scholia - University of Otago

'Form and Meaning in Bacchylides' Fifth Ode', D. L. Cairns 35
this poem gives the lie to the view that ring-composition is necessarily a simple
or naive feature of the archaic poet's craft. 4 But all this would be arid if it did
not aid our understanding of the poem as a whole, and so I also suggest ways in
which the form of the poem contributes to an appreciation of its meaning for an
audience which knew how to be guided by the use of ring-composition.
The overall structure of the ode is straightforward enough; a beginning
(proem plus initial praise, 1-55) and an end (second praise plus conclusion,
176-200) enclose a central mythical narrative (56-175); 5 in such a structure, an
element of ring-composition is wellnigh inevitable, given the formal autonomy
of the myth as a form of excursus. 6 In this case, however, application of the
technique is more than just the echoing of the beginning in the end, or a return
optischen und akustischen Daten der bacchylideischen Dichtung (Vienna 1969) 223-53
argues that the structure of the poem is careful and considered, but does not go into detail. S.
Goldhill, 'Narrative Structure in Bacchylides 5', Eranos 81 (1983) 65-81 ignores traditional
forms; indeed (p. 66) he makes 'complicated' structure antithetical to ring-composition; and
J. Pinsent, 'Pindar's Narrative Technique: Pyrhian 4 and Bacchylides 5', LCM 10 (1985) 2-8
is an unrevised public lecture which promises more than it delivers. Since the study of L. Illig
(Zur Form der pindarischen Erzahlung [Born a/Leipzig 1931 ]), analysis of ring-composition
in epinkian has tended to concentrate on its deployment in mythical narrative (cf. n. 40
below); on ring-composition as the organizing principle of whole odes, see C. A. P. Ruck,
'Marginalia Pindarica I-II' , Hermes 96 (1968) 128-42; C. A. P. Ruck, 'Marginalia Pindarica
III', Hermes 96 (1968) 661-74; C. A. P. Ruck, 'Marginalia Pindarica IV-VI', Hermes 100
( 1972) 143-69; C. Greengard, The Structure of Pindar 's Epinician Odes (Amsterdam 1980)
esp. 81-88; cf. the analyses of G. W. Most, The Measures of Praise (Gottingen 1985). The
importance of ring-composition in Pindar is down-played by Hamilton [2] 8, 12 n. 33.
-1 E.g., Ulig [3] 56, 59f., W . A. A. van Otterlo, Untersuchungen iiber Begriff, Anwendung
wul Entstehung der griechischen Ringkomposition (Amsterdam 1944) 33-44; Hamilton [2] 2
n. 4; Pinsent [3)7.
5 That the traditional structure of a typical ('myth' as opposed to ' non-myth') epinician is
tripartite is uncontroversial: Hamilton [2) 4-6, 8f. criticizes the 'traditional view' of an ABA'
pattern, but (26f.) reaffirms the basic tripartite structure (in Bacchylides as in Pindar, pp. 79,
81); among Bacchylides' myth-odes (1, 3, 5, 9, II, 13) II is a partial exception, in that,
despite its tripartite suucture, its brief conclusion is more an appendage of the myth than a
return to praise, and the structure of 13 is complicated by the insertion of a mythical element
(Heracles and the lion) between the proem and first praise (cf. the brief myth of Archemorus
in 9.10-20).
6 On the formal autonomy of the myth, see Hamilton [2] 26, 56f.; this is even more
pronounced in Bacchylides, whose myths generally form a more solid, self-contained, and
unbroken narrative than Pindar's (cf. Hamilton [2] 82). For the basic association between
ring-composition and digressions, etc. in archaic narrative style, see van Otterlo [4) 5-39; cf.
B. A. van Groningen, La Composition litteraire archaique grecque (Amsterdam 1958) 51-56
and K. Stanley, The Shield of Homer (Princeton 1993) 6-9 (with copious references).