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A Hesiodic reminiscence in Virgil, E. 9.11–13

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

G. Zanker
G. Zanker
Affiliation:
University of Canterbury, New Zealand
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Extract

At W.D. 202–12 Hesiod relates his αἶνος for the edification of the recalcitrant βασιλ⋯ες, who must themselves admit the truth of the fable's moral (ɸρονέουσι κα⋯ αὐτοῖς). A hawk has seized a nightingale, and crushes her cries of misery by saying that she is in the claws of one who is πολλ⋯ν ⋯ρείων and who is therefore at liberty to dispense with her as he pleases: anyone who tries to resist κρείσσονες is mad, for he has no chance of winning and merely adds physical pain to the shame of defeat.

Just what were the βασιλ⋯ες to have made of this? Hesiod's most recent editor (and champion) claims that ‘Hesiod does not manage to make it [the αἶνος] into a lesson for them [the kings]’, and ‘can only proceed by saying “Well, don't you behave like that” (213, with Perses replacing the incorrigible kings)’.

Information

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , May 1985, pp. 235 - 237
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1985

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References

1 So West, M. L., Hesiod: Works and Days (Oxford, 1978) on 202Google Scholar.

2 West, op. cit. 49 and on 202–12.

3 For the social reference see West ad loc.

4 Cf. 38 f.: βασιλ⋯ας | δωροɸάγους, οἳ τήνδε δίκην ⋯θέλουσι δικάσσαι. On δωροɸάγος see West on 39.

5 For the interpretation of the fable offered here see further especially Puelma, M., ‘Sänger und König: Zum Verständnis von Hesiods Tierfabel’, M.H. 29 (1972), 86–109Google Scholar and Pucci, P., Hesiod and the Language of Poetry (Baltimore and London, 1977), 61–81Google Scholar.

6 See also e.g. Ovid M. 1.506 and 5.605 f.

7 So e.g. Putnam, M. C. J., Virgil's Pastoral Art: Studies in the Eclogues (Princeton, 1970), 303–6, 312 and 318Google Scholar, and Coleman, R. G. G., Vergil: Eclogues (Cambridge, 1977) on 13Google Scholar.

8 Fables and proverbs were of course comparable in that they were both used as vehicles of folk-wisdom; Virgil may have preferred a proverb because the brevity of the genus was more appropriate in the dramatic dialogue of E. 9.

9 See Coleman on E. 4.6, 15 f., 18, 30, 32, 36, 53.