CHAPTER SIX the Act of Reading Draws on the Cognitive Skills Of

CHAPTER SIX LITERARY TERMS The act of reading draws on the cognitive skills of separating and combining. Ancient readers had to separate words from the continuum ofletters on a line since words were not divided from one another. Then the individual words had to be combined to form sentences. Apollonius points to the unconscious processes of separating and combining involved in reading by presenting reality, representation, and reception in terms of separation and continuity. Separation is expressed through the verb diakrin6, "separate," and its derivative, the adverb diakridon, "separatively"; combination is expressed through the adjectivedienekes, "continuous," together with its adverb, dieneke6s, "continuously." Among their many applications in the poem, these terms allude to the contrast between the book and the Homeric performance. Diakrin6, "separate," can have the transferred meaning of "read" (AP 7.465), while dienekes, "continuous," is a word Callimachus connected with Homeric poetry (Ait. 1. 1.3 ). Ironically, Callimachus denotes Homeric poetry with a word dis claimed by Homer's narrators. They refuse to tell their stories "continu ously," in the sense of "all the way through" (~1T1V£1C£~, Od. 4.836, 7.241, 12.56). Callimachus insists that this discursiveness is the hallmark of Homeric poetry. In the Argonautica, both the narrator himself and Phineus, the narrator's agent, use the term to describe the style they reject. As in Homer, the term means "all the way through," and denotes a manner that the narrator refuses to adopt; as in Callima chus, the term means "in the Homeric manner," that is, nai'.ve. After the narrator has told his account of the Lemnian massacre, he digresses on the subject of Aethalides, the Argonauts' messenger (1.640-51), a son of Hermes, who alone retains his memory after death. He breaks off with these words: 'A'Ua tt µu8ou; Ai8a)..{6eco XP£lCO µ£ 6t1]V£1C£~ ayopeimv; ( 1.648--49) But why must I recount stories of Aethalides ditnekeOs, all the way through? If the narrator's tone is critical, why does he not remove the passage, rather than draw attention to his failure to tell a story properly? Rather LITERARY TERMS 87 than self-criticism, the question is posed as a riddle, so that by getting involved with its answer the reader may come to the poet's defense.1 The point of his question seems to be that he is writing in the "continuous" style that Callimachus identified as Homeric (Ait. frag. 1.5). It has been suggested that the narrator refers specifically to the anecdotal manner of Homer, who rarely introduces characters without telling stories about them. 2 Further interpretation comes from within the poem. The narrator's apology for his epic manner points ahead to the Homeric gloss that spreads over the episode. The narrative separates into two strata, defined by literary opposition. The style is Homeric in its panoramic view and anti-Homeric in its detail. The Lemnians hold an assembly, in the best Homeric manner, but everything is wrong with the picture. The elders sit together, as they should, but they are elderly women; an elder stands up to make a proposal, but she is a nurse; she proposes a sexual liaison rather than battle; and the roar of approval that greets her proposal is the roar of feminine voices, all of them eager to meet men in sexual combat.3 This typically Homeric scene with the wrong elements is followed by another feature of Homeric narrative, a re peated speech. After the assembly of women-at-arms has unanimously approved the motion to go to bed with the Argonauts, Queen H ypsipyle sends off lphinoe with a message: HNOpao µ01, 'lcplVO!l, tou6. civtpoc; civnoc.ooa T]µEtEpov 6e µoAE'iv oc; tic; (Jt()AQ'\) TJ'YEµOVE\lE\, ocppa ti oi 6iJµo10 £1toc; 8'Uµ116ec; £Vl<Jlt(J). 1eal. 6' autouc; yai11c; tE 1eal. ClatEoc;, ai IC' £8£ACOO\, 1CE1CAE0 8apaaAE<Oc; im~mveµEV E\lµevfovtac;." (1.703-7) "Arise, lphinoe, to ask this man, whoever is in charge of the expedition, to come to our home so that I may tell him the will of the people, which will please him; and invite his men, if they wish, to step boldly on the land and in the city, as friends." 1 His riddling manner is in the Callimachean spirit (cf. Pfeiffer, Callimachus, Vol. 2, Testimonia 26, 41, 85, 89, 90). Frankel points out the erudition Apollonius requires of the reader(" Apollonius Rhodius as a Narrator," 155). 2 George, "Poet and Characters," 54. 1 Arend, T:ypischen Scenen, 116-21, 128. Following the lead of the scholiast at 1.669, who notices an echo to an assembly in the Od:ysse:y (Od. 2.16), Clauss has drawn out the parallels between this assembly and the Homeric one (The Best of the Argonauts, 11 S-19 ). Like Telemachus, Hypsipyle calls the assembly and sits on her father's throne; the aged nurse with her four attendants resembles the aged Aegyptus with his four sons. The subject of both assemblies is an invading army. One might add that the invaders of the Od:ysse:y are supposed to be suitors, whereas the invaders of Lemnos prove to be suitors. .

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