Poetry as Initiation: The Center for Hellenic Studies Symposium on the Derveni Papyrus

  Papadopoulou, Ioanna, and Leonard Muellner, eds. 2014. Poetry as Initiation: The Center for Hellenic Studies Symposium on the Derveni Papyrus. Hellenic Studies Series 63. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_PapadopoulouI_MuellnerL_eds.Poetry_as_Initiation.2014.


Chapter 9. The Derveni Papyrus between the Power of Spoken Language and Written Practice: Pragmatics of Initiation in an Orpheus Poem and Its Commentary [1]

Claude Calame

École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris

Translated by Nicholas Snead

1. Incantatory Practices between Orality and Writing

In poetic tradition as in classical iconography, Orpheus is famous as much for the melodious qualities of his instrumental music as he is for the enchanting and spellbinding powers of his voice as aoidos.

In contemporary iconography, the power of Orpheus’ voice is incarnated by the singing hero’s head, separated from the body that carried it. The singer of Thrace is in this way reduced to his pure vocality through a probable allusion to the legend in which he falls victim to the sparagmos of the maenads, who were spurred on by a Dionysus jealous of the exclusive honors Orpheus paid to Apollo. Aeschylus made this legend the tragic subject of the Bassarids. [6] Yet {166|167} along with other similar artifacts, the frieze of a red-figure vase at Cambridge stages for us the confrontation between a seated young man and a man standing with his right hand stretched out in front of him (this image appears opposite a musical scene depicting two young women). Because of the laurel branch that he is holding in his left hand, it makes sense to identify the second young man as the god Apollo or as one of the priests who serve as his mortal representatives. In the center of this musical scene, the head of Orpheus is resting on the ground: while the head is singing, the seated ephebe’s role seems to be to transcribe the words coming from the mouth of the immortalized poet onto a two-leaved tablet coated in wax. As for the god or his priest, he is guiding with his right hand the movements of the young man transcribing to the diptych. The presence of Apollo or of his representative confers an oracular quality to the voice of Orpheus, which is perhaps part of a practice of necromancy. [7] Is this an “oral dictated text,” according to the hypothesis formed by Albert Lord to describe the written transcription of poems transmitted orally under the name “Homer”? Whatever the case, the oral and even melodious expression of Orpheus, under the authority of the god of the lyre and of the oracles, leads to a practice of writing.

This is the great paradox that the Derveni Papyrus presents: it offers citations of a cosmo-theogonic poem in epic and rhapsodic diction proffered by the spoken voice of Orpheus while at the same time inaugurating for us the long {167|168} tradition of the hypómnema, a written practice if ever there was one. This means that the hybrid text presented in the Derveni Papyrus provides an example of a practice of written orality. The meanings at stake in this practice will be examined below.

2. The Derveni Papyrus as a Document

3. The Explicated Poem: Rhapsodic and Orphic Diction

Despite the mutilations of the half-consumed papyrus, we can see the following cosmo-theogonic moments in the temporal succession of the five generations: Zeus succeeds Kronos; Zeus receives oracles from Nyx and his father Kronos concerning his future reign on Olympus; Zeus consumes the phallus (aidoîon), probably the virile member of Uranus transformed into the Sun. This primordial phallus, as we will see, was gushing in the Ether, and as the “firstborn” sovereign, Zeus swallows it. From him, the gods and goddesses are (re)born, with the rivers and springs, but also the earth, the sky, the river Okeanos, and the moon—in other words, all that comes into being. Recasting {169|170} the original act of cosmic creation in an apparently inverted order, this second demiurgic act prompts the citation and the commentary on the verses in poetic praise of Zeus mentioned above: Zeus is at the same time the artisan and the foundation of all things. The master of creation is therefore himself assimilated with Moira, if not with the celestial Aphrodite. He can unite with his mother Rhea, who is likely assimilated in the poem itself with Gaia and also Meter and Hera! The burning of the papyrus has unfortunately denied us these last steps—if they existed—of the creation of the world through the intermediary of the genealogy of the gods. Thus there is no primordial Kronos as in the rhapsodic version, nor any mention of the Titans, nor any allusion to Dionysus or to the anthropogony, at least not in the current state of the text. [13]

Transferred from Kronos to Zeus, the act of ingestion leads to two narrative and theological moments that are specific to Orphic cosmological thought: the {170|171} second creation of the universe and the erasing of generations in the blurring of genealogical relationships. Through temporal flattening and vicarious incest, these two narrative processes allow the differentiations of the demiurgic and genealogical process to merge in the unity of an all-powerful divine figure, the beginning and end of all things. [16] We find in the few verses cited and explicated by the sophós of Derveni—echoing to some extent these cosmological and theogonic processes—enunciative phrasings that characterize the Orphic re-elaboration of Homeric diction. These include the paratactic asyndeton for the naming and qualifications of the divinity, the phonetic play of assonance in the descriptions and invocation, the repetition of the divinity’s name in key positions of clauses in the dactylic hexameter, etc. I have analyzed these stylistic elements in another study, to be published soon. These different forms of phonetic and semantic wordplay on the names of the major entities and divinities at work in the creation and the re-creation of the cosmos stress the incantatory nature of epic diction in a rhapsodic recitation that takes on accents made familiar by the Orphic Hymns. [17] The Homeric diction of the rhapsodies developed then into a truly Orphic diction, which likely had ritual significance.

4. Interpretative Procedures

To the eyes and ears of the reader-listener in the fourth century, the poetic utterances of a cosmogony and genealogical narrative believed to be the poetic work of Orpheus are thought of as pertaining to the aínigma; these hexameters in Homeric and Orphic diction are considered by the Derveni author to be “enigmatic” (ainigmatódeis). It is therefore appropriate to examine the interpretive procedures and the modes of enunciation of a hermeneutic voice that is itself enigmatic. It is worth noting that while the written voice of the commentary attributes spoken verses to Orpheus, that written voice itself remains entirely anonymous.

In the same way, the Derveni commentator presents as “enigmatic” the hexameter that makes Zeus into the head, the center, and therefore the cause of all things created. This Orphic verse, let us not forget, figures in the hieròs lógos from Plato’s Laws cited above as part of a dialogue that is itself more or less contemporary with the Derveni text. According to the anonymous interpreter, who focuses his attention on the term kephalé (the head), Orpheus is not only speaking in hidden meanings in this verse (épos), he is also making revelations (semaínei). We recall that Heraclitus, in a famous passage, attributes this mode of revealing to the oracle of Delphi: the role of the Pythic voice is to “signify.” Herodotus assigns this same semiotic mode to his own historiographical undertaking when, in its opening, he attributes a quasi-judiciary role to his lógos in regards to elucidating the causes of the Greco-Persian wars. According to the Derveni author, the poet Orpheus “indicates” (semaínei: that present things are the product of existing things) when he tells of how the gods as well as the elements were born from “the first-sovereign, the venerable,” the unique principal. To support his assertion, the interpreter cites no fewer than four hexameters taken from the Orphic poem he is explicating: the voice of the poet speaking on the cosmogonic role taken on by Protogonos is designated as a simple “statement” (légei), while the lines cited are presented as hexameters (“in these lines”: en toîs épesi to[îsde). [19]

The oracular nature of the voice assumed by the Orphic poem is clearly summarized in the beginning of the commentary. There the interpreter in fact declares, as a sort of introduction to his exegesis, that the whole of the poem is ainigmatódes and that Orpheus (?) “did not want to tell of contestable enigmas but of great things through enigma.” The conclusion here: the author of the poem is presenting a sacred discourse (hier[log]eîtai). The key to a poetic composition that appears from the outset as a hieròs lógos is thus given. The Derveni commentator ends up effectively paraphrasing the famous orphic verse that recommends the profane close their ears: “I’m going to sing [aeíso] for those who comprehend [xunétoisi]; close the doors, you the profane [bébeloi]”; or, in a formulaic variation that allows for retaining the divisions of the rhythmic structure of the hexameter: “I’m going to speak [phthégxomai] to whom it is permitted; close the doors, you the profane.”

Addressing himself in this way to those in the know, the scholarly Derveni commentator recuperates to some extent in his use of the form he the enunciative mechanism produced by the strong voice of the poet-I, who happens to be an Orphic rhapsode. We see here the Orphic oxymoron divided between the oral and the written, and this is particularly the case in column VII of the papyrus, positioned at the juncture between the ritualistic instructions and the commentary on the poem itself.

5. Erudite Practices

Following the model that would become Alexandrian philological practice, the verses explicated in the Derveni Papyrus are presented as actual lemmata, marked by an obelus or a paragraphos. These citations are often followed by a formulation using hóti (“because”) that explains why the poetic expression should be understood (or not understood) to have a certain meaning. This is the case, for example, with the hexameter stating Zeus’ royalty: the god is called king because he corresponds to a unique principle that has power over multiple things in existence. Further along in the explicated poem, the mention of the river Okeanos, in a verse that is now lost, provokes the following commentary: “this verse [épos] was composed in a deceptive manner; this is not obvious {175|176} though for most [toîs póllois], but clear [eúdelon] for those with the proper knowledge [toîs orthôs ginóskousin] because Okeanos is the air and the air is Zeus.” We learn here that those who do not know (ou gignóskontes) remain content with the appearance maintained by the words of common language that Orpheus uses to “signify” (semaínei) his own opinion; because of this qualification the uninitiated continue to believe that Okeanos is a river, satisfied with the surface meaning.

6. Questions of Authorship

This is the case, for example, with the gushing or spurting movement that animates the cosmos, according to the Orphic creation. In mentioning this movement, “Orpheus” refers to the process of reciprocal attraction of the elements and basic physical properties such as the cold. He demonstrates (deloî) that particles moving in the air couple together through the affinities they have for each other:

… nor cold with cold. And “through a gushing movement” is the formula he [i.e. Orpheus] uses to demonstrate [deloî] that after having been divided into smaller pieces, the elements moved through the air and gushed, and in gushing, they came together with each other to form anew. Yet they continued gushing until that moment when each went towards its partner. “Celestial Aphrodite,” “Zeus,” “enjoy the pleasures of Aphrodite,” “gush,” “Persuasion,” and “Harmonia,” these words all are used to refer to the same god. … Indeed, when existing realities [tà eónta] were mixing with each other, Zeus received the name “Aphrodite” and that of “Persuasion,” because the elements yielded to each other.

7. Itineraries of Initiatory Writing

Through the discursive procedures specific to erudite commentary, the text of the Derveni Papyrus is presented paradoxically as an articulated discourse on practices of worship. It is without a doubt strengthened in this function by the ritual utility conferred through the corresponding intellectual itinerary, both cosmogonic and initiatory, that it seems to offer to the Orphic initiates invited to read it. Resulting from a practice of writing and probably meant less for an oral recitation than for an individual reading (“ritual reading?”), the exegetic Derveni text, with its rhapsodic organization, nevertheless appears as a discourse carrying the marks of poetic utility and meant for initiatory purposes. Its ritual function is apparently double: this discourse serves without a doubt in education, in initiation, and to integrate the new initiate into the group of Orphic officiants before it accompanies him as a text in a second rite of passage, his burial, where the mortal body is destroyed by flames on the funeral pyre. Meant to reveal the hidden meanings of the poem’s Orphic cosmo-theogony transmitted by an inspired voice of poetic authority, the erudite commentary is itself put to use in this didactic and initiatory double function of epistemological as well as ritual nature. {181|182}

8. The Oxymoron of Oral Writing

Figure 1. Apulian amphora by the Ganymede painter. Antikensammlung Basel S 40. Photo, Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig / Andres F. Voegelin.

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Footnotes

[ back ] 1. Focused on the Derveni Papyrus, the present article originated as a much shorter piece published in Italian (Guidorizzi and Melotti 2005:28–45). A longer version, translated into Spanish, was published in Bernabé and Casadesús 2009:841–866. The present version benefited not only from exchanges at a July 2009 conference at the Center for Hellenic Studies but also from being presented during my 2009–2010 seminar on the anthropology of Greek poetics at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. Special thanks to Ioanna Papadopoulou for her active role during that seminar. An abridged version of the second part of this article was included in “The Authority of Orpheus, Poet and Bard: Between Oral Tradition and Written Practice,” in Ph. Mitsis and Ch. Tsagalis, eds., Allusion, Authority, and Truth: Critical Perspectives on Greek Poetic and Rhetorical Praxis (Berlin, 2010) 13–35.

[ back ] 2. LIMC, s.v. “Orpheus,” 6 (see also “Argonautai,” II 1, 593n2); a black-figure vase in Heidelberg, dated to around 580, could be a representation of Orpheus between two Sirens: see Riedweg 1996:1275.

[ back ] 3. Apollonius of Rhodes 4.891–911; other instances of the effects of Orpheus’ music have been collected and discussed by Riedweg (1996:1273–1279); see also Bernabé 2001:63–76; on the hero’s participation in the voyage of the Argonauts, see Graf 1987:95–99.

[ back ] 4. Pindar Pythians 4.176–177 = Orphica 899 I T/1006 T Bernabé, cf. sch. ad loc. (II, p. 139 Drachmann) = Orphica 899 II and III T Bernabé, as well as the accounts gathered as Orphica 985 T and 896 T Bernabé. On the genealogy of Orpheus, cf. Pseudo-Apollodorus The Library 1.3.2 = Orphica 901 II T Bernabé. On Orpheus as the son of Calliope and Oeagrus or Apollo see also Ovid Metamorphoses 10.187 and 11.8 = Orphica 897 T and 1035 II T Bernabé: Orpheus divine son of Apollo (vatis Apollineus).

[ back ] 5. Aristophanes Frogs 231, and 1035–1036 = Orphica 547 I T Bernabé. On the broader meaning of teleté as a general ritualistic practice of initiation, see Burkert 1987:9–11; for the more specific meaning as a rite of initiation into the Orphic mysteries, see Morand 2001:140–146.

[ back ] 6. Aeschylus Bassarids: TrGF pp. 138–139 Radt = Eratosthenes Catasterismi 24 = Orphica 536 T and 1033 T Bernabé. For modern readers, the episode where Orpheus’ head arrives at Lesbos and becomes an oracle appears most notably in Philostratus Heroicus 28.7–11 = Orphica 1056 T Bernabé; other texts in Graf 1987:85–86 point out additionally that the scene of the Orphic sparagmos at the hands of the Thracian women appears as early as 480: cf. LIMC, “Orpheus,” 32–51. On the legend of the complex relationship linking Orpheus, Apollo, and Dionysus, see Detienne 1989:124–132.

[ back ] 7. Red-figure vase (ARV 2 1401.1) = LIMC, “Orpheus,” 70 = “Apollon,” 872; other representations of Orpheus’ singing head are listed in Schmidt 1972. In regards to two cuneiform Mesopotamian documents and to magical Greek texts invoking Apollo through a head or a skull, Faraone presents the hypothesis of scenes of necromancy (2005:71–83).

[ back ] 8. Cf. Plato Republic 364b–365a = 573 I–II F Bernabé; for a well-done discussion of the incantatory formulas and practices of initiation attributed to Orpheus, see Jiménez San Cristóbal 2008a.

[ back ] 9. Bibliographic information on the archeological circumstances of the discovery and on the dating of the document are available in Bernabé 2002:91–93; Betegh 2004:56–68; and Kouremenos, Parássoglou, and Tsantsanoglou 2006:1–9.

[ back ] 10. Plato Laws 715e = Orphica 31 III F Bernabé and schol. Plato Laws 715e (p. 317 Greene) = Orphica 31 IV F Bernabé, through probable reference to the version later cited by Pseudo-Aristotle De mundo 401a25–31 = Orphica 31 I F Bernabé, then by Eusebius Praeparatio evangelica 3.8.2 (= Porphyry fr. 354 Smith) = Orphica 243 F Bernabé; cf. West 1983:218–220 and 239–241. For the three versions of the orphic cosmo-theogony cf. Damascius De principiis 123–124 (III, pp. 159–162 Westerink) = Orphica 20 I F, 75 F and 90 T Bernabé; in reference to the three versions, see Brisson 1995:2875–2915.

[ back ] 11. Derveni Papyrus, col. XVII 12 and XIX 10 = Orphica 14, 2 and 4 F Bernabé (who was able to use the Derveni commentary to reconstruct four verses of this passage of the Orphic poem dedicated to the pervasive unity of Zeus); concerning the Orphic Hymn 15 addressed to Zeus, see Ricciardelli 2000:298–300.

[ back ] 12. See Calame 2009:5–24 and 59–94, attempting to place this narrative in its poetic and enunciative context, in contrast to the numerous structural analyses of the Hesiodic, wrongly called,“mythe des races.”

[ back ] 13. These different phases of the poetic cosmo-theogony explicated in the papyrus have been reconstituted recently by Bernabé (2002:102–123); see also Betegh 2004:92–137 as well as an overly normalized version in Jourdan 2003:XVIII–XXIV. In their commentary, Kouremenos, Parássoglou, and Tsantsanoglou remain much more cautious regarding reconstructions that rely too heavily on the model provided by the first phases of Hesiod’s cosmic creation in the Theogony. On the absence of Kronos, see Betegh 2004:157–158.

[ back ] 14. See West 1983:74–75 and 96–104; Betegh (2004:136–138) develops an argument against the hypothesized hymn despite the term ]mnon that can be established in col. VII  2 (cf. II  8 as well); Kouremenos, Parássoglou, and Tsantsanoglou 2006:171.

[ back ] 15. On the figure of Phanes-Protogonos-Eros, see Calame 1991:231–237; concerning the functioning of the double meaning of aidoîon in the poem itself, see Calame 1997:66–72, Bernabé 2002:104–107, Brisson 2003, and Betegh 2004:111–122 and 171–172.

[ back ] 16. The process of re-creating a cosmos in unity has been discussed in Calame 1997:66–74 and Bernabé 2002:114–118.

[ back ] 17. On the structure, lexicon, and formulaic language of the Orphic Hymns, see the two studies by Rudhardt (1991:267–274 and 2008:177–250) as well as the strong analysis of Hopman-Govers (2001). See also Morand 2001:58–76 on wordplay and 101–137 for the titles that generally refer to smoke offerings.

[ back ] 18. Derveni Papyrus col. IX 10; cf. Herodotus 5.56.1–2 and Homer Iliad I.63. In the following passage of the text, which is greatly fragmented, the commentator seems to strongly affirm that he has made visible that which is not readily apparent.

[ back ] 19. Derveni Papyrus col. XVII 11–13 and col. XVI  1–7 (for the use of the form semaínei, see also col. XXV  13, in relation to gignóskein); cf. Heraclitus fr. 22 B 93 DK and Herodotus 1.5.3. On the Orphic verses explicated in this passage, see n11 above.

[ back ] 20. Derveni Papyrus col. XIII 1–5; bibliography on the question of the use of the term aidoîon available above in n15.

[ back ] 21. Derveni Papyrus col. VII 3–11, in the new text presented and annotated by Tsantsanoglou (1997:95 and 117–128), with the commentary of Kouremenos, Parássoglou, and Tsantsanoglou (2006:171–174); the verse paraphrased by the Derveni author is reconstructed and published as Orphica 3 F Bernabé (cf. 2 T as well as 101 F Bernabé) in reference to the double enunciation 1a and 1b F Bernabé cited above; on this formulaic introductory verse, see the remarks by West (1983:82–84) and Burkert (2005:49–51). On Orphic discourse as hieroì lógoi, see Baumgarten 1998:89–97 and Henrichs 2003:237–244.

[ back ] 22. Plato Alcibiades II 142ac; see also Aristotle Poetics 22.1458a, which condemns enigma as an overuse of metaphorical expression, and Rhetoric to Alexander 35.18, where “enigmatic expression” (ainigmatodôs hermeneúein) is understood as a way of saying one thing by employing terms that denote something else.

[ back ] 23. Thucydides 2.41.3–4; Hesiod Works and Days 202–212; for the relationship between the procedure of aînos and the first “allegorical” readings of Homeric poetry, see Nagy 1990:147–150 and 425–430, as well as Ford 2002:62–75, along with the numerous bibliographic references I gave on the subject in 1997:65n2.

[ back ] 24. Derveni Papyrus IX 2, XII 5, XVIII 5, XX 2–3 and 8, XXIII 2 and 5, XXVI 8; cf. Orphica 1a F Bernabé, Pindar Olympian 6.83–85, and Bacchylides 3.85 (garúo as well). Recently Bremmer (2010:22–29) criticized using the notion of a “sect” to describe the groups of Orphic followers.

[ back ] 25. On the original meaning of hypómnema as a “written note,” see Plato Phaedrus 249c and Politicus 295c. On the subject of commentary as a scholarly genre in the Hellenistic period, see Pfeiffer 1968:212–227.

[ back ] 26. Derveni Papyrus XIX 10–15 and XXIII 1–10; for a reconstruction of the verses concentrating on Okeanos, see most recently Bernabé 2002:119–120 and Kouremenos, Parássoglou, and Tsantsanoglou 2006:256–260; for explanations of speculations about classical physical thinkers, see in particular the references given by West (1983:80–81) and by Laks (1997:127–134); see also Brisson’s recent attempt to link the Derveni author’s materialist interpretation to Stoic thought and allegorical practice, 2009:33–39.

[ back ] 27. Derveni Papyrus IV, 5–9 citing Heraclitus frr. 22 B 3 and 94 DK; cf. Sider 1997:129–144 (who reads hiero]lógoi; bibliography on this passage 130n5), and Tsantsanoglou 1997:96–109 (who adds mytho]lógoi), as well as Kouremenos, Parássoglou, and Tsantsanoglou 2006:153–157.

[ back ] 28. The unfruitful efforts of modern scholars at authorial attribution are listed by Betegh (2004:64–65 and 373–380), and discussed by Kouremenos, Parássoglou, and Tsantsanoglou (2006:58–59).

[ back ] 29. See for instance Holmes 2010:121–191 and Lloyd 2003:40–61.

[ back ] 30. Derveni Papyrus XXI 1–12; on this cosmic movement, see Calame 1997:70–74 (with n7) as well as Laks and Most 1997:21n53 on the form and meaning of thórnei and Bernabé 2002:118–119, along with the comparative remarks by Burkert (2005:55–60), and recently the extended commentary of Kouremenos, Parássoglou, and Tsantsanoglou (2006:243–252).

[ back ] 31. The prose narratives in Plato’s Timaeus and Critias can adopt the rhapsodic rhythm of the Homeric poems recited at the Great Panathenaea: Nagy 2002:52–69.

[ back ] 32. The analogies between the etymological procedures of the Derveni commentator and those accumulated in Plato’s Cratylus are pointed out in particular by Kahn 1997:60–63. For the combinations of physical explanations and references to divine figures, see Laks 1997:130–137.

[ back ] 33. Derveni Papyrus XXIII 1–3 (see n26 above) and XVI 3–14 (n19 above and Kouremenos, Parássoglou, and Tsantsanoglou 2006:214–217).

[ back ] 34. Kouremenos, Parássoglou, and Tsantsanoglou (2006:45–58) conclude in their review of the different theses advanced on this subject that “the Derveni author is not Orphic or even anti-Orphic” (52) and not “a religious professional” (53). Contrary to their conclusion, we refer to the proposition of Fritz Graf (in this volume), who sees the Derveni author as an orpheotelestés.

[ back ] 35. Derveni Papyrus XX 1–12; for references on this passage, see Calame 1997:77–78.

[ back ] 36. These remarks cover cols. II–VI of the Derveni Papyrus, particularly col. V 5–13. See Tsantsanoglou 1997:96–117 and Kouremenos, Parássoglou, and Tsantsanoglou 2006:144–171 as well as the new reading proposed by Ferrari (2011b:74–82) that develops a parallel with practices of Persian magi (see also 2011a:51–54).

[ back ] 37. Derveni Papyrus V 3. According to Most (1997:120 and 130), this enunciative we refers to a group of professionals opposed to both the priests of civic cults and individuals who claim to be experts on the sacred rites (on the latter, see also Betegh 2004:78–83); this reading runs counter to Kouremenos, Parássoglou, and Tsantsanoglou (2006:53–54 and 161–162), who interpret the form párimen as an infinitive and the equivalent of pariénai (see Burkert, in this volume, p. 113).

[ back ] 38. Orphica 1a and b F as well as 3 F and 101 F Bernabé; cf. Derveni Papyrus VII 9–10 and n21 above.

[ back ] 39. Calame 1997:77–80; see also Obbink 1997:40–47 and Laks 1997:138140. The parallel sometimes established with initiatory itineraries presented in gold lamellae, funerary texts incorrectly associated with Orphism, is not relevant here: see Calame 2011a; as a result, Most (1997:125–134) certainly goes too far in his claims that the Derveni commentary is an “eschatological theology” in the form of “soteriological physics.”

[ back ] 40. See my analysis of the significance of the name and figure of Homer (2004:26–31).

[ back ] 41. Cf. Euripides Hippolytus 948–954 (= Orphica 627 T Bernabé) as well as Euripides Hypsipyle fr. 752g, 8–14 Kannicht (= Orphica 1007 Bernabé); see also fr. 759a, 1614–1623 Kannicht (= Orphica 1009 T Bernabé).

[ back ] 42. Euripides Alcestis 357–362 (= Orphica 980 T Bernabé) and 962–971 (= Orphica 812 T Bernabé); see also Calame 2002:397–400.

[ back ] 43. Apulian amphora by the Ganymede Painter, Antikenmuseum Basel inv. S 40 (= LIMC, “Orpheus,” 20); see the detailed commentary in my recent study, Calame 2011b.