Steuermann of Dionysus

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Citation Nagy, Gregory. 2007. "Steuermann of Dionysus." Classical Inquiries. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:Classical_Inquiries.

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Home » By Gregory Nagy » Steuermann of Dionysus Steuermann of Dionysus Share This April 26, 2017 By Gregory Nagy listed under By Gregory Nagy 3 Comments Edit This

2017.04.26 | By Gregory Nagy

My colleague and friend Albert Henrichs died on Easter Sunday, 16 April 2017. He was at home, attended by his dear wife Sarah Nolan. Thanks to Sarah, my wife Holly (Olga Davidson) and I were fortunate enough to visit him just the day before. To ease my sadness, I share here a short essay that I had written for a collection of essays written by many other colleagues and expertly edited by another dear colleague and friend of Albert’s, Kathleen Coleman. Our plan had been to surprise Albert with a formal presentation of this collection on Wednesday, 26 April. When it became apparent, however, that Albert could not hold on to life for that long, Kathy worked out an alternative plan. Together with our colleagues Mark Schiefsky and Ivy Livingston, she presented Albert with a spiralbound proof copy on Thursday, 13 April 2017. With Kathy’s kind permission, I present here an online version of what I contributed to that collection.

[Essay continues here…]

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Dionysus and the steersman. Image courtesy of Glynnis Fawkes. Keith Stone

[email protected] Steuermann! Lass die Wacht! Steuermann! Her zu uns! Ho! He! Je! Ha! Search for: Hisst die Segel auf! Anker fest! Search Steuermann, her! Fürchten weder Wind noch bösen Strand, Subscribe Now! wollen heute mal recht lustig sein! Jeder hat sein Mädel auf dem Land, herrlichen Tabak und guten Branntwein.

Richard Wagner, Der Fliegende Holländer, dritter Aufzug, erste Szene Subscribe to this site to receive email updates about the latest research—just The song sung by the chorus of Norwegian sailors in Wagner’s Flying Dutchman will always remind me of one or two notices per week. you, dear Albert.[*] With you in mind, I attempt a translation, into americanized English, of the first few lines of the song, taking a few liberties with Wagner’s irreplaceable German wording: EU/EEA Privacy Disclosures

Hey, steersman! Take some time out, leave behind your vigil for a while. Email Address Hey, steersman! Over here! Come join us! Subscribe Yo! Hey! Yay! Ha! Furl that sail! Drop anchor! Hey, steersman! Over here! Come join us! Fearing neither gale nor dangerous reef, Now Online we’ll be merry today and do it right! Everyone will have his own girl on shore, and great tobacco, with fine mulled wine.

I translated Steuermann here as “steersman,” not as “helmsman,” because the second English word makes me think of a steering wheel—and that would not fit the mental connection I want to make now with steersmen of the ancient Greek world, who steered their ships so deftly with one single steering oar. I have one particular Steuermann in mind, and that is the κυβερνήτης in the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus. He is the true steersman of the god Dionysus, and he is the truest of models for you, dear friend. You once told me you liked my translation of the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus, as I previewed it in my 2013 book The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours (hereafter H24H).[1] So, what you said then encourages me now to quote for you here my rendering of the verses so relevant to you. I’m thinking of the verses at the end, where the god Dionysus gives the gift of salvation to the κυβερνήτης “steersman”:

. . . καί μιν ἔθηκε πανόλβιον εἶπέ τε μῦθον· Θάρσει δῖ’ ἑκάτωρ τῷ ἐμῷ κεχαρισμένε θυμῷ· εἰμὶ δ’ ἐγὼ Διόνυσος ἐρίβρομος ὃν τέκε μήτηρ Καδμηῒς Σεμέλη Διὸς ἐν φιλότητι μιγεῖσα. Χαῖρε τέκος Σεμέλης εὐώπιδος· οὐδέ πῃ ἔστι σεῖό γε ληθόμενον γλυκερὴν κοσμῆσαι ἀοιδήν.

Homeric Hymn (7) to Dionysus 54–59

. . . He [= Dionysus] caused it to happen that he [= the steersman] became the most blessed of all men, and he [= Dionysus] spoke for the record this set of words: “Have courage, you radiant man, reached by a force that works from far away. You have achieved beauty and pleasure for my heart. I am Dionysus, the one with the great thundering sound. The mother who bore me was Semele, daughter of Cadmus, and Zeus made love to her.” Hail and take pleasure, child of Semele with the beautiful looks. There is no way I could have my mind disconnect from you as I put together the beautiful cosmic order of my song.

When I first presented this translation (H24H 24§13), I said about the verses or “lines” in the original Greek text:

Following the narration up through line 58, we come to a point where the narrator appears to break off: he now turns to the god Dionysus and addresses him directly, asking the god Top Posts & Pages to stay mentally connected with the performance. In addressing the god, the performer is calling out to him with the salutation khaire (again, line 58), which is the imperative of the verb khairein, meaning ‘to take pleasure’. So, I translate the salutation khaire as ‘hail and take pleasure!’ (again, line 58), adding the word ‘hail!’ because the imperative khaire The Last Words of Socrates at (plural khairete) is used in contexts of marking the beginning or ending of a personal encounter. In the Homeric Hymns, this salutation khaire (plural khairete) marks a the Place Where He Died transition from focusing on a god or on an aspect of a god to focusing on the rest of the Musings about a scene pictured song. This verb khairein, ‘to take pleasure’, is related to the noun kharis, which is by the Achilles Painter analogous to the Latin noun gratia in combining the ideas of pleasure (‘gratification’) and beauty (‘gracefulness’) by way of reciprocity (‘graciousness’). . . . [I]n the case of khaire at Homo ludens at play with the line 58 of this Homeric Hymn to Dionysus, we can interpret this salutation even more songs of Sappho: Experiments in precisely as ‘hail and take pleasure in the beauty’. comparative reception theory, By way of his salutation, the speaker asks to be connected to the god. That way, the god will be actively Part Five connected to the speaker. Such a salutation, as I went on to say (H24H 24§14), implies salvation:

At lines 55–57 of the Hymn, we can read how the steersman who is saved at sea is addressed by the god who granted him his salvation. But then, as we have already seen at Most Common Tags line 58, the narrator who performs the narration turns right around and addresses this saving god, Dionysus, asking him to stay mentally connected with the performance. It is as if the saving words of the saving god can now extend their saving grace or kharis to the performer as well, who prays for the god’s grace or kharis by calling out: ‘Hail and take Achilles Aphrodite apobatēs Ariadne pleasure in the beauty’. And such pleasure is already being experienced by Dionysus in the Aristotle Artemis Athena words that he addresses at lines 55–57 to the steersman whom he has just saved: as the Athens god says to the steersman at line 55, ‘You have achieved beauty and pleasure Catullus Chalcis chariot fighting [kharizesthai] for my heart [thūmos]’. It is as if the steersman and the performer were one and the same persona. Commentary Delphi

I won’t go on, dear Albert, with the rest of my argumentation. You already know it. Instead, I seize on the Demodokos Dionysus etymology words that the god addresses to the Steuermann: “You have achieved beauty and pleasure for my heart.” Euripides Gregory Nagy H24H HAA For me, dear friend, you will always be that Steuermann of Dionysus. Ringing in your ears forever, it is my travel-study Helen Hera Herodotus fondest wish, will be the words of the song sung by the chorus of sailors to the Steuermann. I share with all here a favorite rendering of that song in performance by St. Martin’s Symphony of London. I hope you like Hippolytus Homer it, dear Albert. Homeric epic Iliad Jean Bollack lament Lelantine War mimesis Minoan Empire Mycenae Odysseus

Odyssey Pausanias Phaedra Pindar Plato Poetics Posidippus

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Online Epilogue by Greg 2017.04.21 about Albert, Easter 2014: The occasion was a visit from Albert and Sarah to Greg and Holly at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, DC. Also visiting was Bernd Seidensticker, a dear friend to all four of us. The four of us were all feeling sad about the recent death of Bernd’s beloved Trudi, who was another dear friend to all four of us, and Holly thought that we could cheer ourselves up with a childlike diversion. Here was Holly’s lighthearted idea: how about organizing an Easter egg hunt? As we all expected, Holly became the organizer. When I sent to Sarah the small essay for Albert that I posted above, I asked her whether she had any pictures of the event, and she wrote back:

Sarah 2017.04.21 back to Greg about Albert, Easter 2014: Coincidentally, Albert and I had just been talking, not long before he died, about that Easter egg hunt, and I dug up the pictures. I only have photos of Bernd, Holly, and Albert separately (and not you and me), perhaps because I took them, or perhaps because my—and presumably your—haul of eggs was so embarrassingly small. I remember that I thought I was way ahead of Albert but then it turned out he was putting the many eggs he found in his pocket.

Holly 2017.04.21 chimed in: My eggs were eggs that I confiscated from Albert &co. to rehide for the children of the Center’s fellows.

Sarah 2017.04.22 wrote back to Holly: That explains it—I didn’t see how there could have been so many eggs (see Bernd’s haul as well—almost looks like he has more, although I distinctly remember Albert winning) . . . even accounting for the fact that I got about five, and I don’t think Greg did too well either.

Holly 2017.04.22 wrote back to Sarah: Hahahaha!!!! Yes. I had dyed 24 Easter eggs. Albert and Bernd were getting ridiculously all north European, butter culture, happy with the eggs and how lovely they looked in their stark wooden (not colorful ceramic) bowl. However, we were also surrounded by GREEKS, with their olive oil culture and ceramic (Ottomanish bowls), who don’t go around looking for eggs but want to socialize. We wanted to go out for lunch but we also did not want to act like coldhearted, butterculture, egghunting northern Europeans. At least this was all going through my mind. So we went and gave the eggs to the Greeks and explained what the point of it all was supposed to be. They were puzzled: why are grownups so happy about eggs in the first place? But . . . . never mind. Then we hid eggs for the Greeks. Something tells me this is very much my own narrative or memory, and I am using “we” as the royal we.

Greg 2017.04.23 concludes with a favorite picture: I got permission from Sarah to post this lovely photo, which Sarah describes this way: “a selfie of Albert and Sarah on the black sand beach near Jökulsárlón in the south of Iceland towards the end of our 2014 journey around the tiny country”

Notes

[*] The original publication of this essay is as follows: Gregory Nagy, “Steuermann of Dionysus,” in Albert’s Anthology, ed. Kathleen M. Coleman (Cambridge, MA: Department of the Classics, Harvard University, 2017) 121–124.

[1] Gregory Nagy, The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2013) = http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn3:hul.ebook:CHS_NagyG.The_Ancient_Greek_Hero_in_24_Hours.2013.

Tags: Albert Heinrichs, Center for Hellenic Studies, Der Fliegende Holländer, Dionysus, Homeric Hymn to Dionysus, Homeric Hymns, Richard Wagner, The Flying Dutchman 3 Responses to Steuermann of Dionysus

Camille K May 28, 2017 at 2:06 pm (Edit)

What a lovely tribute. I’m touched by your upbeat way of marking the final passage. The Wagner song is so ebullient, it reminds me of Verdi’s Libiamo. The use of the Easter egg hunt to lighten sorrow is also touching. It makes me want to enlist the ancient saying, “you Greek [professors] are such [playful] children!” I mean that in the most reverent and admiring way.

I offer you sincere condolences on the loss of your friend. Thank you for sharing these beautiful insights with all of us.

Gregory Nagy May 30, 2017 at 9:40 am (Edit)

Dear Camille (if I may, and please call me Greg), I so appreciate your comment. Your observations are beautiful ! Verdi’s Libiamo is such a favorite for me. Yours, with admiration, Greg

Nirmal Singh Benning August 16, 2017 at 3:14 pm (Edit)

Thanks for sharing this Gregory.

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