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Framing and polyphony: readings in Hellenistic poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

Simon Goldhill
Simon Goldhill
Affiliation:
King's College, Cambridge
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Extract

‘Then babble, babble words, like the solitary child who turns himself into children, two, three…” Beckett.

In this paper, I intend to discuss three central Hellenistic poems: Callimachus' Hymn to Zeus, Theocritus' Idyll 11 and Idyll 7. Each of these poems holds a privileged position in the discussion of the Hellenistic era as well as in each poet's corpus. I am certainly not offering here what could be called complete or exhaustive readings of these works – that would be far beyond the scope of a paper of this length; rather, I want to focus on a key point of interpretation in each poem. In the Hymn to Zeus, I am going to investigate the language of truth; in Idyll 11, the poem's structure of frame and song; and in Idyll 7, the poem's programmatic force. There are two aims in this strategy: the first is to investigate the topic of the ‘poet's voice’ in Hellenistic poetry. The three poems and the three topics of my discussion are linked in the concern for how a poet places himself within his poetry – ‘Who speaks?’, as Roland Barthes put it. The interest in poetry and how a poet relates to his poetry is a constant and fascinating theme through these works, and each of the topics I have chosen to discuss will illuminate this interest from a different aspect. Secondly, through a consideration of these three key moments of interpretation, I shall be arguing for an increased awareness of the complexity and subtlety of Hellenistic poetry. I intend to show how critics' approaches and decisions with regard to these nodes of interpretation, which may be regarded as paradigmatic, have led to a worrying oversimplification of Hellenistic poetry. I hope to show in some measure how the intellectual complexity which makes these poems so hard to read and to criticize, can also be a source of their continuing interest and delight for us.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 32 , 1986 , pp. 25 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

NOTES

The following works will be referred to by name alone:

Bate, W. J., The burden of the past and the English poet (1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Berger, H. Jnr., ‘The origins of bucolic representation: disenchantment and revision in Theocritus’ seventh Idyll’, Classical Antiquity 3 (1984) 1–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Bloom, H., The anxiety of influence. A theory of poetry (1973).Google Scholar

DuQuesnay, I. M., ‘From Polyphemus to Corydon: Virgil, Eclogue 2 and the Idylls of Theocritus’, in Creative imitation and Latin literature ed. West, D. and Woodman, A. (1979).Google Scholar

Dover, K. J., Theocritus. Select poems (1971).Google Scholar

Gow, A. S. F., Theocritus (1952) 2 vols. (All references to vol. 2.)Google Scholar

Hopkinson, N., ‘Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus', CQ n.s.34 (1984) 139–148.Google Scholar

Legrand, Ph.-E., Etude sur Théocrite (1898).Google Scholar

Pucci, P., Hesiod and the language of poetry (1977).Google Scholar

Rosenmeyer, T., The green cabinet (1969).Google Scholar

Seeck, G., ‘Dichterische Technik in Theokrits “Thalysien” und die Theorie der Hirtendichtung’, in ΔΩQPHMA Hans Diller (1975).Google Scholar

Segal, C. P., Poetry and myth in ancient pastoral (1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

1. Barthes, R.S/Z (1970) especially 48–9Google Scholar; (translated R. Howard (1976) 41-2).

2. Vernant, J.-P., Les origines de la pensée grecque (1962)Google Scholar; Detienne, M., Les maîtres de vérité dans Grèce archaique (1967)Google Scholar; Svenbro, J., La parole et le marbre (1976)Google Scholar; Calame, C., Les choeurs de jeunes filles en Grèce archaique 2 vols (1977)Google Scholar; Walsh, G., The varieties of enchantment (1984)Google Scholar. I have considered this material in more depth in Reading Greek Tragedy (1986) chaps. 6; 9; 11.

3. See Marrou, H., A history of Greek education in antiquity trs. Lamb, G. (1956) 41–5Google Scholar; Pfeiffer, R., History of classical scholarship (1968) 3–57Google Scholar; Goldhill, S., Reading Greek tragedy (1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar ch. 6. Papyrus finds confirm the importance of Homer in education throughout Greek culture.

4. See Calame, C., Les choeurs de jeunes filles en Grèce archaique 2 vols (1977)Google Scholar who writes (399): ‘“Maître de vérité”, le poète grec archaique est en effet la personne qui, au sein du corps social, détient et transmet tout le système de valeurs éthiques et l'ensemble de la mythologie sur lesquels est fondée la cohérence de la vie de la communauté.’

5. Laws 654a. It is not a view he necessarily agrees with, of course.

6. On the early use of , as well as , see Kerferd, G., ‘The first Greek sophists’, CR 44 (1950) 8–10Google Scholar.

7. Gould, J., ‘Homeric epic and the tragic moment’, in Aspects of the epic ed. Winnifrith, T., Murray, P., and Gransden, K. (1983) 45Google Scholar: ‘Homer was “the poet"…who had produced images of human experience that were true and right and timeless, in a variety of modes and with a mastery and sophistication that were for Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, their education’. On , see e.g. Nagy, G., The best of the Achaeans (1979)Google Scholar; Segal, C. P., ‘Kleos and its ironies in the Odyssey’, AC 52 (1983) 22–47Google Scholar; and in general Pucci passim.

8. See Goldhill, S.Language, sexuality, narrative: the Oresteia (1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholarpassim; and Reading Greek Tragedy ch. 1 for bibliography and general discussion.

9. See Walsh, G., The varieties of enchantment (1984) 3–36Google Scholar, and Pucci passim.

10. See Detienne, M., Les maîtres de vérité dans Grèce archaique (1967) 51–80Google Scholar, especially 72-80. On deception in general, see Detienne, M. and Vernant, J.-P.Les ruses de I'intelligence (1974) especially 167–304Google Scholar.

11. The most interesting discussion is Pucci, especially 1-44. See also Luther, W. ‘Wahrheit, Licht und Erkenntnis in der griechischen Philosophie bis Demokrit’, Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 10 (1966) 1–240Google Scholar; Walsh, G., The varieties of enchantment (1984) 3–36Google Scholar.

12. Pucci 1.

13. For the paradoxes engendered in Hesiod's text, see Pucci passim.

14. See e.g. Reinsch-Werner, H., Callimachus Hesiodicus (1976)Google Scholar (especially 24-73 on the Hymn to Zeus); also Van Sickle, J., ‘Theocritus and the development of the conception of bucolic genre’, Ramus 5 (1976) 16–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15. The vast majority of books concerned with the development of ideas of poetry in poetry stop either before the fifth century (e.g. Detienne) or with Euripides (e.g. Walsh). Kirkwood, G. ed. Poetry and poetics from ancient Greece to the Renaissance: studies in honor of James Hutton (1975)Google Scholar has no discussion of the period between the fifth century B.C. and Lucretius.

16. Epig. 28 Pfeiffer, 4.

17. Hopkinson passim. See also Bulloch, A., Callimachus: the fifth hymn (1984)Google Scholar; Hopkinson, N., Callimachus: hymn to Demeter (1984)Google Scholar; McLennan, G., Callimachus’ hymn to Zeus. Introduction and commentary (1977)Google Scholar; Williams, F., Callimachus: hymn to Apollo (1978)Google Scholar.

18. In general, see McLennan, G., ‘Direct speech in the hymns of Callimachus’, RhM 117 (1974) 47–52Google Scholar, especially 50-2. Hopkinson (139) writes ‘The roles of both poet (‘author’? ‘declaimer’? ‘master of ceremonies’?) and reader (‘audience’? ‘participant’?) are left ill-defined’. Indeed, Hopkinson opens his edition (Callimachus: hymn to Demeter (1984)) with the question ‘Who speaks?’ – although Barthes' voice (see n. 1) is only vestigial in the analysis which follows that question – which focuses on the tension between the poem's ‘mimetic’ setting and anonymous declaimer.

19. Hopkinson 144.

20. Hopkinson 140.

21. It is quoted by St. Paul Ep. Tit. 1.12. See also Aratus, Phaen. 30Google Scholar.

22. Epimenides' line echoes Hesiod Theo. 26 .

23. Hopkinson 144.

24. Hopkinson 144. Norden, E., P. Vergilius Maro Aeneis Buch VI ed. 3 (1927) ad 14Google Scholar; McLennan, G., Callimachus: hymn to Zeus. Introduction and commentary (1977)Google Scholar ad 65.

25. Beyond formalism (1970) 342–3Google Scholar.

26. See in particular Bulloch, A., ‘Callimachus' Erysichthon, Homer and Apollonius Rhodius’, AJPh 98 (1977) 97–123Google Scholar; Giangrande, G., ‘Hellenistic poetry and Homer’, AC 39 (1970) 46–77Google Scholar.

27. (Mythistorema 3). See also these marvellous lines from (Thrush):

“The statues are in the museum”.
“No, they pursue you, why can't you see it?
I mean with their broken limbs,
with their shape from another time….”

On Seferis and the past, see now Padel, R. ‘Homer's reader: a reading of George Seferis’, PCPS n.s. 31 (1985) 74–132Google Scholar.

28. Indeed, both Bate and Bloom regard the process as a the constant struggle of poets. Bate (3-4) amusingly juxtasposes the scribe Khakheperresenb of 2000 B.C. (‘Would I had phrases that are not known, utterances that are strange, in new language that has not been used, free from repetition, not an utterance which has grown stale, which men of old have spoken’) with T. S. Eliot of this century (‘Not only every great poet, but every genuine, though lesser poet, fulfils once and for all some possibility of the language, and so leaves one possibility less for his successors.’).

29. Bate 122.

30. The title of Bloom's influential study. Bloom's emphasis on this anxiety has interesting implications for Classical studies (although his arguments from Freudian psychology bring many major problems). Berger adopts some of Bloom's arguments.

31. Bloom 65.

32. Kroll, W., Studien zum Verständnis der römischen Literatur (1924) 202Google Scholar.

33. Bate 4.

34. Polyphemus as lover was treated by Philoxenus, but few details are known of this near contemporary poem. See Gow 118, and Seaford, R., Euripides' Cyclops (1984) ad 29Google Scholar.

35. I have considered this in depth in Reading Greek tragedy (1986) chaps. 10 and 11.

36. See in particular Arrowsmith, W., ‘A Greek theater of ideas’, in Ideas in drama ed. Gassner, J. (1964)Google Scholar; Zeitlin, F., ‘The closet of masks: role playing and myth-making in the Orestes of Euripides’, Ramus 9 (1980) 62–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37. On aitia, see Hopkinson 141. He notes the link between past and present forged by aetiology, the manifestation of divine activity, the rationalization of ritual and the comfortable dispelling of doubt by such final causes. He adds that the Hellenistic delight in obscure detail added to the attraction of aetiology. For a further attempt to link aetiology with Hellenistic technique, see Beye, C., Epic and romance in the Argonautika of Apollonius (1982) 27, 75, 103, 98-100, 147Google Scholar.

38. Rambler, Essay 86, quoted by Bate 3.

39. See e.g. Miles, G., ‘Characterization and the ideal of innocence in Theocritus' Idylls’, Ramus 6 (1977) 139–164CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 143-5; Legrande 111-3.

40. See e.g. Holtsmark, E., ‘Poetry as self-enlightenment. Theocritus 11’, TAPA 97 (1966) 253–9Google Scholar; Erbse, H. ‘Dichtkunst und Medizin in Theokritos 11 Idyll’, MH 22 (1965) 232–6Google Scholar. Both are criticized by Horstman, A., Ironie und Humour bei Theokrit (1976) 85–110Google Scholar.

41. Legrand 111-3; and from a different, more developed viewpoint, DuQuesnay, and Cairns, F., Generic composition in Greek and Latin poetry (1972) 143–7Google Scholar.

42. See e.g. Rosenmeyer 87-8, 102-3, 165; Legrand 106-7; Segal 91.

43. Legrand 111-83, 409-10; Brooke, A., ‘Theocritus' Idyll 11: a study in pastoral’, Arethusa 4 (1971) 73–81Google Scholar; DuQuesnay passim; Cairns, F., Generic composition in Greek and Latin poetry (1972) 143-7, 194–5Google Scholar.

44. See Gow 209. The evidence is scarcely convincing.

45. ‘Polyphemus’ song constitutes the greater part of the poem (17-79); the frame (1-18, 80f) is narrative', Dover 173. ‘He organizes the poem as a miniature treatise, complete with thesis (1-6), demonstration (7-79) and recapitulation (80-81), and makes one of his own rare personal entrances into pastoral to assume the role of expositor’, Brooke, A., Arethusa 4 (1971) 73Google Scholar. ‘First, the moral of the poem is set out quite explicitly: the only cure for love is song. This vital clue to the meaning of the poem is picked up in the last lines (80-1)’, DuQuesnay 45. ‘Theocritus is very explicit…Polyphemus composed a song…and this song cured him’, Walker, S., Theocritus (1980) 41Google Scholar.

46. Seeck 203.

47. Seeck 202.

48. Dover 112.

49. Nor as Cairns suggests (Generic composition 147) is it simply to make sure Nicias understands the genre as komos with a change of heart. ‘At the end of the song (80-1), we are told again that by singing it, Polyphemus cured himself. Theocritus must therefore show the cure occurring within the song. Had Polyphemus behaved like a normal komast, Nikias might well have been unable to see how the Cyclops was cured by singing. The change of mind is therefore both required and guaranteed by the use to which Theocritus puts the story of Polyphemus.’ By such question-begging and circular arguments any ambiguity is excised from the poem in Cairns' account. I have criticised Cairns' approach more fully in ‘Desire and the figure of fun: glossing Theocritus 11’, in Beyond Aporia? ed. A. Benjamin (forthcoming).

50. He suggests Theocritus may have written a Polyphemus song and then, when the occasion arose, adapted it to a hortatory purpose with Nicias in mind without noticing that ‘this line (14) is disastrous in its new context’ 211 ad 13; see also 208-9.

51. Gow 211 ad 13.

52. Cataudella, Q., ‘Un’ aporia del “Cicclope” teocriteo’, REG 66 (1953) 473–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Legrand 409 n. 1 (who refers to Holand ‘de Polyphemo et Galatea’, Leipziger Stud. 7. 241 n.l) and Alsina, J., ‘Nota a Teocriteo (xi 13)’, Emerita 32 (1964) 15–18Google Scholar, who suggests – unconvincingly – .

53. Dover 174. It is noticeable that neither of Dover's emphasized words appear – or are hinted at – in the Greek.

54. Holtsmark, E., ‘Poetry as self-enlightenment: Theocritus 11’, TAPA 97 (1966) 353–9Google Scholar.

55. Erbse, H., ‘Dichtkunst und Medizin in Theokrits 11 Idyll’, MH 22 (1965) 232–6Google Scholar, especially 234. For criticism of Erbse, see Horstman, A., Ironie und Humor bei Theokrit (1976) 99–105Google Scholar.

56. On the erotic implications of , see Goldhill, S., ‘Praying to Dionysus: re-rereading Anacreon Fr12 (301 Page)’, LCM 9.6 (1984) 85–8Google Scholar, especially 86.

57. is used, as Gow says, of ‘wanton or lascivious laughter’. It does not follow that ‘the giggling of the girls should be understood as genuine enticement: it is sexual laughter not mockery.’ (DuQuesnay 213). It is Polyphemus himself who describes the laughter; and his interpretation of the girls' giggling as sexual and directed as genuine enticement towards him is not necessarily to be trusted; this uncertainty is not merely ‘the doubts of the modern reader’ (DuQuesnay 213, contra Coleman); the disjunction between a character's statement and the (sophisticated, Hellenistic) reader's interpretation of the truth/sincerity/applicability of that statement is a common source of Theocritean humour. It may indeed be interesting – even essential – to discover how contemporaries may have read a poem, but perhaps DuQuesnay is incautious in his complete certainty that he knows that ancient readers would have been ‘in no doubt that the Cyclops was indeed cured.’ (213). (In support of his argument, DuQuesnay quotes Callimachus Epig. 46 Pfeiffer (A.P. 12. 150), on which see the Appendix, but does not discuss the comment of the scholion: . See Horstman, A., Ironie und Humor bei Theokrit (1976) 100.Google Scholar)

58. Gow (155 ad 794) notes that Cobet's distinction between and is too rigid, since sometimes encroaches on the sense assigned to (i.e. ‘listen’ as opposed to ‘obey’), and he translates here as ‘give ear to them’. It may seem, however, more vivid to take here in its common stronger sense of ‘obey’ – Polyphemus does attempt to take up the girls' invitation to sport with them; but they giggle when he does.

59. καί is difficult to translate here. It implies ‘Galatea may be important in the sea, but on land I'm important…’.

60. His claim to be a somebody (τιϛ) is ironic not just because of his characterization in the Idyll, but also because of the means of his downfall in the Odyssey where he is made a laughing stock by Odysseus' joke on (which itself puns on the of Odysseus). His claim to be a somebody looks forward to his humiliation at the hands (words) of the stranger. Indeed, at 61 the Cyclops hopes that will come. It will be a called , however.

61. 211 ad 13.

62. Gow 211 ad 13.

63. See LSJ II.

64. LSJ suggests Eur. Hipp. 153 as a parallel (= ‘deceive’; so too the scholion ad loc.), but Barrett, W. (Euripides Hippolytos (1964) ad 153Google Scholar) rightly dismisses this interpretation (despite the colloquial use of in this sense in Old and New Comedy: Ar., Ekkl. 81Google Scholar; Men., Sam. 251Google Scholar). This leaves only the late example of Luc., Am. 54Google Scholar as a parallel. See also Spofford, E., ‘Theocritus and Polyphemus’, AJPh 90 (1969) 35Google Scholar; Legrand 409-10. Alpers, P. (The singer of the Eclogues (1979) 123Google Scholar) notes the wit and ambiguity of : ‘The wit largely involves the opacity of “shepherded” (epoimainen), which suspends divergent interpretations by saying, in effect, “saw it through by behaving like the herdsman that he was.”’

65. DuQuesnay 47.

66. See especially Derrida, J., Dissemination trans. Johnson, B. (1981) 63–171Google Scholar, which has been extremely influential and extensively commented on.

67. Od. 1.262; the only example in Homer of with .

68. As Gow notes, it is in fact unclear exactly what is meant by since the gift of a lock of hair (as we would normally read such a remark) seems not to be part of the norms of a lover's discourse in the Greek world. (Perhaps it refers to a lover's excessive care of his own personal appearance?) The Cyclops does discuss his own hirsuteness at length. So, too, he offers gifts of other flowers (if not roses), and talks of food and lover's presents (although not ‘apples’), and he calls Galatea . The Cyclops does not straightforwardly reject lovers' tokens, but rather has his own version of them.

69. On in fifth-century discourse, see e.g. Pfeiffer, R., History of classical scholarship (1968) 39-40, 74–5Google Scholar; Guthrie, W.A history of Greek philosophy III (1969) 205–25Google Scholar.

70. On ‘parergonal logic’ see especially Derrida, J., La vérité en peinture (1978)Google Scholarpassim, especially 21-209 (commented on extensively by Ulmer, G., Applied Grammatology (1984) 3–124)Google Scholar, and also, in particular, Derrida, J., Dissemination trans. Johnson, B. (1981) 1–61Google Scholar. I have discussed this further with regard to Theocritus 11 in ‘Desire and the figure of fun: glossing Theocritus 11’, in Beyond Aporia? ed. A. Benjamin (forthcoming).

71. For bibliography and discussion of the problems see Segal 110-116, to which may be added Berger; Miles, G., ‘Characterization and the ideal of innocence in Theocritus' Idylls’, Ramus 6 (1977) 139–174CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bowie, E., ‘Theocritus’ seventh Idyll, Philetas and Longus’, CQ n.s.35 (1985) 67–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72. ‘The journey’ is the least commented on (though see Segal 116-7, 127-9): both the common Greek image of the ‘roads’ or ‘ways’ of song, and the common notion in Greek (as elsewhere) of a journey towards enlightenment (e.g. Parmenides' Proem, DK 28 B1) help invest this journey with a programmatic force. On road imagery, see Becker, O., Das Bild des Weges und verwandte Vorstellungen im frühgriechischen Denken. Hermes Einzelschriften 4 (1937)Google Scholar. On the Dichterweihe, see in particular Puelma, M., ‘Die Dichterbegegnung in Theokrits “Thalysien”’, MH 17 (1960) 144–64Google Scholar, especially 155-9; Van Groningen, B., ‘Quelques problèmes de la poésie bucolique grecque’, Mnem. 4.12 (1959) 24–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 30-2. On Callimachus and Hesiod, see Kambylis, A., Die Dichterweihe und ihre Symbolik (1965), especially 110–124Google Scholar.

73. See Seeck 199-200; Segal 125; Rosenmeyer 63 writes ‘We may wish to identify the narrator with Theocritus himself; but the author wards off the identification, or rather plays cat and mouse with it, by interposing the name Simichidas, which is not a Schlusselname, but a device to bar the ego…’. See also in general Segal 167-174 who points to Theocritus' distance from his characters (for which see also Rosenmeyer 15-6).

74. ‘Hier wird uns ein Geplänkel vorgeführt, dessen Spielregeln wir nicht ganz durchschauen…’ Seeck 198.

75. ; is taken here with . Segal (128) suggests it may also qualify ‘the good Cydonian man’ who is later called ‘dear to the Muses’ (95).

76. See in particular Segal 119-129; Williams, F., ‘A theophany in Theocritus’, CQ n.s.21 (1971) 137–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brown, E. L., ‘The Lycidas of Theocritus' Idyll 7’, HSCP 86 (1981) 59–100Google Scholar; Bowie, E., ‘Theocritus' seventh Idyll, Philetas and Longus’, CQ n.s.35 (1985) 67–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

77. See in particular, Ott, U., ‘Theokrits “Thalysien” und ihre literarische Vorbilder’, RhM 115 (1972) 134–49Google Scholar; and on geography and earlier poetry Krevans, N., ‘Geography and literary tradition in Theocritus 7’, TAPA 113 (1983) 201–20Google Scholar.

78. On in epiphanies, see Cameron, A., ‘The form of the Thalysia’, in Miscellanea di studi alessandrini in memoria di Augusto Rostagni (1963) 291–307Google Scholar, especially 303.

79. Dover 154.

80. See LSJ , and Segal 170-1, who compares Aesch. P. V. 1030-3.

81. Cholmeley, (The Idylls of Theocritus ed. 2 (1919) 241Google Scholar) suggests ‘made in the mould of truth’, for which he compares Pindar, Pyth. 1.167 , which seems, however, a quite different expression, even if it draws on the same tradition of poetic claims of truth. The phrase occurs at Aesch., Supp. 628Google Scholar where it refers to the prayers of the chorus sung, according to Tucker, (The Supplices of Aeschylus (1889)Google Scholar ad loc.) ‘with truth’ ‘in a truthful way’; he compares Hes., Theo. 540Google Scholar. But Johansen, Frijs and Whittle, (Aeschylus: the Suppliants (1980)Google Scholar ad loc.) suggest that it means rather ‘to the achieving of truth’, that is, ‘so that they may come true’ – for which Theocritus’ expression in Idyll 7 is offered as a parallel. occurs also at Arist., Plut. 891Google Scholar (), where Rogers translates ‘in very truth’ and Gow suggests that, unlike the Theocritus or Aeschylus passage, it may have the weakened sense ‘really and truly’; Holzinger, however, takes it closely with and translates it ‘in the true sense of the term’ (‘in wahren Sinne des Wortes sollst du bersten’). Meineke, followed by Green, glosses ‘ea lege, ut vera sint quae tu loqueris’, i.e. he supplies , ‘on condition of the truth of your words’. The most extended discussion is in Serrao, G., Problemi di poesia alessandrina (1971) 43–55Google Scholar. He claims that this passage in Idyll 7 represents Lycidas' acceptance and recognition of Simichidas (whom Serrao takes simply as Theocritus!) and that it stands parallel to Simichidas' admission of his poetic status compared to his contemporaries (‘la concezione artistica di Teocriteo e il concetto di ’ 39). So, he concludes, ‘the truth’ here is to be taken as Simichidas’ self-awareness and willingness to be true to himself: ‘ἐπ significa dunque; obbedire alia propria natura, essere conformi a se stessi; ed e detto di chi sa esprimere se stesso pur rimanendo entro i limiti determinati dalla natura.’ 47. Against this, however, Segal sees this answer of Lycidas as an ironically literal misprision of Simichidas’ self-deprecation. Moreover, seems a less certain expression than Serrao assumes. If, as Frijs Johansen and Whittle suggest, ἐπί here ‘indicates the goal towards which the action is intended’, that is, as Gow puts it, ἐπί with a dative of ‘attendant aim’, then Theocritus' expression suggests a movement towards truth (and the poetic status associated with it) which has not necessarily been completed yet e.g. ‘formed for truth’, ‘with truth as an aim’. In other words, the phrase may suggest the poetic claim of truth but pulls back from a direct assertion of the truth of the poet's voice.

82. Dover ad 44.

83. Though see Puelma, M., ‘Die Dichterbegegnung in Theokrits “Thalysien”, MH 17 (1960) 160Google Scholar n.55, who notes the echo of Hes., Theo. 26ffGoogle Scholar, and Serrao, G., Problemi di poesia alessandrina (1971) 44–5Google Scholar.

84. See e.g. Il.2.100-5; Il.2.206; Il.1.234-9. The connection through the of the right to speak and the authority of kings and judges emphasizes the constant involvement of the act of speaking out with the institutions of power and authority; see e.g. Vernant, J.-P., Les origines de la pensée grecque (1962)Google Scholar.

85. Halperin, J., Before pastoral: Theocritus and the ancient tradition of bucolic poetry (1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Van Sickle, J., ‘Theocritus and the development of bucolic genre’, Ramus 5 (1976) 18–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berger 3-5.

86. is a suggestion of Heinsius accepted by most editors. The MSS. reading has recently been defended by Hatzikosta, S., A stylistic commentary on Theocritus Idyll 7 (1982)Google Scholar ad loc.

87. For the evidence that Sicelidas is a pseudonym for Asclepiades, see Gow ad loc. For Philetas, see Pfeiffer, R., History of classical scholarship (1968) 88–103Google Scholar, and the interesting speculations of Bowie, E., ‘Theocritus' seventh Idyll, Philetas and Longus’, CQ n.s.35 (1985) 67–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

88. At one pole is Rosenmeyer (‘Theocritus, faithful to the demands of naiveté, avoid syntheses, and rewards us with a world savored as discrete units’ 62). At another, Lawall, G., Theocritus' Coan pastorals. A poetry book (1967)Google Scholar argues for a coherent book structure for Theocritus' pastoral poems. Segal 176-209 points to various connections between poems, but falls short of proposing that they constitute ‘the same kind of unity as Vergil's “Eclogue Book” 179.

89. See Idyll 5.

90. A question raised also by Gow (152 ad 78).

91. Both honey and bees are frequently associated with poetic composition. See Jebb on Bacchylides 10 (9). 10; Pucci 27-9.

92. This metaphor of poetic composition – the poet as mouthpiece for the Muses' song – is interestingly different from Lycidas' own image of toil ( 51). See Berger 16-20; Segal 229; Rosenmeyer 270.

93. Compare e.g. Ap. Rhod. 2.703-13.

94. Dover 155.

95. Dover 159.

96. For the varied answers to these questions, see Segal 135-48; also Van Groningen, B., ‘Quelques problèmes de la poésie bucolique grecque’, Mnem. 4.12 (1959) 32–8Google Scholar.

97. Dover comments (159) that ‘the bucolic element’ constitutes ‘twelve lines out of thirty-two’!

98. On the associations of water and poetry, see Kambylis, A., Die Dichterweihe und ihre Symbolik (1965) 110–24Google Scholar.

99. Interestingly, according to the commentators, Parnassus and Castalia are not associated with inspiration in Greek poetry, but as Segal writes (156-7) in this context particularly after 92, there may be an association of these nymphs with inspiration and the Muses. Does the Latin association of inspiration with these locales come from Ennius only?

100. See Gow 111-12 (ad v. 110f).

101. As well as the linguistic details listed in the editions (especially Hatzikosta, S., A stylistic commentary on Theocritus Idyll 7 (1982)Google Scholar), the mentions of Polyphemus, Chiron and Herakles readily call to mind the myths central to much earlier literature and art. Cf. Segal 153-6.

102. Théocrite, Simichidas et les Thalysies’, AC 37 (1968) 491–553Google Scholar.

103. WS n.f.11 (1979) 49Google Scholar.

104. Snell, B., The discovery of the mind trans. Rosenmeyer, T. (1953) 283Google Scholar.

105. Od.11.121ff; 23.248-55. For different view on these lines see Segal 158-60.

106. See notes 66 and 70.

107. Thanks to Neil Hopkinson and John Henderson with whom I discussed this paper.