1 Farly Greek lambic Poetry: The Importance of Narrative Ewen Bowie This chapter explores the relative impo! ce of invective and nurrauve in the earliest surviving fragments of sek iambic poctry, and argues th may have been just as important as invective in defining the genre. In approaching this question it is important to remember that these surviving fragments! are very unlikely to represent the beginnings of Greek wmbic poetry: Whenever and wherever these beginnings may have been, they were almost certainly some time, perhaps many generations, before our first fragments, which date from around 650 B.C. I am very sceptical about the possibilty of constructing plausible hypotheses about the development of iambic poetry before the poems from which these fragments come. In them we find no trace that their composers, Archilochus of Paros and Semonides of Amorgos, are at an carly stage in the development of the genre or in the handling of its meters—rather they display an assured skill in both respects. I suppose that they had predecessors whose work was not preserved because it was only around 650 B.C. that writing came into use for the transmission of literary texts, und I see in Archilochus the presence of some phrases that might be seen as iambic formulae as a possible product of an earlier tradition.? (narrative 1. In citing the fragments I use the numeration and (with a few exceptions) the text of West 1989, 2. For possible iambic formulae compare Zevg nathig ‘Oduprioy fre. 25.6, 122.2, Zevs ‘Okvpriw[v.]o.rl fr. 98.13, a dative version Oedy ‘OAupniov vou) fr. 94.13; elAes alypfy frr. 23.19, 96.5; 2y@vrapeBouny fire. 1964.9 and perhaps 23.7; mais Equetvnou Atds fr. 94.2, nuts ‘AOnvain Auds fr. 98.7 For a possible formula available for elegy and for dactylic lines of asynarteta, avi éxétw, Arch. fi. 196A.25, Tyrtaeus fr. 11.4.Ewen Bowie interest in two proble: mpted by an in! ms, one more particular. The more general Problem is Whe Note Me was a recognised genre iambos, and if so, how in re particular, but of course related, Lea is the Beneric py ag defined. The ‘hochaic tetrameter fragments of a ilochus, much of rte of the pene ewre of war, that have been Pioeae cl iefly ©n papyrus = nwo bi inscriptions from the ce on ae ; the two big f the existence and nature of an early genre iambos re The aes On GT shall try as far as possible to avoid engaging too cones much ee scholar’s view, or with the issues either of WASi-dramati any indivi or of the reality or fictionality of named individuals, Ou Po ting 2 i he fact that only one fragment of early derstanding is hindered by the g Poetry use un erst iambos (tapos), and that fragment of Archilochus (215 W., cited the term / s ‘ the twelfth-century A.D. Byzantine scholar Johannes Tzetzes) allows us 7 interpret iambos in more than one way: ‘This exploration has been pro general and the ot ‘Archilochus* time t 1 With xai p’ ob? ldpBov obte tegmwhéwv pédet And I have interest in neither iamboi nor jollifications. Archilochus ff, 215 In his citation Tzetzes tells us that the iambic trimeter relates to a Situation where Archilochus is mourning the loss of his sister's husband at sea (a calamity that also occasioned an elegiac poem, 9-11 and perhaps 8 and 12) and Says that Archilochus composed the line in answer to people who were trying to force him to “write.”5 It is attractive to suppose that the term iamboi is here self-reflexive, and that Archilochus is deploying the same trope as that with which he seems to eee eee suns sneenne eae sneseESEETEETTEEEE biography using local tradition and erected by Sosthenes in the first century B.C., probably also in the Archilocheion, /G penais suppl. p. 212: ef. Jacoby FOrH $02, Peek 1985, Gerber 1999 Archilochus testimonium 4. On it is inseribed a life based on an account by Demeas, quoting much military narrative in tetrameters. 4. Important recent Contributions ia : are th Ww re slightly revised version of N Degeni W964; Coney 1 ° 1976; Degani 1984; Carey 1986; Rosen 1988: Bartol oF further de ean 1984; Carey ” 1989 by Ceiba ily O!-74. For further discussions see the tabliogrephy for 1921 yodgen GarMTNS vig oBtuyow muyéevea ef} Bandoon neguaadds ‘anno bywimceny (Fe Bree jek: MYwOY nQds Tods Brdtovese ovyyodunad! YRURTEW (ff, 215 = leg. Hom. Q 125 ff.) Jo.Tzetz. aBarly Greek lambie Pootry: The Importance of Narrative 3 have opened the “Cologne epode” (fr. 196 and 196A):® that in, he is actually performing poetry which his words deny that he can compone, If that were 40, a poem which commemorated hit dead brother-in-law and which was composed in the metre we call iambic trimetera would for Archilochun be an example of iambos. But the term need not be self-reflexive: he could equally well be saying that his grief prevented him being intoroxted in either jamboi or jollifications and assume that the poom that he was currently performing would be perceived as falling into neither category. It would of course be helpful if the disjunction ob lappov ode teenwAtwv (neither iamboi nor jollifications) could offer us a clue. But that could be a disjunction either of similar or of dissimilar elements, so it cannot tell us whether iamboi were like tegnwAéwy (jollifications) oF unlike them More light is shed on the term jambos by the use of the name Iambe in the account of Demeter's mourning for Persephone as given in the Homeric hymn to Demeter: a woman lambe used jesting and mockery to make Demeter laugh and recover her tranquillity: noiv ¥ Ste di yews pv ‘TdyBny x€dv eldvta MOA Ragaoxwarrov’ exQépato notwav ayvAV pewtjoat yekdout te xai Wao oxetv Bupdv. Until, that is, with jests lambe of good counsel, intervening with many jibes, moved the holy lady to smile and to laugh and to acquire a tranquil spirit Homeric hymn to Demeter, 202-04 This story clearly relates to the ox@ppata (jibes) later attested as part of Eleusinian ritual, and shows that there was a conceptual link between iamboi and oxdppata, but of course it does not demonstrate that the genre iambos had ritual origins. It is compatible both with the hypothesis that iambos began in a ritual context and then became secular, as it clearly has become by the generation of Archilochus and Semonides, and with the hypothesis that iamboi were a form of secular poetry that regularly or often involved ox@pparta, and that it was for this reason that the creator of the story of the woman who consoled Demeter gave her the name lambe. Whichever of these hypotheses we support, it is valuable to have evidence ofa link between iamboi and ox®ppata. as early as the hymn to Demeter (some time in the sixth century B.C.).7 That link is also clear in the later fourth 3. Fr. 196 GAAG p' S Avowerts | dratge Sdpvarar nd00g (but limb-loosing longing, my friend, overpowers me) appear to be the second and third lines of the first strophe of the poem whose middle and end are fr, 196A. They would follow coherently an opening line of the form “I cannot compose poetry.” 7. Cf. Richardson 1974.Ewen Bowie 4 identifies a type of bla . Poetics identi : Me poe century. Aristove OY ceegot (people of lesser quality) than toe thar composed by e0tEM OT “composed hymns and encomia, Ty. ° (more dB vituperations), and sees the Margize, se +s a link with the iambic trimeter Which it 5 iapPetov, because it was in this metre that peo rhe au év 1 pétew TOUTID lappitoy anne Utes important in establishing a sense ¢MOvgs tion oF abuse, something that is a1 the veg © ary tle in the ei bia, poems he te en extant example. c, acquired its name, TanBot against each other, Ott Poetics is i assage of the c rawpiteew which involves vituperal nar va olxela HOn A roinats. ol HEV YaQ Gepyg, Mdbeig Kai tas TV TOTO, ot BE ebtEMatEgay eI S peovoerss doneg Etegor Suvous xai bat TQDTOY He nov ovdevag Exopev eineiv tOLwDtoV zoi Sa, pone ex ee Ar comiead ag&apévors Eorw. olov bneivon 8 Aes bi xa ta roiadta. ev ols xara tO GQuottov xai eo oe HME péroov es Iaupeiov xakeirar vov, bu ev TO were roorw auBiov aiatious “ dyevovto tov nahaudy of pév Fgwodv ol 8¢ LapBwv nowrai. donee x ce Grovbuta pakiora nomntiis “OBNQOS Tv (hovos Ya Ody StL eb dang si nag enoinaer), obtus xai Td Ts xOMBdIAS OYAWE apg” baebeigev, ob yoyov ahha td yedolov Seapatonorijoas. 6 yag Magy Gvddoyov Exel, Goneg Tas xai f Odvoaeia nos THs TEAYHDIAS, oft 4A obrog QOS Tas KUMWdias. Raga@aveions SE THIS TQAYpBias xai xwnadias ol 2@" Exarégay tiv noina Squdvees xara tiv olxciay pow ot pév ay, tov lapBwv xopdonouoi Zyévovto, ol bé dvti tHv Endv teaywdodddora. 3, Aucondadn dé — xahag euyoovto 7 Gavhoy, TQdTOY YOYOU' piprjoes Sapate how. {Poetry split up, according to people’s personal characters. For the more dignified imitated noble actions, and the actions of people of that sort, whereas those of lesser quality imitated the actions of low people, first composing vituperations, just as the other group composed hymns and encomia. For no poet before Homer can we point to a poem of this sort, but it is plausible that there were many poets, whereas beginning with Homer we can, such as that poet's Margites and poems of that sort. In this stage according to the principle of propriety there also developed the iambic trimeter as metre—which is why it is in fact now called “iambic trimeter,” because it was in this metre that they used to utter iambi against each other. And of the ancients some became poets of heroic poems and some of iambi. And just as Homer was also pre eminent as a poet in serious compositions (for he was the only one not simply 0 compose well but also to compose dramatic imitations) so too he was the first to give a glimpse of the form of Comedy, by making a drama of what was laughable and not of vituperation, For just as the /liad and Odyssey stand in relation to tragedies, so does the Margites to comedies. But when tragedy and comedy came into being the port were drawn to each of the two types of poetry according to their own personality, some, instead of composing iambi, became comic poets, while others, instead ©! composing epic, became tragic playwrights}. Aristot. Poet. 1448b24-144985Early Greek Lambie Poetry: The Importance of Narrative 5 the sense of oxtdntetv and oxidppata, although these terms have the further implication that the abuse is humorous and amuses those who hear it, It may be that the verb Lay piterv had been used earher, in the remark attributed to the historical Gorgias on reading Plato's dialogue named Gorgias after him: @¢ adds Olde Tati lappiterv (How well Plato knows how to defame) 9 But the chronology is ught, to say the least, and I tuke the remark to be ben trovato rather than vero. It seems clear, then, that Aristotle saw a close link between iamboi and humorous abuse. But the Poetics passage also takes us into the problem of the relation between the metrical term LapBetov (iambic trimeter) and the genre jamboi. That metrical term is in existence by the time of the late-fifth-century Athenian aristocrat Critias: xai vov Kiewiou vldv “AGnvatov otepaviow “AdmPiadnV veoun bpviGas TEdTOIG od yaQ Mig Hy totvon’ Epaguoter eheyeion vov 8° av lapPeiwn xeivetor odx dpérqus. ‘And now I shall garland the Athenian son of Cleinias, Alcibiades, hymning him in a novel fashion: for there was no way of fitting his name into an elegiac couplet, and instead it will be set not unmetrically in an iambic trimeter. Critias 4 This poem of sympotic praise must have been composed at the very latest before the time of Alcibiades’ murder in 404/3 B.C., and most probably during his earlier years, around 430 B.C. The term lapPetov (iambic trimeter) was presumably coined at the same time as the term éeyetov, which appears in the same quatrain, and also (perhaps around 420 B.C.) in Pherecrates’ Chiron.!° As Aristotle implies, the term must have been applied to the iambic trimeter because it was especially characteristic of iamboi. But neither does this entail that the trimeter was the only metre in which iamboi were composed, nor does the other evidence demonstrate that the presence of abuse was a necessary condition for a poem being termed iambos. As to the first point, indeed, it is clear that the Alexandrians grouped choliambics, trochaic tetrameters, and epodic poems, including asynarteta, in the books of early poets which they entitled iamboi. It is on the second point that much of the rest of this paper will focus. It is clear from our fragments that in much of the poetry composed in iambic trimeters and in these other metres by 9. Athen. 11.505d. 10. Pherecr. 153 Kock = 162 K.-A. Cf. Bowie 1986, 25, Bartol 1993, 18-21.Ewen Bowie 6 Solon, Hipponax, Ananius, and He, ides. chilochus, Semoniee™ © pponan, ae or no trace of poyos (vituperation). might explain these phenomena. ae ate that will ne of the following PES th B two py ee Poth. thin the poetry composed in these Le Po ‘ch did regularly involve poyos (vituperationy then was a Sunes termed jambos; and that it was sufficiently Promineny at ti, subcategory culating in the later fifth century to attract the metrical ¢." poetry still eA that trimeters were also used for other forms of poetic meee tan Ber raries would not have seen as iamboi. Or, Tae that contemPore ulate that iamboi constituted a more loosely linked netw, 2, We may postula mentioned fragments fell: that wit he ; i ich all the above- etic types, into which al : por jambic trimeter was the most commonly used metre; and that wi ee arcs involving yoros were also sufficiently prominent for 4a term tapBitewv to develop the meaning mn ht ; Some scholars have favoured the first solution. It seems to me that there ig 10 be said in favour of the second, and one important consideration is the ve in fragments both associated and not associated with deed be possible to claim that narrative was present in ents which contain evidence of the stance of the poem from which they come (i.¢., whether it was exhortatory, critical, abusive, reflective, etc.); and of course there is a huge number of fragments where we have no decisive indication at all of the poem’s stance. But if we bear in mind that narrative plays a very small role in short melic poems, whether Tonian or Acolic,!2 and an even smaller role in short, sympotic elegiac poems,!3 ee 11. Eig. West 1974, 22-39. For a good discussion cf, Bartol 1993, 30-41. 12. There is not space to review the evidence here. I introduce the distinction “Ionian” and “Aeolic,” however, because the narrative element in Alcaeus seems to be greater than in Ibycus and Anacreon, and on my hypothesis that might be explained by the fact that in an Ionian context @ poet who had in mind the composition of some sort of narrative might use iambic trimeters or trochaic tetrameters whereas in an Aeolic context these metres (and the genre iambos with which I see them as closely associated) were simply not available. 13.1 oe the term “short, sympotic elegy” to refer to the sort of poem best represented in our surviving material as opposed to the ip : sped ine ving mel pvt he ngs ein intended in slight traces remained until the publication in 1992 of the Simonides elegy on Plataea. The few narrative sections of short, sympotic elegy include Mii jes elegy on on the arrival of Pylian colonists at Colophon (significantly, pechape a th fe Mimnermus is likely also to have treated in his long poem Smyrncis, if in theme fragments attribution by Strabo 14,634C to the Nanno and not to the fans © Smyrneis is more t prominence of narrati abuse. It would not in more than 50 percent of the fragm:Early Greek lambic Poetry: The Importance of Narrative 7 we should conclude, I think, that its prominence in iambic, trochaic, and epodic metres might well be a generic marker. I use the term “narrative” with reluctance, since its use of the primary mode of some other genres (above all epic and prose fiction) has encumbered it with much baggage. In what follows it is intended to refer to the telling of something that has happened, however brief that happening and however simple the telling.