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The Garland of Hippolytus

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The Garland of Hippolytus 1 2 3 4 Richard Hunter 5 6 7 The Garland of Hippolytus 8 Abstract: This article discusses a set of remarkable scholia on the dedicatory ad- 9 dress and prayer which Hippolytus offers to Artemis as he places a garland at her 10 statue (Euripides, Hippolytus 73–87); the scholia consider a variety of allegorical 11 interpretations for the garland and for Hippolytus’ moral elitism. The article sets 12 these scholia within the context of the poetic interpretation of later criticism 13 and traces their roots in the language of classical poetry itself. The affiliations of Hippolytus’ language and why it attracted the notice of the scholiasts is 14 also explored, as is the way in which this scholiastic interest points us also to 15 a very important strand of the play’s meaning. 16 17 Keywords: allegorical interpretation, Euripides, Pindar, Orphics, scholia 18 19 One of the most celebrated Euripidean passages is the dedicatory address 20 and prayer which Hippolytus offers to Artemis as he places a garland at 21 her statue, immediately after the hymn which he and his fellow-hunts- 22 men have sung to her as they enter: 23 24 so· t|mde pkejt¹m st]vamom 1n !jgq\tou _ § 25 keil mor, d]spoima, josl^sar v]qy, 5mh’ oute poilµm !nio? v]qbeim bot± 75 26 out’ Gkh] py s_dgqor, !kk’ !j^qatom 27 l]kissa keil_m’ Aqimµ di]qwetai, 28 aQd½rd³ potal_aisi jgpe}ei dq|soir, 29 fsoir didajt¹m lgd³m !kk’ 1mt/i v}sei ¹ ? U 1 ± ! 30 t syvqome mekgwem rt p\mt’ e_,80 to}toir dq]peshai, to?r jajo?si d’ oq h]lir. 31 !kk’, § v_kg d]spoima, wqus]ar j|lgr 32 !m\dgla d]nai weiq¹reqseboOr %po. 33 l|myi c\q 1sti toOt’ 1lo· c]qar bqot_m· 34 so· ja· n}meili ja· k|coir !le_bolai,85 ³ q / e q b _ ¹ 35 jk}ym l ma d r, lla d’ o w q mt s|m. t]kor d³ j\lxail’ ¦speq Aqn\lgm b_ou. 36 37 38 I am grateful to Hans Bernsdorff and audiences in Cambridge, Frankfurt, Ioannina, 39 Leiden, Sydney, Thessaloniki and Washington D.C. for helpful discussion of earlier 40 versions. Trends in Classics, vol. 1, pp. 18 – 35 DOI 10.1515/tcs.2009.003 © Walter de Gruyter 2009 The Garland of Hippolytus 19 1 Mistress, I bring you this woven garland which I have fashioned from an 2 unravaged meadow, where no herdsman chooses to graze his animals nor 3 has iron ever passed there, but in the springtime the bee traverses the un- ravaged meadow and Aids nurtures it with river waters; those who have 4 no share in the taught, but in their natures sphrosynÞ has its place in all 5 things for all time – these may pluck [from the meadow], but for the 6 wicked it is not permitted. Mistress of mine, receive from a pious hand a 7 wreath to bind your golden hair. Alone of men do I enjoy this privilege, 8 for I keep company with you and converse with you, hearing your voice, though I do not see your face. May I end my life as I have begun it. 9 Euripides, Hippolytus 73 –87 10 11 The extant scholia on these famous verses offer a compilation of detailed 12 and rather remarkable readings, extracts from which deserve to be quot- 1 13 ed at length: 14 15 Scholia on v. 73: ‘This is a notorious problem (zÞtÞma). Some suppose that 16 Hippolytus garlands Artemis with a garland of flowers, but others suppose that Hippolytus is saying this about himself, namely “Goddess, I dedicate 17 myself as a garland to you”, that is as the most blooming ornament (kosmos), 18 for it is an ornament to the virgin to pass time with the most sphrn of the 19 young men. Others say that the poet is not riddling (aQm_tteshai) or allego- 20 rising at all, but using words in their straightforward sense (juq_yr k]ceim) 21 and Hippolytus is in fact carrying a garland which he derived from a mead- ow in which it is not holy (fsiom) for us to pluck flowers. ‘Iron has never 22 entered it’ (v. 76) indicates that the meadow has never been cropped or 23 worked by anyone. Others say that Euripides metaphorically (tqopi- 24 j~teqom) calls the hymn to Artemis a garland, for it would be remarkably 25 strange to imagine that there was a flowery meadow where flowers were 26 picked and it was of such a kind that those who entered were examined 27 as to whether their sphrosunÞ was taught or naturally acquired and the meadow was irrigated by aids. Like a philosopher he says that he is bring- 28 ing a woven garland to the statue, a hymn to the god. ‘From an unravaged 29 [meadow]’ means ‘from my mind (di\moia) which lacks deceit and corrup- 30 tion’. 31 Alternatively: Poets quite reasonably liken their own natures to meadows or 32 rivers or bees, and their poetry to garlands: the flowers indicate the variety 33 and beauty of poetry, the rivers its mass and the impetus (bql^) to creation, 34 the bees its sweetness, and the garlands the honour (kosmos) of the subjects 35 of song. The poet has combined all of these things and thus made the na- ture of his allegory more brilliant (1va_dqume). ‘From an unravaged mead- 36 ow’ indicates that someone who is to practise mousikÞ must have a soul 37 which is pure and unravaged, unstained by any evil, and most of all partakes 38 39 1 I generally follow Schwartz’s text, though more work clearly needs to be done 40 on the text of the scholia. 20 Richard Hunter 1 of aids. It is because of the importance of aids that they represent the 2 Muses, who are most fertile (comil~tatai), as virgins. 3 Alternatively: … He calls the hymn a woven garland because they compose 4 hymns by putting together words as in weaving. The unravaged meadow 5 from where the flowers are woven into the garland and where not even a shepherd thinks it proper to graze his animals is an allegory for a virginal 6 and undeceitful intention (5mmoia). The flowers of this meadow are the re- 7 sults of wisdom and virtue. No iron has come to cut this meadow and crop 8 its flowers; by ‘iron’ he means either evil meddlesomeness (vikopqaclom_a) 9 and wrong-doing or the corruption of shameful pleasures, and in this way 10 he makes clear Hippolytus’ virginal and guileless character. The bee, how- 11 ever, is an allegory of the soul itself, for the bee is the purest of creatures (whence poets call priestesses ‘bees’). He calls it2 ‘of the springtime’ either 12 because bees rejoice in the spring because of the flowers or because pure 13 souls are always blooming, and spring is when flowers are produced. 14 Scholia on v. 78: This cannot be understood if one wants to understand it 15 literally (juq_yr) as being about gardens. Therefore there is an allegory 16 here. Poets reasonably liken their own natures to bees and rivers and mead- 17 ows, and poetry itself to garlands; the flowers indicate the variety and beau- 18 ty of poetry, the rivers its mass and the impetus to creation, the bees the ¹1 3 19 labour (t pilek]r) and concentrated effort involved, as well as the sweet- ness of the poems, and the garlands indicate that those who are praised win 20 glory through them. Euripides has combined all of these things and thus 21 made more brilliant the allegory through which he wished to describe 22 his hymn to Artemis; other poets use these devices (tq|poi) in a scattered 23 fashion. Plucking from unravaged meadows indicates that a poetic soul 24 must be pure and unravaged, and unstained by any evil. Those who are 25 going to practise poiÞtikÞ must most of all partake of aids. For this reason some call the Muses too virgins. 26 27 Scholia on v. 79: A quality which does not derive from nature, but is ach- 28 ieved by constant practice (lek]tg), is ‘learned’ (didajt|m). Philosophers call bad things ‘learned’ and good things ‘natural’ … 29 30 Although the whole of Hippolytus’ speech here eventually comes under 31 the scholiastic microscope, the ‘notorious problem’ is introduced as that 32 of the garland: is it a real or an allegorical garland? The scholars whose 33 work lies behind the scholia presumably knew, and may even have been 34 prompted to their interpretations by, the epithet Stevam_ar or 35 Stevamgv|qor which was attached to this Hippolytus by at least the 36 37 2 The reference is either to the bee or the meadow, depending on which reading 38 is adopted. 39 3 Reading t¹ sumtetal]mom for the transmitted t¹ sumtetacl]mom, cf. LSJ s.v. 40 sumte_my I2. The Garland of Hippolytus 21 1 time of Aristophanes of Byzantium.4 Our scholia on Euripides go back 2 ultimately to the work of Hellenistic scholars in Alexandria, most nota- 3 bly Aristophanes and Aristarchus,5 though we may find it hard to imag- 4 ine either of these figures behind the metaphorical readings of the scho- 5 lia. The very stark interpretative choice that the scholia offer between 6 ‘allegorical’ or ‘riddling’ readings on the one hand and ‘literal’ 7 (juq_yr) readings on the other is, of course, very familiar in ancient 8 criticism, and these scholia are an excellent illustration of one turn of 9 the scholiastic mind: interpretation begins from the question ‘What 10 do the verses say?’, and if the answer is ‘something which cannot be 11 meant literally’ (after all, aids is not ‘literally’ a gardener), then one 12 must seek other explanations in ‘troped’ language and ‘allegory’.
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