Persephone and the Pomegranate (H. Dem.

372-4)
Author(s): John L. Myres
Source: The Classical Review, Vol. 52, No. 2 (May, 1938), pp. 51-52
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/704228
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 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 51
reading, suggesting 7rpeyvvi as an 'ensure the support of', and if this
alternative. meaning can be given to eibrpe7^w7roto
I suggest that the required sense can in H.F. 497, we get the excellent sense
legitimately be extracted from the 'Do you, woman, seek to gain the
manuscript reading. I cannot, indeed, support of the powers below, but I
point to any instance of the adjective appeal to Zeus.'
e2 peln7 in the meaning which I require, I should add that, after writing this
but the verb advperg•'o, which in most note, I discovered that Professor H. O.
of its usages is closely equivalent to Meredith of Queen's University, Belfast,
rrot&iwith an accusative of in his Four Dramas of Euripides : Hecu-
e;bpeCrr4f;,
provides, both in active and middle, a ba, Heracles, Andromache, Orestes(1937),
rare but classical meaning which exactly had anticipated my view of the general
meets the case. sense of 497, which he translates
The best examples known to me are Seek thou thy favours,
daughter, from the
in Xenophon and Demosthenes: deeps.
S Xenophon Hell. iv 8, 6 'bv 83 Koveova
Professor Meredith tells me that he
c'Xevev E7pevrLbaeaTTat ICaO'
'ECXXtr7-
iTht was influenced partly by the same argu-
wov'rov 7r0Xetr(, 4;roveL9 Tr 'ap 7 Xe-
ments as those which I have used in
a•rov aOpot•Ettl.
ib. vavr'ovdy
iv 8, 12 ol Se ce8awtvtot ,cov- this paper, and partly by the observa-
OTt . 'Aa
. .Ta7 tion that ' such preparations for the
ovre; KOvVov 7r vy'ovv ,ca'funeral as are open to Megara have in
,d' i 7 praph OdXa'rav 7rXeat;
'Avaoleotv 7relp, . . .
fact already been made !' This last point
•pEVTPFo,
Demosthenes De Corona ? 175 'KetYvor seems to me sound and important.
caove 7 at Professor Meredith had not anticipated
Xp'aaCtY Orl0alov 77
7•Tc i v my explanation of eV'rp67r7 rotoi.
'a7raricata l6 vba';VTpTrtoaat
D. S. ROBERTSON.
aqvav'ra
In all these passages the verb seems
to mean something like 'win over', TrinityCollege,Cambridge.

PERSEPHONE AND THE POMEGRANATE (H. DEM. 872-4).

To ensure Persephone's annual return Rhythm and parallel passage (41I)
to himself, Hades notwithstanding-- and Sikes admits
K6KKOV XdeOpU that XadOp in 411 may mean 'per-
tXtL77a
&A0 I e
kost0T WvaLa~, a) dlvoL
qyaZi•t
,Me, IrIa Ltaraa 7rdvra
haps "treacherously ", i.e. Persephone
aMOirap' aSol- A.r4Trept KUavOrdr7rXy. did not realize the result of eating'
Sikes notes Santen's emendation -I submit that in 372 Xadpp should be
for 6', followed at one time ,cficq
by construed with adCt eOvcojo-a;. For
,J41 and also Ruhnken's - v
Hermann, db1 l C, what needs explanation here is (I) why
which Hermann accepted later; as if Hermes did not see what Hades was
Hades shared the pomegranate seed doing, and (2) why the pomegranate
with Persephone. But no one who has brought Persephone back not merely to
tried to share a pomegranate or its seed the Underworld, but from Demeter her
with someone, openly or XadOp, will mother to Hades himself as his alom'l
follow Hermann. What we have to do (343). Of the two 'dic-
is to elucidate the manuscript. 7rapatco•rtr
tionary' meanings of vwp"aal;-' to dis-
With Hermes standing by, and Per- tribute' or 'to manipulate'-the former,
sephone already arisen (371) from the as we have seen, is precluded by the
bed (343) where her lord was sitting situation. Neither of these, however,
(4i?Evov)beside her, it was not easy for is the primary meaning in any Homeric
Hades to feed Persephone with pome- passage : vowav, a frequentative cog-
granate XdOpq. Let him who doubts nate of is to put something to
repeat the performance, using moreover and fro VeLpe•V, repeatedly,-a sailor hauling
the violence of which Persephone after- and slackening a rope (Od. 10. 32), a
wards complained (Jicovarav6 $il lpe warrior lunging and withdrawing his
7rpoo-rlvar/cxa0e7raaorOat, 413). spear (II. 5. 584), a runner plying his

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52 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW
knees (II. 3. 218-9), a thinker 'this way Persephone to himself ; as the exchange
and that dividing the swift mind' (Od. of weapons between Odysseus and Iphi-
13. 255, 18. 216); in which sense the tus was a'pX' 4etvoov'Y7i (Od. 21. 31-8).
word passes into later Greek.' In face Such love-charms, instinct with the
of this testimony, it is difficult to see personality-the Polynesian mana-of
how a 1~ O can mean anything the giver, are ubiquitous and imme--
but 'moving vwp•jaag
it to and fro about him- morial.
self' or more colloquially 'rubbing it The gesture, a4toi e' might
over him '. vcop!oa4,
well escape-and be intended to escape
What Hades did, then, was to put in -the notice, not only of Hermes, but
effective contact with his person the of Persephone herself. Indeed it is of
pomegranate, whose general efficacy this that she complains in 411, in reply
in respect of marriage and potency to Demeter's question (404) TrVL
was common knowledge. Thereby he o' a7Tard~E~ro•68X; X for it tca,
was no
gave to it, literally, a personal applica- 80&Xo to make a person eat pomegranate
tion, making of it a love-charm to bind t3p. Persephone knows, by now, that
a spell is upon her; she 'feels like
1 Herodotus IV. 128 describes the that'; her desire is to her husband;
Scythians,
harrying the forage-parties of Darius' army, as and it must have been that pomegranate.
i
vWo/LvrEs vor c7a a graphicphrase Of course she says now that he made
vaLPpEO•LvovE,
for hustling by repeated 'pushes' and with- her eat it; but of that there is nothing
drawals. Mr. J. Enoch Powell, however, in
Lexicon to Herodotus (1938) s.v.,translates 371-4. JOHN L. MYRES.
vwopwvrE~ as if it meant ' observe '.-J. L. M. New College, Oxford.

CATO'S CHARM FOR DISLOCATIONS.

LUXUM siquod est, hac cantione
sanum fiet. Harundinem prende tibi
viridem P. IIII aut quinque longam,
mediam diffinde, et duo homines tene-
ant ad coxendices. Incipe cantare:
' motas uaeta daries dardares astataries
dissunapiter ', usque dum coeant.
Ferrum insuper iactato. Ubi coierint
et altera alteram tetigerint, id manu
prehende et dextera sinistra praecide,
ad luxum aut ad fracturam alliga, sanum
fiet.-De Agri Cultura CLX.
This infallible cure for dislocations
is famous, but the language of the
chapter is economical and obscure.
Of the translations to which I have
access none succeeds in presenting an
intelligible picture of what actually
took place.1 The difficulties begin with
the words 'mediam diffinde, et duo
homines teneant ad coxendices '-
' Coupez-le par le milieu, et que deux
hommes le tiennent sur vos cuisses'
(Nisard : Les Agronomes latins); 'Split
L To the translations here mentioned
Lowe : Magic in Greekand Roman Literature,
p. 16 ; and Cyril Bailey: Phases in the Religion
of Ancient Rome, p. 13. Both these accounts
are, I believe, fundamentally mistaken.
it down the middle, and let two men
hold it to your hips' (Hooper: Loeb
translation); ' Spaccala in mezzo, e
due persone la tengano appoggiata alla
coscia' (Curcio: La primitiva civiltit
latina agricola). Nisard's translation
assumes both 'le' and 'vos'. 'Le'
is misleading and inconsistent with
the rendering of 'ubi coierint' below
('lorsque les deux parties seront
r6unies'); as for 'vos', we have no
justification for supposing that the
performer of the ceremony is also the
patient; indeed the probabilities are
plainly against such a view. Curcio
repeats the first mistake, and the Loeb
translation both, with the additional
one of 'Split it down the middle',
which makes chaos of the succeeding
operations. Surely when Cato says
' mediam' without qualification, the
natural sense is the middle of the
length, not of the cross-section.
' Ferrum insuper iactato' - 'Keep
brandishing a sword over them' (Br6-
haut: Cato the Censor on Farming);
add 'Brandish a knife over them' (Loeb);
'Ponivi sopra un ferro' (Curcio).
'Poni' scarcely seems adequate for
'iactato '. ' Sword ' and 'knife' neglect

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