This commentary is part of a paired set of commentary and forthcoming edited volume bringing together the lesser-known and anonymous fragments of Greek lyric poetry, with fragments from the early Archaic period to those attributed to the emperor Julian. There are four sections (known authors, the carmina popularia, carmina conuiualia and fragmenta adespota), followed by addenda and indices rerum, nominum and uerborum. Outside of the sympotic tradition and the lyric poems attributed to well-known authors, Greek lyric as a connected tradition is not well represented by commentaries. Malcolm Davies’ volume remedies this lack for the lesser-known fragments, and one of the benefits of having a full commentary such as this is Davies’ ability to highlight shared themes and larger connections within Greek lyric. There are two exceptions to the commentary’s comprehensiveness however: the entries for Terpander and Timotheus do not include any commentary but direct the reader to existing commentaries elsewhere. These two exceptions do not detract from the strengths of the overall comprehensiveness of the volume; at the same time, however, Davies’ tendency to summarize and direct to existing scholarship, rather than advance new readings, suggests that the commentary will be most useful to those beginning projects on lyric and graduate students.
The commentary notes on individual poets and fragments are, for the most part, detailed, explicating content and the wider mythological context over syntax and grammar; there is discussion of poetic genres as well. Editorial choices are occasionally introduced as are scholarly debates about dating, authorship and so forth. Occasionally, entries will simply be a cf. note (as at Cydias 715) or a quote (as at Licymnias 773), and the division between fragment and paratext is sometimes muddled (as with Ion of Chios). While such instances may affect individuals working on specific texts, they do not detract from the strengths of the commentary as a whole.
The main difficulty with this commentary is that it lacks the complementary edition of fragments. This means that, currently, six volumes are required for the fragments and testimonia that Davies comments on: Poetae melici Graeci (PMG), Supplementum lyricis Graecis (SLG) and David A. Campbell’s Greek Lyric II–VI Loeb volumes. The bibliography is also difficult to manage as there are three places for full bibliographic details to be found: the list of abbreviations for bibliography cited throughout in the Preface, the opening bibliography for some poets and anonymous fragments, and within the notes on the fragments themselves. A complete list of works cited at the end of the volume would have been helpful. A more recent bibliography for some of the poets (for example, Telesilla) would also have been useful, particularly in light of the increased interest in Greek lyric poetry.
While acknowledging that no volume can include everything, I did find it odd that Davies engaged little throughout with the sympotic lyric tradition (elegy, iambus and archaic monody) beyond Theognis and some of the sympotika. This is particularly egregious for frs 856–57 (= Tyrt. 15–16W), for which readers are directed to Euripides, Pindar and Homer for comparison, but not to Tyrtaeus, though μὴ ϕϵιδόμϵνοι τᾶς ζωᾶς (‘not sparing our lives’, fr. 856.5) parallels ψυχέων μηκέτι ϕϵιδόμϵνοι (‘no longer sparing our lives’, Tyrt. 10.14W; cf. also Tyrt. 11.29–34 with fr. 856.3–4). Other instances of missing potential comparisons include Philoxenus of Cythera’s poetry, where sympotic fragments on wine and truth or wine and talkativeness are not brought in; fr. 868, whose possible political metaphor around Pittacus Davies does not connect to Alcaeus’ fight against the tyrant; and scholia 884 and 909, which are not connected to Solon’s poetry. Instead, Davies draws parallels with Horace and the English ballad tradition throughout the volume, the latter of which feels especially out of place as he does not give a justification for using this tradition for comparison over contemporary Greek traditions.
There are a few other oddities to note. Davies does not give dates (approximate or otherwise) even when noting that fr. 871 is possibly the earliest extant piece of Greek lyric. The chronological spread of the Greek lyric tradition is immense; a timeline and/or dates whenever possible would have been helpful. Language is occasionally questionable: Myrtis, Praxilla and Telesilla are ‘poetesses’ rather than ‘(female) poets’, while the feminine call for the mill to grind in fr. 869 is a ‘naïve request’ unlike previous masculine or non-gendered requests for inanimate objects to fulfil their purpose. Fr. 938 (f) has a ‘naively expressed’ prayer for wealth, but the elaborate scene Davies draws (294–95) does not support the qualification of the wish as such, nor the comparison to Hipponax 32.3W which lacks engagement with the archaic iambic tradition.
Overall, Davies’ commentary is a useful volume, primarily because he collects so much material under a single cover, though it will be more useful when the complementary edited text is available.
