Allusion and Structure

Two features of Apollonius's narrative style are particularly conspicuous both in Book 1 and throughout the rest of the poem: his ubiquitous allusion to other writers, especially Homer, and the carefully balanced structural organization of his episodes. In examining the evolution of Jason's heroic role,^[8] I have found it essential to identify the various subtexts that inform our understanding of the narrative and to observe the structure of an episode that in many cases sets in relief the imitation of one or more significant passages.

Allusion

Even without the aid of the numerous studies available on Apollonian imitation, a reader familiar with the Iliad and Odyssey who comes to the Argonautica for the first time would immediately observe that the Alexandrian poet borrows heavily from the Homeric poems.^[9] In composing his epic, Apollonius has successfully

created what Emile Cahen has styled the "presque homérique."^[10] The poet not only employs Homer's vocabulary and syntax, either with slight variation (imitatio cum variatione ) or in inverted form (oppositio in imitando ),^[11] he also reproduces variæ lectiones ,^[12]hapax and dis legomena in the Iliad and Odyssey^[13] and semantic unica in the Homerica ,^[14] imitates Homeric ambiguities,^[15] and extends the number of Homeric defective verbs.^[16] Apollonius even appears to enter into debates with other scholars on issues of usage or interpretation of Homeric vocabulary by featuring a word in a context that requires his particular solution to the philological controversy.^[17] In short, it is readily apparent that Apollonius had it in mind to produce a lexical analogue to the Homeric poems.^[18]

It is not reasonable to assume, however, that the successful creation of a convincing "presque homérique" as a kind of poetic instantiation of his philological research was Apollonius's main goal. As it stands, the manifestly Homeric texture of the narrative naturally brings with it a whole array of generic expectations: the invocation of the Muse, the catalogue, the duel, and the heroic choice, to mention but a few. These and other canonical or celebrated features of the Homeric poems, when they occur in transmogrified form in the Argonautica , invite comparison with their archaic models. As I shall argue, Apollonius turns his audience to specific Homeric texts in order to set up a contrast between the traditional action and outlook of the ancient heroes and those of his own. The Argonautic narrative is thus not a glossographical landscape whose primary function is to provide a mythic backdrop for a scholar's academic wars, although these are waged, but rather an evocative setting for the achievement of a truly heroic feat by a less than heroic figure who turns out to be a kind of Alexandrian Yankee in King Pelias's court. In what follows, I shall study the parallels and contrasts between the Hellenistic actors and their literary stage by focusing on the particular words, phrases, or lines whose wider settings entail situations that are similar to, identical to, or exactly the opposite of the new Argonautic context. For often when we see the heroes and heroines of the Argonautica in contexts reflecting specific Homeric incidents, the stark difference between the two worlds becomes all the more marked. Herein lies the special power and attraction of the allusive technique.

I shall call special attention to the more complex instances of allusion where Apollonius "contaminates"—to use the term suggested by Terence (cf. An. 16) and adopted by many modern scholars^[19] —several passages that one might describe as non ita

dissimili argumento (ibid. 11). The episode in which Apollonius describes Jason leaving home offers a good example of such contaminatio (examined at length in Chapter 3). The poet casts the response to Jason's departure in such a way that he recalls various passsages in the Iliad where Homeric characters were responding to the death (actual and threatened) of Hector; in particular, Jason's mother, Alcimede, calls Andromache to mind. Moreover, when portraying Alcimede's desperate reaction to her son's imminent departure from home, Apollonius compares her to a young girl "falling upon and embracing" ( ) her old nurse. In point of fact,   is a hapax legomenon found at Od. 8.523, where the tearful Odysseus is likened to a woman falling upon the body of her recently slain husband who was fighting on behalf of the city, a situation similar to that encountered by Andromache. Such contaminationes do not merely underscore the high level of originality in Apollonius's manipulation of the Homeric poems and other earlier and contemporary poetry; rather, the points where two or more literary models intersect below the surface of the narrative frequently add to the reader's understanding and appreciation of the narrative proper.

Apollonius by no means restricts his glance to the Homeric poems. The influence of practically all areas of previous and contemporary literature and scholarship can be observed, although understandably to a lesser degree than that of Homer. Of particular note are Pindar's fourth Pythian , Attic tragedy, and the poetry of Callimachus, especially the Ætia and Hecale .^[20] The traditional heroic Jason to be found in Pindar's account of the Argonautic expedition told in the fourth Pythian stands in sharp contrast with Apollonius's Jason. In the opening of the poem, Apollonius appears to call this contrast to the reader's attention (Chapter 1).

In the case of tragedy,^[21] in addition to introducing tragic vocabulary into his epic,^[22] Apollonius imported the tragic debate and monologue, especially in Book 3. Foremost among the Athenian plays that inform our reading of the Argonautica is Euripides' Medea . R. L. Hunter well summarizes the importance of this play in the reading of the Alexandrian epic:^[23]

A[pollonius] assumes in his readers an intimate knowledge of this famous play, and its action hangs over Arg. even when it is not specifically recalled. More significant than the actual foreshadowing of Jason's abandonment of Medea through the figure of Ariadne and of Medea's infanticide is the constant interplay between the arguments and gestures of the two texts; A[pollonius] models his Jason and his Medea with an eye to their "subsequent" history in Euripides' tragedy. The two texts become mutually explicative; Arg. shows us how the origins of the tragedy lay far back, and the tragedy lends deep resonance and "tragic" irony to the events of the epic.

The "'subsequent' history in Euripides' tragedy" will surface in Jason's departure from home (Chapter 3), the sailing of the Argo from Pagasae (Chapter 5), and Jason's encounter with Hypsipyle on Lemnos (Chapter 6).^[24] There are a number of verbal points of contact between the Argonautica and the surviving poems and fragments of Callimachus. Two passages in Book 1 of the Argonautica that seem to reflect Callimachean models will

receive special attention: Jason's prayer to Apollo on the beach at Pagasae (Chapter 4) and the celebration of Rhea's mysteries on Mount Dindymon (Chapter 7). Finally, it would appear that the Lyde of Antimachus had considerable influence on Apollonius,^[25] but because the fragmentary remains of the poem are so few we shall never know how the recollection of this elegiac narrative might have affected the interpretation of the Alexandrian epic.

The Argonautica is a poem rich in allusions to so many different writers composing different works in a variety of genres, including even so unexpected a writer as Herodotus (Chapter 5), that it would be impossible to take every reference into account in the present discussion.^[26] Rather, as I mentioned above, I shall concentrate on those imitations that I believe invite the reader to recall the wider context of the word, phrase, line, or lines that the poet has worked into the fabric of his narrative. This allusive technique presupposes an audience that possesses, and actively engages in their reading of the poem, a comprehensive knowledge of past and contemporary literature in order to see the important suggestions being made between the lines. By relying as heavily as he does on the subtext to fill in the interstices of the narrative proper, Apollonius shares the burden of composition with the reader. Approaching the Argonautica without a considerable literary background, a reader would surely find Apollonius's poem a rather dull adventure story embedded in an antiquarian's travelogue, relieved only by a few interesting moments in Book 3 when Medea falls in love; the doctus lector , on the other hand, encounters not another mediocre epic about another hero on yet another legendary quest but a sophisticated poem whose double-tiered narrative informs and suggests, and whose meaning can be grasped only by a creative reading that sees both levels of the text.

Structure

As scholars have observed, Apollonius paid special attention to the arrangement of his episodes.^[27] Although one might disagree on the configuration of a particular episode or on a section within, it should be clear to anyone who looks at the flow of the narrative that Apollonius organized his material in the symmetrically balanced ring-composition form; that is, one or more things mentioned at the beginning of a section or subsection are echoed at the end. He advertises this structural principle in the Proemium and continues it with great regularity throughout the poem. Naturally, if he applied the straightforward ring (A–B–A ) in every case, the movement of the poem would become overly regular and eventually soporific. Instead, the poet varies the basic ring in a number of ways. The ring can be extended (e.g., A–B–C–D–C –B –A ; cf. Chapter 3) or its main components can have balanced structures particular to themselves (e.g., A [a–b–a ]–B–A [a–b–c–d–c –b –a ]; cf. Chapter 6). The structural symmetry at times becomes so involved that even the subsections themselves have a ring format (e.g., A [a{a –b –a }–b{a –b –a }]–B–A [a–b–c–b –a ]; cf. Chapter 8). Not every episode possesses a neat, thematically balanced structure; yet even in such episodes, subsections can be found with a symmetrical organization (e.g., A [a–b–a ]–B [a–b–a ]–C [a–b–c–d–e]; cf. Chapter 4). In short, Apollonius uses the

ancient ring-composition technique throughout the book in a variety of configurations.^[28] This asymmetrical symmetry, as it were, enlivens the flow of the narrative and provides clear evidence of the extraordinary control that Apollonius exerted over his narrative, which embraces so vast an amount of learning, both literary and antiquarian.^[29]

Discussions of structure can be tedious, and I shall keep mine to a minimum. As I mentioned above, I do not aver that the structure of the episodes is significant per se ; nor do I think that it necessarily reveals the soul of the writer or his time. Rather, I have found that when dealing with the Argonautica , recognition of the structure can be almost as crucial as the identification of an allusion; for the regularity of the structure in a poem as involved and erudite as this allows the reader to observe the important thematic and conceptual correspondences that the poet wants to highlight. Important images, dramatic moments, and/or allusions often lie in the central positions of the various rings. Very simply put, by locating the focal points of the rings the reader can isolate a significant element or elements of the narrative. Therefore, for each episode I shall briefly discuss the structure, using the system employed above: I employ capital letters to mark the main sections of the episode (A–B–C), minuscule for the subsections (a–b–c), Greek minuscule for the sub-subsections (a –b –g ), and italics in all three to mark corresponding sections (A–B–A , a–b–a , a –b –a ). Although such a system may appear clumsy, the results will justify the attention given this technical feature of the poem.

Each chapter begins with a short introduction. After I analyze the structure of an episode and establish what its focal points are, I shall examine the sections and subsections in the order of occurrence, except in Chapter 3, where it proved to be more useful to start in the middle. The discussion of each episode will conclude with a summary statement in which I pull together the various

strands of my argument and relate them to the larger and more important issue of Book 1: the nature and identity of the best of the Argonauts.^[30]

It may seem odd that the present study of the hero of the Argonautica is limited to Book 1 and that a sequential reading of the text has been preferred over a thematic analysis. The narrative of this book and of the poem in general, however, encourages the approach I have taken. First, it is at the conclusion of Book 1 that Apollonius identifies Jason as the hero of the epic and fully exposes the nature of his heroism in contradistinction to the quintessential archaic hero, Heracles. As such, the book has a unity and integrity that, not having been observed, merits our attention. Readers of the Argonautica must come to terms with who Jason is and what he represents within the epic tradition before leaving the familiar Hellenic topography and entering the strange world that lies beyond the crashing Symplegades. Second, the identification of the "best" among the Argonauts unfolds gradually and in a linear fashion, beginning from the Proemium and extending through to the final moment of the book; each episode provides another angle from which to view Jason, all heading to a disquieting but inevitable conclusion.