Compton, Todd M. 2006. Victim of the Muses: Poet as Scapegoat, Warrior and Hero in Greco-Roman and Indo-European Myth and History. Hellenic Studies Series 11. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Compton.Victim_of_the_Muses.2006.
Chapter 9. Alcaeus: Poetry, Politics, Exile
θῦμον σκέθοντες ἀμμετέρα[ς] ἄρας
ἀκούσατ’, ἐκ δὲ τῶν[δ]ε μόχθων
ἀργαλέας τε φύγας ῤ[ύεσθε·
τὸν ῎Υρραον δὲ πα[ῖδ]α πεδελθέτω
κήνων Ἐ[ρίννυ]ς ὤς ποτ’ ἀπώμνυμεν
τόμοντες ἄ [
μηδάμα μηδ’ ἔνα τὼν ἐταίρων
* * *
κήνων ὀ φύσγων οὐ διελέξατο
πρὸς θῦμον ἀλλὰ βραϊδίως πόσιν
ἔ]μβαις ἐπ ὀρκίοισι δάπτει
τὰν πόλιν ἄμμι …
This poem, which shows how the Greek word ara can mean both prayer and curse, [13] exhibits Alcaeus defending the sanctity of the oath, a common theme (and there are clear echoes of Hipponax here). [14] It also gives us an example of invective targeting Pittacus. [15]
ζώω μοῖραν ἔχων ἀγροϊωτίκαν
ἰμέρρων ἀγόρας ἄκουσαι
καρυ[ζο]μένας ὦ (Ἀ)γεσιλαΐδα
καὶ β[ό]λλας· τὰ πάτηρ καὶ πάτερος πάτηρ
κα<γ>γ[ε]γήρασ’ ἔχοντες πεδὰ τωνδέων
τὼν [ἀ]λλαλοκάκων πολίταν
ἔγ[ω ἀ]πὺ τούτων ἀπελήλαμαι
φεύγων ἐσχατίαισ’, ὠς δ’ Ὀνυμακλέης
ἔνθα[δ’] οἶος ἐοίκησα λυκαιμίαις [25]
]ον [π]όλεμον …
In line 10, Alcaeus refers to himself as wolflike in his exiled state. The wolf is a common symbol for the exile, the loner, the outcast, and has strong links with the Männerbund and initiate—often the initiate is required to undergo a period of exclusion (as in the Spartan Crypteia), in which he lives like an animal in the wilderness, sometimes even “becoming” a wolf. [27]
Footnotes
See also Rösler 1980:280n392; Page 1955:205; Burzacchini 1976: 47; Latte 1947:142; Burzacchini 1986.
In view of the persistent connection of the pharmakos with Apollo and Delphi, the associations of the wolf with Delphi are worth noting. See Gershenson 1991:1–23. Aelian (On the Characteristics of Animals 12.40) wrote that the Delphians “honor/worship [timōsi]” the wolf, cf. Burkert 1983:120. According to a legend in Aelian, a wolf tracked down sacred gold of Delphi that had been stolen; because of this, a bronze statue of a wolf was shown at Delphi, Pausanias 10.14.7. The Delphians came from Lykoreia, ‘wolf-mountain’ (10.6.2); cf. Callimachus, fr. 62Pf.; Hymn 2.18–20; Strabo 9.418.3; Apollonius Argonautica 4.1490; Parian Marble, FGH 239 A 2,4; Euphorion fr. 80.3 in Powell 1925:44. For Leto as a she-wolf, Aristotle History of Animals 6.35, 580A; Aelian On the Characteristics of Animals 4.4. Why the wolf is connected with the mantic is a matter of much speculation; Burkert has an interpretation involving sacrifice. However, it is possible that, once again, the wolf may be a symbol of madness, which is related to mantic madness, cf. Eliade 1975:72: “The Scandinavian berserker ‘heats’ himself in his initiatory combat, shares in the sacred frenzy or furor (Wut), behaves at once like a beast of prey and a shaman … To behave like a beast of prey—wolf, bear, leopard—betokens that one has ceased to be a man, that one incarnates a higher religious force, that one has in some sort become a god.”
For further on the wolf, including the connections between wolf, männerbund, and warrior, see below, ch. 17, on Finn as poet and outlaw; ch. 18, on the wolflike appearance of poet-warrior Starkaðr, and Suibhne living among wolves; ch. 19, on the berserker phenomenon.