Callimachus: The Hymns, Edited with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary ed. by Susan A. Stephens (review)
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Callimachus: The Hymns, Edited with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary ed. by Susan A. Stephens
Stephens has produced the best introduction to Callimachus’ Hymns available. It renders them supremely accessible, illuminating the poetry’s richness through topical lenses that articulate the introduction to each poem (deity/cult, sources/intertexts, Ptolemaic relevance) and deftly clarifying grammatical and dialectal difficulties along the way. The balance of depth, complexity, and clarity, together with faithful and thorough reference to relevant scholarship, makes this volume an ideal introduction to the Hymns for the scholar, graduate, and advanced undergraduate alike.
Among the introduction’s many sections are a clear and concise discussion of dating, a lucid treatment of the stemma codicum, and a thorough listing of relevant papyri that prepares one well for the commentary’s careful unpacking of textual difficulties. Students will also benefit from the discussion of papyri as a source, and from the preparatory charts of the epic-Ionic and Doric forms. The sections on poetic effects and hexameter, largely listings of examples, may overwhelm students prior to their tackling the hymns, but a good instructor can integrate this material as appropriate.
Of the maps (xv–xx), the most useful is the first, which illustrates neatly the southward movement within Hymns 1, 2, and 4 from the Greek mainland to Cyrene or Alexandria via an intermediary island. Maps 2, 5, and 6 could be more thorough. Many important locations, most notably in Hymns 3 (e.g., Sicily) and 4 (e.g., Thebes, the Peneius, Delphi), are not indicated, making it difficult to know when to consult the maps for the great many locations referenced.
The clean, well-edited Greek texts sit atop informative apparatus critici that abstain from excessive detail. Any major departures from previous editions are carefully addressed in the commentary and so are of great pedagogical value whether or not one agrees with a given reading. Among these departures is notably Stephens’ rejection of Doricizing emendations to words in Hymns 5 and 6 wherever those words allude to Attic-Ionic texts, raising the question whether cross-dialectal allusions would have been heard and appreciated.
The prose translations keep close to the Greek, but in places they disagree with the more precise commentary proper: πολυκτέανος, 2.35; χνόος, 2.37; Φενειός, 4.71; πασσυδίῃ, 4.159; ἀμπλακίης, 4.245; λαγόνας, 5.88; μάνδραι, 6.105. Other words simply go untranslated: τότε, 1.35; πάμπαν, 1.89; αἴλινα, 2.20; εὐ̑, 3.17; ἐξαπίνης, 3.103; ποτε, 3.206; πότνια, 3.210; δεινόν, 4.145; πολύ, 4.285; ἱστίη, 4.325; νῦν, 5.29; δα̑μον, 5.39; τουτάκι, 5.115; ἤδη, 6.105. Occasional errors of tense (ῥέζουσι, 3.200; ὄψεται, 3.249; ἐπήεισαν, 4.251, χαλέπτει, 6.70) obscure the etiological poet’s careful attention to time. Inconsistencies within the translation are minimal; Apollo’s title Καρνει̑ος is handled differently at 2.71 and 2.72/80, and Demeter’s title πουλυμέδιμνε differs in identical framing lines (6.2, 6.119). Other infelicities are Ἀθηναίων (4.47) translated “Athens,” ἠέρα (4.176) “aether,” ἐκόμησε (4.262) “bloomed,” ἵππω . . . κράνᾳ Ἑλικωνίδι (5.71) “spring of the Heliconian horse,” ἐκόλλασαν . . . γώνατα (5.83–84) “struck his limbs,” μὴ . . . λέγωμες (6.17) “do not speak,” θεάων (6.138) “divinities.”
The excellent commentary cites previous sources for mythological referents, parses obscure forms, and notes metrically remarkable lines. It observes poetic figures of speech, but not every example, leaving good room for discovery by [End Page 422] attentive students. Likewise, while citing a tremendous number of intra- and inter-textual allusions, the commentary declines to interpret them all, thus modeling inquiry and analysis while leaving plenty to the reader to pursue and interpret. Among the many pedagogically useful jewels are the paleographical notes, on the effect of damage to a line on the verso and recto of a hyparchetype (5.136, 6.23), for example, or on the transposition of lines 6.70–71. Regarding the commentary’s content, this reviewer would suggest only that at Hymn 4.30–35 Poseidon creates islands from mainland mountains, not from the seafloor, and that the “infinitive [ὁμαρτει̑ν, 6.129] for the third-person imperative . . . not common outside of legal contexts” has a syntactic and...
