SECTION 3
CHAPTER 14
Klaus Lennartz
I Toward Terms and Forms
The term iambos occurs first in a line of Archilochus of Paros (mid-seventh century BC, see below, Section II) (fr. 215):
καί μ᾽ οὔτ᾽ ἰάμβων οὔτε τερπωλέων μέλει.1
And I don’t care for iambi or festivities.
The occurrence is not surprising, as Archilochus, soldier and local “star poet,” was to become the best-known exponent of Iambos. The use of ἴαμβοι (“iambs”) here permits different interpretations.2 The most satisfying, drawing on the commonplace pairing of poetry and festivities, lets us refer it to poetry. The speaker names an expected product, which he claims not to be able to deliver. One effect could lie in the irony that the poem itself delivers the rejected product.3 The ongoing type of verse (iambic trimeter), then, should correspond with the meaning of “iambs,” an assumption that fits with (later?) metrical nomenclature and the Hellenistic standard edition of Archilochus as ἰαμβοποιός (“poet of iambics”),4 which placed this type first. On these assumptions, iambos comes to mean personal poetry, characteristically delivered in three “iambic” metra, each one consisting of the form × ‒ ⏑ ‒ (x denoting a place where a long or a short syllable is used: see further D’Angour (Chapter 9) in this volume).
Many scholars have taken the view that “iamboi,” here, is defined by its content and performance occasion and not rhythmically determined.5 Actually, most scholars support a content-based definition, suggesting that at its core is an interest in abuse and vulgarity. There is a lot of such in the iambic poets indeed, and by the classical period, the verb ἰαμβίζειν (based on the term “iamb”) means “to abuse,” as attested in Aristotle, who surmizes that popular art forms, where performers “mocked each other” (ἰάμβιζον ἀλλήλους, Poet. 1448b32), represent the early roots of literary Iambos. Moreover, when he characterizes Old Comedy by its use of personal mockery, he calls it “of the iambic style” (ἰαμβικὴ ἰδέα, Poet. 1449b8), tracing it back to ancient phallic songs and Dionysian rituals (Poet. 1449a11).6 In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (a poem in honor of the goddess from the seventh or sixth century BC), Iambe is the name of a witty woman who makes the goddess laugh despite her grief (200–205), and scholars have on this basis suggested an origin for Iambos in cultic mockery in honor of Demeter (see also below, Section II). However the fragments of the three great iambic poets (Archilochus, Semonides, and Hipponax) show no particular similarity to the merry banter in the female rites of Demeter (nor to Dionysian joking, as it emerges from extant examples), and the probable place of their performances (the symposion, see below), their precise metrical rules, and their lexical preferences are all removed from ritual items.7 Male solo-performance, narrative poetry, and iambic trimeter, all pre-date Archilochus, and the iambic rhythm suits the lexical run of the ancient Greek language (Arist. Rhet. 3. 8. 1408b33–35). It was especially apt for subliterary forms (Arist. Poet. 1448b31), in cults as in everyday life. The fact that abusive, witty, and sex-loaded lines are frequently found in literary Iambos is neither surprising, nor are these traits omnipresent (unless by modern definition). Nevertheless, the reception of Archilochus and archaic Iambos, naturally enough, was already in antiquity focused on these characteristics.8
Archilochus and many later iambic poets also used a strophic type of two (or occasionally three) verses, the last a shorter one. These were sung to the lyre and called “epodes” (ἐπωιδοί) by later metricians. Iambic rhythms appear in most of them, themes are personal: so possibly they were subsumed under iamboi. The third form is what later was called “trochaic tetrameter,” i.e., ‒ ⏑ ‒ × ‒ ⏑ ‒ × ‒ ⏑ ‒ × ‒ ⏑ ‒. With a regular break (), and accompanied by the flute, it should have been perceived differently from the (spoken) verses of Archilochus 215. However Hipponax, inventor of the choliambos (“limping iamb,” viz. where the next-to-last syllable is long; see below, Section III), makes both forms limping and should have assigned them to the same kind of poetry. Greek tradition has always kept apart these three forms, trimeters, epodes, and tetrameters, from “song” (μέλος), the latter being the property of melic poets.9
The second important term from Archilochus fr. 215 is τερπωλέων (“festivities,” “pleasure”). Iambos is expected to take place at an occasion involving festivities. Now, “festivities” can easily mean sympotic activity, and Archilochus’ poems often address friends (for example his comrades Glaucus and Pericles). A sympotic meeting is described in Archilochus frr. 48 (trimeters) and 124 (tetrameters). This strongly suggests that the symposium of male companions was the normal place for his performances.10 This place fits well with the themes mostly featured in Iambos: namely, narrative which deals with circumstances and opinions of the speaker11 (being mostly, but not always, the persona of the poet),12 criticism and abuse, vulgarity and eroticism, but also moralizing and political advice.
II Archilochus
Archilochus lived in the middle of the seventh century BC and was born into an upper class family on the Cycladic island of Paros.13 His father, Telesicles, played a role in the colonization or further occupation of Thasos by the Parians. On Thasos, Archilochus fought with the Naxians, who had their own interests there, and with Thracians (several fragments can be assigned to these circumstances). He composed many elegies, long and short ones (P. Oxy. 4708 fr. 8: six lines). In one, he gives a self-presentation as a tough soldier, as well as an elegiac singer (fr. 1):
I’m a servant of Master War and I know the lovely gift of the Muses.
Here as elsewhere, Archilochus shows himself deeply rooted in the traditions of epic poetry, whence he succeeds in creating new and surprising phrases (here with the play on the epic phrase “servant of the Muses”).
The biographical tradition14 reports that on Paros the poet fell out with the family of Lycambes. We are told of a marriage agreement concerning Lycambes’ elder daughter, Neobule, a contract which was terminated by her father. The names of the protagonists are known to us via Archilochus and the tradition, and it has been reasonably suggested that “Lycambes” and “Neobule” are no historical proper names.15 Many scholars hold that they were not real people at all.16 The story is one about comradeship (fr. 172. 1–3), the treaty of “table and salt” (ἅλας τε καὶ τράπεζαν, fr. 173), a marriage, legitimate children (cf. Dioscorid. ep. 17.10 Page, Archil. fr. 196a. 16–17, 32–35), and probably civic humiliation (Archilochus was confronted with the charge of being son of a slave or foreign mother),17 topics that, in ancient personal poetry, are not easily accessible under a completely fictional approach.18 Archilochus treated the story abundantly,19 with a combination of violently erotic poetry and insult, and such poems greatly influenced Archilochus’ later reputation and the reception of his poetry. One of his poems on this subject (frr. 172–181) told the fable (known to us from Aesop) of the fox and eagle, who made a pact of friendship, which the eagle broke. Just as the fox gets justice in the fable, so too the poet anticipates his own vengeance against Lycambes and his family.20
Another interlude in the story of the Lycambids is told in the (First) Cologne Epode (fr. 196a):21 the narrator meets a girl, taken with probability to be Lycambes’ younger daughter, and seduces her. The poem presumably began by setting the traditional pastoral scene,22 and may have done so with the line preserved as fr. 38: “ the younger daughter of Lycambes, when she was alone” (οἴην Λυκάμβεω παῖδα τὴν ὑπερτέρην).23 The surviving section of the poem begins with the girl’s suggestion that the speaker might prefer a different girl, who is later revealed to be Neobule. Before, she seems to have indicated a concession (possibly marriage) the man must make if he wants intercourse with herself. She lets the speaker reject Neobule with an insulting comparison to herself. He pleads for petting, lays her down, and reaches his climax on her. I give this famous poem in full translation:
“…completely aloof <from the extreme thing:> withstand I will hold out> just like that!/But if you are in a hurry and your will oppresses you, there is one in our home (5) who now very much desires <to marry? Or simply: you>, a ‘beautiful and delicate girl’:24 I think, (7) her figure is not bad. (8) This one <make your lover!> (9) So she spoke. To her I answered the following words: (10) “daughter of Amphimedo, who was a good and sober woman, and who is now in moldy Earth’s arms: there are pleasures of the goddess (of love) abundantly for young fellows, (15) even without the divine thing; one of those will be enough. (16) Those other matters you and I will, when <black night comes down(?)>, discuss with god’s help. I will obey your command: (20) you will find me <very reliable (?)>. But under the ledge and before the gates, may I, my dear?(23) I will come over the grassy (24) meadows. But this you have to know: (25) another guy should own Neobule! (26) Oh God, she’s overripe, twice your age, (27) the flower of her girlhood gone, (28) and the charm she once had. She can not get enough and, in her lust, (30) already sees the limits of her <youth>. Away with her! It must not happen to me that I, because I got such a woman, become the mockery of the neighbors. (35) It’s you I want <much more>: <because you> are not faithless or duplicitous. But she is very devious, (38) and has many <lovers>. So I’m afraid that (40) in a hurry, like a bitch, I’m going to give birth to blind and ill-bred puppies.”(42) That’s what I said: and I took the girl and layed her on flowering fields: (45) I covered <her> with my soft cloak, holding her neck in my arm, and <still she laid> just like a fawn, who rests <in fear (?)>.25 I gently touched her breasts with my hands, and she let be seen her young skin (50) on which her femininity appeared. I stroke her beautiful body everywhere and I shed my <white> power, touching her fair hair.
The poem shows a perfect architecture. The two parts of the conversation are exactly coordinated; the man repels the girl’s praise of Neobule by inverting it: the latter is not “beautiful and delicate” (6), but “overripe” (πέπειρα, 26), no more virgin, but “the flower of her girlhood gone” (ἄν]θος δ’ ἀπερρύηκε/παρθενήϊον, 27); she does not long for (5), but has already several lovers (29, 38). The younger sister is the very opposite, a girl you can marry (but that let be considered overnight, 16–18).26 From line 42 on, every word corresponds to the progression of the sexual climax, which the speaker, naturally enough, achieves at the end of the poem, with his ejaculation.27 The final image of her blond hair (ξανθῆς … τριχός, 53), touched in the paroxysm of lust, makes a very erotic end to the narrative.
Another epodic poem (frr. 188–191) might contain another retrospective view of the relationship with Neobule (the addressee is not named in the poem’s beginning, which still survives, but hearers would probably relate it to the “normal” target of their singer right from the start):
Your skin no longer blooms the same, because it is already contracted into furrows … bad old age has destroyed you, from your charming face sweet charm has jumped off … because, oh yes, many gusts of winter storms have blown on your face, often … (fr. 189) you devoured many blind eels … (fr. 190) and deep forests, as I was in my youth. (fr. 191) Such a strong desire of love making had settled in my heart and poured much haze before my eyes, stealing away clear thoughts from my head.
(fr. 188)
What is striking in both epodes is the subtle use of erotic language.28 The poet makes intensive use of agricultural imagery and language derived from natural scenery, drawing on the poetic convention that depicts love scenes among unmarried people as taking place outside the house. Thus in the Cologne Epode, the seduction takes place in a flowery field (fr. 196a.42–44), Neobule is described with language of overripe flowers and fruit (26–27), and the speaker imagines having sex “over the grassy meadows” (ἐς π̣ο̣η[φόρους/κ]ή̣πους, 23–24). Similarly, in fr. 188, the woman’s skin is described as “furrows” (κάρφεται γὰρ ἤδη/ὄγμοις, 1–2) and “blooms no longer” (οὐκέθ’ ὁμῶς θά̣λλεις, 1).
Archilochus’ trimeters, epodes, and tetrameters show linguistic, rhetorical, and ethical differences. The epodes, sung to the lyre, show an accordingly high level of expression. Orgasm is denoted by “I shed my power” (λευκ]ὸν ἀφῆκα μένοϲ, fr. 196a.52), penetration is “the divine thing” (τὸ θεῖον χρῆμα, 196a.15), the girl’s genitalia are grassy meadows (π̣ο̣η[φόρους/κ]ή̣πους, fr. 196a.23), and sex takes place on a flowery field (fr. 196a. 42–44). We find a very different register in the spoken trimeters: one poem describes a sexual encounter in graphic terms “his dick overflowed like that of a Prienian greedy donkey” (ἡ δέ οἱ σάθη/ὥστ’ ὄνου Πριηνέως/κήλωνος ἐπλήμυρεν ὀτρυγηφάγου, fr. 43), and elsewhere we have references to “between her thighs” (μῆρων μεταξύ, fr. 66), “wet pubic zone” (παρδακὸν δ’ ἐπείσιον, fr. 40). In the Cologne Epode, Neobule no longer shows “the charm she once had” (χάρις ἣ πρὶν ἐπῆν, 28): in trimeters she is “disgusting and fat around the ankles” (περὶ σφυρὸν παχεῖα, μισητὴ γυνή, fr. 206), and, instead of a beautiful garden, we find a couple who “leaned against the wall in the dark” (πρὸς τοῖχον ἐκλίνθησαν ἐν παλινσκίωι, fr. 36). In between these two poles moves the tetrameter, recited to the flute: “If only I could touch Neobule with my hand in such a way” (εἰ γὰρ ὣς ἐμοὶ γένοιτο χειρὶ Νεοβούλης θιγεῖν, fr. 118) and “to fall on a working sack, belly on stomach, thigh on thigh” (καὶ πεσεῖν δρήστην ἐπ’ ἀσκόν, κἀπὶ γαστρὶ γαστέρα/προσβαλεῖν μηρούς τε μηροῖς, fr. 119), a phrasing which is elevated by its reference to Homeric battle description.29
Aggressive trimeters represented no small part of Archilochus’ performance: in fact he called himself “son of Blame” (Ἐνιποῦς υἱός, fr. 295 (a)), and was remembered as a “fighting dog,” “wasp,” or “lecher.” Martin West considered that the obscene iamboi of Archilochus (his “true Iambos”) did not represent any Lebenswelt, but stock stories in the style of a fictional series, delivered in a carnival entertainment in the context of a Demeter festival (see also Section I).30 However, Archilochus harshly criticizes the economic and military situation of Thasos and his homeland, Paros (frr. 20–22), or a type of military general (frr. 113, 114), or a friend’s misbehavior (frr. 124, 295(c)). Moreover, the one recognizable place of his performances (the symposion, see above, Section I), some peculiar details concerning Lycambes,31 and the graphic degree of sexual description seem to disprove this “ritual approach.” One of Archilochus’ companions, Glaucus,32 is named as the addressee in elegy (fr. 15), military tetrameters (frr. 96.1, 105.1, cf. 131.1), trimeters of the non-erotic kind (fr. 23.11–21?33 Cf. 96.5) and erotic ones (48.7), so that a different performance of any “true” iambs from tetrameters or the elegies does not offer itself. This all is of course far from presuming that the actions described in the poems are one-to-one mapping of what really happened. Archilochus’ world is poetically fictionalized, as the worlds of Sappho, Alcaeus, or, if you want, Leonard Cohen.
For a balanced estimation of genre and author, it is important to note that Archilochus’ trimetric poetry with equal perfection strikes a vulnerable tone. Fr. 24 is an address to a close friend who has recently returned from a dangerous voyage in which his cargo has been lost. The piece is poorly preserved, but is a complete poem, whose statement and structure are clear enough:
(1) You came home on a small ship through the vast sea of Gortyn <and barely escaped from a misfortune: the cargo is gone>. (8) I do not care if the load is lost! Things can somehow be replaced: but another like you, I could not find, if the waves had buried you or if, by the hands of enemies, (14) your blooming youth had been destroyed. (15) But now a god has saved you (and did not allow), that I should be left alone. I lay in darkness, (18) but I’m risen again to light!
The sections of address (1), narration (1–8, almost lost) and argument (8–14) merge in a final section (15–18), where the poet transcends the immediate event to offer a powerful metaphor, without any pomposity. Despite the different topics, the brilliance of the “Cologne Epode” and these trimeters is equally apparent.
Archilochus addressed war on Paros and Thasos in elegies and tetrameters. A considerable number of tetrameter fragments provide descriptions of battle (frr. 89, 98, 99). We hear of a “battle near the stone towers” that are “surrounded by ladders,” the “stream of projectiles,” “quivers,” “smoke,” “courage,” “the burning sun,” death and decay (fr. 107). Olympian Zeus and Athena help the fighters (cf. fr. 91, 94).34 Unlike epic, the speaker is fully involved: “we brought them pain” (πημο̣νὴν ἐπήγομ[εν], fr. 98.14), “we built the towers” (ἐδε[ίμαμ]ε̣[ν, 98.10). The uncomfortable situation of the polis is brought to the fore (fr. 109: “you citizen in misery, understand my words!”). With tetrameters, the poet criticizes in an ironic, humorous way, as for example in a poem mocking a pretty coward (“Mister Longhair,” κομῆτα): “you swung away your high-quality and ran away” (ὡς ἀπ’ εὐεργέα τινάξας ἐτρ[άπης, iamb. adesp. 38.9):35 the implication surely is that this man threw no lance. “Earlier than anyone” (πρὸ πάντων, 12) he appeared at home, “untouched” (ἀδρυφής, 14) (12–14). Another famous fragment (fr. 114) criticizes a certain type of pretty leader. Comrades, of course, knew that the valor of a superior is proved not by his beauty—this may be apt for epic fighters, and, even here, more according to women’s perception,—36 but by a solid step and a courageous heart:
I do not like a tall captain with wide, big steps, proud of his curls and his trimmed beard: no, he can be small for my part, and not very straight in his calves, but standing firmly on his legs, full of courage.
Tradition tells us that Archilochus died in a battle against the Naxians, and that people on Paros honored him with a “state funeral” (Archil. test. 4 B col. (Vb?), p. 32 Gerber).
III Semonides
We next meet literary Iambos with Semonides, a poet somewhat younger than the Parian.37 He led a Samian group of colonists to the Cycladic island of Amorgus. Being accordingly a man of no humble rank, he performed trimeters, tetrameters (Aristox. fr. 22 Wehrli) and elegies in symposia.38 No fragments survive from his “History of the Samians,” probably a historical narrative elegy.39 Semonides does not use epodes. In his poetry, there are traces of speakers of lower rank in erotic (frr. 16, 17) or gastronomical narration (fr. 24), and obscene personal rebuke. There is the typically “iambic,” i.e., vulgar imagery (fr. 8 “like an eel (dips) in the slime” (ὥσπερ ἔγχελυς κατὰ γλοιοῦ), in an erotic sense, cf. the “blind eels,” “devoured” by, as it seems, Neobule in Archilochus fr. 189), and animal fable (fr. 9). Such points of contact with the poetry of Archilochus presumably stem from the innate dynamics of Iambos, which by now had achieved the level of literature in different places. We also hear of a treacherous man (fr. 41 “as Prylis of Lesbos,” a seer who was bribed by Agamemnon). Semonides’ main target of rebuke, Orodokides,40 is mentioned by the satirist Lucian (pseudol. 2). Maybe this man is ridiculed for his looks (frr. 38, 40, cf. 14). He or someone else is attacked with homosexual clichés: in fr. 18 the poet claims that “he goes with the swinging step of a mare,” while someone is called a “weakling” (κύβηβον, fr. 36); fr. 17 refers to anal intercourse. The vivid persona and the deep, if rough humanity paramount in Archilochus’ poetry is absent in Semonides. On the other hand, we find plenty of general considerations, a iambic kind of “wisdom poetry” that applies to the civic rank of this author.
We can observe the latter in his longest fragment (fr. 7): here, types of women are “described” on the basis of their animal “ancestors.” The women are compared to animals (pig, fox, dog, donkey, weasel, mare, monkey, and bee) and elements (earth and sea), each of which represents a stereotype about female behavior with the corresponding consequences for their husbands. For example the pig woman is described as slovenly, the monkey as ugly and scheming, and so on. The couplets do not follow any convincing order, only the last, the woman who descends from the hard-working, cleanly bee, is recommended. With this woman “life flourishes, and in a harmonious love that remains until old age, she gives birth to a famous offspring” (85–87); importantly, she avoids gossiping with other women about sex. In 112–116, the poem takes a new turn: “Every man will praise his own wife when he talks about her, scolding his neighbor’s: we do not realize that we share the same fate”: an observation quite unexpected after thus many obvious faults.
While the poem, of course, is meant as entertainment, the lines are too full of aggression to be taken as “folksy”41 or “comedy,” or even as “carnival.” The “dog woman” does not stop barking when “one threatens her or crushes her teeth with a stone” (17–18); the “weasel woman,” during sex, excites nausea by her stench (53–54). There lurk significant risks caused by bad women (e.g., bastards, poverty): under the surface, the modern reader learns not a few about the considerations of these men’s, gathered in a comparatively closed group, their concerns about the oikos, and their fears concerning sexual failure, infidelity, loss of money and honor.42
Semonides’ other longer piece (fr. 143) suggests an atmosphere of world-weariness: the speaker, addressing a young servant,44 complains about the futile hopes that mortals will make for the next day, season, or year, whereas, by the decision of Zeus, they will be killed beforehand by old age, disease, death in war, or shipwreck. Some also die by homicide, and so for mortals everything is full of death and evil:
εἰ δ’ἐμοὶ πιθοίατο
οὐκ ἂν κακῶν ἐρωιμεν, οὐδ’ ἐπ ἄλγεσιν
κακοῖς ἔχοντες θυμὸν αἰκιζοίμεθα
But if they listened to me, we would not go out with the evils and not torture ourselves by turning our minds to sore pains (22–24).
In terms of theme and morality, we can put the piece side by side with elegiac verses of Mimnermus, Theognis, Solon, and Simonides. These however give more room for deepening reflection, which here is repressed, be it by the plainer run of iambic lines or simply by Simonides’ artwork. More objectively, the poem seems also to offer some problems with its thought development and style.45
To be fair, we have lost a huge proportion of Semonides’ trimeters, and all of his trochaics. What survives tells us that Iambos, with Semonides of Amorgus, besides the trimetric core themes of personal assertions, heavy assault and erotic narrative, shows some slackening toward the general, answering probably to the poet’s civic rank and genius.
IV Hipponax
Hipponax, son of Pytheus and Protis, was born in Ephesus and active as a poet between c. 520 and 490. He, not Archilochus, was to become the figurehead of the Hellenistic revival of Iambos (see below and Morrison (Chapter 27) in this volume). “Hipponax”—the speaker-figure is given an important and consistent role, stressed by multiple self-naming—and his cast are drawn as low-class outcasts, a picture that can have no basis in historical fact, since the poet is clearly highly educated, and stems from an elite family (he was banished from Ephesus to Klazomenai, as the biographical tradition gives with informations that would not have been fancied: maybe there was a substantial break in the author’s biography?).46 The reason for this masque has been differently interpreted, e.g., as “middling” countermovement against an elitist melic, as a playful literary strategy against the emergence of a powerful layer of the New Rich, as a literary “distillation” of the iambic tradition, or a iambic ritual show.47 However “Hipponax” himself was not depicted as a thieve or so: Hellenistic poets see him as a man of stern judgement (Theocr. ep. 13 Page), and forerunner of a cynically rigorous criticism, which would not spare anyone when he erred (Leonid. ep. 58, 3 Page).48 Surely there is a substantial break in his stichic meters (iambic trimeter and trochaic tetrameter): for he teaches both to “limp,” i.e., he replaces the last short syllable by a long (the famous choliambos, see also above, Section I). Thus, he gives Iambos a much rougher color and a very original character.
Hipponax was not really concerned with the preservation of his material existence: this would be unthinkable under the ancient conditions of the production of poetry. Nonetheless, as poetic narrator, he complains about bad footwear and clothing, he has frostbite (cf. fr. 34. 4) and urgently needs a warm coat—but plenty of gold would not be bad either (fr. 32):
Ἑρμῆ, φίλ’ Ἑρμῆ, Μαιαδεῦ, Κυλλήνιε,
ἐπεύχομαί τοι, κάρτα γὰρ κακῶς ῥιγῶ
(…)
Hermes, my dear Hermes, Maia’s little son, master of mount Cyllene, I pray to you, because I am very cold and I tremble with my teeth… give Hipponax a cloak and a small undershirt (5) and light sandals and boots – and sixty gold staters in the other basin of the weighing scales!
Here, several characteristics emerge. There is a hymn-like address in a profane prayer. With Hermes, we meet the favorite god of Hipponax, and the homely invocations (Μαιαδεῦ is a hypocoristical epithet) correspond to the caricature of such naïve appreciation. Hermes is tricky, a deity especially apt for rascals, bathhouse thieves, artisans, and musicians that surround “Hipponax.” The gnashing of his teeth is “iambic” βαμβαλύζω (appearing also in Archilochus, i.e., ia. adesp. 38.4). Small undershirt, light sandals, and some special boots, are rhyming diminutives of the lower jargon of Asia minor (κυπασσίσκον καὶ σαμβαλίσκα κἀσκερίσκα).49 After the common plea for a warm cloak they sound comically diversificated and clash with the final, surprising plea for plenty of current gold money. Finally, “in the other basin of the weighing scales” (τοὐτέρου τοίχου), i.e., “to balance me up,”50 clearly originates from trade jargon.51 All of which is performed in a most severely respected, idiosyncratically manipulated rhythm, the “limping” effect ironically omitted in the “hymnic” first line.
“Hipponax” asks for wheat, without which he cannot handle his situation with any decency (fr. 39):
I will hand over my soul full of woes (πολύστονον ψυχήν) to evil things, if you do not contact me as soon as possible, and send me a sack of 50 kilo of wheat, so I can make a porridge (κυκεῶνα), to slurp it as medecin against wickedness (φάρμακον πονηρίης).
Sounding like an elementary cry (and so partly understood by nineteenth century philologists), again, the author makes us start thinking: πολύστονος feels Odysseus in his famous first words to Penelope in Od. 19.118 (“I am very full of woes”).52 Also φάρμακον, with an abstract noun (πονηρίη), is a pompous phrase.53 The idea that loss of one’s livelihood leads to wickedness is frequent in moralizing poetry (e.g., Theogn. 384–387), but Hipponax adapts it to a comic effect: he stands up against, “being evil,” by devouring a huge mass of vegetable porridge!54
As with Archilochus and Semonides, a frequent element of Hipponax’s Iambos was his attacks on a particular enemy. Tradition tells us that he was maligned by Bupalus of Chius, a well-known sculptor, who worked in these areas with his brother Athenis.55 Given the prominent feud between them, it was probably Bupalus who broke an oath, which in fact led to the quarrel.56 In a well known curse poem of eight epodic stanzas (Hippon. *115), the speaker wants his enemy to encounter shipwreck, adversity, and—of course—cold and hunger:57
κύμ[ατι] πλα[ζόμ]ενος · (4)
κἀν Σαλμυδ[ησσ]ῶι γυμνόν εὐφρονέ[στατα (5)
Θρήϊκες ἀκρό[κ]ομοι
λάβοιεν—ἔνθ <α πόλλ’> ἀναπλήσει κακὰ
δούλιον ἄρτον ἔδων—
(…)
… (4) got lost by the wave; and if only, naked as he’ll be, (5) in Salmydessus [a Thracian town, unsafe for greek sailors] (6) the Thracians, with high-set hair, most graciously would receive him, when he is quite stiff from the cold: where he would experience copious evils, eating the daily bread of slavery! And from the sea foam the wave may pour rotted algae upon him (4–10), and with his teeth he shall rattle, lying like a dog with weakness on the snout at the very edge of the surf: That, I’d love it, should the guy experience who has done me a wrong and trampled the oath – and previously was my drinking companion! (11–16)
The structure is symmetrical: words for “wave” stand in the fourth line from the beginning and the end (κύμ[ατι and κυμα[), framing the vicissitudes of the unfortunate (either named in the beginning, or someone whom the audience would have identified immediately, cf. Neobule in Archil. 188, above, Section II). The last three lines, in a powerful resumptive epilogue, ensure the “public” indictment of the oathbreaking, and this may have corresponded to the lost three lines which opened the poem. Whereas the general tone sounds more earnest than in the limping iambs, typical of Hipponax are the roughly broken up syntax, streched by parentheses, the ironic use of Homeric junctures (4 “lost by the wave” as the much more reliable Odysseus in Od. 5. 4–5; 6 “Thracians with high-set hair” from Il. 4. 533: but the guys here are no epic fighters!), the exuberant naturalism of nakedness, cold, and hunger, and, not least, the (sarcastically) “most gracious”58 Thracians of Black Sea Salmydessus (5), whose almost proverbial inhospitality does not really compare with the up close Thracian tribes of Archilochus.
Several fragments stem from an actual “Bupalus fight” (μάχη Βουπάλειος),59 and “Hipponax” wishes Bupalus to be chased out of the city as a particularly repugnant “scapegoat” (frr. 7.10):60
He must be declared a scapegrace (…) To dry him out with hunger. And, driven away as a scapegoat, he must get whipped on his root seven times!
There is at work a constant and strong defamiliarization: most drastic scenes are portrayed under the strictest metric laws in a playful and difficult language, making the “studied vulgarity”61 of this “proto-hellenistic” artist.62 In fr. 92 the speaker (in this case maybe Bupalus himself, as seems to emerge from the “scapegoat” simile in 4),63 in a potency-promoting séance with two Lydian prostitutes, gets addressed “in arsic” (πυγιστί, 2), and, after excessive “treatment,” is shown defecating. Then, because of his stench, he is attacked by an army of beetles (fr. 92). Another opponent, the flutist Kikon (fr. 118. 11), in the wake of Bupalus, using a paste obtained by some priests, can excite his masculinity (fr. 78), and in another piece is set in mythical connection with Heracles (fr. 102).
The live performance of Hipponax may have been introduced by a few hexameters, fr. 128 (with a reference to his “scapegoat” Bupalus) and fr. 129 “as he came to Kypso” (“Lady Bendover,” instead of: Kalypso!). In fact the poet seems to have performed a kind of “iambic Odyssey.”64 Here, a hero (fr. 77. 4 “like the wicked Bupalus”) met the Phaeacians. The very name of Bupalus’ wife would have been the not so seldom “Arete,” like the Phaeacian queen:65 as in Archilochus, we see the family of his main target pulled into the story. In fr. 13–17 (see also fr. 84) “Hipponax” describes minutely an affair with Arete, cuckolding his enemy: well, “motherfucker” (μητροκοίτης, fr. 12. 2) Bupalus admittedly consoled himself (fr. 70. 7–8: “who chopped the sea urchin of his sleeping mother”). Finally, like Archilochus in the “Cologne Epode” (Archil. fr. 196a, see above, Section II), “Hipponax” lets one poem (fr. 84) end with an orgastic climax: but whereas Archilochus’ encounter with the young sister of Neobule powerfully conveys the energy of the male orgasm, “Hipponax’s” finals, obviously, are somewhat less intoxicating (fr. 84. 21–22):
And after the work we had (exhaustion?):
I … like a wrinkled sail … let slaughter (?) … penis …
In addition to his famous iamboi, Hipponax wrote fine smaller love songs in a dance rhythm (fr. 119: “if I only had a beautiful and tender girl!”).66 But it was his notorious limping lines which were immediately imitated (by the contemporary poet Ananius), and, in the Hellenistic era, proved to be suitable for a surprising rebirth.
V Hellenistic Iambos and Callimachus’s Iamboi
Two hundred years later Iambos celebrates its resurrection in Alexandria. The interest of Hellenistic poets in choliambos particularly stems from Hipponax’ original wording and meter, whereas iambic trimeter, by now, was considered paramount and ready-made.67 Among the many poets who used limping lines, Phoenix of Colophon wrote ethical sermons (fr. 6 Powell = 1 Diehl) and shorter aetiological poems (fr. 2 Powell = Diehl, a begging song (!)), and Herodas, in his “iambic mimes” (μιμίαμβοι), absolutizing the strong scenic impuls of archaic Iambos, creates small, lifelike scenes (“A brothel-keeper,” “A schoolmaster,” “Women sacrificing to Asclepius,” and others). In a programmatic piece (“Dream,” Herod. 8), he even positions himself the true heir of Hipponax.
However, the greatest of all “new iambicists” was Callimachus. In his book Iamboi,68 comprising 13 poems,69 besides choliamboi and epodes, he uses several kinds of trimetric derivatives. In the opening poem he downright stages Hipponax, emerging from Hades, to deliver a Iambos of supreme authority: he will (tongue in cheek) “end the dispute and envy of the philologists” (cf. Dieg. 6.5–6) (Call. fr. 191, 1–4 Pf.):
Listen to Hipponax! Well, I come/from where you sell the whole beef for a penny,70 and bring a Iambos that does not sing/the Bupalus fight (μάχην τὴν Βουπάλειον, cf. above on Hipponax, Section IV) …
Callimachus brilliantly recycles an archaic genre to an avant-garde poetry book, connecting the core of invective Iambos (viz., ia. 2–6, criticizing talkativeness of men, greed, a rival poet, an elementary teacher, and someone who measures Phidias’ Zeus by pounds and inches) with the contemporary interest in aetiology (ia. 7 and 9 about Hermes (!), 8 on a “water race” competition, 10 on Aphrodites who do not despise humble sacrifice, and 11 on the proverbial confession of a pimp) and epigram, the favorite genre with Hellenistic poets (ia. 7 and 11 can easily be read as “crossings” of epigram with Iambos). Finally, in ia. 12, the firm generic boundary between Iambos and “song” (see above, Section I) is intrinsically stressed, when Apollo’s song for Hebe gets celebrated through a Iambos. The last item, ia. 13, completes the polemical framework. Here, Callimachus defends his most influential conception of poetry as multi-generic tool in the hands of a virtuoso, but still divinely-inspired poet. This all is given under the constant impact of a superior, intelligent irony, whereby “all this poet touches, changes gracefully.”71
A further development of the genre, in Greece, was no longer possible. The next iambic poet of importance would return to Archilochus, and write in the city of Rome.72
FURTHER READING
Of the introductions to Iambos the best are Carey 2009b and Brown 1997. Neither touch on Hellenistic Iambos, for which, see, e.g., Scodel 2010 or Gutzwiller 2007. Lennartz 2010 covers the whole field, but is not for beginners in this field. West 1974 remains the classic tool on (elegy and) iambos for all times. Bartol 1993 gives all testimonia concerning the genre with translation.
For commentaries on the iambic poets, see Swift 2019 (Archilochus), Pellizer and Tedeschi 1990 (Semonides, in Italian), Degani 1991 (Hipponax, Latin notes to his magisterial edition) and 2007. For discussion of selected fragments, see Gerber 1970, Campbell 1982 and Allan 2019. For a commentary on Callimachus’ Iamboi, see Kerkhecker 1999.
Notes
1 Fragment numbers and Greek text are taken from West (see list of abbreviations). Translations are my own.
2 See, e.g., West 1974: 36, Bowie 2001: 3, Carey 2009: 149.
3 “It is attractive to suppose that the term iamboi is here self-reflexive”: Bowie 2001: 3.
4 In Aristotle, the term should be understood as basically metrical, analogous to the terms “poet of hexameters” (ἐποποιός) and “poet of elegiacs” (ἐλεγειοποιός): see Poet. 1447b11–14.
5 Carey 2009b: 150, Brown 1997: 14. Dover 1964: 101, Fowler 1987: 133, Kantzios 2005: 3–4, Nicolosi 2016: 176, and others have suggested that iamboi includes even elegiac works. However the terms elegoi and iamboi may be used around 600 BC as official formulations regarding performances in panhellenic contests (Bartol 1993: 27–28 and Lennartz 2010: 94–95): this makes it unlikely that both forms could be labelled iamboi on mid-seventh century Paros.
6 Bowie 2002.
7 Carey 1986, Lennartz 2010: 160–179. For a different view see in particular West 1974: 22–39.
8 Rotstein 2010.
9 See below on Callimachus, Section V.
10 Kantzios 2005: 17–28. The alternative theory (advocated by West) is that “true Iambos,” viz. iamboi of the sexual and banter kind, was performed at ritual occasions. See also below, section II. Archilochus’ poetry, presumably also his iamboi, would be publicly recited before c. 500 BC (Heraclitus fr. 30 Marcovich).
11 Bowie 2001, Carey 2008.
12 Archaic poets, however, do not speak in solemn isolation, but as representative of some acknowledged values and opinions: Fränkel 1975.
13 Archilochus composed a poem in which a character responds to a solar eclipse (fr. 122), usually taken to be the eclipse of April 6th, 648 BC. This is consistent with other evidence, e.g., the mention of Gyges, Lydian king 680–644 BC (fr. 19).
14 Kivilo 2010: 87–119, Swift 2019: 3–8.
15 Bonanno 1980.
16 The “overall fictional approach” has been most ingeniously defended by West (first 1974), who is followed by many, but has also found important dissent by, e.g., Rösler 1976, Carey 1986, Bossi 1990, and others.
17 Cf. Critias in Aelianus VH 10. 13 = Archil. fr. 295 and P. Oxy. 4952, a commentary on Archilochus’ trimeters, fr. 1. 9.
18 There is a huge literature on fictionality in ancient personal lyric. Slings 1990 and Bowie 1993 are particularly worth reading.
19 To the numerous fragments on this story in West 1989 maybe add the epodic poem P. Berlin 16002 (Ucciardello 2012).
20 Irwin 1998.
21 First published by Merkelbach and West 1974. See Nicolosi 2007.
22 Cairns 2010, Swift 2019: 365–366.
23 Merkelbach–West 1974: 102.
24 The phrase, a pattern of the erotic jargon (Theogn. 261, Hippon. 119), comes suspiciously ready-made from the lips of the virgin. So do the following words (7–8).
25 Unfortunately, the text here ist very uncertain: probably the fear and awe of the unexperienced and inferior lover (Nicolosi 2007: 238–240), is drawn with the traditional image of a resting fawn (so West’s suggestion 1989: 77a, accepted by most scholars).
26 See Handley 2007.
27 That there is no full coitus emerges from line 15 “even without the divine thing,” explained by an ancient commentator in Hesych. π 839 Hansen as “even without coitus.”
28 Swift 2016a.
29 Hom. Il. 13. 130–131, a famous locus, cf. Tyrt. 11. 31–33 and Cert. Hom. et Hes. 191–204 Allen: see Swift 2019: 119.
30 West 1974: 27 “The possibility I am suggesting.” In later articles he took the case for certain.
31 E.g., the former reliability of Lycambes (fr. 172. 2–3), the death of his wife “Amphimedo” (fr. 196a. 10–12), the pair of his unmarried daughters (fr. 175. 3. frr. 38, 54, and 196a): cf. Carey 1986.
32 His tombstone was found on Thasos (SEG 14.565).
33 The exact extent and interpretation of this fragment is controversial. Most take it as one erotic poem. See Swift 2019: 248–249.
34 Narration here achieves an almost epic scale, cf., e.g., the weighing of dooms by Zeus in fr. 91. 30, resembling Il. 22. 209–212 and similar epic scenes.
35 The poem, without doubt, is by Archilochus: Lennartz 2000, West 2006: 11; cf. Hesych. κ 3446 H.?
36 Cf. Hector’s rebuke of Paris in Il. 3. 39–45; later Sappho fr. 16. 1–3 will praise the beauty of military ranks!
37 Procl. Chrestom. 31: see Lennartz 2010: 473–475.
38 Fr.1 is plainly sympotic, and there is an address to a companion Telembrotus in fr. 22, who appears to have prepared a feast, followed by a remark on cheese in fr. 23.
39 Bowie 1986: 31.
40 The form of the name, as given in Lucian, is surely corrupt.
41 Cf. Phocylides fr. 2 Gentili–Prato, where the same theme is made up much more harmlessly, in elegiacs.
42 See, e.g., Morgan 2005.
43 Gerber 1984.
44 Often, in sympotic poetry, a servant (παῖς), who is not further specified, is the formal addressee.
45 For example, old age and illness stop human efforts quite differently than war and shipwreck. Also the transition from “mortals/they” to “me” and “we” in 22–23 seems all but smoothly.
46 Suda ι 588, p. 2, 665, 16 Adler = test. 3 Gerber; cf. the banishment of Sappho, equally of noble family.
47 Kurke 2007a: 145–152, Degani 2002: 204–205, Carey 2003: 218, and see Oxford Classical Dictionary sv “Iambic Poetry, Greek” [West]. The most balanced overall view is Carey 2003.
48 Cf. below on Hippon. *115. Also, e.g., frr. *117, 118, 128 point in this direction: cf. Carey 2008: 91.
49 Hipponax, artfully mirroring the slang of the street, abounds in foreign words, among them many Lydian: Hawkins 2013.
50 West 1993a: 118.
51 Degani 2007: 102.
52 The one and only use of the word in the Odyssey, of which Hipponax shows an intense application otherwise, too (see below).
53 Degani 2002: 167. The type of circumscription is frequent with Hipponax.
54 Rosen 1987 and others surmize with the porridge a reference to the cultic drink of Demeter (h. Hom. 2. 210).
55 See, e.g., Brill’s New Pauly, sv “Bupalus” [Neudecker].
56 Is this an already traditional iambic scheme, or basic reality of ancient men in groups, or both? Cf. also above, Section II.
57 It is fair to remember that neither the name of the victim of the poem is in the text, nor is there any positive documentation that the poem is in fact by Hipponax. The same papyrus (P. Strasb. 3) contains an epode that is certainly by Hipponax (fr. 117), and most experts today (among them M. West and E. Degani) see Hipponax as its author. See the analyis below.
58 The word, in the papyrus, is not absolutely certain.
59 The term would be resumed by Callimachus, cf. below, Section V.
60 Through “scapegoat-rituals” cities of early Greek purified themselves in symbolically loading all common harm and damage on a previously selected person (φαρμακός), usually marked by some physical deformation. They drove him out of the town and performed humiliating acts on him. Especially the “scapegoat fragments” let Martin West think of the Ionic feast of “Thargelia” as setting for Hipponax’ iambic show (see above, note 47).
61 West 1982: 41.
62 Degani 2002: 171–186, Brown (1997: 87 n. 34): see Alexandrou (2016: 225 n. 55).
63 Also Semonides brought forward male speakers narrating humiliating sexual activities of themselves, cf. fr. 17 “and I squeezed through the back door,” to be frivously understood (so already in an ancient commentary, culled by the Etymologicum Magnum 633. 58: see West 1974: 179, and others).
64 The title of this parodical “iambic epic” seemed transmitted in P. Oxy. 2174 fr. 5 = fr. *74, but see Prodi 2017a who sows reasonable doubts upon this view.
65 For the parodic use of Homeric motifs in Hipponax see, if too confidently, Rosen 1990, and, for other myths, Alexandrou 2016.
66 Cf. above on Archil. fr.196a.6.
67 Kerkhecker 1999: 5–6.
68 Callimachus’ book—the title is documentary—is inadequately preserved but accessible through an ancient “reader’s digest,” the Diegeseis: see Falivene 2011.
69 Some hold that the book contained the (melic) fragments 226– 229 Pfeiffer, too: see, e.g., Lelli 2005.
70 Incidentally, Callimachus’ Hipponax did not overcome his hunger!
71 Körte and Händel 1960: 18.
72 Thanks to Dr. Mark Suskin, Hamburg, who helped me with my English, and to the Editor Laura Swift for plenty of sober suggestions and further shaping of my style. Remaining errors, of course, are mine.