Foreword Cedric H. Whitman When Milman Parry died in 1935, his great demonstration that the Homeric poems were the culminating product of a long, highly developed oral tradition had already raised many questions to which scholars today are still trying to discover answers. Perhaps the most formidable question was: if oral poetry is composed by illiterate bards out of inherited metrical formulas, how can the Iliad… Read more
Acknowledgments This monograph, to put it simply, would not have been written without the precedent of Calvert Watkins’s work on Indo-European metrics. His field is linguistics, a discipline which I especially admire for the elegant precision that it can bring to literary studies. For my own approach to Hellenic literature and pre-literature, I have learned from him a τέχνη that has always been an invaluable aid. … Read more
4. The Village of Avdemi: A Case Study in Wanton Women? [1] … cicadas acerrimi cantus esse et mulieres libidinis avidissimas virosque in coitum pigerrimos scripsere. … “they [sc. Hesiod and Alcaeus] have written that the cicada’s songs are sharpest and women are most lustful and men most sluggish in sexual relations.” Pliny Natural history 22.86… Read more
5. Enter the Cicada The list of creatures which populate demotic lore is considerable: we have already remarked the partridge and the swallow—just to mention two common birds. The cicada, also, is a striking creature which evokes multiple themes in Greek tradition. In fact, its piercing, persistent cry not only informs the popular memory of the harvest but is a flash signal for such related themes as… Read more
6. Hesiod’s Festival Reconsidered Hesiod frames his bucolic scenario by means of vv. 571-581 and 597-608. First, then, we may examine vv. 571-581: ἀλλ’ ὁπότ’ ἂν φερέοικος ἀπὸ χθονὸς ἂμ φυτὰ βαίνη Πληιάδας φεύγων, τότε δὴ σκάφος οὐκέτι οἰνέων ἀλλ’ἅρπας τε χαρασσέμεναι καὶ δμῶας ἐγείρειν. φεύγειν δὲ σκιεροὺς θώκους καὶ ἐπ’ ἠῶ κοῖτον 575 ὥρῃ ἐν ἀμήτου, ὅτε τ’ἠέλιος… Read more
7. Towards a Conclusion: The Farmer and His Wife Only reapers, reaping early In among the bearded barley,Hear a song that echoes cheerly,From the river winding clearly … Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Lady of Shallot” Perhaps the most important fact to arise out of this examination of the Hesiodic festival (WD 582-596) is that this passage integrates seasonal themes that may… Read more
Appendix 1. Commentary on WD 582-596 West’s indispensable comments ad loc. may be supplemented with a few remarks which I append here; a fuller discussion of textual points will be found in chs. 5 and 6. For a discussion of the correspondences of meter and phraseology between WD 582-593, Shield of Herakles 393-401 (Solmsen), and Alcaeus fr. 347a (LP), see also Nagy 1990a. 462-463, especially n. 121… Read more
Appendix 2. On Zephyros (WD 594) The detail of the west wind Zephyros seems to be well planned as it matches the atmosphere of relaxation and replenishment which WD foresees for this period. In Homer Zephyros can be beneficent towards crops. Odyssey 7.119-122 relates that the wind blows favorably in the paradisal fairyland of Phaeacia, encouraging the eternal growth and ripening of fruit: [1]… Read more
Appendix 3. On the Fountain, Sexual Mischief, and the Migration of Reapers The fountain or well was one of the few places where a woman might encounter an unrelated man and consequently a likely locus for sexual mischief: see Richardson, pp. 179-180 on Homeric Hymn to Demeter 98 f. Hesiod’s κρήνη may well be a sexual detail, not merely a topographical one. In demotic song the βρύση,… Read more
Appendix 4. Commentary on WD 448-452 Cf. West ad loc. Also cf.: 448. φράζεσθαι: infinitive as imperative = ‘heed’ as at WD 86 ἐφράσαθ’, ὥς·. φωνήν: the crane’s ‘voice’ is actually a strident “krooh” (Field guide, p. 101), or κλαγγή, cf. below on 449. Φωνή is even so appropriate, for it refers to ‘the resonant voice’ (as opposed to αὐδή, which refers to the ‘articulate… Read more
