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Metaphors and Allusive Language in Greek Lyric Poetry

Author(s): W. R. HardieReviewed work(s):Source: The Classical Review, Vol. 5, No. 5 (May, 1891), pp. 193-195Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

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T h e Classical Review

MAY 1891.

METAPHORS AND ALLUSIVE LANGUAGE IN GREEK LYRIC POETRY:

[With special reference to Mr. Bury's Ed. of the Nemean Odes of Pindar].

LITERARY reminiscence or association is a

peculiar form of art, a form of which Virgilwas the great master in ancient times, andwhich the present laureate has cultivatedwith perhaps greater success than any othermodern poet. No better illustration couldbe found than a line which the latter ad-

dresses to the former-

I salute thee, Mantovano, I that loved theesince my days began.

The Italian adjective 'Mantovano' raises

up recollections of the 'anima corteseMantovana ' that was Dante's guide throughthe Inferno and Purgatory and all but ob-tained admission to Paradise itself.

Ancient poetry is full of reminiscencesmore or less resembling this: Greek

poetry, because in its best period it was reallypopular, and a poet could rely upon thesensitiveness of his audience to such effects;Latin poetry, because it came after and imi-tated the great literature of Greece and wasaddressed to readers who were familiar with

that literature. BOIckh ointed out that theoutcry of Clytaemnestra in Sophocles re-calls the words which her victim Agamem-non utters in the play of Aeschylus-- pot

-x7rX-r•y/xaL-andlsewhere in tragedy we find

such facts as that approximation to Homerin subject brings with it suggestion of

Homeric language. The Ehesos is theonly extant play which comes directly fromHomer and it contains phrases like ' AVKt'wv

ayo av8pwv' as well as an imaginative am-plification of what is heard of briefly and

without explanation in the Doloneia-themusic of the shepherd's pipe (RI. x. init.

avXwvOvp7-7owvT'evor"v

: Rhesos, 1. 552 '8&

VE/LOV•LaT" I&avWroL/VwaVKTL/pP/AOVVpLt7-

7o~ ihv KaTaKoV•o). In the Ajax-Trojan,though not Homeric, in subject-there are

many echoes of the language of Homer-•tXKE3f ov, atOcwvt-l'w, and the like. Homerwas so familiar to the Greeks that it is not

necessary to suppose that Sophocles tookthese particular phrases from the 'IXelMtLKp in which the story of Ajax's deathwas treated : but even if he did, the case isnot materially altered, for the 'cyclic' poethad first taken them from Homer.

The following passages in Pindar seem tobe best accounted for by a passage inHomer :

01. x. 9: opaiv

f/fL4OViXU/coLE0VcLVo7ra KVbLa KaTLaKXVOr-tL PIOV K.T.X.

Nern.vii. 62: iMarog wTEpoa` oh ov E'

Jvvp'ayWvXE'OS'T'//XovTV TOO .

In II. xxi. (1. 257 f.) there is a similedrawn from irrigation :-

WO8•"TVqpOXETT7-YO

ro Kpqv7qJtEXavcLVPOV/L q3VTCLKCLL 7jWrOVS1TtL oo'vVl/E/LOvEV57.

TOVbLEV E7rpOpEOVrTOS

Oq- 0(/L E8E 37arcLacrat

6XXEVVat, TO E T KW KcLTEL/3O/JEVOVEXcp VCeL

XWPWEVrpoaXEL, wvEtU T KalIOv• y o v Ta.

The fqlo&s and ayovra of Homer recur inPindar's q/a0ov Xto-o'a-•vav

nd &ywv: so thatthe picture in the latter passage alsowould seem to be that which Virgil has re-

produced in the lines:-NO. XLII. VOL. V. P

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194 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW.

illa cadens raucum per levia murmursaxa ciet scatebrisque arentia temperat

ar va.

The tribute of song is as welcome and asrefreshing to the victor-or in this case thevictor's father-as the rill of water to the

thirsty fields : compare Isthm. v. 64, XapTomvap 8 ov0 KaXXroTa8pO/o. Mr. Bury inter-prets differently: he brings the pods intoconnection with the preceding words-

vLOa7o TE'

p o /4&ov E vap' aywv

KXE'OfE'l)TV1/ovlvEo-w-

and, laying stress on OKOTELVOd,upposes thatthe streams are to reflect the

gloryof

Sogenes. Against this, there is the argu-ment from literary reminiscence, the factthat a rushing stream has usually a surface

incapable of reflecting anything accurately,and the general character of Pindaric

imagery. Mr. Bury says (intr. p. xvii.):' Pindar does not mix images incongruously,though sometimes they follow in rapid suc-cesssion.' But in practice he does not seemto act upon the latter clause. He either

attempts to show-sometimes by rather

desperate expedients-that the successive

images are congruous, or he removes an in-congruous one by emendation (for example,suggesting ingeniously 'XKVOVO%,XKvovoR for

JKovag in the well-known passage, 01. vi. 82,f. 8'$av OTELV''l yXWc'o-&'KdvaRtyvpR).In Nerm. vii. 61-3, -KOTEtVoV is so familiaran image that the hearer's attention wouldnot be arrested by it, and unless it was, hewould not connect it closely with what fol-lowed. Another metaphor from a stream

may be mentioned here:-

[EXElpov' aidtav

poacit MourayvV'faXEv (Nenr. vii. 11).

The picture intended is that of throwing astone into a torrent, when the water breaksinto sparkling foam around it: or perhapsthat of causing a fountain to 'play forthin joy from all its pipes,' to which Cratinus

compared his own eloquence (fr. 186, ed.Kock) :-

KavaXOVOTL7r-yag, 808EK KpOVVOV TO

O'TO/ta,'IXtLrco v

ryv~,dpvyt.

It is not necessary to definitely connectLEMXlpovw-whichs applied to the atcdl--

with this image. Nor again in Istlhmn. i.18:-

O-'rpO'

crope devov a"KpOv

KXvcLL~ i7FEwv poczzcw E4lKVr)TrcL vyEv--

is it very difficult to recognize three success-sive and distinct images. All are familiar

(flower or crown-stream--yoke or car), andthe more familiar an image is, the less diffi-

culty is there in combining it with others.Mr. Bury not only tries to connect them,but seems to think that the same word could

convey two distinct images at once: cf. hisnote on iii. 41.

Literary precedent is not sufficiently con-sidered in his interpretation of the predictionof Tiresias in Nnm. i. :

Kat 7Lva r vV TrXaytiJ

dv8pWV dp 7TExovTa,ToVEXOpdOTaTOV

VO'•tV

8'W'EtvIxOdPOVNene. i. 64).

Here he suggests rwC'LoELV,a supposed Aeolicfuture oforro't70lK

give him the draught ofdeath to drink). This, to begin with, raisesthe question of the literary use of dialects.It is not obvious why Pindar should use anAeolic form in writing for a Dorian victor.And since each department of literature inGreece had its own artistic canons, the factthat Alcaeus used -rxi (imper. =-r0t) and

•xrvwdoes not prove that Pindar would do

so in an ode of victory. For the rest, thedifficult construction may supply a ground foremendation: but it is useless to discuss the

probability of the phrase 860vat do'povith-out bringing into court the Homeric :

7r&po rot8 al o va Wo tw.

The genuineness of that line has beendoubted, but even if interpolated it mightbe earlier than Pindar, and there is no verysolid reason for rejecting it at all (seeAmeis ad loc. -I1. viii. 166). In the sameode, 1 13, it is useless to discuss the mean-

ing of

arrwEpE vv yXatavvtva vio-w,

without considering the passage quoted byArist. from an unknown poet :

orrEl•pVOEOKTL•oTaVcXya

(said of the sun). Later or earlier than

Pindar, a Greek poet did use that metaphor,and it would be suitable here: 'Scatter

bright (or fertilizing) rays of song upon theisle of Sicily,' irradiate it with the beams of

poesy.Apart from definite suggestion of some

earlier passage, there are words which havepermanently acquired a peculiar shade of

meaning. Some of these are well dealt with

by Mr. Bury. cryyop for example has byconnection with the mysteries come to meana 'light that never was on sea or land'-

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THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 195

which he does not quote, nor the most un-mistakable passage in the Frogs, where the

mystae sing:--

Ldvooty~'p L/uv XtovKat

0•7 o XapOvErtv.

Another word of subtle meaning isawrolo

(B. note on p. 33). 0WEcoVgain was a favour-ite word with Greek lyric poets, thoughPindar makes little use of it in the extantodes (01. iii. 22, aOEoLsr' Kp7/tVOtvAX(Eov).It did not mean 'divine' but full of the

presence of spirits, haunted, the idea ex-

pressed in Aeschylus, Eumen. :-

K(pVK'S7r7TpaKOL , opvvLa L• vco v a (T po /.

So Helicon isZO4.o,

to Hesiod, as haunted

by the Muses: so too Euripides speaks ofthe haunted caves of Pytho (cdTEcd ' dvrpa8pdKKoviTo,IPhoen.232). (See v. WilamowitzPhil. Unt. Isyllus, excursus I.)

A quite different question arises aboutwords which are supposed to have somereference to definite historical or contem-

porary persons and facts. Of veiled al-

lusions Mr. Bury finds a considerable number

in Pindar, probably following Mr. Verrall'splausible suggestion that Korax and Tisias,the early Sicilian rhetors, are intended bythe KdopaKEf 01. ii. 96. He finds for ex-

ample inpcafvXadKavAem.ii. 106 a parodyof arival poet's name BaKXvXl~'a, supposing thatPindar coined the word for the occasion.It occurs all but certainly in Sappho (fr. 27,B4 ualvXadKTraV, where Hermann was probablyright in restoring uacvXadKav). Apart fromthat objection, neither this nor Mr. Ver-rall's proposal is in itself incredible : be-cause neither allusion

interruptsor distracts

the attention from a connected story or pic-

ture. But it is otherwise with an allusion

found by Mr. Bury inNern.

i. 46 (Heraclesstrangling the snakes) :-

ayXoLEVot3 XpOvoV

/vXhaan7rw7evev,V/XEovt,'Vrov.

Here he accepts Schmidt's XpoP4i0ohissing,death-rattle) and believes that it was meantto suggest the victor's name Xpod/to. Now,it is true that the Greeks were sensitive tothe significance of names and often regardedthem as revealing the working of a divine pur-pose. An utterance fraught with fate was

a'rqy

or KXqS7ov:t was an omen or o'pv3,

as Aristophanes tells us. But the passageswhere the

meaningof a name is

undoubtedlydiscussed are more or less deliberate andmore or less independent-they do not inter-

rupt some other chain of thought or seriesof images. IEvovv'oL cr(EC

8atlove~ IIpopyOE'aK.r.h. and ',;? or' wVoLaCev E' r 7brav Er--,rva ;ry 8OptlYaC/ppOvpLftVELtK^ O'EXEVaV K.T. X.

are explicit and artistic. But a play uponwords like Xp'do%,Xpodov, coming in themiddle of an exciting story, is inartistic.Either the reader's imagination is suddenlyarrested and he finds himself contemplatinga mere verbal subtlety, or, interested in the

story, he fails to perceive the allusion at all.And, in this particular passage, it is not soobvious why Xpo'vovhould be changed. Hekilled the snakes instantaneously; there isno length of time, it is objected. But

length of time is always relative: severalseconds is a long time compared with afraction of a second, and snakes do not dieor cease to move as soon as their throats areseized. If Zeus had reduced the snakes toashes instantaneously by a flash of lightning,' Xpovov' would have been impossible in the

description.But otherwise it is not im-

possible. W. R. HARDIE.

NOTES ON THUCYDIDES IV.

3. 3. r-v dTOXLV8arava•v.

This is usually ex-

plained as an unexampled causative use ofSa7ravav force to spend. So taken itdeserves all that Dr. Rutherford says of it.

But the phrase merely contains an extensionof the use of ro'XLvbeyond its usual limits:' to spend the state's substance.' I can quoteno precisely similar use of 7rOd'X,hough it isused for ' civic rights' in Dem. Mid. 549. 10,

-/VpL8tE.....EKELV.

TE KaL XOL 7V'r, 7V

7rdXLV,r T-vog, rv7FTLrTL••avL,

rS3 rtsag.Adv. Ste3ph.1126. 8, KalL7rdXLv V-qv AET-

poV K'T~(TqlEVOV. o also c. 106. 1. Some-

what similar is Cicero's use of praedes vend-ere, e.g. Phil. ii. 78, where Mr. King has thenote :-' praedes, properly the sureties them-

selves, is here used for their goods.' Dr.Rutherford considers 7qVv rdhXtvn adscript:

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