Navvalive and Minesis in lIe IdIIs oJ TIeocvilus

AulIov|s) CnlIia Banon

Souvce Quadevni UvIinali di CuIluva CIassica, Nev Sevies, VoI. 51, No. 3 |1995), pp. 101-123
FuIIisIed I FaIvizio Sevva edilove
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Narrative and Mimesis in the
Idylls
of Theocritus
Cynthia
Damon
Satisfactory
sense has been made of
many
a
peculiar passage
in
Hellenistic
poetry by invoking
the
principle
of
genre-mixing.
One
part
elegy
to one
part epinician yields
Callimachus' Ode to
Sosibius,
two
parts
didactic
epos
to one
part prose
treatise
yields
Aratus'
Phaenomena,
epic
content added to
tragic
meter and form will
give you
(perhaps) Lycophron's
Alexandra,
and
so
on,
though
these terms are
of
course too
elephantine
for
anything
but
a
rapid
introduction to some
thing
else. In Theocritus'
collection,
we
find
lyric
elements in
Idylls
3,
11, 12,
and
13,
mimic elements in
2, 4, 5, 10, 14,
and
15,
and
hymnic
elements in
26,
for
example1.
These and other elements all added to
one constant
ingredient,
the hexameter. The various
adulterating
agents
have been well
analysed
since the formula
was
first
propounded
by
Kroll,
but it is
perhaps
time to ask what is was about
epos'2
that
spurred
Theocritus to such devoted
tinkering3.
The methods of the Homeric narrator have attracted attention
since the time of Plato at
least,
and the
pace
of
investigation
has
step
ped
up considerably
of late. He
won
praise
from ancient readers for
objectivity,
for
keeping
himself,
his
values,
and the historical context
in which he was
singing,
all but invisible
(e.g.,
Plato,
Resp.
392d
394d, Aristotle,
Poet.
1460a5-7, Dio,
Or. 53.9-10
...
?? ?qxxvov?
xai
1
Id.
22,
on the other
hand,
is a
hymn
to which
pastoral
and
epic
elements have
been added.
2
I use
"epos"
as a shorthand for
"poems
written in stichic
dactylic
hexameters".
3
W.
Kroll,
'Die
Kreuzung
der
Gattungen',
in Studien zum Verst?ndnis der r?mis
chen
Literatur, Stuttgart
1924, pp.
202-224. More
recently,
L. E.
Rossi,
'I
generi
letterari
e le loro
leggi
scritte e non scritte nelle letterature
classiche',
Bull. Inst.
Class. Stud. Univ.
London, 18, 1971, 69-94, esp.
84-86.
102
C. Damon
??tJtou Jioft?v
q)$eyy?\iEVO<;)4.
Aristotle
distinguishes
the mixed
pre
sentational mode of
epic
from that of drama
on
the one
hand,
a
genre
in
which the
poet speaks entirely through
his
characters,
and
dithyramb
on
the
other,
in which the
poet
narrates the entire
piece.
Yet useful
contrasts are
also available within the
category
of hexameter
poetry.
The narrator of a
hymn,
for
example,
has
an
almost
lyrical forthright
ness,
he
speaks
to a
god
to make
a
request
and
a
promise
on
his own
behalf5. The
ego
of didactic
poetry
is likewise
present
in his
poem,
as is
his addressee6.
Hymn
and didactic
epos
were
genres
on
which much
industry
was
expended during
the Alexandrian
floruit,
and
story-telling
mechanisms
were a
natural concern of the revisionist
poetics
of that
period.
Various
modifications of Homer's methods
were
devised.
Apollonius
refused to
lie low
?
"im
Gegensatze
zu
Homer bleibt
er
eine Person und wird
gar
nicht selten
pers?nlich
reden"7. One's
sense
of
a
narrating presence
in
4
Without
narratological
tools and non-derivative
comparanda
at their
disposal
ancient critics tended to
exaggerate
Homer's
"invisibility";
modern studies such as
those of I.
J.
F. de
Jong (Narrators
and Focalizers: the Presentation
of
the
Story
in the
Iliad,
Amsterdam
1987),
S. Richardson
(The
Homeric
Narrator,
Nashville
1990),
and
W. Suerbaum
('Die Ich-Erz?hlung
des
Odysseus',
Po?tica
2, 1968, 108-177)
consider
both the
techniques
on which the
"objective"
or
self-effacing
narrator of the Iliad and
the
Odyssey
relies
(e.g.,
the avoidance of time
ellipses,
and "Homer's" reticence in
making explanations, interpretations
and
judgments)
and the elements of the
epics
in
which the influence of the narrator on the tale he tells is more
apparent (e.g.,
the
sequential
narration of simultaneous
events,
the indirect
speech,
the selection of de
tails relevant to the
story,
the
character-focalizers).
5
On
hymn
form,
see the recent discussions of
J. S.
Clay (The
Politics
of Olym
pus:
Form and
Meaning
in the
major
Homeric
Hymns,
Princeton
1989),
R.
Janko
('The
Structure of the Homeric
Hymns:
a
Study
in
Genre',
Hermes
109, 1981, 9-24),
W. H.
Race
('Aspects
of Rhetoric and Form in Greek
Hymns',
Gr.
Rom.Byz.
Stud.
23, 1982,
5-14).
6
In didactic
poems
of the Hellenistic
period,
for
example,
the addressee of
Nicander's Theriaca is named Hermesianax and addressed as jroX?cov xu?iorate Jia?bv
(3),
while the addressee of the
Alexipharmaca, Protagoras,
is
particularized by
both
name and residence
(6-8).
And in both
poems
Nicander
constantly
frames his instruc
tion in terms of what the second
person
addressee is to do. Aratus' Phaenomena is in
fact
peculiar
in
having,
after the
opening
invocation to Zeus and the
Muses,
no
addres
see. The 'destinatario didascalico' from Hesiod to Manilius has been announced as the
theme of the
(forthcoming)
volume 30 of Mat?riau
e
discussioni.
7
U.
von
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff,
Hellenistische
Dichtung
in der Zeit des Kalli
machos
I-II,
Berlin
1924,
II
p.
218. The most recent discussions are those of C. S.
Byre ('The
Narrator's Addresses to the Narratee in
Apollonius' Argonautica9,
Trans.
Narrative and Mimesis in the
Idylls
of Theocritus 103
this
poem
is reinforced
by Apollonius'
use
of unusual
prophets (a
bird
at
3,
936-937 and the
talking
beam at
1, 524-527, 4,
580-591)
and
by
the
aetiological digressions,
which draw attention to
the
present
day
relevance of
past
occurrences8. The narrator of Callimachus' Hecale is
an
unknown
quantity,
but his
surrogate
in frr. 70-74
Pf.,
the
crow,
needs
an
author's hand to endow him with
speech
as
much as
does the
nautilus shell of
Epigram 59; by
contrast,
Homer's
secondary
narrator/
focalizers
are
humans
or
anthropomorphic gods10. Unlikely
narrators
appear
in the
Aetia, too,
as if to insist
upon
the
artificiality
of,
on
the
presence
of an
artificer
in,
the tale11.
Lycophron
has a
rather more
complicated recipe
for
making
an
artificial narrator. The
speaker
of the
Alexandra characterizes
himself,
his
addressee,
the
occasion,
etc.
very
precisely:
his
speech
to his master Priam
reporting
Cassandra's words
after Paris'
departure
for
Sparta
would be like that of a
messenger
in a
play, except
that it alludes to
passages
in Greek literature and to events
which took
place
in the 3rd
century
B.C.12. No two of the narrators of
Am. Philol. Ass.
121, 1991, 215-227)
and R. Hunter
('The
Poet and his
Poem',
in The
Argonautica of Apollonius: Literary Studies,
Cambridge
1993, pp. 101-151).
8
On these
features,
see M.
Fusillo,
//
tempo
delle
Argonautiche:
unanalisi del
racconto in
Apollonio
Rodio,
Rome
1985, pp.
360-396 and S.
Goldhill,
The Poet's
Voice:
Essays
on Poetics and Greek
Literature,
Cambridge
1991, pp. 286-300,
328
330.
9
Objets parlants
were of
course standard fare in
epigrams,
but the tactic was now
put
to use in other
genres.
Cf. the
bird-speakers
in la.
4, 64-87,
and the contest of the
trees earlier in that same
poem (11-92).
An earlier
contest-poem,
on the
rivalry
be
tween Cithaeron and Helicon
(Korinna,
fr. 654
Page)
had mountains as
speakers.
10
On Homer's
secondary narrator/focalizers,
see de
Jong (above,
note
4) pp.
149-194,
and her more recent article 'The
Subjective Style
in
Odysseus' Wanderings',
Class.
Quart. 42, 1992,
1-11. Homers does have
one
"unlikely
narrator": the
eagle
in
the dream which
Penelope
describes to the
disguised Odysseus
at Od.
19,
535-569
(a
reference I owe to
my colleague
G.
Nagy).
The fact that this is
Penelope's report,
however,
makes the
eagle's speech (lines 545-550)
a less blatant authorial artifice than
the most of the stories told
by "unlikely
narrators" in
poems
of the Hellenistic era.
11
Some of Callimachus'
unlikely
narrators: dead
poet,
fr. 64
Pf.; city wall,
fr.
97;
pillar,
fr. 103
[?rcei
xo?e
xuo?ic ?ei?ei];
lock of
hair,
fr.
110; statue,
fr.
114;
Muses,
fr.
3-714, 719-21, 23, 26-31b,
43. Cf. also Aetia fr.
86,
the dead
princess
speaking
in the
lyric fragment
228,
the
unplaced
fr. 759 and
Supplementum
Hellenisti
cum 238-249. On artificial voices in the
Hymns,
see A.
Harder,
'Insubstantial Voices:
Some Observations
on
the
Hymns
of
Callimachus',
Class.
Quart.
42, 1992,
384-394.
12
G. O.
Hutchinson,
Hellenistic
Poetry,
Oxford
1988, p.
261: "his
[the author's]
presence
is felt
plainly enough
in this
extravagantly
artificial utterance".
104
C. Damon
Theocritus' bucolic
epos
are
precisely
alike,
but the
variety
achieved in
the collection o?
Idylls
is itself an indicator of
our
author's interest in the
mechanics of narrative13.
Consider the
scene in
Idyll
3,
a
goatherd's 7i(b\iO?.
In his first
word, X?)juao?
, the
speaker
reveals himself
as
a)
a
participant
in the
events of the
narrative,
and
b) narrating contemporaneous
events. After
the announcement of the
x?)|iO?,
we hear "and
my goats
are
elsewhere"
(1-2).
He is a
goatherd,
then. But what is a
goatherd doing
as a
comast?
A
K(b\io?
in the
countryside (mountain, pasture, spring,
lines
1-4)?
During
the
day (?ooxovxai)?
Alone?
Puzzles of form
compound
those of content14.
Kcofxaaoco
is not the
sort of
thing
one
says
in a
dryly
matter-of-fact
tone of
voice;
when this
verb is used of
a
xcijio? underway
or
about
to
begin by
one of the
participants
in
it,
it is
generally well-supported by
a
heightened
context
of
revelry
or
celebration15. Anacreon,
for
example,
sets the
stage
for his
x
jxo?:
'Hfjiornoa
(lev ixgiov
Xenxov
[mxq?v ?jtoxX?c,
o?vou ?'
?^?jriov
xa?ov
vvv ?'
a?gc?c ?goeooav
ty?XXxo
jrnxTi?a
xf\ qpiX,r] xcofxa?cov
trcai?i a?rjfj (fr.
93
Gentili)16.
Considerably
hotter in tone is an
epigram
of
Asclepiades,
where
the
K(b\io?
is
already
under
way:
13
In
choosing my
examples
in the
preceding paragraph
from Hellenistic
poetry,
I do not mean to
suggest
that these mechanisms are
unparalleled
in Greek literature of
earlier
eras. For a discussion of a
passage
in which
Theognis,
for
example,
seems to
speak
as a "dead
poet",
see G.
Nagy, 'Theognis
and
Megara:
a Poet's Vision of his
City',
in
Theognis of Megara
:
Poetry
and the
Polis,
ed.
by
T.
J.
Figueira
and G.
Nagy,
Baltimore
1985, pp. 21-81, esp.
76-79.
14
The first word of
Idyll
22
(v\iv?o\iev)
is likewise an overt statement about
genre
in a
poem
that
indulges
in an
extraordinary
amount of
play
with
generic
conventions.
The use of a
generic
indicator as the first word of a
poem
is imitated
by
the author of
Idyll
9
(?ovxoXiaCeo), though
he does not follow Theocritus in
causing
the reader to
question
the
validity
of the narrator's
generic
self-definition.
15
On the conventions of the
xcbjxo?,
see M.
Heath,
'Receiving
the
xc?uo?:
The
Context and Performance of
Epinician',
Am.
Journ.
Philol.
109, 1988, 180-195,
and
the references to earlier literature
on this controversial
topic
that he
provides
therein.
16
Cf. AP
12,
116
(anonymous)
xcou?oouar
[?educo y?g ?Xo? \i?ya,
etc. Also AP
12,
115. An
epigram
of
Meleager's,
as so
often,
provides
the clearest distillation of the
topos: xcoua?co
?' ovx o?vov vno
yg?va, nvg
??
yeuiafteic (AP 12, 85, 7).
Narrative and Mimesis in the
Idylls
of Theocritus
105
velqpe, xdkat,o$?'k?i,
Jto?ei
ox?xoc, aide, negavvov,
jt?vxa x?
JtOQqr?Qovx'
?v
x^ovl
ae?e
v?cpr]
f\v y?g [xe
xxeivfj?
x?xe
jtat3ao[xai, f\v
??
\i9 ?tq^fj? ?fjv.
xai
?iaflfi?
xotjx v
xeigova xcofi?oofiat (AP 5,
64)17.
The
K<b\ioi
in which Pindar shows himself about to be
engaged
are
more
dignified
events,
but their tone is
perhaps
even more
exalted than
that of these
private poems;
as,
for
example,
in the
opening
lines of
Nemean 9:
xofi?oofiEv jrag' 'AjtoX?oovo?
Zixv
vofte, Mo?oai,
x?v veoxx?axav
?? A?xvav,
?vfr'
?vajtejtxa^i?vai
?;eivo)v
vev?xavxai
?KJQai,
?X?iov ?? Xqo|??ou
? u.'18.
And
conversely,
neutral
or
disapproving reports
of comastic activ
ity appear
in
past
tenses,
or in the 3rd
person,
as
when Callimachus
offers
a
dispassionate
discussion of
past passion:
el
[x?v ?xc?rv, 'Aqx^V,
ercexcouxxoa
\ivQia \i?\iyov,
el ?' axcov
r\n(D xf|v jtQOJt?xeiav
?a.
axQTjxo?
xai
?gco? \i' f|v?yxaoav,
a>v ?
fx?v
a?rtcov
eUxev,
? ?' o?jx e?a
JtQOJt?xeiav
??v
(AP
12,
118)19.
Or when
an orator or
moralist wants to make clear his
disapproval
of the institution: ov?' ?oxiv
ooxi?
?v ?jtavx
v
x(0(i?^ovxi
xtvt
\iex?
\i?^?\?
OVK ?v
XT|v [iEy?oxr\v
?ixnv
eirfr?? ?jci?eir) (Plato, Leg. 637a7-8,
cf.
Lys.
3, 23; 14, 25;
Is.
3,
14
etc.).
But in
Idyll
3
we
have
a comast
whose first concern is to
explain
that he has made
arrangements
for the
care of his
goats
the
while;
a
responsible goatherd (no Polyphemus
he,
cf. JtoXX?xi xai
o?e?
Jtoxi xco?Xiov
avx??, ?jrfjvftov,
11,
12),
alive to
his
he-goat's capacity
for mischief
(xai
x?v
?vOQxav
...
(fvX?ooso \ir\
xv
xoQthjrn, 4-5),
and
affectionately disposed
towards his
helpmate,
17
The text is that of
Gow-Page (The
Greek
Anthology:
Hellenistic
Epigrams I-II,
ed.
by
A. S. F. Gow and D. L.
Page, Cambridge
1965,1 p. 47).
Alcaeus fr. 374
Voigt
(??^cu
[xe xco|ji?ooovxa, ???ai,
Aioooua? oe.
XXoaouai)
is without
context,
but would
seem to have the same emotional tone.
18
Cf. Isth.
7,
20ff. and P.
9,
89ff.
19
The text is that of
Gow-Page (above,
note
17).
106 C. Damon
Tityrus (?|iiv
to xaX?v
Jt?(pi?,r||i?ve, 3).
A model
herdsman,
in
fact;
which
only
makes his comastic intentions the more
unfathomable.
There is still another matter in this
innocuous-seeming prelude
which demands of the reader
interpretation.
For no sooner
have we
assimilated the narrator's un-Homeric relation to the tale he is
telling
us
than the narrative situation
changes:
the
speaker
turns to
Tityrus (the
surrogate
herdsman he had
pointed
out to us in line
2,
xai ?
Tltuqo?
aut?? ?Xauvei), turning
us into the
eavesdroppers
we
will remain for
the rest of the
poem. Why
the shift from narrative to
lyric
modes of
presentation?
Or is the reader who asks such
questions
of this text too
exacting?
After
all,
Hermogenes
cited the
opening
of this
poem
as an
exemplum
of
?cp?Xeia, by
which he
means,
he
says:
"the
thoughts
of uncultured
natures or
of
fools,
who
explain things
which need
no
explaining
and
about which
no one is
asking
them,
as in most of Anacreon's stuffand in
the bucolic
poems
of Theocritus and
many others,
as for
example
6H?)(ji?ooa)
Jtoxi tew
'AjiaQuXX?oa,
tai ??
\ioi
a?yEC ?ooxovxai
xax'
oqo?'
and what follows"
(Hermog.
Id.
2,
3).
More recent
commentators,
too,
have found the
poem essentially simple,
Theocritus
amusing
him
self and
us at the
expense
of
a
sentimental buffoon of a
goatherd
whom
he has set to
perform
a x
jio?
that he has
no
business
doing20.
One
20
E.
g.,
G. Lawall
(Theocritus9
Coan Pastorals: A
Poetry
Book,
Washington
D.C.
1967, p. 35):
"humorous and
parodie";
C. P.
Segal ('Adonis
and
Aphrodite:
Theocri
tus,
Idyll
3.
48', Antiquit?
class.
37, 1969,
82-88
=
Poetry
and
Myth
in Ancient
Pastoral:
Essays
on Theocritus and
Virgil,
Princeton
1981, pp.
66-72. The latter is
cited):
"a
deliberately light
and
trifling poem" (p. 71),
also U. Ott
(Die
Kunst des
Gegensatzes
in Theokrits
Hirtengedichten (Spudasmata 22),
Hildesheim
1969, p.
177
n.
494).
Goldhill
(above,
note
8, pp. 247-248) recognizes
the
inadequacy
of the
paro
die
reading,
but concurs with the critics
just
cited in
finding
the
goatherd essentially
ridiculous. He
argues
that the reader has an "investment" in the conventions which the
ridiculous
goatherd
so
abuses,
and that he will
recognize
himself in the
goatherd.
He
sees a similar
strategy
in
Idyll
11, where,
he
claims,
"in the
very
act of
reading
or
singing
the
poem
we,
like
Polyphemus,
are
actually fostering
and
helping
to maintain
our desire"
(p. 259).
And that we are
thereby doing
much the same
thing
as the
addressee of the
poem,
Nicias.
However,
Nicias'
"response"
to the
poem (fj cxq' ?Xnd??
to?to, 0eoxQixe.
o?
y?g "Egoote? novtyz?? JtoXXo?? ??i?a?av to?? jiq?v ?\iovoov?)
shows that
he,
at
least,
supposed
that the
remedy
Theocritus had in mind was
compos
ing
a
poem,
not
performing
a text written
by
someone else. Therefore it is a little
difficult to see how "the
figure
of fun is
inverted", i.e.,
how the
sophisticated
reader
finds himself
doing
much the same
thing
as
Polyphemus (or
the ridiculous
goatherd
of
Idyll 3).
See also
n. 33 below.
Narrative and Mimesis in the
Idylls
of Theocritus 107
might
say,
on
this ironic
reading,
that the voice of the
first-person
re
veller is
explicit
in x
jiao?u),
but that
implicit
is the voice of an
obser
ver
who would
report
such
an event in the third
person:
"there
goes
a
goatherd-comast,
and what
a clown he
is,
eh?". The
presence
of a
speaker
behind the
speaker
is to be felt in
many
other
poems
of Theoc
ritus and it has
a function
beyond just
that of
creating irony.
This
point
may
be illustrated
through
further consideration of
Idyll
3.
Our
matter-of-fact,
oh-so-responsible goatherd, then,
begins
his
paraclausithyron
at line 6. The
object
of the
exercise,
usually,
is to
persuade
the lover within to unbar the
door,
but this comast shows
a
nice sense
of
amatory
tact
by changing
rules of the
game
so
that
Amary
llis,
even
doorless,
can retain her
position
of control21. In this sere
nade,
the
object
is to
get
her to look
out,
and all of the
goatherd's many
gambits
are
directed to that end. After
reminding
her that she had
invited him in before
(quoting
her own
words,
t?v
EQ?mJXov,
7)22,
he
invites her to reconsider his
appearance,
from close
up, eyY??tev (8).
According
to
Gow,
this word "need not to be
pressed",
but on
the
contrary,
it
presses
her to
justify
the xaxa- in
xaxa(paivo|iai.
The
goatherd
also ventures a
vocative,
v?jiqpa,
which is
pregnant
with re
minders of
past
events
("my
wife",
cf. t?
yj
o?x?xi
...
xaXe??; 6-7)
and
promises
for the future
("my
bride",
cf.
2,
132 cb
yvvm
and Dover's
note ad
loc.)23.
Then come the
presents,
offered with a
particle inviting
her to come out and see
them:
f|vi?e
xoi
??xa
\iaka (p?? (10).
When
this
fails,
he
points
to the
place
from which
they
came
-
xrjv
de
xofreiXov
(10)
-
and
promises
more
apples
tomorrow if
only
she will
come out and look at what he has
brought today (?t?oai ji?v, 12).
Un
successful in a direct
approach,
he waxes
lyrical
with an
optative
of
unfulfilled desire
(aide
yEVOi\iav,
12),
and
points
out that a
bee is
about to enter her cave
(see
Dover's note on ?
?o|x?euoa [x?Xiooa, 13).
Each successive failure is
punctuated by
an
expression
of distress:
21
Cf. E.
Burck,
'Das
Paraclausithyron', Gymnasium
43, 1932, 186-200, esp. p.
191.
22
Pace A. S. F. Gow
(Theocritus
I-II,
Cambridge 19522,
note on
3,
8
evyuftev),
oxjx?tt would seem to indicate that he has been invited in more than once
before. Cf.
the
countryside gossip
about the two mentioned in lines 31-34.
23
Contrast this term with those used of
objects
of affection
by
their lovers' inter
locutors:
Priapus,
in Id.
1, speaks
of ?
xcbga (82), "Polyphemus's"
interlocutor in Id.
6 mentions ?
Jca?? (13),
as does Milon at Id.
10,
14
(so
too her lover
Bucaeus,
since he
is
speaking of
the
girl,
not to
her, 24-25).
108
C. Damon
an?y^aofta?
\is jionael?
in line
9, dDjxaXy?? ?(iiv a/o? (12)
and
a
three
line schetliasmus directed at Eros
(15-17)
after the
third,
more
impas
sioned
attempt.
More
flattering
affirmation of her cool control
over an
enraptured
lover follows
on
this
(d)
x? xaX?v
JtoftoQe?aa,
x? Jt?v
Xido?, 18),
and
a
newly
exalted status: a
xvavocpgu? vtjjicpa
now,
be
sought by
her
afotoXo? (18-19),
rather than
charming Amaryllis
accosted
by
one who has
enjoyed
her favors in the
past.
An active role
in the business is hers
now,
too
(l?Q?OTtxv^a?
[xe, 19). Flattery gets
him
nowhere, however,
so he mentions
a
garland,
a
gift
which he is about to
tear
up
if she won't
come out and
see
how nice it smells
(e?>?o|J,oiai
oe?ivoi?, 23). Disappointed again
he
may
be
(24),
but not
deterred,
for
he
points
to the cliff from which he
threatens, disrobed,
to
jump (xr\V(b
akev\iai, 25). Only
when she fails to rise to the bait does he add the
explanation
(OJteQ xcb? iK?vvco? oxoma?exai "OXm?
?
yptJieuc (26).
The mention of
Olpis
leads into
a
rather indirect
approach:
he lets her
see
that their affair is
gossip-material
for other
country-dwellers (eiJte
xai
'Aygoiu)..., 31-33),
and that she has a
rival
(? Meqjivcovo?
?fjiikxxi?, 35-36).
He ends with
a
threat
(no
melodrama
now,
but
an act
which will
directly
affect
Amaryllis
-
? ocE)
o?, 36),
and a note of
faintly peevish
resentment
(evoia^Qimxr], 36).
These win him a
favor
able
omen. The
twitching
of his
eyelid prompts
him to
play
his
last,
best
card,
the
song (40-51).
A marvel of allusive
mythologizing,
the
song
expands
upon
two themes introduced earlier: the
hard-to-get
maiden
who is
joined
at last to a
sufficiently energetic
suitor
(the myths
of
Atalanta and
Bias),
and the
goddess taking pleasure
in the embrace of a
mere mortal
(Aphrodite,
the Moon and
Demeter)24.
With
that,
our
goatherd pleads
a
headache
(52);
all his cards
are on
the table and the
next move is hers.
Despite
the fact that
our
goatherd
is
going
about
a
business that he
has
no
business
doing,
there is
no
Kyklopenmetrik
here,
nor
any
Kyk
lopenrhetorik
either25.
Everything
is directed
accurately
at the end in
24
Commentators are divided
on the
quality
of the
song.
Gow
(above,
note
22, p.
73)
and
Segal (above,
note
20, p. 71)
find the
song's
content
humorously inappropriate
to the
singer;
Ott
(above,
note
20, pp. 181-183) emphasizes
its
stylistic felicities,
and
Dover
explains
the rationale behind the
exempla (K.
J.
Dover, Theocritus,
Select
Poems,
Basingstoke
1971, p. 188).
25
These
qualities
are sometimes discerned in
Idyll
11,
a
poem
which has much
in common with
Idyll
3.
See, e.g.,
U.
von
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff,
Textgeschichte
der
griechischen
Bukoliker,
Berlin
1906, p.
159.
Narrative and Mimesis in the
Idylls
of Theocritus 109
view
(getting
her to look
out) 6,
and the
variety
of the
goatherd's gam
bits would have done credit to
Ovid27. Nor is this lover
particularly
rustic,
though
his
props
are
such
as to reflect the
pastoral setting:
the
Amaryllis
of
Idyll
3 has
a
rather more
delicate suitor than does her
namesake in
Idyll
4,
whose boxer-lover
Aegon
was
positively frighten
ing
when,
having
downed his
eighty
cakes,
he
grabbed
a
bull
by
the
horns
(literally)
to
give
to his
girl,
and
laughed
when all the women
began
to scream
(4, 33-37)28.
So well aimed is this lover's
speech,
and
so
much in evidence
are
his
apples
and
rose(bud)s (ndkvKEOOi,
line
23)
that
one
may suspect
that his "love" is in fact far from the
?Q?ai [xav?at
of
Polyphemus (cf.
11,
10-11).
And that this
girl (pardon
me,
this
nymph), requires
a more elaborate
approach
-
?v?ia&QUJiXT]
is not what
one
would
say
of
a
girl
who
simply
refused to listen
-
than the
xa%vitEiW\? city-dweller
Simaetha
(2, 138),
for
example29.
And that
her lover is
willing
to
play
his
part,
at least for
awhile, anyway
?
hence,
perhaps,
the matter-of-fact
xa>|ia?o?)
with which the
poem
so
startling
ly began
and the
far-from-tragic
headache with which the
goatherd
con
cludes his address. Such
suspicions
remain in
limbo, however,
neither
26
That this is the
goal,
rather than
just
an ill-defined need to
pour
out his
feelings, regardless
of whether
they
have
any
effect on the beloved or
not,
is made
clear
by
the contrast between this
poem
and
Vergil's partial caique
thereon,
Eel. 2.
The "serenade" in Eel. 2 is
performed
in an
empty grove (3-5)
and does not aim to
influence
Alexis,
the
beloved,
in
any way.
27
In
fact,
Ovid's exclusus amator in Am.
1,
6 uses a
number of this
goatherd's
tactics: he
points
out
something
for the
doorkeeper
to see
(aspice
?
uti videos inmitia
claustra
relaxa, 17),
he likens his addressee to a
god (fulmen
habes, 16)
and refers to
his hardness
(ferreus...
audis, 17,
cf.
62).
Note also the moment of
hope
at lines 49-50:
fallimur,
an verso sonuerunt car dine
postes/
raucaque
concussae
signa
dedere
fores?
Tibullus's
amator, too,
draws
upon
this
goatherd's
serenade when he
reports
his deal
ings
with the verax
...saga (1,2,
40-64,
cf. Id.
3, 31, 'Aycoi?b
x?Xafr?a xooxiv?uxxv
xi?).
28
The rustic lover in
Idyll
14 is
equally overwhelming
when "his"
Cynisca's
preference
for another is revealed:
nvt,
?jti
xOQoa? f\Kaoa,
xcxXXav
aflfti? (34-35)
he
says,
with little if
any compunction (x?\io? ?yci),
x?v
?aai? t?, ?vc?vi/e, 34).
The best
parallel,
in
fact,
for the self-restraint and
delicacy
of this
goatherd's
serenade is to be
found in
Lycidas'
love
song
for
Ageanax (7, 52-89),
another urban-rustic
hybrid.
On
the
genre
of this
last,
see D. M.
Halperin, Before
Pastoral: Theocritus and the Ancient
Tradition
of
Bucolic
Poetry,
New Haven
1983, pp.
122-124.
29
Note also the self-restraint of this serenade
by
contrast with the assault tactics
threatened
by Delphis (Idyll
2, 128)
or those
put
into
play by
the
young
lover in
Herodas
2, 31-37,
cf. 79.
110
C. Damon
refuted
nor
confirmed,
when the
poem
ends before
Amaryllis responds
and before her silence is conclusive. The
speaker
does not return to the
narrative mode of lines 1-2 to finish
up
the
story,
and we are
left without
a
speaker's
summation such
as
that in
Idyll
ll30. Also in the much less
discussed
Idyll
22,
where both the
genre (?)|Jiv?ojiev, 1)
and the narrator
(221-223)
assert that the narratives have honored the
Dioscuri, attemp
ting
to control the reader's
lively
sense
of the
impropriety
of the second
"myth"
in
particular31.
Even if the
concluding
statements of the narra
tors in
Idylls
11 and 22 fail to
explain
their
respective poems,
they
do
help identify
the issues which need
interpretation.
Consider how the
story
of
Idyll
3
might
have ended:
a)
the
goatherd
might actually
have
died,
b) Amaryllis might
have invited him
in,
or
perhaps c) Tityrus might
have
gotten
fed
up
with the
goats
and returned
them to their caretaker.
Any
of these
endings
would make the task of
reading (in
its fullest
sense)
the
poem easier,
would resolve uncertain
ties that have arisen while the
goatherd
was
speaking.
If a new
voice
(as
it would have to
be)
sounded to inform the reader about
ending a),
for
example,
our
feeling
that the x
jxo?
was a
style
of
courtesy
in which
these lovers had
engaged
before and to which both
parties gave
consent
will have been
proven
unfounded
?
we
would have to conclude
that,
despite
his
apples
and
rose(bud)s,
this lover's
?lavia
was
?Q$v\.
Either
ending b)
or
c),
on
the other
hand,
would confirm us in our
interpreta
tion of the x
jio? game
and
we
will
suspect that,
successful
or
not,
the
goatherd
will be back the next
day
with more
apples (11).
But as it
is,
30
Which is not to
say
that the
interpreter's
task in
Idyll
11 is
any easier,
of
course. For
despite
the "and thus we have seen" conclusion
(80-81)
in which the
speaker
claims to have
proven
the
proposition
he set out at the
beginning
of the
poem,
many
a sensitive reader has not
"seen",
has
felt,
in
fact,
that the inset
song gives
the
lie to the frame. It is not
my
intention here to
argue
for the one
interpretation
or the
other
(see,
most
recently
and with further
bibliography,
S.
Goldhill,
'Desire and the
Figure
of Fun:
Glossing
Theocritus
11',
in Post-structuralist
Classics,
ed. A. Ben
jamin,
London
1988, pp.
79-105 and R.
Schmiel,
'Structure and
Meaning
in Theocri
tus
11',
Mnemosyne
46, 1993, 229-234),
but to
point
out the
juxtaposition
of
proposi
tion and
proof.
31
Another
interpretative
statement,
one
that is revealed
by
the
sequel
to be
tongue-in-cheek,
is the
"praise"
of Bucaeus'
song by
Milon in
Idyll
10. Less mali
cious,
but still
singularly inadequate
is
Gorgo's
evaluation of the
song
of the
Argive
woman's
daughter (15, 145-146).
And Comatas' statement in
Idyll
5 that he
speaks
only
the truth and does not boast
(5, 76-77)
is itself a
boast. See below on
Thestylis'
amusement at her mistress'
plight
in
Idyll
2.
Narrative and Mimesis in the
Idylls
of Theocritus 111
we are
left to our own
interpretative
devices in
evaluating
inconcinni
ties in what is said
("I
am
dying
of love for
you",
but also
"you
used to
let
me in" and "I'll be back
tomorrow")
and what is done
(bringing
apples
and
rosebuds,
consulting Agroio
and the flower
XT]XicpiXo?,
but
also
singing
a refined
song
and
being
an
initiate in a
mystery religion,
50-51)32.
The
interpretations
tendered
by
critics to date
range
from Ott's
"Theokrits echtester Hirt" to Gow's
"aping
the
gentry",
with
many
variations on the theme of
"naive", "buffoon", "sentimental",
in
between33. That the list is for the most
part
so
uncomplimentary
is a
result,
I
think,
of insufficient consideration
being given
to the ends that
may
be achieved
by
the creation of a
speaker
behind the ostensible
speaker
of the
poem34.
Does the author who endows some
external
ego
with
speech always
want us to
laugh
at his creation from a
vantage point
of comfortable
superiority?
Put in
general
terms like that the
question
is
simple enough
to answer: of
course not. But
applied
to
Idyll
3
-
must we
laugh
at this
goatherd?
Or if we
must,
is there
any
larger purpose,
beyond
that of
comedy
hour entertainment I
mean,
that is served
by
the
poem?
Gow
suggests
that satire
may
be
intended, criticism,
that
is,
of
a
phenomenon
that "must have been
an
unmitigated
nuisance for the
neighbours
and for sober citizens
generally"35.
This idea has had
no
takers, however,
perhaps
because there is almost
nothing
else in the
Idylls
which
can be identified
as
satirical,
nor was
the satiric mode
32
For a
good
discussion of the
interpretative
uncertainties raised in another
first-person
narrative,
Idyll
7,
see
Goldhill
(above,
note
8) p.
229.
33
Ott
(above,
note
20) p. 180,
Gow
(above,
note
22) p.
64. Further
bibliography
in K.
Gutzwiller,
Theocritus Pastoral
Analogies:
The Formation
of
a
Genre,
Madison
1991, p.
249 nn. 50-51.
34
C.
Isenberg
and D. Konstan
('Pastoral
Desire: The Third
Idyll
of
Theocritus',
Dalhousie Rev.
64, 1984, 302-315)
do offer a
good analysis
of the
Idyll's
"communica
tive network".
However,
their
misgivings (pp. 31-32)
about the
dangers
of
looking
at
the theme of the
poem ("desire
so
neatly anatomized")
without more than a
glance
at
the
poem's literary
traditions
or the rest of the
Idylls
are
justified.
Gutzwiller
(above,
note
33, pp. 115-123),
too,
finds
an infusion of
seriousness,
of universal
meanings,
amidst the ludicrous elements of the scene. She
gives
a
good
account of the
poem's
complexities.
Her method of
reading,
which involves
finding
and
interpreting
analo
gies
both within the
poem
and between the world of the
poem
and the world of the
reader,
is useful for
elucidating
the content of
Idyll
3,
but
my interest,
in this
paper
at
least,
is on the
variety
of forms utilized in the
Idylls.
35
Gow
(above,
note
22) p.
64.
112 C. Damon
much used
by
Theocritus'
contemporaries36.
But
are
there
parallels
for
the
"patronizing
humour"
so
often
seen in
Idyll
337? In
fact,
both Gow
and Dover remark
on
the
uniqueness
of the tone of the
poem38.
The
question really
boils down to this
-
if an
ironic
author,
an
eiQorv, says
less than he
means,
what is the full extent of his
meaning
and how is
one to
get
at it?
Much
good
work has been done
on
the
problem
Hellenistic
poets
faced in
establishing
a voice when occasions no
longer
called for
poetry
as
they
had done in the
past
and
when,
no
longer
the
mouthpiece
of the
Muses,
the
poet
was
challenged
to find
an
ego
which would serve as his
mouthpiece39.
Callimachus turns the tables
nicely
when he
gets
the
Muses to
expound
aetia for him
(below,
note
39).
In
Idyll
3, however,
it
is not the
Muses,
but
a
goatherd
who
speaks.
And he is no more
realis
tic a
goatherd
than the
Lycidas (aiJt?Xcp ?^ox'
?
xei, 7,
14)
who
sings
a
love
song
for
Ageanax,
but is rather
a
goatherd metamorphosed by
a
power
?
the
poet's
?
which in its own
sphere equals
that of the
gods
of
myth
who reward
or
punish
the mortal with whom
they
come into con
tact with such drastic
changes
of form. It is a case of
making
a virtue of
necessity, really;
if
responsibility
for the tale can no
longer
be
projected
onto the
Muses,
then it must lie with the
poet,
and the
poet may
either
make his
manipulations
obvious,
as
here,
or
he
may
use
his art to
conceal his
artistry.
Or he
may
combine the
processes.
In
fact,
the
collection of
Idylls
is remarkable for the
variety
of the author-narrator
narrative
or
author-event
relationships displayed
therein.
The narrator of
Idyll
18,
for
instance,
is more
reticent even
than
the Homeric narrator. He
(or
she
-
this narrator is so
little characte
rized that it is
impossible
to tell
which)
is
reporting
"historical" events
36
The best discussion of the relation between Theocritus'
poetry
and the socio
political
realities of his
day
is,
to
my mind,
F. T.
Griffiths,
Theocritus at Court
(Mne
mosyne
Suppl. 55),
Leiden 1979.
37
The
description quoted
here is Dover's
(above,
note
19) p.
113.
38
Dover
(above,
note
24) p. 113,
Gow
(above,
note
22) p.
64: "the
poem
has
a
point
and
piquancy
not found elsewhere in T".
39
S. Goldhill
(above,
notes 8 and
30;
below note
76),
in
particular,
has contri
buted much to the
picture.
The discussion in H.
Berger,
'The
Origins
of Bucolic
Representation:
Disenchantment and Revision in Theocritus' Seventh
Idyll9,
Class.
Ant.
3, 1984, 1-39,
while limited to Theocritus and more
particularly
to
Idyll 7,
is
stimulating
as
well,
as is the discussion of
Apollonus'
narrative
techniques
in R.
Hunter
(above,
note
7) pp.
101-151.
Narrative and Mimesis in the
Idylls
of Theocritus 113
(ev
Jtox'
apa SjtaQX?t, 1)
but
gives
no
information about the source
of
his
(detailed) knowledge
?
hyacinths
in the
hair,
twelve
maidens,
newly
painted
thalamos,
verbatim
transcript
of
song
?
whether this is an
eye
witness
report
or a
replay
of
Muse-reportage.
Nor is the narrator's audi
ence
characterized at
all, except
insofar
as
the
particle
apa
allows one
to infer that it had
some interest in the
topic
of the
poem. However,
the
narrator is
by
no means
the
only
communicator in this
poem,
for
just
as
he sets the
song
of the maidens in a
historical context for his
audience,
so
the author of the
poem
sets the narrator's words in a
literary
context
for his readers. Some
aspects
of this
literary
context are no
longer
visi
ble to
us,
of
course,
but the outlines
are
clear. The author was
reporting
to an
audience that would
appreciate
the
irony
of references to the
duration of Helen's
relationship
with Menelaus
(15-16, 51-53),
to the
offspring
of their
marriage (21,
51, 53)
and to her
spinning
and
weaving
(shades
of Andromache and
Penelope! 32-34),
and that would be
likely
to
recognize
the Homeric seed-kernel for the
topic
in Helen's fond re
membrance of her
?\ir\kiK?r\ ?paxeivri
at //.
3,
17540. These
are
the two
outer
layers
of communication: the author
presenting
to his
contempor
aries
a
story
told
by
a
self-effacing
narrator to a
silent audience41. The
re-presentation
of the narrative tale
changes
its
meaning
in fun
damental
ways
without
altering
a word: the statement
Tuv?aQi?a
xaxexX?^axo
..
? ve
xeQO? 'Axqeo?
m v
(5-6)
is used
by
the narrator
as a
standard element of
hymenaeal
celebration
(cf.
Catullus
61,
224)
but
by
the author
as an
oblique
reference to Helen's
subsequent flight
from behind that closed door42. What of the
representation
of the inner
most
layer,
the
song
addressed
by
the
Spartan
maidens to Menelaus?
40
On authorial
irony
in the
mythological poems (13, 18, 22, 24,
26),
see B.
Effe,
'Die Destruktion der Tradition: Theokrits
Mythologische Gedichte',
Rh. Mus.
121, 1978,
48-77
(=
Theokrit und die
griechische Bukolik,
ed. B. Effe
(Wege
der
Forschung 580),
Darmstadt
1986, pp.
56-80. The latter is
cited).
41
F. T. Griffiths
(above,
note
36) argues
that Helen is an
"analogue"
for Arsinoe
(cf. 15,
110-111 ?
BeQevixe?a {hr/?xr]Q,
eEX?vo: ebtiua
'Aooiv?a),
a
way
station
en
route to the
emergence
as Arsinoe
Aphrodite (p. 53),
and that Arsinoe would have
been
gratified by
the
youthful
Helen's
gradual metamorphosis
into
divinity
in
Idyll
18
(pp. 86-91).
He makes the
stipulation
however that such
mythic parallels
are
effective
only
"once the
irony
is
brought
under control"
(71),
and I am not at all sure that the
myth
of Helen can be so
tamed,
however domestic one
makes her in her
youth (18,
32-36,
cf. 38 xi)
\i?v oix?xi? f\?r\).
42
The
irony
of this
poem
is well described
by
J.
Stern,
'Theocritus'
Epithala
mium
for
Helen\
Rev.
beige philol.
hist.
56, 1978,
29-37.
114
C. Damon
We
may
swallow the
linguistic
consciousness evident in line 48
(?CDQiox?)43,
but is it credible that these maidens know of Helen's di
vine
parentage (Zav?c
xoi
{fruyaxTiQ,
19,
cf. the narrator's
Tuv?aQ??a,
5),
or that
they
are aware of
being
the
originators
of
a ritual
(jtp?xai
?'
??yvQ?a? ?? oXm?o? uyQ?v ?Xeicpag ?,a^t3[xevai oxa^EV\iE?
?jt?
oxieg?v
JtXax?vioxov,
45-46)44?
If
not,
we must assume that the narra
tor is not
reporting
the
song
at
all,
but
writing
it,
"as it
might
have
been",
though
he falls
a bit below the
Thucydidean
standard of verisi
militude.
Well,
who
ever
imagined
that
a
7ioir)xrj?;,
be he historian
or
poet,
did
anything
else? That is
easy enough
for
us to
say,
but we are
the beneficiaries of
a
long
tradition of self-conscious
poetry,
a
tradition
that
owes a
very great
deal to Theocritus'
contemporaries
and,
as
I am
arguing
here,
to Theocritus himself and his stable of narrators. We have
already
examined the narrative formats of
Idylls
3,
11
(briefly)
and
18;
the rest can be
surveyed
more
rapidly45.
Idyll
7 is
a
story
told to an
audience
as
silent
as
that of
Idyll
18,
but it is told
by
a much
more colorful
character, Simichidas,
a
partici
pant
in the events he describes.The form of the narrative is
important
not because it
justifies
the
assumption
that Simichidas
speaks
with
43
But see below on the interaction of dialect and narrative in
Idyll
12.
44
P.-E.
Legrand (Etude
sur
Th?ocrite,
Paris
1898, p. 96)
was
unable to believe
it. And aetia are
generally reported by
the narrator: this is the case in all of the
roughly
two dozen
explicit
aetia in
Apollonus' Argonautica,
for
example.
The aetion at
Arg.
1,
1117-1149 forms a useful
comparandum
for
Idyll
18: after
describing
a ritual as it was
first
performed by
the
Argonauts (cult
statue, altars, wreaths, sacrifice, invocation,
prayer, dance)
the narrator comments evflev ?oaiei
/QOu?co
xai
ruji?vcp ePetT|v $>gvye?
iX?axovxat
(1138-1139).
M. Fusillo
(above,
note
8, p. 139)
concludes his discussion
of
Apollonius'
aetia
by saying
"non ?
pi?
una narrazione
impersonale prodotta
dalle
Muse,
che si racconta
quindi
da se
stessa,
bensi una narrazione che si mostra nel suo
farsi,
rispecchiando
e riflettendo
nell'opera
la
persona
che la
produce".
Callimachus'
practice
is more
varied. In addition to aetia
given by
the narrator
(e.g., Hymn
2,
97-99; 3, 212; 3, 240-247; 4, 291-294,
lyric
fr.
229,
10-11
Pf.,
Aet. frr.
3-714, 719;
18, 12; 75, 50)
one can find aetia in the mouth of the character-narrator Clio
(fr.
43,
78-80)
and
an aetion in the form of a
prophecy (frr. 58-59).
But
only
in a
epic fragment
of uncertain
authorship
does one find
(perhaps)
an aetion described
by
a
participant
(fr.
813 auT?v
fie JtQc?xioxa ?uvoimarfjoa fyaia?t
/
eo?e?cu xe\ievovxov).
And it is not
altogether
certain that
auvoixiorr?Q
indicates the establishment of a
ritual rather than a
settlement.
45
See Hutchinson
(above,
note
12, pp. 167-170)
for a discussion of a
similar
phenomenon
in
Idylls
28-30
(which
I omit from
my survey
because of their
lyric
meters).
Narrative and Mimesis in the
Idylls
of Theocritus 115
Theocritus'
voice,
but because of the vividness it entails46. Confidences
like
?jlixa?e? (42)
and
xota
(91) bring
the narrator much closer to his
audience than does the
simple
apa
o?
Idyll
18.
Comparison
with
Idyll
6
reveals another
component
of the vividness which makes
Idyll
7 one of
the best-loved
poems
in the collection. The situation narrated in the two
Idylls
is in broad outlines the
same,
an
amicable and
ex
tempore
ex
change
of
song
by
two
figures
in a rustic
landscape.
The
entity
to whom
Simichidas addresses himself is
uncharacterized,
his
story
is not
shaped
for
any
particular pair
of
ears or
any
definable set of interests47.
The narrator of
Idyll
6,
on
the other
hand,
tells
a
story
to Aratus. Aratus
is a
name,
no
more,
and the narrator's
purpose
in
telling
this
story
is
never
specified,
but the
interposition
of
a
named addressee makes the
gap
between the two outer
layers
of communication
(author-reader,
nar
rator-narratee)
clearer in
Idyll
6 than it is in either
Idyll
7 or
Idyll
18.
There
are
other instructive differences between
Idyll
7 and
Idyll
6,
too.
In
Idyll
7 details of
setting proliferate (it happened
on
the occasion of
the harvest festival celebrated
by
Phrasidamus and
Antigenes,
the two
sons
of
Lycopeus;
the encounter took
place
not
quite halfway along
the
road to
Haieis;
also
present
were
Eucritus and
Amyntas,
and
so
on);
in
Idyll
6
they
have been filtered out
(it happened
some
time,
(jiox', 2)
at
some
spring (?uri xg?vav
xiv',
3).
Both
songs
and
prizes
are
carefully
paired
in
Idyll
6;
the
songs
in
Idyll
7 are of
roughly equal length (38
and
32 lines
respectively),
but neither
responsive
nor
parallel
nor
precisely
contrasted in
theme,
and furthermore
only
one
bit of
property
is ex
changed.
That
is,
the structural formula for
Idyll
7,
as
for
Idyll
1
(see
below),
is
symmetry
without
rigidity;
in
Idyll
6,
on
the other
hand,
a
self-assertive form draws attention
away
from the narrative and towards
the
shaping, filtering
narrator.
Idyll
26, however,
shows that
providing
a named addressee is not
Theocritus'
only strategy
for
revealing
the effect of a narrator on
his
story.
The narrator of
Idyll
26
seems,
at
first,
to be
just
as
mysteriously
well-informed about his
topic
as was the narrator of
Idyll
18,
until
near
46
See Effe
(above,
note
40, pp.
59-60 n.
4),
for sound
arguments against
the
equation
of Theocritus and Simichidas.
Berger (above,
note
39, pp. 15-33)
is useful on
the
inadequacies
of Simichidas.
47
Contrast
Idylls
11 and 13. Gow
(above,
note
22, pp. 118-119)
and Dover
(above,
note
24, pp. 141-142)
both discuss the
possibility
of a reference to the author
of the Phaenomena
here,
and both are inclined
against
it
(Gow
more
strongly
so than
Dover).
116 C. Damon
the end of the
poem
he makes
a
surprise appearance,
disclaiming any
personal sympathy
for the victim of
Dionysus.
Yet Theocritus' Pentheus
is a
much less
objectionable figure
than
Euripides',
and Semele's sis
ters are
portrayed
as
pious
celebrants rather than
as
themselves victims
of the
god (cf.
Eur. Bacch.
26-33)48.
The narrator o?
Idyll
26 is aware
that
some member of his
(otherwise uncharacterized)
audience will find
his tale
shocking (epyov
?^x
BJtt[X?)[xax?v, 37-38);
he, however, pre
fers to
keep
his
pious
blinkers in
place.
He
is,
in other
words,
a narra
tor whose
point
of view the reader
may
wish
(or need)
to
reject49.
Here
again
there is an un-Homeric
gap
between narrative and
narrator,
a
gap
that
prevents
the reader from
acquiescing
in the
authority
of the narra
tor,
a
gap
that reveals the author behind the narrator50.
Idyll
24 shares the form of
Idyll
26
(a
narrative followed
by
a
passage
which reveals the narrator's
purpose
in
telling
the
tale)51,
the
irony
of
Idyll
18
(Theocritus'
Heracliscus is
very
different from the hero
he would
become),
and the interest in
retelling
a
tale
already
told which
is so
prominent
in
Idylls
13 and 22. The text which Theocritus takes as
his
starting point
in
Idyll
24, however,
is a
lyric
poem
(Pindar,
Nem.
1),
a
poem
in which the
poet's
voice is
prominent (31-33),
the addressee
historical
(Chromius)
and the
purpose
of the
poem
generically
defined
(encomium),
whereas the texts
underlying Idylls
13 and 22 are
epic
(Apoll. Arg.
1, 1207-1357; 2,
1-97)52.
This means
that in
Idyll
24 a
48
If
Agave
is
pious,
line 32
(e?oe?ecov
jrai?eooi x?
Xana,
ouaae?earv
?'
o?3)
becomes
problematic.
49
In a recent
study
of the
poem (Theocritus, Idyll 26',
Proc.
Cambridge
Philol.
Soc.
38, 1992, 1-38),
F. Cairns
suggests
that the
speaking
"voice" of the
poem
is that
of a
chorus of
9-to-10-year
old
boys,
and that the
poem
was written for a musical
contest
associated with a
Dionysiac
festival in
Thebes,
the
Agrionia.
This
analysis is,
as
Cairns himself
admits,
speculative,
but whether he is
right
in so
describing
it or
not,
the basic
relationship
between the narrative voice and the tale it tells remains as I have
tried to
suggest.
50
For a
fuller
discussion,
see
Hutchinson
(above,
note
12) pp.
161-162.
51
In
Idyll
26,
to demonstrate his
piety,
in
Idyll
24,
to
request
Heracles' favor in
a contest
(perhaps
-
the
fragmentary
state of lines 141-172 makes it difficult to be
certain about the nature of the
ending).
52
This is the model for the first
myth
treated in the
poem.
The
relationship
between the
story
of Castor and the
Apharidae (22, 137-211)
and its models is no
longer
ascertainable in detail
(Gow, above,
note
22, pp. 383-385).
This is not the
place
for a
full
accounting
of the
bibliography
on the
question
of
priority.
The most
recent
discussion,
with
bibliography,
is B.
Effe,
'Die
Hylas-Gedichte
bei Theokrit und
Apollonios
Rhodios:
Bemerkungen
zur
Priorit?tsfrage',
Hermes
120, 1992,
299-309.
Narrative and Mimesis in the
Idylls
of Theocritus 117
gap
has been
interposed
between the two outermost
layers
of com
munication
(author-reader; narrator-narratee),
while in
Idylls
13 and 22
the
process
is rather different: the stories of
Hylas
and the Dioscuri
are
newly shaped,
both
by
the
purpose
for which
they
are
told and
by
the
narratees to whom
they
are
told. The addressee of
Idyll
13,
for exam
ple,
is a man
who has suffered in
love,
and love is the most
prominent
of
Theocritus' additions to the
Apollonian story53.
Like
Idyll
13,
Idyll
12 has
a
speaker
and
an
addressee,
but both
are now
fully particularized
and the relation of the tale to its teller
emerges
in the text of the
poem.
The
speaker imagines
that his love for
a
boy might
be the stuff of which
songs
will be made even 200
genera
tions hence
(lines 17-19),
and that the
way
his
story
is told will admit of
dialect variations. A narrator from
Amyclae
will
apply
a
Doric word for
"lover" to
him,
while
a Thessalian will
use
the term
?iXT|?
for the be
loved
boy.
And he realizes that the
story
will become loftier in the
telling:
while he himself is a
rather anxious and effusive
fellow,
and his
lover
(one may
guess)
a bit
fickle,
the
pair
of them will
figure
as men
of
a new
golden
age (xQ?oeiot
Kakiv
av??e?, 16)
in the
songs
to come.
Idylls
7, 18,
and
26, then,
are
all narrative
poems,
but differ in
the
relationship
of narrator to
narratee,
in the distance between author
and narrator
(wide
in 18 and
26,
narrower in
7,
perhaps)
and in the
means
by
which that distance is revealed
(by
the named
speaker
in
7,
by irony
in 18 and
26). Idylls
6, 11, 12,
and 13
might
be labeled
lyric
narratives: their addresses
are more
fully
characterized than
are
those
of the
poems
in the
previous category,
which
means
that there is a
gap
between reader and addressee
parallel
to that between narrator and
author. The
degree
to which the addressee is characterized
varies,
of
course
?
from
a
bare
name in
Idyll
6 to Nicias with all his amorous woes
in
Idylls
11 and
13,
and the beloved
boy
o?
Idyll
12.
Idylls
22 and 24
fall somewhere between the
categories
of
plain
and
lyric
narrative. The
poems
are
addressed to divine
entities,
but
any poet telling
a
story
about
a
god's exploits
to a
god
is more than a little aware
of the human
audience
listening
in. Likewise difficult to
pigeonhole
are
Idylls
3 and
(as
we shall
see)
2,
which have both narrative and mimetic elements.
But there is one feature
common to all of these
poems:
in each
one,
by
53
Id.
13, 5-15;
Jtai?a Jtod
v, 65; 66; 71;
cf.
Arg.
1, 1211-1212; xcoo^evo?,
1263;
\WLi\i(b(?V,
1270. For the
purpose
of
Idyll
22,
see above and the recent discus
sion of the
poem by
A.
Sens, 'Theocritus, Homer,
and the Dioscuri:
Idyll
22,
137
223',
Trans. Am. Philol. Ass.
122, 1992,
335-350.
118
C. Damon
one
device
or
another,
the author ties the
story
to the narrator.
They
are
stories told not
by Muse-inspired
bards,
but
by
narrators who
speak
for
reasons
personal
to
them,
reasons
that
necessarily
color the
way
the tale
is told. We
have,
in
effect,
a set of
explorations
of what it means to tell
a
story
in the
post-Homeric
world.
Even in those
Idylls
which
are
predominantly
mimetic the author's
interest in the mechanics of
presentation
is
apparent. Idyll
15 has
more
characters
(11),
more
places (3),
and
more events
(roughly 11)
than
any
other
poem
in the collection
(though
at 149 lines it is not
inordinately
long).
It is the most mimetic
Idyll,
or
rather,
it imitates the
largest
slice
of life. The mediation of an
author is indicated
only by
the
(in
a
poem,
necessary)
presence
of meter and artificial diction.
Idyll
4, too,
is
mimetic,
but its
scope
is
distinctly
limited:
one
place (? X?opoc, 46),
two
speakers (Corydon
and
Battus)
and
only
three events
(the
encounter
[1],
the
escape
and retrieval of the animals
[44-49]
and the crisis of the
thorn
[50-54]).
The author functions as a
filter to a
much
greater degree
than in
Idyll
15. In
Idyll
14 there are
still
one
place
and two
speakers,
but
no
real events.
Instead,
an inset narrative of a
love
story,
into which
Aeschinas obtrudes his
present, narrating
self
by
means of conversa
tional
interjections (21,
23, 34).
In the
carefully
delimited
landscape
of
Idyll
10 there are
songs
instead of a
narrative,
two of
them,
equal
in
length
and
carefully
contrasted in theme.
Symmetry
of form and
con
trast of content are
hardly
characteristic of
ordinary
conversation;
the
scene comes to the reader filtered and
shaped by
an
author54.
Symmet
ry
likewise
pervades
the rustic conversation of
Idyll
1 from the first
exchange
of
compliments (1-11)
on,
though
the
design
is free
enough
to
allow
a
cup (with
its three
scenes)
to balance
a
song (divided
into three
parts by
its three
refrains).
Nor has the filter ceased to work: few events
occur in
Idyll
1
(none
at all between the time the two conversants sit
down
[21]
and the transfer of the
cup
at the end
[149-152]),
the
goath
erd is never
individualized with
a
name,
and the
geographic setting
is
never
made
precise.
And the
shaping, filtering
author has created a
character-narrator,
Thysis,
who
shapes
his own narrative with an
insis
tent
refrain55.
54
The unusual
stichomythia
at the
beginning
o?
Idyll
4
probably
serves the same
purpose, only
less
obtrusively.
55
The refrain of
Thyrsis (the
narrator of the embedded
story)
is
particularly
noticeable when it
interrupts Priapus
or
Daphnis (characters
in the embedded
story
Narrative and Mimesis in the
Idylls
of Theocritus 119
Idyll
2 does not fit
neatly
into
any
of the
categories
outlined so far.
Like
Idyll
3 it contains within it both narrative and mimetic
elements,
but the
amalgam
here is
considerably
more
complex.
As in the
lyric
narratives,
the addressees
are both named and characterized
(akk?,
Setaiva, qpaive
naXov xiv
y?g jtoxae?oo?jiai ?ov%a, ba?\iov,
xa
X^ov?a
d' cEx?xa
etc.,
10-16),
but the
presence
of the maid
Thestylis
and the
representation
of an action in
progress
are
features it shares
with the mimetic
Idylls. Early
in the
poem
there is an
unusual combina
tion of form at its most assertive
(i.e.,
a
refrain)
with
busy
detail and
hectic
activity (1-63).
The
oddity
of
a narrator who
shapes
but does not
filter is less obtrusive than it
might
be since the events "narrated"
are
simultaneous with the time of
narrating (to
which the refrain
refers).
The context also
helps:
the refrain
(iDy^,
etaie xv
xfjvov e\iov
Jioxi
b(b\ia
xov
av??a)
seems to function as
part
of the
?y(?yr\ spell being
enacted56. After the
departure
of the maid
Thestylis
at line
63,
howev
er,
the
poem
becomes
more narrative than mimetic. Addressed
now
directly
to
"Lady
Moon",
the narrative switches to the
past
tense,
while
the
refrain,
still in the
present
tense,
refers to the act of
narrating
(qpQ?Ce?
\isv
x?v
egcoft'
?Oev
?xexo,
Jt?xva
SeX?va, 69,
etc.). By
this
means the character-narrator
keeps
her
present
wretched self to the fore
when
describing
the earlier
progress
of her love. At the climax of the
tale,
the format
changes again:
the refrain is
dropped altogether
and the
narrator moves
rapidly
from
past (
?
?
(x?v e?jiev, 138)
to
present
(oajxeQOV, 147)
to future
(oia
,
164).
With line
164,
"I will
manage my
desire as I undertook to
do",
Simaetha returns us to the
beginning
of the
poem
where she
announces her intention of
seeking
out her lover at his
wrestling
school:
$aozv\iai
Jtoxi x?v
Tiiiayrixoio JtaXmoxQav auQiov,
?>?
viv
toco,
xai
|ji?jn|)0(xai
ota
\iz
Jtoie?
(8-9)57.
Past, present
and fu
speaking
in oratio
recta)
in mid-sentence
(84)
or
mid-speech (89, 104, 108, 111, 114,
119, 122, 127, 131).
Homeric
character-narrators, by
contrast,
refrain from introduc
ing
their
present, narrating
selves into the tales
they
tell.
56
'Ay(oyr\ spells regularly
include the command
"bring".
See, e.g.,
PGM IV
1412, 1457, 1510, 1590;
VII
305, 471, 985;
XXXVI 364.
57
H. Hommel
('Bemerkungen
zu Theokrits
PharmakeutriaV,
Wien. Stud.
69,
1956,
187-202= Effe
[above,
note
40] pp.
89-104. The latter is
cited)
is
right
to
challenge
translations of v Jt?oxav which involve the idea of
past
endurance
("ut
hucus
que
toleravi"
[Fritsche],
"as till now I have endured it"
[Gow], p. 97).
His
argument
that her
"undertaking"
refers to "das Gesetz... nach dem nicht ohne ihr
eignes
Zutun
ihre Liebe
angetreten
war und dessen
Konsequenzen
sie zu
tragen hat,
gleich
als h?tte
sie damit ein
Versprechen abgegeben" (p. 97)
seems
farfetched,
however.
120
C. Damon
ture,
event and
story
are
presented
more
seamlessly
in this than in
any
other
Idyll58.
Which is not to
say,
of
course,
that
no
readerly interpreta
tion is called for.
Indeed,
an act of
interpretation
is built into the
poem
in the
figure
of
Thestylis,
who,
though
less vocal than
any
other charac
ter in the mimetic
Idylls (she says
nothing),
has her
say
nonetheless:
Thestylis
seems to find her mistress's amorous
plight
more
amusing
than
tragic (Em%aQ\ia, 20),
and she shows it
by
her less-than
wholehearted
cooperation (19).
One
might
say
that she
gives
the first
reading
of the
scene
depicted
in the
Idyll.
The
rapid
survey
of the
preceding paragraphs provides
an over
view of the
variety
of mimetic and narrative formats found in the
Idylls.
But
a
comparison
of
Idylls
5 and 6
suggests
that
variety
is not all that
Theocritus achieves.
Idyll
5 is
mimetic,
rather than
narrative,
and like
the mimetic
Idylls
15 and 4 it
presents
unclassical
subjects
in a
welter
of detail. Like the
beginnings
of
Idylls
2 and
4, however,
it shows this
detail of character and event constrained
by
form,
not
only
in the strict
ly
amoebaic contest
proper,
but also in the more
loosely
amoebaic
preliminaries59
and in the
larger
structure,
which
(as
in
Idylls
1 and
7)
balances two not
quite symmetrical
entities,
the
challenge (which
Lacon
wins)60
and the contest
(which
Comatas
wins).
The ironic author
appears here,
as in
Idyll
3,
undercutting
his own contest.
They
are
vying,
says Lacon,
to see
which is the better
(not best) ?ouxoXiaoxac
(67-68)61.
Then,
the contestants
hardly
claim to
sing62 (though
the
58
The
story
of Simichidas in
Idyll
7 is the closest
comparandum:
he
begins
with
a move from
present
to
past (fj? XQOvo?,
1, i.e.,
"at
some time before
now")
and ends
with
a
present
wish for future bliss
(jtaCcuux, 156),
but
one
can't
help wondering
whether there isn't
a
significant gap
between Simichidas the
present
narrator and
Simichidas the
participant
in
past
events. In
Idyll
2 there is no room for
any
such
gap.
59
"Loose" in the
sense that
strictly parallel
sets of
responses
are a times inter
rupted by ordinary
conversational
exchange.
G. Serrao
('Uldillio
V di Teocrito: realt?
campestre
e stilizzazione
letteraria',
Quad.
Urb.
19, 1975, 73-109)
calls it "il modo
diffusamente
agonale" (p. 84),
which is not
quite precise.
60
L. E. Rossi
('Vittoria
e
sconfitta
nell'agone
buc?lico
letterario',
Giorn.
it.filol.
23, 1971, 13-24, esp. pp. 18-22)
shows the best
appreciation
of this balance. I cannot
understand Ott's contention
(above,
note
20, p. 23)
that Comatas wins these initial
rounds.
61
The abilities of
Corydon
in
Idyll
4 are
similarly undistinguished:
he is
only
tic
HekiTix?? (30).
For the
superlative,
cf.
7, 27-29,
37-38.
62
T. G.
Rosenmeyer (The
Green Cabinet
: Theocritus and the
European
Pastoral
Lyric, Berkeley
1969, 138)
is almost
unique
in his
appreciation
of this
point.
Narrative and Mimesis in the
Idylls
of Theocritus 121
landscape
is still
singing,
as it
was in
Idyll 1)
:
after the initial ?ia
e?oo(iat (22)
their
activity
is described in terms of
speaking64
or
strug
gling (arcefoieiv,
22;
?iyeiv,
78;
JtoteQto?eiv,
60;
?pio?eiv, 23, 30, 67,
136),
not
singing65.
Lacon's musical contribution is
necessarily
limited
by
his lack of an instrument
(4)66,
and the verdict
pronounced by
Mor
son,
a
city
dweller67 and
destroyer
of rustic
appurtenances (64-65),
is
no
pronouncement
of
poetic
merit,
since it is
palpably
motivated
by
his
desire for
a
slice of the
prize (140)68. Finally,
Comatas exults not be
cause
he is
officially
the better
?ouxoXiaotac,
but because he can
laugh
at Lacon and has
a
lamb to his credit. The
animals,
so
sympathe
tic to their herdsmen's
delight
in
Idylls
1
(151-152)
and 6
(45)
have to
be told to snort
(5, 141)
and shown how to frolic
(144).
A
prominent
feature of
Idyll
5 is the
inability
of the two herdsmen
to
agree
on a
shared locus for their
contest,
despite repeated
efforts
by
the animals to
bring
the two
together (lines 1-4, 100-103,
cf.
6,
45).
After 29 lines of
wrangling
Lacon calls
a
halt: aurore
\ioi
Jtox?Qio?e
xai auT?fre
?ouxoXia?oeu (60). Idyll
6
begins
with two
herdsmen
com
ing together el?
?va
x<*>qov (6, 1).
These herdsmen are
of the same
age
63
As the
equivalence
of
5,
101 and
1,
12 makes clear. More
singing:
HataXei?etai (5, 33)
X?kevvxi
(34), Xdkayzvvxi (48),
xaX?v
?ou?ewa (46,
cf. the
uncomplimentary oqp?? ?ou?ecov t?rayo? evavt?ov, 29,
of human
sounds).
64
'Aofi (31)
is
strictly provisional
and in accord with the
"prettyness"
of the
locus amoenus with which Lacon tries to
persuade
Comatas. Bovxo?,iao?eadai and
?ovxoXiaoxac
in themselves do not
specify
bucolic
song.
According
to Dover
(above,
note
24, p. lv)
the verb was
modeled,
likely by Theocritus,
on
verbs of
utterance,
and
his
examples
include verbs of both
speech
and
song.
In
Idylls
1 and 7 the
adjective
?ouxoXixoc
modifies a term
providing
the
song
element
(1, 20, uotoa?; 1,
64 and
7,
49
?oi???).
65
Other
Idylls
are full of
song vocabulary:
1, 19, 23, 24, 61,
64
(etc.), 145, 148;
3, 38, 52; 6, 4, 20; 7, 49, 72, 78; 10, 22, 50; 11, 18,
81.
Comparably
unmusical
terms are
found
only
at
4,
32 alveoo
and,
surprisingly,
7, 128,
where x?oo9
ecp?u-av
introduces Simichidas'
song.
66
Comatas' loss of a
vaxo?
(2)
is less
obviously
relevant to the
quality
of the
contest,
but it should be noted that it is
Lycidas' goat-skin apparel, among
other
things,
that makes him so
exceedingly
"like a
goatherd" (7, 15-16).
67
The cowherd
suggested by
Lacon is
rejected by
Comatas
(62-63).
68
J. Van Sickle
(The Unity
of the
Eclogues:
Arcadian
Forest,
Theocritean
Trees',
Trans. Am. Philol. Ass.
98, 1967, 491-508) questions
the
palatability
of
"tough he-goat" (p. 498).
See also C. P.
Segal,
'Thematic Coherence and Levels of
Style
in Theocritus' Bucolic
Idylls9,
Wien. Stud.
11, 1977,
35-68
(= Segal, Poetry
and
Myth [above,
note
20] pp.
176-209. The former is
cited) pp.
51-52.
122 C. Damon
and
occupation,
those in
Idyll
5 differ in both
respects.
The more amic
able
atmosphere
of
Idyll
6 in enhanced
by
the
relegation
of the initiat
ing challenge
and the
proposal
of stakes
(to
which
so
many
acrimonious
lines
are
devoted in
Idyll 5)
to the
background
of the narrative frame:
that
Daphnis
did issue
a
challenge
may
be inferred from the
imperfect
?pio?ev (5),
that stakes
were
made is
only
revealed after
they
have been
exchanged
with mutual
goodwill
and
a
kiss. The
purpose
of the contest
and the criteria for
victory
are
simply
omitted. No
judge
is
present
to
play
favorites. The
competition pieces,
too,
are
very
different. First of
all,
they
are
songs (?tei?ov,
6,
4),
not
dialogue.
Then,
neither
sings
in
propria persona69: Daphnis
assumes the mask of
a
friend of
Polyphe
mus,
Damoetas
adopts
the
persona
which
Daphnis
recommends to him
(by
his
choice)
and
speaks
as the
Cyclops7
.
Daphnis'
character demon
strates
friendly
concern
and
advice,
Polyphemus
makes a
response,
not
a rival statement. There is
no
verbal
mockery
or
one-upmanship,
no
deliberately disconcerting changes
of
subject (these being
the techni
ques
used
by
Lacon and Comatas in their
contest)71.
The reader is
insulated from such heat
as
any
contest must
generate by
the frame
(neutral,
or
perhaps
even
amicable72,
in
tone)
which surrounds it. The
contrast of
Idylls
5 and 6 is one of mode: mimetic and narrative
modes,
the
building
blocks,
as we
have
seen,
of Homeric
epic,
are
here
ex
amined in discrete units.
Our
survey,
then finds in the collection
no two
poems
with the
same formal constituents73. In the narrative
poems,
we see
Theocritus
experimenting
with the
components
of the
author-narrator-story
fabric;
in the mimetic
Idylls,
Theocritus
interposes
different kinds of authorial
filters between
a scene
and the verbal
representation
of the scene.
The
same taste for
experimentation
is
perceptible
in all of the
poems
?
there
is no division between
pastoral
and
non-pastoral Idylls
in this
area,
at
69
P.
Wulfing-Martitz ('Zum Wettgesang
der Hirten in der Siebenten
Ekloge
Ver
gil',
Hermes
98, 1970, 380-382)
discusses the effect of
first-person
references on the
tone of
Vergil's argumentative
amoebaic
eclogue (7).
70
Rather than
going
off on another
tack, as,
e.g.,
Simichidas does in
Idyll
7.
71
Ott
(above,
note
20), pp.
21-23.
72
Idyll
11,
the other
Polyphemus poem,
is addressed with
goodwill
to a friend in
need.
73
I have omitted
Idylls
16 and 17 from the
account,
since I find it difficult to
postulate
any gap
between
speaker
and author in
poems
which
are,
it seems to
me,
designed
to
produce
a material effect that will be felt
by
the author.
Narrative and Mimesis in the
Idylls
of Theocritus 123
least74. It is not coincidental that I have
so
often used
one
Idyll
to make
a
point
about
another;
it seems to me
that the
poems
constitute a set of
studies
on
(among
other
things)
the
processes
of
writing
and
reading.
The multi-voicedness of the Theocritean
corpus
has received
much attention of
late75,
and has been
variously explained.
For Gol
dhill,
it marks
an evasion of
responsibility,
a
declaration of the fact that
the
poet
had
no
legitimate
voice
any
longer76.
Hutchinson,
on
the other
hand,
sees in what Theocritus
produces
a set of
"piquant
and delect
able combinations"77.
I would
argue
for
a
bolder Theocritus than Gol
dhill's and
a more
purposeful
one
than
Hutchinson's;
if Callimachus'
boast
was "I
sing nothing
unattested",
Theocritus'
was,
I
submit,
"I
make the witnesses
sing".
I
hope
I have shown that he is as
interested
in the role of the
jury,
in the act of
interpretation,
as in the
testimony
itself.
Harvard
University
74
On an
early
collection
(late
2nd
century A.D.)
of Theocritea which contained
both
pastoral
and
non-pastoral Idylls,
see A. W.
Bulloch,
'An
Early
Theocritus Book
(POxy. 2064+3548): Placing Fragments',
Class.
Quart.
37, 1987,
505-512.
75
Cf.
Berger (above,
note
39, p. 15):
"The
zero-degree impersonator's
relation to
his
speaker
and this
speaker's
relation to his material
may easily
become the main
objects
of the reader's attention".
76
S.
Goldhill,
'Framing, Polyphony
and Desire:
Readings
in Hellenistic
Poetry',
Proc.
Cambridge
Philol. Soc.
212, 1986, 25-52, esp.
29-31.
77
Hutchinson
(above,
note
12) p.
190.