Archilochus 67D 128W A mercenary soldier's creed

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cwconrad
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Archilochus 67D 128W A mercenary soldier's creed

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Text: http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/graec ... _tetr.html

Meter: Trochaic tetrameter catalectic: each line contains two metra of two trochaic feet, the second metron shortened by one syllable so that the line ends on the upbeat. The first syllable of each metron is ordinarily a long syllable, but two short syllables may take the place of the long syllable. As heretofore, I’ll mark the syllables bearing the beat in bold characters.

1 θυμέ, θύμ᾽ ἀμηχάνοισι κήδεσιν κυκώμενε,
2 να δέ, δυσμενέων δ᾽ ἀλέξευ προσβαλὼνναντίον
3 στέρνον, ἐνδοκοῖσιν ἐχθρῶν πλησίον κατασταθείς
4 ἀσφαλέως· καὶ μήτε νικῶν ἀμφαδὴνγάλλεο
5 μηδὲ νικηθεὶς ἐν οἴκωι καταπεσὼνδύρεο.
6 ἀλλὰ χαρτοῖσίν τε χαῖρε καὶ κακοῖσιν ἀσχάλα
7 μὴ λίην· γίνωσκε δ᾽ οἷος ῥυσμὸς ἀνθρώπουςχει.

line 1: θυμέ: vocative. The opening is deliberately echoing several soliloquies of Odysseus from Book 5 of the Odyssey where he addresses his own φίλος θῦμος in desperate straits following the shattering of the raft on which he left from Calypso’s island of Ogygia; he will ultimately come to shore on the strange island of Phaeacia, but now he clings to fragments of his raft and strugles to remain alive on a storm-tossed sea. Archilochus, on the other hand, sees in the storm-tossed Odysseus an image of his own effort to “stay afloat” in the up-down circumstances of a mercantile soldier’s existence. His language suggests that he conceive of his current stance as being on the battlefield facing the onslaught of enemy lines, but it’s more likely that this is a metaphor of rising and falling fortunes to complement the Odyssean metaphor of struggle for survival on a storm-tossed sea.
- ἀμήχανος/ον: ἀ-privative + μηχανή: device; not to be coped with, helpless
- κῆδος, εος/οὖς, τὸ: care, concern
- κυκᾶν: stir up, churn; the poet’s θυμός is, like that of Odysseus, churned on a stormy sea

line 2: ἄνα: the adverb as imperative with accent pushed backward as: “Up! Stand up! Bear up!” Cf. the ritual cry of the Mass: sursum corda “Lift up your hearts!” — ἄνα δέ: No—not down!
- δυσμενής, -έος/οῦς: hostile-minded (δυσ + μένος, martial spirit)
- ἀλέξευ: Attic ἀλέξεο - Ionic contracts εο to ευ. Middle imperative 2 sg. of ἀλέξω: ward off, defend (mid. defend oneself)
- προσβαλὼν: προσβάλλειν: put forward (construe with στέρνον)
- ἐναντίος/ον: in opposition to (with gen.)

line 3: στέρνον, ου, τό: chest, breast
- ἔνδοκος, -ου, ὁ: acc. to a gloss, this word means “ambush”, perhaps from ἐν + δέχεσθαι
- πλήσιος/ον: close, here adverbial
- κατασταθείς: καθίστασθαι: stand against; note that the participle is middle, not passive

line 4: ἀσφαλέως: adv. from ἀσφαλής/ές: unshakable (ἀ-privative + σφάλλω trip, overturn)
- ἀμφαδὴν adverbial: shortened from ἀναφαδὴν from ἀνα + φαίνω: making a big show
- ἀγάλλεο: 2 sg. midl imptv. of ἀγάλλεσθαι: rejoice, display one’s happiness

line 5: καταπεσὼν:καταπίπτειν: has the force of a middle: “throw oneself down” — “lie down and cry”
- ὀδύρεο: 2 sg. mid. imptv. of ὀδύρεσθαι: the antithesis of ἀγάλλεσθαι

line 6: χαρτοῖσίν: χαρτός/ή/όν is the verbal adjective from χαίρειν, ordinarily with a passive sense: to be rejoiced at/over
- ἀσχάλα: 2 sg. act. imptv of ἀσχαλᾶν: lament, mourn, grieve

line 7: λίην: excessively, too much; one might question whether μὴ should construe with ἀσχάλα or with λίην, but its position between the two words and in the prominent metrical onset of its own line suggests the sense is: “when troubles come, feel sorry for yourself, but not too much!”
- γίνωσκε: this is an imperative, something like “Come to understand” or “Get to know”; what follows is an indirect question.
- οἷος/α/ον: correlative with ποῖος/α/ον: of what kind
- ῥυσμὸς: Attic ῥυθμός, οῦ, ὁ: ebb-and-flow, “rhythm” (from ῥεῖν, flow)
- ἀνθρώπους ἔχει: the ῥυσμὸς “possesses” or “holds in grip” human beings
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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