Review of Gilbert Lawall, Theocritus' Coan Pastorals

GILBERT LAWALL. Theocritus' Coan Pastorals. A Poetry Book. Published by The Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington, D. C. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1967. Pp. vi + 146; 1 pl. $5.00. This highly original study, the first in a series to be published by The Center for Hellenic Studies, considers Idylls 1-7 as a separate collection, organized as a harmonious unit for publication during or soon after Theocritus' sojourn on Cos. A child of his times, Theocritus gave voice in his " Coan " poetry book to " the gradually increasing split between man's real and ideal worlds traceable in the late fifth and fourth centuries B. C." (p. 117). Idylls 1 and 2 (the "pastoral-urban diptych" of Chapter I) juxtapose the idealized love of Thyrsis and the goatherd in the country with the frustration of Simaetha in the city, thus establishing the initial contrast which preoccupies the poet throughout his pastoral works. The erratic behavior of lovers in 2 contrasts with the steadfastness of Daphnis in 1, a pastoral hero who derives his greatness from the figures of Prometheus and Hippolytus in Attic tragedy (pp. 19-21). Following more recent trends of interpretation Notably those of Kühn in Hermes, LXXXVI (1958), pp. 40-79; of van Groningen in Mnemosyne, XI (1958), pp. 293-317 and XII (1959), pp. 24-53; of Lasserre in Rh. M., CII (1959), pp. 307-30; and of Puelma in Mus. Helv., XVII (1960), pp. 144-64. in his seventh chapter, Lawall considers the Thalysia to be a celebration of Theocritus' literary productivity on Cos. Theocritus, the narrator of Idyll 7, signifies withdrawal into his " private " world by representing himself as two personae, Lycidas and Simichidas. Lycidas is a bucolic poet par excellence who sings of the nobility of a herdsman's love and the joys of the countryside, attempting to win thereby the heart of a young nobleman. His perpetual grin and goatherd's attire identify him as a satyr (p. 81; Lawall offers in the frontispiece a photograph of a Hellenistic satyr in the Agora Museum to corroborate his suggestion). Whatever the value of this charming idea, Lawall is correct in emphasizing the supernatural aura about the figure of Lycidas which lends his appearance the mark of an epiphany. Simichidas' song is of city-love, and holds pragmatic advice not only for Aratus, but also for Lycidas (p. 94). The two songs of Id., 7, 52-127 thus repeat the motif of the initial diptych (the contrast between country and city, between ideal love and emo-tional disillusion). At the same time, the harvest festival represents a recapitulation of Theocritus' poetic activity on Cos. Phrasidamus and Antigenes are thanked for their patronage through a series of metaphors connoting literary production (pp. 78-9, 108). The spring of Burina (7, 6) functions like Hippocrene as a source of inspiration, and the encounter with Lycidas evokes the circumstances of Hesiod's Dichterweihe. At the end of the poem, the rustic setting exists for Theocritus alone; his companions, and with them his "public" role, have faded from view. The water of the nymphs' cave (Burina), the cicadas, bees, fruits, and wine mixed by Castalian nymphs become symbols for poetic activity (pp. 102-7). The harvest is Theocritus' own; the wine is four years old (7, 147) because, as Lawall ingeniously suggests, Theocritus' literary activity on Cos has lasted four years (p. 122). Besides reflecting the initial diptych, Idyll 7 embraces motifs, verbal reminiscences, and structural devices from all the Coan pastorals, which seems to validate consideration of the collection as a unit (pp. 111-16). Functional connections among the intervening poems, however, are often elusive. Idyll 3, the comic paraclausi-thyron, is said to relieve the heavy drama of 1 and 2 (p. 41). In Chapters IV and V, Idylls 4 and 5 are viewed as two aspects of romantic entanglement in which human behavior is defined in terms of animal love. Lawall decides that Comatas wins the contest of Idyll 5 because the goatherd is "another incarnation of Theocritus' favorite figure of the passionately desirous lover" (p. 65). A reference to the words of Palaemon in Vergil, Ecl., 3, 109-10 might have offered further corroboration. The sixth Idyll, an echo of the first in its idealization of love between herdsmen, is addressed, like the song of Simichidas in 7, to Aratus as a didactic poem (pp. 72-3). The book concludes with a two-part Appendix which examines, first, the arrangement of the first eight Mimes of Herondas. Lawall believes that these poems, like Theocritus' "Coan" collection, form a unity of interrelated themes and conclude with a programmatic piece. Since Herondas' collection is also Coan, Lawall suggests that one author had influenced the other. The fragments of a ninth Mime in the Herondas papyrus, which would seem to embarrass Lawall's reconstruction, is explained away as "the beginning of a second volume" or of a series of poems not included in the original work (p. 138, n. 2). Finally, a literary biography is attempted for Theocritus, in which a second " harvest of poems" is suggested for the end of Theocritus' stay at Alexandria; this collection would have "swallowed up" the first "Coan" book (p. 123). The hypothesis of a Coan collection is a valid and workable one. The extent of this collection, however, remains a matter for continued speculation. Lawall's examination of the arrangement of poems in the various MSS yields few conclusive results (pp. 108-10). The author himself concedes that Idylls 10-14 may have been written on Cos, and that they contain many verbal reminiscences of the "Coan" book (pp. 109; 122; 136, n. 41). The tenth and eleventh poems in particular share so many traits in common with 1-7, including the basic philosophical outlook so well characterized by Lawall, that it seems impossible to consider them separately. Though the idea of a Leitmotiv interrelating the pastoral Idylls seems sound, Lawall's theory of a basic tension in Theocritus be-tween hard reality and tranquil dream appears to break down when he explains this tension in terms of generalized antithetical forces. It is difficult, for instance, to agree that the rustic child on the cup of Idyll 1, 29-56 opposes his "chaste innocence (Artemis)" to the " passionate love (Aphrodite)" of the men on the other side (p. 30). In fact, the child is as much in trouble as the lovers, for his breakfast, like his grapes, is about to be plundered. The major theme of the triptych would seem to be the travails of human life at all ages. The cup as a whole contrasts with bucolic tranquillity; the reader can hover peacefully in Thyrsis' dream world, admiring and even enjoying a static panorama of human struggle framed forever in ivy and acanthus. Theocritus again seems to have achieved more in the song of Simichidas (7, 96-127) than a mere "inner tension between commitment to the city on the one hand and delight in the countryside on the other" (p. 101). This tension is illusory. The song is a city song, and does not end in the country; in its rustic metaphor, however, and in its allusion to bucolic themes (among others), it represents a perfect integration of urbanity and rusticity. Readers may find that Lawall's fine sensitivity to Theocritean nuance is sometimes carried too far. Surely Battus has been gaping after the heifer in 4, 53 because he fears she may devour the olive-shoots (cf. 4, 44-5), and not because of "the gross physicality of Battus' erotic intentions vis à vis the heifer." Nor is it easy to believe that the thorn in Battus' foot is "a kind of rustic counterpart to Eros' shafts" (p. 49). In his fifth chapter, the author seems to take the invective of Idyll 5 too seriously, and to find a more melodramatic meaning for this poem than it will bear. If the obscene jibes be understood in terms of the mime's debt to Old Comedy, they will imply no true emotional involvement. Lawall's fundamentally sound interpretation of the fifth poem (based on its title, The Nature of Goatherds and Shepherds) is also obscured by the numerous "erotic overtones" found in the flora and fauna to which the herdsmen allude (pp. 58-60). Not even the cicada escapes erotic significance here, though he later returns to his more traditional function as a symbol of the poet in Lawall's convincing analysis of Idyll 7 (p. 104). There can no longer be any doubt that the theme of the Thalysia is Theocritus' own poetry. Though the Roman poet is not mentioned by Lawall, it may be pointed out that Vergil has left generous hints favoring this interpretation in the ninth Eclogue, which borrows heavily from the Thalysia in structure, language, and theme. Lawall does much to lift Theocritus from the shadow cast by his Mantuan counterpart, whose pastoral vision, though sometimes more sublime, was often diverted from its natural course and coerced into the Roman mold. WILLIAM BERG. STANFORD UNIVERSITY.