Nicholas Lane

SOME ILLUSIVE PUNS IN THEOCRITUS,

IDYLL 18 GOW

It to read Idyll 18, a

is hard song for the marriage of Helen and
wedding
Menelaus, without a certain discomfort in the face of its
experiencing
It is therefore, as Hunter remarks in his of the poem, un
irony. study
surprising that "ironic" readings of the poem have been fashionable.1 This
note identifies some puns and allusions which do not seem to be noted
elsewhere, but which tend to support an ironic reading.
The maidens in the introductory passage who sing the epithalamium are
unaware of the tragic association of the flowers
apparently hyacinth they
are wearing in their hair, ^?XXovxa x?fxoac u?xiv&ov ?joigoli (2). Leaves
of hyacinth were thought (e.g. Moschus 3, 6) to display the letters AI or
AI AI, both cries of grief (LSf s.v. uaxiv?oc 2). Theocritus too shows him
self familiar with the common aetiology for the writing on the leaves of
the flower (if indeed he did not help to make it a literary motif), when he
writes (Idyll 10, 28) "the written hyacinth", ? ypocrexa ??xiv&oc. Gow's note
ad loe. gives a detailed account of the tradition. We know also that various
Hellenistic poets (after Theocritus) wrote about Hyacinth, Apollo's unfor
tunate boyfriend: e.g. Euphorion, Bion and Nicander.2 Against that back
ground we find here within the word for hair (and leaves), x?pmc (2), the
same gasp. It is an three times
inauspicious, graphic cry of grief (occurring
in the line, as if growing), which invites the reader to look more closely at
the writing of this poem.
Theocritus assembles the chorus of maidens "before a newly painted
bridal chamber" (Gow's translation), izp?o?e vsoypaTtxw oaXajjiw (3). Gow's
is a scholiastic translation, but the beauty of hapax legomena like veo
is that absence of leaves us to guess at their
Yp?7iTco comparanda having
There are other examples in Greek literature of bridal cham
significance.
bers being decorated and/or specially adapted for weddings, and Gow's
note on this line conveniently collects them. But could veoyp?Tixw not also
suggest a new way of writing? This idea can only be traced in a very ten

1
Hunter
R. Hunter, Theocritus and the Archaeology of Greek Poetry, Cambridge 1996,164.
considers the treatments of B. Effe, 'Die Destruktion der Tradition: Theo
briefly irony by
krits mythologische Gedichte', Rh. Mus. 121,1978, 48-77, at 74-76, and J. Stern, Theocritus's

Epithalamium for Helen ,Rev. belg. phil. hist. 56,1978, 29-37.

2
Cf. Coluthus 240-248 for the aetiology in later Greek poetry.
24 NICHOLAS LANE

tative way, it is possible

but that ?aAocjjio? refers to the main section of the
and that Theocritus it as a
poem (the song itself) imagines oaXajjio? of
new writing in the way perhaps that Pindar likens Pythian 6 to a treasury
of songs (Pyth. 6, 7-8 Sn.-Maehl.). The idea of setting out a manifesto for
a new in the context of an would be a
writing archaising poem certainly
bold one. The underlying meaning of &?Xa?jioc, to which the new writ

ing concept would have to apply, is "inner chamber", but it can be used to
describe various, including metaphorical, repositories (LSJ s.v. 11).The ety
echo in 9aX?[xw of o?XXovxoc (2) may hint at a link between the
mological
writing on the
hyacinth and the new writing of this wedding song. Echoes
are a -
and repetitions significant feature of Idyll 18 the numerous repeti
its sly packaging as ev -
tions1 and variations2 contradict fjiXo? (7) because,
while repetitions and variations are a usual feature of Greek poetry, their

frequency here is unusual. The uncertain future of this poem's marriage

and the possibility of an as yet unidentified external influence dissolving
it are further hinted at by eight appearances of the indefinite pronoun (in
10, 11, 16, 21, 25, 32, 35 and 37).
We all know
that ultimately Paris must come to claim Helen as his prize
for judging Aphrodite the most beautiful of the goddesses.3 What, then, of
Paris in Idyll 18? Cameron thinks "there is nothing in Theocritus 18 itself to
evoke the Paris episode",4 and Konstan that "Theocritus has refrained from
more than a hint at Helen's future On the contrary,
anything elopement".5
there is something in Idyll 18 to evoke the Paris episode. The name Paris
itself appears, at least twice, in the poem.
Comparing things is always odious, which may be why Zeus delegated
the judgement of the goddesses to Paris. But when the maidens of Idyll 18
sing that not one of the two hundred and d?butantes is fault
forty Spartan
less when compared to Helen, zkz? ^ 'EX?vqc Ttapiqco&yj (25), we find the
letters Paris embedded right next to Helen in the text, making this com

1
Meya (4, 21 and
29), 7iacrai (7 and 22), ya[x?pe (9, 16 and 49), ??3 (14 and 55), op&pov (14
and 56), afjifjie? (22, 39, and 56), x?a\ioq (29 and 31), rcpaTai (43 and 45) axisp?v and TtXax?vLcr
Tov (44 and 46), (49, x 2)> Aaxc? (50, x 2), (51, x 2), Ze?c (52, x 2), and ?XX?Xwv
xa^P0^ K?7ipic
(52 and 54).
2
E.g. (x 2) Cav^?Tpc^ (1) and euxpi^a (57)? [?arpe (13) and fjtaxepi (21), rcevikpov (18) and
s?n?vi?spe (49), ?yxpoTsoicrat, (7) and xporrjciac, (35); (X3) ev (7), (x?av (19) and o?$s[jlI' (20), veo
yp?7TTto (3), vewTspo? (6) andveoXa?a (24), ?(jtevaiw (8), Tfnqv and Tfiivaie (both 58), cpiXuTrvo?
(10), cpiXocrT?pyw (13) and cpiX?TYjxa (54), and ?eiSov (7), ?e?Soicia (46) and ?oiSo? (56).
3 -
All three are in
judgement goddesses present and counted Idyll 18 Hera (10-11, hidden
... ...
in the chant-like r? p? r? pa r? pa), Athena (36), and Aphrodite (51, x 2).
4
A. Cameron, Callimachus and his Critics, Princeton 1995, 435.
5
D. Konstan, A Note on Theocritus to the
Idyll 18\ Class. Philol. 74,1979,233-234, referring
as to whose the '?[xepoi are in line 37. This view seems to be shared
ambiguity by Hunter,
art. cit. 164.
 SOME ILLUSIVE PUNS IN THEOCRITUS, IDYLL l8 GOW 25

parison delightfully double-edged. The effect of the maidens' words could

be conveyed in English: "of whom not one is faultless in comparison with
Helen". Indeed, the sentence's lack of a main verb almost throws the sub
ordinate verb into relief. The name also occurs in aword describing the act
of comparison, the very act Paris must perform in order to judge the
god
desses and claim Helen as his prize. The letters of the name Paris make a
second appearance five lines later when Helen is described adorning Sparta
in the way that a cypress tree adorns a garden, x?rcco xmrapio-Q-o? (30). These
references to Paris are reinforced subliminally by the frequent occurrence
in the poem of I1AP and PIS sounds. Outside TtapiorcoirYJand xuTtapicro-oc
occur seven and six times each in the poem.1
they
In 30, the likening of Helen to cypress tree and horse is
densely allusive.
It is necessary to work backwards to try to appreciate this. The comparison
of girls to horses was traditional (see Henderson's note on Ar.
Lys. 1307
1308). Alem?n, for example, had compared Agido, the chorus leader in his
Louvre Partheneion, to a horse (fr. 1, 45-49 Davies), and there are other ob
vious connections between Idyll 18 and Alem?n.2 But there exists a more
subversive tradition, which might also have been in Theocritus' mind. Se
monides, in his poem about womankind, says in a neat chiasmus that the
woman who is born of a horse appears beautiful to other men, but is a
problem for her husband, fr. 7, 67-68 West, xaXov (jtiv wv &?Y?[jia toioc?ty]

yuvY)/ ?XXoioT, to &' ?^ovxc ylvexoa xax?v. Helens to other men

appeal
and injury to her husband is precisely the problem Menelaus must con
front. But the allusion may represent something more than just "trouble
and strife" (in the Semonidean sense). The word ?7i7to? is used elsewhere
to describe lecherous women (so Arist. Hist. An. 18, 572a and Ael. HA 4,
11). So Helen's comparison to a horse may not be a simple allusion to the

problems she will present to Menelaus. Itmight also suggest that she was
herself somehow culpable for them.
The comparison to a cypress tree ismore difficult. The comparison may
have been traditional. For example, Nausicaa is compared to a palm tree
at Horn. Od. 6,160-169. But its significance was probably not as obvious as
that of the horse comparison. Why is Helen to a cypress tree?
compared

1 ...
S?c?pra reap (i), Ttapfoevixal (2), rcap? (13), ZreapTav (17), Trap' (23), Tcaptt?v (47); ?pia
...
T?zq (17), xp^afx?vat? ?vSpiGT? (23), Acopiar? (48), Kimpi? K?7ipi? (51). It is perhaps worth
that, outside the name Paris, the letters FIAPIS occur rather in extant
noting infrequently
Greek literature. 7tapi,crnr)[xi provides most instances (Horn, x 35, Tragedy x 8, and Theocr.
x 2). is the next most common source of (Horn, x 4, Pind. x 1, and
xim?piaaoc examples
Theocr. x 2). In poetry rcapiaow occurs here and at Archimelus, SH 202, 5, and in prose

rcapiaoufjiai does occur twice in Herodotus. I am to Dr. Coulter for fur

grateful George
me with statistics for the authors
nishing principal.
2
Examined art. at. 152-157.
by Hunter,
26 NICHOLAS LANE

Leaving theories about her possible vegetation deity status aside, I think
that perhaps a clue lies in the fact that the word Paris lurks within the word
for cypress tree. At Horn. Od. 8, 492-493 the Wooden Horse is described as
inizov xoo-jjiov ... / Soupax?ou, the point of theWooden Horse being to hide
some men and deceive others. Helen here is also termed a x?ct?jioc (lines
the comparison). Taken to
29 and 31, framing together, Helen compared
a tree and a horse could, at a be seen as an allusion to the Wooden
push,
Horse, and the two puns on Paris's name, in possible allusions to the
Judge
ment of Paris and the Fall of Troy respectively, would neatly top and tail
the mythological history upon which Idyll 18's irony rests.
I think there might even be a third appearance of Paris. In 47, the irony
of including an unnamed which is how Paris would have ap
passer-by,
name is here
peared to the maidens, is perhaps obvious. That Helen's being
inscribed in the bark of a tree may be intended to mirror the writing of
Paris' name in the xurc?piaaoc earlier (30). Can it then be coincidental that
the unspecified is described as xi?, the name
passer-by Ttapic?v concealing
of Paris, this time in two words? Perhaps that is far-fetched, but by what
would otherwise be an coincidence the words Ttapiwv xi? can
extraordinary
mean other than "some passer-by". With the pi capitalised and
something
a of accent, xc? could mean "some Paris or other". This
change Flapiwv
would add force to Acopiaxi (48), because in the Doric dialect the genitive

plural of Paris would have been Ilapiwv,x whereas in koine or Attic itwould
have been FlapLScov.2 Idyll 18 is overtly Doric after all.3

London

1
napL? is declined like n?Xic, in Doric. The genitive plural 7roXiwv occurs in another
"Doric" poem of Theocritus 17, 82, and the genitive ttoXlo? in this poem (line 4).
singular
see K?hner-Blass, - -
On 7UO?C? in the Doric dialect, 1, 443-445, and A. Thumb E. Kieckers A.

Scherer, Handbuch der griechischen Dialekte 1,Heidelberg 1932-59, 71.

2
So Pind. Pyth. 6,33 and Pae. 6, 79 Sn.-Maehl. have the genitive whereas
singular napio?,
Aesch. Ag. 1156 (Page) has Il?piSoc.
3
I am grateful to Dr. R. D. Dawe and Dr. Neil Hopkinson for challenging a draft of this
note.