Water and Wine As Symbols of Inspiration by Nb
WATER AND WINE AS SYMBOLS OF INSPIRATION BY N. B. CROWTHER It has long been suggested that drinking from holy streams (or founts) in Greek and Roman poetry symbolized different approaches to poetic endeavour: Maass 1), followed by Wilamowitz 2) and Kroll 3), for example, believed that epic poets drank from Hippo- crene, elegiac poets from Aganippe. Yet the evidence for assigning specific functions to these streams will be seen to be rarely clear-cut, if at all. The related problem of the "debate" between the water- drinkers and wine-drinkers seems equally complex. Can we see the drinking from streams in Roman poetry as symbolic for the initia- tion of the poet, or acceptance by him, of Alexandrian, i.e. Calli- machean poetry? It is certainly a feature which permeates the writing of many of the major Roman poets, and therefore is of considerable importance in the literary development of these authors. The first Greek author to speak of holy streams is Hesiod, who names Hippocrene, Permessus and Olmeus on Helicon as bathing- places of the Muses (Theogony I ff.) 4) ; he seems also to mention a 1) E. Maass, Untersuchungen zu Properz, Hermes 31(1896), 375 ff. 2) U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Hellenistische Dichtung, II (Berlin 1924), 95. 3) W. Kroll, Studien zum Verständnis der römischen Literatur (Stuttgart 1964. First publ. 1924), 29. 4) For Hippocrene, see E. Sittig-F. Bölte, Hippokrene, RE VIII 2 (1913), 1853-57; for references to Permessus, cf. Nic. Ther, 12 ; Strab. 407, 411 ; Virg. Ecl. VI 64 ; Prop. II 10, 26 ; Stat.
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