τοι̃σδ ̓ ἔπεσιν, λήσει δ ̓ οὔποτε κλεπτόμενα
οὐδέ τις ἀλλάξει κάκιον τοὐσθλου̃ παρεόντος.
ὡ̃δε δέ πα̃ς τις ἐρει̃· Θεύγνιδός ἐστιν ἔπη
του̃ Μεγαρέως· πάντας δὲ κατ ̓ ἀνθρώπους ὀνομαστός.
ἀστοι̃σιν δ ̓ οὔπω πα̃σιν ἁδει̃ν δύναμαι
Kyrnos, let a seal [sphragis] be placed by me, as I practice my skill [sophia],
upon these my words. This way, it will never be undetected if they are stolen,
and no one can substitute something inferior for the genuine thing that is there.
And this is what everyone will say: “These are the words of Theognis
of Megara, whose name is known among all mortals.”
But I am not yet able to please [= verb handanein] all the townspeople [astoi].
With his “seal,” the man who calls himself Theognis is authorizing himself, making himself the author. [16] The author’s authority is made evident by his sophia, the ‘skill’ of decoding or encoding poetry. [17] With his sophia, the author lays claim to a timeless authority, which resists the necessity of changing just to please the audience of the here and now, who are described as the astoi ‘townspeople’. [18] “The author must risk alienation with the audience of the here and now in order to attain the supposedly universal acceptance of the ultimate audience, which is the cumulative response of Panhellenic fame.” [19] The clearest example of such alienation is the poetic self-representation of the generic “suffering righteous” who is alienated from the here-and-now but integrated with the ultimate form of society which is presumed as the ultimate audience of the poetry (Theognis 1209–1210). [20] {30|31}
Although the personification may remain anchored in a set time and place, realistically re-enacted and represented as synchronically autonomous within a past far removed from the present, the persona itself keeps coming alive in the here and now of performance. And each different performance may bring back to life a different—even if ever so slightly different—persona. Yes, there may have been a real-life Alcaeus, and his real-life circumstances may indeed be a starting-point that generates a distinctive Alcaic {31|32} tradition. But with each occasion in which Alcaeus becomes re-enacted in performance for “his” hetaireia at a symposium, he is moved one occasion farther away from the ostensibly prototypical occasion.
When I say “group” here, I have in mind not only the dramatic setting of, say, the hetaireia addressed by Alcaeus at one time and one place but also the historical setting of the symposium, with all its countless variations in time and place, where the spirit of hetaireia provides the context for countless re-enactments of Alcaeus’ words in song. [26] Thus the dramatic setting of Alcaeus’ words addressed to his hetairoi, which was primarily the symposium according to Rösler, can be perpetuated in a historical setting that is primarily this same medium, the symposium.
Such a state of affairs, apparently typical of Athens in the era of Aristophanes, is far removed from the glory days of this art of solo self-accompanied {36|37} singing at the symposium—those days when the paideioi humnoi ‘songs of boyhood’, as the words of Pindar claim, were still an amateur affair (Isthmian 2.3). The switch from nonprofessional to professional standards in this art corresponds, I suggest, to a switch from group-mentality to audience-mentality; it also corresponds to what I have been calling the destabilization of mimesis. By the time of Aristophanes, the nonprofessionalism of solo self-accompanied singing at a symposium has become a veneer for the professionalism inherent in a private educational system that sustained the ideology of the amateur:
εἴ τις δύναιτο καὶ παλάμην ἔχοι
ἐπεὶ δέ κ ̓ ἐν πόντῳ γένηται
τῳ̃ παρεόντι τρέχειν ἀνάγκη
One must look down from land toward the direction of sailing,
if one can and has the power;
for once one is on the high sea,
one must speed along with whatever one gets.
This song, along with a string of other short songs, is quoted by Athenaeus (695a), who describes them all as skolia (694c). It matches in its wording one of the stanzas of a song of Alcaeus, F 249.6–9 V: [51]
αἴ τις δύνατα⌋ι καὶ π⌊αλ⌋ά̣μαν ἔ⌊χ⌋η
ἐπεὶ δέ κ ̓ ἐν π⌋όν̣⌊τωι γ⌋ένηται
τὼι παρεόντι τρέχειν [52] ἀνά⌋γκα
Our anonymous Attic skolion and the other Attic skolia quoted by Athenaeus 694c and following are to be dated to the late sixth and early fifth centuries BCE. [53] The problem is, the text of our Attic skolion, PMG 891, is for the most part written in Attic dialect, while the papyrus text of the Alcaeus song containing the corresponding strophe, F 249.6–9, is for the most part written in Lesbian Aeolic. {38|39}
ἔντος ἀμώμητον, κάλλιπον οὐκ ἐθέλων·
αὐτὸν δ’ ἐξεσάωσα. τι μοι μέλει ἀσπὶς ἐκείνη;
ἐρρέτω· ἐξαυ̃τις κτήσομαι οὐ κακίω.
One of the Saïoi must be glorying in the shield that, in a thicket,
– excellent weapon – I left behind, against my will.
But I saved myself. Why should I care about that shield?
Let it go to perdition! Next thing you know, I will own one no worse!
I draw attention to the wording of αὐτὸν δ ̓ ἐξεσάωσα ‘I saved myself’ (line 3). The emphasis on the warrior’s saving himself, literally his self, at the expense of his shield is paralleled by the Alcaeus song which begins by announcing that Alcaeus is safe, Ἄλκαος σάος (line 1), whereas his weapons are in the hands of the enemy (line 2). What is striking about both the Archilochus and the Alcaeus passages is the mocking challenge to the warrior ethic of equating one’s shield with one’s identity, as most explicitly articulated in the song of Hybrias the Cretan, PMG 909:
καὶ τὸ καλὸν λαισήιον, πρόβλημα χρωτός. {41|42}
τούτῳ γὰρ ἀρω̃, τούτῳ θερίζω,
τούτῳ πατέω τὸν ἁδὺν οἰ̃νον ἀπ’ ἀμπέλω,
τούτῳ δεσπότας μνοίας κέκλημαι.
τοὶ δὲ μὴ τολμω̃ντ’ ἔχειν δόρυ καὶ ξίφος
καὶ τὸ καλὸν λαισήιον, πρόβλημα χρωτός,
πάντες γόνυ πεπτηω̃τες ἐμὸν κυνέοντι, δεσπόταν
καὶ μέγαν βασιλη̃α φωνέοντες.
My great wealth is a spear and a sword
and a beautiful shaggy hide-shield [ laisêïon ], an extension of the skin.
With this I plough, with this I reap,
with this I tread the sweet wine out of the vine.
With this I am acclaimed as master of serfs.
But those who dare not have a spear and a sword
and a beautiful shaggy hide-shield [ laisêïon ], an extension of the skin,
all of them cower and kiss my knee. Master
and great king they call me.
Athenaeus, who quotes this song (695f–696a), identifies it as a skolion. Here the warrior’s laisêïon ‘shaggy hide-shield’ (a special type of hide-shield with the animal’s hair left on the surface) is equated with the warrior’s own hide, as it were, that is, with his own self: τὸ καλὸν λαισήιον, πρόβλημα χρωτός ‘and a beautiful shaggy hide-shield, an extension of [my] skin’. [62] For further evidence on the equation of the concept of a hide-shield with the self, I compare the Homeric word sakos ‘cowhide shield’ and its cognate, Sanskrit tvác– ‘hide’, with another cognate, Hittite tweka-, which is used with the first-person possessive in autobiographical contexts to mean ‘my self, myself, I’. [63] In the theme of the lost shield, then, what we see is the detachment of the warrior’s ego from the weapon that conventionally identifies the warrior.
οὔτε γὰρ εὐ̃ ἕρδων ἁνδάνω οὔτε κακω̃ς· {43|44}
μωμευ̃νται δέ με πολλοί, ὁμω̃ς κακοὶ ἠδὲ καὶ ἐσθλοί·
μιμει̃σθαι δ’ οὐδεὶς τω̃ν ἀσόφων δύναται.
I am unable to decide what disposition it is that the townspeople [astoi] have towards me.
For I do not please [= verb handanein] them, either when I do for them things that are advantageous or when I do things that are disadvantageous. [69]
There are many who find blame with me, base and noble men alike.
But no one who is not skilled [sophos] can re-enact [mimeisthai] me.
Here we see the persona of Theognis declaring that only the one who is sophos, that is, ‘skilled’ in the decoding and encoding of poetry, can execute a mimesis of Theognis:
By implication, only the pleasure of exact re-performance, ostensibly the ongoing achievement of mimesis, is truly lasting, while the pleasure elicited through changes in response to an immediate audience is ephemeral. [71]
νηφέμεν ἐν φυλακη̃ι τη̃ιδε δυνησόμεθα.
Take the red wine from the very lees! For we will not
be able to stay sober during this watch.
The question is: are we witnessing here a real situation? One critic offers this answer: “I think it far more probable that Archilochus is evoking a situation with which his audience was all too familiar but which they could thank the gods was not their actual situation while they sang.” [79] My own answer, with a different point of emphasis, is this:
According to this blues singer, then, the song does not necessarily express the real situation of the singer. You don’t have to have the blues to sing the blues. This is not to deny the immanent sadness of the blues: it is only to say that the sadness of a song does not necessarily come from the sadness of the singer. You do not have to have the blues to sing the blues. So also with the sympotic singer: you do not have to lose your shield to sing about losing your shield.