![]() ![]() Both endings obviously refer to Hipparchus. Apart from the historical reference, we can interpret these endings as options or variations of capping for the skolion game. The second ending stresses the venue of the assassination, the Panathenaia of 514, yet denotes Hipparchus as a man, a tyrant, which has suggested to some critics that the origin of this ending was produced closer to the assassination itself. The first couplet ending emphasizes the murder of the tyrant, Hipparchus, although he is not named, and finishes with a description of a politically changed Athens in the aftermath. The parallel opening couplets of these stanzas offer almost certain proof that they were standardized introductions that could be enjambed with endings that highlighted different dimensions of the famous assassination. Before we come to some examples of these, however, let us first examine some structural peculiarities of the skolia that are best explained as performance options or variations. In what follows, therefore, I will not belabor the historical arguments for the origin and early context of these skolia, but rather focus on some alternative uses to which the verses might have been put, through pun, innuendo, and simple cleverness during symposia. What might have been serious historical content at one point in their existence could be turned to light, and often hilariously ribald, effect at another. What Bowra did not emphasize, as more recent scholarship has, is that origins do not determine ends, because these skolia were sung and modified at symposia over several generations. The fact remains that all of the surviving Attic skolia have an historical context, though I would not go quite so far as to say that they have a specific point of origin. This was not altogether as wrongheaded as recent commentators, such as Gérard Lambin, have maintained. Bowra’s discussion, for example, essentially sought to divide all the Attic skolia into three historical periods: those associated with the Peisistratids, the Alcmaeonids, and the Persian Wars. The Discourse of Disputation: Three Comparative TypologiesĮarlier scholarship on the content of the Attic skolia, as with skolia more generally, lavished attention on lexicography and especially their presumed political background. Epic Competition in Performance: Homer and Rhapsodes16. Play and the Seriousness of Sympotic Poetry Gamesĩ. Sporting at Symposia: Verse and Skolia Competitions6. Excursus: Theocritus and the Problem of Judgment Stichomythia and σκώμματα: Euripides’ Cyclops, Aristophanes’ Wealth, and Plato’s EuthydemusĤ. Dramatic Representations of Verse Competition1. Introduction: Toward an Understanding of Greek Poetic Contestation ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |