[In the following essay, Rose examines an insulting comment purportedly made by Pindar concerning Corinna's verse, suggesting that it was due to a misreading and that no slight was intended.]

Mr. Bowra shows his usual good sense when he indicates surprise at the statement that Pindar called Korinna a sow.¹ I would go further and say that it is utterly incredible. Pindar was a gentleman; he owed Korinna gratitude, perhaps for good advice² and certainly for a handsome compliment³; why, then, should anyone suppose him capable of reviling his fellow-country-woman in a manner rather suggestive of Hipponax? But it is amusing to trace the genesis of this absurd tale.

Its author, so far as we know, is Aelian,⁴ and it is quite worthy of him, for without doubt he was one of the silliest writers who ever used Greek. In particular, although he had read fairly widely, he was capable of grossly misunderstanding what he read, as is clear if we look at his rendering of a simple passage in Aristotle. The Aristotelian Historia Animalium cites a legend that she-wolves drop their young only at one time of year, a season of twelve days, that being the length of time that Leto took to reach Delos when she was disguised as a she-wolf: πάνταs τοὺs λύκουs ἐν δώδεχ' ἡμέραιs του̑ ἐνιαυτου̑ τίκτειν … ὅτι ἐν τοsαύταιs ἡμέραιs τὴν Λητo παρεκόμισαν ἐξ ‘Uπερβορέων εἰs Δη̑λον, λύκαιναν φαινομένην διὰ τὸν τη̑s ‘′Ηραs φόβον, 580^a 15 sqq. Aelian's de natura animalium shows that he confused the two possible meanings of ἐν, for he makes the unfortunate she-wolves take twelve days and nights to be delivered of their young: οὐ ῥᾳδίωs οἱ λύκοι τὴν ὠδι̑να ἀπολύουσιν, ἀλλ' ἐν ἡμέραιs δώδεκα καὶ νυξὶ τοsαύταιs, iv, 4. Now if he could so make havoc of the sense of plain Aristotelian prose, we need not hesitate to credit him with a glaring misapprehension of Pindar's meaning, and I think we can point to Olymp. vi, 89-90 as his source. Pindar there says: γνω̑ναί τ' ἔπειτ', ἀρχαι̑ον ὄνειδοs ἀλαθέσιν λόγοιs εἰ φεύγομεν, Βοιωτίαν υν. Aelian was acquainted (loc. cit.) with the tradition that Korinna defeated Pindar five times, and so would find it quite natural that he should refer to her as his ‘reproach’ or ‘disgrace’ (ὄνειδοs), since neuters in -οs are not uncommon in derogatory references to persons, as μι̑σοs, στύγοs and so forth in Tragedy. Hence he would be perfectly capable of finding in the passage a desire to ‘escape from’ the person who in old days (before Pindar was famous and before he visited Sicily) had brought reproach upon him, and consequently of taking Βοιωτίαν υν, not as the proverb that it is, but as an epithet applied to Korinna.⁵

Notes

1. In New Chapters, 3rd series, p. 21.

2. If the quite credible story of the ‘sack’ is true, Plut. de glor. Athen., 347f-348a.

3. Korinna, frag. 15 Diehl, probably genuine, because preserved by a grammarian for its word-forms, not by a biographer for the sake of the story.

4. V. H., xiii, 25.

5. For a very similar view see U. Lisi, Poetesse greche, p. 101, to which my attention was drawn after the above note was written.