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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2014
Much has been written about the question of oral poetry in the earliest attested phases of Greek literature, but not enough attention has yet been paid to the existing internal evidence concerning the authority of actual poetic performance. This essay is meant to highlight this authority and its role in authorisation, that is, in the conferring of authorship. Since the first attested identification of an author in Greek literature takes place in the Hesiodic Theogony, where the figure of Hesiod names himself as the poet of this colossal poem (Hēsiodon, Th. 22), it seems fitting that this very act of self-identification should serve as the focus of inquiry. Further, since the poet defines himself in terms of a dramatised encounter with the Muses, who are represented as giving him the two gifts of a sceptre of authority and poetic inspiration itself, it also seems fitting to take with utmost seriousness the actual wording that describes this encounter. The poet's precisely-worded claim to have received from the Muses the power of telling the absolute truth is key, I shall argue, to his authorship.
1. For example Lanata, G., Poetica Pre-Platonica: Testimonianze e Frammenti (Florence 1963), 24fGoogle Scholar. For a different view, see West, M.L., Hesiod: Theogony (Oxford 1966), 162Google Scholar, who proposes instead that the opposition is between Hesiodic and other sorts of didactic poetry. There is reason to think, however, that other Hesiodic passages do indeed refer to Homeric poetry: see Rosen, R., ‘Poetry and Sailing in Hesiod’s Works and Days’, ClAnt 9 (1990), 99–113Google Scholar, with reference to Works and Days 618–94.
2. Nagy, G., Greek Mythology and Poetics (Ithaca 1990; reprinted with corrections 1992), 44–47Google Scholar (from ch. 3, a rewritten version of my article ‘Hesiod’ in Luce, T. J. [ed.], Ancient Writers [New York 1982], 43–72Google Scholar).
3. Nagy (n.2 above), 46f.; cf. 44f., where, following Svenbro, J., La parole et le marbre: Aux origines de la poétique grecque (Lund 1976), 50–59Google Scholar, I compared pseudea polla legein etumoisin hotnoia (‘to tell many fallacies that look like genuine things’) at Theogony 27 with the expression pseudea polla legōn etumoisin homoia (‘telling many fallacies that look like genuine things’) at Odyssey 19.203, with reference to one of the ‘Cretan lies’ of Odysseus. The contrast in this case, from the standpoint of my argument, is between a supposedly unique frame-epic which is the Odyssey and a multitude of varied and mutually contradictory odysseys—local epics, as it were—told by a disguised Odysseus or other itinerants to validate their ad hoc interests.
4. Nagy (n.2 above), 53–61; cf. Thalmann, W.G., Conventions of Form and Thought in Early Greek Epic Poetry (Baltimore 1984), 135 and 227n.5Google Scholar, following Minton, W.W., ‘The Proem-Hymn of Hesiod’s Theogony’, TAPA 101 (1970), 357–77Google Scholar. On the ‘authenticity’ of Hesiod’s declared vision of the Muses, see Calame, C., Le récti en Grèce ancienne: énontiations et représentations du poète (Paris 1986), 66f.Google Scholar; I agree with Calame‘s formulation, except that I view the description of Hesiod‘s experience with the Muses through the prism, as it were, of a diachronic perspective.
5. For various different views on the ‘authorship’ of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, see the survey of Clay, J.S., The Politics of Olympus: Form and Meaning in the Major Homeric Hymns (Princeton 1989), 49n.101Google Scholar, with whom I agree in her emphasis on the basic fact that ‘antiquity believed the blind man of Chios to be Homer’.
6. Nagy, G., Pindar’s Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past (Baltimore 1990), 43 and 375–77Google Scholar; cf. Clay (n.5 above), 53 with n.111 and 55 with n.116. The question whether Dēliades or ‘Delian Maidens’ is the name given to a local chorus of Delos (cf. Thucydides 3.104.5: ‘for he [= “Homer”], having sung [humnēsas] of the Delian chorus [khoros] of women’) does not affect my argument that Dēliades is also the name given to the local Muses of Delos, if indeed it is one of the traditional functions of a chorus, as a song-and-dance ensemble, to perform a mimesis or re-enactment of divinities: see the discussion of the Leukippides of Sparta (Pausanias 3.16.1) and other examples in Nagy, op.cit. 346f.
7. Nagy (n.2 above), 54; cf. again Clay (n.5 above), 53 with n.111 and 55 with n.116.
8. Nagy (n.2 above), 56–61. On the equivalence of what I describe here as pan-Hellenic and what is explicitly described as Olympian in archaic Greek poetics, see op.cit. 46 (and 10, 37); also Clay (n.5 above), 9f. For a critique, with bibliography, of various solutions that posit a distinction between the local Helikonian Muses and what I call the pan-Hellenic Olympian Muses, see Thalmann (n.4 above) 134f. My own formulation differs from the earlier solutions in allowing for a preconceived overlap, in terms of the Theogony itself, between the Helikonian and Olympian Muses. The specialised category of Olympian, as a pan-Hellenic construct, is to be viewed as potentially included by the category of Helikonian: ‘Hesiod’s relationship with the Helikonian Muses represents an older and broader poetic realm that the poet then streamlines into the newer and narrower one of a pan-Hellenic theogony by way of synthesising the Helikonian with the Olympian Muses’ (Nagy, op.cit. 60). The operating principle, I propose, is that local versions may include pan-Hellenic aspects, while pan-Hellenic versions exclude distinctly local aspects (ibid.). Thus the objection mentioned by Thalmann (op.cit. 134f.), to the effect that the Muses are named as Olympian already at Theogony 25, before their formal transfer to Olympus, is not an obstacle to my formulation. The Muses of Helikon are already potentially Olympian; once they become explicitly Olympian, however, they are exclusively Olympian.
9. In Nagy (n.2 above, 48) I argue further that the generic poet’s epithet ‘therapōn [attendant] of the Muses’ (as at Theogony 100) is a traditional characterisation that ‘literally identifies Hesiod with these divinities and implicitly entails not only his ritual death but also his subsequent worship as a cult hero’. I also argue, more generally, that various themes reflecting the herocult of Hesiod are literally ‘built into the poetry of Hesiod’ (ibid.). I find that the critique by Griffith, M., ‘Personality in Hesiod’, ClAnt 2 (1983), 49n.51Google Scholar, does not take into account the full extent of my argumentation, especially with reference to [1] my use of the word ‘heroic’, [2] my insistence on the accretive nature of vita traditions, and [3] my dependence on the insights of Brelich, A., Gli eroi greci (Rome 1958), 322Google Scholar.
10. Nagy (n.6 above), 79, in response to Griffith (n.9 above), 58n.82.
11. Extensive discussion in Nagy (n.6 above), 258 and 373n.185.
12. Nagy (n.2 above), 47, following Chantraine, P., Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque (Paris 1968–80), 137f. and 417Google Scholar. I should stress in this context that the purpose of connecting the etymology of a name or any other word with its current usage in a given poetic tradition is to establish a continuum of meaning within tradition. In the case of the etymology suggested here for Hēsiodos, Bader, F., La langue des dieux, ou l’hermétisme des poètes indo-européens (Pisa 1989), 269Google Scholar, agrees with the explanation of -odos as cognate with audē (‘voice’), though she proposes a different root for Hēsi-, which she derives from *seH-(‘sew, stitch’) rather than *yeH1- (‘emit’).
13 Nagy, G., The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry (Baltimore 1979), 296–300Google Scholar.
14 Nagy (n.13 above), 296f. Bader (n.12 above), 269n.114, attempts to connect the same root, *seH-, which she posits for the Hēsi- of Hēsiodos, also with the Hom- of Homēros, though she makes clear that her proposed etymology poses some phonological difficulties. While I agree with her that homēros in the sense of ‘hostage’ may possibly be compatible with the metaphorical world of the root *seH-, I suggest that homo- (‘together’) plus the root of arariskō (‘fit, join’) is an even more plausible etymology for a noun meaning ‘hostage’, given the social metaphors inherent in the derivatives of arariskō (cf. Chantraine [n.12 above], 101f., especially with reference to arthmos [‘bond, league, friendship’] and related forms). There is a striking semantic parallel to phōnēi homēreusai (‘fitting [the song] together with their voice’), describing the Muses at Theogony 39: it is artiepeiai (‘having words fitted together’), describing the Muses at Theogony 29 (Nagy [n. 13 above], 297).
15. Nagy (n.2 above), 48.
16. Extensive discussion, with a variety of examples, in Nagy (n.6 above), Chapter 12.
17. Nagy (n.2 above), 59, with reference to the examples collected by West (n.1 above), 1–16; also Detienne, M., Les Maîtres de vérité dans la Grèce archaïque2 (Paris 1973), 17Google Scholar.
18. Nagy (n.2 above), 59, following Detienne (n. 17 above), 16 and 53–60, with extensive discussion of the semantics of krainō (‘authorise’).
19. I agree with the formulation of West (n.1 above), 162, concerning the intent of the Muses’ quoted words, that ‘Hesiod has hitherto been preoccupied with false things’ (emphasis mine). The parallel wording of the Muses in Epimenides F 1, as adduced by West (ibid.), makes such an intent explicit. See also Griffith (n.9 above), 48.
20. Nagy (n.2 above), 49. Moreover, the idea of the shepherd can serve as a symbol for the making of a king and the establishment of his authority: Nagy (n.13 above), 164 para. 22 n.5, with further references.
21. There is an admirable survey of the semantics of alēthēs, and of various interpretations, in Cole, T., ‘Archaic Truth’, QUCC 13 (1983), 7–28Google Scholar, who resists Heidegger’s formulation of an ‘objective’ truth value inherent in the word (the truth not ‘hidden’ in what is perceived). Cole’s own interpretation is a reformulation of earlier solutions insisting on a ‘subjective’ truth value (the truth not ‘forgotten’ by the one who perceives). He suggests that ‘the forgetting excluded by alētheia involves primarily the process of transmission—not the mental apprehension on which the transmission is based’ (12). Thus alētheia refers ‘not simply to non-omission of pieces of information through forgetting or failure to take notice or ignoring, but also to not forgetting from one minute to the next what was said a few minutes before, and not letting anything, said or unsaid, slip by without being mindful of its consequences and implications’ (ibid.).
22. Vernant, J. P., Mythe et pensée chez les Grecs2 (Paris 1985; from a chapter first published in 1965), 108–36Google Scholar.
23. Cf. Thalmann (n.4 above), 147, paraphrasing Vernant. I have adopted his translation of Vernant’s ‘le fond de l’être’ as ‘the essence of being’, described as ‘the reality that lies beyond the sensible world’ (Thalmann, ibid.).
24. Detienne (n.17 above), 9–27.
25. Thalmann (n.4 above), 148 and 230n.31, following Detienne (n.17 above), 75–77.
26. Thalmann, ibid.
27. Thalmann, ibid., following Detienne (n.17 above) and Pucci, P., Hesiod and the Language of Poetry (Baltimore 1977)Google Scholar.
28. Nagy (n.6 above), 58, following Detienne (n.17 above), 22–27.
29. Nagy (n.6 above), 59–61.
30. Martin, R.P., The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad (Ithaca 1989)Google Scholar.
31. More on the terms in Nagy (n.6 above), 5f. et passim.
32. Martin (n.30 above), 29.
33. My emphasis.
34. Extended discussion in Nagy (n.6 above), 8f. and 31ff.
35. Martin (n.30 above), 10–26.
36. Martin (n.30 above), 12.
37. Ibid.
38. Martin (n.30 above), 26–30.
39. Martin (n.30 above), 30.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid.
42. Nagy (n.6 above), 30, and again at 31.
43. Martin (n.30 above), 30–37; ‘every speech called “winged words” is meant to make the listener do something’ (31).
44. Extensive discussion of the relevant passages in Nagy (n.6 above), 65–68, 134, 203n.17 and 423f.
45. Detailed discussion at Nagy (n.6 above), 58–61.
46. Martin (n.30 above), 44.
47. Martin (n.30 above), 80, who adds: ‘As a general rule, characters in the Iliad do not remember anything simply for the pleasure of memory. Recall has an exterior goal.’
48. On the function of the myth of Meleager as retold by Phoenix to Achilles and the rest of the audience, see Nagy (n.6 above) 196f., 205, 253 and 310n.164, following up on Nagy (n.13 above), 105–11.
49. Extensive discussion by Martin (n.30 above), 77–88; of special interest is 78.
50. Martin (n.30 above), 40.
51. Nagy (n.6 above), 65f.
52. Nagy (n.6 above), 66–68.
53. In fact, alēthea muthēsasthai (‘speak true things’) is attested as a textual variant of alēthea gērusasthai (‘announce true things’) in Hesiod Theogony 28: see Nagy (n.6 above), 68n.84.
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid.
56. Ibid.
57. Nagy (n.6 above), 52–81.
58. Nagy (n.6 above), 66.
59. It is in this context that we should compare pseudea polla … etumoisin homoia (“many fallacies that look like genuine things”) at Theogony 27 with oud’ ei pseudea men poiois etumoisin homoia (‘not even if you make fallacies look like genuine things’) at Theognis 713, with reference to the storytelling abilities of Nestor (714).
60. In making this suggestion, I am following the advice that I have received from Richard P. Martin (per litteras 11 August 1992), who has kindly read and criticised a preliminary draft of this paper.
61. Nagy (n.6 above), 70f.
62. Griffith, M., ‘Contest and Contradiction in Early Greek Poetry’, in Griffith, M. and Mastronarde, D.J. (eds.), Cabinet of the Muses: Essays on Classical and Comparative Literature in Honor of Thomas G. Rosenmeyer (Atlanta 1990), 194fGoogle Scholar.
63. Griffith (n.62 above), 205n.40. Here he cross-refers to 204n.34, where in turn he refers to his 1983 article (n.9 above), especially his remarks at 46f. I responded to those remarks in Nagy (n.6 above), 79. The forthcoming work to which Griffith refers can now be cited as Nagy op. tit. 57–65, with special reference to the Works and Days of Hesiod.
