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Pindar, O. 2.83–90

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Glenn W. Most
Glenn W. Most
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Extract

According to the traditional interpretation of these celebrated lines, Pindar is saying here that while the wise can understand his poetry by themselves, the mass of his listeners need interpreters if they are to do so; he then goes on to contrast inferior poets, who can sing only ineffectually and only what they have learned, with the poet of natural genius, who surpasses them as the eagle surpasses the crows; and finally he returns to the subject at hand, the praise of the victorious Theron of Acragas. Sandys' Loeb translation may be taken as a representative example:

Full many a swift arrow have I beneath mine arm, within my quiver, many an arrow that is vocal to the wise; but for the crowd they need interpreters. The true poet is he who knoweth much by gift of nature, but they that have only learnt the lore of song, and are turbulent and intemperate of tongue, like a pair of crows, chatter in vain against the god—like bird of Zeus.

Now, bend thy bow toward the mark! tell me, my soul, whom are we essaying to hit, while we now shoot forth our shafts of fame from the quiver of a friendly heart?

Construed in this way, this passage has always been especially popular with scholars and with other readers — not surprisingly, for the former could find in it a justification for their activity as ⋯ρμηνεῖς, while the latter could pride themselves on belonging to the συνετοί.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , December 1986 , pp. 304 - 316
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1986

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References

1 Here and hereafter I cite the text of Snell, B. — Maehler, H., ed., Pindarus. Pars I: Epinicia. Pars II: Fragmenta, Indices (Leipzig, 1971,5 1975 4)Google Scholar, but I have not hesitated to prefer to it on occasion the reading of the manuscripts. For example, at line 87, our uncertainty about the referent of the transmitted dual γαρ⋯ετων is not sufficient reason to adopt Bergk's conjecture of the dubious form γαρυ⋯των. The dual may denote Bacchylides and Simonides after all, as some of the scholia guess (Drachmann, A. B., ed., Scholia Vetera in Pindari Carmina [Leipzig, 1903–1927]Google Scholar, ad O. 2.154b, 157a, 158c, d; cited hereafter from this edition, by lemma number or by volume, page, and line), or it may be simply deprecatory (so Gildersleeve, Basil L., ed., Pindar: The Olympian and Pythian Odes 2 [New York, 1890], 152–3Google Scholarad loc.) or part of the image (so Kirkwood, G. M., ‘Pindar's ravens. Olymp. II, 87,’ CQ 31 [1981], 240–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

2 Sandys, John, ed., The Odes of Pindar. Including the Principal Fragments 3 (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1968), 27Google Scholar.

3 These are presumably not further quotations from Aristarchus' own note, but rather later elaborations upon his view by other scholars. Cf. also Abel, Eugenius, Scholia Recentia in Pindari Epinicia. Volumen Prius: Scholia in Olympia et Pythia (Budapest and Berlin, 1891), p. 128Google Scholar, 1.14 ad O. 2.153.

4 Cf. the apparatus of parallels ad loc. in Turyn, A., ed., Pindari carmina cum fragmentis (Oxford, 1952)Google Scholar, and e.g. van Leeuwen, J., Pindarus Tweede Olympische Ode (Assen, 1964), ii. 503f. n. 27Google Scholar.

5 Cf. Eustathius ad Il. 21.316 (1237.60); ad Od. 1.155 (1404.22); prooem. Pind. 3 (3.287.3 Dr.), 10 (289.21 Dr.), 22 (295.15 Dr.); ad Dionys. Perieg. 207.15 Müller.

6 Lonsdale, Roger, ed., Thomas Gray and William Collins. Poetical Works (Oxford, 1977), 46Google Scholar. Cf. the ‘Advertisement’ Gray added, together with numerous explanatory notes, to the second edition of the poem: ‘When the Author first published this and the following Ode, he was advised, even by his Friends, to subjoin some few explanatory Notes: but had too much respect for the understanding of his Readers to take that liberty.’ (ibid.)

7 Jaeger, Werner, Paideia. Die Formung des griechischen Menschen (Berlin and Leipzig, 1934), i. 288Google Scholar. Jaeger himself translates ⋯ς τò π⋯ν as ‘immer’ (289), but otherwise adheres to the traditional interpretation.

8 Schmid, Wilhelm and Stählin, Otto, Geschichte der griechischen Literatur. Erster Teil: Die klassische Periode der griechischen Literatur, von Wilhelm Schmid. Erster Band: Die griechische Literatur vor der Attischen Hegemonie = Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft 7.1.1 (Munich, 1929), 605–6Google Scholar.

9 Race, William H., ‘The end of Olympia 2: Pindar and the vulgus’, California Studies in Classical Antiquity 12 (1979), 251–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Heyne, C. G., ed., Pindari Carmina (Göttingen, 1798), i.40 ad 153Google Scholar.

11 Gundert, Hermann, Pindar und sein Dichterberuf (Tübingen, 1935), 55 and 131 n. 251Google Scholar.

12 Perosa, A., ‘La Seconda Ode Olimpiaca di Pindaro’, SIFC 18 (1941), 25–53Google Scholar, here 51–2.

13 None of the parallels offered is at all close. Thus, for example, Defradas, J., ‘Sur l'interprétation de la deuxième Olympique de Pindare’, REG 84 (1971), 131–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here 142, acknowledges that there is no parallel for τò π⋯ν = οἰ πολλν⋯, but then goes on to cite in support of the traditional interpretation Thuc. 8.93, Aesch. PV 235, 456, and Plato, Laws 875d; but in the first passage the phrase is τò π⋯ν πλ⋯θος, in the second and third τò π⋯ν is the direct object of a verb and means ‘everything, each particular’, and in the fourth ⋯π⋯ π⋯ν is contrasted with ⋯π⋯ τò πολ⋯ and means ‘with regard to each particular instance’, οἱ π⋯ντες at Thuc. 4.86 might seem to offer a better parallel: yet here gender and number make all the difference.

14 Typical in this regard is van Leeuwen's massive commentary (op. cit. n. 4). His lengthy discussion of this passage (i.229ff.) recognises many of the difficulties of the traditional interpretation and concludes with a cautious non liquet (i.232); but in his translation of the passage he consistently reverts to the tradition (‘maar voor de grote massa behoeven zij uitleg’ i.221; ‘maar de massa kan het niet stellen zonder uitleg’ i.286).

15 Farnell, L. R., ed., The Works of Pindar (London, 1930), 2.21Google Scholar.

16 The conjectures are conveniently assembled in Gerber, Douglas E., Emendations in Pindar 1513–1972 (Amsterdam, 1976), 36Google Scholar.

17 Cf. particularly Oelschlaeger, F., Aliquot Pindari loci tractantur (Schweinfurt, 1858), 15Google Scholar; and Schwickert, J. J., Kritisch-exegetische Untersuchungen zu Pindars zweitem olympischen Siegesgesange (Trier, 1891), xxivGoogle Scholar.

18 Especially Fennell, C. A. M., ed., Pindar. The Olympian and Pythian Odes (London, 1893 2), 36Google Scholar (‘for their full meaning’; in the first edition, London, 1879, 24, Fennell had proposed ‘for the majority’); Race, op. cit. (n. 9); and Simpson, M., ‘The chariot and the bow as metaphors for poetry in Pindar's odes’, TAPhA 100 (1969), 437–73Google Scholar, here 452 (‘to narrate all requires interpreters’). Others who have recently proposed non-traditional translations include Lefkowitz, Mary R., The Victory Ode: an Introduction (Park Ridge, N.J., 1976), 137Google Scholar (‘in everything they yearn for interpreters’); Lehnus, L., ed. Pindaro. Olimpiche (Milan, 1981), 37Google Scholar (‘in tutto esigono interpreti’); Slater, William J., ed., Lexicon to Pindar (Berlin, 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, s.v. π⋯ς 1.a (‘?on the whole’); and Stoneman, R., ‘The “Theban Eagle”’, CQ 26 (1976), 188–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here 191 (‘in general a stumbling-block and foolishness, or at least in need of good interpreters'). None of the latter makes clear exactly what his version is intended to mean.

19 Cf. especially Bundy, E., Studia Pindarica I: The Eleventh Olympian Ode = University of California Publications in Classical Philology 18.1 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1962), 8, 12ff.Google Scholar

20 Race, op. cit. (n. 9), 259.

21 Methodologically, parallels for ⋯ς τò πάν would obviously seem preferable in this connexion to parallels for τò πάν. The placement of the particle here after the preposition does not seem to be relevant to the question of whether the prepositional phrase should be read as a single semantic unit; cf. in general Denniston, J. D., The Greek Particles (Oxford, 1954 2), 185–6Google Scholar.

22 Page, Denys, ed., Aeschyli Septem quae supersunt Tragoediae (Oxford, 1972)Google Scholar, prints the line as σπονδα⋯ δ'†⋯ς τò π⋯ν ένδαδες οἲκων† and list in the apparatus Linwood's conjecture εἰσóπιν; for the many other emendations proposed, cf. Dawe, R. D., Repertory of Conjectures on Aeschylus (Leiden, 1965), 177Google Scholar.

23 ἔλασε ⋯ς τò π⋯ν ⋯…φυγ⋯ς, correcy glossed by the scholia ad loc. (Smith, Ole Langwitz, ed., Scholia Graeca in Aeschylum quae exstant omnia. Pars I. Scholia in Agamemnona Choephoros Eumenides Supplices Continens [Leipzig, 1976], 39Google Scholar): ἢλασεν δ⋯ εἰς τò; τ⋯λος το⋯ δρόμου, ὅ ⋯στιν ἢνυσε τòν ⋯γ⋯να ⋯φ⋯κετο φησί εỉς τò τ⋯λος το⋯ ⋯γ⋯νος. For a similar construction, cf. e.g. Thuc. 7.55.

24 ὅπως γ⋯νοιτο πιστòς εỉς τò π⋯ν xρόνου.

25 So Race, op. cit. (n. 9), 265 n. 7.

26 This dilemma has been seen and formulated most clearly by Schwickert, op. cit. (n. 17), xxiv.

27 The word is glossed by Rumpel, J., Lexicon Pindaricum (Leipzig, 1883Google Scholar = Hildesheim, 1961) s.v. as ‘interpres’, by Slater, op. cit. (n. 18) s.v. as ‘interpreter’.

28 No help in this matter is to be found in Richard Palmer, E., Hermeneutics. Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer (Evanston, Ill., 1969), 12–32Google Scholar.

29 Schwartz, E., ed., Scholia in Euripidem (Berlin, 1891), iiGoogle Scholar. ad loc.

30 The scholia ad loc. take the word to mean ‘reminder’ (they gloss ⋯ρμηνεύει as είς ὑπόμνησιν ἄγει), but such a subjectivist rendering seems out of place in the fifth century. For the secular world, from which Thetis has been absent for a very long time and to which she will return at the end of the play (1231–2), the shrine signifies the divinity of the bride and hence of her marriage: it expounds her true nature to mortal men.

31 The most recent editor, Diggle, J. (Euripidis Fabulae ii [Oxford, 1981])Google Scholar, prints the transmitted text and consigns this striking emendation to the apparatus; but then what the messenger might mean by his reference to ⋯ρμηνεύς becomes quite obscure.

32 The phrases in question: ⋯ς δ⋯ τ⋯ν σύνεσιν ⋯ ⋯γκ⋯φαλός ⋯στιν ⋯ δισγγ⋯λλων [scil. τ⋯ν φρόνησιν](16.3), διò φημ⋯ τόν ⋯γκ⋯φσλον εἷναι τòν ⋯ρμνεύοντα πρός τ⋯ν σύνεσιν (16.6, accepting Hüffmeier's conjectural πρός).

33 So Kock; the manuscripts of Pollux, who cites this fragment, offer ⋯ς τ⋯ς πινακίδας διαμπερ⋯ως, ὅτι κἄν λ⋯γοι / τ⋯ γρ⋯μματα ⋯ρμηνεύς.

34 For the image, cf. Plato, , Gorg. 465bff.Google Scholar

35 The fact that the first chapter of Aristotle's so-called Пερ⋯ ⋯ρμηνε⋯ας deals with the expression of thought in language is doubtless the reason why the treatise bears this title. Cf. Steinthal, H., Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft bei den Griechen und Römern (Berlin, 1890 2 = Hildesheim, 1961), i.235f.Google Scholar

36 This is not a traditional interpretation of these lines. Triclinius (ad 616b) glossed ⋯ρμηνε⋯σιν as λόγοις ⋯ξηγητικοῖς Fraenkel, Eduard, ed., Aeschylus, Agamemnon (Oxford, 1950)Google Scholar, ad loc. took it as instrumental with μανθάνοντ⋯ σοι. The scholars whose interpretations are closest to the one proposed here are Camper, Petrus, ed., Euripidis Electro (Leiden, 1831), 212Google Scholar, who identifies the ⋯ρμηνεῖς as heralds; and Wecklein, N., Aeschylos Orestie mit erklärenden Anmerkungen (Leipzig, 1888), 74 ad 620f.Google Scholar, who reads εύπρεπ⋯ς λόγων and makes the former word govern ⋯ρμηνε⋯σιν and the latter one depend upon it.

37 So von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U., ed., Euripides, Herakles (Darmstadt, 1959 4)Google Scholar, ad loc., followed by Bond, G. W., ed., Euripides, Heracles (Oxford, 1981)Google Scholar, ad loc.

38 So far as I know, I have omitted only two passages of fifth-century literature in which the word appears: Anaxagoras 59A 101 D—K, which is obscure and almost certainly corrupt; and Hippocrates, De arte 13Google Scholar, which is likewise extremely obscure but seems to refer to the doctors who interpret the evidence provided by natural phenomena and hence to fall under the second category discussed above.

39 See n. 10 above.

40 Boeckh, A., ed., Pindari Opera Quae Supersunt. Tomi Secundi Pars Altera. Pindari Epiniciorum Interpretatio Latina cum Commentario Perpetuo (Leipzig, 1821), 133Google Scholar: ‘’Eρμηνεὺς nihil hic aliud nisi interpres, nee cum Heynio cogitandum de elocutione sententiarum animo conceptarum verbis et carmine reddenda, quasi hoc sit tela ex pharetra promere: id enim poeta dicit, etiam quae tela ex pharetra prompserit, etsi prudentibus clare sonent, in vulgus tamen obscura esse: neque aliter accepit Eustath. ad Dionys. Perieg. Praef. p. VI in Huds. Geogr. min.'

41 Gundert, op. cit. (n. 11), 55: ‘“Aber durchaus bedurfen die Pfeile der Dolmetscher”, die ihren Sinn auslegen und aussprechen können (wie die προφ⋯ται, und zwar kraft eingeborener Sophia. So lange nun die Pfeile im Köcher, d.h. im Geiste des Dichters (92,99) sind, bleibt auch ihr Sinn unausgesprochen; wenn aber nun (98ff.) einer von ihnen auf ein bestimmtes Ziel — Akragas und Theron — abgeschossen wird, so ist das die Auslegung, auf die das Ganze zielt…'

42 Perosa, op. cit. (n. 12): ‘però tuttavia c'è bisogno, in ogni modo, assolutamente (v. 93: ⋯ς δ⋯ τò πάν) di un banditore (vv. 93–94: ⋯ρμαν⋯ων χατίζει ), di un profeta, che significhi pubblicamente il loro riposto senso'.

43 von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U., Pindaros (Berlin, 1922), 247Google Scholar.

44 Schadewaldt, Wolfgang, Der Aufbau des Pindarischen Epinikion (Halle, 1928), 312 [= 54]Google Scholar.

45 For parallels and further discussion of this device, cf. Race, op. cit. (n. 9), 256ff. and n. 16.

46 For examples in Pindar, cf. e.g. O. 1.111–12, 9.5–12, 13.93–5; P. 1.42–5, 4.213–17; N. 7.70–73 (on which see my The Measures of Praise: Structure and Function in Pindar's Second Pythian and Seventh Nemean Odes [Göttingen, 1985])Google Scholar; I 2.1–5, 5.46–8. On such passages, cf. in general Bernard, Manfred, Pindars Denken in Bildern. Vom Wesen der Metapher (Pfüllingen, 1963), 54ff.Google Scholar; and Simpson, op. cit. (n. 18). I hope to return to the extra-Pindaric Greek metaphor of intentionality as archery in a future article on καιρός.

47 Cf. Bundy, op. cit. (n. 19), 12ff.

48 The suggestion in the scholia that Pindar might be alluding here to the customs of Scythian archers (ad 150b) is rightly rejected by Race, op. cit. (n. 9), 258.

49 So the scholia ad 150a, c, which identify the quiver with the poet's διάνοια. Cf. Bernard, op. cit. (n. 46), 46: ‘aus anderen Stellen wissen wir, daB die Phren, das ist wie öfters bei Pindar etwa das schöpferische Organ, als ein tiefes Gefäβ vorgestellt wird, aus dem er seine Worte hervorhebt (N. 4, 8), oder als ein Köcher, in dem zahllose Pfeile geborgen sind (O. 2, 84).'

50 On this last, cf. especially Fränkel, Hermann, Wege und Formen frühgriechischen Denkens. Literarische und philosophiegeschichtliche Studien, ed. Tietze, Franz (Munich, 1960 2), 329–34Google Scholar, and Dichtung und Philosophie des frühen Griechentums. Eine Geschichte der griechischen Epik, Lyrik und Prosa bis zur Mitte des fünften Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1962), 130–1Google Scholar.

51 Pindar: N. 7.60; and for συνίημι cf. P. 3.80, N. 4.31, Fr. 105.1. Elsewhere: Bacch. 3.85; Evenus 1.5 West; Apoilodorus 1.1 Meineke; Eubulus, , Sphingocariai 1.3Google Scholar Meineke = 107.3 Kock = 107.3 Edmonds; Heliodorus, , Aeth. 10.29Google Scholar. So too frequently for συνίημι. Il. 1.273, 2.26, 63, 24.133; Od. 1.271, 4.76, 15.391, 19.38; Hes. Theog. 831; Archil. 109.1 West; Theognis 1240, 1284, 1306; Strato, , Phoenicides 1.3, 41Google Scholar Edmonds.

52 Yet so e.g. Fraccaroli, G., Le Odi di Pindaro (Verona, 1894), 201Google Scholar, and Wilamowitz, op. cit. (n. 43), 247. A related misunderstanding connects the usage of the word here with the language of the mysteries; so e.g. Bowra, C. M., Pindar (Oxford, 1964), 122Google Scholar.

53 Cf. Race, op. cit. (n. 9), 261–2, though his suggestion that the word here might be ‘slightly ironic’ seems fanciful.

54 Cf. Slater, op. cit. (n. 18), s.v. δ⋯ 2.

55 Slater, ibid., s.v. translates the word as ‘lack, need’; Rumpel, op. cit. (n. 27), s.v. as ‘indigeo, opus est’. This misunderstanding leads Race, op. cit. (n. 9), 266 n. 24, to offer as alleged parallels three passages in which the verbs are προσδεῖται, δεῖται, and egeat.

56 So in almost all its archaic usages: Il. 18.392; Od. 8.156, 11.350, 22.50, 351; Hes. Op. 21, Fr. 43a.41; Eur. Hr. 465. In only two passages is it clearly objective in meaning (Il. 17.211; Hes. Op. 394); in one final passage (Il. 2.225) it is unclear which alternative is to be preferred.

57 So especially N. 3.6–7 (on which cf. Bury, J. B., The Nemean Odes of Pindar [London, 1890 = Amsterdam, 1965]Google Scholar, ad loc.); and cf. e.g. P. 9.104, N. 1.12.

58 Boeckh's comment (op. cit. [n. 40]) is typical: ‘lam quum multam sese carminis materiam habere dixerit, non arte hanc sibi paratam esse affirmat, sed natura; quod cur addiderit nescio: nisi forte ipsi obiectum erat, quod nimium in elocutione brevis arte careret neque satis disertus esset, volebatque in calumniatores retorquere reprehensionem, qui non natura sed arte poetae inania multa garrirent…’.

59 Bowra, op. cit. (n. 52), 341.

60 Most scholars take πρός here to mean ‘against’: so e.g. the scholia (ad 154c, 157a); Boeckh, op. cit. (n. 40), after considerable hestitation; Slater, op. cit. (n. 18), s.v. πρός 1.b.α. But it seems preferable to understand it in a purely comparative sense: so Schol. Rec. 139.16–17 ad 156–9 Abel; de Jongh, A., Pindari carmina Olympia. Cum annotatione critica, interpretatione latina et commentario (Traiecti ad Rhenum, 1865), 316–17Google Scholar, who compares Hdt. 3.34[.4], Soph. Ant. 1170[1171: and cf. Jebb, Richard, ed., Sophocles. The Plays and Fragments. Part III. The Antigone (Cambridge, 1906)Google Scholar, ad loc.], and Aristot. Phys. 1.1 [.184b1]; Mezger, F., ed., Pindars Siegeslieder (Leipzig, 1880), 166Google Scholar; and Race, op. cit. (n. 9), 260. Nothing in the simile suggests hostility on the part of the crows towards the eagle γαρὺω conveys no hint of antagonism in Pindar's language; it merely means ‘sing’). It is enough for the image that the lesser poets be like crows in comparison to the eagle, i.e. be inferior to him: to add to the objective comparison the extraneous notion of subjective antagonism merely confuses matters. Theocritus 7.47–8 seems to have misunderstood this passage in a typically Alexandrian way, in terms of rivalry among competing poets.

61 So Schol. ad 157a, Schol. Rec. 139.7–8 ad 159, 13–16 ad 156–9 Abel.

62 So Schol. ad I. 5.58, Schol. Rec. 436.18–19 ad I. 5.58 Abel.

63 Thus Race, op. cit. (n. 9), 257, refers to this passage, but only to illustrate the Abbruch.

64 For various aspects of the poet as προφήτης, see especially Wackernagel, J., Vorlesungen über Syntax (Basel, 1928 2), ii.239–40Google Scholar, who says of this word, ‘der Begriff des Heraussagens und öfientlich Bekanntgebens liegt ihm zu Grunde’. Cf. also Duchemin, J., Pindare: poète et prophète (Paris, 1955)Google Scholar; Fabbri, Giuseppe, ‘Gli oracoli come fonte d'ispirazione nella letteratura poetica dei Greci’, A&R N.S. 11 (1930), 25–82 (Pindar: 35–46)Google Scholar; Falter, O., Der Dichter und sein Gott bei den Griechen und Römern (Diss. Würzburg, 1934), 20–29Google Scholar; Schwenn, F., Der junge Pindar (Berlin, 1940), 82f.Google Scholar; Sperduti, Alice, ‘The divine nature of poetry in antiquity’, TAPhA 81 (1950), 209–40 (Pindar: 233–7)Google Scholar.