NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS ΠΟΘΗ ΑND ΠΟΘΟΣ IN ILIAD AND ODYSSEY ANOTHER CHORIZONTIC FAILURE In his discussion of these words in Classical Philology, XV, 387 ff., Professor Bolling admits only two meanings, a "strong emotion of longing or yearning," and "the want, the need, or the lack" of a thing. But between these two extremes there are, as for other Homeric words, other shades of meaning less strong than the first and stronger than the second. Especially there is the feeling the want of a thing, with no implication of intense regret, but only of dissatisfaction at, or the inconvenience of, finding a thing is not there as it used to be. In English we express this by the verb "to miss," but we appear to have no noun to correspond. Let us call it x. I feel quite sure that many will say that this nameless expression is a perfectly good equivalent for Toon and Tólos in a number of the Homeric passages. But some Homeric students will really be at times, unlike Professor Bolling, at a loss to decide what the exact rendering in English should be. As an example we may take his first and "typical" quotation, A 240, where Achilles says, ή ποτ' Αχιλλῆος ποθὴ ἕξεται υίας Αχαιών. Professor Bolling would translate, "the Achaeans shall yearn strongly for me." That is perhaps correct. Others would say that "shall miss me in the fight" or simply "shall wish me back" is enough, and they may be right. I incline to Professor Bolling's interpretation myself, but I do not share his perfect confidence. It is a matter for individual appreciation. But I would add that if, in the seven passages of the Iliad which Professor Bolling discusses, Tоoń means, necessarily and by itself, "strong longing or yearning," it is strange that in five of them the poet requires to intensify the meaning by adding μeyáλn, μéya, or λínv. Thus, in his second case, Z 362, Hector, away from the fight, referring to his men still on the field, says of them, οἱ μέγ' ἐμεῖο ποθὴν ἀπεόντος ἔχουσιν. Where is the strong emotion? If it is present, it is indicated by péya, and moon is simply x. I think it will be allowed that a perfectly good translation is, "who very much, or to a great degree, miss, or have x of me." Many, I feel certain, would translate another of the lines, Ξ 368, κείνου δ' οὗ τι λίην ποθὴ ἔσσεται, “we shall not miss him so very much." There is no need to accept Professor Bolling's extreme interpretation. But his great point is that woon, in five passages of the Odyssey, means "want, need, lack," and not, as in the Iliad, "strong yearning." Take then one of them, 0 414. Euryalus makes atonement for an insult by giving Odysseus a sword, and it is in the hero's acknowledgment that the line occurs, μηδέ τί τοι ξίφεός γε ποθὴ μετόπισθε γένοιτο | τούτου. Professor Bolling's dictum gives us the rendering, "may you never be without this sword hereafter." But surely to tell a man whose sword you have accepted as a gift, and which you are girding ȧup' poor to show your complete ownership, that you hope he will not hereafter "be minus" that sword, would be as absurd a reply as ever was perpetrated. The translation must be, "may you never hereafter miss, or have x of, this sword." Professor Bolling has apparently omitted to read the second line beginning with TOÚTOV. In ẞ 126 there is the same room for difference of opinion. There Antinous says of Penelope, μέγα μὲν κλέος αὐτῇ | ποιεῖτ', αὐτὰρ σοί γε ποθὴν TOλÉOS BLÓTOLO. In place of "want" or "lack" for woon, why not "regret for," as Butcher and Lang render? In the other three of the five passages Professor Bolling may be right, but I cannot say the same of all the three others in the Odyssey in which Tółos is said, like his woon in the Iliad, to express a strong yearning. That may be granted for à 202 (Odysseus' mother's Tólos for her son), but not for έ 144 (Eumaeus' Tólos for Odysseus), or 8 596 (Telemachus' ółos for his home and parents). In these two cases there is not necessarily anything more than desire, and by that word in fact Butcher and Lang translate Tolos. Professor Bolling, in short, translates the words just as his theory requires, and ignores possible alternatives. But a discussion of the two words must reckon with these. In some of his passages we may allow he is correct and that there is no alternative, but even then the preponderance in his favor is, if it exists, not great, and he cannot reasonably require the uses in the one poem to be exactly equal in number and effect to those in the other. Certainly there is nothing in the facts to justify the tremendous conclusion which he announces. But there is more to be said about the seven passages in the Iliad. The list is really much less formidable than it appears, for it is the fact, though Professor Bolling does not mention it, that three of them must rank as one. They contain a Homeric formula, and the three of them may be combined thus, | - - - (--). μεγάλη δὲ ποθὴ Δαναοϊσι(ν) (Πυλίοισιν) γένηται (τέτυκται, ἐτύχθη). An initial molossus or choriambus followed by a pause sufficient to be indicated in our texts by punctuation-and also by a continuation of the line including dé, avráp, yáp, and the like, is very common in Homer, and Sé is the particle that is used most frequently. There are fifteen occurrences with Sé in A alone. That may be in part the explanation, as both ródos and Toon were at the poet's disposal, of the use of woon in that formula. μέγας πόθος would not be so easy to work in with dé after the first foot and a half; μeyáλn dè robý suits perfectly. And further, it can be understood why the poet preferred ποθή το πόθος, in two of the remaining four passages of the Iliad, in the expression Toon ἵξεται and ποθὴ ἔσσεται. πόθος would have given a sibilant assonance of a kind which the poet, as it happens, does not like after the third dactyl. (I do not stop to suggest a reason.) There are several forms of sibilant assonance between two consecutive words, and the way of the poet with them is well worth studying in connection with the subject, never yet properly developed, of the pauses in the Homeric hexameter. The particular form we are concerned with is the commonest of all, or the least disliked, because, as the second syllable is long by position and has the ictus, the unpleasantness is not felt so much as in other classes, e.g., those of the types ̓́Αργος ἐς ἱππόβοτον οι σὺ σάωσον. But out of some four hundred and fifty instances in Homer of our particular form there are only, if my counting be correct, thirty-four after the third dactyl. By using on the poet avoided the assonance. For the reasons given I for one decline absolutely to admit that the distinction between the two forms is "clean-cut in the Odyssey," or that there is anything in the uses of wó◊os and wołń to make it impossible that the two poems are the work of one man. ST. ANDREWS A. SHEWAN PLATON SYMPOSION 212E Eine der Stellen, die den Herausgebern Platons besonders grosse Schwierigkeiten bereitet haben, ist Symp. 212E. Der trunkene Alcibiades ist zu später Stunde mit vielem Lärm ins Haus des Agathon eingedrungen. Er grüsst die versammelten Zechgenossen und gibt die Absicht seines Kommens kund: Μεθύοντα ἄνδρα πάνυ σφόδρα δέξεσθε συμπότην ἢ ἀπίωμεν ἀναδήσαντες μόνον ̓Αγάθωνα, ἐφ ̓ ᾧπερ ἤλθομεν; ἐγὼ γάρ τοι . . . . χθὲς μὲν οὐχ οἷός τ' ἐγενόμην ἀφικέσθαι, νῦν δὲ ἥκω ἐπὶ τῇ κεφαλῇ ἔχων τὰς ταινίας, ἵνα ἀπὸ τῆς ἐμῆς κεφαλῆς τὴν τοῦ σοφωτάτου καὶ καλλίστου κεφαλὴν . . . . ἀναδήσω. ἆρα καταγελάσεσθέ μου ὡς μεθύοντος; ἐγὼ δέ, κἂν ὑμεῖς γελᾶτε, ὅμως εὖ οἶδ' ὅτι ἀληθῆ λέγω. ἀλλά μοι λέγετε αὐτόθεν ἐπὶ ῥητοῖς εἰσίω ἢ μή; συμπίεσθε ἢ οὔ; An der vorläufig freigelassenen, durch . . . . bezeichneten Stelle stehen die Worte av dπш ovтwσí. So sind sie nicht bloss von B und T überliefert, sowie von W, der nur darin abweicht, dass er sie vor kepaλýv stellt, sondern auch von dem Oxyrhynchus-Papyrus. Stephanus und Ast glaubten sie hinnehmen zu können, doch nur, indem sie sie aus ihrer Stelle nach vorwärts schoben und mit der einschliessenden Frage verbanden [Schanz: ¿àv ciπw οὕτωσί (vel potius ἐὰν δὲ εἴπω) ante ἆρα transposuit Stephanus ἐὰν εἴπω οὕτωσί post apa transposuit Ast]. Friedrich A. Wolf hat sie ausgestossen. Ihm folgen Schanz und Burnet. Winckelmann hat aus eàv enw ein åvelπóv gemacht, und diese Abänderung ist in der Tat bestechend. Hermann hat sie aufgenommen und Wilamowitz (Platon II, 360) hält damit die Stelle für geheilt. Doch war sie der heilenden Hand wirklich bedürftig? Ist es unbedingt nötig zu ändern? Riddell in dem "Digest" seiner Apologie Ausgabe führt Seite 320 f. unter den Beispielen von Clauses intermingled by Hyperbaton auf: ἵνα . . . . τὴν τοῦ σοφωτάτου καὶ καλλίστου κεφαλήν—ἐὰν εἴπω οὕτωσίἀναδήσωἆρα καταγελάσεσθέ μου ὡς μεθύοντος, und bemerkt dazu folgendes: Two sentences are here counterchanged. As Alcibiades rehearses the form of words with which he intends to accompany the crowning of Socrates [richtiger wäre, of Agathon] he interrupts himself to justify them, and does his best to carry on the two sentences together. These, if one had been postponed to the other, would have run-"That from my own head to the head of the wisest and handsomest of men I may transfer this garland-well! and if I shall say that— what then? Will you make fun of me?" In trying to carry on both together, he breaks and counterchanges them, distinguishing them doubtless by difference of tone. Keiner der späteren Herausgeber hat sich dadurch überzeugen lassen. Und doch dürfte Riddell damit das Richtige getroffen haben, dass die fraglichen Worte zur Kennzeichnung der Rede des getrunkenen dienen. Gehen wir dem Text weiter nach. "Auch wenn ihr lacht so weiss ich doch, dass ich die Wahrheit sage." Womit denn? Doch wohl mit einer Aussage, die er gemacht hat. Die Frage, ob er da bleiben dürfe in der Erwartung, dass die Zecherei ihren Fortgang nehme, kann nicht gemeint sein. Die einzige Aussage aber, die Alcibiades gemacht hat und über die man vielleicht lachen mag, ist, der, den er bekränzen werde, sei der schönste und weiseste. Ist es nicht blosse Verliebtheit, die dieses Urteil fällt? Kommt nicht dem, der seinen "Kranz abzunehmen und dem heute von allen Gefeierten aufzusetzen Anstalt macht, selbst der erste Preis, wenn nicht der Weisheit, so doch jedenfalls der Schönheit zu? Nein! Niemand soll sich vermessen, Widerspruch zu erheben, wo Alcibiades als Preisrichter eine Entscheidung trifft, weder jetzt wo er den Agathon vor Augen hat, noch nachher, wo sein Urteil und seine Absicht durch den Anblick des Socrates erschüttert wird. Wenn ich so sage, so gilt's." Er ist gewohnt, in seinem Kreise für alle den Ton anzugeben. Und jetzt vollends, wo der Wein sein Selbstbewusstsein gesteigert hat, fühlt er sich jedem überlegen. Aber müsste nicht, um diese Auffassung zuzulassen, das Subjekt des Redenden durch Setzung des Pronomens hervorgehoben werden? Nicht notwendig, meine ich. Der Nachdruck braucht nicht auf den Gegensatz der Personen gelegt zu werden. Dieser ist eingeschlossen und wird mit herausgehört, wenn betont wird: "nur zu sprechen brauche ich und mein blosses Wort muss euch genügen." Die Auslassung des verbum finitum, denke man es sich als xa oder als κcio0w, bedarf wohl keiner weiteren Erklärung. Was sonst conjeziert (z. B. von Bury), scheint mir keine ernstliche Beachtung zu verdienen. Wer meine Auslegung verwirft, wird gewiss am besten sich Winckelmann anschliessen. TÜBINGEN C. RITTER ΣΥΚΟΦΑΝΤΗΣ AND ΣΥΚΙΝΟΣ Convenient summaries of the various explanations of the semantics of σvkopávτηs, most of them aetiological and overingenious, are available elsewhere;1 I offer one more suggestion, based more firmly on known Greek usage, as it seems to me. ZúKivos frequently has the connotation of worthlessness. Since this quality cannot inhere in the adjective independently, it must be attributed to the fig tree or some part of it: note that σúkivos may mean "of fig wood" (Ar. Wasps 897), "of the fig" (Plut. ii. 752 B), or "of the fig tree" (Ar. Wasps 145). The wood was certainly worthless3 and there may have been an Athenian equivalent of our "I don't care a fig" (just as we say, "I don't care a cent," though money in the aggregate is the standard of value). From σun or σûκov (and the morphology of σukopávτηs could not finally decide which, since the o of o-stems became generalized for such compounds irrespective of the stem-vowel of the first member) σux- as it appears in σvkopávτηs may have gained the meaning "worthless" or "trivial," so that the whole word would denominate a "trifle-revealer." Next, frequent use in the courts would give it a halftechnical significance as an epithet for one who brought groundless accusations, and it would run its further course as traced by Lofberg (op. cit.). This interpretation does not involve any such ellipsis in the Greek (to be supplied aetiologically) as is involved in such familiar interpretations as "revealer of exporters of contraband figs." Festus (433 f. ThP) records an account to the effect that, there being a death penalty in Attica for those who broke into gardens and picked figs, those who exacted this extreme penalty ob parvola detrimenta were called sycophants. A vigorous picture of the "trifle-revealer" and his σúkiva denunciations (note the diminutives) is drawn in this familiar passage from the Acharnians (519 ff.): ἐσυκοφάντει Μεγαρέων τὰ χλανίσκια· ἢ χοιρίδιον ἢ σκόροδον ἢ χόνδρους ἄλας, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY CLYDE MURLEY 1 Cf. Reinach, Rev. des Études Grec., XIX, 342 ff.; Girard, ibid., XX, 143 ff.; Pauly-W., VI, 2120 f.; Lofberg, Sycophancy in Athens, pp. vii-viii. Cf. Ar. Pl. 944 ff., Lysist. 110 with scholion; Strattis Psych. 4; Theocr. x. 44 f.; Lucian Adv. Indoct. 6; Hesychius and Suidas 8.v. Cf. Theophr. Tepi þvтŵv iσтopías v. 3. 3, Hor. Sat. i. 8. 1 with Porphyrio and scholiast thereon; Plato Hipp. Ma. 290 D; Et. Magn. s.v. ovkoḍavria. |