Two Thoughts on the Homeric Hymn to Demeter

I expect the aoidification of the Hymn to Demeter will be complete in a few weeks. All the really major work is done, and I've made my full second pass through with the big pen. Now we just need to refine a few details, and settle the remaining questions.

One of those is a trivial textual question, for the end of the poem, ll.494-495:

πρόφρονες ἀντ’ ᾠδῆς βίοτον θυμήρε’ ὀπάζειν·
αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ καὶ σεῖο καὶ ἄλλης μνήσομ’ ἀοιδῆς.

This ending nearly perfectly repeated in one other hymn, 30 (To the Earth, Mother of All):

πρόφρων δ’ ἀντ’ ᾠδῆς βίοτον θυμήρε’ ὄπαζε·
αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ καὶ σεῖο καὶ ἄλλης μνήσομ’ ἀοιδῆς.

And less exactly on line 17 (of 19) of hymn 31 (to the Sun):

χαῖρε ἄναξ, πρόφρων δὲ βίον θυμήρε’ ὄπαζε.

It turns out the manuscript for the Demeter hymn actually has not ὀπάζειν but ὄπαζε, a singular imperative. Voss is responsible for the infinitive, which, it must be said, is a perfectly good use of the infinitive in Epic Greek. But if the only reason to use it is to avoid a problem with concord in number, I can't help but think lectio difficilior should guide us here, and accept the ms. reading. Such a mismatch isn't exactly unprecedented Greek. I think we'll go with ὄπαζε.

In How to Kill a Dragon Calvert Watkins argues in support of the existence of a particle ταρ (pp.150-151). It is frequently used with interrogatives, πῶς ταρ, τίς ταρ, κτλ. (I was delighted to see that West even uses this in his Teubner Iliad). However, the particle also occurs a few times after verbs of fearing, wailing and the like. The verb is usually at the start of a line, and occurs as V ταρ ἔπειτα.

There are two places in the Hymn to Demeter where verbs of shouting are followed by δ’ ἄρ’, which arroused my suspicions. Neither is at the start of the line, though they do start after the caesura. They're very similar:

ἦγ’ ὀλοφυρομένην· || ἰάχησε δ’ ἄρ’ ὄρθια φωνῇ     20
πολλ’ ἀεκαζομένην, || ἐβόησα δ’ ἄρ’ ὄρθια φωνῇ.     432

Line 20 describes Persephone's abduction. Line 432 is her describing this to her mother, Demeter. My Allen OCT lists no variants for either line, but I don't trust it. I have emailed someone to check for τ’ ἄρ’ in Richardson.

Doomed to Dilettantism

I have been trying for over a year to take classes at the local U as a special student (so called — you get the last choice in everything). I was repeatedly thwarted by warps in the bureaucratic spacetime contiuum and communications trouble that almost lead to a local classics department getting immortalized in the most Hipponactean iambics I could manage.

I discovered yesterday that the one professor I was interested in studying with has retired, which also has taken away the one class I wanted to take in the fall. There will not be anyone to teach it this year.

Is δύσκολος a good translation for "cranky?" That'll fit into iambics, and elegy.

Stoic Universalism

τὸ βούλημα τῆς φύσεως καταμαθεῖν ἔστιν ἐξ ὧν οὐ διαφερόμεθα πρὸς ἀλλήλους. “It is possible to learn the will of nature from those things by which we do not differ from one another.” Encheiridion of Epictetus, c.26.

On people who wear too much scent

παντοδαπῶς με τυφλοῖ μύρου ὀδμὴ ᾧ σὺ κέχρισαι·
    κείνης πως ὀδμῆς κρυπτομένη κακίων;

At the bucolic caesura I have taken a Homeric liberty with hiatus. Sterner metricians may substitute τῷ.

Yes, it does.

Apart from Pascal's Wager — which is at best a caution to cover your derrière — this has got to be one of the worst arguments in the Great Theism Debates:

What is Dawkins’s response to those for whom his popularization of evolution causes so much pain? Essentially it is this: “Keep a stiff upper lip.” If “something is true,” he responds, “no amount of wishful thinking can undo it.” No doubt this is correct. But we might with as much propriety ask Dawkins: “If something is painful, does its truth justify inflicting it on people who find it disturbing?” Let us grant — only, to be sure, for the sake of argument — that Dawkins’s Darwinian explanation of Life, the Universe, and Everything is true. Does this in itself justify his strident shoving of it into our public discourse, knowing full well the emotional distress it will cause the spiritually sensitive? [full article]

How patronizing. "Oh, the poor, sensitive dears, leave them their comforts, even if false." Further, it is not wild-eyed idealism to believe that having more true information allows you to make better decisions in life, both practical and ethical. Mollycoddling the spiritually sensitive (whatever the hell that actually means) corrupts their decision-making process.

People are under no obligation to accept Dawkin's arguments. To suggest that they need to be protected from even hearing them due to their sensitive constitutions is manipulative emotional coercion.

An Ancient Greek on Obstetrics

Medea, talking about the difficult life of women:

λέγουσι δ᾽ ἡμᾶς ὡς ἀκίνδυνον βίον
ζῶμεν κατ᾽ οἴκους, οἱ δὲ μάρνανται δορί,
κακῶς φρονοῦντες· ὡς τρὶς ἂν παρ᾽ ἀσπίδα     250
στῆναι θέλοιμ᾽ ἂν μᾶλλον ἢ τεκεῖν ἅπαξ.

And they say we live lives without danger
in our houses, while they go out and fight.
Their wits are addled! I'd rather stand in battle with
a shield three times than give birth once.

In the Greek the men "fight with spears" and she would "stand beside a shield", but "fight with spears" seems silly to me in English.

I have an old school edition of a few Greek plays in which some avid annotator has filled the margins with quotes from Shakespeare. It seems a bit excessive. But I can't help but think of Lady MacBeth when I read this, so I understand that mysterious compulsion a bit better.

My Oldest Books

Several other people have been discussing their oldest books. Since I've not biblioblogged in a while, I'll mention my oldest.

My penultimate is Polybius, ex recognitione, Immanuelis Bekkeri, printed in Berlin in 1844. It was originally a two volume set (owned by Paul Geyer in 1867, and one Benedict Einarson some unspecified later time). At some point both volumes were jammed into a single library binding. This was a very high quality production, the binding and paper are sound and usable to this day, with minimal foxing.

My oldest book is ἩΡΟΔΟΤΟΥ ἹΣΤΟΡΙΩΝ ΛΟΓΟΙ Θ’, textus Johannis Schweighaeuseri, Volumen Secundum printed in 1818, apparently in Glasgow (Glasguae?). The paper is in good shape, though it has a lot more foxing, but the cover is falling apart. Once in the library of the Kimball Union Academy, Shelf D, No. 75, (which institution still exists).

I probably have a dozen more books from the late 1800s, mostly Greek topics. While I love a good, old book, I expect all of my books to survive actual use. For editions of Greek texts, I'm usually a more eager collector of the most current edition available, because I love a giant app.crit. more than I love the aroma of old books.