Any attempt to understand Hesiodic poetics must begin with the proem of the Theogony (1–115), where we find the most extensive exploration of poetic creativity and performance in the entire Hesiodic corpus. The Theogony defines good poetry as a mental diversion from the miseries of everyday life, a function best served when the subject matter pertains to the realm of the divine and/or the distant mythological past. The idea is introduced in Th. 53–62, as the birth of the Muses from Zeus and Mnemosyne establishes a genealogical connection that acknowledges the importance of memory in the composition and performance of oral poetry, but also evokes the cognitive process involved and underscores its commemorative aspect.Footnote 1 And yet, at the same time, the offspring of Memory are said to have been born “as forgetfulness of evils and as respite from worries” (λησμοσύνην τε κακῶν ἄμπαυμά τε μερμηράων, Th. 55). The poem develops this idea further in its portrayal of the ideal human poet in Th. 94–103. According to this passage, a successful poet is endowed by the Muses and Apollo with the gift to distract and soothe his human audience with his performance.Footnote 2 The language that describes the effect of poetry upon its audience here reiterates the tension between remembering and forgetting as well as the preoccupation with anxiety and its temporary relief expressed in Th. 53–62:Footnote 3
Unsurprisingly, escapist poetry is not concerned with its audience’s ‘here and now’ but focuses instead on gods and heroes. The Hesiodic text is vague, but Th. 100–01 probably encompasses not only heroic epic and hymnic poetry, as Clay has suggested,Footnote 4 but also theogonic and genealogical poems, as well as combinations of genealogical and heroic poetry, such as the Hesiodic Shield of Heracles.Footnote 5
The lyric poets Pindar and Bacchylides are certainly familiar with the idea of poetry as diversion, as their poems occasionally envision their own soothing effect.Footnote 6 Yet the main focus of scholars who have studied the contribution of Hesiodic ideas regarding poets and poetry to fifth-century lyric has been on two other, interconnected elements: the ideal of a close relationship between the poet and the Muses, and Hesiod’s claim to the truth. Early in the proem of the Theogony, the first-person voice, who identifies himself as ‘Hesiod’ (Th. 22), recounts the incident that transformed him from a shepherd into a poet, namely his encounter with the Muses on Helicon (Th. 22–34). After a brief initial utterance, the Muses gave Hesiod a staff of laurel (Th. 30–31) and breathed into him a divine voice (αὐδὴν / θέσπιν, Th. 31–32) that could divulge “what will be and was before,” i.e. what lies outside the immediate experience and limited knowledge of a mortal man (Th. 31–32).Footnote 7 The Muses then ordered Hesiod to sing of the immortals, starting and ending with the goddesses themselves (Th. 33–34).Footnote 8 Though brief, this account succeeds at establishing the poetic authority of the Hesiodic voice.
The words with which the Muses address Hesiod before they bestow their material and immaterial gifts upon him are central to Hesiodic poetics:
Cryptic as it is,Footnote 9 the contrast between a full account that leaves out nothing (ἀληθέα < ἀ- + λανθάνω) and falsehoods that resemble what is genuine (ψεύδεα … ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα) in Th. 27–28 has invited several interpretations.Footnote 10 For instance, the lines have been interpreted as a denunciation of the poetry that Hesiod produced before he met the Muses on Helicon.Footnote 11 The text, however, seems to indicate that, before his encounter with the goddesses, the narrator was just a shepherd and that the Muses’ epiphany marked the beginning of his life as a poet, not just the improvement of his poetry (Th. 22–23, 30–31; cf. WD 658–59).Footnote 12 Other interpretations view the passage as Hesiod’s attempt to justify fictional elements in his own poetry,Footnote 13 or, more recently, as an admission that the complex rhetoric of the Theogony includes a mix of truths and falsehoods.Footnote 14 The passage has also been interpreted as a commentary on the human inability to determine the degree of truthfulness in divinely inspired poetic language.Footnote 15 Reading the lines as an introspective acknowledgement of fictionality or as a disclaimer regarding the truthfulness of Hesiodic poetry may be attractive to modern scholars, but it becomes problematic when we take into consideration the context of Th. 26–28, which is an attempt to establish poetic authority. Though not entirely impossible, it is highly unlikely that the account of the poet’s initiation would begin by preemptively undercutting the truthfulness of Hesiodic poetry. Hence, another group of interpretations suggests that Th. 26–28 are polemical against other poets in general,Footnote 16 against poets who are dependent upon their patrons,Footnote 17 or, much more plausibly, against poets of rival theogonies.Footnote 18 Yet the most prominent polemical interpretation of these lines, which was already popular in antiquity and has left its mark on the biographical tradition,Footnote 19 views Th. 26–28 as an attack against Homeric heroic epic.Footnote 20 The reading of the passage as a contrast between Homer, through whom the Muses spread verisimilar lies, and Hesiod, the truthful poet, has been particularly encouraged by the verbal proximity between Th. 27 and Od. 19.203, where the Homeric narrator refers to the false autobiographical tale that Odysseus tells Penelope while still in disguise as “many lies … similar to genuine things” (ψεύδεα πολλὰ … ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα).Footnote 21
However one may interpret Th. 26–28, it is safe to say that, as a whole, Hesiod’s encounter with the Muses (Th. 22–34) establishes the poet’s claim to a truthful account of material that lies beyond his own experience. This elaborate construction of authority comes in sharp contrast to the proem of the WD (1–10), where Hesiod promises to reveal ἐτήτυμα (“things as they are”, WD 10) without recourse to any divine source.Footnote 22 The Muses are involved in this context only as a chorus invited to sing a hymn for their father Zeus (Δί᾽ ἐννέπετε, WD 2). Nonetheless, Hesiod emerges from both poems as a poet with access to truthful and genuine information about both the human and the divine realm. The authority that was bestowed upon the Hesiodic poetic voice in the Theogony still informs the WD, as the didactic voice admits his dependence on the Muses for matters of which he has no immediate experience (WD 646–62 on seafaring). After all, the narrator evokes his life-changing encounter with the Muses on Helicon when he recounts that he dedicated to the goddesses the trophy he won at the poetic competition in Chalcis (WD 658–59).
According to Hesiodic poetics, the Muses grant a truthful account to a poet only when they choose to (εὖτ᾿ ἐθέλωμεν, Th. 28). Therefore, singing ἀληθέα implies that the poet curries special favor with the goddesses and that his close relationship with them sets his poetry apart from fallacious competition (Th. 22–34). Scholars have occasionally linked these ideas to the persistent assertion of truthfulness found in the Pindaric corpus.Footnote 23 According to the most recent extensive iteration of this view, the reception of Hesiod in lyric poetry of the fifth century is supposedly framed through a distinction between the Hesiodic poetics of truth, to which Pindar and Bacchylides subscribe, and its Homeric counterpart that stands for seductive yet false poetry.Footnote 24 It is certainly true that the personae loquentes of Pindar as well as Bacchylides often draw attention to their close connection with the divine, especially the Muses, but this connection is not an indispensable part of lyric poetics, since there are several odes where the divine patronage of the Muses is absent.Footnote 25 Furthermore, whenever it does surface, the relationship between the mortal voice and its immortal patrons is treated with considerable variation,Footnote 26 which incidentally does not include recourse to a single crucial moment of initiation in the poet’s past. Overall, the lyric interaction with the Muses is not “Hesiod-like” at all, in that it is friendly and cooperative rather than hierarchical and abusive (Th. 26), and it allows the persona loquens an active role,Footnote 27 even when the latter presents itself as the Muses’ mouthpiece.Footnote 28
Pindar’s discourse about truth and falsehood is rich and varied, as Komornicka has shown,Footnote 29 but a joint consideration with the Bacchylidean corpus reveals that his perceived preoccupation with the truth is, in fact, a topos rather than a piece of Boeotian heritage, as Kirkwood puts it,Footnote 30 or a form of Hesiodic reception. In the Theogony, both truthfulness and falsehood are dependent on the whim of the Muses (Th. 27–28). A survey of Pindaric and Bacchylidean poetry yields that ἀλάθεια is a concept important enough to be invested with agencyFootnote 31 and addressed as a divinity,Footnote 32 but its dependence upon a divine source is only occasional.Footnote 33 E.g., when Pi. O.1 promotes its account of Pelops’ story through polemics against competing versions (28–35), it does not establish its validity with recourse to some authoritative divine source. It does credit, however, χάρις for rendering even incredible stories credible in the context of bestowing τιμή (30–32). Lyric poetry, and especially praise-poetry, has a pronounced social dimension that one does not find in Hesiodic poetry. The public performance of ἀλάθεια in lyric is determined largely by what is deemed socially appropriate and expected. Pindaric and Bacchylidean odes weave narratives that aim to extoll the laudandi directly or indirectly and thus rescue their deeds from obscurity. These narrative accounts are selective and controlled rather than exhaustive, and the personae loquentes are constantly aware of what is fitting for the occasion and the genre, and what is not.Footnote 34 Perhaps one of the most illustrative contemplations of lyric ἀλάθεια and its limitations occurs in Nemean 5:
In this passage, the speaker not only acknowledges the conditional value of a full and complete account that leaves nothing out (ἀλάθεια), but also restrains the narrative in accordance with those considerations and draws attention to this elision. Reading the lyric ἀλάθεια as a reception of Hesiod’s implicit claim to ἀληθέα in Th. 26–28, therefore, is reductive and misleading.
Finally, the argument that lyric associates Hesiod with its own poetics of truth in contrast with Homer, whose poetics supposedly represent deception, oversimplifies the reception of both poets in the lyric corpus.Footnote 35 Homer’s association with deceptive and false poetry is based on Nemean 7:
This is admittedly a challenging passage.Footnote 36 Lines 20–22 express the view that Homeric poetry has immortalized an enhanced account of Odysseus’ experiences that does not correspond to the actual events. The following statements about the deceptive power of poetic skill and people's inability to see through it (22–24) offer commentary on Homeric epic, but they also amplify the ode's earlier point about accurate representation in the context of praise-poetry (11–20, also linking poetic language with vision and visibility).Footnote 37 Rather unexpectedly, the speaker then turns to the judgment of Achilles’ arms in order to illustrate the noxious effects of partial and misleading narratives on glorious men such as Ajax (24–27). The text here either invites us to envision epic verses about the deeds of Odysseus and Ajax being performed in the Greek camp when the judgment of the arms was taking place or, more likely, it alludes to a debate in which Odysseus’ accomplishments were inflated whereas those of Ajax were underrepresented.Footnote 38 The ode concludes its treatment of Ajax with an account of his valor in battle full of epic resonances (N.7.27–32).Footnote 39 Thus, by commemorating the deeds that would have earned Ajax the arms and prevented his suicide, if facts had been accurately represented, the ode compensates for the failure of the epic tradition to do justice to Ajax.Footnote 40
N.7 criticizes the epic tradition circulating under Homer’s name for misrepresentation, but we should not extrapolate from this ode that Pindar consistently associated Homeric poetics with falsehood.Footnote 41 Nemean 7 is one of three Pindaric odes that dwell on Ajax’s suicide. Much like N.7, N.8 mourns Ajax mainly as a victim of envy and praises his great deeds (N.8.21–34). The language of falsehood, deception, and obscurity resonates with that of N.7, but in N.8 there is no explicit condemnation of Homer.Footnote 42 Isthmian 4, on the other hand, commemorates the suicide as a widely known event and praises Homer for honoring and immortalizing Ajax’s deeds with his poetry (I.4.35–39). Far from vilifying Homer, the Pindaric speaker considers his epic poetry a model for the ode’s own epinician poetics (I.4.40–45).Footnote 43 There are, therefore, two distinct attitudes towards Homeric epic in these odes. The crucial difference between N.7 and 8, on the one hand, and I.4, on the other, is the performative context: the first group was intended for an Aeginetan audience, whereas I.4 was composed for a Theban victor. The Aeacidae, and especially Ajax, were central to the cult, culture, and identity of the Aeginetans.Footnote 44 Therefore, by condemning the epic narrative of the hero’s defeat during the judgment of the arms and by ‘restoring’ his glory, Pindar’s epinician responds to the local culture and appeals to its primary audience.Footnote 45 No such considerations apply to Thebes, thus no tension between local and Panhellenic needs to be resolved in I.4.
In what follows, I examine first how epinician poetry appropriates Hesiodic poetry to lend authority and support to its own commemorative function, thus complementing its reception of heroic epic. Bacchylides’ Ode 5 evokes Hesiod’s authoritative voice to justify celebration through praise-poetry. Hesiodic poetics are particularly important in the context of negotiating the relationship between the laudator and a powerful laudandus not only in Ode 5 but also in Ode 3. After exploring how epinician appropriates ideas about poetry and power from the Hesiodic corpus, I turn to lyric that distances itself from Hesiodic poetics. I hope that my discussion of Pa.7b/52h in conjunction with Ibycus S151 PMGF will illuminate how poems can juxtapose Homeric and Hesiodic poetics only to reduce them to foils for their own poetic message.
Fame and the Divine: Bacchylides’ Ode 5
Composed for Hieron’s Olympic victory in 476 BCE,Footnote 46 Ode 5 consists of a lengthy mythological narrative (56–175) framed by extensive praise for the laudandus (1–55; 176–200). In its laudatory conclusion, the ode reiterates the idea that praise is owed to Hieron:Footnote 47
The poetic agenda articulated here calls for a truthful account of Hieron’s achievements and offers the victor not only commemoration of his glory but also protection against the malicious effects of envy.Footnote 48 In this context, the ode evokes the “Boeotian man,” i.e. Hesiod,Footnote 49 as an established authority whose words and ideas are appropriated, reformulated, and reframed in a way that lends support and legitimacy to the poem’s laudatory program.
Identifying the Hesiodic passage embedded in 5.191–94 has been a challenge, since there is no exact match to the Bacchylidean text in the surviving Hesiodic corpus. One proposed solution to the problem has been to declare the Hesiodic reference false. Along these lines, Jebb entertained the possibility of a memory slip, claiming that Bacchylides is actually citing Theognis:Footnote 50
At first glance, Thgn.169 appears to overlap with 5.191–94 in its focus on divine favor as a prerequisite for human success and on positive human speech as a manifestation of divine approval. In addition, Bacchylides’ ὃν <ἂν> ἀθάνατοι τι[μῶσι (193) bears close resemblance to the beginning of 169 (ὃν δὲ θεοὶ τιμῶσιν).Footnote 51 When considered more carefully, however, Thgn. 169 seems to be an inappropriate intertext for Ba. 5.191–94: depending on how one reads it, it either eradicates malicious blame altogether or reinterprets it as praise.Footnote 52 By contrast, just before citing Hesiod, the epinician ode acknowledges the existence of blame and the need to push it away by means of praise (5.187–90). In other words, Bacchylides’ Ode 5 makes a sharp distinction between those who praise the successful man and the envious lot who pose a threat. Furthermore, when viewed as a whole, the Theognidean couplet emerges as a commentary on the futility of human effort in the absence of divine favor and thus follows a different trajectory from the conclusion of the Bacchylidean ode(5.195–200). Finally, as I discuss below, variations of ὃν δὲ θεοὶ τιμῶσιν (Thgn. 169) are found elsewhere, so Ode 5.193 need not be paraphrasing Theognis in particular.Footnote 53
Another interpretation that attempts to solve the problem of Ba. Ode 5.191–94 by undermining the Hesiodic reference was put forth recently by Stenger.Footnote 54 For Stenger, lines 193–94 are not a statement in indirect discourse (“that, whomever the immortals [honor, him] also the good repute of mortals [follows]”). Instead, he reads them as a reported exhortation (“that, whomever the immortals [honor, him] also the good repute of mortals [should follow]”), preceded by a prescriptive sentence in 5.187–90 (χρή …) and followed by an admission of compliance in 5.195–98 (πείθομαι …). Stenger argues that, if read as an indirect statement, 5.191–94 imply that successful men are in fact accompanied by good repute, at least according to Hesiod. The lines thus appear to contradict the immediately preceding passage (5.188–90) that articulates the obligation not only to praise but also to thwart envy.Footnote 55 Stenger’s suggested reading of 5.191–94 is certainly attractive. We must admit, however, that if lines 193–94 are paraphrasing a Hesiodic exhortation in indirect discourse, they do it in a rather unmarked fashion. If we compare Ba. Ode 5.191–94 with the reception of Hesiodic instruction in the Pindaric corpus (I.6.66–73 and P.6.19–27), we observe an important difference. Both Pythian 6 and Isthmian 6 mark their appropriation of Hesiodic prescriptions with the verb παραινέω.Footnote 56 The verb φών[ησεν in Ba. Ode 5.191 has broader semantics, however, so the audience receives no unambiguous hint as to whether what follows is a Hesiodic statement or an injunction. Perhaps it is worth considering a more dynamic reading of the Bacchylidean text: 5.193–94 may be paraphrasing a gnomic statement from the Hesiodic corpus, which becomes invested with prescriptive force only in retrospect, once the persona loquens utters πείθομαι in line 195.
While Stenger’s reading of an indirect exhortation in 5.191–94 merits serious consideration, his thoughts regarding the Hesiodic reference itself are innovative but far less persuasive. He proposes that the idea expressed in 5.193–94 is not actually drawn from the Hesiodic corpus, but that Bacchylides has only attributed it to an authoritative poet in order to give it additional gravitas;Footnote 57 Hesiod is preferred over other potential sources because the ode has already alluded to the Theogony earlier.Footnote 58 Of course, if Bacchylides fabricates a precept and simply attaches Hesiodic authorship to it, any attempt to recover the original Hesiodic passage behind the supposed allusion is futile. Perhaps the main counterargument to this suggestion is that there is no legitimate reason to doubt that this Hesiodic reference should be taken at face value. For Stenger, all utterances attributed to authoritative sources in epinician poetry are variations of the same poetic technique: by citing and paraphrasing these sayings, the lyric personae loquentes draw authority from widely accepted and established sources of wisdom, be it poets, mythological figures, or anonymous speakers representing tradition.Footnote 59 While this is by no means a false assessment, it fails to take into consideration what conventions or expectations determine a poem’s interaction with a certain type of source. When we look at other lyric poems that, like Bacchylides’ Ode 5, claim to quote or paraphrase lines attributed explicitly to ancient poets, we find that the allusions are indeed genuine.Footnote 60 Instead of inventing a Hesiodic utterance, then, it is much more likely that Ba. 5.191–94 reformulates an original Hesiodic passage in a manner that conforms to the expectations of the ode’s audience(s) and invites them to recall the intertext.
It stands to reason, then, that we should approach Ode 5.191–94 as a genuine Hesiodic allusion. Yet, since no extant passage in the Hesiodic corpus corresponds precisely to these lines, tracking the reference depends largely on our presumptions regarding τᾶδε φών[ησεν (5.191): how loose a paraphrase would the audience expect or allow based on this phrase? Compared to other lyric passages that single out and draw attention to individual sayings, τᾶδε φών[ησεν seems to be vague.Footnote 61 Scholars who have assumed that line 191 sets the audience up for a near-quotation have concluded that Ba. 5.191–94 must allude to a part of the Hesiodic corpus that no longer survives;Footnote 62 given the gnomic nature of the evoked passage, some have even surmised that the lost intertext was part of the Chironos Hypothekai.Footnote 63 Others, however, maintain that the lines allude to an extant Hesiodic passage, namely the discourse about divinely favored kings and poets:Footnote 64
An allusion to Th. 81ff. was first proposed by SitzlerFootnote 65 and was subsequently noted by Rzach, even though he assigned the Bacchylidean lines to Hesiod’s incerta fragmenta (fr. 202 Rzach). Likewise, Merkelbach and West classified lines 5.193–94 among the dubia fragmenta of the Hesiodic corpus (fr. 344 MW) but suggested an allusion to Th. 81–97 in their apparatus criticus. The idea has become increasingly popular in recent years. Lefkowitz, Goldhill, and Cairns have made a strong case for an intertextual connection between the Bacchylidean passage and the proem of the Theogony,Footnote 66 while in his 2004 commentary Maehler refers to lines 5.193–94 as a possible “approximate ‘quotation’” of Th. 81–97.Footnote 67
Proponents of this interpretation point out that the language of 5.193 (ὃν <ἂν> ἀθάνατοι τι[μῶσι) is a close paraphrase of the relative clause that introduces the ideal kings in Th. 81 (ὅντινα τιμήσουσι Διὸς κοῦραι μεγάλοιο). The Bacchylidean line has expanded its view of divine favor to include all gods; furthermore, it has divested the Hesiodic line of its specific reference to the βασιλεῖς (Th. 82) and has thus reformulated the idea in an all-encompassing manner that fits the epinician genre best, since not all laudandi are political leaders.Footnote 68 Given the particular context of Ode 5, however, the political dimension of the Hesiodic intertext inevitably remains active, since the laudandus in this case is, in fact, the man who rules Syracuse. In addition, the good repute of men that follows those favored by the gods in Ode 5.193–94 (τούτῳ] / καὶ βροτῶν φήμαν ἕπ[εσθαι) has been read as an adaptation of Th. 84–85, a passage in which the people watch their leader as he performs his duties, and (more persuasively) of Th. 91–92, namely the veneration of the people towards their king.Footnote 69
The allusion to Hesiod’s celebration of just kings, to whom the gods have granted the ability to resolve conflicts successfully with reconciliatory words rather than violence and whom men revere for their leadership, enriches the ode’s praise of Hieron. Furthermore, the evocation of Hesiod’s Theogony in 5.193–94 contributes to a ring-composition, as the first strophe is replete with allusions to Th. 81–103.Footnote 70 Most of these are drawn from the Hesiodic treatment of successful poets (Th. 97–103) and are woven into the ode’s poetics: the prospect of setting aside one’s worries at the sound of this song (5.6–8) recalls Th. 98–103, although epinician celebrates gods and heroes of the past (Th. 100–01) in the context of extolling the deeds of contemporary men. Moreover, the poetic persona in Ode 5 describes himself as the χρυσάμπυκος Οὐρανίας / κλεινὸς θεράπων (lines 13–14), which adapts the phrase Μουσᾶν θεράπων (Th. 100); this Hesiodic line also underlies Bacchylides’ [γλυκειᾶν] / Ἡσίοδος πρόπολος Μουσᾶν in the final strophe of Ode 5 (191–93). The “sweet-gifted adornment of the violet-crowned Muses” ([ἰ]οστεφάνων / Μοισᾶν γλυκ[ύ]δωρον ἄγαλμα, Ode 5.3–4) reiterates the sweetness that defines the voice of those favored by the Muses (kings in Th. 83; poets in Th. 97), while the metaphor of one pouring voice out of their chest (ἐθέλει γᾶρυν ἐκ στηθέων χέων / αἰνεῖν Ἱέρωνα) in Ode 5.14–16 may be adapting Hesiod’s metaphor of voice flowing from one’s mouth (kings in Th. 83 and poets in Th. 97, modeled upon the Muses themselves in Th. 39–40). In this context, it also seems likely that Hieron’s εὐθύδικος φρήν (Ode 5.6) is informed by the Hesiodic portrayal of the divinely favored kings as administrators of justice (Th. 84–90, esp. ἰθείῃσι δίκῃσιν in Th. 86) and thus looks forward to the allusion to the same Hesiodic passage in Ode 5.191–94.
It is certainly plausible that the verbal echoes of Th. 81 in 5.193 trigger a condensed evocation of the Theogony’s ideal kings, which enriches and amplifies the ode’s praise of Hieron. There is, however, a pending problem with this interpretation: lines 193–94 establish a correlation between divine favor and human speech that is not found in the proem of the Theogony. The Hesiodic poem envisions as a manifestation of divine favor the effective use of language, be it in the realm of public rhetoric or poetry. In Ode 5, on the other hand, those honored by the gods stand out not for what they say but for what is said about them. Lefkowitz attempts to by-pass this inconsistency by taking ἱλάσκονται of Th. 91 to mean “greet”; the semantics of the verb, however, do not necessarily privilege verbal over other sorts of interactions, and its use in Th. 91 underscores the god-like treatment of the ideal kings (cf. θεὸν ὥς, Th. 91) rather than their good reputation. It is certainly possible that the Bacchylidean lines allude to a version of the Theogony that no longer survives.Footnote 71 I propose, however, that Bacchylides’ allusion to the good kings of the Theogony may be informed by the association between divine favor and reputation found elsewhere in the Hesiodic corpus, namely in the proem to the WD:
This short hymn celebrates Zeus’s power to assign and control the relative importance of individuals in their communities, an apt introduction to a poem preoccupied largely with justice.Footnote 72 One’s power and success are in the hands of Zeus (WD 5–8), but so is one’s renown (ἄφατοί τε φατοί τε, / ῥητοί τ’ ἄρρητοί τε, WD 3–4). The proem distinguishes between those who are known because they are talked about and those without reputation and thus obscure. Whether one belongs to the famous or the unknown depends entirely on Zeus, and the text underscores this fact by framing the two sets of opposite adjectives in WD 3–4 with reminders of the god’s crucial role in the process (WD 3, ὅν τε διά “through whom” punning on Δί’ in line 2; WD 4, Διὸς μεγάλοιο ἕκητι).Footnote 73 Much like Ode 5.193–94 (esp. βροτῶν φήμαν, 194), WD 3–4 seem to envision reputation exclusively as positive talk, and to regard its presence or absence as a manifestation of divine judgment.Footnote 74
Bacchylides, therefore, may have grafted into his Hesiodic allusion to the ideal kings of the Theogony a view about reputation that is expressed in a different part of the Hesiodic corpus. While not a complete fabrication, as Stenger has suggested, the Hesiodic reference in Ode 5.191–94 may be a creative merging of two Hesiodic ideas rather than a close paraphrase of a single passage. Through this complex Hesiodic intertext, Ode 5 not only aligns Hieron with the idealized kings of the Theogony but also casts epinician poetry as a conduit through which Zeus’s dispensation of fame and obscurity becomes part of human reality. In other words, lines 5.191–94 appropriate Hesiodic poetry into the song’s epinician poetics by casting the ode itself – and praise-poetry in general – as a specific application of the all-encompassing statement in WD 3–4.
Birds of Song, Birds of Prey: Bacchylides’ Ode 3
Bacchylides’ Ode 3 was composed for the victory of Hieron’s chariot at Olympia in 468 BCE.Footnote 75 Even though the occasion for the performance of Bacchylides’ ode is an athletic achievement, the poem is preoccupied with death and the inevitability of decay, perhaps in response to the tyrant’s deteriorating health.Footnote 76 Ultimately, in the final triad Bacchylides suggests that poetry offers a path towards immortality both for its object and for the poet himself. Immortality through poetic commemoration is, of course, the quintessence of heroic epic; nonetheless, I argue that the construction of Bacchylides’ poetic persona in these closing lines is informed by the Hesiodic representation of the poet in the WD. Here too, just as in Ode 5, Hesiodic poetics help the lyric speaker define and shape the relationship between the poet and the laudandus.
After a long mythological section that commemorates the miraculous rescue of Croesus and his daughters from the pyre as a reward for his piety and concludes with a statement about the unpredictability of mortal life uttered by Apollo to Admetus, his pious protégé,Footnote 77 the persona loquens returns to the ‘here and now’ and approaches the theme of mortality from a different perspective:
The asyndeton in line 85 marks a new direction in the poem, and the speaker engages in an elaborate priamel that contrasts the eternal elements (sky, sea, gold) with the decaying nature of mortals, but also brings up the complementarity of wealth and poetry.Footnote 78 Wealth offers solace in merriment (3.87, 92–94), while poetry rescues one’s excellence from his physical decline (3.90–92) and commits a full account of his deeds to immortality (3.96–98).
The complicated priamel is introduced with a first-person statement that demands the attention and active intellectual participation of the audience in the final triad: φρονέοντι συνετὰ γαρύω (3.85). We find similar statements in epinician poetry, in which the audience’s insight is somehow marked as a prerequisite for full access to the poetic message. Take, for instance, the following passage in Pindar’s Olympian 2, an ode composed in 478 BCE. The poem offers a long account of the afterlife that includes the judgment of Rhadamanthys and even the prospect of joining heroes like Achilles on the Isle of the Blessed after several transmigrations of the soul (O.2.56–83). After this katabasis, the ode breaks off into a different direction with the following statement:
The meaning of lines 85–86, which is crucial for our understanding of the entire passage, is unclear and often debated.Footnote 79 Yet it seems likely that the persona loquens, presumably the poet (83–85), makes a distinction between those who are συνετοί and understand his poetry (φωνάεντα συνετοῖσιν, 85), and those who are not συνετοί and thus cannot access the poetic message directly. This distinction is followed by another contrast between the one who knows a lot by nature and those who know only by learning. The language (σοφός, παγγλωσσίᾳ, γαρύετον) and the bird-simile imply that this is a juxtaposition between Pindar, a superior poet by nature, and lesser poets.Footnote 80 While O.2.86–88 point to poetic rivalry relatively clearly, the commentary on knowledge in the previous lines (83–86), including the formulation σοφὸς ὁ πολλὰ εἰδὼς φυᾷ in 86, is vague enough to encompass both the poet and the συνετοί.Footnote 81 Another convergence between the epinician speaker and the συνετοί is explicit in Pindar’s Pythian 5:Footnote 82
In this passage, the speaker voluntarily channels the voice of the συνετοί, so that it may be commemorated and proliferated through song, and may thus reach even those who do not belong to that exceptional group. Finally, sometimes lyric draws attention to the capacity of its audience to appreciate the poet’s work in a less convoluted manner; see, for instance, the captationes benevolentiae in Bacchylides’ Ode 5.3–5 (esp. γνώσῃ, 3) and Pindar’s O.1.103–105 (esp. ἴδριν, 104).Footnote 83
The study of these passages has yielded several interpretations for Bacchylides’ φρονέοντι συνετὰ γαρύω in Ode 3.85. The way in which the Bacchylidean line privileges one group among the audience, much like Ode 5.3–5 and Pindar’s O.1.103–05, has been identified as an epinician convention: praise-poetry requires that a poet construct the laudandus as erudite and sophisticated.Footnote 84 On the other hand, Nagy has interpreted Ba. 3.85 in conjunction with Pi. O.2.85 and P.5.107, and he has traced in these passages that appeal to the intellect of their audience a different generic trait of the epinician, namely the poetics of exclusivity. In Nagy’s opinion, these passages are programmatic in so far as they reiterate the idea that praise-poetry is a coded message (ἔπ-αινος) meant to be deciphered and understood by a specific social group (κῶμος) consisting of comrades (ἑταῖροι) bonded by φιλότης.Footnote 85 More recently, Currie has suggested that the exclusionary poetics are not based on social networks but on cult. Currie points out that language of understanding (συνίημι, συνετός/ἀσύνετος) is often associated with mysteries and initiation. Therefore, he reads in Ba. Ode 3.85, Pi. O.2.83–5, and in two other Pindaric passages addressed to Hieron (P.2.80 and fr. 105a.1 SM) a direct engagement with the tyrant’s involvement in mysteries.Footnote 86 Finally, there is a literary interpretation of Ode 3.85 which dates back to the nineteenth century and does not take into consideration any of the other passages.Footnote 87 According to this view, φρονέοντι stands for literary expertise and the line invites its audience (and especially Hieron) to recall the priamel in Pindar’s O.1.1–2 in preparation for Bacchylides’ own priamel in the immediately following lines(3.85–87).
There is little doubt in my mind that Bacchylides’ φρονέοντι συνετὰ γαρύω in 3.85 is informed by exclusionary aristocratic poetics, which are only reinforced by the subsequent emphasis on χρυσός (3.87), ἀρετά (3.90), and ὄλβος (3.92). Unlike similar passages discussed above (Pi. O.2.85 and P.5.107), however, 3.85 isolates an exceptional individual rather than a group, thus establishing a rapport between the speaker and this insightful man who has the intellectual capacity to understand the message of the priamel. While Hieron’s name does not appear here, the speaker addresses him directly and by name after the priamel has come to a conclusion (3.92). I suggest that, with the singular φρονέοντι in line 85, the speaker implicates Hieron and thus engages with him already from the very beginning of the last triad, before addressing him directly in line 92. In 3.85–92 the persona loquens not only singles out a powerful figure as the primary addressee of the coded poetic message but also underscores his capacity to access and appreciate its meaning, namely the value of commemorative poetics: praise-poetry can save a man’s excellence from his inevitable physical decline and death. In the final three lines the ode decodes this message, as it explicitly underscores the poet’s commitment to securing Hieron’s immortality by linking inextricably the fame and reputation of the laudator and the laudandus (3.96–98).Footnote 88
In the concluding sphragis, Bacchylides is identified as the “nightingale from Ceos.” Early Greek poetry associates the nightingale with song and springtime, and it is a bird a poet may compare himself to (e.g. Thgn. 939).Footnote 89 In Ode 3, however, the bird stands for the poet himself. The only precedent for the nightingale as an embodiment of a poetic figure is Hesiod’s ainos in the WD:
Bacchylides involves a variety of animals in the context of his poetic self-representation: he is the rooster of Ourania in Ode 4.7–8 and a bee in Ode 10.10. I suggest that the choice of the nightingale in the sphragis of Ode 3 alludes to the fate of the nightingale/poet in the Hesiodic poem. Through the evocation of WD 202–12, the ode defines more sharply the relationship it envisions between Hieron and the epinician poet. The ainos is part of Hesiod’s elaborate effort to persuade Perses and the corrupt kings that dike is preferable to hybris. Its meaning is the subject of an ongoing debate among scholars, but, according to the most straightforward interpretation found already in the scholia, the anthropomorphic interaction between the two birds demonstrates vividly the suffering of the helpless nightingale/poet in the hands of those who wield power in an arbitrary and overwhelming fashion.Footnote 91 The primary intended audience for this ainos is not Perses but the kings, and the introductory line requires special attention because it bears similarities to Ode 3.85. Much like Bacchylides’ φρονέοντι συνετὰ γαρύω, the Hesiodic line νῦν δ’ αἶνον βασιλεῦσιν ἐρέω φρονέουσι καὶ αὐτοῖς involves a first-person statement by the poet that marks the upcoming lines as intellectually challenging (αἶνος, cf. συνετά); it also employs a participle of the verb φρονέω to herald the exceptional capacity of the primary intended audience to comprehend the message.Footnote 92 Ba. 3.85 thus emerges as the first allusion to the Hesiodic ainos in the final triad of the ode.Footnote 93
I suggest here that Ode 3 alludes to the Hesiodic ainos in order to intensify the bond it forges between the poet and Hieron. Both poems imply that poet and ruler share some knowledge: in the WD it concerns the abuse of power, while in the epinician ode it revolves around the mortality of the flesh and the immortality of poetry. The Hesiodic passage casts poet and ruler as opponents and laments the helplessness of the poet; the ode, on the other hand, reconfigures this relationship into a celebration of the ruler. The poetic voice endorses the powerful man and promises to provide immortality after death; more than that, the praise-poet acknowledges that his own reputation is bound to the successful commemoration of the ruler’s excellence. In sum, through juxtaposition to the Hesiodic ainos, the alignment between Bacchylides and Hieron becomes even clearer; the Hesiodic allusion, therefore, enriches the poetics of praise in Ode 3 and contributes a foil for the poem’s negotiation of the relationship between laudator and laudandus.
Homer and Hesiod in Pindar’s Paean 7b
Pindar’s Paean 7b/52h, a song composed for performance at Delos, is woefully lacunose, but what survives attests to a direct and explicit engagement with Homer. The poem opens with an address to Apollo and a reference to a mother, probably Leto (Pa.7b/52h.1–3); in the following lines, the extant text preserves the word παιαν[, possibly a “generic signature” of the song, and some reference to garlands (Pa.7b/52h.4–6). After marking the beginning of its song (ἀρχομ[, Pa.7b/52h.8),Footnote 94 the chorus goes on to elaborate on the poetics of their song:Footnote 95
After a substantial hiatus, the text resumes with the story of Asteria, daughter of Coeus and sister of Leto (Pa.7b/52h.42–52).Footnote 97 Asteria evaded Zeus’s advances and was turned into a small wandering island. The chorus relates with some reservation her metamorphosis and concludes the story with the name that humans have long assigned to her new form (Ortygia). The immediately following lines indicate that the context of this tale is the birth of Apollo: Ortygia acquired a firm spot in the sea in return for giving refuge to Leto when she was about to give birth. The extant text does not complete the aetiological story with the final transformation of the wandering rock to the fixed and holy island known as Delos,Footnote 98 but perhaps it was mentioned in the final five lines that are missing.
Apollo’s birth, as well as Delos’ crucial aid to Leto and the ensuing reward were treated extensively in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (h.Ap. 25–90);Footnote 99 it is reasonable, therefore, to assume that the paean’s engagement with Homer’s poetry in lines 11–12 refers primarily to that Homeric Hymn.Footnote 100 But what is the relationship that these lines establish between the lyric poem and the authoritative Homeric voice? Is the chorus treading the wagon-track of Homer or not? It all depends on how we supplement the missing text. Di Benedetto suggests Ὁμήρου [πολύτρι]π̣τον κατ’ ἀμαξιτόν / ἰόντες, ἀ̣[λλ’ οὐκ ἀλ]λοτρίαις ἀν’ ἵπποις (“going on the much-worn wagon-track of Homer but not on the mares of another”), a reading that declares the paean’s dependence on the Homeric tradition.Footnote 101 However, the mythological narrative of the paean’s extant epode departs significantly from the Homeric Hymn.Footnote 102 To begin with, in the h.Ap. Ortygia and Delos are two separate entities: Leto gives birth to Artemis on the former and to Apollo on the latter (h.Ap. 14–18). Furthermore, in the Homeric Hymn the reward that Delos receives consists in honor and wealth through the cult of Apollo (h.Ap. 51–65, 79–89; cf. 146–76). It is much more likely, therefore, that lines 11–12 conveyed a statement of departure from the Homeric tradition.Footnote 103 Along these lines, Snell supplemented a negation in 11 (Ὁμήρου [δὲ μὴ τρι]π̣τον κατ᾽ ἀμαξιτόν / ἰόντες, “not going on the much-worn wagon-track of Homer”),Footnote 104 while D’Alessio proposed Ὁμήρου [ἑκὰς ἄτρι]π̣τον κατ᾽ ἀμαξιτόν / ἰόντες (“going on an untrodden wagon-track far from Homer”).Footnote 105
The metaphor of the voyage that immediately follows lines 11–12 reinforces the poem’s declaration of independence from the Homeric tradition. Once again, we encounter textual difficulties. The chorus envisions a poetic journey on the winged chariot of the Muses (Pa.7b/52h.13–14),Footnote 106 but whom do the horses of this poetic chariot belong to (line 12)? Lobel’s reconstruction implies that the horses are not the chorus’ (ἀ̣[λλ’ ἀλ]λοτρίαις ἀν᾽ ἵπποις). Yet D’Alessio has demonstrated conclusively that line 12 should include a negative statementFootnote 107 and proposes ἀ̣[εὶ οὐκ ἀλ]λοτρίαις.Footnote 108 While on the winged chariot of the Muses, then, the chorus seems to be propelled by its own poetic horses. In addition, D’Alessio has drawn attention to some similarities between this passage and Parmenides B 1 DK. In the Parmenidean fragment, the speaker recounts his ride on the winged chariot of the Heliades as they flew together to the house of the Night, where he was initiated into privileged knowledge. D’Alessio is right in pointing out that both poems involve mortals riding flying chariots that belong to divinities,Footnote 109 but he downplays a crucial difference: in the Parmenidean passage, the Heliades accompany the young man (B 1.4–21 DK), whereas in Paean 7b/52h the chorus appears to ride the chariot of the Muses alone.Footnote 110
Lines 12–14, therefore, introduce a crucial aspect of the paean’s poetics, namely the relationship between the persona loquens and the Muses. Ultimately, the ode appears to claim that it defies mortality (τοῦτον … ἀθάνατον πόνον, Pa.7b/52h.21–22),Footnote 111 but only after it has fashioned itself as the product of a synergy between human poetic skill and divine patronage. In Pa.7b/52h.15–20, the speaker prays to Mnemosyne and the Muses for poetic resourcefulness (εὐμαχανίαν, Pa.7b/52h.16–17), and criticizes those who seek poetic skill without the support of the Muses:
The reference to the Muses as the “Heliconians” is rare in Pindar and used only here in connection with poetics and poetic competence.Footnote 112 In this context, the adjective is particularly significant, as it evokes the geographic location where the goddesses encountered Hesiod and initiated him into poetry (Th. 22–34).Footnote 113 The Heliconian Muses are marked as Hesiodic not only in the proem of the Theogony but also in the WD: in lines 658–59 the narrator recounts the dedication of the tripod he won at a competition to the goddesses in commemoration of their transformative encounter on Helicon (τὸν μὲν ἐγὼ Μούσῃσ’ Ἑλικωνιάδεσσ’ ἀνέθηκα / ἔνθα με τὸ πρῶτον λιγυρῆς ἐπέβησαν ἀοιδῆς). The evocation of Hesiod’s poetic initiation in Pa.7b/52h is further facilitated by the invocation of Mnemosyne and the Muses through the frame of their genealogical connection (Μναμ[ο]σύ[ν]ᾳ κόραισί τ’, Pa.7b/52h.16) since the Theogony recounts the Muses’ birth shortly after the narrative of their encounter with Hesiod on Mount Helicon (Th. 53–63).Footnote 114 Finally, if indeed they cast the Pindaric paean as a labor that the Muses have bestowed upon the persona loquens, lines 21–22 reinforce the allusion to Hesiod’s poetic initiation, given that the idea of poetry as a divinely assigned task resonates with his experience in Th. 30–34.Footnote 115 In Pa.7b/52h.18–20, therefore, the decisive role of the Heliconian Muses in the attainment of poetic sophia is informed by their active involvement in Hesiod’s transformation into a poet. On the other hand, the element of blindness that is central to the criticism of those who seek poetic skill without the Muses’ help (τ]υφλα̣[ὶ γὰ]ρ ἀνδρῶν φρένες, 18) seems to resume the paean’s polemics against Homer, since he is the blind poet par excellence, albeit in a strictly physical sense.Footnote 116 Thus, while the persona loquens of Pa.7b/52h claims an active poetic role in cooperation with the Muses, poetic authority is established not only by declaring independence from the Homeric tradition but also by appropriating the foundation of Hesiod’s poetic authority, namely his poetic initiation.
How are we to interpret the Hesiodic resonances in this paean? It has been argued that the passage iterates the contrast between Hesiod, the poet upon whom the Heliconian Muses have bestowed access to the truth, and Homer, whose poetry does not enjoy this divine privilege.Footnote 117 According to this reading, the passage condemns the Homeric tradition as false and, by coopting the Hesiodic poetics, establishes the paean’s own claim to a truthful account. Although the polemical tone of the lines is undeniable, I am reluctant to interpret σοφία in line 20 as pertaining primarily to epistemology rather than poetics, given that resourcefulness (εὐμαχανία, lines 16–17), which the Pindaric speaker hopes to receive from Mnemosyne and the Muses, almost certainly stands for poetic skill. That Pa.7b/52h.15–20 discuss poetic competence rather than truth is all the more evident when they are compared to Pindar’s Isthmian 4:
The ode opens by pointing out that, with his Isthmian victory, the laudandus has facilitated the poetic praise of his glorious clan. The passage combines the idea of ample access to a poetic subject (εὐμαχανία) with the metaphorical path of song (κέλευθος; cf. ὕμνῳ διώκειν), while linking inextricably the gods (θεῶν ἕκατι, I.4.1)Footnote 118 not only with the athletic victory but also with the poetic ingenuity involved in its celebration.
The juxtaposition between Hesiodic and Homeric poetics in lines 15–20 enhances the ode’s programmatic rejection of the Homeric tradition, but the interpretation of this passage could be taken further if we consider the intended location of the paean’s performance. In the context of a poetic celebration of Apollo at Delos, the juxtaposition between Hesiod and Homer is more than a means to establish poetic authority: it invites the audience to recall the biographical tradition that envisioned these two great poets performing together in Delos. According to the Pindaric scholion to N.2.1:
The context of these lines is unknown, but the speaker was clearly understood by the scholiast to be Hesiod himself. The first-person account resembles, and is probably modeled upon, the account of the poetic contest at Chalcis in the WD (650–62).Footnote 119 Unlike the agon at Amphidamas’ games, however, which is well attested in the biographical tradition,Footnote 120 this is the only extant testimony of a poetic meeting, or rather a poetic competition, at Delos.Footnote 121 These lines have rightly been interpreted as a retrojection produced by rhapsodes in order to appropriate Homer and Hesiod and to create a prototypical agonistic rhapsodic performance.Footnote 122 It is tempting to think of the first-person narrative in Hes. fr. 357 MW as a response to the sphragis embedded in the Delian part of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (h.Ap. 169–76), where ‘Homer’, identified only as a blind man from Chios, asserts his poetic superiority, thus suggesting an agonistic occasion.Footnote 123 If the Delian meeting of the two poets was indeed envisioned as competitive, its outcome remains unknown; yet the consistency with which Hesiod wins in all extant versions of the contest at Chalcis (sometimes even against expectation) suggests that in the biographical tradition competitions may have had a set outcome in favor of the Boeotian poet.Footnote 124 However that may be, I suggest that, in the context of dissociating the Pindaric poem from the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, the persona loquens in Pa.7b/52h.15–20 evokes this legendary competition at Delos and aligns itself with the poet who challenged Homer at the same location and in a similar ritual context, i.e. the cult of Delian Apollo. In other words, by inviting its audience to recall the agon between Homer and Hesiod, the paean reinforces its polemical attitude towards the Homeric tradition.
We find a similar creative appropriation of the competitive relationship between Homer and Hesiod in the context of lyric poetics in Ibycus’ Ode to Polycrates (S151 PMGF). This highly allusive ode engages intensely with the Cypria and the Iliad in an extensive praeteritio, in which the persona loquens expresses his desire to avoid the martial tales of the Homeric tradition.Footnote 125 When the narrative reaches the arrival of the Greek army at Troy (S151.15–22 PMGF), the poem offers a variation of this narrative strategy:Footnote 126
The evocation of the Muses in the context of a catalogue of ships, coupled with the emphasis on the mortal’s inability to perform what the goddesses can with ease, blatantly evokes the proem of the Homeric Catalogue of Ships in Il. 2.484–93.Footnote 127 In Ibycus’ text, human inadequacy is not remedied by divine aid, and the catalogue that the ode actually offers in subsequent lines (33–37) is brief and highly selective. The speaker not only distances himself from the Iliadic narrator, but also undermines him by weaving into S151.23–26 PMGF allusions to WD 646–62. The Hesiodic passage explains the poet’s limited experience with seafaring (οὔτε τι ναυτιλίης σεσοφισμένος οὔτε τι νηῶν, WD 649). The only trip he ever made by boat was when he traveled the short distance from Aulis, the place where the Greek army gathered once upon a time before sailing to Troy (WD 651–53), to Chalcis, where he competed in a poetic contest and won (WD 654–62).Footnote 128 In antiquity, the brief engagement with the Homeric world in WD 651–53 as well as the contrast between the epic journey to Troy and Hesiod’s brief trip to Euboea were interpreted as polemical against Homeric epic and fostered the biographical fiction that Hesiod’s opponent at Chalcis was Homer.Footnote 129 Ibycus’ ode is attuned to the metapoetic dimension of the two journeys juxtaposed in WD 650–62, namely the grand, epic expedition across the Aegean and Hesiod’s short trip: when the fleet of the Greeks is first introduced, the ships are described as πολυγόμφοι (S151.18 PMGF), the adjective used in WD 660 (τόσσον τοι νηῶν γε πεπείρημαι πολυγόμφων).Footnote 130 The allusions to the Hesiodic Nautilia continue: the ode not only implicates the distinctly Hesiodic (and thus anti-Homeric) Muses of HeliconFootnote 131 as potential performers of a Catalogue of Ships,Footnote 132 but also captures their Iliadic omniscience (Il.2.485–86) with the same word that Hesiod employs to renounce any expertise in seafaring (σεσοφισμέναι ~ οὐ σεσοφισμένος). By mixing these particular aspects of Homeric and Hesiodic poetics, the ode clearly undermines the former, yet it is important to acknowledge that it also distances itself from the latter. Once established in lines 23–26, the gap between the Heliconian Muses and the mortal poetic voice is never bridged: they remain two separate voices.Footnote 133 In addition, the ode’s celebration of Troilus’ beauty (S151.41–45 PMGF) is as much un-Hesiodic as it is un-Homeric.
I hope to have demonstrated that the appropriation of Hesiodic poetics in Pindar’s Pa.7b/52h contributes to the distance that the paean puts between itself and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. Hesiod’s Muses are evoked in a song that resonates thematically with Hesiodic poetry in its focus on Zeus’ union with Leto (cf. Th. 918-20) and the consequences of his desire for another goddess. Still, to the best of our knowledge, Asteria’s story is non-Hesiodic as much as it is non-Homeric. Not unlike Ibycus’ Ode, then, Pindar’s paean dissociates its celebration of Apollo from the Homeric tradition but remains rather distinct in its content from the Hesiodic tradition too. Lines 10–22, furthermore, acknowledge the need for the Muses’ aid but the goddesses do not appear to interact with the first-person speaker,Footnote 134 and they seem to be absent from their own chariot. Unlike Hesiod, whose poetry and poetic authority are a result of his personal encounter with the Muses, and unlike Parmenides’ young man, who acquires true knowledge through divine revelation,Footnote 135 the persona loquens in the (extant) text of Paean 7b/52h is not defined by such transformative experiences. Thus the paean forges a relationship between the speaker and the Muses that is cooperative but rather remote or, at least, not intensely interactive.
