Aoidos

"Aoidos" means "singer" in classical Greek. In modern Homeric scholarship "aoidos" is used by some as the technical term for a skilled oral epic poet in the tradition to which the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" are believed to belong. [Hence the English translators of Harv|Latacz|2004 use aoidean poetry as a technical term for early Greek oral epic poetry.]

Song and poetry in the "Iliad" and "Odyssey"

In classical Greek the word "aoidos" "singer" is an agent noun related to the verb "aodein" (ᾄδειν) ("To sing") and the noun "aodé" "song". The nouns and verb occur several times in the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" in relation to poetry: [Harv|Dalby|2006|pp=4-19 for this list, with discussion of related passages from early Greek literature. Other mentions of singers (but no performance) are at "Iliad" 2.594-600 (the story of Thamyris) and "Odyssey" 9.2-11.]

* "Iliad" 18.490-496 (on the Shield of Achilles): a wedding song, "hymenaios", with pipes, lyres, and dancing
* "Odyssey" 23.133-135: a wedding song with dancing, led by the singer Phemius: there is no wedding but Odysseus wants to create the impression of festivity while he is killing the suitors
* "Iliad" 18.567-572 (on the Shield of Achilles): a child sings and plays the lyre to accompany the vintage. The song is the "linos"
* "Iliad" 18.593-606 (on the Shield of Achilles): young men and women take part in a singing-dance, "molpe"
* "Odyssey" 8.250-385: young men and women take part in a "molpe"; Demodocus sings and plays the lyre; his song is about the love affair of Ares and Aphrodite
* "Iliad" 22.391-393: Achilles' young warriors sing a "paieon", a song of praise or self-praise, as they drag Hector's body back to their ships
* "Iliad" 24.720-761: in Troy, singers lead the lament over Hector's body and women mourn after them; the three women who perform laments individually are Andromache, Hecuba and Helen
* "Iliad" 19.301-338: in the Greek camp, over the body of Patroclus, Achilles sings first, then Briseis followed by the women, then Achilles again followed by the old men
* "Odyssey" 24.58-62: in the Greek camp (as described by Agamemnon's ghost) the sea nymphs lament over Achilles's body and the Muses respond, followed by all the Greeks
* "Iliad" 9.186-191: Achilles "pleases his mind and sings of the fame of men", accompanying himself on the lyre; his only audience is Patroclus
* "Odyssey" 1.150-340: Phemius sings for the suitors, after dinner, a narrative song of the "Return from Troy"
* "Odyssey" 8.73-75: Demodocus sings for Alcinous and his guests, after dinner, a narrative song of the quarrel of Odysseus and Achilles
* "Odyssey" 8.536-538: Demodocus begins to sing for Alcinous and his guests, after dinner, a narrative song of the Wooden Horse.

The profession of singer

In the world described in these poems writing is practically unknown (though its use is implied in one minor episode, the story of Bellerophontes); ["Iliad" 6.168-170.] all poetry is "song", and poets are "singers". Later, in the fifth and fourth centuries, the performance of epic poetry was called "rhapsodia", and its performer "rhapsodos", but the word does not occur in the early epics or in contemporary lyric poetry, so it is unknown whether Hesiod and the poet(s) of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" would have considered themselves rhapsodes (it has been argued by Walter Burkert, and is accepted by some recent scholars, that "rhapsodos" was by definition a performer of a fixed, written text and not a creative oral poet). [E.g. Harv|Burkert|1987; Harv|Graziosi|2002.] It is not even known to what extent the makers of oral epic poetry were specialists. Phemius and Demodocus, in the "Odyssey", are depicted performing non-epic as well as epic songs.

There was, however, certainly a profession of "aoidos". Eumaeus, a character in the "Odyssey", says that singers ("aoidoi"), healers, seers and craftsmen are likely to be welcomed as guests, while beggars are not; ["Odyssey" 17.382-387.] outside the world described by Homer, Hesiod gives a similar list in the form of a proverb on professional jealousy:

cquote|Potter hates potter and craftsman hates craftsman;Beggar is jealous of beggar, singer of singer.::Hesiod, "Works and Days" 25-26.

According to the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" singers gained their inspiration from the Muses. Hesiod describes how the Muses visited him while he tended his sheep on Mount Helicon and granted him this inspiration, permitting him to sing of the future as well as the past. An anecdote in the "Iliad" about Thamyris shows that the Muses could take away what they had given. [Hesiod, "Theogony" 22-32; "Iliad" 2.594-600.] As in certain other cultures, blind men sometimes became singers: Demodocus in the "Odyssey" is blind, and the legendary creator of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey", Homer, was often said to have been blind.

The audience for performances by "aoidoi" varied depending on the genre and circumstances (see list above). Women participated in, and sometimes led, laments, according to the "Iliad". Many of the poems of Sappho are addressed to women and seem to assume an audience of women. For narrative (epic) poetry it is sometimes said that the audience was exclusively male; this is an exaggeration (for example, Penelope listens to, and interrupts, one performance depicted in the "Odyssey") but it is probably largely true owing to the seclusion of women in early Greece.

Aoidoi and the creation of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey"

It has been shown from comparative study of orality that the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" (as well as the works of Hesiod) come from a tradition of oral epics. [Harv|Parry|Parry|1971; Harv|Lord|1953; Harv|Lord|1960; see also Homeric scholarship.] In oral narrative traditions there is no exact transmission of texts; rather, stories are transmitted from one generation to another by bards, who make use of formulas to aid in remembering vast numbers of lines. These poets were bearers of the early Greek oral epic tradition, but little is known of them. Whenever the writing took place (dates between 750 and 600 BC are most often proposed), any contemporary poets and writers who may have known of it did not notice the event or name the poet(s). [Harv|Dalby|2006.] According to classical Greek sources, Homer lived long before the two poems were written down. [One ancient text, a "Life of Homer" which claims to be by Herodotus, asserts that the poems were written from Homer's own dictation. This "Life" is an evident forgery and quite unconvincing Harv|Lefkowitz|1981.]

Notes

References

*Harvard reference | Surname=Burkert | Given=Walter | Authorlink=Walter Burkert | Chapter=The making of Homer in the 6th century BC: rhapsodes versus Stesichorus | Title=Papers on the Amasis painter and his world | Publisher=Getty Museum | Place=Malibu | Year=1987 | Page=43-62
*Harvard reference | Surname=Dalby | Given=Andrew | Authorlink=Andrew Dalby | Title=Rediscovering Homer | Publisher=Norton | Place=New York, London | Year=2006 | ISBN=0393057887
*Harvard reference | Surname=Graziosi | Given=Barbara | Title=Inventing Homer: the early reception of epic | Publisher=Cambridge University Press | Place=Cambridge | Year=2002
*Harvard reference | Surname=Latacz | Given=Joachim | Authorlink=Joachim Latacz | Title=Troy and Homer: towards a solution of an old mystery | Publisher=Oxford University Press | Place=Oxford | Year=2004 | ISBN=0199263086
*Harvard reference | Surname=Lefkowitz | Given=Mary R. | Authorlink=Mary Lefkowitz | Title=The lives of the Greek poets | Publisher=Duckworth | Place=London | Year=1981 | ISBN=0715615904
*Harvard reference | Surname=Lord | Given=Albert Bates | Authorlink=Albert Lord | Title=Homer's originality: oral dictated texts | Journal=Transactions and proceedings of the American Philological Association | Volume=84 | Year=1953 | Page=124-134
*Harvard reference | Surname=Lord | Given=Albert Bates | Authorlink=Albert Lord | Title=The singer of tales | Publisher=Harvard University Press | Place=Cambridge, Mass. | Year=1960
*Harvard reference | Surname=Parry | Given=Milman | Authorlink=Milman Parry | Surname2=Parry | Given2=Adam (editor) | Title=The making of Homeric verse. The collected papers of Milman Parry | Publisher=Clarendon Press | Place=Oxford | Year=1971