The Homeric Question and the Oral-formulaic Theory 9788772890968, 8772890967

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ΤΗΕ

ΤΗΕ

HOMERICQUESTIONAND ORAL-FORMULAICTHEORY

OPUSCULA GRAECOLATINA (SupplementaMusei

Tusculanι)

Edenda curavit Ivan Boserup Vol. 20

ΤΗΕ

ΤΗΕ

HOMERIC QUESTION AND ORAL-FORMULAIC THEORY by Minna Skafte Jensen

MUSEUM TUSCULANUM PRESS COPENHAGEN 1980

For Lise,Ενα, Signe,and Jonas

C> Muιeum

Tuιculanum Preιa

Printed in Special-Trykkeήet a-ι Viborι Lay-out and typinJ: Palle G. Andenen

Table of Contents Preface

.. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 Introduction

........ ..... ................ .. ....

11 The Frame of Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The selection of mateήal . . . . . . . . . . . . Which literaιy forms are comparable? . . . How valid is the oral theoιy? . . . . . . . . . 111 Quality as an Argument against Orality The Riιιd and the Odyssey compared Compositoήal pattems in the Rilld Premeditation and correction . . . .

. . . .

. . . .

. . . .

. . . .

. . . .

. . . .

. . . .

. . . .

. . . .

. . . .

. . . .

. . . .

7 9

. . . .

12 12 16 22

................. to the Epic Cycle . . . . .

28 30 36 40

.................. ............ ... ...

IV Quantity as an Argument against Orality . . . . . . . . Laιge-scale epics orally composed . . . . . . . . . . . The sociology of epic in the Riιιd and the Odyssey The sociology of ancient Greek epic . . . . . . . . . l..ength of the Riιιd and the Odyssey . . . . . . . . .

........ ........

46 46

.. ... .. . ........

51 55

........

60

V Poetics as an Argument for Orality . . . . . . . . . . . . . Poetics of Serbian oral epic singers . . . . . . . . . . . Theoιy and practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Descήptions of singers in the Rilld and the Odyssey Infonnation οπ the poet's own ambitions . . . . . . . Hesiodic poetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

...... . ....... ... .... ....... ....... . .... ..

62 62 67 69 74 77 79

VI The Rilld and the Odyssey as Oral Dictated Texts . . . . . . . . . . . Lord's three degrees of oral composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The process of dictation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

81 81 82

.......

5

11ιe tranιitίonal

The inίtiative

text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . for the m::ordίng in wήting . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

89 92

Vι I The Wήting of the llilld and the Odyuey in Sixth-Century Athens 96 11ιe teπninus post quem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 The t eπninus ante quem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Ο 1 Ηίιtοιy of the Vulgate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Vιιι OralCompoιίtion in the Sixth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Creativίty and reproduction in oral tradition . . . . . . . . . The singers in the Odyuey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The rhapsodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . When was oral composition brought to an end in Greece? ΙΧ

Χ

te D... • " ..... .... .. ......... The ttD:...:.t ι;- ιaιa ra an ~nsιon Argumentspro et contra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Plutarch's theoιy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Referenceι to Homer in political disputes . . . . . . . . . . lnterpolations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Homer brought to the mainland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The inιtitution of rhapsodic recitals at the Panathenaea The coUectingof Homer's poems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

.. .. .. .. ..

. . . . .

112 112 116

121 124

. . . . 128 . . . . 128 . . . . 134 . . .. 136 . . . . 140 . . . . 142 144 . ... . . . . 145

. . . . 149

TheRiad, the Odyssey, and the Cultural Policy of Pisistratus The cultu ral policy of Pisistratus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oral epic as a conveyor of ideology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Markι of Pisistratean Athens in the Riad and the Odyssey

... ... . .. .. .

159

in Danish) .................. . Noteι . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Blbliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Anclent Passageι Discussed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . General lndex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix: Sourceι Re feπed to in Chapter ΙΧ . . . . . . . . . . . . . Table of the Evidence Discussedin Chapter ΙΧ

172

Danιk reιume (Summaιy

159 162 167 179 189 201 202

207

Preface The present book has been long in the making.Duήng the years 196467, while I held a scholarship at the University of Copenhagen, 1 worked οη Homer and Hesiod, studies that were published in part in Danish (Hovedlinier ί de sidste Artiers Homerforskning, Copenhagen: Gad 1968; Odysseus som fortaeller,Museum Tusculanum13, 1970, p. 27-39), and in part in English (Tradition and Individuality ίη Hesiod's Works and Days, Clιιssica et Medilleνalill 21, 1966, p. 1-27). Since then, 1 have continued the study of archaic Greek hexameter poetry from the viewpoint of the oral-foπnulaic theory; generally just by keeping the problematics ίη mind, making notes and collecting mateήal for further study, sometimes, when I was free from other duties, by concentrating οη the subject. Duήng January and Februaιy 1974 1 held an Albanian state scholarship, which enabled me to attend oral epic singing as well as to study the archives of the Institute of Folklore in Tirana. This direct contact with a living tradition was much more important for my approach to Homer than appears from the few pages of the present book that refer to Albanian epic. The readers I have had in mind while engaged in the present study are both Homeήsts and scholars studying other oral traditions: therefore Greek and Latin quotations have been translated. Richmond Lattimore's translations of the Rilld, the Odyssey, and Hesiod have been used, and that of Apostolos Ν. Athanassakis for the Homeήc Hymns. Οπ a few occasions, where the point I wish to make is not revealed in these translations, 1 give my own pedantic version and mention the fact in a note. Where I engage ίη discussion, 1 prefer to deal with one, or a few, representative or specially important studies rather than an anonymous seήes of views. 1 do this both ίη order to avoid attήbuting to scholars views they do not hold, and because I hope my own book will be more readable ίη this way. 7

Roman figures refer to songs from the Riad, Arabic ones to songs from the Odyssey. 1n spelling ancient Greek and Roman names 1 follow The Oxford Classical Dictionary, wήting e.g. Demodocus, not Demodokos, even if the result may seem slightly old-fashioned. lf I speak of the poet of the Riad and the Odyssey in the singular, it is for the sake of convenieiιce; 1 do not think we have the means to decide if there was one poet for both or for each. Fήends

and colleagues have read the study or parts of it at vaήous stages of its progreσ and discussed it with me. For such help, special thanks are due to Antonio Aloni, 0ivind Andersen, Karsten Fήis­ Jensen, Bengt Holbek, and J0rgen Raasted. They are not responsible for any of the mistakes that may remain. 1 thank Michael Chesnutt and J ennifer Dupuis-Paήs for coπecting the English; again, if eπors remain, the fault is mine. 1 am grateful to the editoήal board of Opusculll Graecolatina,particularly to lvan Boserup, for accepting the book for publication in this seήes. Last, but not least, 1 thank Palle G. Andersen for his careful typing. The Danish Research Council for the Humanities and the Faculty of Arts of the University ofCopenhagen have defrayed the expenses of pήnting, for which I am thankful. 1 should like, also, to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the Cultural Committee of Albania for the above mentioned scholarship, to the lnstitutes of Folklore and of Literature and Language in Tirana, and above all to Gjovalin Shkurtaj of the latter institute. Furthermore, 1 am indebted to the University of Copenhagen where I was a student, where I held a scholarship as a postgraduate, and where I have eamed my living during the last decade; 1 am especially grateful to the lnstitute of Classics of this university and to Johnny Chήstensen.

8

1 Introduction Ίhe aim

of this study ίs to argue that the lliad and the Odyssey were orally composed, and that their composition took place in the sixth century B.C. on the initiative of Pisistratus. Milman Parry was careful to emphasize that his demonstration of the orality of the Homeήc style did not necessaήly mean that Homer was an oral poet (1); and in this, as in most other questions in the field of humanities, no final proof can be given. But since Parry's ideas became known to others than classicists, mainly through the publications of Α. Β. Lord, they have influenced studies of other traditional literature, from the past as well as from the present, in a way that can again be used by classicists; folklorists and anthropologists have become more interested in questions of oral compositoήal technique, and publications are now appearing in which Parry and Lord's theory is tested in relation to other oral traditions than ancient Greek and modem Serbocroatian epic. Studies are made of the function of formula and theme in traditions with different poetic conditions, or in prose; of the function of oral composition in societies of vaήous types; of the rόle of the audience in the process of composition in performance; of different published versions of a text; etc. Today, therefore, a comprehensive mateήal ίs at the disposal of the Homeήst who wishes to view the vaήous Homeήc questions in a comparative f ramework. ln the present work I wish to use such mateήal as an aid in answeήng some of the oldest established Homeήc questions. That of single or multiple authorship has been obviously and elegantly solved by the theory of Parry: analytics and unitarians were both ήght, the authorship ίs multiple at the level of tradition, single at that of individual performance. The questions to be discussed here are, then: when, where, by whom, and for what purpose was this single/multiple authorship realized. 9

At present, the virtually unanimous general opιmon about the Riιld and the Odyssey is that they were not composed orally, but by a wήting poet building οη an oral tradition; that the introduction of wήting into Greece was in some way connected with Homer's oήgina­ lity; and that the Riod and the Odyssey were composed and wήtten c. 700 B.C. This seems to me to be unacceptable. First, it is unnecessary to assume that the poems were composed in wήting; if both language and style point to oral composition, the simplest theory to explain the facts must be that they actually ,were orally composed. Το maintain a wήtten composition is legitimate only if there are cogent reasons that exclude oral composition; and with composition in wήting the very solution to the question of mώtiple or single authorship gets lost. My next reason for finding general opinion to be unacceptable is that there is nothing to indicate that the poet of the Iliad and of the Odyssey was, or wanted to be, oήginal. Finally, the assumption of wήtten composition c. 700 B.C. is absurd when compared with what is known of the date of the introduction of wήting into Greece; it implies that one of the very fιrst things that the alphabet was used for was the wήting of two huge poems, which woώd be mateήally very problematic, and which inside a cώture that was predominantly oral would be a very unlikely project. The present book falls into two main parts. After a preliminary discussion of what mateήal it is legitimate to refer to for the kind of compaήsons I make (chapter 11), the first part is concerned with the question of oral composition. The arguments against this viewpoint are mainly of two types: the poems are so excellent as to surpass the limits of oral composition, and they are too long for any oral performance; this argumentation is shown to be subjective and expressive of a limited knowledge of the scope of oral poetry. lt is shown that the Riιld and the Odyssey confonn very well to the poetics of oral epic, where the decisive factor is the tnιe story. Lord's theory that the poems are oral dictated texts is conftrmed, and it is underlined that the initiative for recording oral epic poetry in wήting nonnally comes from outside the tradition; the story of a recension undertaken by Pisistratus gives just such an outside initiative (chapters 111-VI). The second part investigates the evidence for sixth-century Athens 10

as the place and time of composition/writίng. lt is shown that while the development of the art of writing provides a teπninus post quem c. 650 B.C., a terminus ante quem is difficώt to fιnd. The history of the Vώgate points to one and only one written recording of the two epics, carried out in Athens. It is demonstrated that the oral epic tradition was still thήving in the fifth century B.C., so that oral composition of the Riιld and the Odyssey in the sixth century is by all means possible. The sources for the "Pisistratean recension" are reviewed, and the conclusion reached that they can be read as distorted evidence of writίng from dictation on the initiative of Pisistratus and/or his sons; poet and scήbe seem both to be histoήcally known. Finally, it is shown what the purpose of the Pisistratids can have been, and in what ways the poems show Pisistratean influence (chapters VII-X).

11

11

The Frame of Reference These/ecdonofmιιteruzl

1n the following chapters I shall approach Homeήc problems from a comparative point of view. Here, therefore, it is appropήate to discuss the frame of reference, the kind of compaήsons I shall be making. For the fιrst, because one of the purposes of the present work is to argue for the orality of the Riad and the Odyssey, l can use only mateήal that is demonstrably oral. For ancient and medieval epic texts nothing or very little is normally known of the circumstances of composition, except the kind of information that can be infeπed f rom the texts themselves. The poems are generally anonymous, or they are ascήbed to an author of whom nothing else is known. In some cases more than one version exists, and scholars will hold vaήous theoήes of how these versions arose, depending on their general views. Duήng the last decades Parry and Lord's oral theory has been transferred to these epic traditions, and the discussions that have ensued are very important for the understanding both of the transmitted Homeήc poems and of the oral theory as such. 1n this study, however, reference will be made to these types of text only where I am engaged in discussion with scholars who have already employed them in illustration of problems of the kind that concem me. For epic traditions known to the reading public through the work of collectors, circumstances are different. Here it is largely dependent on the methodology of the collector, both in recording and publishing, and on how much and how reliable inf ormation is given of how the published texts came about. Technology plays an important rόle, too; the use of records, and later of tapes, has opened up possibilities that did not exist before. Russian collectors were pioneers; much is known of the singers of byliny, their social conditions, fanilly-relations, etc., already from the second half of the last century, and mechanical 12

recorαιng

was brought into use at an eady stage (2). The Austήan scholar Μ. Murko used phonographic recorαιng in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1912-13. But the first comprehensive recorαιng of an epic tradition was that of Parry and Lord in the 1930's, followed up by that of Lord in the 19SO's, and their observations of stability and flux., their studίes of the repertoire of founulas, themes, and songs of each individual singer, the differences between perfonning and dictating, etc., would not have been possible without modem technical equipment and the means to use it on a large scale. Bela Bartόk, who undertook to transcn'be some of the melodies, comments on the different economic conditions under which Ameιican and European scholars worked: the latter were wont to take direct recordings only of the beginnings of songs, while the text was written after dictation (3). The Paπy collection, on the contrary, consists of as many recorαιngs as possible of the same song, by the same singer under different conditions and at different inteιvals, or by vaήous singers. The Parry-Lord theory has stiιnulated the sametype of recordings of other oral poetry; for some of the questions discussed in the present study, notably that of memoιisation venus improvisation, only such full recordings can offer satisfactory information. My second point is that since I am concemed less with the poems than with what folkloιists cal1their context (4), 1 am especially interested in mateήal where the collector has been careful to provide information of this kind, and where his/her approach is clear in a way that facilitates the use of the mateήal for purposes other than that of the oήginal collector. The more or less prefixed theories of the collector will intluence the mateήal coΠected, consciously or unconsciously. Thus, the features of the Parry coΠection descn'bed above obviously represent the interests of the collectors. They get what they ask for, or what the informants think they ask for: if Parry's infounants are eager to declare their illiteracy, it suggests that the mmour had spread that the Americans took a special interest in singers not knowing how to read (S). But since the approach of the collectors is clear, and since their material is published in a relatively unbiased way, it is possible to use it with a high degree of precision, even where their own conclusions must 13

be changed or modified. The influence of the coUector on the mateήal exerts itself in aU fields, and in the use of the published texts the reader has to be constantly aware of this fact. The choice of genres to be recorded is not necessarily representative; the method of recording may stimulate more or less typical songs; the transcήption - be it from dictation, or from tapes - is a decisive factor; and noπnally some degreeof redaction wiU take place before a version is published. Thus the publication of any folksong may be regarded as a result of interaction between infoπnant and collector. ('Collector' may denote more than one person: supervisor of the coUecting,interpreter, transcήber, technical assistant, to name the most common.) We know next to nothing about such matters conceming the epic texts transmitted from ancient and medieval times, but this does not mean that these factors were not operative. The anonymity of most of the texts, for instance, is a famous problem that has been often discussed. The solution may be very simple: noπnally the name of the singer is not mentioned in the poems because the audience knows him/her already. ln modem times, if the singer's name is known, it wiU be because the collector has noted it. This is not a rule without exceptions, but what is important is to know that it is the rule. The question of the anonymity of transmitted texts may be simply a result of the ancient and medieval "collectors" not realising their own importance and duties (6). Another consequence of my focus on the context is that I seek texts belonging to societies that culturally and politically resemble ancient Greece as much as possible. lt has been stressed, and ήghtly so, that the conditions of the illiterate tradition in Yugoslavia studied by Parry and Lord were not directly comparable to those of an illiterate tradition of ancient Greece (7). For one thing, in our days what takes place if a society or an individual becomes literate is not only a change of technique; with literacy comes an oveιwhelming quantity of other cultural factors typical of westem civilisation, books, newspapers, schools, as well as new values and new habits of thought. Part of this is, perhaps, already present; radio, cinema, television may exist in societies otherwise 14

belonging to an illiterate cώture. Again, this means that to some degree oral composition of the type studied by Parry and Lord is the resώt of a process of cώtural selection; it ex.istsin the backward parts of the country, while the political and cώtural centres are defιnitely literate and have been so for centuήes. This means both that there is a tendency for the most intelligent indiνiduals to be attracted by the bookish cώture, and for the tradition as such not to receive the stimώation that comes from its fιlling an important and appreciated place in society. It is by πο means easy, though, to fιnd a society comparable to that of the poet of the Riιιd and the Odyssey, partly because it is by πο means clear what it was and partly because modem societies, even if far removed from westem civilisation, are touched by the latter to some degree. Moreover, "pήmitive" societies tend to be much more different from one another than is often conjectured. From what 1 have read, it seems that the best chance of fιnding a single parallel today woώd be in Mήca: the collection of oral poetry from all parts of Afήca is currendy taking place on a large scale, and it is possible that a detailed and profound compaήson between early Greek poetry and that of some defιnite Mήcan society will be possible in the not too distant future. The inferences to be drawn from a compaήson of this nature will in many respects be more precise than what I shall offer here, and some scholars woώd contend that such a two-sided comparison is the only legitimate one. Nevertheless, 1 am going to compare the lliιιd and the Odyssey to the poetry of a generalized oral society. 1 do this for many reasons. First, any two-sided compaήson, however precise, would leave unanswered some Homeήc questions. Next, since the oral-formώaic theory was fιrst stated, much mateήal has been collected from vaήous parts of the world with (among other things) this theory in νiew, and it seems possible to build οπ such investigations. Furthermore, this type of study has been facilitated by comprehensive methodological studies, among them J. Vansina's investigation into the use of oral traditions as histoήcal sources, and R. Finnegan's into the general social context of oral poetry. What I wish to obtain from my compaήsons is an overall knowledge 15

of what is noπnal. It is interesting that Avdo Mededoνic succeeded in composing two extraordinarily long epic songs, but the important fact is that an epic song in the Serbocroatian tradition is normally of a reciting time lasting from a half to a couple of hours. lt is important to know that standards of length differ from one cώture to another, and that the decisive factors seem to be of two kinds: the capacity of tb.e singer, and the situation for which the song is meant. It is interesting that some singers get so used to the process of dictating that they acquire a certain mastery that may surpass their normal performance, but it is important to know that songs performed are normally longer and more elaborate than dictated versions. 1n short, the usefulness of a comparative frame of reference is that it suggests what may be expected, and what calls for a special explanation. This does not mean that what has been transmitted from antiquity is necessaήly normal, typical, and representative; on the contrary, because there is reason to believe that what has been transmitted has expeήenced a process of selection, the need for a standard is felt a11the more keenly. It would seem, perhaps, that already now I am involνing myself in a circular argument. But whatever the precise degree of orality in Homeric composition, it must be accepted that the social surroundings of eady Greek poetry are more likely to have resembled this generalized oral society than the generalized modem westem society with which it is normally compared, even if this is not done explicitly or even consciously. Hence, what I use as comparative mateήal to the Homeήc question is oral poetry whose context is known, preferably such as comes from social surroundings far removed from westem civilisation.

Whichliteraryforms are comparable? Adherents of the oral-foπnulaic theory may draw comparisons between an)rthing composed orally, or they may subject themselves to vaήous limitations, for example draw parallels only between heroic narrative and the Riιιd and the Odyssey. Where the subjects treated are concemed with orality as opposed to literacy, any oral literary form is relevant. 1n the present study, this is the case for the question of the existence of transitional texts, and for discussions of the process 16

ο f wήting

from dictation. For most of the questions treated here, however, limitations are necessary: the function of ancient Greek epic in its social context, the ambitions of the poets, the question of memoήsation or improvisation. Different genres have different social functions (they may be performed to a general or a restήcted audience, they may belong only to special events or anywhere, etc.; thus an oral poem recited by a king to his people at the coronation ceremony is comparable to an oral lullaby if the object of study is oral style as distinct from literary style; but in all other respects the two genres are not comparable); the ambitions of the poets are different if they are engaged in a tale of the past, in a praise-poem, an invective, a poem meant to rouse laughter, etc.; and there are genres where poets are expected to improvise in contrast to others where they are expected to repeat verbatim. Thus Vansina mentions various examples of sanctions against reciters who make mistakes: a sanction may simply consist in ήdicule; or it may be the ήsk of losing office; thus, among the Bushongo in Zaire a new king could not succeed to the throne without giving a descήp­ tion of the history of the Kuba, and the candidate for an important female office could not be appointed without enumerating the names of her predecessors. There are even examples of immediate execution of a reciter who made a mistake (8). 0n the other hand, there are genres where control is non-existent, since precision of transmission is not demanded at all. Some types of singers' contests are definitely concemed with improvisation. Singer Α improvises a stanza to which singer Β is expected to respond with another, preferably analogous both in style and content. Such contests exist as a men's entertainment in Sardinia, and the shepherds in some of Theocήtus' poems are engaged in contests of this kind, even if the precise terms of them are not easily defmable. The Homeήc hymn to Hermes mentions improvised contests at feasts (9). When some classicists tend to speak as if there were a contradiction in terms between orality and memorisation ( 1Ο), it is a sign of a limited knowledge of oral genres. When seeking legitimate comparisons with the Homeήc epics a restήction close to hand is to take only epic into consideration. lt has often been attempted to give a general definition of 'epic', coveήng 17

all occuπences in the world; most important in recent times is that of J. de Vήes. That it works remarkably well is shown by D.P. Biebuyck's discussion of two African naπative traditions, not part of de Vήes' mateήal, in relation to de Vήes' life-pattem of the epic hero. The lives of the heroes Lianja and Mwindo conform beautifully to the pattem, showing a great deal of the features that de Vήes classified as typical. From this point of view, then, it is natural to speak of these traditions as epic. Their performance, however, is remarkably different from most other known types of epic performance: the narrative is interspersed with dramatic representation of scenes, with mirnicιy and dance. Metήcally, it is descήbed by Biebuyck as a vaήety of rhythmical prose and verse. Some scholars have maintained that these traditions unfolded themselves in prose and therefore could not be considered epic at all (11). Thus what is epic according to one definition may be excluded according to another. And, most important, a general defιnition of a genre will often violate the intemal defιnition of genres inside a given society. ldeally, if oral epic were to be directly comparable from one society to another, it would not be enough that the epic genres themselves were similar; their place in the general spectre of literaιy forms of the society in question ought to be similar, too. Beside the problems involved in the basic incomparability of genres from one society to another the Homeήst faces another main problem. Oral poetry collected in modem times tends to be of more humble types than the Iliad and the Odyssey, from many points of view: that of metre, of scale, of complexity of stoιy, of refinement of characteήsations, etc. (Much of the cήticism of compaήsons with Serbocroatian epic has concemed this point; 1 shall retum to it in chapters 111-IV.)Το some degree this problem is superficial, caused not so much by the non-existence of analogous traditions as by the lack of accessible and reliable publications of them, cf. below p. 34. But even accounting for this the problem remains; e.g. it has not yet been possible to point to a living oral tradition of poetry expressing itself in so complex a metre as the ancient hexameter. It is often concluded that if ηο modem oral poetry is comparable in complexity and scale to the Πiad and the Odyssey these poems cannot have been orally 18

composed. Instead, 1 think one should consίder the vaήous social conditions for oral traditions; technical capacities of sίngers are dependent on the kind of traίning they undergo, the expertise of their audiences, etc. (1 shall be more explicit of this in chapter IV.) Basically there is no reason to expect that an exact parallel to Homer may some day turn up somewhere. Therefore, instead oflimiting myself to compaήsons of the Riιιd and the Odyssey with poems belonging to a sίngle genre, more or less precisely defined as 'epic', 1 prefer to seek a model that gives rules for comparability while at the same tiιne accountίng for differences between different traditions. Here, the iιnportant features seem to be the vaήous demands with respect to truth of the vaήous genres, and the vaήous degrees of technical capacity of the sίngers. That sίngers and audiences demand some degree of truthfulness of genres concemed with events of the past seems to be universal, even if it may be given different iιnportance. Among the Nyanga of Zaire, where the tradition of Mwindo belongs, there is a distinction between epic, kdrisi, and true stoήes, nganuriro. The reciters of epic are required to tel1 their stoήes as correctly and truly as possible; even so, epic is concemed with things that happened foπnedy, that are known only from memory, while the true stoήes tell of events that have been experienced by the storyteller him-/herself, or by close relatives; the stoήes begin with foπnulas such as 'Ί have seen ... " or 'Ί have heard ... ". Α more ambitious demand to truth is recorded for Fjji epic. The local name for the genre means 'true-songs', and the poems are given to the poet in trance or sleep by the ancestors of the tήbe. lt is they who speak through the mouth of the poet; the Ί' of the song is the ancestor, not the sίnger (12). 0n these consίderations I find the following model useful, introduced by Ρ. Κiparsky as a tool for compaήng different degrees of stability in oral epic traditions ( 13): realis

irrealis

fact

history

myth

fiction

story

romance

19

His comments aιe: The releνant distinction between fact and fiction here is roughly that between things which are pήmarily told as knowledge and things which aιe pήmarily told for entertainment. Whether they aιe actually troe or false, and whether they are believed or not believed, are irreleνant and often unanswerable questions. The difference between the realis and irrealis mode of representation is whether the narration sticks to the familiar conditions of the real wodd or allows them to be suspended "with πο questions asked". Traditions belonging above the line will be relatively stable, those below relatively fluid. Thus, if the rόle of improvisation is srnaller in Finnish than in Yugoslavian epic, this may be understood from the different place of the two traditions in the grid. (1 shall retum presently to the matter of Finnish versusYugoslavian, since I think that Lord has to some degree overstated the element of improvisation in his mateήal, and the two traditions may be more similar than it would seem.) Kiparsky undedines that it is irreleνant whether the things told are actually true or false, as the model is concemed with the mode of representation. However, 1 do not understand why he also fιnds ίt irreleνant whether they aιe believed or not; the function of the text seems to me to be defιned as much from the viewpoint of the audience as from that of the singer. Κiparsky proceeds to discuss what seems to be the most stable oral tradition known, the Vedic poetry of lndia. As an explanation of how an unusually high degree of stability was obtained, he points to the fact that this tradition was in the hands of a hereditary pήesthood that concentrated οπ the verbatim preservation both of the texts and of the refιned theoretical analyses. lt has recently been doubted if the Vedic poems really were transrnitted verbatim in the way usually asserted (14); but the main point, that factors such as professionalisrn and special training of the singers contήbute to a more precise transrnission than is otherwise possible, remains unshaken. What Kiparsky calls "the function of the text" may be seen also in terms of what Vansina calls "control over recital of traditions", fιnding expression in the sanctions against reciters mentioned above

20

p. 17. It is important that any type of sanction would not apply to any type of text; the control is exprewve of the function the text has in the society. The examples of Vansina suit Κiparsky's model well: besides histoιy (including genealogy), other candidates for sanction are various types of sacred ήtes. That the model is concemed with the mode of representation, not with the actual tnιth of the things told can, again, be exemplified with the genealogies: Vansina wams explicitly against the use of genealogies as histoήcal soωces since they nonnally serve a political purpose and are more likely to be biased than other oral traditions (15); they change not because of carelessness of transmission but because they will be felt to be tnιthful only if they coπespond to political realities at the moment of performance. Α model that considers both the vaήous demands with respect to truth of a given poetic tradition and the vaήous degrees in technical capacity ofthe singers serves my purpose best: hereditaιy pήesthood

specially trained professionals amateurs ήdicule

loss of office

execution

The vertical axis indicates the technical capacity of the singer; one society may contain more than one type, and different societies come in at different levels. The Vedic tradition is at the top; Bambara epic (cf. p. 50) somewhat further down. The epic singer/pήest in Fiji, who chooses his successor when he is still a child and trains him in the art of epic as well as in the secret mysteήes of comrnunicating with the tήbal ancestors, also has a place high up the axis. 1n Yugoslavian epic tradition a singer such as Cor Huso belongs to the 'uneducated professionals', with Parιy's informants ranging between this group 21

and that of amateurs. The axis may be considered also to indicate the degree of expertise of the audience. The place of the poet of the Riιld and the Odysseyis conjectural; in the present study I shall argue for a position between the 'hereditary pήesthood' and the 'specially trained professionals' (chapter IV). The hoήzontal axis indicates the demands with ιespect to truth. 0n the far left aιe the improvised forms; next come personal lyήc forms, etc.; on the far ήght are sacred genres (incantations, special types of ήtual) and genealogies.Greek epic is a comprehensive genre, fitting other genres into its narrative framework, and covers part of the line according to the vaήous demands on the sub-genresincluded. Rather than limiting myself to genres that may with more or less conviction be classified as epic, 1 shall keep this diagram in mind whenever I compare Homeήc epic with non-Greek traditions. The advantage of the model is that it enables us to compare forms that are comparable in some ιespects but not in all, since more or less developed forms all fιnd their places in the model; the excellence of the Riιld and the Odyssey is no longer an argument for placing them beyond compaήson.

How valίd is the oral theory? Finally, 1 must discuss an attack on vaήous aspects of the theory that was launched by Finnegan in her contήbution to the Michigan confeιence on oral literature, and later throughout her book on oral poetry. Finnegan goes out of her way to confirm that the theory as such has proved useful in modem field-work, her own included; what she attacks is not the theory as a whole, but the use it is sometimes put to, and especially some generalisations that seem out of touch with realities. Her main point is that there is no clear-cut division between oral and wήtten literature; most illiterate societies have some degree of literacy. There is a constant ovedapping and mutual influence ·between oral and wήtten, and many 'Όral" singers and story-tellers know how to read and wήte. Parry and Lord built their theory on a mateήal that was too limited and perhaps not always representative; and it was further limited by the scholars' own selection. 1n choosing 22

to work preferably with non-literate infonnants, they cut themselves off from a broader evaluation of reality. Finnegan ιefers to studies from other parts of the wodd; most detailed is her discussion of studies by G. lnnes of oral poets ίπ Gambia. She quotes two νersions of the same song by an old singer Bamba Suso whose perfonnance of the Sunjata story was ιecorded twice, once f or Radio Gambia and once at a perfonnance at Bήkama. "The most stήking point to emerge from a comparison of the two is their close similaήty, ίπ places extending to word-for-word ιepetition" (16). Her conclusion is that Lord's idea of composition ίπ perfonnance is not eνerywheιe applicable, and, ίπ general, that human creativity manifests itself ίπ too many ways to permit of the generalisations pιesented. Now, to begin with the Gambia mateήal it is an interesting phenomenon that ίt ιeally corresponds ιemarkably well with mateήal published by Lord, if not with eνery detail of the analysis he provides. Finnegan mentions that lnnes' fιrst impression had been one of fluidity, which was very sίmilar to the descήptions giνen by Lord. Among other perfonners Innes studied two brothers, Banna and Dembo Kanute, who had both basically leamt their craft from their father; their performances of the same legend diffeιed, both ίπ the ground coveιed by two major incidents and ίπ a number of details, and it appeared that each brother adapted his version to some degree to the situation ίπ which he perf oπned. 1n vol. 1-11 of Serbocroatiιln Heroic Songs Lord published f our versions of the same song, by two diffeιent singers: Νο. 24, recorded 22.11.34, 1369 lines, Demail Zogic Νο. 25, dictated 24.7 .34, 698 lines, Demail Zogic Νο. L 200, recorded 1951, 1433 lines, Demail Zogic Νο. 29, dictated 26.11.34, 629 lines, Sulejman Makic. The Serbocroatian texts of 24, 25, and 29 aιe given ίπ full ίπ vol. 11; 24 and 29 aιe translated ίπ vol. 1, while a summary of 25 is printed as a note to 24 ( 17). Zogic said he had leamt the song f rom Makic. Zogic's two νersions from 1934 were made with an interval of f our months; one is twice the length of the other. Lord descήbes the relation between them thus (18): It can be seen that the two versions differ most at the end. Up to 23

the place at which the maidens advise Alija how to release the boys the divergences between the two texts are chiefly matters of expansion, omamentation, and added details; the story is the same. The texts offer many lines displaying word-for-word identity. The shortness of the dictated version is probably accounted for by the tedium of the process; the same may be the reason for the confusion towards the end. But what is really striking is the similarity between 24 and L 200 (it is not possible, however, to make a detailed comparison, since the text proper of L 200 is not published). The two versions were made at an interval of 17 years, yet they are of almost the same length and often follow the same wording. Curious similarities of detail are mentioned: a passage of direct discourse which at a certain point shifts gradually into indirect form, a modemism atresa (address), the singer's pause for a rest precisely at a certain point in the story - these, as it would seem, insignificant details recur after 17 years, and even a glaring naπative inconsistency is still there (19): The youthful warrior who had πο armor, who had had to boπow his uncle's equipment, is recognized by armor which he wore and which he captured after a duel with the famous Chήstian hero Manducic Vuk, although we are told that the armor belonged to Todor the standard-bearer! 1n this case, then, a singer kept his song with a minimum of change; between Makic's version and those of Zogic the differences are of a deeper kind, affecting the basic structure of the story. Κiparsky descήbes very similar expeήences from Finland (20). lt is hardly possible to build a general theory οπ these three examples; but as far as the evidence goes it does suggest that once a singer has given his/her own form to a song it is retained with considerable fmnness. The important changes in transmission seem to take place when one individual takes over a text from another. Thus it seems that similar mateήal can be interpreted in different ways. It should be bome in mind, though, that Lord's mateήal is much broader than the texts published. 1n retrospect there is πο doubt, 1 think, that Lord overstressed the element of composition at the expense of the element of memorisation; it also emerges that some degree of composίtion took place pήor to performance, comparable 24

to examples refeπed to by Finnegan, cf. below p. 42. If Lord's view is somewhat biased, it is easily explicable in terms of histoιy and polemics: at the time that he published The Singer of Tales the remarkable new discoveιy was that the traditional singer's craft was not exclusively one of memorisation. Next, 1 find that the observations of Finnegan about ovedapping of wήtten and oral culture are somewhat wide of the mark. The point of contention has not been that transitional societies, or peήods, do not exist, but that a given text is either composed orally or not. Literate persons who rely entirely on oral technique in their craft are well attested; 1 shall return to this below, p. 91. It would seem natural for a person knowing how to write to make some use of this technique for his/her art, if only in a limited form, taking notes as an aid to the memoιy. lt is strange that this seems hardly to be attested at all; Finnegan refers to a single example, from medieval China (21 ). Mnemonic devices of wήous types may occur; Vansina has an interesting survey of known types: carved sticks, objects handed down traditionally, the knotted cords used by the Incas, and even the individual features of a landscape may serve as a mnemonic device (22). On one point I fmd that Finnegan slightly misrepresents Parry and Lord. When she says that "the great strength of the whole oral-fcrmulaic theoιy ... comes largely from field research - the first-hand expeήence of Parιy and Lord with Yugoslav oral poets" (23), she is underestimating that behind and pήor to the field-work lie Parιy's statistical studies of Homer. For better or for worse, Paπy's studies were conducted with Homer in view; the Serbian tradition and the epic genre were chosen as the best mateήal for exactly this purpose and the kind of questions put and the analysis made were determined by Homeήc problems. 0n the whole, the pages descήbing Parιy's Homeήc studies are superficial; Finnegan underrates his achievement when she says that Parry "noticed, like others before him, the apparently formulaic nature of recurrent descήptions" (24) - the remarkable part of the analyses was the demonstration of the system of formulas, that in pήnciple for any given piece of hexameter line the Homeήc poems use one and only one phrase to expres., the same idea. This had by no means been noticed before; it was, on the contraιy, a demonstration 25

of a fact so inexpected that it was accepted as such by Homeήsts only after a considerable time. This is not a mere question of paying due tribute to a scholarly achievement; it is, 1 think, basic to the disagreement between Parryl.ord and Finnegan. The dissίmilaήty of their definitions of orality depends largely on the different purposes of their studies. Finnegan defmes orality in connection with three aspects, those of composition, transmission, and perf oπnance (25), because, for her approach, it is necessaιy that the defιnition should be broad, so as not to exclude mateήal that might be relevant. Parry and l.ord, on the contrary, placed all the emphasis on composition, because they were seeking an explanation of Parry's astonishing observatίons regarding Homeήc diction; their approach was concemed basically with a mental process, the kind of mechanisms functioning in the brain of the poet. And this leads to the paradoxical situation that the group of scholars who more than anyone else will have to maintain the theory that oral poetry is basically different from wήtten are the Homeήsts, since they need it as a necessary explanation of Homeήc diction. Parry and Lord's theory, that illiteracy is the decisive factor in accounting for the remarkable similaήty existing even between very different kinds of oral composition has not yet been rejected. This ·! means that a study of oral poetry is really a study of a highly com. plicated mental process. The ambition is actually to understand what is going on in the head of the singer, the way the ''oral mind" works, in what ways this process differs circumstantially from the way the literate mind functions. The explanation that the f ormulas and themes are necessary for the singer who composes at the moment of performance is no doubt correct and important, but it cannot be the full truth. And when it comes to the importance of the instrument, and it is said that a bήef interlude gives the singer a chance to meditate on what is to come next, this is, again, a much too simplistic description that does not account for the meaning of music and rhythm; it is notable that singers often find it difficult to reproduce a text without the music. Other objects may be felt as important to the singers. Biebuyck mentions that Candi Rureke, the poet who dictated the Mwindo epic, while reciting held a conga sceptre, the main magical

26

object Mwindo h.imselfcarήes. This is to be understood both from the perfonnance - many scenes being fιrst recited, then acted out dramatically by the singer - and from an element of identification of the singer with the hero, present iπ other Afήcan traditions too (26). Self-suggestion probably plays a rόle too: the strange way of reciting called knjiga, known from various parts of the Balkans, where a singer has the eyes fΙXed οπ a closed book or a blank sheet of paper and fιnds " it difficult to do without it, calls for some kind of refined theory (27). ~ It remains to be pointed out that antiquity as such was, of course, much more oral than modem westem societies, that perfonnance as a means of publication remained important throughout antiquity, and that it is probable that few classical authors wrote their woιks with their own hand. Pliny's descήptions (1st century A.D.) ofhis own and his uncle's studies and literary production are most detailed; both of them kept slaves to do the actual wήting and took them everywhere - when travelliπg, bathing, hunting - iπ order to have any new idea irnmediately recorded iπ wήting. Pliny descήbes a moming iπ his Tuscan villa thus (28): 1 wake when I like, usually about sunrise, often eadier but rarely later. My shutters stay closed, for iπ the stillπess and darkness 1 feel myself surprisingly detached from any distractions and left to myself iπ freedom; my eyes do not determine the direction of my thinking, but, being unable to see anything, they are guided to visualize my thoughts. lf I have anything on hand I woιk it out iπ my head, choosίng and correcting the wording, and the amount 1 achieve depends on the ease or diffιculty with which my thoughts can be marshalled and kept in my head. Then I ca1Imy secretary, the shutters are opened, and I dictate what I have put into shape; he goes out, is recalled, and again dismissed. Three or four hours after I first wake (but I don 't keep to fΙXed times) 1 betake myself according to the weather either to the teπace or the covered arcade, work out the rest of my subject, and dictate it. We do not have direct evidence of the working habits of early Greek authors; even so, it seems permissible to contend that iπ a sense most classical woιks were oral dictated texts. But the procedure as descήbed by Pliny is, after all, far from composition ίπ perfoπnance.

27

111 Quality as an Argurnent against Orality

?--

a programmatic passage, Albin Lesky expressed the importance of ~ c:, oral theory for the clawcal Homeήc question (29): Es ist nun eine Frage, an der kein Homerforscher voιbeisehen kann, wie die grossen Epen der Gήechen zu jenen Erscheinungen stehen, die man als oral composίtion bezeichnet ... Ja, es mδchte scheinen - und das wollen diese programmatischen ZeUendeutlich rnachen -, dass eben hier die Lδsung der homeήschen Frage zu einem guten TeU gesucht werden muss, einer homeήschen Frage freilich, die ιadikal aus den von F.A. Wolf bestimmten Traditionen herausgelδst und neu gestellt werden muss. His own answer·to it is like this: The analytical way ofunderstanding Homer is absurd exactly because it presupposes wήtten texts througbout; all the compilers, diasceuasts, and redactors are imagined as literary men, doing over some verses, cancelling others, moving passages from one place ίη the book to another. The work of Murko, Paπy, and Bowra (Lesky is always eager to point to Murko, even if his ideas only achieved an influence on Homeήc studies through the work of Parry and Lord) shows that the Rilld and the Odysseymust be understood from the standpoint of oral poetry; they share all the typical elernents of orally composed poetry. But we know the poems as books that seem to have been read in much the same form duήng antiquity; they can have received their permanent form only if they were written down. Most important, though, are the arguments based on quality: the kίnd of overall architectonics demonstrated by W. Schadewaldt can hardly be envisaged in a purely orally composed epic. Homer's foreronners were oral poets, Homer himself used wήting ίη his composition and may have been the fιrst to do so. 1nthis respect he is both an end and a beginning: an end of centuries of oral poetry, a beginning of literature ίη Greece. He had the best of two worlds (30):

28

Er, der ein Anfang und ein Ende zugleich ist, steht als schaffender KUnstler in zwei Welten. Das Beste seiner Κraft holt er aus dem jahrhundertelang mundlich geUbten Heldensang seines Volkes, seine Kunst des Bauens und Vertiefens aber weist bereits weit voraus auf die Schδpfungen hellenischer Κlassik ~ Lesky was meήtoήous in introducing a Parryist viewpoint to the German-speaking tradition of scholarship, and his standpoint comes very close to being a communis opinio stiU today. If I try to disprove his ideas, it is for two reasons: they are based on an argumentation that is methodically wrong, and they lead to inacceptable results. First, the question of method. Lesky takes care to point out that the style of the RiJlliand the Odyssey, both the linguistic foπn, the pattemed narrative, and the subject-matter, is similar to that of oral poetry elsewhere in the wodd; if they are not orally composed it is because they are too great, their construction too artistic. This is an argument based οη quality and as such bound to be subjective; today everybody seems to agree that the Riιιd and the Odyssey are great poems, but ίt is well known that they have not always, unanimously, been accepted as such. Matters such as formulas, type scenes, lack of enjambement, etc., can be measured; defmitions vary to some degree, the reasons for their presence can be discussed, and their interpretation differs widely, but nobody can deny that they are there. They may be considered detans as compared to the visions of a Schadewaldt, but in an argumentation conceming compositorial technique they must carry much more weίght. The argument is wrong, too, because it violates Occam's principle of not assuming elements that are unnecessary. If the style of the poems is oral, the simplest explanation must be that the poems were orally composed; this explanation must be accepted as long as it is not necessary to abandon it. lf it is considered impossible for an oral poet to succeed in large-scale composition this may be because living oral poetry no longer has the social conditions necessary for producing poetry on a really large scale, or because existing large-scale oral epic has not yet been published in a form that permits its study by Homerists. 1n short, to say that this or that quality is thinkable or not in oral composition must be based on a careful study of existing oral tradi29

tions; where large-scale composition is concemed ίt is, to my knowledge, not poσible to make any comparative analysis with Homeήc composition for lack of accessible mateήal; and such mateήal as exists does show that quite elegant and complex stnιctures occur inside oral composition (1 shall retum to this in more detail shortly). Το assume that the epics studied by Parry and Lord in Yugoslavia may give us an idea of what Greek epic was like before the Iliad and the Odyssey is, as far as I can see, a naιve form of compaήson that does not take into account the different social circumstances of the two traditions (cf. above p. 19-20). Neither does it bήng us any closer to an understanding of how the Riιld and the Odyssey came into being. Are we to imagine that if only some genius emerged a new Riιld rnight take form, using the Serbocroatian oral tradition as background? lt leaves the main problem unsolved: the Riιld and the Odyssey are still left in their paradoxical position as rniraculous masterpieces, standing alone at the beginning of westem literature. Next, the result of this comprornise has been that the oral theory has, after all, influenced Homeήc scholarship too little. Interpretations of the Riιld and the Odyssey still very often implicitly assume that their composition was a process analogous to that of wήtten poetry. Ιt is still asked: What was Homer's contήbution to Greek epic? What is new in the Riιld and the Odyssey? Where does the genius come out? "Das Besondere an Homer" is still considered an object worth pur: suing (31 ). Studies of such a kind are doubtful in any case, since the ·"forenιnners" of the Riιld and the Odyssey are lost. But they are defmitely misleading if the oral theory is correct, for oral composition is a collective process rather than an individual one (32); the values implicit in such an approach to the Riιld and the Odyssey are foreign to an oral art. (1 shall elaborate this point in chapter V.) Ιη the following, 1 shall discuss in some detail the two most important arguments against the theory of oral composition of the Riιld and the Odyssey. These are their elegant stnιcture and their length. The lliad and the Odyssey compared to the Epic Cycle. At present it seems that there is a consensus of opinion that holds that both the lliad and the Odyssey are unities in the Aήstotelian sense,

30

having a beginning, a middle, and an end, each of them being comparable to one tragedy, not a seήes of them. Many scholars feel a need to cut a little here and there before subscήbing to the unity, but allowing for this, the Homeήc poems are generally felt to show an overall design; the consensus is clearer for the Riιιd than for the Odys-"' sey (33). The studies may be classifιed in two main groups, the "neoanalytical" studies of the Rilld and the Odysseyas compared to reconstructed preceding epics, and studies of the poems as independent entities with reference to their compositoήal technique. The results of the neo-analysis may in bήef be summed up as: while the Riιιd is formally a poem of Achilles' wrath, descήbing an episode of a few days' length, it is at the same time an Iliad in the true sense of the word, a poem about the whole Trojan war. 1nthis lies the greatness of the poet: instead of telling his story in a simple way from beginning to end, as did his predecessors, he chose an episodic structure with a ήchness of overtones. For example, the death of Achilles is not told in the Rilld, but it is there aUthe same, partly through forebodings, as when the dying Hector predicts it, and partly reflected in the descήption of the death of Patroclus. It is demonstrated that the way in which the last battle of Patroclus is related closely follows the stoιy of Achilles' last battle, as it was once told in the "cyclic" poem Aethiopis; while the scene of Thetis arήving with the other Nereids 1 to comfort Achilles in Iliad XVIII is in aU formal aspects a funeral ' lament, modelled on the lament at the funeral of Achilles, again as told ! in the Aethiopis. The audience, when listening to a recital of Riιιd XVI, woώd feel that here it was only on the face of it the story of Patroclus; in a deeper sense it was that of Achilles himself (34). For a long time these studies ran parallel to those of the oral-formώaic school, with little or no contact (35). The results, however, are directly transferable, both in general and in detail, to Parryist analysis. The difference will be in the explanation of why the poet does what he does; the neo-analyst will feel as quoting, refeπing, f oreshadowing, what from a viewpoint of oral poetry will be seen as the necessaιy means of composing, the only way an oral poet can proceed. Therefore, these studies do not contradict the oral theoιy in the concrete parallels found between elements of the Trojan story as told in

31

the Rifld and the Odyssey and elsewhere; only the interpretations offered may suggest ambitions of the poet and reactions of the audience that are incongnιous with an oral situation. And interpretations are, of course, subjective. The reconstπιctions of the Epic Cycle are, however, made ίη far too confident a manner. The method is a combination of the surviving fragments and prose summaries of the poems with other mythographic ( representations ίη pictoήal art or ίη literature, the Rifld and the Odys' sey included. The summaries do indicate that the poems of the Epic 1 Cycle proceeded ίη a "chronographic" way, relating episode after episode without the kind of main stnιcture that the Riad and the Odyssey have. And when Aήstotle in his Poetics discusses the preeminence of Homer he emphasizes exactly this: out of each of the Riιld and the Odyssey coώd be made one or perhaps two tragedies, whereas of the Cypria could be made many, and of the Riιls Mikra more than eight (36). He does not say if these other works are older or younger than the Riιld and the Odyssey; but as we have the summaήes of them ίη Venetus 454 they are, explicitly, younger. lt is worth underlining, though, that our knowledge is very scanty: a bare outline of the stoήes and a few verse fragments. The five books of the Aethiopis and the four of the Riιls Mikra are boiled down to one page each. 1 wonder what impression we should have of the Riιld and the Odyssey if they too were only known from such a summary. We may imagine that the Riιld would be retold ίη proper order, since after all it does proceed ίη chronological order. Much would probably be entirely omitted: things like the story of Bellerophon or Nestor's tales of his youth. We should have little idea of its pathos; qualities / such as those discussed by Α. Parry (37) would not emerge at all. And even the elegance of its stnιcture might be lost: it is likely that a summary of the Riιld would actually give us the impression that it had a main theme, the wrath of Achilles. But what has been so much admired, that it may be read at the same time as a story of the whole Trojan war, could hardly be known to us. As to the Odyssey, the order of events would probably be changed; at least that is what the Danish author Pontoppidan did when he retold the Odyssey to his children, and that is what is generally done in fιlms or popularized versions. 32

Consider also that the summaήes we have of the Epic Cycle were made to serve as a kind of introduction or commentaιy to the Riod and the Odyssey, giving readers the parts of the stoιy left untold in the two poems. This may have influenced the construction of the summaήes: they serve their purpose best if they are told in a chronographic order. And we know nothing of the subtler poetic qualities of these poems. They may have been dull or moving - we cannot tel1. Η. Pestalozzi· thought that the Aethiopis had been much more beautiful than the Riod; Schadewaldt tumed the scales. Both are veιy eloquent, Pestalozzi . in praising the Aethiopis (or AchiUeis, as he calls the reconstructed poem) as compared to the Riod, Schadewaldt in praising the Riod as compared to the Aethiopis (or Memnonis). But the heart of the matter is that neither of them can know what the Aethiopis was really like .· (38). " The whole idea that the Riod and the Odyssey presuppose one or more epics that tel1 the story of Troy in an ordedy fashion, beginnίng with the apple of discord and ending with the homecoming of Odysseus, is hardly necessaιy. The argument is that the way in which the poet handles his themes, beginning in the middle, alluding to other parts of the stoιy, presuming stoήes such as the judgement of Paήs without mentioning them, can only be understood by an audience which already knows the stoιy from beginning to end (39). But in other traditions there seems to be πο need to tel1 the full story from one end to the other, at least not so long as the tradition still thήves. 1n Finland Lδnnrot put the popular lays together into one coherent epic; a hundred years later, in 1937, Gjergj Fishta published an epic in 30 songs of the Albanian liberation from the Turks, fitting traditional episodic songs into one coherent composition (40). These poets wrote for the educated; meanwhile the oral tradition lived οπ, and neither singers nor audiences needed to have the stoήes sorted out chronographically. Just as one can speak one's own language without ever having been taught its grammar, the members of a tradition singers, listeners, or those who are both - spontaneously stick to the rules of the tradition. 1n terms of this analogy the poems of the Epic Cycle, if they told the Trojan stoήes in the order known to us from the summaήes, were probably composed in wήting: the need to sort

33

out the stoήes and tel1 them in a tidy fashion would be felt by a literaιy person rather than an oral one. If we take J.Τ. Κakήdis' distinction between "dramatic" and "chronographic" and relate it to oral poetιy in general, the result is still another aιgument for the orality of the Riad and the Odyssey. The singers that perform in the Odyssey, Demodocus and Phemius, treat a single episode in each of their songs; their perfoπnances are obviously not comparable in length to the Riad and the Odyssey. However, it should be noted that the poet imagines the songs of the heroic age to be of the same type of construction as those he is himself engaged in, telling of one )

evetnt,_alnoknt of thte wholethi~a~,thdramatic,alnfiot chrofnogalrap~c.ThFromh ~e ma en own ο me, s ιs e norm orm ο or epιc. e ero s achievements, or the events of a war, are not told in a chronographic [ sequence, attempting to include all relevant stoήes, but as dramatic j episodes presupposing a general knowledge of the cycle in question. But modem oral epic accessible in pήnt is generally short as compared to the Riad and the Odyssey. Large-scale oral epic does still exist in vaήous parts of Afήca; Biebuyck mentions a session among the Fang of Gabon that lasted for ten hours without interruption, and Nyanga and Lega performances in Zaire that were continued for several hours a day, and for several days (41). lt is not clear from his descήption, though, if these huge poems are selected episodes of the cycle, or if they aim at telling a chronographic sequence of events. Notably, the Bambara of Mali are used to epic performances of prodigal length ( cf. below p. 50). Not much of this mateήal has yet been made accessible in print; the difficulties involved in publication are considerable. Parts of the Bambara's Da Monzon cycle have been pήnted in translation by Α. Η. Ba and L. Kesteloot; as published, they are episodic, but f rom the bήef notes given by the editors it is not clear if the episodic structure of the publications follows the habits of performance (42). Το sum up: it is not possible at present to say whether large-scale epic traditions consist of "chronographic" or "dramatic" performances; '· but for songs belonging to epic traditions, where performances are not noπnally longer than a couple of hours, the picture is clear enough: they are "dramatic" episodes. Although it is not possible at present to say what kind of com34

position is noπnal, if any, ίη epic traditions where perf onnances may reach a scale comparable to that of the /liad or the Odyssey, there is some material to illustrate what happens if a singer who is part of a tradition of relatively short, episodic perfonnances is asked to perf onn a poem of unusual length. Parry and Lord's chief infonnant, Α vdo Mededovic, ίs well known to Homerists. When he was asked to produce songs as long as possible, he expanded such episodic songs as he already had ίη his store without changing their main course of events; he did not try to combine a seήes of episodic songs into one chronographic representation of all the hero's achievements (43). Another example comes from the Nyanga of Zaire. Candi Rureke's version of the Mwindo epic, as dictated to Biebuyck and his assistants, is considerably longer than nonnal epic perf onnances ίη this tradition, and the singer stated more than once that he had never before recited a poem of this length (44). 1 shall retum to the Mwindo epic ίη detail shortly; here I shall just bήefly state that the poem follows the hero from his birth through his succession to power till the point where he has given laws to his people; but it is at the same time an epic of the whole Nyanga culture, descήbing all the essential aspects of their life, and it does not attempt to tel1 all the stoήes known of the hero (45). Biebuyck descήbes it ίη this way (46): It contains a succinct survey of many basic institutions and customs, some descήbed ίη detail, others merely suggested or implied (e.g. kinship terminology, pattems of behavior between kinsmen, marήage customs}, aspects of political organization (e.g. local groups, political hierarchy), ήtual, and religion. lt provides a broad inventory of Nyanga mateήal culture, and gives succinct references to basic techniques of agήculture and honey-harvesting. The epic also tήes to account for the οήgίη of certain institutions (cώt of Lightning, fission of political entities, hunting taboos imposed οη chiefs). lt further provides a synopsis of basic Nyanga values. And fιnally, it peπnits us to enter the personal world of the narrator, who inserts many of his own retlections and meditations. Thus it is closer to the structure of the Riad and the Odyssey than to that of the poems of the Cycle, as known from the summaήes; it has a main theme, a coherent story, and through the events told it gives 35

a comprehensive picture of a mιch fuller subject, that of the whole cώture.

We cannot say with certainty whether performances of epic poems of a length as that of the Riιld and the Odyssey occurred often, sometimes, or never ίπ Greek oral tradition. But we can say that the poet of the Odyasey thought that epic performances ίπ the heroic age were episodic; that this is ίπ general the normal form of comparatively short oral epic songs; and that such a structure is still maintained also if the singer produces a song that exceeds the nonnal length of performances. Thus, ίπ itself, there is nothing to show that the poet of the Riιlli and the Odyssey, consciously or not, surpassed the limίts of the tradition. lmagine somebody asking a Greek epic singer to produce a song as long as he could manage. Κποwίπg a normal episodic song of the wrath of Achilles (and Kakridis has demonstrated that such a wrath-poem woώd be a noπnal thing (47)), his most natural course would be to expand the song he already knew ίπ the way seen ίπ our Riad. My conclusion is that if the composition of the poems of the Epic Cycle, as known from the summaries, is simpler than that of the Riιzd and the Odyssey, this is a statement concerned with their place οπ the scale of various types of poetic form; it is not necessarily at the same time an indication of their place ίπ history. Α simple foπn may be older or younger than a complex one. The picture of early Greek epic implied ίπ the theoιy of the neo-analysis is that the forerunners of the Riιzd and the Odyssey were a Cyprill, an Aethiopis (or Memnonis, or Achillets), an Riιzs Mikra, an RiuPersis, aNostoi, and a Telegony. Even ίπ W. Kullmann's sophisticated list of possίble histoήcal relationships (48), this is probably an extreme simplification of a reality consisting of numerous performances of a great vaήety of epics about events belonging to the Trojan cycle, as well as of other heroic achieνements. Thus the value of the neo-analytic studies lies ίπ the ήchness of leaming and the precise observations made, while the interpretations tend to read into the teit what is not there. Compoιitorilll pαttems

in the Diad Analysis of Homeήc composition - and, again, the Riιzd has been studied with more care than the Odyssey -has led to the dernonstra-

36

tion of subtle compositoήal pattems that have often been felt to surpass what is possible in oral composition. C.M. Bowra drew attention to a system of responsion between the fιrst and last songs of the lliιzd, and C.H. Whitman developed the idea into a very detailed symmetήcal pattem with the Ernbassy to Achilles as its axis (49). D. Lohmann's study of the composi.tion of the speeches in the lliιzd includes discussions in some detail of the oral theory, and the explicit conclusi.on is that the poet of the Riad uses a technique of composition that is in common with the oral epic tradition of Greece, but that he uses it in a way that is a definite sign of a wήtten technique (SO). Again, we find ourselves concerned with the question of what is '\ possible or not in works of art that are orally composed, and again we 1 are faced with the difficulties of compaήng the Riadto oral poerns that belong to traditions of a humbler type. Even so, the above mentioned Mwindo epic shows that a remarkable unity of composi.tion and a complex overall structure is possible in a long oral composition. lt was wήtten down from dictation in April 19S6. The poet was Candi Rureke from the village of Bese in Κisimba, Zaiie. Biebuyck does not state what his exact requirements were:a long poem, a poem descήbing the whole story of the hero, all the poems Rureke knew, or whatever else; thus the interaction between singer and collector is not analysed. But the process of dictation seems to have come rather close to a normal performance, including interaction between singer and audience (S1): Very cooperative and understanding, very lucid and intelligent, Rureke sat down with us for twelve days, singing, naπating, dancing, miming, untfi the present text was completely wήtten down ... We would begin to work eaήy in the moming and, with a few short breaks, continue well intό the night. Laιge crowds of people from Bese and from suπounding villages and hamlets would come to listen to the naπation, to participate in the refrains of the songs, to dance ... Very excited by the stimulus he received from his audience, very self-confident about his knowledge, and very proud about his achievements, Rureke was able to maintain from beginning to end the coherence of his story . . . Thus the poem is at one and the same time the work of Rureke, of the 1

37

participating audience, and of the tradition they have in common. It ίs difficult to fonn an opinion of the poetical qualities of a poem belonging to a culture to which one is foreign and therefore without a spontaneous feeling for what is comic, tragic, ironic, etc., and without Biebuyck's careful annotation it would be impossibleto understand the poem, eνen on a primitive level. 1 shal1quote, therefore, the following part of Biebuyck'sanalysis(52): The main action takes place in the village of Tubondo; it is there that the epic begins and there that it ends; it is the place to which the action retums at the four tuming points of the epic. The sequence of locations in which the eνents take place is: Villageof Tubondo Pool or dwellingplace of the Water Serpent Mukiti Villageof Tubondo Riνer dorninated by Mukiti's allies Villageof Tubondo Subterranean world of Muisa,Ntumba, Shebunιngu Vιllage of Tubondo Deep forest Vίllage of Tubondo Celestialrealm of Uιhtning, Rain, Hall, Moon, Sun, Star Villageof Tubondo The spatial plan of the epic corresponds closely to the Nyanga conception of the divisίon of the uniνerse into four spheres: butu (sky), mwιmyd (atmosphere), oto (earth), kwiningd (underwodd). The actors moνe and the actions take place in these four spheres: Star puts the hero in the sphere of bιιtιί; the contacts with Ughtning brinι hίm to the less distant sphere of rmwmyd; the subtemnean joumey to Muisa. Ntumba. Shebuιungu is in the kwiningd spheιe; the rest of the action takes place on earth, the oto spheιe. F.arth itself has four subdivisions: bιmbukιι (the village; the inhabited wodd). kιιbισιmi (the deep forest). kιιmιιιιdψιι (the forest, clearφ. fιelds neu the village). butdibi (the water). λctίοο αχ.υrs ίn ιU these places. but ίt is centered in the villqe. Bίebuyck 's analysίs ίs concemed with thίs poem in ιelatίοιι to other sonp of Nwindo and to Nyanp cultuιe and literaιy fonns, and ίt is 38

caπied

out against the background of a broad knowledge of Αfήcεrι epic traditions. Homer or Homeήc scholarship is not referred to, ,.ϊ• _, the analysis is, therefore, disinterested from this point of view. For me it is tempting to press the analogy to the Πiad. The epic is a poem of succession; the hero is threatened by his father already before his birth, \ and the greater part - about four fifths - is concemed with his struggle χ_ first to survive and then to conquer his father. Thus the plot has, in a way, reached its conclusion with Mwindo's succession to the throne. There follows, however, a dragon fight and Mwindo's joumey to t' .. sky, from where he returns with the laws. This fιnal part, which co11 seem to disrupt the overall construction is, instead, given a fonn be ·• fully parallel to that of the beginning. The initial scene of the eι:••c a people's assembly where Mwindo's father declares that if any οι his seven wives carήes a male child he wi11kί11 it; the fιnal scene is a people's assembly, where Mwindo gives a solemn comrnand not to kίll. The parallel may be carήed at least one step further: Mwindo's birth is descήbed in some detail, and his father's vain attempts to kill him while still new-born take up a good deal of the poem; this part is paralleled by a long section where Mwindo after his fιnal victory resuscitates his father and the whole popώation, after which follows the formal succession, the f ather handing over the insignia to his son. We have, then, a pattern like this: comrnand to kί11 Mwindo's birth attempts to kί11 Mwindo

command not to kί11 Mwindo's succession resuscitation of killed

This construction has obvious affinities to that of the Πiad. lt has a plot that is brought to its conclusion before the end of the poem; this seemingly discordant feature is balanced by a symmetήcal responsion of beginning and end. While fonnally recounting the succession story of the hero, it is at the sarne time an epic of the whole Nyanga universe. My point is not, of course, that this is another Πiad; but that when Lohmann finds that the transferήng of traditional patterns of composition from the single passages of the Πiad to the overall structure 39

surpasses the lirnits of oral, traditional composition, then he underestimates the possibilities of a traditional craft. lt should be kept in mind that the poem was dictated over as long a peήod as twelve days, and also that the epic tradition of the Nyanga is not comparable to that of the Bambara in scale; it fits the model οπ p. 21 that the Nyanga bards are semiprofessional (they undergo training as assistants of epic singers before they themselves begin to perform), whereas the Bambara singers are professional in the full sense, receivinga specialized training from chlldhood, and making a living of their art when fully educated. If Rureke's version of the Mwindo epic already shows that a long oral poem can be an elegant compositoήal unity, a more general study of oral large-scale pattems, to compare with the study of formula and theme, would be interesting, and may be possible in the not too distant future; it is to be hoped that scholarly publications of other Afήcan epics will appear. . When Kakήdis stated that, "it belongs to the nature of a long epic · that it lacks the unity which we find in the Diad" (53), he fonnulated a sensible hypothesis; however, the facts do not seem to bear it out.

Premeditationand coπection It remains to be considered how the oral theory fits the indications found in the Riad and the Odyssey that the poems were not composed in one piece, from one end to the other, but rather were the result of a process where the poet every now and then had second thoughts, and where a passage late in the poem may seem to have been composed earlier than one that precedes it. Again, 1 take Lohmann as my point of departure, since this idea is clearly formulated by him, and explicitly mentioned as an argument against oral composition (54). Lohmann fιnds a whole seήes of cross-references between different passages, some of which are far apart. Ιπ Riad VI the scene between Hector and Helen is parallel to that between Hector and Andromache; the latter is a climax as compared to the former; therefore the poet must have composed the scene between Hector and Andromache before he made that between Hector and Helen. Α similar coπespondence exists between the Agamemnon-Chryses scene in I and the AchillesPήam scene in XXIV, or between four speeches of Polydamas to

40

Hector. The most interesting example is peιhaps the comparisoo betweeo Agamemnoo-Chryses and Achilles-Pήam. lt is oot the marginal figure Chryses with his daugbter that is the model for Ρήaιπ with his son, but vice ιιersα. Again, wheo both old fathers offer huge gifts, using the same words, the offer of Chryses is modelled οο that of Ρήaιπ, since there the carrying of the gifts has beeo descn"bedin detail, wlille in the case of Chryses it is difficult to explain how the old man woώd have beeo able to keep his riches wheo he was robbed of his daughter. Therefore the sceoe in I is secoodary compared with that in XXIV. 0n the other hand, exactly at the point where the parallel is closest, the Chryses sceoe is oecessary to explain a problem of the scene betweeo Ρήaιπ and Achilles: when Achilles breaks into anger ίt is unmotivated in the scene, but conforms to the parallel scene where the anger of Agamemnon is clearly motivated in the context. Therefore it is not possible to regard one scene as absolutely primary in relatioo to the other; the poet must have worked on both more or less simώ­ taneously, when he composed them to serve as a frame of his whole poem. The impression we get of the method of compositioo is that ίt is oot, in principle, differeot from that of a modern author engaged in the compositioo of a large-scale novel: the poet worked "synchronically", going back and forth over his poem; when he made the Agamemnon-Chryses scene he had the scene between Achilles and Ρήaιπ already fully worked out, or as a draft, or at least in mind (SS). But are these obserνations really incompatible with oral compositioo? First, as in the relations betweeo oeo-analysis and oral theory, the facts are interpreted differeotly depeoding οο the interpreter's general view; an adhereot of the oral theory does oot read one scene as modelled οο the other, but reads both as allomorphs of the same theme. But, more important, whereas the process of composing in writing sooner or later comes to a point where the work is complete, and is thus, in principle, a creatioo ooce and for all, oral compositioo is a process that is oot, in principle, coocluded before the eod of the singer's life. The fuodameotal studies of this process are still those of Parry and Lord; the results of a more deliberate training of singers is a point that ιemains to be studied. I.ord's temι "compositioo in peήormance" is 41

sometimes misunderstood as if any new performance were an act of pure improvising, even if he cleady descήbes it as a recreating, characterized by the "insistent, conservative urge for preservation of an essential idea" (56). However, Lord overstates the element of creativity now and then (cf. above p. 23-25). When he sees the very concept of textual stability as something un-oral, he may be interpreting the passages of word-for-word fJXity in his own mateήal as influences of wήtten concepts, or he may simply want to claήfy his 1\ points by overstating them. Anyway, there are passagesword-for-word •alike both in the Serbian texts he publishes and in other oral texts · where more than one recording exists. Moreover, there is evidence that his informants normally practised in pήvate before performing. A.L. Uoyd, too, quotes a Rumanian singer, Mihai Constantin, for descήbing how he lies in bed humming and singing to himself, keeping his wife awake, on the nights before he is to entertain at a wedding (57). 1n a flouήshing oral tradition a popular singer will perform often, and every new performance of the sarne song is to some degreea · recreation. Το what extent a new performance is also a correcting of previous performances, and to what extent corrections will be retained in the next performance, is relatively unknown; 1 mentioned eadier (p. 23-24) the kind of mateήal that is available at present. Α detailed study of, say, five singers' handling of the sarne song over a peήod of some years would clear up much in this field; but it is obvious that such a study is not easily undertaken. As it is, the normal existence of a song in a singer's repertoire seems to take it through a preparatory stage where the singer tήes hand and voice at it in private; through this, and through the fιrst performances, he/she finds a form for it that will remain relatively stable afterwards. How stable will depend on the capacity of the tradition (cf. p. 21), as well as on the individual singer's capacity, the number of times he/she performs the song, the amount of rehearsal invested. Each new performance will be a recreation in the sense that the song will be modified according to the given situation, but it will at the sarne time be a "rehearsal", a step in the process towards fιxation of the song in the singer's memory. The process described by Lohmann for the poet of the Riad is thus 42

easily compιehensible in teπns of the process of oral composition. What he calls "ein stindiges Herίίber und Hinίίber" wil1 not be a continuous rolling back and forth of papyrus volumes, but rather a seήes of ιecιeations of the same song, in performances and/or pήvate ιehearsals. As descήbed by Lord for the act of composition by theme, the singer is in a state of tension between the perfoπnance in which he/she is engaged and pιevious performances of the same or similar themes (58). For instance, when concentrating on the scene between Oιryses and Agamemnon in Riad l, the poet wil1be intluenced by other occasions on which he has recited this scene, the scene between Ρήaιπ and Achilles, and perhaps other scenes wheιe an aged parent tήes to ransom a child. The ήches of Chryses and the unmotivated anger of Achilles aιe, then, manifest examples of the narrative inconsistencies that aιe inheιent to the process of composition by theme. And this explains, too, why the poet did not, while goingback and forth, achieve a fιnal fοπη of these scenes without such "mistakes". The famous passage in Riιιd α where an embassy of three persons seems to be supeήmposed on a version with an embassy of two, was a main aigument in the analytical theory, and G.P. Goold and M.L. West use it as evidence that the poet expanded an already fιxed text (59). 1n this they aιe pιesumably right, but not in their assumption that it must necessarily have been a text fixed in writing. The duals a,e a stumbling-block, difficult to explain both from an analytic, a unitarian, and an oral point of view, since on all theoήes it is difficult to understand why they were not assimίlated to the context of three envoys, whether the final fοπη of the passage was made by a redactor, a literate poet, or an oral one. 1n other cases there seem no difficulties in adjusting the same passage to diffeιent contexts (60), and Goold points out that plural endings might have taken the place of the duals without undue effort. However, his explanation, namely that the poet was laboήously scratching his verses on a wall, blotting out and adding new verses, seems to me absurd, and subject to the same kind of cήticism that he levels at other theoήes: if the poet took the trouble to delete whole verses, why then did he not take the additional trouble, minimal when compared with that of squeezing new lines into an inscήption, of blotting out a few word endings? The only acceptable theory is that

43

1 '

offered by Μ.Ν. Nagler, who dwells οη the fιxed position of hro attendants οη a seήes of occasions, refers to other contexts where some plural to do with two (e.g. fifty-two) ίs connected with dual verbfonns, and suggests that the poet might have hit οη the idea of Ph.oenix' part duήng this veιy perfonnance (61). Such a hypothesis does justice to the fact that if the Riad ίs an oral poem, then it will have been perf onned more than once, and that the process of dictation (cf. below p. 82-89) was one performance ίη a seήes that did not ίη principle end before the death of the poet. Some passages would be more fixed than others. Something newly added would be less adapted to the context than something that had been there for a long time. The duals of Riad ΙΧ might have been changed to plurals ίη later recitals, ίf the poet chose to stick to the idea of Phoenix taking part ίη the embassy. Within the poet's lifetime his version of the poem would become ever more fιxed, that ίs if he had the chance to perfonn ίt reasonably frequently. We have little means of knowing if the wήtten Riιzd differed greatly or not from other perfonnances by the same poet. lts length may have been unusual or not; we cannot tell. The poet will have taken notice of the special demands of the occasion, expanding or otherwise emphasizing elements that he supposed would please his audience, leaving out those he supposed would not. We can only guess at the nature of such elements. If we imagine an Riιzd existing ίη the poet's repertoire, being perfonned every now and then and slightly modified with each perfonnance, ίt will probably have been fixed ίη the sense thιιt it was οη eveιy occasion a poem about the wrath of Achilles, and that not only the plot but to a great degree the wording too were fιxed. Where the poet expanded his poem he will not have done so by free improvising, but by constantly exploiting phrases, verses, or whole passages used before. Although we do not know ίη what ways the wήtten Riιzd ( or Odyssey) resembled or differed from other performances, we do, 1 think, know something of the capacity of the poet, and of the tradition as such, for precise transmission where necessary. First, ίf we consider passages that recur with the purpose of being correctly repeated (delivery of messages and the like ), the repetitions are remarkably precise, 44

even where two passages are far apart. This indicates that the individual poet of the Riιιd and the Odyssey wascapable of precise memorisation where he felt that it was called for. Similady, there are indications that in general the Greek singen' capaclty for transmitting precisely where necessaιy was greater than what is met with in the Balkans in this century. 1 am thinking especially of the Catalogue of Ships, for which it has been argued by a seήes of scholan that the geographical pattem suits Mycenaean times amazingly well (62). Ί1ιis does not mean that we end up by accepting the idea of a relatively unchanged oral transmission of the Homeric poems. 0n the contrary, my point is that oral composition takes place through a constant dependence on both memory and creative power, that some epic traditions as such are capable of more precise transmission than othen, that within a tradition sorne singen have more capacity for memorisation than othen, and that within one poem some passages are transmitted with greater care than othen. lt is obvious from the invocation that introduces the Catalogue of Ships that it was felt to be a passage more demanding than the average; 1 shall consider this in detail below (chapter V). lt should be noted that this exactly suits Κ.iparsky's model (above p. 19): catalogues may be classified as "history told as fact in the realis mode". lf we can say with relative certainty that the poet of the Riιιd and the Odyssey was a singer with a well-trained memory, performing within a tradition capable of a high degree of precision, this does not mean that poet and tradition were not also characterized by a high degree of creativity. There is much to indicate that creation and memorisation are complementary rather than contradictory in an oral tradition, an aspect to which I shall retum below (chapter VIII). Το sum up: there is nothing in the Riιιd and the Odyssey, however elegant their structure, that per se exceeds the limits of oral composition.

45

IV Quantity as an Argument against Orality Within one and the same oral tradition the length of the songs varies considerably. The length of each perfoπnance is dependent οη the powers, physical and mental, of the singer, the kind of audience he/she has, and the situation ίη which the poem is perfoπned. 1n the Oxford edition, the llίad runs to 15,693 verses, the Odyssey to 12,110: is it possible that oral poets were able to master this mass of mateήal, that audiences were able to attend, and can we at aU imagine situations where people were gathered together for sufficient time to listen'? Απ attempt has been made to estimate the time necessaιy for a perfoπnance of the Riιzd and the Odyssey. J.A. Notopoulos makes a compaήson with modem Greek singers from Crete and Cyprus, singing ίη the fifteen-syllable "political" metre; this comes veιy close to the length of the hexameter line. He takes 13 singers into account; the quickest sings 13.5 lines a minute, the slowest 7 lines; the average of them all is 9.73 per minute. lf theRiιιdwere sung at this averagespeed and without pauses, it would require 26.9 hours, the Odyssey 20.7 (63). Now it is worth noticing that the quickest singerproceeds at almost double the speed of the slowest. Again, from what we know of Greek theatre habits of the fιfth centuιy B.C., it is obvious that both actors and audiences were used to a considerable speed of perfoπnance, and to quite long sessions, at least as compared with our times; three tragedies, a satyr-play, and a comedy ίη one day must have been rather demanding. Even so, the Riιιd and the Odyssey seem too long to have ever been perfoπned at a one-day session.

Large-scaleepicsorallycomposed Α recent statement of the problem says, "Α1Ι field experience with oral poets seems to show that they never, except when stimulated by the most attractive inducements, exceed an hour or two ίη their 46

perfoπnances"

(64). This is manifestly wrong. Bowra mentions in his chapter on Scaleand Development vaήous examples of exceedingly long oral poems. One is Avdo Mededovic's OsmanDelibegovic;but Bowra has even more impressive examples from Uzbek and KaraΚirghiz traditions. The singer Sagymbai Orozbakov (1867-1930) dictated in the 1920's a poem of about 40,000 lίnes; his repertoire is said by the editors to have been some 250,000 lines, and in it were at least two other songs of a length. similar to that just mentioned. Bowra states that other singers of the sarnetradition are credited with huge poems too. He declares that in order to understand these extraordinary achievements one must presuppose some factors beside the foπnulaic language. The singers would have been unable to perf oπn these long poems, had they not lived in an environment with a ''large number of bards, all of whom tell more or less th.e same stoήes in more or less th.e same kind of poetical language". Their art must be respected; heroic song is a national art, which almost "among the Kara-Kirghiz everyone admires and most try to practise". The traditions involved must be ήch and ancient. Bowra proceeds to draw parallels to Homer's suπoundings. 1n the case of Mededovic, he considers Parry's request to be the obvious reason f or the length. of the poem; but the occasions of the enoπnous Kara-Κirghiz poems are not given (65). These observations by Bowra seem obviously coπect and of the greatest importance. 1 th.ink that th.e list of conditions should be extended still further: poetry on this scale presupposes a society where people have much leisure, at least at times, and where oral poetry is the noπnal entertainment; oral poetry of many kinds may coexist f or generations with. other types of entertainment, as is seen in th.e Balkans in our time, but an audience used to television and movies does not have the patience necessary for attending epic recitals for hour after hour. As a fιnal condition I should refer to prof essionalism, both in th.e sense that young persons undergo a special training in order to become singers, and in the sense th.at singing is a profession supplying the artist with. his/her living. The mental and physical demands of large-scale epic perfoπnance can hardly be met by persons without special training, and who cannot aff ord to concentrate wholly on their art. These considerations of the conditions f or a tradition of large47

ιcale

oral epίc may be schematized as foUows:

art foπn

a well-developed poetical language ("ancίent")

content

agreatand detailed amount of common stoήes

conιext

occasions giving space for performances that may last several hours a message acceptable to a comprehensive group, including the rulίng class

("ήch")

ιender

many sίngen, among whom at least ιome are profeuίonal

receiver

audiences that know the tradition and are trained listenen, perhaps actίvely participating

a type of society where a person can eam a living as a singer of epic, where the social status of singers ίs such as to attract the best brains, and where persons of a high social standing may practice epίc singing a type of socίety where oral poetry ίs the normal entertainment, and where the populatίon ( or parts of ίt) has much leisure, at least forpeήods

CoUecton have become ever more careful to record things such as the bard's age, name, and posίtion ίπ society, information οπ his/her training and general background as an artist, the occasίons for performance, and the circumstances of recording. Over the last few decades a comprehensiνe study of Afήcan epic tradίtions has been ίπ progress; Biebuyck giνes a fascinating surνey of what has been achieνed

48

till now (66). Study in this field is highly relevant to Homeήsts, as thήving traditions of the type still existing in West and Central Mrica may be supposed to offer a more satisfactory parallel to Homer than the declining European traditions, and as modem technique and folkloήstic method may supply us with mateήal generally missing in older publications. The tήbes descήbed by Biebuyck possess a wide range of genres,\ of which epic is the least studied because of its length, and because of its ήch, highly poetical, and difficult language. Biebuyck descήbes the style like this (67): The epic style is ήddled with aphoήsms and other terse statements, fonnulae, incantations, songs, conversations, dialogues, speeches, succinct references to tales, prayers, praises, improvised reflections and remarks. These features contn"bute to the enhancement of a vivid, poetic, and floήd style. The bards are masters of the verb. They have an extraordinary grasp of the vocabulary and its metaphoήcal properties, and of the grarnmar and its flexibilities. They are masters in the poetic usage of various stylistic and esthetic devices: repetition; reduplication of cores, radicals and cores; onomatopoeia and other sonorous effects; exclamations; enjambments. The fonnulae are particularly abundant and varied: epithets; patronymics, titles; stereotyped phrases; praises; aphoήsms; ήddles; incantations; standard place, time, and action references; and repetitions of words and ideas. lt is obvious from this descήption that a compaήson with the Riιzd and the Odyssey would be interesting. What to Biebuyck indicates the aesthetic mastery of the bards must be explicable also as the characteήstics of a traditional oral diction, and be open to a Parryist analysis. As to the tension between memory and creativity, the expeήence from Parry and Lord's mateήal is confιrmed; two perfonnances are never exactly alike, yet the singers are engaged in vaήous defιnite songs and by no means improvising freely. (One of the traditions in Biebuyck's mateήal, the Bambara epic, was also referred to by Bowra. He mentioned a Yugoslav scholar who had claimed this as an example of the possibility of unchanged oral transmission; Bowra was sceptical, and it now appears that his scepticism was well placed (68).)

49

As Biebuyck's article covers a huge mateήal from many tήbes, mostly of Mande and Bantu speakers, there is considerable vaήation ίπ themes, music, occasions for performance, and scale. But οπ the whole the poems seem to be much greater and more artistically refmed than anything found ίπ Europe today, and the information confirms Bowra's conditions for large-scale epic: there are many bards, they are highly esteemed, and their traditions are ήch and ancient. The Monzon epic cycle of the Bambara centers around two histoήcally known kings who ruled over Segu (Mali) from 1787 to 1827, whereas the hero Sunjata, who is celebrated by many Mande-speaking peoples across several West Afήcan countήes (Guinea, Mali, Senegal, Gambia, lvory Coast, Upper Volta, and Ghana), was a thirteenth-century king of the Mali Empire. The bards of the Bambara seem to offer the best basis for considering poems οπ the scale of the Riad and the Odyssey to be orally composed. Απ individual bard may know as many as twelve episodes of ten thousand verses each. The bards compήse one of several artisan castes. They hold the exclusive patήmony of the great epics. The female bards of this caste specialize ίπ praise songs, the male members are many things: musicians; arbiters and negotiators; councillors of headmen, chiefs, and kings; histoήans. Not every member of such a caste is a musician or bard. Young individuals are carefully selected for their talents. They specialize ίπ the playing of different musical instruments. Απ apprenticeship lasts from five to ten years, and combines manual and intellectual work (69). Biebuyck does not say if people gather especially to listen to epic, or if it is perfonned when they come together for other reasons. He mentions a great vaήety ίπ the length of the performances; he attended Nyanga and Lega performances where episode after episode was unrolled for several hours a day, and for several days. 1nother tήbes one long continuous performance is prefeπed; he writes of an epic that was performed ίπ one nightly session and without interruption for ten hours (70). He descήbes the performances as very lively events (71): Besides the actual bard and his aides ( eventually including the apprentices), there is a diverse and sometimes large, actively participating audience. There is a constant interplay between these 50

three categories of participants. The actual presentation of the epic narrative is enhanced with musical performance (one or more musical instruments, eventually of different type ); appropriate costumes and adornments, singing, chanting, praising, dialoguing, dancing, gesticuJating, handclapping; drarnatic re-enactments, and gift exchanges. Ιπ most areas, the bards are specially dressed or adomed for the occasion. Among the Nyanga the paraphemalia are minimal; the bard holds a calabash rattle and a small scepter (made of a roughly carved wooden handle that is adomed with some feathers) in his hands. The Mongo bards, wearinga feather hat, adom their bodies and face with vaήous geometrical designs, and carry a ceremonial knife or spear. Among the Fang, the bards wear a feather hat, a mane-like coiffure, a fiber skirt, a multitude of wild anima1 skins that hang from their arms and waist, and anklet bells. Some of these simple paraphemalia seem to have very special meanings. For one, the bards strongly identify with the pήncipal hero of the epic; they may suggest his physical presence by means of some of the objects and aαoutrements. The scepter carήed by the Nyanga bard, Rureke, suggests the magical conga-scepter of the hero, Mwindo. The spear or knife held by the Mongo bards evoke the same objects with which the hero, Lianja, was bom. Certain Mongo bards assert that they could not sing and recite the epic without holding these objects, which they receive from their teachers as a sign of their full-fledgedstatus as bards. The liveliness of the performance and the activities of the audience contήbute πο doubt to explaining the endurance of those who listen to a poem lasting many hours. At all events, it is certain that enormously long oral poems are not necessarily produced at the instigation of collectors.

The sociokJgyο/ epic in the Diadand the Odyssey Since the society descήbed in the poems is fictitious and not necessarily similar to the society in which poet and audience live, 1 shall keep the two things apart and fιrst consider what is said in the Riad and the Odyssey of the matters that may condition a tradition of large-scale 51

epic. Α

special problern is that it is hardly possible to say with certainty which genres are represented in the poems, since the poet expresses everything, prose as well as poetry, in the overall fοππ of the hexameter. Here, however, 1 take as my point of departure that the perfoπnances of Phemius and Demodocus in the Odyssey are meant to be understood as epic performances. The art fοππ of their poems is automatically the poetical language of the poet, proceeding in hexameters. It is not supposed to be ancient, though; the sίngers in the Odyssey entertain the heroes who fought the battles sung of and their contemporaries; Phernius might be teπned a first generation singer, nobody's pupil, or the god's pupil (72). The context form is most often a meal in a king's house, with the listeners seated at tables; the singing may also be an accompaniment to dancing, inside at the wedding of Menelaus' children and at Penelope's fictitious wedding; in the open air among the Phaeacians or in a scene on the shield of Achilles (73). The perfoπnances at meals begin when the guests have eaten and last until the singers are interrupted, or until the party ends and people leave to go to sleep. The content of the art is Troy-mateήal, in lthaca as well as in Scheήa, with the exception of Demodocus' story of Ares and Aphrodite; it is suggested that also Phemius knows other songs. The message is noπnally acceptable to a comprehensive audience, including the king and queen. However, in Odyssey 1 Penelope tήes to interfere and make the singer choose another subject; that she does not succeed to stop the Troy-song of Phemius is a sign that she is losing power to her son. Among the Phaeacians Alcinous immediately internιpts Demodocus when his song does not please the unknown guest. Obviously the normal situation is one of general acceptance. Singers are everywhere. Every royal court has a singer; others than Phernius and Dernodocus are mentioned. When Agamemnon left for Troy, he made his singer look after Clytemnestra. There is a bard entertaining at the wedding of Menelaus' children. When Achilles passes his time singingto the phorminx it is said that this instnιment is booty from Eetion's city; therefore it seerns that the same kind of entertainment was nonnal at the court of Andromache's father as at those 52

of the Greek kings. Νο singer is mentioned by name at Priam's court; but at the funeral of Hector, where the three women most closely related to the deceased sing individual laments, there are mentioned male singers who lead the general walling; they are probably to be imagined as professional lamenters. Besides settled singers, wandering bards are explicitly mentioned: there is Thamyήs, who is descήbed · in a couple of lines of the Catalogue; he was born in Thrace, and was on his way from Oechalia when he was struck by the Muses' rage near Doήon. 1n the Odyssey Eumaeus speaks of wandering craftsmen whom you may invite when you are in need of their services: soothsayers, doctors, artisans, and singers. The status of the singer accompanying dancers in the scene on the slιield of Achilles is unclear (74 ). -The general impression of these singers is that they are professional in the sense that they have the art as their profession. That Demodocus is blind is another argument of his being professional: he would hardly be able to make his living in other ways. As to training, the text is more ambiguous. Nowhere is training directly mentioned. When Odysseus flatters Demodocus saying, "Surely the Muse, Zeus' daughter or else Apollo has taught you", this may be meant literally, or it may be a metaphor; in any case it seems to presuppose that professional singers normally would have been trained. The same is tnιe of Phemius' assertion that he is self-taught; to me this makes sense only if the normal case is that singers are taught by somebody else. But I would not care to press the argument (75). The status of singers is at a level with heralds, or with artisans. Mortal professional singers are all male. The heroes themselves may sing epic; Achilles, of all people, is represented as singing to the phormίnx when the embassy arrives; his subject is κλέα άΡδpών (men's famous deeds), which is commonly understood to mean epic. Amateurs of a high status practice in other genres: the goddesses Calypso and Circe sing at their looms; at Hector's funeral Andromache, Hecuba, and Helen perf orm. When Odysseus is trying out his bow he compares himself to a singer playing at a party (76). The audiences, even if they live far away from the scene of battle, know the songs; a specially expert audience is the one in which one of the heroes sung of, Odysseus himself, is present. The listeners attend

53

in silence. But there are suggestionsof more lively occasions too. There is the open-air peήoπnance of Demodocus that serves as an accompaniment for young Phaeacians dancing, and both at the court of Menelaus and at the perfoπnance descήbed on the shield of Achilles acrobats, κυβι.στηrήρeς, are involved. Most detailed is the descήption on the shield. The scene seems to take place in the open air; ίt is a highly complex combination of young people dancing, encircled by admiήng onlookers, a bard singing and playing his phoπninx, a pair of acrobats perfoπning, and common singing. There is an atmosphere of interaction and speed; even if the dancers are engaged in an elaborate and difficult dance, they are compared to a potter's wheel being spun without clay on it. lnteraction between singers and audience is explicitly mentioned at Hector's funeral: the lament is descήbed as a continuous altemation between solo and chonιs. Oral poetry is the normal entertainment. The universe as descήbed on the shield of Achilles has, besides the scene already mentioned, singing as a natural part of life: at a wedding, among shepherds in the fieid, in the vineyard. At parties singing is regular, except in the Greek camp at Troy; the aπny did not take singers with them, thus Agamemnon's singer stayed at home. When the gods have their meals, Apollo and the Muses sing to them. They, and in a lower degree the heroes, lead a leisurely life (77). Thus the conditions for large-scaleepic are present, except for the two first ones. That the art is not represented as ancient need not bother us; it is part of the logic of the story and might be considered a sociological mistake on the part of the poet - but he can hardly be blamed for not knowing that epic traditions thήve only when they become ancient. (1 shall consider in more detail the problem of the singers singing of contemporary matters later, p. 116-21.) lt is more important that the occasions seem to limit peήormances to the length of a couple of hours. Nowhere does the poet descήbe songs as long as the ones he is himself engaged in. This is strange since it contrasts with the general tendency that the heroic world is ήcher and more glamorous than that of the poet and his audience. It might be taken as an aιgument that the poet considers his own undertaking as something exceptional. But I should rather explain it from the fact that 54

the perfonnances descnoed ίη detail are al1such that take place in suπoundings where the audience is not liable to be together for hours οπ end, or where the perfonnance is interrupted. The length of perfonnances is secondaιy to the descήption of the setting, and to the demands of the plot. There are other genres where performances seem to reach a greater length. When Odysseus brings Chryseis home, he and his followers are said to sing a Paeanto Apollo al1day long, πα.νημέριοι, while Apollo listens with delight; when darkness comes they go to sleep. However, a pedantic reading notes that before the singing begins they have made a sea joumey, carried out the ceremonies of handing over the woman to her father and of sacrificing a hecαtomb to the god, and prepared and eaten a meal (78). The funeral lament for Hector begins in the moming; Pήam arrives with the corpse in Troy at sunήse, and as soon as the dead body has been laid on the lit de parade the fonnal lament begins. Its length is not mentioned; when Helen has done her part as the last of the three women, Priam sends out people to fetch firewood for the pyre, gίving thern nine days to do the job; οπ the tenth day Hector is cremated. We are given to imagine that the lament continues for this whole peήod. Summing up: epic perfonnances descήbed ίη the poems are definitely shorter than the Riad and the Odyssey, but ίη general the wodd of the poems is one in which a tradition of large-scale epic might exist. The most correct descήption of the length of perfonnances ίη the Iliιιd and the Odyssey is perhaps that they are long enough: nowhere does a perfonnance end because the singer runs out of mateήal. The general impression given is one of copiousness just as in the case of rnateήal goods: there are always enough oxen for malάng a hecatomb, enough gold for omamenting a palace, and singing is always sufficient to fil1 the time οπ hand.

The sociologyof ancient Greek epic Passing to the suπoundings of the poet himself it must be noted that exactly in the case of the two fιrst conditions he is certainly archaizing. His own tradition is ancient; and the kings whose courts he imagines as the nonnal setting of epic have disappeared. Except for that the descήptions gίven ίη the poems seem to be ίη agreement with con-

55

ditions in aιchaic and early classical Greece, as known from sources other than the Ιlίιιd and the Odyssey. The evidence is mainly of two types, testimonies about Homeήds, singers,and rhapsodes, and the eady hexarneter poetιy other than the Iliιιd and the Odyssey that survivescomplete or ίπ fragments. 1n this connection, 1 deal veιy bήetly with the evidence for rhapsodes etc. as I return to it in chapter VIII. The most farnous Homeήc singer is the poet of the hymn to Apollo, who in a passageaddressed to the young women singerson Delossays (79): χαiρeτε δ · ύμείς πάσαι · έμ.είο δe καί μ.eτόπισθε μvήσασθ ·, όππότε κέv τις έπιχθονίων άνθρώπων Μάδ • twείρηται ~εαιος ταλαπείριος έλθών · ώ κσύραι, τί.ς δ' (Jμμιν άvήρ ι,δwτος άοι.δών

170

Μάδε πωλείται, καί τέ(f) τέρπεσθε μ.άλwτα;

ύμ.είς δ · εύ μ.άλα πάσαι ώrοκρwασθ · άμ.φ' fιμ.έων · rοφλός άvήρ, οί.κεί δe Χί4) lνι παιπαλοέσσn,

τού πάσαι μετόπισθεν άρwτεύοvσιν άοιδαί.. τιμ.εϊς δ' ψέτεροrι κλέος οίσομ.εr, δσσοrι έπ' α1ιw

175

άrιθρώπων στρεφόμεσθα πόλεις εύ ναιeταώσας

·

οι δ · έπί δτι πεί.σονται, έπεί καί. έrήτvμ,ό,) έστιν. Α11

you maidens farewell.1 ask you to call me to mind in time to come wheneversome man on this earth, a strangerwhose suffeήng never ends, comeshere and asks: "Maidens,which of the singers,a man wont to come here, 170 is to you the sweetest,and in whom do you most delight?" Do tel1him in unison that I arn he, a blind man, dwellingon the rocky island of Chios, whose songsshall all be the best in time to come. And I will carιy your renown as far as I roam 175 over the lands of men and their cities of fair locations. Indeed they wi11not doubt this becauseit is true. We note that he is a travellingsinger;even ifhe has a home on Chios he promises to carιy the praise of the Deliangirlsto the whole inhabited wodd; he is blind (and therefore in all probability professional);he knows of other travelling singers; and he is confident that his poems will be transrnitted coπectly and considered best of all, also in the 56

future. With these characteήstics he is ήghtly taken to be one of the "Sons of Homer". Τ. W. Allen collected the information about them in his chapter οπ The Homeridae (80). They lived οπ Chios; they were, at least in principle, a biological family; they functioned as a guίld. Not much is known of what kind of songs they had in their repertoire; but R. Sealey points out that the Homeήds of Pίndar's second Nemean ode did not sing the Riιιd or the Odyssey, as neither of these poems begins with an invocation to Zeus (81 ). Pίndar seems to presume that it is a well-known phenomenon that the normal practice of the Homerids was to open their performances in this way, so even if the passage is bήef it is valuable evidence that Homeήc epic meant much more than the Riad and the Odyssey at the beginning of the fifth century B.C. Thus, of the conditions for a tradition of large-scale epic, those relating to many singers, a wide repertoire, and professionalism are fulfιlled.

This impression is confirmed by a consideration of early hexameter poetry other than the Riιιd and the Odyssey. The poems concemed are those of Hesiod, most of the Homeήc hymns, fragments of the Epic Cycle, and other fragments such as oracles, or the verses occurήng οπ vases, scratched οπ them or being part of the decoration. However, the precise relations between these and the Riιιd and the Odyssey are unknown, and therefore they are interpreted as orally composed or not, according to the general views of the scholar in question. Thus, G.P. Edwards' demonstration that οπ the basis of formulaic diction, the case for the orality of the Hesίodic poems is similar to that of the Riad and the Odyssey (82), means that those who consider the latter to be orally composed will hold the same opinion of Hesίod; others study the inteπelations of these works ίπ terms of literary influences, boπowings or quotations. E.g.: Οπ the Duris-vase, which is decorated with teaching scenes, one person is holding a book in which a hexameter is readable. The verse is grammatically faulty, but is clearly meant to be the first verse of a Troy-song. Απ interpretation may emphasize the fact that the epic in question is neither the Riιιd nor the Odyssey, and hence a suggestion of an oral tradition lost to us, or it may dwell οπ the fact that the verse is wήtten and being read 57

from a book (83). 1n a seήes of studies Notopoulos argued for an 'Όral atlas" of Greece, with an unbroken tradition from Mycenaean times to the begίnning of the fifth century B.C., distήbuted all over the Greek-speaking wodd but with two discemible branches, one on the mainland, and another in lonia. His theoήes have been further developed and confiπned by C. Ο. Pavese (84). And even if the transmitted poems are inteιpreted as being composed in writing, nobody will contend that they are not to some degree based on an oral tradition. 1n this way they may be read as indications of a very broad oral tradition, coveήng a wide vaήety of subjects. Pedιaps the most important argument for the all-pervasivenessof the tradition is to be found in some observations of poems or passages of poems that are different on the surface, treating different subjects, . but follow the same pattem. Β. Peabody points out a whole seήes of connections between Riad 111-IV421 and ν. 9-212 of the Worksand Days of Hesiod: the two brothers; the similaήty of the names Paήs and Perses, Pandarus and Pandora; a challenge followed by a lady's appearance, leading to an enumerated catalogue of heroes; the depar• ture of Pήarn & Antenor, and of Aidos & Nemesis under similar conditions of rnistrust; the inconclusive result. Again, examples of a sίmilar type are found by Α. Aloni, where the parallels occur in the Cologneepode of Archilochus and five distinct passages of the Riad and the Odyssey (85). The summaήes of the Epic Cycle give us an idea of the length of the poems concemed, since they state how many books each of them consisted of; they vary from the two books of the Riu Persisand the Telegony to the eleven books of the Cypriιz. Of the songs of the Riιzd and the Odyssey, the shortest is 331 lines and the longest 909, so 'a song' is an ill-defined unit of measurement; even if 'a book' is of a similar nature, we may conjecture that the shortest poems of the Cycle were at least about 600 lines long - a shorter poem would hardly be cut into two - whereas the maximum of the Cypriιz would be some 10,000 lines and the probable length 6,-7,000 lines. We may conclude, then, that they were considerably shorter than either the Riad or the Odyssey, but not so much shorter that they seem quite below comparison. Of their contents, at least one thing may safely be 58

said: that they represent the same tradition as that of Homer. They treat the same myths and contain many of the same themes as in the Iliιzd and the Odyssey. The verse-fragments betray similar diction. So whether they were oral poems or not. they share their prehistory with the Iliιzd and the Odyssey. The hymns present an interesting mateήal from this point of view. First, because of the above-mentioned passage of the hymn to Apollo. Next, because they are transmitted to us as works of Homer, which suggests that they were felt to belong to the sarne genre as heroic epic. The normal theory conceming them, that they were used by rhapsodes as introductions to the recital of heroic poems, implies that they were sung/recited by the same persons to the same audiences at the same occasions as epic. Finally, because the very length of some of them suggests that the scale of Greek epic generally was great. You cannot introduce yοω performance by, say, the hymn to Apollo and then proceed to give some 500-line epic. Parry writes in his field notes that when listening to an oral performance one very soon gets an idea of how long the poem is going to be; the fώness of the opening themes will reveal whether the poet feels in a hurry or not. More surprising, perhaps, is Parry's idea that there is a direct proportion between the length of a song and the place that pathos has in it. He does not develop this idea any further in his published notes, but if correct, it confιrms the impression that if the greater Homeric hymns functioned as introductions to epic performances, the latter must have been of considerable length and beauty (86). The best known occasions for epic performances are religious festivals with rhapsodic contests. They are known from earliest historical times well into the Roman period, and from all parts of the Greek world; the earliest attested are the festivals of Apollo in Delos. Athena in Athens. and Asclepius and Apollo in Epidaurus (87). Α singers' contest at the funeral of a local magnate in Chalcis is mentioned by Hesiod. while Herodotus has a story of how rhapsodic contests of Homeric epics were forbidden in Sicyon by Cleisthenes (6th century B.C.); he does not mention the precise occasion for performance. Presumably, unofficial recitations were normal too; they are fιrst attested by .Xenophon (5th-4th century B.C.), who has an Athenian 59

saying that rhapsodic recitations may be heard almost every day (88). These pieces of evidence testify to the importance attached to epic perfoπnances ίη archaic and early classical Greece. However, we know few details of the recitals, and there is nothing to tel1us how long they were. Even if a festival lasted some days, as the Great Panathenaea, we cannot tell precisely what part the rhapsodic contests played ίη them, or what were the cήteήa for winning them.

Length ofthe Πiadand the Odyssey So far I have given the necessary rather than sufficient causes for the length of the poems. We have a picture of archaic and early classical Greece with many singers, some of them professional, with a great vaήety of songs of considerable length, with a wide interest ίη the art, and with occasions where people gathered together from some distance to participate ίη a celebration. The antiquity of the Homeήc tradition is obvious from the style and content of the poems. Even so, the length remains a problem. If the Riad was perfoπned at a maximum speed, a ten hours' session, such as that mentioned by Biebuyck, would only suffice for about half of the poem. Had we more knowledge of the nature of the contests at the religious festivals, we might have been better able to solve this problem; recitals may have been arranged so as to continue as a sort of seήal for several days. Such a continued perfoπnance should ίη theory be possible wherever an audience stays together for some days, or meets regularly. 1n the ambience of Parry and Lord's fieldwoιk, such might perhaps have been expected when a singer was engaged for Ramadan (for the importance of the fast for the repertoire, see below p. 63). But the idea of a seήalized epic on this occasion has not, to my knowledge, been attested. Neither is such a practice known from Albania, where it might have been even more natural: the epic tradition of northem Albania belonged in a society where the small villages high in the mountains were often isolated by snow for months during winter; the men had nothing to do but feed their goats and sheep, and the long leisurely winter eveningswere spent listening to epic song. Households were large and each noπnally contained an epic singer. With the same audience evening after evening, the idea of a seήalized

60

song might seem poSSΙole, but it was not the case (89). Biebuyck does, however, mention such a practice in his Mήcan mateήal, though he is very brief about it; sίmilarly, a Turkish hDuιye may be continued for a sequence of fιfteen evenings (90); these examples mean that the possibility of such perfoπnances cannot be excluded ίπ ancient Greece. 0n the other hand, the lliιιd and the Odyuey as we know them show no clear signs of incisions except for the twenty-four songs of eaclι; and these do not lend themselves easίly to interpretations of the kind ίπ question. Another poSSΙ"ble explanation is that proposed by Lord, that the reason for the length shoώd be sought ίπ the circumstances of the process of dictation. 1 shall retum to this in chapter VI. The conclusion common to clιapters ΠΙ and IV is that there is nothing to exclude an oral composition of the lliιιd and the Odyssey.

61

ν

Poetics as an Argument for Orality The stylistic studies of Milinan Parιy and his followers remain, of course, the important argument for the oral composition. But it seems to me that yet another aspect should be added: the poetics of the Riad and the Odyssey, in so far as it is expressed at all, corresponds remaιkably well to the ideals of the infoπnants of Parιy and Lord.

PoeticsofSerbian oral epic singers Above (p. 19-22) 1 suggested the importance of the concept of

tnιth

for epic poetry in various parts of the wodd. 1n the present chapter, however, 1 shall limit myself to a comparison between the Riιιd and the Odyssey on one side and Parιy and Lord's material on the other, because their publication of interviews with singers still provides exceptional material of which the full possibilities have not yet been exploited. The material consists of conversations with five singers from Novi Pazar and with the "star singer", Avdo Mededovic from Bijelo Polje. lt is a gιeat advantage to be able to use the primary mateήal where the singers come through to us directly, not fιltered through scholarly interpretation. The interviewer puts many questions of poetics, asking the singers about their technique and about their own opinions of what makes a good song. Here I shall descήbe in some detail the general picture that emerges, and compare it to the clues to Homeήc poetics found in the Riad and the Odyssey. First, it is obvious that the singers are not used to thinking of their art in any theoretical fashion. The interviewer, Nikola Vujnovic, usually begins with some questions about the singer's age, family, way of life, etc.; he asks when and where he has been taught, and he gets clear answers. But when he asks about poetics, the singers are manifestly bewildered, and often he has to formulate his questions in different ways before he is understood. If he just asks what makes a good singer, 62

he obtains virtually no answer at all. For example, from the conversation with Sulejman Makic (91): "Ν: Tel1 me, what is a good singer? What does that mean? S: Capable ... Ν: 1n playing the gusle, you mean? S: Fh." This does not mean that they make no distinction between singers of varying quality. One of the six, Demail Zogic, is himself the owner of a coffee-house for which he hires another singer for Ramadan. He explains how he is careful to get hold of a better singer than the neighbouring inn-keepers by engagingthe best one first and paying him an advance. "That's so the guests will come in greater numbers to my coffee-house" (92). But when asked 'Ήοw do you judge whether a song is good or bad?" he answers "Good God, yo\1 know the song is bad since the other singer sings better" (93). And that is that - actually one has the feeling that he is losing patience with the interviewer for asking silly questions. Alija Fju~anin, however, knows what to answer. Here we have part of a discussion about another singer from whom he has leamed some of his songs: "Ν: Was he a good singer? Α: He was a good singer. His voice wasn't very good, but he knew his songs well." And a few lines further on, still about the same man: "Α: He was a good singer. He knew more songs than you would believe. Ν: Does he know them better than Ugljanin? Α: By Allah,he knows them better, and he would recite them more cleady ... " (94). Of these verdicts, that about clear recitation is peιhaps slightly ambiguous; it may refer to the voice, or it may mean telling a clear, comprehensible story. 1n either case it is a quality already mentioned by Fjuljamin. Three qualities, then, are specified by him, a good voice, a large repertoire, and an unerring knowledge of the songs. They come out in vaήous ways in the other interviews too. Α large repertoire is a manifest reason for pήde in oneself and jealousy in a colleague. Sulejman Fortic says (95): "The best thing is for us to know as many songs as we can." Α standard answer to the question of the number of songs known by a singer is something in the region of thirty; Lord explains this from the length of Ramadan, meaning that the singer is able to entertain an audience for every evening of the fast. Zogic says (96), 1 know twenty-five or maybe thirty songs, if I were to take them

63

one after the other, but if yου were to ask me which ones they were 1 wouldn't be able to tell yου without thinking a little and without singing them one at a tirne; 1 have to sing them one at a tirne. Βυt 1 know one heroic song that I can sing for five or six hours. Το Makic,the interviewer mentions that another singer, Salih Ugljanin, says that he knows about a hundred songs (97): S: He lies. He doesn't know real songs. Parts of songs perhaps, but not a whole song. Ν: What do yου mean by a real song? S: Well, it's like tms, to sing it all the way through at one time; he confuses them, yου know. He leaves things ουt, and he doesn't fιnish them. As for a hundred songs, a hundred good songs, he's lying. By God, he can't ... The very vehemence of the denial betrays the importance attached by Malάc to the idea of a singer knowing many songs. Α repertoire of a hundred woώd be stupendous, out of human reach. The voice is es.,ential, too; a 'good' voice means a beautiful voice, but also one that is distinct and comprehensible, and one that does not break down even in a long performance (98). Fjώjanin's statement, however, indicates that tms is not as important as a good knowledge of the songs. Zogicis of the same opinion (99): Ν: ... When a singer performs who doesn't have a fιne voice, but sings a good song ... which one is better? ... D: The one with the bad voice is better, because he sings the song exactly as it happened. 1 don't listen to the gusle nor to the voice, but I listen for him to tell the tale as it was. There are some men who shout and have a fme voice, but they do not know how to tell the stoήes of the songs exactly. They confuse things; they take parts of two or three songs, and they aren't able to tell the story exactly. Το know the story well means to repeat it as yου have heard it without malάng any mistakes. This ideal recurs repeatedly ίn the conversations. Parry had the interviewer put several questions con• ceming the expanding and abbreviating of songs, because this was one of his own main interests. As Parry's whole theory of the method of composition by formώas, themes, and the "adding style" was conditioned by the special circumstances of oral singing, where two performances are never exactly alike, and where each perf ormance is to 64

a certain degreea recomposίtion, he wished to hear the singers' own opinions on this aspect of their technique. Avdo Mededovic speaks of expanding as 'decorating', which is part of his pήde ίο being a master of long songs; he says that "when some other good sίnger takes fιve hours to sing a tale, 1 need ten" (100). Excepting this, they declare unanimously that abbreviating or expanding is no good. Bad singers may do ίt, but they would never do so themselves. Behind the following passage lies the expeήence of Parry that the sίnger does alter his songs, e.g., under the influence of his audience; if they are attentive the singer spins out his story longer than if people begin to talk or even to leave, in which case he hastens to the end. Sulejman Makic is being asked ifhe can shorten a song (101): S: 1 couldn't ... Ν: Α11 right. What do you mean you couldn't? let's suppose that you came here to our place at two o'clock in the afternoon, and now it's already about five o'clock. You'νe been singing ... and let's suppose that you had to go at four o'clock, but you had to sing this a11the way through. What would you do then? S: What do you mean sίng it a11the way through? Ν: For example, if you had had to go home an hour ago . . . and yet you had to sίng the whole song, what would you do? ... S: But I told you the whole story. Ν: Α11 right, yes. You had the time. But suppose you didn't have the time? S: Η I hadn't had the time, 1 would haνe sung as much of it as I could. If I didn't have the time, 1 would leave it there. Ν: You wouldn't shorten it? S. 1 wouldn't, by Allah, ... Ν: Do you know if there are singers, for example, who begin to sing one song and then put two songs together into one? S: There are such ... who don 't know the song correctly. The singer has difficulty ίο understanding the problem at all; he protests indignantly that he did recite his whole song to them, and he consίders changes to be symptoms that a singer does not know his song coπectly.

This view is νery clear, and it appears whenever the interviewer tήes to obtain information on the way in which songs change. The ideal is to sing coπectly, not only as you heard it, but as it happened (102): ... by ADah, 1 would sing it just as I heard it, whatever was worth wbiιe; what's the good to change or to add. Νο sir. Ν: Why isn't it

65

good? S. It just isn't good to sing about what didn't happen, but one should sing it exactly as it happened. Of course, the words "whatever was worth while" betray that his idea of exactness differs from ours. But the strong insistence on correctness oήginates in the interest in the tnιe stoιy; the song is considered pήmarily as a vehicle of information on events in the past. Even Avdo Mededovic, whose oήginality was so much admired by Parιy and Lord, is veιy proud of the following incident: he had learnt a song from a book, a boy having read it aloud to him (103): Then afterwards I sang it one night in a coffeeshop, and a Iieutenent was there in the shop, though I didn't know it. The from place was packed solid with people of aU kinds, a huge crowd aU crarnmed into one little cafe. When I fmished the song, the waiter brought me a cup of tea and a dime. 1 asked him: "Who ordered this?" He said: "The lieutenant over there wishes to honor you with the tea." And sure enough, there he was sitting up by the chimney. "And the dime is so you can buy tobacco." 1 said: "Give him my thanks." He called to me from where he sat: ''Old fellow, are you literate?" All this happened only the year before last. "Νο, I'm not." "So you don't read the newspapers?" "Νο." "Bravo! I'm here aUthe way from Lau:ί, and here's the songbook with this song in it. The way I read it, you haven't made a single mistake." Still another ability is admired by the singers, narnely that of leaming new songs, perhaps even after heaήng a song only once. Both Zogic and Makic mention this, and Salih Ugljanin pήdes himself on having l~amed ten new songs in one month (104). Both he, Sulejman Fortic, and Avdo Mededovic tell how they travelled around in order to learn songs (105), and Zogic says, when asked if it is possible to repeat a song heard only once (106), lt's possible ... 1 know from my own expeήence. When I was together with my brothers and had nothing to worιy about, 1would hear a singer sing a song to the gusle, and after an hour I would sing his whole song. 1 can't write. 1 would give eveιy word and not make a mistake on a single one. Ν: Have you seen anyone else who can do that? D: 1 have; one other. He was my uncle Sinan from Skrijelj. Makic, too, declares that he is able to do this. Their pήde in this ability

Lauz

66

to learn new songs is part of their general pήde in a good memory. Zogic boasts (107), "If I were to live for twenty years, 1 would sing the song which I sang for you here today just the same twenty years from now, word for word." Theory and practice How much does the scholar influence the object? Are the singers offeήng their real opinions, or are they saying what they expect the interviewer to require of them? For example, one has a feeling that the introductory remarks of Sulejman Makic (108) are to some degree conditioned by his having heard that these Ameήcans do not like songs from books. Parry says in his notes from Yugoslavia (109): "far transcending any desire to speak the truth is his (i.e. the singer's) desire to give the answer which will please the most and will place himself in the most favoωable light." 0n the other hand, at certain points where Vujnovic puts defιnitely leading questions, he does not get the answers he asks for. 1 think especially of the questions that seem based on Parry's expeήence of the phenomenon of composition by theme. Α singer tends to give each scene in a song the fonn he is accustomed to use (a messenger arήving will do so in much the same manner in all the songs a singer has in his repertoire), and characteristic mistakes occur when similar types of song influence each other. Lord descήbes it thus (110): 'Ίn a traditional poem, therefore, there is a pull in two directions: one is toward the song being sung and the other is toward the previous uses of the same theme." This observation probably lies behind the questions about combining songs. 1 have already quoted one instance above (p. 65). When Demail Zogic is asked, "When a singer ... wants to sing a song, and yet doesn't know a single one all the way through, but does know two half-way through, can he make one song out oftwo?", he answers (111): He can't ... Ν: Why can't he? D: He just can't. How can I do two things, one here and one there, at the same time, when I have already started one here? ... Let him sing one as far as he knows it, and then let him begin the other. Putting songs together isn't any good. Actually, what Parry admired in the oral singers with whom he

67

worked, their ability to recreate their songs during perfonnance, does not emerge at all from the interviews. AD the emphasis ίs οπ the true repetition, word for word and line for line, and only when hard pressed do the singers adrnit that they actually change things. AD the odds are against creativity, even if the scholars are for ίt. The singers are full of pήde and self-respect, but they do not claiιn any kind of oήginality, not even ίn details; on the contraιy, they categorically label any change as a mistake. It is important to notice how the singers agreeίn their verdicts; they seem to be voicing a common opinion rather than individual views. Το Vujnovic's leading question "Can you shorten a song?", Makic answers, "Απy singer who is no good can shorten it", and only after a seήes of questions of vaήous kinds conceming the technique of ornamenting does Zogic adrnit that it ίs popular with audiences (112). As a rule the singers know from whom they learnt any given song, and they never claim to have made the songs themselves. The ideal of oήginality is non-existent; it woώd clash with the dominant ideal of the tnιe stoιy. The six singers are unanimous ίn repudiating oήginali­ ty, and this seems to have been general ίn Parry and Lord's experience (113). The capability of knowing many songs, long songs, true stories, of learning them quickly and performing them cleady are the ideals of which the singers are conscious. It is obvious that these are all technical qualities, things that demand a well-trained memoιy and a good physique. These are admired precisely because they are difficώt. Το know enough songs to entertain an audience eveιy evening of Ramadan, to remember them well, not to make mistakes, and to recite them ίπ a clear voice, requires brains and concentration, and is ήghtly respected. lt is important to note that what the singers say is one thing and what they do is another. Singers do shorten and expand songs, and they do combine them ίn the ways implied by the technique of composition by theme. And this is not a matter of mistakes: on the contraιy, it is essential to their art. Again, some singers are better than others, also by the scholars' standards and not only ίn knowing more songs and making fewer mistakes; for example, Lord explains how

68

Avdo Mededovic distinguished himself from other sίngers by giving his characters a human touch and his stoήes a depth of feeling not found ίη the versions of other singers (114). The detail about the caιe Zogic showed when hiring a sίnger for Ramadan (aboνe p. 63) shows that even if he cannot explain why one sίnger ίs more fascinating than another, he ίs aware of the difference. lt ίs of economic importance to him to get hold of one who will keep the customers inside his coffeehouse by entertaining them and touching their emotions. Zogic deιcήbes (after a νery detailed and leading question) a get-together οη an autumn night (115): the women who are spinning leave their distaff and listen. There aιe some of the old women who cιy when the song ίs about a battle ... There aιe also songs about how Turkish children aιe captured and slaughtered, and some mothers sob and cιy because the song ίs sad ... 1 can also sίng a song which a woman couldn't stand listening to without crying, nor an old man. Even if they were ίη fine spirits, they would have to cry. And Salih Ugljanin says: "When I sang, by Allah, eveιybody would stop and listen ... " (116). There may seem to be a basic inconsistency between the sίngers' repeatedly expressed ideals of giving true, coπect information, and their more indirect aim of moving and entertaining. But this inconsistency ίs not felt by the sίngers and their audiences; they seem to think that what moνes them ίs the truth of the events related. If the sίngers achieve their wish to entertain, they do so by methods ofwhich they are not themselves conscious ( 117).

Descriptionsof singersin the Iliad and the Odyssey What kind of infoπnation do the Riad and the Odyssey give concerning the poetic ambitions of the poet, and how does this compare with the poetics of Paπy's singers from Novi Pazar? The Homeήc poet ίs not at a1lexplicit about his own goals. But ίη this he resembles Paπy's sίngers, and, as far as I know, oral poets everywhere: what ίs important ίs the song, and you do not build up much theory about it. Νο such thing exists as an oral poetics, dictated by some oral bard. But συr poet does say something. 1n the passages

69

where singersentertain an audience, we get descήptions of the qualities that are admired; and as to the poet's own aspirations,the invocations of the Musesgive valuableinfonnation. The descriptions of singers are discussedfor their infonnation about poetics and compared with the views of Parιy and Lord's infonnants ίπ an article by J.B. Hainsworth. He points out that Odysseus' praise of Demodocus, 8.489-90, is very close ίπ meaning to the Yugoslavian bards' ideal of singing "just as it happened" without contaminating things (118). Odysseus' short speech runs as follows: "Δημόδο,( ·, ltοχα δή σe βροτώv ααιitομ' άπάντωv · fι σέ -γe Μούσ'

Mw~e,

Διός πάϊς, fι σέ

-,·

'Απόλλων.

λi:ηv-γάρ κατά κόσμον 'Αχαιών οlτον άeweις,

490

δσσ' lρ~ τ· lπaJJόv τe καί δσσ· tμόγησαv Άχαιοl,,

ώς τέ ποv fι αύτός παρeώv fι ιiλλοv άκούσα.ς. άλλ •

d-yeδη μeτάβηθι καί

lπποv κόσμον dewoι,,

δοvρατέοv, τόv 'Επειός tπoiησev σw Άθήvrι,

495

δv ποτ· tς άκρόπολu, δόλοv

,rya-yeδίος

άvδρώv tμπλήσας

ttαλάπ~.

ot 1λιοv

'Οδυσσεύς,

ο1, ιcev δήμοι ταύτα κατά μοiραv καταλέtυς, αύτi.κ. • t-γώ πάσα, μυθήσομαι ά~ιθρώποισu, ώς (ι,ρα τοι πρόφρωv θeός ώπαιιe θέσπu, άοr.δήv."

'Demodokos, above all mortals beside I prize you. Surely the Muse,Zeus' daughter or else Apollo has taught you, for all too ήght followingthe tale you sing the Achaians' 490 venture, all they did and had done to them, all the suffeήngs of these Achaians,as if you had been there yourself or heard it from one who was. Come to another part of the story, singus the wooden horse, which Epeios made with Athene helping, the stratagem great Odysseusfilled once with men and brought it 495 to the upper city, and it was these men who sacked Πίοπ. If you can tell me the course of all these things as they happened, 1will speak of you before all mankind, and tell them how freely the goddessgaveyou the magicalgift of singing.' The verse following the two quoted by Hainsworth confinns his point, 1 think: Demodocus' song is so true that one woώd think he had been an eyewitness. This verdict expressed by one who was himself 70

there when it all happened must be the ultimate praise that an oral epic singer could dream of. The scene is strangely similar to the one quoted above p. 66 of Avdo Mededovic and the stranger with the book. Each singer entertains an audience that includes an expert, without the singer's knowledge of it. The bard performs in his usual way; his masterι comes out when it is revealed that he has been controlled by one who was in possession of an incontestable measure of the correctness of the song: the stranger's book and Odysseus' eyes. 1 should suggest that Mededovic's storι may be ahnost as fictitious as the scene in Scheria; both stories lend themselves to an interpretation that sees them as cases of wishful thinking on the part of the bards. The poet of the Odyssey is descήbing a singer of the heroic age when everything was more perfect than in his own days; probably he as much as Mededovic would want to see himself in the rόle of the bard in question. Both scenes are expressive of how dominant is the ideal of the true storι in the oral epic poet's understanding of the art. Odysseus proceeds to make a special request; he wants to hear about his own most famous Trojan deed. That he expects the singer to be able to sing a song suggested by the audience is expressive of the oral ideal of a great repertoire: Odysseus in asking and Demodocus in responding bear witness that they both share this important ideal with the Serbian singers. It is noteworthy that Odysseus does not ask the singer to improvise on a given theme; his comment on Demodocus' first song, that he might have been there hiιnself or heιud ίt from somebody else suggests that Odysseus expects hίιπ to recite an already existing song about the Trojan horse. Odysseus begins and ends his praise with the divine inspiration of Demodocus. 1n both cases there is an explanation of what kind of help the singer is given by the gods. That the Muse or Apollo himself must have taught Demodocus can be infeπed because (Ύάρ 489) he told the storι just as it happened; again, if he is able to give a true account of the events connected with the wooden horse, Odysseus will proclaim to everιbody that he is a divine singer. κατd μοίρα,, is here, 1 think, synonymous with κατd κόσμον and well translated by Lattimore "these things as they happened"; the verb καταλέ-yεw suggests an enumeration of facts ( 119). That these qualities are those which will justify Odysseus 71

in consideήng the art of Demodocus divine is said in the (φα ofv. 498. The siιnilaήty with Paπy's infoπnants is very close. There is another immediate similaήty between the reactions of the audiences descn"bed by Zogic and Makic and the reactions of the audiences in the Odyssey. Usteners who feel too involved with the subject of the song may cry or try to interrupt it, as is seen in Penelope's reaction in 1 and that of Odysseus in 8. But then they are listeners of a very special kind. The general effect of singing in the Riιιd and the Odyssey is described also by Hainsworth. He emphasizes the aim of the singers to entertain, drawing attention to the fact that the word τeρπew (entertain) is used ten times in the poems in connection with poetry, and that the power of poetry is expressed by θeλΎew (enchant) (120): lts effect on the hearer is narcotic: he sits entranced, in silence. l.ay this effect, at least in part, at the door of the perfoπnance rather than the poern. It was the bard's tluency, his music, his skill as a performer that gathered and kept his audience, just as in later days it was the histrionics of the rhapsode that produced the mass hypnotism, or hysteria, of which Ion in Plato's dialogue was so absurdly proud. 1n this way the comments of Homer on poetry, like the comments of Parry's Montenegήn informants, refer to immediate effects rather than deep purposes. Hainsworth may be right in his view that what entranced the hearers was the singer's skill as a performer. But it is interesting that the poet does not say so. As in the case of Parry's Serbian singers, the quality that is explicitly praised is the true story. The singers who more than anybody else are famous for the "narcotic effect" they produce in their hearers, even to a catastrophic degree, are the Sirenes. And how is the charm described with which they allure mortal sailors'? Circe says that they enchant their hearers by their clear voice (λryvρi, θέλΎοvσw άοι.δύ) (121) and uses the verb τeρπew, too, a few lines further on. These are the normal verbs used about normal singers. When Odysseus draws near to the Sirenes their enchantment is felt before he can actually hear them: the wind falls, the sea becomes calm, the waves cease. The voice of the Sirenes is beautiful and sweet as honey (κάλλιμιχ, μ.eλίγηρυς). They call him 72

by name and promise him that if he listens to them he will enjoy himself and come to know more (τερψάμ,eιιος νείται. ιω.l πλείοιια εlδώς). The promise ofknowledge is developed further in the following three verses(l22): 190

Ίδμ.εν "'fάρ τοι πάιιθ' δσ' wί ΤPolrι Εόρεl.π 'Αρ-γεϊι,ι Τρώές τε θεών Ιότητι μιj,yησιuι · Ιδμε,, δ' δσσα 'Ymrrαι έπί χθσ,,ί πουλι,fJοτε(ρπ."

For we know everything that the Argivesand Trojans 190 did and suffered in wide Troy through the gods' despite. Over all the generous earth we know everything that happens." Notice that the content of their song is the common epic Troy-material; the Sirenes are divine counterparts of Demodocus and Phemius, but their knowledge is supreme, they know both Troy stoήes and whatever else happens in the whole wodd. Notice, too, the stressed double ϊδμε,, (we know). Ιt seems that the poet of the Odyssey, just like Pany's informants, thinks that what woιks the effect with the audience is the knowledge ofthe singer, the truth of the song. Odysseus himself comes very close to playing the rόle of a singer when he tells of his adventures at the court of Alcinous. The whole scene is the same as when singers are entertaining people are gathered together, they feast and listen to a Troy story. Alcinous actually compares him to a singer saying (123), "expertly, as a singer woώd do, yου have told the story" - the verb used is again κ.αταλe-yεw: yου enumerated your adventures, made a catalogue of them, and yου did it in a capable, knowledgeable fashion, lπwταμ.wως. This resembles Odysseus' own praise of Demodocus, and the Serbian bards' respect for the singer who knows his songs well and makes no mistakes. At this point in his story Odysseus has made a pause; the audience are silent, holding their breath; the queen exhorts everybody to give him gifts. Odysseus says (124), "there is a time for many words, and a time for sleeping; but if yου insist on hearing me still, 1 woώd not begrudge yου the tale ... " Just as a singer who is certain of success might make an artificial pause, saying, "We had better stop here and go to bed". Ιt is worth noticing, also, at which point in his story he chooses to pause: after the catalogue of women whom he saw in Hades. Α catalogue with its compact mass of fact is the most admired part of

73

a singer's repertoire, the part that is most demanding of memory and control of the mateήal. lt is a tour de force, and the audience react to it as such. The veιy idea of letting Odysseus be his own singer deήves, 1 think, from the standpoint of oral poetics. If the real thing, the true story, is what you are after, it is elegant to let the main character tel1 his own stoιy. Of course, both poet and audience know that this is fiction, but it gives the feeling of an eyewitness-account, and it is impressive how carefully the fiction is maintained. There are no Olympic scenes in Odysseus' tale, and at the only point where he tells something of the gods' decisίons, he conjures up Calypso as his (not too likely) source: Hennes told Calypso who told me, and that is how I know (125).

lnformationon the poet 'sown ambitions The passage where the Homeήc poet comes closest to expressing something about his ambitions as a poet is also the one most openly concemed with oral singing, not written poetιy. The invocation that opens the Catalogue of Ships runs as follows (126): 'Έσπετε νw μ,οι, Μούσαι 'Ολύμπια δώματ' lχοvσαι

485

-

ύμεϊς-yάρ θεαi tστε, πάρεστέ τε, wτέ τε πάvτα, ήμείι; δέ κ λέσι; οίοrι άκούομεrι ούδέ τι 'fδμεν

of.ταιει;

-

ή-yεμό,,ει; Διuιαών καί κοίραvοι ήσαν

πληθι)ι, δΌύκ

·

cw~ώ μυθήσομ.αι οiιδ' δνομήνω,

ούδ' εlμ,οιδέκαμέν-yλώσσαι, δέκα δέ στόματ' ε'Ιerι,

490

φωvή δ' apPfl"τoι;, χάλκεοrι δέ μ,οι {ιτορ tνείη,

ειμή 'Ολυμπιάδες Μοοσαι, Διός aι-yιόχοw θυ-yατέρει;,μvησα/ιJ8' δσοι ύπό 'Ίλwν ήλθον· άρχοvι; αύ ι,ηών tρέω νήάς τε προπάσαι;.

Tel1me now, you Muses who have your homes on Olympos. 485 For you, who are goddesses, are there, and you know all things, and we have heard only the rumour of it and know nothing. Who then of those were the chief men and the lords of the Danaans'l 1 could not tel1 over the multitude of them nor name them, not if I had ten tongues and ten mouths, not if I had 490 a voice never to be broken and a heart of bronze within me,

74

not unless the Muses of Olympia, daughters of Zeus of the aegis, remembered all those who came beneath Πion.

1 will tel1 the lords of the ships, and the ships numbers. 1n vv. 488-92 the emphasίs is on the perfonnance, the strength of voice, the physical capacities. The passage is not quite clear. The poet is stating that the aπny is too vast for him to mention every single participant, so he will enumerate only the leaders and the ships; but it is expressed as if he might actually give all the names if the Muses would but choose to tel1 him, reminding him of them. This slight inconsistency may be caused by the fusion of two ideas ίη the poet's head: that he is going to mention the leaders only, and his general professional pήde in being able to tel1 anything if the Muses will so allow. There is no doubt, though, that these lines follow the oral bard's line of thought. What is felt overwhelming here is not the aesthetic beauty of his song, nor even the complicated task of mastering the huge mateήal, but the sheer physical demands that such a long enumeration would make on the organs of speech: he would need ten tongues, ten mouths, an unbreakable voice, and lungs of bronze. The meaning of vv. 491-92 may pedιaps be that only the Muses themselves possess this physical capacity: elsewhere he says of the details of a heated battle, "It were too much toil for me, as if I were a god, to tel1 all this" (127) - the physical capacity of even the best of mortal singers is limited. While the second half of the invocation is concemed with performance, the beginning discusses the mateήal, the facts of the catalogue. The poet explains his reason for invoking the Muses: 'Ύου are goddesses, omnipresent and omniscient, whereas we just hear the fame and know nothing". The Muses enable the singers (1 think the group refeπed to by 'we' are the singers, not all mortals) to tel1 of things that they would otherwise be unable to know of and relate. The Muses are ίη a way the eyewitnesses of the singers: if they are able to relate truthfully events that they have not themselves witnessed, ίt is because of these divine helpers. They were there when it all happened. Muses, who first and foremost have the function of supplying the poet with mateήal, have the very qualities that oral poets would like to find in their goddesses. 75

Μ.

Detienne underlines the connection between Muses and memory by pointing to the etymology of the word for 'tnιth', άλήθecα: ίt ίs the opposite of λήθη (forgetfulness) (128). This conception of the Muses as the fumishers of material, the guarantors of the tnιth of what ίs told, lies, 1 think, behind all the invocations in the Ruιd and the Odyssey (129). These may be seen as one of the themes in Homer. They follow a certain pattem that is varied according to the actual passage, and they tend to be used whenever certain circumstances

occur. The invocations have two main characteristics. First, the poet asks a direct question: "Singabout this or that," He does not vaguely invoke the Muses to give him inspiration or the like; the request concerns the actual story. The matter-of-factness of the question ίs underlined by the way in which he asks ίt: he says quite precisely where to begin, e.g., from where the wrath started. Often the question contains the word 'first' in some form: "Who was the first to be slain?" 'Ήοw was fire first put to the Achaean ships?" The lιμόθeν of the prologue of the Odyssey (130) ίs a variation of this: the Muse ίs not asked to start from the begίnning, but from somewhere in the middle of the story. The poet seems here to be following the same pattem as the singer Demodocus of whom he says (131): θeού δ.ρχerο, φαίΡe δ' άοcδ'ήν, bθeιι έλών ... (the singer began with the goddess, showed his song, taking ίt from where ... ). Secondly, the answer of the Muses ίs the immediately following poem, or, where medial invocations are concemed, the following passage. The obvious place for an invocation ίs at the beginnίng of the poem. Besides, there ίs at least a tendency to invoke the Muses at the beginning of catalogues. The Catalogue of Ships ίs introduced by the longest and most elaborate of Homer's invocations, and there ίs a second one towards the end, where the Muse ίs asked to say which hero and which horse were the best of those that went to Troy. W.W. Minton, who made invocations the object of a special study in two articles, includes in his mateήal the four "rhetoήcal questions" as nιdimentary invocations of a kind (132). 1 agree with Minton in consideήng these questions as put to the Muses, not to the audience; normally the poet does not use rhetorical questions. And the form of 76

the questions, which all contain the word 'fιrst', makes it more likely. Each of them is followed by a smallcatalogue. Hesiodίc poetics

1n his chapter about the ancient traditional book, Gilbert Muπay wrote as follows (133): And the Greek bards always owe, not only what we should call their inspiration, but their actual knowledge of facts to the Muses. The Muses 'are present and know all things'. They are, to Hesiod at least, 'the da11gt,.tersof Memoιy'. Hesiod professes, roughly speaking, to be able to sing about eveιything; but he always explains that he is dependent on the Muses for his knowledge. Other sources of knowledge are indeed recogn.ized.When giving the names of all the ιivers in the world, Hesiod stops at a certain point and says that for the names of the rest you had better consult the people who live on their banks, and they will be able to tell you (Theog. 370). But most often he consults the Muses (Theog. 1 ff., 105 ff., 966, 1022, Catalogues). So does Homer for such subjects as the Catalogue of the Greek army (cf. α 7, Β 486, 761, cf. Μ 176). One suspects that consultation was often carήed out by the bard retiήng to some lonely place, or maybe baπicading the door of his hut, bringing forth a precious roll, and laboήously spelling out the difficult lettermarks. 1 do not agree with Murray's main idea about the poet's book; but his emphasis of the importance of facts and of the kind of help the poet expects from the Muses is gospel truth to me. Muπay's ideas were ιidίculed by G. Μ. Calhoun, who cιiticized him for building on too limited a mateιial; but what Murray said is at least in the poems; Calhoun's poetical descήption of the inspiration provided by the Muses (134) is not. Murray talks of Hesiod and Homer in one breath here, and indeed they seem to be in absolute harmony regarding their relations to the Muses. The pasυge in the Erga to which Murray refers is quite explicit (135): δe~ω &ή τοι μ.έτρα πολυφλοlιιβοΙD θαλάσσης,

σδre τι. ιιαvτι.λlης σeσοφuιμ.eνος

wre τι. νηών.

όλλά ιcαί ώς ipiω Ζηιιdς νόοιι αl-γιόχοιο ·

Μούσιu -yάρ μ' M,oota,,ι ά/Jeσφαται f%woι, ά.e/δeuι.

1 will show you the measures of the much-thundeήng sea, 1 who am not one who has much knowledge of ships and sea voyages; But still I can tell you the thought, which is of aegis-beaήng Zeus, for the Muses have taught me to sing immortal poetry. Although the whole of Hesiod's own expeήence of seafaήng amounts to the short voyage from Aulis to Euboea, he speaks with full authority on this matter too; he utters the will of Zeus, because the Muses have taught him to sing divine song. The very fact that the Theogony, with its mass of catalogues, is introduced not only by an invocation but also by a long hymn to the Muses, is analogous to Homer's long invocation at the beginning of the Catalogue of Ships. The Erga, on the other hand, which is not a traditional story but a seήes of arguments in a personal affair of the poet (136), is duly begun by a question to the Muses: "Sing of Zeus", but when it comes to the actual poem nothing is asked of them. This particular poemis not theirs: "/ might tell Perses some truths" (137). It is true that Hesiod asks the Muses to give him ψeρόeσσα,,ι άιJιΙ,ήν (lovely song), but he is much more detailed in his demand for facts. 1n the famous passage where he descήbes his meeting with the Muses he says nothing of the beauty, the aesthetic qualities, of the song they taught him (138): wemιeυσa,,ι δέ μοι αι)δήι,ι

θέσπuι, fνα κλeiοιμι. τά τ' ισσόμeιια πρό τ' awτa,

... they breathed a voice into me, and power to sing the story of things of the future, and things past. The connection θέσπuι, bια (divine, in order that) underlines that the divinity of the voice lies in its content of things normally unknown to mortals. The words of the Muses have often been interpreted as a hidden polemic between Hesiod and Homer, Hesiod degrading the Homeήc epics to ψeύδeα (lies) (139). But this is to read into the words 78

what is not there. The Muses say (140): "ποιμένες δ:yρα»λοι, κάκ' iλe-yχεα, -yαστeρες οl.ον, Υδμ.εν ψεύδεα πολλά λέ-yεw tτύμ.οισw όμ.οία, Υδμ.εν δ', εύτ' tθeλωμ.εν, άλ:ηθέα γηρύσασθαι." 'Ύou

shepherds of the wildemess, poor fools, nothing but bellies, we know how to say many false things that seem like true sayings, but we know also how to speak the truth when we wish to." The whole gist of the passage is the transformation of Hesiod from a common shepherd into an inspired poet, the contrast between Hesiod before and Hesiod after the meeting with the. Muses, not between Hesiod and other poets. The Muses say nothing of their gift being a special, ind.ividual one, as compared to their gifts to other poets. The whole idea of a distinction between d.idactic, "true", poetry οπ one side and epic οπ the other has little support in the texts. The effect of both forms of singing is descήbed with the verbs τέρπεw, θέλ-yεu, (entertain, enchant), and Hesiod speaks in one breath of "the singer, the servant of the Muses singing the gloήes of ancient men, and the blessed gods who have their homes οπ Olympus" (141).

Conclusion G. Jachrnann thought the catalogue to be the poorest, latest part of Homer (142). 0n the contrary, to an aural audience it would be the most impressive part, demonstrating the supreme technique of the singer, and giving information of the highest importance. Until the time of Herodotus and his contemporaήes, this was the only kind of Greek history in existence; the dispute regardingthe Athenian entry in the Catalogue of Ships (cf. below p. 136-40) testifies to its political importance. The ancient listener to epic perfoπnances might wonder how the poet was able to sing of things of which he could have πο first-hand knowledge; the explanation would be, then, that he obtained his information from the Muses. Tuming with this in mind to the catalogue of women in 11, it seems quite fitting that this has πο invocation. Odysseus is not in the position of the ordinary singer; he is not enumerating what he has heard from others, but what he has seen himself, and thus needs πο special divine help for his catalogue. The lack of an invocation is part of the logic of Odysseus' naπative in the sarne sense

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as it is logical that he does not mention the plans of the gods. Ίhe ideas of the Muses expressed in the Riιιd and the Odyssey are quite consistently concentrated on their help in the technical matters of composίng; most important is their function as eyewitnesses, furnishers of facts. Ίhey stand for the same qualities as those that are admired in the sίngers he tells of in his poems, and the ambitions of both Homer and the singers represented by him are the same as those of Parry's oral epic sίngers: true stoήes and a physique equal to the demands of performance is the ideal. Homer· does not for his own part express in words the ambition for a laιge repertoire; but the veιy length of the Riιιd and the Odyssey is expreσive of it. Nowhere is there any mention of the quality that the modem cήtic looks for, the oήginal genius ofthe poet. This does not necessarily mean that he was neither oήginal nor a genius. But I think it means that if he was either of these things, it was unintentional and without his own knowledge of it, just as the Serbian singers cannot explain why one is better than another. Had the poet of the Riιιd and the Odyssey been interviewed by Socrates, he might have made as much a fool of himself as the poor lon.

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VI The Iliad and the Odyssey as Oral Dictated Texts Because language, diction, and cornposition by therne in the RiιJd and the Odyssey are of the kind known frorn oral poetry, because their poetics is that of an oral epic, and because neither their length nor their excellence is a cogent opposing argurnent, the theory of oral cornposition rnust be accepted as the sirnplest to explain the facts. On the other hand, as the poerns exist till this day as written texts, it is necessary to consider how they can have been recorded in wήting. Again, the sirnplest answer to this question is the theory put forward by Lord of an oral poet dictating to a scήbe.

Lord's three degreesof oral composition Lord speaks of three "degrees" of oral cornposition: the actual perfoπnance, the oral dictated text, and the oral autograph text. The actual performance is the noπnal forrn of an oral poern; each perforrnance is to a certain degree unique, and its existence fmishes at the end of perfoπnance. 1n rnodem tirnes, however, technical apparatus has rnade it possible to record a perforrnance and thus to "photograph" one fοππ of the Protean oral poern. The oral dictated text is produced when a singer and a scήbe take down a poern in wήting. Parry and Lord's expeήence of this fοππ of recording was that rnost often the dictated poern coώd not cornpare with the perforrned one. The slow process of wήting rnade the singer lose his nerve, he confused the story, rnade undιythrnical verses, dropped into storytelling in prose, tended to shorten the poern. Much depended on the scήbe: Α well-trained and intelligent scήbe, like Nikola Vujnovic, Parry's assistant, seeks norrnal verses, trying at the sarne tirne not to suggest thern to the singer. He sirnply indicates that what has been said is not ήght, sornetirnes goes back several lines and reads thern to the singer to give hirn the continued rhythrn, or even puts the rnusical 81

instrument iπ his hands and asks him to smg the verses. By this laboήous and patience-trying process regular lines can be obtained from even the most confused of singers. 0n the other hand, iπ a few cases they found exactly the opposite reaction: a singer felt inspired by the process, and the possibillty of extending the song as it was not limited by the timing of a noπnal performance could lead to poems of extraordinary length. They found no examples, though, of a singer using the opportunity to coπect his song by having it read aloud to him so that he could refine passages. Lord explains this from a psychological/cultural viewpoint: a singer's habit of thinking is forwards, never back and then forth; the process of dictating is not suffιcient to suggest the idea of coπections to the dictating bard, since this would really be a radical change of poetics for which a cultural change is a necessary condition. The oralautograph text is made by a si.nger who knows how to write but still composes his songs iπ an oral, traditional way. He can, so to speak, be his own scήbe. But the situation is not noπnal, and the texts thus produced were, iπ Lord's expeήence, seldom very good. Lord, who takes it for proved that Homer is an oral poet, is convinced that the Riιzd and the Odyssey are oral dictated texts. When Lesky calls this "eine Zwischenlδsung", ίt is not correct. Lord is very dogmatic about Homer not having used wήting as a means to refine his poems, as an aid to the very process of composing. The theory of an oral poet dictating to a scήbe is accepted as the simplest possible solution to the paradox of oral style versuswritten text (143).

The processof dictation If the Riιzd and the Odyssey are likely to have come into being as oral dictated texts, the Homeήc scholar would be interested ίο a broad and careful study of the interaction between singer and scήbe, iπ which ways they influence each other, and how far each is responsible for the fιnal product, the wήtten text. There is little to supplement the studies of Parry and Lord on this point. 1 have some personal expeήence from Albania. In February 1974, together with Gjovalin Shkurtaj, a dialectologist of the Institute of Language and Literature iπ Tirana, 1 listened to an epic singer, Mirash

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Ndou, ίπ Shkodra. He was old enough still to be illiterate. 1n the question of stability or flux his texts clearly confiπn Lord's expeήence. Since I foresaw the trouble I would have ίπ understanding his texts, particularly when sung, 1 asked him at an early stage to go through each recording with me afterwards and help me ίη wήting them out. He answered, "But I can more easily dictate their texts to you". Thus he both sang and dictated some twenty songs to us; and there is considerable difference between the two versions, notwithstanding his own feeling of providing the same texts. His dictated versions are almost always longer than the sung ones, and, at a first sight, this does not harmonize with Parry and Lord's experience. However, there is an obvious explanation: it was many years since he had had a "noπnal" audience; when I asked him to whom he usually sang, he mentioned pre-war occasions of weddings, etc., and he said that he had often entertained his partisan comrades duήng the war when they were idle ίπ between campaigns. 1 received the impression that it was at least twenty years since he had perfoπned for others than folkloήsts. The manner of collecting of the Albanian scholars is to record only the instrumental prelude, the beginning, and the end of epic songs; the stoιy as such is taken down from dictation (cf. above p. 13). The reason for this is that the melody is monotonous except at the beginning and the end. This meant that a singer such as Ndou was by then much more used to dictating than to perfoπning. 1 can give ηο detailed analysis of the singer's repertoire as yet, but a preliminary study of the differences between his sung and his dictated texts shows a strange divergence ίπ teπns of metre. The metre of Albanian epic is noπnally descήbed as syllable-counting; ίπ pήnciple, a verse consists of eight syllables, but vaήations are considerable (144). What is interesting is that ίη Ndou's dictated versions the metre is cleady accent-counting, each verse carrying four accents. Ιη a dictated text of 51 verses, ίπ all, there is a vaήation of from seven to eleven syllables; 25 verses have the "coπect" number of eight. Regarding the accentual system, 48 verses have the regular four, 2 have five, ίπ 1 verse 1 am not sure if there are four or five. The remaining 2 cases of five accents ίη a verse are both atypical ίπ the sense that Ndou made a small mis~:ιke and stopped short to correct himself ίη the middle of the verse. 83

The ''long" verses of ten to eleven syllables have a regular enough sound. This leaves us with a very clear and regular accent-pattem; in the sung versions this is not to be heard, not clearly at least. When singing, Ndou broke off if he was getting tired or if his voice was troubling him; but he never changed anything. When dictating, he corrected himself every now and then, always in matters of detail; he wanted to have a line eliminated, or he changed a word. He might ask to have some newly written verse read aloud to him if he had a feeling of having made a mistake. He never asked to have the fmal product ιead aloud to him, but he often wanted to be told the total sum of verses of a written song, in particώar if it seemed to be long. He always seemed proud of the length of his songs. He did ask once to hear himself sing from the tape-ιecorder, but was very disappointed with the sound of his voice. 1 shoώd have come while he was still young, he complained. He did not comment on the contents of the song. Ndou lived in a society that was for the fιrst four decades of his life illiterate except for a very limited aristocracy; by 1974 it had become literate except for the old people. He was surrounded by books, newspapers, peήodicals, etc., and he had often dictated to folklorists. At a certain point he had been invited to spend a month at the folklore institute in Tirana to dictate aU his texts. Some of his songs have appeaιed in pήnt (145). But it seems never to have occurred to him that the process of dictation offered him means of composing in a novel way, or of reaching a reading public. He asked me if the tapes woώd be broadcast by the Danish radio service (Radio Tirana plays a considerable amount of folk music). This may suggest that, although he had become moιe used to dictating, he still felt singing to be the ιeal thing; but his question may have just been based on his astonishment that I taped everything. As far as I can judge, Lord is justified in his view that singing or dictating to collectors is for the singer in pήnciple a performance, even if diffeήng in some respects from "noπnal" perfoπnances. The scήbe (collector, etc.) takes the place of the audience; often, of course, more than one person is pιesent. 1nthe case I refer to here, we weιe regularly two, the dialectologist and 1, and we were often joined by persons employed at the hotel where the collecting work took place, or by the 84

head of the local museum. When the Mwindo Epic was dictated a large audience was present (cf. the quotation from Biebuyck above p. 37). Thus the influence of the scήbe on the singer should be considered in the same light as the influence of any other audience. The scήbe's interest, endurance, and knowledge stimulate the singer in the same way as do other audiences. Shkurtaj, who wrote down Ndou's texts on this occasion, was manifestly stimulating though not in the manner that Lord descήbes for Vujnovic; he did not exert himself to obtain regular lines, etc. However, this was not necessary since the singer was trained in dictating and knew well enough how to set about it; he bore no resemblance to the confused singer descήbed by Lord. But the "scήbe" no doubt influenced the songs in a general way; he was bom in the same part of the country as the old gentleman, had spoken his dialect as a child, and he was still able to do so. Moreover, he knew the epic tradition well. Such things are of great importance for the atrnosphere of the process, and obviously stimulate the singer to do his/her best. 1n addition, we must reckon with factors not necessarily present but which nevertheless contήbute to the importance the singer attaches to the event; in the case of Ndou, such a factor was that he knew that we had been sent to him by Professor Haxhihasani of Tirana, for whom he had immense affection and respect. As to the influence of the process as such on the singer, Lord descήbes the problems involved in the slowness and tedium of the wήting. It seems clear that the singer can get used to the process, either by recurήng dictations, as in the case of Ndou, or by dictating for longer peήods, as in the case of Mededovic and Rureke. But this does not, in pήnciple, mean that the process of dictation differs from other perfoπnances; recurήng dictations had trained Ndou in this kind of performing in the same way that recurήng perfoπnances of singing train the bard who lives in a milieu of sung perfoπnances. And, what is peιhaps more important for a classicist, the dictation does not seem to have any special place in the singer's consciousness. Ndou was, of course, proud of his honourable visit to Tirana; but there is nothing to indicate that he felt that on that occasion he had made specially important versions ofhis songs, much less that he would try to repeat these special versions afterwards. This would be con85

tradictory to his way of thinking, since to him a song did not exist in ever-changing νersions; it was the same song, to be repeated as such whenever some kind of audience was interested. The fate of the wήtten text after the dictation is definitely the responsibility of the scnoe; when the writing is fιnished, the singer is through with it; the scήbe nonnally not. Already during the process of dictation the care exerted by the scήbe is of evident importance; in this, there is mutual inspiration (or lack of it) between singer and scήbe; as the audience-function of the scήbe is decisive for the achievements of the singer, so the care with which the wήting is undertaken will not be unaffected by the sense the scήbe has of the qualities of the song. And if the process of dictation is laboήous for the singer, it is no less so for the scnbe; Vujnovic's subscήption to the written text of Mededovic's huge poem bears witness to this (146). The task may be more or less demanding, depending on the scήbe's familiaήty with the tradition, the existence of an established orthography for the language and/or the dialect, and the purpose ofthe written text. If the text is to be published, it will be standardised to some degree, depending on the function it is meant to fulfdl. For example, publishers of oral texts, so long as they are not influenced by Parry and Lord and their focus on the difference between versions, will regularly correct obvious mistakes, as when a singer gives a hero the wrong name, etc.; in older editions it was not unknown that the editor conflated several versions into one (147). 1n general, the process of dictation has not been studied carefully enough, and too little is known of the de.tails of it. Thus, the otherwise excellent edition of the Mwindo epic says very little of the "scήbe's" part: the text was "recorded in wήting (with tonal indication)" by Biebuyck and two others; the definite establishment of the text was done later by Biebuyck and K.C. Mateene (148). Νο information is given on the exact demands of the collector, nor how much the oήginal manuscήpt had to be worked over and in which respects. The process of dictation lasted twelve days; but the text does not indicate where each day's portion finished. On this point Lord is slightly more infonnative in his introduction to the edition of Meho, Son of Smιzil, where he states how many verses

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were dictated per day (149): 2,230 (ofwhich 770 ended another song) -731-2,483 -1,614-1,911 -1,919-1,9501,545 (of which 1,290 were the beginning of a new text). He does not indicate the incisions ίπ the text, and gives πο comments οπ why they are placed where they are; nor does he say whether singer or scήbe was fιrst to tire. But it must be a consequence of Lord's own theoήes to consider any wήtten oral poemas a co-production of singer and scnbe. What are the inferences of these considerations for our Homeήc theoιy? Conceming the part of the poet they are, fιrst, that the wήtten ΙΙiιιd and Odyssey will not have bothered him once the writing was done with; the process, however long and demanding, wί11 have been one of a seήes of perfoπnances, and there is πο reason to think that later perfoπnances of the "same" songs were intluenced by the dictation ίπ any way diffeήng from the intluence exerted by other, previous perfoπnances of the poems. The idea that the ancient oral poet felt the wήtten version to be a specially important thing, to be kept afterwards, seems to me to be culturally anachronistic, expressive of the literate person's overestimation of the importance ofwήting (150). Next, that the length and quality of the poems testify not only to the excellence of the tradition and the capacity of the poet, but also to his "audience" having been stimulating. Conceming the part of the scήbe, 1 think we should lay many of the more pedantic qualities at his door: the unifoπnity of orthography and, to a certain degree, that of metre, as well as the lack of manifest mistakes (151). That the texts were written with care is evident; this suggests, again, that the scήbe felt stimulated by the singer, and that he wasengaged ίπ a process he considered important. 1 am inclined, also, to interpret the arrangement of each poem into twenty-four songs as resulting from the process of dictation. It would be the scήbe's idea, not the singer's, that there are exactly twenty-four, each called after one of the letters of the Ionic alphabet. 1 follow Goold ίπ his οpίπίοπ that the Ionic alphabet was used for writing the Riad and the Odyssey right from the beginning, and that πο systematic transliteration ever took place. Notopoulos understood the songs as unities suitable for performance; 1 suggest connecting them with the circumstances of the special

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performance given for the scήbe, each song being the amount of verse dictated in one day. Α Serbian epic line consists of ten syllables; if we mak:e a compaήson with the thirteen to seventeen syllables of the Greek hexameter, the result is that the pair Mededevic-Vujnovicwere doing somewhat faster than the Homeήc poet and his scn'be, which is reasonable enough consideήng present-day literacy, wήting mateήals, etc. (152). Cήtics have often felt some of the incisions between songs to be arbitrary, separating unities that belong together; e. g. the aristeiιι of Diomedes that is related in songs V and VI. Others have emphasized instead the feeling of unity given by each song. 1 consider the division between songs to be analogous to that between verses. lf we analyze the feeling of unity, we find that it is clearly brought about by the way songs end. For example, the fιrst songs, both of the Riιιd and of the Odyssey, end when it is evening and participants of a feast disperse to go to bed. The second song of the Odyssey begins, as expected, next moming, whereas the second song of the Riιιd tak:es up the thread where the first song ended, continuing the thought that had seemed complete: at the end of I Zeus and Hera went to bed; at the beginning of 11 it tums out that while everybody else slept, Zeus stayed awak:e, pondeήng over the task Thetis had given him. Similarly, at the end of V the tales of Diomedes might have been complete; he has fought men and gods in a climactic sequence, ending where Ares goes to the Olympus to complain to Zeus. lf we had never read the beautiful scene between Diomedes and Glaucus in VI we should not have known that something was missing. Paπy descήbed "unpeήodic enjambement" as follows: "the verse ι:an end with a word group in such a way that the sentence, at the verse end, already gives a complete thought, although it goes on in the next verse, adding free ideas by new word groups." The different types of enjambement have been discussed recently by Peabody and given a new descήption; here, however, 1 stick to that given by Paπy, since exactly the analysis of enjambement as an expeήence in time, with the ideas proceeding in a linear fashion, is the important element of the present analogy. At a transition between verses characteήzed by unpeήodic enjambement the singer bήngs the thought to an end, and only at the

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beginmng of the next verse it tums out that the thought that had seemed complete is not so. The transition between songs is such that there is either no enjambement, as between 1 and 2 of the Odyssey, or a relationship analogous to the unpeήodic enjambement between verses. Consideήng this in connection with the process of dictation, 1 imaginethe singer every evening bήnging the story to a close; next moming he ask.s, "How far did we get yesterday?" The scήbe then reads aloud the last few lines, and the singer takes up the thread (153).

The transitionιιl text Α dominant part in Lord's theory is played by his conviction that no text is transitional. Peήods of transition from an oral to a literate culture do, of course, exist, and Lord descήbes this peήod for Slavic literature. But he is emphatic about any given text being either oral or literate; the oral and the wήtten technique are contradictory and mutually exclusive, and it is therefore inconceivable that a single individual in composing an epic shoώd combine the two (154). This is the part of Lord's theory that has been most cήticized; 1 have earlier mentioned Finnegan's objections (p. 22-26). Another one comes from a medievalist, Μ. Curschmann, who claims that far from being impossible, transitional texts exist in great numbers because most, if not all, of the traditional poems from medieval Europe that survive in manuscήpt fonn must be considered as such. His aιguments are based on poetry that shows a combination of formulaic technique with definitely wήtten characteήstics; in particώar he bases his discussion on the Old Saxon poem Heliand. Since it has been demonstrated that this poem is composed in a careful system of numeήcal pattems, while an adherent of Lord's has analyzed it as a typical example of orally composed poetry, Curschmann concludes that we must, after all, accept the phenomenon of transitional texts (155). This objection is important, but unsatisfactory for elucidating Homeήc questions, since we know just as little of the actual process of composition and wήting of these works as we do of the Ruzdand the Odyssey. This particular part of Lord's theory has not, to my knowledge, been tested in detail on other living epic traditions. So long as Lord alone has studied it in connection with a tradition where the

89

processes of ιecording can be known precisely, his ιesults must be accepted. It seems to us so eνident that ίt should be possible for a poet living in a peήod of transition from oιality to wήting to make use of a combination of the two techniques. lt may appear some day that it was poσible after all, and then the case for ancient or medieval transitional texts must be ιeconsideιed. But I do not think that such proof can be provided in any other way than by field work with living oιal traditions. Arguments drawn from medieval or eadier material will necessarily ιemain hypothetical. Απ objection of a diffeιent type is put forward by Α. Parry in Hfllle We Homer's Riιld? Heιe he rejects the relevance for Homer of Lord's experience that the oral poet's powen are destroyed by the art of wήting. His point is that one of the aspects that are not comparable in Serbian and Greek epic is the bnplication of wήting: in Serbia, literacy is expιessive of a dominant modem cultuιe; centuries' heritage of a cultuιe radically diffeιent from the oral tradition is bnplied; in Gιeece, the alphabet was not alιeady the vehicle of another culture on its introduction. Ίbeιefoιe Lord's experience of singen passing from an oιal to a wήtten mode of composition is not diιectly transferable. Lord deemed their products to be of little merit; but this need not necesw:ίly have applied to a Greek singer, learning how to wήte and utilizing this abilίty to the method of composition (156). Ίbis is an bnportant point since it is obviously true that the bnplications of the two kinds of literacy are very different. Nevertheless, on a close consideration, the argument ιeally confιπns Lord's thesis. If the sbnple art of leaming how to wήte does not carry with it any inspiration to become "bookish", because there does not already exist a wήtten poetry with its own history and a special poetics, then the ιesults of an ancient Greek oral poet learning how to write must be that he/she produces oral autograph texts, not transitional ones. The poet makes use of the art of writing for ιecording the poems, but the method of composition is still oral. He/she is not wήting f or a ιeading public, vying with an alιeady existing book-trade; theιe is no incentive to take over the demands of oήginality, of search.ing for a new expιession, of formulating private, individual views. Ίbe poet's wήting hand is simply a tool for the oral mind. Ίbis is, in theory, a 90

phenomenon, but it will probably remain a theoιy becaιιιe this type of transitional society finds no parallel in the modem world. Oral autograph texts are attested frorn our own time, but they are unusual. It should be noted that the opposite phenomenon, an oral poet who knows the art of writing but does not υιe it for composing traditional poetιy, is weU-known both today and in earlier periods. literacy exists in vaιying forms. The singer who has read the newspaper eveιy day for years without it eνer occurring to him/her to write down songs, or even to υιe writing in some limited form as an aid to composition, is familiar enough in the Balkans today. Β. Tnenιp reports from fieldwork among Albanian singers in the district of Kossovo in Yugoslavia that some of the younger singers can write out their texts if α folklorist aιks them to (the italics are mine). Her main informant, the singer Tahir Drenica of the viUage of Glogovac, has had four years' elementaιy school. He reads, though not fluently, and he writes letters; but he does not υιe the technique in connection with his art (1S7). Α weU-descήbed example of an oral ballad-singer who might have written down her own ballads is Anna Brown, who supplied D. Buchan with most ofhis mateήal for 77ιe ΒαDιιd and the Folk. Not only did she know how to read and wήte, but she lived in a distinctly educated environment, being the daughter of a professor and marήed to a minister. Her life was spent in eighteenth centuιy Scotland; νersions of her traditional ballads weιe recorded on thιee diff erent occasions, at the request of somebody else and written down by somebody else. Eνen if she lived in literaιy suπoundings, knew of the possibfiities of writing and of the book-trade, and realized that a reading public would be interested in her ballads as she was asked to dictate them οπ more than one occasion, she did not heιself write them down (1S8). Much less would a person living in a predominantly oral culture, caπying οπ a tradition of large-scale epic where the writing of a single poem would be a huge task, demanding both patience and time, set out to write down the poems. Anna Brown might haνe done so, because she at least could haνe had a reason for it; but what could haνe suggested such an idea to the poet of the Rilld and the Odyssey? My conclusion is that the difference in the implications of literacy today and in early Greece supports the theoιy that the Homeήc poems possι"ble

91

are oιal dictated texts; the theoretical possibility that the poet was his own scήbe does exist, but it is unlikely. It is much more probable that the idea of having epics recorded in writing oήginated outside the tradition, from somebody who took an interest in the tradition without actually being part of it. 1n neither case can the product be classified as a transitional text. 11ιe initiιιtiνe for

the recordingin writing

lt is often claimed that the genius of Homer is in some way connected with understanding the possibilities of the art of writing. Some even speak of the "epoch-making (epic-making?)" idea of wήting one's poems, or claim that "what the poet needed (and what the Muse gave him) was ao alphabet". lt is thought that Homer, being a genius, ίmmediately saw what immense possι"bilities were offered by wήting, both for composίng in a new and more refined way, and for reaching a much wider public in his own age as well as in posteήty (159). This would be a truly remarkable achievement. Noπnally, such things take time. Let us make a compaήson with the introduction of pήnting: for decades, initials were still made laboήously by hand in each pήnted copy - the great pήnters of the Renaissance were intelligent men, but they by no means immediately understood the full implications of the pήnting press. And our own generation, expeήenc­ ing the change of media from writing to movies, tapes, and television, can hardly be said to fully understand its impact: we still write books and give lectures to limited audiences - pedιaps in a hundred years' time people wi11wonder why we showed such a lack of understanding of the possibilities and efficiency of the new media. And then neither pήnting nor television is so radical a change of culture in the way that literacy is. 1n an oιal culture individuals can have individual opinions, but they will always die with the individual. Only by means of writing can a cήtical view, a controversial opinion, survive its holder. Α static, oιal culture is not transfoπned into a literaιy one ovemight. The objection may be raised, when making a compaήson with our own time, that if we still make use of old-fashioned media it is not because we do not understand the possibilities of the new ones, but because we prefer writing, lectuήng, etc., for other reasons. It is worth

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stressing that the sarne attitude is normal arnong the members of an oral culture. (For a remarkable example of this, see below p. 98-99 .) Parry's informants, liνing side by side with people that knew how to write, did admire the art of writing but not for the advantages it actually proffers; they seemed to imaginethat a knowledge of writing would confirm the qualities they already acknowledged, notably that of memory. This does not mean that they imagined that they would be able to remember their songs more precisely, since there is nothing to indicate that they did not already feel capable of that; but that they might, for instance, be able to reproduce a new song immediately without rehearsing (160). There is πο psychological likelihood that oral poets assume that wήting gives them the chance of reaching posteήty, since they already feel assured that they are doing so; they are transmitting the tales and the wisdom of preceding generations ίο a truthful and reliable way to their contemporaήes, and through their apprentices also to posterity. Moreover, the idea that wήting would give them a possibility of refιning their poems through re-reading and coπecting, or even offer them a chance of being creative ίο an original way, would be even less likely to occur to them, because the ideals implied are not theirs at all. Ιπ modem times, if an oral poem is recorded ίο wήting it is οπ the initiative of a collector. The only exception that I have met with is a poem relating the prehistoιy of the Bieng tήbe in Zai're, wήtten by the chief ( or perhaps dictated to a native scήbe; the editor's remarks are not quite clear ίο this respect) ίο about 19S0 ίο order to persuade the European authoήties that the chief of the Bieng should precede the king of the Kuba (161). Even in this case, where an oral poem was written down without the intervention of a collector, perhaps even by the poet himself, there was an extemal reason for its wήting down; the purpose of it was to communicate with foreigners in their own medium. From these considerations it must be inferred that the initiative for recording the Riad and the Odyssey in wήting is much more likely to have come from outside the tradition than from anybody within it. lt is related that the Homeήc hymn to Apollo pleased the Delians so much that they had it wήtten οπ a whitened board (λεύκωμα) and

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dedicated to Artemis by being put up in her temple. This attitude completely fits the views put forward here: there is nothing to suggest that the reason for wήting the poem had anything to do with the process of composition, or with mistrust in the precision of oral transmission; the poem was wήtten down in order to mateήalise it so that it could be presented to the goddess in the same way as other gifts that were stored in the temple treasuήes, and the idea was not that of the poet himself (162). There is an economic side to the problem, too. Το have some 28,000 hexameters put into wήting must have been an expensive affair, hardly a job to be undertaken by a pήvate person. 1 fmd it difficult to determine the social status of Goold's Homer, laboήously chiselling out hexameters, deleting them again, and addingextra ones οη his "wall of unlimited length" (163); who paid for the wall? And what was its purpose? Papynιs is cheaper than leather (or parchment) and stone; but the poems are long and require a considerable amount of papyrus. L.H. Jeffery mentions that this mateήal was still expensive ίη the fifth century B.C., when the pήce of a sheet is known from an Attic inscήp­ tion to have been eight obols. Α minimum day's wage in fifth century Athens was two obols. Ε. Α. Havelock adduces arguments, mainly from literary sources, to the same effect (164). Moreover, the wήting, even if undertaken by a professional scήbe, would take up quite a lot of time. lt might be considered if a group of people such as the Homeήds in Chios had some kind of scήbal apparatus. Plato is sometimes referred to as a witness that the Homeήds were relatively well-to-do, since he lets lon say that he deserved to be honoured with a golden wreath by the Homeήds (165). 1 am not certain that this is meant literally at all; and even if it ίs, it would concem their economic status in the fourth century B.C.; we know nothing of their economy before this time. Consideήng the above aιgument, that the initiative for putting oral poetry into wήting is likely to have come from outside the tradition, the only natural solution to the problem of economy is to imagine a ήch patron who undertook to have the poems wήtten down. 1narchaic Greece such a person would be a tyrant; we are told that Peήander of Coήnth, Polycrates of Samos, and Hipparchus of Athens acted as patrons of poets. 94

Α. Paπy

quotes Κirk for the following viewpoint: the wήtten recording of the Homeήc poems ίη the late eighth century would haνe been an event of too great a magnitude not to have left a memory of its own. This is a main reason why he claims a peήod of oral transmission from the time of "monumental composition" about 700 B.C. down to the recording ίη wήting of the poems _(166).Paπy gives no real answer to this argument; but to me it seems an important point, and I should add that, for both cultural and mateήal reasons, it would still be a remarkable enterpήse ίη the seventh or sixth centuήes. The interesting fact is that at the court of Pisistratus ίη sixth-century Athens something that may be interpreted as the recording ίη wήting of the Riιld and the Odyssey did actually leaνe a memory of its own. Hence I subscήbe wholeheartedly to the statement that if ancient sources had not supplied us with the story of the Pisistratean recension, we should haνe had to invent it for ourselves(167).

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VII

The

Wήting

of the 1/iad and the Odyssey in Sixth-Century Athens

lf the tradition of the Pisistratean recension gives us exactly what we seek - a person from outside interested in the tradition and possessing the economic means to have a wήtten recording undertaken - the placing, however, of the wήting and the oral composition of the Riιzd and the Odyssey more than a century and a half later than what is normally agreed upon is audacious and calls for arguments from other sources (168). In the present chapter I shall argue,first, that what we know of alphabet, writing mateήals, and spread of literacy gives us a terminus post quem for the wήting c. 650 Β. C., thus making the generally accepted date impossible; next, that the oral theory has made a terminus ante quem very difficult to determine; and fιnally, that the character and history of the transmitted wήtten text points directly to Athens. 1 omit the question of intemal dating cήteήa for the simple reason that a late date suits them perfectly. The presence in the Riιzd and the Odyssey of elements that are reminiscent of the Mycenaean age is explainable in the same way as it is on the basis of the normal dating; while the presence of elements that seem to be younger than c. 700 Β. C. and therefore problematic to the normal dating becomes unproblematic.

1he terminus post quem Jeffery's studies of archaic Greek inscήptions give the following picture: alphabetic wήting is known perhaps from about the middle of the eighth century B.C. (earlier dates have been suggested, but her arguments are convincing). The inscήption on the Dipylon jug, found in the Kerameikos in Athens, is the oldest surviving, and the only one which can be dated with any confidence to earlier than the very last

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years of the eighth century B.C. Duήng the seventh century we still have relatively few and short inscήptions. The earliest of them run they may in pήnciple run from ήght to left, or even boustrophedon; in any direction, up or down, or sideways; but in the course of the century the writing habit changed so that after the year 600 the direction became standardized from left to ήght. Lists of pήests, officials, or victors at the games seem to have started in the first half of the eighth century; those who kept them are called "remembrancers": μvήμοvεc:, Ίιφομvήμ.ονεc:, άναμvήμ.ονεc:, αίοvμνήται, which suggests that the lists were kept orally; we do not know when they were first recorded in wήting. Shortly before 600 people began to write down laws. The very earliest fragments are from Dreros in Crete, dated to the second half of the seventh century B.C.; duήng the sixth century laws seem to begin to be wήtten down on a more comprehensive scale. There is a tradition that Solon had his laws written out publicly on wooden axones in the Athenian agora, and that Pittacus did a similar thing on Lesbos. From this peήod numerous fragments of laws survive, from Gortyn in Crete, from Chios, Argos, Eretria, Coήnth, Phleious, Κ.leonai, Tiryns, Thessaly (169). Before Solon, Draco is said to have published laws in Athens c. 620 B.C. Part of his laws is extant in an inscήption from 409/8; it is argued by R. S. Stroud that this republication does really repeat a wήtten law from the end of the seventh century ( 170). Jeffery connects the fιnal stabilizing of the direction of wήting from left to ήght with the process of wήting with ink on leather or papyrus. For a ήght-handed person, writing with ink, this is the most appropήate direction. Once people get used to wήting in orderly lines on a sheet of papyrus they transfer this habit to inscήptions. There this development can be followed through the sixth century, somewhat earlier in lonia than on the mainland; the fιrst examples of an almost cursive writing are seen in Ionia in the second quarter of the sixth century. Thus, inscήptional evidence shows that the practice of wήting with ink was well extablished in Ionia c. 575; how long it will have taken for it to influence inscήptional wήting habits it is difficult to tel1. lt is not known exactly when papyrus was first imported to Greece 97

in any quantity; Jeffeιy estimates that it was certainly available about the middle of the sixth centuιy, and perhaps up to a century earlier. She discusses leather as a possible early writing mateήal; a passage from Euήpides suggests that the earliest wήtten oracles in Delphi were kept on leather ( 171). If leather is to be used for writing it must be prepared in some way; there is nothing indicating the exact appearance of such an early writing mateήal. However, the veιy fact that had leather been· in general use it was superseded by papyrus anyway must mean, 1 think, that it was unable to compete with papyrus, whether it be in pήce or in usefulness. If Delphic oracles were fιrst wήtten on leather, this can have been because papyrus was not yet accessible, or it can have been the result of a choice, leather or parchment being more durable than papyrus; for this reason the archives of Pήene were kept on parchment in much later times (172). Leather as an early wήting mateήal will probably have been something rather crude that may have been adequate for oracles, as each was not noπnally more than a few lines long. Among the wήting mateήals accessible in archaic Greece, 1 cannot understand how anything but papyrus can be seήously considered as the mateήal on which were written the almost 28,000 lines - four volumes of pήnted Oxford text - of the Riad and the Odyssey. These considerations point to c. 650 as the veιy earliest date when a wήtten recording of epic seems possible; but this does not mean that the poems were actually written at that date. 1n the previous chapter 1 emphasized that oral, epic singers are completely satisfied with their tradition, both conceming aesthetic content and precise transmission. Όιis holds good for the whole of society in a peήod still predominantly preliterate; to imagine the Greeks of the early seventh centuιy B.C. eagerly searching for alphabet and writing mateήals so as to be able to record their epic tradition in writing, and immediately embracing the pqssibility the moment it appeared, is absurd. Απ instructive example of the confidence that members of illiterate societies have in oral transmission is given by J. Goody and 1.Watt (173): Early Bήtish administrators among the Tiv of Nigeήa were aware of the great importance attached to these genealogies, which were 98

continually discussed in court cases where the ήghts and duties of one man towards another were in dispute. Consequently they took the trouble to wήte down the long lists of names and preserve them for posteήty, so that future administrators might refer to them in giving judgement. Forty years later, when the Bohannans carried out anthropological field work in the area, their sυccessors were still using the same genealogies. However, these wήtten pedigrees now gave ήse to many disagreements; the Tiv maintained that they were incorrect, while the officials regarded them as statements of fact, as records of what had actually happened, and could not agree that the unlettered inαιgenes could be better informed about the past than their own literate predecessors. What neither party realized was that in any society of this kind changes take place which require a constant readjustment in the genealogies if they are to continue to cany out their function as mnemonics of social relationships. Again, concluding the chapter, they say (174): The Tiv have their genealogies, others their sacred tales about the oήgin of the wodd and the way in which man acquired his culture. But al1 their conceptualizations of the past cannot help being govemed by the concems of the present, merely because there is no body of chronologically ordered statements to which reference can be made. The Tiv do not recogιuze any contradiction between what they say now and what they said fifty years ago, since no enduήng records exist for them to set beside their present views. Myth and histoιy meιge into one: the elements in the cultural heήtage which cease to have a contemporaιy relevance tend to be soon foιgotten or transformed; and as the individuals of each generation acquire their vocabulaιy, their genealogies, and their myths, they are unaware that vaήous words, proper names and stories have dropped out, or that others have changed their meanings or been replaced. Such "structural amnesia" works at the level of the unconscious and ensυres that the orally ttansmitted documents of the past are felt to be true. 1n this example cήticism of the oral texts appeared al1 at once, brought about by the foreign, literate administration; in ancient Greece literacy was introduced and spread gradually inside the native population. How long would it take before parts of society were 99

sufficiently familiar with wήting for the stnιctural amnesia to be broken? 1 think we have evidence that points to the sixth century B.C. for the advent of this kind of cήticism. The most precise parallel is the dispute over the Athenian entry in the Catalogue of Ships; the catalogue is a document of the same type as the genealogies of the Tiv and seems to have had a similar function in society. 1 shall retum to this question in detail below p. 137-40. But there aιe also signs of a more general cήticism of the reliability of oral transmission, and it is still the sixth century B.C. that displays them. There is a gnomic poet Phocylides, of whom little is known; he is noπnally dated to the sixth century B.C. His bήef poems, consisting of 2-3 hexameters, aιe regularly introduced by his own name: κα.l τόδe Φωκvλιδοv (this, too, is by Phocylides). Demodocus of Leros, of whom even less is known, but who is considered to belong to the sixth century, too, does the same thing, saying: κα.ί τάδε ΔfUlοδόκ.οv. Α very similar procedure is recorded for Pisistratus' son Hipparehus; Plato gives a sketch of his cultural policy, which consisted of arranging for Homeήc recitals at the Panathenaea, of inviting poets to live in Athens, and - in order that those who lived in the countryside should benefit too - erecting herms inscήbed with wise counsel; each began like this: μvήμ.α τόδ" 'Ιππάρχου (this is a memory of Hipparchus). μvήμ.α may imply both that this is what Hipparchus remembers and therefore transmits, and that this is to be remembered as a piece ofHipparchus' personal wisdom. What then follows is really rather commonplace: 'Ήave ήghteous thoughts", "Do not deceive a fήend". Even if the way of thinking is traditional, these poets feel a propήetary ήght and claim fame for their thoughts. The passage of the Platonic dialogue leaves no doubt that, besides wishing to educate his fellow citizens, Hipparchus expected to be admired for his wisdom, even to compete with the Delphic maxims; and it says also that he wrote what he considered most wise, both of what he had leamed and of what he had invented himself (175). The oral poet does not normally mention his/her name, since in an oral performance it is obvious to the audience who is singing. This habit is maintained in the "performance" consisting of dictation to a 100

scήbe.

The eagemess of Phocylides and Hipparchus to have their names included into their poetry suggests that they not only composed for publication in wήting, but that they also understood that there was a public both in their own lifetime and in posteήty, whom they would never meet face to face, but to whom their name and fame could be transmitted by means ofwήting. Theognis presents a special case. His famous σφ/Jfl"fίς (seal) is almost unanimously interpreted by modem scholars as having a metaphoήcal sense (176). Either the seal stands for his own name - in mentioning himself he puts a kind of seal on his poems - or for the name of Cymus, to whom the poems were addressed. Adherents of this theory accept only the poemsbeginning with an apostrophe to Cyrnus as being by Theognis. Απ obvious drawback to both these interpretations is the reason given by Theognis for using this seal: his aim was that nobody should be able to change the poems or steal something from them. But nothing woώd be easier than to steal all from the poems except the very lines mentioning the name of Theognis, or to put another name instead of that of Cymus. Η, on the contrary, we follow Τ. Birt and D. Young, and take the passage in a completely literal sense, meaning "1 put a seal on the papynιs roll", then the seal was effective (177). Copies coώd be made before the sealing was carήed out, or the poems coώd be handed on orally; but the sealed oήginal woώd still exist for posteήty - in a temple, for instance, like Heraclitus' book or Pheidon's coins - as a means of control: if any poem of Theognis shoώd peιhaps be distorted, it coώd always be demonstrated as false by a final consultation of the sealed book. This interpretation makes Theognis of special interest, because he provides the fιrst example of an explicit lack of confidence in the precision of oral transmission. He shows the kind of understanding of the possibilities of the wήtten text that is sometimes claimed for Homer, but which is possible only for a literate person. We must conclude that although c. 650 is a terminus post quem for the wήting of the Riad and the Odyssey, the likely date is much later. The terminus ante quem One of the consequences of the oral theory, with its demonstration of 101

the traditional style and its characteristics of foπnulaic and thematic composition, is that what used to be considered a teπnίnus ante quem for the Riιzd and the OdyΩe)I, the "quotations and allusions" in the early lyήc texts, can ηο longer be used as such (178). What looks like a quotation may be inteιpreted instead as an independent use of a common oral tradition; the whole question is analogousto that conceming the inteιpretation of recurήng phrases or scenes in the Riod and the Odyssey. The very plot of the Riad, the wrath of Achilles, lends itself to thematic inteιpretation. He is not the only hero in Greek tradition to withdraw from battle because of wrath with his compatήots; the theme is also known in connection with Aeneas and Meleager, while the narrative inconsistency connected with Paήs in VI suggests the theme as a frequent one. Moreover, Achilles' wrath is not necessaήly connected with the same sequence of events as in the Riad; the Memnonis as reconstructed by Schadewaldt includes the element of wrath, but connected with Memnon, after the killing of Antilochus. The same poem is thought to have included a scene between Thetis and Achilles, where she wams him of immediate death if he kills Memnon, and a scene where both Thetis and Eos beg Zeus to let their sons survive (179). (For my attitude to the neo-analysis, see above p. 30-36; a sequence of themes as that proposed in the reconstruction of the Memnonis is by all means possible.) Now, a short fragment of Alcaeus includes al1 the following essential elements of the Riad: a son calling for his mother who is a sea-nymph; the mother beseeching somebody, embracing his knees; the son's wrath. Οη the face of it such a fragment might be considered a defmite indication that our Riad is referred to (180): it should be noted, however, that it suits other poems about other wraths of Achilles as well; the summary of the cyclic epic Aethiopis suggests that this poem related in some detail a story of Achilles' anger with Thersites; a sequence where Achilles called for Thetis and she begged Zeus to do something about her son's rage would be acceptable enough in this context. Such a poem would not necessarily resemble our Riad. Even if the fragment of Alcaeus actually refers to the same wrath of Achilles as that treated in the Riad, there is nothing to tell us exactly how the story was told to Alcaeus; 1 refer once again 102

to Α. Parry and his discussion of what it is that makes the Riιzd a great poem (181). 1 conclude that all the fragment shows us is that Alcaeus is acquainted with exactly the seήes of scenes he mentions; they may come from a poem similar to our Riad or not; we just cannot tel1. We know that oral transmission is not exact in the way that wήtten transmission is. We know that some passages will tend to come closer to verbatim transmission than will others, and we know that the capacity for memorizing will differ from one singer to another. We do not know how fixed or tluid was the transmission of Greek epic. This means that even a detailed and precise reference to some given scene cannot say anything about the whole poem. Moreover, considerations of the nature both of early vase painting and of non-Homeήc poetry make it difficult to use these sources as dating cήteήa for the Riad and the Odyssey. Το take painting first: a painted scene is not necessaήly meant to be an illustration of a text, be it a prose story or a poem; and, οη the other hand, people may tell stoήes and recite poetry without their ever being transforrned into pictures. Homeήc epic is a product of Ionic culture; but scenes from the Trojan cycle appear later in Ionic vase painting than in that of the Peloponnese, presumably because of a conservative attitude οη the part of the painters, who stuck to decorative patterns longer than did their colleagues οη the mainland (182). Each craft follows its own traditions; pottery and poetry do not always coπespond to each other. Thus, it cannot be assumed that the populaήty (or lack of it) of a given scene in pictoήal art is a direct indication of the populaήty of the same scene in poetry. 1n a picture painters tend · to descήbe a sequence of scenes rather than a single one, which means that even where there are cogent reasons to suppose a literary text to be the model of a given picture, this will seldom be an illustration of an exact scene. Add to this the problems involved in the process of interpretation: it is not always easy to deteπnine what is going οη in a picture, even if it gives the names of the persons depicted, and scholars do not always agree οη the dating of a given piece. When it comes to details there are some oddities that are not easily accounted for. When scenes known from the Riad occur ίη Peloponnese art they coπespond to passages from roughly all parts of the Riad, 103

wh.ile in Attica, before the last decades of the sixth century the Diadic scenes pabιted correspond to passages almost exclusively found in the last third of the Riιιd (183). 1 know of no obvious explanation for this. Α famous example of an "Diadic illustration" is the representation on the Fran~is vase of the chariot race at the funeral of Patroclus; the vase is dated c. 570 B.C. (184). lt coπesponds to the descήption of Riιld ΧΧΙΙΙ in the following details: there are five teams of horses, Achilles is agonothetes,and Diomedes participates. The vase deviates from the descήption on the following points: each chariot has four horses, not two as in the Rillll; Odysseus (spelled Ολυτ~). Automedon, Damasippus, and Hippothoon participate, wh.ile in the Rillll the participants are, besides Diomedes, Eumelus, Menelaus, Antilochus, and Meήones. Moreover, on the vase Diomedes comes third, while the Rillll names him the winner. The vase shows a cauldron and some tήpods as pήzes, while in the Riad they are a woman, a tήpod, a horse, a lebes, two talents of gold, and a phiale. Κ. Friis Johansen pointed to the similarity between this scene and one found almost a hundred years eadier on a Proto-Coήnthian a,ybαllos, saying (185): If we give the name of Achilles also to the leader of the games on the Proto-Coήnthian vase, it becomes just as good an "Iliad illustration" as that on the Fran~is vase. For his rendeήng of the chariotrace held by Achilles, then, Κlitias drew upon a traditional composition that had been created by Coήnthian art long before his time, and apart from bήnging the number of horses in a team up to date, he did not feel himself called upon to make any major changes in the formula he had inheήted. The pamter adheres to the tradition ofhis own art in a way comparable to that of the oral, traditional poet. And he will have heard and seen more than one version of the funeral games of Patroclus, as weU as of other funeral games; those of Pelias provide a motif known to us from both pictoήal art and poetry. His painting will have been influenced by a wealth of such stoήes represented in pictures, stoήes, drama, lyήc, epic. So much for vase painting; with respect to archaic poetry other than the Rillll and the Odyssey, other problems are involved. If a lyήc poet uses the same passage or one comparable to those we know from 104

the Riιιd or the Odyssey, is it a sign that he/she knows the passage concemed, or does ίt indicate the opposite? lt is thought that the great tragedians of classical Athens studiously avoided treating the exact content of the Riιιd and the Odyssey; what was the attitude of the lyήc poets to the epics they knew? When Sappho descήbes the bήdal procession of Hector and Andromache, does this indicate that she knew a sirnilar passage in Trojan epic, or that she did not? What we know of archaic Greek lyήc presents even greater problems of interpretation than what we know of epic. Theιe is a fragment of Stesichorus (c. 600 B.C.) in which he seems to be descήbing the same scene as one we ιead in the Odyssey. Telemachus is setting out from Sparta, a bird's flight is an omen for his joumey, and Helen interprets it to him; mention is made of gifts he receives. The situation is the same as that in the Odyssey, and must belong in a coMection where subjects we know from the Telemachy are related or assumed known. However, the omen and the gifts occur in reverse order in the Odyssey. The wording is different; thus it has not been possible to fill in lacunae from the Odyssean passage. What looks like a noun-epithet foπnula, λα,cέριιtα κορώνα (a cawing crow), recurs, but in Hesiod, not in the Odyssey, nor in the Riad. The provenance of the gifts is given in both passages, but it is not the same. Everything fits neatly into a theory in which the poem by Stesichorus and the Odyssey are both composed in a common tradition of oral poetry (186). Thus, while both vase painting and non-Homeήc poetry are of little use as cήteήa for dating the Riad and the Odyssey, they confiπn the impression that archaic Greece was characterized by a wealth of oral art in ever-changing forms. Moreover, a consideration of the motifs treated in surviving painting and lyήc poetry suggests that the epics we know had no pιedominating part ίο this common tradition. 1n pictoήal art, the situation is roughly as follows: scenes from legend begin to be painted on vases about 700 B.C. and become numerous towards the end of the seventh century. The adventures of Heracles aιe the favouήtes, but Trojan scenes are popular too. Fήis Johansen lists the following scenes: the sack of Troy (the wooden horse, Menelaus and Helen, death of Astyanax), Aias carrying the corpse of Achil105

les, death of Aias, Menelaus leading a procession, Antenor leading a procession, Peleus bήnging the infant Achilles to Chiron, death of Aegisthus, death of Cassandra, the blinding of Polyphemus, Odysseus' escape from the cave of the Cyclops (187). lliadic scenes are conspicuously absent. 1n the northem Peloponnese they begin to appear by c. 625, in Attica c. 570, with the Franc;ois vase as the earliest example. Only from c. 520 onwards do the Attic representations seem to reflect the Riad that we know. Both in the Peloponnese and in Attica scenes from the Riad are much more numerous than those from the Odyssey; the story of Polyphemus is known from a number of paintings, but with this exception only Circe and the Sirenes from Odyssean scenes occur before classical times (188). This particular aspect fits my theory almost too well: if ever anything was certain in Homeήc scholarship it is that the blinding of the monster told of in the Odyssey was not told for the first time there. Touchefeu-Meynier points out that we cannot even be sure of knowing the names of the protagonists in the early representations of the scene (189). If we tend to "read" these pictures as illustrations of our Odyssey, it is because we are prejudiced by the fact that of all early Trojan epic only the Riad and the Odyssey have been transmitted to us. Thus paintings testify to a general interest in the Trojan stoήes from the beginning of the seventh century, and if they lend themselves to a literary interpretation at all, they confirm the theory that the Homeήc poems we know are part of a broad tradition of Troy legends, and by no means a specially prorninent share. This fits well enough to the impression given by early lyήcs: the adventures of Heracles and Jason, Pelias, the Theban cycle are treated as well as Trojan motifs; of the Troy stoήes, matters predorninate that are either untreated in our Riad and Odyssey, or peήpheral to them. The impression given by both pictoήal art and lyήc poetry is, then, that our Riad and Odyssey are latecomers; and a · certain terminus ante quem for these poems can hardly be found before Plato. History ofthe Vulgate The medieval manuscήpts present us with a text of the Riad and the Odyssey which in all essentials is uniform; it has long been recognized 106

that this is the result of scholarly work at the Museum of Alexandria during the third and second centuries B.C. Already the first publications of early Homer papyri, by Grenfell and Hunt, made it clear that the middle of the second centuιy B.C. was a crucial point: papyri before that date differed in length, a few being shorter than the Vulgate, the majority exhibiting a number of additional verses. The ever increasing number of papyή has confιrmed this first irnpression beyond any doubt. S. West counts 34 "eccentric" texts, of which 31 are before 150, and the youngest from the first centuιy B.C.; the Vulgate is represented by two papyή before 150 and one datable to c. 150; from then onwards it is the rule (190). Further sources of the Homeric text in antiquity are the quotations made by other ancient authors. Herodotus makes some, and these coπespond well enough with the Vulgate; they are, however, few and bήef. Thucydides seems to know both the Πiad and.other Trojan epics (191). Plato quotes Homer often, and his versions have been analyzed in a monumental work by J. Labarbe, somewhat modified by the criticism of G. Lohse (192). Plato's quotations often differ somewhat from the Vulgate, not so much in the number of verses as in the content. This is most naturally explained by the circumstance that Plato quoted from memoιy, or even now and then slightly changed the text so as to suit the argument of the context better. Later authors, on the other hand - Strabo, Galen, and Plutarch - seem to have possessed eccentric texts. West suggests that they may have been quoting indirectly, taking over the wording found in their direct sources (193). 1 propose another explanation: well-to-do literaιy families would probably retain the books already held in their libraήes, having their own slaves copy worn-out volumes rather than buying new ones; Plutarch will not have been the first of his family to own a copy of Homer. lf he wished to be up-to-date on Homeric scholarship, he would probably purchase commentaήes, monographs, etc., but hardly another text. Anyway, the irnportant evidence remains that of the papyή, and it is overwhelming (R.A. Pack's list contains more than 600 fragments of Homer) and clear: from the middle of the second centuιy B.C. onwards the text of Homer was manifestly that which we have to-day (194). The Alexandήans had a great many texts at their disposal, some 107

named after persons, or after cities: Antimachus' text, Rhianus', Euή­ pides', that of Marseille, Sinope, Chios, etc.; also moιe vague titles occur, as for instance "the common ones", "the bad ones". Ενeιy now and then a ιeading of theirs is referιed to in the scholia, but except for such cases we know nothing of them. Vaήous hypotheses exist, dif. ficult to veήfy; 1 shall retum to this question shortly. Although the general picture is clear enough - a pιe-Alexandήan stage with a vaήety of Homeήc texts that came to an end on the ίntro­ duction of the Vulgate in c. 150 8.C. - it is not, however, certain how and why this change came about. 1 shall theιefoιe discuss the nature, first of the pιe-Alexandήan texts, then of the Vulgate, in further detail. It is, of course, tempting to connect the existence of vaήous "editions" with the practice of rhapsodes. Parιy suggested that the eccentric texts ιepresented diffeιent oral versions of Homer (195). His own subsequent fieldwork, however, made this improbable. The variations are small and do not alter the text essentially; an episode is never told in a really different fashion, and no episodes occur that are not already known from the Vώgate. The extra verses (wheιe they can be read at all; some of the early papyή are minute scraps of mateήal offeήng a couple of letters for each line only) add to the fullness of descήption, nothing more. Even accounting for vaήous degrees of fluidity in oral traditions, they do not seem to be oral vaήants. Απ important characteristic of the pre-Alexandήan texts is that they share dwect and orthography with the Vώgate; they differ from it on a few minor points - the treatment of movable η at the end of lines, for instance - but they are clearly representatiνe of the same tradition of wήting as the Vώgate, and they also contain atticisms. Plato's quotations are even slightly more atticizing, a fact probably accounted for by his citing from memoιy (196). On the whole, the vaήants are, 1 think, best explained as resulting from arbitraήties of the book-trade; a scήbe copying the whole of Homer, having been taught in school how to read and wήte from the text of Homer, living in an age where rhapsodic recitals weιe still common, must have had his mind crowded with epic lines and half-lines. If he found himself introducing an extra line he would hardly bother; deliberate additions cannot be excluded either. And the next scήbe copying this exemplar 108

would have πο chance of noticing anything unusual. Although it seems certain that Aήstarchus (d. c. 150 B.C.) was responsible for the standardisation of Homeήc texts, it is still difficult to understand how this came about, mainly because we know nothing of the practical side of the work at the Museum. He is known to have edited Homer, and it is obvious that this means something veιy different from editoήal work in the age of the printing press. 1 follow Erbse in his theoιy that the "edition" manifested itself in his commentaήes, accompanying a text supplied with cήtical signs (197). But how this text found its way into the book trade is unknown. The Museum may have put one or more copies at the disposal of booksellers, while shelving the master copy, or there may have been a scriptorium, perhaps even a bookshop, as part of the institution. Without some such kind of "Alexandήan University Press" (198), 1 fmd it difficult to understand how the Vulgate could establish itself so effectively in so short a time. Another famous problem of Aήstarchus' edition is that the readings he and his predecessors recommended are mostly not found in the Vulgate (199). We are left with a paradox: Aήstarchus introduced the Vulgate, but in a form which he himself cήticized. As a rule, the verses he athetized are still there, the coπections he suggested are not. 8. Α. van Groningen pointed out that, already for practical, mateήal reasons, Aήstarchus can hardly have been working from a long seήes of texts at once, consulting now this book-roll, now that. He must have had one text as a basis and then consulted others, one after another. Among the vaήous texts called after cities one might have expected to fmd an Athenian one; that such a text is never mentioned indicates that this was the basic text referred to (200). Van Groningen's discussion is important for understanding the whole issue. lf the Alexandrian scholars had before them the official Attic text, it explains why they showed it so much respect, restraining the results of their scholady work to commentaήes and monographs without imposing their readings οπ the text. His theoιy can be confirmed by a couple of more fortuitous bits of evidence. First, two of the biographies of Homer mention that Aήstarchus considered Homer to have been an Athenian; R. Pfeiffer argues that this is better ex109

plained as building on extemal evidence than as being infeπed by Aristarchus from the atticisms of the dialect (201). Second, there exists an anecdote about how the official Athenian copy of the great tragedians was boπowed by the Museum on the deposit of a huge sum of money. Once having got their hands on the copy, the Alexandrians kept it at the loss of the deposit (202). If they went out of their way to obtain the best possible text of the tragedians, they will hardly have been less assiduous in the case of Homer. It is probable, therefore, that the Museum bought if not the official Athenian Homer then at least an authorized copy of it. It seems, then, that the existence of an official Athenian text as the basis of Homeήc scholarship is a theory necessary to account for the facts. lt is worth consideήng where this text came from, where it was kept, and how it was consulted. 1 have argued that it was produced as an oral dictated text on the initiative of Pisistratus. Once wήtten, where was ίt kept? ,lt is improbable that archives proper existed before the fifth century (203). For the archaic peήod, it is more natural to think of deposition in a temple of Athena, because sirnilar practice is mentioned for other early texts; thus Heraclitus is said to have deposited his work 0n Nature ίn the temple of Artemis (204). lt can only have survived the destruction of the city in 480/79 if it was removed when the city was evacuated. The text is generally thought to have been wήtten first in the old Attic alphabet and afterwards transliterated into the Ionic according to the standards of the refoπn in 403/2. Goold, however, has revived a theory of Wilamowitz that no such transliteration ever took place; he thinks that for literary puιposes the Ionic alphabet was used right from the beginning. The text must have been copied at intervals, anyway, because papyrus rolls are not very durable (205). As to consultation, 1 think that in the beginningίt was consulted only rarely if at all; a book deposited in a temple was written for the god rather than for readers. lt can hardly have been possible in later times, either, just to walk in and read the text; it is more likely that copies, of parts of it or the whole, were obtainable at a suitable pήce, and ·certainly not a low one. The editions called after persons or cities 110

must have been such copies, made at the request of thoιιe after whom they were then named, and the oήgin of the "eccentric" texts cuπent before the Vώgate must be sought here too. Thus all existing evidence points to Athens as the place where the ancestor of our Vώgate was wήtten, and there is ηο evidence to suggest that other wήtings of the Riιιd and the Odyssey were ever undertaken.

111

VIII Oral Composition

ίη

the Sixth Century

Oral dictated texts presuppose a singer and a scήbe. 1n the preceding chapter I treated the cultural conditions of the scribe; ίη the present one I shall look at those of the singer. Oral composition of poems of the beauty and scale of the Riad and the Odyssey can only be envisaged inside a great and thήving tradition (see above p. 46-51); they must have sprung from an environment where many Homers were singing and where other long, beautiful poems were produced besides the Riιιd and the Odyssey. Was Greece of the sixth century B.C. characterized by such a powerful oral art'!

Creativityand reproductionin oral tradition 1n the Riad and the Odyssey the teπn used for a singer is άοcδόc;. lt has become noπnal to dwell on the difference between the creative oral poet (άοιδός) and the mere reciter (pαψιμδός). Thus R. Sealey, who discusses these terms ίη an important article, sees Phemius and Ion as antipodes, standing at each end of a development from creativity to recital (206). Already Parry used the teπns ίη this way. Under the heading The art of traditionalpoetry Parry first emphasizes the importance of memory: even if the foπnula is to a certain degree the basic unit, the bard noπnally borrows whole passages from other poems and uses more or less the same phrases; if the tale is old he may repeat it almost as he heard it. Next, Parry stresses that memory is not enough, that scholars find that the same poem may be sung badly or well, and that a good singer keeps what is stήking and expands on the pattern of other poems. Finally, Parry adds that a guild of singers with masters and apprentices tends to a more faithful guardianship of famous poems, but then they are no longer singers but rhapsodes, their task is not that of creation but only of memory, and they are merely keeping from age to age the verse which was first composed by a singer who 112

made his poetry, in the way that we have seen, by an ever varying use of what he had sung and heard others sing (207). Whereas Parry's other ideas under this heading are firmly based on argumentation and examples, these concluding thoughts seem to be more loosely put forward as his pήvate hypothesis, presumably to account for specific Homeήc problems. The very choice of the narne 'rhapsodes' for such reciters suggests that he has Greek epic in rnind. The article was written before Parry undertook his fieldwork, and we cannot know whether he found this hypothesis to be coπoborated or not by his expeήence there. His published notes do not mention the matter. 1 treat this point ίn some detail because the idea that an oral tradition in decline becomes "merely" reproductive and ίs no longer creative has had prominent supporters since Parry. (lt will be noted, though, that Parry makes no mention of any decline but coMects the phenomenon with a singers' guild). Κirk sketches the idea on the last pages of his article Homer and Modern OralPoetry: Some Confiιsions, and gives it a fuller treatrnent in Ί'he Songs of Homer. Judging by the exarnple of Avdo Mededovic, who seems to be more creative than was usual for Parry's informants, Κirk thinks that there must have been a time when singers were in general infmitely more creative. Where Mededovic elaborates and decorates, they developed fresh themes and unparalleled episodes. Homer's aoidoi must have been of this type. Kirk then goes on to descήbe four stages of the "life-cycle" of an oral tradition: the oήginative - the creative - the reproductive - the degenerate stage. Of the oήginative stage little can be known; as an exarnple of the creative stage he mentions the monumental composer( s) of the Riad and the Odyssey;the Novi Pazar singers exemplify the reproductive stage; and the rhapsodes in Greece the degenerate one. Parts of the Odyssey and the Epic Cycle belong to this stage too (208). So far so good. 1 understand Κirk's hypothesis as a way of solving the problem of exactly where the parallels go between Parry and Lord's singers on one side and Homer on the other. As Lesky and Heubeck wish to compare Parry's informants with Homer's forerunners, Kirk wishes to compare them with his followers. But one must bear in mind that Κirk's stages are purely hypothetical; there is no fieldwork to show such a development. Κirk's view follows a general trend in folkloήstic 113

studies, that folklore is in a constant decline. This "devolutionary premίse" is analyzed by Α. Dundes as a factoI operating in the wodd view of the folkloήst ratheI than in the object of folkloήsm (209). Moreover, 1 think that there is fieldwoik to disprove Κirk's "lifecycle". Oral epic is giving way to otheI foπns of art in the Balkans today, and may ~us be consideied an example of a tradition in "decline". Nevertheless, creative singers do exist, and not just a few of them. The second wodd war is commemoiated in many songs, especially in areas where there was an active partisan movement. Loid has a seήes of such songs in his collection (21 Ο). The majoήty of the songs that Mirash Ndou sang foI me were of the type that folkloήsts call herok: songs (keΏge· kreshnik~), the events of which take place in some indefιnable old days; they are closely connected with the type of song that Parry and Lord collected in Yugoslavia. But Ndou had otheI songs in his repertoire too, among them songs of Mehmet Shehu and EnveI Hoxha. Some he had made up himself. 1 was told that this was the normal situation, that the epic singeis who knew the old songs knew and composed modem ones too. 1nAlbania the old epic tradition is disappearing rapidly now, but it seems that the mixture of repIO· duction and creation exists a1loveI the Balkans, with no direct Ielation to the degree of thήving ΟΙ decline that characterizes a given locality. My expeήence points to the modem songs being much shorteI and less impiessive than the old ones, and Ndou recited only a couple of them to me compared to 16 heioic songs and S so-called historical songs (about Albania's liberation fiom the Tuiks that took place at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuιy). His choice may have been biased, howeveI, by an impression that the old songs interested me most. Lloyd reports on modem songs on a much wideI . scale from elsewhere. FoI example, in an epic poem by a Yugoslav shepheid, Petar Κravic, events of the second woild waI are descήbed in a way on which Uoyd comments, I'm pretty suie much of it is based on radio news reports and newsIeel films. Such phrases as 'eveιything moves in straight lines' seem to indicate a view fiom above (God's eye ΟΙ airplane pilot's eye) such as is common in newsreels(211). Fiom Russia, Uoyd refers to a long ballad of the civil war heio Vasily 114

Oιapaev,

made by the bylina singer Pyotr Ivanovich Ryabinin Andreev, where the narrative sequence was clearly based οπ a well-known fιlm. And he has the following descήption of how new songs can be occasioned by contemporary events (212): Some years ago in Rumania a wedding party was crossing a frozen ήver when the ice broke and several of the cortege were drowned. Α ballad οπ the disaster spread rapidly through the distήct. It ended with the words actually used by the bήde's mother lamenting at the water's edge: Όh, my daughter, in your lovely shoes the frogs will lay their eggs'. Two years later folkloήsts visited the locality and tήed to establish who had made the song. Authorship was claimed by some whose claim tumed out to be baseless; others indicated 'authors' who denied participation. Constantin Brailoiu, reporting this, gives other examples. 1n 1938 a villagewas half destroyed by flood. The king visited the victims and distήbuted relief. Again, a new ballad sprang up immediately. This time the folkloήsts descended οπ the neighboudιood more promptly. Only two people claimed authorship, a shepherd and a young woman, one of the star singers of the village. Behind their backs they accused each other of lying; confronted, they remained obstinately silent. How do these examples of popular new songs and singers claiming authorship to them compare with the general lack of the ideal of oήginality I stressed in chapter V'! Uoyd says that the Yugoslav singer was immensely proud of his work. 1s this in contradiction to Parry's infonnants who were so emphatic in asserting that they had been taught each particular song by somebody else, and who were unanimous in denying any oήginality'! 1 think not. The heart of the matter is not the question of oήginality, but the respect for the true story. If a singer sings a tale of events taking place hundreds of years ago, the audience would not be impressed if it had been made by him-/herself; it would mean that it was fiction, not a true account of what happened. Οπ the other hand, there is nothing wrong in claiming authorship of a song about events from your own lifetime in which perhaps you took a part yourself, or of which you could claim knowledge in other ways. The songs based οπ movies or newsreels are of special interest in this connection, since a singer 115

may feel to be an eyewitness when he/she makes such a song. Ndou did not seem to be prouder of one type of song in his repertoire than of another; he had the same kind of self-esteem as Parry and Lord's informants and pήded himself οη his ability both to remember the old songs and to compose new ones. Whether problems of authorship of the type descήbed by Lloyd will occur depends οη the degree of populaήty achieved by a song. lf a ballad spreads rapidly, being of immediate concem to those listening to it, it will presumably be altered and expanded by new singers and. its status will become sirnilar to that of the older sonp; the singers will have leamt it by listening to somebody else singing it. Το claim authorship, such as was done by the two singers in the second example mentioned above, at least makes sense; it does not detract from the truthfulness of the tale.

The singersin the Odyssey lf we accept that there is ηο clear distinction between creative and reproductive peήods in the kind of folk traditions where there is a possibility of checking this theory, it must be refuted for other traditions too. Let us retum to Phemius and Ιοη with this in mind. As Plato represents the rhapsode it seems certain that his art is reproductive. But Homer does not descήbe Phemius and Demodocιιs as creative in the non-reproductive sense, and the early occuπences of the word rhapsode do not confirm the theory that they are necessarily reproductive in the non-creative sense. Two passages primarily are considered to testify that the Homeήc aoidoi are creative. The fιrst is in the fιrst song of the Odyssey, where Phemius is entertaining the suitors. He sings a nostos, a song about the heroes' homecoming from Troy, but is interrupted by Penelope who descends from her chamber in order to make him sing of something el~. Telemachus, however, who has gained new self-confidence from the visit of Athena, reproaches her for interfeήng and sends her back. His argument is (213): "μfrrep Ιμή, τί τ· iί,ρα φθονeeις lρίηρον άοιδdιι

τέρπeuι δπππ οί νόος δρwrαι; οδ νύ τ' άοιδοί αlτwι, άλλά ποθι Ζeι)ς αlτwς, δς τe δίδωσuι ιwδράσuι άλψησrflσuι δπως Ιθέλrισιν tκάστ~.

116

350

τούτ~ δ' ού ιιέμeσις Δαναώιι καιcόΡ οlτοι, άείδεαι · rήιι "'(άρ άιχδήιι μάλλοιι tπuι.λείDvσ' lwθρωποι, fι τις άιιοοόντεσσι ιιεωτάτη άμφιπέληται.

"Why, my mother, do you begrudgethis excellent singer his pleasinghimself as the thought dήves him? lt is not the singers who are to blame, it must be Zeus is to blame, who givesout to men who eat bread, to each and all, the way he wills it. 350 There is nothing wrong in his singingthe sad retum of the Danaans. People, surely, always give more applause to that song which is the latest to circulate among the listeners." What does it mean that the singer is able to "please himself asthe thought dήves him"? Does it mean that he improvises, that he is able to sing of any kind of event on the spur of the moment? Parry thought so (214), but if we make a compaήson with Penelope's words a few lines eaήier, they suggest rather that the singer has a large repertoire from which he selects the song that he feels is most appropήate at the moment. Penelope's words were (215): "Φήμιε, πολλά "'(άρ δλλα βρσrώιι θελκ.rήρια οlδας,

lP'Y• άνδρώιι τε θεώιι τε, τά τε κλε/οvσαι άοιδοί · τώιι lιι "'(έ σφu, δ.ειδε παρήμeιιος, οί δέ σιωπfl

340

OUIOVπαιόvτωιι · τούτης δ' άποπαvε· άοιδής

λιryρής, fι τέ μοι aleί wί σrήθεσσι φίλ.οιι κήρ τείρει, tπεί μ.ε μ.άλwτα καθίκ.ετο πένθος δ.λαστοιι. τοίηιι "'(άρ κεφαλήν ποθέω μeμ.νημ.ένη aleί άvδρός, τού κλέος ει>ρύ καθ· 'Ελλάδα καί μ.έσοιι 'Άρ"'(ος."

"Phemius, since you know many other actions of mortals and gods, which can chaπn men's hearts and which the singers celebrate, sit beside them and sing one of these, and let them in silence 340 go on dήnking their wine, but leave off singingthis sad song, which always afflicts the dear heart deep inside me, since the unforgettable soπow comes to me, beyond others, so dear a head do I long for whenever I am reminded of my husband, whose fame goes wide through Hellas and midmost Argos." 117

Plιemius

knows many other songs, and they are known by other singeιs as weD;she wants him to choose ο• of thσe instead. lt seems that she has alιeady heard the one he is engaged upon, because she says that it ιιlwrιys makes her sad. 1n dιis passage Plιemius is shown as an oιal singer of the type descn"bed by Paπy and Lord, a man who has a 1argerepertoiιe of songs with wbίch to entertain his aιdience; we may guess that he does not use exactly the same woιds eνery time he perfonns, but there is nothing to show that he sbould be improΎising in the "tnιly creatiνe" sense. Again, when Telemachus proceeds to say that the reason for the sadness of the song lies not with the singeιs but with Zeus who treats eνeιy man as he pleases, it is the kind of argument that a Seιbian bard migbt use; its whole weight lies in the idea that the sοιιι is tιue, that Plιemius is singing his song just as it happened. The ugument about an audience preferring new songs must, J thiok, be undeιstood as symptom of a general trend in the ΙΙiιιd and the Odyssey: the poet likes to exploit the idea that at the time when the heroes lived, the Trojan war was already the favouήte subject of songs. lt obviously fascinates him to irnagioe an audience which includes Odysseus hirnself, or Penelope, or Telemachus. This beaιs upon what U. Hδlscher called the motif of ignorance, but part of the fascination lies in the importance of the tπιe stoιy (216). Odysseus' adνentures are told by birnself, you get the stoιy straίgbt from the horse's mouth. Connected with this is the idea that Helen herself is weaving motifs from the Trojan war into her web, and that persons in the poems may explain their fates in the way that the gods meantit all to be so, in order that coming generations ιnight haνe soop (217). Seen in this light, Telemachus' woιds are part of the fascinatioo: once upon a tίme these stories were new, aod people were eager to heu them because they were new. The other pιss gp.is found towards the end of the Odyσq, where Plιemius says that he ίs ~ (self-tauιht). Sealey undeιstands this as a boast that he had composed all his songs hirnself, aod underlines the point that Plιemius associatesίt with divine iospίratioo (218). But the sίtuatioo σ haιdly such that Pbemius should boιst. He is οο 118

the point of being killed by Odysseus who has just killed Leodes, one of the suitors who had functioned as their interpreter of offerings. Phemius considers if he should try to escape to the altar or rather confront Odysseus and beg for his life. Choosing the latter alternatiνe, he puts down his phonninx, to which he has been clinging, and embraces Odysseus' knees; his speech is made in this humble position. lt runs as follows (219): "-yοννοϋ,ιαL σ·, 'Oδvσev · σι) δέ μ.' ι:lδeο καJ. μ.' iλέησσιι ·

34S

aurιi, τα μ.eτόπwθ' liχος lσσeται,

el κeν άοιδdιι

π~, δς Π! θeοiσι καi lwθpώποισw deιδω. αιποδlδακτος δ' eψi, θeός δέ μοι

w φρeσiιι οr,,ας

πΟΡΤ'ο/ιι,ς whf,vσeν · loucaδέ τα παραef&w ώς τe θeιi, · τι;, μ.ή μ.e λιλα.Ιι:ο δeφοτομήσα.ι.

3S0

καJ. ιιeν Τrιλtμαχος τάδe-y' elπα, σdς φ{λος vlός,

ώς ήώ οο τι hιώv iς σdιι δdμ.σ,ι oiJδe χατltωv πωλeύμ.φ μ.vησrήpσw deισόμeνος μ.eτά δαίrας,

άλλά πολύ πλtσιιeς ιι.α.ί ιιpeioσoveς fryσιι άvά-yιιπ." 'Ί

am at your knees, Odysseus. Respect me, have mercy.

34S You will be sorry in time to come ifyou kill the singer of songs. 1 sing to the gods and to human people, and I am taught by myself, but the god has inspired in me the song-ways of every kind. 1 am such a one as can sing before you as to a god. Then do not be fuήous to behead me. 3S0 Telemachos too, your own dear son, would tell you, as I do, that ίt was against my will, and with no desire on my part, that I served the suitors here in your house and sangat their feasting. They were too many and too strong, and they forced me to do ίt."

There is a basic opposition of the divine and the mortal in this passage: the singer is under divine protection, Odysseus must expect punishment if he kills a singer. Phemius sings to both gods and men, he receives his songs from the god, and fonnedy when he used to sing to Odysseus this put the king himself in the position of a god. This is one part of the argument; the other is that he did not sing to the suitors 119

of his own free will but because they fetched him and compelled him to do so. Telemachus who supports Phemius, draws the herald into the case: his position is similar, since he is under protection too, and has been kind to Telemachus when he was a child. He is not very dignified just now, though. Telemachus says, "Let us spare Medon our herald ... unless, that is, Philoetius or the swineherd has killed him" - it does not seem that he considers the matter to be of much importance; they had better save Medon, but if he has been killed already then it is just too bad. The herald comes creeping out from his hiding-place under a chair, Odysseus srniles and spares both him and the singer. Thus, the whole scene descήbes the singer and the herald as harmless, slightly ήdiculous people with little dignity. 1n Phemius' speech emphasis is not laid οη his beingself-made but οη the divine protection and οη his being under duress; this clearly appears from Telemachus' reaction. What, then, is meant by the word αι)τοδί.δσκτος? 1 think he says: 'Ί have not been taught by listening to other singers but directly by the god"; the god in case being the Muse or Apollo. Ifwe remember the concept of the Muse as being the singer's furnisher of mateήal (cf. above p. 74-79) we have again an instance of the poet's play with the idea that at the time of the heroes the famous old songs were new. How could Phernius, who lived far away in Ithaca where not even Odysseus' wife or son knew of the heroes' fate, be able to sing a nostos? This is just as miraculous as that the poet himself can do so: one is far distant in place, the other in time. But the explanation is the same: the Muse fumished them with their stoήes. The word αι)τοδί.δακτος is part of Phernius' argument, of his demonstration of being under 6ivine protection, and not a boastful claim to oήginality; in this passage divinity is opposed to mortality, not creativity to reproduction. The passage of Demodocus discussed in chapter V contains the same ingredients. Odysseus speculates οη how Demodocus knows of events: he might have been there himself, or heard of them from somebody else, but the most probable explanation is that the Muse or Apollo taught him. The play οη the songs being new at the time runs between the lines, appeaήng openly at Demodocus' fιrst performance, when he sang of a dispute between Odysseus and Achilles at Troy and the song was characteήzed as being very modem just then (220). 1n neither case 120

should an emphasis οπ creativity be read into the passage. Ίne

rhapsodes

Just as I fmd that Homer descήbes his singers as being reproductive in the same sense as oral singers in our times are, 1 think that the sources which deal with early rhapsodes either tel1 us nothing of their being reproductive or not, or suggest that they were as creative or reproductive as the aoidoi. There is a passage of Herodotus where he relates that the tyrant Qeisthenes in Sicyon (c. 600 B.C.), being at war with Argos, forbade rhapsodic performances (221): Κλεwθένης ... ραψ4)00ύς brιwσε έv Σucυώvι ά-yωvfεσθαι τώv Όμηρείωv tπeωv ε'ύιεκα, δτι Άρ-yε'ίοί τε καί 'Άρ-yος τά πολλά πάντα ύμveαται ·

(Cleisthenes ... made rhapsodes stop competing in Sicyon because of the Homeήc epics, as both Argives and Argos are celebrated a11the time.) J. Svenbro says that these ιhapsodes must have been reciters of a fιxed text; if not they would have fitted their songs to the demands of the tyrant (222). But this does not follow. If we imagine Herodotus' rhapsodes in Sicyon being creative in the way in which oral singers normally are, they would πο doubt try to please Qeisthenes and the Sicyonians; they would choose songs that were popular with them, and they would perhaps even change the course of events if the Sicyonians themselves were involved. But they would hardly have been able to purge their songs of the occurrence of 'Argives' - Cleisthenes seems to have misunderstood its Homeήc use - as this would have meant that they should basically change their poetic language, eliminating a11the formulas where Greeks were called Argives. This could hardly have been done, however much a singer tήed. Thus the passage is perfectly comprehensible with 'rhapsode' meaning an oral, traditional singer, creative/reproductive in the normal combination. The oldest testimonies to the word 'ιhapsode' do not use it explicitly but suggest its existence in vaήous ways. 1n a fragment preserved in the famous Pindar scholion about rhapsodes, Hesiod says (223):

tv

Δήλ4J τότε πρώτον t-yώ καί 'Όμηρος άοιδοi

μeλπομεv, έv vεαροίς δμvοις ράψαvτες άοιδηv, Φοί/3ον Άπ6λλωvα χρυσάDρον, δv τeκε Λητώ.

121

(In Delos at the time the singers Homer and I were singing,stitching a song in new hymns, about Phoebus Apollo with golden sword, whom Leto bore.) Pindar, too, speaks of Homer as a dιapsode, saying (224): 'Όpηpος . . . κατά. /Jάβδον lφρασeν (Homer . . . said, leaning on his staff ... or, as it probably means: spealdngas a dιapsode ... ) The most detaned early source is again Pindar (225): "Οθeν πeρ καi Όμηρiδαι

/)απτών tπέωv τά. πόλλ • άοιδοί δρχονται, Διός iκ προοψ.iοv

((Starting from the same point) from which the Homeήds, singers of stitched lines, most often begin, from a prologue to Zeus ... ) lt is obvious that there is no distinction between aoidoi and rhapsodes in any of these passages, where άο,δός is clearly felt as the second half of the composite /Jαι/ι~. The first half is assumed by Pindar to be connected either with /Jάβ&χ (a staff) or with /)άπτeιν (sew, stitch); modem scholars reject the former etymology (226). But what is important in our context is the way in which singers and dιapsodes are treated as being synonymous, and as including Hesiod, Homer, and the Homeήds. 1n the Hesiodic fragment they are singing;in one of the Pindaric passages Homer is speaking.As late as in the work of Sophocles there is an indication of the same usage, when in OedipusTyrannus the sphinx is called both άοιδός and /)αψι..,δός (227). The conclusion must be that of Sealey, that the use of the word ιhapsode for a person who is reciting, not composing, is not attested until the fourth century; and even then it is not unambiguous, 1 think (228). Where I cannot follow Sealey is in his introductory discussion of how the metaphor of stitching came into being (229). He quotes Wade-Gery for the idea that /)απτά lπea are passages from different poems stitched together, and he suggests as another possible interpretation that they are formulas put together. But I do not think that anybody at so early a stage was aware that epic poems could be considered as being put togetiιer from vaήous sources, and formulas do not seem to have been understood as such in antiquity at all. Consider how often the Alexandήan scholars found repetition a reason for athetizing. The most likely interpretation of brη (mentioned as a possibility by Sealey) is that it means lines. Α singer who is dictating 122

noπnally

pauses after each line, which shows that he/she feels it as a unit even without knowing that it is so called, and in later Greek broς regularly means a hexameter line (230). The oral perfoπnance with its "adding style", wheιe each line noπnally leads the thought to an acceptable pause, might perhaps be felt as a process of stitching lines together. Or Pindar may, of course, just simply descnbe the Homerids as stitching together something said. Sealey says that Pindar's audience probably knew whether the activity descήbed was oral composition or meιe ιecitation of poems composed befoιehand, but I think this statement is definitely wrong: the audience would never dιeam of making such a distinction (231 ). Even the most creative oral poet relies on mernoιy to a veιy high. degree. Το say that the young bard leams the art of composition rather than a repertoire of recognized songs (232) may be coπect in the sense that is the rationalization that the scholar makes of what is taking place. Το the mernben of the tradition it would in no way seem so; the singer does in fact leam songs and not a technique from the teacher. Parry and Lord's infoπnants gave unambiguous answers when asked from whom they had leamed such and such a song; they regularly mentioned a name - Parιy even suspected that they were sometimes just gίving any old name when they could not remember from whom they had in fact first leamt the song in question (233). They said nothing of having mastered a technique enabling them to improvise, let alone anything about useful foπnulas; Lord points out that the singer who boasts that he can repeat exactly. "word for word and line for line". often has no idea of what a word or a line is (234). The epic singer may be deliberately creative in the sense of extending a song if he/she feels that it pleases the audience, or of gίving the song a special slant for a special audience. But it seems to be done largely unconsciously; a singer who is expanding or adapting a song to the taste of the audience feels that he/she is reproducing the song faithfully enough. We must conclude that both singers and dιapsodes seem to have been oral poets, unfolding themselves in the well-known state of tension between cιeativity and ιeproduction; and that at least at the beginning of the fifth centuιy B.C. they weιe still such. The distinction 123

between the two

teπns

is probably one not of denotation but of style.

Whenwasoral com'{JOsition brought to an end in Greece? This is not a question of mental stnιctures or literary fashions, but of cώtural and political factors. If rhapsodes were memorizing the llitld and the Odyssey in the time of Plato and Xenophon (fourth century B.C.), it was not because of a change in their attitude to the art, but a result of the text having been wήtten and at some point also copied and made accessible to readers. lt is not certain whether the dιapsodes mentioned coώd themselves read; but the existence of a wήtten text at least makes the memoήsation of it possible. How exactly they actually memorized the Riιιd and the Odyssey, we do not know; the fact that Plato lets lon recite accurate passages of the Rilld and the Odyssey does, after all, say more of Plato's idea of Homeήc epic than of Ion's. And, anyway, there is nothing to prevent lon and the rhapsodes mentioned by Xenophon from being creative and havinga repertoire of other songs too. The cώtural question concems the spread of literacy: how long was ancient Greece still predominantly oral? Ε. Α. Havelock has treated this subject in a seήes of studies; he argues for a development where the fιrst century and a half after the invention of the alphabet, c. 700-SS0, was characterized by craft-literacy; then followed peήods of semi-literacy and "recitation-literacy"; only in the fourth century B.C. was what he calls "scήptoήal literacy" achieved (235). The details of this may be disputed; but it is iπefutable that Plato is still in many aspects conditioned by an oral way of thinking. And it is obvious that Greece never became literate in the sense that everybody could read and wήte. The majoήty of the slaves - except those specially trained to serve in the field of reading and wήting - and of the women were probably illiterate throughout antiquity; oral genres belonging to these groups will have continued unaltered. Geographical factors must have been important, too: progress towards literacy in Athens and, say, the Thessalian countryside will not have been at the same pace. The political factor is a question of the interest of the rώing class in the oral art, and the functions they coώd use it for. There is ample evidence that Pisistratus and his sons considered vaήous oral traditions

124

important and useful; to this I shall retum in the last chapter. 1n the fifth centuιy B.C. the sophist Hippias, a representative of the modem art of dιetoήc and often entrusted by his home state with diplomatic missions, pήded himself οη being able to repeat a list of fifty names after having heard them only once (236). Ιη this peήod, perhaps the clearest witness to the social position of oral culture is Socrates, who seems to have done all his philosophical thinking without ever wήting a word, and who was frequented by the young men of the aristocracy. From about 400 B.C. the picture seems to change; the male aristocracy has become thoroughly literate; oral art becomes the mark of the lower classes, and of the countryside, the villages far from other cώtural and political centres. The biographies of Homer, while they are not considered informative of the poet of the Riad and the Odyssey, are of interest ίη this connection. They are not, like the biographies of most ancient Greek authors, pieced together from information given in Homer's own works. They present a picture ofHomer as a wandering singer, poor, singing to provincial potentates, smiths, fishermen, etc. Α similar picture is drawn of Hesiod in the Certamen,which in its surviving form is datable to Roman times but is modeUed after a work of the fourth century B.C. (cf. below p. 134-35). 1 think these biographies should be taken as an indication that wandering epic singerswere still a familiar phenomenon in the fourth centuιy B.C.; when the lack of a biography of Homer was felt, the natural model for his life was the life of contemporaιy wandering bards. And if well down into Roman times such ideas of Homer and Hesiod were acceptable enough to be retained in new literaιy versions of the stoήes, it suggests that people still knew of wandering singers. The reason why we hear nothing of them is that they were ηο longer highly esteemed as before. If a comparison is made with other countήes and times, then ηο reason appears to make us think that oral epic poetry disappeared all of a sudden. It is much more likely that it continued in more humble forms, ίη the countιyside, with an audience of peasants and other pooήsh people. But a more prominent type of epic poets is actually attested: the professionals who in HeUenistic times used to accompany generals οη their campaigns in order to praise their deeds ίη poetry. Κ. Ziegler pointed out how numerous are the names mentioned of such poets 125

and their works (237); these have not, however, been preserved, and we are badly infonned of the poets; we cannot say whether they were literate or not and what was their relation to the Homeήc tradition. One such poet, Archias (fιrst century B.C.), who accompanied the Roman general Lucullus in the Third Mithήdatic war, is descήbed by Cicero, who dwells on his capacity to improvise (238): quotiens ego hunc vidi, cum litteram scήpsisset nullam, magnum numerum optimorum versuum de eis ipsis rebus quae tum agerentur dicere ex tempore, quotiens revocatum eandem rem dicere commutatis verbis atque sententiis! Quae vero accurate cogitateque scήpsisset, ea sίc vidi probaή ut ad veterum scήptorum laudem perveniret. How often have I seen him, without wήting a single letter, extempoήzing quantities of excellent verse dealing with current topics! How often have I seen him, when recalled, repeat his oήginal matter with an entire change of word and phrase! Το his fιnished and studied work I have known such approval accorded that his glory ήvalled that of the great writers of antiquity. The descήption is that of a literate poet - elsewhere in the speech Cicero emphasizes his learning and letters - but even so it is intήguing: how much is rhetoήcal embellishment (illiteracy not nonnally being something to brag about)? did Archias himself read and write, or did he rely οπ the services of a slave? was he literate in the same sense as Anna Brown and Tahir Drenica (cf. p. 91), composing in an oral tradition? For the early Byzantine peήod (the fourth and fιfth centuήes A.D.) Α. Cameron has collected an interesting mateήal of travelling professional poets who were Egyptians or educated in Egypt (239). As he descήbes them they were defmitely Iiterate, being characteήzed as a group by scholarship (they were often teachers, and many of them knew Latin), paganism, mobility, and by making political careers. But the group may have been less homogeneous than as related by Cameron. Their works were praise poerns or invectives, or they composed epics descήbing local history and military campaigns. Their status was similar to that of the poets descήbed by Ziegler: they were engaged 126

commanders or local dignitaήes to sing th.eir fame. For all th.at we know, oral composίtion of epics may not have ended at all. The long Homeήc epic by Quintus Smymaeus (Roman times, date uncertain) may be anoth.er oral dictated text; it has not, to my knowledge, been analyzed from th.is point ofview. Duήng early Byzantine times th.e hexameter gradually gave way to iambics, in accordance with. th.e general change from a quantitative to an.accentuating rh.yth.m; th.e "political" verse of Byzantine and modem oral epic in Greece may be th.e direct inheήtor of th.e ancient oral epic tradition. But th.iswhole question woώd demand a study of its own.

by

militaιy

127

ΙΧ

The "Pisistratean Recension" 1n antiquity there existed a tradition that the Homeήc poems had been collected and given their fιnal form in Athens duήng the reign of Pisistratus. Whether scholars have accepted this so-calledPisistratean recension or not has as a rule depended οπ their general theoήes of the Homeήc question; analytics have accepted ίt, unitaήans rejected it. Thus, cuήously enough, they have in a certain sense changed places: analytics accepting sources often of somewhat doubtful reliability, while, οπ the contrary, any mention of the matter, even by respectable sources, has been picked to pieces by hypercήtical unitaήans (240). Scholars should not immediately be blamed for this state of affairs; the basic problem is that the written sources of Greek history earlier than the fifth century B.C. are, οπ the whole, of a character that would hardly appeal to histoήans of other peήods. Α brief glance at the table at the end of the book will show that the passagesin question are a11late compared to the date of the events; but also that on the whole they are πο worse than the sources for other questions of early Greek history, rather the contrary. Archaeological dates are of little help in questions of this nature, and contemporary inscήptional mateήal is scant, for Attica almost non-existent. lt so happens that one of the very earliest official inscήptions known from Attica is οπ a herm erected by Hipparchus (241 ), and this confirms the authoήty of the passage of the Platonic dialogue Hίpparchus refeπed to for the institution of Homeήc recitals at the Panathenaea. But as a rule, histoήans of early Attic institutions have to draw heavily οπ late sources as, e.g., Plutarch (242).

Arguments pro et contra The most detailed and important discussions in this century are those of Τ. W. Allen (1913, reprinted 1924), R. Merkelbach (1952), and 128

J. Α. Davison (19S5) (243). 1 shall gίve a bήef summary of each of them. Allen discusses aUthe Ielevant mateήal; he accepts that there weie Homeήc recitals at the Gieat Panathenaea, and that at the end of the fourth centuιy Β. C. it was consideied in Athens and Megara that these had been intioduced in the sixth centuιy by eitheI Solon ΟΙ Pisistratus' son Hipparchus. Except foI these points, he rejects the idea of special relationship between Athens and HomeI, and of any kind of inteIpolating ΟΙ editing, whetheI done by Pisistratus ΟΙ by others. The Attic flavouI of the language is explained by the dominant position of the Athenian book-trade. Allen's main reasons foI Iejecting the whole idea lie partly in the fact that, on otheI premises, he arήved at a date foI Homer in the ninth centuιy B.C., and partly in the fact that Athens plays a minimal Iόle in the Homeήc poems. Had Pisistratus edited them from a collection of lays, they would have bome his stamp; they would have contained piophecies of Athens' coming greatness, and Athenian heioes would have played a piominent part. The position gίven to Athens in HomeI is, on the contiary, coπect and histoήcal. The Riad, especially the Catalogue of Ships, was Ieferred to by Athens on vaήous occasions right fiom the start of the sixth centuιy; this shows that the text was canonical before that. The part of the legend conceming interpolations was made up by Megarian wήteis, wheieas the editing was invented by Pergamene scholars; Pisistiatus founded the fιrst public libiary (his collection of books lateI became the kemel of the Pergamene libraιy), and by making him a pation of the Homeήc poems, the Pergamene scholars wished to outdo Alexandήa by having an oldeI foundeI than theiI Ptolemy. Meikelbach arήves at the opposite conclusion fiom a study of the same mateήal. If Dieuchidas of Megara in the fourth centuιy B.C. could contend that it was Solon ratheI than Pisistratus that made inteIpolations in HomeI, then the tradition of Pisistratus' editing must have been common knowledge in his time. The stoιy of the Spartan lawgiveI Lycurgus bήnging the Homeήc poems to mainland Greece manifestly duplicates the story of Pisistiatus; the Lycuigus stoιy was known in the fourth centuιy B.C., which is, then, a terminusante quem foI the Pisistiatus story. The tiansmitted text of the Homeήc poems is veιy 129

stable, which is strange when considering epic traditions in other cultures; thus the manuscήpt versions of the Song of Roland differ in length from 4000 to 8000 verses. But of Homer we have only one version; this, therefore, must have been widely spread in wήtten fonn immediately after its composition, thus outdoing all other versions; this, again, presupposes a reading public of a certain size, and a decline in epic creation, the most intelligent members of society tuming to other activities. This situation fits the sixth century B.C.; parts of the poems we have are manifestly Athenian, and confιrm the tradition of a final Attic recension. The traditions of similar recensions of Hesiod and Orpheus bear witness to a general interest in epic in sixth-century Athens. As we know it, the story of the Pisistratean recension is made up by Homeήc scholars, probably of the fourth century B.C.; it is ingenious and stimulated Lachmann's Liedertheorie;Aήstarchus knew of it but rejected it. If the idea that the fιnal recension of Homer only took place as late as the sixth century is unpopular, it is because it excludes us from ever being able to know what Homer's own work was like. For Davison, again, the nature of the transmitted text is of main importance. This was only given its final fonn by Aήstarchus in the second century B.C.: papyή from the third century, quotations in authors of the fourth century or earlier, allusions in early lyήcs, and representations in pictoήal art from the eighth, or even the ninth century show great vaήations of the Homeήc text. Aήstarchus based his work on a text characterized by some degree of Atticization and wήtten in the alphabet that became the standard in Athens in 403/2 B.C. lt was in use earlier, but hardly in the time of Pisistratus. The sources for the "Panathenaic Rule" - as Davison conveniently calls it - are on the whole not very reliable; it is probably true, though, that it was introduced by Hipparchus. It presupposes that the literary quality of the Homeήc poems was understood, since it was felt that they deserved better than to be chopped up into gobbets. And it presupposes that the text prescήbed was accepted as authoήtative; it would not have been possible to impose a newly concocted Attic text upon ambitious rhapsodes. The verb used of Hipparchus' action, tκόι,ιwe (acquired, brought), suggests that he literally brought α text 130

to Athens; to be

authoήtative,

this must have been fetched from the Homeήds οπ Oιios, or the descendants of Creophylus οπ Samos. There is nothing decisive to show that the Riad and the Odyssey, in the form in which we have them, were known of in Athens before c. 530 B.C. The story of Athenian interpolation was not common knowledge in the fourth century, but exclusive to Megara; only the Megaήans would imagine that if Athens refeπed to a passage of Homer it would necessarily have been interpolated. Οπ the contrary, the fact that it was possible to refer to Homer shows the existence of an authoήtative text. The story of Pisistratus' recension was made up by the Pergamene scholar Asclepiades of Myrlea; he was polemizing against Dionysius Thrax and Aήstarchus, who considered Homer to be an Athenian, flouήshing 140 years after the fall ofTroy. The purpose of Asclepiades' story was to show that the text which his Alexandήan ήvals were so successfully imposing upon the reading public was 500 years younger than they claimed. 1n chapter VII I gave a different representation of the history of the text in the centuήes before Aήstarchus, building, among other things, οπ studies by Lohse, which appeared later than Davison's article (see above p. 107). This question is just a detail in Davison's theory anyway. 0n a more general level it is interesting to note the change in the anti-Pisistratean attitude from Allen to Davison. The atticizing character of the Vulgate text, which seemed a minor obstacle to Allen, is considered more seήously by Davison and is one of the reasons why he accepts the idea that the text studied by the Alexandήans was the official Attic text. The objections based οπ the content of the Riad and the Odyssey, which were so forcefully put by Allen, are not discussed by Davison. Το me they seem important, and I shall try to answer them carefully in the following chapter. The attitude to the sources is very different. Allen, after quoting a11the at least numerous passages, rejects them scornfully; next he builds up a sophisticated theory of Pergamene inventions οπ a single passage of Athenaeus (2nd-3rd century A.D.). Davison, οπ the contrary, is conscious that he chooses what seems to fit his purpose; the sources he uses - e.g., Diogenes Laertius and the Platonic dialogue Hipparchus- he considers as unreliable as those rejected; nevertheless, he attaches enormous 131

importance to the exact wording of a sίngle sentence of the Hipparchus. Davison takes over the Pergamene theoιy, but differently from Allen. Το Allen, the puιpose of the Pergamene invention was to make Pisistra: tus the founder of the Pergaίnene libraιy, an obviously weak theoιy, sίnce even if Pisistratus had been a book-collector and owned the fιrst Athenian libraιy, the mere purchase of his books for the libraιy of Pergamum would not make him its founder. Davison's theoιy is ingenious but manifestly far-fetched: as Tzetzes (12th centuιy A.D.) mentions a certain Orpheus of Croton, he is pedιaps dependent on Asclepiades of Myrlea, because it says in the Suda (10th centuιy A.D.) that Asclepiades considered this Oιpheus an associate of Pisistratus. 0n this "evidence", combined with some of the legendaιy biographies of Homer, Davison builds his theoιy that Asclepiades invented the whole thing. The idea that he should have picked upon Megarian tales of Pisistratean inteιpolations is weak, too, considering that then it would, at least, have been more natural for him to invent a Solonian recension, because the tradition of inteιpolations is connected with Solon rather than with Pisistratus, cf. the table. Of Merkelbach's points the strongest seems to me to be his conclusion that if Megaήans of the fourth centuιy could accuse Athens of interpolating, then they must have known the tradition of the Attic recension. This argument is valid whether the accusation is well-foundf ed or not. lt is important, too, that Merkelbach includes the evidence · of Pisistratean "recensions" of Hesiod and oracles; fmally, this author alone considers the problem in a more general framework of epic traditions. Therefore he alone raises the question of what became of all the other Homeήc epics. Actually, a similar problem exists for Davison's theoιy: if descendants of Homer or Creophylus possessed the troe, authoήtative text, they would no doubt have kept a copy of it; what became of that? This problem is seen cleady by Mazon, who proposed a theoιy veιy similar to Davison's in a chapter of Introduction ά l'Riade; he even inteιprets ~κόμwe in exactly the same way (244). He emphasizes that the eccentήc texts, too, show Atticisms, and that the same seems to hold good for the altemative editions refeπed to by Alexandήan scholars. If copies of an lonic text were kept on Chios, or in other dιapsodic centres, why have we found no trace of them? 132

Paradoxically enough, the unity of the Homeήc manuscήpt tradition is moιe manifest than for any other Greek text, and the model - the official Attic text - more easy to define (24S). Mazon's answer is that the dominant position of Athens ίπ politics and conunerce after the Persian wars involved a cultural dominance, too, and thus the Attic Homer ousted a1lother versions. lf, however, theιe never existed other written texts than the Athenian one, these problems would be solved. lf the Pisistratean recension consisted ίπ fact of an Athenian scήbe wήting after the dictation of an Ionic rhapsode, theιe is nothing strange about the disappearance of a1l other Trojan songs: quite simply they weιe never written. 1na fιnal analysis, as both Davison and Merkelbach accept an official Attic text as the basis of our manuscήpt tradition, the only important difference between them is that Merkelbach considers this text to have been constructed out of eadier mateήal ίπ Athens, while Davison claims it to have been imported ready made from Ionia. But it is important to note that theιe is πο evidence whatsoever of such a wήtten, lonic text. Davison's main question, how the Attic text could be authoήtative ίπ political matters and ίπ relation to the rhapsodes, would be answered, too, by the hypothesis that it was the fιrst Homer ίπ writing. lt was not oral rhapsodes but literate politicians who appealed to the text - if their opponents had said, 'Ύour version is not coπect," the answer could have been, "Look it up!" - with nowheιe else to look than ίπ the Athenian text, or ίπ copies of it. Now it is well known that the habit oflooking things up only appeared much later; but the simple fact that everybody knew that the written, standard text of Homer was kept ίπ Athens would serve the same purpose. As to the rhapsodes, they would probably regard a wήtten text with the greatest veneration. Lord has inteιesting examples of the respect his infonnants felt for the art of writing (cf. above p. 93), and a forty-eight volume text, enough for endless hours of recital, would impιess any oral singer already by its quantity. The rhapsode who had dictated it would enjoy the esteem of his colleagues, and ήghtly so; the man engaged by Hipparchus will probably have been the most capable Homeήd of his day anyway. Thus 1 agree with Davison that the Attic text carήed the authoήty of the Homeήds. And if the content of the written poem was felt to be truly 133

Homeήc,

representing the Trojan war in the traditional way, both rhapsodes and audience would feel that reciting it meant recounting the events as they really happened; nobody would fιnd that this was something newly concocted.

The evidence 1 have arranged the relevant passages in a table at the end of the book; the texts are collected in an appendix p. 207. The order of the table is roughly chronological. This already presents problems, as some of the passages are of uncertain date. But more important: where an author refers to an earlier wήter, 1 have chosen to put the passage under the later author, partly because it is not always clear exactly for what an earlier source is quoted, partly because 1 have tήed to read a1lthe testimonia in their contexts, which means e.g. , interpreting Diogenes Laertius pήor to interpreting Dieuchidas. Therefore some of the earliest testimonia, such as the fourth century wήters of Megaήan history, appear rather late in the system. The problem is felt most acutely in connection with the scholia. Alexandήan scholarship is mainly known of through the corpus of commentaήes in medieval manuscήpts. They were compiled from earlier commentaήes; for Homer, the immediate predecessor is the so-called Viermiinnerkommentar,combining works of two scholars of Augustan times with two scholars of the second century A.D. This is supposed to have been constructed about A.D. 300, while it is uncertain exactly when the scholia were given the form in which we know them. With a teπninus post quem of c. A.D. 300, 1 chose to put them into the gap between antiquity and the Byzantine age, where 1 also put the scholia to Pindar, Demosthenes, and Dionysius Thrax. But the evidence for which the Homeήc, Demosthenic, and Pindaήc scholia are quoted belongs to Alexandήan times. The surviving biographies of Homer are also difficult to handle, as both their sources and the date of their composition in their final form are unknown. The CertamenHomeri et Hesiodi,which represents the same tradition as the biographies, mentions the emperor Hadήan; but its main source, the Museum of Alcidamas, was composed in the fourth centuιy B.C. The case for the biographies ίt thought to be 134

similar: their surviving fοπη probably originates from Roman times, but legends of the wandering singer Homer seem to have existed in classical times (246). Of the sources given in the table some are, of course, more valuable than others. The passages of Eustathius are obviously repetitions, and might as well have been omitted; but since it woώd imply, peιhaps, a similar omission of vaήous passages that refer to the epίgram Anth. PaL ΧΙ 442, where ίt is not always so certain ίf the epigram is the only source, 1 chose to retain them all. Α parenthesis indicates that the piece of infoπnation concemed is only infeπed, not mentioned explicίtly. lf we compare the circumstances of recording that I have argued for - an oral poet dictating to a scήbe - with the sources, ίt is obvious that whatever they say, they do not say that. Where Pisistratus' achievement is mentioned, it is noπnally not refeπed to as a writing down of something oral, but as a making order out of chaos. Cicero is quite clear in this respect: Pisistratus was the first to arrange the books of Homer in the way they were known afterwards; before Pisistratus they had been in disorder. And the scholiast says of the Doloneia that Homer made it as a separate poem, not as a part of the Riad, into which it was introduced by Pisistratus. The verb used for both actions is τετάχθαι (it had been arranged, ordered); there is nothing to indicate a change from oral to wήtten form. lt seems to be presupposed that Pisistratus connected two poems that were already written. The question of oral versuswritten does occur in some of the sources; but the only detailed discussion is that of Josephus - and he mentions no names in connection with the wήting of the Homeήc epics. Before discussing this problem, 1 shall comment in some detail on the sources and the kind of infoπnation they give. They are concemed with five different matters: 1. refeπing to the Homeήc poems in political disputes, 2. tampering with the text of Homer, 3. bringing Homer to the Greek mainland, or to Attica, 4. arranging Homeήc recitations at the Panathenaea, 5. bringing order to the Homeήc poems.

135

Plutarch's theory The most detailed version is that of Plutarch, where four of the above five elements are discussed, though not in one and the same passage. What he says of these matters in his biographies of Lycurgus, Solon, and Theseus fits together to make a coherent picture of the early history ofthe Homeήc epics: Before Lycurgus gave laws to the Spartans, he studied the laws and customs of other states. 1n lonia he found the Homeήc epics preserved by the descendants of Creophylus. He saw the educational potentialities of the epics, and therefore he wrote them down eagerly and collected them in order to take them to the Greek mainland. Before this the Greeks had had only vague ideas of the epics, a few people owned separate parts of them, they were spread here and there, fortuitously, and they only became generally known after Lycurgus' initiative. Afterwards, when Athens and Megara were at war over Salamis, a board of Spartans was called in to arbitrate. Solon interpolated a verse into the Catalogue of Ships, saying that Aias placed his contingent where the Athenian troops were making their stand. This he read aloud to demonstrate that Salamis had previously belonged to Athens. Later again, Pisistratus interpolated a verse into the Nekyiιl, mentioning Theseus and Piήthous as the last of the heroes whom Odysseus saw in the underworld. He did this in order to please the Athenians, in the same way that he had also eliminated from the poetry of Hesiod a verse that was not flatteήng to the Athenian hero Theseus. The fourth~entury histoήan Hereas from Megara is quoted as the source for the interpolations of both Solon and Pisistratus. This theory is in itself consistent enough; it is not acceptable, though, as histoήcal fact. Lycurgus is a dim figure, belonging to legend rather than to history; what is told of him mainly duplicates the events of Solon's life (247). And Plutarch too, in the introduction to his biography of Lycurgus, complains that it is impossible to say anything of him about which there is no dispute. He discusses the difficulties of dating his life-time and refers to the Sicilian histoήan Timaeus (fourth - third century B.C.) for a theory of two Lycurguses, the oldest of whom was perhaps Homer's contemporary. (Other authoήties, too, connect Lycurgus with the living Homer, either just calling them 136

contemporaries, or saying that they met each other personally; Merkelbach is presumably right in interpreting these as rudiments of the tradition of Lycurgus bringing the Homeήc poems from Ionia to the Greek mainland.) Creophylus is an intήguing fιgure. He is mentioned - with some reserve - by Plato as being Homer's friend, and in some of the legends of Homer's life the poet seends his last years with him; he is also said to have marήed Homer's daughter. Homer is said to have presented him with an epic, The Conquest of Oechalia, or even the Riad. Ηίs home was on Ios, Chios, or Samos; Pythagoras is said to have studied with one of his descendants on Samos (248). 1n Plutarch's passage the descendants of Creophylus seem to function as a kind of guardians of the Homeric epics; it is not made clear, though, whether they are in charge of a wήtten text, or of transmitting Homer's poems orally. The verb used, διαrηρείΡ (watch, maintain, preserve), is neutral in this respect. When it is said that Lycurgus eagerly wrote and collected the epics, it suggests that Plutarch is giving an account of how Homer was first put into wήting; the sentence runs: eγράψα-rο προ­ θύμως καί σwή-yα-yεν ώς δεύρο κομ.cών. But eγράψα-rο (he wrote), may mean 'he copied', and συνή-yα-yεν (he collected) is enigmatic anyway, if the descendants of Creophylus already possessed the complete works. The order of the words, especially the location of προθύμως (eagerly), indicates that wήting and collecting are not just two words descήbing the sarne act; peιhaps the sentence means 'he copied them eagedy and then collected the volumes', i.e., he took all his newly wήtten texts with him back to Sparta. lt is most probable, though, that the difficulties of interpretation simply reveal a lack of clarity in the text; the whole phraseology we shall meet again when we discuss the recension element (below p. 150-52) (249). Presumably Plutarch knew of the tradition that Homer's poems had been scattered and then collected; with his choice of Lycurgus as the one who brought Homer to the mainland, he had to backdate the gathering too - with a slightly muddy result. The Homeήc epics are said to have been known already, though imperfectly, by the Greeks; the wording 'they were in possession of parts of them ', tκέκrηΙΙΤο ... μέρη τινά, fits wήtten texts better than oral ones. With Solon we move into sixth-century Athens. The descήption of 137

Solon's interpolation presupposes an already fιxed Catalogue of Ships, which is consistent with the theory that the Homeήc poems became widespread in Greece after Lycurgus' initiative; ίt is said clearly that Solon read his version aloud to the judges. What is not clear, however, about both Plutarch's stoήes of interpolations is how Solon and Pisistratus coώd interpolate - or, for that matter, exclude -verses with any authoήry, if the Homeήc (and Hesiodic) poems already existed in wήtten form. Again, 1 fmd Merkelbach's view inescapable, that a tradition of interpolation makes sense only ίπ connection with a tradition of editing. If other states or individuals weιe in possession of the wήtten poems, it would be of little use to make interpolations in the Athenian text, as it would in any case be impossible to alter the other, non-Athenian exemplars. Thus, if the story of Solon is taken at face value, as the story of interpolating in the normal sense of the word, introducing something into a wήtten text, it assumes that Solon exercized some kind of authoήty over the text; either that the Athenians were already in possession of the generally acknowledged authoritative text ofHomer, so that adding a verse to it meant adding to the Homeήc poems, or that the authoήtative Athenian text was written at this time, i.e., a Solonian recension of Homer. This element, however, is never ascήbed to Solon. If Solon did not interpolate into a wήtten text but quoted a passage of a well-known, orally transmitted catalogue, he was doing something comparable to what normally takes place in oral societies. The Tiv, quoted above p. 98-99, used their catalogues in this way; Vansina has examples of it (250); in Iceland laws were refeπed to thus before wήting was introduced. The circumstance that nobody seems to have disputed the relevance of the argumentation confirms this interpretation, while the Megarians' challenge of the content of the catalogue makes sense precisely in a peήod of transition from an oral to a literate culture. Solon is said to have had the laws of Athens wήtten and displayed in public. That this example of disputing the troth of the tradition is provided exactly by Megaήans makes an interesting parallel to the fact that our earliest example of an explicit fear of the changes that may occur in oral traditions is expressed by the Megaήan poet Theognis, cf. above p. 101. 138

There are, however, some oddities in Plutarch's account of Solon's interpolation. He gives the names of the Spartan arbiters, and one of these is Cleomenes. Sealey suggests that the story of Spartans conciliating between Megarians and Athenians should pedιaps be transposed from the beginning of the century to the end of it; Cleomenes was an important figure in Spartan-Athenian relations about 510 B.C., when he led the overthrow of the Pisistratids. The Salamis-agreement may have been part of the settlement of 510. Athens and Megarawere at war more than once during the sixth century; Sealey interprets this as the logical consequence of uniting the whole of Attica into one city-state, the borders of which were only permanently fιxed duήng the sixth century. There is, 1 think, still another detail of Plutarch's story that might suggest a later date. He says that the Athenians consider the whole story of Solon's quoting Homer to be nonsense; they say instead that Solon claimed the island because the sons of Aias had given it to Athens and had themselves migrated to Attica. The localities where they settled are given by name, and it is mentioned that one of them later became the birth-place of Pisistratus. Now, Pisistratus is irrelevant here; the reason why he appears may be that Plutarch knew of two versions of the interpolation story relating to Salarnis, one in which Solon was the protagonist, the other in which Pisistratus or the Pisistratids were. His choice of Solon is understandable, because the story suits the ''legend" of Solon better than that of Pisistratus: besides being the great lawgiver, Solon was especially famous for his commitment in the Salamis question. He was known to have used his own poems in the campaign to excite public opinion in favour of the war, and it was related that after his death his ashes were spread over the island of Salarnis.It is a possibility, then, that the histoήcal realities behind the anecdote may belong in 51Ο, that the arbiters of the story may represent Cleomenes' much more direct interference with Athenian policy, and that the story of Homer as a reference simply builds on the fact that the Homeήc text wήtten in Athens included a Catalogue of Ships in a form that favoured Athens in the Salarnis-question(251 ). Το sum up: 1. The fact that Megarians in the fourth century accused Solon of 139

having made interpolations shows that they assumed him to have the only existing text in his hands, no matter whether the charge against Solon was true or not. 2. Any anecdote of an interpolation in connection with Salamis is likely to have become associated with Solon. 3. If we suppose the charge to be coπect, it may be interpreted in vaήous ways: a. Solon recited an oral Catalogue of Ships in a form that suited his purpose in connection with the Salamis war. b. When Pisistratus had a written Riad produced he took care that the passage in question was given a useful form. a&b. Solon recited an oral Catalogue of Ships in a form that was retained when Pisistratus had the wήtten Riad produced. After this discussion of Plutarch, which may serve as a general introduction to the present matter, 1 shall discuss the sources for each of the fιve elements.

1. Referencesto Homer in politicaldisputes The scholiasts to the Riad do not mention the Athens vs. Megaracase explicitly, but their discussions of the interpolation are presumably based on ίt. They relate ίt to the Homeήc question in the sense that they confirm the theory of the Aias verse being an interpolation by drawing attention to other Πiadic passages (the Teichoskopia, the Epipolesis)where Aias obviously does not stand next to the Athenians. We meet this same discussion ίπ Strabo, who refers it to "the critics", probably the Homeήc scholars of Alexandria. Strabo's account ίs interesting in two other respects too: Where tradition is otherwise unanimous in consideήng Solon as the interpolator, Strabo says "Solon or Pisistratus". It is impossible to say if this was already in his source, or whether it is rather Strabo's own guess based on a knowledge of the tradition of Pisistratus' redaction. He may have reasoned exactly as we do, that an interpolation can only be made by somebody exercising some kind of authoήty over the text. And only Strabo quotes an altemative Megarian passage: Aias brought ships from Salamis, and from Polichne, Aegirussae, Nisaea, and Tήpodes - the places named are Megaήan localities. Even if Strabo's account is singular in these 140

respects, ίt ίs still likely that he built on the sarne Megarian histoήans as the other testimonia, but expanded them with the cήtical discussions of Homeήc schώars. Two other cases are known of political disputes where the Homeήc poems were used as a basis for a contemporary claim - both stoήes are from Herodotus, and ίn both cases ίt ίs again Athens making reference to Homer. Unlike the Salamis story, these are not mentioned by other sources. The first case ίs, again, somewhat difficult to handle from a chronological point of view. Herodotus tells that Pisistratus had won the stronghold Sigeum ίn the Troad from Mytilene, and established his son Hegesistratus as its tyrant. However, the Mytileneans were not subdued, and a long war was fought between them and the Athenians. Politically, the Athenians legitimated their claim declaήng that the Mytileneans were less entitled to a share of Πiadic land than they themselves and anybody else who had participated ίn the Trojan war. The poet Alcaeus took part ίn the war. lt was fmally settled to the advantage of Athens by the Corinthian tyrant Peήander. Peήander and Alcaeus point to a date about the beginning of the sixth century B.C., Pisistratus and his adult son, however, to the second half of the century. Thus this ίs difficult to use as a histoήcal source. In the present connection, however, ίt ίs interesting to observe the similaήty of the story to that told of Solon and Salamis: a war fought over a territoήal claim, a third part called ίn to arbitrate, Athens using the Riad to legitimate its claim, and Athens winning the case. Even the chronological uncertainty could be considered sίmilar: a story about Solon, which should, perhaps, rather be considered a story about Pisistratus; and a story about Pisistratus belonging, perhaps, rather to the time of Solon. What ίs certain, though, ίs that Sigeum did fmally belong to the Pisistratids; Pisistratus' son Hippias withdrew to ίt after he had been expelled from Athens ίn 510. The other Herodotean story takes place immediately before the battle of Salamis ίn 480, and ίs ίn itself clear enough. Envoys were sent from the states of mainland Greece to Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, to obtain support against the Persians. Gelon offered huge rnilitary and financial aid, but a dispute arose over leadership; against Gelon's 141

claim (based on his actual power) both Sparta and Athens used arguments based on history. The Spartan envoy referred to Agamemnon, wh.ile the Athenian ambassador claimed his nation to be the oldest, and the only one that still lived in its oήginal place. Finally, the latter refeπed to a particular passage of the Riad, the Athenian entry in the Catalogue of Ships: 'Ήomer, the epic poet, said that from those (i.e. the Athenians) came to Troy the best man to aπange and marshal an army". Therefore the Athenians could not accept the leadership of Gelon, and his support was lost. Both Allen and Davison considered these stoήes to bear witness against the Pisistratean recension; if the Athenians had been responsible for the text of the Homeήc poems, they could not afterwards refer to it, even to the very passage that they had themselves interpolated, and get away with it. But the three stoήes are more odd than that. lt is manifestly strange that Athens of all the Greek states should be the one to claim support from Homer, since Athens and the Athenians play a humble rόle in the Homeήc poems. 1n the story of Sigeum this difficulty is clearly felt in Herodotus' naπative: the Athenians cannot argue that they were the main force in the Trojan war, but they do argue that, contrary to the Aeolians, they did at least take part. 1n all three cases the Athenian claim is weak, at least to a modern mind; it seems easy to answer that a) if Aias aπanged his contingent next to the Athenians it does not necessarily mean that he was subject to them; b) if participation in the Trojan war was a decisive factor, then almost any other state had a better claim to the Troad than had Athens; c) skill in aπanging horses and men is different from leading a navy. Any kind of argumentation along these lines is conspicuously absent. From Herodotus onwards Greeks seem to have found it completely natural that it was Athens who made reference to Homer; thus the very existence of this kind of story seems to be based on a common knowledge that the authoήtative text ofHomer was Athenian.

2.

Interpolιztions

Α seήes

of charges for tampeήng with the text, mostly with a political purpose, is brought against the Athenians by vaήous authoήties. The passages concerned are the entries for Athens and Salarnis in the Iliadic Catalogue of Ships, the whole of the Doloneill, and a few passages of 142

the Odyssey: 3.307, where the avenging Orestes is said to retum to Mycenae from Athens; 7.80-81, where Athena, after having assisted Odysseus in Scheήa, retums via Marathon to Athens and enters the house of Erechtheus; 11.604, naming the parents of the goddess Hebe; fιnally 11.631, where the Athenian heroes Theseus and Pirithous are mentioned as the last of the famous persons seen by Odysseus in the underworld. The passages are all found in the Vulgate. The most famous charge I have already discussed. The insertion of the Doloneia is not mentioned as a cήme at all, it is just stated that the song had not oήginally been composed for its present place in the Riad. Here the most interesting aspect is perhaps the way in which it is mentioned: it is so obviously considered a well-known fact that Pisistratus was responsible for the fιnal aπangement of the Riad. As to the passages in the Odyssey, the first two are just bήefly mentioned by the scholiasts as being suspect. lt is said that Zenodotus wished to change 3.307 in order to make Orestes retum from Phocaea instead, but Aήstarchus maintained Athens, referήng to 7 .80; in connection wiφ the latter verse, the scholiast says laconically "the passage is suspect, according to Chaeήs". Nothing about who was responsible or why - but the scholia do seem to give us the remnants of a general discussion of Athenian tampeήng with the text: if the question of where Orestes came from was just a discussion of mythology - where did Orestes spend the years while Clytemnestra and Aegisthus were in power? - it would make ηο sense for Aήstarchus to refer to 7 .80, which is not about Orestes but about Athens., 7 .80-81 are connected with the Athens- and Salamiψtήes of the Catalogue in the Vita Herodotea. Here it is Homer himself who, feeling that whereas Argos is being celebrated all the time Athens is lacking, decides to give Athenian heroes a place in the poem. This has nothing to do with Pisistratus, as the biography considers Homer's lifetime to be c. 1000 B.C.; except for that, the descήption comes close to what 1 think actually took place, cf. below p. 168. The question of 11.604 seems to be politically neutral. This passage concems Heracles, who lives among the gods and has as his wife Hebe, "child of great Zeus and Hera of the golden sandals". About this last verse there is the following note in the scholia, "This is said to have been inserted by Onomacήtus, and it is athetized". The same verse 143

appears ίπ Hesiod, 11ιeog. 952, ίπ a similar context, Hebe as the wife of Heracles. Onomacήtus is mentioned by Herodotus; during the reign of Pisistratus he was editor (διαθέτης) of the oracles of Musaeus, but was caught ίπ the act of falsifying one of them. 1 shall return to this story p. 160-61 below; it is interesting here that Herodotus connects falsifying with editing ίπ exactly the same way that Merkelbach does; and that the scholium seems to imply that Onomacήtus was ίπ charge of both Homer and Hesiod. Απ explicit connection between Hesiodic and Homeήc editoήal work is made by Plutarch ίπ his discussion ofhow a verse unfavourable to Theseus was eliminated from Hesiod, while, ίπ contrast, the hero was introduced ίπtο the Odyssey; cf. above p. 136. The scholiasts do not mention this case. Plutarch's story is clearly about work being done on the basis of already wήtten texts; this is natural considering his overall view of the Homeήc question.

3. Homer brought to the mainland The four authors who credit Lycurgus with bringing the Homeήc poems to Greece tel1 the same story ίπ more or less the same words: the verb used is κομ.ίfeιv, with or without the prefιx δια-, the object is Homer's poetry (ποίησις), he is said to have been the first to fetch it, and the poems are brought from Ionia, or explicitly from the descendants of Creophylus. The destination, though, vaήes slightly: "hither", "to the Peloponnese", or "to Greece". The source is often thought to be Ephorus (4th century B.C.) - this seems doubtful, though; it builds on a passage of Strabo (252), which states that some people consider Lycurgus to have met Homer personally on Chios; it does not, therefore, immediately account for the common wording of the abovementioned passages. What is said by Plato of Hipparchus seems to be the same story but with another protagonist and another destination; and Merkelbach is probably ήght ίπ judging that the story of Lycurgus bringing the poems of Homer to Greece was shaped with the Attic tradition as its model. The passage concerning Hipparchus shares with the four about Lycurgus the verb κομ.ίfeuι and the adjective πρώτοι; (first). lt is just one bήef sentence, closely connected with the introduction of the Panathenaic rule, which follows immediately after and is the emphasized 144

part of the passage. It is not the immediate model after which the Lycuιgus-story was built, since it says nothing of from where the poems were fetched, neither does it account for the slightly unnatural word ποlησις (stήctly speaking the act of creating rather than its product) used in three of the passages conceming Lycuιgus. ln the descήptions of how the scattered Homeήc poems were gathered together, the word ποiησις appears to be used of Homer's oήginal product in contrast to ποιήματα (poems) or lπη (hexameter lines, poems) such as the Riad and the Odyssey, cf. below p. 151-52. Now, a similar distinction seems to be at work here: what Hipparchus bήngs is these two poems, whereas Lycurgus brought the 'poetry'; Plutarch lets him fetch 'the poems', but uses 'poetry' in his descήption of the vague ideas people had of Homer before Lycuιgus.

4. 11ιe institution ofrhapsodic recitalsat the Panathenaea The Attic orator Lycuιgus says that the ancestors of the Athenians passed a law that Homer's epics, in preference to works of any other poet, should be recited every fourth year at the Panathenaea; thus doing they demonstrated to the other Greeks that they had chosen the best. The edifying results of Homer's poetry became clear when the Athenians were ready to give their lives for the whole of Greece. Here, 1 should like to stress that one of the points made by Lycurgus is that the healthy effect of the Homeήc poems was peculiar to the Athenians; Lycurgus makes this quite clear, both where he mentions the choice made by the ancestors, and where he refers to the results of the choice. This concept of Homer as the Attic rather than the Greek national poet cannot be explained merely from the fact of the recitals at the Panathenaea, because Homeήc recitals are krtown from other cities of Greece as well. However, the concept is easily understood if it was commonly accepted that the only wήtten, authoήtative text of the Riad and the Odyssey was Athenian. The two other sources, Plato and Diogenes Laertius, are very similar to each other in their wording. Plato says of Hipparchus: ήνάγκ.ασe τούς /)αψφδούς

Παναθηναίοις

t~ ύιrολήψeως tφe~ής αι>τά διιέναι, "he compelled the rhapsodes at the Panathenaea to go through them (the epics) taking up the cue, one after another". Diogenes says of Solon: τά τe 'Ομήρου t~ ύιrοβολής γέγρα.φe t,αψωδeίσθαι, ο1ον δπου

145

ό πρώτος lληξeν, eκeiDeν (φχεοθαι τόν εχόμενοι,,

"he proposed (a law) that Homer's poems should be recited from a cue, so that where the first stopped, from there the next should start". The words υπόληψις and υπο{κ,λή are not veιy common, and the two authors may be quoting the actual text of the law, the slight difference aήsing presumably from a lapse of ιπeιποιy of one of them. Their meaning is elegantly interpreted by Mazon (253): Les expressions έξ υποβολής et eξ υπολήψεως sont equivalentes et marquent deux aspects d'une meme action: le premier recitant suggere (υποβάλλει) au second l'idee de lui donner ΊΙl replique (υπολαμβάνειν), ί1 lui passela parole et l'autre la prend. The version of Diogenes Laertius is veιy unclear. He tells in some detail of Solon's war with Megara, ofhis interpolation in the Catalogue, and of the poems he composed to imbue the Athenians with a warlike mood. The next pages discuss Solon's view of tyranny and contrapose Pisistratus and Solon. Then comes a passage lauding Solon's laws. Towards the end of it come the lines just quoted, immediately followed by the following phrase: "Thus it was Solon more than Pisistratus who illuminated Homer, as Dίeuchidas says in the fιfth book of his Megaήan histoιy. The verses concemed were particularly the following "But the man who held Athens" sqq." Τά τε 'Ομήρου eξ υπο{κ,λής -yέ-yρα,φε ραψ4Jδeίσθαι, οlον δπσv ό πρώτος lληξεν, eκείθeν (φχεσθαι τόν ~ό­ ι,reνον. μάλλον οvν Σόλων 'Όμηρον eφώrwεν tι Πewiστρατος, ώς φησι Διευχ&ς eν πέμΠ1' -

the text generally known

11 denotes the composition of the Riad and the Odyssey, 111Alexandήan Homeήc scholarship, third to second century B.C. The matter of dispute in our days wίΙ1 be what date, place, and person(s) to put at the crucial stage 11; but that there has been a peήod of broad oral creativity before the composition of the Riad and the Odyssey ίs as certain as such things can be. For the moment, the majoήty of scholars would wήte c. 700 B.C., lonia, and Homer at point 11, by 'Homer' meaning'the poet of the Riad and (pedιaps) the Odyssey';some woώd

156

reseιve

the narne of Homer for some legendary oral poet at stage 1, and this would raise little dispute. Merkelbach puts a redactor, engaged by Pisistratus or his sons at stage Π, and the place and date is 6th century Athens. Κirk's II would be the "monumental composer(s)" living in lonia somewhere between c. 800 and c. 700; afterwards the first length of the line would represent a peήod of relatively fJXedoral transmission. The model that I propose is the following: Figure Β' 1

11

111

eady papyή!

other 'editions' the text generally known other oral poetry

Stage 1: Homer, nothing but a narne, legendary inventor of epic. Stage Π: sixth century Athens, composition and first recording in writing of our Riιιd and Odyssey;an lonic oral poet dictating to an Attic scήbe at the request of Pisistratus or his sons ( the name of the poet is likely to be Cynaethus, that of the scήbe Onomacήtus). Oral poetry continues long afterwards, but there is gradually decreasing interest from the ruling class. Stage 111:Alexandήan scholars discussing and editing the offιcial Attic Homer. The eady papyή and the vaήous other 'editions' (carrying names of persons or cities), mentioned by the Alexandήans, are ultimately deήved from the Attic text. 157

Ίbυι,

the tradition of the Pisistratean ιecension, interpreted in the liglιt of the oral theory, may make sense ίn the following way: Once upon a time there exίsted a farnouι oral poet, whose name was Homer. For some reason, no longer known, he came to be consίdered the eι)ρe,ής of oral epic poetry as such, and the ιnοιt famous group of singen afterwardι consίdered themselves to be his descendants, the "Sonι of Homer" in Chios. That is, he occupied a position comparable to that of Hippocrates, the inventor of the art of medicine and ancestor of later geneιationι of doctors, particulady those living on Cos. ΑΠ epic poetry until the dawn of historical times ίο Greece was consίdered the work of Homer; we muιt imagine more or less creative oral poets pήding themselves on telling the ιtoήes exactly as they happened and exactly as oήginally told by Homer himself. When duήng the economic and political expansion of sixth-century Athens a tyrant wished to give the local Athena festival a more magnificent form - as a festival common not only to all Attica but with ambitions exceeding the borders of the Athenian state -he arranged for rhapsodic recitals among other activities. He wanted to secure for Athens the moιt magnificent Homeήc poems obtainable; therefore he engaged the most famous and Γj capable Homeήd to dictate Homer ίο a form as true, as lengthy, and as .·, .. ,. 1) beautiful as possible to a well-trained Attic scήbe. The Riιzd and Odys,. , , ι sey known in later times were orally composed on this occasίon. But the Greeks of later times, who considered literacy to have been widespread at much too early a date, who knew of the Panathenaic recitals where rhapsodes chanted the whdle of ''Homer" by heart, and to whom wandeήng singers of tales were ιather humble folk belonging to the countryside and to the lower strata of the population, thought of Homer as a literate poet whose place in time and geography was a matter of dispute, but who was the author of the Riιzd and the Odyssey. They could not account for the oddities of Homer, the mixture of language,the words and phrases no longer comprehensible, the inconsistencies ίο story-rnatter; we meet these points already in Herodotus and ίο Thucydides, and prominently in the scholia. What Merkelbach calls "die antike Liedertheoήe" was set up to answer these questions: Homer composed the vaήous scenes of the lliιzd and the Odyssey as "Einzellieder", which were only collected after his time. 158

χ

The lliad, the Odyssey, and the

Cώtural

Policy of Pisistratus

and the Odysseywere dictated and written at the court of Pisistratus, and if this wasa costly undertaking, it remains to be considered of what use the poems could be to Pisistratus and his sons. The question must be connected with the infoπnation we have of Pisistratean cultural policy in general, and it must be considered whether the poems, as we know them, are conveyors of a Pisistratean

If the

Riαd

ideology.

The cultuπzl policy ο/Pisistτatus During the reign of Pisistratus and his sons, public buildings were constιυcted both in the city and m the countryside, one of which was a magnificent temple of Athena on the Acropolis. Public festivals were supported; both the Great Panathenaea with the epic contests and the City Dionysia with dramatic contests seem to have been given their foπn during this peήod. The cult of Dionysus was introduced mto Athens from Eleutherai; likewise a cult of Artemis wasintroduced from Brauron, tlιe native villqe of Pisistratus. Sealey suggests that the epic contests at the Panathenaea may have a similar history, since recitations of the Riad are attested for Brauron (258). The Platonic dialogue Hippa,chus says that Hipparchus sent a ship with fifty oars to fetch the poet Anacreon from Teos to Athens, and that Hipparchus always had Simonides of Ceos with him, "paying a large salary and giving him gifts". This enterpήse, as well as that of erecting heπns mscήbed with the wisdom of Hipparchus, is stated to have had a two-fold abn, to contήbute to the education of the people, and to enhance the f ame of Hipparchus (259). Such activities were probably all connected with the contest for prestige between ήval political groups, as well as serving a policy of unification of Attica, a process still continuing throughout the sixth

159

century (260). And there is evidence that Pisistratean ambitions exceeded the leadership of a unified Attica. Herodotus relates how Miltiades handed over an Olympic victory to Pisistratus for being in return allowed to go unhanned to Chersonnesus. Uke the tyrants of Sicily, Pisistratus seems to have f ound it worth his while to contήbute to the horse-races, using the games as a means of obtaining political intluence. And his cleaning of the circuit of the sanctuary of Delos can be understood only as part of a plan to give Athens the leading position if not in Greece then at least in the Ionic part of it, as the state in charge of the religious centre of lonia (261). Απ interest in epic, as manifested both in the Panathenaic Rule and in the writing of the Riad and the Odyssey, must be understood as part of such a Panionic policy. Besides the Pisistratean recording in writing of the Riιld and the Odyssey, there is evidence of a recording of other hexameter poetry at the court of Pisistratus. Herodotus' story of Onomacήtus, the Pisistratids, and Musaeus is instructive: Onomacήtus was from Athens, an interpreter of oracles, and redactor of oracles of Musaeus (διαθέτης χρησμών τών Μοιισαwιι). Originally, Onomacήtus had been much used by Hipparchus, but at a certain point he was exiled by him, because he had been caught introducing a spuήous oracle into the collection. Wh.en Herodotus bήngs him into his story he is in favour again, being with the Pisistratids at the court of Xerxes, where they use his intluence with the lάng to persuade him to undertake the expedition against Hellas. Onomacήtus' technique was to keep silence concerning the omens unfavourable to the expedition, and to choose for recitation those that could best be interpreted as pointing to war (262). My interest in this story concerns several of its aspects. For one thing, if Onomacήtus had the chance of introducing something into the oracles of Musaeus he must have had some authoήty over the text. This is easily understood if διαθέτης actually means the person in chaιge of the written recording of the oracles. Next, the story may be compared with the vaήous traditions of Pisistratean tampeήng with Hesiod and Homer, discussed earlier: This was a peήod of transition from an oral to a wήtten culture; the literary mind is cήtical of the precision of oral transmission, while the enterpήse of writing raises 160

suspicions among those still used to the oral culture. The banishment of Onomacήtus bears witness to the importance attached by Hipparchus to the event: he could not deal lightly with a case of tampeήng being publicly known, if the wήtten texts were to carry political weight. As Onomacήtus was afterwards taken back into favour, it must mean that in reality the Pisistratids approved of his handling of the text; he could no longer be of use in Greece, but reports ofhis bad reputation would not have reached the Persian court. The kind of 'falsifying' that Herodotus descήbes in Onomacήtus' relations with Xerxesis interesting in showing that he did not concoct useful omens - his tampeήng with them only concemed selection and interpretation. Omens are, after all, sent by the gods, but they can be of political use if handled adeptly. It is not clear, though, whether this way of thinking is that ofOnomacή­ tus or of Herodotus. Through this episode we catch a glimpse of the court of Pisistratus: it is a milieu where redaction, in the sense of wήting, of the most important oral traditions was being performed on the initiative of Hipparchus, with an Onomacήtus doing the specialized work. That Hippias had the reputation of being an expert interpretor of oracles may deήve from the same activities. And when it is mentioned by later authors that Pisistratus owned a libraty, 1 interpret this as another sign that the tradition of a Pisistratean recording in wήting of oral poetry had become confused by the common tendency ofthe Greeks to backdate the spread ofliteracy, as mentioned earlier (263). This comprehensive recording of ancient oral traditions must have been the first large-scale wήting of literature. Onomacήtus hardly wrote with his own hand; it is more probable that he had some kind of scriptorium with slaves or paid scήbes to do the actual work. 1 think there is indirect evidence of this enterpήse in the habits of line-counting well known from papyή, and also occuπing in some medieval manuscήpts. C. Graux demonstrated that in counting lines of prose texts a "normal line" (στίχος or hος) was in use; its length was that of an average verse of Homer. When indicating in the margin each hundred lines of text, the scήbes used the 24 letters of the Ionic alphabet, not the letters commonly used as numerals; and in doing the sum at the end of a work they used Attic figures. Κ. Ohly traces the system of line161

counting back to the Athenian book trade in the fifth century Β. C. 1 think, however, that the oήgin of the practice should be taken a further step back; the Athenian book trade may account for the use of Attic fιgures in sums, but not for the use of the 24 letters and of the epic verse as the standard; these last two features point directly to the wήting of the Ri.adand the Odyssey as the source (264).

Oral epicas α conveyorο/ ideology If the "redaction" was in fact a writing after dictation of an oral poem we may ask: Why did Pisistratus select a Trojan story for writing and not, for instance, a song about Theseus, which would offer much better occasion for praise of Athens? And if oral epic poetry still flouήshed, why did he not engage a singer to compose such a poem? 1 emphasized in chapter VIII that oral poets, however creative, do not simply make up new poems on old subjects. Το engage a singer to compose a heroic poem about Athens would not be possible if such poems did not already exist. But if the idea of Pisistratus was not only to contήbute to the glory of Athens, but also to give her a leading position in lonia, peιhaps even in Greece as such, then the Trojan war offered itself as the great joint enterpήse of the Greeks, and therefore it had to be an epic of the Trojan cycle. Απ oral poem may be considered as a collective piece of art, a co-production of singer and audience. The changes that occur can, 1 think, best be understood from the model of Homeήc language and style. Old and new coexist, but not in a chaotic mixture; in questions of language, where a younger fοπη can take the place of an older without seήous damage to the hexameter, then it does, otherwise the older form is retained. The language is in constant change just as nonnal spoken language. But the technical demands involved in oral performance in metήcal form tend to promote the retention of forms obsolete in the spoken language. The more demanding the metre, the more conservative the tradition; this conservatism is enf orced by the feeling that an archaic flavour suits the elevated style in which tales of a heroic past are told. Parry's investjgations into Homeήc diction were closely connected with the study of language, and the result was analogous: the diction must be acceptable to a contemporary audience 162

and ίt ίs, therefore, ίπ constant change. These are two factors that promote the retention of existing expressions: the demands of oral versemaking, and the desire to make the style "distant and wondrous". "When the foπnula can be changed it sooner or later will be, and the cleavage between the old and the new in the style depends on whether it is easy or hard to change the formula" (265). When we transfer this model to the level of content it means that the poet will retain old elements as long as they are not felt to be offensive to the audience; if innovations are made they will, again, be govemed by the interests of the audience, and only such innovations will be accepted that are not felt to be anachronistic. As the language changes for the sake of mtelligibility, while it remains unaltered for the sake of verse-making and the desire for an elevated style, the content changes for the sake of acceptance by the audience, while it remains unaltered for the sake of rapid perfoπnance and the desire to descήbe coπectly the events of the heroic past. "Acceptance by the audience" may cause innovations that are ideologically neutral, or such that are particularly pleasing to a particular audience. As an example of neutral innovations in the Riad and the Odyssey can be mentioned the descήption of buήal customs. Cremation is the only way of disposing of the dead in the poems; this must mean that both poet and audience have lost knowledge of a past when inhumation was the noπnal practice: a new element has taken the place of an older one no longer felt to be natural. Απ innovation made to please a particular audience ίs the passage of Πiad :ΧΧ where a gloήous future ίs foreseen for the descendants of Aeneas; it has often been thought to be deliberate adulation of the kings of Skepsis, and at the stage when it was composed it must have been so. lts subsequent retention was the result of the conservative trend: so long as it was inoffensive to shiftmg audiences there was no need to change it (266). Direct changes in wording are not always necessary to achίeve acceptance by the audience; passagesmay be interpreted differently by different audiences. Thus the existence of kings in the Riad and the Odyssey is an element that may oήginate m a peήod of Greek prehistory when kingdom was a reality. By audiences living in the age of the tyrants, the kings will naturally have been mterpreted m the frame163

of tyιanny, and ra•JBM advocating subon:linance to the kίng will haνe been easίly inteιpn:ted as also ooncemingrelations between tyrant and subjects. Such "innσνations" satisfy both trends, the conserνative one as weDas that govemedby the contemporary audience. Απ inference for σιιr reading of the Iliιιd and the Odyι:ιey is that they must be inteιpreted as expressive of ideas and morals of Athens ίn the ιecond half of the sixth centuιy. The poernsare hardly useful as sources for institutions of eadier peήods; they descnoe society and customs as poet and audience imaginedthem to have been in the past, not necessarily as they actually were. But it wiD be possι"ble with great precision to read out of the poernswhat was considered good or bad in Pisistratean Athens, because anything that was not acceptable to this audience must haνe been changed or left out. In chapter VI, when discussing the process of dictation, 1 descήbed ίt as a perfonnance involving two parties, a singer and a scnoe, where the scήbe has the rόle of the audience in a nonnal perfonnance. 1n a nonnal perfonnance, the singer fulfils the demands of the audience as far as these are known to him/her; nonnally this is an unconscious process for both parties (267). If we represent 'tradition' by a circle, the nonnal perfonnance may be illustrated in this way: wοά

poet

~

audience

lf the perfoπnance ίs a dictation, however, the model will differ in some aspects. The "audience" is here often a more complex entity and, however much it may be familiar with the tradition, not nonnally part of it:

164

1n the composίtion and wήting down of the Mwindo epic the audience, as far as it is stated, consίsted of the anthropologists (= scήbe) and the natives who gathered round to take part in the event (= casual listeners); the latter influenced Rureke, but they were not on this occasίon the main audience. 1n this particular case, then, the audience wascomposed of members and non-members of the tradition:

poet ο----+--ο

t

scήbe

casual listeners

When Mirash Ndou performed for us at Shkodra, the scήbe's rόle was occupied by Gjovalin Shkurtaj and myself; we were the main audience besides which there might be casual listeners. There was an absent, 165

irnagined audience, the Danish public that Ndou thought would some day hear him on the radio; and there was a patron, Professor Haxhihasani, also absent. The intluence of the imagined audience will in this case have been minimal; but the patron's intluence was, 1 think, decisive for the poet's estimation of the importance of the occasion:

patron - imagined audience poet

ι----+-Ε> scήbe

casual listeners

If we tum to the wήting of the Riad and the Odyssey, we have, on one side, the tradition, represented by a Homeήd, perhaps called Cynaethus. 0n the other side we have the scήbe, Onomacήtus and/or his slave; we do not know if there were casual listeners present; there was an imagined audience, the people who would gather every fourth year to celebrate the Great Panathenaea; and there was a patron, Pisistratus, and/or Hipparchus:

Pisistratus Cynaethus