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The Argonautic Program:
The Proemium (Argo. 1.1–22)

The high degree of self-consciousness that characterizes the work of Hellenistic poets and the Roman epigoni no longer requires introduction, explanation, or, for that matter, apology. Scholars over the past several decades have shown the remarkable extent to which these Greek and Roman artists in the composition of a poem simultaneously reflect upon its literary underpinnings with great ingenuity. A well-known example of this phenomenon is Callimachus's "negative priamel," in which he lists things he detests, professes to hate them all because they are common, and then suddenly addresses the specific issue at hand, the handsome Lysanias, whose love proves to be distressingly common (Epigr. 28 Pf.).^[1] Among the items that the poet contemns is the cyclic poem. In expressing his frustration with Lysanias, Callimachus at the same time establishes his view that the traditional post-Homeric epic appeals only to vulgar tastes;^[2] in doing so, he gives an unconventional twist to the priamel.^[3]

Not surprisingly, nowhere does the articulation of a poetic program appear more frequently than at the beginning of a poem

[1] A. Henrichs, "Callimachus Epigram 28: A Fastidious Priamel," HSCPh 83 (1979) 207–12 provides a very useful discussion of this poem.

[2] See A. W. Bulloch, "Hellenistic Poetry," The Cambridge History of Classical Literature , 1 (1985) 560.

[3] E.-R. Schwinge's monograph Künstlichkeit von Kunst (Munich 1986), despite my disagreement with his general thesis (see AJP 109 [1988] 447–49), offers an interesting and useful analysis of this epigram (pp. 5–9) and of the self-conscious nature of Alexandrian poetry (2–29). On the use of priamels in Hellenistic poetry in general, cf. W. H. Race, The Classical Priamel from Homer to Boethius , Mnemosyne Suppl. 74 (Leiden 1982) 99–109.

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or of a collection of poems. Again Callimachus provides the best example in the response to his critics set at the beginning of the second edition of the Ætia (fr. 1 Pf.). In addition to rebuffing the vituperative criticisms of his detractors, Callimachus identifies the kind of poetry that will follow in his new edition: not a continuous poem about a hero or a king in thousands of lines (i.e., something akin to a cyclic epic), but a work that is characterized by its brevity (

) and subtlety (). The contrast between long, sustained poetry on a single subject and short segments on different topics^[4] reverberates throughout the passage in a series of lively, contrasting images: Callimachus's short verse and his many years, the long flight of the cranes after killing the short Pygmies, and the long flight of the Massagetae's arrows in contrast to the sweet and small nightingales, the fat sacrificial victim and the slender Muse, the common highways versus unused paths, the braying of the ass against the sweet echo of the cicada, and finally the fate of Enceladus under Ætna as opposed to that of the dew-eating Tithonus.^[5] These colorful antitheses establish not only the kind of poetry that Callimachus writes and that the reader can expect to encounter in the new edition of the Ætia (attenuated accounts of topics handled in an unorthodox manner) but even the general organizing principle of contrasting ætia: the serene sacrifice to the Graces (Ætia fr. 3–7 Pf.) is set alongside the boisterous and blasphemous sacrifices to Apollo and Heracles (Ætia fr. 7–21 Pf. + SH 250–51); Heracles' victory over the Nemean lion makes a striking contrast with Molorchus's triumph over the Nemean mice (SH 254–69); Book 3 begins with Berenice's Nemean victory (ibid.), while Book 4 concludes with the catasterism of Berenice's lock of hair (Ætia fr. 110 Pf.). In the Proemium to the Argonautica , Apollonius too alerts the reader to the approach he will take in his epic; he does so not through an overt statement of purpose, but, like Callimachus, by subtle implication.

The Argonautica begins in an arresting fashion:

 . . . (1–2). The

[5] On this last contrast, cf. G. Crane, "Tithonus and the Prologue to Callimachus's Ætia ," ZPE 66 (1986) 269–78.

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phrasing, as has often been observed, belongs to the language of the Homeric Hymn, the closest parallel being h. Hom. 32.18–19 (

).^[6] One would easily suspect that Apollonius had this hymn in mind, were it not for the fact that the latter could well date to the Hellenistic era,^[7] and so in this case it is impossible to say with certainty who is imitating whom. Although an important point may elude us through our ignorance of the interrelationship of these two texts,^[8] the parallel is nonetheless instructive: through the striking hymnic phraseology, set conspicuously in the opening lines of the poem, Apollonius makes it clear that he will not be restricted in the exposition of his epic theme by considerations of genre.^[9] In sum, although Apollonius may be beginning an epic, the opening of his poem establishes the tone and manner of the more concise and limited hymn form. From Callimachus's thirteenth Iamb (fr. 203 Pf.) we learn that there existed purists at this time who eschewed such departures from traditional form. They criticized experimentalists, like Callimachus, who explored a variety of novel combinations in an attempt to revitalize poetry in the third century B.C. The opening words of the Argonautica provide a vivid statement about Apollonius's approach to poetic composition, which is in

[6] Besides the commentators ad loc. , cf. Händel 9; E. Bundy, "The Quarrel between Kallimachos and Apollonios, I: The Epilogue of Kallimachos' Hymn to Apollo," CSCA 5 (1972) 58; and V. De Marco, "Osservazioni su Apollonio Rodio, 1.1–22," Miscellanea di studi alessandrini in memoria di A. Rostagni (Turin 1963) 351–52.

[7] Cf. T. W. Allen, W. R. Halliday, and E. E. Sikes, The Homeric Hymns (Oxford 1963) 431.

[9] De Marco (supra n. 6) 354 also finds in Apollonius's Proemium the influence of Euripidean prologues; cf. T. M. Klein, "The Role of Callimachus in the Development of the Concept of Counter-Genre," Latomus 33 (1974) 229. S. Goldhill, The Poet's Voice: Essays on Poetics and Greek Literature (Cambridge 1991) 286–300, offers a fine reading of the Proemium as an instance of the "Kreuzung der Gattungen" (Kroll). P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford 1972) 1.625, on the other hand, does not hit the mark in saying that "the Argonautica was an epic of traditional form on a traditional theme" (italics mine).

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line with that of his Cyrenian contemporary; with such a beginning, the poet makes it clear that he will employ in his poem the traditional stock in trade of Greek poetry in an original and nontraditional way.

Another surprise in the Proemium is the delaying, and especially the phrasing, of the invocation to the Muses. With the exception of the Ilias Parva (fr. 1 Davies), no ancient Greek epic began without mentioning or alluding to one or all of these goddesses.^[10] Contrary to the usual practice, Apollonius begins instead from Apollo and addresses the Muses only after first identifying the subject of his poem, the Argonautic expedition, and describing its origin. Moreover, his invocation to the Muses is decidedly understated:

(22). The word has long been the subject of controversy. Some, following LSJ's interpretation of as the equivalent of , argue that the poet is ascribing a less important role to the Muses, who are, in this view, the poet's interpreters;^[11] others, in agreement with Seaton, understand this uncommon noun as a correlative of , and conclude that Apollonius asks the Muses not to be his interpreters, but the suggesters or inspirers of his song.^[12] The former view seems preferable in two ways. Not only does no other instance of the word support the meaning "inspirer,"^[13] but in fact the idea of "interpreter" corresponds with the role that Apollonius appears to assign the Muses

[10] As Blumberg 7 notes.

[11] Cf. A. Gerke, "Alexandrinische Studien (Der Streit mit Apollonios)," RhM 44 (1884) 135; Händel 10 n. 2; L. Paduano Faedo, "L'inversione del rapporto Poeta-Musa nella cultura ellenistica," ASNP 39 (1970) 377–86; M. Fusillo, Il tempo delle Argonautiche: Un' analisi del racconto in Apollonio Rodio (Rome 1985) 363–64, who calls Apollonius's Muses "ministre, collaboratrici"; and most recently, D. C. Feeney, The Gods in Epic (Oxford 1991) 90. Feeney's discussion of the role of the Muses throughout the poem (pp. 90–94) is especially insightful.

[12] E.g., R. C. Seaton, "Notes on Ap. Rhod. with Reference to Liddell and Scott," CR 2 (1888) 83–84; Mooney and Ardizzoni ad loc. ; and Vian 239 ad 22. On these and other Apollonian intrusions in the poem, see A. Grillo, Tra filologia e narratologia (Rome 1988) 9–67.

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on several occasions in the poem when he asks them to explain what is happening. At 3.1–5 he asks Erato—since she is the expert on love—to explain how Jason took advantage of Medea's love in order to acquire the fleece; at 4.1–5 he asks a Muse, this time unspecified, to explain whether Medea left Colchis out of love or fear; again at 4.552–56 he introduces the description of the Argonauts' journey from the Adriatic to the Tyrrhenian Sea by asking the Muses to tell how it happened. As Vian has noted, this somewhat academic mannerism recalls Callimachus's interview with the Muses in the Ætia .^[14] It is unnecessary, then, to ascribe to

a meaning that has no parallel. Apollonius does not belittle the Muses with this term, but rather he has in mind for them a function similar to the one they played in the first two books of the Ætia .

The role that Apollonius envisages for his Muses, moreover, finds parallel in Aratus's Phænomena , which may well have influenced the Argonautic Proemium.^[15] Like the Argonautica , the Phænomena begins with a hymn in which the poet takes his start from the god, in this case Zeus (

[Phæn. 1]; cf. [Argo. 1.1]), and concludes with an invocation to the Muses. There also exists a close structural similarity between the two prologues. In the Phænomena , a four-line invocation to Zeus (1–4) is balanced at the end of the proemium by a four-line greeting to Zeus and the Muses in which Aratus requests the assistance of the latter (15–18). In between lies the introduction to the topic of the poem, the constellations that Zeus provided in order to mark the seasons and call men to work; in a word, the god's (5–14). In the Argonautica , the Proemium is likewise framed with invocations: the first to Apollo, in which he summarizes the topic of the poem—the Argonauts and their expedition to Colchis (1–4)—and the corresponding invocation to the Muses, in which he prepares the reader for the catalogue that is to follow (18–22).^[16] The center of the Proemium contains an abbreviated

[14] Vian 239 ad 22, and Vian (3) 147 ad 4.2 and 94 n. 2.

[15] De Marco (supra n. 6) 350–52 argues this point quite successfully; cf. Fraser (supra n. 9) 635–36 on Apollonius's debt to Aratus.

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version of the incident that was responsible for initiating the expedition: Apollo's warning to Pelias that the man wearing only one sandal would plot to kill him, the appearance of that man, and the commissioning of the expedition to get rid of him (5–17).^[17] The central sections of each prologue thus feature gods who call men to work in their respective spheres of activity: Zeus has set the constellations in the sky to summon farmers to the fields, Apollo through his oracle ultimately led Jason to undertake his great contest. In short, as Zeus was the appropriate god for Aratus to celebrate at the beginning of his astronomical poem, so too Apollonius appropriately invokes Apollo not only as the god of poetry, but, more important, as the god of prophecy responsible for providing the oracular response that led to the heroic

celebrated by this poem.^[18]

Comparison of the opening of the Argonautica with that of the Phænomena gives us another perspective from which to see Apollonius's reference to the Muses as

. In his concluding prayer Aratus states: (17–18).^[19] The verb (cf. LSJ s.v. B) shows that Aratus is not asking the Muses to provide him with poetic inspiration but to substantiate the truth of his poem's content. This seems quite appropriate for a poet embarking on the poetic articulation of a scholarly star catalogue. If Apollonius had Aratus's prologue specifically in mind when writing his own, then we can say that the former borrowed not only the hymnal format and tripartite structure but also the academic role he ascribes to his Muses, whom he invites from time to time to comment on the action. If, on the other hand, he was not looking to the Phænomena , nonetheless the comparison is useful. For in addition to supporting the more natural sense of as "interpreter," this parallel with Aratus, in conjunction with the

[18] Mooney ad 1.1; Blumberg 7; Fränkel ad 1.1–4 (3); and others have noted the dual rationale for invoking Apollo.

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comparison with Callimachus's Muses made above, brings Apollonius's view of poetry in line with these Hellenistic writers, whose Muses would be more at home in a library than at a fountain thronged by sheep or cattle.^[20]

Finally, one other feature of the Proemium associates Apollonius's epic with contemporary attitudes toward the writing of poetry: the poet's refusal—or recusatio —to take up a subject that his theme would appear to demand; for Apollonius states explicitly that he will not describe the building of the Argo. Moreover, in his description of the topic he will not sing, Apollonius evocatively repeats a unique Homeric clausula:^[21]

Earlier poets  still celebrate  the ship
Argo , which was made under the advice of Athena.
But now instead I shall recount the race and the names of the
       heroes
the paths of the sea, and as many things as they did
in their travels.

Apollonius reminds us by his use of the Homeric phrase

that the building of the Argo was one of the most cherished themes of the old bards. The ancient singers and their expected repertoire of tales was in itself an epic topos, which recurs in several well-known Homeric passages. Apollonius here seems

[20] Cf. Hurst 9–35, who offers an interesting account of this particularly Alexandrian attitude, which he calls the "tentation du mode savant."

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deliberately to evoke one of the most famous of these bardic scenes—the very scene in which the clausula

makes its sole appearance in extant archaic literature. In the first book of the Odyssey , Penelope asks Phemius to stop singing the (Od. 1.326) and to turn to another topic:

Phemius, you know many other songs to charm human hearts,
songs about the deeds of men and gods, which  poets celebrate .
Take your seat and sing one of these, and let the others drink their
        wine
in silence. But stop singing this grievous
song, which brings constant pain to the heart
within my breast. I cannot forget the suffering that besets me.

Apollonius recalls but playfully inverts a basic notion of this scene. Penelope asks Phemius to sing one of the songs that poets commonly sing rather than the

that he was performing. Apollonius, on the other hand, implies that he will not sing about the building of the Argo because earlier poets have so worked the topic over that it has become too common.^[22] Moreover, inasmuch as Pelias's scheme, the motivation for the expedition, involves depriving the Argonauts of their (cf. line 17), quite appropriately the poet, unlike Penelope, rejects in favor of a tale. In sum, the poet's statement conforms to the advice that Apollo gave Callimachus as a young boy; like Callimachus, Apollonius refuses to follow in the steps of others (cf. Ætia fr. 1.21–28). The allusive style and the discriminating choice of topic are vivid indications of the kind of poem that the poet will offer his reader.^[23] Thus in his brief, but expressive, Proemium,

[22] Cf. Bundy (supra n. 6) 46–47, who notes the apologetic tone of the Argonautic lines.

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Apollonius reveals the esthetic principles that underpin his epic:

.^[24]

Structure

There remains another feature of the Proemium that I believe is also programmatic: the structure itself.^[25] In lines 1–4, as briefly outlined above, Apollonius begins with an invocation to Apollo and identifies the subject of his poem, the Argonautic expedition. These lines correspond with lines 18–22, where the poet turns to the Catalogue as the starting point for the narrative and ends with an invocation to the Muses. In the central section of the Proemium, lines 5–17, the poet presents in an extremely abbreviated form the Vorgeschichte of the expedition.^[26] Even this section possesses a unifying structure of its own. Lines 5–7 contain Apollo's prophecy to Pelias that he would die at the hands of the man who wore only one shoe; the next seven lines, 8–14, present the appearance of Jason at Pelias's sacrifice offered to Poseidon and all the gods, except Hera, and Pelias's recognition of the fated man; and lines 15–17 conclude with Pelias's plot to get rid of Jason. The Proemium, then, has the shape outlined on the following page.

We have seen that the hymnic opening, the use of the recusatio motif, and the academic role assigned to the Muses all have programmatic implications; they lead us to expect other resemblances in the Argonautica to the poetry of Callimachus or of Aratus, thereby advertising, in part, the nature of the narrative the reader is to expect. I find the structure of the Proemium to be

[24] Pace Fraser (supra n. 9) 632–33 et passim , who insists that although Callimachus and Apollonius share an interest in etiology and employ the same linguistic practice, that typical of Alexandrian writers of the period, temperamentally and stylistically they "face in contrary directions" (633). In my opinion, Fraser (cf. 749–54) trusts too much in the ancient biographical tradition.

[25] Cf. Hurst's discussion of this feature of the Proemium (39–44).

[26] Fränkel ad 1.1–233 provides the most thorough analysis of what Apollonius includes and leaves out in the terse prehistory of the expedition; cf. also Händel 9–14.

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no less programmatic in this sense: it furnishes an "example," to use Hurst's term,^[27] of the organizational principle that Apollonius will follow for the rest of the poem. The basic building block that can be observed from the analysis of the Proemium and that Apollonius will use in different configurations throughout the poem is ring composition. As I mentioned above in the Introduction, the employment of this structural device will vary from the simple ring (A–B–A ), to the ring within the ring, as here in the Proemium (A–B [a–b-a ]–A ), and to other more complicated variations that suit the content and special focus of an episode or part of an episode. The ring provides a useful way for the poet to organize a vast amount of legendary, mythological, historical, and geographical information and at the same time to call attention to important points that might get lost in what is an extremely involved and learned narrative. In the body of the poem, as in the Proemium, Apollonius consistently gives central position to prominent images, to sudden divine or quasi-divine appearances, and very often to significant allusions that guide and inform our understanding of the section at hand.

By omitting in his introduction much of the prehistory, which—in line with archaic practices—unfolds in the course of the poem,^[28] and by articulating his Proemium in the ring format, Apollonius focuses on the ætion of the Argonautic expedition (Apollo's prophecy to Pelias and its fulfillment) and, in particular, on the

[27] Hurst 43.

[28] This is well established by Händel 11–12.

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ominous appearance of Jason

, which lies in the center of this central section. The picture given to us by Apollonius, so different from the heroic account of the same scene in Pindar's Pythian 4 (70–171), while revealing little about the personality of Jason, nonetheless suggests something about this central figure.^[29] Jason will lead the expedition not because of any discernible qualities or ambition on his part, but because he happened to have crossed the Anaurus when he did, thereby losing a sandal. As we learn later on, even Hera's affection for him arises not out of respect for his heroic virtues, but because he was a courteous fellow who once helped an old lady cross a river (Argo. 3.61–73). In fact, this rather unspectacular "man of the people" (, 7)^[30] will successfully complete his (15) not through traditional heroic virtues but by being at the right place and knowing and influencing the right people at the right time, especially women. Vian suggests that recalls at Pindar P. 4.78^[31] With Pindar's ode in mind, one might well believe that Apollonius was trying to improve on Pindar's version of the oracle by making it more specific. Yet the distinctively unheroic outlook and behavior of the epic's protagonist that the reader will encounter in the course of the poem contrast with Pindar's noble hero. Jason gives no indication of being anything other than a rather ordinary young man^[32] who has been thrust into his position by his ingratiating manner and by the accidental loss of his shoe. In short, nothing in the picture of Jason, which the structure of the Proemium sets in relief, leads one to believe that Jason will prove to be a dynamic hero of the Homeric type.

[30] So Vian 50 n. 2, pace A. Platt, "Apollonius III," Journal of Philology 35 (1919) 72.

[31] Vian ibid.

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The Argonautic program, though subtle, is clear. The reader is led to expect an untraditional epic whose esthetics are Callimachean and whose narrative will be organized in such a way that the most important images and allusions are structurally highlighted. Moreover, in establishing the narrative technique he will use, Apollonius has also given us a suggestive glimpse of the poem's central character, and what we observe might equally be considered programmatic. The "hero" of the epic who undertakes the seemingly impossible

, much as he does in the Proemium, throughout the rest of the poem does not act or create possibilities for action on his own; rather he shows up at the right place and meets the right people at the right time. Thus, Apollonius invites the reader to infer from both the style and content of his Proemium that his epic will not be yet another Homericizing in many thousands of lines featuring the typical archaic hero.

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