4. Excursus: Theocritus and the Problem of Judgment

At least one critic has remarked that the stichomythic competition between sophists in Plato’s Euthydemus can be compared to the representation of the Streitgesang ‘singing match’ in several of Theocritus’ Idylls, especially the fifth. [1] This comparison can now be expanded to include the many other passages of Greek literature we have seen that precede Plato but illustrate the same phenomena. The broader outlook shows that both Plato and Theocritus drew upon a more pervasive tradition of competitive poetic performance than has previously been explored. But this is rather straightforward and a detailed examination of Theocritus’ singing contests at this point will not yield much fresh information. [2] The basic features of capping, matching and varying set themes and so forth, remain the same.

Instead, Theocritus’ contests can help us to understand an important component of competitive poetic performance that we have considered only in passing, namely the issue of judgment. The issue of judges and their judgments becomes the most problematic, in fact, when we look ahead to the literary representations of competitive singing contests in Theocritus, and even in the late Republican period of Vergil’s Eclogues, [3] which I cannot treat here in any detail. Despite the fact that Theocritus is a literary poet, he is very aware of oral tradition and consciously incorporates such references into his poems, as others have shown. [4] But what happens when there is a poetic contest without an audience to judge the victor, or when the basis for victory is implied rather than spelled out? In what follows I want to look briefly at Theocritus’ Idylls 5, 6, and 8—already singled out by Gow because they all involve overt singing matches—which illustrate in their respective ways how the issue of judgment is central to his representation of singing contests between shepherds. [5]

Let us start with Idylls 6 and 8. In Idyll 6 we have a singing match between two cowherds with no apparent judge, unless we are to take the presence of their respective animal herds to be the “audience” (cf. line 45, where the herds dance). Daphnis challenges (ἐρίζειν ‘to strive, 5) Damoetas to a singing match, and begins by advancing fourteen hexameter lines (6–19). Daphnis sets the theme by addressing himself to the persona of Polyphemus and then charging “Polyphemus” with not being responsive to the needs of Galateia. Damoetas responds in the persona of Polyphemus in twenty lines of hexameter (21–40), claiming that his indifference is part of a conscious effort to woo Galateia and in the end she will be his. At the end of the match, the cowherds exchange a flute and pipe, presumably as equivalent prizes, and Theocritus tells us that both poets sang well and no winner or loser could be decided (46).

In Idyll 8 two other shepherds, Menalcas and Daphnis meet and Menalcas challenges Daphnis to a singing match. Once the competitors have decided on what the prizes will be, they find a goatherd to sit as judge (25–29). Menalcus begins the match, having received the role of lead singer by lot (30), while we are told that Daphnis “took up the response” (ἀμοιβαίαν ὑπελάμβανε, 31). The use of ὑπολαμβάνω here must deliberately recall the expression ἐξ ὑπολήψεως ‘by relay’, which as we will see in Part III describes the technique of rhapsodes performing at the Panathenaia. [6] In any case, Menalcas and Daphnis each sing an elegiac quatrain and then conclude with eight hexameters each. At the end of the match, the goatherd presiding as judge awards the prize of victory to Daphnis. The reasons for the judgment are not entirely clear, because the goatherd says only that Daphnis has a sweet and delightful voice. His opinion may be the basis for victory, but the goatherd does not explicitly say that he is rewarding the victory to Daphnis for this reason. In any case, because Daphnis’ melodic qualities are unavailable to the reader for comparison, we must assume that the goatherd’s judgment on the matter is sound.

Finally in Idyll 5 we have a contest between the goatherd Comatas and the shepherd Lacon, which is to be judged by a nearby woodman, Morson. [7] This contest involves the exchange of hexameter couplets and makes overt use of sexualizing metaphors, which as we shall see are crucial to the determination of the contest’s outcome. Before the contest proper begins, Comatas and Lacon hurl various sorts of abuse back and forth, with Comatas making a reference to what he perceives as Lacon’s present impudence, given that Comatas had taught him as a boy to sing, presumably among other things (37). Lacon rebukes him, but then Comatas refers to a time when he had sex with Lacon and Lacon bleated as loudly as a she-goat in the grip of a male goat (41–2). Lacon deftly responds by implying, as I think, that he will bury Comatas in the singing match as deeply as Comatas imagines that he has penetrated Lacon (43). Now the metaphor of sexual penetration here is key because it returns at a vital point in the contest itself. As the contest proceeds, the matched hexameter couplets complement each other in respect of theme, whether it be gods associated with poetry, the love of shepherds, plants, insects, and so forth. At 116–17, Comatas suddenly returns to the topic of their earlier liaison:

We expect a reply in kind, but instead Lacon denies remembering the event and changes the subject (118–19):

In order to understand why this moment in the exchange between Comatas and Lacon is pivotal, I want to compare it with a Turkish boys’ dueling rhyme game among eight to fourteen year-olds that has been discussed by Alan Dundes. [8] In this rather simplistic game, the object is to cast your opponent into a passive homosexual role. One boy starts by giving an image, say a bear (in Turkish, ayι). The next boy must then say something clever like “let a violin bow enter the bear,” saying it in such a way that the final word of his sentence, bow (yayι), rhymes with the word for bear (ayi). The violin bow, by the way, is a particularly appropriate image because it is long and thin, and the bowing motion itself suggests sexual motion. Then the first boy must find an equally apposite retort, perhaps something to the effect that it is better if a real man replaces the bow and enters the second boy, again making his line-end rhyme with the previous line-end. [9] Provided each boy makes a successful retort with end-rhyme, linking image to image, the game continues, sometimes with dozens of exchanged lines. Sometimes the exchanged lines are improvised on the spot, but just as frequently certain of them are in fact traditional responses, and so part of the object of the game is to show by means of these traditional responses how well one has mastered the traditional repertoire. The loser will be the boy who fails poetically to thwart his opponent’s attempts to cast him in a passive homosexual role or who breaks the rhyme scheme.

Thus I would argue that the object of Comatas’ taunt at 116–17 is metaphorically to subjugate Lacon as a passive homosexual, as he had earlier. In his response, however, at 118–19 Lacon breaks the metaphor and rather than retorting with lines that reciprocally subjugate Comatas directly, with himself as agent, he instead refers to a time when Comatas’ master bound and beat him. This is a good illustration of how comparative evidence on verbal dueling can be instructive, because it offers a more specific reason for victory than that Lacon was merely “outsung,” [10] or that for some inexplicable reason he just could not find a response after line 137. [11] Indeed it is immediately after Lacon’s response that Comatas addresses Morson and claims that Lacon is getting irritated (πικραίνεται, 120). In the context of this Idyll Lacon’s irritation is all the more important because when Morson stops the contest and awards the final victory to Comatas (138–9), he famously gives no reason for his decision. Gow suggested that the victory was based “on the intrinsic merits of the songs,” [12] a view that has been rightly challenged, [13] but as in Idyll 8 the basis for judgment remains inaccessible.

It may repay further research to explore what the implications of this pattern of obscuring the process of judgment in poetic contests may suggest both for Theocritus and his imitators like Vergil, especially given the political contexts in which these poems were composed and read. But by the very absence or complication of the audience as judge presiding over these literary singing contests, especially given Theocritus’ attention to oral poetic detail down to the use of terminology associated with earlier competitive traditions, Idylls 5, 6, and 8 offer important evidence for how significantly the public audience figured in earlier traditions in determining which competitor was, ultimately, the master of the game. As a result, as we turn in succeeding Parts of this study to live performances, we shall have continually to keep our eye on audiences, variously defined, who emerge as pivotal to defining the criteria for victory.