Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigrams in Context PDF
Preview Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigrams in Context
Poetic Garlands Poetic Garlands Hellenistic Epigrams in Context Kathryn J. Gutzwiller UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley Los Angeles London This book is a print-on-demand volume. It is manufactured using toner in place of ink. Type and images may be less sharp than the same material seen in traditionally printed University of California Press editions. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England ©1998 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gutzwiller, KathrynJ . Poetic garlands : Hellenistic epigrams in context / Kathryn J. Gutzwiller. P. cm. — (Hellenistic culture and society : 28) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-520-20857-9 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Greek poetry, Hellenistic—History and criticism. 2. Epigrams, Greek—History and criticism. 3. Books and reading— Mediterranean Region. 4. Meleager-—Knowledge— Literature. 5. Callimachus. Epigrams. 6. Literary form. 1. Tide. II. Series. PA 3123.G88 — 1998 888.'or08-dcat 97-5676 CIP Printed in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSUNISO Z39.48-1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper). For Bob and Charlie CONTENTS PREFACE / ix ABBREVIATIONS / χη i. Introduction / i 2. Hellenistic Epigram Books: The Evidence from Manuscripts and Papyri / 45 “in the Epigrams οὔ..." 16 On Papyri 20 In Manusenpt 36 3. The Third Century: From Stone to Book / 47 Anyle 54 Nossts 74 Leonidas of Tarentum. 88 4. The Third Century: Erotic and Sympotic Epigram } 115 Asclepiades 122 Posidippus 150 Hedylus 170 5. The Book and the Scholar: Callimachus! Epigrammata ΜΔ 183 The Epigrammata 188 Dedicatory Epigrams :90 Sepulchral Epigrams 196 Erotic Epigrams 213 5. The Art of Variation: From Book to Anthology / 227 Antipater of Sidon 236 Meleager 276 TABLES / 323 I. Structure of Cephalan Books. 325 Il. Meleager's Amatory Book 326 TN. Structure of Meleager's Amatory Book 328 IV. Meleager’s Dedicatory Book 329 V. Meleager’s Sepulchral Book 330 VI. Meteager’s Epideicti. Book 332 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY / 433 INDEX OF PASSAGES CITED / 341 GENERAL INDEX / 353 PREFACE In the Foreword to his commentary on Hellenistic epigrams, A. S. F. Gow remarks that he took up the Greek Anthology because he had been “constantly reminded how inadequate was the provision of signposts for those who strayed into that labyrinth.” The image of the maze seems particularly apt in describing the various woven and unwoven strands that make up our Byzantine anthologies of Greek epigrams. The commentary of Gow and Page remains an essential guide in matters of chronology, diction, and text, and one now supplemented in important ways. Sonya L, Taran has reprinted in two volumes a number of earlier German monographs that provide crucial information about the ancient anthologies through which Hellenistic epigrams passed into the Byzantine tradition. In addition, Alan Cameron has recently issued a detailed history of the Greek Anthology, which builds upon these earlier discoveries and adds a wealth of information derived from papyri and his own study of the Byzantine texts. What remains to be attempted, however, is a specifically literary study of Hellenistic epigrams. The poems themselves have, apparently, seemed too brief and the labyrinth of the Anthology too uncharted to accommodate lengthy studies concerned with interpretation rather than the realia of textual transmission. But the problem has seemed to me, in literary terms, to be one of failure to account fully for context; I have thought that, if we could uncover to any degree at all the original settings in which these epigrams were read, we would have a basis for understanding the literary meaning the poems held for ancient readers. The significance of the term context in my title is twofold. On the one hand, it refers to the specific physical context in which an epigram is read. Verses inscribed on grave monuments or accompanying dedications take on meaning in relation to their site of inscription. During the Hellenistic era epigrams were sometimes recited as entertainment for friends, a context that produced different types of epigrams—erotic, satiric, and sympotic—as well as different responses. Within the third century B.c. epigrams were also collected into poetry books, ix x PREFACE where even the briefest of poems could acquire broader meaning by juxtaposition with other epigrams. By the beginning of the first century B.c. these epigram collections were being excerpted and rewoven into anthologies, like Meleager's Garland, where the grouping of poems by multiple authors on a single theme contextualized the history of the form. In the course of time even these contexts were remolded as the ancient anthologies were plucked apart to form the great Byzantine compendia based on different principles of arrangement. One goal of this book is to show how changed context produces changed meaning. Because readers tend to privilege the poetic contexts established by authors, I have concentrated on studying the way in which Hellenistic epigrams may have functioned in their original collections. 1 am under no delusion that the scope or order of these lost poetry books can be reestablished. Meleager clearly used earlier epigram collections, but he thoroughly redistributed their contents throughout his anthology. In addition, he probably excerpted only a small percentage of published Greek epigrams and may have selected from a given poet certain types of epigrams over others. But it is also likely that he tended to anthologize key poems from earlier collections, those on themes unique to a certain author and those that foster an impression of the poetic persona controlling the collection. Although I believe that in certain instances enough evidence exists to justify speculation about a poem's position within a collection, usually as an opening, closing, or transitional poem, my order of discussion, both of individual poems and of poems in groups, is more often designed to illustrate similarities and so interconnections, not to suggest an original order. The exception is Meleager's Garland, for which I have been able to build upon earlier, and largely unknown, scholarship in order to establish the major structure of his various sections. The patterns of arrangement that can now be reconstructed for this anthology are so complex and fascinating that they no doubt represent a culmination in the Hellenistic process of weaving poetic garlands. Because I concentrate in this diachronic continuum on the synchronic mo- ment of the author-issued epigram collection, the term context acquires a further reference to the social and historical matrix in which the author composed. These are not poems written by scholars in ivory towers, with an eye only to earlier Greek literature or contemporary literary quarrels. The individuals pre- sented in the epigrams are, for the most part, either historically real or fictioned as like persons of the poet's own day. The dominating themes I identify for the epigrammatists discussed here are connected to the personal positions they occupied in the fragmented and shifting world of Hellenistic culture. Anyte and Nossis write from the perspective of women dwelling in communities far from the centers of literary culture and political power. Leonidas, who characterizes himself as a poor wanderer, presents a more sympathetic identification with the underclass figures in his epigrams than with the wealthy and aristocratic ones, those who would be more likely to appreciate, and patronize, his art.
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