DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9177#0303
xvi LITERATURE AND PAINTING: THE EPIC 283
firmation of this interpretation that Homer mentions but two
Sirens; but this is, of course, not conclusive; and nymphs and
daemons of this class commonly go in threes.
I have already observed that the subjects of vase-paintings
are far more frequently taken from the other poems of the
epic cycle than from the Iliad or the Odyssey. Something
must be said about this large class of paintings. But as we
have no actual text of the cyclic writers for comparison, it will
be best to reserve one of the most ordinary and typical subjects
of representation, the Judgment of Paris, for full treatment in a
later chapter.
I will take one more example, from the Homeric Hymns,
which though they belong of course to a later age than the
Homeric, are perhaps best treated of here.
In the seventh hymn we find a charming tale of how Diony-
sus, when wandering by the shore of the sea in the guise of a
beautiful youth, was seized and carried off by Tyrrhenian
pirates. But as soon as they started, wine began to flow on
the deck, vine and ivy to twine round the mast, and presently
the deity took the form of a raging lion, for fear of whom the
pirates sprang into the sea and were transmuted into dolphins.
This story is represented in the reliefs of the well-known
monument of Lysicrates at Athens, which are closely analogous
in composition to paintings. But everything is translated so
as to suit the artistic conditions. In a long narrow field a ship
could not well be the scene of the event; so it takes place on
the land. The agent of the wrath of Dionysus is not a lion,
but the faithful Satyrs who usually attend him, though accord-
ing to the tale in this case they were conspicuously absent.
Some of the pirates are being captured or beaten; others are
leaping into the sea, and as they leap are becoming dolphins:
and this last fact is really almost the only one common to
hymn and relief. In a vase-painting we should expect a some-
what nearer approach to the tale of the hymn, but our example
is very characteristic of Greek artistic methods.
firmation of this interpretation that Homer mentions but two
Sirens; but this is, of course, not conclusive; and nymphs and
daemons of this class commonly go in threes.
I have already observed that the subjects of vase-paintings
are far more frequently taken from the other poems of the
epic cycle than from the Iliad or the Odyssey. Something
must be said about this large class of paintings. But as we
have no actual text of the cyclic writers for comparison, it will
be best to reserve one of the most ordinary and typical subjects
of representation, the Judgment of Paris, for full treatment in a
later chapter.
I will take one more example, from the Homeric Hymns,
which though they belong of course to a later age than the
Homeric, are perhaps best treated of here.
In the seventh hymn we find a charming tale of how Diony-
sus, when wandering by the shore of the sea in the guise of a
beautiful youth, was seized and carried off by Tyrrhenian
pirates. But as soon as they started, wine began to flow on
the deck, vine and ivy to twine round the mast, and presently
the deity took the form of a raging lion, for fear of whom the
pirates sprang into the sea and were transmuted into dolphins.
This story is represented in the reliefs of the well-known
monument of Lysicrates at Athens, which are closely analogous
in composition to paintings. But everything is translated so
as to suit the artistic conditions. In a long narrow field a ship
could not well be the scene of the event; so it takes place on
the land. The agent of the wrath of Dionysus is not a lion,
but the faithful Satyrs who usually attend him, though accord-
ing to the tale in this case they were conspicuously absent.
Some of the pirates are being captured or beaten; others are
leaping into the sea, and as they leap are becoming dolphins:
and this last fact is really almost the only one common to
hymn and relief. In a vase-painting we should expect a some-
what nearer approach to the tale of the hymn, but our example
is very characteristic of Greek artistic methods.