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A SENSE OF LOXIAS: BACCHYLIDES 16.1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2019

Marios Skempis
Marios Skempis*
Affiliation:
Thessaloniki
*
marios.skempis@gmail.com
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Extract

Bacchylides 16 is a hybrid poem. It sets out to explore the relation of cognate types of choral song, the paean and the dithyramb, in one and the same narrative. To that end, it poses a ritual section, which deals with Apollo's stop by the banks of the river Hebrus on his way back from the Hyperboreans to Delphi (16.1–12), ahead of a mythic section whose thematic spine focusses on the aftermath of Oechalia's sack by Heracles and his marital crisis with Deianeira leading up to his death and deification (16.13–35). My concern, here, lies with the very beginning of the Apolline paeanic section, which lacks a gratifying supplement of the few words missing, so one can get a glimpse of how the poet's voice positions itself with respect to the god's (envisioned) upcoming arrival at Delphi. I understand the first line in the following way (Bacchyl. 16.1–4):

      Λοξ]ίου [ἀ]ίο[μεν] ἐπεὶ
      ὁλκ]άδ’ ἔπεμψεν ἐμοὶ χρυσέαν
      Πιερ]ίαθεν ἐ[ΰθ]ρονος [Ο]ὐρανία,
      πολυφ]άτων γέμουσαν ὕμνων
      We sense Loxias (approaching) ever since
      Ourania of the fair throne sent me
      from Pieria a golden cargo
      fraught with much-praised songs.
Relying on the way editors read the papyrus, the traces that precede the concluding ἐπεί of the first line (… ]ιου. ιο …) suggest that it is occupied by a glyconic.

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Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 69 , Issue 1 , May 2019 , pp. 435 - 438
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2019 

Bacchylides 16 is a hybrid poem. It sets out to explore the relation of cognate types of choral song, the paean and the dithyramb, in one and the same narrative.Footnote 1 To that end, it poses a ritual section, which deals with Apollo's stop by the banks of the river Hebrus on his way back from the Hyperboreans to Delphi (16.1–12), ahead of a mythic section whose thematic spine focusses on the aftermath of Oechalia's sack by Heracles and his marital crisis with Deianeira leading up to his death and deification (16.13–35). My concern, here, lies with the very beginning of the Apolline paeanic section, which lacks a gratifying supplement of the few words missing, so one can get a glimpse of how the poet's voice positions itself with respect to the god's (envisioned) upcoming arrival at Delphi. I understand the first line in the following way (Bacchyl. 16.1–4):Footnote 2

Λοξ]ίου [ἀ]ίο[μεν] ἐπεὶ
ὁλκ]άδ’ ἔπεμψεν ἐμοὶ χρυσέαν
Πιερ]ίαθεν ἐ[ΰθ]ρονος [Ο]ὐρανία,
πολυφ]άτων γέμουσαν ὕμνων
We sense Loxias (approaching)Footnote 3 ever since
Ourania of the fair throne sent me
from Pieria a golden cargo
fraught with much-praised songs.

Relying on the way editors read the papyrus,Footnote 4 the traces that precede the concluding ἐπεί of the first line (… ]ιου. ιο …) suggest that it is occupied by a glyconic.Footnote 5 Hence, Λοξ]ίου [ἀ]ίο[μεν] ἐπεί conveys such a metrical form that features an analysis of the second longum and results in xx–⏑⏑⏑⏑⏑–.Footnote 6 My conjecture posits a free responsion with regard to the antistrophe in Bacchylides 16, the more so since there is a shift in narrative from Apollo to Heracles.Footnote 7 Thus, the poem begins with a reference to Apollo in terms of his byname Loxias,Footnote 8 which is later on buttressed by the direct appellation Πύθι’ Ἄπολλον (16.10), and, in doing so, lives up to the audience's virtual expectation for an impending divine epiphany.Footnote 9 Apollo's initial approach, which is sensed by the poet (or by the exarchon of the chorus in performative context), agrees with the end of the Apolline section, where the god's temple at Delphi resounds with songs of choruses in his honour, to create a coherent unit by dint of ring-composition. The acoustic effect brought forth by (the possibility of) ἀίομεν,Footnote 10 metrically convenient as it is,Footnote 11 is underpinned by the ‘much-praised songs' (16.4) with which the poet is privileged by the Muse, and also points to the pun on κελάδησαν/ἀγακλέα (16.12) that pits the Apolline section's closure, and the way in which it correlates to κλέομεν (16.13) in the outset of the mythic section—the first-person plural κλέομεν encourages the suggested correspondence with ἀίομεν.

A narrative opening with Loxias is in tune with the poet's exceptional status as exclusive recipient of divine favour, instantiated by the multifarious quality songs with which the Muse endows him:Footnote 12 considering that Ourania patronizes his performance, the present song is worthy of the god's attention and the specifically Delphic standards of his cultic veneration, as he returns from the Hyperboreans to establish himself anew for a period of nine months at Pytho. It should be kept in mind that Apollo at Pytho is also addressed as Loxias, according to Clemens.Footnote 13 In the fragments of Bacchylides, the epithet Loxias occurs twice, in contexts supportive of its conjectural placement in the beginning of Bacchylides 16. Since the introductory ritual section of Bacchylides 16 is entirely devoted to Apollo as divine fosterer of the paean, which is a hymnic song especially crafted for Apollo,Footnote 14 the book of his Hymns attests the existence of an apopemptic hymn (fr. 1A S–M), a song designed to greet a deity's departure from a certain cult site.Footnote 15 If Bacchylides' version of a ὕμνος ἀποπεμπτικός in honour of Apollo commences with an urge to hasten directed at the god in his denominative moniker Loxias (ὄρνυ[ο | Λοξία[), it is most probable and fitting that Bacchylides' version of a ὕμνος κλητικός, that is, the exact opposite, in praise of the same god starts with a ritual address to Loxias (Λοξ]ίου [ἀ]ίο[μεν]). From an additional point of view, Bacchylides 13 accommodates a reference to Apollo Loxias as ‘lord of the Lycians' in a context of sea-battle (13.147–51 Λυκίων τε | Λοξίας ἄναξ Ἀπόλλων· | ἷξόν τ’ ἐπὶ θῖνα θαλάσσας· | ναυσὶ δ’ εὐπρύμνοις παρα<ὶ> | μάρναντ’). The significative interlinking of Λοξίας with Λύκιοι in the maritime setting of Bacchylides 13 is parallel to the framing device at work in Bacchylides 16: since the end of the narrative hints at how Heracles' demise started out in the watery setting of Λυκόρμας, it is all but out of place to postulate that the outset of the narrative may well have begun with an address to Loxias and the ‘watery’ metaphor of a poet's song-making aptitude as a cargo full of goods. If Bacchylides 16 does start with a reference to Loxias, as I argue, the semantic cluster Λοξίας/Λυκόρμας becomes subsidiary to the multi-responsive framing mechanisms Bacchylides is fond of building up: not only does it point to the end of the Apolline section by designating song performances occasioned by Apollo; what is more, it serves as a foil to the song devoted to Heracles in the opening of the mythic section (ἀίομεν ~ κλέομεν) and communicates with the narrative's closure by dint of the Lycormas cue, itself interconnected to the semantic cluster Λοξίας/Λύκιοι in Bacchylides 13.

Should one accept the ritual scenario put forward by the outset of Bacchylides 16, which reserves an Apolline paeanic section within a dithyrambic narrative, it is all the more intriguing that the very first words do not survive or cannot be restored with a considerable degree of certainty—hence, Λοξ]ίου [ἀ]ίο[μεν] remains an unverifiable conjecture. However, intratextual pointers within the narrative of Bacchylides 16 and intertextual evidence from Bacchylides' extant work deem it plausible, despite the fact that ‘a sense of Loxias’ at the start of Bacchylides 16 bears as good as no consequence for the—either way thematically disengaged—dithyrambic section, which is dedicated to Heracles.

References

1 The problem of the poem's generic identification is addressed in cursory manner by Rutherford, I., ‘Apollo in ivy: the tragic paean’, Arion 3 (1994/1995), 112–35Google Scholar, at 116–17. Cf. Käppel, L., Paian: Studien zur Geschichte einer Gattung (Berlin/New York, 1992), 55–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar n. 78; Calame, C., ‘The dithyramb, a Dionysiac poetic form: genre rules and cultic contexts’, in Kowalzig, B. and Wilson, P. (edd.), Dithyramb in Context (Oxford, 2012), 332–52Google Scholar, at 344. For the view that the opening section is a cletic hymn in honour of Apollo, see Jebb, R.C., Bacchylides: The Poems and Fragments (Cambridge, 1905), 369Google Scholar; Burnett, A.P., The Art of Bacchylides (Cambridge, Mass./London, 1985), 193 n. 14Google Scholar; Maehler, H. Die Lieder des Bakchylides. Zweiter Teil: Die Dithyramben und Fragmente (Leiden/New York/Köln, 1997), 160CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Apart from my own supplement at line 1, I print the text of Maehler (n. 1), 6.

3 I use the verb ‘sense’ in lieu of ‘perceive by the ear, hear’ (see LfgrE and LSJ s.v.) to render the virtual, rather than actual, character of ritual performance that is branded by, though not limited to, acoustics.

4 Crusius, O., ‘Aus den Dichtungen des Bakchylides’, Philologus 57 (1898), 150–83, 167CrossRefGoogle Scholar suggests Λαός, μ]ου [ἄκου’] and Milne, H.J.M., ‘Bacchylides, Ode 16’, BMQ 9 (1934), 14Google Scholar conjectures Φαί]νου, Διὸς υἱ(έ), but Maehler (n. 1), 156 objects on the latter on papyrological grounds, rules out the possibility to read Dionysus in the front (Διόνυσ’), and makes the suggestion that ‘der nachfolgende ἐπεί-Satz lässt aber wohl eine Aufforderung (Imperativ oder Optativ?) vermuten, wenn hier die “Chöre der Delpher” (s. zu 11) in direkter Rede zu Wort kommen’. Jurenka, H., Die neugefundenen Lieder des Bakchylides (Wien, 1898), 110Google Scholar reads the unfortunate <Πᾶς> [μ]ού <τις> [ἄκου’] ahead of the ἐπεί-clause, F.W. Blass, Bacchylidis carmina cum fragmentis (Leipzig, 1898), 129 supplements Πυθ]ίου [ἄγ’ οἶμ’], a reading taken up also by Taccone, A., Bacchilide: Epinici, ditirambi e frammenti (Torino, 1907), 149Google Scholar, and Jebb (n. 1), 368 suggests Πυθ]ίου ἔπ’ εἶμ’.

5 Contra, Kenyon, F.G., The Poems of Bacchylides: From a Papyrus in the British Museum (Oxford, 1897), 146Google Scholar; Fraenkel, E., ‘Lyrische Daktylen’, in Kleine Beiträge zur Klassischen Philologie. Erster Band: Zur Sprache, zur griechischen Literatur (Roma, 1964), 165–233Google Scholar, at 210–11; Snell, B. and Maehler, H., Bacchylidis carmina cum fragmentis (Leipzig, 1970), 54Google Scholar; Maehler (n. 1), 6, who all presume that the line must have accommodated an anceps glyconic, i.e. a telesillean. On the glyconic, see West, M.L., Greek Metre (Oxford, 1982), 30Google Scholar.

6 For a similar case, cf., for instance, Pind. Pyth. 8.3 ὧ μεγιστόπολι θύγατερ.

7 Examples of free responsion in Bacchylides are: 5.151 ~ 5.191; 17.79–80 ~ 17.103–4; 18.7 ~ 18.17. For ongoing research on this particular aspect of Bacchylidean metrics, see Maas, P., Die neuen Responsionsfreiheiten bei Bakchylides und Pindar (Berlin, 1914), 9–11Google Scholar; Merkelbach, R., ‘Päonische Strophen bei Pindar und Bakchylides’, ZPE 12 (1973), 45–55Google Scholar, at 45, 50; Gentili, B., ‘Problemi di metrica, II: Il carme 17 Snell di Bacchilide’, in Heller, J.L. (ed.), Serta Turyniana: Studies in Greek Literature and Palaeography in Honor of Alexander Turyn (Urbana/Chicago/London, 1974), 86–100Google Scholar, at 96–9; Führer, R., Beiträge zur Metrik und Textkritik der griechischen Lyriker [= Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse 6, 165–250] (Göttingen, 1976), 205–7Google Scholar; West, M.L., ‘Iambics in Simonides, Bacchylides and Pindar’, ZPE 37 (1980), 137–55Google Scholar, at 134–42; id., ‘Three topics in Greek metre’, CQ 32 (1982), 281–97, at 290 with n. 34; Maehler, H., Die Lieder des Bakchylides. Erster Teil: Die Siegeslieder (Leiden, 1982), 22–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cole, T., Epiploke: Rhythmical Continuity and Poetic Structure in Greek Lyric (Cambridge, Mass./London, 1988), 227–8Google Scholar; Maehler (n. 1), 172–3; Gentili, B. and Lomiento, L., Metrics and Rhythmics: History of Poetic Forms in Ancient Greece (Pisa, 2008), 199Google Scholar.

8 Bacchylides uses the epithet twice (13.148; hAp. fr. 1A.2 S–M). See Pind. Pyth. 11.5; Isthm. 7.49; Pae. 6.60; Parth. 2.3. One should bear in mind that the epithet does not occur in the epic tradition.

9 Depew, M., ‘Enacted and represented dedications: genre and Greek hymn’, in ead. and Obbink, D. (edd.), Matrices of Genre: Authors, Canons, and Society (Cambridge, Mass./London, 2000), 59–79Google Scholar, at 61–4 draws attention to the use of deictic language in hymnic contexts of ritual enactment to the end of construing epiphanic discourse. On Apolline epiphanies, see Rutherford, I., Pindar's Paeans: A Reading of the Fragments with a Survey of the Genre (Oxford, 2001), 277–8Google Scholar. For initiatory qualities of Apolline epiphanies, see Bierl, A., ‘Apollo in Greek tragedy: Orestes and the god of initiation’, in Solomon, J. (ed.), Apollo: Origins and Influences (Tucson/London, 1994), 81–96, 149–59Google Scholar.

10 A parallel for my conjecture is found in Pindar: Pyth. 3.27–9 ἐν δ’ ἄρα μηλοδόκῳ | Πυθῶνι τόσσαις ἄιεν ναοῦ βασιλεύς | Λοξίας, κοινᾶνι παρ’ εὐθυτάτῳ γνώμαν πιθών, πάντ’ ἰσάντι νόῳ. Loxias is the one who senses (subject instead of object), but this sense gives vent to a playful synaesthesia rendered through the double pun on Πυθῶνι/πιθών (receive oracle/shape opinion) and Λοξίας/εὐθυτάτῳ (oblique, ambiguous/unequivocal, direct) and the way it segues into comprehension and knowledge (πάντ’ ἰσάντι νόῳ). Pindar draws on the popular etymology of Λοξίας as the god whose oracles come indirectly full circle. See Σ Ar. Plut. 8; Σ Lyc. 1466; Suda λ 673.

11 For this verb's metrical shape (⏑⏑–), see LSJ and DGE s.v. For ἀΐω + gen. pers. the earliest examples are traced in both Homer (Il. 10.189 ὁππότ’ ἐπὶ Τρώων ἀίοιεν ἰόντων; Il. 11.463 τρὶς δ’ ἄιεν ἰάχοντος ἀρηίφιλος Μενέλαος) and Hesiod (Op. 213 σὺ δ’ ἄιε Δίκης [varia lectio for ἄκουε]; see Schulze, W., Kleine Schriften 2 [Göttingen, 1966], 347Google Scholar; West, M.L., Hesiod: Works and Days [Oxford, 1978], 209–10)Google Scholar. By the time of Bacchylides, ἀΐω + gen. pers. can be thought to be normative, judging from Aesch. Pers. 633–4 ἦ ῥ’ ἀίει μου μακαρίτας | ἰσοδαίμων βασιλεύς.

12 On the association of Apollo with the Muses, see hMus. 25.1–4.

13 Clem. Str. 5.4.21.4 καὶ ὅ γε Ἀπόλλων ὁ Πύθιος Λοξίας λέγεται. On Loxias and Pytho, see Pind. Pyth. 3.28–9; 11.5–10; Isthm. 7.49–51.

14 See Phot. Bibl. 320a.21–4 Henry; Poll. Onom. 1.38.

15 Men. Rhet. Διαίρ. ἐπιδ. 336, p. 12 Russell–Wilson.