DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.47071#0087
HESIOD AND THE HOMERIC HYMNS
83
swift black ship sweet wine bubbled forth with pleasant
scent and ambrosian odour arose; and the sailors won-
dered when they saw. And at once on the top of the mast
there stretched a vine on this side and on that, and many
clusters of grapes hung from it. And dark ivy wound
round the mast with clustered flowers, and graceful fruit
arose and all the branches were garlanded.” Then the
god changed first to a lion and then to a bear, “ and the
sailors fled in fear to the stern, and to escape an evil fate
they all jumped overboard when they saw it into the
sea, and changed into Dolphins.” There is a black-figured
vase signed by Exekias, on which the whole of the inner
picture is taken up by a ship with sail set; a large figure of
Dionysus reclining, with a drinking-horn over his shoulder,
occupies the whole deck. A vine with branches and
clusters of grapes springs from the mast and fills the upper
part of the background, while in the lower part seven
dolphins seem to sport about the ship. Apart from the
story given in the Hymn to Dionysus, one might well sup-
pose that these dolphins were merely intended to typify the
sea over which Dionysus is sailing. But there can be little
doubt that the vase-painter is thinking of the transforma-
tion of the pirates to dolphins. And this interpretation is
confirmed by the fact that in the relief on the monument
of Lysicrates, some two centuries later, this transformation
is actually represented, just as it is in the beast-headed
companions of Odysseus in the palace of Circe.
The myth of the making of Pandora is referred to in
two passages in Hesiod, once in the Theogony and once in
the Works and Days. The story evidently contains
earlier elements. But as given by Hesiod it attracted the
imagination of the vase-painter. To punish Prometheus
for stealing fire from heaven and giving it to mortals,
“ Zeus bade Hephaestus to knead clay with water and to
83
swift black ship sweet wine bubbled forth with pleasant
scent and ambrosian odour arose; and the sailors won-
dered when they saw. And at once on the top of the mast
there stretched a vine on this side and on that, and many
clusters of grapes hung from it. And dark ivy wound
round the mast with clustered flowers, and graceful fruit
arose and all the branches were garlanded.” Then the
god changed first to a lion and then to a bear, “ and the
sailors fled in fear to the stern, and to escape an evil fate
they all jumped overboard when they saw it into the
sea, and changed into Dolphins.” There is a black-figured
vase signed by Exekias, on which the whole of the inner
picture is taken up by a ship with sail set; a large figure of
Dionysus reclining, with a drinking-horn over his shoulder,
occupies the whole deck. A vine with branches and
clusters of grapes springs from the mast and fills the upper
part of the background, while in the lower part seven
dolphins seem to sport about the ship. Apart from the
story given in the Hymn to Dionysus, one might well sup-
pose that these dolphins were merely intended to typify the
sea over which Dionysus is sailing. But there can be little
doubt that the vase-painter is thinking of the transforma-
tion of the pirates to dolphins. And this interpretation is
confirmed by the fact that in the relief on the monument
of Lysicrates, some two centuries later, this transformation
is actually represented, just as it is in the beast-headed
companions of Odysseus in the palace of Circe.
The myth of the making of Pandora is referred to in
two passages in Hesiod, once in the Theogony and once in
the Works and Days. The story evidently contains
earlier elements. But as given by Hesiod it attracted the
imagination of the vase-painter. To punish Prometheus
for stealing fire from heaven and giving it to mortals,
“ Zeus bade Hephaestus to knead clay with water and to