Upload
dana-kiosa
View
230
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
7/29/2019 greek notion of allegory
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/greek-notion-of-allegory 1/3
The Beginnings of Greek Allegory
Author(s): J. TateSource: The Classical Review, Vol. 41, No. 6 (Dec., 1927), pp. 214-215Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/700022 .
Accessed: 19/09/2013 07:49
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
.
Cambridge University Press and The Classical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve
and extend access to The Classical Review.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 194.150.86.36 on Thu, 19 Sep 2013 07:49:21 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
7/29/2019 greek notion of allegory
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/greek-notion-of-allegory 2/3
214 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW
gods. Agamemnon's first guilt was his
setting out upon it. The eagles would
surely displease Artemis from themoment of beginning their pursuit.That Agamemnon was still at Argos isno objection. Even if this very omen,which should have stayed him, did infact remove his last hesitation and
speed him on, he had already enteredthe way of guilt. The omen is a warn-
ing to withdraw while yet he can. The
anger of Artemis is to be shown at
Aulis, where she will demand the sacri-fice of Iphigenia as a condition of Greeksuccess.
It is to me strange that editors do notsee in this omen of Aeschylus the grandflowering of the germ Z 57-60. Aga-memnon's wish gives form to the portentin the drama. Verse 122 is still withinthe direct influence of this passage ofthe Iliad; in this we see the twain sonsof Atreus, two in temper, but Agamem-non dominating his milder brother.
Furthermore, we see now why Arte-mis is especially concerned. The legendascribed to her the delay at Aulis. But
what was the reason ? Artemis was thegoddess of childbirth. Agamemnon's
T ILTL~7LS
TE'Kb,YOLC~0Z'v 5X pov
Xetp'g 0'yLTzp•pac,
/h?17'6v Trva -yaro-ypL 1-trT7p
Ko0povh6vmaOpotL,-1A' 8Sr6yot
is specifically and atrociously outrageousto Artemis. It was not merely an in-
auspicious expression of passion, but its
execution is involved in the purpose of
Agamemnon from the first.How well, then, the eagles devouring
the pregnant hares symbolise Agamem-non and Menelaus in the Trojan war!The plural meaning of Xaylivav ryvvavis no longer troublesome. The Trojanwomen and their unborn children were
PXa36ira XotoLiowv pozcuov in the fullsense of
Xo••oBov,for Troy almost
escaped. Every detail in the omen andin the interpretation fits perfectly,though we cannot tell how Calchasknew the exact form that the anger ofArtemis would take. That is, in fact,
an independent question, and e'o -rof
There is for us here an instructive
example of Aeschylus' relation toHomer. Aeschylus, most people have
thought, is a lesser poet than Homer.
Perhaps. He is undoubtedly less under-stood and appreciated. He is a verydifferent poet. Rarely does he quoteHomer. But repeatedly Aeschylus finds
in the simple Homeric narrative a sug-gestion which, transformed by his re-
flection and imagination, is given againto us in a beautiful development, originalin every sense possible to nearly all
literature, art, discovery and invention.Literature cannot be understood exceptin its relations. Far more study of
sources and relations is needed for
Aeschylus.HENRY S. DAWSON.
THE BEGINNINGS OF GREEK ALLEGORY.
WAs Theagenes of Rhegium reallythe first Homeric allegorist, as the his-
torians of Greek allegorical interpreta-tion habitually assert ? It is true that,
according to Porphyry on the Theomachy
(Iliad XX. 67), allegory-as a mode of
defending apparently blasphemous pas-sages-dates from Theagenes, 'who was
the first to write about Homer,' and
who is referredby
Tatian(ad
Graec. 48)to the time of King Cambyses (529-522 B.C.).'
But the practice-at any rate in an
embryonic form-can, I think, be tracedback to Pherecydes of Syros (born notmuch later than 600 B.C.). That he
read some kind of new meaning intoHomer would appear from Origen (c.Celsum VI. 42; in Diels, F. der V. II.,
pp. 203 f.), who says: 'Celsus says thatthe words of Zeus to Hera (Iliad XV. 18)are the words of God to matter, and
that they darkly hint that matter beingoriginally in a confused state, God took
I Schrader (Porfhyrii Quaest. Hoom.,p. 384),followed by Gomperz (G.T. I., p. 574), conjec-tures that he defended Homer against strictures
emanating from the school of Pythagoras orthat of Xenophanes. Schrader also (loc. cil.)
points out rightly that the scholiast does not
purport to give any samples of Theagenes' in-
terpretations; Leaf (ad loc.) seems of a different
opinion.
This content downloaded from 194.150.86.36 on Thu, 19 Sep 2013 07:49:21 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
7/29/2019 greek notion of allegory
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/greek-notion-of-allegory 3/3
THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 215
it and bound it by certain proportionsand ordered it. And he says that
Pherecydes, having thus understood' theverses of Homer, said that beneath this
region, Earth, there is the region Tar-tarus, guarded by the Harpies and
Thyella, whither Zeus thrusts downthose of the gods who are rebellious'
(with reference to Iliad I. 59o).Without putting too strict an inter-
pretation on this passage, it is yet clearthat we have here two offending pas-sages of Homer receiving a new andharmless significance by being taken
up into a new cosmology.2 As with
so many philosophers much later thanPherecydes, the process of reading doc-trine into the myths goes on side byside with the process of remouldingand extending the myths for one's own
purposes. Probably it is in this twofold
practice that we should look for the
origin of allegorical interpretation. The
early philosophers who expressed theirdoctrines in mythical language, whichis to be taken as symbolical and alle-
gorical, may well have been the first to
interpret the poetic traditions as thoughthey were conscious allegories.
Some confirmation for this view isafforded by Greek writers on allegory.Maximus of Tyre (IV. 4, ed. Hobein)mentions Pherecydes and Heraclitus as
having expressed philosophic truth bymeans of mythology, which proves (hethinks) that Homer and Hesiod did the
same thing. Perhaps what it does proveis that Pherecydes and Heraclitus (likeMaximus) thought that this was whatHomer and Hesiod had done. 'Hera-
clitus,' the Homeric allegorist (c. 24),justifies allegorical interpretation by asimilar reference to Heraclitus and Em-
pedocles. These philosophers certainlyexpressed themselves in myth and
enigma;3 they gave mythology a new
application, and therefore in some degreea new interpretation. But did theyexplicitly regard the mythical traditionsas allegorical, and interpret them fromthat standpoint ? Pherecydes appar-
ently did. Whether Heraclitus did soor not is not quite clear;4 the Heracli-teans in appealing to allegory may havebeen following their master's example(see e.g. Plato, Theaet. 152e). Empe-docles is also a doubtful case, unless webelieve the scholiast on Plato's Gorgias493, where an allegorical interpretationis ascribed to him.
In any case, the probability is that
allegorical interpretation did not springsuddenly from the brain of the gram-marian Theagenes.5 More probably itgrew up gradually with the gradualgrowth of the more conscious, morescientific use of mythical language to
express religious and philosophic specu-lations. J. TATE.
1 My case is supported by Diels' suggestion
inrovoqo-avraallegorically interpreted) for von-o-avra.
2 Pherecydes also indulged in the fancifuletymology which was the faithful handmaid ofallegory in later times. Diogenes Laertius
(I. 119) quotes a sentence from himwhich turns
Kpdvovnto Xpdvov,and apparently derives yifromyepar cf Zeller,Pre-SocraticPhilosofiky I.,p. 9o,n. 3). Xpo'vov,hatever ts meaning,issomething moredefinite than the father of Zeus;and the change is an allegoryin the Greeksense (see Plutarch, , 363d).
3 Cf. Burnet, E.G.P., p. 217: Empedocles'verse is not much harder to interpret philo-sophically than Heraclitus'prose.
4 Comparefr. 94 (Diels) withIliad XIX. 418.In fr. 32 (Diels) he evidently uses etymology (a
play on supposed derivation of Zeus from i~jv).5 The fact that Anaxagoras (Diog. Laert.
II. ii) is stated to have been 'the first todeclare that the poetry of Homer is on thesubject of virtue and justice,' and Metrodorus,his disciple, the first to work out the suggestionin an allegorical system, leaves us with thesuspicion that the work of Theagenes cannothave been of great importance. He probablyconfined himself to the obvious interpretationsof e.g. Apollo, Hephaestus, Poseidon, in theTheomachy.
NOTES ON CICERO'S LETTERS TO ATTICUS, BOOK II.I. 2. ALIQUID NOSTRIS REBUS LUCIS
ADFERRE. Tyrrell and Purser under-stand this as referring to ' lustre,' '6clat';but lucem adferre is used of bringingsuccour or relief in imp. P. 12. 33 (tan-tamne unius hominis incredibilis ac diuina
uirtus tam breui tempore ucem adferre reipublicae potuit ?), and there seems to beno reason for supposing that the phrasehere bears a different meaning. Cicero
hopes that his pamphlet, dwelling onthe success achieved in 63 B.c. by the
This content downloaded from 194.150.86.36 on Thu, 19 Sep 2013 07:49:21 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions