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VIPERS AND LOST YOUTH: A NOTE ON OLD AGE IN EARLY GREEK EPIC*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2014

Christopher G. Brown
Christopher G. Brown*
Affiliation:
University of Western Ontario
*
[email protected]
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Extract

It is well known that in early Greek epic old age was something that could be scraped off a man, and it is the purpose of this note to explore the image and to suggest a possible origin. The idea is first attested in a counterfactual conditional sentence in Phoenix's speech at Il. 9.445–6: ‘nor even if [a god] himself were to undertake to render me young and flourishing after scraping off old age …’ (οὐδ' εἴ κέν μοι ὑποσταίη αὐτός | γῆρας ἀποξύσας θήσειν νέον ἡβώοντα …); in a description of Medea's magical rejuvenation of Aeson in the Nostoi (fr. 7.2 Bernabé = 6.2 Davies, γῆρας ἀποξύσας); and in the account of Eos' botched attempt to make Tithonus immortal in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (223–4):

      οὐδ' ἐνόησε μετὰ ϕρεσὶ πότνια Ἠώς
      ἥβην αἰτῆσαι, ξῦσαί τ' ἄπο γῆρας ὀλοιόν.

Nor did lady Dawn think in her mind to ask for youth and to scrape off ruinous old age.

This language also occurs in Late Antiquity, and Andrew Faulkner in his commentary on the Hymn (ad loc.) cites Greg. Nanz. Carm. 1.2.2.483 (PG 37.616) in the fourth century a.d. and the much later Cometas, Anth. Pal. 15.37.2. So far as the imagery implicit in these passages is concerned, S. D. Olson writes, ‘old age is imagined as a scurf or patina that can be scoured off a person’. Faulkner, however, prefers a more precise reference: ‘Griffin … relates it to the idea of old age as a skin that can be shed, as that of a snake’, and he helpfully cites Theodoros Prodromos, Carmina historica 24.18, ἀπόξυσαι τὸ γῆρας ὥσπερ ὄϕις (‘to scrape off old age like a snake’).

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , December 2014 , pp. 825 - 828
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2014 

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to D.E. Gerber and R.D. Griffith for reading this note in draft.

References

1 Faulkner, A., The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (Oxford, 2008)Google Scholar, 272. Cometas was active in the ninth century a.d.: see Cameron, A., The Greek Anthology from Meleager to Planudes (Oxford, 1993), 308–11Google Scholar; M.G. Albiani, Der neue Pauly, s.v. ‘Kometas [1]’.

2 Olson, S.D., The ‘Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite’ and Related Texts (Berlin and Boston, MA, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 247.

3 Faulkner (n. 1), 272, referring to Griffin, J., Homer: Iliad IX (Oxford, 1995)Google Scholar, 128. Griffin is also quoted with approval by Richardson, N.J., Three Homeric Hymns (Cambridge, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 249. The comparison with a snake's skin is not new: see e.g. Onians, R.B., The Origins of European Thought (Cambridge, 1954 2)Google Scholar, 430 n. 2, noting that the slough of a snake was later called γῆρας (Arist. Hist. an. 549b26: ἐκδύνουσι δὲ τὸ κέλυϕος τοῦ ἔαρος, ὥσπερ οἱ ὄϕεις τὸ καλούμενον γῆρας, καὶ εὐθὺς γενόμενοι καὶ ὕστερον καὶ οἱ καρκίνοι καὶ οἱ κάραβοι; see further Olson on Ar. Pax 335–6). See also Taillardat, J., Les Images d'Aristophane (Paris, 1965 2)Google Scholar, 51; and Harder on Callim. Aet. fr. 1.35, who also discusses similar views concerning cicadas. On the latter, see also Davies, M. and Kathirithamby, J., Greek Insects (Oxford, 1986)Google Scholar, 124; Griffith, R.D., ‘ΤΡΕΦΕΙΝ ΓΑΛΑ (Odyssey 9.246)’, CPh 105 (2010), 301–8Google Scholar, at 305–6.

4 Some earlier passages are suggestive in this regard without making the connection with snakes explicit. At Ar. Pax 336, τὸ γῆρας ἐκδύς, for example, a scholion (also preserved in the Suda, σ 1014 Adler) suggests that the image implicit is that of a snake shedding its skin (Σ336b [p. 55 Holwerda], ἡ μεταϕορὰ ἀπὸ τῶν ὄϕεων), but Olson (ad loc.) prefers to imagine old age as a item of clothing. Lucretius combines both views at 4.60–1: et item cum lubrica serpens / exuit in spinis uestem.

5 See n. 3 above.

6 The precise meaning of ὠγύγιος is uncertain, but ‘very ancient’ seems to have been the common ancient understanding: see West on Hes. Th. 806. Nicander's fable is discussed at length by Reeve, M.D., ‘A rejuvenated snake’, AAntHung 37 (1996–7), 245–58Google Scholar, with particular emphasis on its reception and affinities with folktale; and by Papadopoulou, I.N., ‘Νικάνδρου Θηριακὰ 334–358 [468–92 Hop.]: ἐρμηνευτικὴ προσέγγιση’, Παρνασσός 45 (2003), 125–44Google Scholar, who also provides a translation and general discussion of the passage.

7 The text is quoted from Jacques, J.-M., Nicandre: oeuvres 2: Les Thériaques, fragments iologiques antérieurs à Nicandre (Paris, 2002)Google Scholar; see also Hopkinson, N., A Hellenistic Anthology (Cambridge, 1988), 31–2Google Scholar, 143–6. This passage is best known for the presence of an acrostic of the author's name in lines 345–53, which was detected by Lobel, E., ‘Nicander's signature’, CQ 22 (1928), 114–15Google Scholar, at 114. For the image of old age attending mortals in 356, cf. perhaps Pind. Pyth. 4.157–58: ἀλλ' ἤδη με γηραιὸν μέρος ἁλικίας | ἀμϕιπολεῖ (‘but already the aged portion of my life attends me’; Race); for a different view of ἀμϕιπολεῖ (‘surrounds, encompasses’), see Braswell ad loc.

8 Tr. Gow, A.S.F. and Scholfield, A.F., Nicander: The Poems and Poetical Fragments (Cambridge, 1953)Google Scholar, 31 (adjusted to reflect Jacques's text).

9 The phrase ὄμμασιν ἀμβλώσσει nicely captures the failing eyesight of the elderly (cf. Plut. Mor. 13e: τὸ τοῦ γήρως ἀμβλυῶττον), but also the characteristic opacity of snakes' eyes when they are at the point of shedding their skin. For the curious belief that fennel was a favourite food of snakes (anguibus … gratissimum, according to Pliny, HN 19.173), see Jacques ad loc.

10 Meuli, K., ‘Herkunft und Wesen der Fabel’, Schweizerisches Archiv fur Volkskunde 50 (1954), 65–88Google Scholar, at 69 = Ges. Schr. 2.731–56, at 736, speaks of human ingratitude here, but implicit in this account is a perspective similar to that of Hesiod's Theogony, in which Prometheus' ‘benefactions’ are problematic.

11 The texts of both the scholiast and Aelian are conveniently printed by Radt as Soph. fr. 362. Harder (on Callim. Aet fr. 1.35) raises the possibility that Nicander is ‘here inventing his own background for this passage in the Aitia’, but the scholiast and Aelian show that the story is not an invention but goes back to at least the fifth century b.c. (and perhaps earlier: see n. 16, below).

12 If Aristias is the tragic poet. For the possibility that Aelian intended a reference to Aristeas of Proconnesus, see Davies, M., ‘The ancient Greeks on why mankind does not live forever’, MH 44 (1987), 65–75Google Scholar, at 72 n. 37. Dietrich, RE 2.899.44, suspects a reference to a comic poet.

13 See Meuli's excursus, ‘Die verlorene Unsterblichkeit’ in Meuli (n. 10), 84–5 = 2.750–1; Karadagli, T., Fabel und Ainos: Studien zur griechischen Fabel (Beitrage zur klassischen Philologie 135, Königstein, Ts., 1981), 145–8Google Scholar; Davies (n. 12), 65–75.

14 West, M.L., The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth (Oxford, 1997)Google Scholar, 118, rightly sees the story as about the loss of perpetual youth. For the Golden Race, see Hes. Op. 112–9, esp. 113 f.: οὐδέ τι δειλόν | γῆρας ἐπῆν (‘nor was miserable old age upon them’), and for their mortality 116: θνῆσκον δ' ὥσθ' ὕπνῳ δεδημένοι (‘they died as if overcome by sleep’); for the Hyperboreans, see Pind. Pyth. 10.41–2: νόσοι δ' οὔτε γῆρας οὐλόμενον κέκραται | ἱερᾷ γεννεᾷ (‘neither diseases nor baneful old age affect the holy race’). Köhnken, A., Die Funktion des Mythos bei Pindar (Berlin and New York, 1971) 163–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar, argues that Pindar's Hyperboreans are in fact immortal, but this view is unlikely: see my discussion, ‘The Hyperboreans and Nemesis in Pindar's Tenth Pythian’, Phoenix 46 (1992), 95–107CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 See the material surveyed by Dover, K.J., ‘Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium’, JHS 86 (1966), 41–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar = The Greeks and their Legacy (Oxford, 1988), 102–14Google ScholarPubMed. It is striking to observe the frequency with which Prometheus is associated with such stories: in addition to Nicander's μῦθος, see Hes. Th. 507–616, Erga 41–105; Pl. Prot. 320c3–322d6; Philemon fr. 93 K.–A.; Men. fr. 508 K.–A.; Com. ad. fr. 1047 K.–A.; Callim. frr. 192 and 493 Pfeiffer; for Prometheus in the Aesopic corpus: fab. 100, 240, 259, 266 Perry; Vita Aes. G §§ 93–5 Perry; Babr. 66 Luzzatto–La Penna. That Aristotle, in Hist. an. 549b26, says τὸ καλούμενον γῆρας suggests a proverbial or at least popular origin.

16 Burkert, W., The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age (Cambridge, MA, 1992), 123–4Google Scholar, draws attention to the affinities between Nicander's story and a passage in the Epic of Gilgamesh (9.263–96), suggesting that the story is derived from oral narrative traditions with roots in the ancient Near East; see also West (n. 14), 118.

17 ‘In der Tat, Tierfabeln sind ihm [sc. Homer] fremd’, observes Meuli (n. 10), 73 = 2.739. See also his Odyssee und Argonautica (Berlin, 1921), 9–10Google Scholar = Ges. Schr. 2.599–600, on the avoidance of beast-fable in Homeric epic; Kurke, L., Aesopic Conversations (Princeton, NJ, 2011), 3–4Google Scholar. Of course, the influence of folktales in epic can be detected, especially in the Odyssey, but it is regularly assimilated to the tone and character of epic: see Davies (n. 12), 71 with n. 34.

18 Passages such as Il. 3.33–7, 12.200–7, and 22.93–7 show that Homeric epic can treat snakes in detail.

19 This seems to reflect Alexandrian interest in exploring a wider range of literary registers: cf. the prominent Aesopic fable in Callimachus' Second Iambus (fr. 192 Pf.). It is suggestive to note that Callimachus' fable may also have concerned perpetual youth and old age: see Philo, Conf. Ling. 6 (printed by Pfeiffer, vol. 2, p. 117) with the discussion of Acosta-Hughes, B., Polyeideia: The Iambi of Callimachus and the Archaic Iambic Tradition (Berkeley, CA, 2002), 178–82Google Scholar.