Diachrony and the Case of Aesop
Introduction
Relevant findings about the fables of Aesop and about his Lives
Explaining diachronic, historical, and synchronic perspectives
- diachronic perspectives need to be correlated with synchronic perspectives
- these two perspectives need to be correlated in turn with historical perspectives.
I note especially the equation here of the words diachronic and evolutionary.
Building synchronic and diachronic models
Delimiting the terms ‘synchronic’ and ‘diachronic’ in the analysis of structures
- The terms synchronic and diachronic need to be applied consistently from the objective standpoint of an outsider who is thinking about a given structure, not from the subjective standpoint of an insider who is thinking within that structure (Nagy 1990a 0§11 = p. 4). Such an objective standpoint enhances the synchronic as well as the diachronic perspectives that are needed for describing structures and for explaining how these structures evolve. This way of looking at a given structure helps avoid the pitfall of assuming that one’s own synchronic or diachronic perspectives are identical with the perspectives of those who were part of the culture in which that structure was historically anchored. Such an assumption runs the risk of misreading the historical context in which the structure is attested.
- Whereas synchronic and diachronic perspectives are needed to describe a given structure as it exists at a given time and as it evolves through time, historical perspectives are needed to describe what actually happened to that structure. As I noted already, what happened in history can be unpredictable, since we cannot predict the contingencies of history. So, when it comes to reconstructing what happened to a given structure, it is not enough to use a purely {237|238} diachronic perspective. As I have also already noted, a purely diachronic perspective is restricted to phenomena that are structurally predictable.
Delimiting the term ‘historical’ in the analysis of structures
Reconstructing structures forward as well as backward in time
Reconstructing through time the structures of the fables and the Lives of Aesop
Another work on Aesop
A transition to two friendly debates about diachronic models
A diachronic model of ritual antagonism for the cult hero
A debate about the model of ritual antagonism
The first sentence of this statement, to my way of thinking, manages to be unclear and unreasonable at the same time. And the lack of clarity, as I will argue, can be blamed on imprecision in Kurke’s use of both words “diachronic” and “synchronic” here. The other two sentences in the statement, on the other hand, both of which are questions, are I think perfectly reasonable questions. But the answers to these questions are already there, I insist, in my two books dealing with Aesop (Nagy 1979|1999, 1990), in both of which I apply a combination of historical, synchronic, and diachronic perspectives.
Abbreviations used hereafter for citations from three books
A closer look at what it means to use a “structuralist” approach
Q. “But what is the status of this ‘fundamental principle’?”
A. It is a diachronic model, meant to be tested on synchronic analysis of the relevant historical evidence.
§55b:
Q. “What are these ‘ritual requirements’?”
A. A basic “requirement,” in terms of my diachronic model, is that the cult hero’s corpse be contained within a sacred space or temenos that is sacred to the god. {249|250}
Q. “Does the principle apply to all gods and heroes, or only to certain gods (e.g. Hera, Apollo) at certain times and places in relation to certain heroes (e.g., Herakles, Achilles, Neoptolemos)?”
A. I start with the general part of the question and then proceed to the specific part. {250|251}
§55c1. Yes, the “principle” does apply to all gods and heroes. At least, it applies in terms of the ideology we see at work in a passage that I will now highlight in the Hesiodic Works and Days (134–139, 142). What we see in this passage is in effect an ancient poetic version of what I have been describing as a diachronic model of god-hero antagonism in myth and symbiosis in cult. I say this because, as I have argued (BA 151–154), the same passage in the Works and Days narrates how the Silver Generation of mortals died violently because they failed to give timai ‘honors’ to the gods (verse 138), even though ‘we’ mortals in the present give timē ‘honor’ to this generation of mortals now that they are dead (verse 142); as I have also argued, the word timē / timai here refers to ‘honor(s)’ in the sense of worshipping, by way of sacrifice, not only gods but also cult heroes, and this ancient visualization of cult heroes in their negative dimension as the Silver Generation is counterbalanced by the Golden Generation, who are envisaged as the cult heroes in their positive dimension (verses 122–126, with commentary in BA 153).
§55c2. As for Kurke’s specific question here, whether I have found other examples of god-hero antagonism in addition to the examples I collected in The Best of the Achaeans, I can report positive results. I cite as one example a complex pattern that I found embedded in the overall plot of the Homeric Odyssey, featuring two levels of antagonism: (1) between Odysseus as a seafaring hero and Poseidon as god of the sea and (2) between Odysseus as a seafaring pilot and Athena as the goddess of pilots (PH 8§25 = p. 232 with n82). To be correlated with this dual pattern of antagonism in myth is a dual pattern of symbiosis in cult, as attested in an aetiological myth linked with a sacred space located on a mountain peak in Arcadia by the name of Boreion: Pausanias (8.44.4) reports that this sacred space was built by Odysseus when he returned from Troy, dedicating it to Poseidon as god of the sea and to Athena as Sōteira or ‘Savior’. Since Arcadia is proverbially mountainous and landlocked, this Arcadian myth can be connected with myths about the travels of Odysseus to places that were located as far away from the sea as possible. These myths are reflected in the Odyssey (xi 121–137, xxiii 265–284), within the context of a riddling prophecy by Teiresias about the death of Odysseus (Nagy 1990b:214). [3]
Q. “More importantly, whose principle is it; whose interests does it serve; and why does such a model develop and subsist (if it does)? That is to say, what social work is this religious structure performing?”
A. The “principle” here does not belong to those who are inside the system that is being analyzed. It is simply a diachronic model formulated by an outsider to the system, in this case, by me, and this model is meant to be continually tested by way of synchronically analyzing the available historical realities. The model does not belong to me, since it is meant to be used by anyone who wants to test it on their own synchronic analysis of the realities. If the model works when you test it, then the model is a successful one—at least, it is successful to that extent. And if the model does not work, it will need to be adjusted. Such a model is like the grammar that a grammarian writes for a given language. The grammar can be synchronic or diachronic or both. But the real grammar of the language exists in the language itself, and this grammar exists even if there is no grammarian to write a grammar for it.
Testing a diachronic model
Three kinds of relatedness in comparative structuralist methodology
- The structures were always related because they are cognate, that, is, because they are diachronically derivable from a shared proto-structure.
- The structures were at one time unrelated, but they became synchronically interrelated at a later time because of historical contacts.
- The structures were always related because they are cognate, but they also became synchronically interrelated at a later time because of historical contacts.
Comparing once again the myths of Aesop and Neoptolemos
- A hero is dishonored by a community. Sometimes he or she is harmed and even killed.
- The community is then afflicted with some form of disaster, usually a plague.
- An oracle is then consulted, and the remedy prescribed by the god of the oracle is that a hero cult must be established in honor of the hero.
A diachronic complementarity of high and low discourse
Variations in social status, from Aesop to Homer and back
The fable as muthos narrated in prose
The use of the term khariesteron ‘more elegant’ here indicates the lofty form and content of the fable that Protagoras is about to tell. As I have argued (Nagy 2008|2009 3§§164–166), the term kharieis ‘graceful, elegant’ as we see it in such contexts was used in the classical era with reference to measuring various different degrees of sophistication in the practice and understanding of the verbal arts by sophistai ‘sophists’ (as we see for example from the context of Isocrates [12] Panathenaicus 18–19). Protagoras then proceeds to tell a fable about Prometheus and Epimetheus and Hermes. And, when Protagoras reaches the point where he is finished with the telling of his fable, he marks that point as the end of the muthos, which is what he had called his fable in the first place, before he proceeds to the rest of his argumentation, which will now be a fable no longer. Here is how he says it:
So, when Protagoras shifts from speaking prose in the form of a fable to speaking prose in other ways, he is shifting from muthos to logos. But I must emphasize that, even when Protagoras is speaking the fable, he is still speaking in prose. The point is, the fable as muthos can be poetic in content even when its form is prose.
The fable as muthos narrated in poetry
A closer look at Aesopic fables in Aristophanes
θρασεῖα καὶ μεθύση τις ὑλάκτει κύων.
κἄπειτ’ ἐκεῖνος εἶπεν· “ὦ κύον κύον,
εἰ νὴ Δί’ ἀντὶ τῆς κακῆς γλώττης ποθὲν
πυροὺς πρίαιο, σωφρονεῖν ἄν μοι δοκεῖς.”
One evening, when Aesop was walking along after having taken his leave from a dinner,
a bitch, audacious drunkard, started barking at him.
And that famous man said: “Bitch, bitch,
I swear by Zeus, if you could somehow use that nasty tongue of yours
to get paid off in wheat, then I think you would be sensible.”
Finally, we come to the third example:
κακὸν τὸ πίνειν. ἀπὸ γὰρ οἴνου γίγνεται
καὶ θυροκοπῆσαι καὶ πατάξαι καὶ βαλεῖν,
1255 κἄπειτ’ ἀποτίνειν ἀργύριον ἐκ κραιπάλης.
{Βδ.} οὔκ, ἢν ξυνῇς γ’ ἀνδράσι καλοῖς τε κἀγαθοῖς.
ἢ γὰρ παρῃτήσαντο τὸν πεπονθότα,
ἢ λόγον ἔλεξας αὐτὸς ἀστεῖόν τινα,
Αἰσωπικὸν γέλοιον ἢ Συβαριτικόν,
1260 ὧν ἔμαθες ἐν τῷ συμποσίῳ· κᾆτ’ ἐς γέλων
τὸ πρᾶγμ’ ἔτρεψας, ὥστ’ ἀφείς σ’ ἀποίχεται.
{Φι.} μαθητέον τἄρ’ ἐστὶ πολλοὺς τῶν λόγων,
εἴπερ γ’ ἀποτείσω μηδέν, ἤν τι δρῶ κακόν.
ἄγε νυν, ἴωμεν· μηδὲν ἡμᾶς ἰσχέτω.
[Philocleon says in response to the advice that he attend symposia:]
1252 No,
drinking is bad. Wine makes you
break doors down or hit people or throw things at them.
1255 And then, while you are still having your hangover, you have to pay money for the damages.
[Bdelycleon persists with his advice that Philocleon should attend symposia:]
No, that won’t happen if you are in the company of the elites [kaloi k’āgathoi].
For they can talk the plaintiff out of taking action.
Or you can tell a logos that is very sophisticated [asteios],
something funny that is Aesopic or Sybaritic—
1260 one of those logoi you learned at the symposium. And then you can turn into laughter
the whole affair, so the plaintiff will let you off and just go away.
Philocleon
So I’ve got to learn many of these logoi
if I want to make sure I don’t have to pay anything when I do something bad.
Let’s get going, then. I don’t want anything to hold us back.
An Indo-European precedent for narrating the fable as poetry
Reconstructing the fable backward and forward in time
Revisiting the word ainos and its derivatives
- understand the message of the code that is the poetry.
- have been raised on the proper ethical standards that are the message that the code of the poetry teaches.
- are socially connected to the poet and to each other, so that the message of the code may be transmitted to them and through them … .”
I have quoted here the wording of my summary as quoted in turn by Martin Schwartz (2003:383), who has shown that these three requirements for understanding the ancient Greek ainos are related to a cognate set of requirements for understanding the phraseology that he analyzes in the Zoroastrian texts of the ancient Iranian Gāthās, especially with reference to the Yasnas 30, 31, and 46 (pp. 383–384). Schwartz has thus found comparative evidence indicating, from a diachronic perspective, that the poetics of the ainos stem from Indo-European prototypes.