of Ἀργείας, Τροΐ̣ω (4), she is maddened (5), she abandons her child (7) under the influence of Zeus’ child (10, possibly Aphrodite), she remains responsible in the adonean (ἔν]νεκα κήνας 14), and the anaphora of πολλ- (15, 16), together with the shift into past tenses and the application to the chariots of the usually personal epic verb ἤριπεν (16), underlines the disastrous results of her action. We have no way of knowing how long this poem was, but Alcaeus’ negative judgment of Helen dominates the selection and sequencing of the story, i.e., from her following Paris (3–6), abandoning her home (7–10), and then causing destruction (11–16f.). Similarly evaluative coloring is of course found in epic poetry, but the narrative in the latter is typically more full, more clearly progressive and sequential. Consider, for example, Agamemnon in the Underworld when relating (through Odysseus) his death (Od. 11.409–26), which is told both to answer Odysseus’ query about what had happened (397–403) and, more explicitly, to illustrate the treachery of womankind (427–434): though the behavior of Clytemnestra is clearly negatively formed, the story is given in full, and includes Aigisthos’ behavior, the death of his comrades, of Cassandra, and Clytemnestra’s poor treatment of her husband. The wider narrative context, once more, sits together with epic’s ability or tendency toward more capacious and progressive storytelling.
VII Ibycus’ Epic Lesson: Flattering Polycrates
So far we have seen a variety of lengths, details, and approaches to heroic myth, but the longest extant example of a mythical narrative before Stesichorus (see below) comes in the so-called “Polycrates Ode” by the mid-sixth-century BC poet Ibycus of Rhegium (in Italy) (fr. S 151 PMGF).36 This composition was written to praise Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, and did so by associating him with the great heroes of the Trojan War. Here the assertion of lyric dialect and language combines a clear appropriation and recreation of epic norms: for instance, the expression Δαρδανίδα Πριάμοιο (“of Dardanus’ son Priam” 1) combines the standard epic form of Priam’s name with a patronymic showing a non-epic, Doric inflection (Δαρδανίδα ~ Δαρδανιδάο).37 Moreover, lines 20–22 (τῶν] μὲν κρείων Ἀγαμέ̣[μνων / ἆ̣ρ̣χε Πλεισθ[ενί]δας βασιλ̣[εὺ]ς̣ ἀγὸς ἀνδρῶν / Ἀτρέος ἐσ[θλὸς π]άις ἔκγ̣[ο]νος “their leader was powerful Agamemnon/the Pleisthenid, king, leader of men/noble trueborn son of Atreus”) obviously allude to an entry in the Iliad’s Catalogue of Ships with the typical epic formula κρείων Ἀγαμέμνων “powerful Agamemnon” (41x Il., 1x Od., 1x Little Iliad), though the entry is also “lyricized” by the non-epic vocalism for the patronymic Πλεισθ[ενί]δας (~ Πλεισθενίδης). Incidentally, the genealogy given here combines the Homeric tradition that Agamemnon was the son of Atreus with the Hesiodic conception that he was Pleisthenes’ son (Hes. frr. 194–195 M–W): Ibycus sides with Homer,38 but includes Hesiod’s tale. Finally, the expression κλέος ἄφθιτον “glory imperishable” reiterates the creation of a mixed lyric/epic tradition, since this epic phrase (Il. 9.413, Hes. fr. 70.5 M–W) had already been appropriated by Sappho (fr. 44.4 [below]).39
This reproduction and reworking of epic language is obviously aided by the dactylic rhythm of the triad (i.e., strophe/antistrophe/epode) which, as with the stanzaic constructions examined earlier, affords the poet semantic opportunities of a sort denied to epic: note, e.g., the considerable syntactical continuity within the units of each triad (e.g., 4–5, 13–14, etc.), but the strong pause between them (9–10, 22–23, etc.). Moreover, the enclosed two triads have the same structure—refusal to sing about the Trojan War in the usual way (10–12 f., 23–6 f.), then the Greek ships coming to Troy (14–19, 27–31), followed by entries which allude to the Catalogue of Ships (20–22, 32–35)—which helps to underline the self-consciously novel nature of the final comparison (see below), but which also focuses on Ibycus’ advertisement of his decision not to give a standard treatment of the material, most notably perhaps in his refusal to invoke the Muses, that standard source of epic inspiration and authority, rather than merely noting where their narrative preference would otherwise take him (23–24).
Indeed, the poem self-consciously manipulates, recreates, and refuses epic norms throughout. Ibycus reframes the war and its epic treatment through the decidedly un-epic erotic theme with which the text closes, as Polycrates is praised by being set among a series of impressive male figures specifically for his looks (“for these men there will always be a share of beauty;/so you too, Polycrates, will have glory imperishable/as can be in song and my fame” 46–48).40 The very structure of the myth seems to highlight this eroticism in moving from female to male beauty: the war is thematized in the first triad in terms of the female, as a contest for Helen’s physical form (5) and a result of Aphrodite’s deceptive doom (9).41
VIII Love and War 2: Sappho fr. 44
But perhaps the most well-known reframing of an apparently epic story in lyric modality comes in Sappho fr. 44, which tells the story of the wedding of Hector and Andromache. The extant portion of the text opens with Idaios apparently announcing the imminent arrival of Andromache, and is then concerned with the preparations to receive her and the following celebrations in Troy.42 Once typically classed as one of Sappho’s epithalamia (“wedding-songs”) though it refers to no contemporary wedding, this poem exploits both that convention and its dactylic rhythm to produce the most recognizably “epic” of archaic lyric poems before Stesichorus. A stichic poem adding to the epic resonance, each of its verses contains an invariable number of syllables (fourteen) with a strong dactylic rhythm (× × ‒ ˘ ˘ ‒ ˘ ˘ ‒ ˘ ˘ ‒ ˘ ‒). This allows many epic features, on the level of meter (e.g., line 5, where -[ο]ι is shortened before ἄ- in an instance of “epic” correption, a prosodic feature not usually found in Aeolic lyric), language (κλέος ἄφθιτον 4),43 and narrative convention: the story proceeds in a strictly sequential manner, there is an unparalleled (at least from our examples above) use of character speech with a closing “formula” (4–11; for ὢς εἶπ’ cf. Homeric ὣς φάτο etc.), a catalog of Andromache’s dowry (7–10) and even a refraction of the typical epic departure scene (13–20).
Unsurprisingly, scholars have tried to link this poem with the Iliad, casting it as a foreboding pastiche-prediction of the couple’s future within, and predicted by, the epic.44 Certainly Homer knew the story but other epics, such as the cyclic Cypria and whatever preceded it,45 might have told it, alongside the wedding of Helen and Paris (already encountered in Sa. fr. 16 and Alc. fr. 283). Equally, some scholars have viewed the poem in positive terms, as a joyous celebration of the couple’s limited but still glorious future.46 Yet epic weddings are not generally happy affairs,47 and the marriage inevitably invokes the fall of Troy and the death of their son Astyanax, both popular themes in early epic,48 which sits ill with the apparent purpose of an epithalamium, even one which is something of a generic oddity.
Aside from the question of sources, fr. 44 is typically Sapphic in its emphasis on the experience and perspective of women: Andromache’s praise (8–10) looks forward to the joyful Trojan women participating in the ceremonies (14–16, 23–31), the couple’s “imperishable glory” (4) is equally hers as it is Hector’s, while the promise and value of her person, augmented by the dowry-catalog but also the detailed, itemized description of the whole city’s welcome, contrast powerfully with Troy’s unstated future. As Sappho reframes the epic world, the female presence within it becomes as prominent and visible as the male.
So the lyric experiment and interaction with epic in the Archaic period consisted of several strategies of engagement, and several opportunities for poetic choice: appropriation and
