CHAPTER 15

Elegy

Krystyna Bartol

The distinctive feature of elegy is the meter: the couplet (or distich, as it is often called) consisting of a dactylic hexameter followed by two hemiepes (‒ ⏔ ‒ ⏔ ‒ ⎟ ‒ ⏑ ⏑ ‒ ⏑ ⏑ ‒ ⎟⎟).1 This short strophe was named the elegiac couplet, although it was also characteristic of verse inscriptions and literary epigrams. Elegies were poems of different length, covering various topics, mostly intended to be sung to the accompaniment of the aulos (a wind instrument) at symposia and at public festivals. Ancient sources about the earliest elegists, i.e., Clonas, Polymnestus, and Sacadas, connect them with setting the rules of the aulody (singing to the aulos), and present the two latter as responsible for the so-called second organization of music in Sparta at the turn of the seventh and sixth centuries.2 Also some poetic remains of archaic elegiac poets3 suggest that the poems were sung rather than spoken, but one cannot be sure that they are self-referential.4

It seems that elegy from its very beginnings was characterized by thematic diversity, although ancient authors5 point to its original links with a context of mourning and funerary ritual, when explaining the meaning of the elegiac genre’s names (ἔλεγοϛ, ἐλεγεῖον, ἐλεγεία) as denoting lamentation. Modern scholars recognize the affinity of these three terms,6 but rather doubt that the ἔλεγοϛ and the two other terms derived from it, meant lament in the archaic period. The earliest confirmation of such a meaning, prevailing later in the majority of ancient sources,7 occurs in Euripides’ Trojan Women (line 119), dated to the year 415 BC. The so-called Echembrotus inscription, dated to 585 BC (in Paus. 10.7.5–6) does not suggest that elegoi, sung alongside melea by the Arcadian aulode during the Pythian contest, were lamentatory pieces. Such an interpretation (defining elegoi as mournful lament) must be Pausanias’ later development8 and the real difference between elegoi and melea (lyric songs) might have consisted in the character of the melodic accompaniment or in the metrical form, not to any different themes or moods of these compositions. We can suppose that the author of the inscription polarized the terms (elegoi and melea) to stress the opposition between the regular elegiac pattern based on the dactylic sequence and the highly varied and flexible melic meters,9 and consequently on the character of the musical accompaniment connected with both types of poems. It seems that those scholars who argue there were two meanings of the word elegos are right:10 one,—earlier, not denoting lament, and a later one, appearing in the late fifth century11—exclusively connected with threnodic themes.12 Elegy, as one might think on the grounds of testimonies and extant elegiac texts themselves, was from the beginning a thematically manifold genre, and threnodic or funeral themes (including general philosophy, consolation, or commemoration, as is the case of Archilochus, fr. 13 W and Simonides, Plataea Elegy, fr. 1 W) might be present in it,13 along with serene advice on private and social matters, balanced reflections on life and joyful calls for drinking.

As to the terms ἐλεγεῖον (plur. ἐλεγεῖα) and ἐλεγεία (plur. ἐλεγεῖαι), generally speaking no distinct tendency is observed in the choice of either, and the usage of singular or plural form depends only on the context in which the term occurs.14 The employment of ἐλεγεῖον, appearing first about the end of the fifth century,15 and ἐλεγεία—found for the first time in Aristotle (Ath. 5.2; 5.10), show that people of the classical period conceptualized the elegiac genre as defined not only by melodic or metrical features, but also by theme, social appeal and mode of communication.16

Elegy in the archaic and classical periods was presented in both private and public contexts. The most important performance venue for short elegiac songs was the symposium17 (and perhaps, in some cases, also the komos, an exuberant procession of drunken revelers which followed the symposium18). Longer (historical and self-standing19) narrative pieces were performed at outdoor gatherings, i.e., cultic ceremonies20 and public festivals, when musical and poetic agones (competitions) were also held.21 A sympotic presentation of elegies must have met the expectations of the participants of the feast gathered “around the krater,” expecting not only pure entertainment, but also more serious, often morally oriented, instructions as well as memories about past events and comments on current issues. The performance of elegiac pieces in which the poetic persona usually represents the voice of “I” with whom an individual symposiast could easily identify himself, encouraged re-performances of the song during next gatherings. Although some elegiac statements might have been inspired by the poet’s personal experiences and consequently formulated from the author’s autobiographical perspective, they took on a more general sense in the convivial context and became a part of the common sympotic repertoire.22 Various situations presented in poems composed in elegiac couplets or alluded to within them activated the symposiasts’ imagination, built bonds between them and provoked reactions; in the Theognidea, a collection of sympotic, mostly anonymous, elegies, one can find short poems thematically corresponding to each other, which might be improvised, as scholars argue, a catena (in a chain) by symposiasts during their amateur performances. The symposium was the right place for presenting a variety of themes and moods elegy dealt with. As Ewen Bowie has rightly argued,23 the room where a convivial gathering took place, and not any other place, such as a battlefield, ship or agora,24 must have been a setting for singing elegiac poems referring to military matters (as e.g., Archilochus’ couplets on dining “on the spear” (fr. 2 W25) or on throwing away a shield (fr. 5 W), Callinus’ or Tyrtaeus’ exhortations for bravery (Call. fr. 1, Tyrt. frr. 10-11 W), political issues (like Solon’s Salamis, frr. 1–3 W), and sad experiences after someone’s loss (like Archilochus’ reflections on endurance as an antidote against desperation, fr. 13 W). All these, in the same way as homoerotic, metasympotic, philosophical, or reflective themes, contributed to create the sympotic atmosphere, which consisted of serious (σπουδαῖα) and funny (γελοῖα) elements, as an anonymous elegist (c. 300 BC) put it: “we ought to laugh and joke, (…), take pleasure in being together, and utter jests such as to arouse laughter. But let seriousness follow (…): this is the best form of symposium” (fr. adesp. 27 W).

Sympotic elegies were treated by the Greeks as vehicles of enjoyable instruction. But in Greek cultural life, longer narrative pieces in elegiacs were no less popular than the elegiac paraenetic or didactic statements sung to a fixed melody played on the aulos at symposia. Such narrative elegies were present in the poetic praxis quite early. They incorporated foundation tales (as e.g., Mimnermus’ Smyrneis, Xenophanes’ The Foundation of Colophon) or included mythological, perhaps self-standing narratives (like Archilochus’ Telephus Elegy) as well as celebrated great historical events (e.g., Simonides’ Plataea Elegy).26 They might have been composed for competitive performance or sung in cultic spaces associated with some heroes’ sanctuaries.27

The language and style of early elegy and epic poetry show many common features. The close link between both categories is not only the result of sharing a dactylic base in the metrical pattern they used, but above all sharing the “narrative nature” of poetic discourse.28 Elegists, inspired by the Ionic epic tradition, introduced linguistic and stylistic innovations, which derived first from their raising new topics (comparing to those of epic) and from incorporating into the elegiac diction features of their everyday vernacular.29 While composing poems, they made choices, selecting from the existing epic repertoire elements corresponding to their needs, reusing them and creating new, artistically different compositions.

When scholars talk about early elegists, they tend to take as the most representative authors of this genre those whose surviving poetic output was mostly composed in elegiac couplets. One must, however, remember that the poets in the archaic and classical epochs were by no means the masters of only one certain category. They might have been specialists in fully melic as well elegiac poetry (as with Simonides and Anacreon) or experts in elegiac as well as iambic production (e.g., Archilochus and Semonides), or skillful composers of elegiac as well as of hexameter poetry (e.g., Xenophanes). Later ancient theorists structured the canons according to the genres. Earlier practitioners of poetry were less attached to such a way of categorizing.

Callinus

The oldest the elegiac poet of whose work some lines have survived is Callinus. He lived in the mid-seventh century in Ephesus. Strabo (14.1.40) judges him earlier than Archilochus, deducing such a chronological order from the references to the citizens of Magnesia made by both poets: Callinus mentioned them as prosperous, whereas Archilochus attests to them suffering destructions, which suggests that Callinus must have composed his elegies before the Cimmerians’ invasion of Magnesia (c. 645 BC), Archilochus after the raid of this nomadic tribe.

From among extant fragments of Callinus only one piece is relatively long (21 lines). It directly pertains to the threat situation of the polis and is the earliest example of exhortatory military elegy. It aims to arouse the will to fight in defense of the homeland among the Ephesian youth. It begins with a series of rhetorical questions:

μέχρις τέο κατάκεισθε; κότ’ ἄλκιμον ἕξετε θυμόν,

ὦ νέοι; οὐδ’αἰδεῖσθ’ ἀμφιπερικτίονας

ὧδε λίην μεθιέντες; ἐν εἰρήνηι δὲ δοκεῖτε

ἧσθαι, ἀτὰρ πόλεμος γαῖαν ἅπασαν ἔχει. (fr. 1.1–4 W)

How long are you going to lie idle? Young men, when will you have a courageous spirit? Don’t those who live round about make you feel ashamed of being so utterly passive? You think that you are sitting in a state of peace, but all the land is in the grip of war.30

This is followed by poetic praise and blame which alternately show the glory of him who stands firm against the enemy and the disgrace of him who lingers to do so: the first is “like a tower in the eyes of the people,” the second “is not in any case loved or missed by them.” The elegy was probably composed to be sung at symposia. The initial κατάκεισθε (“you lie idle”) may refer not only to the Ephesians’ leisure time idleness, but also to the symposiasts’ reclining during the feast. The elegiac exhortation is addressed to the specific recipients, which is typical of poetry intended to be performed in a sympotic setting. At the same time the poet makes his reflections on patriotic topics universal.

Depending—like other early elegists—on Homeric vocabulary, Callinus successfully makes it individual, especially when creating dynamic images of fighting warriors and others’ reactions on their deeds. He appeals to his countrymen from the position of moral authority claiming that fighting for the homeland and family is more beneficial than fighting for individual fame and glory. In this respect he differs from Homeric ideology:

λαῶι γὰρ σύμπαντι πόθος κρατερόφρονος ἀνδρὸς

θνήσκοντος, ζώων δ’ ἄξιος ἡμιθέων.

ὥσπερ γάρ μιν πύργον ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ὁρῶσιν.

ἔρδει γὰρ πολλῶν ἄξια μοῦνος ἐών. (fr. 1. 18-21 W)

All the people miss a stout-hearted man when he dies and while he lives he is the equal of demigods. For in the eyes of the people he is like a tower, since single-handed he does the deeds of many.

Tyrtaeus

Exhortatory elegiac poems intended to be sung at symposia31 were composed in Sparta by Tyrtaeus. According to the Suda (IV 610.5 Adler) he flourished in the 35^th Olympiad (640–637), but since ancient sources connect him with the second Messenian War (c. 640–637) one should set the latter part of the seventh century as the date of his activity. The Athenian origin of Tyrtaeus, first mentioned in Plato’s Laws (629a), is undoubtedly a legend, elaborated by the classical anti-Spartan tradition. His devotion to Spartan ideology and sincere engagement in promoting military bravery among the Spartans, observable in every verse of his elegies, makes us believe in his Laconian origin.32 The Suda’s entry devoted to Tyrtaeus informs us that his verses were collected in five books, and enumerates a poem on the Spartan constitution (Πολιτεία), elegiac precepts (ὑποθῆκαι), and war songs (μέλη πολεμιστήρια). Aristotle (Pol. 1306b36) and Strabo (8.4.10) refer to Tyrtaeus’ poem entitled Eunomia (Good Order). It is probable that they mean the same elegy or elegiac collection to which the Suda gives the name Politeia. Several verses preserved from this poem show that the Eunomia was a poetic piece presenting and sanctioning the Spartan political and social system with divine roots, and presenting the ideal polis in which the citizens obey their laws:

Φοίβου ἀκούσαντες Πυθωνόθεν οἴκαδ’ ἔνεικαν

μαντείας τε θεοῦ καὶ τελέεντ’ ἔπεα∙ (fr. 4. 1-2 W)

After listening to Phoebus they brought home from Pytho the god’s oracles and sure predictions.

Most of Tyrtaeus’ surviving poems are exhortatory elegies, in which he calls for valor and soldierly courage. He treats both as ethical social values: the merits of an individual who fights in defence of the land and its inhabitants, is the basis of his respect among the members of the community he belongs to. The two relatively long pieces we possess (frr. 10 and 11 W, over 30 lines each) have quite a similar overtone. The poet encourages young men to be brave, alternately using a persuasive description (of praise- or blameworthy deeds) and dynamic direct advice. Both poetic devices form two phases of paraenesis (exhortation), which aims at promoting courage and patriotic attitudes toward the polis. He intends the same effect to be gained with his enthusiastic inducement:

ὦ νέοι, ἀλλὰ μάχεσθε παρ’ ἀλλήλοισι μένοντες,

μηδὲ φυγῆς αἰσχρῆς ἄρχετε μηδὲ φόβου, (fr. 10. 15–26 W)

Come, you young men, stand fast at one another’s side and fight, and do not start shameful flight or panic,

and with his evocative pictures:

τεθνάμεναι γὰρ καλὸν ἐνὶ προμάχοισι πεσόντα

ἄνδρ’ ἀγαθὸν περὶ ἧι πατρίδι μαρνάμενον (fr. 10. 1–2 W)

It is a fine thing for a brave man to die when he has fallen among the front ranks while fighting for his homeland,

or reflection:

τρεσσάντων δ’ ἀνδρῶν πᾶσ’ ἀπόλωλ’ ἀρετή.

οὐδεὶς ἄν ποτε ταῦτα λέγων ἀνύσειεν ἕκαστα,

ὅσσ’, ἢν αἰσχρὰ μάθηι, γίνεται ἀνδρὶ κακά∙ (fr. 11. 14–16 W)

but when men run away, all esteem is lost. No one could sum up in words each and every evil that befalls a man, if he suffers disgrace.

Death which guarantees imperishable glory, and saving one’s own life which brings everlasting disgrace must have strongly acted on the imagination of the audience and at the same time stimulated their behavior. So there is a continuous shift between concreteness of the Tyrtaean images and the moral dimension of his poetic statements.

One of the most interesting poetic devices employed by Tyrtaeus to achieve his goals is undoubtedly the priamel in fr. 12.1–10 W. It consists of a list of “apparent,” from his point of view, virtues, and human abilities exemplified by well-known mythological figures (Cyclopes, Boreas, Tithonus, Midas and Cinyras, Pelops, and Adrastus as representants respectively of size and strength, speed, beauty, richness, power, and ability to speak convincingly). The poet contrasts all of them with “being good in war,” which he calls aretē, excellence. He evaluates it as “the best human prize and the fairest for a young man to win.”

Tyrtaeus, the supporter of the Spartan rulers in their attempts to put down the revolt of the conquered Messenians and at the same time the master of propaganda, became, in early nineteenth-century Poland (annexed by three partitioning powers, Austria, Prusia, and Russia)—quite unexpectedly—a patron of freedom-fighters who treated his verses as a source of ideological inspiration.33

Mimnermus

Another Ionian elegist was Mimnermus. The Suda says (III 397.20 Adler) that he flourished in the thirty-seventh Olympiad (632–629). The second half of the seventh century seems to be proved by some extant verses of the poet in which he might have referred to the struggle of the previous generation of the Smyrnaeans with the Lydian cavalry of Gyges in the 660s on the plain of the river Hermus (fr. 14 W).34 The ancient sources do not agree on the origin of Mimnermus. They mention Colophon and Smyrna as his home city. The latter seems to be confirmed by the poet himself who mentions (fr. 9 W) the Smyrnaeans’ sailing to Asia and their settlement in Colophon. The Colophonian connections of Mimnermus have been, as it appears, transformed by later tradition into the belief in his Colophonian roots, which was an evident attempt to link him with other masters of the elegiac genre associated with this place: Xenophanes, and later Hermesianax and Antimachus.

The corrupted text of the Suda suggests that Mimnermus was a prolific artist, and Porphyry (in Hor. epist. 2.2.101) says there were two books of his verses. This piece of information seems credible, since also Callimachus (fr. 1.11–12 Harder) indicates two categories of Mimnermus’ poetry, mysteriously calling them “delicate35 [discourses]”36 and “big woman.” The first group might collectively refer to Mimnermus’ small-scale poems, called by postclassical authors Nanno after the poet’s beloved aulos-playing woman, as opposed to the Smyrneis, the longer narrative elegy telling—in epic manner37—the story of Smyrna. The “sweetness” of his sympotic short pieces brought Mimnermus fame and reputation as a talented poet. In Augustan Rome he was viewed as an author of love elegies, but the remains of his Nanno we possess today (six fragments) show that his poetry contained a subtle picture of the emotional experiences of a man who values the charms of life, but at the same time is overwhelmed by an obsession with inevitable old age and loss of the attractions of youth. His poems are not confessions of an unhappy lover fascinated by sensual delights, who applies myth and literary allusion to evoke “personal” emotions,38 but rather pensive, pessimistic reflections on the human condition. The awareness of the transience of happiness and inevitability of old age, which appears to him worse than death, constantly return in his work. Such thematic monotony is, however, compensated for by high-quality poetic discourse: the vividness of visual imagery, internal symmetry, wide range of the figure of speech (repetitions, anaphors, alliterations, enjambement, internal rhymes), and the use of mythological allusions and examples, often referring to the Homeric tradition, let him create a convincing image of a man addicted to the unpredictable will of the gods and aware of the hopelessness of his existence.

Mimnermus offers to his audience a presentation of the same topic from two different points of view. Two fragments in which he explores the contrast between the delights of youth and nuisance of old age, are quoted by Stobaeus (4.20.16 and 4.34.12). In one he identifies himself with a young man to whom miserable old age seems remote, so that he desperately prefers death:

τίς δὲ βίος, τί δὲ τερπνὸν ἄτερ χρυσῆς Ἀφροδίτης;

τεθναίην, ὅτε μοι μηκέτι ταῦτα μέλοι,

κρυπταδίη φιλότης καὶ μείλιχα δῶρα καὶ εὐνή, (fr. 1.1-3 W)

What life is there, what pleasure without golden Aphrodite? May I die when I no longer care about secret intrigues, persuasive gifts, and the bed.

In the second he takes the perspective of a mature man who concentrates his attention on the shortness and fleetingness of joyful youth, alluding to the well-known Homeric simile (Il. 6. 146–149):

ἡμεῖς δ’ οἷά τε φύλλα φύει πολυάνθεμος ὥρη

ἔαρος, ὅτ’αἶψ’ αὐγῆις αὔξεται ἠελίου,

τοῖς ἴκελοι πήχυιον ἐπὶ χρόνον ἄνθεσιν ἥβης

τερπόμεθα, (fr. 2. 1-4 W)

We are like the leaves which the flowery season of spring brings forth, when they quickly grow beneath the rays of the sun; like them we delight in the flowers of youth for an arm’s length of time.

The thought of old age as a terrible and everlasting evil is exemplified by Mimnermus for Tithonus’ fate, whom Zeus endowed with immortality, but not with constant youth (fr. 4 W). A wistful longing for what may ever not be fulfilled must have been treated by Mimnermus’ recipients as a gentle persuasion to enjoy life while one can. It must have met their taste, since they gave him, as the Suda says, the nickname Ligyastades (Λιγυαστάδης, a member of the family of clear-voiced singers) “because of his harmonious clarity,” διὰ τὸ ἐμμελὲς καὶ λιγύ). The early popularity of his poems also proves Solon’s poetical polemics (fr. 20 W) with his wish for death at the age of 60 (fr. 6 W).39 When Solon urges him to change his mind and sing “May my fated death come at eighty” he expects his audience to identify the Mimnerman poem he alludes to.

Xenophanes

Diogenes Laërtius states the sixtieth Olympiad (540–537 BC) as the floruit of Xenophanes (9.18.20). He was Colophonian, but most of his long life was spent in Magna Graecia (South Italy and Sicily) where he went after the conquest of the city by the Persians about 540.40 As a wandering sage who laid foundations for Presocratic philosophy, also as elegiac performer41 he realized himself as an expert in practical philosophy, exploring traditional in this genre praise and blame to give moral lessons to members of the aristocratic societies which he visited. Xenophanes’ poetry is devoted above all to various aspects of usefulness (χρηστόν) conceived by him as the basic principle of all human activity. In his elegies he continues to practice the tradition of sympotic paraenesis and at the same time gives the audience a portion of elegant entertainment. The best example of his poetical skill is the elegy quoted by Athenaeus (11.462c). This refined composition consists of two parts; each of them develops the image of an ideal symposium, emphasizing the good manners, and integrity of convivial actions (both ordinary ones such as hand washing, placing garlands, filling the mixing-bowl or serving bread and cheese, and spiritual and intellectual activities like hymning the gods, revealing noble thoughts and telling stories). The climax of the description is the recommendation to praise the “man who after drinking reveals noble thoughts, so that there is a recollection of and striving for excellence,” followed by the blame of those who recall “wars of the Titans or Giants or Centaurs” at the table, since “there is nothing useful in them” (τοῖς οὐδὲν χρηστόν, fr. 1.23 W). The last words of this piece show that man’s right attitude in life is “always to have a good regard for the gods” (θεῶν <δὲ> προμηθείην αἰὲν ἔχειν ἀγαθήν (24)). Xenophanes imagines true deity with its perfect nature, not gods conceived in Homeric and Hesiodic poems, as one can guess after the reading of some of his hexametric pieces where he sets out his theology (e.g., frr. 11, 22 D.-K.).

The idea of the usefulness of human deeds finds its expression in another of his elegies where he condemns the athleticism, admired by the Greeks of all archaic cities, as a concept completely unprofitable for the society, and announces instead the primacy of poetic wisdom (σοφίη) over all athletic qualities, which he elegantly enumerated in the first part of the elegy. He concludes: “For my expertise is better than the strength of men and horses,” and continues: “Little would be the city’s joy, if one were to win while contending by the banks of Pisa; for this does not fatten the city’s treasury”(fr. 2. 21–2 W). Xenophanes expanded the range of elegiac themes by introducing general philosophical, especially moral, issues gradually going beyond the idea of aristocratic society. His constant praise of social usefulness and blame of the uselessness of some of the individual’s desires42 makes Xenophanes a spokesman of every community in which the acts of its members contribute to its overall success and well-being.

Narrative Elegy

Until recently we were very tentative about the content, location, and function of long narrative elegy. The size of such poems might vary from a several hundreds of lines to a several thousand: we learn from Diogenes Laertius that Xenophanes’ poem on the foundation of Colophon has two thousand verses. The publication of two texts preserved on the papyri, in 1992 and 2005, radically changed this situation. The first recovered piece is Simonides’ Plataea Elegy,43 the second Archilochus’ Telephus Poem.44

What we have from Simonides’ poem is slightly more than 45 lines, which clearly form two parts. The first lines (1–21) are hymnic, the second part (22–45) resembles the epic way of reporting events. The initial apostrophe of the hymnic part has been lost, but its final address to Achilles (19–20) suggests that he was addressed there. The description of his death goes into the theme of the sack of Troy and reflection on the glory that came to the Greek victors thanks to Homer’s songs. The poet says: “[best of war]riors, sacked the much-sung-of city, and came [home;] [and they] are bathed in fame that cannot die, by grace [of one who from the dark-]tressed Muses had the tru[th entire,] and made the heroes’ short-lived race a theme familiar to younger men.”45 This moving picture of Homer and the heroes celebrated by him anticipates the parallel image of the poet himself and his contemporaries which Simonides sketches in the next part of the elegy. In the proud words: “I [now summon] thee, i[illustriou]s Muse, to my support, [if thou hast any thought] for men to pray: [fit ou]t. as is thy wont, this [grat]eful song-a[rray] [of mi]ne, so that rem[embrance is preserved] of those who held the line for Spart[a and for Greece,] [that none should see] the da[y of slavery.]” he included not only his joy of the Greeks’ victory in the war against the Persians he is going to praise in the song, but also his awareness of his own achievements as an artist. Mythological and historical narrative which appear in Simonides’ Plataea Elegy seems suitable to be presented at the public cultic occasion celebrating the victory in the Plataea campaign of 479 BC. The emphasis on Achilles in the song made scholars think that it must have been performed at the festival in honor of this hero. Even if they are right, which seems highly probable,46 it is impossible to say if the character of this performance was competitive. In any case, this narrative piece glorifies the recent military victory using the well-known epic story as a means of elegiac praise. The remains of Simonides’ elegy on the battle on Artemisum (frr. 1–9 W) are too scanty to say anything certain about its content and structure. The passage telling the story of the sons of Boreas coming to help the Athenians by rousing the storm (fr. 3 W) suggests that the poem might have contained some digressive elements which embellished the narrative.47

Another example of archaic narrative elegy are fragments of Archilochus’ poem preserved on the Oxyrhynchus papyrus published in 2005 by Dirk Obbink.48 The passage we possess contains the mythological narrative concerning an episode known from the Trojan war background,49 namely the Mysian king Telephus’ routing of the Greeks who lost their way when sailing to Troy and mistakenly landed in Mysia. From certain conjectured lines emerges the dynamic picture of the battle and of the exceptional bravery demonstrated by Telephus.50 It was followed by Heracles’ epiphany,51 who came to meet his brave son Telephus, who pleased the father with his prowess. Scholars’ opinions concerning the character of this narrative piece differ. Some treat it as a part of a longer poem on recent events for the poet and his audience. They take Telephus story to be a traditional mythological exemplum and link it with the Parian colonization of Thasos, whereas others think of it as a self-standing mythological story.52 The striking ambiguity of the narrator’s attitude toward the Argives’ situation told in the poem (criticizing cowardice and at the same time providing a note of consolation) resembles Archilochus’ tone adopted by him also in other poems. If the poem is truly intended to justify a contemporary painful event (defeat, not a victory, as is the case of the Plataea Elegy by Simonides), the public performance at the festival would seem more problematic than sympotic presentation.53 Without knowing what was said in the missing part of the elegy all speculations must, however, remain uncertain.54

Elegy of the Classical Period

Elegy of the second part of the fifth and the fourth centuries reflects new trends that appeared in lyric poetry composed in this period. While melic poets of those times were keen on musical experimentations, the elegists tried to achieve the new kind of artistry (called poikilia, variety, diversity: see LeVen (Chapter 25) in this volume) by giving fresh treatment to traditional sympotic themes, and make the textual elaboration a seductive quality of their poems in a new cultural environment. The authors adopt new devices to present old elegiac topics and moods. The pursuit of content condensation in few lines, specific erudition (manifesting itself, among other ways, in the presence of aetiological themes and topics concerned with various inventions and discoveries), employment of sophisticated rhetorical strategies, and metrical experiments become characteristic features of elegies composed in Athens by Critias, Ion of Chios, Dionysius, Chalcus, and Euenus. The first, a politician, philosopher, and orator connected with the movement of the sophists living 460–403 BC, composed elaborate elegiac eulogies on sympotic themes and customs. Noteworthy is his praise of Spartan youth and moderation in drinking (fr. 6 W). A good sample of his periphrastic style is a passage from the elegy in form of a catalog of products originating from various places of Greece, where Athenian pottery is praised as “the offspring of wheel, earth, and oven, invented by the beautiful trophy at Marathon” (fr. 6.12–14 W). Critias also plays with the metrical pattern of elegy, while wittily substituting for the pentameter line of the couplet the iambic trimeter (fr. 4 W), a verse which introduces a shade of mockery into Alcibiades’ praise expressed in the poem. Elegies of Ion of Chios, a lyric poet, dramatist, and philosopher (490–422 BC), prove the relevance of the opinion expressed by the author of the treatise On the Sublime 55 who compares Ion’s style to Bacchylides’ elegant stylistic design. Ion enriches traditional elegiac themes with aetiological elements. He also plays with other literary genres. His elegiac eulogy of Dionysus (fr. 26 W) cleverly refers to the hymnic pars media, in which the story of producing wine from the grapes has been presented in the form of a sophisticated metaphor finishing with the encomiastic coda and a salutation addressed to Dionysus, the divine patron of feasts:

τῶι σὺ πάτερ Διόνυσε, φιλοστεφάνοισν ἀρέσκων

ἀνδράσιν, εὐθύμων συμποσίων πρύτανι,

χαῖρε∙ δίδου δ’ αἰῶνα καλῶν ἐπιήρανε ἔργων

πίνειν καὶ παίζειν καὶ τὰ δίκαια φρονεῖν. (fr. 26.13-16 W)

And so, father Dionysus, you who give pleasure to garlanded banqueters and preside over cheerful feasts, my greetings to you! Helper in noble works, grant me a lifetime of drinking, sporting and thinking just thoughts.

A master of metaphor was also Dionysius Chalcus (the Bronze). His elegies intended for a sympotic setting explore various topics for building convivial metaphors, for example gastronomic (“pour a draught of songs as wine,” fr 4 W), marine (“the oarage of our tongues,” “the oarsmen of the Muses,” fr. 4 W), and athletic (“the gymnasium of Bromius,” fr. 3 W). He loves overtones and ambiguities when describing sympotic games and the friendly atmosphere of a feast. Euenus of Paros also composed elegant meta-sympotic pieces in which he recommended moderation as a model of cultural drinking (fr. 2 W). He was, as we learn from Plato, a teacher of rhetoric (Ap. 20ab). This activity left its mark on his elegies, too. In one of his surviving couplets (fr. 1 W) he refers to the rules of eristics (the art of debating), which—as an art of “persuading men of sense by words well spoken”—may be employed, as one can assume, not only in public discussion, but also by the symposiasts. He might be the collector of the Theognidea, an anthology of elegiac pieces in two books.56

Elegy of the classical period combined both the old traditional features of the genre and new tendencies in poetry which appeared in lyric in the fifth century. One can say that elegiac production on its textual level, the same as other lyric categories, consequently, though in small steps, developed toward the model usually called by us Hellenistic.

FURTHER READING

The best editions of elegiac poets and testimonies remain West and Gentili-Prato. Gerber’s edition also includes translation. Good translation is also to be found in West 1993a. Allan 2019 provides a good short introduction to the main problems associated with the genre, texts of selected elegies, and a commentary on them written with great sensitivity to the nuances of elegiac content and form. From among commented editions of individual elegists useful are Allen (on Mimnermus), Lesher (on Xenophanes), Swift (on Archilochus). Campbell 1967 can also be consulted. There is also a good commentary on the elegists for those students who read Italian (De Martino and Vox 1996). Instructive introductions to main problems connected with the nature of the elegy and short presentations of the authors include Fowler 1987, Gerber 1997b, Barron and Easterling 1985, and Aloni 2009. Adkins 1985 analyses individual poets paying special attention to the devices of poetic expression. On the elegiac “I,” see Tsagarakis 1977 and Slings 2019 are focused. The questions of elegiac contexts (way of performance, occasion of its presentation, function) are concisely presented in Bartol 1993. For an interesting proposal of defining elegy as an “in-between” genre see Budelmann and Power (2013). The detailed analysis of public performance of narrative elegies is covered by Bowie (1986, 1990, and 2016). Faraone 2008 deals with the length and the compositional modus operandi of sympotic elegists, but some of his proposals must be accepted with caution. Swift’s and Carey’s recent book 2016 gives a range of illuminating ideas concerning characteristic features of archaic and classical elegy, but demands more advanced readers.

Notes

1 The second verse of the distich was traditionally, but misleadingly, called pentameter, since it contains two and a half dactyls in each half. For metrical terms and discussion see D’Angour (Chapter 9) in this volume.

2 Heraclid. Pont. ap. Ps.-Plu. Mus. 1132d, 1134ac.

3 See Theognidea 239–245, 533–534, 825–828, 973–976, 1055–1058, 1063–1065.

4 As Budelmann and Power (2013: 5) have recently pointed out.

5 Did. s.v. elegos, Procl. Chrest. 1.2.24 (= Phot. Bibl. P. 319b). See also Ovid’s famous expression (flebilis elegeia, Amores 3.9.3) and Horace’s diagnosis (querimonia primum, Ars poetica, 75).

6 See West 1974: 3, Bartol 1993: 18, 22–25, Gerber 1997b: 94–96.

7 For the collection and interpretation of them see Page 1936: 206–230.

8 See Bowie 1986: 23.

9 See Bartol 1993: 27–29.

10 Bowie 1986: 24–35.

11 Its appearance might be the result, as Bowie 1986: 25 rightly argues, of the regular usage of the hexameter plus two hēmiepēs for sepulcral inscriptions.

12 This meaning is also reflected in one of rather naïve late lexicographers’ etymology of the ἔλεγοϛ who say it comes from ἐλεεῖν or ἐ ἐ λέγειν, which means “to mourn,” “to lament.” Modern scholars are willing to recognize non-Greek roots of this word and link it with the Armenian form elegn meaning a wind musical instrument. For modern theories concerning the etymology of elegos see Bowie 1986: 27, n. 74, Gerber 1997b: 94.

13 Nobili (2001: 26–48) argues that the funeral elegiac repertoire was popular in Greece especially in the Peloponese.

14 See Aloni 2009: 168–169.

15 Critias, fr. 4 W, Pherecrates fr. 162 K.-A.

16 For a detailed analysis of passages including these terms see West 1974: 1–4, Bowie 1986: 25–26, Gerber 1997b: 94–96, Bartol 1993: 18–30, Bartol 2019.

17 For the nature of the symposion and its importance for Greek archaic culture see Węcowski 2014.

18 See West 1974: 12.

19 For more details concerning the narrative elegy see below in this chapter.

20 The cultic context of the performance of narrative elegies has been recently persuasively argued and explored by Bowie 2016a: 15–32.

21 The existence of elegiac agones is proved by Paus. 10.7.4 and Ps.-Plu., Mus. 1134a.

22 There is an excellent synopsis of the discussion on the topic by Allan 2019: 9–11.

23 Bowie 1986: 51–57.

24 See West 1974: 10–13.

25 Fr 2 W. The expression ἐν δορί might, however, have the metaphorical meaning “on board ship” here, as some scholars argue; for the problem of the interpretation of fr. 2 see Swift 2019: 206–208.

26 Also Tyrtaeus’ Politeia might be a long narrative elegy. It cannot be excluded that the poem called by the Suda archaiologia of the Samians, composed by the seventh-century Semonides of Amorgos, belonged to the same category. Similarly, Ion of Chios and his Foundation of Chios and Panyassis’ Ionian History are taken by some scholars to be elegiac poems. See Bowie 1986: 28–29.

27 For both frameworks of long elegiac performances see Bowie 1986 and 2016a.

28 See Lulli 2016: 193–209.

29 As it was in the case of early elegists of mainland Greece. See West 1974: 77.

30 Translation from Greek, if not otherwise indicated is Gerber’s (1999).

31 See Philoch. ap. Ath. 14.630f. For sympotic presentation of Tyrtaeus’ elegies see Bowie 1990: 224–228.

32 The Suda calls him “a Laconian or Milesian,” but this latter origin seems to be an attempt to explain the presence of Ionic forms in his poetry.

33 The problem of Romantic “Tyrtaean” poetry has been explored by Jerzy Danielewicz in his introduction to a Polish translation of Greek lyric poets (Liryka starożytnej Grecji, Warszawa-Poznań 1996, 121–122). I would like to thank him for paying my attention to this issue.

34 For the problems connected with the interpretation of this fragment and the date of Mimnermus see Allen 1993: 9, 117–118.

35 The papyrus with the text of Aetia (P.Oxy. 20179, fr. 1) is badly damaged in this place. As Harder has recently argued (pp. 41–2) the supplement αἱ γ’ ἁπαλαί (Luppe) is paleographically more convincing than Rostagni’s κατὰ λεπτόν in v. 11.

36 Rostagni’s rheseis is only one of the possible supplements here.

37 Pausanias (9.29.4) says the elegy had the prooimion in which the Muses were mentioned.

38 There is no evidence for the existence of “subjective” erotic elegy in Greece in the archaic period. Some scholars argue (see Butrica 1996) that the scraps of the papyri provide us with the traces of it in the Hellenistic period, which undermines the common view that subjective Roman love elegy originated independently of Greek source. I would like to thank Hans Bernsdorff for paying my attention to this issue.

39 See Bowie (Chapter 21) in this volume.

40 He himself mentions his travelling throughout Greece in one of the elegiac pieces (fr. 8 W.), enigmatically calling it “tossing my thoughts.”

41 He also composed pieces in hexameters and iambic meters.

42 See e.g., fr. 3 W where he criticizes “useless luxury” learned by the Colophonians from the Lydians.

43 P.Oxy. 3965 published by Parsons (1992: 4–50) = frr. 10–18 W.

44 P.Oxy. 4708 published by Obbink (2005: 19–42) and Obbink (2006: 1–9) = frr. 17a-h Swift.

45 Fr. 11.15–18 W, translated by West (1993a). Square brackets indicate parts of the text that are lost and reconstructed by scholars.

46 Bowie (2016: 25–26) has recently argued for the Laconian placement of the first presentation of the elegy.

47 See West 1993b: 3.

48 P.Oxy. 4708 published by D. Obbink (2005). Scholars now refer to Obbink’s second edition of the papyrus (Obbink 2006).

49 It is attested in the Cypria (fr. 20.6 PEG), the poem belonging to the epic Cycle, and Hesiod, fr. 165 M.-W.

50 For the different readings and supplements of the text made by recent scholars see the apparatus in Swift 2019: 76–77.

51 His name in line 22 is supplemented by the editor princeps, but it is assured by the mention of its being Telephus’ father in v. 25; see Swift 2019: 228.

52 See Bowie 2010a: 151. For the overview of interpretations see Swift 2019: 228.

53 The problem of the context of his elegy has been recently examined by Swift 2019: 228–229.

54 Although Bowie’s arguments in favor of the presentation of his elegy in the temenos of Heracles on Thasos (Bowie 2016: 17–25) seem attractive, his proposal must still remain a hypothesis.

55 A work written in the first century ad devoted to literary criticism 33.5.

56 As Bowie has persuasively argued. See Bowie 2012 and his chapter in this book.