Lille Stesichorus
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The Lille Stesichorus is a papyrus containing a major fragment of poetry usually attributed to the archaic lyric poet
Discovery
At the turn of the twentieth century, a mummy case and its contents were deposited at the Lille University by Pierre Jouguet, the founder of the university's Institute of Egyptology,[7] and Gustave Lefebvre. The papyrus packing material inside the case was covered with ancient Greek script, including fragments of previously unknown poetry, a discovery that was made much later and which was published in 1976 by Ancher and Meillier (see References below). However they assembled the fragments for publication in the wrong order, basing it purely on considerations of papyrus texture, alignment of lines and length of columns. The correct order for the text was instead worked out by P. J. Parsons and published the following year (see References).
The assembled fragments comprised one hundred and twenty-five consecutive lines, of which thirty-three were virtually intact, representing a portion of a much larger poem (calculated to have been about seven hundred lines). The verses were structured in triadic stanzas (strophe, antistrophe, epode), typical of choral lyric. Triads are found for example in plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, in odes by Pindar and Bacchylides, and they are known also to have been characteristic of the poetry of Stesichorus. The handwriting indicated that a scribe had written it as early as 250 BC but the poetic style indicated that the original composition must have been much earlier .
There was no record of title or author but the Doric dialect, the meter and overall style suggested that it was probably a work of Stesichorus, sometime in the first half of the 6th century BC.
Significance
The fragment's importance may be understood in terms of the tenuous state of Stesichorean scholarship prior to the discovery. In 1841, the philologist Theodor Bergk could publish only fifty-three small fragments attributed to Stesichorus, the longest only six lines. The situation was hardly different by the time Denys Page published Poetae Melici Graeci in 1962. Five years later it was still possible to comment: "Time has dealt more harshly with Stesichorus than with any other major lyric poet ... no passage longer than six lines is quoted from him, and papyrus finds have been meagre. For an estimate of his poetry we depend almost wholly on hearsay [from ancient commentators]."[13] That same year, 1967, Edgar Lobel published the papyrus remnants of another three poems, which were later included in Page's Supplementum Lyricis Graecis in 1974, the longest however just twelve lines. Thus the sudden appearance of the Lille Stesichorus in 1976, with over one hundred and twenty consecutive lines, thirty-three virtually intact, was a cause of considerable excitement in scholarly circles.[14]
The contents of the fragment seem not to fit any of the
The artistic merit of the verses has been questioned by Parsons, for example, but it also has admirers. Jocasta may be thought to emerge from her speech as a strong woman who seeks practical solutions to the plight of her sons even while feeling distress and anxiety for them:
"Taken as a whole the passage is remarkable for its combination of great emotional power and the dignity of traditional epic diction. There is an emotional vibrancy that goes beyond epic forms...this text reveals Stesichorus' full mastery of his technique, handling epic situations and characters with the flexibility and poignancy of lyric." – Charles Segal[20]
The fragment indicates that Stesichorus might have been the first author to interpret the fate of the Labdacid clan in a wider political context.[21] It also indicates that he portrayed characters from a psychological perspective, revealing them through their own words, in a manner not achieved in epic.[22] Thus the repetitions that some critics have regarded as a weakness can have a dramatic effect, revealing for example the intensity of Jocasta's grief and her deep concern for her children.[23]
The fragment aids not just our understanding of Stesichorus but also our understanding of other authors who treated the same myth, such as Aeschylus in Seven Against Thebes, Sophocles in Oedipus Rex and
The fragment also has implications for our understanding of ancient scholarship, especially the manner in which poetic texts were transmitted. It was usual in ancient times for uniform verses to be written out in lines, as for example lines of dactylic hexameter in epic verse and iambic trimeter in drama, but lyric verses, which feature varying metrical units or cola, were written out like prose. Aristophanes of Byzantium is known to have converted such lyrical "prose" into lines of verse, varying in length and meter according to cola, and it is to his efforts for example that we owe the manuscript tradition for Pindar. It has been assumed that he was an innovator in this practice of colometry but the Lille Stesichorus is the work of an earlier scribe and the lyrics are written in lines according to cola, not in the manner of prose (See Turner 1987 in the References).
The Queen's Speech
The best preserved part of the fragment mainly comprises the queen's speech (lines 204–31). The context is not entirely clear. For example, the fate of Oedipus is unknown, though her arrangements for his property imply that he is dead. Her mention of a
The Greek text is Haslam's (see References), reproduced by Segal[29] and Campbell.[30] The square brackets indicate gaps in the papyrus and enclose conjectured words, while brackets < > enclose letters omitted by the scribe. The translation mimics the quantitative verse of the original by retaining a given number of syllables per line rather than just by substituting accentual rhythm for quantitative rhythm.
Epode
| |
Not forever nor for all have the deathless gods established on the hallowed earth |
οὔτε γὰρ αἰέν ὁμῶς |
Strophe
| |
But if to see both my sons die, each at the hand of the other, Is my appointed lot, and their fate has been spun, |
αἰ δέ με παίδας ἰδέσθαι ὑπ' ἀλλάλοισ<ι> δαμέντας |
Antistrophe
| |
But listen, Boys, to my words, my children, and yield to persuasion, For I can anticipate how all this may end, |
ἀλλ' ἄγε, παίδες, ἐμοῖς μύθοις, φίλα [τέκνα, πίθεσθε, |
Epode
| |
It is in this way, I think, that both of you may gain release from that doom foretold |
τοῦτο γὰρ ἂν δοκέω |
Notes
- ^ Plutarch (On the slow revenge of the deity) preserves a quote from Stesichorus, describing Clytemnestra's dream: "And it seemed to her that a snake came, the top of its head bloodstained, and out of it appeared a Pleisthenid king" ; translated by D. Campbell, Stesichorus fragment 219, Greek Lyric Vol. III, page 133
- ^ Last two lines of the stanza are translated by Segal as "and do not, O lord far-shooter Apollo, accomplish all your prophecies", but Cambell (Loeb) treats the lines as addressed to Tiresias: "As for your prophecies, may the far-working lord Apollo not accomplish them all". See References.
Citations
- ^ G. Ancher and C. Meillier, Cahier de Recherches de l'Institut de Papyrologie et d'Egyptologie de Lille IV
- ^ C. Segal, Archaic choral lyric, 186
- ^ R. Martin, The Voices of Jocasta
- ^ W. Thalmann, The Lille Stesichorus and the "Seven Against Thebes"
- ^ D. Kovacs, Text and Transmission, 385
- ^ E. Turner, Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World, 124–25
- ^ see website for the Global Egyptian Museum here
- ^ J. Bremer et al., Supplements to Mnemosyne, 128
- ^ R. Martin, The Voices of Jocasta
- ^ P. Parsons, The Lille Stesichorus, 26
- ^ A. Burnett, Jocasta in the West: The lille Stesichorus, note 1 page 107
- ^ M. L. West, Stesichorus at Lille, 1
- ^ D. A. Campbell, Greek Lyric Poetry, 253
- ^ J. Bremer et al., Supplements to Mnemosyne, 128
- ^ F. R. Adrados, Propuestas para una nueva edición et interpretación de Estesíacoro, 274–75
- ^ D. Campbell, Greek Lyric, 137
- ^ D. Campbell, Greek Lyric, notes 1 and 2, page 137
- ^ A. Burnett, Jocasta in the West: The Lille Stesichorus, 107–54
- ^ L. Edmunds, Oedipus, 25
- ^ C, Segal, Archaic Choral Lyric, 200
- ^ J. M. Bremer et al., Supplements to Mnemosyne, 150
- ^ A. Willi, Sikelismos - Sprache, Literatur und Gesellschaft im griechischen Sizilica, chapter 4
- ^ C. Segal, Archaic choral Lyric, 199
- ^ Charles Segal, Archaic Choral Lyric, 199
- ^ L. Edmunds, Oedipus, 26
- ^ R. P. Martin, The Voices of Jocasta
- ^ G. Massimilla, Un sogno di Giocasta in Stesicoro?
- ^ C. Segal, Archaic Choral Lyric, 199–200
- ^ C. Segal, Archaic Choral Lyric, 197–8
- ^ D. Campbell, Greek Lyric III, 136–8
References
- Adrados, F. R. (1978), "Propuestas para una nueva edición e interpretación de Estesícoro", Emerita 46: 251–99
- Ancher, G. and Meillier, C. (1976), Cahier de Recherches de l'Institut de Papyrologie et d'Egyptologie de Lille, 4: 279–337, 346–351
- Andreas, Willi (2008), Sikelismos: Sprache, Literatur und Gesellschaft im griechischen Sizilen, Schwabe Verlag, ISBN 978-3-7965-2255-0 [see Susana Mimbrera Olarte's review, Bryn Mawr Classical Review (23 Dec. 2008, online here)]
- Bollack, J., Judet de le Combe, P., and Wisman, H. (1977), La replique de Jocaste, Cahiers de Philologie, II, avec un supplement, Publications de l'Universite de Lille III. Lille
- Bremer, J. M., van Erp Taalman, Kip A. M., and Slings, S. R. (1987), Some Recently Found Greek Poems. Text and Commentary (Mnemosyne Supplement 99), E. J. Brill. Leiden.
- Burnett, Anne (1988), "Jocasta in the West: The Lille Stesichorus", Classical Antiquity Vol. 7 No.2, pp. 107–54 (online here)
- Campbell, David (1967) Greek Lyric Poetry, MacMillan Education; reprinted by Bristol Classical Press, 1982
- Campbell, David (1991), Greek Lyric Vol. 3, Loeb Classical Library
- Haslam, M. W. (1978), 'The versification of the new Stesichorus (P. Lille 76abc)', G.R.B.S. 19: 29–57
- Kovacs, David (2005) "Text and Transmission", A Companion to Greek Tragedy, Blackwell Publishing
- Lowell Edmunds (2006), Oedipus: Gods and heroes of the Ancient World, Routledge
- Martin, Richard P. (2005), "The Voices of Jocasta", Proceedings of International Conference on Ancient Drama, Delphi, Greece 2002 (online here)
- Massimilla, G. (1990), "Un Sogno di Giocasta in Stesicoro?", P.P. 45, pp. 192–95
- Parsons, P. J. (1977), "The Lille 'Stesichorus'", Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 26: 7–36
- Segal, Charles (1985) "Archaic choral lyric", The Cambridge History of Classical Literature': Greek Literature, Cambridge University Press
- Thalmann, William G. (1982) "The Lille Stesichorus and the 'Seven Against Thebes'", Hermes 110. Bd., H. 4, pp. 385–91 (online here)
- Turner, E. G., (1987), Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World. Ed. P. J. Parsons, London
- West, M. L. (1978), "Stesichorus at Lille", Z.P.E. 29: 1–4. (online here)