Hymn to Demeter Notes 1

At the beginning of Hymn 2 of the Homeric Hymns, the hymn to Demeter, she is described as ἠύκομον, well haired or good haired. I never know what to do with this kind of epithet. "Trim coiffed," is how Pound translated the same epithet, though as applied to Aphrodite, in his Canto I. "Well haired" or "with good hair" don't really cut it, so "with luxurious hair?"

Another word that gives me pause is ἥρπαξεν. Traditionally it is translated as "seize," but it is where we get our word "rape," and it is in every sense a rape. Persephone is a child and unwilling. She is being carried away against her will, crying for her mother. In the ancient world the gods could rape with impunity--witness all the loves of Zeus. Men too seized and raped. It was part of the expected plunder and rewards from war. In the Iliad and the Odyssey, it is common to raid villages to steal their supplies and women. The lot of women was often harsh. But this hymn does acknowledge the trauma of it, in Persephone's screams and Demeter's sorrows.

As she is being carried away she cries out in a shrill voice to her father, the son of Chronos, and ὕπατον καὶ ἄριστον, most high and virtuous. The epithet seems ironic to the modern ear. He, after all is the instigator of this rape. She is calling out to the one who authorized her abduction. But I suspect there was no irony to the Greek ear. Zeus, by his nature, being the most powerful being, defines what virtue is. Whatever he wills is just, even if his subjects cannot see the justice or wisdom of it.

I also find it interesting that among the list of those who did not hear her cries--gods and men--olive trees are included

but no one of the immortals or of mortal men 
nor even the fruit bearing olive trees heard her voice

This is heartbreaking and beautiful

So, the god, Ruler of Many, Host of Many, 
Son of Chronos bearing many names, carried her away 
against her will with his deathless horses, his own brother's child. 
For so long as the goddess could see the earth and the stars in heaven, 
the flowing swells of the fish breeding sea 
and the rays of the sun, as long as she hoped to see her trusted mother 
and the tribes of the eternal gods, for so long 
hope bewitched her great mind from despairing, 
and the peaks of the mountains and the depths of the sea 
rang with her immortal voice, and her queenly mother heard

Ancient Greek Poetry

The web site is progressing, but still not ready to upload. It is one of the more complex things I have tried to encode. All the data--news, poems, path information, stories, etc. are stored in xml files and use xslt for the display. Anyway, I hope to post it someday in the near future.

I checked out a new library book The Greek Poets Homer to the Present. It is new this year 2010 from Norton Press. It is edited by Peter Constantine, Rachel Hadas, Edmund Keely, and Karen Van Dyke. As the cover flap says it contains over 1000 poems by 185 poets with 120 different translators. It starts with Homer and ends with contemporary living poets. It is really a massive and wonderful collection.

Reading it, started me thinking about what is it that I like so much in especially ancient Greek poetry. I have been attracted to it since high school. (Part of what first attracted me to the Cantos was Pound's use of classical myths and texts). I took Greek in college and continued it in graduate school. I still dabble at translating today.

It is important when talking about Greek poetry--even just ancient Greek poetry--to realize one is talking about hundreds of poets over a couple thousand years. And that, in itself, may be part of it. The vastness of it, the distance in time, the fragility. So much was lost, so much survives only in tantalizing fragments, scattered coins that suggest a larger treasure. Modern poetry has been in love with the fragment every since it rediscovered the Greek. And Greek is, essentially, a modern discovery--the middle ages the Renaissance, the 18th century were almost entirely devoted to Latin poetry. Much of what we know of Greek Literature only came to light in the 19th and 20th century.)

That still begs the question of why it attracts me so. I hazard one thought: I like it because of its directness and essential naiveté. By naiveté I am not suggesting that the art was unsophisticated. Greek poetry sports many complex metrics and sophisticated structures. Nor do I mean to suggest that Greek poets were simple or somehow socially or humanly innocent. Rather, I mean that they dealt with the basic human condition directly: War, death, love, hatred, anger, competition, sex, old age, they dealt with these thing without embarrassment, without subterfuge. Yes, they often used myth when writing of these things, but myth for them was not a symbol or a metaphor to decorate a thought; myth itself was the way they thought. It was how they experienced the world. The Greeks never second guessed their poetry. They had no need to justify it to the world. Poetry was a natural and sacred act. Finally, their poetry often has a simply transcendent beauty. Here is the beginning of the Theogany (my Translation)

Of the Helicon Muses,  let us begin to sing
who possess the great & sacred mount Helicon
who dance around the violet fountain on soft feet
& around the altar of Kronos’ mighty son
who, afterwards, bathe their flawless skin in Permissos
or in the horse’s fountain or in sacred Olemios--
so beautiful, their feet flowing like water.

There is so much to say about this topic, it cannot possibly fit in a single blog entry. Though in the future I might focus on individual poets. Anyway check out the book The Greek Poets, not just for the ancient poets. The Greeks have been writing great poetry for almost 3000 years.