SOURCE: "A Glance at the Hymns," in The Poet at Play: Kallimachos, "The Bath of Pallas," E. J. Brill, 1962, pp. 10-25.

[In his book-length study of Callimachus 's Bath of Pallas, classicist K. J. McKay begins with an overview, excerpted below, of the poet's six hymns. In an effort to determine date of composition and what some of Callimachus's sources might have been, McKay considers the poems, especially their imagery, in relation to earlier works and in the context of the history of the Alexandrian court.]

We owe the preservation of the Hymns to the tidy mind of an early scribe who brought together the Hymns of Homer, Kallimachos, Orpheus (and the Orphic Argonautica) and Proklos. It is worth bearing in mind what we would now possess but for this fortunate circumstance. Of the 95 lines of the first Hymn we would have some thirteen complete lines, parts of ten others and tatters of papyrus. But this would be sheer luxury compared with the lot of Hymns 5 and 6. Of the latter we would be able to identify only three lines with confidence from ancient testimonia, with fragmentary relics on papyrus. Of the former, the subject of this study, we could not place a single line. Lines are not assigned to the Hymn on the rare occasions on which they are quoted, and—presumably by accident—the Hymn is not represented among the papyri. Among the hymns fewest ancient testimonia survive for Hs. 5 and 6 and, even if Poseidippos … does really demonstrate an early regard for the Bath of Pallas, beyond an allusion or two in Propertius and Tibullus we have little to show that its merits continued to be recognized.

It is frequently regretted today that the Hymns are the only complete work of the poet to survive (for we have only a selection of his epigrams). This complaint is not difficult to appreciate. The sizable fragments of the Hecale and Aitia which are now accessible to us give an impression of greater relaxation from the point of view of style and content. But, for good or ill, with all their richness, variety and the obscurity which time, no less than design, has stamped upon them, the Hymns remain the most substantial surviving relics of the poet's work. As I have mentioned, we could have had a great deal less. Let us be grateful for so fortuitous a transmission, and draw from them what illumination we can.

The Hymns are six in number, and there is no shred of evidence to suggest that Kallimachos ever wrote more. Their subjects are 1. Zeus 2. Apollo 3. Artemis 4. Delos 5. Athene (The Bath of Pallas) and 6. Demeter. At every level their variety becomes painfully obvious. Five of the hymns are written in dactylic hexameters, one, the fifth, in elegiac couplets. Four of the hymns are written in epic-Ionic, but the fifth and sixth in literary Doric. Three (Hs. 1, 2, 4) flatter the Ptolemies. Again three (Hs. 2, 5, 6) plunge us into an atmosphere of excited expectation, the reactions of the faithful awaiting a divine epiphany. Again, the poems differ in purpose. Hymn 1, which ends with a prayer for both virtue and wealth, is often construed as the artful dodge of Kallimachos in his early days of poverty to gain recognition from Ptolemy Philadelphos, in the spirit of the American parody: 'Alleluia, give us a handout to revive us again'. H. 2 is assumed, certainly wrongly, to be designed to reconcile Kallimachos' native city, Cyrene, to the overlordship of Egypt. H. 4, a glorification of Delos and built around the story of Leto's search for a land which would have the courage to ignore Hera's hostility and assist at the birth of Apollo, contains a deification of Philadelphos which may be more important than its subordinate position suggests. Hymns 3, 5 and 6 (at least) have a literary purpose.

Again, Hymns 1, 2, 5 and (in a special way) 6 may be separated from the other two by the way in which the poet superimposes images. This point is worth elaborating. If I say more in this chapter about Hymns 1 and 2 than 3 and 4 it is because the former have more significant points of contact with Hs. 5 and 6. Moreover one can extract more from them, even if one cannot lay claim to understanding them. In truth—something about which it pays to be frank—H. 3 is an enigma to me, and also part of the purpose of H. 4. I can take comfort only in the fact that, even in this year of grace and with an author as diligently studied as Vergil, it would be unwise to risk money on behalf of another's claim that he understood the Eclogues.

It was the Ptolemaic ruler-cult which provided a readymade opportunity for studies in ambivalence. Where kings and queens became gods and goddesses by royal decree, and enterprising parts of the empire were prepared to pay them such honours during their lifetimes (and Ptolemy Philadelphos was to legitimize the practice), a poet—particularly a court poet—had ample opportunity to garnish the hymnal form with judicious overlapping of images. It is a reflection of Kallimachos' mischievous spirit that he does not sustain the device throughout the first two hymns. I know that there have been scholars with a differing viewpoint, but if this study establishes anything, it draws attention to Kallimachos as 'the mischievous poet', who delights in the ebb and flow of images and challenges us to detect when his semantic tide is on the turn. I trust, also, that the reader will notice in retrospect that it is a priori likely that both Hs. 1 and 2 precede Hs. 5 and 6, precisely because the identification of god and ruler calls for no display of the imagination, whereas the nature of the levels of reference in Hs. 5 (taken from popular piety) and 6 (taken from literature) suggests that they are developments of the feature.

The first hymn starts with Zeus. The image is quite clear, for the poet debates whether the god was born in Crete or Arcadia. Arcadia, he says, must win, for Cretans are notorious liars, and they prove this by exhibiting Zeus' grave. But what of lines 57 ff., in which Kallimachos quarrels with the common sense of the orthodox view that Zeus, Poseidon and Pluto drew lots for Heaven, Sea and Earth? Only fools, argues the poet, would draw lots for unequal prizes, for Olympos and Hades. The truth is that Zeus' elder brothers magnanimously recognized his merits as a warrior and installed him in Heaven. This seems to me to involve transparent flattery. 'The suggestion is that the elder son of Ptolemy Soter should have acted similarly, something he had in fact failed to do' (Korte, Hellenistic Poetry…). The fact that Homer (11. 15. 190 ff) presents the view of the partition which Kallimachos rejects, and Hesiod (Theog. 881) that which the poet accepts, has invited the conclusion that H. 1.57 ff. is simply an exercise in literary polemics. But Kallimachos protests too much; he is a little too anxious to establish his case. After all is not … 'It is proper to cast lots on equal terms' … a piece of special pleading? If Hades is to be thought of as a booby prize, then only a fool would accept it without a chance at a higher prize. When the poet talks of 'equality' he argues from the premise that each party has offered a region as his stake; but we should know better.

When Kallimachos flatters Ptolemy as a mighty warrior (66 f.) he follows a course which Theokritos also considered diplomatic (Id. 17.56 f., 103). To be sure history tells another story (Gow ad locc. cit.), but the conceit was harmless. However reference to the troubled rise of Philadelphos to power was a risky business; Ptolemy might misconstrue his meaning. And so the poet has provided the allusion with a perfectly respectable facade, a suggestion of that new respect for Hesiod which is a characteristic of the age. If Ptolemy takes umbrage Kallimachos is ready with his bearing of injured innocence. Zeus is now Ptolemy Philadelphos and, we may conclude, freshly risen to power. We may notice it as a curiosity—although no part of the poet's plan—that Zeus' brothers may very properly be deemed philadelphoi. But Callimachean images are seldom simple; the poet prefers kaleidoscopic variety. And so he retraces his steps. 'From Zeus come kings, since nothing is diviner than the kings of Zeus' (78-9), and most highly blessed of all is 'our ruler' (84-9). That is to say, kings are diogeneis, and especially Philadelphos. Is Zeus now Philadelphos' father, Ptolemy Soter? Possibly. At least he is not Philadelphos. But the poet moves forward again.

The envoi (91-6) contains a prayer to the divinity for virtue and wealth. From Hom. Hymn 15. 9, 20. 8 and Buck, Greek Dialects (1955), we gather that it is a traditional formula. But Kallimachos uses repetition in a way which is highly suspicious: 'not wealth without virtue, nor virtue without wealth, but virtue and wealth'. We now have no doubt that the earthly king is uppermost in the poet's thoughts. The distinctive result is that the poem contains two levels of reference, but the pattern is not so thorough-going that we can think of simple and consistent allegory. The one image is at one moment elevated, at another subordinated, and consistently within the confines of a formal harmony. This is the principal way in which Kallimachos exploits the hymnal form, by weaving sporadically into his hymn an alien strand, but of similar texture to the general composition. It is a strand which transforms the composition, either announcing the poet's purpose (as here) or, as in the 'epiphany' hymns (where it constitutes a special device which I have called later, for want of a more inspired name, a sophisma) safe-guarding the poet, and the reader, from excessive attention to the rich emotional content of that type of composition.

Although an 'epiphany' hymn, H. 2 is a companion piece to H. 1. Both Zeus as king and Apollo as patron of the arts have earthly counterparts. At the opening Apollo is returning from his holidays. Nature falls silent before the paean of welcome; also those who perpetually mourn, Thetis for her Achilles, and metamorphosed Niobe. This leads artistically, via the thought that Niobe's grief over her children, slain by Apollo and Artemis, was the result of her boast that she was superior to Leto in fecundity, to the utterance: 'Cry Hid! Hid! It is an ill thing to vie with the Blessed Ones. He who fights with the Blessed would fight with my king; he who fights with my king would fight also with Apollo'. Apollo and king are set side by side, bound together by a mysterious, ill-defined bond which excites our interest: Apollo and Ptolemy are óμοφρονέοντες. In lines 97-103 an aition is provided for the ritual cry ίή ίή παιηον, based on ϊει, ϊει 'shoot, shoot', the cry raised by the Delphians when Apollo joined battle with the dread Python. 'A helper from the first your mother bore you, and ever since that is your praise' (103-4). Kallimachos finishes with an example of Apollo's help:

Envy spoke furtively into the ear of Apollo: "I don't think much of the poet who does not sing the loud song of the sea". Apollo kicked Envy away and retorted: "Mighty is the current of the Euphrates, but it carries on its waters much litter and garbage. And not of every water do her priestesses carry to Demeter, but of the water pure and undefiled that springs up from a hallowed fountain, a trickling stream, the finest flower of water".

The envoi, short and crisp, prays that Blame may join Envy, expelled from the Heavenly circle.

Of course this literary quarrel is not conducted at a celestial level. Envy and Blame stand for definite, although unknown, critics of Kallimachos. We cannot help thinking of the critics pilloried by the poet as the Telchines, malevolent Rhodian spirits, in the preface to his Aitia, the more so as in the same passage Apollo presents to the poet his literary manifesto. Hence Apollo assuredly stands for a Ptolemy, Ptolemy the patron, the champion; and, we may suspect, H. 2 is the poet's paean to him. We find ourselves then wondering exactly how much of the poem really is divorced from a retrospective double reference. The sight of Apollo ensures greatness (10). 'We shall see you, Farworker, and we shall never be lowly' (11). Is Ptolemy definitely excluded? The alien strand is so similar in texture to the material of the form that we cannot be sure. There are some who have not been able to identify it at all.… In a sense, we are all interlopers here. H. 2 is not written for us, no monumentum aere perennius; it was all for Ptolemy's benefit. What mattered most was to give his flattered patron opportunity to find his reflection mirrored in the poem at the second reading. Here we may merely note how the poet invites our confusion by a formal respect for the type of composition which he employs. Even Apollo's act in expelling Envy with a kick, which Bethe noted as most ungodlike, is formally balanced by line 3; the god who kicks the door in welcome kicks Envy in dismissal. It is the departure in sense from the Homeric hymn which indicates the poet's mischievous intervention.

If then H. 1 is reasonably regarded as an early plea for royal favour and recognition, H. 2 seems a later act of thanksgiving for royal protection. There is a distinctly personal tone to the poem: 'my king' (26-7) … 'my city' (65) … 'our kings' (68) … 'But I call you Karneios; such is the manner of my fathers' (71). As Chamoux [Cyrène sous la monarchie des Battiades] observes:'Le ὲμοὶ πατρώτον oν̀́τω sonne tres haut'. It is particularly unfortunate that our complete understanding of the imagery of H. 2 is crippled by chronological problems. I would gladly bypass them completely, for this is not a suitable moment to ventilate the subject adequately, but at least the choice confronting us must be mentioned. It is generally, but not always, assumed that the hymn is late, an idea which has recently been challenged by Prof. Von der Mühll [Museum Helvetica, vol. 15, 1958]. An early date suggests Philadelphos again as the human term of reference, while a late date may turn our thoughts to his successor, Ptolemy Euergetes, who became sole ruler in 247. The Lock of Berenice establishes that the poet was still productive after this date, but, according to the theory, H. 2 could have been written before the death of Philadelphos.

The scholiast at line 26 took 'my king' to refer to Euergetes, διὰ δὲ τò φιλóλογον αν́τòν είναι ώς θεòν τιμα. Perhaps this is no more than a guess, and may be based on the line which gives the identification most point: δν́ναται γάρ, έπεὶ Διὶ δεξιòς ήσται (29). Now a reference to the source of the divinity's power is traditional, and Kallimachos plays upon this fact again at H. 5. 131 ff. We may compare Pindar fr. 146 Snell, where Athene sits on the right hand of Zeus and receives his commandments for the gods. The problem is the question of whether both Zeus and Apollo are allegorical terms at this point, or whether only Apollo has an earthly counterpart. If the former, we recall that in H. 1 Zeus and Philadelphos are identified. The poet would hark back to his earlier hymn. In fact the equation of Zeus and Philadelphos is almost canonical. For example, at Theocr. Id. 7. 93 Simichidas, representing Theokritos in his youth, says that he would not be surprised if his poems had already been brought by report to 'the throne of Zeus'. Meleager (Anth. Pal. VII. 418.3) talks of 'Kos which reared Zeus', for Philadelphos was born on that island. Theokritos (Id. 17. 131) compares Philadelphos' married life with his sister Arsinoe to the hieros gamos of Zeus and Hera. We would then have to seek in Apollo a co-regent of Philadelphos.

Now we do hear of a co-regent from 267/6, but he is always 'Ptolemy the son'. Since the title Euergetes was not assumed until between the third and fifth year of his reign, it was once supposed that 'Ptolemy the son' is Euergetes. To this identification, in the present state of our knowledge, Volkmann, who has recently studied the evidence in R.E. xxiii, 2 (1959), 1666.26 ff. and 1668. 35 ff., has raised serious objections. Again, Apollo as Euergetes seems to give special significance to the poet's historical sketch of the foundation of Cyrene under Apollo's guidance, for Euergetes was betrothed to Berenice, the daughter of Magas, king of Cyrene. But Kallimachos had valid reasons for discussing Cyrene since it was his native city. Moreover that this episode is so important that the opening epiphany scene is to be localised in Cyrene is a quite unnecessary assumption. And yet Apollo may still be Euergetes, promoted to a partnership, which he did not formally enjoy, by a grateful poet. Such a liberty would fall short of being outrageous, for Philadelphos, as Zeus, would not be deprived of his meed of honour.

The alternative is to assume Apollo to be Philadelphos the patron, the counterpart of Zeus as Philadelphos the king in H. 1. Here again we meet a choice. Is Zeus then his father, Ptolemy Soter, who had been deified along with his wife as the 'Saviour Gods'? Hardly likely, when Philadelphos' co-regency was as early as 285-283 and the tense of ήσται demands a present reality; but Soter may now be Zeus Soter, enthroned in Heaven. Or is Zeus simply his celestial self? Philadelphos then becomes Zeus' most honoured son, just as at one stage in H. 1 this king is the divinest of kings, honoured by Zeus. If we could be confident of this identification, we might find it of a little use for chronological purposes. In H. 1 the image fluctuates between Zeus, Ptolemy=Zeus and Ptolemy who derives his power from Zeus, in H. 2 between Apollo, Ptolemy=Apollo and Apollo=Ptolemy who derives his power from Zeus. That is to say, there would be a development in the imagery. At this stage in the first hymn Ptolemy is 'divinest of the kings of Zeus', while in the second he is unequivocally a god. This would suggest that H. 1 precedes, while H. 2 follows, Philadelphos' open assumption of divine honours (c. 271/0 B.C.).

Much more could be said, but it would serve no purpose. Better to practice angelic, even archangelic, caution, for the elucidation of Kallimachos from Ptolemaic chronology is the explanation of the obscure per obscurius. And yet, whether Philadelphos or Euergetes is involved, the fact of the double level of reference stands firm.

We have examined at some length the interaction of dominant images in the first two hymns because Hymns 5 and 6 also feature a similar play. But the technique is also used at a lower level. For example, at H. 4. 47-9 Delos, when a wandering island under the name of Asterie, swam to the 'water-drenched maston of the island Parthenie (for it was not yet Samos)'. Mαρτóς is at the same time 'breast' and 'hill'. As Prof. C. del Grande (Filologia Minore, p. 244) reminds us, a double image is possible because of the poetic conceit that an island is a giant nymph lying in the sea. Particularly one with so feminine a name as Parthenie. The device had already been noted as Pindaric by G. Norwood (Pindar, pp. 35, 38) and J. Duchemin (Pindare, pp. 141-2). Pindar liked to blend the images of a city and its eponymous nymph, as at Pyth. 4. 8, where Battos is sent to found Cyrene έν άργονóεετι μαστω. It is interesting to find him applying the same technique to Delos, and then in an unequivocal form (Paean 5. 39-42):

   έριxνδέ τ ὲ́σϰον
Δαλον, έπεί σφιν Aπóλλων
δωxεν ó ϰρνσοxóμας
' Aστερίας δέμας οίxειν.

We may justly say of Kallimachos what H. Fränkel (Ovid, p. 99) found good reason to say of Ovid's interest in metamorphosis: 'The theme gave ample scope for displaying the phenomena of insecure and fleeting identity, of a self divided in itself or spilling over into another self'.

The Hellenistic circle had a special regard for the ambivalent in language, or what could pass for ambivalence, for this, after all, is the stuff of metaphor. When we find in Kallimachos a rare word, we shall learn nothing if we merely catalogue the use as recherché, and close our minds to the factors which prompt the use. When words cease to be affective they often cease to be effective for the poet. He finds himself obliged to reestablish the imagery, perhaps in a different direction, or to restore lost sonority, perhaps on the basis of principles of which an earlier age was not conscious. He had above all to overcome the handicap of a lingua franca, the Koine, which gave little encouragement to poetic endeavour. The rare word, then, may convey a desirable sound or may add a new dimension to the imagery. The common word may equally be renovated by changing its associations or by recalling it to an etymology which it had by lapse of time outgrown. In Kallimachos it pays to be sensitive to both new and old, for we have the added complicating factors of the degree of conformity of the language to a particular type of composition (e.g. the language of the Epigrams and H. 5 is rather different from that of the Aitia), and of the strong possibility of pointed literary reference. Again and again we are driven back to our lexica to find the antecedents of a usage; the results are so rewarding that we can only regret the more keenly the passing of so much literature which must have been exposed to the poet's excerpting passion.

In H. 5 there is not a good deal in the way of special verbal effects. The language is refined because too many distractions will put Kallimachos' purpose beyond our recall. But there are some effects. For example, at lines 75-6. There could not have been a poet of any standing who had not had occasion more than once to describe the bloom of youth; the subject must have been a continual challenge to a clever poet. Kallimachos swings into the image in the hexameter with ὰ́ρτι γένεια and when the pentameter opens we are surprised to find περxάζμν as the verb, for it is appropriate to ripening grapes. In fact he is appropriating, with characteristic modification, an image from Euripides' Cretans … (of Pasiphae's bull!). One of a quieter kind occurs in line 12, where the horses' mouths are χαλινoφάγοι. He might have said χαλινοδάxoι …, but the frothing of the horses' mouths suggested mastication, not mere biting. English has the same transfer in 'to champ the bit', for which verb the Oxford English Dictionary defines the primary meaning as 'munch (fodder) noisily'. Latin is no different with its mandere, e.g. Verg. Aen. 4. 135: stat sonipes ac frena ferox spumantia mandit.

There are clearer examples in H. 6. At lines 94-5 we are told: 'His mother wailed, and his two sisters lamented bitterly, and the breast that he used to drink and the many tens of handmaids'. 'The breast that he used to drink' is of course Erysichthon's wet-nurse, but it is more than a simple case of synecdoche, the part for the whole. The logical verb for 'breast' in the sentence is 'lamented'.… We then begin to remember that beating the breast was a regular way for women to express grief, and that Kallimachos is again playing upon two levels of reference. Again at line 105. Through the insatiable hunger of Erysichthon the food supply of the palace is rapidly being exhausted. 'The cattle stalls are empty', but the adjective used by the poet is … 'widowed'. The idea of 'bereavement' adds a pathetic overtone to Triopas' plea to Poseidon. Lastly we shall notice one not so successful. Erysichthon's parents try to conceal their disgrace, but this is impossible ò́xα τòν βαθν̀ν oιxoν άνεξήραναν óδóντες. The house is … 'prosperous', 'wealthy'. Kallimachos associates this metaphorical idea of 'depth' with a pit or well, hence the forceful … 'they dried up the (deep)house'. This is bearable, but the subject is 'his teeth', which must then be thought of as a searing wind drying up even a deep well. This is venturesome, to say the least, but perhaps we should bear in mind that the Erysichthon tale is burlesque, and humorous exaggeration must consequently enjoy some concession.

We shall also find it useful to consider some of the elements which make the amalgam of a Callimachean hymn. At the summit Homer reigns, but precisely because he is a colossus of unique power no Hellenist sought merely to be stamped as Homerikotatos. While many Hellenistic scholars are known to have been keen commentators on the Homeric texts, both those who approved of an epic canvass of its original dimensions and those who did not strove to innovate. It was customary to modify when borrowing, as at H. 5. 104, where the thought of II. 20. 127-8 (Aισα / γιγνομένω έπένησε λινω, ò́τε μιν τέxε μήτηρ) and II. 24. 209-210 (Moιρα xραταιν̀ / ριινομένω έπένησε λινω, ò́τε μιν τέxoν αν́τή) appears in the form: Moιραν ώδ έπένησε λινα, / άνιxα τò πρατóν νιν έγειναo. The most surprising thing is the rise of Hesiod; not simply as a more approachable standard, but for positive reasons. He was to them a polymath with wide interests, a didactic poet who paid careful attention to sound, and, as the supposed author of the Catalogue of Women, a mythological mine, a model for narrative art, with even a curious reputation for love poetry.

But far more important was the Hellenistic eagerness to give new life to limp traditional forms by blending the Classical genres. Kallimachos' formal model, the Homeric Hymn, was heavily indebted to the epic and, generally speaking, breathed the atmosphere of an earlier age of piety. It does not do to overstate the latter point. They are not religious outpourings, and the Hymn to Hermes, for example, is as modern in its playfulness as a Callimachean production. The deep dependence on Homer, which strengthened the tradition that Homer was their author, at any rate stamped them collectively as archaic. The most obvious importation into Kallimachos' hymns is a pronounced lyrical flavour. We need not think of it as a preserve of our poet. I think particularly of an attractive fragment of a kind of partheneion to Demeter, in a mixture of Aeolic and Doric, almost certainly of the Hellenistic period.

"Hνθομεν ές μεγάλας Δαμάτερος έννέ
  έάσσαι,
παίσαι παρθενιxαί, παίσαι xαλὰ
 ὲ́μματ' ὲ́ϰοισαι,
xαλά μὲν ὲ́μματ' ὲ́ϰοισαι, άριπρεπέας
  δὲ xαὶ ò́ρμως
πριστω έξ έλέφαντος, ίδην ποτεοιxóτας

'We are nine young maids who went to Church, all wearing our Sunday best'. It is hard not to think of Gilbert and Sullivan.

A lyrical element in the hymnal form reminds us that lyricists also wrote hymns. Apart from Pindar, whose influence is almost omnipresent, it is only seldom that we have the means to gauge the extent of their influence upon Kallimachos; but what we find suggests that it was strong. For example, H. 3 opens with forty lines of discussion between a wheedling three-year-old Artemis and her indulgent father, 'das Baby Artemis auf Papa Zeus' Schoss', in which the goddess prattles about the presents she would like, and finds a responsive ear. A few lines of Lesbian poetry, attributed without certainty to Alkaios, provided the inspiration:

"I vow that I shall ever be virgin, a huntress on the peaks of lonely mountains. Come, grant these favours for my sake." So she spoke; and the father of the blessed gods nodded assent.

More important for us, because of the epiphany motif, is Alkaios' Hymn to Apollo, of which only the first line survives. Fortunately the contents are summarized for us by Himerius (Or. xiv. 10 f. = xlviii. 10 f. Colonna). Apollo, sent by Zeus to Delphi to speak as prophet of justice and right to Hellas, disobediently spends a year among the Hyperboreans. The Delphians compose a paean and beseech the god to come back. Eventually he does.

Now it was summer, and indeed midsummer, when Alkaios brings Apollo back from the Hyperboreans. And so, because the summer was aglow, and Apollo was at home …, even the lyre puts on a summer-dress, so to speak, in honour of the god.… The nightingales sing him the kind of song you expect of birds in Alkaios; swallows and cicadas sing, forgetting to tell of their own sufferings among men, and devoting their songs wholly to the god. Kastalia flows, in poetic vein, with streams of silver, and the waves of Kephisos heave and surge, like Homer's Enipeus. For Alkaios, like Homer, perforce makes even the water capable of perceiving the gods' presence.…

The interest which this has for Kallimachos' H. 2. 1-24 becomes obvious.

How the laurel sapling of Apollo trembles! How the whole shrine trembles! Away, away, he that is sinful! Now surely Phoibos is striking the door with his lovely foot. Don't you see? The Delian palm nods merrily all at once, and the swan sings sweetly in the air! Now of yourselves swing back, you bars of the gates, swing back of yourselves, you bolts! For the god is no longer distant. And do you, young lads, prepare yourselves for song and dance.

Not to every man does Apollo appear, but to him who is good. He who sees him, he is great; who sees him not is of low estate. We shall see you, Farworker, and we shall never be lowly. The lads are not to keep lyre silent or tread noiseless when Apollo is at home …, if they wish to accomplish marriage and cut hoary locks, and the wall to stand upon its ancient foundations. Well done, lads! For the lyre is no longer idle. Be hushed as you hear the song to Apollo. Hushed even the sea, when singers glorify the lyre or bow, the weapons of Lycorean Apollo. Not even Thetis wails a mother's lament for Achilles, when she hears the cry 'Hid Paiéon! Hié Paiéon!' And the tearful rock defers its grief, the wet stone that is set in Phrygia, a marble rock in the stead of a woman, uttering sorrowful words from an open mouth.

Both hymns concern an epidemia of Apollo, and in both the excitement runs high. What is particularly interesting is the complete diversity of illustration within common themes. There is the same excited reaction of Apollo's impersonal associates, but in Alkaios it is his lyre (given to him at his birth, whence he invented lyre playing, Alc. α 1 (b) Lobel-Page—perhaps from this same hymn), in Kallimachos the sacred laurel, palm and the whole of the shrine. In both birds also react. Alkaios features the nightingales, Kallimachos the swans. (In Alkaios Apollo has a chariot of swans.) Gloom is dispelled in both versions. In Alkaios the swallows and cicadas forget their sufferings (immortalized in the Prokne-Philomela and Tithonos stories); in Kallimachos it is Thetis and Niobe. We notice, incidentally, that the former react to the presence of Apollo, the latter to the paean itself. In both versions water reacts. In the earlier Kephisos heaves and surges with joy, in the latter the sea is reverently hushed. When Alkaios' Kastalia flows with streams of silver, there is probably the same honorific intention that we find in H. 5. 49. ff., where Inachos brings down gold and blossoms on its waters, and in Moschos 3. 1-3, where Alpheus courts Arethusa, his waters bearing beautiful leaves and blossoms and holy dust from the race-course at Olympia.

Such unity in diversity admits of only two explanations: either Kallimachos is completely remodelling Alkaios, or there is a specialized lyric hymn centring upon the epidemia of Apollo, either inaugurated by Alkaios or a common possession of both poets. In either case, the parallel invites the conclusion that H. 2 is earlier than Hs. 5 and 6. These three hymns feature an arresting dramatic-mimetic opening to an epiphany. Hs. 5 and 6, we shall see, are closely connected and highly specialised compositions. Hymn 2 stands apart from both in dialect, and from H. 5 in metre. Either H. 2 precedes, or follows, Hs. 5 and 6. The clue is, I think, given by the fact that in the last two hymns the epiphany is incidental to the poet's purpose. He does not say to himself 'I shall construct an epiphany hymn'. He says instead 'I shall do something with this story of Teiresias' (H. 5) and 'I shall do something more with this Doric dialect' (H. 6). If the rest of this study has any merit, in Hs. 5 and 6 Kallimachos is using the epiphany motif as something already found satisfying and successful. And it was earlier found successful in a composition which borrowed the excitement of an epiphany from a lyric hymn. In other words, since we know of a hymn by Alkaios featuring an epiphany of Apollo, it is a priori likely that Kallimachos developed the idea first in his Hymn to Apollo, for which the basic idea came readymade, and then maintained the technique in Hs. 5 and 6. At the same time (a matter of intuition, I fear), I would not be inclined to put H. 2 much earlier than the later pair.

In the face of the variety which I have been illustrating, it is unlikely that we shall ever find a master-key to unlock the door of every hymn. Certainly every attempt hitherto has failed. Cahen (Callimaque, pp. 247 95.) disposes of them all—that they were written by royal command, were allegorical glorifications of the Ptolemies, were liturgical poems, were poems written for poetic contests held during religious festivals. Cahen's own theory is equally involved in their fall. He believed that the hymns have a basis in 'une espèce d'έπίδειξις, de lecture solennelle, en rapport direct avec la fete religieuse, en dehors pourtant de son programme' (Callimaque, pp. 281 f.). He does not help his idea by wedding it to the belief that each poem was declaimed at the very places where the festival was celebrated, and that therefore the poems were directed to a genuine public—but not the profanum uulgus, rather 'un public de dévots, capable d'émotion religieuse et d'émotion littéraire aussi'.… Kallimachos would have been appalled (or, perhaps more characteristically, entertained) by the prospect. We may at the present day feel confident that Kallimachos wrote in Alexandria for his friends (including some in the highest places), and for them alone; but for the answers to more particular questions we must weigh each poem individually.…