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Theokritos’ Bacchantes Re-examined

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

K.J. McKay
K.J. McKay*
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
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Extract

‘I have omitted Idylls xxiii and xxvi, because they are dull, stupid and worthless poems, and certainly not by Theocritus.’ R.C. Trevelyan’s words in the introduction to his translation of Theokritos (Cambridge, 1947, but the introduction significantly dates from 1925) make quaint reading today. I present no brief for the Erastes (Idyll xxiii), but even before the contribution made to the complexity of the Bacchantes (Idyll xxvi) by Pap. Antin. (3 in Gow’s sigla), it should have been obvious to the reader that the poem had the texture of quicksand and that its curious description of Pentheus’ offence and death, no less its elaborate protestations of piety, cried caution to the confident strider. But if there is tragedy in the failure to detect quicksands, the traveller can scarcely feel more secure in the services of three professional guides who have recently plotted three different courses for him.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 1 , 1967 , pp. 16 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1967

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References

1 Carrière, J. , ‘Théocrite et les Bacchantes’, Pallas 6 (1958), 7–19;CrossRefGoogle Scholar id., ‘Sur le message des Bacchantes’, Ant. Class, xxxv (1966), 118–39; van Groningen, B.A., ‘Les Bacchantes de Theocrite’, Miscellanea di studi alessandrini in memoria di A. Rostagni (Turin, 1963), pp. 338–49;Google Scholarvan der Valk, M.H.L., ‘Theocritus XXVI’, Ant. Class 34 (1965), 84–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar I give a page reference to these articles and distinguish between Carriere’s contributions by reference to their dates. It should be added that T. B. L. Webster has recently revived an old hypothesis that the idyll is aetiology for the slaying (or mock-slaying) of a child atsome Dionysiac festival (Hellenistic Poetry and Art, 1964, p. 87). I shall assume Theocritean authorship. The idyll appears in excellent company in Pap. Antin., while the same bright genealogical style is evident in line 1 () and Id. xiii 45 ().

2 Yet such things can happen. I think of two magnificent answers to the riddle in Vergil’s third Eclogue, provided by Savage, J.J.H., Class. Weekly 47 (1954), 81 ff.,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Wormell, D.E.W., CQx (1960), 29 ff.,Google Scholar one of which must be wrong. Putnam, M.C.J., Mnem. 18 (1965), 150 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, would have us believe that they are both wrong.

3 La Parola del Passato xii (1957), 271–4.

4 Kall.Epigr. 48Pf. 5f.

5 Gow (at v. 10) says they ‘are not engaged in religious rites but singing or mending their thyrsuses’. I have modified this, since > is more of a religious activity than ‘singing’ suggests.

6 Carrière, 1966, 118 commends van der Valk’s conclusion and interprets it by reference to his own viewpoint that the poet is objecting to Euripidean pathos.

7 Bucolici Graeci (O.C.T.)2, p. 166: ‘Breviter narrantur Penthei res, sed ita ut et Penthei impietas et caedis atrocitas augeatur.’

8 I think, for example, of 1244, where the sight of his grandson’s members tears from Kadmos the cry:

9 Cf. Dion. Hal. Comp. Verb. 16

10 Euripides and Dionysus (1948), p. 123.

11 The postponement of Agave’s participation until line 20 may be conceived as concentrating her role into one terrible act. Whether the use of instead of her name is pathetic may be a matter of taste, but it is worth recalling Bacch. 1114: (and the pathos on the theme in 1115–1121).

12 P. 339 n. 3, among ‘plusieurs épithètes descriptives qui n’ajoutent rien d’essentiel au contexte’.

13 With μɩμ cf. Theokr. v. 12 μɩμ (of Autonoe). With cf. Theokr. V. 10 .

14 According to Willink should be left vague as ‘pinnacle’; it cannot mean ‘tree’, but at the same time is unlikely to be corrupt. He does not comment on Verdenius’, W.J. suggestion of deliberate change (Mnem. 15 [1962], 357).Google Scholar According to this ingenious argument, (on which is dependent—cf. Eur. Ion 274, 714 f.) was original and ղ indicated a variant, when the construction was misunderstood.

15 Headlam, Walter, Journ. of Philology 21 (1893), 88,Google Scholar believes that Theokritos’ treatment ‘confirms’ the truth of the argument that applies to Pentheus; but this is not the only possibility.

16 First inKall, . Hymn 5 107–118 for AktaionGoogle Scholar. Cf. my Poet at Play (Leiden, 1962), pp. 45 ff.

17 Dawson, C.M., Tale Class. Stud, 9 (1944), 117.Google Scholar

18 Gow (at v. 20) seems to me to indulge in special pleading when he says of : ‘What follows suggests that the meaning is having carried off rather than having seized hold of’.

19 It may be significant that Theokritos and Philostratos do not assign sides to Ino and Autonoe. Perhaps the pictures did not make differentiation possible.

20 E.g. Séchan, L., Études sur la tragédie grecque dans ses rapports avec la céramique (Paris, 1926), p. 310, n. 5:Google Scholar this painting ‘s’accorde bien … avec les donnees d’Euripide’; Göber, W., RE 19 i (1937), 546.65 ff.: ‘Wie eine Illustration zu Euripides wirkt das Gemälde Bάкχαι. (Philostr. Imag. 320,15)’.Google Scholar

21 Lobel’s conjecture from a marginal gloss ,. V. di Benedetto (op. cit. p. 271, n. 3) is disturbed by the plural number of the pronoun, but this seems of little consequence. Carrière (1958, p. 14, n. 21) would prefer to account for the of the MSS., but finds the ellipse of ; discouraging. Vollgraff, G., Mnem. lix (1932), 316Google Scholar, had already proposed (sc. ).

22 Or on the other hand introduced when first persons in 29 were corrupted to third persons.

23 BCH xlviii (1924), 175.

24 V. di Benedetto (pp. 273 f.) places his trust in an annotator of the papyrus who linked 29 and 30 in his paraphrase ( a[.] …. Hunt and Johnson, Two Theocritus Papyri, p. 80, warn that ‘not much reliance can be placed on the annotator’; they prefer third persons in 29.

25 25 Di Benedetto (p. 274) similarly assumes that ‘indica non già l’età del poeta, ma 1’anzianità del (, but by favouring a verb in the first person he assumes that this holy estate is Theokritos’ wish for himself. The flow of the passage seems to me against this, for requires a continuation of the potential optative in the conditional construction ( 28). The poet’s wish is best limited to line 30 and the ‘nine-year-man’, whether or hierophant, best taken as Dionysos’ hypothetical victim.

26 Peek, Gr. Vers-Inschr. 879 (Eleusis 3rd c. A.D.), VV. 3–4.

27 Cf.Nilsson, M.P., The Dionysiac Mysteries of the Hellenistic and Roman Age (Lund, 1957), p. 109,Google Scholar on the question of initiation: ‘In Asia Minor and the Greek countries we hear nothing of the initiation of children, except for Himerius in the fourth century A.D.’ However, Lambrechts, P., Hommages à Waldemar Dionna (1957), pp. 322–33,Google Scholar and Matz, , Gnomon 32 (1960), 545–7,Google Scholar do not share Nilsson’s view.

28 In origin this idea invites comparison with the epic turn of phrase whereby something happens for nine days, years, etc. and is climaxed on the tenth. Cf. Od. v 107, xiv 240 f., Hes. Theog. 803; Blom, J.W.S., De Typische Getallen bij Homerus en Herodotos (Diss. Nijmegen, 1936), pp. 255, 257 f.Google Scholar

29 Cf. Dion. Hal. i 88.1: (omens) (Kiessling; aerovs .)

30 Textgesch. d. gr. Bukoliker, p. 212.

31 Cultes, mythes et religions 2 (1908), iii p. 79, n. 4.

32 Apostol. 8.28 (Leutsch-Schneidewin ii p. 434):

33 I have noticed one black sheep in this group of stories. In Arist.HA ix 32.7 (cf. Demetr. Eloc. 157) the eagle perishes of hunger as its beak grows progressively more hooked. ‘This fate it suffers because once when it was humanit broke the laws of hospitality.’

34 A selection will be found in Serv. ad Verg. Aen. i 394, Schol. AD and bt on Il. viii 247, Ps.-Eratosth. Catasterismi 30 and Hygin. Poet. Astron. ii 16.

35 This composition, generally assumed to come early in his association with the court, proclaims that Zeus chose kings (69–79) and that Philadelphos is king of kings (85), but it closes with an appeal to Zeus for and , in which it is tolerably clear that he is looking for rewards from a temporal ruler. For Ptolemy Soter as Zeus, cf. the anecdote of Sostratos in Sext. Emp.Adv. Gramm. 276; for Ptolemy Philadelphos, cf. Meleager, Anth. Plan, vii 418.3.

36 This conclusion is shared by Wilamowitz, Lasserre, van Groningen, Gow, Webster and Lesky (to name a few). The only dissenting opinion which I have noticed in recent years comes from Puelma, Mm. Helv. xvii (1960), 153 n. 29. He maintains that the expression is a modification of the epic , comparing Page, Gk. Lit. Pap. no. 123.60 . He might also have mentioned Ar. Av. 214 ff., where the nightingale’s song ascends (216). However seems specially precise and, if the thought is not to be understood of royal notice, its bombast jars in relation to Simichidas’ cunning mock-modesty.

37 The Poet at Play (Leiden, 1962), pp. 119 f.; Erysichthon: A Callimachean Comedy (Leiden, 1962), p. :123.

38 But Carrière (1958, p. 16) slips when he says (‘sauferreur’) that it appears only in hymns. For examples in other types of composition see the following note.

39 Sprachgeschkhte und Wortbedeutung (Festschrift Albert Debrunner, 1954), pp. 86–88.

40 For other examples, especially involving see West ad Hes. Theog. 240. He includes Il. vi 127 = xxi 151 under this heading: