Neoptolemus at Delphi

Pindar, "Nem." 7.30 ff

Dados Bibliográficos

ID10708554
AutoresLeonard Woodbury (autor correspondente)
Ano1979
Volume33
Fascículo2
Páginas95
Data de publicação1979-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoPhoenix (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0031-8299 • E-ISSN: 1929-4883
EditoraJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1087989
OpenAlexW2316277801
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas35

OF ALL PINDAR'S SURVIVING ODES the Seventh Nemean enjoys the reputation of being the most controversial and the most obscure. The comments of the scholiasts in our mediaeval manuscripts show clearly, not only the differences of interpretation that existed among the learned of antiquity, but also the extraordinary guesses and improvisations to which their perplexities drove them. In modern times learning has been no less active, often in combination with ingenuity and imagination, but without agreed success. The scholar of our own day must sometimes feel sympathy with the sceptical sigh of Wilamowitz: perspicio nisi nihil aliud admodum esse perspectum.' At the centre of the controversy has been the statement, which the scholiasts attribute to Aristarchus and Aristodemus, that in the poem Pindar defended himself against charges brought by the Aeginetans that he had, in a Paean composed for the Delphians, presented the hero Neoptolemus as a despoiler of the temple of Apollo. This view was generally accepted in the last century, though a few, such as Gottfried Hermann, rejected it as an invention. It appeared to be confirmed in 1908 when considerable fragments of the Paean were published by Grenfell and Hunt, and Wilamowitz at once published an interpretation based on its acceptance. In later studies W. Schadewaldt and E. Tugendhat held fast to the doctrine, while rejecting some interpretations of individual passages that rely upon it. In 1962 E. L. Bundy, in a manifesto on the form and purpose of the Pindaric ode, incidentally rejected the Aristarchan opinion as an inference drawn in error from the Nemean itself. He has now been followed by E. Thummer, W. J. Slater, A. K6hnken, and C. A. P. Ruck, but opposed by G. F. Gianotti, C. Segal, E. Wiist, A. Setti, S. Fogelmark, H. LloydJones, G. M. Kirkwood, G. Huxley, and A. J. Podlecki, while D. C. Young has stood aloof from the controversy.'

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