The Fox and the Wolf : Archilochus' 81 D/185 W and Pindar's Olympian 6, 87-91 (with Reference to Pythian 2)

Abstract

opposition to his predecessors' views on and practice of poetry.1 In particular, comparative comments about Pindar and Archilochus have re cently been made.2 From a general perspective, in my paper I attempt to elu cidate further the intertextual relation between these two poets. Specifical ly, I intend to show that in Olympian 6, 87-91 Pindar alludes to Archilochus' fr. 81 D/185 W,3 and adapts it to his own poetics. I shall necessarily devote a large part of this paper to reset the problematics of Archilochus' fragment, which includes the thorny expression dcxvojoivY) axuxaXy). The possibility that Archilochus' fragment belongs to an iambic poem leads to a clearer de lineation of the Pindaric poetics: Pindar, who composes epinician poetry, re verses the discursive frame of the Archilochian poetry of blame and tran forms it into his own poetry of praise endowed with two prominent qualities, sweetness of speech and truth. 1 Pindar refers explicitly to Archilochus twice in his poems, in Olympian 9 and in Pythian 2. Olympian 9 was composed in honor of Epharmostus, who won a wrestling match. The ode begins by relating that Epharmostus' comrades, willing to celebrate the occasion, sang a ready-made song which was a brief hymn to Hercules composed by Archilochus. Pindar states that Archilochus' kallinikos hymn had sufficed for the immediate welcome of the athlete by his friends, but now the Muses are about to shoot the arrows of another