THE NATURE OF THE HOMERIC HYMNS
Ancient hymns fall into the classes of rhapsodic or hexameter and melic. The greater part of what we know about the former comes from Pausanias. It may therefore be well first to collect the references to them in him, and then to add the few allusions in other authors. Pausanias, who quotes a very large range of epic literature, uses five hymn-writers: Olen, Pamphos, Homer, Musaeus, and Orpheus; and, singular as it may seem to us, he does not give the preference either in age or in merit to Homer. Of Olen he quotes a hymn to Eilithyia (i. 18. 5, viii. 21. 3, ix. 27. 2), which was on the subject of the birth of Apollo and Artemis; it was written as his other hymns for the Delians (viii. 21. 3), who used it in the worship of Eilithyia (i. 18. 5); to Hera (ii. 13. 3); to Achaia (v. 7. 8); this described her journey, as that of Eilithyia, from the Hyperboreans to Delos. He calls Olen a Lycian and regards him as the most ancient of the hymn-writers, older than Pamphos and Orpheus (ix. 27. 2); and quotes the Delphian poetess “Βοιώ” (x. 5. 7) as saying that Olen was the first to use oracles and to build the strain of hymns: “Ὠλήν θ̓, ὃς γένετο πρῶτος Φοίβοιο προφάτας, πρῶτος δ᾽ ἀρχαίων ὕμνων τεκτάνατ᾽ ἀοιδάν”. Pausanias' statements are confirmed by the much older testimony of Herodotus iv. 35. After saying that Arge and Opis came to Delos from the Hyperboreans, bringing offerings to Eilithyia, he continues “τὴν δὲ Ἄργην τε καὶ τὴν Ὦπιν ἅμα αὐτοῖσι τοῖσι θεοῖσι ἀπικέσθαι λέγουσι καί σφι τιμὰς ἄλλας δεδόσθαι πρὸς σφέων: καὶ γὰρ ἀγείρειν σφι τὰς γυναῖκας ἐπονομαζούσας τὰ οὐνόματα ἐν τῷ ὕμνῳ τόν σφι Ὠλὴν ἀνὴρ Λύκιος ἐποίησε, παρὰ δὲ σφέων μαθόντας νησιώτας τε καὶ Ἴωνας ὑμνέειν Ωπίν τε καὶ Ἄργην ὀνομάζοντάς τε καὶ ἀγείροντας. οὗτος δὲ ὁ Ὠλὴν καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους τοὺς παλαιοὺς ὕμνους ἐποίησε ἐκ Λυκίης ἐλθὼν τοὺς ἀειδομένους ἐν Δήλῳ”. He appears therefore strictly associated with Delos, and to have written poems to contain the account of the divinities worshipped there.1 Pamphos is quoted for his hymn about Demeter (i. 38. 3, 39. i, viii. 37. 9, ix. 31. 9), and it is not clear that he wrote anything else; for allusions quoted from him to Poseidon ( Paus.vii. 21. 9), Artemis “Καλλίστη” (viii. 35. 8), the Graces (ix. 35. 4 “Πάμφως μὲν δὴ πρῶτος ὧν ἴσμεν ᾖσεν ἐς Χάριτας”), Eros2 (ix. 27. 2), and Zeus (Philostratus Heroic. 693=301) may have been contained in the account of Demeter. The statement in Philostratus, however, rather suggests a hymn to Zeus, and that Pamphos' verse was of a mystical and didactic character: “Παμφὼ σοφῶς μὲν ἐνθυμηθέντος ὅτι Ζεὺς εἴη τὸ ζῳογονοῦν καὶ δἰ οὗ ἀνίσταται τὰ ἐκ τῆς γῆς πάντα, εὐηθέστερον δὲ χρησαμένου τῷ λόγῳ καὶ καταβεβλημένα ἔπη ἐς τὸν Δία ᾁσαντος: ἔστι γὰρ τὰ τοῦ Παμφὼ ἔπη” “Ζεῦ κύδιστε μέγιστε θεῶν εἰλυμένε κόπρῳ μηλείῃ τε καὶ ἱππείῃ καὶ ἡμιονείῃ”. Pausanias regards him as we have seen as younger than Olen, older than Homer (viii. 37. 9) and Sappho (ix. 29. 7); his hymns were written “for the Athenians” (vii. 21. 9, ix. 29. 7) and (ix. 27. 2) “for the Lycomidae in their ritual,” “ἵνα ἐπὶ τοῖς δρωμένοις Λυκομίδαι καὶ ταῦτα ᾁδωσιν”. They seem to have been executed by a choir of women who bore his name; Hesych. “Παμφίδες: γυναῖκες Ἀθήνησιν ἀπὸ Πάμφου τὸ γένος ἔχουσαι”, and they are perhaps the “Ἀττικοὶ ὕμνοι” of Pollux x. 162, where the word “σίφνις” is quoted as from the story of Demeter. Orpheus (whose name Pausanias gives to the hymns with a qualification, i. 14. 3, 37. 4) wrote hymns (“τοὺς Ὀρφέως ὕμνους” ix. 30. 12) but except the story of Demeter (i. 14. 3) we do not hear of their subject.3 They were part of the “τελετή” at Eleusis (ix. 37. 4, x. 7. 2), the Lycomidae used them, as those of Pamphos (ix. 27. 2, 30. 12 “Λυκομίδαι δὲ ἴσασί τε καὶ ἐπᾴδουσι τοῖς δρωμένοις”), and an interesting distinction is drawn by Pausanias between their style and that of the Homeric Hymns: ix. 30. 12 “ὅστις δὲ περὶ ποιήσεως ἐπολυπραγμόνησεν ἤδη, τοὺς Ὀρφέως ὕμνους οἶδεν ὄντας ἕκαστόν τε αὐτῶν ἐπὶ βραχύτατον καὶ τὸ σύμπαν οὐκ ἐς ἀριθμὸν πολὺν πεποιημένους: Λυκομίδαι δὲ ἴσασί τε καὶ ἐπᾴδουσι τοῖς δρωμένοις. κόσμῳ μὲν δὴ τῶν ἐπῶν δευτερεῖα φέροιντο ἂν μετά γε Ὁμήρου τοὺς ὕμνους, τιμῆς δὲ ἐκ τοῦ θείου καὶ ἐς πλέον ἐκείνων ἥκουσι”. The same judgment is expressed by Menander “Περὶ ἐπιδεικτικῶν” c. 7; “παρέσχετο δὲ τὴν μὲν ἐν ποιήσει ἀρετὴν Ἡσίοδος, καὶ γνοίη τις ἂν μᾶλλον εἰ τοῖς Ὀρφέως παραθείη”, and is confirmed by the “Orphica” which we possess; on which and their relation to the older Orphic hymns see Dieterich de hymnis Orphicis, 1891. With regard to Musaeus Pausanias is more trenchant; “ἔστιν οὐδὲν Μουσαίου βεβαίως ὅτι μὴ μόνον ἐς Δήμητρα ὕμνος Λυκομίδαις” (i. 22. 7; the same hymn, “ὕμνος Μουσαίου Λυκομίδαις ποιηθεὶς ἐς Δήμητρα”, iv. 1. 5, mentioned Phlyos, the hero of Phlya, the seat of the cult of the Lycomidae).4 Otherwise the “Εὐμολπία” was ascribed to him (x. 5. 6). Pausanias seems to express doubt even of this hymn (i. 14. 3), and states (x. 7. 2) that in character the Musaeus hymn closely resembled the Orphic. The verses that went under Musaeus' name he thinks were written by Onomacritus (i. 22. 7, an opinion he may have taken from Herodotus vii. 6). Kinkel Epic. graec. fragg. p. 218 gives other titles of Musaeus' supposed works.5 From these notices we may draw conclusions as to the light in which the Homeric Hymns were regarded by a learned antiquarian such as Pausanias. The four other hymnographers are all connected with some place of worship, Olen with Delos, Pamphos, Orpheus and Musaeus, and especially the two latter, with Attica, and Phlya, and the hymns are said to have been “written for” them. The Homeric Hymns are not associated in this way with a particular locality, nor composed for the service of a particular temple, even if in later times the Hymn to Apollo hung on the walls of the temple of Artemis at Delos. The Orphic and Musaean poems were mystical, directly connected with “τελεταί”, they were also brief and without literary pretension. The Homeric Hymns were more literary and less devotional, and the ascription of them to Homer, of which Pausanias has no doubt, implies that in his mind they had the same origin as the rest of the epic corpus. In earlier literature information about rhapsodic hymnwriting is not abundant. Demodocus' lay of Ares and Aphrodite (Od. 8.266-366) bears a resemblance to one of the greater Homeric hymns, in so far as it is sung by a rhapsode, and is an episode in the history of divine beings, such as the Homeric Hymn to Hermes or Aphrodite. It wants, however, the formulae of invocation and farewell, and the addresses to the deity and reference to his qualities which are frequent in the real hymns. Still it may be conceded that it is a representation or adaptation, to suit his purposes, of a contemporary form of literature, by the author of “θ”. As a “play within a play,” it is naturally brief (100 lines), and an imperfect equivalent of its original.6 Historically the earliest mention of the recital of a hymn is in the autobiographical passage O. D. 650 f. There Hesiod declares he has crossed the sea once in his life, from Aulis to Euboea: “ἔνθα δ᾽ ἐγὼν ἐπ᾽ ἄεθλα δαΐφρονος Ἀμφιδάμαντος Χαλκίδα τ᾽ εἰς ἐπέρησα: τὰ δὲ προπεφραδμένα πολλὰ ἄεθλ᾽ ἔθεσαν παῖδες μεγαλήτορες: ἔνθα μέ φημι ὕμνῳ νικήσαντα φέρειν τρίποδ᾽ ὠτώεντα”. The hymn was recited at games in honour of a departed prince, in competition, and was rewarded by a prize.7 The subject was probably divine, to judge from the next quotation Hes. fr. 265 (schol. Pind. Nem.ii. 1, derived perhaps from Nicocles, who may be the antiquarian F. H. G. iv. 464, Susemihl ii. 395), where the poet says: “ἐν Δήλῳ τότε πρῶτον ἐγὼ καὶ Ὅμηρος ἀοιδοὶ μέλπομεν, ἐν νεαροῖς ὕμνοις ῥάψαντες ἀοιδήν, Φοῖβον Ἀπόλλωνα χρυσάορον, ὃν τέκε Λητώ”. We see clearly the Heliconian and Ionian schools meeting halfway between the Greek East and West; and an imaginative historian might fancy the Homerid declaiming the Delian, the Hesiodean the Pythian hymn. The subjects in any case must have been the same. These passages, together with h. Apoll. 169 f., seem to shew the “Homeric” hymn in the light of a “πάρεργον” of the professional bard or rhapsode, and as delivered at an “ἀγών”, whether at a god's festival, or in honour of a prince. One hymn, that to Apollo, is explicitly attributed to a rhapsode, Cynaethus of Chios (see ante p. lii and Introd. to the hymn); and there is no more reason to doubt this ascription than that of the various Cyclic poems to Arctinus, Stasinus, Eugammon etc. Similarity of language, style and subject led to the other long hymns being regarded as Homeric, from whatever school they had actually sprung; and this is the view of our oldest authority Thucydides and his contemporary Herodorus (p. xlix). As new forms of art appeared, the rhapsodic hymn lost its dignity and importance, and its place was taken by different forms of melos; the hexameter hymn continued to be written for private rites and mysteries, or on a smaller scale in unworthy hands, for the public service of the cult-centres. A glorified specimen of the latter sort was inserted by Theocritus into his xvth Idyll, a hymn to Adonis, sung at the Adonia at Alexandria. The existence of short ritual hymns in the good classical period has been shewn, from imitations in fifth-century literature, by Adami Jahrbb. f. class. Phil. 1901, pp. 213-262, and a few notices remain of their writers, e.g. Plesirrous “ὁ Θεσσαλὸς ὁ ὑμνογράφος”, a contemporary of Herodotus, and Matris “ὁ Θηβαῖος ὑμνογράφος”, perhaps his contemporary ( Hephaest. Ptol. in Bibliotheca 148 A 38 f.). In the next age local antiquarian poets were frequent, especially at the different centres of worship. Their compositions were usually choric. So we have Isyllus' poems on Asclepius (about 300 B.C. and of unusual literary merit: C. I. Pel. et Ins. 1902, i. 950, Wilamowitz-Möllendorf Isyllos von Epidauros, 1886); Demoteles of Andros of the third century B.C. (B. C. H. iv. p. 346 “ποιητὴς ὢν πεπραγ[μά]τευται περί τε τὸ ἱερὸν καὶ τ[ὴν π]όλιν τὴν Δηλίων καὶ τοὺς μύθου[ς] τοὺς ἐπιχωρίους γέγραφεν”); Boeo the Delphian poetess (above p. lvi); the authors of the hymns lately found at Delphi— Aristonous of Corinth (B. C. H. xvii. 561); Cleochares of Athens (ib. xviii. 71); Philodamus (ib. xix. 393); and Dioscurides of Tarsus who wrote an “ἐγκώμιον” on Cnossus (B. C. H. iv. 352, above p. liii n. 1). In Arcadia the part that “ὕμνοι” played in education is shewn by Polybius iv. 20: “σχεδὸν παρὰ μόνοις Ἀρκάσι πρῶτον μὲν οἱ παῖδες ἐκ νηπίων ᾁδειν ἐθίζονται κατὰ νόμους τοὺς ὕμνους καὶ παιᾶνας οἷς ἕκαστοι κατὰ τὰ πάτρια τοὺς ἐπιχωρίους ἥρωας καὶ θεοὺς ὑμνοῦσι: μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα τοὺς Φιλοξένου καὶ Τιμοθέου νόμους μανθάνοντες πολλῇ φιλοτιμίᾳ χορεύουσι κατ᾽ ἐνιαυτὸν τοῖς Διονυσιακοῖς αὐληταῖς ἐν τοῖς θεάτροις”. (To Timotheus twenty-one hymns are ascribed, SSuid. .V.) Hymns may have been among the “πολλῶν καὶ πολλὰ ποιητῶν ποιήματα” sung at the Apaturia for the “ἆθλα ῥαψῳδίας” (Timaeus 21 B). At Stratonicea, under the Early Empire (C. I. G. 2715) a choir of thirty boys “ᾁσονται ὕμνον ὃν ἂν συντάξῃ Σώσανδρος ὁ γραμματικός”, in honour of Zeus and Hecate. Apart from temple-worship we are told that Melanippus of Cyme wrote an “ᾠδή” to Opis and Hecaerge ( Paus.v. 7), the Erythraean sibyl Herophila a hymn to Apollo ( Paus.x. 12. 1), Eumelus of Corinth an “ἆσμα προσόδιον” (to Apollo) for a Messenian theoria going to Delos (Bergk P. L. G. iii. 6, Paus.iv. 4. 1, 33. 3). Two lines preserved by Pausanias shew that it was in Doric. In later times Socrates wrote a prooemium to Apollo in prison ( Phaedo60D), Aratus a hymn to Pan (Biographi graeci, ed. Westermann p. 55), Euanthes, an epic poet, one to Glaucus (Athen. 296 C), a certain Niciades one to Persephone (C. I. G. no. 2338). The Anthology contains two curious hymns to Dionysus and Apollo (Anth. Pal. ix. 524, 525), in which each line consists of titles beginning with the same letter; ib. ix. 485 there is one to Thetis, ending with a prayer to Neoptolemus.8 When and how the Homeric hymns were recited has been much disputed, and without a certain result. The generic name for them is “προοίμια” (first in Pindar Nem.ii. below, then in Thuc.iii. 104 of the Hymn to Apollo; for other instances see p. xliv n. 1). It is natural to infer from this word that they were “preludes,” and Pindar Nem. ii. 1 distinctly states that the Homerids prefaced their rhapsodising with a prooemium to Zeus; “ὅθενπερ καὶ Ὁμηρίδαιῥαπτῶν ἐπέων τὰ πόλλ̓ ἀοιδοὶ
ἄρχονται, Διὸς ἐκ προοιμίου
”; the scholiast ad loc. says that the rhapsodes as a rule began with a prooemium to Zeus, and sometimes with one to the Muses (so also schol. q 499 “ἔθος γὰρ ἦν αὐτοῖς ἀπὸ” “θεοῦ προοιμιάζεσθαι”). Many also of the lesser hymns contain clear allusions to festivals and recitations (
, Aphr. x. 5 “δὸς δ᾽ ἱμερόεσσαν ἀοιδήν”, Dem. xiii. 3 “ἄρχε δ᾽ ἀοιδῆς”, Hest. xxiv. 5 “χάριν δ᾽ ἅμ᾽ ὄπασσον ἀοιδῇ”, Mus. xxv. 6 “ἐμὴν τιμήσατ᾽ ἀοιδήν”,
,
. See the notes on these passages). The minor hymns, both by these expressions and by their brevity, suggest that they were not used independently; two of greater length, those to Pan and Dionysus, rather belong to a religious ceremony in honour of those gods, and either is longer than the Adonis hymn in Theocritus xv. The twenty-sixth hymn (also to Dionysus) explicitly talks of the recurrence of the festival “next year.” These three hymns, therefore, seem to have no necessary connexion with recitations of Homer; and the same is even more the case with viii., xi., xii., xvii., xxii. (see the Introductions to these hymns). The usual view, therefore (expressed by Wolf Prolegomena p. cvi), that all the hymns were preludes to the recitation of “ῥαψῳδίαι”, cannot be maintained. This belief rested (besides on the passage of Pindar quoted above) on (i.) the meaning of the word “προοίμιον”; this word, like many terms in music and the arts, may have shifted its significance, and like “prelude” in modern music have been used of an independent composition which bore a technical resemblance to an actual prelude. It is difficult to believe that the five greater hymns can have “preluded” a rhapsody not necessary longer than one of them. Wolf also relied (ii.) on Plutarch de Mus. 1133 C “τὰ γὰρ πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς ὡς βούλονται ἀφοσιωσάμενοι ἐξέβαινον εὐθὺς ἐπί τε τὴν Ὁμήρου καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ποίησιν. δῆλον δὲ τοῦτ᾽ ἐστὶ διὰ τῶν Τερπάνδρου προοιμίων”. The passage, however, refers not to rhapsodes at all, but to “νομοί”, as a little before, 1132 B Plutarch says: “οὐ λελυμένην δ᾽ εἶναι τῶν προειρημένων τὴν τῶν ποιημάτων λέξιν καὶ μέτρον οὐκ ἔχουσαν, ἀλλὰ καθάπερ Στησιχόρου τε καὶ τῶν ἄλλων μελοποιῶν, οἳ ποιοῦντες ἔπη τούτοις μέλη περιετίθεσαν: καὶ γὰρ τὸν Τέρπανδρον, ἔφη, κιθαρῳδικῶν ποιητὴν ὄντα νομῶν, κατὰ νομὸν ἕκαστον τοῖς ἑαυτοῦ καὶ τοῖς Ὁμήρου μέλη περιτιθέντα ᾁδειν ἐν τοῖς ἀγῶσιν”. That is, he says that the sequence of the nome was fixed; after a sufficient invocation, the poet proceeded to melic variations upon an epic theme. (So the Deliades in their paean, h. Apoll. 158 f.) The statement, therefore, that the Homeric Hymns were preludes to recitations of Homer must be corrected so as to apply only to certain of the minor hymns; and when Thucydides calls the Apollo hymn a prooemium, we must suppose him to be using a consecrated technical term like “Prélude” or “Ballade,” which had lost its proper meaning.9 The presence of the formulae of opening and conclusion marks the Hymns as belonging to the same genre, and there is nothing incongruous in supposing Homerid rhapsodes at one time prefacing their recital of portions of Homer with invocatory verses of their own, and at another reciting, at “ἀγῶνες” and festivals, longer independent compositions in honour of the god of the place.10“σέο δ̓ ἀρχόμενος κλέα φωτῶν
ᾁσομαι ἡμιθέων, ὧν κλείους᾿ ἔργματ̓ ἀοιδοί
”
