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as rather "exist." Similarly, Verdam's attempt to contrast  (1) and  (13)24 founders on the fact that in line 17 Simonides uses  in a sense indistinguishable from that of  a few lines earlier. |
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Does this mean, then, that the two propositions are identical after all? Must we in despair simply accept Simonides' apparent self-contradiction as an allegedly characteristic feature of so-called archaic thought?25 Or, alternatively, must we adopt Wilamowitz's suggestion that Simonides first quotes the maxim, imposed upon him as a topic for poetry by Scopas, and then goes on to reject it (although this view involves among other defects an impossible meaning for  [12])?26 Fortunately, all escapes are not blocked. For two further features in these two passages remain to be considered: on the one hand, the determinants which Simonides adds to the first passage but which are lacking in the second one, the adverb  and  ; and on the other hand, one other word in the semantic core of the two passages in question,  (2, 13). Strangely enough, both features seem hitherto to have been almost entirely neglected in this connection;27 but it is only with their help that the puzzle can be resolved.  , to be sure, is the only word in these two phrases that occurs unchanged in both: but in itself it is capable of bearing two quite different meanings, encapsulated in the definition of Apollonius the Sophist,  .28 As  describes that which is hard to accomplish but capable nevertheless of being achieved, and is contrasted with "easy";29 as  describes that which no amount of effort can ever attain, and is contrasted with "possible." It is precisely the latter, euphemistic usage which is most common in ancient Greek anthropological generaliz- |
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24 Verdam (1928) 308, followed by Donlan (1969) 81 and Woodbury (1953) 156. |
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25 So e.g. Christ (1941) 15, Fränkel (1968) 724, and Scodel (1987) 36 n. 7. But the alleged involuntary discrepancies in such large-scale productions as the epics of Homer or Hesiod or the elegies of Solon cannot provide much help in explaining so blatant and deliberate a contradiction within scarcely ten lines in a small lyric ode. On the presumed illogicality of "archaic thought" in general, see especially Fränkel (1968) 4096; for criticisms of this approach to early Greek poetry see Most (1985) 2167. |
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26 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1913) 166ff., who seems to have been misled by the fact that the lines in question are indeed quoted as a challenge but by Protagoras in Plato's dialogue, not by Simonides in his poem. |
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27 Schütrumpf (1987) 1416 and Svenbro (1984) 12733 seem to be the only scholars to have at least partially recognized the importance of the additional determinants. But Schütrumpf introduces a distinction between two different ideals of perfection (between moral quality and tenor of life) which is quite foreign to Simonides' poem, and Svenbro's attempt to resolve the apparent contradiction by understanding  in line 1 as meaning "as revealed by poetry" requires giving the term an impossibly narrow meaning. And neither scholar sees the central ambiguity of  . |
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28 Apoll. Soph. 166.31 Bekker. For other ancient acknowledgements of this ambiguity, see Schol. ad Hom. Il. 16.620; Hesych. and Suda s.v.  ; Etym. Mag. 804.55. |
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29 E.g., Hom. Od. 11.156, 19.189; Theogins 464. |
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