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Mythological paradigms in the bucolic poetry of Theocritus

Marco Fantuzzi

The Cambridge Classical Journal / Volume 41 / January 1996, pp 16 - 35

DOI: 10.1017/S0068673500001917, Published online: 28 February 2013

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0068673500001917

How to cite this article:

Marco Fantuzzi (1996). Mythological paradigms in the bucolic poetry of Theocritus.
The Cambridge Classical Journal, 41, pp 16-35 doi:10.1017/S0068673500001917

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 MYTHOLOGICAL PARADIGMS IN THE BUCOLIC POETRY OF
THEOCRITUS*

Theocritus' treatment of myth has been discussed many times in the last few decades,
particularly in connection with the non-bucolic 'epyllia'. In this paper I will consider
whether anything like what has been called the 'Destruktion der Tradition'' applies to
the bucolic idylls as well; my litmus test will be above all Theocritus' exploitation of
mythological paradigms, because almost all the mythological stories which enter the
shepherds' world are exempla. All these exempla will turn out to display either a certain
or a possible 'collapse of exemplarity', because Theocritus more or less expressly
focuses both on their exemplary and their opposite, non-exemplary aspects, which
complicate and destroy the univocality usually typical of paradigms.2
Long before Theocritus, the practice of using mythological exempla in narrative
had involved on the one hand a 'constant recontextualization and realignment of the
example' to the context, and on the other hand a threat 'to produce an excess of signi-
fication beyond the controlling lines of the case it is designed to illustrate', and thus
to give rise to occasional 'failures of exemplarity', both in epic and in the Greek tragedy
(Helen being the most common instance).3 What I would like to underline in Theocritus
as a new kind of treatment of mythical paradigms is that the poet always commits
himself completely to realizing this threat in practice, so that the 'excess of signi-
fication' always takes a direction which is more or less opposite to the face meaning
for which they appear to be adopted as paradigms.

Idyll 11 is the fullest and most explicit instance of an exemplum to be found in the
pastoral poems. In his Cyclops, Euripides had already taken steps to reduce the
monstrous fearsomeness which Polyphemus had displayed in the Odyssey, and to
increase the grotesque dimension of his character; and in all probability Epicharmus'
Kxm?i<jJi[>4 and Cratinus' 'OSuaafjc;5 did the same, however scanty their remains are.6
At about the same time the Cyclops or Galatea by Philoxenus of Cythera had
introduced a more radically human figure, by inventing the story of the love of the
Cyclops for Galatea (one of the Nereids, who does not appear previously to have been
linked with the Cyclops).7 After Philoxenus' dithyramb, from the parodic hint in
Aristophanes, Plut. 290ff. onwards, the Cyclops in love become a common character
of the Middle Comedy: note the Cyclops of Antiphanes, and the Galatea of Nicochares
and of Alexis.8 The very few extant fragments of these three plays do not allow us to
establish whether Theocritus exploited them, but he may well have derived from
Philoxenus at least the use of the story of Polyphemus and Galatea to exemplify the
 MYTHOLOGICAL PARADIGMS IN THEOCRITUS 17

maxim Moiioaig djcprovotc; Ido9ai xov eoooxa (cf. PMG 822 P.),9 upon which
Theocritus bases his whole narrative framework (namely the apostrophe-cum-admon-
ishment of his friend Nicias: cf. lines 1-6 and 80-1).
Philoxenus appears to have retained the bestial and brutal character of Polyphemus
as it appears in the Odyssey; Odysseus surely was a main character in Philoxenus'
poem (PMG 816,818, 823^), and also the episode of the blinding seems to have been
involved (PMG 820).l0 In Theocritus, by contrast, Polyphemus is young (line 9 'with
the down new on his lips'), and Odysseus is never explicitly mentioned; nevertheless
Theocritus puts into his mouth expressions which inadvertently allude to the tragic
events of the Odyssean Cyclops. One instance will illustrate the technique:11 after
considering many reasons which Galatea would have for falling in love with him,
Polyphemus comes up with a single reason why she does not yield: it is because a
single shaggy brow (>iaoia ^ev ocpoiig) stretches over all his forehead (31-2); if in
spite of his rustic riches the problem is that he himself seems XaouhxeQog, 'too shaggy'
to her, he does after all have oak-logs in his cave, and fire undying beneath the ash ...
xai6(xevog 6' vnb xevc, xai tdv tyu/dv dvexoi|iav I xai xov ev' oqpOa^uxrv, xa> ^ioi
Y^UXEQCJXEQOV otJSev, 'you may singe even my soul, and my one eye too, than which
nothing is dearer to me' (52-3). This willingness to be singed (single eye and bushy
brow included) which overtakes the rejected lover at the surface level of his words
becomes, by a kind of tragi-comic flash-forward, a desire for that which Polyphemus
is actually destined to receive some time later in his life, outside Theocritus' tale (where
he was still young) - and in fact the very singeing of the Cyclops' bushy brow was the
most emphatic element visualized by Homer: ... Jtdvxa Se OL p^£(pag' djxcpi xai
oqpoijag evjaev dDx^iT), '... and his eyelids wholly and his brows round about did the
flame singe' (Od. 9.389). In view of this double focus, and the long literary tradition
which united the Cyclops and Odysseus, it is clear that these flash-forwards challenge
the face value of the Cyclops as paradigm; we see how stupidly the Cyclops drew
disaster upon himself, while seeking to avert the inconveniences of love - all the more
so because, in the context of the Cyclops' song, this 'drawing upon oneself probably
sounded to ancient readers to be less generic and much more effectively dangerous
than it seems to the modern interpreters.
It has often been discussed whether the face value of the song of the Cyclops never-
theless remains truly paradigmatic, as the poet claims to Nicias (lines 1-6 and 80-1),
and many scholars have supposed again and again that Theocritus seriously means that
the Cyclops is effectively cured of his love pains by means of his song, in a kind of
cathartic self-analysis (or self-illusion, which would save him from despair).12 But this
'naive reading' of the poem, as Simon Goldhill has called it, is hardly maintainable,
above all because of the doubleness of the Cyclops' song as both symptom and cure,
that is to say 'the uncertainty whether the song shows the Cyclops as cured or main-
taining, even creating, his love'13 - this uncertainty being well brought out by the key
word cpaQfxaxov, which Theocritus uses to define the Cyclops' song in the very first
line (and again in line 17), and which means both 'remedy' (or, perhaps better,
18 MARCO FANTUZZI

'palliative') and 'poison'. In my opinion the parodic nature of the Cyclops as paradigm
of the self-curing lover is strongly confirmed by a further doubleness of this word,
which transforms the generic stupidity of the Cyclops into the certainty of a self-
inflicted injury. The song of the Cyclops is called a qpdouxxxov because it ends with
an explicit verbal negation of the madness of love, and such a spoken negation, in terms
of ancient magico-medical therapeutics, could accomplish the annihilation of love
itself. Significantly, an epigram by Callimachus (46 Pf., 1047-56 G.-P.) calls the self-
curing song of a Cyclops (probably the Cyclops of Theocritus,14 though Philoxenus'
Cyclops had also tried a self-curing song, cf. PMG 822 cit.) an ejicotdr), and EJTcoi6r|
is the regular word for the spells which in magic and medicine reinforced or replaced
the use of <pdo|KXxa;15 chanting spells for the specific cure of love was also of course
very common.16 In this context, the implicit flash-forwards anticipating the blinding
by Odysseus would have been all the more liable to attract upon the Cyclops these
subsequent, much severer pains, because a common way of casting spells consisted in
quoting lines from Homer, and these lines were frequently chosen to exploit a
sympathetic analogy between their events/situations and the events/situations which
the caster wanted to achieve:17 against eye problems, for example, people used to recite
//. 3.277 'the Sun who sees everything and hears everything',18 against gout //. 2.95
'the place of the assembly was in turmoil, and the earth groaned beneath them';19 Od,
A.TIX '(cpdo^axov) to quiet all pain and strife, and bring forgetfulness of every ill'
was a Bu^oxaTOXOV used, to the accompaniment of relaxing music, by Empedocles
(31 A 15 D.-K., quoted by Iamblichus, VP 25 (113)); another Oufxoxdtoxov, recom-
mended by the Louvre Great Magical Papyrus, was //. 8.424 '(if) you will dare to raise
your mighty spear against Zeus', the last line of the speech by which Iris pacifies the
bellicose plans of Athena against the Trojans (the 'spear' she will effectively not raise
is the spear which she had brandished when deciding upon her intervention, the one
'by which she destroys the lines of the heroes, when she gets angry at them': lines
390-1 ).20 Since the source of Iamblichus' report about Empedocles is not certain, the
oldest certain instance of the quotation of Homer in this context is Lucian, Char. 1.
Nevertheless, almost all our evidence about ancient magic dates from the Roman
imperial period, and a song of Simonides was said to have been used to calm a storm
at sea, probably by the Athenians during the battle of Artemision (PMG 535). It is
hardly difficult to reconstruct what ancient readers would have thought about the para-
digmaticity of the Cyclops, once they realized that some phrases of the successful
ajTaYcoyr) of love by the (Theocritean) Cyclops turned out to be properly epagogic of
the blinding of the (Homeric) Cyclops.21
Nor does Theocritus' jesting with the exemplarity of myths stop here. After the
fashion of Philoxenus, in Idyll 11 Theocritus had fully explored the Cyclops as a
parodic paradigm of the unrequited wooing lover. In Idyll 6, by contrast, in the songs
by Daphnis and Menalcas Theocritus reproduces a different scene from the love story
between Polyphemus and Galatea, which completely reverses the roles. The Cyclops,
the desperate lover who in Idyll 11 woos by any means an unwilling Galatea, becomes
 MYTHOLOGICAL PARADIGMS IN THEOCRITUS 19

in Idyll 6 the pursued but unwilling target of the coquetry of Galatea. Therefore Galatea
perfectly exemplifies the maxim of line 17: previously, at least in the more traditional
version of this love story, and in Idyll 11,22 she qpetiyei the Cyclops cpiAeovta, but now
she 6itt>x£i the Cyclops seemingly ov cpiXeovta. But, has she truly fallen in love with
the Cyclops, or is she only playing the womanly coquettish game?23 Again, does the
maxim by Daphnis - 18-19 f) ydo EQCOTI I noXkamq, cb iIoA.i>cpafi£, xd (ir| xaka
xa)id jxeqpavxai 'sooth, to love, Polyphemus, many time has foul seemed fair' -
seriously cite the Cyclops as an exemplum, or does Daphnis make fun of him? A version
of the myth certainly existed in which Galatea returned the love of Polyphemus, but
surviving texts do not prove whether it preceded Theocritus or not,24 because all dated
testimonies are from the first century B.C. or later,25 though it is plausible to suppose
that this version had existed in Sicilian folklore from an early date.26 What is at issue
is not whether the Cyclops will be able to marry Galatea in his island (the alleged aim
of his strategy of ignoring her teasing from the sea: 32-3), for the theme of Idyll 6, as
well as of Idyll 11, is not the feeling of love - returned or not - but the situation of
wooing: the wooing of the Cylops for an unwilling Galatea in Idyll 11, the wooing of
Galatea for a seemingly unwilling Cyclops in Idyll 6. From this point of view
Theocritus accomplishes a reversal of roles, which conflicts with the 'mentality of the
unchanging' demanded by the very concept of paradigm27 - where, for example, would
the traditional paradigmaticity of Hippolytus - Phaedra be, if Phaedra resigned herself,
and Hippolytus started to woo her? In my opinion Idyll 6 was a challenge to the para-
digmaticity of the Cyclops in Idyll 11,28 and a challenge which does not depend upon
the relative chronology of the two poems: while reading 11 after 6, or rethinking 11
when reading 6, the ancient reader will have wondered whether the Cyclops of Idyll
11 also was not really sincere in his despair, whether he was just trying it on once again,
this time strategically inflating his verbal hyperboles and his behavioural excess (the
heaviest suffering which he intends to throw in the face of his not very conspiratorial
mother is some 'phlegmasia'!, 70-1)... - far from being healed by song, he was never
really ill!
Besides sapping the credibility of the Cyclops in Idyll 11, the Cyclops of Idyll 6
makes a fool of himself in almost the same way as the Cyclops of Idyll 11. Sight, and
the related alarming doubts about the precious single eye, are prominent in Idyll 6 as
well. Daphnis had warned Polyphemus about the various tactics of wooing used by
Galatea, because the Cyclops had pretended not even to see her (TI> VLV OV
JTo9oQT|o9a, 'you have no eye for her', line 8). Dametas, who impersonates the
Cyclops in the first person, starts his answer with a strong beginning, El5ov, vai TOV
Ilava, which straightforwardly seems in itself to imply 'I am not blind at all!', and is
explained only at line 25 ('I myself have no eye for her' to make her more jealous, to
force her to come to the cave, and so on), while the passage between the beginning
ElSov of line 21 and the explanation in 25 continues to reveal the frightening
implication of 21: 'By Pan, I saw her when she was pelting the flock, and she did not
escape unseen - nay, by my one sweet eye, she did not, wherewith may I see to the
20 MARCO FANTUZZI

end (let Telemus, the seer, carry home the bale he prophesies for me and keep it for
his children)', outdo 6 [idvug 6 Tr]kE[ioq EXQQ' dyoQEiKov I exBod qpeooi JIOTL
olxov. OJKJOC texeeooi qpu^doaoL. Not only does the reference to the Telemus of the
Odyssey lead the reader to recollect the tragic Odyssean events (all the more so because
the Cyclops is not explicit about the prophecy, and the reader has to recall its content,
namely the blinding of the Cyclops, from the Homeric text: Od. 9.508-12); even the
verbal form of this denunciation of Telemus would have sounded particularly tragi-
comic in the mouth of the Cyclops, if ancient readers, as well as modern scholars,
perceived it to be alluding to the words by which one of the suitors in the Odyssey,
Eurymachus, had tried to exorcise the prophecy of the soothsayer Halitherses about
Odysseus' return by alleging his incompetence: w yeQOV, el 6' aye br\ |j,avTet)eo aofoi
Texeooiv 101x016' iebv. jit] nov xi xaxov Jtdoycooiv omooa). 'Old man, go home and
prophesy to your children, so that they may come to no future harm' (Od. 2.178-9).
But these words failed to stop fulfilment of that prophecy, and Eurymachus was slain
together with the other suitors (cf. Od. 22.81-8), nor did the words work for the
Cyclops!29 Indeed, in terms of ancient spell-casting practice, which credited Homeric
quotations with a strong sympathetic power (cf. above), the Cyclops' unwitting
allusion to Eurymachus' ill-omened phrase might even be felt as properly responsible
for drawing the ill omen upon the Cyclops: once again the Cyclops' apotropaic words
might sound like an effective, though implicit, ejiaycoyri of disaster.

Such deconstruction of the traditionally exemplary features of mythical characters is

not a treatment which Theocritus reserves only for the Cyclops in his pastoral poems.
Polyphemus had been a shepherd from his Homeric beginnings, and he belonged
furthermore to the mythology of Theocritus' own country; so we can readily
understand why Theocritus should allow the Cyclops to enter the bucolic world as a
main character (or better, a plurality of major characters). In his other bucolic poems
Theocritus raises the humble shepherds' world to the sublime literary level of the
hexameter, and it might be expected that the traditional stuff of divine myths and myth-
telling would be rare in this kind of poetry, which concerned itself with very human
characters. Indeed, the bucolic Theocritus tells divine myths only in three passages:
Id. 1.105-13; 3.40-51; 7.148-154, and in Idylls 3 and 7 these tales are contextualized
as exempla, a practice familiar from previous non-mythological poetry.
If we leave out of consideration the invocation30 of Pan, the most familiar rustic
god, in Idyll 7 (107-14), Thyrsis' song in Idyll 1 (64-145) is the only bucolic passage
by Theocritus where gods have a role and speak, and that is deliberate, since Daphnis
himself, the protagonist of the song, was the mythical protos heuretes (or the first
subject) of bucolic songs; hence, together with a role for gods, come a remoteness in
time and the non-'realistic', legendary features of Daphnis' environment: his death is
accompanied by the only lengthy pathetic fallacy to be found in Theocritus, and this
fallacy presents wild animals intermingled with domestic ones, whereas wild animals
 MYTHOLOGICAL PARADIGMS IN THEOCRITUS 21

are otherwise 'realistically' excluded from the bucolic habitat. The details of Daphnis'
story remain very obscure in Thyrsis' song, and Theocritus does not fully narrate any
event in it, but describes only its emotional essence, namely the feelings of Daphnis
in the face of death, and the reactions to his death.31 At any rate, even if we do not
know the cause, Aphrodite was doubtless angry with Daphnis (line 96), and she bitterly
apostrophizes him (97-8). Daphnis answers her with an even more bitter apostrophe
(100-1), and after a short taunt at Eros (103) his words return to the attack upon
Aphrodite (105-13). The overall meaning of this first lengthy mythical tale by the
bucolic Theocritus is clear: Daphnis evokes three discreditable incidents in
Aphrodite's career, in order 'to define both the mythical class to which he belongs and
also his uniqueness'.32 In the first and the third of these stories irony functions in an
open, direct way, and sarcasm is obvious from the very first reading: Daphnis, a
cowherd, has just claimed to be able to resist Eros even in Hades (103), while Aphrodite
had promptly yielded to her passion for the cowherd Anchises;33 Daphnis faces death
defiantly, while Aphrodite had revealed her cowardice and weakness when she had
tried to rescue Aeneas - her son by Anchises - from the battlefield, but fared badly
when confronted by the human Diomedes: wounded, she had begun to cry, abandoned
her son without hesitation, and only Apollo's intervention had saved her.34 On the other
hand, the sarcasm of the central couplet is not direct, since it is not to be derived from
the text, but from the untold aftermath which the reader was probably forced to recall
by the text of lines 109-10: Adonis is in his bloom eitei xod [if\ka vojieiiei I xod
jtTCOxag ftakkEi xod 9riQia jtdvxa 5tcbxet, 'since he herds his sheep, kills hares, and
hunts all manner of beasts'. In my opinion Qr\Qia Jtdvxa, 'all manner of beasts', with
no exception, might fairly be intended to lead the reader to anticipate Adonis' death
while hunting boar, all the more so if we suppose that Greek readers could recall, for
instance, some version of the 'precepts of Aphrodite to the hunting Adonis on the
animals to be avoided' akin to (or the source of) Ovid, Met. 10.539-52: at the height
of her love for Adonis, Aphrodite devotes herself in imitation of him even to unfamiliar
hunting sports, but pursues only animals which are safe to hunt, tutae animalia
praedae, such as hares (as in Theocritus), stags, does, and afortibus abstinet apris I
raptoresque lupos armatosque unguibus ursos I uitat... \te quoque, ut hos timeas ...,
Adoni, monet 'fortis' que 'fugacibus esto' I inquit, 'in audaces non est audacia tuta I
... fulmen habent acres et aduncis dentibus apri. Theocritus' Daphnis obviously
alludes to this unhappy end, but he stops half-way through, and just sets the stage for
it, with bitterly sarcastic implications.
It is precisely this last narrative device which appears to shape all the other myths
that are narrated in the bucolic poems, both in Idyll 3 and in Idyll 7. No one will wonder
at the device itself, since telling a single episode of a myth while metonymically
presupposing the frame, or expecting the readers to appreciate the frame beyond the
single episode, was a well established device in Greek poetry, at least from tragedy
onwards.35 The peculiarity of the bucolic Theocritus lies in his constant resorting to
this device; exploitation almost always moves in the same direction, from the happy
22 MARCO FANTUZZI

and explicitly narrated details towards implicit intimations of disaster. What is most
striking is that this phenomenon is observable not only when characters such as
Daphnis, who have good reason to be sarcastic about the gods, are speaking, but also
when the poet speaks in his own voice, as in Idyll 7.

After describing his deep love and desperation to the beloved Amaryllis (lines 1-36),
the goatherd of Idyll 3 changes the tone of his paraklausithyron: a rustic prediction
has allowed him to hope that Amaryllis will come out of her cave-house (37-9), so he
lists a series of exempla of mythical and requited loves, which is intended both as self-
encouragement and as persuasion for her to think that, if she yielded to love, she would
be in very good and prestigious company. Indeed this company does seem good and
encouraging, particularly since it is also a familiar one: all the stories the goatherd tells
have to do with the pastoral or, more broadly, the rustic world, in which Amaryllis and
the goatherds live, and the goatherd makes important use of this familiarity.
The first exemplum stresses a detail which is intended to be parallel to a detail of
the specific scenery in Idyll 3, and it has the effect of softening the transition from the
expression of personal feelings to the paradigmatic mythical stories. This detail is the
apples by means of which Hippomenes won his race and thus the hand of Atalanta
(line 41 'when he would wed the maid, took apples in his hand and ran his course').
Aphrodite presented Hippomenes with apples gathered from the garden of the
Hesperides - or from the garland of Dionysos in the versions of Philitas (fr. 14
Kuchenm.; 18 P., CA p. 94), of Callimachus (fr. 412 Pf.), and of one Diodorus (SH
381 Ll.-J.-P.), and these may have been followed at Id. 2.120;36 by means of these
apples Hippomenes, who had fallen in love with Atalanta, won the race imposed by
her on her suitors, because Atalanta slowed down to gather the apples. Hippomenes'
apples obviously had a magical, fabulous provenance, but in Idyll 3 Theocritus is silent
about their origin, and this textual silence makes them appear similar to the ten apples
which the goatherd has brought the unwilling Amaryllis as the usual token of love37
on that night of his attempted conquest (lines 10-11 'see, ten apples I bring you, ...
and tomorrow will I bring you more').38 We ought probably also to understand that the
goatherd is boasting that, unlike Hippomenes, he will give apples more than once. The
second exemplum strongly emphasizes from its very beginning (T&V dye^av: line 43)
the herds and the herdsman's part in the more complex deed of Melampus at Phylace.
Furthermore Pe(i)ro, the woman to be conquered by Melampus - that is to say, the
mythical parallel to Amaryllis for the goatherd - is not called by her name, but by a
periphrasis, 'gracious mother of wise Alphesiboea' (45). 'Gracious', xapieooa, was
the epithet which the goatherd had used for Amaryllis in the first line of his serenade.
Besides, Alphesiboea is a self-evidently evocative name = 'she who brings in cattle',
and in Homer, //. 18.593 and HAphr. 119 TtciQOevoi d^qpeoipoicu were specifically
'maidens worth many cattle', i.e. as dowry-gifts for the bride's kin:39 citing
Alphesiboea instead of making a direct reference to her mother Pe(i)ro, the woman
whose dowry really had obtained many cattle for her father, may have been a shorthand
 MYTHOLOGICAL PARADIGMS IN THEOCRITUS 23

way of emphasizing the paradigmatic character of this myth in the eyes of the rustic
goatherd.40 So also, in the third exemplum, Adonis is introduced as he who 'fed his
sheep upon the hills' (46).
In addition to these analogies, at least one of the partners of the love-stories told by
the goatherd had well-known rural connections. Atalanta had been exposed in the
country and nursed by a bear, and was a famous hunter;41 Melampus had been initiated
as a seer by Apollo after meeting him on the banks of the Alpheios,42 so he was probably
one of the seers who, originally being herdsmen, like Hesiod and Epimenides, acquired
their knowledge as the result of a divine encounter in the country;43 Endymion (fourth
exemplum) was regularly represented as a hunter; finally, Iasion (fifth exemplum) was
normally represented as an ex-hunter and was believed to have been theprotos heuretes
of agriculture and of sowing;44 both Iasion and Adonis were regularly thought of as
the last and unsuccessful hunters who consequently discovered agriculture,45 and both
were vegetation gods; their sexual intercourse with (respectively) Demeter and
Aphrodite were the two most famous hieroi gamoi of the Greek fertility myths.46
This first analogical perspective from which Theocritus selects the mythical stories
to be narrated by the goatherd is a direct result of the exploitation by the new genre of
the traditional 'realignment of the example' (Goldhill) to the various contexts.47 But
this perspective is not the only one in the paradigms by the goatherd. Another feature
is shared by all these paradigms of fulfilled love: in all of them fulfilling love precedes
unhappy or even fearful consequences, and so another selecting principle appears to
be at work, and this has an antithetic aim - the more the exempla seem familiar and
encouraging, the more they actually alarm us because of their unhappy endings.
Fulfilled love had an immediate, frightening consequence for Hippomenes and
Atalanta. Aphrodite became angry with Hippomenes, since he failed to show his
gratitude for the apples, and she inspired so strong a passion in the new couple, that
they were moved to make love in a sacred place (a temple to Zeus or to the Mother
of the Gods, or a cave sacred to the Mother of the Gods): this desecration made
their intercourse a crime,48 which was promptly punished (either by Zeus or by the
Mother of the Gods), and they were both metamorphosed into lions, animals which,
in the opinion of the ancients, practised almost total abstention from sexual
intercourse.49
As for the story of the triangle Pe(i)ro-Melampus-Bias, a widespread and standard
version had developed from Hesiod's Eoiai (fr. 37 M.-W.; the tale was also in the
[Melampodia]): Neleus, king of Pylos, announced that he was going to give his
beautiful daughter Pero in marriage to the man who succeeded in recovering his cattle
for him, which had been stolen and brought to Phylace (on the river Othrys in Thessaly)
by one Phylacus (or Iphiclus, son of Phylacus). Bias had fallen in love with Pero, so
his brother Melampus, who was endowed with exceptional skills of magic and
prophecy, undertook the enterprise; he was captured and imprisoned, but after one year
of painful imprisonment, he managed by his magical knowledge to restore the fertility
of Phylacus/Iphiclus, who had been sterile, and was rewarded with the cattle; conse-
quently he obtained Pero from Neleus, and Bias could thus marry her. This is the first
24 MARCO FANTUZZI

part of Melampus' story, which is alluded to by Theocritus and which seems

substantially uniform in all extant testimonies, from Hes. Eoiai fr. 37 onwards.50
Nevertheless, a variant version may have existed, one rather more gloomy for
Melampus. Some ancient authors were not at all explicit about the purpose for which
Melampus undertook the Thessalian venture - that is to say they are silent about the
fact that Melampus was acting on his brother's behalf and about Bias sharing in the
fruit of the toils and skills of his brother. If we read Od. 11.287-97 without recalling
details from the standard version, which might well not have existed yet at the time of
Homer, we find no reference to Bias, and Melampus appears to act in order to win the
hand of Pero for himself.51 Also in Od. 15.225-40 Melampus endured Iphiclus' hard
prison 'for the sake of Neleus' daughter', and for the madness caused by Erinys (233-4:
a detail that only Homer displays); when he came back, he took revenge on Neleus
(236-7: another otherwise unknown detail), and before leaving Pylos to escape Neleus
(228-9) he 'brought home a woman to the brother' (237-8) - this woman, namely
Pero, seems to have been an afterthought or a token of reconciliation from Neleus,52
in any case no one realized that the brother had fallen in love with her, and that from
the start Melampus had toiled to obtain her hand for this brother.53 Again, if we read
Apollonius of Rhodes 1.118-21, without recalling the version of the mythographers,
we do not perceive that Melampus was intended to act for his brother's sake: Pero
married Bias and had children by him - 'Melampus endured sore affliction in the
steading of Iphiklos' tfjg 6' d[i(pi, 'on Pero's account' (~ Od. 15.233 elvexa Nri^fjog
xoijQrig): the marriage of Bias and Pero and the deed of Melampus seem to be
juxtaposed, rather than connected as action and result.54 We may suppose, if we wish,
that both Homer and Apollonius were silent about Bias as the beneficiary of Melampus'
deeds merely out of a desire for conciseness, but we can believe as well that both
authors mirrored a version where Melampus originally acted for his own sake, although
at the end he did not enjoy the fruit of his toil, and his brother took advantage.
Anyway, either this possible variant of the myth, where Melampus, not Bias, had
fallen in love with Pero, or the pure texts of Homer (and of Apollonius), without
additions from the standard version, must be supposed to underlie Propertius 2.3.51^-:
as an exemplum of the fact that iuuenes ... in amore... aequa et iniqua ferunt the poet
calls to mind how turpiaperpessus uates est uincla Melampus \ ...\ quern non lucra,
magis Pero formosa coegit, \ mox Amythaonia nupta futura domo.55 Pace the
Theocritean scholiast (ad 3.43-5), the text of Theocritus is much closer to Homer and
Apollonius (and Propertius)56 than to the standard tales, since he says nothing more
than Apollonius; in my opinion, Theocritus juxtaposes the toil of Melampus and the
sexual satisfaction of Bias in such a way that every reader was free to read in them the
hint of bitter irony which Propertius exploits more fully (Melampus toiled greatly to
conquer a woman who by fate's will was enjoyed by his brother).57
As for the third exemplum, it is well known that the ancient authors disagreed over
many details of the story of Adonis, but all of them agreed about the reason for his
death: he was struck by a wild boar sent by someone who was jealous of Aphrodite's
love for him: either by a female god who loved him herself, but whose love was not
 MYTHOLOGICAL PARADIGMS IN THEOCRITUS 25

returned, or not returned yet (more often Persephone, elsewhere Artemis or the
Muses), or, in later authors, by Ares or Hephaestus, Aphrodite's jealous lover and
husband respectively.58 Persephone herself came to an agreement with Aphrodite and
allowed the young boy to be resurrected every year and to live half the year with
Aphrodite - hence the Adonia, which celebrated both aspects of this perennial
succession of death and resurrection. If we take into account the devotion of Arsinoe
II to Adonis and the Adonia,59 and the celebration of that devotion by Theocritus
himself in Idyll 15, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the reference to
Aphrodite and Adonis in Idyll 3 was also an indirect homage to his queen by
'Theocritus at court'. At any rate, Adonis died as a consequence of the love of
Aphrodite, and this death caused by fulfilled love is the very moment of the myth
which Theocritus depicts; the consequent resurrection would have been automatically
assumed by devotees, but the text stays silent about it.
The hint at death which surfaces in the text at the end of the third exemplum (48)
becomes explicit in the fourth exemplum, where the goatherd 'thinks extinction a fair
price to pay for brief attainment of his desire' (K. Dover), and therefore, for once, does
not 'fail' his paradigm: he proclaims 'QalwTOC,, 'fortunate in his eyes', the fate of
Endymion, the hunter-shepherd whom Selene loved and with whom she made love in
a Carian cave at Latmos: returning Selene's passion did not profit Endymion very
much, because he fell into an eternal deep sleep, caused either by Selene's jealousy,
to prevent Endymion's possible unfaithfulness, or by Zeus, who wanted to punish him
for having had intercourse with a goddess or, in some versions, to prevent his death,
for Selene's sake. Though asleep, he kept on receiving visits from Selene, but ancient
readers obviously did not need to wait for the remarks of Meleager (AP 5.165)60 and
Cicero (Tusc. 1.92), in order to understand that, in such a passive state, Endymion did
not derive great pleasure from Selene's love.
The fifth exemplum has an ambiguous double value which is similar in essence to
the third, although the explicit and implicit sides are reversed. Two different stories
existed about Iasion: the oldest and more common from Homer onwards was a story
of horror, but the one connected with the mysteries was a story of delight.
Doubtless, every ancient reader of Theocritus knew the tragic fate of the human
Iasion as it is narrated by Homer in Od. 5.125-8 (Demeter yields to passion, and Iasion
is killed by a thunderbolt from Zeus soon after making love to her). The Homeric
passage was a particularly obvious model for Theocritus, since its context was in fact
a Homeric list of paradigms (the list in which Kalypso cites human beings who paid
dearly for their intercourse with a god). The account of death by thunderbolt after sex
appears to be canonical in almost all our sources,61 and probably the first reaction of
an ancient reader would have been that to mention Iasion was somehow masochistic
in the mouth of a lover wishing for sexual fulfilment. This time, in order to produce a
tragi-comic doubleness, Theocritus grants just one glimpse of the frightening
conclusion of Iasion's and Demeter's intercourse: the stress upon the ignorance of the
profani by the goatherd who affirms his mystic truth amusingly emphasizes the very
non-mystical truth which his words had evoked.
26 MARCO FANTUZZI

The mystic version which is referred to here may be the Samothracian one, in which
Iasion/Eetion62 is still the love of Demeter (or of Kybele), but also the founder-hero
(or the re-founder) of the Samothracian mysteries, along with his brother Dardanus;«
here the deadly consequence of his love either was not envisaged or was subsumed by
the subsequent gift of immortality (he appears to have gained heroic status or even to
have been accepted as a god on Olympus,64 and may have been one of the Samothracian
©eoi MeydA.0165). Iasion may well also have had a place in the Eleusinian mysteries,
although no substantial evidence for this survives.66
Why does Theocritus concentrate principally on the mystical version, and stress this
interest through the reference to religious correctness: 05 tooocov exiigmoev, 00' ov
JteuaetoSe, (3e|3aku, 'whose lot was such as you profane shall never know' (line
51 )?67 (The serious solemnity of the phrase is obviously challenged by being spoken
by an awkward goatherd, but this is a different issue.) 'If there is any substance in his
account, Theocritus may here be alluding to Sicilian rites of which we know nothing',
remarked Gow. 681 believe that what we know about the spread of the mysteries in
third-century Egypt is more profitable. The introductory scholion to Call. H. 6,
supported by some further evidence, speaks of Eleusinian mysteries imported by
Ptolemy II, though its reliability is uncertain.69 Besides, both Ptolemy II and Arsinoe
seem to have favoured the Samothracian mysteries, which enjoyed a boom in the third
century: from this time onward (and not before) they are frequently mentioned in
inscriptions of towns outside Samothrace, while archaeological records show that most
of the important buildings of the Samothracian sanctuary were constructed after the
middle of the fourth century B.C. The major impulse to this expansion was surely due
to Arsinoe II and to Ptolemy II.70
Theocritus' reference to Iasion may be a little tessera to be added to the mosaic of
Theocritus as a court-poet, which Frederick Griffiths disclosed sixteen years ago in a
masterly book: this reference is parallel to the previous hint at Adonis-Aphrodite, and
both mentions of royal gods would be pendants to Idylls 15 and 26, whose courtly
intentions have already been considered by Griffiths himself.71 Nor must we forget the
many references to the Kabeiroi which we find in the poems of Callimachus (frr.
115.11-20, 583, 723, Epp. 47 and 40 Pf. = 1175-9 and 1255-60 G.-P.). The tone of
Ep. 47 appears surprisingly akin to the half-seriousness of our Theocritean passage,
since Callimachus too probably hints humorously at the diffusion of the dedications
to the Kabeiroi from people saved from sea perils, such as OGIS 69 (Coptos), a
dedication by a Ptolemaic military commander from Thera. Callimachus will be being
ironical about the hyperbolic phraseology of these dedications, as Theocritus about the
overblown declarations of faith by the mystai, but neither necessarily mocks the belief
which inspired them,72 and in my opinion both indirectly contribute to the spread of
the cult which Arsinoe II and Ptolemy II favoured.73 Indeed Theocritus would imply
that it even reached his 'marginal' pastoral world, in the same spirit in which he implies
in Idyll 4.31 that even the Crotonian cowherd Corydon was acquainted with the tunes
composed by Glauce, the musician with whom Ptolemy II is said to have fallen in love
 MYTHOLOGICAL PARADIGMS IN THEOCRITUS 27

(cf. Ael. NA 8.11). As for the contrast between this small gesture of homage, and the
spectre of the sad Homeric, non-mystic version, which learned readers would
unavoidably recall, Richard Hunter has shown that an analogous kind of ironic double
reading operates throughout Idyll 18:74 there too Helen and Menelaus function as
models for the monarchs' couple through the poet's openly Spartan and pro-Helen
version, but the reader's memory of the more widespread panhellenic version, in which
the image of Helen as a perfect wife was much less plausible, is clearly evoked in
various ways.

The rustic symposium conducted by Phrasidamus to celebrate the Thalysia at the

ending of Idyll 7 is as rich as the landscape in which it takes place, and the four-year
old wine which the symposiasts unseal is also excellent. That wine is so exceptional,
in fact, that Theocritus himself, in his own poetic voice, seems for once to feel obliged
to exploit a mythical paradigm in the manner of earlier poetry: lines 148-54. To
introduce seemingly traditional material, Theocritus uses a short invocation, which
seems traditional as well, but is not directed to the traditional Muses, but rather to the
Nymphs, who function at times as the equivalent of the Muses in the pastoral idylls:75
he asks them what wine Phrasidamus' wine resembled, and suggests a comparison
with two very famous mythical wines: was Phrasidamus' wine like the wine which
Chiron served as host to Herakles in Pholus' rocky cave? Or like the wine which the
cunning Odysseus presented as a guest (cf. Od. 9.349-50) to Polyphemus? No learned
reader would have missed the fact that both these wines were not simply famous, but
rather notoriously ill-omened, since they turned out to be the cause of terrible woes
(for Polyphemus) or even death (for Chiron). Polyphemus' story is too familiar to
require discussion. As for Chiron's wine, the hospitality offered by Pholus to Herakles,
the offering of the Centaurs' wine, and the consequent Centauromachy in which Chiron
met his death were a very widespread iconographical theme,76 and in poetry they had
already been treated in the Geryoneis of Stesichorus (PMGF S19 D.), and were the
subject of two comedies ascribed to Epicharmus77 and of one by Aristophanes.78 In
these plays the scene in which the wine was mixed may have been truly central, since
the single fragment preserved from this episode in the Geryoneis, and two of the
fragments known from [Epicharmus'] XLQCOV fOijJOJTOua?) (CGF 290-1 K.) are
connected with the mingling of the wine for Heracles; not much, of course, can be
inferred from this, since all three fragments are quoted owing to their lexicographic-
antiquarian interest, but the titles themselves of the two comedies by Epicharmus are
surely at least suggestive.79 The role of wine in this mythical episode was well-known:
according to the story told in [Apollod.] 2.5.4, Pholus entertained Heracles and opened
the jar containing the wine of Centaurs; drawn by the smell of their wine, the other
Centaurs dashed to the cave of Pholus; there was a fight, in which Heracles pursued
the centaurs to the cave of Chiron, whom he wounded with one of his poisoned arrows;
Chiron was immortal, and although the arrow caused him awful pain, he could not die;
28 MARCO FANTUZZI

in the end, Prometheus offered to become immortal in his stead, and Chiron died.
Theocritus either presupposed this version and changed it slightly, or he presupposed
another version, in which Chiron, not Pholus, entertained Heracles as a guest80 (and so
might obviously be imagined to have mingled wine for him). In any case, both versions
agreed about the deadly aftermath of Chiron's hospitality for Chiron himself.81
Sir Kenneth Dover was puzzled by the fierceness of Ps.-Apollodorus' story, so
unsuitable to Theocritus' atmosphere, and therefore assumed that 'Theokritos seems
to envisage a more harmonious occasion than that described by Apollodorus.'82
However, if we remember the more or less un-exemplary character of the paradigms
in Idyll 3, and take into account the obviously un-exemplary implications of the
exemplum of Polyphemus' wine, then Chiron's exemplum is seen to have just the same
character, which contrasts with the peaceful context. Both questions which Theocritus
asks the Nymphae imply in fact a negative answer - Phrasidamus' symposium has
obviously nothing to do with those mythical wines which provoked such violence. In
my opinion, we have to do with a comparison between the aavxia typical of the bucolic
world of Theocritus83 and the fierceness of the stories of the traditional myth, a
comparison which has obvious importance within a programmatic poem such as Idyll
7.
To sum up: it was to be expected that myth-telling would be rare in bucolic poetry,
but it was not to be expected that all of the mythical stories which Theocritus tells in
his bucolic poems would be explicitly or implicitly negative. The content of the stories
of Daphnis in Idyll 1 is explicitly abusive, since they reflect his abusive intentions. All
the mythical stories in Idylls 3 and 7 are openly introduced as exemplary paradigms,
and all of them openly depict more or less positive moments of their myths, in the
traditional spirit of exempla; but the common feature that they all share is that they are
stories with notoriously unhappy endings, which do not at all fit the apparent purpose
for which their narrators (the goatherd in Idyll 3, the author in Idyll 7) cite them (to
persuade a woman to yield herself, and to extol the excellent of a wine to be drunk in
a peaceful symposium).
The function of the 'failure' of these exempla is clear in their contexts: in Idyll 3 it
adds to the impression of awkwardness which Theocritus humorously attributes to his
inexpert goatherd in love; in Idyll 7, where Theocritus speaks in his own voice, he
avoids the responsibility of the 'failure' by the interrogative form,84 which, half in jest
half in earnest, stresses the problematic nature of paradigms which seem to be positive,
but hardly can be; and perhaps also we have an implicit statement about the peaceful
nature of his fictional world. In terms of historical poetics, Theocritus' practice appears
to be substantially new. Exempla were a form which even literature exclusively
concerned with human subjects had always saved for divine and heroic myths; this
poetic space had been the space of more or less unambiguous values, whether positive
or negative. Theocritus took over the use of mythological paradigms into his bucolic
poetry; nevertheless he appears to have done so only in order to provoke his readers,
who expected to find the standard gnomic value of paradigmatic myths (and of the
 MYTHOLOGICAL PARADIGMS IN THEOCRITUS 29

exemplum as a literary practice), but were forced to come to terms with the more
ambiguous and disquieting value of Theocritus' stories.
Without treading too far on the path of intentionality, it is possible to interpret this
peculiarity of Theocritus as one manifestation of his concern for polyphony, a subject
which has recently been explored in depth.85 Besides, from a historical point of view,
Theocritus' poetical practice may have been influenced by the huge success which
contemporary poetic catalogues of mythological exempla had enjoyed (and were to
continue to enjoy throughout the third century).86 Such cataloguing of traditional
mythology obviously had to single out a specific, univocal feature for each mytho-
logical tale - cataloguing, after all, needs to find specific labels. The temptation to mix
those labels up a bit may have been particularly strong for an author who, in the name
of a radically polyphonic poetics, apparently refuses at least once (Idyll 7) to attribute
a univocal meaning even to certain fictional episodes and characters of his own, whose
ambiguity did not emerge from the ancient forest of the literary and mythological
tradition.

UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE MARCO FANTUZZI

NOTES

* Part of this paper was given as a lecture at the universities of Princeton, Harvard, Yale, and Columbia in
the spring of 1994, and subsequently (in Italian) at the University of Trento. A fuller version was presented
to the Ancient Literature Seminar of the Faculty of Classics of the University of Cambridge in October,
1994. To thank by name so many hosts for their hospitality and, above all. for their precious advice would
become a tedious catalogue, but I have to make an exception for the considerable help offered by the editors
of PCPS, Philip Hardie and Stephen Oakley, and by Richard Hunter, who began by reading the first draft
of the first part in March, 1994, repeatedly criticized many crucial points in the argument, and inevitably
ended up rewriting my English.
The translations of the Theocritean passages are taken from the 1952 2nd edition with commentary by A.
S. F. Gow, with minor modifications.

1. Cf.B.Effe, 'DieDestruktion derTradition: Theokrits mythologischeGedichte',/MM 121 (1978)48-77.

2. G. Nagy, 'Mythological exemplum in Homer', in R. Hexter and D. Selden (edd.), Innovations of antiquity
(1992) 326 points to the 'mentality of the unchanging' as a requirement of paradigms.

3. The quotations in inverted commas are from S. Goldhill, 'The failure of exemplarity', in I. J. F. De Jong
and J. P. Sullivan (edd.), Modern critical theory and classical literature (1994) 51-73, an especially
important work for the theoretical concerns of my paper; this article does not, however, consider Hellenistic
poetry, and the early versions of my paper were written before it appeared.

4. CGFp. 105 K.

5. PCG IV, pp. 192-200 K.-A.

6. On the comic adaptation of the theme in these plays, cf. above all J. Mewaldt,' Antike Polyphemgedichte',
AAWW 83 (1946) 271-7. A new study of the comic exploitation of the Cyclops is being prepared by G.
Mastromarco.
30 MARCO FANTUZZI

7. Cf. G. R. Holland, 'De Polyphemo et Galatea', LSKPh 1 (1884) 185 and 209.

8. PCGII, pp. 381-3; VII, pp. 41-3; II pp. 44-6 K.-A., respectively.

9. In a similar form the maxim itself is attested also in Eur. fr. 663 N. , but its association with the Cyclops
is to be found only in Philoxenus and Theocritus (and Callimachus, probably in relation with Theocritus:
below n. 14); hence it is a plausible hypothesis, though only ex silentio, that Middle Comedy did not make
use of the paradigmatic value of the Cyclops' song.

10. Cf. Holland (n. 7) 192-200, which perhaps is still the most thoughtful attempt to reconstruct the contents
of Philoxenus' dithyramb; cf. also D. Ferrin Sutton, 'Dithyramb as Aga^a: Philoxenus of Cythera's Cyclops
or Galatea', QUCC 42 (1983) 3 7 ^ 3 .

11. For this double focusing in Idyll 11, cf. above all U. Ott, Die Kunst des Gegensatzes in Theokrits
Hirtengedichten (1969) 194-8, and N. Hopkinson, A Hellenistic anthology (1988) 150-4.

12. W. Deuse, 'Dichtung als Heilmittel gegen die Liebe: zum 11. Idyll Theokrits', in P. Steinmetz (ed.),
Beitrage zur hellenistischen Literatur und ihrer Rezeption in Rom (1990) 59-76 is the latest important paper
on this subject (cf. also A.-T. Cozzoli, QUCC 11 (1994)95-110). A detailed survey of the question is to be
found in S. Goldhill, The poet's voice: essays on poetics and Greek literature (1991) 250-5.

13. Goldhill (n. 12) 250-9; cf. also F. T. Griffiths, 'Poetry as pharmakon in Theocritus Idyll 2', in Arktouros:
Hellenic studies presented to B. M. W. Knox (1979) 81-2.

14. Cf. G. Pasquali, 'Epigrammi callimachei' (1919), now in id., Scritti filologici (1986) I, 314-16; Gow
and Page, HE II, 157. Ejio>i6f| and qpeiQuaxov are metonymic synonyms dealing with the pains of love in
Eur. Hipp. 478-9 (a reference I owe to E. Magnelli); in Eur. Ale. 966ff. cpdouaxov means the actual text
of the spell.

15. On the medical-magical spells, G. Lanata, Medicina magica e religione popolare in Grecia (1967) and
W. D. Furley, 'Besprechung und Behandlung: zur Form und Funktion von EFIQIAAI in der griech.
Zaubermedizin', in Philanthropia kai eusebeia: Festschrift fiir A. Dihle (1993) 80-104.

16. Cf. for instance Eur. Hipp. 478ff. (n. 14 above), Longus 2.7.7 'there is no medicine for love, neither to
be eaten nor to be drunk, nor any charm to be sung (otix EV 0118015 XOXOTJUEVOV), but only kisses and a
fond embrace', and Ovid, Rent. 259-60.

17. R.Heim, 'Incantamenta magica GraecaetLatina', JCPhSuppl. 19(1893), 514-20 provides a collection
of instances.

18. Marc. Emp. 8.58 Helmr.

19. Alex. Trail. II, p. 581 Puschm.

20. PMag I, p. 88 Preis.

21. Gorg. Vorsokr. 82 B 11.10D.-K. attests that the ancients believed that an ETto)i5r| might be 0710701765
of one thing, and £31070)765 of something else.

22. And in Idyll 11 as well?: the relative chronology of Idylls 6 and 11 appears to be insoluble, see below
n. 28.

23. Modern scholars disagree and both interpretations have their supporters. The 'ironic' interpretation
began with the ancient scholia, whose misogynistic moralism is noteworthy (cf. ad 17a Kai oi) c
EvtatSOa TO EQEOiaxixov >ccd navo'0Q7ov ai>Tfj5 oi\\iaivei- TO 76:0 tpiXoiivTa cp£i)7eiv, ov p
xaxor|0ouc;. 6 vovq- xal £jt£i6av aioOExai <OE>, (i> rioM>cpr|H£, tpiXoijVTa, tpEi>7Ei, xal oi>
OL, X.T.L). It has been followed by Ph.-E. Legrand, Etude sur Theocrite (1898) 174; H. Dorrie,
 MYTHOLOGICAL PARADIGMS IN THEOCRITUS 31

Die schone Galatea (1968) 28; Ott (n. 11)77-8, and G. Lawall, Theocritus' Coanpastorals (1967)70-2.
On the contrary, this ironic interpretation is rejected by Gow and Dover in their commentaries, and
(cautiously) by K. Gutzwiller, Theocritus' pastoral analogies: the formation of a genre (1991) 126-7 (on
line 19 she comments that 'the texture of the line does not really support or suggest irony').

24. The preparations for a sumptuous banquet in the Cyclops of Antiphanes (PCG II, 130-1 K.-A.) might
refer to an imminent wedding feast of Polyphemus and Galatea (cf. E. Wlist, RE XVII (1937) 1956; Dorrie
(n. 23) 18-19, but these seem more likely to be dreams and wishful thinking on the part of the Cyclops: cf.
H.-G. Nesselrath, Die attische mittlere Komodie (1990) 273 and n. 87. In Holland's (n. 7) opinion (p. 201)
Galatea eventually yielded to the Cyclops' love in the final part of Philoxenus' play, but this hypothesis
lacks strong support.

25. Both literary, cf. Propertius 3.2.7-8, and iconographic, cf. Dorrie (n. 23) 44-5 and S. Monton Subias,
LIMC, V.I, 1000-5.

26. Above all on the ground of Appian, ///. 2.3 (the three sons of Polyphemus and Galatea as eponyms of
Celts, Illyrians and Galatians).

27. Cf. Nagy (n. 2).

28. It is impossible to ascertain whether Idyll 11 was written before Idyll 6 or not, because in general terms
the humour of the paradoxical reversal enacted in Idyll 6 might simply have presupposed the treatment of
the Cyclops in love by Philoxenus and by the comic poets. Nevertheless a few correspondences in motifs
and expressions - which are stressed, perhaps a bit too much, by Ott (n. 11) 72-3 - seem to make the first
hypothesis more plausible.

29. After explaining his strategy about Galatea, the Cyclops looks at his reflection in the sea, and sees
himself as handsome: fair the beard, fair 'my one eye' (line 36), white the teeth. Perhaps just seeing his one
eye, menacingly threatened by the prophecy of Telemus, leads the Cyclops to the formal apotropaic gesture
of lines 39^-0 'to cheat the evil eye, thrice I spat into my bosom as the hag Cotyttaris taught me' (cf. Eur.
Hec. 1275-6, and D. E. Gershenson, 'Averting Baoxavict in Theocritus: a compliment', CSCA 2 (1969)
145-55), with which Dametas' song is concluded, as well as the averting of Telemus' prophecy which had
introduced it.

30. Or, better, a peculiarly irreverent extortion by menacing, which has nothing of the piety we would expect
to find in a prayer.

31. Most scholars believe that this extreme vagueness was intended to produce a mysterious atmosphere;
in my opinion, for his new genre, whose material has hardly any thing to do with divine-heroic themes,
Theocritus happily left to the complicity of his learned readers the details of almost the only 'bucolic' myth
which, though being popular in its origins (cf, most recently, R. Pretagostini, Aevum (ant.) 5 (1993) 76),
had already become a theme of high literature. Indeed, Daphnis appears to have been cited by Stesichorus,
cf. PMGF 279-80 D. (on the weakness of the arguments against Stesichorean authorship cf. L. Lehnus, SCO
24 (1975) 191-6, and O. Vox, Belfagor 41 (1986) 311-17). Between the end of the 4th and the beginning
of the 3rd cent. Daphnis was mentioned by Timaeus (FGrH 566 F 83), by Hermesianax (CA p. 96, frr. 2
and 3 P.), and by Alexander Aetolus (CA p. 128, fr. 15), while Sositheus even wrote a satyr-play about him,
TGF 99 F la-3S.

32. Gutzwiller (n. 23) 99.

33. The wit of lines 105-7 is explained by a passage of the Quaest. nat. by Plutarch, where the question is
faced: cur apes citius pungunt qui stuprum dudum fecerunt? (V, p. 399 Bernardakis): cf. Gow ad loc.

34. The story was already in Horn. II. 5.330-54.

35. Cf. for instance D. Lanza, 'Redondances de mythes dans la tragedie', in C. Calame (ed.),
Metamorphoses du mythe en Grece antique (1988) 141-9.
32 MARCO FANTUZZI

36. \iaka [lev ev KOXJIOIOI Atcovwoio qpuXdaacov, 'bearing in my bosom apples of Dionysus'. A surface
interpretation of this line as simply referring to Dionysos' protection of the apple (he was considered to have
been the protos heuretes of it: cf. Neopt. Par. fr. 1 P., CA p. 27) is certainly possible, all the more so by
virtue of the parallelism with the following line 121 'and on my brows the white poplar, the holy plant of
Heracles' (this interpretation was actually proposed by Athen. 3.82d). But surely the fashionable version by
Philitas-Callimachus-Diodorus will have led many readers to think of the apples of Hippomenes as well
(such an interpretation is attested by two different scholl. ad loc): 'apples of Hippomenes', namely a
deceitful token of love, would be especially suitable to the psychology of Simaetha, as she recalls the 'I
would have done' speech by deceitful Delphis.

37. fSdXXetv u,dXoig seems to be idiomatic for 'making an offer of love' in Th. 5.88 (cf. 2), but the erotic
symbolism of the apple is elsewhere widespread in classical texts, cf. B. O. Foster, HSPh 10 (1899) 39-55,
and A. R. Littlewood, HSph 72 (1967) 147-81.

38. It is possible, but hazardous to guess from Philitas' silence about any race between them, and from £
Th. 2.120b (p. 290.3^1 W.), that in Philitas' version Hippomenes won the love of Atalanta by simply
presenting the apples: cf. W. Kuchenmuller, Philetae Coi reliquiae, diss. Berlin (1928) 73-4.

39. W. J. Verdenius, "Atapeoipoux', Hermeneus 39 (1957) 4-7.

40. After all, even the genealogical association of Alphesiboea alone with Pero seems to have been un-
traditional, and the ancient authors who narrate the progeny of Pero either (i) quote Talaus, the father of
Adrastus and so the most pre-eminent and well-known character of that progeny (Hes. fr. 37.8 M.-W.;
[Apollod.] 1.9.13; 2 Pind. Nem. 9.30b), or (ii) quote two partially different triads: Talaus, Areius, Laodocus
(Apoll. Rh. 1.118-9), or Perialces, Aretus/Areius, Alphesiboea/Alcesiboea (Pherecyd. FGrH 3 F 33).

41. It appears to be incorrect to distinguish an Arcadian Atalanta (the hunter) from a Boeotian one (Atalanta
of the race); the distinction was probably a late one: cf. P. M. C. Forbes Irving, Metamorphosis in Greek
myths (1990) 74-5 n. 44.

42. [Apollod.] 1.9.11.

43. As is rightly noted by Gutzwiller (n. 23) 35. In a version mentioned by Plin. NH 25.47, Melampus
resorted to a pastoral potion of goat-milk and hellebore in order to cure the Argive women; hence Gutzwiller
217 n. 51 remarks that 'according to Verg. Eel. 6.48-51, the Proetides thought they were cows, so that
Melampus' cure is simply a herdsman's cure applied to these deluded girls'.

44. Hellan. FGrH4 F 135; Diod. Sic. 5.49.4, 5.77.1.

45. Cf. G. Piccaluga, 'Adonis, i cacciatori falliti e l'avvento dell'agricoltura', in // mito greco: Atti del
Convegno di Urbino, 7-12 maggio 1973 (1977) 42-5.

46. Cf. C. Segal, 'Adonis and Aphrodite' (1969), now in id., Poetry and myth in ancient pastoral (1981)
70-2.

47. It is significant that the poet of Idyll 20 makes his cowherd stress the pastoral character of all the items
he lists in a similar series of exempla of beloved pastoral characters (lines 33—43); this list lacks all the
implicit ambiguity of the Theocritean paradigms. This is an excellent example of the loss of the Theocritean
'distanzierte Ironie' (B. Effe), which ultimately led to idealising bucolic mannerism.

48. Cf. Forbes Irving (n. 41)75.

49. Myth. Vat. 1.39; Serv. ad Verg. Aen. 3.113; Hygin. Fab. 185. In the Ovidian version (Met. 10.703-4)
Atalanta and Hippomenes are metamorphosed into lions, and yoked to Cybele's cart (cf. also Myth. Vat.
2.46-7). In Nonnus (12.88-9), who may have borrowed from an ancient version (cf. Forbes Irving (n. 41)
202), only Atlanta is metamorphosed into a lioness by Artemis.
 MYTHOLOGICAL PARADIGMS IN THEOCRITUS 33

50. Cf. Pherecyd. FG/-//3 F33; Paus. 4.36.3; [Apollod.] 1.9.12;XCW. 11.287 and 290 (and Eustath. 1685,
6-13) and 2 Th. 3.43-45a, b, c.

51. J. Van Leeuwen, Homeri carmina. Odyssea (1917) 308 maintained that Od. 11.291-6 implies an ancient
version of the myth, where 'sibi ipsi potius Melampus armentis ... emeret puellam amatam', and this opinion
is now substantially shared by T. Gantz, Early Greek myth (1993) 185-6. Also for the second, Argive part
of Melampus' story a version probably existed, in which Melampus acted for his own selfish interest, while
the mythological koine, from Hesiod onwards, gave Bias a share in the fruit of his skills. According to Hes.
fr. 37.1 Off. and most other sources, after the Thessalian deed of Melampus, both Bias and Melampus left
Pylos and settled in Argos; there, once again through his magico-therapeutic skills, Melampus managed to
free the daughers of king Proitus (or the women of Argos) from the madness provoked by Dionysos (or by
Hera); as reward, both Melampus and Bias received one-third of the kingdom. Conversely, both Horn. Od.
15.238-41 and Pherecyd. FGrH 3 F 114 are silent about Bias' having moved from Pylos and settled in
Argos, and they represent Melampus as accomplishing his Argive deed for his own sake and profit (he alone
finally shares the kingdom).

52. So Gantz (n. 51).

53. The Homeric scholia carefully integrate both Odyssean passages into a detailed telling of the standard
version, but the reading of Homer by a Hellenistic author might be quite different from the approach of the
scholiasts, who were practically compelled to read Homer through the filter of a well-settled mythological
encyclopaedia.

54. Here again the scholia took care to exploit their knowledge, and to overinterpret: xf\g 6' d|xqpt' 8td xov
d&eXqpov Biavxa, in the spirit of the koine version.

55. According to H. E. Butler, in the first edition of his commentary to Propertius (1905, p. 177) only a
single version existed of the myth, and Propertius simply added to it a fresh nuance of his own ('he implies
that though Melampus worked unselfishly for his brother's sake, it was love for Pero that sustained him
through all his hardships'); in this first ed. Butler added: 'it is possible, however, that a form of the legend
existed which made Melampus himself a suitor for her hand'. In the second edition, by Butler and E. A.
Barber (1933, p. 198), the possible alternative hinted at in the 1905 edition became the principal inter-
pretation. This last alternative version is also favoured by M. Rothstein, P. J. Enk, L. Richardson (cf. also
J. Schwartz, Pseudo-Hesiodeia (1960) 601). W. A. Camps (Propertius. Elegies book II (1967) 84) wavers
between the hypothesis of the alternative version and a further explanation: Propertius did not mention Bias,
because he was 'content for his illustration with the fact that Melampus was a uates and humiliated for a
loved woman, slurring over the fact that the woman's lover was not himself.'

56. Propertius would thus be the first witness, after Theocritus, to a peculiar Theocritean interpretation of
a myth, just as he is the first author known to us who treated (following Theocritus' Idyll 6?) the story of
the Cyclops requited by Galatea (above, n. 25).

57. In my opinion Propertius too retains some ambiguity of this kind in the expression Amythaonia... domo
(both Melampus and Bias were Amythaonii) and this ambiguity, even when solved, ironically increases the
bitterness of the affairs by hinting at their being internal family affairs (he who won the spoils and he who
enjoyed them were brothers).

58. W. Atallah, Adonis dans la litterature etl'art grecs (1966) 53-6 and 72-3.

59. P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (1972) I, 197-8.

60. 4356-9 G.-P.: in a humorous dod, the sleep of Endymion is the unpleasant fate which Meleager wishes
upon whomever the loved Heliodora favours. An epigram by Philodemus (AP 5.123) recalls the passion of
Selene for Endymion without any grim implications, but the point of view of Selene was obviously much
safer than Endymion's!
34 MARCO FANTUZZI

61. Cf. Hes. fr. 177.10-12 M.-W. (as it is usually restored, cf. Th. 969-71); Hellan. FGrH 4 F 23 and Conon,
FGrH 26F 1.21 (Iasion makes love to a phantom or a statue of Demeter); Dion. Hal. AR 1.61; Strabo vii fr.
49 Baladie; [Apollod.] 3.12.1 (Iasion had tried to rape Demeter); besides E. Simon, LIMC V.I, 627.

62. The identification of the two figures is first attested by Hellan. FGrH 4 F 23; cf. B. Hemberg, Die
Kabiren (1950) 105.

63. Cf. Diod. Sic. 5.48.4 and Clem. Alex. Protr. 2.13.3. A sculpture in the northern pediment of the Hieron
probably represents the birth of Eetion: cf. P. W. Lehmann, Samothrace III.l: the Hieron (1969) 288-301.
The connection of Eetion with the Samothracian cults of the Hellenistic age is proved by an inscription of
the beginning of the 1st cent.: the Samothracian boule confers an award on the epic poet Herodes of Priene
for a poem about Eetion and Dardanus, Cadmus and Armonia (cf. IPriene 68-9 H. von Gaertr.).

64. Diod. Sic. 5.49.2.

65. Cf. Hemberg (n. 62) 106-7.

66. This possibility was pointed out to me by Prof. A. Henrichs during the discussion of this paper at
Harvard.

67. Also Diod. Sic. 5.48.4 bluntly interrupts his reference to the u,uo"tr|Qtu)v TeXETf| founded by Iasion,
because about them oi> Oeuxg axoij0ca JTWVV xcov u,e|iur|u,evtov; cf. also Apoll. Rh. 1.919-21.

68. Theocritus (\9522) II, 75.

69. Cf. N. Hopkinson, Callimachus. Hymn to Demeter (1984) 32-5.

70. Cf. S. Guettel Cole, Theoi Megaloi: the cult of the Great Gods at Samothrace (1984) for a recent
discussion of the evidence. The largest buildings in the Samothracian sanctuary were the Hieron, the
Arsinoeion and the Great Propylaia: the Arsinoeion was named after Arsinoe (who is known to have fled
to Samothrace to seek asylum in 281 B.C., after the death of Lysimachus) and dedicated by her either while
she was still the wife of Lysimachus or as a wife of Ptolemy II (the opposite views are maintained by Guettel
Cole 112, n. 177 and G. Roux and Ph. W. Lehmann, 'The history of the Rotunda of Arsinoe', in Samothrace
VII: The Rotunda of Arsinoe (1992) 231-3); the Great Propylaia was dedicated by Ptolemy II before the
death of Ptolemy Soter and while Arsinoe was still queen of Macedon (cf. P. M. Fraser, Samothrace U.I:
the inscriptions on stone (1960) 6 f.).

71. Theocritus at court (1979) 98-104, and F. Cairns, 'Theocritus, Idyll 26', PCPS 38 (1992) 1-38.

72. As Fraser (n. 59) I, 586 rightly pointed out about Callimachus.

73. For the similar homage to the Samothracian gods in Apollonius (Arg. 1.915-21), cf. R. Hunter, 'The
divine and human map of the Argonautica', Syllecta Classica (forthcoming).

74. In chap. 5 of Theocritus and the archaeology of Greek poetry (Cambridge, forthcoming).

75. Here the Nymphs even appropriate the most private seat of the Muses, but elsewhere also they replace
the Muses as inspirers of the pastoral singers (cf. Id. 1.12; 5.140 and 149; 7.92). In Id. 16.3 Theocritus had
called the Muses 'gods, singers of gods', and differentiated them emphatically from his role as a poet for
mortals (Hieron II, in that case). In the bucolic poems the Muses keep their traditional role as gods of poetic
inspiration only within the refrains of the song about Daphnis in Idyll 1; Daphnis is the archetypal cowherd,
and is placed in a mythic environment deliberately remote from any 'realistic' and human dimension (see
above, p. 20f.). That Daphnis is called 'he whom the Muses loved, nor did the Nymphs mislike him' (line
141) is probably a hint at Daphnis' position half-way between a mythic past and a bucolic present.
The relationship between the allusion to these two common myths and the evocation of the Muses was
rightly grasped by A. Barigazzi, 'II vino di Frasidamo nelle Talisie di Teocrito', SIFC 41 (1969) 9-10.
 MYTHOLOGICAL PARADIGMS IN THEOCRITUS 35

76. Cf. J. Schmidt, /?£ XX (1941) 518-21.

77. 'Hgajdfjs 6 Jtaoa OoXau, and XLQCOV ('Cnpojioiux), CGF 78 and 2 9 0 ^ K.

78. Agduaxa f\ KsvxaDoog, PCG III.2, 159-63 K.-A.

79. As Prof. E. W. Handley pointed out to me during the discussion of this paper in the Cambridge Seminar.

80. Cf. Ovid, Fasti 5.391^14; Hygin. Astr. 2.38.1; Plin. NH 25.66 (also Eratosth. Cat. 40).

81. Wine also provoked the Centaurs' fight with the Lapiths, and the fact that wine brought bad luck to
them was proverbially confirmed: after the Homeric olvog xcd Kevxaupov, ayavXvxby Eiipuxicova, I
aaa£ (Od. 21.295-6), the first three words became a proverb: cf. Alcae. Mess. AP 11.12 (=24-7 G.-P.);
Callim. AP 7.725 (61 Pf., 1235-6 G.-P.); Nicarch. AP 11.1. Ammonius, Diff. 374 even uses these three
words to exemplify the meaning of the term jtaQadEiyjia.

82. Theocritus: select poems (1971), p. 165.

83. Cf. H. Edquist, 'Aspects of Theocritean otium', Ramus 4 (1975) 101-^.

84. The importance of the interrogative form of the passage to 'save' the author was rightly pointed out by
Prof. P. E. Easterling during the discussion of this paper in the Cambridge Seminar.

85. Cf. Goldhill (n. 12) chap. 4 (some anticipations in G. Fabiano, 'Fluctuations in Theocritus' style', GRBS
12(1971)517-37).

86. In the tradition of the Hesiodic YvvamCav xaxdXoyog, and after the prototypical revival of that tradition
in the AI36T| of Antimachus (who is said to have gathered unhappy love stories of mythical characters to
derive 'exemplary' consolation in the death of his beloved), between the last few years of the 4th cent, and
the beginning of the 3rd cent, myth provided catalogues of exemplary stories about the most disparate
matters: a catalogue of heterosexual loves of gods and heroes (and also some half-mythical men like
Socrates) in the AEOVXIOV by Hermesianax, another one in the ruvaixtov v,ax6Xoyo<; by one Nicaenetus
of Samos (human women in love with demigods, presumably); a peculiar variant was the list of mythical
homosexual loves provided by the "EQCOXES T\ KCIXOL of Phanocles. In the meantime Moiro from Byzantium
appears to have collected in her 'AQOU frightening stories of cursed heroes, as did the contemporary author
of the Pap. Bruxell. 11.22 Huys, and surely Callimachus did something similar in his Ifhc;; shortly afterwards
Euphorion listed the painful ends of mythical characters as paradigms to be revived in the sufferings which
he used to wish on his enemies (Ofjfiii;, FioxriQioxXEJixTig, XdidSeg).
On the popularity of such catalogue poetry and the reactions it provoked cf. above all the forthcoming
book on Callimachus by A. Cameron.