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THE SINGING OF HOMER AND THE MODES OF EARLY GREEK MUSIC I. THE SINGING OF HOMER (I) IN their invocations of the Muses the early epic poets use indifferently verbs meaning 'tell', 'speak of' (vv•7TE~, E'crTETE, EItTE, ELtarTE) and the verb which we normally translate as 'sing' (dELSE, dE•ilE, dEtarTE).1 When they refer directly to their own performance they may use the non-committal ~vjaopat, or Eipw, nEvLarTEv, but more often it is 'EtL'w, p' aEl/ty, or something of the sort; and they will pray for good dot8'j, or hope for reward from it.2 We cannot make a distinction between two styles of performance, one characterized as d'tELtv,, the other as EvirTE'w: the Iliad begins 1lqvw dEL8E OEa, but later has CUrTETE vtv p0ot Mo3crat; Hesiod moves straight from XaLpETE EKva AdL'•o, 8d7E 8 LpEpOEUaEcV aOL8r7v to EL'TaTE 8' WS . .. ra/rd tLot ECUTETE Mo Lcrat ... at EL7T•7 (Th. 104-15); the author of the Hymn to Pan begins EvvE7E Mo-cra and ends t"Aauat &' or' doty ... KaL UE.O % KL AArj• p/v7cro/' The performers described in Homer who entertain audiences or themselves with accounts of famous deeds are called doS•ol, and their performances dELISELw.3 They accompany themselves on the 0'dputyd or KlOapgL.4 They are often likened to the Anglo-Saxon scop who sang heroic lays in the banqueting hall to the accompaniment of his hearpe, to the Yugoslav guslar, and to other 'Singers of Tales'. There is little doubt that they are a reflection (perhaps a little idealized as regards the honour in which they are held) of the Homeric poets themselves. But what does d'Et8ELvw, in its application to the performance of epic, actually mean? Is it 'sing' in the true sense, as one sings a song? Is it just a conventional word for 'recite' or 'express in verse', like cano in arma uirumque cano? Or is it something in between, some sort of chanting or intoning which differed from ordinary speech delivery but which we would not include within our definition of singing? The indications appear somewhat contradictory. The word diELtE certainly puts the performance of epic in the same category as the singing of songs, however loose that category may be. Accompaniment on an instrument also implies sung rather than spoken delivery; recitation to music, TrapaKaTraoy'j, was regarded as an invention of Archilochus.5 In Athenaeus (632d) we find the theory that the notorious metrical imperfections in Homer (crrT'Lot KE lfaAoL etc.) are accounted for by the fact that he, unlike the elegists, set all his poetry to music. Other considerations, however, would favour something closer to recitation than to singing: (i) Classical writers distinguish rhapsodes from citharodes. The latter sang the poetry of Homer and others to melodies of their own, accompanying themselves on the cithara, and they looked back to Terpander as the famous exponent of this art.6 Homer was thought of as a 1 We also find KAELEI' (Hes. Th. ioS), VtIvEL (h. Herm. I, h. ix I, xiv I, cf. xxxi I). 2 Hes. Th. 104, h. Dem. 494, h. vi 20, ix 7, x 5, etc. 3 Od. i 154 f., 328, 339 ff., iii 267, iv 17, viii 43 if, 250 ff., 471 if., ix 3, xi 368, xiii 9, 27, xvi 252, xvii 358, xxii 330 ff., xxiii 133, xxiv 439; Il. ix 186-91. 4 Besides the passages cited see II. ii 599 f. (Tha- myris), xiii 731, xxi 406; h. Herm. 425 ff. (where the instrument is a Avtprq). For Hesiod see my note on Th. 30. s Ps.-Plut. de mus. 140f/Ia; but this only means that it was not used for Homer in the later classical period. 6 Heraclides Ponticusfr. 157 W. ap. Ps.-Plut. I1132c, KaL ydp TOV Tprav8pov 9•07 KLOapSL8W~Kv rrOLrT/7V Ovoa VOLXWV Kata Vo-LOV rKaUTOV TOL EUL Tro9S eavT7i Ko• TOr L 'OLIjpov /LA77 7iTEprL6•TVra T8ELV EV Trog dywuowv 4drof7ivat U Torov AeXyE L dvoa-a7a ITPWT'ov TOL9 KLtapw•sKOL- VdLOLt. Cf-. 1I33C Id ydp 7rrpds T OVobVs S" fov'Aov'-at d4ootwod4LE voL (cithar- odes before Phrynis) ?flawtvov EVOVg Cd • 7 E "vV 'OljpoKat ov KL TWV AAv iroL'tuv. 8 TAov 84 o70 E" EfUTL St T"rLv TeprcivSpov 7TpooCptlov. (Citharodes' prooi- mia were evidently ascribed en masse to Terpander, as rhapsodes' prooimia to Homer. Cf. below n. 24.) Heraclides treated Homer's Demodocus and Phemius as citharodes, I132b. Timomachus FGrH 754 F I gives the honour of being the first citharode to perform Homer's battles to one Stesandros of Samos (or Cyprian Salamis?). This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.72.225 on Tue, 20 Nov 2012 09:08:53 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions