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THE POET'S IVY: NICANDER, GEORGICA FR. 74.17–24
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 November 2020
Extract
Like most other fragments of Nicander's Georgica, fr. 74 is preserved by Athenaeus, who presents it as a catalogue of flowers used for making wreaths (15.683a Νίκανδρος δ’ ἐν δευτέρῳ Γεωργικῶν καταλέγων καὶ αὐτὸς στεφανωτικὰ ἄνθη). Transmitted in the only independent manuscript of the fuller text of Athenaeus (A, cod. Ven. Marc. 447), the fragment's text is extremely corrupt, which, coupled with its technical subject matter and intricate style, renders its restoration an arduous and uncertain job. In what follows I challenge the established reconstruction and interpretation of the section dealing with the ivy, and propose my own instead.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association.
Footnotes
I should like to thank CQ's anonymous reviewer for their valuable suggestions.
References
1 For a general discussion of Nicander's fragment, especially in its relationship to Meleager, see Lai, A., ‘Στεφανωτικὰ ἄνθη in Meleagro e Nicandro’, Lexis 12 (1994), 107–16Google Scholar, though it does not specifically focus on the ivy.
2 Cf. in general Cazzaniga, I., ‘Osservazioni critico-testuali ad alcuni passi delle Georgiche nicandree’, ASNP 9 (1979), 59–77Google Scholar, which in particular discusses (at 71–7) a section of fr. 74, though not the one dealing with the ivy.
3 Gow, A.S.F., Scholfield, A.F., Nicander: The Poems and Poetical Fragments (Cambridge, 1953), 150–3Google Scholar. Olson, S.D., Athenaeus, The Learned Banqueters: Book 15 – Indexes (Cambridge, MA, 2012), 98–9Google Scholar follows their text and interpretation.
4 On the two forms of ivy, with a focus on the less familiar, adult form, see Coon, C.L., ‘All about adult ivies: an overview’, Ivy Journal 27 (2001), 24–35Google Scholar; see also Sulgrove, S.M., ‘Is ivy invasive? What's known about ivy’, Ivy Journal 30 (2004), 5–58Google Scholar, at 6–13; Metcalfe, D.J., ‘Hedera helix L.’, Journal of Ecology 93 (2005), 632–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 636–8.
5 The last term (κλαδέεσσι πλανήτην) may seem more appropriate to describe a creeping juvenile variety; but some cultivars of adult ivy are known to issue juvenile shoots as well, so possibly this is what is implied. Gow and Scholfield (n. 3), 153 as well as Olson (n. 3), 99 translate κλαδέεσσι as ‘tendrils’, but ivy, unlike some other climbers, does not have tendrils.
6 Gow, A.S.F., ‘Nicandrea: with reference to Liddell and Scott, ed. 9’, CQ 1 (1951), 95–118CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 117; cf. Gow and Scholfield (n. 3), 211 (on 21).
7 Athenaeus styles Philonides ὁ ἰατρός (15.675a): it appears intrinsically likely that a late Hellenistic physician with literary ambitions should be familiar with Nicander's poetry.
8 HN 16.147 alicui et semen nigrum, alii crocatum, cuius coronis poetae utuntur, foliis minus nigris, quam quidam Nysiam, alii Bacchicam uocant, maximis inter nigras corymbis. For a formal description of the variety, see Rutherford, A., Mill, H.A. McAllister, R.R., ‘New ivies from the Mediterranean area and Macaronesia’, Plantsman 15 (1993), 115–28Google Scholar, at 118.
9 We may also note a fresco from Pompeii of a young man with a scroll, thus probably a poet, wearing an ivy wreath with two clusters of yellowish berries over his forehead (National Archaeological Museum of Naples, inv. no. 9085).
10 For plural μέσσα with an adverbial force, cf. [Eur.] Rhes. 530–1 μέσα δ’ αἰετὸς οὐρανοῦ ποτᾶται (LSJ s.v. μέσος V also cites Nic. fr. 72.26 κρόκῳ μέσα χροιισθεῖσαι, but it seems preferable to take μέσα as an accusative of respect); cf. perhaps also Ther. 167 ἀνὰ μέσσα.
11 For a general discussion, see Gow, A.S.F., Theocritus (Cambridge, 19522), 2.212–13Google Scholar, concluding: ‘On the whole the meaning bright or glossy seems to be established for the adj.’; see also the relevant entry in R. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden, 2010). Theoc. 11.21 φιαρωτέρα ὄμφακος ὠμᾶς, of Galatea, could be a relevant parallel as the sole other occurrence of the adjective in reference to a person, but unfortunately its exact meaning in that context is uncertain; cf. also Hunter, R., Theocritus: A Selection (Cambridge, 1999), 231Google Scholar.
12 A clear plastic example is Lysippus’ famous Silenus with infant Dionysus, of which four Roman-period marble copies are extant (the Vatican and the Munich copies actually have not only Silenus but also Dionysus wearing an ivy wreath with two berry clusters over the forehead): in the Chiaramonti Museum (inv. no. 2292), the Glyptothek (inv. no. 238), the Louvre (inv. no. MR 346) and the Hermitage Museum (inv. no. ГР-3552). Other examples could include, for instance, the bronze statue of Dionysus in the National Roman Museum (inv. no. 1060), the roundel with a bust of Dionysus in the Getty Museum (inv. no. 96.AC.150), the bronze head of Dionysus in the same museum (inv. no. 96.AB.52), or the marble head of Dionysus in the Capitoline Museums (inv. no. 1129). Note also the Pompeii fresco mentioned above (n. 9). Many coinages, especially from Thasos, feature a head (usually of Dionysus) wearing an ivy wreath, with two berry clusters over the forehead (see especially the plates in Prokopov, I., Die Silberprägung der Insel Thasos und die Tetradrachmen des ‘thasischen Typs’ vom 2.–1. Jahrhundert v. Chr. [Berlin, 2006])Google Scholar; of particular interest may be a rare tetradrachm which displays not only a wreathed head of Dionysus on the obverse but also an ivy wreath by itself on the reverse (C.C. Lorber and O.D. Hoover, ‘An unpublished tetradrachm issued by the artists of Dionysos’, NC 163 [2003], 59–68, at 61–2 and plate 15). Gold ivy wreaths, made of two twigs with berry clusters at their tips, are held in the collections of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens (inv. no. 1058), the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki (inv. no. APO 662) and the Metropolitan Museum (inv. no. 64.304.7). There exist, of course, visual representations that do not conform to this type.
13 Schneider, J.G., Nicandri Colophonii Theriaca (Leipzig, 1816), 294Google Scholar, improving upon ὤρεο by Canter, W., Novarum lectionum libri quatuor (Basel, 1564), 148Google Scholar.
14 It is true that εἴρειν is normally used in the active voice, but Schneider, O., ‘Nicandri fragment. Georgic. II Schn.’, Philologus 8 (1853), 529–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 535 points out medial ἔγρεο similarly used in an active sense at Alex. 456 (cf. Schneider, O., Nicandrea, Theriaca et Alexipharmaca [Leipzig, 1856], 99Google Scholar); in general, such usage is quite common in Hellenistic poetry.
15 In Canter (n. 13), 148. For the neuter plural form βλαστά, cf. fr. 74.52, Alex. 332. Schneider (n. 13), 278 prints βλαστὰ δρέπου δὲ χυτοῖο in the text, but does not discuss it in the commentary; this restoration is the closest to the paradosis, but it is not clear how χυτοῖο is to be taken (should it refer to a further variety of ivy? to ivy as such?). One could perhaps also think about restoring βλαστὰ δρέπου χυτὰ τοῖο.
16 Jacques, J.-M., Nicandre: Œuvres, vol. 3 (Paris, 2007)Google Scholar, CIV adduces two instances of δέ in the third position from the Alexipharmaca, but neither is beyond doubt.
17 On Nicander's use of the figura etymologica, see Overduin, F., Nicander of Colophon's Theriaca: A Literary Commentary (Leiden, 2015), 74CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Of particular relevance may be Ther. 752–3 χειροδρόποι δ’ ἵνα φῶτες ἄτερ δρεπάνοιο λέγονται | ὄσπρια χεδροπά τ’ ἄλλα, where χειροδρόποι provides a folk etymology for χεδροπά ‘legumes’ (pre-Greek, according to Beekes [n. 11], s.v.): see Overduin (this note), 646. In our context, I suggest, σπεῖρα similarly provides a folk etymology for σπυρίς (likewise pre-Greek, according to Beekes [n. 11], s.v., though P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque [Paris, 1968–80], s.v. does connect it with σπεῖρα), which enables it to be used in a non-standard meaning.
18 Nat. Fac. 2.58 Kühn: καὶ γὰρ καὶ τοῦτο [sc. γάλα] πᾶν ἐμβληθὲν εἰς τοὺς ταλάρους οὐ πᾶν διηθεῖται, ἀλλ’ ὅσον μὲν ἂν ᾖ λεπτότερον τῆς εὐρύτητος τῶν πλοκάμων, εἰς τὸ κάταντες φέρεται καὶ τοῦτο μὲν ὀρρὸς ἐπονομάζεται⋅ τὸ λοιπὸν δὲ τὸ παχὺ τὸ μέλλον ἔσεσθαι τυρός, ὡς ἂν οὐ παραδεχομένων αὐτὸ τῶν ἐν τοῖς ταλάροις πόρων, οὐ διεκπίπτει κάτω. LSJ s.v. πλόκαμος II.3 takes πλοκάμων to refer to ‘wicker baskets’ as such, but the context seems to suggest that these are rather the fibres from which baskets (ταλάρους, ταλάροις) are woven.
19 Text and translation from Gow and Scholfield (n. 3), 100–1 (Jacques [n. 16], 10 offers basically the same text).
20 On hiatus in Nicander, see Jacques, J.-M., Nicandre: Œuvres, vol. 2 (Paris, 2002), CXXVIGoogle Scholar, who in particular notes that in two cases (Ther. 47 and 78) the hiatus was erroneously removed in one branch of the manuscript tradition.
21 Note Il. 8.285 τὸν καὶ τηλόθ’ ἐόντα ἐυκλείης ἐπίβησον, 14.6 εἰς ὅ κε θερμὰ λοετρὰ ἐυπλόκαμος Ἑκαμήδη, 18.48 Μαῖρα καὶ Ὠρείθυια ἐυπλόκαμός τ’ Ἀμάθεια, Od. 2.426 (= 15.291) ἕλκον δ’ ἱστία λευκὰ ἐυστρέπτοισι βοεῦσιν, 8.215 εὖ μὲν τόξον οἶδα ἐύξοον ἀμφαφάασθαι, 8.259 δήμιοι, οἳ κατ’ ἀγῶνα ἐὺ πρήσσεσκον ἕκαστα, 18.127 Νῖσον Δουλιχιῆα ἐύν τ’ ἔμεν ἀφνειόν τε, 19.342 ἄεσα καί τ’ ἀνέμεινα ἐύθρονον Ἠῶ δῖαν; cf. also Hes. Op. 806 εὖ μάλ’ ὀπιπεύοντα ἐυτροχάλῳ ἐν ἀλωῇ.
22 Schneider (n. 14 [1853]), 535; cf. Schneider (n. 14 [1856]), 99.
23 Ther. 80 (ἐς Ω*: εἰς TNC, according to Jacques's apparatus criticus), 191, 216, 400, 565; Alex. 137, 169, 212, 361.
24 Schneider (n. 14 [1853]), 536 (cf. Schneider [n. 14 (1856)], 100) insists that κροκόεντες is unnecessary, citing Lobeck, C.A., Ῥηματικόν, sive verborum Graecorum et nominum verbalium technologia (Königsberg, 1846), 186Google Scholar, who merely suggests that κροκόωντες should be considered a form of κροκᾶν rather than of κροκοῦν. I have been unable to establish whether κροκόεντες had actually been conjectured before Otto Schneider.
25 See e.g. Gow and Scholfield (n. 3), 212 (on 52).
26 Cf. Lai (n. 1), 109–10, especially n. 13.
27 I wonder if it would not be preferable to take ὅσα and στεφάνους as a double accusative with πορσαίνουσιν (‘provide plants as wreaths’: cf. 4–5 ἅσσα τ’ Ἰωνιάδες Νύμφαι στέφος ἁγνὸν Ἴωνι … ὄρεξαν), while emending ἔπι to ἔτι (to be taken with ὅσα: ‘and all others still’).
28 So Gow and Scholfield (n. 3), 212, though the text, which is seriously damaged, does not say so explicitly.
29 Cf. Lai (n. 1), 113, arguing for a close relationship between fr. 81 and fr. 74: ‘Il riferimento alle corone suggerisce l'ipotesi che il breve passo appartenesse ugualmente al secondo libro, ove Nicandro nominava fiori στεφανωτικά.’