Greek Notions of the Past in the Archaic and Classical Eras

HELEN AND ‘I’ IN EARLY
GREEK LYRIC

Early Greek lyric invokes the shared histories of speaker and audience – both local and panhellenic, long-ago (or ‘mythical’) and recent – in many modes of discourse, including narratives, exempla and exhortations.1 This chapter will focus on four sixth-century texts – from Stesichorus, Alcaeus, Sappho and Ibycus – that rely on Helen, that most enigmatic figure in the most familiar of shared Greek pasts, to help define the speaker’s persona. These works are no strangers to critical analysis; indeed, several recent studies have fruitfully examined the treatment of Helen in some of them (among others), concerning themselves largely with the important areas of ethics and/or gender.² My interest is in how the poetic ‘I’ in each fragment uses this figure not primarily to construct a narrative about the past, but as a way to show, by analogy or contrast, the kind of attitude or intention the speaker is adopting in the poetic performance.³ Each lyric ‘I’ in a different way uses the ‘historical’ Helen (malleable though she is) as a kind of fulcrum to help position himself or herself in the contemporary situation.

STESICHORUS FR. 192 PMG

I begin with Stesichorus’ tantalising ‘Palinode’, which provides a particularly striking instance of the singer’s relationship to Helen:4

οὐκ ἔστ’ ἔτυμος λόγος οὗτος,

οὐδ’ ἔβας ἐν νηυσὶν εὐσέλμοις,

οὐδ’ ἵκεο πέργαμα Τροίας·

This story is not true,

you did not go on the well-benched ships

and you did not arrive at the citadel of Troy.

The short fragment is quoted by Plato’s Socrates (Phaedrus 243ab), when he decides that he must ‘purify himself’ from the abusive speech (κακηγορία) he has just delivered to Phaedrus about Eros, who after all is a god. The philosopher declares that there is ‘an ancient purification for those who have gone wrong concerning mythology’ (τοῖς ἁμαρτάνουσι περὶ μυθολογίαν καθαρμὸς ἀρχαῖος), a cure known not to Homer but to Stesichorus; clearly he is referring to traditions that each singer was blind. Homer never understood what caused his loss of sight, says Socrates, but Stesichorus did. He also knew the remedy: he revised the slanderous tale (κακηγορία) that Helen went with Paris to Troy, and immediately his vision was restored. Accordingly, Socrates will now compose his own palinode to Eros.

The evidence for Stesichorus’ Helen poem(s) is far from clear, but with most scholars I believe that the Palinode was part of a longer work that acknowledged the familiar story in which Helen went to Troy with Paris.⁵ Adrian Kelly suggests that the same poem also described the poet’s personal encounter with Helen, perhaps in a dream. Such a meeting of poet and divinity would be reminiscent of Hesiod’s commissioning by the Muses (Theogony 30–1) and is attested in other texts as well (e.g. Sappho and Aphrodite, Sappho fr. 1).6

Whether or not it related a direct encounter with Helen, the poem very likely alluded to Stesichorus’ losing and regaining his sight.⁷ Not only is this tale of narrative offence, punishment and atonement the whole point of the Phaedrus citation, but it is regularly connected with the Palinode in other ancient sources as well.⁸ Being struck blind for telling the ‘wrong’ version (from Helen’s perspective) leads the speaker to renounce the familiar panhellenic account that Helen went to Troy with Paris and thereby became a cause of the Trojan War.⁹ Most strikingly, he addresses his recantation to Helen herself: ‘You did not go . . . you did not arrive.’¹⁰ No longer just a character in the logos, she becomes present in the performance situation.

Kelly contends that Stesichorus’ reason for this remarkable recantation is to win authority for his version of events, in competition with his predecessors: he has learned what happened from Helen herself.¹¹ This authority would be undercut, however, if Stesichorus appeared to revise his story in order to appease an angered immortal, and thereby cure his blindness. Dreams may be deceptive (if Kelly’s suggestion is correct that Helen appeared to the poet in a dream), and in any case gods readily take offence when their honour is impugned.12 In other words, was the poet blinded because he got his ‘history’ wrong, or rather because his version annoyed one of its (immortal) subjects?¹³ If we follow this line of thought, the Palinode could be read as an admission of a mortal’s unheroic ‘adaptability’, along the lines of Archilochus’ dropping his shield but saving his life (Archilochus fr. 5 W).

In the Phaedrus story that frames the fragment, Socrates’ ironic fear of being harmed by Eros certainly allows that he understood Stesichorus’ Palinode in this way; the philosopher declares that he will be smarter (σοφώτερος) than either Homer or Stesichorus, by offering the god a recantation even before anything bad happens to him (Phaedrus 243b). Stesichorus’ readiness to change the familiar story (λόγος οὗτος¹⁴) in reaction to its negative consequences for himself may thus present him as an unreliable ‘historian’, however skilled he is in dealing with angry immortals.

Alexander Beecroft offers a more charitable reading. Building on the arguments of Claude Calame and Bruce Lincoln about types of poetic and mythological ‘truth’, Beecroft expands on the widely held thesis that the mortal Helen of Homeric epic is pitted here against an epichoric divine Helen, and is found wanting. ‘When Stesichorus performs the Panhellenic version of the logos of Helen . . . it is ritually ineffective – which is demonstrated concretely through the blinding of the poet.’¹⁵ I agree that the story of a Helen who followed Paris to Troy might be deemed inappropriate (and even ‘untrue’) in the context of a cult of Helen such as existed at Sparta, Athens and other places.¹⁶ A blameworthy portrait could offend the goddess – or from a more mundane perspective, as often suggested, Stesichorus may be distancing himself from the panhellenic story here because the local audience would react (or did react) negatively to a portrayal of Helen in keeping with the familiar epic tradition. The Palinode thus points to the complex nature of certain figures in the panhellenic tradition – mortal in epic, but immortal in local cults – and hence to the multiplicity of stories about them.

Whatever exactly was conveyed in the missing parts of Stesichorus’ song, the extant fragment showcases a remarkable engagement of the speaker with his subject/addressee Helen, as an active divine power with an ego and power of her own (again, like Socrates’ Eros in the Phaedrus). While it highlights Stesichorus’ respect for the goddess, the Palinode also exposes a lack of reliability in songs about events and characters in the shared past: circumstances may prompt the singer to change his tune, as Stesichorus does here, in full view of the audience. As Ann Bergren concluded long ago, such ambiguity is a distinctive characteristic in portrayals of Helen.17

ALCAEUS FR. 42 V 18

ὠς λόγος κόκων ἀ[

Περράμω<ι> καὶ παῖσ[ι

ἐκ σέθεν πίκρον, π[

Ἴλιον ἲραν.

οὐ τεαύταν Αἰακἰδαι[ς

πάντας ἐς γάμον μάκ[αρας καλέσσαις

ἄγετ’ ἐκ Νή[ρ] ηος ἔλων [μελάθρων

πάρθενον ἄβραν

ἐς δόμον Χέρρωνος: ἔλ[υσε δ’

ζῶμα παρθένω· φιλο[

Πήλεος καὶ Νηρεΐδων ἀρίστ[ας.

ἐς δ’ ἐνίαυτον

παῖδα γέννατ’ αἰμιθέων [

ὄλβιον ξάνθαν ἐλάτη[ρα πώλων,

οἰ δ’ ἀπώλοντ’ ἀμφ’ Ἐ[λέναι

καὶ πόλις αὔτων.

As the story goes . . . to Priam and his children a bitter . . . from you . . . holy Ilium. Not such a woman did Aeacus’ son wed, inviting all the blessed ones to the marriage, bringing her, a maiden pure, from the chambers of Nereus to the house of Cheiron. He loosened the maiden’s girdle . . . the love . . . of Peleus and the best of the Nereids. And in a year she bore a son . . . of demigods, a prosperous driver of tawny mares, but they [i.e. the Trojans] perished for Helen, and their city too.

At the start of his introductory essay on ‘The “I” in personal archaic lyric’, Simon Slings cites Hermann Fränkel on the ‘judgemental’ lyric I: ‘Das urteilende Ich in der archaischen Lyrik ist immer repräsentiv gemeint’.19 Although there is no first person pronoun or verb in Alcaeus fr. 42, in this poem the judgements applied to Helen and Thetis appear to be ‘representative’. The speaker is performing for a like-minded audience; he has no controversial argument to make, as Stesichorus does very differently in the Palinode, or Sappho in fr. 16 (discussed below). Although the fragment does not vividly conjure up a performance context as do some of Alcaeus’ songs (e.g. the great house all hung with armour in fr. 140), fr. 42 would surely be at home in a sympotic context, performed in the company of Alcaeus’ hetairoi.²⁰

The extant fragment begins ‘as the story goes’ (ὠς λόγος), and refers to the tradition that Troy was destroyed because of the marriage of Paris and Helen. As is clear from the Stesichorean Palinode, in early Greek poetry a logos may or may not accord with ‘historical’ reality; the speaker does not take responsibility for the tale’s veracity.²¹ In the Alcaeus fragment, however, nothing speaks against the panhellenic logos;22 rather, the song’s final stanza confirms that the Trojans ‘perished [fighting] about Helen’ (lines 15–16). The audience is expected to know and accept this version of the tale, to understand the baneful effects on Priam’s Troy of the marriage of Helen and Paris, and to pity those who lost their lives and their city fighting over her. They would also agree with the speaker’s evaluation of the marriages (and women) contrasted here: whereas Helen’s union with Paris produced only destruction for the city of Troy, Peleus married a chaste and comely bride, who became the mother of great Achilles.

As critics have noted, the speaker stops far short of telling the whole logos. He does not mention that Thetis’ great son Achilles was among those who perished at Troy, and that he himself killed many of Priam’s sons.²³ Moreover, his audience may well know the story, attested in the Cypria,²⁴ that the wedding of Peleus and Thetis marked a beginning of the Trojan War: Eris provoked a dispute about which goddess was most beautiful, which led to the Judgement of Paris. Possible narrative connections between the two marriages in this song are many, but the poet elides them, in part by using the unusual trope of direct address to help him focus attention where he wants it.

Very differently from the Stesichorus Palinode, but also with striking effect, Alcaeus addresses one of his characters in the second person: ‘from you (ἐκ σέθεν) [came?] a bitter [end?] to Priam and his children’ (lines 1–4). Here again, he appears to be speaking with and for his audience as together they consider the sufferings of Priam’s family and acknowledge the one responsible for them. And quite unlike the tradition that accompanies Stesichorus’ Palinode, there is no reference here to a reaction from the character addressed; the ‘you’ is a figure within the historical narrative, not an immanent immortal.

This addressee is usually taken to be Helen, according to Page’s widely accepted supplement in line 3: π[οτ’, Ὤλεν’, ἦλθεν ‘once, O Helen, [a bitter end] came’. The second person (σέθεν), however, may instead refer to Paris, as Elena Pallantza has lucidly argued.²⁵ For the speaker to focus on Paris’ misdeed more than Helen’s would accord with the emphasis in another Alcaeus fragment that also deals with the fateful pair, in which the host-betraying Trojan prince is blamed far more than the woman for whom the war was fought (fr. 283.3–6 V):26

κ’ Ἀλένας ἐν στήθ[ε]σιν [ἐ]πτ[όαισε

θῦμον Ἀργείας Τροΐω<ι> δ’ [ἐ]π’ ἄνδ[ρι

ἐκμάνεισα ξ[ε.]ναπάτα<ι> ’πι π[όντον

ἔσπετο νᾶϊ

and . . . [Eros? Aphrodite? Paris?] caused the heart in Argive Helen’s breast to flutter . . . driven mad by the Trojan man, host-deceiver . . . she followed [him] to sea in his ship.

A third Alcaeus fragment also presents a moralising view of the Trojan War that may shed light on the speaker’s perspective in fr. 42. Fr. 298 V deals with the rape of Cassandra by Locrian Ajax, and the ‘historical’ tale clearly holds a lesson for the Mytilenean present. The first extant stanza offers advice pertinent to the contemporary situation of singer and audience: it is best to shame and kill those who do unjust things. To illustrate his point, the speaker turns to the past, saying that the Achaeans should have killed Ajax for his impious behaviour (Alc. fr. 298.1–5):²⁷

Δρά]σαντας αἰσχύν[...]τα τὰ μἤνδικα

...]ην δὲ περβάλοντ’ [ἀν]άγκα

ἄυ]χενι λα[β]ολίωι π.[..]α̣ν

ἦ μάν κ’] Ἀχαίοισ’ ἦς πόλυ βέλτερον

αἰ τὸν θεοβλ]άβεντα κατέκτανον

disgracing those who did unjust deeds, and it is necessary to cast a [noose] on their neck and [kill] them by stoning. Truly it would have been much better for the Achaeans if they had killed the sacrilegious man.

This is followed by a brutal account of Ajax’ rape of the maiden as she clasped the statue of Athena. His impious deed turned the goddess against the conquering Achaeans because they did not take it upon themselves to punish the evil-doer. The shipwrecks they suffered as a result of her wrath (lines 24–45?) stand as a warning to the speaker and his contemporary audience about how they should treat those guilty of shameful deeds in their own society. Although the papyrus is extremely fragmentary at this point, one of those evil-doers is called by his patronymic: ‘son of Hyrrhas’ (line 47): Pittacus, arch-nemesis of Alcaeus’ hetairia.28

In fr. 42 as well, particularly if Paris is the ‘you’ blamed for the destruction of Troy, the speaker may be drawing an analogy to the political world he shares with his fellow symposiasts. Paris’ treachery, his illicit marriage to Helen, caused the destruction of his own family and city. Whether or not this applies specifically to Pittacus or some other enemy of Alcaeus’ group,²⁹ the results of evil deeds in the past are clear, and the speaker refers to a familiar logos to show the consequences of actions that break the bonds of trust and propriety.

SAPPHO FR. 16 V 30

ο]ἰ μὲν ἰππήων στρότον οἰ δὲ πέσδων

οἰ δὲ νάων φαῖσ’ ἐπ[ὶ] γᾶν μέλαι[ν]αν

ἔ]μμεναι κάλλιστον, ἔγω δὲ κῆν’ ὄτ

τω τις ἔραται·

πά]γχυ δ’ εὔμαρες σύνετον πόησαι

π]άντι τ[ο]ῦτ’, ἀ γὰρ πόλυ περσκέθοισα

κάλλος [ἀνθ]ρώπων Ἐλένα [τό]ν ἄνδρα

τὸν .[ αρ]ιστον

καλλ[ίποι]σ’ ἔβα ’ς Τροΐαν πλέοι[σα

κωὐδ[ὲ πα]ῖδος οὐδὲ φίλων το[κ]ήων

πά[μπαν] ἐμνάσθ<η>, ἀλλὰ παράγαγ’ αὕταν

[ ]σαν

[ ]αμπτον γὰρ [

[ ]...κούφωςτ[ ]οη.[.].ν

..]μ.ε νῦν Ἀνακτορί[ας ὀ]νέμναι-

σ’ οὐ ] παρεοίσας,

τᾶ]ς <κ>ε βολλοίμαν ἔρατόν τε βᾶμα

κἀμάρυχμα λάμπρον ἲδην προσώπω

ἢ τὰ Λύδων ἔρματα κἀν ὄπλοισι

[πεσδομ]άχεντας.

[ ].μεν οὐ δύνατον γένεσθαι

[ ].ν ἀνθρωπ[..(.) π]εδέχην δ’ ἄρασθαι

Some say a host of cavalry, others of infantry, and others of ships, is the most beautiful thing on the black earth, but I say it is whatever a person desires. It is completely easy to make this understood by everyone, for she who far surpassed humankind in beauty, Helen, left her most excellent husband and went sailing to Troy, and she recalled not at all her child or dear parents, but . . . led her astray . . . lightly . . . this calls to my mind Anaktoria who is not here. I would rather see her desirable footstep and the bright sparkle of her face than the Lydians’ chariots and their infantry in armour . . . not possible to happen . . . humankind. . . pray to share in . . .

In this much-admired masterpiece, the speaker uses the story of Helen and Paris overtly to illustrate her proposal that the kalliston, ‘finest’, ‘most beautiful’ or ‘best’, derives its value from the eros ‘desire’ that one feels for it. This approach to the Helen question is quite different from the comparison of two marriages in Alcaeus fr. 42, which looks to consequences rather than motivation. It is no wonder that critics often compare these two works, both of them in Sapphic strophes, almost as if they were in dialogue with each other.31

Unlike the relationship between speaker and audience that informs the Alcaeus fragment, the speaker here does not assume that her audience already shares her view that everyone considers fairest whatever it is that they desire.³² She needs to explain, and does so by recalling a famous example from the past. As Glenn Most has nicely shown, Sappho recruits a figure with whom she can support her case through authority if not through logical argument: who better than the superlatively beautiful Helen to prove how the kalliston is determined by desire?33 Led astray (line 11), presumably by Eros or Aphrodite, Helen left her excellent husband to follow Paris to Troy. In doing so, she forgot those who were nearest to her, her parents and child. Her action exemplifies the primacy of what one desires.

In the rhetoric of the poem, Helen is neither condemned nor praised.³⁴ Her story plays an epistemological function, an extreme and clear illustration of the speaker’s self-declared understanding of human values, by referring to a well-known situation in the shared past. We noted that in Alcaeus fr. 42 the speaker passes over those parts of the logos that might undercut his moral point by suggesting that in fact both marriages contributed to the destruction at Troy. Sappho even more boldly elides a great part of the familiar story. She does not mention the great war that was the consequence of Helen’s decision (if it can be called that) to follow Paris to Troy. Nonetheless, the enormity of that war surely adds to the impact of the example she selects: even with so much at stake, Helen found ‘best’ that which she desired (or was made to desire).

Sappho brings to life Helen’s point of view, making her a true subject, as many commentators have discussed. At the same time she uses this figure as an analogue, a parallel to her own subjectivity – and, she declares, to everyone’s. Helen’s past action thus illuminates the speaker’s present assertion.

This original yet straightforward use of the past takes another turn, however, when the ‘I’ says that Helen’s story brings to her mind the absent Anaktoria, whose lively beauty she herself values most highly.³⁵ Helen’s story thus turns out to provide more than an explanatory example, for it triggers thoughts of the speaker’s own situation, which involves separation from that which is kalliston for her. This revelation suggests that yearning for the beautiful girl colours even the speaker’s self-assured priamel.³⁶

Sappho’s sweet-bitter situation, her vivid memory of and longing for absent Anaktoria, in turn leads to further reflection on the sentiments of characters in the Helen story. Might Helen too have remembered, once they were gone, the value of what she once ‘entirely forgot’ (fr. 16.11) – her daughter, her dear parents, her panariston husband (fr. 16.7–8)? Certainly the Homeric Helen voices those sentiments (Iliad 3.173–5).37 The speaker’s own yearning for the desirable one who is absent also recalls Menelaus, whose departed wife ‘far surpassed mankind in beauty’ (fr. 16.6–7). This would foreshadow Aeschylus’ Menelaus in a choral song of the Agamemnon, ranging desolately through his palace, beset with piercing memories of Helen’s beauty (Ag. 407).³⁸

From the perspective of how a lyric ‘I’ relates to the past, what fascinates most in this fragment is the dynamic interaction established between the speaker and her ‘historical’ subject. Helen’s famous action, part of the common past of singer and audience, is called upon to explain the speaker’s professed value system. In turn the performance situation (Anaktoria is gone but vividly remembered) casts light back onto the actions and feelings of both Helen and Menelaus. The present illuminates the past as much as the past does the present.

IBYCUS S151 PMGF 39

...]αι Δαρδανίδα Πριάμοιο μέ- γ’ ἄσ]τυ περικλεές ὄλβιον ἠνάρο.ν Ἄργ]οθεν ὀρνυμένοι Zη]νός μεγάλοιο βουλαῖς
ξα]νθᾶς Ἑλένας περὶ εἲδει δῆ]ριν πολύυμνον ἔχ[ο]ντες πό]λεμον κατὰ [δ]ακρ[υό]εντα, Πέρ]γαμον δ’ ἀνέ[β]α ταλαπείριο[ν ἄ]τα χρυ]σοέθειραν δ[ι]ὰ Κύπριδα·	(5)

νῦ]ν δέ μοι οὔτε ξειναπάτ[α]ν Π[άρι]ν ..] ἐπιθύμιον οὔτε τανί[σφ]υρ[ον ὑμ]νῆν Κασσάνδραν Πρι]άμοιό τε παίδας ἄλλου[ς	(10)
Τρο]ίας θ’ ὑψιπύλοιο ἁλώσι[μο].ν ἆμ]αρ ἀνώνυμον, οὐδεπ[ ἡρ]ώων ἀρετὰν ύπ]εράφανον οὕς τε κοίλα[ι	(15)
νᾶες] πολυγόμφοọ ἐλεύσα[ν Τροί]αι κακόν, ἥρωας ἐσθ[λούς· τῶν] μέν κρείων Ἀγαμέ[μνων ἆρχε Πλεισθ[ενί]δας βασιλ[εὺ]ς ἀγὸς ἀνδρῶν Ἀτρέος ἐσ[θλοῦ π]άις ἔκγ[ο]νος.	(20)
καὶ τὰ μὲ[ν ἂν] Μοίσαι σεσοφι[σ]μέναι εὖ Ἑλικωνίδ[ες] ἐμβαίεν †λόγω[ι, θνατ[ὸ]ς† δ’ οὔ κ[ε]ν ἀνὴρ διερὸς τὰ ἕκαστα εἲποι,	(25)
ναῶν ὅ[σσος ἀρι]θμὸς ἀπ’ Αὐλίδος Αἰγαῖον διὰ [πό]ντον ἀπ’ Ἄργεος ἠλύθο[ν ἐς Τροία[ν ἱπποτρόφο[ν, ἐν δ]ὲ φὲτες	(30)
χ]αλκάσπ[ιδες, υἷ]ες Ἀχα[ι]ῶν· τ]ῶν μὲν πρ[οφ]ερέστατος α[ἰ]χμαι ̣ ....]. πόδ[ας ὠ]κὺς Ἀχιλλεὺς καὶ μέ]γας Τ[ελαμ]ώνιος ἄλκι[μος Αἲας .....]...[.....]λο[.].υρος·	(35)
........ κάλλι]στος ἀπ’ Ἄργεος ........ Κυάνι]ππ[ο]ς ἐς Ἴλιον [ ] [ ]..[.]...
...............]α χρυσόστροφ[ος Ὕλλις ἐγήνατο, τῶι δ’ [ἄ]ρα Τρωίλον ὥσει χρυσόν ὀρει- χάλκωι τρὶς ἄπεφθο[ν] ἤδη	(40)
Τρῶες Δ[α]ναοί τ’ ἐρό[ε]σσαν μορφὰν μάλ’ ἐίσκον ὅμοιον. τοῖς μὲν πέδα κάλλεος αίὲν καὶ σύ, Πολύκρατες, κλέος ἄφθιτον ἑξεῖς ὡς κὰτ ἀοιδὰν καὶ ἐμὸν κλέος.	(45)

. . . they destroyed Dardanian Priam’s great city, famous and prosperous, setting off from Argos by the plans of great Zeus, enduring much-sung strife over the beauty of blonde Helen in tearful war; and ruin mounted long-suffering Pergamon because of the golden-haired Cyprian.

But now I do not long to hymn Paris the host-deceiver or slender-ankled Cassandra and Priam’s other children, or the unspeakable day when high-gated Troy was captured, and I will not recount the overweening valour of the heroes whom hollow, many-bolted [ships] brought as an evil for Troy, fine heroes. Lord Agamemnon led them, Pleisthenid king, leader of men, fine son born of Atreus.

Indeed the learned Muses of Helicon might embark on these things in story, but no mortal man alive could tell the details, what number of ships came from Aulis across the Aegean sea from Argos to horse-rearing Troy, with bronze-shielded men on them, sons of the Achaeans. The best of them with the spear [came] swift-footed Achilles and great, mighty Telamonian Ajax . . . fire . . .

The fairest from Argos came Cyanippus to Ilium [descendant of Adrastus, and Zeuxippus, whom the Naiad] gold-belted Hyllis bore [to Phoebus]; to him Trojans and Danaans compared Troilus, as thrice-refined gold to orichalc, very similar in his lovely appearance.

In company with them you too, Polycrates, will have unfading fame for beauty, as my fame too for song.

As transmitted in a second-century BCE papyrus (P. Oxy. 1790), this song originally consisted of at least four triads in a heavily dactylic metre. We do not have the beginning of the poem; a four-line strophe (and possibly one or more triads before that⁴⁰) is missing at the top of the papyrus, but the fragment’s final line (48) is followed by a coronis, so we can be confident that the song was intended to end there. The structure of the extant work is remarkable: forty-five extant verses dealing with the Trojan War – over half of them on subjects the speaker says he will not or cannot address – followed by three lines in praise of Polycrates, presumably the famous tyrant of Samos.41

Ibycus’ poem does not dispute the panhellenic tradition that Helen went to Troy, but no blame is cast on her. Argives and Trojans fought over her beauty (eidos) because of the ‘plans of great Zeus’ (line 4), and the Greeks destroyed Troy ‘because of the golden-haired Cyprian’ (8–9).⁴² Paris is called a ‘deceiver of his host’ (xeinapatan, 10) but Helen is wholly passive; her beauty is the reason for epic struggle, sorrow and fame.⁴³

It is significant to note which aspects of the Trojan saga the speaker says he has no desire to sing. Glorious though they may be in song, the events are all sorrowful and wearisome: the siege of Troy, the treacherous Paris, Cassandra and the other children of Priam, the disastrous fall of a great city, caused by the aretê of heroes led by magnificent Agamemnon (10–22). Moreover, how could any singer rehearse all this? The learned (σεσοφι[σ]μέναι) Muses might be able to venture into such a story (23–4), Ibycus says, but no mortal man could tell the details (lines 25–6).⁴⁴

This general statement on the limits of poetic accuracy about so vast a topic subtly casts doubt on the ‘historical’ accuracy and authority of Homer. Moreover, as G. O. Hutchinson points out, the declaration of human limitation is followed by a clear reference to the Iliadic Catalogue of Ships (lines 27–31), which the epic bard presents as a tour de force and something he could not do without help from the Muses (Il. 2.484–93).45 The lyric ‘I’ here coyly disclaims his desire or ability to recount the grievous details and noble heroes of the epic past, while demonstrating his ability to speak of them in a style that could well be called hyper-Homeric.⁴⁶ This includes three lines of honorific epithets for the magnificent leader Agamemnon son of Atreus (20–2),⁴⁷ as well as such familiar tags as ‘sons of the Achaeans’ (31) and even ‘swift-footed Achilles’ (33).

A certain disparagement of Homeric heroism can even be heard when the arête of the ‘noble heroes’ is called hyperaphanon (16–17). The term, attested only twice in early epic, is used of unusually violent fighters: the three Hundred-Handers, ὑπερήφανα τέκνα ‘overweening children’ of Gaia and Ouranos (Theogony 148–50), and the overweening (ὑπερηφανέοντες), hubristic Epeans who once plotted against the kingdom of Neleus (Iliad 11.692–5).

Bypassing (through praeteritio) an account of the grievous war that brought fame and destruction to those fighting over Helen’s beauty, the speaker turns instead to the beauty of three young warriors; two of them are not even mentioned by Homer, while the third receives half a line.⁴⁸ It turns out that the war that was fought for Helen’s beauty (Helen’s eidos, line 5), with its disastrous consequences for Troy, also served as a display ground for masculine comeliness.⁴⁹

Unlike the eidos of Helen, the beauty of Argive Cyanippus, Zeuxippus the son of Hyllis and Apollo,⁵⁰ and Trojan Troilus – although it must have been observed on the battlefield⁵¹ – causes no strife. On the contrary, the speaker goes out of his way to say that both sides agreed on their relative beauty, using a rather elaborate analogy: the Trojan Troilus was to the Greek Zeuxippus as triple-purified gold is to orichalc.52

Just as we hear nothing of Helen’s motives or actions, we hear nothing of deeds performed by the three young warriors. It is not for arête as warriors that they earn everlasting kleos, but rather for outstanding loveliness of form; it is this quality that the speaker (in implied contrast to Homer) chooses to sing. This leads, of course, to the praise of the contemporary honorand, Polycrates, to whom the speaker promises kleos aphthiton for his beauty like that of the beautiful heroes of Troy (lines 46–8).⁵³ At the same time, he predicts similar kleos for himself, because of his (beautiful) song.⁵⁴

The famous Helen, it turns out, is a foil for the speaker. She serves as his entrée into the relationship of beauty to praise-poetry. Throughout the poem beauty is the spark of fame, but the relationship between the two develops in unexpected ways. At first we learn that Helen’s beauty provided those who went to Troy with an occasion for fame; then attention shifts to the most beautiful of those who fought there, whether Greek or Trojan. Their appearance gives rise only to praise from those who see them, friend and foe alike. Unending fame for beauty will also come to Polycrates, the singer promises – just as he himself will have kleos for his song, a song that self-consciously differentiates itself from Homeric narrative.

CONCLUSION

In these texts, the lyric ‘I’ conjures up a past that raises questions, including intentionally or not questions about versions and segments of the Helen story that are not mentioned, or not accepted, in the current song. The familiar yet ambiguous Helen is a historical figure implicitly shared with the audience, and serves as a point of contact, a baseline from which to define the speaker’s intent in each song.55

To summarise very briefly: Stesichorus changes his tune, we are told, when Helen blinds him for slandering her. In any case, his Palinode questions the authority of the Trojan logos, and suggests tensions between panhellenic and local versions of a story: is Helen a historical mortal or an immortal goddess? Alcaeus in turn uses Helen’s marriage to Paris to comment on human justice and the dire consequences of illicit behaviour: contemporaries should learn from history not to tolerate evil-doers who threaten the community’s welfare. The speaker in Sappho fr. 16 explains her contention that eros determines what is most highly valued by pointing to Helen’s relative valuation of Paris and Menelaus. Vice versa, she casts light on the long-past inner world of Helen and Menelaus through her own experiences of beauty and absence in the present. Ibycus claims that he will not, or cannot, rehearse the disastrous and glorious tale of Troy, a fight for Helen’s beauty, and turns instead to other beauties at Troy, young warriors whose fame will be matched by the beautiful Polycrates.

Such interactions with the past are not entirely different from what early Greek prose historians do;⁵⁶ history is inescapably written from the present situation of the historian and his audience, and is often used to shed light on current issues.⁵⁷ But among many other generic distinctions, we have seen that the lyric ‘I’ allows itself more freedom to comment on analogies between past and present than does the historiographical (or indeed the epic) narrator, and may even be found to ironise itself in so doing. Nor does the speaker in lyric affect to efface himself or herself in telling of the past, but plays a prominent role in shaping it in view of the performance situation. The lyric ‘I’ thus conjures up the ‘historical’ Helen not only to help explain, blame or praise events in the past but also to illuminate, and perhaps to justify, the context of the present song.

1    For recent general studies of poetry and history see J. Marincola, ‘Herodotus and the poetry of the past’, in C. Dewald and J. Marincola (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 13–28; D. Boedeker, ‘Early Greek poetry as/and history’, in A. Feldherr and G. Hardy (eds), The Oxford History of Historical Writing, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 122–47.

2    For example, C. P. Segal, ‘Beauty, desire, and absence: Helen in Sappho, Alcaeus, and Ibycus’, in Segal, Aglaia: The Poetry of Alcman, Sappho, Pindar, Bacchylides, and Corinna (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), pp. 63–83, on Sappho, Alcaeus and Ibycus; N. Worman, ‘The body as Argument: Helen in four Greek texts’, Classical Antiquity 16 (1997), pp. 151–203, on Sappho together with Iliad 3, Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen and Euripides’ Troades; and R. Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen in archaic lyric’, American Journal of Philology 131 (2010), pp. 349–91, on the Iliadic Helen compared with Helen in the Sappho, Alcaeus and Ibycus fragments.

3    I assume that the performance context is, at least to a degree, constructed rather than biographical; likewise, in using an author’s name, I refer to the persona of the speaker in that work – also to some degree a construction – rather than to a historical human being.

4    In the vast literature on the Palinode I have found especially useful the following studies: K. Bassi, ‘Helen and the discourse of denial in Stesichorus’ Palinode’, Arethusa 26 (1993), pp. 51–75; E. Pallantza, Der Troische Krieg in der nachhomerischen Literatur bis zum 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2005), esp. pp. 98–123; A. J. Beecroft, ‘This is not a true story: Stesichorus’s Palinode and the revenge of the epichoric’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 136 (2006), pp. 47–70; A. Kelly, ‘Stesikhoros and Helen’, Museum Helveticum 64 (2007), pp.1–21.

5    E.g. W. Allan (ed.), Euripides: Helen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 18–22; Bassi, ‘Helen and the discourse of denial’; Kelly, ‘Stesikhoros and Helen’. E. Cingano, ‘Quante testimonianze sulle palinodie di Stesicoro?’, Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 41 (1982), pp. 21–33, offers the strongest arguments for the existence of more than one Palinode.

6    Kelly, ‘Stesikhoros and Helen’, cites parallels from epic and lyric, noting that many mortals come into direct contact with gods in Homeric epic. Another parallel to the Palinode would be Pheidippides’ meeting with Pan on his way to Sparta, when the god chides the Athenians for not recognising his helpfulness to them; he later receives proper recognition in cult (Herodotus 6.105).

7    Pace Bassi, ‘Helen and the discourse of denial’, pp. 54–5 n. 6.

8    E.g. Isocrates, Encomium of Helen 10.64. On the basis of the Isocrates passage, D. Sider, ‘The blinding of Stesichorus’, Hermes 117 (1989), pp. 423–31, suggests that the singer’s blinding and sudden recovery of sight might have been mimed in performance.

9    This non-Homeric version of Helen’s role, perhaps even including the eidolon that went to Troy in her stead, may already have been transmitted in the Hesiodic corpus (see F 358 M–W), based on a paraphrase of Lycophron, Alexandra 822.

10    This point receives relatively little emphasis from commentators, with the exception of Kelly, ‘Stesikhoros and Helen’, pp. 3–6, who mentions it in connection with his thesis that the ‘Palinode’ was part of a single poem that began with the standard version of the Helen story, and then restarted (in the manner of some Homeric Hymns) with an address to the divine figure whose story has just been told. See D. Boedeker, ‘Paths to heroization at Plataea’, in Boedeker and D. Sider (eds), The New Simonides: Contexts of Praise and Desire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 148–63, esp. pp. 155–61, for an analogous argument that Achilles is directly addressed as an immortal in Simonides fr. el. 11.19–20 W².

11    Kelly, ‘Stesikhoros and Helen’, p. 3 and passim.

12    E.g. the dream sent to Agamemnon in Iliad 2.1–282; cf. the dream that forces Xerxes to invade Greece.

13    Bassi, ‘Helen and the discourse of denial’, argues perceptively that it is impossible for Stesichorus to recast entirely Helen’s dangerously unstable, female nature.

14    On the deictic significance of λόγος οὗτος ‘this story’ in the fragment see Beecroft, ‘This is not a true story’, pp. 49–52.

15    Beecroft, ‘This is not a true story’, p. 66. See further Beecroft’s stimulating analysis of ἔτυμος in the Stesichorus passage (pp. 55–66).

16    On cults of Helen see Herodotus 6.61–2; M. L. West, Immortal Helen: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on 30 April 1975 (London: Bedford College, 1975); L. L. Clader, Helen: The Evolution from Divine to Heroic in Greek Epic Tradition, Mnemosyne Suppl. 42 (Leiden: Brill, 1976), pp. 63–80, J. Larson, Greek Heroine Cults (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), pp. 65–70, 79–81; and D. Lyons, Gender and Immortality: Heroines in Ancient Greek Myth and Cult (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 44–7. See Pallantza, Der Troische Krieg, pp. 112–18, for a critical overview of the relationship between literary and religious-historical approaches to the Palinode.

17    A. Bergren, ‘Language and the female in early Greek thought’, Arethusa 16 (1983), pp. 69–95, esp. pp. 80–2; similarly Bassi, ‘Helen and the discourse of denial’, pp. 61–2, and Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’, pp. 390–1.

18    I use Voigt’s text of the fragment with my own translation.

19    H. Fränkel, Dichtung und Philosophie des frühen Griechentums: Eine geschichte der griechischen Epik, Lyrik und Prosa bis zur Mitte des fünften Jahrhunderts, 2nd edn (Munich: Beck, 1962), p. 169 n. 50; quoted in S. R. Slings, ‘The “I” in personal archaic lyric: An introduction’, in Slings (ed.), The Poet’s ‘I’ in Archaic Greek Lyric (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1990), pp. 1–30, esp. p. 1. Slings goes on to argue for a more varied ‘I’ in early lyric, especially in Archilochus, which would allow for a more autobiographical as well as a collective perspective.

20    So Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’, pp. 353–4. See the pioneering work of W. Rösler, Dichter und Gruppe: Eine Untersuchung zu den Bedingungen und zur historischen Funktion früher griechischer Lyrik am Beispiel Alkaios (Munich: W. Fink, 1980), for the argument that Alcaeus composed exclusively for his political/social circle at Mytilene. In my opinion, as that of most critics, Rösler’s views are overly restrictive, but his work demonstrates that much of Alcaeus’ corpus deals with contemporary concerns from the perspective of a self-conscious hetairia.

21    A number of similar phrases in tragedy refer to things the speaker does not know for sure, but which accord with the reality portrayed or discovered in the course of the drama; cf. Aesch. Supplices 230, Eur. IT 532–4, Eur. Helen 18–19, Eur. Phoen. 396. See again Beecroft, ‘This is not a true story’.

22    Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’, pp. 353–4, proposes that this distancing allows the sympotic audience to contemplate Helen without having to confront her erotic beauty.

23    E.g. G. Liberman, Alcée: Fragments (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1999), 1.36; Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’, pp. 356–9.

24    Proclus, Chrestomathia 1.

25    Pallantza, Der Troische Krieg, pp. 28–34, accepts Wilamowitz’s supplement παῖσ[τέλος φίλοισιν at line 2. The main problem with her reading, as I see it, is to reconcile οὐ τεαύταν (line 5), meaning that Peleus’ bride was ‘not such a one’ (as Helen), if Helen has not yet been mentioned in the poem. Pallantza, however, builds a strong case on structural and stylistic grounds that there was at least a stanza before the start of the extant fragment, in which Helen could have been mentioned.

26    A focus on Paris would also align the speaker with the Homeric tradition. As Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’, pp. 349–50, emphasises, no Homeric male blames Helen for the war. As if pre-empting any reproach, she blames herself – to Priam (Il. 3. 173–80), to Hector (Il. 6.344–58) and in the Odyssey to Menelaus and Telemachus (4.145).

27    For this citation I use Campbell’s text and translation, slightly modified.

28    See G. O. Hutchinson, Greek Lyric Poetry: A Commentary on Selected Larger Pieces (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 215–27; the seminal work of Rösler, Dichter und Gruppe, on Alcaeus’ use of mythical/historical allegory for political purposes; and the careful analysis of this fragment by Pallantza, Der Troische Krieg, pp. 47–56.

29    Pallantza, Der Troische Krieg, pp. 33–4 also discusses the likelihood that fr. 42 responds poetically to a contemporary situation in Mytilene.

30    The text is Voigt’s; the translation is Campbell’s, slightly modified.

31    E.g. G. W. Most, ‘Sappho Fr. 16.6–7 L-P’, Classical Quarterly 31 (1981), pp. 11–17; W. H. Race, ‘Sappho, Fr. 16 L-P. and Alkaios, Fr. 42 L-P.: Romantic and classical strains in Lesbian lyric’, Classical Journal 85 (1989), pp. 16–33; Segal, ‘Beauty, desire, and absence’; Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’.

32    A. Bierl, ‘Ich aber (sage), das Schönste ist, was einer liebt! Eine pragmatische Deutung von Sappho Fr. 16 LP/V’, Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica n.s. 74 (2003), pp. 91–124, argues that the speaker, in the role of thiasos leader, models for her youthful audience the values they should cultivate.

33    Most, ‘Sappho Fr. 16.6–7 L-P’, pp. 13–15.

34    Allan, Euripides: Helen, p. 13, argues on the contrary that Sappho condemns Helen by mentioning everyone she left behind – husband, daughter, parents – when she was led astray by Aphrodite.

35    Segal, ‘Beauty, desire, and absence’, p. 77, notes Helen’s ‘forgetting’ and Sappho’s ‘remembering’.

36    H. C. Fredricksmeyer, ‘A diachronic reading of Sappho fr. 16 LP’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 131 (2001), pp. 75–86, argues for a ‘diachronic’ reading of fr. 16, in which the audience’s response changes as the poem progresses. This is a fruitful and reasonable approach and I follow here its principles, but I disagree with Fredricksmeyer that the response moves from a positive to a negative ethical reading of Helen.

37    On the resemblances between these two passages see Race, ‘Sappho, Fr. 16 L-P’, pp. 24–5, and Worman, ‘The body as argument’, p. 171.

38    This analogy is eloquently drawn by Worman, ‘The body as argument’, p. 168.

39    For this fragment I use Davies’ text and Campbell’s translation, slightly modified.

40    Hutchinson, Greek Lyric Poetry, p. 237, argues that the song must have begun with a reference to the performance context in which Polycrates is being celebrated. This would follow the marked tendency of early lyric to return to the opening deictic situation after a mythological parallel, as shown by L. Edmunds, ‘Tithonus in the new Sappho and the narrated mythical exemplum’, in E. Greene and M. Skinner (eds), The New Sappho on Old Age (Hellenic Studies 38; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), pp. 58–70; it would also resemble the typical structure of Pindaric and Bacchylidean epinicians (also largely triadic), for which Ibycus – as Hutchinson notes – may be seen as a predecessor.

41    L. Woodbury, ‘Ibycus and Polycrates’, Phoenix 39 (1985), pp. 193–220, esp. p. 206, argues that this must be an erotic ode praising a young (still beardless) Polycrates, before he has become famous, but this is not necessarily the case. In a few Pindaric odes, for example, athletes in men’s (not only boys’) events could be praised for their beauty: Epharmostos of Opus, a wrestler, was kalos when he won at Marathon (Ol. 9.94), although it is possible that he was a boy at the time; the pancratist Aristokleides of Aegina is kalos and does deeds that match his appearance (N. 3.19).

42    Segal, ‘Beauty, desire, and absence’, p. 72: ‘Even her renowned beauty is only part of a larger scheme.’

43    Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’, p. 364, remarks that Helen ‘is simply objectified – as she is by men in the Iliad – as the prize of male struggle’.

44    Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’, pp. 366–7, argues that Ibycus is more likely to be claiming here his (Muse-given?) ability to create epic verse. I agree that the speaker is flaunting his skill at composing Homeric-sounding verse to outdo even Homer, and that he does not intend to disparage his ability to bestow everlasting praise on Polycrates. I would emphasise, however, that in doing so Ibycus differentiates himself from, and undercuts, Homer’s vaunted authority.

45    My discussion of meta-poetics in this fragment has been enriched by Hutchinson, Greek Lyric Poetry, pp. 235–56, esp. pp. 236, 249–50 and 254–5.

46    See also Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’, p. 367.

47    B. C. MacLachlan, ‘Personal poetry’, in D. E. Gerber (ed.), A Companion to the Greek Lyric Poets (Leiden: Brill, 1997), pp. 133–220, esp. p. 194 (citing Willein), however, notes that his epithet ἀγὸς ἀνδρῶν ‘leader of men’ (line 21) with a simple change of accent would become ἄγος ἀνδρῶν ‘accursed of men’.

48    Priam describes Troilus as ἱππιοχάρμην ‘chariot-fighter (?)’, as he lists his brave sons who were killed by Achilles (Iliad 24.257); the death of Troilus was also mentioned in the Cypria (Procl., Chrest. 1). See Woodbury, ‘Ibycus and Polycrates’, p. 204; E. Krummen, ‘Alcman, Stesichorus and Ibycus’, in F. Budelmann (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Lyric (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 184–203, esp. pp. 201–2.

49    Cf. Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’, pp. 369–70: ‘Helen’s beauty, the cause of heroic but “tearful” warfare, is displaced in favor of an appreciation of male beauty that transcends hostilities, uniting Greeks and Trojans in harmonious admiration.’

50    On the identity of these two Greeks and the restoration of this passage see J. P. Barron, ‘Ibycus: To Polycrates’, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 16 (1969), pp. 119–49, at pp. 130–1.

51    As Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’, p. 372 observes from a different perspective.

52    On the comparison of the two metals, and men, see Woodbury, ‘Ibycus and Polycrates’, pp. 201–3.

53    MacLachlan, ‘Personal poetry’, pp. 193–4, points out the inherent dangers in beauty, with the mention of Helen, Aphrodite and Cassandra, and suggests that this may look ahead, as if prophetically, to the troubles that will come about because of beautiful Polycrates. But Ibycus avoids any hint of dangers coming from masculine beauty, a topic he certainly could have opened up in connection with the guest-deceiver Paris.

54    I am persuaded by the arguments of Woodbury, ‘Ibycus and Polycrates’, pp. 203–5, and Hutchinson, Greek Lyric Poetry, pp. 253–5, to follow Wilamowitz in removing the stop attested at the end of line 46; thus the speaker promises ‘immortal fame for beauty’ to Polycrates as well as Zeuxippus and Troilus.

55    I do not mean to imply that the performance situation is not to some degree constructed, let alone invariable in reperformances of the song.

56    See again Marincola, ‘Herodotus and the poetry of the past’, and Boedeker, ‘Early Greek poetry as/and history’, for extended discussion.

57    See K. Raaflaub, ‘Ulterior motives in ancient historiography: What exactly, and why?’, in L. Foxhall, H.-J. Gehrke and N. Luraghi (eds), Intentional History: Spinning Time in Ancient Greece (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2010), pp. 198–210, for an overview of the question of ancient historians’ motives.

1		For recent general studies of poetry and history see J. Marincola, ‘Herodotus and the poetry of the past’, in C. Dewald and J. Marincola (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 13–28; D. Boedeker, ‘Early Greek poetry as/and history’, in A. Feldherr and G. Hardy (eds), The Oxford History of Historical Writing, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 122–47.
2		For example, C. P. Segal, ‘Beauty, desire, and absence: Helen in Sappho, Alcaeus, and Ibycus’, in Segal, Aglaia: The Poetry of Alcman, Sappho, Pindar, Bacchylides, and Corinna (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), pp. 63–83, on Sappho, Alcaeus and Ibycus; N. Worman, ‘The body as Argument: Helen in four Greek texts’, Classical Antiquity 16 (1997), pp. 151–203, on Sappho together with Iliad 3, Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen and Euripides’ Troades; and R. Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen in archaic lyric’, American Journal of Philology 131 (2010), pp. 349–91, on the Iliadic Helen compared with Helen in the Sappho, Alcaeus and Ibycus fragments.
3		I assume that the performance context is, at least to a degree, constructed rather than biographical; likewise, in using an author’s name, I refer to the persona of the speaker in that work – also to some degree a construction – rather than to a historical human being.
4		In the vast literature on the Palinode I have found especially useful the following studies: K. Bassi, ‘Helen and the discourse of denial in Stesichorus’ Palinode’, Arethusa 26 (1993), pp. 51–75; E. Pallantza, Der Troische Krieg in der nachhomerischen Literatur bis zum 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2005), esp. pp. 98–123; A. J. Beecroft, ‘This is not a true story: Stesichorus’s Palinode and the revenge of the epichoric’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 136 (2006), pp. 47–70; A. Kelly, ‘Stesikhoros and Helen’, Museum Helveticum 64 (2007), pp.1–21.
5		E.g. W. Allan (ed.), Euripides: Helen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 18–22; Bassi, ‘Helen and the discourse of denial’; Kelly, ‘Stesikhoros and Helen’. E. Cingano, ‘Quante testimonianze sulle palinodie di Stesicoro?’, Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 41 (1982), pp. 21–33, offers the strongest arguments for the existence of more than one Palinode.
6		Kelly, ‘Stesikhoros and Helen’, cites parallels from epic and lyric, noting that many mortals come into direct contact with gods in Homeric epic. Another parallel to the Palinode would be Pheidippides’ meeting with Pan on his way to Sparta, when the god chides the Athenians for not recognising his helpfulness to them; he later receives proper recognition in cult (Herodotus 6.105).
7		Pace Bassi, ‘Helen and the discourse of denial’, pp. 54–5 n. 6.
8		E.g. Isocrates, Encomium of Helen 10.64. On the basis of the Isocrates passage, D. Sider, ‘The blinding of Stesichorus’, Hermes 117 (1989), pp. 423–31, suggests that the singer’s blinding and sudden recovery of sight might have been mimed in performance.
9		This non-Homeric version of Helen’s role, perhaps even including the eidolon that went to Troy in her stead, may already have been transmitted in the Hesiodic corpus (see F 358 M–W), based on a paraphrase of Lycophron, Alexandra 822.
10		This point receives relatively little emphasis from commentators, with the exception of Kelly, ‘Stesikhoros and Helen’, pp. 3–6, who mentions it in connection with his thesis that the ‘Palinode’ was part of a single poem that began with the standard version of the Helen story, and then restarted (in the manner of some Homeric Hymns) with an address to the divine figure whose story has just been told. See D. Boedeker, ‘Paths to heroization at Plataea’, in Boedeker and D. Sider (eds), The New Simonides: Contexts of Praise and Desire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 148–63, esp. pp. 155–61, for an analogous argument that Achilles is directly addressed as an immortal in Simonides fr. el. 11.19–20 W².
11		Kelly, ‘Stesikhoros and Helen’, p. 3 and passim.
12		E.g. the dream sent to Agamemnon in Iliad 2.1–282; cf. the dream that forces Xerxes to invade Greece.
13		Bassi, ‘Helen and the discourse of denial’, argues perceptively that it is impossible for Stesichorus to recast entirely Helen’s dangerously unstable, female nature.
14		On the deictic significance of λόγος οὗτος ‘this story’ in the fragment see Beecroft, ‘This is not a true story’, pp. 49–52.
15		Beecroft, ‘This is not a true story’, p. 66. See further Beecroft’s stimulating analysis of ἔτυμος in the Stesichorus passage (pp. 55–66).
16		On cults of Helen see Herodotus 6.61–2; M. L. West, Immortal Helen: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on 30 April 1975 (London: Bedford College, 1975); L. L. Clader, Helen: The Evolution from Divine to Heroic in Greek Epic Tradition, Mnemosyne Suppl. 42 (Leiden: Brill, 1976), pp. 63–80, J. Larson, Greek Heroine Cults (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), pp. 65–70, 79–81; and D. Lyons, Gender and Immortality: Heroines in Ancient Greek Myth and Cult (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 44–7. See Pallantza, Der Troische Krieg, pp. 112–18, for a critical overview of the relationship between literary and religious-historical approaches to the Palinode.
17		A. Bergren, ‘Language and the female in early Greek thought’, Arethusa 16 (1983), pp. 69–95, esp. pp. 80–2; similarly Bassi, ‘Helen and the discourse of denial’, pp. 61–2, and Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’, pp. 390–1.
18		I use Voigt’s text of the fragment with my own translation.
19		H. Fränkel, Dichtung und Philosophie des frühen Griechentums: Eine geschichte der griechischen Epik, Lyrik und Prosa bis zur Mitte des fünften Jahrhunderts, 2nd edn (Munich: Beck, 1962), p. 169 n. 50; quoted in S. R. Slings, ‘The “I” in personal archaic lyric: An introduction’, in Slings (ed.), The Poet’s ‘I’ in Archaic Greek Lyric (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1990), pp. 1–30, esp. p. 1. Slings goes on to argue for a more varied ‘I’ in early lyric, especially in Archilochus, which would allow for a more autobiographical as well as a collective perspective.
20		So Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’, pp. 353–4. See the pioneering work of W. Rösler, Dichter und Gruppe: Eine Untersuchung zu den Bedingungen und zur historischen Funktion früher griechischer Lyrik am Beispiel Alkaios (Munich: W. Fink, 1980), for the argument that Alcaeus composed exclusively for his political/social circle at Mytilene. In my opinion, as that of most critics, Rösler’s views are overly restrictive, but his work demonstrates that much of Alcaeus’ corpus deals with contemporary concerns from the perspective of a self-conscious hetairia.
21		A number of similar phrases in tragedy refer to things the speaker does not know for sure, but which accord with the reality portrayed or discovered in the course of the drama; cf. Aesch. Supplices 230, Eur. IT 532–4, Eur. Helen 18–19, Eur. Phoen. 396. See again Beecroft, ‘This is not a true story’.
22		Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’, pp. 353–4, proposes that this distancing allows the sympotic audience to contemplate Helen without having to confront her erotic beauty.
23		E.g. G. Liberman, Alcée: Fragments (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1999), 1.36; Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’, pp. 356–9.
24		Proclus, Chrestomathia 1.
25		Pallantza, Der Troische Krieg, pp. 28–34, accepts Wilamowitz’s supplement παῖσ[τέλος φίλοισιν at line 2. The main problem with her reading, as I see it, is to reconcile οὐ τεαύταν (line 5), meaning that Peleus’ bride was ‘not such a one’ (as Helen), if Helen has not yet been mentioned in the poem. Pallantza, however, builds a strong case on structural and stylistic grounds that there was at least a stanza before the start of the extant fragment, in which Helen could have been mentioned.
26		A focus on Paris would also align the speaker with the Homeric tradition. As Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’, pp. 349–50, emphasises, no Homeric male blames Helen for the war. As if pre-empting any reproach, she blames herself – to Priam (Il. 3. 173–80), to Hector (Il. 6.344–58) and in the Odyssey to Menelaus and Telemachus (4.145).
27		For this citation I use Campbell’s text and translation, slightly modified.
28		See G. O. Hutchinson, Greek Lyric Poetry: A Commentary on Selected Larger Pieces (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 215–27; the seminal work of Rösler, Dichter und Gruppe, on Alcaeus’ use of mythical/historical allegory for political purposes; and the careful analysis of this fragment by Pallantza, Der Troische Krieg, pp. 47–56.
29		Pallantza, Der Troische Krieg, pp. 33–4 also discusses the likelihood that fr. 42 responds poetically to a contemporary situation in Mytilene.
30		The text is Voigt’s; the translation is Campbell’s, slightly modified.
31		E.g. G. W. Most, ‘Sappho Fr. 16.6–7 L-P’, Classical Quarterly 31 (1981), pp. 11–17; W. H. Race, ‘Sappho, Fr. 16 L-P. and Alkaios, Fr. 42 L-P.: Romantic and classical strains in Lesbian lyric’, Classical Journal 85 (1989), pp. 16–33; Segal, ‘Beauty, desire, and absence’; Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’.
32		A. Bierl, ‘Ich aber (sage), das Schönste ist, was einer liebt! Eine pragmatische Deutung von Sappho Fr. 16 LP/V’, Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica n.s. 74 (2003), pp. 91–124, argues that the speaker, in the role of thiasos leader, models for her youthful audience the values they should cultivate.
33		Most, ‘Sappho Fr. 16.6–7 L-P’, pp. 13–15.
34		Allan, Euripides: Helen, p. 13, argues on the contrary that Sappho condemns Helen by mentioning everyone she left behind – husband, daughter, parents – when she was led astray by Aphrodite.
35		Segal, ‘Beauty, desire, and absence’, p. 77, notes Helen’s ‘forgetting’ and Sappho’s ‘remembering’.
36		H. C. Fredricksmeyer, ‘A diachronic reading of Sappho fr. 16 LP’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 131 (2001), pp. 75–86, argues for a ‘diachronic’ reading of fr. 16, in which the audience’s response changes as the poem progresses. This is a fruitful and reasonable approach and I follow here its principles, but I disagree with Fredricksmeyer that the response moves from a positive to a negative ethical reading of Helen.
37		On the resemblances between these two passages see Race, ‘Sappho, Fr. 16 L-P’, pp. 24–5, and Worman, ‘The body as argument’, p. 171.
38		This analogy is eloquently drawn by Worman, ‘The body as argument’, p. 168.
39		For this fragment I use Davies’ text and Campbell’s translation, slightly modified.
40		Hutchinson, Greek Lyric Poetry, p. 237, argues that the song must have begun with a reference to the performance context in which Polycrates is being celebrated. This would follow the marked tendency of early lyric to return to the opening deictic situation after a mythological parallel, as shown by L. Edmunds, ‘Tithonus in the new Sappho and the narrated mythical exemplum’, in E. Greene and M. Skinner (eds), The New Sappho on Old Age (Hellenic Studies 38; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), pp. 58–70; it would also resemble the typical structure of Pindaric and Bacchylidean epinicians (also largely triadic), for which Ibycus – as Hutchinson notes – may be seen as a predecessor.
41		L. Woodbury, ‘Ibycus and Polycrates’, Phoenix 39 (1985), pp. 193–220, esp. p. 206, argues that this must be an erotic ode praising a young (still beardless) Polycrates, before he has become famous, but this is not necessarily the case. In a few Pindaric odes, for example, athletes in men’s (not only boys’) events could be praised for their beauty: Epharmostos of Opus, a wrestler, was kalos when he won at Marathon (Ol. 9.94), although it is possible that he was a boy at the time; the pancratist Aristokleides of Aegina is kalos and does deeds that match his appearance (N. 3.19).
42		Segal, ‘Beauty, desire, and absence’, p. 72: ‘Even her renowned beauty is only part of a larger scheme.’
43		Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’, p. 364, remarks that Helen ‘is simply objectified – as she is by men in the Iliad – as the prize of male struggle’.
44		Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’, pp. 366–7, argues that Ibycus is more likely to be claiming here his (Muse-given?) ability to create epic verse. I agree that the speaker is flaunting his skill at composing Homeric-sounding verse to outdo even Homer, and that he does not intend to disparage his ability to bestow everlasting praise on Polycrates. I would emphasise, however, that in doing so Ibycus differentiates himself from, and undercuts, Homer’s vaunted authority.
45		My discussion of meta-poetics in this fragment has been enriched by Hutchinson, Greek Lyric Poetry, pp. 235–56, esp. pp. 236, 249–50 and 254–5.
46		See also Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’, p. 367.
47		B. C. MacLachlan, ‘Personal poetry’, in D. E. Gerber (ed.), A Companion to the Greek Lyric Poets (Leiden: Brill, 1997), pp. 133–220, esp. p. 194 (citing Willein), however, notes that his epithet ἀγὸς ἀνδρῶν ‘leader of men’ (line 21) with a simple change of accent would become ἄγος ἀνδρῶν ‘accursed of men’.
48		Priam describes Troilus as ἱππιοχάρμην ‘chariot-fighter (?)’, as he lists his brave sons who were killed by Achilles (Iliad 24.257); the death of Troilus was also mentioned in the Cypria (Procl., Chrest. 1). See Woodbury, ‘Ibycus and Polycrates’, p. 204; E. Krummen, ‘Alcman, Stesichorus and Ibycus’, in F. Budelmann (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Lyric (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 184–203, esp. pp. 201–2.
49		Cf. Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’, pp. 369–70: ‘Helen’s beauty, the cause of heroic but “tearful” warfare, is displaced in favor of an appreciation of male beauty that transcends hostilities, uniting Greeks and Trojans in harmonious admiration.’
50		On the identity of these two Greeks and the restoration of this passage see J. P. Barron, ‘Ibycus: To Polycrates’, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 16 (1969), pp. 119–49, at pp. 130–1.
51		As Blondell, ‘Refractions of Homer’s Helen’, p. 372 observes from a different perspective.
52		On the comparison of the two metals, and men, see Woodbury, ‘Ibycus and Polycrates’, pp. 201–3.
53		MacLachlan, ‘Personal poetry’, pp. 193–4, points out the inherent dangers in beauty, with the mention of Helen, Aphrodite and Cassandra, and suggests that this may look ahead, as if prophetically, to the troubles that will come about because of beautiful Polycrates. But Ibycus avoids any hint of dangers coming from masculine beauty, a topic he certainly could have opened up in connection with the guest-deceiver Paris.
54		I am persuaded by the arguments of Woodbury, ‘Ibycus and Polycrates’, pp. 203–5, and Hutchinson, Greek Lyric Poetry, pp. 253–5, to follow Wilamowitz in removing the stop attested at the end of line 46; thus the speaker promises ‘immortal fame for beauty’ to Polycrates as well as Zeuxippus and Troilus.
55		I do not mean to imply that the performance situation is not to some degree constructed, let alone invariable in reperformances of the song.
56		See again Marincola, ‘Herodotus and the poetry of the past’, and Boedeker, ‘Early Greek poetry as/and history’, for extended discussion.
57		See K. Raaflaub, ‘Ulterior motives in ancient historiography: What exactly, and why?’, in L. Foxhall, H.-J. Gehrke and N. Luraghi (eds), Intentional History: Spinning Time in Ancient Greece (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2010), pp. 198–210, for an overview of the question of ancient historians’ motives.