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Simonides' Ode to Scopas in Contexts* |
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Interpretation and Context |
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How do texts come to generate interpretations? Under what circumstances, and by what mechanisms, can a text challenge people in such a way that they end up finding no more appropriate response than to interpret it? The Greeks themselves were fascinated from earliest times by those forms of discourse for which a challenge to interpretation was a central component of the original intention and for which therefore successful and unsuccessful responses could usually be distinguished unambiguously: for example oracles (whose extraordinary prominence in early Greek literature and history is well known1), maxims (already attached at an early period to the greatest sages, as fruit and explanation of their success2), laws (the privileged form in ancient Greece for attempts to control social behavior3), and riddles (at least some Greeks were even capable of believing that Homer had died because of his inability to solve one rather silly one4). On the other hand, the Greeks were more reluctant to theorize about (though not to |
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* This article is a revised version of a lecture delivered in various forms between December 1988 and February 1989 at the Wissenschaftskolleg in (West) Berlin, at the annual convention of the American Philological Association on a panel entitled "The Challenge of the Text," and at the Université de Lille. My praise goes to my hosts and audiences for their criticism and discussion, and in particular to André Laks. Any blame attaching to the conclusions and errors presented here remains my own. |
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1 The lord whose oracle is at Delphi utters pronouncements for which interpretation is neither unnecessary ( ) nor impossible ( ), but which can be interpreted successfully or unsuccessfully ( ). Heraclitus' fragment (22 B 93 Diels-Kranz), itself a quasi-oracle, combines a riddle which can (apparently) be solved easily (which lord has an oracle at Delphi? but then again, what is a lord?) with an enigma which cannot be reduced to any single answer (what precisely does  mean?). |
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2 In this case the correct interpretation which the text challenges its recipient to adopt involves not so much a verbal formulation enunciated once as rather a pattern of behavior followed throughout one's life. |
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3 Singly and in groups, laws already tend to be attached to the seven sages; throughout Greek philosophy, most notably in the Platonic tradition, they continue to represent the noblest achievement of the philosopher. |
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4Vita Homeri Plutarchi 6171, Vita IV.1722, V.3547, VI.5661 Allen; for variants cf. Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi 323333 and Vita Herodotea 492506 Allen (» Suda s.v. "OmhroV 530.12531.1 Adler). See the useful collection of material in Schultz (1914) 62125. |
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