Callimachus and his critics

549 Pages·1995·46.501 MB·English

by  Cameron, Alan;Cal·límac

Callimachus and His Critics

Callimachus and His Critics
ALAN CAMERON
RP ICN TE ON INUVRE SITY RP SE S
RP ICN TE N,O EW NJRE SEY
Copyright 01995 by Princeton nU iversity Press
Published by Princeton nU iversity Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New eJ rsey 08540
In the nU ited Kingdom: Princeton nU iversity Press,
Chichester, West Sussex
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-ln-Publicatton Data
Cameron, Alan.
Calliniachus and his critics / Alan Cameron.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-691-04367-1 (alk. paper)
1. CallimachusC— riticism and interpretationH— istory. 2. Greek poetry, Hellenistic—
EgyptA— lexandriaH— istory and criticismT— heory, etc. I. Title
PA3945.Z5C28 1995
881-.01-dc20 95-2674
This book has been composed in Times Roman, using oN ta Bene 4,
on a Hewlett-Packard LasereJ t 4M
The publisher would like to acknowledge Alan Cameron for
providing the camera-ready copy from which this
book was printed
Princeton nU iversity Press books are printed on acid-free paper
and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the
Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity
of the Council on Library Resources
Printed in the nU ited States of America
by Princeton Academic Press
1 3 5 79 10 8642
For Geoff and Jean

CONTENTS
PREFACE ix
FREQUENTLY USED ABBREViAnoNs xi
CHRONOLOGIA CALUMACHEA xiii
Chapter I
Cyrene, Court and Kings 3
Chapter II
The ovI ry oT ew r 24
Chapter III
The Symposium 71
Chapter IV
Prologue and rD eam 01 4
Chapter V
The icIan Guest 33 1
Chapter VI
pE ilogue and aI mbi 41 1
Chapter VII
Callimahc us Senex 74 1
Chapter VIII
TheTelchines 85 1
Chapter IX
iMstresses and aD tes 233
Chapter X
eH llenistic pE ic 263
Chapter XI
aF t Ladies 03 3
Chapter XII
nO e Continuous Poem 39 3
νύϊ Contents
Chapter XIII
Hesiodic lEegy 623
Chapter XIV
The Cyclic Poem 87 3
ChapterXV
The Hymn to Apollo 403
Chapter XVl
Theocritus 410
Chapter XVII
Hecale and pE yllion 37 4
Chapter XVIII
eV rgil and the Augustan Recusatio 454
Appendix A
Hedylus and Lyde 485
Appendix B
Thin eG ntlemen 88 4
Appendix C
Asclepiades's iGrlfriends 494
BIBLIOGRAPHY 25 1
INDEX 25 5
INDEX LOCORUU 33 5
PREFACE
ks ooBne im(w) ohynahave a ay wof growing in ed tcepxenudirections.
This one started fe ilas a reinterpretation of the Aetia prologue, its ed timil
purpose to show that Callimachus’s rn ecnocwas elegy, ot nepic. ut BI soon
realized this ld uocnot be done without a more ed liatedexamination of the
curious modern preoccupation with Hellenistic ic pend aepyllion, held to
be so important or f the understanding of an moR as well as Hellenistic
poetry (Ch. X; XVI-XVIII). For se ehtns oitpecnocsim ar eppa at their
st ekratsin modern scholarly writing on us llutaCnd athe Augustans.
The identification of Callimachus’s es nihcleTed lme to reconsider the
dates, works, interrelationships nd ant eicnabiographies of st omof he t
other leading poets of the age; nd athence to a wider dy utsof the transmis›
sion nd ainterpretation of their works in the later Hellenistic nd aan moR
ge a(Ch. IV nd aVIII). Thus the "Critics" of my title, originally just the
Telchines of the prologue, ed dneup with a ar fwider e, cnerefernt eicnand a
modern. No ew npapyri of us hcamillaChave ed raeppace nises noJ-dyolL
nd aParsons published their Supplementum Hellenisticum in 1983, but a
er bmunof other ew ntexts help to st acme oclewif (es mitemosd) etcepxenu
ew nlight on the picture I have tried to draw.
Callimachus has generally been ed redisnocthe al pytehcraivory er wot
poet, his work ed ifitnedias the st rifce naraeppaof rt aor fart’s sake, poetry
or fthe book rather than ow llefcitizens. He has en ebed nmadwith nt iaf
praise as a ar lohcswriting or flibraries, a rt uocnt ahpocyswriting to er ttalf
divine kings. Ch. II I-Ipresent a very nt ereffidperspective, based on the
nt adnuba evidence ad etsni of ry utnec-hteitnewt rationalisation of
nineteenth-century prejudice st niagathe postclassical. ch uMof the book is
in ct afmore of a prolegomena to the dy utsof Hellenistic nd a(so so la
n) amoRpoetry than a dy utsof us hcamillaCalone. It is a al icosas ch umas
a literary history of ek erGpoetry in the ly raethird century. I have tried to
situate Callimachus as firmly as I ld uocin the al erworld in which he ed vil
as well as in his real literary t, xetnoca world of es iticas ll ewas courts, a
world of private symposia nd apublic s, lavitsefin which poetry nd apoets
continued to play a central role.
As a result, the book as hturned out ch umlonger than I ad hed nnalpor
hoped. I trust no one will quote F 465 at me; or fer verehwCallimachus’s
nd imwas when he id asthat a big book was a big bore (p. 52), his tongue
was ly mrif in his cheek. The notion at hthe as w the uncompromising
le tsopaof the short poem dies hard, but ne oynawho an cnt uocan cwork