T.'s edition of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes joins a recently crowded field: after N. Richardson's (Three Homeric Hymns [2010]) and A. Vergados's editions and commentaries on the Hymn (2013), along with the more recent, but less philological ‘interpretierenden Kommentar’ of J.-M. Schenck zu Schweinsberg (2017), and also with works like those of C. Nobili (L'Inno omerico a Ermes e le tradizioni locali [2011]) or D. Jaillard (Configurations d'Hermès [2007]) or with monographs on Hermes such as C. Pisano's (Hermes, lo scettro, l'ariete [2014]), A. Kuhle’s (Hermes und die Bürger [2020]) or A. Allan's (Routledge series Gods and Heroes of the Ancient World [2018]), T. offers his own take on this hymn, including edition, translation and extensive commentary. Perhaps surprisingly in light of the broad scholarly interest in the Homeric Hymns (A. Faulkner [ed.], The Homeric Hymns: Interpretative Essays [2011], and R. Bouchon, P. Brillet-Dubois, N. Le Meur-Weissman [edd.], Hymnes de la Grèce antique [2012], both including contributions of T.), their performative contexts and reception (A. Faulkner, A. Vergados, A. Schwab [edd.], The Reception of the Homeric Hymns [2016]), and even more surprisingly in light of the recent studies of individual hymns and the particular interest in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, T.'s edition is a significant and welcome addition that is both complementary and supplementary to the previous works. By re-examining the manuscripts, he is substantially more critical of the transmitted readings. Scholars will probably consult this volume in tandem with Vergados's, thus opening the floor for further debate. Providing an essential framework for scholarship on the hymn, one can only hope that this work will have a refreshing impact on the Homeric Hymns's studies as well.
The introduction provides a useful survey of (i) the complicated dating (c. 450 bce, logically inconclusive, but rigorously defended by linguistic, thematic and intertextual arguments); (ii) the difficulties of reconstructing the original performance context (Olympia) and function of the poem; (iii) the various strategies (other than deferential) used by the hymnist in order to foster χάρις in Hermes; (iv) the influence on later texts (complementing Vergados's survey of intertexts to the hymn [2013, pp. 76–124] with more detailed analysis of verbal parallels combined with thematic motifs from Callimachus’ Hymns to Zeus and to Artemis, Apollonius, ps.-Theocritus 25 and Apollodorus, and with a new suggestion about Nonnus’ use of the hymn in Dionysiaca 41.400–42.3); (v) the manuscript tradition. In the third section (‘Generating charis’, pp. 36–63) T. sets forth his methodological approach to the text and its interpretation: he argues that besides the praise tropes, an arsenal of other strategies contribute in a major way to the hymn's charis, that is its structure and meaningful design (carefully controlled in order to emphasise points of particular interest to the dedicatee and to shape the audience's understanding of the plot), and the gradual characterisation of Hermes and his shifty, but coherent and consequential way of acting.
The following section presents the Greek text with a comprehensive apparatus and a rigorous and valuable running translation. Editorial choices are consistently well reasoned and clearly articulated, T. making cautious decisions for the whole text. It is the detailed commentary that forms the book's core part and offers a remarkably engaging and rewarding reading: new and innovative interpretations (especially on the last third of the poem) are presented in a convincing balance between analysis and exegesis. In opposition to the common practice of pre-emptive summaries offering summative comments of each particular passage before discussing the details, T. chooses to do it after, which is a more intuitive methodological choice and offers a more coherent reading. The constant intratextual cross-references represent another helpful aspect, allowing the author to strongly back up and enhance his arguments. T. not only devotes resolute attention to the hapaxes and to the most difficult and therefore compelling words or to their strained usage (e.g. 13 αἱμυλομήτην, 41 ἀναμηλώσας, 56 παραιβόλα, 86–7 αὐτοτρόπησεν and ἀνθέουσαν according to T.'s own emendations, 109–10, 159 μέταζε, 190 βατοδρόπε, 279 ὀφρύσι + ῥιπτάζεσκεν, 436 μηχανιῶτα, 511–12, ἐπαμοίβιμα 515–16), but he is consistently alert to formulae, framing devices (at the level of sections and of the whole composition), word-order, controlled polysemy of words (e.g. σύμβολον, αἰόλος, ὄστρακον, αἰών) heavily implied in wordplays (e.g. ἀντιβολέω, 26 – σύμβολον, 30; ὀνήσιμον … ὀνοτάζω, 30; ἐξετόρησε, 42 – διατετορήσας, 119 – ἀντιτορέω, 178 and 283; ὄλβος, 24, 529 – ὄλβιος, 379, 461; ἐντροπίηισιν, 245), phrasing strikingly suggestive of the nexus of ideas developed throughout the hymn. The serial repetitions of cognates, the word- and sound-patterning, the multiple instances of chiasmus and the intensive use of word-stems repeated in close proximity also receive due attention. Overall, the commentary abounds in careful examinations of wide-ranging parallelisms (e.g. the two interlocking instances of dynamic symmetry between 20–67 ~ 62–145, 184–321 ~ 62–183, sequences also demarcated by a range of framing devices and having an intricate intratextual [ring-]composition of their own, or the parallels of phrasing forging meaningful connections rather than being a mere reflex of formulaic composition). T.'s detailed explanations of the intended puns or of Hermes’ ‘hermetic’ riddling statements/speeches offer not only brilliantly researched pieces of philology, but also very fine-drawn interpretations.
The analysis of all movements and gestures reflecting Hermes’ mobility, escapology and transgressions mirroring his attempt at reaching τιμαί, legitimacy as Zeus's son and a prominent position on Olympus, in opposition to Maia's secluded dwelling and sedentary quietude, are very nuanced, thus beginning with the opposition between the λίκνον and the baby Hermes’ first movement or with his unexpected meeting with the tortoise-ὄλβος with σαῦλα steps and hip-swaying walk (28) transitioning to the state/status of the tortoiseshell lyre. Such analyses include even small gems, enriching both Hermes’ portrait and the text, like 45 on the glinting looks whirled (δινηθῶσιν) from Hermes’ eyeballs, 278–9 on the shifty glances he casts in a whirl from round his eyes, or 387 (ἐπιλλίζων) on his quick eye-shifts and fluttering eyelids, lines strikingly decorticated by T. As these simultaneous circular motions of sharp-eyed (ἐύσκοπος Ἀργειφόντης, 73) Hermes’ eyeballs/eyelids match up his μῆτις and craftsmanship, including the art of ‘joining’/entwining (πλέκω), and as they can mislead anyone but Maia (154), ἑλικοβλεφάρος herself (cf. Simonides, fr. 555.2 Page), I wonder if it would not be more congruous to render νύμφη ἐυπλόκαμος (emphatic repetition at 4 and 7) by ‘the nymph with braids/curled tresses’. Similarly nuanced is T.'s reading of 182–9 as a sequence enhancing the structural function typical of epic sunrises into the lines of which the hymnist worked ‘nearly all the traditional building-blocks of dawn-descriptions’; opposed to 68–72 (Hermes’ sunset departure), 97–100 (which ‘rewrites the night’) and 142–3 (Hermes’ anti-solar movement, aligned with night, but against its progress), the scene of Apollo's dawn arrival is intended to map the antagonism of Hermes/Apollo onto the paradigmatic antithesis night/day. T.'s analysis of the developing relationship between the two brothers is very insightful and offers consistent remarks. Yet Apollo's threat to dispatch Hermes to Tartarus (259) has less to do with Hermes’ psychopompic role or with his further connections with the underworld and more with the traditional formulae of the myths of succession and with the potential crisis that, from Apollo's standpoint (as legitimate son of Zeus and guardian of order), Hermes’ entrance (as newly born yet still illegitimate god) into the pantheon could trigger. By and large, if there is one of Hermes’ future powers that T. covers relatively less, it concerns his chthonic functions, which seem worthy of further attention and direct textual comparisons. Nonetheless, T. moves seamlessly between the different scenes of the hymn and continually raises awareness of the thematic relationships’ complexities between them. Outstandingly valuable, his comments turn gradually into a beneficial interpretation of the hymn, a veritable work of exegetical χάρις particularly welcomed for such a versatile and challenging poem.
