Lasus of Hermione, pindar and the riddle of s

Classical Quarterly

Volumn 57, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 1-21

  Porter, James I ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN   (United States)

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EID: 51249157032     PISSN: 00098388     EISSN: 14716844     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0009838807000018     Document Type: Article

References (126)

1. See Privitera, Laso di Ermione, a full-length study, with fragments and discussion; GMW 1, s.v. 'Lasus' in the index;
2. West, Ancient Greek Music, 342-3, for a convenient summary of Lasus' achievements;
3. and D'Angour, 'Dithyramb' for a striking reappraisal of some of the key evidence.
4. See G. Perec, 'Histoire du lipogramme', in Oulipo (Association) (ed.), La Littérature potentieile (créations, re-créations, récréations) (Paris, 1988), 73-89, esp. 77-8 (on Lasus).
5. 'Oulipo' is an acronym for 'Ouvroir de littérature potentielle' ('Workshop of Potential Literature'), a literary movement founded in 1960 by R. Queneau and F. Le Lionnais in the name of the unlimited production of literature under limiting constraints. Other members have included M. Duchamp, I. Calvino and G. Perec. See their site: http://www.oulipo.net/.
6. Ath. 11.467a = fr. 87 Wehrli.
7. Comp. 14; trans. Usher.
8. Fr. 70b Snell-Maehler, trans, after GMW 1.59-60.
9. Cf. D'Angour, 'Dithyramb', 338 and 342.
10. 'In song' is surely wrong; that would be vel sim. See also Privitera, Laso di Ermione, 31: 'fu usata nella melopea' (his other variant misrenders cf. n. 21, below.)
11. Ath. 10.448c-d (= fr. 86 Wehrli).
12. Both reports curiously omit the final two words, 'from (the) mouths' (of men). This is doubly odd, given the traditional phraseology (see S. Lavecchia [ed.], Pindari dithyramborum fragmenta [Rome, 2000], 131). The likeliest reason is that all three instances derive from the same source, which omitted the final two words (although at 467b Athenaeus quotes the pair of verses again, this time including but omitting and). This is not to deny that ancient readers were free to construe the partial quotation in different ways.
13. Pace G. A. Privitera, 'L'Asigmatismo di Laso e di Pindaro in Clearco Fr. 88 Wehrli', Rivista di cultura classica e medioerale 6.2 (1964), 164-70, at 167, the second statement accurately reflects the first. For an additional consideration, see n. 21, below.
14. I attempt to sort out the interpolations from the original language of Clearchus in The Origins of Aesthetic Inquiry in Antiquity: Matter, Experience and the Sublime (Cambridge, forthcoming).
15. PMG 702 = Ath. 14.624e.
16. D'Angour, 'Dithyramb', 342.
17. See the Greek version supplied exempli gratia in D'Angour, 'Dithyramb', 342, n. 68.
18. PMG 704.
19. As would, necessarily, any asigmatic ode written by any author. Dion. Hal. Comp. 14 assures us some ancients 'composed whole odes without sigmas before quoting the Pindaric verses. Lasus' songs would have stood out as special cases if they were novelties, which is likely.
20. Ath. 10.448c; trans. Gulick (Loeb), adapted. Note the words which reoccur in the second version of the Clearchean report at 456c:
21. Ath.'10.452f.
22. G. F. Brussich (ed.) Laso di Ermione: Testimonialize e frammenti (Pisa, 2000), T6-9 is incomplete
23. Ath. 8.338cd; trans. Gulick. Did Lasus influence Heraclitus' riddle about Homer, the (fisher)boys, and the lice? ['got', i.e. 'killed'], DK 22B56 ∼ Cert. 328 Allen).
24. Perec (n. 3), 74: 'la plupart du temps, ils ne le disent pas'. There are exceptions, of course, such as Jacques Arago's Voyages autour du monde sans le lettre A (1853) - which is only a partial exception, however, for just what is a 'voyage around the world without the letter A?
25. Perec (n. 3), 77.
26. Perec (n. 3), 78-9;
27. E. G. Turner, 'Papyrus Bodmer XXVIII: a satyr-play on the confrontation of Heracles and Atlas', MH 33.1 (1976), 1-23, at 20.
28. E.g. 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.'
29. At least according to Perec (n. 3), 86-7.
30. Perec (n. 3), 75.
31. The bracketed words reflect the new readings, supplements, and renderings by D'Angour, 'Dithyramb'. D'Angour's revised text of P. Oxy. 1604 fr. 1 col. II. 1-5, with underdots and lower half-brackets restored, reads: The text is far from stable or certain. The most recent text of Pindar's dithyrambs by Lavecchia (n. 11) is more conservative, and diverges at a few key points:
32. [ Snell-Maehlen D'Angour: (?) Lavecchia.
33. Grenfell-Hunt: D'Angour (who renders the last line 'but now youths are spread out wide in well-centred circles'): Lavecchia (n. 11), 133 ad loc.
34. For another 'noisy' ode, see Pind. Pyth. 12.4-27, this time celebrating the mythical birth of the Polukephalos nomos, which likewise 'wove into [the] music [of the aulos] the deathly dirge of the fierce [ophidian] Gorgon'.
35. For an analysis, see R. P. Martin, 'The pipes are brawling: conceptualizing musical performance in Athens', in C. Dougherty and L. Kurke (edd.), The Cultures Within Ancient Greek Culture: Contact, Conflict, Collaboration (Cambridee, 2003), 153-80, at 162-3.
36. P. Berol. 9571v, ed. W. Schubart, 'Über den Dithyrambus', Archiv für Papyrusforschung 14 (1941), 24-30 (dated by the hand to the early third century C.E.). The suspicion of its genre (as commentary) was raised by Lobel (ap. Schubart).
37. Schubart's observation (n. 36), 29, 'Aus der Pindarstelle, die der Verfasser als Beispiel heranzieht, sieht man, daß es sich um den bakchantischen Lärm handelt', while true, does not go far enough.
38. One lesson of the anonymous author of P. Berol. seems to be that Pindar's second dithyramb is capable of 'powerfully changing the inner states' of its listeners through excitation; by contrast, his or another's (Simonides'?) song, in a different style, can 'calm down the mind' (lines 52-7), though through what means is unclear - perhaps through a more 'static' rhythm (Lavecchia [n. 11], 130). There is metrical comment about 'sculpting a verse' at line 55.
39. Ar. Nub. 1367 (said of Aeschylus).
40. The comment is doubtless in part aimed at capturing cacophony, in addition to capturing meaningless 'bombast'. A scholiast glosses the phrase with 'baffling', but this looks more like a paraphrase of the next part of the same verse, See further M. Griffith, The vocabulary of Prometheus Bound', CQ n.s. 34 (1984), 282-91, at 287, n. 23.
41. Arist. Rhet. 3.3.1406b1: dithyrambic poets are 'full of sound' or 'noisy' Dion. Hal. Dem. 7, equating a style (Plato's, in the Phaedrus) that is full of 'sounds' with one that is full of 'dithyrambs'; cf. E. Csapo, 'The politics of the New Music', in P. Murray and P. Wilson (edd.), Music and the Muses: The Culture of 'Mousiké' in the Classical Athenian City (Oxford, 2004), 207-18, at 228-9.
42. According to Arcesilaus, head of the Middle Academy, reading Pindar was 'terrific for filling one's voice to the brim (Diog. Laert.4.31).
43. See generally Csapo (n. 40).
44. Sacadas: [Plut.] De mus. 1134c;
45. cf. Proclus ap. Phot. 320b12-18 (describing the early nomos generally as 'stately': ps.-Aristotle: n. 69, below; Lysander: Ath. 14.637f-38a.
46. Incidentally, to the ancient ear, poetic obstreperousness and loftiness can go hand in hand, for instance in Homer (and epic poetry generally). See Plin. Ep. 9.26.6, affirming the sublime style and quoting as examples three verses from Homer which are descriptive of loud, crashing sounds on a celestial or (super-) natural scale (II. 21.38, 5.356, 14.394).
47. For the general point, see J. C. Franklin, 'Dithyramb and the "demise of music"', in B. Kowalzig and P. Wilson (edd.), Song Culture and Social Change: The Contexts of Dithyramb (forthcoming).
48. Fr. 140b.11-17 SneIl-Maehler; trans. after GMW 1.60-1.
49. E.g. Ol. 1.7-9:
50. (fr. 32.3-4 W). Cf. Lavecchia (n. 11), 131.
51. The symbolism of the event is nicely summed up in D. Musti, 'Musica greca tra aristocrazia e democrazia', in A. C. Cassio, D. Musti and L. E. Rossi (edd.), Synaulia: cultura musicale in Grecia e contatti mediterranei (Naples, 2000), 7-55, at 41.
52. Pl. Leg 3.700D1-E1, not least the idea of musical pandemonium: 'The result [of radical musical innovations frowned upon by the Athenian, viz. Plato] was a total confusion of styles (trans. T. J. Saunders).
53. P. Wilson, 'The musicians among the actors', in P. Easterling and E. Hall (edd.), Greek and Roman Actors: Aspects of an Ancient Profession (Cambridge, 2002), 39-68; Csapo (n. 40).
54. For the hypothesis of earlier simplicity, see GMW 1.59, n. 20, doubtless with [Plut.] De mus. in mind and the entire tradition he represents. Cf. De mus. 1141C for a later parallel development: ibid., 1135D and 1142C on 'the solemn, simple archaic style'; and 1133B on the 'simple' style of early citharody. But we need to be on our guard here, as this hypothesis is something of an ancient and, consequently, a modern construct (see ps.-Plutarch at n. 117, below).
55. So,e,g. GMW 1.59, n.20.
56. A further possible understanding of is implicit in P. Wilson, rev. of Lavecchia (n. 11) in BMCR 04.24 (2002) (more developed than P. Wilson, The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia: The Chorus, the City and the Stage [Cambridge, 2000], 314, n. 32); see n. 117, below.
57. Cf. also Pind. fr. 107a1-3 with Pyth. 1.4 (cit. Franklin [n. 43], at n. 57).
58. See LSJ s.v. II: 'anything twisted or plaited of rushes, esp. rope, cord'.
59. This would be compatible with D'Angour's proposed choreographical and euphonic interpretation of proceeded in a straight line'. For the association of with a marked length of colons or periods and with consequent troubling affects for the breath, see the (admittedly late) testimony gathered in Lavecchia (n. 11), 126-7, nn. 72-3. (The scholia to the Aristotle passages, not cited by him, are more relevant still.) But the sense of extended length of poetic composition is also found, as at Philostr. Her. 55.4:
60. [Plut.] De mus. 1138B, with the clarifying discussion in Franklin (n. 43).
61. Poll. 4.83-4; Strab. 9.3.10; Hesych. s.v.
62. De mus. 1141C;
63. trans. after GMW 1.235, adapted.
64. cf. G. Comotti, Music in Greek and Roman Culture, trans. R. V. Munson (Baltimore, 1989), 26-7. Others (Lasserre, Barker, West) construe the changes as limited to the dithyramb.
65. Privitera, Laso di Ermione, 76, n. 15.
66. Cf. R. P. Winnington-Ingram, Mode in Ancient Greek Music (Cambridge, 1936), 60.
67. PMG 702 = Ath. 14.624e-f;
68. trans. after GMW 1.282, adapted.
69. PMG 712 = Ath. 14.624f-625a = fr. 163 Wehrli;
70. Fr. 163 Wehrli = Ath. 14.624d-625a.
71. Pyth. 2.69-71.
72. But he is not the only other poet to celebrate the 'loud deep-pitched aulos (Ion of Chios TrGF 42 = Ath. 4.185a; trans. Barker);
73. cf. Simonides (?) PMG 947b: Pind. Ol. 3.8:
74. [Pr.] 19.48, 922b14;
75. trans. after GMW 1.203.
76. Poll. 4.82. Cf. PMG 708.12, where Pratinas complains about the 'deep-chattering mouth' of the aulos.
77. Ath. 10.455c; Eust. Il. 24.1.
78. cf. Comotti (n. 63), 26-7
79. F. Lasserre (ed.), Plutarque, De la musique. Texte, traduction, commentaire, précédes d'une étude sur l'éducation musicale (Olten-Lausanne, 1954), 37, suggests that the effects were obtained by pressing the plectrum down between the saddle (or tailpiece) and the sound-board. Even if this technique could produce the desired effects (and Annie Bélis assures me that it could not), apart from Privitera's objections, a further worry would be that this is hardly a systematic, reproducible method, let alone readily transferable to the voice: Lasus had precise theoretical and empirical motives (see below).
80. Similarly, C. del Grande, Espressione musicale dei poeti greci (Naples, 1932), 89
81. (cit. L. Gamberini [ed.], Plutarco, "Della musica" [Florence, 1979], 250).
82. GMW 2.32, n. 11.
83. Theoph. Sm. 59.4-60.11 Hiller. Discussion in Privitera, Laso di Ermione, 64-73.
84. See A. Barker, 'Music and perception: a study in Aristoxenus', JHS 98 (1978), 9-16.
85. J. C. Franklin, 'Diatonic music in Greece: a reassessment of its antiquity', Mnemosyne 55.6 (2002), 669-702, at 696.
86. Epigonus and his circle were the 'first' to adopt Lysander's auletic cithara techniques (Ath. 14.637d).
87. glosses in [Plut.] De mus. 1137A. Cf. Pindar's use of in his epinicians beyond the dithyrambic genre (e.g. Ol. 3.7: Ol. 4.2: Ol. 6.86-7: Nem. 4.14:.
88. Pind. Pyth. 12.19;
89. Further examples in Franklin (n. 81), 696, n. 70.
90. P. Herc. 994 col. 37.9-13 Sbordone: (Janko: Gomperz) nor do the compositions of Lasus which are wrought most subtly in this way [viz., euphonistically] produce [either] such [an effect(?), viz., aural pleasure; cf. lines 6-7, 19-20], nor do [they make] manifest the most extreme harsh pain [resulting from the alleged harsh sounds of his compositions].' Both the text (after C. Romeo's readings) and the translation remain uncertain. With R. Janko's conjecture, it makes sense now to assume that Philodemus, true to form, is flatly rejecting claims on all sides of the debate, but other ways of construing the speakers are admittedly possible.
91. So, too, Privitera, Laso di Ermione, 89, n. 5
92. (pace T. Gomperz, 'Philodem und die aesthetischen Schriften der Herculanischen Bibliothek', Sitzwigsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien. Philosophisch-Historische Classe 123, no. 6 [1891], 1-88, at 48, n. 2).
93. On these critics, see J. I. Porter, 'of a reassessment', in J. G. J. Abbenes, S. R. Slings and I. Sluiter (edd.), Greek Literary Theory after Aristotle: A Collection of Papers in Honour of D. M. Schenkeveld (Amsterdam, 1995), 83-109.
94. It is tempting to see in a preserved fragmentary poem ascribed to Pratinas of Phlius (PMG 708 = Ath. 14.617c-f) an averse reaction to the new Lasian poetics of sound ('What is this hubbub? What are these dances? What loud-clattering arrogance has come upon the Dionysian altar?', etc. [trans. Barker]), and not only to Lasus' reform of the dithyramb, as has long been suspected (see A. W. Pickard-Cambridge, Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy [1st edn. 1927; rev. T. B. L. Webster, Oxford, 1962], 29-32).
95. But there are problems with this temptation. First, Pratinas makes no mention of the place of the voice per se on the opponent's programme in this fragment. Consequently, he may be criticizing only the newly awarded prominence of the aulos itself due to the rearrangements instituted by Lasus in the dithyrambic chorus (D'Angour, 'Dithyramb', 342-3),
96. and not Lasus' translation of the character of the aulos onto the voice. Second, elsewhere Pratinas seems to have embraced Lasus' promotion of the Aeolian tuning (PMG 712).
97. We may not know enough about sixth-century musical polemics to be able to settle such complex matters. Or else the old suspicion that the author is a later, fifth-century Pratinas may be right (most recently, Csapo [n. 40], 214;
98. Franklin [n. 43], at n. 14).
99. Richard Janko reminds me that the word schêma elicits similar responses from the euphonist critic Pausimachus; see Phld. Poem. 1, cols. 90-1 Janko, with Janko's comments ad loc. (a passage that concerns Euripides' much-mocked habit of sigmatism, here in the Ion). The statistical results of D. L. Clayman, 'Sigmatism in Greek poetry', TAPA 117 (1987), 69-84, are somewhat contra- dictory with regard to Pindar, who comes out scoring a relatively low and high incidence of s-sounds (low: pp. 74, 78; Table 1; high: pp. 76, 77; Tables 2, 5). But the isolation of sigmatism is doubtless a misleading guide to euphonic practices.
100. Schol. Pind. Pyth. 12 prae. 8, 15b, 39a-b, 41;
101. Philoch. FGrH 328 F 23 = Ath. 14.637f-38a;
102. see A. Barker, 'The innovations of Lysander the kitharist', CQ 32 (1982), 266-9. The reconstructions of the two cases, Lasus and Lysander vis-à-vis Sacadas, inevitably share similarities.
103. See GMW 1.252 ('rope-like');
104. [Plut.] De mus. 1132D, 1133A with GMW 1.209 n. 21 (on Clonas and the Schoiniôn).
105. U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (ed.), Timotheus, Die Perser (Leipzig, 1903), 90, n. 1;
106. M. L. West,'Stesichorus', CQ n.s.21 (1971), 302-14, at 310, n. 6;
107. GMW 1.252.
108. The association is rejected by B. Zimmermann, Dithyrambos: Geschichte einer Gattung (Göttingen, 1992), 44, on weak grounds ('zumal das Adjektiv sich ausdrücklich auf den Gesang bezieht';
109. similarly, D'Angour, 'Dithyramb', 333, n. 18): all that is required is a verbal reminiscence in Pindar for the allusion to take effect. This rejection on verbal grounds further overlooks West's argument about what a nomos meant in musicological terms in Pindar's day (see below).
110. Cf. O. Crusius, 'Über die Nomosfrage', Verhandlungen der 39. Versammlung der deutschen Philologen und Schulmänner in Zürich vom 28. September bis 1. Oktober 1887 (Leipzig, 1888), 258-75, at 274.
111. For one borrowing from the nome by the dithyramb, viz., verbal concatenation, see Csapo (n. 40), 225.
112. West (n. 100), 310 (italics added). One might compare Telestes 806, 810 PMC, where 'hymnos and nomos are used interchangeably to mean harmonia' (T. J. Fleming, 'The musical nomos in Aeschylus' Oresteia', CJ 72, no. 3 [1977], 222-33, at 222).
113. West (n. 100), 310, n. 4 (italics added).
114. Pind. fr. 282 (= Paus. 9.30.2 + [Plut.] De mus. 1134A);
115. Franklin (n. 43), at n. 48. The proemium must have included a physical description of Sacadas with his aulos, to judge from Pausanias' report.
116. See D'Angour, 'Dithyramb', 334, n. 22;
117. Cf. also Dion. Hal. Comp. 22 and his virtual hymn to Pindaric phonic dissonance exemplified with (and thus preserving) Pind. Dith. fr. 75.
118. D'Angour, 'Dithyramb', 335, likewise calls Aristoxenus' conflation 'tendentious'.
119. Strab. 9.3.10; Poll. 4.83-4;
120. Pind. Pyth. hypoth. 31.
121. Sacadas himself composed lyrics and elegiacs, and had a circle of associates who composed in elegiacs as well ([Plut.] De mus. 1134A, 1134C).
122. Note, too, Telestes' identification of the nome with the hymn (806, 810 PMG).
123. See Csapo (n. 40), 230-5, and passim.
124. [Plut.] De mus. 1138B: 'The forms of rhythmic composition used by ancient composers were more complex, since they had a great respect for rhythmic complexity, and their patterns of instrumental idiom were also more complicated (trans. Barker; italics added). are rhythmic sounds lacking semantic content, one species of which is placed in the same ambit as Sacadas' innovations by later sources.
125. See Lasserre (n. 74), 166 ('une sorte de vocalise sans signification réelle . . . rythmique plutôt que mélodique'), citing Phot. s.v. ('whistling', 'trilling'): and cf. Poll. 4.83: One possible trace of a polemic that has been lost could be a tussle in the regional politics of cult location between Athens, Thebes and Argos, embodied (if it is) in the tension between Pindar, Lasus and Sacadas.
126. See Wilson (n. 53) for a suggestive argument about Athens and Thebes, along with R. W. Wallace, 'An early fifth-century Athenian revolution in aulos music', HSCP 101 (2003), 73-92, at 78-82.