59. Griffin, J. (1992), “Theocritus, the Iliad, and the East,” AJPh 113, 189–211. Halperin, D.M. (1983), Before Pastoral: Theocritus and the Ancient Tradition of Bucolic Poetry (New Haven/London). Hunter, R. (1999), Theocritus, A Selection (Cambridge). Hunter, R. (2021), “Sappho and Hellenistic Poetry,” in P. Finglass/A. Kelly (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Sappho (Cambridge) 277–289. Hunter, R. and Laemmle, R. (2020), Euripides, Cyclops (Cambridge). Keeline, T. (2017), “A Poet on the Margins: Vergil and the Theocritean Scholia,” CPh 112, 456–478. Merkelbach, R. (1956), “βουκολιασται (Der Wettgesang der Hirten),” RhM 99, 97–133. Morpurgo, A. (1960), “κτιλοσ (Pind. Pyth. ii 17),”Rivista di Cultura Classica e Medioevale 2, 30–40. Nünlist, R. (2009), The Ancient Critic at Work (Cambridge). Ott, U. (1972), “Theokrits ‘Thalysien’ und ihre literarischen Vorbilder,” RhM 115, 134–149. Scully, S. (1990), Homer and the Sacred City (Ithaca NY). Serrao, G. (1969), “La parodo del ‘Ciclope’ euripideo,” Museum Criticum 4, 50–62. Thomas, R. (1999), Reading Virgil and His Texts (Ann Arbor). Thompson, D.W. (1932), “Κτίλος,” CR 46, 53–54. 30

The praise of Ptolemy at Theocritus 14.58–68 is in the mouth of a character who is plainly not a “bucolic herdsman.”

chapter 10

Pan’s Pipes: Lyric Echoes and Contexts in Theocritus Alexandros Kampakoglou

for P. K. μνάσασθαί τινά φαιμι †καὶ ἕτερον† ἀμμέων sappho fr. 147 voigt

∵ 1

Introduction: Theocritus and the Novel Conceptualization of Lyric

One of the difficulties, or perhaps even fascinations, that Theocritus’ poetry holds for the modern reader is its generic multiformity or variety. The dactylic hexameter in which the majority of Theocritus’ poems have been composed offers a reasonable impetus to align his Idylls with early hexameter poetry. In addition to the various allusions to the works of Homer and Hesiod one finds in his poetry, some Idylls (22, 24,1 26) assume the form of a Homeric hymn. Next to such “traditional” and easily recognizable forms, one also encounters wedding songs (18), encomia (16, 17), dedicatory pieces (28), epyllia (13), and pederastic poems (12, 29, 30, 31), not always in the lyric meters of songs (e.g., 30, 31) but in those of recited poetry. The bucolic poems (1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 11) and the remaining Idylls (2, 10, 14, 15) are usually seen as poetic mimes.2 Even in these poems one often encounters cases of embedded lyric genres. Idyll 4, as has been recently argued, juxtaposes a victory song for Aegon, or at least a bucolic version thereof, with a lamentation for Amaryllis.3 Even if one were to set aside this abundant material, the focus on love as an affliction would be reason enough to set Theocritus’ hexameter poetry apart from the Homeric and Hesiodic paradigms,

1 As suggested by the fragmentary lines 171–172, on which see Kampakoglou (2019) 197–199. 2 Hunter (1999) 3–5. 3 Rawles (2007); Kampakoglou (2014).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004466715_012

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bringing it closer instead to lyric poetry.4 “Lyric” is used in a generic manner to include not only the poetry performed to the accompaniment of the lyre but also iamb and elegy.5 Recognizing that generic ποικιλία is a salient feature of Theocritus’ poetic output,6 the following discussion examines the kind of lyric poems Theocritus engages with, the modalities in which he does so, and the effect that he wishes to create. However, before the discussion proceeds, I would like to address three points, which hold importance in the treatment of lyric influence on the poetry of Theocritus. The concept of literary genre as employed throughout this chapter is not without difficulties. One of the earliest exhibits of generic classification appears in Pindar’s fragments.7 Still, this cannot be thought to hold ubiquitous validity.8 Under the circumstances, the use of late terminology is a matter of convenience that facilitates the discussion. Following modern debate on the matter,9 one can accept that in archaic and classical times performative context is crucial in offering a form of “pre-generic” consciousness. This entails not only the modality of the actual performance but also the horizon of expectations10 of the audience in addition to the tradition of previous performances.11 Ultimately the two latter factors bear heavily on the determination of the content of a poem. In this respect, then, and despite the fundamental differences in genre classification in Hellenistic times,12 one may still find some common ground between archaic and classical lyric, on the one hand, and Hellenistic poetry, on the other. Recent discussions have emphasized that performances continued to hold an important role in the cultural life of Hellenistic times.13 Theocritus points towards the existence of poetic competitions that happened under the aegis of Ptolemy ii Philadelphus.14 Nonetheless, there is no safe evidence that Theocritus’ Idylls were actually performed; or, if they were indeed performed, that they followed archaic and classical lyric traditions.15 Archaic and classical lyric

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

For this aspect of lyric poetry, see Campbell (1983) 27. Rutherford (2019b) 1–2. Gutzwiller (1996) 129–133. Fr. 128c Sn.-M. (= 56 Cannatà Fera). Budelmann (2018) 11. Rossi (1971); Calame (1974); Nagy (2009). The term derives from Jauss’ (1970) “aesthetics of reception.” Budelmann (2018) 12–13. Hunter (1996) 3–4. Cameron (1995) 24–70; D’Alessio (2017). Theoc. 17.111–112; see Hunter (2003) 182–184 ad loc. Hunter (1999) 11.

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partakes in what Herington (1985: 3–5) has termed “song culture.”16 In other words, this is community poetry that seeks to revisit traditional lore and, by doing so, to reestablish the ties of the community. Lyric poets do not vocalize personal feelings but rather stage themselves in front of their communal group.17 Even when they innovate, lyric poets remain bound to the societal orientation of their work. Without a doubt, much of the communicative side of this kind of poetry is lost in Hellenistic times. Nonetheless, Theocritus tries to recreate this aspect of lyric poetry through predominantly textual means, whether this is the choice of a specific dialect (e.g., Aeolic) or technical devices such as invocations or refrains (1, 2).18 Indeed, much of Theocritus’ take on lyric poetry is symptomatic of a wider tendency in Hellenistic times—to receive, that is, lyric poetry not as sung but as book poetry. In this context, the textualization of lyric deictic discourse19 enables Theocritus to create a wider community of readers as audience that transcends the place and time limitations of actual performance. A final point concerns the emergence of a new understanding in Hellenistic times of what constitutes lyric. Divorced from their immediate contexts of performance, the lyric attributes of such texts no longer concern their musical accompaniment. Rather, to be lyric means to strike a pose:20 to pretend to suffer by the affliction that is love. More importantly, to be lyric means to be distanced from epic and drama. The irreverent attitude towards epic values that one finds in the fragments of several lyric poets (e.g., Archilochus, Sappho, Anacreon, Ibycus) acquires special significance in the eyes of poets wishing to circumscribe their own independence in the literary tradition.21 Practically, this distancing from the model of epic heroes suggests that the lyric speaker is arrested in a state of creative inactivity, unable to reach a decision about the course of action he or she should follow.22 More often than not, Theocritus’ characters dwell on their emotional turmoil, failing to act on the opportunities that lie ahead of them. In archaic and classical lyric, such sentiments assume an exemplary status through the use of myths. Following suit, Theocritus not only returns to traditional mythological characters (e.g., Heracles, Polyphemus) to express his own independence but also creates a new corpus of mythological heroes (e.g., 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

See also Kurke (2000); (2007). Stehle (1997) 7, 19–20. Sistakou (2017) 291. For deixis in archaic lyric, see Danielewicz (1990) and the papers collected in Arethusa 37.3 (2004). Sistakou (2017) 283 (“literary pretence”). Fowler (1987) 7. T.G. Rosenmeyer (1992) 195.

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Daphnis, Comatas) who acquire archetypal validity for the herdsmen of the bucolic Idylls. The characters of Theocritus’ Idylls act out the textual scenarios of archaic and classical lyricism. In this way, their stories acquire added significance as metaphoric narrativizations of Theocritus’ engagement with lyric patrimony.

2

Theocritus’ Aphroditean Poetics: Idyll 1 and Sappho

Idyll 1 opens in medias res. There is no frame, as in Idyll 7, which could help contextualize the encounter between the unnamed goatherd and Thyrsis from Etna (64). Nothing is revealed about the geographical location of their meeting or the history of their acquaintance with each other. Thyrsis’ status is never revealed. In the past Thyrsis was involved in a poetic competition with Chromis from Libya (23–24). It seems that this was one of Thyrsis’ best performances to date and that it has been committed to the collective memory of the pastoral community as represented by the unnamed goatherd. The goatherd’s interest in the fate of Daphnis underlines Daphnis’ archetypal role as the suffering herdsman for other inhabitants of the bucolic universe in Theocritus’ collection. In turn, Thyrsis functions as the “representative” of bucolic poetry in this Idyll, and so his role and performance is instructive about what one is to expect with regard to the bucolic genre and its relationship to previous poetic production.23 The opening address to the Muses (64) suggests the programmatic role Thyrsis’ song has in delineating the genre of bucolic poetry. The fact that this is the only such address in the entire Theocritean corpus24 reinforces the metapoetic implications of this poem for readers, also reflected in its placement at the opening of the collection.25 The subject matter of the poem as described by the goatherd gives no indication about the genre in which Thyrsis’ song belongs. The possible treatment of the myth of Daphnis by Stesichorus, if the information is accurate, complicates further the issue of generic classification.26 Aelian associates the origins 23 24 25 26

Fantuzzi (2008) 577. The pseudo-Theocritean Idyll 9 (27) clearly imitates this poem. The only other appeal to the Muses for help can be found in the embedded song of Bucaeus in Idyll 10 (23). Gutzwiller (1996) 123–128. As Gutzwiller notes, this arrangement probably reflects the work of a third-century bce editor rather than of Theocritus himself. Fr. 323 Finglass (= Aelian VH 10.18). Davies and Finglass (2014) 596–598 are sceptical about the value of Aelian’s testimony. They argue that Stesichorus either referred to Daphnis in passing or that the Stesichorus Aelian mentions is the fourth-century dithyrambic poet of the same name: FGrHist 239 A 73 ~ PMG 841; cf. LeVen (2014) 228–229.

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of bucolic songs (βουκολικὰ μέλη) with Daphnis’ plight, which, as he specifies, concerns his blindness rather than his romantic misfortunes. There is no guarantee that this represents the original version of the story. However, one notes that Theocritus emphasizes the romantic aspect of Daphnis’ story instead and possibly innovates by introducing Aphrodite into the story. Accordingly, the goatherd classifies Thyrsis’ song as an ἐφίμερον ὕμνον (61, “delightful song”). The designation refers, no doubt, to the effect that Thyrsis’ song has had on audiences before, being an indication of the bucolic bard’s artistry. Even so, ἐφίμερον may also indicate that Thyrsis’ song is about love. In this reading, the origins of Thyrsis’ bucolic song would have to be sought in the organic combination of epic elements (e.g., diction, meter, appeal to the Muses) with lyric subject matter.27 The pronounced role of Aphrodite is also suggested by the fact that Daphnis makes a reply to her alone, ignoring previous entreaties by Hermes and Priapus. Daphnis’ discourse to Aphrodite opens with a triple address, which recalls hymnic patterns (99–100, Κύπρι βαρεῖα, / Κύπρι νεμεσσατά, Κύπρι θνατοῖσιν ἀπεχθής “Cruel Cypris, / spiteful Cypris, Cypris hateful to mortals,” tr. Hopkinson (2015) 29): the three adjectives Daphnis uses misrepresent the list of attributes typical in the praise of gods. The negative emphasis on the power of Aphrodite, and by extension of love, reflects not only Daphnis’ hostility to the goddess but also the traditional designation of love as an affliction. Not only does Daphnis boast that he will be a bane to Aphrodite even in death (102), but he also fictionalizes his own story and relates it to myths that show Aphrodite’s weakness (103–118). Perverting hymnic structures, Daphnis eschews stories that praise Aphrodite’s power, choosing instead accounts in which Aphrodite seems to be the victim of her own power (Anchises, Adonis) or of mortal aggression (Diomedes). With the exception of the myth of Adonis, for which no secure hexameter source can be identified,28 the allusions to Anchises and Diomedes have hexameter parallels in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite and Iliad 5 (311–430), respectively. Both stories represent a world and genre that espouse ideals alien to those of Daphnis and bucolic poetry. Nonetheless, juxtaposing these accounts with the story of Daphnis, Theocritus suggests that epic and bucolic share a common metrical medium and similar narrative conventions. Still, Daphnis falls victim to the supremacy of love, and in this he sets an example for the denizens of the bucolic world. After Daphnis’ demise, each herdsman will reenact the story of

27 28

Vox (1986) 317. For Theocritus’ lyric aesthetics, see Sistakou (2017) 283. See Gantz (1993) 102–103 on the possibility that Hesiod’s fr. 139 M.-W. refers to the myth of Adonis.

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the archetypal boukolos suggesting that repetitive erotic affliction is characteristic of bucolic poetry. In this respect, Theocritus’ bucolic poetry follows the tradition of lyric poetry in which eros is a passion that repeatedly afflicts the lyric hero.29 Olympic gods are generally absent in bucolic poetry.30 The presence of Aphrodite is thus an important exception in that it demonstrates the close connection between the goddess and Daphnis31 and signals the alignment of bucolic poetry with lyric models. The inclusion of Aphrodite in a programmatic poem,32 such as Idyll 1, suggests that the goddess also has an important role to play in delineating the poetics of the new genre. Sappho’s so-called Prayer to Aphrodite (fr. 1 Voigt), which also opened the Hellenistic edition of Sappho’s poems,33 offers an important parallel in this regard.34 In each case, Aphrodite manifests herself to a person invested with poetic skills, Daphnis or Sappho respectively. Rhetorically, the address to the goddess assumes a hymnic form, opening in both poems with a list of three epithets (1–2, πο]ικιλόθρο[ν’ ἀθανάτ’ Ἀφρόδιτα, / παῖ] Δ[ί]ος δολ[όπλοκε “Ornate-throned immortal Aphrodite, / wileweaving daughter of Zeus,” tr. Campbell 1982: 53). Following Vox (1986: 315), one may also see the questions Hermes and Priapus address to Daphnis as a reworking of Aphrodite’s questions to Sappho (fr. 1.15–20 Voigt). But the similarities do not stop here. In spite of the fact that Sappho’s poem adopts the form of a hymn or prayer, the adjectives selected depict Aphrodite in quasi-irreverent terms, testifying to the goddess’s tendency for trickery and deception.35 Although Sappho’s depiction of the goddess is ironic,36 it conveys nonetheless her awesome and formidable power that can cause distress (3–4) similar to that suffered by Daphnis in Theocritus 1. On both occasions, Aphrodite approaches her mortal interlocutor either smiling or laughing.37 The mortal person addresses the goddess offering their personal mortal story instead of, or in addition to, a typical myth. Daphnis compares himself to Anchises, Adonis, and Diomedes. Sappho recounts a previous encounter of hers with the goddess (5–24). Indeed, in both poems the speaking 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

Mace (1993). Fantuzzi (2000) 136. Fantuzzi (1998) 63. Vox (1986) 312. On the Hellenistic edition of Sappho, see Liberman (2007). See also Prodi (2017) 573–582. Vox (1986) offers a stimulating discussion of the various Sapphic echoes in Theocritus 1 including fr. 1 Voigt. Thomas (1999) 4–5. Martyn (1990) 202–203. Theocritus 1.95–96 ~ Sappho fr. 1.13–14 Voigt; see Vox (1986) 315.

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person identifies themselves as Daphnis and Sappho respectively by embedding in their discourse the direct speech attributed to Aphrodite: καὶ λέγε ‘τὸν βούταν νικῶ Δάφνιν, ἀλλὰ μάχευ μοι’ “and say ‘I am the conqueror of Daphnis the oxherd; come and fight me, then’” (Theocritus 1.112; tr. Hopkinson (2015) 31) ~ τίς σ’, ὦ / [__]Ψά]πφ’, [ἀδίκησι; “who wrongs you, Sappho?” (Sappho fr. 1.19–20 Voigt; tr. Campbell (1982) 55). Consequently, Aphrodite functions as the divine mouthpiece that lends validity to the poetic status of Daphnis and Sappho. At the same time, Aphrodite defines both of them as textual personas underlining their importance and inherence to the generic traditions they help found and shape: bucolic and erotic poetry, respectively. Through this medium, Sappho’s and Daphnis’ afflictions become ready-made scenarios that can be followed by those reperforming or imitating their poetry.38 The poet who reperforms fr. 1 Voigt puts on the mask of the suffering Sappho; similarly, Thyrsis and the bucolic singers in Theocritus’Idylls adopt the identity of Daphnis (cf. Idyll 6) or imitate his sufferings. Despite Daphnis’ animosity towards Aphrodite, in both poems the goddess of love appears as a magnanimous goddess, who takes pity on the mortal person—trying to assist them or, in the case of Daphnis, even revive them (137– 138). If Aphrodite’s epiphany in Sappho fr. 1 imitates her appearance in Iliad 5, Theocritus opts for a similar technique in presenting her encounter with Daphnis against the same Iliadic passage. Underlining both poems is the same set of aesthetic values: poetry that defines itself in light of Homer’s precedent; this does not entail slavish imitation but creative reworking and recalibration of emphasis. According to Martyn (1990: 211), Sappho attributes to Aphrodite, and eros, the following four characteristics: changeability of love, sweetness in an idyllic or sensuous setting, bitterness, and blindness to other obligations. All four elements are omnipresent in Theocritus’ poetry.39 Time and again, Theocritus’ lovers complain of the fickleness of their loved ones and bemoan the smartness of eros’ sting. This scenario is played out in the countryside. But even in those poems which avoid a bucolic setting, lushness is prominent. Finally, these declarations of Aphrodite’s omnipotence claim the time and attention of the bucolic singers, who disregard their tasks. Indeed, dereliction of duty is a prominent element in the depiction of even non-bucolic lovers such as Heracles in Theocritus 13, to which we turn next.

38 39

See also Sistakou (2017) 309 on Idyll 1. See also Vox (1986) 317 n. 12.

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249

The “Inbetweenness” of Theocritean Poetry: Idyll 13 and Lyric Identities

Thyrsis’ song demonstrates that lyric poetry has a great role to play in helping Theocritus to define the character of his hexameter poetry against the background offered by the conventions, language, and meter of Homeric poetry. The presentation of this technique bears unmistakable lyric credentials: very often lyric poets offer defamiliarizing takes on epic myths in order to define their independence against the Homeric model. This attitude appears all the more appealing to the Hellenistic poets who are also trying to demonstrate their poetic originality and autonomy. Idylls discussing epic or epicizing material offer an appropriate area for the examination of Theocritus’ interaction with such lyric attitudes. Such a case in point is Idyll 13, which narrates an episode of the Argonautic expedition: the disappearance of Hylas and Heracles.40 Idyll 13 is addressed to a friend of Theocritus named Nicias. Nicias is also the addressee of Idyll 11, while 28 is meant as a gift for Nicias’ wife. The commonalities in themes and structure between Idylls 11 and 13 are numerous, leading scholars to view them as a pair.41 While Idyll 11 puts forward song making as a remedy for curing love, the frame in Idyll 13 suggests love as an affliction common to Theocritus, Nicias, and all mortals. In so doing they also allude to a uniform lyric tradition. Both Idylls look back to the tradition of sympotic poetry: Idyll 13 is heavily indebted to the poetry of Sappho and Ibycus; Idyll 11, to that of Philoxenus and Anacreon. Taken together, Idylls 11 and 13 could suggest a narrative according to which Nicias, like most characters in Theocritus’ poetry, is afflicted by unrequited love, although this is never explicitly stated. Theocritus’ address to Nicias might be seen as offering a frame. Nonetheless, no valuable piece of information is offered to the reader who is thus left to their own devices, trying to define the narrative circumstances of the interaction between the two friends. The hexametric form of the poem suggests the influence of archaic epic, but, as we shall see, this possibility proves illusory. Theocritus may deal with an epic theme (the Argonautic expedition), but his manner is so thoroughly un-Homeric that it brings his poem very close to lyric attitudes towards epic material. Theocritus 13 has often been seen as a poetic epistle that Theocritus sends to his friend Nicias. However, there is no indication that Theocritus and Nicias are

40 41

The story is also known from Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica, whose version Theocritus probably knew; Hunter (1999) 263–265. See also Kyriakou (2018) 193–204. Hunter (1999) 215.

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parted or that Theocritus is “sending” his poem.42 Another possibility, and one which I hold to be more likely, is that the poem is meant to be contextualized in a sympotic context in which both Theocritus and Nicias participate.43 Several aspects of the poem’s myth point towards this direction. First of all, the topic of love, and particularly that of pederastic love (as is the relationship between Heracles and Hylas) is more at home at the symposium. Indeed, the discourse could be fruitfully compared to that of Theognis’ elegies. The combination of the didactic tone with erotic sentiments brings Theocritus 13 close to this tradition.44 The homoerotic aspect of Theognidean poetry is reflected in the myth selected: the pair Heracles and Hylas might be thought to reflect that of Theognis and Cyrnus.45 Additionally, the simile of lines 61–63 points strongly towards the tradition of Theognis’ elegies:46 [ὡς δ’ ὁπότ’ ἠυγένειος ἀπόπροθι λὶς ἐσακούσας] νεβροῦ φθεγξαμένας τις ἐν οὔρεσιν ὠμοφάγος λίς ἐξ εὐνᾶς ἔσπευσεν ἑτοιμοτάταν ἐπὶ δαῖτα· At a fawn’s crying in the hills, a lion that eats raw meat rushes from its lair toward the meal that awaits. tr. hopkinson (2015) 191

Ironically, Heracles, the hero famous for killing the Nemean lion (6), behaves in his distress like a lion seeking its prey. The atmosphere of the simile is almost Iliadic. However, once again, as is typical in this Idyll, the epic expectations that these lines give rise to are betrayed.47 In the Iliad valiant heroes are compared to lions, and this analogy is meant to underline their ferocity and prowess on the battlefield.48 Theocritus hints at this traditional background of Heracles

42 43

44 45

46 47

48

Hunter (1999) 261–266. See, however, Sistakou (2017) 298–299. The exclusivity of the discussion between Nicias and Theocritus finds a parallel in Callimachus’ exclusive discussion with Theugenes in Callimachus’ Aetia (fr. 178 Harder). For the influence of Theognis’ pederastic verses on Theocritus, see Hunter (1996) 167–195. The overtly homoerotic focus of the speeches, the philosophical tone, and Eryximachus’ occupation as a doctor in the Platonic Symposium could also provide an inspiration for Theocritus’ poem. Hunter (1999) 281–282 ad loc. According to Foster (2016) 123, Theocritus alludes here to the comic representation of Heracles as gluttonous and sexually insatiable. The comic reading of these lines suggests that the betrayal of epic values happens in more than one way. Clarke (2004).

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but situates it in a romantic context. The programmatic implications of this “misuse” of epic material are demonstrated by the comparison of Hylas with a “fawn” (νεβρός). Hylas does not demonstrate cowardice, as the Iliadic usage of the image would imply. Rather, his parallelism with the behavior of a frightened fawn suggests his modesty and reflects his role as the object of erotic pursuit.49 Along similar lines, in one of Anacreon’s erotic fragments (PMG 408), the maiden or youth of whom the poet is enamored is represented as a fawn that has been abandoned by her mother.50 A further indication of the lyric provenance of Theocritus’ simile is provided by the elegies of Theognis (1.949–950 ~ 2.1278c–d). Νεβρὸν ὑπὲξ ἐλάφοιο λέων ὣς ἀλκὶ πεποιθώς ποσσὶ καταμάρψας αἵματος οὐκ ἔπιον Like a lion trusting in its might, I snatched a fawn from the doe with my claws, and did not drink its blood. tr. gerber (1999) 311

The couplet appears in two combinations in Books 1 (948–949) and 2 (1278c– d), with different implications. In Book 1, Theognis seems to declare the failure of his politics.51 In the manner of the lion, the poet comes very close to success, but ultimately fails.52 Despite the political implications, the reuse of the same couplet in the pederastic context of Book 2 suggests that the competing erotic reading arose quite early.53 There is no certainty that 1278a–d form a single narrative and not two independent distichs (i.e., 1278a–b ~ 1101–1102 and 1278c–d ~ 949–950), as has been accepted by most recent editors.54 Still, it would seem that the author of their combination in Book 2 implies that Theognis accuses his young lover, influenced by the poet’s detractors, of abandoning their friendship (1278a–b). Continuing these lines, 1278c–d suggest that Theognis’ effort to secure the attention of his young lover have been in vain; in this Theognis 49 50 51 52

53 54

See Swift (2019) 381 on Archilochus fr. 196a.47. Degani/Burzacchini (2005) 252–254. Interestingly enough, the fawn Theocritus refers to is also feminine (φθεγξαμένας) and without parental supervision. Groningen (1966) 360–362. This picture is followed by others suggesting the frustration of failure: failure to conquer a city after climbing its walls (950); failure to mount a chariot after harnessing the horses (951). The erotic reading of these lines even in book 1 is supported by Carrière (1948) 70–71n3; Garzya (1958) 258–259 ad loc.; Adrados (2010) 229 n. 1. Vetta (1980) 74–75 ad loc.

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resembles the lion, which has secured its victim, but lets it go. Theocritus either knew these lines in their current configuration in Book 2 or reflects the erotic reading of the lines in Book 1: Hylas abandons Heracles and their philia against his wishes, overpowered by the nymphs. Through the agency of the nymphs, Hylas is cast in the role of the fickle lover provoking Heracles to experience the pangs of being spurned. The message that Nicias, and the reader, is meant to draw from this mythological example is not clear. The ambiguity is intentional and forms parts of Theocritus’ lyric attitude towards epic poetry. In either scenario Nicias has but one option to follow, and this is the example of Heracles.55 Searching for Hylas, Heracles prioritizes his lover over the common expedition and abandons his erstwhile comrades. Thus, Heracles exhibits the blind disregard for other obligations so typical of the Sapphic and Theocritean lover. In this manner, Theocritus 13 offers a programmatic juxtaposition of heroic kleos with lyric eros. This contrast is thrown into sharp relief through the pun between ἠρώησε (74, “abandoned”) and ἥρως (“hero”).56 Through his conduct Heracles compromises his heroic credentials. Indeed, the designation of Heracles as λιποναύταν (73, “deserting the sailors”) by the Argonauts recalls Agamemnon’s dilemma in Aeschylus’ play of the same name (Agamemnon 212–213): “How can I become a deserter of the fleet, / losing my alliance?” tr. Sommerstein 2009: 25 (πῶς λιπόναυς γένωμαι / ξυμμαχίας ἁμαρτών;).57 Through his decision, Agamemnon stays close to the epic expectations of heroic conduct: Agamemnon prioritizes prestige and military fame over the demands of his own family, the bonds of military allies over paternal obligations to protect from harm. Heracles, on the other hand, betrays the heroic code of conduct, prioritizing private claims of devotion over those of his comrades. But this is only one part of the story. Although Heracles abandons the Argonauts, he reaches Colchis on foot and by himself (75).58 Indeed, Theocritus calls attention to the sheer difference in prowess: Heracles equals a whole ship of fifty heroes. On this basis, Theocritus offers a new definition of what constitutes heroism. This goes a step further than the pun between ἠρώησε (74) and ἥρως implies and also concerns Theocritus’ definition of eros (ἔρως). Heracles’

55

56 57 58

Theocritus adapts the use Achilles makes of Heracles in Il. 18.117–119. Here Heracles’ ultimate death is a reminder of death’s unavoidability even for Achilles. For a lyric take on this example, see Bacchylides 5 with Cairns (2010) 86–92. Hunter (1999) 288 on 74. Note also θεῖος ἄωτος / ἡρώων (27–28) and ἥρωες (73). Kyriakou (2018) 203 n. 83. The authenticity of the final line of Theocritus 13 has occasionally been called into question: see Hunter (1999) 288–289; Kyriakou (2018) 201–202.

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heroic identity is reified through eros. For this aspect of Heracles’ persona to be effective, Heracles needs to abandon the Argo so as to be a hero through love. By allowing his Heracles to reach his destination, Theocritus does not deprive him of his heroic credentials.59 On the contrary, Theocritus recalibrates the emphasis providing a different route for Heracles’ attainment of kleos. Heracles continues on his heroic path. Thus he achieves his immortality but also offers a foil to Nicias. The honors that follow Heracles’ achievement are a consolation of sorts. Theocritus jocularly suggests, then, that Nicias needs to give in to the pangs of love and fulfil his “heroic” destiny through them.60 Regarding the social dynamics between the Argonauts, Foster (2016) 140 has recently remarked that “Theocritus’s Argonauts are a ship’s crew that primarily functions as a social group. Their behavior within the episode finds its closest analogues in the culture of the symposium.” When the Argonauts reach Propontis, they set about preparing their dinner (32–35). δαίς (32) commonly refers to the “festive banquet” (DGE s.v. i 1), and it would seem that the Argonauts prepare a symposium in an idyllic setting using mattresses instead of couches (33).61 In this context, Hylas, as is often the case with aristocratic youths, performs the role of the cupbearer. The gathering of the Argonauts resembles a feast during which the members of the crew come together and reaffirm their dedication to the aim of the expedition and the common ties that bind them together. Against this background, the inset episode of Hylas’ disappearance with Heracles’ ensuing pursuit of the youth looks more and more like one of those humorous stories with which one regales one’s fellow symposiasts. The friendly atmosphere of the Argonautic symposium would reflect the atmosphere in which Theocritus’ exchange with Nicias takes place. Even the designation of Heracles as λιποναύτας falls short of the tragic overtones of Agamemnon’s λιπόναυς in Aeschylus’ play. The Argonauts teasingly acknowledge Heracles’ excessive nature, recalling his generally idiosyncratic conduct. The fact that Heracles fails in his efforts to retrieve the object of his mania accords well with the generic lines of symposiastic poetry. As Stehle (1997) 249 notes, the symposium is a well-ordered but egalitarian group. What brings the symposiasts together is their common failure in erotic matters: to succeed in the pursuit of one’s lover means to set oneself apart from and above one’s drinking comrades. While Heracles reaffirms his heroic credentials by reaching 59 60 61

Kyriakou (2018) 202. Note also the ironic comparison of the lover with Heracles in Theoc. 29.37–38; Hunter (1996) 178. For the lack of klinai as a sign of idealized or primitive symposia, see Topper (2009); Cazzato (2016) 191.

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Colchis on foot, he also reaffirms his credentials as an Argonaut: his failure to reach Hylas contrasts strongly with his successful reaching of Colchis, but suggests that Heracles belongs to the group of men characterized by their inability to withstand the onslaught of Eros. In this sense, the sympotic group that are the Argonauts is widened enough to include through its symbolism also Theocritus and Nicias.62 Theocritus’ iconoclastic treatment of epic subject matter develops a discourse prominent in archaic lyricists such as Sappho (fr. 16 Voigt) and Ibycus (PMGF S151). In all three cases, the poet depreciates epic material as unsuitable to the praise of love, which is the proper concern of poetic composition. On the surface of things, Sappho fr. 16 Voigt contrasts military pursuits and the glory that ensues with feminine sentimentality and eros. As several readers have noted, Sappho offers a fresh and gendered approach to traditional epic figures and male-sanctioned values.63 For any poet interested in novel approaches, Sappho’s realignment of poetic tradition presents considerable interest. The similarities between Sappho’s poem and Theocritus’ Idyll are many and concern not only structure but also their respective approaches. To begin with, Sappho notes that Helen surpasses all mortals with respect to her beauty (6– 7).64 Heracles matches Helen’s superiority as “having a heart of bronze” and having subdued the Nemean lion (5–6).65 While Helen is drawn to Paris, Heracles is drawn to Hylas: both are attracted to individuals who fall beneath the heroic standards of manly prowess. In so doing, their behavior is atypical: they breach the laws of the oikos or of the expedition. Ultimately, both characters behave according to their nature, unsettling traditional conventions. The allusion to the gathered armies at the opening of fr. 16 Voigt is understood to refer to the Iliad.66 The opening salvo posits the contrast between heroic epic and love67 in a manner that foreshadows Theocritus’ distinction. Since heroic pursuit is conceptualized in the form of the representative genre

62

63 64 65

66 67

Even though the conclusion of the Idyll is open ended, as suggested by Kyriakou (2018): 202–203, Theocritus’ version presupposes accounts, according to which Heracles arrived at Colchis with the Argonauts; see Hunter (1999) 288–289. Burnett (1983) 289; DuBois (1995) 107, 120; MacLachlan (1997) 174; Fredricksmeyer (2001) 79, 82; Whitmarsh (2018). DuBois (1995) 101. Whitmarsh (2018) views Helen as the personification of the idea of beauty. Theocritus underplays Heracles’ divine origins by acknowledging the parenthood of Amphitryon solely (5). The effectiveness of Theocritus’ argument, however, lies exactly in Heracles’ being the son of Zeus. Rissman (1983) 30, 38; MacLachlan (1997) 171; Pfeijffer (2000) 2. Rissman (1983) 38, 46–47; Pfeijffer (2000) 2.

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(i.e., epic), both compositions acquire clear metapoetic overtones.68 Still, as in Theocritus, the distinction between war and love (or epic and lyric) is not as clear as one may suppose. Indeed, epic discourse is reemployed to project a new kind of ethos, which supports Sappho’s lyric thesis. Anactoria, Sappho’s favorite, is invested with martial splendor that recalls the gathered warriors of the opening lines.69 As in Theocritus 13, eros is an ambiguous, but broad enough, term that describes both heroic aspiration and erotic passion.70 The new ethos that Sappho presents is supported by a pun between the superlative κάλλιστον (3) and the feminine participle κ̣ αλλ[ίποι]σ̣ ’ (9) that describes Helen abandoning Menelaus.71 The pun parallels the one in Theocritus 13.72 The difficulty of establishing the exact connection between frame and mythological example we notice in Theocritus 13 is emphasized in Sappho’s poem through the flexibility of the analogies that the poem suggests. Inasmuch as Sappho seeks Anactoria, she resembles Helen who follows Paris.73 However, this analogy is undercut by the consideration that Anactoria, like Helen, leaves Sappho behind probably for her new husband. Thus, Sappho plays both the role of Helen and Menelaus.74 The ambiguity undermines the juxtaposition of genres and puts forwards a synthesis of epic myth with lyric sentimentality. As Rissman (1983) 48 notes, Sappho exhibits in her execution of this poem a sophistication typical of Alexandrian poets. A final point of contact between Theocritus 13 and Sappho fr. 16 Voigt concerns the quasi-philosophical frame in which the mythological example is presented.75 Dubois (1995) 83, in particular, talks of Sappho’s poem as a “prephilosophic project.” She also notes that Sappho’s poem illustrates the transition from parataxis (example as parallel) to hypotaxis (example as proof of a thesis) combined with the expression of personal desire. For Kirkwood (1974) 148, this is a typically Sapphic construction: Sappho’s experience is conveyed through the example of the inset scene, but the relevance remains complex. However, from this personal experience she offers, Sappho constructs a general

68 69 70 71 72

73 74 75

For Theocritus 13 as a “little epic,” see Hunter (1999) 262; Kyriakou (2018) 193. Pfeijffer (2000) 5; McEvilley (2008) 113. For the various meanings of eros, see Burnett (1983) 287; Fredricksmeyer (2001) 178–179. DuBois (1995) 102. There is the further possibility that line 72 (οὕτω μὲν κάλλιστος Ὕλας μακάρων ἀριθμεῖται·) alludes to Sappho’s text: Helen and Heracles follow what they consider to be the “most beautiful,” spurning considerations of what is proper. Rissman (1983) 43. Pfeijffer (2000) 6; Fredricksmeyer (2001) 83–84. For this approach, note in particular DuBois (1995) 105.

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significance. This bestows upon Sappho’s poetry a specific and timeless quality.76 A similar movement between the personal experience and the generic can be detected in Idyll 13, in which the opening gnome emphasizes the general relevance of the discussion. Heracles’ story is just an example of a common truth. However, Theocritus takes to the extreme the complexities that Kirkwood detects in the relationship between frame and inset story. This renders the Idyll open and susceptible to the interpretations of the readers. Also relevant for the appreciation of Idyll 13’s metapoetic character is Ibycus PMGF S151.77 In this fragment of approximately forty lines, Ibycus gives a summary account of the Trojan War in an extremely negative light. Midway through the text, Ibycus stops his account and proclaims that praise of military prowess is not his subject matter (10–22). Ibycus then adds that only the Muses could enumerate the ships that sailed against Troy (24–35). Instead of military prowess and battle, Ibycus sings of male beauty, which allows him to transition to singing the beauty of his patron, Polycrates (41–47). It is through such means that Polycrates will attain “imperishable fame” (46, κλέος ἄφθιτον). Ibycus’ praise discourse operates upon the contrast between warriors famed for their excellence in war (e.g., Achilles and Ajax) and lesser figures notable for their beauty (e.g., Hyllis and Troilus). Despite his declaration that he will not sing of the Trojan War, Ibycus offers a version that is suitable to the performative context of his poem—the symposium. Nonetheless, PMGF S151 could very well be read as having wider programmatic connotations, representative of Ibycus’ poetics. This is particularly likely for Hellenistic poets seeking models for their poetics. In addition, the significance of this fragment for Theocritus 13 grows in importance when one considers the similarities in approach and technique. In spite of its lyric meter and Doric dialect, Ibycus makes consistent use of epic phrases in order to incorporate into his lyric version of the Trojan War the epic account, which he “rejects.”78 Particularly, the application of κλέος ἄφθιτον to Polycrates, used before only of Achilles (Iliad 9.413), is a daring move that signals the realignment of epic values to the exigencies of sympotic or erotic discourse.79 Indeed, the transformation of the epic example in Ibycus’ address to Polycrates parallels Theocritus’ similar treatment of the Argonautic myth in his address to Nicias.

76 77 78 79

MacLachlan (1997) 165. Hutchinson (2001) 235–236; Wilkinson (2013) 53–58; Budelmann (2018) 172–174. Budelmann (2018) 173. Steiner (2009) explores the importance the Hesiodic paradigm had for Ibycus in helping him devise his own non-Homeric poetics. Rissman (1983) 47–48; MacLachlan (1997) 191–192.

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The parallels between Ibycus PMGF S151 and Theocritus 13 could extend to the contextualization of Theocritus’ poem and suggest the tradition of sympotic poetry. The homoerotic coloring of Ibycus’ fragment would tally well with the evidence of Theognidean and Pindaric influence in the poem. Ibycus’ poem is believed to derive from an encomium.80 Encomia were traditionally associated with homoerotic language81 and the symposiastic context.82 A final element that points towards the direction of erotic encomia is offered by the description of Heracles as χαλκεοκάρδιος (“having a heart of bronze”) at line 5. Although this adjective is a hapax, Kirstein (1997) has persuasively shown that it reflects a line from Pindar’s encomium for Theoxenus of Tenedus (fr. 123.5 Sn.M.).83 Praising the beauty of the young Theoxenus, Pindar posits that the man who can withstand Theoxenus’ charms must “[have] a black heart forged from adamant or steel,” tr. Race 1997: 365 (5, κεχάλκευται μέλαιναν καρδία). In contrast to this man, Pindar melts like hot wax (10–11). χαλκεοκάρδιος combines two elements of Pindar’s line: bronze and heart. Despite this similarity, Heracles’ reaction to the loss of Hylas belies the impression that the linguistic connection gives rise to. Heracles does not react in the manner Pindar posits for the unnamed man; on the contrary, Heracles’ emotion would place him in the same category as the Pindaric speaker.

4

Filling the Void: Memory and Invocation

The idealized natural setting, also known as locus amoenus, is a well-known feature of Theocritus’ poetry both in his bucolic and non-bucolic poems. Such lush settings are prominent in Polyphemus’ cave in Idyll 11 (45–48). Indeed, Polyphemus goes to some lengths to sell the loveliness of his home to the sea nymph he is in love with (Galatea): laurels, cypresses, ivy, sweet vine, and cool water from the tops of snow-covered Etna are parts of this paradise on earth that are meant to induce Galatea to give up her maritime abode. The exquisiteness of the landscape is such that Polyphemus characterizes the water from Etna as “divine” (11.48), reflecting a characteristic that Theocritus attributes elsewhere only to Hebe’s chambers (17.32). This description, as has been noted,84 owes a great deal to Sappho’s description of Aphrodite’s sacred “apple80 81 82 83 84

Gentili/Perrotta/Catenacci (2007) 267. For encomia, see Färber (1936) i.35–36; ii.42–44. Lasserre (1974), particularly 17–21; Rawles (2011) 155–158. Budelmann (2002). See, however, Kyriakou (2018) 196 n. 70, who raises doubts about this connection. Hunter (1999) 236 on 45–48.

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grove” (fr. 2.2 Voigt, ἄλσος). In spite of the poor preservation of the poem, certain points in common with Theocritus’Idyll emerge. Sappho describes the grove as “graceful” (2 χάριεν). The epithet endows the following description with sensual connotations, but also reflects the elegance of Sappho’s descriptive style. Both these aspects are significant if we wish to understand Theocritus’ technique in ironically undermining the conventions of Sapphic poetry in Idyll 11. Incensed altars, apple trees and roses, sweet breeze, cool water, and shade make up Sappho’s paradisiacal setting that is truly fitting for the epiphany of the goddess of love. Several readers of this fragment have noted that Aphrodite’s epiphany will never actually happen. The epiphany happens symbolically through the acts the Sapphic narrator describes in lines 13–15. By wreathing their heads, by mixing sweet wine in the golden cups, Sappho and her companions imitate Aphrodite as if she were present amongst them. Additionally, the description of the setting and the acts performed induce divine presence.85 A similar device is used by Polyphemus in his discourse to Galatea. Against the background that these similarities provide, the reader is struck by the crudeness and rustic coloring of Polyphemus’ take on Sapphic discourse. In a famous reading of the garden imagery in Sappho’s poetry, Winkler (1996) emphasizes its latent sexual connotations; the images that Sappho uses are susceptible to a double reading, carrying implications to female audiences to which men are blind. A case in point is the apple or the γλυκύμαλον of fr. 105a Voigt, usually translated as “sweet-apple.”86 Common interpretation derives this fragment from a wedding-song: supposedly, the chorus praise the bride as a “sweet-apple,” which the groom plucked in its ripeness.87 Winkler (1996: 105) argues that “The real secret of this simile is […] [the image] of women’s sexuality and consciousness in general, which men do not know as women know.” Theocritus seems to acknowledge the enhanced significance of the apple symbolism for Sapphic discourse. Lines 39–40 reflect, in all likelihood, fr. 105a Voigt: τίν, τὸ φίλον γλυκύμαλον, ἁμᾷ κἠμαυτὸν ἀείδων / πολλάκι νυκτὸς ἀωρί “singing of you, my dear sweet apple, and of myself, / often late into the night” (tr. Hopkinson (2015) 173).88 Still, Polyphemus is destined to fail in his wooing of Galatea like the various men of fr. 105a Voigt. Theocritus undermines the effectiveness of Polyphemus’ discourse by noting meaningfully at line 10 that “[Polyphemus] loved not with apples or roses or locks of hair” tr. Hopkinson 2015: 169 (ἤρατο δ’

85 86 87 88

Robbins (1995) 233–234, 236. See, however, Winkler (1996) 103–105. Aloni (1997) 188–189; Neri/Cinti (2017) 373–375. Hunter (1999) 235 ad loc.

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οὐ μάλοις οὐδὲ ῥόδῳ οὐδὲ κικίννοις). Furthermore, fr. 105b Voigt, which is usually combined with fr. 105a Voigt, compares the loss of virginity with a red hyacinth that shepherds have trodden upon. Polyphemus’ invitation to the maiden Galatea is ominous in light of his occupation as a ποιμήν. One also notes the ominous aspect of Polyphemus’ cave known to us from Homer’s narrative in Odyssey 9. In particular, the description of his cave bears several similarities to the description of Etna in Pindar’s Pythian 1 (18–20). Apart from the mention of Etna, both texts also share a reference to snow and fire.89 Perhaps more alarming for the success of Polyphemus’ endeavor is the allusion to Typhon, the horrible giant perpetually locked underneath Etna: the reference to Polyphemus’ hairiness recalls Pindar’s description of Typhon.90 Theocritus’ subtle irony operates on a double plane. The allusion to Typhon is an erudite reminder of Polyphemus’ wild nature, which will come to the surface in the future ominously alluded to in lines 61–62. At the same time, Theocritus undercuts the effectiveness of Polyphemus’ Sapphic strategy by “bucolicizing” items of Sapphic discourse. Polyphemus’ behavior toward Galatea repeats standard elements of Sappho’s love poetry. For instance, the chase of the unresponsive lover plays out the scenario of Sappho (and other love poets).91 In the manner of the typical lover, Polyphemus neglects his tasks (11). His madness recalls that of Sappho in fr. 1.18 Voigt. His interaction with his mother (67–71) perverts the maiden’s complaints to her mother in Sappho fr. 102 Voigt. The melting away even (14, κατετάκετο) reflects a lyric staple.92 However, the imitation becomes ludicrous when Polyphemus turns Sappho’s fr. 156 Voigt “far more sweet-sounding than a lyre / … more golden than gold” (tr. Campbell 1982: 165) into “whiter than curd to look on, softer than the lamb, / more skittish than the calf, sleeker than the unripe grape” (20–21) tr. Hopkinson 2015: 171.93 Sappho famously complained about the rustic deportment of one her rivals who lured a girl away from her (fr. 57 Voigt). If this pronouncement is indicative of Sappho’s wider outlook, one senses the jarring effect produced by applying her refined poetry to the poetry of the rustic Polyphemus. One may further hypo-

89 90 91 92 93

Pind. Pyth. 1.20–21 ~ Theoc. 11.47–48, 51. Pind. Pyth. 1.18–19 (αὐτοῦ πιέζει / στέρνα λαχνάεντα) ~ Theoc. 11.50 (αἰ δέ τοι αὐτὸς ἐγὼν δοκέω λασιώτερος ἦμεν). Note the uses of φεύγω (30, 75) and διώκω (75), which parallel, e.g., Sappho fr. 1.21 Voigt and Theognis 1298. See also Sappho fr. 1.22 Voigt for the promise of gifts. Alcman (PMGF 3 col. ii 61); Ibycus (PMG 287); Anacreon (PMG 346); Pindar (fr. 123.11 Sn.M.). Hunter (1999) 229 on 19–21. Note the intertextual word play between πάκτιδος “Lydian Lyre” and πακτᾶς “cream cheese.”

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thesize that Galatea would be appalled rather than flattered by Polyphemus’ attempt to sound Sapphic.94 The connection with Sappho’s fr. 2 Voigt suggests that Polyphemus was doomed to fail from the very beginning. If Aphrodite in Sappho’s fragment is never meant to materialize, what implications could this have for the rhetorical strategy of Idyll 11? How seriously are we to take Polyphemus’ plea when the Sapphic intertext undermines the efficacy of the invitation? As was mentioned previously, Sappho’s invitation to Aphrodite is a textual ploy: the presence of the goddess will be felt through the acts described. In other words, performing (and one should add reading) Sappho’s poem should make Aphrodite’s presence felt. In this sense, Polyphemus’ efforts are doomed to fail not only because unrequited love is the proper state of the lyric and bucolic lover but also because Galatea’s presence, like that of Aphrodite before, is reified through Polyphemus’ song. The distance between frame and the myth emphasizes Theocritus’ humorous attitude towards his protagonist. It is never going to get any better than just this. All poor Polyphemus will ever have is his memories of his first encounter with Galatea. By having Polyphemus tune in to his memories, Theocritus activates another textual device prominent in Sappho’s poetry. Several of Sappho’s poems focus on the fond memories that the women of her group share.95 The poems not only memorialize these moments but also allow their audiences to mentally relive them. Stehle (1997: 294) has even suggested that some of Sappho’s poems might have been written as parting gifts for the women leaving Sappho’s circle. Developing this possibility, one sees that audiences both on Lesbos and abroad will relive these memories reestablishing the proximity lost through a textual medium. In this respect, as Jarratt (2002) 25–26 has argued, Sappho’s attitude towards memory differs radically from the masculinized manipulation of memory. While male poets (e.g., Alcaeus) utilize memory for exhortations and offering examples of proper behavior in battle, for Sappho, memory functions as a locus of reunion, soothing the suffering of separation. A quick look at the parallel situation of Simaetha in Idyll 2 would strengthen the Sapphic implication of memory. Like Polyphemus, Simaetha resorts to memory in order to establish a rapport with the missing other.96 Theirs is an attempt to fill the void the loss of the departed lover has created, an attempt destined to fail.

94 95 96

Theocritus knew this poem and probably alludes to it in his Aeolic Idyll 28; Aloni (1997) 104–105 n. 1. For memory in Sappho, see Robbins (1995) 230. For the Sapphic echoes in Theocritus 2, see Acosta-Hughes (2010) 17–29.

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The analogy of Idyll 11 with Sappho’s fr. 2 Voigt also suggests that Galatea performs a role similar to that of Aphrodite as inspirer of Polyphemus’ poetry.97 The story of Polyphemus’ infatuation with Galatea is relatively recent and derives from late classical lyric. Although we are still missing crucial pieces of information, we know that both Timotheus (PMG 780–783) and Philoxenus (PMG 815–824) composed poems on this love affair.98 Quite possibly Theocritus derives from this body of texts, and particularly Philoxenus,99 salient aspects of his depiction of Polyphemus: the comic or humorous treatment of Polyphemus,100 the idea of Polyphemus as a singer,101 and the metapoetic importance of his story.102 The story is embedded after all in Theocritus’ exchange with his friend Nicias and concerns the effectiveness of poetry as a medicine against love. It is unclear what the genres of the lost poems were. Philoxenus most certainly composed a dithyramb, while Timotheus, whose version is the older, probably a nomos.103 To add to the confusion, it is unclear if Galatea was imagined as being present in Timotheus’ or Philoxenus’ songs.104 Nonetheless, it is quite likely that Philoxenus chose to underline Polyphemus’ isolation by depicting Polyphemus singing to himself and asking the dolphins to convey his message to Galatea.105 Discussion of the fragments of both Timotheus and Philoxenus suggests that both poets engage in an elaborate game with revising the traditional forms of nomos and dithyramb. Philoxenus seems to imitate and criticize Timotheus’ excessive combination of nomos and dithyramb elements in his version. The comic effect was appreciated by Aristophanes (Plutus 290–295) and Phaenias (fr. 13 Wehrli).106 This reinforces the impression that several modern readers of his poem have had that Theocritus treats Polyphemus ironically. As Hunter (1999) 220–221 explains, there is no cure; “his song ‘relives’ his love, but in ‘shepherding’ it he keeps it alive […]—there is no ultimate escape.” From a metapo-

97

98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106

Nymphs perform a similar function for Daphnis (Idyll 1) and Simichidas (Idyll 7): see Fantuzzi (1998) 63; (2000) 145. It is not surprising that Galatea, a sea nymph, would be called to play this role as well. For Galatea as a goddess, see Hunter (1999) 216. Cyclops was a popular topic with dithyrambic poets: see the list in LeVen (2014) 221– 222. Hordern (2004) 292; Sistakou (2017) 295. For Philoxenus’ poem, see LeVen (2014) 233–242. Hordern (1999) 445, 448–450; Power (2013) 238, 252–253. Hordern (2004) 288–289. Power (2013) 240. Power (2013) 245; see, however, Hordern (1999) 449. Hordern (1999) 451; Power (2013) 238, 254–255. Hunter (1999) 216–217. Power (2013) 253–255.

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etic point of view, this restates the “predicament” of the lyric lover, constantly being targeted by the goddess of love. Elaborating upon the intertextual connection with Sappho, one might even see Idyll 11 as an ironic comment on the implications of memory in Sapphic discourse. Such considerations aside, the strongly ironic subtext inscribes this Idyll too in the tradition of sympotic poetry so prominent in Theocritus’ Idylls.107 The conclusion of the Idyll in particular bears an unmistakable flavor of Anacreontic irony.108 Anacreon’s ironic attitude towards the supposed object of his erotic passion or even himself is well known.109 Very often Anacreon will end his composition with a tongue-in-cheek remark that undermines the seriousness of the erotic discourse on which his poem has been based.110 Theocritus’ comment in lines 80–81 is anticlimactic after the pathetic song of the young Cyclops. Theocritus ridicules not only Polyphemus’ poetry but also the medical profession to which his friend and interlocutor belongs.111 The issue of poetry as an effective medicine seems to have been abandoned; instead, Theocritus focuses on the traditional greediness of doctors. Further echoes of Anacreon are detected in lines 31–48 and 75–78. Polyphemus complains that Galatea avoids him because of his ugly face (31–33). His material possessions and poetic excellence are offered as a compensation of sorts. Such complaints about the poet’s looks or old age are typical of Anacreon. In PMG 358 Anacreon bewails his white hair that drives away the girl that has caught his fancy. This image is turned on its head by the end of the poem where the true reason for the girl’s indifference is revealed.112 PMG 417 suggests that the woman Anacreon addresses avoids him because she views him as clumsy or unrefined (1–2). The seriousness of the complaint would be undermined if one could credit Heraclitus’ testimony that Anacreon is poking fun at the woman’s fake seriousness and promiscuity. But there are strong reserva-

107 108

109 110 111 112

For Anacreon’s display of wit and the symposium, see P.A. Rosenmeyer (1992) 89; Budelmann (2009) 230. Anacreon’s PMG 413 transfers the horror of Odysseus’ blinding Polyphemus (Od. 9.389– 394) into an erotic context, describing the assault of Eros upon himself; P.A. Rosenmeyer (1992) 48. It is possible that, picking up this connection, Theocritus reverses the direction of the allusion and aligns Polyphemus with the Anacreontic narrator. E.g., Gentili (1958) xvii; Bowra (1961) 272; Kirkwood (1974) 153; Hutchinson (2001) 262. Kirkwood (1974) 165–167; P.A. Rosenmeyer (1992) 43–44. Kyriakou (2018) 106–107 suggests that the narrator’s appreciation and praise of Nicias mitigate Theocritus’ irony towards Nicias. Interpretation of this extremely problematic passage is contested; see Williamson (2019) 409–411.

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tions about the validity of this reading.113 Polyphemus concludes his appeal to Galatea with a reassurance to himself that may sound somewhat threatening (75–78): if Galatea keeps spurning his advances, there are other willing nymphs who might prove even better than her. Such threats are typical of the elegiac or lyric lover. For instance, Theognis (2.1302–1303) reminds his young lover that he will not retain his youthful good looks forever; he should give in to Theognis’ passion now. Along similar lines, Polyphemus claims that “Many girls invite me to play with them through the night, / and they all giggle when I take notice” tr. Hopkinson (2015) 175 (77–78, πολλαὶ συμπαίσδεν με κόραι τὰν νύκτα κέλονται, / κιχλίζοντι δὲ πᾶσαι, ἐπεί κ’ αὐταῖς ὑπακούσω). συμπαίσδεν is a pointed allusion to Anacreon, who uses this lexical item twice describing the activities of Eros (PMG 357, 358).114 For Anacreon, love is a game in which the gods involve mortals.115 Despite the Anacreontic associations of the verb, Polyphemus fails to take cognizance of its full implications. Are the maidens real or of his imagination? Are they in earnest or does Polyphemus fail to understand that they are laughing at him? Perhaps a more pressing question is who these κόραι really are. Are they sea nymphs like Galatea? If so, how certain can the reader be of Galatea’s reality?116 Where does all this leave us? Theocritus engages in a multifaceted game. Progressively Galatea looks like nothing more than a textual ploy that nevertheless in the manner of an inspiring goddess allows Polyphemus to unfold his poetic talent. But this is the situation of most Theocritean lovers: Daphnis dies of his own accord, because, in the words of Priapus, he refuses to behave as a cowherd (86); the speaker of Idyll 3 poses as an exclusus amator in front of a cave. One can also compare Simaetha in Idyll 2: her magic spell fails in its purported aim to attract Delphis but delivers a moving narrative of her emotional turmoil. The frame of the magical ritual points towards the common origins of poetry (ἀοιδή) and incantation (ἐπαοιδή). Exploring their common background, Green (1993) 501 notes that “both spell and poem take their origin in the experience of lack and in a wish that stems from it.” While magic tries to satisfy erotic longing, poetry circumscribes it.117 More importantly still, the efficacy of magic relies on the supposed perfect correspondence between language and reality.

113 114 115 116 117

Rosenmeyer (2004) 170–173. In addition to playfulness, the verb may also convey intimations of sexual allure: Rosenmeyer (2004). P.A. Rosenmeyer (1992) 46. For Polyphemus’ imagination, see Kyriakou (2018) 100. A similar statement in Theoc. 29.39–40 is seen as a sign of the lover’s delusion; see Hunter (1996) 176–177. Green (1993) 503.

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Poetic language gives up on this notion; instead, the poet calls into reality a fictional representation of the world that he or she tries to influence. In this regard, as Green (1993) 507 significantly notes, “the invocational structures of certain poems can be read as an allegory for the activity of all poetic language.” We started this section by calling attention to the ability that Sappho’s poetry has to call Aphrodite into existence through her poetry. Invoking Aphrodite, Sappho registers the awesome power of the goddess’s name. Even if Aphrodite is not really there, in the textual world she creates she is present. Similarly, Polyphemus invokes Galatea and brings her into existence even though she never appears. Without a doubt Polyphemus shows himself to be an erudite poet, well-versed in the conventions of lyric poetry. Polyphemus’ story thus becomes a comment on the very nature of poetic language.

5

Conclusion: Apollo in Disguise?

As he is approaching his end, Daphnis proceeds in a gesture of symbolic significance: he bequeaths his syrinx to Pan (127–128). Daphnis invests the god of the bucolic world with the token of his musical skill and power in the manner of inspiring gods like the Muses.118 If the death of Daphnis signals the birth of bucolic poetry, then the syrinx acquires an enhanced significance as the instrument associated with this poetic genre. Wooing the sea nymph Galatea in Idyll 11, Polyphemus prides himself on his skillful playing of the same instrument (38). Philoxenus’ Polyphemus made a similar claim about his ability to play the lyre—only that this time Polyphemus imitated the sound of the lyre in his song (PMG 819).119 Theocritus engages in a double game with Philoxenus, then: he replaces the lyre typical of the nomos with the bucolic syrinx, thus completing the transference of Polyphemus to the new genre; at the same time, Polyphemus goes from imitating the sound of a musical instrument to making a claim, distancing himself even further from the possibility of performing the text. Both cases conceptualize nicely the manner in which Theocritus responds to previous lyric poetry. I would like to conclude this discussion, along the interpretative lines I have pursued up to this point, with some comments on Idyll 7, the only other poem in the collection to rival Idyll 1 as to its programmatic significance for Theocritus’ poetics. Like Idyll 1, Idyll 7 offers an exchange of songs between a goat-

118 119

Kyriakou (2018) 105 examines the various problems of this act. For a different interpretation, see LeVen (2014) 240–242.

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herd (Lycidas) and a herdsman (Simichidas). The goatherd again presents the victorious herdsman with a symbolic gift: Lycidas offers Simichidas his stick, a symbol of the bardic function. Embedded in their exchange of songs are lyric poetry and relevant traditions. While Simichidas yields first place to Sicelidas (i.e., Asclepiades) and Philitas in poetic matters, Lycidas avoids competing with the unsurpassable model of Homeric poetry.120 It is no surprise then that Lycidas describes the piece he is about to perform as a “small song, product of his toil” (51, μελύδριον ἐξεπόνασα). The diminutive μελύδριον restates Lycidas’ aversion toward epic-scale composition, embedding his song in the tradition of melic (that is, lyric) poetry.121 Some scholars have raised the intriguing possibility that Lycidas is in fact a god in disguise. His name recalls Apollo’s epithet “Lykios,” while his laughter parallels Aphrodite’s smile in Idyll 1. Also, he is said to resemble a goatherd almost too well (14)—a peculiar pronouncement that makes us think that he is hiding something.122 Even if this reading is not certain, it would convey neatly Theocritus’ reworking of lyric tradition in a bucolic garb: note that Lycidas performs a propemptikon in the tradition of Lesbian poetry.123 The bucolic competition concluded, Simichidas and his friends celebrate the Thalysia in a paradisiacal setting that bears strong metapoetic connotations. The nymphs are associated indirectly with Apollo, suggesting their role as inspirers of poetry. The liquid Simichidas shares with his friends is not the water from the spring of Castalia from which the nymphs take their name, but wine. The sweetness of the wine leads to two mythological scenes: Heracles facing off the crazed Centaurs, and in so doing fatally wounding Chiron, and Polyphemus’ inebriation in Odyssey 9. The impropriety of either scene to the serenity of the bucolic symposium is telling. Possibly, Simichidas underlines the common mania that accounts for the composition of poetry and the crazed behavior of Heracles and Polyphemus.124 The consumption of wine within the frame of the Thalysia protects from excesses that can have negative results. Simichidas concludes with a wish for continuous success. It turns out that Demeter appears as the goddess not only of harvest but also of societal structures protecting and

120

121 122 123 124

The metaphorical language that Lycidas employs is heavily indebted to Pindar’s proud self-proclamation at the end of Olympian 2 (86–88), indicating once again the organic combination of lyric with epic elements in Theocritus’ Idylls; cf. Hunter (1999) 165–166. See LSJ9 s.v. μέλος B. Hunter (1999) 146–150; Kyriakou (2018) 177–178n32. Hunter (1999) 166–167. At 11.11 ὀρθαῖς μανίαις is associated with Polyphemus’ love, and indirectly motivates his song to Galatea. Polyphemus’ proud self-proclamation as a pipe player (38) parallels the pride Simichidas takes in his poetic skills in Idyll 7.

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allowing for the creation of poetry. The rural structures of Idyll 7 replace civic structures, completing the transference of lyric poetry to the ideal setting of rural landscape. Recent discussions have demonstrated the multifarious, but consistent, use archaic iambic and lyric poets make of open-air symposium scenes.125 Sometimes, as is the case with Archilochus or Alcaeus, sea scenes reflect the actualities of island life, indicating that the strength of the male bond parallels that between sailors serving on the same ship. The dangers of the maritime imagery contrast with the safety of the indoor symposium but also underline the need for comrades to stick together in the face of external threat. Similarly, rustic or simpler “primitive” symposia communicate the desire to flee the corruption of the city and return to simpler, purer times. Reflecting such conventions of lyric poetry, Theocritus associates this device first with configuring bucolic poetry and second with creatively reviving archaic and classical lyric in his own poetry. Theocritus invests his poetry with the subtle, pointed irony of Anacreon, the bittersweet emotionality of Sappho, the revolutionary independence of Ibycus, and the moralizing tone of Theognis in order to delineate his own position in this rich tradition as a hexameter, lyric, and ultimately bucolic poet. If bucolic implies agonistic discourse, Theocritus’ reception of lyric poetry is the textual metaphor that defines the identity of his own poetry by making use of a lyric modality: lyric poets define their place by competing with Homer and each other. Theocritus follows suit—defining his poetic profile, in a Homeric medium, but with a lyric attitude.

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Liberman, G. (2007), “L’édition alexandrine de Sappho,” in G. Bastianini/A. Casanova (eds.), I papyri di Saffo e di Alceo: atti del convegno internazionale di studi: Firenze, 8–9 giugno 2006 (Florence) 41–65. Mace, S.T. (1993), “Amour, Encore! The Development of δηὖτε in Archaic Lyric,” GRBS 34, 335–364. MacLachlan, B. (1997), “Personal Poetry,” in D.E. Gerber (ed.), A Companion to Greek Lyric Poets (Leiden/New York/Köln) 133–220. Martyn, J.R.C. (1990), “Sappho and Aphrodite,” Euphrosyne 18, 201–212. McEvilley, T. (2008), Sappho (Putnam, CT). Nagy, G. (2009), “Genre and Occasion,” in I. Rutherford (2019a) 94–109. [Originally published 1994–1995]. Neri, C./Cinti, F. (2017), Saffo: poesie, frammenti e testimonianze (Santarcangelo di Romagna). Pfeijffer, I.L. (2000), “Shifting Helen: An Interpretation of Sappho, Fragment 16 (Voigt),” CQ 50, 1–6. Power, T. (2013), “Kyklops ‘kitharoidos’: Dithyramb and Nomos in Play,” in B. Kowalzig/ P.J. Wilson (eds.), Dithyramb in Context (Oxford) 237–256. Prodi, E. (2017), “Text as Paratext: Pindar, Sappho, and Alexandrian Editions.” GRBS 57, 547–582. Rawles, R. (2007), “Simonides and Theocritus 4: Intertextual Reading,” MD 59, 9–34. Rawles, R. (2011), “Eros and Praise in Early Greek Lyric,” in L. Athanassaki/E. Bowie (eds.), Archaic and Classical Choral Song (Trends in Classics Supplementary Volumes) (Berlin/Boston), 139–160. Rissman, L. (1983), Love as War: Homeric Allusion in the Poetry of Sappho (Königstein). Robbins, E.I. (1995), “Sappho, Aphrodite, and the Muses,” The Ancient World 26, 225– 239. Rosenmeyer, P.A. (1992), The Poetics of Imitation: Anacreon and the Anacreontic Tradition (Cambridge). Rosenmeyer, P.A. (2004), “Girls at Play in Early Greek Poetry,” AJPh 125, 163–178. Rosenmeyer, T.G. (1992), “Apollonius lyricus,” SIFC 10, 177–198. Rossi, L.E. (1971), “I generi letterari e le loro leggi scritte e non scritte nelle letterature classiche,” BICS 18, 69–94. Rutherford, I. (2019a), Greek Lyric (Oxford). Rutherford, I. (2019b), “Introduction,” in Rutherford (2019a) 1–30. Sistakou, E. (2017), “Theocritus’ Idylls: On the Verge of Modern Lyric,” Trends in Classics 9, 281–316. Stehle, E. (1997), Performance and Gender in Ancient Greece: Nondramatic Poetry in its Setting (Princeton). Steiner, D.T. (2019), “Nautical Matters: Hesiod’s Nautilia and Ibycus Fragment 282 PMG,” in I. Rutherford 368–379. [Originally published 2005].

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Swift, L. (2019), Archilochus: The Poems; Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary (Oxford). Thomas, B.M. (1999), “The Rhetoric of Prayer in Sappho’s ‘Hymn to Aphrodite,’” Helios 26, 3–10. Topper, K. (2009), “Primitive Life and the Construction of the Sympotic Past in Athenian Vase Painting,” American Journal of Archaeology 113, 3–26. Uhlig, A. (2018), “Sailing and Singing: Alcaeus at Sea,” in F. Budelmann/T. Phillips (2018) 63–92. Vetta, M. (1980), Theognis: elegiarum liber secundus (Rome). Vox, O. (1986), “Dafni lirico,” Belfagor 41, 311–317. Whitmarsh, T. (2018), “Sappho and the Cyborg Helen,” in F. Budelmann/T. Phillips (2018) 135–150. Wilkinson, C.L. (2013), The Lyric of Ibycus: Introduction, Text and Commentary (Berlin). Williamson, M. (2019), “Eros the Blacksmith: Performing Masculinity in Anakreon’s Love Lyric,” in I. Rutherford (2019a) 397–411. [Originally published 1998]. Winkler, J. (1996), “Gardens of Nymphs: Public and Private in Sappho’s Lyrics,” in E. Greene (ed.), Reading Sappho: Contemporary Approaches (Berkeley) 89–111. [Originally published 1981].

chapter 11

Θεόκριτος κωμῳδοποιός: Comic Patterns and Structures in Theocritus’ Bucolic Poems (with a Supplement on Tragic Patterns) Christophe Cusset

We know that some Idylls of Theocritus have a fairly close relationship with the genre of mime: ancient scholiasts of Theocritus emphasize that Idylls 2 and 15 owe much to the mimes of Sophron, but we are not able, in the absence of these now lost mimes, to appreciate these loans or imitations adequately.1 However, beyond certain relationships of intertextuality, which are difficult to appreciate with precision, we can ask whether Theocritus’ Idylls might maintain deeper and more varied links not only with mime, but also with comic writing (in which we include both the Old and the New Comedy, the Sicilian mime of Sophron or Epicharmus). Here I would like to study to what extent Theocritus, playing with what has been called—probably in an abusive manner2—the “confusion of genres,”3 the “crossing of the genres” (Kreuzung der Gattungen), or the contamination of genres,4 takes up features or structures of comic writing for the creation of the very particular and unclassifiable form of the Idyll. Starting from Aristotle’s reflections on the comic and comedy, I would like to try to see to what extent this analysis is transposable (or not) to Theocritus’ Idylls as a poetic space in which a “comicity” specific to the bucolic universe is evident.

1

The Comic Pattern according to Aristotle

I will start with two brief remarks made by Aristotle on the comic and comedy in the Poetics. The first is in Chapter 2, where the subject of poetic mimesis is

1 Cf. Hordern (2004) 27; Fantuzzi (2006) 236; Stephens (2006) 107; Krevans (2006) 123. 2 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1924) 2.141 warns against such inappropriate terminology. Cf. Payne (2007) 9–10. 3 Legrand (1898) 413–436 is speaking of a “confusion des genres.” 4 See Fantuzzi (1993) 59.

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addressed. There the philosopher draws an ethical distinction, in both positive and negative respects, from the model of everyday reality (48a): Ἐν αὐτῇ δὲ τῇ διαφορᾷ καὶ ἡ τραγῳδία πρὸς τὴν κωμῳδίαν διέστηκεν· ἡ μὲν γὰρ χείρους ἡ δὲ βελτίους μιμεῖσθαι βούλεται τῶν νῦν. It is of this very difference that the distinction between tragedy and comedy consists: the one seeks to represent worse characters, the other better characters than current men.5 Let us note that just before this passage Aristotle gives several examples of poets who have represented better characters than current men (Homer) and others who have represented worse ones (Hegemon of Thasos in his parodies, Nicochares in his burlesque poem entitled the Deiliad, or Philoxenus in the dithyramb caricaturing Dionysius of Syracuse in the guise of Polyphemus). This diversity of literary forms allows us immediately to extend the analysis that Aristotle conducts here to any poetic form in which characters appear worse than in present reality, as is the case in the bucolic corpus of Theocritus (we will return later to this point). This distinction, therefore, does not concern only tragedy and comedy but also drama in general. In Chapter 5 of his Poetics, Aristotle returns to comedy, if not to give a proper definition, at least to specify to what extent it differs from tragedy (49a):6 Ἡ δὲ κωμῳδία ἐστὶν ὥσπερ εἴπομεν μίμησις φαυλοτέρων μέν, οὐ μέντοι κατὰ πᾶσαν κακίαν, ἀλλὰ τοῦ αἰσχροῦ ἐστι τὸ γελοῖον μόριον. Τὸ γὰρ γελοῖόν ἐστιν ἁμάρτημά τι καὶ αἶσχος ἀνώδυνον καὶ οὐ φθαρτικόν, οἷον εὐθὺς τὸ γελοῖον πρόσωπον αἰσχρόν τι καὶ διεστραμμένον ἄνευ ὀδύνης. Comedy is, as we have said, the representation of low men; yet it does not represent all baseness: the comic is only a part of the ugly; indeed, the comic consists of a defect or an ugliness that causes neither pain nor destruction; an obvious example is the comic mask: it is ugly and misshapen without expressing pain. We first find in this definitional approach the double comparative connection of comedy and tragedy to the simple reality of the world, the comedy being

5 Translation mine. I follow the text and French translation of Dupont-Roc/Lallot (1980). 6 Cf. Dupont-Roc/Lallot (1980) 178.

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presented as the “representation of low men.” Yet it must also be noted that a new dual element is added to the comic (τὸ γελοῖον), which is defined as being only a “part of the ugly,” of lowness, in so far as it is based on a defect of the good that causes neither pain nor destruction, unlike tragic pathos which is defined as a “destructive or painful action” in Chapter 11 (πρᾶξις φθαρτικὴ ἢ ὀδυνηρά, 52b). Aristotle then gives the example of the harmless deformity of the comic mask (from which I will propose some hypotheses about Theocritus). After these theoretical reminders, it is now necessary to ask whether the form of the bucolic Idyll, which seems to emerge with Hellenistic poetry— hence later than Aristotelian conceptualization—and of which Theocritus is the first surviving representative, shares common ideas with this conception of the comic that could allow us to consider bucolic poetry from the angle of its “comicity.”

2

The Introduction of an Ugliness That Does Not Cause Pain or Destruction in the Bucolic World

2.1 Social Inferiority The first criterion of the comic put forward by Aristotle, namely, the baseness of its characters, is widely attested in Theocritus’ Idylls. We are here dealing with a world of herdsmen, whose composition is well summed up by Id. 1.80, which presents the whole society that visits the languid Daphnis:7 ἦνθον τοὶ βοῦται, τοὶ ποιμένες, ᾡπόλοι ἦνθον. The oxherds came, the shepherds and the goatherds came.8 Most often, the characters of the bucolic exchange are goatherds who, in the social hierarchy of the bucolic world, occupy the lowest position (and are aptly named last in the verse quoted above). It is thus a goatherd who converses with Thyrsis in Idyll 1, a goatherd who courts Amaryllis in Idyll 3, a goatherd, Comatas, who opposes the shepherd Lacon in Idyll 5. Even if it is not always very explicit, one may assume that most often—and this is a sign of social inferiority—these shepherds do not own the animals they keep, as we see at the beginning of Idyll 4 (1–4):

7 See Hunter (1999) 90–91. 8 Theocritus’ translations are from Hopkinson (2015).

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ba. Εἰπέ μοι, ὦ Κορύδων, τίνος αἱ βόες; ἦ ῥα Φιλώνδα; ko. Οὔκ, ἀλλ’ Αἴγωνος· βόσκειν δέ μοι αὐτὰς ἔδωκεν. βα. Ἦ πᾴ ψε κρύβδαν τὰ ποθέσπερα πάσας ἀμέλγες; κο. Ἀλλ’ ὁ γέρων ὑφίητι τὰ μοσχία κἠμὲ φυλάσσει. Battus: Tell me, Corydon, whose cows are these? Do they belong to Philondas? Corydon: No, to Aegon. He gave me them to pasture. Battus: I daresay you milk them all on the quiet in the evening? Corydon: No, the old man puts their calves under them and keeps his eye on me. This beginning, in which one could easily recognize the overture of a rustic agon,9 deals with the identity of the owner of the animals on pasture; the herdsman and the owner are not identical, and the opposition of the proper names highlights this discrepancy. Although we do not know anything about this Philondas, who, however, reappears in Id. 5.114 also as an owner (of figs, this time),10 we suppose that he is the owner of the animals which are usually under the guard of Corydon. But it could also be another herdsman who has just entrusted his herd to the care of someone else, as in the case of Aegon: he entrusts cows that may not belong to him, since it is the anonymous old man (ὁ γέρων) of verse 4, perhaps Aegon’s father, as the scholia suggest, who controls and supervises the pastoral workers and seems to have a higher position in the hierarchy, perhaps as an owner. Such surveillance is made “necessary” by the topical image of the petty slave, of whom it is always necessary to be wary, as implied by the suppositions of Battus. This stereotypical view of the slave reminds us of what is often found in the world of comedy.11 There is nothing to indicate whether the characters here are paid workers or people in a state of servitude. The masters, in any case, are always absent from the dialogue, bound to a distant space or time. It will be noted in passing that the social inferiority of the characters is reflected in their language, which draws freely on popular wisdom and not the great heroic values of epic, despite the choice of the dactylic hexameter which is characteristic of epic. This popular wisdom appears in proverbs used, for example, by the characters of Idyll 10. Milon (11) uses the proverb χαλεπὸν

9 10 11

Gutzwiller (1991) 148. Idyll 5.114–115. Frazier (2009) 168–169.

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χορίω κύνα γεῦσαι (“it’s bad that a dog should get a taste of guts”)12 and inserts into his work song at the end of the Idyll a proverbial expression that belongs to popular language (55): μὴ ’πιτάμῃς τὰν χεῖρα καταπρίων τὸ κύμινον. you’ll cut your hand if you split the cumin seeds. This graphic expression, of which we find traces both in Sophron (κύμινον ἔπρισεν, fr. 105 Hordern = 110 Kaibel) and in Aristophanes (τὸ γὰρ υἵδιον τηρεῖ με, κἄστι δύσκολον / κἄλλως κυμινοπριστοκαρδαμογλύφον, Wasps, 1356–1357), suggests stinginess and greed.13 The use of such images borrowed from (animal or vegetal) nature to express human defects is quite characteristic of a popular and rustic tradition that corresponds here with the lower social status of the characters who populate the bucolic world. 2.2 A Moral Baseness But this social inferiority is also reflected in terms of moral baseness, of which we at first find multiple traces in the insults the characters exchange with one another. These insults employ typical elements of popular language often found in comedy: for instance, the use of the diminutive ἀνδρίον as a depreciating reference to Comatas (Id. 5.40)14 or the animal metaphor used to criticize a morally reprehensible aspect of his psychology (Id. 5.25): λα. Καὶ πῶς, ὦ κίναδος τύ, τάδ’ ἔσσεται ἐξ ἴσω ἄμμιν; Lacon: And how will that be fair, you trickster? The characterization of an interlocutor as “a fox” is a popular image that is quite common in Attica, especially in Aristophanes (Clouds 448, Birds 430) or Menander (Arbitration, 164), but also in the orators,15 and is used for the purpose of denigrating one’s opponent. The fact that, according to Theocritus’ scholia,

12 13 14

15

Cf. Gow (1952) 2.195; Williams (1959) 97–100; Hunter (1999) 203. See Taillardat (1965) § 438 and 893 regarding the neologism κυμινοπριστοκαρδαμογλύφος, which qualifies Bdelycleon. See also Hordern (2004) 186 and Gow (1952) 2.207. This diminutive is also found in Aristophanes (Peace 51), who designates, in an enumeration, individuals who are no longer in the category of παῖς, without yet being in that of ἀνήρ; this connotation is incompatible with the age of Comatas implied here. Gow (1952) 2.99 cites Demosthenes (18.162 et 242), Andocides (1.99) and Aischines (3.167).

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this is a Sicilian term could be an indication of the influence of the mime; but this use also seems to be mainly justified by a play on animality: while Lacon and Comatas try to decide which animal each of them is to put forth as a prize for their competition—Comatas agrees to proffer a kid, and asks Lacon to put forward a fat lamb—the characters transfer the animality of the animals at stake to their respective opponents. Comatas, in turn, treats Lacon as “a wasp buzzing against a cicada” (σφὰξ βομβέων τέττιγος ἐναντίον, 29). It should also be noted that all this confusion between the concrete reality of animals (competition prizes) and their use as symbols is implemented in the dialogue through Comatas’ use of a popular aphorism that also depicts an animal, in response to Lacon’s proposal to take up a poetic challenge (23): Ὗς ποτ’ Ἀθαναίαν ἔριν ἤρισεν. A pig once challenged Athena. The proverb allusively recreates a situation familiar to the popular world of the fable, bringing together two figures situated outside of humanity, either by inferiority or superiority—the animal and the divine. Athena is evoked for her intelligence, the pig is used as a symbol of stupidity. We see, then, that the bucolic character willingly resorts to the linguistic expression of baseness on two levels: not only does he criticize the intellectual baseness of his interlocutor, but he does so (ironically) by using a linguistic register that belittles his own speech. But baseness is not only a question of discursive order. It can also be expressed in the actions of the characters. Staying with Idyll 5, we can take the example of the theft that opens the dialogue between the two characters (1– 4):16 κοματασ Αἶγες ἐμαί, τῆνον τὸν ποιμένα, τὸν Συβαρίταν, φεύγετε, τὸν Λάκωνα· τό μευ νάκος ἐχθὲς ἔκλεψεν. λακων Οὐκ ἀπὸ τᾶς κράνας; σίττ’, ἀμνίδες· οὐκ ἐσορῆτε τόν μευ τὰν σύριγγα πρόαν κλέψαντα Κομάταν;

16

See Crane (1988) 110–111.

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Comatas: You goats, keep away from that shepherd from Sybaris, that Lacon. Yesterday he stole my goatskin cloak. Lacon: Won’t you come away from the spring?17 Come by, you lambs; Don’t you see Comatas, who stole my panpipe yesterday? Each of the two interlocutors accuses the other of theft. Two objects were stolen, or purportedly stolen: a goatskin and a syrinx, both quite characteristic of bucolic shepherd-poets. We note that the theft is presented as a simple action by Comatas, while Lacon immediately enters into one-upmanship and amplification by passing from the simple act to a kind of incarnation of the theft in the person of his opponent by the use of the attributive participle. A similar gradation concerns the stolen object: if the goatskin is part of the outfit of the shepherd, the syrinx is a much more valuable object, and its main function is to turn the shepherd into a poet. This double gradation immediately leaves a suspicion lingering on Lacon’s words: if Lacon is a slave, as the apostrophe of l. 5 suggests, it is unlikely that he himself possessed a syrinx, which he claims Lycon had given him (8).18 The value of the object seems to be incongruous with the social status of the character. However, it turns out that Lacon’s defeat in the poetic agon that follows is declared precisely when Lacon claims to have given a syrinx to Eumedes, whom he loves (134–135): it therefore appears that Comatas did not steal the syrinx from him, but that he himself gave it away as a gift. It is ultimately due to the syrinx19 that Lacon loses the poetic contest, because of his lack of vigilance and the inconsistency between his purported purpose in competing and his own history. Lacon would therefore be a thief on top of being a liar. It is perhaps in this sense that we must interpret the initial qualification “Sybarite” (if the transmitted text is correct), which would be worth less as a geographical designation than as a moral abuse, suggesting a xenophobia which explains all the other possible defects.20

17 18 19 20

Note in verse 3 the sharp turn of the expression, which in Aristophanes (Ach. 864) is supplemented by a threatening gesture. Cf. Giangrande (1976) 150–153. Cf. Meillier (1986) 22–24. On this representation of Sybaris as a place of excessive luxury and wealth, see Crane (1988) 118–121.

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2.3 An Offset Physical Ugliness The social inferiority of Theocritus’ herdsmen is expressed visually through bodily characteristics or clothing. The goatherd Lycidas in Idyll 7 offers an explicit example, although perhaps a little too explicit to be credible (11–19): καί τιν’ ὁδίταν ἐσθλὸν σὺν Μοίσαισι Κυδωνικὸν εὕρομες ἄνδρα, οὔνομα μὲν Λυκίδαν, ἦς δ’ αἰπόλος, οὐδέ κέ τίς νιν ἠγνοίησεν ἰδών, ἐπεὶ αἰπόλῳ ἔξοχ’ ἐῴκει. Ἐκ μὲν γὰρ λασίοιο δασύτριχος εἶχε τράγοιο κνακὸν δέρμ’ ὤμοισι νέας ταμίσοιο ποτόσδον, ἀμφὶ δέ οἱ στήθεσσι γέρων ἐσφίγγετο πέπλος ζωστῆρι πλακερῷ, ῥοικὰν δ’ ἔχεν ἀγριελαίω δεξιτερᾷ κορύναν. … thanks to the Muses we encountered a fine man of Cydonia. Lycidas was his name, and he was a goatherd; at a glance no one could have mistaken him, for he looked very much like a goatherd. Over his shoulders he was wearing the tawny skin of a thick-haired, shaggy goat smelling of fresh rennet, round his breast an old cloak was tied with a broad belt and in the right hand he held a crooked club of wild olive. We can note here the categorization of the individual as a goatherd21 because of the rough (even incongruous) appearance of his outfit.22 Even if this portrayal is ironic and does not constitute a realistic description,23 it casts Lycidas as a character outside of the norm and places him in a position of inferiority, tending towards a form of animality and savagery. The appearance of the garment and the smell it emits make this goatherd an uncomfortable character. The motif of repulsive appearance in connection with a physical trait is found elsewhere in the Theocritean corpus, in accordance with the second characteristic of the comic character noted by Aristotle. That is, we find that the snub nose, which could be taken as a characteristic of Theocritus’ “mask,” recurs in the corpus. Indeed, the shepherd of Idyll 3, who complains about the silence of his beloved Amaryllis, asks her if her indifference towards him should be attributed to his unsightly appearance (8–9): 21 22 23

See the repetition of the term αἰπόλος. Note the redundant effect of the terms λασίοιο δασύτριχος, which underline the unsuitability of such a thick garment in midday summer heat. Cf. Plazenet (1994) 78–81.

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ἦ ῥά γέ τοι σιμὸς καταφαίνομαι ἐγγύθεν ἦμεν, νύμφα, καὶ προγένειος; Do I look snub nosed close up, my girl, and is my beard too full? The mere mention of facial features (σιμός … καὶ προγένειος) is enough to justify the girl’s disinterest in the speaker. These marked features—which could be likened to theatrical masks, which also amplify physical characteristics—seem to compose the basic elements of the portrait of a shepherd who is apparently rough around the edges; it would be the same physical characteristics that would justify, in Idyll 7, the anthroponym Simichidas (usually understood as a pseudonym of Theocritus), a sort of incarnation of the snub-nosed character. However, it should be noted in passing that this qualification is also given to bees (Id. 7.80–81 αἱ σιμαί … μέλισσαι) whose honey feeds the poet Comatas, in a metapoetic image of poetic inspiration. A shepherd may therefore bear unattractive physical traits while being endowed with unusual poetic talents: there may be in this antithetic range of symbolic values attached to the snub nose a properly bucolic reformulation of the poetic “mask” of the pastoral singer, associating physical ugliness with poetic qualities that make this ugliness a cause not of pain, but, on the contrary, of poetic sweetness. It is the same association of ugliness with poetics that we find in the figure of the Cyclops, the lover and singer in Idyll 11 (30–33):24 γινώσκω, χαρίεσσα κόρα, τίνος οὕνεκα φεύγεις· οὕνεκά μοι λασία μὲν ὀφρὺς ἐπὶ παντὶ μετώπῳ ἐξ ὠτὸς τέταται ποτὶ θώτερον ὦς μία μακρά, εἷς δ’ ὀφθαλμὸς ὕπεστι, πλατεῖα δὲ ῥὶς ἐπὶ χείλει. I know why you avoid me, lovely girl: it’s because a long, single eyebrow stretches from one of my ears to the other, a shaggy brow over my whole forehead; and beneath it is a single eye, and a broad nostril above my lip. The self-description of the Cyclops is full of a naive irony perfectly suited to the transformation of the character in relation to the Homeric model. From the “ancient Polyphemus” (11.8), as he appeared in the Odyssey, a frightening and savage monster,25 totally asocial, who combines a bloodthirsty, cannibal-

24 25

We also find similar characteristics of the Cyclops in Idyll 6.36–38. Cf. Od. 9.190–192.

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istic character with the regulated manners of a model shepherd, Theocritus has preserved only the pastoral dimension. Going back in time to the period before Polyphemus met Odysseus, Theocritus makes Polyphemus a touching figure whose monstrosity is no longer frightening. We see that, instead of focusing on the central element of his deformity, namely his unique eye, Polyphemus here, without ignoring this element, accords it lesser importance: he focuses on his single eyebrow, of which he describes the whole extent in two lines, relegating to the end of the sentence the two adjectives μία μακρά which, while touching on the monstrosity of the character, also connote the tenderness of the Cyclops towards himself. He is fascinated by his own image and adopts an imaginary posture that allows him, if not to forget, then at least to minimize his monstrous aspect. What is true for the face of the Cyclops also applies to his entire body and even his character when he considers his future destiny (11.50–53): Αἰ δέ τοι αὐτὸς ἐγὼν δοκέω λασιώτερος ἦμεν, ἐντὶ δρυὸς ξύλα μοι καὶ ὑπὸ σποδῷ ἀκάματον πῦρ· καιόμενος δ’ ὑπὸ τεῦς καὶ τὰν ψυχὰν ἀνεχοίμαν καὶ τὸν ἕν’ ὀφθαλμόν, τῶ μοι γλυκερώτερον οὐδέν. Even if I seem too shaggy, I do have oak logs and undying fire under the ash; and in my burning love for you I would yield up my soul and my single eye. I have no dearer possession than that. The two comparatives that describe the Cyclops in this passage are indicative of the principle of antithesis, which is the foundation of the construction of the bucolic universe. We see that the judgment is modified according to point of view: from the point of view of the second person (τοι), the Cyclops shares a form of ugliness, of monstrosity, which is here thematized as excessive hair; on the contrary, from the point of view of the first person (μοι), this monstrosity, presented through the single eye of the Cyclops, is interpreted as a kind of sweetness, as pleasant and not ugly. What might be frightening or destructive—here the blindness of a single eye—is dealt with in the modality of a potentiality (ἀνεχοίμαν) which attenuates its scope. At the same time, the intertextual irony—since this is indeed the fate that will befall this one eye in the encounter with Odysseus in the Odyssey—completely defuses the gravity of such a fate; while Polyphemus would tolerate suffering inflicted by his beloved Galatea, it is Odysseus who will make him suffer. In connection with a lovesick Cyclops, this danger cannot exist, and there is room only for the ridicule of a monstrous being said to be in love with a beautiful marine nymph. Thus, just as

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Philoxenus was able to use the Cyclops for the purpose of grotesque caricature in one of his dithyrambs, as Aristotle reminds us, so Theocritus takes up the figure of the Homeric monster to strongly deflect his meaning and make him an amorous shepherd who spends his time singing of his unhappy love; and it is this discrepancy with the Homeric tradition that makes Theocritus’ Cyclops a laughable and comic figure.

3

Sex, Lies and Bucolic Fiction: Thematic and Comic Modalities

Finally, I would like to discuss certain comic modalities of the organization of the fiction in the Idylls, widening my perspective beyond the Aristotelian framework on which I have worked thus far. I will start from a famous example, the cup which the goatherd gives to Thyrsis in Idyll 1 in exchange for his song. This Idyll and the description of this particular cup are rightly considered as programmatic for Theocritus’ poetry, and I would like to show that this also applies to the comic dimension of his bucolic poetry. What I will focus on is not the exterior decoration of the cup, which strongly indicates, from a metapoetic perspective, bucolic poetry, but its interior decoration (32– 54). This description has already been the subject of extensive discussion, and I will not go into detail here. I will simply point out that we have three successive vignettes, corresponding to three ages of life (adulthood, old age, childhood), in three different environments: the first, which is not specified, is undoubtedly an urban setting; the second is the sea; and the third, a vineyard in the countryside. The characters engage in various occupations: love games, the hard work of fishing, and the idle occupation of weaving a trap for locusts. In many ways, these inserted scenes can be interpreted as a mise en abyme of the work of Theocritus and the bucolic world, illuminating from outside the bucolic world and from inside a cup of ivy wood symbolic of this world, the essence of the bucolic setting and Theocritus’ poetry. In this light, it seems to me that we can also interpret this decoration by means of the “comicity” proper to the Idyll. We find in these scenes some essential aspects of the comic that we have encountered, such as the social inferiority of the characters (here of the child who guards the vine and the old fisherman who works himself to the bone to survive— with particular attention paid to the body, which is not foreign to the comic universe) or the motif of theft. But these three vignettes also highlight, within the system they create, three new structural elements of “comicity” in the poetry of Theocritus. First there is the love theme, which occupies the initial vignette and seems to suggest a

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typical scene of spite and seduction through the indifference of a character, a common motif in New Comedy. Next we find the setting up of a dialogue and the consequent impossibility of its fulfillment with the three characters in the first and third vignettes. Here the central character is indifferent to (or seems to be losing interest in) the two characters surrounding him or her; they, in turn, are interested in the “prey” he or she represents. Finally, we have the presence of animals in the third vignette where the fox is no longer a metaphorical image but an animal incarnation of deceit.26 3.1 Erotic Modulations As shown by the first image evoked in the goatherd’s cup of Idyll 1, love is a central motif of the plot depicted. And, indeed, the erotic motif is recurrent in both bucolic and urban27 Idylls, and the shepherds, in the bucolic setting, if they are poets, are also first and foremost in love. What makes the shepherd sing are his erotic troubles. It is mainly these “disturbances” stemming from the emotion of love that are emphasized and are used to support the plot or to (re)introduce the comic into the plot. We find indeed the recurrent notion of δύσερως,28 love being presented as a disturbance, used to make fun of a character in love. Galatea thus teases the Cyclops in Idyll 6, associating his inability to love with the state of a goatherd (7: δυσέρωτα καὶ αἰπόλον ἄνδρα καλεῦσα, “she calls you a laggardly lover and a goatherd”). Likewise Priapus mocks the languid state of Daphnis in the inserted song of Thyrsis in Idyll 1 (85–88): ἆ δύσερώς τις ἄγαν καὶ ἀμήχανος ἐσσί. Βούτας μὲν ἐλέγευ, νῦν δ’ αἰπόλῳ ἀνδρὶ ἔοικας. Ὡιπόλος, ὅκκ’ ἐσορῇ τὰς μηκάδας οἷα βατεῦνται, τάκεται ὀφθαλμὼς ὅτι οὐ τράγος αὐτὸς ἔγεντο. Ah, you are simply a hopeless lover and quite at a loss what to do. You used to be called an oxherd, but now you are acting like a goatherd. When he sees the nanny goats being mounted, the goatherd weeps his eyes away regretting that he wasn’t born a goat.

26 27 28

Cf. Aristophanes, Knights 1076–1077. See the urban mimes (Idylls 2, 14, 15) and 18. For the urban mimes see Miles, this volume. On the meaning of this adjective, see Gow (1952) 2.19 and 121; Hunter (1999) 92 and 250; Cusset (2011) 83–85.

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It is interesting to note that the love motif, considered in a dual negative modality (see the first element of the adjectives δύσερως and ἀμήχανος), leads to a demotion in the social hierarchy (from oxherd to goatherd), which then turns to animality because of the symbolic value of the goat as a lewd animal.29 Love, insofar as it is at once a disturbance of the individual and a disordered sentiment, is treated as an object of jest and mockery; it joins the arsenal of themes used in comedy to create laughter. The effect is even more noticeable when the unfortunate lover takes on the features of the libidinous old man as mentioned at the end of Idyll 4 (58–63): βα. εἴπ’ ἄγε μ’, ὦ Κορύδων, τὸ γερόντιον ἦ ῥ’ ἔτι μύλλει τήναν τὰν κυάνοφρυν ἐρωτίδα τᾶς ποκ’ ἐκνίσθη; κο. ἀκμάν γ’, ὦ δείλαιε· πρόαν γε μὲν αὐτὸς ἐπενθών καὶ ποτὶ τᾷ μάνδρᾳ κατελάμβανον ἆμος ἐνήργει. βα. εὖ γ’, ὤνθρωπε φιλοῖφα. τό τοι γένος ἢ Σατυρίσκοις ἐγγύθεν ἢ Πάνεσσι κακοκνάμοισιν ἐρίσδει. Battus: Now tell me, Corydon, is the old man still grinding that darkbrowed charmer who once tickled his fancy? Corydon: Of course he still is, my poor chap. Just the other day I came across him while he was at it by the cattle pens. Battus: Well done, old lecher! Your sort are not far behind the race of Satyrs and ugly-legged Pans. The description of the libidinous old man is indeed strongly evocative of the comic: he is first of all a topical figure of the comic universe. Then, the comic coloring emerges through many stylistic features: interjections, exclamations, and elliptical sentences; the use of the diminutive γερόντιον; the use of burlesque; the use of a raw and pictorial vocabulary (μύλλει, ἐκνίσθη, ἐνήργει, φιλοῖφα); the presence of an animal frame, and finally the setting of the stable (ποτὶ τᾷ μάνδρᾳ), which introduces a form of ambiguity about the very nature of the unbridled sexual activity of the old man—is he having a sexual relation with a girl or with an animal?—and this ambiguity justifies his rapprochement with the Satyrs and Pans. Yet this dual final comparison, in addition to its hyperbolic nature, grounds the evocation in the bucolic world. The evocation of this disordered amorous behavior introduces—according to a perspective

29

Dupont/Eloi (2001) 191–197. Cf. Antiph. fr. 19.6 KA, Men. Dysk. 895, and the sexuality at the end of Idyll 1.151–152.

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that seems quite characteristic of comedy and in particular recalls the sexual prowess of old-timers at the end of Aristophanes’ plays30—a shift towards animality and the hybrid beings of mythology, and thus towards unbridled sexuality. We find the same kind of sliding towards animality in the evocation of homosexual relations, as in Idyll 5 (41–44): κο. Ἁνίκ’ ἐπύγιζόν τυ, τὺ δ’ ἄλγεες· αἱ δὲ χίμαιραι αἵδε κατεβληχῶντο, καὶ ὁ τράγος αὐτὰς ἐτρύπη. λα. Μὴ βάθιον τήνω πυγίσματος, ὑβέ, ταφείης. ἀλλὰ γὰρ ἕρφ’, ὧδ’ ἕρπε, καὶ ὕστατα βουκολιαξῇ. Corydon: When I was buggering you, and you were in pain; and these goats were bleating at you, and the he-goat mounted them. Lacon: May you be buried no deeper than you buggered me, you hunchback! But come over here, and you’ll be competing for the last time. The evocation of the sodomy endured by his adversary is associated by Corydon with animals, which summons the image of the topical lustfulness of the goat, as if this human outrage provoked an animal parallel. Lacon’s answer is as violent as Comatas’ utterance: dismissing the experience of sodomy, Lacon uses it in his curse to the effect that Comatas’ body might have a burial as shallow as his penetration; this is accompanied by an insult (ὑβέ), which fits with the spirit of Lacon’s reply to Comatas’ statement.31 Finally, Lacon proceeds to a direct threat. If Comatas attacked his adversary by evoking past facts, Lacon refers to the future, one that is more or less distant from his own revenge. The threat to end the bucolic song of his opponent could be understood as a metapoetic allusion to the attempts to “cross genres” in which Theocritus indulges, playing here on the comic substrate of these obscene allusions. Later on in the confrontation, Comatas returns to this past experience of sodomy, of which he seeks to make better use by invalidating his opponent’s possible response (116–119):

30

31

See Frazier (2009) 168–169. There is, however, one essential difference between the endings of Aristophanes’ comedies and the present passage, namely that in Theocritus the libidinous old man is mediated by the memory and the discussion about him by two bucolic characters, whereas in Aristophanes he is directly present on stage. See Gow (1952) 2.102–103.

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κο. Ἦ οὐ μέμνασ’, ὅκ’ ἐγώ τυ κατήλασα, καὶ τὺ σεσαρώς εὖ ποτεκιγκλίζευ καὶ τᾶς δρυὸς εἴχεο τήνας; λα. Τοῦτο μὲν οὐ μέμναμ’· ὅκα μάν ποκα τεῖδέ τυ δήσας Εὐμάρας ἐκάθηρε, καλῶς μάλα τοῦτό γ’ ἴσαμι. Corydon: Don’t you remember the time I took you from behind, and you grimaced and waggled your rump and held fast to that oak tree? Lacon: That I do not remember, but I do know very well that Eumaras tied you up here and gave you a thrashing. In addition to the strategy adopted here by Lacon to reject the obscene allusion of Comatas by his lack of recollection (μέμνασαι / οὐ μέμναμαι), it should perhaps be noted that Comatas himself chooses a new formulation, renouncing the crude verb πυγίζω in favor of a more neutral one, κατελαύνω, whose uses in the comic register leave no doubt as to its meaning.32 One might think that Lacon, in his answer, uses the verb καθαίρω in the same sense,33 even if one considers that it should be understood in the sense of “to strike.”34 3.2 Staged Dialogue Beyond the content of the exchanged words, it should be kept in mind that most bucolic Idylls are dramatic, featuring more or less aggressive exchanges, which may sometimes take the form of an agon in the presence of an arbitrator. The exchange can take the form of a stichomythia (like the beginning of Idyll 4) or sets of more developed replies (in Id. 1.6–10). Idyll 6 features a rather brief narrative framework and leaves most of its space to the bucolic contest, and in Idyll 7 the poetic exchange between Lycidas and Simichidas is narrated in the first person by Simichidas. The other Idylls are mimetic and thus quite different: the dialogue most often begins in medias res, as in comedy (unlike tragedy). It will be enough to recall here the characteristic opening of Idyll 1 (1–11): θυρσισ Ἁδύ τι τὸ ψιθύρισμα καὶ ἁ πίτυς, αἰπόλε, τήνα, ἁ ποτὶ ταῖς παγαῖσι, μελίσδεται, ἁδὺ δὲ καὶ τύ συρίσδες· μετὰ Πᾶνα τὸ δεύτερον ἆθλον ἀποισῇ. 32 33 34

The verb is used in this obscene sense by Aristophanes, Assembly Women 1082; Peace 711; the simple verb is also used in the same sense by Aristophanes, Assembly Women 39. This obscene meaning of a compound (διακαθαίρειν) is also attested in Aristophanes, Assembly Women 847. See Gow (1952) 2.113.

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Αἴ κα τῆνος ἕλῃ κεραὸν τράγον, αἶγα τὺ λαψῇ· αἴ κα δ’ αἶγα λάβῃ τῆνος γέρας, ἐς τὲ καταρρεῖ ἁ χίμαρος· χιμάρω δὲ καλὸν κρέας, ἔστε κ’ ἀμέλξῃς. αιπολοσ Ἅδιον, ὦ ποιμήν, τὸ τεὸν μέλος ἢ τὸ καταχές τῆν’ ἀπὸ τᾶς πέτρας καταλείβεται ὑψόθεν ὕδωρ. Αἴ κα ταὶ Μοῖσαι τὰν οἴιδα δῶρον ἄγωνται, ἄρνα τὺ σακίταν λαψῇ γέρας· αἰ δέ κ’ ἀρέσκῃ τήναις ἄρνα λαβεῖν, τὺ δὲ τὰν ὄιν ὕστερον ἀξῇ. Thyrsis: A sweet thing is the whispered music of that pine by the springs, goatherd, and sweet is your piping, too; after Pan you will take the second prize. If he should choose the horned goat, you will have the she-goat, and if he has the she-goat as his prize, the kid falls to you. The flesh of a kid is good before you milk her. Goatherd: Sweeter is the outpouring of your song, shepherd, than that cascade teeming down from the rock up above. If the Muses should take the sheep as their gift, you will have a stall-fed lamb, and if they would like to have a lamb, you will be next and take away the sheep. As has already been noted, the two characters exchange compliments that establish a form of evaluation for their respective poetic and musical abilities. The first scale of prizes proposed by Thyrsis, the he-goat, she-goat, and kid, makes us think of the origin of tragedy as “goat’s song,” as if it were here a question of fictitiously building an origin for bucolic poetry. This would then be inspired by another literary tradition from which it would draw its letters of nobility: bucolic poetry would be a form of “tragedy” in which the bucolic deity Pan would replace Dionysus, the god of the theater.35 However, we see that, in the following utterance of the goatherd, prizes are no longer of diminishing but of equal value (sheep = lamb), so that the reward is no longer used to rank the winners. This would be more in line with the harmony that may reign between

35

Hunter (1999) 61–62. Hunter highlights the elements of this Idyll that makes connections with the Dionysiac tragedy: Thyrsis may appear as a substitute for Dionysus; the ivy wood cup is reminiscent of a Dionysiac miracle (HHDion. 37); the sufferings of Daphnis are a motif perfectly adapted to the tragic universe; and the threnos associated with his death also recalls the possible origin of the tragic song.

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the competitors of the bucolic agon, as at the end of Idyll 6 (46).36 The origin of the bucolic song is not limited to this parallelism with tragedy, but incorporates both tragedy and comedy, as suggested by the last verse pronounced by Daphnis before his death (136): κἠξ ὀρέων τοὶ σκῶπες ἀηδόσι δηρίσαιντο. and let the screech owls from the mountains rival nightingales. In this last example of adynaton in Daphnis’ song, which closes with a spondeiazon, two types of song are opposed: that of the nightingale, which represents the “singer” par excellence, and in particular the singer specializing in lamentation,37 and that of the owl, which is its exact opposite. The owl is not praised for its musical qualities, but its name here (τοὶ σκῶπες) evokes the verb σκώπτω and therefore the universe of satire and comedy. Thus, by presenting the rivalry of owls and nightingales, Daphnis suggests a new framework created by his own death, in which opposites associate with each other to form a new poetic mode. But beyond the perspective which concentrates on the origin of the bucolic, this exchange also initiates the dialogue between the two characters. This occurs through the parallelism of the compliments exchanged and the evocation by each interlocutor of the musical abilities of the other. All the stylistic elements that contribute to the poem’s opening clues make us forget that the dialogue actually began before the beginning of the poem: if each of the characters can make a judgment on the abilities of his interlocutor, this means that he has heard him before the poem begins.38 We therefore have a beginning in medias res, which introduces the reader to the heart of the exchange between the characters. Thus the virtual threshold the reader crosses in passing from reality to poetic fiction parallels the reconstruction of the beginning of the dialogue in the poetic fiction itself. The movement accomplished by the reader seems to follow that of the characters in a perfect implementation of a kind of dramatic illusion that functions even outside of any representation. Even if Idyll 3 constitutes an exception within Theocritus’ bucolic corpus by virtue of its monologic form, it deserves particular attention due to the recreation of a situation of dialogue that the speaker takes care to set up at the

36 37 38

See Cusset (2011) 190–191. It is thus a kind of animal double of Daphnis himself. Cf. Cusset (2008) 19.

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opening. This alerts the reader to the truly dramatic dimension of the bucolic Idyll (1–5): Κωμάσδω ποτὶ τὰν Ἀμαρυλλίδα, ταὶ δέ μοι αἶγες βόσκονται κατ’ ὄρος, καὶ ὁ Τίτυρος αὐτὰς ἐλαύνει. Τίτυρ’, ἐμὶν τὸ καλὸν πεφιλημένε, βόσκε τὰς αἶγας, καὶ ποτὶ τὰν κράναν ἄγε, Τίτυρε· καὶ τὸν ἐνόρχαν, τὸν Λιβυκὸν κνάκωνα, φυλάσσεο μή τυ κορύψῃ. I’m going to serenade Amaryllis. My goats are grazing on the hill, and Tityrus is in charge of them. Tityrus, my dear friend, feed my goats and take them to the spring, Tityrus; and watch out for the billy goat, the tawny Libyan one, in case he butts you. Here the speaker adopts a particular posture from the start,39 that of a singer (κωμάσδω): he has handed over the animals for which he is responsible, and the spatial remoteness of his flock on the mountain (κατ’ ὄρος) is symbolic of the transformation of the goatherd into a singer. This mountain, however, does not really exist apart from the word that designates it, and no demonstrative actually indicates the spatial distance, so that the mountain is absent rather than distant: it is in fact situated in the imagination of the speaker. The same goes for the character of Tityrus, who is first designated in the third person (2), which places him in a kind of neutrality. The bucolic world seems to be relegated to an inset as a result of a radical split between the bucolic universe and the poetic universe. Yet, in line 3, the speaker addresses Tityrus as if he were present at his side: the speaker’s admonitions and warnings are quite surprising because they lack probability and consistency. But this apparent incoherence may be removed if one realizes that the goatherd builds a conventional theatrical discourse: in the first two lines he addresses a fictional spectator, to whom he explains his intentions as in a didaskalia, or a short prologue; he then turns to one side, towards the previously mentioned mountain, and addresses Tityrus directly, even if he is offstage; finally, he turns to another direction corresponding to the cave of Amaryllis, to whom he sings his serenade. The three successive stages of the discourse of the goatherd, with three different addressees, are not necessarily situated in the same place, in immediate chronological sequence, or on the same dramaturgical plane.40 Theocritus,

39 40

Cf. Payne (2007) 60–61. Cf. Hunter (1999) 110.

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by choosing to entrust these different levels of discourse to a single voice, plays with the mimetic potentialities of the discourse. 3.3 Presence of an Animal Resonance Finally, the description of the cup also reminds us that animals hold an important place in the bucolic universe. The main actors, who are shepherds, are never far from their herds, even if they give the impression of not taking care of them. But this indifference is most often superficial and indicative of another, more important occupation: if the child does not care about the foxes, it is because he is focused on the weaving of his trap for locusts, which has a preeminently symbolic and metapoetic value.41 Conversely, animals do not show indifference to men, but on the contrary are often used to emphasize a particular psychological climate. One might recall the compassion of the animals that surround Daphnis in his misfortune,42 or the lamentation of the heifers of Aegon that experience sadness in the absence of their oxherd in Idyll 4 (12–16):43 κο. Ταὶ δαμάλαι δ’ αὐτὸν μυκώμεναι αἵδε ποθεῦντι. βα. Δείλαιαί γ’ αὗται, τὸν βουκόλον ὡς κακὸν εὗρον. κο. Ἦ μὰν δείλαιαί γε, καὶ οὐκέτι λῶντι νέμεσθαι. βα. Τήνας μὲν δή τοι τᾶς πόρτιος αὐτὰ λέλειπται τὠστία. Corydon: The heifers are lowing and longing for him. Battus: Well they are wretched. What a poor herdsman they’ve found! Corydon: Wretched they certainly are, and they don’t want to graze any more. Battus: In fact the calf has just bones left. The complaint of the abandoned herd closely parallels the dialogue of the two characters without participating directly in the exchange; the lowing of the animals (μυκώμεναι) is perceived as an expression of complaint—which is reflected in the multiplication of diphthongs—and this humanizes the animals by attributing to them human feelings, such as longing (ποθεῦντι) or the loss of appetite, which are common symptoms of lovesickness.44 This complaint 41 42 43 44

We find the same shift of attention from animals towards poetry at the beginning of Idyll 3 (see above). Idyll 1.71–72 and 74–75. Hunter (1999) 134. Cf. Lawall (1967) 43; Gutzwiller (1991) 150.

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might evoke the tragic register (cf. the repetition of δείλαιαι) if it did not involve animals; this disturbing play on dehumanization and re-humanization shifts from tragic to comic, close to burlesque, in this gap between tonality and the treatment of the subject. But animals can also come into unison with their master in happy situations, as at the end of Idyll 6 (45): ὠρχεῦντ’ ἐν μαλακᾷ ταὶ πόρτιες αὐτίκα ποίᾳ. And the calves at once began to frolic in the soft grass. After the exchange of a kiss and of their musical instruments, Daphnis and Damoetas achieve perfect equality in their poetic contest, as underlined in verse 46 (νίκη μὲν οὐδάλλος, ἀνήσσατοι δ’ ἐγένοντο). But even before the narrator declares this equality, the cows of the two herders react: “the asyndeton is the stylistic expression of a perfect communion between men and nature: the animals here respond instinctively by their immediate behavior to the harmony that reigns between the two herdsmen.”45 By their dance, the animals express their communion with the harmony established in the Idyll. The movement of the body replaces the words of which the animals are deprived, and their choreography is in perfect cohesion with the softness of the turf as decor in a perfect spontaneity (αὐτίκα) that guarantees the authenticity of their reaction. This animal reaction to human situations, whether it highlights burlesque elements or overflowing joy, evokes the animal choruses of Old Comedy.46 It should also be noted that some Idylls end with references to animals dancing or mating,47 which is reminiscent of the final jubilation that is often present at the end of the comedies of Aristophanes and even of Menander, through the scenes of banquet and marriage. It is difficult to say whether there is in Theocritus a conscious reproduction of a motif clearly identified as comic, but at the end of the song attention shifts back to the animals whose shepherds (and the reader with them) had been diverted by the development of poetic song. At the moment the song stops, the animal resumes its place as if it served as a poetic threshold, as a transition between fiction and reality, like the intermedi-

45 46

47

Cusset (2011) 188. On animal choruses in Old Comedy, see Sifakis (1971); Morana-Corbel (2002–2003) 57–72 (with n. 1). This type of comparison with comedy has been proposed by Rinkevich (1973) 17, 30–31; for Idyll 4, ibid., 74. This is found in Idylls 1.151–152, 5.141–150 and 6.45.

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ary role of the chorus in dramatic poetry. An important difference, however, is that, in Theocritus’ fiction, they are proper animals, while in Old Comedy the chorus is zoomorphic rather than consisting of animals, which is to say that within comic fiction “animals” are in fact hybrid beings, theatrical representations of animals belonging to fictional hybridity.

Conclusion Theocritus’ Idylls take over a whole series of structuring and defining elements of the comic, but it is not possible to classify these poems under an explicitly comic register. One can even say that there is always a dividing point between pastoral fiction and comic fantasy:48 whereas it is fundamentally impossible for the fantasies of comic poets to become reality, the pastoral world, on the contrary, lies just on the edge of reality. Through a simple reading, we seem to be able to experience this world for a moment, and once we have done so, we want to come back to it like Simichidas in Idyll 7. Even a figure like the Cyclops transforms himself as soon as he enters this universe, becoming touching and sympathetic.

A Supplement on Tragic Patterns in Theocritus’ Bucolic Poetry The comic elements that I have tried to highlight in the bucolic poems of Theocritus must not lead us to believe that the Idylls of the Syracusan poet might only be classified as comic, as far as their dramatic anchorage is concerned. On the contrary, it is also necessary to keep in mind that, from the perspective of the contamination of genres on the one hand, and by virtue of the unclassifiable character of the Idyll on the other, the part of the tragic must not be neglected; tragedy is as much at the foundation of the bucolic form as is the comic dimension explored so far. This tragic dimension is implicitly present at the opening of Idyll 1 (verses 1– 6 quoted above) at the moment when Thyrsis establishes the classification in which he places the musical performance of the goatherd: even if, in the bucolic, the god Pan replaces Dionysus, the god of the theater, we find in the mention of the prizes attached to the performance the gradation he-goat / shegoat / kid, which is reminiscent of the origins traditionally attributed to tragedy

48

Cf. Payne (2007) 21.

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(τραγῳδία) as “song of the goat” (τράγος): if the first prize in bucolic music is a he-goat (αἴ κα τῆνος ἕλῃ κεραὸν τράγον, 4), this makes the bucolic song a performance similar to tragedy.49 One difference, however, is worth noting: the god Pan can choose the male goat or the female goat for first prize; in this sense the goat is not exclusively the prize of the winner, that is to say, we cannot restrict the bucolic song to being a simple “song of the goat.” Here we find indirectly the dimension of “open work” typical of Hellenistic poetry. The tragic dimension of bucolic poetry cannot be reduced to this simple formal framework, which remains theoretical and hypothetical (see αἴ κα, 1.4– 5). On the other hand, at the heart of the first and foundational story of the bucolic form, namely the story of the sufferings of Daphnis (τὰ Δάφνιδος ἄλγεα, 1.19), there is a fate that has strong similarities to the fate of tragic characters, as already noted by the commentators.50 The suffering of Daphnis comes from his inability to love (δύσερώς τις ἄγαν, 1.85), which brings him close to both Euripides’ Phaedra, in the resistance he manifests to love, and to Hippolytus, in the disrespect he shows toward Aphrodite (1.100–103): τὰν δ’ ἄρα χὠ Δάφνις ποταμείβετο· ‘Κύπρι βαρεῖα, Κύπρι νεμεσσατά, Κύπρι θνατοῖσιν ἀπεχθής, ἤδη γὰρ φράσδῃ πάνθ’ ἅλιον ἄμμι δεδύκειν; Δάφνις κἠν Ἀίδα κακὸν ἔσσεται ἄλγος Ἔρωτι.’ Daphnis in turn replied to her, “Cruel Cypris, spiteful Cypris, Cypris hateful to mortals, do you think, then, that all my suns are set already? Even in Hades Daphnis will be a source of bitter grief for Love.” This accusation against Aphrodite echoes the words exchanged between Hippolytus and Artemis at the end of Euripides’ Hippolytus (1397–1402): Ιπ. Αρ. Ιπ. Αρ. Ιπ. Αρ.

49 50

οὐκ ἔστι σοι κυναγὸς οὐδ’ ὑπηρέτης. οὐ δῆτ’· ἀτάρ μοι προσφιλής γ’ ἀπόλλυσαι. οὐδ’ ἱππονώμας οὐδ’ ἀγαλμάτων φύλαξ. Κύπρις γὰρ ἡ πανοῦργος ὧδ’ ἐμήσατο. ὤμοι· φρονῶ δὴ δαίμον’ ἥ μ’ ἀπώλεσεν. τιμῆς ἐμέμφθη σωφρονοῦντι δ’ ἤχθετο.

Cf. Hunter (1999) 61–62. Hunter (1999) 67–68.

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Hipp.: Your hunter, your faithful servant is no more. Art.: No, but my friendship remains at the time of your death. Hipp.: The leader of your horses, the guardian of your statues. Art.: Cypris the rascal is responsible. Hipp.: Alas! I now understand which divinity destroyed me! Art.: She has reproached you for the slight to her honor: your chastity enraged her. In this exchange we find the negative qualification of Aphrodite (ἡ πανοῦργος) amplified by Daphnis in the Idyll, as well as the motif of the goddess’s hate of a mortal. The demise of the devoted huntsman of Artemis may also serve as a model for Daphnis, who, in his last moments, as he bids farewell to the world of nature, speaks two lines that function as his own funerary epitaph in the poem (1.120–121): Δάφνις ἐγὼν ὅδε τῆνος ὁ τὰς βόας ὧδε νομεύων, Δάφνις ὁ τὼς ταύρως καὶ πόρτιας ὧδε ποτίσδων. I am the famous Daphnis who herded his cows here, Daphnis who watered here his bulls and calves. Daphnis in his epitaph not only transposes the hunting model of Hippolytus but also borrows the way he presents himself when he is brought back dying onstage (1364–1365): ὅδ’ ὁ σεμνὸς ἐγὼ καὶ θεοσέπτωρ, ὅδ’ ὁ σωφροσύνῃ πάντας ὑπερσχών … I am the hardy ascetic and devotee of the gods, who in virtue surpassed all others … But unlike Hippolytus, who defines himself through his virtue and his exclusive and hyperbolic piety, Daphnis is more modest and only recalls in all humility his pastoral functions. As this parallel between Hippolytus and Daphnis already shows, there are great differences of tone between the tragic universe and the bucolic universe; even if one can identify structural analogies between two similar fates, a strong generic constraint remains and weighs on the poetic product, in spite of the Hellenistic inclination to fight against generic borders. The situation is undoubtedly even more complex with regard to the figure of Pentheus, as he

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appears both in the Bacchae of Euripides and Idyll 26 of Theocritus.51 The latter opens as follows (1–5):52 Ἰνὼ καὐτονόα χἀ μαλοπάραυος Ἀγαύα τρεῖς θιάσως ἐς ὄρος τρεῖς ἄγαγον αὐταὶ ἐοῖσαι. Χαἲ μὲν ἀμερξάμεναι λασίας δρυὸς ἄγρια φύλλα, κισσόν τε ζώοντα καὶ ἀσφόδελον τὸν ὑπὲρ γᾶς, ἐν καθαρῷ λειμῶνι κάμον δυοκαίδεκα βωμώς … Ino, Autonoe, and white-cheeked Agave, themselves three in number, led three groups of worshippers to the mountain. Some of them cut wild greenery from the densely growing oak trees, living ivy and asphodel that grows above ground and made up twelve altars in a pure meadow … This opening narrative in the third person recalls the messenger’s report in Euripides’ tragedy. This messenger could also be considered, insofar as he is a cowherd, a bucolic figure that legitimizes Theocritus’ switch from tragedy to bucolic poetry. The Hellenistic poem indeed focuses the narrative on this section of the play, which reports the tragic event that took place far from the view of the spectators, namely the death of Pentheus as he was torn apart by the Bacchants: it retains only the most pathetic and revolting element of the tragic action. The first verse is like a kind of didaskalia, giving the list of main characters of the plot and evoking the references to the three sisters in Bacchae (229–230; 680–682; 1227–1231). Lines 680–682 of Euripides’ play are the most significant with respect to the tragic intertextuality of Theocritus’ poem: ὁρῶ δὲ θιάσους τρεῖς γυναικείων χορῶν, ὧν ἦρχ’ ἑνὸς μὲν Αὐτονόη, τοῦ δευτέρου μήτηρ Ἀγαυὴ σή, τρίτου δ’ Ἰνὼ χοροῦ. Then I see three thiasi of women’s choirs: at the head of the first was Autonoe, at the head of the second your mother, Agave, and Ino led the third choir. Even if the order of the three sisters is not the same in both texts, their three names are associated with the expression τρεῖς θιάσως, which refers to the spe-

51 52

Cf. Cusset (1997) 454–468. For a more in-depth commentary on these verses, see Cusset (2001) 55–69.

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cific context of the tragedy and the narrative of the messenger. The character of Pentheus is then abruptly introduced by Theocritus (10–14): Πενθεὺς δ’ ἀλιβάτω πέτρας ἄπο πάντ’ ἐθεώρει, σχῖνον ἐς ἀρχαίαν καταδύς, ἐπιχώριον ἔρνος. Αὐτονόα πράτα νιν ἀνέκραγε δεινὸν ἰδοῖσα, σὺν δ’ ἐτάραξε ποσὶν μανιώδεος ὄργια Βάκχω, ἐξαπίνας ἐπιοῖσα, τά τ’ οὐχ ὁρέοντι βέβαλοι. Pentheus observed everything from a high rock, hidden in a mastich bush, a plant that grew in those parts. Autonoe, the first to see him, gave a dreadful yell and with a sudden movement kicked over the sacred objects of frenzied Bacchus, which the profane may not see. Like the scenes of confrontation of the king with the deity in the tragedy, the name Πενθεύς is juxtaposed to that of Dionysus at the end of line 9. Pentheus, the disruptor of Bacchic rites, is shown in the position of an observer: Theocritus installs him on a steep rock, while in Euripides he was at the top of a fir (1063–1074). But for this variation, Theocritus relies on the text of Euripides. The chorus indeed announced the fate of Pentheus, imagining his position as a spy on a rock (982–984) before Pentheus chose the fir over the rock (see 1061–1062).53 We thus see that Theocritus seeks to distance himself from the tragic text but takes care to include subtle allusions to it. The same is true of the launching of the killing of Pentheus: in Theocritus, Autonoe spots the spy, whereas in Euripides his mother Agave sees him first (982). Autonoe’s gesture in lines 13–14 may be based on lines 470–474 of the Bacchae, which evoke the ὄργια that the profane are not allowed to know.54 In the same way, the bloody ceremony oscillates between echoes of, and deviations from, the tragic text: if the order of the three sisters’ intervention is the same, the mutilated parts of the body are distributed differently between them.55 The story of Theocritus concludes with the reference to the Bacchants’ return to Thebes from the mountain (26):

53 54 55

Cf. Dodds (19602) 209–210. See Gow (1952) 2.478–479. See Cusset (1997) 465–466 and (2001) 81–86 on the probably different meaning of these lines in Theocritus. Cusset (1997) 466–467.

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ἐξ ὄρεος πένθημα καὶ οὐ Πενθῆα φέροισαι. bearing back from the mountain not Pentheus but lamentation (penthema). Everything happens as if the story rested only on an etymological wordplay, taken over by Theocritus from Euripides (367–368),56 which fixes in advance the tragic destiny of the character, who becomes a being of pure language. The tragic motifs and structures may not be omnipresent in the bucolic Idylls, but they appear as fundamental poetic data, especially in the double perspective of questioning generic borders and of an abundant intertextuality. One can also make the observation that if the comic substratum impregnates bucolic poetry mainly from a formal point of view, the tragic element seems to be more obvious from a thematic point of view; both genres become the object of a secondary discourse inserted within the bucolic setting (see the song of Thyrsis about Daphnis in Idyll 1 and the mythological song of Idyll 26, before the rupture in the utterance at line 27). Thus tragedy and comedy seem to spread their respective influences on bucolic poetry at different levels and degrees.

Bibliography Cairns, F. (1984), “Theocritus’ First Idyll: The Literary Programme,” WS 97, 89–113. Cambiano, G./Canfora, L./Lanza, D. (eds.) (1993), Lo spazio letterario della Grecia antica, i, 2 (Rome). Crane, G. (1988), “Realism in the Fifth Idyll of Theocritus,” TAPA 118, 109–122. Cusset, C. (1997), “Théocrite, lecteur d’Euripide: l’exemple des Bacchantes,” REG 110, 454–468. Cusset, C. (2001), Les Bacchantes de Théocrite. Texte, corps et morceaux (Paris). Cusset, C. (2008), “‘Commencez, Muses chéries, commencez la chanson bucolique’: les affres du commencement dans la poésie de Théocrite,” in B. Bureau/C. Nicolas (eds.), Commencer et finir. Débuts et fins dans les littératures grecque, latine et néolatine (Paris) 15–20. Cusset, C. (2011), Cyclopodie (Lyon). Dodds, E.R. (19602), Euripides. Bacchae (Oxford, 19441). Dupont-Roc, R./Lallot, J. (1980), Aristote. La Poétique (Paris). Dupont, F./Eloi, T. (2001), L’érotisme masculin dans la Rome antique (Paris).

56

Cf. Dodds (19602) 116–117.

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Fantuzzi, M. (1993), “Il sistema letterario della poesia alessandrina nel iii sec. ac,” in Cambiano/Canfora/Lanza (1993) 31–73. Fantuzzi, M. (2006), “Theocritus’ Constructive Interpreters, and the Creation of a Bucolic Reader,” in Fantuzzi/Papanghelis (2006) 235–262. Fantuzzi, M./Papanghelis, Th. (eds.) (2006), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden/Boston). Frazier, F. (2009) Poétique et création littéraire en Grèce ancienne. La découverte d’un “nouveau monde” (Besançon). Giangrande, G. (1976), “Victory and Defeat in Theocritus’ Idyll v,” Mnemosyne 29, 143– 154. Gow, A.S.F. (ed.) (1952), Theocritus, vols. 1–2 (Cambridge). Gutzwiller, K.J. (1991), Theocritus’ Pastoral Analogies. The Formation of a Genre (Madison). Hopkinson, N. (ed.) (2015), Theocritus, Moschus, Bion (London/Cambridge, MA). Hordern, J.H. (2004), Sophron’s Mimes. Text, Translation, and Commentary (Oxford). Hunter, R. (ed.) (1999), Theocritus. A Selection (Cambridge). Krevans, N. (2006), “Is There Urban Pastoral? The Case of Theocritus’ Id. 15,” in Fantuzzi/Papanghelis (2006) 119–146. Lawall, G. (1967), Theocritus’ Coan Pastorals. A Poetry Book (Washington). Legrand, P.-E. (1898), Étude sur Théocrite (Paris). Meillier, C. (1986), “Moyens et fins de l’agon bucolique de l’idylle v de Théocrite,” RPh 60, 13–29. Morana-Corbel, C. (2002–2003), “Le chœur des Cavaliers d’Aristophane: un chœur zoomorphe,” CGITA 15, 57–72. Payne, M. (2007), Theocritus and the Invention of Fiction (Cambridge). Plazenet, L. (1994), “Théocrite: idylle 7,” AC 63, 77–108. Rinkevich, T.E. (1973), Comic Structure in Theocritus 1–7 (diss. Ohio State University). Sifakis, G.M. (1971), Parabasis and Animal Choruses. A Contribution to the History of Attic Comedy (London). Stephens, S.A. (2006), “Ptolemaic Pastoral,” in Fantuzzi/Papanghelis (2006) 91–117. Taillardat, J. (1965), Les images d’Aristophane. Études de langue et de style (Paris). Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von (1924), Hellenistische Dichtung in der Zeit des Kallimachos, 2 vols. (Berlin). Williams, G.W. (1959), “Dogs and Leather,” CR 9, 97–100.

part 3 Poetics and Aesthetics

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chapter 12

Ancient Scholarship on Theocritus Lara Pagani

1

Hellenistic Scholarship on “Contemporaries”

The scholars of the Hellenistic and imperial age focused their philological and exegetical work first and foremost on the Homeric poems and, to a lesser extent, on other archaic and classical poets, such as Hesiod, the lyricists (especially Pindar), the tragic and comic playwrights, as well as, seemingly with a minor impact, on historians and rhetoricians of the classical period.1 Yet the work of Hellenistic poets also attracted scholarly attention, and this probably began at quite an early stage, at any rate before Didymus (1st century bce–1st century ce). A case has recently been made for the idea that this phenomenon could have originated already in the Aristarchan age (3rd–2nd century bce), at least in relation to an author like Callimachus, who seems to have been a special favorite of the Alexandrian grammarians.2 Regarding Theocritus, however, the relatively secure pieces of information at our disposal (see below, Section 3) allow us to date the beginning of interpretive and critical activities back to the end of the 2nd or the beginning of the 1st century bce.

2

Ancient Editions

The majority of scholars think that Theocritus did not arrange a comprehensive edition of his own work, and that his corpus initially had a fluid dissemination without any structure designed by its author.3 At least, the collections we possess seem unlikely to have been arranged by Theocritus himself, since they contain poems judged spurious (Id. 8 and 9)4 and exclude the Berenice quoted 1 E.g., Pfeiffer (1968) passim; Montanari (1993) 245–249, (1995) 62–63, (2002) 66–67, with bibliography; Dickey (2007) 3–10; Montana (2015) 94–95. 2 Montanari (1995) and (2002). For a different view see Rengakos (2000); cf. also Rengakos (1993) and (1994). 3 Susemihl (1891–1892) 1.219; Wilamowitz (1906) 112–129, (1910a) iii–v; von Blumenthal (1934) 2021; Beckby (1975) 368; Gutzwiller (1996); Hunter (2002b) 360. The opposing view was supported by Birt (mentioned by Susemihl); Immisch (1918) 337; Irigoin (1975) (see below). 4 But note that both are mentioned in the scholiastic corpus transmitted by medieval mss.,

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by Athenaeus (284a), which is considered genuine.5 Nevertheless, it has been asserted that there is a net of numerical correspondences within the bucolic Idylls that supports the view that Theocritus personally arranged them (8 and 9 included) as a collection according to precise structural rules.6 The first edition of Theocritus’ poems with which we are acquainted7 is the one integrated within the collection of bucolic authors produced by a grammarian called Artemidorus. He proclaimed his achievement in an epigram (26 Gow) which is transmitted by the Anthologia Palatina (AP 9.205), five of the Theocritean mss. with Prolegomena (Proleg. G a, p. 6 Wendel), and the Anecdoton Estense iii (5, pp. 10.27–11.2 Wendel): Ἀρτεμιδώρου γραμματικοῦ ἐπὶ τῇ ἀθροίσει τῶν βουκολικῶν ποιημάτων Βουκολικαὶ Μοῖσαι σποράδες ποκά, νῦν δ’ ἅμα πᾶσαι ἐντὶ μιᾶς μάνδρας, ἐντὶ μιᾶς ἀγέλας. By the grammarian Artemidorus, with reference to the collection of the bucolic poems: The Bucolic Muses, once scattered, are now all together, part of one and the same sheepfold, one and the same flock.8 This Artemidorus is commonly identified with the grammarian of Tarsus, nicknamed Ἀριστοφάνειος and Ψευδαριστοφάνειος9 by Athenaeus, who worked in the first decades of the 1st century bce.10 There is no certainty about which criteria underlay the arrangement of materials within this collection of “Bucolic

5 6 7 8 9 10

without any hint at problems concerning their authenticity (no trace of any such assessment is preserved in the scholarly tradition on Theocritus: cf. Hunter (2002a) 99); Id. 8, moreover, is present, together with other bucolic Idylls, in P.Oxy. 2064+3548+5294, dating back to the 2nd century ce (see below, Section 4): cf. Irigoin (1975) 40; Hunter (2002a) 99. Gow (1950) 2.lix–lx; cf. Wilamowitz (1906) 123. Irigoin (1975). For a summary of the different opinions on the number and sequence of the Idylls in antiquity, see e.g., Vox (1997) 83 n. 2. For a hypothetical overview of editions pre-dating that of Artemidorus, see below and cf. Gutzwiller (1996). The text is that of Gow (1950) 1.254, the translation is mine. For a discussion on the meaning of these epithets, cf. Nauck (1848) 7; Ahrens (1855–1859) 2.xxvii; Wentzel (1895) 1331. This date, today generally accepted, is inferred from the information (EGen. α 1198) that he was the father of Theon, a scholar who lived in the Augustan age (cf. below): Ahrens (1855–1859) 2.xxxvii–xl; Wentzel (1895) 1331. On the contrary, Fritzsche (1844) 29 and Nauck (1848) 7, considering Artemidorus a direct pupil of Aristophanes of Byzantium (see previous note), dated him accordingly.

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Muses,” or which poems and of which authors it included (in addition to Theocritus, perhaps Moschus and Bion).11 The denomination Βουκολικαὶ Μοῖσαι is also problematic, since it is unclear whether it identifies the genre in a strict sense, limiting the range, for Theocritus, to Id. 1 and 3–11,12 or whether it allows the option, proposed by Gallavotti, of a broader and more general interpretation, according to which even non-bucolic portions of the oeuvre of a renowned bucolic poet could be defined as βουκολικά.13 From a different point of view, it has been surmised that the whole production of Theocritus acquired the title Βουκολικά as a consequence of its being included in Artemidorus’ collection, where the bucolic Idylls allegedly occupied the opening position and determined this formal classification as applying also to the rest of the poems it contained.14 Nevertheless, a counterargument seems tenable, according to which Artemidorus would hardly have referred to his work as Βουκολικαὶ Μοῖσαι if a good part of the poems therein were to obtain the qualification of Βουκολικά hereafter precisely as a result of their presence in that collection.15 As for Theocritean poems, although their sequence displays a noticeable variability in ancient and medieval mss., suggesting that there was no strict canonical order in antiquity, some degree of consistency has been detected among the sources, to the point that it has been hypothesized that the order known to Artemidorus was: 1, 5, 6, 4, 7, 3, 8, 9. Then an editor, perhaps Artemidorus himself, could have changed the position of Id. 5 (to put 1 and 6, about Daphnis, near each other?), thus producing the sequence: 1, 6, 4, 5, 7, 3, 8, 9, attested by P.Oxy. 2064+3548+5294 (2nd century ce). A series of further modifications has been conjectured, which could have produced the different arrangements attested by the families of medieval mss.16 However, theories of this kind cannot but remain highly speculative.

11 12 13

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16

Regarding the non-Theocritean poetry putatively collected within Artemidorus’ collection, cf. Wilamowitz (1906) 127; (1910a) iii; Gallavotti (19933) 13; Gutzwiller (1996) 124. See above for the problem of the authenticity of Id. 8 and 9. Gallavotti (19933) 13. An example of this practice is detected by Gow (1950) 1.lxi n. 2 in Sch. A.R. 1.1234, where Hylas is included among the βουκολικά. We can add, with Gutzwiller (1996) 124, the mention by Claudius Aelianus (NA 15.19) of Id. 2 as one of the νομευτικὰ παίγνια, and the fact that Virgil, who may have had Artemidorus’ edition at his disposal when working on the Eclogues, imitates Theocritus’ non-bucolic poems as well. Wilamowitz (1906) 127–128. Gow (1950) 1.lxi n. 2; Van Sickle (1976) 31–33; Gutzwiller (1996) 123–128; Hunter (1999) 27. Regarding the problems connected with the term βουκολικός and the question of the literary category which it designated in antiquity, see Halperin (1983); Gutzwiller (1991); Fantuzzi/Papanghelis (2006). Gutzwiller (1996) 123–128: see below.

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Nor is it certain whether Artemidorus’ undertaking was simply a mechanical recording of texts or instead involved some kind of textual study, even if not a proper diorthosis, a type of accomplishment generally ruled out of his activity by modern scholars.17 Another epigram (27 Gow), transmitted in the Anthologia Palatina (AP 9.434), four of the mss. of Theocritus with Prolegomena (Proleg. G b, p. 6 Wendel), in the Anecdoton Estense iii (3, p. 9.29–33 Wendel), and a papyrus bearing an epigram anthology (P.Oxy. 3726, 2nd/3rd century ce), broadens and complicates the picture: τοῦ αὐτοῦ [sc. Θεοκρίτου] εἰς ἑαυτὸν ὅτι Θεόκριτος Συρακούσιος ἦν ἄλλος ὁ Χῖος, ἐγὼ δὲ Θεόκριτος ὃς τάδ’ ἔγραψα εἷς ἀπὸ τῶν πολλῶν εἰμὶ Συρακοσίων, υἱὸς Πραξαγόραο περικλειτᾶς τε Φιλίννας· Μοῦσαν δ’ ὀθνείαν οὔτιν’ ἐφελκυσάμαν. By the same author [sc. Theocritus] referring to himself, since Theocritus hailed from Syracuse: The Chian is another, but I am Theocritus, who wrote these poems, one among the many Syracusans, son of Praxagoras and the far-famed Philina: I have attracted no foreign Muse.18 Wilamowitz compared these puzzling lines with the epigram referring to the bucolic collection of Artemidorus and interpreted them as the dedication of an edition of Theocritean poems produced by Theon, son of Artemidorus.19 He was a grammarian of the Augustan age, known to have devoted his activity especially to Hellenistic poets,20 to the point that he has been defined as “the Didymus of Hellenistic poets.”21 However, this epigram plays a totally different role within the picture outlined by Gutzwiller. She identifies at least four stages in the circulation of this poetry between its composition and Artemidorus’ edi17 18 19 20

21

Van Sickle (1976) 29–31. The text is that of Gow (1950) 1.254, the translation is mine. Wilamowitz (1906) 124–129 and (1910a) v. On this figure, see Wendel (1934); Guhl (1969); Damschen (2002); Montana (2015) 178– 180; Matthaios (2015) 213–216; Meliadò (2019), and, with reference to his work on Theocritus, Ahrens (1855–1859) 2.xxvii–xxxi; Wilamowitz (1910b) 188–189; Wendel (1920) 44– 45, 80–83; Belcher (2005) 194, 197–199; Pagani (2007b) 288–290. Cf. also below, Section 3. Gudeman (1921), 629; cf. Montana (2015) 180 and Matthaios (2015) 214.

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tion at the beginning of the 1st century bce: 1) a collection of Idylls, dating back to the 3rd century bce and opened by the ἄλλος ὁ Χῖος epigram, which was not defined by the bucolic criterion and may have included also the hexameter poems, the Berenice, the Aeolic poems, perhaps the epigrams, and other works attributed to Theocritus by the Suda lexicon (θ 166); 2) a book of the late 3rd or the beginning of the 2nd century containing in alphabetical order Theocritean poems perceived as bucolic (Id. 1, 5, 6, 4, 7, 3); 3), with the addition of Id. 8 and 9 before 4) the comprehensive bucolic edition produced by Artemidorus.22 An in-depth examination of the textual and exegetical difficulties posed by the epigram is beyond the scope of this chapter. Suffice it to say that the problems concern particularly the identity of the Χῖος mentioned in line 1 (Homer,23 or Theocritus the sophist of Chios of the 4th century bce)24 and the interpretation of the last line (if in reference to the Homeric style: “I did not imitate others’ style”;25 if not: “I collected poetry homogeneous in style,” or “I did not accept spurious poems”).26 However, although the research Theon carried out in order to write his commentary may suggest the existence also of an editorial work27 (which could have been either the basis or the outcome of the exegetical activity which resulted in the hypomnema), no secure evidence can be found for such an inference, either in this epigram or in the rest of the evidence at our disposal, and scholars have mostly set aside or rejected this idea.28

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25 26 27

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Gutzwiller (1996). The internal coherence of the texts collected in section B of P.Ant. s.n.+3.207 (on which see below, Section 4), ten non-bucolic hexametric pieces, has been read by Gutzwiller as a hint of an editorial project designed to separate out poems that belong to different genres. Wilamowitz (1906) 125; Gallavotti (1986) 122–123, according to whom the epigram was a real Syracusan inscription, engraved on a statue of Theocritus holding the book roll of his poems in his hands; Gallavotti (19933) 251; Palumbo Stracca (1993) 491. Bethe (1916), who interpreted these lines as a subscription to an edition opened by a portrait of Theocritus; Cameron (1995) 422–526; Gutzwiller (1996) 133–137; Hunter (1999) 1; Rossi (2001) 343–345. Wilamowitz (1906) 125; Gallavotti (1986) 123. Gow (1950) 1.550; Vox (1997) 409 n. 67. Guhl (1969) 3–4, according to whom the complete edition of Theocritus circulating in the Augustan age could be the one supposedly realized by Theon, given that in his view Artemidorus’ collection was limited to the bucolic Idylls. Among the scholars overtly against this hypothesis, see Immisch (1918) 337, who was convinced that Theocritus himself was the creator of the collection; Gow (1950) 1.549; Guhl (1969) 4; Cameron (1995) 422–426; Vox (1997) 408. Wilamowitz’s interpretation (above, n. 19) is repeated by Beckby (1975).

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Ancient Exegetes

The identification of the ancient grammarians who devoted scholarly activity to Theocritus29 is by no means the result of a mechanical search within the exegetical material surviving in the medieval scholia. Given the mechanisms underlying the transmission of such works, scholars’ opinions may also be mentioned therein that originally did not pertain to Theocritus’ text, but which have been incorporated within the exegetical apparatus to this author only at a second stage. It is likely that Artemidorus’ collection supplied the textual foundation for the philological activity on Theocritus undertaken by an Asclepiades, who is generally identified with the versatile scholar from Myrlea (second half of the 2nd–1st century bce, and so an earlier contemporary of Artemidorus himself),30 even though he is explicitly cited with his ethnonym only in Sch. 1.118c. The nature of Asclepiades’ notes has led scholars to assert their provenance from a commentary,31 perhaps one based on a selection of Theocritean poems extracted from the broader edition of Artemidorus.32 The variety of topics (prosody, exegesis, explanation of words) and the presence of textual discussions hardly allow us to think that the work from which these fragments came had a reference point other than Theocritus’ text.33 Since Asclepiades is the only auctoritas mentioned in the scholia for textual variants, the idea that other interventions of this kind, anonymously recorded in the scholia, may be due to him has been suggested, though doubtfully, by Wendel. Nevertheless, as he himself cautiously acknowledged, a propensity for “textual criticism” is clearly detectable also in the non-Theocritean studies of Theon, whose work on Theocritus had a prominent influence on the later exegetical tradition.34 The hypothesis that Theon is to be credited with an edition of Theocritean poetry, as reasonable as it may be, is not supported by evidence (see above, Section 2). A commentary, on the contrary, is known for certain, even if it is quoted only once, in a gloss by Orion in EGud. (p. 323, 18–23 Stef., s.v. γρῖπος). The name of Theon is nowhere cited within our scholiastic corpus, but his hypom-

29 30 31 32 33 34

The canonical reference is Wendel (1920) 74–84; updated overviews can be found in Belcher (2005) and Pagani (2007b). Pagani (2007a), with further bibliography; cf. Montana (2015) 161–163. Pagani (2007a) 27 and n. 62. Wendel (1920) 80, 165, followed by Gow (1950) 1.lxxxii, and Beckby (1975) 368. Wendel (1920) 79. Wendel (1920) 79–80. Cf. Meliadò (2019).

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nema has been considered to be its main source,35 precisely on account of this absence: this would be normal if, at an early stage of the compilation, Theon’s was the basic commentary, and was thus tacitly used throughout, whereas integrations and additions of extraneous material would have required a mark of identification.36 Much more Theocritean material ascribable to Theon is likely hidden both in the scholia and the lexicographic evidence,37 as well as in the marginalia of P.Oxy. 2064+3548+5294 (2nd century ce) and P.Ant. s.n.+3.207 (5th–6th century ce).38 From the remains we can only guess the original richness of his work; it is clear, however, that it exerted a crucial influence on the subsequent learned tradition, probably also among the exegetes of Virgil.39 Wendel suggested the possibility of tracing back to Theon’s authorship also the section listing theories on the origins of bucolic poetry recorded by some of the mss. with scholia40 (Prolegomenon B in Wendel’s edition)41 and then reworked in the Prolegomena to Virgil and the Anecdoton Estense iii, but this hypothesis cannot be proven.42 It is likely that a later scholar who commented on Theocritus was the κριτικός Munatius of Tralles mentioned by Philostratus (VS 1.538.17, 2.564.9) as the teacher of Herodes Atticus and a member of his entourage in Asia Minor (and hence dated to the first half of the 2nd century ce).43 This author has been identified with the grammarian mentioned eight times within the scholia, mostly

35 36

37

38 39 40 41 42 43

Ahrens (1855–1859) 2.xxvii, xlvii; Wilamowitz (1910b) 188–189; Wendel (1920) 80–83; Meliadò (2019). Belcher (2005) 197–199, who discusses the question in parallel with the silence of the scholia about the name Amarantus (see below), offers only a generic explanation invoking the different policy of the ancients in comparison to current scholarship regarding the quotation of sources. Attempts to unearth this kind of material can be found in Wendel (1920) 44–45, 81–83, 90–130 passim, as well as in Guhl (1969), an edition recording around 140 uncertain fragments (frr. 41–182), tentatively recovered on the basis of the overlapping of notes within the scholia to Theocritus, Callimachus, Apollonius Rhodius, Nicander, and Lycophron. Maehler (1994) 102; McNamee (2007) 110. Susemihl (1891–1892) 1.225; Wilamowitz (1910b) 188; Wendel (1920) 166 and (1934) 2058– 2059; Gow (1950) 1.lxxxii; Montana (2015) 179, 180; Matthaios (2015) 216. Wendel (1935) 1362–1364. Wendel (1914) 2–3. So Fantuzzi (2006) 239 and n. 16. Bernasconi (2010), on the contrary, seems to take the attribution for granted. Wüst (1956); Matthaios (2000); (2015) 244–245. With specific reference to Munatius’ Theocritean work: Ahrens (1855–1859) 2.xxxii–xxxiii; Wilamowitz (1910a) v and (1910b) 189; Wendel (1920) 74–77, 88–90, 156, 166; Gow (1950) 1.lxxxii–lxxxiii; Beckby (1975) 369; Belcher (2005) 194–195; Dickey (2007) 63–64; Pagani (2007b) 290–291.

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as Μουνάτιος, sometimes as Μουνάτος, and once as Βενάτιος.44 So far as we can surmise, his comments encompassed a wide range of topics, including not only remarks on prosodical and etymological questions, but also exegetical discussions and the identification of characters in the poems (see below, Section 6). The last two types of remarks reveal beyond any doubt their provenance from a work focused on Theocritus.45 This could contain “a systematic and detailed analysis of the poems,”46 given the variety of topics treated in the surviving notes and the fact that they cover a large number of poems. Yet Munatius’ opinions are completely isolated or even censured as mistaken in the scholia that transmit them. From this picture Wendel inferred that he wrote absolutely original notes without reusing any previous commentaries,47 and so initiated a fresh interpretive line, even if not one free from misunderstandings.48 This interpretive trajectory was destined to occupy a minority position within the tradition that followed.49 Wendel’s hypothesis goes even further by tracking down the person who in his view was the intermediary thanks to whom Munatius’ work was conflated with (and often criticized within) the mainstream tradition of Theocritean exegesis: this figure has been seen in a Theaetetus mentioned four times in the scholia to the first Idyll,50 mainly in regard to linguistic remarks. His profile is almost irrecoverable for us: he has been identified with the Scholasticus of the Justinianic era,51 whereas according to Wendel he was a contemporary of Munatius himself, who took up the latter’s work, correcting and improving it 44

45 46 47

48 49

50 51

Ahrens (1855–1859) 2.xxxii; Wendel (1914) 67, 76, 104, 116; Wüst (1956) 360. The identification with Munatius of Tralles, while not compelling, is however highly plausible and is generally accepted (doubtfully in Belcher (2005) 195). Wendel (1920) 75–76. Belcher (2005) 195. Wendel (1920) 76, according to whom this could also imply that Munatius worked on Artemidorus’ edition of the bucolic poets (see above, Section 2); cf. Gow (1950) 1.lxxxii– lxxxiii. Considering the fragmentary state of our knowledge, we could at the most maintain that he drew on none of the hypomnemata belonging to the exegetical current that has reached the medieval scholia. For example, Munatius’ mistake in identifying Theocritus’ travelling companions in the Thalysia clearly emerges from ll. 1–4 of Id. 7 (cf. arg. b). It is probably not necessary to think, with Ahrens (1855–1859) ii xxxii–xxxiii, followed by Wendel (1920) 75, Gow (1950) 1.lxxxii, and Gutzwiller (1991) 180, that the scholar disapproving of Munatius’ opinions was a contemporary of his on the basis of the acrimony with which he is criticized. Wendel (1920) 77–78, 166. On this grammarian see Geffcken (1934); Albiani (2002), Pagani (2005b); (2007b) 291–292; Matthaios (2015) 245. Fritzsche (1844) 35 (cf. Ahrens (1855–1859) ii xxxii); doubts about this identification had been expressed already by Wilamowitz (1906) 107 n. 1.

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using his other alleged source, i.e., Theon’s hypomnema.52 This theory, which has become the vulgate,53 although it is perhaps too schematic, is based on a sequence of auctoritates cited in Sch. 1.110a (Theaetetus–Munatius–Ptolemy son of Aristonicus): according to Wendel it reproduces a chronological reverse order and signifies that Ptolemy son of Aristonicus (1st century bce–1st century ce) was cited by Munatius, who was then used in turn by Theaetetus. From this perspective, all the opinions of Munatius occurring in the scholia are thought to have been filtered through Theaetetus: he blended the “new” trend of exegesis represented by Munatius himself together with the earlier and more learned line represented by Theon, and so transmitted to the subsequent tradition an erudite legacy unified to some degree.54 The last grammarian known for certain as the author of a commentary on Theocritus is an Amarantus, probably to be dated to the 2nd century ce,55 who appears in the Etymologica and, like Theon, is never mentioned in the scholia. His name occurs twice in the Etymologica (Et.Gen. α 1288 and EM 273.38–42, which overtly speaks of exegetical activity on the Thalysia by Amarantus), in the context of remarks which have anonymous parallels in the scholia (respectively Sch. 4.57a.b and 7.154a.d). As in the case of Theon (see above), the lack of any mention of Amarantus in the scholia, compared to the information from other sources about his interpretive activity, supports the inference that much more material that is traceable to him is hidden throughout the scholiastic corpus. The same line of reasoning that was applied to Theon led Wendel to consider Amarantus’ hypomnema to be the final step in the compilation of the ancient tradition: this allegedly flowed into the scholia and the lexicographic works through a unique and unifying channel (see below, at the end of this section, for a different point of view).56 It is possible that an Eratosthenes, identified with the much later (6th century ce) Eratosthenes Scholasticus author of epigrams,57 wrote a hypothesis 52 53 54 55

56

57

Wendel (1920) 77–78, 166. It is generally repeated by scholars: cf. Blumenthal (1934) 2022; Gow (1950) 1.lxxxii; Beckby (1975) 369; Dickey (2007) 64, with caution; Matthaios (2015) 245. Wendel (1920) 77–78, 166. Wentzel (1894); Wendel (1920) 83–84; Gow (1950) 1.lxxxiii and n. 4; Wüst (1956) 361; Belcher (2005) 196; Pagani (2007b) 292–293; Matthaios (2015) 244; Montana (2018). On the contrary, Ahrens (1855–1859) ii xxxi spoke of the 1st century ce. Wendel (1920) 83–84, 166–167. Wilamowitz (1910b) 189 and Wüst (1956) 361, leaving out Theaetetus, saw Amarantus directly as the critic of Munatius. Wendel (1920) 159–164 (esp. 164), followed by Blumenthal (1934) 2022, ascribed to Amarantus, as a mere conjecture, also the addition of the carmina figurata to the Theocritean collection. Fritzsche (1844), followed by Ahrens (1855–1859) 2.xxxiii; Susemihl (1891–1892) 1.225 n. 77; Wilamowitz (1906) 107; Gow (1950) 1.lxxxiii–lxxxiv; Degani (1998).

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to Id. 12: the arg. b could preserve a specific remark coming from this putative hypothesis.58 One more figure can perhaps be included among the ancient commentators of Theocritus, namely, a Nicanor of Cos, hypothetically dated to the 1st century bce, and known only thanks to two mentions in the scholia (7.5–9k and 5– 9o).59 His explanation is introduced by the verb ὑπομνηματίζω, which seems to attest to the activity of a commentator.60 Still, it has been questioned whether the text on which Nicanor carried out his exegetical work was that of Theocritus or not, on the basis of a possible ambiguity arising from the wording of the scholia in question.61 Be that as it may, it is possible that further information within the Theocritean scholia regarding places on the island of Cos goes back ultimately to Nicanor.62 Some other scholars appear within the scholia, but cannot be demonstrably counted among those who commented on Theocritus, since the provenance of their remarks from a work specifically devoted to this poet is debatable, or even an origin from a different kind of learned text is more likely.63 To sum up, so far as we can gather from the surviving evidence, the ancient commentators on Theocritus range from the 2nd–1st century bce to the 2nd century ce. Wendel conceived of this tradition as a linear development, in which each step superseded and incorporated the preceding one. This view tries to put together all the data we have from the scholia and the lexicographic evidence into a coherent and unitary picture: the critical-exegetical work of Asclepiades was allegedly soon superseded by Theon’s hypomnema, which was in turn used by Theaetetus, which also mixed in material from the independent commentary of Munatius, and this product was finally reworked by Amarantus.64 However, this is not necessarily the best way to explain the 58

59

60 61 62 63 64

I discussed in Pagani (2007b) 293–294 the reasons why the mss.’ text ὑπόθεσις Ἐρατοσθένους can be retained, against Wendel’s emendation of the expression into the simple Ἐρατοσθένης (Wendel (1914) 251). The proposal is made by Wendel (1936) and is based on the premise that mention of Nicanor in the scholia is due to Theon; more cautious is Damschen (2000). On this scholar, see Pagani (2005a) and (2007b) 294. Ahrens (1855–1859) ii xxxi, who thought that Nicanor’s work had focused on Id. 7 because of its Coan setting. Wilamowitz (1906) 152; Kuchenmüller (1928) 29 n. 1; Wendel (1920) 74; (1936); Damschen (2000); Sbardella (2000) 73, 126–127; Belcher (2005) 196–197; Pagani (2007b) 294. Wendel (1920) 128; cf. Wendel (1936). More details in Pagani (2007b) 294–296. Wendel (1920) 74–84, 165–167. Cf. Blumenthal (1934) 2021–2022; Dickey (2007) 63–64. Reservations about this reconstruction already appear in Pagani (2007b) 297–298 and Farrell (2015) 398 and n. 7.

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tradition of ancient Theocritean exegesis. The assumption that the reuse of a preexisting commentary to set up a new one systematically implied the loss of the older work is to some degree misleading.65 Multiple exegetical lines could have coexisted in the ancient tradition and then later reached the scholiastic corpus while not in an already homogenized form, but (at least partly) following various and distinct paths.

4

Papyrus Commentaries and Marginalia

The evidence of papyrus commentaries and marginalia also supports the idea that still in late antiquity there existed more than one stream of Theocritean exegesis.66 A comparison between this kind of evidence on the one hand and the scholia on the other brings to light cases of more or less pronounced coincidence in content, but also remarkable discrepancies in formulation, with both extra and missing material and, what is most telling, the presence of explanations incompatible with each other, which are hardly conceivable as parts of one and the same hypomnema. The most reasonable conclusion seems to be, with H. Maehler, “dass noch in der Spätantike verschiedene Hypomnemata unabhängig von einander bestanden.”67 At present68 we know of two or possibly three papyri with commentaries on Theocritus and six bearing Theocritean poems equipped with marginalia, ranging from the 1st–2nd to the 6th century ce. a) Fragments of commentaries: 1) P.Berol. inv. 7506 (BKT v 1) (LDAB 3987; MP3 1496; ed. pr.: Schubart/ Wilamowitz [1907] 56, nr. iv 2), a fragment of roll from the 1st or the beginning of the 2nd century ce, commenting on Id. 5.38–49. The four lemmata discussed, λυκιδεῖς (l. 38), ἀνδρίον (l. 40), ὕστατα βουκολιαξῇ (l. 44), and τηνεί (l. 45), display a rather low level of learned information, mostly dealing with explanations of dialectal forms or unusual words and rephrasing the poetic text with interpretive aims. The overlapping with the scholia is very partial and anyway limited to the level of content.69 According to the edd. pr., followed

65 66 67 68 69

Cf. Montanari in the discussion on Maehler (1994) 129. Maehler (1994) esp. 97–105. Maehler (1994) 103. Research in LDAB and MP3 in July 2018. Schubart/Wilamowitz (1907) 56; Wendel (1920) 170; Gow (1950) 1.lxii; Maehler (1994) 99– 101; McNamee (2007) 109.

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2)

3)

70 71 72

73

by Wendel and more recently by M. Maehler, this could be a scrap of a school handbook, especially considering the absence of any comment on ll. 41–43, whose obscene subject would have been inappropriate in such a context.70 P.Oxy. 4432 (LDAB 3997; MP3 1495.13; ed. pr.: Maehler [1997]), two fragments of a roll of the 2nd century ce, respectively concerning Id. 4.55–57 and 62–63. We can recognize therein paraphrases, linguistic remarks with technical terminology (e.g., the verb ἐκτέθλιπται of l. 7 indicating the loss of a vowel), the annotation of a variant reading (l. 12: γράφεται καὶ βαττου̣[), and an etymological discussion (ll. 13– 18, on ἀσπάλαθος). The explanations show a higher degree of erudition, to the point that the ed. pr. suggests that this was a product of the renowned learned tradition, tentatively considering Theon or Asclepiades as the possible author. However, the similarity with the corresponding scholia remains scant.71 P.Monts.Roca 4.40 (LDAB 113900; MP3 1495.121; ed. pr. Torallas Tovar/Worp [2009]; cf. Torallas Tovar/Worp [2014], 71–82), fragment of a reused sheet,72 written in a cursive hand and dated to the 4th century ce. It contains exegetical material about Id. 1.45–152 and 7.5, and preserves explanations, apparently of a basic level, regarding the meaning or the form of words, linguistic remarks, or identification of places mentioned by Theocritus. The work was very selective: more than 120 lines of poetry are dealt with in 22 lines of commentary, with conspicuous gaps. The degree of similarity with the medieval scholia is low: the papyrus seems to transmit a note on Id. 1.152 that is absent from the scholia, omits much of what can be read in the scholia, and shows considerable divergences from them where the two can be compared.73 According to Meliadò’s interpretation,

Schubart/Wilamowitz (1907) 56; Wendel (1920) 170; Maehler (1997) 128. Maehler (1997) 130. McNamee (2007) 108–109 considers P.Oxy. 4432 a good parallel for the scholia from the point of view of the learned content displayed. For discussion of its possible provenance from a roll or a codex, see Torallas Tovar/Worp (2014) 72, with previous bibliography (Meliadò (2011) 35 and Stroppa (2013) 355 are to be added), which was compromised, however, by the mistaken claim in the ed. pr. (Torallas Tovar/Worp (2009) 283), that the verso is blank, whereas it in fact bears traces of a document (cf. Torallas Tovar/Worp (2014) 71 and n. 40). Torallas Tovar/Worp (2009) 286 and (2014) 75, who maintain that this commentary exhibits an earlier stage of development as compared to the scholia, with which it is said to share at least a common source; Meliadò (2011).

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74 75 76 77 78

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this was not a real commentary, but a series of excerpta drawn from marginalia or hypomnemata and transcribed for personal use, perhaps in a school context.74 Fragments of text with marginalia: 1) P.Oxy 2064+3548+5294 (LDAB 3989; MP3 1489; ed. pr. Hunt/Johnson [1930] 3–19+Parsons [1983b] +Meliadò [2016]),75 several scraps of a book roll of the 2nd century ce, containing parts of Id. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, copiously annotated by several hands in the upper and lower margins, as well as in the spaces between columns and lines. The remarks (around fifty) display noteworthy erudition: beyond the explanation of glosses and paraphrases of the poetic text, we find etymological and dialectal discussions, as well as information on factual aspects (geography, myth, ethnography). A comparison with the scholia discloses several parallels but also many differences: the papyrus has both something more and something less than the scholia, and when the two overlap, similarities in content can be observed, but verbal coincidences are sporadic.76 This makes it plausible that the commentaries used in this papyrus were among the sources of the scholia, but were not the only ones, and that the scholia incorporated them only partially.77 The evidence suggests that the source-commentaries excerpted by the annotators must have been in the mainstream of Theocritean scholarship: Theon’s work has been considered as possibly one of them.78 2) P.Oxy. 3547 (LDAB 3995; MP3 1489.5; ed. pr. Parsons [1983a]), a fragment of roll of the 2nd century ce preserving Id. 3.49–4.2 flanked by the remnants of two annotations about the sense of ζαλωτός in l. 49 and the meaning of βέβαλοι in l. 51, both similar to the scholia or the lexicographic tradition. 3) P.Oxy. 3551 (LDAB 3999; MP3 1493; ed. pr. Parsons [1983c]), part of a codex-leaf of the 3rd century ce with a marginal note pertaining to Id. 17.98 and explaining πολυκήτεα in a way that has a parallel in the scholia.

Meliadò (2011) 35. A revision of the text of 2064+3548, with proposals of restorations, is to be found in Meliadò (2004). Hunt/Johnson (1930) 5; Gow (1950) 1.lxii; Maehler (1994) 101; Maehler (1997) 129; McNamee (2007) 109. Maehler (1997) 129. Maehler (1997) 129; cf. McNamee (2007) 109.

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5)

79 80

81 82 83 84 85

P.Oxy. 1618 (LDAB 4003; MP3 1490; ed. pr. Grenfell/Hunt [1916]), the remains of a codex dated to the 5th century ce and containing parts of Id. 5, 7, and 15, with an annotation on the meaning of κνίδαισι of Id. 7.110, again comparable to the scholia and the lexica. P.Ant. s.n.+3.207 (LDAB 4004; MP3 1487; ed. pr. Hunt/Johnson [1930] 19–87+Barns in Barns/Zilliacus [1967] 176),79 the celebrated “Antinoe Theocritus,” a codex datable to the 5th–6th century ce, which, with its sixteen surviving (though in fragments) folia, is one of the longest and best preserved papyri with marginalia, and also one of the most plentifully annotated.80 The remains hand down parts of eighteen Idylls, supplied with dense exegetical remarks in the margins, including: notes about the identification of the persona loquens in dialogues, explanation of glosses or dialect forms, paraphrases and explication of the poetic phrasing, information about factual elements and mythical stories, and possibly the record of variant readings.81 The content of at least some of the notes may be traced back to Theon, but most of them have a very limited degree of erudition, mainly aiming at basic reading help.82 Moreover, there are also mistaken remarks, apparent truisms, violations of logic or misunderstandings, traces of afterthoughts, and true blunders.83 The form (morphology, syntax, and terminology) is unconventional compared to the rest of the surviving ancient exegetical materials.84 On the whole this picture has been explained as the result of a transcription ἀπὸ φωνῆς during a conference or a lecture by a grammatikos, who used a school commentary (which contained some of the earlier erudite knowledge) and sourced the lexicographic tradition, but tailored the material according to his target audience, possibly members of the Coptic entourage of the late antique Antinoopolis.85 In this case too, similarities with the scholia and the

A revision of the text of some marginalia is in Meliadò (2014) 14–34. For the coincidence, or not, of the hands respectively responsible for the text and the marginalia, see Hunt/Johnson (1930) 22; McNamee (2007) 376; Montana (2011) 7 with n. 33; Meliadò (2014) 14 n. 19. An extensive overview can be found in Montana (2011) 5–6. Cf. McNamee (2007) 110, 376– 441. Hunt/Johnson (1930) 29; McNamee (2011) 110; Montana (2011) passim. Hunt/Johnson (1930) 29; McNamee (2007) 110–111. McNamee (2007) 109–110. McNamee (2007) 110; Montana (2011) 27; but cf. also the reservations of Meliadò (2014) 14 n. 19 about the plausibility of a transcription by students listening to a lecture in class.

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5

315

lexica can be documented, especially on the level of content, but discrepancies are evident as well,86 once again confirming as the most likely theory the derivation of the material in the scholia from multiple ancient sources. P.Berol. inv. 21182 (BKT ix 85) (LDAB 4006; MP3 1489.4; ed. pr. Ioannidou [1996]), a scrap of a 6th-century codex with a note on Id. 7.134 elucidating οἰναρέοισι, which has a wide attestation in the scholiastic tradition (also in corpora different from Theocritus’ one) and in lexicography.

The Medieval Scholia

The exegetical products of antiquity, selected, reworked, and merged together many times, reached the Middle Ages in the form of scholiastic corpora, with notes compiled from various sources written in the margins and between the lines of the manuscripts. The Theocritean corpus also includes introductory material (prolegomena, with information e.g., about the life of the poet, his style and dialect, the invention of the bucolic genre, etc.), and one or more summaries of each poem (hypotheseis). Beyond the scholia vetera, there are also Byzantine scholia,87 which provide no further information on ancient scholarship. The most recent edition of the scholia to Theocritus is by Wendel (1914), who does not consider the Byzantine material and excludes several glosses (brief explanations of words).88 Wendel collated 10 manuscripts (including among them two apographs of the 15th century), the oldest (ms. Milano, Bibl. Ambrosiana, C 222 inf.; Wendel’s siglum K) dating back to the 13th century, the others to the 14th. His analysis of the scholia led him to suggest a distinction between three classes:89 1) genus Ambrosianum, represented only by the ms. K and its apographs, and judged the most authoritative tradition;

86

87 88 89

Hunt/Johnson (1930) 29; Gow (1950) 1.lxii; Maehler (1994) 102–105; Maehler (1997) 129; Montana (2011) 27; on the other hand, Meliadò (2014) 21–28 emphasizes the resemblances between P.Ant. marginalia and the scholia. Wendel (1920) 5–37. Both elements were instead included in Ahrens (1855–1859) ii. As for the glosses, Wendel (1914) ix–x declares that he systematically left out those present in mss. G, A, and T. Wendel (1914) x–xx. For a description of the mss., see Wendel (1914) vi–x.

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genus Vaticanum, to be found in mss. U (Città del Vaticano, BAV, Vat. gr. 1825), E (Città del Vaticano, BAV, Vat. gr. 42), A (Milano, Bibl. Ambrosiana, G 32 sup.), L (Paris, BNF, gr. 2831), as well as in part of G (Firenze, BML, Plut. 32.52) and P (Firenze, BML, Plut. 32.37);90 3) genus Laurentianum, recognized in the sections of G and P that do not belong to the Vatican category. Ms. T (Città del Vaticano, BAV, Vat. gr. 38), which was left out of this taxonomy, was said to display both scholia Vaticana and Laurentiana. Each category is imperfectly described by the manuscript(s) identified as its best representative, since every codex bears additional scholia of other classes.91 This situation is the norm within scholiastic traditions, where the picture of manuscripts’ “genetic” affinities does not perfectly overlap with the typological taxonomy of the scholia therein. According to Wendel, the three classes descend from one and the same archetype, probably drawn up in the 10th or 11th century with scholia collected from more than one exemplar,92 and then giving rise to a bipartite tradition, with the archetype of the genus Ambrosianum on one side and the archetype of both genus Vaticanum and Laurentianum on the other.93 A new edition, based on a more in-depth knowledge of the textual transmission and on a complete collection of scholia, is one of the desiderata in this field of research.94

6

Contents of the Exegesis

Sketching an overview of the typology of explanations offered to Theocritus’ readers by the ancient critics is complicated by the fact that multiple perspect-

90 91

92

93 94

In G the scholia as far as Id. 7.37 and then starting from Id. 11 are identified as pertaining to the genus Vaticanum, in P the scholia to Id. 11–15 are identified as such. E.g., in K Wendel keeps out of the genus Ambrosianum 1) several glosses that have penetrated into the scholiastic sequence but lack the lemma and have been handed down between the lines in other mss., and 2) some etymologies that unsettle the order of the scholia and lack the marks that should connect scholia to the text; in G Wendel recognizes also scholia of the genus Ambrosianum beside its “proper” Vaticana scholia, etc. (Wendel (1914) x–xv). This is inferred from the alleged presence in the archetype of the same explanation for one passage in two or three different forms (Wendel (1914) xviii–xix). The date is suggested on the basis of a parallel with other scholiastic traditions (Wendel (1914) xix). Wendel (1914) xix–xx, with a stemma on p. xx. Meliadò (2014) 28–29.

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ives and points of view are intertwined. First of all, we have to deal with the traditional taxonomy offered by Wendel, who distinguished the content of the scholia into two broad areas, i.e., 1) the plain paraphrase of the poetic texts, and 2) the elucidation of single aspects, regarding mythology, history, geography, natural sciences, proverbs, meaning of words, grammar, and literary criticism.95 The special status that this classification seems to grant to the paraphrase is perhaps misleading, since the prose “translation” of poetic expression is one of the most common tools of ancient exegesis as a whole, and was used in the elucidation of poetry together with the explanation of specific elements.96 Topics that could be added to the list are the discussion of figures of speech, the annotation of variant readings, and the identification of the persona loquens in the various parts of each Idyll.97 This last item has to do with the wider problem of the presence (or not) of a narrative framework which introduces the characters who speak to each other; namely, was the poet’s voice present in every poem or not? This is often discussed by the Theocritean scholia in the attempt to establish the nature—entirely mimetic/dramatic or “mixed” (narrative and dramatic)—of each piece, in terms such as: ὁ δὲ λόγος ἐκ τοῦ ποιητικοῦ προσώπου, “the speech is delivered by the character of the poet” (Id. 8 arg. a.b; Id. 12 arg. a; ~ Sch. 7.29–31a); or, on the contrary, ἔστι δὲ ἀμοιβαῖον καὶ δραματικώτερον μὴ ὑποδεικνυμένου τοῦ ποιητικοῦ προσώπου, “[the Idyll] is a conversation and belongs to the dramatic form, without any intrusion by the character of the poet” (Id. 1 arg. b).98 The theoretical reference point is obviously the categorization of literary modes established by Plato (R. 393d–394d), then reused by subsequent critics, and present among the prefatory materials of the scholia to Theocritus (Proleg. D, pp. 4–5 Wendel). This text also gives an account of the subject and purpose of bucolic poetry: εἰς ὅσον δ’ οἷόν τέ ἐστι, τὰ τῶν ἀγροίκων ἤθη ἐκμάσσεται αὕτη ἡ ποίησις, τερπνῶς πάνυ τοὺς τῇ ἀγροικίᾳ σκυθρωποὺς κατὰ τὸν βίον χαρακτηρίζουσα, “this kind of poetry imitates as far as possible the habits of the countrymen, representing, in a very pleasant way, people who are sullen in their rusticity” (Proleg. D, 95 96

97 98

Wendel (1914) 84–158. It is not necessary to postulate, with Buck (1886) 12–13, the existence of an ancient work containing the whole of Theocritus’ poetry transposed to prose as the source of all paraphrastic scholia present in the medieval corpus. The idea of a running paraphrase accompanying all the poems (Grisolia (2004) 63) is more plausible, but again not compelling. This is all the more true if we consider that the distribution of the paraphrastic element throughout the different Idylls is very uneven (cf. Grisolia (2004) 63). Grisolia (2004) 59–60. Nünlist (2009) 94–115, esp. 98–101 on Theocritus.

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5.2–5 Wendel). This text could be the manifesto of an exegetical perspective which has been labeled the “simple mimetic approach,” based on the belief that Theocritus aimed at no more than merely representing the naive life of country people and making it enjoyable for his urban readership. Nevertheless, it has been claimed that a different point of view is also discernible in ancient interpretation of Theocritean poetry, i.e., one defined as the “metaphorical approach,” marked by the search for aspects of the poet’s life conveyed in a symbolic form behind the conventional code of bucolic poetry.99 The problem of the relationship of the poetic “I” that speaks, in the bucolic Idylls, to Theocritus’ own biography takes shape first and foremost in the identification of individual characters of the poems with its author.100 The most famous case is that of Simichidas in the Thalysia (Id. 7),101 who is implicitly identified with Theocritus in the arg. b and c, while other scholia discuss the problem: they report that some supported this identification by claiming that Theocritus’ father was called Simichus (thus Simichidas would have been a sort of patronymic), or that the poet was σιμός, “snub nosed,” making Simichidas a nickname; others, however, are said to have interpreted Simichidas as a person in Theocritus’ entourage (Sch. 7.21a.b). Interestingly enough, the topic is recalled in relation to another Idyll when the unnamed persona loquens attributes to himself the physiognomic trait of being σιμός (3.8), and the scholia ad loc. assume as a consequence that he must be Theocritus himself, because he is called Simichidas in the Thalysia (Sch. 3.8–9a.b; cf. arg. a, where the reasoning is ascribed to Munatius;102 see above, Section 3). This implies the premise of a search for internal coherence across the whole corpus of the bucolic Idylls.103 As a further step, from these attempts at identification data were inferred about the figure of the poet, his social environment, his whereabouts, and the events of his life. Taking it for granted that the requirement of internal consistency was one of the commonest interpretive tools for literary texts, in the Theocritean scho-

99 100

101 102 103

Van Sickle (1976) 134–135; Gutzwiller (1991) 175–182; Farrell (2015). Korenjak (2003) 67–68. The statement of Farrell (2015) 416 that this aspect was “the most crucial issue that interpreters faced” can be embraced in the sense that the peculiar situation of Theocritean poetry from this point of view must have represented to some degree a new and challenging undertaking for ancient scholars. Korenjak (2003) 68; Fantuzzi (2006) 254–255; Spanoudakis (2011); Farrell (2015) 414–415, with further bibliography. According to Gutzwiller (1991) 180, Munatius played a key role in this exegetical perspective. Farrell (2015) 414.

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lia this element seems to have been somehow related to the definition of the bucolic genre.104 Commentators and imitators of Theocritus tended, in a very similar manner, to crystallize his poetry into a system with well-defined, fixed, and recognizable bucolic characteristics. The inclination to demonstrate every single element of the Theocritean narrative as an orthodox tessera of the bucolic genre, sometimes even clearly beyond the original intentions of the poet himself, is to be found e.g., in scholia highlighting the bucolic relevance of parts of the landscape mentioned by Theocritus or the coherence and accuracy of his literary use of rustic elements; in those that resort to etymology (or rather para-etymology) in order to affirm the bucolic relevance of objects, animals, persons, or gods that appear in the bucolic Idylls; in others that build a coherent fictitious bucolic world such as would allow the identification of unnamed characters with others that appear in other compositions; or in scholia that emphasize sexual allusions or obscene double entendres (given the crucial role played by love and sex in bucolic poetry) even where their presence is, at the very least, uncertain. Acknowledgment of the importance of ancient exegesis, together with the role of followers and imitators, in establishing the bucolic nature of Theocritus’ poetry and in defining the formal code of this genre is very significant in and of itself. It is also charged with consequences for the subsequent developments of the genre in the Latin world. Greek scholarship on Theocritus not only had a decisive influence on the Latin commentators of Virgil’s Eclogues, but likely also shaped the imitation of Theocritus by Virgil himself, who must have had some Greek scholarship at his disposal when he wrote the Eclogues.105

Bibliography Ahrens, H.L. (ed.) (1855–1859), Bucolicorum Graecorum Theocriti, Bionis, Moschi reliquiae: accedentibus incertorum idylliis, 2 vols. (Lipsiae). Albiani, M.G. (2002), “Theaitetos (nr. 3) Scholastikos,” in DNP xii 1, 252. Barns, J.W.B./Zilliacus, H. (eds.) (1967), The Antinoopolis Papyri, iii (London). Beckby, H. (1975), Die griechischen Bukoliker. Theokrit, Moschos, Bion (Meisenheim am Glan). Belcher, K. (2005), “Theocritus’ Ancient Commentators,” in Th. Fögen (ed.), Antike Fachtexte. Ancient Technical Texts (Berlin/New York) 191–206.

104 105

Fantuzzi (2006), with examples. Farrell (2015), pace Wendel (1920) 68–73.

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Bernasconi, A. (2010), “Un trattatello sull’origine della poesia bucolica (schol. in Theocr. vet. prol. b),” AAH 50, 27–62. Bethe, E. (1916), “Theokrit-Epigramm und Theokrit-Portrait,” RhM 71, 415–418. Blumenthal, A. von (1934), “Theokritos (nr. 1),” in RE VA 2, 2001–2025. Buck, C. (1886), De scholiis Theocriteis vetustioribus quaestiones selectae (Argentorati). Cameron, A. (1995), Callimachus and His Critics (Princeton). Damschen, G. (2000), “Nikanor (nr. 9),” in DNP viii, 902. Damschen, G. (2002), “Theon (nr. 4),” in DNP xii 1, 374. Degani, E. (1998), “Eratosthenes (nr. 3) Scholastikos,” in DNP iv, 47. Dickey, E. (2007), Ancient Greek Scholarship. A Guide to Finding, Reading, and Understanding Scholia, Commentaries, Lexica, and Grammatical Treatises, from Their Beginnings to the Byzantine Period (Oxford). DNP = Cancik, H./Schneider, H. (eds.), Der neue Pauly. Enzyklopädie der Antike (Stuttgart/Weimar). Fantuzzi, M. (2006), “Theocritus’ Constructive Interpreters, and the Creation of a Bucolic Reader,” in Fantuzzi/Papanghelis (2006) 235–262. Fantuzzi, M./Papanghelis, Th. (eds.) (2006), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden/Boston). Farrell, J. (2015), “Ancient Commentaries on Theocritus’ Idylls and Virgil’s Eclogues,” in C.S. Kraus/ C. Stray (eds.), Classical Commentaries: Explorations in a Scholarly Genre (Oxford) 397–418. Fritzsche, A.T.H. (1844), De poetis Graecorum bucolicis (Gissae) [non vidi]. Gallavotti, C. (1986), “Epigrammi di Teocrito,” BollClass 7, 101–123. Gallavotti, C. (ed.) (19933), Theocritus quique feruntur Bucolici Graeci (Rome). Geffcken, J. (1934), “Theaitetos (nr. 5),” in RE VA 2, 1372–1373. Gow, A.S.F. (ed.) (1950), Theocritus, 2 vols. (Cambridge). Grenfell, B.P./Hunt, A.S. (eds.) (1916), “1618. Theocritus, Idyls v, vii, xv,” in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri 13 (London) 168–179. Grisolia, R. (2004), “Tipologie di commento nel corpus degli scholia vetera a Teocrito,” in G. Indelli/G. Leone/F. Longo Auricchio (eds.), Mathesis e mneme: studi in memoria di Marcello Gigante, vol. 2 (Naples) 59–67. Gudeman, A. (1921), “Scholien,” in RE, ii A 1, 625–705. Guhl, C. (1969), Die Fragmente des Alexandrinischen Grammatikers Theon (diss. Hamburg). Gutzwiller, K. (1991), Theocritus’ Pastoral Analogies. The Formation of a Genre (Madison). Gutzwiller, K. (1996), “The Evidence for Theocritean Poetry Books,” in M.A. Harder/ R.F. Regtuit/G.C. Wakker (eds.), Theocritus (Groningen) 119–148. Halperin, D.M. (1983), Before Pastoral: Theocritus and the Ancient Tradition of Bucolic Poetry (New Haven/London).

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Hunt, A.S./Johnson, J. (eds.) (1930), Two Theocritus Papyri (London). Hunter, R. (ed.) (1999), Theocritus, A Selection. Idylls 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 13 (Cambridge). Hunter, R. (2002a), “The Sense of an Author: Theocritus and [Theocritus],” in R.K. Gibson/C.S. Kraus (eds.), The Classical Commentary: Histories, Practices, Theory (Leiden/ Boston/Köln) 89–108. Hunter, R. (2002b), “Theokritos (nr. 1),” in DNP xii 1, 360–364. Immisch, O. (1918), “Ἐτερόδοξον,” Sokrates. Zeitschrift für das Gymnasialwesen 72, 337– 341 [non vidi]. Ioannidou, G. (ed.) (1996), Berliner Klassikertexte. 9, Catalogue of Greek and Latin Literary Papyri in Berlin (P.Berol. inv. 21101–21299, 21911) (Mainz). Irigoin, J. (1975), “Les bucoliques de Théocrite. La composition du recueil,” QUCC 19, 27–44. Korenjak, M. (2003), “Tityri sub persona. Der antike Biographismus und die bukolische Tradition,” A&A 49, 58–79. Kuchenmüller, W. (1928), Philetae Coi reliquiae (Berolini). LGGA = Montanari, F./Montana, F./Pagani, L. (eds.), Lexicon of Greek Grammarians of Antiquity (BrillOnline). Maehler, H. (1994), “Die Scholien der Papyri in ihrem Verhältnis zu den Scholiencorpora der Handschriften,” in F. Montanari (ed.), La philologie grecque à l’époque hellénistique et romaine (Geneva) 95–127 (Discussion: 128–141). Maehler, M. (ed.) (1997), “4432. Commentary on Theocritus iv 55–7, 62–3,” in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, 64 (London) 127–137. Matthaios, S. (2000), “Munatios,” in DNP viii, 469. Matthaios, S. (2015), “Greek Scholarship in the Imperial Era and Late Antiquity,” in Montanari/Matthaios/Rengakos, vol. i (2015) 184–296. McNamee, K. (2007), Annotations in Greek and Latin Texts from Egypt (s.l.). Meliadò, C. (2004), “Scolii a Teocrito in POxy 2064+3458,” ZPE 147, 15–26. Meliadò, C. (2011), “Un nuovo ‘commentario’ teocriteo (P.Monts. Roca inv. 316),” in ZPE 177, 35–40. Meliadò, C. (2014), “Il codice di Antinoe. Contributi al testo e all’esegesi di Teocrito,” SemRom n.s. 3,1, 9–38. Meliadò, C. (ed.) (2016), “5294. Theocritus, Idyll 7.130–133 (addendum to xxx 2064 + L 3548),” in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri 82 (London) 18. Meliadò, C. (2019), “Theon (nr. 1),” in LGGA. Montana, F. (2011), “Sondaggi sui marginalia esegetici del ‘Teocrito di Antinoe’ (P.Ant. s.n.; MP3 1487),” Eikasmos 22, 1–34. Montana, F. (2015), “Hellenistic Scholarship,” in Montanari/Matthaios/Rengakos, vol. i (2015) 60–183. Montana, F. (2018), “Amarantus,” in LGGA. Montanari, F. (1993), “L’erudizione, la filologia e la grammatica,” in G. Cambiano/L. Can-

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fora/D. Lanza (eds.), Lo spazio letterario della Grecia antica. 1, La produzione e la circolazione del testo. 2, L’Ellenismo (Rome) 235–281. Montanari, F. (1995), “Filologi alessandrini e poeti alessandrini: la filologia sui contemporanei,” Aevum(ant) 8, 47–63. Montanari, F. (2002), “Callimaco e la filologia,” in F. Montanari/L. Lehnus (eds.), Callimaque: Vandœuvres–Genève, 3–7 septembre 2001: sept exposés suivis de discussions (Geneva) 59–92. Montanari, F./Matthaios, S./Rengakos, A. (eds.) (2015), Brill’s Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship, 2 vols. (Leiden/Boston). Nauck, A. (ed.) (1848), Aristophanis Byzantii grammatici Alexandrini fragmenta (Halle). Nünlist, R. (2009), The Ancient Critic at Work. Terms and Concepts of Literary Criticism in Greek Scholia (Cambridge). Pagani, L. (2005a), “Nicanor (nr. 1),” in LGGA. Pagani, L. (2005b), “Theaetetus,” in LGGA. Pagani, L. (ed.) (2007a), Asclepiade di Mirlea, I frammenti degli scritti omerici, edizione, introduzione e commento (Rome). Pagani, L. (2007b), “La filologia antica su Teocrito,” in R. Pretagostini/E. Dettori (eds.), La cultura letteraria ellenistica: persistenza, innovazione, trasmissione. Atti del Convegno COFIN 2003, Università di Roma “Tor Vergata,” 19–21 settembre 2005 (Rome), 285–303. Palumbo Stracca, B.M. (ed.) (1993), Teocrito, Idilli e epigrammi (Milan). Parsons, P.J. (ed.) (1983a), “3547. Theocritus, Idyll iii 49–iv 2,” in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, 50 (London) 104. Parsons, P.J. (ed.) (1983b), “3548. Theocritus (Addenda to 2064),” in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, 50 (London) 105–122. Parsons, P.J. (ed.) (1983c), “3551. Theocritus, Idyll xvii 94–105, xxviii 1–19,” in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, 50 (London) 127–129. Pfeiffer, R. (1968), History of Classical Scholarship from the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age (Oxford). RE = A. Pauly, Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, neue Bearbeitung begonnen von G. Wissowa, unter Mitwirkung zahlreicher Fachgenossen hrsg. von W. Kroll, K. Mittelhaus, K. Ziegler (Stuttgart). Rengakos, A. (1993), Der Homertext und die hellenistischen Dichter (Stuttgart). Rengakos, A. (1994), Apollonios Rhodios und die antike Homererklärung (Munich). Rengakos, A. (2000), “Aristarchus and the Hellenistic Poets,” SemRom 3, 325– 335. Rossi, L. (2001), The Epigrams Ascribed to Theocritus: A Method of Approach (Leuven). Sbardella, L. (ed.) (2000), Filita, Testimonianze e frammenti poetici, introduzione, edizione e commento (Rome).

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Schubart, W./Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von (eds.) (1907), Berliner Klassikertexte. 5/1, Griechische Dichterfragmente. 1, Epische und elegische Fragmente (Berlin). Spanoudakis, K. (2011), “Ancient Scholia and Lost Identities: The Case of Simichidas,” in S. Matthaios/F. Montanari/A. Rengakos (eds.), Ancient Scholarship and Grammar: Archetypes, Concepts and Contexts (Berlin/New York) 225–237. Stroppa, M. (2013), “L’uso di rotuli per testi cristiani di carattere letterario,” Archiv für Papyrusforschung 59 (2), 347–358. Susemihl, F. (1891–1892), Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexandrinerzeit, 2 vols. (Leipzig). Torallas Tovar, S./Worp, W. (2009), “Commentary to Theocritus Idylls 1.45–152, 7.5,” Mnemosyne 62, 283–294. Torallas Tovar, S./Worp, K.A. (eds.) (2014), Greek Papyri from Montserrat (P.Monts. Roca iv), with the collaboration of A. Nodar and M.V. Spottorno (Barcelona). Van Sickle, J. (1976), “Theocritus and the Development of the Conception of Bucolic Genre,” Ramus 5, 18–44. Vox, O. (ed.) (1997), Carmi di Teocrito e dei poeti bucolici greci minori (Turin). Wendel, C. (ed.) (1914), Scholia in Theocritum vetera (Stutgardiae). Wendel, C. (1920), Überlieferung und Entstehung der Theokritscholien (Berlin). Wendel, C. (1934), “Theon (nr. 9),” in RE VA 2, 2054–2059. Wendel, C. (1935), “Mythographie,” in RE xvi 2, 1352–1374. Wendel, C. (1936), “Nikanor (nr. 25),” in RE xvii 1, 273. Wentzel, G. (1894), “Amarantos (nr. 3),” in RE i 2, 1728–1729. Wentzel, G. (1895), “Artemidoros (nr. 31),” in RE ii 1, 1331–1332. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von (1906), Die Textgeschichte der griechischen Bukoliker (Berlin). Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von (ed.) (1910a), Bucolici Graeci (Oxonii). Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von (1910b), Einleitung in die griechische Tragödie (Berlin). Wüst, E. (1956), “Munatius (nr. 3a),” in RE Suppl. vi ii, 359–361.

chapter 13

The Sweet Pleasures of Theocritus’ Idylls: A Study in the Aesthetics of ἁδύτης Evina Sistakou

1

ἁδύς: The Making of an Aesthetic Term

Theocritus introduced a distinct class of poetry defined by the pastoral setting and its characters.1 The Idylls belonging to this “class” diverge thematically and stylistically from the rest of the corpus; the term βουκολικός occurs repeatedly to designate the song of the herdsmen as represented in these idiosyncratic Idylls. Ἡδύς, “sweet,” in its Doric form ἁδύς, is a recurrent word in both the authentic and the spurious bucolic Idylls. Apart from the use of this key adjective at strategic points, there is an array of synonyms and equivalent phrases; entire lyric passages form around the idea of sweetness through the employment of related images. As I will argue, sweetness is an all-pervasive aesthetic term which marks indelibly what later came to be designated as “bucolic poetics.”2 If we take Idyll 1 as a point of departure (a poem usually interpreted as a programmatic statement by Theocritus about the standards of his new poetry), we observe that Theocritus foregrounds sweetness as an aesthetic concept. Once the reader opens Theocritus’ poetry book,3 he becomes a listener of sweetness,

1 Theocritus was viewed as the inventor of the bucolic Idyll already in antiquity; yet, the traditional rustic song serving as its basis was reconfigured according to the standards of archaic literary genres, especially sympotic poetry: see Pretagostini (2006). 2 For a review of the term βουκολικός that later became a generic label, see Gutzwiller (2006). Cf. Nauta (1990) 126–129, who argues that βουκολικός is not a term invented by Theocritus but a designation known from Sicilian pastoral poetry. 3 On Theocritus’ poetry books Gutzwiller’s study (1996) is still unmatched; for a brief survey of the related scholarship, beginning with Wilamowitz, see esp. pp. 119–123. It is highly likely that Idyll 1 was positioned at the beginning of Theocritus’ book, a view that can be traced back to antiquity as the ancient scholiast remarks (Sch. Theoc. arg. b3–4): ὅμως τοῦτο [sc. Idyll 1] προτέτακται διὰ τὸ χαριέστερον καὶ τεχνικώτερον τῶν ἄλλων μᾶλλον συντετάχθαι “Idyll 1 is placed first for being the most elegant and artistic as compared to the others.” Moreover, all three manuscript families (the Ambrosian, the Vatican and the Laurentian) place Idyll 1 first (cf. Meliadò, this volume 65–69); this is consistent with the “alphabetical” ordering of the Idylls, a

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004466715_015

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i.e., of “sweet music.” The aural effects of the celebrated opening lines originate from the triple repetition of ἁδύς combined with a series of onomatopoetic words.4 The introduction articulated by Thyrsis (1–3) ἀδύ τι τὸ ψιθύρισμα καὶ ἁ πίτυς, αἰπόλε, τήνα, ἁ ποτὶ ταῖς παγαῖσι, μελίσδεται, ἁδὺ δὲ καὶ τύ συρίσδες … A sweet thing is the whispered music of that pine by the springs, goatherd, and sweet is your piping, too …5 is reciprocated by the goatherd’s response (7–8) ἅδιον, ὦ ποιμήν, τὸ τεὸν μέλος ἢ τὸ καταχές τῆν’ ἀπὸ τᾶς πέτρας καταλείβεται ὑψόθεν ὕδωρ … sweeter is the outpouring of your song, shepherd, than that cascade teeming down from the rock up above … Between the music generated by nature’s power and the one produced by human artistry there is a marked difference: whereas in Thyrsis’ ears the music of the pine tree equals that of the syrinx, for the goatherd the singing voice of Thyrsis surpasses in sweetness the sound of the waterfall.6 Leaving aside the interplay between nature and art which forms the core idea,7 Theocritus in this opening passage focuses on the reception of the work of art—here in the form of music making and singing—by a live audience. Even if “sweetness” is a quality applied by the artist to describe his own singing (65 Θύρσις ὅδ’ ὡξ Αἴτνας, καὶ Θύρσιδος ἁδέα φωνά “Thyrsis of Etna am I, and sweet is the voice of Thyrsis”; and 144–145 ὦ χαίρετε πολλάκι, Μοῖσαι,/ χαίρετ’· ἐγὼ δ’ ὔμμιν καὶ ἐς ὕστερον ἅδιον ᾀσῶ “farewell, Muses, many farewells. Some other time I will sing you a yet sweeter song”), a close reading of the

4 5 6 7

practice dating back to the 3rd century bce, according to which Idyll 1 was always first due to its opening word ἁδύ (Gutzwiller (1996) 126–128). For the sound effects of these meticulously constructed verses, see Gow (1952) 2.2–3, Donnet (1988) 159–163 and Hunter (1999) 68–73. All translations of Theocritus are from Hopkinson (2015). In essence, the quality of human song and music is transferred to nature itself; it is nature that sings humanly, not vice versa: see Payne (2007) 25–27. The theme is repeated almost ipsis verbis in another bucolic Idyll (5.31–33).

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so-called bucolic Idylls reveals that Theocritus’ main concern is the aesthetic response of the listener or viewer of the work of art, not the poet’s aesthetic declaration per se.8 Thus, “sweetness” should be perceived as an aesthetic category which defines the audience’s experience as “pleasure” in accordance with the etymological connection of ἡδύς and ἡδονή that underlies Theocritus’ aesthetic discourse.9 The concept of sweetness resonates at the closure of Idyll 1 as a reprise (146–150): however, at this point, musical sweetness addresses other senses than hearing and eventually the singing voice of Thyrsis is perceived in terms of the taste of the Attic figs (147–148 ἀπ’ Αἰγίλω ἰσχάδα τρώγοις/ ἁδεῖαν “may you have sweet figs from Aegilus to eat”). Like Idyll 1, Idyll 7, although articulated in a cryptic manner, reads as a metapoetic comment on bucolic poetics.10 But unlike Idyll 1, ἁδύς is neither placed at the opening of the poem nor primarily associated with singing or music playing. The reason behind this is that Idyll 7 diverges from the typical bucolic scenario: the narrator, Simichidas (a poet himself and probably a persona of Theocritus), and two of his friends symbolically exit the city and enter the secluded pastoral world, where the mysterious goatherd Lycidas resides. And it is only in this alternative, poetic world that the true essence of sweetness can be encapsulated. As a consequence, ἁδύς is first mentioned in the context of the poetic agon which is about to take place after the invitation of Simichidas. Lycidas, an authoritative member of the bucolic poets’ society, promises to give the staff of poetry to the young Simichidas as a gift (42–51); the promise is fulfilled after the exchange of songs is concluded (128–129). This scene of poetic initiation is framed by the same enigmatic phrase ἁδὺ γελάσσας “sweetly laughing,” repeated twice in reference to Lycidas (42 ὁ δ’ αἰπόλος ἁδὺ γελάσσας; 128–129 ἁδὺ γελάσσας/ ὡς πάρος). Whether this is a laughter of sympathy, whether it has an ironic twist, or whether it is a gesture suggesting the divine nature of Lycidas is a matter still open to dispute.11 But whatever

8

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10 11

Unlike Callimachus, who strongly projects his poetic ego through first-person declarations on poetry such as the Aetia Prologue, Theocritus’ poetic persona remains hidden in the bucolic masquerade; in effect, the polyphonic universe of the bucolic Idylls multiplies the possible viewpoints on poetry: on this technique, see Goldhill (1991) 225–246. The aesthetic quality of ἁδύς is also evident in the phrase ἁδέι κηρῷ (27), attributed to another work of art, the kissybion: as Hunter (1999) 78 rightly notes “the wax shares the principal quality of bucolic poetry.” For a meticulous reading of Idylls 1 and 7 as “programmatic” for bucolic poetry, see Klooster, this volume. On the various theories, see Cameron (1995) 412–415 and Hunter (1999) 163. Ἁδὺ γελάσσας echoes v. 95 ἦνθέ γε μὰν ἁδεῖα καὶ ἁ Κύπρις γελάοισα from Idyll 1, on whose semantic ambiguity see Crane (1987).

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the undertone of Lycidas’ laughter here, ἁδύ(ς) is a distinctive marker of the bucolic world, renowned as a space of pleasure and a source of sweetness. This sweetness forms the main theme of Lycidas’ musical piece about the legendary singers of the past, i.e., an anonymous goatherd and Comatas, who fed on honeycomb provided by the bees (78–89). After the exchange of songs is completed, the encounter with Lycidas is unexpectedly brought to a conclusion and the three protagonists continue their wandering. The surrounding nature is now transformed into an aesthetic space:12 although the term ἁδύς occurs only once in this context (132–133 ἔν τε βαθείαις/ ἁδείας σχοίνοιο χαμευνίσιν ἐκλίνθημες “we laid ourselves down on deep couches of sweet rush”), yet the concept of pleasure, transferred from the song to the awakening of all the senses in an idealized nature, pervades Idyll’s 7 memorable denouement. Ἁδύς and its synonyms—γλυκύς, γλυκερός, λιγύς, λιγυρός, λιγύφθογγος, μελιχρός, μελίπνους—occur frequently in the genuine Theocritean Idylls in all kinds of contexts: apart from music and song, they may refer to nature and plants, to honey and nectar, to love and eros, to conditions like sleep, to the sound of voice, to smell and taste. Although words denoting sweetness are not exclusively used in the context of artistic or musical creation outside the programmatic Idylls,13 they nevertheless evoke the idea of pleasure as a Leitmotif, a theme resounding through Theocritus’ poetry. Theocritus’ almost obsessive preoccupation with pleasure has been noticed by the ancient commentators, leading occasionally to far-fetched theories. One of them is the false etymological exegesis of the generic term εἰδύλλιον (Sch. Theocr. Proleg. E [a]): ἰστέον δέ, ὅτι εἰδύλλιον λέγεται τὸ μικρὸν ποίημα ἀπὸ τοῦ εἶδος ἡ θεωρία, οὐχ ἡδύλλιον παρὰ τὸ ἥδω τὸ εὐφραίνω “one should know that the short poem is called εἰδύλλιον from εἶδος meaning ‘viewing, beholding’ and not ἡδύλλιον originating from ἥδω ‘to delight.’”14 The scholiast presupposes another, now lost to us, comment circulating in philological circles, according to which ἡδύλλιον was the correct spelling of this new generic term, because, by echoing the adjective ἡδύς, it captured the delightful pleasure experienced by its audience. It is therefore plausible to suppose that, at least in the philological reception of Theocritus’ poetry, the concept of “sweetness” was perceived as the dominant aesthetic marker and pleasure as the ultimate end of this wholly new category of lyric

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Payne (2007) 116–119 aptly describes Idyll 7 as a “literary autobiography” of the poet which captures the shaping of his inner psychic life. The concept of sweet song/music/voice appears in two Idylls (5.31 ἅδιον ᾀσῇ, 6.9 ἁδέα συρίσδων) and in two bucolic epigrams (Ep. 4.9 λιγυφθόγγοισιν ἀοιδαῖς, 12 τὰν μελίγαρυν ὄπα; Ep. 5.1–2 λῇς ποτὶ τᾶν Νυμφᾶν διδύμοις αὐλοῖσιν ἀεῖσαι ἁδύ τί μοι;). The translation of the ancient scholia is mine.

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poetry.15 The making of the misspelled term ἡδύλλιον attests to the impact of this view on post-Theocritean philology.16 A similar misinterpretation, probably generated by the omnipresence of sweetness in Theocritean poetic discourse, is the explanation of καπυρόν in Idyll 7 (Sch. Theocr. 7.37): καπυρόν: ἡδὺ μεταφορικῶς. τὰ γὰρ ἔξοπτα τῶν ἐδεσμάτων ἡδύνει τὴν γεῦσιν. “καπυρόν: ‘sweet,’ used figuratively, because the overbaked meat sweetens the taste.” Here Simichidas claims that his mouth is καπυρόν thanks to the Muses (37 καὶ γὰρ ἐγὼ Μοισᾶν καπυρὸν στόμα); the ancient scholiast draws upon the poetological context to arbitrarily translate καπυρόν as “sweet,” an adjective whose original meaning is plainly “dried.”17 The evidence from the scholia indicates that the post-Theocritean tradition was aware of the aesthetic property of ἁδύς.18 However, conclusive proof must be sought in the corpus attributed to Theocritus’ followers, where the term appears to be specifically associated with pastoral-themed poetry. Theocritus’ closest imitator(s), who composed the Βουκολιασταί β’ and γ’, make excessive use of the ἁδύς-terminology.19 In Idyll 8 Menalcas and Daphnis engage in a bucolic agon; the latter praises the sweetness of pastoral life at the climax of his song (76+78): ἁδεῖ’ ἁ φωνὰ τᾶς πόρτιος, ἁδὺ τὸ πνεῦμα, ἁδὺ δὲ τῶ θέρεος παρ’ ὕδωρ ῥέον αἰθριοκοιτεῖν. Sweet is the lowing of the heifer, sweet is her breath, and sweet it is in summer to rest outdoors by running water.

15 16

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On the birth of a new lyric sensibility as captured by Idylls 1 and 7, see Sistakou (2017) 307–312. The Prolegomena of the Anecdoton Estense iii adds the following comment on the scholars who introduced this etymology (8): οἱ δὲ ἡδύλλιον ἀπὸ τοῦ ἥδω τὸ εὐφραίνω, ἀλλ’ οὐκ εἰδύλλιον ἀπὸ τοῦ εἶδος λέγοντες παντελῶς εἰσιν ἀμαθεῖς “others who are completely ignorant trace ἡδύλλιον back to ἥδω ‘to delight’ and not εἰδύλλιον to εἶδος.” See LSJ s.v. καπυρός, which proposes the translation “clear-sounding” exclusively for this passage; for καπυρός “clear, pure,” see Hunter (1999) 161. On the difficulties of interpreting the adjective, see Gow (1952) 2.140–141. Aelius Donatus, the fourth-century ce scholiast of Virgil, notes that the Latin poet was attracted by the sweetness of Theocritus’ bucolic poetry (Vita Verg. 58–59). The tradition is carried on by Longus, who made use of stylistic γλυκύτης: for a thorough survey of sweetness in Longus, see Hunter (1983) 92–98. The second-century ce rhetor Hermogenes of Tarsus discusses γλυκύτης “sweetness” as a type of style by acknowledging its affinity with the perception of hedone (Περὶ ἰδεῶν λόγου 2.4). For the basis on which the poems’ authenticity is questioned, see Gow (1952) 2.170–171 and 185–186.

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The subsequent response (82–83) replays the one given to Thyrsis by the goatherd in Idyll 1: ἁδύ τι τὸ στόμα τοι καὶ ἐφίμερος, ὦ Δάφνι, φωνά· κρέσσον μελπομένω τευ ἀκουέμεν ἢ μέλι λείχειν. Your voice is a sweet one, Daphnis, and your tone is lovely; listening to your songs is better than tasting honey. A similar repetition is found in Idyll 9 (7–8): ἁδὺ μὲν ἁ μόσχος γαρύεται, ἁδὺ δὲ χἀ βῶς,/ ἁδὺ δὲ χἀ σῦριγξ χὠ βουκόλος, ἁδὺ δὲ κἠγών “sweetly lows the calf, and sweetly the cow; / sweet sounds the pipe and the oxherd, and so do I.” The mannerism of these passages, with their exaggerated style and echoes of Theocritean programmatic motifs, demonstrates that after the third century bce sweetness was a common topos for poets aspiring to be included in the bucolic canon.20 The frequent usage of ἁδύς—with emphasis on ἁδύ, which pays tribute to the opening of Theocritus’ book—by the anonymous imitators of Theocritus as well as in the poems of his successors in the bucolic tradition, Moschus and Bion, is mainly associated with poetological and/or erotic contexts against a pastoral background.21 The repetition of ἁδύ in the Boukoliskos (Idyll 20) links together the sweet taste of kissing (1 ἁδὺ φιλᾶσαι), the pleasantness of beauty (21 ἁδύ τι κάλλος), and the delight of song (28 ἁδὺ δέ μοι τὸ μέλισμα). It is worth noting that in the poems attributed to Moschus there is a clear distinction between the Doric and the Ionic form, since the former is employed in the “bucolic” poems (including those thematizing Eros) and the latter in the rest of his poetry.22 In The Lament for Bion, λιγύς and ἁδύς suggest that sweetness is a synonym for “bucolic singing” (120 Σικελικόν τι λίγαινε καὶ ἁδύ τι βουκολιάζευ). In this way the true generic essence of ἁδύ(ς) is highlighted.

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For a detailed survey of bucolic poetry between Theocritus and Virgil, see Bernsdorff (2006). Bernsdorff (2006) 201–202 with n. 161 argues that the frequency of ἁδύς in post-Theocritean poetry indicates a rising awareness of the pastoral genre and briefly discusses the related passages. Ἁδύς: The Runaway Eros 8 ἁδὺ λάλημα and The Lament for Bion 82 ἁδέα πόρτιν ἄμελγε; 120 ἁδύ τι βουκολιάζευ; 124 ἁδέα φορμίζοντι. Ἡδύς occurs twice in Europa (23, 139).

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Theocritean Honey: The Symbol of a Synaesthetic Universe

It is a common topos of scholarship that Theocritus had a vague awareness of the bucolic genre as an autonomous literary category, a poetic program on which his followers expanded and elaborated in the subsequent centuries.23 Nevertheless, the reader of the so-called bucolic Idylls will recognize that Theocritus and his imitators established their own aesthetic code, which may be subsumed under the umbrella term ἁδύς. In effect, Theocritus not only employed this aesthetic term to advertise his poetic endeavor, as opposed, for example, to Callimachus’ legendary λεπτός, introduced in the Aetia Prologue;24 he moreover conceptualized “sweetness” as an aesthetic ideal and then devised a fictional universe to articulate it. This universe is dominated by the appeal to the senses, and it is the effect of sensation that Theocritus sought to create for his audience through it.25 It may be more precisely labelled a “synaesthetic” universe, because the stimuli created therein address all the senses. As a poetic mode, synaesthesia suggests a literary space where the senses converge to evoke a transcendental or symbolic state. As I will argue, the state beyond the Theocritean synaesthetic universe is that of sensory pleasure, which is represented by the compelling symbol of honey. Not surprisingly the dominant sense in Theocritean bucolic is hearing. Even if an Idyll belongs to epic from a formalistic viewpoint, and hence it is a narrative poem by definition, Theocritus stresses its musical qualities, especially in the context of the βουκολικὴ ἀοιδή. It is tempting to postulate a visual and acoustic game between ἁδύς and ἀείδω/ἀοιδή (e.g., in verse 1.148 ἁδεῖαν, τέττιγος ἐπεὶ τύγα φέρτερον ᾄδεις), but there exists no systematic connection between them to substantiate such a claim. However, Theocritus employed another strategy to infuse the idea of sweetness into the terminology of song: by exploiting the semantic and etymological potential of μέλος, “song.”26 The first occurrence of the word in its verbal form—again from the viewpoint of the reader who opens an edition of Theocritus introduced with Idyll 1—is μελίσδεται (v. 2, reciprocated by μέλος in v. 7). Singing is the intended meaning, of course, but with a ring 23 24

25 26

That the formation, and especially the appellation, of the bucolic genre, is rather a matter of reception is argued by Nauta (1990). Callimachus also uses two synonyms of ἡδύς in poetological contexts: μελιχρός (for Aratus’ epic in Ep. 27.2 Pf.) and γλυκύς (for Mimnermus in Aet. fr. 1.11 Pf.); for μελιχρός on poetry in general, see Aet. fr. 1.16 Pf. On the aesthetic property of sensation in Hellenistic poetry, see Sistakou (2014). A study dedicated to the importance of μέλος/μολπή for Hellenistic poetics is Massimilla (2017); see especially pp. 406–409 for the association of μέλος with sweetness in bucolic poetry.

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of sweetness in it; inevitably μέλι, “honey,” resounds through it.27 The ancient scholiast captures this subtle connotation by noting (Sch. Theocr. 1.2b): μελίσδεται: … μελίσδεται δὲ ἀντὶ τοῦ μελίζει, ὅ ἐστι λιγυρῶς ἠχεῖ καὶ ᾄδει. μέλι γὰρ τὰς ᾠδὰς ἔλεγον, ὡς καὶ Πίνδαρος τὸν Πᾶνα φάσκων ‘τὸ σαυτοῦ μέλι γλάζεις’, τουτέστιν ἑαυτῷ ᾠδὴν ᾄδεις. μελίσδεται: … μελίσδεται instead of μελίζει, which means that it sounds sweetly and sings. Indeed, they called the songs μέλι “honey,” like Pindar when he says about Pan τὸ σαυτοῦ μέλι γλάζεις “you sing your own honey,” which means “you sing a song to yourself.” If the scholiast is correct in considering μέλι to be a glossa for “song” and in attributing the oldest such use of the word to Pindar (in his Ode to Pan?),28 then Theocritus alludes to this particular Pindaric passage (Parth. fr. 97* M.), which may even have suggested to him the idea of the “sweet song” of the animated nature through the symbolic figure of Pan. As Idyll 1 unfolds, Theocritus elaborates further on the correspondence between honey and song—or, more broadly, on art. The sweetness of the kissybion is owed to the wax (27 ἁδέι κηρῷ), a product which is so closely associated with honey that the rustic cup seems to be full of honey according to the scholiast (Sch. Theocr. 1.27g): ⟨κεκλυσμένον:⟩ κεχρισμένον, ἤγουν ὑπερχειλὲς ὂν μέλιτος “⟨κεκλυσμένον:⟩ anointed, that is filled over the brim with honey.” Eventually, sweetness has been transferred from hearing to tasting and smelling (cf. 28 ἔτι γλυφάνοιο ποτόσδον). In the song of Thyrsis honey appears as the cause of multisensory pleasure for Daphnis at the scene of his death. In addressing Pan, the god of the eutopic universe, Daphnis expresses his last will (128–130): “ἔνθ’, ὦναξ, καὶ τάνδε φέρευ πακτοῖο μελίπνουν ἐκ κηρῶ σύριγγα καλὸν περὶ χεῖλος ἑλικτάν· ἦ γὰρ ἐγὼν ὑπ’ Ἔρωτος ἐς Ἅιδαν ἕλκομαι ἤδη.”

27

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Perhaps the same connection between μέλισσα and μέλος in reference to Phrynichus may be found in Aristoph. Birds 748–751. Cf. also the Hellenistic lyric fragment SH 1001 ἐκ Σαπφῶς τόδ’ ἀμελγόμενος μέλι τοι φέρω “having milked this honey from Sappho I bring it to you”. The conjecture μέλι where the codices have μέλη is owed to Wilamowitz: see Nünlist (1998) 62. Another scholion, this time on Aristophanes, perhaps presupposes the same semantic connection (Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 219b): μέλη] διὰ τὴν ἡδύτητα τοῦ ποιητοῦ μέλη εἶπεν “he called them μέλη because of the sweetness of the poet.”

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“Come, lord, and accept this pipe, smelling sweetly of honey from its compacted wax and with a good binding around its lip; for I am now being haled away by Love to Hades.” One honey-crafted object, the syrinx, delights at once the senses of smell, touch, and finally hearing.29 The scholiast is not certain about the interpretation of this synaesthetic image (Sch. Theocr. 1.128–129a): μελίπνουν δὲ ἢ ἡδύφωνον ἢ ἡδὺ ὀδωδυῖαν διὰ τὸν κηρόν “μελίπνουν means either sweet-voiced or sweetsmelling due to the wax.” At the climax of the Idyll, the song is eventually translated to the sweet taste of honey (146 πλῆρές τοι μέλιτος τὸ καλὸν στόμα, Θύρσι, γένοιτο) and honeycomb (147 πλῆρες δὲ σχαδόνων), paired with two well-known literary images: one pertaining to taste (the sweet Attic figs) and the other to natural song (the sweet singing of the cicada).30 As anticipated, the goatherd articulates his aesthetic judgment in terms of his pastoral surroundings and the ensuing sensual pleasure; it is for the reader to decide, however, whether pleasure as transformed into sensory, almost somatic, responses, derives from the goatherd’s lack of sophistication, his naivete within the confines of the bucolic world, or if Theocritus deliberately placed sensory pleasure at the top of the aesthetic hierarchy.31 Honey is a complex symbol reaching beyond the bounds of a poetic image or mere metaphor in Theocritean bucolic. In Idyll 7 it becomes a key concept in two distinct parts of the poem: the song of Lycidas and the poem’s closure. In the former case, Lycidas, in what he tellingly characterizes as μελύδριον, sings of a legendary goatherd who, while locked in a box by his evil master, was feeding on honeycomb (78–82): ᾀσεῖ δ’ ὥς ποκ’ ἔδεκτο τὸν αἰπόλον εὐρέα λάρναξ ζωὸν ἐόντα κακαῖσιν ἀτασθαλίαισιν ἄνακτος, ὥς τέ νιν αἱ σιμαὶ λειμωνόθε φέρβον ἰοῖσαι

29 30

31

Cf. Hunter (1999) 101: “The sweet aroma of the binding wax forms an associative unity with the sweet breath of the syrinx-player and the sweet-sound of the musical ‘airs.’” The list of sweetness (honey–figs–cicadas) almost resembles a priamel. For ἰσχάς, a common word in Attic comedy and especially Aristophanes, see e.g., Aristoph. fr. 681 K.-A. οὐδὲν γλυκύτερον τῶν ἰσχάδων “nothing is sweeter than the figs,” probably in a comparison with honey. On how the Muses created cicadas, see Pl. Phaedr. 259b–d; obviously the cicada is a Hellenistic poetological symbol found elsewhere in the bucolics of Theocritus (4.16, 5.29, 5.110, 7.139) and in Callimachus’ Aetia Prologue (fr. 1.29–30 Pf.). For the response of the anonymous goatherd as the immediate audience within the imaginary world of bucolic, see Payne (2007) 46–48. The humor behind the goatherd’s critical judgement is highlighted by Hunter (1999) 106.

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κέδρον ἐς ἁδεῖαν μαλακοῖς ἄνθεσσι μέλισσαι, οὕνεκά οἱ γλυκὺ Μοῖσα κατὰ στόματος χέε νέκταρ. He will sing how the goatherd was once enclosed alive in a great chest thanks to his king’s wicked impiety, and how the blunt-nosed bees came from the meadows to the fragrant coffer of cedarwood to feed him on tender flowers because the Muse had poured sweet nectar on his lips. The climax of the song is a tribute to the divine singer Comatas.32 Comatas had a similarly “pleasurable” fate as the goatherd who had been buried alive (83 ὦ μακαριστὲ Κομᾶτα, τύ θην τάδε τερπνὰ πεπόνθεις “blessed Comatas, you have experienced these pleasures”), was also fed by bees (84–85 καὶ τὺ μελισσᾶν κηρία φερβόμενος “you too were fed on honeycomb”) and hence was capable of singing sweetly in the bucolic space (88–89 τὺ δ’ ὑπὸ δρυσὶν ἢ ὑπὸ πεύκαις/ ἁδὺ μελισδόμενος κατεκέκλισο, θεῖε Κομᾶτα “you sat making sweet music under the oaks or pines, divine Comatas”). The metaphor of the poet as a bee, capable of creating honey-sweet poetry, is a conventional topos of ancient poetry, applied famously to poets such as Simonides, Pindar, and Sophocles.33 Theocritus reconfigures a traditional symbol and adapts it to his idiosyncratic bucolic universe.34 The image, like the one explored at the finale of Idyll 1, is that of the goatherd whose mouth overflows with honey; this is not just a synecdoche for sweetness but an evocation of a particular sensual experience reserved for the members of the imaginary universe of the bucolic Idylls. Sweetness takes on ontological dimensions at the closure of Idyll 7. The song becomes no longer the focus of interest; attention now shifts to nature (131– 157). The privileged reader, who has shared the mystical experience of Simichidas, enters the enchanted countryside along with the protagonists.35 No longer related to a historical place, the eutopia with its typical features—the trees, the greenery, the water, the cool shade—is transformed into a paradisical garden impressing all the senses: bodily perception (133 ἐκλίνθημες, 135 κατὰ κρατὸς δονέοντο, 145 ἁμῖν ἐκυλίνδετο), hearing (137 κελάρυζε, 140 τρύζεσκεν, 141 ἄειδον, 32 33 34

35

The story of Comatas is a fiction invented by Theocritus (Sch. Theoc. 7.83 πέπλασται τὰ περὶ τοῦ Κομάτα ὑπὸ Θεοκρίτου). A study dedicated to the symbol of the poet as bee and poetry as honey is owed to Waszink (1974). On these poetological symbols, see also Nünlist (1998) 60–63 and 300–306. Hopkinson (2015) 115 highlights the etiological character of the passage by remarking that “the mythical poet Comatas, once imprisoned in a chest and fed by bees in recognition of the sweetness of his song, provides a further possible origin for the genre.” For this landscape as part of the pastoral vision of artistic eternity, see the symbolistic reading of Idyll 7 by Kelly (1983).

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141 ἔστενε), smell (143 ὦσδεν), and taste (154 πῶμα).36 Apparently Theocritus describes a landscape, but, in fact, he invents a fantasy space consisting of poetological symbols, among which the cicadas (139 τέττιγες λαλαγεῦντες) and the bees (142 πωτῶντο ξουθαὶ περὶ πίδακας ἀμφὶ μέλισσαι) figure prominently in the context of music making.37 This feast of the senses reaches its climax when the wanderers of this animated landscape participate in a symposium provided by the Nymphs and enjoy the same wine once served to Heracles and Polyphemus.38 At this banquet the fairytale wine tastes like nectar (153 τοῖον νέκταρ … 154 οἷον δὴ τόκα πῶμα …): the ultimate sensual delight has now the taste of divine sweetness.39 Not only music and nature but also desire translates into sweetness in Theocritean bucolic. In Idyll 3, entitled Komos, an anonymous goatherd serenades his beloved, the haughty Amaryllis. Amaryllis dwells in a cave, so the exclusus amator wishes that he could be transformed into a bee to penetrate into her abode (12–14): θᾶσαι μάν. θυμαλγὲς ἐμὶν ἄχος. αἴθε γενοίμαν ἁ βομβεῦσα μέλισσα καὶ ἐς τεὸν ἄντρον ἱκοίμαν, τὸν κισσὸν διαδὺς καὶ τὰν πτέριν ἅ τυ πυκάσδει. Just look; there’s such pain in my heart. If only I could turn into a buzzing bee and come into your cave through the ivy and fern that hide you! The choice and function of the bee in this scene have been variously interpreted, as Theocritus may be exploiting its biological features or its prominent position in the locus amoenus.40 But more importantly, this passage provides the archetype for the bee as an erotic symbol, which will be extensively explored by the imitators of Theocritus and later on by other authors of

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40

Payne (2007) 132–137 aptly describes the merging of fictional and lived experience in this “impossible” natural environment, which is full of sensory experiences. For bees in the typical Theocritean eutopia, cf. the formulaic phrase καλὸν βομβεῦντι ποτὶ σμάνεσσι μέλισσαι in Id. 1.107 and 5.46. On this divine banquet, where also Pan makes his epiphany, see Clauss (2003). That Idyll 7 is modelled on Plato’s Symposium is argued by Billault (2008). In Theocritus’ scholia nectar is always considered a metaphor for idealized sweetness (Sch. Theoc. 7.82a χέε νέκταρ … δηλοῖ δὲ διὰ τοῦ νέκταρος ὑπερβολικῶς τὴν μελιχρότητα; 82b διὰ δὲ τοῦ νέκταρος τὴν γλυκυφωνίαν ἐδήλωσεν; 153a τοῖον νέκταρ: διὰ τὴν ἡδονὴν τὸν οἶνον εἶπε τοῦ Ὀδυσσέως). Already the ancient scholia give confusing explanations of the passage (Sch. Theoc. 13a– b); for the different interpretations of the bee here, see Hunter (1999) 114–115.

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amatory literature. In the spurious Idyll 19, to cite the most celebrated example, the bee becomes the alter ego of Eros in illustrating the bittersweet effects of erotic desire; this theme is echoed in the amatory epigrams of the Greek Anthology.41 In a creative reworking of the image by Marcus Argentarius, the attack of the bee is assimilated to kissing in combining sensual sweetness with the pain of stinging. The epigrammatist gives his humorous variation on this theme in making a pun with a courtesan named Μέλισσα “Bee” (AP 5.32): Ποιεῖς πάντα, Μέλισσα, φιλανθέος ἔργα μελίσσης· οἶδα καὶ ἐς κραδίην τοῦτο, γύναι, τίθεμαι· καὶ μέλι μὲν στάζεις ὑπὸ χείλεσιν ἡδὺ φιλεῦσα, ἢν δ’ αἰτῇς, κέντρῳ τύμμα φέρεις ἄδικον. All your flower-loving namesake does, you do, Melissa; I know this, my lady, and lay it to my heart. Sweetly kissing, you drip honey from your lips; but when you ask your fee, with your sting you strike me most unfairly.42 The Theocritean passage, read in the light of the metaphor of the kiss as the stinging of the bee, suggests the bittersweet power of Eros.43 When the Komos reaches its climax, Theocritus offers one of the most striking images found in the bucolic Idylls (52–54): Ἀλγέω τὰν κεφαλάν, τὶν δ’ οὐ μέλει. οὐκέτ’ ἀείδω, κεισεῦμαι δὲ πεσών, καὶ τοὶ λύκοι ὧδέ μ’ ἔδονται. ὡς μέλι τοι γλυκὺ τοῦτο κατὰ βρόχθοιο γένοιτο. My head is aching, but you don’t care. My song is ended. I shall die where I fall, and the wolves will devour me just so. May that be as sweet as honey in your throat.

41 42 43

See especially Meleager (AP 5.163) with the comments by Gow/Page (1965) 2.634. Cf. another imitation by Strato AP 12.249. The translation is from Gow/Page (1968). Longus, in his bucolic novel Daphnis and Chloe, explores the idea of the bittersweet kiss (1.18.1): Τί ποτέ με Χλόης ἐργάζεται ⟨τὸ⟩ φίλημα; Χείλη μὲν ῥόδων ἁπαλώτερα καὶ στόμα κηρίων γλυκύτερον. τὸ δὲ φίλημα κέντρου μελίττης πικρότερον “What has Chloe’s kiss inflicted on me! Her lips are softer than roses, her mouth is sweeter than the honeycomb, but her kiss burns more bitterly than a bee sting.” On the dramatic effects of honey as experienced through kissing in Longus’ passage, see Trzaskoma (2007).

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The poem’s finale strikes a gloomy tone once the goatherd visualizes himself lying dead. The ultimate act of erotic despair, suicide, the goatherd predicts, will offer sweet delight to the cruel lover, since it will taste like honey to Amaryllis.44 The deep pleasure experienced by Amaryllis in viewing her lover’s death should not come as a surprise to the reader who is familiar with the paradisal side of the bucolic universe, since the sweet sensations that well up within this universe occasionally allow a glimpse into the dark side as well. The song on the death of Daphnis in the middle of the eutopia of Idyll 1 is another case in point.45

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Towards a New Aesthetics of Hedone

The terminology of sweetness to designate poetry was not invented by Theocritus, nor did he devise the poetological metaphors of the bee and the honey. Archaic epic and lyric poetry had earlier exploited the potential of these aesthetic concepts to such an extent that they soon became clichéd. Heroes, creatures, and divinities shared the property of sweet voice in epic—whether it suggested the voice of truth or the song of enchantment. Thus, the speech of Nestor flows sweeter than honey (Il. 1.249 τοῦ καὶ ἀπὸ γλώσσης μέλιτος γλυκίων ῥέεν αὐδή); the Sirens beguile Odysseus with their sweet voice (Od. 12.44 ἀλλά τε Σειρῆνες λιγυρῇ θέλγουσιν ἀοιδῇ); and the Muses instill the honeyed song to chosen mortals (Th. 83 τῷ μὲν ἐπὶ γλώσσῃ γλυκερὴν χείουσιν ἐέρσην) through their sweet-sounding voice (Th. 39–40 τῶν δ’ ἀκάματος ῥέει αὐδὴ / ἐκ στομάτων ἡδεῖα). Lyric poets, among whom Pindar is the most striking paradigm, emblematize their art and artistic role through an array of sweet-related adjectives and images.46 “My voice is sweeter than the wax produced by the bees” claims Pindar (fr. 152 M. μελισσοτεύκτων κηρίων ἐμὰ γλυκερώτερος ὀμφά), who “showers honey upon people” through his verses (O. 10.98–99 μέλιτι εὐάνορα πόλιν καταβρέχων). A similar case is Bacchylides, who uses the metaphor of the honey-tongued nightingale (3.97 μελιγλώσσου τις ὑμνήσει χάριν/ Κηΐας ἀηδόνος) and of the sweet-sounding bee (10.10 νασιῶτιν ἐκίνησεν λιγύφθογγον μέλισσαν) for

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Hunter (1999) 129 reads an equation between Amaryllis and the wolves here, highlighting the association of wolves with prostitutes in literature. On the closure of Idyll 3, see also Payne (2007) 67. On the concurrence of sweetness and tragedy in post-Theocritean aesthetics, see Sistakou (2019). Nünlist (1998) 305–306 lists more than 100 cases of “sweetness” as a poetological metaphor in archaic choral lyric and monody.

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the poet; the examples may easily be multiplied.47 Before the term γλυκύς/ἡδύς and related metaphors reached Theocritus, they were already overused and stereotyped. Nevertheless, Theocritus sought to reestablish them by developing their semantic range; a critical parameter in this process was the philosophical thought that preceded him. What the aforementioned paradigms from archaic poetry illustrate is the power of the voice to bring pleasure to its listeners;48 in fact, such passages refer more broadly to the effects of the all-encompassing category of music (μουσική “the art of the Muses”).49 It is especially in the discussion of pleasure that philosophy comes into play.50 Plato, who according to a biographical anecdote owed his sweet style to the bees that settled on his lips when he was an infant (Cic. De Divin. 2.66 apes, quas dixisti in labris Platonis consedisse pueri), made extensive use of the bee metaphor. In Ion Socrates summarizes the widespread belief about how poets compose under divine inspiration as follows (Ion 543b): λέγουσι γὰρ δήπουθεν πρὸς ἡμᾶς οἱ ποιηταὶ ὅτι ἀπὸ κρηνῶν μελιρρύτων ἐκ Μουσῶν κήπων τινῶν καὶ ναπῶν δρεπόμενοι τὰ μέλη ἡμῖν φέρουσιν ὥσπερ αἱ μέλιτται, καὶ αὐτοὶ οὕτω πετόμενοι· καὶ ἀληθῆ λέγουσι. For the poets tell us, I believe, that the songs they bring us are the sweets they cull from honey-dropping founts in certain gardens and glades of the Muses—like the bees, and winging the air as these do. And what they tell is true.51 The image of the poet as bee reinforces the core argument of Socrates, that poetry, in not being a techne that can be learned, does not rely on knowledge; in fact, it forms part of Plato’s critique of poetry as regards its lack of usefulness in human society.52 In the Republic, Plato recasts apian imagery as a metaphor for the dangerous effects of poetry on the citizens of the ideal city and thus

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In an insightful approach to the subject Liebert (2017) 33–74 argues that sweetness in archaic poetry acquires a gustatory dimension and that pleasure, as explored by archaic poets, is somatic in nature. For the pleasure of the listener of music, see Peponi (2012); on these scenes see esp. pp. 73– 88. On the broader category of μουσική and its aesthetic value in Plato, see Rocconi (2012); cf. Peponi (2012) 4–12. On aesthetic pleasure in ancient Greek philosophy, see Destrée (2015). The translation is from Lamb (1925). Liebert (2010) 98–99 points out the parody of the traditional image of the poet as bee and the pun on μέλι and μέλη underlying this passage.

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devalues the aesthetics of sweetness as an unhealthy habit.53 In such contexts the sweet pleasure of poetry and music advertised by the archaic tradition becomes anathema to the philosopher. Theocritus responds to the depreciation of poetry by restoring the authority of the old aesthetics. By recourse to the archaic models through the symbol of sweetness, Theocritus turns against Platonic criticism of pleasure deriving from art and its potential dangers for the soul.54 This step was already taken by Aristotle, though by means of a different path: that of human psychology. Aristotle reviews aesthetic pleasure in emphasizing that it has its roots in human nature (Pol. 1340b): ἔστι δὲ ἁρμόττουσα πρὸς τὴν φύσιν τὴν τηλικαύτην ἡ διδασκαλία τῆς μουσικῆς· οἱ μὲν γὰρ νέοι διὰ τὴν ἡλικίαν ἀνήδυντον οὐθὲν ὑπομένουσιν ἑκόντες, ἡ δὲ μουσικὴ φύσει τῶν ἡδυσμάτων ἐστίν. Also education in music is well adapted to the youthful nature; for the young owing to their youth cannot endure anything not sweetened by pleasure, and music is by nature a thing that has a pleasant sweetness.55 Aristotle establishes sweetness as an inherent quality of music, which in turn is innate in all human beings; a little earlier in the Politics he calls this class of pleasure “natural” (1340a ἔχει γὰρ ἡ μουσική τιν’ ἡδονὴν φυσικήν), thus explaining why it is attractive to all ages and character types (1340a διὸ πάσαις ἡλικίαις καὶ πᾶσιν ἤθεσιν ἡ χρῆσις αὐτῆς ἐστι προσφιλής). Moreover, by employing ἥδυσμα (lit. “seasoning”) to describe music (also found in the Poetics 1450b ἡ μελοποιία μέγιστον τῶν ἡδυσμάτων), Aristotle understands pleasure—or at least the common pleasure—in terms of perception by the senses, specifically the sense of taste, and hence compares its pleasurable effects to the ones owed to food.56 Aris-

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Plato reconfigures poetic sweetness as a toxin against the health of the city by turning the symbol of the bee from positive (the productive bee) to negative (the parasitic drone): for the argument and the discussion of the related passages, see Liebert (2010). Nevertheless, Plato’s view on aesthetic pleasure is far from unambiguous; hence Halliwell (2002) 72–97 brilliantly calls Plato a “romantic puritan” to capture his ambivalent stance towards poetry as both a threat and a source of joy for humans. For the educational role of music in the formation of the soul, an idea taken up by Aristotle, see Woerther (2008) 93–98. Translation is from Rackham (1944). It is interesting to note Plato’s fear in the face of such lowly pleasures. Socrates in the Republic excludes ἡδύσματα from the guardians’ diet (404b–d); in the same section he argues that if the guardians are exposed excessively to “sweet” and “soft” music, their

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totle adds a second level in claiming that this somatic pleasure, when deriving from music, can also acquire a moral content through education and thus contribute to the formation of character (ἦθος).57 Aside from the issue of ethical content and education through music (with which, however, both Plato and Aristotle were centrally concerned), Theocritus adapts Aristotle’s psychological approach to music to his own poetic ends: music is natural, hence a vital part of the human soul, and the hedone imparted by it is not a divine gift but a natural endowment, an earthbound pleasure. Like Aristotle, but with greater intensity, Theocritus affirms that precisely these aspects of music form the essence of his “natural” aesthetics. But did Theocritus actually respond to philosophy in recasting a commonplace term like ἡδύς to demarcate his new aesthetics? Did the philosophical discussion of pleasure, which was introduced by Plato and Aristotle, continued with the Academics and Peripatetics, and culminated with Epicurus and his theory of pleasure based on perception, have an impact on the formation of bucolic aesthetics?58 Was the division between bodily and spiritual pleasures or the debate about whether art, subsumed under the umbrella term “music,” aimed primarily at moral instruction or sensational affect, essential for the conceptualization of sweetness in Theocritus? Or should we think of Theocritus as a traditionalist who viewed poetry through the lens of archaic lyricism, while at the same time neglecting the philosophical controversy on the subject generated during the fourth and third centuries bce?59 The previous analysis only scratches the surface of these questions, and further study of the philosophical background of Theocritean poetics is still a desideratum of Hellenistic philology. However, it seems improbable that Theocritus created a whole new poetic cosmos, emblematized by the ideal of sweetness, in an ideological vacuum. As I

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souls will be melted down and they will be emasculated (411a–b): what underlies both passages is the belief that somatic habits, as is the desire to listen to sweet music, lead to ethical degeneration. For a subtle discussion of this Platonic view, see Liebert (2010) 101–104. Obviously, the universal or “natural” pleasure taken in music is not dependent upon the educational process which, according to Aristotle, will teach students noble music and hence enable them to experience moral pleasure as well: for an analysis of this view, see Woerther (2008) 98–103 and Jones (2012) 164–174. Thorough discussions of the major topic of pleasure as a central question of ancient Greek philosophy not primarily connected with art can be found in Gosling/Taylor (1982) and Wolfsdorf (2013). On the Epicurean background of Theocritean bucolic and the pastoral ideal in general, see the extended analysis by Rosenmeyer (1969) passim. In the “other Theocritus,” i.e., in the non-bucolic Idylls, the active engagement with archaic lyricism is the defining feature, as Hunter (1996) has persuasively argued.

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will attempt to demonstrate below, Theocritus engaged in the aesthetic debates of his era and paved the way for modern perceptions of poetics. Callimachus is the key figure when it comes to aesthetic imagery and concepts in the Hellenistic age. In the closure to the Hymn to Apollo, we come across the image of the bee once more (110–112): Δηοῖ δ’ οὐκ ἀπὸ παντὸς ὕδωρ φορέουσι μέλισσαι, ἀλλ’ ἥτις καθαρή τε καὶ ἀχράαντος ἀνέρπει πίδακος ἐξ ἱερῆς ὀλίγη λιβὰς ἄκρον ἄωτον. Not from any sources do bees carry water to Demeter, but from what comes up pure and undefiled from a holy fountain, a small drop, the choicest of waters.60 The activity of the bees carrying water has a biological explanation attested in Aristotle (HA 596b); moreover, it may have a cultic reference, since “bees” are identified with the priestesses of Demeter in Cyrene.61 Yet the rhetoric of the passage is based on the juxtaposition of Platonic and Pindaric terminology,62 and the context is definitely poetological. Apart from the epic or grand poetry (μέγα ποίημα) that Callimachus seems to be targeting here (as the ancient scholia take for granted), the dialogue he develops with Theocritean poetics has largely gone unnoticed. In my view, Callimachus distorts a conventional image and, by highlighting a natural paradoxon (the water-carrying bees), gives a sophisticated response to the trite metaphor of the bee-poet and his honeyed verses as exploited by his contemporary Theocritus. In a sense, he draws attention to the symbol of water to juxtapose his poetics not with the so-called wine-drinking poets, but with those who, like Theocritus and his bucolic personae, revel in honey.63 In effect, the Callimachean passage acquires an entirely different meaning if read against Theocritus’ bucolic aesthetics. Suffice it to say

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Translation is from Stephens (2015). Williams (1978) 92–94 provides a plethora of parallels for both readings of the image by considering, in addition, the poetological metaphor of the bee, without, however, deciding in favor of any of these interpretations; on the latter exegesis, see especially Stephens (2015) 98. Stephens (2015) 98–99 notes that καθαρὸν καὶ ἄχραντον occurs in Plato, Alc. i 113e9, whereas (ἄκρον) ἄωτον is a word frequent in Pindar. For the antithesis between water and wine in the poetological jargon available to Callimachus, see Kambylis (1965) 110–122. For the water metaphor in the passage from the Hymn to Apollo, see Asper (1997) 109–134. Both water and honey are symbols for the archaic poetics of flowing; see Worman (2015) 79–85.

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that the very rare adjective ἄχραντος (lit. “untouched, undefiled”) occurs as an aesthetic term in Idyll 1 to designate the purity of the kissybion, whereas Idyll 7 is contextualized against the background of the cult of Demeter; alongside the dominant symbols, both these “details” suggest that Callimachus wrote with Theocritus’ poetic program in mind (or vice versa). The aesthetic dialogue between Callimachus and Theocritus has not received sufficient attention by scholars, who instead tend to locate Callimachus’ poetic debates in the field of small-scale vs. large-scale poetry. Yet its presence is palpable even in the much-discussed Aetia Prologue. Key to this interpretation are the terms λεπταλέος/λεπτός and the image of the cicada (Aet. fr. 1.21–40 Pf.). For the latter Callimachus draws upon a celebrated Platonic passage from Phaedrus where Socrates recounts the aition of the origins of the cicadas who were granted song as a gift by the Muses and had the privilege to converse with them (259b–d). Seen in the light of the Platonic subtext, the wish of the poet to be transformed into a cicada incorporates his desire to combine wisdom and divine inspiration through art.64 The synthesis of sophia and techne in Callimachus’ program, as well as the intellectual stance adopted by the poet’s “I” throughout the Aetia, leave little room for doubt: the hedone sought by the refined poetry of Callimachus is not sensational but belongs to the higher class of cognitive pleasures. That the sensory classes of hedone are of no interest to the Callimachean cicada is evident in its diet, which consists of pure dew (Aet. fr. 1.34 Pf. πρώκιο]ν ἐκ δίης ἠέρος εἶδαρ ἔδων).65 By contrast, Theocritus’ bucolic world brims over with sensual enjoyment: in his eutopia the cicadas coexist happily with the buzzing bees, the birds, and the animals in blissful harmony. However, when it comes to the art of music, the bucolic singer surpasses the rivaling cicada in sweetness (Id. 1.148 τέττιγος ἐπεὶ τύγα φέρτερον ᾄδεις), a passage that may be interpreted as an indirect comparison between sweet (Theocritean) and refined (Callimachean) poetry. Eventually, the bucolic singer, instead of deriving satisfaction by tasting the morning dew, feasts on a surplus of natural desserts; notable is the intensity achieved by the repetition of πλῆρες and the sweetness beyond measure implied by πλῆρες μέλιτος, πλῆρες σχαδόνων, and ἰσχάδα ἁδεῖαν (Id. 1.146–148).66 64 65

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For an analysis of Plato in the Aetia Prologue, see Acosta-Hughes/Stephens (2012) 31–42. Abstinence from earthly delights for the cicadas is a gift of the Muses too (Phaedr. 259c ἐξ ὧν τὸ τεττίγων γένος μετ’ ἐκεῖνο φύεται, γέρας τοῦτο παρὰ Μουσῶν λαβόν, μηδὲν τροφῆς δεῖσθαι γενόμενον, ἀλλ’ ἄσιτόν τε καὶ ἄποτον εὐθὺς ᾄδειν “from them the locust tribe was born, having this gift from the Muses, that from the time of their birth they need no food, but sing continually without eating or drinking”). For the λεπτός-diet in Callimachus, see Asper (1997) 160–175. That the figs were a poetological metaphor also in Callimachus (Ia. fr. 191.92–93 Pf.) is

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Thus, unlike the controlled intellectualism of Callimachus, Theocritus’ bucolic poetry is an invitation to experience sensational excess. The defining factor in this process is the conception of the eutopic nature. In the Platonic Phaedrus, the work which provides the model for this eutopia (230b– c), Socrates advises his interlocutor to resist the enchantment caused by the singing cicadas on a hot noon and dedicate himself to philosophical conversation instead (258e–259e). By contrast, Theocritus’ call has the opposite purpose: those inhabiting the synaesthetic universe of his bucolic Idylls are urged to succumb to the hedonistic pleasures of the midday landscape. The medium through which these pleasures can be experienced is music, the most abstract artform affecting the irrational part of the soul.67 Music, which takes the form of the song, the bucolic ἀοιδή, fulfills a natural longing: thus, in Idyll 1 the goatherd characterizes the song of Daphnis as “desired” (61 τὸν ἐφίμερον ὕμνον) and bound to the earthly delights of “our” world (62–63 τὰν γὰρ ἀοιδάν/ οὔ τί πᾳ εἰς Ἀίδαν γε τὸν ἐκλελάθοντα φυλαξεῖς).68 The bucolic song, with its inherent sweetness, then, arrests what we might call “the aesthetic moment.” Following Walter Pater’s conceptualization of the term in nineteenth-century aestheticism, we can interpret the bucolic universe as an imaginary space where art is exercised and appreciated for its own sake by those who are dedicated to the αἰσθητά (as opposed to the νοητά) and who lead an “aesthetic life.”69 From Pater derives also the celebrated aphorism about the artistic superiority of music: All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music. For while in all other kinds of art it is possible to distinguish the matter from the form, and the understanding can always make this distinction, yet it is the constant effort of art to obliterate it. “The School of Giorgione” from The Renaissance, 1873

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pointed out by Asper (1997) 164 with n. 143–144; however, Asper associates the symbol of the figs here with the diet of the poor poet, not with Theocritean sweetness. Callimachus, like Socrates, enters into a dialogue with the Muses instead of giving over his soul to the sweet sounds of nature: Acosta-Hughes/Stephens (2012) 38–39. The ancient scholiast glosses ἐφίμερον with γλυκύν, thus linking the adjective with Theocritus’ dominant aesthetic term. The adjective, however, has also a Platonic ring in this passage; cf. Cratyl. 420a ὅτι γὰρ ἱέμενος ῥεῖ καὶ ἐφιέμενος τῶν πραγμάτων, καὶ οὕτω δὴ ἐπισπᾷ σφόδρα τὴν ψυχὴν διὰ τὴν ἕσιν τῆς ῥοῆς, ἀπὸ ταύτης οὖν πάσης τῆς δυνάμεως ‘ἵμερος’ ἐκλήθη “for it flows with a rush and with a desire for things and thus attracts the soul through the impulse of its flowing: because of all this power it was called ἵμερος.” The reference text is the “Conclusion” to Walter Pater’s book The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (1873) and his unpublished essay “The Aesthetic Life.”

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That Theocritus makes music the center of his world speaks volumes about his aesthetic standards.70 As a great predecessor of aestheticism and the poetic movements of symbolism and poésie pure of the modern era, Theocritus develops the archaic commonplace of musical sweetness into an ontological condition of his poetic universe.71 Once the reader encounters the first word of the bucolic sylloge, ἁδύ, s/he has already, though unaware, entered the dense forest of symbols. Not unlike this reader is the reader of a modern era aesthete, Charles Baudelaire, and his symbolist sonnet “Correspondances” (1857): La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles; L’homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles Qui l’observent avec des regards familiers. Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent Dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité, Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarté, Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent. ii est des parfums frais comme des chairs d’ enfants, Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies, —Et d’autres, corrompus, riches et triomphants, Ayant l’expansion des choses infinies, Comme l’ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l’encens, Qui chantent les transports de l’esprit et des sens.

Bibliography Acosta-Hughes, B./Stephens, S. (2012), Callimachus in Context. From Plato to the Augustan Poets (Cambridge). Asper, M. (1997), Onomata Allotria. Zur Genese, Struktur und Funktion poetologischer Metaphern bei Kallimachos (Stuttgart).

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On ancient aesthetic debates about music as an anti-mimetic conception of art, see Halliwell (2002) 234–259. In an original discussion of Hellenistic aesthetics, Worman (2015) 196–199 has highlighted the setting, in the case of Theocritus the bucolic landscape, as the embodiment of the poet’s style.

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Bernsdorff, H. (2006), “The Idea of Bucolic in the Imitators of Theocritus, 3rd–1st Century bc,” in M. Fantuzzi/Th. Papanghelis (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden/Boston) 167–207. Billault, A. (2008), “Théocrite et Platon: remarques sur l’Idylle vii,” REG 121, 497–513. Cameron, A. (1995), Callimachus and His Critics (Princeton). Clauss, J.J. (2003), “Once upon a Time on Cos: A Banquet with Pan on the Side in Theocritus Idyll 7,” HSCPh 101, 289–302. Crane, G. (1987), “The Laughter of Aphrodite in Theocritus, Idyll 1,” HSCPh 91, 161–184. Destrée, P. (2015), “Pleasure,” in P. Destrée/P. Murray (eds.), A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics (Malden, MA), 472–485. Donnet, D. (1988), “Les ressources phoniques de la première Idylle de Théocrite,” AC 57, 158–175. Goldhill, S. (1991), The Poet’s Voice: Essays on Poetics and Greek Literature (Cambridge). Gosling, J.C.B./Taylor, C.C.W. (1982), The Greeks on Pleasure (Oxford). Gow, A.S.F. (1952), Theocritus Vols. i: Text and ii: Commentary (Oxford). Gow, A.S.F./Page, D.L. (1965), The Greek Anthology. Hellenistic Epigrams (Cambridge). Gow, A.S.F./Page, D.L. (1968), The Garland of Philip and Some Contemporary Epigrams (Cambridge). Gutzwiller, K. (1996), “The Evidence for Theocritean Poetry Books,” in M.A. Harder/ R.F. Regtuit (eds.), Theocritus (Groningen) 119–148. Gutzwiller, K. (2006), “The Bucolic Problem,” CPh 101, 380–404. Halliwell, S. (2002), The Aesthetics of Mimesis. Ancient Texts and Modern Problems (Princeton/Oxford). Hopkinson, N. (2015), Theocritus, Moschus, Bion (Cambridge, MA/London). Hunter, R. (1983), A Study of Daphnis and Chloe (Cambridge). Hunter, R. (1996), Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry (Cambridge). Hunter, R. (1999), Theocritus. A Selection (Cambridge). Jones, E.M. (2012), “Allocating Musical Pleasure: Performance, Pleasure, and Value in Aristotle’s Politics,” in I. Sluiter/R.M. Rosen (eds.), Aesthetic Value in Classical Antiquity (Leiden/Boston) 159–182. Kambylis, A. (1965), Die Dichterweihe und ihre Symbolik (Heidelberg). Kelly, S.T. (1983), “The Song of Time: Theocritus’ Seventh Idyll,” QUCC 15, 103–115. Lamb, W.R.M. (1925), Plato: Ion (Cambridge, ma/London). Liebert, R.S. (2010), “Apian Imagery and the Critique of Poetic Sweetness in Plato’s Republic,” TAPhA 140, 97–115. Liebert, R.S. (2017), Tragic Pleasure from Homer to Plato (Cambridge). Massimilla, G. (2017), “Melos and Molpe in Hellenistic Poetry,” in E. Sistakou (ed.), Hellenistic Lyricism (Trends in Classics 9) (Berlin/Boston) 400–409. Nauta, R.R. (1990), “Gattungsgeschichte als Rezeptionsgeschichte am Beispiel der Entstehung der Bukolik,” A&A 36, 116–137.

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Nünlist, R. (1998), Poetologische Bildersprache in der frühgriechischen Dichtung (Stuttgart/Leipzig). Payne, M. (2007), Theocritus and the Invention of Fiction (Cambridge). Peponi, A.-E. (2012), Frontiers of Pleasure. Models of Aesthetic Response in Archaic and Classical Greek Thought (Oxford). Pretagostini, R. (2006), “How Bucolic Are Theocritus’ Bucolic Singers?,” in M. Fantuzzi/Th. Papanghelis (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden/ Boston) 53–73. Rackham, H. (1944), Aristotle: Politics (Cambridge, ma/London). Rocconi, E. (2012), “The Aesthetic Value of Music in Platonic Thought,” in I. Sluiter/ R.M. Rosen (eds.), Aesthetic Value in Classical Antiquity (Leiden/Boston) 113–132. Rosenmeyer, Th.G. (1969), The Green Cabinet. Theocritus and the European Pastoral Lyric (Berkeley/Los Angeles). Sistakou, E. (2014), “From Emotion to Sensation: The Discovery of the Senses in Hellenistic Poetry,” in R. Hunter/A. Rengakos/E. Sistakou (eds.), Hellenistic Studies at a Crossroads: Exploring Texts, Contexts and Metatexts (Berlin/New York) 135–156. Sistakou, E. (2017), “Theocritus’ Idylls: On the Verge of Modern Lyric,” in E. Sistakou (ed.), Hellenistic Lyricism (Trends in Classics 9) (Berlin/Boston) 281–316. Sistakou, E. (2019), “The Wound and the Kiss: The Morbid Pleasures of Post-Theocritean Aesthetics,” TC 11.2, 285–306. Stephens, S.A. (2015), Callimachus: The Hymns (Oxford). Trzaskoma, S.M. (2007), “Honey and the Effects of Chloe’s Kiss at Longus 1.25.2,”Hermes 135, 352–357. Waszink, J.H. (1974), Biene und Honig als Symbol des Dichters und der Dichtung in der griechisch-römischen Antike (Opladen). Williams, F. (1978), Callimachus: Hymn to Apollo (Oxford). Woerther, F. (2008), “Music and the Education of the Soul in Plato and Aristotle: Homoeopathy and the Formation of Character,” CQ 58, 89–103. Wolfsdorf, D. (2013), Pleasure in Ancient Greek Philosophy (Cambridge). Worman, N. (2015), Landscape and the Spaces of Metaphor in Ancient Literary Theory and Criticism (Cambridge).

chapter 14

Theocritus’ Contest Poems Karl-Heinz Stanzel

Our focus here will be on Theocritus’ contest poems. Contest poems are those poems where two herdsmen compete with each other in singing. Theocritus presents the contributions of the competitors in direct speech, there is a framing of the competition, and there are included some features which we can find in almost all contest poems: the encounter of the herdsmen, the discussion of their qualities as singers, the specification of the prizes and the venue of the contest, and the appointment of an arbitrator.1 Contest and the competitive element are decisive features of the pastoral poems: in the comparatively small collection of bucolic poems at the beginning of the corpus Theocriteum— i.e., poems Id. 1–11 with the exception of Id. 2, which is located in an urban context—there exist only two contest poems in the strict sense, but we can add to these the non-authentic poems Id. 8 and 9, which are contest poems imitating the two Theocritean ones. Thus, these poems can corroborate the assumption that contest poems were very popular in the bucolic corpus. All these poems taken together establish a long tradition within pastoral poetry and provide information for the contest poem as a type, which seems to follow certain rules from the very beginning of bucolic poetry. In the Theocritean collection of bucolic poems, there are two other poems (Id. 1 and Id. 7) which are not contest poems in the strict sense, but which play with the pattern and motifs of these poems. Therefore we can take them as contest poems in a looser sense, as Theocritus shapes them to resemble the proper contest poems by using the same or similar motifs. Two of the remaining poems, Id. 10 and Id. 4, are dialogue poems as well, but they are not designated as contest poems, although there is an exchange of songs: a love song and a work song in Id. 10 and a kind of exchange in the center of Id. 4.2 Both poems are also to some extent antithetic in structure and so in their basic form they resemble the other bucolic poems we have looked at so far. 1 See Ott (1969) 10 ff., especially 11 for the list of standard features. See furthermore the chapter “Bukolische Agone” in Froleyks (1973) 87ff. (a rather enumerative collection of material for the contest in Greek literature and culture); see also Wille (1967) 118ff. for a brief but instructive overview concerning first Latin, then Greek contest poems. 2 For Id. 4 see Hunter (1999) 129–130 and Ott (1969) 43 ff.

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Overall there are only two poems, Id. 3 and Id. 11, that are not in accordance with the antithetic structure: the two poems in which the unhappy loversherdsmen sing their songs in order to win girls who are, however, not interested in them. These poems, presenting the love songs of the goatherd and Polyphemus, remain monologue poems, as the beloved girl in each case does not give any answer. Within Theocritus’ poetry, therefore, we can see that contest poems and similar poems play a dominant role. Since Burckhardt and Nietzsche, the competitive element—“das Agonale”—which is obvious in Theocritus’ contest poems, was regarded as a distinguishing feature of Greek culture in general.3 And indeed, we meet with the competitive element in many areas of Greek culture. It can be linked with the ideal of aristeia to which Homeric heroes pay homage; it is expressed and reflected in the formulaic Homeric verse αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν καὶ ὑπείροχον ἔμμεναι ἄλλων (Il. 6.208 = 11.784: “always to be bravest and preeminent above all”). Yet, today the competitive element is no longer regarded as a feature exclusively linked with Greek culture. Rather, the propensity of humans to compete with each other is taken as a feature that characterizes humankind in general, a genuinely human thing which is found in many other times and cultures beside the ancient Greek world.4 In Homer we can find many examples of agones gumnikoi and agones hippikoi, contests in the arena of sports, but it is odd that there are no examples of agones mousikoi,5 which are of special interest for us in dealing with the contest poems. For the contest of herdsmen can be regarded as a popular variant of the agon mousikos and perhaps even as the starting point for all agones of Greek culture.6 Already in Homer the world of herdsmen is defined by the fact that they play the syrinx.7 The contest of herdsmen is not only a special but perhaps also an intensified form of singing, as there is an exchange of songs and then a judgment regarding the better singer. Beyond this, the contest of herdsmen does not 3 See Ulf (2011) about the history of research in this field. For what is, in my view, an extreme interpretation of the competitive element in Greek culture, see for example Berve (1966) and Ulf (2011) 100–101. 4 See the discussion in Ulf (2011), especially his conclusions at 102, and furthermore Weiler (1974) 272 ff. with his conclusions at 298 ff. 5 For such contests see von Scheliha (1987) and, especially for this point, von Scheliha (1987) 21–22 and Weiler (1974) 37 ff. For music contests in myth, the status of contests of herdsmen, and for contests in Theocritus, see Weiler (1974) 3 ff. 6 See for example Gutzwiller (1991) 143. 7 See Il. 18.525–526: δύω δ’ ἅμ’ ἕποντο νομῆες / τερπόμενοι σύριγξι (“and two herdsmen followed with them playing on pipes”). For singing herdsmen and bucolic poetry, see Schmidt (1972) 112–114.

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belong to festival culture but is part of everyday life: whenever and wherever two herdsmen meet, a contest between them can take place. But there are also other aspects to consider, especially the connection between contest and conflict. Hesiod, dealing with rural communities in his Works and Days, already distinguished a good Eris, a kind of productive competitive force, from a bad one (11–46). The context of contest in Theocritus is also complex: one purpose of a contest may be to prove who is better at singing; another, however, as Id. 5 shows, can be to contribute to the solution of a conflict. Ulrich Ott (1969) was the first to analyze the contest poems comprehensively. His approach was foremost rhetorical and literary: he first identified the principle of antithesis and contrast, apparently in order to associate the contest poems with this principle.8 A basis for further research had already been proposed by Merkelbach (1956) some years earlier: in the absence of comparable texts from antiquity, he relied on popular songs of the 19th and 20th century to gain a better understanding of not only Id. 5 but also of the rules for such competitions in general. More recently, Herzfeld (1985) followed this ethnographic approach with his research on the modern rural communities of Crete and Rhodes, which help us understand better some aspects of Theocritus as well. Lelli (2017) recently presented a new study on Theocritus where he also applies his “demoethnic” approach to the poems of Theocritus. He tried to prove that, in particular, the amoibaion that is so important to the contest poems is an element belonging to the rural world generally. In his view the poems of Theocritus are literary transpositions of the traditions of popular rural songs. Ott’s analysis revealed in the poems of Theocritus certain decisive features: in contest poems the songs of the herdsmen competing are reproduced in direct speech, with a dramatic or narrative frame. For this frame certain features are again more or less binding, but not in the sense that there is always the same standard. We can adduce a list of topics which the poet may use depending on whether or not they are required for his poetic aims. There is no need for all noted features to be used. Often the poet narrates the encounter of the two herdsmen, gives a short characterization of each, and points out their quality as singers of bucolic songs. For example, the poet may have the singers pay compliments to each other about these qualities (Id. 1) or have one singer express doubts about the abilities of his rival and thus provoke him (Id. 5). The singers also refer to the prizes or gifts they will offer if the rival should win the contest. Sometimes an arbitrator is appointed too. Not all of these features need to be 8 See Ott (1969) 1–9, where contrast is dealt with as a feature of special motifs rather than as the structure for an entire poem.

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found in every contest poem; in fact, the poet often plays with and only alludes to them, drops hints regarding some topics and skips others. A good example of this technique appears at the beginning of Id. 1: the structure and internal relation of the first verses, where the interlocutors pay compliments to each other, could already be part of a contest, as the responding herdsman varies the verses of the interlocutor in a way that is typical of contest poems. Furthermore, the atmosphere of a contest is evoked by the mention of prizes (3–6 and 9–11), although the contest is stopped before it starts. The appropriate term for the contest already used by Homer could be ἔρις (see below). But Theocritus himself never uses this term explicitly. The singers themselves speak in a rather vague way of singing, ἀείδειν—maybe with each other, for each other, or else against each other. In Id. 5 Lacon challenges his rival to a contest with the following words: ἀλλά γέ τοι διαείσομαι ἔστε κ’ ἀπείπῃς (22, “then I’ll compete with you in song until you give in”). The verb composed with the prefix δια- already implies the element of contest. This verse also clarifies the modalities of the contest, especially the question of why Comatas will be the winner at the end (see below). In other poems ([Id. 8] and [Id. 9]), the singers use the simple verb ἀείδειν, whereas in [Id. 9] the element of rivalry is inferred at the beginning in another way. The other verb the herdsmen use is ἐρίσδειν; this is more revealing as it is used in different ways: it can refer not only to the competition (e.g., Id. 1.24) but also either to the challenge as such (Id. 6.5) or to the contribution of one singer to the contest. In Id. 5.30 the imperative ἔρισδε (“start the contest”) marks the request to begin at last; ποτέρισδε (5.60: “compete”) intensifies this request and expresses more clearly the competitive element and the focus on the speaker’s opponent. There is also another verb that is linked closely both with bucolic poetry and the milieu of herdsmen and their special world: βουκολιάσδεσθαι seems to be a specific Theocritean coinage which at first means no more than bucolic singing, i.e., the singing of herdsmen.9 But already a special etymological connection between the world of herdsmen singing and contending is established. This connection works with a term that is related to βουκόλος because Daphnis is the βουκόλος par excellence. Last but not least, Id. 5 shows that Theocritus goes one step further by attaching the competitive element to this term.10 There Lacon prompts his rival in the following way: αὐτόθε μοι ποτέρισδε καὶ αὐτόθε βουκολιάσδευ (5.60: “compete from where you are, and perform your pastoral song from 9

10

Cf. Gutzwiller (1991) 138 and 256–257 n. 13 for the formation and the original meaning of βουκολιάσδεσθαι. She thinks that the connection with βουκολία and not with βουκόλος is likely. For the analysis see also Hunter (1999) 6–7.

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there”). He wants Comatas to begin the contest and accept its venue. We find the same nuance also in 44 within the acrimonious conflict of the herdsmen, where Lacon finishes his coarse comments with the announcement: καὶ ὕστατα βουκολιαξῇ (“and you’ll be competing for the last time”). This means, again, that Comatas will not only sing for the last time as a bucolic singer but, more specifically, that he will participate in a contest of bucolic singers for the last time. βουκολιάσδεσθαι can also be understood in the sense of bucolic singing, but the context of rivalry is so strong in Id. 5 that a more specific meaning including the element of contest is established. Both verbs that can describe the participation in a bucolic agon in Theocritus are linked together a little later in the poem: Lacon explains to Morson, who shall be the arbitrator for the contest: ἄμμες γὰρ ἐρίσδομες, ὅστις ἀρείων / βουκολιαστάς ἐστι (67–68: “we are competing to see who is better at pastoral singing”). The noun βουκολιαστάς, a formation deriving directly from the verb, does not indicate the herdsman singer as such but, more specifically, the herdsman contending with another herdsman. Idylls 8 and 9 show that this term established in this sense by Theocritus in Id. 5 prevails over the course of time, since these poems are entitled Βουκολιασταί in the manuscripts—a title that is used occasionally also for Id. 5. Thus, the verb βουκολιάσδεσθαι denotes more than mere bucolic singing—it points to the contest which is established as belonging to the world of herdsmen. It is not important that in Id. 5 an αἰπόλος, a goatherd, and a ποιμήν, a shepherd, participate in the contest and not a βουκόλος, an oxherd. In Id. 7 it is this verb by which the poem is linked to the contest poems and the situation of contest: Simichidas, coming from town, meets the αἰπόλος Lycidas (and this is not a chance encounter) and challenges him to participate in an exchange of songs or perhaps in a contest (35–36): ἀλλ’ ἄγε δή, ξυνὰ γὰρ ὁδός, ξυνὰ δὲ καὶ ἀὼς, βουκολιασδώμεσθα· τάχ’ ὥτερος ἄλλον ὀνασεῖ. But come, since we are traveling the same road at the same time, let’s perform bucolic songs, and maybe each of us will benefit the other. transl. hopkinson

In this poem Theocritus takes his play with the bucolic terminology to the extreme, as Lycidas brings also the βουκολικὰ ἀοιδά into play: ἀλλ’ ἄγε βουκολικᾶς ταχέως ἀρξώμεθ’ ἀοιδᾶς, / Σιμιχίδα (49–50: “but come, let’s begin our bucolic songs at once, Simichidas”). We know this term from Id. 1, where it is used in the refrain of Thyrsis’ song. There it refers to the song about the love pains of Daphnis, which is thus the bucolic song per se. The βουκολικὰ ἀοιδά is neither the

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song of Lycidas nor that of Simichidas, but the situation of contest or, because it is a milder form of it, that of exchange between a herdsman and a poet who does not belong to the rural or bucolic world, a man from town. The play with the term in Id. 7 goes a bit further, as this man from town presents himself, before he starts with his song, in a rather Hesiodic manner, maintaining that the Nymphs taught him good songs when he was doing his work as a boukolos (βουκολέοντα) in the mountains (91–93).11 The two poems that can be regarded as pure contest poems within the corpus Theocriteum are Id. 5 and Id. 6. They are so different in character that we can view them almost as something like a diptychon, in which two basically different methods of contest are presented. Id. 5 has always been regarded by scholarship as a contest poem, whereas Id. 6 has hardly attracted much interest in this respect. There seems to be no reason not to assume that the dramatic time of Id. 5 is the present of the poet, whereas Id. 6 seems to hint at the past, even the mythological past. One of the two singers in 6 is Δάφνις ὁ βουκόλος, and this may suggest that it is the same Daphnis as that in Thyrsis’ song in Id. 1, the mythological hero or ancestor of the bucolic world who finally dies of his love. But this is the only hint thereto, and Theocritus does not describe his poetic world either more precisely or more explicitly.12 Comatas the singer of Id. 5 has a mythical namesake as well, who, according to Id. 7.78, experienced a kind of miracle when he was locked in a chest and was nourished and saved by bees. Although this Comatas belongs to the same sphere as Daphnis, it does not appear advisable to emphasize the connection with Id. 5 too strongly. There is some evidence that Theocritus wants both poems to be understood in relation to each other as they reflect different poles of eris: Id. 5 can perhaps be interpreted as reflecting the bad Eris of Hesiod, and Id. 6, on the contrary, the good Eris. Whereas in Id. 5 the herdsmen’s conflict dominates everything, already from the start Id. 6 is full of harmony. Furthermore, both poems present different forms of the contest itself. Whereas in Id. 5 the herdsmen contend in couplets throughout, in Id. 6 there are complete songs of more than 10 verses (of different lengths, however). Between these extremes there lies one of the nonTheocritean contest poems: the amoibaion-like contributions of the herdsmen to the agon in [Id. 8] embrace 4 verses, and at the end there is a concluding, longer song sung by each of the singers. All these possibilities for contending are set into effect in the contest poems. 11 12

For the interpretation of this claim, see Hunter (1999) 7. There is some controversy about the identity of Daphnis. See Hunter (1999) 245, who takes Daphnis as the legendary herdsman of Id. 1; for a different view, see Stanzel (1995) 41–42 and 177; cf. also, with further literature, Stanzel (2015) 31 with n. 26.

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The basic rule for the contest poems seems to be that singer A starts and sets a topic, which in turn has to be varied and parried in some smart way by the answering singer B. Singer A should therefore always try to find a topic and verses that are not easy to parry, and the contest lasts until singer B fails in finding an appropriate answer to singer A, a point which seems to be reached in Id. 5.137 (see below). So there are different demands for singer A and singer B. Repartee and quick-wittedness are high demands for singers in both roles who want to be successful. We can see then that the order of singers is not without importance for the contest: singer A seems to have an advantage over singer B, who has to answer, as singer A has a free hand in choosing the topics, whereas singer B has to address a given topic within a set framework. Thus, there should also be rules for the sequence of singers. An obvious and simple rule is in play at the beginning of Id. 6: the challenger must or may begin (5, see above),13 but it is also conceivable that an arbitrator determines the sequence of singers. In Id. 5 the arbitrator’s task and purpose seems to be to select the winner of the contest, whatever the rules may be (cf. 61–62: ἀλλὰ τίς ἄμμε, / τίς κρινεῖ; “but who will be our judge?”—cf. besides also 68–69 and Lacon’s answer in 70–71). And although so much is contentious between Comatas and Lacon, both accept the sequence of singers, and Lacon asks Comatas to start with the contest, so the rule given in Id. 6 does not seem to work here, and perhaps we have to suppose that the challenger Lacon (see 22) also determines the rules. But the potentially disadvantaged singer agrees with this sequence as well. Another rule that seems obvious within Greek culture is the deciding of the sequence by lot. This rule is used in [Id. 8]: πρᾶτος δ’ ὦν ἄειδε λαχὼν ἰυκτὰ Μενάλκας (30: “loud-voiced Menalcas drew the lot for singing first”). Here Daphnis, who later on will be declared the winner, seems to have the more difficult task. Thus, his victory appears all the more impressive. In the other non-Theocritean contest poem, [Id. 9], the speaker and narrator, who at the end also participates in singing, determines that Daphnis has to begin and Menalcas has to follow (1–2). The multiplicity and variety of possibilities regarding this detail, which is indeed not trivial, shows that there are no fixed rules; the poet rather uses a set of possible solutions depending on poetical necessity. For Id. 6, with its presentation of more complex songs in the contest, it seems that the answering singer B must meet in some respect different needs and challenges. But in this poem the question of victory is of secondary importance

13

See also Hunter (1999) 249–250 for further reflections concerning the question of sequence in other poems.

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as the contest ends in a draw, and nothing else seems intended already from the beginning. Singer B has to vary both the basic situation and some details of this song. But not only should the topic remain identifiable and apparent, but also refer to the first song. The first exchanges of Id. 1 also show how the basic principle of variation can work if the amoibaia consist of units that cover more than two verses (in the case of Id. 1 it covers five verses). It is rather difficult to see which of the interlocutors in this case has an advantage over the other, but the demands are also different. Yet it is less important for Id. 6 (as well as Id. 1), as neither of the singers will be the winner, and the beginning of Id. 1 only serves to hint at such a contest—which is stopped before it begins, because it is not allowed to disturb Pan at noon. The beginning of Id. 5 points to something else that is perhaps fundamental to the contest poems. This beginning is dominated by a tremendous aggressiveness and hostility between the two singers. This is declared by some scholars to be merely playful and therefore not serious,14 and thus the first part of the poem (up to 79) is called a proagon.15 On the other hand, when the herdsmen meet in Id. 5, a conflict which seems to have been simmering for a long time breaks out again. And there we find some information about the background and experiences of each singer with the other in the past: Comatas had been Lacon’s teacher (36–37); he had taught him (ἐγὼν ἐδίδασκον) ποκ’ ἐόντα / παῖδα (“when you were still a boy”). Furthermore, the earlier, sexual aspect of their relationship is mentioned in rather coarse language. This could also have contributed to the discord that dominates their interaction when they come together again. All this speaks in my view against the assumption that the herdsmen here are trying to cope with their conflicts in a merely playful way. It seems that we can find in Id. 5 a fundamental function of the contest that goes far beyond the merely literary aspects that were in focus until now. By challenging Comatas with his self-confident pronouncement in 22–23, Lacon shifts the conflict to a new level, where they try to resolve it. The winner and his triumph are in focus at the end of the poem, and the loser Lacon is not

14

15

For example, Ott (1969) 40 in his summary: “spielerische(s) Feindschaftsverhältnis”— playful enmity; already Merkelbach (1956) 110–113 speaks of “Neckereien”—badinages— comparing the Sicilian sfide. See also Gutzwiller (1991) 135, who refers to Herzfeld’s research on mandinadhes on Crete and Rhodes. Gutzwiller (1991) 135 and earlier Froleyks (1973) 89, who also notices “kämpferische Züge”—combative traits. Cf. also Wille (1967) 117 and Weiler (1974) 95, who speaks of “herausfordernde Schmähungen”—provocative abuse—concerning the so-called proagon.

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even mentioned. He does not even raise any objections against the arbitrator’s decision. This is indeed another expedient way of dealing with conflicts in the poems. We can see a strategy comparable to the conflict management at work in Id. 5 already in the Odyssey: Odysseus is in a fierce conflict with Eurymachus and he brings up the possibility of continuing to quarrel on a different level and to try to solve the conflict there (18.366–369): Εὐρύμαχ’, εἰ γὰρ νῶϊν ἔρις ἔργοιο γένοιτο ὥρῃ ἐν εἰαρινῇ, ὅτε τ’ ἤματα μακρὰ πέλονται, ἐν ποίῃ, δρέπανον μὲν ἐγὼν εὐκαμπὲς ἔχοιμι, καὶ δὲ σὺ τοῖον ἔχοις, … Eurymachus, I wish that we two might have a match in working in the season of spring, when the long days come, at mowing the grass, I with a curved scythe in my hands and thou with another like it, … transl. murray

This possibility is brought into play by Odysseus to deal with the conflict in a competitive frame, namely in the frame of rural work. Odysseus himself speaks of an ἔρις ἔργοιο (“a match in working”) and substantiates his proposal by mentioning a contest with the sickle or in plowing with the help of cattle (18.371– 375). In the Odyssey this is presented only as a possibility that cannot be fulfilled at the moment, but already here the epic poet has in mind that it is possible to deal with conflicts in this way. Id. 5 is not only the first but also a rather late example of a contest between herdsmen in singing. In the absence of information about such customs in Greek culture, Merkelbach chose another approach and studied comparable customs of mostly rural communities of much later times and cultures. And this approach seems fruitful, as Id. 5 is realistic not only in that Theocritus creates a picture of the herdsmen as ordinary people (even of a low social status in this case),16 who are quarrelsome as well (in contrast to Id. 6), but also in that, among the contest poems, Id. 5 comes closest to real agones of herdsmen that we can deduce from what we know of Greek culture. One must indeed be aware that Theocritus does not want to provide an authentic picture of such contests, as they must have existed within Greek culture, but instead he molds and shapes such contests by means of his literary perspective.17 16 17

For realism in Id. 5, see esp. Zanker (1987) 168–170. See also Gutzwiller (1991) 143 for the differences: she regards this contest as a deformation

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One can find the main topics of the contest in Id. 5 also in Theocritus’ other poems. But the special conditions of the contest, with rather short contributions by the opponents, require a special shaping and escalation that we do not find in poems of a different type. Two topics dominate the contest in Id. 5:18 the herdsmen’s singing itself is the main subject of the song, which in turn is connected to the gods protecting and inspiring them. They want to make sure that they have the assistance of their gods. The second topic is also a typically Theocritean one: the love life of the herdsmen. But it is not so much the unhappy love of which the goatherd or Polyphemus sings, but success in love affairs, as unhappy love does not seem appropriate for a contest poem because the unhappy lover would reveal too many of his deficiencies and weaknesses. In this manner the singers hope to present themselves as better and stronger in order to have an advantage against their opponents in the contest. Even before the actual agon starts, Comatas talks about his previous relationship with Lacon, whom he once instructed, and he accuses the younger shepherd of being ungrateful (35–38). And the coarse exchange about a sexual encounter between them in the next verses (41–44) shows that it is above all a question of who proves to be superior and dominant. Here Comatas seems successful in presenting himself as superior to Lacon, but Lacon counterattacks with the mention of an unpleasant experience, the punishment Comatas once received from his master. Therefore this part of the confrontation is not entirely free from personal abuse and attacks and it might portray a rather realistic picture of the herdsmen’s world. A special feature that one finds in ll. 120ff. seems to be relevant: first Comatas addresses the arbitrator Morson, pointing out that his opponent “is getting cross” (πικραίνεται); Lacon answers, appealing to Morson and pointing out that his attacks on Comatas have the same effect. This happens within the frame of the contest—Lacon can therefore counter his opponent’s unexpected attack. But these verses are also informative for the evaluation of the contest: it seems to be important to provoke one’s opponent, and both characters try to claim success for themselves. The contest is finished after the exchange of 14 amoibaia, with Comatas using in his last couplet (136–137) metaphorical language in order to express

18

of earlier literary contests and not just a representation of rustic reality. Merkelbach (1956) 115 declared the imitation of real contests of Greek herdsmen an element of the genuine mime. See also Wille (1967) 118. Schmidt’s approach (1987) is different. See, for a shorter analysis, Ott (1969) 32 ff., esp. table 35 (more details in 37). Cf. furthermore Gutzwiller (1991) 129 ff., who tries to evaluate the contributions in her interpretation, and the much more detailed analysis of Schmidt (1987) 81ff., whose approach is quite different; see e.g., 96–97.

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his opinion about the performance of both singers and stress his own superiority. Finally, he also accuses Lacon of being φιλεχθής (quarrelsome). Immediately after this Morson concludes the contest and declares Comatas the winner. The question of why Comatas is the winner has caused much scholarly discussion and controversy. One of the main aims of Merkelbach’s above-mentioned article was to clarify this issue. There has never been similar discussion or dispute among scholars over the non-Theocritean contest poem [Id. 8] and the arbitrator’s decision to award victory to Daphnis—here the arbitrator seems to provide reasons for his decision by commending Daphnis’ singing. On close examination, however, the arbitrator does not determine, “dass Daphnis mit schönerer Stimme gesungen habe als Menalkas” (“that Daphnis was better in singing than Menalcas”).19 κρέσσον in 83 cannot be directly related to the comparison between Daphnis and his opponent. Rather, the main reason for this decision is that Daphnis has to be the winner. A wide range of solutions to the problem in Id. 5 has been suggested. Schmidt (1987), for example, regarded the winner to be Comatas, as a herdsman embodying the poetic principles of Theocritus, namely that of truthfulness and being both an αἰπόλος and an unhappy lover.20 Other scholars have referred back to the special conditions of the herdsmen’s contest and especially to the last couplets of the contest itself. Köhnken (1980) (and before him Merkelbach (1956)) gave a rather simple answer: Lacon’s announcement in 22, διαείσομαι ἔστε κ’ ἀπείπῃς, establishes also the rule for the contest: it ends when one of the opponents can no longer answer and has to give up, and this seems to happen in the last verses of the contest, which finishes with a couplet by Comatas, the first singer, followed by Lacon’s silence. But this interpretation, tempting as it may be at first glance, is perhaps too simple. One could, for example, ask how it could be represented in the poem that Lacon comes to a halt and has difficulties with his answer.21 But perhaps more important is the part of the arbitrator: if 22 provides the rule, his part is only to ascertain that Lacon can give no answer,

19 20 21

Cf. Merkelbach (1956) 118. Schmidt (1987), see esp. 73 and 99 n. 12–14 for his discussion of Merkelbach’s and Köhnken’s approach. See for example Merkelbach (1956) 112: “Er (sc. Comatas) hat eine Strophe mehr als Lacon gesungen; er hat ihn also ‘ausgesungen.’ Offenbar hat Lacon schon auf das vorige Distichon nur zögernd geantwortet” (“He sang one distich more than Lacon; so, he defeated him in singing. Apparently he replied to the previous distich only hesitantly”). Merkelbach’s “offenbar” (“apparently”) shows that this is the crucial point: how can Theocritus depict Lacon’s hesitation? Köhnken (1980) 124 brings the rhythm of 138 into play: the three long syllables of παύσασθαι depict the arbitrator’s counting down. In my opinion, that is not enough.

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but following the poem itself, the arbitrator seems to evaluate the performance of both singers—the singers speak more than once of κρίνειν.22 Morson finally declares the end of the contest: παύσασθαι κέλομαι τὸν ποιμένα (138: “I order the shepherd to stop”) and, announcing that he will give Comatas the lamb, declares the goatherd victorious. The use of παύεσθαι seems more plausible if we assume that Lacon could answer again. Why should the arbitrator tell Lacon to end if he has already come to a halt? Morson terminates the contest because he has heard enough to make a decision. The introduction of the arbitrator, the part attributed to him in the poem, and the presentation of his decision, can be taken as hints that the arbitrator has more to do than to ascertain that one of the herdsmen has finished. Ending the contest in this way may have been the norm in contests of herdsmen, which Theocritus depicts in this contest poem, but still does not seem enough to explain the victory of Comatas. Most scholars have sought the answer in the last verses of the contest.23 Comatas speaks in his last couplet metaphorically about his and his opponent’s qualities in singing and charges his opponent with being φιλεχθής.24 He thus presents himself as certain of victory and seems to turn to the arbitrator and ask him to end the contest (136–137). And thus the last complete amoibaion in the contest come into play (132–135). There Comatas takes up the love theme again (cf. 84–107, esp. 96ff. and 104ff. for the love-presents), but surprisingly mentions the case of Alcippa, who did not accept the present of a pigeon whereas Lacon was kissed by Eumedes when the herdsman gave him his syrinx. Although these verses provide an explanation for the victory of Comatas,25 scholars have offered very different answers: some have assumed that the syrinx Lacon now wants to give to Eumedes is the syrinx he charged Comatas of having stolen at the beginning;26 Ott posited a rule of parallelism, which is violated by Lacon, as he presents himself as having been successful with Eumedes.27 Gutzwiller called attention to other aspects behind the content of these verses,

22 23 24 25 26 27

61–62: ἀλλὰ τίς ἄμμε / τίς κρινεῖ; Cf. also 68–69 and 70–71 where both opponents urge Morson to be impartial in his decision. For a short survey of older literature, see Köhnken (1980) 122 n. 1. Compare Comatas’ reproach immediately before he begins the contest: τύγα μὰν φιλοκέρτομος ἐσσί (77). See e.g., Schmidt (1987) 71. See Schmidt (1987) 96–97. The syrinx is also important for Lelli (2013) 107–108, but he associates it with the silence of Lacon (109). See Ott (1969) 33, citing Deicke (1912): “Das Gesetz dieser Wettgesänge ist eben die Parallelität” (“the law of these singing matches is parallelism”). Froleyks (1973) 93–94 follows Ott. For a discussion of this position, see also Köhnken (1980) 123–124 n. 13. There is not only parallelism here, but also variation.

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namely the self-deprecating manner in which Comatas speaks about Alcippa, which she understands as an offer of reconciliation that Lacon is not ready to accept.28 One reason for Lacon’s defeat is that he cannot cope with his being φιλεχθής. Id. 6, the second poem, we can definitely consider a contest poem. It is, as we already mentioned, diametrically opposed to Id. 5 in almost all respects.29 Oddly enough, it does not play a major role in the evaluation of this type of poem. It can almost be considered a kind of counter-model to the preceding poem, since above all it demonstrates contest without conflict. Therefore it does not convey a realistic picture of the herdsmen’s world, either. Whereas in Id. 5 almost everything gives cause for dispute (only in the question of the arbitrator do the opponents agree immediately without discussion), the singers in Id. 6 agree on everything. The herdsmen’s world, painted with just a few brushstrokes, is dominated by harmony in every respect (1–5). One herd is made out of two, the singers come together at one place, and, although they look a little different on the outside, they are the same age. It may surprise us that we nevertheless are confronted with ἐρίσδειν (5), but immediately it becomes clear that the verb denotes here a challenge for the sake of competition, and that helps clarify the question of order, as we have already seen. Another point is that the poet does not use any realistic details (as, for example, in Id. 5) in order to paint the herdsmen’s world: thus, the two herdsmen appear somewhat formulaic and do not seem to be drawn individually. Although conflict and also a presupposition of conflict (in Id. 5 a domain of the herdsmen) are completely absent in this poem, a contest can take place even under such circumstances. Besides all this, the poem is also free of specifications about the area where and the time when the contest takes place (contrast 5.1), and this is one reason why the poem remains to some extent indeterminate. One of the singers is indicated as Δάφνις ὁ βουκόλος (1), who performs, as we have already seen, in other poems of Theocritus as well—unlike Damoetas, his opponent in the competition. The two singers of Id. 6 are not very individually rounded: name and profession are the only reference points given.

28

29

Gutzwiller (1991) 139–143. Domány (2009) follows this line, but associates the silence of Lacon again with the question of the syrinx. Ultimately similar are the conclusions of Lelli (2017) 105–110, although his approach seems a bit different, as he adduces material from modern times too. Trachsel (2006) presumes further literary allusions, in particular to the Aristophanic Frogs and the contest there. For the poem see Ott (1969) 67 ff.

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Another feature that is significant for the contest poems comes into view when we take into account the songs of the herdsmen in Id. 6: both herdsmen refer to Polyphemus’ love for Galatea, of which he sings in Id. 11. There the Cyclops seems to become more aware that his situation is desperate and hopeless, and according to the end of the poem, it is possible that Polyphemus succeeds in curing himself of his unhappy love. In Id. 6 both herdsmen in their songs play with the idea that Polyphemus could be more successful in his love for Galatea. Here the situation of Id. 11 is therefore presupposed.30 The singers of Id. 6 take on different roles. Daphnis, beginning the contest, takes on the role of a kind of suasor amoris, who at least superficially wants to help the unhappy lover that seems unable to assess the situation of his love (a situation which is surprisingly different from that in Id. 11). The first singer tries to alert Polyphemus to the fact that, since Galatea throws apples at him, she must have fallen in love with him and is actually courting him. Galatea behaves and acts quite differently than she does in Id. 11 (and also differently than Amaryllis in Id. 3), as she seems to draw the Cyclops’ attention and to win him over. The songs of the herdsmen in contest prove to be a literary game with motifs of other Theocritean love songs, while the love story of Polyphemus and Galatea continues and is varied in different ways: now she does not only listen to the shepherd but herself takes on an active role. It is fitting that Damoetas, when he answers, reacts to Daphnis’ play, assuming the role of Polyphemus himself—and that is not surprising, as he has already been addressed as Polyphemus by Daphnis. Polyphemus then presents himself as an expert in courting, who knows how to behave in a refined manner and only pretends to be uninterested in Galatea’s love. But there is also some uncertainty, and the situation described here remains ambivalent:31 what if the advice given by the suasor is wrong, or what if he only wants to play games with the poor lover, and Galatea actually remains a reluctant and uninterested girl? At least we can see in the song of Id. 1 that the girl the herdsman loves takes an active role and searches for Daphnis.32 Id. 6 also shows how the basic principle of innovation and variation can be implemented in connection with more complex songs, such as that of Daph-

30 31 32

Ott (1969) 72, Stanzel (1995) 181, Hunter (1999) 244. For the complex relation of Polyphemus’ love story in Id. 11 and Id. 6, see Stanzel (1995) 183. See Hunter (1999) 246, who still goes further in emphasizing the uncertainties for Polyphemus, as Daphnis could also be an irrisor amoris. See also Stanzel (1995), esp. 184–186. This is Hunter’s point (1999) 247. See also the short remarks in Stanzel (2015) 31.

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nis. Damoetas, answering Daphnis (in a song which, by the way, does not have exactly the same length), impersonates Polyphemus and works his way sequentially through the motifs given by the first singer. In doing so he presents himself as a kind of new lover, an unexpected role for the Cyclops as we know him from myth and literature. The competitive basic situation in Id. 6, with two singers dealing with Polyphemus’ love from different perspectives, helps the poet throw light on other aspects of this affair as well. The contest ends in a draw, so in this case the question over the award of victory in the contest does not arise. The principle suggested for Id. 5—singing until one’s opponent resigns—cannot work here. Either singer B can present a complete poem in answer to A or he cannot. All of this shows that the contest in Id. 6 is a literary game rather than a true contest among herdsmen, and Theocritus uses the traditional form of contest for other poetic effects. Id. 1 is, as we have already mentioned, one of the poems that plays with motifs of the contest poems. The beginning of the poem, with the first verses consisting of Thyrsis addressing the goatherd and his answer, could also be the beginning of a contest.33 And it is certainly not incidental that the first bucolic poem seems to introduce a contest between herdsmen. But the contest cannot take place, as the herdsmen are aware that Pan wants to rest at noon, and this is the reason why they cannot play the syrinx at midday. The herdsmen’s contest, however, is still in another way present in this Idyll: according to the goatherd, Thyrsis has already sung his song about Δάφνιδος ἄλγεα (“the sufferings of Daphnis”) several times, but only once he was victorious in contest. The herdsman stresses that this song was presented in the context of a competition—and since the other singer came from Libya it seems to have been a competition with almost “international” dimensions— and therefore it is essential that such contests belong to the world of herdsmen.34 Whenever herdsmen meet, they tend to contend with each other. Besides, the song about Daphnis in Id. 1 is filled with a special aura as if the singer has already been successful when singing this song, which brings with it a certain prestige among herdsmen. The goatherd wants to hear it again, obviously because it deals with essential subject matters of the bucolic world. And in this manner Thyrsis’ song is brought to the center of attention. The structure of Id. 1 is also very close to the contest poems insofar as it is structured antithetically, although only one song is performed. The descrip-

33 34

For other aspects of these verses, see Stanzel (2015) 25–26. Cf. Stanzel (2015) 28–29.

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tion of the cup that is promised to Thyrsis if he sings his song about Daphnis corresponds exactly to Thyrsis’ song itself. Already this cup recalls the contest situation, as one remembers the prizes opponents conventionally promise to each other before they begin their contest. The motifs that are depicted on the cup bring into play other features that are important for the herdsmen’s world in Id. 1. In terms of structure, this is the counterpart to Thyrsis’ song. By composing the poem in this way, Theocritus evokes the contests among herdsmen on different levels. In Id. 7, the Thalysia, Theocritus plays with the features of the contest poems too, although there is neither a contest in the strict sense of the word nor one between herdsmen. This is accomplished, as has been shown, mainly through a play on the meaning of the verb βουκολιάσδεσθαι established in Id. 5 and— furthermore—by a play on the motif of the gifts standard in the contest poems. The gift here is one sided, as Lycidas rewards his singer colleague Simichidas with a stick, and this happens before Simichidas has been able to show himself worthy by presenting his song. Moreover, Simichidas’ invitation to sing is connected with the prospect of mutual benefit and profit for both singers, not victory or defeat in the singing contest (36): τάχ’ ὥτερος ἄλλον ὀνασεῖ. Simichidas does not want to win but rather to be approved and confirmed by the goatherd, who somehow seems to be divine.35 Theocritus obviously uses features that are connected with the contest poems in Id. 7 for other purposes: he tries to extend and expand the scope of his bucolic poetry, and Id. 7 is among the bucolic poems furthest removed from the mere rustic poems. Each of the poems we have looked at so far, the contest poems themselves and the poems in which Theocritus plays with features of the contest poems for other purposes, seems unique. Not Id. 5 but rather Id. 6 seems to be the starting point for the tradition of contest poems in later pastoral poetry. The nonTheocritean contest poems of the corpus Theocriteum, [Id. 8] and [Id. 9], show that the bucolic poets try to associate their poems with Theocritus. Moreover, one immediately gets the impression of repetition. In describing the singers, the poet of [Id. 8] seems to be oriented towards the beginning of Id. 6, but one difference becomes apparent: here it must be a true contest with one who wins and one who loses. The second singer takes up this challenge immediately by exhibiting his enormous self-confidence, which will make it difficult for his opponent to win. If we consider, for example, the prizes, we see that they are the same for both singers if they should win. The contributions of the oppon-

35

See e.g., Hunter (1999) 146–147.

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ents in the contest are a particularly refined amoibaion, first an exchange of quatrains instead of couplets, and then an exchange of shorter songs, a sort of combination of Id. 5 and Id. 6 in one poem.36 After Theocritus, the contest of herdsmen is part of the standard repertoire of pastoral literature. It is also found in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe: there is an ἔρις ὑπὲρ κάλλους (“a contest for beauty”) and not a contest in singing, in which Daphnis and his rival Dorcon compete for Chloe’s favor (1.15.4), who herself decides the winner (ἐδίκαζε, ibid.); the winner will be rewarded (ἆθλον, ibid.) with a kiss. In the contest, the two opponents praise their own beauty and qualities. Later on, when Dorcon has to die, he gives Chloe, whom he still cares about, his syrinx as a last bequest: χαρίζομαι δέ σοι καὶ τὴν σύριγγα αὐτήν, ᾗ πολλοὺς ἐρίζων καὶ βουκόλους ἐνίκησα καὶ αἰπόλους (1.29.3: “the syrinx itself is my gift to you; with it I won competitions against many oxherds and goatherds”). Even here, a herdsman is still characterized mainly by his victories in contest.

Bibliography Berve, H. (1966), “Vom agonalen Geist der Griechen,” in Berve, H. (ed.), Gestaltende Kräfte der Antike. Aufsätze und Vorträge zur griechischen und römischen Geschichte (Munich) 1–20. Burckhardt, L.A. (1999), “Vom ‘Agon’ zur ‘Nullsummenkonkurrenz.’ Bemerkungen zu einigen Versuchen, die kompetitive Mentalität der Griechen zu erfassen,” Nikephoros 12, 71–93. Deicke, L. (1912), “Über die Komposition einiger Gedichte Theokrits,” Programm Ratzeburg, 17–26. Domány, J. (2009), “Lacon’s Silence in Theocritus’ Id. 5,” Hermes 137, 382–385. Durand, M. (1999), La compétition en Grèce antique. Généalogie, évolution, interprétation (Paris). Froleyks, W.J. (1973), Der ἀγὼν λόγων in der antiken Literatur (Bonn). Gutzwiller, K.J. (1991), Theocritus’ Pastoral Analogies. The Formation of a Genre (Madison, WI/London). Herzfeld, M. (1985), The Poetics of Manhood. Contest and Identity in a Cretan Mountain Village (Princeton). Hunter, R. (1999), Theocritus: A Selection. Idylls 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 13 (Cambridge). Köhnken, A. (1980), “Comatas’ Sieg über Lacon,” Hermes 108, 122–125.

36

See also the remarks of Merkelbach (1956) 118 ff. and the detailed interpretation in Schmidt (1987) 105–128.

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Lelli, E. (2017), Pastori antichi e moderni. Teocrito e le origini popolari della poesia bucolica (Spudasmata 174) (Hildesheim/Zürich/New York). Merkelbach, R. (1956), “Βουκολιασταί (Der Wettgesang der Hirten),” RhM 99, 97–133 (a shorter version also in Effe, B. (ed.), Theokrit und die griechische Bukolik (Wege der Forschung 580) (Darmstadt) 212–238). Ott, U. (1969), Die Kunst des Gegensatzes in Theokrits Hirtengedichten (Spudasmata 22) (Hildesheim/New York). Scheliha, R. von (1987), Vom Wettkampf der Dichter. Der musische Agon bei den Griechen (Amsterdam). Schmidt, E.A. (1972), Poetische Reflexion. Vergils Bukolik (Munich). Schmidt, E.A. (1987), Bukolische Leidenschaft oder Über antike Hirtenpoesie (Frankfurt a.M./Bern/New York). Stanzel, K.-H. (1995), Liebende Hirten. Theokrits Bukolik und die alexandrinische Poesie (Stuttgart/Leipzig). Stanzel, K.-H. (2015), “Theokrits Bukolika und andere Gedichte. Eidyllia vor dem Idyll,” in N. Birkner/Y.-G. Mix (eds.), Idyllik im Kontext von Antike und Moderne. Tradition und Transformation eines europäischen Topos (Berlin/Boston) 14–32. Trachsel, A. (2006), “La fin de l’Idylle 5 de Théocrite: une question de balance?,”Mnemosyne 59, 348–373. Ulf, C. (2011), “Ancient Greek Competition—a Modern Construct?,” in N. Fisher/H. van Wees (eds.), Competition in the Ancient World (Swansea) 85–111. Weiler, I. (1974), Der Agon im Mythos. Zur Einstellung der Griechen zum Wettkampf (Darmstadt). Weiler, I. (1988), Der Sport bei den Völkern der Alten Welt. Eine Einführung (Darmstadt). Wille, G. (1967), Musica Romana. Die Bedeutung der Musik im Leben der Römer (Amsterdam). Zanker, G. (1987), Realism in Alexandrian Poetry (London).

chapter 15

The Programmatic Idylls of Theocritus Jacqueline Klooster

Introduction Scholars have consistently focused on Idylls 1 and 7 as “programmatic” poems. Cairns, in his discussion of the first Idyll as a programmatic poem, helpfully defines such poetry as follows: A poem or part of a poem can be described as “programmatic” if it is consciously composed in such a way that it contains a very high concentration of material typical of its literary form. Such a piece can be regarded as even more obviously programmatic if it contains statements about poetry and the art of writing poetry, either implicit or explicit. Such statements can sometimes involve evaluations of poetry or of several different kinds of poetry. Pieces which are “programmatic” in one or more of these senses can sometimes use an agreed symbolic language.1 This chapter analyzes Idylls 1 and 7 from a comparable angle. Both poems have been the focus of great amounts of scholarship (which will be referred to in the footnotes below). In Idyll 1 the interpretation of the visual program on the kissybion (1.27–60) and the interpretation of the mysterious song of Thyrsis about Daphnis’ suffering and death (1.64–142) have been at the forefront of the discussion. In this contribution, I will attempt to draw the interpretations of these two passages together, with a focus on the circularity of life from which Daphnis escapes, both by denying the force of eros and by becoming eternalised in poetry. I will also argue that we can understand the “lacunosity” of Thyrsis’ song as a programmatic feature, related to the Theocritean belief that poetry often results from the expression of feelings of love. This is a capacity Daphnis lacked, and since he could not sing about it, we cannot truly know his story. In Idyll 7, the discussion has focused on the identities of Simichidas and Lycidas. Going beyond the guessing game, I argue that it is possible to see in Lycidas

1 Cairns (1984) 89; Hunter (1999) 60–61.

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multiple elements of divinity (the opposing forces of Pan and Apollo), which reflect different aspects of Theocritus’ poetical program. I moreover pay attention to the programmatic importance of the embedding of songs within other songs.

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1.1 Place in the Collection and Title Programmatic passages in literature usually occur at or near the opening (or sometimes at other marked positions) of the work. What can we say in this respect about Idyll 1? From the scholia it appears that the poem was placed first in ancient collections.3 This does not necessarily mean that Theocritus placed it there, but it shows that from an early date scholars were aware that there was something special about the Idyll.4 The poem was known to the scholiasts under the alternative titles Θύρσις ἢ Ὠιδή, (“Thyrsis” or “Song”).5 Judging by the ancient titles, for readers the interest of the Idyll veered towards Thyrsis and his art, not so much towards the cup, or the exchange with the (significantly nameless) goatherd. Even so, the description of the artful cup precedes Thyrsis’ song and takes up a substantial part of the poem (1.27–60). Interestingly, the scholia remark upon the fact that the Idyll is placed first despite recounting the death of the mythical cowherd Daphnis, who is later represented as alive (Id. 6).6 They attribute this to the fact that Idyll 1 is “composed in a more lovely and artful way than the other poems” and cite Pindar on the necessity of creating a “far-shining front” at the opening 2 Modern discussions of the Idyll include Lawall (1967) 14–33; Ott (1969) 85–137; Edquist (1975) 101–108; Miles (1977) 145–156; Segal (1981) 25–56; Halperin (1983) 161–189; Cairns (1984) 89– 113; Walsh (1985) 2–11; Schmidt (1987) 57–70; Gutzwiller (1991) 83–194; Calame (1992) 59– 85; Griffin (1992); Zimmerman (1994); Stanzel (1995) 248–268; Hunter (1999) 60–107; Payne (2007) 14–17; 25–48; Klooster (2011) 99–104. 3 Sch. Id.1.arg b. The poems were collected by Artemidorus in the first century bce, cf. AP 9.205. Other attestations for a collection of Theocritus’ poetry is AP 9.434 and Servius Buc. Prooem. 3.21. 4 Cairns (1984) 90. On the question of whether the Idylls were conceived of as a poetic collection, see e.g., Lawall (1967) who holds that the bucolic poems formed a distinct collection created by Theocritus. Gutzwiller (1996) 119–148 discusses the evidence for Theocritean poetry books. See also Sistakou, this volume. 5 Although some MSS also have the title Ποιμὴν καὶ Αἰπόλος, Θύρσις ἢ Ὠιδή is more frequent, and gives a better sense of what is important in the poem. 6 On this see Wilamowitz (1906) 136; Ott (1969) 121; Lawall (1967) 69; Dover (1971) 140; Bernsdorff (1994) 38–51; Stanzel (1995) 39–40.

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of a literary work (Ol. 6.3),7 hinting at their appreciation of the Idyll as what we might call “programmatic.” 1.2 Overview of the Poem and Its Programmatic Aspects The frame features the dialogue of Thyrsis and the goatherd and is characterized by the courtesy between the two men, and their exceptional musical harmony with surrounding nature. The ekphrasis of the cup is a veritable tissue of programmatic symbols and images, and functions as ekphraseis often do in ancient poetry, viz. as a synecdoche of the larger concerns of the literary work, in this case the bucolic collection.8 The song of Thyrsis, finally, represents actual bucolic poetry, being a song by a “master of bucolic song” about “The herdsman,” i.e., the legendary βουκόλος / βούτας Daphnis, who according to later testimonia was considered the archetypal bucolic musician or subject of bucolic song.9 In addition, the song of Thyrsis particularly exemplifies bucolic poetry by virtue of being embedded as inset in the larger framework of the poem, in the exchange with the ekphrasis of the cup. As the rest of the collection shows, bucolic poetry is practically always poetry about poetry, featuring embedded song, often in an agonistic or amoebaean setting (4, 5, 6, 7, 10).10 Equally important is the content of the song, which features three major recurring themes. Desire, music, and nature are here all tragically elevated by the death of the protagonist. Idyll 1 notably “inscribes into itself a sense of tradition,”11 suggesting that the subject matter of the song is age-old, even though its elevation to literature is “new” (1.28; 60, discussed below). The goatherd asks for the song of Thyrsis, as if the story of Daphnis’ woes was well known to the rustic world; Thyrsis is named a master of “the bucolic muse” (1.20), as if this were a recognized genre. The song’s recurrent invocation to the Muses to “begin, carry on and end the bucolic song” confirms these suggestions.12 But mainly it is the way the story of Daphnis is recounted in the song: allusively, starting at the completion of the

7 8 9 10

11 12

Sch. Id.1.arg b: ὅμως τοῦτο προτέτακται διὰ τὸ χαριέστερον καὶ τεχνικώτερον τῶν ἄλλων μᾶλλον συντετάχθαι. For literature on ekphrasis see Fowler (1991) and Squire (2009) 139–146, and the special issues of Ramus (2002, vol. 31. 1–2) and Classical Philology (2007, vol. 102. 1). Parthenius 29: Daphnis as a syrinx player; Diod. Sic. 4.48: Daphnis invented bucolic poetry; Aelian VH 10.18: Daphnis as the first subject of bucolic song. Bucolic poetry always embeds and frames the songs of the herdsmen, either in mimetic dialogue or monologue (3, 6, 10), or by framing the songs in a diegetic narrative with a third-person narrator (7, 11). Hunter (1999) 61–63; Gutzwiller (1991) 1–5. Hunter (1999) 87.

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story (Daphnis’ death), and throughout lacking enough detail to allow (modern) readers to reach an entirely satisfactory understanding of the plot. This may well be deliberate. Scholarship has consistently shown that the details do not adequately represent any of the known versions of the myth of Daphnis.13 Precisely by leaving open spaces and creating mysterious ambiguities, Theocritus provides the sense that we are listening in on an age-old, vaguely familiar, yet tantalizingly elusive rural classic. 1.3 The Frame The opening words of the Idyll introduce characteristic elements of bucolic poetry. One is the sense of all-encompassing natural musicality, created by the repeating series of sharp vowels (i and u), which onomatopoeically imitate the “clear and sharp” sound of the herdsman’s instrument of choice, the syrinx (Ἁδύ τι τὸ ψιθύρισμα καὶ ἁ πίτυς … ἁδὺ δὲ καὶ τὺ / συρίσδες, 1–3).14 This sound is metaphorically “sweet” (ἁδύ), the opening word of the entire poem, and perhaps therefore, the collection.15 It is picked up in priamel-like fashion by the goatherd (7–11). Significant is the Doric coloring, which indicates the Sicilian associations of bucolic song.16 The remarkable syntactical structure of the entire opening, its parataxis, repetitions, internal rhyme, and anaphora create the impression that nature and music mutually echo: the pine sings a sweet whispering, which is like the sweet piping of the goatherd, while the song of Thyrsis streams down more sweetly than echoing (not cold, clear) water. Music and landscape blend into what has been termed a “songscape.”17 The herdsmen exist in symbiotic harmony with nature and with each other: their exchange of compliments and songs/gifts in the poem represents an idealized amoebaean exchange (cf. 4, 5, 6, 7, 10), to which only the mention of goats and sheep (1.4–6; 9–11, 151–152) provides an earthy and slightly comical touch.

13 14 15 16

17

Gow (1952) ii.1, Ogilvie (1962) 106–110; Goldhill (1991) 242–243; Hunter (1999) 67–68; Klooster (2011) 101–103. Hunter (1999) 69. It recurs in 1.65, 145, 148, and cf. also Call. fr. 1.11, Mimnermus as γλυκύς. See Hunter (1999) 70–71 on how the emphasis on sweetness fits theories on pleasure in Greek poetics. The scholia believe the Doric dialect of Theocritus’ Idylls mimetically renders the dialect of Sicilian countryfolk (cf. prol. p. 7,8–10 Wendel); more subtly also prol. p. 12. 4–25. Ruijgh 1984 thought the dialect was Cyrenean. But see Hunter (1996) 37 and (1999) 21–24, and Tribulato, this volume. Segal (1981) 228, 229. On this passage, see further Elliger (1975) 326, Hunter (1999) 68–71, Klooster (2012) 105–106.

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On a metapoetical level, the animals allude to the aetiology of “tragedy” as a song for which a goat was the prize. This fits the Dionysiac overtones in the name of Thyrsis (cf. θύρσος, the ivy-crowned staff of Dionysiac rite), the woodland deities Pan and the nymphs, the vineyard on the goatherd’s κισσύβιον with its ivy decoration (and ivy implied in its name), perhaps even the goat’s name Cissaetha (1.151), and finally the “tragic” flavour of the song, The Woes of Daphnis. This suggests a relation between the mimetic genres of drama and bucolic, of bucolic as a rural version, or even predecessor of Attic drama.18 1.4 The Cup19 Unlike its forebears, the epic ekphraseis of Homer (18.478–608), Ps-Hesiod (Scutum), and their contemporary in Apollonius (1.721–768),20 the ekphrasis of the κισσύβιον, rather than being expressed by the narrator, is put into the mouth of one of the characters, and a goatherd at that, suggesting that this is epic in a rural guise. Unlike the shields of archaic epic, or the sensuous cloak of Apollonius’ love-hero Jason, the object described here is a humble utensil of the bucolic world, a wooden cup. It has the unpretentious and peaceful associations of the herdsman’s world: its value is expressed in cheese, it can be used to drink milk from, and its iconographical program reflects the daily concerns of ordinary people: love, work, and play, portrayed as the three ages of men. The cup is sealed in sweet wax, which links it to Daphnis’ mythical syrinx in the song (1.128) and thus to poetry (1.27; 149).21 Its name not only hints at Dionysiac ivy (symbol for poetic immortality), which decorates its rim, but also brings to mind the cup of another mythical Sicilian herdsman, who turns up as a character in the bucolic Idylls repeatedly (6, 7, 11), the Cyclops in Od. 9.346.22 This again suggests that bucolic poetry has ties with epic, as with tragedy. The goatherd’s description of the cup is predicated on the characteristics of the poetry it symbolizes: it is a “goatherd’s marvel” (αἰπολικόν θάημα), a “wonder (τέρας) that will strike your heart” (1.56); “newly fashioned” (νεοτευχές); it “still

18 19

20 21 22

Cairns (1984) 100 notes but does not explain the Dionysian allusion; Hunter (1999) 62 (with bibliography) points to the link it establishes with tragedy. On the ekphrasis of the cup, see Gallavotti (1966) 421–436; Cairns (1984) 96–99; Manakidou (1992) 51–82; Hunter (1999) 76–77; Zanker (2004) 12–15; Payne (2007) 28–40; Klooster (2012) 111–113; Koopman (2018) 167–207. Cf. Ambühl and Kwapisz, this volume. On the vexed question of the relative chronology of these two poets and their work, see Köhnken (2008) 83–94. Cairns (1984) 94 n. 19. For the poetic symbolism of bees and honey, see Waszink (1974). κισσύβιον is a Homeric hapax, which makes the association even more significant. In Call. fr. 78.12 Harder the word is also used. Here the paradoxical description of it as “small” has been interpreted as metapoetically significant, e.g., Hunter/Fantuzzi (2005) 80.

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smells of the knife” (1.28) and has remained “untouched” (ἄχραντον, 1.60) until now. The cup has been “washed in sweet wax” (1.27) and smells “beautifully, as if it had been washed in the spring of the Horae (Ὡρᾶν πεπλύσθαι … κράναισι)” (1.150).23 A transformation through art seems hinted at: the simple, perishable, organic material (the cup is made of wood, which would be Greek ὕλη, a word with strong metapoetic connotations), first finely worked and then sealed in the sweet substance of poetry (wax; the spring of the Horae), a goatherd’s marvel, thus becomes “forever young,” immortal. Like the song of Thyrsis, the rustic cup elevates humble material to new, amazing, and immortal art. Its iconographical program consists of three scenes from everyday life, suggesting the three ages of men (youth, old age and childhood respectively), in what might be three settings (city—although not explicitly characterized as such, seaside, and countryside), and three types of “labor” (πόνος: love’s (lost) labor, the struggle for subsistence, and the playful absorption of the child plaiting a cage for crickets). A border of blooming helichryse and ivy encircles the scenes, much as the refrains invoking the Muses encompass the song of Thyrsis. Both devices indicate the immortal quality of the art through the iterative quality of refrains and the connotations of (poetic) immortality inherent in evergreen plants like ivy.24 Reading the shield of Achilles as a depiction of the world of mankind from which the hero is forever separated by his choice of a brief but glorious life, Cairns suggests a similar interpretation for the scenes on the cup. They depict the concerns of everyday life from which Daphnis has been cut off by his wasting away and death. Unlike the figures on the cup, he is unwilling or unable to give in to erotic love, unable to work, or to find peace in his own art. And if Daphnis is a bucolic Achilles, then Thyrsis, or by implication Theocritus, is the bucolic Homer, and the cup is a bucolic shield (1984, 107–113). The fact that the scene with the child comes last emphasizes its importance in a priamel-like buildup: it is the key to bucolic poetry (Cairns 1984, 103). At the same time, the anachronistic representation by the goatherd also underlines the special place art has in human life. Whereas natural order evolves from childhood through youth and old age (and death), only (poetic) art has the power to freeze a particular moment and eternalize it, as is likewise illustrated by the song immortalizing the death of Daphnis, who exits from the cycle

23 24

Cairns (1984) invokes the parallel of Call. fr. 7, 13 Harder, where the Graces wipe the perfume from their hands on Callimachus’ elegies and anoint them with everlasting charm. On the fictionality of the cup and the song, and their programmatic value for pastoral, see Payne (2007) 28–40.

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of human life at an “untimely moment,” paradoxically becoming immortal (in recurrent song) at that very moment and by virtue of it. The final image on the cup is a child seated in a vineyard, while two foxes are eating the grapes and preying on his lunch—but the boy is engrossed in the little cricket cage he is plaiting from rushes and asphodel. The child, the weaving, the reed with its musical associations, and the crickets are all easily paralleled images of poetry. The scene symbolizes the all-consuming pleasure of poetic creation on a small scale. The containment of songful creatures in a finely crafted container furthermore echoes the way in which singing herdsmen are contained in finely crafted songs (within finely crafted songs …) in the Chinese box-like structure of the bucolic Idylls themselves (especially 7); at the same time, the image might also hint at the embedding of poetry and poets from the great tradition in this new genre.25 The scenes on the cup are described in the typical way of ekphrasis: the interpretation of the goatherd explains more than could actually be depicted. For example, he reports the movements of the woman standing between the two men and the thoughts of the fox preying on the child’s food.26 In this way, the ekphrasis forms the complement to Thyrsis’ allusive song about Daphnis, where not enough information is provided to form a complete picture. 1.5 The Song of Thyrsis The details of Daphnis’ story are ambiguously and allusively told, suggesting to (modern) readers of the poem that they are listening in on a classic of the rustic world.27 The gradations of ignorance the visitors to Daphnis demonstrate are thematically important: the mute animals simply come to mourn him, the humans do not know what the cause of his pain is, Hermes asks with whom he is so much in love, Priapus fails to understand why he will not take pleasure where it is offered, and finally Aphrodite knows what the matter is, without it being explicitly explained to the listeners. The death of Daphnis has baffled critics: it is impossible to say what finally happens when “Daphnis went to the stream” (1.140). This seems deliberate.28 While representing “the bucolic song” inside the world of the Idyll, the song of Thyrsis features a number of unique aspects such as the refrain, the death of the herdsman, his enigmatic resistance to love, the wild animals mourn25 26 27 28

Cf. Cairns (1984) 103 on the image in Tim. SH 775 and Ecl. 10.70–72. Koopman (2018) 189–204. See Hunter (1999) 63–68, with ancient sources and bibliography on this issue. For various views on the manner of Daphnis’ death, see Prescott (1899) 176–187; White (1979) 578–579; Segal (1981) 50–53; Van Erp Taalman Kip (1987) 249–251; Hunter (1999) 67.

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ing him, and his direct interaction with divine beings. Daphnis is “exemplary” for the internal bucolic audiences in the same way heroes from myth were for the audiences of Greek epic or tragedy. He is initially stubborn and silent like a proverbial Aeschylean hero, when, like an epic Achilles, he receives divine and human embassies. He is close to the Muses and nymphs like some bucolic Orpheus, and like him, or like a tragic Hippolytus, dies for (resistance to) love. He is apparently the equal of divine Pan, to whom, without a hint of hubris, he hands over his syrinx at the moment of death. Daphnis’ connection to (bucolic) music is underlined by the singer’s question about where the Nymphs were (1.66–69), by Daphnis’ symbolic handing over of his syrinx to Pan at death, and by the “epitaph” provided to him by Thyrsis: “… the man who was beloved to the Muses and no enemy to the Nymphs” (1.141). Finally, we may wonder whether Daphnis’ (no doubt traditional) name may not be pressed for some poetic significance. This becomes attractive in connection with the strong Dionysian symbolism in the name of the singer Thyrsis and the predominance of ivy-related references in the poem. Daphnis is of course (as the first words of Id. 2 πᾷ μοι ταὶ δάφναι— deliberately?—remind us) related to δάφνη (bay, laurel), the Apollonian counterpart to Dionysian evergreen ivy. That Daphnis symbolizes the immortality of (bucolic) poetry by means of an allusion to Apollonian poetics seems likely and attractive in view of the Apollonian symbolism in the other programmatic Idyll (7). As noted, it remains remarkably unclear what exactly causes Daphnis’ suffering and eventual death—with whom was he so in love? Why was this such an unhappy love? What happened—or did not happen—between him and the girl? But it is certain that it is an unhappy love story. The communis opinio, as noted (cf. n. 27), is that the incomplete and elliptic presentation of Daphnis’ love story in the poem is deliberate. There are two crucial elements in the song about Daphnis’ unhappy love in Idyll 1. One is that it is presented as a foundational myth for bucolic poetry, in what is clearly a programmatic poem. This means that singing about “experiences in love” is presented as central to Theocritus’ poetics. The second issue is that Daphnis does not sing about his own feelings, and dies. We may relate this observation to the fact that Theocritus’ characters are often in some way able to manage their erotic feelings by singing about them (2, 3, 6, 7, 11). We could even say that the poetic raison d’être of these characters lies in their songs about their experience of love. What’s more, none of these characters actually dies as an effect of his/her unrequited love. So why is Daphnis here dying? As Aguirre

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de Zarate has proposed, the answer seems to be: because he does not sing about his love, even though he is presented by others as well as by himself as a poet.29 Indeed, as we saw, Daphnis’ remarkable silence is pointed out repeatedly in Thyrsis’ song. Daphnis never speaks to the gods Hermes and Priapus or to his human visitors. Only when Aphrodite ultimately provokes him, does he lash out against her, but even though he speaks at this point, he still remains silent about his own experiences. A metapoetic reading could effectively explain Daphnis’ silence by relating it to the elliptic way in which the story about his love is told: we do not know exactly what happened to Daphnis. But we do know that Daphnis could not cure himself, and dies. This happens, we might assume, because he did not sing about his feelings. And this, in turn, might actually explain why we do not know—and cannot know—what really happened to him. 1.6 Closure The song ends with the death and “epitaph” of Daphnis. After the final repetition of the refrain enjoining the Muses to end the bucolic song (1.142), Thyrsis abruptly requests the goat (to milk) and the cup to make a libation to the Muses (1.143–144). Practically in the same breath, he expresses a hymnic farewell to the Muses, promising “a sweeter song next time” (1.145). The last seven lines are spoken by the goatherd, who, overcome by the beauty of the song, elaborately compliments Thyrsis on the sweetness of his singing, with a slightly awkward wish for a mouth full of honey, honeycomb, and sweet figs in recompense for his sweet voice, and with a bucolic analogy, comparing his singing positively to that of a cicada, the ultimate musical insect (1.146–148). He hands over the cup, pointing out its sweet smell “as if it had been washed in the spring of the Horae” (1.150), and finally tells the goats not to gambol, lest the he-goat rouse himself. The abrupt descent into matters of animal physicality contrasts oddly with the poetic expressions of sweetness and immortality, confirming the central importance of this opposition to the distinctive aesthetics of bucolic poetry.30 At the same time, the spring of the Horae/Seasons and animals coupling both symbolize cyclical natural renewal, reminiscent of the renewal of song Thyrsis has just promised to the Muses. This contrasts with the finality of Daphnis’ death and his refusal to join in the cycle of life and eros.

29 30

Aguirre de Zarate (2012) 13–41. See Ott (1969).

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Idyll 7

2.1 Place in the Collection and Title In the ancient collections, Idyll 7 seems to have been placed second, perhaps also pointing to its perceived importance. Modern scholarship has sometimes suggested that it may rather have formed the end of a collection of the bucolic Idylls.31 This is attractive for several reasons. In the first place, the fictional occasion, brought into prominence by its ancient title, is the harvest festival on the island of Cos in honor of Demeter, the Thalysia organized by Simichidas’ noble friends Phrasidamus and Antigenes. The symbolism of a poetic “harvest,” marking a closure of some kind, is borne out by the ending of the poem, with its elaborate description of abundantly fruitful nature appealing to all senses (7.131–157) and its Odyssean image of the speaker placing a winnowing fan on the threshed heap of corn (7.155–156). “Harvesting” constitutes both an ending and a recurrent marker in a perpetual agricultural cycle; this is why the speaker wishes that he may place his winnowing fan in the future again (αὖτις) on the threshing heap of smiling Demeter, in the manner of the hymnic poet promising another, sweeter song next time (cf. the end of Thyrsis’ song, Id. 1.145). Apart from this imagery of a poetic harvest, the resumption in the poem of characters, themes, and motifs from the other (bucolic) Idylls (the references to Daphnis, Comatas, Polyphemus, and Heracles, the amoebaean bucolic contest, and the theme of song as remedy for unfulfilled desire) may also be metapoetically referenced by the speaker who speaks of the “mixing up of a special draught of wine” at this harvest festival by the “Castalian Nymphs living on the slopes of Parnassus” (7.148–155). The poem presents a sampler of the fruits of bucolic themes all mixed together, and subsequently immortalized by poetry, just as the goatherd’s cup had been by its washing in the spring of the Horae. Importantly, the poem is a first-person account of a personal experience, which gives it the flavor of a poetic autobiography, a looking-back on a past career, or, considering the intriguing and quite emphatic naming of the narrator, of a sphragis. This makes a final, capping position in a hypothetical ancient collection likely.32 2.2 Overview of the Poem and Its Programmatic Aspects Scholarly discussion about the programmatic significance of Theocritus’ “enigmatic masterpiece” (Gow) Idyll 7 is huge.33 The issues singled out for discussion 31 32 33

Lawall (1967) 1–13; Gutzwiller (1996) 119–148. Cf. Klooster (2011) 195–208. Weingarth (1967) provides a full bibliography up to that date. Hunter (1999) is a useful

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are primarily the respective identities of Simichidas (the text-internal narrator) and the mysterious goatherd he encounters, Lycidas, and hence the interpretation of their statements about poetry and the appreciation of their respective bucolic songs as successful or otherwise samples of bucolic. The complexity resides in the fact that the Idyll is presented as a personal memory of a firstperson speaker, identified as “Simichidas” at 7.21, by Lycidas. This immediately begs the question about the relation of Simichidas to Theocritus, the “historical author” of the poems. Are they to be identified, as the first-person narration invites us to do, or are they different in some subtle way, as the different name indicates? What does their similarity and difference consist of, and what does that mean for the interpretation of the poem as a whole? Related is the identity of the goatherd Lycidas, introduced by Simichidas somewhat paradoxically as “a goatherd looking extraordinarily like a goatherd,” whose looks and smell are described in great detail (7.15–20). This has prompted scholars to believe that he is more than just a simple goatherd. In the past, this led to the theory of the so-called masquerade bucolique.34 The question of identification turns on recognition of the fact that the encounter of Simichidas and Lycidas has all the characteristics of a poetic initiation with Hesiod’s initiation by the Muses as a template, especially the handing over of the crooked stick as a “guest gift from the Muses” on the part of Lycidas (7.129). 2.3 Formal Aspects of the Idyll Idyll 7 is presented as a personal reminiscence about a summer afternoon once upon a time on Cos.35 Apart from the question of the identities of Simichidas and Lycidas, the poem has some remarkable formal features. First, its characterization as a memory of an occasion at a considerable remove from the present perspective of the speaker deserves mention. Scholars debate the exact significance of the opening words ἦς χρόνος ἁνίκα (“there was a time when,” 7.1), but it seems certain that it “implies that the epoch referred to is closed, or the state of

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update. Recent discussions include Clauss (2003), Payne (2007), Morrison (2007), Klooster (2011), and Foster (2016). Reitzenstein initiated the theory of the masquerade bucolique (1893). Proposed identifications for Lycidas (see Reitzenstein): Aratus (Bergk); Dosiadas (Wilamowitz); Leonidas (Legrand); Callimachus (Gercke); Astakides (Ribbeck), Rhianus (Legrand), or merely “an eccentric poet going about in herdsman’s outfit.” The characters in the Eclogues of Virgil were later interpreted similarly, which implies that even in antiquity the intuition existed that herdsmen were analogues of the poets. The scholia do not remark upon possible hidden identities of Lycidas, but they do discuss the identification of Simichidas. Hunter (1999) 145 has pointed out the remarkable structural similarities to certain Platonic dialogues (Lysis, Republic), in particular the Phaedrus.

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affairs no longer existing,” whether or not that also means that the time referred to is presented as “märchenhaft.”36 The setting of the poem seems much more tangible, detailed, and real than in Idyll 1, which contributes to the autobiographical feel: the scene is set on Cos, in the company of Eucritus and Amyntas, late in the summer season, one hot afternoon, on the way from the city (Cos?) to the Haleis, where the farm of Phrasidamus and Antigenes, the sons of Lycopeus and descendants of legendary Coan noble ancestors Clytia and Chalcon, is located. The ancient spring of Bourina under its roof of elms and poplar trees, the midway grave marker of Brasilas, Mount Horomedon, and the road to Pyxa are all mentioned as landmarks on the island. Presumably these topographical details would have evoked a precise setting in the mind of the ancient reader familiar with Cos, and so a primary audience of (honorary) Coans cannot be ruled out—it may be significant to remember that Ptolemy Philadelphus was born there.37 At the same time, it is more than likely that the choice for this setting metapoetically points to the works of the literary model named at 7.40, Philitas of Cos.38 This is supported by the position of honour for Demeter in the Idyll, protagonist of Philitas’ most admired elegy in antiquity (cf. Callimachus Aetia prologue, 1.9–12). The structure of the poem is unique among Theocritus’ bucolic Idylls: a firstperson narrative about the past, which embeds a dialogue and an exchange of songs between the narrator and Lycidas, the goatherd he encounters. The other bucolic poems all either use a diegetic frame (6, 11) or present a mimetic dialogue without a frame (1, 3, 4, 5). Taking this formal observation as her cue, Gutzwiller argues that Theocritus’ poems work through “pastoral analogy,” which means that their significance lies in the analogies constructed by the poet between the herdsman characters in the main body of the poem and the figures of the narrator and his addressees in the frame. In the purely mimetic poems, there is only an implied frame, formed by the readers’ experience, and the analogy remains implicit, but in the diegetic frames of 11 and 13 this analogy is explicit. In Idyll 7, the situation is different because there is an internal narrator who exists in the frame as well as in the narrative, as his younger self. Gutzwiller suggests that this holds the key to the significance of both Simichidas and Lycidas, since

36 37 38

Resp. Gow (1952) 2.131; Wilamowitz (1924) ii.142. Clauss (2003) 289 notes that the parallels Gow adduces support both Wilamowitz’ interpretation and his own. Wilamowitz (1924) ii.136. For Philitas’ fragments see CA 90–96 and the editions of Sbardella (2000) and Spanoudakis (2002). Further see Kuchenmüller (1928), Pfeiffer (1968) 88–93, Knox (1993) and Hunter (1996) 17–19.

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the poet himself is implied in all the relationships of his autobiographical projection in the form of Simichidas. And so, as Simichidas is an analogue of Lycidas, the poet may be viewed as Lycidas’ analogue of as well. 1991, 160

In other words, there are two sides of the poet represented in this Idyll, and both are in some way an expression of “Theocritus’ ” bucolic poetics. Keeping Gutzwiller’s remark at the back of our heads, let us take a chronological look at the development of critical theorizing about the identities of Simichidas and Lycidas. 2.4 Simichidas and Lycidas39 The scholiasts predominantly read Idyll 7 as a biographical statement and assume that Simichidas is an alias, either patronymic or sobriquet, of Theocritus.40 Yet some are baffled by the use of the name and think that it cannot refer to Theocritus.41 Despite such half-hearted reservations, the biographical reading of Idyll 7 dominates until the first half of the 20th century, sometimes in the vein of the masquerade bucolique. A metapoetical or symbolic interpretation was only considered once scholars hesitantly recognized that the use of the name “Simichidas” rather than “Theocritus” might convey a difference between the narrator of the poem and the historical author (e.g., Gow 1940, 47). Subsequent scholars went further. Sanchez-Wildberger, for instance, regards Simichidas and Lycidas as “eine Doppelspiegelung des einen Theokrit” (1955, 68). However, for this to be the case, would it not be more natural to have presented the dialogue as a mime, without singling out, and so giving more weight to, 39 40

41

What follows builds on Klooster (2011) 196–208. Argumentum C ad 7.1 προλογίζει ὁ Θεόκριτος; the Byzantine epigram appended after Id. 18 in the scholia addresses the poet as Σιμιχίδα Θεόκριτε; cf. also the pseudo-Theocritean Syrinx, where the poet is called Paris Simichidas (Paris being the κριτής in the beauty contest of the goddesses, θεῶν). Nickau (2002) 389–304 considers the Syrinx genuine and thinks the choice of the name is a tribute on the part of Theocritus to the master of technopaegnia, Simias. The Vita explains that Theocritus’ father was named “Simichus,” in contradiction to the information that the name of this father was Praxagoras, as an alternative tradition in the Vita, the Suda, and AP 9.434.3 reports. Prol. 3, schol. 21a explain that the name refers to Theocritus’ physiognomy (snub nosed), which was considered typical for herdsmen, fauns, and satyrs (cf. Id. 3.8). It was considered a sign of arrogance and pertness, which fits Simichidas’ characterisation well. Suggestive, in light of the general drift of the Idyll, is also Hesychius’ gloss σιμός· τυφλός (LSJ s.v. iii). Surprisingly, they point to 7.96 to support this (οἱ δὲ ἕτερόν τινα τῶν σὺν αὐτῷ καὶ οὐ Θεόκριτον διὰ τὸ Σιμιχίδᾳ μὲν Ἔρωτες ἐπέπταρον) and ignore the fact that the name Simichidas is already introduced at 7.21 by Lycidas.

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Simichidas as narrator in control of the representation of this encounter (Segal 1981, 125, cf. Gutzwiller 1991, 160)? Händel interprets the Idyll as an encounter between Theocritus (Simichidas) and one of his own creations (“einer jener idealisierten hoch-poetischen Hirten wie man sie auch sonst in den bukolischen Idyllen findet,” 1960, 216). Essentially, this thesis of the “fictionality” of Lycidas has recently been reiterated by Payne 2007, who moreover sees Simichidas as a heteronym in the manner of the heteronyms of a modern poet like Pessoa, i.e., a branching off from the poet’s persona. Whereas scholars more or less agree on the fact that Simichidas represents some aspect of Theocritus’ poetic persona, the arguably more difficult quest for the identity of Lycidas has continued undauntedly.42 The first to make the important observation that Idyll 7 contains elements of the so-called Dichterweihe on the template of Hesiod’s Theogony was Van Groningen (1959, 24–53).43 Puelma 1960 then contributed the insight that the encounter of Simichidas and Lycidas resembles meetings between humans and gods as represented in the Homeric epics. This idea was refined and elaborated by Cameron (1963, 291–307) and Williams (1971, 137–145). Williams provides suggestive textual grounds to assume that the god in question is Apollo. Equally suggestive with entirely different arguments is Clauss (2003, 289–302) who, with important elaborations of and additions to elements provided by Brown (1981, 59–100), among them an acrostic in lines 7.135–138, argues that Lycidas is Pan. Several other intriguing identifications have been proposed.44 Segal (1981, 122) remains agnostic, stating: “Lycidas’ divinity remains a hint only, a suggestion which the alert reader will keep in the back of his mind.” He also creates a range of new possibilities by dispensing with exclusive identifications and calling Lycidas “a symbol” (1981, 114): A symbol cannot mean whatever the critic wants it to mean, but it is important to recognize that a symbol may have several related and interconnected meanings. Precisely because of the range of such interrelated meanings we can return to a literary work again and again and never fully exhaust its significance. (…) Thus there is no necessary contradiction in

42 43

44

Cf. Petroll (1965) 32. These elements are: a meeting, the ironic/abusive tone of the greeting, and the reference to springs (Bourina as the bucolic equivalent of Hippocrene). Most important is the handing of the stick by Lycidas to Simichidas as a “guest gift from the Muses” (7.129), which equals the handing of a laurel branch to Hesiod by the Muses. See Kambylis (1963) on the Hesiodic Dichterweihe and Theocritus’ interpretation of it. Lawall (1967): a satyr; Bowie (1985) 67–97 a character from Philitas’ (lost) poetry.

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regarding Lycidas as a god, as an aspect of Theocritus’ poetic personality or (…) as a symbol of bucolic inspiration in general. While to some readers this may seem like the easy way out, it has the advantage of allowing that Theocritus may have hinted at more than a singular identification. It seems possible that Theocritus deliberately made Lycidas combine elements of the earthy Pan and the sublime Apollo, just as the first Idyll combines Dionysian and Apollonian elements and just as the Idylls in general derive much of their peculiar effect from oppositions between the bathetic and the sublime. Perhaps Lycidas is a Pan-like Apollo, or an Apollo-like Pan? At the same time, it remains undeniable that, as Gutzwiller states (1991, 160), the two poets represented in the Idyll are analogues of each other (as their names with similar endings already suggest), even if “Simichidas” is closer to the poet’s “I” on formal grounds. The two of them represent a series of oppositions: between young and old, naive and experienced, city dweller and countryman, and selfimportant and modest. 2.5 Polemical Poetics and Initiation The exchange between Lycidas and Simichidas is entirely focused on poetics, and has an agonistic as well as a mildly polemical slant, a typical hallmark of bucolic (cf. 4, 5, 6, 10). As Giangrande and Segal have shown, Lycidas is older and wiser and in all likelihood the better poet.45 Simichidas is young and self-important (7.30–41; 91–95) and condescending towards Lycidas (7.27–29; 94–95), the “rural nobody” (Hunter), who answers him with an amused smile always playing around his lips (7.19–20; 42; 128). Since there is a distinct possibility that Lycidas is not simply what he appears to be, the youthful arrogance of Simichidas gains a humorous edge, which at the same time is turned into a refined statement about poetry, since the poem as such invites readers to look beyond what Simichidas knew at the time he is portraying in his narrative. Such implicit and layered irony is the work of the subtle poet that Simichidas has apparently developed into by the time of his reminiscing about this poetical initiation—the mature Theocritus? The poetical and friendly polemical tone of the meeting and subsequent exchange of songs is set when Simichidas as narrator declares that they met Lycidas σὺν Μοίσαισι (7.12). Next Lycidas, remarking on Simichidas’ unseasonable haste at the noontime, declares that every stone sings as it flies from Simichidas’ boots (7.26). Simichidas, who is aware of the reputation of Lycidas

45

Giangrande (1968) 491–533; Segal (1974) 128–136.

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as syrinx player, invites him to a bucolic exchange (7.36), claiming that he is likewise a “clear mouthpiece of the Muses” and has the reputation of being “an excellent singer” (7.37–38). With a show of pretend humility he claims that he knows that he is “not yet as good as Sicelidas from Samos or Philitas, vying like a frog with crickets” (7.39–41). His choice of poetic models reveals his aspiration, because these were the poets most en vogue at the time Theocritus was young: Philitas, the Coan poet and critic, was the tutor of the Ptolemaic princes, and Asclepiades (who is referred to here as Sicelidas) is a well-known epigrammatist and a voice clearly heard in Alexandrian poetic debates.46 We do not learn that these poets ever engaged in bucolic poetry; it may well be their fame that principally attracts Simichidas. Lycidas’ reply shows that he has the measure of Simichidas: ‘τάν τοι … κορύναν δωρύττομαι, οὕνεκεν ἐσσί / πᾶν ἐπ’ ἀλαθείαι πεπλασμένον ἐκ Διὸς ἔρνος’ (“I give you my stick since you are a shoot of Zeus all fashioned for truth,” 7.43–44). The surface meaning here is clear: Lycidas laughs at Simichidas’ transparent pretend humility. But as scholars have argued, there might be a metapoetical meaning in these words, since the word πλάττομαι is the technical term for “making up fictional stories/characters.” What Lycidas could therefore be saying is “you are a successful fiction.” This in turn might mean several things: that Simichidas is a “pretend” bucolic poet (he is after all not really a herdsman); or, more complexly, that the whole poem is inherently about fiction, and that fiction is at the basis of bucolic poetry.47 After his intriguing statement Lycidas approves of Simichidas’ poetical alliances, Philitas and Sicelidas, by using an elaborate simile with bucolic elements: Just as I hate the builder who seeks to build a house as high as the peak of Mount Horomedon, so also the birds of the Muses who labor in vain, crowing against the Chian bard. 7.45–48

The poetics Lycidas here espouses in a bucolic mode are clearly akin to Callimachus’ ideas in the Aetia prologue and the Hymn to Apollo. Modest and small poetry deserves more praise than overblown Homerizing constructions. It is surprising to hear a goatherd on Cos expressing these advanced Alexandrian

46 47

See the Scholia Florentina at PSI 11.1219, Harder (2012) i.121–122. For different views see: Segal (1981) 170–171; Walsh (1985) 19; Goldhill (1991) 232; Hunter (1999) 163–164; Gutzwiller (1991) 166; Payne (2007) 118–123, 128.

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poetics of leptotes, and this too has fueled the search for Lycidas’ hidden identity: is he perhaps meant to represent Callimachus, or a Callimachean Apollo? After his words Lycidas is ready to start singing what he modestly calls ‘τοῦθ’ ὅτι πρᾶν ἐν ὄρει τὸ μελύδριον ἐξεπόνασα’ (“This little song I worked out earlier on the mountain,” 7.51). The mountain may constitute a gesture towards the initiation of Hesiod, on Mount Helicon; Simichidas tries to cap this claim in the introduction to his own song. Lycidas’ song (7.52–89) starts out with a propemptikon for Ageanax, combining the themes of Lycidas’ burning erotic desire and the calm that detachment through poetry can bring. It cleverly works this detachment into the structure of the song itself, by means of the embedding of songs within songs. The opening evokes a miraculously calm winter sea, symbolizing the emotional peace desired by the singer, over which Ageanax may sail to Mytilene (home of archaic Lesbian love poetry). Lycidas continues to describe a rustic symposium at which he will preside, lying on a leafy couch, drinking wine, eating roasted beans, and listening to the bucolic song of Tityrus about Daphnis’ tragic love and about the blessed divine goatherd Comatas, who was enclosed in a box and fed by bees on account of his sweet voice.48 The song ends with a wish that Lycidas could have been a contemporary of Comatas and herded his beautiful goats, listening to his sweet song. Daphnis could not save himself by song, Comatas could; the song in the song about these herdsmen in turn implicitly saves Lycidas from his burning desires, bringing him detachment and peace. Ageanax seems all but forgotten, once the song is over. Simichidas takes over. He does not comment upon Lycidas’ achievement, but likewise says he was taught his song—among many other songs!—by the Nymphs while herding cows on the mountain (ἀν’ ὤρεα βουκολέοντα, 7.92). In view of his provenance from the city and his distinctly urban outfit (7.24–26), this sounds unlikely.49 Simichidas moreover claims that his songs have reached the throne of Zeus—usually understood to refer to Ptolemy Philadelphus, who was, we may remember, born on Cos. The song (7.96–127) purports to give erotic advice to Aratus, who is in love with Philinus. Again, the theme of freedom from erotic desire is key (ἁσυχία, here explicitly mentioned at 7.126), but it seems less integrated in the song, which appears to strive—not entirely convincingly—to imitate Lycidas’ complex embedding of voices. It opens confusingly by referring to Simichidas in the third person (“the Loves have sneezed for Simichidas,” 7.96). The mention of

48 49

The scholia ad loc. claim that this story was made up by Theocritus. Giangrande (1968) 491–493.

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Aristis at 7.99 suggests that the song is really (meant to be performed) by Aristis, “a noble man, outstanding, whom even Phoebus himself would not deny to sing by his tripods (7.100–101).” The mention of Apollo is, suggestively, followed closely by a prayer to Pan, who is threatened and wheedled by means of obscure ritual (bucolic) threats to make Philinus, the object of Aratus’ affections, give in to him. The poem ends with a direct address to Aratus, counseling to give Philinus up, as he is overripe,50 and the wish for peace of mind. Afterwards, Lycidas, ever smiling, hands Simichidas the crooked staff (λαγωβόλον, 7.128) as a guest gift from the Muses (ἐκ Μοισᾶν, 7.129). This act is laden with metapoetical significance: it replaces the Hesiodic laurel branch of Apollo with the lagobolon (stick to catch hares) traditionally associated with Pan, toning down the sublimity of a poetic initiation to the level of the rural and bucolic, in a way reminiscent of the kissybion in 1. Besides, it shows Lycidas as the host granting guest gifts to the passer-through Simichidas, the city dweller. The gift’s provenance “from the Muses” suggests Lycidas’ special relation with these divinities; he is their servant or companion. After taking his leave, Lycidas takes a different road, and is not mentioned again, but his influence still hovers over the description of the rural symposium. 2.6 The Blending of Bucolic Voices Before looking at this last section of the poem, I first analyze the structure of the two songs of Lycidas and Simichidas, which both feature a central structural element of bucolic song, the embedding of songs, here combined with the blending of poetic voices (polyphony).51 Bucolic poetry is poetry about herdsmen and by herdsmen; it has its origins in Theocritus’ own poetry while inscribing in itself a sense of tradition. Structurally, this is underlined by the fact that the bucolic Idylls represent poetry made out of poetry and about poetry. The poems consistently embed other voices, other songs. In Idyll 1, Daphnis is both the (original) herdsman poet and the (original) subject of bucolic song; he is embedded in Thyrsis’ song, which is in turn embedded in Theocritus’ poetry. In Idyll 7, a poem by Theocritus, but reported by “Simichidas,” both Lycidas and Simichidas sing songs in which other (bucolic) singers feature. Lycidas sings about a rural symposium at which “Tityrus will sing about how Daphnis the cowherd loved Xenea … and he will sing how once a wide coffer received the goatherd [Comatas] alive by the impious presumption of a king …” (7.71–79).

50 51

Echoes of Archilochean iambus have been noted here, cf. Hunter (1999) 188. The following builds on Klooster (2011) 200–207.

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Finally, Lycidas even addresses this legendary goatherd directly: “Oh blessed Comatas, you too suffered this fate …” (7.83). Both Daphnis and Comatas repeatedly feature in Theocritus’ poetry, both as singers and subjects of song.52 Ultimately, this means that the multiple voices of Theocritus, who gives a voice to his alter ego Simichidas, and Simichidas, who recounts the song of Lycidas, and Lycidas, who sings of the song of Tityrus, and Tityrus, who addresses the mythical goatherd-poet Comatas, all converge. The poem is even more convoluted thanks to the fact that Lycidas’ song visualizes a future, addresses a legendary and already ancient poet, and is simultaneously recalled by Simichidas as something he heard “once upon a time.” Through this conflation of voices and layers of time, the elusive Comatas is ultimately addressed by Theocritus the poet, or by whosoever of his readers is reciting the poem. Bucolic song thus simultaneously stresses the distance and elusiveness of its origins and brings them to life in the present through performance. Something similar applies to the song of Simichidas. Simichidas sings about one Aristis (7.99), who sings about the love of Aratus, who is finally apostrophized, like Comatas.53 It would enhance the structural similarity between the songs of Lycidas and Simichidas if the intended Aratus is to be identified with the poet of the same name.54 In any case, Aratus also features in Idyll 6 and 13, in the addresses by the narrator. Instead of spiraling into the bucolic legendary never-never land of the past, then, the song stays in the present and in “the real world.” Simichidas is closer to the actual world of the poet, whereas Lycidas is closer to the mythical world of bucolic poetry. Still, both complement each other as bucolic singers, caught in bucolic song, the invention of Theocritus. 2.7 Closure Before rounding off with a farewell to Demeter, Idyll 7 impressionistically sketches a lush, rural symposium in a place which has all the characteristics of a locus amoenus (or “songscape”): soft beds made of reeds and vines, shady trees, a holy spring, humming bees, songful insects and birds, sweet smells, fruits of the season aplenty, and finally an excellent wine; all five senses are gratified

52 53 54

Daphnis: Id. 1, song of Thyrsis; Id. 5, mentioned by Comatas; Id. 6; Comatas is a singer in Id. 5. See Hunter (1999) 180–182; Klooster (2011) 202. The scholia (arg. ad. Id. 6) suggest identifying him with the poet from Soloi. Wilamowitz (1894) 182 questioned this. For arguments pro see Hubbard (1998) 27; contra Gow (1951) i.118–119; Hunter (1999) 243. Some Aratean echoes in Theocritus which strengthen the case for identification can be found in Pendergraft (1986) 47–54.

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(7.131–155). Numerous elements of this symposium are by now recognizable as poetic symbols: reeds and vines; poetry and the Dionysian element; songful animals symbolizing the harmony between bucolic poets and nature; water and wine as two opposing ideals (Apollonian and Dionysian?) of poetry; bees as a symbol of the poet; and the plentiful fruits that symbolize the harvest of bucolic poetry, which this poem may have capped in antiquity. Many of these elements are recognizably taken from the song of Lycidas (the rural couches, the shady trees, the bees, and the songful harmony of nature). The enraptured description of the wine on the other hand evolves into a series of ironically learned hyperbolical rhetorical questions, which seems much more akin to the style of Simichidas’ song: Castalian Nymphs, ye who haunt the Parnassian ridges, was it, then, a similar draught old man Chiron mixed for brawny Heracles in the stony cave of Pholus? Was it such nectar as this that persuaded the herdsman of the Anapus, brawny Polyphemus, who aimed rocks at ships, to dance on his feet in the folds, such as the one you then mixed together, Nymphs, by the altar of Demeter of the threshing floor? 7.148–155

And so the poem ends with a blending of the two samples of poetry that made up its core in the form of the reported songs, and with a wish for many happy returns, symbolized by the Odyssean planting of a great winnowing fan on the heap of smiling Demeter: the bucolic harvest is done.

Bibliography Aguirre de Zárate, S. (2012), “El mito de Dafnis en el Idillio 1 de Téocrito. Posibles interpretaciones,” REC 39, 13–41. Bernsdorff, H. (1994), “Polyphem und Daphnis: Zu Theokrits sechstem Idyll,” Philologus 138, 38–51. Bowie, E.L. (1985), “Theocritus’ Seventh Idyll, Philetas and Longus,” CQ 35, 67–97. Cairns, F. (1984), “Theocritus’ First Idyll: The Literary Programme,” Wiener Studien 97, 89–113. Calame (1992), “Espaces liminaux et voix discursives dans l’Idylle 1 de Théocrite: une civilisation de poète,” in C. Calame (ed.), Figures grecques de l’intermédiaire (Lausanne) 59–85. Clauss, J.J. (2003), “Once upon a Time on Cos: A Banquet with Pan on the Side in Theocritus’ Idyll 7,” HSCPh 101, 289–302.

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Dover, K.J. (1971), Theocritus: Select Poems (Oxford). Edquist, H. (1975), “Aspects of Theocritean Otium,” Ramus 4, 101–114. Elliger, W. (1975), Die Darstellung der Landschaft in der griechischen Dichtung (Berlin/New York). Erp Taalman Kip, A.M. van (1987), “And Daphnis Went to the Stream: The Meaning of Theocritus’ 1.140–141,” Hermes 115, 249–251. Fantuzzi, M./Hunter, R. (2005), Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge). Foster, J.A. (2016), Reading Voices. Five Studies in Theocritus’ Narrative Techniques (New York). Fowler, D.P. (1991), “Narrate and Describe: The Problem of Ekphrasis,” The Journal of Roman Studies 81, 25–35. Gallavotti, C. (1966), “Le coppe istoriate di Teocrito e di Virgilio,” Parola del Passato 21, 421–436. Giangrande (1968), “Théocrite, Simichidas et les Thalysies,” AC 37, 491–553. Goldhill, S. (1991), The Poet’s Voice: Essays on Poetics and Greek Literature (Cambridge). Gow, A.S.F. (1952), Theocritus Vols. i: Text and ii: Commentary (Oxford). Griffin, J. (1992), “Theocritus, the Iliad and the East,” AJPh 113, 189–211. Gutzwiller, K.J. (1991), Theocritus’ Pastoral Analogies: The Formation of a Genre (Madison, WI). Gutzwiller, K.J. (1996), “The Evidence for Theocritean Poetry Books,” in M.A. Harder/ R.F. Regtuit/G.C. Wakker (eds.), Theocritus (Groningen) 119–148. Harder, M.A. (2012), Callimachus, Aetia, vols. i and ii (Oxford). Halperin, D.M. (1983), Before Pastoral: Theocritus and the Ancient Tradition of Bucolic Poetry (New Haven). Hubbard, K.T. (1998), The Pipes of Pan: Intertextual and Literary Filiation in the Pastoral Tradition from Theocritus to Milton (Ann Arbor). Hunter, R.L. (1996), Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry (Cambridge). Hunter, R.L. (1999), Theocritus: A Selection (Cambridge). Kambylis, A. (1965), Die Dichterweihe und ihre Symbolik. Untersuchungen zu Hesiodos, Kallimachos, Properz und Ennius (Heidelberg). Klooster, J.J.H. (2011), Poetry as Window and Mirror. Positioning the Poet in Hellenistic Poetry (Leiden). Klooster, J.J.H. (2012), “Theocritus,” in I.J.F. De Jong (ed.), Space in Ancient Greek Literature, (Leiden) 99–120. Knox, P. (1993), “Philetas and Roman Poetry,” Papers of the Leeds International Latin Seminar 7, 61–63. Köhnken, A. (2008), “Hellenistic Chronology: Theocritus, Callimachus, and Apollonius Rhodius,” in Th. Papanghelis/A. Rengakos (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Apollonius Rhodius, 2nd revised ed. (Leiden) 73–94.

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Koopman, N. (2018), Ancient Greek Ekphrasis: Between Description and Narration (Leiden). Kuchenmüller, W. (1928), Philetae Coi reliquiae (Diss. Berlin). Lawall, G. (1967), Theocritus’ Coan Pastorals: A Poetry Book (Cambridge, MA). Manakidou, F. (1992), Beschreibung von Kunstwerken in der hellenistischen Dichtung, Stuttgart. Miles, G.B. (1977), “Characterization and the Ideal of Innocence in Theocritus’ Idylls,” Ramus 6, 139–164. Morrison, A.D. (2007), The Narrator in Archaic Greek and Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge). Ogilvie, R.M. (1962), “The Song of Thyrsis,” JHS 82, 106–110. Ott, U. (1969), Die Kunst des Gegensatzes in Theokrits Hirtengedichten (Hildesheim). Payne, M. (2007), Theocritus and the Invention of Fiction (Cambridge). Pendergraft, M. (1986), “Aratean Echoes in Theocritus,” QUCC 53, 47–54. Petroll, R. (1965), Die Äusserungen Theokrits über seine Person und seine Dichtung, (Hamburg). Pfeiffer, R. (1968), History of Classical Scholarship. Vol. 1: From the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age (Oxford). Prescott, H.W. (1899), “A Study of the Daphnis Myth,” HSCPh 10, 121–140. Reitzenstein, R. (1893), Epigramm und Skolion: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte alexandrinischen Dichtung (Hildesheim). Ruijgh, C.J. (1984), “Le Dorien de Théocrite: Dialecte Cyrénien d’Alexandrie et d’Égypte,” Mnemosyne 37, 56–88. Sbardella, L. (2003), Filita, Frammenti e testimonianze poetici (Roma). Schmidt, E.A. (1987), Bukolische Leidenschaft oder über antike Hirtenpoesie (Frankfurt). Segal, C.P. (1974), “Simichidas’ Modesty: Theocritus’ Idyll 7.44,” AJPh 95, 128–136. Segal, C.P. (1981), Poetry and Myth in Ancient Pastoral: Essays on Theocritus and Virgil, Princeton. Spanoudakis, K. (2002), Philitas of Cos (Leiden). Squire, M. (2009), Image and Text in Graeco-Roman Antiquity (Cambridge). Stanzel, K.H. (1995), Liebende Hirten: Theokrits Bukolik und die alexandrinische Poesie (Stuttgart/Leipzig). Walsh, G.B. (1985), “Seeing and Feeling: Representation in Two Poems of Theocritus,” CPh 85, 1–12. Waszink, J.H. (1974), Biene und Honig als Symbols des Dichters und der Dichtung in der griechisch-römischen Antike (Opladen). Weingarth, G. (1967), Zu Theokrits 7. Idyll (Diss. Freiburg). White, H. (1979), Studies in Theocritus and Other Hellenistic Poets (Amsterdam). Wilamowitz-Möllendorff, U. von (1894), “Aratos von Kos,” Nachrichten von der

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Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, 182–199. Wilamowitz-Möllendorff, U. von (1906), Die Textgeschichte der griechischen Bukoliker (Berlin). Wilamowitz-Möllendorff, U. von (1924), Hellenistische Dichtung in der Zeit des Kallimachos, 2 vols. (Berlin). Zanker, G. (2004), Modes of Viewing in Hellenistic Poetry and Art (Madison, WI). Zimmerman, C. (1994), The Pastoral Narcissus: A Study of the First Idyll of Theocritus (Lanham, MD).

chapter 16

Theocritus and the Visual Arts Évelyne Prioux

Even though the relationship between Theocritus’ poetry and art has been studied by several scholars,1 there is only one description of a work of art (ekphrasis)2 in the Idylls. Nevertheless, other works of art are present in Theocritus’ poetry in the form of short allusions and, sometimes, our knowledge of ancient works of art may help us shed light on the meaning of a given passage: the poets and the artists of the Alexandrian court indeed shared some common interests and preoccupations. It is also important to mention the few but remarkable cases in which Theocritus’ poetry inspired the artists and was illustrated, both in ancient and modern times.

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Ekphrasis in Theocritus

1.1 Precious Artworks as Metapoetic Symbols The only ekphrasis in the Idylls, the goatherd’s cup (Id. 1.27–60), has been repeatedly interpreted as a metapoetic allegory that Theocritus designed in order to present his poetic agenda. Cups are known to be one of the many metaphors that ancient authors used to speak about poetry.3 Moreover, the goatherd’s cup of Idyll 1 ends with the image of a boy weaving a cage for cicadas, and weaving and cicadas are both frequent symbols for poetry.4 The strong 1 On interactions between art and Theocritus’ poetry, see Brunn (1906); Gow (1913); Adriani (1966); Nicosia (1968); Belloni (2010); Cozzoli (2010); Linant de Bellefonds/Prioux (2018), ch. 7. For the similarity of interests between Theocritus and contemporary artists, see Zanker (2004); Prioux (2012a); Fulińska (2013); Robert (2015). 2 Here I take ekphrasis in its modern and restrictive meaning: description of a work of art. See Webb (2009). 3 One of the clearest examples is Anacreontea, 4. See Faber (1995); Nünlist (1998) 136, 197, 205; Faber (2000); Gutzwiller (2014); Prioux (2016); Faber (forthcoming, a and b); Prioux (forthcoming). The cup metaphor is related to the many metaphors that equate poetry with a drink or libation (especially of water, wine, or milk) and the making of poetry with a state of drunkenness or soberness (Nünlist (1998) 178–205). Since cups are often decorated and are man-made artifacts, it is also related to the various metaphors that assimilate the art of the poet to visual arts and craftsmanship (Nünlist (1998) 83–125). 4 Segal (1981) 27.

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links between the cup’s three vignettes and archaic poetry also suggest that Theocritus intended to make a statement about his relationship to epos: the cup is finely wrought, as the divine shields that were made for Achilles in Iliad 18 and for Heracles in the pseudo-Hesiodic Aspis, but it is in the hands of a goatherd and is made of wood, not of precious materials.5 As was shown by Ott,6 the three motifs engraved on the cup are nevertheless derived from these famous archaic ekphraseis: motifs 1 (32–38) and 3 (45–54) echo scenes from the shield of Achilles,7 and motif 2 (39–44) comes from the Aspis. As Cairns has also demonstrated, this ekphrasis encapsulates a poetic program that the reader would have been able to identify through the presence of varied metaphors and hints in the entire Idyll.8 Idyll 1 was probably the first poem in Theocritus’ poetry book9 and, as such, it contains a number of programmatic details. Concerning the cup itself, we learn that it has been washed in the spring of the Horae (150), which could be a Theocritean equivalent of the programmatic water imagery known from other Hellenistic poems. The ekphrasis also plays on the topos that equates a cup and its contents with poetry itself, a metaphor present in archaic lyric poetry. Wax and ivy, the two materials used by the cup’s maker, have complex literary connotations and are connected in other programmatic texts, while the woodworking and the old fisherman evoke the idea of πόνος. The way in which the vegetal and ornamental motifs run around the cup is described through the weaving metaphor (29), a motif well attested in metaliterary contexts. Furthermore, Posidippus seems to allude to the goatherd’s cup of Idyll 1 in an epigram which is set in a programmatic position in the Milan papyrus.10 As we have seen, this ornate ivy cup is a complex mixture of rusticity and refinement, two characteristics that may define Theocritus’ literary program. The topic of the Idylls (their ὕλη—material/subject matter) is rustic or pastoral, but they are written with τέχνη (art). As Belloni has correctly noted,11 the same alliance between rusticity and refined art recurs in Idyll 5.104–105, when Comatas claims to possess a milk-pail made of cypress and a crater wrought by 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Dubel (2010); Belloni (2010) 319. Ott (1969) 99–110. Compare motif 1, l. 32–38, with Il. 18.490–508; motif 2, l. 39–44, with Aspis, 207–215; motif 3, l. 45–54, with Il. 18.561–586. Motif 3 may also recall the anecdote on Aeschylus’ poetic initiation, which happened in his childhood, as he was guarding grapes in a vineyard (Paus. 1.21.2). Cairns (1984); Prioux (2012b). The three families of manuscripts (Vatican, Ambrosian and Laurentian) all place Idyll 1 at the beginning of the book. See Gutzwiller (1996). See Posidippus 3 A.-B., with the commentary of Belloni (2015). Belloni (2010).

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Praxiteles. It seems pointless to note that a real-life goatherd would never have owned silverware made by Praxiteles or to wonder whether Theocritus rather refers to one of the great artist’s namesakes. The objects that Comatas mentions indeed form a deliberately contrasting pair, in which the milk-pail serves as a symbol of the pastoral ὕλη of the Idylls, whereas the crater—a perfect symbol of mixture—can be interpreted as an emblem of Theocritus’ refined art (an art that can be equated to that of Praxiteles) and of the erotic dimension of his poetry (Praxiteles was indeed famous for his representations of the Thespian Eros and the Cnidian Aphrodite). In Idyll 1, the goatherd’s cup is described as νεοτευχές (28), an adjective that brings to mind the Hellenistic claim to novelty and originality. Interestingly, this characteristic is shared by several “works of art” or man-made objects that Theocritus mentions in other Idylls: the banquet beds in Idyll 7.133–134 are made of “sweet reeds” (ἁδείας σχοίνοιο) and “newly cut” (νεοτμάτοισι) vine leaves. In Idyll 18.3 Menelaus’ bedchamber is described as νεογράπτω (“newly painted”), but no further details are provided.12 In Idyll 24.44, Amphitryon reaches out for his “newly woven” (νεοκλώστου) belt. Several epigrams ascribed to Theocritus also use similar compounds: in epigram 3, Daphnis’ stakes have been recently made or planted (ἀρτιπαγεῖς) in the mountains;13 epigram 4 describes a rustic statue of Priapus as newly carved (ἀρτιγλυφές). This praise of newly wrought objects can be understood as metapoetic: Theocritus stresses the beauty and interest of new and recent works of art and, similarly, the Idylls can be valued for representing a new form of poetry. Other works of art are praised for the richness of their material or for the work that went into their elaboration: the spindle that Theocritus intends to offer to the wife of his friend Nicias (Id. 28) is not described, and the reader is left to imagine “an object made of ivory wrought with much toil” (8). As in the case of the cup, Theocritus is interested in an object that evokes weaving and spinning, two actions that are also metaphors for poetry.14 Being presented as a gift offered to his hostess by a poet who travels to a new town, the spindle may also represent the trip of the book itself and provide a nice closure for a poetry book. Idyll 15 also mentions works of art that are showcases of their makers’

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Lamari (1998) claimed that this word was in fact a hint suggesting that the entire Idyll 18 was the ekphrasis of a contemporary painting showing Menelaus’ bedchamber. Nothing supports this hypothesis. See also Id. 26.8 (νεοδρέπτων). On the spinning metaphor, see Gutzwiller (2020); on the weaving metaphor, see Nosch (2014); Fanfani (2017); Peigney (forthcoming). Erinna was famous for having written a poem called The Spindle.

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πόνος (toil) and ἀκρίβεια (precision): although Theocritus does not provide us with any details about the woven tapestries that are exhibited in the Royal Palace, it is easy to understand them as metaphors for the vividness of Theocritus’ poetry. This possibility is made clear by the insistence on the vocabulary of painting/writing (γράφειν) and on the lifelike quality and movement of figures that inevitably recall Theocritus’ representation of the Syracusan women and their interactions with one another and with other characters (80–83). 1.2 Art Seen through the Eyes of Women and Rustics Idyll 15 introduces us to one of the important aspects of Theocritus’ references to art: when artifacts are mentioned in the Idylls, they are seen through the eyes and emotional reactions of women or rustics and are “read” by people who are very much unlike the scholarly milieu of the Alexandrian court. The cup of Idyll 1 is marvelled at by a goatherd and the tapestries of the Royal Palace are admired by the Syracusan women. Goldhill has argued convincingly that this focus on the fictional onlooker was one of the major characteristics of Hellenistic ekphrasis.15 By indicating the responses of his characters to art, Theocritus allows us to discover their ethos and the result may be humorous, as when Bucaeus imagines that, if he were a rich man, he would dedicate a gold statue of himself and his beloved Bombyca (Id. 10.33–35), a girl whose beauty seems quite questionable (Id. 10.27): χρύσεοι ἀμφότεροί κ’ ἀνεκείμεθα τᾷ Ἀφροδίτᾳ, τὼς αὐλὼς μὲν ἔχοισα καὶ ἢ ῥόδον ἢ τύγε μᾶλον, σχῆμα δ’ ἐγὼ καὶ καινὰς ἐπ’ ἀμφοτέροισιν ἀμύκλας. Then should we both stand in gold as offerings to Aphrodite—thou with pipes, and a rosebud or an apple, and I with raiment new and new shoes of Amyclae on either foot.16 For Bucaeus, the detail of the brand-new shoes is apparently very important: with its gold and its attention to clothing, the statue must show the social status that he dreams of having. References to the visual arts are also occasionally used by Theocritus’ characters to express their emotions, and especially sexual desire: to express his

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Goldhill (1994). All translations of the Idylls are by Gow.

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emotion in front of Amaryllis’ beauty, the goatherd of Idyll 3 states that she is πᾶν λίθος (“all of marble”, 18), that is to say, that her skin is as white as a statue17 and that her sight provokes the same aesthetic pleasure as a statue would. In Idyll 6, Polyphemus contemplates his reflection in water, as if he were some new Narcissus, and states that his teeth seemed “brighter and whiter than Parian marble” (38). Some ancient readers of Theocritus even expected his poems to contain more references to art than they actually do: at 6.18, it is said that Galatea’s beauty τὸν ἀπὸ γραμμᾶς κινεῖ λίθον (“is able to move the pebble from the line”). Although this phrase is likely a reference to a board game (πεττεία), several scholiasts thought that it meant that Galatea would be able to inspire love even to a stone.18 1.3

The Works of Art in the Epigrams: Votive Offerings to the Gods and Metapoetic Portraits of Archaic Poets Unlike the Idylls, the epigrams that have been transmitted under the name of Theocritus mention a significant number of works of art, especially statues. These fall mainly into two categories: votive offerings to the gods and portraits of archaic poets. The Theocritean epigrams were apparently assembled in a book some time between 100 and 40bce,19 and this lost book served as a source both for the Palatine Anthology and for the Bucolic manuscripts of the Ambrosian family. Book 6 of the Palatine Anthology provides us with a group of four epigrams on votive statues of gods (6.337–340); they also stand close to one another in the Ambrosian manuscript (epigrams 8, 10, 12–13), but not as the continuous series that we know in the Anthology. The gods that Theocritus mentions in these epigrams are the ones that were important for the Ptolemaic dynasty (gods with which the queens or the kings were identified) and for poetry. The reader comes across the following votive offerings: a statue of Asclepius—a god much honored in Cos, where Ptolemy was born (AP 6.337); a group representing the nine Muses (338); a statue of Dionysus and a tripod (339); a statue of Aphrodite Ourania (340)—Arsinoe ii received a cult as Arsinoe-Aphrodite, and Aphrodite Ourania was famously honored in the sanctuary of Elis, which held authority over the Olympic games and thus interested the Ptolemies as a panhellenic site. Theocritus promotes contemporary art and a conception of 17 18

19

See the Scholia in Theocritum 3.18a. See e.g., Scholia in Theocritum 6.18–19a: καὶ λίθινον, φησίν, ἄγαλμα δύναται εἰς ἔρωτα αὐτῆς ἐπισπάσασθαι· τὴν δὲ τοῦ κάλλους ὑπερβολὴν θαυμάζει (“even a stone statue, he says, would fall in love with her; he marvels at her extraordinary beauty”). Gutzwiller (1996a).

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the τέχναι in which excellence in one art can be compared to excellence in the other: his epigram on the statue of Asclepius offered by his friend Nicias suggests that the man who became, with the help of the god, such an accomplished doctor asked an accomplished sculptor to carve a beautiful statue. Moreover, the critical vocabulary that Theocritus uses to celebrate this statue could also apply to poetry and to the stylistic qualities of the epigram: Eetion has put all his art (πᾶσαν … τέχνην) in this statue and his “hand” (his manner, his style, and his work) is characterized with the term γλαφυρά, a word which is pervasive in Hellenistic literary criticism.20 All these epigrams revolve around the notion of χάρις (grace, gratitude, favour, goodwill)—a term which applied both to ethics (society was based on the exchange of χάρις between mortals and between the king and his subjects, while religion was based on the exchange of χάρις between gods and mortals) and to aesthetics (a work of art/poem seduces its viewer/reader because it is full of grace). For instance, Nicias is characterized as a pious man (he offers sacrifices to Asclepius each day) and the god acknowledges this by visiting him; to thank the god, Nicias then offers a statue, and promises an extraordinary reward (ἄκρον … μισθόν) to the artist, who, in turn, puts all his art in the statue. Theocritus’ epigrams also contain a poem on a statue of Priapus (AP 9.437). The statue, located in a sacred precinct in a garden, receives the prayer of the speaker. The poet plays on humorous references to the god’s unbridled sexuality: the newly cut (ἀρτιγλυφές) statue is made of fig-wood (figs are often a sexual symbol) and has three legs (the size of his penis equates that of his two legs!). It is the work of a rustic, since it still has its bark on (αὐτόφλοιον) and has no ears (ἀνούατον). This series of adjectives contribute to the poem’s enargeia by providing many details (ἀκριβολογία). The speaker prays for an end to his desire, but the reader can easily infer that a god with no ears will not be able to listen (18: ἀίοι “listen!”) and that a god with such an imposing organ will not be willing to alleviate the speaker’s sexual desire. After these epigrams on statues of gods, another coherent group of sculptures is offered by the epigrams on archaic poets (AP 7.664, 9.598–600 = 17–18 and 21–22 in the Ambrosian manuscript). These epigrams deal with bronze statues of the following poets: Anacreon, Epicharmus, Archilochus, and Pisander. The reader is repeatedly asked to look intently as if the statues were in front of his eyes (7.664.1; 9.599.1–2). These four epigrams are not written in elegiac distichs, but imitate the poetry and meters of the authors under con20

See Pollitt (1974) s.v. γλαφυρός. This adjective implies qualities such as subtlety, precision, and polish. It is also Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ term for the middle style, along with “flowery” (ἀνθηρός).

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sideration. But unlike other epigrammatists who accurately described certain visual details of the portraits that they cited (see especially Leonidas of Tarentum 31 GP = APl 306, on the statue of Anacreon), Theocritus provides us with no information about the appearance of these statues, either forcing his readers to recall portraits that they may have seen in cultural institutions or even demonstrating playfully, through the vanity of his ekphraseis, the impossibility of knowing what these poets of the distant past were truly like.21

2

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The Visual Koine of Theocritus’ Readers Royal Portraits, Humble People and Pastoral Landscapes: A New Sensibility Shared by Artists and Poets? A number of studies have noted general thematic similarities between Theocritus’ Idylls and Hellenistic or Roman art. In most cases, these similarities are very general and merely show that the poet shared the sensibility of contemporary visual artists. The complex interplay of divine and human features that characterizes Theocritus’ representation of Ptolemy ii and of his family is one of the many manifestations of this shared sensibility: Hellenistic royal portraits often combined individual and “idealized” features, and repeatedly introduced divine attributes in royal portraits.22 It seems that Theocritus’ numerous references to the flora of the pastoral landscape and the humble social background of many of his characters were also part of this new sensibility. When commenting on the pastoral Idylls, several scholars have indeed suspected that Theocritus shared an eye for the new with contemporary artists and have speculated on the possible existence of landscape paintings and reliefs in third-century Alexandria.23 The cup of Idyll 1 and the general atmosphere of the Idylls have

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See Bing (1988); Rossi (2001); Prioux (2007) 12–18. Prioux (2012a). Another parallel between text and images is offered by the representation of Ptolemy ii as Heracles strangling the serpents. One can indeed compare Idyll 24 with the early Hellenistic bronze protomai that were found in Egypt and that represent a baby Heracles with individualized features, perhaps those of Ptolemy ii (see New York, Brooklyn Museum, 63.185; New York, private collection (Moshe Bronstein)): Laubscher (1997) 150–159; Prioux (2008) 294; Linant de Bellefonds/Prioux (2018) 292–296. Adriani (1959); Nicosia (1968) esp. 84; Zanker (2004). Although Zanker emphasizes the pictorial aspects of Theocritus’ poetry, he shows skepticism when it comes to comparing the Idylls with landscapes in the visual arts. Despite the poor amount of evidence on Alexandrian landscapes, we should note that the chorographic mosaic of Palestrina probably derives from a third-century archetype.

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thus been rightly compared to two skyphoi discovered in the House of Menander in Pompeii. One of these cups features three scenes, two of which appear on the same side: on one side, a man is rowing a small boat, while a goatherd struggles with a strong he-goat; on the other, one can see a countryside sanctuary, with a passerby and a sacrifice (Figure 16.1). The other cup bears two scenes: on one side, a cowherd is resting near his flock, a peasant is carrying baskets full of fruit or vegetables, and a cow is drinking from a pool under a tree; on the other, a traveler (?) and a bearded man are drinking from a cup and listening to an ugly old woman (interpreted, since Maiuri’s publication, as a sorceress)24 while another woman (a pharmakeutria?) seems to be preparing a beverage (Figure 16.2). Although Maiuri’s interpretation is convincing and provides a striking parallel with Theocritus’ Idyll 2, one can wonder if his reading was not mainly based on the existence of this poem: we have no labelled representation of a pharmakeutria and are therefore bound to make hypotheses. As for Theocritus’ fishermen, they have been compared to Hellenistic and Roman statues of fishermen, such as the Vatican-Louvre fisherman.25 A number of his characters thus have parallels in the visual arts, which certainly helped his readers form mental images corresponding to various passages of his poetry. When describing the goatherd’s cup, Theocritus playfully combined elements that encouraged visualization with elements that made it impossible. Theocritus was well aware that his readers would attempt to form an image of the cup, since he knew of the debates of his contemporaries on the appearance of various artifacts described by Homer, such as Nestor’s cup and Athena’s aegis.26 Several iconographic details had parallels in material culture and may therefore have encouraged Theocritus’ readers to visualize the cup: as was first noted by Gow,27 the ivy and helichryse tendril (Id. 1.29–31) is a well-known motif on Hellenistic vases and is frequently found on late Apulian ceramics (Figure 16.3). Apulian vases, and especially skyphoi, also often show genre scenes featuring three characters, and scenes connected with seduction and marriage are of course frequent (Figure 16.4): a reader familiar with similar images could

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Maiuri (1933). On fishermen in Hellenistic sculpture and in Theocritus’ poetry as manifestations of the so-called Hellenistic realism, see Webster (1964) 168–171; Onians (1979) 38–40; Hughes Fowler (1989) 9–12. For the comparison between the fisherman on the goatherd’s cup and the Vatican-Louvre fisherman, see Gow (1952) 9–10; Manakidou (1993) 50–83. Cf. Robert (2015). On Nestor’s cup and its reconstructions by ancient scholars and artists, see for instance Pagani (2007); De Angelis (2015). On Athena’s aegis, see Aristotle, fr. 153 Rose = Schol. ext. B ad Il. 5.741. Gow (1913); Prioux (2018).

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figure 16.1

Silver cup (scyphus) discovered in Pompeii, House of Menander (side [a]: a man in a row boat; middle of the 1st century ce (?); height: 8,1cm; signed Apelles); Napoli, MAN, inv. 145504 © wikimedia commons / sailko

figure 16.2

Silver cup (scyphus) discovered in Pompeii, House of Menander (side [b]: a man sitting in the cave (?) of the pharmakeutria; middle of the 1st century ce (?); height: 8,8 cm; signed Apelles); Napoli, MAN, inv. 145505 © wikimedia commons / miguel hermoso cuesta

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figure 16.3

Apulian Gnathia-ware bell-crater (4th century bce; height: 26,7cm); Marseille, Musée d’ Archéologie méditerranéenne (Vieille Charité), inv. 2946: a mask within tendrils of ivy and possibly helichryse © ville de marseille, dist. rmn-grand palais / jean bernard

thus easily visualize the girl and her two suitors (32–38). We also know of objects representing a fox in a vineyard (Figure 16.5)28 or looking into a basket,29 motifs that Theocritus uses in his third vignette (45–54). Theocritus’ readers thus had the possibility of recalling everyday objects bearing genre scenes, animal vignettes, or floral ornaments that would help them visualize at least some of the motifs described by the poet. Even though it is rather easy to visualize the various motifs, it proves much more difficult to visualize the shape of the vase and the three-dimensional organization of its ornamentation. I would argue that Theocritus consciously played with this problem: first, the vase is

28 29

See http://collections.ashmolean.org/object/388950 and Gow (1913). Adriani (1966); Nicosia (1968) 31.

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figure 16.4

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Late Apulian red-figure skyphos attributed to the Gnathia Group from Rudiae. Lecce, Museo Provinciale Sigismondo Castromediano, inv. 622 (cf. RVAp 18/182): woman with a maid and suitor. Su concessione del MIBAC— Direzione Regionale per i Beni Culturali e Paesaggistici della Puglia— Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Puglia

identified as a kissybion and this sets the reader on uncomfortable ground, since this word was most probably a puzzler for ancient scholiasts. Related to ivy in an unclear manner, the word kissybion was known to designate the vase from which Polyphemus drank the wine offered by Odysseus in Odyssey 9. Theocritus’ readers possibly knew visual representations of the Cyclops drinking wine and such images represent the kissybion as a wooden skyphos or bowl with no ornamentation.30 Second, the goatherd states that the vase has two handles, which would involve two sides and therefore two scenes, but he in fact describes three scenes—a number of scenes often found on bowls without

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Greek or Etruscan art: LIMC vi, s.v. Odysseus, nº67–68, and viii (Suppl.), s.v. Polyphemos i, nº16, 18, 20, 24 (nº28 represents the Cyclops with a huge pithos). In Roman art, see LIMC vi, s.v. Odysseus, nº69–87, as well as a cup from the treasure of Berthouville (BNF, département des Monnaies, médailles et antiques, 56.6): one of its sides shows a crater adorned with Odysseus presenting wine to Polyphemus.

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figure 16.5

Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, AN 1892.1494; intaglio from Trikka (5th century bce ?), showing a fox in a vineyard

handles, such as the so-called Homeric bowls.31 This problem opens the way for various reconstructions: one could either think that two scenes occupied the same side of the vase (as on the cup discovered by Maiuri and in Flaxman’s reconstruction), or that one of them was on a central medallion inside the vase. The symmetry between vignettes 1 and 2 that both involve three figures and the frequency of sea and fish motifs on the central medallion of ancient cups and dishes was likely to encourage this last reading, in which the fisherman was supposed to come into view as the owner emptied his cup. Third, the goatherd provides us with confusing indications about the organization of the scenes on the surface of the cup. The girl and her two suitors are “on the inside” (ἔντοσθεν, 32): one wonders if they should be found on the inside of the cup, or rather on the outside, but in a zone delimited by the vegetal ornaments mentioned before; the fisherman is seen “near these” (τοῖς δὲ μετά, 39), and the vineyard is located “just a little bit further away than the old fisherman” (τυτθὸν δ’ ὅσσον ἄπωθεν ἁλιτρύτοιο γέροντος, 45).

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For instance, see Berlin, SMPK, v.i.3161n (as well as 3161r, destroyed during WW ii).

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2.1.2 Allusions to Famous Artworks One of the ways in which ancient poets could help their readers visualize a mythological scene was to allude to well-known or common visual representations. Ancient art is indeed based on the repetition of the same iconographic schemes in various media and in various formats: for a given myth, the same iconographies could be repeated through centuries. This means that it is still possible today to have an idea of the visual culture of Theocritus’ contemporaries, even if we know very few works of art from third-century Syracuse and Alexandria: for instance, when many replicas of a given iconographic scheme have survived,32 it is legitimate to think that this scheme was part of a visual koine shared by all readers of Hellenistic poetry. For instance, when Theocritus mentions, in his epigram 2 GP, the statue of Aphrodite Ourania that Chrysogona has dedicated to the goddess in her own home and states that this Aphrodite is not the Pandemos, it is probable that all ancient readers would have in mind Pheidias’ fifth-century Aphrodite Ourania and Scopas’ fourth-century Aphrodite Pandemos that were both exhibited in the sanctuary of Aphrodite in Elis.33 Both works of art could thus be seen by those who attended the Olympic games and were probably copied during the Hellenistic and imperial period.34 Even though Theocritus says nothing of the visual appearance of the statue dedicated by Chrysogona, his readers would have probably visualized it as a replica of Pheidias’ masterwork. In a similar manner, Idyll 15 refers to a statue of Adonis on a silver bed but provides little detail about the sculpture: we do read about “the first fuzz spreading from (Adonis’) temples” and the paraphernalia that were part of the decorative program (flower baskets, Erotes adorning a pergola, and ivory furniture (?) with several (?) figures of Ganymede carried on the wings of an eagle—a symbol of the deification of Adonis), but Adonis himself is not precisely described. Theocritus could indeed rely on his readers’ knowledge of contemporary representations of Aphrodite’s lover on his deathbed. Among the most ancient representations known today are terracotta statuettes discovered in a second-century bce tomb in Veroia (Figure 16.6) and in a late 32

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Neo-Attic art, which flourished from the middle of the 2nd century bce onwards, was based on the imitation of opera nobilia, lists of which were compiled by artists and theoreticians, such as Pasiteles. We thus know of many late Hellenistic and Roman works of art that imitate a selection of archaic, classical or Hellenistic archetypes; such works were made to fulfill the purchase orders of wealthy Roman art collectors. See esp. Fuchs (1999). Pausanias 6.25.1. See LIMC ii, s.v. Aphrodite, nº177, 976. For small images of Aphrodite on a goat, see Ganszyniec (1923) 432–433, esp. nr. 8 (4th c. relief). For a Hellenistic replica of the Pandemos in small format, see for instance the votive discus of the Louvre, MA 2701; Hellenistic period: http://www.limc‑france.fr/objet/10982.

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figure 16.6

Veroia, Archaeological Museum, Π 4046: terracotta statuette depicting Aphrodite and the dying Adonis, mid 2nd century bce. After Tzavanari (1987)

third-century (?) tomb in Etruria.35 Similar images of the dying hunter were most probably known earlier, as is strongly suggested by the evidence on the cult of Adonis—a cult brought to Greece as early as the archaic period and which then spread throughout the West, and especially in Etruria. Archaeological remains of the 5th and 4th centuries36 prove the existence of festivities involving the agalma of a dying Adonis, long before Theocritus wrote Idyll 15.

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LIMC Suppl., s.v. Adonis, Add. 12. See also http://www.cn‑telma.fr//callythea/extrait251 653/ and http://www.cn‑telma.fr//callythea/extrait251654/, as well as http://www.limc‑fra nce.fr/objet/14737 and http://www.limc‑france.fr/objet/14738. On the terracotta found in Veroia, see Tzavanari (1987). For the Etruscan statuette from the Val Vidone area, see Musei Vaticani, cat. 14147. See, for instance, the case of the recently discovered Adonion of Gravisca, founded around

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When reading Idyll 15, Theocritus’ Alexandrian readers probably had a real statue in mind: there certainly was a famous cult statue of Adonis in the city, and it was possibly commissioned by Arsinoe ii herself. The familiarity with such images played a role in the reader’s response to Idyll 15: the way in which Theocritus’ readers visualized the works of art mentioned in his poetry must have provided them with even more pleasure and amusement when reading the reactions of the Syracusan women in front of a similar image. By understanding precisely how these women reacted to a given work of art and what they found interesting (mostly the paraphernalia), the reader would have gained a better knowledge of the ethos of the Syracusan women: possibly, for a reader who knew the stunning work of art commissioned by the Queen, the Syracusan women would have seemed to miss the central piece and focus not on the two major characters of the sculpture but on their surroundings, because they were not really able to grasp and analyze what they were looking at. There are also several cases in which Theocritus seems to refer to a precise iconographic scheme by carefully describing the gestures, positions, or attributes of several mythological characters: this is the case in Idylls 13 (death of Hylas), 26 (death of Pentheus), and 22 (Amycus sitting in the woods). Interestingly, for each of these episodes, a comparison can be made with ancient visual artifacts that were part of a shared visual culture. The deaths of Hylas and Pentheus share similarities: in both cases, a man is murdered by three female figures. It is probable that Theocritus expected the reader of the Idylls to compare both scenes and that their similarities contributed to the unity and coherence of the collection. Both correspond closely to iconographic schemes that are known to us thanks to Roman works. Even if one cannot exclude the idea that a famous Alexandrian artist created a painting inspired by Theocritus’ Hylas and that the Roman works of art were subsequently copied after this archetype, it seems more likely that Theocritus had an already famous work of art in mind and that he expected his readers to visualize the scene thanks to the existence of this famous painting (46–51). The two moments described in this passage (the Nymphs clinging on Hylas’ hand as he dips his pitcher, and the Nymphs holding Hylas on their laps) have comparanda in the visual arts.37 Several visual representations show Hylas in

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480 bce: the sanctuary comprised a garden where the agalma of the dying Adonis could be exposed under a καλύβη and a built-in coffin: Boitani/Torelli (1999) pl. iii, 1. It is possible to compare Theocritus’ narrative with Apollonius of Rhodes’ account of the same episode in the Argonautica (1.1207–1239). Apollonius focuses on emotions and actions rather than descriptive details. His account bears little relationship to the visual images that have come down to us: according to Apollonius, Hylas falls victim to one spe-

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the middle or on the side of a group of three Nymphs.38 The boy holds a pitcher and the Nymphs are clutching his arm or leg.39 Sometimes, the scene is set in a lavish natural background, which might evoke the beautiful scenery described by Theocritus (Figure 16.7).40 In several images, Hylas is represented in the well-known Pathosformel (emotionally charged attitude) associated with the victims of human sacrifice, with one leg stretched and one knee bent.41 If Theocritus’ readers were to visualize Hylas in this position, the relationship with the figure of Pentheus would have been all the more evident. As for the description of Nymphs comforting Hylas as he sits on their laps, it has a possible parallel in a painting of the tomb of the Nasonii in which a young man holding a reed (Hylas?) is seated among a group of three Nymphs.42 The same visual quality characterizes Theocritus’ account of the death of Pentheus (Id. 26.20–23): μάτηρ μὲν κεφαλὰν μυκήσατο παιδὸς ἑλοῖσα, ὅσσον περ τοκάδος τελέθει μύκημα λεαίνας· Ἰνὼ δ’ ἐξέρρηξε σὺν ὠμοπλάτᾳ μέγαν ὦμον, λὰξ ἐπὶ γαστέρα βᾶσα, καὶ Αὐτονόας ῥυθμὸς ωὑτός· His mother took her son’s head and roared like a lioness with cubs; and Ino, setting her foot upon his stomach, tore off his great shoulder with the shoulder blade, and in like fashion wrought Autonoa. By using the word ῥυθμός that was part of the terminology of ancient art criticism,43 Theocritus implicitly encouraged his readers to think of a work of art. His description suggests a strong effect of symmetry, with Ino and Autonoe adopting similar attitudes on each side of Pentheus.44 Even if there is no image

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40 41 42 43 44

cific Nymph, the Nymph of the fountain he visited, while many other Nymphs witness the scene from the background. Ling (1979); LIMC v, s.v. Hylas, nº7–30. One never sees all three Nymphs clutching Hylas’ hand, but one Nymph may do so (see e.g., nº17). See e.g. the mosaic of Hylas in the Musée de Saint-Romain-en-Gal, the opus sectile found in Rome, in the basilica of Junius Bassus (Rome, MNR), the mosaic from Volubilis (House of the Venus mosaic: LIMC v, s.v. Hylas, nº17). Pompeii, ins. ix.7.16, cubiculum (a). Franzoni (2006) 75–104; for Hylas with one knee bent, see Lancha (1983) 382. The arcosolia of the tomb of the Nasonii, today almost vanished, but known through Bartoli’s engravings, represented both moments of the story. See Pollitt (1974) s.v. Brunn (1906) 225.

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figure 16.7

Watercolour after a painting discovered in Pompeii, ins. ix, 4, 16, room (a) © deutsches archäologisches institut, abteilung rom, arkiv (dair 83.299)

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of Ino setting her foot on Pentheus’ stomach, the symmetry of the scene corresponds to a famous iconographic scheme, preserved in several works of the Roman period: in these images, Pentheus is always represented as a victim of human sacrifice, with one knee bent and one leg stretched (Figure 16.8).45 Sometimes one of the Bacchants sets her foot on his thigh46 or on his head.47 The Roman images probably go back to a lost masterpiece: although it is impossible to be certain that this archetype predates Theocritus’ poetry, it seems that the poet had a similar image in mind and expected his readers to remember it. When reading the descriptions of the deaths of Hylas and Pentheus, Theocritus’ readers were thus implicitly encouraged to visualize paintings; the resemblance between Theocritus’ descriptions and well-known iconographic schemes encourages us to think that his contemporaries knew famous masterpieces, now lost, that were the archetypes of the Roman images discovered by archaeologists. If we are right in supposing the existence of early Hellenistic archetypes showing Hylas and Pentheus with one knee bent, the similarity between both scenes would have been known to at least some readers of Theocritus and would have contributed to build a strong link between two of his mythological poems. When reading the description of Amycus in Idyll 22 (44–52), the readers were rather encouraged to think of a sculpture: ἔνθα δ’ ἀνὴρ ὑπέροπλος ἐνήμενος ἐνδιάασκε, δεινὸς ἰδεῖν, σκληρῇσι τεθλασμένος οὔατα πυγμαῖς· στήθεα δ’ ἐσφαίρωτο πελώρια καὶ πλατὺ νῶτον σαρκὶ σιδηρείῃ, σφυρήλατος οἷα κολοσσός· ἐν δὲ μύες στερεοῖσι βραχίοσιν ἄκρον ὑπ’ ὦμον ἕστασαν ἠύτε πέτροι ὀλοίτροχοι οὕστε κυλίνδων χειμάρρους ποταμὸς μεγάλαις περιέξεσε δίναις· αὐτὰρ ὑπὲρ νώτοιο καὶ αὐχένος ᾐωρεῖτο ἄκρων δέρμα λέοντος ἀφημμένον ἐκ ποδεώνων. There a monstrous figure was seated in the sun. Terrible to look on was he; his ears were crushed by the blows of hard fists; his mighty chest and broad back rounded with iron flesh, as it were some colossus of hammered metal, and beneath his shoulder-points the muscles in his 45 46 47

See LIMC vii, s.v. Pentheus, nº27–30, 32. Ibid., nº27–29. See n. 44.

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figure 16.8

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Pompeii, Vettii house, room (n), east wall: Pentheus’ punishment © wikimedia commons

brawny arms stood out like rounded boulders which some winter torrent has rolled and polished in its mighty eddies. A lion-skin fastened by the paws swung on his back and neck. Theocritus makes clear references to sculpture by using the verb περιξέω (polish or scrape all round, e.g., with a chisel, rasp or file) and the phrases σαρκὶ σιδηρείῃ and σφυρήλατος οἷα κολοσσός. A lot of ink has been spilled on this last phrase: it indeed involves several connotations, which are, up to some point, contradictory. On the one hand, for Hellenistic readers, the mention of a κολοσσός would most certainly imply the idea of a colossal sculpture: in connection with the seated posture (ἐνήμενος) and the lion-skin—which was the common attrib-

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ute of Heracles—the word would certainly bring to mind the famous fourthcentury colossus of Heracles made by Lysippus for the Acropolis of Tarentum.48 Several scholars, starting with Nicosia (1968), have also compared Theocritus’ description with an obvious reworking of Lysippus’ colossus, the famous Terme boxer (Rome, MNR, inv. 1055), who is characterized as an experienced pugilist by his hands wrapped up in cesti, his crushed and deformed ears (cf. Id. 22.45), the copper inlays that represent a series of bloody gashes on his skin, and the use of a darker bronze to add a bruise under the eye. Nicosia obviously goes too far when he states that the Terme boxer and the so-called Hellenistic prince, two bronzes that were discovered together on the Quirinal, were part of one and the same group, and that this group was an early Hellenistic representation of Polydeuces and Amycus which was the source of inspiration for Theocritus’ dialogue between both figures. In fact, the Terme boxer was probably supposed to represent a real-life boxer rather than the terrible Amycus, and we know nothing about its date of creation or that of its hypothetic archetype: the sculpture has been variously dated at the very beginning of the Hellenistic period (because of its Lysippean character)49 or at its very end, around 50bce (it would then be a late Hellenistic reworking of Lysippus’ Heracles). If we accept the earlier date for the boxer or its archetype, it may well have been known to Theocritus and to his contemporaries. If we accept the later date, we cannot exclude that at least some Roman readers of Theocritus would have visualized the seated Amycus as this bronze boxer. Personally, I would like to think that the Terme boxer’s archetype was, as suggested by Moreno, a famous “portrait” of a pancratiast designed by Lysippus or one of his students. For an almost legendary pancratiast such as Polydamas of Skotoussa, one would well understand why the artist chose to imitate the design of the famous Heracles of Tarentum. If so, Theocritus may have wanted his readers to think of this statue when reading Amycus’ depiction. On the other hand, the technical term σφυρήλατος refers very precisely to a kind of sculpture that has nothing in common with the Heracles of Tarentum or the Terme Boxer, and predates the dissemination of lost wax-casting techniques. A σφυρήλατος is normally an archaic sculpture made of hammered metal (especially thin plates of gold or bronze hammered over a wooden core

48 49

See Cozzoli (2010) 278. Lysippus’ colossus was already reproduced in other media and in other formats by the beginning of the early 3rd century bce: see London, BM, 1855,0306.16. Moreno (1994), who believes the Terme Boxer derived from a Lysippean original, notes (i, 63) that the basis for the “portrait” of the long-dead pancratiast, Polydamas of Skotoussa, that was made by Lysippus in Olympia was wide enough to bear an over-life-size statue such as the one discovered on the Quirinal.

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or beaten into relief on a bed of pitch). This repoussé technique limited the size of sculptures: the phrase σφυρήλατος … κολοσσός was therefore a kind of oxymoron, unless one decides that the word κολοσσός was here used with a very broad meaning. I would rather argue that the contradiction was voluntary and that Theocritus wanted his reader to think of a κολοσσός similar to the Heracles of Tarentum or to the Terme boxer, but also wanted to introduce, through the word σφυρήλατος, the idea that Amycus had the roughness of a primitive artwork. By mentioning the “hammered” surface of his skin, he poet also helped the reader visualize the many bruises and bumps of the pugilist. 2.1.3

The Dioscuri and the Apharetids: A Lost Masterpiece Known to Lycophron and Theocritus? In other cases, Theocritus may also refer to works of which we do not have any trace or that are only known to us through isolated imitations. While reading certain lines of the Idylls, the ancient readers may well have remembered famous works of art that are now entirely unknown to us. For instance, Idyll 22 shows Pollux looking for water in the Bebrycian forest. We now know nothing of Theocritus’ inspiration for these lines, but it seems that Etruscan artists of the fifth century bce also knew about the Dioscuri looking for water: at least two Etruscan intaglios show Castor (Ϲαϟτvρ) with an amphora near a lion-mouth fountain (Figure 16.9).50 Should we think that these intaglios are isolated replicas of a famous work of art or that they were inspired by an archaic poem, which Theocritus also knew? Another intriguing case in which Theocritus’ poetry can be compared to a painted image is provided by Idyll 22 (181–213). In these lines, Theocritus narrates Castor’s combat against his cousins Idas and Lynceus, a myth also told by Pindar (N. 10.60–74) and Lycophron (535–568). In Pindar’s version, Castor is responsible for the loss (?) of Aphareus’ cattle, and the Dioscuri are therefore attacked by Aphareus’ sons, Idas and Lynceus. Pindar’s account of the battle does not distinguish the actions of one brother from those of the other. Almost all actions are in the dual form. Although Theocritus and Lycophron both imitate Pindar’s account, their versions of the myth differ from their model. Both poets see the battle as a consequence of the rape of the Leucippids, whom the Apharetids were supposed to marry. They also carefully differentiate the actions of the various warriors: the brothers no longer act in pairs, but engage in the battle in an individual manner. Even if the two poets do not describe the same line of events, they 50

One exemplary is still known (Figure 16.9), while the other is lost. See LIMC iii, s.v. Dioskouroi/Tinas Cliniar, nº94 (http://www.limc‑france.fr/objet/15791).

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Paris, BNF, département des Monnaies, médailles et antiques, Luynes. 267: Etruscan carnelian scarab showing Castor (Ϲαϟτvρ) near the Bebrycian fountain (10 × 16 mm; 5th century bce ?) © bnf / cnrs-maison archéologie & ethnologie (serge obhoukoff)

seem to have a similar image in mind when describing the final scene of the battle: both show Idas brandishing a stele or a sculpture and threatening one of the Dioscuri, while another warrior lies dead, face on the ground. Interestingly, their accounts bear a striking resemblance to a scene known from an Apulian lecythus ascribed to the Underworld Painter (Figure 16.10).51 Such a vase could echo a lost masterpiece; if so, the Hellenistic poets were likely to expect their readers to know it, be it directly or indirectly, thanks to copies and imitations in the decorative arts. On the vase, the connection between the battle and the rape of the Leucippids is made clear by the presence of two chariots on the sides of the main scene. The four cousins are unlabeled: although it is clear that Idas is the one holding the stele and about to be thunderstruck, the three other warriors could be variously identified. If one follows Theocritus’ account, the warrior against whom Idas is throwing the stele would be Castor (207–209), whereas Lynceus would be the figure lying dead on his face on the right side of the scene (203– 204: “and Lynceus fell on his face, and heavy the sleep that sped down upon his 51

Linant de Bellefonds/Prioux (2018) 241–244.

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Richmond, VMFA, inv. 80.162: Apulian lekythos of unknown provenance (ca. 330–310 bce; height: 94,5 cm). Ascribed to the Underworld Painter, this vase represents the rape of Leucippus’ daughters and the battle between the Dioscuri and the Apharetids. © vmfa, richmond. gift of the council of the vmfa on the occasion of its 25th anniversary/tr. fullerton

eyes”). By elimination, the wounded warrior on the left should then be Pollux, but Theocritus does not mention his role during the battle: in Theocritus’ new version of the myth, the Dioscuri are victorious in all the battles that they wage and are not killed or wounded by the Apharetids. If one follows Lycophron’s version, the result is quite different. Since Lycophron does not name the four cousins but mentions them through metaphors that are directly inspired by Pindar’s account of the myth, one has to compare his poem to the Nemean ode in order to understand the development of the action. A close reading of Lycophron would thus lead one to think that the dead body on the right is Castor who died at the very beginning of the battle (553– 554); the wounded warrior on the left would be Lynceus (556–557), while Idas, in the center, threatens the life of Pollux. This version provides the most convincing identification for the various figures since the various brothers fall into pairs on each side of the painting.

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Although this is only a hypothesis, one could think that Theocritus and Lycophron both had in mind a masterwork illustrating this battle and that the absence of name-labels opened the possibility for several reconstructions of the events: was it Castor or Lynceus who died first and fell on his face? Which of the Dioscuri did Idas threaten with the stele? 2.2 Signaling Enargeia All the passages that we have just studied are characterized by their enargeia. A number of techniques that ancient authors could use to achieve an effect of enargeia were listed in Demetrius’ treatise On style (209–220). Probably written towards the end of the Hellenistic period,52 Demetrius’ treatise draws on earlier material and a number of his ideas on enargeia were possibly already present in some treatises of the third century bce. Demetrius provides his readers with a series of recipes for enargeia: providing many details (akribologia), mentioning the stimulation of several senses at the same time, the repetition of a given word (dilogia) or syntactic structure, narrative suspense, precise description of the parepomena (chain of events), onomatopoeia, and use of “mimetic” words and sonorities. Castor’s battle against the Apharetids and the death of Hylas are good examples of Theocritus’ attention to parepomena. In Idyll 13 (40–42), the naming of the various species of plants that grow around the spring may illustrate the poet’s mastery of akribologia, while the movement (energeia), instantaneity, and fluidity of the action are conveyed through the repetition of the verb (κατ)ήριπε(ν) (49–50) and the adjective ἀθρόος (50–51); Theocritus also signals the pictorial quality of the scene by introducing many patches of contrasting colors (41, 49–50). The comparison between the drowning Hylas and a shooting star seems to be meant to signal the enargeia of the entire scene. In this simile, Theocritus not only insists on the chiaroscuro of the star falling in black water, but also makes sure that the reader simultaneously receives several sensations by visualizing the star and by “hearing” a sailor who reacts to this sign by shouting (52). Theocritus thus designed a simile full of enargeia, and one should probably remember that the Greek word for a simile (eikon) was also used for images such as paintings and sculptures. As for the descriptions of Pentheus’ death and of the seated Amycus, they explicitly refer to the pictorial or sculptural quality of the scene by using artistic terminology. Pentheus’ death combines auditory and visual sensations, with the mention of Agave’s lion-like roar and the precise description of the positions of the various characters. The depiction of Amycus’ muscles (22.48–50) 52

See esp. Chiron (1993) xxxix.

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could be cited as an example of akribologia. By using the words ὀλοίτροχοι and χειμάρρους, Theocritus alludes to a well-known Homeric simile (Il. 13.136–142) that compares Hector rushing towards battle to a boulder rolling down a winter torrent. The ancient commentators considered this simile a model of mimesis and carefully studied its sonorities.53 By imitating a passage renowned for its enargeia, Theocritus signaled the visual quality of his own poem. The same strategy can be observed in Idyll 24 (11–28), a passage that later inspired, as we will see, the creation of a work of art. These lines are indeed modelled on the opening of the description of Achilles’ shield (Il. 18.486– 489).54 Such a remarkable allusion to Achilles’ shield certainly called the reader’s attention to the vividness of the scene described in Idyll 24. 2.3 Was Theocritus Famous for His Enargeia? Theocritus’ attention to enargeia was apparently well-known to his ancient readers. For instance, his ekphrasis of the cup was a model both for Hellenistic and Augustan poets,55 and the Elder Philostratus considered Idylls 6 and 11 to be remarkable examples of enargeia: the imaginary painting described in Imagines 2.18 is a phantasia based on combined allusions to Odyssey 9 and to these two Idylls. In Philostratus’ view, Theocritus was a master of enargeia.56 The way in which Theocritus alludes to famous statues and pictures while describing the gestures and attitudes of the Nymphs (Id. 13), the Bacchants (Id. 26), and Amycus (Id. 22) was imitated by the anonymous author of Idyll 25 (Epyllion of Heracles). In lines 145–149, this imitator of Theocritus describes the way in which Heracles tamed the bull Phaethon. The passage shows the same attention to details (akribologia) as Theocritus’ depiction of Amycus: in both cases, the poet focuses on anatomical details. As was the case in Idylls 13, 22 and 26, this passage still brings to mind famous images of Heracles fighting Achelous, or Theseus fighting the Marathonian bull57 or the Minotaur. For instance, a small bronze that may be a small-scale replica of an early Hellenistic Alexandrian archetype58 represents Theseus, his shoulder raised in effort, pushing down the left horn of the Minotaur59 (Figure 16.11). Theocritus’ imitator thus 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

Eust., Comm. ad Il. 13.136–145 (iii, 452 van der Valk). See also Prioux (2017) 184–185 and (2018). See also Od. 5.272–274; on the mimetic quality of these lines, see Becker (1995) 101–106. See Belloni (2015) on Posidippus 3 A.-B.; the most famous imitation of the goatherd’s cup is Virgil, Ecl. 3.36–42. Being a familiar of Julia Domna, Philostratus may also have played a role in the creation of the Emesa mosaic: see infra p. 416. Cf. Callimachus fr. 67.1 Hollis. Moreno (1994) i, 325–326: “Theseus” perhaps has the features of Ptolemy ii. See Boube-Piccot (1969) 311–313, pl. 244–245, nº384; LIMC, vi/1, s.v. Minotauros, nº67.

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Rabat, Archaeological Museum: statuette found in Lixus (Morocco) and depicting Theseus and the Minotaur, possibly with the features of Ptolemy ii and Seleucus i © marc danchin

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replicated what he probably identified as a characteristic feature of the Idylls: the quotation of famous iconographic schemes. The scholia to Theocritus’Idylls also seem to share this attention to possible references to artworks, and this would confirm that Theocritus’ ancient readers believed that his poems contained allusions to sculptures and paintings. For instance, the scholia to Idyll 7.5–9 are our only testimony on a statue of the local hero Chalcon of Cos, who pressed his knee against a rock and thus created a water mouth for the spring Burina. The scholiasts believed that lines 6–7 were in fact a description of this statue.60

3

Works of Art Inspired by Theocritus’ Poetry

3.1 Theocritus’ Poetry: A Source of Inspiration for Artists and Amateurs? In two specific cases, we know that the decoration of a domus or villa was inspired by Theocritus’ poetry. In the so-called House of Propertius in Assisi,61 a corridor, adorned with late first-century ce frescoes, was also enhanced with small mythological vignettes, painted a tempera on the yellow background of the walls (Figure 16.12). Some of the vignettes form the subject of Greek epigrams that have been incised in the plaster of the walls. Such a dialogue between text and image is in itself exceptional in Roman art and indicates the presence of an educated owner in this house. Among the sixteen vignettes that were discovered, ten were accompanied by epigrams. Remarkably, the topics of the paintings and epigrams are closely related to poetry. For instance, one of the pictures illustrates a myth that is otherwise entirely unknown in the visual arts: the infancy of Iamus. The painting corresponds to a scene that Pindar describes very vividly in the 6th Olympian ode and was probably created as a pictorial tribute to Pindar’s poetry and to its enargeia. Another vignette on the same wall (Figure 16.13) represents Polyphemus and Galatea, and the corresponding epigram contains several allusions to Theocritus: Ποιμαίν[ε]ι Πολύφημο[c] ἀ⟨ε⟩ίδων καὶ Γαλάτεια / κυρτ[ὸ]ν ὑπὲρ c{ε}ιμοῦ νῶτον ἀγαλλομένη. ‘ᾐόcι’ (vac.) ‘ᾐόcι’ Polyphemus and Galatea are herding their flocks: he is singing and she is showing off, while sitting on the curved back of the pug-nosed beast. 60 61

Nicosia (1968) 11. Prioux (2008) 65–121.

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Assisi, so-called House of Propertius: general view of the corridor, with the respective positions of the various vignettes (length of the excavated portion of the corridor: 21 meters) © é. prioux

This two-line epigram presents corrections or alternative readings that are inscribed underneath the text: line 2 could also read as ᾐόcι ὑπὲρ cιμοῦ νῶτον ἀγαλλομένη (she is showing off near the seashore, while sitting on the back of the pug-nosed beast) or κυρτ[ὸ]ν ὑπὲρ cιμοῦ ᾐόcι ἀγαλλομένη (she is showing off near the seashore, while sitting on the curve of the pug-nosed beast). This epigram combines several allusions to bucolic poetry: the syntax of the first line clearly imitates Idyll 6.6–7 (βάλλει τοι, Πολύφαμε, τὸ ποίμνιον ἁ Γαλάτεια / μάλοισιν: Galatea pelts thy flock with apples, Polyphemus).62 Other possible models are Idyll 11.13–14 (ὃ δὲ τὰν Γαλάτειαν ἀείδων / αὐτὸς ἐπ’ ἀιόνος κατετάκετο: he was singing of Galatea and wasting away on the shore) and Bion, fr. 2.3 Gow

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On the enargeia of this sentence, see Celentano (2010).

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figure 16.13 Assisi, so-called House of Propertius, vignette with Polyphemus and Galatea (end of the 1st century / beginning of the 2nd century ce) © é. prioux

(ἄεισεν Πολύφαμος ἐπ’ ᾀόνι τᾷ Γαλατείᾳ: Polyphemus sang for Galatea from the shore). These literary allusions were probably meant to encourage the viewers to remember the Hellenistic poems while contemplating the small painting. Even more remarkable is the case of a mosaic pavement discovered in Homs/Emesa in what may have been an imperial villa of the Severan period (Figures 16.14–16.15).63 The pavement represented at least four scenes of the life of Heracles, two of which concern his birth (Agnoia [Ignorance] witnesses the meeting between Alcmene and Zeus disguised as Amphitryon; the infant Heracles strangles the snakes) and two others his apotheosis (Oceanus greets Heracles as he enters the garden of the Hesperides; Athanasia and Zeus welcome Heracles on Mount Olympus). The second and most important scene, the strangling of the snakes, has no comparanda among the other ancient visual representations of the same episode. It includes a series of details that are only mentioned in Idyll 24: Heracles’ and Iphicles’ crib is a large shield (4); by trying to flee the monsters, Iphicles has freed himself from the blanket (25–26); both children act in contrasting ways (26–28); Alcmene has reacted before all other adults (34); Amphitryon has taken his sword with him (42–43); the servants have also come along with lit torches (50–53). Long before the discovery of this mosaic, Brunn suggested that Theocritus’ narrative was based on the contemplation of a painting that he saw in the palace of Alexandria.64 I would

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Abdallah (2011); Linant de Bellefonds/Prioux (2018) chap. 7. Brunn (1906) 223–224.

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Ma’arrat al-Numan, Museum, inv. 1378 (current state of preservation unknown); Severan mosaic discovered in Emesa (290×224cm): baby Heracles (ηρακλ|ηϲ) strangling the snakes and Iphicles (ιφικληϲ), both in a shield and rescued by Alcmene (αλκμη|νη), Amphitryon (αμφιτ̣ ρ̣|υων), a servant and a group of maids (θεραπαινιδεϲ) © c. noël/limc-france

rather argue that the strong pictorial character of Theocritus’ poem and its enargeia encouraged a rich amateur of the Severan period to order the creation of this mosaic. If a famous painting of Heracles’ childhood existed in Alexandria and was still known, albeit indirectly, to a Syrian mosaicist of the Severan period, one would indeed expect some of the many images of Heracles’ childhood that were created between the third century bce and the third century ce to follow the same iconographic scheme. Moreover, we do have a possible explanation that would account for the creation, in Emesa, of a new visual representation of Heracles and his twin based on Theocritus’ narrative. If the context of the mosaic is indeed, as its first publisher believed,65 an imperial villa of the Severan period, it is difficult not to think of Julia Domna, the wife of Septimius Severus.66 Born and raised in Emesa, Julia Domna was the mother of Caracalla and Geta, two boys born with only a year of difference, who became

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Abdallah (2011) 12. Linant de Bellefonds/Prioux (2018) 298–299.

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Ma’arrat al-Numan, Museum, (current state of preservation unknown); Severan mosaic discovered in Emesa: Athanasia (a[θα]ναϲια) witnesses Heracles (ηρακληϲ) being greeted by Zeus on Mount Olympus © a. vukovich

co-emperors at the death of their father in 211ce. A few months later, Geta was murdered by his older brother and died in the arms of his mother. Given the frequent comparison between Heracles and Roman emperors, one could be tempted to read the mosaic as a visual, albeit discrete and indirect tribute, to Julia Domna’s courage and attachment to her deceased son (Alcmene is protecting Iphicles), as well as a confirmation of the elder son’s superiority and predisposition to power and apotheosis. One should also remember that Philostratus the Elder, who demonstrates, in Imagines 2.18, a deep understanding of the visual potential of Theocritus’Idylls 6 and 11, claimed to be a member of the “circle” of the Empress (Life of Apollonius, 1.3) and apparently escorted the imperial family in some of its travels.67 If the mosaic was indeed conceived for the imperial 67

The author of the Life of Apollonius and the Lives of the Sophists is probably the same as the author of the Imagines; his grandson, Philostratus the Younger, described a work of art illustrating the infancy of Heracles (Im. 5). On the Elder Philostratus’ relationship with the imperial family, see Bowersock (1969) 101–109; Hemelrijk (1999) 122–126; Whitmarsh (2007) 31–34; Levick (2007) 85.

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family sometime after the death of Geta, it would reflect a fine understanding of the political meaning of Idyll 24. It has indeed been long suggested that Theocritus wrote this poem with a view to assert Ptolemy ii’s legitimacy:68 although he had an elder brother, Ptolemy Ceraunus, Ptolemy ii was chosen by his father to become his co-regent. As in the case of Amphitryon’s twins, the superiority and exceptional talent of one of Ptolemy i Soter’s sons were thus believed to have been self-evident from his early years on. Another scene from the Emesan pavement may be connected, albeit in a looser way, with Theocritus’ poetry. Heracles on Mount Olympus could evoke Idyll 17 and the arrival of Ptolemy i Soter on the same mountain. If Theocritus’ poem insists on immortality by repeating the word ἀθανάτοις at the beginning of lines 2 and 17, the mosaicist represented Immortality in flesh and blood with a personification labelled “Athanasia.” The diptych formed by Heracles’ childhood and his apotheosis could evoke the diptych formed by Idylls 17 and 24 in a lost poetry book. As we know thanks to the Antinoe papyrus, one of the editions of Theocritus that circulated in imperial times contained three books, the second of which ended precisely with these two Idylls. For the readers of this edition that brought together the mythological and political pieces written by Theocritus, the connection between Idyll 24 and the enkomia of kings would have been obvious. It is probable that several other works of art were read in light of Theocritus’ poems or even directly created in order to illustrate his poetry. For instance, the owners of “bucolic cups” similar to those discovered in Pompeii may have been tempted to quote Theocritus in order to show off at a banquet. It is also possible that certain book rolls designed for wealthy owners were illustrated, but we have no trace of them. Although this goes beyond the scope of the present study, we know for sure that Theocritus’ poetry inspired artists in modern times: for instance, Idyll 1 was illustrated by Albrecht Dürer in a miniature on parchment.69 In the 17th and 18th centuries, Theocritus’ Idylls played a role in the development of landscape painting and pastoral, but it is often impossible to distinguish between the influence of Virgil and that of Theocritus. Peculiarly interesting is the case of Peter-Paul Rubens, a painter who had an exceptionally rare knowledge of

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See for instance, Gow (1952) ad loc.; Laubscher (1997); Stephens (2003) 125; on Ptolemy i Soter’s plan for his own succession, see Müller (2009) 21–38. Washington, NGA, Woodner Collection, 2005 [https://www.nga.gov/collection/art‑object​ ‑page.75783.html]. See Bach (1999).

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Greek and Latin literature and whose brother, Philip Rubens, was a keen reader of Theocritus. When commenting on the great festival decoration that Rubens conceived for the temporary buildings that lined the route of the CardinalInfante Ferdinand for his entry in Antwerp in 1635, Gaspar Gevartius, who was both a personal friend of Rubens and a famous philologist, quotes Theocritus’ Idylls, along with other ancient authors, as sources for understanding the complex images of power depicted by the painter.70 Considerable attention was also given to Theocritus’ epigrams on the portraits of ancient poets, and a Venetian counterfeiter of the 16th century even copied his epigram on the portrait of Anacreon (AP 9.599) in stone in order to sell it to the humanist Sebastiano Erizzo.71 This counterfeiter also reproduced a number of other ekphrastic epigrams to sell to the same scholar. Another type of reception is the creation in 1810–1813 by Paul Storr and John Flaxman of four silver gilt two-handled cups whose external designs correspond to the ekphrasis of the goatherd’s cup of Idyll 1 (Figure 16.16).72 A few years later, Jean-François Millet, who was well known for his views of rustic life, had the project to illustrate Theocritus’ poems: one of his drawings (possibly around 1863) represents the first scene from the goatherd’s cup, the maiden and her two suitors.73 3.2 A Portrait of the Poet as a Young Shepherd? As Gow observes, “it is likely enough that busts with real or imaginary portraits of Theocritus may have decorated the libraries of Roman admirers of pastoral, but no ancient portrait professing to represent him survives”.74 Interestingly, the few ancient artifacts that are believed, by some scholars, to represent Theocritus himself are based on a reading of the bucolic Idylls as autobiography. Is this autobiographic reading of the bucolic Idylls the result of our modern phantasies or was it shared by some ancient readers? Is it reasonable to think that these unlabeled artifacts were meant to represent Theocritus? In two

70 71 72

73 74

Gevaerts/van Thulden (1641) 106, 149. See also Saward (1982) 69; Cojannot-Le Blanc/Prioux (2018), 170–171, 201, 236 (n. 500), 238 (n. 537), 242 (n. 634). Prioux (2002/2003). For two of the cups, see Liverpool, Liverpool Museums, World Museum and Windsor Castle, RCIN 51538 (Figure 16.16). The designs by Flaxman are kept in London (V&A, 2410; British Museum, 1900,0824.187) and Oxford (Huntington Library and Art Gallery, 65.6.59). Paris, Musée d’ Orsay (Louvre, département des Arts graphiques, RF 5877 r°). Gow (1952) 1.xxix. It is possible that Epigram 27 Gow (AP 9.434) was initially composed for an edition of Theocritus that might have included a portrait of the author in some copies.

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Windsor Castle, Lantern lobby, Royal collection trust, RCIN 51538: Paul Storr, The Theocritus Cup, silver gilt crater-shaped vase (23.9× 24.8× 24.8 cm; 1812–1813) after a design by John Flaxman

cases, a lavish piece of silverware represents a figure which has been tentatively identified, by several art historians and philologists, as “Theocritus.” In both cases, one can see a man, meditating in a natural setting: one of them holds a scroll and faces a Muse (?), whose crooked staff recalls the pastoral world; the other seems to be a simple goatherd who is tending his flock. Among the silverware discovered in Berthouville-Bernay, a pair of kantharoi (Figure 16.17) represent, on each of their sides, a poet or scholar: one is old, bearded, and standing; the other one is juvenile, beardless, and seated. Each poet is represented in an open-air (?) sanctuary and in the company of a female figure (his Muse, mistress, or one of his fictional characters?). There has been much speculation on the identification of the various figures, who, apart from book-rolls, are surrounded by specific paraphernalia that were probably meant, in the first place, to encourage ancient viewers to make educated

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Prints of the four scenes represented on each side of the Babelon canthari 13 and 14. After the engravings of J. Courtil, in Babelon 1916

guesses about their identity.75 The figures on face 13a have been variously identified as the Muse Urania in company of Aratus, Callimachus, or Eudoxus; the figures on face 13b have been almost unanimously accepted as Cassandra and Lycophron.76 The figures on 14a have been variously identified. As for 14b, it has been interpreted as a representation of the Muse Thalia and Theocritus:77 a beardless man, seated on an elaborate stool, holds a scroll in his left hand. Behind him, one can see a pair of sandals (?) hanging from a stick—a possible reference to the sandals worn by comic actors (?). In front of him, a woman carrying a shepherd’s staff leans on a pillar. In the background, one can see a monument with a vase (a crater?) and a box. If the poet depicted on this vase is really Theocritus, the fancy stool would possibly indicate that he did not really belong to the rustic world evoked by the hooked staff of his Muse. If it may seem, at first, preposterous to pair Lycophron (13b) and Theocritus (14b) and to link them through several visual echoes, we should remember that at least a 75 76 77

Lapatin (2015). Picard (1950). See Schefold (1997) 290–291.

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figure 16.18

Saint Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, W-277: silver dish showing a goatherd (possibly designed in 6th century ce Constantinople [?]; diameter: 23,8 cm)

part of the tradition associated Theocritus with riddle-poems: the Syrinx recalls playfully the mythological riddle and periphrastic designations so common in Lycophron’s Alexandra. A sixth-century ce plate in the State Hermitage Museum,78 discovered in Perm, has been thought to represent Theocritus: an unlabeled shepherd with bulky muscles, short hair, and apparently individualized features seems to be meditating, while sitting on a rock next to two goats and a little dog (Figure 16.18). Nothing, except the meditative attitude, would indicate that this

78

Ibid. 308–309.

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goatherd is a poet: it is therefore impossible to know if this identification is correct and if the Byzantine owners of the plate would have shared the point of view of twentieth-century art historians. The only labelled “portrait” of Theocritus that has reached us is a miniature found in a Byzantine manuscript, apparently produced by the circle of Demetrius Triclinius, a prolific scholar of Thessaloniki.79 A rustic draped in a mantle presents a statue of Pan with a nine-hole pipe: the confusion between this pipe and the syrinx and the abnormal representation of Pan as a figure with a goat’s muzzle instead of a human head seems to indicate that this miniature is an imaginative creation of the Byzantine period.

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Bing, P. (1988), “Theocritus’ Epigrams on the Statues of Ancient Poets,” Antike und Abendland 34, 117–123. Boitani, F./Torelli, M. (1999), “Un nuovo santuario dell’Emporion di Gravisca,” in Actes de la rencontre scientifique en hommage à Georges Vallet organisée par le Centre JeanBérard, l’École française de Rome, l’Istituto universitario orientale et l’Università degli studi di Napoli «Federico ii» (Rome-Naples, 15–18 novembre 1995) (Rome), 93–102. Bouchon, R./Brillet, P./Le Meur-Weissman, N. (eds.) (2012), Hymnes de la Grèce antique: Approches littéraires et historiques (Lyon). Boube-Piccot, C. (1969), Les Bronzes antiques du Maroc. i, La statuaire (Rabat). Bowersock, G.W. (1969), Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire (Oxford). Brunn, H. (1906), “Die griechischen Bukoliker und die bildende Kunst,” in Brunn/Bulle (1906) 217–228. (First published as Die griechischen Bukoliker und die bildende Kunst, München, 1879). Brunn, H./Bulle, H. (eds.) (1906), Heinrich Brunn’s Kleine Schriften, vol. iii (Leipzig). Cairns, F. (1984), “Theocritus’ First Idyll: The Literary Program,” WS 18, 89–113. Cairns, F. (ed.) (2012), Papers of the Langford Latin Seminar, 15th Volume (Cambridge). Calboli Montefusco, L. (ed.) (2010), Papers on Rhetoric x (Rome). Celentano, M.S. (2010), “Variazioni sul tema dell’evidenza: Polifemo, Galatea e le schermaglie d’amore (Teocrito, Idillio 6),” in Calboli Montefusco (2010) 73–87. Chiron, P. (1993), Démétrios, Du Style (Paris). Cojannot-Le Blanc, M./Pouzadoux, C./Prioux, É. (eds.) (2015), L’Héroïque et le Champêtre. Volume ii: appropriation et déconstruction des théories stylistiques dans la pratique des artistes et dans les modalités d’exposition des œuvres (Nanterre). Cojannot-Le Blanc, M./Prioux, É. (2018) Rubens: des camées aniques à la galerie Médicis (Paris). Cozzoli, A.T. (2010), “Teocrito: arte e letteratura,” in Belloni/Bonandini/Ieranò/Moretti (2010) 269–308. Cusset, C./Poignault, R./Kossaifi, C. (eds.) (2018), Présence de Théocrite (ClermontFerrand). De Angelis, F. (1995), “La coupe de Nestor et l’imagination hellénistique: artistes, antiquaires, rois dans les deux derniers siècles av. J.-C.,” in Linant de Bellefonds/Prioux/Rouveret (2015) 57–68. Dubel, S. (2010), “Aphrodite se mirant au bouclier d’Arès: transpositions homériques et jeux de matière dans l’epos hellénistique,” in Prioux/Rouveret (2010) 13–18. Durbec, Y./Trajber, F. (eds.) (2017), Traditions épiques et poésie épigrammatique (Leuven). Faber, R. (1995), “Vergil, Eclogue 3.37, Theocritus 1, and Hellenistic Ekphrasis,” AJPh 116, 411–417. Faber, R. (2000), “The Literary Metaphor of the Chisel (Tornus) in Eclogue 3.38,”Hermes 128, 375–379.

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Faber, R. (forthcoming, a), “Coupes/Cups,” in Guez/Klein/Peigney/Prioux (forthcoming). Faber, R. (forthcoming, b), “Outils (tornus, τόρνος, tour)/Tools (tornus, τόρνος, turning lathe),” in Guez/Klein/Peigney/Prioux (forthcoming). Fanfani, G. (2017), “Weaving a Song. Convergences in Greek Poetic Imagery between Textile and Musical Terminology. An Overview on Archaic and Classical Literature,” in Gaspa/Michel/Nosch (2017) 421–436. Farioli Campanati, R. (ed.) (1983), iii° Colloquio Internazionale sul mosaico antico, Ravenna 6–10 Settembre 1980 (Ravenna). Franzoni, C. (2006), Tirannia dello sguardo. Corpo, gesto, espressione dell’arte greca (Torino). Fuchs, M. (1999), In hoc etiam genere Graeciae nihil cedamus. Studien zur Romanisierung der späthellenistischen Kunst im 1. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Mainz). Fulińska, A. (2013), “Mature Heracles and Youthful Kings. Theocritus 17 and Hellenistic Iconography,” Studies in Ancient Art and Civilization 17, 143–150. Ganszyniec, R. (1923), “Aphrodite Epitragia et les chœurs tragiques,” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 47, 431–449. Gaspa, S./Michel, C./Nosch, M.-L.B. (eds.) (2017), Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000bc to 1000ad (Lincoln, NE). Gevaerts, J.G./van Thulden, T. (1641) Pompa introitus honori Ferdinandi Austriaci Hispaniarum Infantis S. R. E. Card. Belgarum et Burgundionum gubernatoris (Antwerp). Goldhill, S. (1994), “The Naive and Knowing Eye: Ecphrasis and the Culture of Viewing in the Hellenistic World,” in Goldhill/Osborne (1994) 197–223. Goldhill, S./Osborne, R. (eds.) (1994) Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture (Cambridge). Gow, A.S.F. (1913), “The Cup in the First Idyll of Theocritus,” JHS 33, 207–222. Gow, A.S.F. (1952), Theocritus, 2 vols. (Cambridge). Guez, J.-P./Klein, F./Peigney, J./Prioux, É. (eds.) (forthcoming), Dictionnaire des images du poétique (Paris). Gutzwiller, K. (1996a), “Vergil and the Date of the Theocritean Epigram Book,” Philologus 140, 92–99. Gutzwiller, K. (1996b), “The Evidence for Theocritean Poetry Books,” in Harder/Regtuit/ Wakker (1996) 119–148. Gutzwiller, K. (2014), “Anacreon, Hellenistic Epigram and the Anacreontic Poet,” in Baumbach/Dümmler (2014) 47–66. Gutzwiller, K. (2020), “Under the Sign of the Distaff: Aetia 1.5, Spinning, and Erinna”, CQ 70–1, 177–191. Harder, M.A./Regtuit, R.F./Wakker, G.C. (eds.) (1996), Theocritus (Groningen). Hemelrijk, E.A. (1999), Matrona docta. Educated Women in the Roman Élite from Cornelia to Julia Domna, (London/New York).

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Hughes Fowler, B. (1989), The Hellenistic Aesthetic (Bristol). Lamari, A.A. (2008), “Painting a Song, Singing a Painting: Ecphrasis in Theocritus Idyll 18,” Seminari romani di cultura greca 11, 7–26. Lancha, J. (1983), “L’iconographie d’Hylas dans les mosaïques romaine,” in Farioli Campanati (1983) 381–392, pl. b–t. Lapatin, K. (2015), “Some Reflexions on the Berthouville ‘Dichterbecher,’” in Linant de Bellefonds/Prioux/Rouveret (2015) 69–80. Laubscher, H.-P. (1997), “Der Schlangenwürgende Herakles. Seine Bedeutung in der Herrscherikonologie,” JDAI 112, 149–166. Linant de Bellefonds, P./Prioux, É./Rouveret, A. (eds.) (2015), D’Alexandre à Auguste. Dynamiques de la création dans les arts visuels et la poésie (Rennes). Linant de Bellefonds, P./Prioux, É. (2018), Voir les mythes: Poésie hellénistique et arts figurés (Paris). Ling, R. (1979), “Hylas in Pompeian Art,” MÉFRA 91–92, 773–816. Maiuri, A. (1933), La Casa del Menandro e il suo tesoro di argenteria, 2 vols. (Roma). Manakidou, F. (1993), Beschreibung von Kunstwerken in der hellenistischen Dichtung— ein Beitrag zur hellenistischen Poetik (Stuttgart). Moreno, P. (1994), La Scultura ellenistica, 2 vol. (Roma). Müller, S. (2009), Das hellenistische Königspaar in der medialen Repräsentation: Ptolemaios ii und Arsinoe ii (Berlin/New York). Nakassis, D./Gulizio, J./James, S.A. (eds.) (2014), KE-RA-ME-JA. Studies Presented to Cynthia W. Shelmerdine (Philadelphia). Nicosia, S. (1968), Teocrito e l’arte figurata (Palermo). Nosch, M.-L.B. (2014), “Voicing the Loom: Women, Weaving, and Plotting” in Nakassis/ Gulizio/James (2014) 91–101. Nünlist, R. (1998), Poetologische Bildersprache in der frühgriechischen Dichtung, (Stuttgart/Leipzig). Onians, J. (1979), Art and Thought in the Hellenistic Age. The Greek World View 350–50bc (London). Ott, U. (1969), Die Kunst des Gegensatzes in Theokrits Hirtengedichten (Hildesheim/New York). Pagani, L. (2007), Asclepiade di Mirlea. I frammenti degli scritti omerici (Roma). Peigney, J. (forthcoming), “Tissage/Weaving,” in Guez/Klein/Peigney/Prioux (forthcoming). Picard, C. (1950), “Un cénacle littéraire hellénistique sur deux vases d’argent du trésor de Berthouville-Bernay,” MPiot 44, 53–82. Pollitt, J.J. (1974), The Ancient View of Greek Art: Criticism, History, and Terminology (New Haven/London). Prioux, É. (2002/2003), “Sur l’authenticité de cinq épigrammes grecques de la collection Erizzo,” Les Cahiers de l’Humanisme 3–4, 53–85.

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part 4 Narrative and Themes

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chapter 17

Myth and Narrative in Theocritus A.D. Morrison

1

Introduction

At the beginning of Idyll 11, the narrator (presumably Theocritus),1 addresses his friend Nicias, who is both poet and doctor (5–6), expressing the view that there is no treatment (1 φάρμακον) for love other than the Muses (3 Πιερίδες). As a mythic example of this perceived truth, which applies “for mortals” (4 ἐπ’ ἀνθρώποις), including by implication Theocritus, Nicias and the wider Hellenistic readership of the poem,2 he cites the Cyclops Polyphemus (7–9): οὕτω γοῦν ῥάιστα διᾶγ’ ὁ Κύκλωψ ὁ παρ’ ἁμῖν, ὡρχαῖος Πολύφαμος, ὅκ’ ἤρατο τᾶς Γαλατείας, ἄρτι γενειάσδων περὶ τὸ στόμα τὼς κροτάφως τε. In this way, then, managed as easily as possible the Cyclops, our countryman, ancient Polyphemus, when he was in love with Galatea, at the time his beard was just sprouting around his mouth and temples. This Polyphemus is “ancient” (ὡρχαῖος), which evokes principally the Homeric Cyclops of Odyssey 9,3 but he is also different, since the Odyssean Polyphemus was not in love with Galatea nor located on Sicily (ὁ παρ’ ἁμῖν).4 The detail of his newly acquired facial hair fixes him as young, some time before the fateful arrival of Odysseus, which is anticipated at v. 61,5 while Theocritus has Polyphemus proudly underline in his own voice his pastoral riches and his musical skill (34–40), part of the song of Polyphemus which makes up the bulk of the poem (19–79). The role of the Cyclops in the poem thus illustrates many of

1 Cf. Morrison (2007) 253. 2 Cf. Idyll 13.1–4, where Theocritus affirms to Nicias that it was not “for us alone” (1 οὐχ ἁμῖν … μόνοις) that Eros was created. See Hunter (1999) 265–266 and also section 2 below. 3 For other depictions of Polyphemus relevant to Theocritus, including Euripides’ Cyclops and Philoxenus, see Hunter (1999) 215–217. 4 Payne (2007) 69. 5 Hunter (1999) 239.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004466715_019

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the most important elements of the use and narration of myth in Theocritus: the employment of a character from heroic myth6 as a paradigm alongside the transformation of that character, who in Idyll 11 is “bucolicised” and placed in an un-Homeric place and situation, but allowed to speak in his own voice, giving the audience access to the novel perspective of the transformed Polyphemus, which is in turn juxtaposed with the narratorial frame (1–18, 80–81), addressed to Nicias. We shall examine in turn the use of myths as paradigms in Theocritus, his transformations of heroic myth and presentation of new perspectives on famous characters and narratives, as part of an examination of the development of a marked complexity and variety in mythic storytelling across the Theocritean corpus.

2

Heroes and Herdsmen: Myth as Paradigm7

The closest parallel for Idyll 11’s citation of a heroic mythic character as a paradigm for some aspect of human experience is found at the beginning of Idyll 13, where Heracles is invoked, again in an address to Nicias, as a demonstration of the fact that mortals are neither the only nor the first to be afflicted by Eros (5–7): ἀλλὰ καὶ Ἀμφιτρύωνος ὁ χαλκεοκάρδιος υἱός, ὃς τὸν λῖν ὑπέμεινε τὸν ἄγριον, ἤρατο παιδός, τοῦ χαρίεντος Ὕλα, τοῦ τὰν πλοκαμῖδα φορεῦντος Amphitryon’s son, the bronze-hearted, who endured against the savage lion: he too loved a boy, graceful Hylas, who wore his locks long. In sharp contrast to the direct quotation of the song of Polyphemus, Heracles is denied a voice in Idyll 13: his shouting for Hylas (58 Ὕλαν ἄυσεν) is simply reported and assimilated to the sound a beast makes (he calls “as loud as his deep throat could roar,” v. 58),8 while the only direct speech in the narrative is the

6 I use the term “heroic myth” to distinguish myth as found in (e.g.) epic and tragedy from the “bucolic myth” related to such figures as the herdsmen Daphnis and Comatas, which is also found in Theocritus. 7 Fantuzzi (1995) is fundamental on the paradigmatic use of myth in Theocritean bucolic (and its attendant problems). 8 The senses of the verb ἐρεύγομαι include “belch” and “roar”; as Hunter (1999) 283 points out,

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single line attributed to a nameless sailor in a simile.9 But as Idyll 11 transformed Polyphemus from a people-eating monster into a lovesick singing herdsman, Idyll 13 gives us Heracles in love. This lovestruck Heracles forms a very different figure from (for instance) the Argonaut loudly aloof from his companions’ erotic entanglements on Lemnos in Apollonius’ Argonautica (“We shall certainly not have glory shacked up like this for ages with foreign women!,” A.R. 1.869–870), a poem with which this Idyll is clearly closely related, since it tells of the same episode which ends the first book of the Argonautica.10 Theocritus instead makes explicit the erotic relationship of Heracles and Hylas, which is only hinted at in Apollonius (e.g., through the simile comparing Heracles searching for Hylas with a bull maddened by a gadfly at A.R. 1.1265–1259). His Heracles, though his usual strength and power is suggested by the comparison Theocritus makes between Heracles looking for Hylas and “a lion who eats raw flesh” (62), is made impotent by his desperate love: Eros is “breaking his heart” (71), the Argonauts’ mission is entirely forgotten (67), and Heracles abandons the Argo (73–74). This in turn is a very different Heracles from his typically belligerent characterisation in epic and elsewhere:11 in Odyssey 11 even his shade is able to terrify the other inhabitants of the underworld (Od. 11.605–608), while in Pindar’s Olympian 9 Heracles is able to match himself against the gods (O. 9.29–35) and in other poems in the Theocritean corpus he is able to carry out his characteristic monster slaying (such as the snakes Hera sends to kill him in Idyll 24.26–33 or the Nemean lion in Idyll 25.266–271).12 Both Idylls 11 and 13 represent the extended narration of heroic myth employed as a paradigm for an aspect of human experience, but across the Theocritean corpus such myth is also cited more briefly with a paradigmatic function. In the bucolic poems (though these also employ a distinct variety of bucolic myth which we shall also explore), both Polyphemus and Heracles are

9 10

11

12

its use in v. 58 may recall the belching of the monstrous Homeric Polyphemus (Od. 9.374) as well as anticipating the lion with which Heracles is compared in vv. 62–63 (for ἐρεύγομαι of a roaring bull cf. Il. 20.403). Morrison (2007) 232, Payne (2007) 85–86. On the long debate about the direction of influence between Theocritus and Apollonius, see Hunter (1996) 59–62, (1999) 264–265, Morrison (2007) 229 n. 53, with further bibliography. The first part of Idyll 22 (Polydeuces vs Amycus) tells the next episode, which begins Argonautica book 2, on which see n. 76 below. See further below on Idyll 13 (section 3). Though it is important to bear in mind the variety of literary and iconographical presentations of Heracles visible across antiquity, for which see in general Galinsky (1972) and Gantz (1993) 374–466. See further Sections 3 and 4 below on these poems. On Heracles across the Theocritean corpus, see Acosta-Hughes (2012).

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invoked in a question from the narrator of Idyll 7, Simichidas, seeking to compare the wine he drank at the celebration at the house of Phrasidamus on Cos (148–155): Νύμφαι Κασταλίδες Παρνάσιον αἶπος ἔχοισαι, ἆρά γέ πᾳ τοιόνδε Φόλω κατὰ λάινον ἄντρον κρατῆρ’ Ἡρακλῆι γέρων ἐστάσατο Χίρων; ἆρά γέ πᾳ τῆνον τὸν ποιμένα τὸν ποτ’ Ἀνάπῳ, τὸν κρατερὸν Πολύφαμον, ὃς ὤρεσι νᾶας ἔβαλλε, τοῖον νέκταρ ἔπεισε κατ’ αὔλια ποσσὶ χορεῦσαι οἷον δὴ τόκα πῶμα διεκρανάσατε, Νύμφαι, βωμῷ πὰρ Δάματρος ἁλωίδος; Castalian Nymphs dwelling on Mount Parnassus, was this the kind of wine-bowl aged Chiron set out for Heracles in the rocky cave of Pholus? Was it nectar like this which persuaded that shepherd by the Anapus to dance among his sheepfolds, mighty Polyphemus, who pelted ships with mountains, such drink as then you mixed for us, Nymphs, by the altar of Demeter, goddess of the threshing floor? From one perspective these comparisons assimilate the mythic Heracles and Polyphemus with a contemporary Hellenistic celebration at a harvest festival, part of a wider pattern of the “domestication” of mythic characters in Theocritus.13 But, as commentators are fond of pointing out, the parallels are in another sense unfortunate, since the wine which made Polyphemus drunk led directly to his blinding by Odysseus (Od. 9.371–400), while the wine served to Heracles in Pholus’ cave caused a fight with the Centaurs which in turn led to the death of Chiron.14 It is not, perhaps, accidental that Simichidas frames the comparisons in Idyll 7 as questions: Simichidas is at least reminiscent of Theocritus himself.15 However, the poem does not ultimately resolve the question of their precise relationship,16 and employs as potential paradigms precisely the same mythic characters as Theocritus employs elsewhere (as we have seen). In doing so Idyll 7 raises the question of the appropriateness of the mythic paradigms invoked and suggests that one ought to respond that in important

13 14 15 16

See Section 3 below for the prominent domestication of myth in Idyll 24. Cf. [Apollod.] 2.5.4, Fantuzzi (1995) 27–28. See also Dover (1971) 165, Hunter (1999) 196. Hunter (1999) 146. Morrison (2007) 259, Payne (2007) 137–138.

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ways the wine at Phrasidamus’ is nothing like the wine served to Polyphemus or Heracles. Here the differences between the mythic analogues cited and the situation for which they are supposed to provide a comparison is what matters.17 This is, in Fantuzzi’s view, a new use of paradigmatic myth on the part of Theocritus,18 destabilising the exemplary value of such myths. Simichidas to some extent ensures himself against some of the problems in his use of heroic myth as a paradigm for his own situation by framing his comparisons as questions, but the goatherd of Idyll 3 is more direct when listing those he sees as mythic parallels for his own amorous situation with Amaryllis, whom he is serenading (40–51). He cites Hippomenes’ pursuit of Atalanta, Melampus’ role in his brother Bias receiving Alphesiboea,19 Aphrodite’s love for Adonis even when he had died,20 and Endymion and Iasion. For many readers and critics this catalogue has seemed deeply ironic,21 since in most cases the relationships adduced turned out badly (Iasion, for instance, is usually killed by a thunderbolt for having slept with Demeter);22 it is striking with regard to the employment of myth as paradigm that the goatherd greatly overestimates the degree to which these mythic characters are similar to him, not only in the outcome of their love, but also in their rustic or bucolic qualities. He describes Hippomenes, who obtained the fabled apples of the Hesperides to defeat Atalanta as running “with apples in his hands” (41 μᾶλ’ ἐν χερσίν), as if these were everyday apples of the sort he brings to Amaryllis (10–11), while Melampus, who retrieved the cattle of Nereus which Phylacus had stolen, he sees as having “led his herd from Othrys to Pylos” (43–44 τὰν ἀγέλαν … ἀπ’ Ὄθρυος ἆγε … / ἐς Πύλον), much as the goatherd himself might have done with the flocks he leaves Tityrus to mind at the beginning of the poem. In part we meet here again a type of the domestication of heroic myth, in particular its “bucolicising” (which we see on a larger scale in the treatment of Polyphemus in Idyll 11), but in the goatherd’s naive assumption that these mythic figures are just like him, assimilating their narratives with his own situation. What is

17

18 19 20 21 22

Payne (2007) 136 comments that Simichidas “is trying out the relationship between myth and personal experience … without a great deal of confidence” and rightly compares the goatherd of Idyll 3, on whom see also below. Fantuzzi (1995) 28–29. Fantuzzi (1995) 24 suggests Theocritus is implying a version (lost on the goatherd) where the brothers Bias and Melampus are rivals for the hand of Pero. Also cited in an aggressive reproach to Aphrodite by Daphnis at Idyll 1.109–110, alongside mentions of Anchises (105–107) and Diomedes (112–113). See Hunter (1999) 123. For a similar catalogue (with very much an oxherd’s perspective on myth) see Idyll [20].34–43. See Od. 5.125, Hes. Th. 969–974.

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emphasised is once more the differences between his situation and theirs, again problematising the use of heroic myth as providing exemplary models.23 Heroic myth,24 however, is not the only type of myth present in Theocritus, since the bucolic poems employ reference to and narratives from a distinct mythological world populated by herdsmen and singers, who in part provide the mythological origins of bucolic song and also form a set of bucolic paradigms of which Theocritus’ bucolic singers can make use. The most important figure in this bucolic mythology is Daphnis, the story of whose suffering and death Thyrsis sings in Idyll 1, at the request of a goatherd. The “sufferings of Daphnis” are a mark of Thyrsis’ excellence as a bucolic singer (19–20 τὺ γὰρ δή, Θύρσι, τὰ Δάφνιδος ἄλγε’ ἀείδες / καὶ τᾶς βουκολικᾶς ἐπὶ τὸ πλέον ἵκεο μοίσας, “But you can sing of the sufferings of Daphnis and have come to master bucolic song”), and the refrain Thyrsis employs in his narrative about Daphnis (Ἄρχετε βουκολικᾶς, Μοῖσαι φίλαι, ἄρχετ’ ἀοιδᾶς, “Dear Muses, begin the bucolic song,” vv. 64, 70, etc.)25 suggest that the story of Daphnis is the bucolic song par excellence.26 The fact that Daphnis is “dear to the Muses” (141), wants to make a gift of his pipe to Pan before his death (123–130), and elicits an emotional reaction in the entire countryside, from its animals, wild and domestic (72–75), through its herdsmen (80–81) to its gods (77–78, 81–91), suggests a connection between his death and the creation of bucolic song itself. Later sources make explicit a connection between Daphnis and the invention of bucolic song (cf. e.g., Diod. Sic. 4.84, Aelian, VH 10.18),27 but it is important to emphasise that in Idyll 1 this connection remains implicit, which fits into a wider pattern in this poem and Theocritean bucolic more generally of indeterminacy and uncertainty as to the details and significance of bucolic myth. It is not clear, for example, precisely what lies behind the death of Daphnis in Idyll 1.28 Thyrsis reveals that Daphnis was “pining away” (ἐτάκετο, v. 66), suggesting he was suffering from unrequited love. This seems to be the diagnosis of Hermes, who asks who Daphnis’ tormentor is and what the origin of his great

23 24

25 26 27 28

See Fantuzzi (1995) 22–23, who discusses the bucolic perspective the goatherd brings to these various myths. Cf. also its use by Simaetha in Idyll 2, who makes reference to Medea, Circe, and Ariadne (15–16, 45–46) and the citation of Achilles, Patroclus, and Heracles’ labours in the erotic Idyll 29 (33–34, 37–38). The refrain is carefully varied as the song continues, to mark its different stages (cf. e.g. 94, 127, etc.). Lacon in Idyll 5 uses the same phrase as the goatherd of Idyll 1 to describe the “sufferings of Daphnis” (20 τὰ Δάφνιδος ἄλγε’), in the same metrical position. Hunter (1999) 60–67. Hunter (2004) 93.

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love is (78), and Priapus, who calls him “unlucky in love” (85 δύσερως) and “at a loss” (85 ἀμήχανος), while informing him (as though to correct a misapprehension on Daphnis’ part) that “the girl is looking for you, visiting all the springs and groves” (82–85). But the exchange with Aphrodite at vv. 95–113 suggests instead that Daphnis is resisting his own love and refusing to surrender to it, as though he had made a vow of chastity.29 Aphrodite reminds him of his earlier boastfulness with regard to Eros (97–98): κεἶπε· ‘τύ θην τὸν Ἔρωτα κατεύχεο, Δάφνι, λυγιξεῖν· ἦ ῥ’ οὐκ αὐτὸς Ἔρωτος ὑπ’ ἀργαλέω ἐλυγίχθης;’ She said: “You declared you’d throw down Eros, but haven’t you yourself been thrown by cruel Eros?” The details of his death are also unclear, hinting at a suicide by drowning without making this explicit30 and containing the puzzling detail of Aphrodite’s desire to save Daphnis, despite her earlier hostility (138–141):31 χὢ μὲν τόσσ’ εἰπὼν ἀπεπαύσατο· τὸν δ’ Ἀφροδίτα ἤθελ’ ἀνορθῶσαι· τά γε μὰν λίνα πάντα λελοίπει ἐκ Μοιρᾶν, χὠ Δάφνις ἔβα ῥόον. ἔκλυσε δίνα τὸν Μοίσαις φίλον ἄνδρα, τὸν οὐ Νύμφαισιν ἀπεχθῆ. Having said this he stopped. Aphrodite wanted to lift him up, but all his thread from the Fates was gone and Daphnis went to the stream. The whirlpool whelmed that man dear to the Muses and not hateful to the Nymphs. The incompleteness and openness of the narrative of Daphnis’ death in Idyll 1, of course, make its reader attempt to “fill in the gaps,” such as the motivation of Daphnis and Aphrodite and how he meets his end. Such narrative supplementation on the part of the reader is part of the normal experience of reading,32 but the reader of the wider Theocritean corpus meets further interpretative challenges when encountering Daphnis in other poems, which do not appear 29 30 31 32

Cf. e.g., Hippolytus. Cf. Hunter (1999) 66–68. Hunter (1999) 66–67. The relationship of Aphrodite’s behaviour to her address to Daphnis would be clearer if vv. 95–96 were not corrupt. See Hunter (1999) 94–95. Sternberg (1978) 50.

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entirely to cohere with the account in Idyll 1 and raise further questions about the significance of Daphnis and his sufferings. When Lycidas, the enigmatic goatherd who encounters Simichidas in Idyll 7, imagines a celebration for his beloved’s safe arrival on Lesbos, he envisages listening to one Tityrus sing of Daphnis (73–77): ὥς ποκα τᾶς Ξενέας ἠράσσατο Δάφνις ὁ βούτας, χὠς ὄρος ἀμφεπονεῖτο, καὶ ὡς δρύες αὐτὸν ἐθρήνευν Ἱμέρα αἵτε φύοντι παρ’ ὄχθῃσιν ποταμοῖο, εὖτε χιὼν ὥς τις κατετάκετο μακρὸν ὑφ’ Αἷμον ἢ Ἄθω ἢ Ῥοδόπαν ἢ Καύκασον ἐσχατόωντα. how once the oxherd Daphnis was in love with Xenea, and how the mountain was in sorrow for him and how the oaks which grow on the banks of the Himeras river sang a lament for him, when like snow under tall Haemus or Athos or Rhodope or furthest Caucasus he wasted away. Here there is a similar emotional reaction on the part of the landscape to the death of Daphnis, but he seems simply to waste away (76 κατετάκετο) rather than drown (if that is his fate in Idyll 1), while he appears to be in the situation of unrequited love, here for one Xenea (73 τᾶς Ξενέας ἠράσσατο), that Idyll 1 raised only to modify with Daphnis’ rejection of Eros. Elsewhere in Theocritus the cognitive dissonance with Daphnis’ fate in Idyll 1 is greater still, as when we meet Daphnis in Idyll 6. This Daphnis engages in a friendly song exchange with one Damoetas which ends with the latter kissing him (42) and with neither defeated (46). The songs they sing are addressed to and in the voice of Polyphemus, concerning his love for Galatea: in Daphnis’ song he is engaged in ignoring her advances (deliberately, according to the song of Damoetas, vv. 25– 26, 32–33). The Daphnis of Idyll 6 is described as “Daphnis the oxherd” (1 Δάφνις ὁ βουκόλος), a description strongly resembling the mythic Daphnis of Idylls 1 (ὁ βουκόλος … Δάφνις, 1.116) and 7 (Δάφνις ὁ βούτας, 1.73), but he seems untroubled by suffering and even able to sing of a herdsman engaged in resisting his love in a comic distortion of his (?) own behaviour in Idyll 1. The question of the relationship of this Daphnis to those of Idylls 1 and 7 is left open and indeterminate, as it is also in Idylls [8] and [9], where Daphnis is likewise the name of one of the singers in a song exchange.33

33

Cf. also the Daphnis engaged in the seduction of a woman in Idyll [27]: how is he related to the mythological Daphnis? He claims Lycidas as his father in v. 42.

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The treatment of Comatas as a figure of bucolic mythology is similar: he is invoked (83 ὦ μακαριστὲ Κομάτα, “Most blessed Comatas”) in Idyll 7 as an ideal herdsman-singer whom Lycidas wishes he could have heard (86–89) and who was once shut in a chest and kept alive by bees (83–85). But in Idyll 5 Comatas is a slave goatherd who wins a coarse song-contest against Lacon, with rather more prosaic concerns than the mythic Comatas fed by bees. He warns his ram at the close of the poem (149–150): “if I don’t castrate you, may I be Melanthius instead of Comatas” (ἀλλὰ γενοίμαν, / αἰ μή τυ φλάσσαιμι, Μελάνθιος ἀντὶ Κομάτα). We should also consider the famous problem of the identity of the mysterious Lycidas in Idyll 7 as a further example of this interpretative indeterminacy: this goatherd who “looked just like a goatherd” (14 αἰπόλῳ ἔξοχ’ ἐῴκει) has long been suspected of concealing a god, such as Apollo, or some other programmatically significant figure.34 Nevertheless, it is important to note that his identity is never resolved in Idyll 7, nor is the significance of the meeting between Simichidas and Lycidas made explicit: Lycidas gives Simichidas a staff and the scene has been compared with a poetic initiation (such as the meeting of Hesiod with the Muses on Mount Helicon in the Theogony), but Simichidas is already a poet when he meets Lycidas (37–41),35 and the lack of certainty about Lycidas’ identity makes this an initiation, if it can be called that, only of a very indeterminate sort.36 The indeterminacy we have identified in the narratives of bucolic myth in Theocritus has been rightly linked by Mark Payne with the sense of the creation of self-contained fictional worlds in Theocritean bucolic, giving the reader a sense of the importance of song in the creation of these fictional worlds and providing an analogue in the songs of herdsmen-singers for the creative act of the poet himself, while suggesting that access to these fictional worlds is necessarily partial and incomplete.37 The characters of bucolic myth are invoked or their narrative related by other bucolic singers (Thyrsis, Tityrus, Lycidas, Simichidas), sometimes in an elaborate “Chinese box” effect (in Idyll 7 Simichidas tells of Lycidas singing of Tityrus singing of Daphnis), which suggests bucolic song is in some sense always an act of recollection or reconstruction. When, for example, the goatherd requests the sufferings of Daphnis

34

35 36 37

See Williams (1971) for the suggestion that Lycidas is really Apollo, Bowie (1985) for the idea that he is a character from Philitas. For further possibilities see Hunter (1999) 148– 149. See Payne (2007) 128–129. Cf. Payne (2007) 139–140. Payne (2007) e.g., 49–91.

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from Thyrsis in Idyll 1, he wants him to sing “as you sang when in competition with Chromis from Libya” (24). The changing, uncertain significance of bucolic myths within these different bucolic worlds (and the indeterminacy of their precise relationship with one another, such as the relationship of the different Daphnises across the corpus), make it difficult to employ such myths as paradigms for elements of human experience, which perhaps explains why it is heroic myth which is so employed in Idylls 11 and 13. It also highlights the interpretative demands made on readers by the use and narration of myth in Theocritus.38

3

Transformations of Heroic Myth

As we have seen, in Idyll 11 the Polyphemus of the Odyssey who eats several of Odysseus’ crew becomes a lovesick herdsman who sings to alleviate the symptoms of his condition and wishes he could bring Galatea flowers (56–57). This assimilates him to the other herdsmen of Theocritean bucolic poems,39 but it also “domesticates” him, portraying him as engaged in everyday activities which anyone might carry out. This pattern of the domestication of heroic myth is also found in Theocritus outside the bucolic poems in the more straightforwardly “mythological” poems:40 the clearest example is Idyll 24,41 which tells the story of Heracles’ killing of two snakes sent by Hera to kill him, the prophecy of Teiresias concerning his future, and his education. The poem begins with Alcmene putting her children to bed, having bathed them and given them milk (3), singing them a lullaby and rocking them to sleep (7– 10):42 ‘εὕδετ’, ἐμὰ βρέφεα, γλυκερὸν καὶ ἐγέρσιμον ὕπνον· εὕδετ’, ἐμὰ ψυχά, δύ’ ἀδελφεοί, εὔσοα τέκνα·

38 39 40 41

42

On the interpretative demands on the reader made in Theocritus, see Schmitz (2012) 279– 280. See Section 1 above. On Idylls 13, 22, and 24, see also Sens, this volume. See in general on the concentration on the domestic in Idyll 24 Gow (1952) 2.415, Effe (1978) 54–59, Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 257–261, Morrison (2007) 225. On the wider pattern of such domestications or normalisations of the heroic in Theocritus, see Effe (1978) 64– 76. Cf. also for the domestication of mythological heroes the treatment by Callimachus of Heracles in the Victoria Berenices and Theseus in the Hecale. For “realism” in Hellenistic poetry see in general Zanker (1987). On the intertexts in play in these lines, see Hunter (1996) 26–27, Morrison (2007) 224.

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ὄλβιοι εὐνάζοισθε καὶ ὄλβιοι ἀῶ ἵκοισθε.’ ὣς φαμένα δίνησε σάκος μέγα· “Sleep, my babies, a sweet sleep from which you will wake. Sleep safely, children, my souls, you two brothers. Happy rest and happy come to the dawn.” So saying she rocked the great shield. The shield she rocks, where the children are sleeping and which has been given an epic provenance in vv. 4–5,43 underlines for the reader that this is no ordinary Hellenistic mother putting her children to bed; rather we are being given a glimpse into the domestic situation of the greatest of all heroes, Heracles. When Alcmene hears Iphicles crying in alarm at the attack of the snakes, she reacts as many a Hellenistic mother would have done on hearing her distressed child (35–37): ἄνσταθ’, Ἀμφιτρύων· ἐμὲ γὰρ δέος ἴσχει ὀκνηρόν· ἄνστα, μηδὲ πόδεσσιν ἑοῖς ὑπὸ σάνδαλα θείης. οὐκ ἀίεις, παίδων ὁ νεώτερος ὅσσον ἀυτεῖ; Get up Amphitryon! I am afraid and nervous. Get up! Don’t put sandals on your feet. Can’t you hear how much the younger one is crying? It is not that such domestic details have no precedent in the narration of heroic myth in general or this story in particular: in Theocritus’ principal model, Pindar’s Nemean 1, it is Alcmene who leaps ἄπεπλος (“robeless”) to combat the snakes,44 but the treatment in Theocritus places much more emphasis on such details than they receive in Pindar. Amphitryon attempts to arm himself (42– 45) in the uncanny light sent by Zeus as a warning of the danger of the snakes (21–22), but the room is suddenly plunged into darkness once more (46) and we receive instead a detailed description of the household being roused and attempting to respond to a threat in the middle of the night (47–53). Nevertheless, though “the boss is calling” (50 αὐτὸς ἀυτεῖ), the only heroic action in the narrative has already happened—Heracles has strangled the snakes (26–33); the details of the reaction of parents and household are present to emphasise the domestic setting of the story. Finally, when Heracles has proudly shown his father the snakes he has killed (56–59), Alcmene comforts the understandably

43 44

See Gutzwiller (1981) 11–12. She also does so in Pindar, Paean 20.14, though there she is motivated by fear.

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terrified Iphicles (60–61), while Amphitryon lays Heracles down and “going back to bed he thought of sleep” (63), assimilating his experience to that of an ordinary Hellenistic father responding to a child’s nightmare. A crucial element in the effect of the poem on the reader is the juxtaposition of the domestication of a heroic narrative with a notably epic manner: alongside the use of the hexameter and epic dialect (mixed with several Doric forms),45 we find a much more even narrative pace than in Pindar’s brief, allusive treatment in Nemean 1, filling in several details Pindar only sketches or leaves implicit (the clearest example being Theocritus’ description of the snakes themselves, vv. 14–19), the avoidance of first-person forms by the narrator (again in sharp contrast to Pindar, cf. e.g., N. 1.33–34), and the transformation of Teiresias’ indirectly reported prophecy in Nemean 1 into one quoted in direct speech in Idyll 24. In its engagement with Pindar, Idyll 24 forms therefore one type of the “translation” into hexameters of lyric forms which is widespread in the Hellenistic period,46 which can be usefully contrasted with the strategies Theocritus employs in Idyll 13, where Heracles also features prominently. Citing a mythological exemplum for one’s own erotic experiences, as Idyll 13 does in its opening address to Nicias, would have been well suited to a lyric poem in an earlier age of Greek literature (compare, for instance, Sappho’s use of Helen’s experience as a parallel for her own in fr. 16 v.).47 Despite the shift into hexameters, however, Theocritus’ narrative in Idyll 13 shows notable affinities with the abbreviated, selective narrative common in lyric (as well illustrated by Pindar, for example).48 The subject matter of the narrative is epic, the story of the Argonauts, already identified as an old subject for such poetry in the Odyssey (“the Argo, known to all,” Ἀργὼ πᾶσι μέλουσα, Od. 12.70), but Theocritus compresses the gathering of the Argonauts and the journey to Colchis into just nine lines (16–24): ἀλλ’ ὅτε τὸ χρύσειον ἔπλει μετὰ κῶας Ἰάσων Αἰσονίδας, οἱ δ’ αὐτῷ ἀριστῆες συνέποντο πασᾶν ἐκ πολίων προλελεγμένοι ὧν ὄφελός τι, ἵκετο χὠ ταλαεργὸς ἀνὴρ ἐς ἀφνειὸν Ἰωλκόν, Ἀλκμήνας υἱὸς Μιδεάτιδος ἡρωίνας, 45 46 47 48

See Gow (1952) 2.416, Dover (1971) xv. On such “translations” into hexameters (or elegiac couplets), see Fantuzzi (1993) 50–54, Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 30–32, Morrison (2007) 18–19. See also Kwapisz, this volume. Cf. Hunter (1999) 262, Morrison (2007) 230. For the narrative abbreviations typical of Pindar, see Griffith (1993).

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σὺν δ’ αὐτῷ κατέβαινεν Ὕλας εὔεδρον ἐς Ἀργώ, ἅτις κυανεᾶν οὐχ ἅψατο συνδρομάδων ναῦς ἀλλὰ διεξάιξε βαθὺν δ’ εἰσέδραμε Φᾶσιν, αἰετὸς ὥς, μέγα λαῖτμα, ἀφ’ οὗ τότε χοιράδες ἔσταν. So when Jason, son of Aeson, sailed to get the Golden Fleece, the leaders went with him, chosen from every city according to their skills. And the much-labouring man also came to rich Iolcus, the son of Alcmene, the Midean heroine, and with him went Hylas down to the well-benched Argo, the ship which did not graze the dark rocks which ran together, but darted through and rushed into the deep Phasis, a great gulf, from which day the rocks have been fixed. The first two books of the Argonautica vividly illustrate how extended this narrative might have been;49 we find similar compression in the telling of the disappearance and death of Hylas, with Idyll 11 using 32 lines to tell of his encounter with the nymphs and Heracles’ search (36–67), where Apollonius uses 66 (A.R. 1.1207–1272), and only 7 lines to narrate the Argonauts’ waiting for and then leaving Heracles (69–75), in contrast to the 85 lines employed by Apollonius to tell of the abandonment of Heracles and its aftermath (A.R. 1.1273–1357). The Apollonian treatment of the latter episode also underlines a key feature of the narrative in Idyll 13: where Apollonius has Telamon and Jason exchange lengthy speeches and the sea god Glaucus address the Argonauts (1315–1325), direct speech is almost entirely absent from Theocritus’ narrative.50 One important effect of this is to draw attention to the narrator of Idyll 13, who does not remain unobtrusive in Homeric fashion, but mediates between reader and narrative in reporting the exchange between Heracles and Hylas in vv. 58–59.51 The narrator is also prepared to pass comment on the narrative he is telling, again drawing attention to himself, most clearly in the assertion that “lovers are wretched” (66 σχέτλιοι οἱ φιλέοντες) when describing Heracles’ tortured search for Hylas.52 49

50 51 52

It may well be that Theocritus is adapting or responding to Apollonius’ narrative: for the debate about which versions is prior see n. 10 above. It has seemed significant to many (cf. e.g., Hunter (1996) 59–62, Sens (1996) 201–202, Acosta-Hughes (2012) 255) that in Idylls 13 and 22 Theocritus adapts Argonautic episodes which are contiguous in the Argonautica (Hylas at the end of A.R. 1 and Amycus at the beginning of A.R. 2). The only exception, as we have seen, is v. 52, which comes in a simile. See n. 9 above. Morrison (2007) 232. See further Morrison (2007) 232–233 on the emotional and evaluative language employed by the narrator in Idyll 13.

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Both Idylls 13 and 24 are sometimes grouped under the term “epyllion,” as relatively short hexameter narratives treating heroic mythic subjects,53 but the clear differences between them, including in narrative technique and the employment of a contextualising frame (present in Idyll 13, but absent in Idyll 24), suggests that the category is not particularly helpful and tends rather to obscure the heterogeneity and variety of Theocritean mythic narrative.54

4

Famous Myths, New Narrative Perspectives

If Idyll 24 gives us an insight into the quotidian machinery of a heroic household, Idyll 18 provides an encounter with a different kind of novel perspective on familiar epic characters (and another example of the “translation” of a lyric song-type into hexameters). As we have noted, Idyll 24 does not have a contextualising frame (though it may be that some such framing element is lost at the end of the poem),55 but Idyll 18 depicts the Hellenistic discovery of an archaic, Spartan wedding-song for Menelaus and Helen,56 which reveals a very particular point of view on their relationship, very different from their typical depiction in heroic myth (1–3): Ἔν ποκ’ ἄρα Σπάρτᾳ ξανθότριχι πὰρ Μενελάῳ παρθενικαὶ θάλλοντα κόμαις ὑάκινθον ἔχοισαι πρόσθε νεογράπτω θαλάμω χορὸν ἐστάσαντο So once, then, in Sparta at yellow-haired Menelaus’ palace, girls with blooming hyacinth in their hair set up the dance in front of the freshly painted bedroom. The song itself then follows in vv. 9–58, thus juxtaposing a distinctly Spartan perspective on Helen, where she is not the faithless wife of Menelaus who 53 54

55 56

Cf. e.g., Gutzwiller (1981) 10–29. In general on the category of epyllion see Gutzwiller (1981) 2–9, Cameron (1995) 447–453, Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 191–196; for recent doubts about the usefulness of the term see Morrison (2007) 230, Petrovic (2012) 154, Trimble (2012) 78–79 and, with particular reference to Theocritus, Acosta-Hughes (2012) 256–257. See Gow (1952) 2.436–437 on the portion of the poem lost at the close. I have argued elsewhere that ἄρα (“so”, “then”) in v. 1 should be read as inferential and marking the narrator of the frame as realising that this was the way the Spartan maidens sang the epithalamium for Helen and Menelaus: see Morrison (2007) 240–241, cf. Hunter (1996) 149–150.

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becomes the lover of Paris, but rather a devoted and dutiful wife,57 with the inescapable awareness of the Hellenistic reader of the panhellenic, Homeric Helen who abandoned her husband. The poem’s double perspective is nicely encapsulated by the address the girls make to Menelaus (15): κἠς ἔτος ἐξ ἔτεος, Μενέλαε, τεὰ νυὸς ἅδε. And from one year to the next she is your bride. The poem thus combines (and opposes) not only two perspectives on Helen separated by a large expanse of time (the Spartan song was sung ποκ’, “once,” i.e., long ago), but also two distinct types of audience, one archaic and ignorant of Helen’s typical role in myth, the other Hellenistic, able to compare a wealth of portrayals of Helen across different genres.58 The narratorial frame is therefore crucial to the way in which Idyll 18 functions; in contrast, Idyll 25 employs prominent narrative disjunctions and striking narrative ellipses to present a novel perspective on the hero par excellence, Heracles, by presenting him as someone whose fame has not yet been established (contrast the prediction of his future glory when he is just a baby in Idyll 24).59 Idyll 25 is divided into three sections, vv. 1–84 (subtitled Ἡρακλῆς πρὸς ἀγροῖκον, “Heracles to a peasant,” in some manuscripts), where Heracles converses with a rustic about the location of Augeas’ stables and is led there by him, vv. 85–152 (subtitled Ἐπιπώλησις, “Inspection,” in some manuscripts), where Heracles, Augeas and Phyleus observe the vast herds of Augeas, and vv. 153–281 (without a subtitle), where Phyleus and Heracles converse and Heracles gives a first-person account of his slaying of the Nemean lion. The first section, and the poem as a whole, begins abruptly60 and assumes a question or similar by Heracles (1–2):61 57 58 59

60

61

For this Spartan perspective on Helen, see (e.g.) Griffiths (1972) 25, Hunter (1996) 157–163. See Hunter (1996) 163–166, Morrison (2007) 241–242. I leave aside the question of Idyll 25’s “authenticity” here (though Gow (1952) 2.439–441 notes that it cannot with any certainty be attributed to Theocritus; see also Hunter (1998) 115–118, Schmitz (2012) 259–260), since it deserves attention as a particularly innovative poem with respect to its narrative form. I adapt in this section previously unpublished material from Morrison (2002). Chryssafis (1981) 27 calls this “typical” of Hellenistic epic, but neither the Argonautica, with its address to Phoebus, nor even the Hecale, plunging in medias res, characterise themselves as fragments from a larger narrative. It is possible (though not likely) that something is missing at the beginning of Idyll 25, as it is at the end of Idyll 24: cf. Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 210–211, Schmitz (2012) 260–263. Gow (1952) 2.442 notes the parallel with the opening of Homeric books such as Od. 9 (1 τὸν

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Τὸν δ’ ὁ γέρων προσέειπε βοῶν ἐπίουρος ἀροτρεύς, παυσάμενος ἔργοιο τό οἱ μετὰ χερσὶν ἔκειτο· To him spoke the old ploughman, guardian of the cattle, stopping the task which he had in hand. This discontinuity is also apparent with the other sections of Idyll 25—between the first and second sections the situation has changed, the rustic having departed and been replaced by new companions for Heracles, Augeas, and Phyleus. None of this is narrated. At the beginning of the third section Augeas is no longer with the other two, who have now left the farmlands εἰς ἄστυ (“for the city,” v. 153). Again, more ellipsis. If the subtitles of the sections are meant to recall those of Homeric books or book sections, as seems plausible (cf. Ὀδυσσέως πρὸς Εὔμαιον ὁμιλία, “The Conversation of Odysseus and Eumaeus,” for Od. 14;62 Ἐπιπώλησις Ἀγαμέμνονος, “The Inspection by Agamemnon,” for Il. 4.223ff.),63 these are “books” without interconnecting narratives. This sort of juxtaposition recalls the sudden shifts of lyric narrative more than the continuous narration of Homer, but even here the parallel is at best slight, as Hunter in particular has emphasised.64 The narrative has progressed “in the gaps” between the sections which we can read, but without these being narrated to us, however briefly. We have here something different from the marginalisation of the “main event,” the narrative “skewing” familiar from Pindar’s Pythian 4.249–250 or Callimachus’ Victoria Berenices,65 where the normal narrative climax, such as the slaying of the serpent guarding the Golden Fleece, is passed over quickly.66 Here the “main event,” the cleaning of the stables of Augeas, is not narrated at all;67 a sense of a type of narrative crescendo is instead suggested by the increasing danger presented by the animals Heracles confronts in the three sections (dogs, bull, and lion)68 and the structure of the poem. At the end there is a third section which is substantially longer than

62 63 64 65 66 67 68

δ’ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς, “and resourceful Odysseus replied to him”), but the key difference is that Od. 9 begins with a reply to a question put by Alcinous at the end of Od. 8. In Idyll 25, however, we miss the presence of this earlier question. Gow (1952) 2.442. Gow (1952) 2.451. Hunter (1998) 19–20, Hunter (2004) 88–89. Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 211. See Morrison (2007) 7–9 on such effects. Hunter (2004) 89. See Gutzwiller (1981) 31, 35, Hunter (2004) 88, Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 213.

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the first two (128 lines as against 84 and 67) and contains the longest direct speech of the poem (88 lines), in which Heracles himself relates the story of the Nemean lion, which thus in a sense replaces the cleaning of the Augean stables as the heroic action of the poem. It is attractive to follow Hunter in suggesting that Heracles is portrayed in Idyll 25 as “before kleos,” before the significance of his labours (one of which forms the setting for the poem, another of which Heracles himself narrates) is clear and before his customary garb automatically identifies him, though it does cause the rustic in the first section to wonder who he could be (62–64): νόῳ δ’ ὅγε πόλλ’ ἐμενοίνα, / δέρμα τε θηρὸς ὁρῶν χειροπληθῆ τε κορύνην, / ὁππόθεν ὁ ξεῖνος (“he kept thinking over, looking at the lion-skin and the weighty club, where the stranger came from”). In Idyll 25 we would thus have a narrative which is in some sense “pre-epic,” with gaps waiting to be filled in by an epic narrator.69 This may partly account for the fact that within those parts of the poem which are narrated rather than in direct speech there is very little in the way of intrusion on the part of the primary narrator, so that Idyll 25 exists as if “before” an epic narrator has taken control of the narrative and forged it into a continuous story (and in so doing leaving his explicit mark on at least some of the narrative). From another point of view, however, the juxtaposition itself of these episodes also points to a figure arranging and juxtaposing them. Perhaps we are meant to think of the activity of an editor or scholar as responsible for the collection and arrangement of the different parts of the poem, in contrast to a conventional epic aoidos creating a continuous narrative. The form of Idyll 25 may also allude, more elliptically than the explicit staging of a Hellenistic encounter with an archaic song in Idyll 18, to scholarly activity being carried out in Alexandria on the texts of epic such as Homer.70

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Hunter (1998) 128–129, Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 214–215. Schmitz (2012) 267–274 focuses rather on the supplementation of these gaps by the reader. It may be relevant that Heracles in his narrative of the Nemean lion is fond of using line-initial αὐτάρ to connect the different parts of his story (it is found four times in his narrative, vv. 206, 211, 227, 232; only seven times outside the poem in the rest of the Theocritean corpus). This is a characteristic which is a feature of some embedded narratives in Homer (cf. e.g., the story of Bellerophon as told by Glaucus at Il.6.152–211), and could also be associated in antiquity with the typical style of Cyclic epic, as at AP 11.130.1–2 (see in general Griffin (1977) 49, who highlights the repeated use of αὐτάρ at Thebaid fr. 2 PEG). Perhaps Heracles is made to speak in a manner which recalls some distinctive features of archaic epic, as part of the creation of a sense that this narrative is still at an early stage in its development.

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Narrative Poikilia

The range of narrative styles and structures employed in the Theocritean corpus across bucolic and mythological poems should already be clear, but there is one poem in particular which seems deliberately to juxtapose narrative techniques and adapt a range of earlier genres and song types (including epic, lyric and tragedy) in a characteristically Theocritean manner.71 This is Idyll 22, a hexameter hymn which celebrates the twin gods, Castor and Polydeuces, and writes their doubleness into its structure and its narrative variety.72 Polydeuces is celebrated first, by telling of his boxing match with Amycus, king of the Bebrycians, during the expedition of the Argonauts. The treatment Theocritus gives to this episode is strikingly un-epic, especially in its employment of stichomythia in the exchange between Polydeuces and Amycus at vv. 54–74, which is reminiscent of its use in argumentative contexts in tragedy.73 The narrator is also very prominent in much of this narrative, intervening at a crucial point to address the Muse (115–117): Πῶς γὰρ δὴ Διὸς υἱὸς ἀδηφάγον ἄνδρα καθεῖλεν; εἰπὲ, θεά, σὺ γὰρ οἶσθα· ἐγὼ δ’ ἑτέρων ὑποφήτης φθέγξομαι ὅσσ’ ἐθέλεις σύ καὶ ὅππως τοι φίλον αὐτῇ. How then did the son of Zeus lay low that greedy man? Say, goddess, because you know. I, as the interpreter for others, shall declare whatever you want and however is pleasing to you. This question to the Muse prefaces the narration of the end of the battle and Polydeuces’ victory. There is a precedent in epic for such questions, though the closest parallel in terms of its location in a particular narrative is perhaps the question the Homeric narrator puts to Patroclus about whom he killed first and whom last at the climax of his aristeia, not long before his own death (Il. 16.692–693). Theocritus’ address to the Muse, however, draws even more attention to the narrator of Idyll 22 than the question to Patroclus (or similar questions directed to the Muse in Homer, such as Il. 2.761–762, 11.218–220,

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Hunter (2004) 87–88. Hunter (1996) 57–59, Sens (1997) 16, 20. See Hutchinson (1988) 164. In extended form stichomythia in such contexts is especially prominent in Sophocles and Euripides: cf. e.g., Soph. El. 385–414, Eur. Hel. 779–841. Thomas (1996) 234–236 (cf. Hunter (1996) 58 n. 47) draws attention instead to stichomythia in the bucolic poems, e.g., Idyll 4.1–14.

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14.508–510, etc.)74 because it makes explicit reference to his mediating role (ὑποφήτης) vis-à-vis the Muse and the audience.75 Alongside the use of such striking devices as stichomythia, such a prominent (and un-Homeric) flagging of the poet/narrator’s contribution to the narrative underlines for Theocritus’ readers the differences between the treatment of the fight between Polydeuces and Amycus in Idyll 22 and what one might expect to find in an epic handling of the same episode (including in an archaic Homeric Hymn). Furthermore, the close connections in some aspects of the characterisation of the boxers between Theocritus’ narrative and that found in Apollonius’ Argonautica,76 such as the construction of Amycus as recalling a Giant fighting an Olympian Polydeuces (Idyll 22.94–95, A.R. 2.38–41),77 serve to emphasise the differences between the narrative styles employed by the two poets. Apollonius’ version is much more conventionally epic in terms of its treatment of the narrator (who does not intervene in the manner of the Theocritean narrator’s address to the Muse) and the direct speeches it contains.78 Alongside this difference in manner there is a key difference in the outcome of the boxing match: in Apollonius Amycus is killed (A.R. 2.97), while in Theocritus the narrator makes another address to Polydeuces to reveal that he secured from him a promise not to trouble strangers in the future (131–134): τὸν μὲν ἄρα κρατέων περ ἀτάσθαλον οὐδὲν ἔρεξας, ὦ πύκτη Πολύδευκες· ὄμοσσε δέ τοι μέγαν ὅρκον, ὃν πατέρ’ ἐκ πόντοιο Ποσειδάωνα κικλήσκων, μήποτ’ ἔτι ξείνοισιν ἑκὼν ἀνιηρὸς ἔσεσθαι. Though you were victorious you did not act recklessly, boxer Polydeuces; he swore to you a great oath, calling on his father Poseidon from the sea, that he would never again of his own accord afflict strangers. If the Polydeuces part of Idyll 22 portrays the Dioscuri fighting (but then civilising) a brutal abuser of the conventions of xenia who has strong overtones 74 75 76

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See Morrison (2007) 73. Morrison (2007) 234–235. On the relationship of the Argonautica and Idyll 22, see Sens (1997) 24–36 and see n. 10 above for Idyll 13 and Apollonius. In the absence of decisive external evidence the priority of Apollonius over Theocritus makes more sense of several features of Idylls 13 and 22, as Hunter (1996) 59–63 suggests, even if this cannot be proved conclusively. Morrison (2007) 235, cf. Hunter (1996) 56–57; see Hunter (1993) 28 on Amycus vs. Polydeuces in the Argonautica as a sort of Gigantomachy. Morrison (2007) 235.

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of an enemy of the gods, the Castor section depicts the gods in a much more capricious and unsettling mood, with the Dioscuri stealing the intended brides of their cousins the Apharidae, Lynceus and Idas, which leads to more fighting, but on this occasion to death. Here too there is another significant treatment of the same episode against which we can compare Theocritus’ version, Pindar’s Nemean 10. Theocritus’ narrative focuses the reader’s sympathy on the figure of Lynceus, who fights Castor, but is allowed first to reproach his cousins for their behaviour in convincing Leucippus to give them his daughters (149– 151): ὑμεῖς δ’ οὐ κατὰ κόσμον ἐπ’ ἀλλοτρίοις λεχέεσσιν βουσὶ καὶ ἡμιόνοισι καὶ ἄλλοισι κτεάτεσσιν ἄνδρα παρετρέψασθε, γάμον δ’ ἐκλέπτετε δώροις. You have, to gain the brides of other men, improperly changed the man’s mind with cattle, mules and other possessions, and stolen our wedding with bribes. Lynceus describes himself as “a man of few words” (153 οὐ πολύμυθος ἐών) but he speaks at some length in order to limit the potential bloodshed between the two pairs of brothers, to no avail: his invitation that he and Castor should fight because “a single corpse from a single house is sufficient” (177–178 ἅλις νέκυς ἐξ ἑνὸς οἴκου / εἷς), which receives no response from the Dioscuri,79 does not save his brother, who is killed by a thunderbolt from Zeus when he attempts to throw his father’s gravestone at “his brother’s killer” (209 κασιγνήτοιο … σφετέροιο φονῆα). Theocritus thus alters fundamentally where the sympathy of the reader is directed in his narrative as compared with Pindar’s: in Nemean 10 the story is told as an aetiology of the Dioscuri alternating between Hades and Olympus, because it focuses on the fraternal love of Polydeuces for Castor in sharing with him his immortality, after Castor is killed by Idas, as Zeus makes clear in the choice he presents to Polydeuces (N. 10.85–88):

79

Wilamowitz (1906) 191–192, followed by Gow (1952) 2.402, diagnosed a lacuna after v. 170, transferring the remainder of Lynceus’ speech to Castor (171–180) and preferring the manuscript variant Λυγκεύς to Κάστωρ at v. 175, so that Castor makes the suggestion that only two of the four cousins should fight. But the grounds for positing the lacuna (that ὅμαιμος at v. 173 must mean “brother”) are weak (“blood relation” is a possible meaning; no change of speaker is marked in the manuscripts): see Hunter (1996) 70–71, Sens (1996) 190 n. 18.

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εἰ δὲ κασιγνήτου πέρι μάρνασαι, πάντων δὲ νοεῖς ἀποδάσσαθαι ἴσον, ἥμισυ μέν κε πνέοις γαίας ὑπένερθεν ἐών, ἥμισυ δ’ οὐρανοῦ ἐν χρυσέοις δόμοισιν. If you fight for your brother, and mean to share everything out equally with him, then you may live for half the time underneath the earth and for half the time in heaven’s golden palaces. Where Pindar concentrates on Polydeuces, the climax of the narrative being an exchange in direct speech between Polydeuces and Zeus (N. 10.76–88) and then Polydeuces’ decision to rescue Castor (90–91), Theocritus effaces Polydeuces completely from his narrative of the clash with the Apharidae and makes the fraternal feeling of Lynceus and Idas the focus, through the speech of the former and the attempted action of the latter.80 The arresting effect of Theocritus’ presentation of the Dioscuri in this episode acting silently, pitilessly, and inexplicably is intensified by the differences from the Pindaric version and from the portrayal of Polydeuces in the first part of the poem.81 Gods act capriciously, violently, or unintelligibly elsewhere, including in hymnal narratives (as when in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter Demeter dismisses Metaneira’s maternal instincts (256–262) or causes a famine to destroy humanity (305– 313)), but their potential for such action is brought into sharper relief in Idyll 22 because of the form of the poem and the contrasting characterisation of the Dioscuri in its first section. For all the narrative variety on display in Idyll 22, the poem ends by comparing the poem’s hymning of Castor and Polydeuces with Homer’s celebration of the heroes at Troy in its hymnal close (218–223). As “the Chian bard fashioned glory for you, lords” (218 ὑμῖν κῦδος, ἄνακτες, ἐμήσατο Χῖος ἀοιδός), so Theocritus has done so for the Dioscuri (221–223): ὑμῖν αὖ καὶ ἐγὼ λιγεῶν μειλίγματα Μουσέων, οἷ’ αὐταὶ παρέχουσι καὶ ὡς ἐμὸς οἶκος ὑπάρχει, τοῖα φέρω. For you in turn I also bring soothing songs of the clear-voiced Muses, such as they provide and my own abilities supply. 80 81

See in general on the reversals from the Pindaric account in Idyll 22 Morrison (2007) 237– 238. On the portrayal of the divine in Idyll 22, see Hunter (1996) 67–73, Sens (1997) 20, Morrison (2007) 238–239.

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As well as functioning as an intertextual cue to examine the differences between Theocritus’ treatment of the Dioscuri and the types of narrative found in epic, it is also a reminder of what is at stake in the poem’s narrative variety and multiple reference points, ranging from Homer and the Homeric Hymns through tragedy and Pindaric epinician to Hellenistic epic in the form of Apollonius’ Argonautica. Theocritus’ narrative poems, especially Idyll 22, highlight Theocritus’ storytelling virtuosity and showcase the complexity and sophistication of his narratives, despite their restricted scale (the longest poems in the corpus are Idyll 22 at 223 lines and Idyll 25 at 281). Theocritus is more circumspect here (222) than Pindar at the end of the Olympian 1 (who proclaims himself “foremost in poetry among Greeks everywhere,” v. 116), but there should be little doubt that like Pindar Theocritus means to be compared with the greatest of Greek storytellers.

Bibliography Acosta-Hughes, B. (2012), “Miniaturizing the Huge: Hercules on a Small Scale (Theocritus Idylls 13 and 24),” in M. Baumbach/S. Bär (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and Its Reception (Leiden) 245–257. Bowie, E.L. (1985), “Theocritus’ Seventh Idyll, Philetas and Longus,” CQ 35, 67–91. Cameron, A. (1995), Callimachus and His Critics (Princeton). Chryssafis, G. (1981), A Textual and Stylistic Commentary on Theocritus’ Idyll xxv (Amsterdam). Dover, K.J. (1971), Theocritus: Select Poems (London). Effe, B. (1978), “Die Destruktion der Tradition,” RhM 121, 48–77. Fantuzzi, M. (1993), “Il sistema letterario della poesia alessandrina nel iii sec. a.c.” in G. Cambiano/L. Canfora/D. Lanza (eds.), Lo spazio letterario della Grecia antica, vol. i.2 (Rome) 31–73. Fantuzzi, M. (1995), “Mythological Paradigms in the Bucolic Poetry of Theocritus,” PCPhS 41, 16–35. Fantuzzi, M./Hunter, R.L. (2004), Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge). Galinsky, G.K. (1972), The Herakles Theme: The Adaptations of the Hero in Literature from Homer to the Twentieth Century (Oxford). Gantz, T. (1993), Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, vol. 1 (Baltimore/London). Gow, A.S.F. (1952), Theocritus, 2nd edition, 2 vols. (Cambridge). Griffiths, A.H. (1972), “Alcman’s Partheneion: The Morning after the Night Before,” QUCC 14, 7–30.

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Griffith, R. Drew (1993), “In the Dark Backward: Time in Pindaric Narrative,” Poetics Today 14, 607–623. Gutzwiller, K.J. (1981), Studies in the Hellenistic Epyllion (Königstein). Hunter, R.L. (1993), The Argonautica of Apollonius: Literary Studies (Cambridge). Hunter, R.L. (1996), Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry (Cambridge). Hunter, R.L. (1998), “Before and After Epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25,” in M.A. Harder/ R.F. Regtuit/G.C. Wakker (eds.), Genre in Hellenistic Poetry (Groningen) 117–132. Hunter, R.L. (1999), Theocritus: A Selection (Cambridge). Hunter, R.L. (2004), “Theocritus and Moschus,” in I. de Jong/R. Nünlist/A. Bowie (eds.), Narrators, Narratees, and Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature (Leiden) 83–97. Hutchinson, G.O. (1988), Hellenistic Poetry (Oxford). Morrison, A.D. (2002), The Narrator’s Voice: Hellenistic Poetry and Archaic Narrative (diss., UCL). Morrison, A.D. (2007), The Narrator in Archaic Greek and Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge). Payne, M. (2007), Theocritus and the Invention of Fiction (Cambridge). Petrovic, I. (2012), “Rhapsodic Hymns and Epyllia,” in M. Baumbach/S. Bär (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and Its Reception (Leiden) 149–176. Schmitz, T. (2012), “Herakles in Bits and Pieces: Id. 25 in the Corpus Theocriteum,” in M. Baumbach/S. Bär (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and Its Reception (Leiden) 259–282. Sens, A. (1996), “A Man of Many Words: Lynceus as Speaker in Th.22,” in M.A. Harder/ R.F. Regtuit/G.C. Wakker (eds.), Theocritus (Groningen) 187–204. Sens, A. (1997), Theocritus: Dioscuri [Idyll 22] (Göttingen). Sternberg, M. (1978), Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction (Baltimore). Thomas, R. (1996), “Genre through Intertextuality: Theocritus to Virgil and Propertius,” in M.A. Harder/R.F. Regtuit/G.C. Wakker (eds.), Theocritus (Groningen), 22–46. Trimble, G. (2012), “Catullus 64: The Perfect Epyllion?” in M. Baumbach/S. Bär (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and Its Reception (Leiden) 55–79. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von (1906), Die Textgeschichte der griechischen Bukoliker (Berlin). Williams, F. (1971), “A Theophany in Theocritus,” CQ 21, 137–145. Zanker, G. (1987), Realism in Alexandrian Poetry (London).

chapter 18

Theocritean Spaces William G. Thalmann

Each of the different groups into which many of Theocritus’ surviving poems fall—bucolics, “urban mimes,” epic-like narratives, and encomia—constructs space differently, according to its own requirements.1 That is to be expected: space shapes human actions and relations and is shaped by them, so that we naturally find particular kinds of people engaging in characteristic activities in certain spaces. At the same time, space in each category of the poems can be read in relation to the spatial configurations of the other categories, so that if we read with attention to space we can draw connections of similarity and contrast between poems across the Theocritean corpus. To do so is to find signs of an overarching coherence in Theocritus’ poetry, whether or not what we have is the remnant of a Hellenistic poetry book.2

1

Bucolic Space

With the possible exception of the ending of Idyll 7 (131–157), there is no comprehensive description of the spatial setting by a narrative voice in any of the bucolics.3 Instead, Theocritus builds up an impression of bucolic space through comments on natural features or animal and human inhabitants delivered by characters more often than by a narrator. The reader learns about these elements of the landscape as they obtrude on a character’s attention and become associated with that person’s experiences and feelings. Within the poems space is experienced subjectively, in ways that tell the reader much about the characters and convey an emotional response to the bucolic world.4 This world may be recognizable, but it is constructed piecemeal and selectively (it is a 1 For another overview of space in Theocritus, see Klooster (2012). Her approach to space is informed by narratology, mine by spatial theory drawn from the social sciences; but there are welcome convergences between our discussions. 2 See Gutzwiller (1996). 3 I am considering as “bucolic” those Idylls concerned with herdsmen: 1, 3–7, and 11. Spatially and in other respects, Idyll 7 differs significantly from the other bucolics, and what is described at the end is an agricultural, as distinct from bucolic, pleasance. 4 Klooster (2012) 106–110 sees characterization as a major function of space in the “mimetic”

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“reality-effect” rather than reality), and it always comes to us refracted through a character’s or a narrator’s consciousness. In part this subjective approach to space can be related to the Idylls’ self-consciousness about their own fictionality, or might be chalked up to their fondness for the “pathetic fallacy”—but only in part. In their construction of space, these highly stylized poems reflect in heightened mode what we humans all do in space. Unless we are looking at a map (in which case we experience space abstractly) we put ourselves in some kind of reciprocal relation to space and interact with others (humans or animals) in ways inflected by that space. In David Harvey’s terms, space is relative or relational.5 Nevertheless, it is possible to derive from these scattered references a cumulative picture of landscape and space, as the reader does in going from poem to poem. Bucolic space is highly stylized,6 composed of relatively few consistent features. Trees and bushes are a constant presence: pine, elm, oak, and tamarisk. Of smaller plants there are galingale and brush for fodder or couches for the herders’ rest. Less congenial are brambles and thorns. Bucolic scenes tend to take place at springs, at which the herders water their animals and find relief from the afternoon heat and leisure for song. Rivers divide up the landscape and connect land and sea. River meadows can be used for cattle pasture (4.17–25). Alongside what can be seen, sounds help make up this space: the whispering of pines and the plash of water on rocks (1.1–2, 7–8), the hum of bees and the song of cicadas, and the herders’ singing and piping, for which those other sounds provide a natural analogue. Thus an imaginary bucolic space is constructed for human activity. These few elements are enough to suggest a bountiful natural setting. Additional trees, plants, insects, and animals are mentioned where they are relevant, as in the dying Daphnis’ vision of the natural order confused (1.132–136). The various references to their world in the amoebean song contest between Lacon and Comatas in Idyll 5 can be read as a construction of bucolic space, but they are not a methodical description; the selection of elements seems arbitrary, and they come up in random order. They are conjured up for the purpose of the contest, not for their own sake. In Idyll 6 (3, 45), by contrast, the only markers of the setting are the spring at which Daphnis and Damoetas exchange songs and the equally conventional soft grass in which their calves frolic. That Idylls; I would extend this to the bucolic poems generally, although it will not be a focus of my discussion. For landscape as an expression of emotion in Idylls 7 and 11, see Elliger (1975) 331–333, 348–349. 5 E.g., Harvey (2006). These terms are explained below. 6 Cf. Elliger (1975) 325.

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is apparently because, in their songs, the emphasis is on the relation between the sea, Galatea’s home, and the land, scene of Polyphemus’ herding. And yet, because of our experience of the other poems, spring and grass function as signifiers of a whole bucolic world, and the spring’s centripetal force creates the archetypal scene of bucolic singing: the coming together of two herdsmen.7 In Idyll 3 there is a similar economy in the creation of space: a hillside (ὄρος, 2) where the goatherd has left his goats to graze, the mouth of Amaryllis’ cave, covered by fern and presumably on the same hillside,8 which is established as the place where the goatherd performs his komos by the demonstrative in τοῦτο κατ’ ἄντρον (“from the mouth of this cave,” 6), and the pine tree against which he then leans to sing of mythic lovers (38). The goatherd mentions only two other places, both marginal to the bucolic world: the place (orchard?) from which Amaryllis told him to bring her apples (10–11) and the rock or cliff from which the fisherman watches for tunny (25–26; cf. 1.39–40). As the example of this fisherman shows, bucolic space is defined by its margins and boundaries as well as by what occupies or what happens in it. One boundary is that between land and sea, which fishermen, “whose prey is from the sea” (7.60), cross, but herdsmen never do. It is on the shore that Polyphemus, neglectful of his sheep, wastes away in love for Galatea (11.13–16), and sitting on a high rock like the fisherman’s, gazing out over the sea (11.17–18), he pleads with her in song to leave her watery home and join him on land. He cannot cross the boundary and come to her because he lacks gills and cannot swim (11.54, 60). The division between bucolic land and sea appears more permeable at first in Idyll 6, but when Galatea seems about to emerge from the water the barking dog on the beach ends up seeing not her but its own reflection (6.10– 12). Against this fluidity, bucolic space takes on solidity and definition, fictional though it is. Idyll 21 is about fishermen and emphasizes the gritty reality of their poverty and the harshness of their labor, which contrast strongly with herdsmen’s leisure for singing.9 This poem may not be by Theocritus, but its placement within his corpus allows it to define by contrast the space of the bucolic world. The Theocritean Idyll 10, which concerns reapers and is not bucolic, performs a similar function. Again, the emphasis is on labor; the love-struck

7 See Alpers (1996) 81: “Pastoral poems make explicit the dependence of their conventions on the idea of coming together.” 8 Gow (1952) 2.66 unnecessarily posits a change of scene between lines 5 and 6, as does Elliger (1975) 351. Against this see Hunter (1999) 110. 9 Only once in the bucolic Idylls are we shown herdsmen actually doing any work, and that is ineffectual: attempts to drive calves from the olive shoots they are eating (4.44–49).

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Bucaeus cannot keep up with the other reapers, and Milon tells him that a laborer can have nothing to do with love. When Bucaeus tries to cope with desire (in the manner of Polyphemus) by singing, Milon “corrects” him with a work song. Agricultural fields and orchards are adjacent to bucolic space, and there is contact between herdsmen and workers, but they are kept distinct.10 The non-bucolic Idyll 25, possibly by Theocritus, contains the only full description of rural space in the corpus (25.7–33), the farm of Augeas, who lives in the city but visits his country estate to inspect it. It consists of pasturage near streams and marshes for his flocks and water meadows for his cattle, fields for growing grain, and, at the borders, orchards. On an elite man’s country estate, which is worked by slaves (οἰκήων, δμώων, 33, 36), herding is part of an agricultural system, and each kind of labor has its place. In the bucolic poems, the focus is on herding, and other activities are marginal to it. And in contrast to the spatial precision of this farm, the scene of herding and singing in the bucolic poems is vaguely “the mountain.”11 Sheep and goat herding surely took place on mountainsides as well as on low-lying farms like Augeas’, but the setting “on the mountain” makes the bucolic world seem more remote and autonomous as a “place apart,” especially for an urban reader, and the herders, though lowly, seem freer from social structures than Augeas’ slaves. How conventionalized this setting is can be seen in the fact that in order to bring the different kinds of herding together Theocritus has cattle grazing in the mountains, whereas river meadows would be more suitable, as in 25.15–17.12 Another boundary of bucolic space is the untamed land beyond it: the woods (ὕλη), thickets (δρυμός), and groves (ἄλσεα) that are the haunts of wild anim-

10

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Similarly, in Idyll 5, in the absence of the cowherd Lycopas, Lacon and Comatas call a woodcutter to come over and judge their song contest (62–69). This woodcutter lives in town (πόλιν, 79). Objects are part of space. It is interesting that the second and third scenes on the cup of Idyll 1 are non-bucolic (the first could occur anywhere): a fisherman and a boy who neglects his task of guarding an orchard in order to plait a grasshopper cage (1.39–54), which is often seen as an analogue for poetry. Herders can pause in their work and sing, but agricultural workers cannot. Idyll 1 incorporates into bucolic space for the sake of contrast an object carrying representations of non-bucolic space that itself originated outside the bucolic world (1.57–58). E.g., 3.2, 4.56–57, 7.51, [8].2. In 1.77 Hermes, who is associated with herding, comes “from the mountain.” 7.92 shows how conventional this setting is made to seem in Theocritus (and also that it may stem ultimately from Hesiod, whose poetic initiation took place at the foot of Mount Helicon: Theog. 23). “Bovines … need grassy, humid meadows”: Bakker (2013) 49. Presumably we should imagine upland meadows with springs, but [9].9–11 (heifers blown off a cliff by the wind as they grazed) illustrates what can happen to cows in the mountains.

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als. From there jackals, wolves, and lions howl in grief for Daphnis, whereas his tamer bovines grieve at his feet (1.71–75).13 Bucolic space may have its brambles and thorns (4.57), but it is tamer and seems somehow kinder than the wilds. It is thus intermediate between urban spaces and that remote region.14 In it, humans live free of the confinements of the city and on intimate terms with domesticated animals and the landscape. But they still are cultural beings, and places within this space are given significance by the human activities that occur there.15 Within the space thus bounded and defined, the herdsmen perform their tasks of caring for their animals, fall in (usually unrequited) love, and sing about that love or about their bucolic surroundings. Other inhabitants of this world who do not take part in the narrative action are mentioned: Mermnon’s servant girl (a slave?), “the dark-skinned one” (3.35–36); Agroeo the old sieve-diviner (3.31); Cotyttaris, the old woman who taught Polyphemus how to avoid the evil eye (6.40); the absent Aegon whose cattle Corydon is herding and an old man who seems to own the herd, either Aegon’s father as the scholiast suggests or his employer (4.1, 4.4); the girls who flirt with Polyphemus (11.77–78); and nymphs (Amaryllis, Galatea). These examples will give some idea of the background characters. Again indirectly and through casual references as needed, the individual herders who play major roles appear to be part of rudimentary social networks rather than isolated rustics. Women take no part in herding but they figure as absent love-objects or servants. The herdsmen’s status is for the most part unclear. Lacon and Comatas are slave and freedman, respectively (5.5, 8), and their herds are owned by men who live in Sybaris and Thurii (5.72–73). Their herding may then be part of a farming economy on large estates as in Idyll 25, but if so there is only this hint, such is the concentration on the bucolic world. Here and there, however, the poems show an awareness of the larger world. In Idyll 4 Olympia is a rival site that has attracted Aegon, who has left his cows

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There is a similar contrast between these types of animals, and an explicit contrast between the wild spaces and the “here” (ὧδε) that has been the scene of Daphnis’ herding activities, at 1.115–121. See Calame (2005) 175–178 for discussion of “liminality” in Idyll 1. Cities do not play much of a role in the bucolic poems, except in Idyll 4, where there is a contrast between Croton and “the mountain.” The death of Daphnis in Idyll 1 takes place near the largest city in Sicily, Syracuse, but one would never know it but for the mention of the Anapus River (1.68) and other landmarks (Calame’s suggestion (2005) 186 that the scene is immediately outside the walls of Syracuse presses too hard on 1.117–118). On the weakness in Theocritus of the city/country opposition that is so marked a feature of later pastoral, see Elliger (1975) 363, Klooster (2012) 100.

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bereft; and bucolic becomes infected by (mock-)epinician (4.32–37). The presence of Croton and one of its demes (4.20–22) as well as the temple of Hera at Lacinion is palpable. Battus may be only a visitor to bucolic space: he is not wearing sandals and runs a thorn into his foot, and Corydon has to admonish him about conditions on “the mountain” (4.56–57). In Idyll 1, the lists of where the Nymphs (66–69) and Pan (123–126) might be instead of at the scene of Daphnis’ death reflect alternative spaces but serve as devices for focusing on this place. Since Daphnis’ death inaugurates bucolic poetry, the places of his activity become constructed as bucolic space even as he leaves it, as distinct from those other places (see especially 1.120–121); and bucolic space is defined as much by absences (the Nymphs, Pan, Daphnis) as by what is present in it. Daphnis wastes in love as the snow melts on high northern mountains (7.76– 77; cf. 111–114, with the addition of the fierce heat among the Ethiopians). These places contrast with the bucolic world, where it is usually late spring or summer. So runs a general account of bucolic space and humans’ interactions with each other and with nature that are conditioned by and in turn constitute that space. I end this section by looking at two contrasting examples of such interactions and their spatial dimensions. If Thyrsis’ song in Idyll 1 represents the constitution of bucolic space as well as of bucolic poetry, it is fitting that the beginning of this programmatic poem shows two herders, in some way heirs to this space, using it (1.1–23). The scene is an archetypal bucolic pleasance, but there are three distinct places within it, demarcated by deictics: the knoll with tamarisks where Thyrsis and the goatherd converse (τεῖδε, “here,” 12); the whispering pine and plashing spring a little apart from them (“that pine,” “that water,” τήνα / τῆν[ο], 1, 8); and the place where they sit beneath an elm and Thyrsis sings, with oaks and a seat for shepherds facing statues of Priapus and water nymphs (δεῦρο, “over here,” 21).16 Here the viewers conceive of space according to their perspective; deictics locate the different places with reference to the viewers’ position. This is what David Harvey calls “relative space.” What we witness in this passage is the transformation of relative into “relational space” (Harvey’s term again), in which the relations that emerge when people come together (as Thyrsis and the goatherd do) produce their own space and time, of ideas, memories, dreams, and myths.17 The opening lines imply a vision of relational space that never materializes: a fusion 16

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I follow Hunter (1999) 75 in taking κρανίδων (22) as statues rather than the nymphs themselves (Gow (1952) 2.5). On the deictics and the different spaces in this passage, see also Calame (2005) 183–184. Cf. Elliger (1975) 326–327 and Klooster (2012) 105–106. For more discussion see Thalmann (2011) 15–17.

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of humans with nature, so that the goatherd’s piping equals the whispering of the pine tree and Thyrsis’ voice outdoes the plash of water on the rocks, and the herders will be second to Pan and the Muses, who might appear to claim their prizes. The herders are to find their places in the hierarchies of the natural world. But they never enter that place, and that merging remains an ideal to which bucolic song can only aspire. Thyrsis’ proposal that the goatherd play the syrinx where they are evokes in response a harsher aspect of nature: the risk of Pan’s anger if his noontime sleep is interrupted. From this perspective, human music does not fit into the natural world, which contains powers far beyond the human. They finally go to a place that has been altered by human culture. With the shepherd’s seat it has been turned from a completely natural scene to a place with a human use: constructed or culturally “produced” space. The statues have presumably been made by people who used this place. And it is here that a basic institution of human culture is instantiated: reciprocal exchange, Thyrsis’ song for the she-goat and cup (itself the object of an earlier exchange). Yet the place and the gods represented by the statues are rustic. In bucolic space human culture locates itself in nature but remains distinct from it, whatever “analogies,” in Gutzwiller’s term (1991), the poetry constructs. And this is paradeigmatic for bucolic poetry. This place is relational, then, in two ways. It makes possible, and in its cultural aspect is a projection of, human relations such as the exchange between Thyrsis and the goatherd (which stands, I take it, for the relation between song and its audience within bucolic poetry, and between Theocritus and his audience). And it constructs, and is constructed by, a particular relation between humans and nature that bucolic poetry explores. Thyrsis’ song that follows portrays the bucolic world as relational— when the animals mourn for Daphnis, for example—and this perspective is put into practice in the poem’s outer frame when the goatherd addresses his goats in the closing lines. How far Idyll 7 should be considered bucolic is uncertain. It has bucolic elements, Lycidas and his song, which he “worked out on the mountain” (7.51). But the narrative is set in the lowlands, and Simichidas and his friends are on their way from the city to the agricultural locus amoenus where the poem ends. Simichidas claims (improbably) to have learned his song from the Nymphs as he tended his herd “on the mountains” (7.92), but it ends with the urban convention of the paraklausithyron (7.122–125), which is imitated rustically in Idyll 3 in a way that emphasizes its connection with the town. For these reasons, Simichidas’ encounter with Lycidas has the effect of an intrusion by a denizen of “the mountain” into a different space—an impression heightened by the detailed description of this goatherd’s appearance and smell, the only one in all the certainly authentic bucolic poems. The city and the farm are the end

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points of Simichidas’ journey, and it is a sign that Lycidas does not belong on this itinerary that he diverges from it before Simichidas reaches the farm. It is, however, precisely in the “in-between” space of a journey that people normally kept socially and spatially separate encounter one another, that different life-trajectories collide, and that identities, usually solidified by people being in particular places, become open and more fluid, so that, for example, the urban Simichidas can try out being a cowherd and a bucolic poet.18 If place helps shape identity and social behavior, placelessness promotes this fluidity, and that is what we find: “we had not yet reached the midpoint of the way, and the tomb [σῆμα] of Brasilas had not yet come into our sight, when we encountered a certain wayfarer ….” (7.10–11). The word for “tomb” means “sign,” here with the implication of “landmark.” There is nothing in sight to give this space definition or make it a place. Lycidas sings a consummate bucolic song, but its artful framing of the bucolic world makes that world seem remote. It ends not with a scene of bucolic fulfillment, but in an unfulfilled wish within an apostrophe to the dead Comatas (7.83–89), which is a response to Tityrus’ singing about the goatherd imprisoned in a chest (7.78–82). Tityrus’ song is in turn enclosed within the scene of Lycidas’ enjoyment (7.63–72), which depends on the fulfillment of a condition: that Ageanax free Lycidas of the torments of love (7.55–56)— and so none of this may ever take place. The bucolic world, a space removed from the mundane life of cities and farms and made up, as we have seen, of stylized elements, seems a product of wish-fulfilling imagination, its reality opened to question in this meeting “on the road.”19 If Lycidas seems out of place, what of Simichidas? His song, as noted above, fails to be bucolic. At the same time, he is only a visitor to the farm; his prayer to plant his winnowing fan in a heap of grain “again” (7.155–158)—a sign of completed labor—rings hollow because he has done no work. He belongs neither in bucolic nor in agricultural space, but, it seems, in the world of the polis from which he started out. Whether or not we wish to see Simichidas as a stand-in for Theocritus,20 he does raise the question, in this placeless place of “the road,” of an urban poet writing about the countryside and particularly about the bucolic world, espe-

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20

Cf. Bakhtin (1981) 243–245, a passage cited by Burton (1995) 10 in connection with Idyll 15. On embedded spaces in Lycidas’ song, see Klooster (2012) 102–103. She makes the interesting point that precise geographical references disappear as the song moves into an idealized bucolic world—another sign of its doubtful reality. To avoid an autobiographical reading of the poem, as I would prefer to do, we can say that Simichidas, as narrator, represents, not the historical Theocritus, but a possible per-

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cially when confronted by a real goatherd (7.13–14). Why would he adopt this subject? What use can it be to him or his readers? What degree of authenticity can he, or should he try to, attain? If Simichidas and Lycidas are both out of place, what would it mean to be in place? Lycidas, on the other hand, questions the relation of the bucolic world to that of the city and its countryside. His song offers a vision of a world where people are fully in place: where a goatherd imprisoned in a chest can be sustained by bees. But that vision is so contingent on the fulfillment of wishes that its reality is questionable. Bucolic space is an imaginative projection, but a projection of what? A spatial reading of Idyll 7 thus raises questions about the basic premises of Theocritean bucolic. An answer to these questions might be that bucolic space represents for the Greek poet and his Greek readers a response to the dislocations in the wake of Alexander’s conquests, when being in and out of place was an issue to many and especially to Greeks living in Alexandria.21 From this perspective, fictionality and stylization are part of the point. Bucolic space offered readers a “heterotopia”22 through which to examine from an imaginary distance questions they encountered living among non-Greeks outside the Greek world as traditionally defined, and to address consequent feelings of displacement. Through their exploration of the relations between humans and nature (a matter of interest to urban readers especially), the bucolic Idylls offered a picture of humans belonging to a place, but qualified it at the same time, as we saw in the opening scene of Idyll 1, by a recognition of the ways human culture operates on nature and can only be in place by not quite being part of it. The fictionality of the bucolic world also showed how provisional was even the most idealizing vision of “fitting in.” The question of spatial boundaries and interest in margins led to attention to analogous distinctions: between humans and animals, self and other. It is not much of a leap from this to the fluidity of ethnic and cultural distinctions in the lives of the poems’ first readers. Much was at stake, therefore, in the relation between, let us say, Alexandria and this other space constructed in the imagination.

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sona of him, one way in which he could be viewed: as a city dweller claiming to be able to write about the countryside, an urban sophisticate writing about simple herders. From this perspective we might understand Simichidas as Theocritean self-caricature, but one that raises serious questions about the status of bucolic. We do not know whether the bucolic Idylls were written in Alexandria, but they were certainly read there. Foucault (1986).

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The “Urban Mimes”

Like Idyll 7, Idyll 15 involves a journey and encounters “on the road” that call into question, or provoke the affirmation of, various kinds of identity, here especially gender and ethnic identity. Joan Burton has given an excellent account of the “motif of the road” in this poem and of the complementary theme of thresholds. She connects this journey and its boundary crossings with conditions created by mobility and immigration, so that we can see an underlying affinity between the bucolic and the urban poems. By leaving home, Gorgo and Praxinoa are forced to negotiate situations they would not have encountered in their houses, and to deal with strangers, each of whom has his or her own perspective and goals in this diverse city of Alexandria. “Insofar as chance meetings on a road,” says Burton, “can offer opportunities to learn to adjust to the requirements of new social arenas, by representing such encounters the poet can explore social rituals, rites of passage for moving from one space to another.”23 In addition, Idyll 15 is a fine illustration of Michel de Certeau’s description of walking through a city as a “pedestrian speech act”: “The act of walking is to the urban system what the speech act is to language …”24 The pedestrian, he goes on to say, appropriates the topography of the city by finding her own path, out of many possible routes, from one place to another; spatially “acts out” the place by instantiating a spatial system; and comes into relation with other people who are also in movement along their own paths. Movement between places also aligns the starting place of a journey with its end and brings them into relation with each other.25 Here the feminine space of the interior of the bourgeois house contrasts with the female-dominated ceremonial space of the Adonis festival inside the royal palace, private with public, the prosaic details of daily life (the cat sleeping on spun wool) in linear time with an occasion marking Adonis’ annual return in circular ritual time.26

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Burton (1995) 10. de Certeau (1984) 97. See especially Tilley (1994) 29–31. Burton (1995) 17–18 notes how the women’s leaving the house is coordinated with their crossing the palace threshold when they arrive by the repetition of words for “inside” and “lock” (15.1, 43, 77). Similarly, the fine, soft wool of the coverlets in the Adonis tableau (15.125) recalls the filthy wool that Gorgo’s husband bought (15.18–20), and the tapestries (15.80–86) outdo the fine dress that Praxinoa wove for herself (15.34–38). The contrast adds to the royal mystique (“everything’s rich in a rich man’s house,” 15.24), but it also emphasizes that women, not men, are connoisseurs of fine wool and weaving. In that sense, house and palace are aligned according to gender.

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In travel from and back to home, the journeys outward and homeward are not necessarily the same, even though they may traverse exactly the same space (considered abstractly, as on a map). They are experienced differently. Space appears in its relative aspect, as one moves through it. The trip outward feels like movement into the unknown, to new experiences, into the future; travel homeward has the quality of return to the familiar, the already experienced, the past.27 It is a restoration of security—or dullness? The women’s walk to the palace through crushes of people in the streets and in the palace doorway is filled with incident. It is an adventure. Their return is not even narrated and is unremarkable. And we know what they will come home to: husbands surly if a meal does not appear on time. The women walk from a house possibly on the fringe of the city through urban space to the palace. Perhaps we are to imagine them making their way along one of the wide avenues that ran through Alexandria from east to west, because this would be the most likely place to encounter a contingent of royal cavalry (15.51–52). But we can only guess, because there is not a word in the text about the physical city itself. Instead, in a technique like that of the bucolics, the experience of the streets comes to us through Praxinoa’s fearful reactions to the horses, and we have Gorgo’s earlier comments on her struggle to get from her house to Praxinoa’s through all the chariots and the booted and cloaked soldiers (15.4–7). This is relative space again: space as perceived from the body outward and from a particular point of view. We get no sense of what an Alexandrian street looked like, but we get a vivid picture of what it was like to walk through one on a festival day. Gorgo’s remark to Praxinoa, “you live farther away all the time” (15.7) gives another example of relative space. It does not have to be taken literally, as though Praxinoa’s husband keeps moving to more and more remote houses to keep the two women apart. It more likely means that the trip between houses seems to get longer and to take more time, even though the physical distance has not changed at all.28 The crowd at the palace door, considered from the perspective of relative space, is significant as an illustration of Ptolemaic power. It shows the centripetal effect of the palace; it draws people to itself. Space is not neutral, and people’s movements through it are not random; both are inflected by relations of power. The palace has this effect not only within Alexandria. Goods also flow into it from the sphere of Ptolemaic influence and control in the Aegean and Asia Minor (the movement of goods is another aspect of relative space):

27 28

Tuan (1977) 12. A possibility noted by Gow (1952) 2.268.

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ἁ Μίλατος ἐρεῖ χὡ τὰν Σαμίαν καταβόσκων, ‘ἔστρωται κλίνα τὠδώνιδι τῷ καλῷ ἄμμιν’.29 Miletus will say, and he who pastures his flocks on Samos, “a couch has been spread for the beautiful Adonis by us.” 15.126–127

The wool and the couch (probably made in Miletus), associated with these places, express Ptolemaic imperial power by their presence in a festival that appropriates cult to royal ideology.30 Miletus and the Samian shepherd are depicted as proud subjects of Ptolemaic hegemony. The Samian shepherd also provides a link to the bucolic world, which is now seen not as a place apart but as an element of an imperial system. Corresponding to this movement to Alexandria and into the palace, a reciprocal movement outward may be implied by Gorgo’s comment that the cavalry have gone ἐς χώραν (15.57). Gow understands the phrase to mean that they have gone to the starting-post for races in the hippodrome,31 but it could also mean “to the countryside.” If so, it would imply the Ptolemies’ control, exerted outward from Alexandria, over the rest of Egypt. All the people converging on the palace participate in this centripetal movement, and all of them by their movement relate the palace to their places of origin and define Alexandrian space in this hierarchical way. Praxinoa and Gorgo see themselves as singular and the crowd as an undifferentiated mass, like ants (15.45) or pigs (15.73). This scene of movement and arrival makes the palace a place in the sense described by Doreen Massey: a locus of convergence of various people’s lives with their trajectories and stories, and of the formation or enactment of relations of power, and in this case also of gender.32 From this perspective, space in Idyll 15 is also relational. There are, first, the prickly relations between the women and their husbands, centered on their houses. In the palace, by contrast, Arsinoe’s association with Aphrodite (15.106–111) emphasizes the erotic relations between her and Philadelphus. There is the division whereby the effect of Philadelphus’ authority is felt in public (the cavalry are his, 15.51–52, and he has made the streets safe for Greeks, 15.46–50), whereas

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30 31 32

See Gow (1952) 2.298–299 on his ἄμμιν for ἄλλα of the mss. Ahrens’ ἁμά would produce a similar meaning. Dover (1971) 213 suggests a sense for ἄλλα not considered by Gow: “implying pride that the magnificent object is produced year after year.” Any of these readings expresses the pride of these places in their contributions to the festival. Reed (2000). Gow (1952) 2.282. Massey (2005).

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the festival in the palace is dominated by females and identity is defined matrilineally.33 Thus the conventional arrangement of private houses (men outside, women inside) is projected onto the public organization of Ptolemaic Alexandria. The women’s encounters with an oracular old woman and two men, one helpful, the other annoyed and ridiculing, enact various aspects of gender relations.34 Praxinoa gives her version of Egyptian-Greek relations in Alexandria and expresses her distrust of Egyptians, arising from fear (15.46–50). Later, she and Gorgo are the object of ridicule for their broad-voweled Doric (15.87–88), and we see something of the possible tensions between Greeks who have come together in Alexandria, as they would have been less likely to do in the traditional Greek world. Praxinoa’s retort, expressing pride in her Syracusan, and ultimately Corinthian, descent shows how it was necessary, in the diversity of Alexandria, to maintain identity by insisting on local identification. And once again we see the centripetal force exerted by Alexandria. The space of the women’s journey is presented as relational in another way as well: it is given a mythic coloring through allusions to Homer. “By trying the Achaeans came into Troy …,” says the old woman in answer to Gorgo’s question about whether it is easy to get into the palace. “By trying all things are accomplished” (15.61–62). Walking into the palace is as formidable a task and as great an accomplishment as the ten-year assault on Troy! The incongruity is humorous, of course, and marks the distance between mime and epic. But the epic allusion may also express how women whose lives were spent mainly at home might feel about braving the urban bustle, and perhaps the awe they might feel at the door of their rulers’ home. Burton, who discusses the old woman as a helper figure often encountered on epic journeys, also points out other Homeric type scenes realized in this poem,35 so that the journey through the streets of Alexandria resembles an epic quest. Once the women are in the house, Gorgo points to the tapestries, which she calls “fine and graceful” (λεπτὰ καὶ … χαρίεντα, 15.79)—an allusion to Odyssey 10.223, which describes Circe’s weaving. The allusion is reinforced by Praxinoa’s comparing the pushing crowd to pigs just a few lines before (15.73)—the animals into which Circe transformed Odysseus’ men. At least momentarily, being in this hall, seen through the lens of mythic narrative, takes on an aura of magic and danger, and this may reflect the women’s feelings about the unfamiliar space they have entered. 33 34 35

Burton (1995) 75. Gender in Idyll 15 has been well discussed by Griffiths (1981) and Burton (1995) 52–62, 74– 77. Burton (1995) 15–16. For further discussion of Homeric echoes, see Griffiths (1979) 121–123.

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Once inside the palace, Praxinoa and Gorgo are confronted with a tableau of Adonis in the arms of Aphrodite in a scene that Nita Krevans has argued is “pastoral” in nature (see especially 15.118–122). A connection is surely suggested by the fact that Adonis was a shepherd. This is an enchanted, ritual space, however artificial, that provides a temporary refuge from the urban space that encloses it. Krevans also suggests a metapoetic effect: “By emphatically (and comically) evoking the contrast between ‘real’ city and ‘ideal’ retreat, Theocritus invites us to see pastoral in its full context, as the product of an urban court, and to see the pastoral poet in his full context, as a resident of Alexandria.”36 Here is another link between the bucolic and the urban poems. In Idyll 2, a woman walking from her house to a religious festival has an encounter on the road; the basic situation is the same as in Idyll 15, but here eros is an issue as well as gender and ethnic identity (Delphis is a Myndian).37 In contrast to Idyll 15, however, the urban setting38 is not very important: the most prominent location throughout the poem is the interior of Simaetha’s house—the spatial analogue of her interior feelings39—and probably (during her address to the moon) the area in front of the door. Even though the setting in the “now” of the poem is static, Idyll 2 is a markedly spatial text. For much, though not all, of the poem, Simaetha’s house is the center and other places are brought into alignment with it by movement to or from them. For example, Delphis comes to it from the palaistra when the slave-woman goes there from Simaetha’s house to invite him, with the result that he and Simaetha begin their short-lived affair; and Delphis’ movement is balanced by the slave’s second departure from Simaetha’s house, this time to Delphis’ house in order to sprinkle magic herbs over the threshold to compel him back to her mistress.40 The text leaves it doubtful that he will complete the pattern and come back. A different kind of double movement occurs when Simaetha first sees Delphis. She is on her way with a female neighbor41 to a festival of Artemis

36 37 38 39 40 41

Krevans (2006) 145–146. On the relations between Idylls 15 and 1, see the suggestive discussion of Griffiths (1979) 124–128. Burton (2005) 19–20. She and Segal (1985) have discussed space in Idyll 2 extensively, so my treatment can be brief. Simaetha lives in a polis (2.35), she has neighbors, and there is a palaistra, as was common in Hellenistic cities. Otherwise, there is little trace of the city. Segal (1985) 108. Cf. Segal (1985) 105 on the complementary centrifugal and centripetal movements to and from Simaetha’s house. The account of the festival gives the impression of a female community that balances the male society of the palaistra: Anaxo, a basket-bearer in the procession, the Thracian

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when they encounter Delphis coming with male friends from the palaistra. One spatial relationship is between Simaetha’s house and Artemis’ grove—both female spaces. Traditionally, one of the occasions when women were permitted to leave the house was a religious festival, which was privileged and considered safe from sexual temptation. Simaetha sees Delphis when she is in the middle of her way to the festival (2.76); this detail may remind us of Simichidas’ meeting with Lycidas (7.10). As there, a movement between two places is complicated by its intersection with someone else’s movement from a third place (the mountain, the palaistra). But here the journey is interrupted. Simaetha forgets about the procession and “how I got back home I didn’t know” (2.83–85). The return journey pales by comparison with the momentous event that has occurred “on the road.” She may be returning to security and the past like the Syracusan women going home, but unlike them she has been changed by the experience and her relation to domestic space altered. She lies lovesick on her bed for ten days and visits the houses of other women to seek advice (apparently) and magic charms (2.86, 91–92). The house is no longer a shelter for her virginity. This episode and Delphis’ subsequent visit align the house and palaistra in a relation of contrast: between male and female, elite and lower class.42 But there is a mutual interference between these places that shows in the end how inappropriate this erotic union is. Delphis often left his oil flask with her (2.156)—a token of the palaistra in this female space—and Simaetha intends “tomorrow” to go to the palaistra and bawl Delphis out for his treatment of her. Whether or not she actually does so, the reader is invited to imagine the spectacle of an angry woman intruding in the quintessentially male space. Two other places figure in the poem: the implied house in which the symposium occurs at which Delphis reveals that he is in love with someone else, and that person’s house, which he goes off to wreathe with garlands. Neither bears any relation to Simaetha’s house, and that is significant: she has lost him. Doors and thresholds play a prominent role in Idyll 2 (59–60, 104–106, 160),43 and the theme of liminality stresses the uncertainty of social roles and categories. In particular, when the sexually ambiguous Delphis crosses Simaetha’s threshold (2.104–106) at her invitation instead of performing the expected komos (2.118–122), the act sets in motion a striking inversion of gender roles. The

42 43

nurse who accompanies Simaetha, and Clearista, whose wrap she has borrowed (2.66– 74). To this list is added the mother of Philista, “our flute-girl,” and Melixo (2.145–146). And of course there is Simaetha’s relationship with her slave Thestylis. Burton (1995) 19. For discussion see Segal (1985) 106–107, Burton (1995) 19–20, 46.

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male enters the bedchamber that the female would usually leave, for marriage if a virgin (like Simaetha) or adultery if married (2.136–138). In this femaledominated space, Simaetha controls their physical union, as the allusion in lines 138–143 to Archilochus’ “Cologne Epode” (196a.42–53W) emphasizes.44 Space barely figures in Idyll 14, which seems to take place in a city but recounts an ill-fated drinking party in a country house. But it does illustrate the mobility that was a marked feature of the Hellenistic world: Aeschinas’ drinking companions were an Argive, a Thessalian, and a mercenary, and he is urged to go as a mercenary to Alexandria.45 This advice also reflects the centripetal force of Alexandria. Ptolemy is such a generous paymaster, it is implied, that men at loose ends flock to Alexandria to serve under him. And a common soldier, “not the worst man, nor perhaps the first” (14.55–56), can share vicariously in Ptolemy’s prosperity.

3

“Epic” Space

By comparison with Apollonius’ Argonautica, Idyll 13 treats the space of the Argonauts’ voyage in an oddly elliptical fashion. Heracles brought Hylas on board the Argo, we are told, which passed through the clashing rocks and sped to the Phasis River (13.21–24). The narrative omits the entire voyage along the south coast of the Black Sea, which Apollonius narrates in detail. Moreover, the end of the journey is told before its beginning, which comes in the next lines (13.25–31). Those lines narrate in one breathless sentence the muster of heroes, the launching of the Argo, and the arrivals at the Hellespont and then at Cius, omitting a number of places and incidents that we find in Apollonius. A similar elision occurs at the end of the poem. At line 71 the narrative leaves Heracles wandering frantically but aimlessly in search of Hylas, as in the Argonautica. But in the last two lines we are told that he got to the Phasis on foot. Thus, although Theocritus does get the entire voyage into his poem from its beginning in Iolcus to the arrival in Colchis, the poem shows no interest in the space of the voyage and only rudimentary interest in its geography.46 The effect, I suggest, is to emphasize not heroic achievement but the poem’s theme of eros, felt

44

45 46

For other gender inversions in the poem, see Burton (1995) 43–44. Her suggestion (20) that Delphis crossing her threshold represents a transition in Simaetha’s life would be stronger if the act had been hers. Burton (1995) 20. For the distinction between space and geography, see Thalmann (2011) 9–11.

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by both Heracles and the Nymphs for Hylas, and Cius as the place where those desires clash.47 By contrast, Apollonius never makes it explicit that Heracles feels eros for Hylas. Neither the meadow in which the Argonauts cut vegetation for their bedding nor the spring with its nymphs and the lush plants surrounding it is properly a bucolic space, but there are overlaps—perhaps enough to reflect a pull away from epic and toward bucolic through a common interest in problems of eros and the absence of the beloved.48 The place where Castor and Pollux encounter Amycus in Idyll 22 does seem bucolic (22.34–43): a spring of clear water, the varied trees surrounding it, fragrant flowers providing forage for bees, and spring turning into summer (the bucolic season).49 But it is here that they find a most un-bucolic figure, the monstrous Amycus;50 the jarring juxtaposition is in keeping with the location of this beautiful place amid a wild forest on a mountainside—two kinds of place that are contrasted in the bucolic poems. The incongruity between the place and its occupant is emphasized by the contrast between the pebbles visible through the water and the rounded boulders polished by winter torrents to which the muscles in Amycus’ arms are compared (22.38–40, 48–50). In this case it seems as if Theocritus is distinguishing his brand of heroic poetry from his equally original bucolics.51

4

Encomiastic Space

All the poems considered so far have been rooted in localism. Idyll 17, by contrast, ranges far and wide, in service to its agenda of praising Ptolemy. Celebration of Ptolemy’s parents, with emphasis on the locations of their immortality (Olympus for Soter, Aphrodite’s temple for Berenice) is followed by Philadelphus’ birth on Cos, with an analogy drawn to Apollo’s birth on Delos. Next comes a list of the regions and countries subject to Ptolemy’s encroachment 47 48 49 50

51

With this explanation, Griffiths’ emendation of Φᾶσιν to Πόντον in line 23 is unnecessary. For other views of the relation between bucolic and epic in this poem, see Mastronarde (1968), Elliger (1975) 351–356, and Hunter (1999) 263. On the relationship between this poem and bucolic, see Sens (1997) 40–41, 95. For this contrast, see Elliger (1975) 357–358. The description of Amycus draws on the Odyssean (i.e., epic) description of Polyphemus: see Sens (1997) 111–112, who, however, sees this as a bucolic touch. The similarities of lines 37–43 with A.R. Arg. 3.221–227 also suggest affinities with epic. On the confrontation between bucolic and epic in these poems, see also Klooster (2012) 114–116.

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or hegemony.52 This is a kind of map of Ptolemy’s power, and like a map it is an abstraction of space, here as often for hegemonic purposes. At the same time it brings these areas into relation to one another as elements of an empire. The wealth of its ruler, Ptolemy, and of its center, Alexandria, next becomes the focus. Vast riches flow daily “from all sides” (17.97) into Ptolemy’s wealthy house, which exerts a centripetal force as in Idyll 15. At the same time Ptolemy keeps enemies outside the borders of Egypt. Corresponding to the inflow of wealth is its redistribution outward by Ptolemy’s generosity to the temples of the gods, to mighty kings, to cities, to his comrades—and to poets. The final section praises Ptolemy’s relationships: his filial piety in instituting shrines and sacrifices to his parents, and his marriage to Arsinoe, which corresponds to that of his parents, praised earlier.53 The encomium proper ends, as it began, on Olympus, this time with the marriage of Zeus and Hera (also brother and sister) as an analogy to the relationship between the royal couple. In its construction of imperial space, then, the poem moves horizontally over a large area on the surface of the world and vertically from Olympus to the earth and then back again to Olympus. This treatment of space is very different from that of the other Idylls, but it may not be unrelated. It provides a wide spatial and political context for the Alexandria through which housewives walk to the festival of Adonis, for the town in which Simaetha’s erotic desperation is set, and for the hillsides on which herdsmen sing of love and loss.

Bibliography Alpers, P. (1996), What Is Pastoral? (Chicago). Bakhtin, M. (1981), The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (Austin). Bakker, E. (2013), The Meaning of Meat and the Structure of the Odyssey (Cambridge). Burton, J. (1995), Theocritus’s Urban Mimes: Mobility, Gender, and Patronage (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London). Calame, C. (2005), Masks of Authority: Fiction and Pragmatics in Ancient Greek Poetics (Ithaca/London). de Certeau, M. (1984), The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London). Dover, K.J. (1971), Theocritus: Select Poems (London). Elliger, W. (1975), Die Darstellung der Landschaft in der griechischen Dichtung (Berlin/New York).

52 53

On this catalogue, see Hunter (2003) 159–161. On Arsinoe’s eros for Philadelphus, see Hunter (2003) 191–192.

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Foucault, M. (1986), “Of Other Spaces,” Diacritics 16, 22–27. Gow, A.S.F. (1952), Theocritus, 2nd edition (Cambridge). Griffiths, F.T. (1979), Theocritus at Court (Leiden). Griffiths, F.T. (1981), “Home Before Lunch: The Emancipated Woman in Theocritus,” in H. Foley (ed.), Reflections of Women in Antiquity (New York), 247–273. Gutzwiller, K. (1996), “The Evidence for Theocritean Poetry Books,” in M.A. Harder/ R.F. Regtuit/G.C. Wakker (eds.), Theocritus, Hellenistica Groningana Vol. ii (Groningen), 119–148. Harvey, D. (2006), “Space as a Keyword,” in N. Castree/D. Gregory (eds.), David Harvey: A Critical Reader (Oxford), 270–293. Hunter, R.L. (1999), Theocritus: A Selection (Cambridge). Hunter, R.L. (2003), Theocritus: Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London). Klooster, J. (2012), “Theocritus,” in I. de Jong (ed.), Space in Ancient Greek Literature (Leiden), 99–117. Krevans, N. (2006), “Is There Urban Pastoral?” in M. Fantuzzi/Th. Papanghelis (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden), 119–146. Massey, D. (2005), For Space (London). Mastronarde, D. (1968), “Theocritus’ Idyll 13: Love and the Hero,” TAPA 99, 273–290. Reed, J. (2000), “Arsinoe’s Adonis and the Poetics of Ptolemaic Imperialism,” TAPA 130, 319–351. Segal, C. (1985), “Space, Time, and Imagination in Theocritus’ Second ‘Idyll,’” CA 4, 103– 119. Sens, A. (1997), Theocritus: Dioscuri (Idyll 22) (Göttingen). Thalmann, W.G. (2011), Apollonius of Rhodes and the Spaces of Hellenism (Oxford/New York). Tilley, C. (1994), A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths and Monuments (Oxford). Tuan, Y. (1977), Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (Minneapolis).

chapter 19

Theocritus and the Rural World Viola Palmieri

It is generally recognized that one of the main features that characterize the experimentation carried out by Hellenistic poets in terms of subject matter, setting, and characters is the ample space given to the representation of ordinary people: if not for the first time in literature, at least for the first time on this scale, the “world of humble folk” becomes an object of special attention in highbrow poetry. Ordinary people, sometimes even low folks, become the main focus of the narration, while gods and heroes are portrayed in more “human” and “domestic” forms.1 The gradual separation of elite, learned culture from that of common people,2 and the awareness (at least on the former’s side) of this phenomenon, had indeed led to the perception among the literati of a gap as regards popular tradition; and popular culture, in its turn, ended up exerting a certain appeal to elite poets precisely because of its synchronic and diachronic distance, since it was felt to be the cradle of that heritage and identity that, through study and poetic production, they were trying to preserve.3 In this cultural environment Theocritus is clearly no exception: indeed, he is the author who exploits the dialectical relationship between high literature and popular culture in the most dynamic and complex way. If the whole Theocritean corpus can be read as the transposition to a literary status of expressive forms of popular origin,4 his bucolic poetry represents by far one of the most innovative (and of broadest implications in terms of future reception) Hellenistic products, which explores the literary effects of the dialogue between

1 If we take as an example Callimachus, we can clearly identify this double tendency: consider, e.g., characters like Hecale or Molorchus and, on the other hand, his representation of gods such as Artemis in his Hymn to the goddess; cf. Zanker (1987) 155–156; Ambühl (2005); Petrovic (2016). 2 For the “two cultures” in Hellenistic times see Serrao (1977), 171–175; Pretagostini (2006) 53 n. 1; (2007) 61–62; Sbardella (2006) 68–71. However, separation does not mean complete otherness: not only do we have no proof that elite culture was not interested in performances of a popular kind but, as we shall see, the latter did actually exert some influence on high poetry, particularly as regards Theocritus (on this point see Hunter (1996) 7–10). 3 Hunter (1999); Sbardella (2016) 81–83. 4 Sbardella (2016) 83.

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the reception of traditional (and in this case also local) poetic forms and the new refined and erudite taste characteristic of this period. As a matter of fact, this new genre presents itself as the elevation of that kind of traditional song which accompanied and cheered the work of herdsmen to high hexameter poetry:5 immersed in an environment of nature and peace, shepherds and rustics engage in singing contests, which follow precise rules with respect to both themes and modes of expression.6 Although this kind of song is characteristic not only of ancient Greece, but of many other cultures of the past,7 circumstantial evidence indicates Sicily (and Magna Graecia) as Theocritus’ main source of inspiration for the setting of his pastoral poems: in this regard we may cite Theocritus’ origins (Syracuse was his hometown), the use of the Doric dialect as mimetic of the speech of this geographic region,8 and the allusion to Sicilian sites in the text.9 Moreover, Theocritus’ debt to Sicilian mime and comedy has been long acknowledged not only for his urban mimes (2 and 15),10 but in general for the representation of rustics and their everyday life. Indeed, these poetic forms gave the countryside and its inhabitants a special attention unknown before, bridging the gap between actual folk culture and its transformation into high poetic subject matter.11 After all, the birth of the new bucolic genre originates from the re-elaboration of the rustic themes found in literary mime into a new hexametrical form.12

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6 7 8 9 10 11

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For the origin of bucolic poetry from traditional pastoral songs and performances, see Merkelbach (1956); Hathorn (1961); Effe (1977); Serrao (1977) 180–199; Halperin (1983) 75– 117; Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 133–141. See e.g., Serrao (1977) 181–190; Pretagostini (2006) 57–58; (2007) 64–65, who takes Idyll 5 as a case study. See Merkelbach (1956); Hunter (1999) 6–7. This is, at any rate, problematic: see below. Cf. e.g., Id. 1.65, where Thyrsis claims to come from Etna; Id. 4.17, 24 and 5.1 set the scene in Kroton and Thurii; Id. 11.7, where the Cyclops is called by Theocritus a “fellow citizen”. The scholia to both Idylls in fact attest that characters and themes were derived from Sophron’s mimes: cf. Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 133, and Miles, this volume. See Fantuzzi (1993) 174–191; Stanzel (1995), 15–103; Hunter (1996) 7–10, 110–116; (1999) 10–11; Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 133–134; for precedents to Theocritus’ use of local popular tradition in Sicilian comedy, see Sonnino (2014). See also [Theoc.] Ep. 27 Gow, a pseudepigraphical epigram supposedly composed by a collector of Theocritus’ oeuvre as an introduction, which seems to highlight that Theocritus intentionally continued a tradition of popular and local (Sicilian) origins: see Hunter 1996 (91–92); Gutzwiller (1996) 135; Sbardella (2016) 86. Meter is notoriously a litmus test to reveal the nature of a poetic piece, and in this case it proves to be even more effective in the definition of this poetry as high, since popular products are usually composed in lyric meters (see for example the Fragmentum Grenfellianum), as many hints in the text of the Idylls actually indicate (see e.g., Id. 10.39, where

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Against this background, the questions that have triggered the most vigorous debates as regards the genealogy of Theocritus’ bucolic poetry are: on what scale are the realia of Sicilian folk culture portrayed in these poems? Or, to put it better, what is the balance between real and realistic? How much of what we feel as “realistic” is actually the accurate representation of reality, and how much is purely literary? Indeed, most scholars have emphasized the high level of literariness of this idealized cosmos, where rustics and herdsmen live in a timeless world where their main occupation is singing instead of actual herding;13 others, denying its fictional character, read the whole corpus of bucolics as witness to actual Sicilian folk life, still surviving in modern-day beliefs, expressions, and lifestyles among south Italian people.14 However, if the popular origin of this poetry is ascertained, it is still difficult to give a precise measure of its presence in such a stylized and learned production: whatever the contribution of folk culture is, it is perhaps methodologically improper to backdate modern folklore elements to Theocritus, who does not seem to push realism so far as to mirror reality without any literary filter. Rather, it can be worth examining the tension between realism and high literariness that characterizes these poems from the point of view of the pastoral world created by Theocritus. In this respect, the protagonists of Theocritus’ bucolic poems, namely the rustics themselves, will be of particular interest for this research: as vehicles of popular traits, they can serve as case study to detect the different levels in which the dialogue between real and imaginary is structured. In doing so, it is appropriate not to limit the analysis of the characters and their discourse to the strictly

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14

Milon ironically comments on the rhythmical and musical quality of Bucaeus’ performance employing an almost technical language: cf. Schol. Theoc. 10.38–40c; see Fantuzzi (2006) 256). Hexameter is the meter of epic and high poetry, and therefore its use for this new form of poetry seeks to place it in the same realm as epic, as a counterpart to it (cf. especially Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 138–141). On Theocritus’ bucolic hexameter, see e.g., Zanker (1987) 166–168; Fantuzzi (1995a); Hunter (1999) 17–18. See e.g., Zanker (1987) 164–168; Crane (1988), whose considerations on Idyll 5 are in fact applicable to all the bucolic Idylls; Basta Donzelli (2003); Belloni (2003); Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 140–142; Gutzwiller (2006); Payne (2007) 1–23. Already Pretagostini (1992) recognized supposed traces of oral poetry of the third century bc in Theocritus’ bucolic poems. Although it is certainly true that these poems partially derive themes and structure from real-life forms of folk poetry (see, for example, the presence of refrains, fixed patterns, and the conventions that rule the bucolic ἀγών, or the mention of traditional songs like the Lityerses in Idyll 10), the idea of reconstructing what oral poetry must have looked like in ancient times through Theocritus’ work is perhaps too optimistic; see also Pretagostini (2006). Thereafter, the search for folk (ancient and contemporary) culture in the bucolic Idylls has mainly been conducted by Lelli (among his many works on the topic see e.g., Lelli (2006); (2011); (2017)).

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bucolic production, but rather to extend it to the poems which show a pastoral or country setting (such as Idyll 10), as they share the same aesthetics and modes of expression.15 As a general consideration, it has already been shown that the setting of these poems proves to be far more idealized than it wants to appear. The countryside that constitutes the backdrop of the herdsmen’s songs is actually displayed as a place of harmony and peace, where the interaction of humans with animals is characterized by a mixture of mutual care and affection, and the privileged emotional relationship between man and nature shapes the entire perception of the countryside (the locus amoenus).16 The pictorial vividness that characterizes Theocritus’ naturalistic description, the detailed accuracy of the botanical terminology17—definitely a peculiar trait of Hellenistic erudition—are actually aimed at constructing the perfect “idyllic” environment where herdsmen, enjoying the benefits of the ἡσυχία granted by a humanfriendly nature,18 can dedicate themselves to their main occupation, namely singing.19 That the apparent realism of the Theocritean countryside acts within the field of the fictional is, incidentally, further showcased by the recognition, by the modern as much as the ancient reader, of the historical reality of Sicily and Magna Graecia in the 3rd century bce. This recognition inevitably undermines the interpretation of these poems as representative of the contemporary situation: by the time of Theocritus, the countryside of these areas had suffered from the devastations caused by Agathocles and Pyrrhus,20 and it definitely must not have looked like the natural paradise depicted in these poems. This could not but sharpen the contrast between the expectations produced by the vividness of the description and the awareness of actual reality. We have there15

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17 18 19 20

For obvious reasons, [Idyll] 21 (The Fishermen) does not fall within the scope of this research, although its dealing with one of the humblest category of workers and in general its concern with realistic traits make many of our considerations valid for it too. On this poem see especially Belloni (2003); Kirstein (2007) 150–212. The best and perhaps most problematic depiction of the locus amoenus is notoriously that of Phrasidamus’ farm in 7.130–157, where the astonishing lush wilderness is described with almost supernatural tones by Simichidas, newly invested by Lycidas as bucolic poet. On Theocritus’ locus amoenus, see e.g., Hunter (1999) 12–17 and, on this specific passage, 191– 193; Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 146–149. On Theocritus’ botanical terminology, see especially Lembach (1970). See e.g., 7.126; cf. Hunter (1999) 190. For the relationship between the beauty of countryside and music, see Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 145–146. Such was the case of e.g., Croton, the setting of Idyll 4, which was sacked and depopulated during the wars between Rome and Pyrrhus in the 270s (cf. Livy 24.3.1–2). See Zanker (1987) 168; Hunter (1999) 131.

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fore the impression of looking at a world suspended in time, a timeless Golden Age where nothing (but love) can disturb the tranquility of the herdsmen’s life, whose only preoccupation is singing of love and nature.21 In spite of this atmosphere, however, it must be noticed that only rarely the representation of the environment enters the field of the totally imaginary: the situations described, although often romanticized or caricatural, mainly fall within the realm of the plausible.22 An example of the Theocritean process of “selective idealization,” as the result of the interplay between realistic, concrete details and an imaginary world can be traced in the paradoxical attitude of the shepherds on the occasion of the singing contests, when they “remember” and concretely take care of their flocks almost by chance: see, for example, 1.12–14 and 151–152, 5.100–103, where, halfway between realistic detail and literary stylization, the apostrophe to the goats even intrudes into the bucolic song; 6.1–2 where, though Daphnis’ presence projects the event in a pastoral-mythological past, Theocritus does not renounce a “realistic” setting; and, by contrast, 11.12– 13, “where the Cyclops, a parody of the shepherd, forgets his flock while he serenades Galatea,”23 at the same time showing how, in case of “mythological” herdsmen too, the author takes care to add realistic traits that contribute to the “verisimilitude and coherence”24 of the bucolic world. On the contrary, we can perceive a certain level of irony underlying the representation of the herdsmen as poets, as neglecting their duty is both the prerequisite and the consequence of making poetry: actual work seems to be nothing but a secondary task in the routine of these rustics, a concrete detail only cursorily touched upon that somehow serves to remind the reader of what reality should be.25 Indeed, there are very few references to the work presumably characteristic of country life: we can find an example at 1.39–44, where, in the context of the ekphrastic description of the goatherd’s cup, a fisherman is vividly portrayed intent on gathering up a fishnet. A more indirect allusion to hard work as proper to rustics’ life is also implied in Milon’s teasing advice to Bucaeus that workmen should sing of work instead of love (10.56–58 ταῦτα χρὴ 21 22

23 24 25

For a study on herdsmen in literature with regard to the birth of pastoral poetry, see Gutzwiller (2006), especially 16 ff. Even in the case of 7.135–146, where nature on the occasion of the harvest is portrayed with the traits of supernatural richness, as if it were actively participating in the religious festival, “the idealizing imagination grows from rural reality—there is indeed a superabundance of fruit in the season of the harvest—and from the logic of religious thought”; see Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 146–148 (quotation from p. 147). Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 141. Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 141. Zanker (1987) 165; Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 148.

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μoχθεῦντας ἐν ἁλίῳ ἄνδρας ἀείδειν, / τὸν δὲ τεόν, Βουκαῖε, πρέπει λιμηρὸν ἔρωτα / μυθίσδεν τᾷ ματρὶ κατ’ εὐνὰν ὀρθρευοίσᾳ).26 In this context such a statement promotes a trite version of the Hesiodic notion of work27 as opposed to the typical idea of love songs serving to heal the pain caused by love itself that keeps the worker from accomplishing his duties. Theocritus thus thematizes (and problematizes) the opposition between the two possible views of countryside, namely the traditional, “Hesiodic” one of hard work, and the romantic one, proper to his own bucolic setting (see Idylls 3 and 11).28 Another allusion to the real condition of countrymen, although not strictly linked to work itself, can possibly be traced in the only mention of the social class of rustics, found in Idyll 5, where this also plays an important role in the economy of the conflict between the two herdsmen: both Comatas the goatherd and Lacon the shepherd are slaves—Comatas indeed calls Lacon δῶλε Σιβύρτα (5), to which Lacon responds (8) by ironically calling him ὠλεύθερε; see also 72–73, where in spite of Lacon’s reluctance and snobbery, Comatas informs Morson that they are both slaves.29 This sort of social hierarchy is, however, soon overturned by the crude mention (41–42) of their past sexual affair, where it is made clear that Lacon is the “subdued” one; pointless are Lacon’s denials and recurrent appeals to his alleged social superiority; once the truth is revealed, his credibility is demolished.30 Compared to mime and comedy, then, which nonetheless are its closest cognates, the world of bucolic positions itself in the ambiguous borderland between “imitation of reality” and “imagination based upon the real world.”31 In this well-organized poetic landscape, mythological figures (like Daphnis or the Cyclops) seamlessly alternate with everyday rustics, preventing the reader from anchoring characters and situations to any world but the bucolic one:32 it is not, then, a representation (be it faithful or caricatural) of reality, but rather an idyllic and highly typified alternative to it. Within this dreamy setting, the depiction of herdsmen and rustics highlights even more clearly the tension between the realistic and the ideal which is encompassed by these poems: by means of his depiction of herdsmen and 26 27 28 29

30 31 32

See Cairns (1970); (1972) 173, 175; Zanker (1987) 165. See e.g., Op. 299, 308–316, 397–400. On the opposition between love and work in Idyll 10, see Lentini (1998). Hunter (1999) 200. However, Dover (1971) 129 rightly suggests caution in taking these details too seriously, as mutual references to a servile status can be part of the conventional exchange of insults typical of this genre. Zanker (1987) 168–169; cf. also Pretagostini (1984). Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 141. Payne (2007) 13–15.

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rustics Theocritus succeeds in intertwining the complex texture of the literary and the lifelike, which represents the most fascinating aspect of this poetry. The dialect in which the bucolic poems are written is emblematic of Theocritus’ search for a compromise between linguistic realism and its transposition into hexameter poetry: through the use of Doric, the author seems to play with the audience’s linguistic expectations as regards, on the one hand, the poetic form, as Ionic would be the “natural” choice for hexameter poetry, and on the other, the poetic genre, which might privilege a more realistic and faithfully popular language. Indeed, the Doric of these poems is to be considered more an erudite literary product (like Callimachus’ fifth and sixth Hymns in Doric) than the truthful reproduction of Greek speech in ancient Sicily. The poems eventually prove themselves to be highly refined through a mixture of epicisms and Aeolisms: with the mimetic intention of pointing to the geographical setting, Theocritus then creates a linguistic pastiche aiming at a certain level of realism while pursuing aesthetic and literary goals.33 Besides, this aspect of Theocritean mimesis is not limited to dialectal coloring, but its effects inevitably invest the modes of expression of the characters and consequently their credibility as rustics: thus, for example, it is striking to notice the concentration of Homeric and tragic expressions put in the mouth of Battus in Idyll 4 (cf. 7 ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ὀπώπει),34 and though functional as part of the presentation of the character as a malicious and mocking know-it-all, they appear somehow mismatched when compared to the everyday setting and the lowness of the character itself. Battus’ use of highly poetic phrases is evidently inconsistent with the status of the character, who appears as an uncouth rustic. However, this proves to be a literary device that enhances the perception of the character’s naivete: the seamless mixture of bombastic and colloquial, sometimes even scurrilous, expressions conveys the impression of grotesque and confirms that, notwithstanding the first impression of cleverness in comparison with his fellow Corydon, Battus is indeed the same brand of simpleton—as the episode of the thorn (50–51) makes clear. A similar effect is incidentally achieved by the (indeed sporadic) use of mythological paradigms by the simpleminded rustics, something meant to

33 34

Zanker (1987) 164–165 (with regard to the borderline case of Idyll 15 too); cf. Tribulato, this volume. Note that Corydon too responds to Battus’ mockery with a Homeric phrase (8 βίαν καὶ κάρτος), although its interpretation as unconscious and naive or rather, in its turn, as mockery, may rely on whether we accept the manuscripts’ reading βίην καὶ κάρτος (which accurately reproduces the Homeric morphology and would be therefore a sign of some ingenuity) or, as most modern editors do, the Doric one of P. Oxy. 2064 + 3548: see Hunter (1999) 133.

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emphasize the distance of the world of epic from that of pastoral: when the anonymous goatherd of Idyll 3 (40–51) inserts into his performance a song of mythological subject matter (furthermore signaled by the pretentious number of epicisms and Homeric expressions) to persuade his beloved Amaryllis, he ends up highlighting his own clumsiness and (predictable) unfamiliarity with this world, since the myths he selects as paradigmatic of his own romantic intentions end tragically. Thus, for example, Atalanta was eventually caught by Hippomenes through the expedient of the apples, but they were both transformed into lions after making love in a temple, while Adonis, loved by Aphrodite, got killed by a boar. Similarly, Endymion is not particularly enviable: according to different versions of the myth, he falls into an eternal sleep either because of the Moon’s jealousy or by the will of Zeus. Accordingly, Theocritus seems to exploit the irony of the contrast between the segment of the story the character chooses to narrate and the audience’s familiarity with the myths he mentions.35 Thus, “the goatherd’s mythology reveals how the very process of adducing ‘mythological parallels’ depends entirely upon an audience’s willingness to ‘forget’ much of what it knows,”36 and indeed, it points out either his incompetence in traditional mythology or his “(unconscious) pessimism about his hopes of success.”37 On the contrary, the familiarity with mythology displayed by Comatas in Idyll 5 is equally striking: the goatherd’s scolding of his billy goat, who is about to mount the nanny goats before the sacrifice to celebrate Comatas’ victory in the singing contest (149–150, ἀλλὰ γενοίμαν, / αἰ μή τυ φλάσσαιμι, Μελάνθιος ἀντὶ Κομάτα), is surprisingly appropriate, since Melanthius, who was punished by Odysseus for his betrayal by his extremities and private parts being cut off and thrown to the dogs, was actually a goatherd: the rude Comatas’ acquaintance with this episode from the Odyssey has the same ironic effect as the goatherd’s odd mythological paradigms in Idyll 3 through the “literary incongruity and the humor that results from it.”38 Other than that, it is symptomatic of the distance between the world of bucolics and that of epic that the only further examples of “traditional” mythology are (i) the mention by Simichidas (alias Theocritus) in Idyll 7 (148–155) of some mythological paradigms, where they occur within the description of the locus amoenus for the purpose of sublimating the rustic symposium to the level of myth (thus, still a rather peculiar framework);39 (ii) the pair of Idylls that deal with the 35 36 37 38 39

See Fantuzzi (1995b) 22–27. Cf. Hunter (1999) 123. Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 163. Zanker (1987) 170. See Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 163–164.

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Cyclops’ love story with Galatea (6 and 11), in its turn a bucolic/mythological framework (in Idyll 11 it is the Cyclops that sings his clumsy serenade for Galatea, while in Daphnis’ song of Id. 6.6–1940 the Cyclops himself becomes the paradoxical mythological paradigm for the maxim that even the ugliest can appear beautiful if seen with the eyes of love).41 If traditional mythology fails to constitute a vehicle of meaning and terms of comparison, Theocritus’ rustics still seem to rely on a totally different background for their decoding of reality and the world around them. Namely, in what might represent the fullest trait of realism in Theocritean poetry, Theocritus’ rustics rely on the tradition of proverbs and popular beliefs. Already Aristotle, who seems to have been the first to show real interest in παροιμίαι as a serious topic (as his assessment in fr. 463 Gigon makes clear), links the custom of expressing oneself through proverbs specifically to farmers as γνωμοτύποι (cf. Rhet. 2.1395a6–7). And indeed, Theocritus exploits to a great extent the close relationship between rustics and this sort of expression by integrating proverbs into their language without even feeling the need to signal or introduce them.42 “The use of proverbs is mimetic of the illiterate simplicity typical of the logic and language of bucolic characters, and is thus a technique of rustic realism.”43 As a matter of fact, proverbs were believed to be bearers of popular knowledge and of some sort of χαρίεν πρᾶγμα,44 an attractive element that made them a successful means of expressing shared common ideas, even among the lower social classes thanks to the aura of familiarity that they conveyed. For this reason they became rather common in the language of those literary products that were meant to appeal to a broader audience (such as mime and comedy).45 Again, Theocritus proves to be a master in the reception of traditional (in this case popular) material and its reworking and sublimation into a new poetic form: through the combination of colloquialisms, cliches, and idioms (and sometimes even bawdy expressions),46 which often are or seem to

40 41 42

43 44 45 46

Daphnis is the founder of “bucolic mythology”: see e.g., Hunter (1999) 63–68; Lightfoot (1999) 526–529; Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 136, 138 n. 23. For an extensive reading of the passages, see Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 162–167. See, on the contrary, what happens in the urban mimes (14.43, 51 and 15.77), where they are introduced by an expression like “as the saying goes,” while in Idylls 11, 13, and 29 the proverbial motto is to be attributed to the author himself as the starting point of the following narration: see Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 161 n. 116. Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 161. Cf. Demetr. De Eloc. 156. Cf. Meliadò (2010) 27. See, for example, Id. 4.58–9 and particularly Id. 5.41–42, where the competitive atmosphere leads to the use of colorful expressions.

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be closely related to popular (sometimes even Sicilian?)47 beliefs and culture, the author builds the rustics’ language, and therefore their personality, bestowing upon them the freshness and liveliness of the low folks’ natural speech. In this sense we can explain proverbs’ difference in distribution: they are indeed spread all over (and not only within)48 his bucolic poetry and they cover a wide range of themes and backgrounds (from love to the gnomic to, of course, country life). The more the author intended to present the scene as realistically rustic, the bigger the concentration we find. So, for instance, in Idylls like 1 or 7, whose higher literariness and programmatic and symbolic function are evident when compared to the other bucolic poems,49 we find very few proverbs (three in Id. 1.62–63, 102 and only one in Id. 7.24), while Idylls 5 and 10 show a colorful variety of proverbs that contribute to the representation of the true register of rustic speech, and therefore they seem to indicate that the poems were actually meant to be read as realistic.50 In Idyll 5 the use of idiomatic expressions by the two herdsmen Lacon and Comatas livens up their dispute and reveals their rustic background, since they clearly originate in popular culture: see, e.g., 21–22 ἔστι μὲν οὐδέν / ἱερόν, 23 ὗς ποτ’ Ἀθαναίαν ἔριν ἤρισεν, 31 μὴ σπεῦδ’· οὐ γάρ τοι πυρὶ θάλπεαι, or 38 θρέψαι καὶ λυκιδεῖς, θρέψαι κύνας, ὥς τυ φάγωντι.51 On the other hand, it is interesting that in Idyll 10 the difference between the two views of life (work versus love), particularly in the (superficial) image of

47

48

49 50 51

Some interesting parallels between Theocritean mottos and Sicilian proverbs were found by Di Mino (1931): see e.g., Id. 4.41–43 θαρσεῖν χρή, φίλη Βάττε· τάχ’ αὔριον ἔσσετ’ ἄμεινον. / ἐλπίδες ἐν ζωοῖσιν, ἀνέλπιστοι δὲ θανόντες, / χὠ Ζεὺς ἄλλοκα μὲν πέλει αἴθριος, ἄλλοκα δ’ ὕει and “Sulu li morti nun hannu spiranza,” “Sulu a la morti nun c’è rimediu,” and “Oj chiovi e dumani scampa” (p. 231). This is even more remarkable if we think that the Greek versions (though not the ideas themselves) probably originated with Theocritus himself. Poems that were meant to represent low folks, like the urban mimes (see particularly 14 and 15), are similarly rich in proverbs and idiomatic expressions, whereas the epyllia, programmatically far from actual reality, lack them; see Meliadò (2010) 35. See, e.g., Hunter (1996) 20–28 (on Idyll 7); (1999) 60–68, 144–151; Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 134–138, 149–151. As the scholia point out: cf. schol. Theoc. 5.23, 26–27, 31, 38, 65; 10.11, 13, 17, 54–55. Cf. respectively, Zenob. 5.47 (and schol. Theoc. 5.21; see Heimgartner (1940) 80–81); Apostol. 17.73 and schol. Theoc. 5.23 ἐπὶ τῶν τοῖς κρείττοσι φιλονεικούντων (although this is the first occurrence of the proverb, it is most probably older and widespread with different meanings: see Gow ad loc., Meliadò (2010) 36; cf. Heimgartner (1940) 86, Lelli (2006), 41 and n. 76 for other examples); schol. Theoc. 5.31 (for analogous expressions, cf. Gow ad loc.); Apostol. 8.92a (seemingly a proverb, as also the scholia to the Idyll indicate, but more probably invented by Theocritus himself: see Meliadò (2010) 38). See also at 132–133, the use of kissing someone by holding his ears as handles of a pot (χύτρα): cf. Eunic. PCG 1, Poll. 10.100, Plut. Mor. 38b, Clem. Al. Strom. 5.652, Tib. 2.5.91 and, in an erotic context, Luc. DMeretr. 3.2, Plaut. As. 668, Poen. 375; see Gow ad loc., Zanker (1987) 168.

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the two reapers, is further underlined by the fact that the many proverbs of the poem are pronounced only by Milon. Indeed, his apparently superior rhetoric of hard work as belonging to country life is linguistically fostered by the accumulation of home-wisdom mottos with which he insistently mocks his companion52 (whose gaucherie makes it very easy for Milon to prevail), in fact betraying the triteness and simplicity of his mentality. In contrast, the sole proverb that the naive, lovesick Bucaeus is able to utter predictably refers to Eros’ blindness (19–20 τυφλὸς δ’ οὐκ αὐτὸς ὁ Πλοῦτος, / ἀλλὰ καὶ ὡφρόντιστος Ἔρως).53 What is also worth noticing is that not only did Theocritus make use of preexisting proverbs (though always reworked and adapted to context), but he himself seems to have created evocative metaphorical images that ended up being felt as proverbial for their gnomic character. Indeed, ancient scholia and paroemiographic sources record them as such, though they might have never been used in antiquity.54 This is indicative of the Theocritean impact on the later tradition and, as a consequence, his mastery in forging the character of his rustics through the elaboration of powerful expressive tools. Another peculiar aspect of Theocritus’ realistic representation of rustics is their inclination to yield to superstitious gestures and “magical” practices, a remnant of ancestral beliefs very typical of popular culture. Within the frame of the contest of Idyll 5, we see the herdsmen’s apotropaic gesture of tearing off specific types of flowers in order to prevent the consequences of each other’s rage (120–123): [Κομ.] ἤδη τις, Μόρσων, πικραίνεται· ἢ οὐχὶ παρῄσθευ; σκίλλας ἰὼν γραίας ἀπό σάματος αὐτίκα τίλλοις. [Λα.] κἠγὼ μὰν κνίζω, Μόρσων, τινά· καὶ τὺ δὲ λεύσσεις. ἐνθὼν τὰν κυκλάμινον ὄρυσσέ νυν ἐς τὸν Ἅλεντα. co. la.

52

53 54 55

Somebody’s losing his temper already, Morson—or did you miss it? Go straight and gather squills from some hag’s grave. And I am galling someone too, as you see. Go to the Haleis, then, and dig up cyclamen.55

See e.g., vv. 11 χαλεπὸν χορίω κύνα γεῦσαι, whose exact meaning is however still doubtful, cf. e.g., Gow ad loc., Hunter (1999) 203, Luzzatto (2001), or 13 ἐκ πίθω ἀντλεῖς δῆλον, cf. Gow ad loc.; Hunter (1999) 203. See Hunter (1999) 200, Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 160. Cf. Meliadò (2010) for the complete list; for a study on Theocritus’ use of proverbs, see also Férnandez Delgado (1984). Text and translations are from Gow.

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Both squills and cyclamen seem in fact to be linked to magic: cyclamen was believed to help against mala medicamenta (cf. Plin. NH 25.115) and it was also used in love-magic (cf. Thphr. HP 9.9.3, Diosc. 2.164.4), whereas squills were actually known for their purgative properties,56 although what seems to make them even more effective against Lacon’s venomous words is the gathering place (an old woman’s grave). Indeed, the figure of the old lady is recurrently linked to magical and superstitious practices in Theocritus’ bucolics and it is supposedly inherited from a popular, if not rural, background: women (particularly old women) were thought to be custodians of occult knowledge and rites, and local fortune-tellers and “witches” must have been rather familiar in the countryside, being commonly consulted for omens and spells.57 In Idyll 3, a desperately lovesick goatherd performs a παρακλαυσίθυρον for his beloved Amaryllis (see below), whose indifference is deduced through not one, but two different forms of divination (28–32): ἔγνων πρᾶν, ὅκα μοι, μεμναμένῳ εἰ φιλέεις με, οὐδὲ τὸ τηλέφιλον ποτεμάξατο τὸ πλατάγημα, ἀλλ’ αὔτως ἁπαλῷ ποτὶ πάχεϊ ἐξεμαράνθη. εἶπε καὶ Ἀγροιὼ τἀλαθέα κοσκινόμαντις, ἁ πρᾶν ποιολογεῦσα παραιβάτις, οὕνεκ’ ἐγὼ μέν τὶν ὅλος ἔγκειμαι, τὺ δέ μευ λόγον οὐδένα ποιῇ. I learnt the truth of late when I bethought me didst thou love me, and the smack caused not the love-in-absence to cling, but idly it shriveled on my smooth forearm. And Agroeo too, that divines with her sieve —she that was lately cutting grass by my side, told me the truth, how that my heart was wholly thine while thou madest no account of me. Beside the rustic divination of the type “she loves me, she loves me not,” involving the use of flowers’ petals which were laid on the arm and, either by adhering or making a certain sound, were believed to give favorable omens,58 we find here juxtaposed the coscinomancy of the old Agroeo (literally: the 56 57

58

Cf. e.g., Diosc. 2.171.3–4, Artemid. 3.50, Thphr. HP 7.13.4, Plin. NH 20.101 (see Gow ad loc). Idyll 2 is an obvious parallel, although Simaetha is presumably quite young. For the spread of magical practices in the Hellenistic period, as the papyri also attest, and specifically linked to women, see e.g., Faraone (2000); Dickie (2001); Blanco (2015) and (2017). See Gow ad loc.; Dover (1971) 116; Hunter (1999) 119; LSJ s.v. τηλέφιλον.

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Lady of the Fields), a divinatory practice through sieving beans and reading the subsequent patterns (although no particular divinatory practice was actually necessary to interpret Amaryllis’ unwillingness to cede to his love).59 In other cases, superstitious and apotropaic gestures are taught or performed by old women. One of the most recurrent is definitely the act of spitting on one’s own chest: in Idyll 6 the Cyclops says that he has been taught by the old Cotyttaris60 to spit three times61 in order to prevent the alleged disastrous consequences of the praise of his own appearance (39–40).62 The same is practiced by Eunica, the proud city-woman who refuses the cowherd’s avances in [Idyll] 20; and in Idyll 7.126–127, where again Simichidas bids an imaginary old lady to spit in order to remove τὰ μὴ καλά.63 This “rustic superstition”64 stands in evident paradoxical contrast to the philosophical concept of ἡσυχία, which is here proposed as effective against the pain of love.65 Incidentally, this is not the only occasion in Idyll 7 where Theocritus shows familiarity with magic. In vv. 103–114 we find a rather peculiar “bucolic” prayer to Pan to bring to Aratus his beloved boy; this, however, turns out to be a (parodic) ἀγωγή of the type better exemplified in Idyll 2.66 The double structure of the prayer, which envisages, in the first part, good news in case of fulfillment of the request, and in the second part a coercive menace to the god in case of his refusal, clearly reveals its relationship with the prayers widely attested in Greek magic papyri, where the μάγοι urge a god or demon with threats and sometimes also with rewards.67 But here, in contrast to the authentic aggressive spells, the absence of pathos, the bucolic setting, the ridiculous tone, and erudite details of the punishments (itch, spending winter in the freezing north and summer in the burning south: cf. Pi. I. 2.41–42) reveal that “Simichidas is striking a witty pose, both literary and personal: such for him is what constitutes the ‘bucolic’ world, and he is not really interested in whether or not Aratus ‘catches’ Philinos […]. It is, as Aratus is to understand, Simichi-

59 60 61 62 63

64 65 66 67

Cf. Schweizer (1937) 8–10; Arnott (1978); Hunter (1999) 120; Costanza (2009) 70. As Hunter (1999) 259 points out, the name harks back to that of a Thracian goddess who enjoyed particular favor in Corinth and Sicily: see RE 11 1549–1551. And three is also a magic number: see Hunter (1999) 259 (cf. also its occurrence in Idyll 2). See Hunter (1999) 259–260, also on the alternative interpretation of the gesture as referring to the possibility that his own reflection could put a spell on him. Cf. also, in the opening verse of Simichidas’ song (v. 96), the Erotes who have sneezed for him: whether this was a good or a bad omen has been long disputed; see Hunter (1999) 180. I take the expression from Hunter (1999) 259 (on Idyll 6.39–40). See Hunter (1999) 190. See Fantuzzi/Maltomini (1996); Hunter (1999) 181–182. See particularly Fantuzzi/Maltomini (1996), 28 for references and selected bibliography.

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das’ own relationship with Aratus which matters.”68 This marks the huge gap between a “literary” herdsman like Simichidas and the more “realistic” rustics of the other pastoral Idylls. From the picture given so far, all these elements serve to meticulously represent the personality of Theocritus’ rustics so as to build the reader’s perception of them as real people. Another feature that emerges as a powerful means of their representation, partly (but not exclusively) deriving from the model of real rustics, is their naivete, a sign of the genuineness and simplicity typical of common folk, which therefore represents their distinctiveness and emerges in different ways. In this sense, the Idylls where two rustics engage in an exchange of lines/songs represent an effective example of the possibilities exploited by Theocritus to highlight this trait of their character. Still, they prove largely typified and a bit caricatural in the process of transferring them from reality to the world of poetry, with which they are not “familiar” (as already mime and comedy had partially shown). If we consider for instance Idylls 4 and 10, we see that the naivete of the characters is clearly showcased through their antithetical attitude—one being the know-it-all mocker, the other genuinely naive. Both Corydon (Idyll 4) and Bucaeus (Idyll 10) are indeed represented as the simpletons that become the easy target of their interlocutors’ irony, as their simplemindedness prevents them from even realizing that they are prey to mockery. The quarrelsomeness of the goatherd Battus impacts Corydon from the very beginning of what is presented as a casual conversation: the news that the owner of the cows that Corydon is tending, Aegon, has left for Olympia with agonistic ambitions triggers Battus’ mockery at the expense of Corydon, “a conversational literalist who ignores (or is unaware of) irony.”69 As a result, their exchange and the resulting irony is for the most part built on the opposition between Battus’ jests and Corydon’s serious reaction to them. So, Corydon’s sincere admiration for Aegon (8), the affection and concern for the animals that, as Battus points out, grieve for the absence of their master (12–25), the sincere consolatory (albeit commonplace) words that he dedicates to his companion when he responds to the song for Amaryllis (41–43), the concerned scolding of Battus when he steps on the thorn (56)—all these elements contribute to depict Corydon as a simpleton, who precisely for this reason inspires sympathy in the reader. Similarly, Bucaeus’ naivete in Idyll 10 emerges from the contrast with Milon, which, as we have seen, is rightly understood as the opposition between two visions of the countryside as either a place of romantic fantasiz-

68 69

Hunter (1999) 182; see also Fantuzzi/Maltomini (1996) 29. Hunter (1999) 129.

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ing or a life of hard work. Love as a threatening force extraneous to this world and therefore disturbing the harmony of country life is indeed the fuse that triggers the dispute, as Milon, with superior attitude, invites the lovesick Bucaeus to relieve his pain through singing. His performance acquires a humorous tone through the report of his passionate love for a girl, Bombyca, who is evidently not so pretty, but who in her lover’s eyes becomes the most beautiful creature on earth (see Milon’s comment at 18 μάντις τοι τὰν νύκτα χροϊξεῖται καλαμαία, which, though proverbial, clearly alludes to the girl’s appearance, and of course Bucaeus’ words at 24–31 and again at 36–37). Humor grows in the naive image of their golden statues dedicated to Aphrodite, where Bucaeus represents himself with new clothes and shoes (35), and culminates in his inability to express the qualities of his beloved (37); no doubt such a clumsy song could easily make him an easy target for Milon’s mockery (38–40). The song for the beloved is actually a functional medium through which the naivete of the rustic lovers surfaces, since “their extreme ‘shepherdness’ also drives shepherds in love to become laughably bathetic when they try to enter the world of eros.”70 The two solo serenades of the goatherd and the Cyclops (Idylls 3 and 11) represent another experiment through which the incompatibility between love and countryside life finds its expression by means of the singers’ intrinsic simplemindedness, since the two characters seem unable to deal either with love or with love songs.71 The premises of their performance are already emblematic of this inconsistency: both songs are indeed presented as paraklausithyra, although their paradoxical nature is immediately made clear from the striking absence of the framework for this kind of song, namely the presence of the (closed) door, considering that the goatherd’s beloved, Amaryllis, lives in a cave and the Cyclops’ one, Galatea, in the sea. The situation is more serious in the case of the goatherd: unlike the Cyclops, he could just enter the cave and see Amaryllis (provided she is not simply the product of his fantasy).72 The goatherd’s concern of giving custody of his goats to his friend Tityrus is a realistic rustic detail that already proves in some ways jarring and odd when compared with the passion of love that inspires his song.73 Besides, his statement at the very beginning to the effect that he is about to

70 71 72 73

Fantuzzi (2017) 334. See e.g., Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 162–167; Fantuzzi (2017) 335–338. See Isenberg/Konstan (1984), 311 (a statement that proves valid for all the herdsmen’s serenades: see Fantuzzi (2006) 256–257 n. 55). It is also worth noting that Hermogenes (p. 322 Rabe) quotes these verses as an example of ἀφέλεια, the naive style typical of children, women, and farmers, when the speakers give details of which there is no need; see Gutzwiller (1991) 117–118.

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perform a κῶμος proves particularly effective for the characterization of the goatherd’s attitude: the premises of such a practice in urban contexts are normally the revelry and drunkenness that eventually also constitute the justification for alleged excesses,74 the absence of which differentiates the goatherd from the performers of paraclausithyra.75 In his short but humorous serenade, the goatherd tries the most varied expedients to convince Amaryllis to return his love, and yet his attempts do nothing but increasingly highlight his naivete: first he identifies his ugliness as a possible reason for her rejection (8–9), then he tries to gain favor by offering her not one but ten apples (a gesture charged with erotic symbolism),76 and later he promises her a fine white goat. Moreover, what makes his serenade even more pathetic are the reiterated suicide threats (9, 25–27, 52–55), whose lack of credibility is undoubtedly confirmed by absurd preliminaries such as the stripping of his clothes (25) and the fact that the threats are interrupted by other arguments to convince her, which means, if anything, that he has not completely lost hope (and that they are more attempts to move her through pity). His reluctance to abandon the entrance of the cave, despite the unfavorable omens and the consequent risk to become prey for wolves, also makes this clear. Less self-deluded, at least at the beginning, is the young Cyclops of Idyll 11, here (like in Idyll 6) portrayed like any other herdsman—we can actually say that he is the mythological prototype of the Theocritean rustic77—who, like Bucaeus in Idyll 10, is forced by eros to neglect his duties as goatherd (12–13). He subsequently abandons himself to a humorous love song to Galatea to alleviate the pain of his unrequited love. His gaucherie is indeed the focal point of the poem, as his clumsy courting of Galatea manifests the endearing naivete that derives from the tension between his love and the limited horizon of his world, concentrating only on his animals and the countryside. The opening invocation to the beloved is in this sense particularly emblematic of the (in)appropriateness of his love language (19–24): Ὦ λευκὰ Γαλάτεια, τί τὸν φιλέοντ’ ἀποβάλλῃ, λευκοτέρα πακτᾶς ποτιδεῖν, ἁπαλωτέρα ἀρνός, μόσχω γαυροτέρα, φιαρωτέρα ὄμφακος ὠμᾶς; φοιτῇς δ’ αὖθ’ οὕτως ὅκκα γλυκὺς ὕπνος ἔχῃ με, 74 75 76 77

See e.g., Call. AP 12.118 = HE 1075ss.; for the relationship between Idyll 3 and literary komoi see Hunter (1999) 107–109. Cf. Fantuzzi (2017) 335–338. On the topic cf. Littlewood (1968), but the usual practice involves just one apple! See e.g., Zanker (1987) 170–172; Hunter (1999) 217–219.

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οἴχῃ δ’ εὐθὺς ἰοῖσ’ ὅκκα γλυκὺς ὕπνος ἀνῇ με, φεύγεις δ’ ὥσπερ ὄις πολιὸν λύκον ἀθρήσασα; O white Galatea, why dost thou repulse thy lover —whiter than curd to look on, softer than the lamb, more skittish than the calf, sleeker than the unripe grape— why thus, when sweet sleep holds me, dost thou straight approach, and when sleep leaves me, art gone forthwith, flying, as the ewe flies when she sees the grey wolf? Not only is the imagery used to compliment Galatea drawn from the Cyclops’ bucolic background, but his narrow-mindedness also emerges from the oddity of the comparison of the white skin of the Nereid to curd, a touch of “dairy expertise” that, bypassing the more common (and romantic) association with milk inspired both by erotic poetry (see e.g., Sapph. fr. 156 v.) and Galatea’s name itself, only a herdsman could boast to possess.78 And again, once acknowledging his physical deformity as a likely reason for her refusal (31–33), he tries to compensate for it by offering her, with childish ostentation, the prosperity and the advantages of living on the land (34–48), an offer that could hardly attract a Nereid. Yet, for all his declared incapacity to understand the charm of sea life, he manifests the unrealistic wish to have gills, so that he could bring her lilies and poppies, but then with playful pedantry he shows off his botanic competence by underlining the impossibility of keeping his promise, for the two flowers bloom in different seasons.79 The progressive emergence of his rustic pride due to his frustrated desire eventually drives the Cyclops to a new stage of self-delusion when he mentions the many girls that laugh and invite him to play, clearly misinterpreting their mocking flirtations. This is both an attempt to make Galatea jealous and a means of consolation. This, however, pairs with the other representation of the Cyclops, that of Damoetas in Idyll 6: here Polyphemus, probably wrongly, believes that Galatea returns his affection, and yet plays it cool in the attempt to make her jealous. In this poem we have a complete reversal of perspective compared to Idyll 11: his appearance is not so ugly anymore (34–39), and his new pride allows the fantasy of a reversed παρακλαυσίθυρον, where Galatea is locked out, ready to move to the land.80 Here the

78 79 80

Fantuzzi (2017) 335. See Hunter (1999) 238–239. On the complex relationship between the two Idylls, see, e.g., Zanker (1987) 170–172; Hunter (1999) 215–223, 243–248; Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 164–167.

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naivete of the desperate lovesick goatherd is replaced by another kind of naivete, that of the overly self-confident rustic (such as Battus or Milon), unaware of his own “shepherdness.” As we have seen, the polymorphic genius of Theocritus successfully constructs a parallel universe, an ideal world whose structure is in fact rooted in the real world but at the same time is distanced from it through the artifice of poetry. When in Idyll 7 the town-man Simichidas and his friends eventually reach Phrasidamus’ farm, enjoying the pleasure of a lush wilderness at the edge of the supernatural (see above), it is made evident that, for the very first time in literature, the countryside has become a place for a good retreat (hesychia) where everyone, even the most humble of rustics, gets inspired to sing— a blatant, intentional discrepancy between the sublime environment and its amusing (sometimes even ridiculous) inhabitants.

Bibliography Ambühl, A. (2005), Kinder und junge Helden: Innovative Aspekte des Umgangs mit der literarischen Tradition bei Kallimachos (Leuven). Arnott, W.G. (1978), “Coscinomancy in Theocritus and Kazantakis,” Mnemosyne 21, 27– 32. Basta Donzelli, G. (2003), “Mimo teocriteo e mimo popolare,” in Belloni/De Finis/Moretti (2003) 255–268. Belloni. L. (2003), “‘Povertà’ e ‘ricchezza’ nel ‘Corpus Theocriteum’: in margine al testo degli Ἁλιεῖς,’” in Belloni/De Finis/Moretti (2003) 269–300. Belloni, L./De Finis, L./Moretti, G. (eds.) (2003), L’officina ellenistica: poesia dotta e popolare in Grecia e a Roma (Trento). Bianchi Bandinelli, R. (ed.) (1977), Storia e civiltà dei Greci. 9. Filosofia, scienza, letteratura (Milano). Blanco Cesteros, M. (2015), “Haberlas, haylas. Redescubriendo a las brujas del mundo grecolatino,” in De la Rosa Cubo et al. (2015) 29–48. Blanco Cesteros, M. (2017), “Women and the Transmission of Magical Knowledge in the Greco-Roman World. Rediscovering Ancient Witches (ii),” in Suárez/Blanco/Chronopoulou/Canzobre (2017) 95–110. Cairns, F. (1970), “Theocritus Idyll 10,” Hermes 98, 38–44. Cairns, F. (1972), Generic Composition in Greek and Roman Poetry (Edinburgh). Cambiano, G./Canfora, L./Lanza, D. (eds.) (1993), Lo spazio letterario della Grecia antica, 1.2 (Roma). Clauss, J.J./Cuypers, M./Kahane, A. (eds.) (2016), The Gods of Greek Hexameter Poetry. From the Archaic Age to Late Antiquity and Beyond (Stuttgart).

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Colesanti, G./Giordano, M. (eds.) (2014), Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture. An Introduction (Berlin/Boston). Colesanti, G./Lulli, L. (eds.) (2016), Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture. 2. Case Studies (Berlin/Boston). Costanza, S. (2009), La divinazione greco-romana (Udine). Crane, G. (1988), “Realism in the Fifth Idyll of Theocritus,” TAPA 118, 107–122. Cusset, C./Kossaifi, C./Poignault, R. (eds.) (2017), Présence de Théocrite (= Caesarodunum l–li bis) (Clermont-Ferrand). De la Rosa Cubo, C. et al. (eds.) (2015), Femina. Mujeres en la Historia (Valladolid). Dickie, M.W. (2001), Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World (London/New York). Di Mino, C. (1931), “Il folklore siciliano in Teocrito,” Folklore italiano 9, 217–259. Dover, K.J. (1971), Theocritus. Select Poems (London). Effe, B. (1977), Die Genese einer literarischen Gattung: Die Bukolik (Konstanz). Effe, B. (ed.) (1986), Theokrit und die griechische Bukolik (Darmstadt). Fantuzzi, M. (1993), “Teocrito e la poesia bucolica,” in Cambiano/Canfora/Lanza (1993) 145–195. Fantuzzi, M. (1995a), “Variazioni sull’esametro in Teocrito” in Fantuzzi/Pretagostini i (1995–1996) 221–264. Fantuzzi, M. (1995b), “Mythological Paradigms in the Bucolic Poetry of Theocritus,” PCPhS 41, 16–35. Fantuzzi, M. (2006), “Theocritus’ Constructive Interpreters, and the Creation of a Bucolic Reader,” in Fantuzzi/Papanghelis (2006) 235–262. Fantuzzi, M. (2017), “Theocritus’ Shepherdly Eros,” in Cusset/Kossaifi/Poignault (2017) 331–345. Fantuzzi, M./Hunter, R. (2004), Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge). Fantuzzi, M./Maltomini, F. (1996), “Ancora magia in Teocrito (vii 103–114),”ZPE 114, 27– 29. Fantuzzi, M./Papanghelis, Th. (eds.) (2006), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden/Boston). Fantuzzi, M./Pretagostini, R. (eds.) (1995–1996), Struttura e storia dell’esametro greco, 2 vols. (Rome). Faraone, C. (2000), “Handbooks and Anthologies: The Collection of Greek and Egyptian Incantations in Late Hellenistic Egypt,” ARG 2, 195–214. Férnandez Delgado, J.A. (1984), “Sabiduría popular y epos sapiencial en los Idillios de Teócrito,” EClás 87, 325–332. Gow, A.S.F. (19522), Theocritus, i–ii (Cambridge). Gutzwiller, K. (1991), Theocritus’ Pastoral Analogies. The Formation of a Genre (Madison, WI).

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Gutzwiller, K. (2006), “The Herdsman in Greek Thought,” in Fantuzzi/Papanghelis (2006) 1–23. Halperin, D.M. (1983), Before Pastoral. Theocritus and the Ancient Tradition of Bucolic Poetry (New Haven/London). Harder, M.A. et al. (eds.) (1996), Theocritus (Groningen). Hathorn, R.Y. (1961), “The Ritual Origin of Pastoral,” TAPA 92, 228–238 = Effe (1986) 126– 137. Heimgartner, G. (1940), Die Eigenart Theokrits in seinem Sprichwort (Freiburg in der Schweiz). Hunter, R. (1996), Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry (Cambridge). Hunter, R. (1999), Theocritus. A Selection (Idylls 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 13) (Cambridge). Isenberg, C./Konstan, D. (1984), “Pastoral Desire: The Third Idyll of Theocritus,” Dalhousie Review 64, 302–315. Kirstein, R. (2007), Junge Hirten und alte Fischer: die Gedichte 20, 21 und 27 des Corpus Theocriteum (Berlin/New York). Lelli, E. (2006), Volpe e leone. Il proverbio nella poesia greca [Alceo, Cratino, Callimaco] (Roma). Lelli, E. (2011), “Folklorika,” Philologus 155, 146–155. Lelli, E. (2017), Pastori antichi e moderni. Teocrito e le origini popolari della poesia bucolica (Hildesheim/Zürich/New York). Lembach, K. (1970), Die Pflanzen bei Theokrit (Heidelberg). Lentini, G. (1998), “Amore ‘fuori luogo’: presenze saffiche ed esiodee nell’idillio 10 di Teocrito,” SCO 46, 903–907. Lightfoot, J. (1999), Parthenius of Nicaea. The Poetical Fragments and the Ἐρωτικὰ Παθήματα (Oxford). Littlewood, A.R. (1968), “The Symbolism of the Apple in Greek and Roman Literature,” HSCPh 72, 147–181. Luzzatto, M.J. (2001), “Teocrito ed Esopo (Id. x 11 e il cane impazzito),” Maia 53.2, 355– 358. Meliadò, C. (2010), “Proverbi e falsi proverbi in Teocrito,” Philologia Antiqua 3, 27– 36. Merkelbach (1956), “βουκολιασται. Der Wettgesang der Hirten,”RhM 90, 97–133 = Effe (1986) 212–238. Payne, M. (2007), Theocritus and the Invention of Fiction (Cambridge). Petrovic, I. (2016), “Gods in Callimachus’ Hymns,” in Clauss/Cuypers/Kahane (2016) 164–179. Pretagostini, R. (1984), “La rivalità tra Comata e Lacone: una paideia disconosciuta (Theocr. 5, 34–43, 116–119).” MD 13, 137–141 = Pretagostini (2007) 77–81. Pretagostini, R. (1992), “Tracce di poesia orale nei carmi di Teocrito,” AevumAnt 5, 67–87 = Pretagostini (2007) 61–76.

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Pretagostini, R. (2006), “How Bucolic Are Theocritus’ Bucolic Singers?,” in Fantuzzi/ Papanghelis (2006) 53–73. Pretagostini, R. (2007), Ricerche sulla poesia alessandrina ii. Forme allusive e contenuti nuovi (Roma). Sbardella, L. (2006), Oralità. Da Omero ai mass media (Roma). Sbardella, L. (2016), “The Muse Looks Down: Theocritus and the Hellenistic Aesthetic of the ‘Submerged,’” in Colesanti/Lulli (2006) 81–96. Serrao, G. (1977), “Letteratura ellenistica, 1. Caratteri generali, 2. La poesia bucolica: realtà campestre e stilizzazione letteraria, 3. La poetica del ‘nuovo stile’: Dalla mimesi aristotelica alla poetica della verità,” in Bianchi Bandinelli 171–253. Schweizer, H. (1937), Aberglaube und Zauberei bei Theokrit (Basel). Sonnino, M. (2014), “Comedy outside the Canon: From Ritual Slapstick to Hellenistic Mime,” in Colesanti/Giordano (2014) 128–150. Stanzel, K.H. (1995), Liebende Hirten. Theokrits Bukolik und die alexandrinische Poesie (Stuttgart/Leipzig). Suárez, E./Blanco, M./Chronopoulou, E./Canzobre, I. (eds.) (2017), Magikè Téchne. Formación y consideración social del mago en el mundo antiguo (Barcelona). Zanker, G. (1987), Realism in Alexandrian poetry: A Literature and Its Audience (London/Sidney/Wolfeboro, NH).

chapter 20

Childhood and Youth in Theocritus Annemarie Ambühl

1

Introduction

Theocritus’ fictional cosmos is inhabited by a broad array of characters, ranging from herdsmen and figures originating in myth to Ptolemaic kings and queens. This diversity is reflected in the variety of poems that make up the corpus transmitted under Theocritus’ name: bucolic songs, urban mimes, short mythological poems (in modern scholarship often referred to as epyllia), panegyric, and other compositions (including epigrams).1 Children and young people seem to hold a very prominent position in this poetic universe. The examples that may first spring to mind are the boy from the ekphrasis of the goatherd’s cup in Idyll 1, Praxinoa’s baby son Zopyrion from Idyll 15, or little Heracles strangling the snakes in Idyll 24. Is Theocritus’ poetic world thus a markedly “young” world? The present chapter aims to test this hypothesis by analysing the contexts in which the topics of childhood and youth appear in the Theocritean corpus and providing a sample of close readings (the focus will lie on the poems attributed to Theocritus himself, but some attention will be given to the pseudoTheocritean pieces as well). In scholarship, representations of children in Hellenistic poetry have often been explained as a predilection of Hellenistic poets for realism and identified with a specifically Alexandrian aesthetics.2 On the one hand, comparisons with the visual arts reveal new ways of looking at the

1 These labels are not to be understood as categories with fixed boundaries; for crossovers such as “Ptolemaic pastoral” and “urban pastoral,” see Stephens (2006) and Krevans (2006) respectively. For the issues concerning the definition and the characteristics of epyllion, see Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 191–224, Ambühl (2010), and the contributions in Baumbach/Bär (2012), especially Luz (2012), Acosta-Hughes (2012), and Schmitz (2012) on Theocritus’ Idylls 13, 24, and [25]; for earlier studies cf. Gutzwiller (1981) and Merriam (2001). On the Ptolemaic background, see among others Griffiths (1979) and Stephens (2003). 2 On realism in Alexandrian poetry, see Zanker (1987), who classifies Theocritus’ poems mainly under the categories of “pictorial realism” (79–90) and “everyday and low realism” (164– 181). Children (and women) are seen as defining traits of the epyllion (see above note 1): cf. Gutzwiller (1981) 5 on the “childlike charm characteristic of the poetry of Callimachus and Theocritus” and Merriam (2001) 6 and 160. Effe’s (1986) one-sided reading of “realistic” elements in the mythological poems as an ironic destruction of tradition is outdated.

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soft bodies of toddlers (as well as, at the other end of the spectrum, old and broken bodies).3 On the other hand, an innovative “poetics of childhood” (the exact meaning of which is still debated) associated with Theocritus’ contemporary Callimachus is seen as the emblem of the Alexandrian literary movement.4 But although the Hellenistic poets apparently share some strategies such as the rejuvenation of characters well known from the literary tradition that serves as the aetiological foundation of their new poetry,5 each poet and each poem has to be studied on their own terms. Therefore, instead of favouring one single global explanation, here the flexible concept of crossover will be applied to the representations of childhood and youth in Theocritus.6 In temporal terms, children and adolescents undergo crucial transitions by passing through the subsequent stages of life from childhood to adulthood and finally old age.7 Accordingly, young and old characters in the poems are often shown in interaction or contrast, as for instance in the ekphrasis of the cup, where the picture of the young boy (Id. 1.45–54) is set next to that of an old fisherman (39–44).8 In spatial terms, small children and young boys and girls are represented as inhabiting either the innermost parts of the house or the world of nature at the fringes of civilization, often 3 Fowler (1989) esp. 4 identifies animals, babies, children, and women as shared interests of Hellenistic poetry and the visual arts; cf. also Zanker (2004) esp. 103–105, 136, who compares reader and viewer responses. 4 Cf. especially the problematic comparison of the poet with a child in the fragmentary prologue to the Aetia (fr. 1.5–6 Harder); for a new interpretation as a metapoetic reference to a spinning girl cf. Gutzwiller (2020); see also below Section 4. For a brief overview of the concept and its reception, see Cozzoli (2011); cf. Payne (2011) for an idiosyncratic Lacanian reading of the child poet in the prologue and the Iambi. In Ambühl (2005), I read some of the figures of children and young heroes in Callimachus as “narrative metaphors” embodying a renewal of tradition. Radke’s (2007) approach is similar but too complicated to be discussed here. 5 E.g., Theseus, Heracles, and Tiresias in Callimachus, or Polyphemus, Helen, and Heracles in Theocritus (see below Sections 2 and 3 with note 12). Cf. Ambühl (2005) 12–30 and (2017a) with further references. For the connections between youthful characters and literary novelty in Hellenistic literature, see also Faulkner (2017), especially the contributions by Mori (2017) on Theocritus and André (2017) on Apollonius. 6 Cf. Sistakou’s (2009) notion of “epylliac ‘snapshots’” that “mark a major turning point for an individual (whether a hero or a figure on the margins), thus symbolizing a passage from one stage to another in his life” (293). 7 This chapter deals with fictional characters and does not try to reconstruct the underlying psychosocial realities. For a recent overview of the different aspects of childhood in antiquity, see Grubbs/Parkin (2013). Schlegelmilch (2009) and Bobou (2015) offer comparative studies of literary and historical representations of children in the Hellenistic period, e.g., in the form of inscribed epitaphs and statues. 8 Together with the picture of two men competing for a woman (32–38), in their imagined

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accompanied by animals. Gender and family relationships, too, are marked by transitions, especially with regard to the precarious love relations in the bucolic world and the topic of marriage. Finally, children can also effect a crossover between the human and divine realms, be they semi-divine heroes like Heracles or Ptolemaic princes. All these narratives moreover involve intertextual games and experiments with various genres, so that the concept of crossover also assumes a metaliterary dimension. In this sense, the following investigation of these various forms of crossovers in Theocritus’ Idylls includes aspects that have often been discussed under the label “crossing of genres,” but also opens up a broader sociological horizon, where the methodological approach of “crossing” has been applied to sociolinguistic phenomena and performances of works of art in order to address issues of identity, diversity, and interaction.9

2

Polyphemus, Hylas, and Heracles as Figures of Crossover

As a first sample of examples, three mythological figures that perform crossovers in various senses are to be considered: Polyphemus, Hylas, and Heracles. The poems in which they appear are themselves examples of generic crossovers: Idylls 6 and 11 transfer the monstrous Cyclops Polyphemus from Homer’s Odyssey to the bucolic world, the first one as the topic of a bucolic song contest, the second one in the form of a poem addressed to Theocritus’ friend, the doctor–poet Nicias. Idyll 13, likewise dedicated to Nicias, tells of Heracles’ love for the young boy Hylas and his loss, a story also found in the epic Argonautica by Theocritus’ contemporary Apollonius of Rhodes. Idyll 24, finally, portrays Heracles as a child prodigy, an exploit adapted from Pindar’s first Nemean.10 In Idyll 11, “ancient” Polyphemus is characterized by the narrator right from the start as a young man who has just grown his first beard at the time he falls in love with Galatea (8–9: ὡρχαῖος Πολύφαμος […] / ἄρτι γενειάσδων περὶ τὸ στόμα τὼς κροτάφως τε).11 By writing the well-known character afresh on the

9

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spatial configuration on the cup the three scenes can be construed as “an image of life’s cyclicity” over against their distorted narrative order, as Petrain (2006) 256–263, esp. 262, argues; see also below note 55. For a critical evaluation of Wilhelm Kroll’s “Kreuzung der Gattungen,” see Barchiesi (2001); for an application of the sociological theory of crossing (cf., e.g., Rampton 2009) to Theocritus’ Idyll 15 see Ambühl (2017b). On Pindar and further models of Idyll 24, see Cusset (1999) 355–362, Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 201–210 and 255–266, Morrison (2007) 223–229, Luz (2012), Acosta-Hughes (2012), Foster (2016) 151–187, Kyriakou (2018) 204–217, and Kampakoglou (2019) 182–211. In Idyll 6, Polyphemus praises his handsome beard (36: καὶ καλὰ μὲν τὰ γένεια). That the

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palimpsest of the Homeric and later texts, Theocritus simultaneously draws attention to the Cyclops’ literary past and his own renewal of the tradition, a strategy that allows him to ominously hint at the “Homeric” future (ironically enough in the character’s own words, who is of course unaware of it) while leaving open the possibility of a different outcome altogether.12 This unfamiliar Polyphemus, who advertises himself as the perfect shepherd-lover to his inaccessible beloved, in his fantasies wishes to be able to cross the borders between land and sea, as he sings sitting on a rock high above the sea (17– 18).13 As portrayed in Idyll 11, Theocritus’ Polyphemus thus seems to possess an almost boundless potential for metamorphosis, not only as a rejuvenated version of the Homeric giant shepherd, but also as a singer who in his imagination can transgress almost any boundaries. Hylas in Idyll 13, too, is a young boy with long locks (7) who against his will crosses the borders between land and water when he is abducted by the nymphs (46–50).14 Both of these young characters are moreover characterized through their relationships with their (surrogate) mothers and fathers.15 In Idyll 11, young Polyphemus is still a mother’s child. His mother was present at the very moment he fell in love with the girl Galatea, when she first came

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14 15

Cyclops seems a bit older here confirms interpretations of Idyll 6 as a sequel to Idyll 11 that gives yet another turn to the myth; cf. Hunter (1999) 244 and 258 ad loc. and Reed (2010) 247. Instead, the motif of the first beard as a sign of adolescence is transferred to the framing narrative, where one of the two singers is still “downy” and the other, slightly older one, but “half-bearded” (6.2–3: ἦς δ’ ὃ μὲν αὐτῶν / πυρρός, ὃ δ’ ἡμιγένειος); cf. Gutzwiller (1991) 125–126, Bowie (1996) 92–93, and Hunter (1999) 249 ad loc. A parallel case for the rejuvenation of a mythical character is Tiresias in Callimachus’ Bath of Pallas, who likewise has just grown his first beard (H. 5.75–76: ἄρτι γένεια / περκάζων), which according to a scholion was also reflected in Callimachus’ self-portrait as a young man in the prologue to the Aetia (fr. 2d.4 Harder: ἀ]ρ̣τι̣ γένειο̣ς ̣ ὤν̣). This strategy has been described as “prequel” (“ ‘before the famous story’-episodes of myth”: Klooster (2007) 103–104) and “future reflexive” (Barchiesi 1993). However, I object to the “pessimistic” reading of Hunter (1999) 219: “He [sc. the Cyclops] is a pathetic victim of poetic tradition, who functions as a (comic) paradigm for the position of the dactylic poet in a post-Homeric world […].” On Theocritus’ metaliterary games with the Cyclops and Helen, see especially Sistakou (2008) 29–37, and on the Cyclops’ “metapoetic rebirth” Mori (2017); cf. also Foster (2016) 35–112 on “Idyll 6 as a ‘prequel’ to Idyll 1 as Idyll 11 is to Odyssey 9” (ibid. 27) and Kyriakou (2018) 96–121. In Idyll 6, in contrast, the different environments inhabited by the shepherd Polyphemus and the Nereid Galatea function as spatial barriers marked by the coastline rather than as means of transition. On the functions of space in the Polyphemus poems cf. Klooster (2012) 101, 107–108. On this scene from Idyll 13, see also below Section 4. On mothers in Theocritus, see Manakidou (2017). Cf. Skempis (2010) on the “poetics of fatherlessness” in Callimachus’ Hecale.

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to pluck flowers in the mountains and he acted as her guide (25–27). Galatea is thus apparently free to switch elements, whereas he himself complains that his mother did not bring him into the world as a fish with gills (54) so he could dive to visit his beloved in the depths of the sea. His wish for a stranger to arrive by ship who might teach him swimming (60–62) can be read as a compensation for the absence of his father Poseidon (whom he never mentions), but also as a hint for the external audience that through tragic irony foreshadows the arrival of Odysseus. Finally, he blames his mother for his misfortune in love, for she does not put in a good word for him with Galatea, although she sees him pining away by the day; he will get back at her by pretending that he is physically ill so she will worry for him (67–71). In the end Polyphemus thus reveals a rather childish character, which suggests that, apart from his physical challenges, he is also psychologically not yet ready for an adult love relationship.16 Nevertheless he can serve as an example of the self-deception that even experienced lovers often fall prey to—and the poetic remedy to cope with it (1–4, 17). In Idyll 13, Heracles is introduced as a surrogate father for his beloved Hylas; he teaches him everything that he himself had learnt in order to become a famous hero (8–9; cf. 14–15).17 Apparently Heracles not only wants to be Hylas’ male role model, but also acts like an overprotective mother, for he never leaves the boy alone, not at midday, nor at daybreak, nor in the evening when the chicks huddle together for sleep while the mother hen spreads her wings above them (12–13). Heracles’ double parenting role seems also to be indicated by the fact that he is called both the son of Amphitryon (5) and of Alcmene (20). This suggests that precisely his excessive worries for the young boy lead to the fatal incident that occurs the one time Hylas ventures out on his own in order to fetch water during the Argonauts’ voyage. After the handsome Hylas is grabbed by the nymphs of the pool, who instantly fall in love with him, they take him on their lap and comfort the crying boy. In the end Hylas thus seems to have only traded one surrogate mother for a whole lot of them. Instead of successfully performing a rite of passage from a homoerotic relationship with an older man to a heterosexual relationship as an adult in his own right, Hylas does not finish this transition and remains in the status of an erotic object forever.18 In another 16

17

18

In Idyll 10.56–58, the reaper Milon teases Bucaeus, who is unlucky in love and sings a love song during work, as a “mother’s boy”; so Hopkinson (2015) 165 n. 23; cf. Stanzel (1995) 98. Burton (1995) 73 in her otherwise perceptive discussion of independent mothers in Theocritus takes Polyphemus’ complaints a bit too literally. According to Apollonius’ version (Arg. 1.1211–1214), Heracles had killed Hylas’ father Theiodamas and taken the young child away with him. Here I am not concerned with the debated issue of relative chronology. Cf. Hunter (1996) 170. Acosta-Hughes (2014) sees the epyllion as an ideal medium for narratives of the brief period of ephebic beauty that is necessarily transitory or cut short.

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sense, however, he does effect a crossover, for he becomes a hero, although not quite in the sense Heracles had planned for him. The simile in lines 50–52 likens him to a falling star and thus suggests a catasterism or heroization, which is confirmed at the end of the poem, where it is stated that the beautiful Hylas is now numbered among the blessed ones (72). Some of these motifs recur in the more extended narrative of Idyll 24, where Heracles himself appears as a baby and young boy. The poem starts with the everyday bedtime routine Alcmene performs for her twin sons, ten-month-old Heracles and his brother Iphicles, who is younger by one night. She bathes and feeds them and puts them to bed (were it not for the heroic shield used as a cradle, this could be any ordinary household) and sings a lullaby for them (1– 10). Only now it is revealed that this is the fateful night when Hera sends the snakes to kill Zeus’ bastard son (11–20). Zeus himself makes a very brief appearance to ensure the good outcome (21–22), but then it is up to his semi-divine son to take matters into his own hands. The panic-stricken reaction of the human twin, Iphicles (23–26; 37), helps to throw the extraordinary behaviour of his brother into relief, who fearlessly attacks the snakes (26–33). But Heracles is not just a superhuman hero. At the very moment the narrator keeps us briefly in suspense whether Heracles will strangle the snakes or the snakes him, his dual nature is emphasized (30–31: τὼ δ’ αὖτε σπείραισιν ἑλισσέσθην περὶ παῖδα / ὀψίγονον, γαλαθηνὸν ὑπὸ τροφῷ, αἰὲν ἄδακρυν): “With their coils they then twisted themselves around the child, that favorite son, still fed at his nurse’s breast, who never wept.”19 In this poem, too, there is a certain tension between the roles of father and mother to be observed. Alcmene takes care of the babies but makes sure that her sons are imbued with the heritage of their human father by having them sleep in a shield he took from his enemy (4–5). After his feat Heracles proudly shows his father Amphitryon the strangled snakes and without further ado is put back to bed by him, while Alcmene tries to comfort Iphicles, who is frozen in shock (56–63). Heracles thus is already focused on his male role as a future hero, whereas Iphicles is still entirely dependent on his mother like any human baby. Nevertheless, it is mainly Alcmene who is in charge of Heracles’ future, not his stepfather Amphitryon, who quickly goes to sleep again after his brief nighttime intervention. She summons the aged (102) seer Tiresias, who prophesies a glorious future for her son up to his apotheosis, which will bring fame 19

Translation by Hopkinson (2015) 327. Cf. a similar paradox in lines 54–56 (ἤτοι ἄρ’ ὡς εἴδονθ’ ὑποτίτθιον Ἡρακλῆα / θῆρε δύω χείρεσσιν ἀπρὶξ ἁπαλαῖσιν ἔχοντα, / ἐκπλήγδην ἰάχησαν): “When they saw the baby Heracles gripping the pair of creatures in his tender hands, they cried out in astonishment” (ibid. 329).

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to herself as well, at least among women (71–78). The remainder of the poem (as far as it has been transmitted in the manuscript tradition) tells of the boy’s education. Again, it is his mother who takes care of all the arrangements herself (103–104, 134) by choosing the best teachers for him, among them learned old Linus (105–106)—who according to another version was killed by his hottempered pupil20—and the erstwhile champion Castor (125–133); a minor role is reserved for Amphitryon, too, who teaches his son how to drive a race chariot (119–124). Officially, however, Heracles is called the son of Amphitryon (104) and sleeps next to his father’s bed on a lion skin (135–136)—another hint at his future deeds, such as his fight against the Nemean lion. This canonical labour features in the pseudo-Theocritean Idyll [25]: there Heracles appears as a young man still at the beginning of his career, who is not yet famous and seems to keep his identity deliberately hidden from his interlocutors, while he prepares for his next labour at the Augean stables.21 Both poems in different ways play with the audience’s knowledge of Heracles’ character and deeds, which have already been written down in the literary tradition, but from the poems’ point of view still lie in the future.22 Unlike Polyphemus in Idyll 11, Heracles in Idyll 24 is not characterized as a mother’s child, because he really is still a young boy; in addition, his mother’s prominent role perhaps reflects the public image of the Ptolemaic queens. Indeed, Heracles’ educational curriculum as presented by Theocritus has been compared to that of a Hellenistic prince, and the poem as a whole has been interpreted as a birthday poem for the young Ptolemy ii Philadelphus.23 The Ptolemaic connections of the poem and the circumstances of its first performance may have been made more explicit in the lost ending of the poem, of which only some traces have been preserved on papyrus. A direct link between the Ptolemies and their mythical ancestor Heracles is drawn at the beginning of Idyll 17. In this encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus, the king’s birth on the island of Cos takes central place. Here again, the lineage of his mother Berenice is stressed through comparisons with mythical paradigms such as Diomedes and Achilles, born by worthy women to heroes of 20 21 22

23

Cf. Callimachus Aetia fr. 23.5–6 Harder. For a metapoetic reading of the various Linus figures in Callimachus and Theocritus, see Vos (2017). On this poem see, e.g., Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 210–215, Ambühl (2010) 160–163, and Schmitz (2012). On the “world before epic kleos” constructed in Idyll [25], Hunter in Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 215 concludes: “The Hellenistic fondness for childhood and beginnings has now been extended to generic form.” Cf. Stephens (2003) 123–146, Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 201–204, and Kampakoglou (2019) esp. 188 and 199, with further references.

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old (53–57). In a sense, Ptolemy is a figure of crossover, too, for the narrative of his birth (58–76) is mythicized by linking it to the hymnic paradigm of the birth of the god Apollo on the island of Delos (as in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo and Callimachus’ Hymn to Delos) through the personification of the island of Cos, who takes the newborn in her arms and addresses him by comparing herself to Apollo’s nurse Delos (66–70). Yet in contrast to Callimachus’ Apollo, who prophesies, while still in his mother’s womb, the birth of the future king (H. 4.160–196), on the level of the narrative Theocritus’ Ptolemy is not transformed into a divine child prodigy but remains a “normal” human newborn (58: βρέφος νεογιλλόν), although a quite prominent one.24

3

Transitions: Young Men and Young Women in Love

As has long been recognized, Theocritus’ bucolic world is not a paradise full of pastoral bliss where young shepherds enjoy love and music all day long. Just as the status of Theocritus’ herdsmen wavers between (apparent) realism and fiction,25 their life involves hard toil, and love often is a source of pain that can only be overcome in song—or vice versa, when a peaceful meeting in the countryside occasions songs that tell of the sorrows of unfulfilled love (e.g., Thyrsis’ song about Daphnis’ death in Idyll 1). Likewise, the idea that the poems feature a world of eternal, innocent youth is deceptive, although shepherding as well as love tends to be associated with young people,26 an association reinforced by the references to mythological examples of young herdsmen such as Anchises, Adonis, and Ganymede, who were beloved by gods and goddesses (Id. 1.105–110; 3.46–48; cf. [20.34–41]).27 Within the bucolic corpus some typ24

25 26

27

On the relation between the two texts, see Ambühl (2005) 230 and 308–362, esp. 348; Stephens (2006) 95–96. Schlegelmilch (2009) 154–256 interprets the divine children in Callimachus and Theocritus as political symbols, especially considering the Egyptian background. See Payne (2007) on different kinds of fictionality in Theocritus’ Idylls. Cf. also Palmieri, this volume. Stanzel (1995) 98–100 rightly contests the hypothesis that all of Theocritus’ shepherds in love are very young and identifies this as a feature of the later pastoral tradition derived from Idyll 6, starting with the pseudo-Theocritean Idyll [8]; cf. Kyriakou (2018) 147 on Id. [8] as evoking “an early period of ‘innocence’, like 6.” Bernsdorff (2006) speaks of “infantilisation” (185–186): “Compared to Theocritus, the world of herdsmen also loses some of its rawness through the fact that children appear as main characters […].” Rosenmeyer (1969) 55–57 ascribes “pastoral naiveté” and “childlike simplicity” to Theocritus’ young adults, too. Cf. also below note 55. On the sexual ambiguity of such young males, see Burton (1995) 83–92.

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ical constellations of characters recur. Often a somewhat older and a younger man are paired, who might be involved in a love relation (so probably in Idyll 6), a rivalry, or a teacher–pupil relationship that sometimes may even function as an allegory of the “new” genre of bucolic (especially in Idyll 7). Pederastic relationships with young boys are explicitly addressed in Idyll 12 and the lyric paidika (Idylls 29, 30, and the very fragmentary 31); these poems, too, through their intertextual engagement with genres such as archaic erotic and sympotic lyric and elegy, philosophical discourse, and contemporary epigram play complex games with the literature of the past and the present.28 In contrast to the male bucolic singers, girls and young women in the bucolic poems do not normally appear as speakers, but usually as objects of song and erotic desire. A partial exception seems to be the pseudo-Theocritean Idyll [27], which is cast in the form of a dialogue between a young man called Daphnis and an unmarried girl probably called Acrotime (44). Although the form of the poem attributes equal space to both the male and the female speaker, the dialogue culminates in an uneasy combination of successful seduction (from Daphnis’ point of view) and a rape scene involving some violence (from the girl’s perspective). In a final auctorial comment (67–71b) the narrator quickly passes over this problematic issue and assures readers that everything is fine and both partners enjoyed their secret erotic encounter. This poem is rather untypical within the bucolic corpus as it features the “idyllic” characteristics of later pastoral (at least from the male narrator’s perspective),29 but it is also interesting insofar as it spells out the change of status effected in the course of the poem more explicitly than the authentic bucolic poems, where love more often than not remains unrequited.30 In the girl’s self-description, she has turned from an unmarried girl into a woman and (as she hopes) a wife (65: παρθένος ἔνθα βέβηκα, γυνὴ δ’ εἰς οἶκον ἀφέρπω), and this transition is confirmed by her lover who prophesies that she will soon be a mother, too (66: ἀλλὰ γυνὴ μήτηρ τεκέων τροφός, οὐκέτι κώρα). The topics of marriage and motherhood had been anticipated earlier in the poem (20–44), where Daphnis promises to marry her, but the girl is afraid that she will lose her youthful beauty by giving birth (31); Daphnis however reassures her that she will see a new light of youth 28

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Cf. also the inset pederastic songs in Idyll 7.52–89 and 96–127, and Idyll [23] on a cruel boy crushed by a statue of Eros. On the paederastic poems, see Hunter (1996) 167–195, Kyriakou (2018) 55–82 and 122–132, and Palmieri (2019). Cf. Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 180 with n. 170; for the different interpretations proposed in scholarship of the boy’s and the girl’s actions and intentions, see Kirstein (2007) 33–87 and Kyriakou (2018) 140–147. Likewise, at the end of the pseudo-Theocritean Idyll [8], Daphnis as a still very young man (93: ἄκραβος ἐὼν ἔτι) marries the nymph (or: bride) Nais.

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(32: ἢν δὲ τέκῃς φίλα τέκνα, νέον φάος ὄψεαι ἥβας). The dialogue mirrors motifs from contemporary epigram, where marriage as a crucial rite of passage for young girls regularly appears in votive epigrams as well as funerary epigrams. Another stock motif from Hellenistic love epigram is the warning addressed to the unwilling love object that youth will pass quickly like a dream, as Daphnis reminds her (8: μὴ καυχῶ· τάχα γάρ σε παρέρχεται ὡς ὄναρ ἥβη).31 While, apart from the pseudo-Theocritean Idyll [27], young girls thus hardly get a voice of their own in the bucolic poems, in the so-called urban mime with the title Pharmakeutria (Idyll 2) this situation changes radically.32 The whole story is narrated by the protagonist Simaetha herself, who has been abandoned by her lover Delphis and tries to win him back—or destroy him—with the help of a magical incantation. Judging from her self-description, she is an independent young woman who lives with a servant of her own named Thestylis and has a social network of female friends and neighbours. Simaetha takes an active role in the love affair. It is her who falls in love at first sight with the goodlooking young man whom she meets in the street while attending a festival and later invites him to her home. Still, Simaetha describes her change of status, for which she blames the faithless Delphis, in similar terms as the girl from Idyll [27] (2.40–41: ὅς με τάλαιναν / ἀντὶ γυναικὸς ἔθηκε κακὰν καὶ ἀπάρθενον ἦμεν): instead of becoming a wife, she has earned the blame of having lost her virginity. Moreover, she compares her helpless state in the face of love to a baby that whimpers and babbles to its mother in its sleep (108–109: οὐδέ τι φωνῆσαι δυνάμαν, οὐδ’ ὅσσον ἐν ὕπνῳ / κνυζεῦνται φωνεῦντα φίλαν ποτὶ ματέρα τέκνα)— even worse, she could not even utter such basic sounds—and to a lifeless doll (110).33 Paradoxically, in a poem that is entirely performed in her own voice, she speaks of her loss of speech. Love has thus changed her life radically by redu-

31 32

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The same warning is addressed to young boys in Idylls 7.120–121, [23.28–32], and 29.25–30. Cf., e.g., AP 12.29–33. Idyll 2 has been discussed extensively by Burton (1995) esp. 19–20, 28–29, 42–46, 62– 69 and Petrovic (2007) 1–113 (the latter mainly with regard to magic and religion). Cf. also Klooster (2018) 120–123, and Kyriakou, this volume, ch. 26. For recent perspectives on female voices in Theocritus and other Hellenistic poets see Cusset/Kossaifi/Poignault (2017); Likosky (2018); Pace (2019); Cusset/Belenfant/Nardone (2020); Klooster/Harder/ Regtuit/Wakker (forthcoming). A related simile appears in Idyll 14.31–33, where the speaker’s girlfriend, when teased with her new love for another, younger boy (24–26), cries like a six-year-old girl in her mother’s lap. In both cases, however, these seemingly simple, immediately accessible images of children are complicated through intertextual allusions to famous models from Homer and Sappho: cf. Burton (1995) 50–51, Cusset (1999) 336–339, Hunter (1996) 113–114, and AcostaHughes (2010) 17–29.

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cing her from a self-assured young woman to a powerless child. Still, Simaetha is not simply a childlike, naive character, for she skillfully manipulates her own narrative in order to convince her audience of her version of the story.34 The topic of marriage plays a central role in Idyll 18, the epithalamium for Helen, performed by a chorus of Spartan girls for their companion on the occasion of her wedding with Menelaus. Although for the external audience Helen’s notorious fame as the unchaste wife who caused the Trojan War might cast a shadow over the wedding, the song itself sketches a blissful and teasing picture of the bride and groom.35 Again, her transformation from a young maiden protected by her mother (13–14) to a bride and mother to be (21, 38, 50–51) is highlighted. Her change of status is also reflected in a simile where the girls who miss their childhood friend liken themselves to suckling lambs desiring their mother’s milk (41–42). Ultimately the moment of transformation also pertains to the form of the poem itself. By having a fictional chorus of young maidens perform a wedding song, the poem “reconstructs” a form typical of archaic choral lyric and transports it to Alexandria.36 Finally, in this section that deals with transitions in the life of young men and women, the epigrams ascribed to Theocritus are briefly to be considered. Besides the bucolic epigrams (Epigr. 2–6), which feature topics such as the youthful Daphnis as an erotic object or a lament for a cute baby goat (6.4 = AP 9.432.4: τὸ καλὸν τέκος) killed by a wolf, the popular subgenres of votive and funerary epigrams are also represented, that per definitionem mark crucial

34

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For Simaetha as a sophisticated character-narrator, see Andrews (1996). Petrovic (2007) esp. 73–75, in contrast, sees Simaetha’s “childlikeness” as the main reason for her charming appeal as well as for her failure as a child poet—like the boy in the ekphrasis in Idyll 1 (see below Section 4), but unlike Polyphemus in Idyll 11. Nelson (2020) combines both approaches by arguing that Simaetha’s manipulative strategy to present herself as an epic heroine ultimately fails to convince the readers. On this discrepancy inherent in the poem, see, e.g., Morrison (2007) 239–242 and Kyriakou (2018) 239–241. Cf. also above note 12. See Hunter (1996) 139–166 and Acosta-Hughes (2010) 29–39, who both suggest a Ptolemaic reading pointing to the marriage of Philadelphus and Arsinoe. Another transfer of genres is effected in Idyll 26, which narrates the dramatic episode of the death of Pentheus at the hands of his mother known from Euripides’ Bacchae. In an enigmatic line the speaker states that no one is to feel pity for someone hated by Dionysus, even if he were only nine or ten years old (29: εἴη δ’ ἐνναετὴς ἢ καὶ δεκάτω ἐπιβαίνοι). Thus, in contrast to the tragedy, here Pentheus may be imagined as being still a child, which would render his fate crueller, and the audience reaction more challenging. Alternatively, the line could also be read as a self-definition of the poem’s speaker, a chorus of young boys, who distance themselves from Pentheus and refer to themselves as “children of the pious” (32: εὐσεβέων παίδεσσι). This would be in line with other Hellenistic poems, where statements of ritual purity can

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occasions such as birth or death. Some of them speak in general terms of generational change: a man dying at a young age leaves behind a baby son, who is honoured by the citizens in memory of his father (Epigr. 7 = AP 7.659),37 and a devoted wife and mother of children dedicates a statue to Aphrodite Urania in return for the blessings she bestowed upon her family (Epigr. 13 = AP 6.340). In two further epigrams children take centre stage: “little” Medeius sets up a gravestone for his nurse Cleita as a reward for the care he received from her (Epigr. 20 = AP 7.663); however, the epithet μικκός (1) need not necessarily mean that he was still a child when his nurse died, but might be used as a retrospective term of endearment underlining the affective bond with his nurse.38 The most intriguing case is Epigram 16 (= AP 7.662), an epitaph for two young children of the same family, a seven-year-old girl and a twenty-monthold boy; the epigram unfolds a miniature tragic tale, explaining that the sister missed her deceased little brother so much that she herself died an untimely death. Some of the more innovative features of these epigrams have been set in relation to the cultural environment of early Ptolemaic Alexandria, regardless of the problematic issue of authorship. The propagation of the cult of Aphrodite Urania, the ideal of marital love and producing legitimate offspring, and the emotional bond between brothers and sisters fit the religious and ideological agenda of the Ptolemaic dynasty, which is reflected in the Idylls of Theocritus, too, most prominently in the Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Idyll 17), but also in other poems such as 15, 18, and 24.39

4

Little Voices: Cameos of Children in Mime and Ekphrasis

In the poems analyzed so far, childhood and youth play a crucial role for the narrative, in the sense that the characters grow up and accordingly undergo

37 38

39

convey a poetics of exclusivity (e.g., in Callimachus’Hymn to Apollo). On the proposed boy chorus, see Cairns (1992), Ambühl (2005) 219–220, and Morrison (2007) 242–245 and 270; for a recent discussion of the references to children at the end of Id. 26 as intertextual allusions, see Kyriakou (2018) 250–258. According to a variant reading, the epigram commemorates the death of the son, who, like his father, died at a young age: cf. Rossi (2001) 187–192. So Rossi (2001) 313–314, who adduces Callimachus’ epigram 50 Pf. (= AP 7.458), where a man called Miccus likewise erects a tomb for his nurse. In Idyll [8], the young shepherd Menalcas calls himself μικκός (64). On the issue of the epigrams’ authorship in general, see Rossi (2001); on the Ptolemaic background of Epigram 13, see Rossi (2001) 239–246, and on sibling love in Epigram 16 and in Callimachus’ epigram 20 Pf. (= AP 7.517), see Ambühl (2002).

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changes of status from childhood to adolescence and adulthood, involving first love and marriage or sometimes premature death. Yet some of Theocritus’ most memorable images of children, such as the boy in the ekphrasis of the cup in Idyll 1, are more static and apparently confined to their immediate contexts. Nevertheless, these seemingly realistic portraits of children may also convey metapoetic dimensions, as they experiment with genres and voices. Beside Idyll 24, where Heracles’ twin brother Iphicles behaves like an ordinary baby (see above Section 2), Idyll 15, too, presents us with a very human toddler called Zopyrion. In the mimetic layout of the poem, little Zopyrion does not get a voice of his own (probably he is not able to talk articulately yet), but his reactions are reflected in the dialogue between his mother Praxinoa and her friend Gorgo, two Syracusan women living in Alexandria, who are preparing to go to the palace and visit the Adonis festival organized by queen Arsinoe. Instead, the women themselves use baby talk when addressing the boy: while Praxinoa complains about her husband, Gorgo alerts her that the “little one” (12: τῶ μικκῶ) apparently understands better than one might expect, which the startled (or proud) mother confirms (14: τὸ βρέφος). Gorgo tries to divert the boy’s attention by assuring the “sweet child” that his mother is not talking about “daddy” (13: θάρσει, Ζωπυρίων, γλυκερὸν τέκος· οὐ λέγει ἀπφῦν), and then repeating the same message in simplified baby talk: “Nice daddy” (14: καλὸς ἀπφῦς). Praxinoa probably ruins any psychological effect this may have by taking up the catchword “daddy” (15: ἀπφῦς μὰν τῆνος) while going on with her ranting (apart from the textual problem whether she uses another term of baby talk, πάππα, in line 16).40 Although it might be tempting to take an ironic stance towards the “childish” behaviour of the chattering housewives,41 the appeal of the mimetic form of the poem lies precisely in the fact that the audience in their imagination are to infer the reactions of the baby boy and the accompanying gestures from the women’s utterances. Their communication with the child fits well with the poem’s experiments with dialect and gendered speech, combined with sophisticated intertextual games.42

40 41 42

For the methodological issues involved in identifying baby talk in ancient texts, see Golden (1995). Schlegelmilch (2009) 145–150 adduces babies as mute characters in comedy. Cf. Miles (1986) 139 for the term “childish.” For a critical evaluation of such scholarly judgments, see Ambühl (2017b) 45–49. On this dimension of Idyll 15, see Hunter (1996) 110–138, esp. 119–123, and Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 371–377; cf. also Burton (1995) 7–92 and 123–154; Krevans (2006); Ambühl (2017b).

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A similar scene occurs a bit further on, where Praxinoa tells the child that she is not taking him along and frightens him with the scare “Mormo, the horse bites” (15.40: Μορμώ, δάκνει ἵππος). When he starts crying (either as a reaction to the scare or to the news that he has to stay at home), she replies that he may cry as much as he likes, for she does not want him to get maimed (41). When they indeed encounter war horses in the crowded streets leading to the palace quarters, she expresses her relief that her baby son stays safe at home and is reminded of her own childhood fears (51–59). After the women finally reach the palace, they marvel at the elaborate tableau and listen to the singer who performs a song in honour of Adonis. Small winged Erotes flitting overhead like fledgling nightingales that fly from tree branch to tree branch are part of the decorations, along with eagles abducting the boy Ganymede (120–124). Just as the handsome young Adonis triggers erotic fantasies to compensate for the shortcomings of real-life husbands (84–86, 128–130, 147–149), the cute little Erotes may represent idealized versions of real baby sons.43 The connection of children with animals moreover seems to be a typical feature of Theocritus’ poems. Just like the cats (or weasels) that like to sleep in a nest of soft wool (15.28) and the pet dog that is to be called inside (43), baby Zopyrion is confined to the safe environment of the home. In other poems, too, children are paired with animals, as we have already seen, through the images and similes in the Hylas (Id. 13.12–13) and the Epithalamium for Helen (Id. 18.41– 42), which indirectly associate the respective poems’ young characters with tender chicks and lambs. Another case in point is the pseudo-Theocritean Idyll [19], where Eros, who complains about having been stung by a bee, is reminded by his mother that he himself is a tiny creature that is able to cause sharp pain. On the opposite side, the graphic contrast between small children and menacing predators may be highlighted, as in Praxinoa’s firm resolution to protect her son from the dangers of the street such as horses (Id. 15), in the tale of baby Heracles’ fight against the snakes in the Heracliscus (Id. 24), or, in a more playful manner, in the image of the foxes that try to outwit the boy in the ekphrasis in Idyll 1 (see below). Interestingly, a poetics of children and small animals has been ascribed to the female epigrammatists Anyte and Nossis;44 however, the presence in Theocritus’ poems of this motif suggests that it does not necessarily reflect a gendered poetics but rather a poetics of genre, again illustrating the close ties between his poems and epigram. 43 44

On the boy Erotes in Hellenistic literature and art, see, e.g., Schlegelmilch (2009) 278– 289. So Barnard (1991).

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Given the crucial role of singing and music in Theocritus’ (bucolic) poems, one of the main reasons for the prominence of children may be the specific quality of their voices. Indeed in a few cases such utterances are explicitly commented upon. After Hylas has disappeared, Heracles goes searching for him and calls out his name thrice as loud as he can (13.58: τρὶς μὲν Ὕλαν ἄυσεν, ὅσον βαθὺς ἤρυγε λαιμός). Hylas answers with a faint cry that is muffled by the water, so that it reaches the surface only as a weak, fractured sound that seems to come from far away, although he is close by (59–60: τρὶς δ’ ἄρ’ ὁ παῖς ὑπάκουσεν, ἀραιὰ δ’ ἵκετο φωνά / ἐξ ὕδατος, παρεὼν δὲ μάλα σχεδὸν εἴδετο πόρρω). The contrasting quality of their voices thwarts any communication and stresses their irreversible separation, but it also reflects their respective characters:45 Heracles’ deep roar characterizes him as an epic hero (reinforced by the immediately following lion simile in [61]–63), while Hylas’ thin voice corresponds to his young age and the “slender” poetics of Theocritus’ poem.46 Whereas Hylas’ voice is muffled by the water and metamorphosed into a faint echo, the pseudo-Theocritean Idyll [8] praises the clear-voiced song of young Daphnis (3–4; 71: Δεύτερος αὖ Δάφνις λιγυρῶς ἀνεβάλλετ’ ἀείδεν). Here a direct connection is suggested between his tender age (3: ἄμφω τώγ’ ἤστην πυρροτρίχω, ἄμφω ἀνάβω) and the quality of his sweet, lovely voice (82: ἁδύ τι τὸ στόμα τοι καὶ ἐφίμερος, ὦ Δάφνι, φωνά). Likewise, in the programmatic Idyll 7, the aspiring young poet Simichidas, who has often been identified as an alter ego of Theocritus himself, advertises himself in front of the more experienced Lycidas as a “clear-sounding mouthpiece of the Muses” (37: καὶ γὰρ ἐγὼ Μοισᾶν καπυρὸν στόμα).47 Although the youngest singer is not necessarily the best-qualified one, in the bucolic poems a clear voice and youth seem somehow to be connected.

45

46

47

In Apollonius, the contrast appears, too, but is less clear cut: Hylas shrieks as he falls (Arg. 1.1240; cf. 1260), and both the Argonaut Polyphemus (1248–1249) and Heracles repeatedly call out for him (1272); in two similes both of them are compared to roaring beasts (1247, 1269) and Hylas’ cry to the bleating of sheep (1244). For a slightly different reading of the voices in Theocritus and Apollonius cf. Payne (2007) 86–87. Heerink (2015) 63–67 reads Hylas as a Callimachean voice and symbol of the bucolic poet. Moreover, the rhyming layout of the lines plays with the effect of an echo, a poetic device beloved by Hellenistic poets; cf. Hunter (1999) 263 and 282–283 ad loc., Heerink (2015) 6–8, and in general Männlein-Robert (2007) 309–332. For a reading of Idyll 7 as metafiction, see Payne (2007) 114–145, esp. 131 on Simichidas as a young poet; cf. 145: “By showing his naïve, yet initially rather smug, younger self outwitted, yet inspired, by the embodiment of his own bucolic fiction, Theocritus creates a poem that is unlike anything else in ancient literature.” On Simichidas as Theocritus’ fictional alter ego, see also Klooster (2011) 195–207 and Kyriakou (2018) 175–193.

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Let us finally turn to the ekphrasis of the cup in Idyll 1, which can be interpreted as an emblem of Theocritus’ poetics.48 The third and last image on the cup (45–54) shows a little boy sitting on a drystone wall, whose task is to guard a vineyard (47–48: τὰν ὀλίγος τις κῶρος ἐφ’ αἱμασιαῖσι φυλάσσει / ἥμενος). He is beleaguered by two foxes, one of which is preying on the grapes and the other one on the boy’s knapsack with his breakfast. Yet the boy does not pay any attention to the foxes (52–54): αὐτὰρ ὅγ’ ἀνθερίκοισι καλὰν πλέκει ἀκριδοθήραν σχοίνῳ ἐφαρμόσδων· μέλεται δέ οἱ οὔτε τι πήρας οὔτε φυτῶν τοσσῆνον ὅσον περὶ πλέγματι γαθεῖ. He meanwhile is weaving a fine trap for grasshoppers by linking together rushes and stalks of asphodel, and his care for his knapsack and vines is much less than the pleasure he takes in his plaiting.49 Although the boy’s activities are not directly concerned with music, the fact that he is completely absorbed in his playful occupation of weaving a cricketcage evokes on the one hand weaving as a poetological metaphor50 and on the other hand the characteristics of crickets as musical animals that resonate with the sounds of the bucolic landscape and the herdsmen’s singing (cf. 1– 8).51 The joy the boy derives from fabricating the cage thus anticipates the joy he will experience when listening to the musical pet he hopes to catch. The association of crickets and cicadas with children is paralleled not only by the prologue to Callimachus’ Aetia, where the poet looks back on his youth and 48

49 50 51

For an overtly metapoetic reading of the ekphrasis, see Cairns (1984) 95–105; cf. also Payne (2007) 28–40. For metapoetry in the ekphrasis, see also Kwapisz and Klooster, this volume. Koopman (2018) 176–206 conducts a narratological analysis with an overview of previous scholarship. For the ekphrasis see also Klooster, this volume. Translation by Hopkinson (2015) 23. For the playful child as a poet figure cf., e.g., Halperin (1983) 181, Hunter (1999) 62 and 83– 84 ad loc., and, a bit more sceptical, Kyriakou (2018) 162–165. In Id. 7.41, the young singer Simichidas likens himself to a frog competing with crickets, i.e., more famous poets. Similarly, at the end of Idyll 1, the goatherd presents Thyrsis with the cup, because he sings better than a cicada (148). For cicadas as part of the musical setting of the bucolic landscape, see also Id. 5.34 and 7.138–139. Fantuzzi in Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 142–148 connects his interpretation of the boy as “an image of the bucolic poet” with the cicada’s frugal diet (known especially from Plato’s Phaedrus) and reads it as “a sort of metaphor for the birth of bucolic poetry itself” (144–145); cf. also Männlein-Robert (2007) 209–226. Gutzwiller (2010) 353–354 and Kaloudis (2016) 215–216 connect the image with euphonist theory. On Theocritus’ “songscapes,” see Klooster (2012) 105–106, 113.

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wishes to become a clear-sounding cicada in order to be able to shed his old age and become rejuvenated (fr. 1.29–40 Harder),52 but also by Hellenistic epigrams in the form of epitaphs, where children mourn their pet crickets.53 Moreover, the ekphrasis of the goatherd’s cup intertextually evokes the ekphrasis of Achilles’ shield in the Iliad. There, too, a young boy is featured, who plays the lyre and with a delicate voice sings a song for the reapers (18.569– 571: τοῖσιν δ’ ἐν μέσσοισι πάϊς φόρμιγγι λιγείῃ / ἱμερόεν κιθάριζε, λίνον δ’ ὑπὸ καλὸν ἄειδε / λεπταλέῃ φωνῇ).54 The boy’s imaginary music is imported as it were from the famous model, thus rendering the cup the ideal counterpart of Thyrsis’ song. According to this interpretation, at the climax of the ekphrasis of the cup in Idyll 1, the musical qualities of the young herdsmen are indirectly reflected in the figure of the little boy. Although the boy remains a mute character (both as an imagined visual picture and as a verbal recreation in the words of the herdsman) and does not get a voice of his own, through intertextual allusions he becomes an expressive symbol of Theocritus’ melodious world.55

52

53

54

55

Cf. fr. 1.29–30 Harder: λιγὺν ἦχον / τέττιγος. On the passage, see Harder (2012) 2.68–87, and generally on the images of childhood, youth, and old age in the prologue AcostaHughes/Stephens (2002) and Ambühl (2005) 365–413. On the connections with Theocritus’ Idyll 1, cf., e.g., Cairns (1984) 95 and Goldhill (1987); Gutzwiller (2020) 189–191 with n. 50 now brings together Theocritus’ plaiting boy and Callimachus’ spinning girl (fr. 1.5–6 Harder), which she reads as a programmatic allusion to Erinna’s Distaff (cf. also Theocritus’ Distaff = Idyll 28). AP 7.190, ascribed to Anyte, where the girl Myro sets up a tomb for her two playthings, a cricket (“the nightingale of the fields”) and a cicada; cf. Leonidas AP 7.198. In AP 7.195 and 196 the poet Meleager addresses them as his musical pets. Cf. Gutzwiller (1998) 65–67, 112–113, 318–321; Männlein-Robert (2007) 226–243. For the Callimachean resonances of this passage, cf. Stephens (2002–2003), without reference to Idyll 1. Vos (2017) brings together Homer, Callimachus and Theocritus in an intricate metapoetic reading; cf. also Seiler (1997) 217–229 and Heerink (2015) 14–15 and 60–63. In a different sense, the image of the boy has been interpreted as embodying the ideal of childlike innocence allegedly characteristic of Theocritus’ Idylls: for such a symbolic reading of the ekphrasis as capturing “the essential psychological condition of the three ages of man,” with childhood as “the age of happy innocence,” see, e.g., Lawall (1967) 29–30. Cf. also Miles (1986) 152: “The intricacy of the task and its associations with the simple pleasures of childhood invite nostalgic sympathy for an innocence which we once shared with the boy and whose loss we regret.” However, this seems to import a Romantic nostalgia for childhood ultimately derived from Schiller’s treatise Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung (1795); cf. Ambühl (2007).

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Conclusion

The manifold images of childhood and youth in Theocritus’ Idylls reflect a poetic agenda characterized by polarities of age and gender, transitions between real life and myth, and crossovers between the realms of nature and animals, humans, and the gods. The characteristics ascribed to the figures of babies, children, and adolescents throughout the Theocritean corpus and their possible meanings vary according to their respective genres, contexts, and intertexts. They cannot be reduced to the universal formula of a “poetics of childhood,” tempting though this might be in view of the Callimachean metaphor of the “childlike” poet (itself a complex issue). In contrast to Callimachus’ surrealistic creations like his precocious Apollo, Theocritus’ young children— such as the boy in the ekphrasis or baby Zopyrion—do not normally get a voice of their own but remain mute, if very lively, characters. His poems are performed by youthful herdsmen and young women as well as by rejuvenated mythical figures such as Polyphemus. In some cases at least, a metapoetical reading of such young characters as symbolizing a renewal of the literary tradition seems very attractive. By mixing young and old characters and voices from the past and the present, Theocritus creates new poetic worlds.

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chapter 21

Eros and the Pastoral David Konstan

Love illuminates for us our imperfection. It is nothing other than the uncanny movement of our consciousness comparing two unequal terms—on the one hand, all the perfection and plenitude of the beloved; on the other hand, all the misery, thirst, and destitution of ourselves—and the fierce desire to unite these two such disparate terms.1 barthes (2018)

∵ The Theocritean corpus is so varied that no one theme can be said to define the entire collection, but eros, that is, passionate love or infatuation, surely plays a prominent role.2 What is more, the way that eros is represented is related (I argue) to the pastoral setting of a great many of the poems, which are often taken to constitute the genre specifically associated with Theocritus, namely bucolic poetry. For Theocritus not only created a new type of Greek poetry but also gave a new and profound expression to the experience of being in love, and the two innovations, as I hope to show, go hand in hand. We may begin with one of the oddest poems in the collection, the love song of Polyphemus, the Cyclops. Theocritus was not the first to represent the fierce giant in love: Philoxenus of Cythera composed a dramatic dithyramb in which Odysseus offered to charm Galatea into loving Polyphemus in return for 1 From a letter to Robert David, dated 8 December 1944. 2 Samson (2013) 26 observes: “It is love in all its forms in the Idylls that is often the path which leads the audience to an aporia; it thus becomes a heuristic device …. [T]he questions posed to the audience in the Idylls are the same questions that Plato and Hellenistic philosophers are attempting to answer, questions such as ‘Is love a disease?’ or ‘Is love a blessing or a curse?’ By nudging the audience to ask these questions of themselves, Theocritus challenges their conceptions of love and any established philosophical beliefs around the troublesome emotion …. The unifying element to the poems I examine is how they depict lovers in a way that leaves the audience with questions to ponder.”

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004466715_023

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release from the monster’s cave (Polyphemus evidently refused the deal), and at least three comic poets seem to have treated the theme.3 But all these would have emphasized the absurd nature of Polyphemus’ infatuation; surely none explored his passion in the sympathetic way we find in Theocritus’ Idyll.4 If we were to imagine an enamored Polyphemus, we might expect his “love interest” (as the expression goes) to be someone of his own kind, an enormous, one-eyed she-Cyclops who, though perhaps grotesque looking to human eyes, would have appeared attractive to him. She might not reciprocate his passion, in which case he would take his place among the innumerable frustrated lovers whose complaints are recorded in classical erotic poetry. But Galatea is no Cyclops, but rather a nymph, whose habitat is the open sea. Polyphemus’ passion has alighted on a being very different from himself, a race apart, and inaccessible. While she bathes in the deep, he is land bound, unable even to swim: the two are separated by the very elements in which they dwell. What kind of desire is this, which fastens on so remote an object and seems destined to be unsatisfied—for what nymph would marry a Cyclops? The poem opens with a proem, addressed to Theocritus’ friend Nicias, a doctor who also finds favor with the Muses, in which the poet explains that no medicine can cure erotic infatuation, but only poetry. He offers as an example their countryman, Polyphemus (all three are Sicilians), who in his youth, when his beard was just sprouting, was madly in love with Galatea; he neglected his flocks and sat idly on the shore, serenading the nymph—for he had discovered the only therapy for the wound that Aphrodite’s shaft had left in his breast. Gazing down at the sea from a high rock he sang the song that follows. Note that Polyphemus’ song is not imagined as winning over the nymph, like Cyrano de Bergerac wooing Roxane from beneath her balcony on behalf of his friend Christian; Galatea is presumably under water and unable to hear the

3 Too little is known about Philoxenus’ poem to draw firm conclusions, but Galatea may have played only a minor role in it; see Hordern (1999) 445–455. The dithyramb may have included dialogue, lending it a dramatic quality; cf. Sutton (1983) 37–43. Philoxenus’ poem may have satirized Dionysius i of Syracuse and the courtesan of whom he was enamored (Athenaeus 1.7A); see Sanders (1987) for discussion. Aristophanes Plutus 290–292 alludes to the poem, according to the scholia. For comedy, note Nicochares Galatea, frr. 3–6 K.-A.; Antiphanes Cyclops, frr. 129–131 K.-A.; and Alexis Galatea, frr. 37–40 K.-A.; but the fragments again are too sketchy for us to know how Polyphemus’ sentiments were represented. 4 Contra Sutton (1983) 37, who takes it for granted that Philoxenus’ poem “was conceived as a court allegory,” but affirms: “Doubtless the Cyclops presented the love-smitten ogre carrying on in a manner anticipatory of Theocritus 6 and 11.” Hordern (1999) 445 states, on the contrary, that “the Galatea motif … was probably a small part of the plot, perhaps only briefly alluded to.”

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Cyclops’ voice. His chant is rather a drug or pharmakon intended to cure the disease. From the very beginning, then, Polyphemus’ plight is hopeless: there is no chance that he can gain Galatea’s love. The poor Cyclops’ passion leads him, as infatuation will, to exaggerate the virtues of his beloved. She is whiter than cream cheese (pallor being prized in women), softer than lamb’s wool, friskier than a calf, and plumper than a ripening grape. But she visits only when Polyphemus is asleep and flees when he awakens (that is, in his dreams), like a sheep running from a wolf. The Cyclops recounts how he first became enamored of Galatea when she came, along with his mother (the nymph Thoosa, a daughter of the sea god Phorcys according to Homer), to gather hyacinths on the mountain, and he served as their guide. Since that time he has been fixated on her, but she does not care a whit. But he thinks he knows the reason for her disdain: it is his single eye, over which a shaggy brow stretches from ear to ear, and the broad nose that sits upon his lips. Polyphemus’ self-image is as negative as his perception of Galatea is idealized; after all, he may well be a perfectly handsome Cyclops. It is only by imagining how Galatea sees him that he envisions himself as ugly. To be sure, earlier poets had worried that they were or might be unattractive to young women, but that was generally because of their age (e.g., Mimnermus fr. 1, 5, Anacreon fr. 358, 395). In the Cyclops’ case, the asymmetry between lover and beloved is essentialized, a product of their inalterable natures. The phenomenology of “enamorment,” whereby lovers depreciate themselves and exalt the beloved, is objectified as a relation between different species, the one subhuman, the other more than human. Eros aspires to a kind of transcendence and inevitably falls short of the goal.5 Although Polyphemus acknowledges his physical unattractiveness, he seeks to recover his self-esteem by listing the advantages of his way of life: he has cattle by the thousands, he declares, from which he drinks the finest milk, and an abundance of cheese. He plays the pipes excellently. What is more, he has been raising fawns and even bear cubs for Galatea. She will, he promises, be much more comfortable in his cave, where there are trees and vines and fresh water from the snows of Mount Aetna, than in the turbulent sea. So even if he seems shaggy to her, he always has live embers beneath the ashes and wood

5 In this, it differs from friendship or philia, which is a relation between equals; cf. Plato Lysis 212B–C: “isn’t it possible that one who loves is not loved in return [ἀντιφιλεῖσθαι] by the one he loves …? Isn’t it possible that one who loves is even hated? Lovers, for example, often seem to suffer this in regard to their beloveds [παιδικά]: for though they love [φιλοῦντες] as much as possible some imagine that they are not loved in return and others even that they are hated [μισεῖσθαι].”

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enough to keep the fire going. Polyphemus’ riches are those of a shepherd—a prosperous shepherd, to be sure, but nevertheless someone low on the social scale. He ranks beneath the status of a farmer, not to mention the nobility gathered at royal courts such as that at Alexandria, which included what we may call the aristocracy of learning, those pepaideumenoi or highly educated litterateurs, artists, librarians, orators, and professionals like Theocritus himself and his cultivated physician friend Nicias. The inferiority of the Cyclops, hirsute brute that he is, is not solely a matter of race but also of class. Like the other herdsmen in Theocritus’ Idylls, he is described from an ironic distance, that of the poet and his readers who look down with gentle condescension at these would-be rivals in song who play their syrinx pipes and fall madly in love with women above their station. If the subjective experience of eros is one of longing for what seems an unapproachably glamorous object, far above one’s own lowly condition that is itself devalued and felt as unappealing or even repulsive, the humble herdsman, like the monster, serves as a ready symbol of the lover. As Jacques Lacan has written, “The question of desire is that the fading subject yearns to find itself again by means of some sort of encounter with this miraculous thing defined by the phantasm.”6 The dreamed-of beloved, who visits only in one’s sleep, is not so much a real person as a projection of one’s own fantasy of perfection, or perhaps one’s ego ideal, as some psychologists have posited. It was Theocritus’ great discovery that pastoral is the perfect vehicle for the representation of eros. Polyphemus wishes that he had been born with gills so that he could kiss Galatea’s hand in the deep (he allows that she might deny him her lips), and hopes that a stranger might appear in a ship and teach him to swim: the reader inevitably thinks of the arrival of Odysseus and the dire consequences for the Cyclops, even as he imagines an entirely different relationship than that described in the Odyssey. Both prayers are touching for what they reveal of Polyphemus’ ingenuousness. But saddest of all is his complaint that his mother treats him unfairly and has never said an endearing word to Galatea on his behalf, though she sees that he is wasting away. But he will tell her, he says, that his head and feet ache, so that she may suffer as he does. How aloof Polyphemus’ mother must seem to him, if he must tug at her heart with such a protest. And how subtle is Theocritus’ intuition that the ultimate cause of the Cyclops’ frustrated passion is somehow connected with the distant mother, and that infantile longing for union that is perhaps the ground of all our unfulfillable desires.

6 Lacan (1970) 189, 194; cited in Young (1981) 13.

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At this point Polyphemus calls himself up short, reminding himself that he has chores to attend to and sheep to milk. “Why pursue someone who flees,” he asks (75); he can perhaps find a prettier Galatea, since many girls flirt with him, and on land, he says, that he is seen to be someone. The great commentator on Theocritus, A.S.F. Gow, remarks of these unnamed lasses: “If T. troubled to consider who these might be, he may have thought of them as the daughters of other Cyclopes,” since, as Homer points out (Odyssey 9.114–115), they did have families. I expect that this must be the case. The final couplet, in the poet’s own voice, states that thus the Cyclops “shepherded his passion with his singing,” and that he was better off than if he had shelled out cash, presumably to a physician. Diverting his attention to another nymph would hardly have been a cure. The point is, I think, that he has come to realize that girls who like him and are like him are not to be shunned; love is not just flight and pursuit, and when it is brought down to earth, or on to dry land, it can be reciprocated. Give up idle fantasies of sea nymphs and union with the mother, and be content with one’s own kind, the shepherd with the shepherdess. Even when the gap in status between the lover and the beloved is not so great as that between Polyphemus and Galatea, the erotic object remains inaccessible in the pastoral universe. An example is the third Idyll in the collection, where an unnamed goatherd sings at the entrance to the cave where Amaryllis, of whom he is enamored, evidently dwells. His song is a sort of paraklausithyron, the hybrid name for the laments that lovers intone at the bolted doors of their mistresses. Like the elegiac poets, the goatherd is unable to penetrate the cave, which is covered with ivy and ferns. Why this vegetation should be such an impregnable barrier is not clear; perhaps the real reason for the goatherd’s exclusion is simply Amaryllis’ unwillingness to let him in. He fears that he seems ugly to her: “Do you hate me? Do I seem snub nosed up close, mistress? And does my beard stick out? You will make me hang myself.” He brings her rustic gifts, apples and a wreath of flowers. He wishes he were a bee so he could fly through the shrubbery that bars him from the cave, reminiscent of the Cyclops’ wish that he had been born with gills. He wants merely a kiss, even an empty one, whatever precisely is meant by that expression—the Cyclops spoke of kissing Galatea’s hand. He declares that he is wholly hers but Amaryllis cares nothing for him; his head aches but she is indifferent; he will lie down and expose himself to the wolves, just as Polyphemus had said that Galatea might scorch his soul and cauterize his single eye. In a more learned vein that anticipates Propertius, the goatherd adduces mythological examples of men who won the favor of grand women, like Hippomenes who captured the heart of Atalanta, or of goddesses, as Adonis was loved by Aphrodite, Endymion by Selene, and Iasion by Demeter. Amaryllis’ station is not so exalted, but twice

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the goatherd addresses her as numpha (9, 19), and although it is true that the term can be applied to a marriageable girl, there is surely the suggestion that this haughty creature who lives in a cave, on her own, without apparent kin or kurios, is no ordinary rustic.7 Once again, Theocritus has exploited the figure of a naive and insecure herdsman in love with a higher, unattainable being to convey the peculiar, self-demeaning phenomenology of eros. The first Idyll may be seen as a programmatic introduction to the bucolic poems, as it describes the fatal lovesickness of Daphnis, the herdsman par excellence. At the invitation of his fellow goatherd, Thyrsis relates how wolves and lions, bulls and cattle bewailed him, and even Hermes came and asked, “Of whom, my good man, are you so enamored?” (78). So too the various herdsmen inquire about the cause of his malady, and Priapus tells him that a girl is searching for him up every spring and grove, but Daphnis keeps a stubborn silence. Finally, Aphrodite herself appears, angry with Daphnis but affecting a sweet smile, and mocks him for boasting that he would overcome Eros, but instead he has himself been overcome. Daphnis answers bitterly, accusing her of being hated by mortals, and vaunts that he will be a thorn in the side of Eros even in Hades. Off with you, he tells her, to the cowherd Anchises, to Adonis, to Diomedes: brag to him that you have vanquished Daphnis, the cowherd, and challenge him to battle—this last a reminiscence of the Iliad (5.327–351), where Diomedes wounds Aphrodite when he encounters her on the battlefield. With this, Daphnis resigns himself to his death, taking his leave of the woods and woodland creatures, local rivers and Pan, to whom he bequeaths his pipes, for Eros now draws him down to Hades. Thyrsis adds that Aphrodite would have raised him up again, but threads the Fates had woven had run out. Scholars have been divided on the object of Daphnis’ passion, which he so obstinately resists. Some have assumed it must be the girl whom Priapus mentions,8 but this seems unlikely, since presumably Daphnis is tormented because his love is unrequited, but the girl is pursuing him. For the same reason, Theocritus cannot be alluding to a story recounted by Parthenius, according to which Daphnis is punished by the nymph Echenais because he allowed himself to be seduced by a mortal woman;9 here again, it is the women who are in love, not Daphnis. But there is another candidate in the poem itself, who has perhaps eluded critics because she is, as it were, hiding in plain sight, and that is 7 Cf. Walker (1980) 47: “numpha implies semi-divine status just as readily as marriageability”; contra Dover (1971) 113: “Amaryllis is not a supernatural ‘nymph’ but a human girl, whom the goatherd addresses as ‘bride.’ ” For further discussion, see Isenberg/Konstan (1984). 8 Gutzwiller (1991) 97. 9 Parthenius Narr. Am. 29, citing Timaeus FGrHist 3b, 566, F.83.

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Aphrodite. She is cross with him for trying to resist his passion; he throws in her teeth her past affairs with Anchises and Adonis, with the implication that she is fickle; she nevertheless is disposed to save him, if only the fates had allowed it. We may think of Adonis here, the mortal consort whom Aphrodite resurrected each year.10 Daphnis’ reproach is reminiscent of the moment in the Gilgamesh when the hero berates Ishtar, an analogue of Aphrodite: “Which of your lovers did you ever love forever? What shepherd of yours has pleased you for all time? There was Tammuz, the lover of your youth, for him you decreed wailing, year after year.”11 But if this ritual of the dying year-god is in the background of the affair of Aphrodite and Daphnis recounted by Thyrsis, the poem concentrates rather on Daphnis’ hopeless but indefeasible passion for the goddess, and the mortal suffering that eros entails when it fixates on an unattainable object, one that exists on another plane, above and beyond that of herdsmen and the rustic, laughing girls who might requite Daphnis’ desire. On this reading, the opening Idyll in the sequence prefigures the representation of erotic passion as the inflation of the beloved at the expense of the lover’s self-image. Although the underclass of herdsmen was a convenient and humorous symbol for the impassioned lover, allowing sophisticated readers to regard them with condescending amusement even as they stood for the lover’s plight generally, Theocritus also rung changes on the theme in other contexts, for instance in the epithalamium or wedding song for the marriage of Menelaus and Helen. The song is performed by twelve young girls, the elect of Spartan maidenhood, as they dance outside the door of the newlyweds’ bedchamber. They begin by teasing the groom, as is customary in such rites—at least in Italy, where such verses were labeled Fescennine; there is no good evidence for such a tradition in Greece. The girls reproach Menelaus for falling asleep before consummating the marriage: if he was so eager for early slumber, he ought to have allowed his bride to frolic with her playmates and her mother till dawn, since Helen will be his for years to come. They ascribe his success in wooing Helen, despite the competition of so many demigods, to some fine fellow who must have sneezed when he reached Sparta; for the woman he has married is the daughter of Zeus and like none other who walks the earth, and skilled in all the arts. The girls will adorn a plane tree with a wreath and inscribe on its bark, “Revere me: I am Helen’s tree!” (48). This is doubtless an allusion to a sanctuary (hieron) of Helen in a place called Platanistas or “Plane Tree Grove,” evidence that she

10 11

For Adonis as a year-god and analogies with Near Eastern myths, see Id. 15.128–144, and Anagnostou-Laoutides/Konstan (2008) 497–527. Trans. Sandars (1960) 84.

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was the object of some kind of cult at Sparta.12 The girls conclude their chant with the wish that the couple may have fair children, and that Aphrodite may grant that they love each other equally (ἶσον ἔρασθαι/ ἀλλάλων, 51–52), urging them to “breathe love and longing into one another’s breasts,” and not to forget to awaken before dawn, for they will return at the break of day, “when the first songster raises his gaily feathered neck from sleep to crow”—or so Gow translates the penultimate verses of the poem: (ἐπεί κα πρᾶτος ἀοιδὸς/ἐξ εὐνᾶς κελαδήσῃ ἀνασχὼν εὔτριχα δειράν, 56–57). This interpretation goes back to the scholia (p. 333 Wendel), but I have suggested that the language is ambiguous, and may as well be rendered: “when the singer for the first time raises his neck with lovely tresses (εὔθριξ) from the marriage-bed (εὐνή) and crows.”13 Read this way, the reference is to Menelaus himself, who is described in the first verse of the poem as “golden-haired” (ξανθόθριξ), and was, moreover, renowned for his great war cry (βοὴν ἀγαθὸς Μενέλαος, Il. 2.586, 6.37, 17.665, etc.). Menelaus is himself astonished at his good fortune as he rises the morning after his wedding to a woman who is all but divine in her extraordinary beauty. He, unlike Polyphemus or Daphnis or Theocritus’ other pastoral lovers, has realized his desire. But for how long? The chorus’s prayer for mutual eros for the couple inevitably reminds the reader of Helen’s future elopement with Paris—the kind of transgressive “enamorment” that the word eros summons up, as opposed to the philia that more commonly characterizes the affection between husband and wife. There is also a hint of Helen’s passionate nature in the girls’ claim that “all desires are upon her eyes” (τᾶς πάντες ἐπ’ ὄμμασιν ἵμεροι ἐντί, 37), although Sir Kenneth Dover, following Gow, takes the phrase to mean “whose eyes kindle a desire surpassing all others.”14 Whichever way one takes it, Menelaus’ desire fastened on a woman beyond his stature, attainable briefly, perhaps, but not for “year upon year” (εἰς ἔτος ἐξ ἔτεος, 15). I suggest that Theocritus chose to compose an epithalamium for this marriage, rather than, say, for a couple like Hector and Andromache, as Sappho did (fr. 44, in which both the bride and groom are likened to gods, vv. 21, 34), because it captures the disproportion between lover and beloved that informs his sense of eros.

12

13 14

See Pausanias 3.15.3; for Helen’s divinity, see West (1975); Edmunds (2007) 12–20 denies that Theocritus’ verses necessarily indicate a genuine cult: “To speak of worship, either of Helen or of the plane-tree, is to exaggerate” (15). Blondell (2013) 44 is less skeptical: “Helen was worshipped by parthenoi in a cult that may be reflected in Theocritus’ wedding poem.” The chorus affirms that Helen is the daughter of Zeus, and as such she is clearly of a higher station than her age mates. Konstan (1979). Dover (1971) 235.

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The second poem in the traditional sequence again falls outside the strictly pastoral Idylls (unless “pastoral” is taken in a very broad sense to include, among other types, “proletarian literature” generally, as William Empson has argued).15 A woman named Simaetha, who apparently lives on her own and possesses at least one slave, Thestylis, is represented as preparing potions which, as she chants and spins a magic wheel, are supposed to draw to her house Delphis, the handsome young man with whom she is in love but who has not visited her or communicated with her for the past eleven days. He has taken her virginity but not made her his wife (40–41), and she suspects Eros and Aphrodite have diverted his passion to another (whether a woman or a man, 44; cf. 150), and she plans to seek him out on the following day at the gymnasium where he exercises. Simaetha sends Thestylis to smear the herbs on Delphis’ doorway, and once alone, begins her lament. She recalls how she first laid eyes on Delphis at a festival in honor of Artemis and was instantly smitten. She has Thestylis lie in wait for him at the gymnasium, with instructions to tell him, “Simaetha summons you” (101). He assures her that he was himself on the point of visiting her on his own, and that she anticipated him by just the interval by which he outran his friend Philinus the other day, cleverly suggesting his own fitness, for, as he boasts, he is reputed to be swift and handsome among his youthful companions (ἠιθέοισι, 125, that is, unmarried young men). He declares his own passion for Simaetha, affirming that Eros can goad a virgin from her bedroom and cause a bride to abandon her husband while the bed is still warm—not an encouraging harbinger of long-term fidelity, but that is in the nature of eros. She was quick to be seduced (ταχυπειθής, 138), and, as she coyly puts it, they went the whole way (ἐπράχθη τὰ μέγιστα, 143). But now, she hears that he is enamored of another, and he no longer courts her. She ends her soliloquy with a threat to apply more lethal drugs to Delphis, avowing all the same that she will continue to endure her yearning. As Gow notes ((1952) 2.35), Simaetha is poor; she wears a borrowed robe to the festival, and among her friends is the mother of a flute-player who entertains at symposia. In turn, “Her lover seems somewhat higher in the social scale,” and is “something of a dandy” (ibid.). He is also young, of an age that women typically favored. It is impossible to know the age of Simaetha, but to judge by her friends, all of whom are apparently elderly, she may well be on in years, which in an ancient context could mean late twenties, perhaps even in her thirties. Is she beautiful? She shows no particular confidence in her attractiveness. The sense that she conveys in her complaints is that Delphis, despite

15

Empson (1950) 6: “Proletarian literature usually has a suggestion of the pastoral.”

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his protestations of love, is out of her league and she now realizes that he cannot have been sincere. Simaetha’s vain attempt at reigniting his passion for her by magic only points up their inequality, as she has no other recourse. She, like the Cyclops and the poor herdsmen, is exposed to the ironic gaze of the poet and his readers, who observe her passion from the security of their—our— elevated social position. Delphis for all we know may be an upstart, someone of no real importance. All we have is Simaetha’s perspective, as an independent woman of humble status and a woman in love, and to her Delphis is lofty and irresistible. By giving voice to lowly figures and rendering them unlikely vehicles of erotic subjectivity, Theocritus constructs a model of infatuation that elegantly captures the felt disparity between lover and beloved, to which, in the final analysis, everyone in love is susceptible. In the sixth Idyll, two herdsmen engage in a poetic dialogue. The one, named Daphnis, addresses Polyphemus and pretends that Galatea is seeking to attract his attention, but he pays her no mind; Daphnis explains that she flees the one who loves her and pursues the one who does not (καὶ φεύγει φιλέοντα καὶ οὐ φιλέοντα διώκει, 17; cf. Sappho fr. 1.21), and that, to eros, what is not fine often has seemed so (τὰ μὴ καλὰ καλὰ πέφανται, 19). Damoetas, in turn, assumes the persona of the Cyclops and replies that he was fully aware of Galatea’s antics, and is responding to her in kind, telling her that he has another woman to make her jealous. She may then send an emissary to him, but he will close his door until she swears to make his bed on the island, that is, abandoning the sea. As he works himself into the role of the one who is sought rather than seeker, he gains confidence in his attractiveness: he recently looked at his reflection in the sea—Galatea’s element, after all—and observed that his beard and his single eye did seem fine (καλά … κατεφαίνετο, 36–37), at least in his own judgment (ὡς παρ’ ἐμὶν κέκριται, 36), and his teeth gleamed white as marble. The difference between Polyphemus’ self-perception here and in Idyll 11 is a function of the degree of his “enamorment”: as he guards himself against Galatea’s seductiveness, he feels, or affects to feel, more handsome. The repeated verb phainomai, “to seem,” indicates that at stake is not the nature of eros as such so much as its phenomenology. There is a similar pattern in the twentieth Idyll, of which the ascription to Theocritus is contested, in part just because it seems to be a take-off on Idylls 6 and 3, a point that might as well count in its favor as genuine. A cowherd complains that Eunica (“Easy Victory,” the name also of one of the nymphs in Idyll 13) rejects him for his rusticity, affirming that she kisses only urbane lips (ἀστικὰ χείλεα, 4); the barrier between them is thus one of class. Her contempt rouses the fury of the cowherd, and he summons shepherds to confirm that he has not lost his good looks. The women on the mountains (that is, where the anim-

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als are pastured) call him handsome and love (or kiss: φιλεῦντι, 31) him, though that thing from the city (τὰ δ’ ἀστικά) will not, just because he is a herdsman. Yet Aphrodite fell in love with Anchises and Adonis, Selene with Endymion, Rhea (that is, Cybele) with Attis, and Zeus with Ganymede, herders all. He concludes by praying that Eunica may never kiss anyone again, whether in the city or the mountain. Like Polyphemus, the efforts of the cowherd to reassure himself of his attractiveness ring hollow, not least because he seems to feel that he has passed his prime. In quoting Eunica’s slurs he sees himself as she does—and, we might add, as Theocritus’ city-dwelling readers did and do—and confirmation from fellow rustics cannot erase the sting. The negative self-regard of the scorned lover is once again mapped neatly onto a difference of social status. Water is a barrier also in Idyll 13, once more addressed to Theocritus’ friend Nicias, which recounts Heracles’ love and loss of the young Hylas, whom he brought with him when he set sail on the Argo. When the ship stopped en route at Cius in the Propontis, Hylas went off to fetch water at a spring. But the nymphs that inhabited the fount, Eunica and Malis and Nycheia, were moved by eros for the boy and clutched him as he dipped his pitcher in the water, pulling him under. Heracles set out at once to find him, and heard the dim sound of his cry from the water: though he was nearby he sounded far off (παρεὼν δὲ μάλα σχεδὸν εἴδετο πόρρω, 60). Driven by the cruel god Eros, Heracles roamed far and wide in search of his beloved, abandoning the Argo and its quest. Hylas would henceforward be reckoned among the blessed ones, while the Argonauts sneered at Heracles’ dereliction. Heracles is thus diminished in the degree that Hylas is elevated; he is now unreachable, like Galatea, inhabiting a different realm among the nymphs of the pool while the hero strays over the earth, an image of love’s lopsidedness. In Idyll 7, Simichidas and Lycidas sing of their loves to pass the time as they walk from the town of Cos (on the island of that name) to the countryside to participate in a harvest festival. Lycidas, whom Simichidas fell in with en route, is aflame, he tells us, for Ageanax, who is sailing to Mytilene. If he arrives safely, Lycidas will prepare a little feast for himself, and two shepherds will play for him, and Tityrus will tell, in a pastoral song within a song, how the oxherd Daphnis wasted away with love for Xenea, and will follow this with another tale of how a goatherd was once locked in a chest by a tyrant, but was kept alive by bees that nursed him on honey (appropriate to poets, in part for the resemblance between μέλι and μέλος), a fate like that suffered by the goatherd Comatas (the details are fuzzy and it may be that the reference is to just the one goatherd, Comatas). That Lycidas may enjoy a story of frustrated eros is understandable, since he too seeks release, he says, from the fires of Aphrodite, even if he transposes his burning passion into worry about Ageanax’s sea

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voyage (is there a hint that he may not return to Cos?). The relevance of enclosure in a chest or larnax is less obvious (Gow (1952) 2.152, wonders that Lycidas’ song “should end as feebly and as pointlessly as it now seems to do”). Perhaps there is a suggestion that love not only burns, it also suffocates, if we may understand the “evil brazenness of his lord” (κακαῖσιν ἀτασθαλίαισιν ἄνακτος, 79) as a riddling allusion to the god Eros, and only poetry sustains the goatherd in this condition. But this interpretation is perhaps too far fetched to ease Gow’s misgivings. Simichidas, in turn, mentions his own passion for Myrto, but then sings of his friend Aratus’ passion for a boy, and prays to Pan to place him in Aratus’ arms and to the Erotes to aim their arrows at the lad, since he shows no pity. Yet he notes by way of consolation that the boy is ripening and even women notice that his bloom is fading; the implication is that he will soon cease to be desirable, for “boyish beauty is fine but short-lived” (κάλλος καλόν ἐστι τὸ παιδικόν, ἀλλ’ ὀλίγον ζῇ, 23.32). Simichidas ends with the wish that the morning may see Molon afflicted by such deadening pains (whoever he may be: not necessarily Aratus’ rival, as Gow supposes). Here, we may note, there is no superimposition of erotic asymmetry onto disparity of status: the boy is simply unobliging. In the only poem set in an agricultural context (10), two men, probably hired hands, are reaping a field, but one keeps lagging behind.16 The reason, he explains, is that he is in love, but his mate Milon is unimpressed: he has never longed for someone absent nor lain awake on account of eros. He advises his love-struck companion to strike up a song for the girl, which he does, praising the girl extravagantly: though others say she is skinny (ἰσχνάν, 27; Milon calls her a praying mantis), he regards her rather as slender (ῥαδινάν, 24), and whereas others say she is sunburned—not a desirable feature in a woman— he calls her “honey-yellow” (μελίχλωρος, 27). Lucretius, in his satire on lovers’ tendency to inflate the qualities of the beloved, uses almost the same language (nigra melichrus est 4.1160; ischnon eromenion tum fit, cum vivere non quit / prae macie; 4.1166–1167). He wishes he had the riches of Croesus so he could dress her and himself in gold—a suggestion that she is somehow a class above the ordinary, though she is in fact a flute girl who entertains the laborers. Milon replies with practical wisdom, proverbs with a Hesiodic ring, and concludes that “this is what men who toil in the sun should sing” (56); as for his mate’s “starving passion” (λιμηρὸν ἔρωτα, 57), says Milon, with reference both to his unfulfilled desire and, once more, to the emaciated girl, and hinting perhaps as

16

For discussion, see Hunt (2009).

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well, as Gow suggests ((1952) 2.207), at the hunger his idleness will cause him, “best to tell it to your mother when she lies awake in bed at sunrise” (58), “like a little boy,” says Gow, “who sleeps with his mother and tells her his dreams in the morning” (ibid.). Being in love is a useless luxury for the poor; as the struggling farmer Gorgias tells the rather foppish Sostratus in Menander’s Dyscolus, when Sostratus asks with some surprise, “haven’t you ever been in love with someone?”: “It’s not possible; calculating my actual troubles gives no rest at all” (341–344). Love songs are no therapy; better to work to the accompaniment of a laborers’ chant. There is a poem in the corpus (Idyll 12) that seems to describe a mutual affection, and it is noticeable that it lacks both the class difference between the two and the overvaluation of the beloved. It is in the poet’s own voice, but readers are unlikely to give much thought these days as to the earnestness of the emotion it expresses (cf. Gow (1952) 2.221); it is a learned composition and the speaker is the poet’s persona. He enthusiastically welcomes the return of a youth who has been away for two days, and prays that the Loves might breathe equally on both of them and that they themselves may become a song for all to come, like, one imagines, the proverbial friendships of Achilles and Patroclus, Theseus and Pirithous, and Orestes and Pylades; they will say: “they loved [ἐφίλησαν] each other under an equal yoke” (15), and that at that time “there were again men of the golden age, when the beloved loved in return” (χρύσειοι πάλιν ἄνδρες ὅτ’ ἀντεφίλησ’ ὁ φιληθείς, 16). Despite the language of philia, which undoubtedly makes the expression of reciprocal affection more natural, the love described here is clearly pederastic, as is confirmed by the reference to the Athenian boy-lover Diocles (φιλόπαιδα, 29) and the young men’s (κοῦροι, 31) kissing contest held in his honor (for good measure there is a mention of Ganymede). That Theocritus uses recondite dialectal terminology (εἴσπνηλος and ἀίτης, Doric and Thessalian respectively) for lover and loved one in the poem instead of the usual erastes and eromenos perhaps makes the hoped-for mutuality of their love more exotic, but at the same time more plausible. We note only that this is not a poem about herdsmen: as both love equally, neither is of a lower station than the other.17 Idyll 23 describes a man who is heartlessly rejected by the boy he adores; indeed, the boy detests him (μίσει τὸν φιλέοντα, 3). Driven to despair, the lover hangs himself at the lad’s door, uttering a final lament in which he warns that when he grows older he too will be in love, and begging a last kiss and a grave

17

Compare the mutual love of Ptolemy Soter and Berenice, 17.38–42; Berenice after her death inspired “gentle loves” (μαλακοὺς ἔρωτας, 51) in all.

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for his body. The boy, indifferent to the end, saunters off to the baths, but as he dives into the water a statue of Eros falls upon him and ends his life—condign punishment, like that which Aristotle described in the Poetics, “when the statue of Mitys at Argos killed the man who caused Mitys’s death by falling on him at a festival” (1452a8–9, trans. Fyfe 1932). No reason is given for the boy’s disdain for his lover except for sheer spite or arrogance. We are not told whether he found his lover’s looks repulsive or was offended by some other defect in him; certainly, there is no mention of a difference in social degree. It is a pure morality tale, with its finale of poetic justice; Gow called the poem “the least attractive of the whole Theocritean corpus” ((1952) 2.408) for its sloppy sentimentality, and denies the ascription to Theocritus. It conveys the bare bones of erotic passion and rejection, without the deeper insight into the lover’s psychology that the bucolic Idylls succeed in conveying. In the fourteenth Idyll, a man experienced in battle (quite possibly a mercenary soldier) named Aeschinas experiences a fit of jealousy when he discovers, at a drinking party with some buddies, that his girlfriend is enamored of a handsome young fellow (the kind women typically fall for in classical literature); at this, he belts her on the side of the head (soldiers tend to be violent by nature) and she hightails it out of there, to take up in earnest with her new boyfriend. Aeschinas relates his story to a friend, Thyonichus, whom he has chanced to meet two months after the falling out, and complains that he cannot get over his love and knows no cure for this disabling passion. But Simus, he says, who was similarly enamored, went overseas and came back healthy, so he will follow his example and enlist abroad. Thyonichus advises him to seek service with Ptolemy in Egypt while he is still in good enough shape to fight. There is no inflation of the beloved here: indeed, Aeschinas barely describes her. A headstrong, down-to-earth fellow like him is given to action rather than the sentimental pining of imaginary shepherds. Theocritus captures him just as he begins to accept that his passion is unrequited—and it is in the nature of eros to be onesided—and he is ready to call it quits, like many a fictional disappointed lover, by joining the foreign legion. One would not expect him to die of heartache, like Daphnis. Although there was a hierarchy among herdsmen, with goatherds at the bottom, shepherds in the middle, and highest of all those who herded cows, the poems do not install a sharp class difference among the three grades.18 In the twenty-seventh Idyll, however, it is probably relevant that Daphnis, the youth who seduces a maiden in the course of a stichomythic conversation, is an

18

See Gutzwiller (2006).

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oxherd, while the girl tends goats. His role as wooer, however, and hers as wooed are differentiated by gender rather than by status, and it is marriage he promises her, though he appeals to the power of Eros (she, in turn, places her hopes in the virgin Artemis). In the end, the girl yields: “I came here a maiden, but I go home a woman” (or “wife”: γυνή, 65). The poet in his own voice calls it a “stolen marriage” (or perhaps, “a clandestine love-making”: φώριος εὐνή, 68), and one may perhaps doubt whether Daphnis’ promise of wedlock was indeed to be fulfilled. The girl’s initial coyness may mask a certain moral looseness among goatherds, but the talk of marriage among ostensible equals (both have prosperous parents, identified by name) overrides the imbalance characteristic of strictly erotic relations. Again, the poem is only dubiously attributed to Theocritus. The two final poems in the corpus as it stands (29 and 30; there are fragments of a 31st Idyll) are addressed to boys and in the poet’s own voice, and both are in meters derived from Alcaeus and Sappho. In the first, the lover berates the fickleness of his beloved, and warns him that youth is fleeting; he affirms too that when the boy grows older, passion may mature into friendship, like that of Achilles and Patroclus—a point that Aristotle too makes in his discussion of philia in the Nicomachean Ethics, provided the boy is of good character (8.4, 1157a9–10). In the second, the poet admonishes himself for falling in love at an age at which he should know better, now that his hair is white. But his heart or thumos rejects his admonitions and in the end he recognizes that he must submit to Love’s yoke, a little like Horace’s in the first lyric in Book 4 of the Odes. Perhaps old age in reality is not so lacking in attractiveness—Aristotle says that even the elderly have their own kind of beauty (kallos, Rhet. 1361b7–14)—and it was rather a collective prejudice that assigned (and assigns) desirability to the young only, just as a similar preconception rendered adult men the typical subjects of erotic passion and women the objects. But the speaker in the final poem does not challenge the conventional view of age, in the way that the Cyclops is able to see himself as attractive to others of his kind, and the poet does not explore here in quite the same terms as he does in the bucolic Idylls the diminished self-esteem and inflated image of the other that are characteristic of passionate love. The herdsmen pasturing their animals on the hillsides were regarded with condescending irony by the learned poets and their readers in the Hellenistic age. To make them the subjects of eros was to treat the lover as a potential object of derision, which corresponds, however, to the diminished sense of self that afflicts all who are under the sway of erotic passion, as they idealize the beloved and project onto her or him the qualities they feel they lack. By giving voice to these humble figures in his bucolic Idylls, Theocritus mapped

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the perceived disparity between the erastes and eromenos or eromene onto a difference of status, and thereby invited his readers, like his friend Nicias, to recognize the self-deceiving nature of their own loves, and perhaps, like poor Polyphemus, to realize that they are indeed lovable, if they but look about themselves and see the world as it is rather than as their passion imagines it. But this, alas, is probably a lesson that eros is incapable of learning.

Bibliography Anagnostou-Laoutides, E./Konstan, D. (2008), “Daphnis and Aphrodite: A Love Affair in Theocritus Idyll 1,” AJPh 129, 497–527. Barthes, R. (2018), Album: Unpublished Correspondence and Texts (2018). Trans. J. Gladding (New York). Blondell, R. (2013), Helen of Troy: Beauty, Myth, Devastation (Oxford). Dover, K.J. (ed.) (1971), Theocritus: Select Poems (Basingstoke/London). Edmunds, L. (2007), “Helen’s Divine Origins,” Electronic Antiquity 10.2, 1–45. Empson, W. (1950), Some Versions of Pastoral (New York). Gow, A.S.F. (ed.) (1952), Theocritus, 2 vols. (Cambridge). Gutzwiller, K.J. (1991), Theocritus’ Pastoral Analogies: The Formation of a Genre (Madison WI.). Gutzwiller, K.J. (2006), “The Herdsman in Greek Thought,” in M. Fantuzzi/Th. Papanghelis (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden) 1– 23. Hordern, J.H. (1999), “The Cyclops of Philoxenus,” CQ 49, 445–455. Hunt, J.M. (2009), “Bucolic Experimentation in Theocritus’ Idyll 10,” GRBS 49, 391–412. Isenberg, C./Konstan, D. (1984), “Pastoral Desire: The Third Idyll of Theocritus,” Dalhousie Review 64, 302–315. Konstan, D. (1979), “A Note on Theocritus Idyll 18,” CPh 74, 233–234. Lacan, J. (1970), Of Structure as an Inmixing of an Otherness Prerequisite to Any Subject Whatever, in R. Macksey/E. Donato (eds.), The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man (Baltimore) 186–200. Samson, Lindsay Grant (2013), The Philosophy of Desire in Theocritus’ Idylls (diss. University of Iowa). Sandars, N.K. (trans.) (1960), The Epic of Gilgamesh (Harmondsworth). Sanders, L.J. (1987), Dionysius i of Syracuse and Greek Tyranny (London). Sutton, D.F. (1983), “Dithyramb as Δρᾶμα: Philoxenus of Cythera’s Cyclops or Galatea,” QUCC, N.S. 13, 37–43. Walker, S.F. (1980), Theocritus (Boston).

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West, M.L. (1975), “Immortal Helen” (Inaugural Lecture, Bedford College, University of London); repr. in M.L. West, Hellenica: Selected Papers on Greek Literature and Thought, vol. 1: Epic (Oxford, 2011). Young, R. (1981), “Post-Structuralism: An Introduction,” in R. Young (ed.), Untying The Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader (Boston) 1–27.

part 5 Contexts and Topics

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chapter 22

Among the Cicadas: Theocritus and His Contemporaries Benjamin Acosta-Hughes

Introduction The focus of this chapter is the third-century bce poet Theocritus’ creative poetic dialectic with his contemporary poets. We can trace this dialectic in several different ways, each worthy of our attention. There is the unusual circumstance of the epistolographic rapport of Theocritus and his friend the physician and poet Nicias (Idylls 13 and 28), in which Theocritus and Nicias, as we know from one of the Theocritus scholia, are engaged in a critical-aesthetic dialogue on poetry and eros.1 There are then the references to other poets by name: thus Philitas and Asclepiades in Theoc. Id. 7, or the poet Aratus in Callimachus Ep. 27 Pf. = 56 GP. There are also connections that the reader of Theocritus might make: the Aratus of Id. 7.98 and 122 may well not be intended by the author as the poet of the Phaenomena, but the context, in a poem that carefully recalls a Hesiodic initiation, and specifically the focus on Aratus’ agrypnia, cannot but for some readers implicate not only Aratus of Soli, but even Callimachus’ epigram that praises him, specifically for his agrypnia.2 A similar example is the name Theocritus in another Callimachean epigram (52 Pf. = 6 GP), where the phrase τὸν τὸ καλὸν μελανεῦντα Θεόκριτον, “Theocritus beautifully dark,” cannot for some readers but recall the Syracusan poet himself, who has a penchant for unusual combinations with μέλας.3 And then there is the much wider canvas of shared language and imagery, where thematic and linguistic parallels create a tessellation of a poetic culture.

1 Particularly illuminating on this dialogue is Cozzoli (2015). 2 One might think of these two different onomastics, intended and associative, as analogous to the distinction of allusion and intertext—I owe this point to helpful discussion with Alice Gaber. 3 E.g., Ep. 1.3 μελάμφυλλοι δάφναι; Id. 3.35 μελανόχρως. On Callim. Ep. 56 Pf. it is worth adding that Ganymede (line 3) is also a Theocritean figure (Id. 12.35).

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A Bucolic Illustration

Theocritus’ seventh Idyll (the Thalysia) can be defined as a poem in four movements: an introductory scene setting (1–51), the aria of Lycidas (52–89), the introit and aria of Simichidas (96–127), and the concluding description of the thalysia itself (128–157). Each of the four movements features a plurality of figures; each showcases song and its composition. Each of the first three movements concludes with a gesture to the movement that follows;4 the final movement concludes with an apparent evocation of the image of Demeter, the goddess that the Thalysia celebrates.5 In terms of its reference points both explicit and implied the seventh Idyll is emblematic of Alexandrian poetry in several ways: 1) the poem demonstrates a self-consciously complex relationship with earlier Greek poetry and prose, particularly Homer, Hesiod and Plato; 2) the poem draws in other Hellenistic poets and their poetics, marking itself as part of a larger contemporary poetic discourse; 3) the poem exhibits a rich and complex mosaic of other voices and songs, interweaving the seemingly simple and the more elevated. This last includes a striking use of pathetic fallacy, voices drawn from nature that commingle with and support the human ones; this begins already at lines 7–9 with the poplars and elms “weaving” (Gr. ὑφαίνω, a standard metaphor for poetic composition) a well-shaded grove. I would like to begin this study of Theocritus and his contemporary poets by highlighting some of the moments in the Thalysia that mark the poem as representative of the contemporary discourse on song. Now long ago there was a theory about this poem, advocated especially by R. Reitzenstein,6 that the figures of Idyll 7 masked contemporary poets, the socalled masquerade bucolique.7 While this theory, involving a “confraternity of boukoloi in the religious sense of the word” on the island of Cos,8 now seems fantastical, there is, we must nonetheless admit, a complicated set of associations with other poets and their representations at play in the poem; in the pages that follow I would like to focus on several of these, particularly Cal4 So 51 τὸ μελύδριον ἐξεπόνασα refers to Lycidas’ following song; line 95 ἀρξεῦμ’ ἀλλ’ ὑπάκουσον refers to the singers’ respective roles during Simichidas’ recitation; 126–127 ἄμμιν δ’ ἁσυχία τε μέλοι, γραία τε παρείη / ἅτις ἐπιφθύζοισα τὰ μὴ καλὰ νόσφιν ἐρύκοι refers forward to both the bucolic pleasance itself as well as to its rustic character. 5 Hunter (1999) 199; Gow (1952) 2.169. It is very likely that Philitas’ most celebrated poem, his Demeter, is interwoven in Idyll 7—see Stephens (2018) 64. The frr. of the Demeter are 5a–21 in Spanoudakis’ 2002 edition. 6 (1893) 226. 7 See Gow’s discussion (1952) 2.129–130. 8 Gow (1952) 129.

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limachus, Philitas, Posidippus and possibly Apollonius, to try to essay a clearer view of what seems almost a poetic game that we can now only obscurely perceive. Let us begin with the two principal figures, Lycidas and Simichidas. As has been widely observed, the name Lycidas suggests an association with Apollo, in his emanation as Apollo Λύκιος;9 the parallel here that we might draw a little more closely is Apollo Λύκιος in the opening of Callimachus’ Aetia (fr. 1.21–22 H.): καὶ γὰρ ὅτ⸥ε πρ⸤ώ⸥τιστον ἐμοῖς ἐπὶ δέλτον ἔθηκα γούνασι⸥ν, Ἀ[πό]λλων εἶπεν ὅ μοι Λύκιος. For when for the first time I placed my writing tablet upon my knees, Lycian Apollo said to me. The scene in the Aetia fragment is also one of poetic initiation, as is the rapport of Lycidas and Simichidas; we might even draw an analogy between the deltos of Callimachus as child, symbolic of the labor of poetic composition, as well as the schoolboy’s possession, and the rustic staff, the λαγωβόλον (lit. “rabbitstriker,” a ξένειον appropriate to the bucolic world) of Theocritus’ poem.10 As has long been noted on the two poems, the presentation of poetic preference is also strikingly similar: here first is Lycidas from Theocr. Id. 7.43–51: τάν τοι’, ἔφα, κορύναν δωρύττομαι, οὕνεκεν ἐσσί πᾶν ἐπ’ ἀλαθείᾳ πεπλασμένον ἐκ Διὸς ἔρνος. ὥς μοι καὶ τέκτων μέγ’ ἀπέχθεται ὅστις ἐρευνῇ ἶσον ὄρευς κορυφᾷ τελέσαι δόμον Ὠρομέδοντος, καὶ Μοισᾶν ὄρνιχες ὅσοι ποτὶ Χῖον ἀοιδόν ἀντία κοκκύζοντες ἐτώσια μοχθίζοντι. ἀλλ’ ἄγε βουκολικᾶς ταχέως ἀρξώμεθ’ ἀοιδᾶς, Σιμιχίδα· κἠγὼ μέν—ὅρη, φίλος, εἴ τοι ἀρέσκει τοῦθ’ ὅτι πρᾶν ἐν ὄρει τὸ μελύδριον ἐξεπόνασα. With this staff I gift you, said he, because you are a shoot fashioned from Zeus for truth. So hateful to me is the builder who tries to raise his house as high as the peak of Mount Oromedon, and the birds of the Muses, however many cackling against the bard of Chios, toil in vain. But come, 9 10

Williams (1971) 138; Hunter (1999) 148. Williams (1971) is the piece that lays out this identification in the greatest detail. On Apollo Lykios see further Nauta (2010) 172–175. On the significance of the λαγωβόλον, see Cameron (1963) 304–305.

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let us straightway, Simichidas, strike up the bucolic song. And I—see, friend, if this little tune that I fashioned on the mountain of late pleases you. Like the first fragment of the Aetia, Idyll 7 is full of sound;11 as the poet of Aetia fr. 1, so here Lycidas rejects the excessively large and the harsh-sounding. κοκκύζοντες at line 48 well parallels the sound of Callimachus’ ἐπιτρύζουσιν (both are unpleasant noises, in both cases the vying ones are in the plural) with ἐτώσια μοχθίζοντι recasting the νήιδες with which Callimachus’ second line opens.12 Πεπλασμένον in the second line of Lycidas’ characterization is paralleled by ποτεπλάσθη at Callim. Ep. 51.2 Pf. (15.2 GP), there used of the last book of the Aetia;13 even the ἔρνος of line 44, here of Simichidas on Cos, finds a parallel in the ἔρνος of Callimachus’Hymn to Delos (line 262 of the olive shoot, now turned to gold in celebration of Apollo’s birth); an early model for both is Odysseus’ comparison of the young Nausicaa to the Delian palm at Od. 6. 160–65.14 Similarly Callimachus asserts “don’t seek from me a loud-sounding poem, it is not for me to thunder but Zeus” (19–20: μηδ’ ἀπ’ ἐμεῦ διφᾶ⸥τε μέγα ψοφέουσαν ἀοιδήν / τίκτεσθαι· βροντᾶ⸥ν οὐκ ἐμόν, ⸤ἀλλὰ⸥ Διός). Note the presence of Διός in both the Theocritus and Callimachus texts, even if used differently; Zeus figures in both in terms of poetic definition. At line 50 Lycidas bids Simichidas that both “strike up the bucolic song,” a double entendre that refers both to the activity (i.e., the singing of bucolic song) and the particular poetic genre (i.e., this is a bucolic poem): here we might compare Callimachus’ address to the Graces at Aetia fr. 7.13–14 H. ἔλλατε νῦν, ἐλέγοισι δ’ ἐνίψασθε λιπώσας / χεῖρας ἐμοῖς, ἵνα μοι πουλὺ μένωσιν ἔτος, “be propitious now, and anointing them wipe your hands on my elegies, that they remain for me for many a year,” where “elegies” are both the poetic activity of elegiac composition and the elegiac Aetia themselves, as well as, by implication, the four papyrus rolls that contain them. One further observation on Apollo Λύκιος: as commentators have noted, Apollo appears in this aspect in the first of Pindar’s Pythian Odes (39): Λύκιε καὶ Δάλοι’ ἀνάσσων, “Lycian and Delian ruler.” This poem, as I have argued elsewhere,15 has an integral role in Callimachus’ poetic self-definition, par-

11 12 13 14 15

On the soundscape of the opening of the Aetia, see Acosta-Hughes/Stephens (2002) 244. A good touch in the Theocritus poem is the appearance of the simple verb τρύζω at 140 τρύζεσκεν, here a positive motif, thus marking T’s own reading of Callimachus. Acosta-Hughes/Stephens (2012) 222–224. The recall of the Odyssey passage may in Lycidas’ characterization of Simichidas be one further note on the lineage of bucolic hexameter to Homer. Acosta-Hughes (2020).

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ticularly in the final verses of his Hymn to Apollo. The nexus of associations, Apollo Lycius/Lycidas, Hymn to Apollo/Aetia opening and Theocritus’ Thalysia, becomes closer. Central to both Idyll 7 and the opening of the Aetia is the archaic poet Hesiod’s self-described initiation at Theogony 22–34; this is recast in Idyll 7 with the exchange of Lycidas and Simichidas, and the donation of a poetic “staff”; the scepter of laurel in Hesiod’s text now becomes the λαγωβόλον in Theocritus’ poem, an instrument appropriate to the bucolic world. As the Hesiod initiation is a first-person memory, so too is the one in Theocritus’ poem. We are on slightly less sure footing with the relevant part of the opening of the Aetia due to the fragmentary nature of the text, but a scholion to fr. 2 H., fr. 2d H., describes the poet Callimachus as meeting the Muses on Mount Helicon (i.e., Hesiod’s Muses) in a dream in which the poet is a young man (ἀ]ρ̣τι̣ γένειο̣ς ̣ ὤν̣); as much of Aetia 1–2 is cast in the first person, there is no reason not to assume that this recasting of Hesiod’s initiation scene is also done as a first-person remembered narrative in Callimachus’ text. In other words, both of these Hellenistic reflections of Hesiod’s first-person remembered narrative of his own poetic initiation are cast as first-person narratives. As several commentators (in greatest detail Hunter) have sagely observed, the first-person narrated journey of Idyll 7 bears a striking resemblance to the opening of several Platonic dialogues, particularly the Lysis, the Republic, and above all the Phaedrus.16 Indeed even Lycidas’ reference in the passage cited above to a τέκτων, a builder, has a Socratic coloring.17 What one might stress here is the Platonic presence in the opening of the Aetia, where Callimachus “completes” Socrates’ effort as articulated in the Phaedo of setting Aesop to verse.18 The opening of the Aetia and Theocritus Idyll 7 share not only their models, Hesiod and Plato, but also the respective associations of these models. Let us try a Callimachean reading of another passage of Idyll 7, in this case 138–142, part of the description of the pleasance of the Demeter rite: τοὶ δὲ ποτὶ σκιαραῖς ὀροδαμνίσιν αἰθαλίωνες τέττιγες λαλαγεῦντες ἔχον πόνον· ἁ δ’ ὀλολυγών τηλόθεν ἐν πυκιναῖσι βάτων τρύζεσκεν ἀκάνθαις·

16 17

18

Hunter (1999) 145–146. Cf. the diegesis to Callim. fr. 203 (Iambus 13): ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ τὸν τέκτονά τις μέμφεται πολυειδῆ σκεύη τεκταινόμενον. While we cannot be certain of the Callimachean original, the diegete is very likely paraphrasing Callimachus’ text: see in more detail Acosta-Hughes (2002) 93– 95. Acosta-Hughes/Stephens (2012) 33–35.

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ἄειδον κόρυδοι καὶ ἀκανθίδες, ἔστενε τρυγών, πωτῶντο ξουθαὶ περὶ πίδακας ἀμφὶ μέλισσαι. On the shady branches the chattering dusky cicadas had their work. And from afar in the dense thorn-bushes the tree frog sounded. The larks and finches sang, the dove moaned, and tawny bees flew about the spring. There is a humorous verbal resonance in line 140, one that, to the best of my knowledge, has gone unnoticed in the scholarship: βάτων τρύζεσκεν. βάτων is framed by the hexameter caesuras. The agent of τρύζεσκεν is the tree frog of the previous line, ἁ δ’ ὀλολυγών, sounding in the thorn-bushes. Now βάτων, genitive plural of βάτος, “bramble bush,” is also a near homonym of βάττος, the “stammerer” first king of Cyrene from whom Callimachus famously claims descent.19 Thus Theocritus here “rewrites” the Battiad to sound pleasantly among the nettles, rather than unpleasantly as do the poet’s rivals in the opening of the Aetia (fr. 1.1 ἐπιτρύζουσιν), using the stem form of the same verb.20 The Callimachean coloring already begins with the τέττιγες of 139; Callimachus famously chooses the cicada as his songster-image in the opening of his Aetia.21 The knowing reader or audience member is thus already keyed into a Callimachean rendering from the beginning; and there may be more to this. As the commentators observe, the Theocritean hapax ὀροδαμνίς finds a close parallel in a Callimachean fragment (655 Pf.): καὶ τριτάτη Περσῆος ἐπώνυμος, ἧς ὀρόδαμνον Αἰγύπτῳ κατέπηξεν And the third takes its name from Perseus, of which he affixed a branch in Egypt. The fragment, which D’Alessio ((1996) 761 n. 129) suggests may belong to a Ptolemaic court poem, is preserved in a scholion to Nicander’s Alexipharmaca 19

20

21

Callim. Ep. 35.1 Pf. (30.1 GP): Βαττιάδεω παρὰ σῆμα φέρεις πόδας εὖ μὲν ἀοιδήν / εἰδότος, εὖ δ’ οἴνῳ καίρια συγγελάσαι, “you bear your feet by the grave of the Battiad, he who knew song well, and well how to join in laughter fittingly in wine”: cf. Hymn 2.96, Cat. c. 65.16 haec expressa tibi carmina Battiadae. Battus is also the name of one of the cowherds of Idyll 4. The association of names may, as Stephens (2018) 70 suggests, be used here to “transfer” Callimachus into the bucolic world of south Italy. Fr. 1.29–30 H. ἐνὶ τοῖς γὰρ ἀείδομεν οἳ λιγὺν ἦχον / τέττιγος, θ]όρυβον δ’ οὐκ ἐφίλησαν ὄνων, “I sing among those who love the clear sound of the cicada, not the braying of asses.”

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line 101. The tree identified in both texts is the persea tree, or medlar, which has a significant presence in Egyptian mythology; it also has a role in the text of ps.-Callisthenes (FGrHist 627 F 2), The Grand Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus. The Ptolemies claimed descent from Perseus,22 as they did from Heracles (who appears in our own poem at 150). This is then one of a number of associations with Ptolemy ii in the poem, beginning with the fact that the king was himself born on Cos. The image of the bees flying about the spring at Id. 7.142 has of course a parallel in the image of the conclusion of Callimachus’ Apollo hymn (110–112): Δηοῖ δ’ οὐκ ἀπὸ παντὸς ὕδωρ φορέουσι μέλισσαι, / ἀλλ’ ἥτις καθαρή τε καὶ ἀχράαντος ἀνέρπει / πίδακος ἐξ ἱερῆς ὀλίγη λιβὰς ἄκρον ἄωτον, “To Deo not from every spring do the bees bear water, but that which comes up pure and undefiled, from a holy source, a rare stream, the very finest.” It should be noted that the form Δηοῖ here parallels the Δηοῖ at the opening of Theocritus’ poem (3).23 Even the unusual dual preposition in περὶ πίδακας ἀμφί at line 142 appears to mirror a Callimachean usage: we find this at Hy. 4.300: Ἀστερίη θυόεσσα, σὲ μὲν περί τ’ ἀμφί τε νῆσοι, “fragrant Asteria, around and about you the islands,” and again at Hecale fr. 69.13 Hollis ὅ]σσα τότ’ [ἀ]γ[ρ]ῶσται περί [τ’] ἀμφί [τ]ε Θησέϊ βάλλον, “as many as the rustics then cast around and about Theseus.” The unparalleled use of the double preposition in Theocritus varies a rare Hellenistic, and especially Callimachean, poetic motif.24 There is further the narrative Pausanias preserves (9.23) that Pindar as a young man was fed honey by bees and so became inspired as a poet. This may be a narrative implied in Lycidas’ narrative of the confined bucolic singers at 78–85; in addition to the narrative of the confined shepherd given by the scholia (see further Hunter (1999) 175–176), the Pindar narrative may also be implicated here, paralleling the strong Pindaric presence in the opening of the Aetia. There are a few other Callimachean parallels to Theocritus Idyll 7 to which I would draw attention here. The striking arboreal scene settings at 8–9 αἴγειροι πτελέαι τε ἐύσκιον ἄλσος ὕφαινον / χλωροῖσιν πετάλοισι κατηρεφέες κομόωσαι, “poplars and elms wove a well-shaded grove, luxuriant from above with green foliage,” and 135–136 πολλαὶ δ’ ἄμμιν ὕπερθε κατὰ κρατὸς δονέοντο / αἴγειροι πτε22 23 24

Isidor. Etym. 17 7, 7 Persicam vocatum quod eam arborem primus in Aegypto severit Perseus, a quo se oriundos Ptolemaei ferebant. On the melissai priestesses of Demeter see Stephens 2015 ad loc., Petrovic (2011) 275–276. The same motif occurs (of Medea) at A.R. 3.633–634, παλλομένη δ’ ἀνόρουσε φόβῳ περί τ’ ἀμφί τε τοίχους πάπτηνεν θαλάμοιο· μόλις δ’ ἐσαγείρατο θυμόν, “shaken she rose up with fear and gazed round and about the walls of her room. Scarcely did she bring her spirit together.”

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λέαι τε, “many poplars and elms rustled above our heads” are paralleled in the description of Demeter’s grove in Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter (26–29), where note in particular that the tree Erysichthon savages is a poplar (37– 38). When Demeter appears to Erysichthon in the guise of her own priestess Nicippe in that poem, she appears with fillets and poppies in her hands (43–44 γέντο δὲ χειρί / στέμματα καὶ μάκωνα, κατωμαδίαν δ’ ἔχε κλᾷδα, “in her hands were fillets and poppies, and she had a key over her shoulder”), in part like the image of the goddess with which the Thalysia closes (156–157: ἃ δὲ γελάσσαι / δράγματα καὶ μάκωνας ἐν ἀμφοτέραισιν ἔχοισα, “she smiling, with sheaves and poppies in both hands”). And Callimachus’ Demeter is twice evoked (17 Δηοῖ and 132 Δηώ) with the same variant name that we find at the third line of Theocritus’ poem. Let us turn now to Philitas, who has something of a multifaceted presence in Idyll 7. Philitas was himself from Cos, and had served as the tutor of Ptolemy Philadelphus.25 As he is in the opening of Callimachus’ Aetia, Philitas is in Id. 7 part of the poetic self-definition voiced by Simichidas at lines 38–41: πάντες ἀοιδὸν ἄριστον· ἐγὼ δέ τις οὐ ταχυπειθής, / οὐ Δᾶν· οὐ γάρ πω κατ’ ἐμὸν νόον οὔτε τὸν ἐσθλόν / Σικελίδαν νίκημι τὸν ἐκ Σάμω οὔτε Φιλίταν / ἀείδων, βάτραχος δὲ ποτ’ ἀκρίδας ὥς τις ἐρίσδω, “all say I am the best singer. But I am not one who is easily persuaded, no, by Zeus. For in my mind I do not prevail over good Sicelidas in singing, nor Philitas, but contend as some frog among grasshoppers.”26 The poem that Callimachus refers to as the more pleasing work of Philitas in the opening of the Aetia is apparently his Demeter (Aet. 1.9–10: ......].. ρ̣εην̣ [ὀλ]ιγόστιχος· ἀλλὰ καθέλ⸤κει / ....πο⸥λὺ τὴν μακρὴν ὄμπνια Θεσμοφόρο[ς, “of few lines. But rich Demeter draws down (…) by far the long”). Only a few fragments of Philitas’ Demeter survive, one of which (fr. 21 Spanoudakis), preserved by the scholia to Theocritus 7, revealingly references the spring Bourina that Theocritus evokes at the opening of the poem (6–7): νάσσατο δ’ ἐν προχοῇσι μελαμπέτροιο Βουρίνης, “s/he lived at the sources of black-rocked Bourina.” To what extent Theocritus’ Thalysia responds to Philitas’ Demeter we can only conjecture, of course, but there are a few tantalizing hints.27 One of the new epigrams attributed to Posidippus (63 AB) represents an image of Philitas set up by Ptolemy ii:28

25 26 27 28

Fraser (1972) 308–309. Sicelidas is the epigrammatist Asclepiades, who is listed by a scholion to the Aetia (fr. 1b H.) as being among the apparent opponents of Callimachus. The possible debt of Theocritus’ Thalysia to Philitas’ Demeter is outlined in the greatest detail by Bowie (1985). On the question whether this statue and the one described at Hermesianax fr. 7.75–78 are one and the same or not see Hardie (2003).

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16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

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τ̣όνδε Φιλίται χ̣[αλ]κ̣ ὸν̣ [ἴ]ϲ̣ο̣ν̣ κα̣τὰ πάν⟨θ⟩{α} Ἑκ̣ [α]τ̣αῖοϲ ἀ]κ̣ [ρ]ι ̣β̣ὴϲ ἄκρουϲ̣ [ἔπλ]α̣ϲε̣ ν̣ εἰϲ ὄνυχαϲ, καὶ με]γ̣έθει κα̣[ὶ ϲα]ρ̣κ̣ὶ τὸν ἀνθρωπιϲτὶ διώξαϲ .....]ν’, ἀφ’ ἡρώων δ’ οὐδ̣ὲν ἔμε̣ιξ{ε} ἰδέηϲ, ἀ̣λλὰ τὸν ἀκρομέριμν̣ον ὅλ̣ [.. κ]α̣τεμάξατο τέχ̣νηι ̣ πρ]έϲ̣ βυν, ἀληθείηϲ ὀρ̣θὸν̣ [....] κ̣ ανόνα· αὐδήϲ]οντι δ’ ἔοικε̣ν̣, ὅϲωι πο̣ι ̣κ̣ ιλ̣̣́ λεται ἤθει, ἔμψυχ]ο̣ϲ, καίπερ χάλκεοϲ ἐὼν ὁ γέρων· .. Πτολε]μ̣ αίου δ’ ὧδε θ̣εοῦ θ’ ἅμα καὶ βαϲιλ⟨ῆ⟩οϲ __ ......]α̣ι Μουϲέ{ι}ων εἵνεκα Κῶιοϲ ἀνήρ. •

This bronze, in everything like Philitas, Hecataeus accurately fashioned down to the very toenails, following in height and flesh the human […], not mixing in anything of the form of heroes. But he formed the old man, him of accurate memory, with skill, [keeping] to the exact measure of truth. He seems on the point of speaking, embellished with such character, although the old man is of bronze. And here, by order of Ptolemy, at once god and king, the man from Cos [has been set up] for the sake of the Muses. I would like to focus momentarily on the sixth line of this poem, ἀληθείηϲ ὀρ̣θὸν̣ [....] κ̣ ανόνα; the image is strikingly similar to Lycidas’ πᾶν ἐπ’ ἀλαθείᾳ πεπλασμένον ἐκ Διὸς ἔρνος in his address to Simichidas, even to the imagery of accuracy in manufacture.29 The accuracy of representation is again pertinent to Simichidas’ representation of Lycidas as a goatherd: ἦς δ’ αἰπόλος, οὐδέ κέ τίς νιν / ἠγνοίησεν ἰδών, ἐπεὶ αἰπόλῳ ἔξοχ’ ἐῴκει, “he was a goatherd, nor could anyone on seeing him not recognize him, since he was so much like a goatherd.”30 We cannot now know whether the image in the Posidippus epigram was in fact erected on Cos,31 or in Alexandria, or, as one scholar suggests, perhaps both,32 but in either case the pertinence of a poem describing a statue of Philitas to a poem set on Cos that reflects Philitas in several ways is compelling.

29 30 31 32

Sens (2005) 209–213 has an excellent comparison of the two passages, and of the role of “true representation” in both. See further Stewart (2005) esp. 196–205. A perhaps minor coincidence, but both Lycidas’ cloak and Philitas (in the Posidippus epigram) are characterized as γέρων. Hardie (1997). The last option suggested by Hardie (2003) 36.

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Another line of the Thalysia may evoke one of the new poems attributed to Posidippus, though the association is here an opaque one. To line ἄειδον κόρυδοι καὶ ἀκανθίδες, “the larks and finches sang,” we can now compare one of the oionoskopika, 29 AB: v

ἐχθρὸ⟨ν⟩ ἀνὴρ κορυδοὺϲ καὶ ἀκανθί⟨δ⟩αϲ ἢν ἑνὶ χώρωι ἀθρήϲη⟨ι⟩· χαλεποὶ ϲύνδυο φαινόμενοι· ὣϲ Εὐέλθων εἶδε· κακοὶ δέ μιν αὐτὸν ὁδίτ⟨η⟩ν __ κλῶ̣ πεϲ Ϲιδήνη⟨ι⟩ κτεῖναν ἐν Αἰολίδι. 12 εχθροϲ P ακανθιαϲ P 13–14 φαινόμενοι, / ὡϲ Angiò 2002b (def. Ferrari forthc.) 14 οδιταν P, ν ex ι corr. m2

12 13 14 15

It is a bad sign when a man sees larks and finches in one place. They are dangerous when they appear together. So Euelthon learned. For wicked robbers killed him as he was walking on the road at Sidene in Aeolia. Two last smaller notes. 29–30 τὸ δὴ μάλα θυμὸν ἰαίνει / ἁμέτερον, “which very much warms my heart” is intriguingly paralleled by A.R. Arg. 2.306, here of the blind seer Phineas, οἷόν τ’ ἐν ὀνείρασι θυμὸν ἰαίνων, “warming his heart as in his dreams”; Phineas, like Lycidas, has a markedly vatic role in furthering the narrated journey. While the Homeric combination θυμὸν ἰαίνων is indeed a frequent one, the phrase used in conjunction with the two prophetic figures is striking. And while the commentators are very likely correct that the Aratus of Idyll 6 and of Simichidas’ song in Idyll 7 is unlikely to be Aratus of Soli, just the association of the name might be intended to bring the author of the Phaenomena to mind—it is surely worth noting that the poet Aratus is marked for his agrypnia (“lack of sleep”) by Callimachus (Ep. 27 Pf. = 56 GP) just as the Aratus of Simichidas’ song in Idyll 7 is characterized, though for different cause, with the same sleeplessness (122–124). And the association of Aratus with Hesiod in Callimachus’ poem may not be without pertinence to the appearance of the figure “Aratus” in Theocritus’ Hesiod-imbued Idyll. So not a masquerade, but something of a mosaic of associations of poets and their works.

2

Theocritus’ Argonautica

Four of Theocritus’ Idylls (1, 2, 13, 22) implicate Apollonius’ epic Argonautica; each of these poems does so differently. This is a striking and varied dialogue of shorter poems and a longer narrative text. Two, Idylls 13 and 22, are well known

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and the subject of considerable scholarship.33 Each of these is an example of variatio in imitatione: in Idyll 13 Hylas is kidnapped by a chorus of nymphs rather than one nymph as in Apollonius, and the relationship of Heracles and Hylas is characterized as a pederastic one (this is not true of Apollonius’ narrative).34 In Idyll 22 the boxing match of Polydeuces and Amycus is paired by the narrative of Castor and the suitors of the Leucippides, Lynceus and Idas; whereas in Theocritus’ narrative the immortal Polydeuces does not kill the brute Amycus, as happens in Apollonius’ poem, Castor does slay Lynceus and Zeus slays Idas in Theocritus’ poem. Lynceus and Idas are both members of the Argo’s crew in the Argonautica (1.151–155). Their deaths are told in Pindar’s tenth Nemean Ode; while their deaths are not evoked in Apollonius’ poem, their place immediately following that of Castor and Polydeuces in the catalogue of heroes (Arg. 1.151–155) is clearly pertinent. Idyll 22 is further fashioned as a hymn, so there is the added generic variation. In the case of Idyll 2, Simaetha’s interchange with the moon (Selene), the detailed play on Sappho fr. 31 v. (φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος) in Simaetha’s narrative of her erotic experience, and Simaetha’s early comparison of herself to Medea (16) all point to a slightly parodic reading of Medea’s experience of Eros in the Argonautica, and Apollonius’ artistic recreation of Sappho.35 To Theocritus Idylls 13 and 22 we can then certainly join Idyll 2 as a “reading” and “reception” of Apollonius’ Argonautica. Each act of reading and reception is distinctly different. Id. 22 combines the narrative of Polydeuces and Amycus, which Apollonius tells at the opening of Argonautica 2, with that of Castor and Lynceus in a dual hymn to the Dioscuri.36 Idyll 13 is told in an epistolary format, one that makes Heracles and Hylas an exemplum of homoerotic love, and one that comments subtly on Apollonius’ narrative throughout. Idyll 2 figures a suburban Medea whose gaze is confused at the sight of radiant male beauty. There is a fourth parallel, one that, to the best of my knowledge, has been unnoticed in the scholarship on the two poets. This one involves two famous ekphrases, the kissybion of Idyll 1 and the sphaira of the opening of Argonautica 3, and their remarkable similarities of language, imagery, and association. I

33 34 35 36

On Idyll 13 and the Hylas episode at the end of Argonautica 1, see now especially Heerink (2015); on Idyll 22 and the opening of Argonautica 2, Sens (1997). Even 66 σχέτλιοι οἱ φιλέοντες, “wretched are those in love,” recalls an adjective much favored by Apollonius. Acosta-Hughes (2010) 49–59. I treat this intertextual recall at greater length in AcostaHughes (2020). On the parallels of the two narratives, see the excellent discussion in Sens (1997) 24–31.

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treat this at length in Acosta-Hughes (2020), and I will repeat here that I suggest Idyll 1 is a fourth poem implicated in this episodic Theocritean reading of Apollonius’ narrative. In this case Idyll 1 reflects (in particular) Apollonius’ use of Homeric ekphrasis, his use of the archaic lyric poet Anacreon as model, and his representation of gift exchant: a simple object from a collection of Homeric “props” results in the instantiation of a song in Idyll 1, the sufferings of Daphnis, and a narrative of erotic psychology in Argonautica 3, the sufferings of Medea. There is no question but that Theocritus was a close reader of Apollonius’ poem: scholarship on Idylls 13 and 22 and their relationship to respective passages of the end of Argonautica 1 and the opening of Argonautica 2 has long established this rapport; the addition of Idylls 2 and 1 as, at least in part, Theocritean readings of Apollonius’ epic poem further both enhances and complicates the picture. If we remember that Callimachus in a part of Aetia Book 1, a part of the Aetia now only fragmentary, has an extensive treatment of the return of the Argonauts from Colchis, one which similarly implicates Apollonius’ poem,37 there results a more layered, more polyphonic reimagining of the heroic epic, a narrative that importantly included North Africa, in the Hellenistic period. The narrative of a band of Hellenic heroes set on a quest into a different, wondrous culture clearly held great significance for early Ptolemaic Alexandria with its dual culture of Greek and Egyptian.

3

Deified Queens

The recent discovery by Frank Goddio and his team of underwater archaeologists of an image in black granite of syncretic Greek and Egyptian styles that they have tentatively identified as that of Arsinoe-Aphrodite from her temple at Zephyrium in east Canopus has reawakened scholarly interest in this cult and its place in early Ptolemaic culture.38 The image combines pharaonic traits (the stance, the material, black granite, which comes from Egypt) and Hellenic ones (the transparent chiton, or wet drapery, the Isis knot that marks the image as that of a Ptolemaic queen). The viewer is particularly struck by the prevalent sexuality of the statue, which creates a marked impression of female fecundity. In light of this remarkable new image, it is well worth reconsider-

37 38

Stephens (2011) is the most recent detailed study of Callimachus’ treatment of Argo’s return. Goddio (2003) 156–157 and (2016) 92–93. I also treat this image at Acosta-Hughes (2014) 54. On the Zephyrium cult see Robert (1960) 198–202; Stephens (2005) 246–247.

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ing Theocritus’ poetic images of early Ptolemaic queens, as well as comparing these with extant Callimachean and Posidippean parallels.39 Idyll 15.106–111 vividly implicates Aphrodite, Helen, Berenice i and Sappho in an extraordinary moment of cultural amalgamation: Κύπρι Διωναία, τὺ μὲν ἀθανάταν ἀπὸ θνατᾶς, ἀνθρώπων ὡς μῦθος, ἐποίησας Βερενίκαν, ἀμβροσίαν ἐς στῆθος ἀποστάξασα γυναικός· τὶν δὲ χαριζομένα, πολυώνυμε καὶ πολύναε, ἁ Βερενικεία θυγάτηρ Ἑλένᾳ εἰκυῖα Ἀρσινόα πάντεσσι καλοῖς ἀτιτάλλει Ἄδωνιν. Cypris daughter of Dione, you made, so the story goes, Berenice immortal from mortal, distilling ambrosia into her woman’s breast. Giving favor to you, you of many names and many temples, the daughter of Berenice, who is like Helen, Arsinoe fosters Adonis with all sorts of good things. The Argive woman, cast as a professional singer (96–98), celebrates Arsinoe, and Arsinoe’s Adonis festival, in lines that essentially effect a passage from mortality to immortality, in terms that evoke both Greek (the Adoneia) and Egyptian practice (mummification). The comparison to Helen is essential: Theocritus appears here to be recalling a poetic image of Sappho (fr. 23.5 v. [ ] ξάνθαι δ’ Ἐλέναι σ’ ἐίσ[κ]ην, “to compare you with golden-haired Helen”) with a new valence in the context of Ptolemaic ruler cult. The recollection of Sappho is particularly appropriate to a portrayal of the Adonis cult with which the Lesbian poet was traditionally associated;40 it is worth adding that the epithet ῥοδόπαχυς, “rosy forearmed” of Adonis at line 128 only occurs in Sappho prior to Theocritus (cf. fr. 58.9 and 53; see also fr. 217 v). A stunning feature of this passage is the way Cypris and Adonis, whose body in death is the object of the ladies’ viewing (82–86), named in the opening and closing words of the passage cited, effectively “embrace” the Ptolemaic queens, just as at line 128 τὸν μὲν Κύπρις ἔχει, τὰν δ’ ὁ ῥοδόπαχυς Ἄδωνις, “Cypris holds him, and rosy-armed Adonis her” Cypris and Adonis embrace one another. Further Helen and her brothers the Dioscuri (subjects of Idyll 22) are mythological pivots upon which the cult of the Ptolemaic rulers as divinities is effected for their Greek sub39 40

Sadly only fragments of Apollonius’ foundation poetry survive (CA fr. 4–12). He also treated the death of Canopus in choliambics (CA fr. 1–3). Cf. Sappho fr. 117 B b, 2 v.; 168 v., 211c v., 214 v. Callimachus appears to have also been interested in the Adonis motif; cf. fr. 478 Pf.

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jects.41 They feature in two of Callimachus’ fragmentary court pieces, frr. 227 and 228 Pf. The former, termed a paroinion (drinking-song) to the Dioscuri by the diegesis to the poem, of which only five complete lines remain, opens with a mimetic evocation of a divine choral dance (Ἔνεστ’ Ἀπόλλων τῷ χορῷ· τῆς λύρης ἀκούω· / καὶ τῶν Ἐρώτων ᾐσθόμην· ἔστι κἀφροδίτη, “Apollo is in the chorus, I hear the lyre, and I perceive the Erotes, and Aphrodite is there”); this poem appears to have celebrated the Dioscuri and Helen together.42 Fr. 228 Pf., termed by the diegete the “Deification of Arsinoe,” apparently had the dead Arsinoe borne to Heaven by the Dioscuri, thus cast as Helen borne heavenward by her brothers.43 Another central piece of this mosaic is Idyll 18, Theocritus’ epithalamium of Helen and Menelaus. I have treated this poem, especially for its recollections of Sappho, extensively elsewhere, and so here add only a few summary comments.44 Helen is herself a demigod (ἡμίθεος), object of cult in Sparta (so the opening of Idyll 18), who on her death is taken unto the gods; she is a figure of Greek mythology whose wandering includes Egypt. As an avatar of Aphrodite she is a vivid model for Arsinoe, queen and future synnaos theos of the goddess. This characteristic of Helen and Menelaus renders them a particularly effective “model” for Arsinoe and her brother Ptolemy—Helen and Menelaus do not have a son and heir.45 The close fraternal relationship of Helen and her brothers Castor and Polydeuces, already a motif at Hom. Il. 3.236–242, renders her a valuable mythological model for the brother-sister marriage of Ptolemy and Arsinoe. Finally both Idylls 17 and 18 end with an image of conjugal love; the former is an explicit praise of the royal marriage and brother-sister love, the latter the celebration of a famous mythological model for the same union, the wedding of Helen and Menelaus. Idyll 18 is further remarkable for its imagery of writing; not only is there the opening metaphor of the bridal chamber as the νεόγραπτος θάλαμος, the “new painted (or ‘written’) bridal chamber,”46 but 41 42

43

44 45 46

As carefully mapped by Griffiths (1979). From the diegesis to fr. 227 Pf.: παροίνιον εἰς τοὺς Διοσκόρους· καὶ Ἑλένην ὑμνεῖ, καὶ παρακαλεῖ τὴν θυσίαν δέξασθαι, “a drinking song to the Dioscuri, and he hymns Helen, and bids them receive the sacrifice.” On fr. 226–229 Pf. individually and as a quartet, see Acosta-Hughes (2003); on Callimachean lyric see now Acosta-Hughes/Stephens (2017). Strikingly the prophecy of Castor at the end of Euripides’ Helen 1666–1669 predicts that Helen will dwell for eternity with her brothers, receiving sacrificial honors with them. For an extended treatment of fr. 228 Pf., see Acosta-Hughes (2019). Acosta-Hughes (2010) 29–39; (2015) 57. Ptolemy ii was succeeded by Ptolemy iii Euergetes, his son by Arsinoe i. See Gow ad loc., who notes that the adjective occurs only here. His interpretation is that the term “newly painted” refers to the decor, but I wonder whether this is not in fact a pun. As the scholia note, Theocritus is likely taking as his model an early wedding poem by Stesichorus, of which one surviving fragment, PMGF 187, appears to belong to an epitha-

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the chorus of girls suggests (47–48) that the plane tree’s bark be inscribed with Helen’s name, γράμματα δ’ ἐν φλοιῷ γεγράψεται, ὡς παριών τις / ἀννείμῃ Δωριστί· ‘σέβευ μ’· Ἑλένας φυτόν εἰμι, “letters will be written on its bark, that some one passing by may read in the Dorian manner ‘honor me. I am Helen’s tree.’” The motif finds a striking parallel in Callimachus’ Acontius and Cydippe episode in the third book of his elegiac Aetia, where Acontius (fr. 73 H.) wishes that the trees bear his beloved’s name.47 The emphasis on the physicality, the labor of writing is a recurrent feature of Alexandrian and then of Roman poetry. Among the new epigrams attributed to the poet Posidippus is a short section (the anathematika, “dedicatory offerings”) of six poems, 36–41 AB; the title anathematika can be clearly read in the papyrus.48 The first three of these are dedications to Arsinoe (and Arsinoe’s name is strikingly the first word in all three poems); the second, on a lyre like that of the archaic poet Arion now come to Alexandria and to Arsinoe Philadelphus, is a very revealing parallel to Theocritus’ poetry celebrating Arsinoe as both patron and figure of the arts:49 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Ἀ̣ ρϲινόη, ϲοὶ τ̣ή̣ [ν]δε λύρην ὑπὸ χειρ[......]ῦ̣ φ̣θ̣εγξαμ[ένην] δ̣ελφὶϲ ἤγαγ’ Ἀριόνιο̣[ϲ ο̣υ̣..ε̣λου[....]α̣ϲ ἐκ κύματοϲ αλλοτ[ κεῖνοϲ ἀν[....]ϲ λευκὰ περᾶι πελά[γη πολλα̣πο[....].τητι καὶ αἰόλα τῆι.[ φωνῆ̣ ι π[....]ακον κανον ἀηδον̣[ ἄνθεμα δ̣’, [ὦ Φιλ]ά̣δελφε, τὸν ἤλαϲεν [......]ίων, __ τόνδε δέ[̣ χου, .]υϲου μ⟨ε⟩ίλια ναοπόλο̣[υ.

•

To you, Arsinoe, this lyre, by the hand … giving voice a dolphin worthy of Arion’s brought … from the wave … he … crosses the white seas … and varied with its voice … nightingales … as an offering, Brother-loving one, he brought it, receive this gift from the temple-guard. As in Theocritus’ fifteenth Idyll, so here in Posidippus’ poem, earlier Greek culture comes to rest under Arsinoe’s protective hand in contemporary Alexan-

47 48 49

lamion. Hunter (1996) 151 n. 38 makes the excellent suggestion that line 2 χορὸν ἐστάσαντο may in fact allude to the poet Stesichorus; I would add the observation that νεόγραπτος can then also metaphorically refer to Theocritus’ new creation of Stesichorus’ earlier song. ἀλλ’ ἐνὶ δὴ φλοιοῖσι κεκομμένα τόσσα φέροιτε / γράμματα, Κυδίππην ὅσσ’ ἐρέουσι καλήν, “but may you bear on your bark so many letters inscribed as will say that Cydippe is beautiful.” P. Mil. Vogl. viii 309; on the anathematika see esp. Stephens (2004). Text from https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/1341, which also offers extensive critical commentary.

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dria.50 A simple figure, the temple guard, has set up this offering, as the simple figures Gorgo and Praxinoa (and the Argive singer) gaze upon Arsinoe’s benevolence in her Adonis festival. And like the nautilus shell in Callimachus Ep. 5 Pf. (14 GP), this dedicated by Selenaea the daughter or Cleinias from Smyrna, the dedicated object here in the Posidippus epigram has journeyed to Alexandria, to the new cultural magnet. Theocritus takes part with the other poets of the Ptolemaic court in portraying a compelling image of royal cultural patronage and royal divine cult.

4

The Language of Poetry

To stay for a moment with Idyll 15, on viewing the display at the Adonis festival at the royal palace, Gorgo and Praxinoa exclaim at the sight in terms that are evocative of contemporary poetics: {γο.} Πραξινόα, πόταγ’ ὧδε. τὰ ποικίλα πρᾶτον ἄθρησον, λεπτὰ καὶ ὡς χαρίεντα· θεῶν περονάματα φασεῖς. {πρ.} πότνι’ Ἀθαναία, ποῖαί σφ’ ἐπόνασαν ἔριθοι, ποῖοι ζωογράφοι τἀκριβέα γράμματ’ ἔγραψαν. ὡς ἔτυμ’ ἑστάκαντι καὶ ὡς ἔτυμ’ ἐνδινεῦντι, ἔμψυχ’, οὐκ ἐνυφαντά. σοφόν τι χρῆμ’ ἄνθρωπος. αὐτὸς δ’ ὡς θαητὸς ἐπ’ ἀργυρέας κατάκειται κλισμῶ, πρᾶτον ἴουλον ἀπὸ κροτάφων καταβάλλων, ὁ τριφίλητος Ἄδωνις, ὁ κἠν Ἀχέροντι φιληθείς. {Gorgo} Praxinoa, come here. Look first at these variegated [sc. tapestries], how fine they are and how graceful. You will say they are the garments of the gods. {Praxinoa} Lady Athena, what wool-workers labored at these, what artists drew such accurate lines! How truly they stand and how truly they turn, alive, not woven. Man is a clever thing. And he how wonderful he is, he lies on his silver couch, showing forth the first down from his temples, thrice-loved Adonis, Adonis loved even on the shores of Acheron.

50

A striking feature of this poem is the play in sound/letters of Ἀρσινόη/Ἁριόνιος bracketing the “voice-giving lyre” of the first couplet, the Alexandrian queen thus aligned with the archaic poet.

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Three terms of Gorgo’s initial exclaimed admiration are representative of contemporary Alexandrian aesthetics: ποικίλος, “varied” or “variegated,” λεπτός, “fine,” and χαρίεις, “graceful”; in other words, Gorgo praises the coverings in terms that, while themselves frequent in Archaic poetry, are particularly relevant to the contemporary metapoetics of Theocritus’ era, with its emphasis on the finely wrought.51 Typical too of this period is the focus on artistic labor in Praxinoa’s response.52 Further the observation that the figures stand “truly” (ὡς ἔτυμ’) reflects an ongoing contemporary awareness (so e.g., Callim. fr. 75.76 πρέσβυς ἐτητυμίῃ μεμελημένος, “the old man (sc. Xenomedes) mindful of truth”) of truth and falsehood in representation.53 This metapoetic dialectic is a characteristic feature of Theocritus’ verse, of which a few examples will have to suffice here. Callimachus’ desire (Aet. fr. 1.29–30 H.) to be counted among the cicadas that feed on dew is reflected in Theocritus’ celebration of poetic success in terms of the cicada’s song (Id. 1.148 τέττιγος ἐπεὶ τύγα φέρτερον ᾄδεις, “since you sing better than the cicada”), and in a recurrence of the trope of the cicada feeding on dew at Id. 4.16 μὴ πρῶκας σιτίζεται ὥσπερ ὁ τέττιξ; “and not feed on dew-drops like the cicada?” As in the opening fragment of Callimachus’ Aetia (fr. 1.16 ἀ̣[ηδονίδες] δ̣’ ὧδε μελιχρ[ό]τεραι, “so are songs sweeter”), the nightingale for Theocritus evokes especially superior song, as at Id. 5.136– 137 οὐ θεμιτόν, Λάκων, ποτ’ ἀηδόνα κίσσας ἐρίσδειν, / οὐδ’ ἔποπας κύκνοισι· τὺ δ’, ὦ τάλαν, ἐσσὶ φιλεχθής, “it is not permitted, Lacon, that jays contend with nightingales, nor the hoopoes with swans, but you, wretch, are contentious.” A singer, ἀοιδός, figures as a calling (so Id. 10.22–23 καί τι κόρας φιλικὸν μέλος ἀμβάλευ. ἅδιον οὕτως / ἐργαξῇ. καὶ μὰν πρότερόν ποκα μουσικὸς ἦσθα, “strike up some lovesong for your girl. You will work thus with more pleasure (lit. ‘more sweetly’); you were earlier once musical”). In the case of Polyphemus (Id. 11), this is even 51

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For ποικίλος cf. Callim. fr. 202.27 πολλὰ τ̣εχ̣ νήεντα ποικ[ίλ]α γλ[υφῇ (Iambus 12 of the toys carved by Athena); Hy. 2.81–82 ἄνθεα μὲν φορέουσιν ἐν εἴαρι τόσσα περ Ὧραι / ποικίλ’ ἀγινεῦσι ζεφύρου πνείοντος ἐέρσην, of the flowers at the Carnea; A.R. 4.1143–1145 ἄνθεα δέ σφι / νύμφαι ἀμεργόμεναι λευκοῖς ἐνὶ ποικίλα κόλποις / ἐσφόρεον. Pindar is partial to this term (Olymp. 4.2, 6.87, Nem. 4.14, 5.42); its use by his Hellenistic emulators may be meant as a Pindaric marker. At Aet. fr. 1.24 Lycian Apollo famously enjoins the poet to “nourish the slender Muse” θρέψαι, τὴ]ν̣ Μοῦσαν δ’ ὠγαθὲ λεπταλέην. Note in 81 ποῖοι ζωογράφοι τἀκριβέα γράμματ’ ἔγραψαν how repetition of the γραπ- root emphasizes the extent of the work; ἀκριβής is another key term of the poetics of this period. Cf. Id. 12.34–37: ὄλβιος ὅστις παισὶ φιλήματα κεῖνα διαιτᾷ. / ἦ που τὸν χαροπὸν Γανυμήδεα πόλλ’ ἐπιβῶται / Λυδίῃ ἶσον ἔχειν πέτρῃ στόμα, χρυσὸν ὁποίῃ / πεύθονται, μὴ φαῦλος, ἐτήτυμον ἀργυραμοιβοί, “happy is he who judges those kisses, and perhaps he prays often to bright-eyed Ganymede that his mouth may be like that stone in Lydia with which the silver-changers learn that gold is true, not false.”

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a calling that can be gently parodied: Οὕτω τοι Πολύφαμος ἐποίμαινεν τὸν ἔρωτα / μουσίσδων, ῥᾷον δὲ διᾶγ’ ἢ εἰ χρυσὸν ἔδωκεν, “thus did Polyphemus shepherd his love with singing, and fared more easily than if he had given gold.” A song such as Thyrsis’ τὰ Δάφνιδος ἄλγεα can feature on multiple occasions (Id. 1.19–20 and 24); the same theme recurs at Id. 5.20 and again at Id. 7.73–74. Both Theocritus and Apollonius play on the vatic image of the poet as voice of the Muses: Theocritus figures poets as ὑποφῆται, “interpreters” of the Muses at Id. 17.115 and then with a variation on the theme at Id. 22.116 εἰπέ, θεά, σὺ γὰρ οἶσθα· ἐγὼ δ’ ἑτέρων ὑποφήτης / φθέγξομαι ὅσσ’ ἐθέλεις σὺ καὶ ὅππως τοι φίλον αὐτῇ, “tell me goddess, for you know, and I, as interpreter for others, will give voice to whatever you wish and as will be dear to you.”54 Apollonius at Arg. 1.22 wishes that the Muses be the interpreters of his song, again with variation on the image of oracle interpretation: Μοῦσαι δ’ ὑποφήτορες εἶεν ἀοιδῆς, “may the Muses be the interpreters of my song,” a rapport which is then recalled and varied in the course of the poem.55 Typical too of this period is an emphasis on the physical activity of writing, and its result, the papyrus roll. So Posidippus in his Doricha epigram (122 AB = 17 GP) famously contrasts the ephemeral nature of human possessions and human activity with the permanence of Sappho’s song preserved in the σελίδες, columns, of papyrus rolls (6). Theocritus in Id. 16, The Graces or Hiero, plays on the χάριτες as both the Graces who figure particularly in Pindar’s poetry and poems themselves, here figured as well as papyrus rolls: Τίς γὰρ τῶν ὁπόσοι γλαυκὰν ναίουσιν ὑπ’ ἠῶ ἡμετέρας Χάριτας πετάσας ὑποδέξεται οἴκῳ ἀσπασίως, οὐδ’ αὖθις ἀδωρήτους ἀποπέμψει; αἳ δὲ σκυζόμεναι γυμνοῖς ποσὶν οἴκαδ’ ἴασι, πολλά με τωθάζοισαι, ὅτ’ ἀλιθίην ὁδὸν ἦλθον, ὀκνηραὶ δὲ πάλιν κενεᾶς ἐν πυθμένι χηλοῦ ψυχροῖς ἐν γονάτεσσι κάρη μίμνοντι βαλοῖσαι, ἔνθ’ αἰεί σφισιν ἕδρη, ἐπὴν ἄπρακτοι ἵκωνται. For who of those, however so many dwell below the grey sky, will receive our Graces gladly with open house, and not send them back without a gift? But they, when they come home with naked feet, are angry, and much do they berate me, because they went on a vain journey, and hesitant they

54 55

See Sens’ (1997) very helpful note ad loc; Clauss (1993) 17–20; Hunter (1993) 125. See Feeney (1991) 90–93.

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remain, their heads bowed over cold knees, in the bottom of their empty coffer, where is ever their place, when they return without achievement. The Charites in this poem are somewhat polyvalent figures, evoking, as scholars have often noted, not only e.g., Pindar’s Charites (who figure esp. vividly at the opening of Olymp. 14) but also traditions of children’s begging songs,56 and quite possibly a vivid anecdote about the poet Simonides that plays on the “value” of χάρις rather than money as the poet’s reward for his task of encomium.57 The poem’s concluding lines, τί γὰρ Χαρίτων ἀγαπητόν / ἀνθρώποις ἀπάνευθεν; ἀεὶ Χαρίτεσσιν ἅμ’ εἴην, “For what is beloved for men apart from the Graces? Ever may I be together with the Graces” repeats the play on χάρις as both Grace and poem/papyrus roll, signing off in a way at once traditionally poetic and at the same time a marker of an era conscious of “a culture of the book.” Hunter in his masterful study of this poem and its earlier poetic models has called attention in particular to the close relationship of Pindar’s first Pythian Ode and Theocritus Idyll 16.58 I have recently argued that Pythian 1 is an important model for Callimachus’ self-definition at the conclusion of his Hymn to Apollo;59 this would suggest that the two poets share the opening poem of the Pythian Odes as a poetic model, and are at the same time engaging in a poetic dialectic with one another. Here we should recall Callimachus’ epigram on the completion of the Aetia (51 Pf. = 15 GP), a poem which plays on a very similar dual valence of χάρις as the “grace” given by poet to patron and as poem/papyrus role: Τέσσαρες αἱ Χάριτες· ποτὶ γὰρ μία ταῖς τρισὶ τήναις ἄρτι ποτεπλάσθη κἦτι μύροισι νοτεῖ. εὐαίων ἐν πᾶσιν ἀρίζηλος Βερενίκα, ἇς ἄτερ οὐδ’ αὐταὶ ταὶ Χάριτες Χάριτες. Four are the Graces. For amidst the other three just now a new one has been fashioned, still moist with perfume. Berenice, splendid, blessed among all, without whom the very Graces are not Graces. The four-line poem plays on the concept of the four-book Aetia as four Graces, and at the same time as four papyrus-rolls; there is then a resulting play with 56 57 58 59

Dover (1971) 217–218. Preserved at Stobaeus 3.10.38. Hunter (1996) 84–87. Acosta-Hughes (2020).

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line 2, where the Grace still wet with perfumes is a metaphor for the Lock of Berenice, the final episode of Aetia 4.60 One might push the conceptual metaphor even a step further and think of the four lines of the poem as four papyrus rolls in their capsa—the visual aspect of epigram is often worthy of our attention. The Charites have a further component in that the Parian Graces is the first formal aition of Aetia 1 (fr. 3–7b Harder); the number of Charites is usually (though not always) three, so the addition of the final Grace (Berenice) does indeed make the Charites four in number. Clearly both Callimachus and Theocritus are playing on the same motif, charis as the goddess, charis as the favor guaranteed by poetry, and that poetic charis embodied, as it were, in the charis containing papyrus roll. Recent reconsideration of the Hellenistic court has encouraged our thinking more widely on the court as a setting for performance, whether imagined as formal occasions or in symposiastic settings.61 In our conceptualization of performance occasion, we may want to move away from the finality of e.g., earlier book publication, and think more along the lines of e.g., internet publication, which allows for ongoing updating and enhancement. At issue is far less chronological priority of poetic works than a shared poetic dialectic around their composition, performance, and indeed reperformance.62 In this dialectic Theocritus is clearly a very active participant.

Bibliography Acosta-Hughes, B. (2002), Polyeideia. The Iambi of Callimachus and the Archaic Iambic Tradition (Berkeley). Acosta-Hughes, B. (2010), Arion’s Lyre. Archaic Lyric into Hellenistic Poetry (Princeton). Acosta-Hughes, B. (2014), “À l’image d’Hélène ou Comment se figurer une reine: sur quelques representations d’Arsinoé ii,” in M. Dojannot-Le Blanc/C. Pouzadoux/ E. Prioux (eds.), L’Héroïque et le Champêtre. Vol. ii. Appropriation et déconstruction des théories stylistiques dans la pratique des artistes et dans les modalités d’exposition des oeuvres (Paris).

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Further on this poem as epigram on the completion of the Aetia, see Acosta-Hughes/ Stephens (2012) 222–225; Petrovic, A. and I. (2011). A recent important addition is the 2017 collection of Erskine, Llewllyn-Jones and Wallace. A recent important addition in this area is the 2017 collection of Hunter/Uhlig; while the main focus of the collection is lyric and drama many of the underlying methodological concepts can be broadly applied. Particularly noteworthy for the present study is D’Alessio’s article in this collection.

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Acosta-Hughes, B. (2019), “A Lost Pavane for a Dead Princess. Call. Fr. 228 Pf.,” in J.J.H. Klooster/M.A. Harder/R.F. Regtuit/G.C. Wakker (eds.), Callimachus Revisited. New Perspectives in Callimachean Scholarship (Leuven) 5–25. Acosta-Hughes, B. (2020), “In the Glassy Stream. Some Further Thoughts on Callimachus and Pindar,” in A. Rengakos/P. Finglass/B. Zimmermann (eds.), More Than Homer Knew. Studies on Homer and His Ancient Commentators (Berlin/Boston) 485– 499. Acosta-Hughes, B./Stephens, S. (2002), “Rereading Callimachus Aetia, fr. 1,” CPh 97, 238– 255. Acosta-Hughes, B./Stephens, S. (2012), Callimachus in Context. From Plato to the Augustan Poets (Cambridge). Acosta-Hughes, B./Lehnus, L./Stephens, S. (eds.) (2011), Brill’s Companion to Callimachus (Leiden). Atallah, W. (1966), Adonis dans la littérature et l’art grecs (Paris). Bernardini, P./Bravi, L. (2002), “Note di lettura al nuovo Posidippo,” QUCC 70, 147–163. Bowie, E.L. (1985), “Theocritus’ Seventh Idyll, Philetas and Longus,” CQ 35, 67–91. Cameron, A. (1963), “The Form of the ‘Thalysia,’” in Miscellanea di Studi Alessandrini in memoria di Augusto Rostagni (Turin) 291–307. Clauss, J.J. (1993), The Best of the Argonauts. The Redefinition of the Epic Hero in Book 1 of Apollonius’s Argonautica (Berkeley). Clauss, J.J. (2003), “Once upon a Time on Cos: A Banquet with Pan on the Side in Theocritus Idyll 7,” HSCP 101, 289–302. Cozzoli, A.T. (2015), “Un dialogo tra poeti. Apollonio Rodio e Teocrito,”Lexis 33, 218–240. D’Alessio, G.B. (2007), Callimaco. Inni, Epigrammi, Frammenti (Milan). Dover, K. (1971), Theocritus. Select Poems (Bristol). Erskine, A./Llewellyn-Jones, L./Wallace, S. (eds.) (2017), The Hellenistic Court. Monarchic Power and Elite Society from Alexander to Cleopatra (Swansea). Feeney, D. (1991), The Gods in Epic (Oxford). Fraser, P.M. (1972), Ptolemaic Alexandria, 3 vols. (Oxford). Gow, A.S.F. (1952), Theocritus, 2nd edition, 2 vols. (Cambridge). Griffiths, F.T. (1979), Theocritus at Court (Leiden). Gutzwiller, K. (ed.) (2005), The New Posidippus. A Hellenistic Poetry Book (Oxford). Hardie, A. (1997), “Philetas and the Plane Tree” ZPE 119, 21–36. Hardie, A. (2003), “The Statue(s) of Philetas (P. Mil. Vogl. 309 col. x. 16–25 and Hermesianax fr. 7.75–78 P.),” ZPE 143, 27–36. Heerink, M. (2015) Echoing Hylas. A Study in Hellenistic and Roman Metapoetics (Madison). Hunter, R.L. (1993), The Argonautica of Apollonius. Literary Studies (Cambridge). Hunter, R.L. (1996), Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry (Cambridge). Hunter, R.L. (1999), Theocritus. A Selection (Cambridge).

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Hunter, R.L./Uhlig (eds.) (2017), Imagining Reperformance in Ancient Culture. Studies in the Traditions of Drama and Lyric (Cambridge). Nauta, R. (2010), “Callimachus’ Sacrifice to Apollo Lykios,” in Dijkstra, J./Kroesen, J./ Kuiper, Y. (eds.), Myths, Martyrs and Modernity: Studies in the History of Religions in Honour of Jan N. Bremmer (Leiden) 167–177. Petrovic, A./I. Petrovic (2003), “Stop and Smell the Statues: Callimachus’ Epigram 51 Pf. Reconsidered (4 Times),” MD 51, 79–208. Petrovic, I. (2011), “Callimachus and Contemporary Religion: The Hymn to Apollo,” in Acosta-Hughes et al. (2011) 264–285. Reitzenstein, R. (1893), Epigramm und Skolion: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der alexandrinischen Dichtung (Giessen). Robert, L. (1966), “Sur un décret d’Ilion et sur un papyrus concernant des cultes royaux,” in A.E. Samuel (ed.), Essays in Honor of C. Bradford Welles (New Haven). Sens, A. (1997), Theocritus: Dioscuri (Idyll 22) (Göttingen). Sens, A. (2005), “The Art of Poetry and the Poetry of Art: The Unity and Poetics of Posidippus’ Statue-Poems,” in Gutzwiller (2005) 206–225. Stewart, A. (2005) “Posidippus and the Truth in Sculpture,” in Gutzwiller (2005) 183– 205. Spanoudakis, K. (2002), Philitas of Cos (Leiden). Stephens, S.A. (2004), “For You, Arsinoe …,” in B. Acosta-Hughes/E. Kosmetatou/ M. Baumbach (eds.), Labored in Papyrus Leaves. Perspectives on an Epigram Collection Attributed to Posidippus (P. Mil. Vogl. viii 309) (Washington) 161–176. Stephens, S.A. (2005), “Battle of the Books,” in K. Gutzwiller (ed.), The New Posidippus. A Hellenistic Poetry Book (Oxford) 229–248. Stephens, S.A. (2011), “Remapping the Mediterranean: The Argo Adventure in Apollonius and Callimachus,” in D. Obbink/R. Rutherford (eds.), Culture in Pieces. Essays on Ancient Texts in Honour of Peter Parsons (Oxford) 188–207. Stephens, S.A. (2015), Callimachus. The Hymns (Oxford). Stephens, S.A. (2018), The Poets of Alexandria (London). Williams, F. (1971), “A Theophany in Theocritus,” CQ 21, 137–145.

chapter 23

Rulers and Patrons in Theocritus Dee L. Clayman

Like his contemporaries Callimachus and Posidippus, Theocritus wrote poems in honor of the Ptolemies in a variety of forms.1 Idyll 17 is a fully fashioned encomium for Ptolemy ii Philadelphus, while Idylls 14 and 15 are mimes that explicitly mention him by name along with other members of his immediate family.2 Additionally a small fragment of a poem called Berenice survives (fr. 3 = Ath. 7.284a), which likely refers to Berenice i, Philadelphus’ mother.3 Supplementing outright praise, Frederick Griffiths has demonstrated that Idylls 13, 18, 22, 24 and 26, which honor deities central to the Ptolemies’ carefully constructed public image, also belong to the category of court poetry.4 All are discussed below as well as Idyll 16, a satire on praise poetry which contains an anti-encomium for Hiero ii of Syracuse.

Background Poets have to eat, and our earliest evidence in Homer and Hesiod suggests two ways in which they could be remunerated for their important cultural services: through the direct largess of wealthy individuals, or in contests where they could contend for prizes as well as prestige.5 The former source of support

1 The contemporary study of Theocritus’ poems for the Ptolemies was launched by Griffiths (1979). Its influence is clear throughout the study that follows, even when it is not cited specifically. The standard text and commentary is Gow (1965). The translations below are my own. 2 Ptolemy Philadelphus is named at Id. 14.59, 15.22, 15.46 and Id. 17.3 and passim. His wife and sister Arsinoe ii appears at Id. 15.111, Philadelphus’ father, Ptolemy i Soter, at Id. 17.14, and his last wife, Berenice i, who was the mother of Philadelphus and Arsinoe ii, at Idylls 15.107, 15.110, 17.34 and 17.46. 3 The fragment concerns the sacrifice of a fish to “this goddess,” whom Gow (1965) 2.521 identifies as Berenice i, though it may also be Aphrodite who participates in Berenice’s deification (Idylls 15.106–108 and 17.45–50). 4 Griffiths (1979) 51–106. 5 Theocritus himself seems to invoke both strategies for remunerating poets in 17.112–116. The earliest evidence of poets at court is Od. 8.73–82 where the bard Demodocus performs at the

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was less precarious than the latter, and savvy poets could create opportunities for ongoing patronage relationships by including contents that their audiences would find gratifying. For example, a poet could promise a patron eternal fame through the medium of verse, as Ibycus (Fr. S151.47–48 PMGF) offers to Polycrates, sixth-century tyrant of Samos, in our earliest specimen of patronage poetry.6 Poets could also promote the genealogical claims of a potential benefactor with a carefully chosen myth, as Pindar recounts the story of Oedipus, from whom his patron, Theron of Acragas, claimed descent (Ol. 2.34–47). It was helpful if a patron wished to be thought of as a champion of culture, and even better if he was one in fact. In the fifth century, Simonides and Pindar, who frequented the courts of Hiero i and Theron among others, benefitted from their support for the arts, and it will be clear below that their work looms large in the court poetry of Theocritus. Like the Macedonian kings before them,7 the Ptolemies were avid supporters and promulgators of Greek culture. The range of possibilities and occasions for performance in and around their court can be seen in the work of Callimachus, whose extant fragments include ten epigrams, elegies, hymns and more for various Ptolemies,8 and in Posidippus’ epigrams celebrating the temple of Arsinoe/Aphrodite on Cape Zephyrium (39, 116, and 119 AB), and their equestrian victories at crown contests (78, 79, 82, 87, and 88 AB).9 It is this company of accomplished court poets that Theocritus joined in Alexandria for at least part of his professional life. We do not know how or when he arrived, though Idylls 15 and 17 presuppose that Arsinoe ii is alive and married to Philadelphus, so he was present at some time between c. 275 and 270bce.10 Nor do we know what his relationship was to the other literary lights of Ptolemy’s court, though he was apparently received as a peer because his poetry seems to touch occasionally on theirs, or their poetry on his.11 Though

6 7

8 9 10 11

court of Alcinous, King of Phaeacia, and in Od. 1.325–327 Phemius sings in Odysseus’ own palace in Ithaca. The earliest reference to musical contests is from Hesiod who tells how he won a tripod in Chalcis at the games of Amphidamas (Op. 654–657). Text and discussion in Weber (1992) 48–51. Euripides wrote an Archelaus, now lost, for the Macedonian king (413–399bce) of the same name, which contains a long genealogy tracing the Argeads’ descent from Heracles, and it was in Pella that he wrote his Bacchae. On the Archelaus, see Hecht (2017) 19–26, 40–78, 169–272; Harder (1985) 123–144, 145–168 and for the text, Kannicht (2004). On the cultural scene in Pella at this time, see Weber (1992) 64–68 and on the poets with Alexander the Great, 68–70. See Barbantani (2011) on Callimachus’ poems for kings and Prioux (2011), for queens. On Posidippus’ poems for the Ptolemies, see Stephens (2005) and Fantuzzi (2005). On the controversies surrounding both dates, see Carney (2013) 70–71 and 104–105. For discussion of some of the most significant points of contact between Theocritus, Cal-

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Theocritus is not associated with the Library or Museum in the scholia or other ancient sources, his poetry for the Ptolemies indicates that he found a place at their court where his literary gifts were welcome and rewarded. One way in which Theocritus may have introduced himself to the court is through literary competitions, a feature of Greek culture at least as early as Hesiod and widespread in the Hellenistic age.12 A scholion in the Antinoe papyrus indicates that the final verses of Idyll 24 were a request to Heracles to bring victory to the poet.13 Given Heracles’ central place in the Ptolemaic pantheon, it is likely that the contest took place in or around Alexandria. Another indication of Theocritus’ interest in literary contests comes from Idyll 17, where the poet praises Philadelphus’ generosity (112–116): οὐδὲ Διωνύσου τις ἀνὴρ ἱεροὺς κατ’ ἀγῶνας ἵκετ’ ἐπιστάμενος λιγυρὰν ἀναμέλψαι ἀοιδάν, ᾧ οὐ δωτίναν ἀντάξιον ὤπασε τέχνας. Μουσάων δ’ ὑποφῆται ἀείδοντι Πτολεμαῖον ἀντ’ εὐεργεσίης. Nor has any man, who knows how to play a sweet song, gone down to the holy contests of Dionysus and not received a gift worthy of his art. The interpreters of the Muses sing of Ptolemy in return for his good works. While these lines do not guarantee that Theocritus himself was victor in a contest, they seem to be written from a winner’s perspective, and can also be read as an indirect request for a prize. It has even been suggested that Idyll 17 itself was a prize-winning poem, but there is no proof. He must, in any case, have included himself among the “interpreters of the Muses” (Id. 17.115) because he uses the phrase also in Id. 16.29 where the narrator speaks in the first person, as if he were the poet. A particularly skillful contestant would certainly have come to the notice of the court, but to forge a lasting career there, as Theocritus did, he had to negoti-

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limachus, and Apollonius, see Köhnken (2001) and Hutchinson (1988) 190–199. See also Acosta-Hughes, this volume. On Ptolemaic literary contests, see Weber (1993), 165–182. Prominent among these was the Ptolemaea, established by Philadelphus in 279/8 in honor of his father, which included musical as well as athletic contests, Fraser (1972) 231–233. Details about the contest are known from a decree posted by delegates of the Nesiotic League accepting the king’s invitation to participate (Syll.3, 390). Hunt/Johnson (1930) 55; Gow (1950) 2.436–437. Gow compares this request to a similar one in Homeric Hymn 6.19–20.

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ate the intricacies of its organization and etiquette. Strootman has shown that the social system of the Ptolemaic court was based on the principle of philia, a form of ritualized friendship presupposing a mutual exchange of goods and services.14 In its traditional form “friends” were understood as equals, but it is clear that this was by no means the case in Alexandria.15 The royals were first among equals, and the network of relations below them was an elaborate hierarchy of titles and privileges in which each “friend” gave and received well-defined “gifts.” In this arrangement the poets had an important role to play. Their gifts had political and social value for the monarchs, and in return they received more tangible reward, probably financial support. The last could be disguised or downplayed to preserve the illusion of equality that underlay the whole system, and irony was a useful tool for this purpose. Theocritus’ Idyll 14 illustrates precisely how this could be done.

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1.1 Idyll 14, “Aeschinas and Thyonichus” This poem is the record of a conversation between two old friends named in the title. Aeschinas complains that he is not doing well since his lover left him after he assaulted her at a symposium. The morose, jilted lover is a stock character in sympotic epigram, while physical violence and characters like these who speak in clichés suggest mime and especially comedy.16 This seems like an unpromising context for praise poetry, yet when Aeschinas announces that he will cure his love-sickness by sailing abroad and becoming a mercenary, Thyonichus replies that “Ptolemy is the best paymaster for a free man” (Id. 14.59) and adds this description of the king (61–65): εὐγνώμων, φιλόμουσος, ἐρωτικός, εἰς ἄκρον ἁδύς, εἰδὼς τὸν φιλέοντα, τὸν οὐ φιλέοντ’ ἔτι μᾶλλον, πολλοῖς πολλὰ διδούς, αἰτεύμενος οὐκ ἀνανεύων, οἷα χρὴ βασιλῆ’· αἰτεῖν δὲ δεῖ οὐκ ἐπὶ παντί, Αἰσχίνα. Prudent, friend of the arts, sensual, sweet as can be; knows his friends, and more important, his enemies; gives much to many; does not refuse 14 15 16

Strootman (2017) 63–73. Petrovic (2017) 148–155 illustrates how Alexandrian poetry reflects the court hierarchies. Hunter (1996) 110–116.

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when someone asks, which a king should do, but do not ask all the time, Aeschinas. Here Thyonichus presents Ptolemy as a fellow symposiast who behaves like an ideal aristocratic drinking partner: social, cultured, generous to a fault. He knows his friends and rewards their appropriate requests for aid. There are two levels of irony here. In the first, the praise of Ptolemy is undercut by its source, an ordinary man who could not possibly know whether or not what he says is true. The other irony is that Aeschinas, as a mere soldier, will never sit at the same table as Ptolemy or ask him personally for anything. His “gift” will be a soldier’s pay and his “friendship” with the king, a service contract. Thyonichus and Aeschinas accept the rhetoric of the court without questioning it, but the poet is clear that all friendships with the king are fictive including, in all likelihood, his own.17 1.2

Idyll 15, “The Women from Syracuse” or “The Women at the Festival of Adonis” Embedding praise for the Ptolemies in the conversation of ordinary people ironizes it, but also could suggest to the royals that their regime was widely popular, at least with the Greek-speaking population of Alexandria. Idyll 15 is a record of the conversation of two housewives, Gorgo and Praxinoa, during a trip to the royal palace to attend the Adonia, an annual festival honoring Aphrodite and her young lover Adonis. Their banter along the way provides an opportunity to overhear what the people think of the royals. Here is Praxinoa in the crowded street (46–48): πολλά τοι, ὦ Πτολεμαῖε, πεποίηται καλὰ ἔργα, ἐξ ὧ ἐν ἀθανάτοις ὁ τεκών· οὐδεὶς κακοεργός δαλεῖται τὸν ἰόντα παρέρπων Αἰγυπτιστί You have done many lovely things, Ptolemy, since your father joined the immortals. No rascal, creeping up alongside, like an Egyptian, injures you as you walk along. Praxinoa appreciates law and order that she associates with the regime and also reveals the social prejudices that shore up her own self-image as a Greek in Egypt. It is not only her Greek identity that matters to her, but her Doric ori-

17

See also Hunter (2003) 34–36, Weber (1993) 207–208, Burton (1992) 241–242.

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gins. When a man in the crowd complains about the women’s “broad speech” she lashes out (89–93): μᾶ, πόθεν ὥνθρωπος; τί δὲ τίν, εἰ κωτίλαι εἰμές; πασάμενος ἐπίτασσε· Συρακοσίαις ἐπιτάσσεις. ὡς εἰδῇς καὶ τοῦτο, Κορίνθιαι εἰμὲς ἄνωθεν, ὡς καὶ ὁ Βελλεροφῶν. Πελοποννασιστὶ λαλεῦμες, Δωρίσδειν δ’ ἔξεστι, δοκῶ, τοῖς Δωριέεσσι. What! Where’s the man from? What’s it to him if we blabber away? Give orders where you’re in charge. You’re bossing around Syracusans. So you know this too, we’re originally Corinthians, like Bellerophon.18 We chitchat in Peloponnesian. It’s right that Dorians speak Dorian, I think. Macedonians were also Doric speakers and Hunter has shown how this dialect distinction had social cachet in the Ptolemaic court where Greeks from all over, as well as Egyptians and foreigners, competed for places close to the royal inner circle.19 Theocritus came to Alexandria from Syracuse, was himself a Doric speaker, and might well want to remind Ptolemy of this connection between them.20 The scene in the streets and outside the palace is crowded, chaotic, and multi-ethnic, but the ladies manage to get inside where they admire the fineness of elegant tapestries, especially their lifelike rendition of Adonis reclining on a silver couch (80–86). The extravagance of the display within suggests not only the wealth of the royal inhabitants, but also their piety, especially that of Arsinoe ii, who organized the event. It is she who donated the flowers, fruits, and other precious offerings that adorn a central tableau where Aphrodite is represented in a mutual embrace with a still-living Adonis. The details are narrated in a song performed by “the Argive woman’s daughter” addressed first to the goddess (106–111):

18 19 20

Bellerophon was the grandson of Sisyphus, king of Ephyra (Il. 6.152–155), an old name for Corinth (Paus. 2.1.9), mother-city of Syracuse. Hunter (2005) 195–196. Callimachus, a Dorian speaker from Cyrene, uses Doric forms to create an illusion of intimacy with Berenice ii, his 4th Grace, in Epigram 15 GP = AP 5.146, see Clayman (2016). In Idyll 15 Doric also recalls mime’s Sicilian roots. On Theocritus’ Doric see Hunter (1996) 28– 45 and Tribulato, this volume, and on the scholiast’s assertion of Sophron’s influence, see the cautions of Gow (1965) 2. 33–35, 265–266 and Hunter (1996) 116–123.

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Κύπρι Διωναία, τὺ μὲν ἀθανάταν ἀπὸ θνατᾶς, ἀνθρώπων ὡς μῦθος, ἐποίησας Βερενίκαν, ἀμβροσίαν ἐς στῆθος ἀποστάξασα γυναικός· τὶν δὲ χαριζομένα, πολυώνυμε καὶ πολύναε, ἁ Βερενικεία θυγάτηρ Ἑλένᾳ εἰκυῖα Ἀρσινόα πάντεσσι καλοῖς ἀτιτάλλει Ἄδωνιν. Cypris, daughter of Dione, you made the mortal Berenice immortal, as men say, when you dripped ambrosia on her womanly breast. Pleasing you, who have many names and many temples, Berenice’s daughter Arsinoe, who is like Helen, tends Adonis with many lovely things. Aphrodite with her many temples was the rare Olympian with a major cult site near Alexandria, the temple of Arsinoe-Aphrodite Zephyritis on Cape Zephyrium. It was a gift to the Ptolemies from Callicrates of Samos, commander of Philadelphus’ navy and a friend (philos) of the king.21 Poets could not compete with this level of extravagant giving, but Posidippus and Hedylus added to the luster of the occasion by celebrating Callicrates’ gift in epigrams.22 These make clear that the Aphrodite in question is Cyprian Aphrodite in whose care is the safety of men at sea. Philadelphus’ reliance on his fleet for control of the Aegean gives this cult political importance, but the shrine also served another purpose. Besides “men who toil at sea,” it welcomed “the pure daughters of the Hellenes” (Posid. 116.8 AB), presumably virgins praying for marriage. While Aphrodite seems like an unlikely choice as a patron of married love, she is assigned this role in the mythic imaginary of the Ptolemies beginning with Berenice i, whose love-match with Ptolemy Soter may have inspired it.23 While there is no evidence for it in Berenice’s own lifetime, it was a useful concept in legitimizing the succession of Berenice’s son, Philadelphus, over the children of Soter’s other wife, Eurydice, and of his own untraditional marriage with his full sister. Aphrodite’s agency in transposing Berenice from mortal to immortal is taken up again by Theocritus in Idyll 17, the Encomium to Ptolemy. There she is among the wisest of women, on whose fragrant breast Aphrodite pressed her slender hands so that they say no other woman pleased her husband as much as she pleased Ptolemy, yet much more was he loved in return by her (45–50): 21 22 23

A philos of the king, Welles (1934) 14.9. Hedylus 4 GP = Ath. 11.497d, Posidippus 12 GP = 116 AB, 13 GP = 119 AB and 39 AB. On Callicrates and the temple, see Bing (2002–2003). Gutzwiller (1992) 366–368.

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κάλλει ἀριστεύουσα θεάων πότν’ Ἀφροδίτα, σοὶ τήνα μεμέλητο· σέθεν δ’ ἕνεκεν Βερενίκα εὐειδὴς Ἀχέροντα πολύστονον οὐκ ἐπέρασεν, ἀλλά μιν ἁρπάξασα, πάροιθ’ ἐπὶ νῆα κατελθεῖν κυανέαν καὶ στυγνὸν ἀεὶ πορθμῆα καμόντων, ἐς ναὸν κατέθηκας, ἑᾶς δ’ ἀπεδάσσαο τιμᾶς. Queen Aphrodite, most excellent of goddesses in beauty, you cared for her and thanks to you Berenice did not pass over lugubrious Acheron, but you snatched her away before she descended to the dark ship and the evergrim ferryman of the dead. You established her in your temple and gave her a share of your honor. Berenice’s escape from death and the creation of her cult in tandem with Aphrodite’s makes a statement on behalf of the Ptolemies about the unique status that they sought for themselves between mortal and immortal. They could never hope to emulate an Olympian like Aphrodite, but the cult of Adonis, a mortal who achieved a kind of immortality, was a more appropriate model. It is the celebration of his annual resurrection that the Argive singer stresses at the conclusion of her song (Id. 15.136–144). Though Adonis is not a Homeric hero or a figure of early Greek mythology, he trumps them all because he rises from the dead each year to visit the world of the living. While other Greek heroes were immortalized only in verse, the Ptolemies, whose views on eternity and their status in it were shaped partly by Egyptian ideas, might hope through cult to achieve an immortality that was more visceral, and Adonis proved to be a useful model.24 His parents were both human, but he gained his immortality through the love of Aphrodite and its reenactment in cult.25 Berenice i achieved hers by the same mechanism.

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Adonis’ many points of contact with Egyptian Osiris, delineated by Reed (2000), show how the celebration of the Adonia fits the Greco-Egyptian cultural milieu in which Theocritus was writing. Adonis’ parents were father and daughter. While this is not precisely the kind of incest that interested the Ptolemies, it is an example of the special status of children born from incestuous unions.

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Poems for the Demigods

In addition to the mimes where the Ptolemies appear in the speech of everyday characters, Theocritus wrote five poems on gods and demigods who were prominent in the literature that helped define the royals’ public image: Helen (Id. 18), the Dioscuri (Id. 22), Heracles (Id. 13 and 24), and Dionysus (Id. 26).26 Zeus was their common father, but each had a human mother: Leda (Helen and the Dioscuri), Alcmene (Heracles) and Semele (Dionysus), while Leda and Alcmene also had human husbands (Tyndareus and Amphitryon). For the Ptolemies, who projected themselves as humans on the verge of immortality through the worship of their own immortalized forebearers, these precedents from traditional Greek myth were an important element of their selfpresentation.27 Like Adonis, each of the demigods had a unique path to immortality and became object of cult in Egypt and beyond:28 Helen becomes a tree in Sparta (Id. 18.47–48), or lives forever with Menelaus in the Elysian Plain (Od. 4.561– 568); Hylas’ immortality is to remain forever trapped in his watery grave (Id. 13); the Dioscuri are either both mortal (Il. 3.243–244), both immortal (Id. 22), or alternate between Hades and Olympus (Pi. Nem. 10.73–90), while Heracles, who departs from human life in a conflagration, becomes fully immortal (Id. 24.79–85). Dionysus, whose mother was annihilated by Zeus’ thunderbolt, was born from his father’s thigh, fully immortal from birth (Eu. Bacch. 88–98). Though the last option was beyond the Ptolemies’ capabilities, the others suggest ways that they might think about their own possibilities. The five Idylls for the demigods also feature places of particular interest to the Ptolemies. Chief among these was Argos, which is represented here by the

26 27 28

Griffiths (1979) 52–59 was the first to recognize the shared agenda of these poems and to analyze them as a group. On Arsinoe ii as Helen, Id. 15.110; for Heracles as an ancestor of Ptolemy Soter and Alexander, Id. 17.20–27. The last is corroborated by OGIS 54.1–5, which adds Dionysus. Herodotus 2.112 reports a temple of Helen at Memphis where she was identified with Aphrodite, and Id. 18 features the Spartan cult of Helen Dendritis (see Visser (1938) 19–20; Calame (2012) 261–263 and Brettini and Lentano (2002) 43–65). On her joint cult with Menelaus at Therapne, Paus. 3.19.9–10 and Alcman fr. 7 Page-Davies. The Dioscuri had a shrine in Alexandria, the Dioskoureion (Satyrus, P.Oxy. 2465 fr. 12 col. ii l. 5 in Fraser (1972) vol. iia, 352) and on their cult in Egypt, which they shared with their sister, see Visser (1938) 17. On Heracles in Egypt, Visser (1938) 39. Hylas, a relatively minor figure, had a cult in Chios where a priest called his name three times (Ant. Lib. 26), as Heracles does in Id. 13.58. There is no evidence of a cult for Hylas in Egypt. Dionysus, in contrast, was the central figure in Philadelphus’ great pompe.

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Argive hero Heracles.29 The Macedonian royals were called Argeads, from the small village of Argos in northern Macedonia, but encouraged the idea that they were connected with the more famous city of Argos in the Peloponnesus. They traced their ancestry back to Archelaus, son of Temenus, one of the Heracleidae, who was expelled from Argos and settled afterwards in Macedonia (Hdt. 8.137–139, Thuc. 2.99.3; Eur. Archelaus, Kannicht (2004)). Not far from Argos on the Peloponnesus was Sparta where Tyndareus, the human father of Helen (Id. 18.1, 18.17) and the Dioscuri (Id. 22.5, 22.156), had been king. While the Ptolemies did not trace their own ancestry precisely from there, it served as an example of the most successful mainland Greek monarchy, while its double nature—there were always two Spartan kings reigning in tandem—underlined by the pair of Dioscuri, seems to ratify the concept of ruling couples that the Philadelphi pioneered. In addition to places important to the Ptolemies, the five poems for the demigods emphasize institutions and ideals that they embraced. An example is the navy, which was central to Ptolemaic economic and political power and is here represented by the Dioscuri.30 In the opening verses of Idyll 22, Theocritus emphasizes their role as protectors of sailors. Here the poet describes a ship that ignores the warnings of celestial signs, is smashed by a great wave, then miraculously raised from the very depths (Id. 22.8–22).31 Though the Dioscuri take no direct action to save the ship, they are hailed at once as rescuers of mortals. They share this task with Aphrodite-Arsinoe Zephyritis, Helen, and the Cabiri who were worshipped at Samothrace, which was of special interest to Arsinoe ii.32 In Callimachus’ “Apotheosis of Arsinoe” (fr. 228 Pf.), it is the Dioscuri who transport her to her place among the stars. A Ptolemaic ideal embodied in the political Idylls is devoted marital love which is expressed in the very epiklesis that the Philadelphi gave themselves.33 In Idylls 15 and 17.45–50, discussed above, its unexpected patron is a chaste Aphrodite, and another surprising standard-bearer for marital bliss is the Helen of Idyll 18. This poem is an epithalamium for the marriage of Helen and Mene29 30 31 32

33

Argos appears five times in the description of Heracles’ education in Idyll 24 (104, 111, 123, 129, 131) and Hylas is called “Argive” only in Id. 13.49. On Ptolemaic sea power see Buraselis, Stefanou, and Thompson (2013). On Theocritus’ appropriation of language from Aratus and Apollonius here, see Sens (1994). Arsinoe ii took refuge there after she fled from her disastrous second marriage to Ptolemy Ceraunus. She later erected a rotunda for the shrine and a monumental propylon for Philadelphus. On the rotunda, see McCredie (1992); on the propylon, Fraser (1990). On uncertainties surrounding the origin of the title, see Carney (2013) 79 and n. 97 for bibliography. On the Ptolemaic epiklesis generally, Muccioli (2013).

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laus, which ignores the Homeric backstory so well-known to Theocritus’ audience, and also the counter-narrative known from Stesichorus’ “Palinode” (Plato, Phaedrus 243a2–243b3) and Euripides’ Helen, that she spent the Trojan War blamelessly in Egypt while an empty phantom took her place at Troy.34 Though the connection to Egypt may have been useful to the poet in other ways, it is suppressed here to protect her ritual purity because the detour from Troy was made after the initial abduction. In contrast to the tradition, Theocritus’ Helen is never sexualized, but stands out in her beauty like the face of dawn, bright spring after winter, a tall cypress, or a Thracian horse (Id. 18.26–31). She goes directly from her wedding night, when the groom may or may not have consummated the marriage (Id. 18.9–15), to her metamorphosis as a tree (Id. 18.48) and the beginning of her worship as a fertility goddess. The promise of fertility is linked with abundance and to a Ptolemaic ideal of truphe. This is extravagance and liberality without limit. As a policy it publicizes not only the wealth of the royal family and Egypt itself, but their generosity and the fertility of the land. In Idyll 15.112–127, it is expressed in the array of exotic foods and luxurious gifts that Arsinoe offers to Adonis, and it is symbolized in the overflowing double cornucopia on her coins and other images.35 The deity who best embodies truphe is Dionysus, whom the Ptolemies claimed as a direct ancestor, and whom Philadelphus honored in the Great Procession of 279 for Ptolemy Soter, who was given honors on that occasion equal to the gods (Syll.3 390; SEG 13, 351). It featured thousands of marchers in lavish costumes and floats with objects and statues representing all the themes of Ptolemaic imperial power and the life of Dionysus.36 Truphe is wealth and power without limit and its ultimate expression is unchecked violence. Theocritus seems to focus on this in Idyll 26, which retells the story of Pentheus who spied on a group of women, including his own mother, as they prepared the rites of Dionysus, and became their sacrificial victim when they tore him limb for bloody limb. The story had been treated empathetically in Euripides’Bacchae, but Theocritus’ version is short and grim. It ends with the narrator insisting that no one should care for an impious victim, then concludes with a hymnic envoi.

34

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On the effects of ignoring Homer, Stern (1978). Callimachus, in contrast, recalls Helen’s detour in Egypt at the beginning of the “Victoria Berenices” (254.4–9 SH). See Clayman (2014) 146. Athenaeus 11.497b–c reports that the double cornucopia (dicera) was first made under orders from Philadelphus himself. On its meaning and use, Plantzos (1991–1992) 124–126. Description in Athenaeus 5.196a–203b quoting from Callixenus of Rhodes.

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Idyll 26 shows the terrifying power of gods on earth, while Idyll 22 presents the Dioscuri manifesting both the human and divine elements of their nature in a poem divided into two narratives, one recounting Polydeuces’ boxing match with the monstrous Amycus and the other, Castor’s sword fight with his cousin Lynceus. In the first, Polydeuces graciously spares his victim, but in the second, his brother dispatches his opponent, then disembowels him in front of his father’s grave as if he too were a sacrificial victim. Commentators have complained that Castor’s action does no honor to the Dioscuri, but Greek gods are not known for the quality of their mercy, and Castor is acting more like a Homeric god than a mere human.37 The contrast suggests the double nature of Ptolemy, both a human who is expected to behave as a gallant aristocrat and an immortal being with absolute power and no need for scruples. In Idylls 13 and 24, Theocritus explores the same theme in a more nuanced way. In the former, great Heracles is overcome by human emotions as he dashes through the fens in a vain search for his beloved Hylas, who is held captive by water nymphs in a woodland pool. His inability to cope with the situation and the comic expressions of his frustration imply that life on earth can be trying even for those who are about to become divine. Idyll 24 approaches the same theme with a story of Heracles’ youth. In the first part, infant Heracles, who is asleep beside his human brother, easily dispatches two snakes sent by Hera to kill him (Id. 24.1–63). The reactions of his loving mother and concerned, but clueless father, whose bumbling attempts to get out of bed and put some light on the situation recall Attic comedy, contrast with the reality of Heracles’ special nature. This they do not perceive until the prophet Teiresias appears to reveal the baby’s destiny: he will ascend to starbearing heaven, complete twelve labors, then live in the house of Zeus, who will be called his father-in-law, while a pyre on Mount Trachis will hold his mortal remains (Id. 24.73–87). The Ptolemies could hope for the same themselves. The third part of the poem recounts Heracles’ education (Id. 24. 103–133), then about 30 lines are lost except for a few small fragments in the Antinoe papyrus. These suggest a return to the theme of apotheosis and marriage. If ὁμοπάτριον, “from the same father,” is read correctly in 24.170, it would refer to his wife Hebe who, like Heracles, was a child of Zeus. While this is not incest on a Ptolemaic scale, it suggests a connection between sibling marriage and divinity that is dramatized in Idyll 17.28–33, where Heracles is escorted to Hebe’s bedchamber by Ptolemy Soter and Alexander after dinner in Zeus’ palace.

37

For the various explanations offered by critics for contrast of the two parts, see Cameron (1995) 431–434.

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2.1 Idyll 17, “The Encomium to Ptolemy” The subtlety and indirection of Theocritus’ promotion of the Ptolemies’ future divinity in the five poems for demigods contrasts with the direct, unfiltered approach of Idyll 17. This poem is the only extant poetic encomium from the Hellenistic period, though there must once have been many more.38 Here Theocritus combines features of the Homeric Hymns for gods and civic encomia for men.39 It is unrestrained in its apparently irony-free approach to praising the king, who is the sole subject of the poem. This is not a comment on Theocritus’ sophistication; in fact Hunter (2003) shows that Theocritus’ artful suggestions of Ptolemy’s similarities to Zeus and of his status as a demigod suggest far more radical homage than the poet’s words taken literally. This strategy begins immediately in the hymn-like proem (1–8): Ἐκ Διὸς ἀρχώμεσθα καὶ ἐς Δία λήγετε Μοῖσαι, ἀθανάτων τὸν ἄριστον, ἐπὴν † ἀείδωμεν ἀοιδαῖς· ἀνδρῶν δ’ αὖ Πτολεμαῖος ἐνὶ πρώτοισι λεγέσθω καὶ πύματος καὶ μέσσος· ὃ γὰρ προφερέστατος ἀνδρῶν. ἥρωες, τοὶ πρόσθεν ἀφ’ ἡμιθέων ἐγένοντο, ῥέξαντες καλὰ ἔργα σοφῶν ἐκύρησαν ἀοιδῶν· αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ Πτολεμαῖον ἐπιστάμενος καλὰ εἰπεῖν ὑμνήσαιμ’· ὕμνοι δὲ καὶ ἀθανάτων γέρας αὐτῶν. Let us begin from Zeus, and let us end in Zeus, Muses. Of the immortals, he is the best when we sing our songs. But of men, let Ptolemy be spoken of among the first, and last, and in the middle, for he is the most outstanding of men. The Heroes, who were born in the past from demigods, did glorious deeds and were honored by skilled poets. But I, who know how to praise, would hymn Ptolemy, for hymns are the prizes of honor for the immortals themselves. The subject of Theocritus’ hymn seems at first to be Zeus, and Ptolemy, in contrast, is a man, but unlike the heroes of old who were acclaimed for their deeds, the poet will honor Ptolemy with hymns which are typically reserved for the gods.40 In the very act of making a distinction between possible honorees, the poet seems to suggest that there is no distinction. The subtle equation of

38 39 40

The satiric Idyll 16, on which see below, should not be considered a true encomium. Heerink (2010) 386–394. Typically, but not consistently, Hunter (2003) 104 and Fantuzzi (2000) 138–139.

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Ptolemy and Zeus has also been detected in Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus, which has other points of contact with Id. 17.41 The body of the poem is organized as a prose encomium. Though it does not strictly follow the formula presented in later rhetorical handbooks and excludes many of the recommended topics, its careful organization, set out by Hunter, indicates the poet’s awareness of this tradition.42 Like prose encomia, Theocritus begins with the king’s parents, but this is no dry, rhetorical exercise. To illustrate how Zeus made his father equal in honor to the immortal gods, the poet dramatizes a scene featuring Soter sitting on a golden throne in the halls of Zeus with Alexander and Heracles, who drinks his fill of nectar before he is escorted by the other two to the bedroom of his wife, Hebe. Though the scene has comic charm, it is also an occasion for underlining Heracles’ crucial role as an ancestor of both the Ptolemies and Alexander (26–27).43 The next section (34–58) focuses on his mother, Berenice i, who had no divine ancestor herself, but here we witness her apotheosis, as Aphrodite places her slender hands on Berenice’s breast. The gesture assures her immortality and prompts a testament to the blessings of conjugal love, which seem to legitimize Philadelphus’ own claim to the throne over his half-brothers. The family section is followed by a description of his birth on the island of Cos with many allusions to the birth of Apollo in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo and Callimachus’ Hymn to Delos (Id. 17.58–76).44 If the poem were a typical encomium, the treatment of his birth and family would be followed by an account of his great deeds, and if the poem were a traditional hymn, by a central narrative. Instead, there is a listing of the vast territory Ptolemy controls, both inside and outside of Egypt (77–94), followed by an account of his enormous wealth (95–120) and what he does with it.45 The latter emphasizes his gifts to the gods, to kings, to cities, his companions, and to poets (106–116). In conclusion, the poem promotes the cult of the Theoi Soteres, founded by Philadelphus for his parents, which stood as the template for his own divinity. “No better wife than she casts her hand around her bridegroom in his halls, lov41 42 43

44 45

Meincke (1965) 183–208. Stephens (2003) 148–170 and Heerink (2010) 394–399 emphasize Egyptian elements in both poems. Hunter 2003 19–20; Heerink 2010. Soter underscored his claim to Alexander’s mantle first by highjacking his body (Diod. 18.28.2–3; Paus. 1.6.3 and Erskine (2002)), then by establishing a cult for him at Alexandria (Fraser (1972) vol. 1, 215–216). Meincke (1965) 111–124; Fantuzzi (2000) 139; Hunter (2003) 142–144. The good king who brings peace and prosperity to his kingdom is an equally Greek and Egyptian ideal, Hunter (2003) 153–157.

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ing her brother and husband from her heart. In this way, too, the marriage of the immortals was fulfilled, whom Rhea bore, the kings of Olympus” (128–134). Three couples in three generations are linked: Zeus/Hera, Soter/Berenice, and Philadelphus/Arsinoe. The first pair are immortal, the second have become so through the acts of their children, and the third await their future immortality. In the closing hymnic envoi (135–137), the poet clearly puts Philadelphus among the demigods. 2.2 Idyll 16, “The Graces” or “Hiero” If Idyll 17 is an unambiguous praise poem for Philadelphus, Idyll 16 is a cypher. Its second part, addressed to Hiero ii, tyrant of Syracuse, contains some of the same encomiastic topoi as 17, but these are embedded in a unique poetic context that raises questions about the poem’s genre. Most frequently it has been read as a genuine encomium in a bucolic,46 Pindaric,47 Simonidean,48 or folkloric mode49 for Hiero ii of Syracuse, who is either a prospective50 or current51 patron of the poet. It has also been read as a paraenetic address to the ruling class of Syracuse evoking the values and language of Theognis.52 In all cases, the first-person narrator is taken to be the poet himself, and the references to Hiero provide evidence for the date and place of composition. In contrast, Austin53 and Kyriakou54 see the poet himself as the central concern. For Austin, the poem is a despairing soliloquy on the larger question of why write poetry, but for Kyriakou it is a spiritual journey through all the possible ways of writing praise poetry which concludes on a moral high ground. The poet will remain in his profession even without the prospect of patronage and willingly accepts the consequences of his choice. She cites the narrator of Callimachus’ 3rd Iamb as sharing some of these same attitudes,55 and the satiric reading offered below further explores this Hipponactean register. Like Idyll 17, 16 begins with a hymnic proemium (1–2):

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

Gutzwiller (1983) 226–228, 231–233. Clapp (1913). Austin (1967). Merkelbach (1952). Gow (1952) 2.305. Petroll (1965) 76–84. Gonzales (2010). Austin (1967). Kyriakou (2018). Kyriakou (2018) 275–278.

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Αἰεὶ τοῦτο Διὸς κούραις μέλει, αἰὲν ἀοιδοῖς, ὑμνεῖν ἀθανάτους, ὑμνεῖν ἀγαθῶν κλέα ἀνδρῶν. Always this is a care to the daughters of Zeus, always to singers, to hymn the immortals and to hymn the glorious deed of excellent men. This is a conventional enough concept of the function of Muses and poets, but the proemium goes on (3–4): Μοῖσαι μὲν θεαὶ ἐντί, θεοὺς θεαὶ ἀείδοντι· ἄμμες δὲ βροτοὶ οἵδε, βροτοὺς βροτοὶ ἀείδωμεν. The Muses are goddesses, and goddesses sing of gods; But we here are mortals; let us mortals sing of mortals. Here poets will emphatically not sing of gods and the artful suggestion of Id. 17 that the honoree might be in that category is firmly ruled out. Theocritus’ choice of βροτός to represent mortals seems to reinforce the separation since it emphasizes the physicality of humans, especially their blood.56 More striking than the language, which does not veer from the epic standard, is the repetition of θεός three times in the 3rd verse followed by βροτός three times in the 4th. A poet with Theocritus’ control of poetic language could certainly have thought of synonyms. The repetitions are purposeful and here it is helpful to recall that verbal repetition is frequently used by Aristophanes as a simple way of generating humor.57 Here in the opening lines, the poem is inviting us to think of it in comic terms. The comic mode applicable here is satire, and the analysis offered below is consistent with a theoretical model developed by Ralph Rosen based on his reading of the Odyssey (particularly the figure of Odysseus himself), the Greek iambic poets (especially Hipponax), Callimachus’ Iambi, and Theocritus’ own Cyclops (Id. 6 and 11).58 Following Rosen, a defining feature of satire is the presence of a central narrator “who tells a comic story of abjection and beleaguerment intended to enlist the sympathies of its audience.”59 This character is a literary construct who speaks in the first person and is often confused with the 56 57 58 59

LSJ cites βρότος from Homer with αἱματόεις (Il. 7.425) or μέλας (Od. 24.189). See Miller (1945) 404–408 on comic repetition. βροτοί is repeated three times in Ar. Pax 236 where War addresses the human race. Rosen (2007). Rosen (2007) 122.

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poet. Alongside the satirist’s oppression is an “almost contradictory stance of superiority and self-importance” expressed as psogic blaming and didacticism without a fixed moral center. This dissonance between abjection and moralism generates a comic response, but causes interpretative problems for an audience that becomes confused in its attempts to pin down the author’s “real sentiments.”60 The wide range of scholarly responses to Idyll 16 confirms this last point and illustrates the usefulness of Rosen’s model in approaching this poem. The proemium with its clue to the poem’s comic mode is followed by a scene depicting the narrator’s poems personified as “Graces,” returning home after a vain search for a patron (5–12): Τίς γὰρ τῶν ὁπόσοι γλαυκὰν ναίουσιν ὑπ’ ἠῶ ἡμετέρας Χάριτας πετάσας ὑποδέξεται οἴκῳ ἀσπασίως, οὐδ’ αὖθις ἀδωρήτους ἀποπέμψει; αἳ δὲ σκυζόμεναι γυμνοῖς ποσὶν οἴκαδ’ ἴασι, πολλά με τωθάζοισαι, ὅτ’ ἀλιθίην ὁδὸν ἦλθον, ὀκνηραὶ δὲ πάλιν κενεᾶς ἐν πυθμένι χηλοῦ ψυχροῖς ἐν γονάτεσσι κάρη μίμνοντι βαλοῖσαι, ἔνθ’ αἰεί σφισιν ἕδρη, ἐπὴν ἄπρακτοι ἵκωνται. Who of those who live beneath the bright day will open his house to receive our Graces gladly, and will not send them back again without gifts? They come home angry with bare feet, jeering at me often when their journey was in vain; and once more they remain fearful at the bottom of the empty box, casting down their heads on their frigid knees. This is always their place whenever they come back unsuccessful. Here, the narrator describes his poor Graces begging for a patron on the street. Such is their poverty that they have no shoes or any source of heat at home; their failure leaves them humiliated and dejected. The Graces’ plight, which represents the narrator’s own, reminded Merkelbach of children’s begging songs,61 but it is closer to the abjection of an iambic poet like Hipponax who flaunts his poverty and demands from Hermes a cloak and boots because his teeth are chattering (fr. 32 W.).62

60 61 62

Rosen (2007) 222–223. Merkelbach (1952) 312–323. The proverbial poverty of the iambic poet also appears in Callimachus, fr. 191.1–4, 203.60– 62 Pf.

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This vignette has also been read, correctly, in the context of a pun made by Simonides and retold in various ancient sources.63 The joke depends on the double meaning of the Greek charites, “thanks” and “repayment.” Simonides said that he had two chests at home: one for charites (“thanks”), which was always full, and one for the other kind of charites, which was always empty. Theocritus adds to this a third kind of charites, his poems, which are the entire contents of his own chest.64 Simonides is the subject of a number of anecdotes mostly focusing on his greed and testy relationships with his clients. Though little of his poetry remains, it is clear that it looms large in Id. 16.65 For a satirist, the corollary to railing at his poverty is an attack against those who have the means to relieve it.66 In Id. 16, the targets of his wrath are the wealthy who refuse to hire poets, and in taking this position he exposes the reality behind the tacit agreement between praise poets and their honorees.67 Like Callimachus, who puts foolish words in the mouths of his own targets, the poet quotes the lame excuses of those who deny him support (16–21):68 πᾶς δ’ ὑπὸ κόλπου χεῖρας ἔχων πόθεν οἴσεται ἀθρεῖ ἄργυρον, οὐδέ κεν ἰὸν ἀποτρίψας τινὶ δοίη, ἀλλ’ εὐθὺς μυθεῖται· ‘ἀπωτέρω ἢ γόνυ κνάμα· αὐτῷ μοί τι γένοιτο.’ ‘θεοὶ τιμῶσιν ἀοιδούς.’ ‘τίς δέ κεν ἄλλου ἀκούσαι; ἅλις πάντεσσιν Ὅμηρος.’ ‘οὗτος ἀοιδῶν λῷστος, ὃς ἐξ ἐμεῦ οἴσεται οὐδέν.’ Everyone has hands in his pocket searching for a source of money. Not even when he has rubbed the rust off a coin would he give it to anyone, but he says immediately: “Give to someone close, not distant!” “I wish I had something myself!” “Let the gods reward poets!” “Who listens to anyone else? Homer is enough for all.” “The best poet is the one who gets nothing from me.”

63 64 65 66 67 68

Sources include Stob. 3.10.38; Σ Ar. Pax 697; Plut. De curiositate 520A; De sera numinis vindicta 555F. The would-be praise poet gets no thanks and is not paid. Austin (1967) 11 argues that the whole of Idyll 16 is an amplification and reiteration of this pun. Austin (1967); Hunter (1996) 97–109. Rosen (2007) 25–26. Gutzwiller (1983) 224–225. Callimachus, Iambi fr. 191.78–79; 203.16–22, 203.30–32 Pf.

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Beyond damning his enemies with their own words, a satirist typically turns into a moralist.69 In this case, he lectures his hosts on the best uses of wealth (22–31): Δαιμόνιοι, τί δὲ κέρδος ὁ μυρίος ἔνδοθι χρυσός κείμενος; οὐχ ἅδε πλούτου φρονέουσιν ὄνασις, ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν ψυχᾷ, τὸ δέ πού τινι δοῦναι ἀοιδῶν· πολλοὺς εὖ ἔρξαι πηῶν, πολλοὺς δὲ καὶ ἄλλων ἀνθρώπων, αἰεὶ δὲ θεοῖς ἐπιβώμια ῥέζειν, μηδὲ ξεινοδόκον κακὸν ἔμμεναι ἀλλὰ τραπέζῃ μειλίξαντ’ ἀποπέμψαι ἐπὴν ἐθέλωντι νέεσθαι, Μοισάων δὲ μάλιστα τίειν ἱεροὺς ὑποφήτας, ὄφρα καὶ εἰν Ἀίδαο κεκρυμμένος ἐσθλὸς ἀκούσῃς, μηδ’ ἀκλεὴς μύρηαι ἐπὶ ψυχροῦ Ἀχέροντος. Good Sirs, what advantage is countless gold when it is lying within? For thinking men this is not the advantage of wealth; instead, spend some on yourself and maybe give some to a poet; do some good for many of your relations and many other men, too; always make sacrifices to the gods; do not be a bad host … and especially honor the holy interpreters of the Muses, so that even when you are hidden away in Hades you may be well spoken of and not weep inglorious by chilly Acheron. This outcry against wealth is familiar from Callimachus’ third Iamb (fr. 193 Pf.), and the satirist’s advice can be compared with his own discourse on the way that Ptolemy uses his wealth in Id. 17. 106–120. His gold does not lie useless in his own rich house, but it is in the houses of the gods to whom he constantly makes offerings (Id. 17.106–109). He also gives to kings, cities, his companions, and winners of musical competitions (Id. 17.110–114). Tellingly, the “interpreters of the muses” sing of Ptolemy in return for his good works (Id, 17.115–116).70 In both poems, poets give immortality to their subjects in return for gifts. But Pindar warns that fame can be both positive and negative (Pyth. 1.87–100), and in Idyll 16 Theocritus offers as examples the families of the Aleuadae and the Scopads, Thessalian noblemen who would have been forgotten after death had it not for the songs of the bard of Ceos, Simonides. His choice of exempla 69 70

Rosen (2007) 218. The repetition of Μοισάων ὑποφῆται, “interpreters of the Muses,” ties Idyll 16.23–31 to 17.115– 116. In the latter, poets sing for the reward they expect: the king’s euergesia; in the former, the emphasis is on what the poets give: fame that outlives death.

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is deliberately provocative.71 The Aleuadae are best known for their colluding with the Persians as they planned and executed their invasion of the Greek mainland (Hdt. 7.6, 130, 172), a kind of fame that no one would welcome. The Scopads offer another negative example. They are the subject of an anecdote about how they paid only half of Simonides’ fee because half of a poem that he wrote for them was about the Dioscuri. The twins later repaid the poet by calling him out of the Scopads’ house just before it collapsed on top of them.72 Neither seems like the best example for a lesson on why rulers should support poets. Theocritus’ other examples are Homeric, but equally equivocal choices. They are opponents of the Greeks from the Iliad who did not fare well (Glaucus, Priam’s sons, and Cycnus), and poor rustics from the Odyssey like Eumaeus the swineherd, Philoetius the oxherd, and Laertes, a king turned peasant.73 This is hardly a persuasive argument for why kings should support poets and the satirist is still very much in control here. At line 68, Id. 16 appears to pivot, and most readers have been persuaded that what follows is a genuine encomium for Hiero ii, but none of the usual topics found in encomia are on offer here, and in the context of the first 67 verses, it is impossible that this is so. I argue instead that it is parodic encomium fully consistent in tone with the rest. Hutcheon calls parody “a form of repetition with ironic, critical distance, marking difference rather than similarity.” It functions by setting up a “bi-textual synthesis or dialogic relation between texts.”74 The “encomium” for Hiero ii works as a parody in relation to the encomium for Ptolemy that is Id. 17. The narrator of Idyll 16 begins his alleged encomium in the present tense, “I seek some mortal to whom I could come as a welcome guest with my Muses” (68–69), but the rest is sketched in the future and then the optative tense, that is, it is unreal. The prospective patron, he hopes, will have done great deeds like Achilles or Ajax (16.73–75), but at line 80 he is revealed as Hiero in the midst of his Syracusan warriors gripping their spears and wicker shields. This is Hiero ii, tyrant then king of Syracuse, who was no Achilles or Ajax, but a minor figure whose kingdom was squeezed between the superpowers of Egypt and Rome.75 71

72 73 74 75

“It is remarkable that a poet who wished to carry on a diatribe against the covetousness of his age should call for support upon the one poet whose name was synonymous with covetousness,” Austin (1967) 11. Cicero De Orat. 2.86.351–353 and Quintilian Instit. Orat. 11.2.11–16. Id. 16.48–57. Theocritus also included Odysseus himself, who was often a character in satire, Rosen (2007) 123–141. Hutcheon (1985) xii. On Hiero ii see Hoyos (1985). His main achievement was the defeat of the Mamertines, ex-mercenaries of Agathocles who had seized Messana, at the River Longanus. Their loss

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Compare this picture with Theocritus’ grand panorama of Ptolemy surrounded by his countless armies and magnificent wealth (Id. 17. 77–94). Hiero, in contrast, seems to disappear among the Syracusans. There is only a prayer for the driving away of the Carthaginians, who had settled the west of Sicily, and its rebirth as a bucolic paradise (Id. 16. 82–100). This modest vision of a peaceful landscape has charmed many readers, but a great king could hardly aspire to ruling over sheep, oxen, cicadas, and spiders (Id. 16.90–97). Nowhere is the unreal victory or the benefits of peace and fertility that would follow ascribed to Hiero.76 Idyll 17 ends in a traditional hymnic envoi addressed to its honoree, who is now counted among the demigods. The poet promises to praise Ptolemy again and confidently projects that his own work will be respected by future generations (Id. 17.135–137). In contrast, at the conclusion of Id. 16 the poet asserts that other singers could praise Hiero just as well as he, with the implication that he does not want the job and never really did.77 This concludes the proffered “encomium” and the poem returns to its narrative frame where the angry poet offers an anti-envoi. Instead of promising to sing another song in the future, he announces that he will stay home with his Graces and wait for an invitation under better circumstances. Though Idyll 16 has been read by many as an earnest offer to write in praise of Hiero, its tone consistently pushes against it.78 Gonzalez (2010) attributes its bitter moralizing to the influence of Theognis, but despite the poet’s nod to the conventions of archaic elegy, his abject self-portrait does not suit this genre either. Rather, it is a satire in the spirit of Hipponactean Iambi, and Hiero, who is never differentiated from the aristocrats who refuse to support poets, is one of his targets.79 At the poem’s end, Theocritus remains the same unhappy social critic he was at the start. His target has been Hiero, himself as a praise poet, and encomiastic poetry in general with his own Id. 17 as comparandum.80 His penchant for poetry in a comic register is clear in much of his other work, including vir-

76 77 78 79 80

inspired them to seek help first from Carthage and then from Rome, forces that Hiero could not resist. González (2010) 68. This attitude directly contradicts the Pindaric position that the best competitor deserves the best poet, Gutzwiller (1983) 233 citing Pi. Isth. 2.41–42, 6.23; Nem. 6.48–49. González (2010) 69 citing Austin (1967) 7. Among those who read the poem as an encomium, albeit an unusual one, are Gutzwiller (1983) and Griffiths (1976). Austin (1967) 7; González (2010) 69. Horstmann (1976) 119 calls Idyll 16 “Selbstironie.”

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tually all of his court poetry except for the sober Idyll 17.81 It is the Encomium to Ptolemy rather than The Graces that is the outlier, and Idyll 16 plays off it. Though the poem does not humiliate Hiero, he could hardly have been pleased to find himself treated this way. The poet seems to have put himself in a dangerous position, as satirists do, but this is the nature of the genre. If it was written when he was safely in Alexandria, Theocritus need not have been concerned about the consequences. If Idyll 16 is discounted as an encomium and as autobiography, all of Theocritus’ praise poetry can be dated to a period roughly between 275 and 270.82 It seems reasonable, then, to conclude with Hunter that Theocritus was in Alexandria at that time and produced all of his extant praise poetry then.

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Idyll 26, the “Bacchae,” also lacks irony, but though it is discussed above, it is not clearly court poetry. Hunter (2003) 3–8.

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Clayman, D.L. (2016), “Callimachus’ Doric Graces (15 G.-P. = AP 5.146),” in E. Sistakou/A. Rengakos (eds.), Dialect, Diction and Style in Greek Literary and Inscribed Epigram (Berlin) 23–35. Erskine, A. (2002), “Life after Death: Alexandria and the Body of Alexander,” G&R 49, 167–179. Fantuzzi, M. (2000), “Theocritus and the ‘Demythologizing’ of Poetry,” in M. Depew/ D. Obbink (eds.), Matrices of Genre: Authors, Canons and Society (Cambridge, MA) 131–151. Fantuzzi, M. (2005), “Posidippus at Court: The Contribution of the Ἱππικά of P. Mil. Vogl. viii 309 to the Ideology of Ptolemaic Kingship,” in K. Gutzwiller (ed.), The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic Poetry Book (Oxford) 249–268. Fraser, P.M. (1972), Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford). Frazer, A.K. (1990), Samothrace. Excavations Conducted by the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University, 10: The Propylon of Ptolemy ii (Princeton, NJ). González, J.M. (2010), “Theocritus’ Idyll 16. The Charites and Civic Poetry,” HSCPh 105, 65–116. Gow, A.S.F. (ed.) (1965), Theocritus (Cambridge). Griffiths, F.T. (1979), Theocritus at Court (Leiden). Griffiths, F.T. (2005), “Home before Lunch: The Emancipated Women in Theocritus,” in H.P. Foley (ed.), Reflections of Women in Antiquity (London) 247–273. Gutzwiller, K.J. (1983), “Charites or Hiero: Theocritus’ Idyll 16,” RhM 126, 212–238. Gutzwiller, K.J. (1992), “Callimachus’ Lock of Berenice: Fantasy, Romance and Propaganda,” AJPh 113, 359–385. Harder, A. (1985), Euripides’ Kresphontes and Archelaos: Introduction, Text and Commentary (Leiden). Harder, A. (2012), Aetia: Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary (Oxford). Hecht, Ch. (2017), Zwischen Athen und Alexandria: Dichter und Künstler beim Makedonischen König Archelaos (Wiesbaden). Heerink, M. (2010), “Merging Paradigms: Translating Pharaonic Ideology in Theocritus’ Idyll 17,” in R. Rollinger (ed.), Interkulturalität in der alten Welt: Vorderasien, Hellas, Ägypten und die vielfältigen Ebenen des Kontakts (Wiesbaden) 383–408. Horstmann, A.E.-A. (1976), Ironie und Humor bei Theokrit (Meisenheim am Glan). Hoyos, B.D. (1985), “The Rise of Hiero ii: Chronology and Campaigns 275–264bc,” Antichthon 19, 32–56. Hunt, A.S.F./Johnson, J. (1930), Two Theocritus Papyri (London). Hunter, R.L. (1996), Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry (Cambridge). Hunter, R.L. (2003), Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Berkeley, CA). Hunter, R.L. (2005), “Speaking in Glossai: Dialect Choice and Cultural Politics in Hellenistic Poetry,” in W.M. Bloomer (ed.), The Contest of Language: Before and Beyond Nationalism (Notre Dame, IN) 187–206.

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Hutcheon, L. (1995), Irony’s Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony (London). Hutchinson, G.O. (1988), Hellenistic Poetry (Oxford). Kannicht, R. (2004), Tragicorum graecorum fragmenta, vol. 5 (Göttingen). Köhnken, A. (2001), “Hellenistic Chronology: Theocritus, Callimachus, and Apollonius Rhodius,” in Th. Papanghelis/A. Rengakos (eds.), A Companion to Apollonius Rhodius (Leiden) 73–92. Kyriakou, P. (2004), “Kleos and Poetry in Simonides fr. 11 W.2 and Theocritus Id. 16,”RhM 147, 221–246. Kyriakou, P. (2018), Theocritus and His Native Muse: A Syracusan among Many (Berlin). McCredie, J. (1992), The Rotunda of Arsinoe (Princeton, NJ). Meincke, W. (1965), Untersuchungen zu den enkomiastischen Gedichten Theokrits (diss. Kiel). Merkelbach, R. (1952), “Bettelgedichte,” RhM 95, 312–327. Miller, H.W. (1945), “Comic Iteration in Aristophanes,” AJPh 66, 398–408. Muccioli, F. (2013), Gli epiteti ufficiali dei re ellenistici (Stuttgart). Petroll, R. (1965), Die Äusserungen Theokrits über seine Person und seine Dichtung (Hamburg). Petrovic, I. (2017), “Hellenistic Poetry and the Ptolemaic Court Ceremonial,” in A. Erskine/L. Llewellyn-Jones/S. Wallace (eds.), The Hellenistic Court: Monarchic Power and Elite Society from Alexander to Cleopatra (Swansea) 143–163. Plantzos, D. (1991), “Ektheosis Arsinoes: On the Cult of Arsinoe Philadelphos,” Archaiognosia 7, 119–134. Prioux, É. (2011), “Callimachus’ Queens,” in B. Acosta-Hughes/L. Lehnus/S. Stephens (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Callimachus (Leiden) 201–224. Reed, J.D. (2000), “Arsinoe’s Adonis and the Poetics of Ptolemaic Imperialism,” TAPA 130, 319–351. Rosen, R.M. (2007), Making Mockery: The Poetics of Ancient Satire (Oxford). Sens, A. (1994), “Hellenistic Reference in the Proem of Theocritus, Idyll 22,” CQ 44, 66– 74. Stephens, S.A. (2003), Seeing Double: Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria (Berkeley, CA). Stephens, S.A. (2005), “Battle of the Books,” in K. Gutzwiller (ed.), The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic Poetry Book (Oxford) 229–248. Stern, J. (1978), “Theocritus’ Epithalamium for Helen,” RBPh 56, 29–37. Strootman, R. (2014), Courts and Elites in the Hellenistic Empires: The Near East after the Achaemenids, c. 330 to 30bce (Edinburgh). Visser, C.E. (1938), Götter und Kulte im Ptolemäischen Alexandrien (Amsterdam). Weber, G. (1992), “Poesie und Poeten an den Höfen vorhellenistischer Monarchen,”Klio 74, 25–77.

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Weber, G. (1993), Dichtung und höfische Gesellschaft: Die Rezeption von Zeitgeschichte am Hof der ersten drei Ptolemäer (Stuttgart). Welles, C.B. (1934), Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period: A Study in Greek Epigraphy (New Haven, CT).

chapter 24

Theocritus’ Intercultural Poetics Frederick T. Griffiths

Over the past half century Theocritus’ career as a court poet has been on the upswing. In 1950 A.S.F. Gow famously judged the Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Id. 17) to be “stiff, conventional, and sycophantic.”1 In Richard Hunter’s book-length commentary of 2003 the poem has earned appreciation for its supple and perhaps unique blending of hymn and prose encomia. The flourishing of patronage studies has long since retired “sycophancy” from service. If not the height of inspiration, the Ptolemy’s kaleidoscopic play of intertexts with Homer, Hesiod, Callimachus, and others cannot be dismissed as mere hack work. And, as Hunter painstakingly and agnostically demonstrates, numerous turns of thought and image might, after the great advances in Egyptology, be interpreted as conventionally pharaonic. Classicists now face the challenge of reading the poem with the Iliad in one hand and a transcript of the “Rosetta Stone” in the other. Is Philadelphus, then, a Horus in founding a cult to his parents? Does Theocritus compare the king’s sibling marriage with Arsinoe ii to that of Zeus and Hera in order to evoke, at a deeper level, Osiris and Isis? Theocritus’ city poems, always found amusing, have also gained serious attention as cultural documentation, especially in light of feminist and postcolonial analyses. In 1995 Joan Burton provided an overview in Theocritus’s Urban Mimes: Mobility, Gender, and Patronage (1995). In the Adoniazusae or Syracusan Women (Id. 15) Theocritus wryly parallels his own journey from Syracuse to the palace in showing how his immigrant housewives cross a series of cultural boundaries, from a suburban home through turbulent streets and then, as if penetrating Troy (Id. 15.61–62), into the palace, with its Helen-like Arsinoe, sublime tapestries, and tableau of Aphrodite and Adonis as described in the hymn of the “Argive woman’s daughter” (Id. 15.97). The women wonder at a realm that is beyond the mundane, beyond mortality, and, as they do not suspect, possibly beyond the Hellenic, for Arsinoe’s public adaptation of the once private and uproarious Adonis rituals may, as Joseph Reed argues, evoke Osiris as king of the underworld and the benign Aphrodite as Isis.2 We now

1 Gow (1952) 2.325. 2 Reed (2000), whose analysis has been extended by Foster (2006).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004466715_026

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know (or can imagine) more about the palace and its rituals from documentary and monumental evidence, including the dredging of the harbor of Alexandria. A few years after Id. 15, Philadelphus built a temple to Isis at Philae that honored his deified wife, who also by his decree appeared as Aphrodite or Isis in temples throughout the kingdom. Like Adonis, Arsinoe-Aphrodite has recently emerged from the waves.3 But the competing claims of cultural documentation and of Theocritean irony divide interpreters all the more sharply.4 The possibility remains that the living Arsinoe might enjoy a light-hearted send-up of the spectacles that she sponsors. Finally, as a site of wonders and of permeable bounds of mortality, Alcmene’s household in the Heracliscus (Id. 24) bears comparison to Arsinoe’s palace. Heracles is a Ptolemaic ancestor (Id. 17.26–27), and the poem has long been associated with the court. The tale of how the infant hero miraculously fended off Hera’s murderous snakes, adapted from Pindar’s Nemean 1 and Paean 20, may have taken on new resonance in Alexandria—a town crawling with symbolic snakes—by virtue of the popular apotropaic images of the young Horus throttling the serpents of Seth and thereby restoring cosmic order (maat). To the worried Alcmene, Teiresias gives brief reassurance about her son’s immortality and then at length spells out instructions (not in Pindar) for proper snake disposal and house purification. In 1977 Ludwig Koenen related these rituals to Egyptian usages.5 The implied but unstated double paternity of Heracles invites comparison to the double paternity of the pharaoh as son of Re, Osiris, or Ammon. Allusion to Alexander, son of Ammon, has also been proposed, though he was on friendly terms with divine snakes, according to Ptolemy i Soter.6 All parallels remain disputed, as I discuss below. Though the poems do not form a group and in style range from mime to solemn encomium, the various proposed Egyptian subtexts would complicate and enrich our larger sense of how Theocritus’ mythopoeia eases the step to Olympus for the new god-kings, with a focus on marriage and filial piety. Where mortality is absolute in the country poems (e.g., the lamented Daphnis in Id. 1), it is tempered in the palace (e.g., the lamented but returning Adonis of Id. 15); the further step of seeing

3 Žabkar (1998) 1–16 and Stephens (2003) 153 n. 93. On the statue of Arsinoe (Bibliotheca Alexandrina Antiquities Museum SCA 208), see Goddio/Fabre (2008) 124–129. On Arsinoe’s identification with Isis, see Thompson (1973) 57–59. 4 Lambert (2001) summarizes the debate and revives the tradition of reading the hymn of Id. 15 as parody. 5 Koenen (1977) 79–86. 6 F. Griffiths (1979) 93–94.

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Adonis as Osiris compounds that difference. Love, which entails loss and longing in the bucolic poems, is redemptive at court. Does Theocritus also subtly acknowledge the importance of family stability as a cornerstone of pharaonic ideology?7 Along with mythmaking, Theocritus’ handling of space merits attention, for the explicitly Egyptian settings of Id. 15 and 17—Alexandrian streets and the Nile valley—alert us to his ability to create cultural boundaries within a few steps or erase them across seas and continents. Fundamental for these questions is Susan Stephens’s pioneering analysis of Callimachus, Apollonius Rhodius, and Theocritus in Seeing Double: Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria (2003). She argues that key texts from the court poets, though seamlessly Hellenic in their expression, are devised to invite a parallel reading—a “seeing double”—from the patrons and the bicultural elite in terms of the Egyptian inheritances incorporated in the Ptolemies’ kingdom. She also draws attention to early attempts at cultural synthesis, such as by Hecateus of Abdera under Soter, who described a convergence of pharaonic and Greco-Macedonian monarchical ideology in the concept of euergesia, good works or beneficence, for which kings have been deified to become Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Osiris, and Isis.8 Controversy remains.9 If we date Theocritus to the 280s and 270s, he may fall between Soter’s early promotion of cultural amalgamation (e.g., in the cult of Sarapis) and, later, the adoption of Egyptian style and iconography from Euergetes onward. It is a large leap from temples, statues, and decrees intended for the indigenous population to the creation of a “new Athens” by poets and librarians. How substantial was the bilingual bureaucracy and priesthood that might be heartened by Egyptian subtexts? Were the patrons expecting subtle gestures to that group in encomiastic poetry? Stephens’s work, along with that of Hunter, Burton, Reed, and others, poses fundamental questions about Theocritean poetics, namely, about how deeply we can delve into the subtexts of the encomiastic poems. Are they largely performative in being artful and usually witty variations on stock themes or do they articulate deeper insights into what we might call political theology? On the performative reading, Theocritus draws on and elaborates a Ptolemaic pantheon of benign Olympians, transitioning mortals (Heracles, Helen, the Dioscuri), and recent or scheduled arrivals (Alexander, the Theoi Soteres, the

7 Koenen (1983) 160–165. See also Hunter (2003) 129–130 ad. Id. 17.38–39. 8 Murray (1970), Fraser (1972) i.496–506, and Stephens (2003) 143–146 and 168–170. 9 Zanker (1989) 91–99, Weber (1993) 369–388, and Lambert (2001), esp. 91–92. Hunter (2003) 46–53 reviews the debate.

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Theoi Adelphoi).10 The cameos of gods and heroes are usually brief and do not encourage reflection. The aging, thrice-wed Arsinoe can be Helen only in passing (Id. 15.110). Often the style is ekphrastic, as if surveying icons in a palace, as the hymn singer of the Adoniazusae does for a receptive crowd that quickly moves on.11 Presumably the Ptolemies consumed and disseminated such images from poets and sculptors in quantities now lost to us. The alternative and more recently favored reading foregrounds the contradictions and inconsistencies in this hall of icons to elicit deeper religious and cultural meaning, such as Hecateus explored a generation earlier. Why is Berenice’s apotheosis so different from Adonis’ (Id. 15)12 or from Soter’s (Id. 17)?13 To make sense of Berenice’s rescue from Acheron, must we lift off Aphrodite’s mask to reveal Isis? Reading for performance, we might instead look for protocol, not theology: whatever a poem’s theme, obeisance must be made to the patrons’ lamented and beneficent mother. Does the poet gesture to a statue of Berenice? As to what the patrons were expecting and what is generic here, the persistence of two shared themes gives us a clue: hierogamy and filial piety. As an analogue for the sibling marriage of Philadelphus and Arsinoe, the hieros gamos of Zeus and Hera climaxes the Ptolemy (Id. 17.131–134) and figures briefly in the Adoniazusae as the housewives enter the palace (Id. 15.64). The series starts with Heracles and Hebe (Id. 17.32–33) (cf. Id. 24.84 and 169–170) and continues with Soter and Berenice (Id. 17.38–39), who may evoke the (incestuous?) devotion of Alcinous and Arete.14 Theocritus has merged the traditional lament for Adonis with celebration of his marriage to Aphrodite (Id. 15.128–130).15 One of Theocritus’ tasks was presumably to make Philadelphus and Arsinoe’s marriage palatable to the Greek audience, some of whom disapproved.16 Still debated is

10 11 12 13 14

15 16

F. Griffiths (1979) 51–106 remains the most comprehensive survey of this pantheon. Gow (1938) 201–202 suggests that the encounter with a woman already leaving the palace (Id. 15.60–63) may imply that a series of singers are performing in turn. Reed (2000) 334–338. Stephens (2003) 156–157. Hunter (2003) 128–129 ad Id. 17.38–39 notes how Soter’s unique love for Berenice echoes that of Alcinous for Arete (Od. 7.38–39), as well as how Odysseus’ marvel at the wonders of their palace (Od. 7.81–135) echoes in the reaction of Gorgo and Praxinoa to the palace (Id. 15.78–86). Hesiod made the Phaeacian couple brother and sister (fr. 222 Merkelbach– West). Against earlier dismissive readings, Hunter (1996) 123–138 argues for the subtlety and pathos of the hymn. On myth and politics, see F. Griffiths (1979) 51–71. On resistance to the marriage of Philadelphus and Arsinoe, see Hazzard (2000) 39–40.

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whether evocation of the sibling union of Isis and Osiris would elicit Egyptian support or further alienate traditionalist Greeks. Second, Id. 15, 17, and 24 all foreground the honor given by a monarch to his or her divine parents or ancestor. Philadelphus’ unique founding of a cult to his parents climaxes the Ptolemy, by which point the theme has occurred at least three times, including Berenice’s sharing of Aphrodite’s temple by the goddess’s grace and (as the audience would know) by the king’s decree (Id. 17.50). On Olympus, Alexander and Soter pay honor to their ancestor Heracles (Id. 17.13–33); at birth, Philadelphus’ divine nurse, the island Cos, prays that he honor her (τίοις δέ με, Id. 17.66). The other two poems share this concern. In the Heracliscus, the final prayer for victory implies that the occasion is a contest given by Philadelphus for his ancestor. Theocritus has amplified Pindar’s narrative by having the delighted toddler lay the strangled snakes at his (mortal) father’s feet (Id. 24.56–59); Teiresias, without belaboring the delicate paternity issue, instructs Alcmene to sacrifice to the true father, Zeus (Id. 24.99–100). Finally, devoted daughters and their mothers are central to the Adoniazusae. In the hymn, it is as Berenice’s daughter that Arsinoe celebrates Adonis, and the account of the mother’s deification by Aphrodite (“Dione’s child”) precedes that of Adonis’ annual return (Id. 15.106–111), while the Syracusan women repeatedly invoke Persephone and Demeter (Id. 15.14, 89, and 94). The hieros gamos that concludes the Ptolemy makes explicit what is only associative in the other two poems, namely, the connection of the two rituals: hierogamy and, in effect, parent worship. The Ptolemy builds up to that climax laboriously, but the connection is clear at a glance in the coins with jugate heads of the Theoi Adelphoi on one side and their parents, the Theoi Soteres, on the reverse.17 The succession of pharaoh to pharaoh equally entails honor to the earthly and divine fathers, as Horus to Osiris—a happier pair than Zeus and Cronus but one bound up in concepts of cosmic cycle that may or may not mesh with the Greek sense of history and dynasty, as I discuss below. In what follows, I address the Adoniazusae and then the Heracliscus, followed by the Ptolemy (Id. 17) in comparison to Theocritus’ petition to Hiero ii of Syracuse (Id. 16). Isis, Osiris, Horus, and sundry Egyptian snakes will audition for roles in Theocritus’ encomiastic pantheon. The Adoniazusae gives us our only view of the Ptolemies’ cultural program in action as Arsinoe’s Adonia gratifies the masses. Women at festival are stock characters in comedy and mime, with the domestic, women-only Adonis

17

See the gold octadrachms #6 and #7 on Plate i in Gow (1952) 2, and the gold tetradrachm #2 at Heerink (2010) 408. See Hazzard (2000) 89–90.

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rituals serving as favored male targets for their drunkenness, obscenity, and noisy misbehavior. Theocritus’ Gorgo and Praxinoa soberly attend a public performance before lunch, and at issue is how strongly the gentle irony about them extends into the hymn for this sedate Adonia with its powerful and admired patron. Interpretations range from seeing the hymn as spectacle—a confection of motifs pleasing for the chauvinist colonials18—to, at the other extreme, finding evidence for Ptolemaic religious syncretism of the sort seen in Soter’s promotion of the cult of Sarapis.19 With the sharp eyes of an immigrant Theocritus observes how being at home, in the streets, and in the palace entails different gender regimes, economies, and ways of being in Egypt. For our purposes, the crucial question is how the bower in the palace, at the heart of the Greco-Macedonian kingdom, may not merely display imperial wealth but, as Reed argues, be “embroidered with potent hints of Osirian mysteries.”20 The correspondences of part to part have been well studied. The women’s own textiles anticipate the grand tapestries of the festival, while their domestic economy, based on scarcity and labor, is answered by the bounty that the monarchs draw to Egypt from the empire. Miletus and Samos send their wool (126–127), but Praxinoa herself has a slave from Phrygia (42). John Whitehorne sees in the women’s complaints the disguised boasting of members of a prosperous new class in Alexandria.21 At home, the women voice resentment about the demands of husbands and sons and then proceed cautiously through the crowded streets, grateful that Philadelphus has eliminated the Egyptian pickpockets, though the king’s chargers pose a threat. He is his father’s worthy heir (46–50), as Arsinoe is her mother’s (110–111). Her palace presents a consoling female realm centered on the lovely and lost Adonis. At the threshold, myth enters the picture or, rather, multiple myths that anticipate the enchanted realm that the women now enter, because the palace is for them fabled and Olympian. An old woman refers to how the Greeks entered Troy (62), just as the singer later compares Arsinoe to Helen (110) and contrasts Adonis’ unique cyclic immortality to the heroes of the Trojan War and earlier (136–142). Praxinoa notes that women even know how Zeus married Hera (64), preparing for the hierogamy of Aphrodite and Adonis. Upbraided by a man for their broad Doric vowels, Praxinoa proclaims their Syracusan iden18 19 20 21

Lambert (2001). On the question of how Theocritus might flatter the queen while satirizing the festival, see F. Griffiths (1981) 253–259. Reed (2000). Reed (2000) 333. Whitehorne (1995), esp. 67–68.

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tity, which makes them by ancestry Corinthians like Bellerophon (90–93). That hero’s flight on Pegasus anticipates the singer’s description of the decor of the festival with its flitting Erotes (120) and Ganymede’s translation to Olympus by Zeus’ eagles (124). Praxinoa ends her indignant speech by invoking Persephone (94), as before (14 and 89),22 perhaps in anticipation of the good daughter and fertility bringer, Arsinoe (110–111). Persephone’s annual cycle parallels Adonis’ (136–137); indeed, for a third of the year he is in her domain. This semantic overload—Troy, Zeus and Hera’s hieroi gamoi, Persephone, and multiple commuters between earth and heaven—sets the tone for the extravagant Adonia and bears on our assessment of its possible cultural syncretism. On an ironic reading, this “Troy” is a mock-epic fulfillment of the housewives’ pedestrian fantasies,23 and allusions to Circe—the swinish crowd at 72–73 and the delicate textiles at 78–79—may push the whole pageant over the top.24 The cultural and gender conflicts experienced in the streets—pickpockets and boorish men—give way in the palace to harmonious syncretism under female control. The singer’s references recall Ptolemaic conquests or aspirations: Cyprus (Κύπρις for Aphrodite, 106, 128, and 131; Golgoi; and Idalion), Miletus, Samos, and Syria.25 The Syracusan women and the “Argive woman’s daughter” (97) are assimilated into imperial experience. The traditional quickgrowing and sterile gardens of Adonis in broken pots are here replaced by “tender gardens” (ἁπαλοὶ κᾶποι, 113) in silver baskets, next to extravagant displays of foodstuffs attesting to the riches of Egypt celebrated in the Ptolemy.26 The lovely Adonis has long since been domesticated from his Near Eastern origins without, however, quite losing his exoticism; the name Κύπρις may evoke his birthplace. On multiple points, Reed argues that the rich symbolisms of the bower entail iconography that can be read two ways if one is familiar with the immense proliferation of lore about Osiris in Egyptian culture.27 The “tender gardens” may recall similarly germinating Egyptian “grain mummies.”28 Since

22

23 24 25

26 27 28

The scholiast ad Id. 15.14 identifies the reference as Core and notes that Zeus is said to have given Sicily to Persephone; Wendel (1914) 307. See Atallah (1966) 111–112. On μᾶ (“mother”) in Id. 15.89 as Demeter, see Gow (1952) 2.290. Lambert (2001) 93–98. On allusions to the Odyssey’s Circe at Id. 15.72–73 and 78–79, see Burton (1995) 102 and 173–175, and Foster (2006) 137–140. See Gow (1952) 2.292–293 ad Id. 15.100–101; Whitehorne (1995) 73; Hunter (1996) 131. Foster (2006) 145–146 relates the ebony, gold, and ivory of Id. 15.123 to Hecateus’ description of Sesoösis’ conquest of the Ethiopians as described in Diodorus Siculus 1.55.1. See Hunter (1996) 117. Reed (2000) 329–333. J. Griffiths (1980) 163–170.

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the traditional Adonia would not involve food, the aromatic loaves on the altar may recall offerings to Osiris. The golden bottles of Syrian perfume may recall Egyptian offerings of perfume to deities, or even the myrrh used to reconstitute Osiris’ body. Where the Greek Adonia involved carrying doll-sized effigies of Adonis for immersion in a spring or the sea, the public ceremony of delivering a life-size effigy to the sea may evoke Egyptian funeral rituals, such as symbolically conveying Osiris, as well as the deceased, to the western shore (though the lament at 133 is beside the sea, not the river). Since Arsinoe’s Adonis is no longer just lamented but also prayed to, Reed relates his enhanced powers to those of Osiris as a bringer of prosperity. After the hymn, Gorgo is won over by the powers of the singer (146): ὀλβία ὅσσα ἴσατι, πανολβία ὡς γλυκὺ φωνεῖ. She’s blessed in what she knows, and thrice-blessed in how sweetly she sings. However, that is a comment about the singer more than about Adonis as a bringer of ὄλβος. In what may be a further reminder of Persephone, Gorgo seems to echo a formula from the Mysteries: “Blessed is he who has seen these things” (ὄλβιος, ὃς τάδ’ ὄπωπεν, H. Hom. Dem. 480).29 The singer concludes in saying that Adonis has come upon them happy (εὐθυμεύσαις, 143) and that he will be welcome (φίλος, 144) when he returns; Gorgo echoes that sentiment in hoping that he come upon them happy (χαίροντας, 149) when he returns. Do these pieties amount to more than a “best wishes!” attached to a “same time next year”? Adonis’ new powers come with much diminished fervor.30 Where Sappho bids, “Rend your garments!” (κατερείκεσθε χίτωνας, fr. 140 Lobel-Page), Praxinoa’s one cry (οἴμοι δειλαία, 69) is provoked when her shawl is torn by the crowd. Other than the tributes on display in the palace, sacrifices and vows are not involved. In terms of fervor and fertility, Simichidas’ evocation of Demeter’s Thalysia in Id. 7.135–157 is on quite another scale. Reed argues that Osiris’ role as king of the dead is not missing but is diffused throughout the poem, especially in relation to the deification of Berenice, such that, within the gender fluidity of Egyptian belief, Arsinoe plays Horus in reviving her mother as Osiris.31 Berenice’s immortality does indeed remain 29 30 31

On the popularity of Demeter in Alexandria, including a deme named Eleusis and the possibility of an Eleusinia, see Fraser (1972) 1.198–201 and Stephens (2003) 140–142. Lambert (2001) 91 terms the festival “positively puritanical.” Reed (2000) 334–338.

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in an unexplained relationship to Adonis’ cyclic return. However, if honoring divine parents is formulaic for these poems, no explanation is needed, especially if Arsinoe is continuing her mother’s patronage of the festival. As queen of the dead, Persephone has a traditional role in the Adonis myth and may not yield much underground to Osiris, least of all in Syracusan eyes (cf. Theocritus’ prayer for Syracuse at Id. 16.83–84). None of the elements of this Adonia is demonstrably un-Hellenic. Nonetheless, in expanding domestic rites to a public festival the designers might well have executed Greek traditions in indigenous materials and styles. Arsinoe has staged a ceremony very like those for fecundity gods (such as the positive embodiment of the Nile inundation, Hapi), in which the tributes to the god are in effect tributes to the ruler in celebrating divine and royal provision for the country.32 She has used a Greek (if perennially exotic) deity, Adonis, who shares Osiris’ youth and erotic appeal. The knowledgeable queen would be capable of creating such hybridity. Even on a documentary reading, irony may still figure if we see Theocritus as sharing with his patron a bemused appreciation of how her showmanship enchants chauvinist colonials by displaying Egyptian luxury. How deeply Theocritus needed to understand the indigenous elements remains unclear, but he did construct a progression of spaces in the poem that locates the bower as a realm beyond conflict, mortality, and provincial Greekness. The Adoniazusae may give us a wry view of something like Theocritus’ own position as a court poet. The singer lacks a priestly or official role; she did best (ἀρίστευσε, Id. 15.98) last year in the second-day laments at the seashore. A contest system also seems to lie behind Id. 24 and 17. We have no external evidence for Theocritus’ relationship with the monarchs. From the astronomy of the Heracliscus and the gymnastic slant of Heracles’ education, Koenen argues that the Heracliscus may have been recited at Philadelphus’ ascent to co-regency with his father in 285/4 at his Genethlia in the agonistic Basileia dedicated to Zeus.33 In the fragmentary finish, the singer prays for victory. With less certainty, the Ptolemy has been tied to the Ptolemaia in 271/0, the isolympic festival founded by Philadelphus to honor his father.34 Theocritus praises the king for his gen-

32 33 34

See in general Baines (1985). Koenen (1977) 79–86. The Basileia commemorated Philadelphus’ birthday; see Fraser (1972) 1.232 and 2.382 n. 341. Heerink (2010) 393. There is, of course, a risk of circularity, since the themes of the poem are one of the grounds for associating it with the Ptolemaia. Hunter (2003) 183 ad Id. 17.112– 114 sees the association as possible but not necessary. On the Ptolemaia, see Fraser (1972) 1.231–232.

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erosity to singers in the “sacred contests of Dionysus” (Διωνύσου … ἱεροὺς κατ’ ἀγῶνας, Id. 17.112). Like the hymn singer of Id. 15, he claims no official role, nor does he presume to the bonds of hospitality and reciprocity of epinician singers such as Pindar and Simonides, who are invoked in his appeal to Hiero in Id. 16. The Heracliscus (Id. 24) recounts how the ten-month-old Heracles throttles snakes sent by Hera (1–63), leading the worried Alcmene to learn from Teiresias of her son’s destined labors and immortality (64–102), whereupon she provides her son with a gentlemanly education in letters, archery, music, boxing, horsemanship, and warfare (103–140). A fragmentary conclusion in the Antinoe papyrus of about forty verses may mention Heracles’ marriage to Hebe and the poet’s prayer to him for victory. To Pindar’s account in Nemean 1, Theocritus adds Teiresias’ prediction of Heracles’ cremation at Trachis and his instructions about burning the snakes, disposing of the ashes, and sacrificing a pig to Zeus. The setting is nowhere specified as Thebes. There are further dynastic particulars: Heracles and his mortal brother Iphicles nestle in the shield that Amphitryon carried in his campaign against Pterelaus, leaving Zeus the opportunity to visit Alcmene (1–10). The shield was also an icon of the regime, associated with a tale that the infant Soter was exposed in a shield by his supposed father, Lagus, and protected by an eagle symbolizing Zeus’ favor and perhaps his paternity.35 Zeus’ paternity would render Soter a half-brother of Alexander, who was declared son of AmmonZeus after trekking to the oasis at Siwah. The shield as cradle introduces the poem’s much-admired humor in describing the intersection of the heroic and the domestic. If the poem was performed in the context of Philadelphus’ ascent to co-regency, the myth’s theme of double paternity would invite connections to that of the pharaoh as son of Re, Osiris, or Ammon. The delighted toddler lays the dead snakes at the feet of his mortal father, but Amphitryon himself is singularly feckless, leaving his capable wife to take charge and leaving the reader to guess what she knows or suspects about Zeus’ paternity. Seeing an uncanny light in the house, the vigilant Alcmene rouses Amphitryon to action, bidding him not to bother to put on his sandals. In time he goes back to bed, none the wiser. As the most heroic of housewives, she outshines her prodigious son as she apprehensively elicits Teiresias’ revelation and proceeds to recruit the needed tutors. Like Id. 15, the Heracliscus modulates gracefully to larger issues. Alcmene’s palace recalls

35

The tradition is recounted by Aelian (fr. 285 Herscher); see Koenen (1993) 44–46, Hunter (1996) 27, and Stephens (2003) 129.

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Arsinoe’s as a site of revelation: Heracles will marry into immortality with Hebe (γαμβρὸς δ’ ἀθανάτων, 84), even as does the γαμβρός Adonis with Aphrodite (Id. 15.129). Teiresias bids that the sacrifice for purification (a pig) be dedicated to Zeus the Master (Ζηνί … καθυπερτέρῳ, 99) so that the family may be “masters of your foes” (δυσμενέων …. καθυπέρτεροι, 100). The poem presents a seamless gradation from the “terrible fire” (κακὸν πῦρ, 18) of the serpents’ eyes to Teiresias’ prophecy of the pyre at Trachis (πυρὰ Τραχίνιος, 83) that will purify Heracles of his mortal element, and finally to his instructions for the ritual incineration of the serpents and purification of the house (88–100). The first sign of the immortalizing fire (not in Pindar) is the uncanny light that awakens Alcmene, an inheritance, it seems, from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, as is the scene of a disrupted household and the late-born infant (ὀψίγονον, 31; H. Hom. Dem. 165, 219).36 The purifying fire of the pyre at Trachis would distract from the image of Heracles as Horus, though it would also seem to be an inauspicious touch in a birthday poem for Philadelphus. Stephens argues that the image of Heracles with the snakes would evoke for an Alexandrian audience the image of Horus on a crocodile strangling snakes or scorpions, a signal of his restoration of cosmic order (maat) against the chaos (isfet) inflicted by the malign Seth, as depicted on innumerable plaques (cippi) to protect against reptiles.37 Though the tutoring that Heracles receives seems singularly Greek, Koenen argues that such attainments also symbolized maintaining maat for the pharaoh. He points out that the Basileia were originally a festival of thanksgiving for victory, for which a pig was the requisite sacrifice (99); furthermore, the pig can be seen as an embodiment of the malign Seth.38 Vis-à-vis Teiresias’ precise instructions for cremating the snakes by night and disposing of the ashes, Stephens adduces Manetho’s report (fr. 86 Waddell) that followers of Seth were burned and their ashes scattered.39 But, as mentioned, Theocritus seems to have added the cremation of Heracles as more than an incidental point. Alternatively, the symbolic snakes may be Egyptian, but already long since adopted by Soter in his dynastic mythmaking. Horus needed no prophet to proclaim his divinity, but Alexander’s acknowledgement as son of Ammon was essential to his and the Ptolemies’ claims on Egypt. Arrian (Anab. 3.3.5) reports that, contra the usual account of helpful crows guiding Alexander’s trek to the oracle at Siwah, Soter records that they were led by two talking 36 37 38 39

Stephens (2003) 140–142. Stephens (2003) 134–135. Koenen (1977) 81–83, disputed by Zanker (1989) 97–98. Stephens (2003) 138.

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snakes.40 Arrian further claims that Alexander undertook this arduous journey to honor his ancestors Perseus and Heracles, an otherwise unattested detail that reflects somebody’s (Soter’s?) interest in connecting the expedition with these heroes and recently adopted ancestors. Soter’s history may also figure in Apollonius’ account of the Argonauts’ Libyan trek as it anticipates Alexander’s and involves a snake engendered by Perseus and a rescue by Heracles.41 If Id. 24 was performed before Soter, the parallel of the two snakes (though friendly) and the prophet who declares Ammon Zeus’ paternity would be hard to miss. The double paternities accumulate: Heracles and, allusively, Alexander, as well as Soter (the shield) and implicitly Philadelphus. The tone is humorous; the mortal father, Amphitryon, bumbles. A measure of dynastic playfulness also lightens the Olympian scene of Id. 17, which has the same cast (Heracles, Alexander, and Soter) and a near echo (ἐν Διὸς οἴκῳ, Id. 17.17; [Teiresias] ἐν Διὸς οἰκεῖν, Id. 24.82). Alexandria may have been overrun with too many symbolic snakes to allow much certainty, if certainty was needed. According to the Alexander-Romance, construction in the new city was disturbed by a persistent snake, which Alexander ordered to be killed and then honored in a sanctuary as the Agathos Daimon.42 Even a newcomer to Alexandria might observe that, though Horus was the snake throttler par excellence, Iris, Thoth, Chnum, and other deities showed their might with a similar grip, as we see on the Metternich stela.43 The catalogue of tutors may wittily refer to Philadelphus’ own tutors in ways now lost to us. Heracles receives training that befits him as the patron, along with Hermes, of gymnasia44 and that resonates with the Dorian athleticism of the maidens in The Epithalamium of Helen (Id. 18.22–25). Argos, Amphitryon’s town (104), figures centrally (123, 129), as at Id. 15.97 and Id. 17.53, perhaps as a gesture to the Ptolemies’ connection to the Argead dynasty.45 In Stephens’s view, Alcmene’s program may reflect current models of kingship that subordinate militarism to good works, euergesia.46 Hecateus of Abdera at the court of Soter synthesized Greek and Egyptian ideals in aligning the mythic pharaoh

40 41 42 43 44 45 46

On Soter’s motives in recounting this fable, see Cerfaux-Tondriau (1957) 159–160. The oracle confirmed Soter’s godhead to the grateful Rhodians after he liberated them. See F. Griffiths (2012) 9–11. Alcmene’s lullaby may evoke that of Danae for Perseus (PMG 543.21–22); see Hunter (1996) 26–27 and Stephens (2003) 132–133. Fraser (1972) 1.209–211. Scott (1951) 216. See Stephens (2003) plate 3. Fraser (1972) 1.208 and 2.353 n. 149. F. Griffiths (1979) 97 and Reed (2000) 321. Stephens (2003) 142–146.

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Sesoösis and Alexander (see below on Id. 17).47 However, Heracles is a singularly troublesome vehicle for theorizing ideal kingship, and Hecateus leaves him aside. Finally, we turn to the Ptolemy, in which the ideals of sovereignty and the divine sanction for it figure complexly and without the elusive ironies of Id. 15 and 24. In celebrating Philadelphus’ rule over Egypt, the poem undertakes an intercultural project in Greek terms but with enough residual pharaonic glory to raise questions about the correspondences in ideology and image adduced by Hunter.48 The gradual elevation of Philadelphus, “most excellent of men” (προφερέστατος ἀνδρῶν, 4), toward Zeus, who is “best of immortals” (ἀθανάτων τὸν ἄριστον, 2), takes up where Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus leaves off49 and involves a progression of heroic models: Heracles, Alexander, and Soter on Olympus and, intertextually, Achilles, Diomedes, Telemachus, Agamemnon, Alcinous, and Odysseus. Does Theocritus mean to implicate Horus, Osiris, Re, Sesoösis, and the eternally renewed identity of the pharaoh in this progression? A benign, marriage-minded Aphrodite helps with the synthesis, as in the Adoniazusae, but the question arises whether the numerous Greek heroes, though all on their best behavior, bring with them disruptive levels of individuality and historical specificity in ways that the females do not: Aphrodite-Isis-BereniceArsinoe.50 Does this Olympus have enough ambrosia to allow the male Egyptian counterparts to fit in comfortably? The poet announces Philadelphus’ trajectory in declaring that, knowing how to praise, he must hymn the king (ἐπιστάμενος καλὰ εἰπεῖν / ὑμνήσαιμ’, 7–8), since hymns are the due honor (γέρας, 8) of the immortals. The poem alternates between a hymnic mode, in which gods can figure, and a poetic adaptation of prose encomium, a form that had become popular in the fourth century.51 The forms of hymn or victory ode would create the need to celebrate triumphs or miracles not credible for Philadelphus, overshadowed as he was militarily by Alexander and Soter. Encomium allows description of his good works (καλὰ ἔργα, 6) as a sovereign. The poem largely follows the format of encomium: father, mother, birth, territory, and (deflecting from heroic feats) his wealth and generosity, including to the poets who bring earthly fame (κλέος ἐσθλὸν ἐν 47 48

49 50 51

See Murray (1970). See especially Hunter (2003) 95 ad 1–12, 109 ad 13, 126 ad 34–35, 129 ad 38–39, 134–135 ad 48–49, 156 ad 79–80, 159–163 ad 86–92, 167–168 ad 91–92, 170–172 ad 95–97, 177 ad 104–105, 186–187 ad 121–122, and 188 ad 123–125. Meincke (1965) 165–208; Hunter (2003) 98 ad Id. 17.1, 108–109 ad Id. 17.13, and 195–199 ad Id. 17.135–137; and Stephens (2003) 147–151 and 159–164. See Tondriau (1948) 14–21, Fraser (1972) 1.240–243 and 666, and Stephens (2003) 155. On the poem’s genre, see Hunter (2003) 8–24.

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ἀνθρώποισιν, 117). Thereafter, the engine of immortality becomes Philadelphus’ own ritual acts in founding shrines for his parents and in marrying Arsinoe, and the poet ends deferentially by quoting Nestor to Agamemnon (Il. 2.361) in hoping for a “word not to be rejected” (ἔπος οὐκ ἀπόβλητον, 136). Cultural convergence is easiest to assess in the central encomiastic description of Egypt’s wondrous rainless fertility, its innumerable villages, Philadelphus’ vast domain, his deterrence of attack by his formidable might, and, finally, his generosity to temples and to poets (77–120). Parts of this largely conventional overview, such as Egypt’s 33,333 villages and the geography of the Nile valley, apparently derive from Hecateus of Abdera,52 and the section concludes in noting the praise that poets confer for the king’s good works (εὐεργεσίης, 116). Writing perhaps thirty years before the Ptolemy (before 305 bce),53 Hecateus saw euergesia as a virtue common to Greek and Egyptian thought, and Theocritus may continue that project of cultural synthesis. Less easy to determine is how much Theocritus would expect his audience to see his traditional heroes and new gods through a Hecatean filter. Stephens argues that Theocritus draws on Hecateus’ idealized world conqueror and just pharaoh, Sesoösis (Sesostris in Herodotus and Manetho), whom he presented as a precursor of Alexander.54 Given how glancingly Alexander’s conquests are credited at the outset (“hard on the Persians,” Πέρσαισι βαρύς, 19), one wonders how much Theocritus may want to evoke Sesoösis, who also served to rally indigenous resistance to the regime.55 Probably later, Apollonius cites this ancient pharaoh (unnamed) as conqueror (and presumably precursor to Alexander) without reference to ideal kingship (Arg. 4.257–281). The description of Egypt as prosperous, secure, and orderly can be interpreted as cosmic order (maat) reliant on Philadelphus’ spiritual force. However, his ritual role is only implicit and not manifested in feats, such as smiting the enemy, or in ceremonially protecting the cycles of the rising sun and the flooding Nile. Only at the end do we hear of ritual cycles, in reference to the burnt offerings to his parents “in the revolving months” (μησὶ περιπλομένοισιν, 127). This eternal Egypt exists almost outside of history and outside of ethnicity. A telling contrast emerges from the Hiero (Id. 16), Theocritus’ apparently unsuccessful appeal to Hiero ii of Syracuse. After amusingly sketching the powers and needs of poets, Theocritus turns to a prophetic vision of a triumphant Hiero in need of his services, envisaged amid Homeric warriors (Id. 16.78–81), as is 52 53 54 55

See Hunter (2003) 157–159 ad Id. 17. 81 and 82–84. Murray (1970) 144. Stephens (2003) 159–161. Lloyd (1982) 37–40.

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Philadelphus when he comes into view (Id. 17.93–94). Theocritus introduces Hiero only after describing the Phoenicians who tremble before him and then maps his anticipated triumph in driving the enemy over the Sardinian sea and thereby earning fame that will resound northward beyond the Scythian sea and eastward to Babylon. The more detailed panorama of Philadelphus’ domain, starting with Phoenicia and ending with the Cyclades (Id. 17.86–90),56 is not organized along the boundary of Hellene and barbarian. In its unique rainlessness and impregnability, the land of the Nile occupies the center, and the “countless multitudes of men” (ἔθνεα μυρία φωτῶν, Id. 17.77) are the undifferentiated “other” consisting of mortals outside of Egypt, not, as in Apollonius, specific ethne such as Celts (ἔθνεα μυρία Κελτῶν, Arg. 4.646) or Colchians (Κόλχων / ἔθνεα … ἀπείρονα, Arg. 2.1204–1205).57 Along with conquest, ethnicity has been unseen as a driving issue. In the Hiero, the poet looks forward to seeing Sicilian cities resettled by the “earlier citizens” (προτέροισι … πολίταις, Id. 16.88); here, Egypt is populated with “mortals skilled to labor” (βροτῶν … ἔργα δαέντων, Id. 17.81). There is no other social class, nor in the land of the Nile is there an Alexandria as the gateway between the Greek and Egyptian spheres. Paradoxically, having suppressed history and ethnicity in the encomiastic survey of Philadelphus’ realm and euergesia, Theocritus inserts history into the hymnic and ritual portions, especially in the framing Olympian (13–33) and cultic passages (121–134), where Soter sits first on a golden throne (χρύσεος θρόνος, 17) in the house of Zeus and then (as a statue?) amid the gold and ivory (χρυσῷ … ἠδ’ ἐλέφαντι, 124) of his son’s shrines. By the end, Philadelphus undertakes the ritual preliminaries to his own apotheosis. At the start, Zeus immortalizes his descendants, Soter and Alexander (24–25), and at Philadelphus’ birth sends his eagle and blessings (73–76). In the conclusion, Philadelphus himself ritually enables those blessings by uniquely (μοῦνος, 121) founding a cult of his parents and replicating their hieros gamos—a step beyond functioning in historical time. The poet has just summed up his own role in conferring “worthy fame among men” (κλέος ἐσθλὸν ἐν ἀνθρώποισιν, 117). Philadelphus ritually engages a higher plane of immortality—one that does not depend on mortal audiences but that, through his savior parents, confers blessings on all mankind (πάντεσσιν ἐπιχθονίοισιν ἀρωγούς, 125) as if “earthlings” seen from above. Where Heracles culminates his apotheosis by his marriage to Hebe in her “ambrosial chamber” (ἀμβρόσιον θάλαμον, 32), so, too, do the Theoi Soteres in the “fragrant shrines” (θυώδεας … ναούς, 123) dedicated by their son. 56 57

On how court poets avoid disparaging the barbaroi, see Hunter (1991) 83–87, Goldhill (1991) 276, and Hunter (1993) 159. Hunter (2003) 155 ad Id. 17.77.

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This step beyond history at Id. 17.121 gets us into Egyptian cosmology and perhaps right out of it. Filial piety is basic to pharaonic ritual, as Horus honors Osiris.58 However, Philadelphus’ act does not renew an eternal cycle but rather marks an historic first (μοῦνος ὅδε προτέρων …)—one bound into time in a way different from the unique demigod bridegrooms: Adonis (ἡμιθέων … μονώτατος, Id. 15.137) and Menelaus as Zeus’ son-in-law (μῶνος ἐν ἡμιθέοις, Id. 18.18). Philadelphus now caps the unique dynasty cited at the outset—Heracles, Alexander, Soter—a line conspicuous for non-repetition: Philadelphus honors Soter, as Soter has honored Alexander (rather than Lagus),59 who himself emulated Heracles but not Phillip ii. Philadelphus’ three predecessors have exited time, onto Olympus, but they are not absorbed cosmically into the sun or the circumpolar stars or unity with Osiris. They retain attributes, epithets, and status distinctions: Alexander and Soter, Heracles’ loyal attendants, are not invited to the ambrosial symposium. Taking the identification of Philadelphus as pharaoh to be pervasive and unqualified, Heerink posits three pharaohs on Olympus;60 less eccentric to Egyptian eyes, I suspect, would be the Pithom stela, on which Philadelphus, multiply depicted, sacrifices to three deities.61 The shifting terms of affinity and similarity that gradually bring Philadelphus closer to Zeus imply double paternity confusingly, if at all.62 Zeus honors Philadelphus at birth not as a son but as among the “august kings” (αἰδοῖοι βασιλῆες, 74). Heracles as a son of Zeus (Διὸς υἱόν, 33) rejoices in “the sons of his sons” because Zeus “has lifted age from their limbs” (23–24). They are not his brothers and Zeus intervenes at their death, not conception; so, too, Aphrodite for Berenice. Similarly, the priamel introducing the birth narrative traces a progression from Diomedes (no divine parents) to Achilles (Thetis) to Philadelphus (the Theoi Soteres). The likeness of warrior son to warrior father (αἰχμητὰ Πτολεμαῖε / αἰχμητᾷ Πτολεμαίῳ, 56–57) parallels Egyptian formulas about the likeness of father and son,63 but the linear history—the succession of theo-historical “firsts”—in this heroic progression, as in the dynasty already on Olympus, speaks against the Egyptian sense of cycle. 58 59 60 61 62

63

Hunter (2003) 188 ad Id. 17.123–125 cites examples. Hazzard (2000) 45. Heerink (2010) 397–398. Roeder (1959) 112–128. Stephens (2003) 156–157 argues that the disparate handlings of Soter (on Olympus) and Berenice (co-templed) are intended to marginalize Soter and invite thoughts of Zeus as true parent. Hunter (2003) 111 ad Id. 17.16 senses the possibility of Zeus’ paternity of Soter in πατήρ, which Heerink (2010) 398 relates to every pharaoh as son of Ammon-Re (Zeus). On generational sameness in pharaonic succession, see Koenen (1983) 163–165 and Stephens (2003) 129.

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As in the Adoniazusae, females inhabit bicultural identities more gracefully than do males, perhaps by virtue of being less subject to heroic vanity. The benign, maternal, marriage-minded Aphrodite of that poem and the Ptolemy can easily be assimilated to Isis, long familiar to the Greeks,64 and with her to Berenice and Arsinoe. As Koenen discusses, marital devotion was a central article of pharaonic ideology.65 The descriptions of Berenice’s deification are closely similar (Id. 15.106–111, Id. 17.36–37 and 45–50) and name Aphrodite similarly (Κύπρι Διωναία, Id. 15.106; Κύπρον ἔχοισα Διώνας πότνια κούρα, Id. 17.36). Since Berenice is invoked amid the ekphrasis of the bower in Id. 15 and is co-templed in Id. 17, we may well imagine her as a statue to which the singer makes obeisance. In Id. 15.106–108 Aphrodite has immortalized Berenice through instilling ambrosia in her woman’s breast, which Hunter has interpreted as a possible aligning of Homeric custom to embalming.66 Stephens extends the connection to Aphrodite’s laying on of delicate hands on Berenice’s fragrant bosom (Id. 17.36–37),67 and Hunter sees a possible “Egyptian resonance” in the snatching of the queen from the “grim ferryman of the dead” (Id. 17.49).68 The patrons’ mother may have had, at least at court, an independent cult, as Arsinoe will have at death. When Philadelphus and Arsinoe complete their ritual roles in a hieros gamos, like Zeus and Hera, uncertainty compounds. That the sibling marriage is a political concession to Egyptian custom is often assumed, but disputed.69 If so, the comparison might be an interpretatio Graeca to veil that reality for resistant Greeks70 or, by the inadequacy of the analogue (given Zeus and Hera’s rancorous marriage), a tip-off to the bicultural audience to consider Hecateus’ connection of euergesia and godhead in a way that evokes the more edifying analogue of Osiris and Isis.71 The latter reading posits a richer poem, but one that assumes the audience’s currency with the cross-cultural theorizing

64 65 66

67 68 69 70 71

On the Hellenization of Isis, see Thompson (1973) 57–59. Koenen (1983) 160–165. See also Hunter (2003) 129–130 ad Id. 17.38–39. Hunter (1996) 132–134 and (2003) 52 and 134–135 ad Id.17.48–49; and Reed (2000) 335. However, cremation is explicit for Heracles at Id. 24.83 and for Arsinoe in Callimachus’ Deification of Arsinoe (fr. 228 Pf.). Stephens (2003) 152–155. Hunter (2003) 134–135 ad Id. 17.48–49. Hazzard (2000) 85–90. Zanker (1989) 98. Koenen (1983) 158–159 and Stephens (2003) 168–169. Stephens sees a synthesis of the two couples in Hecateus’ theorizing of deification and euergesia. Fraser (1972) 1.498–499 suspects post-Hecatean additions in the account of religious syncretism given by Diodorus Siculus in excerpting Hecateus.

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of Hecateus and Manetho. As we keep seeing, fabricated pantheons are hard to manage: if Philadelphus starts the section as Horus honoring his father, his sudden transformation into Osiris, husband of Isis, might baffle Greek imaginations, if not Egyptian. On a grander scale than the Adoniazusae and the Heracliscus, and mostly without their ironies, the Ptolemy forces the choice between reading the text essentially as performance or, instead, fathoming subtexts for intercultural synthesis. Stylistically and theologically, the Ptolemy may seem to jump around: an amusing Olympian scene, the temple-sharing mother, the talking natal island, the prodigious kingdom, and finally cult founding with hierogamy. If we imagine Theocritus as presenting the poem at the Ptolemaia in memory of Soter, the veneration of parents found in all sections overshadows the seams and inconcinnities.72 The point is clear, and the variety may be welcome. The numerous models presented to Philadelphus (three predecessors on Olympus, at least six heroes) may serve more as a noble peer group (like the aristocratic tutors of Id. 24) than as separate vehicles of moral instruction. Alternatively, and perhaps more interestingly, we can credit the Ptolemy as a profound dialogue with Hecateus and with Callimachus’Hymn to Zeus, bolstered at many points by finely wrought syntheses of monarchical and pharaonic ideology, such as Hunter has compiled. Verifying such parallels is a massive and intriguing project. Too much evidence has accumulated—not least Theocritus’ canny handling of Egyptian spaces—to insist that he absolutely would not sing Αἰγυπτιστί (Id. 15.48), but the oddities and ironies of reinvented deities and rituals, Hellenic or Egyptian, still make it hard to know where precisely he did. The question remains open.

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Even the survey of Philadelphus’ empire and vast holdings leads up to the observation that he guards his inheritance (πατρώια, 104) and adds to it.

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Goddio, F./Fabre, D. (eds.) (2006) (20082), Egypt’s Sunken Treasures (Munich/Berlin/ London/New York). Goldhill, S. (1991), The Poet’s Voice. Essays in Poetics and Greek Literature (Cambridge). Gow, A. (1938), “The Adoniazusae of Theocritus,” JHS 58, 180–204. Gow, A. (1950) (19522), Theocritus, 2 vols. (Cambridge). Griffiths, F. (1979), Theocritus at Court (= Mnemosyne Supplementum vol. 55) (Leiden). Griffiths, F. (1981), “Home Before Lunch. The Emancipated Woman in Theocritus,” in H. Foley (ed.), Reflections of Women in Antiquity (New York) 247–273. Griffiths, F. (2012), “Claiming Libya. Peleus and the Ptolemies in Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica,” in C. Cusset/N. Le Meur-Weissman/F. Levin (eds.), Mythe et pouvoir à l’époque hellénistique (= Hellenistica Groningana vol. 18) (Leuven/Paris/Walpole) 1–35. Griffiths, J. (1980), The Origins of Osiris and His Cult (= Studies in the History of Religions vol. 40) (Leiden). Hazzard, R. (2000), Imagination of a Monarchy. Studies in Ptolemaic Propaganda (Toronto). Heerink, M. (2010), “Merging Paradigms. Translating Pharaonic Ideology in Theocritus’ Idyll 17,” in R. Rollinger/B. Gufler/M. Lang/I. Madreiter (eds.), Interkulturalität in der Alten Welt. Vorderasien, Hellas, Ägypten und die vielfältigen Ebenen des Kontakts (Wiesbaden) 383–408. Hunter, R. (1991), “Greek and Non-Greek in the Argonautica of Apollonius,” in S. Said (ed.), ελληνισμοσ. Quelques jalons pour une histoire de l’identité grecque (Strasbourg) 81–99. Hunter, R. (1993), The Argonautica of Apollonius. Literary Studies (Cambridge). Hunter, R. (1996), Theocritus and the Archeology of Greek Poetry (Cambridge). Hunter, R. (2003), Theocritus. Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London). Koenen, L. (1977), Eine agonistische Inschrift aus Ägypten und frühptolemäische Königsfeste (= Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie vol. 56) (Meisenheim am Glan). Koenen, L. (1983), “Die Adaptation ägyptischer Königsideologie am Ptolemäerhof,” in E. van’t Dack/P. van Dessel/W. van Gucht (eds.), Egypt in the Hellenistic World (Louvain) 143–190. Koenen, L. (1993), “The Ptolemaic King as a Religious Figure,” in A. Bulloch/E. Gruen/ A. Long/A. Stewart (eds.), Images and Ideologies. Self-Definition in the Hellenistic World (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London) 25–115. Lambert, M. (2001), “Gender and Religion in Theocritus, Idyll 15. Prattling Tourists at the Adonia,” AC 44, 87–103. Lloyd, A. (1982), “Nationalist Propaganda in Ptolemaic Egypt,” Historia 31, 33–55. Meincke, W. (1965), Untersuchungen zu den enkomiastischen Gedichten Theokrits (Diss. Kiel).

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Murray, O. (1970), “Hecateus of Abdera and Pharaonic Kingship,” JEA 56, 141–171. Reed, J. (2000), “Arsinoe’s Adonis and the Poetics of Ptolemaic Imperialism,” TAPA 130, 319–351. Roeder, G. (1959), Die ägyptische Götterwelt (= Die ägyptische Religion in Texten und Bildern vol. 1) (Zurich). Scott, N. (1951), “The Metternich Stella,” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, NS 9, 201– 217. Stephens, S. (2003), Seeing Double. Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria (Berkeley/Los Angeles). Thompson, D. (1973), Ptolemaic Oinochoai and Portraits in Faience. Aspects of the Ruler Cult (Oxford). Tondriau, J. (1948), “Princesses ptolémaïques comparées ou identifiées à des déesses,” BSAA 37, 12–33. Weber, G. (1993), Dichtung und höfische Gesellschaft. Die Rezeption von Zeitgeschichte am Hof der ersten drei Ptolemäer (= Hermes Einzelschriften vol. 62) (Stuttgart). Wendel, C. (1914), Scholia in Theocritum vetera; Scholia in Technopaegnia scripta (Leipzig). Whitehorne, J. (1995), “Women’s Work in Theocritus, Idyll 15,” Hermes 123, 63–75. Žabkar, L. (1998), Hymns to Isis in Her Temple at Philae (Hanover, N.H.). Zanker, G. (1989), “Current Trends in the Study of Hellenic Myth in Early Third-Century Alexandrian Poetry. The Case of Theocritus,” A&A 35, 83–103.

chapter 25

Gods and Religion in Theocritus Ivana Petrovic

1

Cult Performance as the Origin of Bucolic Song: The Scholia

The ancient commentators of Theocritus and Virgil trace the origins of bucolic poetry to a curious and accidental merging of traditional rustic poetry with ritual songs for Artemis. The Theocritean scholia represent a composite commentary assembled from works from two distinct periods. The earlier (and better) commentaries and probably also the prolegomena and hypotheseis are based on the ὑπομνήματα of Theon from the Augustan period and the work of Asclepiades of Myrlea, possibly from the 1st century bce. The second group of comments has been attributed to Munatius, Theaetetus, and Amarantus, scholars who were probably active in the second century ce. Both sets of commentaries have been handed down in a summarized and abridged form. Wendel’s edition also includes the late antique scholia on the Technopaegnia and the Prolegomena of ancient Virgilian commentaries.1 Three accounts, entitled εὕρεσις τῶν βουκολικῶν, “invention of bucolic,” are preserved in the Prolegomena to the Theocritean scholia. The third account is singled out as true (ὁ δὲ ἀληθὴς λόγος οὗτος). 1) During the Persian wars, the Lacedemonian maidens were too afraid to partake in the festival of Artemis Karyatis, so the local rustics (ἀγροῖκοι) went to the shrine of Artemis and hymned the goddess with their own typical songs (ἰδίαις ᾠδαῖς … ὕμνησαν). This hymning found favor and was preserved. 2) Orestes brought the image of Taurian Artemis to Rhegium in Italy because he received an oracle instructing him to purify himself from pollution in seven rivers from a single source. After the purification, Orestes came to

1 For a brief overview of Theocritean scholia with recent bibliography, Dickie (2007), 63– 65. Gow (1952) 1.lxxxii–lxxxiv summarizes and critically evaluates Wendel’s (1920) magisterial discussion of Theocritus’ ancient commentators. Belcher (2005) usefully reviews the evidence, discusses specific areas of interest of individual commentators, and provides an appendix of instances in the scholia where specific comments are attributed to a named ancient authority. For ancient scholarship on Theocritus, see also Pagani, this volume.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004466715_027

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Tyndaris in Sicily, where the locals (ἐπιχώριοι) celebrated the advent of the goddess with their typical hymns (τὴν θεὸν ἰδίοις ποιήμασι καθυμνήσαντες). 3) A bloody stasis in Syracuse came to an end thanks to Artemis, and the rustics (ἀγροῖκοι) hymned the goddess (ἀνύμνησαν) with rustic songs (ταῖς ⟨τῶν⟩ ἀγροίκων ᾠδαῖς). They organized a hymning competition and prepared bread with figures of many animals, a pouch with seeds, and a wineskin. They had wreaths with deer antlers, carried shepherd’s staffs, and performed libations of wine with everyone they encountered. The victorious singer took the bread from the defeated opponents and stayed in the city, whereas the other competitors toured the villages begging for food and singing cheerful songs. One such song is quoted in the scholia.2 Anecdoton Estense iii3 first provides an interpretation of the third (“true”) tale about the origin of bucolic, but omits all references to Artemis. It explains that the rustics’ bread, the mixture of all seeds, the libations, and the begging song are symbols of peace, and that the performers of hymns are reenacting the stasis by competing with each other. The wreaths are the symbols of victory. The commentator interestingly associates the deer antlers, the figurines of animals on the bread, and the shepherds’ staff with Pan, the rustic god. Then the first, the second, and the third tales, all focusing on Artemis, are reproduced, including the role of Artemis as the peace-bringing divinity in the third story. Probus’ version4 largely follows the Greek scholia, but changes the cause of celebration in the third account: it was a pestilence that Artemis put a stop to, not a stasis, which is why they called her Lyaea. To the second account, Probus adds details absent in the Greek scholia: after purification, Orestes dedicated the image of the Taurian Artemis near Syracuse, and the goddess was venerated there as Facelitis. She had sacred herds, and volunteer herdsmen of the goddess took care of the cattle, receiving food as payment for their work. Diomedes omits the second explanation, and adds a brief remark about Daphnis as the first bucolic poet who was imitated by Theocritus to the first and the third accounts.5 He also adds a detail to the third account: some of the competitors in hymning went to Italy, Lydia, and Egypt and were called lydiastae and bucolistae. Finally, Donatus, Iunius Philargyrus, and Servius6 all

2 At Wendel iii, the reports are given in the reverse order. All quotations of scholia are from Wendel (1914). 3 Wendel iii, pp. 7–9. This account is usually ascribed to Tzetzes. 4 Wendel, Prolegomenorum reliquiae latinae, pp. 13–15 (= Comm. In Verg. Buc. 324.8–326.2 Hagen). 5 Wendel, Prolegomenorum reliquiae latinae, pp. 15–17 (= Art. Gramm. iii 486,17–487,10 Keil). 6 Wendel, Prolegomenorum reliquiae latinae, pp. 17–21.

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omit the third account and instead add a section recording alternative traditions about other divinities as either originators or the first subjects of bucolic poetry: Apollo; Liber, Nymphs, and Satyrs; Mercury (as father of Daphnis), Pan, Sileni, Silvani, and Faunus. Pan, Apollo, and the Nymphs are certainly more prominent in Theocritus than Artemis, who is mentioned in passing in some poems, and only plays a significant role in Idyll 2, where she is a divinity of magic. In the course of the last two centuries, three different approaches to the ancient explanations about the origins of bucolic emerged. According to the currently prevailing opinion, the ancient explanations are worthless and add nothing to our understanding of Theocritus’ poetry. Already in 1844, Welcker posited that Theocritus might have taken the traditional songs of herdsmen as his model, but that the ancient reports about the ritual origin of bucolic are not based on any real knowledge. This view was decisively supported in 1958 by Cremonesi, who argued that the origin stories recorded in the scholia were modeled on the peripatetic accounts of the origins of drama. Cremonesi drew several pertinent parallels between the accounts of the ritual origins of comedy and the structure of Old Comedy with reports about the origins of bucolic poetry: the animal masks of the chorus, the agon, and the komos of comedy can be paralleled with the account about the rustics competing in hymns, wearing antlers, and carrying bread with animal figures. Cremonesi also pointed out the parallels between the respective roles of Dionysus and Artemis in the stories about the ritual origins of the two genres. Finally, even the dating of the ritual beginnings of bucolic in the Greek and Latin accounts (early 5th century bce), corresponds to the period when Old Comedy allegedly originated. Fantuzzi (2006) importantly points out that the “traditionalizing” framework provided by the scholia to Theocritus is actually unique for Hellenistic poetry; therefore, if the scholarly accounts about the origin of bucolic were constructed in order to provide a dignified frame for bucolic using the existing models for tragedy and comedy, the effort to connect bucolic to some kind of ritual performance is significant in its own right. Among scholars who dismiss the scholia as irrelevant for our understanding of the origins of bucolic poetry, Halperin (1983) represents the extreme view as he argues that for Theocritus “bucolic” essentially meant hexameter poetry whose themes, form, and language stand in opposition to the Homeric and Hesiodic epic. Accordingly, “bucolic” is a term one should apply to most of Theocritus’ poems, not just those featuring herdsmen. According to Halperin, Theocritus’ poetry actually disassociates itself from the poetry of herdsmen. Currently, the predominant scholarly view is that Theocritus created a new genre; he might have been familiar with the popular folkloric song, but Theo-

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critus’ representation of herdsmen’s songs as traditional is interpreted as a metapoetic reference to the poet’s own invention of tradition, since his major influences were literary.7 The second approach to the scholia dismisses their particular versions of the story about the ritual origins of bucolic, but maintains the connections between Theocritus’ poetry and ritualistic rustic song. Merkelbach’s 1956 article was particularly influential as it provides a series of cross-cultural parallels for competitive performances of folk oral poetry. According to Merkelbach, Theocritus not only took the tradition of competitive folk performances of traditional poetry as his model, but he also relied on his audiences’ familiarity with this tradition. He suggests that those poems of Theocritus which are closer to this traditional model are mimes (Id. 5 is his prime example), whereas more artificial and poetic adaptations, such as Id. 1 and 7, he calls bucolic.8 The most recent representative of this view is Lelli, who argues in favor of the “folkloric Theocritus,” a poet who represents the agro-pastoral society in order to “raise a whole oral, popular, and poetic tradition to literary dignity by keeping its contents and spirit, though adapting the forms and style to a fine art.”9 The third type of approach to scholiastic accounts started with Richard Reitzenstein. In nineteenth-century Germany, under a significant influence of Romanticism, and especially the popular and numerous German Dichterbünde (“poets’ leagues”) and Dichterkreise (“poets’ circles”), Richard Reitzenstein wrote an account of Alexandrian poetry, arguing that Hellenistic poets, too, had their Dichtergesellschaften (“poetic societies”). His main thesis was that Hellenistic epigram was primarily written for sympotic entertainment and was not composed in order to be inscribed. But Reitzenstein also reconstructs specific local “schools” and “circles” of epigrammatic poetry and then turns to a discussion of bucolic poetry.10 He combines the scholia on Theocritus and Virgil with ancient testimonia about Daphnis as a βουκόλος, follower of Artemis, and the inventor of bucolic poetry,11 and attributes extraordinary importance to Probus’ account about Artemis’ herds on Sicily and Diomedes’ report about bucolistae. Reitzenstein fleshes out the mention of the volunteer 7 8

9 10 11

Gutzwiller (1991); (2006); Hunter (1996), (1999); Fantuzzi in Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 133– 167; Fantuzzi (2006); Klooster (2011) 91–113. On the connection of Theocritus’ poetry to the postulated folk poetry of herdsmen, see also Di Mino (1931); Caberghs (1944); Petropoulos (1959); Horowski (1973); Cipolla (1979); Pretagostini (2006). Lelli (2017), quotes from 395 and 392. Reitzenstein (1893) 193–269. Diod. 4.84; Parthen. 29; Aelian VH 10.18. On the figure of Daphnis, see Massimilla, this volume.

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herdsmen of Artemis with equal measures of ingenious and tenuous readings of passages from Homer to Hesychius in order to argue that βουκόλος was a terminus technicus for a member of a Dionysiac religious association (“religiöse Genossenschaft”),12 that βουκολιάσδεσθαι means “to compete with songs,”13 and that these competitions were part and parcel of religious service performed by a Dichtergesellschaft and sacrales collegium of βουκόλοι at Cos. According to Reitzenstein, Daphnis was a sacred βουκόλος, an initiate of Dionysus, as was Theocritus.14 The members of this Coan collegium were poets who pretended to be herdsmen while performing poetry about Daphnis, the legendary Dionysiac βουκόλος. They also invented cunning, riddling ways to refer to each other as herdsmen in bucolic poetry.15 This riddling aspect links bucolic poetry with Reitzenstein’s theory about Hellenistic epigram, which he also sees as a riddling and sympotic performative poetry. Thus, the idea of “bucolic masquerade” was born. Even after the idea of “bucolic masquerade” was eventually dismissed, attempts to reconstruct the original ritual origin from the scholia persisted. However, the attestations in the scholia are conflicting, and scholars who follow them inevitably privilege one explanation over the others and fill in the gaps of the privileged account with chronologically disparate information, usually in an associative manner. Since there also exist various versions of all three accounts, it is even possible to assemble vastly different “original versions” of a single account by cherry-picking information.

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βουκόλος was indeed the term for a priest of Dionysus or a prominent member of a Dionysiac association in some places, but Reitzenstein takes the use of the term too far. On the use of βουκόλος to designate an initiate of Dionysus, see Merkelbach (1988) 61. Much has been made out of the fact that Theocritus never uses βουκολιάσδεσθαι to mean “tend cattle”; the verb always denotes “to sing/compete in singing pastoral poetry.” However, he does use βουκόλος to designate a cowherd. The connection between Theocritus and the Coan cult of Dionysus was established by Maas (1891), who argued that Id. 26 was a hymn composed to be performed (possibly by Theocritus himself) at the festival of Dionysus at Cos. The overwhelming influence of Romanticism on Reitzenstein’s view of bucolic poetry is particularly clear in the following passage (226): “Eine Dichtergesselschaft zu Kos hat anfänglich unter sacraler Einwirkung die Maske der Hirten, der βουκόλοι, angenommen, und in derselben beim Gelage, zunächst bei dem durch den Cult gebotenen, später wohl auch ohne sacralen Anlass unter der Einwirkung der allgemeinen Sehnsucht nach dem Leben in der Natur und einfachen, schlichten Verhältnissen poetischen Wettstreit gepflegt. Das Spiegelbild dieses Wettstreits geben die βουκόλος-Lieder” (“Initially the members of the poets’ league on Cos staged their ritual poetic competitions at symposia, masked as herdsmen (βουκόλοι), but later they arguably competed also outside the ritual context, swayed by the general yearning for a simple and pure life in nature. The βουκόλοςpoems depict these poetic competitions”).

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For instance, Hathorn takes the third account as valid because it “sounds quite authentic” and “admirably accounts for the perennial form and enduring subject-matter of the pastoral throughout the ages.”16 Trencsényi-Waldapfel (1966) first reads Synesius’ letter 148.14 as providing authentic evidence about the local Cyrenaean tradition of popular song, and then stretches Reitzenstein’s bucolic masquerade theory to the limits by reading the third scholiastic account as a testimony of a ritual in which the farmers dress as and imitate herdsmen, who are imitating animals. Following Reitzenstein, TrencsényiWaldapfel argues that bucolistae are also imitating and worshipping Daphnis while worshipping Artemis and Pan. Daphnis, in turn, is a character whose similarities with Adonis and Dumuzi-Tammuz betray his oriental origins.17 The most ambitious attempt to connect the scholiastic accounts with Theocritus’ poetry is Baudy’s 1993 article. Baudy’s main critique of previous attempts to explain the ritual origins of bucolic is the neglect of Artemis, whose cult is the setting for bucolic poetry in all three accounts. Since Artemis is the main divinity in all three origin stories, Baudy looks for the cultural significance such rituals would have had for ancient audiences and singles out the role of Artemis as the goddess who presides over male and female maturation rituals. Baudy interprets the third origin story as an account about the ritual begging aspect of the Syracusan maturation ritual in which unmarried ephebes transition into married farmers and adulthood. They are wearing deer antlers in order to emphasize their animalistic status, i.e., the transitional stage when they are not yet fully human members of society, and to forge a link with Actaeon, the follower of Artemis whose transition did not follow the proper pattern. Actaeon also plays a role in the story about the foundation of Syracuse. Since there are some testimonies about the ritual lament for Actaeon, Baudy concludes that these laments must have been performed at the Syracusan festival. In his poetry, Theocritus substituted the local songs about Actaeon with another local Sicilian hero and follower of Artemis, Daphnis. The same ritual of transition can, according to Baudy, be detected in the other two stories: the Laconian rustics represent a veiled reference to the transformation from ephebic status to adult citizen that occurs after the initiation ritual and Orestes is the quintessential ephebe. Baudy then reads the programmatic Id. 7 as a cluster of stories about maturation rituals. The methodological advantages of Baudy’s interpretation are the attempt to consider all three accounts, the emphasis on the cult 16 17

Hathorn (1961), quote 236–237. The similarity between the figure of Daphnis and Near Eastern Dumuzi and Tammuz, the male consorts to the great female goddesses Inanna and Ishtar, has long been noted. On the “Orientalizing theory” of pastoral origins, see Halperin (1983a) with bibliography.

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of Artemis, and the study of the relationship between the themes of Theocritus’ poetry and scholiastic accounts of ritual origins. However, his entire argumentative structure is based on the idea that Artemis is first and foremost the goddess of maturational transition and that this character of the goddess represents the link between the three accounts. Actually, only the first account designates Artemis as goddess of maturation, since it mentions the hymnic performance of maidens in her sanctuary. Frontisi-Ducroux (1981) provides a more comprehensive analysis of the role of Artemis in the stories about the origins of bucolic: the goddess is analogous to the transition of the bucolic rustic song to literary status, as she herself presides over various transitions, which are reflected in the scholiastic accounts of rituals marking the transition of maidens from teenagers into adults as well as the demarcation between barbarians and Greeks, war and peace, disease and health, and uncultivated and cultivated land. One additional aspect of the scholiastic explanations of the origins of bucolic poetry modern “ritualist” interpreters do not consider is that in antiquity the entire collection of Theocritus’ poetry was probably called βουκολικά, and not just those poems that feature herdsmen.18 Furthermore, all three accounts are about the ritual transfer.19 All three reports essentially tell a story about the unlikely or unusual performers of hymns for Artemis: rustics hymn her instead of the maidens (1), local Sicilian rustics hymn a non-Sicilian image of the goddess (2), and a competition in typical local rustic songs is organized to celebrate Artemis in her new role as the goddess who ended the stasis/pestilence (3). All three accounts feature a displacement and recontextualization of the local rustic song into hymnic poetry for Artemis. The origin stories in the scholia appear to identify and seek to explain the very phenomenon that modern scholars, too, see as the essential quality of Theocritus’ poetry. In the words of Richard Hunter, “the Theocritean corpus is in fact peculiarly resistant to scholastic and formalist approaches to ‘genre’: no poem is quite like any

18

19

On the basis of the title and his analysis of Id. 1, 7, and 5, Nauta (1990) concludes that βουκολικά was the title of every collection of Theocritus’ poetry and the term was understood as “Gedichte eines Hirten (und zwar Theokrits)” (“poems of a herdsman [in fact of Theocritus]),” p. 133. Gutzwiller (1996) surveys the evidence for early Theocritean poetry books and provides an overview of scholarship. The earliest documented collection of Theocritus’ poetry is the work of Artemidorus, the grammarian active in the first half of the 1st century bce. This Artemidorus was probably the father of Theon, who wrote a commentary on the collection. According to Gutzwiller, Artemidorus’ collection likely comprised all of Theocritus’ poetry along with poems of Moschus and Bion. On early collections of Theocritus’ poetry, see also Pagani, this volume. On the ritual transfer, see Langer et al. (2006).

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other, but the impression is rather of the constant rearrangement and fresh patterning of elements drawn from a repertoire which seems familiar, but is in fact being created before our eyes.”20 It has long been noted that Theocritus’ poetry is marked by an incongruence between the “high” and the “low” elements and “the tension between what is being represented and the act of representation.”21 Theocritus’ high artistry, artificiality, and the allusive quality of his poetry are at odds with his cast of predominantly low characters. This tension extends to many aspects of Theocritus’ poetry: its form (dialogic or containing elements of dialogue, but remarkably often hymnic, or containing hymnic elements), meter (hexameter), language (most poems employ a Kunstsprache which is predominantly Doric, but mixed with epic-Ionic forms), characters (predominantly low). Idylls 28–31 stand out both in respect to form (lyric meters) and dialect (Aeolic). If the scholia provide an explanation for the ritual origins of the entire Theocritean corpus, their attempt to identify a specific ritual setting for βουκολικά is less pertinent than what these accounts might tell us about the ancient perception of the collection. Reports about the ritual transfer in the scholia might reflect the ancient readers’ perception of the thematic and stylistic disparity of Theocritean poetry. Accordingly, the stories about low characters (rustics) performing high poetry (hymns) could have been based on the incongruity between the social status of the performers and their performances we find across the Theocritean corpus and on the frequent occurrence of hymns and hymnic elements in the corpus.22 The peculiar story about the ritual begging in the third report could have been modeled on the elements of begging song in Id. 16.23 The detail about rustics with deer antlers who prepare bread with figures of many animals for the festival of Artemis is curiously reminiscent

20 21 22

23

Hunter (1999) 5. Gutzwiller (1991) 5. Griffiths (1979) importantly places Id. 15, 17, 18, 24 and 26 in the Ptolemaic court context and notes that all end with hymnic envoi (p. 53). It might be relevant that the song about Daphnis performed by Thyrsis in Id. 1 is called ὕμνος (61); Simaetha’s incantation in Id. 2 is a magic hymn; Id. 16 opens with a reference to hymning as a duty of the Muses and bards and closes with a reference to bards hymning Hiero (101–103). See also Sens, this volume. Merkelbach (1952) notes the similarities in motifs between Id. 16 and the ancient begging songs usually performed by children, but unnecessarily postulates a lost poem by Simonides as Theocritus’ model. As Griffiths (1979) 23 notes, the elements of begging song add a folkloristic touch to the poem which also draws on “high” poetry. On the way Id. 16 alludes to Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Bacchylides, and Simonides, see Hunter (1996) 82–109 who demonstrates that the poem draws on several genres: mime, comedy, children’s song, encomium—and a hymn.

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of Theocritus’ description of Artemis’ festival in Id. 2,24 but also resembles a discrete feature of the court singer’s description of the Adonis festival at Alexandria, where pastry molded in shapes of various animals and birds is mentioned.25 Elements of the first account about the ritual performances of Lacedaemonian maidens for Artemis could have been based on Id. 18, The Epithalamium for Helen. This poem is introduced as a “once upon a time” performance of a wedding hymn for Helen and Menelaus, performed by the chorus of twelve beautiful Spartan maidens who, as becomes evident in the course of the poem, act as the representatives of the entire age group of 240 girls.26 After gentle mockery of the groom, the maidens exalt the parentage and outstanding beauty of the bride, and reminisce about the way she performed the traditional hymns (35–37): οὐ μὰν οὐδὲ λύραν τις ἐπίσταται ὧδε κροτῆσαι Ἄρτεμιν ἀείδοισα καὶ εὐρύστερνον Ἀθάναν ὡς Ἑλένα, τᾶς πάντες ἐπ’ ὄμμασιν ἵμεροι ἐντί. No one knows so well how to strike up the lyre in celebration of Artemis and broad-breasted Athena as Helen, in whose eyes is every form of desire.27

24 25

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Vv. 66–68. A procession featuring many animals, including a lioness, was organized in the grove of Artemis, probably on Cos. On this festival, see Petrovic (2007) 57–113. Id. 15.115–118, with Gallavotti’s interpunction: εἴδατά θ’ ὅσσα γυναῖκες ἐπὶ πλαθάνω πονέονται / ἄνθεα μίσγοισαι λευκῷ παντοῖα μαλεύρῳ, / ὅσσα τ’ ἀπὸ γλυκερῶ μέλιτος τά τ’ ἐν ὑγρῷ ἐλαίῳ, / πάντ’ αὐτῷ πετεηνὰ καὶ ἑρπετὰ τεῖδε πάρεστι. (“All the cakes, too, that women shape on their kneading boards when they mix colorings of every kind with refined wheat flour, and those they make using sweet honey and smooth oil: all creatures of the earth and air are here with him,” translation by Hopkinson (2015), modified). Dover (1971) comm. ad 118, Gow comm. ad 118, and Reed (2000) 322 interpret the line 118 as referring to fowl and meat to be distributed to the festival attenders and not to cakes moulded into shapes of animals and birds. The cumulative, paratactic language of the passage allows for both readings, but I take 116–118 as elaborations of εἴδατά θ’ ὅσσα γυναῖκες ἐπὶ πλαθάνω πονέονται. Why would the women be dying the flour, unless they are making animal and bird figures out of the dough? In addition, Gorgo and Praxinoa leave immediately after the hymn (Id. 15.145–149), and no reference to the distribution of food or communal feasting is made in the poem. Id. 18.22–24. See on this Hunter (1996) 159–160. Text is quoted after Gow throughout and translations are after Hopkinson (2015).

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As the performance progresses and the maidens turn from Helen the bride to Helen as a goddess, the wedding song transforms into the first of many hymns which will be performed in honor of Helen by her sacred tree, which the maidens promise to inscribe and honor again on the following day.28 Two elements from this poem are reminiscent of the scholiastic account about the origin of bucolic song: the reference to Spartan female choruses for Artemis, and the institution of the new cult of a female deity, an element present in all three accounts of the origin of bucolic. References to the new cults of female deities are also prominent in Theocritus’ “court poetry,” where we encounter the motif of the elevation of the female members of the dynasty to divine status.29 In addition, Theocritus portrays the celebration of the Adonis festival at Alexandria as a novel spectacle organized by queen Arsinoe ii.30 Such establishments of new cults seem to pervade the poetry of Theocritus, starting with the story about the suffering of Daphnis in Id. 1, where his defiant death is represented as initiating his cult and ritual lamentation.31 Even though the scholiastic accounts do not provide veritable stories about the cultic origins of bucolic, they nevertheless provide important insights into the way the collection of Theocritus’ poetry was perceived by ancient readers.

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There are fundamental differences between the way Theocritus represents the gods in his court poetry and in other poems. An indication of the distinction might be found in his epigram AP 6.340 = HE 2 = 13 Gow: Ἁ Κύπρις οὐ πάνδαμος. ἱλάσκεο τὰν θεὸν εἰπών οὐρανίαν, ἁγνᾶς ἄνθεμα Χρυσογόνας οἴκῳ ἐν Ἀμφικλέους, ᾧ καὶ τέκνα καὶ βίον εἶχε ξυνόν· ἀεὶ δέ σφιν λώιον εἰς ἔτος ἦν 28 29

30 31

Id. 18.43–48. See Hunter (1996) 160–161. Id. 15.106–108 on the deification of Berenice i, which is embedded in a lavish hymn directed at Arsinoe ii and Aphrodite; Id. 17.34–50 is also on the deification of Berenice i, which is embedded in yet another praise poem directed at Ptolemy ii Philadelphus and Arsinoe ii. On the presentation of rulers and patrons in Theocritus, see Clayman, this volume. On Arsinoe’s religious innovation and possible introduction of Egyptian elements into the Greek Adonis festival, see Reed (2000) and Griffiths, this volume. See Klooster (2011) 99–113 with bibliography. On Daphnis, Comatas, and Polyphemus as the fundamental figures in Theocritus’ bucolic poetry, see Christoforidou (2005).

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ἐκ σέθεν ἀρχομένοις, ὦ πότνια· κηδόμενοι γάρ ἀθανάτων αὐτοὶ πλεῖον ἔχουσι βροτοί. This is not Aphrodite of the People; when you pray to the goddess, you should address her as Heavenly. She was set up here by the chaste Chrysogona in the house of Amphicles, with whom she shared her children and her life. By making first sacrifices to you, Lady, they flourished more each year. Mortals do better when they have care for the gods.

The morally charged distinction between the πάνδημος and οὐρανία, not attested in cult but only in literature, recalls passages from both Plato’s and Xenophon’s Symposium.32 Rossi (2001) 241–246 persuasively places this epigram in the context of the Ptolemaic royal propaganda. Heavenly love as the foundation of the harmonious marriage marked by mutual love is, in her view, a reference to the cult of the Ptolemaic queens who were deified as Aphrodite (among other goddesses).33 In his court poetry, Theocritus characterizes both Aphrodite and Helen as chaste and as appropriate models for the queens, whose marriages are represented as remarkably emotional and affectionate.34 Poems 15, 17, 18, 22, 24, and 26 feature divine royals and the traditional gods who played an important role in the Ptolemaic religious propaganda: Aphrodite, Adonis, Helen, the Dioscuri, Heracles, and Dionysus.35 In these poems, the traditional gods are represented as models and analogues for the Ptolemies, while the members of the Ptolemaic dynasty both set the example for the masses by piously venerating their deified ancestors and are themselves lifted to the status of divinities. For example, in Id. 15, we encounter queen Arsinoe ii who “resembles Helen” (Ἑλένᾳ εἰκυῖα, 110) and venerates Aphrodite for her role in divinizing her mother, Berenice i, which anticipates her own divinization by the same goddess. We are in the royal palace celebrating the marriage of Adonis and Aphrodite. Adonis is described as Aphrodite’s groom (γαμβρός, 129) and is exalted as a unique demigod in an impressive catalogue of heroes (137–142). The same

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Plato Symp. 180d–181e and Xenophon Symp. 8.9–10. See Rossi (2001) 240. The cult of Arsinoe Aphrodite may have been explicitly associated with Aphrodite Ourania, see Gutzwiller (1992) 198. The projection of Ptolemaic marriages as bonds of mutual love was probably the initiative of Ptolemy ii and Arsinoe ii, see Caneva (2016) 163–173. Griffiths (1979) 51–106 is a fundamental study of the way Theocritus handles “the prominent fixtures of the Ptolemaic pantheon” (53). See also Clayman, this volume (with recent bibliography).

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Adonis is also mentioned in a catalogue in Id. 1, but in this poem, he is a secretive paramour, and represents one of many embarrassments in Aphrodite’s colorful mythic biography, alongside Anchises and Diomedes (105–113). Theocritus’ dedicatory epigram on Aphrodite seems to provide an interpretative clue on how we should understand the parsing of the goddess in his poetry, seeing as it points to Pausanias’ speech in Plato’s Symposium and to Socrates’ speech in Xenophon’s Symposium.36 Socrates’ speech about the differences between Aphrodite Πάνδημος and Οὐρανία in Xenophon might even provide an important precedent for the divinization of Ptolemaic queens: Socrates emphasizes that the Heavenly love is lifelong and mutual (8.16–18), and, crucially, that mythological examples demonstrate that gods make immortal those they love on account of their soul: Heracles, the Dioscuri, Ganymede (8.29–30). Both in Plato and in Xenophon such love is reserved for men, whereas Theocritus’ epigram claims it for heterosexual relationships as well. It seems to me relevant that Socrates’ examples in Xenophon are precisely the characters whose elevations among the immortals Theocritus uses as analogies for the Ptolemaic deification of royals. In Theocritus’ court poetry, Aphrodite Οὐρανία ensures mutual love and elevates her favorites to divine status. Aphrodite’s role in the rest of Theocritus’ corpus corresponds to the way Pausanias in Plato describes the vulgar type of eros. Pandemos eros is first and foremost a sexual desire for both male and female lovers and it is associated with inferior people—the base, silly, and fickle. Lovers of this sort take advantage of the foolishness of their beloved before abandoning them with a contemptuous laugh to run off to someone else.37 In Theocritus, this type of love is also predominantly associated with the cast of low characters—it focuses on sex, it is fickle, is described as both one sided and a torture, and is remarkably consistently identified as a disease. Its victims are desperately searching for a cure (pharmakon) and are in danger of dying if they do not find it. In the second Idyll, the poor, abandoned Simaetha complains about the unfaithfulness of her lover Delphis and says: “Certainly Love and Aphrodite have gone off somewhere else with his fickle heart” (7). Simaetha’s love is a disease and her pharmakon is 36

37

According to Plato’s Pausanias, there are two Aphrodites, Ourania and Pandemos, and two types of eros. Xenophon’s Socrates initially expresses an uncertainty on whether Aphrodite should be perceived as a duality or as one goddess with two different epithets, but he also differentiates between these two aspects of Aphrodite, since he says that he knows that Aphrodite Ourania and Pandemos have separate altars, shrines, and sacrifices, and on the basis of this he suggests that the love for the soul is sent by Ourania and sexual desire by Pandemos (Symp. 8.9–10). He then proceeds to argue that the love for the soul is better than the sexual eros (Symp. 8.12–41). Plato, Symp. 181b–d; 183d–e.

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magic; she invokes Aphrodite and uses her invention, the magic wheel, in order to attract her lover (30–31). Simaetha’s unrequited love even makes her murderous, as she threatens to kill her lover with deadly magic if erotic magic proves ineffective (160–162). In one of the inset poems of Id. 7, a propemptikon dovetails a prayer with a slight tinge of a curse: “Ageanax shall have a good voyage to Mitylene … if only he will rescue Lycidas from his roasting by Aphrodite: A hot love for him is burning me up” (52–56). The implication is clear: love me back or die in a shipwreck. The love of Polyphemus in Id. 11 is a wound described with anatomical precision: “a most hateful wound deep in his heart, which an arrow from the great Cyprian goddess had fixed in his liver.” (Id. 11.15–16). It has been long noted that Theocritus’ representation of the Cyclops in love is shot through with allusions to Odyssey 9, where Polyphemus is a savage killer. Finally, in Theocritus’ first Idyll, Daphnis “boasted that he will win in a wrestling match with Eros.” Eros and Aphrodite win, while he wastes away and dies.38 In this poem, Aphrodite even mocks Daphnis.39 Whatever the inner stance of Aphrodite might be, Daphnis scorns her for her love affairs with Anchises and Adonis and calls her “cruel, spiteful, hateful to mortals” (100–101). This fickleness and cruelty of the goddess align her with Pausanias’ Πάνδημος. Aphrodite does try to save Daphnis from death (138–140), but this does not necessarily imply an act of mercy or compassion. The attempt might also be interpreted as motivated by Aphrodite’s fear that the poems about Daphnis will be a memorial of her cruelty and her embarrassments (much as the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite is essentially a story about the shaming of the goddess). If so, her fear is justified: we have seen that Aphrodite in bucolic poetry is essentially a disease in need of a cure.40 In Theocritus’ treatment of the gods, Aphrodite and Eros stand out since they are prominent in his entire corpus, but Aphrodite is parsed into the cruel killer Πάνδημος and the god-making, benevolent Οὐρανία.41 The other divin-

38

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40 41

Anagnostou-Laoutides/Konstan (2008) remarkably argue that Daphnis is a figure analogous to Adonis and Anchises and is himself in love with Aphrodite, but also admit the problem inherent in this interpretation: in parallels, the mortals are not in love with Aphrodite, she is in love with them. In addition, in Id. 7.72–77, Xenea is clearly designated as the object of Daphnis’ love in the song of Tityrus. Vv. 95–96 ἦνθέ γε μὰν ἁδεῖα καὶ ἁ Κύπρις γελάοισα, / λάθρη μὲν γελάοισα, βαρὺν δ’ ἀνὰ θυμὸν ἔχοισα. Admittedly, the verses are extremely difficult and perhaps even corrupt— see Hunter (1999) comm. ad 95–96, pp. 94–95. This would also explain Daphnis’ claim in 103 Δάφνις κἠν Ἀίδα κακὸν ἔσσεται ἄλγος Ἔρωτι (“Even in Hades Daphnis will be a source of bitter grief for Love”). The heavenly love can be glimpsed in other non-pastoral poems, some of which, like Id. 13, feature the gods from the “Ptolemaic pantheon”: in Id. 12, a lover rejoices at the arrival of

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ities are divided between the pastoral and the court poems: the prominent gods of the Ptolemaic religious pantheon are the objects of hymnic praise in court poetry, whereas in the poems featuring herdsmen, the rustic Pan and the nymphs take the pride of place.42

3

Rituals

Theocritus often refers to rituals, either casually, as customary actions of the characters in the poems,43 or mimetically, by representing them as a setting for a poetic performance.44 The motif of dedication is prominent in his epi-

42

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a beloved boy and wishes for a royal type of eros (mutual and “breathing equally on both,” 10). Suggestively, the model for such eros is Diocles, who according to the scholia ad 27– 33 received heroic honors at Megara because he was killed in a battle defending his lover. This aligns him with heroic examples of heavenly love Socrates provides in Xenophon’s Symposium: Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades, and Theseus and Pirithous (8.31). Theocritus clearly gestures towards Plato’s Symposium, with its discussions of the parentage of Eros, at the beginning of Id. 13: Οὐχ ἁμῖν τὸν Ἔρωτα μόνοις ἔτεχ’, ὡς ἐδοκεῦμες, / Νικία, ᾧτινι τοῦτο θεῶν ποκα τέκνον ἔγεντο (“Not for us alone, Nicias, as we used to think, was Love begotten by whichever of the gods was his father”). In this poem, Hylas is snatched by the Nymphs and becomes immortal (72: οὕτω μὲν κάλλιστος Ὕλας μακάρων ἀριθμεῖται) and Heracles establishes the threefold ritual cry for Hylas at Cius. On Pan in Theocritus, Kossaifi (2002); Fantuzzi in Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 156–157. Fantuzzi 151–156 notes that the Nymphs assume the role of divine inspirers in the pastoral poems, whereas the Muses are more prominent in Idylls 16 and 17. Simaetha sets out to attend the festival of Artemis (2.64–86), shepherds mention past or future sacrifices to the Muses, Apollo, and the Nymphs (5.80–83; 139–140); a peculiar Arcadian ritual involving the flogging of Pan with squills is mentioned in Id. 7.106–108. In Id. 10. 32–35 the reaper Bucaeus wishes to dedicate golden statues of himself and his beloved to Aphrodite, perhaps a comic reference to the statues of Hellenistic royals as synnaoi theoi; the same poem features a reaping song attributed to the Phrygian agricultural hero, Lityerses, which opens with an invocation of Demeter (41–55); a ritual competition in kissing at the tomb of Diocles of Megara, otherwise unattested, is described in Id. 12.27–37; Ptolemaic piety is evident from their dedications to the gods and prizes they set for the poets competing in the festivals of Dionysus (Id. 17.108–114) and truly exceptional is the veneration they reserve for their deified ancestors (17.121–127). The journey to the celebration of the Coan festival Thalysia, the offering of first fruits to Demeter after the harvest, is the frame narrative of Idyll 7; similarly, the journey to and the celebration of the festival of Adonis in the royal palace at Alexandria is the setting of Id. 15; Simaetha’s magical practice is the setting of Idyll 2; Helen’s wedding and apotheosis is the setting of the epithalamion of Id. 18. Id. 17, 22, 24, and 26 are hymns which could have been performed at the Ptolemaic festivals Theocritus references in Id. 17. In fact, the fragmentary papyrus which contains the final section of Id. 24 attests that it closed with a prayer to

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grams.45 Theocritus also demonstrates extraordinary interest in and knowledge of magic and magic rituals. In Idyll 2, Simaetha, a young woman from the lower strata of society, sets out to attend the festival of Artemis. On the way to the festival she sees and immediately falls in love with Delphis from Myndus, who is both more experienced and socially superior to her. Simaetha suffers the usual symptoms of love-disease (frenzied obsession, fever, and wasting away), sends her slave Thestylis to invite Delphis for a visit, and ends up in bed with him. After a brief affair, Delphis loses all interest in Simaetha. When Simaetha hears that Delphis’ behavior at symposia clearly indicates that he is already in love with someone else, she performs a magic ritual in order to bring him back to her, and announces that, if this ritual fails, she will perform another one in order to kill him. The whole poem is a first-person narrative of Simaetha. Simaetha first simultaneously orders her slave Thestylis to prepare the material for her magical practice, and reminisces about her love affair and her abandonment by Delphis. She then invokes Selene, Hecate, and Artemis, while alternatively performing the words and actions of the magic ritual herself and instructing Thestylis what to say as verbal accompaniment to a series of ritual actions. At the end, Simaetha announces a further magical practice in case the present one proves futile and bids farewell to the Moon in a hymnic style. The scholia attribute the handling of magic in Id. 2 and the character of the slave Thestylis to the mimes of Sophron.46 There is also a substantial fragment of Sophron’s mime entitled Ταὶ γυναῖκες αἳ τὰν θεόν φαντι ἐξελᾶν, “The women who say they are expelling the goddess,” that does share some similarities with the way Theocritus presents the ritual, as it features direct speech of one person giving ritual instructions to a group.47 However, Sophron’s fragment appears to be dealing with an exorcism-style ritual, the driving away of Hecate, whereas Theocritus presents love-magic and an invocation of Hecate.48 While Sophron’s mimes do represent an important generic influence on Theo-

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Heracles for a victory in a competition, see Gow comm. ad 141ff. On the possible performance of this poem at the celebration of Basileia in 285/4bce, see Sens, this volume. See Rossi (2001) 3–9 and her commentary on ep. 1, 2, 4, 8, 10, 12, 13, 24 Gow. Argum. Theoc. ii pp. 269–270 Wendel = Sophron frs. 5 & 6 Hordern. Fr. 4 Hordern. See Gow (1952) 2.33–35 and Hordern (2004) comm. ad fr. 6 with bibliography. Gow is reluctant to consider the ritual practice from Sophron’s preserved fragment as a direct model for Simaetha’s ritual, whereas Hordern (2002) and (2004) argues that the preliminary purificatory practices as described in Sophron’s mime could have conceivably been an initial stage in the love-magic ritual.

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critus’ urban mimes,49 for the understanding of the way Theocritus presents Simaetha’s ritual and the nature of that ritual, Papyri Graecae Magicae present a series of more productive comparanda. Papyri Graecae Magicae (PGM) is a scholarly umbrella term for editions of documents that contain a motley crew of texts related to magic rituals, such as detailed instructions for the performance of rituals and spells. Some papyri contain whole collections of recipes copied for ancient magicians, while others provide individual spells and remedies. With one striking exception,50 they range from the second century bce to the fifth century ce. Even though most of this evidence is significantly later than Theocritus’ poem, PGM represent an important testimony of a long tradition of magic practices and can be used as evidence for reconstructing Hellenistic magical practice. There are manifold and conspicuous parallels between the ritual instructions for ἀγωγή “spell of attraction” and φιλτροκατάδεσμος “binding spell” in the PGM and Simaetha’s words and actions:51 the time of the day (night), the setting (Simaetha and Thestylis are alone), the preparation of apotropaic objects which protect the practitioners from the anger of the divine agents they call upon, and the burning of individual objects in the fire. In addition, the divine triad Selene-Hecate-Artemis is very well attested in the PGM, whereas Theocritus is the first literary author to portray Artemis as a goddess of magic and to associate her in this role with Selene and Hecate, who have long played an important role in both magic rituals and literary texts depicting magical practices. Even more intriguing are the close similarities between Simaetha’s performative language and the PGM texts: her initial invocation of the goddesses Selene, Hecate, and Artemis finds striking parallels in the hymnic passages in the PGM52 and her refrain is reminiscent of the repetitive urgent requests to the deities to bring the object of desire to the practitioner as fast as possible.53 Simaetha also uses the “performative future,” first-person future verbs describing an ongoing performance of actions in magical ritual which are attested in magical texts and, according to Christopher Faraone, reflect an old Greek 49 50 51

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Hunter (1996) 118–119. PGM xl, the so-called Curse of Artemisia is from the late fourth century bce. These parallels have been highlighted in commentaries of Theocritus—see Dover (1971) 98–101; Gow (1952) 2.33–63. For a detailed discussion of the type of ritual Simaetha is performing and a range of evaluations of her skill as a sorceress, Graf (1996) 159–167; García Teijeiro (1999); Dickie (2001) 99–104; and Petrovic (2007) 1–58. On the hymns in PGM, see Petrovic (2015) and Bortolani (2016). For a comparison of Simaetha’s invocation to the PGM hymns, Faraone (1997) and Petrovic (2007) 10–15. We even find refrain-like repetitions of this request in the Greek magical texts, see examples in Petrovic (2007) 39–40.

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tradition of metrical incantations.54 The second part of the poem, long perceived as separate from the magical practice, shares extraordinary similarities with a specific subgenre of magic rituals called “prayers for justice.” Henk Versnel has demonstrated that there was a special type of appeal to the gods in magic rituals in which the performers disclose their own identity and claim that they have been wronged and deprived of something they feel entitled to. The practitioners invoke the gods as guarantors of justice in order to punish the wrongdoers, and this is exactly the way Simaetha represents her love affair with Delphis—she herself is an innocent victim of love, and he is apparently to be blamed for everything.55 Her address to Selene is not merely a solitary confession of a desperate woman, but an appeal to the goddess to punish Delphis because he treated Simaetha unjustly. Apart from the detailed description of Simaetha’s magic ritual, the poem provides a glimpse into the world where magic is a seemingly ordinary solution for personal problems: Simaetha claims that she initially sought a cure for her love from old women experienced in magic (90–91) and that she has potent drugs to destroy Delphis which she obtained from an “Assyrian stranger” (159– 162). These details also clearly characterize Simaetha as an amateur in magic. However, the majority of those who performed magic in the ancient world were in fact amateurs who procured the instructions for specific spells from the specialists whose books of recipes were transmitted to us as PGM. The important general difference between magic and religious rituals56 is the level of expertise of the practitioners: whereas one learned about religious rituals by partaking in them regularly, magic rituals were performed once or rarely in order to solve a specific problem. Simaetha is a novice in love and a novice in magic, and even the allusions she makes to “high literature” and mythology tend to backfire and are easily subjected to ironic readings.57 If Simaetha’s mythological and literary blunders could easily have been detected by Theocritus’ sophisticated readers, how would they have evaluated her magical practice? Detailed knowledge of magic rituals was not a valuable asset in the repertoire of Hellenistic paideia—on the contrary, magic was socially and legally stigmatized. However, in the Hellenistic

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Faraone (1995). Versnel (1991). On Id. 2 as prayer for justice, Petrovic (2004). The nature of the relationship between magic and religion has been much discussed. Recent scholarship does not propound the view that there should be a strict delineation between the two. Collins (2008) 1–26 provides an accessible overview of various theoretical approaches to the study of magic. See Segal (1984) and Goldhill (1991) 261–272.

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period, a rise of interest in the occult as theory rather than practice is attested, and scholars wrote theoretical treatises about magic and the magical properties of stones, plants, and animals.58 These writings are not transmitted, but they could hardly have served as a source for Theocritus, since the evidence we have about them strongly suggests that they did not describe the rituals in detail. Theocritus’ detailed knowledge of the rituals and the overlap between Simaetha’s practices and PGM indicate that he had either consulted an expert or had used recipe books as a source. He was also probably familiar with the tradition of hexametric spell chants, which is very old and significantly predates the transmitted spells on papyri, as Christopher Faraone has demonstrated.59 Whereas the outcome of Simaetha’s magic is not specified and we are left wondering whether she will really resort to harming Delphis as she announces in 159–163, in Idyll 11 Theocritus introduces a young Cyclops as an example of success in self-medication. Polyphemus was madly in love, but managed to find a cure (ἀλλὰ τὸ φάρμακον εὗρε, 17), and this cure was seemingly a song he performed for Galatea, which is reproduced in 19–79. The final two lines are a commentary on Polyphemus’ efforts (80–81): Οὕτω τοι Πολύφαμος ἐποίμαινεν τὸν ἔρωτα μουσίσδων, ῥᾷον δὲ διᾶγ’ ἢ εἰ χρυσὸν ἔδωκεν. In this way Polyphemus shepherded his love with singing, and he did better than if he had spent money. The scholia trace the motif of the Cyclops’ poetry as a pharmakon for love to Philoxenus of Cythera,60 a poet active at the court of Dionysius i of Syracuse and whose notorious poem Cyclops satirized his patron.61 It has long been noted that Simaetha and Polyphemus have much in common, and I have argued elsewhere that, even though they both essentially heal their love with poetry, Polyphemus demonstrates significantly more self-awareness of his status as a poet and this self-knowledge enables him to heal himself from love without resorting to magic.62 However, this poem might well have some connections with the tradition of magical incantations, too. Christopher Faraone

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On the Hellenistic writing about magic, Dickie (2001) 119–123. Faraone (1995). Schol. Theoc. xi, 1–3b, p. 241 Wendel. On the relationship between Philoxenus’ and Theocritus’ Cyclops, Gow (1952) 2.118; Fantuzzi (1995); Hunter (1999) 216–217. Petrovic (2004).

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pointed out that the hexametrical incantations from late-classical inscribed protective amulets from Magna Graecia and Crete demonstrate significant similarities with the opening verses of Theocritus’ poem. According to Faraone, φάρμακον in 1 and 17 invokes the meaning “incantation” and refers to the Sicilian tradition of protective incantations which Theocritus playfully contrasts to the claims made by doctors like Nicias who treated eros as a disease. This link would imply that in Theocritus 11, Eros is envisaged as a demon who can be averted by the means of incantations. The concept of Eros as a hostile demon explains the imperfect in the closing lines of the poem, as demonic Eros needs to be managed continually by repeating the incantation every time he attacks. According to Faraone, Callimachus’ epigram HE 3, which also refers to Polyphemus as a discoverer of “excellent incantation” (ἀγαθὰν … ἐπαοιδάν, 1), Theocritus Id. 11, and Cyclops by Philoxenus of Cythera all attribute to Polyphemus a discovery of a powerful incantation.63 In Theocritus, this incantation protects the performer from eros, whereas its role in Philoxenus and Callimachus might well have been the opposite, i.e., it could have been envisaged to fulfill the same purpose as Simaetha’s ἀγωγή, “spell of attraction.” Finally, in Idyll 6, the Cyclops and Galatea appear again. Polyphemus is so proud of his good looks that he fears the evil eye (Baskania) and, to avert it, spits three times into his bosom, as an old woman taught him to do (39–40). In Idyll 7, spitting is again referred to as an apotropaic measure, but this time it should actually be performed by an old woman (126–127). This particular action against the evil eye could be qualified as “apotropaic magic” and “rustic superstition”64 and is still practiced in Greece, as well as in Serbia, as I can attest.

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Faraone (2006). Cf. Hunter (1999) 259 with parallels.

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Caberghs, I. (1944), Commentaire des éléments folkloriques chez Théocrite (Diss. Université de Louvain). Caneva, S.G. (2016), From Alexander to the Theoi Adelphoi: Foundation and Legitimation of a Dynasty (Leuven/Paris/Bristol). Christoforidou, M. (2005), “Mythological Figures in the Bucolic Idylls of Theocritus,” MD 55, 31–60. Cipolla, G. (1979), “Folk Elements in the Pastoral of Theocritus and Vergil,” Journal of the University of Durban-Westville 3, no. 2, 113–121. Clauss, J.J. (1986), “Lies and Allusions: The Addressee and Date of Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus,” ClAnt 5, 155–170. Collins, D. (2008), Magic in the Ancient Greek World (Malden, MA/Oxford). Cremonesi, E. (1958), “Rapporti tra le origini della poesia bucolica e della poesia comica nella traduzione peripatetica,” Dioniso 21, 109–122. Dickie, E. (2007), Ancient Greek Scholarship (Oxford). Dickie, M. (2001), Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World (London/ New York). Di Mino, C. (1931), “Il folklore siciliano di Teocrito,” Folklore italiano 6, 217–259. Dover, K.J. (1971), Theocritus: Select Poems (Basingstoke, London). Fantuzzi, M. (1995), “Mythological Paradigms in the Bucolic Poetry of Theocritus,” PCPhS 41, 16–35. Fantuzzi, M. (2006), “Theocritus’ Constructive Interpreters and the Creation of a Bucolic Reader,” in Fantuzzi/Papanghelis (2006) 235–262. Fantuzzi, M./Hunter, R. (2004), Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge). Fantuzzi, M./Papanghelis, Th. (2006), (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden/Boston). Faraone, C. (1995), “The ‘Performative Future’ in Three Hellenistic Incantations and Theocritus’ Second Idyll,” CPh 90, 1–15. Faraone, C. (1997), “Hymn to Selene-Hekate-Artemis from a Greek Magical Handbook (PGM iv 2714–83)” in M. Kiley (ed.), Prayer from Alexander to Constantine (London) 195–199. Faraone, C. (2006), “Magic, Medicine and Eros in the Prologue to Theocritus’ Id. 11,” in Fantuzzi/Papanghelis (2006) 75–90. Frontisi-Ducroux, F. (1981), “Artémis bucolique,”Revue de l’histoire des religions 198, 29– 56. García Teijero, M. (1999), “Il secondo Idillio di Teocrito,” QUCC 61, 71–86. Goldhill, S. (1991), The Poet’s Voice. Essays on Poetics and Greek Literature (Cambridge). Gow, A.S.F. (1952), Theocritus, 2nd edition, 2 vols. (Cambridge). Graf, F. (1996), Gottesnähe und Schadenzauber. Die Magie in der Griechisch-Römischen Antike (Munich).

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Griffiths, F.T. (1979), Theocritus at Court (Leiden). Gutzwiller, K. (1991), Theocritus’ Pastoral Analogies: The Formation of a Genre (Madison, Wisc.). Gutzwiller, K. (1992), “The Nautilus, the Halcyon, and Selenaia: Callimachus’s ‘Epigram 5 PF. = 14 G.–P.,’” CA 11, 194–209. Gutzwiller, K. (1996), “The Evidence for Theocritean Poetry Books,” in M.A. Harder/ R.F. Regtuit/G.C. Wakker (eds.), Theocritus (Groningen) 119–148. Gutzwiller, K. (2006), “The Herdsman in Greek Thought,” in Fantuzzi/Papanghelis (2006) 1–23. Halperin, D. (1983), Before Pastoral: Theocritus and the Ancient Tradition of Bucolic Poetry (New Haven/London). Halperin, D. (1983a), “The Forebears of Daphnis,” TAPhA 113, 183–200. Hathorn, R.Y. (1961), “The Ritual Origin of Pastoral,” TAPhA 92, 228–238. Hopkinson, N. (2015), Theocritus, Moschus, Bion, Edited and Translated (Cambridge, MA/London). Hordern, J.H. (2002), “Love Magic and Purification in Sophron, PSI 1214a, and Theocritus’ Pharmakeutria,” CQ 52, 164–173. Hordern, J.H. (2004), Sophron’s Mimes. Text, Translation, and Commentary (Oxford). Horowski, J. (1973) “Le folklore dans les idylles de Théocrite,” Eos 61, 187–212. Hunter, R.L. (1996), Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry (Cambridge). Hunter, R.L. (1999), Theocritus. A Selection (Cambridge). Klooster, J. (2011), Poetry as Window and Mirror. Positioning the Poet in Hellenistic Poetry (Leiden/Boston). Kossaifi, C. (2002), “Les dieux dans les ‘Idylles’ bucoliques de Théocrite: bonheur et souffrance,” REA 104, 61–83. Langer, R./Lüddeckens, D./Radde, K./Snoek, J. (2006), “Transfer or Ritual,” Journal of Ritual Studies 20, 1–10. Lelli, E. (2017), Pastori antichi e moderni: Teocrito e le origini popolari della poesia bucolica (Hildesheim). Maas, E. (1891), “Theokrits Dionysus aus einer Inschrift erläutert,” Hermes 26, 178–190. Merkelbach, R. (1952), “Bettelgedichte: Theokrit, Simonides und Walther von der Vogelweide,” RhM 95, 312–327. Merkelbach, R. (1956), “βουκολιασται,” RhM 99, 97–133. Merkelbach, R. (1988), Die Hirten des Dionysos. Die Dionysos-Mysterien der römischen Kaiserzeit und der bukolische Roman des Longos (Stuttgart). Nauta, R.R. (1990), “Gattungsgeschichte als Rezeptionsgeschichte am Beispiel der Entstehung der Bukolik,” Antike und Abendland 36, 117–137. Payne, M. (2009), Theocritus and the Invention of Fiction (Cambridge). Petropoulos, D. (1959), “Θεοκρίτου Εἰδύλλια ὑπὸ λαογραφικὴν ἔποψιν ἑρμηνευόμενα,” Λαογραφία 18, 5–93.

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Petrovic, I. (2004), “φαρμακευτρια ohne φαρμακον: Überlegungen zur Komposition des zweiten Idylls von Theokrit,” Mnemosyne 57, 421–444. Petrovic, I. (2007), Von den Toren des Hades zu den Hallen des Olymp. Artemiskult bei Theokrit und Kallimachos (Leiden/Boston). Petrovic, I. (2015), “Hymns in the Papyri Graecae Magicae,” in A. Faulkner/O. Hodkinson (eds.), Hymnic Narrative and the Narratology in Greek Hymns (Leiden/Boston) 244–267. Pretagostini, R. (2006), “How Bucolic Are Theocritus’ Bucolic Singers?” in Fantuzzi/ Papanghelis (2006) 53–73. Reed, J.D. (2000), “Arsinoe’s Adonis and the Poetics of Ptolemaic Imperialism,” TAPhA 130, 319–351. Reitzenstein, R. (1893), Epigram und Skolion: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der alexandrinischen Dichtung (Hildesheim). Rossi, L. (2001), The Epigrams Ascribed to Theocritus: A Method of Approach (Leuven/ Paris/Sterling VA). Segal, C. (1984), “Underreading and Intertexuality: Sappho, Simaetha and Odysseus in Theocritus’ Second Idyll,” Arethusa 7, 139–160. Trencsényi-Waldapfel, I. (1966), “Werden und Wesen der bukolischen Poesie,”Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 14, 1–31. Versnel, H. (1991), “Beyond Cursing: The Appeal for Justice in Judicial Prayers” in C.A. Faraone/D. Obbink (eds.), Magika Hiera. Ancient Greek Magic and Religion (New York/Oxford) 60–106. Welcker, F.G. (1844), “Über den Ursprung des Hirtenlieds,” in F.G. Welcker, Kleine Schriften zur griechischen Literaturgeschichte, 5 vols. (Bonn) 1.402–441. Wendel, C. (1920), Überlieferung und Entstehung der Theokrit-Scholien (Abhandlungen der königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, philologischhistorische Klasse, NF 17, Nr. 2). Wendel, K. (1914), Scholia in Theocritum vetera (Leipzig).

chapter 26

Women in Theocritus Poulheria Kyriakou

For my beloved aunt Ελευθερία ὀλβία ὅσσα ἴσατι

∵ The majority of female main characters in pre-Hellenistic Greek poetry are goddesses and elite women.1 Minor female characters such as nurses and slaves, usually anonymous, appear in archaic epic and lyric and in classical tragedy, and the members of some tragic choruses are slave women, but it is mime and comedy that first gave non-elite women roles as protagonists.2 Hellenistic poetry combined the choices of elite and popular tradition.3 The list of mortal women appearing as characters or mentioned in Theocritus’ genuine poems is long and inclusive.4 It runs from queens (Berenice i and Arsinoe ii) to slaves (Thestylis in Idyll 2, Eunoa, Phrygia and Eutychis in 15) and features wives, mothers, lovers, perhaps courtesans, singers (4.31), flute girls (10.15–16, 34), old charm-workers (2.90–91; cf. 6.40, 7.126–127) and sieve-diviners (3.31). Only in paederastic Idylls (29 and 30) and some spurious ones (9, 21, 23 and 25) are no women mentioned. Even in 18, 22, 24 and 26, the mythological pieces, the poet selects myths in which females feature prominently. Some ladies of Theocritus’ contemporary middle class, Nicias’ wife Theugenis (Id. 28) and the deceased Chrysogona (Ep. 13 Gow = AP 6.340), appear in a traditional mold, as paragons of virtue. Peristere, a bereft mother of two, is addressed in Epigram 16 Gow (= AP 7.662), and the Ptolemaic queen Berenice i is hailed as mother of excel-

1 2 3 4

Except for the discussion of Idylls 2 and 15, this chapter is based on Kyriakou (2018). Cf. Foley (2014) 269 and Taaffe (1993) 23–24. See Hunter (1996) 110. Cf. Griffiths (1981) 270: “Whatever their motives, Theocritus and his contemporaries are at least paying women the compliment of new sorts of attention, even if that attention yields little of direct documentary value.” For divinities see Petrovic, this volume.

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lent offspring (Id. 15.110–111, 17.56–57), among other distinctions.5 The occupations and concerns of the lower-class characters of Theocritean mimes allow glimpses of the sociocultural mosaic in the multiethnic empires of the Hellenistic Mediterranean. On the other hand, and equally important, the mimes, like the mythological pieces, interweave a dense intertextual web that features dark(er), ambivalent, or ironic associations. Less expectedly and more intriguingly, the novelty, ambiguity and openendedness of the bucolic poems, especially Idylls 11 and 6, hinge to a large extent on the inaccessible female sweethearts, whose status, situation, and even presence are difficult to determine. Although, in the rest of the corpus, the poet includes vignettes of female emotions, actions, problems, and freedoms in his contemporary society, the shepherds’ female sweethearts remain beautiful and enigmatic ciphers—a cardinal choice in the depiction of bucolic love as the paradigm of idealization, or longing for transcendence and union with the perfect object of desire.6 Whether in the pleasance or the city, Theocritean women may cause suffering, but none seems to wish for or enjoy it beyond doubt. Their portraits are sympathetic, as the women are not evil. Some also suffer, and the mythological heroines endure and perform outrages, but none is said to be destroyed or irreparably damaged. Theocritus regularly chooses to portray women as he portrays men, focusing on defining rather than definitive moments, on the last stretch before the end rather than on the end itself. The potential for failure or destruction is always there, tackled differently in different poems but almost never actualized. Theocritean women may

5 Mothers, though, do not always feature in conventional roles; see Burton (1995) 62–82. Even goddesses such as Aphrodite in Idyll 1 and the sleepless Nymphs, Hylas’ abductors in Idyll 13, appear in sexual or ambiguous roles as domineering figures. For Hylas’ Nymphs as parental figures, see Hunter (1999) 268. Despite the prominence of Ptolemaic queens in political and even military affairs, especially in the case of Arsinoe ii, Theocritus emphasizes their special favor with divinities and role in cult and festivals, a traditionally female domain. For Ptolemaic queens see Caneva (2014), Manakidou (2017) and Clayman, this volume. For Arsinoe see also Foster (2016) 189–230 and Likosky (2018) 153–170. Hellenistic poetry generally portrays powerful, active and domineering women such as Arsinoe as model wives and goddesses, which neutralizes male resentment and prohibits female imitation; see Griffiths (1981) 258– 259, 270–271. 6 See Konstan, this volume, and cf. Fantuzzi (2017). Only in the spurious 27 does the sweetheart of the cowherd Daphnis, probably called Acrotime, appear as a speaking character. In the spurious 20 (2–8), a speech of Eunica, perhaps a courtesan, is quoted by the narrator, the oxherd she rejected. Acrotime engages in sexual intercourse with her suitor and secures a credible marriage promise. Both women are assertive and capable of looking after their interests; see the discussion in the next chapter.

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endure their longing (cf. 2.164) and return home, blood-spattered (cf. 26.25), or in time to prepare lunch (cf. 15.147–148).

1

Beloved Women

The male suitors in genuine Idylls, contemporary and mythical, are unfortunate, or at any rate, unsuccessful. The prototype is the mythical bucolic hero Daphnis, who suffered because of his love for Xenea (7.73–77). The most enigmatic case, and among the least typical, is the girl, perhaps a Nymph, looking for the hero all over his bucolic haunts in Idyll 1 (82–85): she seems to be in love with him, but he does not, or cannot, return her love. The girl’s search suggests emotional obsession and the helplessness it generates, a recurrent theme in the Idyll and the collection, highlighted through the contrast with the pleasing surroundings. Theocritus’ other bucolic hero beside Daphnis, the young Cyclops Polyphemus in Idyll 11, is a well-heeled shepherd; he lives in a beautiful cave and harbors an unrequited passion for an inaccessible Nymph, Galatea, whom he probably sees only in his dreams (11.22–24). His attempts to lure her with a serenade (19–66) are hopeless. His rejection of her (72–79) is only temporary, and his song works as a palliative rather than a cure (80–81). He remains immersed in illusions, although he does not come across as arrogant or self-conceited. Even in Idyll 6, in which Galatea seems to have come around and seek to attract him, it is unclear whether she is serious. It is not even clear whether she is there or she is an illusion.7 Amaryllis’ status and attitude in Idyll 3, a version of 11, occupy an ambiguous middle ground between those of Nymphs and humble sweethearts. She may be a Nymph (cf. 18–19), and may have had some familiarity with the goatherd in the past (6–7). She may reject the goatherd because of his ugliness (8–9) but she remains as inaccessible as Galatea, and her reaction to her suitor’s threats of suicide is inscrutable. The late Amaryllis in Idyll 4 is the first unambiguously mortal female in the collection after Simaetha and her associates in 2, and her relationship to Aegon and Battus never becomes clear (35–39). Aegon may have been her lover or suitor, and Battus his rival, but her attitude or relationships are not specified. The only mortal contemporary woman whose story is narrated in reasonable detail is Cynisca in Idyll 14, who also has the unenviable distinction of being the only female in the collection abused by a lover, verbally and

7 See Hunter (1999) 244.

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physically (34–38).8 She may be a courtesan or a woman of loose morals but she is probably just a member of the free, non-affluent class, like Simaetha in 2.9 Cynisca is memorable because, again like Simaetha, she is her own woman and deals decisively with her predicament: she abandons her abuser and takes up with a partner of her liking (39–49).

2

A Woman in Love

In Idyll 2 Simaetha, an urban young woman of low socioeconomic status, attempts to win back the affections of her partner Delphis by performing magical rites (1–63). She then narrates her plight to the moon (64–166). The Idyll tackles unfortunate love and magic in a framework that lacks major generic or thematic links to epic or lyric but features important affinities with drama.10 The choice of the main character and her friends as well as the subject matter point to mime as the dramatic model-genre.11 On the other hand, Simaetha wishes to be as efficient as mythological or epic witches (15–16) and shares features with tragic heroines that used love magic, Deianeira in Sophocles’ Trachiniae and Phaedra in Euripides’ Hippolytus.12 Although Simaetha is very different from epic and tragic heroines,13 as is the scenario Theocritus con-

8 9

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13

For precedents see Fountoulakis (2017). Similarly, Bombyca in 10, the only beloved who is said to be ugly, or at least not universally viewed as beautiful (18, 26–28), may be a slave or a free and poor working girl. For allusions to Homer and Sappho see Griffiths (1979b), Andrews (1996), Segal (1984) and Pace (2017) 67–68. The scholia suggest that the character of Thestylis, Simaetha’s slave, and the use of magic were taken over from Sophron’s mimes, the former inelegantly. For the problems of detecting specific borrowings of Theocritus (and Herodas) from Sophron see Hordern (2004) 26–29, and Miles, this volume. The loss of Euripides’ Hippolytus Veiled, in which Phaedra probably approached her stepson herself and reviewed her situation, is unfortunate. The scholia (on Id. 2.10) suggest that women in love frequently invoke the moon, as Euripides has Phaedra do in Hippolytus Veiled. She may have invoked the moon in the context of (earlier attempts at or contemplation of?) love magic, or a confession of her woes, or both, like Simaetha. Sophocles’ Phaedra, now lost, may have been another model. Circe and Medea were powerful witches, who could easily transform and even annihilate those they targeted, although they were unable to secure a permanent or compliant sexual partner. Simaetha will probably never enjoy any success with her love or revenge magic anyway. Cf. Petrovic (2004) 437. For Simaetha as an incompetent witch see Domány (2013). Lambert (2002) argues that Theocritus parodies Simaetha’s foray into magic because magic was the domain of men, as the magical papyri indicate.

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structs to depict the development of her passion and her handling of it, there are important parallels in the presentation of the women and the structure of the poems. Like most tragic heroes, Simaetha does not learn from her past failures. However, she also does not become incapacitated or commit suicide because of them. Simaetha is younger than the mature Deianeira, and possibly younger than Phaedra. Most significantly, she is single—she claims that she had been a virgin before her affair with Delphis (40–41). She is also socially much inferior to the queen Phaedra and the aristocratic matron Deianeira. Simaetha’s address to the Moon is a lament cum report, a hybrid reminiscent of tragic monologues and laments, including choral lamentations. Trachiniae begins with the speech of the protagonist Deianeira (1–48). A slave woman is present, and the crisis in the center of the plot has not been revealed yet, but Deianeira’s review of her difficult life, difficult already before and especially after her marriage to Heracles, is practically no different from Euripidean introductory monologues— elite speakers delivering several of them are presumably accompanied by at least one silent attendant anyway. Mutatis mutandis Simaetha’s speech follows a similar pattern. Simaetha communicates the main facts of her predicament in the introduction when Thestylis is present (1–10; cf. 157–162), but narrates the story of her ill-fated affair with Delphis afterwards, when she is alone. Her narrative includes the intelligence about Delphis’ new love-interest communicated by a friend (145–154), which motivated, or at least precipitated, her decision to resort to magic. Deianeira also receives crucial intelligence about Iole from the old messenger (351– 368), who is after a reward (191) but well disposed to her (373–374), although not a friend. She then decides to use a drug with alleged aphrodisiac properties given to her by the centaur Nessus (531–581). Following the realization of her fatal error, Deianeira decides to deal with her disgrace by committing suicide (672–722). The prudent and devoted wife, the long-suffering woman, who viewed her adult life as a series of misfortunes and toils but never changed her stance before Iole’s arrival, decided to take a radical and disastrous step in order to deal with her live-in rival. Instead of resigning herself to her fate, she yielded to the charm of destructive persuasion. Despite the prominence of magic in Theocritus’ poem, its effectiveness is dubious, unlike the drug in Trachiniae. Word, in the form of verbal disclosure, proves superior to magic, in a manner reminiscent of Euripides’ Hippolytus. Phaedra and Simaetha fall in love with athletic young men at religious festivals. The objects of the women’s desire are unaware of the passion they inspired, Delphis probably also of Simaetha’s existence. The women at first try unsuccessfully to subdue their passion, Phaedra by hiding it and exercising restraint

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(392–399), and Simaetha by using the services of crones who sang incantations (90–91). These attempts fail, and the women pine and waste away until they reveal their predicament to a female slave. Phaedra’s nurse then pretends that she will use an anti-aphrodisiac charm (509–512), but her plan is to reveal the truth to Hippolytus. When the outraged Hippolytus threatens to reveal everything (604–612), and Delphis loses interest in Simaetha and is reported to have another love interest (149–154), the women are greatly alarmed. They resolve to deal with their situation by taking matters into their own hands and announce that they will take lethal revenge on the offenders, though only Simaetha through magic (159–162). Phaedra had already decided to commit suicide before the intervention of the nurse (400–430) and she stands by her decision following the disastrous outcome of the nurse’s plan (599–600, 723). Like Daphnis (1.92–93), she drains the bitter cup of her love for Hippolytus.14 She states that she accepts her bitter defeat in the hands of gloating Aphrodite (725–727) but declares that she will make Hippolytus share in her misfortune (728–731). All in all, in an overview of points of convergence and divergence, Simaetha, who yielded to her passion, may be said to have followed the path suggested by Phaedra’s nurse (433–481). The initiative succeeded, but the affair did not last long. Once again, Simaetha tries love magic, now in order to win Delphis back. The outcome of her labors remains unknown, but given the previous failure of incantations to procure assistance, not only the audience but she too is not confident of her success. Before she begins her foray into sympathetic magic, she declares that she will visit her now indifferent lover at the wrestling school on the next day and reproach him for his behavior (8–9). The prospect of the meeting suggests that she does not trust in the effect of the incantation. Apparently, her plan is to use magic to bind Delphis before she confronts him.15 If magic does not have the desired result, though, it is unlikely that her reproaches will. In a way Simaetha repeats the sequence of the beginning of her passion, but despite the success of her earlier initiative, the outcome of her current one is very much in doubt. What is more, she finally vows to take lethal revenge on Delphis, again by means of magic, if he continues

14 15

For the similarities of the Euripidean Phaedra to Daphnis, see Gutzwiller (1991) 96, and cf. Stanzel (1995) 268. She also suggests that she will grind a lizard in a drink she plans to offer Delphis the next day (58). The lizard may be part of the allegedly lethal Assyrian drugs she is keeping (161– 162), but this is unlikely, as Simaetha does not intend to harm Delphis so shortly. Her strategy seems to be a combination of drugs and persuasion throughout, which indicates that she does not trust drugs entirely.

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vexing her (159–162). Nevertheless, her last utterance (164) seems to suggest a shift not only of tone but possibly of plan. Immediately after vowing to destroy Delphis, she proceeds to suggest that she will bear the consequences of her love.16 This does not necessarily imply that she will not try lethal revenge, but it certainly might imply as much. Alternatively, despite her apparent confidence that her evil drugs are lethal, the success of her last recourse to magic may be in doubt. In any case, her resignation probably indicates that things will remain the same, as she will continue using drugs with dubious and unknowable results. In this light, the scenario that Theocritus constructs includes not only communication and consummation of the passion but repeated attempts to lure the object of desire by means of dubious efficacy. Having performed her incantation and then unburdened herself, as in a way Deianeira and Phaedra do, Simaetha resolves to carry on as before, unlike the heroines. When faced with a terrible challenge involving sexual passion and their honor as noble wives, the tragic women decide, although reluctantly at first, to engage in or allow novel practices, essentially putting aside the principles and insights that informed their earlier behavior. This is a tragic error that leads to their own and their loved ones’ destruction, but they finally salvage their reputation by committing suicide. In other words, Deianeira and Phaedra err and fail because they temporarily abandon their behavioral constancy while Simaetha errs and fails because she never does. She had never rejected the use of magic and incantations, but when they proved inadequate, she also resolved to reveal her predicament to Delphis. This is what she continues doing and planning, and although she does not appear to have better chances of sexual fulfillment than her tragic predecessors, she at least manages to endure,17 not 16

17

The meaning of 164 (“I will bear my longing as I have undergone it”) is not clear. Gow (19522) 63 suggests that Simaetha vows to bear her love as she has borne it hitherto rather than bear her love as she has incurred it. I am of the opposite opinion. It is much likelier at this point that Simaetha declares her resolve to bear the burden of the unfortunate love affair, whatever this may include or entail, as she had the misfortune to fall in love with the fickle Delphis. Her predicament certainly includes her unabated longing but is probably not limited to it. Stanzel (1995) 226–228 thinks that Simaetha has attained a clearer understanding of Delphis’ attitude, which enables her to liberate herself from him. There is little doubt that Simaetha sees things more clearly, but I do not see that this suggests liberation and calm. Cf. Segal (1985) 118, Goldhill (1991) 270 and Sistakou (2016) 138–139. Besides, the clarity, if such it is, may more plausibly be thought to result from Delphis’ behavior and the information provided by her friend rather than from the reflection occasioned by the review of her story in her address to the moon. Cf. Griffiths (1981) 266. The motif of suffering and endurance in open-ended resolution, which recurs in Idylls 11, 13 and 30, informs the entire range of Theocritus’ collection.

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least perhaps because she has no reputation to salvage or cares little about it. Thus it is unlikely that she will harm Delphis or herself, at least more than love has already harmed her (and recently Delphis).18

3

A Festival for Women

In Idyll 15 Gorgo and Praxinoa, the protagonists of a mime much closer to comedy than tragedy, belong to the Hellenistic urban milieu of the lower-middle classes, but they are married, and the latter is also a mother. Interestingly, they are of Syracusan origin, like Theocritus himself, perhaps immigrants in Alexandria. Their visit to the palace and comments on the Adonis festival sponsored by queen Arsinoe ii, the daughter of the deified Berenice i and sister-wife of Ptolemy ii, mediate metapoetic comments about art, its creation and reception. The audience receive the festival through the women’s lens and are presumably meant to ponder their reception of the women’s reception. The exasperated comment of a Doric-speaking anonymous man about the Doric dialect of the women (87–88) and Praxinoa’s response (89–93) also provide an ironic jolt to the audience, who might be too complacent about their superiority to the women and knowledgeable reception of a “realistic” mime and its representation of speech. In this vein, it has been plausibly argued that Theocritus’ depiction of female spectators at a festival harks back to standard mime plots. In this respect, the Idyll exemplifies the poet’s sophisticated reception of the tradition, especially the “transfer” of the mime from Syracuse to Alexandria, and the reception of his poetry by his sophisticated audience, especially the Ptolemies, his actual or potential patrons.19 This includes both the difficulties of “entering the palace,” as indicated by the difficulties of the women (65–77) and the encouragement of the old lady they encountered on their way (61–62), and the combination of “naive” praise of the festival (78–86, 99, 145–146; cf. 23– 24) and ironic distancing from its gaudy aesthetics.20 The complexity of the

18

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Simaetha is also akin to the Cyclops in Idyll 6: her love life has changed, and she devises a way to secure her object of desire. She has some confidence in her success, and although she will probably fail, she does not perish or even lose her bearings. Simaetha’s complaint about leech-like, bloodsucking Eros may echo Heracles’ lament about the effect of the lethal drug in Sophocles’ Trachiniae (1053–1056; cf. A. Ch. 855–858). If so, Simaetha is presented in terms reminiscent of both Deianeira and Heracles. Her actual condition is not as grave as theirs, but the power of love approximates the ravages of a lethal drug, ironically used in love magic. See Hunter (1996) 116–123, duBois (2007), Kutzko (2008) and Ambühl (2017). However, the women use terms current in contemporary critical discourse; see Goldhill

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Idyll foregrounds its own artifice: it embeds a hymn (100–144), which is reproduced in hexameters and describes a tableau of Adonis and Aphrodite as part of the festival featuring the tableau and exquisite tapestries.21 The first two parts of the poem, Gorgo’s visit to Praxinoa’s house and their trip to the palace, have also been viewed as “a slice of life,” a realistic snapshot of contemporary, ordinary women’s concerns and relationships. As is the case with Simaetha, the realism is more likely a mimetic illusion, ironically undercut by traditional clichés. On the other hand, just like Simaetha, the women are depicted in a female space, and their problems are mainly attributed to the men in their lives, first their husbands (8–20) and then the strangers or foreigners they encounter or fear (47–52, 89–95; cf. 5–6).22 The women, especially Praxinoa, complain about their husbands’ foibles, but there is no word about infidelities or substance abuse, for instance—Gorgo says that her Diocleidas is very particular about timely lunch (147–148). Instead, the women castigate the husbands’ ineptitude in shopping and their propensity to waste money on useless things. This indicates that their finances are tight, as is obvious from Praxinoa’s lament over the cost of her cloak (36–37) and even her initial reaction to Gorgo’s suggestion that they go to the palace (24–26).23 While Simaetha is attached to a fickle partner and laments her abandonment, the women lament their union with apparently loyal but feckless husbands. Praxinoa also verbally abuses her slave (27–30), is a fairly strict mother (40–41), and expresses racist contempt for Egyptians (46–50), but her biases are not (presented as)

21

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(1994) 216–223 and Acosta Hughes (section 4), this volume. It is perhaps also not accidental that Idyll 15 shares its dramatic framework, a visit to a lavish festival in honor of a god, with Idyll 7, and the description of artifacts and a song with Idyll 1. These associations with the programmatic pieces enhance the ironic and metapoetic aspects of the Idyll. Like Cos and Sicily, Alexandria is a wonderful place, in which even petit bourgeois matrons may undertake a journey like Simichidas’ and experience the delights of art like the characters in Idyll 1, although they have to be home early and resume their lowly activities. The union of Aphrodite and Adonis may also offer an escapist fantasy from their dreary married lives; cf. Griffiths (1981) 254–255. The extraordinary hymn, often disparaged as artless, combines erotic and funereal motifs with Ptolemaic propaganda and allusions to epic and tragedy in the account of the deification of Berenice i (106–108) and the catalogue of heroes at the end (137–142), perhaps with a hint of parody; see Hunter (1996) 127–138, and cf. Burton (1995) 143–144. For an aggressively parodic reading of the hymn and the Idyll see Lambert (2001). A judicious discussion of the Greco-Egyptian background of the deification is found in Kampakoglou (2013). For the importance of space, and the women’s negotiation of the challenging streets in their trip from Praxinoa’s house to the palace, see Burton (1995) 15–16, and Thalmann, this volume. For a different view see Whitehorne (1995) 66–70, who suggests that they are fairly well off.

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extraordinary, and she does not seem to be mean or obsessive. This portrayal is quite similar to Theocritus’ depiction of other lowly characters and highlights his ironic mastery in involving them in metapoetry. The women’s horizons are limited, and their world confined by domesticity and its quotidian petty challenges, alleviated only by female solidarity, cult (or cultic festivals), and the perceived efficacy, benevolence and largesse of the divinized ruling family—the challenging subject of the incestuous marriage of Ptolemy and Arsinoe is completely glossed over. Gorgo and Praxinoa may be portrayed as naive or even shallow and not realistically representative of Hellenistic or Alexandrian women. They seem to have little notion of contemporary political realities or propaganda and seem to live on a virtual island in the sea of the great metropolis. However, for all their practical and emotional problems, limitations and biases, the women manage (to endure) and even occasionally have a good time. The limitations of the women in Idyll 15 find a parallel in the portrait and pursuits of the shepherds, especially the emblematic Cyclops. Like the ogre in Idyll 11, Gorgo and Praxinoa return to their mundane pursuits after coming into contact with art: they are spectators and audience rather than artists themselves, but their capacity as weavers (34–38), informed or ironic appreciation of the tapestries (78–83) and the song (145–146), and parallels with the singer (84–86 ~ 112–130) elevate them above the level of mere visitors to the palace.

4

Mythological Heroines

The Idylls featuring mythological heroines, 18, 24 and 26, also deal with limitations and with the heavy price of glory, which are fairly traditional themes. Theocritus, though, selected or fashioned stories in which the women are prominent and celebrated, in song and cult, but which have no exact parallel in the tradition.24 Ambiguity is fostered by the failure of the narrators to provide detailed information about past and future. All three poems were quite likely composed on a background of Ptolemaic propagandistic concerns,25 but this does not solve all interpretive problems. In Idyll 18 the suppression of

24 25

This is also the case in the story of the abduction of the Leucippides by the Dioscuri in 22, for which see Sens (1997) 168–169. In Idyll 18, the Epithalamium for Helen, Helen is associated with Arsinoe (cf. 15.110–111) and the mythological couple with the Ptolemaic counterpart; see Hunter (1996) 163–164. For 24 see Huttner (1997) 138–140 and Stephens (2003) 142–145, and for 26 Griffiths (1979a) 98–104.

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Helen’s career and even the background of her marriage differentiates the Idyll from epic and a major lyric intertext noted in the scholia, Stesichorus’ Helen, although the loss of this poem makes secure conclusions impossible. Still, if the poem contained, as is probable, a description of the wedding (fr. 88 Finglass), the story of Tyndareus’ oath (fr. 87 Finglass) and/or the abduction of Helen by Theseus (fr. 86 Finglass), Theocritus’ selectivity becomes clearly apparent. It goes without saying that the external audience of the Idyll may not erase their knowledge of Helen’s story and the heroic couple’s calamitous future. On the other hand, the major generator of irony is not so much the quotation of the song of an archaic, “innocent” chorus of Spartan girls (cf. 1–8) addressed to an “innocent” or “naive” audience as the fashioning of the song in such a way as to frustrate the expectations of tragic irony of the frame narrator’s contemporary audience. This audience, and all subsequent audiences, expect that the girls will unknowingly evoke the troubling future, but this expectation never materializes, at least unambiguously.26 The absence of tragic irony does not even involve rhetorical gymnastics or awkward choices and silences. Audiences are led or made to review their expectations and reconsider their stance as recipients of old poems and the latest product of a long tradition, which the narrator presents as an old song. The poet has chosen to mention and celebrate facts and emotions that (may) remain unchanged and unchallenged even with a view to Homer’s or Stesichorus’ Helen, the heroine of epic and lyric, and even to the muchmaligned Helen of tragedy. Perhaps Sappho, the canonic composer of wedding songs, was a major influence in this respect.27 The poem celebrates a Spartan, athletic Helen, the object of communal Spartan veneration and a Greek girl excelling in all traditional female spheres: beauty, handiwork, and musical gifts applied in the worship of female, in particular virginal, goddesses. Irrespective of Helen’s future, there is literary support for the claims, entirely plausible in themselves anyway, that she was an athletic teenager (22–25; cf. Eur. Andr. 595–601) and a skilled weaver (32–34; cf. Il. 3.125–128). Naturally, it is her beguiling beauty that is stressed first (28) and last (37–38), in ring-composition. It is supreme and irresistible, and the suffering that external audiences know it will cause does not qualify the fact. Menelaus did lock her in on their wedding night (5), and the suggestion that he should have done that later on too is irrelevant in the present and inapplicable in the future context. Helen is not even called Menelaus’ wife but his bride (15), and her future elopement with Paris will not 26 27

For ironic readings see e.g., Effe (1978), Stern (1978) and Lane (2006), but cf. Hunter (2015) 154–156. See e.g., Gow (19522) 348–349, Dagnini (1986) and Acosta-Hughes (2010) 29–38.

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unmake her capacity as Menelaus’ bride. Even the prayer to Aphrodite to grant the couple equal love (51–52) is not eo ipso ironic in view of Helen’s attraction to Paris because Aphrodite’s sponsoring of Paris had little impact on Helen’s feelings toward Menelaus, at least as sketched in the Iliad (3.139–140, 173–176, 403–404, 428–436, 6.344–348, 355–358; cf. 24.764, Od. 4.259–264) The suppression of Helen’s history or the glossing over of allusions to her future is not a consequence of the choice of an archaic setting, or of the view of a heroine from the perspective of a community’s shared cultural memory. Rather, it is a consequence of the deliberate choices of the narrator(s), picking and choosing not only episodes but also terms suitable to the dramatic context. If the first line sets up an antiquarian narrator, who picks up a thread and narrates an ancient event, then, despite the remoteness from the event and the participants, the voice of the narrator is in harmony with the voice of the participants. This is the narratorial counterpart of the harmony depicted in the description of the girls’ singing and dancing (7–8). The voice of celebration is united, indeed nature is also involved in it, diachronic, unassuming and unambiguous. The veneration of Helen as a tree goddess (43–48) follows smoothly upon and merges with the epithalamium, which emerges first and foremost as a song of harmonious celebration. Harmonious unity in worship and celebration is also the ideal in Idyll 26, the Bacchae, which narrates the story of Pentheus’ dismemberment by female devotees of Dionysus, including the victim’s mother and aunts. A first-person narrator appears only, and uniquely, in the transitional passage (27–32) between myth (1–26) and envoi (33–38). The intrusion of the narratorial voice is an unexpected tour de force, qualifying the previous narrative and coloring the subsequent conclusion. The narrator assumes the stance of a pious devotee rather than a poet and does not name any poetic or other authority.28 He attaches no direct blame to anyone and associates himself with pious groups (32), including female fans or devotees of beautiful Semele and her sisters (35–36), with a hint at celebration in epic song or hymns. The story of Pentheus’ sparagmos is narrated quite succinctly (20–24). For modern audiences and critics, the poem’s primary intertext is Euripides’Bacchae. The pathos of the situation of the tragic Pentheus, first as delusional transvestite spy of the

28

Cairns (1992) has argued that the narrator of the poem is a chorus of boys, which might explain the puzzling references to nine-or ten-year-old enemies of the god (29), the children of the pious and impious (32), and especially the harsh, almost fanatic, stance of the narrator, who seems to lack compassion. Cf. Morrison (2007) 242–245, 270. Line 29 may not refer to children; for other suggestions see Kyriakou (2018) 251–252. Even if it refers to children, the features singled out are scarcely enough to suggest a boy chorus.

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Bacchants and then as sane victim of their frenzy, has been limited, and so have the ecstatic elements of the women’s worship. The Theocritean Bacchants and Pentheus are sane throughout, no one is disguised, and no one mistakes anyone for someone else. The god is also not present, although his agency is indicated at the end (37–38). The female members of Pentheus’ family have a prominent role in the narrative from the very beginning, as devotees of Dionysus. The vignette of the spying Pentheus as a calm observer (10–11) fits in with the delightful description of these Bacchants, who went to the mountain in orderly fashion and raised plant altars to Semele and Dionysus in a pure meadow (1–9). Like Pentheus, who is not said to scorn the god or be delusional, the women seem initially to have nothing to do with Bacchic frenzy, animals or dismemberment, which makes their later behavior all the more shocking. The reference to the worship of Semele (6) is perhaps meant to suggest that the Bacchants, especially Semele’s sisters, the leaders of the three bands of Dionysus’ worshippers (1–2; cf. Eur. Ba. 680–682), had nothing against Dionysus’ mother, and had not fled to the mountain in frenzy, inspired by a vindictive Dionysus. What is more, the women follow the instructions and pleasure of Dionysus (9), which also suggests a context of sanity. The calm of the meadow scene and the orderly, quiet process of the devotees’ rites are disrupted when Autonoe spots the spy (12–15). The abrupt transformation of the pious devotees into frenzied pursuers and killing Bacchants is accentuated by a stylistic transformation, as the rhythm becomes asthmatic, with short noun-verb clauses, and the repetition at 18–19 draws the narrator into this vortex of rapid pursuit, which allows for little sophisticated variety (16–19). The memorable, epigrammatic end of the sparagmos story (25–26) grimly echoes and restores the initial Bacchant unison, not least by means of the contrast with Euripides’ account (Ba. 1168–1199). Belated understanding, one of tragedy’s thematic mainstays, is prominent in Euripides’ play. In the Idyll it appears only in Autonoe’s savage response to Pentheus’ futile question (19), perhaps not accidentally in the very middle of the poem, and ironically highlighting the speedy acquisition of belated understanding. If this echoes the most prominent references to the theme of late learning in Euripides’ Bacchae, to Pentheus’ understanding (859–861, 1113, 1120–1121), and Agave’s realization of her plight (1296; cf. 1285 and 1345–1346), then not only the predicament of the Theocritean Pentheus but his family’s sharing in it and their presumed eventual enlightenment in grief are suggested obliquely. However, mourning or lamentation, not insight, is taken up in the reference to what the women bring back to Thebes from the mountain, a thing to be grieved over, not Pentheus (ἐξ ὄρεος πένθημα καὶ οὐ Πενθῆα φέροισαι, 26). πέν-

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θημα is a vey rare word (A. Ch. 432; cf. Eur. Suppl. 1035, in emendation) used in the context of severe family troubles. To be sure, there is no report of anyone who might grieve for Pentheus back home, although Cadmus may be assumed to be present, and the women do not regret their crime. United in cult and hunt, they bring back the product of their ritual dismembering of Pentheus, another holy offering fashioned by them.29 This offering, though, is something to be lamented, not least, perhaps, eventually by them. Still, any assumption that the perpetrators might experience regret, or at least pity for their victim, and that some mourners, in which the audience might be included, would potentially grieve for the plight of Dionysus’ enemies is strongly discouraged by the narrator’s intervention, introduced in a lapidary manner (27–32). The poem does not probe the moral or ritual background of the murder and does not include any clue as to the fate of Cadmus’ daughters following the report of their blood-covered return to Thebes, but the end of the poem seems to point in the direction of moral probing (35–38). The narrator urges the audience not to blame anything that has to do with the gods (38), not (only) because atrocities committed by humans at divine instigation should not be blamed as morally repugnant (37–38) but (also) because the narrator’s encouragement might lead the audience to absolve Cadmus’ daughters and instigate them to question the morality of Dionysus’ instigation.30 However, the claims about the role of Dionysus in the rites performed by the Bacchants (9) and the punishment of Pentheus qualify the narrator’s one-sided stance, bringing him closer to tragic predecessors by presenting a nuanced view of the divine. Gods have their own agenda and do as they please, teaching what they like and killing whom they dislike. Mortals should honor and avoid insulting them, hoping for the best (reward). The poem then takes on a tragic coloring, even though it eschews direct imitation and glosses over the central tragic theme of belated understanding or gaining wisdom through suffering. In Idyll 24, which celebrates baby Heracles’ killing of the snakes sent by Hera, his first achievement, and naturally does not address his morality, his mother Alcmene is a polar opposite of Agave. However, Theocritus manages to insert signs of current and future heroic trouble, including in the presentation and prospects of the excellent matron. The domestic atmosphere of the Idyll accounts at least partially for the prominence of Alcmene, although hardly for the specifics of her presentation. Her character and role highlight mainly the limitations of gifted individuals and the suffering involved in heroic

29 30

Cf. Cusset (2001) 98, who compares lines 7 and 20. Cf. Hutchinson (1988) 162.

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careers, first and foremost in connection with the heroes’ families. Alcmene takes the initiative at all significant moments of the plot (2, 34, 65–66). The seer Teiresias even predicts that she will be the subject of song of Achaean women, and revered by Argive ladies (76–78). Naturally, “Argive” may be a synonym of “Greek,” especially following “Achaean,” but in a poem in which Argos and its demotic are used for the characters’ origin (104, 123, 129) and Thebes is nowhere mentioned, the term is probably used in its proper sense or at the very least ambiguously.31 Be that as it may, in a prophecy meant to soothe the anxiety of Alcmene and reveal a glorious future, the limiting of the circle of her fans turns out to be a relatively minor blip. More intriguingly, before the prophecy, the report of Alcmene’s activities recalls a host of heroines, Andromache, Hecuba, Danae, and Jocasta, whose children suffered and caused them much suffering. In this light, the gradual emergence of the heroic capacity of Heracles is given an unusual and conceivably unprecedented twist, in the framework of his domestic, familial environment and against the background of the celebration of his mother in song. The Idyll begins with Alcmene bathing, nursing, and putting the babies Heracles and Iphicles to sleep on Amphitryon’s shield (1–10). In extant literature the only toddler stretched on his father’s shield is the dead boy Astyanax in Euripides’ Troades. He is buried in Hector’s shield, the weapon involved in many victories (1221–1225), but now an Achaean spoil. The gap separating a murdered child from babies sleeping peacefully at home is for all intents and purposes unbridgeable, but most of the elements mentioned in the Theocritean passage appear also in Euripides’ play: the nursing of the boy (758–759), his sleep (1188), and the care lavished on him by both his mother (760, 1175–1176) and grandmother (1186–1188). Emphasis is placed on the boy’s head (1176–1177; cf. 24.6), now smashed and mangled, and his now inert limbs (1178–1179). Even the washing of the dead boy in preparation for his funeral is mentioned (1151–1152). It is unlikely that any audience would think that Alcmene’s children would share the fate of Astyanax, or that Alcmene would suffer as Andromache or Hecuba did, but it should not be forgotten that the reminiscences come very early on in the poem, and a first-time audience would have little idea of their scope or what would follow. The extraordinary detail of the babies’ crib may also be a reminiscence of the bronze box in which Danae and the baby Perseus were tossed in the stormy sea. Alcmene’s address to the babies (7–9) has been associated with the address of 31

Contrast for instance the universal renown of Penelope (Od. 19.107–114) and Alcestis (Eur. Alc. 150–155, 445–454, 991–1005). Even the Sophoclean Heracles refers to himself not only as the son of heavenly Zeus but also as the “son of the best mother” (S. Tr. 1105–1106).

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Danae to Perseus in a fragment of Simonides (PMG 543 = 271 Poltera).32 The link between different generations of Heracles’ family (cf. 24.73) and the hereditary excellence in the progeny of Zeus, the ultimate ancestor of the Ptolemies, has been often pointed out. Heracles and Perseus are both slayers of snakes,33 and Hera’s dragons will not be Heracles’ last reptilian adversaries. The Simonidean echo foreshadows trouble ahead, although Alcmene addresses her babies in a peaceful domestic, indeed bourgeois, setting. Danae and her baby will be saved, presumably by the intervention of Zeus, to whom the desperate mother appeals, but her situation casts a shadow over Alcmene’s happy babies and their caring mother. In a similar vein, Alcmene’s consultation of Teiresias has a parallel in Jocasta’s consultation of the seer, apparently in the presence of her sons, in the so-called Lille Stesichorus (PMGF 222(b) = fr. 97 Finglass).34 As with the rest of the parallels discussed above, Alcmene is in a very different situation from that of the Stesichorean Jocasta. Nevertheless, Alcmene’s initiative and even her succinct appeal to the seer to be frank (24.68–69) suggest prudence and a realistic view of misfortunes, perhaps partly in the model of the Stesichorean royal mother. Irrespective of these possible associations, both the account of the initiative and the introduction to the prophecy highlight Alcmene’s virtues and limitations but also contain hints that might prepare for an ominous prophecy on the future of Heracles and his family (64–74). Alcmene relates the sensational events of the previous night to the seer (χρέος κατέλεξε νεοχμόν, 66). This phrase is found nowhere else, but all three words, especially the adjective, occur separately in inauspicious contexts, mainly accounts of disasters and misfortunes. Most relevant among these are passages from Aeschylus (P. 693), Euripides (Hipp. 866, Ba. 216; cf. Su. 1057, Her. 530, Tr. 231, IT 1162) and Aristophanes (Thesm. 701; cf. R. 1371–1372).35 Several of 32

33

34

35

Both addresses are usually referred to as lullabies, but neither contains any mention of singing or chanting, and Perseus is already fast asleep when his weeping, anxious mother addresses him. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (26), who preserves Simonides’ fragment, uses the poem as an example of expert lyric composition, which is very close to prose, and describes it as Danae’s lament, in my view a much more accurate gloss. For an association of the baby Perseus and Heracles see Vox (1990), who argues that the shield may be viewed as a grave, reminiscent of the Spartan mothers’ injunction to their sons to come back with it or on it. Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 261 suggest that the babies falling asleep may recall the baby Astyanax falling asleep in his nurse’s arms (Il. 22.502). The speaker may not be Jocasta; see Mastronarde (1994) 20–22 and Finglass (2015) 88. Next I will refer to her as Jocasta, but her identity does not affect my discussion. For her identification with Jocasta see Tsitsibakou-Vasalos (1989) and MacInnes (2007). The verb also occurs in accounts or predictions of disasters, extraordinary occurrences, and misfortunes; see e.g., Il. 9.115, 591, Od. 10.250, 11.368–369, 12.35, 19.464, 23.321, A.R. Arg. 4.730, 800.

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these passages describe disasters afflicting or about to afflict young people—in Thesmophoriazusae the endangered “child” is actually a wineskin disguised as a baby girl, and the chorus invokes the Fates in a para-tragic expression of horrified amazement (700–703). The ineluctable determinism of the decrees of fate is mentioned by the Stesichorean mother (PMGF 222(b).211–212 = fr. 97.211–212 Finglass) and Alcmene (69–70). The thorny issue of the relationship of gods and fate is beyond the scope of the present discussion, but it should be pointed out that in Aeschylus at least, and perhaps already in Stesichorus, the Fates are closely associated with the Erinyes and with guilt and punishment, or the moral order of the universe.36 In this light, Alcmene may be alluding to divine anger or punishment because of Zeus’ adultery with her. Nevertheless, she shows no panic or loss of control. Her concluding appeal to the seer to reveal the designs of the gods is quoted in direct speech (68–71). Alcmene urges the seer to discard all consideration for her (feelings) and reveal the possible evil designs of the gods—there is no mention, and apparently no expectation, of a favorable prediction or outcome. There is also no sign, and it is not in any way obvious or plausible, that the seer would not be frank. The admonition is an indication that, irrespective of her moral strength and her practicality, Alcmene expects problems at every turn and takes things such as the seer’s inhibitions for granted. The prophecy (75–85) marks the turning point from the horrific attack of the snakes and the heroic baby’s achievement to the prospects of the hero’s career. Still, despite the soothing tone, the rare ἀριστοτόκεια (73) points to the famous lament of Thetis (δυσαριστοτόκεια, Il. 18.54) and raises the specter of maternal loss and suffering.37 The passing mention of the Trachinian pyre (83) is the only allusion to the disturbing story of Heracles’ death. As it is certainly not necessary in an account of the hero’s future glory, its inclusion qualifies his bright prospects, although Alcmene is not in a position to grasp its import. Teiresias’ speech ends with detailed instructions, exactly equal in length to his response to Alcmene’s inquiry concerning the plans of the gods, about the disposal of the dead serpents and the purification of the house (88–100). Such instructions had not been requested by the queen. Apart from striking a typically Hellenistic note,38 this part then indicates that for all her prudent intelligence and

36 37

38

Cf. Fraenkel (1950) 728. Stesichorus’ ἀλαστοτόκος (PMGF S13 = fr. 17.1 Finglass) was perhaps inspired by the same Homeric hapax legomenon, although Callirhoe’s supplication of her son Geryon reworks also Hecuba’s plea to Hector (Il. 22.79–89). Cf. Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 207.

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thoughtful fortitude, not to mention her potentially presumptuous readiness to instruct even a seer, Alcmene is not in a position to foresee and prepare for everything. Although she wishes to learn about the future, she fails to deal—or ask for instructions on how to deal—with the simpler but urgent contingencies at hand. In contrast to Danae and Jocasta, for instance, she also fails to address a prayer to the gods. The Pindaric Alcmene, a closer model, is less involved in the aftermath of the snakes’ attack but shows greater courage and readiness to defend her progeny, despite having just given birth (N. 1.50–51, Paean 20 = fr. 52u Maehler). The Theocritean queen does everything through men. If the last part is genuine, Heracles’ education is left entirely to them, with a mere suggestion that she was responsible for the selection of the best trainers (103–104).39 This stellar education, which Heracles apparently needs despite his inherited excellence, does not include moral training.40 Traditionally, heroic prowess and moral excellence are not distinguished, but the poem describes the boy’s education in such great detail that the failure to mention or at least allude to moral excellence stands out. The poem thus deals on multiple levels of human and divine agency, showcasing excellence and its limitations, especially perhaps the limitations of knowledge. Much, arguably too much for comfort, is left unsaid and unknown, to the characters and the audience. Heracles grows up like a sapling (103–104), in the care of his mother and on the model of short-lived Achilles (cf. Il. 18.56, 437). He is an excellent student of all arts and a powerful athlete, but his talents and appetites will cause much grief to his masters and family. He will excel in everything and will be immortal (79–84), but his mortal frame will be consumed by a Trachinian pyre because he will have been brought low by his passions. The poem, then, is not extraordinary, only or primarily, because it combines traditional and novel elements or incorporates echoes of archaic epic, lyric, and classical tragedy. To present a heroic family in a Hellenistic bourgeois setting of quotidian ordinariness, Theocritus does fall back on elite poetic genres but not only with a view to displaying his ironic, erudite mastery of them. The humanity of Heracles and

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Griffiths (1996) argues that the poem ended at 104. Contrast e.g., the description of Achilles’ education in Pindar’s Nemean 3: the hero does not need education in heroic achievements, but Chiron is said to foster his spirit in all things fitting (57–58; cf. P. 6.19–27); cf. Gregory (2019) 43–48. Teiresias describes Heracles as “broad-chested hero, stronger than all beasts and men”; cf. S. Aj. 1250–1252, perhaps an ironic allusion.

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his family is not emphasized because they nurse and eat heartily, put babies to bed, sleep soundly, or become afraid, but because they do all these things and more wallowing in limited understanding, of the workings of the divine and their own limitations. For all their heroic assets, achievements, and brilliant prospects, they are compromised and as much the playthings of the gods as Jocasta and Danae. It is comforting to know the end, but before that end, Heracles and his family will suffer much more than the hardships of twelve unspecified labors. It is wonderful to think positive thoughts about the future, but the Fate spins the good and the bad, and the glorious future comes at a heavy, even compromising, price. On the other hand, the misfortunes and suffering of the mythological heroines are not crushing. The women are never blamed but are always the subject of praise song, like goddesses. Like the heroines, Theocritean queens are powerful and active, and their female subjects are feisty, but none entirely abandons traditional roles and beliefs. Theocritean song is, to a large extent, a song for and about women, both a serenade for contemporary ones and a hymn for mythological heroines.

Bibliography Acosta-Hughes, B. (2010), Arion’s Lyre. Archaic Lyric into Hellenistic Poetry (Princeton). Ambühl, A. (2017), “Crossing Genres & Cultures in der alexandrinischen Literatur: Theokrits 15. Idyll als Crossing-Experiment,” in A. Dresen/F. Freitag (eds.), Crossing: Über Inszenierungen kultureller Differenzen und Identitäten (Bielefeld) 39–66. Andrews, N.E. (1996), “Narrative and Allusion in Theocritus, Idyll 2,” in M.A. Harder/ R.F. Regtuit/G.C. Wakker (eds.), Theocritus (Groningen) 21–53. Burton, J.B. (1995), Theocritus’ Urban Mimes. Mobility, Gender and Patronage (Berkeley). Cairns, F. (1992), “Theocritus, Idyll 26,” PCPhS 38, 1–38. Caneva, S. (2014), “Courtly Love, Stars and Power. The Queen in 3rd-Century Royal Couples, through Poetry and Epigraphic Texts,” in A. Harder et al. (eds.), Hellenistic Poetry in Context (Leuven) 25–58. Cusset, C. (2001), Les Bacchantes de Théocrite. Texte, corps et morceaux. Édition, traduction et commentaire de l’Idylle 26 (Paris). Dagnini, I. (1986), “Elementi saffici e motivi tradizionali in Teocrito, Idillio xviii,” QUCC 24, 39–46. Domány, J. (2013), “Magic and Irony in Theocritus’ ‘Idyll 2,’” Hermes 141, 58–64. DuBois, P. (2007), “Reading the Writing on the Wall,” CPh 102, 45–56. Effe, B. (1978), “Die Destruktion der Tradition: Theokrits mythologische Gedichte,”RhM 121, 48–77.

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Fantuzzi, M. (2017), “Theocritus’ Shepherdly Eros” in C. Cusset et al. (eds.), Présence de Théocrite (Clermont-Ferrand) 331–346. Fantuzzi, M./R.L. Hunter (2004), Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge). Finglass, P.J. (2015), “Stesichorus, Master of Narrative,” in P.J. Finglass/A. Kelly (eds.), Stesichorus in Context (Cambridge) 83–97. Foley, H.P. (2014), “Performing Gender in Greek Old and New Comedy,” in M. Revermann (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Comedy (Cambridge) 259–274. Foster, J.A. (2016), Reading Voices. Five Studies in Theocritus’ Narrating Techniques (New York). Fountoulakis, A. (2017), “Rethinking Gender Roles and Generic Identities: Sexual Jealousy in Theocritus, Id. 14 and Lucian, Dial. Meretr. 15 and 8,” in C. Cusset et al. (eds.), Présence de Théocrite (Clermont-Ferrand) 267–294. Fraenkel, E. (1950), Aeschylus. Agamemnon. Edited with a Commentary (Oxford). Goldhill, S. (1991), The Poet’s Voice. Essays on Poetics and Greek Literature (Cambridge). Goldhill, S. (1994), “The Naïve and Knowing Eye: Ecphrasis and the Culture of Viewing in the Hellenistic World,” in S. Goldhill/R. Osborne (eds.), Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture (Cambridge) 197–223. Gow, A.S.F. (19522), Theocritus. Edited with a Translation and Commentary (Cambridge). Gregory, J. (2019), Cheiron’s Way. Youthful Education in Homer and Tragedy (Oxford). Griffiths, A.H. (1996), “Customising Theocritus: Poems 13 and 24,” in M.A. Harder/ R.F. Regtuit/G.C. Wakker (eds.), Theocritus (Groningen) 101–118. Griffiths, F.T. (1979a), Theocritus at Court (Leiden). Griffiths, F.T. (1979b), “Poetry as Pharmakon in Theocritus’ Idyll 2,” in W. Burkert/ G.W. Bowerstock/M.C.J. Putnam (eds.), Arktouros: Hellenic Studies Presented to B.M.W. Knox (Berlin/New York) 81–88. Griffiths, F.T. (1981), “Home before Lunch: The Emancipated Woman in Theocritus,” in H. Foley (ed.), Reflections of Women in Antiquity (Philadelphia) 247–273. Gutzwiller, K.J. (1991), Theocritus’ Pastoral Analogies. The Formation of a Genre (Madison). Hordern, J.H. (2004), Sophron’s Mimes. Text, Translation and Commentary (Oxford). Hunter, R. (1996), Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry (Cambridge). Hunter, R. (1999), Theocritus. A Selection (Idylls 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 13) (Cambridge). Hunter, R. (2015), “Sweet Stesichorus: Theocritus 18 and the Helen Revisited,” in P.J. Finglass/A. Kelly (eds.), Stesichorus in Context (Cambridge) 145–163. Hutchinson, G.O. (1988), Hellenistic Poetry (Oxford). Huttner, U. (1997), Die politische Rolle der Heraklesgestalt im griechischen Herrschertum (Stuttgart). Kampakoglou, A. (2013), “Glimpses of Immortality: Theocritus on the Apotheosis of Queen Berenice i,” RFIC 141, 300–334.

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Kutzko, D. (2008), “All the World’s a Page: Imitation of Metatheater in Theocritus 15, Herodas 1 and Virgil Eclogues 3,” CJ 103, 141–161. Kyriakou, P. (2018), Theocritus and His Native Muse. A Syracusan Among Many (Berlin/Boston). Lambert, M. (2001), “Gender and Religion in Theocritus, Idyll 15: Prattling Tourists at the Adonia,” AClass 44, 87–103. Lambert, M. (2002), “Desperate Simaetha. Gender and Power in Theocritus, Idyll 2,” AClass 45, 71–88. Lane, N. (2006), “Some Illusive Puns in Theocritus, Idyll 18 Gow,” QUCC 83, 23–26. Likosky, M. (2018), Representations of Women in Theocritus’s Idylls: Authenticity of the Female Voice in the Erotic and Non-erotic Portrayals (New York). MacInnes, D. (2007), “Gainsaying the Prophet: Jocasta, Tiresias, and the Lille Stesichorus,” QUCC 86, 95–108. Manakidou, F.P. (2017), “Femmes et politique: les mères chez Théocrite,” in C. Cusset et al. (eds.), Présence de Théocrite (Clermont-Ferrand) 243–265. Mastronarde, D.J. (1994), Euripides, Phoenissae. Edited with Introduction and Commentary (Cambridge). Morrison, A.D. (2007), The Narrator in Archaic Greek and Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge). Pace, V. (2017), “Singing Women in Theocritus: Magic, Genre and Gender in Idylls 2 and 15,” in C. Cusset et al. (eds.), Présence de Théocrite (Clermont-Ferrand) 63– 90. Petrovic, I. (2004), “Φαρμακεύτρια ohne φάρμακον. Überlegungen zur Komposition des zweiten Idylls von Theokrit,” Mnemosyne 57, 421–444. Rosenmeyer, T.G. (1969), The Green Cabinet. Theocritus and the European Pastoral Lyric (Berkeley/Los Angeles). Segal, C. (1984), “Underreading and IntertextuaIity: Sappho, Simaetha, and Odysseus in Theocritus’ Second Idyll,” Arethusa 17, 201–209. Segal, C. (1985), “Space, Time, and Imagination in Theocritus’ Second Idyll,” CA 4, 103– 119. Sens, A. (1997), Theocritus: Dioscuri (Idyll 22). Introduction, Text, and Commentary (Göttingen). Sistakou, E. (2016), Tragic Failures: Alexandrian Responses to Tragedy and the Tragic (Berlin/Boston). Stanzel, K.-H. (1995), Liebende Hirten. Theokrits Bukolik und die alexandrinische Poesie (Stuttgart). Stephens, S.A. (2003), Seeing Double. Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London). Stern, J. (1978), “Theocritus’ Epithalamium for Helen,” RBPh 56, 29–37. Taaffe, L.K. (1993), Aristophanes and Women (London and New York).

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Tsitsibakou-Vasalos, E. (1989), “The Homeric ἄφαρ in the Oedipus Myth and the Identity of the Lille Mother,” Glotta 67, 60–88. Vox, O. (1990), “Appendice: lo scudo di Eraclino,” aion( filol) 12, 65–67. Whitehorne, J. (1995), “Women’s Work in Theocritus, Idyll 15,” Hermes 123, 63–75.

part 6 Imitation and Reception

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chapter 27

[Theocritus]: The Early Reception of Theocritus Poulheria Kyriakou

The transition from Theocritus’ bucolic to pastoral poetry was a long and complex process.1 The surviving collection of his poetry includes pieces attributed to him but now widely believed to be by his successors, both early (8, 9) and later (19, 20, 21, 23, 25 and 27).2 I will first discuss briefly 21, which is quite extraordinary and virtually unique in the collection with respect to its structure, choice of subject, and presentation of the characters and their trade.3 I will then turn to the erotic pieces and the handling of the figure of Daphnis.4 Given the importance of the archetypal hero of bucolic and the theme of unfortunate love in Theocritus’ collection, his successors were virtually bound to present their version of both.5 The successors, who introduced several innovative elements, were certainly able to identify and chose to modify at least some of Theocritus’ defining choices. To various degrees, they eschewed what they presumably perceived as undesirable hostility, obscenity, and gray areas. They also largely rejected, or were unable to adopt, Theocritus’ pervasive ambiguity and open-endedness. Remarkably, and in all likelihood not accidentally, 8 and 27, which feature Daphnis as a character, present him as a winner, in a bucolic contest and in love. At the other extreme, a story of a thoroughly unfortunate love is narrated in 23, and 20 is the story of a jilted suitor who does not even seem to be genuinely in love. The spurious erotic

1 Cf. Hunter (1999) 11–12. 2 For the chronology and formal features of the poems such as dialect and metre see Trovati (2001) and Reed (2006). See also Hunter (2002). On the history of Theocritus’ reception see van Sickle (1976), Halperin (1983), and Alpers (1996). 3 It also inspired the piscatory branch of the pastoral tradition; see Hubbard 5, this volume. 4 The discussion is based on Kyriakou (2018). For the bucolic pieces see also Bernsdorff (2006) and Massimilla, this volume. For 8 and 9, which does not deal at all with love, cf. Reed (2010). Daphnis in 27 may not be the legendary hero, but the choice of name is significant, especially in connection with the wooing success. 19, a vignette about a bee that stung Eros, is attributed to Theocritus in a single manuscript and close in subject matter and probably date to the Anacreontea (35); see Gow (19522) 362–363 and Sistakou (2019). Hunter (1998), Ambühl (2010) 160–163 and Schmitz (2012) discuss 25; see also Morrison, this volume. 5 For the bucolic epigrams (1–6 Gow) see Coughlan, this volume.

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pieces then depict emotions that range from erotic fulfillment to suicidal despair and even lack of genuine erotic emotion.

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Read in juxtaposition with the genuine Idylls featuring two male characters, 21 is markedly different in both tone and characters: it lacks the asperity and confrontational edge of 5 (and to an extent 10), the impulsiveness of Aegon and Aeschinas in 4 and 14 respectively, and the inadequacy of Milon as counselor in 4 and especially 10. The first part of 21 is in the voice of a narrator, who addresses a certain Diophantus (1–21), and the second quotes a predawn conversation between two poor old fishermen (22–67). This quite realistic snapshot features much more severe poverty than 10, including limited food (40–41) and the constant prospect of starvation.6 The name of only one of the two characters, Asphalion, is recorded, when his companion addresses him once by name (26).7 The companion remains unnamed, also only once addressed as “friend” by the discomfited Asphalion (22; cf. 38, 61), perhaps indicatively. Asphalion has had a dream in which he swore to abandon his trade after catching a golden fish and he fears that he might come to grief because of his oath (41–62). His friend offers him restrained, down-to-earth advice not to fear a spectral oath and to concentrate on the waking pursuit of his trade, his only protection from starvation and hope of amelioration in his circumstances (63–67). Pieces of practical advice, often concerning small matters, are not absent from genuine Theocritean poems, but they are almost always ironized.8 In 21, the friend’s mild manner, equanimity, and virtual avoidance of all teasing and self-promoting make him stand out from other characters of humble means in the corpus, especially the unrestrained Milon in 10. The content of Asphalion’s dream might easily give rise to teasing or mockery. A poor fisherman dreaming of a golden catch, and in his dream fearing that a divinity might punish him for catching a favorite fish (53–55) but still not even contemplating to throw the wondrous animal back in the water might easily become the target of jokes or ribaldry. When the dreamer wakes up distraught, he marvels at the perceived 6 Kirstein (2007) 163–180 lists and discusses foci of contact between 10 and 21. 7 For the significant name and etymological wordplay see Belloni (2004) 18, and cf. O’Hara (1996) 37–38 and 267–277. 8 Consider, for instance, Corydon’s advice to Battus (4.56–57) and Daphnis’ to Polyphemus (6.13–14). Cf. 14.64–65. The goatherd’s encouragement to Thyrsis (1.62–63) and Polyphemus’ to himself (11.72–75) may be classified in the same category, but the range of their implications is much wider.

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length of the short summer night, which has brought him countless dreams and is still not over (22–24). The text of 25 is corrupt, but Asphalion seems to wonder blithely whether he had mistaken the actual length of the summer nights. The friend does not deride even this absurd claim but offers a factual explanation of Asphalion’s impression (26–28). This may be (viewed as) a naive reply, as is the advice to Asphalion to avoid blaming the fair summer (26), which is obviously the season in which poor people do not have to worry over and spend much for their upkeep. The reply apparently reproduces the manners of simple folk, who may take seriously and respond to all kinds of nonsense that more sophisticated people would quickly dismiss as absurdities with an ironic quip. On the other hand, it is not incidental that the friend’s explanation of Asphalion’s sleep problems harks back to the narrator’s introduction, which also stresses in ring composition the cares of poor laborers that cut their sleep short (1–5, 19–21). The friend’s reference to Asphalion’s “anxiety” (ἁ φροντίς, 28) may not point (only) to his general circumstances but may (also) be an empathetic, perceptive guess about his particular cause for worry. At any rate, in a similar situation, Milon in 10, not much different socially and intellectually from the old fisherman, is quick to mock Bucaeus (18–19, 57–58), and even the song he himself had suggested (38–41). Asphalion’s friend refrains not only from mocking him but also from assuming any arrogant airs. His modest sobriety becomes clearly evident from his response to Asphalion’s request for help with the interpretation of his dream (31–38). In his most extended utterance in the poem the friend does not praise his own competence or dismiss the dream and Asphalion’s concerns. Instead, he responds with a thoughtful assessment of oneiromancy and his capacity as dream interpreter, expressing a good-natured view of the present situation of the two colleagues, awake before dawn at the shore. It is also to be noted that Asphalion’s request is the only instance in the entire corpus in which a concerned subject takes the initiative to ask for a friend’s advice. In all other relevant instances, it is the soberer or more self-confident, as the case may be, interlocutor who asks for information or inquires about the perceived predicament of his friend.9 Nevertheless, Asphalion does not come off as utterly foolish or grotesquely naive, not least because the friend does not belittle him. All in all, the friend is presented as not only practical and levelheaded but also as sympathetic to Asphalion: he tells his friend twice not to worry (μὴ σύγε, μὴ τρέσσῃς, 63),10 and advises or encourages nothing extraordinary. 9 10

This is the case in 4, 10, and 14 but also in 7 (21–26). It is probably not accidental that the elliptical first admonition μὴ σύγε is often used in

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Strictly speaking, Idyll 21 is as open-ended as 14, and to an extent 10. However, the friend’s verdict on Asphalion’s dream leaves much less room for indeterminacy than the rest, especially as, given the dramatic timing and situation depicted, the two fishermen are poised to go to work shortly after, if not immediately following, their conversation. The friend does not say anything about the meaning or symbolism of the dream, but the statement that “the dream was equal to lies” (ἴσα δ’ ἦν ψεύδεσιν ὄψις, 64) leaves little doubt that he considers it false and not worthy of symbolic interpretation. In this light, the poem is much more fully rounded than the mimes of the genuine corpus, a common feature of several spurious Idylls and one of the hallmarks of the reception of Theocritus’ poetry by his successors. The connection with the narrator’s frame is also much looser than in Idyll 11, 13, or 22, although the friend’s failure to provide an interpretation of the dream and his admonition to Asphalion to focus on his task may be viewed as the (narrator’s suggested) link between the beginning and end of the poem. The first part of the narrator’s address to Diophantus (1–5) connects the poem to Idylls 6, 11 and 13, especially as the narrator then goes on to illustrate his point with a story. This is taken from the life of humble laborers rather than mythological characters, and the quite lengthy list of the fishermen’s tools (8– 13) is unparalleled in the genuine Idylls. It is the motif of instruction, though, that both connects the introduction to the example and further differentiates the Idyll from the genuine corpus. Poverty is “the instructor of toil” (τῶ μόχθοιο διδάσκαλος, 2) not in the usual sense that it stimulates inventiveness11 but in the sense that it does not even allow the poor laborers to enjoy a good night’s sleep. This kind of “instruction” is certainly not enviable but it is necessary for survival. Despite its harshness, the instruction is effective and the only one available to poor and isolated laborers. In a similar vein, the friend suggests that the only oneiromantic resource he possesses is his mind and that the best dream interpreter is the man instructed by his mind (32–33; cf. Eur. Tr. 632–633). Selfsufficiency and reliance on one’s own resources take the place of instruction by others and familiarity with arcane lore. As already noted, no symbolic interpretation is offered, and concern with anything but the pursuit of one’s trade is discouraged, as only labor guarantees survival (65–67). This sort of sane, realistic, and good-natured advice or instruction is not delivered in the genuine Idylls.

11

drama by characters advising restraint and avoidance of extreme behavior and reactions bound to disgrace or harm them without bringing any advantage: S. OC 1441, Eur. Hec. 408, Ion 439, 1335, Ph. 532, IA 1459; cf. Md. 1056, Ar. Lys. 189, Men. Georg. 28. For a list of passages see Gow (19522) 370, and Kirstein (2007) 157–158, with further literature.

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Idyll 8

The Idyll, modeled mainly on 5 and 6, features founding figures of the bucolic tradition, and 9 probably does too.12 Formally, 8 aims at an impression of naivete, adopting tropes of popular song, verbatim repetitions, and clear structural divisions. Dramatically, it evokes an early period of “innocence,” like 6. The character or name of Menalcas (cf. 27.44) does not appear in the genuine Idylls.13 In 8 Menalcas has some Cyclopean traits, as will be argued below, and in this respect the poem harks back to 11. On the other hand, the poet apparently did not wish to reproduce or echo the creation of a bucolic hero out of an epic ogre. Instead, he chose Daphnis and Menalcas, from the “original” cast of bucolic characters, and recounted a legendary singing match (cf. ὡς φαντί, 2) to which Daphnis is challenged by his colleague.14 Daphnis’ victory established his undisputed mastery among herdsmen (92), and soon afterwards, while still a youth, he married the nymph Nais (93). The impression of earliness is accentuated by the glossing over of any bucolic tradition or legendary models. The boys do engage in a singing contest, which does not seem to be improvised on the occasion of their meeting, but this seems to be a feature of their rustic world rather than a tradition associated with any founder. Gods too are rarely mentioned, and, interestingly, no divinity even remotely associated with herdsmen is invoked. Both boys are dedicated to their animals, musically accomplished, and already preoccupied with love matters (41–60), despite their youth (3, 28–29, 61, 64–66, 81, 88, 93). The youth and equality of Daphnis and Menalcas (cf. 3–4) virtually eliminate the possibility of unpleasantness in their past, and the boys currently show no signs of foolish arrogance. Their confidence in their ability to win the match is stated in the initial exchange (7, 10) but quite succinctly and

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14

For the models of 8 see Fantuzzi (1998) 70–73. Reed (2010) focuses on 6 as the model of both 8 and 9. There is no reason why the characters in 9 would not be the same figures, but the poem includes scant information about them and the narrator. For the bucolic Menalcas, originally of Euboean origin and in Hermesianax the beloved of Daphnis (Σ 8.56 = fr. 2 Powell), see Gow (19522) 172, Hunter (1999) 66, and Scholl (2014) 181–186. According to Hermesianax, the Chalcidian Menalcas also had an unrequited passion for Euippe and fell to his death (Σ arg. 9 = fr. 3 Powell). For the possible influence of Hermesianax on 8 see the discussion with n. 16 below. According to Σ arg., a singing match between Daphnis and Menalcas, in which Pan was the judge and Daphnis won (and married a nymph Thaleia or Pimpleia), was recounted by Sositheus in his play Daphnis or Lityerses (TrGF 1 99 F 1a–3), perhaps a version of a legendary contest between poetic masters; cf. Fantuzzi (1998) 69–70.

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without acrimony or abuse (cf. 33–34, 37–38). Similarly, the discussion about the choice of prize and umpire (13–27) has nothing of the length and acrimony of 5. The prize is unlike any staked and won in the genuine poems, a syrinx fashioned by each contestant (18–24). Daphnis and Damoetas in Idyll 6, for instance, exchange a syrinx and a flute (42). The prize in 8 does not seem to be particularly valuable, as it does not confer material benefit, and each contestant already possesses one. Besides, the contest leaves Menalcas with nothing, although the loss is not irreplaceable. Apparently this is meant to suggest that neither boy is after material rewards,15 as they are generally little different from each other. Disagreement about the proposed location of the singing match is also completely absent. Most important, despite the general closeness to Idyll 5 and the boys’ expression of confidence in their musicianship, they never claim that they are the best singers nor is there any reference to previous (victories in) singing contests. Each also graciously wishes for the welfare of the animals of both (33–40). Love, which occupies the next two quatrains, is combined with the motif of pathetic fallacy but, tellingly, not in connection with lament or irrevocable loss. Rather, it appears in a context of happiness and only a potential misfortune, the departure of the beloved. The history of the characters and the background of their attachment to their sweethearts are left as vague as in the rest of the spurious poems. However, there is no sign of failure or total lack of prospects, and no sign of promiscuity, not even amongst animals. The closest the Idyll gets to the rawness of animal sexuality mentioned in several genuine poems, including 5, especially at the end (146–150; cf. 1.151–152), is Menalcas’ address to his billy goat as “husband of the white nannies” (ὦ τράγε, τᾶν λευκᾶν αἰγῶν ἄνερ, 49), obviously to a polygamous champion. On the other hand, the speaker’s address to a male animal and his request for a favor (49–52), as if to a friend, is reminiscent of Polyphemus’ famous address to his ram (Od. 9.447–460), the most emotional touch in the portrayal of the cannibalistic monster. If Odyssey 9 is actually a relevant intertext at this point, it sheds some light on the poet’s concerns: he inserts the humane reminiscence of the epic Cyclops in an amatory context, which might connect him with the young and lovesick Polyphemus of Idyll 11, the Theocritean bucolic singer. 15

Daphnis is ready to set a calf as a prize and encourages Menalcas to set a lamb, which may hardly be deemed equivalent; cf. Legrand (1927) 2.8, Arland (1937) 14, and Rossi (1971) 7. At least the lamb is very large, but apparently Daphnis’ idea of fairness is that each contestant should just bet one of the animals he tends, irrespective of their relative worth; contrast Lacon’s protests (5.25–27).

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Despite the Cyclopean background, Menalcas, whose skill in piping is acknowledged by Daphnis (9), is nowhere obnoxious. His defeat is perhaps not unconnected with his issuing of the challenge with swagger (6–7), although mild in comparison with the stance of characters in genuine poems. What is more, beside his connections with Polyphemus, admittedly rather distant, he is the only one of the two contestants that needs to invite and convince his beloved Milon to join him (51–52). Daphnis’ reply to Menalcas’ message to Milon via his he-goat is lost, and it is plausible that it contained an invitation to Nais, but the last pair of quatrains are not as closely matched in content as the first two, so the third pair may not have been, either. In any case, in the extant part of the poem, Menalcas not only loses the match but also fails to explicitly secure his beloved, in contrast to Daphnis. Menalcas also does not mention any admirer or suitor, unlike Lacon (5.90–91, 134–135), for instance. By contrast, his rival Daphnis is wooed by a cave-dwelling beauty, whose advances he modestly rejects (72–75), conceivably because he is attached to Nais and dedicated to his tasks. Menalcas appeals to the wolf to spare his animals, but also to his dog to avoid long sleep and be vigilant with its task, assisting the young and inexperienced shepherd (63–66). This echoes both the false dream of the Homeric Agamemnon (Il. 2.22–25 = 60–62) and Homeric similes about incompetent shepherds (Il. 15.630–636, 16.352–355). Menalcas is less secure than Daphnis, emotionally and professionally, as his epic associations imply. Even Proteus, the god he mentions (52), is not necessarily a model for himself, unlike Daphnis’ address to Zeus the arch-philanderer (59–60). In the last quatrain Menalcas describes his paradise, as it were, in a nice priamel (53–56). The evocative range of the first couplet is very wide, from archaic lyric (Tyrtaeus fr. 12 W2) to Theocritus’ poetry (10.32), but the fantasy of the second couplet involves concord and especially physical proximity to the beloved, as all erotic fantasies in the collection do. However, the intensity of feeling and wish is apparently stronger, as Menalcas formulates his fantasy with a future indicative verb instead of an optative or similar. As already pointed out, there is no indication that Menalcas will enjoy Milon’s affection, although the possibility remains open. On the other hand, if his singing is a reminiscence of 11, then Menalcas’ fantasy of proximity has scant chances of ever coming true. In the frame of the poem, he fails to attract his beloved, as most lovers in the Idylls do, especially those of homosexual orientation. The last the audience hears of Menalcas, he is dejected at his defeat and unusually compared to a bride who regrets her marriage (90–91), presumably the loss of her virginity. The inverted simile apparently highlights the loss of Menalcas’ metaphorical or musical innocence. Still, his sadness and distress over his defeat seem to be

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nothing extraordinary or extraordinarily unfortunate: in the bucolic world of the poem, one singer, no matter how accomplished, is bound to lose in a contest and be sorry for his loss, but at least Menalcas is not derided or denigrated. However, the sexual context of the comparison and his assimilation with the weaker, emotionally distraught member of a heterosexual couple may contain a last, oblique suggestion of his failure to find fulfillment in love, in contrast to Daphnis’ success. The concluding report of Daphnis’ marriage to Nais (93), although not necessarily implying happiness ever after, is a salient point of dissonance with the genuine pieces, pointedly juxtaposed with, and in a manner “correcting,” the canonical account of his excellence and woes. All in all, the echoes of Idylls 5 and 6 and even of 1 notwithstanding, the poem’s foci of dissonance with the genuine pieces are much more numerous. Last but not least, they include the handling of the judge, whose verdict first establishes Daphnis’ excellence among herdsmen. The goatherd awards the prize to Daphnis on strictly aesthetic grounds, the sweetness of the performance (82–84), which echoes the goatherd’s praise of Thyrsis’ song (1.146–148; cf. 7–8, 61, 65). Although this sweetness is an elusive or subjective quality, the verdict does not leave the audience wondering, unlike Morson’s verdict in 5. Moral ambiguity or lapses of the contestants, which might have influenced the outcome, are entirely absent. Less expectedly, the goatherd finally asks Daphnis for musical instruction and offers a fee, a productive goat. The motif of useful teaching and a fitting reward for it, which forms part of the history of the contestants in 5, is transferred to the request of the judge to Daphnis (85–87). There is also perhaps a reminiscence of the goatherd’s promised reward to Thyrsis for the performance of his song (1.25–26), with a realistic scaling down of the animal’s productivity, and of Morson’s utilitarian request (5.139–140). There is no word about Daphnis’ acceptance or rejection of the offer, but the poem does not encourage an assumption that the arrangement would not work out well, or that Daphnis and his student-to-be might eventually fall out, like Comatas and Lacon in 5. This makes for an “original” bucolic setting that appears to be simpler and less intriguing than its counterpart in genuine Theocritean poems. In 1 Daphnis’ woes are the celebrated subject of bucolic song, a gifted performance of which is rewarded with the milk of a goat and a symbolic artifact, which has no counterpart in 8. Menalcas’ affinities with the Theocritean Polyphemus are not explicit or prominent enough to render him a mask or persona of the Cyclops, but the echoes of 11 may not be overlooked, either. By choosing to narrate a contest between Daphnis and a Cyclopean Menalcas, the poet of 8 both acknowledges and qualifies the Theocritean version of bucolic beginnings. If so, the poem has quite ambitious poetological concerns. It may juxtapose Her-

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mesianax, the author of an elegiac poem about Menalcas, with Theocritus.16 Even so, Daphnis and Menalcas also, or just as prominently, evoke Theocritus’ Daphnis and Polyphemus. In any case, the victory of Daphnis, despite the initial narratorial hint that the rivals are equal (3–4), and the report about his marriage render the poem much less allusive and open-ended than the genuine pieces, and the hero much less enigmatic than his Theocritean counterpart. The poet of 8 presents only this bucolic hero, although he nods to Theocritus’ Polyphemus. He turns to the beginning of Daphnis’ career, ties up loose ends, and adds new elements. His Daphnis is not only an accomplished herdsman and singer but also a future husband and potential teacher. In this light, Daphnis may be viewed as the presumed initiator of the tradition that will glorify him, although apparently not only or mainly his woes, as he is a successful lover and will soon be the husband of a nymph. The goatherd’s request for musical instruction while he is tending his goats harks back to the unfulfilled wishes of Thyrsis in 1 (12–14) and Tityrus/Lycidas in 7 (86–89) to hear the music of a master while tending the master’s goats: song and herding are not incompatible, and a goatherd needs instruction by the expert oxherd, a champion among herdsmen. Not only coarseness and grotesqueness but also unfulfilled yearning, ominous prospects, and hostility, divine or human, have been expunged from the “original” bucolic setting. Even expert instruction in song is available for a goat, as it were. 27, the last poem in which an oxherd named Daphnis appears in the collection, glosses over musical expertise and focuses exclusively on amorous, including sexual, fulfillment and the prospect of marriage in an entirely untroubled bucolic environment, although some intertextual choices may suggest the possibility of future trouble.

3

Idyll 27

The poem is stichomythic throughout except for a short narrative coda (67– 71b) and two corrupt lines, probably in another voice addressing a shepherd (72–73).17 These are not its only or its most significant distinctions. Unlike the

16

17

See Hubbard (1998) 35. For the poem of Hermesianax cf. n. 13 above. The choice of elegiac couplets for the first part of the contest (33–60) may (also) be a tribute to other poems, perhaps about the woes of Daphnis or other heroes such as Menalcas, as the poet of 8 may have cast his intertextual and poetological net more widely. The first lines of the stichomythia and possibly also an introductory narrative section may be missing. Kirstein (2007) 67–74 reviews the evidence and discusses the various sugges-

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rest of the collection, it features a wooed girl, who is probably called Acrotime, as a speaking character. Last but not least, the wooing is successful and leads to a sexual encounter, following Daphnis’ promise of marriage, whether spontaneous or craftily coaxed by Acrotime. The poem provides no information about the background or fulfillment of the promise, which makes it more ambiguous and open-ended than the rest of the spurious pieces. However, the promise and to an extent the prospect of the couple’s happy conjugal life ever after seem to be solid. Acrotime is the only girl in the collection said to herd goats (47) or sheep (69; cf. 38) and to be a member of a distinguished herding family.18 Daphnis’ parents carry significant bucolic names (42), and, as his namesake in Idyll 6, he might well be merely a contemporary herdsman (48, 71; cf. 45, 64) with no connection with the legendary hero other than the name. The poem eschews all mention of the features traditionally associated with the heroic Daphnis: his youth(ful charm), musical expertise, relationship with the natural world and divinities (including his parents and nymph lover), or, most prominently, his love woes. Be that as it may, it is not easy to shake the belief that there is more in the name than the name itself: the poem is the work of a successor working in the tradition of a predecessor viewed or venerated as the founding figure of a poetic genre that featured Daphnis as its hero, famous for his love sorrows. Irrespective of Daphnis’ connection with the bucolic hero in 27, and although there is no clear sign that he succeeds in securing the girl’s favor because he is more competent than other suitors, rhetorically or otherwise, succeed he does. This development is quite unexpected in view of the rest of the collection and has generated much discussion, primarily about the stance and objectives of Acrotime. Before turning to them, it is important to observe that already at the beginning of the stichomythia (1–7) Daphnis is in a more advantageous position than wooing lovers-to-be in other poems: he has managed to snatch a kiss from the girl, unlike the goatherd in 3, the Cyclops in 11, the scorned and smarting oxherd in 20, and the unfortunate, tormented lover in 23. The first success of Daphnis is an early sign that the girl is different from her counterparts in the rest of the collection: she is either strongly attracted to Daphnis, although not infatuated with him, or she is willing to take chances, perhaps with a view to marriage, or both. If a substantial reward in exchange for her favors is on her mind, this concern could throw some light on Eunica’s

18

tions, reaching the conclusion that the poem is complete. In what follows I adopt the view that 27 is complete, but the issue does not affect my discussion. For the bucolic aristocracy in the poem see Bernsdorff (2006) 185.

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rejection of her ungenerous suitor in 20, although certainty is impossible, as neither poem specifies the objectives, if any, of the female party. In the initial exchange about the mythological love affair of the oxherd Paris and Helen (1–2), Acrotime, who first evokes the story, calls Helen “prudent” (πινυτάν) and a victim of Paris’ aggression (1). In the mouth of a maiden, this may be a naive or a conspicuously biased view. The virginal Acrotime, on the verge of becoming sexually active but still devoted to Artemis (16, 18; cf. 63), may entertain notions of female restraint and male sexual violence that have little to do with the facts of life or myth, whether regarding the sexes or sex. In her eyes even Helen, viewed by many (men) as a notorious adulteress, was actually a prudent victim of an aggressive oxherd. Acrotime herself has been tricked into giving a kiss (cf. 12), and she fears worse might befall her if she is not vigilant. Alternatively, in view of the girl’s subsequent emphasis on wooing and bridal gifts (33), even on an oath of fidelity (35), the reference to Helen may be part of her wish or plan to present herself as Helen, the heroine of many suitors (cf. 23), and by doing so to win gifts. In this vein, some scholars argue that Acrotime is not a passive victim of seduction but an active partner in the affair, manipulating her suitor and seeking not so much immediate gratification as a marriage promise.19 Her reference to prudence (1), combined with her subsequent mention of the many suitors she has rejected (23), has been thought to evoke Penelope, another lady of many suitors, who, crucially, is often characterized as prudent in the Odyssey, unlike Helen.20 This cannot be ruled out, but the mythological heroine par excellence wooed by many suitors with scores of gifts was Helen. Notoriously, Tyndareus even had the aspirants swear an oath, although not of fidelity to her. It is not particularly plausible that a girl wooed and willing, or at least likely, to be seduced would evoke Penelope, the paradigm of conjugal fidelity. In a similar vein, it is unlikely that a poet wishing to cast Penelope, an unsuitable heroine, as Acrotime’s model would make a single qualification attributed to Helen the main thrust of his allusion, even if Acrotime would wish to suggest that Helen was actually as prudent and long-suffering as Penelope. If Helen is the only model evoked, the girl takes care to suggest that the heroine was not a frivolous gold-digging adulteress but an excellent, thoughtful lady, who fell victim to the aggression of Paris. Even so, as already suggested, the issue of Acrotime’s attitude cannot be decided beyond reasonable doubt, but other epic connections drawn later on, 19 20

See Sider (2001), and cf. Cairns (2012) 57–58. See Kirstein (2007) 63–69. The reference to many suitors may be an allusion to Archilochus (fr. 196a.38 W2); cf. next n.

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in the seduction scene, may suggest that she is not naive, let alone a helpless victim of male aggression. In the first extant seduction scene (Il. 14.283–353), Zeus, the patron of seducers, as it were, is tricked and seduced by Hera, his cunning, scheming wife. The young Acrotime has nothing to do with the matronly seductress Hera, but both express anxiety, real or feigned, over potential witnesses to the sexual encounter (Il. 14.330–336, 27.57). The male partners dismiss the anxiety and provide a covering, although not for the same reasons (Il. 14.342–345, 27.53–54).21 Aphrodite is called Paphia three times in 27 (15, 16, 56) but nowhere else in the collection.22 In the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite the goddess leaves her rich temple in Paphos, adorned by the Graces (58–63), to go meet Anchises, after Zeus has inspired in her a passion for the handsome oxherd. She is also saluted as guardian of Cyprus in the envoi (292; cf. HHom. 6.2–3, 10.4–5). Acrotime’s phrase “nice clothes” (εἵματα καλά, 53) appears twice in the Hymn, when Aphrodite dresses up for the trip to Ida (64) and when she puts her clothes back on after the tryst with Anchises (171; cf. 232).23 There is no sign that Acrotime dressed up for the meeting with Daphnis, and he seems to take little care to protect her dress from soiling before she protests, unlike the diligent Anchises, who places his lover’s exquisite garments (εἵματα σιγαλόεντα) on a nice chair (164–166). The phrase may evoke Aphrodite’s elaborate seduction of Anchises, although Daphnis is the initiator of the seduction.24 Whether Acrotime has in mind an eventual marriage to Daphnis or not, the seduction is not a particularly swift affair. Following the first attempt at securing a second kiss (6), the young man turns to a version of the cliché about the

21

22 23

24

The man who, like Daphnis, seduces an innocent, timid girl in Archilochus’ Cologne epode (fr. 196a W2) is shifty and glib-talking, but he has the decency to cover the girl with his cloak without prompting (44–45), unlike Zeus and Daphnis. Poseidon, another resourceful seducer, tricks the girl Tyro by taking the form of the river she covets, but he also produces unasked a wave as covering (Od. 11.235–245), a natural concealment for a marine god, as the cloud is for his brother. Paphia occurs in Bion 1.64 and the Anthology. Cf. Reed (1997) 232. The phrase also occurs several times in the Odyssey (6.111, 13.218, 16.79, 17.550, 21.339), none in a context of seduction. Most relevant is the occurrence in the context of Odysseus’ encounter with the nubile Nausicaa, a girl wooed by several local suitors, who had been urged by the disguised Athena in a dream to do her laundry the next day (6.21–40). As already noted, Acrotime also claims that she has been wooed by many suitors (23; cf. Od. 6.34–35, 284, 11.288). Hunter (2012) 104 suggests that the encounter of Anchises and Aphrodite is described as the “wedding night” of a bridegroom with a virgin bride. The reference to the good stock of the bucolic couple’s parents (27.42–44) may be another reminiscence of the claims of the disguised Aphrodite in the Hymn (111–112; cf. 94, 131–132); see Sider (2001) 102, and Cairns (2012) 58.

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transience of youth, (8, 10; cf. e.g., 7.120–121, 23.28–32, 29.25–30), but this has apparently not swayed any young person, at least not in literature. This background might lead the audience to expect that Daphnis will fail, or at least that the outcome of his wooing will remain open-ended, but such expectations will not materialize. Still, initially he has little success, as Acrotime dismisses him (7), in a manner reminiscent of Eunica (20.3). His casual reference to the possibility of Acrotime’s union with a bad man (22) takes the exchange in a new and more promising direction. Acrotime states or brags that she has had many suitors (23). Daphnis replies that he too is one among those many (24). Quite unexpectedly, Acrotime does not, for instance, repeat that she does not like him or any of the rest because she would prefer to remain single and devoted to Artemis. Rather, she ponders the disadvantages of marriage, a concern which Daphnis dismisses (25–32). He succeeds in reassuring her, and she proceeds to ask for a pledge of marriage and ample provisions if she consents to mate with him. This may not be accidental but the result of her plan, or at least her wish, to secure the coveted promise. By contrast, the oxherd and Eunica in 20 never reached this stage, as his failure to offer her anything may have doomed his chances of winning her over. For a parallel, it is illuminating to turn to a difficult union, that of Jason and Medea, the first stages of which are narrated in Apollonius’ Argonautica. The famous first meeting of the couple (Arg. 3.956–1162) has not been considered as a model of 27, presumably because it includes no literal seduction. Nevertheless, the encounter unfolds in a similar manner and features several of the motifs found in 27. Some are of the expected sort: the physical excitement of the pair (Arg. 3.1008–1010, 1019–1024, 1077–1078, 1131, 1140–1141 ~ 27.67–68), the reservations and fears of Medea (Arg. 3.1132–1133; cf. 1105–1108, 1161–1162 ~ 27.25, 35, 61), the assurances of Jason (Arg. 3.975–979, 990–992, 1079–1080 ~ 27.52, 60, 62), and his joy over his success (Arg. 3.1147–1148 ~ 27.71). Jason also adduces and shapes to his advantage the example of a famous couple, Ariadne and Theseus (3.997–1004, 1097–1101), which he presents as a precedent. As Acrotime and Daphnis each view the story of Helen and Paris from their own perspective for their own ends (1–2), so Jason celebrates Ariadne but glosses over the dark, and potentially alarming to Medea, parts of her affair with Theseus.25 Even the issue of the father’s consent to his daughter’s choice of partner (27.40) comes up in Jason’s narrative: he suggests that Minos eventually consented to

25

For the story and Jason’s narrative selectivity see e.g., Hunter (1989) 207–208 and Goldhill (1991) 301–306, who also point out the connection with Odysseus’ cunning evocation of marriage in his supplication of Nausicaa (Od. 6.180–185).

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his daughter’s union with Theseus (3.1000–1001) and expresses the wish that Medea’s father might be similarly amenable (3.1100–1101). Finally, the Apollonian narrator indicates that Medea would have happily offered her soul along with the drugs to her beloved (3.1015–1016), as Daphnis wishes that he were able to offer Acrotime his soul on top of the other gifts he promises her (62). The most striking parallel is the promise of marriage and eternal fidelity Medea extracts from Jason (3.1128–1130). He is of course in a privileged position in comparison both to Medea and Daphnis, as the favor he is seeking is divinely guaranteed, and Medea is already hopelessly in love with him. He receives the coveted magical drugs and the necessary instructions for their use quite early on in the encounter (3.1013–1014), and so does not need to do or say anything more. Medea, though, manages to make him give the coveted promise before they part, a pledge that sounds fairly innocuous but will have far-reaching, terrible consequences for all involved, not only for the couple but also their families, not least their future children. In this light, for all the happy contentment of the encounter between Acrotime and Daphnis, the echoes of heroic cunning and misfortune create a troubling background and raise the specter of unhappiness.26 Nevertheless, the possibility of discord or betrayal seems to be remote, although the relative openendedness of the poem does not eliminate it completely. Daphnis seems to be a fairly decent, honest fellow. For her part, Acrotime, whether eager for marriage throughout or not, is not a foreign witch or as arrogant and unyielding as other young women (and men) wooed by aspiring lovers primarily in genuine and even in spurious Idylls. She does not seem to be promiscuous, either, but her acquiescence and its aftermath are cast in fairly realistic physical and emotional terms (51–71). The seduction is carried out by a young man who is not self-conceited or devious and not even arrogant or prone to self-aggrandizement. He shares little beyond the name with the bucolic foundational hero in the genuine pieces and has actually much in common with the goatherd of 3, whose line about kissing he quotes (4; 3.20). On the other hand, the choice of name and the open possibility of identification with Theocritus’ Daphnis are crucial elements in the assessment of the poet’s concerns. Several characters in the collection, including the unfortunate lover in 23, are free of conspicuous presumption, but they fail to win any favor, let alone consummate their passion, and suffer on this

26

If the coda (67–68) echoes Simaetha’s reminiscence of her first sexual encounter with Delphis (2.141), then this precedent too points in the direction of oncoming trouble for Acrotime and Daphnis.

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account. By contrast, the oxherd in 20 does not seem to experience lovesickness but he does not seem to have been in love to begin with. His problem is his wounded pride, which renders him antagonistic and vindictive. The poet of 27 sketches a picture in which the encounter of the couple and its aftermath lack a confrontational edge and a prominently pessimistic slant, although deception, failure, and even misfortune are in the background. This choice marks a significant strand in the reception of the Theocritean tradition: unlike the eristic, nominally bucolic, antagonism of 20, or the despair of 23, 27 moves in a downto-earth direction of fulfilled and fulfilling love.27

4

Idyll 20

The oxherd, the only narrator of the poem, failed to enjoy a coveted kiss by Eunica and entertains no hopes of success or rapprochement with her. However, he does not become dejected, let alone suicidal, on account of his failure, but he is enraged (15–18), like the boy in Idyll 23, and turns vindictive (44–45), like the lover in 29. The self-conceited oxherd may not properly be called a lover, and it is not even clear whether he ever had any valid reason to hope that Eunica would favor him. Unlike the lover of Idyll 23, he has had some physical proximity to his object of desire and had tried to kiss her. In the dramatic present of the poem she has already rejected and abandoned him (17), and he undertakes or envisages no other attempt to approach or win her over, whether by means of gifts or song. The reasons for her rejection of his advances are listed in a caustically contemptuous speech of hers, which he quotes (1– 10). In his rebuttal of her reproaches and alleged folly in rejecting an excellent suitor, the oxherd stresses first, and at length, his physical advantages (21–27).28 Since no sane woman would reject such a catch, he rationalizes his amatory setback by attributing it to Eunica’s bias, which he further tries to demolish

27

28

Bernsdorff (2006) 193 draws attention to the fact that, despite the fulfillment of desire and the mutual pleasure of the partners, obscenity is absent. Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 179–180 point out that the relative optimism of Roman poets concerning erotic fulfillment in a pastoral setting may have a precedent in post-Theocritean bucolic, although 27 may be a product of the imperial period; Trovati (2001) 47–48 dates it to the time of Bion. Daphnis’ success is by no means a rape, as Reed (1997) 30, for instance, suggests. The seduction takes place in an apparently pleasant bucolic setting, but there are no conspicuous features of a locus amoenus, especially as the “bed” is a ditch or a dry riverbed (53), unlike the setting of the epic encounters and the seduction of the girl in Archilochus’ epode (fr. 196a W2) discussed earlier; cf. n. 21 above. As Rosenmeyer (1969) 257 points out, “with a series of rococo comparisons”.

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by invoking mythological examples of oxherds who enjoyed the affection of divinities (34–41) in order to cast her as hubristically foolish and blinded by her arrogance (42–45; cf. 31). The oxherd unexpectedly addresses shepherds, only once, and asks them to confirm that he is handsome (19). The address may be meant to suggest that his speech is not a soliloquy but addressed to a silent, internal audience of his colleagues, who may be thought to sympathize with him. Even so, the silent presence of the addressees and their failure to offer any corroboration of his claims make the address dramatically inert.29 For the rest, apart from the poem’s failure to sketch a distinctly bucolic (or indeed urban) setting, the main distinguishing mark of 20 from 3, 6, and 11, which may be considered as models or parallels, is the absence of both any trace of humility or self-awareness and any kind of emotional attachment of the speaker to Eunica.30 Line 17b (φέρω δ’ ὑποκάρδιον ὀργάν) is probably a reminiscence of Id. 11.15 (ἔχων ὑποκάρδιον ἕλκος), the narrator’s description of Polyphemus’ lovesickness (cf. Bion 1.17, μεῖζον δ’ ἁ Κυθέρεια φέρει ποτικάρδιον ἕλκος).31 This substitution of anger for lovesickness sets the Idyll irreconcilably apart not only from the genuine bucolic and paederastic pieces but also from 23. The oxherd’s anger and vindictiveness make future advances impossible, but it is plausible that his prospects would not be good, even if he persisted in his wooing. There is no confirmation of, let alone universal agreement over, his alleged beauty. It is true that there is no denial or refutation of his claims, either.32 Still, even if they are not completely fantastic, the self-praise of his appearance is obviously immoderate. Similarly, his boasting about his alleged virtuosity in song and all musical instruments as well as wild success with all ladies (26–31) suggest quite forcefully that all this is wildly exaggerated. For her part, Eunica is a more intriguing character, not least with respect to her attitude toward the rustic suitor. There is no doubt that she has rebuffed

29 30 31

32

For the address to the shepherds and its possible meta-literary context see the discussion in n. 39 below. See Kirstein (2007) 106–111, with previous literature. White (1979) 130 even suggests that the narcissistic oxherd is depicted as a pathicus. Kirstein (2007) 111–114 discusses the debts of the oxherd’s self-praise to Idyll 11, arguing that the oxherd attributes to himself features of Galatea, grotesquely fusing in his selfconceited rant the virtues of suitor and beloved. The reproaches of Eunica (6–10) may go some way toward this end, but she does not say that her suitor is ugly. She denigrates his rough looks, manner of speaking, and unpleasant smell, but these shortcomings are not incompatible with good looks, at least of a rugged sort. See the discussion below.

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his advances, but her speech is introduced with the participle ἐπικερτομέοισα (2). The verb occurs in the Homeric epics and rarely afterwards.33 It never qualifies a speech that is hostile, openly or throughout, although Patroclus (Il. 16.744), Achilles (Il. 24.649), and Eumaeus (Od. 22.194; cf. 22.287, 24.240) address enemies. The speakers adopt a bantering tone, teasing or mocking their addressees and occasionally others. Eunica is presented as a victorious warrior, who mocks fallen adversaries and also takes revenge on hubristic or immoral enemies. The high-register evocation of battle situations and actual or imminent battle deaths, placed so early on in the narration, is an intriguing device in a poem that may hardly be called distinguished with respect to its links with the tradition, especially that of high poetry. The introductory qualification of the quoted speech, which takes up about one-fifth of the poem, leaves the audience wondering about Eunica’s stance. Since the narrator is the oxherd, who entertains no doubt as to her attitude or intentions but describes her as putting on airs and harboring utter contempt for her lowly suitor (cf. 12–15), the audience is not encouraged to question the validity of his view in general and the use of ἐπικερτομέω in the sense “to mock” in particular. Still, the initial suggestion of mockery may be viewed as a pregnant choice that leaves open a small window of ambiguity, both linguistic and dramatic. There is no indication that the narrator perceives and means to suggest any ambiguity in Eunica’s speech or attitude toward him, but informed audiences may detect the connotations, and wonder whether her claims are made entirely in earnest. As already suggested, a handsome and even artistically accomplished rustic with several rustic admirers (21–31) may very well flirt roughly, smell unpleasantly, and have dirty (or tanned) hands (6–10). If the oxherd is not completely unattractive, Eunica may rebuff him while not being absolutely serious in all that she says. He may have several shortcomings but she may just point them out only to tease, inflame, and incite him to offer her more than he has already. More concretely, if she is a courtesan, or even just a woman with experience in sexual liaisons, it is most unlikely that she would be eager to grant her favors to a suitor who does not appear to be seriously interested in her or willing to offer material rewards in return, as the oxherd apparently is not. His only objective seems to have been a kiss, or conceivably a sexual liaison that would grow from

33

Before Idyll 20, it is used only by Herodotus (8.92), who relates the shouted reproach of the Aeginetan captain Polycritus to Themistocles as their ships pursued the routed Persian vessels at Salamis: Polycritus mocked Themistocles because the latter had accused the Aeginetans of medizing.

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it. He says nothing about any deeper feelings for Eunica and certainly does not offer her any gifts, unlike the bucolic suitors in other Idylls, or at least a promise of a stable relationship.34 If so, then the suitor’s anger is excessive, and his blaming of Eunica and the final curse (44–45) are out of place,35 as foolish as the rejection he attributes to Eunica’s arrogance.36 Although ἐπικερτομέοισα, used early on by a narrator who shows no subtlety, may not render the entire poem ambivalent, the attitude of Eunica is less clear than that of the beloved women and boys in other poems, despite the verbatim quotation of her speech.37 In a similar vein, the narrator’s list of love affairs of gods and oxherds (34–41), which harks back to Idyll 3 (40– 51) and highlights the gap with it, does little to make things clearer or support the oxherd’s claims. The goatherd evokes happy unions between mortals and passionate, albeit ultimately doomed, affairs between mortals and goddesses. The mortal men have some similarities with him, as they were certainly in love with their ladies and some actively wooed them, but he draws no explicit parallels between himself and the mythological models. The indignant oxherd evokes no wooing and no unions between mortals but only examples of divinities who fell madly in love with oxherds, while Eunica has spurned him and thus obviously considers herself more important than gods (42–43). Eunica, though, is a mortal woman and she would not neces-

34

35

36

37

Not even his allegedly wide-ranging musical skill (28–29) is put to the service of his courting, and there is no suggestion that it might have the capacity to entice Eunica or at least assuage his torment, since no such torment exists. In any case, the contrast with the Cyclops, who promises a long list of gifts and comforts to Galatea (11.34–58), the goatherd (Id. 3.10–11, 21–23, 34), and Daphnis (Id. 27.34, 38, 60–62) is obvious. Trovati (2001) 40, who considers Idyll 11 one of the main models of 20, is able to name only musical excellence as a common advantage. For the decoupling of musical skill from amatory persuasion in late bucolic cf. Reed (2006) 230. The curse may be a reminiscence of a complaint attributed to Sappho (fr. 168b.4 v), perhaps cursing Eunica not only to sexual loneliness but also specifically to professional failure, if she is a courtesan; cf. Fantuzzi (2007) 25–26. For vindictive curses see Faraone (1999) 81. His description of Eunica’s affectation and posing (11–15) is also not corroborated. There is no valid reason to assume that it is a completely misguided assessment, but his tendency to exaggeration and his anger do not inspire much confidence as to the accuracy of his claims. The audience hears the actual words of the female object of desire also in Idyll 27. Cf. Kirstein (2007) 78. Simaetha also quotes the first speech of Delphis to her (2.114–138), and there are very short and largely uninformative quotations of a lady’s words at 5.85 and 14.22 (cf. 6.7, 8.73). Interestingly, the speeches, whether the speaker appears as a character or not, do not illuminate the audience, as they do not eliminate ambivalence over the speaker’s intentions. This is the case mainly in 27; see the discussion above.

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sarily afford to grant her affections to whoever might take her fancy, however (allegedly) handsome and accomplished he might be. Whether a courtesan or not, she apparently needed to secure a partner or partners able and willing to provide for her. By contrast, the gods could indulge their passions with no other considerations. In any case, the gods fell in love with surpassingly handsome youths. The profession, status, and material assets of the mortal sweethearts were naturally irrelevant to their divine lovers—all mortals are by definition inferior to gods, and the mythological oxherds were of noble origin anyway. Nothing of the sort applies to Eunica and the angry oxherd. He claims that he is a great, sophisticated beauty irresistible to all mountain ladies, but he names no names and narrates no story of any affair. No matter how loudly he blows his own horn, it is scarcely believable that he could compete in beauty, let alone in lineage, with an Adonis or a Ganymede. To be sure, a claim of this sort would not be surprising or unexpected in the mouth of this speaker, who favorably compares his eyes to Athena’s (25), and thus it is unlikely that he avoids it out of modesty. It is actually the only one that might bolster his case, which is badly made to begin with, but the arrogant oxherd does not even call the heroes handsome,38 although this characterization would associate them much more closely with him and would bring out Eunica’s alleged foolishness much more effectively than the indignant repetition of the assertion that gods fell in love with oxherds. The narrator’s attempt to bolster his wounded pride and self-esteem by falling back on love affairs between gods and oxherds ultimately ends up being as misplaced and doomed to failure as the rest of his claims. In this light, the oxherd is arguably the least successful narrator in the entire collection. He fails both to kiss and to top Eunica, but the most serious handicap is his failure to achieve his apparent intended goal, the refutation of her reproaches. Actually, this is his only certain “achievement” in the poem, the serious weakening of his case through his own exaggerated claims and compromising revelation of his shortcomings. At best, he shares some of Eunica’s alleged negative traits and at worst, he alone possesses them. Most Theocritean narrators and/or characters say more or, more often, less than they should for their purposes, and the sophisticated, multi-leveled irony and open-endedness of most pieces are not unrelated to the control exercised over the information about the narrators. In all cases, judicious glossing over, subtle implication, and sympathetic, even if 38

The goatherd in Idyll 3 also does not say much about the heroes, especially the lovers of goddesses, but he at least mentions the charm of the unnamed Peiro (45) and the beauty of Aphrodite (46), not to mention Amaryllis (6, 18), while the oxherd does not even deign to call goddesses beautiful. The only beautiful person in his speech is himself.

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ironic, presentation—often with a view to the tradition, as in the case of the Cyclops—are virtually guaranteed to win the appreciation and goodwill of the audience. The oxherd has none of these advantages. His rejection by Eunica turns out to be unsurprising, and his anger the lashing out of a self-conceited man. As the etymology of her name and the introductory Homeric echo ironically suggest, Eunica carries a handsome victory over him. The pride of the oxherd, including his failure to woo Eunica and his appeal to the judgment of the shepherds, has been taken as a sign of “a new metaliterary self-awareness of the bucolic genre … a metaphor for the self-awareness of the bucolic characters” and an instance of poetic experimentation with love and pastoral also found in Augustan Roman poetry and the Greek Bion.39 If so, this self-awareness, which lacks any kind of affirmation and self-knowledge, is hardly different from self-delusion. The bucolic genre may indeed achieve autonomy, have its own rules and standards, and compete on an equal footing with other genres such as epic and love elegy, but in 20 at least the price of this autonomy is heavy. The genre that emerges is profoundly different from Theocritean bucolic: the narrator is an oxherd that has little to do with his Theocritean colleagues in their stylized countryside; he takes pride in a nominal bucolic environment and manages to achieve nothing, not even to gain the sympathy of the audience, unlike the characters in the other spurious pieces. Moreover, Acrotime seems to follow in the footsteps of the assertive Eunica, at least initially, despite her maiden status (Id. 27.7, 20, 65) and the early kiss Daphnis stole from her (1–6). As already suggested, if Acrotime is after a marriage promise, her objective may illuminate Eunica’s reasons for rejecting the ungenerous oxherd. Such connections are quite unexpected in view of the gap separating 20 and 27, especially with respect to the male characters. Obviously, there is no way of knowing whether 27 is later than 20 or vice versa. Nevertheless, the choice of the name of Daphnis and the affinities of Acrotime and Eunica, despite the different outcome of the encounters with their suitors, allow a glimpse of the complexity of intertextual connections between spurious and genuine pieces as well as among the spurious ones. Idyll 23 is another example of such connections, but the poem and the unfortunate lover are completely different from 20 and the arrogant oxherd.

39

Fantuzzi (2007) 33–35; the quotations are from p. 34.

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Idyll 23

This homoerotic sequel of sorts to Idyll 3 recounts the suicide by hanging of a spurned lover and the lethal punishment of his cruel beloved boy by Eros. Unlike other composers of sequels (and prequels), the poet of Idyll 23 engages in elimination rather than elaboration, the addition of the boy’s death notwithstanding. The suicide of the lover and the end of the beloved are actually the only episodes described in any detail in the poem. Gow dismisses it as inelegant and “the least attractive of the whole Theocritean corpus.”40 This judgment may be too harsh, and I will argue that the poem does contain original elements. However, it is undeniable that the linear structure, explicitness, didacticism, and quite plodding, piling style of the poem do not make it particularly engaging, at least to modern audiences. The lover, whose last speech is quoted verbatim by the narrator (19–48), is a sympathetic character in his lack of presumption and his depth of devotion to the boy, but virtually nothing is left to the imagination. Strict narratorial control is imposed throughout. The didactic orientation of the poem becomes obvious in the punishment and condemnation of the boy (58–63). The narrator tries hard to present them as justified, but his effort is at best partially successful, generically or dramatically. In both archaic lyric and Hellenistic poetry harsh or foolish boys and girls do not regularly die, crushed by statues of Eros or by other means. The potential punishment for their indifference involves the eventual, virtually certain, turning of the offenders into unfortunate mature lovers.41 The narrator says that the boy insulted Eros (58), but the nature of the insult remains vague, as there is no indication that the boy spurned love in general, discounted the power of the god, or had taken vows of chastity. The boy may be thought to come to grief because he becomes polluted by brushing against the corpse of the lover (55–56). This kind of pollution, though, is not punishable by death, and thus the only conceivable explanation for the god’s wrath is the boy’s cruelty, which would be a virtual unicum for the notoriously cruel Eros. 40 41

Gow (19522) 408; cf. e.g., Legrand (1898) 58 and n. 46 below. For a more nuanced view see Lambert (2004) 79, and Hunter (2008) 394–399. The lover mentions this retributive punishment (33–34), and even the narrator seems to allude to it at the beginning (4–5). The bitter pain inflicted by Eros’ arrows is a metaphor for the acuity of lovers’ suffering (cf. e.g., Id. 11.15–16), but the reference to the boy’s ignorance of the god’s power may hint at his eventual, painful acquisition of the requisite knowledge, although not as lover. The lover’s prediction that the boy will fall in love and suffer in his turn falls flat, as Eros will very soon demand the boy’s lifeblood rather than his tears, and the lover’s earlier assertion that he knows the future (27) turns out to have been an empty claim.

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Throughout the poem, there are few echoes or refractions of the tradition,42 and Theocritus’ own poetry is no exception, although, as already suggested, Idyll 3 is important not only thematically but also formally and structurally. The poem is introduced as a tale or folktale (“there was a man who loved passionately a cruel youth etc.”), which might function as an early signpost of didacticism and of a virtually complete lack of temporal or geographical markers. Unsurprisingly, apart from Idyll 3, 30, which also focuses exclusively on the pair, is closest to 23. However, 30 specifies the duration of the lover’s infatuation (2) and the time of his last encounter with the boy, which inflamed him further (7–9). The goatherd in 3 refers to several people, and his relationship to Amaryllis seems to have included an earlier stage in which the pair held conversations and had some intimacy. The lover of 23 is all alone in his presumably nocturnal lament and suicide, and so is the boy in his apparently matutinal pursuits.43 The only other humans mentioned in the poem are the addressee of the epitaph the lover scratches on the boy’s wall (46–48), and the addressees of the dying boy’s last words, the lovers, who should rejoice over his death, and the haters, who should be warned by it (62–63). None of these is an individual or group known to the characters or otherwise specified by temporal or other means. Actually, they are mere representatives of groups operating in diachrony rather than synchrony and they contribute virtually nothing to a clearer sketch of the pair’s individuality or relationship.44 With no rival(s) for the boy’s affections mentioned by the narrator or the lover, the boy comes across as an enraged Euripidean Hippolytus (3, 6, 10–14; cf. 19–20) rather than a disloyal Theognidean Cyrnus or the fickle beloved of Idyll 29. He is actually the only beloved, male or female, in the collection whose intransigence seems to stem from anger. The only conceivable reason for the boy’s angry intransigence is the lover’s perceived attempt to impose his will on him. This may be appreciated as one of the precious few innovative features of the poem. For all the lover’s abandonment of hope and his decision to kill himself, he has gained little insight into his own posthumous prospects and especially the 42

43 44

For echoes of Homer and Bion see Radici Colace (1971). Sistakou (2016) 207–211 discusses formal and structural similarities with tragic dramas. The poem glosses over standard themes of paederastic poetry such as admonitions to the boy to mend his ways and promises of rewards such as happiness or civic repute if he does. The vulgate reading of 57 (τῆλε φίλων) deserves consideration: the boy went to the pool “apart from his friends.” The lover also does not invoke any god or supernatural power, unlike characters in genuine poems, who often invoke or talk about gods and heroes. Only Eros and Cythereia appear cursorily in the introduction (4–5, 16) and the statue and judgment of Eros at the end (57– 63).

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boy’s potential reaction to his death.45 The lover’s speech falls into two almost equal parts, in the first of which he laments his plight and recounts his resolve to die (19–34). This section has the greatest narrative and thematic potential, as it touches on past, present, and future and deals quite extensively with the predicament of unrequited love and the terrible end of a hopeless attachment.46 The potential is not actualized, as the lover focuses on the beautiful boy’s harshness and says nothing about any advantage of his own,47 for instance, or anything about the history of the unfortunate affair. The initial address to the boy (19–20), apart from standard metaphors conveying his cruelty, concludes with a reproach to the effect that the “stony” boy is unworthy of love (λάινε παῖ καὶ ἔρωτος ἀνάξιε, 20).48 This cry might signal that the lover on the verge of death is about to have a change of heart, or at least make a soberer assessment of the boy’s character and his indifference to the imminent death of the lover, but nothing comes of it, as the lover soon declares his devotion to the boy even in death (25–26). The lover’s instructions to the boy, which will turn out to be mere wishful thinking, take up the second part of his speech just before his suicide (35–48). The lover hopes that the boy will piously conduct his funeral. His desire for sexual contact with the boy emerges clearly from his wish that the boy should cover him with his clothes (39–40a) and kiss him (40b; cf. Bion 1.45). Kissing, a major theme also in Idyll 12 (30–37; cf. 29.25), appears in both the introduction and the lover’s speech, as failed relief from the torment of love (9; 3.19–20, 11.55–56; cf. 2.126, 27.4) and in a metaphor for the ultimate remedy for it. The goatherd in 3 wishes that Amaryllis may appear so that he may give her a kiss but ends with the dark note that she will savor his death as a mouthful of honey 45 46

47

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The lover’s failure to become wiser even on the verge of death parallels the boy’s situation. Cf. n. 50 below. Gow (n. 40 above) calls this part frigid and points out that the boy cannot, ex hypothesi, hear the speech addressed to him. This may be so, but if the lament is a form of paraklausithyron, then the addressee is, ex hypothesi, assumed to be in a position to hear it. Even if the boy does not hear the speech, the lover takes care to leave a suicide note scratched on the wall of his addressee’s house. This would inform the boy of the suicide’s motive. The invention of the suicide note-cum-epitaph is one of the poem’s few original devices. A possible reference to the lover’s beauty may be detected at 45, although καλός may point to his moral rather than physical assets. There is no indication that the lover of 23 is selfconceited. If he points in passing to his comeliness, this brief suggestion would highlight his difference from the Cyclops in Idyll 6 and especially the arrogant oxherd in 20. If the reference to the lioness as the boy’s foster mother (19) harks back to Id. 3.15–16 (νῦν ἔγνων τὸν Ἔρωτα· βαρὺς θεός· ἦ ῥα λεαίνας/μαζὸν ἐθήλαζεν, δρυμῷ τέ νιν ἔτραφε μάτηρ), then the lover “corrects” the goatherd: love is not pitiless, but the unyielding beloved is savage and unworthy of love.

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(54; cf. 27). In 23 the lover calls the oblivion of death, i.e., the fact that the dead do not remember or care about anything, the reputed common cure for lovers’ ills (23–24). He goes on to say that even if he firmly attaches this remedy to his lips and drains it to the dregs, he will not quench his desire. In other words, he will not be rid of his passion for the boy even in death (25–26). This might be thought to be the poem’s innovative suggestion about the perennial quest for a cure for love, different from song, magic, or emigration. As Aeschinas in Idyll 14, for instance, wishes to travel abroad and become a mercenary to find a cure for his disease, the lover in 23 wishes to take a journey to the realms of oblivion, perhaps a distant reminiscence of Achilles’ vow to remember Patroclus even in death (Il. 22.389–390) or epitaphic references to the “water of forgetfulness.”49 Most pertinent in the context of the poem is the lover’s visualization of his death and posthumous situation in terms virtually identical to those that might describe a passionate kiss (cf. Bion 1.48–49), which underscores his obsession with kissing. The speaker describes a passionate action, attaching his lips to the remedy and draining it, as if it were the kiss of his lover, but declares that even such a draught as he envisages will not quench his desire. Death is not a palliative for love—not his anyway. At least he hopes to enjoy some satisfaction from the posthumous kiss and funeral care he enjoins the boy to offer him. Unlike the goatherd in 3, he does not (bring himself to) imagine or imply that the boy will actually enjoy his death, or will be completely unmoved by it—he only allows that his death will remove a nuisance from the boy’s life (21–22; cf. 42).50 What is most conspicuous and unexpected is the lover’s wish that the boy ritually address him as “friend” (φίλος, 44) and “comrade” (ἑταῖρος, 45) before departing. The epitaph which he scratches on the boy’s wall and asks him to put up is addressed to a passerby reading the inscription. The “comrade” of the deceased had been “cruel” (ἀπηνέα εἶχεν ἑταῖρον, 48), which might be taken as another complaint or reproach. However, all this comes at the apex of the lover’s fantasy about the softening of the boy at the sight of the deceased and the boy’s willingness to offer him a loving funeral. The repeated use of “comrade” (ἑταῖρος) recasts the relationship in terms of this fantasy, and the claim

49 50

Cf. Hunter (2008) 398. Death, though, is indeed the ultimate equalizer or unifier: the only redeeming aspect of the poem’s didactic ending is the unexpected similarity of the voices of the lover and the boy on the verge of death: irrespective of the boy’s impiety, insult to the god and insensitivity toward his lover, the boy is at the end assimilated to the lover, killed by love (cf. 47 ~ 60, 62), crying out about love and hatred and declaring that the hateful one has perished (62 ~ 22). Ironically, this is very far from the lover’s fantasy of companionship.

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about the “comrade’s” cruelty memorializes a moral failure in the framework of a relationship that did not exist and thus did not lead to the lover’s death. While the first part of the epitaph (τοῦτον ἔρως ἔκτεινεν, 47) is true as far as it goes, since his lovesickness actually killed the lover, the last part (48), which dictates posterity’s view of the affair, is misleading. The beloved had indeed been harsh with the man infatuated with him—ἀπηνής (48), the last word of the lover, is the first word of the narrator about the boy (1)—but the duo were no partners or lovers.51 This is the desperate lover’s only attempt to gain some control over his situation, admittedly posthumously, by dictating and securing a memorialization of his fantasy of an unfortunate erotic relationship. The lover’s infatuation turned out to be utterly unrelieved and fruitless, as the boy angrily refused him even the smallest token of affection (7–9; cf. 30.7–8). The hapless man, about to put an end to his tormented life, although not to his torment (cf. 26, 43), tries to make the posthumous best of his desperate situation by styling himself as the ill-starred lover of a cruel partner, a reversal of sorts of the fantasy of reciprocity in Idyll 12: instead of “Inspirer” and “Listener,” the pair in 23 might be called and, crucially, memorialized as “Lover” and “Cruel partner.”52 This is the only share of posthumous, eternal fame to which he aspires. Although not a reflection of any idealized golden age of homosexual concord, it is still a measure of fame carved in stone and commemorated by future generations of men passing by the memorial. The lover is incurable, pathetically vulnerable, and/or incorrigible, even on the verge of death and allegedly beyond. The narrator insists that the boy felt and did nothing of what his lover had wished for (53–57), but the boy’s unyielding intransigence is already obvious from the introduction (1–14; cf. 17–20). In this light, it is not the possible illusion of the lover about his comeliness (45) and especially about the boy’s softening after his death that sets him apart from other lovers in the collection. It is the lover’s hope and attempt, however des-

51 52

Lambert (2004) 79–80 thinks that the lover’s desire for mutuality is shattered by the honesty of the epitaph, but such honesty is detected only in the first clause (47). From Homer onwards several characters (e.g. Hector (Il. 6.460–461, 7.89–91) and Tecmessa (S. Aj. 501–504)) imagine statements people will make about them or their loved ones (so-called τις-Reden), but no one dictates a statement, and certainly no one attempts to shape posterity’s view of relationships and emotions involved in them. Radici Colace (1971) 333–334 thinks that the ritual farewell echoes Odysseus’ account of the final salutation to his dead comrades (Od. 9.65). This may be so, but the epic group solidarity and funeral service are very remote from the fantasy of partnership the lover entertains or even from the posthumous renown the speaker of Idyll 12 (10–20) aspires to. For τις-Reden see Stoevesandt (2008) 147 and Finglass (2011) 448–449.

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perate, to have his fantasy of a relationship memorialized and thus glorified in and by posterity. This attempt is the poem’s main original and noteworthy element. It goes one step further than the fantasies of the lovers in 12 or 29, as they were in a relationship with their boys, at least in the dramatic time of the Idylls. Apart from the death of both lover and boy, 23 is unique in that the introduction and, to an extent, the lover’s speech leave the audience in little doubt that the lover, for all his lack of pretention and the apparent absence of rivals or disadvantages, has virtually no hope that his wishes might come true, even partially. On the other hand, despite the futility of the lover’s wishes, his story became famous enough to be the subject of a poem, in a metapoetic vindication of sorts. In this respect at least, he is much closer to the lover in Idyll 12 than (to) the lovers in the other spurious pieces, primarily the arrogant oxherd in 20.

Conclusions The poetry of [Theocritus] is not merely a catalogue of losses or lost opportunities. Formally, it is quite close to the genuine Idylls. The narrative and metapoetic richness of Theocritus’ poetry is diminished, as are ambiguity and especially open-endedness. The successor poems are linear, leave little to the imagination, and are not concerned with positioning themselves in a long poetic tradition— there is no mention of and few allusions to any predecessor. The bucolic environment and urban spaces have become stripped of most realistic details. On the other hand, the poems feature vividly and sometimes intriguingly drawn characters, including females such as Eunica (20) and Acrotime (27). Although some characters such as the oxherd in 20 harbor self-conceited illusions, most are down to earth and fully conscious of their circumstances. 21 is noteworthy in including a list of the fishermen’s tools and the depiction of the sane and sympathetic friend, who is also the only successful counselor in the collection. The motif of instruction takes on a new twist in 8. 23 and 27, which deal with complete failure and full success in courting respectively, contain several innovative elements. Apart from its affinities with drama, 23 features a unique reason for the boy’s intransigence, and the suicide note cum epitaph, which is the lover’s attempt to memorialize not only his suicide but his fantasy of an unfortunate relationship. 27 is stichomythic and dramatizes a successful seduction. Daphnis, who is an accomplished singer in 8, has little to do with his Theocritean predecessor. Bucolic music and love go on, in different directions from Theocritus.

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Bibliography Alpers, P. (1996), What is Pastoral? (Chicago). Ambühl, A. (2010), “Narrative Hexameter Poetry,” in J.J. Clauss/M. Cuypers (eds.), A Companion to Hellenistic Literature (Chichester) 151–165. Arland, W. (1937), Nachtheokritische Bukolik bis an die Schwelle der lateinischen Bukolik (Diss. Leipzig). Bernsdorff, H. (2006), “The Idea of Bucolic in the Imitators of Theocritus, 3rd–1st Century bc,” in M. Fantuzzi/Th. Papanghelis (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden/Boston) 167–208. Cairns, F. (2012), Roman Lyric. Collected Papers on Catullus and Horace (Berlin). Fantuzzi, M. (1998), “Textual Misadventures of Daphnis. The Pseudo-Theocritean Id. 8 and the Origins of the Bucolic ‘Manner,’” in M.A. Harder/R.F. Regtuit/G.C. Wakker (eds.), Genre in Hellenistic Poetry (Groningen) 61–79. Fantuzzi, M. (2007), “The Importance of Being Boukolos: Ps.-Theocr. 20,” in M. Paschalis (ed.), Pastoral Palimpsests. Essays in the Reception of Theocritus and Virgil (Heraklion) 13–38. Fantuzzi, M./R.L. Hunter (2004), Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge). Faraone, C.A. (1999), Ancient Greek Love Magic (Cambridge, MA/London). Finglass, P.J. (2011), Sophocles, Ajax. Edited with Introduction and Commentary (Cambridge). Gow, A.S.F. (19522), Theocritus. Edited with a Translation and Commentary (Cambridge). Halperin, D.M. (1983), Before Pastoral. Theocritus and the Ancient Tradition of Bucolic Poetry (New Haven/London). Hubbard, T.K. (1998), The Pipes of Pan. Intertextuality and Literary Filiation in the Pastoral Tradition from Theocritus to Milton (Ann Arbor). Huner, R. (1989), Apollonius of Rhodes. Argonautica Book iii (Cambridge). Hunter, R. (1998), “Before and After Epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25,” in M.A. Harder/ R.F. Regtuit/G.C. Wakker (eds.), Genre in Hellenistic Poetry (Groningen) 115– 132. Hunter, R. (1999), Theocritus. A Selection (Idylls 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 13) (Cambridge). Hunter, R. (2002), “The Sense of an Author: Theocritus and [Theocritus],” in R.K. Gibson/C.S. Kraus (eds.), The Classical Commentary: Histories, Practices, Theories (Leiden) 89–108. Hunter, R. (2008), On Coming After. Studies in Post-Classical Greek Literature and its Reception (Berlin/New York). Hunter, R. (2012), “The Songs of Demodocus: Compression and Extension in Greek Narrative Poetry,” in M. Baumbach/S. Bär (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and its Reception (Leiden/Boston) 83–109.

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Kirstein, R. (2007), Junge Hirten und alte Fischer. Die Gedichte 27, 20 und 21 des Corpus Theocriteum (Berlin). Kyriakou, P. (2018), Theocritus and His Native Muse. A Syracusan Among Many (Berlin/Boston). Lambert, M. (2004), “Cruel Boys and Ageing Men. The Paederastic Poems in the Theocritean Corpus,” AClass 47, 75–85. Legrand, P.E. (1898), Étude sur Théocrite (Paris). Legrand, P.E. (1927), Bucoliques Grecs ii: Pseudo-Théocrite, Moschus, Bion, divers (Paris). Radici Colace, P. (1971), “La tecnica compositiva dell’erastes pseudo-teocriteo (Idillio xxiii),” GIF 23, 325–346. Reed, J.D. (1997), Bion of Smyrna. The Fragments and the Adonis (Cambridge). Reed, J.D. (2006), “Continuity and Change in Greek Bucolic between Theocritus and Virgil,” in M. Fantuzzi/Th. Papanghelis (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden/Boston) 209–234. Reed, J.D. (2010), “Idyll 6 and the Development of Bucolic after Theocritus,” in Clauss/ Cuypers (2010) 238–250. Rosenmeyer, T.G. (1969), The Green Cabinet. Theocritus and the European Pastoral Lyric (Berkeley/Los Angeles). Rossi, L.E. (1971), “Mondo pastorale e poesia bucolica di maniera: l’idillio viii del corpus teocriteo,” SIFC 43, 5–25. Schmitz, T.A. (2012), “Heracles in Bits and Pieces: Id. 25 in the Corpus Theocriteum,” in M. Baumbach/S. Bär (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and its Reception (Leiden/Boston) 259–282. Scholl, W. (2014), Der Daphnis-Mythos und seine Entwicklung. Von den Anfängen bis zu Vergils vierter Ekloge (Hildesheim). Sider, D. (2001), “Theokritos 27: Oaristys,” WJ 25, 99–105. Sistakou, E. (2016), Tragic Failures: Alexandrian Responses to Tragedy and the Tragic (Berlin/Boston). Sistakou, E. (2019), “The Wound and the Kiss: The Morbid Pleasures of Post-Theocritean Aesthetics,” TC 11, 285–306. Stoevesandt, M. (2008), Homers Ilias. Gesamtkommentar. Herausgegeben von A.F. Bierl und J. Latacz. Band iv Sechster Gesang Fasz. 2. Kommentar (Stuttgart). Trovati, G. (2001), “Gli ultimi sviluppi della poesia bucolica greca,” Acme 54, 35–72. Van Sickle, J. (1976), “Theocritus and the Development of the Conception of Bucolic Genre,” Ramus 5, 18–44. White, H. (1979), Studies in Theocritus and Other Hellenistic Poets (Amsterdam).

chapter 28

Sicilian Muses: Theocritus and Virgil’s Eclogues Brian W. Breed

When Virgil was writing the Eclogues, Theocritus represented an unusual choice for literary emulation in Rome. Unlike Callimachus, Aratus, and Apollonius, the bucolic poet had largely been passed over by the Roman poets of the first century bce. Neoteric distaste for rusticity is a likely factor in Theocritus’ lower prominence, and Virgil’s choice of Theocritus as the model for his first collection of poems needed explaining. Servius, for example, attributes the inspiration of the Eclogues to the initiative of Asinius Pollio: tunc ei proposuit Pollio ut carmen bucolicum scriberet, “Pollio then suggested to him that he write bucolic poetry” (praef. ad Aen.). Not only is this a transparent attempt on Servius’ part to force all of Virgil’s works into the same pattern of patronage, so that Pollio prompts the Eclogues like Maecenas prompts the Georgics and Augustus the Aeneid, it merely moves the question of motivation back a stage. Pollio, with his neoteric credentials and superior urbanity (cf. Catul. 12, Ecl. 3.86), might be an unlikely champion of Theocritus in mid-century Rome. Then again, Theocritus could of course be claimed as a model for the learning and refinement that the neoterics aspired to, and he wrote not just rustic poems but in a range of genres. Still, Virgil’s friend Parthenius, who might be expected to recognize that, was perhaps not impressed with Theocritus,1 and Cornelius Gallus, another friend in Parthenius’ circle, seems also to have passed over engagement with Theocritus.2 Perceptions of Theocritus in the neoteric context are significant because Virgil highlights the Eclogues’ connections with the neoteric generation. In Eclogue 9.32–36, for example, the pastoral singer Lycidas cites the names and authority of Varius and Cinna in a self-deprecating assessment of his own poetic credentials. It is both a bid for the Eclogues to be judged by the standards of the Roman avant-garde and a significant imitation of Theocritus. In Idyll 7.37–41 Simichidas, inviting the mysterious singer Lycidas to join in an exchange of bucolic verses, modestly compares his own poetic achievements to

1 Clausen (1994) xviii. 2 Whitaker (1988) reviews the question of whether Gallus might have written anything in the style of Theocritus and, pace Franz Skutsch and others, concludes that he did not.

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the excellence of Sicelidas, i.e., Asclepiades, and Philitas. Theocritus thus incorporates a peer group and their implied appreciation for bucolic into the fiction of his poem.3 When Virgil does the same thing, there is perhaps greater friction because the appreciation of the poets he cites would not necessarily be guaranteed. While Varius was closely associated with Virgil over his whole career, the older Cinna was a leading neoteric, who was, like Virgil, in the orbit of Asinius Pollio. And elsewhere it is Pollio in particular who draws out the possible conflict between Virgil’s project and neoteric tastes. At Ecl. 3.84 Pollio is named as a supporter, Pollio amat nostram, quamvis est rustica, Musam, “Pollio loves my Muse, even though it’s rustic.” The concession quamvis est rustica serves on the one hand to disarm potential critics of the Eclogues, but also airs out the possibility that there was something to criticize. And there were critics. The so-called obtrectatores found fault with some of the challenging linguistic turns in the Eclogues and the possible mismatch with the rusticity of the characters and settings (Vit. Verg. 43). Even in the most sophisticated circles, Virgil’s Greek-inflected combination of high-level artistry with humble country life generated a certain discomfort. Horace, writing from a vantage point much closer to the creation of the Eclogues than Servius, shows some displeasure with the poems’ neoteric and Hellenizing pretenses,4 and he (mis)attributes the Eclogues’ inspiration to a native, throwback rusticism presided over by Italic Camenae: molle atque facetum / Vergilio adnuerunt gaudentes rure Camenae, “on Virgil the Camenae who take pleasure in the countryside bestowed the soft and witty kind” (Sat. 1.10.44–45). The Camenae make their only appearance in the Eclogues, in all of Virgil in fact, in Eclogue 3, in the same context where Pollio’s surprising favor for a rustic Muse is invoked. Palaemon, summoned to act as judge for a singing contest between herdsmen, suggests proceeding under the auspices of the Camenae, an attempt at framing the exchange of verses that is immediately rejected by the first participant (58–61): Palaemon: incipe, Damoeta; tu deinde sequere, Menalca. alternis dicetis; amant alterna Camenae. Damoetas: Ab Iove principium Musae: Iovis omnia plena; ille colit terras, illi mea carmina curae.

3 Hunter (1999) ad 7.40. 4 Zetzel (2002) 45–52.

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Palaemon: Damoetas, begin; you then follow, Menalcas. You are going to speak in exchanges; the Camenae love exchanges. Damoetas: Muses, our beginning is with Jupiter: all things are filled with Jupiter, he cares for the land, and my songs are his concern. As goddesses of poetry the Camenae point back in time to the days before the Muses came to Rome from Greece under Ennian escort. The Muses (the form in line 60 is most likely vocative5), whom Damoetas invokes and subsequently associates with Pollio (84–85), are not just the Camenae by another name, but the foreign goddesses whose arrival in Roman literature in the Annales signals the displacement of old-fashioned poetics. In this case, Damoetas’ Muses who displace Palaemon’s Camenae represent a direct source of inspiration in a Greek text, or texts. The language recalls Theocritus Idyll 17.1, but Aratus Phaenomena 1 is also closely related, so that it is not easy to assign priority to one or the other as the model for Virgil’s line (cf. also Call. Hymn 1.1). In fact, the “intermingledness” of references contributes to an important outcome of intertextuality in the Eclogues, namely the recognition of Theocritus as part of the Hellenistic mainstream. To return to Horace: by buying into Palaemon’s shaky authority to put Virgilian pastoral under the auspices of the Camenae he is either playing dumb about all this, or he is caught off guard by the Theocritus of the Eclogues, who is both an inspiration for rusticity and, thanks to the unexpected work of the Eclogues, a model fully aligned with prevailing expectations for Hellenistic/neoteric poetics.6 While Theocritus was hard to accommodate in Latin poetry before the Eclogues, he was not totally neglected. Catullus is said to have imitated him, though not it seems the bucolic poems.7 Despite Catullus’ notable presence in the Eclogues, there is no indication that Catullus has mediated Virgil’s adaptations of Theocritus. The one Theocritean line that Catullus clearly imitates (Id. 15.100; cf. Catul. 64.96 and 36.11–15) is, for what it’s worth, not imitated by Virgil. Elsewhere in Latin literature prior to the Eclogues connections to Theocritus are even less clear. Early epigrammatists exhibit some pastoral-like 5 See the note of Cucchiarelli (2012) ad loc. for discussion. Clausen (1994) gets the dynamic with Palaemon wrong; he says that the vocative “would be jarring and inept; for Damoetas would seem to be ‘correcting’ Palaemon” (106). 6 Compare what Ross (1975) 27–28 terms Virgil’s “poetic genealogy” in the Eclogues: Hesiod and his legendary forebears, Theocritus among the other Alexandrians, and Gallus. And for a different reading of Horace’s nod to Ecl. 3, see Oksanish (2017) 127. 7 Pliny NH 28.19 says both Theocritus and Catullus wrote about love magic, which is often taken to mean (e.g., Wiseman (1985) 193, Clausen (1994) 239) that Catullus imitated Id. 2 in a lost poem. In general see Perutelli (2003), Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 464–465, and Lewis (2016).

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atmosphere mixed in among their reminiscences of Hellenistic poetry, and in this group Lutatius Catulus at least is possibly aware of Theocritus.8 Lucretius is another poet whose text shows an affinity for pastoral imagery, and Virgil uses the De rerum natura as an important triangulation point for his adaptations of Theocritean themes such as hesychia, desire, and the relationship between humans and nature. Even so, and despite their shared Epicurean perspectives, there is little if any substantial engagement with the text of Theocritus in Lucretius.9 Meanwhile, Theocritean imitators writing in Greek sustained bucolic as an ongoing tradition through the second and into the first century. The work of scholars and commentators would also have raised the profile of Theocritus and bucolic poetry for learned audiences.10 Intriguingly Catalepton 9.13–20 attributes Greek bucolics, worthy of Theocritus himself (qualia Trinacriae doctus amat iuvenis, “the sort that the learned Sicilian young man loves,” 20), to Valerius Messalla, poems which might have preceded the Eclogues, though we do not have independent chronological information to go by.11 If nothing else, the early popularity of the Eclogues suggests that there was an appetite for Theocritean-style poetry in Rome, whether Virgil created it or drew on preexisting interest among readers.12 So, while there may have been a fertile environment for the Eclogues to gain an audience, in Rome there was no existing tradition of Theocritean poetry in Latin for Virgil to join. Instead, in their elevation of Theocritus as an important poet worthy of systematic imitation, the Eclogues represent a challenging and innovative project that effectively pioneers a new genre for Roman literature. The goal of this chapter is to understand the uses that the Eclogues made of Theocritus and the context in which those uses occurred. To that end, I begin by considering some key characteristics of Theocritean imitation in Virgil’s collection. Among them I highlight the role of Sicily, which is both the home of Theocritus and bucolic and, from a Roman historical perspective, the

8 9 10

11 12

Courtney (1993) 70–78, who notes the possible resemblance of Catulus fr. 2 and Theoc. 18.26–28. For Lucretius’ use of Hellenistic poetry, see Kenney (1970), Knox (1999). On Theocritean Epicureanism, Rosenmeyer (1969), Hunter (1999) 15–17; Davis (2012) for the Eclogues. See recently Keeline (2017), who argues for direct influence on the Eclogues of Theon’s commentary, which requires an adjustment in dating, as his work is conventionally assigned to the Augustan period. His father, Artemidorus of Tarsus, who compiled an edition of Theocritus, is more securely dated to the later second and early first century. See recently Kayachev (2016). Looking to establish popular awareness of Theocritus, Wiseman (2015) 112 imagines galvanizing theatrical performances of Theocritus’ mimes in Caesarian Rome, even putting young Virgil in the audience, but none is actually attested.

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conquered territory that introduced them to imperial rule. The island and its history are an important feature of how Virgil’s text relates both to its literary tradition and to the world in which it was made.

1

Genre and Innovation

Generic innovation through imitation of Theocritus is a process ongoing throughout the Eclogues that occasionally comes in for explicit comment. So, for example, in the opening lines of Eclogue 6 (1–2): Prima Syracosio dignata est ludere versu nostra neque erubuit silvas habitare Thalea. At first Thalea, my Muse, deigned to dabble in Syracusan verse and was unashamed to dwell in the forest. Virgil’s Muse not only deigned to perform Theocritean poetics “at first,” she was also “the first” to do so.13 Venturing into what they claim is uncharted territory, the Eclogues engage Theocritus in complex ways. He provides a model both for generic identity and for the poetry’s material form. These are in fact closely related phenomena in the Eclogues. Imitations of Theocritus, including details of language, form, and theme, shape the generic identity of the Eclogues, and the book itself, by structuring the repetition and accumulation of Theocritean features, enhances the perception of generic cohesiveness. That effect is further underscored by the title Bucolica, i.e., poems in the style of Theocritus.14 The book form contributes further to the Theocritean character of the Eclogues because Virgil and his readers were likely acquainted with the poetry of Theocritus in the form of a book in which an editor had gathered all or some of Theocritus’ poems, or poems by Theocritus and his imitators.15 As editor of his own highly polished book,16 Virgil manages the arrangement of the poems, in part with an eye on Theocritean relationships. He also carries an implied responsibility for omissions and exclusions. In fact, while the Theocritean corpus is characterized by significant variety of form, dialect, and meter, Virgil is very selective in compiling his book. Virgil’s Latin does not pos13 14 15 16

Breed (2006) 92, Cucchiarelli (2012) ad loc. Perutelli in Horsfall (2001) 27–28. Gow (1950) 1.lix–lxii, Vaughn (1981), Gutzwiller (1996). Van Sickle (2004).

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sess the range of dialect variation found in Theocritus, and all his poems are in dactylic hexameter. Virgil’s imitations, furthermore, show clear favor for a subset of the Theocritean corpus, comprising Idylls 1 and 3–11, which seem to be the ten “purely rustic” (meras rusticas) poems of Theocritus referred to by Servius (praef. ad Buc.). Still, Virgil’s reduction of Theocritean variety is not absolute. The Eclogues, even when they are grounded in rusticity and other features of Theocritus’ bucolic poems, are enriched by references to his nonbucolic poems as well as to other authors and different generic traditions.17 Idyll 2, for example, with its urban setting and female speaker, is prominent among Virgil’s Theocritean sources, though he makes changes with an eye to aligning his borrowings from the poem with the expectations for pastoral prevailing in his book, such as the move to a rural setting in Eclogue 8.64–109 (ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnin, 68, etc. “Bring Daphnis home, my songs, bring him home from the city”). At key points in the collection, namely Eclogue 4 and Eclogue 6, the Eclogues also advertise an intention to depart from generic expectations. Yet rising above the limits of pastoral means to a significant degree expanding precisely into the non-bucolic ranges of the Theocritean corpus, especially encomium, epic-style narrative, and hymn. Virgil also in a sense extends the Theocritean corpus by incorporating Theocritean imitators, including the authors of Idylls 8 and 9, on more or less equal footing with the authentic poems, and the post-Theocritean bucolic, especially the anonymous Lament for Bion ([Mosch.] 3), represents a significant contribution to the intertextual network of the Eclogues.18 In their self-referential moments, however, the Eclogues tend to focus not on a diffuse bucolic tradition but on a direct connection with Theocritus himself as the originator. So, in the opening lines of Eclogue 6, Virgil cites Theocritus’ birth city (“Syracusan verse,” Syracosio … versu, cf. Id. 28.16–18, [Mosch.] 3.93, AP 9.434) not simply as a biographical detail but as a way of characterizing his poetry in terms of direct inspiration from Theocritus himself. References to Sicily and Sicilian landmarks feature prominently in Virgil’s expressions of the generic identity for the Eclogues, which harkens back to the role of the island as an important source for the sense of tradition that Theocritus crafts for his own new genre. Sicily, home to both the Homeric Cyclops and the legendary herdsman Daphnis, as well as a possible native tradition of “bucolicizing,”19 is a place to connect with literary and non-literary traditions that feed bucolic. The island also sustains other generic streams of the Theocritean corpus. Idyll 16, for example, 17 18 19

Harrison (2007) 34–74, Karakasis (2011) 62–212. Kania (2012), Schmidt (1972) 69–92. Hunter (1999) 5–12.

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draws on the association that Pindar and Simonides had with Hiero i of Syracuse for its praises of Hiero ii, and Idyll 15 comes in the tradition of the mimes of Sophron.20 Sicily had already been elaborated into a generic emblem in postTheocritean Greek bucolic. For example, in Idyll 8.55–56 and 9.15 the Sicilian setting is primarily a marker of a connection to Theocritus. In the Lament for Bion, “Sicilian” becomes a full-fledged synonym for “bucolic,” ἄρχετε Σικελικαί, τῶ πένθεος ἄρχετε, Μοῖσαι, “begin, Sicilian Muses, begin the lament” ([Mosch.] 3.8, etc.), even a replacement for the term as it had appeared programmatically in the refrain of Thyrsis’ song in Idyll 1.21 Against this backdrop, in Eclogue 10 Virgil calls on the inspiration of Arethusa, the Syracusan spring, and later in the poem Gallus expresses an intention to write pastoral poetry as a choice to “play the pipe of a Sicilian herdsman” (pastoris Siculi, 51). In Eclogue 1, Sicilian origins give an apparently ornamental epithet Hyblaeis apibus (“Hyblaean bees,” 54, also 7.37 Hyblae) resonance as a marker of the Theocritean element in the composition of the Eclogues’ hybrid landscapes, which incorporate features of the island, northern Italy, and the region around Rome, while Eclogue 10 transfers the mythic drama of the Daphnis song in Idyll 1 from Sicily to Arcadia.22 Corydon’s claim in Eclogue 2 to pasture enormous flocks on Sicilian hillsides (21) provides the appropriate geographical setting for the imitation of the Theocritean Cyclops (cf. Id. 11.34). In Eclogue 6.1 the equation of “Syracusan verse” with Theocritean verse elevates the literary-historical standing of the bucolic poet, since other important poets originated from and honored that great Greek city. Both mime (Sophron) and comedy (Epicharmus) traced their origins to Syracuse, and Sicily more generally was an early home to lyric, tragedy, and epic. Virgil honors Theocritus both as the author whose singular inspiration he seeks and as himself standing at the culmination of a tradition that ranges far beyond the limits of bucolic. In Eclogue 4.1–3 with the invocation of Sicelides Musae Virgil both joins the postTheocritean tradition that treats Sicily as the homeland for bucolic and deploys Sicily as a device to expand the range of pastoral. And the inspiration Virgil’s Sicilian Muses might supply is varied, both definitively bucolic and inclining toward lower genres like mime, yet also able to reach the highest registers of epic and lyric. That capacity closely aligns with the fullness of Theocritus’ range.

20 21 22

Hunter (1996) 77–138. Cf. also [Bion] 2.1 Σικελὸν μέλος, “a Sicilian song.” Recently on the intertextual geography of the Eclogues, Hutchinson (2013) 176–178, 309– 310.

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Before returning at the end of this chapter to the role of Sicily in Virgil’s intertextual poetics, first I consider some further aspects of Theocritean imitation in the Eclogues. These include programmatics and book structure, the self-referentiality of Virgil’s imitations represented in ideas of duplication and mirroring and in images of succession and sponsorship, and finally movement in space and time, which brings the discussion back to Sicily.

2

Si numquam fallit imago

In the systematic but conservative accounting of Sebastian Posch, the verbal correspondences between the Eclogues and Theocritus number 379, or a little less than one for every two of Virgil’s 829 lines.23 These range from very pointed attention to detail at the level of individual words to comparable sequences of five, ten, or more lines. Along with the specific close referentiality, an overarching Theocritean impression is formed in the Eclogues by such things as character names and formal features. The Eclogues imitate the rustic settings, dialogues, and singing contests of Theocritus’ bucolic poems along with their meter. Some of these cues are also important to the development of the postTheocritean Greek bucolic,24 but the Eclogues have a capacity for more extensive expression of deep and analytical engagement with the text of Theocritus. The structural use of intertextuality linked to the book format is a primary example. In the Eclogues references to, for example, Idyll 1 and Idyll 2 presuppose that the two poems appeared together at the beginning of a Theocritean collection.25 The evidence from papyrology shows significant variation in the order of poems in ancient books of Theocritus’ poems, but as far as we can tell Idyll 1 is always first.26 Allusions to Idyll 1 in Eclogue 1, especially in the opening lines, are thematically appropriate for the beginning of a collection of poems in the style of Theocritus.27 This inaugural gesture to synchronized book formats makes the allusions to Idyll 2 that appear in Eclogue 2 (e.g., erotic burning in Ecl. 2.68 and Id. 2.40; the name Thestylis at Ecl 2.10 and Id. 2.1) structurally suggestive, even though no ancient book attests to the presence of Idyll 2 following Idyll 1,

23 24 25 26 27

Tabulation at Posch (1969) 15–27. On the bucolic genre after Theocritus, see Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 167–190, Bernsdorff (2006), Reed (2006). On this see further Breed (2018). Vaughn (1981) 49–51, Gutzwiller (1996) 124–128. Breed (2006) 95–97.

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which is the order that came to prevail in modern editions of Theocritus after the example of one branch of the manuscript tradition. Virgil confirms that for him Idyll 1 and Idyll 2 are a significant pair, however, by linking them as the models for the two songs in Eclogue 8. That poem highlights not only the use of refrains as a formal feature that connects the two Theocritean poems but also the shared erotic themes. Allusions such as these, which reflect a perspective on the poems of Theocritus as they appeared in a book, align the experience of reading the Eclogues with what is in effect a simultaneous reading of Theocritus. The particular importance of Idyll 1 for the Eclogues is further highlighted by the distribution of Virgil’s imitations of the poem across the collection. Here I briefly summarize just the main points and top-level relationships. In Eclogue 1, not only are the opening lines indicative of the beginning of a book of poems in the style of Theocritus, the programmatic function of the conversation between Tityrus and Meliboeus mirrors the role of the opening lines of Theocritus in introducing not only a new book but also a new genre.28 In order to define a new genre, Idyll 1 as a whole is deeply invested in crafting a sense of tradition for itself, and one of the critical moments for bucolic representation in Idyll 1 is the elaborate ekphrasis of the cup that the goatherd offers to Thyrsis in exchange for his song about the sufferings of Daphnis (Id. 1.27–61). The scenes on the cup express bucolic themes and subject matter, including eros, rural life, and non-idealized human types, in the form of an object that is both a material reward for Thyrsis’ singing and in itself a virtuoso performance to match the song, which analogously introduces a defining theme and subject of bucolic.29 Eclogue 1 does not directly imitate the ekphrasis of the cup, but the programmatic content of the passage is taken up elsewhere in Virgil’s collection. Theocritus’ ekphrasis provides the foundation for the descriptions of some cups in Eclogue 3 (35–48). These cups too operate in a material relationship in a singing exchange,30 and the close imitation of Theocritean language to introduce the cups (Ecl. 3.43, repeated at 47, cf. Id. 1.59–60) secures the intertextual connection, even though the visual content of Virgil’s cups, though chosen for its own programmatic significance,31 does not match Theocritus’ except for one detail, a winding vegetal border motif (Ecl. 3.45, Id. 1.55). Virgil’s choice to turn a single cup into pairs of matching cups speaks to an important aspect 28 29 30 31

Cf. Hunter (1999) 60–62 and n. ad 1–11, Van Sickle (1975) 54–58, and Klooster, this volume. On the cup see Halperin (1983) 161–189, Payne (2007) 28–40. Cf. Ambühl, Klooster, and Kwapisz, this volume. The exact relationship is unclear: Henderson (1998). Segal (1967), Dufallo (2013) 82–87.

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of the Eclogues’ self-conscious engagement with Theocritus, namely, the use of generic features of pastoral to reflect and comment on intertextuality. In this case dialogue and exchange in the fiction of the poem mimic relationships between Virgil’s text and Theocritus’ through their shared qualities of doubling and responsiveness.32 Daphnis is named as a character early in Eclogue 3 (12), which keeps the Theocritean paragon in the mind of a reader who is progressing through the Eclogues in order. For such a reader the model of Idyll 1 would return to particular prominence in Eclogue 5, which includes a version of the lament for Daphnis modeled in part on Thyrsis’ song in Idyll 1, though in Virgil’s version it is answered by a second song that continues the story to Daphnis’ apotheosis, something that is not part of the character’s story for Theocritus.33 The format of the Virgilian exchange, however, draws on models from Theocritean poems other than Idyll 1. Idyll 7 and Idyll 10 both feature responsive exchanges of longer songs. In Eclogue 8 a dialogue in this format reflects a Theocritean book that begins with Idyll 1, followed by Idyll 2, as has already been mentioned. Idyll 1 provides the primary model for Damon’s song of unhappy love, in response to which Alphesiboeus performs a version of Simaetha’s incantation from Idyll 2. Finally, in Eclogue 10, Cornelius Gallus lives out another version of the death of Daphnis, in fact the most elaborate version in Virgil’s collection of the founding drama for bucolic.34 The poet’s concluding picture of himself at work then places a capstone on the Eclogues’ collection-spanning rewriting of Idyll 1 (70– 71): Haec sat erit, divae, vestrum cecinisse poetam, dum sedet et gracili fiscellam texit hibisco Goddesses, this will be enough for your poet to have sung while he sat and wove a basket from pliant mallow. Weaving is an old metaphor for poetic composition, but here its specific inspiration is found in the image of a boy making a cricket cage described on the ekphrastic cup in Idyll 1 (52–54). Idyll 1 is the most cited Theocritean poem in the Eclogues, followed closely by Idyll 7 (58 and 51 times according to Posch). That poem provides primary inspiration for the encounter between Moeris and Lycidas in Eclogue 9, characters 32 33 34

Breed (2006) 53–55. Du Quesnay (1976/7) 30–34. Perkell (1996).

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who meet and exchange bits of song as they make their way along a journey, and the way singing happens in the poem, by fragmentation and imperfect recreation, reflects processes of transformation in Virgil’s imitations of Theocritus.35 For the Eclogues, Idyll 7 is an important point of reference for many highly metapoetic moments. In addition to Eclogue 9, there are, for example, the locus amoenus that shelters Tityrus in Eclogue 1 (51–58, Id. 7.135–147) and the mimicking of Hesiod’s poetic investiture between herdsmen (Ecl. 5.88, Id. 7.43, cf. Ecl. 6.67–73). Other Theocritean touchstones are also prominent in the intertextual network of the Eclogues. Idyll 11, for example, is already an object of allusion in Eclogue 1, especially in Tityrus’ offer of hospitality to Meliboeus at the end, 79–81, cf. Id. 11.44–48. And the poem is, along with Idylls 3 and 6, an essential contributor to the song of Corydon in Eclogue 2. Eclogue 2 is particularly self-conscious about its intertextual debts, and the poem illustrates varieties of Alexandrian learning and reflexivity that Virgil and Theocritus share. The poem stages Theocritean imitation as a complex game of comparison and reproduction. A key moment of self-reflexive imitation occurs when Corydon claims not to be ugly. His assertion, in effect “I’m no monster,” is an ironic nod toward his intertextual debt to the Theocritean Cyclops (25–27): nec sum adeo informis: nuper me in litore vidi, cum placidum ventis staret mare. non ego Daphnin iudice te metuam, si numquam fallit imago. And I am not all that ugly, I saw myself on the shore recently when the sea was still with no wind. With you as judge I would not even fear Daphnis, if a reflection never deceives. The mention of Daphnis here, the first to occur in the Eclogues in sequence, is also significant in the intertextual context. Virgil’s lines allude directly to Idyll 6.34–38, but the intertextuality is not limited to a one-to-one relationship because Idyll 6 is itself staging an active reading of both Idyll 11 and Idyll 1. In Idyll 6, two characters, Daphnis and Damoetas, are engaged in a singing contest. Daphnis offers erotic advice to Polyphemus, and Damoetas responds by adopting the persona of the Cyclops. Daphnis, the legendary herdsman himself, who is either imagined as a Sicilian contemporary of the Cyclops or is roleplaying as an interlocutor of Polyphemus, casts the desire of Polyphemus for

35

Breed (2006) 17–24.

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Galatea as a comic version of his own tragic erotic suffering in Idyll 1.36 Roleplaying enables an important moment of self-assessment for the Theocritean corpus, drawing out the matching exemplarity of Daphnis and Polyphemus, two Sicilian herdsmen suffering in love, each in his own way a prototypically bucolic figure. In Eclogue 2 Virgil channels the complexity of the Theocritean intratextuality by doubling and annotating the layers of imitation. Corydon is not merely imitating Polyphemus in his song; he is also imitating another Theocritean character imitating the voice of the Cyclops in a song. And Corydon’s citation of Daphnis as a standard of beauty (cf. Ecl. 5.44), to contrast with the ugliness of the Cyclops, encapsulates the two figures’ dynamic relationship in Theocritus. Corydon’s reference to mirroring (si numquam fallit imago, 27), stands then as an invitation to readers to see the reflection of Polyphemus and Daphnis in Corydon, and to see the two as distorted images of each other. Staying with Eclogue 2, we can observe in Corydon’s song a further example of self-conscious imitation, in the form of references to pastoral music as a tradition that extends back to a divine founder. In the Eclogues, and in Greek bucolic, handing down and passing on songs and musical instruments (e.g., Ecl. 5.85–90, 6.64–73) is a common image to equip songs and performances with a history and with precedents.37 In this vein Corydon says that his pipe is a gift he received from Damoetas (36–39), placing himself and his performance in a line of succession. Corydon expands the idea by invoking the divine sponsorship of Pan for his musicianship (31–33): mecum una in silvis imitabere Pana canendo (Pan primum calamos cera coniungere pluris instituit, Pan curat ovis oviumque magistros), together with me you will imitate Pan by singing in the forest (Pan first established the custom of joining a number of reeds with wax, Pan cares for the sheep and for the masters of sheep) If Alexis becomes, like Corydon, an imitator of Pan, he will become a participant in the pastoral tradition. In other words, because the pastoral tradition has a divine originator, all pastoral music is an imitation, and that is an idea deeply embedded in the Eclogues. The inevitability of imitation is, for example, also inscribed into pastoral music in the form of amoebean dialogue, where

36 37

Hunter (1999) 243–248. See in general Hubbard (1998).

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the second singer is forced into the position of an imitator, which might mean responding and innovating, or being belated and constrained by choices dictated by a predecessor. The procedures of pastoral performance thus might serve to illustrate the tradition of textual borrowing and adaption in which Virgil is engaged with respect to Theocritus. That it is Pan whom Corydon names as the divine founder of his tradition holds further implications for Virgil’s relationship to Theocritus. Pan has a low profile in Latin literature before the Eclogues, but he is a key Theocritean deity.38 He is also, like the Muses, another Greek migrant to the West.39 He is already being invited to “come” in Idyll 1, when the dying Daphnis summons the god from Arcadia to Sicily to take possession of his pipe (123–129).40 The god’s journey from the Greek mainland to Sicily represents a move necessary to generate and sustain the western-Mediterranean literary tradition of first Theocritus, then Virgil. In fact, we might say that Pan needs to keep moving in order to continue performing the same function as founder and sponsor in the Eclogues that he had in Theocritus. The mutual implication of movement in physical space and intertextuality stands out in the Eclogues, and this will be the final theme of imitation in Virgil’s relationship with Theocritus for discussion here. While movement from one place to another can correspond with stable traditions and continuity between Theocritus and Virgil, it is not always so. Movement as dislocation, for example, is notoriously evident in the case of Arcadians relocated to Virgil’s native northern Italian haunts in Eclogue 7 where they’re keeping company with (Sicilian?) Daphnis (1–13). In Eclogue 9, a journey on foot and an exchange of singing evoke the model of Idyll 7, but the trajectory is reversed. In Virgil country folk are moving in the direction of a town, whereas in Theocritus a group of city dwellers are on an outing in the country. Physical movement as dislocation can align with other types of separation. Staying with Eclogue 9, Theocritus is the source for some of the bits of remembered song that Lycidas and Moeris share on their journey (23–25, 39–43), but in this case quotation of a source text corresponds to fragmentation and a loss of context. The representation of song as free roaming, located in a tradition but also potentially cut off from its source, speaks to the larger question of what Virgil accomplishes with his Theocritean imitations, which involve not only sameness and continuity, 38 39 40

On the restricted pantheon of Theocritus’ bucolic world, see Fantuzzi/Hunter (2004) 151– 157. Cf. G. 1.16–18, Hor. C. 1.17.1–2. At Id. 7.111–114 the singer Simichidas tells the god not to come but “go” to the ends of the earth as a threat if he fails to offer erotic assistance.

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but also difference and dislocation. Theocritean imitation is fundamentally a tool for Virgil to explore ideas about the composition and circulation of poetry. Procedures of the production of song in the represented world of the Eclogues reflect the creation and experience of pastoral poetry. Written texts and readers are therefore important for Virgil’s depiction of pastoral tradition (Ecl. 5.13–15, 42–44, 10.2–3, 50–54, 3.84–85, 6.9–12). But singing too, and the phenomenology of sound and hearing, which are important features of Virgil’s pastoral environments, also reflect ways that Virgil’s verses might be experienced. In the form of echo, for example, the sounds of the represented world represent another trope of imitation, a reflection that points to a source but is disconnected from it.41 Thematized movement also operates in the Eclogues in temporal and historical terms. At the heart of the Eclogues’ project there is an important element of updating and modernizing with regard to Theocritus, even if it largely flies under the radar. But when the process of getting from a third-century Greek context to a first-century Roman one is exposed, its potential strangeness is noteworthy. One option for Virgil to avoid that exposure is to deprive his pastoral representations of any grounding in a recognizable historical context. So, for example, in Eclogue 2 Corydon’s Sicily is a largely ahistorical space, and the dramatic moment of the poem could be anywhere in time. For Matthew Leigh, stripping Corydon of a connection to first-century realities represents a deliberate strategy on Virgil’s part to obfuscate uncomfortable facts of contemporary life in Roman-governed Sicily, including slavery, deprivation, and war.42 Leigh emphasizes the contrast between Eclogue 2 and those places elsewhere in the Eclogues where Virgil’s use of Theocritus is more explicitly connected to exploring the poetry’s relationship to the ongoing crisis in Rome. Most notably Eclogue 1 and Eclogue 9 adopt a recognizable contemporary setting by staging melancholy dialogues against the backdrop of the land confiscations that Octavian imposed on northern Italy in the aftermath of the battle of Philippi.43 Theocritean characters, or at least Greek-styled characters, are the ones experiencing these Roman realities, however. Roman power and the suffering it might inflict represents a new and distinctive focus for the Eclogues, but the use of diminished people to express the vulnerability of human lives to forces beyond their control is already a Theocritean theme, which helps make the transition from Theocritean times to a recognizably Roman present appear smooth. In other words, the possible strangeness and challenging relevance of Theocritean 41 42 43

Fitzgerald (2016) observes that the soundscape of the Eclogues is also characterized by forward-looking reverberations. Leigh (2016). Osgood (2006) 108–151 on the history.

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context are apparently downplayed so that writing Theocritean poetry in triumviral Rome looks like a natural thing to do. But as we have already seen, it was actually an unusual choice. And there are aspects of the world Theocritus lived in that are quite foreign to the Roman context. Tityrus’ monthly burnt offerings (7–8, 42–43), for example, are potentially jarring in Eclogue 1, and the suggestion of a kind of backyard Ptolemaic ceremonial appears designed to challenge contemporary sensibilities in light of the recent arrival in Rome of apotheosis and catasterism in Caesarian guise.44 Virgil filters what looks like an endorsement of ruler cult through the idiosyncratic perspective of a character whose name and Theocritean origins (cf. Id. 3.3) allow the text to maintain a distance from current political discourse, while the events playing out around the poem’s fictional dialogue align with real experiences of Virgil and his contemporaries.

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Journeys to Sicily

One thing that facilitates Virgil’s accommodation of Theocritus to his contemporary world is the intersection of Theocritean space and Roman space in Sicily. The island is both the home of bucolic and a highly consequential place for Roman history that was again a geopolitical hotspot when Virgil was writing.45 In Sicily the passage of Greek bucolic into Roman pastoral happens on ground where Rome’s historical and political trajectories cross with others, both Greek and Carthaginian, that stretch across the Mediterranean and span its different eras. The island had also been a setting for republican Rome’s cultural and intellectual development in confrontation with the prestige of the Greek world and a crucial site for Rome’s understanding of itself as an imperial power.46 Furthermore, the island’s long history as a nursery of literary imagination, dating back to archaic times and to Homer, feeds into the important place Sicily occupies in the creation of Roman literary traditions, especially around the time of the Punic Wars.47 Sicilian Muses have a long history of offering inspiration to Latin poets. And Theocritus, whose Sicilian and Southern Italian poems are there on

44 45 46

47

Cf. Clausen (1994) ad 43. See Powell (2008) 181–225 on the Eclogues against the backdrop of the triumviral conflict with Sicily-based Sextus Pompey. Cic. Verr. 2.2.2 prima docuit maiores nostros quam praeclarum esset exteris gentibus imperare; it was Sicily that “first taught our ancestors how honorable it was to rule over foreign populations.” Feeney (2016) 122–128, Leigh (2010).

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the fringes of the First Punic War and the war with Pyrrhus,48 might well have factored into the story of Roman literature from the beginning. But as far as we can tell, he did not. Virgil’s Theocritean imitations are therefore something new and mostly unprecedented that nevertheless invites readers to the contemplation of space that has been Roman, in both literary and imperial terms, for a long time. As we have seen, Virgil’s invocations of Sicily are important for literary-historical positioning and as an image of textual processes involved in making the Eclogues (Ecl. 6.1–2, 10.50–51). They also function to establish how the Eclogues are situated in the world, finding in Sicily a space for pastoral that is defined by layers of historical meaning and contested relevance. One important destination is the city of Syracuse, which Emily Gowers calls “a hothouse of imperial ideas.”49 In Eclogue 10 Arethusa’s anticipated passage from Arcadia beneath the Sicilian sea to emerge in Syracuse symbolizes a source of pure inspiration for bucolic, invoked at a heightened moment for the collection, the final effort before ending (1–6): Extremum hunc, Arethusa, mihi concede laborem: pauca meo Gallo, sed quae legat ipsa Lycoris, carmina sunt dicenda; neget quis carmina Gallo? sic tibi, cum fluctus subterlabere Sicanos, Doris amara suam non intermisceat undam, incipe: Arethusa, grant to me this final effort: a few songs for Gallus need singing, but songs of the sort that Lycoris herself would read. Who would deny songs to Gallus? So, on the condition that when you glide beneath Sicilian waters, bitter Doris doesn’t mix her wave in with yours, begin … The trip Arethusa will take highlights important themes of Virgil’s transformation of Theocritus, one of which is linguistic play. In making her undersea passage, Arethusa must keep apart from Doris amara, which is both the sea goddess, whose salt would spoil the freshwater, and “Doric” Greek, which is the primary language both of Greek colonization in Sicily and of bucolic poetry.50 Ducking under Sicilian waves and avoiding Doric contamination, Virgil’s Arethusa will emerge in Sicily ready to inspire a Latin poet who both depends upon a Greek tradition and is in a position to stamp that tradition as (now) Roman. 48 49 50

Hunter (1996) 83, Stephens (2006) 101, 113–114, 117. Gowers (2010) 87. Cucchiarelli (2012) ad loc.

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Arethusa is the great symbol of Syracuse from at least the early fifth century, as seen in the city’s famous coins.51 The spring endured as a must-see landmark (e.g., Sen. Ad Marc. 17.3) past the time when Syracuse was no longer just the Greek city it had been but had become a jewel in the crown of the Roman empire after its capture by Marcellus in 212. Memories of that event were ideologically complicated. As the source of rich spoils taken to Rome, and a new fascination among Romans with Greek art, the fall of Syracuse could be identified as an early stage in a story of creeping decadence and corruption in the republic. Livy, who indulges these tendencies (cf. 25.40.1–3),52 also thinks of the fall of Syracuse in terms of a paternalistic intervention by the Romans in a city whose trials represent a mirror image of their own founding struggle for libertas.53 Livy’s Marcellus, furthermore, is moved by appeals to past Syracusan glory (25.29.5–7) and so refrains from destroying the city and its people. In the Verrines Cicero chooses to emphasize Marcellus’ preservation of Syracuse, to the self-evident benefit of his advocacy (2.2.4–5). The ideal of benign imperialism that Marcellus initiates at Syracuse stands as a model for the subsequent Roman posture toward the island, which in this line of thinking ought to be treated as a source of sustenance to be used and protected, in contrast to Verres’ rapaciousness. The preservation of Syracuse and the Greekness of the place, which endured at least until Augustan colonization in 21bce,54 allowed Romans access to historical continuities via their role as colonizers in Sicily. At Syracuse Romans are successors to the mainland Greeks who settled the island, and under Roman rule Syracuse continues its role as fulcrum for the interaction of Greeks with western-Mediterranean forces, first the Etruscans and Carthaginians, and now the Romans.55 Arethusa herself serves as a conduit for some of these continuities. The myth of Arethusa’s flight from Alpheus speaks to the history of Syracuse as a colonized place, providing a narrative to symbolize the continuing ties that connected the Western Greeks to the old world of the mainland.56 Thus Virgil’s Arethusa is on the one hand a participant in a literary-historical story, about the East-West movement that generates Theocritean bucolic as predecessor for Virgilian pastoral.57 But that 51 52 53 54 55 56

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Rutter (1997) 124. Rossi (2000) 61–62, Gowers (2010) 80. Jaeger (2003). Hutchinson (2013) 77. Feeney (2007) 44–57, (2016) 126–128. Pind. Nem. 1.1–7, Polyb. 12.4d, Mosch. fr. 3, Paus. 5.7.2–3, a story explicitly connected to foundation and the journey of Greeks from the mainland to Sicily (cf. Aen. 3.694–696); cf. Doughtery (1993) 68–69 and Dench (1995) 51. Cf. Breed (2006) 118–121 on not only the succession story, but also disruptions to the lin-

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story importantly corresponds to a broader one in which colonization extends Greek authority westward to the point that it encounters and succumbs to Roman power, which then expands from there back out over the wider Greek world. Theocritus names Arethusa in Idyll 1 and Idyll 16, though he does not tell the story of her arrival in Sicily. His Syracusans are nevertheless proud of their roots on the mainland (28.16–18, 15.90–92). Theocritus’ Sicily is extensively networked, a point either on the sending or the receiving end of movement around the Mediterranean. Epigram 9, for example, commemorates a Syracusan who died abroad,58 and Syracuse is also the starting point for a trip overseas in Theocritus 28, a poem meant to accompany a gift sent to the poet’s friend Nicias and his wife at Miletus. The friend on the receiving end of this dispatch is the same one Theocritus reaches out to from Sicily in Idyll 11 (1–18). Idyll 15 features women who are natives of Syracuse (90–92) living in Alexandria, where they visit the Ptolemaic palace. Idyll 4, set not in Sicily but in nearby southern Italy, also appears to look toward Egypt, by offering a complement to Glauce, a citharode associated with Ptolemy.59 At the same time, Theocritus’ Sicily is also a receiving place, as in the case of Daphnis’ summoning Pan to come to the island (123–129), or Polyphemus’ unsubtle allusion to the arrival on the island of a stranger in his ship (11.61). For Romans, Sicily continues in the role of a connected and connecting place. An elite tradition of visitation to the island, whether in literary contexts, for example Lucilius’ journey in Satires Book 3, or connected to official business, such as Cicero’s provincial posting, operates alongside the island’s role as an ordinary tourist destination.60 The Virgilian biographical tradition says that the poet himself enjoyed a Sicilian retreat in preference to living in Rome: habuitque domum Romae Esquiliis iuxta hortos Maecenatianos, quamquam secessu Campaniae Siciliaeque plurimum uteretur, “he had a home in Rome on the Esquiline near the gardens of Maecenas, although most of the time he used retreats in Campania and in Sicily” (Vit. Verg. 13). The story likely involves at least an element of extrapolation from Virgil’s works. The corres-

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ear chronology introduced by the return to Arcadia for a new pastoral tradition in which Gallus replaces Daphnis. Cf. also Epig. 18, which honors Syracusan Epicharmus with an inscription for a statue of him erected “here” (ὧδ’, 4), in his hometown. Id. 4.31 with the note of Hunter (1999) ad loc. Hutchinson (2013) 77; Aeneas’ two visits to the island in the Aeneid likely reflect memories of Roman encounters there in earlier sources, such as Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum and Ennius’ Annales; Goldschmidt (2013) 109–127.

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pondences between the geography of the poet’s life and his three poems, so that Sicily aligns to the Eclogues, as Campania does to the Georgics (me … dulcis alebat / Parthenope, “delightful Naples sustained me,” 4.563–564) and Rome to the Aeneid, are perhaps suspiciously neat. The oppositional premise of this scheme treats Sicily as culturally and physically distant from Rome, but also connected as a destination and an option available for choosing over Rome. Meanwhile, crossing the narrow strait of Messina could deliver you either to Rome’s virtual backyard or into another world depending on your point of view.61 As a traveler to Syracuse, Virgil’s Arethusa, though she starts not from Rome but elsewhere, emerges on turf that has the qualities of Roman Sicily, both Greek and Latin, foreign but linked to origins. On this theme consider, for a final time, Corydon, the dubious or incomplete historicity of whose Sicilian milieu makes him capable of expressing different possible relationships that Rome and Romans could have had with the island (Ecl. 2.19–22): despectus tibi sum, nec qui sim quaeris, Alexi, quam dives pecoris, nivei quam lactis abundans. mille meae Siculis errant in montibus agnae; lac mihi non aestate novum, non frigore defit. I am despised by you, Alexis, and you are not trying to find out who I am, how rich in flocks, how abundantly supplied with white milk. A thousand lambs of mine graze on Sicilian hillsides. I am not short of fresh milk in summer, nor in winter. We might construe Corydon as an agricultural slave dreaming of a prosperous life, or inventing one for himself. As a part of the slave economy of Sicily, such a person might be believable from a contemporary Roman perspective. Alternatively, Corydon speaks himself as a property owner, perhaps a Roman absentee landholder, for whom Sicilian hills are an exploitable resource.62 At the same time, his words are borrowed from the mouth of the Theocritean Cyclops (Id. 11.30–37) and in places he speaks in ways that are as much Greek as Roman.63 Corydon’s possibly ambiguous civil status, as well as his fluid position between Greek and Roman identity, thus mirrors the doubleness of Sicily as Rome but

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Gowers (2010) 75–76, (2011) 168–169. Cf. Leigh (2016) 416–417, with background on the question of whether Corydon is a slave or not. Cf. especially Ecl. 2.24, a verse that could be Greek in its entirety: Clausen (1994) ad loc.

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also “the empire” in the same way that Virgil renders the pastoral world as Roman territory that overlaps with a Greek past that is both Theocritean and older. Another area where the legacy of Sicily passes through Theocritus to acquire contemporary Roman relevance in the Eclogues is more explicitly political, related specifically to the role of encomium in the collection. Two Theocritean poems for kings, the encomium for Ptolemy Philadelphus, Idyll 17, and the quirkier appeal to Hiero ii of Syracuse in Idyll 16, are often linked via a biographical narrative, whereby a young Theocritus fails to secure patronage in Sicily and so moves on to Alexandria. More productively, Susan Stephens has discussed how the two poems, along with the others that address Ptolemaic themes, inhabit and define a specifically Ptolemaic geography, which serves to integrate the ideology of the regime in pastoral.64 In this scheme the prosperity of Egypt under Ptolemy (Id. 17) represents what Hiero’s war-torn Sicily (Id. 16) could and should be as the home of the bucolic tradition.65 Theocritus’ praises for kings span the Mediterranean from West to East. For the Eclogues, Sicily ensures that “kings and battles,” reges et proelia, remain in the picture despite their ostensible rejection. Sicily is the first place where Romans ruled over territory that had been subject to kings,66 and it is where they would later face serious military challenges from a series of self-styled slave kings.67 In Sicily a Roman might even become a king, as in the case of Cicero’s neo-tyrannical Verres or later the Augustus who can be cast as a successor to Sicilian tyrants.68 In the Eclogues this logic emerges most completely in Eclogue 4, which both invokes Sicilian Muses and engages in a flirtation with autocracy, though in detail it is Theocritus’ Ptolemy rather than Hiero who would seem to provide the model. While Virgil’s poem pegs both its dramatic moment and its particular configuration of praise to the republican institution of the consulship (3, 11), it also projects an idea of global imperialism under the rule of one man through the collaboration of father and son (pacatumque reget patriis virtutibus orbem, “he will rule a world made peaceful by the valorous deeds of his father,” 17). In Idyll 17 the Ptolemies are praised for the dynastic resemblance of father and son (63–64) and for their global empire. The king beloved of Zeus “rules over much land, much sea” (75–76), a truth demonstrated by the following cata-

64 65 66 67 68

Stephens (2006). Stephens (2006) 116–117. Feeney (2016) 127. Diod. Sic. 34.5.2, 36.4.4, 36.5.2, 36.7.2; cf. Leigh (2016) 422–423. Gowers (2010) 81, citing Hor. C. 3.4, a gigantomachy like Pindar Pythian 1 for Hiero i, conflated with Augustus’ victory over Sextus Pompey.

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log of the lands under Ptolemy’s rule (77–94), which climaxes in universality (91–92 θάλασσα δὲ πᾶσα καὶ αἶα / καὶ ποταμοὶ κελάδοντες ἀνάσσονται Πτολεμαίῳ, “all the sea and the land and the roaring rivers are ruled by Ptolemy”). Virgil’s miraculous child, with his Jovian favor and ancestry (Ecl. 4.49), can aspire to a reward in apotheosis that quietly invokes the example of Heracles, ancestor of the Ptolemaic god-kings (15–16, 63, cf. Id. 17.13–25, as well as Id. 24).69 At the end of the day, however, the Theocritean model of praise poetry does not fully translate for the Eclogues. Such examples of encomiastic rhetoric as there are tend to be fragmented and distanced from the poet’s singular voice.70 They are, in other words, subjected to the same processes of intertextual dislocation as other strains of Theocritean borrowing in the Eclogues. Still, for Rome in 40 bce decisions are looming about what kind of government the state should and will have, and the Eclogues hold up Sicily as a place where Romans might at least see some of the alternatives, especially as they are framed by Theocritus. Virgil made Theocritus into a major poet for Rome. The Eclogues bring Theocritus into Latin literature as a suitable object for comprehensive imitation. The Georgics and Aeneid then retroactively locate him in a hierarchy next to Hesiod and Homer as effectively the third most important Greek hexameter poet. Virgil’s Theocriteanism is on the one hand a highly self-conscious textto-text phenomenon, grounded in the material form of the poetry book and based on linguistic specificity of a particularly focused and analytical kind. At the same time, Virgil locates his work of adapting Theocritean bucolic for Rome and for his contemporary world in space through a poetics centered on intertextual relocation that finds expression in the representation of geographical movement between Greece and Sicily and Italy. Virgil imposes limits on Theocritus in the process of construing him as a generic model, but even so the variety of Theocritus comes through in the Eclogues, along with the possibly uncomfortable relevance Theocritus might represent for Rome, nowhere so much as on his home island. The Eclogues ensure that Sicily persists as a varied and durable source of literary, and imperial, inspiration, a role the island had long played for Romans.71

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Stephens (2003) 122–170 for discussion of the Theocritean poems in Ptolemaic context, and regarding Id. 24 and Ecl. 4, see now Bernsdorff (2011). Heracles’ broad exemplarity and appeal are unsurprisingly also embraced by Hiero; Hunter (1996) 95–97. Nauta (2006) on the elements of praise poetry scattered through the collection. I thank the editors and a reader for the press for their suggestions that have improved my chapter; my thanks also to John Van Sickle who read and responded to a draft.

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Ross, D.O. (1975), Backgrounds to Augustan Poetry: Gallus, Elegy and Rome (Cambridge). Rossi, A. (2000), “The Tears of Marcellus: History of a Literary Motif in Livy,” G&R 47, 55–66. Rutter, N.K. (1997), The Greek Coinages of Southern Italy and Sicily (London). Schmidt, E.A. (1972), Poetische Reflexion. Vergils Bukolik (Munich). Segal, C. (1967), “Vergil’s caelatum opus: An Interpretation of the Third Eclogue,” AJPh 88, 279–308. Stephens, S. (2003), Seeing Double: Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria (Berkeley). Stephens, S. (2006), “Ptolemaic Pastoral,” in Fantuzzi/Papanghelis (2006) 91–117. Van Sickle, J. (1975), “Epic and Bucolic (Theocritus, Id. vii; Virgil, Ecl. 1),” QUCC 19, 45– 72. Van Sickle, J. (2004), The Design of Virgil’s Bucolics, 2nd ed. (Bristol). Vaughn, J.W. (1981), “Theocritus Vergilianus and Liber Bucolicon,” Aevum 55, 47–68. Whitaker, R. (1988), “Did Gallus Write ‘Pastoral’ Elegies?,” CQ 38, 454–458. Wiseman, T.P. (1985), Catullus and His World. A Reappraisal (Cambridge). Wiseman, T.P. (2015), The Roman Audience: Classical Literature as Social History (Oxford). Zetzel, J.E.G. (2002), “Dreaming about Quirinus: Horace’s Satires and the Development of Augustan Poetry,” in A.J. Woodman/D. Feeney (eds.), Traditions and Contexts in the Poetry of Horace (Cambridge) 38–52.

chapter 29

The King’s Nectar: Theocritean Encomium and Augustan Poetry Joseph D. Reed

1

Heavenly Banquets

Theocritus offers some of our amplest specimens of the poetic praise of Hellenistic rulers. In addition to Idyll 16 for Hiero ii of Syracuse and Idyll 17 for Ptolemy ii, his mythological poetry serves a Ptolemaic program,1 and his mimelike poems yield further examples: in Idyll 14.57–60 one character exhorts another to join the service of Ptolemy and Idyll 15 describes a festival of Aphrodite and Adonis closely linked to the dynasty’s claims to power and divinity.2 His reception in Latin poetry, first visible in the years after 44 bce (around the time of the earliest attested critical work on Theocritus),3 is most conspicuous in his pastoral mimes’ influence on Virgil’s Eclogues. The present chapter will survey the Augustan engagement with his more overtly ideological content. A close imitation by Horace of Theocritus’ hexameter encomium on Ptolemy ii (Idyll 17) (“clearly an important model of encomiastic poetry for Roman poets, just as Philadelphus himself was constructed by them as a model for certain aspects of Octavian/Augustus”)4 provides us with a center from which to explore other Augustan parallels to and imitations of Theocritean encomium and locate them within the Roman poets’ broader adaptation of Hellenistic monarchical discourse. Odes 3.3, the third of the “Roman Odes,” begins with an image of the ideal man of principle (iustum et tenacem propositi virum), molded in Stoic philosophy and the compatible values held to be traditional in Roman culture,5 and concludes with Horace’s belated abnegation of his lyre’s power to convey 1 See below, p. 713. 2 See Reed (2000). 3 Catullus already imitates post-Theocritean bucolic poetry, which was not necessarily transmitted together with Theocritus at this time: J.D. Reed in Fantuzzi/Papanghelis (2006) 210 nn. 9–10. On the earliest Theocritean criticism and its dating relative to the Eclogues, see Keeline (2017). See also Breed, this volume. 4 Hunter (2008) 378. 5 See Nisbet/Rudd (2004) 36 and on line 1.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004466715_031

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“big,” “divine” matters. I quote the second and third stanzas, which slide into an Augustan mythology of apotheosis, culminating in the ascent of Romulus under the divine name Quirinus:6

10

15

hac arte Pollux et vagus Hercules enisus arces attigit igneas, quos inter Augustus recumbens purpureo bibet ore nectar; hac te merentem, Bacche pater, tuae vexere tigres indocili iugum collo trahentes; hac Quirinus Martis equis Acheronta fugit …. By this practice Pollux and Hercules the wanderer strove upwards and reached the fiery citadels [of heaven]; Augustus will recline between them and drink nectar with crimson lips. By this practice you, father Bacchus, earned your place; your tigers bore you, drawing the yoke with their unruly necks. By this practice Quirinus evaded the Underworld on the chariot of Mars.7

Augustus will be drinking nectar, the divine counterpart of wine, with Pollux and Hercules, who attained the heavens by exerting the hyperbolic ethos of self-discipline in an uncertain world exemplified in the first two stanzas.8 Bacchus and Romulus provide like precedents for the ascent of worthy mortals to divinity after death.9 Nectar-drinking represents divine status again in 33–34, part of Juno’s long speech accepting Romulus’ apotheosis:

6 See Feeney (1991) 122–127 on the divine council scene in Enn. Ann. 54–55 Sk. (evidently Horace’s model) where Romulus’ deification—possibly Ennius’ invention—was deliberated. On the Romans’ increasing acceptance of the deification of mortals—notably Julius Caesar—in the later first century bce (with Romulus’ deification being one significant precedent), see Cole (2013); Koortbojian (2013). 7 Translations are my own. 8 For the sense “discipline, practice, behavior,” see OLD s.v. ars 4. Elsewhere Pollux is born immortal, and it is Castor who secondarily attains immortality: Cypria arg. p. 40.21–24 and fr. 8 Bernabé; Pi. N. 10.57–59. 9 Cf. Hor. Epist. 2.1.5–6 (to Augustus) Romulus et Liber pater et cum Castore Pollux / post ingentia facta deorum in templa recepti. Earlier, Cic. N.D. 2.62 lists the same gods (adding Aesculapius) as elevated in caelum for their beneficia.

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illum ego lucidas inire sedes, ducere nectaris sucos et ascribi quietis ordinibus patiar deorum I shall suffer him to enter these bright regions, to quaff drafts of nectar and be enrolled among the untroubled ranks of the gods.

Like Romulus, Augustus will join the gods as a god. Horace’s anticipation of the emperor’s apotheosis—which has parallels in Virgil, Georgics 1.24–42 and Ovid, Metamorphoses 15.861–87010—is plainly modeled on Theocritus 17.16–33 (out of 137 lines), on the already deceased Ptolemy i in the afterlife:11 τῆνον καὶ μακάρεσσι πατὴρ ὁμότιμον ἔθηκεν ἀθανάτοις, καί οἱ χρύσεος θρόνος ἐν Διὸς οἴκῳ δέδμηται· παρὰ δ’ αὐτὸν Ἀλέξανδρος φίλα εἰδώς ἑδριάει, Πέρσαισι βαρὺς θεὸς αἰολομίτρας. ἀντία δ’ Ἡρακλῆος ἕδρα κενταυροφόνοιο ἵδρυται στερεοῖο τετυγμένα ἐξ ἀδάμαντος· ἔνθα σὐν ἄλλοισιν θαλίας ἔχει Οὐρανίδῃσι, χαίρων υἱωνῶν περιώσιον υἱωνοῖσιν, ὅττι σφεων Κρονίδης μελέων ἐξείλετο γῆρας ἀθάνατοι δὲ καλεῦνται ἑοὶ νέποδες γεγαῶτες. ἄμφω γὰρ πρόγονός σφιν ὁ καρτερὸς Ἡρακλείδας ἀμφότεροι δ’ ἀριθμεῦνται ἐς ἔσχατον Ἡρακλῆα. τῷ καὶ ἐπεὶ δαίτηθεν ἴοι κεκορημένος ἤδη νέκταρος εὐόδμοιο φίλας ἐς δῶμ’ ἀλόχοιο, τῷ μὲν τόξον ἔδωκεν ὑπωλένιόν τε φαρέτραν, τῷ δὲ σιδάρειον σκύταλον κεχαραγμένον ὄζοις· οἳ δ’ εἰς ἀμβρόσιον θάλαμον λευκοσφύρου Ἥβας ὅπλα καὶ αὐτὸν ἄγουσι γενειήταν Διὸς υἱόν.

10 11

Cf. Aeneid 1.286–290 with O’Hara (1990) 155–163. On the intertext see Shanmugam (1995) 89–90; Harrison (2007) 185–186. On the Hellenistic tradition of encomium and Idyll 17’s place in it, see Cameron (1995) 268–273, 289–295; Barchiesi (1996) 6–7, 25–29; Hunter (2008) 8–24. My text of Theocritus is that of A.S.F. Gow (Oxford 1952).

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Him [Ptolemy i] the Father made equal in honor to the immortal gods, and for him a golden throne has been established in the house of Zeus. And next to him sits in friendship a god grievous to the Persians, Alexander of the flashing diadem.12 Across from them is set the hard adamantine chair of Heracles the Centaur-Slayer, and there with the other heavenly beings he holds festival, greatly rejoicing in the sons of his sons, because Zeus has removed age from their bodies and they, his progeny, are called immortals—for the mighty son of Heracles was the ancestor of them both, and both are counted in the line going back ultimately to Heracles. So when he, having had his fill of fragrant nectar, leaves the banquet for the home of his dear wife, he gives to one of them the bow and quiver from his arm and to the other his knotty iron club, and they bring the weapons and the bearded son of Zeus to the ambrosial chamber of white-ankled Hebe. Augustus intertextually replaces the Ptolemies; joining Heracles at drink with other gods is the common point around which Horace elaborates his imitation.13 This image goes back to Odyssey 11.603, where Odysseus recounts of Hercules’ divine avatar (as opposed to his Underworldly ghost) that he lives among the gods and “enjoys himself at their banquets” (τέρπεται ἐν θαλίῃς) with Hebe for his wife. In Ovid, Metamorphoses 9.237–238, prefiguring his apotheosis, it expresses Hercules’ endurance of his awful death on the pyre: “with an expression on your face as if you were reclining at a party, bedecked with garlands among cups brimming with wine” (haud alio vultu quam si conviva iaceres / inter plena meri redimitus pocula sertis). Idyll 17 begins with an analogy: of the gods, Zeus is to be sung first, middle, and last; but of men, Ptolemy.14 Similar is Odes 1.12, which uses the motif “let us begin from Jupiter” (13–16) and whose conclusion grants Augustus an analogous role on earth to Jupiter’s in heaven.15 Contemporary Greek poetry compares Augustus even more extravagantly to the god (in various tonalities): to take two examples, an anonymous epigram from Alexandria celebrating his deliverance

12 13 14

15

See Hunter (2003) ad loc. on the epithet αἰολομίτρας. Contra, Rhianus fr. 1.15–16 Powell (reacting to early Hellenistic royal ideology): it is the mark of the overambitious ruler to strive to heaven so as to feast among the gods. See Hunter (2003) ad loc., comparing e.g., Callimachus Hymn 1.79–80. That Idyll 17 actually ends with lines addressing Ptolemy ii hints at an even closer identification. The encomiast of Eclogue 8.11 (a te principium, tibi desinam) applies the trope to his dedicatee. See Nisbet/Hubbard (1970) 143–144 on Horace’s structural and thematic use of Idyll 17 in this ode.

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of Egypt from the Ptolemies identifies him with Zeus Eleutherios,16 and in Crinagoras, A.P. 9.224, Augustus’ goat likens herself to the one who nursed Zeus. In Georgics 4.460–461 Augustus “hurls lighting” ( fulminat) against his enemies; Ovid compares Augustus to Jupiter in Metamorphoses 1.204–205 and 15.857– 860, bookending the long poem, and he elaborates the trope further in his appeals from exile.17 In Horace’s expression “evaded the Underworld,” Romulus resembles Berenice i in Idyll 17.45–52, the pendant to the apotheosis of her husband Ptolemy i (and analogue to the marriage of Heracles and Hebe) just above:18 κάλλει ἀριστεύουσα θεάων πότν’ Ἀφροδίτα, σοὶ τήνα μεμέλητο· σέθεν δ’ ἕνεκεν Βερενίκα εὐειδὴς Ἀχέροντα πολύστονον οὐκ ἐπέρασεν, ἀλλά μιν ἁρπάξασα, πάροιθ’ ἐπὶ νῆα κατελθεῖν κυανέαν καὶ στυγνὸν ἀεὶ πορθμῆα καμόντων, ἐς ναὸν κατέθηκας, ἑᾶς δ’ ἀπεδάσσαο τιμᾶς. πᾶσιν δ’ ἤπιος ἥδε βροτοῖς μαλακοὺς μὲν ἔρωτας προσπνείει, κούφας δὲ διδοῖ ποθέοντι μερίμνας. O Aphrodite, reverend among goddesses, preeminent in beauty: she was in your care. On your account lovely Berenice did not cross the Acheron, river of much moaning, but you snatched her up before she could embark on the dark ship with the ever-fearsome ferryman of the dead and you set her in a temple and gave her a share of your own honor. She is kindly to all mortals and inspires gentle love; she makes a lover’s heartache bearable. Compare Idyll 15.106–108, where Theocritus—or rather his character, a competitive singer—has Aphrodite deify Berenice by applying ambrosia (the Greek word literally means “immortality”);19 Venus so immortalizes Aeneas in Ovid, Metamorphoses 14.597–607 (in a trope different from the catasterism, derived from Callimachus’ Lock of Berenice, that the same goddess bestows on Julius 16

17 18 19

SH 982.6, 13. On the epigram’s encomiastic style, applying to the Roman the monarchical discourse that Ptolemaic Greeks had adapted from native Egyptian tradition, see Koenen/Thompson (1984), Barbantani (1998). On the comparison of rulers to Zeus/Jupiter in encomiastic poetry, see Shanmugam (1995) 92–97. Theocritus’ Berenice, which may also have treated her death and apotheosis, is attested by an excerpt of barely five lines (fr. 3 Gow). The technique is used of mythological characters in [Hes.] fr. 23a.22–24 M/W (Iphigenia), H.H. 2.237 (Demophoön), Pi. P. 9.63 (Aristaeus), A.R. 4.870–872 (Achilles).

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Caesar in 15.843–851). In Idylls 15 and 17 Aphrodite’s favor is only vaguely connected with the personal virtues of the queen, alluded to in her introduction at 17.34–35 (οἵα δ’ ἐν πινυταῖσι περικλειτὰ Βερενίκα / ἔπρεπε θηλυτέραις, “as noble Berenice stood out among women of sensibility”), which immediately precedes a filial criterion (ὄφελος μέγα γειναμένοισι, “a great boon to her parents”) and the favor of the goddess during her life (35–37), which are not clearly motivated as far as this text is concerned.20 In Propertius 3.18.33 (a correction of 9–10) Marcellus’ soul, like Berenice, does not cross into the Underworld with the ferryman: it has ascended in astra, “to the stars.”21 There the stated exemplars, the Republican hero M. Claudius Marcellus (ancestor of the deceased) and Julius Caesar, make it ambiguous whether Marcellus’ good qualities (15 bona) or dynastic right have won him this privilege. In specifying in Odes 3.3.14–15 that Romulus’ path up to heaven came by self-disciplinary practice, hac [arte], Horace pulls back towards a less monarchical eschatology.

2

The Ox Roams Safely

Augustan poetry often seems to leave behind the princeps’s own claim to have restored the Roman republic and, instead of treating him as a high magistrate of unmatched auctoritas among his oligarchic peers (the appeal he himself makes in Res Gestae 34.3), treats him as something like a dynastic ruler of Hellenistic character. The “novelty of this … virtual monarchy,” as Lowrie describes it in exploring its expressions in Horace,22 precipitates a spectrum of discourses drawing on Greek traditions of royal encomium and involving not only Augustus’ future divine status (as in Odes 3.3), but the role of the king as protector of the people. For one thing, a Hellenistic ruler must defeat foreign enemies (Easterners in particular). In Idyll 17.98–103 the “spearmanship” of Ptolemy ii deters foes from invading the villages of the Nile and wreaking havoc among the herds of Egypt. Lines 19–20 call Alexander “a god grievous to the Persians” and 20 21

22

Theocritus refers to the Ptolemies’ ancestry the great deeds of Ptolemy i (13–15), and of the heroes born of demigods (5–6), to whom he likens the Ptolemies (5–6). See also Bassus, A.P. 7.391.3–4, where Pluto happily concedes that Germanicus is “of the stars, not mine; Acheron has no room for a vessel large enough for him” (Γερμανικὸς ἄστρων, / οὐκ ἐμός· οὐ χωρεῖ νῆα τόσην Ἀχέρων). Cf. CLE 1109 = CIL 6.21521, a Flavian inscription for a private person (with Reed (2002) 227–228). A verbal precedent for both Theocritus and Horace is Pi. fr. 143 Maehler κεῖνοι γάρ τ’ ἄνοσοι καὶ ἀγήραοι / πόνων τ’ ἄπειροι, βαρυβόαν / πορθμὸν πεφευγότες Ἀχέροντος. Lowrie (2007) 77.

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Heracles “Centaur-Slayer,” invoking for Ptolemaic exemplars antagonisms that Classical Greeks had used to construct themselves through contrast. Roman poetry adapts this strategy of identity and opposition for praise of the new ruler. Georgics 2.171–172 and 4.461 juxtapose the productive peace of Italy to Augustus’ (imaginary) battles against menacing Indians and Parthians; the shield bestowed on Aeneas in Aeneid 8 elaborates a vision of the Battle of Actium in similar terms. Just as the Carthaginians “now already shudder” at the approach of Hiero (Idyll 16.76–77 ἤδη νῦν … ἐρρίγασιν), so do the even more distant realms of the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Azov at the even less imminent coming of Augustus in Anchises’ prophecy (Aeneid 6.798–799 iam nunc … horrent). Horace’s poetry constantly makes Roman success depend on the future defeat of Parthia, on the recent one of Egypt, and on the Republic’s elimination of Carthage. So in Odes 3.3.44 Juno represents the power she concedes to Rome with the phrase dare iura Medis, “legislate to the Medes” (the ethnonym assimilates the Parthians of Horace’s time to the West Asian empire of the Archaic Greek period). The global vision of Odes 1.12.53–56 and 4.15.23 imagines Augustus protecting Latium against, and triumphing over, not only the Parthians but the Indians and Chinese. Among other signs of a placid, productive countryside under the good ruler,23 consider the grazing cattle, undisturbed thanks to Hiero and Ptolemy, in Idylls 16.92–93 and 17.100–101. Barchiesi (1996) 14, discussing the influence of Theocritean encomium in Book 4 of the Odes, observes: “At 4.5.17, tutus bos etenim rura perambulat [‘the ox roams safely around the countryside’], the oxen are certainly ‘safe’ because of the absence of war and raiders, but the conceit is clearer if we think that Italian oxen are protected by Augustus … In general, 4.4 and 4.15 pick up the themes of just rule and prosperity that are elaborated by Theocritus for the emergence of Hiero in 16 and for Ptolemaic world power in 17.” General panegyrics to the land’s bounty under the ruler ring out in Theocritus 15.112–118, 16.90–93, and 17.95–101; notable such statements by Horace occur at the end of the Odes (4.15.4–12) and the opening of the second book of Epistles (1.1–4), both times coupled with Augustus’ protection of Italy from enemies. With Tityrus’ relief in Eclogue 1.6–10 (o Meliboee deus nobis haec otia fecit … mihi semper deus, “a god gave me this restfulness, Meliboeus … always a god shall I consider him”) compare the basic assumptions of the urban Greek woman in Theocritus, Idyll 15.46–49:

23

For the fertility of the land and livestock under a righteous ruler (a notion that goes back far in Greek: cf. Hes. W&D 225–247, Od. 19.109–113) in Hellenistic and Augustan encomium, see Du Quesnay (1977) 60, Shanmugam (1995) 59–71.

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πολλά τοι, ὦ Πτολεμαῖε, πεποίηται καλὰ ἔργα ἐξ ὧ ἐν ἀθανάτοις ὁ τεκών· οὐδεὶς κακοεργός δαλεῖται τὸν ἰόντα παρέρπων Αἰγυπτιστί Many good deeds have you done, O Ptolemy, since your father has been among the immortals. No malefactor sneaks up in Egyptian style and does an ill turn to someone walking along. There, ironically, a guarantee shared with native Egyptian ideology—note the way Praxinoa attributes the good order of the land to the living king’s proper succession to the place of the deified one—is turned against “others” internal to Egypt, as if this monarchy were for the benefit of Hellenes only, contrary to the Ptolemies’ own syncretistic formulation of their sovereignty.24 Effusions by naive characters derived from Theocritean mime can provide distance for a Roman poet experimenting with Hellenistic encomiastic norms, like Virgil in Eclogue 1 (above) or in Eclogue 9.46–49: Daphni, quid antiquos signorum suspicis ortus? ecce Dionaei processit Caesaris astrum, astrum quo segetes gauderent frugibus et quo duceret apricis in collibus uva colorem. Daphnis, why do you gaze up at the older risings of the signs? Lo, the star of Venus’ scion, Caesar, has come forth, the star under which the crops shall rejoice in their grain and the grapes take on color on a sunny hillside. Through the narratological layers at issue here—Lycidas is quoting part of a song he remembers hearing Moeris sing—emerges a Romanization of Ptolemaic royal encomium, placed in the mouth of a Greek-named character quoting another such. The hypallagic antiquos is a poetic and political signpost to the Caesarian party’s (no more specific champion has emerged at this stage) succession to the Ptolemies’ imperial deserts, as Aeneas’ descendant Caesar (not yet identified with the star as he will be in Metamorphoses 15.850 or as Augustus will be, prospectively, in Georgics 1.32) replaces the likes of Berenice as Aphrodite’s favorite, to the special benefit of the crops—and Virgil’s trope of praise replaces that of the Alexandrians.25

24 25

Reed (2000) 345. I owe this reading of antiquos to Peter Makhlouf.

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Hunter (2008) 380, noting in Georgics 2.155 (adde tot egregias urbes operumque laborem, “and think, moreover, of so many magnificent cities and the work of human effort”) an adaptation of 17.81 (οὐδέ τις ἄστεα τόσσα βροτῶν ἔχει ἔργα δαέντων, “nor does any [country] have so many cities and works of skilled folk”),26 finds in Virgil’s laudes Italiae (2.135–176) a general reworking of Theocritus’ praise of Ptolemaic Egypt in the Encomium. “The evocation of the Theocritean passage,” he concludes (p. 382), “suggests a set of parallels and contrasts, not just between Italy and Egypt, but between Ptolemy and the maximus Caesar who is now said to be campaigning in the distant East to protect Italy, embodying for all the world the standard public rhetoric of the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies … The laudes Italiae seek to establish Italy and its ruler as the centre of the poetical world, and to do so they must efface Egypt and its rulers.” This effacement through imitation has a political analogue in the princeps’ own actions. Part of what enables Odes 3.3 and other Augustan encomiastic poetry is, of course, not only that Augustus was analogous to a king in Rome, but that he was in fact king, at least in Egypt, holding the very throne that the Ptolemies had (as in Greek he could be considered βασιλεύς).27 Although not officially crowned after his defeat of Cleopatra, Augustus permitted the Egyptian hierarchy to treat him as a traditional king in the ways they had the Ptolemies. Hölbl, who traces the development of his pharaonic persona, speaks of a “cultic” or “hieroglyphic” king, assuring the perpetuation of the state religion on which Egyptian order, symbolic and real, had depended for millennia.28 His advisors and agents in this enterprise would have been not only the priests—who presumably composed his many hieroglyphic inscriptions—but also Alexandrians like his teacher, the Stoic philosopher Arius, who accompanied him into Alexandria upon its capitulation and doubtless served as an intermediary, familiarizing the conqueror with local protocols.29 Dundas (2002) 439 considers Octavian “far too astute a politician to overlook the supreme opportunity that Egypt presented him to utilize the most sophisticated system of symbolic representation ever created in the ancient world—perhaps in all of human history—to his advantage.” In Rome itself Augustus’ dedication of obelisks to Sol (for a victory tactfully ascribed to the Roman people)30 in

26 27 28 29 30

Note the phonetic echo of οὐδέ τις in adde tot. E.g., Antip. Thess. A.P. 10.25.5. Hölbl (2000) 18; cf. Dundas (2002) 443–444; Pfeiffer (2010) 49–50; on the Ptolemies, Koenen (1993). Plut. Ant. 80.1–3, Dio 51.16.4; Pfeiffer (2010) 42–43. CIL vi 701–702 Imp. Caesar divi f. Augustus Pontifex Maximus … Aegupto in potestatem populi Romani redacta Soli donum dedit.

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a gigantic calendrical device on the Campus Martius and in the Circus Maximus, which was distinguished from Republican times by a temple to Sol31 is thus an Augustan interpretatio of their function in Egypt, where kings set up obelisks in honor of the sun god. Kákosy puts it this way: “The obelisks, immortalizing the coming of Egypt under Roman dominion, at the same time advertised its glorious past and the greatness of its gods—now champions of Augustus.”32 Augustus was selectively appropriating from a Ptolemaic system of appropriation—more precisely, from that of his defeated rival Cleopatra, as Kleiner explains, tracing in the Augustan cultural program a triumphant rival to hers. The effect is of a rhetorical victory using the adversary’s own arguments. Barchiesi (1996) 14–15 well describes this technique of mimetic replacement as it plays out in Odes 4.14: “Horace describes Augustus as dominating the Nile and the Ocean—Nilus … beluosus Oceanus [46–48]—and the hapax beluosus [‘full of monsters’] seems directed toward another hapax, Theocritus’ use of πολυκήτης [‘full of monsters’] for the Nile in his encomium (17.98) …. When in 4.14 the rehearsal of Augustus’ success still culminates (in retrospect) with supplex Alexandrea opening up its famous harbors and the empty Court to the new master [35–36] …, the pattern becomes almost self-reflexive: in response to Augustus’ conquest of the Ptolemaic kingdom, the Roman poet appropriates (and reshapes) the celebratory language of Alexandrian praise poets. The empty aula welcomes a new adaptation of court poetry.” Horace evinces a thicker, more ideological engagement with Egypt than even studies of his parallels with Egyptian sympotic motifs in the Odes have suggested.33 Tropes of divine rulership first visibly enter Roman poetry with Ennius, whose epigram on Scipio Africanus the Elder, conqueror of Carthage, ends si fas endo plagas caelestum ascendere cuiquam est / mi soli caeli maxima porta patet (“If it is right for any person to ascend into the regions of the heavenly powers, to me alone the great portal of heaven stands open”).34 In a time when Roman leaders like Flamininus were being granted divine honors by Greeks, could they find the same in Latin literature—that is to say, in the now twogeneration-old imitation of a Greek literary system that entailed a panoply of encomiastic discourses? In his Scipio, as in his Romulus (and for that matter his Aeneas, who dwells in heaven in Annales 44–49 Skutsch), Ennius—whose 31 32 33 34

Tac. Ann. 15.74. Kákosy (1967) 314. West (1969) 128–133; Koenen (1976) 127–128. Fr. 44 Courtney. Cf. the “fiery citadels” of heaven attained by Pollux and Hercules in Hor. C. 3.3.10.

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translation of Euhemerus would also have made him a significant theorist of apotheosis in the Roman tradition—begins a contestation over the autocratic possibilities that Greek literature carried into Latin and into Rome. As Rome grew to power within the Hellenistic political world, that world’s forms of expression became models for public forms of expression in Latin,35 an inevitable part of Rome’s inheritance from Hellenistic culture, realized ever more fully—although still with contestation and tensions—in the late Republic’s drift towards autocracy and finally with the new regime that began concomitantly with Augustus’ accession to the Egyptian throne.

3

The Untroubled Ranks of the Gods

The glimpse of a celestial symposium in Idyll 17 is only one of Theocritus’ depictions of deities who have special connections to the Ptolemaic dynasty, principally those who started as mortals and model the transition between human and divine. Theocritus offers narratives—often hymnic, often mixed with dramatic dialogue and framed by first-person commentary—of Heracles’ lovesick search for Hylas (Idyll 13), the marriage of Helen and Menelaus (Idyll 18), the exploits of Helen’s brothers Castor and Polydeuces (Idyll 22), Heracles’ childhood and youth (Idyll 24), and Bacchus’ chastisement of Pentheus (Idyll 26). We could conceive of a Theocritean pantheon, following Stephens, who invokes a wider mythopoetic program on the Ptolemies’ part “to link themselves with Alexander and the Macedonian royal house in order to bolster their own claims to legitimacy and/or divinity (Dionysus, Heracles), or to articulate Greek claims to North Africa (the legend of the Argonauts, Helen in Egypt).”36 If the Roman pantheon of deified mortals constantly appearing in Augustan poetry to justify Augustus’ claims to power—Dardanus, Aeneas, Romulus, and Caesar— differs from the Theocritean, we can nevertheless trace Augustan reflections of Theocritus’ Ptolemaic roster, too, which in Odes 3.3 Horace deftly dovetails with a Roman program (Romulus and Augustus are obviously Roman; Bacchus, Hercules, and the Dioscuri had long received worship in Rome). Helen is not prominent (perhaps partly because of the comparatively androcentric nature of the Julio-Claudian regime; neither is marriage as much at issue as it is in

35 36

Cf. Feeney (2016). Stephens in Fantuzzi/Papanghelis (2006) 96. See also Griffiths (1979) 51–106; Rice (1983) on the deities displayed in Ptolemy ii’s grand procession of Dionysus; more generally, Fraser (1972) 1.189–301.

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Idyll 17),37 but her brothers appear frequently in the Odes—joined in 1.12.25, for example, by Hercules amid other deities, including Bacchus, and at 4.5.35–36 in a prolonged encomium of Augustus. Barchiesi (1996) 41 notes that Horace’s “lines on Castor and Pollux, clarum Tyndaridae sidus ab infimis / quassas eripiunt aequoribus ratis (4.8.31–32 [‘as a bright star the Dioscuri rescue battered ships from the depths of the sea’]), are in fact a reworking of Theocritus 22, ἀλλ’ ἔμπης ὑμεῖς γε καὶ ἐκ βυθοῦ ἕλκετε νῆας (17 [‘yet nevertheless you [the Dioscuri] rescue ships from the depths’]).” Theocritean tropes can also be repurposed for purely Augustan figures. Compare Idyll 17.17–18 “and for [Ptolemy i] a golden throne has been established in the house of Zeus” (καί οἱ χρύσεος θρόνος ἐν Διὸς οἴκῳ / δέδμηται) with Latinus’ asseveration, unattested elsewhere (and dubious even within the Aeneid),38 concerning Dardanus, the originator of Aeneas’ family line: Aeneid 7.209–211 “a golden palace in the starry heavens has received him upon a throne, and by his altars he increases the count of the gods” (illum … aurea nunc solio stellantis regia caeli / accipit et numerum divorum altaribus auget). “Starry,” used of the destination there, blends in a Callimachean trope, recalling the Lock of Berenice.39 The “twin flames” (geminas flammas) bursting from either side of Augustus’ head at the battle of Actium in 8.680–681 couple an endorsement by the star-like Dioscuri40 with that of the deified or even catasterized predecessor (patriumque aperitur vertice sidus, “and his father’s star appeared over his head”). In a relief from Augustus’ Palatine temple of Apollo, the emperor’s patron deity, the god contests with Hercules control over the Delphic tripod.41 Heracles—the linchpin in the intertext between Odes 3.3 and Idyll 17—was, on principle, the ancestor of every Macedonian aristocrat (through his son Temenus) and thus of the Hellenistic royal houses.42 He occurs elsewhere in

37

38 39

40 41 42

Note that Odes 3.3.64 (coniuge me Iovis et sorore), eight lines from the end and so corresponding to Idyll 17.130 on Ptolemy ii and Arsinoe (ἐκ θυμοῦ στέργοισα κασίγνητόν τε πόσιν τε), serves a different purpose: here not an Isiac legitimization of the monarchs (cf. Reed (2000) 337), but the guarantee of Juno’s power to destroy Troy in vengeance (cf. Aen. 1.46– 47). See Aen. 6.650. On the apotheotic tropes of the Lock, see Selden (1998) 326–354. Other Roman foundational figures “ascend to the stars” after death: cf. e.g., Aen. 1.259–260, 12.794–795 (Aeneas); Met. 15.843–851 (Julius Caesar’s soul becomes a comet, with echoes of Callimachus’ Lock; on the star of Caesar in Augustan ideology see Pandey (2013)). Rebeggiani (2013) 60–63. Cf. Kellum (1997) 158–161 on the political allegory. Fraser (1972) 1.45; Cameron (1995) 199–200, 245–246.

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early Ptolemaic poetry,43 but is especially prominent in the extant work of Theocritus. In Idylls 17 and 24 he exemplifies the intermediary or “shuttle” between two different realms of existence that, according to Griffiths, is fundamental to Theocritus’ vision of Ptolemaic kingship, providing grand mythological prototypes for the dual nature of the Philadelphoi’s parents and themselves between mortality and divinity: a Hellenic figure for an Egyptian monarchical trope.44 In Augustan culture, as the Palatine relief might suggest, Hercules emblematizes the double-edged semantics of Hellenistic culture in Roman hands. As ancestor of both Cleopatra and Antony45 he was “other,” yet still as appropriable as anything formerly possessed by Augustus’ opponents.46 Propertius gives his relationship with Hylas a love-elegiac treatment (1.20, following Theocritus 13) and offers a roisterous etiology of his Ara Maxima cult (4.9); he also comes into etiologies in Ovid’s Fasti. In Metamorphoses 9 the apotheosis of Hercules (who weaves in and out of the narrative of his generation of heroes in Books 7 through 12 and, as god, dictates a colonization in Book 15) heads off a roster that will resume with the apotheoses of Roman founders in Books 14 and 15: Aeneas, Romulus, Julius Caesar, and (prospectively) Augustus47—as if his exemplarity were diverted to a different genealogical line, away from the Hellenistic dynasties that followed Alexander and from whom Rome had finally wrested his global empire. In Aeneid 8 Evander recollects him as a paradigmatic civilizing hero in his defeat of the monstrous Cacus, but not without the pain (for the listening Aeneas) of the hero’s destruction of Troy being included among his laudes (287–291). The late Augustan period saw poetry on Hercules, according to Ovid, Ex Ponto 4.16.7–8: “and Carus, who would have offended Juno by his Hercules, had that hero not been married to Juno’s daughter by then” (et qui Iunonem laesisset in Hercule, Carus, / Iunonis si iam non gener ille foret).48 The resentment of Juno and its resolution are, of course, a driving force in the Aeneid, crucial to Roman foundation, and their application to Hercules would have let Carus explore cultural spaces that Virgil opened up. Ovid’s epigram43 44 45 46 47 48

E.g., Callim. Aet. i and iii; cf. Harder (2012) ii.214. Griffiths (1979) 60; cf. 53 “all depicted in the process of rising above their mortal origins.” Cf. Koenen (1977), Stephens (2003) 122–170. Through an otherwise unattested son Anton: Plut. Ant. 4.2; cf. App. B.C. 3.16, 19. On Antony’s cultivation of Hercules as a patron deity, see Zanker (1988) 45–47, 57–60. Cf. Kampen (1996), Galinsky (1996) 222–224, Reed (2006). See Barkan (1986) 82–85; Feeney (1991) 206–214. Cf. Pont. 4.13.11–12; lines 47–48 have been interpreted to mean that this Carus was tutor to Germanicus’ children—who, as great grandchildren of Antony, would have been descendants of Hercules.

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matic emphasis on the hero’s marriage to Hebe may imply that Carus recurred to the themes treated in Theocritus 17.32–33. In Aeneid 6.801–805 Anchises pairs Hercules with Bacchus in order to teach Aeneas the greatness and historical significance of Augustus: nec vero Alcides tantum telluris obivit, fixerit aeripedem cervam licet, aut Erymanthi pacarit nemora et Lernam tremefecerit arcu; nec qui pampineis victor iuga flectit habenis Liber, agens celso Nysae de vertice tigris. Truly, neither Alcides covered so much of the earth, for all that he shot the bronze-footed deer, or pacified the woods of Erymanthus and made Lerna tremble at his bow; nor Liber, who steers his chariot with vine-leafcovered reins, driving tigers down from the high peak of Nysa. What is specially relevant to this comparison is that Antony cultivated and emulated these two gods, with weighty significance for his status as a consort of Cleopatra and thus a ruler of a Greco-Egyptian empire and conceptual heir to Alexander the Great, who had long been associated with Heracles and Bacchus (as global conquerors and civilizers).49 As in Horace’s adaptation of Idyll 17 in Odes 3.3, Alexander—the paradigmatic Hellenistic ruler, the legitimizing link between older, Eastern monarchical formations and the Macedonian dynasties that succeeded him, and perhaps too close to the Ptolemies (and Cleopatra in particular) for Augustan poets to invoke more directly—is subsumed within the divine figures.50 Again the effect is that of a rhetorical victory using the adversary’s own arguments: Augustus does not merely surpass, but usurps the greatness of Antony’s gods.51 In Alexandria he had ostentatiously rejected a visit to the Ptolemies’ tombs in favor of one to Alexander’s;52 Virgil in turn is subtextually assimilating Augustus to Alexander as conqueror of the East, like 49

50

51 52

See Rice (1983) 83–85 on Alexander and Bacchus; Reed (1998) 404–407 on Antony. In Antony’s case the identification of Dionysus with Osiris (current since at least Hdt. 2.42.2; cf. Fraser (1972) 1.206), along with that of Cleopatra with Isis, would also have bolstered the couple’s royal authority in native terms. On Heracles’ connection with Macedonian nobles, see n. 42. Cf. Du Quesnay (1977) 58 on Ecl. 4: “The particular combination of Hercules, Dionysus and Achilles (36) inevitably recalls Alexander, the obvious model for Antonius as he prepared for his Parthian campaigns.” Reed (1998) 413–414; (2007) 158–159. Cf. Bosworth (1999) 3–7. Suet. Aug. 18.1, Dio 51.16.5.

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other Roman generals who had taken Alexander as a model (Marius, Pompey, Caesar, and Antony), and making him the ultimate, definitive Roman Alexander. Augustus implicitly takes over and betters Antony’s role and rule in a discursive agōn similar to the one Kleiner traces in his urban and more broadly cultural program. Feeney (1998) 56 sees the Virgilian Hercules as escaping human categories into divine ones “as Aeneas had done, as Julius Caesar had done, and as Caesar’s son, Augustus, was himself doing”: a Theocritean “shuttle” adapted to the Roman dynasty. Horace begins Odes 3.14—which ends with him giving up, in mature and more complacent age, fights not only over women, but against the idea of a Hellenistic-style ruler in Rome (25–28)—by comparing Augustus to Hercules, both for escaping death and returning victorious from Spain (1–4): a justification for Augustus’ supremacy over the earth, which he keeps in peace and order (14–16). An early example of this symbolism is Eclogue 4, where the prophesied boy—heaven-sent ruler, peace-bringer to the world—has a subtextual model in Hercules53 (his own ancestor, if he is the prospective child of Antony and Octavia, just as Theocritus’ Idylls 17 and 24 more overtly offer Hercules as a model for his descendants the Ptolemies). At the poem’s conclusion the boy is hoped to be worthy of a god’s table (63): a Theocritean banquet. Du Quesnay (1977) 52–68, citing specific verbal parallels but emphasizing the basic encomiastic function of both texts,54 discusses Eclogue 4 as “an imitation of Idyll 17”55 that fashions the princely role of the boy after one that Caesar might have played, one that Romans of the Triumviral period could have remembered him as aspiring to. Here is a tentative but assured insinuation of a royal encomiastic style for an emerging Roman autocracy—within the frame of consular government (line 3), and maintaining the double distance of a herdsman-singer’s voice reporting a Sibylline prophecy. In Eclogue 5 the extravagant terms in which the two herdsmen lament and exalt their fellow herdsman Daphnis—evidently a friend of theirs, dead a year or more (lines 36–39, 52, 54)—also exploit the discourse aimed at Hellenistic rulers (accounting in part for Servius’ claim that Julius Caesar is being lamented here under Daphnis’ character). Daphnis will receive altars; he resembles Bacchus;56 he presides over a new age of peace and bounty. Steph-

53 54 55 56

Clausen (1994) 122–123. See Harrison (2007) 43 on the admixture of encomium to pastoral here. Cf. Williams (1968) 274; Hunter (2008) 379. Like Bacchus in Odes 3.3.14, he harnesses tigers in lines 29–30.

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ens brings out the political—the encomiastic—function already implicit in Theocritus’ pastoral mimes,57 the foremost literary model of the Eclogues; Virgil heightens that function (as with the tropes in Eclogues 1 and 9 discussed above). Augustus’ own special deity, Apollo, enters the mythopoeia of the time in texts too numerous to list,58 first significantly in the Eclogues (e.g., conjoined with Daphnis in worship at 5.66 and at 6.3 in a context both programmatic and encomiastic) and, in an indirect encomium of Augustus, in Georgics 3.36 as “the founder of Troy” (Troiae Cynthius auctor). In Aeneid 3.345 he is the god who (so Aeneas tells Dido) ordains the Trojans’ migration to Italy; in 8.704 Vulcan depicts him presiding over Augustus’ defeat of Antony and Cleopatra below his temple at Actium, a Greco-Roman god repelling a disorderly, barbarous host.59 Another appropriation and reversal: the opposition to Eastern foes (also an aspect of Bacchus’ persona that made it useful for constructions of Hellenistic rulers) itself corresponds to an Egyptian royal trope, taken up by Ptolemaic culture,60 by which the king is king by virtue of his battling chaotic Asian forces. Apollo, too, has a place in the Ptolemies’ special pantheon. His appearance in Theocritus’ Idyll 17 as a model for Ptolemy ii is used by Virgil, according to Hunter, to structure the encomiastic content (particularly the sacrifices to the young “god”) at the center of Eclogue 1: “it is precisely the central section of Theocritus’ poem which describes the birth of Ptolemy as a new Apollo, and it is the Apolline nature of the iuuenis which is also foregrounded by Virgil.”61 In fact the Augustans, and Augustus, could take advantage not only of Apollo’s availability within Roman political theology, but, where the Ptolemaic background is concerned, of syncretism between Apollo and Horus, the divine counterpart to the living king in Egypt.62 Augustus appears in pharaonic guise as “Horus, the beautiful youth, the strong of arm” (Ḥr ḥwn-nfr ṯm3-‘) on, for example, the trilingual Philae stele. These Egyptian titles are more than honorific; his identity as Horus, son of Osiris, is an Egyptian way of calling him avenger and rightful heir of his father, legitimate successor to the kingship. In Augustus’ tricultural program his sovereignty can be diversely buttressed by his identities as divi filius,

57 58 59 60 61 62

Stephens in Fantuzzi/Papanghelis (2006) 91–117. Miller (2009) traces in detail Apollo’s growth in significance in Roman culture of the Augustan period. Cf. e.g., Prop. 4.6. Selden (1998) 334–337. Hunter (2008) 380. Cf. Kleiner (2005) 183. On Callimachus’ (and more generally the Ptolemies’) use of this syncretistic figure, see Selden (1998) 368–405, Stephens (2003) 171–237.

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θεοῦ υἱός, and z3 nṯr.63 Augustus is doing something Ptolemaic, and doing it better than the Ptolemies had—or at least with a more comprehensive syllepsis.

4

Pathways to Olympus

Of the apotheosized beings in Odes 3.3.9–15, Augustus is the only one of whom Horace does not specify that he earned his way to heaven by the ars delineated in the ode’s opening lines. That qualification might be implicit in his case—and the Odes are replete with praise of Augustus’ virtues and worldwide benefactions compatible with the justice, steady purpose, fearlessness in the face of both tyrants and unruly mobs, and other attributes of virile ars outlined in lines 1–8—but its absence may equally well mean that Augustus is exempt from that requirement, and is to attain his place among the gods otherwise. If so, what puts him there? To speak more generally, what sets him apart from other Roman aristocrats, who might reach heaven only by the more abstract, merit-based path suggested in the previous ode, “valor that opens the path to heaven for those who do not deserve to die” (3.2.21–22 virtus recludens immeritis mori / caelum), one more or less compatible with that expounded, for example, by Cicero’s Scipio for Republican worthies in the Somnium Scipionis? Ancestry would seem to make the difference: of the competing ancestries of aspirers to Roman rule in the late Republic, that of the Julii, traced back to Jupiter through Venus and the founders of Rome, won. All of Horace’s apotheosized figures in Odes 3.3 are descended from a god, as is the criterion for the Ptolemies, particularly as laid out by Theocritus. Horace fits this criterion to a merit-based frame, from which only Augustus might escape. The interrelated imperatives of ancestry and legitimate succession can become much more exacerbated: in Metamorphoses 15.760–761 the Ovidian narrator, executing an audacious pluperfect subjunctive of purpose, will justify Caesar’s deification partly on the grounds that ne foret hic igitur mortali semine cretus / ille deus faciendus erat (“[Julius] had to become a god so that [Augustus] might not have grown from mortal seed”), a startling variation on the originally Egyptian idea implicit in Theocritus that the present ruler derives his or her potency and legitimacy from the proper veneration of the predecessor.64 Horace could, of course, bend his encomium closer to oligarchic tenets— to the extent, in Odes 4.7.15, of adducing Aeneas for the mortality of even 63 64

On the inscriptions and titles, see Kákosy (1967) 309, 313; Hölbl (2000) 18–22; Hoffmann et al. (2009) 70–71. Cf. Theoc. 15.46–47, 110–111; 17.121–125; Shanmugam (1995) 134–135.

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the pious65—and find a model in Theocritus there, too. Barchiesi (1996) 15– 17 traces in Odes 4.8 and 9 the distinctive influence of Idyll 16, where no divine teleology subtends the greatness or praise of Hiero ii; his is a Homeric or Pindaric glory, brought about through kleos, particularly as guaranteed by the work of poets. In Odes 4.8.21–33, virtus and poetic commemoration jointly immortalize a roster of gods and demigods partly shared with 3.3: Romulus, Aeacus, Hercules, the Dioscuri, and Bacchus. As Berenice was snatched away from Acheron to divinity in Idyll 17.48 and Romulus in Odes 3.314–315, so Aeacus (analogous to the Roman dedicatee) is snatched away from the Styx to the Isles of the Blessed in Odes 4.8.25—but by virtus, favor, and the tongues of mighty poets, not by a Venus or a Mars.66 Caelo Musa beat (29): the Muse bestows the blessing of heaven. Patronage, not rulership per se, becomes the issue—and indeed Odes 4.8 and 9 are dedicated to men of consular rank unrelated to Augustus. We have been observing various tactics and approaches to appreciating the new Principate, even within the same poet’s work, ranging from an at least superficially Republican appropriation of monarchical discourse to a fullblown embrace of royal apotheosis. These interpellations into mythologies of political persuasiveness constitute new modes of appropriating prior systems of appropriation, among them those accomplished by Theocritus. And as Hinds has argued, Hellenizing revolutions in Latin poetry “operate through a revision of previous Hellenizing revolutions, a revision which can be simultaneously an appropriation and a denial.”67 The Augustan agön with Ptolemaic imperial culture is analogous to, and operates through, one with earlier Latin poets as well as with Greek—and the ars of human transcendence in Odes 3.3 operates through that other ars of poets reading other poets. For Augustan poets, the emperor’s status licenses a closer approach to Hellenism than their Hellenizing precursors could achieve and challenges them to adjust Hellenistic encomium to Roman norms—as much through artistic zelõsis or aemulatio as because of the political change that they saw consolidated in their lifetimes, as Rome succeeded to Egypt’s imperial position in world history.

65 66

67

See Thomas ad loc. on the “pointed questioning” here of Jupiter’s promise of Aeneas’ divinity to Venus in Aeneid 1.259–260. Cf. the salvation Pindar’s thrënoi offer to the deceased in Odes 4.2.22–24: viris animumque moresque / aureos educit in astra nigroque / invidet Orco (“[Pindar] lifts [the man’s] strength, his courage, and his golden character among the stars and denies them to dark Orcus”). Hinds (1998) 55.

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Bibliography Barbantani, S. (1998), “Un epigramma ecomiastico ‘alessandrino’ per Augusto (SH 982),” AevAnt 11, 255–344. Barchiesi, A. (1996), “Poetry, Praise, and Patronage: Simonides in Book 4 of Horace’s Odes,” ClAnt 15, 5–47. Barkan, L. (1986), The Gods Made Flesh (New Haven). Bosworth, B. (1999), “Augustus, the Res Gestae and Hellenistic Theories of Apotheosis,” JRS 89, 1–18. Cameron, A. (1995), Callimachus and His Critics (Princeton). Clausen, W. (1995), Virgil: Eclogues (Oxford). Cole, S. (2013), Cicero and the Rise of Deification at Rome (Cambridge). Dundas, G.S. (2002), “Augustus and the Kingship of Egypt,” Historia 51, 433–448. Du Quesnay, I.M.LeM. (1977), “Vergil’s Fourth Eclogue,” PLLS 1, 25–99. Fantuzzi, M./Papanghelis, Th. (eds.), (2006), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden). Feeney, D.C. (1991), The Gods in Epic (Oxford). Feeney, D.C. (1998), Literature and Religion at Rome (Cambridge). Feeney, D. (2016), Beyond Greek: The Beginnings of Latin Literature (Harvard). FGE = D.L. Page (1981), Further Greek Epigrams (Cambridge). Fraser, P.M. (1972), Ptolemaic Alexandria, 3 vols (Oxford). Galinsky, K. (1996), Augustan Culture (Princeton). Griffiths, F.T. (1979), Theocritus at Court (Leiden). Harder, A. (2012), Callimachus: Aetia, 2 vols. (Oxford). Harrison, S.J. (2007), Generic Enrichment in Vergil & Horace (Oxford). Hinds, S. (1998), Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry. (Cambridge). Hoffmann, F./ Minas-Nerpel, M./Pfeiffer, S. (2009), Die dreisprachige Stele des C. Cornelius Gallus: Übersetzung und Kommentar (Berlin). Hölbl, G. (2000), Altägypten im römischen Reich (Mainz am Rhein). Hunter, R. (2008), On Coming After (Berlin). Kákosy, L. (1967), “Augustus és Egyiptom,” Antik tudalmányok 14, 307–315. Kampen, N.B. (1996), “Omphale and the Instability of Gender,” in N.B. Campen (ed.), Sexuality and Ancient Art, (Cambridge) 233–246. Keeline, T. (2017), “A Poet on the Margins: Vergil and the Theocritean Scholia,” CP 112, 456–478. Kellum, B. (1997), “Concealing/Revealing: Gender and the Play of Meaning in the Monuments of Augustan Rome,” in T. Habinek/A. Schiesaro (eds.), The Roman Cultural Revolution (Cambridge) 158–181. Kleiner, D.E.E. (2005), Cleopatra and Rome (Harvard).

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Koenen, L. (1976), “Egyptian Influence in Tibullus,” ICS 1, 127–159. Koenen, L. (1977), Eine agonistische Inschrift aus Ägypten und frühptolemäische Königsfeste (Meisenheim am Glan). Koenen, L. (1993), “The Ptolemaic King as a Religious Figure,” in A. Bulloch et al., (eds.), Images and Ideologies: Self-definition in the Hellenistic World (Berkeley) 25– 115. Koenen, L./Thompson, D.B. (1984), “Gallus as Triptolemos on the Tazza Farnese,” BASP 21, 111–156. Koortbojian, M. (2013), The Divinization of Caesar and Augustus (Cambridge). Lowrie, M. (2007), “Horace and Augustus,” in S.J. Harrison (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Horace (Cambridge) 77–89. Miller, J.F. (2009), Apollo, Augustus, and the Poets (Cambridge). Nisbet, R.G.M./Hubbard, M. (1970), A Commentary on Horace: Odes Book i (Oxford). Nisbet, R.G.M./Rudd, N. (2004), A Commentary on Horace: Odes Book iii (Oxford). O’Hara, J.J. (1990), Death and the Optimistic Prophecy in Vergil’s Aeneid (Princeton). OLD = P.G.W. Glare, ed. Oxford Latin Dictionary. Oxford 1982. Pandey, N. (2013), “Caesar’s Comet, the Julian Star, and the Invention of Augustus,” TAPA 143, 405–449. Pfeiffer, S. (2010), Der römische Kaiser und das Land am Nil (Stuttgart). Rebeggiani, S. (2013), “Reading the Republican Forum: Virgil’s Aeneid, the Dioscuri, and the Battle of Lake Regillus,” CP 108, 53–69. Reed, J.D. (1998), “The Death of Osiris in Aeneid 12.458,” AJP 119, 399–418. Reed, J.D. (2000), “Arsinoe’s Adonis and the Poetics of Ptolemaic Imperialism,” TAPA 130, 319–351. Reed, J.D. (2002), “At Play With Adonis,” in J.F. Miller/C. Damon/K.S. Meyers, (eds.), Vertis in usum: Studies in Honor of Edward Courtney (Leipzig) 219–229. Reed, J.D. (2006), “Ardebat laena (Aeneid 4.262),” Vergilius 52, 55–75. Rice, E.E. (1983), The Grand Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Oxford). Selden, D.L. (1998), “Alibis,” ClAnt 17.2, 289–412. SH = H. Lloyd-Jones/Parsons, P. (1983), Supplementum Hellenisticum (Berlin). Shanmugam, K.K. (1995), Praise of Rulers in Hellenistic and Roman Poetry (MLitt thesis, Oxford). Stephens, S.A. (2003), Seeing Double (Berkeley). Thomas, R.F. (2011), Horace: Odes Book iv and Carmen Saeculare (Cambridge). West, M.L. (1969), “Near Eastern Material in Hellenistic and Roman Literature,” HSCP 73, 113–134. Williams, G. (1968), Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry (Oxford). Zanker, P. (1988), The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Ann Arbor).

chapter 30

Theocritus and Post-Virgilian Pastoral Tradition Evangelos Karakasis

The Background Although no clear “generic identity” is spelt out in the Theocritean Idylls,1 one may nevertheless discern features which can be interpreted as indicators of innovation, at least in the case of the poems concerned with pastoral life and its assets, the so-called bucolic Idylls, namely 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 11,2 and especially those construed in the form of a more or less agonistic exchange. It is crucial to note that several pastoral “generic constituents” that turn up in the pastoral literature of the Greek and Roman successors of Theocritus occur for the first time in the Theocritean corpus, although differentiated up to a point: the pathetic fallacy motif, the construction of a typical idyllic landscape, the locus amoenus, etc. Virgil thus has to work against the backdrop of a literary genre “under construction” in its cradle in Theocritus, yet elaborated and developed by the post-Theocritean bucolic tradition. With Virgil however there comes a crucial shift in the history of the bucolic genre: for with the Eclogues, a corpus originally significantly entitled Bucolica,3 often read in the relevant rich bibliography as a “self-reflexive,”4 continuous work,5 pastoral moves from Greece to Rome.6 Furthermore, Virgilian pastoral demonstrably rests on the foundations of its “sophisticated” textual pastoral precedents7 and develops generic features 1 For “idylls” in the sense of “short poems of different types,” cf. Gutzwiller (1996) 130. 2 For an opposite view, cf. Lawall (1967) 1–13, who considers Idylls 1–7 as pastoral poems, calling them “Coan Pastorals.” For a distinct bucolic Theocritean corpus comprising Id. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, cf. especially Segal (1977) 35–68. 3 For the more common term “eclogue,” found for the first time in Donatus’ Vita Vergili, and its gradual semantic overlapping with that of “pastoral poem,” cf. especially Cooper (1974) 363– 376. 4 For Virgilian pastoral as a “stronger” version of pastoral in relation to Theocritean bucolics (according to Berger’s (1984) 2–5 distinction between “weak” and “strong” pastoral/“metapastoral”) on the basis of the Eclogues’ intense “self-reflexivity,” cf. especially Papanghelis (2006) 394–395 and n. 60. 5 Cf. especially Van Sickle (1978). See also Maury (1944) 71–147, Otis (1964) 128–143, Rudd (1976) 119–144, Coleiro (1979) 94–101. 6 Cf. Breed (2006) 95, Hunter (2006) 127, Nauta (2006) 308–310. 7 Cf. Hunter (2006) 124.

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associated with the Roman reality of Virgil’s time.8 Thus, whereas Theocritus’ landscape secures the idyllic ἁσυχία, in Virgil politics and history, and in particular the side effects of the land confiscations following the battle of Philippi in 42bce, shatter the peaceful living conditions of the Theocritean bucolic poetry, which are such important prerequisites for the “construction” of pastoral song,9 while the overall pessimistic/negative tone escalates in the second half of the book of the Eclogues.10 Therefore, Virgilian pastoral deals with pastoral space mainly in terms of its “deconstruction” rather than its omnipresence,11 while “dialectic” polarizations between privileged and losers (Tityrus vs. Meliboeus in Verg. E. 1, etc.12) function to all intents and purposes as part of Virgil’s “programmatic pastoral signature”13 from the very first Eclogue. Yet even in this case, one is still faced with continuity in (pastoral) motifs as well as in linguistic/stylistic, metrical, and narrative techniques. These can be taken as pointing to the formation of a genre in progress, despite occasional divergences attributable to a general Virgilian penchant for turning Theocritean marginal motifs into his main focus.14

1

Calpurnius Siculus and His Theocritean Discourses

Calpurnius clearly has a sense of belonging to a pastoral “generic tradition” with Virgil as his main predecessor; this is borne out, for example, in Calp. 4, by the image of Corydon, i.e., the poet’s pastoral guise, who receives, in terms 8

9

10 11 12

13 14

As in the case of the Theocritean corpus, one may distinguish between pastoral and lesspastoral Eclogues within the Virgilian corpus as well; the latter deal less than the former with herdsmen’s life and interests. Thus Servius (Buc. prooem. Thilo-Hagen 3.3.20–21) speaks about seven merae rusticae Eclogues, against three, where Virgil transcends “pastoral song,” namely 4 and 6 with the third unmentioned; for the tenth Eclogue, with its “elegiac propensities,” as the third, less-pastoral Virgilian Eclogue according to Servius, cf. also Jenkyns (1998) 154. For this non-Theocritean engagement with contemporary history and politics, cf. also Putnam (1970) 79–80, Wright (1983–1999) 119, Van Sickle (2000) 43, Breed (2006) 101–102, Hunter (2006) 118–119, 125–126, Skoie (2006) 303–308. See also Boyle (1975) 187–203. Cf. especially Becker (1955) 317–328, Otis (1964) 130–131, Van Sickle (1978) 30–31. Cf. also Hubbard (1998) 46. For a reading of Meliboeus’ departure in generic terms, i.e., as symbolising Virgil’s innovative tendencies in opposition to Tityrus, who is more traditional in his “bucolic outlook,” cf. Breed (2006) 102; see also Van Sickle (2000) 48–49. For the various allegorical readings of the poem’s main figures, see especially the brief account in Breed (2006) 102–103, 173 and nn. 26–29. Formulation of Connolly (2001) 92. Cf. especially Hubbard (1998) 49–50.

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of a bucolic succession narrative, the pipe of Tityrus (58–63), who has been interpreted as a pastoral mask of Virgil himself. From the perspective of metapoetics,15 Hubbard rightly reads in Calp. 1.4 (pater quas tradidit, Ornyte, vaccae) one more reference to “pastoral succession”; Virgil is the father (pater) bequeathing his cows, a symbol of bucolic poetry, to his pastoral successors, Ornytus and Corydon, who may thus represent post-Virgilian bucolic poetry. What is more, the setting of the first programmatic Eclogue in the fall and not in the typical Theocritean and Virgilian summer has also been plausibly read16 as a further metapoetic indication of the epigonal character of Calpurnius’ pastoral production. Accordingly, several pastoral generic markers, as found, in most cases, in Theocritus, appear in the Calpurnian pastoral corpus as well. These include: the omnipresent pastoral shade, traditional bucolic flora (e.g., pine tree, beech) and fauna (e.g., goats and sheep), mountain and forest landscapes, song exchange scenes, staple pastoral occupations (e.g., the making of a pipe, milking), the rural pantheon, the pathetic fallacy motif, the bucolic locus amoenus, etc.17 Nevertheless Calpurnius manages, in several cases, to suggest his “generic innovation” with respect to his pastoral predecessors,18 and, what is more, in line with the well-known trend of Neronian literature to significantly modify or even to invert well-established Augustan literary standards.19 A conspicuous example is found in the sixth Calpurnian poem, where, despite the extensive preparations for a bucolic singing match, the bickering between the two contestants is such that it cannot be eventually resolved through song exchange, as in the earlier pastoral tradition (Id. 5, Verg. E. 3), and thus the much awaited βαρεία never materializes.20

2

Calpurnius’ Political Narratives and Their Theocritean Colouring

Let us see, however, the way Calpurnius interacts with the earlier pastoral tradition, Theocritus included, as Calpurnius may allude to Theocritus either 15 16 17 18 19 20

Cf. Hubbard (1998) 155 and n. 25. Cf. Hubbard (1998) 154–155. Cf. esp. Karakasis (2011) 39–40. Cf. esp. Magnelli (2006) 467–477; Friedrich (1976) is still invaluable. Ästhetik der Verkehrung, cf. Castagna/Vogt-Spira (2002); see also Mayer (2006) 460–462. Cf. Henderson (2013) 183, Karakasis (2016). For Theocritus and Calpurnius in particular, see especially Leach (1975) 213, Messina (1975) 10, Di Salvo (1990b) 275 and n. 33, Esposito (1996) 29, Vinchesi (1996) 42–45; (2014) 36–37, Fey-Wickert (2002) 13, Mayer (2006) 462, Magnelli (2006) 468, and the reservations of both Gagliardi (1984) 13 and n. 17 and Hubbard (1998) 156 and n. 28.

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directly or indirectly, through Virgil, in order to create meaning, underscore, or undermine the Theocritean intertext. Calp. 1 offers a good starting point. The dramatic scenario of the Eclogue, as is common in pastoral poetry, is set at noon (cf. Id. 1.15, 6.4, 7.21, Verg. Ε. 2.8–13), when the heat of the sun forces shepherds to seek the coolness of a locus amoenus. But, whereas earlier bucolic poetry places this hot noon in the heart of a typical summer, here in the first programmatic Eclogue of Calpurnius, the action unfolds during the vintage, namely the end of summer or beginning of autumn, when the intensely hot days have not yet abated (cf. vv. 1–3).21 On a metapoetic level, this time shift has been convincingly read as denoting the epigonic nature of Calpurnius’ bucolic creation.22 If the noon of a typical summer symbolizes Theocritean and/or Virgilian pastoral poetry, late summer or autumn settings symbolize, instead, bucolic poetry that succeeds the Theocritean/Virgilian summer, namely the Eclogues of Calpurnius Siculus.23 From this perspective, the use of the term tradere, which does not merely mean “bequeath,” but may also imply poetic succession, is interesting as a poetic term, as Hubbard loc. cit. again notes for verse 4: cernis ut ecce pater quas tradidit, Ornyte, vaccae. Consequently, within the framework of a Dichterweihe (poetic initiation) scene, the vaccae, which also constitute an easily deciphered and familiar metapoetic indication of pastoral poetry (cf. Verg. Ε. 3.84–85),24 are presented as having been handed down from the father to the brothers in the Eclogue, i.e., from the bucolic model (Theocritus, Virgil) to the pastoral epigone (Siculus). Within the context of this poetological reading, of interest is the flora in the description of the locus amoenus in the introduction of the poem, which includes two tree-symbols of earlier pastoral production, namely the Theocritean pine (pinus) and the Virgilian beech ( fagus) (vv. 9, 11). The presence of these two symbolic trees25 in the idyllic scene of Calpurnius again demonstrates his epigonic perspective: he composes his own, largely traditional, bucolic locus amoenus26 through a com-

21 22 23

24 25 26

Cf. e.g., Pearce (1990) 24, Fugmann (1992) 203, Schubert (1998) 48. See Hubbard (1998) 154–155. For the view that a) the time shift of the bucolic narration from the intensely hot summer to a less hot autumn and b) the protection from the hot sun inside the antrum of Faunus symbolize the calm of the first period of Nero’s principatus, after the political tension at the time of Claudius, cf. Leach (1973) 57 and Garthwaite/Martin (2009) 312. The Eclogue begins with a reference to the sun (sol), with whom the emperor is also associated, cf. Suetonius Nero. 6, 53; see also Schubert (1998) 54–55. See Karakasis (2011) 104–105 and n. 72. See Karakasis (2011) 16, 29, 39, 156, 188–189, 227, 241, 253–254, 303. See Korzeniewski (1971) 86, Davis (1987) 39.

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bination of tree-symbols of the pastoral tradition which serves as his model.27 Indeed, the newly constructed, mature cane reed-pipe of Corydon, i.e., of the poetic persona of Calpurnius (17–18: mea fistula, quam mihi nuper / matura docilis compegit harundine Ladon) according to the communis opinio, within the framework of the aforementioned poetological reading could be interpreted as a metapoetic indication. It not only underlines the epigonic nature of Calpurnius’ bucolic production (chronologically, it is later than that of Virgil— nuper) but also the wealth of all prior bucolic tradition, which informs the pastoral poetry of Siculus (poetic maturity—matura).28 Indeed, from a stylistic perspective, this epigonic nature of Siculus’ poetry is stressed in v. 1: nondum solis equos declinis mitigat aestas, with the incorporation of a syntagm from Virgil’s Georgics, that is to say, of an epigonic text compared to the Virgilian Eclogues, in accordance with both the tradition of the rota Vergiliana29 and the opinion of Siculus himself (cf. Calp. 4.160–163). This concerns the use of nondum at the beginning of the verse with aestas in the clausula (cf. Virgil G. 2.322).30 Verg. E. 1 has long been viewed as one of the principal intertexts of Calp. 7,31 mainly due to the fact that the two poems, structured in the form of a dialogue between two pastoral figures,32 share the same narrative pattern: a journey to Rome of a principal pastoral figure and the sympathetic reaction of other pastoral characters as well as of the bucolic landscape to the absence of the main bucolic hero. A further narrative detail connecting the two bucolic poems has to do with the crucial presence of a iuvenis—divine princeps,33 who in both instances appears to be the ultimate cause of the journey. Tityrus in the first Virgilian Eclogue goes to Rome in order to meet the young prince (cf. 6–10, 40– 45) and thus to secure his libertas and his permanence within the precinct of 27 28 29 30 31

32 33

Cf. Hubbard (1998) 155–156. Cf. Fucecchi (2009) 46–47 and n. 26. Cf. Hardie/Moore (2010) 4–5, Putnam (2010) 17–38. Cf. Di Lorenzo/Pellegrino (2008) 142. Cf. Cesareo (1931) 98, Duff (1960) 267, Grant (1965) 73, Verdière (1966) 167–168, Leach (1973) 77–79, Gnilka (1974) 130 and n. 4, Friedrich (1976) 157, Ahl (1984) 68, Gagliardi (1984) 63, Davis (1987) 48, Newlands (1987) 219–222, Effe/Binder (1989) 125–127, Schubert (1998) 80–81, Kegel-Brinkgreve (1990) 162, Pearce (1990) 142, Vozza (1993) 297–298, Fear (1994) 274–275, Hubbard (1998) 174–175, Merfeld (1999) 94–96, Vinchesi (2002) 149–150 and n. 44, (2010) 142, Mayer (2006) 460–461, Fucecchi (2009) 51 (who, however, also detects, pp. 51– 58, rather unconvincingly, a large-scale influence of the Ovidian late poetry on Cap. 7). Cf. also Green (2009) 55. Cf. Di Salvo (1990a) 76–77, Vinchesi (1996) 26 and (2010) 142, Di Lorenzo/Pellegrino (2008) 271.

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the “green cabinet” (27ff.). His temporary absence causes sorrow to humans and motivates the “empathy” of animal life (35–39): a sad Amaryllis is calling on the gods, as a sign of her mourning over Tityrus’ trip to the urbs, and, indifferent to everyday pastoral activities, is letting the apples hang on the tree, whereas constituent elements of the “generic pastoral locus amoenus,” such as pine trees, springs and orchards, are also longing for the absent Tityrus.34 In a similar vein, Corydon in the last Calpurnian poem is also presented as coming back to the “pastoral space” after a trip to Rome, where he experienced a taste of the amphitheatre and its shows, established by another young divine figure (vv. 6: iuvenis deus, 75, 80), namely Nero. And just as Amaryllis and the inanimate nature of the first Virgilian Eclogue respond with sadness to Tityrus’ absence, the forests of the seventh Calpurnian Eclogue are similarly presented, again in terms of the well-known bucolic motif of pathetic fallacy, as longing for the renowned pastoral singer (v. 2: ut nostrae cupiunt te cernere silvae) and the bulls as saddened, waiting for their yodeling (3: ut tua maerentes exspectant iubila tauri). A similar instance of animals experiencing grief over an absent master appears in the fourth bucolic Theocritean Idyll, where Aegon’s cows experience love-symptoms (lowing denoting their longing, loss of appetite, 12– 14)35 as a result of Aegon’s leaving the “green cabinet,” in order to follow Milon to the Olympic games;36 this particular intertext further increases a sense of traditional pastoralism in the introductory lines of the Calpurnian Eclogue. However, the traditional pastoral colouring of the first lines of the Eclogue, largely secured by its demonstrably bucolic intertexts, is undermined by the model of Lycotas’ formulation in vv. 1–2, concerning Corydon’s non-presence in the “green cabinet” for twenty days, vicesima certe / nox fuit.37 As frequently and compellingly observed,38 the line is modelled on Id. 12.1: ἤλυθες, ὦ φίλε κοῦρε, τρίτῃ σὺν νυκτὶ καὶ ἠοῖ. This non-bucolic Theocritean Idyll, which functions as the model for the Calpurnian formulation, seems to signal a Calpurnian “generic deviation” from the earlier pastoral norm, since one of the principal means Calpurnius employs to suggest his “generic transcendence” consists in intertextual references to non-pastoral poems of an otherwise well-known pastoral poet; this is the case here, since the paederastic Id. 12 does not belong to the 34

35 36 37 38

Cf. also Cesareo (1931) 97 and n. 1, Verdière (1954) 262, Korzeniewski (1971) 66, Newlands (1987) 226, Pearce (1990) 142, Hubbard (1998) 175–176, Di Lorenzo/Pellegrino (2008) 269– 270, Vinchesi (2010) 145. Cf. Hunter (1999) 134. Cf. Verdière (1954) 262, Korzeniewski (1971) 66, Messina (1975) 90 and n. 98, Di Salvo (1990a) 74, Di Lorenzo/Pellegrino (2008) 270. For a possible numerical symbolism here, cf. Vozza (1993) 297 and n. 50. Cf. Korzeniewski (1971) 66, Friedrich (1976) 174, Di Salvo (1990) 72.

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circle of the Theocritean bucolic poems. This non-pastoral intertextual reference is followed in Calp. 7 by several “generically transcending turns” of the narrative plot. Id. 15 is yet another basic intertext for Calp. 7. The panegyric colouring of the poem is thus further enhanced by its intertextual association with the similar panegyric narrative of the fifteenth Theocritean Idyll;39 several narrative patterns and details clearly indicate the intertextual relationship between the two texts. In both cases there is a movement from periphery to centre; in the case of Id. 15 it is about the moving of Gorgo and Praxinoa from Syracuse to the town of Alexandria, whereas a similar progress, albeit in more abstract terms, also occurs in the case of Corydon in Calp. 7, who travels from rus to urbs. Furthermore, in both instances a spectacle gives the characters the opportunity to take some days off; thus, in Id. 15, the two ladies visit the royal residence, where an Adonis festival is staged by Arsinoe in honour of her mother, Berenice. Similarly, Corydon has his twenty days off in the city in order to enjoy the amphitheatre shows. A contrast between the “strained circumstances”40 of the Syracusan women and Corydon, on the one hand, and the sumptuous royal palace and the lavish amphitheatre, on the other, is a further common feature in both encomiastic narratives. Another common feature is the fact that an ekphrasis of a work of art constitutes the focus of both accounts, of the amphitheatre and its spectacles in Calp. 7 and of the tapestries in Id. 15. The narrative device of the “figure interrupting the characters’ state of astonishment” constitutes a further link between the texts; in Calp. 7.40–46 it is the urban old man who comments upon Corydon’s amazement and informs him of the continuous improvement of the imperial show industry, which has the power to amaze even experienced city residents, while in Theocritus it is the unidentified figure reprimanding the Syracusans’ prolixity in 87–88. Finally, the two works share the common feature of emphasis on a piece of clothing, a brooch in the case of Corydon (81–82) and a pleated garment in the case of Praxinoa (34–35). As already remarked, Calpurnius often suggests his “generic transcendence” towards non-pastoral discourse by imitating the non-bucolic works of an otherwise pastoral poet. This technique is followed here through the intertext of the non-pastoral Theocritean Idyll 15.

39 40

For Id. 15 as an intertext of Calp. 7, cf. also Newlands (1987) 228–229, Kegel-Brinkgreve (1990) 163, Amat (1991) xxxi, Magnelli (2006) 467, Monella (2009) 83–84. A term adopted from Hunter (2006) 104.

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Calpurnius’ merae bucolicae and Theocritus

Generic transcendence through Theocritean allusion is also evidenced in Calp. 3, a non-political Eclogue of the Neronian poet. At v. 55 commences the Werbung, primarily fashioned on Polyphemus’ rhetoric to win over Galatea in the “generically peculiar” eleventh Theocritean Idyll as well as in its primary Roman adaptation, i.e., Corydon’s “elegiac narrative” in the second Virgilian Eclogue, composed in the hope of securing the erotic favours of Alexis. In Calp. 3 Iollas initially tells of the length of his search (3: et iam paene duas, dum quaeritur, eximit horas) and the adversity of the landscape, whose rough butcher’s broom and bramble thickets cause his feet to bleed (4–6). Similarly, harmful thorns appear in the fourth bucolic Theocritean Idyll, in vv. 50–53,41 where Battus complains about being pierced by a thorn in the ankle while gaping at a heifer, as in the Calpurnian snapshot. The motif, however, significantly occurs in the non-bucolic thirteenth Idyll of the Theocritean corpus as well, where Heracles is similarly depicted as running through thorns, forlorn because of his erotic passion for the vanished Hylas (64–65).42 Taking into account Calpurnius’ regular usage of various non-bucolic models of the Theocritean corpus to suggest his willingness for “generic transcendence” and “reevaluation,” the above distribution of the motif may also be significant in regard to the construction of the “generic outlook” of these lines. What is more, the detailed account of Calpurnius with its references to excessive blood loss, crucially absent from the Theocritean instances, seems to incorporate within the pastoral narrative the so-called locus horridus, favoured by Neronian literature and substituting here the pastoral “generic constituent” of the locus amoenus. Similarly, in Calp. 2 from v. 60 onwards it is Id. 11 and its Virgilian adaptation, E. 2, that function as the primary models. All motifs appearing in these two intertexts, the appeal for sharing rustic lodgings (Id. 11.42–49, Verg. E. 2.28–35), the account of goods and chattels (Id. 11.34–37, Verg. E. 2.20–22), the promise of gifts (Id. 11.40–41, Verg. E. 2.36–55), the self-presentation motif (Id. 11.31–33, Verg. E. 2.25–27) have their counterpart in the present Calpurnian pastoral (vv. 60–61, 68–75, 76–83, 84–91 respectively) with one exception: instead of reference to the singing excellence of the herdsman (Id. 11.38–40, Verg. E. 2.23–24), Calpurnius prefers the topic of religious piety (vv. 62–67),43 a marginal pastoral activity in comparison to

41 42 43

Cf. Messina (1975) 42, Friedrich (1976) 76, Kegel-Brinkgreve (1990) 156 and n. 21, 165, Vinchesi (1991) 260 and n. 6, Keene (1996) 81. Cf. Verdière (1954) 243, Korzeniewski (1971) 27, Fey-Wickert (2002) 148. Cf. Fey-Wickert (2002) 105.

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singing, the ultimate pre-Calpurnian pastoral value, something which betrays once more the “generic reorientation” of Calpurnian pastoral. Calp. 6 is partly designed as a pastoral narrative of the kind mostly known from Id. 5, [Id.] 8, and Verg. E. 3, where an initial quarrel scene is followed by alternate bucolic songs; the various intertextual allusions to these models, however, underscore the “generic novelty” of the present Eclogue, disappointing the literary expectations of the ideal reader of (earlier) pastoral, for the song exchange never occurs. Calp. 6 seems to operate on the basis of a dichotomy between a “traditional pastoral past,” where fixed “generic rules” of amoebaean βουκολιασμός hold true, and an “unconventional bucolic present,” which tends towards a “generic transcendence,” a distancing from long-established and time-honored pastoral norms.44 The Eclogue begins with Astylus’ description of a “narrated singing match,” as e.g., the whole of the seventh Virgilian Eclogue,45 where Calpurnius in general observes a sort of “formalistic completeness”;46 thus, the agonistic setting described comprises all the basic “generic essentials” of a bucolic singing match. However, this wealth of standard motifs refers to the past, albeit the recent one; the reader experiences the “formalistic span” of vv. 1–5, the “traditional generic fullness” of this initial reported narrative as over and done with, in opposition to the “atypical” and thus “novel” generic character of the following segment (vv. 6ff.), which constitutes the poetic “present.” The nonconformist character of the present situation is emphasized by a significant detail not endorsed by previous bucolic, namely the motif of “belatedness,” as suggested by Astylus’ (1) opening remark: serus ades, Lycida. The motif has no Roman bucolic precedents, whereas in Theocritus it crucially appears in two of his non-bucolic Idylls, namely 14.2 and 15.1.47 It has already been suggested that the intrusion in post-Virgilian pastoral of motifs drawn (a) from a pastoral poet’s non-bucolic works (the non-bucolic idylls of Greek pastoral for

44

45 46 47

For Leach (1975) 220–222, on the other hand, the narrative of the poem rather operates on the following division: a “precious and refined” vs. a “rough and natural” version of pastoral, exemplified respectively by the pairs Alcon/Astylus and Nyctilus/Lycidas. Indications for the former type of pastoral are Alcon’s good looks and Astylus’ tamed stag offered as a stake, his revulsion against the noise of the brook, as well as his homosexuality—“an extension of the idea of his over-refinement” (cf. Leach (1975) 222), whereas signs of the latter bucolic kind are Nyctilus’ rough, unrefined appearance and Lycidas’ fierce and swift equus as a pledge. At the end, it is Lycidas that makes his opponent leave aside his preciosity and consequently resort to rudeness. Cf. Messina (1975) 34. Cf. also Schäfer (2001) 149–150, Di Lorenzo/Pellegrino (2008) 254. Cf. Korzeniewski (1971) 59.

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example),48 or (b) from a pastoral poem where “generic tensions” are the main focus of the poem’s meta-narrative (e.g., the second Virgilian Eclogue stamped by Corydon’s elegiac rhetoric), or (c) alternatively from a bucolic poem possessing a peculiar “generic character,” as is the case with Id. 11, whose themes and narrative techniques (e.g., the “unpastoral” practice of the syrinx—v. 38, the address to Nicias as a framing narrative) set it apart from the main tradition of Theocritean bucolic poems.49 These may function as markers for the poet’s “novel generic aspirations,” and for his desire for a “generic reevaluation” of traditional pastoral trends. It is therefore perhaps not coincidental that, in a poem introducing “new generic ethics” with a view to transcending well-established “generic patterns” of the traditional amoebaean βουκολιασμός, Calpurnius chooses to employ a non-bucolic motif of an otherwise bucolic poet. As will be shown later, the other two ways of expressing “generic ambivalence” will also be endorsed in the Calpurnian narrative to follow. The pastoral intertextual colouring of the two pledges of the Eclogue is underscored by the epic intertexts they refer to: Astylus bets a stag dear to his beloved, Petale (v. 34: quamvis hunc Petale mea diligat). The deer, as a bucolic love token/a pet for a sweetheart’s pleasure, has its pastoral precedent in the eleventh Theocritean Idyll (40–41),50 where it forms part of the Cyclops’ rhetoric to win over his beloved Galatea; elsewhere in pastoral the cervus is presented as a hunting animal/game, cf. Verg. E. 2.29, 7.30,51 or is part of an adynaton-formulation (cf. Id. 1.135, Verg. E. 1.59, 5.60).52 Despite its Theocritean counterpart, which, however, is a rather “generically deviant” Idyll, Calpurnius’ deer intertextually alludes to two “epic” texts, Verg. A. 7.483ff. and especially Ov. Met. 10.110ff.,53 i.e., to Silvia’s pet, a stag accidentally shot by Ascanius, and to 48 49 50 51 52 53

E.g., the motif of the “puella gathering flowers—eventual victim of rape” in Nemes. 2. Cf. Hunter (1999) 217–218. For the “peculiar” generic character of Id. 11, cf. also Farrell (1992) 241–242. Cf. Messina (1975) 36, Courtney (1987) 155, Keene (1996) 138, Vinchesi (1996) 141, Simon (2007b) 64 and n. 22. Cf. Friedrich (1976) 120. The last case is about an adynaton that becomes feasible as a sign of the Golden Age after Daphnis’ apotheosis; cf. also Davis (1987) 52 and n. 32. Cf. Lenchantin de Gubernatis (1912) 87, Verdière (1954) 260–261, (1966) 172, (1993) 394–395, Korzeniewski (1971) 61, Messina (1975) 35–36, Friedrich (1976) 121, Bömer (1980) 54–55, 57, Effe/Binder (1989) 123, Kegel-Brinkgreve (1990) 161, Amat (1991) xl–xli, 117, Beato (1995) 624, Vinchesi (1996) 42, (2008) 550, Keene (1996) 136–137, Schäfer (2001) 151 and n. 38, Gibson (2004) 10, Simon (2007b) 64–66, Di Lorenzo/Pellegrino (2008) 260, Becker (2012) 39–45. For a possible influence of Hor. Carm. 4.2.57–60 on v. 45, see Verdière (1954) 261, (1966) 172 and n. 75, Amat (1991) 117, Di Lorenzo/Pellegrino (2008) 262; nonetheless, for a convincing refutation of this view, cf. Friedrich (1976) 228 and n. 16, who plausibly claims that

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Cyparissus’ story in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, also modeled on the Aeneid incident.54 In this last case, a stag, very dear to Cyparissus, is accidentally killed by the young boy, who is transformed, because of his constant weeping, into the a cypress, a mourning tree (cf. the similarity between Calpurnius’ stag and the two models even in the phrasing of the following lines: 35 ~ Ov. Met. 10.118– 119, 125, 36 ~ Verg. A. 7.490, 38 ~ Ov. Met. 10.113, 41 ~ Ov. Met. 10.114–115, 42–43 ~ Verg. A. 7.488, Ov. Met. 10.123).55 Both intertexts derive of course from epic texts, but most importantly they both capitalize on the “generic interaction” between epic and pastoral, as seems also to be the case with the present Calpurnian narrative or with Calpurnian pastoral in general, especially in the so-called political Eclogues, where the “generic interplay” between pastoral as a host text and modal intrusions of the genus grande looms large (1, 4, 7).56

4

Post-Calpurnian Theocritean Undertones: Einsiedeln Pastoral Panegyric and Its Theocritean Backdrop

The discussion now turns to two pastoral poems of unknown authorship (whether they are the work of a single or multiple authors is also unknown),57 so named after the Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln in Switzerland, where they were discovered by H. Hagen in 1869 in a single manuscript, the codex Einsidlensis 266 (E) of the tenth century ce (pp. 206–207). In all probability both should be dated to the Neronian period,58 although there is no consensus whether Calpurnius Siculus (if a Neronian poet) chronologically precedes the

54 55 56 57 58

Calpurnius might have been influenced here by the common motif of luna lunaticus (cf. Verg. A. 1.490, Iuv. 7.192, Mart. 1.49.31). Cf. also Solodow (1988) 83, Connors (1992) 8, 12 and n. 17, Smith (1997) 115–120, Fordyce (2001) 147, Fantham (2004) 77, Simon (2007a) 168–169. Cf. also Di Lorenzo/Pellegrino (2008) 260–262. Cf. e.g., Hubbard (1998) 158–163, Vozza (1993) 299 and n. 38, (1994) 85–86. Cf. particularly Korzeniewski (1966) 358–359, Duckworth (1967) 85, (1969) 95, Cizek (1972) 202 and n. 4, Verdière (1985) 1913–1914, Korzeniewski (1998) 339–350. Cf. Butler (1909) 156, Summers (1920) 94, Grant (1965) 74, Dihle (1994) 107, Hubbard (1998) 140, Lana (1998) 828, Merfeld (1999) 19. For the various dates within the Neronian period proposed by scholars, cf. especially the overview offered by Cupaiuolo (1973) 192–193 and n. 34, Amat (1997) 142–145. Calpurnius Siculus, Lucan and Calpurnius Piso have been proposed as the authors of these poems; for a refutation of such endeavours, cf. Summers (1920) 95, Theiler (1956) 577, Verdière (1985) 1888. For the author as propagandist poet belonging to the imperial court, cf. especially Scheda (1966) 384; for the poet as a “Nachfolger des Calpurnius,” cf. also Balzert (1971) 34; for the poet as belonging to the circle of the Calpurnii, cf. also Cizek (1972) 202–203.

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Eins. poems or vice versa. Both Eclogues display several thematic and linguistic similarities with Calpurnius’ pastoral oeuvre,59 and similarly deal with the laudatory and overall favorable depiction of the emperor, a subject matter that brings the poems into the generic category of the “panegyric pastoral”—a version of pastoral trendy in the Neronian period.60 In any case, formal markers of the bucolic genre as established by Theocritus are again to be found in the Eclogues, such as plants and animals of the pastoral space (Eins. 2.19, 22, 25, 37), the locus amoenus and the pastoral shade (Eins. 1.2–3, 2.12–14), the pastoral pipe (Eins. 1.9, 2.19), pastoral/agricultural activities (Eins. 2.30–31), and the gods of the pastoral pantheon (Eins. 1.9–10, 17, 23, 32, 37, 2.38). However, as previously remarked in the case of Calpurnius Siculus, most of these pastoral elements are either “undermined” or often negatively depicted; for example, the opening Eins. poem is a βουκολιασμός, i.e., a pastoral singing match between two herdsmen, Thamyras and Ladas, but this time in praise of the emperor and his epic output. In Eins. 2 for example, yet again following the rules of the pastoral tradition, i.e., through the relevant proposal of one of the two pastoral interlocutors, a typical locus amoenus is eventually chosen, in which, however, in contrast to the earlier bucolic norm, no song exchange takes place. Through this narrative means, Mystes indulges in a hymn of the Neronian golden age, its features and assets. A bushy elm, however, now offers its shade for the development of the imperial political propaganda, the benefits of a new era inaugurated by an earthly Apollo, the political god Nero. The intertexts of Mystes’ lyrics show the clear generic movement of the poetic narrative to the panegyric diction, i.e., the glorification of the princeps’s political governance. First, on the intertextual level, the fourth and fifth Virgilian Eclogues are evoked, that is, the least bucolic and the more political Eclogues, namely those carmina of the Virgilian pastoral collection in which Virgil expressly declares his desire to move away from the apolitical, largely Theocritean pastoral tradition and approach instead higher forms of poetic discourse, basically of a celebratory/encomiastic character (4.1 paulo maiora canamus).61 These two Eclogues have convincingly been read already by ancient critical literature (Servius, Servius auctus, etc.) as poetic forms of political praise, of Octavian (fourth) and of Julius Caesar (fifth). The

59

60 61

Cf. Amat (1997) 129–130 and n. 2. Hubaux (1930) 224 thus claims that the author of the Eins. Eclogues might have been Amyntas, the younger brother of Corydon in the fourth Calpurnian Eclogue, aspiring to follow the poetic trend of his elder brother (cf. Calp. 4.17– 18). Cf. Binder (1989) 363–365, Amat (1997) 133, 136, 146. Cf. also Korzeniewski (1972) 250–252.

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motif of the return of the Saturnian years and of the Ascraean Virgo alludes to the fourth Virgilian Eclogue, while the sense of securitas guaranteed through the worship of the gods, Dionysus in particular, reminds the informed reader of the fifth Virgilian Eclogue. The ending of the Eclogue (casta fave Lucina: tuus iam regnat Apollo!) yet again evokes the fourth Virgilian Eclogue, where in a similar way, in line 10, the political puer, in all probability divine puer of the Eclogue, is hailed. The lyrics in question also recall Calpurnius’ panegyric diction of the first and fourth political Eclogues, where yet again the Neronian pastoral poet of the quinquennium Neronis occupies himself with the praise of the princeps and his political program. The intertextual relationship is further supported by a host of significant motifs, such as the widespread worship rituals of the countryside, the restoration of a disturbed religious life with a parallel cessation of military activity (both civil wars and wars against external enemies), calm in nature and a sense of securitas inspired by the absence of risk, rural regeneration, the phenomenon of the automaton, and last but not least the harmonious cohabitation of wild with tamed animals. A further Greek intertext, the sixteenth Theocritean Idyll, where once again a political figure, Hieron, is praised, further increases the panegyric character of Eins. 2. The distant Theocritean intertext also brings to the fore cumulatively the panegyric outlook of the post-Calpurnian pastoral poem.

5

Nemesianus’ Theocritean Poetics

On the basis of his praise of Numerianus and Carinus in the prologue of the Cynegetica (283–284ce), Nemesianus (probably from Carthage)62 should be dated to the end of the third century ce;63 in that case, he is a poet writing in a period when bucolic images and motifs were very “trendy” in both art 62

63

Cf. Volpilhac (1975) 9, Korzeniewski (1976) 1, Effe/Binder (1989) 144, Ferri/Moreschini (1994) 7, Cupaiuolo (1997) 5 and n. 1, 28–32, Vinchesi (1998) 134 and n. 6, La Bua (1999) 346 and n. 12. Wernsdorf associates Nemesianus with the African city of Nemesium (cf. Cupaiuolo (1997) 5 and n. 1), whereas Verdière (1974) 2 understands the name Nemesianus as deriving from the collegium of the Nemesiaci, i.e., hunters—followers of NemesisDiana; for a refutation of these views, see Cupaiuolo (1997) 5 and n. 1. Cf. also Korzeniewski (1976) 1, Cupaiuolo (1997) 5–8, Vinchesi (1998) 133, Volpilhac (1998) 3175, La Bua (1999) 346. For a dating of the Eclogues close to that of the Cynegetica, cf. Hubbard (1998) 178 and n. 56; Verdière (1974) 10–18 dates the Eclogues as early as 238ce, on the basis of his reading of Meliboeus (Nemes. 1) as the bucolic persona of Gordian i. For a refutation of this thesis, cf. Himmelmann/Wildschütz (1972) 342–349, Schetter (1975) 1, 39–43, Walter (1988) 28, Hubbard (1998) 178 and n. 56. Luiselli (1958) 189–208, on the other hand, sees in Meliboeus a masque of the emperor Marcus Aurelius Carus; cf. also Kegel-

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and politics/religion, a tendency that seems to have influenced the “generic orientation” of Nemesianus.64 Until Haupt (1875), Nemesianus’ four bucolics were erroneously attributed to Calpurnius Siculus, due to a mistake of the copyists of the older manuscripts, who omitted Nemesianus’ name.65 As is the case with Calpurnius Siculus, Nemesianus too discloses his “generic awareness,” his sense of belonging to a pastoral genre with Virgil as his seminal predecessor.66 The figure of the aged Tityrus, whom the younger pastoral character Timetas67 asks for a pastoral song, has been read as the image of the pastoral Virgil, whom a subsequent bucolic poet, i.e., Timetas/Nemesianus, sets out to emulate.68 The very setting of the incipit (Nemes. 1.1–8), with its traditional

64 65

66

67 68

Brinkgreve (1990) 171 vs. Effe/Binder (1989) 150. Yet once again such specific identifications with contemporary political figures are beyond the scope of the present study. Cf. Walter (1988) 103–106. Cf. especially Reeve (1986) 37–38, Mayer (2006) 464–465. In the late twentieth century Radke (1972) 615–623 has also tried to assign all 11 bucolics to Calpurnius Siculus; for a refutation of her unconvincing thesis and her paleographical misconceptions, cf. especially Reeve (1978) 223–238, 230 and n. 27 in particular, Williams (1986) 4–8. For Nemesianus’ peculiar versification, further backing up the separation of his bucolics from Calpurnius’ Eclogues, cf. more recently Encuentra-Ortega (1999) 303–325. Nemesianus’ orientation towards classical models accounts for his designation as “classicist”; cf. also Schetter (1975) 15, Wlosok (1983–1984) 257, Küppers (1989) 45 and n. 39, Volpilhac (1998) 3177. For Nemesianus’ close linguistic imitation of his models, to the extent of being accused of plagiarism by some critics, cf. especially Verdière (1966) 185, Volpilhac (1975) 25, Vinchesi (1998) 134 and n. 9. For Nemesianus’ aspiring to a poetic career parallel to that of Virgil (pastoral, didactic poetry, and epic), cf. Walter (1988) 106–107, Küppers (1989) 45–46, Effe/Binder (1989) 144, Kegel-Brinkgreve (1990) 171 and n. 64. Also known as Thymoetas, a reading adopted by Haupt for metrical reasons; cf. also Effe/Binder (1989) 145. Cf. Küppers (1989) 44–45 and n. 38, Effe/Binder (1989) 148, Kegel-Brinkgreve (1990) 171, 174, Cupaiuolo (1997) 122, Hubbard (1998) 178 and n. 57. Hubbard loc. cit. prefers to read Tityrus as representing the whole of the bucolic poetic tradition before Nemesianus rather than Virgil exclusively, and the same is valid for Meliboeus; see also Schetter (1975) 7ff., Walter (1988) 29–31. For Timetas as Nemesianus’ mask, see also Paladini (1956) 327, Luiselli (1958) 191, Verdière (1974) 3–4, Vinchesi (1998) 134. As for the deceased Meliboeus in particular, Hubbard (1998) 182 sees in his figure a further “paradigmatic exemplar of the pastoral song tradition to which the younger Timetas aspires.” For Meliboeus, on the other hand, as a masque of Theocritus, cf. Cupaiuolo (1997) 122–123, whereas for Meliboeus as a potential masque of Calpurnius Siculus, cf. Kegel-Brinkgreve (1990) 171. Yet another allegorical reading, also suggesting a notion of “pastoral continuity,” comes from Nemesianus’ third bucolic, which harks back to the setting of the sixth Virgilian Eclogue: Nyctilus, Micon and Amyntas, the three boys of Nemes. 3.1, who succeed in stealing the fistula of Pan, but can produce nothing but discordant tunes (v. 10: pro carminibus male dissona sibila reddit), have been read as symbolising Nemesianus’ pastoral predecessors (Theocritus, Virgil, and Calpurnius Siculus), cf. Lackner (1996) 43–44, Hubbard (1998) 206–207, 209–210.

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image of the pastoral poet weaving a basket, stands, as previously remarked, for the process of composing pastoral poetry per se (cf. also Verg. E. 10.71).69 The presence of a slender reed (v. 3: gracili … harundine) suggests that the Callimachean slenderness of the pastoral genre will be followed by Nemesianus as well (cf. also 1.22: dicat honoratos praedulcis tibia manes). Finally, the metapoetic image of the shrill cicadas (v. 2, cf. also Nemes. 4.42) complements a scene full of programmatic Virgilian reminiscences, thus lending further support to the metapoetic reading of both this passage and its main pastoral figures.70 Hence from the very first programmatic lines of his poetry, Nemesianus, following the Alexandrian ethos, makes his “generic adhesion” to a pastoral genre of Callimachean poetological orientation clear.71 Once again in the case of Nemesianus there is no difficulty in spotting a multitude of bucolic motifs, which are not found exclusively in Virgil, but rather form part of the preceding pastoral tradition as a whole (Theocritus included),72 thus suggesting the notion of a “pastoral generic continuity.” These include: common pastoral deities (Pan and Apollo, Faunus/Fauns, Pales, Flora, the Nymphs, Dionysus, Priapus, and Silvanus); standard bucolic musical instruments; trees/plants and animals constructing a rather typical literary pastoral landscape; “pastoral” noises (rustling of a tree—Nemes. 1.30, 72, the woodland echo—Nemes. 1.73–74); the generic locus amoenus; the “pastoral” shade; instances of pathetic fallacy (Nemes. 2.29– 30); the lament for a distinguished pastoral poet (Nemes. 1 for the death of Meliboeus); βουκολιασμός (Nemes. 1.15–17) and song exchange patterns in general (Nemes. 2 and 4); “pastoral love” and the typical efforts of the lover to gain access to his beloved (Nemes. 2, 4); flute making; several traditional menial pastoral activities (watering of the flock (Nemes. 1.86–87), driving together the animals at nightfall (Nemes. 2.89–90, 3.67–68), milking and cheese making, and basket weaving); and the sweet quality of pastoral song and adynata (cf. Nemes. 2.44–49). Although Nemesianus’ pastoral does not favour the imperial panegyric of Calpurnian bucolics and the Eins. Eclogues,73 it shares with them a “generic interplay” between pastoral and other literary genres, mainly 69 70 71 72

73

Cf. also Grant (2004) 127. Cf. especially Hubbard (1998) 179–180, Mayer (2006) 466. Cf. also Walter (1988) 9–10. Cf. e.g., Hubbard (1998) 181, where instances of a combined Theocritean, Virgilian and Calpurnian influence on Nemes. 1 are discussed. For Theocritean and post-Theocritean influence on Nemesianus’ pastoral corpus in general, cf. also Kaibel (1882) 419, Cisorio (1896) passim, Castagna (1970) 415–443, Cupaiuolo (1997) 29–30 and n. 20, 32. For Nemesianus’ relation to the previous bucolic tradition, cf. also Cupaiuolo (1997) 8–13. Cf. also Himmelmann/Wildschütz (1972) 347–349, Küppers (1989) 43–44, Binder (1989) 364, Mayer (2006) 465.

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elegy, discernible especially in Eclogues 2 and 4, and a willingness for “generic alteration”—at least up to a point—away from pastoral predecessors, yet again through Theocritus too. In Nemes 2, both young men decide that singing will help them to alleviate their erotic pain (14–15); emotional relief through song is a motif that has its pastoral equivalent in Id. 11, where the story of the Cyclops Polyphemus’ love for Galatea is framed by a gnome addressed to the doctor Nicias, to the effect that song can lessen the pangs of love; in fact, the Cyclops story is meant to constitute an exemplum.74 However, the pastoral intertext comes, as is often the case in post-Theocritean pastoral exhibiting a certain degree of “generic comprehensiveness and fluidity,” from an Idyll (11) displaying a certain “generic distance” from the pastoral norm, as previously elaborated in detail. What is more, in opposition to the present Nemesianian case, the pastoral intertext concerns an unreciprocated, unconsummated love affair, where the lover tries to secure the Nymph’s affections for himself. Indeed, what chiefly differentiates pastoral love from elegiac liaisons is that in bucolic poetry a love affair is pursued rather than ongoing as in Nemes. 2.75 With the exceptions of the eighth Virgilian Eclogue (especially Alphesiboeus’ song), where a clear “elegiac intrusion” has already been observed, and of the (also elegiac) relationship of Gallus with Lycoris in the tenth Virgilian Eclogue, in all other instances of Theocritean and Virgilian pastoral the pain of love is caused by the infeasibility of a future liaison rather than by a broken affair (cf. Id. 3, 6, 11, Verg. E. 2). In the Calpurnian pastoral as well, the consummated erotic relationship between Lycidas and Phyllis and the sorrow caused by Phyllis’ disloyalty have long been read as instances of elegiac influence on the Calpurnian pastoral oeuvre.76 The following instances of the pastoral narrative can be largely attributed to elegiac influence, underscored by Theocritean reminiscences: a) the loss of appetite in 42–43, omnes ecce cibos et nostri pocula Bacchi / horreo—the motif appears in the Theocritean corpus in the non-bucolic poems, i.e., in the second Idyll (88–90), along with the pallor imagery, as well as in the also non-bucolic fourteenth Idyll (3–4);77 b) the sleeplessness of the lover due to his elegiac loss in 43 again, nec placido memini concedere somno (cf. Catul. 68a.5–6, Tib. 1.2.76, 1.8.64, 2.4.11–12, Prop. 1.1.33, 1.3.39, 1.5.11, 1.11.5, 1.16.39–40, 2.17.3–4, 2.25.47, Ov. Am. 1.2.1–

74 75 76 77

Cf. especially Hunter (1999) 223–224. See also Pearce (1992) 41, Cupaiuolo (1997) 17, 135. Cf. also Friedrich (1976) 60, Fey-Wickert 2002, 166–167. Cf. Fey-Wickert (2002) 143–235 passim and 22–29; for an influence of the elegiac Calp. 3 on Nemes. 2, cf. also Stanzel (1989) 197–201. Cf. Cupaiuolo (1997) 140.

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4, Epist. 8.109, 11.29, 12.169–170 etc.).78 This last motif significantly occurs in previous pastoral tradition only in the elegiac third Calpurnian Eclogue, 47: dum flet et excluso disperdit lumina somno, where Lycidas is presented as weeping all night, thus combining the motif of the elegiac sleeplessness with the equally elegiac topic of the tears over an erotic loss (here, Phyllis, after a longstanding relationship).79 In Theocritus the motif does appear, but only in the non-bucolic tenth Idyll (v. 10), where the reaper Bucaeus asks his fellow harvester Milon: οὐδαμά νυν συνέβα τοι ἀγρυπνῆσαι δι’ ἔρωτα. In Nemes. 2 Mopsus continues with a similar generic pattern: he states the general truth that all nature succumbs to love, developing this theme by means of the priamel form once again, which is one of the stylistic markers of the bucolic genre. However, the priamel series he chooses, an account of animal life in love (26–28), has its Theocritean parallel in the tenth Idyll (30–31), and so in a poem not belonging to the circle of Theocritean bucolic Idylls. Theocritus has clearly created the pastoral canon and post-Calpurnian poets allude to him directly or through the intermediary of Virgil and later pastoral poets as evidenced by the selected passages discussed above; the Theocritean intertext, often cumulatively, underscores the pastoral caliber of the post-Virgilian narrative and/or meta-discourses. Yet, what is more important and less anticipated, it is the non-pastoral or the generically deviant instances of the Theocritean corpus which all subsequent Roman bucolic poets seem to capitalize on to bring up their generic aspirations and reformation. The way these poets cope with the first inventor of their genre becomes a post-Virgilian pastoral trend.

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Grant, W.L. (1965), Neo-Latin Literature and the Pastoral (Chapel Hill). Green, S.J. (2009), “The Horse and the Serpent: A Vergilian Perspective on the Final Eclogue of Calpurnius Siculus,” Vergilius 55, 55–67. Gutzwiller, K.J. (1996), “The Evidence for Theocritean Poetry Books,” in M.A. Harder/ R.F. Regtuit/G.C. Wakker (eds.), Hellenistica Groningana 2: Theocritus (Groningen) 119–148. Hardie, P./Moore, H. (2010), (eds.) Classical Literary Careers and their Reception (Cambridge). Henderson, J. (2013), “The Carmina Einsidlensia and Calpurnius Siculus’ Eclogues,” in E. Buckley/M.T. Dinter (eds.), A Companion to the Neronian Age (Malden/Oxford/ Chichester) 170–187. Himmelmann-Wildschütz, N. (1972), “Nemesians erste Ekloge,” RhM 115, 342–356. Hubaux, J. (1930), Les thèmes bucoliques dans la poésie latine (Brussels). Hubbard, T.K. (1998), The Pipes of Pan: Intertextuality and Literary Filiation in the Pastoral Tradition from Theocritus to Milton (Ann Arbor). Hunter, R.L. (1999), Theocritus: A Selection (Idylls 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 13) (Cambridge). Hunter, R.L. (2006), The Shadow of Callimachus: Studies in the Reception of Hellenistic Poetry at Rome (Cambridge). Jenkyns, R. (1998), Virgil’s Experience: Nature and History: Times, Names, and Places (Oxford). Kaibel, G. (1882), “Theocritum Capurnius et Nemesianus imitantur,” Hermes 17, 419. Karakasis, E. (2011), Song Exchange in Roman Pastoral (Berlin). Karakasis, E. (2016), T. Calpurnius Siculus. A Pastoral Poet in Neronian Rome (Berlin). Keene, C.H. (1996), The Eclogues of Calpurnius Siculus and M. Aurelius Olympius Nemesianus (London). Kegel-Brinkgreve, E. (1990), The Echoing Woods: Bucolic and Pastoral from Theocritus to Wordsworth (Amsterdam). Korzeniewski, D. (1966), “Die ‘panegyrische Tendenz’ in den Carmina Einsidlensia,”Hermes 94, 344–360. Korzeniewski, D. (1971), Hirtengedichte aus neronischer Zeit (Darmstadt). Korzeniewski, D. (1972), “Die Eklogen des Calpurnius Siculus als Gedichtbuch,” MH 29, 214–216. Korzeniewski, D. (1976), Hirtengedichte aus spätrömischer und karolingischer Zeit (Darmstadt). Korzeniowski, G.S. (1998), Verskolometrie und hexametrische Verskunst römischer Bukoliker (Göttingen). Küppers, J. (1989), “Tityrus in Rom: Bemerkungen zu einem vergilischen Thema und seiner Rezeptionsgeschichte,” ICS 14, 33–47.

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Theiler, W. (1956), “Zu den Einsiedler Hirtengedichten,” SIFC 27–28, 565–577. Van Sickle, J. (1978), The Design of Virgil’s Bucolics (Rome). Van Sickle, J. (2000), “Virgil vs. Cicero, Lucretius, Theocritus, Plato, and Homer: Two Programmatic Plots in the First Bucolic,” Vergilius 46, 21–58. Verdière, R. (1954), T. Calpurnii Siculi De laude Pisonis et Bucolica et M. Annaei Lucani De laude Caesaris Einsiedlensia quae dicuntur carmina (Brussels). Verdière, R. (1966), “La bucolique post-Virgilienne,” Eos 56, 161–185. Verdière, R. (1974), Prolégomènes à Nemesianus (Leiden). Verdière, R. (1985), “Le genre bucolique à l’époque de Néron: Les Bucolica de T. Calpurnius Siculus et les Carmina Einsidlensia. État de la question et prospectives,” ANRW ii 32.3, 1845–1924. Verdière, R. (1993), “Calpurnius, en fin d’analyse …,” Helmantica 44, 349–398. Vinchesi, M.A. (1991), “La terza ecloga di Calpurnio Siculo fra tradizione bucolica e tradizione elegiaca,” Prometheus 17, 259–276. Vinchesi, M.A. (1996), Calpurnio Siculo. Egloghe (Milan). Vinchesi, M.A. (1998), “Il Canto d’amore nella seconda egloga di Nemesiano e l’‘officina poetica’ di un tardo autore bucolico,” in M. Pace Pieri (ed.), Percorsi della memoria 1 (Florence) 133–143. Vinchesi, M.A. (2002), “Calpurnio Siculo e i nuovi percorsi della poesia bucolica,” in L. Castagna/G. Vogt-Spira (eds.), Pervertere: Ästhetik der Verkehrung. Literatur und Kultur neronischer Zeit und ihre Rezeption, Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 151 (Munich/Leipzig) 139–151. Vinchesi, M.A. (2008), “Il certamen mancato: per un’analisi tematica della vi Egloga di Calpurnio Siculo,” in P. Arduini/S. Audano/A. Borghini/A. Cavarzere/G. Mazzoli/ G. Paduano/A. Russo (eds.), Studi offerti ad Alessandro Perutelli, vol. ii (Rome) 543– 557. Vinchesi, M.A. (2010), “Aspetti della poesia bucolica di età neroniana. Per una lettura della vii egloga di Calpurnio Siculo,” Quaderni di Acme 120, 137–159. Vinchesi, M.A. (2014), Calpurnii Siculi Eclogae (Florence). Volpilhac, P. (1975), Némésien, oeuvres: texte établi et traduit (Paris). Volpilhac, P. (1998), “État présent des recherches sur Némésien,” ANRW ii. 34.4, 3175– 3178. Vozza, P. (1993), “L’ars poetica di Calpurnio-Coridone ed il giudizio sull’età Neroniana,” BStudLat. 23, 282–308. Vozza, P. (1994), “Un silenzio eloquente (Quid tacitus …? Calpurnio Ecl. 4.1–4),” BStudLat. 24, 71–92. Walter, H. (1988), Studien zur Hirtendichtung Nemesians (Stuttgart). Williams, H.J. (1986), The Eclogues and Cynegetica of Nemesianus (Leiden). Wlosok, A. (1984), “Originalität, Kreativität und Epigonentum in der spätrömischen Literatur,” in Actes du viie Congrès de la F.I.E.C. Vol. ii (Budapest) 251–265.

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chapter 31

Theocritus and Longus Ewen Bowie

A third-century reader encountering Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe would rapidly decide that the book was written within the now well-established (albeit nameless) genre of prose fiction, the love-novel. That would be clear from its preface’s emphasis on the ubiquitous role of ἔρως, “love” or “desire,” and would be reinforced by its mention of pirates, a novelistic staple. But already in this preface some details would alert readers to the work’s radical break from such generic conventions: the rural location of the painting described (by contrast with the urban setting of the painting in Achilles Tatius 1.1 to which it gestures), the involvement of shepherds adopting the exposed babies. The nature of that break soon becomes apparent when we read that for the boy-child the name Daphnis was chosen, so that it might sound ποιμενικόν, “pastoral” (1.3). The pastoral world, adumbrated in the Homeric epics, had been developed by Theocritus to be the setting of the majority of his poems; these poems were being read, admired, and equipped with commentary in the second and third centuries ce; and the first poem in the standard ancient edition had a Sicilian shepherd sing of τὰ Δάφνιδoς ἄλγεα, “The pains of Daphnis.” Accordingly, from the moment Daphnis’ name is highlighted by Longus an educated reader will keenly observe the ways in which the text sometimes follows Theocritus’ vision of the pastoral world, sometimes challenges or subverts that vision. From time to time Longus also deploys material that seems to evoke pastoral scenes in epigram, from as early as Anyte1 to poems in the Garland of Philip,2 and he draws on Moschus3 and Bion too,4 though not for specifically pastoral motifs. It may also be, as I once argued, that there were pastoral elements in the now largely lost poetry of Philitas of Cos which Longus refashions, but whose details 1 E.g., Anyte, Anth.Pal. 7.190 (= HE 742–745) at 1.14.4. 2 E.g., Maccius, Anth.Plan. 198.3 (= GP 2538) at 1.32.4; Philip, Anth.Pal. 6.99 (= GP 2727–2732) at 2.34.1. 3 1.18.2 may evoke Moschus 1.27 φεῦγε, κακὸν τὸ φίλημα. τὰ χείλεα φάρμακoν ἐντί. At 3.11.3 ἀνέραστos, rare in Hellenistic poetry though common in imperial prose, may be drawn from Call., Anth.Pal. 12.148 = Ep. 32.4 Pfeiffer, Moschus fr. 2.7, or Bion fr. 9.3 Gow. See also below n. 13. 4 Comparison of Eros to a bird (2.4.2) evokes Bion fr. 13 Gow, cf. Hunter (1983) 77–78; 4.8.1 draws twice on Epitaphios Adonidis (39 and 71).

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the loss of Philitas’ poetry prevents us detecting. Despite all these (and many other) points of reference, however, it is primarily against Theocritean poetry that Longus expects us to appreciate his own text. Only on reaching the end of its fourth book—the least pastoral—will a circumspect reader venture an assessment of what Longus has been doing with Theocritus. This chapter likewise defers such an attempt until it has reviewed in detail a range of instances of Longus’ Theocritean exploitation.

Landscape: Goats and Sheep, Pines and Springs, Idyll 1 The countryside in which Longus’ hero and heroine, Daphnis and Chloe, are exposed as unwanted babies and grow up to discover the pleasures and pains of sexuality is one whose most visible and numerous inhabitants are goats and sheep. These are imagined as grazing on pasture that stretches up into hill country and down to the sea, and that is at least partly wooded. Such a landscape and the focus on goats and sheep reflects above all what was probably the first poem in the ancient Theocritean corpus, opening with a dialogue between the shepherd Thyrsis, who identifies himself as from Etna (1.65), and an unnamed goatherd, whose virtuosity in playing the panpipe is second only to Pan’s (1.3). His reluctance to do so at midday lest he wake Pan reveals that Pan too inhabits this east Sicilian landscape (1.15–18), which is the same as that which provides the setting for the story of “The pains of Daphnis,” the prize-winning song that Thyrsis sings for the goatherd in exchange for a wonderful cup and three milkings from a twin-kidded she-goat. That song, however, opens a window onto a different, quasi-mythical universe from the apparently contemporary world of the herdsmen—there Daphnis is himself a cowherd, a girl (κώρα, 1.82) is searching for him, there are maidens (παρθένοι) whose dances he would like to join (1.90–91), and three divinities (Hermes, Priapus, and Aphrodite, 1.77, 81, 95) come to converse with him as he lies dying. The centrality of goats and sheep, and the presence at one remove of cattle and their cowherds, is maintained throughout Daphnis and Chloe. Like their parents, Daphnis herds goats and Chloe sheep; they return to herding at the story’s end despite the opportunity of luxurious city living opened up by the discovery that they are really the children of leading families in Mytilene; and it is implied their own children do so too (4.39). Cattle herding is confined to characters who are markedly “others”—the wise old Philetas, experienced in love when he was still a youthful cowherd, and then at least one of his children (2.5.3); Daphnis’ two named rivals for Chloe’s love, Dorcon the

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βουκόλος (2.15.1) and Lampis, an ἀγέρωχος βουκόλος (4.7.1); and the cowboy and cowgirl of the first inserted tale (1.27.2–4).5 Many details of the landscape of Idyll 1 are refashioned by Longus. I begin with the πίτυς, “pine-tree,” of its first two lines: ἁδύ τι τὸ ψιθύρισμα καὶ ἁ πίτυς, αἰπόλε, τήνα, / ἁ ποτὶ ταῖς παγαῖσι, μελίσδεται, “Sweet is the whispering that that pine-tree, goatherd, / the one by the springs, creates as its music.” This Theocritean pine becomes an important constituent of the novel’s ekphrasis of the first summer (1.23–24). There the winds are said to make the sound of panpipes as they rustle the pine trees: εἴκασεν ἄν τις καὶ τοὺς ποταμοὺς ᾄδειν ἠρέμα ῥέοντας καὶ τοὺς ἀνέμους συρίττειν ταῖς πίτυσιν ἐμπνέοντας, “One would have guessed that the rivers too were singing quietly as they flowed and that the winds were piping as they blew upon the pines” (1.23.2). In that summer too Chloe captivates Daphnis by donning a fawn skin and a pine garland, which he snatches to wear himself (1.24.1–2). It is likewise wearing a pine garland that the cowgirl of the first inset tale sits beneath a pine and sings the myth of Pan and Πίτυς, “Pine” (1.27.2). In Book 2 it emerges that a cult statue of Pan stands beneath a pine tree: τὸν Πᾶνα ἐκεῖνον τὸν ὑπὸ τῇ πίτυϊ ἱδρυμένον, ὃν ὑμεῖς οὐδέποτε οὐδὲ ἄνθεσιν ἐτιμήσατε, “that Pan whose statue stands beneath the pine, Pan whom you have never honoured even with flowers” (2.23.4); its location beneath the pine is restated when Daphnis rushes to pray and make a vow to Pan (2.24.2).6 When Pan’s intervention terrifies Chloe’s Methymnan captors his miracles include her miraculously wearing a pine garland (2.26.2, 28.2, 30.3). It is at the pine near their pastures that, wearing pine garlands, the couple and their families sacrifice to Pan the he-goat that Daphnis had vowed (2.31.2) and to the pine that its skin is nailed (2.31.3). When Philetas joins the families’ celebration they drape the bunches of grapes that he brings on the pine’s foliage (2.33.2), and when Daphnis swears by Pan to be loyal to Chloe, it is to the pine he goes to do so (2.39.1). When the second spring opens, Pan and his pine are visited immediately after the Nymphs’ cave where Chloe had been found (3.12.2), and in the second summer Idyll 1 is even more emphatically recalled when Daphnis ἐσύριζεν ἁμιλλώμενος πρὸς τὰς πίτυς, “played his panpipes in competition with the pines” (3.24.2). After a darker moment in which Lamon, Daphnis’ father, imagines he may be hung from a pine tree and flayed like Marsyas because of the vandalising of Dionysophanes’ garden (which also has pines, 4.2.3) by Lampis (4.8.4),7 Longus brings the curtain down on the pine’s appearances when, in the novel’s 5 On βουκόλοι see further below p. 763. 6 For the rarity of such a vow in the Greek novels, see Bowie (2012). 7 The standard version of the Marsyas myth: cf. Ps-Apollodorus 1.24.

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penultimate section, the couple τῷ Πανὶ δὲ ἔδοσαν ἀντὶ τῆς πίτυος οἰκεῖν νεών, “gave Pan a temple to live in instead of the pine” (4.39.2). Longus has demonstrated how a single item in a well-known Theocritean poem can be exploited to create a red thread that runs through his whole work.8 The pine of Idyll 1 stands “by the springs” (1.2). There are several springs in Longus’ landscape (cf. 3.3.2, 4.1.3), in some of which Chloe bathes during the second summer (3.24.2). These include one beside which Lycaenion instructs Daphnis in the sexual act (3.17.1) and in which she urges him to have Chloe bathe when he has deflowered her (3.19.3). There seems to be another, unrelated spring from which grazing animals drink (1.20.3, 21.1, 4); and Philetas’ garden returns to the opening of Idyll 1 by boasting three springs (2.3.5) in which Eros himself bathes (2.5.4). But most important is the spring with which Longus opens his novel, in his ekphrasis of a grove with a spring which πάντα ἔτρεφε, καὶ τὰ ἄνθη καὶ τὰ δένδρα, “nourished everything, both flowers and trees,” creating a meadow where Dryas finds the baby Chloe (1.4–6). This grove, an associated cave, and the spring are as omnipresent as the pine tree. They are mentioned in connection with the Nymphs whom the fathers see in simultaneous dreams (1.7.2); it is there that Daphnis strips to bathe after his misadventure in the wolf-pit, thus arousing Chloe’s ἔρως, “desire” (1.13.1–2); from this spring Daphnis drinks farewell draughts of water when leaving the country for the city (4.26.4); and water from it is mixed with wine at the fête champêtre celebrating the discovery that Chloe too is a foundling (4.32.3). This pastoral spring is mirrored by one in Dionysophanes’ garden, a spring which Daphnis himself has discovered (4.4.1, cf. 4.7.4). Like the pine of Idyll 1.1, the springs of Idyll 1.2 flow throughout Longus’ work; and while those of Idyll 1 are little more than background decor and never reappear, Longus assigns his an integral role in several scenes of his novel.

1

A Grasshopper-Cage, a Cup, and the Myth of Syrinx

Two further details in Idyll 1’s landscape make an important contribution to significant scenes in Daphnis and Chloe. In the story’s first spring season, while Daphnis cuts reeds to make a panpipe, Chloe ἀνθερίκους ἀνελομένη ποθὲν ἐξ ἕλους ἀκριδοθήκην ἔπλεκε καὶ περὶ τοῦτο πονουμένη τῶν ποιμνίων ἠμέλησεν, “gathering asphodel-stalks from some

8 The pine is in fact much more prominent in Longus than in Theocritus, where apart from 1.1 it appears only at 1.134, 3.38, and 5.49.

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marshy place plaited a grasshopper-cage, and while crafting it neglected her sheep” (1.10.2). This replicates the same activity by the boy on the splendid cup offered by Theocritus’ goatherd to Thyrsis (Id. 1.47–54), a boy so absorbed in the creative process that he fails to notice two vixens scheming to steal respectively his lunch and the grapes he is meant to be guarding. The detail in Daphnis and Chloe is both a nod to the importance of Idyll 1 and a metapoetic claim by Longus to be as dedicated to his literary creation as was Theocritus. That Chloe neglects her flock has no dire consequences, emblematizing Longus’ move from narratives of failed love to successful (discussed below). But that his readers are encouraged to learn from the comparison of his scenes with those on Theocritus’ κισσύβιον, “cup” (1.27), is made clear when Chloe’s suitor Dorcon shortly gives her precisely a κισσύβιον, “cup” (1.15.3), and when the beauty competition of Daphnis and Dorcon for the prize of a kiss (1.15.4–16) offers a rustic version of two love-struck and apparently urban young men competing for a woman’s favours on Theocritus’ cup (Id. 1.32–38).9 Another important cluster of refashionings is found in Book 2, when Daphnis’ father Lamon promises to entertain the company celebrating Chloe’s recovery with the myth of Syrinx: this myth, he says, was sung to him by a Sicilian goatherd ἐπὶ μισθῷ τράγῳ καὶ σύριγγι, “for the price of a goat and a panpipe” (2.33.3). Sicilian goatherds appear nowhere else on Longus’ Lesbos, nor is there any hint that Lamon has ever travelled outside his master’s Mytilenean estates. The credit is a credit by Longus to his model Theocritus, and in particular to the scene in Idyll 1.25–60 where the Σικελὸς αἰπόλος, “Sicilian goatherd,” unnamed, as in Longus, offers the shepherd Thyrsis the milk of a twin-kidded she-goat and the wondrous cup in exchange for his song “The pains of Daphnis.” That she-goat with twin kids is held back to be relocated in the myth itself: in his attempt to seduce Syrinx Pan ἐπηγγέλλετο τὰς αἶγας πάσας θήσειν διδυμοτόκους, “offered to make all her she-goats have twins” (2.34.1). The scene on the cup of Idyll 1 is shortly evoked again in the ballet in which Daphnis and Chloe enact the story of Pan and Syrinx: Chloe, playing Syrinx, ἀμελoῦσα ἐμειδία, “smiled and paid no attention” (2.37.2), like the girl γέλαισα, “laughing,” on the cup (Id. 1.36–37). That here in miming these reactions Chloe plays Syrinx, acting in a manner quite different from her characteristic behaviour to Daphnis, emphasises how much she differs from Theo9 That scene has other Theocritean models too, see further below: (1) Idyll 5, where herdsmen compete in self-praise and the judge is a heather-gatherer (2) Idyll 6, where Daphnis the cowherd and Damoetas compete in song (6.5), neither wins, but they exchange presents and kiss (6.42–43); cf. 1.29.3, 4.38.4 (3) [Theoc.] Idyll 8, where Daphnis and Menalcas compete: Daphnis wins and marries Nais.

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critus’ γυνά, “woman.”10 Meanwhile, earlier in Book 2, a further small detail had also evoked the cup’s scenes: the pleasure-cruising Methymnan youths are described as “sometimes fishing for fish in rock pools from a rock jutting out into the sea, with hooks attached to rods by a fine line” (2.12.2). That image of fishing from a rock may recall Id. 1.39–41, but again there is reversal— Longus’ fishermen are plural and young, that of Theocritus is just one old man.

2

Further Reworkings of Idyll 1

The many other nods to Idyll 1 in Daphnis and Chloe are found spread through each of the four books. Daphnis’ description of Chloe’s mouth as στόμα κηρίων γλυκύτερoν, “sweeter than honeycombs” (1.18.1), evokes the goatherd’s prayer at πλῆρές τοι μέλιτος τὸ καλὸν στόμα, Θύρσι, γένοιτο, “may your beautiful mouth, Thyrsis, be full of honey”; and his claim there τήκεται ἡ ψυχή, “my soul is wasting away,” evokes ἐτάκετο, “he was wasting away,” and τί τὺ τάκεαι; “why then are you wasting away?” (1.66 and 82). The ἴα, “violets,” whose blooming (along with hyacinths) Daphnis proceeds to contrast with his own plight (1.18.2), may trigger recollection of those at Id. 1.132,11 and readers might note how Longus has surprisingly reduced his previously energetic Daphnis to a state of debility— Δάφνις δὲ μαραίνεται, “and Daphnis withers away” (1.18.2)—recalling that of Theocritus’ dying Daphnis. The following scene has Dorcon promise Dryas several generous (albeit rustic) gifts if he will give him his daughter Chloe in marriage (1.19.2): this act of promising may recall that of the goatherd at Id. 1.25–26. More certainly, the dying Dorcon’s gift of his pipe (1.29.2) evokes Id. 1.128–130, where the dying Daphnis (also a cowherd) gives his pipe to Pan.12 There is a further echo when Philetas give his pipe to Daphnis (2.37.3), but that echo of these words is blended with one of Lycidas’ gift of his staff to Simichidas at Id. 7.128–129. Dorcon’s death brings with it more allusions to Idyll 1. It is at this point we are told that with this panpipe he had defeated many goatherds and cowherds ἐρίζων, “in competitions” (1.29.3). Longus himself stages no musical competitions,

10 11

12

Cf. Eunice at [Theoc.] 20.1. ἴα, “violets,” are among spring flowers at 2.3.4 (with ὑάκινθoι, “hyacinths”) and used for garlands at 3.12.2, 20.2, 3, 22.4. On violets as part of the pastoral landscape cf. Gow on Theoc. 10.28. See further below on 3.12.2. Cf. also Verg. Ecl. 2.36, where Damoetas gave his fistula, “pipe,” to Corydon, with Hunter (1983) 61–62.

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but they were well established in Theocritus’ pastoral world, and he may allude specifically to Id. 1.24, ὡς ὅκα τὸν Λιβύαθε πoτὶ Χρόμιν ᾆσας ἐρίσδων, “as when you sang when competing against Chromis from Africa,” referring to Thyrsis’ victory with his song “The pains of Daphnis.”13 The evocation of Idyll 1 in this scene continues with Dorcon’s animals mourning him (1.31.4): this “pathetic fallacy” begins with Id. 1.73–74: πολλαί οἱ πὰρ ποσσὶ βόες, πολλοὶ δέ τε ταῦροι, / πολλαὶ δὲ δαμάλαι καὶ πόρτιες ὠδύραντο, “Many cows were by his feet, and many bulls, and many heifers and many calves, lamenting.”14 Evocation of Idyll 1 continues in Book 2. When Daphnis and Chloe ηὔχoντo γενέσθαι πoίμνια, “prayed to become sheep” (2.2.2), their wishes recall Id. 1.87– 88: ᾡπόλoς, ὅκκ’ ἐσoρῇ τὰς μηκάδας oἷα βατεῦνται, / τάκεται ὀφθαλμὼς ὅτι oὐ τράγoς αὐτὸς ἔγεντo, “as to the goatherd, when he looks at how the she-goats are mounted, his eyes melt because he himself was not born a billy-goat.” The idea of transgressing the line between humans and animals is picked up in Book 4 by Gnathon’s wish to become a goat and thus to be “shepherded by Daphnis” (ὑπ’ ἐκείνου νεμόμενος, 4.16.3). Like the couple imitating (3.14.3) and kissing their beasts (1.18.1, 4.38.4), such wishes problematise the difference between humans and animals, exploring the implications of this diagnosis offered (significantly) by Priapus in Id. 1.87–88.15 Among the wonders wrought by Pan to terrify the Methymnans is the miracle that οἱ δὲ κριοὶ καὶ αἱ ὄϊες τῆς Χλόης λύκων ὠρυγμὸν ὠρύοντο, “and Chloe’s rams and ewes howled the howling of wolves” (2.26.1): here Longus recalls λύκoι ὠρύσαντo, “wolves lamented with their howling” (Id. 1.71). During the party celebrating Chloe’s return one of the company ἐσεμνύνετο … ἄλλος ὡς μόνου τοῦ Πανὸς δεύτερα συρίσας· τοῦτο τοῦ Φιλητᾶ τὸ σεμνολόγημα ἦν, “boasted … that his pipe-playing was second only to Pan’s: this was the boast of Philetas” (2.32.3). This recalls Thyrsis’ compliment to the goatherd at Idyll 1.3 μετὰ Πᾶνα τὸ δεύτερον ἆθλον ἀπoισῆι, “after Pan you will carry off the second prize”—unless both Theocritus and Longus allude to words of the poet Philitas (as “this was the boast of Philetas” may hint).16 In the second spring the couple gather its earliest flowers to make garlands for their gods: Longus specifies καὶ ἴα καὶ νάρκισσος καὶ ἀναγαλλίς, “violets, the narcissus, and the pimpernel” (3.12.2). Of these the violets and narcissus appear together in Daphnis’ lament for his fate at Id. 1.132–133; the narcissus is found 13 14 15 16

Though Idyll 6.5 also has ἔρισδεν, “he threw down a challenge,” see below p. 755. Cf. Moschus, Epitaphios Bionis 23–24, Verg. Ecl. 5.24–27, and the bees mourning the vandalised flowers at Longus 4.8.2. For the important role of Priapus in Idyll 1, see Bowie (forthcoming). For Philetas’ gift of his pipe to Daphnis see above p. 752.

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only there in Theocritus; and, as in 3.12.2, a pine stands nearby (1.134). Longus reworks for a scene of joie de vivre and optimism flowers linked by Theocritus with death and despair. When Lycaenion promises to teach Daphnis about sex his gifts combine two different passages of Idyll 1. The ἔριφoν … σηκίτην, “kid still being suckled in the fold” (3.18.2) recalls ἄρνα τὺ σακίταν λαψῇ γέρα, “you shall get a fold-suckling lamb as your reward” (Id. 1.10). This is, along with Theocritus, epigram 4.18, the only other literary use of the word σηκίτης/σακίτας. The καὶ τυροὺς ἁπαλοὺς πρωτορρύτου γάλακτος καὶ τὴν αἶγα αὐτήν, “soft cheeses of the season’s first flow of milk and the she-goat itself” (again 3.18.2) recall (in reverse order): αἶγά τ’ ἔδωκα / ὦνον καὶ τυρόεντα μέγαν λευκοῖο γάλακτος, “I gave him a she-goat as payment, and a large cheese of white milk” (Id. 1.57–58). The conjunction demonstrates that at this point Longus has his eye on Idyll 1, even though earlier Philetas too had received cheeses and a kid to reward his assistance (2.8.1). He may invite readers to compare the pleasure given the unnamed goatherd by Thyrsis’ song and by the wondrous cup to that given by Lycaenion to the goatherd Daphnis for similar remuneration, and perhaps to move from there to comparison of the pleasure conveyed by reading Daphnis and Chloe to that gained from reading Theocritus. One of the few intrusions Longus allows into his pastoral world is the fishermen’s boat at 3.21. It is reasonable to think that its intervention is admitted because Id. 1.39–44 had given a fisherman a cameo role, a role that had already been the model for the Methymnans’ fishing at 2.12.3.17 Book 3’s remaining evocations of Idyll 1 are perhaps less striking. At 3.22.4 γελάσας οὖν ὁ Δάφνις ἡδὺ καὶ φιλήσας ἥδιον φίλημα, “so Daphnis laughed sweetly, and kissed her with a kiss that was sweeter,” the positive ἡδύ, “sweet,” prepares for the comparative ἥδιoν, “sweeter,” as does the ἁδύ that opens Id. 1.1 for ἅδιον at line 7; and at 3.23.2, in the statement that Echo ταῖς Νύμφαις συνεχόρευε, “used to dance with the Nymphs,” Longus may recall Priapus’ remark to Daphnis ‘τάκεαι ὀφθαλμὼς ὅτι οὐ μετὰ ταῖσι χορεύεις’, “your eyes waste away because you do not dance with them” (Id. 1.90)—though dancing is often associated in earlier literature with παρθένoι, “unmarried girls,” such as Echo is.18 After so much use of Idyll 1 in Books 1–3 the rarity of its exploitation in Book 4 is striking—most of the few cases noted below relate to Dionysophanes’ paradeisos and Gnathon’s attempt to seduce Daphnis.19 Its fading out is not sur17 18 19

Discussed above p. 752. Admittedly in Alciphron fishermen join rustics, parasites, and courtesans as non-elite letter-writers. E.g., Eur. Hel. 1312–1314. On girls’ choruses see Calame (1977), (1997). For the use at 4.17.6 of Idyll 1’s reference to Aphrodite’s seduction of Anchises at 105–106 see below p. 761.

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prising in a book that draws extensively on New Comedy and takes the couple temporarily to the city, but Longus may consciously be limiting his refashioning of that iconic Idyll to match the generic shifts of that last book.

3

The Contribution of Other Idylls: Games with Names

The cowherd to whom the name Daphnis is given in Thyrsis’ song (and whose “pains” are also mentioned by Lacon in Id. 5.20, cf. 5.80–81) is a foil for Longus’ homonymous goatherd, not a model. The Daphnis of Idyll 7, who fell in love with a girl or nymph called Xenea and was lamented by the mountain and its oaks (7.73–74), may be imagined to be the same Daphnis as that in Idylls 1 and 5. But when we read that Longus’ exposed baby was given the name Daphnis “so that the name might seem to be pastoral” (1.3.2), we are probably expected to think too of other and happier Theocritean characters with that name: the ἀοιδός, “singer,” Daphnis, briefly mentioned at Idyll 5.80–81; the Daphnis, also a cowherd, but young, who has a singing competition with Damoetas in Idyll 6: Δαμοίτας καὶ Δάφνις ὁ βουκόλος εἰς ἕνα χῶρον / τὰν ἀγέλαν ποκ’, Ἄρατε, συνάγαγον, “Damoetas and Daphnis the cowherd once brought their herds together to one place, Aratus” (6.1–2)—a competition that ends with them kissing; the Daphnis who has singing exchanges with Menalcas in Idylls 8 and 9, poems not now reckoned to be by Theocritus, but probably in the corpus by Longus’ time;20 and above all the youth who successfully seduces an initially reluctant girl in Idyll 27, where he identifies himself Δάφνις ἐγώ, Λυκίδας δὲ πατήρ, μήτηρ δὲ Νομαίη, “I am Daphnis, my father is Lycidas, and my mother Nomaea” (27.42). This poem has also been denied to Theocritus: whether correctly or not,21 it too may well have been taken to be Theocritean by Longus, and it alone offered him a Daphnis whose pursuit of heterosexual love was (so far as the action of the poem goes) successful. Idyll 27 may also have suggested such details as Daphnis’ initiative at 1.26.2 when, on the πρόφασις, “pretext,” of ridding Chloe of the cicada that had taken refuge in her clothing, he “slipped his hands into her chest and took out the splendid cicada”: compare Idyll 27.49, where the girl being seduced protests τί δ’ ἔνδoθεν ἅψαo μαζῶν, “Why are you inside my clothing, touching my breasts?” Of the Idylls just mentioned, 6 and 7 both make a contribution to Longus’ pattern of gradual movement towards erotic union. In Idyll 6 the two young

20 21

Idyll 8 is found with Idylls 1, 5, and 7 on P.Oxy. 2064 (second century ce). For a balanced assessment, see Fantuzzi forthcoming.

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cowherds exchange kisses that are manifestly erotic; in Idyll 7 one of the narrator’s travelling companions, initially simply “Amyntas” (7.2), has by the poem’s end become “beautiful Amyntas” (ὁ καλὸς Ἀμύντιχος, 7.132).22 With this beautiful Amyntas the narrator and Eucritus recline beside a spring in a locus amoenus,23 a locus which, together with that in which the mysterious goatherd Lycidas imagines a celebration of his beloved Ageanax’s safe arrival at Mytilene (7.63–89), makes contributions of atmosphere and detail to several scenes in Longus—to the cave of the Nymphs in his preface, to the celebrations following Chloe’s recovery (2.31–37), to those following first Daphnis’ and then Chloe’s recognition as children of elite families (4.26, 32), and finally to their rural wedding (4.37–38). Idyll 7 also introduces a character called Tityrus, presumably a herdsman, who at the party celebrating Ageanax’s arrival will sing of Daphnis’ desire for Xenea and of his wasting away (7.72–77). A Tityrus also appears in Idyll 3, where the unnamed narrator, describing himself as going on a komos to his beloved Amaryllis, asks Tityrus, also dear to him, to look after his goats: κωμάσδω ποτὶ τὰν Ἀμαρυλλίδα, ταὶ δέ μοι αἶγες βόσκονται κατ’ ὄρος, καὶ ὁ Τίτυρος αὐτὰς ἐλαύνει. Τίτυρ’, ἐμὶν τὸ καλὸν πεφιλημένε, βόσκε τὰς αἶγας, καὶ ποτὶ τὰν κράναν ἄγε, Τίτυρε … I am serenading Amaryllis, and my she-goats are grazing on the mountain, and Tityrus drives them. Tityrus, my beloved, fair Tityrus, graze the she-goats, and take them to the fountain … Id. 3.1–4

Whether Tityrus is a good friend of the narrator, or is his son (but hardly his lead-goat!),24 the opening of this Idyll will certainly have been known to Longus (as it was to the rhetor Hermogenes),25 and he uses the name Tityrus for the youngest son of Philetas, sent at 2.22.1–2.33.2 to fetch his father’s large panpipe: he returns at 2.35.1 and has no further part in the story. The name Amaryllis too is used—for the girl pursued in his youth by Philetas and now, presum22 23 24 25

For these interpretations see Bowie (1996). For a good analysis of the scene, see Hunter (1999) 191–193. For discussion of the names and identities of Tityrus and Amaryllis, see Hunter (1999) 111– 112 (not, however, mentioning the possibility that Tityrus is the narrator’s son). Hermog. Id. 2.3 = 322 Rabe, citing it as an example of ἀφέλεια.

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ably, mother of Tityrus and his brothers (2.5.3, 7.4, 7.6, 8.5). She too does not reappear. Whether Longus (and Virgil in Eclogue 1, which also has a Tityrus and an Amaryllis) drew the names only from Idyll 3 (possibly reinforced by ancient scholarship on Theocritus), or whether both already figured in amatory and perhaps rustic poetry of Philitas,26 cannot at present be determined—papyri may one day offer further evidence. In either case, however, the appearance of these names early in Book 2 confirm other indications that Longus’ pastoral world is closely related to that of Theocritus. These indications receive some further confirmation in Book 3. The name Longus gives to the aged husband of the young woman who teaches Daphnis the sexual act is Chromis (3.15.1 and 4, 4.38.2). Although only one manuscript at one of these three places offers the spelling Χρόμις (Χρόμιν, Chromin, in F at 3.15.4), editors are probably right to prefer this to other forms offered (Χρῶμις, Chrōmis; Χρόμης, Chromēs). If so, the name seems to be drawn from Idyll 1.24, where it is that of a man from Africa with whom Thyrsis once competed, singing his song “The pains of Daphnis.” Longus’ Daphnis thus becomes an erotic rival of the Theocritean character who had rivalled Thyrsis in song. Another Hellenistic use, e.g., by Philitas of Cos, may be suggested by Virgil’s reuse of the name Chromis at Eclogue 6.13–14 to name one of the boys who trap Silenus: Chromis et Mnasyllus in antro / Silenum pueri somno uidere iacentem, “The boys Chromis and Mnasyllus saw Silenus lying asleep in a cave.” The name does not appear in this form in LGPN i–v, though these volumes document four persons named Χρόμιoς; so if the form Χρόμις is correct, it has a strongly Theocritean flavour. Longus’ final throw in the game of Theocritean names comes in Book 4. The wife of Dionysophanes, i.e., the real mother of Daphnis, is given the name Cleariste (4.13.1, 15.1 and 4, 20.2, 30.2, 31.3, 33.3). The name appears twice in Theocritus. Of its two uses a reader of Longus is more likely to relate the name to the young woman whom the goatherd Comatas in his singing competition with Lacon claims to be making advances to him at Id. 5.88–89: βάλλει καὶ μάλοισι τὸν αἰπόλον ἁ Κλεαρίστα τὰς αἶγας παρελᾶντα καὶ ἁδύ τι ποππυλιάσδει With apples too does Cleariste pelt the goatherd as he drives his goats past, and she utters a “pssst” sweet to his ears.

26

As argued by Bowie (1985) 80–81.

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That these lines are the primary source of the name is made probable by Longus’ reworking of the phrase τὰς αἶγας παρελᾶντα in his account of Lycaenion watching Daphnis pass by with his goats: αὕτη ἡ Λυκαίνιον ὁρῶσα τὸν Δάφνιν καθ’ ἑκάστην ἡμέραν παρελαύνοντα τὰς αἶγας, “This woman Lycaenion, seeing Daphnis driving his goats past every day” (3.15.2). But Theocritus also uses the name Cleariste for the friend of Simaetha from whom she borrows a dress at Id. 2.74: κἀμφιστειλαμένα τὰν ξυστίδα τὰν Κλεαρίστας, “and over it I wore Cleariste’s wrap.” That Longus can evoke not only Theocritean pastoral but an “urban mime” like Idyll 2 is confirmed by his use also of Idyll 15.27 Thus the naming of Dionysophanes’ wife Cleariste does not straightforwardly identify her as a member of the Mytilenean elite, something the Cle- prefix might suggest.28 The reader familiar with Idylls 5 and 15 will wonder if she comes from lower in Mytilenean society, and was perhaps even once an hetaira (as Simaetha seems to be). That suspicion may be reinforced when the wife of the aristocratically named Megacles, the real father of Chloe, is given the unambitious name Rhodē (4.36.3, 37.2), used by an earlier novelist, Xenophon of Ephesus, for one of the slaves or servants who set off with the elite hero and heroine on their voyage (2.2.3 etc.)—unless here Longus simply uses the names Cleariste and Rhodē to remind his readers that he is transposing a novelistic plot from the world of the elite to that of their slaves.

4

Polyphemus in Idyll 11

A different and more complex use by Longus of Theocritus, this time of Idyll 11, had already been presented in Book 1. When Chloe’s kiss has opened Daphnis’ eyes to her beauty Longus writes that τότε πρῶτον καὶ τὴν κόμην αὐτῆς ἐθαύμασεν ὅτι ξανθή … καὶ τὸ πρόσωπον ὅτι λευκότερον ἀληθῶς καὶ τοῦ τῶν αἰγῶν γάλακτος,

27

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ἐνδινεύoντας, “twisting around,” at 1.23.2, apparently a hapax, may recall the rare ἐνδινεῦντι, “they twist around,” at Idyll 15.82; the conjunction of a young nightingale and the phrase κλάδον ἀμείβων ἐκ κλάδoυ, “hopping from branch to branch,” at 2.6.1 seems to recall Idyll 15.120–122 combined (as suggested by Hunter (1983) 60) with Idyll 29.14–15; 4.17.5 recalls Polyphemus’ self-praise as voiced by Damoetas to Daphnis at Idyll 6.36–37: τῶν δέ τ’ ὀδόντων / λευκoτέραν αὐγὰν Παρίας ὑπέφαινε λίθοιο, “and it reflected the gleam of my teeth, whiter than Parian marble,” fusing it with 15.123–124 ὢ ἔβενος, ὢ χρυσός, ὢ ἐκ λευκῶ ἐλέφαντος / αἰετοὶ οἰνοχόον Κρονίδᾳ Διὶ παῖδα φέροντες, “O ebony, O gold, O eagles of white ivory, carrying to Zeus the son of Cronos a boy to be his wine-pourer.” Cf. Κλεανακτίδα[ Sappho fr. 98 (b)7, Alcaeus fr. 112.23 and a commentary on Sappho fr. 261A SLG = 214B fr. 2 col. 2.11 Campbell, citing (fr. 1.14–15) the Hellenistic commentator Callias of Mytilene (cf. Strabo, 618C, Ath. 2.85 f.).

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“then for the first time he wondered at her hair, that it was blonde … and her face, that it was truly whiter even than goats’ milk” (1.17.3). Here he reworks Polyphemus’ praise of Galatea in Idyll 11.19–20: Ὦ λευκὰ Γαλάτεια, τί τὸν φιλέοντ’ ἀποβάλλῃ, λευκοτέρα πακτᾶς ποτιδεῖν, ἁπαλωτέρα ἀρνός O white Galatea, why do you thrust away him who loves you, whiter than cottage cheese to the eye, more tender than a lamb Since Longus’ λευκότερον … γάλακτος, “whiter than … milk,” is shortly followed by χείλη ῥόδων ἁπαλώτερα, “lips more tender than roses” (1.18.1), both phrases are probably drawn from comparisons in Sappho or Anacreon known to the rhetorical tradition. The twelfth-century grammarian Gregory of Corinth, writing on Hermogenes,29 mentions “the comparisons of Anacreon” (τὰ Ἀνακρέoντoς, fr. 488 PMG), “the comparisons of Sappho” (τὰ Σαπφoῦς, fr. 156v and Campbell), “such as ‘whiter than milk, more tender than water … more delicate than roses’” (oἷoν γάλακτoς λευκoτέρα, ὕδατoς ἁπαλωτέρα … ῥόδων ἁβρoτέρα). Given Longus’ recurrent use of Sappho,30 her poetry is more likely to be the ultimate source than Anacreon’s. Longus’ educated readers, then, may recognize that he has picked up a reworking in the mouth of the shepherd Polyphemus of a phrase from Sappho (very unlikely to have been voiced by a real pastoral figure), a reworking that plays wittily on the name of the apostrophized addressee, Galatea. Daphnis is made to appropriate Polyphemus’ comparison by specifying “goats’ milk” (Polyphemus’ milk-products came from sheep), while Longus raises the issue of the fictionality of his (and Theocritus’) world by dropping in the subversive adverb ἀληθῶς, “truly.” Other evocations of Idyll 11 suggest that Longus invites his readers to compare his young Daphnis with Theocritus’ lovesick Polyphemus. These evocations begin with the expression ὃ καὶ νοσοῦντα ἰάσεται, “which will also heal the sick,” at pr. 3, recalling the opening of Idyll 11, followed by ἕλκoς, “wound,” at 1.14.1 (cf. Id. 11.15) and φάρμακον, “remedy,” at 1.22.3 and 2.7.7—cf. Id. 11.1 and 17 (though also 14.52–53). The description of Dorcon as ἀρτιγένειος, “with a beard just on his chin” (1.15.1) recalls the phrase ἄρτι γενειάζων, “just growing a beard on his chin,” used of Polyphemus at Id. 11.9. Two inanimate components of the pastoral background also evoke Idyll 11. First, the term ταρσός, “cheese basket”

29 30

Rhetores Graeci vii 1236 Walz. See Bowie (2021).

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(3.33.2, 4.4.4) is a hapax in Homer—at Odyssey 9.219, of Polyphemus’ baskets; this hapax was picked up by the Theocritean Polyphemus at Id. 11.37. Secondly, Longus’ κυπάριττoι, “cypresses,” and δάφναι, “bay trees”—found in Daphnis and Chloe only at 4.2.3, in the paradeisos of Dionysophanes—get a pastoral pedigree from Polyphemus’ account of his cave at Id. 11.45: ἐντὶ δάφναι τηνεί, ἐντὶ ῥαδιναὶ κυπάρισσοι, “there are bay-trees there, there are slender cypresses.”

5

Mythical and Contemporary Worlds

Theocritus’ pastoral poetry contrasts two worlds one with another. Primary and predominant is a world that might be assumed to be contemporary, set in the pastoral landscapes of Sicily or south Italy, or in the countryside outside Cos town. Only occasionally does a detail demonstrate the setting’s contemporaneity with the time of composition31—the reference at Id. 7.40 to Philitas and to Sicelidas of Samos (almost universally taken to be a nom de plume for Asclepiades), and that to Ptolemy at Idyll 14.59 and perhaps (allusively) at Id. 7.93. Herdsmen may set their songs in this contemporary world, as do Lycidas and Simichidas in Idyll 7. But Lycidas’ song also brings in a past, quasi-mythical world, that of the wasting Daphnis, to be sung about by Tityrus (7.72–73), or of the goatherd Comatas who, imprisoned by a tyrant in a chest, was fed by bees (7.78–85), and who Lycidas wishes were still alive and singing in his own day. That past world is the one in which Thyrsis’ song “The pains of Daphnis” is set, and may be imagined to be the same as or different from the world of Polyphemus known from the Odyssey and later poetry, a world conjured up by Damoetas and a Daphnis in Idyll 6 to voice desire and fear of rejection32 and by Theocritus in his own persona recommending singing as a palliative remedy for eros to his friend Nicias in Idyll 11. That same world of heroic epic is also, of course, used by Theocritus in his other poem for Nicias on the power of eros, Idyll 13, illustrated by Heracles and Hylas. Longus’ prose also takes readers into at least two worlds. Like Theocritus, he constructs a setting which may be taken by a reader in the late second or early third century ce to be either vaguely contemporary, like that of Theocritus, or to be set some time in the classical past. The use of military force by Mytilene and Methymna and Mytilene’s system of financing its naval force by τριηραρ31

32

The “urban mimes” are more firmly anchored in present time, with references to the athlete Philinus at Idyll 2.112 and to the Alexandrian palace of Ptolemy Philadelphus at Idyll 15.22, 46. Bowie (1996).

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χίαι, “trierarchies” (4.35.3) and its musical competitions by χορηγίαι, “fundings of choral performances” (4.35.3) point to a historical past before the Roman Empire; the name Dionysophanes, on the other hand, redolent of the family of the great saviour of Mytilene in the first century bce, Theophanes, whose descendants, some homonymous, were still prominent in second-century Lesbos,33 gestures more to contemporaneity. The Theocritean story-time of Daphnis and his wasting may be hinted at when Longus’ hero is given the name Daphnis as one that might seem to be “pastoral” (1.3.2), but we can only guess whether it is the same era as that in which are set Longus’ three inset tales, all referred to as μῦθοι, “myths.”34 Nor can we tell whether the songs to the Nymphs described as παλαιῶν ποιμένων ποιήματα, “poems of shepherds of old” (2.31.2), are to be thought of as going all the way back to the mythical period or as the creations of some intermediate time. Unclear too is whether the metamorphoses of the girl in the story at 1.27 and of the Nymphs in those in Books 2 and 3 are contemporary with the passions of gods for mortals exemplified by the precedents of Anchises, Branchus, and Ganymede invoked by the parasite Gnathon (4.17.6), part of the ἐρωτικὴ μυθολογία, “erotic mythology,” that he had learned ἐν τοῖς τῶν ἀσώτων συμποσίοις, “in the symposia of the dissolute” (4.17.3). Like Theocritus, then, Longus gives his fictional world temporal depth by contrasting what seems to be the present with what is undoubtedly in the quite distant past. But in Daphnis and Chloe that apparent distinction is undermined at one crucial point, when the disembodied voice of Pan tells Chloe’s Methymnan captors that she is παρθένον ἐξ ἧς Ἔρως μῦθον ποιῆσαι θέλει, “a maiden from whom Eros wishes to create a myth” (2.27.2). The relation Longus presents between the contemporary and the mythical worlds differs from that in Theocritean pastoral in one other important respect. In Theocritus’ poetry contemporary herdsmen present their narratives or pleas in song: Thyrsis in Idyll 1, the comast in Idyll 3, Daphnis and Damoetas in Idyll 6, Lycidas and Simichidas in Idyll 7, the reapers in Idyll 10, even briefly Lacon and Comatas in Idyll 5, and Corydon in Idyll 4. These “songs” are of course trompe l’ oreille. The reader of Theocritus was cued to imagine these passages as sung, even though they are in the same dactylic hexameters as their frames; and if the poems were ever recited,35 we have no hint that some parts were sung. By contrast, entertainment in the world depicted by Longus consists more often 33 34 35

Above all M. Pompeius Macrinus M.f. “Neos Theophanes,” suffect consul ce115, proconsul of Africa ca. ce 138, see PIR2 P 628, 629. Cf. μυθολογῶν τὰ θρυλούμενα, “shaping the much-told story as a myth,” 1.27.1; μῦθον, “myth,” 2.33.3; μυθολογεῖν τὸν μῦθον, “to act as the myth-teller of the myth,” 3.22.4. For the possibility cf. Hunter (1999) 11.

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in playing the panpipe, dancing, or telling a story. In spring the couple sings in imitation of birds (1.9.2), and once released from the tasks of the vintage they gambol, pipe and sing (2.6.6). At the party celebrating Chloe’s return ᾖσάν τινας καὶ ὠιδὰς εἰς τὰς Νύμφας, παλαιῶν ποιμένων ποιήματα, “they also sang some songs to the Nymphs, poems of shepherds of old” (2.31.2), and the scene closes with Chloe singing and Daphnis piping (2.31.3), as they do respectively in the second summer (3.24.2). We are encouraged to think that what the group sang for the Nymphs were hymns, perhaps surviving from an era when song was more common; at the rustic wedding we again read of traditional reapers’ songs being sung: ὁ μὲν ᾖδεν οἷα ᾄδουσι θερίζοντες, “one sang the sorts of things that reapers sing” (4.38.2); and the hymenaion sung outside the couple’s wedding chamber (4.40.2), albeit harsh and rustic, seems also to be something traditional. But in the contemporary world song is an alternative to storytelling, never its medium. The cowgirl metamorphosed into a φάττα, “dove,” sings of Pan and Pitys (1.27.2), and she continues to sing as a bird; but in Longus’ narrative her story, and later those of Syrinx and Echo, are told. The alternative is made clear in the midwinter entertainment at Chloe’s house: τὰ μὲν μυθολογήσαντες τὰ δὲ ᾄσαντες εἰς ὕπνον ἐχώρουν, “they told some stories and sang some songs before going to sleep” (3.9.4). It is also encapsulated in Lamon’s account of how he came to know the myth of Syrinx: ἐπηγγείλατο αὐτοῖς τὸν περὶ τῆς σύριγγος ἀφηγήσασθαι μῦθον, ὃν αὐτῷ Σικελὸς αἰπόλος ᾖσεν, “he promised to narrate to them the myth about the panpipe, which a Sicilian goatherd had sung to him” (2.33.2). To some extent this eschewal of song as a medium for telling stories may be seen as a predictable consequence of Longus writing in prose whereas Theocritus composed in verse. But Achilles Tatius was ready to represent his characters singing particular songs,36 even if not to quote them verbatim, and in their prose texts both Philostratus37 and Heliodorus38 compose and “quote” hymns that (their characters say) were sung. I conclude that Longus deliberately eschewed song as a vehicle for myth-telling in order to mark out his world as different from that of Theocritus.

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A slave sings a song about Apollo and Daphne, 1.5; Leucippe one about a Homeric fight between a boar and a lion, and an encomium of the rose, 2.1. Heroicus 53.10. The hymn to Thetis, 3.2.4.

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Pigs and Cowherds

Two other, less prominent markers of difference are found in the animal and human kingdoms respectively. The primarily pastoral rural world in which Theocritus locates his herders breeds cattle, sheep, and goats, but hardly any pigs. In his pastoral poems pigs only figure in the story of Athena and the sow told by Comatas and as the dish of a θηλάζοντα … χοῖρον, “sucking-pig,” at the ill-fated rustic party given by Aeschinas (5.23, 14.15).39 Pigs had been prominent in the Odyssey, not least as the charges of Eumaeus the συβώτης, “swineherd.” Longus readmits them to his pastoral world, not simply in a comparison for Lampis’ vandalism (τὰ δὲ κατεπάτησεν ὥσπερ σῦς, “and some things he trampled down like a pig,” 4.7.3) but as part of the countryside’s animal population confined indoors by winter: τότε βοῶν ἐπὶ φάτναις φροντὶς ἦν ἄχυρον ἐσθιόντων, αἰγῶν καὶ προβάτων ἐν τοῖς σηκοῖς φυλλάδας, ὑῶν ἐν τοῖς συφεοῖς ἄκυλον καὶ βαλάνους, “at other times attention was given to cattle in their stalls, eating bran, and to goats and sheep in their pens, eating foliage, and to pigs in their pigsties eating acorns from oaks and holm-oaks” (3.3.4). We also learn that χοῖροι γαλαθηνοί, “sucking-pigs” are a city delicacy (4.26.1). Second, there is a phenomenon perhaps connected with the eminence of Eumaeus the swineherd in the Odyssey and the loyalty of the cowherd Philoetius, and contrasted with the scheming disloyalty of the goatherd Melanthius to Odysseus and his household. Whereas Theocritus eliminates the swineherd, he elevates the βούτας or βουκόλος, “cowherd,” to the highest form of herdsman. In his world the αἰπόλος, “goatherd,” is the lowest form, as is brought out by Priapus’ scathing remark to the dying Daphnis: βούτας μὲν ἐλέγευ, νῦν δ’ αἰπόλῳ ἀνδρὶ ἔοικας, “you used to be called a cowherd, but now you are like a goatherd man” (1.86). Shepherds are somewhere between, as symbolically they are placed a few lines earlier—ἦνθον τοὶ βοῦται, τοὶ ποιμένες, ᾡπόλοι ἦνθον, “Came the cowherds, the shepherds, the goatherds came” (1.80). That Theocritean hierarchy is restructured by Longus.40 Cowherds may be good (Philetas) or bad (Dorcon and Lampis), and shepherd-lads can be pushy (the pushy shepherds whom Chloe fears at 1.28.2), but there is not a bad bone in the body of a shepherdess or a goatherd.

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Elsewhere they are also found in a derogatory comparison made by Praxagora (ὥσπερ ὕες, “like pigs,” 15.73), as a sacrifice to Zeus in the Heracliscus (24.99), and in the nonTheocritean Heracles poem (25.185). On bucolic hierarchies see Schmidt (1969), Hodkinson (2012), and Bowie (2019b).

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Sex and Gender

Longus has a significantly different presentation of sex and gender from Theocritus. Theocritus’ pastoral lovers may have a passion for a young woman, like the comast of Idyll 3, Battus in Idyll 4, the Daphnis of Idylls 7 and (perhaps) 1, the Polyphemus of Idylls 6 and 11 (albeit his love-object is a sea nymph), and Aeschinas in Idyll 14. But sexual interest in young men is almost as common—that of Lycidas in Ageanax and of Aratus in Philinus in Idyll 7, and the mutual attraction of Daphnis and Damoetas in Idyll 6. That heterosexual and homosexual amours are equally common and acceptable comes across clearly in Idyll 5, where Comatas is pleased by Cleariste’s attentions while Cratidas’ charms drive Lacon out of his mind (5.88–91). In Idyll 7 it seems that Simichidas loves a girl called Myrto (96–97) but is sensible to the attractions of the young Amyntas.41 Longus is very different. The issue of same-sex attraction only arises in Book 4, when the parasite of Dionysophanes’ son Astylus (soon to be discovered to be Daphnis’ brother) falls hopelessly in love with Daphnis and tries to seduce him at night as he returns with his goats from the pastures (4.11–12). Daphnis is slow to understand what Gnathon wants, and says ὡς αἶγας μὲν βαίνειν τράγους καλόν, τράγον δὲ οὐπώποτέ τις εἶδε βαίνοντα τράγον, οὐδὲ κριὸν ἀντὶ τῶν ὀΐων κριόν, οὐδὲ ἀλεκτρυόνας ἀντὶ τῶν ἀλεκτορίδων ἀλεκτρυόνας, “it is fine for billy-goats to mount she-goats, but never has one seen a billy-goat mounting a billy-goat or a ram mounting a ram instead of ewes, or cockerels mounting cockerels instead of hens” (4.12.2). When Gnathon resorts to violence Daphnis easily fends him off and knocks him down, μεθύοντα ἄνθρωπον καὶ ἑστῶτα μόλις, “a drunkard barely able to stand” (4.12.3), and leaves him lying, ἀνδρὸς οὐ παιδὸς ἐς χειραγωγίαν δεόμενον, “needing a man, not a boy to help him” (4.12.3). Gnathon’s next move is to persuade Astylus to let him take Daphnis to the city as his personal slave (4.16–17), and it is Astylus’ agreement that he will put this plan to his father (4.18.1) that precipitates Lamon to reveal the tokens attesting Daphnis’ origins (4.19). As Lamon tells this story to Dionysophanes and Astylus, Gnathon becomes so upset that he threatens violence against Lamon (4.20.1). Although Gnathon later redeems himself by recovering Chloe from her cowherd kidnapper Lampis (4.29), Longus’ overall portrayal of him and his attraction to Daphnis is decidedly unsympathetic, and encourages readers to see an element of condemnation in his description of him as φύσει παιδεραστὴς ὤν, “being by nature a pederast” (4.11.2), set squarely in the context of his gluttonous and drunken behaviour.42 41 42

See Bowie (1996). For a nuanced discussion, rightly rejecting the arguments of Winkler (1990) 101–105 that

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So strongly an adverse depiction is not an inevitable consequence of Longus writing in a genre which exalted the reciprocal heterosexual passion of its young hero and heroine. Xenophon of Ephesus in his representation of Hippothous’ love for the beautiful young Hyperanthes (3.2.2 ff.), and Achilles Tatius both in his portrayal of Cleinias’ love for Charicles (1.7–8, 12–14) and in the debate he sets up between Menelaus and Clitophon on the respective merits of homosexual and heterosexual pleasures (2.36–38), are ready to present admirable modes of homosexuality alongside the heterosexual relationship of their loving couple.43 Whether the angle Longus adopts is simply an authorial choice, or whether (as, perhaps, is the case with Heliodorus) writing in a late second or early third century milieu has contributed to a different perspective from that of the novels of Xenophon and Achilles Tatius written in the first and earlier second century, the outcome is a world whose sexuality is markedly different from that of the Theocritean pastoral universe. The other striking respect in which it is different is in the matter of success and failure. Many Theocritean characters fail in their pursuit of their beloved: the comast of Idyll 3, the Daphnis of Idylls 7 and, perhaps, 1; the Polyphemus of Idylls 6 and 11, the Aeschinas of Idyll 14. In Idyll 7 Lycidas’ love for Ageanax may be reciprocated, but on the usual view of the poem Ageanax is not with Lycidas on Cos but far away from him on Lesbos.44 By contrast the story of Daphnis and Chloe focuses on their (admittedly very slow) discovery of love and their gradual movement towards marriage and living happily ever after. That too was the situation Philetas achieved (2.5.3). The failed attempts of the cowherds Dorcon and Lampis to get Chloe for themselves are marginal. That love can be achieved and need not be a source of more pain than pleasure is a message to be found in Longus but only rarely in Theocritus: one striking exception is the seduction of the goatherd girl in Idyll 27 by a cowherd Daphnis.

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Gnathon’s homosexual orientation is not condemned, see Morgan (2004) 230 (though perhaps wrongly seeing the phrase φύσει παιδεραστὴς ὤν, “being by nature a pederast,” as problematising the issue). There is also a useful discussion by Goldhill (1995) 46–49. Readers are not, however, invited to sympathise with the lust of the pirate-king Corymbus for the hero Habrocomes at Xenophon 1.14.7. My own view remains that in his song Lycidas imagines himself on Lesbos with Ageanax, see Bowie (1985).

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Humour

Many of Theocritus’ pastoral scenes seem chiefly geared to the evocation of pathos and admiration for the poet’s literary virtuosity—the song of Thyrsis in Idyll 1, that of Lycidas in Idyll 7. Others seem manifestly to be calculated to arouse humour at a rustic’s expense—thus the rural paraklausithyron of the comast in Idyll 3, parts of the song of Simichidas in Idyll 7, the monologue of Polyphemus in Idyll 11. Both effects seem to be aimed at by Longus, but it is often much harder to know which. Some readers of Longus take the aporetic young couple to be presented wholly as objects of sympathy or pity, while another school of thought sees humour, especially at the expense of their persistent sexual naivety, as a recurrent target.45 At times it seems that Longus may aim simultaneously at pathos and at condescending humour, something that can be achieved only if readers are prepared to move through the text on at least two different levels at the same time. Such a procedure would not have been strange to Theocritus either.

Conclusions Theocritean pastoral poetry, then, is a major contributor to the texture of Longus’ work. It is evoked constantly and by a wide and heterogeneous range of details, many, but not all, drawn from Idyll 1. Several objectives, not mutually exclusive, can be suggested for this evocation. The most important is to inscribe Daphnis and Chloe firmly in an established pastoral tradition, a poetic tradition that Longus fuses with the more recently developing form of the prose novel of love and adventure. But at the same time as inscribing his work in that tradition Longus subverts or tweaks many features of Theocritus’ bucolic world in a way calculated to provoke readers to contrast his own imaginary universe with that presented by Theocritus. His greatest departure is to offer an account of ἔρως, “desire,” that is both reciprocated and can lead not to disaster but to a long and happy union—i.e., the pattern found in the novelists, and in two or three Idylls of Theocritus (6, 7, and, if Theocritean, 27), but not the dominant pattern in pastoral, and one that contrasts sharply with the fate of the Daphnis of Idyll 1, the Theocritean signature-poem evoked time and again by Longus. Sometimes 45

E.g., Bretzigheimer (1988). Cf. Morgan (2004): “the naive protagonists are viewed with ironic humour by the more sophisticated narrator and his reader” (18); “a comically literal image of two sagging lovers propping one another up” (204); “gross erotic slapstick” (205).

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a small detail highlights this departure, e.g., the happy context of the flowers at 3.12 by contrast with those at Id. 1.132–133, or the contrast between the artless παρθένος, “maiden,” Chloe and the manipulative γυνή, “woman,” on the marvellous cup. Related to, but not required by, this different presentation of eros are the shift from predominantly homoerotic relationships to one that is heterosexual and the promotion of the αἰπόλος, “goatherd,” to the rank occupied by Theocritus’ βούτας, “cowherd.” In other cases what replaces a detail in Theocritus may catalyse reflection on the place of Daphnis and Chloe in the genealogy of Greek literature. That fishing from a rock by an old man at Id. 1.39–44 becomes fishing from a rock by young members of a city’s elite (2.12.3) might be read as symbolising the rejuvenation of a now old and canonical literary form. Another angle on the ancestry of Daphnis and Chloe is opened up by the window-allusion to Sappho through the intermediary of Theocritus’ Polyphemus at 1.17.3: we are cued to look out for places where Longus has also reworked Sappho directly.46 The replacement of a boy plaiting a grasshopper-cage on the cup in Idyll 1 with the young girl Chloe replicating his action in Book 1 draws attention to the greater prominence of active female characters in the novelistic tradition that Longus is joining. Philetas’ gift of his panpipe to Daphnis (2.37.3) echoes both the dying Daphnis’ gift of his pipe to Pan at Id. 1.128–129 and Lycidas’ gift of his staff to Simichidas at Id. 7.128–129. Since that gift of Lycidas marks out Simichidas as his successor and hints at Theocritus’ claim to be Philitas’ successor, a reader of Longus can interpret the scene near the end of Book 2 as consecrating both Daphnis as Philetas’ successor and Longus as successor to Theocritus.47 The replacement of narratives in song by inset narratives in prose may align Longus with others in the second and third centuries, like Aelius Aristides in his Hymns, who arrogated hitherto poetic genres for sophistic prose. The virtual elimination of Theocritean allusion in Book 4 encourages readers to ponder what changes of form, content, and tone that succession has introduced to Greek pastoral literature.

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For Longus’ debt to Sappho see Bowie (2021). Cf. Morgan 2008, 223. This view can be taken even if one does not accept Morgan’s suggestion that Longus himself is the ὁμοῖος διάδοχος, “equally good successor,” to whom Philetas prays that Daphnis may pass on the panpipe—problematic, in my view, because Longus stands outside the frame of the world he creates.

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Bibliography Bowie, E.L. (1985), “Theocritus’ Seventh Idyll, Philetas and Longus,” CQ 35, 67–91. Bowie, E.L. (1996), “Frame and Framed in Theocritus Poems 6 and 7,” in M.A. Harder/ R.F. Regtuit/G.C. Wakker (eds.), Theocritus (Groningen) 91–100. Bowie, E.L. (2012), “Socrates’ Cock and Daphnis’ Goats. The Rarity of Vows in the Religious Practice of the Greek Novels,” in S.J. Harrison/S. Frangoulidis (eds.), Narrative, Culture and Genres in the Ancient Novel, Trends in Classics 4.2 (Berlin/Boston) 225– 273. Bowie, E.L. (2019a), Longus, Daphnis and Chloe (Cambridge). Bowie, E.L. (2019b), “The Demotion of the Literary Cow-Herd,” in J. Bastick/C. Cusset/C. Vieilleville (eds.), special issue, Le bouvier dans la poésie hellenistique et le roman grec, Aitia 9.1. https://doi.org/10.4000/aitia.3790. Bowie, E.L. (2021), “Sappho in Imperial Greek literature,” in P. Finglass/A. Kelly (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Sappho (Cambridge) 313–319. Bowie, E.L. (forthcoming), “Daphnis’ Death in Theocritus, Idyll 1: A Hard Way to Go?,” in M. Kanellou/S. Hatzikosta/C. Carey (eds.), Theocritus: Allusion and Erudition (Leuven). Bretzigheimer, G. (1988), “Die Komik in Longos’ Hirtenroman Daphnis und Chloe,” Gymnasium 95, 515–555. Calame, C. (1977), Les choeurs de jeunes filles en Grèce archaïque, 2 vols. (Rome). Calame, C. (1997), Choruses of Young Women in Ancient Greece. Their Morphology, Religious Role and Social Function, trans. of Calame 1977, vol. i (Lanham MA). Fantuzzi, M. (forthcoming), “Ps.-Theocr. Id. 27: A Chance for Happiness in Love,” in M. Kanellou/S. Hatzikosta/C. Carey (eds.), Theocritus: Allusion and Erudition (Leuven). Goldhill, S. (1995), Foucault’s Virginity. Ancient Erotic Fiction and the History of Sexuality (Cambridge). Hodkinson, O. (2012), “Attic Idylls: Hierarchies of Herdsmen and Social Status in Alciphron and Longus,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 132, 41–53. Hunter, R.L. (1983), A Study of Daphnis & Chloe (Cambridge). Hunter, R.L. (1999), Theocritus. A Selection: Idylls 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 13 (Cambridge). Morgan, J.R. (2004), Longus, Daphnis and Chloe (Oxford). Morgan, J.R. (2008), “Intertextuality,” in Whitmarsh (2008) 218–227. Schmidt, E.A. (1969), “Hirtenhierarchie in der antiken Bukolik?,”Philologus 113, 183–200. Whitmarsh, T. (ed.) (2008), The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel (Cambridge). Winkler, J.J. (1990), The Constraints of Desire (New York).

chapter 32

“Simple Theocritus” from the 16th to 18th Centuries Thomas K. Hubbard

1

Overview

Although his name would have been familiar from Servius’ commentaries on Virgil, the text of Theocritus appears to have been largely unknown in the Medieval West (no extant manuscript is older than the late 13th century)1 and gained attention from Renaissance humanists relatively late. However, after the first Aldine edition of 1495,2 direct acquaintance with his work spread rapidly through the 16th century, both in Greek editions and Latin translations. Other Greek texts were soon edited by Pandolfini (Florence 1515) and Kallierges (1516). Martino Filetico published the first Latin translation of Theocritus together with Hesiod (Venice 1500), dedicated to Federico, Duke of Urbino. Another Latin translation by H.E. Hesse appeared in 1530 (Hagenau), followed by two more published in Venice in 1539. Numerous improved texts followed, and Veit Winsheim produced a commentary in 1558 (Frankfurt). By the end of the century, Theocritus was attracting annotation by heavyweight scholars including Casaubon, Scaliger, and Heinsius.3 Despite this editorial activity, Theocritus’ footprint on original literary productions of the 16th century was uneven. In a justly influential book of 1969, Thomas Rosenmeyer argued that Theocritus’ poetic choices and themes were remarkably consistent with those of the entire tradition of “European Pastoral Lyric,” but Rosenmeyer specifically declined to do a study of “transmission and influence.”4 The present chapter aims to survey precisely that question, starting with the period of Theocritus’ widespread

1 Gow (1952) 1. xxxvi–xlviii gives the most complete compilation of manuscripts; most of the 180 are of the 15th and 16th centuries. 2 An earlier edition of Idylls 1–18 was published in Milan by Bonus Accursius about 15 years earlier, but few copies are extant compared to the more widely distributed Aldine. See Lambert (1976) 214 n. 28. 3 WorldCat lists 591 editions or translations of Theocritus before 1600, although some of these are duplicate records. It is beyond the scope of this paper to give a complete catalogue, but some of the more notable editions and translations are listed in the Appendix. 4 Rosenmeyer (1969) viii.

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publication and ending with the many assertions of Theocritus’ superiority to Virgil as a pastoral model in the 18th century.5 Some of the major landmarks of pastoral literature in the 16th century show scant evidence of close familiarity with Theocritus. Pastoral drama, made popular by the success of Tasso’s Aminta (1573) and Battista Guarini’s Il Pastor Fido (1582), showed little that might be traced to Theocritus.6 Sir Philip Sidney’s pastoral romance Arcadia (1580) has no trace of Theocritus beyond one embedded eclogue that may echo the mutual accusations of theft and beatings in Idyll 5,7 even though his chief model, Sannazaro’s Arcadia (1502), features more Theocritean imitation. Spenser’s Shepheardes Calendar (1579), perhaps the most important and innovative work of English pastoral ever, shows no specific influence of Theocritus, even though quite conversant with minor lights of antiquity like Calpurnius Siculus, Longus, and even Bion, not to mention moderns including Mantuan, Marot, and Ronsard.8 Spenser’s commentator E.K. refers to Theocritus at several points, even going so far as to declare that October as a whole imitates Idyll 16, but one finds little specific here, and E.K. is notorious for sending readers down the wrong path in hunting for sources; he may well be Spenser himself engaged in parody of wrong-headed scholiastic pedantry.9

2

Early Continental Appropriation

It was rather on the continent, and especially in Italy, that Theocritus had his earliest reception. Jacopo Sannazaro’s widely read prosimetric romance Arcadia (1502) exhibits the certain influence of Theocritus’ text on at least three passages. Eclogue 9.146–147 expresses fear of the shepherds’ music disturbing 5 We do not aim to provide anything like a complete catalogue of all poems from this period that may allude to something in Theocritus. For such endeavors, see Mustard (1909) and the sometimes overeager survey of his influence specifically on English poetry by Kerlin (1910), based on his 1906 Yale dissertation. 6 Mustard (1909) 260 not implausibly sees Pastor Fido 1.5.1–7 as imitating Id. 8.57–60, but finds no other close resemblances in either plot or phrasing. 7 Sidney mentions Theocritus in passing in his 1583 Apology for Poetry. See Kerlin (1910) 15, 26– 27. 8 See my treatment of Spenser’s sources in Hubbard (1998) 270–316. 9 For a list of E.K.’s references to Theocritus, see Kerlin (1910) 16–19. For E.K.’s bad source criticism, see Starnes (1942), and on the probability that he is Spenser himself, Starnes (1944) and the other sources listed in Hubbard (1998) 270 n. 36. A typical example of E.K.’s bumbling erudition is his comment on “terebinth” in July 86, citing Theocritus, Epigram 1.6 for the same plant, but then misquoting the Greek.

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Pan, “full of pride and anger, from his hooked nose venting a bitter poison,” just like the unnamed goatherd of Id. 1.16–18 (“he is bitter, and sharp bile sits upon his nose”). No Virgilian equivalent exists. At the end of Prose 4, Elpino pledges as prize in a song contest a goat and an elaborately carved cup (as in Id. 1.25–28, but made of beech, in a nod to Virgil’s derivative cups in Ecl. 3.36– 37); as in Theocritus, but not Virgil, the cup is specified to have two handles. The scene depicted in it is far more Theocritean than Virgilian: a woman assaulted by Priapus (a more violent version of the woman beset by two suitors in Id. 1.32–38), while a boy absorbed in weaving a cricket cage out of rushes takes no notice of the events surrounding him (as in Id. 1.52–54).10 Perhaps most striking is the end of Prose 10, which exactly imitates the sequence of sensual pleasures experienced at the harvest festival of Id. 7.132–146: reclining on beds of grass, the murmur of swaying elms and running water, cicadas, larks, bees, and the fragrance of fruit fallen at the company’s feet. Even as Theocritus’ locus amoenus centers around an altar of Demeter, Sannazaro’s is in the presence of a pyramidal monument to which they are led by a priest of Pan.11 Theocritus’ seminal influence on Sannazaro’s later piscatory eclogues we shall treat later. While we cannot rule out Sannazaro having seen Filetico’s Latin translation just before completing the Arcadia, it is more likely that he encountered Theocritus in Greek from the Aldine edition. The second earliest appropriator of Theocritus in Italy was the minor Florentine poet Luigi Alamanni (1495–1556), who included among his Opere Toscane (1532) six eclogues that very closely imitate Theocritus’ bucolic Idylls and two others that follow poems attributed to Bion and Moschus. The earliest of these, Ecl. 1, is firmly dated to 1519, and it is likely that most of the other close adaptations of Greek originals also dated to his youth.12 Alamanni’s derivative work is not exactly a translation of the model, but closely follows its general length and structure, while leaving out some phrases, changing characters’ identities, and making what Alamanni deemed more tasteful substitutions. For instance, Ecl. 1 closely follows the dialogic and narrative sequence of Id. 1 (perhaps the reason for Alamanni placing it first in his sequence when 10

11

12

Note also that Sannazaro describes the garland of pimpernel surrounding the scenes at the end of the ekphrasis, like the acanthus border of Id. 1.55–56, but unlike Virgil’s grape border, which comes before (Ecl. 3.38–39). That this description comes after the company’s visit to a grotto of Pan resembles the prayer to Pan which dominates Simichidas’ song immediately before the harvest festival (Id. 7.103–127). See Hauvette (1903) 217–220. The eclogues that are more original and personal mostly allude to later events, from 1522 (Ecl. 3) to 1530 (Ecl. 13). Hauvette regards the least original (and likely earliest) as Ecl. 6, 7, and 9 (imitating Id. 11, 2, and 3).

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later published), and in places comes close to paraphrase (Ecl. 1.1–32 ~ Id. 1.1–24) or emphatic translation (the refrains of Thyrsis’ song). However, basic themes change: the erotic nature of Daphnis’ death in Theocritus ill suits Alamanni’s commemoration of a real friend, Cosmo Rucellai (son of a prominent humanist and Lorenzo de Medici’s sister), so the mocking Aphrodite rebuked by Daphnis becomes the fickle goddess Fortuna, Hermes and Priapus become Apollo and Pan, the wanton Nymphs become the more sober Muses, Graces, and Virtues. Whereas Daphnis concludes his speech by bidding farewell to the beasts, woods, rivers, and finally offering his pipe to Pan, Alamanni’s Cosmo addresses the woods, rivers, and finally his dolci amici. Both poems conclude with Thyrsis’ interlocutor (unnamed in Theocritus, called Meliboeus by Alamanni, nodding to Virgil) presenting the goat and cup that had just been accepted by Thyrsis, but whereas Theocritus’ last lines issue a warning to the randy goats, Alamanni’s bid a more stately silence to the nightingales. Both poems preface Thyrsis’ song with a detailed ekphrasis of the cup bordered with ivy and acanthus, but the scenes depicted are different: Theocritus’ playful maiden beset by suitors and the boy who allows a fox to steal the grapes disappear in favor of more serious scenes of a peasant’s seasonal labors, reminding us of the inexorable temporality that robbed Alamanni of his friend. Alamanni’s is not work of poetic genius, but he is most significant as the poet who brought Theocritus to France, where he served in the courts of Francis i and Henry ii for most of his life after being exiled from Florence in 1522. Idyll 1 attracted even closer imitation from Alamanni’s Florentine counterpart, Annibale Caro (1507–1566, translator of both Longus and Virgil), and more importantly, from the older and more established humanist, diplomat, and papal favorite Giovan Giorgio Trissino (1478–1550) in his Dafne soon after 1527.13 The Venetian humanist Andrea Navagero (1483–1529) weaves together a virtual cento of Theocritean texts in his Latin pastoral Iolas.14 The Florentine pederastic poet Benedetto Varchi (1503–1565, translator of Boethius and Seneca) imitated Id. 3 early in his career (around 1530–1531).15 In France, Id. 1 provided 13 14

15

Caro (1974) 361–369; at 247 lines, his poem expands the original. Closest to the Greek is Trissino (1981) 179–185. On this poem’s use of Theocritus, see Lambert (1976) 99–101. Vv. 1–8 closely imitate Id. 8.65–70. See also 13–19 and Id. 8.41–44, 24–27 and Id. 8.53–56, 28–35 and Id. 11.44–48 (along with Id. 1.7–8), 36–37 and Id. 11.65–66, v. 45 and Id. 8.53, 46– 51 and Id. 11.25–29, 63–67 and Id. 1.132–136. The progression of 22–23 combines elements from Id. 9.34–35 and 10.30–31. The address to the beloved, formosa Amarylli (v. 13), clearly echoes that of Id. 3.6, χαρίεσσ’ Ἀμαρυλλί. For Navagero’s later influence on Ronsard, see Kühn (1914). Varchi (1858) 2. 1011–1012. For the date, see the introduction of A. Racheli in Varchi (1858) 1. x.

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the structural model and allusive source for Clément Marot’s Eglogue sur le Trespas de ma Dame Loyse de Savoye (1531), lamenting the death of the Queen Mother; this poem later became important as the key intertext for Spenser’s November eclogue (Hubbard 1998, 304–308). Marot did not know Greek and doubtless was introduced to Theocritus by Alamanni, but at least one passage in Loyse (the condition of vv. 37–38) imitates something in Theocritus (Id. 1.23– 24) that was not in Alamanni’s adaptation, so Marot must have had access either to the Latin translations of Filetico or Hesse or to the closer Italian adaptation of Trissino.16 It is with the next generation of French poets, known collectively as the Pléiade, that Theocritus really came into vogue as not only another pastoral model, but the preeminent pastoralist whose texts would be sampled and elaborated even more than Virgil’s. Jean Antoine de Baïf (1532–1589) was educated from an early age in both Greek and Latin thanks to the enthusiasm of his father, a prominent humanist and French ambassador to Venice. Although not a poet of great originality, Baïf was a skilled translator of many classical authors, and among his eclogues were close paraphrases of Id. 2, 6, 10, 11, 20, and 27 (Hulubei (1938) 397). It is with Baïf’s friend Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585), a fellow student of Jean Dorat at the Collège Coqueret, that we see the impact of Theocritus upon a truly first-rate poetic talent. Although some poems would take a single Theocritean text as model and expand upon it (like the Cyclope amoureux of 1560), it was more frequently Ronsard’s practice to combine conceits from multiple textual models and attempt to outdo them in effusiveness. Voiage de Tours (1560) features two shepherds, Thoinet (= Baïf) and Perrot (= Ronsard) whose respective songs illustrate their allusive techniques. Thoinet’s song adapts and expands motifs from Id. 3, as with thirteen lines (vv. 96–108) instead of three (Id. 3.31– 33) on consultation of a female diviner, or eight lines (vv. 133–140) instead of one on the lover’s protruding beard (Id. 3.9), or seven lines (vv. 173–180) instead of three on the lover resolved to throw himself off a cliff (Id. 3.25–27).17 Perrot’s song, on the other hand, follows Lycidas’ propemptikon to Ageanax as a 16

17

For other parallels, see 1–28 of Loyse and Id. 1.1–14, 43–45 and Id. 1.57–60, 117–120 and Id. 1.71–75, 133–134 and Id. 1.77–82, 245–248 and Id. 1.123–126, 253–259 and Id. 1.143–145, 261–272 and Id. 1.146–148. Some of these have been noted in Hulubei (1938, 214–216) and Harrison (1939, 280). The poems notably diverge in Marot’s omission of the ekphrasis; Loyse is already dead, not dying like Daphnis, and she did not die from love. For other parallels, see 119–122 and Id. 3.28–30 for the peculiar divinatory practice involving leaves on the underside of one’s arm, 153–156 and Id. 3.15–17 on recognizing Love and his fire, 159–162 and Id. 3.12–13 on the lover wishing to become a bee, or 163–168 and Id. 3.18–23 for the lover begging a kiss and then shredding his garland.

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default model,18 but intersperses it with relevant allusions to a range of other Theocritean texts: the wish to become a sea creature (vv. 244–247 and Id. 11.59– 62), the wish to be like Hippomenes (vv. 248–249 and Id. 3.4–42), crowning and inscribing a tree with the name of the laudanda (vv. 255–260 and Id. 18.43– 48). At the end, Ronsard drops his former pretensions to Pindaric hauteur and promises to follow the flute of the “Sicilian shepherd” (vv. 311–314). Similarly, Ronsard’s Eclogue 5 shows two brothers of the same age, but with different teachers (Amyot, translator of Longus, and Selve, tutor of Henri iii) competing in terms similar to those of Id. 8,19 but one stakes an elaborate cup with scenes reminiscent of Id. 1.27–56 (grapes, lustful satyrs, a toiling fisherman). Even the non-pastoral Elegie à Marie incorporates motifs from Id. 10.33– 35 and the pederastic Id. 12.10–37 to monumentalize the desired mutual love of Ronsard and Marie.20 Perhaps most programmatic is Eclogue 4 (possibly the earliest of Ronsard’s eclogues, from 1559): the character Bellin is clearly modelled on Lycidas (vv. 19–27 and Id. 7.13–19, especially v. 20 D’ habits et de façons resembloit un chevrier), but this goatherd claims to be bewitched and no longer able to sing (vv. 66–74), instead preferring to lavish his flute and staff upon newer poets like Perrot (= Ronsard), in imitation of Lycidas’ poetic investiture of Simichidas (= Theocritus). Perrot claims for his part to imitate “the Muse / who sung of shepherds in the woods of Syracuse” (vv. 97–98). It is significant that Ronsard chose as the motto surrounding his frontispiece portrait ὡς ἴδον, ὣς ἐμάνην (Id. 2.82), a line already imitated in his early Amours i.2.10–11 (1552) and taken up again in Voiage de Tours 79. Theocritus attracted attention as far away as Portugal too. António Ferreira (1528–1569), professor at the University of Coimbra and a classicizing poet, composed twelve eclogues. Virgil was the principal influence and intertext, but some show familiarity with Theocritus as well. Segadores, a dialogue of two amatory reapers, clearly owes its general inspiration to Id. 10, as reapers do not

18

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E.g., the wish for a smooth voyage (197–206; Id. 7.52–62), the halcyons (215–218; Id. 7.57– 60), enjoyment of a flowery couch, crown, drinking, and others’ song (261–277; Id. 7.63– 72), an emotional state like mountain snows (288–290; Id. 7.76–77), and the cock crowing as the beloved wakes up to no lovers, because he/she has aged (293–300; Id. 7.120–124, skipping to the end of Simichidas’ song). Note the quadruple repetition of tous deux in 3–12, like the quadruple ἄμφω of Id. 8.3–4. As in Id. 8, they choose a passing shepherd as judge, open their competition with wishes for mutual favor and flourishing flocks, reject wealth, declare nature to flourish when the beloved is present and wither when gone, have a he-goat declare even Proteas a shepherd, and parallel the lover to the gods in a priamel. Remy Belleau’s commentary may exaggerate in saying the poem is “presque toute des imitations de la dixiesme & douziesme Aeglogue de Theocrite” (cited in Hulubei (1938) 411).

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appear as characters in Virgil or any of his Latin successors; however, no specific line in that poem adapts anything from Theocritus. Androgeo is mainly inspired by Virgil’s Ecl. 10, but Ferreira recuperates that poem’s source in Id. 1 by following Pan’s visit to the dying shepherd with Venus, to whom the shepherd replies (vv. 73–84; cf. Id. 1.95–113), albeit with less bitterness. Pan’s opening question to Androgeo (v. 63) owes more to Id. 1.77–78 than to anything Virgil puts into Pan’s mouth. Ferreira’s most extensive engagement with Theocritus is in his Dafnis, written soon after the death of Prince João in 1554, where Theocritean originals and Virgilian derivations are skillfully combined: overall, the poem’s sequence and structure follow Id. 1, with Eurilo and Licidas situating themselves in a locus amoenus, followed by Eurilo offering as a gift for Licidas’ song a splendid imported vase of Juno filled with goat’s milk (vv. 28–36, conflating the goat milking and ivy cup offered in Id. 1.25–31), leading into a lengthy ekphrasis of multiple scenes on the vessel. However, Ferreira substitutes for Theocritus’ medley of unrelated scenes a tableau of Daphnis’ death as depicted in Thyrsis’ song, with shepherds, Venus, satyrs, and other woodland creatures assembling to mourn him beside the river Tagus. Ferreira follows the ekphrasis with Licidas’ song, which borrows much from Ecl. 5 of Virgil, but in its structure, punctuated by refrains, its opening (vv. 82–100; cf. Id. 1.65–72), and Eurilo’s final congratulation (vv. 179–180 “your mouth is full of honey …”; cf. Id. 1.146–147) owes more to Theocritus.21 Although some critics have doubted Ferreira’s knowledge of Greek, he at the very least had closely studied a Latin translation and tried to present himself as enough of a Hellenist to play with Virgil’s source as well as Virgil.22

3

Theocritus in England (Belatedly)

The first English translation of Theocritus appeared in 1588, but included only six Idylls and is of uncertain authorship.23 Interestingly, only three of the six were bucolic (8, 11, and the rather mediocre 20) and three were likely not 21 22

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Note also the parallelism of v. 185 and Id. 1.151. For doubts, see Earle (1988) 163–167. Ferreira also translated ten epigrams from the Greek Anthology and Anacreontea; Earle believes these were mediated by the Latin translation of Girolamo Angeriano, but Ferreira’s titling one De Grego implies that he at least consulted the Greek original. Greek was studied at the University of Coimbra. On the history of this work, titled Sixe Idillia That Is, sixe small, or petty Poems or Aeglogues, Chosen out of the right famous Sicilian poet theocritus …, see Kerlin (1910) 27–29. Speculation centers around Sir Edward Dyer (d. 1607), but he may be the dedicatee rather than the author.

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even the work of Theocritus (8, 20, and the Adonis); that Idylls 16 and 18 were included shows a recognition that Theocritus’ range extended well beyond the pastoral tradition. The next major English pastoral collection after Spenser and this translation was Michael Drayton’s Idea: The Shepheards Garland (1593), which features two possible allusions to Theocritus 8 and 11 (both included in Sixe Idillia). But there is no evidence he knew much Theocritus beyond these poems or understood the original Greek.24 Barnaby Barnes’ Parthenophil and Parthenope, published in the same year, does reveal knowledge of the Greek, in that the final Elegy translates a poem of Moschus,25 and Sestine 5 combines knowledge of Virgil, Eclogue 8, with its source text in Id. 2.26 It is only with the unquestionably erudite John Milton that we begin to see profound Theocritean influence based on close engagement with the text, although it is primarily one Theocritean poem that stands behind both Lycidas (1637) and Epitaphium Damonis (1639). Both poems fashion themselves as self-consciously Theocritean, between the “Dorick lay” near the end of Lycidas (189) and the Himerides Nymphae who bring Sicelicum carmen into the Thames Valley in ED 1–3.27 Both poems follow Id. 1’s structure as a series of visiting friends and divine figures who come to express sympathy, and ED even names its narrator Thyrsis, after the shepherd who sings of Daphnis’ death. It has been recognized that the appeal to the nymphs absent from a series of familiar haunts in Lycidas 50–55 is closely modelled on the same rhetorical question (“Where were you when he died? Not in X, nor in Y, nor in Z”) in Id. 1.66–69.28 The sixteen-year-old Alexander Pope (1704) set out to conform himself to the canonical rota Vergili (most immediately known to him from Spenser’s October

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25 26 27

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Drayton, Ecl. 8.150–151, 8.243–244 and Id. 11.19–20, 8.85–86. Kerlin (1910, 23) also sees allusions to Id. 5.98–99 and 106. The first strikes me as unlikely and the second (the sheep dog chasing away wolves) is sufficiently obvious as the function of sheep dogs as not to be necessarily derivative. Drayton’s preface to the 1619 edition declares Theocritus’ work to “have the chiefe praise,” but seems unaware that Theocritus had preceded Sannazaro in writing piscatory pastoral; see Congleton (1952) 49. See Hutton (1928) 127 for Barnes’ knowledge of the original. The invocation to Hecate in vv. 5, 25–26, 37 (not in Virgil, but prominent in Id. 2.12–26) and the frank lovemaking in vv. 79–111 clearly owe more to Theocritus. Note the references to Daphnis, Hylas, and Bion as themes already familiar to the Nymphs. For the significance of Himera and these figures as allusion to themes of Greek bucolic, see my remarks in Hubbard (1998) 331. See Hanford (1910) 409–411; Kerlin (1910) 40; Harrison (1939) 291; Hubbard (1998) 324–325. Hanford also notes the parallel descriptions of King’s drowning and Daphnis’ in Id. 1.140– 141.

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55–60)29 by commencing his career with a set of four eclogues, appropriating Spenser’s calendrical arrangement in more boyish proportions by naming them after the four seasons of the year. Like Spenser, Pope proudly validated his precocious scholarship by supplying the eclogues with a prefatory “Discourse on Pastoral Poetry” and learned commentary identifying sources of allusion, including to Theocritus. It is doubtful that Pope at this age had read more than a few lines of Theocritus’ difficult Greek, but he probably knew his work through Thomas Creech’s 1684 English translation, printed together with an English version of René Rapin’s Discourse of Pastorals, from which much of Pope’s own discourse was derivative. In an almost potted recapitulation of the genre’s history as familiar to him, Pope alludes to both Virgil (specifically Ecl. 6.1–2) and Theocritus (“Sicilian Muses”) in the first four lines of Spring, and in the first footnote, Pope informs us that the following three poems will begin with first lines from Spenser, Virgil, and Theocritus respectively, proceeding in backward chronological order. Not only does Winter open with a direct imitation of Id. 1.1, but the two shepherds of the poem are no less than Thyrsis (the singer of Id. 1) and Lycidas (the mysterious goatherd who invests Theocritus as a pastoral poet in Id. 7). Daphnis’ offer of a “Bowl, where wanton Ivy twines” in Spring 35–40 arguably combines knowledge of both Theocritus’ Ivy Cup in Id. 1.27– 60 and Virgil’s derivative cups with astronomers in Ecl. 3.36–43.30 Despite the nod to Theocritus’ influence, it is Virgil who is more often cited as a source for Pope’s pastoral conceits and whose superiority “in all points where Judgment is principally concerned” is praised in the prefatory “Discourse.” A decade later, with Pope’s encouragement, his fellow satirist John Gay published The Shepherd’s Week (1714) to parody Ambrose Phillips’ revival of Spenser’s homely pastoral style. Unlike Pope’s preference for Virgil, Gay’s “Proeme” declares Theocritus the ideal model for the “right simple Eclogue” with no “idle trumpery” of Golden Age sentiment. Indeed, it was Theocritus’ often abusive and vulgar Id. 5 that he claims to have admired the most: “he rightly, throughout his fifth Idyll, maketh his louts give foul language, and behold their goats at rut in all simplicity.” He follows this observation by quoting Id. 1.87–88, where Pan avers that goatherds would prefer to be goats whenever they see their animals having sex. Like Pope, Gay provides us with footnotes citing classical sources, including three quotations of Theocritus’ Greek (Thursday ad vv. 64, 127; Friday ad v. 96), but as with Spenser’s E.K., 29 30

On this concept, with its origins in the Middle Ages, and its reflection in Spenser, see Hubbard (1998) 294–295, and the other sources listed therein. For a similar display of Pope’s eagerness to show off his knowledge of Virgil’s source text, see the note to Summer 23, quoting Ecl. 10.9–12 “Virg. out of Theoc.” (i.e., Id. 1.65–67).

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the citations seem designed to misdirect, as none of the quotations are actually very close to Gay’s lines. The general structure of Thursday, punctuated by refrain, imitates Id. 2 and Alphesiboeus’ song in Virgil’s Ecl. 8, but Gay’s treatment of Hobnelia’s magic directed toward Lubberkin makes her seem comical and pathetic rather than dark and dangerous, like the abandoned Simaetha: rather than spinning an iunx, Hobnelia spins herself around three times in the poem’s refrain.

4

Critical Judgments of Theocritus

The Veronese humanist Guarino Guarini had an important role in promoting the reading of Theocritus as early as the 1440s, and numbered among his pupils Leonello d’Este, the ruler of Ferrara and founder of its university (1407–1450), Martino Filetico (1430–1490), Theocritus’ first Latin translator, and the prominent poet Matteo Maria Boiardo (1440–1494), who included eclogues among his works. The Greek humanist Theodorus Gaza became professor at the University of Ferrara in 1447 and, in addition to translating Aristotle into Latin, gave public readings of Homer, Hesiod, and Theocritus. Even prior to the first printed editions, Guarini recommended Theocritus as a model of a more realistic and non-allegorical type of pastoral poetry.31 A century later, Trissino, whose Dafne we have previously noted, declared a preference for Theocritus in Le Sei Divisione della Poetica (1529), praising him for what Trissino perceived as a naturalistic adherence to the actual diction of shepherds (falsely assuming Doric to be a “rustic” dialect), in contrast to the artificial rhyme schemes common in Italian poetry of his time.32 But it was in the 17th century that pastoral theory reached a more sustained and elevated plateau of elaboration, in the work of the Jesuit scholar René Rapin (1621–1687), champion of the Ancients, and his Enlightenment counterpart Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657–1757), champion of the Moderns. Rapin’s treatise De Carmine Pastorali prefaced a 1659 edition of his own eclogues, and an English translation was appended to Thomas Creech’s 1684 translation of Theocritus. Rapin (1684, 6) most admired Theocritus for his “unaffected neatness” and his “Sweet, Elegant, neat and pleasing fancies.” Stylistically, his virtue was simplicity of thought and expression (1684, 37– 38). Rapin praised the asyndeton of Id. 3 for its strong and vehement affect 31 32

On Guarini and Ferrara’s importance as an early locus of Theocritean study, see TissoniBenvenuti (1980). See Congleton (1952) 19–21; Lambert (1976) 99.

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(1684, 40) and cited Id. 1, 4, and 5 for their concision and clarity, in contrast to the pomposity and bombast encountered elsewhere (1684, 58–60). Theocritus’ ornament was easy to grasp, not such as requires “Care, Labor, and Cost to be obtained” (1684, 56–57). Like Scaliger (1561, 6–9) before him, and many critics since,33 Rapin saw Theocritus’ simple style as closer to the genre’s assumed origin in actual herdsmen’s or reapers’ songs in Sicily, hence the Doric dialect which Rapin considered virtuously rustic (1684, 9–12, 36). Indeed, he traced it back to the “Simplicity and Innocence” of the Golden Age itself (1684, 14–15), to which Theocritus seemed temporally closer than Virgil. Rapin frequently compared Theocritus and Virgil, crediting the former for not mixing into his pastorals complex allegories or lofty subjects as Virgil did (1684, 37–38, 53), although Rapin admits to being puzzled by the grand themes in some of Theocritus’ later Idylls (1684, 21). Virgil is praised for excelling Theocritus in brevity (1684, 41); Rapin prefers the shorter description of the beechwood cups in Ecl. 3.36–47 to the extended ekphrasis of the ivy cup in Id. 1.27–60 (1684, 65). Most importantly, Rapin praises Virgil’s shepherds for being better mannered, affable, kind, and strangers to fraud, in contrast to the abusive and foul-mouthed interlocutors of Id. 5 (1684, 67). Fontenelle’s programmatic stance was that of the bemused proto-Enlightenment debunker of the ancients’ supposed superiority, while acknowledging their inspiration in providing models for future improvement, as they did for his uncles Pierre and Thomas Corneille. Together with his own pastoral poems, which like Rapin’s were not works of great distinction, Fontenelle published a “Treatise on the Nature of the Eclogue” as well as a “Digression on the Ancients and Moderns” (first edition, 1688). Fontenelle reacted against what he saw as an almost religious reverence for the most revered poets of antiquity: mischievously, he prefers Moschus and Bion to Theocritus, and Calpurnius and Nemesianus to Virgil (1818, 59–62). He cavils about the improbabilities of Daphnis’ death or the Cyclops’ love, the length of the ivy cup ekphrasis, the refrains of both Id. 1 and 2, the grossness of Id. 5, and the gratuitous rusticity of Id. 4 (1818, 53–54, 67–69). But he also cites with approval Id. 10 for showing that models of Epicurean tranquility, which he regarded as the proper goal of pastoral writing, could be found in other types of rustics as well, like harvesters, vinedressers, and various other laborers. The pleasing simplicity of country life should be emphasized, not rusticity for its own sake and certainly not rural misery, poverty, or toilsomeness, for which he criticizes both the work song at the end of Id. 10 and the wretched fishermen of Id. 21 (1818, 56–59).

33

See the sources collected in Hubbard (1998) 19 n. 1.

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Adumbrating Empson’s “putting the complex into the simple” formula, Fontenelle declares that pastoral should aim at thinking well in a simple style. Shepherds should speak in facts, not reflections; pastoral poets should let the facts speak for themselves and give us as an educated audience the pleasure of recognizing deeper truths (1818, 65–66). Interestingly, Fontenelle imagines Theocritus himself as a character in one of his Lucianic Dialogues of the Dead (#5): Theocritus admits that he laughed too much in his life, especially in the presence of King Antigonus. Theocritus claims that he knows nothing of “reflexions,” which make his interlocutor so sad and serious all the time. In grasping the Epicurean character of Theocritus’ bucolic writing, Fontenelle actually showed a much more advanced understanding of what he was up to than Rapin or most of Theocritus’ later eighteenth-century enthusiasts. Rev. Thomas Purney’s “Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral” (1717) followed his own translation of Theocritus by a year and shows the clear influence of Fontenelle’s insistence that pastoral should emphasize the pleasures of rustic life, not its fatigue, even though Theocritus’ “rude, unmanner’d Muse” led him to describe both. Like Trissino before him, Purney praised Theocritus’ Greek for its superiority to Latin as a pastoral language, due to its abundance of particles, monosyllables, and dialectal variation, but he judged English even more suitable (1717, 70). Inspired by Aristotle’s pity and fear as the emotions evoked by tragedy, Purney posited Pity and Joy as the paramount emotions which pastoral poetry should elicit (1717, 5–6). Purney thought agreeable simplicity was best created by characters who appear as “young and tender Innocents,” rather than “clownish boors,” and thus faults Theocritus for not including more female characters (1717, 27–28). He cites as his favorite “Thoughts” (equivalent to Aristotelian dianoia) Id. 5.84–89 and 8.72–75 (1717, 47), both passages on female desire. Similarly, Id. 6 pleases him (1717, 29–30), perhaps because it also emphasizes feminine erotic response. He praises Theocritus’ similes and cites as his favorite Id. 8.88–91 (a joyful fawn leaping next to its mother, and a tearful maiden at her wedding). He also likes the repeated emphasis on lovers’ tears in the non-bucolic Id. 23.16–18 and 35–44, which he considers pastoral (1717, 47–48, 54–56). The cynical observer may note that many of Purney’s favorite lines come from poems generally judged today not to be genuine works of Theocritus. In the 18th century, criticism increasingly tended to view Theocritus as superior to Virgil. Like John Gay (1714), both Joseph Addison (Spectator no. 523 (1712)) and Thomas Tickell (Guardian no. 28 (1713)) declared their preference unequivocally. In an essay on Pope (1756), Joseph Warton praised Theocritus for the realism of his beautiful Sicilian landscapes, with a “romantic Rusti-

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city and Wildness … that are certainly inimitable.”34 His brother Thomas Warton (1770) preferred Theocritus to Virgil for his concrete detail; the preface to Francis Fawkes’ 1767 translation added to this merit the superior depiction of lower-class characters.35 The mania for the prose idylls of the “Swiss Theocritus” (title of a 1886 translation) Salomon Gessner we shall discuss in another section. However enthusiastic or critical, few of these writers had any deep understanding of Theocritus’ diction (which was Alexandrian and recherché rather than rustic), Hellenistic context (Callimachus was scarcely known at this time), or sophisticated allusiveness (which had to wait for Reitzenstein’s 1905 monograph to be grasped even in a preliminary way). Their notion of a “simple” and primitive poet was based on a comprehensive ignorance of his actual complexity, coupled with a historicist misconception of earlier texts necessarily being closer to an imagined rootedness in native folk traditions.

5

Idyll 21 and the Invention of Piscatory Pastoral

Although not generally credited today as a genuine work of Theocritus,36 Idyll 21 proved pivotal in inspiring a significant offshoot of the pastoral tradition, transferring to humble fishermen the themes and concerns of rustic herdsmen. Neither Virgil nor his Latin successors went down this path. As with pastoral romance, the key transmitter was Jacopo Sannazaro, whose five Latin Piscatoriae Eclogae were mostly composed before 1504; I have previously argued that Sannazaro conceived these poems not so much as pastorals, but as an intermediate step in his Virgilian progression, akin to the Georgics in valorizing the world of serious labor (Hubbard (2007)). Its anxious and toil-oppressed tone mark Idyll 21 as quite separate from the bucolic poems, but its ascription to Theocritus and its similar form as a mime, together with Sannazaro’s free use of Virgil’s Eclogues as models for his piscatories, motivated later authors to group it among the bucolics and to consider piscatory a variant of pastoral poetry. 34

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He seems not to have noticed that the most elaborately described topography is that of Cos (Id. 7.1–11, 130–146). Hugh Blair’s “On Pastoral Poetry” (1783) also asserts Theocritus’ preeminence in picturesque landscapes, even though, by comparison with many ancient authors, Theocritus’ loci amoeni are fairly short. See Kerlin (1910) 48–80 and Congleton (1952) 86–142 for surveys of eighteenth-century English critical responses. See the citations in Hubbard (2007) 62 n. 10. Gow (1952) 2. 369–370 admits that the stylometric objections are not very substantial, and critics’ reluctance is more a matter of subjective taste.

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Apart from one possible parallel (the description of fishing gear in Pisc. 3.9–12; cf. Id. 21.8–12), Theocritus is not actually a source of close textual allusion in Sannazaro’s piscatories. It is to the great Portuguese poet Luis de Camões that we owe the idea of confronting a shepherd and a fisherman in a song contest praising their respective domains (Ecl. 6, probably dated around 1546), a conceit also adopted by Drayton and Phineas Fletcher in the next century.37 However, Camões reveals no knowledge of Theocritus and appears to have seen piscatory pastoral only in “the fisherman Sannazaro,” whom he names beside “the ancient Mantuan” (Virgil) as the inspiration for what he regards as a new style (Ecl. 6.58–63, 293– 298). Theocritus is the explicit influence on the piscatories that the French poet Remy Belleau (one of the Pléiade) incorporated into the Journée ii of his Bergerie (1572), formally a prosimetric romance in the style of Sannazaro’s Arcadia. The prose interlude after “Les Pescheurs” specifically identifies a “Sicilian mariner” as the teacher of this song, whose first 22 lines enthusiastically expand on the themes of Poverty as a spur to industry and worry as a productive antidote to lethargic Sleep in Id. 21.1–5.38 The Urbino polymath Bernardino Baldi alluded to the same passage in his mixed pastoral and piscatory eclogues of 1590.39 The story of the Golden Fish which forms the centerpiece to Idyll 21 provided the background to some early seventeenth-century English court masques,40 but the first substantial literary production of piscatory eclogues in England was that of Phineas Fletcher (1633), whose work reveals scant knowledge of Theocritus. However, his piscatory drama Sicelides (published in 1629, but probably written by 1615) does make a nod to Theocritus in its choice of title and location, and we find an amorous cyclops in Act iv, Scene 6.41 A more substantial engagement with Theocritus is to be found in the Latin eclogues of the minor Scots poet John Leech (1620). Impressed by the idea that pastoral forms and themes could be applied to other rural vocations, Leech produced a series of twenty eclogues composed of five bucolica, and an equal number of piscatoria, nautica, and vinitoria. Pisc. 1.10–12 introduces a catalogue of fishing 37 38 39

40 41

Hall (1914) 82, 143–144. The list of fishing gear in vv. 31–36 may also allude to Id. 21.6–12. Ecl. 8.34–38. Alcone’s love plaint in Ecl. 7 also cites Polyphemus (84–90 and Id. 6.34–38, 11.30–33; 94–103 and Id. 11.25–29; 142–152 and Id. 11.40–41). Ecl. 10.1–40, of two women comparing their accoutrements as they prepare to attend a crowded dance, may be based on Id. 15. See Hall (1914) 69–73. Hall (1914) 100. Unlike Theocritus’ sympathetic Polyphemus, Rymbombo is definitely a brute and a maneater, and is justly deceived by the transvestite page dressed as the evil nymph Cosma.

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gear clearly reminiscent of Id. 21.8–12, and Pisc. 4 centers upon two “equally old fishermen” (cf. Id. 21.6) who sing of gems and treasures beneath the sea (but not a golden fish, as in Theocritus). More important is Pisc. 2, which closely follows the structure of Id. 1, but without Theocritus’ extended ekphrasis of the ivy cup.42 Most important, however, is that Leech’s piscatories replicate the grinding poverty, nasty weather, and unrelieved misery voiced by Theocritus’ fishers; there are no themes of love, youth, or hope in the future, such as one does see in Leech’s non-piscatory eclogues.43 The Dutch humanist Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) also composed a piscatory eclogue in Latin (translated into English in 1724). Grotius’Myrtilus, dedicated to the Theocritean commentator Daniel Heinsius, includes (122–126) the conventional list of fishing gear from Id. 21.8–12, but also interweaves amatory themes from Id. 3, 11, and 20.44 The Jesuit Nicolaus Parthenius Giannettasius’ Piscatoria et Nautica (1685) likewise adapts non-piscatory Theocritean texts to his piscatory context.45 The Theocritean vogue of the 18th century led Moses Browne to preface his collection of piscatory eclogues (1729) with “An Essay to Introduce New Rules, and New Characters, into Pastoral.” Rejecting Sannazaro’s Piscatoriae for making the angler’s art appear “contemptible,” Browne appeals to Theocritus as the proper model, praising the Greek poet for his ability to move beyond the merely pastoral, whether in poems about reapers and fishermen or his more heroic 42

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Vv. 1–15 closely follow Id. 1.1–14. The singer Lycabas’ self-identification (34) closely replicates Thyrsis’ (Id. 1.65). His song begins by questioning the Nymphs on their whereabouts (35–40; cf. Id. 1.66–69); in two shifts, sea creatures come to mourn the dying Dorylas (42– 46; cf. Id. 1.71–75, for wild and domesticated animals mourning Daphnis); then Proteus and Glaucus come to visit (56–64; cf. Id. 1.77–91, for Hermes and Priapus); both poems close with presentation of gifts by the singer’s interlocutor (108–115; Id. 1.146–152). Whereas Theocritus’ refrain talks of “beginning pastoral song,” Leech’s talks of Echo “bringing back” the song, as if to acknowledge its derivative status. It may be significant that one finds little Theocritean influence in the three other types of eclogues; for instance, Buc. 3 closely follows Alphesiboeus’ song in Virgil’s Ecl. 8, but does not engage with its source in Id. 2. The beloved resides in a cave (27; Id. 3.6). The lover worries about his appearance, but reassures himself by the admiration of other maids and his reflection in the calm sea (43–53; Id. 11.30–38, 20.20–31). He catalogues other mortal men loved by heroines and goddesses (55–65; Id. 3.40–51, 20.34–43). The lovers first met as children gathering shells (or picking flowers) in the company of a parent (66–74; Id. 11.25–29). The lover can offer abundant gifts (78–106; Id. 3.10–11, 11.40–41) and condiments for a feast (115–121; Id. 11.34–37). He threatens to throw himself off a cliff (132–136; Id. 3.25–27). See Hall (1914, 73–74 n. 56) for other parallels. Ecl. 12 adapts Id. 10, and Ecl. 3, although mainly following Virgil’s third Eclogue, draws its ekphrasis of the bowls from its source in Id. 1.29–63. See Hall (1914) 75–77.

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pieces like Id. 22 and 24. However, only Browne’s Ecl. 7 (a fowler’s song about the binding spells of the lovesick Melite) shows close engagement with a Theocritean source text.46 The Settecento Milanese poet Giuseppe Parini published a piscatory poem among his Alcune Poesie di Ripano Eupilino (1752), including a lengthy description of a coral cup as a gift for song (94.124–154): he skillfully rearranges the complex motifs of Theocritus’ ivy cup to give us an old fisherman beset by three boys stealing his fish, and four wading maidens surrounded by leering Tritons. That the cup is said to be a gift of Chromis (94.42, 67) cannot but recall the Libyan Chromis of Id. 1.24.

6

Gessner-Mania

By the 18th century, pastoral poetry had largely become a stylized cliché, more likely to be a subject of critical theory than of significant creative advances, sometimes practiced as a token of youthful poetic self-presentation (as in Pope) or outright satire (as in John Gay). Amid this generic exhaustion, the largely self-taught Swiss publisher and engraver Salomon Gessner emerged to produce something that was genuinely new. After a prose romance in the style of Longus (Daphnis 1754), Gessner published a collection of Idyllen in 1756: not a skilled versifier, Gessner chose to write in a simple, but cadenced prose consisting of mostly short sentences with a limited and frequently repetitive vocabulary. Although not specifically intended for children, Gessner’s Idyllen in many ways resembled children’s literature, appearing in large-print octavo format, avoiding themes of despair or injustice, but presenting paradigms of moral behavior justly rewarded by beneficent gods: Amyntas saves a threatened oak tree from the stream’s erosion by building a dam, and is rewarded by the Dryad with a wish. Instead of requesting anything selfish, he asks that his sick neighbor Palemon be cured; the Dryad then rewards him not only with Palemon’s recovery, but an increased flock and riches. Gessner also emphasizes tender familial relations among his shepherds: numerous idylls show us elderly parents serene in the presence of death, proud of their children’s virtuous conduct. It is significant that Gessner chose to call his prose poems Idyllen rather than eclogues, pastorals, or bucolics: true to Gessner’s vocation as an engraver, each is genuinely a “little picture” or even a “little person’s picture,” a snapshot of life surrounded by a warmly delineated landscape.

46

He takes from Id. 2 the moon refrain, the lover’s absence for nine days, the bowl mixed with a magic draught, and leaves strewn around the fire.

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Gessner’s short preface to his collection makes it clear that he regarded Theocritus as his model for presenting die schönste Einfalt der Natur. In keeping with the long tradition of pastoral criticism we have surveyed, Gessner praised Theocritus’ shepherds for their naïveté, unspoiled by the artifice and epigrammatic wit of modern pastoralists, their falsch-ekeln Galanterie. Yet he recognizes that the simplicity of Theocritus’ country folk is not a product of the author’s own simplicity, but of a refined artfulness. He also avers that changes in social customs in his own age necessitate avoiding some of the grosser aspects of Theocritus’ shepherds, so he leaves those parts out, even as Virgil did. Like many eighteenth-century critics, Gessner especially praises Theocritus for his sensitivity to the smallest details of natural description, and seeks to imitate that in his own attention to landscape. It is significant that Gessner chose to create as the frontispiece for the Idyllen in the 1762 edition of his assembled writings an engraving of a stone monument topped by a medallion of Theocritus, buried in a deep Germanic wood, with a goat seemingly reading the inscription, and to the left side a broken tree trunk, personified by a remaining branch which reaches out like an arm and hand to point our attention to the name of Gessner. An unmistakably phallic lower branch acknowledges an element of eroticism only implicit in the childlike words of the following text. The idyll “Lycas und Milon” is programmatic in acknowledging the author’s debt to Theocritus. As in Id. 8.1–10, two equally young shepherds meet, each just beginning to develop a beard, challenge each other to a contest, and old Menalcas (the name of one of the two youngsters in Id. 8) is asked to judge. They dispute over the place to sit (cf. Id. 5.44–61) and finally move to a cave. Lycas tells of having imitated his father’s piping as a child (even as Gessner followed his father’s trade as a book printer), and then having a dream (cf. Id. 21.29–62) of Pan telling him to retrieve a pipe dedicated by Hylas (cf. Id. 13), whereby he will be invested as a worthy successor (cf. Id. 7.128–129). “Idas, Mycon” has been regarded as similar in structure to Id. 1 (BöschensteinSchäfer (1967) 54), but there is no extended ekphrasis of the gift nor is the story one of death from love and divine injustice, but an aetiology of the oak under which they sit, planted by Palemon as a grateful monument to Pan, who increased his own flock so he could give half of it to his poor neighbor. The material preciosity of Theocritus’ ivy cup is out of place here: that such valuables held little meaning for Gessner’s shepherds is made clear in “Der zerbrochene Krug,” where a drunken faun laments with a refrain that he has smashed a similarly wrought jug with three scenes loosely corresponding to those of the ivy cup (one of passion, one of sea, and one of stolen grapes). Unrequited love seldom occurs in Gessner, and where it does, as in “Die ybel belohnte Liebe,” it is a matter of comedy, as the importunate

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satyr is awkwardly caught in a trap set by the nymph whose cave he pestered with entreaties modelled on Polyphemus’.47 Gessner was a man of little formal education, taught some Latin by a local parson, but no Greek.48 However, his personal charm and involvement with the book trade brought him into contact with many learned men: it was likely either the Zürich literary patriarch J.J. Bodmer or Gessner’s Berlin friend, the critic K.W. Ramler who introduced him to Theocritus,49 whom he most likely read in French translation; the first German translation of Theocritus was Lieberkühn’s, published a year after Gessner’s Idyllen, perhaps in response to their popularity. Although little known today, Gessner became a rapid sensation in late eighteenth-century Europe. Rousseau eagerly read him in 1761,50 and saw in his simple, but morally superior characters man in his natural state, and in their sharing community a utopian ideal. By 1762, Gessner had been translated into French, English, Swedish, and Dutch, and later in the century into Danish, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian;51 this was all the more amazing given the generally low status earlier German literature held in most of Europe. Enlightenment luminaries including Moses Mendelssohn, Wieland, and Diderot were fans, but it was J.G. Herder’s 1766 essay on Theocritus and Gessner that heralded a critical counterreaction, later joined by Goethe, Schiller, and A.W. von Schlegel.52 They faulted Gessner’s characters for being too morally perfect, and preferred Theocritus’ sharper realism, which came to be more closely emulated in the consciously archaic and ungrammatical diction of Maler Müller (who, like Gessner, titled his poems Idyllen) and the more socially engaged hexameter idylls of J.H. Voss (a classical scholar who translated Theocritus in 1808 and studied Hellenistic poetry with some understanding, sufficient to posit the “quarrel” of Callimachus and Apollonius).53

47 48 49 50 51 52 53

The setting reminds us of Id. 3.6–7. Not only do the satyr’s promises echo Polyphemus’, but also his eventual abandonment of a hopeless love. Hibberd (1976) 7. In 1749, Bodmer praised Theocritus over Virgil for his power and grace; Hibberd (1976) 34. For Ramler see Böschenstein-Schäfer (1967) 53. Böschenstein-Schäfer (1967) 56; Hibberd (1976) 54–55. For the importance of Gessner’s work to Rousseau, see Burk (1981) 77–99. Hibberd (1976) 140. Hibberd (1976) 147–150. On Müller and Voss specifically, see Böschenstein-Schäfer (1967) 69–74; Hibberd (1976) 153–157. For Gessner’s many imitators, including F.X. Bronner’s piscatories, which Gessner himself published and introduced, see Böschenstein-Schäfer (1967) 55–62; Hibberd (1976) 127–147.

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Appendix of Major Early Editions and Translations 1495 1500 1515 1516

1530 1539

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Aldus Manutius (ed.), Theokritou Eidyllia toutesti mikra poiemata triakonta (Venice). Martino Filetico (tr.), Hoc in volumine haec opuscula continentur: Theocritus, Hesiodus (Venice). Pietro Filippo Pandolfini (ed.), Theokritou Bukolika (Florence). Zacharias Kallierges (ed.), Theokritou Eidyllia, hex kai triakonta; Tou autou Epigrammata enneakaideka; Tou autou Pelekys, kai Pterygion; Scholia eis auta heuriskomena, ek diaphoron antigraphon, eis hen syllechthenta (Rome). Helius Eobanus Hessus (tr.), Theocriti Syracusani Eidyllia trigintasex, Latino carmine reddita, Helio Eobano Hesso interprete (Hagenau). Joannes Trimaninus (tr.), Theocriti Syracusani opera latine a Joanne Trimanino ad verbum diligentissime expressa, locis, unde Virgilius sumpsit, indicatis (Venice). Andreas Dives (tr.), Theocriti Syracusani poetae clarissimi Idyllia trigintasex, recens a Graeco in Latinum, ad verbum, translata, Andrea Divo Justinopolitano interprete (Venice). Veit Winsheim, Interpretatio Eidylliorum Theocriti (Frankfurt). Theocriti, Moschi, Bionis, Simmii quae extant; Cum Graecis in Theocritum Scholiis, & Indice copioso. Accedunt Iosephi Scaligeri, Isaaci Casauboni, & eiusdem Danielis Heinsii Notae & Lectiones (Heidelberg).

Bibliography Baldi, B. (1992), Egloghe miste (Torino). Böschenstein-Schäfer, R. (1967), Idylle (Stuttgart). Burk, B. (1981), Elemente idyllischen Lebens: Studien zu Salomon Gessner und JeanJacques Rousseau (Frankfurt a.M.). Caro, A. (1974), Opere (Torino). Congleton, J.E. (1952), Theories of Pastoral Poetry in England 1684–1798 (Gainesville). Earle, T.F. (1988), The Muse Reborn: The Poetry of António Ferreira (Oxford). Fontenelle, B. (1818), Oeuvres complètes (Paris). Gow, A.S.F. (1952), Theocritus (Cambridge). Hall, H.M. (1914), Idylls of Fishermen: A History of the Literary Species (New York). Hanford, J.H. (1910), “The Pastoral Elegy and Milton’s Lycidas,” PMLA 25, 403–447. Harrison, T.P. (1939), The Pastoral Elegy: An Anthology (Austin). Hauvette, H. (1903), Luigi Alamanni (1495–1556): Sa Vie et son oeuvre (Paris).

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Hibberd, J. (1976), Salomon Gessner: His Creative Achievement and Influence (Cambridge). Hubbard, T.K. (1998), The Pipes of Pan: Intertextuality and Literary Filiation in the Pastoral Tradition from Theocritus to Milton (Ann Arbor). Hubbard, T.K. (2007), “Exile from Arcadia: Sannazaro’s Piscatory Eclogues,” in Paschalis (2007) 59–77. Hulubei, A. (1938), L’Eglogue en France au xvie siècle (Paris). Hutton, J. (1928), “The First Idyl of Moschus in Imitations to the Year 1800,” AJPh 49, 105–136. Kerlin, R.T. (1910), Theocritus in English Literature (Lynchburg). Kühn, P. (1914), “L’influence neo-Latine dans les Églogues de Ronsard,” Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France 21, 309–325. Lambert, E.Z. (1976), Placing Sorrow: A Study of the Pastoral Elegy Convention from Theocritus to Milton (Chapel Hill). Leech, J. (1620), Musae priores sive Poematum pars prior (London). Longeou, C. (ed.) (1980), Le genre pastoral en Europe du xve au xviie siècle: Actes du colloque international tenu à Saint-Etienne du 28 septembre au 1er octobre 1978 (St.Etienne). Mustard, W.P. (1909), “Later Echoes of the Greek Bucolic Poets,” AJPh 30, 245–283. Navagero, A. (1549), “Lusus,” in Carmina quinque illustrium poetarum (Florence). Paschalis, M. (ed.) (2007), Pastoral Palimpsests: Essays in the Reception of Theocritus and Virgil (Herakleion). Purney, T. (1717), A Full Enquiry into the True Nature of Pastoral (London). Rapin, R. (1684), The Idylliums of Theocritus: with Rapin’s Discourse of Pastorals (Oxford). Rosenmeyer, T.G. (1969), The Green Cabinet: Theocritus and the European Pastoral Lyric (Berkeley). Starnes, D.T. (1942), “E.K.’s Classical Allusions Reconsidered,” SPh 39, 143–159. Starnes, D.T. (1944), “Spenser and E.K.,” SPh 41, 181–200. Tissoni-Benvenuti, A. (1980), “La restauration humaniste de l’églogue: l’école guarinienne à Ferrare,” in Longeou (1980) 25–33. Trissino, G.G. (1981), Rime 1529 (Vicenza). Varchi, B. (1858), Opere (Trieste).

chapter 33

Theocritus in Nineteenth-Century British Poetry Juan C. Pellicer

1

Shifting Conceptions of Genre

“Among the moderns no poet, it appears to us, has written an Idyl so perfect, so pure and simple in expression, yet so rich in thought and imagery, as the Godiva of Alfred Tennyson.” Tennyson’s poem was hot off the press when Walter Savage Landor singled it out for praise in a review essay on a German edition of Theocritus (1842).1 The first thing to notice is that Landor does not consider the “idyl” a fundamentally pastoral form.2 Otherwise, Tennyson’s “Godiva” would hardly qualify, being neither bucolic nor even rustic. Landor’s view of the “Idyl” stands in striking contrast to that of earlier generations, for whom the identification of Theocritus with the pastoral tradition was universal. Dryden and Pope, for instance, never seem to have doubted that Theocritus was quintessentially pastoral, and Wordsworth too evokes Theocritus mainly with reference to the shepherding life.3 When Thomas Creech’s popular translation of the Idylliums first appeared in 1684, it came prefaced by René Rapin’s “Discourse on Pastoral,” which introduced English readers to the seventeenth-century French debate on the genre. Although there did exist contemporary readers of Theocritus who realized that “the larger share” of the Idylls “cannot properly be call’d the Songs of Shepherds,” as Basil Kennett observes in the “Life of Theocritus” which prefaced the third edition of Creech’s translation (1721), the case remained, as Kennett put it, that Theocritus still passed “in common Esteem, for no more than a Pastoral Poet.”4 One of the great changes that took place between Dryden’s and Pope’s ideas of Theocritus and those of Landor, Tennyson and the Brownings is reflected by the fact that Tennyson’s “Godiva” is a form of miniature epic. For Dryden 1 Landor (1927–1936), xii.22. Discussed in O’Donnell (1988), 136. 2 “Idyl” was the common spelling in the nineteenth century for the Greek poetic form associated with Theocritus. Tennyson used the double “l” to distinguish his own use of the form. Today the double “l” is standard for the Greek form, so Tennyson’s distinction through spelling is lost. 3 Wordsworth, The Prelude (1805) 10.1006–1038 (from the 1995 edition). 4 Kennet (1721) 55. For the reception of Theocritus from the 16th to the 18th centuries see Hubbard, this volume.

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and Pope, pastoral and epic are at opposing ends of a scale traditionally represented by the Virgilian “wheel” of genres, which described a rising progression from succinct pastoral through excursive georgic to full-dress epic. For the midVictorians, by contrast, Theocritean idyll assumes a different kind of generic fluidity as well as universality. Writing of the Tennyson poems known as “idylls,” Robert Pattison observes a characteristic “catholicity” in Tennyson’s idea of the form, “which in his work designates poems that might more strictly be classified as dramatic monologue, dialogue, epyllion, elegy, satire, or lyric.”5 Browning defined the idyll form in a private letter, explaining his Dramatic Idylls (1879; Second Series, 1880): An idyl, as you know, is a succinct little story complete in itself; not necessarily concerning pastoral matters, by any means, though from the prevalency of such topics in the idyls of Theocritus, such is the general notion. These of mine are called “Dramatic” because the story is told by some actor in it, not by the poet himself.6 Besides describing the form as a self-contained narrative, Browning’s definition also seems to acknowledge the idyll’s hallmark of variety across mode. In his Lectures on Greek Poetry (1910), J.W. Mackail distinguishes “the dramatic, the lyric, and epic idyl; and also (as in Theocritus) idyls which are in a mixed manner and cannot be classed definitely under any sub-head.”7 In Tennyson especially, the Victorian idyll assumes the comprehensiveness and variety traditionally associated with epic.8 Further, even as the Victorian idyll tends towards overlap with epic in works such as Tennyson’s Idylls of the King (1859–1885), it also moves towards greater independence. Yet ideas of epic had shifted too, and epic’s twin, romance, was in the ascendant. Leigh Hunt observed, against those of his contemporaries who still supposed that Theocritus “can handle nothing stronger than a crook,” that Theocritus “was a son of Aetna—all peace and luxuriance in ordinary, all fire and wasting fury when he chose it,” and lamented “that unknown circumstances in [Theocritus’] life hindered him from com5 Pattison (1979) 17. “Epyllion” is a postclassical term first used by German philologists in the late eighteenth century; see Tilg (2012). The term is nevertheless widely used by classicists, and is taken to describe many of Theocritus’ Idylls, for instance 13, 22, and 24. 6 Letter to Wilfred Meynell of April 10, 1879, quoted in Siegchrist (1977) 230. 7 Mackail (1910) 221. 8 Pattison (1979) 93: “The idyll contains within it elements of most other poetic genres, and it manipulates these elements to its own ends.” For an account of Tennyson’s career as a progression within the idyll genre (“Tennyson’s poetic career is a history of the idyll in miniature”), see Pattison (1979) 46 and passim.

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pleting the gigantic fragments [Idylls 13, 24, and 25], which seem to have been portions of some intended great work on the deeds of Hercules […]—an anticipation of the romance of modern times, and the glory of Ariosto. What a loss!”9 It is telling that Hunt identifies these “giant fragments” not with Homeric or Virgilian epic but with epic romance, the tonally variegated and digressive form associated with Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. Much, then, depends on what is entailed by “epic.”10 For Milton and Pope, epic was “Virgilian” in the sense that it represented the interpretative system of allusion embodied not only in the Aeneid, but in Virgil’s oeuvre as a whole, representing a paradigm of continuity in a hierarchy of genres. The beginnings of Virgil’s Aeneid, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Pope’s Dunciad all evoke an epic tradition, not least by allusions designed to activate its system of distinctive tropes, one of the most powerful of which is the figure of poetic succession. This sense of literary filiation, as crucial to the pastoral tradition as it is to the epic, is itself a figure of historical continuity.11 In the nineteenth century, however, epic developed (like other genres) within a literary repertoire that configured notions of historical continuity and discontinuity less in terms of unbroken succession and inheritance over intervening centuries, and more in terms of sharp juxtapositions of historically discrete periods. The nineteenth century engages the classical past with its own distinctive awareness of cultural, historical, and linguistic discontinuities.12

2

Continuity or Rupture?

Writing of the nineteenth-century preference for Greece over Rome, Frank M. Turner proposes that whereas the relationship with Rome was understood as “a line of continuous cultural influence within Europe,” the relationship with

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Hunt (1870) 72–73. For a comprehensive survey, see Tucker (2008). On the figure of succession in pastoral, see Hubbard (1998). A number of caveats suggest themselves. Naturally one should beware of hypostatizing any notional “system of genres.” Nor can one accurately assess the full repertoire of genres available to poets at any given moment, not merely because this repertoire must be always in flux but also because the repertoire is itself an abstraction. Moreover, no art form or tradition exists in isolation from others: Romantic and Victorian receptions of Theocritus form part of a repertoire that includes not only artists from all periods (Ovid, say, and Milton) but also includes other art forms, such as sculpture and painting. This is equally true of early eighteenth-century receptions of the classics, for instance in any of Pope’s works.

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Greece was calibrated in terms of its discontinuities, and that it was these very discontinuities that so appealed to the Victorians.13 Whether this generalization is true in all cases matters less than the heuristic value of its dichotomy, not least in reminding us that any relationship with the past is configured as a dialectic of sameness and difference, or continuity and rupture, that is reconfigured afresh at every turn. W.H. Auden, for instance, writing generally on Greek culture in 1948, accentuates elements of difference: “It is the unlikeness of the Greeks to ourselves … that strikes us more than anything else.”14 Half a century earlier, in an Oxford lecture about Alexandrian poetry (1910), it is the likeness of the Hellenistic world to the Victorian that most impresses J.W. Mackail. Accounting for the appeal of Theocritus to the mid-Victorians, especially to Tennyson, Mackail elaborates a series of comparisons between the Hellenistic world and the Victorian. “Such was the world of Theocritus: immense, well-policed, monotonous; penetrated through and through by commercialism; pleasant for the well-to-do, and not unbearable for the poor ….”15 As these examples show, the response of any writer to the past depends on its rhetorical occasion and historical context—neither of which, of course, are themselves figures of stability. Looking back on Mackail in an essay of 1959 on “Tennyson and the Romantic Epic,” Marshall McLuhan speculates that when Mackail’s lecture appeared in 1910 his contextualization of the poetic challenges faced by Theocritus “must have provided keen stimulus to Mr. Eliot and others at a crucial time.” Since McLuhan is engaged in tracing continuities between Victorian and Modernist art, he invites us to picture the young Eliot of “Prufrock” as a High Modernist inheritor of Mackail’s Victorian conception of Theocritus—a creation which in turn, McLuhan argues, had bypassed the traditions of intervening centuries by inheriting from nineteenth-century scholarship “a Greek poetry that was guaranteed primitive and purged of the Roman components so prized in the Renaissance.”16 Notice once more how “Theocritus” and “Vic-

13

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F.M. Turner (1989) 61. Cf. Auden (1973) 4: “The historical discontinuity between Greek culture and our own, the disappearance for so many centuries of any direct influence, made it all the easier, when it was rediscovered, for each nation to fashion a classical Greece in its own image.” Auden (1973) 15; quoted in F.M. Turner (1981) 8. Mackail (1910) 217. McLuhan (1960) 89–90. Curiously, this view is endorsed rather naively in O’Donnell (1988) 137: “The age of Tennyson and Browning benefited from the purification of Greek literature effected by nineteenth-century scholars …. When nineteenth-century scholarship purged Theocritus of the Roman elements that had come to be mistaken as original elements, poets like Tennyson, Landor, and later Browning were able to appreciate and imitate Theocritus’ Idyls as he had written them.”

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torian,” together with “Greek” and “Roman,” are repeatedly reconfigured from the familiar dichotomies of sameness and difference, proximity and distance, continuity and rupture. “Dost thou remember Sicily?,” asks the refrain of Oscar Wilde’s villanelle “Theocritus” (1881), addressing the “singer of Persephone” himself.17 Wilde’s poem illustrates the typical representation of Theocritus as a timeless figure, untethered from history, perennial in his mythic Mediterranean island setting, ever contemporary yet always remote. Contrastively, Virgil could be taken to represent historicity, not least because his first Eclogue “thematizes the invasion of history into the pastoral world.”18 Virgil also represents historical continuity, because to a greater extent than Theocritus he represents unbroken literary tradition, which like monarchs and empires is subject to decay. The post-Virgilian pastoral tradition in particular, as distinct from its pristine Greek original, was widely felt to have been cashiered at last by steam and speed. The anonymous reviewer of Tennyson’s In Memoriam (1850) in The Times— possibly Manley Hopkins, father of the poet—wrote: We regard it as a most happy judgment of Mr. Tennyson, that he resolved to forget [Milton’s] Lycidas, and to place the charm of his own longer elegy in its biographical passages and domestic interiors. We hear nothing of Damon, and are thankful for the silence. The age, whether for better or worse, has left the pastoral behind it. Corydon is forever out of the question with people who have anything to do; the close of the 18th century witnessed his burial. That rather insipid shepherd-swain, whom Pope patronized, will never lead his flock along the banks of the Thames since the South-Western crossed it at Twickenham [on the Richmond Railway Bridge, opened in 1848]. Not even Theocritus could have outlived a viaduct.19 If for all his primal vigor, “not even Theocritus” could be imagined capable of taking on the modern age, still less (it is implied) his successively feebler imitators, starting with Virgil. Yet despite this widespread discrediting of pastoral tradition, especially the conventions of pastoral elegy, in no respect can the figure of Virgil be air17 18 19

Wilde (2000). Paschalis (2007) 123. Quoted in Hair (1981) 9. Hair’s note 10, p. 232: ‘ “The Poetry of Sorrow” (28 November 1851) 8. The evidence that the review may have been written by Manley Hopkins is given by Humphrey House in “The Hopkinses” Times Literary Supplement 48 (4 November 1949) 715.’

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brushed out of our picture. Richard Jenkyns offers a good example. Tennyson’s famous lyric from The Princess (1847), “Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height” (7.177–207), which has been associated with Theocritus since its early reception, ends in lines which imitate the sounds of the doves and the bees they describe: “the moan of doves in immemorial elms, / And murmuring of innumerable bees” (Id. 1.140–142).20 If Tennyson is emulating Theocritus, then he is doing so, as he himself observed, primarily by emulating Virgil, whose first Eclogue includes lines imitating the sounds of wood doves and bees (53–58), and who himself “displayed his virtuosity” in that poem “by paraphrasing some especially melodious passages of Theocritus.”21 Similarly blending echoes from Theocritus and Virgil, Shelley’s “Hymn of Pan” (1824) illustrates how bucolic-pastoral motifs such as Pan’s “sweet pipings” may form part of a broader “Virgilian” project of incorporating Lucretian-epic material within the compass of lyric (cf. Virgil’s Eclogue 6), typically through figures of generic contrast (25–31): I sang of the dancing stars, I sang of the daedal Earth, And of Heaven—and the giant wars, And Love, and Death, and Birth,— And then I changed my pipings,— Singing how, down the vales of Maenalus I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed.22 “Maenalus” originates in Theocritus 1.124, but enters the bloodstream of poetry as the refrain of Virgil’s Eclogue 8, which imitates Theocritus’ refrain, Id. 1.64. It may be taken as axiomatic that Theocritus is always mediated through Virgil, whether herdsmen and the countryside are evoked or not. Even non-bucolic traditions such as Greek urban mime are channeled by Virgil as well as Theo-

20 21

22

All references are to Tennyson (1987). Jenkyns (2002) 238. In his own notes to The Princess, Tennyson ad 7.206 compared Virgil, Eclogues 1.58; Tennyson (1987) ad loc. The effect becomes something of a commonplace, cf. Edmund Gosse, “Theocritus. For A. Lang’s Translation” (1885), lines 1–2: “The poplars and the ancient elms / Make murmurous noises high in air.” Composed in 1820; the title is Mary Shelley’s. “Daedal” reflects Lucretius 5.234, naturaque daedala rerum, “and nature the cunning fashioner of things” (Loeb translation). “Lucretian” passages in Virgil include Eclogues 6.31–40, Georgics 2.475–494, and Aeneid 1.740– 746. Rosenmeyer (1969) argues that Theocritus cultivates Epicurean strains (see especially ch. 4, “Otium”); many scholars caution against overstating this thesis.

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critus.23 The conception of the idyll as miniature or fragmentary epic, too, reconfigures a fundamental aspect of Virgil’s own reception of Theocritus, namely the definition of genre by its measurement against epic.24

3

Fragmentary Imitation

“For more than one hundred years,” wrote Robert Pattison in 1979, “critics have categorized Tennyson’s poetry as Alexandrian and noted the similarities between his verse and the forms of poetry loosely classified as idyll that evolved in the Hellenistic period.”25 “Alexandrian” here means learnedly allusive in the manner of the classical poets, Roman as well as Hellenistic. But one great difference between Tennyson’s imitations of Theocritus and those we may associate more closely with the “Virgilian” tradition lies in Tennyson’s apparent disinclination to inflect Theocritus in a programmatic way. That is to say, when in “Audley Court” (1842) Tennyson imitates Theocritus 7, which present-day Hellenists agree is programmatic “in the broad sense that it both displays and reflects upon important aspects of Theocritus’ poetic art as we find it in the rest of the corpus,”26 Tennyson does not seem to be aiming for any similar condition of representativeness, either with regard to Theocritus’ work or to his own.27 Nor does Tennyson seem to be striving, like Theocritus, to allusively represent a poetic project of his own in relation to a recognized hierarchy or repertoire of genres. If we allow that Tennyson’s eclectic form of imitation is “Alexandrian,” surely it is too diffusive to be pointedly similar to that of Theocritus.28 Whereas Theocritus evokes distinctive tropes or moments in Hesiod and Homer in ways that position his own work in relation to their poetic projects, Tennyson’s allusions to Theocritus 7 do not seem intended to evoke any such normative sense of tradition. The same applies to “The Gardener’s Daughter,” which also imitates Theocritus 7.29 In this sense, then, Tennyson is fundamentally unlike Virgil

23 24 25 26 27

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Krevans (2006) 128. My formulation (“the definition of genre by its measurement against epic”) is indebted to Alpers (1996). Pattison (1979) 17 and 155 n. Hunter (1996) 22. Mackail (1910) 221 describes “Audley Court” as “an English analogue” of Theocritus 7. On Tennyson’s uses of Theocritus and the idyll, see Pattison (1979) passim, and P. Turner (1976) ch. 5 and 164–165. A comprehensive but critically undiscriminating set of suggested correspondences between Tennyson and Theocritus is presented in Mustard (1971) 31–43. On Tennyson’s “Alexandrian” eclecticism, see Pattison (1979) 18. P. Turner (1976) 80.

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too, who not only establishes the practice of imitating Theocritus programmatically in the Eclogues, but who also establishes the paradigm in which pastoral and epic are taken as continuous genres. This holds true even at such “Alexandrian” moments as when Tennyson, in his English idyll “Dora” (1842), twice employs a Homeric formula, “And the sun fell, and all the land was dark” (77, 107).30 The Homeric intertext does not really relate “Dora” to traditions of epic. Even the fact that “everything Tennyson ever called an idyl (or idyll) is written in blank verse” arguably says as much about the flexibility of the blank verse form in English as it suggests any affinity with Theocritus’ and Virgil’s pregnant choices to use the epic hexameter.31 In this respect Tennyson may be contrasted to Wordsworth, who does recall Theocritus programmatically at the conclusion of The Prelude 10 (1805), not merely to evoke pastoral Sicily as a type of his own home landscape in Cumbria but also to recall the story of Comatas in Theocritus 7.78–82, buried alive by a tyrant but fed by bees bringing honey from the Muses.32 In Tennyson, by contrast, imitation of Theocritus assumes a more local, formal character. Adapting F.M. Turner’s observation about Greece vs. Rome, we might say it is the gaps in the cultural transmission between Theocritus and nineteenth-century England that appeal most invitingly to Tennyson’s imagination. Nor is Tennyson the only poet of whom this might ring true. Robert Browning’s “Pan and Luna,” today often considered the finest of his Dramatic Idylls (from the second series, 1880), insists on the fragmentary and discontinuous nature of the idyll form which Browning too derives ultimately from Theocritus. Browning’s poem elaborates a very brief exemplary story in Virgil’s Georgics 3.391–393 (“those strange three lines,” 2) of how Pan seduced the moongoddess Luna by either attracting her with the prize of a snowy fleece, which is how Browning understands Virgil, or else by transforming himself into an attractively white ram (himself the prize).33 From Virgil’s obscure and incidental myth Browning develops a wonderfully suggestive, self-questioning narrative of over a hundred lines, which closes with a gesture of returning Virgil’s myth to the opacity of its original handful of images (97–104): 30 31 32

33

P. Turner (1976) 81. O’Donnell (1988) 128. Wordsworth, The Prelude 10.1019–1027 (1805), cf. 11.441–449 (1850). In the 1800 Lyrical Ballads, several of Wordsworth’s poems seem indebted to Theocritean pastoral, notably “The Idle Shepherd-Boys”; see Wordsworth (2007) 12. On “Michael” as “an attempt at the extreme Doric realism that Theocritus brought to several of his idylls” and as a precursor of Tennyson’s idyll form, see Pattison (1979) 36–38. P. Turner (1976) 81 observes the indebtedness of “Dora” to “Michael.” References to the text in DeMaria Jr. and Brown (2007).

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Ha, Virgil? Tell the rest, you! “To the deep Of his domain the wildwood, Pan forthwith Called her, and so she followed”—in her sleep, Surely?—“by no means spurning him.” The myth Explain who may! Let all else go, I keep —As of a ruin just a monolith— Thus much, one verse of five words, each a boon: Arcadia, night, a cloud, Pan, and the moon. Although Browning explicitly refers to Virgil, he does not place himself in a continuous poetic tradition that links him formally with either Virgil or with Virgil’s Greek predecessors. Indeed Browning has deliberately chosen an egregious passage from Virgil’s Georgics, notable for its isolated and enigmatic qualities. The world of Browning’s poem does not relate to the historical continuities of a literary tradition, nor yet to any historically localized scene, but to a timeless realm of myth and the imagination that is evoked not for ends that transcend his own poem, but for the purely local ends that are peculiar to it. When Virgil begins his Eclogues, then, with the figure of a herdsman playing on a reed, and when Milton in Lycidas invokes “the sisters of the sacred well” (15), they are not only placing themselves in a line of succession that goes back to Hesiod and Homer via Theocritus (among others), but using that trope to announce a literary programme. If the nineteenth-century reception of Theocritus has programmatic dimensions, these have arguably less to do with notions of poetic succession than with ideas of ancient Greek culture as a separate province of history, as well as a province of the mind that may be visited directly, bypassing Rome and the Renaissance. Theocritus invited such a reception by the mere fact of being less comprehensively “received” than Virgil by the Romans and the Renaissance.

4

A “Theocritus of Our Isle”?34

We may distinguish between, on the one hand, adaptations of Theocritus that imitate formal traits of his poems—songlike refrains, for instance, or verbal repetition generally,35 or framing and distancing devices such as the opening 34 35

Francis Turner Palgrave’s poem “In Memory of Charles Wells and Joseph Severn, Dying in 1879” describes Keats as the “Theocritus of our isle, and more.” “The most prominent single characteristic of Theocritus’ style is his repetition or partial repetition of words.” K.J. Dover, Theocritus. Select Poems (1971), p. xlv, quoted in Nisbet

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address to a friend in Theocritus 11—and on the other hand, less allusive evocations of Theocritus’ “world” that rework tropes such as the sweetness of song, or the characteristics of the herdsman’s life, or stylized representations of Mediterranean life. Since the traces of Theocritus in Keats lie somewhere between allusive imitation and commonplaces, Keats serves to discuss both.36 In “To Autumn,” for instance, which describes Autumn “sitting careless on a granary floor,” her “hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind,” or lying “on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep, / Drowsed with the fume of poppies” (14–17), one may recall numerous details from Theocritus’ description of the harvest at the end of Theocritus 7 (135–157), with its closing description of Demeter, goddess of the threshing-floor, sheaves and poppies in her hands (155, 157).37 The question is less whether Keats should be taken to be consciously evoking Theocritus than how we should think about the convergence of numerous details in these texts (e.g., branches weighed down with fruit, presenting a feast to the senses) as well as a common mood of leisurely contentment, celebrating the ripeness of late summer. This is not close imitation, still less allusion, nor even necessarily indebtedness. In Theocritus, Simichidas’ closing wish to plant his winnowingfan in a heap of grain echoes Tiresias’ prophecy, recalled at the close of Homer’s Odyssey, that Odysseus’ wanderings will only ever be over when he has carried his oar to a country so far inland that men mistake his oar for a winnowingfan, thus signalling the place to make the final atoning sacrifice to Poseidon. In Keats there is no such pointed reaching back to a poetic predecessor. Likewise, the descriptive scenes in Keats’s “Ode to a Grecian Urn” invite comparison with Theocritus’ ekphrasis of the three scenes carved on the cup in Idyll 1: the woman and her pair of suitors, the old fisherman, and the boy plaiting a wicker cage for his crickets, watched by a pair of foxes. Once more we find, however, that Keats’s ekphrastic scenes are neither directly indebted to Theocritus, nor yet ekphrastic with the same or similar purpose. Theocritus positions his own bucolic poetry in relation to Homeric epic by developing a scaled-down counterpart to Homer’s descriptions of the shield of Achilles in Iliad 18. Keats, by contrast, does not appear to be similarly defining his own poetic project by comparison to Homeric epic—not even in the lines describing the villagers on their way to sacrifice. This scene might appear “Homeric,” not merely because we are familiar with scenes of sacrifice chiefly through

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(2008) 51). To give just one example of a “Theocritean” refrain in nineteenth-century poetry, cf. the variations on “sweet pipings” in Shelley’s “Hymn of Pan.” On Keats’s indebtedness to Theocritus 1, 7, and 15, see Beatty (1948). Keats’s close friend Leigh Hunt included attractive translations of Theocritus 7, 11, 12, 15 and three short passages in Foliage (1818).

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Homer, but also because that combination of the precisely detailed and the emblematic is familiar from the scenes depicted on the shield of Achilles, and indeed from Theocritus’ ekphrastic scenes which evoke Homer. Yet this apparent similarity did not strike all contemporaries. When Matthew Arnold praised Keats’s lines about the little town it was not for being specifically Homeric or Theocritean, but rather for being Greek: “as Greek as a thing from Homer or Theocritus … composed with the eye on the object, a radiancy and light clearness being added.”38 It is significant that Arnold has his eye on the quality of being Greek, which for him was a way of seeing things as well as a way of reproducing them artistically, rather than a matter of literary genealogy. (Indeed, the figures of Homer and Theocritus seem selected to represent early and late stages of Greek poetry: taken together, they suggest an unchanging quality of essential Greekness.) For Arnold, it seems, Keats’s poetic scene is a congenial but independent modern analogue or correlative to a quality that may also be found in Homer and Theocritus, but which is not understood as an inheritance passed on continuously from classical antiquity. Arnold’s remark on Keats might be taken to confirm the thesis that the Victorians imagined Greece as a culture—indeed, almost an essence—that could be accessed directly, bypassing centuries of intervening tradition. Nor is Arnold necessarily mistaken about Keats’s lines, which need not be taken to respond to either Homer or Theocritus, and may well be taken instead to furnish an independent specimen of “the Greek way of handling nature, as well as the conventional.”39 In fact, the idea of a distinctly “Greek” sensibility is itself a commonplace of the nineteenth century. It is characteristic not only of Arnold but also of William Hazlitt, whose lectures and essays on Greek art did make an appreciable impression on Keats, and are echoed in “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Hazlitt may be taken as a more immediate and verifiable intertext for Keats than either Homer or Theocritus.40 If Keats’s ekphrastic Ode may yet be heard to speak to Theocritus as well as Homer, it will speak diffidently. After all, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is a poem

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Arnold (1867) 165, quoted in Bush (1957) 109. Arnold (1867) 165. Cf. Hazlitt’s essay “On Gusto” (1816)—reprinted, coincidentally, in the same issue of James Elmes’s Annals of the Fine Arts as “Ode on a Grecian Urn” in January 1820—and Lectures on the English Poets, “On Poetry in General” (1818) (Hazlitt (2009) 269, 320). Martin Aske approvingly cites David Bromwich: “the record of Hazlitt’s influence is much fuller, more convincing and more subtly connected with the practice of Keats’s poetry, than anyone has ever shown.” Aske (1985) 6, quoting Bromwich, Hazlitt: The Mind of a Critic (1983) 362.

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about the impossibility of knowing antiquity.41 But if we take it that Keats describes a series of motifs familiar from Greek poetry (the girls or nymphs in flight, the pastoral piper, the bold lover, the civic scene of sacrifice) as a means of establishing a critical position relative to the body of Greek art evoked by these motifs—historical distance itself serving to suggest a scale for aesthetic comparison—then this describes a poetics at least comparable to the Hellenistic aesthetic associated with Theocritus, in which the greater forms such as epic are encompassed in miniature form and interrogated from the vantagepoint of contrastive comparisons. Paradoxically, then, the nineteenth-century poem most radically skeptical about the intelligibility of Greek culture may also be considered among the most congenial to the poetry of the Hellenistic poets. The classical genres associated with Keats’s ekphrastic address include Ovidian erotic myth, pastoral lyric, elegy, idyll, and epic: quite a comprehensive generic repertoire against which to define and test the English ode. If we train Keats’s skepticism or diffidence as a critical light back on Theocritus, what we recognize is the highly artful and sophisticated Theocritus familiar to modern scholars—a figure that has been revealed in great part by perceiving literary similarities between Theocritus and Virgil—and not the contrastively “naive” figure still commonly familiar at the beginning of the nineteenth century. We are also reminded once more that Theocritus is always reconfigured by the dialectic of distance and proximity, but seldom in Keats’s day with any sense of a sustained tradition across the centuries. Keats’s influence on Theocritus’ Victorian reception is palpable in Francis Turner Palgrave’s poem “On Reading Theocritus” in Idyls and Songs (1854). Palgrave, who later left his mark as the anthologist of the Golden Treasury, is not a poet of distinction, but his poem gives an impression of how Theocritus was perceived at mid-nineteenth century. Adopting the stanza form of Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale” as well as Keatsian diction, Palgrave models his poem on Keats’s meditations about encountering art, notably on reading Homer and Shakespeare.42 While the page of Theocritus presents to Palgrave the “Gray world-worn fragments of Man’s heritage / The years have spared to aid us and to teach” (3–4), it is the disembodied song itself, distinguished by its “sweetness” (7–10), that transcends those fragments and lives on “the viewless air” (17). With lines that echo the interrogative mode of Keats’s “Ode to a Grecian Urn” (“Where are the sun-brown shepherds? Where the kine / That low’d their 41

42

Aske (1985) 33 identifies “the crucial problem of Romantic Hellenism” as turning on “the ambivalent and opaque relation between ancient and modern, the difficulties encountered by the poet as he endeavours to retrieve the past.” Palgrave (1985) 6.

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music to those azure skies?,” 21–22) Palgrave laments the transience of Greek culture, indeed of life itself, in tones that echo Tennyson’s In Memoriam as Palgrave observes the futility of bidding Nature “turn her wrath from man aside, / Sparing him in her wasteful wantonness” (39–40). For Palgrave the “thrill” that initially “comes o’er us when we view the page” of Theocritus (1) is itself a figure of transience (41–50): We thread the thrilling leaves of ancient song, High resonant of dance, of wine, of gladness, By mirth not uncongenial borne along; But soon gay thoughts dissolve themselves in sadness: The visions of the mighty dead are here; Their voices haunt their own immortal lays; And long-lost faces o’er the pages gleam. Their presences are near:— We fail before the spectres that we raise, The thronging phantoms of a day-tide dream. It is not only that “the mighty dead” are spectral, but that “we fail before the spectres that we raise” (my emphasis). Palgrave’s “thronging phantoms” recall the bards who “gild the lapses of time” of Keats’s well-known sonnet, presences which Keats’s sonnet says intrude “in throngs” before the poet’s mind (6), with the difference that Palgrave’s final line also invites us to wonder whether we ourselves might also be seen as “thronging phantoms of a day-tide dream.” Palgrave reads Theocritus under the sign of the spectral quality that fossils had recently come to assume in the light of Lyell’s vast geological timescale, together with the hills and cliffs that contained them. Theocritus, like all humanity and even poetry itself, is seen as evanescent. Yet he is also seen as a figure of permanence, as enduring and elusive as Keats’s “Attic shape.” The quality that most obviously accounts for Palgrave’s linking of Theocritus with Keats is sweetness. “Sweet” (hadu) is Theocritus’ first word, a programmatic term as well as an enduring keynote of his reception, and a quality easily associated with the sensuousness of Keats’s verse.43 Sweetness is the quality most commonly associated with Theocritus and Theocritean pastoral in the nineteenth century, as indeed it had been earlier. Keats’s lines are emblematic: 43

On “sweetness” in Theocritus, see Edquist (1974), especially 102–104, and Sistakou, this volume. “Sweetness” is also a pervasive motif in Keats’s reception: W.B. Yeats’s poem “Ego Dominus Tuus” (1918) imagines Keats as a schoolboy “with face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window,” making “luxuriant song.”

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“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on” (“Ode on a Grecian Urn,” 11–12). Theocritus’ Victorian translator Andrew Lang uses the trope to contrast contemporary London with a timeless Sicily: “Ah! leave the smoke, the wealth, the roar / Of London, and the bustling street, / For still, by the Sicilian shore, / The murmur of the Muse is sweet” (“Ballade to Theocritus, in Winter,” 1879). In Victorian literature this quality of sweetness is typically decorative. A notable exception, however, is Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s famous poem “A Musical Instrument” (1860), which pushes the trope of sweetness to a violent extreme.44 The poem describes the foundational myth of pastoral verse (Virgil, Eclogues 2.32) from a radically new perspective, rewriting Ovid’s account of Pan’s invention of the panpipes, which the Arcadian deity made from the nymph Syrinx when she was transformed into a reed to escape his embrace (Metamorphoses 1.689–712).45 Barrett Browning describes the pain involved in the process of hacking and notching the reed, its heart-like pith drawn out “steadily from the outside ring” to make the pipe Pan blows “in power by the river” (31–33): Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan! Piercing sweet by the river! Blinding sweet, O great god Pan! In this aetiological poem about the primary sacrifice of life demanded by art (“The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,” 40), the “sweetness” of Pan’s music is “piercing,” even—with a daring kind of synaesthesia—“blinding.” Barrett Browning uses repetition for intensifying effect in an exceptional use of the trope of sweetness, which elsewhere typically evokes the serenity of lyric beauty. Another notable exception is Wilde’s “Pan: A Double Villanelle” (1880), which urges Pan to “leave the hills of Arcady” to save “the modern world” by exchanging his “oaten pipe” (Virgil’s avena, Eclogues 1.2) for “some trumpet loud and free.”46

44 45 46

First published in the Cornhill Magazine, 1860, then in Last Poems, 1862. For a recent contextualization of the poem, see Prins (2016). For a study of the Pan figure since the eighteenth century, see Merivale (1969). With its refrain, “The modern world hath need of thee,” Wilde’s poem is modelled on Wordsworth’s sonnet “London, 1802” (“milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: / England hath need of thee …”) and his Pan is a figure of redemptive liberty cast in the mould of Wordsworth’s iconic Milton, though nostalgia lingers jarringly if one also catches an echo from another of Wordsworth’s 1802 sonnets, namely the figure of “old Triton” blowing “his wreathèd horn” in Wordsworth’s sonnet “The world is too much with us.”

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803

Dramatic Monologue

As we saw in Browning’s idea of the idyll, for all that Theocritus was commonly associated with verbal beauty in concentrated and fragmentary poetic forms, he was also understood as a dramatic poet—“his single scenes are the germ of the pastoral drama,” wrote Leigh Hunt—47 and perhaps most importantly as a forerunner of the dramatic monologue, that Victorian invention that developed hand in hand with the idyll. Tennyson, whose early dramatic monologue “St Simeon Stylites” (written 1833, published 1842) is spoken “by a character at once repulsive, ridiculous and pathetic,” is said to have “had a precedent in Theocritus, Idyll xi, where the ugly monster Polyphemus (who devours human beings in the Odyssey) sits on ‘a high rock’ and tries to recommend himself to a creature from another element, the sea-nymph Galatea.”48 Note that Paul Turner, the critic who makes this observation after reviewing Tennyson’s verifiable sources, does not claim that Tennyson actually modelled his poem on Theocritus, but suggests that the Greek analogue may be taken as a prototype or archetype for the English poem, offering a key to its interpretation. We may take this suggestion a step further, and ask whether “St Simeon Stylites” may be taken to cast a critical light on Theocritus’ “Polyphemus.” The reception through which Theocritus’ Cyclops is mediated to posterity is of course dominated by Virgil’s reworking of Theocritus in Eclogue 2, but may also be seen to include Victorian dramatic monologues. Tennyson’s sardonic representation of the Syrian ascetic invites us to discern an acerbic tone, a hard edge in Theocritus’ witty representation of the Cyclops, where we might otherwise have detected only gentle humour. Another test case for this approach to Theocritus’ Polyphemus might focus on Browning’s dramatic monologue “Caliban Upon Setebos, or Natural Theology on the Island” (1864), which satirically reimagines Shakespeare’s Caliban as a primitive forebear of the scientist-theologian, adumbrating such early nineteenth-century proponents of “theology from design” as William Paley. The figure of the Cyclops already contributes to the literary ancestry of Shakespeare’s Caliban,49 and the satirically inflected pathos of Theocritus’ Polyphemus is discernible too in Browning’s Caliban. The detail of the “pompion plant / Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye” (7–8) suggests the Cyclops’ features, and the stance of Browning’s Caliban as “he looks out o’er yon sea” (12) recalls the attitude of Theocritus’ Polyphemus. While Browning’s Caliban 47 48 49

Hunt (1870) 72. P. Turner (1976) 86. Vaughan/Vaughan (1993) 58, 141.

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talks to himself in a stricter sense than Theocritus’ Polyphemus, whose monologue is partly cast as an address to Galatea, Caliban too is preoccupied with a being from another element, namely Setebos. (Indeed, Browning’s whole poem is concerned with the evolution of species across the elements of sea and land.) By themselves, however, these analogies are superficial, and it would belabour the comparison to identify Caliban’s repeated phrase “so He” with Theocritean refrains. Nor is there any evidence that Victorian readers, who were remarkable precisely for their familiarity with Greek literature, drew parallels between Browning’s dramatic monologue and Theocritus. Still, other correspondences may be considered. The element of the sympathetic grotesque that Walter Bagehot identified in “Caliban upon Setebos” may help a reader to appreciate not only the outlandishness of Theocritus’ Polyphemus, but also the radical disjunctions between language and reality that are examined in each poem, the Greek as well as the English.50 Comparisons may be drawn between the way in which Theocritus’ Polyphemus mirrors and rudely distorts formal traits of Greek love poetry and rhetoric,51 and the way Browning’s Caliban travesties the logic of scientific-theological treatises. Browning may be taken to suggest that the huge gap between what Caliban’s language allows him to perceive (with great distortion), and what the reader can dimly recognize in Caliban’s discourse (but also sees through), presents in grotesque form a universal predicament. In other words, we may be more like Caliban than we like to think. By the absurd, pathetic aspirations and cognitive limitations of Browning’s Caliban, as by those of Theocritus’ Polyphemus, we may guess the measure of our own.

6

Pastoral Idyll

A very different, lyric version of the Cyclops is found in Odes and Eclogues (1884) by the clergyman Richard Watson Dixon, whose poems were much admired by his onetime pupil Gerard Manley Hopkins. Although Dixon’s “Polyphemus” is primarily based on Ovid’s narrative of Acis, Galatea, and the Cyclops in Metamorphoses 13, the poem nevertheless warrants Douglas Bush’s characterization as “Theocritean,” first because it focuses on the pathos of the Cyclops

50

51

Bagehot’s much-reprinted review-essay on Browning’s Dramatis Personae and Tennyson’s Enoch Arden, “Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning; or Pure, Ornate, and Grotesque Art in English Poetry,” first appeared in the National Review, November 1864. Hunter’s (1999) commentary (229 ad 11.19–79) observes the rude organization of Polyphemus’ lyric composition in contrast to the elegance of Idyll 3, and draws attention to Virgil’s implied criticism in Eclogue 2.4, haec incondita (“these artless strains).”

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and omits Ovid’s epic-like account of Polyphemus’ violent attack on Acis (who is transformed and thereby rescued by his mistress Galatea), and secondly because Dixon casts the story as a narrative idyll of unrequited love seen from Polyphemus’ perspective instead of following Ovid and narrating in Galatea’s voice.52 Dixon presents the Cyclops with sympathetic pathos as an unwitting victim of his own deformity. Believing himself to have two eyes, Polyphemus does not understand the fear he inspires. Shunned by country deities as well as humans, he recludes himself with his flocks, playing on his pipes. One day he sees Galatea bathing in a pool. Terrified, the nymph vanishes into the waves, leaving the Cyclops first to rage, then to seek solace in his pastoral pipes, and finally to seek full self-expression in plaintive song. Reworking generic features from its models in Ovid and Theocritus such as the comparative catalogue (“Whiter than wool, sweeter than milk …,” 171), Dixon’s inset song of Polyphemus is elegant and dignified, chaste without being insipid, with few of the humorous and grotesque touches found in Theocritus and, in greatly elaborated form, in Ovid. In each their own way, Theocritus and Ovid develop a “dialogue of genres.”53 Dixon’s poem, by contrast, is geared to monody and strives to achieve a univocal style, literally as well as figuratively. Dixon’s Polyphemus was once satisfied to play on his pipes (43–44, described as a conventionally “compact row,” 129, not Ovid’s hundred-reed instrument, 13.784), but after his love-affliction the pastoral instrument is found unequal to his expressive needs (135–138): no more Patient, he slings the tubes upon the shore. His voice alone could reach the tone of love, And accents speak the mind that in him strove. Dixon is drawing his Ovidian material closer to Theocritus, whose Polyphemus does not play the pipes at all, transforming Ovid’s narrative (or “returning” it, as it were) into an idyll, specifically an idyll of the “Come live with me and be my love” variety, which is to say an idyll understood through the prism of the Virgilian pastoral tradition as a scaled-down, refining and simplifying form.54 Dixon trains his focus on Theocritus’ idea of bucolic song as the only palliative for love, with a modern insistence on the unique authenticity of the unmediated voice of the artist as individual. There is no final cure for love, but although 52 53 54

Bush (1957) 413. Farrell (1992). See Alpers (1996) ch. 6 (“Pastoral Lyrics and their Speakers”), esp. 223–229.

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Dixon’s Polyphemus never again sees Galatea and his songs grow increasingly desperate, we are finally told that the Cyclops’ songs achieve something properly literary, namely finding an audience (181–188): Yet not unheard were they: and now, even now Fair Galatea fled beneath the wave, And Acis issued trembling from their cave. These lines are based on a passage in the first half of Ovid’s narrative, describing the effect of the mighty Cyclops’ songs on the mountains and sea (13.785– 788).55 By toning down the songs, registering their effects on Galatea and her lover rather than on the natural elements themselves, and by placing the scene at his poem’s conclusion as an idyllic tableau, Dixon ends up making his own poem more “Theocritean” than Theocritus, or rather like a Renaissance pastoral lyric. Gone are the allusive references to Homer’s Odyssey in Theocritus as well as in Ovid, notably the epic combat scene in Ovid (Polyphemus hurls a huge rock at Acis, who survives only because Galatea transforms her lover into a river god). Gone too is the framing narrative of the Metamorphoses: whereas Ovid’s story is told by Galatea, Dixon assumes the voice of poet-narrator. Here is a Theocritean idyll that is almost a throwback to pre-Romantic pastoral verse, neither miniature epic nor Russian-doll narrative, but instead a chaste form that keeps itself off from epic in ways which reflect post-Virgilian traditions of pastoral.

7

Eros

It is in Tennyson and Landor that the idyll is most fully developed to range across the three principal categories of lyric, dramatic, and epic poetry. Idylls could be identified by mode, as in Browning’s Dramatic Idylls, or by subject matter, as Tennyson did himself when he collected his idylls with domestic settings, or “English idylls.” As we have observed, the versatility of the idyll and its modal variety contribute to make it a notoriously elusive form. Arguably, its most essential characteristic is the framing device with its distancing effect. Landor concludes his 1842 essay on Theocritus, mentioned at the beginning of this chapter for Landor’s praise of Tennyson’s “Godiva,” by offering a newly composed idyll of his own, “The Hamadryad,” as an illustration of “that order

55

See Farrell (1992) 249.

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of simplicity which is simple in the manner of Theocritus.”56 But the quality Landor illustrates still more is the sheer remoteness and self-conscious artifice associated with the idyll form. As Adam Roberts argues in a recent reading of Landor’s Hellenics which focuses on “The Hamadryad,” “the content of the Hellenics … is less ‘Greece,’ even in idealized, antique form, and more ‘art’ itself.”57 Roberts reads “The Hamadryad” as a Keatsian exploration of paradoxical states relating to sexual frustration and consummation.58 The distancing effect of aesthetic “framing” works together with a sense of cultural “framing” to evoke a mythical “Hellenic” world which is at once immediate and remote because it is historically unmediated, and which provides a space in which to explore unhistoricized problems of sex, violence, and death. As with so many figures cultivated in the art forms identified with Victorian Hellenism, evocations of Theocritus served as a means for writing about sex, often about homosexuality, since Idylls 5, 7, 12, 13, 23, 29, and 30 form part of the great body of Greek paederastic poetry much explored during the late nineteenth century. Jenkyns puts the case reductively—“whenever the name of Theocritus crops up in later Victorian literature, or any reference to Sicily, homosexuality is never far to seek”—and argues that since ancient Greece furnished the best-known literary treatments of homosexuality, and since modern Italy was commonly taken to be “where it was practiced,” both worlds were typically seen to converge on a conveniently timeless Sicily, with Theocritus “dragged in to give a colour of respectability.”59 This thumbnail sketch appears more often nuanced than challenged in subsequent studies.60 But focusing on sexual orientation alone rarely serves literature well. Jenkyns’s breezy treatment of Edward Cracroft Lefroy’s impressive sonnet sequence Echoes of Theocritus (1885; expanded posthumous edition, 1897), knowingly quoting the presumedly giveaway titles of poems such as “A Football Player” and “The Cricket Bowler,” does no justice at all to this undervalued work. Lefroy (1855–1891) is a remarkably accomplished and thoughtful practitioner of the sonnet, and his thirty sonnets based on Theocritus, twenty-five of them on specific passages from the Epigrams as well as the Idylls, are perhaps the period’s best close imitations. Lefroy is a miniaturist who not only understood his own talent (“To Certain Kind Critics” explains his avoidance of the larger-scale forms) but also its congeniality with Theocritus. Lefroy typically selects a brief passage from the 56 57 58 59 60

Landor (1927–1936) xii.24. Roberts (2014) 113. Roberts (2014) 114–117. Jenkyns (1980) 291. Cf. Arcara (2012).

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original, sometimes only a handful of lines, and develops this as the germ of his own sonnet. “The Love-Spell” (ix), for instance, turns Theocritus 3.28–30 into a memorable cameo in which the slightness of substance highlights the imitator’s craftsmanship. Lefroy’s mastery of rhyme—his sonnets typically employ only four rhymes—serves him well in imitating the obsessiveness of Simaetha in Idyll 2, there conveyed in part by Theocritus’ insistent refrains (vi, “Simaetha, I”). Among Lefroy’s five sonnets based on passages from Idyll 7 (x–xiv), “At the Farm of Phrasidamus” (xiv, on 7.133–146) manages to turn a set-piece description into something more than conventionally pretty by sheer musicality of cadence, not least in the final lines. The fact that Lefroy’s imitations are set pieces means that the reader must supply the context from Theocritus, which is sometimes homosexual as in “At the Shrine of Pan” (xiii, based on 7.106–108), and this of course enables Lefroy to work suggestively within the bounds of Victorian decorum. The same is the case with “The Tomb of Diocles” (xix), based on Theocritus’ lines on the kissing-contest at the tomb of Diocles the philopais, or lover of boys (12.27–33). Lefroy, who was a minister, seems to have adopted an idealistically sublimating response to sex.61 It should not be supposed, however, that his poems are merely repressed, or else that they are bowdlerizing, or euphemistic, or embarrassed. Lefroy has no difficulty with eroticism: “The Flute of Daphnis” (xxii), which forcefully reworks a detail from Theocritus’ Epigram 2 into a declaration of love spoken by the flute itself (“I am the flute of Daphnis”), is remarkable for its dignity as well as simple frankness: Him the gods loved, and more than other men Blessed with the flower of beauty, and endowed His soul of music with the strength of ten. Now on a festal day I see the crowd Look fondly at my resting-place, and when I think whose lips have pressed me, I am proud. Lefroy is a miniaturist of narrative as well as lyric. He pulls off the extraordinary feat of compressing Idyll 13, that favourite of Tennyson and many others, into a sonnet (xx, “Hylas”): What pool is this by galingale surrounded, With parsley and tall iris overgrown? It is the pool whose wayward nymphs confounded

61

Jenkyns (1980) 284–285.

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The quest of Heracles to glut their own Desire of love. Its depths hath no man sounded Save the young Mysian argonaut alone, When round his drooping neck he felt, astounded, The cruel grasp that sank him like a stone. Through all the land the Hero wandered, crying “Hylas!” and “Hylas” till the close of day, And thrice there came a feeble voice replying From watery caverns where the prisoner lay; Yet to his ear it seemed but as the sighing Of zephyrs through the forest far away. The sonnet’s final lines, focusing on 13.58–60, fully capture the pathos for which the Victorians prized Theocritus’ poem.62 Lefroy’s success rests above all on his musicality: the enjambment of the penultimate lines prepares the last line’s pregnant pauses. Poignancy is Lefroy’s forte: “The Youth of Heracles” (xxii) expands Theocritus 24.101–102 into an idealized description of the hero’s childhood that would smack merely of Victorian sentimentality if not for its closing lines, which invite the reader to reflect on all the troubles that await Heracles in adulthood. Similarly, “The Tunny-Fishers” (xxi) compresses Theocritus 21 to a terse narrative and dialogue with an admirably steely conclusion. John Addington Symonds (1840–1893), who admired Lefroy, is the source of a recent echo of some beautiful lines from Theocritus in Tom Stoppard’s play The Invention of Love (1997). “When thou art kind I spend the day like a god; when thy face is turned aside, it is very dark with me,” says the figure of Alfred Housman, quoting Theocritus 29.7–8 as translated in one of Stoppard’s sources, Symonds’s A Problem in Greek Ethics (1873), the first published treatise on homosexuality in English.63 The lines are remarkably moving in Stoppard’s play, gaining in poignancy when touched by wry humour (Housman is forced to translate for the benefit of his unrequiting Moses Jackson, who like the majority 62

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Markley (2004) 7: “F.T. Palgrave recalled an evening in 1857 when Tennyson translated aloud three of Theocritus’ Idylls, ending his delivery of Idyll 13 with a deep sigh, and the statement ‘I should be content to die if I had written anything equal to this.’” Unlike some modern scholars such as Goldhill (1991) 249, the Victorians did not read Idyll 13 as “an archetypally allusive, playful Hellenistic narrative.” Stoppard (1997) 102 (cf. 40, which varies, “turned away”); Housman quotes the Greek on p. 101. Cf. Symonds (2012) 50. Symonds included a different translation of this favourite poem in his Appendix to the second edition of his Studies in the Greeks Poets, 1877. Symonds is identified as an unacknowledged source for Stoppard’s play in Macaulay (2013) 155.

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of Stoppard’s audience does not understand the Greek). In this play in which framing effects proliferate and everything is seen at several removes, Stoppard’s blend of pathos and humour seems strikingly “Theocritean.” Theocritus lends himself to many kinds of irony, including of course the ironies of pastoral. In E.M. Forster’s early novel The Longest Journey (1907), allusions to Theocritus, “whom Rickie [the protagonist] ‘believed to be the greatest of Greek poets’ [ch. 1],” underscore “the novel’s ironic contrast between the actualized pastoral of Stephen, the ‘real’ shepherd, and the pseudo-Greek spirit of late-Victorian England and its public schools.”64 Still, it is mainly through the idyll form itself that Theocritus inhabits the nineteenth century, by offering formal devices such as the distancing frame and the dramatic persona, and by making available a repertoire of tropes such as lyric sweetness and figures such as Pan and Polyphemus. I have argued that it was the perception of a degree of freedom from the intervening traditions of Rome and the Renaissance that made Theocritus so attractive to nineteenth-century poets. But I hope also to have shown that the idyll is always an unstable hybrid, always in dialogue with other forms and genres, themselves unstable hybrids. Reading Theocritus through the lens of the nineteenth century is more often a matter of evocation and analogy than of direct allusion. To echo the title of Uvo Hölscher’s Das Nächste Fremde, the Romantic and Victorian Theocritus remains a figure of strangeness as well as familiarity.

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Martin (1983) 36. Cf. Jenkyns (1980) 290.

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DeMaria, R., Jr./Brown, R.D. (eds.) (2007), Classical Literature and its Reception: An Anthology (Malden, MA.). Dixon, R.W. (1884), Odes and Eclogues (London). Edquist, H. (1974), “Aspects of Theocritean otium,” Ramus 4, 101–114. Farrell, J.T. (1992), “Dialogue of Genres in Ovid’s ‘Lovesong of Polyphemus’ (Metamorphoses 13.719–897),” AJPh 113, 235–268. Goldhill, S. (1991), The Poet’s Voice: Essays on Poetics and Greek Literature (Cambridge). Hair, D.S. (1981), Domestic and Heroic in Tennyson’s Poetry (Toronto). Hazlitt, W. (2009), Selected Writings, J. Cook (ed.), (Oxford). Hubbard, T.K. (1998), The Pipes of Pan: Intertextuality and Literary Filiation in the Pastoral Tradition from Theocritus to Milton (Ann Arbor). Hunt, L. (1818), Foliage (London). Hunt, L. (1870), A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla (London). Hunter, R. (1996), Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry (Cambridge). Hunter, R. (1999), Theocritus: A Selection. Idylls 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 13 (Cambridge). Jenkyns, R. (1980), The Victorians and Ancient Greece (Oxford). Jenkyns, R. (2002), “The Classical Tradition” in R. Cronin/A. Chapman/A.H. Harrison (eds.), A Companion to Victorian Poetry (Malden, MA) 229–254. Keats, J. (1988), The Complete Poems, J. Barnard (ed.), 3rd edition (London). Kennett, B. (1721), “Life of Theocritus” in The Idylliums of Theocritus; with Rapin’s Discourse upon Pastorals, Made English by Mr Creech (London). Krevans, N. (2006), “Is there Urban Pastoral? The Case of Theocritus’ Id. 15,” in M. Fantuzzi/Th. Papanghelis (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden) 119–146. Landor, W.S. (1927–1936), The Complete Works of Walter Savage Landor, T.E. Welby/ S. Wheeler (eds.), 16 vols. (London). Lefroy, E.C. (1897), Edward Cracroft Lefroy, His Life and Poems including a Reprint of Echoes from Theocritus. With a Critical Estimate of the Sonnets by the Late John Addington Symonds, Wilfred Austin Gill (ed.), (London/New York). Macaulay, A. (2013), “Tom Stoppard, A.E. Housman and the Classics,” in W. Baker/ A. Smothers (eds.), The Real Thing: Essays on Tom Stoppard in Celebration of his 75th Birthday (Cambridge) 150–167. Mackail, J.W. (1910), Lectures on Greek Poetry (London). Markley, A.A. (2004), Stateliest Measures: Tennyson and the Literature of Greece and Rome (Toronto). Martin, R.K. (1983), “Edward Carpenter and the Double Structure of Maurice,” Journal of Homosexuality 8, 35–46. McLuhan, M. (1960), “Tennyson and the Romantic Epic,” in J. Killham (ed.), Critical Essays on the Poetry of Tennyson (London) 86–95. Merivale, P. (1969), Pan the Goat-God: His Myth in Modern Times (Cambridge, MA).

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Mustard, W.P. (1971), Classical Echoes in Tennyson (New York). Nisbet, R.G.M. (2008), “The Style of Virgil’s Eclogues,” in K. Volk (ed.), Vergil’s Eclogues: Oxford Readings in Classical Studies (Oxford) 48–63. O’Donnell, A. (1988), “Tennyson’s ‘English Idylls’: Studies in Poetic Decorum,” Studies in Philology 85, 125–144. Palgrave, F.T. (1985), Palgrave: Selected Poems, Brian Louis Pearce (ed.), (London). Paschalis, M. (2007), “Thomas Hardy and Virgil,” in M. Paschalis (ed.), Pastoral Palimpsests: Essays in the Reception of Theocritus and Virgil (Herakleion) 119–153. Pattison, R. (1979), Tennyson and Tradition (Cambridge, MA.). Prins, Y. (2016), “What is Historical Poetics?” MLQ 77, 13–40. Roberts, A. (2014), Landor’s Cleanness: A Study of Walter Savage Landor (Oxford). Rosenmeyer, T.G. (1969), The Green Cabinet: Theocritus and the European Pastoral Lyric (Berkeley). Shelley, P.B. (1970), Poetical Works, T. Hutchinson (ed.), revised by G.M. Matthews (Oxford). Siegchrist, M. (1977), “Thematic Coherence in Browning’s ‘Dramatic Idyls,’” Victorian Poetry 15, 229–239. Stoppard, T. (1997), The Invention of Love (London). Symonds, J.A. (2012), A Problem in Greek Ethics, in S. Brady (ed.), John Addington Symonds (1840–1893) and Homosexuality: A Critical Edition of Sources (Basingstoke) 39–122. Tennyson, A. (1987), The Poems of Tennyson, C. Ricks (ed.), 2nd edition, 3 vols. (Harlow). Tilg, S. (2012), “On the Origins of the Modern Term ‘Epyllion,’” in M. Baumbach/S. Bär (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and Its Reception (Leiden) 29–54. Theocritus (1952), Theocritus, A.S.F. Gow (ed.), 2 vols. (Cambridge). Tucker, H.F. (2008), Epic: Britain’s Heroic Muse, 1790–1910 (Oxford). Turner, F.M. (1989), “Why the Greeks and not the Romans in Victorian Britain?,” in G.W. Clarke/J.C. Eade (eds.), Rediscovering Hellenism: The Hellenistic Inheritance and the English Imagination (Cambridge) 61–81. Turner, F.M. (1981), The Greek Heritage in Victorian Britain (New Haven/London). Turner, P. (1976), Tennyson (London). Vance, N./Wallace, J. (eds.) (2015), The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature Vol. 4: 1790–1880 (Oxford). Vaughan, A.T./Vaughan, V.M. (1993), Shakespeare’s Caliban: A Cultural History (Cambridge). Wilde, O. (2000), The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, Vol. 1: Poems and Poems in Prose, B. Fong/B. Karl (eds.), (Oxford). Wordsworth, W. (1995), The Prelude. The Four Texts (1798, 1799, 1805, 1850), J. Wordsworth (ed.), (London). Wordsworth, W. (2007), Lyrical Ballads, M. Mason (ed.), 2nd edition (Harlow).

General Index Acrotime 502–503, 627, 660–664 Actaeon 609 Actium, battle of 709, 718 Adoneia 549, 552 Adonis 480, 501, 506–507, 549, 563–566, 584, 587–592, 594, 599, 612–615, 617 Aeacus 720 Aegon 486 Aeneas 709, 713, 715, 717 Aesop 541 aesthetic moment 342–343 Agave 638, 639 aggressiveness 353 agon 274, 347, 350, 351, 354 agricultural setting 528–529 Agroeo 484 akribeia/akribologia 390, 392, 410–411 Alamanni, Luigi 771–772 Alcaeus 85, 93, 100, 112 Alcmene 498–500, 639–643 Alexander the Great 585–586, 588, 593– 599, 705–706, 708, 715–717 Alexandria 111, 235, 241, 505–507, 545, 584– 586, 589–590, 594–595, 696, 698, 711–712 centripetal force of 464–465, 469, 471 ethnic and gender relations in 466 spatial relations in 463–466 Alexandrian poetry 537 Alexandrian aesthetics 553 Amarantus 309–310, 604 Amaryllis 480, 484–488, 521–522, 628, 756– 757 ambiguity 627, 635, 651, 667, 676 amoebaean song 348, 350, 353, 355, 362, 690–691 Amphitryon 498–500 Amycus 470, 448–449, 547 Anacreon 118–119, 217, 251, 262–263 anaphora bucolica 199, 217 Anchises 501 animals 51–52, 57–59, 274, 275–276, 283, 289–291, 496, 498, 504, 507–511 antithetic structure 346, 348, 360 Antony, Mark 715–718 Anyte 162, 169, 171, 201, 212, 218, 507, 510

Aphrodite/Venus 246–248, 258, 260–261, 264, 292–293, 505, 522–523, 549–550, 560, 565–566, 568, 584–585, 587–590, 599–600, 613–617, 703, 707–708, 710 Cypris 549 Ourania 613–617 Pandemos 613–617 Apollo 365, 371, 377–381, 383, 501, 511, 539– 540, 606, 617, 714, 718 Apollonius of Rhodes 188–191, 433, 443, 449, 452, 496, 539, 546–547, 679 Argonautica 161, 171, 469–470 apotheosis 584–601, 703–708, 713–715, 719– 720 Aratus 485, 486, 537, 546, 679 Archilochus 118, 217 ‘bucolic’ encounter with the Muses of 138 Arethusa 685, 694–695, 696, 697 Argo 547 Aristophanes 161, 169, 226 Aristophanes of Byzantium 302 Aristotle 230, 271–273, 338–340 Poetics 165–166 Arius (philosopher) 711 Arsinoe ii 158, 169, 182, 391, 401, 504, 506, 549–551, 560, 564, 568, 613–614, 714 Arsinoe-Aphrodite 548, 560 Artemidorus of Tarsus 72–78, 302–304, 610 Artemis 292, 293, 604–613, 618–620 Facelitis 605 Karyatis 604 Lyaea 605 Taurian 604–605 Asclepiades of Myrlea 77, 306, 310, 312, 604 Asclepiades of Samos 158, 162, 171, 537, 544 Asinius Pollio 679–680 Asphalion 652–654 Astakides 198–199 Atalanta 480 Augustan poetry 703–720 Augustus 703–720 Aulus Gellius 231–232 authorship 41–42, 43–45, 47–48, 53–54 of Theocritus’ epigrams 199–200

814 babies 499, 501, 503–507 Bacchus see Dionysus Bacchylides 336 Baïf, Jean Antoine de 773 Baldi, Bernardino 782 Barnes, Barnaby 776 Barthes, Roland 517 Battus 479, 486 Battus, king of Cyrene 542 Baudelaire, Charles 343 bee 327, 332–341 Belleau, Remy 782 Berenice i 182, 500, 549, 565–666, 572–573, 613–614, 707–708, 710, 720 Berthouville cups 397, 420–421 biography 41–42, 43–45, 46–47, 53–54 Bion 74–75, 77, 171, 303 birth 500–501, 505 Bombyca 487, 629 book, poetic 109, 111, 115 botanical vocabulary 475 boys see youth brevity 105–106, 108–109, 117, 121 Browne, Moses 783–784 Bucaeus 475, 477, 483, 486, 487 bucolic aesthetics 23, 324–336, 339–343 agricultural vs. bucolic space in 456– 457 agricultural systems 457 archetypal figures 131–137 awareness of a larger world in 456 city vs. country 458 and dialects 474, 479 epigram 117 gender 458 genre 117–118, 120 herdsmen’s status in 458 key terms 108, 120 labor absent from 456 landscape elements 455–456 land vs. sea 456 myth 436–440, 479–481 poetry 473, 478 post-Theocritean 682, 684, 686 as response to Greek displacement 462 ritual origins of 604–613 and singing exchange/contest 474, 483, 486

general index social networks in 458 song 143, 145–146, 148, 477, 488 space 457, 456–458 terminology 136, 139–140 themes of, in mythological poems 180 Theocritean 140–150 written by urban poet 461–462

179–

Cacus 715 Callimachean aesthetics 340–341 Callimachus 107–108, 163, 198–199, 301, 495, 501, 509–511, 538–542, 544, 546, 555, 560, 568, 572, 577, 679, 786 Aetia 540 Aetia Prologue 330, 341 Hymn to Zeus 596, 601 Calpurnius Siculus 724–736 Camenae 680–681 Camões, Luis de 782 Canopus 548–549 Caracalla 416–417 carmen figuratum see technopaegnion Caro, Annibale 772 Castor 450–451, 547, 550, 713–714, 720 Catullus 681 Charites 555–556, 575–576, 579 chiaroscuro 410 childhood/children 494–511 Chromis 757 cicada 509–510, 755 Cicero 695 Cleariste 757 Cleita 505 Cleopatra 711–712, 715–716, 718 clothing 278 colonization 695–696 Comatas 439, 478, 480 comedy 156, 161–163, 164, 167–169, 171, 173, 271–273, 271–291, 685 comic/comicity 271–291 commentaries, ancient 306–315 competitions, literary 347, 354, 561 conflict 348, 353–354, 358 contest 348, 361 arbitrator 346, 348, 352 prizes 346, 348 rules for 348, 352, 356

general index topics of 355 winner of 352–353, 356 contest poems end of 353, 356–357, 360 features of 346, 348, 360, 361 tradition of 361 Cornelius Gallus 679 Corydon 479, 486, 685, 697 Cos 310, 538, 543–545 Cotyttaris 485 crickets 509–510 crossover 495–496 rite of passage 495, 501 transition 495, 501–505, 511 Cyclops 223–235, 279–281, 477, 481, 485, 487–489, 517–521, 527 See also Polyphemus Cynisca 628–629 Cyrene 542 Danae 640–641, 643–644 Daphnis 198–199, 204–210, 212–214, 216–217, 245–248, 264, 292, 303, 359–360, 364– 372, 436–438, 477, 481, 502–504, 508, 522–523, 530–531, 607–608, 627–628, 631, 651, 655–659, 660–664, 684–685, 688, 689–690 Dardanus 713–714 death 364–367, 369–372, 505 de Certeau, Michel 463 dedication 617 Deianeira 629–630, 632–633 Delos 540 Delphis 503 Demeter 538, 541, 544 Demetrius the Syrian 410 Demetrius Triclinius 423 dialect 564, 778–779 Aeolic 85–87, 90, 100–102 Doric 85–100, 199, 217 Mild 87–89, 93–96 Strong 87–89, 92–96 Syracusan 94–97 Ionic 85–87, 98–100 transmission of 92–94 Dichterweihe 726 See also initiation, poetic diction 778, 781 Didymus 301

815 dilogia 410 Diomedes 605 Dionysophanes 750, 757–758, 760–761, 764 Dionysus 187, 368, 371, 378, 383, 569, 608, 614, 617, 704, 713–714, 716–718, 720 Dioscuri 182, 448–452, 549–550, 568, 570, 614–615 Donatus 605–606 Dorcon 748, 751–753, 759, 763, 765 drama 9–10, 155–157, 159–163 dramatic monologue 790, 803–804 Drayton, Michael 776 drinking song (paroinion) 550 Dürer, Albrecht 418 editions ancient 301–305, 418 modern 769, 787 Egypt 584–601 Egyptian gods 584–601 Einsiedeln Eclogues 733–734, 737 ekphrasis 13, 112, 122–123, 366, 368, 378, 387–390, 393, 411, 419, 477, 494–495, 506–507, 509–511, 687 empire 710, 715–716, 719–720 enargeia 392, 410–411, 413–414, 416 encomium 572, 584–585, 596–601, 684, 698–699, 703–720 Endymion 480 energeia 410 Ennius 108 epic 8–9, 155, 158, 165–168, 173, 684, 789– 791, 795–796, 798, 800, 806 critique of 177, 192 language 85–86, 91–92, 94, 97, 98–100 themes 244, 249–252, 254–256 Epicharmus 161, 164–165, 171, 223, 227, 271, 685 influence on Theocritus 136, 139–140 Epicureanism 779–780 epigram 42, 44–45, 115–119, 155, 158, 161–164, 172–173, 503–505, 507, 510 bucolic 199–217 dedicatory 200, 202–203, 209, 213, 219 definition of 105–107, 115–116 epigramma longum 117 epitaph 200, 207, 216, 218–219 inscriptional 115–118, 202–203, 209–211, 213, 217–218

816 epithalamium 504, 523–524, 550 epode see metre epyllion 23–24, 177, 444, 790 Eratosthenes Scholasticus 309–310 Erinna 169, 389 Erizzo, Sebastiano 419 Eros/eros 364, 368–372, 380–382, 469–470, 478, 483, 485, 487–489, 507, 517–532, 613–617, 621–622, 806–810 eromenos 206 erotic affliction 242, 244, 246–249 erotic symbolism 329, 334–336 Erysichthon 544 Euhemerus 713 Eumaeus 236–237 Eunica 485, 526, 660, 663, 665–670 Euripides 292–296 Cyclops 227, 235 Eustathius 226, 230, 232, 235 everyday life, the 154–155, 158, 161–163, 168– 169, 172, 348 exegetical perspectives on Theocritus (ancient) 316–319 ‘simple mimetic approach’ 318 ‘metaphorical approach’ 318 family 496, 505 See also babies, fathers, mothers, siblings fathers 497–500 female voice 159, 161, 163, 166–170, 172 Ferreira, António 774–775 fertility 565, 569 festival culture 348 fiction 47–48, 53, 60, 288 fishing 752, 754, 767 Flaxman, John 419–420 Fletcher, Phineas 782 Fontenelle, Bernard de Bovier 779–780 form 57–59 friendship 529 Galatea 359, 481, 488, 489, 496–498, 517– 521, 527, 628 Ganymede 501, 507, 537 Gay, John 777–778, 780, 784 gender 496, 501–504, 506, 511 genre 11, 20, 22–25, 122, 496, 502, 506–507, 511, 683–686, 723–725, 728–734, 736– 739

general index blurring of conventions of 178 confusion of 271 experimentation 201–220 Gessner, Salomon 781, 784–786 Geta 416–417 gifts 361 Gilgamesh 522 Gnathon 753–754, 761, 764–765 goatherd 278, 356 Goddio, Frank 548 gods 496, 499, 501, 511 Gorgo 506, 552–553, 633–635 grasshopper 750–751, 757 Grotius, Hugo 783 Guarini, Guarino 778 harmony 358 Harvey, David 459 Hebe 706–707, 716 Hecate 618–620 Hecateus of Abdera 586–587, 590, 595–597, 600–601 Hecuba 640, 642 hedone 336–343 Hegemon of Thasos 272 Helen 444–445, 504, 523–524, 549–551, 568–569, 612–614, 617, 635–637, 661, 663, 713 Helicon 541 Hera/Juno 704–705, 709, 716 Heracles/Hercules 181, 190–191, 195, 250, 252–254, 257, 265, 432–435, 440–443, 445–447, 494, 496, 498–500, 508, 527, 543, 547, 568, 570, 572, 585–588, 592– 599, 614–615, 617–618, 699, 704–709, 713–717 Herder, J.G. 786 herdsman 474–475, 477–478, 486, 488 Hermesianax 171 Hermogenes 72, 226, 230, 232, 235 Herodas 110–111 Mimiambs 155–157, 159, 161, 164–169, 172–173 Herodes Atticus 307 heroism, representation of 180, 188–195 Hesiod 301, 538, 541, 699 influence on Theocritus 138 hesychia 475, 485, 490 heterotopia 462

817

general index Hiero i 685 Hiero ii 578–579, 685, 698, 703, 709, 720 hierogamy 587–590, 587–589, 598–601 Hippolytus 292–293 Hipponax 118, 166, 218 Homer 112, 166–168, 171, 223–241, 305, 496– 497, 510, 538, 699, 795–800, 806 influence on Theocritus 138, 149 Homeric simile 411 homosexuality 284–285, 765, 807–809 honey 327, 330–336, 340 Horus 718 household 495, 499, 506–507 Humanism, Renaissance 769, 778, 783 humble folk/rustics 473–475, 478, 482–483, 486, 490 language/speech (rustic) 479, 481, 483, 488, 489 ‘professional’ requirements/responsibilities 477, 487–488 humour 766 Hylas 191, 432–433, 443, 496–499, 508, 527, 547 hymn 109–110, 114, 120, 246–247, 684 iambic poetry 164, 166, 173 Ibycus 254, 256–257 Idas 547 Idyll/eidyllion definition of 105–109 spurious 102–103 impermanence 203, 210–211 initiation, poetic 374, 378, 380–381 intercultural poetics 14–15, 27, 584–603 intertextuality 6, 7, 10–11, 18–19, 496, 502, 506, 510–511, 681, 686–693, 726–735, 738–739 invective 218 Iphicles 499, 506 irony 477, 480, 486, 563, 585, 589, 592, 810 Isis 714, 716 Ithaca 237–241 Iunius Philargyrus 605–606 Jason 663–664 Jocasta 640–641, 643–644 Julia Domna 411, 416–417 Julius Caesar 704, 707–708, 710, 713, 715, 717–719

kissybion/ivy cup 364–366, 368–370, 372, 381, 388, 394, 396–397 koine 87–88, 95–96, 102 kolossos 404–406 komos 488 labor, as image for poetry 192 Lacon 478 Laertes 239 Lampis 749, 763–765 landscape 393, 418 Leech, John 782–783 Leucippids 547 Linus 500 listening 49–53 Livy 695 locus amoenus 138–139, 141, 149–150, 211– 212, 219, 475, 480 Longus 362 love 282–283, 501–505 lovers, unhappy 347, 355, 359 Lucretius 682 Lutatius Catulus 682 Lycaenion 750, 754, 758 Lycidas 373–386, 438–439, 527–528, 538– 541, 543, 545–546, 752, 755–756, 760, 764–767 Lycophron 407, 409, 421–422 Lynceus 450, 547 lyric 6–8, 11, 242–245, 249, 255, 265–266 language 85, 88–89, 91–92, 94, 96–97, 100–101 Lysippus 406 magic 618–622 manuscript tradition Ambrosian Family 65–66 archetype 63, 66, 72, 75, 77 hyparchetype 72, 77 hyperarchetype 72–73, 77 Laurentian Family 68–69 ordering of epigrams 199–201 uncial errors 66–68, 71 Vatican Family 66–67 Marcellus 708 Marot, Clément 770, 772–773 marriage 496, 502–505 Mars 704 mask 273, 279

818 masquerade bucolique 374–376, 538 Massey, Doreen 465 Medea 547–548, 663–664 Medeius 505 Megacles 758 Meleager 117, 199, 207 Menalcas 655–659 Menander 161 Menelaus 444–445, 504, 523–524, 550 mental images see visualization messenger speeches 180–181 metapoetics 45, 47–48, 387–390, 496, 506, 509–511 Methymna 749, 752–754, 761 metre Aeolic 105, 114 bucolic caesura 113 Callimachean norms in 178 elegiac 105–106, 115–118 epode 113, 118–119 galliamb 114 hendecasyllable 106–107, 118–119 hexameter 105–106, 107, 109–110, 113–115, 118–121, 474, 478 iambic trimeter 118–119 polymetry 105, 116–118, 121 Millet, Jean-François 419 Milon 475, 477, 483, 486–487, 528–529 Milton, John 776 mime 10, 20–21, 109–114, 178, 271, 478, 486, 503–507, 685 Hellenistic 155–156, 165 literary 156, 163, 165–167 urban 154, 158–160, 161, 168, 170, 172 urban vs. pastoral 474, 481, 482, 488 mise en abyme 281 mobility 469 monstrosity 280 Morson 478 Moschopoulos 70–71 Moschus 74–75, 77, 171, 301 mothers 497–505 movement 691–692, 695 mummification 549 Munatius of Tralles 307–310, 318, 604 Muses 541, 681, 685 music 325–327, 330–334, 338–343, 508–510, 690

general index myth/mythology 18–19 bucolic 436–440, 479–481 domestication of 434–435, 440 heroic 432–436, 440–444, 444–447 as paradigm 480, 481 transformation of 440–444 Mytilene 748, 751, 756, 758, 760–761 naivete 479–480, 483, 486–487, 488–490 narrative delay 194 nature 495, 511 as idealized cosmos 475–478, 486, 490 rustic setting 474–475, 478 Nausicaa 540 Navagero, Andrea 772 nectar 704–706 Nemesianus 735–737 Neoterics/neoteric poetry 679 new art Theocritus as an advocate of 389–390, 393 New Comedy 161, 171 New Historicism 12 New Materialism 13 Nicanor of Cos 310 Nicias 389, 392, 432, 442, 537 Nicippe 544 Nicochares 272 Nossis 169, 507 nurse 501, 505 Nymphs 606, 617, 749–750, 754–756, 761– 762, 764 obelisks 711–712 Octavia 717 Odysseus 223–241, 354, 540 old age 274, 283, 484, 485, 495, 510–511, 531 onomatopoeia 410 open-endedness 627, 651, 669, 676 Orestes 604–613 Orthon 218–219 Osiris 716, 718 Ott, Ulrich 348 paignion 118–119 Pan 203–208, 213–215, 365, 368, 371, 377– 378, 381, 485, 617, 690–691, 696, 748– 754, 756, 761, 767, 794, 796–797, 802 papyri 87, 92–93, 101

general index paraklausithyron 158, 160, 162, 484, 487– 489, 521 Parini, Giuseppe 784 Parthenius 679 pastoral 789–791, 793–794, 796, 800–806, 810 analogy 375–378 cup 281–282 genre 302–303, 305, 307, 315, 317–319, 388–389, 393, 418, 420 world 475 Pater, Walter 342 pathetic fallacy 225, 234 Pathosformel 402 patronage 5, 15–18, 559–560 pederasty 502, 529–531 Penelope 661 Pentheus 293–296, 504 performance 4, 10, 15–16, 156–157, 159–163, 167–170, 172 Perseus 543 person 53–54 Phaedra 629–632 Phalaecus 119 Pharaonic ideology 585–586, 588, 594–601 Philetas 748–750, 752–754, 756–757, 765, 767 Philitas 162, 171, 537, 539, 544–545, 747–748, 753, 757, 760, 767 philosophy 337–340 Philostratus the Elder 411, 417 Philoxenus of Cythera 261, 264, 272, 517– 518, 621–622 Phineas 546 physical appearance 278–279 pigs 763 Pindar 3, 6, 19, 107, 243, 257, 259, 301, 331, 336, 407, 409, 413, 441–442, 446, 450–452, 496, 540, 543, 547, 553, 555, 685 Pisander of Camirus 119 piscatory 781–784 Planudes 67–71 Plato 10, 159, 166, 337–339, 341–342, 538, 541 influence on Theocritus 138–139 pleasure 326–327, 331–333, 337–339, 342 poetics 495, 507–511 poetry book 683, 686–687, 699 polemics, poetical 378–380

819 Polydeuces/Pollux 448–451, 547, 550, 704, 713–714, 720 polyeideia 107–108 Polyphemus 137, 144–146, 359, 431–435, 438, 440, 496–498, 511, 517–521, 527, 553– 554, 616, 621–622, 758–760, 764–767, 803–806 See also Cyclops polyphony/embedding 365–366, 370, 375, 380–382 ponos 388, 390 Pope, Alexander 776–777, 784 popular culture 155, 170, 173, 473–475, 481–482, 484–485 language 275–276 and traditional poetic forms/songs 474– 475, 481 wisdom 274 Posidippus of Pella 117, 388, 411 praise 5, 12, 17, 24–25 See also encomium Praxinoa 506–507, 552, 633–635 Praxiteles 389 prayer 212–213, 620 Priapus 206, 208–213, 216, 748, 753–754, 763 Probus 605 programmatic poetry 364–386 programme, poetic 108, 117, 120, 122 proverb 155, 158–159, 167, 274–275, 481–483 Ptolemaic court 559–564 Ptolemaic empire Alexandria as power center in 464–465, 469, 471 spatial representation of 470–471 Ptolemaic queens 500, 614–615 See also Arsinoe ii, Berenice i Ptolemies 12, 14–15, 17–18, 24, 181–188, 496, 500, 505, 584–601 Ptolemy i 418, 565, 572–573, 705–706 Ptolemy ii 156–158, 169–170, 241, 391, 393, 411–412, 418, 500–501, 504, 544, 550, 560–561, 571–573, 613, 696, 698– 699, 703, 705–711, 714, 718 Ptolemy iii 550 Ptolemy Ceraunus 418 Ptolemy, son of Aristonicus 309 Purney, Thomas 780 Pyrrhus 475

820 Rapin, René 777–779 realism/reality 94–97, 354–355, 358, 475, 477–479, 481–482, 486, 494, 501, 506 reception 6, 22–23, 156, 169–171, 173 rejuvenation 495, 497, 510–511 renewal 495, 497, 502, 511 Rome 240–241, 697 Romulus/Quirinus 704, 707–708, 713, 715, 720 Ronsard, Pierre 770, 773–774 Rousseau, Jean Jacques 786 Rubens, Peter-Paul 418–419 Rubens, Philip 419 ruler cult 586–588, 592–601 Sannazaro, Jacopo 770–771, 781–782 Sappho 6, 85, 91, 93, 100, 247–248, 254–255, 258–260, 264, 547, 549–550, 554 satire 574–577 Scaliger, J.C. 769, 779 scholia, Homeric 225, 233, 238 scholia, Theocritean 315–316, 604–613, 617– 618, 621 Scipio Africanus the Elder 712 Selene 618–620 Seleucus i 412 selfhood 51–54 senses 326–327, 330–336, 338 Septimius Severus 416–417 Servius 605–606, 679 shepherds 501, 509–510 siblings 499, 505 Sicily 223, 227, 474, 479, 482, 684–686, 692– 699, 793, 796, 802, 807 tradition of ‘bucolic’ singing 139–140 Sidney, Sir Philip 770 Simaetha 484, 503–504, 525–526, 547, 618– 621, 628–633 Simias of Rhodes 109, 121 Simichidas 318, 373–386, 434–435, 438– 439, 480, 485–486, 490, 508, 527–528, 537–541, 545 simile 410–411, 499, 503–504, 507–508 Simonides 576–578, 685 slave 274, 277 snub nose 43, 48, 318 social inferiority 273–275 Socrates 541 soldiers 530

general index song 324–333, 342, 497, 501, 508–510 exchange of 346–347 Sophocles 123 Sophron 110, 155–156, 158–159, 164–166, 168, 171–172, 223, 271, 618–619, 685 influence on Theocritus 140 Sotades 108 space bucolic 454–462 doors and thresholds 463, 468–469 in encomia 470–471 encounters ‘on the road’ 461, 463–464, 467–468 epic 469–470 and gender 463, 465–466 and place 465 and power relations 464 relational 459–460, 465–466 relative 459, 464 as system 454, 471 in urban mimes 463–469 Spenser, Edmund 770, 776–778 Stesichorus 223 influence on Theocritus 133, 149 stichomythia 285 Storr, Paul 419–420 suicide 671, 676 superstition 483–485 See also magic spitting, apotropaic 622 sweetness 226, 232, 324–343, 798, 800–802 symposium 112–113, 116, 250, 253, 256, 265– 266, 562–563 synaesthetic universe 330–336, 342 Syracuse 155, 164, 171–172, 684–685, 694– 696 Syrianus 68, 72 Syrinx 750–751, 762 teachers 498, 500, 502 technopaegnion 105, 119–121 Terme boxer 406–407 Theaetetus 308–310, 604 Theocritus see biography, bucolic, dialect, drama, epic, epigrams, epyllia, gods, Hesiod, Homer, Idyll, lyric, magic, mimes, performance, Ptolemies, reception, space, women etc. Theocritus of Chios 305

821

general index Theognis 250–251, 263 Theon of Alexandria 72–73, 76–77, 302, 304–307, 309–310, 312–314, 604, 610 Theophrastus 165 Thyrsis 199, 200–201, 203, 205, 207, 209–211, 214–217, 436 Timotheus 261 Tiresias 497, 499 Tityrus 49, 134–135, 230–233, 288, 381–382, 438–439, 688–689, 727–728, 756–757 tragedy 161–163, 169, 173, 272, 286–287, 291– 296 translations 769, 772, 775–776, 778, 781, 786–787 Trissino, Giovan Giorgio 772, 778, 780 Tryphe 569 Tyrtaeus 112 ugliness 273 Underworld Painter, the 408–409 Valerius Messalla 682 Varchi, Benedetto 772 variation 353, 358, 547 Varro 231–233 victory 351, 356, 361 Virgil 303, 307, 319, 411, 418, 723–727, 734, 736–737, 739, 771, 774–775, 777–779, 783 Aeneid 697, 699 critics of 680 Eclogues 171, 679–699, 794–797, 802 Georgics 697, 699, 796–797 life of 696

visualization 394, 396, 399, 401–402, 404, 406–407 voice 50–51, 53–54, 57, 503–511 weaving 122–123 women 500, 502–504, 506–507 contemporary 626, 628–629, 634, 644 in mimes 626, 633 as mothers 626–627 as objects of bucolic love 627 as queens 626–627, 644 as wives 626–627, 632 work 477–478, 483, 487 writing 692 youth 494–511 Zephyrium 548 Zeus/Jupiter 540, 571–572, 584–590, 592– 596, 598–601, 706–707, 719 Zopyrion 494, 506–507, 511 ἁδύς 324–329 βουκολιάσδεσθαι 349–350, 361 βουκολιαστάς 350 βουκολικὰ ἀοιδά 350 ἔρις 348, 349, 351, 362 ἐρίσδειν 349, 358 κρίνειν 357 λεπτός 341

Index of Passages Many thanks to Lazaros Keramydas for checking this index. Aelian na 15.19 vh 10.18

303 132

Aeschylus Agamemnon 212–213

252

Anthologia Palatina 5.64 5.145 5.164 5.189 6.337–340 6.340 7.190 7.195–196 7.198 7.458 7.517 7.659 7.662–663 7.664 9.205 9.432.4 9.434 9.437 9.598–600 12.29–33

158 158 162 162 391–392, 399 505 510 510 510 505 505 505 505 392 302 504 44–45, 304 392 392–393, 419 503

Anthologia Planudea 306

393

Anyte 16 he = ap 9.313 Apollonius Rhodius Argonautica 1.22 1.151–155 1.1182–1186 1.1207–1239

212

554 547 188–190 401

1.1211–1214 1.1240–1272 2.306 2.1204–1205 3.956–1162 4.257–281 4.646 3.633–634 4.1143–1145

498 508 546 598 663–664 597 598 543 553

Aratus Phaen. 1

537 681

Archilochus fr. 196aW2

469, 661, 662, 665

Aristophanes Birds 430 Clouds 448 Wasps 179–181 1356–1357

275 275 226 275

Aristotle Poet. 1447a–b 1448a 1449a 1452b fr. 153 Rose

165–166 272 272 273 394

Arrian Anabasis 3.3.5

594

Athenaeus 284a

302

Aulus Gellius na 9.9.4–11

231–232

823

index of passages Bion fr. 2 Gow Callimachus Aetia (Harder) Prologue fr. 1.1 fr. 1.3–7 fr. 1.5–6 fr. 1.9–10 fr. 1.19–20 fr. 1.21–22 fr. 1.29–40 fr. 1.29–30 fr. 2d fr. 2d.4 fr. 7.13–14 fr. 23.5–6 fr. 73 fr. 110 Epigrams 3 he (46 Pf.) 5 Pf. (14 gp) 20 Pf. (32 gp) 27 Pf. (56 gp) 50 Pf. (49 gp) 51 Pf. (15 gp) 52 Pf. (6 gp) Hecale (Hollis) fr. 69.13 Hymns 2 2.110–112 4.160–196 4.262 5.75–76 6.26–29 6.37–38 Iambs 12.27 (fr. 202.27 Pf.) 13 Dieg. (fr. 203 Pf.) Fragments (Pfeiffer) 227 228 478 655

414–415

330, 341 542 556 495, 510 544 540 539 509–510 553 541 497 542 500 551 556 622 552 505 537, 546 505 555 537 543 505, 541 543 501 540 497 544 544

Calpurnius Siculus 1 2 3 4 6 7

725, 726 730 730 724, 727 731 727, 729

Clearchus fr. 32 Wehrli

134

Demetrius On style 156 209–220

155, 158–159 410

Diodorus Siculus 4.84

131–132

Einsiedeln Eclogues 1 2

734 734, 735

Epicharmus pcg 4 104

136 136

Erinna Distaff

510

Et.Gen. α 1198 α 1288

302n10 309

Et.Gud. 323.18–23 Stef.

306

553 541

em 273.38–42

309

550 550 549 542

Euripides Bacchae 367–368 470–474 680–682 982–984 1061–1062

504 296 295 294 295 295

824 Cyclops Hippolytus 1364–1365 1397–1402

index of passages 227, 235 293 292–293

Eustathius Comm. ad Il. 13.136–142 (iii, 452 van der Valk) 411 Hermesianax Hesiod Th. 22–34 23 Op. 11–46 [Sc.] 207–215 Homer Iliad 2.361 3.191–202 3.236–242 9.323–327 6.208 11.784 13.136–142 14.330–345 16.7–10 18.525–526 18.490–508 18.561–586 18.569–571 Odyssey 6.21–40 6.160–165 6.180–185 9.19–24 9.432 9.444–445 9.447–460 10.223 11.235–245 13.344–360 17.197–214 18.366–369 18.371–375

655, 658–659

[Homer] Hymns 2.165 2.219 2.480 3 5

594 594 591 501 662

Horace Sat. 1.10.44–45

680

Leonidas of Tarentum 31 gp 393 541 457 348 388

597 228–230 550 168 347 347 411 662 168 347 388 388 510 662 540 663 237 227 228 224–230 466 662 238–239 236–239 354 354

Longinus On the Sublime 33.4

171

Longus Daphnis and Chloe Preface 3 1.3.2 1.4.1–6 1.7.2 1.14.1 1.15.1 1.15.3–16 1.15.4 1.17.3 1.18.1–2 1.19.2 1.22.3 1.23–24 1.27 1.28.2 1.29.2–3 1.31.1–2 1.31.4 2.2.2 2.3.5 2.5.4 2.9.4 2.12.2 2.12.3 2.21.1 2.23.4 2.24.2. 2.26.1 2.27.2

759 755, 761 750 750 759 759 751 362 759, 767 752 752 759 749, 758 749, 761–762 763 362, 752 750 753 753 750 750 762 752 754, 767 756 749 749 753 761

825

index of passages 2.31.2–3 2.32.3 2.33.2 2.34.1 2.37.2–3 3.15.1 3.15.2 3.18.2 3.21 3.22.4 3.23.2 3.33.2 4.4.1 4.7.3 4.11–12 4.16.3 4.17.6 4.38.2 Lycophron Alexandra 535–568 Lycus of Rhegium FGrHist 570 F 7 Menander Arbitration 164

762 753 751, 762 751 751, 767 757 758 754 754 754 754 760 750 763 764 753 761 762

553 413, 553 555 496 553 553 407, 409 555 540 257

Philitas Demeter

538, 544

407, 409–410

Philostratus vs 1.538.17 2.564.9

307 307

135

Philostratus Junior Im. 2.18

411, 417

275

[Moschus] Lament for Bion

329, 684, 685

Nemesianus 1 2

736, 737 737, 738

Ovid Met.

Pindar O. 4.2 6 14 N. 1 4.14 5.42 10.60–74 P. 1 1.39 fr. 123.5 Sn.–M.

15.843–851

Pausanias 1.21.2 388 1.21.2–3 = TrGF 3 T 111 46–47 6.25.1 399

Plato Ion Phaedr. 230b–c Symp. 180d–181c 183d–e

543b 138–139 614–617 614–617

Pliny the Younger Epistles 4.14.8–9

106–107

Posidippus (ab) 3 29 37 63 122

388, 411 546 551 543–544 554

Sappho (Voigt) 1.1–2 1.19–20

247 248

826

index of passages

Sappho (Voigt) (cont.) 23.5 549 31 547 53 549 Sophron fr. 4 Hordern fr. 105 Hordern

618–619 275

Sch. A.R. 1.1234

303

Sch. Hom. Il. 5.741 Od. 5.272–274 9.456 Sch. Theoc. (Wendel) Proleg. B D Ga Gb Anecdoton Estense iii 3 5 Id. 1 arg. b 1.110a 1.118c 2 arg. 2.60 3 arg. a 3.8–9a 3.8–9b 3.18a 4.57a 4.57b 5.21 5.23 5.26–27 5.31 5.38 5.65 6.18–19a 7 arg. b 7 arg. c

394 411 225

307, 604–613 317–318 302 304 307, 605–613 304 302 317 309 306 155, 618 155 318 318 318 391 309 309 482 482 482 482 482 482 391 44, 318 318

7.5–9 7.21a 7.21b 7.29–31a 7.154a 7.154d 8 arg. a 8 arg. b 10.11 10.13 10.17 10.38–40 10.54–55 11.1–3b 12 arg. a 15 arg. Simias (Fränkel) fr. 23 (5 gp) fr. 25 (2 gp)

310, 413 317 317 317 309 309 317 317 482 482 482 475 482 621 317 44, 155

123 123

Simonides fr. pmg 543 = 271 Poltera 641 Sophocles Trachiniae

629, 630, 633

Stesichorus (Finglass) fr. 17.1 fr. 86 fr. 87 fr. 88 fr. 97

642 636 636 636 641, 642

Suda θ 166

305

Theocritus Berenice Id. 1

301, 305 86, 98, 162, 303, 305, 308, 313, 324–326, 330–332, 342, 346, 348, 349, 353, 359, 360, 418, 459–460, 462, 494, 501, 509– 510, 522–523, 548, 616, 685, 686–688, 723

827

index of passages 1–2 1–11 1–14 1–23 3 3–6 7–8 9–11 10 15 15–18 19–20 24 25–60 27–61

29–31 32–38 32–54 39–44 39–40 45–54 45–152 52–55 57–58 65 66 66–69 71–75 73–74 80 82 82–85 87–88 90 99–100 100–103 105–110 105–113 112 120–121 123–129 128–130 132 132–133 132–136 135

209, 214, 455, 749, 801 141, 285–286, 291 88–92 459–460 753 349 455 349 754 726 748 554 349, 554, 753 751 387–390, 393–394, 396–398, 419, 687– 688 122–123 751 495 477 456 45–46, 751 312 122–123 457, 754 748 752 459 458 753 273 752 282, 628 753 754 246 292 501 615 248 293, 459 459, 691 752 752 753 455 732

136 140–142 148 150 164 Id. 2

40–41 59–60 66–68 66–74 74 76 83–85 86 88–90 104–106 108–109 118–122 136–138 138–143 145–146 156 160 Id. 3

1–5 2 6–9 6 8 8–9 10–11 12–15 18 24 25–26 28–32 28–30 31 35–36

287 794 553 388 794 154–173, 303, 394, 467–469, 474, 484, 485, 485, 503–504, 525–526, 615–616, 618–621, 629–633, 684, 686–687, 688, 758, 808 503 468 612 467–468 758 468 468 468, 763 738 468–469 503 468 469 469 467–468 468 468 154, 158, 160, 162, 303, 305, 313, 334–336, 347, 359, 456, 521– 522, 628, 723, 738, 756, 765 230, 288 456, 457 50 456 318 279 456 50–53 391 52–53 456 484 808 458 458

828 Id. 3 (cont.) 38 40–51 46–48 Id. 4

1–4 12–16 16 35–39 50–53 55–57 58–63 62–63 Id. 5

1–4 8–10 20 22 22–23 23 25 29 38–49 41–44 60 61–62 67–68 80–83 84–107 88–89 96–99 104–105 116–119 120–123 132–135 136–137 137 138 139–140 149–150 Id. 6

index of passages

456 480 501 159, 161, 303, 305, 313, 346, 456, 457, 458– 459, 476, 486, 696, 723 274 289 553 628 730 312 283 312 161, 303, 305, 313, 314, 348, 350–355, 361, 455, 457, 458, 509, 723, 725, 731, 764, 807 276–277 478 554 349, 356 353 276 275 276 311 284 349 352, 357 350 617, 755 357 757 147 388–389 285 483 357 355, 357, 553 352 357 617 480 303, 305, 313, 351, 352, 353, 354, 361, 411, 417, 455–456, 481,

1–2 1–5 4 5 2–3 6–7 18 34–39 36 38 39–40 45 46 Id. 7

3 5 5–9 6–7 8–9 11–19 21 29–30 35–36 36 37 37–41 39–40 40–41 43–51 44 49–50 52–89 52–56 73–77 74 78 78–82 78–85

488, 489, 496–497, 501, 502, 527, 628, 723, 738, 765 755 145, 358 726 348, 352 497 414 391 489, 689 496 391 485, 622 290 287 86, 303, 305, 308, 309, 310, 313, 314, 326–327, 332–334, 346, 350, 351, 361, 460–462, 502, 508, 509, 527–528, 688– 689, 691, 723, 756, 764, 765, 795, 798, 807 543 312 413 544 543 278 726 546 350 361 508 544, 679–680 162 732, 760 539 545 350 502 616 628, 760 554 351 796 543, 760

829

index of passages 78–89 80–81 91–93 96–127 110 103–114 106–108 116–118 122–124 126–127 128–129 130–157 133–134 133–146 134 135–137 135–147 135–157 140 141 142 156–157 Id. [8]

3–4 30 55–56 64 71 82 83 93 Id. [9]

15 Id. 10

11 22–23 27 33–35 41–55

134–135 279 351 502, 503 314 485 808 617 544 622 752 476 389 149–150, 808 315 543, 591 45–48 798 540, 542 546 543 544 102, 301, 302, 303, 305, 313, 328–329, 346, 349, 350, 351, 361, 457, 501, 655– 659, 684, 731, 755 508 352 685 505 508 508 356 502 160, 301, 302, 303, 305, 313, 346, 349, 350, 361, 457, 684, 755 685 160, 346, 456–457, 475, 476, 478, 482, 486, 488, 528–529, 629, 739 274–275 553 390 390, 617 617

55 56 56–58 Id. 11

8 8–9 10 13–14 15–16 19–20 19–24 30–33 30–37 39–40 50–53 61 77–78 80–81 Id. 12

27–37 27–33 34–37 Id. 13

32–35 40–42 46–51 58–60 61–63 64–65 66 Id. 14 2 3–4 31–33

275 498 477 160, 313, 347, 359, 411, 417, 456, 478, 481, 487, 496–498, 517– 521, 621–622, 628, 635, 689, 696, 798, 723, 730, 732, 738, 758–760, 803–805 279 496 258 414 616 759 488 279 697 258 280 696 263 554 86, 99, 102, 310, 502, 529, 616–617, 673, 675, 676, 728, 798, 807 616–617 808 553 98, 188, 303, 401– 402, 411, 469–470, 496–499, 507–508, 527, 547, 570, 617, 791, 798, 807, 808, 809 188–189 410 401–402, 410 508, 809 251 730 547 154–173, 469, 530, 562–563, 764, 765 731 738 167, 503

830 Id. 14 (cont.) 34–38 39–49 59 61–65 68–70 Id. 15

1 12–16 14 40 42 46–50 46–48 61–62 64 69 72–73 78–86 78–79 80–83 89 89–93 90–93 94 96–98 97 98 106–111 106–108 110–111 113 115–118 120 124 126–127 128 128–130 131 133 136–142

index of passages

628–629 162, 629 760 562 113 86, 95–97, 98, 109– 114, 154–173, 314, 399–401, 463– 467, 474, 482, 494, 505–507, 563–566, 614–615, 633–635, 685, 696, 729, 758, 798 731 506 588, 590 507 589 589, 600 563 584, 599 587, 589 591 590 552 590 389–390 588, 590 564 590 588, 590 549 584, 590, 595 592 549, 565, 588, 590, 600 613 587, 589–590 590 612 590 590 589 549 587, 590, 594 590 591 589–590, 599

144 146 149 Id. 16 1–2 3–4 5–12 16–21 22–31 78–81 83–84 88 101–103 108–109 Id. 17

1 1–8 13–33 17 19 22–25 26–27 32–33 34–50 36–37 38–39 45–50 50 53 56–57 58 66 73–76 77–120 81 86–90 93–94 97 98 108–114 112 112–116 115 116 117 121–134

591 591 591 98, 573–580, 684– 685, 698 574 574 555, 575 576 577 597 592 598 611 555 98, 418, 470–471, 500–501, 505, 550, 571–573, 698–699 681 571, 596 588, 598 595, 598 597 598–599 585 587, 598–599 613 600 587 566, 600 588 595 598 501 588 598–599 597 598 598 598 471 313 617 593 561 554 597 596–598 598–599

831

index of passages 121–127 127 131–134 136 Id. 18

1–8 3 18 22–25 47–48 Id. [19] Id. [20] Id. [21] Id. 22

30–33 44–52 116 181–213 212–213 Id. [23] Id. 24

1–63 4 6 11–28 11–12 18 25–53 26–33 30–31 41–45 44 47–51 54–56 56–59 64–102 82 83 84

617 597 587 597 389, 504–505, 507, 523–524, 550, 612– 613, 626, 635–637 571 389 599 595 551 335, 507 329, 501, 526–527, 665–670 456, 652–654, 809 99, 102, 161, 182–184, 401, 407, 411, 470, 549, 635 188–189 404–407, 410 554 407–410 184 502, 503, 529–530, 671–676, 807 98, 192–195, 393, 415–418, 494, 496, 499–500, 505–507, 570, 626, 635, 639– 644, 791 593 389, 415 186 411 182 594 415 193 499, 594 194 389 178–179 499 588 593 595 594 587, 594

88–100 99–100 101–102 103–140 104 123 129 169–170 Id. [25] 145–149 Id. 26 1–5 8 1–9 10 10–14 20–23 26 29 32 Id. [27]

8 32 65–66 Id. 28 1 Id. 29 7–8 Id. 30 1 Id. 31 Epigrams (Gow) 1 = ap 6.336 2 = ap 6.177 2–6 3 = ap 9.338 4 = ap 9.437 5 = ap 9.433 6 = ap 9.432 7 = ap 7.659 8 = ap 6.337 9 = ap 7.660 10 = ap 6.338

594 588, 594 809 593 595 595 595 587 102, 457, 500, 791 411 401, 411, 504, 570, 626, 635, 637–639 294 389 184–185 179–180 295 402, 404 296 504 504 102, 159, 502–503, 530–531, 659–665, 755, 765 503 503 502 100–102, 389, 510 114 100–102, 502, 503, 531, 676, 807 809 100–102, 502, 531, 807 114 502 200, 202–204, 219 204–206, 808 117, 504 206–209, 210, 389 209–213, 219, 389, 392 213–215, 219 200, 215–217, 504 200, 505 391, 392 218–219, 696 391

832 Epigrams (Gow) (cont.) 12 = ap 6.339 13 = ap 6.340 16 = ap 7.662 17–18 17–22 18 = ap 9.600 19 = ap 13.3 20 = ap 7.663 21–22 [26] = ap 9.205 [27] = ap 9.434 Syrinx

index of passages

391 391, 399, 505, 613–617 200–201, 505 392 117–118 164 217–218 505 392 140 44–45, 75–76 119–121

Theognis 949–950 = 1278c–d 251 Vergil Aeneid 7.38 7.488 7.490 Eclogues 1 1.54 1.59 2 2.19–22 2.25–27 2.31–33 3 3.35–48 3.36–42 3.58–61 3.84–85 4 4.1–3 5 5.60

233–235 733 733 733 223, 231–233 687, 689, 692, 693, 724, 727 685 732 685, 689–691, 692, 726, 730, 732, 738 697 689 690 725, 731 687–688 411 680–681 726 684, 698–699 685 688 732

6 6.1–2 7.30 8 9 9.32–36 10 10.1–6 10.51 10.70–71 10.71 Georgics 2.322 Appendix Vergiliana Catalepton 9.13–20 Vita Vergilii 13 51–56 Xenophon Symp. 8.9–10 Papyri PKöln 21351 + 21376 PVindob. G 40611. P.Ant. s.n.+3.207 P.Berol. inv. 7506 (bkt v 1) 21182 (bkt ix 85) P.Monts.Roca 4.40 P.Oxy. 1618 2064+3548+5294 3547 3551 4432

684 683 732 687, 688 688–689, 691, 692 679–680 688 694 685 688 737 727 682 696–697 605–613

614–617

113 115–116 305, 307, 314–315 311–312 315 312–313 314 302, 303, 307, 313 313 313 312