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On the metre of Anacreont. 19W.*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Marco Fantuzzi
Marco Fantuzzi
Affiliation:
Università di Firenze
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Extract

An. 19 has a metrical form which is quite peculiar and anomalous if compared either with hemiambics or with anaclastic ionic dimeters (anacreontics), i.e. the metres of all the other Anacreontea.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , December 1994 , pp. 540 - 542
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1994

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References

1 The metre of An. 19 is interpreted in this way also in the most recent editions, by West, M. L.: Carmina Anacreontea (Leipzig, 1984), p. xviGoogle Scholar, and Campbell, D. A.: Greek Lyric vol. 2 (Cambridge, MA and London, 1988), p. 9.Google Scholar

2 This explanation has been reproposed by West, loc. cit.; it had been shared, e.g. by Hanssen, F., Die Metra der Anakreontea, ‘Excurs’Google Scholar in Rossbach, A.–Westphal, R., Theorie der musischen Künste der Hellenen3, vol. iii.2: Specielle griechische Metrik (Leipzig, 1889), p. 862, n. **Google Scholar; Sitzler, J., ‘Zu den Anakreonteen’, WKPh (1913), no. 30/31, p. 855Google Scholar; Sánchez, M. Brioso, Anacreontea. Un ensayo para su datación (Salamanca, 1970), p. 27.Google Scholar

3 Cf. Campbell, loc. cit.

4 According to the list provided by Campbell, loc. cit.: 5.19,21.2, 36.6 and 16,47.3 (doubtful), 49.4 and 5, 51.6.

5 From this point of view An. 19 is more markedly exceptional than An. 20, a poem often quoted as the other instance of heavy metrical anomaly in the Anacreontea. In fact An. 20 consists of two strophes, each of four lines which can all be interpreted as dimeters formed by two metra easily found in the hemiambic Anacreontea (, chor. + ia.cat. = aristoph.; ; 4 = 1: the choriamb is a very frequent outcome of anaclasis in the iirst metron of hemiambic Anacreontea, while the anapaest in the beginning of the second iambic metron (line 3 = 7) is a quite possible replacement in iambic :, verses, although not very common). Furthermore, the ‘strophic‘ subdivision of contents is quite a common device in the Anacreontea, though only An. 20 demonstrates a properly strophic, repetition of the same metrical sequences in the same order; in any case, by virtue of the alternation between ia.cat. and ia.acat. and of the replacement of iambs by anapaests in the second metron of line 3 = 7, An. 20 shares at least some variability with the other Anacreontea. Only the stichic fixity of An. 19 really makes any difference.

6 This is, for instance, Brioso Snchez's opinion, loc. cit.

7 A useful survey is to be found in Campbell, op. cit., pp. 16–18. There are a few discordant opinions. E.g. F. Hanssen, loc. cit., dates An. 19 in the second century a.d.; among twentieth century scholars, Brioso Sánchez proposes by thoughtful arguments to date An. 19 in the early middle imperial age: ‘Aportaciones al problema de la métrica griega tarda’, EClás. 16 (1972), 3131–7.Google Scholar

8 Cf. the excellent analyses by Rosenmeyer, P. A., The Poetics of Imitation: Anacreon and the Anacreontic Tradition (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 96–101.Google Scholar

9 This text seems to have been overlooked both as a forerunner of the poetics and the poetical existential credo of Latin elegy (cf., however, Nisbet–Hubbard on Horace, Odes 1.6, p. 81), and as a parallel for the recusationes in the Anacreontea. For instance even the very rich similia-apparatus provided by West in his Teubner edition of the Anacreontea (quoted above, n. 1), pp. 18–19, quotes only passages from Ovid's Amores with regard to An. 23.