It is not going too far to say that Callimachus’ epigram on the loss of his friend Heraclitus (2 Pf. = 34 G–P) encapsulates, in a small poem, the greatest narrative of one friend’s loss of another in Greek culture: Achilles’ loss of Patroclus. To start with the term μόρος: in the Iliad this term is used of the fated death of major heroes (for example of Achilles and of Hector):

There are more Homeric reflections in Callimachus’ epigram lamenting the death of his friend. ἥλιον κατεδύσαμεν (line 3) is Callimachus’ variation on the Homeric formulaic phrase ἠέλιος κατέδυ, here rendered as metaphor and given human agents. Line 3 ἐν λέσχῃ reflects a Homeric problem. This phrase occurs at Od. 18.329 where Melantho tells Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, to go sleep in the λέσχη; the scholia to this passage debate whether this Homeric hapax legomenon might be some sort of public shelter for vagrants.Footnote ²

σποδιή is likewise a Homeric hapax legomenon, a famous one, the embers in which Odysseus hides the brand with which he will blind the Cyclops Polyphemus: ὡς δ᾽ ὅτε τις δαλὸν σποδιῇ ἐνέκρυψε μελαίνῃ, ‘as when someone conceals a brand in black ash’. This is a remarkably weighted Homeric epigram. And then a further observation: line 5 ἀηδόνες is conventionally understood to refer to the poetry of Heraclitus and may even be the title by which a collection of his poetry was known. However, ἀηδών is also a hapax legomenon in Homer (and so one of three in this epigram). In one of the most famous passages of the Odyssey, Penelope compares her own weeping for her lost husband to that of Pandareus’ daughter Procne, changed into a nightingale, forever lamenting the death of her son Itys: ὡς δ᾽ ὅτε Πανδαρέου κούρη, χλωρηῒς ἀηδών (19.518).

The poet thus evokes the weeping Penelope as analogy of his own sorrow, and this is yet another instance of fluidity of gender in Callimachus, a feature that figures in our next example of the poet’s use of Homer. And while there are many ἀηδόνες in Greek lyric and tragic poetry, this is a markedly Homeric epigram, one that plays throughout with Homeric language and Homeric imagery. I would suggest that Callimachus, in a short poem where he already effects a novel ‘Homerism’ in the rendition of κατεδύσαμεν, is aware that ἀηδών is a hapax legomenon in Homer, and that recalling that one poignant passage, and that specific grief, is the point here. Callimachus figures the Homeric μόρος of a beloved friend in terms of the great longing for a beloved husband, Penelope’s for Odysseus. The two one-time Homeric images of Odysseus and Penelope live again in Callimachus’ epigram, alongside that of Achilles’ grief for Patroclus. So Callimachus continues his love, memory and grief for his friend in terms of the two great loves of Homeric epic, and such a small poem in truth encapsulates so much. It does this through the juxtaposition of recollections of especially memorable moments in Homer’s poetry in six lines, almost in the same way that, for example, a cameo can, in miniature, encompass a much larger reality.

Callimachus, Homeric epic and the nightingale. Where else do we encounter this particular combination? The Aetia prologue, line 16 ἀ̣[ηδονίδες] δ̣’ ὧδε μελιχρ[ό]τεραι, ‘so nightingales are sweeter’. A.E. Housman’s brilliant supplement has long found favour with the poem’s readers. Yet there may be reason to reconsider it, especially in light of a new reading of the Heraclitus epigram. A.S. Hunt, the editor of P.Oxy. 2079 fr. 1 (and P.Oxy. 2167 fr. 1) gives only Housman’s supplement (ap. Hu. recte, ut nunc uidetur); Pfeiffer in his 1949 edition of Callimachus notes the parallels of Adesp. Anth. Pal. 9.184.9 Ἀλκμᾶνος ἀηδόνες and Hesychius α 1498 Latte–Cunningham ἀηδόνα ᾠδήν. However, Callimachus’ two other uses of μελίχρως do not give a clear answer: these are Epigr. 27.2 and fr. 118.6. The latter, a fragment possibly from Aitia 1 (Apollo’s temple at Anaphe),Footnote ³ has the fragmentary sixth line ] … …. ιηϲι μελιχροτ[;Footnote ⁴ the former is particularly striking, ἀλλ᾽ὀκνέω μὴ τὸ μελιχρότατον | τῶν ἐπέων ὁ Σολεὺς ἀπεμάξατο, ‘but I daresay upon the very sweetest of his hexameters the Solean modelled himself’, as it shows the honey sweetness of μελιχρότατον adopted in the same poetological context as the song of the ἀηδόνες in our Epigr. 2.Footnote ⁵

In their acutely intelligent 2003 study of Callimachus’ Epigr. 51 Pf. (15 G–P) Andrej and Ivana Petrovic posited that the epigram was a reading of the Aetia’s conclusion, the joining of The Lock of Berenice to the four-book elegiac poem.Footnote ⁶ The present study suggests that another epigram, 2 Pf. = 34 G–P, references the long poem’s prologue. Both studies suggest that a careful reading of Callimachus’ epigrams in light of his longer works may well be in order—but this is the topic of a longer and very detailed study. For the present, let us enjoy the two epigrams that frame the Aetia, celebrating its end and its beginning.

I close with a final observation. sillyboi were small tags attached to ancient papyri that gave essential information on the contents of the scroll: name of author, title of work. Callim. Epigr. 27 Pf. (= 56 G–P) Ἡσιόδου τό τ᾽ ἄεισμα can be said to imitate in poetic form the sillybos for Aratus’ Phaenomena; Epigr. 51 Pf. the form of the sillybos for the first papyrus roll of the Aetia final four-book edition. I have argued elsewhere for something of the same with Catullus 1. With Epigr. 2 Pf. (34 G–P) we see a different variation, two Homeric epics encapsulated in one epigram. Once again, Callimachus uses the small to encapsulate the great, which is, as it were, the function of the sillybos.