Enallage and Greek Style 9004037861, 9789004037861

Citation preview

ENALLAGE AND GREEK STYLE

MNEMOSYNE BIBLIOTHECA CLASSICA BATAVA COLLEGERUNT W. DEN BOER • W.

J.

VERDENIUS ' R. E. H. WESTENDORF BOERMA

BIBLIOTHECAE FASCICULOS EDENDOS CURAVIT W.

J.

VERDENIUS, HOMERUSLAAN 53, ZEIST

SUPPLEMENTUM VICESIMUM NONUM VICTOR BERS

ENALLAGE AND GREEK STYLE

LUGDUNI BATAVORUM E.

J. BRILL MCMLXXIV

ENALLAGE AND GREEK STYLE BY

VICTOR BERS

LUGDUNI BATAVORUM E.

J.

BRILL MCMLXXIV

ISBN 90 04 03786

I

Copyright 1974 by E. ]. Brill, Leiden, Netherlands All rights reserved. No part of this book may be rep.roduced or translated in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche 0,r any other means without written permission from the publisher PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

TO MY PARENTS

CONTENTS Acknowledgments . . . Abbreviated References. I. II. III. IV.

Enallage: Is There Such a Thing? . The Origin of Enallage . . . . . . Evidence for Enallage as Archaism Enallage in Pindar and the Tragedians

Appendixes: A. "Enallage", "Hypallage", and "Transferred Epithet". B. 1t6v-rot; and &,.6i;. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C. 'L"rj sµ:rj :x,etpL Ila.UAOU . . . . . • . • • • • . • • D. Two-Word Expressions and Kastner "Wortfelder" E. Enallage in Prose F. Latin Enallage . Index Locorum . . . .

IX XI I

2I

28 43

70

7I 7I 7r 73

74

76

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This study is a slightly revised version of my 1972 Harvard University doctoral dissertation. The topic was suggested to me by Professor Benedict Einarson: in the course of a conversation on poetic language he mentioned Aeschylus' xuµ.oc-rwv &.v~pL0µ.ov ye1-oco-µ.oc as an expression worth studying. But I have not had the benefit of his advice since 1966 and may have proceeded on lines quite different from what he had in mind. Many friends have given me help, mostly by calling passages to my attention: Ann Bergren, Anthony Carnicelli, Kenneth Chakemian, Donald Cooper, Eric Hegsted, Jeffrey Henderson, Justina Winston Gregory, Sheila Murnaghan, Nancy Rabinowitz, Catherine P. Roth. I also wish to thank Professors Wendell Clausen and John Finley for reading an early draft and making valuable suggestions. The publisher's reader called several important articles to my attention and their Classical Editor, Mr. T. A. Edridge, has been patient and helpful in dealing with a novice. I am especially grateful to Professor Gregory Nagy for unstinting advice and encouragement. New Haven, Connecticut February, 1973

V.B.

ABBREVIATED REFERENCES The abbreviations used in this study are generally those of The Oxford Classical Dictionary, supplemented occasionally by those in LS J. Unless otherwise noted in the text, references are either ad loc. or to the pages indicated in the entries below. Barrett Bernhardy Bowra Broadhead Bruhn

Dale Dodds Fraenkel Gildersleeve Gomme Groeneboom

Headlam HouseholderNagy Jebb Kaibel Kamerbeek Kastner Kiihner-Gerth LSJ LSJ Suppl. Lobeck

W. S. Barrett, Euripides Hippolytos (Oxford, 1964). G. Bernhardy, Wissenschaftliche Syntax der Griechischen Sprache (Berlin, 1829), pp. 425-7. C. M. Bowra, Pindar (Oxford, 1964). H. D. Broadhead, The Persae of Aeschylus (Cambridge, 1960). Ewald Bruhn, Anhang. Sophokles, erklart von F. W. Schneidewin und A. Nauk, Achtes Biindchen (Berlin, 1899), p. 7. Bruhn (I) and (II) are explained on p. 5, n. 1 of this study. A. M. Dale, Euripides Alcestis (Oxford, 1954). E. R. Dodds, Euripides Bacchae (2nd ed.; Oxford, 1960). Eduard Fraenkel, Aeschylus Agamemnon (Oxford, 1950). Basil L. Gildersleeve, Pindar, The Olympian and Pythian Odes (New York, 1890). A. W. Gomme, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides (Oxford, 1956). P. Groeneboom, Aeschylus' Agamemnon (Groningen, 1944), Aeschylus' Choephoroi (Groningen, 1949), Aischylos' Perser (German translation by H. Sonnichsen, Gottingen, 1960 of Dutch original, The Hague, 1930), Aeschylus' Zeven Tegen Thebe (Amsterdam, 1966). W. Headlam, "Metaphor, with a Note on Transference of Epithets", CR, 16 (1902), pp. 434 f. F. Householder and G. Nagy, "Greek", Current Trends in Linguistics, IX (1972), pp. 735-816. R. C. Jebb, Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments (Cambridge, 1885-1902). G. Kaibel, Sophokles Elektra (Leipzig, 1896). J. C. Kamerbeek, The Plays of Sophocles (Leiden, 1953- ). W. Kastner, Die griechischen Adjective zweier Endungen auf -01: (Heidelberg, 1967). R. Kiihner and B. Gerth, Ausfuhrliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, II. Satzlehre, Erster Band (3rd ed.; Hannover and Leipzig, 1898), p. 263. H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th rev. ed. by H. S. Jones and R. McKenzie (Oxford, 1940). H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H. S. Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon. A Supplement, eds. E. A. Barber et al. (Oxford, 1968). C. A. Lobeck, Sophocles Aiax (2nd ed.; Leipzig, 1835), pp. 72-6.

XII

Long Matthia Mooney Owen Page Pearson Schneidewin Schwyzer

Sidgwick Tucker Verrall Wackernagel Wecklein West Wilamowitz Williger

ABBREVIATED REFERENCES A. A. Long, Language and Thought in Sophocles (London, 1968). A. Matthia, Ausfuhrliche griechische Grammatik, Zweiter Teil, Syntax (Leipzig, 1835), p. 1003. G. W. Mooney, The Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius (London, 1912). A. S. Owen, Euripides Ion (Oxford, 1939). D. L. Page, Euripides Medea (Oxford, 1938). A. C. Pearson, The Fragments of Sophocles (Cambridge, 1917). F. W. Schneidewin, Sophokles Elektra II Funftes Bi.indchen (9th ed. prepared by August Nauck; Berlin, 1893). E. Schwyzer, Griechische Grammatik auf der Grundlage von Karl Brugmanns Griechischer Grammatik Vol. II. Syntax und Syntaktische Stilistik = Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft II.1.2 (Munich, 1966). A. Sidgwick, Aeschylus Choephoroi (Oxford, 1884). T. G. Tucker, The Seven Against Thebes of Aeschylus (Cambridge, 1908). A. W. Verrall, The Seven Against Thebes (London, 1887). J. Wackernagel, Vorlesungen uber Syntax, Erste Reihe (2nd ed.; Basel, 1926). N. Wecklein, AI~XTAOT .1PAMATA ~ilZOMENA, II (Athens, 1896), III (Leipzig, 1910). M. L. West, Hesiod Theogony (Oxford, 1966). U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Euripides Herakles (2nd ed.; Berlin, 1895), pp. II4 f. E. Williger, Sprachliche Untersuchungen zu den Komposita der griechischen Dichter des 5. J ahrhunderts (Forschungen z. griechischen u. lateinischen Grammatik 8. Heft; Gi:ittingen, 1928).

CHAPTER ONE

ENALLAGE: IS THERE SUCH A THING? As I will use the term, enallage is the transfer to the governing substantive of an adjective which by logic, or at least convention, belongs with an expressed dependent genitive. (For the history of the term see Appendix A.) The most famous example of enallage occurs in Sophocles: Ant. 793-4 lyr.

cru XOCL ..6ae: ve:'i:xoov &cr-ru yiic;

Wilamowitz translates "die Hauptstadt des Vaterlandes"; against this, Jebb pronounces: "not for 1tix--rpc;>ixc; y-yjc; &cr--ru but simply 'his father's city in the land' (the gen. y~c; as 45)". Jebb's parallel relies on retaining the MS. reading, but Musgrave's ye is probably right. (The MS. reading has an ugly sound and we; ... ye is a common combination. 2) Schwyzer (p. 114) also keeps the MS. reading and translates "in diesem Lande", but his other examples of this kind of partitive genitive are not quite parallel in that they are all proper nouns. All other citations of y~ and xwpoc; in the pertinent sections Note that Quintus includes 1tou in his phrase. Cf. J. D. Denniston, The Greek Particles (2nd ed.; Oxford, 1954), p. 143, where the emendation is printed without comment. 1

2

PARTITIVE GENITIVE

II

of Schwyzer (pp. n3 f.) and Kuhner-Gerth (pp. 338-4I) include either an adverb like nou, n60&v, nocv-rocx?i or an article. (A phrase which adds 0~~'Y)c;; to y'Yjc;;, Ant. 937 anap., is evidence neither way.) Even if the evidence for a separable y'Yjc;; were stronger, it still could be argued that noc-rpci'>ov would be "partially taken" with y'Yjc;; simply because that adjective very commonly modifies that nounsee LSJ s.v. noc-rpci'>oc;;. 1t(hpoc and noc-rp(c;; reinforce the association. At Aesch. Sept. rno7-8 (in the closing section regarded by most editors as spurious) we find 'E-rc:ox.:Moc µtv -r6v3' e:n' c:uvo(q: x.0ovoi; 0ocn-rc:Lv ~ao~c: y'Yjc;; cptAoctc;; xoc-roccrxoccpocri; It would certainly fit to understand y'Yjc;; as meaning "in the earth", but after il:n' &uvo(q: x.0ov6c;; it would be more pointed to have an enallage. 1 It is even more certain than the genitive of words for the sea was rarely, if ever, partitive. The relevant sections of Schwyzer and Kuhner-Gerth have no such citations; and LSJ gives no instance where the adverbs which accompany partitive genitives denoting place (the adverbs are listed by Kuhner-Gerth, p. 340) are used in a marine context. (Hdt. 7.rn6.I has -rou 'EAA'Y)cr1t6v-rou nocv-rocx.?i, but here 'EAA~crnov-roc;; refers to the "adjacent country" [LSJ s.v. 7t(~V't'OC)'..TI] ) •

The first example from N onnus introduces another problem of analysis, viz. whether to regard part-whole combinations like oo3occ;; &.poup'Y)c;; as a "hyphenated pair" modified by the adjective. I have already given my general objections to this explanation (pp. 5 ff.); here I will consider its application to two specific semantic fields. The following syntagmata are possible enallages: Aesch. Sept. 304-5 lyr. Eur. El. I

noiov 8' &.µd!.jis:cr0s: yoc(occ;; ne8ov -ra.cr8' &ps:rnv

T.Q y'Yjc;; nocAoctov &pyoc;;

(Denniston: "&pyoa(c;; Hom. Od. 14.197

eµoc x~aeix 0uµou

Aesch. Ag. 50 anap.

SX7tlX't"LOtc;; r}).yeoc; has unusual grammatical flexibility:

228 lyr.

AL't"IXoc; had a particularly strong association with the genitive case of the noun. 2 1toc1'pci'>oc; is widely attested as a cult title of Zeus and Apollo. It is different from other cult titles in that it has a more general meaning than, say, ~evwc;; rather than referring to a sphere of human activity watched over by a god or being derived from the name of a supplanted god, the original meaning of 1toc-rpci'>oc; says something about the history of the cult, viz. that it "has been transmitted with the household". 3 The messenger's report of Polyneices' prayer suggests a possible locus of diffusion: Aesch. Sept. 639-40

-roLocih' &u-rei: xocl 0eouc; yevc:01,.(ouc; XOCAc:i: 1toc-rpcpocc; y~c; E1to1t~pocc; AL-rwv.

yeve01,.Loc; is virtually synonymous with 1toc-rpci'>oc;: "Da das Grundwort yeve0A'YJ seit Homer 'Geschlecht, Familie' heisst, besteht in 1 If a word like KA'Y)8wv or 5voµ01: is not included, the genitive case enjoys no special priority; the name called out is simply inflected to fit the grammar of the sentence (Groeneboom ad Ag. 47-54). 2 Ovid probably had this passage in mind when he wrote oraque caerulea patrium clamantia nomen / excipiuntur aqua, quae nomen traxit ab illo (Met. 8. 229-30). 3 K. J. Dover, Aristophanes' Clouds (Oxford, 1968), p. 264. Its later implication was "from whom the community is descended".

ENALLAGE IN FAMILY CONTEXTS

39

semantischer Hinsicht auch eine enge Beziehung zu 1tix:rpwi;. So sind die 6eol. yeve6ALoL (A. Th. 639) und die 6eol. mx:rpwL (Hdt. r.172) praktisch identisch". (Kastner, p. 77). It seems highly probable (r) that some more concise prayer formulae omitted the adjective for y~ and retained it for 6eol and (2) that occasionally some noun less often called 1tocTpcj)oi; got the adjective, as in 1tocTpcj)ov &a-Tu yiii; (Soph. OT 296: whether this particular utterance is an old formula preserved verbatim or a newly created enallage is unimportant for the argument). Once the coexistence of possessive adjective and genitive had been lost in the natural language, one would have felt some syntactic uncertainty in the first type and a downright misattribution in the second. Dover (loc. cit., p. 38, n. 3) concludes that his Aristophanic lemma "strongly suggests that 1tocTpcj)oi; could be interpreted as 'whose province is the relationship between fathers and children' ". If so, both it and µocTpcj)oi; would have special impact whenever reference was made to an act taboo or especially shocking between parent and child. An extremely mild transfer, or at least sharing, of an epithet appears in three passages from Pindar:

Nem. 10.17.

0'1tepµ' &.odµocv"C'OV ... 'Hpax).eoi;

(A man's essential qualities belong to the seed from which he springs. Cf. Pyth. 4. 15 &.o-Tewv pl~ocv ... µeA'YJO'Lfl,~po"C'ov.)

Ol. r.66

"C'0 "C'rlXU7tO"C'fl,OV ... &.vepwv ~6voi;

(What is true of members of a group must be true of the group as a whole.) Enallages are found several times in the context of a marriage: Aesch. PV 855-6

o-uyyev~ yixµov &.ve4nwv

Soph. Ant. 980 lyr.

µa"C'poi; ... &.vuµqieU"C'OV yovixv

Soph. El. 492-3 lyr. Soph. Track. 527 lyr. Eur. Hipp. u40-1 lyr.

&AexTp' &vuµqioc ... µLaLqi6vwv yixµwv &.µLM~µoc6' "C'0 o' &.µqiLVELX'Y)"C'OV cSµµoc vuµcpai; vuµtpL0LOC o' &.1t6AWA€ cpuy~ O'~ AE:X"C'pwv &µLAAOC xoupocLt;

The marriage bed also appears at Soph. Ant. 862-4 (already quoted) and at Eur. IA 1266

AE:xTpwv &.p1tocyixi; 'Ell'Y)VLxwv

EVIDENCE FOR ENALLAGE AS ARCHAISM

Parentage is the theme in Soph. OT 869-70 lyr. and childbirth in

0\/IX't'OC ipucrn;